Rates & Barrels - Buy-High Pitchers, Baffling Berríos & Spencer Strider as a Starter

Episode Date: June 23, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss several potential 'Buy High' pitchers, on the heels of very strong performances through the first two-and-a-half months of the season. Which starters have taken big steps forward in 2022? Which relievers are sneaky-good trade targets as the deadline approaches? Plus, what is Spencer Strider's ceiling as a starter? Rundown -- Shane McClanahan: Elite of the Elite? -- Tony Gonsolin: What Will the Second Half Bring? -- Alek Manoah & The Value of a Good Four-Seamer + Two-Seamer -- Finally Believing in Nestor Cortes Jr.! -- Martin Pérez, Miles Mikolas -- Buy-High Relievers? -- New Bats in San Francisco -- Spencer Strider's Ceiling as a Starter -- What's Up with José Berríos? 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 Thursday, June 23rd. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. Eno's laughing already. We're four seconds into the podcast. You gotta check out YouTube. We're trying to get more people to subscribe to the YouTube channel and hit the like button on our videos. We got Officer DJ Booty over here.

Had a lot to buy some new boots, get some new boot goofing in later today. That's what's on my to-do list. But on this episode, our to-do list includes the kind of sister episode of the pod earlier in the week. We were talking about by high hitters earlier in the week. Today, we're going to talk about some by high pitchers, get some questions in the mailbag about a few struggling players. We've got the Giants adding a couple of bats that are kind of these positionless guys that could be pretty interesting with the right sorts of adjustments. We'll talk about whether or not it actually happens.

We've got a Spencer Strider question, which as you might see on YouTube, kind of fits the vibe that I'm projecting over here. And actually, if you're wondering, why is he wearing sunglasses? Dylan Z, Spencer Strider, and you. Yeah, why is he wearing sunglasses? Well, it's because with the sunglasses,

I don't look like a Scooby-D it's because with the sunglasses, I don't look like a Scooby-Doo villain. Without the sunglasses, I look like a Scooby-Doo villain. That's not a compliment to myself. So I think it looks a little better with the sunglasses going. But nevertheless, here we go. We are off and running. We were talking about buy high pitchers. We talked about Shane McClanahan a couple of weeks ago as someone who had really made the leap and had kind of put himself in the conversation, maybe to be a first-round pick if you were doing a midseason draft or if you were starting to think about early, very early 2023 draft boards and what those might look like. So I don't think we need to go into any extra detail with McClanahan here. Well, I should throw a caveat out there, man, or a mea culpa.

I had him at 11 in my ranks. I think partially that's because the bat had him at 16th, and I felt like I've had Shane McClanahan as a borderline top 10 guy all year. This is where I had him. I'm ahead of the bat. Everything is good. Part of that is because he's projected for fewer innings going forward. You know, someone asked me, would I trade, you know,

I have Rodon ahead of him, would I trade McClanahan for Rodon? And I said I would at the time, and, you know, I think it's pretty close there, even though Rodon is 7 and McClanahan is 11 on my ranks, because, you know, there's a possibility that Rodon throws more innings. But, you know, he's projected for 118 more innings, Rodon, and McClanahan 97. But Rodon has that injury history. So do we really believe that?

I think sort of with some internal soul searching, I do believe that McClanahan is a top five pitcher. So I don't think it's like the worst mistake I've ever made, putting him 11 when maybe he should have been 5 or 4. But I do think it's worth pointing out that he probably will have fewer innings than anybody not named Jacob deGrom that's in that top 10 range. Yeah, I think we've seen that in recent years where there's oftentimes one pitcher with a considerably lighter workload than the other top five pitchers on earned value because their strikeout rate is exceptionally high

and the ratios are phenomenal over 160 or 170. DeGrom and Kershaw have done these things. Right. I think that's more in line with what you're thinking in terms of the gap between other ace workloads and McClananahan's 2022 workload but he belongs there if you're trading one of your best bats or even your best hitter to get shane mclanahan because you have a roster that has too much hitting and not enough pitching i'm not going to push back on that i think it's actually a smart move also philosophically we're starting to see a home run on contact go up um and so i believe that this might be an interesting time to do something like that because you will get power from other sources.

Pitching will become more scarce and it might be good timing to go get an ace like that. It might, might make sense. Yeah. Because we are probably going to see ERAs go up a little bit. Warmer weather, more runs scored, ball interactions. we're not going to get into the ball today are we we're going to save that for like a future wednesday maybe yeah i'm going to say i'm going to save

you from yourself on this one i'm not going to push it written enough about muddy balls enough for a entire lifetime i would say joel it's in the athletic today if you'd like to look theathletic.com slash rates and barrels one dollar a month for the first six months for an entire lifetime. I would say Joe. It's in The Athletic today, if you'd like to look. Theathletic.com slash rates and barrels, $1 a month for the first six months. Read about the muddy balls. There you go. Muddy balls, muddy balls. It's hot, hot, hot.

Joe Musgrove, I think, is another guy we talk a lot about on this show who has reached another level, right? I think you were as high on Musgrove as anybody I saw rankings-wise going into this season, and he might be even another step above where he started, which is everything falling into place, I guess.

More time on a great team, continuing to hold some of the skills that we saw from last year. And I did the same thing with him, dude. Is he in the top 10, though, now? Well, I did the same stupid thing where he was ahead of the bat. He looked right according to Pitching Plus. He was where I had him before. And I was like, I still like him. You know, and people were like, he's too low.

I had him 17. Why do I have him 17? I, you know, I like him. I like him better than Montas who's ahead of him. But the guys ahead of him I really like. Like if you say he's in the top 10, you better tell me some people you don't have in the top 10. You know what I mean? Because the guys ahead of him are Dylan Cease.

Love him. Sandy Alcantara. Love him. Scherzer. McClanahan. Otani. Wheeler. Who are you taking out to put Musgrove in?

It's not necessarily that I think Musgrove is bad. I just think that once things start shaking down, yeah, there's, he's a, he's an ace guy. He's a top 15 ish guy, but top 10, he's got to push somebody real out. You know, who's the, who, what are those names that I just rapid fired at you, you pushing out for Joe Musgrove? Don't know if there's any, to be honest, I think you've got that settled in, right? Just because he's third and earn value today doesn't mean he's going to be third and end value at the end of the season, right? He might finish eighth or 12th or something in that range

and it wouldn't be all that surprising because he's not going to have- But it also means you can buy high if you want. Like I do believe it. I think the challenging thing with Musgrove though is that he's done this now for more than this season. So I think you're paying pretty close to full freight. I think everyone is caught up on Musgrove.

Oh, and the whole idea with buying high is that you've got this inkling of doubt on the other side. Yes. That maybe he's over his skis and I'm selling high and I'm making some money off of this. Right, which brings me to Tony Gonsolin.

I think Tony Gonsolin is one where most of us look at him and say okay tony gonsolin was interesting prior to this season and none of us expected him to be top five in earned value among pitchers through the first three months of the season so i think there's that gap there it's like okay he's not this good how good is he and then people might underestimate how good he actually is because they think he's further out over his skis than he actually is i guess is the way to continue the metaphor so i know gonsolin's been extra tricky because of the shoulder injury that he had job security was an issue at times that's not a problem anymore completely departing for him at times. Yeah.

But how does he look right now with everything results wise being this good? I think the thing that's been most surprising to me and the thing that is the hardest to predict and the thing that is even the pitching plus model is not great in small samples is his command has returned. I mean, he's been over 100 location plus in seven out of his last nine starts. That's not the Gonsolin that we saw in those playoffs where he

was out of the rotation because he couldn't find the plate. So that command coming back is great. That makes him an above average pitcher. We're doing all the validation for the model because there's, you know, for a rollout soon. And around 50 to 60 innings pitched, strikeouts minus walks becomes a little bit more powerful

than pitching plus. That's right where we are, you know. So pitching plus is super valuable still because you're talking about what do I do in the first 10 starts? How do I evaluate a pitcher in the first 8 to 10 starts? You'd still rather use pitching plus. But right around now, K-BB is coming online.

And the reason I mention that is that Gonsolin doesn't look that great there either, but he looks good. So it's kind of that line that you're trying to draw of how far out in front of his keys there either but he looks good so it's kind of that line that you're trying to draw of is he how far out in front of his keys is he you know what i mean uh is is hard to draw so i've got minimum innings pitched 60 uh and i'm on the advanced leaderboard for for fan graphs doing strikeouts minus walks and uh he's 48th i believe or 30 38th so what is it he's

right there with alex wood sandy alcantara who's not a strikeout genius and it's kind of hard to you wouldn't compare gonsolin to sandy alcantara they're just different guys but um here's a righty he's right next to john gray so tony gonsolin has very similar peripherals to John Gray. John Gray has a 418 ERA. Tony Gonsolin has a 158 ERA. And in fact, their pitching plus is pretty similar too. So is he much better than John Gray? Maybe not. Here's the truth that would be amazing is if Tony Gonsolin is more like a true talent,

325, 340 ERA guy, and Gray is also that, and people don't think Gonsolin is quite that good. Because John Gray might be a simple buy low right now based on what you're saying. I mean, yeah, I think he's been throwing the curveball more. I got a piece coming out tomorrow. He's been throwing the curveball more,'s a piece i got a piece coming out tomorrow he's been throwing the curveball more and and it's it's improving and it's good i i i think john gray's fine but john gray is the kind of guy that i would have as like a top 50 pitcher i wouldn't start him in every single start but i wouldn't drop him for a streamer yeah i think with tony gonsolin the buy high is like gonna require a little more precision i think

the gray comp is actually you know pretty fair i think with gonsolin fast going to require a little more precision. I think the gray comp is actually pretty fair. I think with Gonsolin, fastball velocity is a little lighter than you'd like it to be. So that's one knock against them. Arsenal's deep. He's fixed some of the command issues. The control looks pretty solid across the board. I think if you treated Gonsolin like a top 40 starting pitcher the rest of

the way, that would be appropriate. And again, he's been a top five guy based on results so far but when you trade for Tony Gonsolin do you think you're able to get him for less than it takes to get a top 40 starting pitcher or maybe I mean is that even possible at all it really depends part of this depends on who drafted the player if they believed he was a sleeper if they've've lost other players. Obviously, there are tons of other variables that come into play here. But I think figuring out where Gonsolin truly belongs and then where Gray would be on that same list, I think John Gray probably is a top 60 starting pitcher the rest of the way.

And we often say that once you get past that top 25, top 30, that next chunk from 30 on down to about 75 is wide open. There's a lot of room for players to move within that group. So I don't think Gonsolin is elite. I don't think many people out there think he is. I think he is better than we expected, but I think placing him, it might be hard to get him via trade at a level that you're comfortable with because he's just been so good in the results so far. Yeah, and I just also wonder what the role of schedule is. If you are going to buy high, I would try to game out his schedule.

You know, he's had some good offenses, but there's a fair amount of Arizona in there. In fact, he was lucky enough to get Arizona three times in his last 10 starts. And, you know, I wonder what that looks like. Of course, he's gone into Cincinnati and done well. He's handled the Mets, so he's handled some good offenses. But I would want to know what the schedule looks like going forward. Let's take a look at Alec Manoa.

I think there's a little more of a McClanahan-y vibe in terms of being a young guy that misses some bats. He could be very good for a long time. He's doing it against tough competition in the ale so how much of a bump has manoa received since you were ranking players at the end of draft season well one of the things that has actually improved for him is this stuff so i know that his strikeout rate is down that's a little bit weird for me um i i think it's just uh i don't know what it is i i would assume that i would assume that his strikeout rate will go up going forward and so it's one of those weird things

where like uh his peripherals are are okay uh you know back to that strikeout minus walk uh leaderboard um let me see where manoa is he's 25th so that's pretty good uh he's right there with charlie morton um as a comp and in fact they both have great that great breaking ball uh and good command so yeah i i you know he's comfortably a top 20 pitcher i think he's probably a top 15 pitcher um and I think he, in fact, can be better than these peripherals going forward because I do think he can strike more batters out. It's kind of interesting. The pitch mix looks almost identical to last year in terms of the fastball slider changeup. Changeup just under 10% of the time. Slider just under 30% of the time. A lot of fastballs. Not a big jump in terms of velocity,

but is it movement? Is it just a little bit of refinement in, in those areas? That's that's enabled him to be more productive. And the other surface thing that clearly stands out to people is just the walk rates lower. It's cut his walk rate down to 4.7%. And we didn't see much of Manoa in the minors because of the lost pandemic year in 2020.

So I think it's been very difficult all along to even come up with a true baseline for what we expect his walk rate to be. I think the struggle for Manoa is the foreseeing fastball. He has starts this year where he's had 118 stuff plus on it and he's had starts this year where he's had 118 stuff plus on it, and he's had starts this year where he's had an 83 stuff plus on it.

So I think that maybe he's kind of a true sinker baller that learned how to put right on his foreseam. That's what I would assume kind of from his slot and just looking at these numbers. And the foreseam, when he's going right, is better than his sinker. He's lucky that he has both though. And in fact, I've heard that that is a bit of a cheat code when it comes to pitchers.

It's something that I want to look for going forward. If a pitcher has a four seam and a two seam, they can do things with the fastballs where it truly becomes two pitches as opposed to just a fastball, quote unquote. In terms of a hitter's approach, let's say you're approaching a bat and you know the guy has just one type of hard pitch, right?

Then you can say, okay, he's got the four seam. When it's hard, it's going to look like this. It's going to jump at me. I'm going to target the top of the ball and hit it flush and blah, blah, blah. I have my ideas, right? But if they're, like, remember Jay Happ? I do. Happ always was better than you thought.

And part of it was he had pretty good distinction between his four seam and his two seam. He had pretty good distinction between his four seam and his two seam he had two very separate fastballs and now what happens is if it's hard the pitch the hitter has a second decision they have to make it's hard and then what you know what i mean like oh fastball oh crap wrong fastball you know and another thing that i looked at i i talked to suarez you know suarez about this ones when suarez was going really well one thing that he was doing that was a little bit unique was he could hit the four seam and the two seam he had he was a bit he had the ability to hit both fastballs but if you look at you know the types of hitters uh that there are out there, for the most part, they're good at one or the other.

So you can look at pitch info, pitch type values on Fangraphs, and that's just summing up their value on pitches. If you look at the guys who are good at four-seamers, Aaron Judge is great at four-seamers. He's average at sinkers. Jeremy Pena, good at four-seamers, Aaron Judge is great at four-seamers. He's average at sinkers. Jeremy Pena, great at four-seamers, average at sinkers. Bryce Harper is the fourth best hitter in the major leagues against four-seamers. He has a negative pitch value on sinkers. Jorge Soler is the same. Rafael Devers has a negative pitch dive value against sinkers now if you do it the other way and go by sinkers Cole Calhoun is the best hitter in major league

baseball against sinkers he has a negative value against four seamers so one of the best guys that's great at both is Jose Ramirez uh Dansby Swanson, Wilson Contreras, Mike Trout. You might have heard of him. Yeah, he's pretty good. Tommy Edmond, Nolan Arenado. So there are guys who do it. I'm not saying there's not anybody who does it, but it's much more common to see someone be better at one fastball than the other.

So a pitcher who has both can also switch between the scouting reports, right? Oh, I do have a good sinker. This guy's not good against the sinker or i do have a four-seamer you know so um and i and i think some of that might end up in foul balls right if you if you guessed hard and you got hard but you got the wrong hard pitch i think that that might be a foul ball right you're gonna get some weak contact contact, yeah. Manoa's been good at limiting hard contact. He's got a good home run rate. You look at some of the actual batted ball numbers, his barrel rate this season, 2.7%.

Last year as a rookie, 5.8%. Hard hit rate was 31.2%. This is the fan graphs number, at least down at 25.8% now. That's really good. My rankings aside, I had him right there with Joe Mosgrove. You still have to push somebody down. I think Montas is the guy that

goes down. I don't know. Do you see a reason to push Cease down? No, not really. We just talked about him on 3-0 today. He leads the league in strikeouts over the past calendar year. That's true. I forgot about that nutty-0 today. He leads the league in strikeouts over the past calendar year.

I forgot about that nutty-ass stat already. That's how good my brain is. Otani just went out and shoved. People might want Woodruff lower. I'm not. Woodruff is my buy low. Go get him if you want a good buy low. Go get Woodruff. It seems like everything is okay. I think

the Renaud syndrome that he was experiencing. That was scary when i heard that i was like oh my god thoracic outlet oh my god he's screwed the symptoms are basically the same that's why there's that little that's why i heard that extra bit of fear that i have but then he had a good rehab start we didn't hear anything more about it so hopefully it is in fact something that he's been able to put behind him and not part of a longer term issue as it pertains to Brandon Woodruff. Just thinking a little more about what you were saying with the imbalance for some hitters where they hit four seamers really well and don't hit two seamers. I imagine it's just a hypothesis. I hadn't really thought much about this until you brought it up that more hitters are dialed in against four seamers right now than two seamers just because the league as a whole hasn't favored sinkers in recent years,

which probably is part of why the sinker is starting to come back around because it's effective when guys are no longer able to hit it. And in a bit of honesty, sinkers and change-ups are the things that, in our stuff model, we are just always looking at you know like you know you might like brisdar gadderall i i admit it's weird that he has a low stuff number it's weird like i mean you just watch him you're like that's nasty so um you know it's obviously something we're monitoring it's something we're thinking about it's possible that teams have better numbers stuff numbers on sinkers and change-ups because it's possible that your arm angle and like your limb angles your biometric sort of tracking data uh has a lot to do with what makes a good sinker and change up

um so and we don't have that i don't have access to that so anyway um that's just something to think about that if you do think that someone is undervalued uh on my rankings or by the pitching model and they do display both a forcing man a sinker that in and i'm not saying they throw two percent sinkers or something you know that's probably just a measurement error but if they they significantly throw both fastballs and just remember to consider that yeah definitely an interesting thing to to think about as you're looking for guys that might be able to avoid damage at a better than expected clip we get to logan gilbert just a couple of weeks ago so i

don't know if we have to do a deep dive in there i'm more in than out i mean i think i'm treating him kind of like a top 20 top 25 range range starting pitcher right now, which isn't that far away from where I had him coming into the season. So if you can get him in that range, I don't see a collapse coming with Logan Gilbert. I think it's the easiest way that I could sum up why I'd be willing to trade for him right now, even though his value is seemingly peaking. seemingly peaking yeah uh i'm 33 but uh i had him behind the ones the model didn't understand which is bieber giolito and freed and i would move him at least ahead of giolito uh walker bueller falls out of my top 25 due to injury um louis severino is dealing with some weird injury so not Luis Severino, sorry, Nathan Evaldi so there's some names that I could push out of the way and get Gilbert into the top 30, but again

when you start getting into the top 25, you have to push one of those names I just mentioned out of the way for him, so if you're going to play the would you rather Logan Gilbert or Zach Gallin Gilbert No him so if you're going to play the would you rather logan gilbert or zach gallon gilbert no yeah i think it's gilbert for me yeah i think the the arm injury for gallons not the same as other arm injuries right because it was more of a contact problem you've got a pin he got it hitting yeah slight edge to g edge to Gilbert. All right.

I like Gallin's wide breadth. He has a wider arsenal. Gilbert doesn't trust his changeup and his curveball is not good. So he's mostly fastball slider with show me other pitches. But I do like him. Maybe Gilbert has more wins opportunities than Zach Gallin. But I think I would have Gallin. How about this? Would you rather Nestor, Cortez?

Or Gilbert? Yeah. Gilbert. I like Nestor a bit. I've finally come around. Slow to the party. Should have been listening to Nando on that one. He was on board immediately.

As a fellow mustache hiver, too. Right. I mean, I think that goes without saying. I knew we were going to talk about nester and spencer strider today so i'm just you know leaning into the characters that we're talking about we're now looking at with nester going back to last season 167 innings with a sub 3 era 181 strikeouts and a whip that is right about one even 27 k rate during that span walk rate in the kind of low six percent range plenty of swinging strikes has a little bit of a home run issue

home park i don't think it's an alarming home run rate whatsoever okay like what about this isn't real at this point is it just the magnitude of the ratios? Is it just the sub three ERA part that we have a hard time buying into as a sustainable part of this profile? Projections say it's the homers. He did have some small sample issues with homers in his first three tries of the league. He's in a homer friendly park. And right now he's down to 1.1 homers per nine projections have him anywhere from 1.3 to 1.6 so that's uh where they think the big change is gonna come that's where i think because the projections are a bit bearish on nestor cortez i think that creates an opportunity

for the buy high in this particular case. Yeah. I mean, it's a good, it's a good strikeout minus walk rate. Uh, it's a, it's a high fly ball rate. So he's definitely a fly ball guy, but the question is, can he get most of those in pop-ups and, uh, can he keep it in the park? I have a related question though, thinking about the four seamer, two seamer, he's four seamer cutter do you think there's similar does does any two combinations of fastballs does that work the same way or does it have to be four seamer two seamer to keep hitters as off balance as that combination can well in his case the cutter is 87 and the fastball is 91. I mean, I think the question we're asking is,

can the hitter tell the difference? And normally the sinker fastball difference is about one. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I would assume that hitters can tell the difference between that cutter and that foreseam. But you know what assumptions do. Yep, I think i do uh i i'm coming down on the i'm gonna give uh nestor cortez 1.3 homers per nine going forward uh which basically gives him like a 375 era

that's that's where i come so i would take gilbert if you're making a trade for a pitcher that we've talked about so far and your choices, the player you're trading with has Tony Gonsolin and Nestor Cortez, and they want the same thing back for whichever one you want, who are you choosing? That was a stupid way to ask a would you rather. Do you mean would you rather? Yeah, that's all I needed to say. It was like when I said eight yesterday or Tuesday and you were like, eight?

You know what's interesting is old biases that you have to kind of work hard to reduce. So the two biases that my blink answer was Gonsolin. I'd rather have Gonsolin. But they're based on two erroneous assumptions that are no longer true. One, the National League doesn't have a DH, you idiot. I mean, the National League does, but National League, you would think,

oh, just take the National League guy. Two, Dodger Stadium is an easier place to pitch the Yankee Stadium. Probably still true, but maybe not to the same effect. So I'm going to take cortez dude okay but it's close right if you're thinking about the top 40 starting pitchers the rest of the way and i think i think in our minds we're always going to try and take guys who have similarly limited track records and try and mush them together we're gonna make pitchers that have

less than 200 innings of being as good as they've been with kind of similar skills and say, yeah, those two guys, they kind of fit in the same tier because that certainly is how my brain works. Another Dodger, Tyler Anderson. I think he's someone that's done pretty well in the model in the past if memory serves me right, and had a little bit of a correction regression day yesterday. Yeah, he does it in a weird way

because he does it with poor stuff and great command. It's just one that's kind of hard to bet on year to year because in any given year, the command can dissipate. More Ks than we've seen in the last couple of seasons, though, as he's tried to put it all together. 22.7% K rate. This is kind of back to what he was in Colorado when no one cared. Best walk rate of his career so far. Home run rate better than it was last year.

Projections aren't buying it with Tyler Anderson at all. Projections are telling you to run away. And if you have them, you move them. He fits on the surface into the classic, oh, I got to move this guy now. He's a sell high. But should you be on the other end of that phone call or other than that email and say, no, actually, he's not as good as he's been so far, but he's better than a mid-4 ZRA and a mediocre whip? One thing I will say is that there's some evidence that the last four appearances or the last 400 pitches

are slightly more predictive than full season stuff. And for Tyler Anderson, his best one, two, three, four, five appearances by Stuff Plus have all come in his last seven appearances. So I think they're doing some tweaking to the arsenal. I think they have really good pitching coaches there. And the location plus, except for his last outing, has been excellent. So I would peg him below Gonsolin and Cortez

because he is the worst stuff number. And there's just a little bit of a whiff of risk, I think. Like, for example, if one person was going to leave the Dodgers rotation tomorrow, would it be Gonsolin or Anderson? I think the answer is Anderson. Right. Although Gonsolin has a history of relieving, I think it's Anderson. And then, he has the worst stuff number of the three.

And he also has a long demonstrated home run track record which of course we're all kind of looking around being like you know what's it going to be this year what's the home run right what's you know what's the true talent home run thing going to be what's home what are home runs in august going to look like i will note that i talked to derrick cardi um about this issue and he thinks that the ball effects have been steady. It's been mostly weather, but home runs on contact are up. for pitchers, you will see that consistently the bat has the lowest home run per nine projection, possibly because of the other thing that Derek said, which is I'm always tracking this and always updating the model based on what I see in terms of league-wide home run on contact trends. So maybe home runs on contact are up. The bat says this is going to be a good year for people with home run problems.

It still says Tyler Anderson is going to give up 1.5 homers per nine. Less than the other ones, but that's still a lot and have a 4-3 ERA. I will give Tyler Anderson a straight 4 ERA, which is behind the sort of 3-7-5, 3-5 level of maybe Cortez and Gonsolin. So that makes him an easy pass if you see an opportunity to trade for him and it makes him someone you're willing to move. No, I think he costs the least out of all these guys. I don't think there's anybody who believes that they've found something big with Tyler Anderson.

I think he's a perfect dynasty buy because you will give him an A-ball pitcher or something for him. You know what I mean? He's going to cost nothing. Yeah, but redraft, the more shell the league, the less enticing Tyler Anderson is. Some of these we talked about earlier, they're going to be really good players. Yes, he's not by far and above. You might trade for him

in a 10 team and drop him. So keep that in mind if you are trading something away, make it something that you might also drop otherwise. All right. That's fair. It is also worse stuff than Nestor Cortez.

You might look at Nestor Cortez and say, wait, he's in the big velo on the fastball. How do they stack up? He's got lots of good shapes. It's, you know, lots of different pitches he throws, lots of good shapes. I think the cutter that Cortez throws is better than any pitch that Anderson throws. A few more names. We'll go rapid fire on these last two. Are you interested in Martin Perez or Myles Michaelis as actual buy highs?

Obviously, no sort of ace expectation for them going forward, but do you see something different about either one of these guys that would make you think they will in fact exceed the expectations going forward? Not on Perez. That was an easy answer for me. I'm totally out on him. Last year he had a 2-7 ERA. I'm doing this off the top of my head, but 2-7 ERA in the first half and like a 7 ERA in the second half and got left off his playoff roster. He is not doing anything different

that I can tell this year. I am out on Martin Perez. Myles Michaelis is Tyler Anderson-ish. He's just a guy that has a lot of pitches and great command. So, you know, these types of pitchers are, I think, in the season. You found them, you found them. Congratulations. They're not, that doesn't make them a great bet next year in the draft. You know what I mean?

It's like when you, when you find a guy that has sub average stuff and good command in season, ride them. You, you found a guy who's on his game and it's going well and he's locating well and everything's great. But that doesn't mean that you need to bump him up in your dynasty rankings or your next year rankings. So if I had Miles Michaelis or Tyler Anderson, I would just probably say, thanks world, I found him. I think with Michaelis, he's never really been bad.

He's just been hurt. Yeah. I have tons of shares of michaelis uh i guess i should amend what i just said they make good like one dollar you know late draft pick types because you can find out within two or three starts if their command is there that year so you know i have a ton of miles michaelis cheap miles michaelis i have a dollar miles michaelis and auto new i have miles michaelis and my 20 team dynasty league you know all late I have a ton of Miles Michaelis, cheap Miles Michaelis. I have a dollar Miles Michaelis in Auto New. I have Miles Michaelis in my 20-team Dynasty League.

All late draft picks, dart-throwing type stuff, just to see if the stuff has to creep up to a good enough where he can do what he's doing. Plus, the park is a nice soft landing. Very true. Well, it has been in the past. Right. Might not be anymore. Let's be careful.

Historically has been. Might not be this year. How about some buy high relievers? A couple names that I thought were worth bringing up. Clay Holmes, David Bednar, and Jorge Lopez. And I think they're worth bringing up because with Holmes, maybe some questions about whether or not Aroldis Chapman

gets a share of the job back or gets an opportunity to win the job back. And then with Bednar and Lopez, the lingering threat this has every summer. Closers on teams that aren't going to the playoffs this year. We're worried they're going to get moved. Right now, you're a month away from the trade deadline.

So I think you might have people in your league who are looking at Bednar and Lopez saying, I don't really want to trade saves away, but if I'm going to trade saves away, I'm going to take a chance on trading away guys who I think might not be closers anymore. So those are the three names that caught my eye. I'm curious if you're interested in going after any of those three or if there's someone else that you want to pursue. Well, Holmes by Stuff Plus has the best sinker in the game and is the best by Pitching Plus is one of the best relievers in the game. I think it's fourth or fifth up there with Felix Bautista,

Emmanuel Classe, Paul Seewald. I know people question the rankings when Paul Seewald is up there, but just look at his results. He's been having great results too. It's not just his model. Not some guy with a 5 ERA out there. So you could buy Holmes. I do think that the Yankees will fold Aroldis Chapman in for saves.

So I believe that Holmes will get fewer save opportunities going forward. However, I do think he will get save opportunities. So you could buy him from somebody who thinks he won't get save opportunities and get 5 to ten more saves? What's your read? Do you think Aroldis Chapman has lost the job? I haven't really come down on this because I don't have Chapman or Holmes

anywhere, which means I am really bad at identifying next man up closers in the Bronx, I guess. I mean, Holmes is filthy when you watch him. He is unbelievable. They just have so many good relievers. It could have been King, you know?

Like, it could have been. I mean, it could have been, but they, Holmes is a clear short reliever. King is more of a flexible reliever. There were signs there. I think there were plenty of people that picked up on Holmes well before I realized what was happening, and I'm peeved at myself, for lack of a better word that by the way pitching plus is great

for for relievers man and that's yeah that's that's really what I try to do and I'm looking at situations I guess I didn't here's what I did wrong here's the lesson I didn't spend enough time looking at the other Yankees relievers ahead of time to see who is the model

like skills wise, who do I think it's going to be? I just brushed it off as a, it's Chapman. And if it's not Chapman, someone else will come back. I just thought it was just Chapman, you know,

and I got a little lazy. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. But I think, and I'd hate to be, to continue that laziness by now saying it's still Chapman when he comes back.

But, and I know that anybody in New Yorkork who's been watching probably i would say you might be too close to the situation because you know yes chapman has burned the yankees a couple times but there have been plenty of times in the past you have to think back to other times in the past when chapman has burned the yankees and has looked lost and came back and got the job back. What I'm saying, though, is Holmes is going to have such great ratios and will still get some save opportunities that I actually think he might be an interesting buy-high. Lopez, Bautista is the closer of the future with a capital C.

I think the question just for them is, what do we get back? With Bednar, I think it's a little bit more complicated because I sense a little bit, and this is now, now I'm getting past the numbers a little bit and getting into my wishy-washy, you know, psychology of baseball thing. But sometimes it's meaningful.

I sense that some momentum with the Pittsburgh Pirates. You know, and I don't mean momentum like they're going to win more games. I don't even care about that. I mean in terms of organizational momentum. Like, they are getting O'Neal Cruz retweets on Twitter every five seconds, you know?

And now with O'Neal Cruz, Cabrian Hayes, and Brian Reynolds out there, they have three players that are good and in their peak prime years. I did some research and found that three to four peak position players is enough. That's a core. If you think back to even the Cubs when they won, if you really thought about peak prime year core

players there were four at any time you know what i mean so four is enough and so i think if you're in pittsburgh you're like uh are we really gonna take a guy bednar that we have under control for a while that's out here you know throwing two and three inning saves and and just looking nasty and and he has multiple pitches so he's not even just a guy who's going to go away when the basketball velo goes away. Are we really going to trade that away for some long shot thing? So I actually think Bednar stays. Jorge Lopez of the three is the most likely to be traded out of the save situation, I think. If Bednar were to get moved too, there are teams that could just throw him in as their closer. Right i don't think and i don't i think jorge lopez is a

bit more like oh the blue jays acquired jorge lopez to set up romano right he's their seventh inning guy their eighth inning guy all right so i can follow on that i just think there could be a window right now where someone has bednar in your league and is more willing to trade him because of the because he gets traded yeah well i mean if they all i mean there's no world where all three of them cost the same but if they all three costs the same yeah i'm taking taking bednar yeah i think it's that sort of like high price is is holmes and you're buying in if you think he's just the guy i think bednar is more that second tier that has the up arrow and you're buying in if you don't think he's getting traded. And then Lopez.

If Bednar costs less than Holmes, I'm taking Bednar. I wonder. I haven't seen a lot of trades involving those players. No. All right. Oh, the other bullpen situation that I think is one we should talk about for a minute. What's going to happen with the Dodgers?

We're having some more Craig Kimbrell wobbles. Yeah, I know, but he was still top 10 in Pitching Plus when I looked at it. I think he's going to keep the job, dude. I think he's safe. Okay. What if he gets hurt? Because that's what happened with Chapman, right? So what if he breaks?

Who do the Dodgers turn to then? Who stands out out I know Evan Phillips pops in the model because I picked him up at NL Labor a few weeks ago as my ninth pitcher I didn't necessarily pick him up expecting him to be the clear cut well Kimbrel's out now you're the guy do you see anyone that they would be more likely to turn to do they have a Clay Holmes of their own I think it might be Hudson. Just more traditional closer repertoire velocity been there longer.

I think it could be Hudson. Phillips, I think, though, is a sneaky good pickup, and the model loves him to death, and I know people in other front offices that were mad that the Dodgers ended up with Evan Phillips. Yet another good reliever in Los Angeles as

a result of their ability to find those guys pretty much everywhere. Let's move on to a couple of new bats in San Francisco. Willie Calhoun gets his wish. He gets traded. He ends up in San Francisco. Given some of the comments he made about the philosophy that was being installed by Donnie Ecker I don't know if going to San Francisco where Donnie Ecker was is going to be exactly what Willie Calhoun wants but I think just getting out of the Rangers organization was kind of a the main thing that he wanted and plus as you've described on this show before, the Giants have multiple coaches who try and get through to players in a way that works for them.

Even if they're on the same page in terms of what they want to instill as an organization, the way you hear it can be different depending on which coach you tend to click with. with. So between Willie Calhoun and Jermaine Mercedes, who they recently acquired from the White Sox, two guys who can hit a bit and don't really play good defense at any position, but any hitters who fit that profile are interesting going to the Giants. It's just the way this team has been the last couple of years. So what do you make of Calhoun and Mercedes getting these fresh starts? It's interesting. I think that one of the brilliance of the Giants is that they have both high ball hitters and low ball hitters and they have this sort of

what's it called, like lineup diversity of approach. And I think that suits them really well. But in this case, they picked up two guys that do the same thing, which is they're not guys who are going to barrel the ball 10% of the time. If you have a guy who's going to barrel the ball 10% of the time, everybody wants him. You know, everybody's on that page. What these guys are going to do is barrel the ball

6% to 7% of the time, but also make contact 14% to 16% of the time. You know, make more contact than people and have a decent sense of balls and strikes. So, so you know it's not a guy who's going to slug 600 but they're hoping it's a guy who can slug 450 with like a 350 on base percentage right now you just got a free 800 ops yeah why does he play i don't know i'll figure it out you know this isn't a team that's, uh, that has great defenders, everybody, you know, anywhere. This isn't a team, uh, that, you know, yes, it would be improved by a superstar center fielder or, or a young shortstop in his prime. Yes. But in, in case we can't get those things, we're going to get these bit pieces and make them fit. So the only thing that, uh, uh you know i do think it's a bit of a

flex to to go get uh you know willie calhoun saying donnie ecker doesn't work for me and uh and and put him in in the house that donnie ecker built um but uh justin veely is the other guy there they have multiple voices there and maybe they're just saying hey we're not going to try and change you as much we're going to let you let you do what you do best, which is make contact, hit a bunch of doubles, the occasional homer. Steamer still says that if you gave Willie Calhoun a full season in San Francisco, he'd hit 21. Well, I know this is probably not adjusted for San Francisco yet,

but he'd hit 20 homers with a.250, 320 LVP, 430 slugging. Which in this run environment is actually pretty good. It would be 10% above league average, says Steamer. In terms of the depth chart, though, one thing with Jermaine Mercedes is this Giants team is desperate for catching. If you watch the moves that they're making, they just traded for Austin Wins, and they traded for that guy Papierski.

They traded for Papierski with Dubon. They traded for Wins from the Orioles. Yeah. And they demoted Joey Bart. So they are looking for a solution, a catching. They have Kirk Casale. They're definitely trying to improve the catching depth. This is a point of concern for them. Could Mercedes be like the backup catcher,

like the offensive- the backup catcher like the offensive minded backup catcher i i don't think it's impossible um it's going to get crowded at dh otherwise uh the other thing that i wonder is is a darren ruff um move imminent darren ruff is still eight percent better than league average but the slugging has not been there for him this year. What's the next move? I know Lamont Wade Jr. is about to come up, so let's build a roster real quick. I know it's minutiae, but it's important because it means what is Willie Calhoun's chance? You've got to have Longoria, Crawford, Estrada, Belt. So that's four.

How many? You can have 14? No, 13 hitters now? 13, yep. 13 hitters now. So we've got four starting infielders. Flores is five. La Stella is six.

Two catchers is eight. Yastrzemski is nine. Jock Peterson is 10 uh that's 10 okay slater is 11 you can call that slater or luis gonzalez that's 11 so you got uh two places left lamont wade jr is 12 and rough is 13 so who's who's losing their job or is it or were these just depth moves i think you you didn't mention donovan walton so he'd have to go down he's going down yeah i mean if everybody's healthy i think so you had listella in that group at the beginning right yeah so he stays so you're you're three in in sacramento are that are most interesting are walton who i think

is just a career sort of utility guy backup i don't think you want to play in that much uh calhoun who people are a little bit excited about and uh and you mean mercedes so maybe mercedes is a catcher in this situation i think maybe he is maybe just catching depth you know uh but calhoun people, you know? But Calhoun, people are excited about, and he has a good projection. Who's he knocking out? Ruff? Slater? Could be Slater.

Yeah, it still looks like a partial share of playing time as the roster is currently built. I keep looking at this team and thinking, of all the things they have kind of lined up in the long run, if Joey Bart is not the answer as far as the long-term catcher, I think they need to think about making a trade for one. And if you need that now, look across the bay. Sean Murphy sitting right there.

I mean, there's a guy that could solve your problem for the next several years. At the very least, you're getting a good defender with Thump. Maybe you get even more from him offensively. They could probably make a few adjustments with him and help him unlock what I think is the offensive profile of a top 10 catcher. I think that's reasonable for Sean Murphy. So that'd be a good move for them to consider making. And they probably have some combination of players they could put together

to actually make that deal with the A's. I think they, I'm becoming pessimistic about this team. And I know that we've talked about them a lot, and we can stop talking about them soon. But I would just say that they are not young or good defensively at any premium defensive position. The closest you get is Tyra Estrada at second. They need three.

And they just traded away Duggar. So I actually don't think Slater loses out to Calhoun because you need Slater as the backup center fielder. Your two best center fielders are your Stremski and Slater, and neither of them are great center fielders. So I don't think Calhoun's making this team anytime soon. It could just take an injury to open the door, and maybe they want a couple of weeks in

triple a with them to make a few adjustments before they give them that opportunity but none of these are yeah but on my grander point also is none of these are long-term fixes they're doing the best they can to like have a winning team while their guys are old but they really really need guys like marcoano, Luis Matos. They need those guys, and they need them soon because it's getting real kind of haggard up the middle here. Let's count on his prospect of the week. I think Luis Matos, he deserves attention not because he's playing well,

but how concerned are you by what you've seen at high A this year? He's hitting 190 with a 262 OBP and a 246 slug. It's only 33 games. I know he's young for the level, but this is a guy that is a really important part of their future. Their system is still, as a whole, one that I think you have more questions about than clear-cut answers. Luciano should be an eventual star he'd be the kind of player that eventually fits in as one of the the three core players for a team you know going into a five or six year window Kyle Harrison looks about as good as any pitching prospect can really look so maybe they've got an answer coming there you know I think with Ramos

and Averson Arteaga there's a couple names there that could pop but I don't think Ramos and Averson, Arteaga, there's a couple names there that could pop, but I don't think Ramos is going to make the leap to more than a big platoon guy kind of player. They're even kind of using him that way. I'm surprised he's been a little up and down. He'd be a small side platoon guy if he ends up in a platoon, which would be really bad. But I just think he's more of a 500 plate appearance sort of player than an everyday guy based on what we're seeing in the the upper levels of the of the minor leagues yeah i'm not i'm not sure about uh about ramos anymore not not super excited about him artiaga i have seen him personally uh with my own eyes and he was definitely the best player on the field but that's also a ball and i think luis Matos is showing you how difficult it is to go

even from low A to high A because that's the jump he's making. And then he's got to make another jump to double A. So the one thing I do like is he's still kept his strikeout rate under 20%. One thing that's weird is that he's pulling the ball 63% of the time and not in the air. So something is awry there with either the approach or the mechanics. But yeah, Arteaga, Luciano, those are some good names. They have, and Harrison is great.

I did want to point out, I am concerned with Matos. Especially since, like I said, it's that jump. But some love to a former prospect of the week, Gunnar Henderson. Yeah, he's looking real good. Just got some pop on baseball prospectus as possibly the best prospect in the minor leagues now. So I'm super happy that once I made him prospect of the week, I went out and got as many shares of him

as were still available to me. Yeah, I mean, he's doing everything right. We'll have to do more research and get you guys a real prospect of the week coming up soon instead of this sort of half-assed Matos Hunt Anderson action. I just think it was worth bringing up the Giants system, though. Yeah, we got to check back in with those guys.

Because I have Matos in a long-term league, and I am worried, and I'm willing to trade him as someone that's trying to make a run in that league this year, and I don't think I'm going to have a lot of regrets. If he does turn around, good for him. I hope he does. I just think it could take a little longer than I was hoping. I thought he might be someone that cruised through in relatively short order for an international signing and would be an impact guy right away.

It's just going to be a longer road than we had hoped. I will trade you somebody an A-ball so hard. I will give you this A-ball hitter with a 400 average. I will give him to you. Here you go. Give me something good. Well, I think I'd be... Yeah, that's...

You can usually feel good about trading players at the A-ball level in long-term leagues for the most part. Here's something we have to do given the circumstances. We have to talk about Spencer Strider because there is a question from ryan and ryan wants to know what's the difference between spencer strider's command and stuff as a starter compared to what he was doing earlier in this season as a reliever is there a chance that spencer strider is a top 15 to 20 range starting pitcher moving forward there is you wouldn't rank him as such because of the risk but i do think there is

and uh one thing that's been amazing is that uh his his stuff plus has come down uh as a as a starter as a reliever he was throwing 150s and 160s out there and just basically had the best stuff in the major leagues. As a starter, once he's crossed the 80 pitch threshold, that's gone down significantly to basically 110 to 130. He does have one starting appearance. The one where he threw 106 pitches, he had a 140 stuff plus.

So he still looks great when it comes to that. But what's really been great is, you know, after his first three appearances, he had a really low stuff plus number. He had two 80s in a row in location plus, sorry. And so you thought, oh, this is a traditional reliever type he can't command the ball um you know this is matt brash right i mean there was a lot of similarities but that was 150 pitches in location plus comes online last of the three models and it really does take about 300 pitches so 150 pitches in he had like a 90 a 90 location plus and you thought he was a reliever here are his next three location pluses

in order 105 117 112 since then he's had two starts under 100 so I think the location stuff was, I think he does, his last start was 90 location plus. Four starts ago, he had 85. He does, he's not like Aaron Nola. He's not like a command artiste. But my long-term concerns about him having only reliever command are out the window.

And so he's been regularly throwing up 115s pitching pluses as a starter. That's really, really good. So I'm all in. And this might be a great time to go get him because he's just coming off of a bad start, right? Yeah, I mean i i think he fits into the buy high conversation too that's why i thought it was a really good question to put on this particular rundown yeah and he's kind of an interesting guy because he'd buy high and also

uh just gave up six runs like one of those moments where like the cost might not be that bad maybe someone thinks oh man he isn, he's just a reliever. Go get him now. A bit of a temporary break. I know Dylan Cease's arsenal when he came into the league was just a little bit deeper than Strider's is right now,

but just in terms of strikeout expectations, getting by with a slightly elevated walk rate, I kind of think that's what I think Strider will be. Freddy Peralta had this too. Tons of Ks, walk problems, some inconsistency with command, but he got through it to the point where, I mean, look where Freddy Peralta was going in drafts this draft season, kind of at the 3-4 turn of 15-team leagues.

Cease a big riser these last couple of seasons. I think Strider could be more like those guys as far as how he's valued and the types of roto value he brings back in these next couple seasons. Yeah, and the changeup is really, really inconsistent and goes from negative to positive stuff plus. But it flashes okay.

So I do think there's a possibility he has at least a show-me changeup. And I guess, you know, he's got some of that Drew Rasmussen upside limitations in terms of how long will they let a fastball slider guy who was a reliever this season go deep into the games? How many wins will he get? Probably not a good quality start guy. But in most leagues, I want Spencer Strider. Does he fall in the group ahead of Nestor Cortez and Tony Gonsolin?

Or is he part of that cluster value wise even though his ceiling is considerably higher I had him uh behind those guys but close I had him right there I've wanted to be aggressive um and so I put him in the 30s um I might push him ahead of well ahead of lancelin but ahead of jose barrios or maybe i don't know do you want to take the barrios question too yeah what i can i paraphrase is it just what is wrong with jose basically it's a yeah i'm we got a question from pete he's baffled by the ever worsening stat cast profile in the face of pitching plus still kind of saying, no, you should believe in Jose Barrios. So what should we do with him?

I've seen some evidence that he's throwing the forcing too much. And the trends on his stuff plus are not good. In his last start, he had a 78 stuff plus. It's awful. But the start before that was 117. So I think he's toggling his pitch mix because he is a fastball, a four-seam fastball, sinker, curveball guy. With a changeup, he can't command that well.

So in effect, you could call him a two pitch pitcher fastball fastball breaking ball um i think what happens is uh they have a game plan that maybe they don't adjust fast enough does that make sense like they're like oh yeah you got to do this with the four seam and then some days the four seam is not there not there. That would be my guess. I do have a player per pitch. So let me, I'm going to test my assertion now. I'm going to go look at Jose Barrios' four-seam fastball by start. Oh yeah. There are some games where he has a 79 stuff plus on the four-seam fastball. And there are games where he has a 116. And sometimes they come right after each other. So I just, I don't know.

I think the four seam goes in and out. I said that was true for Manoa, but it's much more true for Berrios. At what point then would you look at a gap from game to game and say, yeah, players are waves. They're not perfectly the same every time out. But I would wonder, is he tipping?

How could you be that different with that pitch? That doesn't add up. Yeah. Let me see if his release point is dropping. Sometimes if you're hurting in a small way, your release point adjusts. And if your release point adjusts... And he's really had a

durability since coming to the big leagues too. Yeah, but sometimes, I mean, his durability like being out there and then there's durability like actually feeling good. I think there must be. There it is. Sorry there was an accent situation. I'm just looking at his vertical release point.

It's dropping a little. It's dropping from where it used to be. Let me see about game by game. It's all right. I don't really have a great answer except that I think that his foreseam is not naturally great. Yeah, there's been a two-inch difference in his foreseam release point over the course of the season. So I think it might be, you know, to get the right foreseeing, he needs to really be on top of the ball. In some games, he can kind of reach up there and do it. In some games, for whatever reason, he can't. Is that a satisfying answer? Probably not. I mean, does that give us a way to

act with him going forward? Yeah. Am I right to assume you wouldn't be actively trading for him right now? It wouldn't take much to get him relative to draft day anyway. Yeah, I mean, his projections are pretty mediocre right now because of his strikeout minus walk rate. We're 75 innings for him, and he has an average strikeout minus walk rate. And as I said, about 60 innings into the season, strikeout minus walk rate becomes more powerful than the pitching plus model.

So I would be believing projections. Now, if you think that four ERA with an 8K9 is useful for you and you could get him very cheap, then I would do it. And also, I think if you were buying for next season, I think that he might be an interesting dynasty acquisition. Yeah, he's old enough where it's not going to... It wouldn't cost you too much.

You're just betting for a rebound to where he was any of the previous seasons. Still young enough to do it, hasn't lost much velocity. So I could probably talk myself into that. I think the other question that could come up is in 10 and 12 team leagues he's probably going to get dropped in some of those formats at some point if this continues are you kicking the can and taking a chance on him making some adjustments in season and that probably comes back to how valuable is a four era in your particular league what is your pitching situation looking like i think the the team context is good in terms of win and k potential at least and if he could just make a couple small changes uh yeah

let's let's uh but also just look at him let's pretend uh he's a matchups guy let's go backwards and and and see what we do at chicago white socks if he was just a matchups guy i wouldn't i wouldn't throw him there right you miss with the the White Sox have been dealing with, I've been more willing to chance it with them. All right, but let's say he's a streamer. Let's say he's streamer level in a 10-team thing. We could do this going forward. They get the Brewers this weekend if he's pitching in that series.

Would you throw him on the road at American Family Field? No, I think no because that's like at Chicago. Home against the Red Sox? Probably a no. Yeah, I guess that's a no. What's after that? Home against the Rays? Yes.

At Oakland? Yes. And these are consecutive series, so you wouldn't necessarily get all of them because they're three-game series. At Seattle? Yes. And these are consecutive series, so you wouldn't necessarily get all of them because they're three-game series. At Seattle. Yes. Home against the Phillies.

That feels like a no to me. Yeah. Home against the Royals would be in. Yeah. At the Red Sox after the All-Star break would at this point be a no. I saw, yeah. Home against the Cardinals if he caught them

offense is flying high so you take the chance there home against the tigers would be an in and then at the raise again probably still an and that's the trade deadline things could be pretty different then so he's kind of a 50 50 starter 50 50 some pretty good matchups in august they catch the orioles a couple times month. They've got an Angels team that who knows what kind of shape they're going to be in. Cubs. If you have any sort of bench, I think he'd be, and he did get dropped, or you could get him for super cheap. I think it might be interesting to have him as one of those starters you have on your bench

that you start once every other start. Wow, that guy's got Orioles a lot. I have Tyler Malley still on my Dynasty 12-team bench. You know, for some people he's droppable. For me, he's the guy I start away from home. Yeah, and occasionally at home. But yeah, plenty of strikeouts as we discussed on the 3-0 show. He's been a machine in that category as well.

Over 200 in the past calendar year. See, leaderboards are fun, especially when presented as a game show. We have to go. If you've got questions for a future episode, you can email us, ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com. If you don't have a subscription, get one for a dollar a month for the first six months at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels.

On Twitter, Eno is at Eno Saris. I am at Derek Van Ryper. And thankfully, construction seems to be done on the side of my building. So I think we're back to a normal schedule. We should be back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening.