Rates & Barrels - Bobby Miller's Debut and Two-Start Pitchers Galore

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

Eno and Al discuss Bobby Miller’s major league debut and consider if he needs to be added to all leagues where he is available. They also discuss Julio Teheran’s return to the majors, a pair of widely-available leadoff hitters, Eno’s ongoing fascination with Rougned Odor and a surprisingly robust week for streaming two-start pitchers. Rundown 0:42 Bobby Miller debuts 4:30 Other recent news items 17:21 Lineup developments 34:16 Pitchers of note 42;38 Streamers/two-start pitchers 55:03 Closer corner Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Al on Twitter: @almelchiorBB e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Best Western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze. And it felt a little like... Come on kids, back to the hotel room. Good night kids. Good night mama. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at best western Hello everybody, you are at Rates and Barrels. Welcome to the show. It is Friday, May 26th. I'm Al Melker. I am here with Eno Saris, DVR, out today, but he will be back next week. And we've got an action-packed show, Eno, so I know people are looking forward to getting on with their Memorial Day weekends. We will get you to that as soon as possible, but we've got a lot of news and a lot of interesting stuff to get to. So let's start, you know, with the big item from this week, Bobby Miller.

He is a big item. Yeah. That could be his nickname. What's that? That could be his nickname. Yeah. The big item. Not the big unit, but the big item. Making his debut against Atlanta. 6'5", 220.

We talked about this a little bit offline before hitting record, something that was a little bit puzzling to me. So a great overall result. And of course, you know, throwing 99, a hundred against Atlanta, but not very many swings and misses replicating a pattern that he had at AAA Oklahoma city this year. So I know you looked into it a little bit, but is that anything that we should be concerned about at all? Or is that just nitpicking? There's this, there's an interesting thing going

on where you look at his four seam change and slider whiff rates and they look fine now they don't look outstanding which is a little surprising given the stuff rating on the pitches and just what it looks like when you're watching him he's throwing 100 you know uh but you know he has a slightly above average whiff rates on his four seam, uh, average-ish on the change up around average on the slider. He gets no whiffs on the curve ball and he gets no swings on the curve ball. The swings, your curve balls usually get fewer swings than other pitches, but he gets 22% swing so far on his curve ball. But what I'm looking at, that's all competition level. So I think that has some spring in it. In any case, the average curveball still gets like 35% swing. So nobody's swinging at the curveball, and when they swing, they're not missing,

and it's the pitch that's getting hit. And if you look over at Stuff Plus, it's his worst pitch. So the curveball must have some function in his arsenal, the reason he goes to it. But it is possible that he slims his repertoire down, has the two fastballs, the slider and the change, and becomes more occasional with the curveball. And if he does that, it may be good for him. I also think that there's generally a slight whiff of bad command around him. He did give up some hard hit balls. The location plus was not bad on it, but it's one start of that. And there is the fact that he did give up some hard hit balls and that he's had some iffy-ish walk rates in the minors.

So I think this is a high-stuff, medium-command kind of guy. I'm still all in on him. All right. He's not available in too many places at this point, but maybe some 12-teamers, especially leagues that have weekly fab, or maybe he wasn't picked up last weekend. Weekly fab. I mean, he just debuted this week. So I think mostly weekly fabs is where he's available and i you know i don't know how many more you know really exciting

stuff candidates that are left in the minors you know what i mean um and so as the supply runs out uh there's the scarcity goes up and you know he may i think he is worth a substantial bid okay well i i put a number to that in the column i think i feel like i need to do that every week so the number i put to it for for 15 team leagues was 18 to 20 percent so i think it's worth i think he's worth yeah even with our our dwindling budgets uh well there's a number of other developments uh and you mean 18 to 20 percent overall right not what you have left correct yeah very good people have like 200 what you have left especially if you've got a budget like mine uh

it's not going to do the trick right total fab budget that you had at the beginning uh right so i do want to get to some other uh developments from the past few days. We have an update on Eloy Jimenez. Of course, he's on the IL, had an appendectomy. But the update there is that within the last few days, started a rehab assignment with AA Birmingham and going to play a couple more games. And then he'll get evaluated over the weekend. So I don't think the return for Jimenez is imminent,

but is it time to start thinking about the domino effect here and maybe very specifically what happens with Jake Berger when Jimenez returns? Yeah, I mean, I like him and he hits the ball hard, but he does not have offer positional versatility. like him and he hits the ball hard, but he does not have offer positional versatility. The best defensive team does not include Eloy in the outfield or Jake Berger in the outfield.

I'm not saying anything crazy here, am I? No, I don't think you are. I do think it impacts him. I don't think they really want to play Eloy in the outfield. But, you know, there is some, there's just a risk there with Gavin Sheets and Jake Berger that one of them just gets sent down. And is it worth even speculating on that at this point? Or do you think we have enough time to just see how it plays out?

In terms of getting ahead of it and dropping Berger now or something? Yeah, you know, if somebody needs a roster spot or maybe I mean, Berger is still, he's been added a lot, but he's still out there. So I mean, is this a window maybe to get him still or is it not worth it at this point? I mean, I don't think it's worth

picking up now with the good news for me, though, I know. All right. But if you've got him, I think I would treat him as a streamer bat in this situation. Well, that's fair enough. And just something I think we should watch over the next few days,

see what that timetable is for Jimenez. Because if it is a short timetable, then maybe we do have some roster decisions to make. So some other developments, Royce Lewis probably going to be back quite a bit before Jimenez. Of course, he tore his ACL roughly a year ago, the second time that he did that in two seasons. He is eligible to return from the 60-day IL this Monday. I've seen some reports that it's possible he could be back that soon. I think maybe we could at least expect he'd be back sometime in the coming

week. So we've talked about Lewis before on this show, you know, but it's always been like, well, you know, maybe you pick them up now, but you've got some time,

but I think time is kind of running out on Royce Lewis. So where should we think about adding him? I think you should think about adding him uh in most places um i think he's going to take the uh regular third base job uh from kyle farmer um you know i know carlos correa's hurt so maybe lewis is going to play some short and farmer plays third but when everybody's healthy i expect uh it to mostly be lewis and correa on the left hand side of that infield the weird thing for me is um i've seen this with some guys like josh jung um you know sometimes you see an injury manifest in the swing and miss in a weird way that you

didn't expect you might expect an acl injury to affect lewis with stolen bases or something like that but um since he's come back this year he's swinging and missing at a rate that i've never seen before and i know it's 32 plate appearances but the whiff rate is built on pitches you know and so he's 32 plate appearances, you'd expect him to have seen 120 pitches. Yep. And he's whiffing at like an 18% rate, and his highest before that was 12.5. So there's something going on with the whiff rate there.

To expect him to be fully healthy when he first comes back is a lot. So I think I might revise downward the projected batting average and revise upward the projected strikeout rate a little bit. Consider him likely to strike out 25, 26% of the time at least and hit more like 240. I also think it's a lot to expect him to steal 10 more bags the rest of the way coming off a second ACL. I would say full season true talent, I'd expect something like 240, 15, and 5 from Royce Lewis. I think that feels a little tepid.

Yeah, well, but for a reason. Right, yeah. I mean, all the whiffs in the minor leagues, second ACL, it's a big deal. Yeah, no, absolutely. So, you know, what I would translate from that is I do think he's somebody that you should target in 15 teams this week,

but I think going shallower than that, I think we can afford to wait and see what the results are early on. Yeah, I think going shallower than that, I think, I think we can afford to wait and see, see what the results are early on. Yeah, I think so too. I mean, yeah, though I'm thinking of like,

you know, a couple of places I've got, um, oh my gosh, on the rundown. It's been, uh, it's,

yeah, I noticed it's been copying down everything I've said. If you want a transcript of this show, uh need to turn this off i'm going without the rundown i hope it's not still doing it um any case uh sorry what was i saying um what were you talking about oh no we were just gonna talk about where to add lewis and oh yeah i'm thinking in my name like saying in my main I've got Ryan McMahon and I I've been looking for like a third baseman that um can play when McMahon's on the road you know benchish benchish 15 team you know definitely worth a biggish bid in an AL only if

somebody forgot about him yeah absolutely no absolutely. No question about that. Well, just a quick hit here on situation in Arizona. Dominic Fletcher down, which I found a little bit surprising because, or maybe surprise is not the right word, but maybe unfortunate because he was. You heard my surprise voice. Yeah. He was definitely unfortunate from a fantasy perspective because he was just on most added list, but he's back down in AAA.

Jake McCarthy back up. So do we do a hold with Fletcher and should we expect better from McCarthy this time around? What did he do in the minor leagues that was different? Jake McCarthy walked more and struck out less. I mean, he did go down and was 32% better than the average in AAA. So I don't know what they told him to do when he went down, but he did hit a ball harder than he hit in the major leagues.

He whiffed less and he walked more. I suppose, you more, I suppose. I think one thing that's missing from Fletcher's line and something that you kind of have to remember when you think of the Fletcher brothers is, I'm not sure I believe in the sort of league average power that Fletcher was showing. And so they might look at projections that say that Fletcher is going to be 10% less than league average. He's going to be like 87 WRC type player.

And I think Jake McCarthy, even with his flaws, is projected to be more like a league average type player. So I guess they're looking for some power infusion from McCarthy. And I think this makes McCarthy a good pickup. But you have to remember that they have Alec Thomas in the minor leagues. So what happens if Alec Thomas in the minor leagues. So what happens if Alec Thomas goes down and does the Jake McCarthy? And Jake McCarthy struggles in the big leagues. Do they now bring up Alec Thomas?

Is this like a carousel now? So I pledge some caution, but if you need stolen bases, Jake McCarthy is worth some money. Oh yeah, absolutely. A lot of us went that route back in March. caution but uh if you need stolen bases jake mccarthy is worth some money oh yeah absolutely a lot of us uh went that route back in back in march uh so uh hopefully uh those of us who drafted him held on to him because maybe there's more steals to come soon uh let's pivot to uh some pitchers and a couple of pitchers who made their season debuts kyle hendricks for the cubs

uh not a great outing for his debut, but not terrible. Julio Teran, at least on the surface, a really nice outing against the Giants, did wind up taking the loss in that one. But anything there in Hendricks or Teran in terms of fantasy interest? No. Moving on.

No, I just, I mean, it's a tough park. I know he did well. But it's funny when I looked at, and it's interesting to me that his fastballs registered as above average by Stuff Plus. That's surprising to me. But I looked at one point at pitchers who pitch the most like they used to, like 10 years ago. And Julio Terran is a throwback in that way. For example, the rest of the league has stopped throwing fastballs and Julio Teran is out here still throwing 60% fastballs. Even

when he comes in at 89.5 miles an hour this year, he threw 66% fastballs. There's nobody else in the big leagues doing that. And in terms of velocity, it's the throwback velocity. Maybe it'll work for a little bit because people are like,

what is this? But I don't think it'll work for long. The projections are awful. The stuff other than the fastball quirk doesn't really speak to me, and the team situation is rough. Yeah, and I'm not sure when Eric Glauer is coming back. I mean, they've got several rotation injuries. I think Glauer may be the next back.

And then obviously either Teron or Ray would have to go at that point, unless they went with the six-man rotation. But just one last note on Teron. I noted that he, you know, you mentioned the fastball usage. Probably a good reason for that because Slider clocked in at minus 29 on Stuff Plus.

Is that a record in a bad way? I mean, it's so bad that it makes you think, well, what if there's something good about it? I think it is one of the lowest numbers I've ever seen. I need to look at it now. Why does it hate it so much? The slider is 83, so that's bad. that hate it so much the slider uh is 83 so that's bad uh and it does not have sort of power curve-ish drop it has um average drop for a slider so it's kind of average across the board with no

horizontal movement so it's like an 83 mile an hour gyro slider uh you know to compare to other gyro sliders the good gyro sliders are at 89 to 91 you know so it's like a slow gyro slider i can see this being a bad not not what you want got the good results in spite of it uh but uh yeah we'll we'll move on to a few other pitchers i think you'll have uh we're interested at least one of these pitchers garrett whitlock is expected to return the red sox rotation on saturday at arizona paul blackburn expected to return to the Red Sox rotation on Saturday at Arizona. Paul Blackburn expected to return to the athletics rotation sometime next week, possibly maybe getting a two-start week. And the Yankees calling up Randy Vasquez to make his Major League debut

on Friday night against the Padres. However, I did see, I believe it was on MLB.com, that Vasquez just may be used as an opener. So I don't think there's much long-term interest there. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but anything here notable? Well, to me, the fact that Randy Vasquez is needed is notable in that there is a guy, Will Warren, that I am more interested in in AAA. I will Warren than I am more interested in, uh, in triple a. Um, and so, uh, if we'll Warren, if Randy Vasquez is already being called up and being used, that means we'll Warren might be next.

So, uh, that's not much praise for, for Vasquez, but, uh, you know, uh, it does mean that the coffers are getting a little bare in New York. And so we'll warn maybe next. I'm not really that in on Vasquez. Whoa, what are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking? You know, you're driving a 2024 Ford Escape with available Alexa built in so you can change the music. Oh, yeah. Alexa, change station to 99.2. change station to 99.2. See? Purchase a 2024 Escape ST line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment. That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40,294. Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca.

You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself you live for experience and lead by example you want the most out of life and realize what you're looking for is already in you this is for you the The Canadian Armed Forces. A message from the Government of Canada. All right, well, let's get to some hitting developments then. And there's one player here. I want to start with a couple of players that are in sort of similar situations,

but one that I got a question about on Twitter to do a deep dive. So I guess we'll do our best here. Zach McKinstry getting very regular play with the Tigers, hitting lead off, definitely in the fat side of a platoon. Pretty much the same situation for Mickey Moniak with the Angels. Do you have a, I understand that, you know, Moniak is outfield only. McKinstry is multi-position eligible. I believe it's second, third outfielder. But a preference for one over the other. understand that you know moniac is outfield only mckinstry is multi-position eligible i believe

it's second third outfielder um but a preference for one over the other um what what do you think the the the depth chart in anaheim looks like when the Angels are fully healthy? Well, I mean, I do question, just to even get to the simplest aspect of this, that maybe Taylor Ward comes back in a more regular role because I just worry about all the strikeouts for Moniak. And he's hitting with power so far, but he's not hitting the ball hard.

So I just think that the skills and the surface stats at some point are going to be more in sync and Taylor Ward might get another shot to, you know, to write the ship for himself. I think that when everybody's healthy and they're, and they're, and the best lineup is Ward, Trout, Renfro. And so that's what bothers me about Moniak plus the strikeouts. And then in, in Detroit, I think, you know, So that's what bothers me about Moniak plus the strikeouts. And then in Detroit, I think Nick Maton was slightly useful but just proved to strike out too much.

So I wonder if he's kind of losing his grip on any sort of regular playing time. And if that's the case, then I think there's an opening there for McKinstry to maybe even become the everyday third baseman. It's a bad team, so there's just more likely that Zach McKinstry can find his way to full-time play, I think. You know, their situation is interesting, though, because they're edging up on 500. They're in second place. It's a bad division. And McKinstry's got as good of a – I shouldn't say as good of a skill set. I mean, I don't think he's got as good of a skill set as Riley Green, for example, but he's got a good skill set.

And I think he should be in that lineup a lot. He hits the ball a little bit, but power runs. Yeah, he's like kind of a Joey Wendell-esque where it's just like everything's a little bit above average or average. All right. Well, unfortunately, I didn't note who asked the Twitter question, but if you are watching or listening, you've got a comp there. So I think that helps us put some teeth into what to expect from Zach McKinstry. There might be some long-term guys in the organization that if they were really, really bad, they might be looking at over McKinstry. Because McKinstry is 28 years old.

And so they might have younger guys they like better. But I think that you're right. They might have younger guys they like better, but I think that you're right. I think that their managers talked about, hey, you need to play well. We need to win. We're going to put the best players on the field.

They're trying to get out of the rebuild phase. So McKinstry's totally the type of player that kind of takes over from Flotsam and Jetsam crew. So I think he's actually, I don't know if he's interesting in 12 teamers because he's more like a sort of 15-15 guy, maybe full season, but everything else he is. Yeah, that sounds about right to me. So yeah, interesting player who's still out there.

Maybe some 15 teamers, maybe go a little shallower even on McKinn Street. Now, a player that you specified that you wanted to talk about, interesting player, Rugnet Odor, had a very big game against the Nationals on Thursday, but maybe we've got Manny Machado coming back. Maybe we've got Hasan Kim maybe being out for a while after falling a ball off of his knee.

How do you see this all shaking out for Odor? Yeah, you know, the funny thing about odour dude is that like i tweeted that i don't understand him and um i feel like i could look at his line right now right and be like oh dude his strikeout rate's one of the best it's ever been his walk rate's one of the best it's ever been oh look at it he's got that barrel rate he's always got that barrel rate. Oh, he's got an opportunity on this team. They need him. He just had this big hit.

Like, but I have to zoom out for a second because I've played this game with Adore like in both directions so many times. I've fallen in and out of love with René Adore. Like, I don't know if there's any other player that I've done this more with where he goes 30 and 15 and I say oh but he had negative war

I'm out and then the next year he cuts his strikeout rate and he goes 250 with 18 and 12 and I'm like well he cut his strikeout rate I think I might be back in and then I buy in and I get the 30 homers but a 205 average and then I'm like well I'm he cut his strikeout rate. I think I might be back in. And then I buy in, and I get the 30 homers, but a 205 average. And then I'm like, well, I'm out.

I can't take that average. And then I'm like, well, the next year, it looks like I'm right. He was a below replacement player for Texas in his last year. See, I was right. And then he has these little ticklings of he gets picked up by teams, and he gets played, and he does have have power and he does have certain skills. But I just want to zoom out and be like, no, dude, you've played this game before. You know how it ends.

It ends with like a 200 average, some power, some speed and tears. So I'll flip this. You're right right that's always the end point it seems but i want to flip this around because you're talking about with the angel situation when everybody's healthy you know what happens to moniak so when everybody's healthy for the padres yeah is there a spot for odore is this you know i mean is he just a like a one week play for next week or is there something more i think he's a decent oneweek play for next week? Or is there something more? I think he's a decent one-week play because Haseon Kim did escape a real, I guess, a broken knee at least.

But it looked bad, and he couldn't put weight on it, so I expect him to miss some time. And if he misses time i don't think brandon dixon is very good and brandon dixon's already sort of pressed into service because manny machado's hurt so i think odor is a full-time player next week all right there you go um so uh looking at uh just a few other players who are picking up some playing time jose caballero uh i'm not sure if he's taken over second base for the mariners because they've just seen a whole bunch of lefties lately so we've

got an opportunity this weekend with three right-handed starters for the pirates to see if he keeps playing assuming caballero i mean if caballero sits two of those games i think there's not much reason to be interested but if he starts two or three uh where should we be looking to add him i think he's al only um he just doesn't hit the ball hard i know he's got some interesting slugging numbers but if you kind of look closely all the interesting slugging numbers come in the smaller uh sample sizes so if you just sort of scan the minor leagues, you're like, oh, 320 ISO. Yeah, yeah, and 29 plate appearance at the complex. You know, every time he's crossed over 200 ISO, it's been a tiny sample in the minor leagues. So I think he's true talent, like a 120 ISO guy with like a 21% strikeout rate

with some walks. Like it's just a little bit too Abraham Toro-esque, you know 21 strikeout rate with some walks like it's just a a little bit too abraham toro-esque you know where it's like oh the plate skills are good but he just doesn't hit the ball hard you know so i don't i think that a player like that even struggles to hit for good uh batting average after a while um if you just think about the mechanics of like hitting a ball hard on the ground like it's still better to hit the ball hard on the ground than it is to hit the ball softly on the ground. You know what I mean? Absolutely.

It's still useful to hit the ball hard, and I don't see him doing that very much. But the flip side is I'm worried about Colton Wong. One of the things that happens in Seattle is it kills hits, and it kills hits almost on a legendary level. I think when I look at the three-year park factors at StatCast, they've got it killing hits more than any other park in baseball. Some other colder parks kill homers.

San Francisco is still one of the worst places for offense because it's cold and because of Triples Alley and stuff. But Mariners, T-Mobile kills hits. And that's kind of where Wong is struggling the most. So you've got a 32-year-old on a one-year deal. How much are you invested in him? You may take Caballero over him. So I would watch this weekend closely yeah

absolutely yeah uh because he may already have that job but we'll have a better sense of that this week exactly yeah he may already have that job so yeah exactly watch watch what happens against righties uh wong may be uh like like honestly i hate to say it about it but like it could be close to dfa you know like this is the type of player that if you're looking for offense on a team that's trying to win now and you don't have a long-term commitment and somebody that you could call up to play next to Caballero or with Caballero would be better than Wong, that could happen.

All right. And just as a side note, that's why I love looking for the the pitching streamers with the at sea next to them because that's a bad bad part for hitters uh very good yeah seattle oh i mean oakland is the king of of streaming yeah for a variety of reasons this season all right let's just look at three uh players uh two definitely getting some time in the outfield a third maybe going there, maybe first base, not sure. But Jonathan Davis and Michael Tauchman both getting regular starts in center field.

Davis for the Marlins, Tauchman for the Cubs. I mean, Davis saying regulars, maybe a bit of a stretch because it's just been consecutive games so far, but great results both games. Three hit games in Colorado for Davis, Tauchman filling in for Cody Bellinger, then Nolan Jones getting called up on Friday. Not sure what the Rockies plans are for Jones or if he'll even play that much, but what's your level of interest in Davis, Tauchman, and or Jones this weekend? That's not looking good. it's not looking good. I watched Tauchman's

175 plate appearances with the Giants last year and he had the countenance and the results and the process of someone I thought was seeing his last time in the big leagues.

That's going to color whatever my analysis is now. But when I do look at him, I don't see any batted ball power. So it looks like a fill-in defensive replacement type guy to me. One thing that's interesting about Jonathan Davis is he's always been a player that, you know, I would like if he could strike out less. You know, a guy, he's like one of these guys that runs fast, has hit the ball hard at times, has a good idea at the plate, and yet just has this wicked large strikeout rate,

despite not terrible whiff rates. His strikeout rates have always been way more than his whiff rates. This year in AAA for Detroit, he had a 23% strikeout rate with a 258 ISO. He's kind of showing off all those things. He's 31 at this point. Why is he up? what's the corresponding move like why is he in my yeah i'm not sure because when i look at the their lineups from those couple of games that just they've got so many players that are versatile so they they move

birdie around they move hampson around uh so it's not necessarily that they're you know i mean obviously they're they're filling a hole with uh jess chisel mount but in terms of just the you know why they brought him up now for these last two games i don't know i mean my narrative which might just be totally wrong is that the marlins love these these speedy guys with a little bit of power upside and um maybe they just want to see if he's an upgrade over hampson i don't know yeah yeah okay that's fair uh and uh but garrett hampson wasn't uh an everyday player no but again he's kind of he and birdie and maybe now davis they all kind of fill that same role you know moving around the diamond uh and stealing bases has gotten more appearances in the last week than

i expected in fact he's playing every day between center short second and right um man the marlins are so weird yeah they're so deeply weird they really are what is going on like if i ran the marlins it would be brian de la cruz avasail garcia jorge soler and jesus sanchez i'd probably put jazz those guys are hurt so that yeah part of the who's hurt issue too is how long is hamsa going to stay around how long will davis stay around who's hurt uh garcia is still on the il uh And Sanchez. And Sanchez, yeah, thank you. Okay. All right.

Eh. Eh. I give an eh on all of them. What was the third one? Oh, Nolan Jones. That one is actually interesting to me. I had picked up Brenton Doyle as a streamer in all leagues, but Brenton Doyle just got blown up.

I think he got hit. And they say he's going to avoid the injured list, but this Jones call-up must be related to that, don't you think? Yeah, I absolutely think so. They released Jonathan Daza, so we don't have to worry about him anymore. think so they've released Jonathan Daza so we don't have to worry about him anymore but Gritchick

Bryant Blackman Profar Jones yeah I just wonder if Jones will see some time at first because Crone is out indefinitely and they've not gotten anything from Michael Talia so he's beginning he's big he's gonna take swings soon I think there's a I would I would treat Nolan Jones as a short-term streamer that has a little asterisk next to him I mean he could play his way onto this roster I think well that's

what I thought maybe back in March. Yeah, I thought he would make the opening day roster, but Michael Toglia is not playing well either. And so, you know, CJ Krohn can come back and they say, well, we prefer Jones now. Right? Yeah, I mean, that's

my thinking. So I think he's worth a little investment. It's nice to have... It's hard, actually, I think he's worth a little investment. You know, it's nice to have. It's hard. Actually, I've noticed. It's hard to have like two or three Rockies that you can't play all the time on your roster. I think I have some places where I had like McMahon and Blackman.

And then I picked up Doyle and I was like, oh, man, this is too much. Because in a perfect world, I would not play any of these guys on the road which means I'm all of a sudden platooning three spots you know yeah but if you don't have that many Rockies on your squad like picking up Nolan Jones for a small number

like trying to sneak him in I think he might be worth you know three to six percent maybe even like eleven to 13% if you kind of need what he can bring to the table. Because he does have power. He hits the ball really hard. And he's been striking out less this year. So if he combines those two, there's a real opportunity for a breakout in Colorado.

Yeah, and colorado that that that helps too uh and we you know it's a well-timed call up because we'll have the weekend to see how they use them yeah i like that better yeah definitely more helpful than a sunday call up and also the another terrible one is like the tuesday the tuesday call up where you know uh you would like to but he's not in the system, you know doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton bike or bike plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access membership separate. Terms apply. Up your health game with Sun Life and the Toronto Raptors health experts.

Access nutritional tips, mental health coaching, and advice on overall wellness. As the official health and wellness partner of the Toronto Raptors, we want you to be a fan of your health with sunlifehealthyyou.com. All right, well, let's move to our pictures of note segment of the show and do something I don't think we've done all year, you know, which is actually focus on a couple of pictures who are notable because they've not been good. But I got one request from someone to talk a bit about Alec Manoa. Actually, I'm sorry. It was actually the other pitcher, Graham Ashcroft. We are going to talk about Manoa, but also somebody had asked me a question about Ashcroft, asked if we could talk about him on the show. And this was before his last start. And I thought, you know, he's only had one really bad start. I'm going to

roll with him. But then his last start was bad, too. So the bad numbers are kind of piling up for Ashcraft. I'm not exactly sure what's going on. But with Manoa and or Ashcraft, do you see any reason for optimism at all? No. No, I do not. No, I do not. Not with Manoa.

With Ashcraft, I would love to start him in Pittsburgh. I would love to start him in Kansas City. I think there are going to be times this year where he's an underrated streamer, but he's a streamer for me until I see a third pitch. I think a slow curve would be really good. I think he needs to change the lows. It's just all hard. And with two pitches, I've just watched enough starts with his where the fourth or fifth inning, he's been good for three or four innings, and then it just all blows up in the fourth or fifth

when they're seeing his two pitches, and that's all he's got. So I think for him, there is still stuff there. There's still something to dream on long-term, but he really needs another wrinkle, or otherwise he's just going to be a really good reliever. All right, well, I'm going to throw another pitcher in here who's not particularly notable this week for any reason, but when I answered this question that I got about Ashcraft, I made a comparison with Justin Steele because he's essentially a two-pitch pitcher as

well, who also relies on a lot of low soft contact. And do you have similar concerns for him? Because does he have an Ashcraft type of meltdown in his future that hasn't come yet? Or is there something that maybe separates Steele out from Ashcraft that makes him a safer play? Yeah, I guess it becomes a philosophical question of what it is to have a pitch, you know? But yeah, I guess for Steele, it's 96, 97% two pitches.

That's what I said, essentially, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess for me, part of the issue is command. I would also say that the velo separation is different for him. At least he has sort of a 10-mile-an-hour velo separation between his two pitches in Steele. And then then lastly he just doesn't have the same home park um that's a big difference yeah i think that's a big difference but um i think that i might have them closer than a lot of people i'm not um i'm i expect steel to be closer to league average the rest of the way. Okay. And just to circle back to Manoa for a second,

since I took you to say that there's not really any reason for optimism, do we just have to bench him everywhere, at least in mixed leagues at this point? I mean, I would play him in Pittsburgh and at Kansas City. I mean, I would play him in Oakland. I would play him in Oakland. I would play him in nice parks. He still has an okay slider. But in terms of what I'd be watching to get back in,

I think it would be the horizontal movement on the slider, which is down two inches off of his peak in 2021 and has not been moving in the right direction since then. I'd also be watching his weight, but that's going to be harder to change during the season. But if he came back in the spring 20 pounds lighter with more sweep on his slider, I'd be back and interested in him, especially at a lower price. But this year, it just looks like one of those lost years. There's no number to point to to say, you know, I like Alec Minow, I don't think. Yeah, I keep rolling them out there because I just think this is Alec Minow.

There's got to be some turnaround at some point. But, yes, we're getting to the third mark of the season. Five-and-a-half ERA, six-and-a-half XERA, six-and-a-half FIP, six XFIP. With Sierra's at 5.8. And K-BB is 4%, and league average is like 14%. Yeah, not good. Yeah, I can't point to anything. All right, well, let's look at three other pitchers here who I think are notable just because of the

swing and miss they're getting, the strikeouts. And none of the three are really very widely rostered. Definitely not in 12-teamers. Tanner Houck, last three starts, a 17.2% swinging strike rate against teams that aren't particularly prolific whiffers, the Phillies, the Mariners, and the Angels. Alex Fido, great start on Thursday. He's now in 21 and two-thirds innings, up to 22 strikeouts against just one walk.

Does allow a lot of fly balls and a lot of home runs, so that muddies the picture there. And J.P. Sears has been really good and consistent. Last five starts, a.325 ERA, a.98 whip. Was pulled after 59 pitches against the Mariners on Thursday. That was weird. Doesn't seem to be any kind of health issue, but I'm not sure if that's something to worry about in the future,

that he's not going to go deep. I think they were actually just trying to win the game because they brought in a righty to face a righty. Yeah. Sixth inning, though. I don't know. It didn't work. Narrator, it didn't work.

Definitely didn't work, because that was Trevor May, right? Came in and gave up the home run. Yes. Yeah. So you had Fido, Sears, and who's the third? I'm sorry, and Houck. And Houck. I think I like Houck the best out of all of them.

He certainly has a couple of the best pitches in that sinker and slider. Now, Houck's problem is lefties, and he's throwing a meh cutter this yearch cutter uh this year um but it's it's helped him uh against lefties it's a lesson in something like Graham Ashcroft like you know to be a starting pitcher is not to optimize your stuff plus necessarily stuff plus tells us more about a starting pitcher but it does not you know if your job as a pitcher is not to optimize for stuff plus. And in Tanner Houck's case, this cutter gives him something he can do against lefties so he doesn't have to throw the sinker and the slider,

which from his arm slot have traditionally poor results against lefties. You know what I'm talking about. It's like a sidearm sinker slider guy against righty against lefties it's not good um and so the cutter is it has helped him there um sears um is actually my favorite overall but he's just not going to get you wins like it's just absolutely not going to happen so uh and if they're going to limit how deep he goes in the games he might not even get that many K's so he's like a purely kind of four innings

with good ERA and whip and he hasn't always had the good ERA and whip so it's like you know I think I think right now I want Hauka these guys but I would say all three of these guys are in that sort of 97 to 99 stuff

plus where any of them could be good pitchers if the arsenal all clicks. And so I would treat them as mostly schedule dependent. There's no way that I'm throwing any of these guys in a tough matchup. All right. Well, and on that note, Hauk this week or this coming week would line up to pitch at home against the Rays. So that's, I would assume. Yeah, I think so. All right. Well, let's move on to streamers and two-star pitchers. It's pretty much almost exclusively two starters. And I feel like this is probably the deepest group of two-start streaming candidates that

we've seen all season it's just really lined up you know so my TGFBI I think I'm playing six two-start pitchers this week or something I don't know what is going on the schedule it's so strange yeah no I it's funny because I yeah looked at it wasn't uh TGFBI but another league of mine where I saw that was like just a lot of pitchers at two starts I'm like ah this is going to be great this week and then realizing it's a head-to-head league so realizing like oh my opponent's probably got even more so something to keep in mind uh as you're you're looking at your roster right now and thinking maybe you've got it uh got it made but uh I'm just gonna toss out I'm gonna group it together because there's there's just so many so I'll start with four that

three that I think are definitely kind of head and shoulders above the rest, but may be available in 12 teamers and a fourth. I'll explain why. So Logan Allen at Baltimore at Minnesota, Michael Kopech versus the Angels at home and then at home against the Tigers. Brian Baio at home against the Reds and Rays. And then let's throw Cal Quantrill in there because he's got the same matchups obviously as Logan Allen. So any preference, ranking, concern

of those four? I want the first two. So you want Quantrill? Not Quantrill. You want Kopech and Allen. So what's the deal with Kopech? Because he's had two brilliant starts There's a little bit of just

those are bad matchups. It was Cleveland and Royals. Good matchups for the pitcher and a little bit of an adjustment he's changed his release point on his on his fastball or just he's changed his release point in general and that's allowed him to get a little bit more

wiggle on some of his secondary pitches while retaining the same amount of ride so uh there's a there's a little bit of an adjustment there and then lastly um i just like him because stuff plus has liked him all along and it's been more about like can he put a stretch of okay command together and that's what i think we're seeing with him so um i am not scared i'm a little bit scared of one of those. I forget. I think it's Angels or something. Yeah, I think so.

I'll double check. The Angels could beat him up a little bit. But I like the second start. And I just like the fact that you get two bites of the apple with him. And he's the highest stuff guy on that list. So I'm going to gravitate towards that. Logan Allen, I think, is not a streamer and uh should be owned i in fact like him a little better than tanner bybee i'm alone on that island uh but uh

logan allen is a pickup anywhere that you see him available and it doesn't even matter what his schedule is so i think he's worth like if you're considering like if he's there as a streamer i think he's worth a bigger number than you would put on streamers. So I tend to try to keep my streamers around sort of 10 out of a thousand, sort of 10% at most, 10 to 13, like in there, because you have to be able to buy them every week. So, you know, that's, I kind of want to almost get it under 10%, you know, like you have more than 10 weeks in the year. But Logan year uh but logan allen to be worth i think uh into that sort of uh 10 15 16 even 20 plus percent 20 plus no not percent 20 so now we're talking two three percent okay okay um yeah and that's one of the strange things to me sort of like how slow jake berger has been to to get rostered um

the fact that logan allen is still widely out there in 12-team leagues. I'm not sure why, but I'm sure with the two-start week. I should clarify. I'm going to get messed up. I'm always, I'm an FVC guy, so it's 1,000, right? So I try to keep my streamers around 10 to 13 to 16 bucks, which is actually, you know, 1% to 2%. Gotcha.

Okay, which makes sense. Sometimes I'll go into the low 20 into the low 20 so low two percent i would say alan would be probably worth as much as five to ten percent i mean he's a really good pitcher totally agree and if it was a two-start week i think you could get get away with less but yeah i think maybe finally this week people are gonna start adding him where where he should be added so uh let's go to sort of the the the mid range here. JP France versus Minnesota versus the angels at home. Kyle Freeland on the road at Arizona at Kansas city. So at least one really good matchup and venue there.

Ranger Suarez. I want to stop on him for a second. He's got a road starts Mets and nationals. He's got a nine 82 E, probably just looks like an absolute no to most people, but his Sierra is 386, his XFIP is 315. And you just, if you break it down, you know, and you look at kind of the next level peripherals for Suarez, he looks like the same guy he's ever always been, but he's got an ERA around, you know, almost 10. So I think he, you know, maybe not 12 teamers, but anything a little deeper,

I think you could slide them in with a one to 2% bid and could, could really work out. Yeah. Except that, you know, his back, like his backstory or his, his sample before,

you know, is kind of a collection of smaller sample numbers that kind of look a little lucky at times, you know what I mean? So I, I do think he's kind of a true talent, um, for low fours, ERA high whip guy, uh, because he does let the ball and play and it's kind of a ground ball guy. So, uh, you know, uh, like a four, two ERA, a one, three, five whip, uh, you know, seven and a half strikeouts per nine.

It's a streamer for me, I think. And where is matchups this week? Oh, on the road, which is nice. Mets and Nationals. Well, Nationals is a little bit tough. It is a tough park, but at least it's not a great offense he's facing. So I like him. I like him and France out of that group. France thought that he was tipping pitches in his bad start um and he led the minor leagues

in strikeouts uh at some point france did um and uh i just see uh a totally like an arsenal that that completely works for me. Sometimes the command goes, maybe he was tipping pitches, but he really righted ship in that next start against Milwaukee. Stuff Plus says he has an above-average fastball, above-average slider, above-average curveball, and average change and cutter. So it's a good mix. It's a wide mix.

Locations don't say that he's in trouble yet. So Francis actually would be a pickup for me without the two start. And so again, I think worth a little bit extra, a few extra dollars to reflect the fact that you might keep him on your roster next week as well. Yeah. Now you mentioned Freeland.

He's got that second start at Kansas City. Given the quality of this pool, in another week, maybe Freeland would be somebody I at least would think of taking a chance on. But I think there's just too much depth here. He's the guy you put $1 on at the very bottom of your list in case you underbid everybody and you really need some starts. Yeah, I think that's a great approach. Matthew Boyd versus Texas at the White Sox. I mean, at the White Sox is right now a good matchup, but I guess I don't know.

Who do you prefer? I think I would actually take Freeland over Boyd this week. Who are the Boyd matchups? Rangers at home, White Sox on the road. I can get dicey in White Sox on the road, especially with a guy who's given up a lot of homers. Yeah. Yeah,

exactly. And then another picture here, Rich Hill, a hair, but that's like $2 on Boyd and $1. Now Rich Hill was a leader Boyd surprise for me. Cause I was looking at CSW for the month of May yesterday and actually did a little like Twitter,

not contest, but you know, Twitter questions for people. He's doing that kind of Adam Wainwright thing. the month of May yesterday and actually did a little like Twitter, not contest, but you know, Twitter question for people. He's doing that kind of Adam Wainwright thing. He's still got the, he's still got the one lead pitch. Yeah. Yeah. No, he, he really does. And just to relate it back to this, this leaderboard scan that I did. So it's changed since yesterday. Cause, cause Braxton Garrett pitched last night, but before that game, he was third in the majors for the month in CSW.

And at the top of that leaderboard, you've got some widely rostered pitchers with good results. And I wanted to point that out. Rich Hill is ninth for the month in CSW. And I'm not shocked when Hill does great, but you figure he's finessing it somehow. But I mean, he's missing bats. He's dropping down to different slots and he's doing some funky stuff. He's doing everything he can to stay in the league. And he is risky. And I can't imagine that I would just play him every week.

He's definitely a matchups guy. So what are the matchups this week for him the matchups for rich hill are um at san francisco at home against the cardinals now at san francisco the giants are one of the worst home offensive teams but that cardinals one and the cardinals was tough but he's in pittsburgh which suppresses uh home runs at least so I am putting him above Freeland and Boyd. I like it. I like it. Excellent. I think a step behind.

You know, I do stream, but when I do, I kind of have an eye on could I keep this guy. So Hill for me is a definite streamer. And so he sits behind France who I might keep after the week is up. So that's my order for things. Alright, I'm going to add one more two-start streamer.

Again, it's a deep pool so I think we're still looking at very deep leagues here but Ryan Weathers, he has good matchups at Miami, home against the Cubs. Any interest in any mixed leagues there? Maybe I push Boyd up and go $3 Boyd, $2 Weathers, $1 Freeland. I think I go $3 Boyd, $2 Freeland, $1 Weathers. All right.

We're setting your cues for you. Yeah, doing the work. And I want to point out something here, you know, before we wrap up with our streamable pictures, these are all the two-star pictures so far that we've been talking about. Not all of them. We've actually missed out some, but those are at least the ones I think are worth talking about, but there, there is some one-star streaming possibilities.

The the guardians are now the worst. And now I wish I had written this down. No, I did write it down. Okay. They are the worst team in the majors in Woba for the whole season. Now they've gone past the A's towards the bottom. So the Orioles have two starters going against Cleveland, Kyle Gibson, Grayson Rodriguez. And then I just mentioned the thing about the Giants not hitting well at home, which is a longstanding issue there with that park. And then you got Kyle Bradish and Dean Kramer at San Francisco. You've got Tyler Wells two-step with both of them. So that's obviously pick them up if you can, if he's available anywhere, but Gibson Rodriguez,

Bradish Kramer, anybody you like with one start there. I think with Bradish, like you, like if you're going to pick up a one-start streamer, then you really want to pick up somebody you might keep. So of those names, Bradish is the name that I might keep on my roster the most.

Yeah. Yeah. And he's the one of that four that I did include in the column this week. So, yeah, I saw it the same way. And I think I might have Wells above France. The matchups are slightly better for Wells than France. Yeah. He's not that available, but, again, if he is available,

definitely good to pick up Wells. Yeah, I'm so mad about Wells, dude. Like, I do have a couple uh i do have a couple spots where i own him but like you know i was so early on him and then i he just like i don't know what happened man i'd like i should have more shares of him i was the early guy on wells like why was two but everywhere like now i look down i'm like we're not many leagues together two or three shares. Two or three shares of Tyler Wells.

I feel like I should have all of the shares of Tyler Wells. I know. It bums me out when I see somebody else that has them, but it's good to share, I guess. Yeah. Good to share. All right. Well, on that note, as we're already got a nice note here,

let's talk about the closer corner. I don't think there's much to talk about here, Eno. Yann in your canoe got his fourth save of the season against the yankees on thursday uh but felix batista pitched on both tuesday and wednesday so i think nothing to see there giovanni gallegos got his fifth save at cincinnati maybe helsley was resting i'm not so sure about that one then you got the a the Arizona situation that seems to be a... Helsley is not being used really on back-to-back. Okay. So, Gallegos is going to end up with 10, 15 saves on a year. He's a viable AL only, you know.

Actually, he's a viable pickup anyway because he's going to have pretty good ratios and he's going to give you 10 saves and, you know, it's just how they're doing things. All right. Well, there you go. I would say one name is Garrett Act go. I would say, uh, one name is, uh, Garrett Acton. I know he, I think he walked in the winning run,

uh, in a game recently, but that just proves that they're willing to use him in high leverage. And so if there ever is a save in Oakland, the next one might go to Garrett Acton. All right. So named to tuck away. And I,

did I remember remembering this, right? You know, that your guy jeremiah estrada is up now he's up uh and that is exciting because mark leiter has terrible stuff numbers and if you just look at his pitches like just the movements and velos i don't think that's a closer dude he throws 91 and a half like. There are not many closers that throw 92. So I don't think that's going to last long. Albert Alzalea, though, is also in that mix. So Alzalea might get the first shot. And then I have no idea what is happening in Arizona, but I have to think that Kevin Ginkle might get the next shot just because he's been the steadiest and he has the best stuff he's cleared up the tipping problem he had early in the season

and they keep trying different guys they tried a guy I wasn't even on my radar to try and close out a game recently and he just predictably kind of gave it up Jose Rivas or something so they've still got Carlos Vargas in the minors. They've got two guys in the minors with big stuff and no command.

Those guys could come up and be the closer. I don't think McGough is the closer because he just doesn't have the stuff. He's been an okay setup guy for them. So if you're prospecting for saves, Ginkle is a guy that I would put on your thread, your list. All right. Well, here I was selling the short, the segment saying there was nothing and you gave us three or four names to

tuck away. So that's good. Good stuff there. So, all right. Well, before we sign off here for the weekend, just a reminder that you can subscribe to the athletic for just $2 a month for your first year. Just go to the athletic.com slash rates and barrels and check out that great deal. You can find Eno's work there, my weekly column on the waiver wire and all kinds of great stuff there for fantasy and for everything else. So again, that's theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. So Eno, thank you much and uh hope everybody has a great long weekend

so the show will be back next week dvr will be back but until then everybody uh take care and have a good one thanks for listening Thank you.