Rates & Barrels - Buy-High Hitters, Paying the Steals Tax & Describing the Number 8

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss several potential 'Buy High' hitters, on the heels of very strong performances through the first two-and-a-half months of the season. Will C.J. Cron stay in Colorado beyond the trade deadline? Should you believe in Tommy Edman's step forward? Is Dansby Swanson likely to continue stealing bases at his current clip? Rundown -- Anthony Rizzo and Yankees Barrel Rate Risers -- C.J. Cron: Top-10 Player (So Far) in 2022 -- Did DVR Whiff on Adolis García? -- Tommy Edman, 2.0? -- Dansby Swanson: 20+ Steals Coming? -- Other 'Buy-High' Bats to Consider -- Paying the Steals Tax? -- Will Smith is Underperforming his xStats Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first six months: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Watch the show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Monday, June 20th, at least as we record this, a late afternoon recording. Construction has stopped for the day, so podcasting has begun on this episode. We'll discuss several hitters you should consider making moves for in leagues that allow trading. Many of them are really technically buy-high players, guys that have exceeded expectations so far, but players whose actual trade value might still lag behind their rest of season value so we'll dig into a lot of those players in addition to a few mailbag questions as well you know how's it going for you on this monday afternoon good i uh am fully clear of the virus and well i don't know

it depends on what test you take pcr i guess 90 days or something but i feel good and i shaved so i've got this nice fresh face look okay that's good yeah you look you look well the running schedule is back on i've got to get to a half marathon by the end of july that's i signed up for the San Francisco one. Well, I've spent enough time looking at the Hal Higdon website where you can get free running training programs that are really good. They're broken down by day for any skill level, right?

So you want to do a 5K, like couch to 5K, they've got that. If you're a little more advanced, they got that. They got half marathons. And I know how far you've been running. What's the key for that program? How would you describe it sort of quickly? It's alternating your kind of base distance runs with some tempo runs

and then training up close. Your long run day once a week gets close to the distance you're going to race at but actually comes up about i think for a half marathon 13 miles and change you can get to like 10 yeah the program gets you to about 10 that's about that's sort of what i've been doing uh recently recently i read a a new one that's about it's called running slow to run fast. And for that one, uh, they're like, you should be not monitoring your pace. Uh, you should be monitoring your heart rate. And that's been very interesting to me coming off of COVID because there are these sort of hard implications. And so, um, that one has been tough for me to integrate because they want me to run at a 140 heart rate.

And in order to do like my five mile run at 140, I have to run at like a 10 minute pace. So I'm running. It's really slow. And very slow. Yeah. Maybe that's just because I'm coming off of COVID and my heart is just, you know, getting back up to speed because earlier what it wasn't that slow.

But I does, you know, there's actually a, a, a time limit to the half marathon when you do it with other people, they like shut the course down after like two and a half hours. So I have to actually, I have to do it within

sort of 10 minutes per mile a little bit more than that uh a little bit slower than i could manage so um i'm kind of stuck between these two training mechanisms but um i had been doing really well with this sort of you know alternating tempo with like sprint runs and long runs and kind of attacking it that way and uh and i just gotten to 10 right before i got covid i ran a 10 um you know like two or three weeks ago so i feel like uh i only have like six weeks to go i think i might abandon this run slow to run fast uh technique if i if i have to get ready for this half marathon but But, you know, kind of an interesting look at running, I think, because, you know, we have these different coaching mechanisms.

And same thing in baseball, you know, I was just looking at the fact that Anthony Rizzo, you know, had a homer today. He's been a huge part of my labor team being in first place. And, you know, I guess he's a buy high for me because he's doing everything right under the hood. But at 230 batting average, I wasn't sure if we should put him on the list because, you know, there's some people who are going to look at that and say, am I really buying high or am I buying low? Like what's going on with this 230 batting average? Is he really going to do that? Well, I looked under the hood, like he is, I think in the top seven or so when it comes to adding barrels year over year, but so are junk in the top 25, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron

Judge, DJ LeMayhew, Gleyber Torres, and Anthony Rizzo. It's five guys from one team in the top 25. And they did just change their hitting coach. That sort of makes me think of this running phenomenon. Joey Gallo is not playing well. And the Yankees as a group are reaching more. They're chasing more outside of the zone. And we know that hitting coaches have the most effect on swing or don't swing,

patience or aggressiveness. And I kind of feel like this new hitting coach has come in and been like, let's be aggressive. Hit strikes hard is their thing, but if they're reaching it, if they're chasing more than they used to, then they're also being aggressive and swinging hard at non-strikes too, right? So his whole Lawson, he's a great hitting coach. It seems to be working really well,

but it's working really well for the five guys who were kind of patient before, right? And do have a good sense of balls and strikes right and those five guys have gotten more aggressive and are barreling more and are having great seasons i think i would buy a high on any of those guys um but uh it's not the same approach is really not working for joey gallo who is chasing at pitches outside the zone it's almost like the run first run fast run slow thing where he's almost like the run fast, run fast, run slow thing, where he's just like, nope, no, this is not working for me. The weird thing, though, with Joey Gallo is the last time he got to 40 home runs in a season,

not that he was far from it last year, he had 38 a year ago, but the last time he actually hit 40, he had an O-swing percentage that was up above 30%. But right now, yeah, he's 10 percentage points above where he's been each of the last two seasons in o-swing percentage so there's a big jump in and how much he is easily career high pitches yeah it's it's right around the levels he was at in 17 and 18 so it's not unprecedented and those were good years for gallo you know relatively speaking he was about a three win player in both of those seasons and In terms of WRC+, he was above average. He's barreling well this year.

It's just a cratering of the batting average on balls in play and the worst strikeout rate of his career. Are they pulling the ball more as a team, too? Because I saw Rizzo was up a bit in pull rate. Gallo has pulled the ball more than pretty much he has at any

point this season i can't wait for them to ban the shift yeah let me have uh let me look at team leaders in pull rate uh i wouldn't be surprised if they are near the top here let's see pull percentage number one are the giants uh and then the the Yankees are 10th. But they have some different players. It's interesting because you do something like this and it's like, you know, you're looking at

all the players in one grouping and, you know, Isaiah kind of for left is probably not pulling the ball that much. No, it's not really his game. Right. So, you know, a more detailed look would be like how many of the guys, the sluggers in particular, are up year over year in terms of pull rate.

Yeah, I would agree. I think that's the better way to look at it. But as far as Rizzo goes, I think he sort of fits in this group, which is kind of a funny group. It's a lot of players that are oatmeal-y, as we like to say on this show. Many of these players, I don't think anyone we're going to talk about, had an April ADP inside the top 100 overall. So to varying degrees, these were underrated or underappreciated players. And we'll start with CJ Krohn.

$36 earned so far, according to the Roto-Wire Earn Calculator. I was running that for 15 team mixed yeah, he did it. He maintained it all year. But for someone who was outside the top 100, kind of in that 110 to 120 range in most drafts, kind of fringe top 10 for the position, you'd probably trade for something that sort of splits the difference cost-wise between what he's earned so far and what people thought he was worth on draft day. And I guess I'm curious to know if you think that's a good idea. Do you think that's an appropriate sort of approach for Krohn

factoring in the possibility that maybe the Rockies move on from him? And the possibility that with this kind of wobbly combination of plate skills, a 26.9 k rate with a 5.6 walk rate that's not it's also great weird it's not what he used to do in the past in the past he's made he's either made more contact or had more patience it's kind of uh it's kind of a

weird combination given what he had been doing he had had been kind of improving his chase percentage and had been kind of and had paired that with a decent natural ability to make contact. He's not like your prototypical slugger, except for you look at that 27% strikeout rate and say, what are you talking about? But for his career, 23% strikeout rate. That's basically league average. So he's not really gallo-y. And he also doesn't pull the ball as much as those guys.

He kind of sprays the ball. And he takes advantage of cores. So generally, I liked him going into the season. I like his production so far. I think that his strikeout rate will come down, his walk rate will come up, and those factors will undo some of the fact that he's been maybe a little bit lucky given that played approach. I think what you said there about the Rockies moving on, that's the biggest key. And I think that it makes him basically an all or nothing play, right?

Like you either trade for him and he remains a Rocky and then he, then you won and you, and you got what you needed and you're going to get two 75 and 18 more homers, right? Or you trade for him and the Rockies trade him. And then, uh, and especially if he goes to somewhere uh where you know the runs are suppressed then you you may get a 230 version uh with you know 12 to 14 homers i mean i think that's how far it could go if he doesn't he's not in colorado so you know in anticipation of that i i kind of looked at the payroll and he's, you know, under contract for seven million and seven and a half million next year. So, you know, they do have him under control.

That's a decent salary. They have as a team, according to Fangraphs, about one hundred and thirty million dollar payroll last year, next year. So they could hold on to him if they thought they were being competitive, right? But the question then is, do they think they're competitive and they're moving in the right direction? And does the new GM want to start selling

in his first year? There's no guarantee of a trade here because of that last year still remaining. And I just think you're talking about a 32-year-old first baseman. Yeah, right. It's not really the kind of player teams are going to trade for having that extra year. So he might be in Colorado all year, and you might have people in your league who have him that think he's going to get traded, and that's going to keep the price down. I think it might be 80 20 that he stays because i was also then trying to admit trying

to find uh trade partners who are the trade partners padres and every time the first baseman comes up every single time sorry um uh but i, they could use another bat. DH, first base, whatever. Voight's been waking up. Yeah. So, I mean, it's not even a... Like, somebody with more defensive versatility might be better, like Josh Bell, who's in the last year of his contract. You know, that might be a better fit.

You know, they've also been in love with Nelson Cruz, so I'd say there's a little bit of possibility there, but maybe not much. The Red Sox. Kassus is hurt. Dahlbeck is not playing well. The Red Sox are 36-31, 13.5 out of the division lead,

and right now, I guess tied for the second wild card. Yeah, they'd be on that list. Houston, Uli Gurriel's not playing well. So I would put the Red Sox in for, yeah, if it doesn't cost us much. Right?

Yeah. Well, if it doesn't cost you much, why are the Rockies trading him? Like, if they're just going to get some A-ball arm that's the 25th best prospect for the Red Sox and save $7.5 million, $7.5 million is right at that line. Are you saving or are you giving up

a player that's controlled under his cost? I don't think he moves. He doesn't actually get traded side. So I think this ends up being probably the best season of Krohn's career based on the groundwork he's laid so far and trading for him now does make a lot of sense. And somebody might just look at that Babbitt

and say, oh, you know, he's going to hit 230 from here on out. But I'd be like, yo, I mean, Babbitt and Coors, that's the whole thing. Yeah, you get that extra juice from those balls in play. I'm going to ask you this just straight up. Did I whiff on Adelise Garcia?

All I did was poo-poo the idea that he could repeat what he did last season because I looked at the K rate over 30%, the low walk rate, and I said, no way. No way. No way he keeps the job all season there's going to be some point during the year when he strikes out too much and even though he's a good defender it's just not going to be enough the rangers are going to move on play taveras or somebody else in this system is going to come up and play in the outfield he's basically doing the

exact same thing he did last year he's's cut the K rate a little bit. Still has the same O swing percentage. Putting the ball in the air a little more often. More efficient as a base stealer. He's 11 for 13 as a base stealer. So yeah, the overall body of work, he was a league average hitter last year at 243, 286, 454. He's 17% better than league average at 233, 294, 474.

Just a little better across the board. Are we buying this? Is this just an improvement from a player that got a full season's worth of reps last year and still hasn't picked up even 1,000 plate appearances in his big league career? He's 29. He has an awful approach to the plate. It's all tools, it seems. But he's refined some stuff you know like he you know like just

think about this what you mentioned about working on the base pass right right and i brought him up on the 30 show last week as someone that better than people realize and probably very tradable because if you're looking for a versatile outfielder who's a good defender a guy you can put in center or play and write depending on who you already have in center field, and you need that extra thump in your lineup, it's not the best possible solution, but it's a solution. And I don't know how committed the Rangers really are to him long term, even though he's not a free agent until after 2026.

But this is the type of profile that gets non-tendered before the player gets the free agency. Usually, yeah. The one thing I would say is that the other possible centerfielders in their system are not playing well. I mean, you have Leotis Tavares, who's up, and you could look at that 294, 335, 485 line in AAA and say, oh, he's got it together. That's league average in AAA and say, oh, he's got it together, that's league average in AAA.

So you'd still be projecting to be behind, I think, Garcia offensively, and Garcia's decent enough defensively where, if you're in Texas, maybe say, hey, let's just play this guy while we got them, you know, and like wait till the next center fielder comes up through our system. Like why, why trade them away when we're trying to build? And this is the guy who's probably the best center fielder we've got right

now. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think Brian Reynolds and Cedric Mullins are among other actual center fielders that could be moved that bring a lot more ceiling. But there's a handful of contending teams that could use a significant upgrade in that spot. So I think it just depends on what they can get in the return, even if they don't have a clear-cut, ready-made replacement. Just given his age, given the profile, and given the long-term approach that the league has towards players like garcia you know what reminds me of offensively is javier bias yeah there's quite a bit of that in

the profile just because of the swing percentages and the raw power and obviously there's bbk speed yeah uh well it's just interesting because javier bias is 29 and we've already seen some bad seasons where you're like this is this is what it looks like when it's just interesting because Javier Baez is 29, and we've already seen some bad seasons where you're like, this is what it looks like when it's bad, right? So Adoles Garcia could have a bad Javier Baez season any time. He could go into it. Remember last year what the monthly splits were like? Mm-hmm.

It was extreme. The league kind of figured him out, and he never really adjusted back. But so far, he's figured some things out. What is it here? First half, he had a 270 average. I need to go to the advanced ones. First half, he was 26% better than league average. In the second half, he was 31% worse than league average.

His second half slash line was 211, 256, 370. So, I mean, I have an offer in a dynasty league where, you know, I have a win now team, and he's on the table for me. I don't want it. I don't want to do it. Like, why won't he just go do the same thing he did last year in the second half? And I'm not saying that seasonal splits like that are predictive. I'm just saying he's super flawed, and he showed last year what can happen

when people exploit the flaws in his super flawed approach. Yeah. Well, one thing that's been different, I don't know how meaningful this is, but if you look at the splits at baseball savant, you look at fastballs, breaking balls, off-speed pitches. Last season, just one home run against off-speed pitches. He's got five already so far this season.

He's hitting 278 against off-speed stuff, slugging 778. Last year, he hit 186 and slugged 278. Whiff rate's up a little bit, but it just seems like off-speed gave him some issues last year. So far this year, that has not been the case. How much can you trust that? How much is that improvement that holds? I think that's more of an open question. Yeah, I'm furiously trying to look at how he was pitched in the second half last year and

I will get something on that yeah baby he started to see some really high slider rates in the second half in September and October I've got some 30s and 40s on the slider percentages

and you know that's got some 30s and 40s on the slider percentages. That's got to be a big part of it where he used to see some fastballs early on and started to see a little bit different. Actually, you could do this on the graphs portion, I believe, at Fangraphs. I wanted to do it at brooks but brooks baseball i don't know some of the graphs are just hard to have you noticed that i haven't spent a lot of time on brooks the last couple of years i think ever since savant really kind of added to its

player pages that's when i kind of cut brooks out my life. He's just, they have missing players. Like, I think he was missing. It's not personal. Yeah, right. Well, I was a little bit wrong. He saw more fastballs, actually, in the second half. That's a little bit strange. Let me see about sliders.

Yeah, he saw more fastballs and sliders. So, they just became like a sort of a two-pitch. They had him rocking back and forth. He must have just seen nothing in the zone because he just has no... So you're worried about the possibility of the downside Javier Baez stretch for a half season, which I think is fair given the play skills. He's not the type i'm that i'm buying the thing that he has though is excess playing time and the ability to be

good or at least average in every single category and even for a projected batting average 235 the rest of the way kind of hard to find the same player yeah you might you might get an exceed on the stolen bases the rest of the way. Projections have him 9-10 bags. He might end up with 12-15. There's no reason why the Rangers can't just keep letting him run if he remains. He might get a 2-10 batting average, though. So, you know, if you are going to get him, then be safe in batting average otherwise, I guess. Sure.

All right. So he's part of this potential buy-high group. $33 earned so far this season. Tommy Edmund, I think, belongs in this conversation as well. I actually just made a trade for him. I'm in a keeper league that I'm trying to win for the very first time this year. And it's an OBP league, which actually hurts Edmund a little bit, even though he is walking more than ever. He is walking more than ever. Hard hit rate is up, which maybe is part of the result of the humidor we talked about on the Friday episode. A little more exit velo coming off the bat because of the drier ball. Seems like a possibility at least. And he's atop the order, right?

I think one thing we were asked about back during draft season, someone asked us a question about Dylan Carlson and how sticky Dylan Carlson was at the very top of the order. And it turns out, not as sticky as some people had hoped. Edmund has been up there, so he's piling up runs scored, helps having Paul Goldschmidt doing what he's doing right now. Swinging less, walking more. There's a lot that seems to be going well. And he's eligible at second short and in the outfield in leagues too. So he's not only a guy that is going to help you in the category that everyone sort of needs in stolen bases,

he does a little bit more than that in most formats. So where are you at on Edmund, and how much of this step forward are you buying as sustainable? It's interesting. Remember when we had that conversation? Who are we comparing Edmund to? Whit Merrifield. No, no.

Somebody was asking, oh, Ozzy Albies. And remember, we were saying that Ozzy always hit the ball harder, and that was meaningful. But what's interesting is that sometimes you can fetishize a stat, like I might do sometimes with pitching plus or barrel rate or whatever, or reach rate. Any of the things that I kind of excessively quote here on this. Sometimes you can fetishize it,

and you can forget about all the other things he does well. You know, and Edmund is really good at making contact. And he, you know, he sprays, except for last year when he was kind of full heavy, he sprays the ball around and he's fast. So he's going to have a good batting average most seasons. And if you compare it to league average, he's always going to have a good batting average. And he does enough with the barrel rate uh to to hit for enough power uh that

he's not a full zero there so um and then you know at 27 he's right in the in the peak range uh to to have the best season of his of his career right so uh you know there's all these other things he does well you know to to to say that he has a bad barrel rate, I think, probably looks past a lot of these positive things that he does. I think that's fair. And I think it also, the way you were describing Edmund is, I think, part of why I was so adamant that Adelise Garcia didn't belong on my teams. Like the K rate. I'm just obsessed. This K rate's too high.

Well, look at the underlying numbers. What happens when he hits it? Last season, he was 85th percentile in max exit velo. He was 80th percentile in average exit velo. He was 83rd percentile in sprint speed. Adelise? Yeah, Adelise. Yeah, he was really good last year.

77th percentile in barrel percentage. All those things are good. So at what point did you just pick a flaw and get obsessed with it i think garcia is a good example of that happening for me i think edmund is a broader example of that happening to a lot of people because i seem to remember a lot of tweets and clips and people just being generally out on Edmund at the price for a variety of different reasons. And here we are. He's been one of the best hitters in Roto so far.

Of the three we've talked about so far, is he easily the one you like the most just because of the stolen base plus a good OBP or better OBP skills combo? He fits a lot of what I like in a hitter. I like discipline. I like contact. Honestly, I would rather... I guess if you're trying to get out of the league, he's going to cost less than getting Tommy Edmund.

A lot less, yeah. I think in this case, I would pony up and buy the safer guy. There was a piece of research from Jeff Zimmerman that said that guys that are projected for a 650 OPS lose playing time. And you know Jeff Zimmerman is the god of playing time, and he's doing really, really well in NFPC this year. really well in NFBC this year. And if you look at the projections for Tommy Edmund, he's

safely clear of that 650, you know? All of his projections are for a 700 OPS or better. And 750. So, you have to think of things probabilistically, right? If somebody's projected for just a 650 OPS, then half the seasons seasons they don't clear that bar and they lose their

playing time right that's the sort of mile straw level i think um i i said all that without looking at uh garcias but garcias uh depends on what projection system you look at. He's a little bit closer to 700 when it comes to the bat and the bat X. And that means at least a quarter of the time, he's not making the 650 OPS and he's losing playing time in the second half. So there's that risk you have to bake into this whole thing. You see it differently?

You'd rather pay less for Adelise? No, I think probably because of my own biases, similar to yours, I think Edmund has more things I look for in a consistent and good hitter, and I'm trying to figure out if that's just a flaw in my game or if that's actually the right sort of approach,

but I'm with you 100 trading for edmunds going to cost you a lot more than trading for garcia and you might find that the difference in stolen bases is relatively small you might find that garcia hits more home runs than edmund the rest of the way the run rbi mix i mean sure edmund's going to score more runs at least garcia might drive in more runs. So you might be surprised. That risk of collapse is higher. It is. If everything's on the line and you just cannot have a collapse, the risk of collapse is higher for Garcia.

I would say Garcia makes a lot of sense. If you're one of those teams, if you're in a long-term league and you're not necessarily the favorite to win right now, like you're maybe a year or two away, but you're close enough, the league's close enough, you're saying, I've got to make a couple of moves. I've got to take a chance at this. I don't want to give up great prospects for the future,

but I'll give up a little bit of future value. I'm in fourth. I don't want to give up anything. Garcia makes sense in that context. Put a toe in the water and take a home run swing that doesn't cost me the same. Because if you are in that league and you're trying to get Edmund right now,

it will cost you a nice young player or two. It cost me MJ Melendez and a mid-round draft pick. So cheap MJ Melendez for four to five years for basically unkeepable Tommy Edmund. That was the cost of trying to win a title this year. Yeah, and Garcia probably a lesser prospect. Yep, 100%. a title this year yeah and garcia probably a lesser prospect yep 100 dansby swanson popping up on this uh kind of buy high list where is the extra level coming from value wise but isn't it amazing because wasn't he on like a sell wasn't he on like a buy low list at some point in the season

might have been i mean part of what's driven the Roto value so much, he already has a career high in stolen bases. He's got 11 steals. Yeah, he had 216 in the first month. Yeah. So as that whole lineup has healed up, Dan to be Swanson has healed up too. Probably just a better player that people have given him credit for for a few years.

Self-included. You look at the red ink is where you want it to be. Barrel rate up in the 77th percentile so far this season. years self-included you know you look at the the red ink is where you want it to be barrel rate up in the 77th percentile so far this season he would steal more bases this year he stole 10 10 5 5 is the the shortened season so let's call that 15 9 and now he's got 11 before the all-star break before the halfway mark let's say that because the all-star break is in a weird time this year. Yeah, if there were any indications of it being there,

I missed them. I mean, I'm looking like sprint speed. Was that part of it? Do you think there was something with sprint speed that he would have told us? He was in the 82nd percentile in sprint speed last year, 90th percentile back in 2020, and 88th percentile in 2019. So consistently, you know, a well above average runner.

But he got caught sometimes. I mean, he's not like a, he wasn't getting 10 stolen bases in 11 attempts. It was 10 out of 14, 10 out of 15, nine out of 12 last year. I mean, he gets caught sometimes. 51 for 68 for his career, and that's with an 11 for 13

kind of helping the cause so far this year. I don't see anything in the profile that would have led me to believe he was going to do more. He's fast. But he's been fast for enough years where you could look at it. That's where I would have talked myself out of it. I would have said maybe he's a really safe bet to get the 8 to 10 bags he's projected for, safer than most because of the speed. But not 20 or 25 or whatever. But why would he run more? I guess the 363 OBP, he's projected for safer than most because of speed 25 or whatever but why would he run more

i guess the 363 obp he's getting on base more so you get on base more you have more chances just by by that but i didn't necessarily think he was going to get on base more i kind of thought we knew who dansby swanson was as a player and he's doing this at the exact right time that might be the biggest part of his line that seems collapsible, right? Because he's got this 390 batting average on balls in play and this 363 OBP, career lifetime 323 OBP, right? That's where you're like, okay, he is stealing bases at a good clip.

There's a big part of his value is in that. What happens if he starts getting on base at a 310 clip going forward. I guess the thing with Dansby, though, is that he's walked 9% of the time for his whole career. He's at 9.2% right now. He's usually within 1% of that every single year. There's a lot of consistency in that part of his game. Is there something different he's doing with the batted balls that's causing this overall surge in production?

I mean, the average is a career best for a full season, air quotes, because we don't have a full season yet. At 294, he hit 302 when he came up for the first time in 2016 over 38 games. But we've seen some low average seasons from Dansby. Is he why you asked if the X stats have been fixed yet? I think we had a specific question about X stats too. I don't think they have been fixed, but it's pretty amazing because he's got a 294 average and he's got a 283 XBA. And in fact, I wouldn't necessarily look at those a lot because I would say that too many people would have too much of a negative, right? Because the ball is deader.

And so X stats would say, oh, everyone would have too much of a negative because the ball is deader. And so XStats would say, oh, everyone should be better than they are right now. Well, that's the ball. But I actually find that surprisingly close. 11 points of batting average with a deader ball. So he's hitting the ball harder than 46% hard hit rate. So he's hitting the ball hard a lot. He's found a good launch angle when it comes to up-down.

And he's pulling it less than he ever has. So I think he's got, there's something there where he's got the, what they say out here is he's got the magic wandu going. He's got the, he's finding where to place him. To use a technical term. Yeah, right. So if you give him the best projected batting average on balls in play going forward, that's 323 from Zips,

you could probably give him a 330 OBP going forward. And then maybe you could give him nine more steals. That would be on the higher end of his projected OBP and projected steals. So you're looking at somebody who's going to end the season with like a 280 batting average, 22 to 23, 24 homers, and 20 steals. I think this is more one you bank than you actually try and trade for.

Okay. That's interesting. I think there's actually good reason to go after him. Part of that's just Atlanta's offense being, even without Ozzie Albee, still being a well above average offense. You're going to get those great counting stats as well. It just seems like enough has changed in that approach

where, and the green lights, if they're going to let him keep running, he's going to get 20 steals. He might not get to 25, but he's going to get to 20. So you're talking about 8 to 10 more bags between now and the end of the season, great run production, an average that shouldn't hurt you, and probably more power than we're accustomed to with that increase in hard hit rate.

So I think this is one where I'm, it's more like an Edmund for me, where I'm saying, yeah, it's going to cost me more than it ever would have cost me to trade for Dansby Swanson. But this set of circumstances ticks enough boxes to where it makes sense. In a redraft situation, I could see doing different things than in a keeper situation, because in a keeper situation, let's say you don't have a good shortstop or you need another middle infielder. Swanson seems like he's very safe.

He's in the middle of his career and so on. And the names I'm about to say are not available, right? O'Neal, Cruz, and Jeremy Pena. Those guys are not available in keeper leagues, right? They're just like, you know, their owners are super excited. They finally cashed in. They got a young shortstop with power and speed.

They're super into it. But in a redraft scenario, you might be heading into a situation now where you can fab O'Neal Cruz because he just came up and you could just spend money instead of trying to trade for him. You might be in a situation in a 10 or 12 team league where Jeremy Payne has been dropped

in a redraft league because he was hurt and maybe someone had an IL crunch. So, you know, those two names I think can do the same thing as Swanson minus a little bit here or there, but also at no cost, potentially, in certain leagues. So those are the only two names that kind of keep me from being like, yeah, yeah, go get Swanson. Because I also just see Swanson. We were talking about this with Edmund and Doldesic. Those guys can be impact players.

Swanson's more across the board. So are you serving? Are you fixing a need or are you just trying to get a good player a lot of times what we find when we you know we have questions like we have a question coming today in the mailbag where it's like I have a need like what's the need that Swanson is going to fix for you batting average maybe I think what it comes back to is if you're looking at a typical team that has a middle infielder or a shortstop that's producing less than dansby has

so far and less than we expect him to going forward he's the kind of guy you can easily put in as an upgrade and you can say i'm gonna get 15 more runs and i'm gonna get 12 more rbis and five more steals than i was and you look and you can kind of look, go category by category and say, wow, those categories are all really close. And you can pretty easily see there are six or eight or even 10 standing points to be gained with this player. And it's all coming from a couple of different places. That sort of balance, I think, is good. Maybe the lesson today is like, don't fetishize any one category, right? Don't fetishize any one stat.

Don't fetishize any one category. It's like't fetishize any one stat. Don't fetishize any one category, right? It's like, yeah. Swanson's going to be across the board, and he's going to be across the board better than Pena and Cruz. I think there's some players that don't run that make even more sense to trade for as part of this conversation. So let's take a look at a few of these names real quick. Josh Bell, who's been a $26 player so far.

Ty France is probably in a similar range in terms of overall expectations. I'm not expecting bags from those two guys. Brandon Drury, who came out of really nowhere. His ADP in April was on the list outside the top 1,000. He was not even being thought of at that point. Jack Peterson, not really going to steal many bases, but getting to a ton of power. And then Charlie Blackman is the rare player where if you're just trying to find someone that plays a lot,

has good counting stats, and actually will help you in batting average with a high level of confidence, Charlie Blackman's that guy. He costs nothing. Just free. All those guys have been 20 plus dollar players so far and maybe jock peterson would cost a little bit more than you'd expect in a trade but i just i don't see any of those names and expect to have to overpay to get those guys. I don't think they could continue to exceed

expectations. Yeah, without the Rockies, man, you'd call the Dodgers. I mean, I know the Dodgers are looking for a right-hander, but they're playing Eddie Alvarez and being like, that's the solution for Mookie Betts being out. If I were the Rockies, I'd be calling them and saying, hey, you know, Blackman is a free agent at the end of the season. He's not going to be around for our next good team. I know he's been a big part of the Rockies, but if he could get us a prospect on the way out, I think he'd be happy to go play for a good team. So anyway, I like my favorite out of all those names

other than Blackman, who's super cheap in keeper leagues. I think in redraft leagues, it might be interesting. People might not want to trade him because of that Coors bounce of just the fact that he offers a good batting average. Josh Bell is, to me, my favorite, I think, in both keeper and redraft leagues, because I believe there's more power in there than he's got right now. And I just love the contact he's making. And I could see with the weather warming as it is, he make it a little bit more, he get a little bit more out of his barrels and have a better...

I know that the Bad X does not like his power going forward, but I've also seen this is a guy who's had better barrel rates in his past, and I just love the contact rate. So it's a guy who I think will hit 280 with somewhere between 13 and 17 more homers the rest of the way. It could be really, really valuable because it's going to come with that nice batting average.

I think of those names that you mentioned, Bell is one of my favorites to try and go get. It's supposed to switch hitter too, so you're not as likely to lose those plate appearances here and there when it comes to platooning. What do you make of Jerickson Profar? Because he does run a little bit and continues to play a ton. Making another run at a 2010 season.

Did it back in 2018 and was really on a similar pace, probably with even a little bit more speed in the shortened season in 2020 as well. Power just disappeared a season ago. What am I missing with Profar? Because our buddy Nando Dufino has been pretty consistently on Profar for the better part of the last four years, and I've tried to knock it down at every single opportunity, and right now I just look wrong. Well, he does.

I mean, speaking of fetishizing stats, he does the two things that we love the best on this podcast. He, year over year, has improved his rate at swinging at balls and his barrel rate in the top 30 of the league. So he's in the top 30 when it comes to improving those two facets of his game. He's in the top 30 when it comes to improving those two facets of his game. It's kind of amazing to me that someone who has been really bad at those things in the past can make a little bit of improvement in those facets, and this is what you get out of it. I do think that some of that has gone away. In fact, I'm looking now, and he's chasing more than he did

the early part of the season. But he's still kind of, I would say, five tools, but none of them are plus. It's like five okay tools right where's the batting average for a guy that controls the strike zone this well and it isn't i just i i can't i can't figure out why we're getting averages in the 230 240 range from him That's weird from the projections, from the results. I mean, he's 227 a year ago to 18 back in 2019 with Oakland,

20 homers, nine steals. I mean, so that was fine. Played enough. Counting stats weren't bad. Why isn't he hitting for average with this approach? Yeah,

because he has the five tools, but none of them are great. I mean, it's, you know, it's a 5% barrel rate. It's above average technically, but it's not necessarily for a regular. That would be kind of a poor barrel rate for a regular. And yes, 16% strikeout rate, that is above average. The 12% walk rate is above average.

The contact rate is above average. Everything's above average, but not great. And I think that sort of, and then, you know, then you add these pulling the ball more than he's ever pulled the ball before. And I think that he's just become a little bit more defensible, defendable. And especially from the left side, when he can be, especially from the left side when he can be shifted more often. And he's just not a great player. But, you know, this is the kind of player that I love to get in mono leagues. Yeah.

Because they play a lot, they give you a lot of here and here and here, and nobody seems to love them because they don't pop, and they may not even show up as the number one guy on the depth chart, but you just know they're going to get to 500 plate appearances over the course of the season. You could have given me Profar. I don't know what he went for in labor, but if you could give me Profar for $3 to $5, I would have bought him.

He would have been on my team if I had an NL Labor team. Yeah, I think it's more like $7 to $8 in, but $13 to $15 out in a deep league like that. I agree with you. I tend to shy away from players like this in mixed formats, especially the more shallow 12 and 14 team leagues. I get a question that kind of relates to a lot of this. This came in from Ari.

Ari was top three in a dynasty league and was just wondering how much is too much to pay for steals. I lead the league across the board and runs homers and RBIs, second in OBP, but middle of the pack in steals and slowly dropping. I know that's where I can make up the most ground, but I don't want to give up so much for someone who won't play much

or who might hurt my other four categories. Earlier this year, I was offered Jorge Mateo for Kieber Ruiz and a prospect that seemed like a lot to give up for someone who'd hurt my other categories and probably wouldn't play that much. So thoughts. And this again came from Ari, which kind of leads me to a couple of players that made the rundown and didn't get talked about yet. I think the sweet spot here is not quite Jorge Mateo, whose limitations as a big league player are not hard to spot when you look at his profile. You can see it, and then you see the projection where it's like, I think most projection systems have a 270 OBP rest of the way. So tooled up for sure. Not even 270. With a high K rate and a low walk rate, it's very easy to just say,

yeah, those speeds are there. The steals are there for now. Those steals are there for now. But what happens when the plane time dries up? They're probably not there tomorrow. I think this is where someone like John Birdie comes in instead because the

key to Ari's team for me is that he's already doing well in those other categories. If you're doing really well in runs and homers and RBIs and you're second in OBP, you can afford a player who's a little bit more of a one category player. And Birdie's playing enough.

Birdie's playing, he started 21 of the last 23 games since coming off the IL. There's some injury stuff going on in Miami that's contributing to that. But I do think that he's the kind of player that there's going to always be something injury-wise going on, right? Yeah, he's versatile enough. He's going to always be something injury-wise going on, right? Yeah, he's versatile enough. He's going to play somewhere most days. So I think because of players like Birdie, I would at least try to get someone like that first

because I think Birdie's baseline skills are a little more stable than someone like Mateo's. I don't think you're necessarily giving up a great long-term prospect. This is a single catcher league. I don't know if I'm afraid to give up Kiebert Ruiz for birdie or some kind of deal like that where Ruiz is the main player. It's a single catcher league. I don't know.

If I'm giving up Ruiz, I don't know. Yeah, single catcher. In a single catcher 12-team league, I did give up Melendez. Just as a comparison, I gave up Melendez um in in in just as a comparison i gave up melendez uh for reese hoskins yeah i mean that's just what it takes to get good players yeah and ruiz is not showing the barrel rate or max ev that you would consider uh you know good for raw power reasons, right? So we've now got, in Ruiz's case, we've got 260 batted balls over his career

and a 3% barrel rate. So you're talking about a guy who is probably going to give you mostly batting average and he's not really stealing that often. Okay, you got me. going to give you mostly batting average and he's not really stealing that often. Okay. You got me. I can't do it for Jorge Mateos. I'm like I don't think he's a good player. There are

way too many paths to Mateo just being a 250 plate appearance guy most years in the future. Even some like Andres Jimenez. If you're going to give up young talent that you really like, get some young talent back. Now, Jimenez might not be 20 steals the rest of the way, but he might be 10 to 12 the rest of the way.

And it depends on how close you really are in the category. 10 to 12 over a possible zero might be enough to move you up a few standings points, and you've helped possibly solve some of your speed problem for the future. That would be another situation where I'm more inclined to give a significant prospect as opposed to birdie to me is still more of a rental, right? If it's birdie plus something for Ruiz, I'm fine giving up Ruiz in that circumstance.

You get another prospect, like a lesser prospect back or something. Right, right. I wouldn't do it necessarily straight up. So I think you do have to accept the fact that steals in particular are going to be relatively pricey in season because the whole league needs them. Yeah, rest of season projections for steals by the Bad X.

Jorge Mateo is one of 10 players projected for 15 steals going forward. So if you really need 15 steals, you know, Edmund's at 14. We've just talked about how expensive Edmund would be. You know, I think if you could get Edmund, then do it. But this person says, like, how much am I, you know, going to pay for it? He's talking about Jorge Mateo.

I think Birdie's a good name. What do you think of Myles Straw? Because he is one of the ten as well straw to me for now, it's you're playing the short game because the Limitations for him as a hitter are a problem two and three years down the road playing time wise But he's a great defender in center field. He gets on base enough to be good for the Guardians in that regard It's like ncr tay right like he's not going to get a free agent contract it's a fast peak sort of player yeah but

that can work for right now as well so i think i would be willing to trade for straw despite his a lot of stars on this list it's hard to trade for trey turner and jenna like let's not even discuss starling marty right like it Yeah, in a couple of my leagues, I made some really aggressive trades in May because I had a shot at Ramirez. I had a shot at Starling Marte, and I thought, I got to get these guys now, even if I have to overpay a little,

because if someone else gets them, there's not really anybody else out there I can get. What do you do with Whit Merrifield right now? He's come a couple times in this show. Once a month, we talk about Whit Merrifield. He's a little older. I think you put him in the birdie. I think he's uncomfortably

close to birdie and straw. You don't trade for Whit Merrifield and say, I've got a steals anchor for three or four years, so I can give up two really good prospects, and this guy is going to play for me, and he's a steals anchor. I think he's uncomfortably close to the straw birdie. This might only be

a rental for a couple years you know how about this for a name that has the potential to be a guy that you you're buying high you you might be like just installing him as a steals threat in your lineup if you believe in him andres jimenez yeah well i i think he fits i think he makes sense because that's a little bit more like i'm still getting something good a middle infielder that i think he fits i think he makes sense because that's a little bit more like i'm you're still getting something good a middle infielder that i think is going to play every day have some power and some speed i mean i like some of the stuff he's doing he definitely improved the barrel rate that's good he does not have a great uh chase rate and the contact seems the contact

rate seems soft you know I mean like he had good contact rates of the minors but they've just been climbing and climbing I just wonder if he's gonna strike out 25% of the time going forward you know swing at 40% of the balls he sees what's what's he gonna be as a hitter is he gonna be more like a 230 hitter? And is he the future shortstop for the Guardians, or is he going to float around? Is he just as flawed as Rosario, and he's just playing better than Rosario right now?

40% better than league average so far. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I could see if you really wanted to make a move where you're like, I'm going to buy a guy that I think can be an anchor for me, then maybe Jimenez is that. But I'm not sure that Wood Merrifield is that.

I think he fits in the straw, and Birdie kind of a guy I'm buying now for steals that hopefully doesn't cost that much. Here's a rolling graph for you. If you happen to be watching on YouTube, Whit Merrifield's rolling 15 game Woba. If you look here in the 2022 section, emphasis on the woe,

we saw the very worst of Whit Merrifield, a three year low back in the first part of the season. But he's at least back close to a acceptable level. I'm not out here trying to defend Whitmerryfield. No, but show it again because I think it's very interesting. We were talking to our colleague, John Leguesa, about the sort of bans, right and and the the bands of normalcy and i just if you look at his he got back to a peak right this year even he got hot again he got back to a peak the peak wasn't as good as his peaks in the past right and he had a nadir this

year the nadir was much worse than it was in the past. So I just see the whole chart sort of going down and to the right where his good streaks are not as good as his good streaks used to be and his bad streaks are worse than they used to be. I agree with that completely. But he is the type of flawed player that if you're just playing that short-term speed game, I'm willing to try to just squeeze a good second half out of what looks like a player

who's clearly just not going to be the guy that he was for the better part of the last four years. If you're trying to get Tommy Edmunds stats but not pay Tommy Edmunds price, I can see getting Whit Merrifield. but not pay Tommy Edmund price, I can see getting Whit Merrifield. I mean, you might get, you might get, uh,

80% of everything else. Tommy Edmund does maybe and match them in speed. I think that's possible. Bags come in bunches for guys like Whit Merrifield. Yeah. Uh, I mean, it's all the thing that's so hard about,

uh, having these, this podcast, like talking about these things in the podcast is either you get someone to give you like a very specific thing and then everyone's sort of like oh well that's not what i'm looking at in my league so i don't care you know like nobody cares about your fantasy leagues you have this thing where like either you get something that's super specific and you speak directly to it caber bruise for jorge mateo no we don't like it right or then you start to try and talk about things in generalities so you can get more people interested in it and then the

generalities you know are guesses you know it's like you know would i trade caber bruise for whit merrifield yes we've already established that i would trade caber bruise in a one catcher league for john birdie so yes i would i would trade I would trade Caber Ruiz for Whit Merrifield yes we got one more question here and I think this also sort of ties into some of the things we've talked about throughout the episode this one came in from Matt just a question about

Will Smith the Dodgers catcher and thinking about trading him in an eight team at Dynasty League eight as in eight like a snowman. Yeah, okay. Two less than 10. I don't know how else to clarify it. Eight-team Dynasty League.

Because Will Smith is underperforming his X-Stats right now. And his X-Stats still look really good. So just a general question about long-term concerns about you maybe will smith having i love him or what do you make of him looking to try and maybe buy him in my even in a 12 team league with one catcher i usually just punt the position or just pick up whoever um and i have grundahl like i don't need him but i was i was trying to convince myself that i could i could trade for him and I could get him. Because I think either,

maybe not this year, but one of the next three years, he's going to be the best offensive catcher in the league. Just look at the combination of walk, strikeout, chase, barrel. It's beautiful. Everything is beautiful. The only thing that's not

beautiful is the actual results on the field so far which are decent you know for a catcher i think he's still you know giving you top 10 value yeah i mean you look at you mentioned chase rate 97th percentile their barrel rate 80 second percentile it looks really good on the surface and playing time wise i think they're they're messing with him less now than they used to. It looks like he's tracking toward a pretty significant number of plate appearances this year as well. So plenty of opportunities to rebound.

Yeah, not as much of Austin Barnes taking playing time from him. Yeah, so I think that's the other thing that's working in Will Smith's favor as well. So he'd be definitely on the list of, I think he's more like a traditional sort of bylow where you you know your column has bylaws in it which might actually be really hard in in today's fantasy baseball environment you know what i mean like if you're if your league mate is listening to this podcast it's gonna be hard if your league mate looks at baseball savant listens to podcasts

this one or probably other ones that most likely that person is hearing the hold or go get will smith i know and and that actually i think is an interesting uh thing to you know to end on maybe is to writ large is this you know everyone has um got so much information now in fantasy baseball that uh either you can you can you can have your own model which you know that's that's how I use pitching plus you know and and and stuff plus to try and get ahead of other players and and and identify pitchers faster you know and and so then you have to sort of pay for those models and pay for those projections so that you have something that somebody else hadn't paid for you know or sometimes you have to go with your gut.

Like, you know, the listener that was saying that he thought that we were wrong about Brian Reynolds, you know? He turned it around in almost all facets of the game other than swing strike rate. He's, you know, he's kind of been who he was, you know? And if you looked at, you know, if's kind of been who he was, you know? And, and if you looked at, you know, if you looked at Brian Reynolds through this,

through the lens of, you know, the sort of stats that we look at here, you would have said he's not a by-low. I think that's sort of what our conclusion was. We weren't sure he was a by-low. Yeah. So sometimes the,

the, you know, it's kind of a weird thing that sometimes the thing that separates you can separate you in baseball is to go with your gut. Just the pirates put an allen wrench on caleb killian tonight that one the model got right i fought the model in this case and the model won there's only an nl only league i think it's the only league where i had him active so nl labor but i'm trying to make a comeback there i need yeah i don't i don... Well, he had that two-star week. I did sort of look at him and be like,

uh, maybe? He got in last minute because someone on that team, like Zach Thompson on the IL, was like, all right, I'll use Killian and Allen Wrench. I think an Allen Wrench is a great way to describe a seven,

just as a snowman's a great way to describe an eight. On that note... Tell me that O'Neal Cruz had something to do a seven, just as a snowman's a great way to describe an eight. On that note. Tell me that O'Neal Cruz had something to do with it, please. Yeah, he doubled. He's got a hard hit ball. He's got a fire emoji in the box score. Love those modern box scores over at Baseball Savant.

If you've got a question for a future episode, you can send those our way. Ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com is the email. Yeah, I'm a little behind on emails again. It's June. Of course, I'm behind on emails. emails why wouldn't i be but i'm not moving next month so maybe you know i'll make up some ground here in the next few weeks on twitter he's at you know saris i'm at derrick van riper you can also get a subscription to the athletic for a dollar a month for the first six months at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels that's going to do it for this

episode rates barrels we are back with you later this week thanks for listening at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you later this week. Thanks for listening.