Rates & Barrels - Breakout Players & Fantasy Baseball Sleepers: AL West & NL West

Episode Date: March 9, 2021

Eno and DVR recap their LABR auctions from the weekend and share their selections for breakouts (or sleepers, if those still exist) from each team in the AL West and NL West.  Rundown 4:16 Eno's AL LABR Plan 17:24 DVR's NL LABR Plan 33:05 Logan Gilbert's ETA; Ty France Love 36:22 Is Josh Jung Primed to Take Over at Third Base? 42:48 Digging Deep for Luis Rengifo 47:24 Concerns About Jared Walsh's Playing Time? 50:13 Don't Forget About Ka'ai (Blaze) Tom 56:46 Myles Straw vs. Chas McCormick 60:57 Mauricio Dubón Time in San Francisco? 65:02 Time To Buy In on Brendan Rodgers? 70:04 Will the Zack Greinke Deal Bear Fruit in Arizona? 74:17 Are There Any Overlooked Players in San Diego? 79:14 Will This Year's Kyle Tucker Come From Los Angeles? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Please fill out our listener survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/athleticaudiosurvey AL LABR Results: https://www.rtsports.com/labr-al-auction NL LABR Results: https://www.rtsports.com/labr-nl-auction Subscribe to The Athletic for just $3.99/month to start: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton Bike or Bike Plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate. Terms apply. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Monday, March 8th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we review our AL and NL only labor squads. We'll talk about auction strategy, pass along some tips, some strategy ideas, and talk about individual players, of course.

individual players, of course. And we'll put the results for both of those auctions into our show description. So if you're listening to us on Apple Podcasts or you're watching us on YouTube, you can just click on the links and actually see the boards as we go through them. And then we're going to talk about breakouts and sleepers. A lot of hitters since we've done this on the starting pitching episodes a few weeks back, going team by team to the two Western division groups and looking at players that we think are undervalued and possibly going to take that big step forward here in 2021. Eno, how's it going for you on this Monday? I'm exhausted, man. That draft is like just six hours of like my face gets red. Like I think my brain is working so hard.

Like I get tired. I just get by the end of it. I'm wired tired. It's just and I was wondering how if it'd be more or less stressful, you know, online. And I think it was more because there were just a couple snafus, uh, with the, with the technology that weren't necessarily the fault of the technology, you know, but, uh, uh, there were, there were, uh, there was kerfuffle and, um, and that led to it. There was this weird day where like, you know, one one one auctioner was like you know oh

i didn't hit the button on that i don't i didn't want jared walsh and while they're arguing about that for some reason the draft kept going oops and and at the end of the arguing where they just decided that he had to keep the player i look on my team team and I've got Matt Barnes and Alex Kirilov. And I'm like, I don't remember buying those guys. Like, what are those guys doing on my team? What is going on? So that was weird. And then I wasn't going to say anything

because my complaint was even more tenuous than I accidentally hit the button. It was like, I was just watching you guys argue for too long. I can't complain. I mean, Matt Barnes for $6, maybe he's the closer. And Alex Kirloff for $9, I think he's the opening day left fielder. So, you know, it's not too terrible. Yeah, I think it'll be all right in both of those cases.

Yeah, I don't know if you just got wrapped up in the argument and were subconsciously bidding, but I think I prefer the in-person auction to the online auction room. There are some pros and cons to, you know, being online, being at home. While I missed out on seeing people, I at least had the comforts of food 10 feet away and unlimited beverages 10 feet away. Those little creature comforts, two screens instead of just a laptop, those types of things made it a little easier. The two screens is good because I have the draft board up.

Yeah, I could do more with the two screens. That part I did like. Yeah, good point so maybe the real hack when we get to do it in person again is to have a tablet sitting next to your laptop so you could have the tablet going as your second screen and the

laptop going as the primary screen and you get the best of both worlds so I'm glad we did this glad that Steve Gardner did all the heavy lifting again to keep the leagues rolling and And let's talk about the teams that we built. You mentioned a couple of guys that you bought. I just want to pull back for a second and ask you what your strategy was going in. We didn't talk a lot about our strategies prior to the auctions, but we can outline what we tried to do and talk about different ways it went right and went wrong over the course of the weekend what was your plan going in given the shape of this year's al pool i wanted to be flexible so i i i wanted to see what happened at the beginning so i didn't have like a set plan like a we've talked about here we you know sort of couple a couple decision trees. So like, I wanted to see how much Shane Bieber would go for and Garrett Cole. And if they went for more than $40, I was going to be more

likely to spread the risk and have a collection of sort of 15 to $20 players, pitchers, instead of one, all the risk in one player. And what was weird was that garrett cole went for 40 and shane bieber went for 41 i was watching garrett cole and i said oh if garrett cole goes for 40 then bieber should go for 39 or 38 and then i'm in you know then i like it you know and so i was in on bieber until like 39 or something. And then Bieber went for 41 and I was confused, but also didn't end up with Bieber. So that's why I ended up with a staff led by Lizardo, Erkity and Bundy all around the 16, 17 bucks. So that part, that part, I don't really have too many complaints about. I have a decent staff

I'm a little bit worried that I got Dylan Seas for four bucks but that's either going to be amazing or the reason I lose because it's going to be really hard to drop but if he has a five ERA and a

bad strikeout minus walk rate again early in the season, I am going to drop him. I can't massage that one all the way through. But $2 Luis Severino for stashing. You know, it was fun. $1 Luis Garcia, who now that Forrest Whitley, there's news, Forrest Whitley is probably getting Tommy John,

means Luis Garcia is cemented as the number six there in Houston. He's just an injury away from starting again. So I like my staff. The staff I'm okay with. Yeah, I think the pitching staff looks like a pretty typical pitching staff. And I think with that Bieber-Cole situation, with Bieber going for a dollar more, the dynamics in play there are just that there are really two AL starters in that tier. There's not a clear bridge to the next group. So the fact that Cole went first maybe created some desperation for the handful of people who really wanted Bieber and caused his price to go just ahead of Cole's. I mean, in a vacuum, I think most people prefer Cole to Bieber, but it's not by a huge margin.

But sometimes that's what happens. If you get the last player from a group, that player ends up going for a bit more than some of the players that earlier went off the board. Your offense is pretty interesting because you didn't have a player, it seemed like, for the first 30 minutes or so. You didn't have a player, it seemed like, for the first 30 minutes or so. And you still ended up with two high-priced bats in Luis Robert and Randy Arrozarena. You got Robert at 32, Randy Arroza at 29.

As far as your foundational bats go, I would say that you've got a pretty wide range of outcomes, especially with Robert. I think Arrozarena, even though we haven't seen him in the big leagues that long I feel like his floor is safer because there's less swing and miss in his game so I'm curious to know with the bats was this sort of like a ripcord combination like hey I gotta I gotta pull the string and get somebody early because you're starting

to run out of like legitimately top end hitters to get or was this also part of the plan to have guys that could do a little bit of everything as your first two hitters? Yeah. So, you know, the process for me in terms of hitting is, um, there's always a premium on the top of your auction sheet. You know, there's always a premium for the top bats. So your auction sheet will probably spit out maybe one bat that's $40. And you'll have two bats that go for 40 plus.

And your auction seat will say that there's only like two $38, $39 guys and they'll go for 40. So basically there's usually sort of a plus two or plus three or plus four premium. If you're in a shallower league, like a 12-team mixed league or something, that premium is huge because there'll be people that are doing stars and scrubs, and so there'll be somebody that pushes Trout to like 70 or bets to like 60 or 70, you know, because they think that the replacement level is so high that they just want to get the stars.

In a league like this, the premium is not that big. And it threw me off. Because I was seeing a premium of $0 to $2 on the top players. They were going for what was in my auction sheet. And so, apparently, I was second place in the most bids in this, in this auction. They were counting on the radio and they said I came in second place on bids like 25 times. So what had happened was I thought, I was like, okay, so the premium is really low. So I want to get somebody at plus one or plus two, right?

That's the premium on the top end is plus one or plus two dollars. And so I kept getting to plus one or plus two on my values. And then someone would go plus two and I didn't want to go plus three or, you know, like or someone would go to plus one. I'm like, well, maybe I can get a plus zero. So I did kind of screw up that part. But in the end, I got Robert and I don't know how to say his name anymore. I give up, but they're saying it on the radio like Robert.

So I guess it's Robert. And so I got Robert and Rosarena at plus one on my thing. So I did okay. Robert and Rosarena at plus one on my thing. So I did okay. But in retrospect, if plus one was the premium, then I should have gone to 41 or 40 on Jose Ramirez because then I would have gotten a better player at plus one. Yeah, I think that's really important. In most auctions that we're in now, no matter what

your values put in front of you, the top end guys are going for a little more than that. I think it was $3 to $5 for a good portion of the players that were being put out there for about the first hour last night. AL was on Sunday night. I thought the numbers were all coming in pretty high. And it does put you in this difficult position. Initially, for the first couple times around the table, you might say three to five is a lot. Maybe it cools off. And sometimes it does. And you get a player for plus one or plus two, get a couple guys for plus one or plus two. Sometimes it doesn't. And then you end up with a ton of endgame bargains. But you got to build a ton from the middle. And some players like to build balanced AL only and NL only

teams. You can win that way. Larry Schechter wins a lot. Larry Schechter tends to build more balanced teams. Eric Caravelle on the NL side tends to build more balanced teams. I would say Todd Zola tends to play that way too, if you're looking at some results where those guys are not going to have a lot of one and two and $3 hitters, especially. I think that's where you kind of see different approaches. But I think both auctions this weekend, people were pretty aggressive because I was watching the AL and doing the live stream for First Pitch Florida online with Mike Gianella. And I thought this room was about as aggressive as it's ever been. I've watched the AL auctions for the last almost 10 years now between last night and then doing radio stuff.

And it seemed like when I started doing this, people were more conservative with their spending. I think there's a groupthink agreement that it is worth overpaying a little bit relative to projection for top-end players and securing that production, especially in, even in leagues this deep, I think, especially in mixed league auctions, as you said. I see that in 15-team mixed out. They play in a more shallow auction than that. People are even more aggressive because the replacement levels in those leagues is so high. But I do like what you did with this offense. It's a little bit feast or famine.

I would say you have some obvious risk with the two hitters that you paid up for, but I thought you did a really good job in the mid-tier getting guys who really don't have questions about playing time. Your infield in particular, you got one ceiling guy in Andrew Vaughn at 8. That was a really nice price on him. Nick Solak at 14. I think he's nearly an everyday player, if not an everyday player. Most of that time coming at second base, 14 bucks on him seemed really good. Anderson Simmons at seven, I think was pretty late in the auction when a lot of people didn't have money left. He probably should have gone for 12 or 14 with the amount of playing time that he's going to get in Minnesota. So that was a nice value. And then I think my favorite buy that you had

among all your hitters is Gio Urshela at 16. He's healthy this spring. We saw plate skills growth last year. And in that park, in that lineup, I think there's a shot. He's a $25 player at season's end in a monoleague like this. Well, I was hoping. I do think replacement level is terrible in these leagues. I mean, just look at your wire the day after the draft, right? We play 60 outfielders in an AL only. There's only 45 starting outfielders in, in, in the AL, in an AL, AL only there's only 45 starting outfielders. So, you know, uh, the waiver wire is pretty bad. Um, and so I did try to avoid the $1 player only ended up with Adam angle, um, as a true $1 player. That one was a little bit of a hedge on Vaughn.

I was looking at that depth chart in Chicago and checked with sources. And what I've heard is that there's only a minor league deal on the table for anybody that might want to come to Chicago and take that DH job. I don't think Edwin Encarnacion is going to do that. I don't think Ioannis Cespedes

really wants to take a minor league deal to show up in Chicago. But I guess that's a possibility. And so if that happens, Engel will play more. Because Engel will be needed very often in the outfield. Eloy will play more DH, that sort of deal. If they don't put Vaughn up in the major leagues, I think Engel will play more. So it was a little bit of a hedge there.

leagues, I think Engel will play more. So it was a little bit of a hedge there. But Urshela was also a little bit of a hedge against the batting average risk that Robert was giving me. Because I think that Urshela, Solak, Mountcastle might have a problem. But I thought Urshela and Solak and Simmons would have good batting averages. And so I didn't just want to punt batting average completely. And that's what I was thinking there and there were a bunch of you know that was like like my pitching strategy a bunch of 15 to 20 players that uh very solid projectable lots of plate appearances so the only risk I really took in terms of playing time were my catchers uh which you know catchers are terrible and my last two outfielders DJ Stewart and Adam Engel

so there's a little bit of being able to move guys around Mountcastle can play first for me if I can find a corner infielder if I need to with Vaughn but I think Vaughn's going to be there from day one I think this team wants to win they're telling everybody they're ready to go now and Vaughn is the most be there from day one. I think this team wants to win. They're telling everybody they're ready to go now,

and Vaughn is the most obvious person to put on that roster. Yeah, I think for whatever reason, if he doesn't hit enough to keep the job, then maybe in June or July or something, they send him down for a little while and they acquire someone because you can pretty easily acquire an extra bat in season if you need to, but they do seem like they want to really give him that opportunity. I think for going cheap at catcher with Jeffers and Severino,

you did pretty well there. Seven bucks combined on those two guys. Jeffers should split time with Garver. Maybe it's 60-40 percentage-wise favoring Garver, but for four bucks, Ryan Jeffers could be a really efficient per-plate appearance catcher. I think there's an outside shot that both could be the number one catchers by the end of the year. I mean, if Garver doesn't really get that power back, if he doesn't get it all back,

then Jeffers is really solid. And Severino might be the number one catcher now. I mean, Chance Sisko is not that good. I'm sorry. That's right. I was trying to think of a nicer way to say it. It's just not that good. I think the way Severino goes a little wrong for you is if Adley Rutschman comes up somewhat early

in the season, but even then, they're not going to play Adley Rutschman four out of five days, four to five games. They're not going to go 80- Rutschman four out of five days, four to five games. They're not going to go 80-20 split from day one. They'd probably ease him in a little bit. I don't think he's coming up this year. Totally possible that he stays in the minors all season long.

I think the way you built your team is kind of similar to what I did in the NL. I had a few different ways I wanted to go at the beginning of mine. I thought through it and said, it's either DeGrom or two $20 pitchers. That was the pitching foundation. I wanted to prioritize one really good reliever. You did it with a role as Chapman at 19. I did it with Josh Hader at $20. I actually thought Hader was going to go for a little more. I probably would have gone to at least 22 on Hader before bowing out. I think that's a good move. Get one guy and be aggressive and get them early.

I think there were, like, Hendrick, other pitchers went for more than Chapman, and I'm like, dude, I think Chapman's the best reliever in the AL. Why am I getting a break on this? Why am I getting for 19 when there's other relievers going for 20? So I was very happy with that. And then once you start getting down to $17, you're paying $17 for a guy who might be okay. You know, like I'd rather pay 19 for Chapman than 17 for Rice Iglesias. You know what I mean? So I think, I think I like

that part is identify in an only league, identify an elite reliever and go get them early because the prices will get worse later when they're like, oh, God, I don't have a closer. Yeah, and I think the way I was trying to plan was if somebody was going to go 23 or 24 on Hayter and I had to bow out, I was probably going to go with three relievers in the bullpens that I think are up for grabs. San Diego is one. I think St. Louis still qualifies even though it's looking more and more like it's going to be Jordan Hicks there. But you mean like try to buy a bullpen?

Like try to actually get two guys in one? Pair up one of them and then target the other two for at least one speculative shot. Yep, and that was going to be my combination. Either three or four relievers stretched out. You'd spend a lot of money doing that too, right? You'd be spending six, seven. Like my Matt Barnes pick. You'd be spending six, like my matt barnes pick like you'd be paying spending

six seven dollars on these other guys so you'd you'd have like four guys at six seven bucks right like if you're really trying to do that way and they might not get any value compared to the one guy at 1920 so that's why i like the better like get your guy and then you know get another reliever like three to five bucks i didn't really really want Barnes at six. Like I said, I blacked out. So I thought DeGrom was kind of a pivot player in the NL pool. He went for 40 to Mike Gianella. That was the max bid I would have had for him. But going in, I said, if I don't get DeGrom, I'm getting two from the next group. I thought maybe the next group would cost as much as 30. I thought Woodruff and Flaherty could approach $30 because of how we've seen people in snake drafts attacking pitching.

It didn't seem like there was quite as much carry on that range of pitchers. The next tier below that one even cheaper than expected. So I was pretty aggressive getting Woodruff at $24 and then Flaherty at $25 after I had Hader. Felt like the pitching came together really well. I was a little frustrated, though, because within probably 30 minutes of me getting those three pitchers, Strasburg at 16 to Steve Gardner.

I know there's injury risk because there's always injury risk, but everything is going really well for him with that surgery for the neuritis. The problems he was having with his hand are gone. We talked to Maria Torres on Fantasy Baseball on 15 for Monday and he's had a normal

offseason. He started throwing earlier than he normally does. So all signs point to Strasburg being like a $20 guy easily in this format again with a path to maybe be a 30. Sixto Sanchez went for 11 bucks. Julio Urias went for 12. I mean, you don't

know at the time, right? When you build early, you don't know what those guys are going to go for. I assumed 16, 17, 18 consistently for guys like that because of ceiling and what they've already accomplished. So if I had known it was going to play out like that, I probably would have said, I'm good with Woodruff and Hayter. I'm going to pass on Flaherty. I'll let someone else have him in the low 20s, 24. You can go to whoever had that bid. And I'm going to go ahead and get two from the 6-0 Urias range. Even Zach Wheeler only went for 14. So I just felt like pitching didn't get priced up as much as I expected. That threw me off a little bit, but I was able to at least get the core in place that I wanted. And frankly, I think it's easy in the NL

to find pitchers you like. Year over year, I never have a problem finding single-digit pitchers. I put Tyler Molle in there at nine, Drew Pomeranz at eight, Mackenzie Gore really late at four, which in this league, as people might know, a player has to be sent to the minors or placed on the IL if you're going to take them out of the active lineup. Otherwise, you have to drop them. And, of course, if Gore goes down, he goes to my reserves. I can use all my bench pitchers in that spot and kind of rotate and play matchups. And if Gore's

up, then I'm really happy because for $4, I think he's likely to exceed expectations at the price. And then a few other cheapies, TJ Anton. I had to get him just so we could talk about him and say his name on the show. TJ! I love you, TJ!

I just saw our Reds beat writer, not Reds beat writer, no, a Reds writer, Doug Dirt. Is that his handle? That's his handle. I don't think his real name is Doug Dirt. Anyway, sorry, Doug, or if you are a duck. I don't think his real name is Doug Dirk. Anyway, sorry, Doug. Or if you are a duck, I don't know.

I live online. But he was saying that he thinks that Anton could be their hater. So, I mean, he may not start because they are still stretching Lorenzen. They've given Lorenzen the chance. They told Lorenzen they're giving him the chance. And so there may not be that spot in the rotation for him. But Wade Miley is, as they say, not good. And B, if he's the hater, it's innings, man. And they might be amazing innings. He looks really good. He's sitting 97 and sitting 96, 97 and struck like three in an inning today.

So if you just got one of those guys who had like a 1-2 ERA and 15 Ks per nine for 60 innings, I mean, sure, that's going to have some value. I'm thrilled with that as a staff filler. If he gets a chance to start, then even better. But if he's a multi-inning reliever all season, three bucks is totally fine. I think he actually compares pretty favorably to a guy I really like, Freddy Peralta. Peralta went for seven, right?

Both of those guys could end up in their rotation and they could be good with that opportunity. But if they're multi-inning relievers, even if they're not getting saves, the ratios and the Ks over a decent number of innings really plays up in this format. Alec Mills at two. I know you like Mills.

He's been on my mind a lot because of the presentation from Saturday and the different ways he's really kind of standing out to you. And then Emilio Pagan at one, who I think is kind of similar to what I just described with TJ Anton, where it's like he's just filling innings and maybe he's a closer, but I think it's Pomerantz. I really do think it's Pomerantz. I mean, I really do think it's Pomerantz over Melanson. But every time the beat writers write up the back of the bullpen, they say Pagan and Pomerantz.

So, you know, not saying the beat writers know everything, but they also are hanging out by the team. So they know a fair amount about what the smoke is saying the smoke is saying. So but I love that stuff. Alec Mills. Yeah, Alec, we did a presentation for First Pitch Florida over the weekend. If you missed it, you can go check it out. If you're a loyal listener, you probably heard a lot of these these things over the over the episodes that we've done, because we just went into like seam shifted wake and spin mirroring and the different concepts that we talk about on the show and gave some

examples. And it's just weird. Alec Mills showed up on all of it. I think I've even talked about it here where he's, you know, he's got a seam shifted wake change up and sinker and he's got a spin mirroring on his fastball and his breaking balls and he's got good command and good matchups, at least to start the year. And if you find that he goes out like a rabbit and you need hitting, he might be a good guy to trade before the weather changes at Wrigley. Yeah, and he might be a perfect trade ship because I think I will probably need to move a pitcher

for a bat at some point, unless I get incredibly lucky with some of the young players I went after. At the top, Harper at 33, Cody Bellinger at 30. I tried, I think, on just about every one of the elite, elite bats. I was in on Tatis, I was in on Acuna. I love that, though.

It reminds me of the Arizona Robert idea, where it's just like, okay, I'll get two front-end I was in on Acuna. I love that, though. It reminds me of the Arizona-Robert idea, where it's just like, okay, I'll get two front-end second-rounders, basically. Yeah. In 15-team mixers, I see Harper and Bellinger as viable options at that one-two turn. So no problem with what I did.

I kind of expected to get one of Trey Turner, maybe at like 37. He went for 40 to Derek Cardy. He was the first player thrown. If you play against Derek Cardy, if he throws a player, he probably wants to buy that player. Friendly tip from our friend.

He does some good nominating players. Has he done some $40 Kershaw jump bids and stuff? Yeah, he does that a little bit too. Acuna went for 41. Betts went for 40. I think, I think those were fair prices. I didn't get to those numbers first, so I missed out. I was 37, 38, 39, a lot of those guys, and I missed out.

Soto got to 41. I thought maybe I'd get him at 36. Even Christian Yelich, who I put in the same cluster as Bellinger and Harper, 35 to Steve Gardner. That was a bidding war that I was involved in. I tried to stack Brewers. It's been hard not to put that 36ner. That was a bidding war that I was involved in. I tried to stack Brewers. It must have been hard not to put that 36 down. It was.

It was difficult, but I think I made the right choice bailing when I did. Did that make you nervous about steals? A little. What I'm most nervous about with my roster, I went cheap at catcher like you did. Jan Gomes plays a lot, seven bucks, whatever. It's fine. Kiebert Ruiz could be a black hole for playing time

because they seem to like Austin Barnes, even though Austin Barnes isn't good. So I want them to call up Kiebert Ruiz, make him the backup to Will Smith. I may have to play the dreaded second catcher off the waiver wire game, which that's one of the few things you can actually find on the waiver wire in a league this deep is a random catcher that actually gets some playing time as druba cabrera

at seven brendan rogers at 13 was auction dynamics late i had to hammer one of the team wanted him at that point i just said he's the best hitter left whether i get him for six or seven or 13 actually won't matter at this point so i just pushed all my chips in for the max bid on brendan rogers kevin newman at six austin riley at 12 gavin lux at 13 wilmer flores at eight the outfield with harper and bellinger obviously very solid nick senzel at 15 is a player that i really like and then obviously garcia at five adam hazley at two i think garcia even if he's like a traditional fourth outfielder for five bucks, is totally fine. My concern, though, is that between Rodgers, Riley, and Lux, what are the odds that all three of those guys have starting jobs they hold on to all season, right?

It seems like one of them is going to play a lot less than I'd want to, but maybe the other two play every day and it works. And I got to fill one spot. I think where I get in trouble is if two out of those three guys somehow don't play as much as I need them to. Yeah. Yeah. A note about Haseley. Like I just know that internally they love Haseley. You know,

Odibel Herrera is problematic for a couple of reasons. He's not on the 40 man and uh he just spent the whole year being suspended for domestic violence for sir for an incident there so um just not not something i think they want to do uh but um there is a groin strain who's groin strain who's groin is strained hazely right is it hazy yeah i think it's hazely yeah yeah hazely and so you know maybe he opens Who's groin strained? Who's groin is strained? Haisley, right? Is it Haisley? Yeah, I think it's Haisley. Yeah, yeah, Haisley. And so, you know, maybe he opens on the DL

and you have to go find a waiver wire bat. But I kind of think, as much as I like Kingery, that Haisley's going to factor in there. I think he's going to play. They're just real, as an organization, they're really proud of him. He's made real advancements in his ability to hit. Worst case scenario, you've got yourself

a good fourth outfielder there. I think that was a good pick. It ended up being a little more feast or famine playing time-wise than I'd like it to be. I think Ryan McMahon at 12, he's my UT right now. He ends up being fine. They're just going to see what he can do this year. If it doesn't work for him this year, then they're going to ditch him. And he has a couple of positions, right? So

if you get somebody sent down, you can cover one of those guys being sent down with McMahon, right? Yeah, that's what I tried to do. So once I realized that I was going to be chasing playing time and taking on some risk with my $10 to $15 players, I started to prioritize guys that were eligible at two or three positions. McMahon can play first, second, or third. Wilmer Flores is first and second. Austin Riley, I think, is going to play a little bit in the outfield at some point, maybe. So I could get third and outfield from him. Newman, I think, up the middle is second and short short as Drupal Cabrera's first and third.

So if I do have one of those guys go down, I've got a few ways to just move things around and at least just pick up any hitter who's playing as the replacement, as opposed to being locked into one specific position. So I mean, that flexibility is always helpful, but I think it's particularly helpful if you've got a lot of playing time downside in a league this deep. but I think it's particularly helpful if you've got a lot of playing time downside in a league this deep. Yeah. Yeah. I was very happy to have Mountcastle later on. I wasn't sure that I wanted to, I mean, I went right to my value sheet on him, but I really liked that one BOF,

especially I had CI first base and outfield positions open. I want, I wanted to be able to kind of move them around and it ended up being really important if, if Vaughn gets sent down. Position flexibility. Somebody asked me why I took Segura a little bit early in the Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational. I've explained here that one of the things he does that's good that doesn't pop is that he's just good across the line. He's the kind of guy

who's probably going to do something like 280, 15, 15. None of that seems like, oh, I got myself a bunch of seals or I got myself a bunch of homers or got a great batting average. But all those things are good and they just keep your team going. And then on top of that, he's 2B, 3B. So he can be MI, CI, second base, third base. That's even though it may not be best ball where you know he gets put in those positions by the computer you're still gonna need you need that

flexibility later in drafts for picking somebody now you can move him to there and and put somebody instead you know so um yeah i think that's uh it's a it's a valuable thing it's hard to put your finger on how much it's worth too yeah i don't know if you can really add more than like a buck or two to a player's value for having those extra spots. I think that could be an overcorrection if you did more than that. But I do think flagging those players and making sure that you've got a little bit of exposure to that group is particularly helpful regardless of how big the league is

that you're going to play in. So again, check the results. They're in the show notes. If you want to see the links for the AL Labor Board, Eno was a part of that one, and the NL Labor Board, that was the one I was in on Saturday night. All right, let's talk about some possible breakout players.

Sleepers, if they still exist, are fewer and further between because everyone's digging into every corner of the player pool year-round. Words to be banned. Sleep. Upside. Sleeper. Yeah, sleeper and upside. Words that we want to use but shouldn't use as much as we do at this point. So we're going to do kind of a fly-around approach. We're going to start in the AL West. We'll start with Seattle. We saw Logan Gilbert take the ball on Sunday for a couple of innings against the Angels, and he was impressive. And I know that because of the way on Sunday for a couple of innings against the Angels, and he was impressive.

And I know that because of the way everything works, we've talked about this many, many times before, Gilbert's going to spend some time at the alternate site or in the minors to begin the season before eventually taking on a spot in this Mariners rotation. But I thought he passed the eye test. I mean, the stuff all looked good. The command looked good, too. We're talking about a guy who's already reached AA, and he's had good results at that level. So I'm increasingly interested in Gilbert, even in mixed leagues, because I think if you use him as your one minor league or your stashing away for later, it could be a pretty nice payoff once he gets that call.

Maybe we're talking about a May sort of debut for Gilbert. Maybe we're talking about a May sort of debut for Gilbert. Yeah, and he represents that kind of Indians attitude where you get a guy with good command and you coach up the gas. Send him to gas camp. He added a few ticks, and I think he can sit at least at league average, which is 93-plus now. And then that hammer looked good. So if you've got a guy with a good control,

good command, and 93 mile an hour velocity, and a really good breaking ball, the floor's pretty high, man. I think that the rest needs to be figured out. Will he have a hard breaking ball? Like a nice cutter? Will the changeup

be any good? Those are question marks. But the rest seem pretty well answered. I i think he's gonna hit the ground running there's not really that much opposition in the rotation you know like it could easily go south for uh even if they're going to the sixth man they usually go south for chris flexon or uh justice sheffield or nick Nick Margevicius? Is he the sixth guy? I was so frustrated by this. I looked at the depth chart over the weekend that we're in a world where this sport incentivizes

choosing Nick Margevicius over Logan Gilbert. Right, yeah. It is annoying. Hopefully, they'll do something about that in the CBA. My guy on... I really wanted him. I was glad that we pushed this till Monday because I didn't want to reveal any of my labor sleepers,

but I really wanted Ty France. I've talked about how them playing him at third suggests to me that he's the long-term replacement for Kyle Seager. That suggests to me that they're going to play him every day. I see good plate discipline. I have a little note here that says PD, not EV. And his barrel rates aren't amazing. He's not going to be probably a 35 homer guy, but I see a good OPP, 250 plus average, 20 plus homers. It may be kind of a stretch in 12 teamers

but anything deeper than 15 i want ty france he might come with a host of eligibilities too yeah definitely a guy that is set up well in seattle who was pretty blocked before that trade that that sent him to the mariners last summer so I'm there with you on France. I know our editor Nando DeFino loves Ty France this year. He's the most Nando player that we're going to talk about probably over the course of this episode. Let's move on to Texas where Josh Jung is definitely going to be in my upcoming rookies of interest piece. I think he makes a lot of sense, if only because it's clear at this point, the Rangers are moving on from the core from a few years ago. We saw the Elvis Andrews trade. Of course, he's now in Oakland. Ruggie Odor, it just seems like they're kind of done with him as a regular. He's more of a stopgap until I think

Jung is ready. Things that are a little bit complicated now, of course, with the AAA season not starting on time, it's back to the alternate site for guys that don't make opening day rosters. That could maybe change the plans a little bit in some for guys that don't make opening day rosters. So that could maybe change the plans a little bit in some cases. I don't think in Jung's case, it's going to change his timetable all that much. I think he's still probably more of like a May or June sort of call up, but they really don't have a lot of alternatives there beyond Odor. And I think we've seen enough of Odor to know that he's probably not

changing at this stage of his career. You know, the first two seasons, the first three seasons for Odor, one win player, two and a half win player, two and a half win player, two wins is usually average. Then he had this season in 2017 where he was a win and a half below replacement, even though he hit 30 homers. You've got to play a lot. a lot you gotta play a lot to do that yeah and that was really hard to read because you're like man they played him a lot he hit 30 homers stole 15 bases like he was on some labor teams for me in there then he came back and had

a 2.4 win season in 2018 you thought okay he's back to being who he is except that year he had 18 homers it's just like who is this guy but in the last two seasons combined he's been exactly replacement he's projected to be replacement level which is not good so josh jung the comps i'm getting are ian kinsler and uh if he ian kinsler's it up at the alternate site and in the minor leagues and Odor is out there putting up replacement-level work, I think the writing will be on the wall pretty quickly. Kinsler's a really interesting comp because I didn't really expect much speed-wise from Josh Jung, but you go back to the early years especially.

I mean, Kinsler ran throughout his career. He was a double-digit steals guy every year from 2006 to 2018. Maybe because of the way steals work in baseball in general at this stage, he'd get fewer opportunities if the efficiency's not there. But even just six or eight bags on top of what Jung could do as a hitter would be really nice. And it's so hard to set expectations for someone who's played 44 professional games that were at A-ball and rookie ball. It's all kind of based on the glowing reports that we've been getting since last summer at the alternate site. That's where he was really taking that step forward. And I think it's clear if you read the Rangers beat

writers, if you read Levi Weaver, the Rangers believe the future is now for Jung. I mean, he's already 23 years old, right? He's going to be turned 23 in February. So they don't really need to wait very long before giving the opportunity and just letting him take that job for good. We're talking about a guy they took eighth overall in 2019, too. So there's plenty of pedigree there. And Texas is going to allow uh kids people in the stands uh you know everywhere is at this point but they're going to probably be out in front of

that one and allow more than other places um and uh it's a new stadium there's pressure on them to to fill it and i would say that there's pressure on that gm um uh not that they just brought in, but at some point, someone's going to come for John Daniels. The results haven't been amazing. And they need to sort of point to a group of players and be like, here's our new core. We're getting somewhere so um that's why i don't necessarily think i took the rangers as an over because i don't necessarily think they're going to blow it up everyone's saying they're going to trade gallo but i just feel like that's uh that would be like oh we're starting a rebuild you know uh and that would be weird because they didn't do anything since the last time they started a rebuild um i have uh Solak as my quote-unquote sleeper. I

don't know if that is good enough, though, because he's pretty well combed over at this point. One thing I wanted to point out about Solak, though, is that he steals bases. I think that there's enough batted ball juice there that he can hit 15 to 20 homers and steal 10 to 15 bases. So I kind of bought him as much for the playing time as for the stolen bases and labor. But I guess my real name might be Jonathan Hernandez. Just looking through their options to close, Matt Bush is a possibility and uh before you uh sort of roll your eyes at his questionable morals in the past i will say that i had a lengthy conversation with levi weaver about matt bush and i came away impressed with uh the work that matt bush has done on himself and his life um and when you have that bad of a relationship with alcohol, I think all the

other things that happened could flow from that. So I'm willing to, you know, not pass judgment right away. And, you know, if he throws real hard, Matt Bush is going to be in the conversation. LeClerc is going to be in the conversation, but he's having visa problems, I think. And he also has bad command. Jonathan Hernandez is the best pitcher of the three. And he's got a three-pitch mix, former starter, up to 97. I think that we could see his best strikeout rate of his career now that he's more of a full-time reliever.

So Jonathan Hernandez for closer. I like Hernandez as a late dart after round 20, maybe even in the laughter, the round 25 mark in a 15 team mixed league, because I think he could still be useful in the short term, even if Bush or the clerk or someone else is getting saves. I think you could see Hernandez picking up a multiple innings and turning in some pretty good ratios with those opportunities as well.

No shortage of interesting players, though, in Texas. I mean, they acquired David Dahl and they added Nate Lowe. So there's a few guys there that we've liked for a long time who now have better paths of playing time with the Rangers. Let's talk about the Angels, where I think you've got a star-driven roster, of course, with plenty of fun guys up top with Trout and Rendon and Shohei Otani. But looking for sources of value in deeper leagues especially, I think Luis Renjifo in AL-only formats and draft and hold formats, he's one of those guys. I just want to see him play because I think he can be surprisingly productive with the bat. I think I'm basing a lot of that on what we saw back in 2018. We saw some really nice slash lines with a good amount of

speed. I think he had 35 steals across two levels at high A and double A in 45 attempts. He's shown a little bit of power, a few random stops as well. So I think it's non-zero power, but it's definitely speed that you're going to get and maybe a better batting average than what we've seen so far, right? He's been up and down a few times. It's got 141 big league games where he's been a part-time player,

only hitting 221, 310, 331. So nobody really wants him, but I think he can play all over. The glove's good enough for him to be a legitimate utility option. You know, if someone were to get hurt there, if Jose Iglesias were to go down, Luis Renjifo would pop up and help backfill if anyone in the infield were to miss time.

Yeah, and there's a possibility that this roster creates an open space on the infield. David Fletcher has played all over, and their combined right field roster projects to be about replacement level with Dexter Fowler, Joe Adele, and Juan Ligaris as a group. I'm not saying that is right. Adele could run and take that. We've talked about his max exit velo being top 10, I think, or top 15. And so if he makes any real tweaks with his played approach, he's going to take that and run with it.

But there is also a universe in which Fletcher starts playing right field fairly regularly because they're just not getting any production from that group, in which case they would need someone to play second base. So it's not impossible. And he's super, super cheap. My choice for this group was Max Stassi. He just has real good barrel rates and projects really well. I know he's hurt.

But in leagues with unlimited DLs, he's a fun DL stash. I texted partner in crime Ian Kahn during the draft that I was mad that he got Max Dossi. He would have actually been a target of mine for labor last night. But for you people not into catcher leagues and in more shallow leagues, Justin Uton is so so dirt cheap do you have an do you have an adp on him i think he's going outside the top 250 overall if not lower i'll get a recent one though because i wonder if he's crept up a little bit just since the calendar flipped to march i mean he's streaky he's 33 so you can't bank on the projected bounce back completely. But the projected bounce back is pretty decent to a 230 batting average

and nearly 30 homers with some steals even. So, you know, the batting average may not be useful, but that kind of a player in a bench pick, I don't know. Good counting stats probably coming with that playing time. 343 overall is where he's going. It's really low. Yeah, since March 1st. Nobody wants him because of the injuries

and the recency bias of the poor seasons. But it has been two poor seasons along with the injuries. I can forgive you for, for not taking part, but you know, what if he hit two 50 or two 60 again and had like, you know, a lot of times guys have like that,

that one last bright shining season before they fade into the night. And I think with Upton, he's been around forever cause he debuted so young. He's 33. So he's, he's old, but he's not, you know,

that 36, 37, 38 range. There could easily be one more productive season in that bat. Maybe even 2018. That 257, 30 homer, 80, 80 sort of production, but the lineup's better

now than it was then, so maybe the counting stats could actually tick up a little bit from Upton. I'm on board with that. I think he makes sense as a late filler in the outfield, maybe as a fifth outfielder in a 15-team mixer that people just aren't excited about at all. Are you in on Jared Walsh, by the way? I think for people in more shallow leagues, he's kind of part of this conversation as well. I know there was a really good piece at Fangraphs a while back about the adjustments Walsh made to his swing. They're going to play Albert Pujols some, but they're not going to play Albert Pujols every single day. So do you think there's enough playing time for Jared Walsh to be

mixed league viable from the jump? Yeah. I mean, I'm not buying a 14% strikeout rate after he had 30% strikeout rates in the minors and a 40% strikeout rate in his first year. But the barrel rate was the same in his rookie season as it was in his sophomore campaign. So I'm buying the quality of contact. So, you know, maybe the projections at 28%, maybe, what if he's 25%? If he's 25%, he can hit 260 with 30 homer power. The one problem is Albert Pujol is still on the roster, man.

And Shohei Otani is on the roster. So where does he play? I think it's going to be a problem in weekly leagues. Weekly lineup leagues might have a problem with Jared Walsh. That's been my problem at the price. I mean, if you're talking about someone who's just outside the top 200, ADP since March 1st, it's 213 overall.

It's just not quite enough playing time. I think you can get away with a true big side platoon guy, but you can't have a big side platoon player that also loses a handful of starts on the big side of that platoon, which I think exactly describes the situation if everybody's healthy. Oh, here's a

eat this, not that. We needed a song for that. We really need our own phrase for that. That was a book series, and we'll probably get sued if we make that our jingle. Oh, that's a book? That's a book. It came out maybe 10 or 15 years ago.

It's like a Mark Bittman book or something? I don't know who wrote it, but it was like, if you're going to Chili's, eat this somewhat not terrible thing for you instead of this really bad thing. Don't eat the Bloomin' Onion at Outback. Eat the fried

green beans instead. Give me Rowdy Tellez's ADP. Since March 1st, 282. 70 picks later, same situation. Rowdy Tellez improved his strikeout rate, has barreled through all of his career, has some playing time issues,

and I would personally say fewer playing time issues. He's going to be in a regular rotation. But I would say it's very similar, and I would take the 70 picks and take Rowdy later. I think that's a fair draft this, not that. Draft him, not him. We need names for this. Let us know on Twitter.

Trying to get out of legal jeopardy here. At Edo Saris, at Derek Van Ryper, rates and barrels at theathletic.com if you'd like to help us name that segment. We're always looking to crowdsource ideas like that. Let's go over to Oakland. I actually found this to be a little challenging.

I was trying to find an undervalued A's player that I liked, and I should have put a question mark on the rundown. I think that one of the Rule 5 picks, Blaze Tom. Kai, I think, is the proper name, but some places he might be listed as Blaze. I think maybe as their fourth outfielder and a guy that has put up some pretty good numbers in the upper levels of the minor leagues. We talked about him back when Melissa Locker joined us right before the end of the year as a guest on one of our episodes.

And I think looking more closely at Tom, who was in the Cleveland system and showed power, a little bit of speed, and really took a step forward. I think with just the overall production, 285, 386, 512 at AA, and then a 298, 370, 564 at AAA. Old for the level when he did it, but those are really good numbers. It was a 23 homers between those two stops. Kind of does a little bit of everything. And if he finds playing time, I think we're gonna be talking about him as at least a dip a deep mixed league relevant player before season's end the bench what i did as preparation for the draft um one of the one of the rounds of preparation was to build everybody's bench you know uh build build every team's bench. And so I

messaged beat writers and, you know, messaged you and poked the, you know, projections and looked at the depth charts and built every team's bench. We've done that on the show too. And when you build a bench, you always have to have a backup shortstop a backup center fielder and a backup catcher you always have to have those things that someone needs to cover those things so on this team v my own machine i think makes the team because he's a left-handed swinging backup shortstop um aramis garcia or austin allen is going to be your backup catcher and then you need a backup center fielder it could be kana kana kana kana ha you're thinking about it too much yes i think about it too much kana is it thank you Can I can,

can I can play a center? So maybe he's your backup center fielder. Um, and, uh, Chad Pinder is making this team. So there's really only one slot left. And for me,

that one slot, uh, buddy Reed is tooled up, but he's going to, I think, go back to the minor leagues. I don't think he's quite ready. And that backup slot could go to Seth Brown.

It could go to Kai Tom or it could go to Jed Lowry. Now, I think my guess is that they could do something where Jed Lowry opens the season on the DL and Tom gets two weeks to show him what they can do. on the DL and Tom gets two weeks to show him what they can do. But Jed Lowry is playing second base in a Cactus League game today. I think I see him in the reflection right now. If you're watching on YouTube, look at the picture on the right side of the shot. Robert, come on. Hit a homer.

Hit a homer. No. Well, at least he didn't swing at it um and so uh i i bought lowry in the reserve rounds last night um i've just heard some chatter from uh from around the baseballing world that uh he's looking pretty good so um i think that lowry could easily uh take that job so now that I'm saying you're wrong, I think that those are the two kind of interesting names. Otherwise, everyone on this roster is pretty combed over.

I would say that I don't like Dalton Jeffries. He had the worst stuff number in my rankings. The worst. Not good. A 75. Didn't know the number went that low kind of like you say kikuchi is command plus score yeah yeah you put jeffrey's stuff with kikuchi's command and you've got the worst pitcher in baseball uh i would say that and this is a maybe a weird name to use i would say that matt chapman has not done his best season yet that's that's a fair statement to make in a

conversation like this. Yeah, so sleeper, I don't know, everyone knows who Matt Chapman is, but he's going lower in drafts, and there is a season in him where he strikes out 22% of the time, walks 10% of the time, and hits 35

homers. He hasn't done all those things in one season. He's gotten pretty close but in that season he had a 270 babbit so you give him a 310 babbit that year or 320 he has a 338 babbit before now you're talking about a guy who could hit 280 with 35 homers i mean well i think we've talked about a third yeah that's that's pretty nice the premium defender, the playing time's there. Like, max playing time is there. And because they platoon at other spots,

there have to be some spots where they just play the heck out of a guy. Remember Marcus Simeon. They played him every down for a whole season. I think if Chapman's healthy, that's the deal. People are asking, is he healthy? He made some really nice defensive plays, you know, speaking of his defense where the hips look like they were in good shape i mean they were he was it was a really difficult

play where you know he's turning his hips and then he had to get on the ground pop up and and throw across the diamond so yeah and no no no talk of soreness or we're gonna take it easy or you you know, like Josh Donaldson's already talking about, like, I'm not going to play every day. Way to set the bar high. You're right. So, yeah, I think Chapman could have another gear. I think he's a value where he's being taken. I'm not going to do that many podcasts. I can't say that.

They would never let me say that. I'm going to take a couple off here and there. I'm going to take a couple weeks off. Whatever, yeah. Whoever our next person on the bench is for podcasting, they can just do it. You don't want to burnt out, Derek. No, like 25% of the shows on the schedule this year, the backup. I don't even know who that person is. I don't care who that person is. They can just do it. I'm going to go fishing,

even though I don't know how to fish. We were kind of laughing at Houston's center field situation. I want to say it was last week. I forget if it was Wednesday or Friday. And since we did that, I spoke to Jake Kaplan. He was one of the guests on Fantasy Baseball on 15 last week. And we asked him for a deep sleeper. And he came up with Chaz McCormick as someone he thought was maybe Chaz or Taz.

Maybe primed to play a little more than expected. It kind of falls in line with my I don't think Miles Straw is an everyday player position. I think Miles Straw is more of your speedy fourth outfielder, can play the infield a little bit too, kind of, I don't know, more like a Gerard Dyson type player. Just a guy that is a nice glue guy on the bench, but not someone you want to play every single day. there's just no hype on him at all. He's a 21st round draft pick. He's played well at multiple stops, but he's never had eye-popping numbers. Kind of fits into the Blaze Tom profile. A little less swing and miss in his game, though, too. Look at the upper levels of the minor leagues.

Double A, Triple A, 2019. Yeah, really controls the zone well. So if you said you got to take one of Straw or McCormick, who do you think is going to actually have the better season? I think I'd be more interested in McCormick in a really deep league. Even though Straw's stolen bases, it's kind of like your Adam Ingle buy and labor. 10 to 15 steals from Miles Straw is really valuable in some leagues. I think there's a better chance that Chaz McCormick gets playing time and carves out a larger role, whereas I think Straw is just a temporary solution until Houston goes some other direction. Maybe it's a moot point if Pedro Leon shows that he's ready in the first couple weeks or first couple months of the 2021 season.

I keep wanting them to try Toro out there, but I guess they won't. We can dream. They both project actually to about 90 WRC+. However, McCormick has shown power beyond his projections. And so I think it's all about his power. And one nice thing about this is you might be able to, like if he has a standout max exit velocity event early on, McCormick, I think he immediately becomes

interesting, right? Like if he hits the ball 115 miles an hour, I would pick him up. Like I think it would be that simple because if you hit the ball 115 miles an hour, you don't have a 120 ISO like McCormick is projected, right? So I'll be watching his batter ball stats early. It's not something that you can say, oh, he hasn't hit the ball 120 yet, so he's not good. But if he does do something like that, it's meaningfully meaningful. If he can compare,

if he can put the power together with those plate discipline stats, strikeout rates in the 10-15% range, and walk rates around 10 to 15%, then you've got basically a Bregman-ish kind of player. That's what he looks like. He looks like Bregman

actually. I mean, if you look at the WRC Plus at AAA for both Straw and McCormick, you get league average or below numbers at that level. You get an amazing partial season at AA for McCormick. AAA 2019 with the rabbit ball that's that iso yeah yeah so that's where that power probably came from for chas mccormick

shame on me the reason i'm bringing this up though is because i don't see a lot of other candidates they can go out and get so one of those guys out of straw and mccormick's gonna play me i'm talking about to. There's series no good. I don't know how they botched that spot so badly. Again, maybe Pedro Leon is the answer, and this is something that we're going to laugh at. But they're playing him at short and stuff. They're acting strangely about this, I feel.

Yeah, I'm with you. I think it's a really bizarre thing. And, of course, there's a void in the leadoff role. They could just move their good hitters up and bury the new center fielder at the bottom of the order. But as two guys that can get on base, you know, whoever wins that starting field, starting center field job, they at least have a shot of possibly hitting higher in the order than you might think. So keep an eye on it and don't forget about Chaz McCormick, or at least be aware of who he is if you didn't

know who he was before this episode. All right, you know, let's move on to the NL West team by team. We'll run through this group. Let's start in San Francisco. I don't think he would ever fit as an actual sleeper at this point because he played enough in the shortened season where he's on the radar, but Mauricio Dubon can do a little bit of everything qualifies at multiple spots and I think his versatility makes him one of the more interesting possible power speed combo guys that you can get in that pick 250 range and later yeah there's a total chance that he just takes that job in center field and you know he has the eligibilities and the and the flexibility that way but i think you would rather he settled in somewhere for for

regular playing time rather than um you know just got three or four games a week and going up against uh steven duggar uh i think mike yastrzemski is a little bit miscast as a center fielder already at this point. Austin Slater, that's the group. Duggar's defense is probably the best of the group. Slater's offense might be the best of the group. And Dubon's probably somewhere in between on both. I think of all the players that could end up pushing him, Lamont Wade is probably one of the more interesting guys that is even further down the depth chart, but not a lot

of competition there for him. If for whatever reason he gets pushed off center field, who knows how much longer Brandon Crawford continues to get trotted out there as the everyday shortstop. He could be on the move at some point. I mean, Cincinnati is still looking for a shortstop. Maybe there's a mid-season trade that opens up some playing time up the middle in the infield too. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah, unfortunately, it seems like the Giants have kind of gone for lower ceiling, higher floor bats.

Is that fair? I don't know. I mean, Alex Dickerson has a ceiling yeah he's a he's a he's a barrel god and um and i'm actually a guy so you know if he's healthy he can he can spank that ball that's that's that's a good point um logan webb was my name on this one. He's the fifth starter right now. I guess he could lose the job to Aaron Sanchez or Tyler Beattie once Tyler Beattie is healthy. But I see in Webb a four-pitch mix that's legit and the possibility that he unlocks another level.

And the worst that he unlocks another level. And the worst case scenario, a guy with a 55-60% ground ball rate should emerge. So a lot of different ways that Webb can go forward. But he, like Mills, has some seam shifted weight going on and some spin mirroring. So he doesn't have the same command as Alec Mills, though. And he needs to find one more tweak to put it together but he also has more gas than Mills he sits at 93 or so if they ended up going with Sanchez and Alex Wood in the final two spots in that rotation I think with Webb you'd want to keep him on your watch list because there's a lot of injury risk in this rotation as a whole so yeah it might not

take long performance wise too. If, if any one of those guys struggles, I think this includes Descalfani too. If any one of Descalfani Sanchez or would just aren't pitching well, they could be, they could be in the bullpen. And you've seen it happen before.

Drew Pomerantz was signed in exactly the same manner as those three guys. And he transitioned to the bullpen and was lights out for them and got traded and provided value in Dubon so um i think that the if logan webb starts in the minors does he have any options left yeah he has he's only been up like two years in one year yeah he has two options left um yeah i think he could start in the minor leagues uh but yeah uh i think that sanchez is the guy i'm looking at to do the Pomerantz thing. Just be a lot better out of the pen, I think. Yeah, I think you're right about that. Let's go to one of our favorite spots in the big leagues. Let's go to Denver. Let's talk about the Rockies.

Let's try to find sleepers in Colorado. I'm not saying this because I chased them late in a labor auction, but I think a healthy Brendan Rodgers is still really interesting. He's been derailed really each of the last two seasons by injuries. I thought things were going to click for him when he debuted in 2019, got off to a great start at AAA that year. Yeah, that was the rabbit ball year. Yeah, it was the PCL, but he had the KRA under 20%. He was drawing walks, hit nine homers in just 37 games.

He's shown speed in the past. He was 12 for 15 as a base dealer in 2018 at AA. I think he made some comments recently. I think it was to Thomas Harding, who covers the Rockies for MLB.com, that he wants to steal 20 bases this season. So it's nice to want those things. I just like that he's thinking about being aggressive on the base paths again. And he has a little bit of a track record in the minors of being able to contribute.

And I think of all the players that you could say are possibly winning a lot more playing time with Nolan Arenado gone, when you move guys around, when you put Ryan McMahon at third base and kind of open up second base, I think you can say at this point that Garrett Hampson's more of a utility guy. Brendan Rodgers should be the clear-cut second baseman most days, and I think the price is so low, he's an absolute what-could-go-right sort of late pick. Yes, I agree. And the guy I like is in a similar situation

where they sat on Sam Hilliard so long that he's post-peak. What are these idiots doing, dude? He's 27 years old. I mean, it's not like drastically post-peak, but he had some seasons of minors where you're like, okay, I think he's ready. Let's call him up. Anyway, I'm not saying he's not flawed. He obviously has a contact problem, but he barrels the ball really well, has a really nice max EV. And I think, you know, he's still running. He's still got some speed. And I think, I think he's got a job. You know, they kind of ran out of other people that could run out there in front of him um you know garrett hampson could take his job um but i don't think josh

fuentes who is interesting but i think is a is a true utility guy now um is going to take that job and that's really the list of people that could take his job yeah i i'm with you there i mean i think rymel tapia i think is a little bit fluky had the crazy high batman the shortened season could fall apart and also lose some of his playing time in the outfield too so yeah lose yeah you lose the job to one of the guys who's fighting hilliard and so therefore make hilliard more safe i mean i think it definitely play out that way. Rymel's job, yeah, exactly. Hampson, I'm interested in Hampson. I think that he could eventually push his way to the front of a job.

Maybe they put Rodgers down and they give Hampson the first shot at second base. I think that's fairly likely. I think Fuentes makes this team because he's in the mix at first and third and second. I think he can, and outfield, I think he can play all those. It's, you know, Hampson can do it, but it's a rare thing to be able to play the infield and outfield. So I think my, if I build a bench here, and this is a bench with Rodgers and Hilliard starting. My bench would be Fuentes, Hampson, Katcher, and then a really interesting question mark. That could be Greg Bird,

if you want to go away from flexibility and have a bat there. Or, I don't know, who else could it be? A waiver claim? I mean, it's just not good. I'm worried about Garrett Hampson because we're almost 200 games in for him, and I realize he comes off the bench a lot. We're talking about 600 or so played appearances. He's got a 68 WRC plus.

It's rough. I mean, he only spent a little bit of time at AAA in 2019. He wasn't killing the ball that year, even though he was well above average in 2018, the first time he was at that level. I'm beginning to have doubts about him being anything more than a bench guy. I think the swing and miss in his game last year was the most surprising thing. We saw a lot of guys strike out more than ever in the shortened season, but Garrett Hampson running a 32.6% K rate doesn't make any sense at all. This is a guy that had at least an average hit tool coming up as a prospect. They somehow are turning out, they're just churning out guys with a 7% walk rate and a 32% strike out rate. Just churning them out.

I got ready. Just churn him out. We've got a good system here, guys. It's very, very broken, as we said time and time again. Nobody walks and everybody strikes out. That's great. Tear it down. Let's go to Arizona. I think we both really like Corbin Martin.

He was my first reserve pick in the NL labor auction on Saturday night. I think he's kind of their sixth starter for now, but all it takes is an injury. All it takes is one of the guys ahead of him faltering for even a few starts, and they can quickly promote him and make him a part of their immediate plans in the rotation. I think he could open the year in the rotation. That's still a possibility for him as well. A good pitch mix, really good numbers in the minors. Got hurt, of course, soon after getting called up with Houston back in 2019. And then was kind of a key piece in the Zach Greinke trade, right? Big part of the return that Arizona got back.

So you look at Gallin, like Gallin's safe. Bumgarner's contract keeps him safely in the rotation. Luke Weaver's in. I think Caleb Smith's pretty safe in there too. But if you're looking at Merrill Kelly versus Corbin Martin versus Alex Young versus Taylor Clark, Corbin Martin's the best of those four pitchers by a decent margin. So I think the talent is going to win out in that job battle. Yeah. And I think it could be one of those sort of Wally Pipps situations where somebody gets hurt and then Corbin Martin slides in and just keeps it. So, you know, six starters this year are going to get a lot of starts.

So you've got to kind of know all the six starters everywhere. And I think that any six starter that you like makes a good bench pick if you can sort of hold on to them for a little bit because they're going to be useful. I've got josh rojas um i've got the the same note for ty france pd not ev uh you know in terms of barrel rates uh he didn't have a single barrel last year uh had more of a league average barrel rate before does not hit the ball super hard in terms of max EV otherwise, but consistently ran 10% plus walk rates and 15% strikeout rates in the minors with decent power and good speed and flexibility

defensively. And he might be one of the rare flexible defensive people that can actually play at each position. So I think he's definitely making this team. Building a bench for these guys, I'm going to give you Locastro and then Estrubo Cabrera and a catcher, and then Rojas is my fourth. And Rojas can play everywhere, as you said.

So I think that really opens up a lot of paths to playing time. You look at the spots where he could end up playing the most. I mean, I guess his Drupal Cabrera, as it lines up right now, is a starter at third base. If they're going to play Cattell Marte in center, no, if they play

Marte a lot in center, then Escobar could play second, Cabrera could play third. But I think that means the door's open for, then Escobar could play second, Cabrera could play third, but I think that means the door's open for Rojas. Rojas could play over Cabrera. They could make Cabrera more the utility guy, and Rojas could end up being a starter. Yeah. They are funging one position

here somewhere. The Estrubal Cabrera, Josh Rojas, Josh Van Meter, if he's even in the mix anymore. That position, wherever it is, second or third, is up in the air, I would say. Cabrera is fine, but especially if this team starts to falter early on and is not doing that well,

then they've got him on a one-year deal. He's 35 years old. Yeah, he's a bench player for a contender. Either they release him or trade him or whatever, depending on how well he's 35 years old yeah he's a bench player for a contender either they release him or yeah or trade him or whatever you know depending on how well he's doing so he's not he's not part of their long-term plans he doesn't even project to be a league average player by most projection systems so um i think that they would like him to be a bench piece on a team that's going well but i think it's two thumbs up from us for both Corbin Martin and Josh Rojas.

Rojas is leading off a lot in spring training games too, so I could see him ending up pretty high up in that batting order. I don't think spring training batting orders always mean something, but they're trying to max out his playing time. That to me means they want to get a good look at him. Yeah, they're looking at him, yeah. And he has the OBP skills to be a top-of-the-order sort of guy, so there's lots of ways it could go right for Rojas.

Let's go to San Diego. If you're watching us on YouTube, I got the Padres cap on today. Actually kind of hard to find an overlooked player on this team. Yeah, I don't have one. I don't think I gave you one. Did I give you one? Is there one on the rundown? You put winner of Kim Profar Cronenworth battle,

which I don't know if there's going to be a winner. I just think they're all going to play a decent amount, and they're all kind of decent. But that's how good this frigging team is. They are so good that they reduced three really interesting players into shrug emojis. I can't even really tell you who's's gonna get the most playing time out of those guys kim projects pretty well above league average and that's with a major reduction in power if he

actually can iso around 200 like he did in the in in the kbo then he's a guy who in a full season would hit 260 with 25 homers and 20 steals. That's who people want to win this battle. And it's worth buying a share of him for super cheap, but it is not worth depending on him, and it's probably not worth spending a lot of money on him in an NL-only situation. Do you remember the auction for him last night? What was his auction price? I was nowhere close to

getting him. Let's have a look. It is Kim at $10. That's not a bad price. But still, you paid $10. A $10 player, you want to play. I got Kirilov for that's a similar situation, right? We don't know everything about them. Young player,

track record, but Kirilov is going to play. So Profar went for 10, Kim went for 10, and Cronenworth went for 11. I'm with you on Kirilov. I think he's got a spot to call his own. $31 for one player. They don't have one spot, though. They've got like two, maybe even two and a half.

I think they're part of the insurance plan behind tommy fam yeah yeah right i mean like if as soon as fam gets hurt or when fam gets hurt or if fam gets hurt they start platooning two of those guys situation stuff right you go cronenworth pro far if we do get the late dh which again doesn't seem likely that unlocks playing time i just also mean just like games against ale you know sure handful sure. Handful of those sprinkled in Myers. I think on my team would play first against lefties. I did that when I was running the Padres for OTP and Will Myers. Well,

that was, that was the only playing time Will Myers was getting. Cause he got really mad at you. Yeah. He, he, he was among the many players to send me a scathing email. Demanding a trade.

He sent me the, do you know who I am? Like he sent me that kind of email. So virtual Will Myers and I are not on good terms. I say play Will Myers in the outfield on other days. Yeah, I wasn't doing that. I had no faith in him this time last year when things were halted. He bounced back in a big way, but if he turns back into a pumpkin, that right field spot's an area where some of

these guys could get into the mix. Cronenworth and Profar could go play out there, whereas Kim, I think, plays all over the infield. I don't know if they're going to use Kim as part of their outfield rotation at all. They said he's taking balls in the outfield. There you go. Maybe in left. Yeah, but Profar and Cronenworth have more experience out there. I'm saying that without knowing if Cronenworth has ever played the outfield. He's played out there a little bit. Yeah? Pretty sure.

Yeah. A little bit. He has played never in the major leagues. Never in the majors, though? No. He did in the minors, didn't he? I don't know. It's not showing me right now.

So, maybe. Well, moving on to Luis Camposano. That was the name I put on the rundown. I mean, I think Austin Nola is a great story. I don't have a lot of doubts about him, but if it doesn't work for some reason, if he's one of those late breakout guys that just can't sustain what we've seen over the last two seasons i think kempis sound is legitimately

really good catching prospect who can hit and i think he could end up taking over some playing time behind the plate he's a really tough player to stash away though because it might be the second half of the season before there's an actual need there with Nola and Caratini handling the role to begin the season. Yeah, I bet you he's like a September roster expansion guy. But long-term, still excited. I love this little note. Built like a linebacker, says Fangros. Built like a linebacker,

Composon's combination of power and contact skills is rare. And while he's no Molina brother, he's good enough to stay behind the plate. So, looks like a, you know, I love this strikeout and walk rate, so. Walked almost as much as he struck out at high A, so, yeah, makes a lot of hard contact, legitimate power, and good enough behind the plate to be a legitimate catcher. So, you may have to wait a little while, but he's an interesting name for deeper leagues.

We'll get to the Dodgers here to close things out. I think there's a couple guys ahead of him on the depth chart who are more interesting, but there's a reason why they acquired Sheldon Noisy. And if he finds playing time, I think he's going to provide cheap power. Let's build a bench. All right, so I'm not putting Taylor as a starter anywhere. So Taylor is the first guy on the bench, and he can play everywhere, literally. And so you got Taylor.

You got a catcher. And then you can really do whatever you want. You have two spots. It could be Beatty, Rios, Noisy. I mean, they're very flexible. Taylor gives them so much flexibility. Zach McKinstry could be another deep, deep sleeper. Yeah, he's playing in the spring with the A's, I think, the A group.

That's actually why I have Chris Taylor as my sleeper. He's going to play plenty again. I mean, I think Quique Hernandez actually helps taylor a little bit because those two were jockeying for some of the same plate appearances for the last few years yeah yeah and it says here taylor said thursday may play more often at second base like there's an outside chance that he just takes second base and that would be sad for gavin lux because i did you know had gavin lux question mark on the rundown probably I do think that Gavin Lux could probably hit 250 with 18 homers

and 10 stolen bases given the time but I think that Taylor would hit more homers and maybe be a better overall hitter by a measure like WRC plus I think he hits the ball harder he could walk more.

I think he'll regress from his barrel rate last year. He had the best barrel rate of his career last year. But even if he does, I think he might be a better player than Gavin Lux in the short term. It's possible. Is that a hot take? I think the Dodgers got to be careful with not messing up the end of Gavin It's possible. Is that a hot take? I think the Dodgers, the Dodgers got to be careful with not messing up

the end of Gavin Lux's development though. I mean, he was 47% better than league average every stop from high A up until he got to the big leagues. There's really nothing left for him to prove in the minors. And they didn't want to put him in a Lindor deal. They didn't want to trade him.

They do believe in him, even though he's gotten 140, 150 plate appearances in the Major Leagues the last two years. Let him play, man. I'm telling you, I think he's this year's Kyle Tucker. He's the guy that was being drafted earlier last

year, former top prospect, still on a good team, could have traded him away, chose not to. The playing time path is there for Lux. And I know there is downside that includes him playing less than we want, even getting sent back to AAA if he goes into a long slump, right? They could do that because they've got the depth to pull it off. But I think it's going to click for Gavin Lux this year.

Yeah, did we do it? We did it. We did it. We made it through. Long pod. Long, long pod because of labor. We want to talk about labor. I mean, it was We did it. We did it. We made it through. Long pod. Long, long pod. Because of labor. We wanted to talk about labor.

I mean, it was a fun thing that we did. We spent like 11 hours building teams. Some of y'all skipped over the labor discussion anyway. Maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. But if you want to help us name our segment from earlier again, hit us up. Rates and Barrels at TheAthletic.com is the email address on Twitter. He's at Eno Saris. I'm at Derek Van Ryper.

If you want to fill out our listener survey, we'd really appreciate that. I will put the link in the show notes. And if you'd like to subscribe to The Athletic, theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels gets you in the door for $3.99 a month to start. That includes everything we do on the site. Our draft kit is up. Lots of updated rankings

to comb through there and a lot of great stories still to come. And then, of course, great coverage of all sports around the globe, even beyond our great fantasy coverage. So that is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening and watching.