Rates & Barrels - Buying High on Surging Starting Pitchers, Future Power Sources & Recent Debuts

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss Tanner Houck's excellent start to 2024 on the heels of a 'Maddux' against the Guardians on Wednesday. Plus, they look at the ongoing health struggles for Kris Bryant in Colorado, Yu Darvish's move to the IL, hitters with a path to develop more power over time, and a few recent callups including Jack Leiter, Andy Pages, and Landon Knapp.  Rundown 1:45 Tanner Houck and Buying High on Surging Starting Pitchers 9:35 Ryan Weathers Makes DVR Look Dumb 15:02 Yu Darvish & Kris Bryant Land on the IL 27:25 Finding Power that Follows Contact Skills 37:08 Jack Leiter Gets the Call 40:31 Andy Pages & Landon Knack Join the Dodgers 47:02 Jonatan Clase Lands in Seattle 51:16 A Very Quick Look Ahead at Weekend Waiver Consideration Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! Subscribe to The Athletic for just $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This ad for Fizz is only 25 seconds long, but we had to pay for 30. Those leftover 5 seconds shouldn't just disappear, right? It's kinda like what happens to your unused mobile data at the end of each month. Except at Fizz, your unused data from the end of the month rolls over, so you can use it the next month. Hey, you paid for it, so keep it. Try the other side. Get started at Fizz.ca.

If you need some time to think it over, here's five seconds. Ah, do, da, da, da, da, da, da, do, do. Certain conditions apply. Details at phys.ca. Tick, tick. Ooh. ["Rate to Barrels"] ["Rate to Barrels"] Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Thursday April 18th, Derrick Van Riper, Eno Saris here with you on this episode.

We have some key news and notes to get to but more importantly we have a story that Eno wrote looking at players whose hit tool might be ahead of their power, trying to find power that will show up this season or at least in the somewhat near future. We're going to dig into a few players that were recently promoted in this week's edition of Project Prospect and we'll take a look at a few intriguing names as part of our weekly waiver preview. So a lot of ground to cover before Eno heads to Las Vegas, which has to be really exciting. Going to the sphere. Yeah. It's has to be really exciting. Going to the Sphere.

Yeah, it's gonna be fun. Yeah, I'm doing something that I probably shouldn't do at my age, which is attempting to go to two shows in one night. So we'll see how we see how that goes. There's a yeah, there's another. I'm going to see Fish at the Sphere and then a band called Eggie that someone told me I should see, is starting at 11.30 after the Fish show, so hey!

Sounds like a Vegas night! The 11.30 second show is going to be absolutely incredible. Blow by Blow reports, as I get them, will be shared with our Discord community, so be sure to jump in the Discord. I'll just put the occasional, you know, did this if you give me updates. So you can tell me if you want to tell me what's going on and I'll pass it on, you know, as is deemed appropriate. Let's get to some news and notes though. Let's start off with Tanner Hauck. And I think this is a general question based on the state of pitching right now because of the early season

pitching injuries that are piling up again. What I think happens is guys that start performing really well, especially over a full month to begin the season, their value takes off. You're working on some new starting pitcher rankings right now, and guys that are cruising like Tanner Hauck is right now, I think are really tough to rank appropriately. And it makes me wonder, are you better off buying high on surging pitchers like Hauk than you are on trying to trade for the still healthy aces?

Because I think the value of pitching just goes up after the season begins. It's like the opposite effect of buying a car. You buy a car, you drive it off the lot, it loses some value right away. Brand new, used, whatever, it goes down as soon as you drive it off the lot. Pitching, I feel like ticks up in value as long as your pitchers are healthy,

as soon as the season begins and you get a few good starts strung together. Yeah, it's really amazing. I was thinking about, I've left the health grades on there, you know, the preseason health grades and I had no other option because of attrition, because he's healthy, because he's pitching so well. I felt like I had to put Tyler Glass now still in the top five. It seems right.

But he still has that F health grade from before the season and the hammer could come at any time. And so, you know, I found Chris Sale had an F grade and moved up. You know, you had some D grades moving up. Garrett Crochet, like, you know, pitching so well. How many innings does he have? Where do you put him?

I moved him into the top 30 just based on he's healthy now and he's pitching really well. So, yeah, I mean, the more established guys are the harder ones. Like, you know, you probably can't get Freddie Peralta from somebody right now. The fact of the matter is he's, you know, had trouble staying healthy in the past. And we don't know that just because he started the season healthy, he's any more likely to finish the season with a full slate of innings. So yeah, I would do wonder that. I do have Hauk in my top 50 right now. He could move up.

He's like around some really like serviceable vets right now, Luis Severino, Meryl Kelly. Should he move up into the hype hype with Jared Jones? Maybe he'll be in the back end of the top 40 with Jared Jones and my man Edward Cabrera. But dude, those guys move ahead of, you know, a Joe Musgrove who is healthy and his secondaries are great, but his primary is not. You take it in tandem with the strikeouts minus walks because, you know,

strikeouts minus walks is becoming more and more powerful with every start. And so, you know, stuff plus in tandem with that is the best way I think, to kind of look at somebody. How is doing it all? He has a 25% strikeout minus walk rate average is 12. He has a 109 stuff plus a 104 location plus everything looks good. I have a feeling he'll move up a little bit more as I put the final tweaks on my rankings today. You look at what he's doing differently. I mean, a few more sliders this year, more splitters

kind of moving away from the cutter a little bit still throws it once in a while, but that was a 10.8% usage last year. It's under 6% in the early going. So tweaks, but not like a complete overhaul, at least in terms of the mix I think that bodes well I think the other thing with how he's been very good against righties for a long time like he falls into that bucket of if he were to figure out lefties or a way to get lefties out more consistently that would unlock everything do you think they've found a plan that works better for him because if he's done that, that's the thing that would give me that extra nudge to say, maybe he's a top 30 or top 40 starter

given the state of pitching right now. Yeah, I mean, the cutter was touted and it does have better movement than it did at the beginning of last season, more cut, more horizontal cut. I do think it's a better pitch now than it was before. But in terms of how often he's using it against lefties, you know, it's up to 7%.

He's still sinker slider against lefties. So it's more, I think, about where he's putting it and what his strategy is with the two seamer. For example, his vertical pitch location, two lefties on the sinker, is higher than it was last year, much higher. On average, it's six inches higher. Now that's an average, so you're averaging out the whole entire heat map. But still, it's the highest it's ever been. And so I think he's kind of instead of saying, hey, let me throw pitches I'm not as comfortable with against lefties because they're new. He's saying, well, why don't I use the pitches I am comfortable with, but in slightly new manners. You know, he's going to run into some teams with some really tough lefties

that will, you know, sort of regress his stats for him. It's still a release point that lefties like because they can see the ball for a long time and in a sinker and slider, it's pitches that lefties love from a righty. At his core, he still has some of the flaws, and that's why, you know, I'm not moving him into the top 25 or anything, but he dominates righties. It's one of the reasons I liked him ahead of the season. He dominates righties, and if you're gonna dominate righties

and, you know, get by on lefties, you're gonna be part of a large group of pitchers that has success year in and year out. Would you buy the idea that Tanner Hauck should be similarly valued to Michael King you're going to be part of a large group of pitchers that has success year in and year out. Would you buy the idea that Tanner Hauck should be similarly valued to Michael King at this point? I think so. Michael King's value has lessened with his Velo dropping.

And he is just that kind of pitcher where he dominates righties with a sinker and slider and then he gets by against lefties when it comes to using his foreseam and change. Maybe his foreseam is a little better and his projections, his park is a better situation. Probably I have the distance between them too far. While we are on the radio, I'm going to move Tanner Hauck up. I'm gonna move him even with the hype crew. I really need to get that Cliphangers music, just hit that button when you're making rankings changes.

I can't do the yodel, I won't even try. It would be the most embarrassing moment for me on the show in a long time. Well, I don't know, I had embarrassing moments all the time such as Tuesday when I said that I would have demoted Ryan Weathers because his strikeout rate was low and there was just no way what he was doing in these first few starts was sustainable. He comes out and just shoves against the Giants

and the Marlins have had a handful of really good pitching performances from their starting rotation so far. You wouldn't think that's the case given their record to this point but 6 innings, 2 earned, 10k's, 1 walk, 5 hits and a W. And I noticed Ryan Weathers has positive run value, still very early, on 3 of his pitches this season. Changeup, sweeper and 4 seamer. Looks like he's getting more movement on his changeup and his two seamer. So I know he's a guy you didn't like when he first broke in with the Padres.

The mix back then wasn't very good. It was really, really just a two-pitch approach as well. Does this version of Weathers, even if you don't think it's great, is it much more sustainable? Is it more reasonable to try and continue using him as a starter? This is a guy that once upon a time

was a top 10 overall pick. So there's pedigree here and he's not that old either. I'm beginning to wonder if the old version of Ryan Weathers clouded my judgment just a little bit when I wanted to give him the quick demotion to AAA. Yeah, one thing that Weathers is doing that's a little bit worrisome is he's pitching really close to his maximum.

His max is 98 and his sitting is 96-6. Maybe it's 98-8, but that's still under three, well under three. That's one of the league leaders in how close he's sitting to his max. And I think he, in a microcosm, is part of this discussion where we, you know, how can you tell Ryan Weathers not to throw as hard as he can? in a microcosm is part of this discussion where we, you know, how can you tell Ryan Weathers not to throw as hard as he can? Like he is obviously on the cusp of either going to the bullpen or being one of these up and down guys that gets traded around. Right. Like he's fighting for his life out there.

And so, you know, I'm not going to tell him not to throw hard. One interesting thing is that the four seam fastball actually now has interesting IVB. It's in terms of its vertical break, it's around average and given his arm slot, that's a really surprising development. It's come, it's added 13 inches of ride since he broke into the league and it's been a steady, steady improvement. So now he does have two workable fastballs in that, uh, in that new four seam, which is considered his best fastball. But, um, I think his sinker is one he's more comfortable with, you know, sinker slider, four seam change. It looks workable. Here's another thing that happens when you throw as hard as you can,

and you're that close to your max 92 location plus. What was his location plus previously? Like how much did he actually lose? You know, it is a little bit early to be quoting that, because it usually takes like 300, 400 pitches before you get there. But last year, 94, 2002, was he a Padre in 2002? Yes. He's a Padre in 2002, so 86. So maybe not great natural command.

Yeah, I guess that's where some of the other reliever risk comes from in the long run, even though the the needs I think are going to keep him in the rotation unless he completely collapses. You saw walk rates like when he was younger and he got his prospect grades, he had a 50 command grade from fan graphs. But in the younger stages, he had good walk rates. And then you saw as he got closer and closer to the bigs, his walk rate went up, which is a function of confidence. He was starting to get, having poor results. And so maybe he started to nibble

and then maybe he just started throwing close through his max as well. So I don't believe what he's doing right now, is really sustainable. But I do believe that he's made his case to stay in the rotation as long as they need him. I think he's moved ahead of Puck. They still shouldn't have demoted Max Meyer, even if I was wrong about the guy they were going to send down in his place. But Braxton Garrett's getting some, has had some bad news.

He has some dead arm in trying to come back. And so I think they need him. And so he's in the rotation for the time being. I haven't put him in a very flattering spot right now because our projection is for a 455 ERA, but I am going to move his projected innings up to more like 95 or 110 even. Because I think he's going to stick around a little bit.

We've wondered for a few years if we had to eat a hat, how would we do it? I think our consensus answer is battered and deep fried. I think that's the proper way to eat crow if you have to eat crow. Batter it, deep fry it, and hope for the best. A couple other injuries to get to here, you Darvish placed on the aisle with neck tightness, and I immediately thought, maybe Johnny Brito will get some starts.

And then I looked at the game log, and I thought to myself, maybe Johnny Brito won't be getting any starts. He's thrown 28 or fewer pitches in every outing so far this year. They're using a much more like a short reliever than like someone who's going to be stretched out. Now, obviously they could they could send them down. There's there's plenty of ways to make it happen.

But Brito is 26, so maybe they see the window for somebody else. Is there someone else you'd be eyeing up among the depth options in San Diego to possibly step in for a few turns while Darvish is on the shelf? I was just on the radio in San Diego today and we were talking about this and you know Adrian Morahan is up with the big leagues and some people have said that you know he should be a starter. The corresponding move which deserves a jingle maybe some sort of slightly sad, uninteresting jingle. What's the corresponding move? The corresponding move was for a reliever.

And I'm thinking that this You Darvish thing does not sound super serious in my with my Dr. Nick hat on. And so I'm thinking if they're they're going to try and skip it. And if there isn't, it gonna be a more honbido led Bullpen day that's the back end of their bullpen the guys that they could use at the beginning of a game and try to Try to fake it as they make it they did make that Darvish move Retroactive to Monday, so he's eligible to return on the 30th of April I think the thing you want to keep in mind this time of year, especially

Because teams are not completely taxed just yet. They can do unusual things on the 30th of April. I think the thing you wanna keep in mind this time of year, especially because teams are not completely taxed just yet, they can do unusual things. You may have seen the Brewers basically use a bullpen game against the Padres on Wednesday, and they lived to tell the tale. They won a game, won nothing, that Bryce Wilson chewed up a bunch of innings for them

as a spot starter. They've used eight starters already, by the way. So yeah, maybe it's a combo like that. And Morihan is really interesting. He throws hard. I like him a lot as an possibly elite short reliever. Given some of the health issues he's had over the course of his career,

that might be the best way to get something out of him. But he's one of those guys. You look at the results he's had so far in the big leagues overall, ERA over five, WIP close to 1.5. Those numbers are coming down. He's gonna get it. he's gonna unlock it. I think so, I think he'll be the setup guy before long,

or at least because he's a lefty, kind of maybe one of the seventh inning guys. I don't know if you wanna go lefty, lefty, eighth and ninth, but Suarez is, wait, is Suarez a righty? Robert Suarez? Yeah, he's a righty. Why do I have Suarez as a lefty in my head? I don't know.

Are you thinking of like... I've seen him pitch a bunch of times. Are you thinking... So strange. Why would that be backwards? Were you watching him in a reflection? Like what... You could get confused that way.

Anyway, yeah, Morahan Suarez. I think that could happen. And I think it's good enough stuff that you could say, hey, can we get three innings out of Brito and Morahan? Yeah. And could we keep it to to one run or two runs? Yeah. You know, I think that'll be the deal for now. No clear pickup in San Diego as they look for a little bit of short. If it had been Vasquez, you know, I would have thought, oh, maybe this you Darvish thing is a little bit worse.

One thing that I did notice while ranking Udarish though, is that his stuff has fallen off. You know, the fastballs now are distinctly the kinds of fastballs that you'd want to hide. You know, he's always been a cutter guy, but even the cutter right now is 82 stuff plus. And that's ranking it. This is really interesting. We've, we put cutters in with fastballs in this last model update. That's not going to be right for everybody. Some people use their cutters more as a breaking ball, but it was more right for more people and it helped the model be more predictive. And in you Darvish's case, the cutter is absolutely his fastball. So that going down to 82 stuff

plus I think is actually more reflective of what he what he does. Looking at that, looking at his projections, he was one of the one of the people that lost the most in my rankings actually. I understand it but I also think he has enough ways to adjust where I have a little more confidence in Darvish figuring it out than I do in the typical pitcher going through something similar. I kept him right in the back end of the top 50. Does that feel fully off? I mean, he's hurt.

Yeah, back in the top 50 for now can bounce back into the back of the top 30 pretty quickly if he's good for a four or five start stretch. I think the trust level picks up again. I mean, you know he's always good for the strikeouts, right, it seems. But you know, 11.9% KMISBB is also not good. So there's a couple of red flags here.

The team looks pretty good overall. Like better than people thought in the winter. I do think the health of their rotation, Musgrove and Darvish are really important to them. So finding a way to get them both right would go a really long way. Staying in the NL West for a moment, Chris Bryant on the IAL with a lower back strain.

He's only played 13 games so far this year. When we've seen him, the K-Rate's been through the roof. 32.7%. He has not been Chris Bryant each of the last two seasons now in Colorado. Year one there was only 42 games on a per game basis. It looked really good. And that got me kind of excited about what might happen this year

with a clean bill of health entering the season. Is this just another bump in the road for a guy that will come back and produce or are you beginning to have some major long-term concerns with Bryant given that this is a back injury, he's had some pretty major shoulder stuff in the past and he's 32 now. So physically coming back from this kind of stuff is a little bit harder.

He hasn't hit a ball 110 since he signed with Colorado. That's something he did regularly before. There was a nice interesting tweet by Alex Chamberlain that I retweeted a couple of days ago that was just the effect of having a larger max CV is that it really demonstrates raw power. So it pushes. So if you have a 112 Max CV, you could expect to have X percentage of balls over a hundred, right? If you have a 105 Max CV, you'd have X minus, right? You just sort of, you can imagine that, right? I can imagine just the percentiles, you know? And so his raw power is gone. It's gone.

He's no longer a guy that I would expect to have a league average slugging percentage. And his foot speed is gone. He's not making contact like he used to. He's not even showing the same discipline that he used to. I have nothing to hold onto. I have nothing to point you to. The only thing that I would say is that it's possible that this is all a tragedy that has something to do with altitude because people rest

and recover worse at altitude. And these injuries are not necessarily something that was part of his game before. You know, you had kind of, you know, a 2018 season where he missed 150 plate appearances or so, but otherwise he was largely healthy before he signed this deal and then he is just falling apart. I wonder, I mean, there's a lot of time left on that contract. He signed through 2028. I wonder if we're going to get something similar to what we saw with Nolan Aronato

where the Rockies eat a lot of money and Chris Bryant gets a chance to play some of those years out elsewhere. That would be the only way to do anything with that deal and actually get something back in the organization is to just pay most of it down yourself. I mean, I think almost all of it. Well, we've seen the recent trends in money movement. You have to think of Eric Hosmer. They were trying to move Eric Hosmer for like four years

and then they finally moved him with one year and like 15 million on it. That's what's movable. 15 million dollars is movable. Yeah, not nine figures, like we're talking 26 million for the AAV with five full years after this season still on it, so that's 104 million for the last four years plus whatever you'd get this year.

It's not gonna happen this year. It can't happen this year because they'd have to trade out, they'd have to pay out 80, 90 million. That's not gonna happen. It's a bummer because I thought Brian actually had the sort of foundation where he would age particularly well

as long as he stayed healthy. He cut the K's down from the very beginning of his career, good eye at the plate, but that cumulative wear and tear of some significant injuries seems to have chipped away at the power in a way where it might not ever come all the way back. There was something, there was something weird to me about his tenure in San Francisco that was a red flag to me was that San Francisco traded him and then saw him for like a month San Francisco traded him and then saw him for like a month and then did not even engage him in talks.

But that was clearly a need to possibly retain him. Yeah. The numbers weren't bad during that partial season in San Francisco, but there was something they saw when they got close up. I mean, I think that they tried him in center and they thought he was a more defensive. Maybe there was, there was a time when he was thought to be very defensively versatile. I would guess that the, the thing that you see when you play somebody close up like that, the thing that you can see the best on a day to day basis as a coaching staff

is probably defense, maybe some work ethic stuff. I'm not, I'm not trying to cast aspersions. I don't know his work ethic. I'm just saying those are the two things that you could see in a month of having him on your roster What is what is style preparation is and maybe you know a little bit of defensive stuff? I would love to know when the Rockies win a free agent I assume even for a hitter given the state of their organization how tough it is to win there They usually have to overpay by some percentage 10 15 percent compared to the next highest offer Which is weird for hitters even?

Why that shouldn't be the case, it's just because they're bad. Why would you go there if you've already, I mean, Brian already won a World Series, so I guess if that was the main thing you wanted to accomplish in your career and you already ticked that box, then it's like, we'll get the best possible offer. Living in Denver.

It's kind of like the first Eric Hosmer deal in San Diego, right? Which is like, they paid the tax of he was the first free agent to sign there. But I wonder who had the silver medal offer in the Chris Bryant free agent sweepstakes and... I bet it was $100 million less. You think it was that much less?

It was seven for 182 is what he got. You'd think it was like four for 80? Three for 80? That means the same AAV 80, three for 80. That means the same AAV would be three for 80. I think it would be like four for 80, four for 100 maybe. I think the second offer had to be a little closer than that

but fun to think about at least. Hopefully he gets healthy, would love to see him produce again. Couldn't it be great to like get somebody to really tell you the truth? Yeah, I would love to get people to tell me the truth. Like nine out of ten times, I can't get that. And I would love to have that.

Just to let some let someone all the way in. Just what really happened? The truth serum. Yeah. That's what we wanted. We want we want to give the agents truth. See, you pay. You pay. Tell us all the whole truth. Well, I mean, when when the text messages are in the

In the I know it was funny. We made jokes that we would never like see it written on paper I did the crime right like those some of those text messages were like I did the crime literally. We're like, okay I did steal from oh hard to argue with that. I guess that's that Sometimes you do get the truth. It's just not the way you expect to get the truth. Yeah, right. Hear that? That's the sound of waves crashing on a beach.

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at participating restaurants in Canada. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Spring is a great time to start a new workout routine. With the weather warming up, it feels easier to get into the rhythm of things. Whether you have 20 minutes or an hour for a Pilates class or an outdoor guided walk, Peloton has everything you need to help you get going. Get a head start on summer with Peloton at OnePeloton.ca. Moving on, so you wrote this week about some players trying to find power who have a contact first skill set. There were three featured in the article and we don't necessarily dig deep on all three

because people could just read the story. CJ Abrams, Jackson Merrill, Stephen Kwan, that's the reverse order they were featured in the story, but that's the order in which I believe in them having power that they're going to happen to. Kwan, I will be forever skeptical of Stephen Quan hitting for power. You pointed to Luis Arias in the story as someone that we thought could add power at various points earlier in his career. That ship has sailed.

I think Stephen Quan is more like a Luis Arias, but CJ Abrams, I think from a physical perspective, I've had this, I feel like an idiot because I waffled about CJ Abrams as a third-rounder when draft season started. I mean, yes, but long story, long form, you have been the voice of reason on this podcast about CJ Abrams. Yeah. I've been the one who was pointing at his barrel rate too prematurely.

Well, okay, so the reason I was kind of like, I don't know about him in the third round that I kind of warmed up to it was like thinking about physical projection and how young he was when he made it through the minors and all that lost time. We've talked about that every time Abrams has come up for the last two years. His his minor league track record was shortened by a major injury and a pandemic. Nothing you can do about that. That's just lost time.

And he still moved up to the big leagues quickly anyways. And I think five homers already in these first 15 games has us really excited about things falling into place. Some of them are just so majestic. Like they're not just enough. No, he took Kyle Harrison up like high and tight, lefty on lefty. Kyle Harrison's fastball is his best pitch. And he took that thing to Triples Alley in San Francisco in the cold.

Yeah. That's a tough place to hit a home run when it's warm. And he did it on a 50 degree day. Yeah. He pulled his hands in and did it. And so I think there is a difference between Quan and Abrams and Dominic, one of our listeners did point out like one of these things is not the other. And I think you've done that too with Quan. But there's degrees of these things. Like you could have three or four Quans in single way and one of them could turn into

an Abrams type. You know what I mean? It's more that we've seen enough of Quan in the major leagues to be like, okay, the dude hasn't hit a ball 109 yet. And so that's why I do think MaxTV, people who have done like straight correlations between MaxTV and other things have found that it's not the strongest and maybe it's not that useful.

But I think it's really useful in the dynasty context, in creating aging curves, and then for this particular thing, which is trying to decide if a guy has power that he can tap into in the future. And so, you know, Jackson Merrill has already hit a ball one hundred and eight point eight. I think once you get over one hundred and eight, I can see, OK, if you're you clear one hundred and eight and you have better than a 10 percent swing strike rate.

I like you. I like you a lot. And I think you might be able to add power. That list right now, kids under 24, 24 and under maybe kids under 24 and under with a swing strike rate of 10% or less. And a max EV. I set the line at 107 here for this one because it got more major leaguers. And then 30 played appearance. Actually, I don't even know if I had to do with a plate appearance metric. This is just all the players under 24 and under that have a swing strike rate under 10% and under

and a max EV over the 107. These are all interesting players. There's a player you may never have heard of before named Wyatt Langford on here. Corbin Carroll. Oh, that's a good player. CJ Abrams is on here. Gabriel Moreno, you suggested another catcher.

I got two that I think are worth considering. Kavit Ruiz and Luis Camposano. Oh, yes. Camposano just needs like an inch of play discipline, not even a yard, just an inch. Jackson Merrill is on this list, Mason Wynn is on this list, Johan Rojas, Michael Garcia, Colt Keith, Anthony Volpe and Ivan Herrera making it four catchers. So I think this is a good list and I know Michael Garcia's, you know, hadn't come out to the best start.

Anthony Volpe is sort of newly on this list because of the swing changes he made to accent his contact ability over his power. So he's kind of going the other direction, a guy that decided to make more contact. But in any case, this is a really good collection of players and it sort of suggests to me, I've been trying to shop Mason Wynn and my 12 team keeper. Maybe I'll just keep them. You know, if nobody's going to take them. It says be patient with Colt Keith's beginning of the season. It says maybe believe in Yvonne Herrera.

So I think this is a good list of players. I'm going to put the list in the weekly recap because I didn't get it. I have major Photoshop problems that I don't know how to fix that I couldn't fix before the show. So it's a good use of the recap anyway. So I'm gonna put the table in there. If you're like, where's the table?

It's gonna be in the recap. You'll see the table. The thing about Cole Keith. Why didn't Ruiz make it? Age, right? You said under 24? Oh yeah 25. Yeah under 25. So he also hasn't hit a ball. This is also having hit a ball this year but he's hit a ball 110 before. Yeah and we've had I think for probably I would say most of the life of this podcast we've had an open question as to whether Ruiz would get to more consistent power because he showed

occasional flashes of it and his samples at some levels were partial seasons and you'd see it and you'd say well it was only 38 games and it was high A but he was young for the level and he did it and then you'd see the ground ball rate tick up a little bit as he advanced and you'd think oh okay maybe the approach isn't quite right but the hit tool has always been there. It is more of the aggressive sort of approach, right? It's a 38.5% O swing percentage for his career. So that's something that he swings a lot, but that's just something he does.

Campasano fits into that bucket as well. I would also say though, when you look at a list like this and you see some catchers pop, we know catchers can take a little bit longer to unlock all of their offensive ability. And their ceiling is usually limited by playing time. Right. In the case of Ruiz, I think it's, hey, we'll keep throwing you out there because you're

our guy. I think you're looking at a run for Ruiz for these next few seasons where 500 plate appearances is the norm for the next two to three seasons easily. If you can acquire him through this weird IL illness, sort of crappy start to the season, if you can use that to acquire him in a keeper league, I would. If you're holding onto him to redraft and you're wondering why, I would try to hold as long as you can.

I know maybe you have three or four injured pitchers right now next to him. You need to move on. I get it. Then maybe you have to do that. But if you can hold onto him, I would. It's a good, interesting group of names here. Hitting more fly balls this year. It's the lowest ground ball rate of his career. It's too early to say that's a real thing. But I would say that ground ball rate is one of those things that's like on the month, like in a month, you can know that there's something there.

There's something, something going on with him. That's, that's good. And, and then I think Jackson Merrill, you know, I think he's going to maybe hit 18 to 22 homers, not necessarily this year, but soon. It does look more like a 2020 skill set with a good average, which is a really good fantasy player because that usually bumps you up to a high position in the batting order. So you're going to score a boatload of runs or you're at least a good enough run producer where you're going to do both of those things. I wonder if because Jackson Merrill, he had plenty of prospect hype anyway, but he moved so fast through the minors,

if sometimes that keeps us from fully realizing a player's ceiling. Not necessarily people who are focused on prospects all the time. More of a redraft situation. It's the inverse of the fatigue. He wasn't on the list for five or six years. He cruised up so fast, he didn't graduate

and sit in the top five on the list for a while before coming up. He jumped up when he was in the 20 range on a lot of lists. They didn't have time to sort of, you know, accumulate that like Jackson holiday-ish hype. But, you know, his last overall rating on Fangrass was eight. Yeah, so he was getting there.

Like if he wasn't up right now, he would be getting some of that hype, right? When's Jackson Merrill coming up? When's the next Jackson coming up? Prospect fatigue happens, and sometimes just really weird, slow starts to a career happen. So kind of kicking off Project Prospect for the week,

looking at Jack Leiter. He's debuting for the Rangers against the Tigers today. Stuff looked a lot different at Triple-A, just in terms of everything. The K's went through the Rangers against the Tigers today. Stuff looked a lot different at AAA, just in terms of everything. The Ks went through the roof, the walks were down, more swinging strikes we've seen at any point during his time in the Rangers organization. Was he popping in the model in these first few turns

at AAA as well? Because it looked like Jack Leiter was stuck coming out of 2023. The Ks were there, but the control wasn't. And for a team that desperately needed help in the first half of this season with a lot of pitchers down, people would have thought, yeah, Jack Leiter could be an answer prior

to what he'd done in their system. Like when he was drafted, the timetable would have been before now for him to arrive. So what do you make of Leiter and the struggles he's gone through and maybe some of the adjustments he's made to get this opportunity? There were some major adjustments that he tried,

pitching more north-south instead of east-west and this and that. And there was a lot of different things he was going through. And I just get the feeling from the outside. So this is not super sourced, but I've actually seen some bull know, some bullpen sessions, like when we were in the backfields and I've seen how many people are standing around. And so I'm

kind of connected to the dots here and being like, famous dad, you know, like probably has his own people. So a little bit of maybe some too many many cooks in the pot or at least there was a lot going on around Jack lighter in terms of what he was supposed to do and when he was supposed to do it and how how he's supposed to get better you know and so what I've you know more sourced I've heard that Jordan Teagues the pitching coordinator had a lot to do with this last round of attempts which was to get him to really work more linear

to the plate and hold his front side closed a touch longer and with a little bit shorter a stride. So these are some mechanical fixes as much as anything. And then Lance Brodsky pointed out that where he's trying to throw his change a little bit too. He's kind of established low and away as a place that he can hit. Now that's kind of funny because Lone Away has gone out of style and you know,

you kind of want guys who can command it high. That's the new league. But I would say with Jack Latter, you'd be like, yo, I'll take wherever you can put it regularly. You know? I think let's go with that because he had Bi-Stuff Plus, the fourth best stuff plus in the minors, which is not everybody in the minors. You know, it's triple A, most of triple A and some of single A.

So it's not like I can say fourth best stuff wasn't all the minors, but among the stats that we had, definitely an exciting debut today. Yeah. among the stats that we had, definitely an exciting debut today. Yeah, so we'll see what the numbers look like coming out of the start against the Tigers, but I can see lighter popping at least for 15 team leagues because of the high K potential, maybe even getting on some rosters and 12s given what they need right now in Texas. The Dodgers brought up a couple of prospects this week.

Andy Pagas is one of them. Gonna get some run in the outfield and against hitters, against pitchers both from the left side and the right side. So it's not a case where he's going to be a small side platoon guy, which is the way you'd like to see an outfield their debut. They've had a hard time getting production from their outfield early on this season. I'm sure a lot of that will correct itself over time. Pagas missed a lot of time last year because of a major shoulder injury. So to see him bounce back from that, kind of hit the ground running at AAA

and get this early opportunity, it's just nice to see from like a player development standpoint. I guess this is a temporary solution. We've been waiting on him forever. Well, we talked about him as a, I think a prospect of the week, once upon a time. 2021.

Yeah, because he, in 2021, he unlocked 31 homers. Great season. Yeah, brought the K rate down, walked more and was still really young for the level. And look, he's been he's been pretty good like everywhere he's played his first taste of double A was just league average, a 21 year old. You can't hold that against the player. So there's power, there's some speed. There's a pretty good eye at the plate.

I think there's a chance he actually plays well enough to keep a spot because once Jason Hayward comes back, I think you could look at Hayward as someone that plays a bit less over time. You start looking at the way they could group guys. If they're not happy with James Outman, Paez could play there. I think defense is the one thing that could keep Outman's bat in the lineup even when he's not hitting is that he's a good Defensive center fielder, but how do you see things fitting?

I mean the only thing that really makes it extra crowded is show Hey, Otani being there as a DH because Teasca Hernandez has to play in the outfield And yeah, you can't put you got one fewer spot to rotate through But I think it's just weak enough where I'm intrigued about the possibility of him sticking I mean, there's some daylight there. The weird I mean, he played seven innings in center field, too. So it seems like they think enough of his defense out there. And then, you know, one of the things that speaks so well about him being ready is that

he cut his strikeout rate to the best he's ever had in the minor leagues down to 17%. And that's really where Altman's had the trouble. This year, Altman has hit the ball about as hard as he has in the past. He's striking out just as much as he's had in the past, and he's just not getting the luck on balls and play that he had in the past. And that's what happens.

Like if you strike out 32, 33% of the time, you might hit 210. And that's where Altman finds himself right now. So I do 33% of the time, you might hit 210. And that's where Altman finds himself right now. So I do think that is the daylight is, you know, if Pahas says, you know, and he has he struck out a little bit too much so far, but you know, seven plate appearances, if he can get in there and play defense well enough, he could take it. I don't think he's got the same defensive chops as Altman and he's a right

hander. So, you know, I don't I wouldn't necessarily say he's the favorite. It could still be a short term. He's not the favorite, but I think they're about ready to move on from Chris Taylor. I think when you look at Chris Taylor start 18 K's in 42 plate appearances to start the season. It's been a multi-year, got a slide from the player Taylor was in the first five or so years he was in the organization. Maybe it's not full on DFA, but I think it's reduced expectations really using him as purely a small side platoon guy

as opposed to an everyday guy when someone's hurt. This would have been a tailored opportunity in the past. So I think, you know, Pye is getting this chance, tells us something. What do you make of the other guy the Dodgers brought up, Landon Nack? I think he came up sort of in passing last week. And I also think at the time I mentioned River Ryan

as a guy who was on the 60 day IL. He's not on the 60 day IL, cause he's not on the 40 man. He's just on the minor league IL. So keep that in mind if you're trying to stash him somewhere. But Landon Nack is another pretty good prospect in his own right. And I think when you're the fifth, sixth, seventh best prospect in the Dodger system, you can get a little bit overshadowed, but you might be the second,

third or fourth best prospect in a different organization. What does Nack bring to the table and how do you see him working against big league hitters initially? different organization. What does Knack bring to the table and how do you see him working against big league hitters initially? Better fastball than Gavin Stone, better slider than Gavin Stone, right there with Michael Grove on the slider, but a better fastball than Michael Grove.

So, you know, personally in like, I think ahead of Kyle Hurt, who came out and pitched in, you know, a two inning stint instead of a five inning stint. So I have him ahead of Stone, Grove and Hurt. Emmet Sheehan is shut down indefinitely. That's the real 60 day IL pitcher for the Dodgers.

Right. So like what, like what are you left looking at here is like, maybe he's got some runway. What was the corresponding move for this one? Oh, the Bobby Miller? Yeah, I think I think Knack replaced Bobby Miller when Miller hit the IL with that shoulder injury. Okay, so when Bobby Miller comes back, you got Yamamoto, Glasnow, Bueller, Paxton and Miller. So you got five. So I guess what I'm saying is Knack is the six.

But I would also say James Paxton is not looking that great out there. He has more walks than strikeouts. The VELO is down. Just the swing strike rate is down. The stuff is down. James Paxton right now could lose his job to Niner Knack. James Paxton right now could lose his job to,

to line to NAC. And I think that one's more wide open even than what Andy Pa has in front of him. Yeah, just because of all of the injuries that have been piling up on the Dodgers, it was a nice debut for NAC, five innings through 75 pitches, two earned, four hits, four Ks, one walk. It was a nice home matchup against the Nationals.

I think you'd generally want to be matchup dependent with him initially, but room for growth for sure and maybe a longer opportunity than expected. One more prospect to get to as a result of the Dominic Kanzone injury. Jonathan Classe getting a chance in Seattle, debuting a little sooner than expected. There's been some prospect fanfare around Klaus A for a little while. He's a switch hitter. How do you see him kind of fitting in? He's just 21, so debuting a little sooner than expected.

You know, you think about some of the contact issues he's shown as high as double A, that's sort of the what could go wrong, but the what could go right, this is a guy that had double digit homers and 61 stolen bases last year at the AA level in just 108 games. He's fast. Real fast. He's fast, and I think one of the things that's cool about him too is that I've had him on teams

and dropped him, and he's kind of one of those stories of the 18-year-old that pops in A-ball, and you get all, you know, he's kind of the, one of those stories of like, you know, the 18 year old that pops in A-Ball and you get all excited about him and then you drop him because he takes a step back and the kind of winding road it can take. I mean, in A-Ball, as a really young guy, he had 55 steals and, you know, like, oh, let's put him on the roster.

And then he comes back in double A and has a 94 WRC plus. Still young though, you know, maybe I dropped him too prematurely, uh, because you know, 94 at the hat at his age in AA should get a boost of at least what we found for that piece, like 20 points of WRC plus. And now if you look at this guy and say, Oh, he's a 114, 119 WRC+, in AA with 62 steals. Yeah, he should have been featured on our podcast more often. I don't know if the transition will be super easy and if he'll be there forever because he is a little bit more, in terms of tools,

like speed is his best tool, contact is not one of his best, power kind of comes and goes. And so a player like that, I could see him striking out too much at first and maybe needing a couple of attempts at the big leagues. But again, if he doesn't do that well at first, don't write him off.

Maybe when he's 22 and he comes back, that's the time to really buy in on Classe. Is it fair to even throw Classe's name out there in the Victor Scott bucket in terms of prospect expectations? I think Scott would have popped on more lists than Classe. I mean, if you look at the Rotowire page for Classe is really interesting because James Anderson's rankings

are charted over time and it's been a roller coaster. The Jonathan Classe rankings roller coaster would be a fun roller coaster ride, unless you had him the entire time. But I look at this kind of profile and I think it's a little bit Victor Scott-esque for me. I don't know if you get the same sort of defensive value. Like Victor Scott's gonna be a good defensive center fielder.

I don't think there's any question about that. I'm not sure I could say that about Classe with the same confidence if you see it in the fielding grade 45 present future 50 but as far as fantasy value, I think they're kind of close you also see it Oh, I was I was looking at dummy can zone. That was that was confusing. I was like man. He's played a lot of left field There there has been some left field for class A in the minors. So that's a little bit of a like, oh, that's interesting. Why did they even do that? Maybe it was for defensive versatility when he gets the big leagues, I guess.

But if you were just like I said it, forget it, left center fielder, like I would like to see how much Victor Scott played off of center field in the minor leagues. Probably never or very rarely. Yeah, exactly. I don't see anything on Fangraph. So I think he's a little bit behind in terms of defense. I'm not sure that defense will keep him on the field if his bat isn't quite there. Partially also because of the different context of the teams.

The Mariners need offense, you know, and so if he's not going to necessarily provide offense, then I think when Kanzone is healthy, Klasay might go back. Crypto is like finance, but different. It doesn't care when you invest, trade or save. Do it on weekends or at 5 a.m. or on Christmas Day. At 5 a.m. Crypto is finance for everyone, everywhere. Let's shift the focus quickly to the waiver preview. We're going to do this in like five minutes today. We'll spend more time on it. Most weeks.

I got to go to the airport. You literally got to go to the airport. So the player I wanted to throw at you was Albert Suarez. He's back up for the Orioles. He had a really good start in the spring against the Phillies that got my attention. Didn't start the season on the roster, but five and two thirds scoreless, four Ks, no walks, three hits. I think it kind of works.

They've got a lot of injuries right now. Kyle Bradish's rehab assignment so far is going well, but Tyler Wells recently went on the IL. John Means is still down. So there could be at least a few more turns here for Suarez. What's your interest level on him? He's a bit unusual because he spent so much time away from professional ball here in North America,

but he was in the KBO for a little while and just looks like he's got better stuff than he had when he left. Yeah, he wasn't performing that well in AAA though, and that's what that's on the negative side for me. The stuff plus is not amazing on him. He's a really fastball heavy guy. So it's that's a little bit weird on the on the positive side, I guess, quote unquote positive, he has no options. So now that they made this move, he has to be on the big league squad. So I wonder, you know, maybe he'll transition to being a long man in the bullpen. Keegan Aiken used to be that long man in the bullpen.

And now he's he's more of a short man. I don't mean he's short anyway. So I think Suarez could be the long man. I I've still heard that Armbruster is next. Kate Povach is the guy that everyone's excited about. And John Means is only allowed to have like two or three more starts in the minor leagues before he has to be brought up. They're kind of extending his rehab.

So I think that this is a week to week thing for Suarez. If you like his matchups next year, then you like next week, then you like him. All right. So the open question as we go, what are you thinking about on the wire this week? Is it someone like Willier Abreu who is getting an expanded role in Boston? Is it Yoel Pajams in leagues where he was dropped since he's now getting saves for the Brewers and Abner Uribe pitched in the fourth inning earlier this week and then pitched in the eighth in the game that they won on Wednesday.

It just seems like the plan in Milwaukee is definitely written in pencil right now. Yeah, there's a weird thing going on in Seattle too. Andres Munoz's stuff is down. He's pitching in the seventh and I don't really know what's going on there. Ryan Stanek has like a 20% walk rate. There's an opening there that Matt Brash might step into at some point as he comes back. So I don't know what's going on in Seattle. Piam seems like the guy, but it might be short term. I mean, you know, every day gets a little bit closer to hearing

that, you know, Devin Williams is throwing again or whatever it is. So I don't like Piam's stuff as much as Uribe, but maybe they like Uribe as the guy to get everyone out and like the middle of the order out in the seventh. And Payam's just to shut things down. Payam's is a little bit less shaky in terms of command. Abner can kind of, the command can come and go. If Williams doesn't come back

and there's a longterm bet here, it's still Abner Uribe for me. I wonder if Trevor McGill, once he comes back from the concussion IEL, if he starts getting saves again, he's had a couple of scoreless appearances at Nashville after suffering a concussion, he fell, which was really odd, he fell,

like he went to the mall and was getting a new router or something and just like collapsed from food poisoning, which is scary. Yeah, the whole thing is crazy. I've fainted a couple of times, so I feel badly for him. But that's a big deal. I'm also ready to drop Jesus Sanchez in 15 teams. I've just looking at it.

I think Scott can be a drop because what you're getting to is people getting healthy. Lars Newpars playing in center. Dylan Carlson is going to get healthy at some point. And I think that they'll just they'll send Victor Scott back down. I don't think, I think I still like, I think this is one of those like, Whoa, big leagues moments for Victor Scott. I don't think that that means that he's not good. I think he just needed to get shocked.

He's going to go back and work and work his way back up. And, uh, there'll be another opportunity for him. I think it's still a good long-term player to target, but short-term interest has fallen to the point where I would agree with you. I think Victor Scott is a drop. We're gonna go. Eno's headed to the airport on our way out the door.

A reminder. Closing the computer and going to the airport. TheaBethic.com slash rates and barrels gets you a subscription. Find Eno on Twitter at EnoSaris. Find me at Derek Van Riper. Find the plot at rates and barrels. Join the Discord. The link is in the show description. Find Eno on Twitter at EnoSaris. Find me at Derek Van Riper. Find the pot at Rates and Barrels. Join the Discord.

The link is in the show description. Be sure to hit the like button on this video. It's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you live at one o'clock Eastern on Friday. Thanks for listening. I like you. I like you a lot.