Rates & Barrels - Debut City

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

Eno Sarris and Chris Welsh are breaking down Christian Encarnacion-Strand's debut, where he can play and who else it hurts. Grayson Rodriguez vs Andrew Abbott vs Bryan Woo, waivers and more Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh Subscribe to The Athletic for just $2/mo for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Get 25% off your order when you go to jamesallen.com and use code: RATES 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. Well, hello, friends, and welcome to Rates in Barrels. I am Chris Welsh. That is Eno Saris.

There is no DVR. DVR will return soon. When will now be then, Eno? Tomorrow. Soon. Soon. Remember the Spaceballs? Yeah, right. When will now be then, Eno? Tomorrow. Soon. Soon. I remembered the Spaceballs. Yeah, right.

When will now be then? Soon. Yes, DVR will be back here very shortly. But today you have Welsh and Eno, and we have actually got a little bit of a pseudo-project prospect, if you will, on this Monday edition. If we're going to be focusing on a lot of the latest news and stuff like that, well, there's a ton of prospect stuff going on.

There's debuts, there's re-debuts, there's call-ups, and we are going to be discussing all of that here shortly. I do want to remind everybody, if you guys want to make sure you have access to everything The Athletic has to offer, like all of Eno's great articles and more, go to theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. You can sign up today.

A couple bucks will get you locked in. You can download the app, and you will be raring to go. So why would you not go do that? Probably the most, it's hilariously enough, you know, the most anticipated call up simply because we have been waiting and waiting and waiting. I've been a pretty big, loud, you know, I don't know, screamer of this guy for like two months because I thought he was going to be one of the first call-ups in all of the crazy rookie mess. So I think that's what's made it so intense. It's finally happening. Christian Encarnacion-Strand with the Reds officially called up. So kind of post-All-Star break, all the things are happening. Lots of

prospects. We'll probably talk about tomorrow moving up levels. And then you're also getting, over the weekend, we had the A's guys come up, but CES Christian Encarnacion Stran officially being called up. And there are a billion questions we're going to be going through as far as where does he play? How does that affect the team? I know everyone's going to want to know that, but Stran 20 homers in AAA. He did it in 67 games,

65 runs in 62 RBI in 67 games. He hit 331, had an under 22% K percentage and a double digit walk percentage. Those are all the things that he did while in AAA. So it's highly anticipated. So, you know, what are your thoughts

on getting Strand up here? And do you think he's going to be able to, I think there's a little bit of extra hype that's been added to him. That's going to always be hard to live up with some of these prospects, but what's your anticipation of what we're going to see out of Strand coming up here in his debut? I think one thing that's interesting is that there is a flaw here, I think.

And I wanted to ask you about this in terms of how many at-bats of his you've watched. Because Keith Law mentioned this in his write-up on the Athletic of the News. I don't know where he got this number, but he said he had like a 40% chase rate. So I'm wondering if that was something you noticed that he uh is that he really expands his own yeah i that it's that's been a pretty well-known thing where people dismiss the strikeout rate because of the chase rate that's been something that's followed him he's a big power swing strike out on the upper

end of that yeah most people especially that have some of those numbers that can look at the i don't have the chase rate number in front of me that can look at that go well you know i don't think there is a big path where he's not going to be close to a 30 strikeout guy though the only time he's ever struck out above 25 was his very first year in minnesota at a ball where he was a 28.3% guy. He's also kind of improved. The thing I've been encouraged about is he's improved the walk rate, which he did this year.

First time in double digits at 10%, the lowest of his strikeout rate at 21%. And maybe if you want to argue it, I tend to like be hyper-focused on double a numbers a lot, because I think there's a huge transitional change from like high A to AA. And in AA, it wasn't the best. It was actually his lowest walk percentage and a 25% K percentage, but that's still not the worst on the planet. So I think the chase rate is going to equate to quality of contact with him and people assuming

there's going to be a much bigger strikeouts, which I would say it's definitely a possibility. But I think that's maybe dismissing if the decisions, which have obviously been showing in AAA, if that like pitch recognition and those decisions are on par, he's going to make huge, huge quality of contact. So you're saying the chase rate is the flaw that you are really worried about? Well, you know, there's an interesting parallel here to the A's prospects that came off, Zach Gelof and Tyler Soderstrom and Chris Ankarasio and Strand. They all have swing strike rates around 15%.

And I did a quick pull up of a leaderboard and found that the average strikeout rate for a person with a 15% or higher swing strike rate is 28%. So I do tend to think that all three of these guys will strike out 27, 28% of the time at least. With some particulars, we can talk about the ace guys later, but in Strand's case, I do kind of think he's going to strike out around 28% of the time when you combine those swing strike rates with this knowledge of his chase rate.

If you want to get some comparables, there are 13 players with a higher than 40% chase rate that are qualified for the batting title. Javier Baez is the patron saint of chase rate. And Salvador Perez as well. But Eddie Rosario has had a pretty long career without that bat of a strikeout rate with that same sort of chase rate. Mauricio Dubon is this kind of player. Ahmed Rosario, Josh Naylor, Luis Robert,

Ezequiel Tovar, Nick Castellanos, Andres Jimenez, Tyra Estrada, CJ Abrams, and Beau Bichette. These players are all pretty good, and they're not all bad strikeout rates. I would say that they don't have good walk rates, so the average OEP on this list is probably below 300, just eyeballing it. And that does have meaning for how much they're going to play. Half of these players are below league average in terms of WRC Plus. And if Javier Baez didn't have a great glove um you know he wouldn't be playing anymore so uh you know a lot of these players play premium positions or have a great hit tool you know so Josh Naylor does not play a premium position but he strikes out 16% of the

time because he's a great hit tool yeah He chases, but he can hit it. I wouldn't sign Josh Naylor to that free agent deal if he wants six, seven, eight years after he leaves Cleveland. You know what I mean? It's a little bit too much like a Pablo Sandoval type package. And so I think chase rate is meaningful. It doesn't mean that christian akron astrian strand is a going to strike out a lot by itself or b that he's going to be bad

um in in the short run you know as much as i love chase rate he you know he could still be christian akron astrian strand could still be really good when he hits the the ground with a bad chase rate yeah other players on this list that are good players the thing that's interesting is i do think there's unfair expectations just in general with rookies a rookie comes up this year and everyone's like oh my god drop on the fab get the player should i start him over that you know and it's like immediate everybody assumes every rookie that comes up is an immediate 12 teamteam starting first. Should I drop Josh Naylor for Christian Arnkost and Strand? You're like, no.

And you should be a little timid about it. And CES has been so built up that I do think if the strikeout potential there. I really do. I thought the same thing with Elie De La Cruz. Maybe ballpark factors in Cincinnati help a little bit. An interesting note on those three players that you know with the the two a's guys galoff and sodastrom and strand is there are a lot of similarities not just in the whiffer they all showed up pretty decently in the hard

hit strength on rotowire if you look at the bat of ball data they're all over 35 percent galoff being i think the most i think sodastrom was 35 uh strand was around 36 and uh sodastrom or geloff was 39 and and 39 gives some i think you know sort of eyeballing it because the roller wire doesn't have uh the numbers on it but uh sort of eyeballing it i would guess sort of top 25 top 30 in the minors yeah so they all hit the ball really hard but here's the difference yeah here's your difference when you're looking at it strand of these guys exponentially lower ground ball rate than either one of them both of those guys higher much higher ground ball rates strand had a 35 percent 36 around up 36 percent ground ball rate in triple a in fact has never had a 40 or higher ground ball percentage in the

minor leagues ever line drive rate up has a harder pull rate a better pull rate than either one of these players sodastroms was under 40 galoff is around 42 47 percent pull rate so pulling the ball while also not getting it on the ground and then what's the other thing he's a definite pull fly ball guy i mean he's he's a product of of christian aconosteo and strand is like a wet dream for a lot of hitting coaches in terms of like you know hits the ball hard gets the ball out in front you know pulls the ball but it also has some ramifications for a strikeout right i hope they refer to him as that too i hope that's i hope that's the nickname but the other thing is is like there's

the worry and you can bunch them all together the thing that i go back and side on with is also look at the results the guy has hit under 300 at one stop and it was his entire way it was 296 he's hitting 331 this year he's improved the walk percentage the power numbers are there off of this a little bit like a more powerful nick castellanos oh yeah i mean he's like a little bit of a bigger guy but yeah i know exactly what you're saying i've been saying statistically because nick castellanos was on on my chase rate list. And he's always, Cassianos has always had better strikeout rates than you'd expect, given his plate skills. Like he chases everything.

He misses a lot. And yet he, you know, still manages to strike out less than 30% of the time. And what also does he have? Streaks. He's got these bad. And I think that could be Strand. You could have a bad month where everyone's like, do we cut him? Do we get rid of him? And then all of a sudden he's one of the best players. I think that could be Strand. You could have a bad month where everyone's like, do we cut him? Do we get rid of him?

And then all of a sudden, he's one of the best players. I think that's in Strand's game, and I think that's something that maybe you could take to him is understanding there might be some streaky play in here because there is swing and miss. He does have a higher whiff rate. When he's off, he's off. But when he does, the ground ball rates in his favor,

line drive, fly ball, pull. Exactly. And that's what you should get yourself in for when you're thinking about him. So obviously a bigger bet. You know, Soderstrom had much worse ground ball rates and stuff like that. So what I'm getting at is, yes, the whiff rate is telling a bigger story than the K rate. But also the quality of contact, I think, isn't being given enough credit because of that. And rate but also the quality of contact i think isn't being given enough credit because of that and there's a better quality there is a there is a little bit of a whiff

of uh of ground ball risk um a little bit more with sodastrom than geloff i think now the other big question he's trying to trying to lift it but uh i think that happened from the afl by the way that was an afl change you started seeing seeing him really try to launch angle the ball. It's impossibly small results, but we do have some results for Gelof and Soderstrom, and you might be tempted to say, well, they didn't strike out that much in their debuts. They did whiff a lot, 18% for Gelof

and 17% whiff rate for Sodastrom. So I do expect, I actually expect both of those guys to strike out 30% of the time. So the Ks are coming. So here's the other big question with Strand. And this is the one that I've seen a whole bunch of is where does he play? And how does this shake out? Because I've had some other questions that have been underlined with it. What about Spencer Steer?

What about Nick Sinzel? They have a glut of riches. So let's talk about this. How do you think this shakes out? And I think some of this has already been spelled out to us over on The Athletic of how are these guys going to mix and match and work? Yeah, the quote from C. Trent Rosecrans about Christian Encarnacion Strand.

Say that one more time. With the Reds, CES will likely play both corner infield spots and DH. He'll play third when Jonathan India is the team's DH with De La Cruz at shortstop and McLean at second. And he'll play first when Votto is the team's DH, with Dela Cruz at shortstop and McLean at second. And he'll play first when Votto is the DH, and Dela Cruz plays third, and McLean plays second. You may have noticed there is not one mention

of a really good player that used to play on the infield. Spencer Steer. Where are you? Where in the world is Spencer Steer? He's you? Where in the world is Spencer Steer? He's an outfielder now. There is a bit of a logjam. I think we decided there's just one clear loser. Nick Senzel is on the short side of the stick

here. He is a right-hander with an 83 WRC plus that was filling in ably, but I think there's little reason to play Senzel except in a platoon with Benson. Now that's fine. Will Benson and Nick Senzel would be a pretty good platoon, I think. Benson is awful against left-handers so far, and he hasn't even been playing them much. So you just put in Benson and Senzel. That's a corner outfield spot. Nice. You got a corner outfield spot.

Now you have Steer, Friedel, and Fraley for two spots. So Senzel's a big loser, and Steer, Friedel, and Fraley are all little losers. Little tiny losers. Well, and that's the theory. They lose a little bit, you know. That's the hard thing about this. Tiny little losers.

Little baby losers. Little baby losers. The goofy thing is when I immediately saw this, because Roster Resources confirmed, they have Spencer Steer as a starting left fielder, and they have benson and right take that for whatever it is by the way and friedel in center and then fraley is a dh but we know that's not going to happen based on what we've just heard the dh for this team looks like it is going to be vato and jonathan india moving forward and friedel and fraley are lefties i don't think Steer is sliding into a righty platoon with one of them.

I don't think... See, they have so many lefties, and they're kind of like the Dimeback situation. But you look at that, I have a hard time believing that Friedel and Fraley move into big platoons. So this is why, when I stared at this, I immediately assumed Fraley and Friedel play every day.

Steer is a theoretical everyday guy, and Benson moves around. And then that leaves Nick Senzel. So Benson and Senzel are both bench pieces. You're outfield is Friedel, Fraley, Steer. I think so, with Benson maybe getting... So Benson is the big loser. Yeah, maybe getting it, bats moving around.

Now, I say all of that, and this might... And here's the worst case, and this is what you were building up. This might just be a five-piece mix and match where everybody could lose a little bit. There might not be one guy. They're all tiny little losers. It's a group of baby losers.

Yeah. Seven. Yeah. The snow white and the seven dwarfs. I mean, that's, that's what, um,

that's what, I mean, honestly, it's what good teams do. And, and we, and it frustrates us as fancy players, right? Like good teams do this., and we, and it frustrates us as fancy players, right?

Like good teams do this. They keep their guys fresh. They, uh, have people play a lot of different positions so that, and, and, and some of it is a loss prevention.

And in terms of like, um, if I get to the playoffs and, um, you know, Friedel gets hurt and I didn't play anybody else in center, then I'm in the playoffs and I'm starting somebody in center for the first time. tread row guide or app there are thousands of classes and over 50 peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning remember doing something is everything rent the peloton bike or

bike plus today at one peloton.ca slash bike slash rentals all access membership separate terms apply best western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze. And it felt a little like... Life's a trip. Make the most of it at best western you know what you do instead is you start everyone everywhere and if someone gets hurt you're like well india's hurt but mclean's been playing second all year so you know as a part-time so now he's just the second basement you know what i mean and you end up screaming depth i mean that's the thing like i assume nixon zell is the biggest guy on the outs of anybody here i have a hard time believing with what steer did this year that you're taking him out of the lineup on a semi-regular basis same thing with fraley and friedel i think benson would be better

suited to be like you said the platoon against right yeah yeah lefty off the bench and that to me maybe says nixon's l is a trade piece for a team that might want to acquire other spots he's still a little bit controllable he could play third he can play the outfield maybe he doesn't get a haul but maybe he's a part of something bigger except the problem could be they may scream depth and if someone got injured but you've got multiple guys that could play third multiple guys that could play outfield i just don't know if that's really can play an okay center yeah friedel can play center benson can play center steer is probably the only one that's not you want to talk about the versatility of sinzel at third you got steer you've got in carnation

you have i think you have three people that can play every position without Senzel. Yeah. So I think Senzel could be a trade option. Is there anybody yelling at the radio right now? If you're listening to us on a radio, on an old-timey radio, if you're yelling at the radio. I don't think either of us is suggesting that Senzel would get a haul. However, this team would love a reliever. You know?

You'd think so. You know, we built a bit of a thing here, a bit of a trade. One idea was to the Rockies for Daniel Bard or something. Yeah, maybe Pierce Johnson, Bard. I don't know. Either one of those guys have been probably more Bard.

And then you had maybe a slight upgrade from that was uh a royals trade yeah the royals for scott barlow i mean barlow we know is on the uh is on the market i do think a lot of teams are going to be aggressive about it but maybe the reds can offer sinzel and another piece another minor league piece to get what would be then a big one-two punch of Diaz and Barlow. And that might be what this team needs, especially because, you know, you got a lot of injury.

I mean, they might prioritize starters, but because of the issues they've had with starters, you've got to have a more lockdown bullpen. If you're going to have these young pitchers like Abbott and Williamson pitching deep into games and you're contending, it's more important than anything else to have a more solid bullpen so that's why I think also I don't think

Senzel is not not necessarily moving the needle much for a starter unless you're talking about like a rental um a rental who's not a playoff starter right And Senzel could be seen for the Royals as a starter. Yeah, yeah, right. But at 83 WRC plus and all those injuries, I don't think you're... I think it makes sense. He could be in a reliever trade. I think that could make sense. But yeah, in terms of a starter,

I think they should actually think more about shopping at the top of the market than the back of the market because somebody like Giolito or Cease would just be so huge for this team. Well, and they have the pieces. They have the minor league pieces to do it if they wanted to. I mean, they've got a glut of lower-level, really solid players, and they acquired Edwin Arroyo carlos jorge cam collier

who they just drafted some of those guys off to slower starts that they might be able to justify and they've got some pitchers in connor phillips that looks really good uh joe boyle out there i'm forgetting chase petty they have got the minor league pieces to be aggressive if they want to awful uh walk rates and um i just know uh cal bode actually mentioned uh on twitter that um he has really really good uh stuff plus numbers boil does and so um they may want to keep him um he may still be a reliever uh but that might be they may even just start using him as a reliever this year to because of the timeline is is so aggressive you know what i mean but also could be why a team is aggressive in

trying to target a guy like him if he pops up exactly on their stuff plus and why you might see him involved i mean i think he's a i think he's a name to to consider this year either as a major league reliever or as a big part of the trade piece for sure. Yeah. I think to put a finality on this is that there's a game plan for Strand to play every day. And I think that's been the big question. The other, I think, big question has been how does this affect Steer? And I think we've kind of laid this out

that I do think Steer as currently one of only two righties in a five outfield rotation, there's a decent chance he's going to be able to stick around in some capacity to continue to play. His versatility is good that I think these are both pluses strand. We've laid it out that, you know, we know where he's going to play. You'll get the position eligibility. I think this is a good sign and watch for them to make moves because they got a lot

to be able to send out, whether it's minor league or even major league, and guys like Benson and Sinzel if they decided to. The other big debut is a re-debut, and Grayson Rodriguez is going to be going today as we're recording. He's back up with the team, back up with the majors. A lot of people were kind of anticipating, cautiously optimistic that he was going to be able to come back up. And hopefully for good.

I pulled up his last start, and I think we maybe talked about this previously. I'm always interested in looking at the minor league starts like we did with Taj Bradley in the beginning of the year to see what have they been working on. What have they been changing? How were you getting these pitch percentages? I went in this was our lovely baseball savant and going in and you can pull up triple a numbers and you can pull up the game so i went into the game log a very complicated you got to go to game feed and then you've got to go to the date and then you've got to change mlb to MILB, and then you can get these. And what that ended up doing is I was able to pull up his last start.

Now, Grayson only went three, just FYI. But on 7-9, we saw Grayson Rodriguez, two primary pitches, the cutter gone. The cutter essentially gone, which has been a big problem. He threw his fastball 45% of the time with a 30% swing and miss. So was he fastball changeup against lefties and fastball breaking ball against fastball curveball against righties? And see, that's what I didn't see.

You probably nailed it. I think he threw three total cutters. It was 38% changeup, which he had a 46% swing and miss. So overall, he had a 46 swing and miss so overall he had 31 swing and miss 30 csw uh his velo was up and the cutter was out the walks were still a little bit of a problem so talk to us about your how you're viewing and anticipating grayson rodriguez backup knowing that the cutter is kind of gone not quite quite a two-pitch pitcher, but a pretty primary two-pitch pitcher. And like you said, probably going to just take a different outlet versus, you know, maybe versus like righties.

Yeah, I think this is a decent time to acquire him. I still am excited about his future. And I don't know it would have been better to acquire him like a week ago because now even his owner is probably excited that he's got him back on his team

though let me throw this to you though Dodgers this is a little bit dangerous because we're doing this and hopefully this episode will be up right as it goes but but you guys can kind of like wrap this around your head. This is a pretty rough matchup. Yeah, he could get hurt today. Yeah, it could be a bad matchup. I was looking at, you know, not to jump ahead, but like, you know, I may not be a high man on Quinn Priester, who's coming up today and pitching today. But he gets the Guardians in Pittsburgh. So sometimes that first matchup is a big deal.

And so, yeah, this one is not a great matchup for Grayson. But I would like to see, if I see a nice amount of strikeouts and three or fewer walks. I'd love it to be just like two walks. And then, yeah, he gives up a homer or two and he still gives up four earned runs or something or five earned runs. I still think that he's someone to acquire.

In fact, that might be a great time to acquire him. Was there, I don't know if you had it and i'm telling you on the spot with was there any recent stuff plus numbers on uh his last couple starts because he's had obviously a couple starts in the minors um just curious at like how it's held up in general because i do think there's a possibility especially with if if he has found a new comfortable spot in how he's pitching, and maybe the cutter was inducing a lot more balls. There's also this thing out on Twitter, someone shared about how no catcher had more out of the zone strike calls than Adley Rutschman.

So you go and look at like him, his comfortability level with Adley. Adley gets more called strikes that shouldn't be. And then maybe he's taking off a pitch that was inducing the most balls. That if he is going to be primary fastball changeup and if the stuff is looking as good as ever. Like I said, the VLO numbers were up across the board in the minors. That it's not out of the realm of possibility that he actually slices and dices for a bit against the Dodgers. Yeah, it's not. You know, I had my last update I'm looking at here is from late June. So I don't have the last couple of starts on here.

And I will have that for you tomorrow from Project Prospect. But perfect. Yeah, we'll be able to break all that down for Project Prospect. Well, we'll have to do a check back in and see. I would love to just see what his process is without the cutter i'd love to see how he attacks lefties um you know what i'd love to see where he's throwing the four seam and how much control he has over it so those are the things i'm watching okay i'm gonna actually jump ahead a little bit on the sheet

because i had something a little bit later and the only reason I did it was because I was looking at some 30-day markers on some players and I was looking at k minus walk percentage let me yeah last 30 days and two guys popped up two rookies are actually right next to each other and I was gonna kind of pit these guys up where did they go they who they were was Andrewrew abbott and uh brian woo those two just specifically i've just been really good uh obviously you guys know that but they've just been really good even over in some of the short term here and let me see if i can find uh where the hell they are which i'm not saying of course but my question would be grayson abbott woo how do you rank those i mean this is going to infuriate some people but oh let's go

still Grayson Wu Abbott so Abbott being so that's why yeah the Reds fans well we just built the Reds fans up a whole bunch and now you're going to bring them back down okay I finally found it by the way so Abbott by the way a 27.6% K-walk percentage,

which over the last 30 days of qualified pitchers, that is the eighth best of all. So yeah, you are going to make them mad. That is the eighth best K-walk percentage of all qualified pitchers. I just don't get it. The fastball is exactly average in every way, and that is not usually a good thing. And I don't know why I can't find Wu anymore.

I had him on here. And Abbott, by the way, has the 10th best qualified K percentage over the last 30 days of 33.6. So there was a reason I put them together. So you said Grayson, Wu, Abbott. Yeah, hold on. I'm now I'm curious to have like seventy nine point seven fastball stuff. Plus, this is a new model, a new retrain of the model that I'm looking at some new numbers here.

And we put in platoon splits. So, you know, he is a lefty and, and so lefties in the past, in the model hasn't really loved them. And that's unfair because that doesn't make sense. So we put in a platoon splits and Andrew Abbott has a sub 80 stuff plus on the fastball. And overall, he has a 90 stuff plus. By the way, I found out why I couldn't find him because of qualified.

So I changed my qualifications. Woo in that same 30 days. So Abbott had a 33.6% K percentage percentage only a six percent walk percentage over the last 30 woo 26.1 k percentage eight percent walk percentage which left him with an 18.2 k minus walk percentage so um i don't know i mean i know like you're the thesis here for you is like abbott's getting away with stuff that's that, that's... I've seen... I don't know why, but I've seen people just take what is an average fastball middle-middle from Andrew Abbott.

And I know like, yeah, maybe deception or something, but I don't see any deception. I was just about to say, is it like release point? When I watch it, it looks like a fairly normal release. I don't see anything that stands out about it.

So Wu, I think, is really exciting because he has two really good fastballs, and he's hiding the fact that he's throwing two sliders. And so you may look at him and be like, oh, it's just fastball slider. It's more like two really distinct different fastballs that are both really good and two really distinct uh breaking balls that i think are pretty good like i think the sweeper is very good and i think the gyro slider is is decent he has like he has uh so i think he has weapons against both sides good velo you know really interesting release point uh i'm all in

for woo you know looking back on abbott interesting thing maybe push woo ahead of grayson honestly oh really yeah because you know grayson is uh he's struggling to put it together you know if he's a primary two pitch pitcher too maybe you don't love that. Yeah. I mean, you know, the curveball for some reason has gone up and down and really fluctuated in my stuff plus numbers in the minors. So if Grayson Rodriguez is actually a fastball changeup guy. You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself. You live for experience and lead by example. You want the most out of life

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. You know, that's not my favorite thing in today's. I love watching change-ups, but betting on change-up guys is difficult and not something I would like to do a lot of.

You know, looking at Abbott 2, it's got to be about, like what's so weird to what you're saying is why the fastball is not happening is maybe it's about looking for the other pitches but you would also think there's got to be a point where you sit on it because i'm looking here you know 10 usage plus actually 15 usage plus between change up sweeper and curveball 18 16 15 curve sweeper still a lot of fastballs 50 fastballs is a lot in today's game yeah well but and look how like effective the much higher whiff rates on the curve sweeper and change up particularly has a 41.5 whiff rate they hit the curve hard they're bad

evs against the sweeper and change up 83 average ev against a sweeper, 86 against a change up. So they're just not able to do it. So there's, it's kind of a, like, you know, is the pitch mix causing the fastball to play up, but then also our guys, do guys not have a read on where he's throwing any of these? So the fastball is becoming more effective because you would think, okay, I'm going to sit off of breaking stuff more and I'm going to try to pound this fastball. But guys, I don't think it, but based on what you you're saying maybe they just don't know when that fastball is truly coming and they don't have a good read on it uh but he does have about a full era uh expected above his current 246 era a 361 expected and then there's the projections which run from 417, the steamer is the high man, to a 5 ERA from the bat.

I will point out that a 61% fly ball rate in Cincinnati seems like a bad idea. Then the last thing is just it's Cincinnati. Baltimore doesn't play like that. Seattle is, I think, right now the best pitcher park in the league in one-year park factors. I'm going to push Wu over Rodriguez. I'm going to go Wu, Rodriguez, Abbott.

It'd be an interesting poll to have out there of who would people pick. I think it would look like Grayson, Abbott, Wu. I think Grayson would still take at the top. I don't know. I think recency bias is strong. I think Grayson would still take at the top. I don't know. I think recency bias is strong. I think Grayson would be last. Really?

You think so? I might have to tell DVR. I think most people would go Abbott, Wu, Grayson. DVR likes to put out those fun polls. Maybe I'll have him do that because I don't think Grayson, well, it would be screwed up because of this start. He's top of mind. If he gets lit up by the Dodgers, he's going to be at the bottom.

But if we can get this out maybe when we share it on on rates and barrels we uh i'll put a poll out under yeah we'll put it out yeah i'll see if i can put a poll under that so it's interesting um you kind of briefly touched on it let's talk about the debut quinn priester uh the pirates making it's so funny these teams doing multiple prospects here i've talked so much about how the back half of the season is the new prospect manipulation, but I've also said like, there's going to be these, these teams that just know these guys are coming up and they can't sit in the whole year. This makes the most sense. The guys that are fringy, I think like once you get like a month in, they're just going to wait

until September and Quinn Priester and Indy Rodriguez, both kind of were those players that, you know, they weren't going to have them sit anymore. You're not really manipulating them for next year. Let's talk about Quinn Priester. I pulled up his last start in the minors and it's pretty fascinating. I'm also not a big Quinn Priester guy. He was 52% sinker and check this out. He had 24 swings on those sinkers, zero swing and misses on it. Zero. Was it a good start? You know what?

It, I think it was now that I'm, I should have actually pulled up the numbers. I was more focused on the stuff. A 17% slider had a 43% swing and miss percentage, 11% for seam, 43% swing and miss percentage, 11% for seam, 33% swing and miss. And then he threw his curve ball 10% of the time,

zero swing and misses. So his singer and curve ball induced nothing. He ended up with a 23% CSW percentage across the board. And this is kind of how he lives. And I don't, I just kind of hits the zone. i don't i it just kind of hits the zone i don't think this stuff is crazy deceptive the slider was obviously effective but they're bringing him up and i i'm just not like insanely encouraged about quinn priester

and it didn't sound like you were either no i mean if if it does work out uh i would point to a uh you know it's a cleveland matchup in Pittsburgh, which favors him. And then B, he does have a little bit of that mixes it up with OK command, right? But as you mentioned, in his most recent start, 52% sinker and then also four-se four seam fastballs on top of that that sounds like he's at 60 fastball this was by the way that start this was from the sixth by the way because he had one on the 14th where he went one inning i didn't pull that he went seven and one third of an inning two earned runs five hits no, three strikeouts. That was the start. I mean, he's keeping it around the zone.

He's trying to get ground balls. I mean, could he do like a Bryce Elder thing? Here's an interesting thing that happened. That happened when I was looking at sliders, and they're hitting sliders. The league is hitting sliders better than ever. The OPS is the highest it's ever been on sliders, the league is hitting sliders better than ever. The, uh, the OPS is the highest it's ever been on sliders. And, um, the other thing that happened out of that piece was that the league is, is struggling a little bit against sinkers, uh, sinkers on the other end have been a

pitch that the league has gone away from. And I think that maybe the pit hitters aren't seeing the sinker as often. And when they do see sinkers, they're better sinkers. And so there's a there's a chance that, you know, Bryce Elder and Quinn Priester come in here with these like decent sinkers and know who they are. They just want to get ground balls. And they managed to be just throwbacks at a time when nobody, you know, no hitters are really preparing for this kind of thing. Is the correlation, though, that the league is also throwing more sliders? Because Bryce Elder was a slider first guy. 100%.

And then they're not throwing as many sinkers and they're throwing more sliders is why we're seeing inflated numbers against. Yeah, that was my theory in the end was they're just, the league is training them to be better at sliders by throwing more and more and more and more sliders is why we're seeing inflated numbers against. Yeah, that was my theory in the end, was the league is training them to be better at sliders by throwing more and more and more and more sliders. And then also they're throwing sliders in hitters counts now, and hitters just do better in hitters counts. So that means sliders in the zone on a count where the hitter is swinging and expecting now, expecting sliders.

Sliders in hitters counts is up to 30%. So if you get a number at 30%, a third of the time I get a slider in this hitter count, then you start having hitters anticipate sliders in hitter counts. And that's going to lead to them hitting them better. So that also maybe make it why poorish fastballs might be more effective when teams are looking for sliders a la Abbott you know like there's more players

looking for sliders in those counts for guys that throw it which makes you know lesser fastballs look a tad bit more effective especially with command especially when it's commanded you know what I mean you got an idea

with like breaking sliders. If a guy is throwing a fastball in what they might assume is a slider count and it touches the edge and they're waiting for the pitch to break, you might have these average fastballs. If a guy can throw the slider and fastball from similar release points.

I don't know if Abbott does that, but if Abbott were to do that and it have a similar look, guys might be waiting for the pitch to break outside of the zone i think which might be making very tight release points oh really okay so i mean maybe that's kind of the maybe that's just throwing around like a little bit of a logic i've not heard that necessarily about quinn priester but and the command doesn't look uh to me like stand out uh yeah two pitches above 100 location plus in the minors with pretty good sample on all these pitches um so and the fastball command you know 97 on the on the four seam and uh

98 on the sinker it's okay i i don't know he could be i think to me he's like a four or five and that that's in in fantasy terms that's uh screams streamer so in this case you'd be like you know cleveland at home not a bad streaming spot yeah i could i could see it being effective we've seen lots of these starting pitchers if he gets it uh oh i just went away from him so that's a good question i don't know i'll have to look that up in a second i literally just went away from him uh Pittsburgh. But I agree. I'm looking for poor offenses if I'm doing it. And we've seen a lot of these guys be effective in those first starts

where teams don't have really great numbers on them. Pirates go to the Angels over the weekend. That's not as good of a start. No, I'm not. I'd be nervous of throwing Priester in LA, Anaheim. And how much bigger? They're a lot more confident if he has a good start. People are going to be like, ooh, good Priester. Although Anah how much bigger, there are a lot more confidence. If he has a good start,

people are going to be like, Ooh, right now is hurt. Right. So they still have, they don't have jewelry. Yeah. They have a tiny,

you can give up three runs just to a tiny. And I mean, don't forget Trey cabbage to cabbages and stuff. So don't, don't forget about cabbage. Have good cabbage. I don't know, but he has really good EVs. Really. That's what i know he's got uh the other one just real quick andy rodriguez who was without a doubt the the guy over henry davis coming into the year that

has changed he's at a pretty subpar statistical season only six homers four stolen bases hitting 268 the strikeout numbers are under 15 percent walk percentage over uh 10 it's actually at 11.4 he played first base in the futures game i don't know if he's playing his that that's the interesting thing is the team wanted him to like be the catcher he'll probably learn under hedges he might play some other spots for this team is the best defensive uh statistical catcher this year hedges did this with san diego when he was with them yeah well i think the guy's a coach the guy's a coach i remember him when he was with san diego and they had like francisco mejia and he was like taking mejia under his wing i think it's

like another same thing like andy rodriguez is coming here why the numbers for andy rodriguez weren't amazing in the minors too is what i what I've heard is that the real focus was to learn the position. Yeah, and I've talked about that with, like, Carson Kelly used to be this hitting prospect, and then he said his two years of focus on being a better catcher really kind of decimated. I mean, that's not a good thing now, but it decimated his offensive production, and he had to build that back up. You might be seeing that with Indy. Also, while playing some other positions.

I'm not aggressive on Indy. I like him, man. I like him long-term. I don't know if I like him this year, though. I love that BBK profile. Like 11-15. Indy or Zach Gelof rest of year?

Indy or Gelof? No, we'll make it Soderstrom because it's catchers. Okay, yeah. Indy or Soderstrom? Which one? Indy. Indy? I'm going Indy.

Easy Indy? No, that's a tough one. And I do want to say that maybe I was a little hard on Jeloff and Soderstrom before the weekend. And you can be mad at me if you missed out on him in 5-0 Blues, but so did I. They do hit the ball hard. And maybe I'm focusing too much on the strikeout rate.

But I just think that the batting average starts at the 220 range. And I just – And Indy's like the opposite player yeah that's that's a good thing indy's the opposite of galoff 260 270 with some power and speed and so i do think the overall package would be worth more exactly and that's always so strong one of the things you do like to look at as well um pretty low ground ball rates for indy. He's another one of these guys. Only one time ever has he had an over 40% ground ball rate. Though, you know, like he has a higher opposite field percentage than he does pull rate this year. So, I mean, it is an all fields type of guy, which probably is equated to the lack of power last year in AA.

39.8% pull rate with a 29 opposite field and this year 38.9 oppo 37 pull rate so you know he's definitely not yeah yeah this is a contact no strikeout type of hitter doesn't steal a dramatic amount of bases which kind of holds off some of the value so it's actually very similar to very early on Francisco Mejia. Coming back to that comp when Mejia was first coming up. Hopefully a better outcome is what I would hope. You know, I threw this out here. Just one last thing was Fab Weekend came off here,

and I pulled some numbers for you. Not NFBC numbers, but some percentage number changes. I pulled CBS's numbers. I just want to get your take on this. Here were some of the biggest changes as far as players that were picked up and see if you have any takes. Zach Gelof was like the number one player. He went from three to 24% on CBS. We also had CJ Abrams, who went from 38 to 56%. Soderstrom, 16 to 36. Oswalt Peraza, 16 to only eight percent those were some of the big ones you obviously had a couple of the others in here yeah eight 16 to 18 percent where would your if you were ranking these guys go geloff abram sodastrom parasa as far as ownership and i don't know if you were trying

to acquire any of the i think you said you missed on geloff yeah i didn't i didn't get any of those guys really CJ Abrams must have heard me talking man I still don't like this profile but as DVR pointed out before he went on his sojourn he's 22 years old and so and he looks just such such like a kid too if he's filling out i mean the barrel rate was two percent last year it's 5.7 this year his max ev was 109.6

now it's 112 and a half 112 and a half is above average so now you got a guy who's got above average max ev and average-ish uh barrel rates uh so you put that together with obvious speed doing dvr how can you do this to me oh i think dvr is fascinating i think dvr might be right again yeah there's elite speed in that game um if the quality of contact improves this is one of those guys that i mean i think i like he can be an upper echelon fantasy player if he shows the ability to be a higher quality contact and you know a little bit more power and you know some signs of life and people were picking him up now, almost 60% owned on that platform. Still a really bad chase rate for him. Um, that,

you know, that he's been improving. Of course. Interesting too. I think chase rate is down to 35% and it's been improving all year. And I want to say he is two years younger than Zach Galoff he is 22 years old CJ Abrams is and I believe Galoff is 24 let's see how many more contact me go off they're a year apart I'm sorry Abrams is a year younger than Zach Galoff when you're looking at not that that has anything to

do with it but it more in the long-term outlook of CJ Abrams, there's still a lot to be had. Two other quick ones on the pitching front. One of the bigger performances from the weekend, and this was actually something I noted looking over the last 30 days. I want to get your take on him. And then one last here, only 76% owned on CBS, which on other platforms might be lower. Kyle Braddish went seven and one third, had had eight strikeouts gave up only three hits and this is why i brought him up over the last 30 days the number one stuff plus at 132 so i was just curious at your take is bradish a must own player who borderlines at 76 on like i said on on CBS might be more like 60% on a lot of other platforms, which means he's still out there.

Yeah. I just wanted to see, Oh, he's pushed his, his forcing fastball above 100. I was going to say, you know, uh,

how bad is that fastball? And it's at one Oh one. So, uh, this is pretty exciting. Only three players in the last 30 days had a 120 or higher stuff plus it was like Bradish Strider and forgive me I'm forgetting the last

one you know who made McLennan has been hurt I don't remember who it was but it was Strider and Bradish is number one the only one with a 130 plus stuff plus over the last 30 days yeah I mean he's it's really exciting because he's found a way to just use his pitches better.

And, you know, I think he's figured it out. I just hesitate. This is one of those things where I was a frontrunner on him, and I am excited about him. And I don't want to just, you know, be a sad wet sack, but like, uh, it isn't a great fastball still, you know? And so, uh, I, in terms of like, you know, do I like him the rest of this year? Yes. And will he be in my top 30? Probably. Uh, but is he going to be like a top 15? I don't think so and next year do I make him like a top 15

even if he ends up the 15th best this year or something? I don't think so Well if he's your top 30 he's a must own then rest of season Oh yeah he's definitely a must own So the percentages show the last one only 4% owned on that platform and had a great outing this weekend

alec marsh 11 strikeouts six innings a quality start 16 strikeouts over his last two starts is there something with royals alec marsh yeah uh i don't get it um uh it it. It's a good slider and a passable foreseam and an average curveball. So while his stuff plus doesn't really stand out, I wouldn't say that it's terrible. for this Royal squad. And then just looking at the game log, one thing you can see from what he's doing is he's really emphasizing, in the last start, he emphasized the four-seam against the Rays. The Rays aren't a team that loves the high fastball, maybe, other than Paredes.

You know, there's a lot of guys there that prefer it lower. And so maybe that was just a gameplay thing. I was talking to Logan Webb once. He had this new slider. He was really excited about it. And I was like, well, your last two games you threw more changeups than you've thrown all year. And he said, well, that's just because Milwaukee has the number one swing and miss against change-ups.

It was just a game plan type thing. It is nice to see him trust his fastball and get good results on the fastball. That probably just has something to do with the Rays and that matchup. The Rays do strike out a fair amount. Minnesota, the matchup before that strikes out a ton um so i think there's a little bit of matchup stuff here uh but i think that that makes him uh a good matchups playing and going forward you know decent streamer if you guys are looking at your your pickups here and there's going to be a lot of other stuff that's going to be uh

materializing here soon with the trade deadline you're going to have a lot of different open spots players going to be materializing here soon with the trade deadline. You're going to have a lot of different open spots. Players are going to move into worse. So if you're looking spot streaming and when your trades go away in your leagues, you might want to be paying attention to guys like Alec Marsh in potential streaming spots. That's going to do it for the episode. Go to theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Sign up. A couple bucks gets you locked into the account.

I believe DVR is back tomorrow. Have you heard this rumor? You know, is that true? I have seen that on the rundown. Okay, so I think that's going to be happening. A project prospect with the three of us. We'll be back together. We'll be probably breaking down the starts of Grayson Rodriguez,

Quinn Priester, looking at Strand, and a whole bunch more. I've actually got a guy that I'm going to bring up tomorrow, identified who completely changed his pitch mix from two starts ago to the last start, had huge results in a destination where there is a potential start available in the majors, a spot open in the majors, and I will

present this guy to you guys tomorrow and see what you guys think. So make sure you're locked in, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast, check out the YouTube and find Eno at Eno Saris, find me at Is It The Welsh? And we will talk to you next time right here on Rates and Barrels. Bye, friends. Thanks for listening.