Rates & Barrels - Building a Breakout, Hitter Edition

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Eno, DVR, and Jed discuss a story from David Adler of MLB.com about Aaron Judge's batting stance adjustments throughout an elite calendar year at the plate. Plus, they look at four hitters off to great starts to determine if there is more than just a fast start under the hood. Join Our Six Picks Group -- Session 2 begins Thursday May 1st!https://ottoneu.fangraphs.com/sixpicks/league/67 (password: froggy) David Adler's Batting Stance Breakdown for Aaron Judge:https://www.mlb.com/news/aaron-judge-batting-stance-change-statcast-breakdown Rundown2:44 Aaron Judge's Changing Stance Around Massive Year15:15 Building a Breakout, Jacob Wilson?25:30 Jung-Hoo Lee: Producing Despite Dip in Bat Speed33:52 Jonathan Aranda: Setting In for Big Year in Tampa?46:39 Cedric Mullins: A Second Breakout at 30? Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.socialFollow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.sociale-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris With: Jed Lowrie Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From early morning workouts that need a boost, to late night drives that need vibes, a good playlist can help you make the most out of your everyday. And when it comes to everyday spending, you can count on the PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard to help you earn the most PC optimum points everywhere you shop. With the best playlists, you never miss a good song. With this card, you never miss out on getting the most points on everyday purchases. The PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard, the card for living unlimited.

Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit pcfinancial.ca for details. Hey, it's Noah Chestnut from The Athletic. If you're into games and sports, pay attention. I'm gonna give you four sports terms. You tell me the common thread. Ready? Game, match, point, set. This one's kind of a gimme. Ready? Game. Match. Point.

Set. This one's kind of a gimme. The answer is, how tennis is scored. Do you want more of a challenge? Check out Connections Sports Edition. It's a new daily game for sports fans. To play now, go to theathletic.com slash connections. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Wednesday, April 30th, Derek VanRyper, you know Sarah's Jed Lowry here with you.

On this episode we are building a breakout. We're going to try and make sense of some small samples from the first month of the season looking at four different hitters trying to figure out if this is a massive step forward, a one-month heater, maybe things just looking better than they actually are in some cases, lots of directions that can go. I saw a really interesting piece from David Adler of MLB.com about some changes Aaron Judge has made to his stance over time. And right now he's putting up maybe the best calendar year of his career, just going off. If you look at the rolling one year leaderboard, you're going to see about a 13 war player,

which I didn't think was possible. So we'll dig into some of those changes, other players that could do something similar and time permitting. I got a little game prepared for later in the show. We'll see if it actually comes to fruition. Oh, come on. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. The other idea I had for today, though, was to have an award show called the Enos,

and it would be an acronym. Everyone needs one because everyone would get some kind of award. My thinking was it's about a 60 minute show and if we wanted to give every player in the league an award, we'd have about four to five seconds per player to just dish them out really fast. So it would make no sense at all. And I ultimately decided to scrap it

because I don't think people would be into that bit. But I do like the Enos as the name for an award we made up. So we probably will keep that for some kind of Needs one are you getting an IL for this you know? Wait, where's everyone needs one? It's from the Lorax it's a snoot is it is Snoot everyone needs one a sneed a sneed a sneed the sneed. Yeah, I think it's the sneed The Sneed? The Sneed?

The Sneed. The Sneed. Yeah, that's it. I think it's the Sneed. Hope I'm remembering that correctly. One other thing before we get into the rundown, the six picks group we have, we're ending session one after today.

Session two starts on May 1st, so if you haven't been playing every day, you wanna compete in the next session, you can just jump in any time. Join the Rates and Barrels group, we'll put the link in the show description for that. Thanks to NIV for running that. Are you putting another hat on the line, you know, as a prize for session two?

Oh yeah, I got, I got enough hats to do that. Another rates and barrels hat up for grabs for session two. Good luck to everybody playing it out here on the final day of session one. Let's talk about Aaron judges changing stance, because I think there might be a perception, at least I have a perception, that when you're as good as Aaron Judge, the adjustments you're making are small and subtle and not always impactful. You're almost trying not to break something because it's going so well.

David Adler wrote this up, had a lot of great visuals in the piece as well. We're not going to throw them all on YouTube because it would kind of just take some of the core elements of the piece and that wouldn't be fair. But I'm amazed at how much Judge has just tweaked and tweaked and tweaked while still getting the results that he's getting. One of the quotes in the story I thought was pretty interesting. This was actually from a story that Brandon Cutie wrote in The Athletic. Judge said, I always want to get back to square when I land but sometimes sometimes if I'm starting way out there sometimes I feel like I never got back to being square so

that pitch away felt even further so if I start more square you have a better chance to stay on some balls. So what was the leak or the weakness that Aaron Judge was trying to close in the first place because we did a how to pitch to Aaron Judge segment last season and the answer was don't or don't throw him strikes or just hope you get lucky. And he was in a little bit of a slump that kind of led him to make this change. What the heck was the weakness previously for Judge? That's just one of those things as a player. You know, that's the feel aspect of it, right? And there's, we hit on this last week too, particularly with pitches away and like same, you know, for Judge would be a right on right slider, those fastballs away, those sliders

away, you know, there's some evidence that shows that being square to even slightly close allows you to get to those balls and drive them better So and you're talking about a guy with elite bat speed who's gonna be able to get to the inside pitch Anyway, or generally you would think so and so, you know Maybe maybe he didn't feel as comfortable or he wasn't seeing the pitch that and and this is where as a player I Would use the technology as as it was implemented to go back in and watch the replays of the K-zone in particular, to make sure that my mind's eye was matching up with what was happening on the field.

And so if I was going out there and I'm taking a pitch that I think is three or four inches outside and it's on the plate, then I need to realign how my eyes are working, how I'm perceiving those pitches. Just the adjustment just over the course of last year from the story. April 20, 24 judge was 20 degrees open. And by the time we got to September, he was down to two degrees open, which is pretty massive, right? As far as just how much you would change, it was incremental changes kind of month

by month. But yeah, that vulnerability would be away. And then I guess the the broader question I would have for both of you is if you have top end bat speed, Judge has it. John Carlos Stanton has it. Junior Kevin Arrow has a lot of a lot of players like that you see on that leaderboard. Is that the first adjustment you should be making if you have that problem? Is that the easiest adjustment to make? Because you're not changing as much of stuff

with your timing, your hands, like you can leave everything else kind of the same and just change your feet and like is that the simplest thing you can say about a player who might not have things going well but has that top-end bat speed because they're not going to be as vulnerable to getting beat inside. They have that kind of built into their core skills. They can just make that tweak and not lose something massive that guys that have average or below average bat speed might lose by making the same change.

I think that's a fair argument. You know, what do you think? Yeah, I think so. The one thing that I did notice about Judge that was a little bit different than just how open or closed he was is that his position, like the positioning of his back foot has changed some. So, you know, last year,

his back foot was parallel to the front of the base, right? And then this year, it's actually like a little bit turned towards third base. Right? And it's a tiny little thing, but it reminds me of Paul Krenurko telling me that he would go the other direction with two strikes. So he would turn his foot back towards the catcher

with two strikes. And if you're kind of listening along at home, if you do that with your back foot, I think your energy is to the opposite field as a right-hander. You know what I mean? You're not square to the pitcher. You're kind of, if it was like extreme square

to the first baseman, right? You know, if your foot is a little like your back foot is kind of facing more towards the catcher, you're naturally closing yourself off, right? And it's gonna prevent some hip mobility, but just in terms of rotation and how much you're gonna be able to actually get you know Clear your hips to get to drive the ball to left field, but it's gonna allow you to stay through the pitch longer

I think it's fascinating to me that like the book that does exist on judge is kind of like tribe Inside fastballs and and low breaking balls away You know, that's what people try to do. And now he can hit the high fastball, he can turn on the high fastball, and he normally just spits on the low sliders until they hang a little bit and then he bangs them.

But if I saw a foot that turned a little bit more towards third base, I would think this is a guy that wants to do some more damage on inside pitches. I think it's because he's not worried about it. It's not occupying brain space. You know, like he has the confidence to get to that pitch where, you know, by closing off a little bit, squaring up, he's trying to make the adjustment to the outside pitch.

And, you know, I haven't seen, you know, I didn't look into the, where they're pitching him since he's kind of made that adjustment. But in my mind, it is, he feels a little bit more vulnerable away than he does inside. That's where the most, the highest majority of pitches is away.

If you're thinking about Judge and attacking him too, if you're coming in, you're not really coming in to get a strike. And if you do, it's like, you know, phew, you know, I didn't get burned in there. You're, I think, what, you try to get a foul ball or what? You're just making sure that he's not cheating out over the plate, like diving away, right?

So you're kind of trying to stand him up, right? Like make sure that he knows that you're willing to go inside, but you're not necessarily, you're not really trying to go in there to get a lot of strikes. You're just, you know, letting him know, hey, not really trying to go in there to get a lot of strikes. You're just, you know, letting them know, hey, I'm willing to come in here. Yeah, I think I just wanted to point out that back foot because the way that they they talk about openness is, you know, basically a relationship between the two feet.

So if you've got your two feet out and it's like this or this, you know, and usually we think about the front foot, the front foot close it up, Does the front foot open it up? You know, that's the sort of thing we don't think as much about the back foot, but the back foot, the degrees parallel that the back foot is to the front of the plate has something to do with something too, because that's when I hear him say square, like I would say I would think, oh, his foot is parallel to the plate and he wants to be everything to be parallel.

That is square, square to the pitcher, you know? But maybe just tweaking that back foot a little bit makes him feel more square. There's also feel versus real, which is a big concept in hitting, I think, which is that, you know, you could point out to him, well, you're actually pointed a little bit more towards third base right now.

You'd be like, well, it feels very square. And that's the most important thing to me. And for the guy that's flying the plane, what he feels is more important. Oh, and then the last thing I just thought of is that the pitch is coming in at an angle, right? The pitch isn't coming out of the pitcher's chest. We don't have the chest cannon coming straight. Yeah. So he he could by moving a little bit towards third base,

be square to the pitch. Yeah, especially from a coming from a right hander, right? Certainly. Because the right hander releases it off the side. So it's coming in a little bit off the side off. So he could be square to the pitch, even if he's not square to the pitcher or the plate. I did pop one visual off the story just now. It's just the breakdown from when he made the adjustment against Tarek Scoobal last season and what he looked like in mid-May, what he looked like in September and what he looks like at the beginning of this season, right? And if you saw those changes in smaller increments, you wouldn't even see

as much change, but seeing them like in three, four, five panels, like, oh, okay, like that's that's a massive twist massive change of the foot position over over that time. I agree that generally this is about the outside pitch and that is where he's being pitched so it makes sense. There's other factors involved like you think about fatigue and you know some of these other some of these other factors that go in like you know your legs get tired throughout the course of the year like you have to make these adjustments to make sure that you know you're still make these adjustments to make sure that,

you know, you're still able to get to the ball. You know, maybe there's, you know, some wear and tear or some, you know, who knows, right? Like the stuff that you're dealing with throughout the course of the season, you know, you find a way, major league players find a way to push through things and still be productive.

And I would bet that I'll be doing this over the course of this year and of course, the future and other riders doing this where they're going to look at these stance things. And I would bet you at least half the time you'll you come to a player and be like, did you know that you're like three degrees more open this year? And they'd be like, what? Hey, I feel like this would, this would take like a prolonged slump for a lot of

guys to step back and actually look at the data And go okay, actually I am much different than I was like the the feel aspect of this seems like it's The baseline thing that most guys would trust I would imagine It would be a long time if ever before you run to a player who's checking this data frequently Just to make sure everything was exactly the right way Pascantino was talking a little bit about it. You think Vinny's like that? He was very interested in what Tom Tango was saying

about distance to the plate. And Tom Tango was saying generally it's better to be closer to the plate. And so Pascantino had been getting closer to the plate. And I think that's just about the fact that, about covering the outside portion of the plate. I see a lot of little league players who are too far off the plate. I think that's just about the fact that, about covering the outside portion of the plate. I see a lot of little league players who are too far off the plate.

Because they're afraid. They don't want to get hit. Yeah, they're afraid. And they will get hit a lot. Because the command is pretty bad. So. Yeah, they just don't want to get hit. That's the, I guess you got to find a way

to get them more comfortable. Yeah, I don't think that changes in the major leagues either right? No, you know, you're nobody really 97 to 100. Yeah maybe at that point you just get that built-in trust that you'll be able to get out of the way just in time from Thousands and thousands of reps those guys know how to protect themselves to little eager You never know, right? They might be opening up to the ball as it's coming at them. Great piece from David Adler, we'll put the link to that in the show description if you

want to check it out for yourselves. Let's get to our main topic for today, building a breakout hitter edition. We picked four players at various points in their careers that are off to great start so far this season and let's start with Jacob Wilson who's been somewhat popular on the show because he's just different right with the extremely low strikeout rate the question is always is there enough power to make that approach work now we've seen a little nudge in a hard hit rate up to about 26% this year upon arrival last year that was at a low 19%, 26% still a low hard hit rate for a regular big leaguer but when you strike out 5% of the time

putting a lot of balls in play that aren't necessarily squared up that hard hit rate will run low. It doesn't mean you don't have power it just means you don't hit the ball hard as often as we'd like you to because you hit the ball so much so strange player 315 slug last year upon arrival in 103 played appearance with the athletic he was at 459 entering play on Tuesday I did see a split though home road a 482 slug in Sacramento 434 on the road so far this year. I think where people get a little tripped up though is that we saw glimpses of what you could call 20 homer power in

the upper levels of the minors. He had seven homers in 48 games between double A and triple A so that leads some of us to wonder hey maybe there's more there than we think or maybe he can hit lower EV homers because he just puts the bat on the ball so much. So what do you see in Jacob Wilson, Jed? Do you see a guy who's actually having a breakout and doing more than expected in the power department in a sustainable way? Or do you see mostly what has been in the scouting reports all along?

I worry a little bit about, you know, if he tries to become a player that focuses on power, I'm not sure how sustainable that is. I mean, he does have the three homers this year. Two of them are in Sac, one are in Colorado. Both of those places are notorious hitters parks. One is 102 exit velocity, one is 97. I couldn't look up or I couldn't find the third one in terms of exit velocity. So, you know, those are relatively low exit velocity homers

that, you know, he'll benefit from playing in Sacramento all year, particularly. But I think this is a guy that, you know, he's a throwback, right? Like he's a guy that's gonna put the ball and play a lot. He's a fantastic hitter. Like, you know, he just doesn't swing and miss very often. He's not gonna strike out very often. He's not gonna walk very often. He's a different player but I love the hand-eye coordination. I love the approach. I think

this is a guy that can you know sustain success and hit a ball a lot of balls in the gap but I think if he starts altering his approach to lift balls, I'm not sure that's the type of player he's gonna, that he would be successful as. He's a really interesting player. I have a pretty easy comp. It's Luis Arias. It looks like a Luis Arias fan graph.

He has a shorter swing than Luis Arias. He has about the same bat speed as Luis Arias. He has, you know, very similar contact rates. I don't think he's gonna steal a ton of bases so you know even in terms of fantasy he like he has a kind of a similar player. You know, I think he is in a better home park so he may get a little boost there. He's achieved though he has very similar bats you know metrics he has very similar BATS metrics, he has achieved already a higher max EV than Luis Arias has ever done.

Maybe that's just one ball that's a decimal point higher than Arias'. Maybe they're very similar otherwise. But when you use that as an anchor, that max EV, you find other players last year that had basically like a 145 isolated slugging which is just slightly below average but very close to average so I mean there's a chance that he could have average power and I think that you know there's a big

divide in the prospects world I mean Fangraphs has his raw power 35 40 gain power 30 35 and then there are other prognosticators who've said, no, he's going to develop power over time, and he's going to have it. So I'm going to put the over-under on homers by him this year at probably about, I don't know, I'm going to say 13. You're not even going to throw a half in there? Yeah, you got to put a half in there.

All right, 13 and a half. 13 and a half. And here's the other thing, too. If I look at this on Savant, like you're talking about a guy in the, you know, a hundred percentile for squared up rate. So to me that just screams that this guy knows how to hit. Right?

Whatever he is doing, what you know, the swing is efficient to the ball, like Arias, right? Like he is going to get what the most out of what he's got. And I think that there's some value in that, that this guy is going to be the most out of what he's got. And I think that there's some value in that, that this guy is gonna be available too, right? Like we've talked about that on this show a lot about availability and how that's going to, you know,

become more valuable to just have people that are available that you can count on, that you can trust. And I think that, you know, the fact that he's a guy that's not going out there and falling down swinging, but is still squaring the ball up at the percentage that he is literally the best in the league. Oh, less likely to hurt in a league or something?

Yeah, I think that he's in a controlled environment and that might limit some of the upside on production in terms of driving the ball out of the ballpark, but I still think that he has the hand-eye coordination, the pitch recognition to hit a lot of doubles, to be effective for a really long time. Yeah, and I think there should be something to be said about the extreme contact rates,

just in terms of your time out being available, like a ball in play is available. A ball in play has the chance to be a homer. That's sort of where Derek started with this, is just like, he puts so many balls in play. Yeah, his max is 1.085, but guess what? 101 mile an hour balls go out of the ballpark. 105 goes out of the ballpark.

Especially in Sacramento. Yeah, yeah, with the wind blowing out, and then we're gonna get 98 degree game time temperatures even in night games coming up soon in a month or so. So you know he's going to put the lottery tickets out there per se you know and and I think that's where you know some of the projection systems that really focus hard on bat speed and barrel rate may actually miss on a player like this. You see that the bad X says he's gonna hit five more homers

the rest of the way. I don't know. I think that's a little low. I would take the under on the EnoBook 13 and a half, but I don't think it's gonna be by a lot. I mean, probably nine or 10 is what I would expect. And the park is certainly a big factor. The weather warming up helps a guy like this too,

get a few extra feet. Every foot matters when you have this sort of approach. I do think the long-term value, just in terms of Jacob Wilson as a real big league player, it's going to ride a lot on how good his defense actually is at shortstop. I think that's the other part of the profile. Is he an average defender? Does he become an above average or a great defender over time, that's going to be kind of huge too. The numbers so far on Jacob are, but they're small sample numbers too.

I mean, we're talking about 56 games in the major leagues. They're not super kind to him defensively. Right. And I think the fan graph scouting grades like present 45, future 50, if he exceeds there, that's one way that Jacob Wilson ends up being a phenomenal pick for the A's in the long run as a sixth overall guy from the 2023 draft. One last thing I want to say about him and about actually maybe the entire, at least three of the four guys we're going to talk about here, is that having a guy like this in the lineup is huge, I think.

Just think about how rallies form and how things go. Like, Brent Rooker is great. I love Brent Rooker. We've had Brent Rooker on the show. He's super smart. He's a great hitter. If you had an entire lineup of Brent Rooker, that would have some flaws.

If you had an entire lineup of Jacob Wilson, that would have some flaws. If you had a lineup that was half Brent Rooker and half Jacob Wilson, you might have the best lineup in baseball. You know, just because you would have the slugging patient guy walks in power and then the guy who's gonna, you know, move things along and get, you know, you know, actually put balls in play when you need them to. I mean, that's, that's I think an important thing that I've talked about a lot on this podcast is sort of lineup diversity. And sometimes I look at the Padres, I wonder if they've gone a little bit, you know, I think in some ways they're ideal.

They remind me a lot of the Astros lineups where they have the guys who have Thump and they have the guys like Arise who move the lineup along. But I wonder, you know, do they get too far in that direction of just contact only? Do they have enough Thump? Is Manny and Tatis and maybe Meryl like enough Thump to drive an entire lineup. But they do have that kind of lineup where you're alternating power and contact. And I think to some extent, these A's are headed towards that. The offense in Sacramento, I think, is great.

It's a really good offense, and Wilson is a part of that. I think we're going to say this isn't necessarily a breakout, but this is an approach that's maybe working a little better than we thought it would prior to Jacob Wilson's arrival. We're seeing some evidence of things holding up pretty well for him as a hitter. Let's talk about Jung-Ho Lee. I was really surprised when we started digging

into Jung-Ho Lee, the bat speed is down this year, coming off the injury. He is not Luis Arias. He is not Jacob Wilson. His swing is one and a half, almost one and a half feet longer. Is that, did I get that right? I mean, it's, he has a 7.7 foot swing and they have the shortest swings in the majors, Wilson and rise.

So, you know, he has 68 and a half bat speed, miles per hour bat speed. They have the slowest slowest quote unquote bats in baseball at 60 whatever. So you know he's a little bit more conventional than people thought. He will turn and burn. Like I think that the park actually doesn't let us see how he could be a more conventional. Like he's more, he's got almost like more things in common with like a Merrill or something. Like a guy who makes a lot of contact and has power and has speed. And the park is just gonna suppress that.

I think he's gonna have something like 10, 12 way homers this year and maybe like two at home. You're onto something there. Cause he, all three of his homers this year were hit in Yankee stadium. So you're talking about a lefty hitters paradise in Yankee stadium.

I mean, one of his homers was a 94 exit velocity in Yankee stadium, but ultimately this is a guy like, you know, is doing everything, right? And, and you know, he is, he's playing defense. He's base running. He's, he's hitting the ball. I mean, you wanna talk about a squared up percentage again and a 94th percentile and with in K, 96 percentile with,

89 in K, chasing, that's one of those like where he is, he's chasing in the 59th percentile. I think that's okay because I think that he's, he's making enough contact that it's okay to get a little aggressive Right and and kind of let that let it go I think the big thing though is that he's going to have to make sure that he doesn't Because of the whiff rate he's clearly got elite hand-eye coordination that he doesn't just hit the ball just to hit it Right like he needs to I think as his approach in the major leagues gets refined,

is really making sure you identify which pitches are the ones to swing at, because that elite hand-eye coordination can be a gift and a curse, right? That like, just because in your mind, you think you can hit it, doesn't mean that it's a good pitch to actually hit. Yeah, I think I talked to Marco Scudero about that once.

I asked him, you know, you lead the league in contact and he said, I lead the league in bad contact too. Exactly right. I love Marco, one of my favorite teammates. That is pretty interesting. I mean, there were some other changes that Junho Lee made in the box since he arrived last year. He's opened up a little bit. He's dropped a little further back in the box. He's moved closer to the plate, but that decline in back speed, I wonder if some of that's just coming back

from major surgery, if maybe we'll see a little bit more than what we're getting right now, as he continues to build up strength and get more comfortable with that surgically repaired shoulder. It's a bit of a question. The rise in swinging strikes a little bit and the rise in K percentage I think are related

to the fact that he does have actually one of the longer swings. I mean, he has a 7.7 foot swing. It's a longer swing. He is trying to get the ball out in front. He is trying to be aggressive and he is pulling the ball, but also his bat speed is down due to that shoulder surgery. So I could see it actually a more ideal version of himself emerging in the future. Which is to say that I think there might be another level. I have to put that in concert with

the fact that he's 26. I mean, I do think there could be another level because he's young enough where, you know, people have career years at 27, 28, and 29. You know, the aging curve suggests that 26 is the peak year, but he's just got here, you know, and he's coming off of the surgery. So I think he'll have a decent year this year where he'll end up with like a 290, 300 average, something like, you know, 15 homers and 10 stolen bases. And there might be a year where he pushes that to, you know, 2010 or something like that. And the one thing that I don't know is how long he'll be a great center fielder, but I think, you know, 2010 or something like that. And the one thing that I don't know is how long he'll be a great center fielder, but I think, you know,

at least three more years, he can play a decent center field. So is this a guy that could get some hardware of some sort? I mean, at least all-star, he's in the same league as Shohei Otani, so it's a little bit hard, but like, could he have like an MVP season? Like you're talking about a center fielder

who's gonna play good defense. If he has a year where he's like, he hitting 320 homers 10-15 stolen bases and the Giants go to the postseason? I think it's having a supporting cast that all hits at the same time so the counting stats have to pop for a player like this to get into that conversation. The other part of it goes back to a galaxy brain idea that I had this winter and Jed can tell me how silly this is. But Jed, I think with the new rules, the bigger bases, the limitations on disengagements, I think it might be easier to steal bases in the majors than it is to steal bases in the KBO. I think that's entirely possible.

And I think if we look at 12, 14 steals annually in the KBO and say, oh, it's a ceiling, that's all he could do. I think we might be missing the actual stolen base ceiling for Zhengho Li. The things that you just mentioned were intended to promote more stolen bases and to make it easier. It was so devalued in the way that we were talking

about players and evaluating players that there was no incentive to actually run. And so, yeah, I think that, you know, he's clearly a well-rounded player, which to me is exciting, right? Like I like to see well-rounded guys in the game who can do a little bit of everything. Those are the guys that, you know,

ultimately put butts in seats because they want to see guys, see people do a little bit of everything. And MVP, we'll see, but I think if he can increase the bat speed coming off of the injury and maintain the same squared up rate, whiff rate, K rate, if all of those maintain and the bat speed increases. I mean, that's a guy who could hit 330 or 350, you know? Absolutely, and that's a, you know, and clearly to have the K rate and the whiff rate

that he has, we're talking about someone who has elite bat speed. So, like I said, I think that if there is some sort of limitation still, or you know, you haven't reached peak strength after a surgery, which those shoulder surgeries just they take longer, you might be medically cleared, but you're not going to be 100%. So I think as he feels more confident in it as well, and he's let's it eat a little bit

more, I think I would just look at that squared up percentage of the whiff rate and see how those correlate to the bat speed. You've used last year's MaxAV, then his comps all produce guys that have basically above average power, just around average, and that's better than any of his projections. This year's MaxAV doesn't have that,

but that could just be a matter of time. Yeah, so maybe the best version of Zhengho Lee is still a year or two away, but what we're seeing so far in 2025 is really exciting. And it's just a bummer that his first season with the Giants got cut so short with that injury. Let's move the focus over to Jonathan Aranda, a longtime favorite of mine as a guy

that I just wanted to see break through in Tampa Bay and just see what would happen if they gave him regular run for a couple of years he was kind of stuck as an up-and-down guy guy that didn't really have a good fit defensively on the roster we're seeing a steady run of playing time and now we're seeing an extension of the underlying numbers he was putting up as a part-time guy a year ago 15.4% barrel rate through the first 27 games hitting the ball in the air more often that's always nice to see for a guy that can tap into that kind of power these numbers look a lot like what we

were seeing from Jonathan Aranda at triple-a right at 20% k-rates a career best so far he's chasing a little bit less he's never really been an overwhelming chaser in his previous looks in the big leagues either. Is this a breakout for Jonathan Aranda? Is this real? Have the Rays slow-cooked another key contributor in this lineup? Jed and I were having an interesting conversation about this off screen where, you know, we were focusing on the different aspects of Aranda as a player and you know, clearly right now his barrel rate is elite he's in the 84th percentile and You know barrel rate is predictive and so I was sharing some of the research on this that

Barrel rate is predictive after 50 balls in play and Jonathan Aranda has 65 and when I say predictive That means it predicts itself you know better than saying league average or whatever so it's it's stable it's it's believable it's more signal than noise and it also predicts his own power better than than power number so it's basically saying this power is believable what's you know kind of going the other direction is that his bat speed is 28th percentile. Now it's better than some of the guys we talked about, but his contact ability is not quite as good as the other guys we're talking about. So the question here is, is Jonathan Aranda's power that he's showing right now,

you know, believable and sustainable? And the bat speed and the Max CV say no. If you look at Max CV comps, his ISO should be about 60 points lower should have like a 170 ISO Should be a guy who hits like 20 homers a year if you choose to focus on the barrel rate You're talking about a guy who would hit more like 25 to 30 homers a year You know the bad X has 15 homers and 367 plate appearances. That's pretty close to a 30 homer pace So, you know, these are things that are not like lining up So, you know, these are things that are not lining up. And so we got into a discussion about sort of Max CV and bat speed versus demonstrated power,

which is kind of barrel rate. And Jed said something interesting. He said, I think we're having a Gattaca argument. And we both love that movie. So I need you to explain what about the bat speed argument was a Gattaca argument. You know, in my mind, I was thinking, you know, this is know, in my mind I was thinking, you know, this is like, you know, are we like, you know,

basically producing lab produced players or is there some sort of like natural selection going on? And Jonathan Aranda is a guy that, you know, like you said, might not have a natural defensive fit and might slip through the cracks. Derek, to your point, right, like a guy who has produced consistently at the minor league level, high OPSs, and never really, and this is where that overall player value comes in.

Cause like, I'm looking at the profile of this guy, and I'm saying this guy's gonna hit, right? You know, I think because of the bat speed, the home run totals might vary, but I think he's gonna drive the ball consistently. And I'm looking at, you know, he's got four homers so far this year. Three of them are with an EV of 109.

One of them was 104. And one of them is off a DeGrom, 97, elevated 97 mile an hour heater. So to me, that means that this guy, you know, he's recognizing pitches. You know, he's in the 66th percentile for chase rate, so he's better than average at chasing out of the zone, which is good, he's in the 38th percentile for whiff,

but that's okay with me, because he's in walking 75% of the time. So the whiff percentage means that he's taking chances, he knows when the right time is to let it eat, right? So this is a guy to me that's gonna hit. And then the rest of the value is just wrapped up in, you know, his base running this is a guy to me that's gonna hit. And then the rest of the values just wrapped up in his base running. Obviously this guy that in the 20th percentile for sprint speed, he's not gonna get paid to steal bases. This to me looks like a profile. He has a good plate approach. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. This is a guy that is gonna profile somebody who is going to hit and be a productive major league hitter for a long time. The one thing about the Gattaca, I think, is sort of the predeterminism. We did the tests, we saw that you had this bat speed, and so we determined that you don't get to go up to Gattaca. What a great movie. I mean, you just look back at that cast too at the time and you know,

Jude Law. Yeah, if I could pick one person to play me in a movie, it'd probably be Jude Law. Yeah. The other thing that kind of comes to mind here is that bat speed is an incomplete stat and we're always sort of, I hope we do a good job of that on this podcast because we do hue to the numbers and we do try to talk about things in ways that are predictive. But the numbers that we have are only as good as the numbers we have. And then we get better numbers as we go along.

And so like we've had chase rate has been a very interesting thing on this podcast. Cause early on we cited it a lot and we talked about it all the time and we thought it was very important. And then we've come to understand that well swinging at strikes is also important and so you know the relationship between your how much you swing at strikes and don't swing at balls is is better more superior so we get better at these things as we go along and so i'm looking at bat speed and i'm saying you you know, Jonathan Aranda, you know, 28th percentile

bat speed, but then I look over at where he makes contact. And he makes contact deep in the zone. His comps for how deep he lets it travel right now is Fernando Tatis Jr., who's letting it travel a little bit deeper this year and making more contact this year. Freddie Freeman has a similar intercept point is what it's called. Brian Reynolds, Matt Chapman and Elliot Ramos have similar and

they're opposite field hitters. You know, they're guys who let it travel and then use premium bad speed to hit it out anyway and to make the most of that. So it gives them more time to like make that decision. So Jonathan Aranda's bad speed is better than 28th percentile because when you have, you know, an extra six inches, like the difference with Jonathan Aranda actually and Cal Rowley is more than six inches.

Cal Rowley is the guy who gets the ball out most in front. Jonathan Aranda gets it 27 inches out in front. Cal Rowley 40 inches out in front. So the difference between Cal Rally and Jonathan Aranda is more than a foot and if you think about it the way the swing works that's a foot longer to get up to speed. You know the one that's a foot longer is going to be quote-unquote faster because of the way we measure bat speed.

So there is a superior bat speed coming, and I will be proven right that bat speed is super important and one of the most important things ever when I have the better bat speed number, which is the one that is more bat acceleration. What we need is bat acceleration. We need something that is contact point independent. We need to know how fast,

and then I think even the guys who are quick, like Wilson and Arias, I think their bat speed numbers will change because they get on plane fast. They're doing this movement super fast, and they have super short swings. I would even say, and I don't know how they measure the length of the swing, but I will say maybe there's a way

to be direct to the ball, right? The movement from hand position to contact, right? If that's the definition, is that the definition of short? They're a swing that's sort of when it starts moving to contact point. I see, got it, yeah. So I'm interested in that A to B. You can hone in on something closer, just like when it's moving to contact point. I see, got it, yeah. So I'm interested in that A to B. You can hone in on something closer,

just like when it's like that. I know that the Giants, for example, really value something about one of these back angles. It's like sort of a scoopy angle or not. So there are more refined numbers that we don't have access to that talk about that first move. And it's like, they don't wanna get too scoopy.

So they don't like it, the bat goes low, you know, too early, you know? Correct. They want it to kind of go straight to it. And so there are angles there and there are velocities there. It's a pretty complicated motion if you think about it. So to break it down to like one number

and say bat speed is the one number, I'm not trying to suggest that's the truth But I do think that we will get a better bat speed that I'll tell more of the story soon Well, you know what they say there's there's lies. There's damn lies and then there's statistics I think we're all in though on Jonathan Aranda being a meaningful contributor for the rest of the season actually putting these pieces together I think he's like a 280-20 guy. And I think the Rays love that guy.

Because Kamenero might be a 280-20-25 guy. He has more bat speed, but they love guys who hit the ball hard and make contact. I mean, it seems so stupid when I say it that way. But they don't chase barrels the way that maybe the twins, maybe even the Yankees do. They just want you to hit the ball hard and see the ball well. Well and I think they might have some kind of belief that you can create barrel rate. Like you can, if you

have hard hit rate already, then one key adjustment is just getting the ball in the air more often, making some changes there. So the floor is so high on that player that if we don't add, like Yandy Diaz did one year add, you know, launch angle. He had a great year. But the other years have been't add, like Yandy Diaz did one year add launch angle, he had a great year. But the other years have been great too, like have been really good too. So even if he doesn't add that, he's going to get the most out of his balls and play

because he's gonna hit missiles at the second basement and shortstop and stuff. They're not gonna get all those because they're gonna be super hard. So I think Aranda fits right into what they value. I guess it's the glove that made it take so long. As we're talking about this, it just sounds like the new money ball to me, right? It's like you're trying to find value in players to get wins that other clubs, you know, other clubs might be overpaying for one thing and you're the Rays or, you know, and the Rays have done a really good job of finding these assets that allow them to win on a smaller budget, right? And so this conversation kind of, you know, reminds me of a moneyball conversation where you're finding assets that are undervalued. You know, Rhonda is like, you know, to another team, he's a guy that hasn't lifted the ball doesn't have a great maxi V doesn't have great bat speed and doesn't have a doesn't have a glove, you know, doesn't have a place to put him.

So you're like, oh, that guy's a bad first baseman. We're not into it. And the Rays are like, no, you'll you'll have his time. You know, it may only be from 26 to 28 before we trade him, but he'll be useful to us. We got one more name to get to. And, you know, has dodged a game show segment for today because we're gonna run out of time.

So congratulations to Eno for avoiding his biggest fear. That's not why I talk so much. No, yeah, no, of course not. That was also a part of our conversation prior to the show. You tried to sneak that one in on us there, Derek. I know, I know, it's such a fun part of my job. Let's talk about Cedric Mullins for a moment. He's already had a breakout.

He's done 30-30 before, and it was a huge surprise back when he did it. And I think the surprise about what's happening so far this season with Cedric Mullins is that he looks like a player that could do it again. He's at least laid the groundwork through the first month to have another season like that. He's chasing less than he has at any point in his career

since debuting back in 2018. We're seeing a barrel rate just above 7%, tons of hard contact, 40.6% hard hit rate is the best we've ever seen, if he was to hold that over a full season, and the big batted ball profile difference. Cedric Mullins is hitting the ball in the air more than ever. He has got a ground ball rate down to 26.5%, which is almost in the,

hey man, maybe you're actually hitting the ball in the air too much territory. But given the results he's putting together, is this a second breakout, let's call it, for Cedric Mullins where he's going to tap into that power and push maybe 20, 25 homers again after kind of falling into that 15 to 18 range over these last three seasons. I had this heat map here. I mean, this is a real tightening of his approach. On the left is the swing map for 2024 where he's not like chasing a lot, but he's swinging

at three pretty distinct places in the zone, which is like kind of high and tight ish, you know, mid away and then down in the zone. Right now he's just basically swinging it down the zone, which is like kind of high and tight ish, you know, mid away and then down in the zone. Right now he's just basically swinging it down the zone. Maybe he's fending off some away pitches to some degree with two strikes, but it looks like he's really focused on dropping that bat to the ball. And just reading this, I think he probably has a pretty scoopy swing. He's had, you know, higher fly ball rates than ground ball rates over his career. He's generally better low in the zone. So I think that, you know, his strength is low in the zone. He's really zoned in on this. The weird thing for me is that he's, you know,

only sixtieth percentile and getting high pitches over the last couple of years. And somehow he's getting fewer high pitches this year. I think there's going to be adjustment. I think there's going to be adjusting back where the league is going to start, you know, sending him, he's like in the 13th percentile or something for pitches high in the zone, they will start filling up the top of the zone. That's, that's going to be the next adjustment back to him. And I think this is just a good streak from a guy who knows himself and is really honed in, but there will be some worse days ahead. We did not talk about Molens prior,

but we were on the exact same page. In my notes, I literally put, this is a veteran player who knows who he is as a big leaguer now. He has the experience and the approach to produce night in and night out. And I think the swing benefits from playing in Camden

yards, also a very generous left-handed hitting park. I mean, two of his homers this year were a 99 exit below and a 93 exit below in Baltimore. Yeah. 93 is pretty rare. Yeah. But once again, like this is a, this is a guy, like I looked at the profile and like a lot of the expected stuff is not high above average outside

of the Woba, but you know, you add two low exit Velo homers, that's going to, you know, that's going to help with that. Once again, like if you look at the chase rate, whiff rate, K rate, walk rate, this is a guy that just knows who he is as a player and is executing that plan. I was looking at the bigger picture for the ground ball rate and it does look as though there's been a longer term or adjustment or just a response to how he's pitched where we have seen Mullens lift the ball

a little bit more over time. Like, I don't know if the extreme fly ball approach of this season is where things will actually go going forward, but maybe he splits the difference between the 30 homer guy we saw a few years ago and the mid to high teens guy and ends up finishing with 20, which would still be a nice rebound from where he's been.

I think we've talked about him as a guy that could be vulnerable to falling into a platoon because of all the crowding on that depth chart. Is he not being played that way? I guess they'd lost Colton Couser, so they lost his platoon partner to some degree. Right, so like the depth chart hasn't worked the way we expected it to this season for the Orioles,

I mean there's seven below 500 on April 30th already. They could be sellers based on the way things are started, we'll see what happens in the next few months of course, and then I got like Mullins ends up getting moved to the trade deadline and he's playing somewhere else for the final two months of the season, so a lot of ways this could really play out, but yeah But I do get the vibe that this is more of a veteran doing well than making a wholesale change. It's going to get them all the way back to that peak season that we saw just over three

years ago. And ultimately it comes down to trust, right? Like you got a veteran player as a manager, as a, you know, as an organization, you want to put guy in the lineup you can trust every day. You know what you're gonna get from him. And I don't think they're waiting on Mullens to have another 30, 30 year, but they want somebody who's gonna give you a quality at bat that you know what you're gonna get every single night. And I think that that trust in a player is very meaningful.

I do wonder what his next contract looks like, just because you have this fielding value that's still pretty strong, 86 percentile and out above average this year, 84th last year. Does he get paid as a defense first outfielder that can be up or down offensively? Does he get paid off the offensive season that he might have this season?

Does he get paid as a full-time player? Does he get paid as someone who might have to be platooned? I think he'll be kind of a fascinating case. I mean, just looking at wins above replacement, he's got that six win 2021 season with such a great entry into our collective consciousness. And then it's kind of been downhill since then. Three, 3.6 by Fangrass, 1.9, 2.3.

He's been settling in around two war. Like what if he pops this year to kind of four and five war again? How do you pay him? Do you pay him as this, as a regular, as a two war guy, or do you play him as a four war guy? I think there's a chance that the next team maybe overpays for him a little bit. But you know, there's also a chance that the Orioles and announcing an extension because they may not want to have Colton Cowser be their full time center fielder next year.

I think what I'm most curious to see over the course of this year is if he's done something to get better against lefties because I think that's going to be something that does keep the terms of that deal. He gets in free agency. Mullins will be a free agent for the first time at the end of this season. I think it's going to keep something that does keep the terms of that deal he gets in free agency. Mullins will be a free agent for the first time at the end of this season. I think it's going to keep it more in that three-year range. I think defensively he still has to keep grading out above average in center if it's going to be, I don't know, 15 to 20 million per for a guy like this. Really good skills across the board.

Nice little bounce back so far. Maybe, hey, maybe he'll be wrong. Maybe he'll just'll just do 30 30 again that'd be fun if that happens but it doesn't look like that's where we're headed based on some of the underlying numbers for Cedric Mullins we need to go on our way out the door reminder you can join our discord with a link in the show description be sure to sign up for the six picks group for session two if you're already in the group you don't to do anything you just keep playing and session two begins on Thursday. You can find Eno on blueskyenoceras.bsky.social. You can find Jed

over on Instagram at JedLower. You can find me on blueskydvr.bsky.social. Thanks to our producer Brian Smith for putting this episode together. That's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.