Rates & Barrels - Checking In on the Baseball & Weekend Waiver Preview

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

Eno and DVR discuss the increased drag on the baseball in 2025 and consider the related impact on xStats. Plus, Aaron Civale gets his wish, Jacob Misiorowski shows electric stuff in his big-league debut, and Christian Moore is on his way to Anaheim. Rundown1:03 Aaron Civale Traded to the White Sox for Andrew Vaughn7:13 Christian Moore Joins the Halos13:33 The Impact of Increased Drag on the Ball in 202526:50 Weekend Waiver Preview: Hitters of Interest36:04 Brenton Doyle v. Jo Adell and Other Power-Speed Combo Players42:26 Connor Norby Has Runway, Can He Turn It Into Shallow League Value?46:38 Jacob Misiorowski: Electric Stuff in MLB Debut54:43 Ben Casparius: An Opportunity to Make a Few Starts?Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.socialFollow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.sociale-mail: [e-mail] our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFeSubscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrelsHosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno SarrisExecutive Producer: Derek VanRiper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Learn more at visa.com slash Visa Direct. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Friday June 13th, Derek Van Riper,, Ino Saris here with you on this episode. We dig into the debut of Jacob Mizorowski that went down on Thursday night. We're going to make that part of the weekend waiver preview because Mizorowski will be among the pitchers many of you are thinking about adding in weekly leagues over the weekend. Got a little bit of baseball news you should know, including a story that Ino co-wrote with Evandrelik about the increased drag on the ball this year.

There might be some things in the X stats that are a little different than we expect as a result of that. And if we get a little baseball news, you should know as we get started today. As always, you can join our Discord, the link in the show description. And if you enjoy the show, be sure to hit the like button on YouTube, leave us a nice rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen. Let's start with the Brewers though, a team that apparently is run by a genie that grants wishes.

Aaron Savalli wanted to be traded and he got what he wanted. He's now a member of the Chicago White Sox with Andrew Vaughn. Going back to the Brewers in the deal, didn't take long for them to move on from Aaron Savallé. And I have a couple of quick takeaways on this one. Let me know if I've solved this deal completely. One, I don't think there was much of a trademark for Andrew Vaughn after the White Sox chose to option into AAA a little earlier this season. That squashed any little bit of trade value he would have had in the first place. And two, because of money and because of everyone knowing that Savali wanted to trade and the brewers had depth, they didn't have a lot of leverage either. So this was kind of a, these two teams sort of meet each other.

And the way I look at it is Vaughn's going to Nashville for now. He's depth. He's got options. The brewers get three plus months of a guy that never reached his potential in Chicago, but maybe they can find something to tweak with him. And if they like what they see, they have him for the rest of this season and they can pay him for the final year of arbitration next year before he hits free agency. And for Sivali, he gets a chance probably for the next six plus weeks to work like a regular starter. The White Sox will take as many innings as he can possibly put on his arm, and he'll likely get traded again because they're not going anywhere this year.

Plenty of teams will still be interested in pitching at the deadline, and perhaps they will get a more interesting player back for their future than they could have got for Andrew Vaughn. Yeah, I think they have the opportunity to basically showcase him better to get better prospects. Um, they would also take a different sort of prospect for Aaron Savali, you know, they, you know, then the brewers would be that interested in like they could take somebody in high a that it's really far away.

Whereas the Brewers potentially get something that can help them this year in Andrew Vaughn. Right now, Andrew Vaughn's at the top of an interesting leaderboard that we will reference again later, but he among batters with at least 300 results has the fourth biggest gap between his expected slugging and his actual slugging. And I think that something that you can see pretty easily if you just look at his page. But we also know that he's a guy who hits to the opposite field. And so he doesn't make the most of his barrels. And yet he was a guy that had like 170 ISO, 160 ISO, now has a 124 this year.

So even if you just judge him against himself, there's more to be done there. I guess for the Brewers, the possible situation is, I don't know, Jake Bowers is apparently, they're listing on Jake Bowers is apparently they're listing on Jake Bowers now could it just be a caddy situation with Reese Hoskins or could Reese Hoskins Andrew Vaughn and Kristen Yelich share time at first base in DH with the other sometimes playing the outfield how has the other looked in the outfield recently hasn't been out there much.

He's played and he started six games in the outfield all season. He's DH 58 times. So I just get the sense that because of the depth they have in the outfield, the athleticism they have, they have a better team on the field defensively when Yelich isn't out there. It's just a simple way to look at it. This to me is a little bit more about Reese Hoskins being in the final year of the two year deal that he signed a winter ago and not having a lot of first base depth

that's major league ready. So maybe he's a back up plan that Hoskins leaves. He's like a bench piece this year, an up and down guy. Cause he's got options and then sticks around next year if they like what they see. Like I, I just think this speaks to the limited value Savalli had despite the number of teams that need innings. It's a little bit surprising to me in some ways, but it's an interesting lottery ticket and I think veteran lottery ticket was probably the most likely thing the brewers were going

to get. It was going to be a reliever with bad ratios. A guy that's down at AAA mashing. We talked about, you know, Jose Miranda. Like that was that was our other idea. Like this is very similar to that. It's just a guy that has a higher draft pedigree. Before we got this batting stance of information, I had different ideas of Vaughn in my head of what the problem was. Looking at pull stats, I was thinking, oh, this is a guy who lets it

travel too much. He should go get it. In the past, in 23 and 24, he actually got the ball an inch ahead of the normal intercept point for batters. So like he was actually going and getting the ball. In fact, his attack angle and attack direction were fairly ideal. He was pulling the ball at a five degree angle, which is just amazing. Like how could he be pulling a ball at a five degree angle when you look at like it process stats and then you look at his pull percentage and it's bad. I think the answer is he has poor tilt. He has a flat swing. So I would just say try to get him back to where he was. I'm not sure that there is another whole level to unlock,

but you can look and be like, oh, he's letting the ball travel two, three inches more this year, and he's not pulling the ball by the process stats as much this year. So can we just get him back to where he was where he has like a 180 ISO and he is a credible bat, like Major League bat. He's somebody who can be a little bit better than the league average with the bat. And we worry about the glove later.

So I think it's a reclamation project to some degree, but Aaron Savalli wasn't going to get much better than this. So I think it was a decent deal for them. The other move that is happening on Friday, Christian Moore is getting the call to Anaheim. And as we know, the angels like to move prospects very quickly. And what we have seen from Moore over the course of his time at AA and AAA this year is a little bit of just overall improvement.

The numbers were better at AAA. Not surprisingly, it's Salt Lake, it's the PCL. We knew he was going to move pretty quickly. When you look at the overall body of work, I believe it's going to be a total of 79 minor league games now for Christian Moore before his major league debut. They've been doing this a lot. They did it with pitchers. They've done it with Nolan Shanuel.

They've done it. Matthew Lugo wasn't moved quite as fast, but this is an organizational plan. It was Zach Netto too. What are your expectations for Christian Moore based on the improvements we've seen as he spent time at each level and the quality of contact he was making was elite in college at the University of Tennessee, right? He was on those leaderboards with the likes of Nick Kurtz and Jack Hegleon and Charlie Condon.

Yeah, that hasn't really translated to the big league game. I mean, the 111 max TV does suggest that the raw power is still in there. Um, and he did recover from absolutely no power this year in double A, uh, to kind of putting up that 200 ISO again. I'm a little worried because there are some stolen bases in there, 40% like 39% hard hit rate, 111 max CV and a 27% strikeout rate. There are some holes to poke in here. Like he might come up and strike out 32% of the time and struggle to convert that raw power into game power.

And frankly, he has a floor of not being very usable in most leagues. The one thing that he does have going for him that has separated other guys in the past is I think the window for him to actually just take this job is wide open. The guys he's fighting are Scott Kingery, who I believe is hurt. But even if Scott Kingery, no, I think he's on the Magic roster. But I mean, Scott Kingery is at this point a 31 year old, which is just that's crazy. Luis Ranjifo is needed at third for Juan Moncada and even if Juan Moncada comes back and Kristen

Moore is struggling, Ranjifo has been a guy that they've moved all around, you know, and Kevin Newman is nobody's idea of a starter and Chris Taylor is hurt and was also old. So like, you know, cast of characters that he has to beat out, not very good. Christian Moore may have some bumps in the road, but at least he has a full opportunity in front of him. Yeah, I think you'll just see more of the playing time for Ren Hefe come at third base. A lot of that's already happening. And then more gets a window to just be the second baseman.

And as people have pointed out, second base has been a challenging position to find production at this year. So I just think the ceiling alone makes Christian Moore very intriguing this weekend. I think he will be a popular pickup. It shouldn't be in the same range of the Jack Keglione, Roman Anthony top top end bids. I don't think it's

going to cost you 33% of a full budget in most circumstances, but 15 to 20% absolutely seems like it's on the table because there are a lot of ways more can contribute in a five by five league, even if we have some swinging this concerns initially. You lower the average expectation upfront and say it might take most of this season for him to make the adjustments to get that K rate down to the mid to high 20s range. But if there's power and speed from the jump, that'll still play and it'll probably be pretty high in the order relatively speaking, given the makeup of this lineup. Those numbers make me nervous.

I would rather be in this sort of eight to 12% range myself, which means I probably won't get them. And I've already used my big strip on Jack Hagelin in most places. So I guess I'm out. Would you rather second base that we talked about Jorge Polanco last week and how uneven his scorching start was compared to the month that followed. Are you looking at Christian Moore as an upgrade over Jorge Polanco right now, if Polanco is your MI? I think so. I think I would still have Jake Cromenworth ahead of him. Cromenworth has been pretty boring, but he has such a high floor. I think that you look up and he'll finish the season with a 245 average and 15, 16 homers and four or five steals and that's above water in almost

any league. The FanGraphs player raider in a 12 team five by fives has seven second baseman that have earned $10 or more so far this year. Michael Garcia, Bryce Terang, Brandon Lau, Nico Horner, Jose L. Tuve, Ketel Marte, and Brendan Donovan. And none of them 20, right? None of them 20. Yeah. 16.9 for Mikel Garcia is the best at the position right now. And Marte is like second or third.

Yeah, because he had a little time on the IL, so that's held his value back. It's just been a rough year at the position That's pretty bad. And and I wanted Mikel Garcia's break out break out last year So I only have like two shares of him this year And they've been both like emergency like oops Like people got hurt and I picked him up early and just happened to luck into it basically It'll get a little bit better

I think jazz chism is probably better today forward than he's been up to this point. So he could probably crack that double digit mark. But also maybe playing third base more often going forward. So next year this problem may not be solved. Unless more really takes off, next year might be worse. Well, yeah, you got Ozzy Albies, who we talked about on yesterday's episode.

Mark Simeon looking like he's finally showing true signs of aging. Matt McClain hasn't been the same player he was before the injuries, at least not yet. So, yeah, it's been a position full of unpleasant surprises up to this point in the year. So hopefully we'll get a pleasant surprise with Christian Moore. Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cash back, Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cash back, the most savings on your shopping.

So join Rakuten and start getting cash back at Uniqlo, Best Buy, Expedia, and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cash back. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save money at over 750 stores. Join for free at rakuten.ca or download the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N rakuten.ca. Moving money used to be slow. But now, you can move money fast with Visa Direct. Meet the need for speed, even across over 11 billion cards, accounts and wallets. Move money your way. Learn more at visa.com slash Visa Direct. Hey everyone, I'm Catherine. I'm David.

And I'm Matt. And together we are the Tennis Podcast. The news is out, we've officially joined the Athletic and we cannot wait to get going. We are three friends and journalists who love tennis and have been talking about it on the Tennis Podcast for the last 13 years. We cover the sport in exactly the same way the Athletic do, with passion, depth and a critical eye. We're weekly throughout the year and daily on site

at all four Grand Slam tournaments in Melbourne, Paris, London and New York. So check out the Tennis Podcast, now part of the Athletic. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. All right. You wrote a story with Evan Drellick about the increased drag on the ball and kind of hinted at it earlier when we were talking about Andrew Vaughan. We've talked about the limited use of X stats in season,

the limited value of using X stats in season. And this is among the variables that can make the X stats so unreliable. Yeah, the way that the X tax works is they are recalibrated in the spring in the June to July area. I don't actually know exactly when, maybe around the All-Star game, but they are recalibrated so that the league number is zero. X slug minus slugging. What you find that this year is the difference between actual slugging and expected slugging on the league level is 30 points. There's 30 points of slugging missing, you know, according to their own sort of expected stat.

What you'll do is you'll look up one day and it'll be zero. And you know, because on the league level, what they want X expected slugging to say is given the realities of this season, that batted ball should have done what, you know? Um, and so, you know, the other ways that we looked at it, we looked at it, we found that the drag is the highest it's ever been on the ball. And that's what their own stats that they record

and give to us on a drag leaderboard. So you can see very clearly that all but like two days this year have, were above the line for average last year. And it goes all the way back to 2016 to they even had to like re they had to rejigger. They didn't have to do it. It does I'm sure that the graph did it automatically. But the scale of the graph changed this year. You know it used to only go to like three six point three six drag and they had to like go further up

to accommodate some of the days this year. So drag is up and you know we had some differing results from different people who looked at if distance was down partially because batters are hitting the ball harder this year as in general you know I think maybe due to some maybe weighted ball you know stuff tracking bat speed might lead to better, better exit velocities because people are valuing it more, you know. For other reason, they're hitting the ball harder, but if you adjust for how hard they hit the ball, what the temperature was, what the humidity was, as Professor Alan

Nathan did so nicely for us, you find there's a missing three to four feet on long fly balls. And that's the 30 points of slugging. And so yes, when you go to expected slugging, slugging minus expected slugging, I think there's some value to say that like Jordán Álvarez was a little bit unlucky. Andrew Vaughn was a little bit unlucky. These guys are missing 150 points of expected slugging, right? Tyler O'Neill is on this list, Corey Seeger, Gleyber Torres, Nolan Jones, Brian Reynolds, Juan Soto. Like, okay, so some of these players could just do better with just regression on balls and play. But there's also the class of player that's missing like 40, 30 to 40 points of slugging where you might be like oh he's been unlucky but maybe he's not being unlucky at all maybe this is the zoo zero so michael bush. Tell marty why at langford nick kurtz muki bets for a polanco you may see a larger slugging and slugging but it's within that band of maybe there is actually no bad luck there.

So, I would caution you when you're looking at expected slugging in a given season, maybe the big ones are notable, but often also you'll find that something like Andrew Vaughn under performs as expected because if you send your barrels to the opposite field, they don't do as well. Tommy Pham always under performed his expected slugging and they don't adjust for spray angle in the expected numbers because it means a lot on a given ball, but it doesn't make it more predictive for the player. However, there are certain players that have certain tendencies that go over

time. Esau Parades. We talk about these guys all the time on the pod. Esau Parades, Andrew Vaughn, Tommy Pham, even Jordan Alvarez, he kind of does the oppo, oppo barrels a little bit. You know, those people will have higher X slugging than slugging and they will have it year in and year out. So you kind of, it's a little bit better to kind of look all the way to the process. That's why it's so exciting to me when they release things like intercept point and bat speed. We can get closer and closer to things that are directly measured and aren't results. They're divorced from results. And the

better that we understand the link between those directly measured things and results, the better we can look at the processes underneath and say, oh, this guy's being unlucky. He's still swinging the ball hard. He's still getting at the same contact point, still has the same, you know, attack direction, attack angle. You know, that sort of stuff should be able to tell us a little better if someone's being unlucky rather than expected slugging, which is just sort of a hodgepodge of all the players and all the balls and, oh yes, sort of a hodgepodge of all the players and all the

balls and oh yes, some of these balls should have performed better. Yeah, I do think you brought up the types of players. I'm glad you did. Like the types of guys that are likely to year over year over or underperform their X stats. And I think it's pretty interesting if you're looking at it from the the difference where you're looking at a higher actual slug versus X slug, Jacob Wilson pops as number one on that board. And I think he might be someone we see at or around the top of this leaderboard a lot.

Park factors I think are one of the things that I think could cause the real numbers to be a lot different than the expected ones, right? You could just be dealing with extremely warm, hitter friendly conditions, or more specifically in the case of like parade ace, it's not only his approach, but it's also his ballpark. Jeremy Pena's top 10 with the 49 slug against the 422X slug, we talked about Pena yesterday.

He's using a similar pull happy approach to unlock that power. Bregman's right next to Pena. Yeah, but it's like, he's actually a similar pull happy approach to unlock that power. Bregman's right next to Pena. Yeah, but it's like he's actually just using an approach that works. Alex Bregman, 553 slug, 484 X slug. Well, he's at Fenway now. That's a perfect fit for him park wise. So he will probably continue to outperform his X slug as well because of that.

Yeah, I was I'm surprised not to see more speedy spray it types next to Jacob Wilson, because I do think legs are part of this. I don't think that sprint speed gets factored into X slug. So you just look at two bad balls. And if you have the sprint speed to turn that basically one and a half base hit into a two base hit, you know what I mean? That will impact your slugging. I see Mike Tachman there. It's possible he's still using his speed to that Kyle Isbell, Cedric Mullins. So there's maybe some guys who use their speed to get a little bit more out of their slugging. But yeah, I do think like kind of a spray full contact guy

might be on the upper ends of his power outcomes just because of the kind of effects you're talking about. Yeah, pretty interesting stuff though in that story with Evan. Highly recommend people check it out. Get a subscription to The Athletic if you don't have one at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Here's another type of person. And you can go to baseball savant.

It's called the batted ball profile. Um, and so you look at pull air percentage and that's Cal rally, Reese Hoskins, Esauk Parade. So, you know, they will probably be on the upper ends of actual slugging. Uh, I mean, uh, yeah, the actual slugging versus expected slugging, but you look at Oppo air percentage and it's Ben Williamson, Will Smith, Nate Lowe, Jackson Merrill, Jason Dominguez, interestingly enough,

even Bobby Wood Jr. Some of those guys will put up a lower slugging than expected slugging. And if these trends continue in terms of hitting the ball in the air, it's the opposite field a lot That's that's what I can happen. Take the rewards on there. We actually had a question about Jackson Merrill in our discord. Do you think anything's Actually wrong with Jackson Merrill right now or is it just a young player going through some adjustments after a great rookie season? Yeah, I do think the chase rate and the

oppo air thing are small blemishes. At least the oppo air thing has potential benefits for him, which is I do think going to the opposite field in the air suggests that you can cover the whole plate, that you have this contact ability, that you basically take the ball where it's given to you, and that has good ramifications for your strikeout rate. I do see a little bit of a burgeoning swinging strike rate and strikeout rate from Merrill that might be tied to that chase rate. And that's the one blemish. I mean, a 40%, a 38, 42% chase rate is not great. But I think he came up into the big leagues with the like, I can do anything because he has such a good hit tool and he had such a good debut that I think a little bit of struggle would go a long

way with him where it's maybe he'll tighten his own a little bit, chase a little bit less and be better in the long run but still has the excellent power to all fields, excellent contact ability. I think he's still great. I think the stolen base thing, the one stolen base with the injury, I wonder what the over, like what's the over under on stolen bases for the year for you? Uh, the projections all say he'll get close to 10, but maybe he just won't run that much this year. Yeah. He might go under on that or maybe with the all star break, if he gets a few days off and actually feels a little better in the second half, that's when

he'll pick up and start bringing that part of his game back. That was part of the question from J. Hamilton seven is, you know, is the hamstring maybe to blame for the lack of steals? I think it's 100% to blame for the lack of steals. And I think it's easy to sometimes for me, at least to take a leg injury and think it only impacts speed, but it can impact your power to your base isn't quite right.

You know, I think that think that's the other thing that might be holding Merrill in that sort of like empty-ish average, kind of solid runs in RBIs, but just not a lot of fantasy goodness with the homers and steals right now. I think it leaves the window open. He's the batting average is still good. Like he's not a bad player.

He's not sinking you. He's just, for as early as he was being drafted. You're a little unhappy with what you're getting. It leaves the window open in long term leagues, though, but not being as good as he was last year right now. It's at least possible to try and get him back as the centerpiece in a blockbuster long term deal. If you're out there trying to play for the future, I would 100 percent be on board

with trying to do that. I think I'd still buy him. Yeah, because I try to mention this a lot, but the chase rate is more of a problem when you turn 28, 29, 30 at least. He's 22. The arrow on the chase rate is down. He is supposed to still improve his strikeout rate, his ground ball rate, and his chase rate in the next three years. Those things are all supposed to still improve his strikeout rate, his ground ball rate, and his chase rate in the next three years.

Those things are all supposed to still improve. So the age along with this and the fact that like this injury might be contributing to fewer steals, I think that all those things point to like, I agree with you a hundred percent. If you want to do a Kingmaker deal where you give the person all your old guys that they need for to win at all. But you get Jackson Merrill back. I would do that. That might be about as good of a player as you can reasonably get back in some of

those competitive longterm leagues too. So worth, worth floating it out there if you're trying to make such a deal. Oh, I had a real quick idea. Just real quickly. This is off the rundown, you know, the other Jackson. Just smashing the fourth wall. The other Jackson. I guess maybe the other Jackson, Jackson Churio, would be harder to attain because even if there's been a slight like, oh, he's treading water and hasn't gotten better yet, you know, than the second year, he's still hitting homers and stealing bases. Like he'll still get pretty close to 30-30.

Yeah. Chorio is at $23 in the Fangrafts player radar right now. He'd be harder to pry out of somebody's hands. Hitter number 25 on the season, that was with like a little bit of a slump in, I think it was late April, early May. The days and weeks, I'm not going to lie everyone, the days and weeks have been blurring together for me just a little bit. If it seems like I'm a little off with when things happen this season,

there's a good reason for that. And I'm trying, trying my best. I really am. It doesn't seem like it, but I am. I really am. Doesn't seem like it, but I am. If you're in business, you'd expect money movement to be easy. And it is with Visa Direct. Collect, hold, convert, and send payments between more than 195 countries, 160 currencies,

and over 11 billion cards, accounts, and wallets effortlessly and securely move money your way. Learn more at visa.com slash visa direct. Let's move on to our weekend waiver preview. We'll start with the bats like we always do. We'll continue with our new format, a bit of a would you rather as we roll along. And I like that you, you put these leaderboards together with just all the names that we're going to talk about. So we'll pop that up on the screen.

If you're watching us on YouTube at the top, we're always talking about the guys that are under 80% rostered this week. These are the movers from CBS guys that are there being added a lot or dropped a lot. So usually it's like a percentage roster. Who's that Cleveland guy at the top? I can't see are being added a lot or dropped a lot. So usually it's like a percentage roster rate shift. Who's that Cleveland guy at the top? I can't see. 8 plus percent.

That's David Fry. Oh, David Fry. That's right. David Fry getting blocked by the counter that we have on our side of the screen. He's very, very low rostered right now, so we'll get to him in just a few minutes, but we're talking about guys like Josh Young, Addison Barger, Kyle Stowers, Brenton Doyle. This group this week is mostly guys who are falling in roster eight. The only one going up is Barger up to 64% now at that combination of third base and

outfield eligibility. I do think it's interesting seeing him right next to Josh Young, a guy that I've been waiting on for a full healthy season for a couple of years. I feel like in all my keeper leagues, Josh Young keeps finding his way onto rosters. And the great news this season, he's played 60 games already. The less than great news is that he's just been sort of OK. Kind of looks more like what we saw last year around the injuries,

almost the same slash line instead of the 200 Isos that he was running upon arrival in 2022 and then throughout that entire 2023 season as well. So are we just seeing the range of outcomes across the big league career so far? And are you more into the pre-24 version of Young? Do you think that's actually attainable or did I overshoot expectations? Cause I thought there was maybe a 30 homerun ceiling. I actually thought some of his comps with improved play discipline could be as high as Austin Riley.

And now I'm starting to get just a little bit nervous about putting that kind of ceiling on Josh Young. Yeah, the bat speed has gone down for him in consecutive seasons. And there's some, some of it has to do with where he's getting the ball. He's not getting the ball out in front as much. But I think there's actually maybe a slight slowing of the bat there.

It is within the range where like I think he could get it back if he was healthy. And at 70.6 miles per hour hour it's still round league average. There's plenty of guys who hit homers in that area. So I don't think there's anything he can't get back but I do wonder if we just shave a little bit off the top of our expectations of what a ceiling is. And then when you do a straight would you rather between him and Addison Barger like at this point I would if I knew they both had jobs and They both were just everyday players for their organizations I would take Addison Barger because I see similar plate skills summer strikeout rate contact rates, and I just see

premium bat speed premium barrel rate from barger So I would expect him to hit more homers, you know, given the same amount of playing time. There's been a little bit of, you know, lineup changes in Toronto recently and I want to just check the page because I've seen Barger show up as a pinch hitter. I believe in a box score he didn't play against the lefty on the 5th and he didn't play yesterday or he didn't play the 11th against the lefty. So Bart is not in a full platoon where he doesn't ever play against lefties but there

are days where they fit Ernie Clement in over him against lefties. So that's a little bit of playing time risk. I think that Josh Young is a little bit more of a set it and forget it guy. It looks like he's taken one day off in the last three weeks. Yeah, I think the thing that changed for the Jays was the somewhat recent return of Andres Jimenez from the IL bumps Clement back into that needs to play utility role. And then you get a tough lefty especially. I think tough lefties will be days off for Barger sort of going forward. And then maybe all lefties at some point,

depending on what Clement's providing with the bat, maybe depending on who's pitching that day, if they prefer Clement as the better defensive option of the two, but that would be the one thing that works in Josh Young's favor. It really seems like he's still, he's the guy and he was a little banged up at the beginning of the season too, so maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe this is an underwhelming

first half that is partially attributed to health, but they look one day off for Josh Young since April 7th. I mean, basically since he's come back, he's played every day except for one. They have a pretty hilarious bench. Every non-catcher on their bench is right-handed. And so it looks like Addison Barger and Andres Jimenez are in a platoon and possibly as well Alan

Rodin with Mael Straub. I thought Rodin, his ship had sort of sailed. He's up. I mean, they're trying to mix and match with Varsho out and Klaus is a switch hitter, but it's just, it looks like they almost have a line change. If you look at their lineups, when, when their lefties are in the entire bench plays Clement Heinemann, Strahd, Schneider. So, uh, blue Jays are not a good place to be looking for a full playing time

from anybody other than Bichette Springer, uh, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. We actually talked a lot about the Rockies on Thursday's show, thanks to Hunter Goodman and Jordan Beck being under discussed bats for us so far this year. Bretton Doyle is slipping in roster rates, rostered in about two-thirds of leagues, and I think he was closer to 95 or 100% rostered when the season began. The K-rate has stayed down. Last year he improved that from 35% to 25.4, so it's not more swing and miss. Quality of contact is actually up. Best hard hit rate we've seen,

44.4%. Getting to the barrel rate at 12.5%. That's a career best as well. 747 is a base dealer, only five homers, and the slash line's ugly. And we're talking 208, 267, 333 so far. Projections have dipped for him, but they still point to a guy that would be on at least a 2020 sort of pace over a full season with these flaws. So I'm curious what you're doing with Doyle and Shadow Leagues. Like if you see him pop up on the wire, are you finding a way to get him on your roster, seeing the quality of contact being up and the K-rate staying down? Yeah, I think he should have a 250 batting average at least, and I think he should be

usable at home. In a head-to-head situation, I'd love to have him daily lineups head-to-head, 12 team. I would love to have him as a guy I plug in, you know, when he's in the cores. So I'm a little surprised he's out there. You know, it's a pretty, there's like the old school analysis of just like, look at his batting average on balls and play. Why is it 258? He plays in cores. I think you could do just that and, and see that he should have better days ahead.

Yeah. So a little surprised to see that number dip to 63% rostered in CBS leagues. I would rather have him than anybody on this list not named Addison Barger and Addison Barger and Josh Young are just completely different players. You know, you're playing him at third base and you're playing them for power. Bretton Doyle is the best player on this list for power and speed in a combo. So he should be owned universally I feel like almost. I mean the only other player that I could put it up in a hoji rather is Jesus Sanchez

right and in terms of like you know these are guys that can go 2020-2015 something like that. But Sanchez is a little bit harder because you don't you don't want to play him at home that badly, you know, and he's not going to play against lefties. So his home situation is not going to help him. It's nice when a home situation helps him because it's just very easy to remember when to play them. With Sanchez, you have to be like, no, don't play him against lefties and try to play him a little bit more on the road. You know, I'd rather have Doyle. That Asu Sanchez, that is a guy that should be in San Diego.

There's your corner outfield help. You need a left fielder Padres Asu Sanchez. Yeah, I like that one. Just a reasonably good fit and, you know, not not going to cost you a ton via trade, I think, given what we've seen from him overall. Even the last year, I mean, 18 homers, 16 steals, good quality of contact. I think we've seen over the course of his career, he's basically a league average bat and he plays a corner most of the time.

So it's fine. It's just not going to change a lot of your fortunes if you're in Miami. I think the other name you could comp to doil though is Joe Adele. We've talked a lot about him in recent weeks. Low average power speed. The question of the speed is getting healthy again. Much like the Jackson Merrill comment from earlier, I think it takes some guys like this

who have nagging injuries, the all-star break, as their only opportunity without an IELTS stint to rest and maybe feel good enough to bring back that facet of their game. Like if we're gonna see an uptick in stolen bases from Adele, it's probably after mid-July. Yeah, Adele has something going on. I need to check his bat tracking real quick because why is the Babbitt blow for him?

It's not his... The types of fly balls. He hits it hard. It's not his bat speed of fly balls. He hits it hard. It's not as bad speed as elite bad speed. His attack angles are okay. It's not as tilt. He does let the ball travel a lot, which is a little weird for somebody like him. But I guess the reason if you're a Joe Dell, you want to let the ball travel a lot is you have elite bad speed and you have poor contact skills right? So you don't want to necessarily make that decision to swing super early and then strike

out 40% of the time. So I think that he's doing pretty good in terms of what his strategy should be. What is his infield fly ball rate? Like what? Yeah, there it is. There's a certain amount of pop-ups. He pops the ball up. I don't know if he deserves to have a 231 bap. If he could flatten out that swing a little bit or just not pop the ball up so

much, he could have a 230 batting average or 300 OBP. I'm not asking for the world here. Just any improvement in his speed and, uh, Babbitt would go a mile for him because he's already just almost barely usable. I'd still have Doyle over Adele pretty easily. Okay. So you got a gap between them. The only other outfielder that I think is kind of in the conversation, Evan Carter, I was worried when he came back up earlier this season, it was going to take time for him to get healthy and start producing again. The limited sample we've seen now in the big leagues is actually really good. K rate down at 15.4%, barrel rate

up to 12.5%, four homers, five steals and six attempts. It is only 65 plate appearances, in six attempts. It is only 65 played appearances. But are we starting to see Evan Carter physically get right and get back to being the player he was in that very limited sample at the end of 2023? He's just not as good of, I know it's hard to say because he's in the 93rd percentile for sprint speed. So Evan Carter is fast, but he's not as good of an athlete overall as Brendan Doyle. I mean, he just doesn't swing the bat as hard. And so I don't quite believe in the power the same way. And the other thing that is interesting about Evan Carter is we just haven't had, since he's been up, a test case of how many lefties he's faced.

He's only faced, there's only been one lefty, the team has faced one lefty since he's become an everyday player and he didn't play So I don't know that he is a set in for a forget it guy So in weekly leagues you're like do I sit him when he sees two lefties in a half week? That's a question that has not been answered for me on top of that. I think his true talent power is much lower than Doyle's On top of that, I think his true talent power is much lower than Doyle's. And he just seems to have this like injury bug where I, you know, he's projected to have 11 more steals. And finish the season sort of near 15, 15, 15, 16.

I don't know. I don't know if I believe it. I feel like there's going to be a hamstring injury or something. I just I've been burned. I've I've had I've had shares of Carter in my keeper leagues and I've been waiting forever it feels like. You have to be careful though. Sometimes you just have to wait a little bit longer, right? You just have to wait a little bit longer and then you get what you want. That's that easy. Just wait a little bit longer. He's sitting on that 12 team dynasty where I have way too many players and I have to drop players to make moves and I'm trying not to drop them. I'm trying not to drop them.

That's exactly those leagues I think are, they're more fun than I used to give them credit for because they force you to make a tough choice. Like the game should have some reasonably tough choices in it. And I think Evan Carter in a 12 team keeper league is a tough choice. It's a good problem to have. You dropped Spencer Steer before I think Evan Carter in a 12 team keeper league is a tough choice. It's a good problem to have. You dropped Spencer Steer before you dropped Evan Carter, right? Yeah, because I think Spencer Steer is

currently playing hurt and Evan Carter used to be hurt. And I also think the age gap plus the possible ceiling of Carter is a little higher. So yeah, I'd be, I'd be leaning Carter there. Yeah, that's how I'm leaning.

You wanted an answer to the, is he going to play against lefties? So the weekend series they have is against the White Sox, all right-handed starters. Looks like it's Hauser, Savallé, Shane Smith. And the next series they have against the Royals is one lefty with Reagan's hurt, they'll get Bubich. So maybe that's a day off for Carter because that's a good lefty and then Lugo and Waka, he'd be in for those. The series after that, one lefty, Burroughs, Keller, Bailey, Falter, I think if they wanted to be an everyday player or near everyday player, he's getting that start against Falter. I don't think you get your answer until that week because the next series after that is at the Orioles where it'd be Morton, Sugano, and Cade Povich.

So if he's playing against lefties like Falter and Povich. I think that's a really good sign. If he's sitting against both of them on top of Boobich, then I think you have your answer that they don't intend to give him short term opportunities against lefties. Yeah, it has something to do with the urgency to win and the willingness to focus on developing players at this point. And they're right on that line. Yeah, living right there.

I was a little surprised to see Connor Norby, 33% rostered right now. Like, we're a little excited about him back during draft season. I know he was banged up to start the year as well. Common refrain for a lot of guys we're talking about today. And what we're seeing from him right now is not on the same level of what we saw post-trade last season, but there's some power, there's some speed, and I just don't see any reasonable threats to his playing time.

What reason could the Marlins have to not keep playing Connor Norby a lot outside of an injury? I think it's a skills thing. I think he's just caught thing. I think he's just caught in that situation where he's valuable in the deeper leagues, but in the shallower leagues, people can see the strikeout rate, the pretty bad swing strike rate. 17.4% is a bad swing strike rate. And then they see the 345 Bavin go, oh, wow, this batting average could go down. bat and go, oh wow, this batting average could go down. And then the park is not really supporting his power. And at 8.6% barrel rate, the 108 max EV for Norby, the power numbers have always

been a little bit borderline for him. He doesn't have elite power. He has decent game power supported by iffy bad ball stats. And you put those two together in Miami and you have a 127 ISO for normie right now, it's hard to be like, oh yeah, he's about to hit a bunch of homers. So the whole combo kind of smells a little bit like it could be a true talent 240, you know, 12, 10 guy. It's like, you know, what kind of leads that matters in. Yeah, it's 15 plus generally for, for most situations. And then maybe a heavy schedule week, you're throwing them in there as a streamer.

If you need some help as a injuries or something impact you at third base, I do want to follow up on Ronnie Mauricio real quick, because this time last week, we were just talking about the fact that he's simply in the picture again for the Mets, now that we've seen it play out for about 10 days since he returned from a long stint on the IL, two days off so far out of the first nine possible games,

both against righties. So we're talking seven out of every nine games he starts. As much as I like Mauricio and as tooled up as he is, I think that also makes him a little trickier to roster in weekly leagues. Digging leagues with daily moves, I'm a little more interested, even if it's more of a medium sized, like a 12 team league.

I think Ronnie Mauricio does enough things well, as long as Mark Vientos is on the shelf, at least to play nearly 80% of the time and maybe actually cash in on that playing time. Yeah, I think he's a better bat than Jared Young. And I think that's what's playing out. Jared Young's opportunities are slowing down. And Mauricio is a switch hitter so

there's not really a reason to like play young over Mauricio. And yeah, there are definitely some nice underlying power numbers for Mauricio. I think he's going to scratch himself out a career. I don't know if it's a top end career, you know. I don't know if he'll ever have even a 320 OVP. And that's going to rob him of maybe some opportunities to play every day or to play every day on a contender. I could see him being traded and that might be good for him this year. I could see him being traded. He could easily be showcasing his abilities for a deadline trade for the Mets right now because you have Vientos, you have Beaty even. I think you'd keep Beaty over Mauricio if you were the Mets, right?

Ooh, you're Mauricio-pilled. Yeah, I am. I kept him in Devil's Rejects, so I have to keep convincing myself that that wasn't a bad decision. And it probably was a bad decision based on how long it took him to come back from the knee injury. But I'm tempted at this point to see where it goes with Mauricio, if I'm making that decision. I think I'd be more likely to move on from Beatty if I were in the position of David Stearns. I'm on the Beatty side, but yeah, we may see an answer to this one. That'd be fun.

That could be a fun little rates and barrels angle on the trade deadline this year in New York. Yeah, we'll see who comes out on top of that one. Way in, get a little poll going, maybe in the episode discussions channel of the Discord. Let's move the focus over to some pitchers. We've talked about Jacob Mizorowski making his debut. We talked about the news a little earlier this week. What more do you want from a pitching prospect? He was touching 102 with the extra adrenaline in the first inning and

I'm watching it just with the grin ear to ear, but also just that little twinge of nervousness you get when you're watching someone fly that close to the sun. I think the command overall was probably a little better than I expected prior to the season, but in line with what you put in your head based on the scouting reports and everything we know about Mizorowski at this point, through a couple of change-ups, only a few, and those were kind of nasty. I wonder if as he gets more comfortable with that pitch, it's a new grip for him this year. Kurt Hogue from the Journal Sentinel had a nice breakdown of Mizorowski prior to the debut.

As he gets more comfortable with that pitch, I get the feeling we might see it more because I think the models like it if I understand some of the reporting correctly. And that, in addition to the feel for it, would be really important for him just to throw off timing a little bit. I mean, everything he throws is hard.

Like the curve is even 87.9. It's just absurd. This guy feels like a cheat code. Oh my gosh. The extension. I know Nick Pollack is just salivating right now because the extension on that pitch he had a 7.5 foot extension. I mean part of it is he's a tall dude. He's 6'7 yeah. He's 6'7, he gets down the mountain. He basically profiles, you know he

profiles pretty similarly to his Logan Gilbert except Logan Gilbert has better command right? So Jacob Mizorowski, hard slider, Logan Gilbert except Logan Gilbert has better command, right? So, Jacob Mizorowski, hard slider, Logan Gilbert hard slider, you know, big extension, maybe not ideal shape on the fastball but good velo on the fastball and then Gilbert found his change up in the splitter this year and that's been a big deal for him. So I think there's also, they share some risk factors that we just talked about and that you were alluding to is the fact that Jacob Mizorowski throws his slider 94 miles an hour. So whether you look at fastball velocity or breaking ball velocity, you know, there's

a little bit of, whoa, you see, you know, and I hate, I hate on social media, you post the 102 mile an hour thing. And one of the first responses is it's going to be hurt. One scheduled the TJ. I just hate that because it's like, like let's just enjoy it while we have it. Like, do we have to do this? It's like, do we have to like look at a pitch that's nasty

and, and, and, you know, tweet ball? Like we just, like, let's just enjoy it. Mizorowski doesn't have great command, but I do think he can be in that Snell sort of area. Not that they have that many similarities in how they throw or whatever, but that Snell makes a high walk rate work by suppressing balls and play, by suppressing home runs,

and by striking a ton of guys out. So if he can keep that strikeout rate north of 30, and I think with a 94 mile an hour slider and a 100 mile an hour fastball, and that 87 mile an hour curveball is just the nastiest, one of the nastiest pitches in baseball, like immediately. And then that possible change, I do think there is a Snell blueprint here for, you know, throw the fastball high, throw the

breaking ball low, walk guys rather than give up homers and, you know, have have lines like he had yesterday. And for what's worth like, this is a this is who you throw against the Dodgers, not Aaron Savali. I think that's the decision they made internally. Right. If you want to beat the best lineups in the league, especially in October, but you got to get there first. But if you want to beat those teams, this is the kind of stuff you need in your rotation. You don't have that, then you're kind of playing that coin flip game and you got to produce more

with your lineup too. And you're putting a lot of pressure on your bullpen too where you're like, you know, you can do what the Tigers did every non-Skoolville game, you know, but does that work every year? It worked for them to a certain point and then it didn't work and it is a lot of stress to put on your bullpen. You can win a couple series like that, but it's really hard to get all the way through. The Dodgers made it work that one time, but I would say that that was barely worked. They've been stretching it, to put it mildly.

Mick Abel is also in the conversation again because of that update we had earlier in the week about the areonola injury. Abel actually lines up for a two-star week next week. He'll go at Miami and home against the Mets. So that's going to draw interest even in shallow leagues. Very happy. I have him already and this was exactly the kind of future I foresaw, which is I didn't necessarily foresee that something bad would happen to Nola, but just that like there could be this situation where Nola gets right and Ranger Suarez goes down or you know, whatever it is We just saw Luzardo have like two bare terrible games in a row wouldn't have been crazy for him to be like

Oh my hamstring hurts, you know what I mean? So I just thought that Mick Abel being the sixth starter right now and having the stuff he had Would lead to a situation like this. I knew there'd be a two-star coming. I did not pitch him against the Cubs, which I thought was a tough matchup, but I came out of that still thinking, hey this is a good player that I want to keep on my roster going forward. And another thing that McAbel shows us is that there is a debut velocity bump. He sat 97 in his debut and had a 114 stuff plus, which is great. You love it. And think about this with Jacob Mierzyrowski. In his second start, he had a 95 mile an hour fastball velocity and a 109 stuff plus,

which is still good. Still good. You know, four pitch mix, five pitch mix. Still a lot of reason to like mcgable, but that's something to think about with Mizorowski is he's probably not going to like sit a hundred in his next outing. I mean, I think it's better for him long-term. It's better if he doesn't. It felt like we were seeing the max, especially at the beginning of that outing. You're like, all right, get the get the nerves down, get a little relaxed and get in there at like 98, 99 and reach back for the triple digits

when you need it, right? Like that is the better, safer, seemingly cruising speed. If you can even get there. McAbel is my favorite pickup on this list. I would you I would I would you rather him over everybody. And including Mizorowski? I think maybe the command issues with with Mizorowski are worse than they were with Abel. I mean Abel did was a little bit up and down like in the Cubs game he did walk through guys but

although Mizorowski's ability to just take the rotation job and you know, yeah, okay. All right. Mizorowski over Abel, but those are the two guys. And then from the reliever standpoint, Shelby Miller, I don't know why there's, there's very few relievers. I want that are on the wire right now. I want Shelby Miller over Randy Rodriguez. As much as I love Randy Rodriguez, I don't think Deval is necessarily just about to lose that job. Right. I saw Jordan Romano was one of the relievers whose roster rate was falling.

He's at like 62% right now. That's a pretty easy swap to Miller if that's a decision you get to make, isn't it? I would do it. I don't trust Romano. What are you doing with Ben Kasparis where available, I think the way they're using him is frustrating. A lot of folks looks like he's lined up, though, for a start against the Padres coming up here five days from now. So that'd be like what Wednesday home star, at least tough matchup, but at home.

And then he gets the Rockies on the road if he stays in the rotation. It's not a good schedule. I mean, yeah, the same yoga game could go either way, and Fangraphs has Robleski and Kasperius and Saur in the rotation right now. Oh yeah. Things are going great for the Dodgers rotation. Anyway, I like Kasperius of those three, the best. And so if they start winnowing that down and bringing guys back and, um, you look up and one of the three is still in the rotation later, I think it's Kasperius. So I think it's a long-term play.

This is like the Mick Abel. If you can pull it, it's like the Mick Abel two or three weeks ago play where you try to get Kasperius for five six bucks knowing that you wouldn't necessarily play him in his first or maybe even second week. Yeah, it's the function I think of Tony Gonsolin joining the group of injured Dodgers pitchers recently. So you got Yamamoto, May, Kershaw, Kasparis, Robleski if they're going to use six sour otherwise they can just use five or a little wild,

but never a dull moment. He'll stick over Robleski. He should. He has one guy. I think he has a great, great stuff. I love his repertoire. I think he has two fast balls, two breaking balls. Everything's hard.

Everything's good. He's struck guys out. And he's another guy that like everyone said, Oh, he doesn't have enough command. And now he's demonstrated enough command for me. What are you doing with Luis Ortiz? I know he's been a longer term player of interest because of the model and this weekend, he'll start against Seattle on the road. So the next start if you're in the weekly league is actually on the road in Sacramento. What's your level of fear throwing pitchers in Sacramento given the form of the A's

balanced against the warming ballpark in the summer months? Really high, really high. Fear factor high. Fear of DEFCON 1. Whatever it is. I just saw Mission Possible. I think it goes the other way, doesn't it? No, I think it's 1.

I gotta check the scale. Oh, whatever. Luis Ortiz is just the kind of guy that I want to use in good matchups. That's it. Because the command is bad. The arsenal is interesting. It's fairly wide, multiple fastballs, a change up that he's improved in Cleveland and a good slider.

But the location, he just comes and goes. And it's hard to even pick the right time. If you play the, let's look at his game log. We didn't name for this, maybe even a sponsor, the avoid landlines game. Hindsight is 2020 brought to you by Warby Parker. There you go. I like that one. Let's say, well, you wouldn't have played him in New York against the Yankees. Well, you missed five and two thirds with seven strikeouts, three walks and no earn. So good job there. You'd say, well, I would definitely play him in Washington against

the Nationals. Well, you shouldn't have done that. I was five and a third with five earned runs and four strikeouts. What about Phillies at home? Oh, just one on run nine strike. I mean, he is erratic. I don't I don't actually see a clear rubric. I would just I think I would just try to avoid the bad teams. At least he was good against Pittsburgh.

He was good against the Royals, you know, so I would I would just try to avoid the bad teams. At least he was good against Pittsburgh. Uh, he was good against the, the Royals, you know, so I would, I would just focus on, on things like that. Like easy matchups that you think are easy. You know, you're right about the DEFCON grades, by the way, I always root for DEFCON five because that's peace. DEFCON one is a nuclear. So, you know, maybe we'll say two and something's really bad. I think one we're not going to use for baseball analogies because that's just a bridge too

far. Man, this is a rough week if you don't go big sifting through the bottom of the board. There is one more reliever that we should talk about. Grant Taylor is up for the White Sox. I'm a little surprised they aren't continuing to develop him as a starter this year, but there is a pretty extensive injury history and maybe they think they can do some Garrett crochet type stuff with him in the long run, use him as a reliever for a while, stretch him out later. I mean, who knows what their actual plans are, but he's electric. If you want a new front runner to get whatever saves are available in that White

Sox bullpen, Grant Taylor should be quickly moving to the top of that pecking order. Yeah, I guess they're maybe just nervous about innings. I mean, he had 38 and two thirds innings. No, no, I just added things together. He had 19 innings in 2024. Yeah, he was coming off TJ. So he's already at 28 innings this year. Maybe they're just like, we're just going to try and massage him to 75

so that maybe he can do 125 next year or something, 120 or something, you know? Yeah, and I guess if you're them, you're kind of like, we know he's a big leaguer and he'll get better, faster facing big league hitters. Like he'll be a better starter in the long run if he's going to brought along in three, four, five, six batter outings for the rest of this season. So I could see it being, being actually a good long-term choice. I was just surprised by X.

I thought they'd keep going a little longer with a traditional starter usage. I think you in like deeper leagues where you're looking for a closer, I think you could actually put a couple of bucks on him because Steven Wilson, Dan Altavilla, Brandon Iser, I'm left cold by that group. And they've been, they already gave a hold to Grant Taylor. So he's already in the mix and he has the best stuff with a bunch. Anybody else on that board that you're excited about

as a possible pickup this week, where available? I think Luis Severino should be on all teams, but you remembered my fear factor for Oakland. I think he's an away play. Maybe you can risk it for the biscuit against a couple of home, like weak opponents at home but just looking at his game log Minnesota Baltimore at home you know the good the good ones he's had at home has been the angels he's had a good start against the home the White Sox is all right the Mets was okay but generally his blowups have come on the road they're've come up at home and on the road He's been a pretty usable pitcher

So I would keep love Luis Severino on my roster if I was able to Roster a guy that I only pitched away from home And more like mid-sized leagues with first-come first-serve sorts of moves You can just use it use the waiver wire as an extended part of your bench or someone else wants to burn the roster spot Permanently you can let them do that. At Kansas City is the matchup today on Friday, so you would probably pick them up and use them for that. Probably you don't want to use them for the next one that's home against Houston and then

the following matchup on the 25th of June would be on the road against the Tigers. So yeah, kind of the typical in and out streamer. Yeah. The strikeout rate is so low, 16.6% strikeout rate. How did Luis Severino become this guy? Yeah, that's really weird. But he has maintained a decent stuff number in the face of that and he has maintained pretty good results overall with a low strikeout rate and a high stuff number.

So I think if he wasn't pitching at home in Sacramento, he would have, he'd have normal numbers again. The other other guys that I like on this list are, you know, Chad Patrick, Shane Smith, Quinn Priester, you know, I think those are all interesting guys that, you know, the Shane Smith and Chad Patrick have good fastballs. They don't have good secondaries necessarily. And Quinn Priestor has good secondaries and not a good fastball. So obviously those three are all flawed.

But depending on matchups, I'll take them. And if I had to pick between Patrick and Priestester holding on to the job as maybe somebody like Logan Henderson comes back or they make moves, what would you think? I think they might actually just smush Patrick and Priester together into one spot because you know Patrick can go three innings and Priester can go three innings and get the most out of them. I don't, if you force me, I have to choose one. I'm going to choose Chad Patrick

because he has good fastballs. Okay. Yeah, I think that's reasonable. I think it's just going to be a matter of when they have injury problems again, that'll help solve it for them until then. They're covered full. I mean, they've got Ashby and DL Hall

and guys that can give them length, not even starting right now. So I think that to me is a little bit encouraging, but I think that's part of the question with Logan Henderson in leagues where you saw him pitch well and you're like, oh man, I'm so desperate for pitching. Do I hold him? Maybe like he could be the next guy into the rotation, especially with Savali gone.

One fewer starter on the depth chart means if someone gets hurt, Henderson's probably the first guy back up as opposed to maybe having a veteran from the bullpen cutting in front of him, but you're not getting anything out of Logan Henderson or the foreseeable future. We don't know when that's actually going to be. Right. So I think he's a hard hold right now. He's a really tough hole just because it could be, it could be several weeks or it could

be 10 days. We have absolutely no idea and Queen Priester's Up-and-down game log is is probably the place I'd be watching if you have Logan Harrison Logan Henderson watch Quinn Priesters next start. I mean, I think it is a borderline It's a borderline package you know it's it's a poor fastball with a good slider and he's maxing out the slider right now at 30,

40%. And just basically just going sinker slider and just being to heck with it. I'm just going to go sinker slider. That's just going to be what I do. And that usually doesn't lead to good results against lefties. So he could run into a team with great lefties and I think have really bad results. Yeah, the Cubs got him. I got Priester back on the 2nd of May as a seven run outing.

Since then, it's been a total of seven appearances. They're not all starts, but they've all been at least five innings. So he's had an opener in front of him, but he's giving them bulk. And I think having an opener in front of him gives him the little add win probability. It's the K rate that I'm still not sure about. I think it's a lighter K rate sort of profile. I think it kind of checks out 26 strikeouts in 38 in the third innings, even

in that span where he's pitched well with that 235 ERA. So that's a reason to like Patrick better too, I think. Better strikeouts, even though he's been cutter, cutter, cutter. It's like a baby burns. I not I'm not gonna put a lot there is not a burns don't don't don't say I put that in the don't put that in the paper. But you know that the paper baby burns Bryce elder and the only bread Ben Brown and Michael Sroga let's just fly by real quick Ben Brown the only model that likes him is K minus BB so only model that likes it I it's a powerful model it's a powerful model but I don't know to pitch guys that that's surprising that they hit it when they hit it they hit it hard that's that's my problem with him Soroka and elder I just think they're're boring. I think they're fine. If you like them in a matchup, that's fine. I don't see upside to jump past what they are now.

Yeah. Good breakdown of that group just shuffling in and out based on the schedule any given time. Patrick's K-rate has surprised me by the way, just looking back into the last five starts, 33 strikeouts and 26 in a third innings, even when Atlanta got them this week, five earned in five innings, he had eight Ks with 19 swinging strikes. So there's more ceiling there. There's a little more ceiling there than I thought when Patrick first showed up and he continues to surprise. His development, his arrival is part of the reason why that Savali trade we talked about up top was even possible in the first place. We are going to go on our way out the door. A reminder, you can join our Discord, the link

in the show description. You can find eno1bluesky, enocerous.besky.social, imdvr.besky.social. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening. I'm not asking for the world here. Just smashing the fourth wall. Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cash back, the most savings on your shopping.

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