Rates & Barrels - Corbin Carroll Gets the Call, Misjudging Paul Goldschmidt, and Late-Season Bullpen Help

Episode Date: August 29, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss the promotion of Corbin Carroll, his chances of being relevant in all league formats down the stretch, second-half risers in contact quality, how we missed on Paul Goldschmidt's MVP-worthy 2022 campaign, and a few late reliever pickups capable of making meaningful contributions.  Rundown -- Corbin Carroll Gets the Call -- Jesús Aguilar DFA'd by the Marlins -- Second-Half Barrel & Hard-Hit Surgers -- What's Next for Rowdy Tellez? -- How Did We Miss on Paul Goldschmidt? -- The Timing of Taking Chances on Young, Breakout Players -- Ketel Marte's Pursuit of His 2019 Peak -- Waiting on Shortstop Worked Out -- Late-Season Bullpen Help Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first six months: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Try Tim's new Sweet Chili Chicken Loaded Wraps and Bowls today. Take your taste buds on an exciting new adventure for lunch or dinner with our delicious new Sweet Chili Sauce. It's time for Sweet Chili Chicken. It's time for Tim's. At participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. welcome to rates and barrels it's monday august 29th derek van ryper here with eno saris if you're watching us on youtube no we did not plan on wearing the same color shirt or almost same color shirt today that is just a random coincidence

yeah i got a little more mine's a little more teal i guess i don't know i just grabbed the long sleeve repping pure project here ah very nice i just have um most of my shirts are beer shirts this just came from costco because saving money i guess is important to me on this episode we got some news we're gonna dig into we're gonna to dig into. We're going to look at some second-half risers on the hitting side, looking for players that are barreling the ball more often and making more hard contact. Of course, another Josh Hader meltdown over the weekend probably has some people looking for immediate help,

looking for some saves, possible relievers that could help during the final month of the season. So we'll probably dig into that on this episode as well. Let's start with the big news from the weekend. We got the word that Corbin Carroll is coming up. He's going to make his debut for the Diamondbacks on Monday. There's power, there's speed. And as Keith Law pointed out on the Friday episode of the Athletic Baseball Show, Carroll has played in two very hitter-friendly environments this season. I don't think that was at all a Corbin Carroll's not good statement. It was more of just a, hey, if you're

setting expectations based on double-A and triple-A, consider that Amarillo and Reno are among the most hitter-friendly environments in their respective leagues. So just put that context onto what he has done so far. But there's power. There's speed. There appears to be a pretty good hit tool there, an ability to draw walks. I actually went out and picked up Corbin Carroll in Tout Wars, a 15-team mixed league where I had plenty of fab left. Because you could. You didn't have to wait. Didn't have to wait. In some leagues, you have to wait until they play.

Yeah, and it was tricky because there were a handful of teams that could have really pushed me on the bidding, and a couple of them were contending. So I ended up spending about 30% of a full budget on Carroll, but who else are you going to spend it on at this point? I've just been fortunate not to have to spend all that much fab. I'm fine with it. He's in the lineup right away because he has to be. But in a 15-team league where you start five outfielders, he should play right away. Because even if it's just speed first and everything else later this is a player that you want to take an immediate chance on if you're looking for a late boost oh man i

mean just good play discipline you know strikeout rates could go either way but i see these eight percent swing strike rates and think that he will actually strike out you know sort of 24 to 25 percent of the time and not uh not see one of those jumps up to 30-plus that you sometimes see with these guys. I think there's contact, there's patience, there's power, there's speed, there's defense. Even with adjusting for the park, you're talking about a guy who put up a 167 WRC- and double A

and a 135 in triple A and looks like all systems go I think it's probably means I mean they're going to have to make a corresponding move and I wonder if it just means that Jordan Luplo gets released

DFA'd he's got some value as a right-hander, and he can play first, and he's done a lot of short side platoon stuff, but he's 28. He's 34% worse than league average by WRC Plus right now. He's projected by the bat to be below league average with the bat. He doesn't really have defensive value. And the last time he put up even a win of wins above replacement was 2019. So I think reading between the lines, you know, given his age, given what they have a lot of and what they need, I bet you Luplo is the one who's released.

Yeah, or if they got someone is the one who's released. Yeah, or if they got someone on the 15-day IL, they could move to the 60-day IL and option one of the depth players down. That could be the other path to making it work, but he's here to play. Corbin Carroll is going to play. We saw the speed on display at both stops this year. I mean, 31 for 36 as a base stealer. I think we're talking about someone who's going to get a lot of green lights from the jump.

If the power comes a little later, okay, but I think we're looking at Carroll probably in a similar light to how we looked at Bobby Witt Jr. back on draft day, if not with a slightly more favorable outlook just because the upper level K rates were even a tick better and those swing decisions look really good.

So, fantastic player. I think if you go down even to a 10-team league, you know, we're playing in the 3-0 show Invitational, first ever this year, I think Carroll is playable even in leagues that shallow. Hey, hey, no, no.

Hands off the keyboard. Analysis. Help other people before helping yourself. Well, I can do both. Well, I can't help anybody else if I don't put my own oxygen mask on. It's true. If you're on a plane, that is the correct order.

Fine. A little race to do it after the show, I guess. Somebody else beat us to that. I'm sure of it. Yeah? I think so. Now I want to know. Oh, now he has to go look.

It's so funny that it's a thing that happens when you have so many leagues, right? I have so many Dynasty leagues and so many weekly fab type leagues that I'm excited. Corbin Carroll is up.

I can't get him anywhere. I can't get him in the NFBC leagues yet because he hasn't played. I can't get him in the other places because I don't have the money. In my keeper leagues, he's been owned forever. Our show is like the only place that I could actually. Oh, he has been picked up. Yeah. I don't know who Yasmanian Devil is.

It's not Yasmani Grandal. I know that much. Oh my gosh. It's the person in second place. Stephen. Stephen? Isn't that Stephen Nesbitt? Oh no, Nesbitt.

It's you, me, and Nesbitt fighting for the win. Yeah. And Nesbitt got Carol. Nesbitt. Good work. Anyway, what was the other piece of news that we had? Other news, Jesus Aguilar DFA'd by the Marlins. To me, that's a little bit less surprising.

We talked about players like this on our last episode, just that they tend to burn out pretty quickly with Aguilar. And there's such a limitation for him defensively and athletically, right? He's not a good base runner. He's not a good defender. So as soon as the bat starts to slip, even just a little bit, he becomes very difficult for a big league team to play. And this year, 236, 286, 388 for the slash line.

K rate at 23.2% was the highest it's been since 2018. It's matched up with an O-swing percentage that went up. It kind of seems like it's just the end of the road for Aguilar. The kind of guy that maybe gets an NRI to spring training from someone next year, but is a long shot to become a regular player again. uh, NRI to spring training from someone next year, but is, uh, a long shot to become a regular player again. Yeah.

As a righty, I wonder if he gets picked up, uh, by, he can't, he can't get picked up and then be played in the playoffs. Right. The deadline for that is the end of August.

So I guess he'd have to be picked up in the next 48 hours or so. But I mean, he's been on, he could, he could, I, I mean, he's been on. He could. He could, I think. He was released just on Saturday. So, yeah, it could be in the works that somebody might pick him up as just a short side platoon DH, right?

Like hoping for an Albert Pujolsian situation where it's just a guy who comes in and hits homers off of lefties. I think he might have some value in the short term that way, but to fancy players and to baseball in general, probably not a super amount of value. I mean, he's put up one win

in the last four seasons combined. Yeah, probably mono leagues only at this point for Aguilar I don't even yeah maybe but I did think it was worth bringing up because there's there's some movement in the in the depth charts there and I wonder what the long-term play is because it Lewin Lewin Diaz is an interesting player in some regards he's got the opportunity to pair decent contact rates with decent power he just hasn't done that in the major leagues he's either had decent bad ball quality with bad strikeout rates um or i mean that's basically what he's done so far um and he himself has not

been a league average bat and he's not and the bat x projects him to be 25 percent worse than league average so let's say lumen diaz doesn't work that's that's what i'm saying let's say lumen diaz doesn't work out garrett cooper's not really a long-term situation. That might be an opportunity here because they are developing outfielders and they had these players that had up in Peyton Burdick and Charles LeBlanc. What if Brian Anderson becomes their first baseman? Could do that.

Is he good enough though? Is he a good enough hitter at this point that you want to use him in that way so lair at first has anyone ever tried that i don't remember him ever playing first base me neither obviously garcia to first base you already got him on a long-term deal it seems like it'd be a waste of his legs and arm, but he runs terrible routes in the outfield. Routes? Routes or routes? Routes.

Routes. He runs terrible routes in the outfield. Maybe he could be the first baseman. I don't know. It seems like first base is open, and that might be interesting to a guy like Burdick or LeBlanc like first base is open. And that might be interesting to a guy like Burdick or LeBlanc, who right now is not in the starting rotation,

not a starter. But maybe it doesn't matter, because Charles LeBlanc, I think, I was looking at his numbers, there's not really one thing that leaps off the page for him being to this argument that he's good. I think most of what he's done this year has been driven by batting average and balls in play. And in the past, he's had multiple stops in the minor leagues where he was either league average or worse than league average by WRC+. And and then this year is his best year in the minor leagues and he has a 396 BABIP and that otherwise I don't see that much change in the hood a little bit more power so maybe maybe it's the power that that makes it that makes the difference and if he does have

better power than his projections uh you know it's a right hander who's 26 but he's an infielder uh do you do you like anything about him or or peyton burdick who's a another one of these pop-up guys 25 year old right hander outfielder uh not floated as much by babbitt um and also seemingly coming with a lot of flaws yeah i mean i, I think of the options, I think Diaz is still the most interesting. It's strange that he hasn't been able to put it all together against big league pitching yet, but at the same time, it's a tough adjustment.

And the quality of the contact at AAA in the past has been pretty good. It's above a 30% hard hit rate each of the last two seasons. Almost 40 home runs combined last season plus this season in about a full season's worth of games. 9% barrel rate for his career? Yeah, that to me, that's worth taking a chance on. With Burdick and LeBlanc, I see more up-and-down type guys.

I don't necessarily see an obvious, this is the guy that you want to play a lot long term. I would agree with you, LeBlanc. It seems like he just got off to a hot streak to begin his big league career, and that sort of made people think that there's something there that might not actually be there with him. So this is an interesting opportunity for Diaz. I wonder if this is it, if it's a one-month or five-and-a-half-week audition for him to

really carve out the role for next year first base is an easy spot to fill relatively speaking in free agency you can go out and get somebody else on the relative cheap because players tend to get non-tendered if they're you know year two of arbitration and can only play first base and if they come off a down year so there's opportunity there i don't know um i i think with diaz it's like 15 team mixed leagues for now would be the deepest or the most shallow league i think about it in drafting holds and i can't i can't play him yeah and even that i think is probably a short-term stretch so they're in a weird spot good luck to that organization man it's uh they just seem to have a hard time pumping out major leaguers and

part of it i think i don't know if it's the new team the new regime or the old regime but they don't seem to care that much about strikeout rate like they acquire guys left and right with large strikeout rates and then they have a lot of busts at the major league level where

strikeout rates seem really relevant you know and even their best prospect right now that's up and playing okay is Jay DeBlede, and he strikes out too much. It's like maybe there needs to be some sort of reevaluation about the strikeout rate in the minor leagues for Florida. Yeah, that could help. I think this is a strange team, and I think, as I've mentioned before,

with Gary Denbo and their former scouting director out, with Jeter out, it's a crossroads. It's a big opportunity for change. And I'm interested to see what Kim Eng does to fill those spots and how things could possibly go in a new direction right now. A trade still makes a lot of sense. They still have that stockpile of pitching from the trade deadline. They didn't move. So I would imagine they'll be very active over the course of the winter. Whoa, what are you listening to this for?

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and realize what you're looking for is already in you this is for you the canadian armed forces a message from the government of canada let's move on to some second half barrel and hard hit rate surgers you know you were doing some leaderboard surfing and searching this morning and you found some players that are starting to make higher quality contact over the past month or so compared to what was happening earlier this season. So who did you turn up? Well, there was some sort of season reclamation projects going on

where JT Romulo's power was down a little bit in the first half, and he had a 7% barrel rate. He now has had a 13% barrel rate in august and he's the number one surger um i think that's a little bit sort of just getting back to where he had been in his career you know um and i think that describes also somebody like jesse winker uh who was set has the seventh biggest surge um you know his barrel rate has uh me thinking that he can at least be a 250-25 homer guy in Seattle still. And I think that makes him an interesting pickup. If you haven't had your trade deadline yet, it could be somebody that could get you some power that might be available.

And then Max Muncy, who had the ninth biggest surge, and Brian Reynolds, who had the tenth biggest surge. I think they qualify as those guys. Where it's just, you know, it's interesting to me because barrel rate is supposed to be predictive in small samples, but that means a couple things, right? It's like, you know, what happens when they change? They can change, right?

So, like, it's predictive, but it can change it. So Brian Reynolds, one of the reasons that we were worried about him early on was that his first half barrel rate, 6%, was pretty awful. And in August, it's been 10%, and that's a little bit better, and that's the story of Brian Reynolds. I even went and talked to Brian Reynolds about this, and I said, have you changed anything? He said, no. I said, what happened? And he said, it's just baseball, man. So that's just a weird one for me, but there's some guys who might be on waiver wires. Yandy Diaz has the fourth biggest surge,

and Trent Grisham the second biggest. I think with the news about Tatis, Grisham was one of the biggest winners in effect because I think he might have been on the cusp of losing his job. Now he gets to play. He's not helping your batting average right now, but he has been hitting barrels he's been hitting homers and uh he's been a league average bat overall uh in the second half so you know if

if he's available i think he's uh he's the type of guy where your batting average is set five months in the season maybe you can pick up a grisham just for the homers and steals and and maybe it won't affect your batting average that much. The other guy was Yandy Diaz, who had the fourth biggest surge. And, you know, he goes from a 3% barrel rate to an 8% barrel rate, and that's meaningful because a 3% barrel rate means, oh god, this guy's

going to hit like 10 homers this year. But an 8% barrel rate is more like 18 homers, maybe even 19, 20, you know. So, and he's a guy who always hit for average. 18 homers, maybe even 19, 20. He's a guy who always hit for average. Yandy Diaz is a good short-term pickup, I think. I'm looking back over Yandy's career numbers.

Last season, he finished with a 7% barrel rate. We've seen numbers as low as 4.4%. I guess even lower than that if you want to look at partial seasons, because he's had a couple up and down seasons at the beginning of his career. His career rate is 5.9%. I think I still believe he's more that guy than anybody else, because he's hit the ball hard for a long time without hitting the ball in the air. That's just a combination of skills that he seems to have locked in, and we're not seeing a big fluctuation in ground ball rate this season.

He's improved slightly from last year, but we're talking from 51.8% to 49.9%. That's not really moving much for me. So I like him just because the team's good and he plays a little more than you think, so the counting stats end up being pretty solid. But I think what you see is what you get with yandi diaz at this point i still think we need to see a bigger shift for me to believe it's more than

something within his normal range of production his normal variance in barrel rate yeah uh then we have uh you know i think rowdy telez being on this list is really interesting to me um he there's a there's a really funny thing that happens after the top 10 where you've got paul goldschmidt as one of the biggest barrel risers from 11 to 15 on fangraphs so uh but then um you know interesting to me is also rowdy telez uh going from a 13 barrel rate in the first half to a 16 barrel rate in the first half to a 16% barrel rate in the second half in August. Nine barrels in August of 114 max EV. His hard hit rate went from 45% to 53%, so he's on that list as well.

I don't know what to do with Rowdy. You know, I considered selling him in a keeper league. I've considered selling him in both of my keeper leagues where I have him all year. Because as a 27-year-old breakout that, you know, before this year had basically a league average WRC plus and does not have any defensive value, I just I felt like we I feel like we could be seeing like a Jesus Aguilar you know but this version like the August version of Rowdy and and the better version of Rowdy now has you know is 18 better than league average he has an above average walk rate an above average strikeout rate and above average power you know this this version could be an asset in

dynasty leagues so where are you in between the sort of asset and sell high on rowdy rowdy to us i think he's the type of player that most people don't want to trade for because they think they can find the next Rowdy on the waiver wire. And to some extent, that's true. I think he's almost a forced hold because of how most people evaluate him. And I don't know if he's going to be good for three years,

but he's probably going to be good again next year based on some of the underlying numbers that have improved. Even with this prolonged opportunity to be a regular, the O-swing percentage is down. He's not getting overexposed in the increased role. He's already at a career-high 471 plate appearances, so he'll probably get to 550 or so by the end of the regular season.

Still a first-year arbitration next year, probably going to stay in Milwaukee for another year, probably has a prominent spot in that lineup for another year. I mean, the worst case scenario for playing time appears to be losing all of his starts against lefties, which isn't the worst thing in the world if it's a deep enough league. I don't know if there's another level beyond this, though, as a hitter. I think maybe you could argue he's getting a little unlucky in batting average, but he also doesn't run particularly well, so he can pound the ball into the shift and 264 career babbitt he's at 231 right now so maybe maybe a

little bit of bad luck but we're talking about a correction to 245 probably you know you know in both of my leagues obp matters both things are half him and it's just weird that he's got a 312 career but uh obp projected for less than 330 obp and yet will have an above average walk rate and above average power and does not hit 50 fly balls you know it's like i i keep thinking like could he be better in obp but i think that's it's all Babbitt is what you're discussing. I don't know. I think there's going to be different shift rules next year. I don't know how much they'll help him

because the most effective shift rule change will be the pie slice up the middle, and he's not necessarily a guy who's hitting rockets up the middle. That's a lot of pull from Rowdy, not surprisingly. But I think what you're also saying about the way the market, you know, I did put him out there and tried to trade him. And nobody really wanted him. No, because they don't see long-term value. They just see a short-term fix.

But he can exceed expectations for a little while and end up being someone that you want to have on your roster. Because you'll never really get fair value back in a trade. So that's why you're better off just sitting back and waiting. But I got to ask, how did we all underestimate Paul Goldschmidt? The season he's having. Try to remember what people were saying about him back during draft season. I think at the time when we were talking about first baseman. Will he steal anymore?

Yeah, he probably won't run anymore because he's a little older. And maybe there's more batting average risk there than there used to be. I think those were the types of things we were saying and thinking about Paul Goldschmidt a few months ago. I don't think I'm rewriting draft season history. I don't think there's anything unusual about that. Could be like he hasn't had 100 RBI in four seasons. St. Louis is a tough

place to hit. All of those kinds of things. Totally fair. I'm looking back. His April ADP, Paul Goldschmidt's April ADP, was just inside the top 50 overall. Jeez. So the decision that you were making in most leagues, Matt Olsen was just gone, so he wasn't part of this. It was Pete Alonso versus Goldschmidt.

And if you wanted to wait, you could say, well, maybe Jose Abreu is basically the same player. He's available 30, 35 picks later than Goldschmidt. So I'm just going to pass on Goldschmidt because I don't see a special player in that spot. Or you've thought that the next way behind that, Muncy, Hoskins, Krohn, Walsh, Mountcastle, those guys were close enough to Goldschmidt that you wouldn't spend a fourth round or a late third round pick on an old player with, you know with possible further decline on the horizon. And now he's performed like a first rounder. He's the second most valuable hitter in the pool this season behind only Aaron Judge.

So he's been more valuable than guys that run a ton, guys like Trey Turner and Jose Ramirez and a bunch of surefire first rounders. I can't imagine we live in a world where people are going to look at this and say, I'm paying sticker for the surprising age 34 season from Paul Goldschmidt at the draft table in 2023. So he may be undervalued again. Could he be undervalued again?

Right. How did he do it? How do we overlook it? How is he doing this? And what the heck does it mean for the future? I think there's something about uh this is actually somewhat relevant to the discussion we were having about old pitchers right uh on a recent rates and barrels right i think there are different aging curves for superstars and so you just you need to make that delineation more when you're talking about age you need to decide

if he's a superstar or not you know what i mean like josh donaldson at 34 what is he he's older than that he's 36 now isn't he 36 uh but josh donaldson at 34 was 2020 uh and you'd have to look at his past seasons and you'd say, oh man, he had 37 homers last year for Atlanta. And he's available to me in this draft. He's going to Minnesota. This is a good year to buy him. Everyone else is sleeping on Josh Donaldson.

I've heard that same thing about him. So's is sleeping on josh donaldson you know i've heard that same thing about so we're sleeping on josh donaldson but i think that the shape of his career is not one where you can say this is necessarily a superstar that's going to age well because at that point he'd had five uh good seasons uh but he was also a late bloomer and we'd seen some sort of reduction in power already happening in the barrel rates and stuff. Um, you know,

before his, his good year in Atlanta. Anyway, I just think that he's, he's interesting. Verlander's interesting. You know, it's like you're looking at a guy who's old.

Yes. Uh, and you have to decide if he's going to age like a superstar or not. I think generally it makes more sense to be a year early than a year late, you know, and not draft Josh Donaldson in 2019. But also, I think Paul Goldschmidt is a better hitter than Josh Donaldson was. Although WRC Plus does not bear it out. Well, the other factor is health, too.

Goldschmidt's been remarkably durable for his entire career i mean he's where donaldson is already having nicks and cuts and barely missed time it's funny now like easy to see it now but 2017 36 homers 2018 33 2019 34 shortened season 2020 2021 31 homers he had four consecutive 30 plus homer seasons the lowest average he hit for any of those seasons was 260 and he hit 290 or above in three out of the four what the hell were we all looking at with paul goldschmidt we were looking so much at the age column that we overlooked everything else about him doesn't make any sense yeah i think if we want to take something away it's like if a guy has had good, solid health for a long time

and good, solid production for a long time, age becomes a little bit less meaningful. I think that does help you even with pitching, where sometimes you're just like, okay, you know, Charlie Morton's not having a great year, right? But I think he's the sort of Paul Goldschmidt on the other end where it's just a guy who comes to the post 150 innings, 150 to 170 innings

every year and has been really really good for a really long time and this year he's not hurting you even if you picked him you got a ton of strikeouts for what you wanted yeah I think that sounds that sounds reasonable to me I think Manny Machado is a little bit like

this where you just do it year over year over year for so long that people sort of take it for granted and with machado he's probably going to come in close to 30 homers again this year comparable run production really nice batting average floor it's going to be 30 during draft season this upcoming season. We're not going to get enough of a discount on Machado to look at it quite the same way. But anytime a player like that falls a couple of rounds away from round two, health track record and how that I think makes you different as a player in your mid-30s compared to the

Donaldson types where there was elevated risk because of soft tissue things that had come up in multiple seasons. Also, shout out to track record. This is by the auction calculators earned value so the

numbers are a little bit different than rotowire but the rankings were pretty similar we were talking about the players beforehand and it's judge goldschmidt turner bets ramirez freeman machado alonzo swanson adolis garcia is the first name there where you're like you know that's a bit of a pop-up guy so that means you go 10 guys deep or nine guys deep of just duh right aren't like most of those guys does like yeah they've been doing it there's nothing surprising about it adolos garcia you got one surprise will he be there again next year who knows then you go right back to a lot of does jordan alvarez austin riley shoetano nolan or not nolan arenado he's like goldschmidt-esque in his own right rio muto lindor and then julio rodriguez is the first sort of ascendant young guy that you had to take a chance on uh to even get him and how many chances chances were taken before that? But Bobby Witt Jr. is on the first page.

So the two big chances you could have taken made sense. So I don't know. There's a little bit of like, you know, take the old boring oatmeal and then also take one chance on a superstar-type rookie. Maybe. But don't do it in the first three rounds, because in the first three rounds, you're still getting Paul Goldschmidt. So there's something interesting to me here,

how sort of boring a lot of these names are. How many of these guys were spring darlings on Twitter? guys were like you know spring darlings for you on twitter how many how many of these guys you know got write-ups as sleepers in in the spring well i know that julio rodriguez's adp went through the roof because his spring was incredible so he went from guy you could get after pick 150 to guy that was flirting with pick 100 by the time we got to the last drafts in April. I do think the process by which I avoided Bobby Witt Jr. in redraft this season, I still think that process is right and I'm comfortable defending it. I think a top 75 pick on a player that hasn't played in the big leagues yet is pretty risky. I think the cost,

the opportunity cost of going with Witt in that spot as opposed to the more established bats or even pitchers that go in that range is significant. I think with Rodriguez, that early discount was so good. It's obviously proven to be better than anyone could have expected. Sometimes you get a Spencer Torkelson or sometimes you get a Dylan Carlson, or someone, or a Jared Kelnick, right? Those players all were going sometime around pick 125 to 150, if not even later. I think Torkelson was well outside the top 200. I'd rather take my shots in that range than inside the top 100. That's still right, even though Witt's been very good and has returned enough value,

even though we're going to have other players move into that group. I guess the question becomes, when do you feel good enough about a player to actually push back on that? When would you make an exception? Is Corbin Carroll the exception? Is Gunnar Henderson the exception? Is someone else coming up through the you make an exception is corbin carroll the exception is gunner henderson the exception is someone else coming up through the minors an exception because i i feel like it in

some ways it's like splitting hairs but i i don't think i don't think we should ignore the difference between pick 60 to 75 and pick 120 for taking these chances yeah i got I got Julio Rodriguez in my main at 382. Holy crap, 382? Yeah. In related news, I'm second. So I love it because there I took him over David Peralta, Abraham Toro, MJ Melendez, and Nick Lodolo. Yeah.

It was the chance-taking time. And I got to take the best chance. But Witt went, in that main, Witt went 76. And he took Bobby Witt over Tommy Edmond, Jonathan India Ketel Marte, Jose Altuve, Pete Alonso Over Alonso? Alonso

fell in that draft too? That's weird But where do I like taking chances? I think the Julio Rodriguez chance went well enough for me that I would take chances a little bit earlier. I'm looking now at sort of 150, where even the veterans you're taking are chances. Max Munthe, Anthony Rendon, Pablo Lopez, Joe Barlow, Tyler Molle. Zach Gallin worked out, but this is

actually some chance-taking here. Brendan Rodgers, right? This would be a great place to take a rookie. Jared Kelnick went there. I think that's actually a good process, bad result. Yeah. Jared Kelnick is going to

be better if he gets going than Andrew Benatendi that got picked eight picks after that. Jared Kelnick is a better pick here than Akil Badu, who was picked at the same time. So if you're taking chances at that point, then maybe take a prospect chance in the 150s. I kind of like that area. Yeah, those pick 70 names. You mentioned El Tuve before. I mean, he was a top 75 guy at the end of draft season. Arenado of like that area. Yeah, those pick 70 names. You mentioned El Tuve before. I mean, he was a top 75 guy at the end of draft

season. Arenado was in that range. Brandon Lau has been hurt a lot this year. I think he's kind of an underrated player. Probably a bounce back guy for me going into next season. Price unknown, but Quetel Marte, okay. We've seen enough Quetel Marte now. I know injuries have also kind of

plagued him for a couple of seasons, but who is he? He's definitely not the guy that we thought he was coming out of 2019. That guy's never coming back. Is that fair to say at this point? Oh, he didn't qualify for my leaderboard. Yeah, I don't think that it's been better. He's definitely been better than he was

early in the season so he definitely has improved some um but uh you know it it's not he's not i don't think i think you're right i don't think he's coming back it's more like if you get a great season from him it's probably 20 homers with 8 to 10 steals and good counting stats because he stayed healthy and played every day. As opposed to 30 plus homers and 12 to 15 steals. Yeah, because even in his improved August, he has had a 3.8% barrel rate. So, you know, there's a little So, you know, there's a little bit you know who there's a little bit of in him? Yandy Diaz.

No, that's not good. Maybe that's not fair. He puts the ball near a little more often. Yeah, he's a little bit more than that. But in some ways he's like a guy who hits the ball hard, has good plate decisions, and is just not going to be a

power threat like he was he might fall quite a bit doesn't steal bases either but i think he might be uh he might be a sneaky value play next year um because i think he'll drop a lot off of this and you know my projection for him next year would probably be 275 with 15 homers and five steals and if he drops enough that's like uh you know what that is actually that's a league average line in fantasy across the board that's what you're likely to get with the possibility of getting a little more but still not going to be probably going to cost you less than the average right in terms of when you draft him yeah if he's going around pick 150 that range 150 175 i could see it man so uh i think that's interesting another thing that was interesting

i was poking around page of the auction calculator earned value this year, Goldschmidt, Freeman, um, uh, Crone and Olson and Alonzo. Um, I think that's interesting because then here's the shortstops. Turner, Swanson, Lindor, and Witt. Yeah, there were more surprises at shortstop, relatively speaking. Like bad surprises? Because this is not... Wasn't everyone saying it's a golden age of shortstop? There's so many shortstops, and what are you going to do in shortstop?

The guy in my main has Jorge Mateo. He's had Jorge Mateo at shortstop all year. And he has Vlad and Krohn, and he's winning. So I just found that interesting. He seemed to have invested a little bit more in first base and outfield than he did at shortstop. Well, some of the disappointments at shortstop, it's all relative. Bo Bichette being just over $20, Xander Bogarts being just over 20th of the season.

You're expecting 30-plus. That didn't ruin you, but it's disappointing nonetheless. Story has underperformed. Jess Chisholm, because of the injury, was on track, but then lost a bunch of time. Seager's been mediocre-ish for his cost. I think he ends up being profitable, though, because he's $26. That's tied for fifth among shortstops. That's without really running much, too.

But it has been a different shape season Correa's missed a lot of time he's at 11 Tim Anderson down at 9 he's missed a lot of time Jorge Polanco is at 12 Glaber has been okay as a bounce back but not all the way back to previous levels so yeah that position's been not as not as great not quite as deep as we all expected. Yeah. On the other hand, he got Jorge Mateo way late in the draft, and he's been top 10-ish, 11. When there's a lot of something,

you know, at the top of a draft or whatever, it has a double meaning. If there's a lot of something at the top of the draft, that means there's a lot of quality there. And there is a lot of quality there. Even if you took the shortstop moniker off of these players, Turner, Swanson,

Mandour, Witt, all those guys, just great batting lines. I just called Seager Meteor Yoker and he's hit 28 dongs so there's a lot of quality at the top but that also means

is you can like you could punt it and get a good shortstop because all of the shortstops are good you know what I mean? and get a good shortstop because all of the shortstops are good. You know what I mean?

The thing about the shortstop pool, I think we talked about this on the shortstop preview back in February or March, most teams don't mix and match at shortstop. So they play someone every single day, and usually it's one of your best players, so the core skills across the board are at least solid, probably all close to above average.

Most of those players also run. There's a handful of exceptions that we've talked about. I'm looking at the the wait on a shortstop situation right now. If you waited and you wanted someone who was going to play every day, you got Dansby Swanson who went at pick 125

in April. The second best shortstop. That worked out fine. Maybe you took Cronenworth there because he plays all over. But you probably said, I'm taking one of Swanson or Willie Adamas because I think those guys hit pretty well. And Ahmed Rosario in deeper leagues. I mean, Ahmed Rosario, in labor, I kind of waited on shortstop, and I got Ahmed Rosario.

And Ahmed Rosario and Willie Adamas and Jorge Mateo are basically nine, 10, 11 and Swanson is two. I think a lot of people, if I remember the draft season conversations somewhat accurately, a lot of people got to that Bogart's Lindor spot and then said, these guys don't run, or I'm not as sure they're going to run as much in the case of Lindor as some of the options that are going to go later, so I might as well wait.

But I think it was kind of the premium especially. Turner's going to run. Bichette's going to run. Tim Anderson's going to run. Trevor Story in Boston, right-handed hitter with the monster, has power, has speed. That's going to work out. Look at what Marcus Simeon did last year. Those top five guys, I think, were commanding a little more consistency

because of the stolen bases. Simeon did push his way back up with a good work. He's now the number one second baseman, according to the fan graphs, in earned value. We could probably look at him and say over under what he's hitting right now,

238 for next season. We'd probably both take the over on a 238 for 2023, wouldn't we? Yeah. I would. Is this true for you on your calculator as it is on the auction calculator? Because this is another way. So second base is a very differently shaped situation where you don't have as much quality at the top, right? have as much quality at the top right and however the best second baseman marcus simeon would rank as the fifth best shortstop by the auction calculator is that true for you too he's simeon

is the tied for yeah he's tied for fifth among shortstops and he's the best second baseman on this calculator similar similar the dollar signs are a little bit different for these two things we figured out but in terms of rank that's true so do you understand what i'm talking about is like like invest at the top in a short stop then you get more value i it i don't think it's one to punt well but at the same time if you do punt you do get an everyday player and jeremy pena nico horner jorge mateo tyro strata you know there's a lot of depth there it's just it's just i think it's a fascinating position to have uh to have a strategy around you know it seems to me like this guy who's winning main had a punch shortstop strategy and maybe it was even just targeting other things because of shortstops depth and then

if that's yeah that's what i mean that's what i mean i'm not like punt like he doesn't have a shortstop a lot of this depends on your draft position and what you think is going to happen if some kind of surprise happened and bo bichette was there, if the person you're talking about was drafting, let's say they had an early draft position, right? 15 team league early in the round. We know that Bo Bichette was usually gone before the last pick around two of a 15 team league. If Bo Bichette had been there, perhaps that person would have said, oh, I'm in. This is the unexpected gift. A couple of things got shifted.

People pushed up pitching. People pushed up something else. Bo's oh, I'm in. This is the unexpected gift. A couple things got shifted. People pushed up pitching. People pushed up something else. Bo's here. I'm taking Bo. And then all of a sudden, that whole plan is completely different. And I think that's such an important part of playing fantasy, of building rosters, is taking what's happening in the moment, reacting appropriately, and then being sure that you're able to build around something that you didn't expect to have. We talk about decision trees all winter long. This is what I think is going to happen. This is what I want to do. If this happens, I know how to adjust for it. If I

end up with two pitchers in the first four rounds unexpectedly because someone fell who wasn't supposed to be there, I know how to backfill with hitters. I know what position is going to run out first. I know not to draft a shortstop if I have two pitchers in the first four rounds because the shortstops in round eight are almost as good as the shortstops in round five. I think that's what you're getting at is understanding the shape of the position is extremely valuable because you will come away with a better, more balanced team if you don't overpay for a similar player by a margin of two to three rounds. While he was listed on the second baseman,

I did figure out what this guy did. And guess what he did? What did he do? He did Vlad Guerrero in the first, Brandon Woodruff in the second, and Trevor Story in the third. So half of our conversation goes out the window. Well, anyway, I still think it's valuable

to think about the shape of a position. And, you know, it is also, he took somebody in Jorge Mateo later on in the draft, um, that ended up being really, really important to him. And it speaks to, you know, having a well-rounded team and having some backups already on your team when you break camp, basically. In any case, uh, let's go on to the bullpens. Yes.

Inspired by another Josh Hader meltdown over the weekend, we are looking now for some immediate help for our bullpens. It doesn't have to be because of the Hader meltdown, but I can't believe it. I do think this, just to kind of put a bow on Hader

for a little while, I'm sure he'll be a frequent topic between now and opening day of next season, I think Josh Hayter's 2022 is probably going to go down just like Edwin Diaz's 2019. That was the year Edwin Diaz had a.559 ERA and a.138 whip, even though he struck out 99 batters in 58 innings. And he came back the next year, the pandemic shortened year, and actually was good. Had a sub-2 ERA, 125 whip, 50 Ks, and 25 and 2 thirds. Kind of got it all back together and has been Edwin Diaz ever since.

To me, that's still the most likely outcome. Yeah, I'd love to get a nice discount, get Hayter out of the second and third rounds, and maybe he'll be uh my closer number one uh if he drops to the the fourth and fifth rounds where i want to get a closer next year if you want that to happen draft as soon as you possibly can before people get time to think about it and before he gets to go through spring training and look like himself again and fix the release point and all those i mean that's that's the best advice I can give of trying to fix the release point. If you watch the release point graph,

he's trying to get it back down again. So he, he knows that's an issue. There could always be some underlying health issue that led this, this point to go up. Um, and that's scary, but I think it's just the same amount of scary basically as any other relief

pitcher in that he doesn't have good command and he has inconsistency in health. That's true of even the most elite relievers, which is why I'm never taking one in the second round. But that's neither here nor there. I think he'll get it together again for this season, and I think he'll be closing games again this season. and I think he'll be closing games again this season because if you just think about the acquisition costs, what he meant to pick up, and the alternatives. I mean, Nick Martinez is fine, but he's not really the closer you want in October, I don't think.

So they'd rather Hayter got it right. Yeah, they need to get it right. So I think Hayter will be closing again. But late season bullpen help who has stood out to you just in terms of opportunity in terms of actual results and in terms of of the model who's starting to pop with a chance to move into a more prominent role uh there's a there's an interesting thing going on in anaheim right now um where jimmy heard her jay not sure actually i had to look that one up uh herget i'm guessing it's her jay he does not have good numbers uh in the model necessarily

90 stuff 97 location uh then quijada i think is the other guy uh jose quijada, I think, is the other guy. Jose Quijada. 98 stuff plus, 101 location, 98 pitching. That's a pretty bad group to have as your potential closers.

And I don't even have a dark horse for you, because Tapera in the past has had good stuff, but this year he does not, 93 stuff plus. So I've been just watching it, and I went and got some Hergé shares just because he's been succeeding in two innings since, and I could see the stuff ticking up a little bit

if he goes to one inning stints and I could see the stuff ticking up a little bit if he goes to one inning stints. It's just sort of the rule of the relationship between quality and quantity. And then he's just been having the best results when it comes to K-BB. And

I think he got a save over the weekend. I think he'll be the closer for the Angels for the rest of the way. I just think that team is so terrible that it doesn't really matter. No, dude, it does matter. Saves will win or lose me a league this year for sure. I've got a couple places where I was like, oh my God, it's all about saves for the last four weeks.

Pronunciation Guide has Herget. Herget? All right, Herget, I guess. Not going to lie, I've been really steering clear of Angels games, and if it's like Otani pitching day, as soon as Otani's done pitching, I'm on to the next game. I think, actually, he closed an Otani game. That's what I saw him pitching. but i just bailed i i'm not

i'm not hanging around the angels out of the game you were out as soon as otani's done pitching i'm like see ya there's something else on yeah um the model really does like john schreiber but it also likes whitlock so uh that is just one where I think Schreiber might get a couple saves in Boston, but not necessarily be the outright closer, and Tanner Houck is on his way back with a model that really likes him too, so they have a really good bullpen, and it's more like the Mariners problem, where there's a bunch of good bullpen guys, some of them are going to get saves, and nobody's going to really emerge. I think Rafael Montero is safe-ish with Presley out.

I think he's kind of the closer I'd heard that he might be basically the sole option when Presley went down earlier in the season. So I assume that's going to be the case again. Maldon doesn't like Alexis Diaz, but we have a model we're testing where we change things, and that one does like Alexis Diaz.

And he has a very unique collection of pitches because his fastball looks like his brother's minus 10 horizontal movement. So there's almost nobody who throws a fastball looks like his brother's minus 10 horizontal movement. So there's almost nobody who throws a fastball like Alexis Diaz. However, Hunter Strickland, he throws a fastball that every other pitcher has ever thrown. And his fastball is awful by stuff plus and just gets blown to pieces. So Alexis Diaz is definitely my favorite there. to pieces. So Alexis Diaz is definitely my favorite there. And then I take AJ Puck in Oakland because he's the only reliever in Oakland that my model likes. Brandon Hughes, I think, in Chicago with the Cubs is pretty interesting. They're mixing and

matching a lot right now, though. And as another team that isn't very good, those opportunities might be a little lighter than you'd like them to be. I'm curious if the model is in on Jose Leclerc now that he's healthy again, because if you think about Jonathan Hernandez, Leclerc, and eventually a healthy Joe Barlow, that's a good trio of relievers. It's just a bit of a headache for us if all three of those guys are in the mix for saves.

Yeah, 112 stuff plus for Leclerc, 106 for Hernandez, and we've always known that Joe Barlow is a model darling with a 127 stuff plus. So, you know, it's just blisters for Barlow, so I just don't know. I feel like he could just figure the blister out and be back up again, right? It's not like he needs an extensive rehab process. He's a reliever, and, you know, I don't know. I just struggle with how big a deal a blister problem is.

You know what I mean? Like, I know it can be for him, but, like, at some point he's going to figure it out, right? He's going to be back up and he's going to be closing. So that's how I see it. But in the meantime, Leclerc should do well. Andres Munoz still getting a few chances for the Mariners too. They use a lot of Seawalt, but it's not just Seawalt's job.

There at least seems to be a clear backup sort of option there. We talked about Munoz as someone that you might want to add in a keeper or dynasty league where available because he could emerge to be an elite of the elite sort of closer. It would not be surprising if that's the path he goes down. It just kind of comes down to whether or not the Mariners stick with the committee in the long run. But they seem to flirt with at least having a chair of their committee, and Munoz could be the next person to take that job once Seawald eventually either moves on

or something changes in the pecking order there. changes in the pecking order there the there is one name that i think that um it looks like a collection of uh of you know guys that'll get that outs and and some saves and they're going to mix it around but i actually like pete fairbanks the best out of any of the rays um they you know jason adam has good stuff numbers and has good results, but they just haven't seemed to trust him all the way for saves. Pete Fairbanks has the best stuff of his career right now. He's got the most ride on his fastball, the most drop on his curveball, I think the most velo or some of the best velo of his career. And the Rays are actually tied for or no the second have the second most back to back to backs in baseball uh in their in their bullpen i'm not suggesting that pete fairbanks is going to

go back to back to back because he has bad health history and they're probably going to be careful with him uh but i do think they'll use him back-to-back, and if they're going to use him back-to-back, then he can be the primary closer. So I think Pete Fairbanks is in the middle of emerging as their primary closer. Hopefully a few names that can help in leagues where you're scrambling,

either because of haters struggling right now or otherwise. I think if you can, haters are stashed, by the way. I don't know if we clarified that before. Even if you don't want to use him in your active lineup, I don't think you necessarily want to cut him, even though in some cases you might have to consider letting him go.

And I'm not going hard on Nick Martinez because he's getting saves right now. The Hughes-Wick one we glossed over a little bit. It's interesting. Wick has better stuff. But I think I agree with you that they're kind of showcasing, trying out, they're developing. I think they want to see maybe if Hughes can be their closer next year or they want to see what the results look like. I would assume that's almost a 50-50 split going forward.

Yeah, I think he had a blown save on Friday, and there was a point where he got up on Sunday to possibly pitch early in that game and then didn't against the Brewers. But anyway, I think the most well-rounded early in that game and then didn't against the Brewers. But anyway, I think the most well-rounded skills in that bullpen probably do belong to Brandon Hughes. So that could actually make him the most stable option if they're looking for one person

to take over that job for next year. It seems like a weird spot for them to spend money in free agency. They need impact. They don't just need relievers right now. I assume they'll do the same thing they did this year where they buy at the bottom of the reliever market with a bunch of one-year deals. Yep. I could definitely see them going down that road again. We are going to go, before we go, a few reminders. You can get a subscription to The Athletic for a dollar a

month for the first six months at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. If you've got a question for a future episode at ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels get a question for a future episode rates and barrels at theathletic.com or leave us a comment under this video on youtube be sure to like this video and subscribe to our youtube channel if you're watching us on or listening to us on a platform that allows you to rate and review the podcast we'd greatly appreciate it if you did that on twitter you can find eno at enoceris you can find me at derek van riper that's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.