Rates & Barrels - An Opening Day Trade, Draft Season Takeaways & DVR's Bold Predictions

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss the Opening Day swap between the Twins and Padres, and the fallout for each team's bullpen and rotation. Plus, their takeaways from draft season, most rostered players for 2022, and a few bold predictions from DVR.  Rundown The Free-Agent Frenzy in LABR An Opening Day Twins-Padres Swap Late Draft Season Helium: Bobby Witt Jr. & Julio Rodríguez v. CJ Abrams Most Rostered Players Draft Season Takeaways DVR's Bold Predictions (Judged by Eno) Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first six months: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is opening day. It is Thursday, April 7th. Derek Van Ryper here with the King of Waffles, Eno Saris. Eno continuing his vacation slash opening week, which is just, I feel bad for you because I feel like you can't fully enjoy both of those things simultaneously. You can partially enjoy both things, and that's better than not enjoying them at all. But thanks for powering through this week.

No, it's a crazy week's it's not to be not recommended not to be repeated much like the the fab situation in labor where we had oh my god chaos that was that was absolutely crazy so just the background real quick because i think it's it's kind of interesting nobody cares about your your fantasy league, I know, but all those free agents, we took the top 10 free agents out of the pool before we drafted. And then when we

came back, when all those players had signed, we had to figure out how to draft them. In the NL, they had a little mock auction and there was a bunch of players that you guys had more. The NL had more. So there was mock auction and there was a bunch of players that, you know, you guys had more. The NL had more. So there was like nine players you guys auction off. The AL couldn't get it together. And so all the free agents went into the first fab pool,

which also includes all the guys who were traded into the league. So it's like Sonny Gray was on there, but also Carlos Correa and Anthony Rizzo. And like, so just an amazing FAB run. And my thinking was in the NL, there were almost 12 guys. So there was like, you know, every team was going to get someone. So there was like more of a balance between not spending all your money and making sure you got somebody you wanted. Who did you end up with?

You ended up with. I got Luke Voigt. And the way I had to do it, I didn't get a player in the first run of the first nine free agents. I was one of three teams that had all of my money left. And I went big on Matt Olson, didn't get him, got outbid, got Voigt as my second bid. But then I cleaned up on all my other lists. I did really well with the next group. So I got Diego Castillo in Pittsburgh, who I'm really excited about. I think he's going to be mixed league relevant. So if he's out there in your league after this weekend, when Sunday fab runs, he's getting scooped up. Not in the opening day

lineup, but I believe that's just because there's a lefty on the mound. I don't know that he will be a platoon player all year. I don't think that's going to be the case hopefully for my sake he plays a lot uh tyler anderson cheap and then uh another infielder hanser alberto in an nl only league i'll take that if the dodgers see something in him they want him to move around and play on the infield and just make contact good things can happen for him so i went with like one mid-range guy and a bunch of fillers and now i'm second position from the hammer for the rest of the season when the entire league's budgets are down and i think what we're going to see we saw a trade thursday morning between the padres and twins i think we're going to see a lot of movement

in the first half of the season we're going to see more trades filtering through the offseason like we yeah took 90 days off in the middle of the offseason there's definitely still some offseason that's why we're having an opening day trade. Just to finish off this story, I panicked so many times. I was just staring at this list that has Correa, Story, Rizzo, Pollock, Sonny

Gray on it, and I want to make sure I get one because to get one of those players in AL is a huge advantage because there's only about six of them. Only half the teams are going to get a real player, and everybody else is going to get, I those players in AL is a huge advantage because there's only about six of them. So only half the teams are going to get a real player and everybody else is going to get, I mean, sorry,

Hanser Alberto. It's fine. Cause you've got Luke boy, you got Luke boy. So I, I kept like moving around my, my bids at some point I had $82 on Trevor story. I panicked,

thought that was too much. Moved me out of. Story goes for 87 in the end to Larry Schechter, meaning that they have basically 13 moves for the rest of the season, 13 $1 moves for the rest of the season. And then I panicked late and thought that my short ones, my other ones, Pollock, I really wanted Pollock. I thought that I might not get him at 53. So I moved him up to 61 and Rizzo to 66. Won Rizzo for 66 and realized I would have won Pollock for 53. However, I don't have that many regrets because I got one of the six players.

You know, I am one of the people that got them. And I have $26 left. I also got the swaller moves like you kristin pache is going to play every day i think in center field for for oakland there's a chance that he goes back down when ramon lariano is back but i kind of doubt it i think this this is the kind of team where he just plays um and but also jorge lopez and d Dylan Tate, which I have now spent seven combined dollars on Jorge Lopez, Dylan Tate, Tyler Wells, and Tanner Scott. Four relievers in Baltimore for $7. Watch me miss out on the closer.

I think it's a great dollar. You get two teams now. Wells is a starter now now Scott's in Miami we'll see how this goes but in any case I got my guy but it was gut-wrenching the whole way through and in the end just some amazing amounts of money

have been spent and in the AL there's some teams that have like 15 moves left and 12 moves left so it's going to be an interesting season. I've had pretty good success in mono leagues finding talent in season that wasn't the big hitter that came over or the big pitcher that came over. And I didn't want to completely push myself out

on five or six significant upgrades plus bottom of the roster fillers by going too aggressively after Matt Olsen was the best player left, as I mentioned before. So we'll see if my strategy was right. I think, as I told you yesterday, I predicted how it was going to play out. I just don't know if I played it correctly, which is not necessarily the place you want. Like, oh, good. I knew it was going to happen, but I don't know if knowing what I thought was going to happen, if I did it right, that's the problem that I ran into. One thing that occurred to me in this situation was the fact that I had Andy Ibanez and Stephen Kwan on my bench

actually made a lot of this possible because I feel like I won't necessarily need to go to the waiver wire for depth in terms of filling in for someone hurt. I've got two real players on my bench, and Josh Naylor's on my bench too. So I've got some depth. That meant to me, I had to go for one of the big names. I just wasn't actually as interested. Even if Pache doesn't work out, it doesn't matter. I've got other outfielders coming back. You've got it up on the YouTube screen. The Twins-Padres swap, also pretty interesting for an opening day trade like this, super late. I think it makes sense for both teams.

I mean, the Padres kind of needed a closer. We've been talking about the Padres' closer situation, and we've said it was hard to read and there wasn't really an obvious contender. And now there is an obvious closer there, and I think that makes the whole rest of the bullpen better. They needed a little bit of pop in the outfield. Rooker and Beatty become like a kind of platoon fourth outfielder, righty-lefty.

So that works for them. And then, you know, over in Minnesota, they needed more starting pitching, and they love team control. You know, so if they can fix the ride on Paddock's fastball, get him back to where it used to be, then the guy always had a really good changeup. And by now, the curveball has become close to an average pitch. fastball getting back to where it used to be then the guy always had a really good change up and by now the curveballs becomes close to an average pitch yeah full deal chris paddock plus emilio pagan going to minnesota taylor rogers brent rooker two for two swap going back to san diego i think it's interesting because paddock seems to fit a model for the twins where it's not

necessarily about stuff it's about command or the way they look at stuff is different than the way that your pitching model looks at stuff. I'm very curious to know if this combination of pitchers that they've stacked up, which includes Joe Ryan, who they acquired last year, and Bailey Ober, who they drafted and developed, and now Paddock, who they've added, and Dylan Bundy maybe

as more of a bounce-back guy that they got in free agency. How successful are they going to be going down this path? How many of those starters are going to hit for them, I think is really kind of a key question. But we talked about this in the 3-0 show. I'm in on the Twins. I love what they've done to retool this roster.

I know they're going to miss Rodgers a little bit, but Pagan gives them maybe more innings in the back end of the bullpen and they want to mix and match anyway there was a really strange thing that happened with taylor rogers in the last maybe 10 to 14 days of draft season where he was one of those most previously cheap relievers that started catching a lot of helium and if you missed out on the top end guys who were pushing 20 in most auction formats rogers would come up and he'd go for like 15. And that just became normal.

And he was creeping up in ADP, probably more into like the 100 to 150 range where he was previously going fringy on the top 200. And it struck me as odd because we talked about him and I like his skills. I've always liked Rodgers' skills. I just didn't have as much confidence, apparently, as the field that he was truly the closer.

Even though he missed time with injury last year. Rocco Baldelli, he's cut from the raised cloth. I think he was showing us, even when Rodgers was healthy last year, that mixing and matching to close out games is something he's comfortable to do. Maybe now with fewer options there, we can look at Jorge Alcala and Tyler Duffy and say, those two guys maybe share evenly or near evenly and maybe that should get us excited if one or both of those guys are still out there on the waiver wire in some leagues yes I believe it's Jorge Alcala but uh I just did have to look

that up real quick I haven't known that I don't know that I've heard the word spoken. It's one of these weird things when you live on the internet. Yeah, the question is how much do we want to throw down on Alcala, right? Yeah, I had got him stashed in a couple of places already just for the uncertainty. I did point him out as one of the best non-closers that could close. I did point him out as one of the best non-closers that could close. They've got... Oh, man. Here's another one. Is it Juan Duran?

I haven't heard anyone say that one on a broadcast either. And the good news is, by the way, not that anyone really cares about this, the pronunciation guide came out. And Luis Robert is still listed as Luis Robert and I am adamant that one day after an MVP award or something, it's going to come back around and I will be

vindicated. But until the pronunciation guide changes, I will stick to the pronunciation guide. I will end it now. I will stop fighting this tooth and nail. Johan Duran. Johan Duran. So Johan Duran. Johan Duran. So Johan Duran had the best stuff plus in the spring,

other than Penn Murphy, who had fewer pitches and is a side armor and is ridiculous, and you should watch out for him. But Duran had a really good spring. I don't know that he's going to get a lot of saves, though. I feel like he will be the guy that gets the big outs in the eighth and Alcala and Duffy will get, and Pagan will get some saves. What is it a sort of 15,

10, five situation. Do you want to give one of them 20 saves? You could, I mean, this is the hardest thing about a committee is you just don't know how how many pieces there are going to be of the pie like if the saves are a giant pizza is the manager cutting it into little squares is he cutting it into big triangles how is it going to work is he cutting the pizza like me like very lazily and just like cutting

it in half and folding each piece like that's sometimes that's all you got to do. Just one cut down the middle and done. You've got two pieces of pizza and that's all you need. Well, I was excited about him to begin. So I'm going to say Jorge Alcala is worth a significant bid. I mean, if you're in the same situation where I am, where you have no, no fab, like it's kind of hard to be like, yeah, go throw $10 out of your 26 you have left on this guy. But 10% of your overall bid, 15% of your overall bid might be worth it. You could get a closer all year. That's the thing

about being aggressive early is that I now have Anthony Rizzo all year. I could have kept the hammer for the trade deadline and gotten Anthony Rizzo at the. I could have kept the hammer for the trade deadline and gotten Anthony Rizzo at the trade deadline for $60. So it's like, no, I'd rather have the player all year. So I do think this is a big opportunity for him. And Pagan is good, but he gives up so many homers. I mean, it's kind of amazing. He's never had a season since his rookie season. so many homers. It's kind of amazing.

He's never had a season since his rookie season. He hasn't had a season below a 1.5 home runs per night. It's just part of what he does. I think that's a really tough thing to go throw a closer out there with a one-run lead that gives up homers.

That's definitely a concern. I think it's a committee. I lead that gives up homers. Yeah, that's definitely a concern. I think it's a committee. I think that's the safe thing to say, how the committee works. Maybe we learn a little bit about them in their opening series. Maybe we see two different relievers picked up saves this weekend. That keeps bids somewhat in check for both of the possible closers involved. Are you comfortable with Rodgers going the other way,

saying Rodgers is the guy in San Diego? Did he just go from a committee team to a non-committee team where they leaned heavily on Mark Melanson last year? And did he just take all of the shares of the assorted Padres, relievers we've all been stashing, and just render them worthless in one fell swoop? Yes. Yes, I believe he's the closer.

If you pay it up for Taylor Rodgers, then you did really well. This is a great trade for you because you might have been buying into some uncertainty and overpaying previously, and now you might have got him exactly where he should have gone

if not for a little less than he would have gone had we known he was the guy. There's also another winner in this this and it's not as obvious but it has to do with one of our favorite games here let's build a bench it's really just a scintillating game where we look at the bottom of every roster and try to build a bench now if you're building a bench for the Padres, sorry, I've been at Disneyland all week. It's like you're in the toilet taking a poo and

it's like, is it everywhere? You open your thing up. We were staying at the Grand California. If you open your window up at 7 a.m., it's open until midnight. And if you open your window up at 7 a.m., the music starts again. Let's build a bench. So on your bench, we have four players now with the NLDH. If you have four players on your bench, one has to be the backup catcher, Jorge Alfaro. Boom. They already sent Luis Camposano down. So we have three guys left.

One has to be your backup shortstop. So we have three guys left. One has to be a backup shortstop. Now, with Haseon Kim and Jake Cronenworth on the same roster, you could say you have a backup shortstop. It's a little bit rough because there are only two actual bodies. But let's say backup shortstop, slightly covered. Backup center field.

They don't have one. They don't have one. And I think I know who it is cj abrams maybe so it could be because if you if you move abrams to center field then kim plays short yeah right you have that so that's probably the way they do it i know i saw a tweet might have been dennis lynn suggesting that will myers is the backup in center field. He played a little bit out there a few years ago. Yes. I wouldn't do it, but let's say Myers is your backup center fielder. You still have these three spots on your roster. You have some flexibility.

It's decent. But you have these three spots. So they got Matt Beatty, and they got Brent Rooker in this trade. Now, there's a righty-lefty that could be your platoon left fielder, and then Profar is a roamer, but that still leaves one spot on the roster. This is my point. There's one spot on the roster. It's open.

There's only one player that could sit in that spot that could play center field, could play second base, could play shortstop. I think C.J. Abrams is making his team. Maybe this is moot by the time we put this

podcast out and they've actually announced it, but we have to have won. Okay, well, I saw some late draft season helium on full display on Wednesday night. I did the NFBC other guys the auction well yeah

abrams was only like five dollars in the end game because people were out of money but compared to you know wit and julio rodriguez who were well north of 20 in this particular league which had a 260 budget 15 teams abrams felt like a bargain And I think just as the case is with relief roles, I think there's this time that it makes all the sense in the world to buy in on a player. And C.J. Abrams at five when his other rookies who are actually not that different in terms of talent, present or future talent, when those guys go for four times as much, Abrams is the clear answer of the player you'd want. All things being equal, dynamics

and all those things. If you could control it, you'd say, I'm going to wait and get Abrams later if I can. Why not? Because I get the ceiling and I'm not paying sticker plus 30% to get there. I mean, Julio Rodriguez, I took him in the main, in a main. This is an NFfbc 1800

entry like this is this is kind of big deal league i got him in the bench thursday last weeks ago two weeks ago i think thursday two weeks ago i got him for a bench spot now what's his what's his picks he's going like 50th and 60th in drafts way way earlier and i this this is not this is not a hindsight is 2020 this is not a captain obvious sort of thing i think the people that do really well in draft season are the people that are willing to take on the appropriate risk before these fluctuations and also the appropriate time it's like yeah so if you're taking julio rigas at 50 or 60 or whatever like there are some really established players

there that will give you probably give you value and you're taking a really big leap of faith that julio rigas will land on his feet and give you you know fourth round value right off the gate right if you're taking him on the bench you're just like well hopefully he's up in the next two weeks you know like that's all you're asking for you're taking him against uh very flawed you know kind of platoon guys at the end of the at the end of the thing so um yeah i just i was never going to get bobby wit you know early because his helium has been probably the highest out of all of them. He's been going in the fifth round for weeks. But,

you know, I just, I like drafting for, I call it the safety dance. You got to do the safety dance. Do you like the song or the dance? The song is okay. I'm not going to do the dance.

For the era. The song is okay. In the broader spectrum of music, the song is not okay. That's where I stand on it. But yeah, I was passing on wit because of where Julio used to go. Now I'm passing on Julio because of where CJ Abrams goes for these last few drafts.

I just think that's the right way to try and problem solve these players. It works in the closer pool too, though. I'd mentioned this with the Craig Kimbrell situation. I think we talked about it in the last episode. Before that trade, when Kimbrell was stuck with the White Sox and you could get him after the 20th round, why wouldn't

you take him? Because all it took was a trade for the value to skyrocket. Do I have any interest in him as the Dodgers closer right now? Sorry if you saw the air quotes on the video. I mean, he's the closer for now. He could be the closer all season. He could be good all season.

But he's just like the other guys that you have to overpay for now. So I'm out right now. And it's the Taylor Rodgers thing too. I was taking my chances on Alcala because why would I pay the extra price for Rodgers when we don't know what they're going to do? I'm going to keep taking the chances on the next player. Sometimes you have to overpay. These are times where you don't.

These are times where you can get a pretty huge advantage. And I'm thinking about this like, okay, what can you do about it now? What I would do if I were in a league that had first come first serve moves, or if I was drafting later on Thursday night or Friday, I'm still interested in Blake trying and in the end game, because the Dodgers open in Colorado. And if you want to pour some gasoline on Craig Kimbrell as the closer,

send him to Colorado. Have him blow a save or two this weekend. Curveballs don't break as well. And talk to me on Sunday night about how much people are going to bid on Trinan in leagues where he happens to be available because there will be some leagues that are drafting the last 72

hours of draft season where he actually was passed on. Maybe more 12-teamers than 15-teamers, but these are the windows you have, and you have to think what could go right. That's how pickups work when you're speculating on relievers in season as well. You're taking a look at guys that don't have the

job yet, you're bidding cheap, and you're hoping that things, when they're rocky yet, you're bidding cheap, and you're hoping that things when they're rocky get a little bit worse, and you end up holding on to that next reliever at a discounted price. It's a luxury you can only afford when you're very healthy and when you have a bench spot to do it, but it's the right way to try and catch a lot of value on the bottom of your roster. Yeah, that's why I have some shares of Tyler Rogers because I think he's going to be part of the committee in San Francisco and because I think his ratios will be great

and because what he allows me to do is stick Tyler Rogers in my opening day lineup without not being too worried about what blowups or anything. He's a real low ERA guy. And in the meantime, uses bench spot to try and get a real

actual closer. So that's what I've done in more than a couple leagues. It's actually part of why I did a most rostered players thing, and I've got Madison Bumgarner as one of my top shares. And somebody said, why do you have Madison Bumgarner on my top shares? And I said, well, there know, there's some reasons. Like his stuff improved late last season. He was up two ticks, you know, in velocity this spring.

It's not really that, though. It's this. I knew he was going to pitch at home opening day. I knew he was going to be a first-week starter. And he was available so cheap everywhere, innings, innings, and I knew when he was going to start. So what that allows me to do is put Madison Baumgartner in my starting rotation and have somebody that's not starting opening week, like a Luis Patino or, you know, some longer term, you know, pitcher or O'Neal Cruz.

Like in a weird way, having Madison Bumgarner allows me to have O'Neal Cruz. You know what I mean? Because I have that bench spot that Madison Bumgarner slips into. Now, if he poops the bed in his first start and the stuff numbers don't look good, then I haven't risked anything. So that's why I have a ton of massive monger. It's one of my last pitchers where I'm like, well, he'll be in their opening week

and who knows after that. I think it's interesting looking at my most rostered players, Luis Patino, not surprisingly, on six of my eight teams in an NFL match. I mean, price,

organization, stuff. He didn't get helium. He didn't because he didn't pitch that much this spring. So, I guess that adds a little bit of risk, but he doesn't pitch in this short partial period. He pitches the beginning of next week, so we don't get to see him until then.

But I think he's got Baltimore's first time out. Nice soft landing spot. Hopefully, the workload is enough for him to get a win. It should be home against Baltimore, too. It's strange because the smattering of players I have a lot of, there's some expensive players that I have a lot of. I have Mookie Betts on five out of my eight teams.

We're mind-melding. This is no good. We need to foment some disagreement between each other. Yeah, we do agree too much. Why do you have so much bets? I ended up drafting near the end of the first round in a few leagues. Okay. And I just really liked him at the turn.

Like, he's one of the better players at the turn. Yeah, I think I had three drafts where I got him in two salary cap auction scenarios. And my bill is really good and doesn't cost like one of the top five guys. So my methodology this year, I took the NFBC values as we saw more and more auction data coming in. And I took the projections from ATC in the bat and I ran the projected values against what was happening. And I was looking for players that were, you know,

undervalued or even just appropriately valued early, especially there's extra tax you're paying on every player. And that's was the, I think that's was the best hitter who was actually slightly undervalued with that methodology. Yeah. Just like a dollar below projections is where he was going. And I believe he can still be a first-round guy. I liked him even before I ran this for auction purposes.

And once I ran it this way for auction purposes, it just became even easier for me to keep firing away on bets. I think my guy like that is Joe Musgrove, because I had him ranked in the top 10 of pitchers. He was one of the very few of the top 10 of pitchers. He's the only guy in the top 10 of pitchers that didn't go in the first three rounds on average. Musgrove, I ended up with five shares of Musgrove because he kept coming to me in the fourth and fifth. And if you don't take a pitcher in the first, you can take your second pitcher in the fourth and fifth.

Yeah, I think it's a lot easier to end up with late players that you keep throwing darts at, right? Brandon Nimmo. Yeah, that's the Madison Bumgarner. Brandon Nimmo, yeah. You do Brandon Nimmo too? Four Nimos. I have four Jesus Sanchez teams.

I've got four Kevin Smiths. I'm not surprised. We probably both have a lot of Jose Urquidy. I've got four Kevin Smiths. I'm not surprised. We probably both have a lot of Jose Urquidy. I've got four Jose Urquidy. His VLO was up this spring. As soon as I saw that note, I was like, yep, we're going to keep prioritizing Urquidy late because that extra VLO. I think you mentioned this. Reaver San Martin is kind of a guy

I got a lot of shares of. It's a great share. I don't have a lot of Reaver. I do have a lot of Cody Bellinger. I got him again yesterday. He was $8. In a room where we're wit and Julio, we're going well north of $20. Cody Bellinger went for $8, and I know

he's a mess right now. We got so much ire for putting him in the player tiers in the top 125 really i think uh one of the things is he has such a high floor because he plays centerfield defense i mean it's you know miles straws in there like that's the bar he has to pass you know offensively so uh i think

for player tiers, it made absolute sense. I think in fantasy, it's a little bit harder because he struck out 40% of the time in the spring. Strikeout rates in spring have some signal to them. I understand why people are nervous, but I still stick with my idea that he's just trying to find his A swing.

He struck out 16% of the time last year, right? I don't think he's just going to go from 16% to 40% in one year. It seems unlikely. I think he was 16% in 2020. I think he jumped last year a little higher than that, right? 23% or something. 23% to 26%.

Something coming off the shoulder. But he's not doing 40%. No. Come on. No. Look, I'm glad I've got him on multiple teams. I'm glad I don't have him sitting up there with Patino where it's like six out of eight. I'd be a little more nervous.

Having him on three teams makes me feel pretty good. If it doesn't work out, it's only three holes to solve. And it's an outfield situation. And I got him pretty much every time at a discount. I think only one time early in draft season. He was like a seventh rounder because people didn't think he was broken back then, which sounds insane now. Oh, seventh round? You took Cody Bellinger in the seventh round of a 15-team league?

Yeah, it was December. What was I supposed to do? Spring didn't happen yet. So yeah, lots of players that I've taken some multiple shots. I mean, Gavin Lux is on this list. Mike Moustakis, who I believe in as kind of a oatmeal-y, low-average, big-power guy in Cincinnati.

I'm here for his resurgence. Ryan Presley ended up being the pricey closer I was getting early in draft season. Then I got pushed out late. And then my fascination with the pitchers that were horrible in a small sample last season. It knows no limit. I have Reid Detmers on three teams. I got Spencer Howard and my most important league last night. I mean,

I'm, I'm going right at them. Like, you know what? Get a 70 RA last year. I don't care. Send them, send them over here.

Let's go. My, uh, another late name that I've got to that, uh, won't pitch this first weekend. And so you might be available in your Sunday Fab Run or your pickups after you want to drop your mess in Bumgarner Share after the first day.

Don't yell at me. I'm telling you, it's late. But Nick Martinez, I think, is somebody that just doesn't – we haven't discussed enough. He went to Japan, and he's now a 93 mile an hour guy instead of a 90 mile an hour guy. And he found a Vulcan change over there like Kyle Loesch. And Kyle Loesch was,

I think an underrated pitcher that just pitches a tough park, you know, and had a short career. But when he had the Vulcan change going and was throwing 93, Kyle Loesch was pretty usable some of those years so I think Nick Martinez could be Kyle Loeschian in like a better home park a little bit more you that I think that name gives you a sense of like how you want to be careful you don't want to throw him against the Dodgers or you know you know rely on him out the gate but he might be an interesting bench pickup

after this weekend if you find yourself looking to replace a starter. So I wanted to ask you, did you have anything that you learned this draft season or anything that you tried that you thought this worked well or this didn't work well? For me, it was trying to be more disciplined in the auction scenarios,

making sure I wasn't just pure stars and scrubs because I think I left some value on the table in the past by being too aggressive. And last night, the way it played out, I went pocket aces. I basically had five $33 players or under. I love that. It's still stars and scrubs-y,

but when Trey Turner was 50 and the other early first rounders were all well north of 40, Woodruff Bueller. Basically, they've got like four second rounders. Yeah. I mean, Otani for 31. Betts, I think, was 33. Devers was 34. I might have five first rounders if I got it right. I mean, I don't know.

I felt like that made sense in that room because of the way things were happening but i i think the the thing that i'm not trusting about my my approach this year is as i got away from the expensive closers i don't know if i trust my ability to find cheap saves i don't know if I can be an actual member of the dollar save club. I'm there. That's where I live. And I don't know that I can say that it worked or not

until the end of the season. So one mention that I didn't have of a guy I have a ton of shares of is David Bednar. And that's because I ended up playing some games i was like i wanted romano and maybe i was like oh maybe romano make it around this turn so i can get musgrove that happened like twice it's part of why i have musgrove shares and not a ton of romano shares um in and so the safety net for me ended up being players like Bednar, Kimbrel. You know, I have a lot of Kimbrel as closer one.

And so I ended up with Kimbrel, Bednar, Joe Barlow. These are my closers this year. And I know there's, you know, the note on Chris Stratton and stuff, but I'm not that scared. I think Bednar is the better pitcher, and he'll win out. I think Pitching Plus supposedly beats Projections on relievers,

so I'm using my model, and I'm trusting it, and we'll see how it goes in the end. I did not take any closers in the first five rounds, I don't think.

I feel good about it in the sense that I like everything else I did, but I keep staring at Mark Melanson, Andrew Kittredge, and Art Warren and saying to myself, how many saves do I really have? The one where I put the most out there, the biggest investment I made this draft season, and I went with those three guys. That's a test of the new strategy in a pretty big way.

And the other thing that I think that I saw in your draft that makes me nervous as well is, I saw 85-90s projected steals. And benchmarks for that are around 120 however the benchmarks are for like kind of being you know top third of the league and there's plenty of ways to win leagues and there's ways to win leagues by getting six to eight points in steals and doing well everywhere else and not taking any power

zeros. And so ending up in the top three and homers and the top three and RBIs and the top three and runs and the top three, you know, and all the offensive categories, except for, for steals because steals are so expensive. And I've taken that strategy in a lot of leagues, get my hand, my steals a handful at a time, get to 80, get to 90, get to 100. And I feel good about it going in. But if all those guys end up on the lower end of their steals spectrum, or the game itself steals more bases. itself steals more bases and so then i end up with the worst steals in in my league that'll be annoying to me and that'll be i may have to just join in and pay for steals but saves and steals been forever i used to write a column on rotoworld called saves and steals it's like these things that we chase uh that are terrible and are really hard and aren't that incredibly important in the game.

They're not the most important things. You would never build a major league team and be like, okay, we're going to be all in on saves and steals. I fear that even though I'm just trying not to succumb to the pressure of overpaying for those two things, that I am looking too much through a real-life lens, too much WRC plus too much Woba too much of the skills over

roles when you need to have roles over skills for saves in particular but even steals to an extent like Miles Straw he has some flaws in his skill set he's better than other speedsters we've seen but above all he has the role he has

the playing time he's a good defender at a spot where they need a good defender and i think i might have been wrong to completely pass on him this draft season but that's the exciting part of this game right we get to find out we get to learn we get to see was i actually right to be a little bit different than the crowd to be a little less aggressive with those particular categories I've got bold predictions uh you've shared yours on the 3-0 show last week so I'll share mine today that wasn't so bold yeah you can you can just laugh at my bold predictions now and then we'll let Brit share hers on the next 3-0 show. So we'll each have our turn. Seems like a good way to go about this.

One to five scale. One being not very bold. Five being very bold and spicy. All of the Frank's Red Hot, Cholula, whatever you think is bold and spicy. It's measured in bottles. Those are not actually that hot. I understand that. Yeah, there's like ghost pepper stuff.

And then if you go to like a really good Thai restaurant and you ask for a 10 out of 10 there, your mouth might just disintegrate. Like that can actually happen. So bold prediction number one, Nick Senzel will go 2020 with a 275 plus average. That's a spicy meatball. I give you a four on that. Nice, a four.

I feel good about that. I think so. I think so because in the last three years, he has played 59 games. Sweet. Plus, his barrel rates aren't that impressive so uh he's not projected anywhere to to kind of hit at that level of power so you're you're at you're banking on both power and health but i like it i mean i have some shares and and uh he's certainly the type of player that

the reds need to to break out to be useful as a team. I came to this with a 12-14, 12 homers, 14 steal season back in 2019. That was in 104 games. And I think I can look past the uninspiring barrel rate because the ballpark gives him some cheapies. So I think this is mostly a health bet. I think when he's healthy, this is the type of profile that Nick Senzel has. All right. So give me a four on the first one one i feel like i'm off to a great start this next one

this one is inspired by walter mcmichael um he's talking about this during a draft we were in earlier this week he made a bet on this actually happening and i'm claiming this as a bold prediction that i agree with so this is actually wal's. If you judge this harshly, you're judging Walter harshly. That's not very nice. Not me. Miguel Sano will lead all MLB players in home runs this season. He's going to beat everybody

in homers. He's on the first page with most of the projection systems, but he's back in the top 30 in terms of where he's at. Why is he not for Bad X? What am I missing? Playing time? Playing time might be a tad light.

Slim down, Miguel Sano. Oh, there he is. He's projected for 31 homers, so he's tied to be in the top 30. He's tied with Byron Buxton and Mitch Hanager at 31 homers uh there are 28 players ahead of him in the projected homers list by the bad ex come on that's got to be bold 28 players ahead of him I'm gonna give that a four too yeah all right thank you I like four four is a good place to aim too because five is like, come on. Oh, I got a five. I got a five coming for you.

Don't worry. I did three and a bonus. The bonus was ridiculous. The only problem is it actually shares a little bit with your last one, which is a little bit of a health play again. That's the game I'm playing right now. I'm betting on health. So, no, it has 31 projected, but only in 561 played appearances,

138 games. Most of the players ahead of him on this list are projected for 140, 150 plus games. So that's part of why he's only projected for 31. Sano's got a metal rod in his leg from a few years ago. He's probably more stable than the rest of us now as a result.

He's a robot. Yeah, he's part ago. He's probably more stable than the rest of us now as a result. He's a robot. Yeah, he's part robot. Here's my next one. Reid Detmers will be the Angels' most valuable starting pitcher this season. Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, hee, ha, hoo, hee, hee, hee, hee. So, better than Otani

as a pitcher. Obviously, you can't count Otani's hitting war in this. Better than Cinderguard. Better than Patrick Sandoval. And people like Jose Suarez a little bit. I don't know how many people are going to argue Suarez over Detmers, but... Detmers is better than all of them. This was not designed to be

my five, but I think this could be a five. I mean, he had an okay swing strike rate. He had way better strike rate rates in the minors than he showed in the major leagues. He obviously was in over his head in his first go at the league. At the same time, the stuff numbers just weren't that great for him. Let me see if I have any spring.

The season last year, his stuff plus was 96. That might play if he gets the command up above 100 uh that doesn't seem like it'll lead like for example sound of all uh was at 97 uh thors are kind of irrelevant uh and then otani otani is like actually has lights out stuff numbers oh yeah no this is this is an absurd one but uh i do want to look at his spring numbers real quick see if i have any spring numbers on dentners i do not that's too bad um yes that's definitely that's got to be a four i mean otani is going to be better than him and then thor uh i did see some spring numbers on thor and uh he had a 117 when I last checked.

I think Thor, we are a little worried that it was 93, 95 miles an hour, but a 117 step plus was nice to see. That's almost like a 4.5 dude for me, but I know there's a lot of other people that love Detmer, so I'll give it a 4.

I'm going to ride along in this fours territory. Here's my shot at the five. Here's the bonus one. I only did three originally, and then this one hit me. This is the bonus ball in the three-point competition. This is the bonus ball. It's the golden one. I'm draining this. Here's my last bold prediction. Kevin Smith will

have a higher war than Bobby Witt Jr., Julio Rodriguez, and Spencer Torkelson. Woo! You know what the hard one is for me, actually, of that group is Bobby Witt. Because I could see Torkelson's not going to play a position that has a high war. You've deconstructed the layup part of it. Yep.

Yes, that's the part where Torkelson's in there. Torkelson is a freebie to throw in there for effect. He has to hit a lot to have a really high war right away. Right. And then Julio Rodriguez may have that or he may just the question of his defense is a question,

right? So it's like, you know, center field. He may play center field, but maybe not well enough to accrue the war that you need. Whereas Kevin Smith will probably play a lot of third and a lot of short uh and he and if he has short stop worthy defense at third he could be a matt chapman type where he has like a lot of war coming from his defense so that's that's the part that makes sense to me um in terms of you know projected quality uh kevin smith the bad x says 20 worse than league average but steamer says around league average uh with basically like a 740 ops uh so that's what you're doing with the bat uh julio rodriguez i want to see his

i'm definitely giving this a five by the way i even though i'm dissecting why it makes sense i'm definitely giving that a five julio rodriguez is projected to be oh this is spicy the bat x says eight percent better than the average but steamer says 23 better than the average with an 800 plus ops so that's going to be i think your toughest uh but bobby witt also bobby witt's going to be, I think, your toughest. Bobby Witt also. Bobby Witt's going to be a tough one because he's going to play short and he's going to play third. I'm looking at Bobby Witt's senior.

Isn't that great that that keeps happening? That's like getting Rick Rolled, which I actually got Rick Rolled this morning by Rick Wolf. Embarrassing. Absolutely disgraceful to get Rick Rolled in 2022. It's going to be hard. With Rodriguez, it's going to be hard because of the bat. With W 2022. It's going to be hard. With Rodriguez, it's going to be hard because of the bat. And with Witt, it's going to be hard because of the position.

Because Witt's projections, you know, the bat X says 10% worse than the average. Obviously, the bat X regresses rookies harder than most of the other production systems. Steamer says 8% better than the average, basically 770 OPS. 8% better than the average, basically 770 OPS. Kevin Smith can hang bat-wise, projection-wise with Bobby Witt Jr. Scouting-wise,

nobody is with you. That's why that's definitely a 5. A 5-plus in the scouting community is rolling their eyes at you. There are some scouts that do defend Kevin Smith. People like him. Obviously, the A scouts like something about him. And I think there is something actionable here in terms of fantasy.

I think it's mostly a deep league thing, but he's probably going to play. It's a little bit like my christian pache pickup i picked up kevin smith and auto new for a buck behind josh donaldson because like here's a third baseman who's gonna play it was a points league so i'm just hoping uh that that walk rate he showed in triple a comes back um and he's just a guy who can step in that has some upside you know there are you know there are there's like that you can sometimes frankenstein like a rose-colored glasses for somebody and we're for kevin smith you can be like well what if he had last year's walk rate and his like his like lower

level strikeout rates and last year's power rates if you put all those things together at the major level he'll be a lot better than his projections. He's a bit of a pop-up prospect, which I think the A's love to get. Guys that don't have the long scout-approved track record and just last year did something and popped up. I think the A's love to acquire guys like that. A lot of times they just keep on going. They made some big change, and they're a different player

now. I feel like I've won somehow by keeping every one of those predictions above a four and going out on top with a five. That is awesome. A five plus. I'm so, so proud of myself right now. I will go celebrate

on my own because we have to go before we leave. I should say, get a subscription to the athletic for $1 a month for the first six months at the athletic.com slash rates and barrels. And I forgot to mention I'm in San Diego and on Friday night, we are going to watch the Padres in a church with Lost Abbey beers. Lost Abbey makes some of the best sours. They have the hop concept beers on top.

They'll be $5 pints. I will be there starting 6 o'clock for a Padres watch party. So if you're in San Diego, downtown, Lost Abbey is the church. We're going to watch baseball in a church because that's what baseball is to us. It's religion. That's awesome. Jealous I can't be there for this one, but looking forward to some live events here now that the season

is underway. Hopefully we'll have a few more of those on the calendar. On Twitter, you can find Eno at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening.