Rates & Barrels - Bold Predictions & The Outlook for a Twins Sale

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Britt Ghiroli returns to the show with Eno and DVR to discuss the potential obstacles for a sale of the Minnesota Twins as the most recent franchise to explore new ownership. Plus, the trio shares a few of their bold predictions for the upcoming season! Rundown 3:12 So You Want to Buy a Major League Baseball Team? 12:15 'It's easy to find someone whose in for 50 or 100 million.' 26:33 Our Bold Predictions for the 2025 Season 30:21 We Did Not See This One Coming 36:49 Eno Makes a 'Five-Pepper' Cy Young Prediction 44:33 Another Surprising Team Call? Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper, Eno Sarris & Britt Ghiroli Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Tuesday, March 25th. Derek and Rhyper, EnoSaris and our friend, Britt Giroli is back. Britt, welcome back after an extended break and congratulations. Thanks guys. It's good to be back. I will have you know multiple people in spring training said, when you go back on rates and barrels and for those who saw me and didn't say it, well forget you. They want the third wheel back. You're not the third wheel, but we were glad you're back. Got a lot of ground to cover today. Today's our bold predictions episodes.

That's going to be the main thing we discuss in just a little bit. A few housekeeping notes though before we get started. You can join the discord with the link in the show description if you haven't done that already. And if you are in the area you should come to our live shows coming up this week. Thursday and Friday, March 27th and March 28th, Bear Bottle Brewing Company, the Bernal Heights location in San Francisco, 4.30 start time, both days, we'll be there prior to that,

watching baseball, celebrating opening day, and having a great time. Hopefully you can come out, get some Kayakers Cove, that is the beer that Eno helped brew. Eno, that's the first time you've actually helped brew beer, right? I was a lot more hands-on on this process. Yeah, yeah. This is, I mean, a lot of times it's a Zoom call and I like, you know, this hops and here's my vision board and, you know, here's the ABV that

I want. This one, I actually got my hands dirty, got in there and was scraping stuff around and pouring hops and it was fun. Yeah, you looked like you had a great time with that and I didn't think you'd done the hands-on stuff before but the dream I mean the vision homebrew yeah but the vision thing that's that's like how I usually picture you like you got a great idea and someone else has to actually mix it up and make it happen. Yeah homebrewing was a disaster I was terrible at it and I never really got the hang of it. And at one point left a bunch of bottles downstairs that still had some sugar in it and they exploded. And my wife was like, what if I had been downstairs? And she's like, you're done.

I was like, yeah, you're right. That would have been awful. So that was the end of my career as a brewer the challenging thing about home brewing I would imagine is also the surplus of great beer available nearly everywhere now Like there's so much more on the shelf like why in your neighborhood now? Yeah mediocre beer that I made when I could go over there and drink right how are you going to compete with people who have? Better ingredients and they're dedicating their entire life to the craft? The chances of you beating them in your basement are generally pretty low unless you've got a chemical engineering background or something along those lines. But Eno's home brewing past aside, Britt you were part of a story with Dan Hayes and Ken

Rosenthal about yet another team that seemingly is available in Major League Baseball. There's a few that have kind of fallen into this group of maybe for sale. I'm going back as far as Artie Moreno putting the angels on the block and like a week later saying, no, not really. But it seems like there's maybe four to five teams that are in some capacity actually available for purchase. And the story is about the twins they've been owned by the Polad family for decades now what's going on

with this is it a realistic they're going to have new owners in place in the next year or is this actually one of those situations like the Nats and the Angels where people getting excited about a possible sale are probably going to be disappointed in the end if it doesn't happen. Yeah, I'm always worried when I come back off maternity leave, guys, I'm out of the loop, but somehow these stories find me,

and now I'm too busy in my wake back. And the twins ownership one is one, I made some calls on the first day I was back, and the more dug into this, obviously with Ken Rosenthal and Dan Hayes, the more it became a case of, this Rosenthal and Dan Hayes, the more it became a case of this isn't a win or the twins are going to sell. It is still very much an if the Polad family is going to sell.

And as you mentioned, Eric, it's not unusual. I think what's unusual about the twins is the amount of debt they're carrying. Now every team pretty much operates in the red. Teams take up massive amounts of debt they're carrying. Now every team pretty much operates in the red. Teams take up massive amounts of debt. In the case of the twins, it's $425 million in excess of that. We were told it's a little closer to like that $430 number. So it's a lot of debt. To kind of compare the Mets and big market team with a lot of revenue, $350 million in debt. So the twins are more in debt and their profit margins are a lot smaller. And people wondering how do you get into this much debt? Well, if you own a team, there are four

major avenues in terms of how to bring in money. Tickets sold is a big one. Corporate sponsorships is a huge one. Media rights is a big one. And then it is your team's merchandise sales, your licensing, your retail, all that stuff. You look at the twins, their RSN situation has been a disaster. They lost their RSN. They were making, I think it was 48 million. And that was a reduced fee last year. MLB taking it over. Sources told me they estimate or they've been telling these potential buyers they're going to get about 33 million.

That's a pretty big haircut. And that's a pretty optimistic forecast. I think most teams have gotten even less than that from MLB. So you look at that, you look at the fact that they haven't worked 2 million fans since 2019. They've tried to go all in on payroll as much as they can. And eventually you're going to find yourself

in a situation where you don't have the revenue to cover payroll, you don't have the revenue to cover your debts, that's the same situation the Lerner family found themselves in when they put themselves on the market with the Nationals. You know, they are a team that constantly is in violation of that debt covenants, which MLB has, which says you can only have a certain amount of debt in relation to your profit and how much your organization is worth. I don't know this for certain, but there's just no way that the twins are in violation of that. Now MLB says that there are issues if you keep hitting it. You get one year where you can hit

that debt number and then you got to straighten yourselves out. I know that there are franchises, I was told, that constantly remain in trouble and debt covenants, and MLB doesn't really do anything about it. So you know these teams just keep racking up this debt. If you're in the red, you know you're going to keep being in the red. And so I think if you're a potential buyer right now, you're looking at it as okay Forbes estimates you know this value of this team is between 1.46 billion and 1.7 billion. If you're a buyer, are you taking on that debt? You know, it's likely you're going to at best split it with the poll odds. So the poll odds are looking to get, as we've reported, closer to that 1.7 number, at least, because they owe so much debt.

So if they take 1.5, which one interested party floated, and we were told isn't a starter, they're now only walking away only with a billion dollars, right, because of the money that they owe. Obviously other, I'm simplifying it, other parties are taking pieces of the pie. Allen and co-owe's in charge of the sale, things like that. But this presents a problem if you are a interested party, because the twins don't have real estate around the stadium. So they don't really have a whole lot of other revenue streams to make them profitable right now. The media deal is very precarious for them. And in order to get out of debt, you really can't go out and spend, spend, spend to try to get the fan base to come back. So it's tough to imagine season tickets in corporate partnerships or corporate sales, really going through the roof with a new ownership group. So this isn't as good of a buy as you would think.

Their multiplier, which is what Forbes and Sportico and buyers use to kind of look at what they're worth, is in the force. And to put that kind of plainly, the Yankees multiplier, in terms of like what they are worth, is 11, right? Because of the brand, the national recognition, all these things that even if the Yankees have, let's say, 500 million of debt, there's still a better buy because of all those other things. So there's not a whole lot of optimism around this sale. Certainly all you need is one interested party, but they're very early on in this process, guys. And I think once Justin Ishbef pulled out, it really kind of changed the whole thing because the twins thought they had this uber billionaire. It wasn't going to be super complicated. He's got the money to invest the 30 to 50 percent needed to be like an anchor or a kingpin, really the face of this sale. And now

they're left struggling trying to find, you know, somebody with localized from Minnesota, which isn't really that, it's tough to do with someone with that kind of money. You know, there aren't too many people who can afford 30 to 50% of a team. And right now they're looking at these groups that, you know, are put together with a lot of different people. And so far, nobody is willing to go that far. It is early in the process. They had indications of interest that were due last week. But you know, this is not a scenario where they're going to sell no matter what. The Polat family could do what the Angels and Nationals did,

which is feel like the offers weren't good enough, pull them off the market, and break the hearts of Minnesota Twins fans all over again. It'd be very disappointing if you're a fan that wants a ownership group that will spend more on the organization, spend more on payroll, right? And even with some of the things the Twins have changed in recent years, this is the team that just finally

snapped an 18-game postseason losing streak in 2023. So decades of failed runs into the postseason that I think people that are fans of this team are saying, come on, when are we going to go to that next level? Aaron Gleeman wrote about how little the twins have done since signing that free agent deal with Carlos Correa now two off seasons ago. It's been a strange time to be a twins fan for sure.

And one other detail I just wanna throw back in there. I mean, the Polads bought the team for $44 million in 1984. So even if they didn't get everything they wanted. I just checked that's $130 million in today's money. Okay, yeah, right. So the profit, if they were to sell for less than they wanted, they could sell for 1.3 billion and get a 10X return?

That's, what? I know, but there's pressure from the league. They don't want them to sell for 1.3 or 1.5. Right. You might have last team that sold was the Orioles, who sold for 1.725, I believe. Yeah, they want the numbers to keep going up. Yeah.

It does get complicated because of all this extra debt that the twins have accrued, and I think a lot of people are wondering. But that's why you need these uber-rich anchors, is because, I mean, there was this piece that just came out about the Pirates, you know, operating at a small loss every year, right? And of course they do that for a lot of reasons.

One of the reasons is just to sort of write off your other profits in other enterprises. It's good to have sometimes something where you kind of just write off losses and bounce your profits in other places. The other one is of course that you can lose a little bit year over year and still gain a lot in the final sale. You're gaining equity, you're gaining in value, in franchise value.

But who can ostensibly run an organization that might lose them five to $10 million a year, be happy about that because in the end they'll sell for a couple billion or whatever. You know, like there's only a certain type of person that can do that. It's not even the people who have five or ten million or 20 million stashed away. It's people who have to have billions stashed away. The small players in these groups guys, like someone was telling me like, oh it's easy to find someone who's in for 50 or 100 million. And you're like, what? What? Like, so what we're talking about those actors is way more than that.

Was it the Giants that just sold 10% to private equity or something? Yeah. So yeah, that's the easy, you know, they sold 10% to private equity, they use that money, sort of like debt, you know, sort of like the reason the poll ads went into debt, they use it to improve the park or because they signed Willie Thomas, I don't know,, they use it to improve the park or because they signed Willy-Dom is, I don't know, like they use it to pay for things that they need. And I think the Giants case, a lot of it is paying for. The other thing that you mentioned that the twins don't have, which is the Giants are lucky enough

to have a lot of real estate around it. They were gifted real estate with the park, which was supposedly for parking. And now they're converting all the parking into, into real estate that they're building on top of. They need money to build the real estate, to finish all that real estate that they've built. And, you know, so that's, I think probably why they took this investment, but yeah, the twins don't have that unless they, you know,

unless they can look at their parking lots in a different way. And they don't own them. They, look at their parking lots in a different way and they don't own them. They leave their stuff to the Maryland ballpark. I mean, the Maryland, the Maryland one is the one here with the Orioles, the Minnesota ballpark authority. So they don't own any of that. And I was talking to somebody that mentioned the standard now is the battery because if most of these teams are operating at a small loss or breaking even, if you can have something around, I think the battery makes 50 or 60 million, it's public information anyone can look it up.

But having that influx of cash every year is huge. Some teams operate at a five million dollar loss. If you had a thing that made $40 million, it's like, yeah, that would be huge. That would mean more payroll money. And the Braves don't operate at a loss because the Braves are owned by a corporation. They don't really want to lose money on it. So they make money, but it's not the same for every organization. We can't just say the Braves make money, so therefore the Pirates do.

Right. Yes. And it seems like everybody now wants that battery because it is a way to have year round income, year-round drive people to the stadium, have the restaurants and the apartment buildings, the condos. That's what interested buyers want. That is actually what David Rubenstein, when he bought the Orioles, referenced to me, was one of the goals was to build that up around Camden Yards.

This is becoming the norm. If you look at the twins, if they don't have that capacity for that land around there, if they don't have a media deal, they're not like I mentioned, the Mets that have S and Y and have these strong brands, they're not a national brand. You don't go to other countries and see a ton of twin stuff. It's not the Yankees or the Dodgers. So it is hard to say, how do we get ourselves out of debt? Are we going to operate like the Tampa Bay Rays for the next 10 years? It is tricky it is tricky when you look at it from a perspective of do I want to buy this team? And I think the Polats have gotten a lot of grief for being cheap. And I don't necessarily think they've been cheap as much as they've been mismanaged.

The twins haven't had a lot of turnover. They were slow to adapt. They are run like a mom and pop shop that takes a lot of pride in not firing people. And while that is great from like a morale standpoint, it's not great in professional baseball, as you guys know. New groups come in and everybody must go and it's terrible. And we lament good people getting let go, but there's also change that happens and that needs to happen sometimes to these organizations.

And I think if you continue to misrun it and not let go of people, maybe add people on and not really ever adapt and go out and spend more money on your payroll than you're taking in, it's very easy over the 40 plus years that they've owned this team to continue to accumulate debt to get to that level. Do you get bloated?

And from like just in terms of a strategy standpoint, like you're not implementing new strategies as quickly because you're not bringing in new people that implement these strategies. I mean, there's a great piece by Jen McCaffrey about the sort of growing pains that Craig Breslow has had in Boston where he's been firing people and people aren't happy about that. It's been people that have been with the organization for a long time, but you know, he had a vision for it. I'm, you know, I do hope that they, we don't get sort of a private equity creep into the business.

You know, that's what we, the giant steel was, was a private equity investment. And I hope that, you know, the pullouts don't say, okay, I'd rather, we'd rather sell, you know, 20% to private equity, you know, to cover, to get rid of this debt and to move on, then do this to a single buyer because private equity just honestly has a different model. They want to extract more value quickly. It's a lot about streamlining a lot of times. I mean, the private equity rule book is to kind of come in and be super aggressive in

the way that the pullouts haven't been. So they'd be massively firing people, you know, and in and be super aggressive in the way that the pullouts haven't been. So they'd be massively firing people, you know, and it might be too far in the other direction where it's all about Uber efficiency and taking money out. If a private equity firm ran the twins, I think it would be even more like the race. I think it would be an even, you know, smaller payroll, you know, and it would be fewer scouts, and they'd be cutting corners wherever the machine said they could cut corners. And they'd probably wanna sell on the other side

pretty quickly, because that's, private equity wants to get in, make their three, four X, whatever it is, and get out as quickly as possible. And so I don't know that that'd be really great. What's happening, there's some of that happening in the minor leagues right now because the private equities in the minor leagues, you know, private equities buying up all the minor league parks. There's a couple corporations, a couple like private equity people that are in the minor leagues buying up the private parks and

there's news out of the northwest where the the team that shares the park with the Oregon Ducks, it's a pretty good facility. You're sharing with the Oregon Ducks. I mean, this is like a D1 facility. They're saying, oh, you need more money or we're out of here. It's like, okay, we're going to do this on a minor league level now. We're going to take people hostage in every city around the US for new parks all the time. So some parts of the playbook are not exciting. But when you don't have those parts of the playbook available to you, then you're also not as exciting to buy.

And this is something MLB does police, MLB does, you know, so like Ron Manfred does pick who gets the next team. He does have a heavy say in that. You know, that's how that Derek Jeter group ended up with the Marlins, right? MLB really pushed that through, even though I think there were some higher offers, if I recall correctly at the time. So hopefully you think MLB would recognize those pitfalls because they want owners that stay in it for a while, right? They don't want a lot of turnover on that level. So we'll see what ends up happening. It is fascinating, but it's not unprecedented if they were to just take the team off the market

and wait a little bit more. Because I think the next couple of years, especially with the media deal, we're really gonna find out. Because you look at the NFL or the Celtics and teams are going for $6 billion, right? MLB really has to figure out the media thing, I think, to watch this leapfrog.

Talk to Avandrelik a little bit before this, just about. There's a local TV deal that got announced. The Phillies, but also the A's and Giants are selling, you know, basically their local RSN stuff through MLB TV. So subscribers can get the Giants now through MLB TV and Avoid blackouts, but Evan did not think this was a bellwether for major changes in the industry Because he thought this is a way for them to avoid blackouts Which is something that they have had feedback that people really hate the blackouts

So now if you hate the blackouts you can just pay a little bit extra You can pay $20 a month extra to MLB TV to avoid the blackouts basically and get the team that you want through MLB TV now that is going to be useful but it's not the same kind of huge money that a national TV deal represents and What Evan was talking about which he's been writing about a lot is that what they're trying to do is Get all of these TV deals, mostly TV deals run out like 2028. They're trying to get all of these TV deals out of the picture so that they can basically package whatever they want into the national package.

And then come like a NBA on TNT and be like, what games do you want? You can get whatever games you want. Don't worry about our local TV deals. If you want Dodgers, Yankees on Saturday, you got it. And so that's what I think that the plan is for Manfred. But let's say he makes a lot more money with this, or he lost ESPN money. They just lost a bunch of ESPN money. Let's say they make up the last ESPN money, the last cable money. Maybe they make more with this new approach where they package things and

give it to the streamers and give it to whoever wants it. Even if they do that, it doesn't always filter down. Like I thought this would be, oh, this is national money. We can do basically shift some of the local TV to national money. And so then the pirates and the twins and the Rays will get more money because more of the TV money is shifted towards national. We have a big national deal the national money comes in but Evan pointed out that the MLBPA may not be fully on board with that because just because more national TV money is being revenue shared down to like the pirates

and twins does not mean that the piratesates and Twins will spend. Right. We kind of have a feel already for where those teams set their internal caps. It's based on guaranteed money that comes in from a few different sources. So we've mapped this before. Like you can almost project a payroll with a few pretty simple inputs. I don't think that's going to change everything the way some people might believe. Really quick takeaway, the Rays situation is pretty wild right now because there's a force working against two Sternberg, the league and some other owners, like maybe trying to push him out as the Rays owner, he walked away from a deal

that was in place for a stadium in St. Petersburg, right? That's a whole story that could be a whole episode. So maybe the Rays are, even though they're not on the block to be sold. Maybe they change hands at some point in your future. Which team is most likely to have new ownership? There's an Orlando group that's like trying to put together a bit and trying to trying to move them. There could be a whole episode. There's a lot like there's tons going on there.

But Rays, Nats, Angels, White So white socks all the teams we've heard as being available by Various means over the last year or two which one is most likely will come to twins as part of this, too Which team is most likely to have a new ownership group in place by opening day of? 2026 which fan base could actually be happy one year from today with some new owners in place Because of the forces trying to push Stu Sternberg out. I don't think that the Lerner family would have to re-put them on the block like today for that to happen again.

And they're in an uncertain situation with RSN, one more year mass and then who knows, I think they're kind of waiting. The White Sox aren't selling until Jerry Rennstorf dies. He's made that pretty clear. And the Angels did the same song and dance with Artie Moreno. And so I don't see anything changing there either.

So I'm gonna go with Reyes. I think I would go with the White Sox just because I, I mean, this is, I don't think he's gonna be around that long. He's basing it on that. I think just another- I don't think he's gonna be around that long. I know, I'm sorry.

That's like a weird thing to say. Like the number one thing he has going for him, he says. What is he, in his 80s? This is health? Yeah. Okay. Well, maybe he'll be around forever. But like, I mean, I just also just think it's a large market and they've already sort of made machinations.

Either I'm leaving or they're not really, they're not locked into the cell, or whatever it's called now. What is it called now? I hate that they changed their cell. I don't know, we can call it cellular. Okay. Guaranteed rate field, is that what they call it? Guaranteed rate.

Sure. I don't think they're locked in lease-wise. So like, they can leave, or they can get a new stadium, and if they stay in Chicago, it's a pretty big market. What I've seen analysis wise is that the big markets can, you know, float two teams. I don't know, though. It really seems like Manfred wants to be out of the multi-team market deal.

At least that's what I gather from the Oakland situation. To some extent, I'm just rolling my eyes at it because I think it's absurd. I think the huge markets can definitely support two teams, but I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole right now, because I do want to get to other topics. I know, this is the last thing. There was some research that suggested that teams in the same market compete on price.

So he doesn't want that. So he wants a small market team and a big market team in each market? Well, competing on price would mean that on some level, the Yankees and the Mets keep each other honest on particular prices. Hmm. I don't think that's what's happening. No, no, we got to get to our predictions.

Reporting the research. OK. I don't think that's what's happening there. I never want to host a show that's only about the business of baseball It just makes me feel gross even talking about it So if you need to take a shower after 26 minutes of baseball business talk, I completely understand Let's get to our bold predictions for the 2025 season We'll try to self grade these as we go along for their spiciness factor, you know I'm gonna give you the floor first.

Throw us your first bold prediction for the 2025 season. I've terrified, you know, by putting him on the clock first. OK, the Red Sox win it all. That's a trendy hot take. Like I've seen a lot of people have that take. The trendy hot take. Trendy hot take. I've seen at least three or four other people. And on our own, our athletic MLB, we just did that the other day.

There were multiple people who predicted the Red Sox. Well, I was one of them. Yes, I know. Trendy. So you're going to save one to two peppers off them. I won't get all the credit when Hi and Bloom built the team. That's, that's true. That is true.

That's kind of bothered me lately. I was talking somewhat about that. I don't want to take 10 minutes on every hot take. We'll get into that at another point in the show. No, no, I think it's really a good point. We've said it here even like he put up a lot of the structures that are still standing. So yeah, he deserves a lot of credit. Eric Whistler was promoting top prospects and spending because ownership is finally letting him spend. Yeah, he's also trading some of those prospects. Maybe Heim wouldn't have traded for Gare crochet.

Maybe. He don't have a heavy hand in that, though. But I've seen his helping. Gare crochet is a big deal because he's the ace's ace. And they put together a lot of depth in that rotation around him. I don't know how good each of them is going to be, but they're all pretty good.

They have shown that they will do advanced pitching strategies, that they'll push the needle when it comes to not using fastballs or whatever it is. So I think that they have an interesting strategy when it comes to pitching. Their bullpen isn't great, great, but Justin Slayton was a great find. And I think that Chapman throws hard and they'll find some other guys. Richard Fitz has been up to 96 miles an hour sitting 96 in spring. So there's some good stories on the pitching side.

Christian Campbell makes the team and it's coming off a bad spring. So this is due to them just being sure that he's ready. They even have the number one prospect by Keith Law going back down in Roman Anthony. Oh, and by the way, Marcelo Meyer, who people are souring on, also plays shortstop and can come up if there's a problem. And then David Hamilton is like my favorite glue guy in the league. I mean, he's just a guy who can play anywhere in the infield and be a dude. They have dudes all up and down that lineup. They've got old guys, they've got young guys.

I don't know. It just seems like they're primed to go. I don't have a rebuttal for the take. I think it's a well-defended take, but I think I'm gonna give it a grade of one pepper on the one to five scale for its spiciness. I agree with Britt, I think people are warming up to this Red Sox team being really good,

and maybe some of that's the Garrett Cole injury, and Soto leaving the Yankees, and just a few things that have transpired over the last few months. But I think a lot of it is actually belief in the Red Sox pushing chips in too. That was actually one part of it that was in the bowl of predictions today.

I agree with that one. The team projections have like four to six National League teams before there's an American League team. Yeah, I saw that. I mean, that doesn't surprise me though. What's your next spicy take? Is it the Ale isn't good? No.

I don't know. I mean, that's part of this Red Sox take. It's like the road is open, you know, for somebody to kind of march through the American League. Well, there may be a spicy take for me coming a little later that kind of leans into that argument, but let's give the floor to Britt, your first bold prediction for 2025 Brit. This is tough here

Am I gonna go with my spiciest up front or do I go with the most benign? It's like hot ones You got to build up to it. Don't don't start at the top. Okay, I'm gonna say the Oakland A's make the playoffs You have the A's making the playoffs. Yes, that's fairly spicy. I think that's medium-grade salsa right there. Listen, Lawrence Butler is a star. I think Mark Hase is one of the better managers in baseball, underrated, doesn't get the credit he deserves. We know the A's finally spent money this winter. People that I've talked to say that John Fisher is energized, he's out, he's about,

he's kind of willing to commit now that he's finally out of Oakland. I know, take with that what you will. But we just said the AL is kind of weak. So especially when you look at where Oakland is, the AL West, right? I think that is a wide open division. Houston is much weaker without Bregman and Kyle Tucker.

We don't know Texas, are they going to be able to, are they gonna stay healthy first and foremost? Second, they're pitching. Depth has taken a little bit of a hit, you know, and they're San Patrick Corbin's, they really need innings Seattle really could have won the division that they just got like two big bats and instead chose to do nothing because Jerry DePoto wants to win 54% of games. Or they're not being given any money to spend.

True. I just think that it's a wide open division and that even if the A's don't win with the expanded format, it wouldn't surprise me if they snuck in. They've got a lot of young guys. Mason Miller obviously had a big coming out party. I just think that they are an interesting team and it wouldn't surprise me if they made the playoffs. So that is going to be my spicy take one. That's got to get at least two peppers, maybe three there right now. They're projected be the 25th team in baseball right fan graphs has 12.3 percent chance of the athletics making the playoffs That's probably four out of five peppers. I think for a spicy take Oh, we're doing a five pepper thing and I still got one. You still got one dude. Oh, I gotta push the needle one and a half

You want to you want a extra half pepper? We'll give you an extra half. We'll say I'm not crying for peppers. I just I just I realizing I need to recalibrate. Yeah. Yeah, you got to recalibrate I'll join you with a with a one pepper take of my own here in just a second But to Brits point and the position player core for the athletics is good I think the question is gonna come down to pitching and run prevention. Are they going to be? Average in that group But they're gonna have some guys step up in the rotation and the bullpen to give them more depth. Mason Miller was a great story last year they added Jose Leclerc as a air quotes big spend in the bullpen I don't think Jose Leclerc is even that good so it's

gonna come down to some guys that maybe were less familiar with adding some depth and Jeffrey Springs not being cooked and Luis Severino being able to pitch in Sacramento and that's where most of my questions are. But as far as that position player group goes, I think they're doing pretty well overall in terms of player development and scouting. And that was not something I thought was true, like going into last year. I thought they did a really good job in 2024 showing us that they were not as far off track as it once appeared. Hit pause on whatever you're listening to

and hit play on your next adventure. Stay two nights and get a $50 Best Western gift card. Life's the trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. I think they reacted also to the fact that maybe they are a little better at coaching hitting and advancing hitting prospects by going out and

getting veteran pitchers. So they were just like, Hey, this is not happening. We're not we're not creating pitchers here. So let's go get Jeffrey Springs and Luis Severino and these guys. I also think when they're playing at Sacramento, they're going to figure out there's going to be some kind of home field advantage because it's such a wacky situation that eventually they're going to figure out a way to maximize playing in that minor league park. And it's such a wacky situation that eventually they're going to figure out a way to maximize playing in that minor league park and It's gonna be a tough place for other teams to just come in and play on it You know the surface is gonna be super hot and they adjusted the schedule a little bit

But it's still I think it's gonna be a situation where I think Oakland's gonna have a really good home We can't call them Oakland anymore. I guess so that a is they're gonna have a really good home record I think it might take a little time, but I think they're gonna turn that you know all those weird little quirky parks like Tropicana Field with the race they kind of figure out a way to make it a house of horrors for our away teams and I kind of see that happening. Yeah I just I don't know how extreme that park is going to be how hot it's gonna actually be and how it's going to boost offense and make it tough to pitch there. But definitely some concerns as they try to adapt. All right. My first bold prediction is my least bold prediction. It might just be a prediction.

Might not even count as bold. Might be worse than the, you know, Red Sox win the World Series one. I think Tyler Glass now wins the NL Cy Young Award this year. Is that on the same level? That also a one pepper, maybe a two. That's I mean, actually winning it. The end of fields, you got to give them at least two. Yeah, I think by odds, he's like plus 2000 at bet MGM.

So there's, I don't know, eight, 10, 12 guys ahead of him by odds. I think it's at least a little bit spicy. Oh, that's pretty spicy. I thought you were going to say something like Paul Skeen's wins the same. No, no, no. I mean, if I were you, I just said, you know, finish his top three in the side I'm just to cover my bases but that's of course that would take peppers away so I'm I'm learning from you right now okay that's spicy I'm giving it free is this on the same level my go for the next one next I

have Wyatt Langford winning the AL MVP award is that as spicy or spicier than glass now to win the NL Cyon God One of my bold predictions in my piece was white line for being an all-star Yes Because then I feel like there's a lot of it's not like he's a nobody the hype is there You know the ability of the talent is a question of is he gonna put it all together or is he a year or two away? Right, so I don't think I did or was he a year or two away, right? So I don't think it's that way. I didn't involve him with Junior

because I think the ceiling for him, he's just going to keep getting better. I think it's his award to lose. I know he didn't win it last year, but those are some spicy ones, honestly. I had Jacob DeGrom as NL Cy Young. I thought that was spicy. I mean, not NL.

It's really spicy because he's not in that NL. No. Yeah. It's true. Like, wow, you have him getting traded early in the year and winning the NL Cy Young. That's incredible. And I mean, I know he's old. I know the arm can't always hold that.

But man, he looked good in spring and he still makes it look really easy when he's healthy and right. He's still one of the best pitchers in baseball. So I thought that was kind of a spicy take. OK, so we got we got two Cy Young ones. We got at least two or three peppers on these guys. And I'm just shamed by my one pepper. So I'm throwing my Cy Young prediction into the mix. And I'm hoping this course more peppers. Gavin Williams wins the American League Cy Young. Five, five, five out of five peppers. And I say this as someone who likes Gavin Williams, but I think there's something to this play.

I think you can be more aggressive with an A.L. Cy Young call this year because it's Paul Skeens is sitting over there on the national league. So maybe it's only four Peppers because of that. It's five though, because even on his own team I think most people would say by these more likely than Williams Just on that alone, and then you look at like the Mariner starters scubal that Garrett crochet is still in the AL There's tons of great pitchers that you'd probably say are much more likely than Gavin Williams I'm giving you a five out of five on the gap

Great bold prediction. Just to back it up a little bit. He's the he was the spring training leader in stuff plus which is one thing because we you know I admit this openly that we're missing some data in there. The spring stuff plus is not as good as regular season stuff plus for a variety of reasons. But I also before the show, you know, did some work on who changed their stats this spring the most and particularly in strikeout rate. And the biggest change in the spring in strikeout rates belongs to Gavin Williams who struck out 38.2% of the batters he saw. And I know it's only 17 innings in

spring training, but there is some research coming out right now that suggests that spring training data and results is worth about 75% of regular season data. So it is about the same as him doing two or three good starts, but heck they were really good starts and it's a really good start to the season. By the way, the other person who's added the most is Tyler Glass now second with a 45% strikeout rate. So there you have that. I'm ready for it.

I'm here. Okay. So Britt, you said your A's take wasn't your spiciest bold prediction. So what's your most bold prediction that you're going to throw out there? I mean, I thought the dig of de Grom, especially when I said he was in another league. I actually think the A's making the playoffs is spicier to me than DeGrom winning the Siyoung. Because DeGrom winning the Siyoung is just a bet on health. If he's healthy, like sure, why not? Okay. Well, you only need to be 500 basically to make the playoffs, how many times in that last wild card spot?

So it's not like I'm picking the A's to win 100 games. No, but their pitching does scare me. True, true. I mean, again, it's a spicy take. I see, I don't know if this one is spicy, but I think I picked it in the staff pickings. I picked it in SMY. I might as well go all in on the crazy. I don't think the Red Sox win the World Series. I believe the Dodgers win the World Series. I think the New York Mets win the World Series. They got the 2-2 going from last year. I know it doesn't carry over.

They obviously signed a little guy called Juan Soto, who happened to be the best creation available. And even if they have a slow first half, we know what they have, which is Steve Cohen, an owner willing to say, do what you gotta do, let's make the moves. David Stearns is really settling in, I think, to that role in New York.

He's more aggressive, but we also know he's really good at roster management and building depth, which is what we saw last year with that team and some of the not sexy, but really important moves that he made at the deadline and then addressing the bullpen. I think Edwin Diaz is primed to have a better season than he did last year. I think Francisco Lindor with Juan Soto being there

is going to be even better. I just think that they're a team, they got Peter Alonso back. He's going to be motivated because he has such a disappointing free agency. I just think everybody always picks the best team on paper. The team who wins the winter almost never wins the World Series. So if it's not going to be the Dodgers, who is it going to be? You can make a case for a bunch of different teams, the Phillies, the Braves, the Steraks, right? They're all in the, in the NL pretty much. But why not the Mets, right? Carlos Mendoza did a terrific job as a rookie manager. He's only going to get better.

That to me, I don't know, is that a spicy tape? A team with a huge payroll who got the best free agents going to win the World Series. I like no one's really talking about them. So it's kind of spicy. It's pseudo spicy. I think by by the numbers, it qualifies. It's in the middle of the pack. Two and a half, three peppers, probably. No, the Mets are Mets are

Like top five team at most projections four point two percent chance of winning the World Series But yeah, most teams I mean picking a World Series winner before the season starts. All right is already pretty bold Like it's funny that we have these staff predictions. We're like, yeah, predict the, and I'm always like, I just say something. Like, honestly, like, what are we supposed to do? Like, you know, like, there are these teams. Yeah, I think it's for the Mets to do it. I think it's a little bit bold because I don't know that they have the pitching. I know, you know, could they acquire pitching during the season? They also have become good at developing it. Clay Holmes looks so excellent this spring. Maybe he's actually a front two starter. Could he do like 150 innings of being a front two starter this year?

Maybe. I don't know. Like, so I like it for that reason. But I would still give it two peppers. Yeah, I was at like two and a half. Like, it's it's solid. All right. I guess the ice was my spiciest one. Someone asked me the other day, like, what do you want out of the baseball season? And I said chaos, but they said that was already taken.

So I was like, okay, you know what else I want? Is I want teams that try to win to win. I want the Mets to win. I want the Royals to win. I want, it doesn't all have to look like getting one soda, right? Kansas City's trying is different than the Mets trying, but I want the teams that tried to win to win.

I don't want some team like the Tigers last year that sold and we turn into this great story goes, oh, the front office didn't believe in them. And they're with no, I want the teams that tried to win, that pushed their chips in to be rewarded for that. That's what I want. I don't know if that's spicy or not. I don't want to celebrate some 85 win team that snuck in

despite the front office doing nothing. Fair. Yeah, selling at the deadline. Yeah, I mean, kudos for the guys that were there to do it, but yeah, it was a strange development and we certainly didn't see it coming on this show as we kind of like ducked away from the Tigers for most of September. Yes, and the Tigers will tell you that they weren't selling their clearing room for their young guys, but

We've been bagging on teams not spending the Mariners six years 105 million dollars to Cal rally Hey, all right. It's just extending a Skinny a kid. It's not it's not really new money though No, it's they didn't have control of them for that long, right? Like, what, they have two years left after this one? Great young catcher. Yeah, he's been vocal too about them needing to spend. He's a good leader in there. I was just there the other day.

Worked out for him. Yeah, I got the scope to it for him. It just feels like the opportunity is so there with their pitching and they just need one impact. I know, and it's like like what's not moving the needle like you know Jorge Blanco again and I know maybe the ownership's not saying like let's spend or whatever but like god there's not too many years for that division has been as wide open as it is this year. There's also why the Red Sox made that but the AL East is totally wide open as well.

I think the Rays are going to win the American League pennant. That was that was my other team based one. Sell me on that one. just totally wide open as well. I think that Rays are going to win the American League pennant. That was my other team based one. They got the pieces. The McClanahan injury is fortunately not that bad. It's a nerve thing. It's not another UCL tear or something. They've got the depth to withstand it.

Pepe Obaz, Bradley, Zach Littell, Rasmussen still a good rotation. They always bring a good bullpen. I think we're going to see better from Christopher Morrell in this year than we saw post trade. Junior Kamen Arrow looks like a star to me. They brought in Ha Sung Kim coming off a shoulder injury but I think that does make them better once he gets back. Maybe that's a little bit of an underrated addition. The Rays just find a way all the time and even in this year it's gonna be extra weird playing at Steinbrenner Field for their home games having these questions about ownership swirling around. Despite all of it I

think they come out of the AL and win, they go to the World Series this year. I like it, I like it. One more for you, you know? I've got a player one, you might enjoy this one. There once was a Hall of Fame shortstop who played in Milwaukee, who was known for making a lot of contact,

being good on the base pass, being good all around, just an all around player, kind of a 2020, you know, 290 guy. It's setting us up. Robin Yount, we've got a new Robin Yount. We have a new Robin Yount. The new Robin Yount is Joey Ortiz. Joey Ortiz is going to go 270, 2020,

which is a number that no Milwaukee Brewer shortstop has surpassed other than Robin Yout. And, uh, he's going to do so because he was hurt last year, the neck was hurting him and before his neck was hurting him, he hit the ball harder. He looked like a guy who could slug 20 homers. That's been what people thought of him in Baltimore. And he obviously has the speed. He's been given shortstop and he says the neck feels good. So it all checks out.

Joey Ortiz equals Robin Yeout. Gotta give me five peppers for that, come on. You got five. You got all five peppers again. He's a Hall of Famer. You hit the opposite. You gave us the least spicy first and then you ended up here.

I had to see where the room was. I saw here. I had to see where the room was. I saw it. I had to see where the room was. I picked the Red Sox to win it all. You picked the Mets to win it all. The Red Sox are projected much worse than the Mets. I guess the Oakland is my spiciest take. Yeah, it is a red. I had to hedge on the Rays by just saying they'd only win the American League,

that they wouldn't win the World Series. Which leaves the possibility, if they could win the World Series, then I'd still be right. It's what they like to do, though. They go to the World they wouldn't win the World Series Which leaves the poss- if they could win the World Series and I'd still be right It's what they like to do though. They go to the World Series, they lose the World Series. Yeah, but they love it, right? It's gotta be fun. No, but I think that's an underrated roster. That's a Braids fan growing up I can say that's fun. Super fun. Well, we are going to go just a quick reminder on our way out the door Join our discord the link in the show description Thanks to our producer Brian Smith for putting this episode together. That is going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Wednesday.

Thanks for listening. Oh, I gotta push the needle.