Rates & Barrels - Assessing the NL Division Leaders & Checking In on the Nationals' Rebuild

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

Eno and DVR discuss the three division leaders in the National League, examining the strengths and weaknesses of the Phillies, Cubs, and Dodgers with the Trade Deadline looming at the end of the month. Plus, they check in on the Nats' rebuild, where the return in the Juan Soto trade hasn't been supplemented with enough to push the club into playoff contention.Rundown1:07 The Phillies Atop the East; Will They Stay There?15:54 The Cubs Attempt to Hold Off the Brewers and Cardinals29:28 Separation for the Dodgers in the West39:17 Checking In on the Nationals' Rebuild46:23 A Surprising Stat From the Nationals (2020-2025)Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.socialFollow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.sociale-mail: [e-mail] our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFeSubscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrelsHosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno SarrisProducer: Brian SmithExecutive Producer: Derek VanRiper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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into what's next. It's possible here, in Calgary, the blue sky city. Learn more at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Tuesday July 1st, Derek Van Ryneper, Enos Saris here with you on this episode. We take a look at the division leaders in the National League, we'll talk about some strengths and weaknesses, what those teams will need to do to hold their position atop their respective divisions,

and types of upgrades they might be considering as the trade deadline approaches at the end of the month. We're also gonna check in on the Nationals rebuild, because things are not going quite as well as they could in DC, even though they have returned a ton of major league talent from that Juan Soto trade with the Padres three years ago. Hard to believe that was three years ago already, but as we keep saying, time is flying seemingly faster than ever.

If you have not done so already, be sure to join our Discord, the link in the show description, subscribe to our YouTube channel and be sure to smash the like button on this video. You know, let's get started in the NL East. Philly is currently atop division and of course the question on the cryon is will they stay there? The question really we're going to ask about all the division leaders but this Philly's team is a little bit different than what I expected. They're tied for eighth in Woba.

They're only 16th in Homer's. I know Bryce Harper has been banged up so that's part of why they're lagging in that department. 11th in runs scored. The strength is clearly with the starting pitching. First in strikeout minus walk percentage with their group of starters 19.2%. They're tied for first in starter ERA. Obviously a first in F4 by a healthy margin, by multiple wins. So everything is going really well with that part of the roster despite an ERA over 6 from

Aaron Nola and the 9 starts he made before going on the IL. A familiar problem though with this Phillies team, the bullpen just isn't good. The relievers are 25th in ERA even though they're 13th in strikeout minus walk percentage. The main problem being, they have the third worst home run rate of any bullpen in Major League Baseball right now. And then defensively, this is one of those teams you look at and say, wow, minus 34 in defensive run saved,

that's not good, that's 28th, only two teams worse. They are 12th and ounce above average, so maybe, depending on which defensive metrics you're looking at, you can talk yourself into this being something closer to average as opposed to a bottom of the league sort of defense. But are you surprised at the the makeup of this team given the effort that was put into the bullpen and thinking about how the lineup was such a strength all along. Like the way this team was built, I always thought they'd be like a top five

lineup around the core they'd put together. Yeah, it's, I guess, somewhat the perils of building and free agency. Am I wrong with that? I mean, they're older, you know? And it's like, they seemingly sort of, it's almost like they built the lineup and then they built the rotation and then they worked on the bullpen, right? And by the time you get finished working on the bullpen, you got to work on lineup again. Because the lineup got older, you know? And I guess, you know, the other thing is,

you can't spend full bore on all three elements of the game, you know? And so they've skimped on basically defense at first, then they tried to make a bunch of moves to improve the defense, push Kyle Schwaber to DH, push Harper to first. That left the outfield open for business. They prioritized defense on some of their acquisitions in the outfield open for business. They prioritized defense

on some of their acquisitions in the outfield. And some of those guys just aren't playing up to snuff. So Brandon Marsh not playing as well is too bad. Max Kepler is just doing exactly what he did last year with no improvement basically. And with Nick Castellanos being a free agency acquisition, he's sort of, he's projected to do poorly and takes a lot of his value away from defense. So it's one of the worst outfields in the big leagues and it's, it's too bad because they've worked on it. You know, they've, they've worked on it. The good news is, I think an outfielder is much easier to get at the trade down line than it is to get a short stop or, you know what I mean?

Or a specific infield position. The outfield is more amorphous. Can they play centerfield sometimes and corner sometimes? Can they just play either corner? I also think that there are a certain amount of outfielders that might be available. I was just sort of, ow, checking. Ow. You use this workspace every day.

What bit you? I hit my elbow. Anyway, Jesus Sanchez. I want him. You know, he could. He's not terrible defensively. He can play in the outfield. He would be an upgrade on either corner outfield.

But you know, just basically play left field, push Max Kepler to the bench. I think Jesus Sanchez could be somebody they could pick up I don't know if the list is super long, but depending on which way Cincinnati goes They've got it could do to Austin Hayes reunion They also have some interesting up-the-middle guys in Fraley and Friedel that could be mixes So, I don't know. I think that that part is Fixable people been talking about how bad their bullpen is, relievers are available at the deadline. So the nice thing is they're pretty good at all facets of the game. There's nothing that's terrible, you know, they're pretty good at everything

and the things that they need seem to be the things that are available at the deadline. Go get Jesus Sanchez and Anthony Bender as a combination, You know, that can't even cost you that much. Right, right. I mean, they can go relatively cheap at the deadline, and it wouldn't be complete malpractice. I think the thing about the roster and the way it was built and being aggressive in free agency and trading for more established players, yeah, they get a little older, so their window is not going to be open for five more years with this current core. It's open for like this year and next year. And then maybe by 2027, they're asking some more difficult questions about

how to move forward and how to tweak this roster in a way that's going to keep them from falling into a rebuild, because that is definitely on the longer term horizon. I think when you start to look at where things are going, Kepler, at first glance, I had the exact same reaction you did as like, oh, this is just more of the same from Max Kepler. He is hitting the ball harder. More barrels, better hard hit rate than last year, somehow has a 70 point drop in Babbitt.

Projections point to much better rest of season numbers than what he's done so far. Yeah, but look at that fly ball rate. You know, he's going back to the Max Kepler that hit nearly 50% fly balls and had Babibs in the 230s. So it's not a guarantee that he goes back to 300 Babib. He's kind of into that pull everything in the air mode. And it's okay for power,

but a 165 ISO is not really worth it for all that. I think he could benefit from a little bit of, you know, smoothing and outline drive approach for a little bit. Either way, we talked about Taylor Ward previously as another guy that could be a good fit there, so adding an outfielder. Ryan O'Hearn.

Ryan O'Hearn could be nice for them. Someone that could play more center field, but also be good to add to the mix. I can't figure out what's wrong with Brandon Marsh. I know he had a pretty epic slump earlier this year that's probably made the numbers look a little worse than they are because he also spent some time on the IL but we've had several years of wondering if Brandon Marsh was going to reach that next level and last year maybe was the peak in some ways even though 2023 was statistically better.

The weird part of it though, Brandon Marsh has cut down on the K-rate this year. He's taken one of his biggest flaws and he's done a pretty good job of getting that down to a respectable level. A 25% strikeout rate from Marsh is something I ordinarily would have thought would have pointed to some really good things. And just like Kepler, rest of season projections are quite a bit better than what he's put in the bank so far. And you have to ask yourself if you really believe in that as the thing you're going to get over the course of the second half and into the postseason. Yeah, but you know what he does is he lets the ball travel with decent bad speed.

That's been what he's done in the past and he's letting the ball travel even further this year and it's the worst ideal attack angle of his career and he's done in the past. And he's letting the ball travel even further this year. And it's the worst ideal attack angle of his career. And he's hitting it the most opposite field. So he costs himself power doing this, but he gains, Brandon Marsh does, in contact ability. And you have to wonder if he went and got the ball, if he would have a 36% strikeout rate. That's what he did when he first got in LA, in Anaheim.

He had a 35% strikeout rate and a 14% swinging strike. So letting the ball travel for him is somewhat important. Maybe he's doing it too much right now and that he can't access that power. The power is what's missing, but it doesn't seem to be missing in terms of bat speed. Even his barrel rate is okay. It would be in line with what he's done before. He's just not pulling the ball as much. So at some point you have to say,

what are your goals here? Do you think you're a better hitter at 25% strikeout rate or 30% strikeout rate with more power? Maybe as the weather warms, he'll go for it. But I think that players that have that combination of like 30% strikeout rate and are letting it travel, they're on the razor's edge a little bit, you know? As that power begins to wane a little bit and they can't have opposite field power, they become a strikeout guy without power. Yeah, and maybe

there's a health component here. I know we've had knee and hamstring injuries this year from Brandon Marsh, most recently a hyperextended elbow. So, you know, of the games he's injuries this year for Brandon Marsh, most recently a hyper-extended elbow. So, you know, of the games he's played this year, maybe only a small percentage of them have been at 100% health, because some of that stuff goes back to spring training. But it just, it's the clearest area of need across the position player group,

despite the fact that they only have four regulars with a WRC plus above 100. Schwaber's been great, Harper's been good, Trey Turner's been good, and Nick Castellanos has been just a tick above average with the bat so far. So you could definitely see one addition there, maybe multiple additions to the bullpen, because Jose Alvarado's not gonna be on the playoff roster,

he's gonna be ineligible from that PED suspension. So even though you get him back for a stretch before the playoffs, that's an important piece of your able pen that's been missing and will be missing when you need him the most. It's a good point. I hadn't even remembered that. But the good news is, you know, they've got two games up on the mats. Ninety three percent chance of making the playoffs,

even if they fall behind the mats, the mats right now seem to be imploding to a certain degree. They're just, at least that's what Twitter would have me believe. I think it's just one of those stretches you go in. They've had some injuries to the rotation. They're relying on some guys. They maybe didn't think they had to rely on this year. I think the Mets will be fine.

I think they'll actually maybe push each other for the division as the season goes on. But it looks like the way they push each other, they'll still be the loser. We'll still have a wild card. So that's why the Phillies playoff percentage is so high. How much are we worried about this bullpen? I don't know. It's the same old problem. And then I guess the other part of that question is we talk about home run rates and how fluky they can be for pitchers, starting pitchers over full seasons. We're talking about relievers over a half season. So maybe some of the home run problems are just noise and they can perform more like

a league average bullpen even as a unit that they've built so far on top, before you start adding pieces to it, right? That's the part about them that I'm just, I'm really not sure what the true talent level in that bullpen is going to show us, especially without Alvarado. Yeah, and Oopsy likes the current kind of three setup guys, the three guys at the end of the bullpen right now. 350 ERA projection for Matt Strom,

a 309 for Orion Kirkring, a 358 for Tanner Banks. So that's a decent threesome. You just need to add to that. You get Jose Alvarado for the stretch run, and then maybe you want to add something to that. You don't have to add a lefty, you know, because Matt Strom is a lefty. There's the chance that as much as you want to develop Mick Abel and Andrew Painter as starters, that they help you as relievers at some point. Because they are known as gonna come back, and maybe that's the way Mick Abel stays on the roster,

you know, and maybe that's just the best way for Andrew Painter to help. So they're gonna manage those innings for Painter and Abel, and they want to keep them in the range of 100 innings pitched this year plus, so that they could be full-time starters in the future. But as any team like the Yankees or Dodgers know, if you're Ben Kasparis and Justin Robleski

and all these guys, you may be a starter one day and you may just have to be a reliever the next day. Do you think the Phillies deserve more credit as an organization that develops pitching and coaches pitching at a high level? I mean, you look at they traded for Lazardo, but we're getting a really good version of Lazardo overall, even though he had those two brutal starts back to back. Christopher Sanchez and Rangers Suarez are two guys that I think have exceeded my expectations in significant ways. I mean, they traded Curtis Mead for Christopher Sanchez.

I feel like they won that trade. And Ranger Suarez was never really expected to be even this good, you know? In terms of an acquisition, you know, a guy out of Venezuela that wasn't particularly young, didn't cost them a lot in terms of signing. And, you know, they're kind of different pitchers. It's not like Ranger Suarez goes out there and outstuffs people. He's kind of a large mix with command and Christopher Sanchez is more of an outstuffer. And yeah, I think that they have

different plans for different guys. They have over the top guys down low guys and you know, Nick Abel is kind of like the opposite of Rangers Suarez, lots of stuff and where's the command and they've managed to coach him to their best. So I so much respect for Caleb Cawthon. I think he's, Caleb Cawthon is like one of the best pitching coaches in the big leagues. I think him and Ruben Niebla and these guys are at the top of the Mount Rushmore right now. Yeah, I think that's been a huge part

of how this Phillies team has been as consistently good as they've been over the last few years, getting extra mileage out of guys like that. And then being willing to spend at the top. I mean, it certainly helps when you use your resources and get a Zach Wheeler and free agency, but the Wheeler editions are less effective when you don't have good threes, fours, and fives that are taking the ball behind them. And that's something the Phillies, I think, are doing exceptionally well. Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest

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Since we're new in Canada, all new customers enjoy 20% off your first purchase. Just visit bombas.ca. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot C dot C A and use code music to start doing good and feeling even better Let's move the focus over to the NL Central where the Cubs are atop the division trying to hold off the Brewers and Cardinals that lead in the division is just two games as we sit here on July 1st, two up on the Brewers, three up on the Cardinals, even the Reds are only five and a half back. I think we keep looking at the Reds as wild card at best, even if the numbers would say they could be a little more than that.

So I don't mean to dismiss them, but it feels like it's turning into a three team race in the Central. I think we looked at the Cubs going into the year, it's a down paper. If everything goes to script, especially after the addition of Kyle Tucker, this should be the best team in the NL Central. And I think it's played out, even though it's been at times where it looked like the gap was wider than it is now. It's played out about the way we expected.

You know, this is a good Cubs team that maybe has come together a little faster on the offensive side being second and Woba, tied for third and Homer, second and run scored. They've had to get by without Justin Steele for most this year, only 22 and 2 thirds innings before he went down with a season ending injury, but their starters are 15th and K minus BB percentage. They just got Shota back from the IL. It's a little bit like the Phillies where I look at the bullpen and go, are 15th in K minus BB percentage. They just got Shota back from the IL. It's a little bit like the Phillies where I look at the bullpen and go, okay, this is a unit that definitely needs some upgrades,

but it's kind of weird because it's a low K minus BB percentage, a 10.8%, and yet a 327 ERA? Very odd, and I could see maybe the ratios flipping a little bit for the Phillies bullpen and the Cubs bullpen as they're currently constructed. I could see them maybe converging at some sort of midpoint. We've talked about DeGrom as the pie in the sky

like impact starter they could get if DeGrom wants to wave his no trade clause and the Rangers decide that they're not going to, you know, stay all in for 2025. But beyond that, what do you think makes sense for the Cubs? They try and not only hold off the teams in their division, but close the gap between themselves and the Dodgers

who look like far and away still the best team in the National League this year. Yeah, lot there to unpack. I'll start with, I guess, the bullpen. You mentioned that their K-BP isn't very good. I think that what they've been going through to some extent is a sorting through process. And so they've sorted through and tried Ryan Presley in high leverage and moved him off of that.

He has a poor K-BP, poor stuff numbers. They tried Porter Hodge, who has better stuff numbers, but also kind of struggled with walks and I don't think he's in the mix to be the closer going forward. And they've sort of settled on the guys who do have good K-BPB. Right now it's Daniel Palencia, Drew Pomerantz, Brad Keller, who are getting a lot of the late inning numbers. So I don't know, they may actually have just sorted through some of the bad days when it comes to some of those numbers and found their bullpen. It is a bullpen that I think could be improved upon. If I

had to choose between this bullpen and the Phillies bullpen, I would have to say that I think they're both middle of the pack, maybe slightly better than middle of the pack, but I think they're both middle of the pack, it'd be a hard choice. I like Ryan Kirkering a lot, Matt Strom, I think maybe I'd take them by nose, but I think these are evenly matched in terms of bullpens.

I think both of them should add. You know, when we were talking about the building of offense, like the building of offense for Chicago is coming to fruition. It's free agency. It's young guys coming up. It's PCA. It's all this stuff coming together. So the office is in good shape. Where I have the most worry for the Cubs, and I just filed another urgency index for the starting pitchers and who needs starting pitchers the most. I think it is absolutely this squad, the starting rotation for the Chicago Cubs just needs help.

And when you look in terms of projections, only two guys have a sub four ERA projection in Matthew Boyd and Shota Imanaga, and they both have like high threes. You know, I was looking at the Cardinals, and even Sunny Gray has a better projection than the two Cubs. I mean, it's a team that could use, you know,

a fifth starter, I guess, if you want to improve upon Colin Ray. But it's actually a team that could really use a first through three starter. And if it's not Saniel Contra, and it's not Jacob deGrom, I don't know who it is. Who do you think is the best other than that? We have Zach Galin on our list fairly high,

Merrill Kelly, those would improve the team. But would you be afraid of those guys in a postseason series? And they seem so likely to go to a postseason series. I wanna get somebody that you might be afraid of. You're like, oh, the Cubs got who? That's the part that led us to the de Grom call before, but that just might not be on the table.

And then the other angle would be that they have enough young talent, if they're willing to move a higher end prospect, if they're willing to trade Matt Shaw as part of a deal, because Shaw looks like a spot in the roster you maybe would wanna upgrade for 2025. Like this is a really critical stretch, I think in this month to decide, are we getting a veteran to play third base for the final two months in the postseason or do we let it ride with Matt

Shaw? Because Shaw could be a really good trade chip in the right deal. It's not a guy you're just trading for the sake of trading, but it might unlock the possibility of a starter that isn't widely available right now. It's too much to pay for Eugenio Suarez and Merrill Kelly, right? Of course, yes. It's too much to pay for Mitch Keller and Brian Hayes. I think the way you threw that together with the two of the highest paid players on the Pirates,

not these guys, I just thought of how happy ownership could be but like yeah yeah we'll do that we'll move on from that the only thing that makes it a little bit different in terms of the Cubs what they're getting is that those guys are you know under control for a while it right multiple years of control and Brian Hayes is defense at third base is still phenomenal We talked about the shortcomings at the bat We don't talk enough about how great he is defensively at third base Maybe they're hitting teams like oh, yeah, I got something for him We circled the knees and looked at the elbows and he just does this

Remember I mean this is what I I'm laughing because this is why I have Andres Jimenez on like five teams Yeah, you may have a plan to do days are like we were looking at the biomechanics and we think we can fix them I was trying to come up with what would be an able pin though if they if they're able to do well with the group of starters they have like if Boyd and Tyon group of starters they have, like if Boyd and Tyon, Ray and Hortons in that spot right now, if that group does well providing depth, it takes wear and tear off the relievers a little bit, can you string together enough of an A bullpen,

assuming at least one upgrade at the deadline, with Palencia, Pomeranz, I think Brad Keller looks good as a reliever, even though the numbers aren't like off the charts good from a results perspective But if you told me Brad Keller is a top 25 reliever here on out this season And not counting for saves and fantasy like I could actually believe that like I've seen a few of his outings He looks throwing a lot harder. Yeah, he's got the good sweeper and yeah, and then you say okay healthy Porter Hodge in the second half

Maybe they've got a Yeah, and then you say, okay, healthy Porter Hodge in the second half, maybe they've got a guy there, and then Ben Brown, we talk about the lack of depth in his arsenal, put Ben Brown in that bullpen for the end of the season. Okay, that's four or five guys that you actually like in some capacity that can protect leads. That's kind of interesting. And then of course, defensively, this is a good team.

They're plus 49 in defensive run save, it's 11 outs above average, they're very good, no matter what defensive metrics you look at, and they're good at spots where it matters too. So there's a lot to like here. I don't like the Mitch Keller idea just because I don't know that he's, maybe he might be your third playoff starter, but I don't know if he strikes fear

in the heart of opponents. No, but yeah, he makes your team better and he gives you depth that you need for a couple of years, but he's not the short series, dominate-a-game guy that we think that they need to go get. That may not be out there. Yeah, not always easy to get. Is Sandy Alcantara himself that? It looked like he was for a couple of starts, and the last time out on Sunday it was a little

bit of a setback, so we'll see what these next few weeks bring on that front. And among the things that have gone right for them you know PCA playing at like an MVP level adding Kyle Tucker and having a really good deep line of Seiya Suzuki who we mentioned yesterday being really healthy and productive like top to bottom it's one of the more complete lineups you're going to have there's really not a lot of weaknesses there. The position player groups had Carson Kelly playing really well. Carson Kelly is actually the guest on Starkville this week. That episode will drop on Wednesday if you want to check out that interview with Jason Stark and Doug Glanville.

I look at the Shaw spot as probably the biggest weakness if Shaw doesn't get going. So maybe third base. Not one that you have to fix though. No. Not with that line up. No, you could leave it alone if you don't see something you like. But the bench has been atrocious. Justin Turner, John Bertie, Vidal Brujjan

have WRC plus marks of 62, 41, and nine respectively. Who's the nine? I think Brujjan's the nine. If you are trying to make smaller upgrades on the margins, I think adding a quality bench player or two. Like you could probably tell yourself a story that Justin Turner, based on experience and what he could do against lefties,

like he still belongs there. But you gotta upgrade at least one, possibly two of those spots, because the health you have in that position player group might not last. You may need to rely on one of those bench guys More at the end of the year than you have up to this point. Yeah, it's a good point Projections like them a fair amount better than the Brewers and Cardinals and there may not be a bigger

disparity between two-date performance and projected performance than the Milwaukee Brewers disparity between to date performance and projected performance than the Milwaukee Brewers. That's where they live, man. They live in the Rays and Guardians neighborhood of being better than their projections. Yeah, so it's kind of hard to just be like, oh, well then, you know, don't worry, Cubs, just focus on getting your best postseason roster together because, you know, the Brewers right now are two games back and yes they're projected for a 505 the rest of the way while the Cubs have a 525 projected winning percentage but even that will end up with them being three or four games apart at the end like what like what could happen like three or four games like you know they could have a series maybe against each other

late in the season, and that just flips that three games right on set. Yeah, they've only played five times this year. One of their games got postponed. So eight more matchups to go this season. No small lead is safe as long as there are that many matchups still on the ledger. The Brewers have some problems with the rotation,

but that's where they seem to excel. It's like, oh, we are just gonna call up Jacob Mizarowski and he's gonna be Jacob DeGraw now. And beyond that, they also excel at being like, who's this? Oh. Who's starting this game? Oh, look at him go five know, go five with, you know,

six strikeouts and two allowed and, you know, like just totally credible major league or out of nowhere. They might be doing it again. They just called up Anthony Siegler, who's been at Nashville for them all season. He signed a minor league contract in November, 26 years old, 277, 416, 465, 7 homers, 20 steals, 267 played appearances at Nashville, hasn't debuted yet.

They just love players like this. Is he 5'10 and like 210 pounds? Maybe a little smaller than that. But that's- Yeah, even smaller than that. It's like, man, they just go for it. Same player player type over and over and over again trying to make it work. Controls the zone. You know help his heart hit up.

And there you go. See what they end up doing if he gets a share of the time they've been given to Caleb Durbin over at third base. But maybe they're going to try and get away with it yet again. Let's go to the Dodgers where they have opened up a pretty big lead in the NL West. Remember when the NL West was loaded and it was a super tight division and the Dodgers with all their injuries are gonna have to look over their shoulder all year? It could still happen that way but it feels a lot less likely today than it did even six weeks ago.

I mean, what's it gonna take? The Dodgers have already weathered a ton of injuries, and this is still where they're sitting on July 1st. Like, they still have a seven and a half game lead over the Padres, they're up eight on the Giants right now, 10 and a half on the Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks have taken on a ton of injuries, so you can see the Dbacks just falling out of it completely,

and again, the lead's huge. So what is the concern? If you're the Dodgers, what are you worried about? What actually keeps Andrew Friedman awake at night, if anything? Or is he sleeping extremely well for someone running an organization? I think that only season ending injuries to your arms. That's the one thing that keeps Andrew Freedman awake. Because as long as they don't have season ending injuries, you

still have a shot at putting together a pretty tasty postseason rotation. That's all you're trying to do. You're trying to, as you did last year, outslug everybody and have just enough pitching to get to the final out of the World Series. And there's nothing that says that they can't do that this year, even when you look up and you're like, man, they've got two guys that need openers in this rotation right now and Justin Robleski and Ben Kasparis. And they've moved past Landon Nack and you know the cupboard is Emmett Sheehan and might

be Bear behind that. You know it just seems like this is the part of the year where the Dodgers seem a little bit gettable in terms of their rotation is just their, it's not their best rotation and then slowly over the next two, three months they're going to get guys back. Tyler Glass now is throwing again. Blake Snell seems like he's never throw again. He will. He'll throw again. You know, all these guys just look at Shohei Otani. Like he's going to stretch out the slowest way possible. He's going to throw three innings his next time and four innings the

time after that. And maybe finally get to five. Maybe he'll do four innings a bunch of times. And it doesn't matter because all you're trying to do is have Shohei Otani healthy in October. doesn't matter because all you're trying to do is have Shohei Otani healthy in October. So they figured out the blueprint if you have enough money is to just build the best lineup in baseball and then spend all of your time in development trying to develop pitchers that will replace your expensive injured arms that you've gotten in free agency. That's what they do. If they're gettable, it's maybe in the bullpen where Kopec is wild and Tanner Scott is wild. They're wild with big stuff and it doesn't seem as deep as it has been in the past and they are working their bullpen hard. But basically

what I'm saying is you hope to get them in a short series in October and you hope when you see them now that you just win a game or two and you get them out of town That's all I can say about the Dodgers. It's it's a pretty unassailable right now at some point Their lineup will get old but it's not now Hey, so what did you want to talk about? Well, I want to tell you about what go V what go V Yeah, what go V what about on second thought? I might not be the right person to tell you about Wigovie. Wigovie? Yeah, Wigovie. What about it? On second thought, I might not be the right person to tell you. Oh, you're not?

No. Just ask your doctor. About Wigovie? Yeah. Ask for it by name. Okay. So why did you bring me to this circus? Oh, I'm really into lion tamers.

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which has been kind of surprising. And it's not like they're on fire. They're 19 and 11 in their last 30. Like they're playing well, but it's not absurd. And it's not as though the Giants are 12 and 18 in their last 30, they're 14 and 16, just like the Padres. It's just been a little bit of head to head. And that's all you need is a little bit of space, I guess,

just to, I don't know. They're not unassailable, they make mistakes. Like the Michael Conforto deal looks like it was a pretty bad mistake. Yeah, but they can afford them for the reasons that you mentioned. They just develop enough talent where it works. I mean, the things that have gone better than expected,

Mookie Betts at shortstop, who no matter how much you believe in Mookie Betts as a guy that can do pretty much anything on a baseball field, I don't think you would have put him down for a plus eight in defensive run saved in the first three months of the season. He's a top 20 defender across all positions right now

by defensive run save. That is stunning. Like most of his value on the field is coming from defense at shortstop. Yeah, so they whiffed on Conforto, so they need a corner outfielder, easy thing to go get. If they don't want Conforto to have a lot of meaningful plate appearances in the second half

or in the playoffs, fine. But they also developed Andy Pahez, who looks like an above average corner outfielder, if not center fielder. Just by developing Pahez alone, they bought themselves the opportunity to just say, hey, we only have one outfield spot that we need to figure out. We can actually just figure it out by going Edmund Pahez Hernandez in the outfield relegating to Conforto to the bench and hey look, Haseem Kim looks like he's maybe we figured something out with him if he plays second base like we don't have any holes and we have

superstars in a lot of places. Yeah and they've done this with a first half in which Tyler Glass now has given them 18 innings, Blake Snell's given them nine, Roki Sasaki gave them 34 and a third, Gonsolin 36 before he got hurt, Blake Trinen eight, Kopec seven, Evan Phillips won't be back, but five and two thirds before he got hurt,

and now Otani's up to four innings after going two in his third start of the year. And it's very Razian in how they've done it is because Benzias Sparius has 56 innings pitched on two started games. Jack Dreher has 41 innings pitched on five started games. And Roboleski has followed as much as he started a game. And basically by putting all these guys into position to succeed and Making the landing as softly as possible. They've taken three guys that

You know, what is the highest draft pick of them Casperius round five? They're not gonna be a team that has a lot of super high draft picks. Jack Dreher was a non-drafted free agent and Emmet Sheehan might have been there. Nope, round six for Emmet Sheehan and Robileski we're talking about round 11. That is a good sign of pitching development in the minor leagues. Taking a bunch of guys that were drafted after round five and turning them into threes, fours, and fives, even if it takes an opener, even if it takes this or that, I think it's a healthy sign. Now healthy is an interesting word to use there because there may be something about the way they work that does not inspire good health outcomes. We know that the minor league development system for the Dodgers is really focused on VELO.

They have the best VELO in the minor leagues, fastball VELO in minor leagues among pitchers. They also have really poor zone percentages and command numbers in the minor leagues and their general philosophy as it was related to Lance Prozdowsky is you know put it on the green, what is it, like drive it far and we'll figure out how to put it on the fairway. You know, that's my game. I hit it really far. I don't know if it's going to the fairway, but I just swing away. Given that you could see how that might lead to bad outcomes because you're getting to

the higher VLO maybe earlier you're getting to the higher VLO maybe with poor command. Maybe that's poor repeatability of mechanics or whatever it is. So there may be something there where their development is leading to this. But also to be fair to them, injuries pretty rampant across the entire sport. And their free agent acquisition process does mimic the Rays where they do acquire guys that have bad injury histories. They know what they're doing. They know they're going to lose them sometimes, but they say, we just signed a bunch of these guys, two or three will be healthy at the right time. Well, and if you can do that with the deepest pockets in the

league or second deepest pockets in the league, maybe from a technical perspective, it doesn't hurt you as much. If you're wrong, you can, you can take on the higher variance, the higher risk situations like that. And by the way, last 20 games is where you get that separation. Dodgers 15 and five in their last 20. Both the Padres and Giants eight and 12 in their last 20. That's how you rip open a seven game lead quickly.

Padres and Giants have been in a tailspin. It's not been great for them the last couple of weeks. The reporting in San Francisco is getting high pitched right now. Just because they went and got Devers. And so I think there was a really like a lot of goodwill that was bought at that moment. And then there was a circling of the schedule where it's like, ooh, Miami's, White Sox, let's go.

And then they laid an egg. Teams you should have been able to beat regardless of whether you made that move for Devers anyway. Like you should take two of three in those series. That's just what teams that go to the playoffs ultimately do consistently. Like make your layups and yeah, I know there's a lot of calls for changes on that coaching staff right now in San Francisco. People are a little upset despite the big addition just a few weeks ago.

It's funny how three weeks can change just about everything. Let's check in on the Nationals rebuild here real quick. You know, the bigger question is, when are they going to contend again? Because I think when we saw the matchup with the Padres a week ago, a lot of emphasis was placed on the quality of the return the Nationals got back in the Juan Soto trade three summers ago, right? James Wood looks like a superstar, CJ Abrams is a starting shortstop. You look at Robert Hassel at least getting to the big leagues there's there's a lot that's gone right Mackenzie Gore has taken a huge step forward is now at least the ace of that staff even if he's done a

top 10 pitcher league wide yet like a lot went right there and yet the Nationals are not in that big group of teams that seem like they could make the playoffs in the NL. In fact, they're 14 below 500. We talked about Davy Martinez having his frustration kind of boil over in a post-game press conference a couple of weeks ago saying it's never, never on the coaches and that was a moment of frustration, clearly. When will they contend again?

Because the hallmark I thought of the previous good teams in DC that Mike Rizzo had put together was a little bit Dombrowski-esque. Being able to spend, thanks to ownership being willing to spend that time on top end free agents and being mostly right about that group of players. That was a huge, huge part of why they did it and how they did it. And the other part was having a couple of one-ones that were no brainers in Harper and Strasburg in that core. So I think there's a tension in their ability

to supplement what they did in that trade and a lot of questions about whether they draft and develop well enough to win, even though they did so well with the players they got back three years ago. There's a few things that as much as they've been doing well I'm worried about. I think they speak to a problem underneath. So here's the first one. Let's just look at the worst defensive teams in the league. Oh God.

It's very bad. And it's not like, oh, well, DRS likes them. I mean, yeah, DRS likes them a little bit better than the angles. It's an Easter egg for you on YouTube. We don't know how this happened. Angles was in the spreadsheets, a typo, and it generated a maple leaf that says Canada on it.

So I don't know what team in the database is. Go at a Discord. Who are the Canada angles? It's gotta be a fishing thing, but anyway. It's supposed to be the angels. Yeah, Nationals, DRS likes them a little bit better, but if you look across the three different ways that Fangraphs has defense measured,

it's pretty much a consensus that the Nationals had the worst defensive team in the big leagues. And if you look at their personnel for the Nationals and you look at like, you know, oh, how's this going to get better? What are they gonna do? It starts to get crowded because is Luis Garcia Jr. like a good enough bat to play first after Nate Lowe leaves?

Or is he gonna be like a Lourdes Gurriel type in the outfield? In which case, what do you do with Wood and Cruz? And CJ Abrams, if he doesn't play short, where does he play? If he plays third, who plays shortstop? You know? So it's not like, oh, we'll play them here and we'll figure it out. And then it's a little bit more reminds me a little bit more of O'Neill Cruz at short where it's like, we'll play him at shortstop as long as we can. And when the numbers say we can't do it anymore, we'll move him. Well, the pirates went with IKF at short because you can't really buy a shortstop in free agency unless you're buying at the very, very top, which maybe the Nationals will do.

That'd be really kind of weird to take CJ Abrams off a short for Bobby Shet. But like, maybe they do it. And then I was like, okay, well, I'll look in the minor leagues, because the minor leagues, I'll have an answer for me. Oh, look, they have Seaver King, 22 year old shortstop. Hey, maybe he comes up and pushes Abrams off.

Oh, what's the prospect right on his fielding? 30 present, 55 future from Fangrass. Maybe he's good enough, but he's not so good with the glove that it's obvious. Oh, and he also just has a 74 WRC plus in AA. So I kind of went through some different guys too. They have a guy named Kevin Madde who maybe he's related to Jesus but he's maybe he's the older brother because he's 22 and he's got a 130 118 WRSC plus in AA at 22 with a 4550 grade on his glove. It doesn't really sound like a short stop you know like when you get a 45-50 grade at shortstop, it's mostly like, oh, he'll play it second, you know, he'll be fine. Plus his offensive numbers are

floated by Babbitt mostly. There's zero power in there. So I just, all I'm saying is, do they have so many prospects that they're like, oh, we'll figure out the fielding. You know, we'll move the guys off to their better positions as we get better. I don't know that they do. I don't look in the cover and be like, oh, it's really obvious. Amos will move over and this guy will take it over short.

I don't see it. So there's a little bit of a fundamental problem here of we acquired a bunch of guys that maybe had some question marks about their defense, but we wanted the bats. Well, you got the bats. Congratulations. Oh, and then here's the other thing that I don't love about this offense. It is an above average offense, but when you look under the hood at what they do in terms of zone

minus chase, they are the second worst team in the big leagues. They chase at like a top five rate and they don't swing at strikes at like a bottom five rate. So you put that together, only the Padres have a worse approach of the plate when it comes to chasing and attacking in the zone. And we put that together with a little news item from the Washington Post that says that they are the only team that doesn't have a Traject system at this point. And you put that together with some things you know about Mike Rizzo and about the manager and the coach and the coaching staff there. And you just have to wonder, you know, are they being left behind on some degree to some degree? Are they using the tools of the past and expecting to have the same

success in a league that maybe has kept moving? How they don't have a trajectory machine? Sure, they're expensive. You're a big league organization. If the Rockies have that technology and you don't, you have failed. That is a missed opportunity. There's something that really surprised me. Since the Nats won the World Series in 2019 only the Rockies have fewer regular season wins. So they've been down big since that World Series win. That's kind of a brutal stretch. We're talking five plus seasons of trying to put the pieces back together. I have a proposal for you on our way out the door. This came from Alex Hampel. He's a senior EP on our video team

here at the athletic happens to be a nats fan pretty happy about 2019 of course but this is his proposal to make this team actually competitive for at least a wild card in 2026 how realistic is it okay draft Kate Anderson or Liam Doyle with the first overall pick in a couple of weeks that can definitely happen because they have their choice. Sign Kyle Schwaber this off season to about a four year deal, about 20 million per. That's gonna help the defense. Build his DH.

Helps your swing numbers. Gives you legit thump and he's your DH. Take on Sean Murphy's contract from the Braves, get them to eat some of the money or get them to take back Kebert Ruiz's also underwater but smaller contract So upgrade your catcher spot sign a reliever like Matt Strom in the seven to eight million dollar range and Trade Jacob Young or Alex call for a boring competent league average reliever. It's all pretty doable, right?

It's not an excessive spend. Is it enough though? Is it enough because it would give you a combination of Sean Murphy Nate Lowe Luis Garcia or Seaver King eventually at second base Abrams Brady House James Would Dylan Cruz once he comes back and then maybe a platoon. The offense is good. The Lyles, Hassel, Schwaber Yeah, just as bad. It's a bottom five defense in the big leagues Even if somebody improves somewhere and I lied, I guess I said it was an above average offense by WRC plus It's not but that offense would be that would be a back-end top ten offense Maybe right which could be enough if your rotation is Gore with Cade Cavalli

Sakura whoever you took with that one one pick You know, that's actually doable you know, that's actually doable. Like so, I don't know, do they have the ownership buy-in to spend even on a Schwaber-like free agent and can they find that trade, be that Sean Murphy or someone else to upgrade the catcher spot? That could go a long way. If you're catching defense is horrible,

that has a cascading effect on your pitching. So maybe that's the area worth spending on. In terms of what they've done in the past, I think more like maybe a more, you know, just sort of in line with that they've done in the past would be spend big on a, on a starting pitcher and hope that the offense is improving and know that you probably have somebody has to move to DH on this team anyway. But if they could like, you know,

get an Alex Bregman and a starting pitcher, you know, at the top of the market, that would be something that Mike Rizzo that seems like Mike Rizzo does. He takes an opportunity to strike at some point. It's not always when the team is obviously ready to go. So I could see him striking this this off season and getting one or even two high paid players because also some of the money that they deferred to their starting pitchers in the past has come off the books. There might be an opportunity to do something even bigger than what he's saying. Yeah but that's a reasonable plan from Alex Hampel so I appreciate Alex sending that our way because it hey it's at least exciting to think about if you're a Nats fan. That's what you want. You're stuck in last place on July 1st.

That's not where you thought you'd be at this point in the season. Good news is we have the AL version of this episode with Jed coming up on Wednesday so if you're a Yankees fan, a Tigers fan or an Astros fan you're like hey you kind of flew by those three teams. Now we planned it. We're gonna talk about them a lot on our Wednesday episode. We will have Britt Giroli back soon. We tried to get her back today, had some major technical difficulties,

so we'll have Britt on an upcoming episode as well. I feel really bad, because we kind of set up the Nat's talk thinking we'd have Britt today, and tech made sure that did not happen. As I said up top, you can join our Discord, the link in the show description. Hit the like button on this video

Especially if you made it all the way to the end and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel if you haven't done so already You can find you know on blue sky, you know, Sarah stop be sky dot social. I'm DVR to be scud at social It's gonna do for this episode of rates and barrels. Thanks to our producer Brian Smith for putting this one together We're back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening Thanks for listening. without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Summer's coming. Is your business ready? From hiring to inventory, iCapital helps Canadian small businesses move fast with flexible financing. We're not a broker. We're a direct lender. Apply in under five minutes. Approval in 24 hours. Up to

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