Rates & Barrels - Are Statcast Pages Pointless?

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Eno and Welsh discuss a couple of Statcast anomalies, and deep dive into a listener question of the how trust worthy Statcast pages really are. We're also digging into Bryce Miller, Michael Kopech and more. Rundown 1:53 - The curious case of Ke'Bryan Hayes Statcast page 8:21 - Will Ke'Bryan ever live up to his Statcast page? 12:13 - Top and Bottom 10 Barrel % leaders 14:20 - What Eno looks for to determine future power 19:09 - The curious case of Bryce Elder's Statcast page 20:27 - Eno's first time looking at Statcast pitcher sliders 26:20 - Statcast percentile screen shots 28:27 - Prospect who beat projection 34:22 - Expected stats and Projections 36:12 - Stuff+ variance over the season 39:08 - Bryce Miller 42:45 - Bryce Miller release point vs the league 46:07 - Bryce Miller vs Jacob DeGrom pitch release points 50:42 - Michael Kopech success 54:57 - Andrew Abbott's 21 WHIFF Wednesday Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh 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 Try LinkedIn Sales Navigator and get a sixty-day free trial at LinkedIn dot com slash RATES23. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Well, hello, friends, and welcome in to Rates and Barrels. I am not DVR. DVR is enjoying, you know, the baby, the kid, the not vacation. He was just like... Or not enjoying. Yeah, he explained to me. He was like, I got to take some time off. And then I was like, oh, is it vacation? He's like, no, I have to to my wife is going back to work and i'm like oh okay so you're just going to be working

at home just not on this current job so yeah i am filling in uh i'm chris welsh that is eno saris and we are here to talk about the stuff and things and we are hoping the best for uh our dear derrick van riper uh you know you got some articles that are coming out we're going to probably be mentioning in this and uh we've got a few other crazy things and I had this crazy thing come up and I've been dying to talk to you about it and actually teased it on some of the other shows that I've been doing because it's such a weird concept and the best way I can do it is just be ridiculous about it. And the concept is, is stat cast worthless? And of course it's not.

Of course it's not. But I've had two different places that I've been doing shows with two different players present some interesting ideas of where stat cast is completely wrong. And I think there's also a building community of people that I think are still trying to comprehend like expected stats and you hear a lot of analysts talking about it more. And I think maybe some old school type of people listening to fantasy get frustrated about it, but it is obviously a great tool.

And obviously StatCast is not worthless, but where we're going with it today is we've got two players I want to break down with you and get your takes on them. And let's start with the hitter, the hitter that was presented to me. And this is kind of a opposite take from the other guy, so this should be fun.

And that hitter is Key Brian Hayes. So the reason we ask, is StatCast worthless? Because when you pull up his stat cast page it's pretty it's pretty it's like a very well done christmas tree there's like little tiny light blues with lots of red it shines the places that you want to be red are mostly there the hard hit percentage 80 percentile he doesn't whiff um his wobah is at least 56 percentile his k percentage he doesn't whiff. His WOBA is at least 56th percentile. His K percentage, he doesn't strike out. He walks a little bit, doesn't strike out, hits the ball really hard.

His exit velocity average is top 8% in the league. His strikeout percentage is top 10% in the league. He has a 113 max EV. Oh my God, I know that's all awesome, but guess what? He has one homer and he's hitting 232. So we've always been kind of saying, I know I've been talking a lot here, but this is one of those guys. We're always like, hey, listen, this tells a story. This could break out.

This could break out. He never does. He never does. So I think people are wondering, like, what do you take out of this? Is that cast worthless, at least in this regard? Yeah, I think he's he's interesting in that, you know, he's still 26. So there's still a chance. But, you know, it becomes less of a chance every year.

And a couple of thoughts come to mind. First, you know, when you take a screenshot of the StatCast, you know, little bobble at the top, it sort of implies that all of the information on there is equally important. And it's just not the case. I mean, for example, the expected sweet, expected Woba, expected batting average, expected slugging. The run environment changes every year in baseball. And so the idea of what is expected given a launch angle

and an exit velocity changes every year and that's sort of redefined i think around the all-star break last time i checked so we're kind of looking at last year's numbers there in a way um and i think there's been some analysis some research that shows that those aren't necessarily predictive so So I don't necessarily, I sometimes peek at them. I don't look at them so much. You know, chase rate is something we talk about a lot here. And it is important generally, but there are tons of players that have great chase rates

and aren't that great, you know, like Trent Grisham. And then there's tons of people who chase a lot and are still great. And it has a little bit more to do about longevity, you know? Like, if you chase a lot, like Teoscar Hernandez I wrote about today, if you chase a lot, I don't think you're going to age that well because at some point you can't make as much contact on pitches outside of the zone. So, you know, we've kind of gone through some of these,

and there's strength. Like, arm strength is on there on there like that's virtually meaningless for for for fantasy right sure arm strength we can't quantify that in fantasy yeah i mean yeah i mean i you know danzy swanson has a limp noodle for an arm apparently and he's still at shortstop so um you know i i i you know if you look at this through the lens of which number on here is shown to be the most predictive of future power he's blue barrel percentage 36 percent down i was going to lead you i was just about to lead you there to say what's funny about his page specifically as we're looking at it is one thing that jumps out to you it might be the most important you and i

were talking about the most important uh and let's break it down let's hear your take on it but the most important thing on here is maybe the barrel percentage even though i think in this modern like era of like how a lot of people are analyzing players and looking at players i think the very first thing that we go to is hard hit percentage like it's hard hit percentage and ev then there's a reason it's at the very top on these but barrel might be the one well the thing is hard hit percentage is great he does hit the ball hard we know he hits the ball hard we can see that from average exit velocity we see that from max exit velocity so there's three things there and and so they put three things that tell you the same thing he can hit the ball hard right so you have but that tells you it sort of makes you think oh that must be

three times as important but average exit velocity hasn't been shown to be that predictive max exit velocity hasn't been shown that to be predictive and we treat it we try to treat it on this podcast as upside raw power right yeah and then hard hit is fine it's better if you can lift it at all and barrel tells you about hitting the ball hard and lifting it. So that's why it's so powerful. So, yeah, he does hit the ball hard. When I look at this is I see an athlete. And athletes are people I like to bet on.

And I still think there could be a peak year in here for him. There are some things that I like that he's doing this year even. And, you know, but at the same time, that sprint speed is falling. His stolen base percentage is falling. And so the thing that we always wanted was like a 2020 season. And as the stolen base part of his game is falling off, we're likely to maybe have a peak that's like a 20 home or five stolen base season. So we may never get the 2020 season we were looking for.

And I have sympathy for people who are annoyed at the Savant card or at us for liking him and for him coming up this often. And I would say that, first first of all the barrel rate is the most the most powerful thing and the barrel rate never like a brian hayes uh we liked him for other reasons because we thought he might grow into a barrel rate it'd have been nice if you could you know how in like fan graphs you can go and you can kind of you know you can customize your board and how it want to it'd be nice if we could kind of customize this middle and be like, hey, listen, I don't even want to look at average.

I don't want average X velocity. I don't want that on there. Yeah. Yeah. It might be. But like, is there anything applicable here? Because what I think is this was a listener of mine that had pointed this out to me. I thought this was like a really good pick, but it's not a one for one like this just happens to

be one of those where we look at we're like man like i personally feel when i look at kee brian hayes like you can fix this and at some point in his career he's hitting the ball hard he's not even hitting the ball on the ground as much as usual so there's like still i it's still catnip to me yeah but maybe it's got to be kind of more like this year he's doing the same stuff he's back to the same stuff again it looks like there needs to be something and you would think by the way that there'd be something with the pirates and i don't know how they exactly work in their player management but it would be like hey we've got to figure out you know how like we talked in the off season about what was uh lars newpar doing you know he was out the whole summer working with

uh driveline working on you know barreling and getting those barrels to be fly balls and that type of stuff like why is Kebrine right like Kebrine Hayes obviously has the bat speed because he has the max exit velo has the hard hit rate like why can't he get that ball out in front yeah like you can look at his spray chart and see the problem it really like we see that yeah but obviously he's been talking to people for a long time about this. Yes. But like, is there anything else applicable?

Because like, I just think he picked the right guy to have this conversation where stack has doesn't really give us. Yeah. I mean, for example, look at Mike Trout stack cast page. Yeah.

Okay. No, you actually want me to, is this rhetorical or I'll go. No, I mean, I, for anybody listening, I mean like, do you think Mike Trout is what, like one or no i mean i for anybody listening i mean like

do you think mike trout is what like one of the best players in the league i do when i look at a stack cast page it's all red i mean yes there's that barrel by the way yeah 94th percentile barrel rate uh and like k you know yeah he always struck out a little bit but you know everything else is at the max slider you know so like uh you know it's it's another thing is you know we talked about this is like the model is designed to be right most of the time and you're gonna have you're gonna have outliers you know i think of brian hayes is like pretty obviously an outlier like who else hits the ball hard on the ground and has just never lifted it even yandy diaz who is kind of a clone very similar

yeah and i've had years where he lifts it and i'm like looking here to try to find even just for this year to find big hard hit percentages with low barrel percentages and you know the first guy comes up is dj lemay who has a 50 an over 50% hard hit percentage, but he's got an under 7% barrel, which I actually feel like is a little bit higher for him this year. Um, I mean, Rosario is one of those guys say as a Zuki, they've got really low barrel percentages with heart with high hard hit

percentages. And there's a, there's a couple of things going on. Maybe they go off a lot. DJ LeMay, he was a spray hitter. Yeah. Um,

you know, I would say, look, he has a 28% pull rate 40% is league average you know so DJ LeMay who is hitting the ball hard on the ground opposite field you know and that's why he doesn't it doesn't turn into a lot of that's that's slightly Cabrian Hayes's problem I think the cool thing about StatCast is you've got this spray chart right next to it right and the spray chart can give you a real clue

as to why somebody is underperforming their sliders. So you look over at DJ LeMayhew and you see, oh, look at that hard hit rate. That's great. Then you look at the spray chart and you go, oh, he's hitting everything hard to the other side, right? And who was the other guy? Ros yeah i made rosario really it might be nice if they had just a you know i know launch angle is something that bothers people and we just said that it's too much information on here but i think with him it would be easy enough just to see

either with a launch angle or a ground ball rate slider or something that uh he just doesn't lift the ball you know yeah so yeah he's doesn't lift the ball, you know? So yeah, he's hitting the ball hard straight into the ground. So he's got a similar problem to, to Cabrian Hayes. And, and nothing is a one for one again, like I think people should remember these are,

these are great tools, but you know, it's not perfected, but like barrel percentage might be something that people want to put a little bit more focus on. Like you're saying your top 10 and barrel percentage in the league right now i'm just list them off aaron judge matt chapman matt olsen patrick wisdom max muncy pete alonso sean murphy jordan alvarez solar and all power but also a lot of production in there too here's your bottom percent in barrel percentage

this is the top 10 is two and a half percent or less number one steven kwan at 1.2 percent barrel rate andres jimenez miles straw luis arise mauricio de bon wit uh merrifield enrique isak parades astori ruiz and jp crawford where i like to it's not like where i'd like to to shop yeah well and some of those guys like astori has been there's enough speed or whatever yeah yeah he's played really well you know it's a crazy fact on that too of those guys, like Astori has been. He's enough speed or whatever, yeah. Yeah, he's played really well. You know, it's a crazy fact on that, too. Of those top 10 I gave you, only two have a hard hit percentage over 30%. It's J.P. Crawford and Enrique Hernandez. Everybody else is under 30% hard hit rate.

And I think there's something interesting also about Myles Straw and Astori Ruiz being in the same place. Because, you know, you might want to say that after the year that Ruiz is having, you know, you say, okay, well, barrel rate isn't everything, and Estoril Ruiz is, you know, somebody I want on my team, and if I had him on my team this year, I wouldn't have a lot of barrels, but I have 26 stolen bases. That's great.

But Myles Straw is right next to him. You know what I mean? And so you have to realize that, and this might be the most controversial thing I'll say, is that I think a player's power ceiling determines their entire ceiling as a player. And if you have no power, you are relegated to the guys who are up and down

and who are sometimes useful and sometimes not. So even if Ruiz has a great year this year, I'm probably not going to have him next year because he's just not my type of player. I want players with power. And Ruiz has one of the worst average X. I know you said it's not predictive, but it's a little predictive when it's like 84 miles. But it's like one of the worst average x i know you said it's not predictive but like it's a little predictive when it's like 84 miles but it's like one of the worst in baseball

is average evs is your dictation of said power built more off of max ev raw power or is it like you're saying barreling like barreling is the most important piece of you judging the two the two things i like i look at them in descending order where bail rate is the thing i look at the most and then max ev and uh hard hit rate or what i look at next um because uh and probably max ev is last as much as we talk about on this show max ev is just something i look at to describe what i think is the potential for the player right and at some point you start like that's another thing that's going on with cabrian hayes is at some point you start like that's another thing that's going on with cabrian hayes is at some point you stop worrying as much about the potential and start looking at actual results because there are going to be players that just never reach their potential right whatever it is

like the real world like you start getting real you gotta start getting real yeah you gotta start getting real like when you're to 2500 plate appearances into a player's career you gotta stop kind of being like buddy has a good max ev you know yeah well and and we had that we were you and i were talking off air this like analogy to that people get very hung up on specifics of like this like this would be the instance and you just got to remember like it's all best odds you know it's all it's all a math thing and and we likened it to like poker where it's like, Hey, listen, you can have the best hand and someone can have a 9% chance with one out left and they can hit that.

And it's like, well, I should have won. I had a set of aces and this guy, you know, 25% or 15% chance to hit a club on the river. And he got his flush to be, I was winning the whole way. My odds kept getting better and better. And then it just didn't work out. That's kind of like what the predictive process is. The same thing with baseball. It's like best guesses.

It's math telling us stories. It's the same thing that Derek Carty has dealt with, with like the constant barrage he gets about like projections and stuff. And it's like, some things are right. Things are wrong. But at the end of the day, the math, like anything, trying to be right more often than you're wrong it's just trying to put you in the best situation and hopefully you've

built up enough analysis to kind of decipher and it's like hey listen we're gonna we're gonna jump on a player and you're gonna be like hey listen i see all this stuff with key brian hayes i love it i i think it's one fix away i'm gonna make the bet i think you can improve and then guess what he doesn't it still doesn't. 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. Best Western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze. And it felt a little like... life's a trip make the most of it at Best Western. There's another analogy to poker that's interesting. I don't want to say that I'll never have a Miles Straw-ian player on my team. And in fact, Miles Straw's stock has fallen so far himself that I may pick up some shares of Miles Draw next year because the price will drop. And so if you think about that analogy you have where it's like this person stayed in on something he shouldn't have, he wouldn't have stayed in if the price got too expensive.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Like if you went all in and this guy's looking at two fours, he's not going to stay in. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like if you went all in and this guy's looking at two fours, he's not going to stay in. You know what I mean? So there, there is a relationship between price and how in you should be. So like,

I am saying that miles straw is not my type of player. And, and I, it's three reasons, not my type of player, but if next year, miles straw is a bench round pick or somebody I can pick up for $3 in the AL Only League, heck yeah, man. I'm back in.

You know what I mean? Cabrian Hayes at this point next year may go undrafted in a lot of leagues in NFBC. in an NFPC. Would I love to put Cabrian Hayes as my, as like, like my, as my bench CI,

you know, just to, just to give him a shot for two or three weeks and say, is this the year that Cabrian Hayes does the Yandy Diaz,

you know, and actually lifts the ball a little bit and gives me batting average and, and power, then,

then yeah, that's worth, you know, a dollar or two or a bench pick, but. You know, that's worth a dollar or two or a bench pick. You know, that's actually a really interesting thought, too. Like, what if Key Brian Hayes does the Yandy path over years, where it's just like the hard hit that keeps going, keeps going,

and then it's going to take the one year to click? Unfortunately, the pirates are not the race. The best year is happening at 31 years old. Yeah, that's why, like I said in the Key Brian Hayes thing, I believe there will be a year where it breaks and he break he's 26 years old he will break 28 29 that's why it's like redraft probably not i see no sign of improvement here and in this case he's a specific case of stat cast being worthless in this point because it didn't work out let's move but still somewhat

interesting in dynasty and like keeper because they've still got these skills but yeah yeah i agree with you on that like he's actually someone probably in the off season if it keeps getting bad it's like but prioritize which yeah but prioritize what you're looking at when you're looking at the savant page for sure yeah exactly okay so now let's go to part two of is stat cast worthless and i should have done this with Key Brian Hayes. I didn't for the video people. I'm going to bring this up on screen here. And I present to you, well, I will bring it up on screen if it wants to go.

Bryce Elder. This was one I was tweeted about. And let's see, this was from Baseball Doesn't on Twitter. And saying, is StatCast data pointless? We're calling it. Is it worthless? Because Bryce Elder, it is shorter. Sample sizes is one of the craziest looking pages too, because it is the Arctic.

It is blue across the board. The only thing he doesn't do is walk a whole bunch of guys, but from hard hit to expected batting average to strikeout percentage to fastball velo, fastball spin extension, it is all some of the worst you can see in baseball. But the guy has a two ERA in 10 starts this year, 51 strikeouts and under one, two whip and is three and oh, so I have some feelings and thoughts on his actual pitch mix here but i present to you again you know is stack cast worthless when it comes to a player like bryce elder or anybody we don't have to but this is the example of where it does not there are two conflicting stories here i don't Don't ever look at the sliders for a pitcher on StatCast. Ever.

I am now looking at this. I don't know if it's like the first time that I'm like bringing it, taking it all in. But like, if you had asked me before the show, what's on a pitcher's StatCast profile, like percentile rankings, I would not have been able to tell you.

Looking at it now it's just not useful to me to know these things like in the way that they are presented again extension fat like extension usually good not always good fastball velocity okay i'd actually have that on there the end and it's important because if i look now at starters with the worst fastball velocity they are rich hill kyle kyle freeland zach granky trevor williams austin gomber bryce elder jordan lyles do you want these guys yeah i know you don't you don't go shopping in this bin not normally so you know that that's a that's a useful thing to have on the slider but pitcher average exit velocity allowed is i'm i'm not gonna be rude uh i'm just gonna say if you want i don't i don't i don't i

i don't it never it never and like, apologies are a little bit due. Alex Chamberlain has done some really good work on, like, what pitchers can control, and there's a little bit of something there. I think it's related to command. There's something there. So I would say, like, there's a little whiff of, like, he has good command that you can get out of that. But I'm sure that there are tons of people on average exit velocity allowed that won't be there next month is my point.

A hard hit allowed is just another way of saying average exit velocity. In this case, I don't think that's useful. I don't know what XCRA is. I don't use it. I can't imagine that XBA and X slugging are that useful for pitchers because they're derived off of exit velocity and hard hit. So not useful barrel rate allowed for pitchers, not a thing that is sticky year to year, not a thing that is predictive.

So we just went through the first six things on the page and I don't think any of them are predictive. Now you get to K minus BB. Well, those that's K if I had, if I, you were talking about like, what would this look like if

we did our own i would have k minus bb whiff and fastball velocity on there and that might be the only i'd only have those four things out of all that they have on there really that would be how you would switch up this board yeah and so 67 40th percentile k 67th percentile bb and 49th percentile whiff tells you almost what you're like i haven't said the word yet but i'm going to now his stuff plus is bad but you can see that you can see that i do like this pitch distribution thing you can see that he has a 90 mile an hour fastball he has an 82 mile an hour slider slidersiders are good, better over 85. Fastballs are better over 93, 94. So all this is to say that I don't necessarily believe in Bryce Elder

and it doesn't necessarily have to do with his savant page, but there are some hints of it on the savant page if you want me to give you what i think bryce elder is 2022 triple a 446 era 119 whip 8ks per nine that's who i think he is one thing i found interesting about bryce elder is you you talked about it. The problem is, is the stuff in general, like I respect and I value Stuff Plus on the value of the pitches individually. And I think it's a good metric. Actually, I would love to see for my own personal reference,

if we're talking about what would I like to see on my own like savant page, add in, give me personal pitch Stuff Plus on there to see the value of each pitch and the overall. But you're not going to get great numbers out of him one thing i do think that's interesting though is his pitch distribution that he's become a primary slider pitcher he's almost 40 percent slider where he was 27 last year and the reason behind it is like we've seen so much of this and i i likened him to j or to Johan Oviedo,

that he's like the Braves Oviedo, where he's found success off of also throwing strikes. And that's what Elder is doing. He has an over 50% zone percentage with that slider. And he's able to throw that thing for strikes, even if it's not whiffs, which is just going to keep people off of the sinker fastball a little bit more, which at the end of the day, I think makes him like maybe he's in between like streamer and someone in the deeper league. You can hold for a while.

It could get messy because the pitches themselves aren't fantastic, but I feel like so many pitchers have found success not being primary fastball guys when it stinks and using their secondaries. And the thing that whether the pitch is good or not, he's throwing it for strikes and guys aren't getting great reads on it, which I think makes elder interesting, but none of that is expressed in breaking down his savant page. What did I have to do? You know, I had to drag down.

I had to go to his pitch mix. You had to, to do you know i had to drag down i had to go to his pitch mix you had to yeah do you know there are definitely uh there are definitely things on this page that i love yeah i'm not saying that i don't like the whole page i'm i'm talking mostly about that top part yeah exactly but but but that i think is the key because um we've just spent you know half the show talking about this but i thought it was a really cool topic that's a good point that's a good point yes that's true for everybody that like it's a fantastic resource for sure yeah but but my point is to end it is when you say is stat cast worthless i think the percentile board that you guys screenshot is more worthless than what you're making out stat cast to be you the guy asked the

question is this worthless? But no, the problem is, is because everybody wants to have fun. How many times a day do you see someone go, whose stat cast page is this? And it's like, here's all these things.

And everyone wants to play that game. It's because the player is being valued off of a percentile board, which one of the smartest baseball minds, you, you know, has said like maybe 25% of what's on that is actually good. So maybe it would be a lot less worthless if we could customize those boards a little bit, but no, it's not worthless because you can do so much research.

It's great. And there's a lot of great places, you know, picture list has done a great job of, you know, enabling their pages to, to work more and maybe it's more customizable. But no, the idea of it is not. But maybe like a nice little handy screenshotted board is more, a little bit more worthless in totality. There's a last little bit that is more sort of philosophical. And I think you might have an interesting perspective on this, sort of looking at prospects a lot prospects a lot which is uh stat cast um i think that where it shines the best is measuring athleticism right we're talking about

how hard can you hit it how hard can you throw it how fast can you run you know what i mean like and that's it is really a scouting tool in a way in in that it it's, uh, replace it's, it's the, an offshoot of the radar gun. You know, I've, I've said this about stuff plus two stuff, plus stuff plus was born in the radar gun. You know, we're just trying to make the radar gun better by including movement and stuff. Right. And so, you know, when you're looking at, uh, at a stack cast page, you're looking at a StatCast page, you're looking at a lot of measures of athleticism. How many, like if you were scouting prospects, there are prospects that you scout that aren't athletic or don't look that athletic and yet still succeed, right? Yeah.

Have you thought about that? Do any names come to mind? Have you thought about that? Do any names come to mind? Are there ones that weren't athletic and succeeded in minor leagues that didn't make it in the major leagues, and their athleticism proved to be a problem? I mean, athleticism is almost like what I was saying about the power upside. Your athleticism does determine how good you can be.

It's hard to be one of the top five players in the game without being athletic. Well, here's maybe like a, I'm not quite answering your question. Cause I have to really probably sit on it, but like, right.

Let me throw it. That's something to think about for project prospect on. Yeah. But let me throw this on this other side here. You look and people are going to LOL, but whatever. Look at a player like Corbin Carroll. You physically look at corbin

carroll that is not the type of guy that you i'm surprised he's a little bit small he's much small he's the type of guy that in your brain if you were to just start stereotyping you're like that's a five percent barrel rate a higher ground ball rate second it's a story ruiz it's a story ruiz when you can look at the numbers this five foot ten a buck 65 outfielder who every single person argued with me oh you're not gonna hit for power he's not gonna hit for power whether we what we just talked about or not actually let me uh let me uh let's get his let's get a stat page well i have it up i have it up but you know i had it on the uh i had it on the wrong page uh because i want to pull this up here because it's all red baby it is all here's a superstar athlete yeah okay so now i've got it so let me pull it up on screen so the video

people can go with me is uh this isn't answering how you wanted the question of like on the opposite but this is a guy that physically doesn't look at and look at that savant page. It is red beyond belief. A five foot ten, one sixty five guy with a max EV that is in the ninety third percentile of the league. He's a hundred percent sprint speed. One of the fastest barrel percentage isn't the best, but it is, you know, starting to get into the red. There isn't a blue thing outside of guess what? Arm strength. Who cares?

Who cares about that? And then you could put two Corbin Carrolls into Mike Trout, I feel like. Yeah, exactly. So this is one of those guys that you physically go watch play and you're like, wow, this guy's really impressive. You physically look at him and you're like,

where's the projection? But then you get this story told under where you're like, holy crap, he barrels, he runs, he hits the ball hard, whether it's average or max EV. He does all of the things despite what you would physically see out of him. And that's unfortunately in the minors, a story that you wouldn't be told outside of just watching him because we don't get like high A. You know, I mean, some people do if you've got I'm forgetting the company that has it, but it's like a team oriented stuff where you get all the stat cast information. This is something we would just physically see, but many people, so many people that I talked to would argue about Corbin Carroll's projection because of what he physically looks

like. And he destroyed every single one of those, but it's something that would have been found on the underlying stats. So I went in a different direction of what you asked. But that's why I like objective, objective stats like this, you know, because, uh, you know, another thing is athleticism doesn't always look the same way. I mean, if you'd look at Joey Votto's, uh, uh, 2022, uh, uh, savant page, uh, there's a lot of red and a lot of blue because he's old and he's not a good defender and he's doesn't run fast and you know but is he still athletic in terms of you know being able to see

the ball really well and being able to hit the ball really hard so there's different definitions of athleticism that come into to play here but i still maintain that savant is so powerful because it's directly observing things and so you know there is that relationship you know as you get more of a sample of results like brian hayes of actual on the field results you start pairing that and that's why in the end projection systems that include stuff plus or projection systems that include Savant are going to be the most powerful projection systems because they're going to take, oh, we've got some observed results on the field. We can take something out of this. Oh, there is something about how his athleticism translates to the field, but there's also the underlying athleticism that we can actually say

we can put a sprint speed in. We can put his arm strength in if we care, like if it moves a needle at all, you know, like on his defensive projections or whatever. So like, you know, it is still supremely powerful in terms of like just looking at it and then telling, it's the same thing as, it's really the same thing as Stuff Plus. You can't just look at Stuff Plus and be like,

I'm going to tell you everything about this player. You know, Elder probably has good good command probably has a good slider some guys who have good sliders have outperformed the model robbie ray was outperforming the model uh in terms of you know just throwing a slider a ton like sometimes you if you just throw a slider a ton you can do well uh but i will say that i'm fading bryce elder partially due to some things that are on that stack cast page and i'm still somewhat interestedce elder partially due to some things that are on that stat cast page and i'm still somewhat interested in gabrian hayes partially do some stuff that's on that stat cast page even as i have sat here and slagged the the top half of the stat cast page

for the last 20 minutes yeah i think the the percentile screenshot is the is the same version of small sample size you know it's like you're looking at one thing and you're like you think without context right yeah exactly like everything is within context like small sample sizes tell us a story but it doesn't tell us the whole thing on the whole season and you go through and like what's more powerful than every piece of information you can get on statcast so i think it's the way and it's also kudos to everybody else because so many more people are in line with wanting to know more and are digging deeper. And people sometimes are asking it in a good way like this, like, hey, is this worthless?

And these players, and then sometimes it's just people that are just like, why are we talking about expected stats? Why are we doing that? Why are we doing that? That's true. I've seen some real pushback against expected stats. And, you know, we don't use expected stats too much here, but we do use projections. And I've even seen some pushback against projections,

but I will go to the mat for projections because projections take a lot of that information and put it into context. And that's why they're so valuable. They can say, oh, max EV is not that powerful, but it's a little bit powerful. So we'll put a little bit of it in. Barrel rate's super powerful. We're going to put little bit of it in. Barrel rate's super powerful.

We're going to put a lot of that in. That's why projections are so cool. Projections definitely put you more at the poker table. Because now I'm not the biggest. I don't create projections. I don't live and die by projections. We have like six projection systems on Fangraphs. You can pick your poison.

But I like them. I like them. And what I feel is that's where it puts me with all of the cards in the deck. And now I understand. And then I create the hand. And I understand my percentages better. Right. And then you can start being like, oh, my price to stay in on the Cabrian Hayes and

see what the river looks like on Cabrian Hayes has dropped to the point where, ah, I'm in. I know it's not great overall. but my price to stay in is good. I'm in. Or if the price to stay in is bad. And so everyone's going all in on, you know, Bobby Witt in a second year or somebody like that where you're like, oh, some of this stuff's not so good. I don't like this price. I'm not staying in to see this river, you know?

Yeah. So it's like projections tell you what game you're playing. It's like if you think you're playing, if you think you're playing if you think you're playing texas hold them but they're really going omaha and you're now getting four cards it changes it so it's going around okay so this leads into another great question i know we were going to talk about a player that was going to lead into this but let's just do this because we've talked about stuff plus and we're kind of on a roll we are going to go through a few players hopefully but i hope you guys are enjoying this uh we had a great listener question and dvr and i were talking about this earlier in the week, and this was about stuff plus

variants. So this is from Eric and he goes, I really enjoy your podcast. Thanks for the really interesting analysis. And he says, my dog gets extra long walks when I'm listening to your show. So shout out to Eric's dog. He says, I have a question for the mailbag. If you have time, have you done, or are you aware of any longitudinal analysis of Stuff Plus? I didn't say that right. Over the course of the season, for example, are there pitchers that tend to maintain Stuff Plus consistency over starts better than others?

Any common characteristics amongst pitchers who improve Stuff Plus in the season? Thank you, Eric. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. pitchers who improve Stuff Plus in the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton bike or bike plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access membership separate. Terms apply. So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? The answer is FedEx. Okay, but what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all... is FedEx. Okay, but what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx. Oh, but let's say that... FedEx. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions.

Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next. Yes and no. The whole idea of Stuff Plus is that when you're looking at a given pitch type, it does not change much over the season. In terms of stabilization points, it's 18 fastballs, you know, before Stuff Plus is basically online for a picture.

And then you'll be like, well, I don't know. Guys have changed their Stuff Plus over this course of the year. How could that be right? One, we have to altitude adjust Stuff Plus because everybody who went to Mexico City just got super dinged. You know, so that's something that's in the works. That's something we can improve. Two, the easiest way to change your Stuff Plus is to change your mix. You know, so that's something that's in the works. That's something we can improve. Two, the easiest way to change your Stuff Plus is to change your mix.

It's super easy to do it that way. Just think about it. Start emphasizing a pitch that does well and de-emphasizing a pitch that doesn't do well in Stuff Plus. Your Stuff Plus is going to go up because Stuff Plus is an amalgamation of all the separate pitches. So that's why I think it is powerful to have the separate pitches out like that and it is sometimes useful just to go through uh you know different profiles that's why i talk about a lot on this uh on a lot of this podcast about how i like pitchers with large arsenals because they have a chance to you know promote one pitch demote another uh play around with that pitch mix, and change their overall stuff plus, change their overall outlook.

Somebody like Hunter Green and Graham Ashcraft are guys that look so great in stuff plus and haven't been looking that great on the field. Well, neither one of them has a third pitch. And what you see is they have a really hard time getting through the fifth and sixth, getting to the fifth and sixth and you know to getting to the fifth inning even they do they they can go real well for three or four innings and then then they fall apart so there is a relationship to the size of arsenal and uh and your ability to change it and you know this comes up a shoving on a basis that we haven't ever seen before.

Let me get this codified tweet up real quick. Yeah, I've got one from Slangs on Sports, if you want, real quick, too. Okay, yeah, yeah. has five, his five consecutive outings of six plus innings pitched and five or fewer base runners is a one outing shy of tying the longest such streak since 1901, who a couple other players that have six 2022, Jacob to Grom 2022, Shane McClanahan, 2016, Clayton Kershaw in 2015, Zach Granke. The difference though, those were at any point in their career. This is to start Bryce Miller's career. So this has been trying to kind of weigh how big he's been.

And if you didn't pay attention last night against the A's, it's really good to pinch against the A's. He went 6-8 and just gave up only two hits. I think he walked his first batter, struck out another 6, and he absolutely pops on the stuff plus. I was looking over on Fangraphs, and he's eighth. At least this was as of last night in stuff plus. I had to change the qualifications of innings pitch.

I think I did it like 20 or something, and he was eighth in stuff plus overall at 122. His fastball hit a 130 stuff plus, which was top six, by the way, and his slider was over 120, which he barely uses. And that was what I was tripped out about was I just don't know how he keeps doing it because it was 80 plus percent fastball last night. And is this so much of like,

I think he said it like, hey, why am I going to stop using my fastball because no one can hit it? Or is this so much about like, this guy really is going to try to live 75% fastball because, you know, you talk to him and he's still kind of toying with the sliders and the curve ball still kind of getting used to. I just don't know how much more is in the works for us this year and how can he keep maintaining? He's an anomaly. Yeah. And, you know, just after talking about sort of having a wide mix,

he's got four pitches. The curve and the change are below average, but close enough to average that you can believe in him. But he's not using them. I think he falls into the type of player that I fall in love with, which is big fastball and big mix, you know? And, you know, like Brandon Woodruff has a similar four-seam fastball stuff plus, has a 111 slider stuff plus, and a 106 change-up stuff plus. Brandon Woodruff throws his fastball a lot, you know?

And he loves it, and that's good, but I do think there's the mix and the command there behind it that if there is a day where somehow they are squaring up his fastball he has other options to go to there's also a thing going on here with bryce miller it's kind of interesting is that his slider does really well by stuff plus um but he's thrown 65 of them and he's only gotten eight percent whiffs on it so far and uh i i don't know exactly what to do with that.

32% fouls is a lot, and in terms of what they're doing with the pitch, they're hitting 071 on the slider, but it's fair for people to wonder, is this pitch going to continue to be good? I would say stuff. Plus, it says it's going to be good, but I have noticed,

I was watching the last start. Sometimes I feel like there's an auto take from pitchers and he threw a, a slider that was like two inches off the bottom of a corner of the strike zone. And the batter didn't even flinch at it. Was it early in a counter something like why, how would they even, is he like,

how would there be an auto take on a, especially a slider when that mix is always fastball what do you think the auto take was a certain point in the at bat or you think like they just have a good read on the slider and no one's touching it um that makes sense how i said that yeah yeah i don't know can you uh show our readers this thing i put it in the chat uh yeah let me know how fast that you can do that but it should be pretty quick here um okay so this is a player card from bryce miller and on screen now yeah so if you can see the dots there those are his release points and um they're different uh he has a different like it's pretty like they're they're different for each pitch and they're like you would want these to all be kind of hugging yeah um but uh i've looked into release point consistency i've

seen other people do research on it and i haven't uh found anything predictive there i also think look at highlight that force seam, now highlight the slider. I mean, what's the difference there? Let's see. 5.63. It was 5.63 average vertical release point and minus 1.03 average horizontal. 5.87 vertical release on the fastball,

minus 0.78 horizontal release point. So that's three inches inches 2.9 inches wow do you think do you think a hitter can see that you would think so you would think well you know what's so interesting about this too is his fastball it's it's so crazy because i was i said this on cbs so good i mean like there was this one pitch it was one specific pitch last night and i i forgot for life of me i can't remember who it was against ramon lariano or something and it was only like a 94 mile hour fastball but you would think he threw it 127 miles an hour how late the pitcher or the hitter was and he threw it dead center in the zone it It was just right down the fricking middle 94 miles an hour. And the guy was so far behind it when he throws almost 80% fastballs.

And there's something about the whip in his release. And maybe it's the high point as we're looking, you know, at this player card, we're looking at where he releases it. There's something that it does to the fastball that makes it better but to your point it does stand this is a pretty dramatic i wonder i'd love to almost see like should i type in somebody i would like to see the release point of somebody else that kind of shows like de grom de grom de grom is always the guy will he come up

if i type him up here at the top or i think so yeah how will this work jacob degrom anyone picture card let's see if i can do this i'd never go to scatter charts uh scattered chart okay and then put uh vertical release point uh put y-axis vertical release point let's see where is that you're right you were right there y-axis vertical release point oh vertical release point okay and then go down to the next one x-axis and then horizontal release point horizontal okay no no that's horizontal movement oh whoops horizontal release point okay bear with us here i mean those are those are hugging i mean okay so if you're watching on the video which by the way you should go subscribe to the Rates and Barrels YouTube channel. No reason not to to check it out.

Oh, and do a quick date selector. Just do this year. The very top. Let's see. Quick date selector. Just 2023? Yeah. Okay, so this is a great example difference of what he was trying to prove here.

Yeah, those are right on top of each other. These babies are a bunch of paint just all in the same spot i mean these are within point like you want an example here curveball average vertical don't do curveball because that's always going to be the craziest do fastball slider okay so right on top of each other they're so close i can't even yeah right yeah slider is 5.79 vertical release point i just want to point out to yeah i mean this is crazy they're within point the 0.10 of every single pitch where we saw what did you say 0.3 inches difference and you saw three inches of difference between each pitch it looked like for bryce

miller and specifically the fastball slider so i there could be something there. But that fastball is so good and the pitches are so good. And they're still hitting.071 when they do swing. I know batting average on a pitch type, small sample, noisy. But, like, they're not succeeding on it. They're just taking it a little bit. And I think even if they start taking it, like he can throw it in the zone more. So are you like a buy that this is going to maintain the rest of the year,

even without the secondaries right now? I love him. I love him. I love him. I love him. I love Bryce Miller. It will be good to see. He's gone up against like,

I think like the Braves is his biggest competition. So it'd be good to see when it's, you see when two of those starts have come against the A's. I think the Astros will be interesting because they have a really aggressive coaching style. They also are highball hitters that all target the top half of the ball against a riseball guy. Bregman has a very specific plan against rise ball guys uh so you know I think you know an Astros start would be and it would be a big test for him the only thing I guess I didn't follow up now I just I don't want to move past this going back last thing to the release point of all those pitches and how different they are is that the thing that makes you worry about why there's an ineffectiveness? So like, let's say people start hitting the fastball and he's like,

okay, now I do have to adjust that you might, and he might struggle if it has to go more curve, more slider because the release points are so different and it might be viewable to more advanced hitters. Like, do you think when he comes off of heavy, heavy fastball,

if he does that, that's going to lead to more problems? Because I think if you were to say like, oh, hey, Bryce Miller can go to three other pitches if he starts getting hit, everyone would be like, oh, this is awesome. This feels good. But are you worried that once those start to go in,

pitch hitters are really going to be able to kind of tell what's coming in and he might get hit up more than we're ready for. Again, I don't need sense in how I said. No, no, it's the only thing that bothers me about him um but i will say that there's a person on his team uh that kind of um tells you a lot about where a player can go with this profile so in 2020 in 2021 logan gilbert In 2021, Logan Gilbert had a 12% whiffs on the fourth seam, and the slider was okay, but he didn't really have whiffs on the curve. In 2023, Logan Gilbert is getting fewer whiffs on the fastball

because it's not quite as good, but he's still getting a lot of whiffs on the fastball, and now he's getting whiffs on a slider, a curve, and a split. So, you know, it's nice to just have the foundational pitch, right? Like he's got a great fastball. And he's got good command. Yeah. I love the long term.

How will, like what will, yeah, exactly. I love the long term. I love the short term. The medium term, maybe there'll be struggles. But almost every starter has some point where they struggle. You know, maybe he, instead of throwing the kind of sweeper, two-plane curveball, he goes to more of a gyro, whatever. He has learned three sliders.

He knows a true sweeper that's sideways that we don't even see that much in the big leagues. He has this two-plane curveball that he throws that's called a slider right now. And then he also has a gyro slider. Or he has a curveball. I don't know. He has three breaking balls. He calls like a gyro slider so or he has a curve i don't know he has three breaking he calls it a gyro he told me he called he says i have two sliders in his mind because he defiantly has a curveball he says he has a sweeper and a gyro but he's uncomfortable with

throwing the gyro right now right so but that's three avenues forward great fastball three breaking balls he's thrown before you know a change up that looks at least average i don't know man that's three avenues forward. Great fastball, three breaking balls he's thrown before, a changeup that looks at least average. I don't know, man. That's something I'm betting on. Yeah, it's very interesting. Another guy I wanted to bring up because of some interesting changes, Michael Kopech.

Michael Kopech in his start on Wednesday, seven innings, gave up only two hits, walk one, nine strikeouts, 16 whiffs. Overall on the season, by the way, fastball, ninth stuff plus, which I thought was interesting. Lance Brozdowski, who we've talked about, had an interesting tweet about Michael Kopech's release point was down around three to four today relative to his average over his prior three starts.

He was able to maintain the shape of it, which was 17.5 IVB, and he picked up a mile per hour of velo and added one on the arm side run. Also, you saw two miles per hour uptick on his slider. So is what Michael Kopech adjusted and changed to something to buy in on? Are you buying in back on Michael Kopech? Because he's available in some leagues out there yeah it's really interesting that he just had the second or third most horizontal movement on his four seam in his career um and uh of any game in his career and uh improved his uh change up uh run in the process by doing that um and maintained decent vertical movement, especially when you consider that

if you look at Brooks for vertical movement or something, that is not adjusted for release height. So he maintained decent vertical movement and lowered his release point, which means that his actual vertical attack angle is better. If you think about it, if you have the same amount of movement from a lower point you're staying straighter uh in terms of just geometry

and physics so uh i i don't know i see this guy as somebody that i bet on i dropped ronzi contraris two weeks ago for michael kopeck in tgfbi um and it felt a little aggressive at the time but i saw that copec had i think it was detroit and cleveland uh coming up and i saw that uh copex uh you know his uh his his stuff plus on the fastball and the slider are good and his curveball and change are near average he he's actually reminds me without looking at anything else he reminds me a little bit miller right he's got this big big fastball and he's trying to figure out the other pitches if this newer release point makes his other pitches better like his change up better then i think that's great but generally he's somebody that I bet on just due to the stuff with an eye towards the schedule.

So I want to, while you give me your thoughts on him, I want to look at the schedule and see if I can figure out where he's starting next. Yeah, I'm encouraged by the adjustments. I mean, what I'm also fascinated by, not to like not answer your question, but is the amount. Yeah, again, I do that and turn it into something else. But like these guys that are making in season adjustments, I feel like that some was

something that so many people didn't want to do like 10 years ago. And I thinking about, you know, changing a release point mid year this year and thinking about you tweeted about Logan Webb, uh, toying with a new grip on a slider and like doing that in season, I think is so fascinating. The amount of these guys that are making these changes, which is also why like a sample of what we've seen doesn't is not a dictation to what the whole year can be.

If so many players are willing to make changes on a dime right now. And it is this change in pitch mix and sometimes change in actual what the pitch is. Last 400 pitches and stuff plus has a little bit more signal than full season Stuff Plus.

So we're now getting into the part of the season where you can look at last month with the slider on Fangraphs, look at last month's Stuff Plus and see if you see a change. Kopec next week has a two-step. Angels at home, Tigers at home. I'm in. I think I'm in. I mean, the Angels is a little bit scary, but the Tigers is not.

And it's a two-step. One, two, three, four, five. After that, Marlins at home. One, two, three, four, five. Mariners in Seattle. One, two, three, four, five. You don't get till June 21 and the Rangers at home where I get at all nervous.

Pretty good month run. Michael Kopech moving up ranks, I think. And especially if he can maintain whatever this new release point is, it seems to be effective. It would only be appropriate because I'm here to talk about one prospect. We'll do real quick. I just wanted to bring this to attention because we had just talked about him

and Eno was like, I don't know so much about this guy, but Andrew Abbott, who was definitely a product of the tack ball in double A, comes up to triple A. Had like insane strikeout numbers, like 20K nine in double A with the tack ball in double a comes up to triple a had like insane strikeout numbers like 20k nine and in double a with the pack tack bonkers so he he had like he literally had a 20k per nine well i think he had like a 22 ivb or something 21 or something crazy yeah it was like yeah it was like 19 or 20 or something like that but um on wednesday 21 whiffs in triple a he went six and one third give up only two hits he did did walk three, struck out nine.

Now five of six AAA games, he has seven or more strikeouts. So as much as he definitely took advantage of the tacked ball in AA, AAA, you're seeing the strikeout numbers maintain again. And he far and beyond, I believe the next most whiffs in AAA yesterday were 14, and he had 21. This was against the Mets AAA team, which downed some talent that they were putting out there. But I'm just curious at any thoughts. I think you might have even pulled up some of the Stuff Plus numbers.

I know he hasn't been popping like crazy, but this is another one of those where it's like Stuff Plus isn't telling a big story about him where his stats are pretty robust in the minor leagues. And he does look like he's getting close to a major league stint if the Reds are trusting. They keep bringing up arms, so he seems to be next in line. I think the Stuff Plus numbers actually match the Fangrass grades on the different pitch types fairly well. Fangrass gave him a 50 fastball. I've got a 90 Stuff Plus on the different pitch types fairly well. Fangraphs gave him a 50 fastball.

I've got a 90 stuff plus on the four seam. Those are possibly compatible, especially since we don't know when they gave him the 50 on the fastball, right? The curveball 55-60, I've got a 108 stuff plus. So that's his best pitch and it's in line with that. And then this is where it might get a little bit controversial because you were saying that his changeup was getting a lot of whiffs. Fangraffs has a 40-45

on the changeup, and I've got an 89 stuff plus on the changeup for him. So the model is not always as great on changeups um but it matches the scouting grade they put on him did you say that he got a bunch of whiffs on the change-up he did and of course i went away from the page and we all know it's baseball savant so it would take me into the next show to be able to pull it up but yes he i believe if i've remembered correctly i think i want to say it was an 80% whiff rate on the changeup. He had like four plus whiffs, I think, on every single pitch.

And he always did this weird StatCast thing where 25% of his pitches were under unknown with no information. I'm assuming that was like a variance between his fastball and sinker or whatnot because the other pitches were there. But yeah, he was very effective on all three pitches. Yeah, and that unknown, by the way is gonna mess up uh stuff plus if that's a hard pitch you know we're stuff plus measures off the fastball so if that's a hard pitch there's 20 like that's 25 and the very least is 25 points of data that we don't have in stuff plus. And I believe he had 12 whiffs off the fastball. I might be actually making up the curve and change up being crazy, crazy effective.

I know they were good, but I fight again. I'm just trying to remember this. I think 12 whiffs came off the fastball, but another five came off of this unknown pitch. So if that were the fastball, that would be 17. Is it a cutter?

You know, if that's a cutter, that's a hard pitch that goes in with the fastballs. So I would say that there's still a fair amount of unknown. It's a little bit annoying to me, but you always have to treat AAA Stuff Plus as not as robust as Major League Stuff Plus because they just don't clean the data as much.

We got 25 points of data from his last start that are not in here. So I would say that you know the scouting grades matching up with the stuff plus is interesting the 30 present 45 future command on andrew abbott with the walk rates that he's shown twice in his biggest samples he's given up a 10 plus walk rate i would say that this is not um i'm not sure that's of the class of bryce miller bobby miller uh taj bradley uh tenor bybee i i hesitate to put him in that group and he's going to be pitching with the red so we'll have to see how that goes pitching in cincinnati it's not great one of the toughest parks in the big leagues, if not the toughest.

I mean, it's right there. Top three toughest. Yeah. What's up with that guy, part two? You can check it out. It's Eno's examination of seven struggling hitters, which is available on The Athletic right now. And guess what?

If you go to theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels, you can sign up for less than $2 a week. That is a current deal I see right here on here. So you can go and do that. You can sign up under the rates and barrels code, or you can just go find the article, go to Eno's Twitter handle at Eno Saris, and you can go and you can have fun

and you can pick around. You can check out the articles, click there and sign right up. You can check out those struggling hitters. You can find them. Trey Turner, Jeremy Pena, you know, a lot of good stuff in there. Yeah, there are a lot of good names in there, too.

And I've been kind of honed in on Trey Turner. I ran a poll about Trey Turner versus Bobby Witt. So I think all of those things kind of combine fun. You can find me on Twitter at IsItTheWelsh, Eno at Eno Saris, of course. And I believe you and Al will be rocking it on Friday. Good thoughts to DVR that he's getting some sleep during this time. And thank you, friends, for hanging out with us and I hope you guys enjoyed it. We'll talk to you next time

right here on Rates and Barrels. Thanks for listening.