Rates & Barrels - Another Test for the Rays' Pitching Depth and Battling ROS Projections

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Eno and DVR discuss the injury to Drew Rasmussen and another test for the Rays' pitching depth, the return of James Paxton , the growth of Mitch Keller, and the tension between rest-of-season projections and growing samples of over- and underperforming players.  Rundown 6:41 Drew Rasmussen's Injury 11:01 Taj Bradley & The Rays' Pitching Depth 20:31 James Paxton is Back! Is James Paxton Back? 25:32 Mitch Keller's Past Calendar Year 34:22 DVR Joins Eno's Skeptical View of Alek Manoah 40:40 Rest of Season Projections: Navigating Risky Rebounds & Coping with the Buzzkill 53:41 Buying High Despite ROS Projections? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/rates and get on your way to being your best self. Right now, you can try LinkedIn Sales Navigator and get a sixty-day free trial at LinkedIn.com/rates23 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton Bike or Bike Plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate. Terms apply. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Monday, May 15th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris.

On this episode, we discuss the injury to Drew Rasmussen and the overall strategy of taking on the risk of injured pitchers and how you have to really trust your depth to be able to do something like that. We had the return of James Paxton since we last spoke, so we'll talk about whether or not he looks like he's actually all the way back from a variety of different injuries that have cost him time in recent years. And we're going to talk about rest of season projections and how they're actually a buzzkill and how to actually navigate using them in a way that doesn't make you sad. With that, we got a few mailbag questions to get to at the end of the episode as well. Eno, how was your weekend? It was filled with Little League baseball, and I took the kids on Mother's Day to get them out of their mom's hair

to the other Little League baseball, Oakland. Ouch. Sorry. But so I asked my kid, you know, did they play any differently? You know, like, what did you notice as a big difference between like your little league games and the game we went to on Sunday? And he goes, well, you know, they throw harder and run faster and hit the ball harder. And then he said, and they dropped fewer balls.

And he goes, well, the Rangers dropped fewer balls. the Rangers dropped fewer balls. Jeez. But it was a wild weekend because I saw something I'd never seen before. And to really set this up, earlier in the game, so my older kid is in the playoffs, and earlier in the game, a kid ducked because the command is pretty bad in Little League.

So a kid on our team ducked, and he got hit in the back but the ball also hit his bat behind him because they don't do as good a job uh little kids in dropping the bat if they're trying to get out of the way or you know what i mean uh major leaguers do a better job of sort of getting the bat out of the way so they don't get the foul ball thing right but he got hit in the back and the bat and um uh it was it was ruled a foul ball he made his way onto the field and then he had to get pulled for a pinch runner because his uh because his back was was killing him so um you know we were yelling at the kids like all game like you know drop the bat you're like if you're gonna duck out of the way drop the bat so fast forward it, we're actually in extra innings.

It's only the six, but with the rules anyway, it's extra innings. The other team that is going to play the next playoff game is both of them are there. And so we've now got like fans for four teams there and like parents and fans and family and then four teams actually in the space and uh they went up ahead 9-7 and then our kids tied at 9-9 and their best hitter caleb was up and caleb lee hits the ball like he can hit the ball to the fence and he he throws the hardest on the team so everyone's like oh you know they got in the bag the other guy throws and it goes right at Caleb and he ducks and his bat. He doesn't drop his bat. We're all yelling, drop the bat, you know, like, and he doesn't drop the bat.

And the ball hits the barrel of his bat and goes into play. And everybody, including the parents, including the umpire, the coaches, everybody for at least two seconds has no idea what's happening. We're all just staring at that ball being like, it's in play. Wait a second. And then everybody on our team, run! And the kid just runs to first. And then our team is celebrating but also looking at the umpire

being like which is actually you know a more common thing now in the era of replay isn't it this weird celebration

that we have where we're like did he get the shot off in time you know they're gonna call passing interference did he cross the goal line you know

so like we have this weird like yay looking over at the video you know and so the the kids were kind of celebrating but waiting for the umpire to come over and the umpire came to the coach and he's like i don't know man fair that has to be a fair ball right it's fair ball and they're all like yeah i guess it's fair So everyone's sort of like, well, that was weird. That was a walk off with an exit velocity of about two. Yeah. That's what you're looking for. It just died

right in front of the plate. It's all like, oh, fair ball. Run! So by the end of that game, you see there were four teams because the next two teams were getting ready to play and then all the parents and fans and everything. There were probably more people watching the end of that game you said there were four teams because the next two teams were getting ready to play and then all the parents and fans and everything there were probably more people watching the end of that game than there were at the game you went to on sunday well sunday's uh you know it was mother's day the day game i i think there might have been we were trying to estimate i think there might have been 7500 to 10 000 people there that's pretty good

which is good but the days that they, so they spend like Monday through Wednesday reporting at 2,800 attendance. But that number is just the season ticket base. And we've done some like, so like trying to count as riders, like on those days. And there are days where it's below a thousand, we're pretty sure.

So, because if you think about it, a Tuesday against a nobody team with the Oakland talking about how they're going to move to Vegas, even if you've bought season tickets for the year, you may not want to go, especially on a rainy, cold day. We've had some thousands in there when they reported 2,800. So I wanted to give them a due. Yeah, Sunday was a fun day.

They had a nice little giveaway giveaway and we had a good time at the park and the A's got blasted 11-3. But you had a good time. That's the important thing. Yeah, we did. And mom got a break. Also a good thing. And I had to buy the kids

crap over and over again. Oh, I saw that. The keychains, the Otani Verlander, those not even close. I mean, I don't know what you're supposed to do. I don't think like Otani, these squishable keychains. The first one was Verlander. I was like, is that Jose Altuve? If you had to paint something on your thumb

that resembled another person, I don't know how you'd really ever do it, but they try. You'd probably do better than that. And then baseball cards. We did some baseball cards. Nice. It do better than that. And then baseball cards. We did some baseball cards. Nice. It was a fun day.

All right. Well, let's get to it. Let's get to the first big injury item of the day. Drew Rasmussen, unfortunately, has a right flexor strain. They immediately placed him on the 60-day IL. So it's going to be a lengthy absence for Rasmussen if he's able to return at all this season. I think that's a bit of an unknown at this point because a lot of times flexor strains are a precursor to actual UCL tears. Drew Rasmussen has had two Tommy John surgeries. We

talked about this before. The Rays are an organization that will take chances on players with arm injuries in their past. That's just something they do. It's in part because they see value. They see guys that the market undervalues and they think they can get a lot of mileage out of those players. And that's just kind of what happens. As far as everyone's understood, the Rays don't break pitchers

any more often than other clubs. It's not a Rays thing to break them. It's a Rays thing to select players. It's a raised thing to select players that have reasonably scary track records health-wise. Yeah, I think part of it is actually a roster construction thing. You have an unlimited IL during the season. You know?

And so they're just like, hey, we can actually have more players on our team if we just have a massive IL every year. And then also, you know, when you're trading, you know, the guys with injury histories, they have, they, they have, they don't bring us back much, much back in trade. So the, you know, you, we get a discount on these guys and we can house more of them. So let's just house a ton of them and see.

And it's also like a dice roll where it's just like yay it's a dice roll for everyone in terms of health every season so what if we just took more dice rolls and we just had a ton of people on the il and we just kept rolling that dice one year uh we're gonna have three healthy aces you know in september you know in october um and so you know it's not that's still a little cynical and it's not great i mean they they could uh come up with some other option but remember we talked about this on rates and brails last week where it's like imagine being the first team to be like yeah we're all gonna throw four miles few less than our maximum you know yeah it'd be so hard to commit to that

if your jobs are on the line i don't know how how you could, in good faith, say, this is a great idea. Let's try this. Yeah, but you have heard that. You've had to hear that thing about how this is a precursor to Tommy John, right? So I did go looking for that. that and i found a study that said one in five pitchers that gets a flexor injury like this has tommy john within the next year so that's not everybody's you know but it's still a lot and a third tj as far as i can tell, Johnny Venters, Jose Rio. Wow.

Jose Rio? That's a while ago, too. Yeah. And Jose Rio, they weren't even sure that they were all Tommy Johns. It was like sort of he had a bunch of surgeries, and we think three of them were Tommy Johns. In any case, I added it all up and there were three pitchers who've had three Tommy John's and they added up to about,

I think it was 140 innings, all combined post third Tommy John. Yeah. So there's like the question of how many innings can they throw and how good, how good are you going to be when you come back from all that, which is none of them were good. Oh, Jason Isringhausen. I don't think any of them were good when they came back. It's a shame because Rasmussen

has turned into such a great starter. It's been an amazing story. Ever since he got to Tampa Bay, he's just been a completely different guy overall. Sub-3 ERA, great whip, plenty of strikeouts. You feel terrible for him. I think it's also, if you think about how the economics of baseball work, he's never had a chance to really get paid either. That's the other hard part about how the pre-arbitration system works, the number of years to free agency, all of the service time things are in play here. You hope it's not another Tommy John for Rasmussen. You hope for the best that by maybe August, he could be back throwing again, possibly in game situations, but nothing is guaranteed at this point. As far as the Rays go, of course, a ton of wins in the bank early on this season. Having all these guys that have these injury histories, we know they've got more arms ready.

Taj Bradley's been struggling at AAA. We talked about that the last couple of Tuesdays. His last start did come on regular rest, four days rest though. So it seems like they've begun that process of getting him back on a major league schedule, which now seems even more imperative than it did even before they just demoted him a few weeks ago. And you've got Tyler Glass now scheduled for at least two more rehab outings before he's going to rejoin this rotation. So they've got to find a way to keep it afloat in the next couple of weeks just before they at least get glass now back. But you get the sense that Taj Bradley,

despite his struggles is going to see another prolonged run with the rays at some point in the near future. Yeah. And I think even if he comes up and only pitches twice and they option him again, that it gets dicey, right? Isn't it three options in a year?

I thought it was five. I think it's five. Okay. So they can still play around with him some. But think about this. Drew's out for a long time, and Springs is out for the year. So even if Bradley comes up just for two starts before Tyler Glasnow comes up, the rotation will be McCcclanahan efflin

glass now fleming and chirinos chirinos has had like two surgeries tj and then a fractured elbow um and chirinos and fleming are both maybe using openers uh so you're you're using openers on two of your guys if bradley gets it right like let's say he comes up, pitches well for two, and then they still say, hey, we want Glasnow up. We're going to send you back down. We're still working on fastball command, whatever it is with Bradley. They send him down. If he goes down and then starts dominating the minors,

and Fleming or Chirinos are both either chewing up bullpen arms with the opener strategy,pen arms with the opener strategy. I think doing the opener strategy for two guys is going to have an impact on your bullpen. Or just not performing as well as you'd like. It'd be pretty easy to bring Bradley up. And then there's the fact that any one of them could still get injured.

So I think Bradley is still in line for another 70 innings or so in the major leagues this year um I think that would be a good estimate 70 75 I think he can do that um and so he's gonna have some good value I I'm glad that I held on to him and even if he gets demoted after two starts I may hold on to him for at least a couple weeks beyond that to see what happens with Fleming, Chirinos, and to see if there's another injury. We'll probably have to dig in a bit more on Tuesday during Project Prospect, but

there is a pitcher in their organization named Sean Hunley at AA. We received a question about Sean Hunley. I had never heard of him prior to this question. He's got a 104 ERA and a.66 whip at AA. He's repeating that level after pitching there last year. Hundley was pretty good at AA last year in the sense that he had a

mid-threes ERA, but 6.7 Ks per nine. He's getting more swinging strikes. Something changed in this profile. He's always had control based on what he's done in the minor leagues so far, but now he's getting swinging strikes. I wouldn't bet on him to contribute to the major league level except for in the bullpen this year

because what I see, 27 games, 10 games started in 2022. So not only did he not have a ton of innings in the 93 innings, but he had this dual role action. So I think there's a little difference in sort of pushing a guy who had 10 starts last year, regardless of how many innings he had, to pushing him to 20 or whatever starts this year. You know what I mean? Yeah.

I think if he does come up, I'd be more likely to be long relief bullpen, maybe a Fleming-Cherinos type role at best. But there is another guy that I like in the minor leagues that is pushing himself to the forefront of this discussion is Elvin Rodriguez. Elvin Rodriguez had great stuff plus in the minors. The one problem with Elvin Rodriguez is he's not in the 40 man.

I think that's a Hundley problem too. The thing that you know with the Rays is that they just do not release people. They really, really try not to release people. And so if you are betting on Alvin Rodriguez or Hundley to get into the picture,

you're asking them to release, I don't even know, Littell, Zach Littell. One of those last relievers. And it's always a problem. Deep green if it doesn't work out. Because they don't have anybody on the 15-day IL right now other than Glass now. So they don't have someone they can shift over who's been out for a little while. So they have to really create that spot by letting someone go or risking losing someone to waivers.

If it comes to a point, if push comes to shove, they'll do something. But push comes to shove is a different something but they'll you know push comes to shove is a different definition for them than for other people you know like they will they will lose some games in in june you know they've banked so many wins too right so they'll just they'll just be like hey we'll come back to the pack a little bit in june it's fine uh we'll do fleming and cheer you know so there is that risk always with them that something like that could happen. But I think the closer it gets to the end of the season, the tighter it gets to the top of the AL East, which looks like it's going to be super competitive this year,

the more likely that they're like, hey, no, we really want Taj Bradley up here, and I think we might want Elvin Rodriguez up here. So that's something to watch is the the table the standings um and uh and then you know what their injury and 40 man situation is almost more than anything the corresponding move is always the key well sometimes the corresponding move is just the unfortunate result of someone getting hurt though and when you stockpile guys with bad injury histories it sort of just the spots open themselves. That's sort of the awful truth, right?

Like it just happens. You say, well, we're okay, we're okay, we're okay. There's a spot. But you're right that all of the guys that are hurt are on the 60 except for Glass. Yeah, you can't rule out a trade though. You laugh to keep from crying. I brought it up on the 3-0 show,

the trade they made with the Brewers a couple years ago. That was a late May trade that. You laugh to keep from crying. I brought it up on the 3-0 show, the trade they made with the Brewers a couple years ago. That was a late May trade that got them Rasmussen and JP FireEisen for Willie Adame. Maybe something like that is in the works just because they've got a little extra depth right now. The outfield just looks so crowded. You look at their outfield depth chart right now.

Obviously, they like Jose Siri. Josh Lowe is playing really well. We're going to get to him a little bit later in the show. Randy Rosarena is having his best year yet so far. Luke Raley is contributing. I don't even know if I said Manuel Margot yet. He's still there. Raley was the guy that they nursed. They kind of massaged the roster to get him on.

They made some choices about sending people down that people were surprised about Aranda and other guys. And it's worked out for them because he's 50% better than the average with a stick in sort of a part-time lefty only, you know, DH-ish, first bashes kind of role. And the other guys that they sent down that we were excited about

in terms of Curtis Meade and Jonathan Aranda and Vidal Brujan, other young guys that might have pushed him off the roster are not playing well. I mean, those guys are on the 40 man, they're in the minor leagues

and none of them is playing well. So, I don't know. I guess there could be some other sort of roster manipulation move that they have up their sleeve. I'm just really curious to see what it is. I guess Aranda's playing okay. I'm sorry. I don't want to lump them all together.

Curtis Meade is not playing well. He's hurt too. At least he was for a stretch. I don't know if he still is at this moment, but there was an injury in his recent track record. If you use the 40-man as a guide and their minor league work right now, then

Jonathan Aranda is still the next man up batting-wise. And pitching-wise, it's definitely Taj Bradley. He hasn't been announced yet. But, you know, in terms of starting capable players in the minors that are ready right now,

it's Taj Bradley and nobody else on the 40-man. You have to be looking at these last couple outings from Yanni Chirinos and saying, wow, we kind of got away with one because he walked eight over 10 in the third innings and struck out one in those two outings combined. This is what I'm talking about. He's on my labor squad, and I'm just like, ah! Just so nervous every time he's out there.

I just gotta drop him, don't I? It's hard to drop a guy with a.222 ERA and a.99 whip in a 12-team AL only league, though. Colby White is not starting. I just want to make sure. Yeah, that's... Bradley's it. And that's interesting, too, is that

Bradley's it. The Cupboard is bare after that. So, that's why Al it. And that's interesting, too, is that Bradley is it. The Cupboard is bare after that. So that's why Alvin Rodriguez and maybe Hundley matter. But they will have to make some moves before that. And then you could do something with Hundley that you've done with Chirinos or Beeks. You could make him one of those guys, the bulk guy that follows someone else. I don't know if you could make more out of Jalen Beeks. I think other teams would try. I don't know if you can make more out of Jalen Beeks. I think other teams would try.

I don't know. Stuff is really far down, though. I don't think it's going to happen in Tampa. I think it'd be somewhere else where they'd just say, let's see what happens if we give Jalen Beeks more innings. I don't think it's necessarily a good move for that reason that you just mentioned. Whoa, what are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking?

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Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca. Best Western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze. And it felt a little like... Come on, kids. We're at the hotel room. life's a trip make the most of it at best western james paxton is back james paxton is back he's back from the il what's the punctuation on there?

I use the exclamation point because I'm excited about it because for the last couple seasons around the injuries, every time you look at projections, James Paxton would still have very good projections for a guy that's missed a lot of time because when we've seen him, it's been a ton of strikeouts. It's been an acceptable walk rate. In the past, earlier in his career, especially a couple of those peak years in Seattle, he did a good job keeping home runs down. I don't know if you're going to get all of those skills again, but the pitch mix and the velo at least looked like it did before all the injuries in his first start back with Boston over the weekend.

That was kind of surprising to me because he didn't exactly carve up everybody during his time on his rehab assignment either. I was a little bit cautious going into the weekend, not knowing what to expect from Paxton. So how optimistic are you that Paxton could actually be a source of quality outings for this Red Sox rotation and for us as fantasy managers where we're so desperate for good starters on the wire? Well, I mean, the good news is the fastball looks like it's back, and that is something that you can talk about in short samples. So I'm trying to look back to 2020 when he pitched in Seattle, didn't he? Why isn't he showing up? Was he a reliever?

Where's James Paxton on this list? The last time he pitched in Seattle? Yeah, it was in 2020, didn't he pitch in Seattle? He made one start in 2021. He was with the Yankees in both 2019 and 2020. Oh, so I'm looking for 2021? Well, 2021 was the year that he made one start and got hurt during that start. With the 1.1 innings?

Yeah. Well, he had a 115 fastball stuff plus back then, too. Well, he had a 115 fastball stuff plus back then too. So I just mean, you know, he's a guy that's interesting in that his fastball has always been his best pitch. And that was something that went away when he was hurt. Now that he's back, he's got that 115 stuff plus on his fastball again. So I would say his fastball is back and 2bd on the uh breaking balls uh you know we're we're not going on much uh sample here but the fact that his fastball is back is good enough

for me uh to buy i mean like of course cautiously and not necessarily dropping a lot but like people are asking me, would I drop Brian Baio for him? Yes. Would I drop... Rolanzi Contreras' fastball is gone. Ah, yes. You said you dropped Rolanzi Contreras

in a league this weekend? I did drop Rolanzi Contreras this weekend because his fastball has lost an inch and a half of ride and a couple ticks ride and uh and a couple ticks of velo and it's directly related to his lack of strikeouts his lack of whiffs his lack of reduction and you know in terms of how you want to use them you want to use them at home oh then you got five runs hung on by toronto uh you know so there's you know seven runs by Houston you would have used him, Houston at home

wouldn't you have? this version of Houston? yeah probably, in 15 teamers at least so I just feel like every other game at home could be a blowout and then in every game on the road I feel nervous throwing him so would I drop Ronzi Contreras

for James Paxton? yeah maybe dude i mean look at that one strikeout one walk and his last start against baltimore yeah it's really strange a few really nice outings strikeout wise i mean that was one of those was against the reds pretty good start against the dodgers at home in late april too six scoreless just two hits five k's and that one breaking ball he still has a good breaking ball. He still has a good breaking ball. How fixable is something like this? It was there before, but how fixable is it in season is another question. It just seems to me like something's off, and I doubt.

Unless they send him down. Would they? He's pitching a little better than Oviedo, right? It's close. You'd think that Oviedo would go down. But Oviedo to me is like there's nothing to really fix. Oh, jeez. Sorry.

I just mean like he's a good pitcher with like a lot of pitchers, a lot of pitches. I don't see – I said before the season I didn't see him as part of the future. I saw him as a guy you have while you have him and you use him and you try to get the most out of him. You try to coach him to use the best of what he's got, but he's got no pitch over 100 stuff plus. And that was the same thing I saw before the season. I don't really see an out pitch and I don't see a great fastball. So everything's like, okay. And maybe he can have a good year or two when he like finds a good command and like uses his pitch as well. Contreras is someone that you want for the future.

And Luis Ortiz is that for me, too. So if either one of these guys is ever going to do the Mitch Keller, it's going to be Luis Ortiz or Ryan Contreras. I don't think it's going to be Oviedo. We should talk about Mitch Keller since he brought him up and he continues to grow the word cloud, his name within the word cloud for the show history a 238 era a 102 whip 69 strikeouts and 56 and two-thirds innings i mean it's all there the underlying

skills of that still projects him for a 482 so yeah so this is where i mean we're going to focus a lot on hitters and rest of season projections, but I think with pitchers, it's easier to convince yourself that things are very different now than they were when the last two or three years of track record was put in place. in a pitcher's arsenal and with velocity and movement and all those underlying characteristics. You can go more granular with it and you can, with some confidence, say, yes, that is the pitcher he was. And yes, those are the numbers he would deserve if he was doing the same thing he was always doing. But this goes back even to the end of last May, if I'm not mistaken. I think our buddy Jason Collette had the tweet.

No, I'm confusing Jason Collette with Joe Block. Both J names, I guess. Joe Block, one of the media folks for the Pirates, one of the announcers. He's been good for about a calendar year. So it's not just a hot start. It's a longer window now where Mitch Keller has been the best version of Mitch Keller that we've seen in the big leagues.

Yeah, that's a good point. Let me do a game log thing here. Because he basically added the sweeper halfway through last year. So if we just – I'm actually not doing the like, oh, he had a bad game on August 5th, so let's start at August 10th. I'm not doing that. I'm not even looking at his results. I'm just going to pick – I remember that he was throwing the sweeper in July, so I'm just going to start

with August 5th. That's what I'm doing. August 5th to now. 114 innings, 120 strikeouts, 37 walks, 275 ERA. It's a pretty good sample. Yeah, if you do the past calendar year leaderboard, pretty easy to pull those up over at Fangraphs for anyone who's never looked at that before. Mitch Keller is 27th in war among starting pitchers over the past calendar year. It's 183 innings with almost a strikeout per inning. Fastball's been good. That puts him in the same range as Logan Gilbert, Blake Snell, not that far from Dylan Cease. It's slightly ahead of Drew Rasmussen. It's ahead of Scherzer and Woodruff and Alec Manoa and McClanahan in terms of real life value.

That's a high volume of good innings from Mitch Keller. So if you're not trusting it because it's only been a month and a half, I think you need to pull back and actually accept this. And I guess I got to ask, we're in between updates

on the pitcher rankings being kind of in the middle of the month, but where do you think Keller would land if you were re-racking the rankings today? Yeah, it's an interesting thing because someone was mad about where I put him, even though I've obviously been pretty upbeat about him and had him above most people going into the season.

He had the good stuff. And what you're seeing here is what happens when you have good location and you give a guy with good stuff a good location year. It may not happen every year that he has good location, but he right now has the good stuff and the good locations. And there's two things that come to mind. One is a slight mea culpa. We did not run location plus into the rest of season projections on that first run.

We had a reason for doing it, which was that Location Plus doesn't work in smaller samples. And so we thought we'd just leave it out completely. We could have done some heavy regression and put it in anyway. That might have changed his rest of season projection somewhat. The other thing is that I have this difficulty that always arises where you like someone preseason and then they do well and they kind of go nuts.

And then you are trying to be sober about it you had this problem with rasmussen last year probably yes yeah you were all over ranked rasmussen high then he was doing really well and then i was actually ranking rasmussen below other people because like well i don't know about the depth into the games and the quality starts and the wins and i don't know you were trying to be reasonable reasonable i'm trying to be reasonable that's what i'm trying to be i'm trying to be reasonable and so maybe i actually was not as aggressive on mitch keller as i should have been because i was just trying to be reasonable uh but right now i i don't really see what the problem is he's got a ton of pitches almost all of them rate as above average or average by stuff. Plus his slider is,

I think the second best or best, I think maybe the second best slider among starters. So you've got the sweeper, you've got the cutter, you've got the sinker, you've got the fastball, both fastballs are above average. He's throwing the curve and the change,

and none of them are bad pitches. And he's putting them all in decent locations. So I think he's just the curve and the change and none of them are bad pitches and he's putting them all in decent locations so I think he's just like hey this is what can happen if you develop your stuff to the point where you can just throw it all to the middle of the zone and your stuff takes it where it needs to go

I don't know that I think that Mitch Keller has turned into an ace that will always be an ace every year I don't know if he's like, he might actually be lower on my dynasty rankings than my because he still has that like that whiff of you know maybe next year the command isn't going to be there you know but uh but you know yeah he i had him ranked too low and where would i have him ranked going forward uh top 50 at least i I mean, top 40? Top 40? Yeah. All right. Top 40

seems at least like a good starting point. So many guys have been hurt. That also brings them up even more. It's just who's really left. But I think if you start treating him more like a longer term kind of fringy SP2 solid SP3,

that's really good. That's much poorer than we thought Mitch Keller was going to be two years ago. I think two years ago it was like, what's wrong with this guy? Can he ever put it together? And now it looks like he's the pitcher that scouting grades years ago pointed to, where he's got a deep arsenal of pitches and commands it all well enough to make it work. That's the guy he was supposed to be. It just took a longer path for him to get there. Yeah.

I don't know. The would you rather is probably... Would you take Mitch Keller over Julio Urias for the rest of the season? I just put Urias on a buy low. Okay, there we are. Pitching ranks. I had Urias 33rd.

How about versus Logan Gilbert? Projections would tell you that it's supposed to be close based on Gilbert being surprisingly poor projections wise. I'd rather have Gilbert than Keller, but I don't think it's a landslide. And it would have been a landslide two months ago. Yeah. It's funny how much injury changes things.

Like I'm just looking at, I mean, the injury thing is so hard this year, just cobbling together a pitching staff. Like I'm looking at my top 40 and I'm like, well, that injured, injured, injured injured injured injured so

like he could be he could be in the top 30 just because everyone ahead of him is injured yeah it's gonna put some really uh interesting young guys high on that list though too like like bryce miller is bryce miller clearly ahead of mitch keller he's healthy you know i don't think he's ahead of mitch keller just because you have to you have to be reasonable you have to be reasonable but do you like do you really have to be reasonable in this game like where do you put uh veterans that are a step away from being injured like blake snell or you know or like a how about just like a credible not exciting veteran like Kodai Senga. He's healthy. We don't have the track record in Major League Baseball either

to fall back on. We still have some, how does this really play in this league? Obviously, you can have equivalents, but there's still questions there. Wow, it's tough. I think with, okay, Mitch Kellerller versus alec manoa that seemed impossible two months ago if you're given anybody anybody playing fantasy baseball their choice of manoa versus keller even people low on manoa who said even people like me are high on keller right

because think about where you probably had them ranked manoa somewhere 30 to 40 keller 70 to 80 aggressive with keller and i had him at 72 or something. You might have been ahead of everybody else with your Keller ranking and you still would have preferred Manoa. Has that flipped? Manoa has a 333 ERA away from

home. Was that like four starts? Yeah, but it's a 770 at home. He's got a 17% K rate right now for the season. And he's walking, guys. It's scary. Oh, and May has been better by results, but he has a 372 K9 in May?

I mean, I think I might take Keller. I was always pushing Manoa down. What a strange couple of years for Manoa. He comes up right away, has a ton of success with 35 minor league innings among the class of pitchers with no 2020 season. There's just that gaping hole. Comes up, has success, gets even better over the full season. And because he logged so

many innings, it was like, well, even if the K rate's a little low, it's fine. He's going to be among the AL leaders in innings. Dominant breaking ball. It's just broke for a little while. I don't know if it's broken for good. We talked about it maybe three or four weeks ago, and you

were more concerned than I was. I now share your elevated level of concern. He also has no pitch above 100 by Stuff Plus, although the fastballs and the slider are close. I know generally the old adage has always been, buy low, sell high. I think it's more of the opposite. I think it's like trade players away before their value completely craters.

In the case of Manoa, he might be on his way to the bottom. You might have willing trade partners who think he will get back to projections. They might look at zips or a projection that's better than what he's done so far and say, yeah, he could still be that guy. I'm not saying he's toast and what you see right now is what you get the rest of the season, but I don't think we're getting the pre-2023 version anytime soon based on what he looks like right now. He's just not locating well. I watched, I think, the last two starts or two of his last three.

And it just was uncomfortable. He was not getting things where he wanted them. I think the lack of Ks is a big place to start looking. No matter what you think of the stuff model, K's and K-BB is super important. And so if you were looking at, say, a teammate of his, Chris Bassett, if you were looking at Chris Bassett,

he wasn't pitching well, but his K's were there at least. I don't know where I would put Bassett right now. He said a gem this weekend against Atlanta to last two have been pretty good, but you know, the one, the one before against Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, five strikeouts and four walks,

a little bit weird, but no runs. That's, that seems right. Uh, you know, uh, I,

I put Bassett ahead of Kodi. I, I would, uh, I put Bassett ahead of Kodai. I would, uh, put Keller ahead of Manoa right now, man. The guy that we got wrong or I got wrong, uh,

was Chris sale in those, in those rankings. And his early stuff plus numbers were pretty horrid. Um, and his projections, uh, were also horrid. And the dumbest thing about it is his stuff plus has just gotten better and that's not how it's supposed to work. Uh, it's supposed to be pretty stable throughout the season, but maybe what I should have done is say, you know, Hey, this guy has a long track record of success

and he's coming back from injury and maybe I shouldn't just declare him dead based on, you know, an early Stuff Plus. I will say, though, last 14 days, Chris Dale still doesn't have a pitch above 100 on Stuff Plus. The Ks, though. The Ks, though, are there. So if you're trying to figure something out, if somebody has Ks and Stuff Plus

and isn't getting good results, they're still a good buy low. If they have Ks and they don't have the Stuff Plus, I think you still have to consider them an interesting buy low. He's been around for a long time, but is it still fair to describe Chrisris sale as a deceptive in his delivery fair right i don't think it's a slot that a lot of people throw from yeah right so i i just wonder if that's also part of how he

has sustained the excellent k rate everything's kind of back now the home run rate i think was really high for a little while that's even cooled off i mean this looks like typical sale as far as your your underlying numbers your k rate your walk rate your home run rate that's what i was hoping for i'm really glad to see it because i was on the other side of that one um we talked so sale versus snell i think was our toss-up and they both could be fine but uh the rust factor that's the hard part of this it's the rust factor, that's the hard part of this. It's the rust factor. It's over the previous three seasons combined, Chris Sale threw 48 in the third innings. So how long does it take to get it all back? Spring training plus X number of innings in the regular season before he's good to go. Maybe it's a similar question we should be asking about James Paxton. If Paxton's numbers

were scary, maybe that'd be a reason to give him some runway. Also look at the velo. Snell was 93-3 in his early starts, and he's up to 95-96 in the last starts. James Paxton was 95-94 when he was pitching well and not when he was hurt, and he's up to 96 again this year. That makes me pretty excited about him.

A lot to unpack there. You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself. You live for experience and lead by example. You want the most out of life and realize what you're looking for is already in you

this is for you the canadian armed forces a message from the government of canada the main focus of today's show was supposed to be rest of season projections, navigating a buzzkill. Because they really are disappointing. If you've got a player that's breaking out and you go look at the rest of season projection, it usually pulls you back somewhere close to league average, sometimes even a little below. And you're like, this guy's been 30, 40, 50% better than league average. Why can't he keep being that much better than league average? And it's, well, that's just not how it works. Sometimes you, you reach this level that you can't sustain over a long period of time because you

played your absolute best six weeks in the first six weeks. That's a thing that can happen. Sometimes the league figures you out. Sometimes there's some other explanation, but this does go back into what I was saying before the, the buy low side,. The buy low side, that's easy to see. Someone's underperforming. You think they're going to bounce back to their projection. You did a piece about this, I think a week, maybe two weeks ago now. I know Jose Abreu was in it. And I was looking at the players that have bad WRC pluses so far, but very good WRC pluses for the rest of the season looking at the bat X. Abreu

is one of the biggest differences if you look at projection versus actual results. And if you use a model similar to what we just used with Mitch Keller, you say, well, is it just this season for Jose Abreu? Or if you go back to the second half of last season, do you see some warts that make you

more concerned that the projection is taking too much good of Breyou, too much of a player that he more recently just hasn't been. Because I think this can happen sometimes where we get sort of tricked, and especially with players that are at the later part of their career, we know projections start to become less reliable. So how much of a red flag is this pretty rough six-week stretch from Jose Abreu? The one thing that really bothers me is that I think the bat speed might be gone because

he really is struggling against fastballs. And if you can't produce against fastballs, I think that's really a bad sign. And you've got, this is Jose Abreu from 2015 to 2018. He had slugging percentages in the 500s, the high 500s. Then he hit his peak in 2019 and 2020. He had a 616 slugging his fastballs, Jose Abreu did. In 2020, he had a 667. 2021, he had a 566. 2022, he had a 667. 2021, he had a 566. 2022, he had a 404.

2023, Jose Abreu is slugging 233 against four-seam fastballs. I don't know where in season you're going to turn around. He's now seen 1,170 fastballs. You know, 1,200 fastballs since the beginning of 2022, and he's slugging under 400 on those. I don't know, man. Like, how's that going to turn on a dime? Doesn't seem like it will.

I don't know. I can't. I saw a little bit of this. You know, I talked about this when they signed him, and it was certainly a possibility. I figured he would still make contact, and if he only hit 15 homers, this you know i talked about this when they signed him and it was certainly a possibility i figured he would still to make contact and if he only hit 15 homers he would be only as good as he was last year when he was 37 better than league average but the thing about having a hole in the league

quote unquote figuring out like you're talking about is that they can sort of just fester at that so like they've discovered something and he's not been able to adjust his way out of it so the you know the the track record would say yes he can he'll find a way to adjust out of it i don't know hitting a bunch of sliders well and then does one vulnerability sometimes lead to another right so let's say his adjustment is well i'm just gonna look high fast ball i'm gonna i'm gonna cheat i'm to start early on high fastballs. Well, now breaking stuff down causes problems or something else opens up.

The win rate is up. The strikeout rate is the highest it's ever been. It starts to... It's like a snowball coming down the mountain. It's like you've got this one problem and problems just keep compounding with each other and keep getting worse. I don't know if Jose Abreu is a 15-team league drop because he plays every day.

That lineup's going to get better. The counting stats might be okay. He's got to have some good stretches. But the shallow leagues that are out there, 10 and 12-team leagues, that's tough. Seems like he could be a dropper. like he could be a dropper. But I think the main thing that is really important in all of this is to talk about who you're

actually going to instead. I think that was something that Zach Waxman had on Twitter. There were some teams that actually dropped Jose Abreu, but the players they were picking up for him were not clearly better. And I think that's the hardest part about all of this.

Are you going to give him on the chance that this guy doesn't were not clearly better. And I think that's the hardest part about all of this is like, are you going to give up on the chance that this guy doesn't fit? Like you give up on the possibility of someone with a really good track record, figuring it out to take a chance on someone whose projection is, it's still worse than what you're dropping. Someone who's a league average and best player with playing time concerns, a Bray, you shouldn't have playing time concerns for the next couple of months.

You don't believe the projection, but I want to start with the projection, right? So the bat, rest of season, in the auction calculator, 13th best first baseman going rest of season. Now, let's say you don't believe that, right? So at least you should be looking around that for pickups, right? So, you know, okay, I don't have to say that I have to pick up somebody above 13th. I can pick up somebody below because I don't believe the 13th right so alec balm okay well probably not there

right vinnie pascontino probably not there anthony rizzo probably not there jay cronenworth projected to be worth two dollars worth jose braves four dollars this is in a 12 team league uh with one uh i I have no CI. I could put a CI in there, but it doesn't matter. In terms of just first baseman, he's ranked four spots behind. I think it'd be okay. Yeah, you could take Cronenworth. Now, Josh Naylor.

Right? A player that's more likely to be available in those 12-team leagues than those 10-team leagues because he's also up to a slow start. And I can do this. I could do this. I might look stupid in the end, but I can do this. I'm taking Josh Naylor over Jose Abreu because their projections aren't actually that different.

And the batting average, I think, for Naylor, we've already started to see it heat up in Cleveland. And there's a massive weird temperature split in Cleveland where it's like the average day in April in Cleveland is like 55 or something. And then it jumps to like 65 in May. It's the Midwest, dude. It's all over the place. Is that like a Midwest thing? It's a Midwest city on a lake, right?

I mean, Cleveland's on Lake Erie it's just it's one of those one of those places milwaukee has weather swings like this where you'll get cold and then it's hot it'll be 80 degrees for a random day in may and it'll be 45 a couple days later or even the next day it changes that fast and it's it's just the way it is plus he's just he's a 25 year old he's not having the bat Plus, he's a 25-year-old. He's not having the bat speed issues. He's a left-hander that pulls a lot in the time of the shift restrictions. He has the bra velo. He has the barrel rate.

I don't know. I'll take Naylor over Jose Abreu. I don't know if that's pushing it. After that, it gets worse, and I'm not sure I see another one. So I see Josh Bell. I don't know if that's pushing it. After that, it gets worse, and I'm not sure I see another one. So I see Josh Bell. I don't know. I think I might take a Bray over Bell. A rise is just, that's such an edge case.

Yeah, I guess if you want just batting average and you can give up the power. Will Myers, no. Spencer Steer seems like pushing it. Yeah. Am I saying anybody that you would... Would you take Naylor over Bray? I think I would. I like Naylor.

I think the evidence was there going into last season. He could take a step forward and he did it. I think even if the weather hasn't been the only reason, I still think he's got enough core skills where I trust the younger guy possibly retaining last year's level or something close to it as opposed to the older player trying to

get back to something that looks out of reach right now. 116 WRC plus, I have a hard time buying that for Abreu. I think it's going to be more like an even 100 the rest of the way from him. That's okay, but it's not great. I think this list, I pulled a few random names together.

Eduardo Escobar made the list only because he's one of those deep league players that costs nothing in trade, becomes available quickly even in a 15-team league when things aren't going well. So he's on the list along with George Springer and Starling Marte and Tim Anderson. And injuries have cost some of these guys some time too. So their sample sizes are smaller. Jesse Winker, Teoscar Hernandez, and even Bobby Witt Jr., whose production, relatively speaking, still isn't lagging that bad. It's an A9 WRC plus with a 123 rest of season projection from the Bat-X. So Witt's sort of like, I'm not that worried about him.

I would not. I mean, I see a lot of people asking me about trading with gotten personally fielded a bunch in the last week. And I would say that this is a poor time to sell Bobby Witt. And I know that you were talking about, Hey, before something craters, I don't see Bobby Witt in that position. I know his OBP is under 300 and it is again, and I know he's a flawed player right now.

But he's so young. And the core skills are good enough to make him. Like. Like. Is he Javi Baez? Like. He's not. I don't think he has.

He's as flawed as Javi Baez was. No. In terms of plate approach. And if he's not as flawed as Javi Baez was Javi Baez had a lot of great years you know so that's how I see Bobby Witt is like maybe he won't be a top three player in the league um you know like people felt like that might be in his in his possibilities he's still gonna be really good like he's even if he just continues what he's doing this year he's gonna end up 233 with 25

homers and 35 steals like what come on now so don't don't trade that in a keeper league don't trade that in any league i don't think so he's he's off the list for me um and and i think tim anderson for some extent is off the list too i think he'll he's i think that's an injury thing but if you want my lodum, if you want my guys that I can't find a reason to like them, and I can't tell you that there's a number that makes them infinitely gettable, the Lodum guys are

Jose Abreu, Eduardo Escobar, and Jesse Winker. There is nothing there that I can say, but at least he's... There's nothing. Yeah, with Winker, I mean, it's a 36.2 percent hard hit rate so far with 58 bad ball three percent barrel rate for him and escobar basically unfortunately so a lot of the players i liked as by lows this year were players that were injured last year the

downside of that is sometimes they don't come all the way back healthy so whether it's rusty hasn't knocked off yet or just not getting it back physically, there's some growing evidence here that Winker is just not the guy that he was before he got flipped to Seattle. And if the Brewers are going to keep trotting him out there every day against righties, hoping he turns it around, sure, the counting stats could be okay. But the power that I was hoping for, the 20 home run power, even 25 home runs in that ballpark, that does not look like it's coming back based on what he has done to this point. Teoscar Hernandez looks like a legitimate guy you'd still trade for right now, because the barrel rate's excellent. He's always had this sort of volatile up-and-down profile because of the swing and miss.

I don't like him in keeper leagues that much because of that sort of the combination of age approaching, he's turning 30, you know, he's going to turn 31 this year, and the K percentage is up, and the blocks are down, and I just

don't love this type of player as they age, but in terms of this year, yeah, I think I would trade for him. Yeah, and I think as far as Witt goes, it's just in a long-term league, you previously may not have been able to even engage someone else who had him on a roster to trade him. I think you could at least find someone willing to trade him now. It's still going to be expensive because they're going to see the power-speed combo,

all the things that you see and like about Bobby Witt Jr. But I would explore that. I'd push because this could be one of the last chances to get him in a multi-year league. And I think the payoff is going to be there even if he just continues to do mostly what he's done, but there should still be one more level that he can unlock. I think there's reason to believe he'll start walking a little bit more over

time. K rate's not a problem where it's at right now. He makes good quality contact, and of course, he runs quite a bit too. So there's a few slow starters that I still believe in from that group, but I'm unfortunately starting to take the L on Jesse Winker along with you. The other side of this, I think, is pretty challenging too, though, because the players that have been carrying you, either guys that you drafted late, maybe you picked them up off the waiver wire,

they're playing really well, and you want to believe, you want to say this is going to happen, this is going to keep going for the rest of the season. This is guys like Brent Rooker, Josh Lowe, Jaron Duran, Jesus Sanchez, Brandon Marsh, a lot of guys that we've liked for a while. Those last four, especially Lowe, Duran, Sanchez, and Marsh, they popped up on sleeper lists and undervalued lists, target lists for a couple of seasons now. They have all been performing really well. Ezekiel Duran, a little bit more like Brent Rooker, where it's something of a surprise.

There were interesting skills in the past, but I don't think as many people were on Duran as they were on the other four. So you see these guys all kind of projected to go back closer to league average. Rooker is up to a 113 rest of season projection now from the Bat-X. And I actually have this kind of newer theory. I think as long as the projected level is close to league average or above, a player reaching a new level of success has sort of crossed this threshold where they're not as risky as they were coming into the season. The bottom falling out on Lowe or Duran seems a lot less likely now because they've done enough

to move that baseline up. They've kind of gained trust from a quantitative perspective. Yeah, it's interesting because in terms of batted ball quality, all these guys are breaking out or sustaining levels of batted ball oomph that makes me super excited about them. Every single one of these guys has hit the ball 111 miles an hour. Every single one of these guys is barreling the ball better than, you know, 8.7 for Marshall. Let's say 9%. 10% is a number that I keep in mind as a sort of divider. And if you're talking about low, Rooker, Sanchez, and Duran, they're barreling, you know, beyond that. Actually, Sanchez, low, and Rooker.

So you've got guys that are all barreling the ball well. They've all hit max EVs they haven't hit in the past. Their hard hit rates are all high. There can be regression in those things, right? They can have months where they barrel the ball and then months where they don't. Even though this is more signal than noise, they can still regress off of it. And so I tend to kind of, my eye wanders over to the strikeout rate and the swinging strike rate and you know there's still a lot of reason to believe in them there too low rooker duran and marsh are all have all improved their strikeout rate over their career

numbers um and and the weirdest part is marsh changed his swinging strike rate right and yet he's been striking out more because i remember looking at marsh's strikeout rate and being like oh like that's really good and now it's back up to 30 yeah so duran i want to say jaron duran i want to say oh he's he's really changed his strikeout rate wow has he and brett rooker he's really changed the strikeout rate he's really changed his strikeout rate. Has he? And Brent Rooker, he's really changed his strikeout rate. He's still swinging strike rate as high.

So I think Rooker will have a month where he goes in the tank. I think he'll have a month where he hits 200 with three homers. But I think that's part of the profile Rooker has. I think more established players who barrel the ball the way he does, that have that free-swinging approach or that aggressive approach, it's the Teoscar Hernandez problem in a different form. You get the good and you get the occasional bad, but the net result is still far enough above average where you ride those waves. You take it.

I think Rooker, for me, is that kind of player. I don't know if he can get to the Teoscar Hernandez multi-year peak or not. He's a little older, so it might be harder for him to sustain it. But I think that's more of the mold that he fits into. Yeah, he's like a three true outcome guy is another way of saying it. There'll be days when the batting average projected 230. He'll have months where he hits 210 230 but maybe he'll have another month where he hits 300 again right and that's what you're sort of saying is you're bouncing around a new mean in a way yep and maybe maybe maybe the projections don't quite capture that in any case

i i like all these guys i think the guy that I'm most excited about long term in this group is Jaron Duren because there's a real change in his swing strike rate and there were stops in the minors where he didn't strike out as much as he did when he first got to the majors. The tools are all there. He's really capitalizing on those tools. hit a ball 114 in triple a which is now showing up on fangraphs which is kind of amazing uh but he hit the ball 114 in triple a and he hasn't even done that in the major leagues yet so there might be another level to the power and the speed is obviously there and so what if he ends up a left fielder instead of a center fielder because of some poor routes?

I think he's playing so well now that he's played his way in the lineup and it doesn't matter if he's a center fielder anymore. And honestly, I think they'll probably try him again in center field. Yeah, I think they probably will at some point. I think having the other skill to fall back on, the speed skill on top of pop, is such a nice thing to have. Because even if the power is not going to sustain at the current level it's not nothing and then bags can always help make up some of that gap so i'm with you yeah i think jaron durant's legit jesus sanchez has a hamstring injury right now actually i'm buying into this being a little bit of a post-hype breakout for deeper leagues once he

comes back from that injury i think sanchez is going to be a pretty clear pickup for me in those mid-range mixed leagues where he might still be available. Doing with a 4.05, beat Babbitt, though. Yeah. I mean, it's not—I still think there's batting average risk because of a high K rate, but I think he's getting to that power consistently enough where they're going to keep playing him because they need power in that Miami lineup. I think what Marsh is doing right now is meaningful. I don't think it's 295, 410, 545 really ever again over a prolonged stretch. This is one of the better stretches of productivity of his career. He's got a 426 BABIP underneath that, but I think part of what's happening is he's getting back to being the player he was in the

minor leagues. He's being more selective at the plate. He's not chasing outside the zone as much. We've seen pretty decent barrel rates from him over the course of his career. He's in line with that right now. It's a pretty hitter-friendly environment as well. His glove keeps him out there a lot too. I wouldn't be worried about a full-on crash from Brandon Marsh. I think he'll actually

finish above league average for the season too with so much above average production already baked in. I think this is a good version of a very solid player. Yeah. Yeah. The most pessimistic projections

he'll still be out on the field because of the defense. Steamer 236 312 378. I have a hard time with that one i just it looks like a different kind of approach now and and that's what i also want to see like we were talking about he was more selective in the minor leagues it's like that's the same thing i'm saying with with duran it's like you know he came up he went from you know uh jaron duran had uh you know strikeout rates in the what the high 19s and the low 20s for boston

yeah 23 in triple a 24 in double a and yes then he goes and he has a 36 in the major leagues and this is the type of player we've talked about ad nauseum on this show which is like why do some guys go from 23 to 36 and some guys go from 23 to 25 you know um but maybe the answer part of it is time and now look at him 23 strikeout rate in the big leagues you know so i like to look back at minor league track records too when i'm looking at these breakouts because if it starts to look more like they did you would have predicted them to do when they first came up based on their minor league track record then they've kind of done it before you know and they're just kind of finally doing what they were supposed to do um and some expect in some respects this list is all post-hype sleepers

it's a lot of guys like that i had the full full version of the spreadsheet when i was looking at it and uh you know josh low i i've said this on the show before, I think I was wrong about him three times. I was wrong about him enough times to not have him everywhere for this, which makes me feel terrible. I wish this was helping me retroactively from the last few seasons when I thought he'd come up and be a really good contributor for the Rays. I think with Lowe, it's funny that it's sort of the opposite of what we've seen with Brandon Marsh.

Brandon Marsh chasing outside the zone less often. Josh Lowe swinging outside the zone more often. That's not necessarily in and of itself why he's good. I think he's just being more aggressive and not ending up in bad situations where he's in two strikes. My speculation is anyway, he's not ending up in two strike counts as often because he lowered his K rate by 10 percentage points. He's down to a 23.1% K rate with his O swing going the wrong direction. He's hitting the ball hard. I don't know if this barrel rate is necessarily where he's going to sit. 14.5% seems a little high for him.

Because this is a guy that is slugging 631 right now. And had a previous slugging career high last year at AAA of 556. So there's always been a lot of interesting tools. I think I'm kind of splitting the difference between what he's done so far and what the rest of season projections are saying. I think he's made enough meaningful adjustments where I would take the over across the board on everything the projected slash line says he's going to be on every projection system.

And if you look at the heat maps, like just a real difference in what he can do at the top of the zone, like just a real difference in what he can do at the top of the zone. I know it's narrative, but it just explains the breakout, right? You look at the heat match, say he couldn't hit anything at the top of the zone. Now he can. Maybe the league will find another hole somewhere else, right? And maybe what we've learned is it might take him a little time.

Maybe it takes him longer to cover up holes. I don't know. But it also was at the very beginning of his career. It might have been the first hole that taught him how to cover up other holes in the future. You know what I mean? Like maybe the next time he encounters, you know, something with the league is like, oh, now they're filling me up with back foot sliders. He's going to be like, man man the last time this happened i thought i could never make it i thought i was not a major league player anymore i went into a spiral and they had to send me into the minor leagues to recover my confidence recover everything i'm not

gonna do that this time it's just back foot sliders i'm just gonna go into the cage and work on back foot sliders and get back in there you You know what I mean? So they do, like, this is something that you can actually prove about players is that as they age, they do get less volatile. And part of that is because they have a better sense of what to do. Gabe Kapler talks about trying to manufacture confidence with his young players in terms of, like, telling them about all the times that he thought he was never going to play again. Like, he went to Japan and was terrible in Japan, Kapler said.

And I tell them about that all the time because I had six more years in the big leagues after that. And I thought, I'm terrible in Japan. No one's ever going to give me a job again. So that sort of like, I still have a chance. I have a reason to be here. That's what happens. I think a lot of times with somebody like Brent Rooker, think about it.

I mean, he was on waivers and he was out there to be had pretty quickly, even though he used to be, he was a first round pick, you know, like people thought he was going to be great. Um, you know,

sometimes it just takes landing in Oakland and knowing, Hey, I'm going to have all year. I have a job tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah Oakland and knowing, hey, I'm going to have all year. Got to have a job tomorrow, yeah. Yeah, so the name that I have on this list that just is a total blind spot for me is Ezekiel Duran. I just missed him. I don't know.

Why haven't I thought about him? I mean, his strikeout rates are a little high in the minors, but he had good ISOs. I mean, he's not really, he's a 50 future value, so he's going to be on this. He's the fourth ranked over at Fangraphs. Right. Among prospects for the Rangers.

He's supposed to be good. He's playing shortstop for them now, so he has defensive ability. He's probably going to stay up when Corey Seager comes up because he's proven that he for them now so he has defensive ability he's probably going to stay up when cory seager comes up because he's proven that he can play right like he just gives him an extra infielder and you know they can move guys around i don't know what what did i miss i guess he whiffs a lot he he whiffs and he's never walked a ton so from a pure just like what's his real offensive value? Is he going to be in the bottom third of the order?

Are the plate skills going to hold up enough for him to get the playing time? One of those guys where you can sort of look past the tools because you just don't know if the core foundation is solid enough, but it looks pretty real to me. I mean, I don't think you, I think compared to Lowe, you know, I think I buy into, I buy into what the rest of season projections say in this case. I think it comes down to how you see him fitting in in Texas as to whether or not you would actually sort of buy high on him.

Nathaniel Lowe plays every day. Marcus Simeon plays every day. Josh Young should play pretty much every day. They don't really have an established DH, though, so they can let Duran play every day. He's a good enough defender to give some of those guys rest. He can move her all over the infield if they want him to. So I think it works out.

Mitch Garver rehab starts May 23rd. And Seager? Seager's back soon, like this week. I think so. Activated for Monday's game, even. And even, you could play Durant in the outfield. So, I would say, until May 23rd, right? Until May 23rd, he's fine. Because they don't have a DH, they have a roster spot.

I would expect that he survives the Seager up. And then, yeah yeah play him in the outfield because grossman's all right but what if you what if he can play center as a former shortstop you know yeah that would help him or i don't know or just become one of the outfield mix i think i mean he's a better hitter than bubba thompson you know so bubba thompson's up you just have to think can grossman play center or like, you know, can, can Durant play center? And can you figure that out over the next couple of weeks? Can you just send them some fly balls out there?

I mean, it's a roster crunch. Once Garver's back, then the question is, can Garver just be a catcher for us? And we just keep Durant up anyway. I think you want to keep playing Jonah Heim though. I think Jonah Heim is a great defender and he's actually showing a ton at the plate this year. One of the biggest steps forward. Oh,

I'm not saying play him less. I'm just saying, can Garver be another catcher for us? Yeah, just occasionally make the pieces fit that way. Here's the biggest thing. But then you're wasting him because he's got a projection for like 20% better than the league average.

It's a stick. I think my only lingering doubt about Duran is that so far for his career, it's a 43% O-swing percentage. And it's going the wrong direction. That's what it looks like. I mean, he definitely looks a little bit like a Dolis Garcia-esque in terms of,

you know, can hit the ball hard, can throw the ball hard, can run a little bit, and has a very poor play approach. But that's absolutely in the danger zone for O-Swing, where you're like, whew, he could get real cold and fall out of playing time, especially on a team that is healthy and has a lot of other really stable players up and down the lineup.

I think it works in Durant's favor. He's toolsy, and he can play good defense at positions of need. The thing that works against him, he's probably still a little too aggressive, even for someone who's going to be good because he's aggressive, if that makes sense. On that note... If they want the cover of, like, we need to send him down to work on something,

you don't look at this line and say, this guy has nothing to work on. It's being more selective. Swinging less at pitches outside the strike zone. 100%. But I think the good might outweigh the bad, even though the bad is pretty scary with that number being as high as it is for Ezekiel Duran. We are going to go. We'll save the mailbag questions for Wednesday. We get some mailbag stuff coming up on Tuesday, too.

Sorry, we talked too much. Yeah, and unfortunately, I drank a giant can of water before we started, so I can't extend this episode any further. So on that note, you can sign up for a subscription to The Athletic. $2 a month gets you in the door at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. Find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Riper. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Tuesday.

Thanks for listening. Thank you.