Rates & Barrels - Digging Deep for Endgame Hitters

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

Eno and DVR discuss several endgame hitters of interest for those playing in deeper leagues in 2023.  Rundown 0:38 Aaron Ashby Shoulder Fatigue, Behind Brewers' Other Pitchers 4:36 DL Hall Entering Spring as a Starter 9:16 A.J. Puk Stretching Out This Spring 14:42 Will Benson Traded to Cincinnati 22:32 Adam Frazier, Good Deep League Oatmeal? 27:04 Opportunity in LA: Trayce Thompson v. James Outman 29:13 Nolan Jones' Role in Colorado 32:02 The Late, Late Rays (Jonathan Aranda, Kyle Manzardo, Curtis Mead, Josh Lowe & Vidal Bruján) 45:17 Brice Turang and Surprising 2022 Power 49:30 David Villar v. J.D. Davis 58:30 Scouring the Nats' Depth Chart for Bargains 1:01:26 Aaron Hicks & David Peralta 1:11:50 Conner Capel's Opportunity in Oakland Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper 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

So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. The answer is FedEx. Okay. But what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx. Oh. But let's say that... FedEx.

What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Friday, February 10th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we're going to dig into some deep sleepers on the hitting side.

We've got a few news items to get to, and one of those actually transitions perfectly into the topic. So sometimes life serves you up a perfect rundown, and sometimes life just pokes you in the eyes and tells you that you're stupid. That happened to me yesterday. Aaron Ashby, shoulder fatigue, you know? A player that I have on a lot of my teams, keeper league teams, redraft teams that I've done so far. I had a very aggressive approach with Ashby because I felt if he were healthy, he would take over a spot in the back of the Brewers rotation very early in the season. I didn't think it was going to take a month or two.

I didn't think they're going to slow play him. Now I think they have to slow play him because even if this is a reasonably minor shoulder issue, which he dealt with shoulder inflammation last year, they're not going to just bring him off this and have him throw five or six innings at a time. It's going to be a progressive buildup. We're going to see a lot of wade miley and now it makes ashby a very difficult player to roster in redraft leagues with no il spots so now i'm holding a bunch of ashby shares i'm nervous about it and i don't think i can even go get more because of the way he might be broken in this season yeah you know one of the things that's so really kind of annoying about pitching injury is uh first of all there was like that that guy the the pain guy who would like did actual like i told you so's like literal i told you so's can't be real still can't be real

no no no still can't be real also kind of the like more virtual fantasy I told you so's where it's like, that's why I think about pitching risk. I'm just, I'm still not satisfied that we're all that great at understanding pitching risk, injury risk in pitchers. If we were so good at knowing pitcher injury risk, wouldn't we have fewer goddamn pitcher injuries by now? Yeah, you'd think. Like if you were a team, you would be like,

and you should have figured it out. You'd acquire pitchers that didn't get injured. And who does that? Who's good at that? And if a team did that, other teams would look at what they're doing and copy it and follow it and do the same thing and hire people from that organization and say, hey, keep our pitchers healthy. We all have an interest in this.

Let's do that. Yeah. So I don't know. Yes, he's got on Jeff Zimmerman's pitcher injury percentiles. Zimmerman's pitcher injury percentiles. He had some risk, a little bit more than you might expect, a 75th percentile risk because of injury last year. Maybe close to a Mackenzie Gore, who is 67th percentile, where there are other younger pitchers like a Reed Detmers, who's 33rd percentile. pitchers like a reed detmers who's 33rd percentile so uh you know maybe we should have seen it coming i don't know um it's not like you spent a ton on him and the upside is still there but you are probably now in teams where you can drop in the first week you might have to end up doing that

depending on how things progress in the spring it's also early you know maybe maybe we'll learn some more over spring break over spring training yeah we'll see i mean it's one of those things you remember last season and luis castillo had a shoulder issue that ended up being pretty minor once he came back in early may it was fine right i mean sometimes these these sort of preventative breaks or these intermittent breaks because of something being off during winter throwing sessions end up being nothing in the long run from a structural standpoint. That's possible. Still going to move them down because I prefer not to draft pitchers who are currently injured. Yeah.

Yeah, and I think you previously on the Pitcher Week preview highlighted role uncertainty being a concern you had, and now you've got role uncertainty plus a recurring shoulder issue, even if it is a minor one. So unfortunately for me, yeah, Aaron Ashby behind other Brewers pitchers as pitchers and catchers get ready to report to spring training next week. A couple other pitching news items to get to, though, perhaps more fun. D.L. Hall is going to enter spring training as a starter, which is not a shock because the Orioles need starting pitching, and they haven't gone down the road nearly long enough to think about D.L. Hall's limitations with command at this point, saying, ah, he's not a starter. This is absolutely what they should be doing. The question I have for you is, do you like D.L. Hall as a late pitching dart at this point?

Because it doesn't seem like he's going to go very early in drafts. His ADP, just for February only, for D.L. Hall, is very, very late. We're talking about a guy that goes outside of the top 600 overall as far as his average draft position. The earliest he's gone is 369 overall. So even if you really love D.L. Hall, you don't have to reach that much to get him. Yeah, a little mea culpa here.

One of those things where you have to question your priors a lot and sort of re-evaluate players. Early on, his location plus was really terrible, and I just put in my head that he had reliever-level location plus. By the end of the season, though, it was 98.5 in the old model, and then when we retrained the data and updated the model, it was like 101.5, 102. So that's surprising.

Good locations. When you see it broken down by pitch, you kind of understand it a little bit. His locations are good on the slider. They are good on the changeup. And they are very bad on the four-seam fastball. So it's still touch and go if he's a starter. With 94 location plus on the four-seam fastball,

that's something he's going to have to improve. The good news is, season to season, locations aren't as sticky. He now also could ramp up his slider usage, which he did locate well. He threw 140 four-seam fastballs last year and 58 sliders. What if he threw 120 four-seam last year and 58 sliders what if he threw 120 forcing fastballs

and 78 sliders uh and those 20 extra sliders got him into uh 1-1 counts into instead of 2-0 counts you know what i mean so um you know there's a way for him to without even improving his natural command to just be a better starting pitcher. It's really nice to see three plus stuff plus pitches in there. He's already got the starters arsenal. There's pretty much wide open opportunity. The locations weren't as bad as I thought. My mea culpa here is that D.L. Hall should have been in the 80s in my first pitcher ranks.

He will be in the future. He may even creep up to the top of that group of sleepers. He does still have to leap over a few people. Right now you've got Gibson, Irvin, Braddish, and Kramer. So he has to beat out Wells and Rodriguez, Grayson Rodriguez. But it's not like Kramer and Braddish have a completely, or Wells, have a completely healthy bill of health in their past. So there's an opportunity for maybe an injury

to sneak Hall in as the fifth starter. Yeah, I actually look at the Orioles too and wonder if they're a good candidate to use six starters because of the way they want to preserve the workload of Grayson Rodriguez. It would also keep D.L. Hall closer to whatever innings cap they likely have for him. It might be more like 140, something like that. And they're not a team that has the top-end guys that you'd be hurting, right? So they should be thinking a lot about using the depth they have to go to the six-man rotation.

Yeah, 100%. Six-man rotation is bad if you've got Shohei Otani at the top of your rotation. It actually hurts you because you're fitting him less than you could be. But if you're basically a rotation full of number threes right now, I don't know what to say. Calm down. Grayson Rodriguez can be a number one, but you also can't throw him a ton. And what is he in his first year?

So if you've got this kind of group of young guys and then the veteran guys like urban and those are threes at best and so you're not really hurting yourself not throwing kyle gibson more so uh i i i dig that that would be a nice way for me to get some value i think i'm gonna have to knock wells down a little bit with this news too yeah wells could be more of a glue guy in 2023 than we might like even though he's flashed some interesting skills uh while stretching out a year ago for the orioles speaking of teams that could use a six-man rotation, how about the A's? AJ Puck is going to stretch out to be part of their rotation competition. A lot of names there. We talked about it about two weeks ago. Paul Blackburn, Shintaro Fujinami getting a chance to join the rotation,

Ken Waldachuk, Kyle Muller, Drew Ruchinsky, Puck, JP Sears, Freddie Tarnak. I mean, they've got volume. So if they really want to see what this group can do, perhaps they make a lot of sense too as a team that doesn't currently have a front of the rotation starter. Now, I think the questions about Puck specifically come back to his own durability. But as far as the arsenal goes,

how does he look in the model? And do you think the arsenal is deep enough for him to be successful in a starting role? I don't know. He does have the high stuff a fastball he doesn't command the command is a little better than uh than dl halls um and then he has a slider that's actually below average stuff less than he commands well so i would say he has a pretty good uh two pitch mix here we i just have to put a do not know, an N-A next to the changeup because he threw two of them to a

1-12 stuff. I think that's you know, stuff plus is good in small samples that's pushing it through just two of them. Shohei Otani's stuff plus on his new sinker wasn't that great after two and then it was great after a while. So I

don't know. I don't know with puck and i would have to say that the situation in oakland is such where if puck is showing something um you know in terms of being a starting pitcher that might actually be bad for him. It might mean an option. Because if they say, oh, he looks good as a starter, that's fine. They have other people in that rotation that do not have options anymore. I think of James Kaprelian. His options are gone. Rusinski doesn't have options because of the type of contract he's signed.

Puginami doesn't have options because the, well, I guess technically he does. He has options. He does. I think that would be pretty amazing. Like, wouldn't he almost be like, no, sorry, I'm going back to Japan. But, you know, actually he was up and down in Japan last year, so maybe he would take it.

But Rusensky and Kaprelian are in. Blackburn is in. So that's three that are in. And you'd have to think that you're going to be good to your word, which was you're going to give Fujinami a chance to start, right? So that feels like four. So now you're talking about Waldachuk, Muller, Sears, Martinez, and Puck all in the mix for five.

Just want them to keep pushing younger. And at this point, I don't think that group would include A.J. Puck for me. He's 27 already. He'll turn 28 in April. I mean, I know it's now or never as far as trying to give him the workload. It's the last chance maybe for him to be a full-fledged starter in the big leagues. I bet you he relieves, dude. You know, that bullpen is very bad

other than Trevor May. I think the other way you have to think about it is for the pitching staff as a whole, if you're not really convinced that he's going to give you 140 or 150 innings, but you think you can get 80, you're going to need 80 from a few relievers behind some of these starters that you're breaking in.

You stretch him out, but that's only actually so you can start the season with four and five out outings. Yeah, if you can get two or three innings from puck at a time, use him a couple times a week, that might be the best case scenario if you really aren't going to use him as a starter. I don't want any of their relievers other than Trevor May. I like Trevor May. That was a good signing.

I don't really want any of their other relievers. I don't know what they're looking at. Domingo Acevedo has awful stuff plus numbers. He throws a backup slider as his best secondary pitch. I just don't think that's a long-term strategy. You know, like a backup slider. Should I explain it? Yeah, go ahead.

Explain it. It's a slider that moves like a change up but by accident it's a slider that has very little movement except a little bit towards the arm side it's a cement mixer it's just a spinner that doesn't move like a slider and yes at first people like i don't know what to do with this but then it's in the scouting report and then it's just a pitch that doesn't move much that doesn't go as hard as their fastball yeah it seems like a problem yeah and it worked for him in small samples at first and i even asked him about it and he's like well it's working you know we're gonna keep doing it and i'm like yeah okay good luck with that so and he's probably the best non-Trevor May reliever.

I think I'm more excited about D.L. Hall than A.J. Puck as a starter. It's not even close for me. I'm 100 times more likely to draft Hall than Puck as of right now. Maybe if we get to the end of March and they give us some indication that Hall's going to the minors

and Puck's pitching really well, stretched out. Maybe that would change, but as of now, it's Hall over Puck every single time for me. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, 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 onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals.

All access memberships separate. Terms apply. 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 now let's talk about a trade that actually inspired an episode of rates and barrels that might be a slight exaggeration. We were planning on talking about Deep Sleepers. But this one is more of a better segue. Perfect segue to what we want to talk about today.

Will Benson gets traded by the Guardians, and he goes to the Reds, where there's a lot of playing time available. Will Benson, that might be a familiar name because he was the 14th overall pick back in the 2016 draft. It's been a longer road than expected through the minors, but not ridiculously so. He's going to turn 25 in June, so for a guy drafted out of high school, it's not absurd. He's shown some power. He's shown some speed, but we've seen a lot of swing and miss

from Benson throughout his time in the minor leagues, despite a very patient approach. He walks a ton. You see some pretty big OBP numbers in the fan graphs page for Will Benson. So he's tooled up. The Guardians decided they'd rather go younger. They get an outfielder back, Justin Boyd, who's not as far along, who they can just wait a little while on and want to deal with as part of a 40-man roster crunch with a lot of young players coming up in the near future. So what do you make of Benson getting this opportunity in Cincinnati where, as a left-handed hitter, you look at their depth chart, you could pretty

comfortably put him in center field and give him a large share of playing time with Nick Senzel injured again and not really showing us enough to continue sticking as a potential regular in the big leagues. He's almost just hurt by how many outfielders are there and how much opportunity is you know i mean like this they've just collected like eight guys

and betting on any one of them is tough will myers seems like an easy bet because you're going to go into the season we want to have one veteran out there. But you could make arguments for any of the group that's in there. Stuart Fairchild is not super exciting, but he might be the best defensive center fielder that's not Nick Senzel. Or maybe Mike Siani is. But Mike Siani, I think, is fairly limited offensively. but Mike Siani I think is fairly limited offensively he's kind of more like TJ Friedel in terms of you know make contact without much power then there's TJ Friedel himself who people are pretty excited about a 27 year old that did show a little bit of power for the first time but is projected for more like 10 to 12 homers and you, you know, is he a center fielder?

He has been playing there. So if you have Friedel in center and you finally give up on Senzel, you still have some opportunity in the corners. They've got Nick Solak there. They've got Chad Pinder there that they signed. They've still got Jake Fraley, who's really good in terms of at least getting on base

and not too much else so I mean would you rank them how would you rank them I mean maybe Myers Senzel Frailey Friedel or Friedel Frailey so that's your four going into the season but Fairchild maybe makes the roster and Benson's in the minors and Benson's trying to take Fairchild's spot. The range with Benson is wide for the reasons that you mentioned. If he's not on the roster right away, of course you're frustrated. I don't know. If you're in a typical 15-team league, seven-player bench, NFBC-style league, you're probably not drafting Will Benson today. He's still more of a draft-and-hold sort of player. He's still more of an NL-only sort of player right now

because of the crowd. To rank this group, by projection, TJ Friedel, according to the bat, actually has the best offensive projection of that group at a 103 WRC+. 14 homers, 9 steals, sub-20% K rate. That's in a 98 game projection so if he plays more of those counting stats but it's still like a

101 WRC plus right 103 but it's third I think that's it's third it's behind Votto and India I would put Friedel if I didn't care about Senzel's feelings or had moved on from him

I'd put Friedel in center and just be like he's our center fielder because a 103 WRC plus in the corner is actually below average right so then the problem is Jake Fraley 97 WRC plus you need to play him in the corner center fielder ish

I think I think I like Will Myers the best because there's a track record here of a guy that at least handles big league pitching well enough to not lose the job whereas everybody else has been more up and down jimmy try to build them up to trade him for a prospect right so similar to what they did with brandon drury last year that's sort of how i see will myers fitting in so i I think Myers comes in first. I'm still fraily over Friedel. Projections be damned. I'm stubborn.

I think I see more in the tools. Yeah. It sounds like a German nursery rhyme. Fraily and Friedel and down to the... Never mind. Yeah, there's probably some kind of poisonous pie or something involved in this.

European fairy tales are kind of grim when you go when you go back and look at the originals they've been molded over time to not terrorize children but the originals are that was the original intent yes solok i think is just the guy i'm trying not to fall into it because he's been claimed and released by a bunch of teams by now I think is just the guy. I'm trying not to fall into a. I kind of think Fairchild is that because he's been claimed and released by a bunch of teams by now. Yep. I don't think Pinder is a priority player. I think if I'm really looking for the true deep sleeper in Cincinnati, it's probably Spencer Steer. Oh, yeah. He's the guy that I actually like the most.

He's got the worst projection of all of them. Yeah. What's wrong with me? The thing I'd watch with Benson, if you're not taking him in a draft and hold, and if you are taking him in a draft and hold, I think it's like final round-ish. You know, it's like one of the, you know,

we're talking 48th round type deal. And maybe if you took somebody else in Cincinnati, you could kind of pair him and be like, hopefully between these two, I got one of the outfielders. The thing I'm watching for him going forward is that strikeout rate because he had a really high strikeout rate. And then in AAA last year, he cut it to 23%. And of course he didn't have that at the major league level, but it was just 61 plate appearances. So if he goes back down to the minor leagues and has another 23% strikeout rate, I'd think he'll

probably be back up in the major leagues pretty soon. Because if he could strike out even 25% of the time, he might be the best hitter out of all these guys. I'm pretty surprised by the range of projections on Benson, too. The Bat X kind of buries him

at the bottom of the group. Bat X is probably the most negative on prospects. Steamer is usually the most bullish. So Steamer has him in a 108 WRC+. I just think this is one of the more difficult questions to answer from a how much does the AAA strikeout rate matter perspective. What does that tell us about what the 2023 big league KRA

is going to be for Benson? I would be very cautious about expecting anything close to that low mid-20s percent carry, at least initially. Maybe it takes him some time. But the thing that happens that works really well is that Benson can do everything. Because he can walk, he can get on base enough to use his speed. He's been an efficient base stealer in the minors.

The Reds have nothing to lose by giving guys green lights. It could be a perpetual green light for anyone that could steal bases in the minors. The Reds have nothing to lose by giving guys green lights. It could be a perpetual green light for anyone that could steal bases. And Steamer says he can be a 108 with basically a 28% strikeout rate. So he doesn't even have to get all the way down to 25. I think that sort of makes sense to me. Yeah. But let's

not get too bogged down because we probably have guys that we like better on our deeply sleeper list that we would take before round 49 in a draft and hold yes would you care to offer uh one from your list well uh yes i just finished my draft and uh one guy that ended up on my draft and this is you got to start close the cutoff we have is 500 has to be after 500 adp on nf on nfbc and uh so I started at 500 and I'm more excited about the guys that were closer to 500 it's funny how that works um so here right there at 533 at least I

didn't take a 501 guy uh at 533 is Adam Frazier and he is not very exciting in terms of upside but he does show up high on a uh on a query that i did and that query was looking at um looking at people who hit line drives to the pull side lefties who hit line drives the pull side i define that as over 90 uh miles per hour and between zero and 10 degrees launch angle i can give anybody the uh the query if i if they want it because i have it constantly open i don't have it open because i think i should change my first round picks with it but i do have it open as a way to kind of peruse some later picks and say oh maybe that guy will have a batting average five or ten points higher than i expect adam frazier hit the fifth most line drives the pull side in fact if you look at his depth chart

he can't really do much else he is a guy who doesn't have any power and just tries to pepper the left side of the infield with line drives i could see him getting a few doubles out of it even maybe getting that iso over a hundred um and uh having a batting average around 275 again he's done that in uh one two three four five out of his seven seasons um and so if he's back to being a guy who can hit 280 with five to seven homers and then maybe with the steals things maybe it's 10 to 15 stolen bases uh it's kind of a fun multi-eligible guy that adds a very rare actual multi-eligibility, which is MI and OF. I think that's pretty rare. I think you're more likely to get sort of a CI corner outfield guy. So MI, OF, second base outfield, kind of a cool thing to have on your roster. Kind of a cool thing, I think, for the Orioles to have on their roster

as they try to get better. They do have some guys who can hit it out of the park. They do have some guys who can take walks. Here is their Magic Wandu guy, the guy who just tries to get a bunch of singles. There's not really a lot of other guys on the roster. I've always talked about having lineup diversity in terms of approach and what the players can do. He will be their guy that just gets them a single when they need it. And so therefore, I don't think he'll even hit eight. I think that's a guy who can hit six or seven for you. And you're hoping that he just comes up with people on base and hits one of those singles. I think he's a great monolig player, nice for draft and hold.

I don't know if Frazier will do enough in the counting stats overall to make an impact in mixed leagues. Could be a glue guy, though, that occasionally if you're just desperate for a cheap pickup, contingency bid sort of player in season, might end up scratching the itch in a good schedule week. If the schedule's

full and it's all righties or something, that might be a time where you stream Adam Frazier and then hands it back on the waiver wire. And some of the more like mid range mixed leagues. Or a daily league where you've got like O'Neal Cruz and you can't play him against lefties. It would be funny to kind of put Frazier in there because he'd be the opposite of O'Neal Cruz.

In fact, if you could stick Adam Frazier together, like if you could smush Adam Frazier with O'Neal Cruz. In fact, if you could stick Adam Frazier together, like if you could smush Adam Frazier with O'Neal Cruz, you might have Alex Rodriguez. That's a pretty funny player. Yeah. Kind of

makes sense. If you just took the best parts of each. Not if you took the worst parts of each. If you took the worst parts of each, I don't think that's a major leaguer. That's European fairy tale vibes right there. Let's smush O'Neal Cruz and Adam Frazier together to make an Alex Rodriguez. In my cauldron.

That's very, very strange. Also on that list, real quick, is G-Man Choi at $593. High up on that list. G-Man Choi is a little bit lower on the list, but he's also on this list. So this one might be more of a question, but as I look at the Dodgers outfield depth, I think they have a platoon where you could be rewarded with a lot of playing time if you're right about how things play out. Trace Thompson was a nice story last year. James Outman has played

really well in the upper levels of the minor leagues just in terms of the amount of power he's shown with some speed on top of that. A little old for the level, of course, being 25 at AA and then finishing the year at AAA last year. Got a little taste of the big leagues, but it's a little bit like the Will Benson profile.

Power, speed, patience, swing and miss. Fewer strikeouts. Similar swinging strike rates, but fewer strikeouts than Benson. But always has been older for the level. That's the key difference. Benson getting drafted out of high school, of course, started as a teenager.

That's why he's 40 future value. That's why the prospect list I've never really liked him. Kind of want to take a shot though. I think this is a good opportunity to get a player that can do a little bit of everything. Outman pulls the ball a ton. I would be more worried about that pre-shift rule changes. I think Outman ends up taking the larger share of the job so long as the Dodgers don't have someone else who comes in and just pushes both of these guys into obvious sort of reserve

roles. So Thompson being a righty, Elman being a lefty, I'm chasing the big side of the platoon here. Yeah, it could happen at the trade deadline where they're doing okay, but that's an obvious place for the Dodgers to improve, right? Yeah. But yeah, lefty. I like the lefty. I like the power.

I like the patience. There's even some speed in there. That's noty. I like the lefty. I like the power. I like the patience. There's even some speed in there. That's not bad. I have, in the past, sort of just glossed over him. I don't prefer guys who strike out a lot and a 19% swing strike rate, but that was 16 plate appearances. It wasn't as high down in the minors, and it seems to be set up for a chance there. In a similar vein, although not as old as nolan

jones over in uh colorado uh not necessarily slated for any particular spot on the depth chart has smaller swinging strike rates than uh than than james outman uh at 24 has been about about the same as a level not necessarily older than level but um not necessarily young for his levels either he could maybe benefit for a little added aggression in fact he's gotten so many high walk rates that um you know being a little bit more aggressive um might be uh the ticket for him to have lower strikeout rates. But in any case, big power, really nice max EV last year, really nice barrel rate. And that's how he managed to have a high BABIP as well, just by hitting the ball so damn hard. And so I like him because I also don't like the Rockies.

So I like him because I also don't like the Rockies. And I feel like Charlie Blackman could be a guy who gets traded this year. Jonathan Daza is maybe a fourth outfielder for me. Randall Gritchick is also an easy trade for me. And then if Chris Bryant's various injuries act up on him, yes, they could go with Sean Bouchard. But if it's a longer-term back injury or something, they may try to give Nolan Jones a shot. So I think Nolan Jones is right behind that group.

He doesn't maybe make opening day. But between Bryant, Bouchard, Daza, Gritchick, and Blackman, there's a lot of opportunity to be traded or show your warts or get injured. I think he's right there after that group. Yeah. I mean, you look at the depth chart for what they're likely to do. One of right field or DH is soft enough where Jones can make the opening day roster, but it's not guaranteed, right? It's a question, I guess. They traded for him for a reason, though. They went out and made a move. They traded a young infield prospect to get him. We talked about this when we were reviewing the trade. Nolan Jones is actually pretty tooled up. 100th percentile

in arm strength. That would actually play pretty well in right field. 80th percentile in max exit velocity. 68th percentile in sprint speed. This is a guy you should absolutely be playing if you're Colorado. So I like him quite a bit. It's a guy that even in 15-team leagues would be worth the kind of thing where if you're having an early draft, you draft him for your bench, and then you expect in the first FAB, if he doesn't, if he's not looking like he's making the team that you're going to replace

him. So, you know, there's, there's that kind of opportunity. There's players like that. I think Jonathan Aranda and Kyle Manzardo are a group that are both, they don't have the same skills.

They're definitely different players than Jones, but they're also headed towards that roster at some velocity that we don't know yet like Yanidi has got an extension that's great I don't think Yanidi has his glove is gonna play at third very much longer he's slated right now for about a third of the playing time at third where you might just give that to Paredes if you give that to Paredes. If you give that to Paredes, then Diaz becomes part of the first base situation. Harold Ramirez is in that situation. Those guys are, I think,

I don't want to say barely major leaguers, but things could work out where they're just not good enough in spring and they'd say, we want Jonathan Aranda now or we want Kyle Manzardo now. And I think that what our man Chris Welsh said on Tuesday was interesting, that Kyle Manzardo's got a third base glove on him. Paredes has played first too, you know, has played second.

It's also part of them having just be like, we want everybody to play everywhere. That's definitely a raised thing. However, it does maybe suggest that maybe they think third base is a weak spot. So that means Aranda or Manzardo could be, if you're betting on Aranda, it's a little bit more of a contact spray power profile that you think maybe the batting average will be high and he'll

just hit everywhere. He's like a professional hitter type, you know, 5560 on the hit tool from Fangraphs. If you're betting on Kyle Manzardo, you're betting on the power. And And, I mean, they've got a 55-70 hit tool on him, too. Tampa likes hit tool. So Aranda's closer if you care about what order the organization is going to give their chances. But the wealth of those guys are both kind of interesting shots in the dark where you're like, I think they're very close to playing in the major leagues this year. And they're on a team where they could be useful at their positions. Yeah, it's so strange. I mean, you look at this team and Yandy Diaz by the bat is their best projected hitter.

Why did they extend them at 135 WRC plus? I know. I wonder if this is a guy who has an approach that still works even with a dead ball because he doesn't lift the ball enough. He just hits the ball hard and it's like, hits it all over, so it doesn't matter if the ball's dead, he's still valuable. He can still put up the same numbers

he was putting up before. And like, if you covered up every part of the thing except for walk rate and strikeout rate, you'd be like, this guy is a little bit like Mookie Betts. You'd be so excited and you look at the slug and you're like, what's going on? Why is the slug so low? Why do you have a.387?

They show you a picture of Yandy, and you're like, wait, that guy doesn't hit the ball? He doesn't hit for power? How is that possible? I love baseball number 5,268. You know what's going to happen? Gavin Lux is going to be a left-handed Yandy Diaz.z it's gonna drive us crazy for the next five years it's gonna work if that arm picture wasn't even ai induced dude

oh you are so convinced that's not real you are as convinced that the gavin lux photo is doctored as i am that the pain guy was parody the entire time I love the things that you believe that you can't prove. That pain guy was parody? Or that Gavin Lux picture is fake. Right. These are what I would term harmless conspiracies.

These are okay. Yes, yes. Don't go looking out there for former baseball writers that have sites that are now conspiracy theorists. Those are some weird stuff out there, guys. That's the bad place. The Rays, though, the Rays mess me up every single year.

If you haven't picked up on this pattern, I'm always looking for value on their depth chart. I'm always looking for the next guy up or the prospect that's proven himself in the upper levels in the minor leagues and they're all cheap a ronda's cheap josh low is cheap yes my next name on there i have curtis mead is cheap 576 a ronda's 551 monzardo 601 how can we tell mead is people love him in the prospect circles. They do. Hits the ball really hard, right? Can play a couple spots. I understand it. I like all these guys for different reasons, but I cannot figure out how the Rays view them

and how they prioritize them and how they're going to handle it. I was drafting Kyle Manzardo in the end of DC's last month, early January. I thought he was a great value after round 40 because I didn't think they were going to extend Yandy Diaz. I actually thought there was a good chance Manzardo was going to come up this year and he could be this year's Vinny. He could be this year's Vinny Pasquantino. I thought that all made sense. Now it's like, nah, you made this long-term commitment to Yandy.

Now Manzardo's going to play some third bays, which is good long-term, but maybe delays him a little bit. And then all these other guys, have we seen enough Brujan to write him off? Have we seen enough Lowe to write him off? The one thing I would say about Lowe and Brujan that is different than Manzardo, Aranda, and Meade is the obvious need on this team, the worst position on this team is center field. And if any of them can beat Jose Siri at the plate,

which can't be that hard, and even do 80% of Jose Siri on defense, they can push Siri to the backup center fielder. That can't be hard. And in right field, you just got to beat Manny Margot, who I think is kind of underrated. He's a little bit like a Yandy Diaz

where you're like, oh, this guy is actually kind of league average and everything. But he's only league average and everything. So Josh Lowe has two opportunities to get on this roster. And Vidal Brujan is, I think, more dangerous as an outfielder at this point. Because other than Randy Orozarena, that outfield, I'm sorry, it stinks. It's like, you know the meme with the three dragon heads?

You've got like Tampa Ray Starters as a real dragon head, Tampa Ray Enfield as a real dragon head, and then the Tampa Outfield is like the one with the googly eyes. Okay, okay. Let's see if we can solve some of this. Brandon Lau, is he still a second baseman or does he move to the outfield? Does he solve some of this. Brandon Lau, is he still a second baseman or does he move to the outfield? Does he solve some of this problem? That's an opportunity to get

Aranda or Brujan or even Manzardo in because Paredes can play second. Right, you got a bunch of guys that you can sneak in at second base. I think Gandy's headed towards DH. And the deal he signed, to be honest, is

almost a DH type deal. He signed a $6 million a year deal. Yes, they made a bet on him, but it was an $8 million a year deal. So I think he's their first base with DH. That's where I see Diaz is, and DH when Manzardo comes up. I think the best,

if you didn't care about anything other than upside I would go Manzardo at first Aranda just ahead of me just because that's the order of process. Aranda at third Paredes at second

Brujan in center Lowe in right, Margot in series as the backup outfielders. And if that doesn't leave room for Harold Ramirez on my team, it's time to go. Wait, I lost Brandon Lau in there. Yeah, you didn't have Lau in there? God, they've got so many players, man.

It's hard. It's a hard depth chart. Well, let's see if we can figure a few more things out. Curtis Meade's only played 20 games at AAA, so... And he just seems like, I don't know, he just seems like you want to give... There is some politics in this, right? You kind of... If Aranda has been playing well

and done everything he wanted to do like you give him a chance like even if brujan doesn't have the upside you gave the reason he got a chance first is because he was ahead of those other guys right you maybe have given brujan enough chance i know it's only you know 200 plate appearances but he hasn't played well and you may be given enough chance to think, okay, Brujan's a guy that we just plug in short term. He's not part of the future. We can move on to the next one. So now you move on to Aranda, I think, ahead of Meade. So I would just say that Aranda has the next chance ahead of Meade.

I think I'm off Brujan completely, even though cheap speed is fun. Because even in that limited sample size, a 26.2% hard hit rate, not surprising at 2.3% barrel rate. He's just not going to hit the ball hard enough to be a regular and go to a bad team to play. That's, that's the only way I could see Brujan trade fodder at this point. I think he's trade fodder at this point.

And I think, uh, he, the way they used him and suggest that they know this as well. What do you make of the Josh Lowe usage though? Given that center field is a need, he's hit the ball a little harder. 5.2% barrel rate last season.

37.1% hard hit rate. Same kind of thing about 200 plate appearances. But they gave him up and gave him a job more, you know? It wasn't like Brujan where he's up and you're like, what is he doing? And he's just playing sometimes, you know? Brujan, like, Lowe was like, we're trying to see if you're the thing.

And I don't necessarily think that the jury's out. Really nice chase rate. So he does have a sense of the plate. Yeah, I think he just has problems with certain pitches. I think it was high pitches that were his problem. So you kind of have something to look for. You know, when you look at his AAA stats, you don't look, oh, 151 WRC+, he's ready again. You're ready again you're as a team you're looking at well what's he doing on high pitches yeah i'm

still throwing darts this late on low i think there's a few ways for him to make value i think the need in center field is clear enough even if he's not a premium defender at the position he can play it well enough to do that and that's where he played mostly in AAA. Right. So I think he's the holdover that I like the most. Oh, man. It's just so hard to get this depth chart right.

Because Harold Ramirez, they might like Harold Ramirez almost as much as they like Yandy Diaz right now. They might want to see what he can do, and that might matter more to them. And I think that's the part that really, it's those variables, right? They have that depth but they also have these other types of players they bring in parade ace was one last year they traded for him i i like parade ace in detroit i thought it was very crowded in tampa bay had a few draft draft champions hold

draft and hold shares of him those came through but i didn't i didn't know how the playing time was going to shake out this time last year for paredes i i thought he could just get completely lost in in this depth chart i don't i don't understand it sometimes i look at projections i don't get it for three quarters of his career and albeit only you know 700 plate appearances or something he's been below a 100 wrc plus harold ramirez right with okay strikeout rates really poor patience uh and like a 100 iso you know that's that's been harold ramirez at every stop other than tampa then in tampa he has 400 plate appearances with a 350 babbitt the best babbitt he's ever had hits 300 has a 119 wrc plus and all of his projections say he's ever had, hits 300, has a 119 WRC plus. And all of his projections say he's going to be above average going forward.

What am I missing? It's the league context shifting. It's the same thing as Yandy popping as much as he does. It's just coming from a lower level. And I think the other part of it is that last year, if you think about a player's career, the three seasons in which we've seen Ramirez. It wasn't dependent on opposite field power.

It wasn't dependent on a lot of things that other people that suffered more were dependent on. Right. He just hits the ball hard on the ground around the infield. That didn't change with the dead ball. And because everything else came down, Ramirez still being the same guy played up. Everything else came down. Ramirez still being the same guy played up. I don't know if that means I want to take any chances in deep leagues on this player,

but I think that's how it happens. And that's why it gives us this kind of fit from a projection standpoint. Yeah. Maybe they just modeled what would happen. Maybe as soon as they saw the dead ball, they modeled what would happen and who would be less problem problematic. But I think also you could just see it as Tampa Bay claimed a guy. And then we're like, Oh,

he's okay. If he wasn't okay, they would have moved on. Then they'll move on quickly too. Right. That's how I kind of feel about Harold. That's how I felt about Yandy for a few years. And then we're at Yandy got extended so you can you can just do different phases of the same problem

whoa what are you listening to this for wait who's talking you know you're driving a 2024 ford escape with available alexa built in so you can change the music oh yeah a Alexa, change station to 99.2. See? Purchase a 2024 Escape ST-Line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment. That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40,294. Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca. Tell me if I'm being a homer. Bryce Terang, we talked about the surprising power. I think he came up sort of at the very end of our shortstop episodes.

You're not buying the power at all. Are we looking at a Brujan sort of profile where he's not going to hit the ball hard enough to hold regular playing time on a good team? Because if he gets that playing time, he's shortstop eligible. He'll play a lot at second base, probably pick that up pretty quickly once he's up for the season. And speed should be there. He's always had speed.

Seems to hit the ball to all fields at least. I just wonder, is this going to work with Bryce Terang as a possible cheap source of speed at a position that if you're in a deep league and you don't address shortstop depth correctly, you will feel the pain after that pick 500 range trying to find a competent shortstop eligible player. Yes, that is true.

Who did I end up with? I took J.P. Crawford as my second shortstop just because he's going to play. And then I took David Fletcher as my third shortstop. And that's interesting to this discussion because there is a piece, and I'm going to mention this guy twice. I'm going to name drop Ben Clements over at Fangraphs twice. He doesn't write about fantasy, but the stuff that he writes about is relevant to fantasy. And what Ben Clements wrote about with regards to Brendan Donovan was that David Fletcher was the model and Brendan Donovan was part two. And if you believe in Bryce Turing, you're thinking he's part three.

The problem is David Fletcher and Brendan Donovan make a lot more contact. And that's why I can't put Bryce Turing in this group because he's had strikeout rates over 20%. He's projected for basically league average strikeout rate and i think the only way a 100 iso or sub 100 iso really works in the major leagues is if you have that magic wandu stick that sort of adam frazier ish uh you know put the ball wear and get your singles kind of deal um and i i am supremely biased against that as in in a prospect you know once they didn't demonstrate a little bit in the big leagues i might buy in a little bit that's why i have that share of david fletcher um but But Brandon Donovan is going pretty high in drafts, and I'm not buying that. And so I'm much more like,

I'll take a share of Frazier and Fletcher later, but Tourang is even riskier because he's not in the major leagues. He doesn't have the job yet. The killer here is that the scouting grades

would lead you to not give up on Brujan, who I just buried 10 minutes ago. And Fangraphs had a 50 present hit tool on Brujan. I believe that was last year is when that grade was put in with a 65 future on the hit tool. It's really good. That's a guy that the Rays are going to stick with for a long time. And even if he's an up and down guy for a couple of years, he will drive us crazy in the interim. Bryce Terang, they have a 45 current hit tool at fan graphs and a 50 future. I think that's too low.

And then they've got the, the TLDRC Andres Jimenez. Like, okay, yeah, that sort of makes sense. And then Jimenez eventually did get to a little extra power this year in the big leagues.

Right. So the 45 power on Terang is where I think I don't believe. But if you do believe in 45 power, 45 power at this point is like a 150 ISO. Yeah, he's tough, man. If you think Turing can get to a 150 ISO, then you should take him. I just...

I don't... I want to from like a fan perspective, but from a how my brain works and what I'm looking for in a player profile, I'm still skeptical. It's not what I'm looking for in a minor league stats, no. It's going to be so jarring to be- I never want to see a zero as the first number in an ISO.

I'm going to be so happy if I'm wrong from like a fan perspective and then so angry that I'm wrong from a fantasy perspective. If this actually goes this way. If this doesn't work out. Yeah. There's a fun tool that's available over at Prospects Lives. Prospects Lives is called the RoboScore.

And they just basically take a bunch of the minor league stats and kind of look at the context of the league and look at the context of the park and create kind of a prospect ranking out of that. So shout out to Matt Thompson over at Prospect Lives who showed me it. David Villar on the RoboScore at a 90 plus. And that was better than Astori Ruiz at AAA and some other names that people are pretty excited about. So that was high up. And VR does not have great batted ball oomph,

as you would say, in terms of barrel barrel or max ev they're both sort of just like average-ish above average-ish what he does is he just hits the ball in the air a lot and so when he does connect it turns into a homer uh that leads to a lot of strikeouts uh decent amount of walks uh there's some projections that say he's going to be 13 percent better than league average uh but even the bad x that's not projections that say he's going to be 13% better than league average, but even the bad X that's not super high on him says he'll be league average. And the Giants right now at third are sporting Wilmer Flores,

Tyro Estrada, who's also maybe the starter at second. So Flores and Estrada are also basically the the primary guys at second so if the only person that could really take vr's job from him is jd davis who is also on the first base thank thank you giants thank thank you the rays for doing this to everybody's depth charts yeah this is this is positionless depth charts this is what we've evolved to but he seems like especially if J.D. Davis is going to play first and Mets fans I think would say that he has bricks for hands

J.D. Davis I don't know I watched him take a lot of defensive reps in San Francisco and thought he was good my original bricks for hands guy was Tommy LaStella and they didn't ever really let him take uh reps at third so they had a lot of reps for jd davis at third that's the primary reason

uh other than the strikeouts and the kind of meh bad ball stats but i think there's opportunity if there was an opportunity score and then there's the robo score uh both of those are high i want to make a children's book where a child named jd literally has bricks for hands but does wonderful things let's just thinking about those fairy tales from earlier see you know this could be done look you can do with bricks for hands possibilities are endless tommy La Stella had a nice career. I don't think it matters what J.D. Davis does in the field if J.D. Davis hits at the higher end of his range. This is a pretty fun position battle that I think does have some spillover value into some more shallow and even mid-sized mixed leagues

just because someone could end up in the middle third of the Giants lineup with a large share of playing time with a good power ceiling, and that could play. We've talked about how right-handed hitters especially don't have as difficult of a time hitting for power at Oracle. So I think this is one of the spring training job battles to watch as much as a spring training job battle can even exist. A general question that we should answer in a future episode is what do you really look for in spring training when you're looking at two players that seem to be competing for one playing time role?

Played appearances. Yeah, just usage. I think just played appearances, but also to some extent there's a separation between first five inning guys and when you play. Does he leave with the veterans i think one of the funniest things in spring training is when like it's like the sixth inning or something and

you just see half the team leave the dugout and just walk yeah a gate opens and they just half the team walks onto the bus oh oh they're all the good players i wanted to see now all the 99s are coming out on the field yeah golf golf clubs are on the bus they're they're going golfing so uh yeah a little bit of when they play in the game um the giants uh left-handers are um strangely uh deproving what What is the word? Getting worse. The opposite of improving. You've got Jock Peterson. Declining. I mean, they're just declining. What you've got is Jock Peterson, Mike Jastrzemski, Brandon Crawford, and Lamont Wade Jr. Those are your lefties. Maybe Eson Diaz

or Luis Gonzalez. Maybe. By the way, baseball prospectuses' defensive numbers or Luis Gonzalez. Maybe. By the way, baseball prospectuses' defensive numbers like Luis Gonzalez and I would say that not many people watching the games in San Francisco did. the LeBron Wade Jr. one is really interesting. He's a 50% fly ball

guy. It's a little bit like VR where it's like they don't hit the ball very hard, but they hit the ball in the air all the time. So when they do hit it hard, it's a homer. And that where it's like they don't hit the ball very hard but they hit the ball in the air all the time so when they do hit it hard it's a homer and that seems to be what they're going for uh it seems so hit or miss we've seen lamont wade jr just not be a major leaguer you know and we've also seen him have a 116 wrc plus uh in 2021 and um uh so i don't know i don't know i don't know. I don't know. I don't know. If you're a left-hander in San Francisco,

you have a slightly better chance of making this roster and playing a big part of a platoon because they have better right-handers, honestly. Right? Hanager, Conforto, Estrada, Flores. Ah, look. The deep, deep sleeper in San Francisco is Diaz. I think it's Isan Diaz.

Here's why. I have a reason. They kept him in the 40 man throughout the entire winter. They didn't get the impact addition to the infield that they need. So they're still doing the mix and match thing. You need lefties and righties to do that effectively. I know that we're at the point he's going to be 27 in May. This is quad a hotspot.

Like he could easily just be a quad A player. But each of the last two seasons, when he's had long stays at AAA, he's been at least 30% better than league average. So Isan Diaz has played well enough at that level to justify another opportunity in the big leagues. And I know the big league line, I think so far is 185, 275, with a 27 k rate it's about 500 plate appearances

it was with the Marlins tough place to hit an organization that does not develop hitters well I think that's a very fair they could see a nice way to say it yeah and this is a guy that was always even as a lower level prospect way way back back, I think in the Arizona system, it was, he's going to hit. We're not sure he's going to play, but he's going to hit. I traded a couple of times. This is his fourth organization, Arizona, Milwaukee, Miami, San Francisco.

Diaz is exactly the kind of player in the later 20s that has some stuff to work with that they can find a way to get value out of. I think he's jumping off the page a little bit as a guy that has shown consistent power in the upper levels of the minors. And he has experience in the upper levels

playing second, third, and short. Oh my goodness. He is the perfect giant, like the missing piece of their infield. Because Villar and Davis, Estrada, Flores, they're all righties. Okay, for the people who are listening who do like deep sleepers, but the starting, like, Audineau or something, right,

where it's a 12-team team league with deep benches, are any of the, because Diaz, I think, is maybe draft and hold, 20-team league, that sort of deal. NL only, yeah. NL only. Are any of the other guys we mentioned, I think Estrada is a 12 teamer. Hanager and Conforto are 12 teamers. Peterson

in daily leagues maybe. Who else? Do any of those guys that we've been talking about in AutoNew would you like to put Flores on AutoNew, would you like to put Flores on your bench? Would you like to put VR on your bench? Wade? JD Davis? I think I have at least

one AutoNew team where I have JD Davis on the bench. Flores for sure and JD Davis I think or VR. Whichever one of Davis or VR you like better. I like Davis a little better. He hits the ball harder. He's done it for several years. I think he's had a wrist injury

that also cost him some time last year. That depth chart got pretty crowded for the Mets. I think he's got a much better path in San Francisco to be the player, be the hitter that we hoped he could be when he showed us a little bit of a ceiling three, four years ago now. It was 2019, I think, when we first saw J.D. Davis produce

against big league pitching. You know what's a nicer death chart to look at? The Nationals one. Not because it's fun to look at or because it's good. It's because it's so bad. It's worse than the Reds. That you're like,

if you like anybody on the Nationals, go get them. This is a death chart that only Nando DeFino could love. I've got i've got stone garrett uh on my sleeper list on this one stone garrett uh goes 635 ben clements again there's the next second name drop for ben clements he has a piece on guys that uh have good 95th percentile exit velocity that have not uh that have not tapped into it fully yet. And Stone Garrett was on that list.

And what I would say about Stone Garrett is that if in spring the strikeout rate is anything better than one out of every three at-bats, spring strikeout rates actually do contain some signal. And the big thing for him is to improve his strikeout rate in any way that he can um and so if that's improving in the spring he's got opportunity he's got power he's got speed he could totally be 12 team worthy uh he and that is something to watch in spring if you want to watch him you can do it if you want to put him on a draft and hold like i just did, you can do it. Stone Garrett is someone, I think, that went to the right place.

And the Nationals are right to pick him up. Yeah, Garrett's got some tools. I like him quite a bit, too. I kind of wish they had one fewer older outfielder. I guess by that, I mean, I kind of wish Corey Dickerson hadn't been signed to be part of the outfield DH mix. And I kind of wish that we knew they'd give up on Lane Thomas. There's a case for Thomas, but he does so much against lefties and so little against righties that I'm not that optimistic about him. Yeah, worst case scenario is like a Stone-Thomas platoon there because Stone is righty.

Because I think Alex Call is also interesting. I think he's the other guy. I like Garrett and Call. I just don't know how they're both going to play if everyone's still there. We need transactions. 28-year-old, they picked up on waivers, huh? Yeah.

Victor Robles is only 25. I'm not drafting him. Okay, good. I was like, is that a... It's a Victor Robles fact. It's just a fact. Do you want to run through some more here or what? Yeah, we got a few more.

Dominic Smith, I do like him as someone on this depth chart. It's only a $2 million deal though, so if they don't like what they see, he is quickly a part-time player, but I do think the slight bump up in park is a good thing for him not too much that is his calling card except for one great year with the barrel rate otherwise it's been poor barrel rates poor max evs decent strikeout rates okay walk rates it's um

it leaves me a little bit cold as a first baseman across the line um then you've got uh you've got some interesting veterans that um you think they're a little bit too low for me aaron hicks at 668 and david peralta at 698 david peralta doesn't have a job yet um so i guess i can understand that he might jump up if he gets the right opportunity somewhere um aaron hicks is also 33 and been a below average hitter for two seasons. However, he's projected to be near average and he still has some speed. I don't know, man.

The deeper the league is, the more I'm like, yo, I think Aaron Hicks is like the starter in left field. He at least gets the first opportunity at the job again. I know major injuries have been a part of his recent past, and it's part of why I think he's cratered as much as he has.

We've seen a very good Aaron Hicks in the not-so-distant past. You look at the per-game numbers going back to 2018 and 2019. Missed a lot of time in 2019, so that's what kind of brought everything down for him there it's kind of a question of what they do with the spillover prospects right we talked about peraza we talked about cabrera and what those two guys might do if volpe's the shortstop do you see cabrera in left field is cabrera the biggest threat to hicks is there someone else

that could come in but I think with but they all have options you know so like you can kind of be a little bit up and downy with them you know three years left on that deal right Hicks give up on Aaron Hicks yet I think that's what I'm saying like I think Hicks is a starter and like Cabrera and Peraza and Volpe they're just you know they, okay, which one of you is good enough to play every day and stay up here? Which one of you is good enough to be the utility guy? And which one of you is struggling? Sorry, you're going back down. Aaron Hicks'

batting averages, wow. I mean, like, go back even to 2019. 235, 225, 194, 216. Yeah, it's weird because it's always come with an okay strikeout rate, too. I think it's always come with an okay strikeout rate. I think he's like overly passive a little bit. Yeah, I mean, that would be the best explanation I'd have.

I have no idea. I think you're right. I think for draft and holds, for AL only, he's way too cheap for the likelihood that he's going to get a lot of playing time in a good park, in a good lineup. Could actually be a double-digit homers and steals guy with two-thirds of a season's worth of plate appearances. It's hard to find other players

who are going to do that in a lineup that good at that point in the draft. It's a little bit weird. And then Trevor Larnock looks like he might be headed towards... Maybe those ADP numbers are changing for Trevor Larnock because after the Luis Arias trade,

you would assume that people would look at this twins depth chart and just say, oh yeah, Larnach is probably the DH? I think so. At least against lefties? I think it's Larnach. There's two, this is kind of another job battle. It's not a direct job battle, where I'd say if Nick Gordon is a priority as an everyday player,

people move around, they float the DH. If Larnach is mashing, Larnach's the DH, and Gordon's a little bit more of a super sub than an everyday guy. Which I think they need a super sub. It could be Kyle Farmer otherwise. But you could have two super subs on this team, I think they need a super sub. It could be Kyle Farmer otherwise. But you could have two super subs on this team, I think. What about Edouard Houlien? You like him?

It's a longer road to some playing time. Yeah, he's a really interesting player because they put him into the Arizona Fall League home run derby. And everyone was sort of surprised because you know 190 iso guy that had 17 homers this year double a it's not normally who you'd think of as the guy you stick into the home run derby and part and what was very interesting about it was the scouts were kind of grumbling about having a home run derby and the afl was the first year they ever did it

because the the whole afl is like mostly for scouts. I think there's like usually at a given AFL game, there's like 20 scouts and like 50 fans. So it's like, you know, normally you think do what the scouts say because it's mostly a scouting league. But that's a good cry on for anybody watching on on YouTube. But the scouts were grumbling, like, what am I supposed to do at a at a home run derby but a couple that i talked to uh had some interesting things to say that you could actually see what their a swing was in a home run derby right you can see where they where they want to hit the ball and what was interesting about julian is he was the only one who's trying to go oppo so he didn didn't win that day. It was, oh, you know who, I forget who won. It was either Andy Pahez or, I think he did pretty well,

but also there was like a guy who looked like he was 35 and he was like 23. That was like a DH in the Arizona system. And one scout said, that guy can't play baseball, but he can hit. said, that guy can't play baseball. But he can hit. I think that guy won. Anyway, Eduardo Hillian did not win and he went

oppo. So what I see here is a guy who has all fields power, a really nice plate discipline, really low swing strike rates. He could maybe benefit from a little aggression, getting the bat hat out in front and hitting some more homers and maybe taking advantage of that really good hit tool. But I see, I saw a

really good hit tool. I see a guy who can play second. I know he has a 30-40 hit tool on Fangraphs, but I just don't see that with swinging strike rates around seven and and 8%. So I think I'm pretty excited about him. And I think long-term, the Twins are not dedicated necessarily to Jorge Polanco. He's got one more club option after this year. And so Julian could start to bubble up to the top. I don't know if he'll necessarily steal a job unless Buxton's hurt, Gordon's playing center, and they need another super sub. Is Leandro Cedeno the player that won the home run derby in the fall league? He led the Diamondbacks minor leaguers in home runs last season.

32 homers. I guess it could be him. Yeah. He was wild looking as a person. I mean, just jacked, like looks 35 in the face. That's great. Yeah, I mean, I guess that could be a helpful thing for a person. I don't really know.

The other late bats. Oh, Robert Perez Jr. won. Robert Perez Jr.? He might actually be the Mariners guy. Oh, okay Either way Oh, Russia's calling me, good I'm sure it's a serious call that's important

Oh, let me see I need to figure this out real quick Davison De Los Santos Oh, really? There are people that think he's not going to be a... Their scouts think he's not going to be a big leaguer? Well, they were pointing out they just didn't think he had a position, mostly,

but also just that he didn't make good decisions on the field and didn't look like a baseball player. Harsh. It was one of the harsher things I heard the scouts say, but scouts can be like that as the cryon said scouts were grumbling that day my friend a long day look those chairs they're uncomfortable they watch a lot of bad baseball to see the things they need to see i understand how they can become a little frustrated especially at the end. The end of Fall League. Late Fall League is like the end of the year for them.

They're almost done. We shouldn't go too long on this one. I think there's two outfield situations that you could maybe pick a winner on late. The Texas outfield, I think, has a soft spot in the outfield. And the Houston Astros depth chart has a soft spot in the outfield and the Houston Astros, uh, depth chart has a soft spot in the outfield. Uh, in Texas, I think you, uh, I'm, I'm saying Bubba Thompson is, is more of a backup guy. And, uh, that's where I think there's some opportunity, uh, on the, on the Rangers squad. Um, I like Dustin Harris a lot, and I think that's the one that I would bet on because um I think Evan

Carter who is a little bit more um the prospect the prospect has more prospect pedigree um is uh this future center fielder so I think for Evan Carter to come up uh Leote Tavares and Ados Garcia have to both show that they can't be everyday third center fielders for dustin harris to come up you're asking josh smith to look more like a utility guy which is totally possible and bubba thompson to look like a backup outfielder which i think is probable um maybe you're also asking for brad miller to to fall apart but that might also be probable so there it's it's not the softest spot in the world, but I think there is an opportunity there for Dustin Harris.

In Houston, I think you're looking at the outfield through the lens of how often can Michael Brantley play the outfield, and if he can't play the outfield, your backup outfielders right now are Jake Myers and Mauricio Dubon. Chaz McCormick is not the most amazing player. So Myers could take that job. Or someone we didn't know before we started prepping for this show, Corey Jolks, who had 31 homers and 22 steals last year in AAA, could be poised to prove their player development system right.

So just wanted to throw some names out there. I'm sure you got a couple more, but we don't want to get this too long. Yeah, Pod's running along again. I think Matt Veerling, where he goes, actually makes some sense. Tigers are going to play him a lot. They traded for him for a reason. Pits the ball hard, runs a little bit, does a few things well, so I'd keep him filed away as a good draft and hold

AL only sort of name. Keep an eye on him for watch list for deeper mixed leagues too just in case that playing time ends up being at the higher end. If it's more than an 80% share, he could actually become 15 team relevant pretty quickly. You've mentioned Connor Capel a few times. I just think we should throw his name back out there again.

I think he could just win that job. He could just play a lot, and Oakland does a lot of things well. I know I fell into the Kevin Smith trap a year ago. I don't know if this is completely different, but at the same time, I think there's a little more consistency level to level throughout the minors. Kevin Smith

really was a big AAA guy for one year that popped up again. Capel's always made contact and had sneaky power. Yeah, so I think that's where Capel's pretty interesting. Will Brennan actually is more interesting to me now with Benson gone because it's just one fewer big league-ready outfielder to push away for playing time.

And I think with Brennan, he's also a lefty like Will Benson, so that made it even more difficult for both of those guys to be on the roster at the same time in Cleveland. I would say Will Brennan gets a little bit of a bump as a result of that trade the Guardians made on Wednesday. I also feel like I know they extended Myles Straw,

but they didn't pay him a ton. Five-year, $25 million could still be a fourth outfielder if they decide i think last year's 64 wrc plus is kind of tough to run out there every day um and if you kind of make him more the defensive uh sub and the you know the guy who plays in certain situations i think you could probably make steven kwan the center fiel, which would open up an outfield position for Will Brennan or George Valera to come up.

So I think there is a little bit of a soft spot there in that outfield as well. Cleveland has to bring up so many prospects this year. That's why they've been trading away guys. Yeah, that's why they traded away Benson. That's why they traded away Jones is because they're a classic team that kind of hoards their prospects

and then gets into 40-man trouble. Yep, and you got to get out of that to make room for those 40-man players that are going to be added as you bring them up. So hopefully that gives you a good group of names to think about late

for very, very deep leagues. We, of course course will do this on the pitching side on a future episode as well so be sure to tune in for that i wanted to mention something real quick uh is that uh and i might mention this again on the prospects episode for those that only tune on the prospect that was this is a prospect thing we were talking about how baseball america ranks by uh ranks the international market just by dollar signs, and I thought that was a little bit ugly, but I didn't mean to insinuate that Baseball America hadn't thought this through or that what they were doing is necessarily ugly.

It's just an outgrowth of the situation, which is that these deals are being made with 16, 14-year-olds. And once the deal is made, and this is something that Baseball America has been very transparent about, once the deal is made, you don't get to actually scout them that much anymore. They start just playing with their buscones,

their trainers. And even if you get to the island and want to see them, the most you'll see is maybe a few grounders or something. You're not going to see that guy because he's been promised away. And that's why everybody knows, oh yeah, that guy's going to be a Yankee in two years or whatever, because it's an open secret. And it sucks, but it makes it also impossible to scout.

So now you have to rank them somehow. And so Baseball America said, as much as it pains them, this is the best way that they can do it because they can't even get eyes on these guys anymore. And that's a decision Ben Badler and Baseball America made in 2019. And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that they, this is just, because the whole situation is kind of ugly, this is a sort of necessary evil that's come out of it.

And it's not Baseball America's fault. It's more, and I'm not saying that I necessarily think that there should have an international draft. It's just because of the way things are right now, these are these sort of periphery things that happen that are not great. Yeah, industry-wide, it's not. I think good call to bring that up because Baseball America does excellent work. I think it's just even the way we discuss players, the values and bonuses and salaries in general, it feels gross. Yeah, I'm sure some of the stuff we said today.

We're talking about people's salaries and whether or not their teams are committed to them and how likely they are to fall off the depth chart. That's not fun for players to hear about their human being. That part is not the greatest part of our industry, but, you know, we're trying to help people play a game, and, you know, that's the type of advice they need. Probably time to wrap it up, though, because I just got the same Russian spam bot call that you got 10 minutes ago, so it means we've been recording for a long time.

So if you don't have a subscription, you can get one for $2 a month. Theathletic.com slash rates and barrels will bring you to that offer. You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper. We're back with you next week. Thanks for listening. Thank you.