Rates & Barrels - Blake Snell, Yu Darvish & Ha-seong Kim to the Padres, buying low on new Rays, and the Cubs at the crossroads

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

Eno and DVR discuss the Padres' two blockbuster trades, whether the Rays will spend any money at all this winter, the Cubs' first step toward a potential teardown, Ha-seong Kim's decisions to sign in San Diego, and Josh Bell's move to the Nationals.  Rundown 3:58 Adjusting Blake Snell's Projection in San Diego? 11:52 Luis Patiño’s Clear Path to the Rotation in Tampa Bay 20:32 Francisco Mejia’s Restart 26:22 Will the Rays Spend On Any Free Agents? 32:32 Is Yu Darvish Being Over-drafted? 42:30 More Moves to Come From the Cubs? 48:34 Josh Bell to the Nationals 54:32 Ha-seong Kim Chooses San Diego 64:11 Other Somewhat Interesting Late December Moves Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Subscribe to The Athletic for just $3.99/month: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. The answer is FedEx. Okay. But what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all the... 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. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Monday, January 4th, 2021. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris trying to remember how to podcast. It's been a little while. You know, I feel like I'm kind of relearning how to ride a bike, so to speak.

We are back. We are back. It's a new year. I'm going to try and run 750 miles this year. 750? Yeah, that's my new resolution, I guess. I don't like, I don't, it's goals. I want goals. I want goals with numbers attached so I can actually track my progress. I've done too many resolutions like,

be a better father. Well, what are the metrics, man? What are the metrics man what are the metrics you gotta have our analytics team put that on your dashboard and you sign into wordpress dad metrics time spent with kids parks visited catches had you know all those things that's right but it was uh it was an amazing break uh we we we were all about the culinary masterpieces so i made oxtail uh we also pretty multicultural background for our family gathering uh we all brought our different um you know best recipes to the table

so i did my lamb chops uh from my family family i did some oxtail with some coaching from my jamaican side i did uh then we also had enchiladas are from uh my my wife's mexican side uh that's a big christmas meal and then we also had we call them flautas but they might be chimichangas i don't know what they are they're basically uh like not full burrito size but also not taco size um soft uh flour tortillas that you put basically like fajita stuffing inside and then fry it so it's bigger than a taquito. It's not a taquito. Some people think flautas and taquitos are about the same. And then a chimichanga is like a deep-fried burrito, and that usually has sauce on it and it's huge.

These are kind of like mini chimichangas, I guess. Yeah, I think of a chimichanga being more like the size of an egg roll, not to go cross-cultural with the food references, but a flauta and a taquito in my mind are very similar. I wouldn't be able to describe the difference. Those are skinny, small. That's almost like a taco size, right? Yeah, yeah. And a taquito, I mean, I don't even know if that's – is that a real food that people

eat in Mexico? That definitely seems like it came out of the Taco Bell lab. I don't think any of these things are real. But I do like them a lot. And so we had those. And then my brother-in-law brought some pho over, his mom's recipe. And so we just basically feasted. Did some of the roasts on top of that and just feasted.

It was good. Yeah. We had a similar experience, just tons of good food. It wasn't quite as diverse as the foods you had, but same thing. It was all about food, very small gathering. I got to see my wife's family for most of the time that I was off. And I was legitimately off. I barely checked Twitter. I didn't check emails at all. So I was very irresponsible as an employee of The Athletic, but I was off. I was on vacation. Happy to be back, though. Happy to be potting again, and happy that by taking a couple weeks off, we actually have some transactions to talk about. It took two weeks, but it happened. We

have a show's worth of material that is transaction-based. Thank you to the San Diego Padres. We don't have to talk about Kevin Smith signing with the Rays. We can talk about players that were traded. And the Rays and the Padres were at the thick of it, really. And it was really pretty wild to see this happen. On consecutive days, the Padres acquired starting pitching and very good starting pitching. The first deal was the trade for Blake Snell. So

we'll start with that. And I think in terms of Snell's actual value, going to San Diego probably is a slight bump up because of usage. I think what we just saw in the World Series is very fresh in our minds. But with Blake Snell, in my head, he has all the characteristics you want of a pitcher who goes to the order three times. The real concern we have is that he has multiple arm injuries in his not-so-distant past. So I think the risk here with the Padres would be if they push Blake Snell too hard, I think there's the possibility that he breaks down again. But that's a lingering fear with a lot of pitchers, right? So as you analyze Snell, do you see this being a neutral move

or an actual positive value gain for him going to San Diego? I think it could be positive in terms of counting stats, strikeouts, wins, that sort of deal. But I do think that will baby him to some extent. And it's not like he went from the Rays to the Cubs or Rockies or even the Indians, who surprisingly pushed their pitchers. The Indians got the most innings pitched out of their starters last year. But if we might maybe open it up to a year that softens the effect of 2020 and just look over the last three years,

we get still the Indians. The Indians push their pitchers hard. And the Astros. I think it may have something to do with the quality of their bullpen because the Nationals are third. And so you've got those organizations that may have pushed Snell the hardest. The Rays, if you do a three-year thing, are 30th in the big leagues in innings pitched from their starters. But the Padres settled in as, well, actually they're 25th in the last three years, but 15th last year. So I think the Padres are actually a team that has good bullpens if you think about it, right? They have good bullpens.

They do some interesting strategies. Not as much as maybe we want them to. They're not Razian, but they do some stuff with bulk middle guys. They've used Andre Morahan in a very interesting way. If you look at his usage, he's been kind of a two to three inning guy.

You know, so they will do some stuff to keep Snell healthy. They'll give him big breaks and bring up some of their minor league death, whether it's Weathers or Gore or something like that. They'll and they'll take him out early, maybe just not as early as the Rays did. So I think it's a slight bump up for wins just because he might be in the game a little bit longer. Slight bump up for Kays. Otherwise, pretty neutral. We have to analyze whether or not there's a DH in the National League because that would be kind of a major bump up

if he gets to strike out a pitcher twice a game. So two or three times a game. So, you know, I think a slight bump up for Snell. Yeah, definitely. One thing I was looking at was the splits leaderboard over at Fangraphs, and I wanted to see in the instances in which Blake Snell went to the order a third time, you know, how did he stack up to other pitchers? And I used this split from 2018 forward forward combined it all into one big number

and blake snell's batting line against 242 308 437 pretty good 318 wobba allowed it's 65th among 159 pitchers so he's certainly not bad and bad and right near the middle of the pack in terms of how effective he is in those situations. That's where a lot of that extra confidence comes from, aside from the fact that the arsenal is deep enough for him to keep hitters off balance. I think that's one thing you're going to find if you look at this leaderboard.

Guys at the top generally have three or four pitches they can rely on. That's a key. That was the thing that Mitchell Lakeman found, is that just adding pitches softens your third time through the order penalty. So that makes sense to me. But it's not just the pitches, because I do believe the snow and the pitches. We both pointed out that there's some injury issues.

You had them all sort of in front of you at some point. Yeah, he had a shoulder soreness in 2018 and loose body is removed from his pitching arm in 2019. Also had the accident with the shower pedestal, which I think we can kind of safely scratch off the ledger, at least in terms of long-term concerns. It will never be forgotten as a very weird injury. And every time I think about that injury,

I just think if you're going to lie, and I don't really encourage anyone to lie, I feel like the more vague you are with your lie, the better chance you have of people not questioning it. But when you get very specific about what happened, people immediately have the BS detectors going off in their head. And this reminds me of a time,

my sister broke her cell phone in high school. So this was a while ago now. And she was telling me before she told my parents, she said, oh yeah, I put it down on my math book and it slid off the dining room table and hit the dog's cage and the screen shattered. And I said, that's not what happened. What really happened? Because it was a ridiculous lie. It was like she was trying so hard to come up with something better than i dropped it and it's like you don't have to do that like just be vague about it and maybe you've got a chance there was a kid who told me he had um a sega genesis and i was like yeah sweet i want to come

over and play and he was like oh yeah next week next week next week and i was like i don't think he has a sega genesis and then finally i said dude i want to come over and play a second genesis and he goes oh can't dude it blew up and i'm like it blew up and i was like well let me just see the cartridges see what games you got maybe we can find somebody else that has a and go play your games your cartridges and he goes well that's why i blew up i stuck stuck all the cartridges in the Genesis and it blew up. I'm just like, all right. Yeah. He should have said, I stubbed my toe real hard.

Yeah. I stubbed my toe. Okay. Even if he told us the truth, actually just saying I stubbed my toe real hard, we'll go over better. Yeah. You're less likely to be questioned because of the lack of absurdity connected to your story

the other two are worrisome you know it is yes you know you can't you can't you can't that's part of why they even got snow is that you know he just he has not been able to put today of the bulk and he's had shoulder and elbow and those are he's had a surgery on the elbow and he's had time on the dl with the shoulder so both of those things he's had a surgery on the elbow and he's had time on the dl with the shoulder so both of those things are real things uh one of the things that's nice actually from the padre's angle is you know they're not signing him to a garrett cole deal you know they're not they get the next three years and they're hoping i think they're probably internally hoping that two of them are good, and that's spaced the correct way,

so that maybe one of them he's good at the same time as Clevenger. I think they're kind of looking at Lamette, Snell, and Clevenger and saying, at any given time, we hope to have two of these guys. Yeah, I mean, if you look at the last three seasons, Blake Snell is 25th among starters in war, tied for 24th, I guess, to be more specific, tied with Clayton Kershaw during that span. And Kershaw's thrown about 60 more innings. So you're talking about someone who's truly an impact starter. And that was the case when they acquired Clevenger. He's definitely nice. I would say he's nice. He fits the description of an ace.

And they added one more that we'll get to in just a minute. But the return they got is interesting for a lot of reasons too, because the Rays, I think everything they do draws a lot of extra attention. They really don't spend a lot of money and they make trades like this. And generally they do well in the long run. They don't necessarily crush it every time the same way they did with the Chris Archer deal. That was everything going perfectly for the Rays in a trade. But I do like the package they got back because they got Luis Patino as sort of a buy low. They got Francisco Mejia, who addresses a need for them behind the plate, at least for the next couple of years until one of their younger prospect catchers are ready. And they got young talent in the farm system too. Cole Wilcox, great pick from the 2020 drafts. He's pretty interesting. And Blake Hunt, a catching prospect

who might not be a catcher long-term. I think that's still up in the air, but a guy that looks like he's got a pretty interesting bat at the very least. But let's start with Patino for a minute. I was worried about Patino staying in San Diego even before they added Snell and Darvish because I wasn't locked in on him just being a fixture in their rotation. I thought he was going to be kind of the swing man. But I think in Tampa Bay, based on where they're at right now with the injuries and the departures, he's pretty clearly in their rotation plans now. he's pretty clearly in their rotation plans now so this is a an opportunity upgrade for him even if it's going to be maybe a bumpy ride here in 2021 yeah i i can't see them not not

you know inserting patino into the starting into the starting rotation i just they just the the needs are greater there and they they might be more likely to do uh more shenanigans this year given that snell is gone in terms of either piggybacking somebody or doing some opener strategy because i would say they have tyler glass now and ryan yarborough you know he graduated out of being you know in the opener situation i think he's a legitimate starter now so you got glass no on yarborough and then the rest it's just one big question mark. I don't even think you can put Michael Waka down as a definite thing. Then you've got Josh Fleming, who was being used as the bulk guy

with an opener. You've got Honeywell, who can't stay healthy. You've got Trevor Richards, who's got two pitches, basically, and was more of a bulk guy and not even like a four-inning bulk guy, more like two. Then you've got Shane McClanahan, who was coming up as a starter, and Brandon McKay, who I think are legitimate, interesting arms on the level of maybe Patino, who can throw now in the mix. But there are just so many question marks that I think you have to put

Patino in that mix. I don't think you cut off his ceiling at this point and put him in the bullpen. I expect Patino to start. I think he's probably ahead of McClanahan

and maybe ahead of McKay, definitely ahead of richards um i'd say he's well health matters a lot with honeywell but i think he could be ahead of honeywell and uh it could be right there as they're kind of their fifth starter type i think that what they're going to do with patino is what they did with uh tyler glass now in a way, which is find a way around his bad command. Patino had the fifth worst command plus among starters last season, right there with Zach Godley, just so that you can understand how bad his command was.

Also, ironically, right there with Lamette Richards and Glass nownow so those are the Garrett Richards Tyler Glasnow and Dillson Lamette are the three that were slightly better than him so I think that what they're going to do is what they did with Tyler Glasnow what they did with Tyler Glasnow was like don't worry about hitting corners side to side like don't worry about command side to side always aim for the middle of the plate when it hitting corners side to side. Like, don't worry about command side to side. Always aim for the middle of the plate when it comes to side to side. And just vary your up and down strategy, right?

Be at the top of the zone and the bottom of the zone. And don't worry about side to side. And that alone simplified things to the point where Tyler Glass now had some of his best years with the Rays. I think with Patino, they're going to do something similar. I haven't necessarily identified it right away, but it's like either maybe don't throw that change up. It looks good. It's a good one on paper, but you can't command it.

So just don't throw it, you know, unless you've got two strikes. Unless it's like 0-2-1-2 situation, don't throw the change up. And, you know, simplify things. Get four to five innings out of him and that's it so patino gets a better opportunity here but he gets like a league worst type opportunity one of those like four innings with the rays opportunities which from a fancy angle is uh infuriating probably i mean i think if they throw an opener in front of him, it optimizes his chances of getting wins for fantasy players. If they let him start like a traditional starter and then just give him a hook before the fifth inning, then we're pretty frustrated. I think it does kind of fall into the optimal usage range, though, where you could be more confident in the ratios than you would be if he went to a team

i always want to say the rockies when i think of a dumb team now i gotta think of some other teams but if he goes to a team that just lets him go five plus even when he's not pitching well the era and the whip could get pretty ugly if he's got a team that's gonna tightrope it more with his usage he's probably gonna come in with like a high three zra and maybe a bumpy whip because of the command issues leading to some walks. Yeah, you're right. I think the team to fill in here is a rebuilding team. And he could have easily have gone to a rebuilding team because the Padres traded them away for a win now situation, right?

So he could have gone to the Pirates, where I'm not saying that the Pirates are totally terribly run. I think there's some signs that they're changing things up and the culture there is changing and the technology, the data, the coaches, they're all changing. But the Pirates would have run them out there just because they don't care about winning games. They would rather see what happens when you throw Patino for five innings. They'd rather get the data and get the knowledge and have Patino improve. You know what I mean? So they're actually lucky. Patino owners in Dynasty and so on are actually kind of lucky

that he, in some ways maybe, that he went to a raised team that is going to try to get the most out of him and not sort of torpedo your ratios. Yeah, so I'm looking at him now. I had him just outside my top 100 when my first set of rankings dropped. I think he's going to move up probably 10 to 15 spots. I could see him fitting in maybe into the 80, 85 range. That would put him near. Here's a would you rather. Would you rather have Dane Dunning or would you rather have Luis Patino wins on stuff. And I'm trying to download this new stuff data that I got. From Ethan Moore, who was hired by the Twins to be an analyst for them. So congratulations to Ethan Moore if he's listening. But he also helped me on my stuff number for them. So congratulations to Ethan Moore if he's listening.

But he also helped me on my stuff number for starters. In any case, Patino beats Dunning on command and stuff. So I don't know. Patino's stuff plus is 104 and Dunning is 104. So they're a little bit tied on stuff but and they both actually have bad command dunning is actually 10th in in the bottom command i'll take the velo and patino um as a defining as a as a differential there um and i'll nudge patino ahead of dunning but he's in that sort of Tyler Molle, Dane Dunning,

Luis Patino. That group is very exciting to me. And I might just have three of those on my board until one of them disappears. And then I'll take one of the other ones. Yeah, I definitely feel comfortable taking him there. I think the earliest he's gone in any of the NFBC drafts that have been happening is the early 300s. I wouldn't be surprised if he ticked up a bit more than that. It's the raise, it's a top prospect, it's a guy people generally like. All of those things usually cause prices to tick up even further. Plus people are chasing pitching maybe more than ever before throughout drafts. But let's talk about Francisco Mejia for a second. I've never been convinced he's a real catcher, even though he is a catcher. I've kind of looked at this situation and thought

maybe they move him around a little bit. I think he'll split time with Mike Zinno behind the plate, but might pick up a little bit of playing time at some other position given the way that the rays move people around yeah i think this is the biggest boon for for me here um like the in terms of just like clear fantasy opportunity um i think they were trying to you know kind of move on from zanino and their catching tandem without me here was worse than the league uh withia, it has zoomed like a rocket up to... I can't find it now. 18th. Woo!

Number one with the bullet. The steamer projections are for a.244,.407, which actually,.407 slugging, that actually matches his XBA and X slugging for his career pretty well..250 XBA for his career,.414 X slugging that actually matches his XBA and X slugging for his career pretty well. 250 XBA for his career. 414 X slugging by StatCast. I think there's a little bit of upside beyond that. It won't come necessarily from the power, but I think the batting average. I think there's an opportunity for him to put together something like

the potential we saw in 2017 of hitting the ball hard enough and striking out 20% of the time and walking 7-8% of the time. That would be pretty dang good for a catcher. I think that would be useful in all two catcher leagues. He's sort of on that level is how I see it. Possibility for a guy to hit 260 with 15 homers. Yeah, and I don't think he was really healthy in the shortened season. When you look back at the second half of what was happening in 2019,

I remember writing about him in the ads and drops column, at least for single catcher leagues. I thought he became relevant. He hit 295 340 477 over his final 159 plate appearances that's just from july 1st on and six homers during that span k rates above 20 percent yeah decent exit velocity not elite or anything like that 88.1 but for a catcher for a switch hitting catcher to be 14 better than league average in the second half of 2019, this kind of feels like a buy low for the Rays as well. A guy that was a reasonably highly regarded

prospect not so long ago. And honestly, dude, this brings out the real flaws in my Blake Snell article. Because even though I got fairly close, I said, you know, Patino, Morahan, and Capusano instead of Patino and Mejia. This trade that happened, it is the Chris Archer trade again. You know what I mean? I mean, if you think about it, the flaw that I made was looking backwards at it

and being like, oh, Meadows is good. When they made the trade, I'm not saying that anybody said it was a bad trade at the time. What I'm saying is, Meadows was not necessarily thought of as highly as he was after he had the season he had with Tampon. And Tyler Glassnow

was maybe regarded as a reliever because the command was bad and he'd already had shots as a starter and it wasn't working. So this, you know patino some people think he might be a reliever he has the command stats of a reliever and francisco mejia some people think he's never going to be what he's going to be so this this is this is basically the same thing now i think what's remarkable is that they also got these other

two pieces uh one of them was drafted in 2020 and so has never played a day of minor league ball so they got no minor league stats from him at all but he was a high draft pick that was paid a decent amount of money and a bonus and the Rays basically almost like got a near first rounder in last year's deal I forget which one that was which is the one that just got drafted, Wilcox?

Yeah, Cole Wilcox. I may have misspoke earlier. He was projected to be a first rounder, but he was actually selected in the third round because of bonus demands. Paid him over slot. It's not clear to me actually who pays that bonus because bonuses were deferred but I'm sure that was part of the deal and since it's $3 million I bet you the Padres are paying.

Just to take a wild guess. But Cole Wilcox never played a Marley game and they went and got him but he supposedly an exciting arm. Never really heard of Blake Hunt before this trade, even though he was 69th overall pick in 2017.

So it's not like he was totally off the radar, but he's one of those guys that has power over hit tool, has a good arm, might be able to stick behind the plate. That's to be determined. Might have some flexibility to play some other spots. Hasn't shown that raw power in games yet. Hasn't demonstrated the power yet, really. And it might be one of those guys that,

at the lower levels, kind of needed 2020 to show something, to move forward, right? And maybe the Rays previously scouted him, saw something they liked, maybe they just saw an opportunity to, again, buy low on tools. I feel like I'm always defending the Rays,

and I'm really not. I think this is an interesting mix of players that help them now, and a couple players that could be really nice pieces for them in the future. And even if only, let's just say Patino's good, and Mejia's just kind of a guy, and just a filler at catcher,

and only one of Wilcox or Hunt ends up being an impact Major League player, that's not a bad return. That's an acceptable return, and it really hinges on how good Snell is in these next few years. But their goal wasn't necessarily only to get better. It was to get better and to save money, and I think there's at least a chance that they did that.

That part's not exciting to talk about. I mean, what is their payroll at right now? It's just ridiculous. It's so low. I mean, they theoretically could go out and spend some money. They've been able to do that for a while. 57 million right now. There's no way they're running an opening day payroll of 70 million or 75 million, is there? They're going to have to spend something. Oh, I thought you were saying there's no way that they would even spend that much you think they have to spend more than that i think they have to i mean we'll get some arbitration raises probably to factor in right

no that's factored in it's already factored in they're not going to spend much more than 70 or 75 then that's that's like the top ended last year at 66 and they're at 57 i'm just worried that they don't spend anything after this. That would piss me off. I mean, I'm trying to find the middle road in analysis when it comes to team spending and stuff like that. But come on. 57 million? Do you begrudge them if they take the money they're saving on Snell and go short term with James Paxton?

Because he was the free agent that in my head I said, if there's anybody out there that can come in and just be Blake Snell for you at a discount, it's James Paxton. You probably have a one-year or two-year commitment instead of three. And the A&E is going to be pretty reasonable. Given whatever they offered Morton, right? Yeah. $10 million probably. I think that's still on the table because it gets them to $67 million,

where they ended last year at $66. And it kind of undoes some of the damage they did with this trade. And then they have in Mejia some upside of a position that's been a problem for them offensively. And a guy that might hit for better contact than their current catcher right so we talked about this team needing to improve their strikeout right maybe one way they do it is not playing mike zanino sorry mike i'm not trying to be mean uh but dude strikes out a lot so they can make him more of a

backup and mejia becomes a starter and that they can make him more of a backup, and Mejia becomes a starter, and their strikeout rate gets a little better. And then maybe Eraz Arena playing full-time as opposed to half the season helps him there. And maybe Meadows not striking out 30% of the time because he's not hurt helps him there. So there are some players on this team that should play better next year, and there is some health stuff that could bounce in a better direction for the Rays next year

because they had, I think, the second most pitching injuries in baseball this year. So, you know, some of those guys could come back. Think about all those guys that got hurt. I mean, Poshay, is that how you say it? Poshay, yeah. Poshay got hurt. I think Beeks got hurt.

He was pretty good I think by the end of the season Anderson was hurt They did just trade away Jose Alvarado Who was hurt But there were some fair amount of injuries on that pitching staff So some of those guys come back and pitch better You use Paxton to push

Walker to the 5th starter And then you see what Pacino gives you in spring and if he's in the starting rotation or if he's a bull guy or what he is. Yeah, they'll find a way to be good again. It's a little annoying. The whole thing is a little annoying. I'm hoping that a team willing to spend like the Jays can temporarily pass them. I mean, it'd be unfair in some ways

if the Rays made another deep run after slashing payroll like this. And that kind of operates under the assumption they're not going to spend much because I really don't think they will. Closing the book quickly on Mejia, I think he is fringy maybe for like a 12-team, one-catcher league.

I could see him maybe being good enough to play in those formats firmly in the mix, of course, in two catcher leagues. Probably a guy that is somewhere in the 20 range at the position. That's where I've got Carson Kelly right now. Joey Bart, I'm a little worried about early season playing time. Posey's old. Molina's old.

You could probably talk me into Mejia ahead of those guys. That would even push him closer to like 15th at the position. Maybe. Yeah, the interesting thing about the old guys is when you're talking about that part of the rankings, you're talking about you punted on catcher, right? And so then it might almost be better to pick up Mejia and draft Mejia, leave Molina on the wire, see what you got out of Mejia in the first couple weeks and then pick up Molina later because there's going to be one of those old

guys that just randomly does okay you know I think there's easy enough to get like the 12th best catcher in a league and we're talking about if you're picking Mejia you've decided to spend the 12th most amount on catching in your league.

Yeah, especially in a one-catcher league, I'm comfortable doing that. I think in a two-catcher league, I would want maybe one old guy that I know is going to play just to lock in the PT. And then one guy that could get better. I think the only guy that leaps out as being sort of comfortably better than that group, I think I actually would want Carson Kelly above that group. I know his barrel rate wasn't exciting last year. It was slightly below league average. His max EV is not exciting. But his ISOs have been good ever since he got the starting gig.

And his projection is just, I think, more solid. It's just more believable. 241 with a 173 ISO, 13 homers. I think he's got that. I think he's got that and he's got a little bit more upside beyond. Whereas Mejia, you're hoping he can kind of do that. The X factor for Carson Kelly is actually someone

I have ranked slightly ahead of him, Dalton Varshow and how much Varshow catches. If Varshow plays other spots, they can coexist in the same lineup. He already has. It's just a question of how much are they really going to run him out there in center field over a full season. If it's

half the time, that's great news for Carson Kelly. If it's only a quarter of the time, then it's probably going to hurt Carson Kelly a little bit. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors

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Buy it today at major retailers. Let's talk about the other trade that the Padres made, though. The other one, like it's somehow less significant than the Blake Snell trade. Hugh Darvish is a Padre now. I am excited because I'm a fan of the Brewers, and anything that makes the Cubs worse is good for my fandom. So I'm going to push that aside for a moment. But look, the Padres are clearly all in right now. And there's probably

some interesting conversation to be had on a future episode about the economics of how and why they're comfortable doing this right now when the rest of the league isn't. But Darvish is coming off of a stretch since the second half of 2019, where he's been one of the truly elite pitchers in the game. He just stopped walking guys in the summer of 2019. And I think he had a strong case to be the NL Cy Young winner over Trevor Bauer in 2020. I think he had as good a case as anybody. So you add him to this rotation as well. I'm just really excited to see how it plays out from the Padres' perspective.

Similar line of thinking to Snell. I mean, maybe a slight upgrade, but I don't think the usage changes much going to San Diego for Darvish. And I don't think the park is a lot better when you consider that at Wrigley, the wind is often blowing in. It makes it more of a pitcher's park

than a hitter's park. So maybe you're getting a slight park upgrade thinking about San Diego, but it's a pretty modest tweak. And Darvish is already going early enough in drafts where what are you going to do? Move him up into the first round? I mean, I don't see him as a first round pitcher at this point either. No, I don't. And in fact, I think there's a fair amount of risk around Hugh Darvish in terms of fantasy. I think for the Padres, he's still close to his Tommy John honeymoon, should be ligament-wise in one of the better places of his career. And even if the command foibles come back and the home run rate regresses, he'll still be a very good pitcher. So I think for the Padres, it was a great deal.

I think they took advantage of league-wide economics. They did not pay much. All those guys are very far away. Udarvish is obviously much better than Zach Davies. And they didn't use any of their top prospects. And they basically, it any of their top prospects. And they basically, it was basically a money dump. And the Padres, you know, even though it seems like they're being very aggressive right now, their 2020 payroll is 162 million with all the arbitration and bonuses and everything. And when they ended 2020, the full season payroll for them was168. So they are not necessarily spending much more,

even though it seems like it. They're not spending much more than they did before. They're just moving money around and using it differently. I think they probably have enough money to add maybe one reliever if they want to do that. But they also added relievers at the trade deadline last year. They got Dan Altavilla and and austin adams and i think maybe they'll just depend on those guys a little bit more so um you know they kind of look aggressive

by acting normally whoa that's a statement on the game uh but fantasy wise i do think yard you darvish has some risk man i mean he's just like what i was i when i was looking into what happens in short seasons i looked at 1984 and i looked at other seasons and i looked at what happens for pitchers in short seasons and basically the biggest thing that left off the page was that home run rates were uh were were wildly off base for the pitchers that did really well in short seasons and not in other parts of other seasons you know what i mean like the the way that pitchers got lucky was they gave up no home runs in the short in the short stretch and the way that you dar i'm not saying that you dar

was lucky like he was pretty good but if you look at his home run rates last year at a 0.6 for his career is a 1.09 per nine you. He basically halved his home run rate. So I think that people are going to overdraft him a little bit because I think the homers are going to come back. I mean, I know he's done this cutter thing, but I think the over-under on home runs for him is one per game next year. And that does a lot to pushing him more to the high threes ERA. Yeah, look at the projections for Darvish too.

And I wonder, do I trust what I see on his player page right now? Or are those maybe missing some of the adjustments he's made? 372 on the ERA seems a little high. 117 on the whip seems about right. That's from Steamer. Projecting to his career lines almost. Yeah, I do think I would take something under that 372, but probably not going all the way down to that 347 career mark.

He's a really good pitcher. I look at him and I think maybe he's about a round overdrafted already. We're talking about a guy who's in the top 20 overall. He's going 18th, 5th among starting pitchers. Cole, DeGrom, Bieber, Bauer, Darvish. That's your top five based on ADP right now. Buehler goes right after him.

Giolito goes right after him. There's a little drop before you get to Nola, Luis Castillo, Scherzer, Flaherty. I would leave most of those guys on the board. That last five pitchers you said, I would have that as a grouping on my board. I would leave most of those guys on the board. That last sort of five pitchers you said, I would have that as a grouping on my board, and I would allow pitchers to be taken out of it before I got too nervous.

You know what I mean? I just think that Yu Darvish and Lucas Giolito, why should I spend a round to get Yu Darvish over Lucas Giolito? I just think there's a lot of people out there right now that want two pitchers in the first five rounds. They're looking at early boards, looking at how teams are coming together, and they're maybe feeling more confident than they should coming off of the shortened season. I think the thing you mentioned that really hits it on the head is the home run rates being so volatile in the shortened season, especially. That makes a huge difference.

And you can do other things really well and get that home run rate boost on top of it i mean that would describe shane bieber to me i can't imagine being in the back of the first round drafting shane bieber i don't think i would draft darvish in the middle of the round of round two if he fell to the middle of round three this is probably a draft in which i'm playing against a bunch of people that don't play in the nfb Okay. Like maybe I'd take them there as my first pitcher. If I had hit her hit her to start, but I don't think I want to go hit her Darvish hitter or hit her Darvish. And then another pitcher right behind Darvish.

I don't think that's my preferred way to start off a draft, but it's amazing for the Padres really cool for the Padres to now the, by projection, second best team in baseball with the best rotation in baseball. Takes a lot of pressure off of Paddock, Paddock, Morahan,

Gore, and Weathers. They now have, between the four of them, have to do two sort of back-end rotation spots. And i love morahan and i you know i think he'll i just don't know that i will get him um ahead of other people because the shape of his fastball is actually not very good morahan does not do amazingly amazingly by stuff metrics. Let me actually look him up as I say that.

98 on quality of stuff from Ethan Moore. 98 on the level with Jake Arrieta, Anthony Disclefani, Danny Duffy, Jorge Lopez!

Not where you want to be. Although he's a friend of the podcast. Is he? No, no. Just something I like to talk about too much. But, you know, if you just look at Adrian Morhan's fastball, it does not get ride or run does not get ride as an explosion and it does not get arm side run as in sort of sinker movement

so it's kind of just a blah fastball even though it goes 96 miles an hour and so it will always underperform its velocity and then he also did that weird thing on the change-up which i kind of love but it's a knuckle change-up that he flicks the finger on and i think that everyone sort of looks at that as like dude you cannot command that long term but so far so good there's a possibility that it works out, and I will be watching. I find him immensely fun to watch. But putting him in a position now where you don't depend on him is good. And as a person on the outside, I think that Morhan Stock just took a pretty big beating in terms of making him a good fantasy pick next year. I think he's got to be behind all these guys that we can talk about.

Molly Dunning, uh, maybe around the level of Patino where you just don't know what his role is. I mean, yeah, he goes in as the fifth starter, but there's Gore, there's weathers,

you know, you know, the Casey was a driveline, you know, there's, there's, there's always a chance. There are way too many ways for more to lose that job.

I would put him right by Patino, actually. And Patino's stuff I like better. So I would put them close to each other in the rankings and Patino ahead of Morahan. He is going to have to be added to my starting pitcher ranks because he was not previously in the top 150 or so. So I think he's a swing man for them for all the reasons that you mentioned. And that's how he was used too. Yeah, I just think that's optimal usage. They've got other options.

Even if he starts to begin the season, it could be two or three starts and here you go, McKenzie. Here's your starting spot. Here's the other question. Just thinking about the Cubs, that was a really young return they got. They also gave up Victor Caratini in the deal, so that sort of replaces Mejia in San Diego, right? They lose him in the trade with

the Rays, but they get back a switch hitting catcher in Caratini. What do you think the Cubs' next move is? I mean, getting Davies back, someone's got to go out there and eat innings. Davies does that. We've talked about him before as a guy that's probably a little bit underrated probably in fantasy circles especially because he doesn't strike guys out but he doesn't have the frame of a workhorse so you keep looking at him and saying I don't know if you're going to keep giving me 180 innings every year the Cubs are going to at least roll the dice on that and hope that they're just I guess good enough to hang around in a division full of teams not trying like That's their plan right now? Or are they going to move Wilson Contreras?

Are they going to start moving Chris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo and really tearing down the core that won the World Series just a few years ago? I wonder how much space they have left to pull apart this team and still be competitive. I think there is some space. Let me look here. If you look at teams by Projected War, the Cubs have fallen behind already. But they're all stacked to the bottom.

It's pretty amazing. The Brewers are number one in steamer projected war and they are 18th in baseball. 28.8. Cardinals at 26.6. The Reds at 26.0 and the Cubs at 25.7. So right now, if they

tread water, they can legitimately say we added flexibility and we're still in the mix. But if they trade away Contreras for very little, I think, especially with Caratini gone,

their league average at catcher, could they find a way to become league average at catcher after trading away Contreras? Maybe. Maybe Jason Castro could do it. I don't know. Yeah, I think maybe. Getting near close to two wins.

So Contreras, the reason Contreras is on the block is because he's the only one that might get something back. So I don't think that they necessarily are going to trade Rizzo, Bryant, and Baez because I don't think anybody's going to give anything for them.

Is that controversial to say? They're only in one-year deals and none of them is as impact as a Francisco Lindor who's on the market and not going anywhere right now. Baez, you're just selling at a massive low point in value. So that's what's hurting you there. I think you have to wait it out with him and hope to get more a little bit later, but it's going to be underwhelming because there's so few teams willing to add payroll. That's the other problem with all this. How many other San Diego's are out there potentially, maybe a GM waiting for the owner to give them the thumbs up and say, okay, yeah,

go ahead, spend a little more or match 2019's payroll or whatever the green light looks like might vary from organization to organization. It just seems like there's such a short list of buyers. Yeah, the only team that fits that description, I think, is the Blue Jays. And we know that they're on board, but they seem to want to just spend dollars. They don't want to spend their players, At least so far. They could have been in on Darvish. They could have been in on Darvish if they wanted to spend some players. They need starters. Why weren't

the Blue Jays in on that? The Phillies need starters. Why weren't the Phillies in on that? It's a little bit worrisome, I think. Because, especially with the Blue Jays, man, everyone's talking about they're going to spend money. They're going to spend money. Well, really? They could have gotten Darvish just for money, basically. They wouldn't have had to ask for Caratini.

They wouldn't have had to pay. And Caratini, I do want to say real quickly, Caratini should be on people's radars a little bit if there is a DH. He could be one of these sneaky NL catchers that plays DH some. He's projected to be about league average offense, and there's a little bit of something alike in his barrel rate from 2019. If he can get back to that barrel rate, then he could actually legitimately play a little bit at DH and give

you a lot more than you'd expect from a backup catcher. I think he was actually, you know, he probably netted them at least one of those young names by putting him in the deal. So, yeah, the freaking Blue Jays wouldn't have even needed Caratini. So, I think the Cubs are going to do some work around the edges, sign some old pitchers, you know, sign a reliever and call it a day. Their rotation could very quickly look like Boston's rotation in 2020.

If you take Kyle Hendricks out of the mix, like if Hendricks just goes down with an injury or if he just has a down year, you go Hendricks, Davies, Alec Mills, Adbert Elzele, we talked about him, I think, on one of our more recent episodes as someone that we kind of like as a sleeper, but it could go south real quick for the Cubs.

And those first three guys throw like 70. Like that's the weakest throwing first three guys in baseball with Hendricks, Davies, and Mills. I don't even know if they collectively crack 90 on the fastball. They are not building around Velo in that rotation. The Cubs actually got a new play-by-play announcer for TV. Boog Shambi is going to take Len Casper's spot. Yeah.

Congrats to Boog. That's awesome. Because I mean, when that Casper thing happened, we talked about it. We're like, this is weird. And they actually,

I think they found somebody who's held in very high regard to replace him. And maybe that was a given all along because it's a good job. It's the Cubs. But I think this is like one of those logical hires. You're like, oh yeah, that fits. That makes sense. That is a replacement that is at the level they previously had in Chicago. So congrats to Boog for getting that opportunity. Let's talk about another trade that went down. The Washington Nationals acquired Josh Bell from the Pirates. And I don't think they gave up all that much to get him. Two prospects go back the other way in this deal, Eddie Yeen and Will Crow, guys that I have not seen anywhere near top 100 list so far, at least. What do you make of Bell?

Because his 2019 was really a Jekyll and Hyde season. We talked about it in that offseason. A lot of infield fly balls in the second half just stopped making the elite contact he was making to begin the season. The shortened campaign from Josh Bell wasn't very good either. Hit.226 with a.305 OBP, slugged.364. So it's a buy low for the Nationals, and it's an upgrade for sure in terms of home park and supporting cast. So just that alone makes me a little more intrigued.

But will we ever see anything close to what Josh Bell was able to do with that 37 home run season in 2019? I don't know if he'll go all the way back to that, but I do like Josh Bell still. He hits the ball hard. You know, even last year in a bad year, he still managed to hit the ball in the sort of top 10, 20% of the league in terms of exit velocity. His launch angle was off. And what I saw from him at the plate was being in between.

He seemed like, one way of putting it is, he seemed like he was swinging at 88 and getting pitches at 95 and 85. He just was not putting together the right swing on the right pitch. And when he did, he still hit the ball hard. At the plate, I think it's fine. There's a non-fantasy thing that's interesting here. He's a really bad defender. No matter what constraints you use on your search,

you'll find that he's in the bottom three among starting type first basemen. That's if you use outs above average or UZR or anything. So he's a really bad defender. And the Nationals are a really bad defensive team. And I didn't realize this until Britt Garoli wrote about it recently. But they are like a bottom five defensive team. So I don't know. I guess maybe they're just leaning into that.

And that defense is part of why he was so easily acquired. I think it was also a situation where they did not pay that much to get him. And he improves their squad. I like the park for him a little bit. I think he can hit more than 25. I'd say he hits 25 to 30 homers with a batting average over 270. So I like him a lot. I think he's a good pickup in fantasy.

I think he'll be a good investment. But in the real life squad, I'm kind of like, yo, guys, somebody has to pick the ball. The only guy who's a good defender in his position is Trey Turner. Yeah. And, I mean, third base could be a revolving door for the Nats. We've talked about Carter Keboom a few times, and they're saying things that make you believe they're going to give him a shot to begin the season, but the confidence in him internally might not really be there.

Literally zero barrels in 2020. So that will stick with me for a while. And this Nats team is kind of caught in a similar spot as the Cubs, where I look at them and say, you know, they could kind of go through a mini rebuild. But the key difference for me is that you still have a few more years of Trey Turner and you have a lot more time with Juan Soto. So the full teardown for the Nats doesn't really seem necessary because you have a current franchise player. You have two current franchise players. And even if you lose Turner in a couple of years, you either traded him before you lost him

or you got something back in terms of a draft pick. And Soto is a guy that we're going to be talking about probably 15 years from now as a legitimately still good big league hitter. So you don't want to rebuild forever with a guy like that as your cornerstone. Yeah. The Nationals have $42 million going to Max Scherzer this year, but it's also his last

year. So that drops off and they're projected right now for a payroll around $75 million in 2022. So a lot of this stuff drops away, and they become a fairly cheap team. I think that it's kind of maybe what they're doing is just waiting this offseason until next offseason to spend that money. But basically right now, or before the bell trade, the Nationals had the worst offensive infield in baseball if you took out the shortstop. So non-shortstop infield in baseball.

And adding a guy like DJ LeMayhew, even now, if you add his $15 million possible salary, you get to $190 million and were at $187 to end last year. You wouldn't be stretching the budget too much and you'd be adding an offensive piece that would upgrade one of the worst infields in baseball. I think it makes a lot of sense, but it doesn't seem to be the way they're going. Instead, they're just going to add Josh Bell, who cost them $6 million next year, and they've gotten $20.22 and they've gotten 2022, and they'll just keep things mellow. Maybe you can do that when you've won a World Series recently. And maybe it's the right thing to do because it is stretching the budget and getting over-exuberant after a World Series that seems to get teams in trouble. We've seen that before

as well. The price of success, as I often call it, right? You have a team that gets old, you have a team that gets expensive, and then you kind of go dark for a little while trying to figure out how to put the pieces back together again. But all in all, I do like Bell a bit more in D.C. than I did if he had stayed in Pittsburgh. One other move the Padres made, which was overshadowed by their two trades, Ha-Sung Kim is now a member of the Padres. I think he fills the second base vacancy and probably

keeps Jake Cronenworth in a super utility role, which I'm not that surprised by. I think maybe based on where he was being drafted, people were looking at him as someone that was going to open the year with an everyday job. Maybe he plays enough where it doesn't really matter that Kim's there. Like maybe Cronenworth starts four or five games a week and four times he's starting in a different position each week. That's possible, but that's also not something I'm looking for in a player who goes inside the top 200 overall. So whether people like it or not,

I do think this is a slight downgrade for Jake Cronenworth, but how do you see Kim fitting in with the Padres and in Petco Park specifically? One thing that is nice is that they don't actually need to depend on him to be a starter at any position. From a team building strategy standpoint, I think it's a great fit because they don't need them to be a shortstop. They don't actually even need them to be a second baseman. They're sort of announced that they kind of be their second baseman. Maybe Jake Cronenworth plays in the outfield and plays all around the field, but they don't need him to play at second base.

So they have Jake Cronenworth there. So that's what you get when you sort of look at the money they spent and the team that he went to is that there is a fair amount of risk that Kim is a utility player. He'd be an overpriced one, but that's the risk. The opportunity for value is that here's a guy who went 30-30 last year in the KBO who has some power and some speed and makes contact over there. So the big question, I think, is where you put the slugging percentage. Zip's projection seems to be the high man on slugging percentage. It follows along with the Davenport Transplantations

and says that Haseong Kim is going to hit.274 with a.477 slugging,.343 OBP. Those numbers are all going to be better than john zagura and dd gregorius so he's um you know and and he's going to have more speed than dd so here's a guy who jumps over those guys immediately if that's the truth um but the you know pod horzer my uh you know my old colleague at fraphs, he does these things by hand and kind of goes through the components and projects these components differently. He had a 466 slugging and Steamer has a 417 slugging. So there you have that sort of risk outlined in what the power is going to be like. If he's at a 417 slugging, he's not somebody you necessarily need to play every day.

That's a 173 iso that's below league average um that's somebody that you might move around and instead cronenworth is a starting uh second baseman but um if he has a 477 slugging he's starting every day at second base he's a guy who can then hit 270 with 2020 type uh power speedspeed combo, and that's worth spending some money on fantasy-wise and Padres-wise. So I think we have to play sort of a would-you-rather because I think he's fascinating. The risk and the reward are both there. Yeah, shortstop eligible players is where I go first

because that's the eligibility that I think he's listed at with NFBC. I'm kind of curious to see where the chips fall in terms of other positions he might be eligible at when the season begins. But if you look at drafts since December 1st, you mentioned Didi Gregorius in passing. Didi versus Kim around pick 170 is actually a toss-up. You're taking Kim over Didi. All right, and there's about a 30-pick gap before you get to Jake Cronenworth. Cronenworth versus Kim.

Well, see, that's just really tough because they're on the same team. Oh, man. I mean, you can't wiggle your way out of this one and say both. You don't want both. You don't want both, yeah. I think they're going to affect each other. You know what?

I'm going to take Cronenworth. I just feel like his demonstrated ability to put bat to ball and decent stack cast numbers under the hood of good power says that Steamer's got his ISO projected wrong. And that, to me, says this is a guy who can hit 275, 20-20, and I'd be more sure of it than I would with Kim. There are still some names ahead of that that I would take Kim over. Not Cronenworth, but

there's some other names. How about Kim versus Marcus Simeon? We don't know where Simeon's going to play just yet, but wherever he plays, I don't think you're worried about playing time. I think Kim, dude. I think... Here's my idea for Cam over Simeon.

Stone bases. That's my idea. I thought you were going to elaborate on that. No, I mean, I just think Simeon has a pretty wide gap between his best seasons and worst seasons offensively.

So there is some variance there, but he's just not going to offer stolen bases. So if I'm going to lean into the variance and take somebody who I'm not sure I can depend on, which I think that's true of Simeon, then I'd rather have Kim in the stolen bases. So I had Kim originally, I think, 16th among shortstops. I had him behind Dansby Swanson. Yes. But ahead of Jonathan Villar. Yes. Ahead of Jorge Polanco. Yes. Ahead of Didi. I had him ahead of Tommy Edmond too. Yes, I think so. And what's nice about that is right now Kim's at 172 and Edmond's at 128. So I think the play on shortstop for me is if I'm down to Dansby and Carlos Correa at 1213,

and that takes like a near 100 pick, I might just say, nah, I'm going to leave Simeon, Cronenworth, and Kim on my to draft list and try to get down to 150, 170, try to get 70 more picks in um and then and take those guys later so the one nice thing about swanson korea though is you take those guys and you you kind of the floor is high so you kind of you're penciling them in if you take i think kim or cronenworth as your starting shortstop then you're going to have to also identify somebody later that

you're going to put on your bench right i think like a like a Willie Castro or a David Fletcher or a Dubon, somebody that you like, or an Adamas maybe, somebody you like later that you're going to kind of also put on your bench just in case things don't work out. Yeah, I'm totally with you there. I wonder if I'm too high on Ahmed Rosario. I'd have him lower than Kim by a decent bit, but looking at his early ADPs, I'm much higher than the field on him, and I don't feel good about that. He may not have a job.

Yeah, he may not have a job. Yeah, Andres Jimenez being drafted ahead of him at this point, and maybe that's right. I know everyone's chasing speed, so that's part of it too. I don't like, you know, it's weird. I just said that I like Kim and Cronenworth, and I just hemmed and hawed at both of those guys. I don't like the Jimenez-Rosario grouping.

I don't want either of them. I think the ceiling on either of them is just not impressive, not worth the risk, not worth – like would you put both those guys on your team just to make sure you had the Mets shortstop? No. Ew. Yuck.

No. No, I would definitely try to avoid that situation. just to make sure you had the Mets shortstop? No. Ew. Yuck. No. No. I would definitely try to avoid that situation. Would you almost consider taking both Cronenworth and Kim? Maybe. I'd way more likely be close to thinking about having Cronenworth and Kim on my team than the Mets and Rosario, even though Rosario is a 340 pick. I don't know. I'm just not interested in that.

Willie Castro has some stuff going for him stack cast wise and i and i always liked him a little bit so i think willie castro and david fletcher as as a as a possible cronenworth type where he makes a lot of contact and could have a little bit of a power boost and again any given year those are the two that i would identify as late short stops that i might pair with kim i'm'm trying to figure out if Ahmed Rosario is just another like Orlando Arcia type player where we're always going to be left wanting more. It's probably not fair to say that about Rosario because he's had two seasons better than what Arcia has put together so far as a big leaguer. I mean, Arcia has been below replacement level three different times. So that's not a fair

comp at this point. I wonder what it is about Rosario. Expectations were always unfairly high, but 2019, 15 homers, 19 steals, had the K rate under 20%. I know he's never walked a lot, so there's some ugliness in the underlying numbers yeah he can play though and it's not a zero power so yeah it's uh it's an interesting thing i think like if i was in a dynasty league that um you know rosario was on the in the draft for in the restocking draft i might i might pick him for my bench as like a reclamation project um but uh But if we're talking redraft, I was thinking in the other stuff about redraft. I wouldn't want to depend on Jimenez or Rosario

and a fantasy team for this year. I think that could change for me though if the Mets make a trade and one of those guys is obviously packing. Yeah, because then it clarifies the playing time in a way that makes me more confident. I mean, the price could shoot up on either one of them to the point where then you can't do it. But I think that's the unlocked potential is a trade that happens that clears up that playing time.

That would make me at least somewhat interested in the situation again. Here's the other list of moves. I'm just going to rattle them off, and then you can let me know if any of these are interesting to you. Matt Andrees went to the Red Sox while we were away. Kohei Arihara went to the Rangers. You mentioned this one in passing. Jose Alvarado is a Philly now. Hansel Robles is a twin.

Tommy Canely is a Dodger. And John Brebbia is now a member of the Giants. Do any of those seemingly minor moves do anything for you? I'm going to take the relievers en masse. Just the relievers, Hansel Robles and John Brebbia in particular. I think actually Alvarado could end up being the closer in Philly. All three of those guys, I think one of them could be the main closer on his team this year. Yeah, I think Alvarado is the guy that I think is most likely to be that guy, but Brebby is probably a close second.

Robles, because he's done it before, is interesting. I like some of the Twins' other relievers. I still like Taylor Rodgers coming off a down year. I like Tyler Duffy a lot too. If Rodgers loses that job, I think Tyler Duffy gets the first chance at replacing him. Yeah, it could be, but things change a lot if Robles is throwing 97 again.

So I think Robles is somebody, and relievers in general, somebody you really want to listen for spring training velocity updates and not touching 97 like there was this thing with james paxton where they you know they they said oh paxton is you know touched 94 today in workouts and i was like that is bad that's bad like unless he's got like three or four more ticks before the season starts. Because his max for every year was about 100 until last year when it dropped down to 94, 95. So I don't know. Maybe he's convinced people that there's more in there.

Maybe there is more in there. I know that Bauer sits like 88 in the offseason. And he gets up to 94. So there could be a lot left in that tank that he just hasn't demonstrated yet but when i when in spring that's a different story if he's still touching 94 95 in spring i'm way more out on paxton i want to i want to see a 99 um i want to see a 98 and the same is true with robles i want to i want to see a 98. And the same is true of Robles. I want to see 99s and 100s from Robles before I believe. I want to see at least a 99.

Because if he can touch 99, he can sit 97. And that changes everything for Robles. It just has. You've seen it in the past. So I think that's the same thing for most relievers. I think I would be really interested in what Alvarado is throwing. Because he's been hurt. If he's throwing at the top of his,

uh, abilities, then he, he's maybe even the favorite for saves there. Yeah. I think you could give them best stuff in the pen as a trophy kind of going into the season. If the velocity comes back.

Yeah. And, uh, and Brevi is just, um, I think, uh, the most,

like the highest floor of the three probably, because he's shown the ability to be good at 93.5 and 94.6 and just was hurt last year. He's coming off. I think he's a decent high floor reliever, and the only reason I would say that maybe he has the best chance is that the Giants' bullpen is bad. A lot less imposing competition trying to get those saves in San Francisco.

I would say Whistler and Brebbia. Brebbia comes with, is he healthy? Reyes-Miranta, is he healthy? Those are the names that I care about in that bullpen. I think if Miranta's healthy, he's my favorite to come away with that job because he could be electric. You can't really say that about most of the other guys in that bullpen.

Kapler said he'd be given the chance, but they also do a little talking out of the side of their mouth about being motivated and what his body looks like because we challenged him to come to camp, dedicating himself to potentially being an impact late inning reliever for us, Kapler said.

There's a lot of like, hey, dude, this is the time. Show up and then be in good shape. Yeah. Could be a nice payoff. Doesn't take much to get him in early drafts at this point. Should I say something about Arihara? The risk with Arihara is, and it was a little bit like with Morihan, it's bad fastball shape.

So Arihara comes over with sort of mediocre-ish numbers from Japan and a bad fastball shape, but he also comes over six or seven pitches. So if Arihara makes it, I think he kind of maybe looks a little bit like who's a cutter-first guy that's made it work a little bit as a starting pitcher. Because I think he might just end up using his cutter like Aaron Savali a little bit. He's not as good as Aaron Savali probably. Maybe he finds Zach Davies. Zach Davies is cutter change kind of.

That's a deep arsenal that Arihara brings. Yeah, so, yeah, that's the kind of upside. And I'm not talking about, like, Zach Davies 2020. It's just sort of Zach Davies writ large is a possible outcome for Arihara because he does have good command. But I think there will be some growing pains, and I don't think that he's on my list for like you got to have him this year.

I think it's maybe there's a time down when I see. My prediction for Ari Har is he struggles at first but there's a massive change to his pitch mix at some point in the season that makes him usable. Yeah, kind of like a streamer for two start weeks or

home matchups, especially with that ballpark playing pretty cavernous in Texas in year one. So, yeah, interesting mix of names there and hopefully more moves on the horizon. Lots of strategy talk coming up here in the next few

weeks. If you've got questions for us, send them our way. Rates and barrels at theathletic.com. You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. I am at Derek Van Ryper. If you're got questions for us, send them our way. Rates and Barrels at TheAthletic.com. You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. I am at Derek Van Ryper. If you're enjoying this podcast on a platform that allows you to leave us a rating and review, we'd really appreciate it if you took a moment to do that for us. That is going to wrap things

up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.