Rates & Barrels - Crazy March ADP Data

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

Eno returns from his Florida trip with some wild tales for Welsh, as well as some great conversations and perspectives with players. Eno and Welsh also dig into some interesting March ADP trends from the NFBC. Rundown 6:18 - Eno talks with Clay Holmes, Pete Fairbanks and more 14:36 - Can a starter have one pitch to a righty or lefty and succeed? 19:56 - Is adding a pitch tangible enough to up someone's rank? 24:27 - Crazy high min picks on NFBC 48:40 - NFBC guys inside the top 100 min, with a post 130 ADP Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Treat yourself to Tim's new Fudge Brownie Lattes, made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice-chilled milk, and topped with marble chocolate curls. Now that's music to our ears. Available hot or iced, only at Tim's. welcome into rates and barrels right here on the athletic oh it's the sultry tones of a correct microphone from the welsh that's me chris welsh with the right microphone selected and uh joining me today as always is the great enosaurus you can find him on twitter at enosaurus fresh off of uh like an overnight flight you told me you barely just got back in people don't understand this like you just got back in everything was delayed you are um you are a man of baseball for being able to do this episode today, my friend. Yeah, it was an atmospheric river. Shout out to Jude, who I spent about three or four hours with in the airport bar.

Okay, hi Jude. Steve Phillips showed up for a couple of those hours, and we had a couple drinks together. So at least I had some good company but uh uh you know it was a rough it was a rough ending to the trip and uh i have to tell you my parents ran hotels and so i usually you know see the like tough part of running a hotel and like, you know, understand it's not an easy business. My mom still runs a hotel. Another shout out to Ingrid and Jerome. Yeah. And Jerome at the ghost city in mentioned my name and maybe she'll give you a discount. Maybe we're into ghosts. Me and my wife are into ghosts. So we, I need to go down there. We need to go.

It's a quick little jaunt down to jerome for us we've never been actually yeah that's fun and um so i it was the worst hotel room i've ever had now how did how does one room become the worst how did they lock that in well well to begin with before i even got into the hotel room, I couldn't open the door. All right. That's a good start. And it's not because of the key card. The door had one hinge that was working. And so you basically had to lift it up off of the ground in order to open or close it.

You kind of lift it up and put your shoulder into it. So every morning as I'm like bleary eyed, you know, trying to go get breakfast, I had to be like, I feel like I had a car like that. Once you get inside, I felt like they sprayed for nine on all the floors. So, like, if you took your socks off, it was like sticky. All right. I didn't take my shoes off, by the way, if that's the case. The air conditioner is broken or it's stuck at like 62, which is... I like that. It's okay, but they didn't give me any blankets.

So I only had a sheet. So the first night i was in there i woke up at 3 a.m and had to fashion a blanket out of the extra uh towel that i had and the and the sheets off the other bed so i like kind of made a blanket in the middle of the night so that i wouldn't freeze to death so uh then uh the shower, the water pressure, that's a common problem. It was like a little drizzle on me. Uh, couldn't really get it warm either. The bathtub had been, uh, receipt, like re, uh, lined, but the lining wasn't holding.

So basically anytime you walked anywhere in the bathtub, it was like crinkled. It would be like crinkle, crinkle, crinkle. Like the, yeah, it was a bad bathtub um smelled like mold um uh couldn't uh change the tv volume um what is going this is comical at this point what are you talking about this is crazy the cleaning lady threw away my toothpaste. And I cleaned it away. I had toothpaste there and then I didn't. I'm like, I'm not going crazy here.

I had toothpaste here yesterday. Welcome to Florida. Oh, my God. Was there more? No, not really. I mean, the smell was bad. Florida,'s things it's hard for things to dry so you know i had like generally smells wet clothes from the beach at one point that just just made the mold smell even worse but that's i mean that's a pretty good combo i think you know and breakfast was the kind of breakfast they're like free breakfast and

the breakfast was kind of breakfast where everything comes in in plastic bags like the little pastry like the little pastry with the thing in the middle like the cheese in the middle and like a little muffin in oh and this is the one of the maybe grossest part i actually ate one of these uh so they did have eggs but they were hard-boiled eggs in some sort of weird watery liquid that in like a sleeve it was like a sleeve of hard-boiled eggs in like a liquid and you are a respected sandwich connoisseur and and i made i made a i made a breakfast sandwich with a white bagel that came out of a plastic bag and a egg that came out of this like watery sleeve and you had to hold it right or else the water would spill everywhere. Like egg water would spill everywhere.

What? I had to get an egg out of there, smush it on my bagel. And I was like, oh, this is pinking up. This is high living. I was imagining Guy Fieri with the plastic knife trying to make an egg sandwich with the egg out of the sleeve. I mean, I didn't buy that it was the worst hotel, but that might be the worst experience. Who's the yeller? That's who I was going to say.

I was thinking of Gordon Ramsay. Gordon Ramsay. Gordon Ramsay. Gordon Ramsay. What is this? Or the guy from Bar Rescue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't think of his name either can't think of any of them that's insane so was there uh before we do all the the selling and the stuff was there anything good on the trip besides oh yeah baseball we did the episode from the trop where my mic was

off but it was amazing looking what uh what happened after that was fun uh talked to tyler o'neill uh talked to drew rasmussen finally um and it was pretty good we talked about how there's a difference between the sort of uh pitch the the the track man numbers that you can get in practice and what happens in the game and him and kyle crick were talking about how sometimes they get more movement in the game and they don't really know why so they were talking about um you know trying to adjust for what they see in practice and what they actually see in game settings um which is super important for like player development and training and and all that sort of stuff because we see all these you know these breathless videos from these these places in the in the off season and then Matt Brash developed a cutter. It's amazing. He hasn't thrown one in spring.

That sort of deal. The relationship between the practice environment and the game environment. I talked to Pete Fairbanks and I actually said the sentence I think your stuff is too good for your body to handle. How did he react

to that? Yeah, that wasn't uh he was like i hope not and i was like oh why did i say that i can't relate with that a little too much like the stupid stuff that comes out of my mouth especially when i've talked to players and i'm just like that ruined it yeah right good job you know there's also a thing with players too that i've interviewed that um alec bohm was one that i interviewed it was one of the worst interviews i've ever done but it was also due to him unfortunately like i've done some bad interviews um a couple one

i didn't release with he's not super engaged nope and uh it was pretty well known that he's not super engaged but at the end i had brought up uh his time at I think it's Wichita State. And he was playing with his buddy. It was Grayson Janetta, I think his name is. And that perked him up. And my last two or three questions got him perked up. And I had this moment where I was like, man, why didn't I start here? Because before I was asking him about analytics and he's like i don't do analytics in

season and he was not into anything i was talking about and it's just like man could i just warmed him up in the beginning that is such a better way by the way if you're ever talking to players find a way to warm them up in the very beginning then just go in and hit the stuff that they really are going to try to find a way to athlete you you know where they're like my best usually try to tell them their top 10 and something find something their top 10 and something yeah tell them they're good yeah yeah tell them how good they are first have you ever eaten an egg out of a water bath that's what we'll find out about so um uh who else i talked to oh Oh, Yankees camp was amazing, actually. It was amazing.

Oh, my God. I had this really great discussion with Clay Holmes. I have to figure out how I'm going to write it. He had a really important question. Yeah, I'll reveal it a little bit here on the podcast. It's fun. Okay, yeah, because I'm interested in Clay Holmes because they're putting him in more of that leverage situation which has made me move off of him

uh but i'm yeah really well they talked about that they might take him out in more of a leverage like an eighth inning type of role uh finishes the game yeah well that's the thing that like king yeah i don't know i don't know all right so but go. All right. So, but go ahead. I was. Oh, so we were talking just generally about seam shifted wake and, you know, how his his sinker to benefits from seam shifted wake. And and so I had sensed that we were having a good enough discussion that I was kind of like, so what's the plan against lefties this year? what's the plan against lefties this year? Because last year he was like a one pitch pitcher against lefties. And he immediately started laughing. He's like,

what? You mean one pitch all year won't work? I was like, he's like, well, here's a revelation that I don't think many people know is he was actually throwing a sweeper and a gyro slider last year. So if you classify those together, the movement kind of groups together and makes it look like not as good, which is amazing because he's still a great stuff numbers. But, you know, he has two sliders.

So he was talking about, you know, maybe using the gyro slider a little bit more against lefties because the sweeper does have platoon splits. And so, you know, he did have a plan. But then he was like, he's like, well, maybe you could research this for me. Oh. And he said, what if my plan would work? What if one pitch would work? I was like, no,

he meant like specifically like, you know, lefty, like righties are told not to throw sinkers to lefties anymore. And the, everything that lefties see now in the game is up and in up. So they see lefties from righties, see four seamers up, four seamers up and in cutters up, cutters up and in up so they see lefties from righties see four seamers up four seamers up and in cutters

up cutters up and in and uh so you know every lefty right now is trying to figure out like i just had a long conversation with kyle schwaber about how when he came up he couldn't do anything on the high pitch and pitchers just kept feeding him that and feeding him that until he figured out what to do on the high pitch you know and so uh i think lefties now don't see the sinker loan away and specifically clay holmes the sinker like comes from a high arm slot and has uh you know deceptive movement so it's a really good one i think it might be the best in in stuff plus but it's interesting to think like, you know, we had, we heard from Chris Langen on Friday's pod that hitters are getting better at the sweeper as the every year goes by.

And that suggests that they're, they're trying to figure out this new pitch. Well, you know, this, the righty sinker to a lefty is an old pitch. So no old pitch that people don't see as much anymore. So maybe it's, it can come back in vogue. So I, I'm going to maybe look at, um, something for him where I look at platoon splits on pitches over time.

Interesting. And see if like righties, you know, righties are maybe, maybe lefties are getting better at four seamers from righties and worse at sinkers from righties because they see more four-seamers. What would be the pitch, too? What would be like the one pitch that you could rock if you were? Like if one guy, like if he's saying you can live with one pitch,

is it more of a sinker? Is it a cutter? Like what's the most efficient of any of those, do you think? Well, I mean, we have some one-pitch slider guys like Matt Wisler. I mean, he's not... What your definition of one pitch is, we can get into semantics, but you know what I mean. He's like a 70%, 80% slider

guy. And I think that's possible. I wrote a little bit about that in how the game is becoming a slider league and how maybe the guys who throw a ton of sliders is because they can manipulate the shape. You know, Whistler and Griffin Jacks told me they do have like slightly different shapes. If you think about the breaking ball breaks differently to different parts of the zone. If you're throwing it arm side, it kind of, you know, can have like more of a one plane shape.

And if you hold on to it longer and throw a glove side, it has more of a two plane shape, you know? And so, um, you know, Madison Bumgarner told me that sometimes he could manipulate that by changing where he landing foot is. So he was more cross body in certain situations,

which I think was crazy. But, um, other pictures have said that that's sometimes possible, but, uh, my answer would be slider or cutter because they're manipulatable and you could actually sort of make two pitches out of it,

or maybe even three, where you kind of manipulate how big the break is. For example, if you threw a cutter a bunch, and I think Holmes was suggesting that this is true of Mariano, but I don't remember this necessarily from watching, that Mariano could change the shape on his cutter. Do you think they're... So you have basically like a little baby slider versus a cut fastball.

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Do you think that that is possible with a starting pitcher? And I'm specifically, obviously, I can't have one pitch, but like one pitch versus is it the same thing necessarily apply? Because it seems very reliever-ish. Do you think a starter can get through a game with having like one pitch to, you know, let's just say lefties? Oh, right.

There are starters that have weird platoon splits on their pitches where they just, you know, they only use kind of like one or two pitches against one side. Or like there are some four pitch pitchers that like throw two pitches to one side and two pitches to the other side, and that's it. Yeah, yeah, they control the side.

But I think generally it's it. I think generally it's tough. I also talked to Chris Bassett at length about the fact that he has eight pitch types. He said he has two change-ups, so he has actually eight pitch types. The hidden value there on a team level, not necessarily a fantasy level, on a team level, is that he

goes deeper into games. That's pretty much shown by the numbers. The more pitches you have, the deeper you go into games. That's pretty much shown by the numbers that the more pitches you have, the deeper you go into games. He saves the bullpen. And if you have a few of those guys, you might be more likely to have a healthy bullpen in October. Think about the raise and how hard they push their relievers all year and how often it seems they are scrambling to put together a healthy bullpen in October. That's fascinating. All of it is fascinating because I'm also thinking of this from Kumar Rocker was what came to mind. We don't talk about prospects, but Kumar has just one of the best

slides. It's still one of the best sliders I've seen, and he can have it dip and he can have it come in and he can command it, but he doesn't really have another pitch right now. And I just wonder if you say a slider cutter is the best singular pitch, is that something he can get away with? Or is that going to be a prelude to him just being a reliever, being a dominant reliever? I don't know. It's,

I think a lot of the overachievers in baseball, a lot of the great agers, if you think about Charlie Morton, Adam Wainwright, like, you know, a lot of the kind of outliers in baseball, in starting pitching, have an elite breaking ball. And there's so much I think you can do with an elite breaking ball because elite breaking balls, you can often throw them in the zone.

If you can throw them in the zone for strikes and for whiffs, then it's really hard. You can build stuff off of that, right? Now you can throw your forese seam, which isn't that great. Let's say your four seam isn't that great. Maybe Kumar's, yeah, Kumar's can't control it. But instead of worrying about controlling it in the zone, the four seam, he can just basically spray it high. And if they're always looking for the, if he can throw some high sliders,

that'll set up a high fastball that's not even in the zone, right? Yeah, that's what he wants. I think he wants to do that, and he just hasn't. Not to make this a prospect thing, right it's just interesting my connection with that because also uh bryce miller with the seattle mariners i talked to is doing the same uh sweeper gyro thing as well as clay home so it's just very interesting like sweeper gyro sinker that yeah that one that's his attempt right now i don't know if he's throwing a sinker i think it's a high fastball and i think he's got a change up as well but he told me that he altered his attempt right now. I don't know if he's throwing a sinker. I think it's a high fastball and I think he's got a change up as well.

But he told me that he altered his slider to now a sweeper. And then that one he feels he can control. But he's also added a gyro slider that he's in. Oh, usually, usually people find they can control the gyro better because the gyro is like kind of like a bullet. So it's just like the less movement you have. There's some there's some research on this. The less movement your pitch has, the more you can command it.

Unless you're Corey Kluver somehow. But everybody else is like, you know, oh, this is easier than this kind of sweeper thing. Yeah. So, OK, besides the hotel, it sounds like it was a pretty fascinating trip

of a lot of good conversation around a lot of guys and some good articles that are going to be out there as well. So make sure you guys are locked into it, which you can be at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. You guys can sign up $2 a month. Why would you not? You can get all of this great content.

You can get the dynasty ranks that I've got and the draft kit, which is available. And wouldn't you know it? We actually are going to talk about some draft based stuff today. Real quick thing about sweepers. Sure. Since we were just talking about it. Let me run down a quick list of relevant pitches we've added a sweeper. So now we know that Clay Holmes has a sweeper, right?

Okay. Alex Cobb is throwing an 87-mile-an-hour sweeper. He's never had a really good slider. If he has a really good slider, I don't know. 87, you said? Yeah, 87 is also really hard for a slide yeah i'm about to say that you're getting into like power slider type of stuff yeah so and for that much movement at a7 that's really uh stands out for me brad keller is throwing a sweeper um i learned that

brady singer has a new change-up grip and he's a bit of a stuff plus surger uh this spring um and nice to see that in the wbc but jameson tyon is throwing a sweeper okay clark schmidt is throwing a cutter and uh and i was joking about throwing a cutter and a sweeper at the same time and that uh and he was like oh yeah jameson tyon just keeps texting me pictures of his sweepers, like videos of his sweeper. I was very proud of it. So those are all, I hate to be like a trendy biatch, but those are all like much more interesting

all of a sudden to me. Because first of all, sliders are great. Sweepers perform really well. And these are new sliders on pitchers. You know, like that makes me think, that makes me like, listen, listen you know even if you just told me alex cobb has a new slider i'd be interested you know so are those quantifiable things that will make you push guys because like clark schmidt got a lot of run i heard from a lot of people after the last episode they're like oh i can't secretly hide clark schmidt anymore that you know when you were talking about

moving them up until i think it was like the mid fifties or sixties or something like that. Are these a type of like intangibles? I mean, it's very tangible of like them adding a pitch. This is the type of thing that's going to get you probably snagging them in drafts. The way that it's not tangible is that it's hard for me to put this into the projections.

Maybe next year or maybe in season, I'll work with Jordan on including somehow last 400 Stuff Plus to capture some changes like this. We had found that the last 400 pitches of Stuff Plus is sometimes more predictive than the full season because of pitch mix changes like this. So maybe we'll be able to input that. But right now, it's not in the projections. So what you're going to see is my subjective rankings will push guys a little harder than their projections say. Right now, I have Joe Ryan 42, and he's got the highest projected ERA in the top 42,

in the top, you know, actually in the top 50. He's, you know actually in the top 50 he's you know 55 60 yeah he's got the highest oh and guess who has the second highest in the top 60 is jameson tyon who i pushed to 56 you know uh so joe ryan has a sweeper he's 42 james jameson tyon has a sweeper. He's 56. I was already pretty in on Alex Cobb, so I didn't want to push him any further. He's at 53. John Gray throws a sweeper and a gyro, and he's at 52. So, you know, I have baked this into my rankings update to a certain point and rankings update on the site. Mitch Keller has a new sweeper.

He's at 76. I'm the high man on Mitch Keller. And then Brad Keller surged all the way to 173. I mean, I could maybe push him up a little bit more. I'm doing this on the instant update. Instant update. I'm pushing Brad Keller all the way to 132. Breaking news.

Of those players you were just talking about i think you might have already answered it who i don't think it adp or like rank has to necessarily dictate your aggressiveness but i mean obviously it would for like you have this guy the highest who is the guy with all those changes that you are making sure you're locking and i want to say you might have had cob higher than tyone but who is who's your most aggressive of all of these big pitch mix changes that you want to make sure you're locking in on all your rosters is it homes is it tyone is it cobb i have i've actually uh i've had tyone i have a fair amount of shares of tyone i have him in tgfbi i have him in a couple of draft and holds and one of the reasons i liked him was I thought not necessarily I could

account for like 180 innings, but I thought I could count on him for a few innings. He's in the rotation to start and he's pretty cheap. So that was already, you know, pretty interesting to me. And then this news sort of cemented the fact that I'm I'm more interested in him. So that's that's a that's a good combo. Clark Schmidt was somebody I was already in on. So that's a good combo. Clark Schmidt was somebody I was already in on. But the only reason I would sort of hesitate a little bit is that I thought he was a sick starter. Now he's in the rotation because they have two spots in the rotation that are open to begin the season.

So that gives him some runway to outperform Doming herman and stay in the rotation so really you know my number next to him in terms of innings reflects the fact that you know he could go back down 135 but he could get he could get more than that maybe i mean it's uh it all depends on the health of the guys around him and if he outperforms domingo herman so i feel like cobb would be the guy i'm really interested like i love the idea of this like pow like a power slider power sweeper the giants also have such a good track record of just fixing these type of players and just you know pushing really good improvements and solid insane numbers that i feel like that would be the one that i jump in on that i would want to push cobb up i'm a little indifferent about tyone i'm a little bit different about like clay holmes clark schmidt i

think is fine i'm a little bit worried i like Clay Holmes. Clark Schmidt, I think is fine. I'm a little bit worried, I guess about the theoretical limited innings. If his spot is taken away, Cobb seems like someone I would move up a little bit with those changes, but you guys can see everything of what he knows. Got over at the athletic.com slash rates and barrels. If you guys have signed up, you're already signed up. Good to go on the app.

You get everything hooked up. You know, we're talking about draft stuff here, and that is actually what we've got as some notes for today nfbc drafts are the high dollar ones kind of an always good marker i would always as well like caution people a little bit because there's a little bit bigger risks that are taken catchers get pushed up saves can get pushed up in those when you're paying attention to their adps but it is always fun to track and see what the biggest differences are. So I put together a list. I got two lists. I don't know if we'll get to both of them. This first list I thought was a little

bit more fun to yap about here. I looked at the top 100 on NFBC since March 1st draft champion. So March 1st, let's make that our marker here. It's about two weeks. I believe there was in draft champions, 14 drafts that have taken place since March 1st. And I decided to pull apart the craziest men picks in the top 100. And what that means is the highest that any player has gone. And, um And these ones really stood out to me. So I just wanted to chat with you about them. And if we get to the next section, fantastic, because it's a little bit different here.

And again, these are going to be the highest a guy has gone, draft champions on NFBC since March 1st. This was a little bit of a surprise to me. And you tell me if you feel different. There were only three players since march 1st in these that have gone first overall and that was the shock to me that it was only three because i feel like there's a five or six window and there's one player that's missing out of here that really stood out jose ramirez is not on this list aaron judge ronald acuna and

trey turner were the only three during this time period, you know, that went number one overall. Now we don't have to, you know, go nuts, blah, blah, blah, weird things can happen, but no Jose Ramirez, no Julio Rodriguez. I feel like as March came in, things are honing in a little bit and that looks like the consensus top three. What do you think about that? Yeah, it is funny how a consensus forms over time. You know, call it group thing, call it whatever you'd like. But, you know, the first round is not for risk taking. And so you'll see that people sort of come to a consensus fairly quickly. And, you know, there's now the there's a couple like sort of publicly available places to create auction value that, you know, more and more people are looking at. And, you know, for example, if you do the Bad X for 15 teams over in the auction calculator, you get Judge Acuna and then Vlad Guerrero Jr., which is, you know, he's been heard.

And it's also maybe an outlier when you compare to other systems. But you're right. Jose Ramirez is fourth there. And who did you say the three were? Trey Turner? Yeah, Trey Turner was the third that went number one. Those are the only three in this time period. And the auction calculator says he's 12th.

And I think that maybe the Turner love has to do with the stolen base rules and some anticipation perhaps of more stolen bases this season. But for me, I would be very happy to sneak out with a fourth place pick of Jose Ramirez. He's a guy who pulls the ball a ton, he steals bases. Lefty who pulls the ball a ton should see some shift benefit. He steals bases and he plays third base, which has been proven like stinks. Like,

like how cool would it be to get one of the best third base in the game and also get 20 steals? You know what I mean? Like you could remove the 20 steals and he'd still be like a back end, you know, maybe a start of the second round guy, like right there with like Devers or something. You know what I mean? And you put the steals back in. You're like, this guy should maybe go in the top three. So that's the name that sticks out for me for sure.

Also, low key, we just mentioned that exact thing. You could almost implant to Bobby Witt Jr. I know Bobby Witt in everywhere but NFBC is really falling. key we just mentioned that exact thing you could almost implant to bobby witt jr i know bobby witt in everywhere but nfbc is really falling 17 18 adp but in nfbc he's got a top 10 adp and it's kind of exactly what you said there's a little bit more volatility and like will he consistent we hit the contact that you know like we know we have a track record from jose ramirez you know sort of you know i think it makes me nervous anytime. And this is a bit of a bias, but I think it's one that served me well,

which is just like, you know, guys who are projected for a sub 300 OBP or like a 300 OBP basically make me nervous. You have to do so much right. And, I mean, he could be the kind who does so much right, right? You have to make a lot of contact, be good defensively, power, speed. Looks like he has all that. But it still makes me nervous in terms of you'll still maybe see an effect when it comes to runs and RBI because a guy like Jose Ramirez

is just going to get on base more often and score more runs because of it. So this one jumped out to me, uh, as a very, very interesting one, the number one pitcher with the highest men, not counting Otani, but the number one true pitcher Spencer Strider had the highest individual pick of any single pitcher in NFBC drafts during this time of nine. That one stood out like a sore thumb. I am definitely a Spencer Strider guy, but what say you, Eno? He was the guy, the guy here, as far as pitchers go, that went higher than anybody else. And that was just really not what I was expecting. I've got 11 pitchers projected for a sub three ERA with the PP ERA system. And two of them are Carlos Rodon and another player that

we'll talk about maybe in a second. So those guys are hurt, currently hurt. One of them is Jacob deGrom, who actually is the only pitcher pitcher we have projected for a sub-2 PPRA, but has maybe a more aggressive health risk than anybody in the top 30. By the way, he's throwing on Monday against the AA Royals at the start of minor league spring training. And I I'm going, I'm going over there. Yeah. So I was talking with someone, the worst swings in the history of baseball.

I was talking with someone about, I've said, yeah, I'm going over to Rangers camp and I'm going to watch that. And they were just like, I feel so bad for those. And I'm like, I know that it's going to be brutal. He's going to mow them down. He's going to look amazing. And those poor 20 year old guys are just going to be swinging for their life. You know they get high fives back in the dugout if they foul a ball.

100%. 100%. But, you know, so Strider absolutely belongs in the top 10, I think, no matter how you look at it. I don't see how you can push him out of the top 10. Top 10 SP, you're saying? Yeah. And then see how you can push him out of the top 10. Top 10 SP you're saying. Yeah. And then,

but he went actually, and I was wrong. Six overall was his thing. It wasn't nine. It was six overall, the highest of any single picture. All the other pitchers, you know,

I think if there's anybody that could be Jacob to Grom, other than Jacob to Grom, it's Spencer Strider. And he set the rookie strikeout rate, uh, record last year. He's projected for a 36% strikeout rate. De Grom's projected for a 39% strikeout rate. And nobody else is projected for more than a 33% strikeout. Garrett Cole's a 34, but that's, that's like, it is still pretty intense to be like two

percentage points ahead of Garrett Cole. He was like the steadiest, eddiest ace in the world. like it is still pretty intense to be like two percentage points ahead of garrett cole who's like the steadiest eddiest ace in the world so you know uh spencer strider i think that i think the bet here is that maybe we just haven't really heard any bad news uh in terms of uh in terms of health and so people are like could he could he do 160 innings? Could he do 170 innings? You know, he doesn't have a ton of innings in his history, but he kind of went from 90 to 135 last year. And what does that include postseason?

137. So, I mean, if you do that kind of jump again, could get to 160 now if you got 160 innings of anything like he did last year uh it could be the best pitcher in baseball best starting pitcher in baseball so um I I get the bet and I think the bet is basically uh if if Jacob deGrom is worth taking in the first round because if he's healthy he's that good then spencer strider is almost as good and the only other pitcher i think that could be like jacob degram and has better health outcomes so that's the i think that's the thinking with people yeah and obviously i would acknowledge anybody like there can always be one outlier in a draft or something that takes one guy higher and that

is going to push this but but you had a nine there before so that means there's a nine and a six i mean there's people doing this a hundred percent yeah and and either way i think it's the names are fascinating because i took out at one time i actually did this with all of the drafts and i was just like let's not do that because like oscar colas one time went like 22 to somebody and everything just like crazy stuff the high money drafts are that you know there's yeah you usually don't have as many crazy outliers. Exactly. And that's why we went to draft champions to kind of take out a little bit of the volatility.

This one might not be as crazy because I am designating this list as like the crazy high pick players on NFBC during this time, but it just stood out to me for an NFL Tati's junior had a 12 on him and that stood out. His ADP is 18. His range is 12 to 24, but essentially pushed into the first round. He has had a really bad spring.

He then got banged up a little bit, but he's back in as a DH today, not playing in the field. So getting a little bit banged up, bad spring, both playing a role in, I think some people's thought process, but not here because he's going 12 overall.

And he's gotten bigger physically. Arms look a little bit bigger. And maybe that's the rust of the game is still a little bit behind him leading to some of the spring stuff. But Fernando Tatis at 12, do you think that takes off all of the real true upside and is taking on way more risk than is worthwhile?

Like your first pick being fernando tatis jr missing 20 ish games or whatever i do think that's too aggressive because you know a sober look at this would say uh you know just the auction calculator on fan graphs uh 14th best hitter now that's not including you you know, Burns, Cole, Strider, which I think the top three pitchers should be included by the time you get to the 14th best hitter. So basically, Tatis is a back-end top 20 guy. And that's on a projection of 500 plate appearance with 34 homers and 25 stolen bases and a 282 average the in this case the system not knowing the injuries i think is actually a negative sometimes we talk about oh you know he played through injury he got it fixed and he's going to be better in this case we we had a we had a surgery

that has really affected other people's play in the past this is maybe one of the worst surgeries for a hitter to have in terms of power outcomes later and how long it takes to recover and all that stuff so in this case i would look at that projection and say well that's a little bit rosy glasses you know like wouldn't you wouldn't you look at this and be like oh really you think tates is gonna come off of two surgeries of which uh a writer on our site was talking that the wrist surgery was actually more of a problem because they put they put pins in it. We had a whole thing with cause crayon pins this whole offseason. You know, like people are deathly afraid of pins and he has one

in his wrist. I cited this from an article I read a little just not too long ago, but Devin Masarocco was interviewed about this and he went through a very similar injury and he's like he said he would be shocked because he was never the same he would be shocked in one way if he was able to return to form right away the other was he said his was more long-standing um like over time than it was like a singular moment so maybe that's going to be different yeah but he was uh he was not optimistic that you know it was going to come right away because it affected the rest of his career and i i love fernando tatis jr i love looking the projections are hilarious to look at the bat that's what i'm

saying like it's 34 25 and 115 games is the bat x or i'm sorry yeah 34. 34, 25, two 82 average. ATC has got him hitting two 77 with 30 homers, 21 stolen bases. Those are great numbers. It seems like there's so much like volatility for him to be at 12. That stood out to me. It's like, I don't know if I would want to take on that risk. This might be a little bit more of an NFBC thing.

Now it gets really interesting. Some people play for the, like the overall where they're like, you know, if, if I i'm you know i think i even talked to somebody who went to tisa de grom you know i mean i love that i went yolo and tgfbi this year i decided to play that a little bit i went a little bit yolo to see what happens and i do have tatis on that roster by the way so i also have i also have alvarez i took jordan alvarez with my first pick because he fell but i think that's gonna work out for me and tatis is my second i took on all of that

well i also have you want to hear the first your last i took o'neill cruz as well so i just went like i told you i told you it was yolo uh but the other guy that i took on that same draft is probably the most fascinating of all of this on this list. He just signed a eight year, $111 million contract extension, Corbin Carroll, who has been rocketing up boards. I will tell you his ADP since March 1st on draft champions is 54 with a high of 40. champions is 54 with a high of 40. So what say you Corbin Carroll with a 40 high pick in these drafts? I mean, that is a third round pick in a 15 team Roto. You know, I think, uh, we talked, we've talked about Corbin Carroll a lot. And so I don't know if we want to just like re litigate a

lot of the stuff we've talked about, but one of the things that we liked is the high, uh, and, uh, speed, the high end liked is the high uh and uh speed the high end speed the stolen bases that are going to be there we like those things but um you know i saw some pushback on anybody that's sort of looking at his barrel rate and his max dv from last year and saying he didn't really have that power and i think even we were uh i think fair to him saying it's hard to fake a 330 ISO, you know, no matter what's going on in the park or with your exo-V lows. I would say that for a first attempt at the League of Leagues,

a 5.5% barrel rate and a 107.5 max EV is not something that I would write in stone. It was only 115 plate appearances. And the last thing is max TV is usually something that you don't use to say they're bad. You usually use it to say they're good. And that's, it's a distinction. It's a weird one, but basically, uh, it's an important event when you hit something really hard, but not hitting it might just mean you just didn't get to that moment that, you know, you just didn't get enough chances, you know? So it's not something that I

would hold against somebody as much as something I would say, Oh, you know, you just didn't get enough chances, you know? So it's not something that I would hold against somebody as much as something I would say, Oh, you know, like I heard, uh, there's this prospect, uh, plaz in the pirates system. There's a, like a 17 year old or something. He's like a 17, 18 year old catcher or something. Uh, I heard he was putting up one 17s and, uh, in the DSL. Maybe I need to know. So the seat, that's what, that's what it's more like rather than like you know oh corbin codd 107.5 so i think people are

looking at that contract he's in the news uh the contract extension he just signed he's in the news and there's been debate about his power and i think the upside for him is okay i'm gonna bank 25 to 30 steals here i think i believe in that even the projections say 20 i'm gonna i'm gonna bank 30 steals and what if he adds 25 30 homers like he has that capability you know yeah and the projections are you know the projections that say he's a decent uh you know back in top 100 pick um i think are saying that um you know he's gonna hit 15 but what if he hits 30 you know so i think that's but that's a big part of what people are thinking about and and the thing i would add is like my argument has been if he hits

15 and he steals 30 he's going to return your value like that that's the goofy thing like even if you're going at i mean 40 is a bit high but regardless of the point i haven't been the 50s you take him around 50 and he's a 15 30 guy he's going to return his value the the contract extension also what i like about it is it provides a little bit more commitment to the team that this isn't going to be a jared kelnick. Well, anything could, but you know, it's like, they bring him up, he struggles. Yeah. Up and down as well. This is consistency. No platooning, no like playing around, just playing time. Give him a bigger contract than Michael Harris got.

And they're just going to stick him in center and just be like, that's our guy. And stick him at hopefully the top three spot, one, two, or three, he's going to be hitting. And I think that pushes it. And that's why he moves up. The last two, this one stood out as a anomaly to me i guess but andres jimenez andres jimenez showed up at 46 on a high and i wondered if that had to do with trying to get stolen bases out of the second base spot if maybe the other guys had already gone but andres jimenez at 46 you know probably says someone's someone's taking him over Tommy Edmund at this point.

Like you could justify the other four big second baseman went, but this would probably say someone has Andres Jimenez at five. And that was another one of those that stood out. He has an ADP of 80 in here and he has a pretty big range by the way. His low is one Oh one, but a high of 46. I don't know where you are on Andres Jimenez. by the way, his low is 101, but a high of 46. I don't know where you are on Andres Jimenez.

I got him at 82 in TGFBI. So that's on the lower end of the, that's on the later end, right? Just like in the bottom. And yeah, his overall ADP is 80 so far. So I got him right around ADP. Yeah. And I, and I enjoyed it. I think that what happens is there's a little bit of draft dynamics here if you go if you're drafting late in the first round what I've noticed is that a lot of the guys late in the first round that are there don't steal bases and so there is a way

to get out in the first round like for example my TGFBI start was Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Mike Trout I love it I think it's going to have a real high batting average and a ton of power, but I make it out of there with 10 steals, you know, or maybe less, maybe seven or eight. And so I was chasing steals. And I think there's some builds where you come out chasing steals. And Andres Jimenez is like a top 5% sprint speed guy that stole 20 bases last year on a team that stole. What is it? I should be precise. You know, I should say the actual number and not just be like top five or whatever it is. Cleveland stole the third most bases in baseball last year.

The rules are changing to become more nice to stolen base people. And that's part of their identity. So you could easily see Andre Semenis stealing more. And also it seems like a real bankable 20 at the very least, you know? And so I think it's about team build where the people that got, that went that went, maybe Vlad Trout starting pitcher reliever in the fifth or like, and you're saying earlier than the fifth, what's the early?

Well, I'm saying like, yeah, 46 would be the beginning of the fourth round. Yeah. But also like it had to be over like Tommy Edmond, who's another one of those guys like Tommy Edmond, Andres Jimenez are kind of similar-ish player. I just thought it was fascinating if he's pushing Edmund. I had Edmund on the board and lost him and maybe did a different pick and then went to Jimenez in the next round. So I let him drop to the fifth, but I was looking at him versus Edmund. And I could see how there's maybe a little bit of a panic a little bit of a panic aspect to that too where it's like i had edmund circled as getting me the you know 20 30 steals out of the mi slot

i need that for this build and he just went and then they and so it's like i gotta get my sort by stone bases middle infield oh amenas yeah and second base is not a great position yeah it's not a great position but also uh interesting was I was hanging out with Garrett Cole, and we were watching some WBC in the clubhouse, and really kind of out of nowhere he was like, Anderson Maness, good player. Garrett Cole stamp of approval. like, he calls Stanford approval. Okay, we'll take that.

I mean, you know, it's interesting because the batter ball stats aren't very good. But I think sometimes, like, what do you want out of him? Like, we're not asking him to hit 30 homers. So if he hits 12, it's not going to sink your season. He's probably going to hit at least 12. He's projected for like 16. That's what you want. You can do that with a 6% barrel rate.

There's plenty of people who do that sort of stuff. That's kind of my argument with Corbin Carroll too. That's why maybe 40 is a bit high, but you get into the 50s and 60s with Carroll and it's like 15, 30. You're really just buying the 30 steals

with more than zero homers, like with double digit homers and where it goes in double digits. You're not quite sure, but you're happy with it. Yeah, exactly. You can make do the last one on this list. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to just burn through the names on the other one and see if there's a guy you like.

And there's a good transition to it is Jordan Walker. Jordan Walker shows up on this with a 99 overall. Yes, that is where we have moved during this period of time. You'd be interested. He has an ADP of 151. 149 is the technical one on here. But either way, 150 will do the average is his ADP. But he had a high pick of 99 on draft champion since March 1st.

And there's no guarantees. But people are starting to make their bets as, you know, Tyler O'Neill's moving to center. Jordan Walker has been really good, though. He he'd suffered a little thing the other day. guarantees, but people are starting to make their bets as Tyler O'Neill's moving to center. Jordan Walker has been really good, though he he'd suffered a little thing the other day. I think he's going to be fine. But what do you think about Jordan Walker pushing top 100? Because it's happening without him being affirmed the job, which I think is interesting. Yeah, it's pushing. It's pushing. I mean, they're all the science point. He's getting the job. The fact that Tyler O'Neill's playing center field, the fact that they're playing him so often the fact that they've sort of given

him a position in the in the spring and that he's you know among the league the the team leaders and plate appearances all these things are pointing to a kind of julio rodriguez ish like rise into the role and just like he's going to break camp with the team kind of thing that's i think all that stuff points in that direction but when you start getting into the top 100 you start pushing him ahead of some more known quantities um you know this isn't going to sound very sexy but taylor ward is you know taylor ward is a is a really good player like to set the min pick on him is 102 in here and it's set by Tanner Bell smart fancy BB on Twitter

and that guy is smart as heck and the projections love Taylor Ward and it's just bankable you know you just know what you're going to get and it doesn't include a high strikeout rate and a low batting average which it's possible that even if Jordan Walker gets the job he has a high

strikeout rate and low batting average. There's nobody putting 60 hit tools on him. He's high swing strike rates in the minors. It's possible he's more of your sort of lower batting average, high strikeout rate slugger types. That's still in the range of possibilities. 100, you're taking him over Taylor Ward, Jake McCarthy, who I don't love, but Christian Yelich, Chris Bryant, Stephen Kwan. There are some good players here that you're taking them over, and I'm not sure I would

push him ahead of all those guys. The last thing in the transition to this is I made this list that wasn't just draft champions. It was all of it since March 1st. And these were players that were inside the top 100. We had a min pick inside the top 100 whose ADP was outside the top 130 and had positive change. So people can kind of follow that positive change with an inside the top 100, but ADP outside the 130. And our friend Jordan Walker was in there. Funny enough, his actual high pick, if you take out just draft champions,

was 80 with an ADP of 134. Here are the other names. Chris Sale with a high pick of 73, ADP of 138. Brandon Drury, an 84 high, ADP of 181. Tyler Glass now was in there, had one of the biggest changes on this list besides Walker, had a high of 98 with an ADP of 160 from March 1st on. Matt Chapman, 98 with an ADP of 160 from March 1st on. Matt Chapman, 98 with an ADP of 150. And Jorge Polanco, 99 with an ADP of 145.

So again, these are players with ADPs outside the 130 that broke inside the top 100 and represented positive change from March 1st on. Is there a name on this list that stands out to you? We just talked about Walker. I think you might've been alluding to maybe Mr. Chris Sale a little bit earlier, who really is jumping up boards with a 73 men pick well actually

tyler glass now is the other uh pitcher that is uh projected to have lower than a three era and um i i i think there was an over correction early um and he was dropping into the 200s tyler glass now was at which point you're like well it's not like the other guys are healthy down here. It's not like I can bank from 180 innings of great pitching from guys in the 180s. So I got Glassnow at 198 in TGFBI. And I think that was an overcorrection where I took him after Jameson Tyone, I think.

It's like, that's weird. Tyler Glassnow has got some of the best stuff in the big leagues. This, however, the pendulum may be swinging too hard for me. I mean, I would never, I think, use a 98 pick on Tyler Glassnow. That's sort of what I would have done before the injury, I think, maybe. And so I don't know if I love him that much. I think the ADP of 160 is okay. That's around there, 160 to 200.

I'd be interested in taking a shot because you can hide him on your bench. The other idea that I think is interesting here is that Brandon Drury at 84, I think some people are overvaluing uh multi-position eligibility and i saw him go for a high number in in al labor um and i get it that it's nice to like move guys around uh and and and have a backup plan uh if this guy gets hurt i'll just move drury over to third i get that but there are a lot of guys later on in the second base pool in particular that could do this for you for a lot cheaper uh tyro estrada uh luis urias uh you know in you know behind they go maybe around him but they also offer their other options so you don't have to pay that hard for Drury if those other guys are on the table. Josh Rojas gives you 2B, 3B.

Luis Renjifo, I think, is going to play a fair amount for the Angels, and he's 2B, 3B. Brendan Donovan is pulling the ball in the air and adding maybe some power. That's the cardinal magic right now is pulling the ball in the air. They were number one in baseball last year in pulled air. So if Donovan adds that to his package,

he's already a guy that has great contact. So I wouldn't push Drew that high. Just a guy that old who put together a great season, no matter what, you're going to regress him off of that. So I think that high pick is too much. I wonder you're going to regress him off of that. And so I think that's that, that high pick is too much. I wonder what's going on with Chapman and Polanco. I think Polanco is,

we just talked about this a little earlier. I think second base is a, is a tough position. And Polanco represents a bit of a shelf for me at the position where, you know, he's a $13 player behind him. You've got Cattell Marte in the auction. Calgary has 12 bucks, but that's a $13 player. Behind him, you've got Ketel Marte in the auction calendar. He has $12, but that's a lot of injury.

Jake Cronenworth has some power risk, and he doesn't really give you steals. He might just be kind of a batting average with a little bit of each. Then beyond that, there's no double-digit second baseman. Jorge Polanco might be one of those, like, oh, this is the last $13 no double digit second baseman so jorge palanco might be one of those like oh this is this is the last like 13 to 15 second baseman behind him it gets uglier you know yeah i completely agree with you it's an interesting look across the board from the craziest high men's in nfbc to some of the players that really stand out and maybe a little draft prep in there some good stuff for you guys that is going to do it for the episode you know i'm glad that you now no longer have to eat eggs out of bags or you can

um you can have a nice normal shower and you also you can just have a nice blanket tonight yeah yeah you can be warm tonight without having to yeah pull like uh naked and afraid and have to like you know sew together some towels and stuff like that so it's gonna put the blanket in between the sheets to like make it like a the the towel in between the sheets to like make it like a blanket it was so we need to know where i have to go in florida you know we'll tell you you know we'll tell you uh make sure to check us out theathletic.com rates and barrels go and subscribe today two dollars it gets you set up all of uh eno's great stuff there.

And really, there's no reason why not. It's a fantastic deal. And we'll be back tomorrow. Eno and I are going to be talking about prospect stuff. You can find Eno on Twitter, Eno Saris. Myself, as is it the Welsh. Until next time, friends, have a fantastic one. We'll talk to you again tomorrow.

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