Rates & Barrels - Blind spots, midseason FAB strategy, and rotation questions in Oakland and Houston

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

Paul Sporer of Fangraphs joins Eno for this episode of Rates & Barrels. The guys discuss the blind spots in their player analysis, and how they attack FAB in the middle of the season. From there, they get into discussions on José Urquidy, Ketel Marte, and Sporer's idea of a "kitchen sink" player. They also discuss organizations that regularly develop MLB talent, rotation questions in Oakland and Houston, and buy/sell/bench cases for Luis Castillo, Sonny Gray, Jameson Taillon and Eduardo Rodriguez. Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Sporer on Twitter: @sporer e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, this is Dino Saris, it's very strange for me. This is presented by Topps, be sure to check out Topps Project 70. Thanks for sponsoring the podcast, Topps. And thank you to our guest today, Paul Sporer, my longtime homeboy. We first hung out, I think, at

Arizona Fall League. And we were the idiots in the back of the room who got in there late and tweeted everything that Ron Chandler was saying. Late, we were cracking jokes, and we were tweeting too much.

They didn't mind if you share some, but we were kind of giving the game away there. We got a not-so-direct direct message when Ron was like, like okay just so everyone knows if you're tweeting out stuff let's not make sure it's the word for word of what's going on here and it was definitely directed at us yeah we learned we've learned and now we're on panels there we went from being part of uh part of the audience to now being on panels at falling i bet we'll have falling this year hopefully and that's that's what I'm saying, dude. I think that is maybe, you know, I've been trying to like,

I went to the park last night to cover a game, and I've been covered in some games, but there has not been a return to normal moment in covering games or like going to baseball parks. We might get there this weekend, a lot more 100%, you know, park openings for fans at least. But in terms of like covering a game, you're still not really allowed to interact with the players the same way.

For me, I think going to Arizona Fall League might be my sort of return to normal. So I'm really looking forward to it. It's something I look forward to every year. I no longer tweet out everything everyone says. Same, same. But it was really cool. One of the things I did tweet out was um we they have a few scouts that will come there and talk and one of them said um you know that freddie freeman uh

you know looks terrible uh has the wrong body uh his swing is terrible and yet he can hit and so his point was sort of about um how you know, we don't always, we get value from places that we don't always expect it. And it doesn't always look exactly the way that you want it. So, you know, I think about that sometimes with reference to like Brandon Phillips. I used to hate Brandon Phillips types, you know, no walks, maybe good contact, you know, good athlete, but, you know, not a great sort of. I always gravitated towards these people like Frank Thomas and David Wright and Chipper Jones that had like the 400 OBP, you know, walked at least 10, 12 percent of the time. But, you know, Brandon Phillips gave people a lot of fantasy value for a long time.

Have you had a personal thing like that? I know this is off the rundown already. No, it's the exact same weakness. And it's still there to where I probably put too much emphasis on walks. They're great. They're helpful. I always talk about how they're good at kind of helping prevent major slumps, too. If you're still getting on base, you can still deliver fantasy value by

taking your walks, scoring some of those ancillary runs because everyone's going to have a cold streak. But if you can still give some measure of fantasy value, I think the walk, and then if it's a speedster who walks, then he can even steal a few bases when he's hitting 180 for three weeks, which is again, going to happen to virtually everybody. So it's definitely something that I still kind of combat at times where I'm like, hey, just because somebody doesn't walk doesn't mean they're inherently a bad player. I think the best example of that right now is Adolis Garcia and how much I've been, you know, ready to write him off. Now, I will say I am still concerned about the fact that he strikes out as much as he does. And I would probably put him down for like a 100 to a 110 OPS plus WRC plus the rest of the way.

That can still be super useful. But he walks 5% of the time, strikes out 30%. That's a profile for me that is nerve wracking for sure. Tim Anderson was a guy I was missing on for years because he didn't walk. I did make the change on him finally and said, listen, this guy's just a really good player. But is it going to age completely? That's the thing. It will age

terribly that that profile does age poorly and we saw it a bit last year with Javier Baez now he didn't have his video and he's gotten better this year but he is still a sub 300 OBP this year he's a 294 like he's back on track some to having fantasy value but like that's scary when you're sub 300 OBP I feel like in some year the hot streak that Javi Baez got to get back into our good graces just won't come. Yeah, exactly. And we'll all be clamoring. We'll be like, oh, Javi, he does this every year. And then that'll be the year that he's 32 and he gets hurt at the wrong time and it doesn't come back the way it does.

I totally agree with that. That's the thing too. Maybe we're just thinking too forward about how those profiles won't age. So maybe we should trust him a little bit more on the younger player who can just athleticism his way through it. And then once they hit late 20s, early 30s, then we can start to back off instead of dismissing them day one like you and I tend to do sometimes on those profiles.

Yeah, it's interesting, too, that the deeper the league is, the more you can take a shot on these guys anyway. Because like in AL Labor, I ended up with Akil Badu and Adolis Garcia. And the way that I ended up with them was with some aggressive FAAB bids. So I think I bid like 11 on Akil Badu and like eight or nine on Adoles Garcia, just like the minute they were up. And I was like, these guys could play. And in AL only, that allows you to take a shot on someone just because they can play. Yeah, playing time. Playing time drives everything in deep leagues like that. I kind of like that sometimes. You know, we talk about, I think sometimes there's this perception that deeper leagues are harder in some ways they're easier because if you have a pulse you matter whereas in like a 10 team league

you look at the waiver wire you see 50 guys that you like that you would love to kill for really you should almost like stream you know exactly like you can't play everybody and you know a guy who's kind of struggling but he's like a medium good level player, he needs to be cut for the hot hand. So you can make a case that sometimes the shallower leagues, they can be tougher in their own right. And the bottom line is that leagues present their own challenges depending on what their format is. And deeper leagues are not inherently harder or better. And shallow leagues are not inherently worse just because there's more talent to go around. They ask you to do different things.

And so I like that about having a mix. I think I had the hardest time actually with shallower leagues where I'm like, I can't drop this proven performer just because he's heading into San Francisco for a week and this other guy is in Colorado. And a lot of times you should do that. Yeah, a lot of times you should do that because maybe you could get the proven performer back after the week in San Francisco, right? Because you should really that. Yeah, you probably should. Because maybe you could get the proven performer back after the week in San Francisco, right? Because you should really just have a more fluid roster. But I, you know, this year,

I heard you guys talking on the Sleeper on the Bus, you and Justin Mason, which is, I'm biased, but it's a great podcast. Thank you. As is this one. Two of the best out there, I'd say.

And, you know, I heard you guys talk about how like it's setting in right now that we're not you know that it's that it's not last year last year that's like we've got four more months and you know how it's really setting in for me when i look at my fa the urbane and did you realize that maybe you were bidding as if it were last year a little bit i have a couple leagues like that too where i'm like uh-oh now i need to stretch this out and if it's in the nfbc league there's no zero dollar bids i know um one of labor or tout has no zeros and the other does allow you i think labor has no

zero yeah tout does allow you to do zeros but if you're running out now it's like well how are you going to manage that yeah and uh but i'm of two minds like you know one thing about you could say about fab is like if you uh hold the hammer for the trade deadline i i actually kind of don't like that because i feel that um first of all four months five months of the season are gone yep so you're you held the four months four months of august and september yeah right you four months of the season are gone you you you held the hammer. No, four months. Four months. You have August and September. Yeah, right. Four months of the season are gone. You held the hammer, but you only get one third of the season. If you, for example, got Adolis Garcia with the hammer, that's not a great example.

But if you got, oh, how about the first round of call-ups? So let's say Kellnick. Let's pretend that Kellnick is killing it. Yeah. And that you used your hammer early to get Kellnick, Jared Kellnick, and he's is killing it. Yeah. And that you used your hammer early to get Kellnick, Jared Kellnick, and he's just killing it, then you would have six months

of that, right? Kellnick and Manoa. There you go. Manoa is a great example. I think Manoa is going to kill it all year. I knew you. But I blew it out on Shane McClanahan, who I think is also going to kill it all year.

But let's say, I think that's a better move if it works out because you get the full season than waiting for a trade deadline or like a September call-up or something later. There are these patterns to the season where there's two weeks in the season someone gets called up and then June, the next one is we're right in the middle of it

in the next week or so. If Wander Franco doesn't get called it in the next week or so. If Wander Franco doesn't get pulled, called up in the next week or so, he won't get called up until September. I think, you know, there's kind of a cadence to this sort of stuff. Unless a need opens up. But the trouble with him was they had three guys in the minors, Wall is already up, Brujan absolutely killing it. And then there's Franco who's doing well, but he's not ahead of Brujan right now, in

my opinion. Yeah. And it is interesting to talk about that depth chart because you've got I think the weaknesses at center um and then maybe at second and so if you push Brandon Lau you could push Brandon Lau into like the first base group right true with Choi first base DH you could do that little outfield action maybe once or twice a week he plays in left field, right field? Just sort of dial back on the everyday. He's not an everyday guy anyway. They're sort of pretty much done with him against lefties.

So you could sort of just move him around a little bit more and just put Vidal at second. But Brujan's also playing in the outfield. And Kiermaier, I think you guys even talked about this a little bit. Kiermaier's just an offensive sinkhole right now. Big time.

And at some point, the defense is not going to be enough. And I think part of the proof of that is they've been shopping him forever and nobody's bought him. Yeah, they're desperate to try to get rid of him, but he's not doing enough as a one-sided player on defense to really draw interest there. And I think they would have loved to get rid of him in the offseason. It is interesting if Brujan can play a true center field.

That would be huge for them, of course, just for the future, because then you could feasibly set up Walls, Franco, Brujan in second, short, and center, respectively. And that's an insane trio. So the Rays are rich in talent as they generally have been the last like, you try to sort of marry the, the, you know, holding onto the hammer, um, you know, when to use the hammer, like how, how much do you have in your typical, how much FAB do you have in your typical league? I think I'm around, I think my average FAB is around 30% left. Um, yeah. And I go, I go around that as well. And like, I'm,

I'm with, I'm in your frame of mind here of like, I'm going to go for the guys that can really move the needle for me early. Obviously I'll be wrong sometimes, but I'm going to take those shots because I get the longer timeframe with them. Like even a Dolas Garcia, somebody, maybe I wasn't bought in on originally. Like I said, even if he's a 100 OPS plus the rest of the way, that volume that he's going to deliver, cause I do believe his power is pretty legit. And if they let him keep running, he's still going to be very good from here on out as a fantasy producer. So I like to be aggressive

early in my main event, which I'm actually doing quite well in if I can, if I can toot the old horn just a little, it's super early. So I know I haven't won a darn thing, but I am seventh overall in the main event. I still have 622 there, which I'm told from main event veterans is still very good. So I feel great there. I have 301 left in an OC that I'm leading, an online championship, Roto-Wire online championship. That's out of 1,000. So that's that 30% you're talking about.

I guess I'm closer to 30% to 50% range with that 622 being a high end right there. Cause I have 530, 535 in the TGFBI, 500 in the beat Paul Spore league, and then 67 in labor. That's out of a hundred where there are no $0 bids though. So we've been a little bit cautious. We lost Manoa. We had Manoa for 24 bucks, Same bid. Standings. Tiebreaker. No! Fred Zinke being three spots lower than us got him. Dude, he went to 56 in AL labor. And, you know, I wanted to be aggressive, and I was like, I think—

I thought I was being aggressive with 22, but I was like the third highest bid. Yeah. So you'd have been in line with us in the mixed league, $24 out of $100. And I wish I have just gone you know 24 is my favorite number i kind of went with that i wish i'd have gone like obviously 25 26 we had gotten him so uh i think i'm doing all right in fab right now though while still being aggressive i don't i'm not panicked anywhere even the league where i only have 301 dollars because that's a 12 teamer and you know i don't know if you're in an online championship league but the 12 teamers

are so much different than the 15 teamers iners in terms of the bidding that $300 from here on out can definitely get you to the finish line because players are so cheap. It's insane. A guy will go for $200 in the 15-teamer, and in some 12-team leagues, he'll be like $32. And it just doesn't... The disconnect is insane. I still haven't quite figured out the cadence of bidding in 12 teamers but i think the 301 there will be fine so i'm kind of living in that 50 to

30 range this is a like my second year playing uh multiple nfbc teams so uh i uh i probably was a little bit over aggressive uh early on when it came to uh to bidding um i range from i think i have like 250 left in one league uh to to 500 in my my best team is the um uh rotowire i've got a rotowire team that i'm like uh top third i think third maybe or something and i've got that's great five six hundred bucks left and i feel like that'll definitely work in that one yeah that will definitely work even the one where you have 250 you're not toasting i think it might be the 12 team or so and i've been like you'll be fine it's okay i'm spending like two three bucks and getting like streamers for that and you get legit players for single digit bids regularly in the 12

teams so basically i would go through your history of the of where you've been bidding there and you could probably lower the bid substantially the rest of the way and still get to the finish line with your two. Yeah, I mean, I have to because I keep looking at that top number being like, all right, let's remove five bucks from all these. Yeah, exactly. On Sunday, I end up trickling down everything. Previous years, I would raise it. I would bid against myself. I'd be like, I got to go higher.

And then I'd be $40 over the next bid. No,, I've been going the other way. I'm like, okay, I had $32 bid here. I'm going to go down $8. And then three minutes later, I'll come back in. I'm going to shave off two more dollars. And for the most part, that has not burned me. I did not adjust that Manoa bid in labor. I left it at 24 and we tied with Fred Zinke. The tough part too, not only that we lost to a tiebreaker, but to Fred Zinke, one of the best players in the entire industry. And not that there's anybody bad in labor, but to lose to one of the upper echelon players who's now going to get Alec Manoa, that was the biggest bummer. And also because you're ahead of him in the standings. Exactly. So now he's going to catch us probably. And he's a great player. That's a trading league,

which is his forte. So it's a whole mess. But yeah, I'm not too far from you in terms of fabs. 30 to 50% left, ranging up as high as 60% in a couple of my leagues. Yeah. I think there's another thing you could do with fabs that has been saving me money is just identify a lot of players you like. Yes. And the deeper your fab is, the deeper your acquisition list is, the cheaper you can be with the whole list. Yeah, absolutely. Because you're like, oh, if I don't get that pitcher, this guy is like you know is like vaguely comparative you know so you know why don't

i only bid 11 on that guy and you know nine on this guy or seven on that guy that's a great call yeah so the deeper mistake i made my list of the deeper so when i when i only have like two players i can bid on that that fill my need i'm like oh man i gotta bid that's when you start bidding against yourself exactly and i totally agree with that that when you realize that your one guy isn't that special and you're like, here's four other guys who could reasonably do the same thing, you start bringing all the bids down. So some of it is just doing the extra elbow grease to dig into the pool and see what's there. Now, sometimes the wire is dry, but other times it's more fruitful than you think. And then you start finding names and you can bring down the bids for everyone. So that's a great

call out. Yeah. I think one of the hardest things is when the wire is dry and you have a need and there's only two names that fit it and you don't want to spend on them. I hate that. And I'm like, I really have to put, and sometimes I just won't. And I've gotten better conviction over that in the last year or two. But zeros are death. You can't have zero. That's the thing, too. You still need to get somebody.

So what I'll end up doing, if I don't love the one or two names that would really fill the hole, is I will find those scrubs who are just going to play that I can put $3, $4 on. Yep. And I'll just try to get by with that because I don't want to overspend on some clown that I know is not going to be on this team after so-and-so gets back from injury. And so you've got to try to balance all that. But that's kind of the fun of Fab. And my Sundays are spent, you know, going through all the waiver wires like that. And it's been fun so far, though. I'm off to a pretty good start overall this year.

Do you try to make it a one-day experience? Yeah. Do you try to make it a one-day experience? Yeah. I will – if I think of a name just like randomly, like I'm just out for a walk with the dog. I'm on here on my computer. I think of somebody. I'll go into that league, check if they're available, and put them on the list to deal with on Sunday so I don't forget any names.

But for the most part, it's a one-day thing that kind of starts on Sunday. Yeah, to go in there. Like everyone's a $1 bid that I put the names in during the week. I don't even try to do the bid yet. I'll wait till Saturday night, Sunday morning to start doing all the bids. I might do like a 10, nine, eight, seven, six to sort them. To sort them, that makes sense too.

Just so I have like an idea. Just in case, because you never know. Like what if life happens and you don't get a chance to actually go and put those bids? At least you have something there. So that's pretty smart. But I usually have a bunch of guys by the time Saturday night, Sunday morning comes. So that

way, if something happened, I would at least have 15 guys for $1 and probably get at least one of them. So I like to make sure I get I'm covered in case life happens. Like I said, you know, I get this question sometimes if people ask me like you know don't get mad like I think you're a good analyst but do you think you're a good player I haven't gotten that but I'm sure a lot of people think that about me they're like and I'm not very good well one of the things is is like you know the leagues I've been playing the longest I do the best in like labor this year, I'm in second right now, battling Ian Kahn.

He's also a fantastic player, so you have your work cut out for you there. And Schechter's up there. Another fantastic player. But the last three years, I've been sort of fourth, third, second. I've been bubbling towards the top because I'm outplayed for 10 years, I think.

So I understand how it works. I understand how bidding works. I don't make as many big bidding mistakes as I used to and stuff like that. I'm only, like, two or three years into NFBC. So, yeah, I might win, like, a Rotowire, you know, league. I don't, like, if you look at my TGFBI numbers, I know that's a minefield right now internally in the industry.

But I don't think my ranking is very good in TGFBI. But it takes me some time to learn a format. The things I've been playing the longest are Superdeep and Dynasty. I'm with you. format um and the things i've been playing the longest are like super deep and uh dynasty

no i'm i'm with you and you've been in devil's rejects forever too but like i'm with you on the learning of a format in fact when i first got into nfbc my friend who brought me in dusty wagner told me like there's a there's a couple year learning curve which i i took him at his at his word and i didn't i didn't disbelieve him but i probably didn't give it as much credence as i should have like it is going to take you a while i am not like i haven't dropped down money for like anything big yet like yeah and those first few years i was spending is like three four five hundred on a on a yearly budget for nfbc in these first two years yeah and i was getting clobbered and i like you you're right. It does take a while. And so, you know, the last couple of years, like for a while we split our,

our main event. So I wasn't, I was still a big, some half of 1700, but then started going out on my own and I'm starting to see better results. And hopefully this is a good year for me, but it's not easy. And I think there is something to be said for kind of like learning the format and everything. I'm with you. My TGFBI numbers don't check out as like great. And I understand that people can use that to kind of judge us. But like, I think the advice and everything that I gave the writing and podcasting I do is sound in terms of what I'm doing to to come up with these points and takes on players that I have. So I do think there can just because you can maybe not have the most success in a fantasy league doesn't mean that you're not a good analyst and vice versa. I don't

know that some of the best players in fantasy would necessarily be good analysts. And then there's the people who can do both and good on those people who dominate their leagues, dominate DFS, and they're able to give good analysis. But it's not easy. And I think- I wonder if those people also write a bunch of columns because there's there's just something about like putting my lists out for everyone to see you know and yeah i'm in a beat paul sport league you don't think they're using my list oh my god i i drafted some league on nfbc where like jose urquidy went in the fifth or sixth round two picks before me,

and I'm like, I know what just happened. Yep. You know. And again, I'm not trying to say they're using my list. I'm not saying that's all they're using, but they look at my lists to know that if we both like a guy. If I like a guy, then I got to get him before Eno in this turn right here. Like Tommy Edmund.

You had it with Urquidy, who who by the way listen you're you're better than me you're more important than me but her kitty being solely an eno guy has rubbed me the wrong way i'm on the her kitty love too now i'm not trying to take him from you this is not a you thing this is everyone giving you her kitty i'm like i've been there from day one too i want in on this rise of her kitty and everyone's like oh he's an eno guy i'm like oh really just an eno guy i think a flaw in the industry is this idea i think it actually bubbles up all the way from prospecting where you know uh there aren't that many people that go negative on prospects yeah yeah and they're and like, you know, like this whole like Corey Kluber thing

where, you know, there aren't that many people that go negative on any player. And so what it creates is this industry incentive to go hard positive on a certain player. To get your guy, plant your flag. Yeah. And so I was like JT, Brubaker and Jose Okiti are my guy. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't mean to. I was just like, you know, I consistently rank them higher than most people and I talk about them and they fit into my system, my approach. And, you know, but it is this idea

that we like take stake in certain players and we get wins for them. But, you know, if we don't do that, this can be a very unforgiving industry. We get constantly bombarded with feedback about our misses. Yes, exactly. So if you don't have those wins out there of players that you do like that do hit, then you could just be taking, quote unquote, taking L's all day. You don't want that either. So I totally understand it. By the way, I've never been like, Eno stole Erquidy from me.

It's more like, because if you don't think that some of my Erquidy love was born of reading you, then I would be foolish to suggest otherwise. No, but I thought about it a little bit with Brubaker because Sung Woon Kim, who's a great friend of ours, he's written at Fangraphs

and he's coming to the States to study in New York. He's great. And he was working with a team in Korea for a little bit last year. He said something like, you know, here's a guy that I want to like, you know, JT Brubaker is a guy that I'm going to put, you know, I'm going to put my stake in. And I was kind of like, oh, yeah, that's why I agree. I had him really high too. And then I was like, wait, did I just do the thing?

No, you can't have Brubaker. I have Brubaker. That's the thing too. It's like people can't – you don't own a guy either. And like nobody else can write about him or talk about him. That's my guy. So we're going to have overlap. And like anytime

that you're on a picture that that i like i i feel that's a reinforcement of my beliefs because you and i share a lot of the same thoughts on on players and analyzing and of course you have the stuff plus command plus stuff that if it's backing up somebody that i already liked i'm like well now i know i'm in the right like i don't know i kind of use it as like okay i i'm in the right. Like, I don't know. I kind of use it as like, okay, I'm on the right track here. If Eno is really in love with a pitcher that I like too. If you're completely against the play, or if I'm completely against you, I have to question myself. And the guy that I realized that, I'm not just pulling smoke up your eyes. I realized when you were aggressively on this guy, I was like, did I mess up on Quetel Marte?

And early on, he's only played 19 games but early on i absolutely did and i was worried you know and and i'm sure you've explained it the injuries are part of it though aren't they injuries no pretty injured i can't i can't pretend that that's why i was off of him i was concerned that the 20 power even though 20 was such a small season, I was concerned that the 20 power output was too reminiscent of 18. And it made 19 look more flukish. So I was concerned that his power, even if it was only 45 games, I was like, oh, man, what if his power doesn't come back? And he doesn't run. He has the speed.

Yeah, he doesn't. But whether it's his choice or Arizona's or a mix of both, he does not run. So my concern was, yeah, you're going to get a good batting average, but what kind of power and the steals are going to be a little sprinkling of like eight steals. So I was worried. And then the power's back from like day one. He looks great. The health is the only issue.

But I knew I was in trouble when you were like, he was one of your big guys. Like you were big on Cattell Marte. I remember one of the pods you guys were talking about. You're like, Oh, I'm getting Marte in every draft. Did you end up getting him in most of your drafts? Yeah.

I mean, all of my NFPC teams have Marte and Altuve. Yeah. And I like, I like both of them. And a couple of them have both. So that's, that's huge.

But what's interesting to me is that both of those on at least one level, we're kind of just projection plays for me where i just i almost just like plugged them into the auction calculator and i was like look they're this just by projections they're the second and you know third or in some cases first best second baseman in the in in the pool and everyone's doing here and albies yeah And I'm like, I can wait around or two or three and get Marte and Altuve. Hura was one I didn't fall for, but Albies... You've been on Albies for... You got me on Albies

and I always say, like, I'm just the bullhorn for Eno's Albies love because I did not know about him until you first got on him. And I've loved him ever since and I still am with him. But I agree with you that Altuve was... People quit on Altuve, I think, for no real good reason.

I mean, I know his 2020 was bad. And he's not stealing as much. But I think generally, this is what's so hard to see. Because the projections for Marte only had 20 homers in him. Yeah. And people were saying Altuve didn't steal bases. The projections only had 12, 15 stolen bases in there. And he was still trickling to the top because I think what we didn't emphasize enough, and it was talked about.

I don't want to say nobody talked about it. What wasn't emphasized enough was that second base was garbage this year at the top. And then once you got past the first, like, seven or eight guys, there was a glob of, like, 30 of the same player. Like, you can't tell me. Now, he's been great this year, so it's different. But you can't tell me that Ryan McMahon should have had that different of a projection from Mike Moustakas. And I like Moustakas, but they were going 100 plus picks apart. And you can't tell me that they were that different.

People love them. And they're, I mean, yeah, one's doing well and one isn't. But the point was that, and they were kind was that they were like the last hurrahs. It gets even worse after that. But one other thing that I see that's common here, at least among sort of Marte and Altuve, and another guy that I have a lot of is Segura. And what I see is common there is that some of the hardest value to see is when a guy hits like 275 and hits like 18 homers and steals 10 bases or eight bases. It feels like there's nothing high impact because he doesn't have one

standout category. Yeah. Like people, like nobody wanted Segura. I got him super late in a lot of places and he was really cool because he has that 2B, 3B he's like a cimi four positions yeah exactly four positions plus util of course and that's a huge factor too he's on most of my uh my cut line segura was uh was definitely somebody i was looking at like people are just forgetting him yeah and i totally agree with you that i call them kitchen sink guys guys who do a bit of everything um and they in the bottom line contribution is huge at the end of the year but nobody sees it as standout because there's not a ton of sbs there's not a ton of power there's not a 300 plus average there's not a hundred runs or a hundred ribbies it's just good across the board i love those players and they definitely are undervalued in

fantasy and so what's your so you you you've come you've come to a good place in in in mfbc where what like what's your favorite format where did you come from where does your favorite format now so i grew up i grew up playing an al only 10 team league that my dad started at his work in 1989 i got to be around the drafts for the first few years and I was always begging for a team. I finally got a team. I think when I was 11 or 12 when I first got a team and my dad was helping me make my lists and everything, but I got to draft and do my own thing. So I grew up kind of in the depths, a 10 team AL only. And they used double catchers and everything, corner and middle. I remember drafting guys like Pat Mears and just the lamest backup.

Two catchers and AL only? Are you kidding me? Oh, my God. You think I hate the most about AL? I started in the deep, so getting into a player pool. Where I've really found that I like it, I love the 5x5, 12-15 team range. I think that's my wheelhouse. The one format that I don't love, I've come around on head-to-head.

I used to be not so much on head-to-head. I like head-to-head points. I don't like head-to-head categories as much where, you know, 20 wins or, you know, not you wouldn't get 20 wins, but like six wins for you, four wins for me. You win the category, you get a win. And then sometimes if you are going to do head-to-head categories i think each category should be a game quote unquote so if you beat me six categories to four then you went six and four for the week i don't like when it's like you won

six categories to four and you're now one and oh i i don't like that as much so that's probably my least favorite format but i've come around on head-to-head points i like 10 10-teamers for the challenge I was talking about with the waiver wire thing. I think it's a completely different set of challenges. But if you want my wheelhouse, it's going to be 12-15 standard 5x5. I still really like it. I know the flaws of average. I know guys don't steal bases that much anymore. I understand that.

I don't think we necessarily need to change them. It's just a different league that we have to deal with. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think some of my favorite formats are the super deep. I like labor overall. I like the 12-team AL only with two catches. It's just ridiculous.

It forces me to also just know the player pool all the way down to the very bottom. To the nitty-gritty. Exactly. And like you said, that's 12-team AL only. We have five outfielders. We're starting 60 American League outfielders. That is nuts. And like you said, that helped you get Badu and Garcia because you're like,

Tigers and Rangers are going to play these two guys. I might as well get them regardless of what their projections are. Sometimes I forget to then follow that player all the way up to my 10-teamer. I'll have players where like, Oh, I got, I've had Garcia and AL labor since the very beginning. I forgot to pick him up.

Maybe I should get him in my OC. Cause then he goes off the way he has to. I feel like he hits a homer every other day. He's still going to hit 230 going forward. Right? I mean, I really, really think so. But again,

that 230 can be valuable in a lot of leagues because A, it's got power and B, batting average a 230 average is not the sinkhole. Not as painful as it used to be. Yeah. Like, what's the league average right now? Like 250 or something? No, it's below. It's like 243. It's below. So,

yeah, if you're hitting 230 with power and you're sprinkling in some steals, like I said, even if Adola's card, I know I've repeated it a few times times but even if he's a 100 wrc plus rest of the way i bet he's a top 100 hitter i would say maybe not 100 player he'll keep the job on that team yep and why not yeah by the way cards are really putting some talent out into the league with a rosa reina voight and uh now adola's garcia now they got something back for voight and a rain uh rosa reina so i don't want to hear cards fans cry about that but they just discarded garcia and now he's killed the the rangers discarded garcia they dfa'd him when they signed foltenevich and they had to and then he didn't get picked up by anybody man yeah

so then they put him back on the 40 man so So that shows you how nobody wanted Nolas Garcia. Here's an interesting side point. I looked at this a while back. The Yankees, Cardinals, and Rangers

produced the most major league talent. Really? It doesn't mean that they're... The Rangers in there too. That's interesting. It doesn't mean

that they're on those respective teams. but they come from their systems. Yeah. So that's the... That like the two or three years ago you know what i would i wonder where houston ranks um because at a point in 19 i don't remember i never followed through with it but at a point in 19 i was realizing how many guys had touched the houston system um like you know ramon loriano was one of course the jd martinez thing i had a whole list of guys and they weren't just all stars they were a big range so i wonder

where they would rank if you did a rerun of that on in 2021 where which systems provide the most i can tell you who's not producing major leaguers is the rockies well yeah no that makes sense they trade away they go get everyone the time but when's the last time you're like oh this was the a that was traded for no they know how to get rid of the youngsters that like obviously they traded josh donaldson but he was fully formed stud and that was obviously a mess up but when they trade but they actually didn't even draft him yeah exactly they tried they traded for him as a minor leaguer so what they're more and more likely to do is to get the guys from those systems that you're talking about that blow up on their team

like oh they got them from the yankee they got james caprillion from the yankees right as an afterthought because of how hurt he got they got ramon oriano from the astros 40 man crunch exactly so they take advantage of other teams issues like that they don't necessarily develop themselves which by the way how do you think we're going to go with Lizardo and Puck? What do you think is the law? Sorry to divert from what we need to talk about, but since we brought up A's, are either of give them love for it because I think they find guys that are mostly formed and give them the final touch. But do they really build guys up from the bottom? I actually don't even know how much of that they do. I think the park actually erases some flaws. That's true. If Mike Fiers was

pitching in Yankee Stadium... No chance he did what he did there. Bassett, I like what Bassett's doing. He had some strikeouts this year. What if he was still a White Sox? No chance. I don't think he would have the same career. I think he'd be in the pen by now. Yeah, he probably wouldn't have gotten to this point

because all those years when he didn't strike anybody out, the White Sox would have moved him to a different role. But now he's actually a strikeout stud. So, being with Oakland and having that part... Now, he could probably be an okay White Sox. Yeah, I agree. But the three years before that, I don't... When he was striking out seven per nine,

I think they might have moved on as a starter. But in terms of stuff plus, all their guys are bad. Oh, wow. Really? Cole Irvin is like a 70 stuff plus. I'm not surprised on that.

Dalton Jeffries was like a 77. You scared me off of him when you gave the stuff plus number on him at the beginning of the season. And I had him as like a late target type of guy. And I moved off when you said his stuff was that long they have it like i think that i think the fact that caprellian moved ahead of him says something about how they think of it internally yeah uh caprellian is close to 100 but one of the problems is i think his sinker is better than his foreseeing but he's using his foreseeing more often yes so he has like a weird arm slot if you think about none of their guys none of their guys have the arm slot that everybody wants in baseball.

None of them have the like top of, you know, like a, like a sort of top three quarters. They're all kind of like out here in that. I think about Mania. Mania has a, like,

he's like a slinger almost. He kind of slangs it. Yeah. Caprellian is like two thirds. Lizardo is two thirds. And I think if Lizardo was over the top, he would be Urias. Like if he could

have a better arm slot, he has a lot of the fundamental building blocks of Urias, right? Yep. But what did Urias do? Improved his breaking ball. We don't have to talk about

exactly what mechanism because he's on the Dodgers and there's a reputation there. But he improved his breaking ball and is now his breaking balls ahead of his changeup. And his four seamer is way better than Luzardo's by stuff. Plus, because it has more ride.

So Luria and Luzardo, you're like, okay, if you, if you just, if you didn't know that much about pitch movement, you just sort of watch them. You'd be like,

okay, both of them are 94 to 96 left side, you know uh change up first with an okay breaking ball you know mid-80s breaking ball what's the problem here why is one good one bad well luzardo's arm slot is lower and all this stuff doesn't doesn't move the way we want it to he doesn't have the same sort of vertical movement and his uh breaking ball sometimes gets really soft and slurvy sort of 82 when he needs like add the pen he's gonna be great because now i agree now his ring ball is 88 he threw an 88 mile an hour curveball the other day i was like yeah he's gonna get that extra that extra velo and he's gonna be like a two to three inning stud so he's gonna have value in certain leagues but

i mean we were he was drafted as a top 100 guy i know and i actually count him as one of my biggest mistakes this year i i liked him but i actually i did back off when it was top 100 but i definitely did not see this coming so i can't pretend that i was anywhere near seeing failure i just thought top 100 was a little aggressive and here we are now with a 506 era and a trip to the bullpen for the foreseeable future. Yeah. What's weird about it is that they said he's in the bullpen, but they didn't say for a little bit. No, they just said he's a bullpen guy.

And I'm like, okay. Because remember last year they started him in the bullpen. It was like three inning outings. And they were like kind of like we're building. Yeah. But this did not. They did not give that caveat. There's no schedule here. They just said he's off to the bullpen.

I mean, like 10 team or droppable. 12 team or I think so too. 12 team or droppable. 15 team. He's in that sort of Christian Javier moment where, and Christian Javier is better, where you're kind of like, oh,

God, do I drop this guy? I can't really put him in my reliever slot because he's not going to get me saves. Can you reserve him? But then if you're loaded on injuries. Your reserve is all injuries. That's the thing. Yeah, it's tough. And Javier lost out to Luis Garcia, which kind of shows where they stand with Luis Garcia, even though the two have been pretty close.

I thought Javier would win that. I thought Garcia would get sent down. Well, there's a little bit of a command plus situation there. Maybe Javier might have reliever command. He's like more of a sort of 87, whereas Garcia is more like 95. There's something meaningful, maybe about 90. I don't know, though. I also think that this might just be long term innings massaging

oh that's fair they're like now Christian Javier is starting and Garcia is to the pen so I would hold on to those guys and I think the one nice thing I can say about Javier right now is that in the context of our earlier

conversation about no zeros that in the context of our earlier conversation about no zeros and bidding, having a guy like Javier or Luzardo on your 15-team bench can help you reduce your FAAB bids. Because you're like, worst case scenario, I throw Javier in as my final starter.

And just get some useful innings some and maybe i get a win yeah because if they bring him in in the middle yeah yeah pitch two three innings in the between fifth and eighth innings that's a lot of times when the game is decided anyway i could see stealing some w's with javier in that role and i agree i would not cut him i even in 12 teamers i'd really be finding a way. Now, if you get pushed up against the wall because you have all these injuries, I get it. But if you can afford to keep Javier,

he should be kept. I think your point about it's his turn now and then Garcia's turn later is very smart. I think around the All-Star break, we'll probably see him get, you know how they get sent down to like A ball because it's like the closest uh affiliate to where they can still be working and then they'll come back right after the also i think

he'll get one of those plus a little bit of an extended break for garcia and javier will and that'll be the hardest that might be the hardest time to keep him is when they were setting him down to stretch him out please be not lying to me yeah oh god what do you do i remember when they started happening like four or five years ago. Those demotions around the All-Star break started happening. And you'd panic. Yeah. I think they happened to this guy.

Now, when I say this name, you're going to laugh and be like, well, this guy was never fantasy viable. But Chris Tillman did have some fantasy viability. Don't forget there was a year where he had some years of – He had some okay years of multi-run. Yeah, sub-4 ERAs for a while in an All--star bid but he got sent out one time and everyone freaked out it was in the midst of a good year like what the heck is happening and it was just one of those hey we're keeping him here because he didn't make the all-star team keep innings down or it's just to keep yeah it was just to keep him on schedule yeah and everyone freaked out and now it's more

commonplace. And I bet, I bet we see something like that with Luis Garcia. Yeah. So the, the other thing that I would say, and this is, this is me being cynical a little bit is that Jake Odorizzi signed a very

incentive laden contract that has all these markers in it for innings and starts. And I listen, you're not wrong. You don't have to say it, but you're not wrong. I't have to say it but you're not wrong I mean if you're running a team if you're running a team you could also say hey my best rotation does not have Jake Odorizzi in it that could happen true true you could say that and you could say Jake Odorizzi sometimes struggles third time through the order so by making him my forward inning guy or my three inning middle of game guy like we might get the most value out of him.

That's true. So those things are true, but they would also make him a cheaper player for your team. Yeah. But Odorizzi got somehow backed into corner. That was the best deal he could get. I know. And that surprised me. I'm an Odorizzi fan.

Obviously, he struggled a lot last year and it made his market pretty ugly. And obviously, he hasn't really done much yet this year i think that's a good call out um it's a lot harder to justify when you have someone like kento maeda with the dodgers when he would just be pitching his butt off and then like you're a reliever now it's like wait why and it's like all these incentive parts of his deal uh that would come through it kind of drops off at the end of the season they would find any you know and yeah and yeah, it would. But it was always suspect when they did that. But with Odorizzi, it is going to be an easier sell.

And I think that that could help them make sure that they get Garcia and Javier in there. I mean, Urquidy's already had the shoulder. So what if he gets back on? What if Fromber's fingers messed up? But anyway, I know we got a rundown to get to. So let's dive in. All right. So let's see here i've got uh two pitchers here and the the overall question is like you know i'd rather i'd like to hear sort of you know through your answer maybe like what kind of stats you're looking at so when we're talking about like luis castillo versus sunny

gray um the nice thing about debating these two is the park factors are the same you know uh the schedule should probably line up uh to to be very similar for them even though you know you can kind of miss a team and you know hit a team but whatever um so how are you going to differentiate between Luis Castillo and Sonny Gray at this point? It's crying an option. If so, then I'm open to that. Boy, it's really difficult right now because you look across the board on their statistical profiles, and it's hard to find anything that's too different,

except for the fact that Gray has 10 points more in his strikeout rate. But nothing else underneath that really justifies that 10-point difference from 29% to 19%. You know, they're walking the same, they're swinging strike rates dead even to like 11.2 to 11.1. It's like darn near to the percentage there. And so I wonder, you know, you could dig in and probably see some stuff in pitch in pitchers counts where gray's not where gray's finishing guys off and castillo isn't between the two here's the thing early on when castillo was struggling i was like hey he's a slow starter he's a warm weather guy i think we've we've shown that there's a there's some cold weather issue there

and i thought that he would start to turn it around as the spring morphed into summer. Well, that has not happened. And I have concerns now that run deeper than, oh, he's going to figure it out. So between those two, I'm going to take Gray. I worry that Castillo has lost the feel for really any of his pitches at this point, but particularly that changeup, which was such a driving force of his arsenal throughout his career. It's still the best of his pitches, but that is in extreme quotes because none of his pitches are working well. And the fastball has gotten so bad that the slider and changeup can't really overcome it at this point. So I'm going to go gray. You've taught me about how that extra

pitch, four pitches versus versus three can be so valuable and yeah the change up is like a show me type of offering for gray it's not a total pitch but he's got a deeper arsenal he's had better command of it right now at least it seems like I'd be interested in their command plus numbers I'm gonna go gray here over castillo and i'm dropping castillo in some of the shower leagues yeah uh yeah that's an interesting answer i i try i try to keep away from um you know my uh boutique black box uh stats from uh being too much of a crutch uh so i i'd like uh i'd like to sort of feel my way through some of those things you you know, command plus actually has them about the same, which is surprising because in the past, um, you know, uh, Castillo has had really good command pluses. little bit just behind the the command is that I think that some years they hit some sort of injury and the when the command plus is gone they have no stuff plus to fall back on whereas gray gray's

always had slightly better stuff plus numbers slightly better strikeout rates he's kind of a more traditional pitcher in that he's got a great breaking ball in a league right now that loves great breaking balls um and you have to remember sometimes to be like uh stuff plus i think and command plus are really shine when like alec manoa comes up shane mcclanahan comes up and vladimir gutierrez comes up and you might joke and say well you could just use prospect predi-b or like even just like watch the game or something but um you know like i think that sometimes it's not very obvious gutierrez had a pretty good first game you know there's a lot of people who said like what you know why don't we jump on him well his stuff plus was terrible so okay i was gonna ask how bad was it because uh i i you know he has a giant spider tattoo on his neck?

Yes, that tattoo is crazy. He's become a bit of a cult favorite in my stream. We call him Spider Neck because his MLB The Show card is just – Him and Molina scare the crap out of me. Yeah, like it's horrifying. So when he came up, we were all pretty excited in my Twitch chat, and I analyzed the start, and I was like, this was not good. I didn't even put a dollar bid on him in any of my

leagues. And I have some deep leagues where you would think he would be interesting. And I didn't get there. So I'm glad I saw in the numbers that it was worrisome. And I wanted to ask you what the stuff plus was. 69. That's not surprising. That is not nice. You might expect us to say nice, but that is the opposite.'s very very bad and it was it was evident if you did a little under the hood look like nothing looked great there and even if you watch the game he was kind of like again the results were good but we watched a lot of the game and it was like i don't see a lot here now he may get better because that was an uh ugly weather game in in chicago like the wind howling and it's his debut and that stuff sort of matters

but i would not rush out to get him without seeing something drastically different than what we saw in that opener from Vladimir Gutierrez. Fun guy with the spider neck tattoo. Don't cross him, but also don't pick him up. But like, yeah. And so like, you know, here's another stuff plus number that might surprise you. Uh, cause he's, uh, doing really well. Uh, let me just load it. Uh because he's doing really well. Let me just load it. He's also in the news right now for some unfortunate comments by a broadcaster. Marcus Stroman has a 75 stuff plus. Whoa.

He's been excellent results-wise. So what is the disconnect? What's his command plus? Is he winning by command? Is he winning by key ground balls like what's what's the disconnect there because he's got a 266 era 106 whip so everyone's saying like he's been great and then you bring up the stuff and it's right so that's worrisome the uh location plus is is uh sort of a location plus command plus thing. It's really above average, and so is his command plus.

So I think part of it is command. He's also, and this is the hardest thing to nail down, is like right now he's throwing five pitches, maybe six. I mean, he's still throwing the occasional curveball. Yeah. So what he's almost like in that Ryu, you know, Ryu to Roark. I mean, Roark is the bottom of it, but that sort of that Gibson. Ha ha.

Kyle Gibson. He had to get a mention. I did. I had to get him in. Had to. He's in that group of pitchers that just have a lot of pitches that they have good command of. I would also think that, you know, looking back on his matchups, he's had primo matchups.

His home park is pretty pitcher-friendly compared to a lot of parks. So I find him fascinating, but I also think that there are aspects that either we haven't captured yet like stuff plus is in its fairly infancy i mean we've been i've been studying it for a long time but in this iteration it's only sort of two years three years old um so we could and then there's deception um you know there's deception there's the interaction between park and because park can actually change your stuff plus a little bit. So, you know, like if you come on Marquez's curveball doesn't move as much in in cores. Exactly. You can actually change his stuff.

So there's some interaction between Park and stuff. Plus there's deception sequencing, I guess, coaching, which I hope is captured a little bit by location plus, which is saying, is this guy throwing these pitches to the right locations? Yeah. Creating a game plan and hitting your spots based on that game plan. Right. And so maybe he's being coached really well. Maybe there's something that's deceptive about what he does. Maybe it seems if you wake is not being,

is not being captured fully. So I don't want to say that Marcus Stroman is terrible because the stuff plus number is terrible. I'd rather save that for a pitcher that doesn't have a track record. So it's interesting to think about Sonny Gray and Luis Castillo in this light, which is like, what can stuff plus tell me about a guy who, who has been around for a while? What I can tell you is that Luis Castillo's stuff is trending upwards, but it is nowhere near where it was last year. So you could read that two ways and be like, oh, yeah, with the weather,

he'll get there. But also, he may never get to where he was last year. True. And so I kind of like that you kind of worked that through with, like, the different pitches. And maybe he's just lost some sort of feel. Or maybe he was more of a command first guy than we thought um and this year there's something wrong i think i think that that might be it um something command drove him more yeah and that's what i worry about too is and

i've been hearing that i've been seeing like kind of joking tweets about snell like snell like when's the when's the il stint coming for him to kind of, you know, because sometimes I've heard a player say like, once the season starts, everybody's got something. You could put them on the IL with something. And it might've been you who actually told me that because obviously you interact with players and you've talked with them about how at the end of the year, they'll be like, I was dealing with this, that, and the other starting May 1st and then for the final five months. So I wonder if there's something there where he's just trying to play through it and it's not working with Castillo and Snell, to be honest, because they're just so drastically different than any time that we've seen them.

There has to be more than just like degradation of skill. I'm just not satisfied with like, oh, they're just not that good this year. Pitch mix can actually affect stuff less too because if you have a bad pitch that you're throwing more often, some part of what's going on with Snell is that I think his changeup is no good. It's funny because he loves that pitch. He loves it. He talks about it.

He loves it. He listened to our podcast, mine and Nick's, and I was like, hey, check this out. We talked about you. He's like, hey, man, y'all are all wrong. My favorite pitch is my change up it's my best pitch and we were like oh okay sorry sorry sorry good to learn it was great that

he listened to it we were happy so I've been focused on that for years now and it's like maybe it shouldn't be your favorite pitch this year you can't command it as well as other pitches it leads to more walks and they know the batters know they're just they're spinning on it lay off it yeah so I don't I think he should throw

the change up less uh so that changes the stuff plus number um i have a hopefully i have this sort of console for stuff plus that people see cards from on twitter that um i'm hoping to kind of release at some point but um there has been some degradation of in his foreseeing fastball uh with stuff plus uh so you know the breaking balls still look pretty good uh by stuff plus but the fastball has kind of seen some degradation so you know maybe something's going on there i still think of blake snell as a buy low overall stuff plus 109 uh even as it's fallen off a little bit recently, he's still above average there. I think he could reduce his changeup usage, increase his breaking ball usage and have a good stretch. So and then with Sonny Gray, I think, you know, some of the oldest school stats that we look at strikeouts minus walks, they speak kindly of him, you know?

Yes, exactly. And so I think that that's something to keep an eye on too. Sometimes just the... And there's no underlying degradation of stuff. And it's like, okay, he's given up maybe a couple homers that he won't in the future. So I think that's a good outline there to go ahead and go buy Snell. But would you do the same on

Castillo? I've been having a harder time with him. I'm realizing now I should have just ranked Sonny Gray. I might have ranked Sonny Gray ahead of him. But yeah, I kept dropping him. There's some point where you drop him to a point where

you wouldn't actually buy low on him. I dropped him to top 40, back in top 40. I think that would actually say don't buy low. Because even when you buy low, the person selling is probably saying, I'm selling an SP1 or SP2. So maybe you can buy him for SP sp2 pricing but i'm actually saying he's the three or four right yeah so i'd only buy him as like maybe an sp5 pricing because i might

only be getting sp3 or four going forward and i want to get a you got to get a discount i gotta get a discount but who's gonna sell luis castillo at sp5 that's the problem and we've talked about this in the fantasy industry at large hate when people just say go out and buy low and they don't give any idea of what that looks like or how that will happen because again people aren't just looking to sell top assets that they paid second third round prices for for guys that you picked up off the waiver wire some poo-poo platter of six players and so there the discussion needs to be there. I think you're highlighting why it's harder, easier said than done to just go by. But then it's also really hard without knowing your league settings.

And then sometimes your league has been together for years. Like, you know, Oh, John doesn't trade pitching or whatever. You know what I mean? It's like, people are like,

Oh, who can I trade Luis Castillo for? And I'm like, just, just generally just like all of the players in the world who can you trade it for it's so hard when they ask that question i said i don't know what please give me some names and the best thing that somebody can do in a chat format is to actually go and do some of the work and go and look and this team needs pitching or hitting and

they have loose or this team needs pitching and find some needs on other teams, find some available players, and then come back and be like, I could trade Luis Castillo for Brandon Lau. Boom, boom, boom. Or Mike Moustakas or this guy who would fit my needs. And I think I could get him. What do you think? Then it's way easier for me to be like,

oh yeah, yeah, Moose should get hot, you know, that one. So anyway, just do a little bit of the work. I totally agree with that. Because if you just say, who am I getting for so-and-so i don't know whoever your league will give you no i totally you got to do some legwork there and make sure to another big flaw when trading is like make sure your your team that you're trading with could use a pitcher on a buy low scenario it doesn't like if they've got cole and bauer as their top two they don't need pitching so it doesn't matter that you want yeah it doesn't matter that you want.

Yeah, it doesn't matter that you want player X. I think sometimes too many fantasy players are too selfish in what they look for because they just want a certain player. There's some research on this that you do better in negotiations if you can put yourself in their shoes and examine their needs and just try to say, would I take this deal if I was them? Yeah. Be honest with yourself. You wouldn't take the crap that you're offering. So don't offer it to somebody else.

You know, it's like, come on, you're trying to get over. I used to be the guy and I'll freely admit this. And I now roast this person, but I used to be the guy who would write you like a dissertation on why you should take the trade. Cause I'll give you this whole detail about how great my guys are. one time this guy in my league if they're so great why are you his name is josh and he listens to a lot of pods so he might listen to this he basically goes well then why are you trading him you're right that's fair and from that day forward i was like stop selling your players like that if i communicate with somebody beyond the trade offer itself,

it's usually about I could see this person starting for you here. Yeah. And you have a surplus here. If I'm misreading that and you see something else, then just tell me. Then by all means. That guy wouldn't start for my team. Okay, then you don't see that. Then I'll try to either go higher here or lower here or do something else.

Yeah, but don't tell them how great the players are because then they're just going to say what we're in this for. We're all trying to evaluate these players. So you have your opinion of how good these players are. I need to know how, like how they fit your team. And if, if they actually would start for you,

if they fit their needs, but so a lot of this discussion also gets harder to me around the fringes where you could just drop the guy. So a lot of times the question of buy low or sell high is less meaningful. Maybe your league doesn't have trades. There's a lot of leagues like that. All of NFBC. Yeah. Or maybe it doesn't matter what I think of Luis Castillo.

There's just no market for him. I've been trying to sell him and no one's buying. So your buy low, sell high doesn't matter to me. The market has spoken. And I don't think Luis Castillo is a drop yet. I think it's harder for these next two names. And I might have been wrong on one of these. Jameson Tyon and Eduardo Rodriguez. I might've been wrong on one of these, Jamison Tyon and Eduardo Rodriguez.

I might've been wrong on both of these guys, but, you know, are they droppers for you at this point? I was right there with you with Tyon. And then I saw this tweet from this guy, Anas Saris, I don't know if you've ever heard of him. And he was responding to somebody else's tweet, Alex Rinaldi's, that was highlighting some big trouble with Jamison Tyon.

And this was one where the stats backed up what I was kind of seeing. Because I was big on it. You mentioned that you might have been wrong on one of these guys. I imagine it was Tyon. Are you saying that you might? Because I was huge on Tyon.

I think I might have been wrong on both these guys guys i imagine it was tyon are you saying are you saying that you might because i was huge on tyon i think i might be wrong with both these guys i i ranked them fairly aggressively i i might i might still double down on one so i'm letting i'm letting you i'm letting you ramble first okay well i'm not if it's eduardo then i'll be listening because you can sell me because i'm not a huge eduardo guy i kind of think he is what he is which is not a 564 era by the way i think he'll get back into his high threes. But Tyon, I thought he was going to be a G. I'm like, he brought that slider on the last time that we saw him. I think he's healthy. He missed enough time to where he can come back fully, but he's been so inconsistent. And then the tweets that from you and Alex highlighting where his stuff has been going and the issues

with his curveball are very concerning and that's something right now where i'm like oh no this is this is very scary from him and if i was going to drop one of these two if i was forced into a situation where i had to drop one even though tyon's been better i think he's the drop because of this stuff obviously this stuff could change with with his with his stuff sorry uh to keep using that word but you guys highlighted how the stuff plus was dropping. And Alex highlighted the- The fastball velo is okay, but- Yeah, but the breaking ball velo was what Alex was zooming in on too.

And if those things don't change, he's going to continue to struggle this year and really be kind of an up and down sort of guy. up and down sort of guy and my biggest concern with him is that home run rate which is at 1.9 and does not come with an accompanying gaudy homer to fly ball rate it's 16 which is tough park yeah and he's a 13 career guy and two of his away parks can be difficult too with toronto regardless of where they're playing whether it's's Dunedin, Buffalo, or Toronto, they're all hitters parks. And then Camden in the summer is hell on pitchers who allow homers. So I'm worried that that's not going to come down and that it's going to be a problem for him all year. So I look at a 373 Sierra and I see that it's good and somebody will probably pick him up if I drop him. But if I have to drop somebody in a shower league right now, unfortunately, it's Tyone, even though I loved him coming into the year i was concerned going in and then literally seeing y'all's tweets today i'm

like well that kind of marriage result that i was seeing with the eye test now here's the numbers test to back it up this is scary yeah yeah um yeah the uh the eye testers have been have been getting on me or tyone for um I think, the late home run issues. I mean, I've watched a fair amount of starts. I think the late home run, the late sort of blow-up inning, a little bit of problem getting through the third time through the order. I don't think that he should have that problem necessarily because he still has the show-me change.

He still has the two breaking balls, the fastball. He's even working the sinker back in. So there is a potential here for you know maybe two of the pitches being shown me but like five pitch mix i don't think he's like a two pitch guy even if the slider is the best uh the best secondary um and so i still see potential there i think i also may be underrated yankee stadium is so bad such a tough park that like, I mean, just imagine Severino and Herman and Cole as pirates. Oh my gosh. It would be unreal.

We'd all be writing fluff pieces about how they've got the best rotation of all time or whatever. Yep. So I think that Yankee Stadium is just a really tough park. It may not be all the way to Coors, but it is very similar to like a Cincinnati. Yes. And they don't get get like we talk about it we know that it's a hitters park but I don't think we express enough how difficult it can be on pitchers and how somebody like Tyone might be a sit at home right now not necessarily a cut but maybe you only sit them you only start them in in road matchups or friendly home matchups as opposed to just start all the time, which is what I was doing with him at the start of the year.

And that's actually a big differentiator for me between these two guys, because Eduardo Rodriguez was always a guy whose command plus was his best feature. And even this year, 112 command plus and 83 overall, 84 overall stuff plus. Right. 84 overall stuff plus, right? But the one thing that I like about, if I had, I think both these guys would kind of be closer to bench right now than to in my lineup. The one thing that I like about having Tylan on my bench

is that I have something to look for. Yes, you know exactly what we're trying to analyze. I'm looking at the breaking balls and waiting for harder stuff from the breaking balls. That's what I'd be looking for right now. With Eduardo Rodriguez, it's just not obvious to me what is missing or

what he could do better. He's throwing all four of his pitches. They're all mediocre. Yeah, they're all fine, but nothing special. They're all mediocre. He still has the command that he normally has. And so maybe it's just that he's not that good. Like he's closer to Rourke than to Ryu.

I totally agree. And that's kind of where I've been with him. And he has performed well throughout his career to kind of beat where I am with him as far as my projection on Eduardo versus his projection. But maybe this is the year where he's like a 430 ERA at season's end. Now that's still a run off of the ERA that he has right now, a run, 1.3 runs. But are you starting a 430 guy in 10s and 12s and even 15s? Are you necessarily, because he always has a big whip too. One of the things is, is that his, his sub four ERA allows you to take on the,

the higher whip. So I think that there is some great concern with Eduardo Rodriguez that he just doesn't come back this year to being the guy that we've seen in previous years. Yeah, there's some drop-off in the swinging strike rate. The 20% K-BB, good Sierra and XFIP, those speak well of him. But league average XK-BB right now is like close to 16%. Exactly. So it's kind of close to average.

And then his ballpark factors in some ways are just as bad as Tyon's. Because he's got the same problems away from home. And then even at home, even though it's not about homers necessarily in Fenway. It's about hits, though. Hits. Yeah, the hits will just pile up. You look at his whip and you're like, oh, yeah, he's probably going to have kind of a high, but bad at home.

So I could see dropping both these guys, honestly, and I'll take the L's on them. I would be a little bit closer to holding Tyon, just because I could be like, okay, to holding Tyon just because I guess I could be like okay I don't want my bench you know I I want to watch and see if the breaking balls start matching the fast balls of velocity where he's hurt yeah I don't want to cut him but if I had to cut one if I had both I still I think I would cut Tyon right now but like you said actually maybe not like what you said about having one thing to look for maybe maybe reverses that. Cut Eduardo, keep Tyon on your bench, and then when you see that curveball Velo get back on track, put him in.

Because they might honestly both be cuts, right? Yeah, they really are. They're very close. not getting anything back so if you just want something besides cutting them you can do that kind of trade but otherwise do not expect a whole lot from them in the short term especially because they need to they need to fix things tyon we know what he needs to fix eduardo i just it's not it's more of a nebulous we don't really know because everything's kind of meh yeah i guess you know if you were bad you know babbitt you could really focus on babbitt for him but i think you know if you were bad you know babbitt you could really focus on babbitt for him but i think you know zips gives him like a 323 babbitt going forward and they might be right because that's a

fenway there's probably a fenway effect there has to be has to be for sure well that is going to wrap things up here for rates and barrels and uh sleeper in the bust converging to be one uh love it and uh thanks so much to paul sporer for for coming on uh it was a pleasure uh and you can follow sporer at at spore s-p-o-r-e-r uh on twitter and what's your twitch handle same twitch.tv slash spore so you can follow me there on both you know great great great talking with you We may have a chance to see each other before Fall League, though. Girlfriend and I are talking about going out to California, running into you and Mason, so I'll keep you posted

on that. Sweet. Go attend a game or something. That'd be fun. Exactly. That'd be wonderful. So thank you so much for having me on, man. It was great talking with you. And you can follow us at, you can follow me at E-N-O-S-A-R-R-I-S. You cannot follow Derek Van Ryper into vacation like we all would like to.

And we'll be back on Friday. We've got a special guest on Friday, Andrew Perpetua, former analyst for the New York Mets. And we'll be talking about the future and past of baseball analysis so that he's a crazy guy so we'll probably talk about some weird stuff you've never thought of before and thanks again

to Spore and thanks to everyone and thanks for listening