Rates & Barrels - Cody Bellinger is a Yankee, Nolan Arenado Blocks a Trade & Christian Walker Blasts Off to Houston

Episode Date: December 21, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss Cody Bellinger's fit with the Yankees after the Cubs moved him in a trade earlier this week, and Matt Shaw's opportunity to take over the hot corner in Chicago. Plus, Christian Walker's move to the Astros on a three-year deal, Nolan Arenado's decision to block a trade to Houston, and a barrage of one-year deal including Max Kepler (Phillies), Griffin Canning (Mets), Michael Soroka (Nationals) and Tomoyuki Sugano (Orioles).  Rundown 1:58 Cody Bellinger to the Yankees 10:35 Matt Shaw's Opportunity in Chicago 14:59 Christian Walker's Move to Houston 20:10 Nolan Arenado Nixes a Trade to the Astros 29:30 Max Kepler to the Phillies 33:52 One-Year Deals for Griffin Canning, Michael Soroka & Tomoyuki Sugano 48:40 Eno's Final Hall of Fame Ballot Choices Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You know what's great about ambition? You can't see it. Some things look ambitious, but looks can be deceiving. For example, a runner could be training for a marathon, or they could be late for the bus. You never know. Ambition is on the inside. So that goal to beat your personal best? Keep chasing

it. Drive your ambition. Mitsubishi Motors. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Friday, December 20th. Derek VanRyfe for Innosaris here with you on this episode. We get you caught up on a lot of news from around the league. We've got a few trades and signings, mostly signings to talk about because free agency is rolling along. I'm still grateful that Juan Soto signed during the winter meetings because had that not gone down when it did, I think we could be in one of those brutal December lulls.

That is not the case whatsoever. Cody Bellinger has a new home, we'll talk about that. Christian Walker is on the move. Got a few pitchers landing in interesting places. We got no trade clauses being utilized, all sorts of good stuff. Eno's got to send in his Hall of Fame ballot soon. You still got what, eight days, 10 days to think about it?

I already got a gentle reminder from the Hall of Fame that it's due. I've got 11 days to send it, but I guess they want it. And I have nine of my possible 10 votes clicked and we'll talk about why the 10th is just so hard for me right now. So it's paper and you used ink. So those nine really are locked in, right? You're not gonna do a white out on a vote, are you?

Yeah, I had the thought like, oh, no, no, I'm not crossing something out on there. I wonder if not. Mr. Tibbs has ever spotted white out on a hall of fame ballot. I've never noticed it. You would considering the dot 1980s dot matrix printer ass. Hey, some things are so good. You just gotta let them be.

Don't change a classic. If you want to join us in our discord, we'll be hanging out there throughout the holidays, off and on, checking in. A lot of good conversation happening there. Link is in the show description. Let's start with the news though. Let's start with the Cody Bellinger trade.

The Cubs did actually get a player back, right? Cody Petit did go back to the Cubs, but this was basically a salary dump where the Cubs, once they made that move for Kyle Tucker, were probably plus one on position players, but certainly spending at a level that they maybe were uncomfortable with at the ownership level. So expectations that Bellinger was going to move only intensified. He lands in a great spot at Yankee Stadium. We talked about this as one of the best possible fits. The other angle here though,

just from how Cody Ballinger meshes in the Bronx is being a center fielder. At least being average in center field gives them a solution at a position where they were either going to keep playing Aaron Judge, who's been below average as a center fielder, or possibly put Jason Dominguez out there. And even Dominguez's defense and center has some question marks. So I think this provides

some stability and that you get three guys now playing in spots that are just flat out better for them. And that's without even digging into the impact of Cody Bellinger as a left-handed hitter moving into Yankee Stadium for half of his games. Yeah, I was just looking at this spray chart, which takes Cody Bellinger's balls from last year and just overlays them on the Yankee Stadium. You can see how, I mean, it looks like eight to 10 more homers. Of course, it doesn't work that way because Wrigley, the wind is famously important and the wind has affected some of those balls. Also this is all of his balls, not half of the balls in play that he would have hit.

So you know, Yankee Stadium is only going to be his home for half of the time. But you know, he doesn't have to deal with Mount Baltimore that much. Like he doesn't hit balls that with that direction. So he actually lines up pretty well for Fenway and Baltimore and definitely Yankee Stadium. So this is something that's right up his alley. He pulls fly balls. He doesn't pull them extremely hard and the bat speed may be falling off. I mean the reason this deal happened is because Cody Bellinger is only projected to be a slightly above average regular and he's due $50 million over the next two years. And that's a little bit above. It's kind of like right at what you would spend on that.

And you know, that's why they could have just put him on waivers and let him get claimed. But I do think he's a great fit for where he's going and for fantasy players, he's going to hit the upper ends of his power projections and he's now up to 23 homers projected. I think he could get close to the 26 that he hit in Chicago. I don't think he's going to steal a bunch of bases so I'd give him maybe a 250 average, 25 homers and 8 steals next year. Pretty good for runs on RBI so I think this is a good situation for him to land in. I don't know how he's going to age if he's only projected for two and a half

wins and that the market already sort of said he's only worth exactly his contract. If that, um, so, you know, there's some questions about how much dynasty value adds, how much long-term value he has, but for the Yankees, it's like, Hey, two years, um, for the clubs on the other hand, I think they may want to start discussions with Kyle Tucker on an extension, maybe during the season and not being on the hook for Cody Bellinger's next year, 25 million might've been just as important as this year's, you know what I mean?

Like, cause that's a player option. If they think he's most likely going to, you know, use that player option again. And we have to we have to have that 25 million on there. And on top of that, we have like six outfielders now. So it was a it was a kind of a fit situation. I think they would have loved to put Cody Bellinger in the deal back to the Astros. But I guess the Astros weren't into that on the other. Yeah. And, you know, as far as what Cody Poteet does,

he's like a 30-year-old lefty starter with a really poor strikeout rate. I looked at Stuff Plus, the new Stuff Plus has him at a 79 Stuff Plus, so I don't know. I think he's maybe a sixth starter that you can sneak onto the active roster as a lefty reliever.

Oh, Poteet's a righty. Oh, why did I say he's a, why did I think he was a, he should be a lefty with that name. It's a soft tossing, soft tossing name, soft tossing K-rate. Yeah, 93 mile an hour fastball, I just assumed. I don't know why, what you would do with him on the roster, but let's see if he has options left.

He has options left. So there you go. He is a six starter. You put in the minors for a year and model likes the slider. So you put them in the pen, maybe throws a little harder with the fastballs, a slider heavy guy and middle relief is also a possibility. It gives you some depth. It really was more about clearing the money than anything else. And yeah, having the possibility of extending Kyle Tucker certainly increases with the Bellinger money off the books again, because of the way they want to run their budget in Chicago. What I hope they don't do is spend the money on Alex Bregman. And that's not, I like Alex Bregman as a character and as a player in the short term. But, um, in terms of, um, his play,

I did some research today and looked at the fact that he, uh, he saw a 3% increase in balls in the zone this year, you know, three percentage points. So he saw a big increase in it. Only two guys, 30 and over saw a bigger increase. Their names are Nolan Arnado, um, and Nick Castellanos, two guys who've been rumored to be on the block, two guys who we don't think are going to age that well, two guys that nobody's really excited about the future for in here. Alex Bregman's out here asking for maybe close to $200 million contract. Um, I looked at all previous 30 year olds that had had large increases in,

um, in zone rates like this. And what I found was I found 33, six of them never were regulars again. Okay. That's basically the end of their career for six of them. Eight of them dropped more than 20 points in WRC plus the next year. So year three, right? You're one to year two is the big zone increase year three. Eight of them dropped more than 20 points of WRC plus and were might've been regulars, but we're not good ones the rest of their careers.

So almost half the sample basically was the end of their career. Now even among the ones that were okay in year three we had a lot of guys who weren't good again. Martine Prado in 2016 had one last good year and that was it. Alex Gordon in 2018 one last good year and that was it. Alex Gordon in 2018, one last good year and that was it. Um, Robbie Cano in 2018, one last year and that's it. So if you take an ad, even guys who were better in year three, who it still was the last good year of their career, you get past half of the sample.

Now I do think there's a difference between Alex Bregman and Nolan Aronado and Nick Cascianos. He's got a really small zone that he swings in. He's got a really good sense of the strike zone. He makes good contact. There are reasons to like it. He plays good defense. So I do think he'll be on the better range of this, but it is something to worry about. It is a reason, you know, we've seen the opposite of this, where there's a baseball perspectives piece that found that if pitchers start avoiding the heart of the zone, that's actually a sign of a breakout. You can actually start to see a breakout happening in the way that pitchers treat batters. And it makes total intuitive sense, you know? And so, of course,

the opposite is true. If they're just filling up the zone, if they're attacking you in the heart of the zone, they do not respect you. Or they think your bat slowed down. Yeah, there's, there's reasons, but sure. Yes. It's, it's a, it's a concern. Yeah. Definitely a concern.

Well, the other reason I don't want the Cubs to sign Alex Bregman, I guess it's twofold, one, my rooting interest, two more importantly, Matt Shaw. I think Matt Shaw is ready for the big leagues. I think we talked about the possibility of Shaw having a role once Esauk Paradeus got traded, but the more you look at Matt Shaw, I think the more you see a guy that could do a little bit of everything for us from a fantasy perspective and maybe a lot of everything. I saw some pretty aggressive grades on his tools from Eric Lungenhagen over at Fangraphs overall 55 future value, but you're talking about 60 raw power, 60 speed, already average defense with room to be an above average defender, even playing third base. That's sort of a newer position for Matt Shaw.

There's a lot to like here and it may be from day one. I mean, I think it's his job to lose as the depth chart is built right now. I think it's probably a good sign that Gio Urshela signed with the A's. It's just the kind of guy that could have signed with the Cubs that would at least delay the everyday opportunity for a player like Matt Shaw. So there's still a lot of off season left to go.

But looking at Matt Shaw right now from a pure fantasy perspective, sitting outside the top 200 overall in NFBC drafts this week, great value where he's going. A guy that I think could maybe be a rookie of the year contender in the National League. I think there's a lot of boxes he ticks that could put him in that conversation. Great strike zone judgment as well. Sub 20% K rates at each of his minor league stops, double digit walk rates last season at AA and AAA. So this is really is like one of the bigger internal winners of the off season, just based on things happening around him. Yeah. And traditionally projections,

too very close to league average or worse for rookies and Steamer has although Steamer is among the production systems that might be a little bit more upbeat about rookies you know in the in the in the pantheon of projection systems given all that a 250 average with 16 homers and 15 stolen bases 6% better than the average and plus defense. They say he can be an above average player right now.

So I do think that if looking at this depth chart for the Cubs that with the surgery for Nico Horner and the fact that they're looking at a rookie possibly at third base. They did say, uh, Jed Hoyer did say recently that he's not just going to hand it to him. But when you say something like that to somebody, you you're also acknowledging that they are the front runner, right? Um, I would maybe suggest that the Cubs signed somebody like a Josh Rojas. He's a left-hander. Uh. He's a left-hander. Shaw's a right-hander. Just gives you,

you know, a soft landing there. Maybe you do a platoon at third. He also has played second base and he could play second base for you if Nico Horner is delayed coming back. I don't think Josh Rojas is a great player, but he's projected to be about a one win player. And I think that could be something they could do. I think the rest of the money should be spent on pitching possibly a closer. I think a Tanner Scott would do a lot for this team and might be worth the expenditure.

The main competition for Matt Shaw as the rosters built right now is a rule five pick Gage Workman great defender has power Played it at double a for all of 2024 in the Tigers organization Also bats left-handed. So so maybe they keep him but he's like he's got a real problem with making contact Yeah, twenty seven point five percent k-rate at double a as a twenty four year old is the why was he available in the rule five draft? But there's power speed eighteen homers, 18 homers, 30 steals, 280, 366, 476, it was a 140 WRC plus for Gage Workman at Erie, so just got kind of bumped off that roster

in Detroit because of a little bit of a 40 man crunch, I guess, and could be an opportunity for the Cubs to at least get a solid bench option. That 27.5% strikeout rate was like the second best of his matinee career. So just to give you a sense of the other numbers are higher. That wasn't just hitting double A and struggling. That was just sort of the way it is.

But I'm all in on Matt Shaw right now at the current price for redrap purposes because it does sound like the additions will be somewhere else on the roster. The first ever 12 team college football playoff is set and you can join me, David Ubbin and me, two time national champion, Alabama, Damien Harris, and me, Chris Vanini, two time national champion in the college football 25 video game on until Saturday, the athletics college football podcast for all the

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Let's get to a deal that just went down on Friday. Christian Walker has agreed to a three year deal with the Astros. And this helps to answer a broader question. You were starting to kick around with the Astros. Like how good are they right now? Because the news of the week for Houston had been that Nolan Arundel blocked a trade to go there. And that may have been because of the uncertainty with Bregman, their decision to trade away Kyle Tucker. If you're Nolan Aronato, you probably want to play for a championship as opposed to being on a team,

I mean, floating for a wild card. But I think the Astros still have aspirations of winning the division. I think they still see themselves more as playing for now than playing for the future despite the Tucker trade. And this could be any number of reasons why Aaron Otto didn't want to go there, but Walker going there is great for them because he fills a clear and obvious need. And now that you had Christian Walker for three years, I assume you're going to move Isak Paredes over to third base as sort of your default combo on the corners. You and I talked about Walker, I think in the free agent predictions episode, and he made a lot of sense as a possibly less expensive option compared to

Pete Alonso because aside from the thumb, Christian is a very good defender a great defender at first base Yeah, yeah, and he's gonna be cheaper and the deal is gonna be shorter than it will be for Pete Alonso Just because of his age and those are the reasons why you might be worried about him He's 33 in eight months. So his seasonal year his seasonal age for this coming season is 34 So you're gonna have him for this coming season is 34. So you're going to have him for his 34, 35 and 36 seasons. There's, there's a lot of risks there. We know from Jeff Zimmerman's work that the projections for a player this old are less reliable. We know that at any moment they can get,

they can kind of go in the tank and also, you know, Walker himself has seen his strikeout rate rise, but I will say that he's been productive with this kind of strikeout rate in the past even his big sort of breakout rookie season He had a 25.7 percent strikeout rate Last year was 24 percent for Christian Walker so, you know, he is just more of a kind of a three true outcome guy at at the plate. And, um, he, sometimes he gets a little bit lofty with the swing 47% fly ball rate last year.

So he's not going to be a batting average guy, but I do think, you know, around a 330 OBP, um, you know, plus defense. Um, and then, you know, when you look at his batted ball stats in context, you don't even need to limit him to the limit, uh, first baseman. If you just look at the top 25 qualified hitters that are in the top 25 for both barrel percentage and hard hit rates. So do they hit the ball hard and do they hit the ball hard in the right angles?

Um, he's on this list. There's about 17 players. They're all like the best hitters in baseball. Judge Otani Soto at the top. Um, and if you say, you know, Christian Walker is going to be one of the worst players on this list, then you're saying that he will be, you know, Cal rally, Kyle Schwab, or Matt Chapman-esque. You know, and you know, Cal Raleigh aside, I think he's a little bit underappreciated, but that's the risk is he kind of goes to like a two 10 batting average.

It's still a really good hitter. You know, I think any team would want that. And I think the Astros in particular have prioritized contact over balls and play a little bit in power. And this is a way for them to maybe balance out their lineup. And if Paredes is not going to hit for a ton of power, he's going to make contact. Walker is kind of a foil to him where he's got a great sense of what to swing out of the plate.

He's going to drive what he can drive and he's going to swing and miss sometimes. So I think it's a I think it's a really good deal. I know that the strikeout rate's going up. He's old, but it was only a three year deal. Worse, I think the worst case scenario is he's pretty good next year. He's a little bit less good in year two and year three. You're looking already to improve upon it but maybe you can improve on them at the trade deadline or whatever it is and one last

graphic I want to throw up here is that old graphic that we had of the different positions this is pre this is post Kyle Tucker but pre the most recent signings and what you'll see is that the Astros had the worst first base situation. It's in bold and white there. The Astros had a one war situation at first base was the worst among contenders. And they just clicked that up, you know,

a few notches with this and they took their worst situation and made it better. And if you now look at the depth charts, the Astros are in a virtual tie or actually an actual tie and projected war with the Mets and are the fifth best team in baseball. So I wonder if Arnotto didn't make a mistake. It's hard to say because if he ends up with the Dodgers, then he's right. That seems that's like what everyone's saying on social media is that that's the gambit. He's just waiting for the Dodgers to get him out.

But the Dodgers, they only need him if he's like basically free. Like do they really need to spend on this kind of an upgrade off of Max Muncie? Like how much of an upgrade is he off of Max Muncie? Defensively, still quite a bit. Yeah. And then you play Muncie at second, as long as you feel good about that. And Gavin Lux is your super utility, I guess. And, and life goes on. So, I don't know. I think the bigger question with Aronado is just like, how much of his decline is health related? And then within the,

even the health related aspects of his decline, how much of his decline is health related and then within the, even the health related aspects of his decline, how much of that is reversible? How much of that heals? How much of that back problem that's plagued him? Really since the end of 2023, right? It wasn't just last season. It was the end of 23 where this first became an issue. How much, if any of that can go away over an off season

with the new strengthening program? We're talking about a guy who's already 33 years old. He's going to be 34 a few weeks after opening day in April. So I think he's a good player or a useful player at this point, but I don't know if we're getting a bounce back to even the 2023 level of power output. I don't know if that's necessarily coming and maybe it's more of a 18 to 20 Homer profile above average defense Decent contact skills, but really a guy you'd rather have hitting sixth in a really good order as opposed to being in the heart of the order yeah, he's a guy who has done some bat speed training with some weighted bats and He actually illustrates a little bit of a question that I had from a team is how sticky are

a little bit of a question that I had from a team is how sticky are weighted bat gains in bat speed and you know, do you basically have to make it part of your routine, you know, every, every day or every week or whatever to keep those things. Because if you look at our not as rolling bat speed last year, he peaked at around average, but it was really, really bad. He was like, you know, bottom 10th percentile in bad speed last year. And he had a pretty impressive run where he pushed his bad speed to average and then it fell off.

So that just makes me feel like maybe some aspects of that training are unsustainable given the state of his body. You know, like maybe these, maybe, you know, maybe it takes a toll on your body to do bats, be training that way. Um, maybe, I mean it does make sense if you're swinging the bat really hard, you have to decelerate too. There's all parts of the oblique, the back, all sorts of things that come into play. So, um, and then we'd have the pitchers telling us they're not afraid of him anymore.

Right. You mentioned him earlier. He was one of those guys that saw that big increase in pitches inside the strike zone. It's coming off of a season, I don't know if it's coming off a season, a career worst barrel rate, 3.2%, career worst hard hit rate, 31.2%. So yeah, on the one hand, I'll always be happy for the players that earn the no trade clause and have it. You have it, use it. You don't want to go to Houston.

You don't want to go to Milwaukee. You don't want to go wherever. Use it. That's your right as a player. I'm just looking at him and saying, okay, how much of an upgrade is he? And thinking about that chart from before, which teams need help at third base? Okay, look, the Brewers have the worst third base situation in the league. If Nolan Aronato is free, they're better off with Aronato than probably what's behind door number two.

That's fair to say. The Mariners might be in that situation. Even the Dodgers are kind of borderline in terms of projection that they have there now. It's bolded. Bottom three among contenders. Yeah, like 2.8 war is what he's projected for by Steamer, so he'd be a slight upgrade, but not the upgrade that you would have expected at other points in his career. The money situation is that I believe. He's owed like 75 million for the next three years, but the Rockies are paying 10 of it.

So you've got three years, 60 million, I believe. That's where it gets a little hairy, too, 60 million, I believe. That's where it gets a little hairy too. It's like, maybe you like them for this year, but you don't necessarily like them for 26 and 27 as well. It's an extended version of the Bellinger thing, where it's, oh, okay. That's why the returns are gonna be underwhelming.

If the Cardinals find a situation he wants, it's gonna be just as light as what you saw the Cubs get back for Bellinger. It'll either be somebody the Cardinals find a situation he wants, it's going to be just as light as what you saw the Cubs get back for Bellinger. It'll either be somebody the Cardinals can put on their roster, like a Cody Poutite, like somebody who's like, doesn't have much upside, but like, you know, fits right in. Or it'll be like a 17 year old in April. Right. So I'm a very far away, a low probability of even being a big leaguer. That's just the nature of what you're going to get. I do think that the Cardinals had to throw money in.

I think it's a little bit past where Bellinger is. I don't think, I don't think if, if Arnott went on the market right now, did you think somebody would give him three and 60? Hmm, not quite. No, because, because of the market really values batted ball stats like Christian Walker has. They don't really value like defense at third base. Yeah. Not, yeah, not to that level.

And again, it's still the defense still grades out good, but how much will the lack of availability potentially increase in the next couple of years too? He's been gutting through it over 600 plate appearances each of the last four seasons. Maybe it's just the long-term wear and tear is finally caught up on our now as well. Or maybe it's playing through injury and he's, he's out there. Maybe it's a little bit like Manny Machado.

We've seen Manny Machado play not poorly, but not as great as he could because he he's out there and he's hurt. People talk about having a high pain threshold as you know, it can be a good and bad, you know, he's out there and he's hurt. People talk about having a high pain threshold as it can be good and bad. He's out there maybe playing through pain. I think the Brewers could get to the table if it was three and 45. I mean, how much did they spend on Reese Hoskins last year?

I should know off the top of my head. It was like two and 30. Something close to that. Two and 34. I don't know. It was like two and 30, something close to that. Two and 34. I don't know. It's a dark horse at least. I think they're players for Bregman. If Bregman's market drifts on into January, it gives me some Lorenzo

Kane vibes a little bit where, you know, they signed Lorenzo Kane because they valued centerfield defense and the core skills he had as a hitter and it was a five year deal. And by the time year five rolled around, it, you know, it wasn't working out then, but it worked out really well for most of the first three years. I think you could see something similar where Bregman could end up there.

He might get the number of years he wants or the total dollars he wants closer to that later. I bet you more like he gets the AAV and it's a little shorter. Like it's a more kind of like the Cody Ballinger deal in Chicago, you know, where there's some opt outs and you know, it's short. Like a three, three, four, 85 or something with an opt out or yeah, something like that. Maybe it looks like four and a hundred, but there's an,

there's an opt out in there where the, you know, the brewers are like, yeah, he'll probably take that opt out, you know. So, yeah, I think that the Brewers are an interesting team and then the Astros are an interesting team. Like I think they don't get enough credit for being basically a top five team, top six team in baseball right now. And maybe we don't like, you know,

some of the moves they've made in terms of why did you get rid of Kyle Tucker? But on the other hand, maybe it's easier for them to go and find some outfielders, especially after they've, you know, I do think that a Christian Walker, situation is probably better than Jose Breyew, John Singleton and Alex Bregman, at least in year one, you know, and with Paredes, they have him for a little bit longer and Paredes might be a great fit just in the same way that Bregman was. He's just going to hit to the Crawford boxes. So, you know, they're a top 16 right now. And their outfield is Chas McCormick, Jake Myers and Taylor Tramiel. You know, and if you look at what's available in the outfield,

you know, this Te Oskar Santander. I don't think they'll do Jock Peterson because they've talked about wanting to put your down Alvarez more DH. But yeah, they need guys. They need to add a guy that can play a lot in the outfield because Jordan should really only play there a little. That's where I'm at with the options. So a lot of those top end, like second tier outfielders that we see as below average defenders

that will likely have to DH a lot, even on a multi-year deal, right? It's not totally unlike the situation the Dodgers have with Otani sort of taking that spot. Alvarez is mostly a DH for Houston and now that you've got Walker for three years at first base, you've really limited yourself as far as how you can get guys to fit. But still, there are your options. I bet you they re-signed Hayward. Bring him back.

Just bring him back and put him in a platoon with somebody in one of those corner outfield situations. Jake Myers plays enough good you know, good defense. And I don't think they're done. I don't think they're done. There's the outfield is, uh, doesn't look like one for a contender. I actually think Max Kepler would have been a good fit for Houston. He ends up in Philadelphia, which could also be fine because we had a corner

outfield as one of the spots flagged Philly's corner outfield as a clear area of need. Oh yeah. If you, if you throw that up there, it's, it's last. Look at that. It's bold and white. And look, the Astros is second to last, but the Astros, um, the Phillies were a full win below with their corner outfield, um, below the Astros who were second worst among contenders. So getting two wins projected from their corner outfield for a team like the Phillies did not make sense. And so they went out and they spent,

I think it was one and 10 to get Max Kepler and put him at least in a platoon in the outfield. Some people were saying like, oh, he's never played left field. I don't know that there's a huge difference between left field and right field. I mean, yes, there might be nuances, but in terms of the skills you need to play either, you know, we're talking about a difference in arm, maybe. You know, the balls are going to, you know, kind of slice in different directions. But if you've seen the law in the right field, I think you can do it in left field. You know what I mean?

And. You know, now it's a, I would, I wouldn't say it's one of the strongest outfields among contenders, but you know, at least there's some complimentary pieces here in terms of lefty, righty. I think Kepler and Rojas are basically in a platoon where Rojas plays center against left-handers and Brandon Marsh plays left against left-handers and then Kepler will play against all right-handers. That's how I would see it happening. That does reduce his value a little bit in fantasy leagues and makes him only a platoon outfielder but a $10 million deal these days is not even paying for a win So what they're hoping for is basically a guy who is so good in platoon He's you know kind of a league average player they get him for 10 million

He plays well and part of it is if you look at his spray charts, but just like With with the Cody Bellinger I see I see, you know, six, seven, eight, maybe as much as 10 more homers for Kepler. If he'd just overlaid all his balls on, on Philly. And again, all the caveats apply, but Philly is kind of a smaller park than Minnesota. It's a much more hitter friendly park than Minnesota. It's smaller even in left field. So Kepler might actually hit an oppo Homer. He hasn't in a while.

And it's warmer. It's smaller even in left field. So Kepler might actually hit an Oppo homer. He hasn't in a while. And it's warmer in Philadelphia than it is in Minnesota. So I think this will be good for Kepler's per game numbers. I do wonder how much he gives back in weekly leagues and in terms of how often he's gonna sit against lefties. He didn't really sit against lefties in Minnesota and he probably should have. He has pretty terrible splits against lefties. Yeah, but I do think the park boost is worth mentioning.

I mean, it target field, the rolling three year park factor for homers, for lefties is a one oh four, not a bad place for lefties whatsoever. Tick above average citizens being park and Philly is second only to great American ballpark with a 127 park factor. So that is a massive upgrade for his home park for that particular category, right? Like that's huge for him. So I do, I do like that. And by the way, just for context, I don't think we mentioned this with Bellinger, Wrigley field is a 90 home run park factor for lefties.

Yankee stadiums, a 119. Yeah That's a big He went from the 23rd ranked park for left-handed homers to third with the Enjoy shaving Yeah, he's gonna look a little weird with the Max Reed look a little weird. Yeah, that's that's just the cost of doing business with the Yankees, though. I mean, it looks like you're 16 years old. It's crazy. But you know what?

If I had to clear out the facial hair because I was an employee of the Yankees, I probably wouldn't have to shovel my own driveway anymore. So I wouldn't need the beard in the first place. So it all it would all work out. All comes together. Speaking of your plan. Yeah, no, it's a plan.

Contract the Yankees. Yeah, it's a plan. I offered them nothing to offer them. Griffin canning ends up with the Mets. Speaking of nothing to offer. No, no, that's not bad. That's that's where you're going to go. That's rude.

No, it's rude. I just being rude. I like Griffin canning at least a little bit because he's not bad. That's that. That's where you're going to go. That's rude. No, it's rude. I just being rude. I like Griffin Canning, at least a little bit, because he's not an angel anymore. And I mean, that's the that's the best thing about any picture. Well, I mean, there's a few other things that could be a little better, but that's a pretty good trait. I'm not an angel anymore. Griffin Canning has at least at one point in the not so distant past

flashed a very good K rate, at least at one point in the not so distant past flashed a very good K rate, at least a good K rate, 25.9% back in 2023. Yes, all of just a year ago had a career best 6.7% walk rate, has always had home run problems. Oh, guess what? Citi Field will help with those home run problems. And we've talked about this a few times going back to the arrival of David Stearns to head up the front office for the Mets. But this is an organization that we think is probably going to understand how to find and improve pitching. So if you're going to start with Griffin Canning and you're to say in twenty three, he showed us the best skills of his career in twenty four.

He gave us the biggest workload we've ever seen before, the 171 and two thirds innings. I can at least see him as a comfortable guy I want on my roster as like an eighth or ninth starter that I'm going to plan on using at home and hopefully even use occasionally on the road with a few tweaks because there are some skills there to work with. Yeah, we said that the Mets had to spend at every level of starting pitching, you know, that there was. And so far they've given us sort of the mid-level signing with Clay Holmes, you know, putting him in there. I think this is sort of the the backend signing to to help with, you know, if Paul Blackburn's not ready or if he's not good or if Kodaisanga has heard or, you know, Motas has been heard over the years. So, you know,

he represents depth to some extent. Um, he like McGill, um, I think depends of a fair amount on Velo for their fastball. Kenny has a pretty poor shape on his fastballs right now. Um, and so maybe he goes to the pen and he out Velos the shape and he, you know, he relies on that slider. It's always been good and the change-ups pretty good And then he just has more velo in the pen. That's that's an option that we haven't seen play out in in Anaheim yet And then on top of that The Mets we we saw in the postseason. They had the most starters in the postseason with three fastballs

So let's say they say to canning, hey, none of your fastballs are good, but let's have you let's have three of them. Let's have three mediocre fastballs and see how it goes. And I just saw a post on Blue Sky from Matt Eddie over at Baseball America talking about how this is the way in the Mets Miley system. It is called the fastball triangle. And this is what they're teaching all of their young pitchers coming through. So Kenny really hasn't had a year where he's really been throwing three fastballs

with any regularity. So they could say, hey, maybe your fastballs are mediocre, but they don't know which one's coming. And that's that's your way out. But anybody who has a really good slider and a really good change up deserves a chance. And that's what Griffin County is getting. Four and a half million is. A major league shot in the dark for the Mets. And so I can't really say anything bad about this, Sonny. really say anything bad about this, Sonny.

No, it's a, it's a bargain in a free agent market that hasn't really had them. And I think that might be reflected in what Michael Soroka got from the nationalists is going to get a chance to start going to DC. But Soroka had a weird year with the white socks was not good as a starter, made the move to the bullpen, had a 39% k-rate as a reliever, also had like a 12% walk rate, which is very uncharacteristic for him. It was a 189-303-291 line allowed in relief, 275 ERA. This to me kind of feels like a, let's try to start him again, see what we can do. If it doesn't work, throw him in the pen and he becomes maybe tradable midseason

because it won't be the first time he worked in that role. There were some changes he made in relief too, so maybe a few of those changes can stick. And we saw some interesting things from Sean Doolittle and the pitching staff in DC last year, so maybe there's some more adjustments on the way for Soroka. Yeah, he was a little bit more 92, 93 as a starter and then at the end of the season, more 94, 95, even sat 95 for an entire appearance, but a little bit more 93, 94 as a reliever. But that wasn't the only thing that changed for Michael Soroka when he became a reliever. He also added ride on the fastball. And so, you know, there's some difference there mechanically.

It's hard to kind of separate that from his relief appearances where he was kind of up and down to really settling in, his starting appearances where he's kind of up and down with the ride to really settled in and showed his best ride at the end of the season maybe he was just that's what they're betting is like maybe that ride will stick but he's also a guy like canning that has shown a pretty good slider it is a really weird slider it is not one I mean stuff plus likes so, you know, I'm predisposed to liking it.

But it's not it's kind of like a really slow gyro slider. You know, it doesn't have a lot of movement, but it's 81 miles an hour. Is it weird enough to be good or is it just weird in a way where once hitters kind of get a good look at it they're going to start punishing it more? It has a little bit of an element of a power curve. You know, an 82 mile an hour pitch with this much, it does have a little bit more drop than your regular gyro slider so that's true. And then also he threw 564 of them last year. It's a fair amount of them.

And batters hit 167 with a 298 slugging. So there's a little bit of a proof of the pudding. You're right though, that's the first time he unveiled it, right? He kind of was like, ah this is new and everyone's like, whoa what is that? What happens? But then again he's going from the Chicago White Sox to the Washington Nationals. It's not like a lot of people in the AL East. I mean, the NL East will have seen this pitch. So. I think it's a decent bid, but I will say it's nine million dollars for a guy who's popped his Achilles twice, you know, been one of the most injured guys.

I it's not like the Clay Holmes situation where you're like, well, he's been healthy and he's demonstrated all this stuff. It's like they paid for a month of work. That's not even stuff. Plus isn't even like, you know, big thumbs up stuff. Plus is like, yeah, maybe. So and it was 9 million, not four and a half million.

You know, so it's a little more aggressive for sure. It's in the scope of a one year deal, which is not very aggressive as a group. Right. Overall. Anyway. Yeah. I think the other thing about Soroka though, adding ride and being a guy that was much more sinker heavy earlier in his career.

And he's kind of rebuilt himself coming off the major injuries, added extension. There's just a lot that's changed for him, but maybe you're going to buying into earlier in his career and he's kind of rebuilt himself coming off the major injuries, added extension. There's just a lot that's changed for him, but maybe you're going to buying into the ability to adjust. That's sort of the thing you're looking at and saying, okay, this stuff wasn't working before, but he was already making some changes and those changes were popping in ways that make him a more interesting pitcher. We'll gamble at $9 million on that.

That's probably what they were thinking. The depth chart right now, Mackenzie Gore, Jake Irvin, Mitchell Parker, DJ Hers, then Soroka is probably the five as things stand right now. This has a clear path if he pitches well to be a starter when the season begins. He's not blocking anybody either. If they want to pull one of these, you know,

vintage Mike Rizzo starting pitcher, we just signed Cor pull one of these, you know, vintage Mike Rizzo starting pitcher, we just signed Corbin Burns like, you know, Mike Soroca, you know, or Kate Cavalli stays in the minor leagues a bit longer, you know? Right. Yeah. There's still there's still a pretty soft depth chart, even with the addition of Soroca. So, yeah, that doesn't rule really rule out anything as a possibility for the Nats. Nearby, the Orioles added a pitcher without any sort of qualifying offer attached.

Tomoyuki Sugano will head to Baltimore. Another righty. They're projected starting five right now. Grayson Rodriguez, Zach Efflin, Dean Kramer, Sugano, Albert Suarez, all righties. Which is okay, I guess. That's just kind of an odd quirk. Dean Kramer, Sugano, Albert Suarez, all righties. Which is okay, I guess. That's just kind of an odd quirk. Sugano has had a great career in Japan and there were rumblings in the past

that he was trying to come over, ended up getting, I think, a four-year deal with his team, Yomiuri, in Japan to stay and had chances to leave, but decided to just ride it out there and comes over at a more advanced age and with less stuff than he had when he first surfaced on the radar as somebody that would make the leap from NPB, he got 13 million. So of these three one-year deals, the most expensive of all,

it looks like it's really turned into a command control heavy profile though because the swing and miss has been fading. And I wonder what that does for the projections. Like what kind of picture do you think Tomoyuki Sugano is going to be making the leap to face big leaguers at this juncture of his career? Now, it would have been a better deal a couple of years ago. It would have been a better deal a couple of years ago. You know, he's 34 now and, you know, in 2023 he only pitched 86 innings.

There were some health problems there. When he was at 31 at 2021, 119 innings. So he used to be more of a workhorse than he's been recently, but he is coming off 156 innings in his age 34 season in Japan where Tomoyuki Sugano had a 167 ERA and kind of a really resurgent years the first year in four years that he had an ERA under three The problem is that he still only struck out 7.6 per nine which You know even with his low walk rate. it's even less impressive if you turn it into a

percentage it would be as a percentage he struck out 18% of the batters he saw just to give you a sense of like what that is like for majorly qualified starting pitchers last year, 18% would put him with JP Sears, Patrick Corbin, Jameson Tyon is like I think the really good outcome for him, but he's there with Tyler Anderson, Jose Quintana. It's not really a great place to be and from his stuff numbers from his movement numbers He basically has a 92 mile an hour fastball That has average ride and yes his other pitches are good But what another thing that's weird is all this pitches are between 82 and 92

so He doesn't really have this like large band of V lo what he he does have is a split finger that's really good, a sweeper that's really good. So he has a wide arse and then he the best thing about Tomioka Sugano is just a really tiny walk rate. He walked 1.7 per nine in his entire 12 seasons in Japan. And so I don't know who's who's the best comp like a miles Michaelis is a good comp maybe Tyon is a good comp in terms of you know pairing that with Velo yeah Michaelis is where's Michaelis in terms of Velo

93 to so Michaelis is even higher than that. So Tyon, Tyon is what you're hoping for. 92 mile an hour fastball, good bendy pitches, maybe a better change up than Tyon has. But people are saying, oh, well, aren't these all the same things you would have said about Shotai Imanaga? I would say no. Imanaga has like really plus ride. His fastball, despite being 92 miles an hour, has much better shape than

Sugano's. And also Shota is younger than Sugano. So we're talking about a 34 year old. The risk is just that honestly that they DFA him. I mean, the risk is the roster slot, not so much the money, because it's one year and 13 million. The risk is the roster slot, not so much the money because it's one year and 13 million. The risk is, you know, resources in terms of time and energy and who they, who they think he can be, you know, uh, I don't, I don't have him circled as a huge sleeper.

So you would just looking at competition for spots, how do you compare them to Kramer who's the head of them on the depth chart and Suarez who's behind him? I think that's where he belongs. A little less exciting than Kramer, but a little more exciting or a little more viable than Suarez? Yeah, I mean, if Kramer has really pushed

any of his pitches, like maybe the split finger to an out pitch, he would be, I think, a better pitcher. But he belongs in that group. maybe the split finger to an outpitch, he would be, I think. A better pitcher. But he belongs in that group. He's just very much not a Grayson Rodriguez for me. But, you know, Kate Povich, he's better than Rogers, he's better than Suarez. So I would put Sugano as their as their four Povich as their five and Suarez as their six Rogers as their four, Povich as their five, and Suarez as their six, Rogers as their seven. And even Suarez, I mean, the command probably

isn't the same level as Sugano's, but 94.8 on the fastball last year, just a lot more Velo to work with. So I think that's gonna make things tricky for Sugano. I think you could probably look at him as a fringe top 300 overall guy. Jameson Tyon comp seems pretty fair as far as your high end outcome. Still useful, still a good big league pitcher, but not necessarily someone you're thinking about in shallow leagues as someone who

sticks on your roster and is going to carry you to a title. That seems pretty far-fetched. I can tell you from trying to trade Jameson Taiyan in my dynasty league that there he doesn't have that much value in those leagues. It was a deep one too. People were curious though because it wasn't the first time that Sugano was trying to come over and this time it's going to be for that one-year deal in Baltimore. All right you know I teased this at the top of the show you are wrestling with that hall of fame ballot you got the white out hiding off screen somewhere. I can reveal what I what I have.

I don't think there's anything. He's going to hold it up to the camera. No, I mean, here you go. How about it? No, I am my definites for going in. They were on previous ballots and I've I've I've kind of gone through them. Carl's Beltran is a definite for me.

Billy Wagner has already gotten my vote. Ichiro is a definite. So those are like the easiest three for me. And so then I did some more research where I started looking at the, you know, combing through the I want to I want them to be in the top one percent for their cohort. So there's the 10 years around them. You know, when I did that, it became pretty obvious that CC, Sebastian deserves inclusion. And once I did that, Felix Hernandez looked like to me someone who really deserved my vote.

You know, then then there are some some players with a little bit more flawed candidacies Hernandez looked like to me someone who really deserved my vote. You know then there are some players with a little bit more flawed candidacies for different reasons, but I thought they needed my vote or that I should vote for them which are Andrew Jones, Chase Utley, Andy Pettit. There's different issues with all of them. I just for whatever reason don't think that Andy Pettit's HDH situation raises to the level of the Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez situations.

I know that Andrew Jones had some issues in his personal life. But I think he's one of the best centerfield defenders of all time. And he also added a fair amount of homers and offense. It's not like he was just one note. And Chase Utley was great and he should have won more gold gloves. So I'm not going to hold his lack of gold gloves against him. It was the fact that people didn't vote for him is not my problem. So Chase Utley was a great defender and a great hitter

and just didn't have the greatest day anymore. Brian McCann passes the one percent list. So that's my nine. And Brian McCann, for what it's worth, he was a great framer, second best of all time maybe, but the offense was there. So this is where it gets interesting. That's 9. I'm allowed to have 10. So there's been a lot of talk about Russell Martin. And, you know, I grew with a lot of people who do the sniff test and say nope not there for me because I watched Russell Martin and I enjoyed him like I thought he was a character that was cool like just a

really interesting guy I remember that he like stole bases and he was like he's different body type than a lot of guys he was quicker and he was an interesting interview and he just seemed like an interesting guy. But never once did I think I was watching a Hall of Famer. And what's weird about that is around that time, he was one of the very first sort of pioneers of observable, quantifiable framing. And he was excellent at it. And wherever he went, he won. And he was excellent at it. And wherever he went, he won.

And he was underrated. And it was good. He was really good at framing. Now you could say, okay, we have guys in who are great defenders. We have guys in who are great on offense who are bad defenders. Why can't we put in a guy that like Russell Martin that was great at defending and great at framing and maybe not so great on offense. We might put in Yadier Molina soon and the difference between Yadier Molina and Russell

Martin is not there for me in terms of numbers and what's on the page. One difference though is that Yadier Molina was the one guy in St. Louis forever. And everybody who played with him was like, he was the guy, you know, and, and, and there are things that we, we won't be able to put numbers on that maybe Yadier Molina was great at in terms of game calling leadership, you know, that seems to make sense. Why would, why would they keep signing this guy that doesn't have great offense unless there was a lot of other things there?

You know, like he was really the captain of that, of a lot of those teams. Now back to Russell Martin and Yachty Molina and Brian McCann. All of the best framing seasons of all time come from the same eight year span. The first years we started measuring it. And there's this great Jeff Sullivan piece where he went in and he looked at it and he found that the standard deviation in framing was getting smaller every year. Why? Because we measure it.

And there was a saying that once you measure it, it's dead. You know, everybody knows about it. You know, once you measure it, you know, we've got to figure it out. Well, you're coaching for it. You're preparing for it. And you know about it. You know, once you measure it, you know, we've, we've got to figure it out. And so what happened is you're preparing for it and you know about it. And so that you're not. So Ryan Domet and Mike Petriello has some stuff about this, but Ryan Domet was in the league and as an, and the catcher during Russell Martin's time. And he was getting like

35% of borderline calls as strikes. There's nobody in the league who does that now the barrier for entry to getting into the league as a catcher You cannot be as bad as Ryan Dome It was at framing back then like you need to get at least like 40 40 45 percent now Like you've got so much like he would just nobody would let him catch now And of course that does something to your value. So you could take everything that Russell Martin did on the field and put it in now's game and he wouldn't get the same value

because it's all respect to your peers, right? So nobody's as bad as Ryan Domett so his framing would be less valuable in today's game. And then on top of it, you just look at his offensive numbers and they leave me cold. You know, just 190 homers, 100 steals, like a 720 OPS or something, 730 OPS. It's like, I don't know, those numbers.

So I'm really struggling with Russell Martin because I get the framing argument, but I also wonder if it just happened a little time. But this can happen too. You know what Babe Ruth, he had a 380 ISO. You know what the league ISO was isolated slugging right now? It's like 160 back then. It's probably like 0.90.

Yeah. Yeah. It was like, it was like 0.95. Do we hold that against Babe Ruth? No, of course not. So I don't know, man. I'm struggling with that one. I voted for Bobby Abreu in the past, but he's right at 1.5%. So he's actually kind of borderline, even with my 1%, 1.5% rule.

I like Mark Burley. He's in by 1% rule. But have you looked at Mark Burley's ERA? It's like a three nine. That's a sniff test guy for me. Sniff test is bad for me too on that one. Great career, but not... I never watched Mark Burley and thought, this guy's a Hall of never, I never watched Mark Burley and thought, this guy's a Hall of Famer.

I watched Mark Burley and said, I understand why the people in the press box love this guy as they are gonna be home before dinner is done. Mark Burley is pitching. All right. Good pitcher again. You know, like Jimmy Rollins is somebody that I think is a,

when I was a younger person, I thought maybe he's a Hall of Famer, but I've just looked at his numbers. I think he was inflated a little bit by Philly offensively and he wasn't that great defensively So he's just a really good player I think and then here's a little bit of a controversial take so I would have voted for Barry Bonds if he was on this I'm kind of mad that Barry Bonds is not in and Given that Barry Bonds is in I don't want to put Alex Rodriguez in

in and given that Barry Bonds is in, I don't want to put Alex Rodriguez in. Like it doesn't make any sense for me to put Alex Rodriguez in if Barry Bonds is not in, you know what I mean? So now because of, of this. Yeah, but this, this turns into such a mess. Like the, it is a mess. I promise you if, if, if people had one of these ballots in front of themselves, they'd be surprised by how many loops they could think themselves into. Well, and there's also, I mean, you mentioned Andrew Jones, right?

I mean, domestic violence is there. You could just rule them out solely based on that. And I don't think there are so many bad people in the hall of fame. Right. But then there's, there's people in that you find out after they got in what they, they, it's just all of those little wrinkles give you different things to think about and I

don't know I just I Don't think that of the catchers you're talking about none of them feel like Hall of Famers to me Yachty is the only one I think Yachty is the one that like is the guy that gets in I might have some Atlanta bias of Brian McCann, but I mean that gets in. I might have some Atlanta bias of Brian McCann, but I mean, offensively he was at least, it was 10% better than league average as an offensive, he's got a 790 OPS,

like he was pretty good offensively and a great framer, and 282 homers, like we also don't put enough catchers in. So you could just say, hey, vote for all the catchers because we just don't have that many Hall of Fame catchers. Yeah, there's that, or there's the, maybe that's something that the committee has to get right over time, like later on. It's weird to even think about it that way

because you have the choice to do something about it on your ballot right now. But my gut is of all those names that you mentioned. No, I didn't say the one I might vote for now. Well, Bobby, of the ones you mentioned so far, a brave, I'm like a David Wright. Nah, David Wright. No, the story is too short. Too short. Yeah. Like David Wright.

I think it's a, what could have been sort of career, like a foundation that at one time looked like he'd be on that sort of trajectory. But I think he comes up just short. 50 war is like kind of the barrier to entry has fifty one point three 22 homers You know like he has a he's a pretty good OPS eight sixty seven OPS But we also didn't see like the bad years, you know Because they've so short you you kind of almost want to have a better peak if you don't have the bad years

You know to me. I mean geez, David Wright played what? 77 games from age 32 on in the big leagues. That is spinal stenosis. Not good. Brutal. Just wait. I do. I do. Let's open this up to the discord. So if you had one vote, a Braille, you I just throw a ride in there. Let the world burn. Uh, Bobby Brea, you, Alex Rodriguez, David Wright, Russell Martin. Who gets your vote? Yeah.

Make your case in the discord. It's, um, it's gotta be a fun thing to be a part of, but I can see you just running circles. It's me because I just, I'm hurting on this one. Well, you're going to tick a 10th box. At least you're not going to say, you know what? I only see nine. Oh my gosh.

I still can't believe that the athletic voted one guy in. This is a pretty loaded ballot, if you ask me. I'm with you. I think it's a loaded ballot as well. But we'll save that conversation for the discord more to come on that front. I'm sure. And you still, like I said, you got 10 days at the time of this

recording to get that thing in the mail, 11 days to get that thing in the mail. So you could still sway. Think about it a little longer. Join the discord with the link in the show description. You can find us on the blue sky. Eno is at enoseris.bsky.social. IMDDR.bsky.social. We hope everybody out there has a safe

and happy holiday season. We'll have another episode coming out in about a week. Little lighter programming here around the holidays before we ramp it back up in early January. So that's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you next week. Thanks for listening.