Rates & Barrels - Digging Deep for In-Season Upgrades, Shane McClanahan to Ace Status & Breakouts in Progress

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss the promotion of Matthew Liberatore and Nolan Gorman, Shane McClanahan's rise to 'ace' status, a few potential breakouts in progress, the value of xStats as a comparative tool, and more.  Rundown -- Steps Forward From Josh Naylor & Manuel Margot? -- Hard-Hit Rate Laggards -- Nolan Gorman & Matthew Liberatore: Short-Term Expectations -- Pavin Smith & Willi Castro as Deep League Darts -- Shane McClanahan & Tarik Skubal Move Way Up -- Prospect of the Week! -- Using xStats as a Comparative Tool? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first six months: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Friday, May 20th. Derek Van Ryper here at the Eno Saris. Episode 2 of the week. only Friday episode so far of the year. I think we're going to get a cover all this year. I think we're going to get every day between now and the end of the year because we did a Sunday one back in April before you went on vacation. I'm sure due to breaking news or winter meeting stuff, playoffs, there's going to be a Saturday episode of Rates and Barrels that gets mixed in at some point. And we'll get to all seven days, which will be a new thing for us. And also, you're on the wrong side. What are you doing over there? It is weird to be on the right side. Should I switch it?

Oh, that's much better. I feel much better. I feel more normal because looking to the right side of my screen is where you normally are. Where did he go? We're creatures of habit, that is for sure. On this episode, we're going to discuss a few potential breakouts. If you listened to the 3-0 show earlier in the day on Friday, we found a few interesting names that were really more fantasy names for the most part. The core of that conversation was about Jess Chisholm Jr. and some of the changes he's made this season, but a few names that are bouncing around out there in deeper leagues,

easy players to get via trade where they're already rostered. We'll talk about them and whether or not there's actually something there. Hitters and pitchers, plus the cards have decided to bring up Nolan Gorman and Matthew Libertor. We're going to bring back Prospect of the Week. Not necessarily to spotlight

those two guys, but to talk about some other prospects. And we'll talk about a few mailbag questions that came in, including a follow-up about XStats, which we talked a lot about on the show being limited in their value right now because they've not been calibrated for this season, but there may still be a way to make them somewhat useful, even if they're not as useful as they would ordinarily be. So we begin with the breakouts up at the top. Some guys that have taken big steps forward so far. We're going to start with two on the IL, which is always really helpful. Both Josh Naylor and Manuel Margot, kind of more in the better late than never category,

even more so for Margot, given that he's a few years older than Naylor. But I think two players that to some degree that we've liked for a few years, we've wondered if there is just one more level they can reach. I think the problem with both players, aside from being on the IHEL right now, we're still dealing with a limited amount of playing time that's small enough to where one great game can change the way your whole season looks and one bad week could still change the way your entire season looks all that to say like i'm encouraged by what both of these players are doing and of the two i actually think nailer's changes are more convincing and potentially more sustainable for this new level of output going forward once he gets back from the IL.

As opposed to Margot? Yeah. Margot looks more similar to how he's looked in the past by comparison. Right. Except that there's this interesting thing going on, which is that the game, the ball, the situation around them is changing and i wrote a piece today about how the uh the the ball is now rewarding line drive hitters more than it's rewarding home run hitters and you know if you look at launch angles there's there's kind of two distinct pairings or like groupings or areas of launch angle. 0 to 16 degrees is your more line drive launch angles. Those don't go for homers almost ever. I say almost only because of Giancarlo

Stanton. He exists. And then 16 to 32 is where you get more of your doubles, fly balls, and homers. more of your doubles, fly balls, and homers. And the problem with the ball not going out of the park is that 16 to 32 is being devalued versus 0 to 16. So I had a piece up today, and Margot has always been more of a line drive hitter, not necessarily, you know players that has adjusted and hit more line drives year over year than anybody else. If you do just a straight ranking of line drive hitters this year, you'll hear a lot of really excellent hitters and one that deserves mention. I'm just going to do the the top 15 real quick austin meadows i mean it's you got zero homers and that's not good so i'm not going to say that you're happy with your austin meadows purchase but uh at the same time he's hitting for a great batting average for him uh and there's some other things that might look good under the hood. Ty Francis, second.

Ryan Mountcastle, I think that was an adjustment to the new park dimensions because Austin Hayes made that same adjustment. Alec Baum, hey, that's working out for him. Carlos Correa was white hot before he got hurt. JT El Rio Muto, not great season, but he's a consistent line drive hitter. Jorge Polanco, Manny Margot in the top 10, John Zagura, Santiago Espinal, Bo Bichette, not a great season. And then Cole Calhoun and Ryan McNair and Brandon Marsh round out the top 15. and Brandon Marsh round out the top 15.

Brandon Marsh is open performing his BABIP a little bit, but if he's a line drive hitter, maybe he's not going to hit you 30 homers, even though he looks like a kind of a homer hitter. Maybe he's more of a guy, a little bit like Jason Wirth used to be, because he does look like Jason Wirth. Maybe he's more of like a 20 homer, 15 steel guy. And so maybe more of his batting average is sustainable than we think. Cole Calhoun has made some adjustments to the plate. He's put

his feet closer together. And that's allowed him to kind of not kind of pull off and have this really steep attack angle. And we've seen him kind of rebound in the last couple of weeks. And Espinel, I think, is a little bit of a mini breakout player. I like him. So, you know, Margot being on this list, I think, is a little bit of, you know, him doing what he usually does, maybe a little bit more, and then the league kind of coming around and rewarding that type of player a little more more um and then the league kind of coming around and rewarding that type of player a little more than it used to thinking about the way line drives might be tallied versus

something like hard hit rate where you're just looking at it i did this by stack 95 plus yeah i was gonna say you gotta be careful what line drive rate what number you're looking at because the difference between a fly ball and a line drive when it's tallied manually that can be a bit of a fuzzy line yeah yeah and um i haven't seen as much research as in this i know that the stickiness of line drive rate as assigned by a human being is poor but the problem is that there's a lot of you know what happens when it's a hit it's a line drive you know i mean like you you look at and you're just your brain does that to you you're like oh yeah that was a line drive it's it is a really difficult thing to do without the numbers and i suggest anybody who's listening to just watch a game and you know if you're if you're at a game

with somebody and you're looking for something to do just debate if a pit hit was a line drive you know especially if it was uh if it was an out you'll find i think better you'll find very different uh sort of looks at what is a line drive or not this one at least had the benefit of being a very clean statistical definition zero to 16 degrees i didn't even add in an exit velocity component because I was only asking about are they hitting it in the right angles. And so, yes, it's better if you hit it hard in those angles, but if you don't hit the ball hard in today's league, you're not getting playing time.

I was looking at the hard hit leaderboard for StatCast before we started recording and I flipped it upside down because I was looking for Victor Robles. No. I was looking for players like Victor Robles just to find out who's getting duped right

now. Who's really going to fool everybody into thinking they're good but prove that they're not. The player that I'm really surprised to see as low as he is is Dylan Carlson. Among qualified hitters, Dylan Carlson has the second lowest hard hit rate across all of Major League Baseball. Only Tony Kemp is lower. Tony Kemp's got a 12.2% hard hit rate.

Dylan Carlson, 19.2%. Other guys near him, Miles Straw, Nicky Lopez, Ozzy Albies. Interesting that he's on there. Quique Hernandez, Marcus Simeon. A little troubling to see him down there at this point. Harrison Bader, Colton Wong, and Jesse Winker rounding out the bottom 10 right now. But to see Dylan

Carlson down there, that's another couple of rocks in the backpack, so to speak. Ugh, get Dylan Carlson on my team. It's another thing that rocks in the backpack, so to speak, of, oh, I got Dylan Carlson on my team. It's another thing that he's not doing. Why do I keep carrying this guy on my roster? And I'm not finding a lot to believe in right now. This to me, Dylan Carlson to me looks more like a sell low player than a lot of other young players do at this stage of their career.

We talked about it more from a season long, like a redraft situation on the last episode. But if you're in a keeper league or a dynasty league, yeah, you're selling at a relative low point for Dylan Carlson. But I still think you'd find more willing buyers right now than you might three months from now if what is happening right now kind of holds throughout the summer. It's just concerning. It seems to have gone the wrong way. And it is interesting put into the context of the conversation we had at 3-0 show where I was mostly upbeat about the fact that the cardinals are making a lot of contact right but carlson kind of like took that too far like you know like you can't

you cannot sell out for content above all you know you just can't do that and there's very little in the profile right now that I like, which is upsetting because visually, and just sort of, I like the all-fields power, and I liked the approach before. So I don't know that there's a player that I've fallen on. You know what I mean? I don't know if there's a player who has fallen more in my esteem in Dynasty Leagues than Dylan Carlson this year.

I thought about it from the redraft context back during the outfield preview. We talked about Jared Kelnick versus Carlson at the time. At least he hits the ball hard, though. He's hit balls like 115, you know? Yeah, there was a pretty big price gap for redraft leagues. It was a few rounds, and I thought straight up I wanted Carlson over Kelnick. And sure, Carlson's still with the big league clubs, still collecting playing time. So maybe for now that's the right side to be on.

But from a long-term perspective, that's the other question. If you're in a keeper or dynasty league and you've got a chance to go get one of these guys as a buy low, are you more likely to make a move for Kelnick or are you more likely to make a move for Carlson? likely to make a move for kelnick or you're more likely to make a move for carlson i'm gonna do cali because i just think that the price of playing in the big leagues is bad ball quality you know maybe that's changing but you you just because it's been cold and the humidors and all that stuff i'm not going to change the fact that I still value hitting the ball hard. Kelly has a 10% bail rate, has hit the ball 114 this year, and has good contact rates in the minors. There is definitely a version of this where he comes out

on top. It's only been 473 player appearances. He's lost, but at least he hits the ball hard. Carlson seems lost, and he's also not hitting the ball hard. I know that he's making more contact, and that's something to be valued. 105 max EV, 3% barrel rate. It's weird. It's lower than everything we've seen from him in the previous seasons he's been in the big leagues and it's all going the wrong direction he barreled a little bit and then in the in his in his debut and then he read a little bit less and now he's

not he's not barreling at all i have wondered if we're gonna see a demotion at some point in the near future for carlson if they would maybe bring up large Neutbar and play Neutbar more just for a few weeks well I mean there's some danger because so Gorman is up I don't I think I'm zooming to some section of the it's fine well so I mean we're talking about the Cardinals Gorman is up and And I don't think he's going to have a great debut personally because he struck out, what is it, 34% of the time in AAA. And I just think that that kind of a profile is going to be tough. Like, think about it. Kalanick struck out like 20% of the time in AAA

and comes up and strikes out 30 in the major leagues like what's the 34 guy gonna do so i i think he'll he'll struggle and my my personal sort of read on it is he's gonna be up while uh while tyler neal is down so then tyler neal comes back and i think gordon goes back down um and then you've got a full outfield again. I guess the person that probably, and it's not like Newt Barr is really raking in AAA right now. So I think that the most likely situation is Yepez starts either pushing Dickerson off the roster,

which is, I think, already happening a little bit, or he starts pushing for an outfield job, which he's playing in the outfield too. So then it'll be O'Neal versus Carlson when he comes back. And O'Neal is hitting the ball hard. He's not making much contact, but he's hitting the ball hard. So, yeah, it's possible. It's possible he goes down.

It's probable that Gorman goes down. It's possible that he goes down. I did like, just to finish off the Cardinals conversation maybe a little bit. Matthew Libitor is up and we actually had minor league stuff plus numbers on him.

He has a 91 stuff plus on the sinker so it's not, or the foreseeing whatever it's called, the fastball. So I don't think he's like a Shane Boz. He's not like a guy that I'm like, oh, yeah, just roster him for the minute he gets going. He's going to be a top 10 guy. I'm all in.

He's more like a guy where I'm like, hey, I like the park. I like the defense behind him. I probably like the matchups. So a little bit more of a matchups play. But all that stuff other than his fastball, like his secondaries, his command, his park, his defense, those are all really good. So I'm not going to talk smack on him. And with Dakota Hudson, maybe finally coming back to earth. I don't know. Like I, I will always predict his demise and never get it. Um, uh, and Jack Flaherty coming back. I could see Libertor actually pushing his way into a rotation spot, even with Flaherty back.

Yeah. I wonder if we're going to end up with a Ian Anderson sort of situation with Libertor. He just comes up and stuff's a little underwhelming in the model, but it works. And part of the reason why it works is because of the park and the defense behind him and

the command really being potentially above average. I think it's at least good command right now. We've seen pretty good walk rates ever since A-ball for Libertor, so not a lot to worry about there. Lots of good matchups. That's the key for me. There's going to be so many times you look at who he's got on the schedule

and you're going to lean more toward using him than not using him, at least in 15-team leagues. I think he's rosterable in more shallow formats. We'll get into that a bit on the Fantasy Baseball podcast later today when we've got the waiver stuff. But I'm in on Libertor, generally speaking. I think this can work because of the circumstances around him being very favorable.

Thank God for this stat. Dakota Hudson is a 417-year-old right away from home. It's just a 234 at home. That'll play. That'll play. You know, you idiot. It's fun to see the Cardinals bringing these guys up. More prospects coming very soon, I think.

So we've got that to look forward to. Before we dig into some of the pitching breakouts that might be in progress, we've got a couple more hitters we're going to get to. I'm intrigued by Willie Castro. I think part of the reason why I'm intrigued by Willie Castro is because batting average right now is pretty valuable. If a guy comes up and he's going to hit 270 or 280 potentially, that can be a massive boost to what is an often overlooked category and a category where everybody seems to be struggling

right now. A good batting average for a fantasy team right now is what, 235, 240? It's competitive in a lot of leagues. So if you bring in a guy that plays a lot, that can hit 270 or 280, really sitting 322 right now, and he brings a little bit of power and speed the way Willie Castro does, that could end up being a sneaky, valuable pickup in part just because of that first category. Yeah, he's another one of these sort of line drive hitters that may not hit you more than, you know, five, six, seven homers the rest of the way. But he does look like he steals some bases. My question is, where is he playing?

Like, what's his deal depth chart-wise? Is he replacing Badou? Yeah, Badou down at AAA right now. So I think that's been part of how the playing time has opened up for Willie Castro. All left field and center field. He's played pretty much every day since May 10th. One day off against the Orioles back on Sunday. Moving up in the batting order.

That's always a good sign. The question I have with Castro is where do we go with the hard hit rate? The early number is not good. It is in the sub 20% range, 17.3% so far. We've seen decent max exit velo numbers from him in the past. We've seen an acceptable barrel rate before it's 5.3 for his big league career as a whole but i think it's the fact that you get average in speed that's more what i'm interested in willie castro for anything he gives you power wise

is a pleasant surprise i think this is a little bit like it's like chasing a player like Eli White in some ways. And you also have to figure out, okay, yeah, you get these cheap steals. How long you get these cheap steals for and what else will it cost you? And I feel like it's going to cost you less in the other categories with Willie Castro than it will with Eli White getting that opportunity right now in Texas.

Yeah. When I look at Willie Castro, I get a little bit of a vibe off of one of the players that i highlight today ben gamble i think there's a there's like that 10 10 like 280 10 10 player which looks uh never it never really pops when you're searching for something right you're like oh i need some i need some power well he's not gonna show up on that oh i need some steals well he's not gonna you know with one steal so far and projected but for four steals in the bad x he's probably not gonna pop in that search right um but uh if you're looking instead to to tread water uh in a lot of categories or replace someone like a tyler oNeal where, you know, he's not going to do anything like Tyler O'Neal,

but he might keep you your head above water until hopefully Tyler O'Neal comes back and does better. Yeah. So just one of those guys that's playing at a level. It's quite a bit above what we saw a season ago, has some playing time right now and might actually be able to make a decent impact for us in some of our deeper leagues. I want to talk about Pavin Smith for a moment, too, because I was looking at the barrel rate risers year over year, and he was among the biggest movers in that category. Not really an exciting player. The slash line at 220, 301, 339 doesn't get anything going for me, really.

But a 14.1% barrel rate. He's kept his hard hit rate above 40% going back to last season. As we know, this is a team that needs to find ways to put runs on the board. I think it's hard to find deep league players that can exceed expectations, that don't take much in fab. But I think Pavin Smith could quietly be that kind of player. It's so weird he he does all the process things that i like and yet none of the other stuff and he doesn't he doesn't have a track record it's not like a guy who has a track record of power who's doing all the things i like

and just hasn't served the power yet that would be like okay stamp of approval right you know what i mean but here's a guy who had a you know a like a 175 iso and double a uh 130 isos in his first attempts at the big leagues like this is not a guy who has a lot of power right now he has a great barrel rate he has a great chase rate and he has a really good swing strike rate he should not be striking out 30 of the time he should be striking out 20% of the time. And really, those other stats suggest he should be walking 10% of the time, striking out 20% of the time, and have at least league average power, which would change that bat X projection with league average power. I think that changes him to a 260, 330, 420 player.

Yeah. It's a little bit like what he did last year, 330, 420 player. Yeah. It's a little bit like what he did last year, but with a little bit more power. So now you're talking about a guy who could hit 270, hit you 15 homers. I don't know. That's valuable. That plays. I mean, especially in mono leagues, if you're looking for a very gettable player showing some underlying skills growth in the face of the K rate being up. I think there's more to like than dislike. So if you're in one of those highly competitive, ultra deep leagues,

I think you might be surprised at what Pavin Smith could do. Interesting too, because he also upped his ground ball rate. This is a weird... I'm going to be watching this guy. It's a weird stat line. He's one red hot week away from making it look very different. And for what it's worth, Walker had a lot of these things going on before, right? And we talked about him to death. He just called this the Christian Walker podcast.

But since then, now his ISO is 250. He has nine homers. He looks primed to do this all season. Now his ISO is 250. He has nine homers. He looks primed to do this all season. Now I'm getting questions about Christian Walker versus Joey Votto. He's kind of walking his way up the would-you-rather staircase. Would you rather Christian Walker, Rowdy Tellez, or Joey Votto at this point? It's very tempting to say Walker above the rest of the group.

I think Rowdy's flaws are still pretty clear. They're all still there. His opportunity has been better than most of us expected. I think a lot of us thought he would share more time with Keston Hira. Hira's been more up and down and clearly on the small side of a platoon. Rowdy's at a 24.3% K rate. That's the highest he's been since 2019.

The run production's been great so far, but it's a 236-307-496 line. It's a bit of a problem. 23% better than league average, baby. It's just coming from that early power swell, though. Yeah. He seems like maybe a little bit streaky, huh?

I mean, he has these, like, you know, he had that two-homer game. And in four games, he had four homers. And he has eight homers on the year. Right? I think the thing that would lead me away from Walker and to Tellez in this case might be Arizona's overall offense is a problem. The run and RBI situation for Walker is probably a full step below what you're expecting from Rowdy. Milwaukee is sixth in the big leagues in runs scored.

This would be the kind of thing that could drive them late into the postseason if they can sustain it right i mean the same problems i just described with rowdy we're talking about 206 294 456 line for christian walker right on a lesser team arizona is 23rd in rent scored and the the problem here for me is Votto because his early season direction is a total puzzle. Yeah. Like, for example, we could do the thing and be like, oh, the chase rate, worst of his career. Well, it's Joey frigging Votto. He could decide tomorrow to make his chase rate 15% or 12% again, and he could do it.

I'm sure of it. So I don't know. He's one of these guys that seems to have utter control over his outcomes and his process and has done 80 million different things as a big leaguer, and he could change back to what he used to do tomorrow. Fado's season to me is kind of like if you were watching Jacques Pepin

cook a duck and he burned the duck. You'd be like, what is happening right now? Jacques Pepin burned a duck? That's the vibe I get looking at this Votto season. This doesn't work. This is a master of the craft. 32% strikeout rate.

His career is 18%. 26% chase rate by one measure where it's 19 for his career. So, yeah, he's doing all sorts of weird-ass stuff. If he would have played a full season last year, he would have hit a career high in home runs when he popped the 36 in 129 games. My prediction for 40 is zero. Zero?

He said my bold prediction for 40 wasn't even that bold. Oops. At least I share that shame with him, right? Yeah, the next time you interact with him is going to be pretty interesting. Oh, not so bold, eh? You should bring him a bottle of hot sauce. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if you would respond well to that.

That might mess up the relationship a little bit. But puzzling, to say the least. I would go rowdy, probably rowdy Walker Votto. But I'm not looking forward to that decision because I think there's more for Votto to bounce back to. We're seeing some signs of life from the Reds the last couple of weeks, too. They're not the complete doormat they were for most of April.

They're starting to look more like the competent, below 500 team that many of us thought they would be going into the season. Let's go to the pitching breakouts. We talked about a few of these names on our last episode. Keegan Aiken and Steven Matz came up last time we spoke. We talked about Eric Lauer and how the trade narrative for that deal that brought him from the Padres to the Brewers, how that's changed so much, but just a massive adjustment for him going back to the second half of last season. I think the question that I have for you coming out of the search I made was, I was looking at K minus BB percentage improvers last year to this year. Shane McClanahan really pops.

If we're drafting today for the rest of the season, how early does Shane McClanahan go in a draft? I mean, the would you rather names that you'd throw out there against him are probably top 10, top 15 starting pitchers. Somebody asked me in my chat about guys who are outside the top 10 now who could be in the top five next year. And I said, and then I was like, wait, I think he might be in the top five now. Yeah. I don't know.

I already had him like 12 going into the season. And I'm super happy with all my shares, but I do think the improvement on the shapes, especially of his fastball, makes me think that going into next season, I think he's already a top five guy. I think we'll be past the point where we're significantly worried about the workload

just from a pure management perspective. Maybe there's still elevated health risk because of what he's dealt with over the course of his career. I think the Rays at some point take the shackles off a little bit. We saw Tyler Glass now get the 3-4 inning treatment and then

at some point he was more of a traditional starter that goes longer. I'm not i'm not gonna say he went nine you know but like he was just as he was on pace for kind of innings that you would have had from any other pitcher unfortunately got hurt but yeah the uh the other name that i think is interesting is we've talked about a handful of times that terry scoal. He's made some major skill changes. 15 in strikeout minus walks. I mean, it's not just the improved control,

which was an improvement from his debut season. He came up in the pandemic short in 2020 season. But he also has slashed the home run rate. The hard contact. We talked about this a lot with Tarek Skubal. He was having all sorts of issues with barrels by far the worst among qualified pitchers in terms of the type of hard contact he was allowing last season so to see the home run rate down alongside the walk rate

this might be among the biggest improved profiles across all pitchers in the league so far this season yeah i think it's mostly location because the stuff plus on his sinker and four seam are not very good but the location on both is very good and he's he's kind of pushed he's been sisyphus with these these fastballs uh ever since he's been in the big leagues. He's pushed them both to above average. So I think now with the slider and the sinker being above average, the curveball being decent, and the changeup being a good... See, what happens is the curveball he can place, the changeup is his best pitch for action. So he's got an interesting mix where he's a sinker-slider guy,

I think, at heart. And that's something that baseball went away from. And so I think they asked him, hey, throw this foreseam. Throw this foreseam. Everyone needs a foreseam. Foreseam is right. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he finally got to a place where he can place it well, but he doesn't have good shape on it.

He's still a sinker slider guy. The changeup has good action. The knuckle curve he can place well so he has you know in terms of placing a pitch he has a couple options in terms of action he has a couple options so he he's not predictable he's a multi-pitch guy who's really improved his command his stuff isn't great but i think people forget when they look at an overall stuff number like Scooble's, which is at 92 or 93, that the average for a starting pitcher is only 96, 97. So he's not like full on bad stuff. It's just around average of stuff with a great home park, a large arsenal and way better command this year.

park, a large arsenal, and way better command this year. And maybe there's a little bit of Scooble doing a great job in a lot of easier matchups too. If you look at the game log, home against the White Sox, road against the Royals, home against the Rockies, road against the Twins, road against the Astros, the two probably tough ones, road against Oakland, home against the Orioles. So five out of those seven starts were at least home against the Orioles. So five out of those seven starts were at least no worse than an average matchup difficulty. And a few of those were layups, but he's making his layups and he's not beating himself with free passes. He's not having major issues with home runs. I think the Astros actually the only team that even have a home run against them. The two home runs he allowed came in the same start. He's not allowed a home run in any of his other six starts so far this

season. So I'm buying it. And I guess I would say if we're talking would-you-rathers for Scooble, I'm sure he moved up in your rankings the last time you released the list, but he'd probably move up again if you're pushing out another list in the next couple of weeks based on what we've seen over the last three or four starts. Yeah, for sure. He's moving up in the world. I think he's a little bit he reminds me of nester cortez where you know lots of uh lots of ways to disrupt the hitter's timing cortez a

little bit more with the deception but lots of pitches and in any given season uh their location can pop i'm not sure that scuba is like a big target for me in dynasty leagues you know i mean um as more of a like just think about cortez like would nester cortez be someone that you would trade a lot for in a dynasty league no but that might make me well because it wouldn't take a lot to get him i i almost think you you have people willing to sell in in a trade move nestor cortez at what feels like a peak value but i wonder if collectively we're all just we're all just wrong and it makes sense to actually be in there and say no you know what maybe he's not this good for the next two years but he's better than people

think you can get in trouble like that man you's better than people think. You can get in trouble like that, man. I think you can get in trouble like that. I think sometimes you just have to have your method and just follow it. For me, the method says, dynasty targets that I want right now are Kyle Wright and Garrett Whitlock.

I'm trying to think of young pitchers I'm looking at. Young pitchers that have crossed the 400-pitch threshold so that their pitching plus is more useful than the others. But those are the two that stand out for me that I would definitely go get. I think even Tanner Houck right now, he's got a 111 stuff plus 97 location. He's in between the starting rotation and not. I still think this is a decent time to go and buy him. And then there's the extreme version,

which is Hunter Green, who has 124 stuff plus and 96 location plus, only 101 pitching plus because of his lack of command on all of his pitches. I would think I would take even Hunter Green over Nestor Cortez or Tarek Skubal just because that stuff, if he just, literally, he has to locate the fastball like four inches above where he does, and he would be so much better i just feel like

that is easier than to tell nestor cortez could you literally just throw the ball four and a half miles an hour faster that's a bigger ask yeah so um you know so i think i would still have even hunter green in a dynasty format now in a this year format now you know like i said we've crossed the 400th threshold so like cortez scuba like those guys are all i think well above um you know like a hunter green for example or a tanner hauck yeah yeah rest of season projections run through the auction calculator have nester cortez at about $10. They've got him right there with Zach Gallin and Shane McClanahan. I think projections might be a little light on Shane McClanahan right now. I'd be buying Gallin at that price too.

To me, Gallin is already top 15. He's shown me everything. We've liked him for so long, and he's showing everything that we thought he would have. Right. It's the matter of health coming together for him, too. I'm looking at the top of that list right now. Top five based on rest of season projected dollar values,

and I'm going to throw out two guys that are hurt right now. Cole's one. Verlander's two. Carlos Rodon is three. Aaron Nola is four. Zach Wheeler is fifth. And then Corbin Burns comes in sixth. Shohei Otani comes in seventh. Woodruff, Cease, and Gossman

round out the top ten. I'm glad Woodruff's still in the top ten, man. I got a lot of questions in the chat today about him, and I still believe. He's had a couple bad starts with location. The stuff has been there. I think it's a couple bad start situation

do you think Sean Minaya still a little bit undervalued I know the the auction calculator was higher on him than the market going into the season and that's still the case now looking at the rest of season numbers I mean Sean Minaya just in the same cluster as Walker Bueller Alec Manoa I feel like if you're trying to trade for any of those three guys, Minaya is the easiest of the three to go get. Yeah, but again, right next to him in pitching plus is Tyler McGill, who I would rather trade for in a dynasty thing, especially if I was looking towards the future than Sean Minaya,

because McGill has the 108 stuff plus to Sean Minaya's 93. So that's, I mean, I just wanted to point out, that's like we're getting to the point in the season now where Stuff Plus, like especially with someone who has 400 pitches, Stuff Plus matters a little bit less, right? Because Location Plus has stabilized and is starting to tell us more. So this is the point of the season where when I update the Google Doc, for example, I now sort by Pitching Plus where when I update the Google Doc, for example,

I now sort by Pitching Plus. Big fan of the Google Doc, by the way. Love it. The name we should throw out there as we kind of move on from the pitchers, just thinking about Matthew Libertor in the context of who is he comparable to in value right now in a redraft league? That way, if you're out there thinking about possible drops or just is he an upgrade or how much should i bid those kinds of questions are are all very fair questions are we looking at libra tour in the same light as we're looking at maybe mackenzie gore bailey ober is that kind of an appropriate placement jordan montgomery is that it's like that's $5 to $8 range rest of season in terms of projected value?

Yeah, I think that's not bad. In fact, I think Montgomery is a decent comp. Montgomery without having to deal with the AL East and Yankee Stadium. And, but added risk of going back down. Yeah. So yeah, like $3, $4 guy. I think I might keep Montgomery over him. But added risk of going back down. Yeah. So, yeah. Like a $3, $4 guy.

I think I might keep Montgomery over him just because it's more of a sure thing. I'd lean towards like NFBC where it's like, you know, would I be dropping Montgomery who I believe is a rosterable player for someone who might be more of a streamer? So there's a bit of a line there. We got a request to bring back

Prospect of the Week, and I think we sort of lost Prospect of the Week when the minor league season started late a year ago and it just kind of threw us out of our routine. So yeah, we're bringing back Prospect of the Week. It's a great segment, and we'll even get the Eno jingle in there at some point.

It's somewhere on my computer. I don't know where. If I ever find it, I will bring it back. But the point of this is to identify players that might be a little bit overlooked. Sometimes we'll put a spotlight on a prospect that you've heard about for a long time, if he's doing something really good or hopefully not really bad, but you never know. That could also garner some prospect of the week status. But I'll kick it off.

I've got Mike Burrows, a pitcher in the Pirates system, currently at AA. He's got a 32.5% K rate at that level, showing improved control. Did have some limited innings pitched last year as a result of an oblique injury that cost him some time. Scouting reports point to the curveball as easily his best pitch. And there are some questions about whether or not he's going to be a starter long term because the delivery is not clean and polished the way that people like to see. But there's a chance there's three pitches here. And every time I look at a Pirates pitcher who's kind of stuck maybe in between in the

eyes of scouts, I err on the side of seeing an opportunity for that pitcher to get a chance to start because they're not that close to competing again and obviously there's a lot more long-term value if they can find a way to get that third pitch to work to get that command at a level where they can trust burrows in a consistent five inning sort of role but probably a very gettable player if you're talking about keeper in dynasty leagues where you can go ahead and stash a pitcher away who might only be you know a year or so away from getting a chance at the big league level nice yeah mine uh i don't know actually how far away they are uh they are 22 and 20 respectively i'm gonna do two uh and the

reason i'm gonna do two is I sorted the AA Eastern League by strikeout rate reverse, right? And you've got at the top, Will Brennan, you know, who's the 10% strikeout rate, but he's got a bit of a softer isolated slugging. So what I wanted was top 30 in strikeout rate, but an ISO over 200. There's about five of these players. Some other ones are Jover Peguero with Pittsburgh. Ezequiel Tovar, but that's Colorado. And I believe that's up in the altitude.

So Aaron Shunk also being there doesn't surprise me. And then Blake Sabal, who I've never heard of but the prospects of the week for me are Gunnar Henderson and Logan Ohop I'm glad I didn't pick Ohop because I did see him as I was going through the leaderboard and the reason I did a two-pack is the less deep leagues. You may find some Gunnar Henderson availability. He was a top 68 prospect, though. He's top 100. So if every top 100 prospect is owned, he's probably gone.

But he took a major step forward this year in terms of really quieting down the strikeout rate. But also, he right now has a 22% walk rate against a 17% strikeout rate and a 255 ISO. He's absolutely in the middle of that kind of breakout that I think would lead to if, you know, when they update, he could be a top 15, top 20 type prospect. You know, like he's a shortstop

who's doing everything correct, is not blocked anywhere. He's 20, wait, he's a shortstop who's doing everything correct, is not blocked anywhere. He's 20. He's the 20 year old. He's 20 years old and double A doing this. This is absolutely the kind of stuff that rockets you up the top of the prospect list. And if you want to go get him, if you think you're rebuilding, you want to go get him before those updates put him there, then go do it.

Because you might still get someone who thinks, eh, he's not a top 50 prospect right now because Fangraphs has him 68 or whatever. This might be a guy who you wake up and he's top 15 this season. So that's for the shallower leagues. Logan Elhop was not ranked in the Fangraphs top 100. He is someone that people know about. I've actually interviewed him and talked to him for a piece that I did on his hitting coordinator. And I just, I thought he

had a really good head on his shoulders. And he was talking about pairing the kind of the analytics with a really free flowing approach at the plate, a really kind of athletic, nice, easy swing. And right now, 11% walk rate, 17% strikeout rate, 262 ISO. It looks like it's all beautiful. He's a catcher, though, so that's a little bit of an asterisk. They take longer. He's 22. It may take him until he's 25 to debut

uh but um everything looks really good and you know if i didn't see that c over the top of his uh page i don't know that um i would uh tell tell you it would take three years for him to get there now already at double a it is reading so you got to be a little careful with the power numbers there, but there's a lot more than just that park happening in the profile, as you pointed out. The name you mentioned in passing that I think is worth highlighting a little bit is Ezekiel Tovar.

I know he was pretty popular just a few weeks ago. I think it was Jeff Pontus had him in one of his write-ups over at Baseball America. He's a 20-year-old shortstop. And the Rockies' AA affiliate is Hartford. So I don't think it's— Oh, so it's not Colorado Springs.

No, it's not one of the extreme environments. I mean, he's young. He's controlling the strike zone. There's power. There's speed. I think he's one of the biggest prospect risers of the season so far, just based on the performance, age to level. Obviously, a pretty clean path to the big leagues eventually, just based on the performance, age to level.

Obviously, a pretty clean path to the big leagues eventually, too, once he's ready. So if he happens to be out there in a league, even when you're only keeping a handful of prospects, I think there's a chance he might be the kind of high-ceiling guy that you'd want to stash in that kind of format. I think Gunnar and Tovar are like that. I'm in the league, the Pitchfork League that I'm in. What's up, Pitchfork?

That league, we keep four four uh prospects each and so you're always looking for someone to in fact uh once we hang up i'm gonna go look at that league no like here's the key though if you're in a league like that and you have prospects that are higher ranked and you're trying to make a move to help for this season, trade the more highly regarded prospect and backfill from the wire with these guys that can move up into that top 50 range in the not so distant future. Because then you're just taking advantage of what is likely to happen as more and more players graduate as new lists come out. Yeah. new lists come out. Yeah. I mean, in that situation with a four,

I don't value prospects highly unless they're like a top five prospect just because you only get to have four. That means like 50 prospects are owned in the league. You know, it's like, you know, good luck. Let's get to a few mailbag questions here. This one comes from Ryan. He's got four hitters. He wants to know who is most likely

to figure it out going forward. He's got Alex Verdugo, Jesse Winker, Brian Reynolds, we discussed a few weeks ago, and Tyler O'Neill, who just recently landed on the IL. And this is a 10-team mixed league

that Ryan happens to be playing in, so there's definitely some drop potential at the bottom end of this group if there are some long-term warning signs that you see. I think since we last spoke about Reynolds, not a whole lot has changed with his line. I think he's been a little bit better, but it's still... He struck out a little bit less, but I still see him.

I think he's 260, 14 homers the rest of the way. Yeah, it's still a concern there. But as far as the other guys go, Verdugo, O'Neal, Winker, I think we talked about Winker a little bit on our last episode. How do you compare Verdugo and O'Neal to Winker and Reynolds? You know, it's funny. I'm looking at Winker's projections there for 260-14. You know, he's really stuck here.

These guys are very similar now. You know, Verdugo's projections are for 280-10, which is slightly better in one way and slightly worse in another. These guys are all really... I would just try to hold on to O'Neal. He's the only one that still has the opportunity kind of to clear that group. And if you can put O'Neal on the IL and stash him, then maybe you can put off this question until later

because O'Neal just went on the IL. So maybe he has the ability to put O'Neal on the IL and give those other guys a couple more weeks and then drop one of them. Because those guys are way more equivalent to me than O'Neal. Well, I think the thing that stands out to me too, again, is environment and what these guys are doing. The Cardinals scoring more runs than expected.

We talked about that on the 3-0 show, and they're doing that despite the slow start from O'Neal. O'Neal has run a little bit. Other guys in this group mostly don't run. Verdugo runs a little. Winker doesn't run at all. Reynolds can run a little. But you're getting more run potential, more RBIs, more raw power,

and probably more steals from O'Neal, even though it's been a rough start so far. So he's kind of first in terms of likelihood of being the most valuable, figuring it out, however you want to describe it. Then there's a gap. I think I'm more likely to hold, if I could only hold one of Verdugo, Winker, and Reynolds, I think Verdugo is the player I'd actually be most likely to hold if I could only hold one of Verdugo Winker and Reynolds I think Verdugo is the player I'd actually be most likely to hold in a shallow league because his batting average is the like the standout ability his possible batting average I mean it's 220 right now keeps putting balls in play and I think compared to the Pirates and Mariners you're

getting more support from that lineup and if we keep if we keep compressing... Or you're potentially getting more support. I mean, yeah. You should. But if you keep compressing homers and steals as much as we have, then runs and RBIs on average are where you're going to get an advantage. And I think that just slightly favors Verdugo.

I think I'm Winker over Reynolds if I'm choosing between those two. But that's probably the smallest gap of any two players on the list right now. Winker's power process stats are not good right now. It's so frustrating, man. The timing of that relative to NL labor will always stick in my craw. I'm never going to. Because if he wouldn't have been available,

if the move had happened before we had our draft and i would have but i've got a different 20 player and probably would be better most likely even though as you learned earlier this week that was a team where i did a lot of things wrong but thanks a lot for that question ryan jake wants to know with stat cast and x stats can you still use x stats as a comparative tool just looking at players side by side even if the x stats themselves are not calibrated for this terrible run environment that we're currently in yeah i was i was just trying to point this out and it's kind of it's hard to it was it might be easier in this format to kind of explain what i'm saying than in like a chat answer. But what I'm trying to say is I wouldn't look at one player page

and say, oh, this guy, minus 30 XBA, boom, biggie. Like, let's pick this guy up. Because everyone's minus 30. But if you do a ranking of XBA minus BA and you see, oh, he's minus 30, league average is minus 15, he is a little bit more unlucky than league average. That still, I think, has some signal in it. So yes, the way that you put it, that they're ranking relative to the league in those stats, I think is still

somewhat meaningful, yeah. Looking at it too, just from the four players we're just talking about in the last question sorting by x slug alex verdugo clearly number one winker reynolds at two and three and there's a drop before o'neill um so that's kind of interesting too just as another little way you can look at some of the underlying numbers very surprising he has the highest barrel rate, but the lowest X slug. Well, X slug actually takes into consideration contact rate, right? Because it's a slugging number. Right.

But maybe it over-penalizes the high whiff players like O'Neal? Possibly. I mean, what would his X ISO be is another question, right? Yeah. We're not expecting a high batting average from Tyler O'Neal. I guess it'd be 161 doing the quick math because the numbers are right in front of me.

Reynolds would be 170. Yeah, that seems low. Projected for a 222 with an 11% value rate. This is Tyler O'Neal we're talking about. I still hope that the IL, what the IL list for me has been for Tyler O'Neal is a lifeline.

Because not only do I not have to consider dropping him now, but now when he comes back, depending on your league rules, you might be able to get a look. Mm-hmm to get a look and see how he looks coming back. Maybe a minor league look. I'm not out on Tyler O'Neal. No, I'm not. I'm not out.

I was struggling to pay full freight back on draft day because it was a new career high in terms of where he was being drafted. But I also wasn't sitting here saying, this can't possibly work. He's going to fall apart. And so, therefore, no victory lap. Just more of a, yeah, I like some other guys a little more than O'Neal. What I ended up doing was that there was obviously risk with the strikeout rate. I ended up taking him in leagues where he fell a little bit. Yeah.

So I only have like two or three shares but uh I listen I'm with you I know it's it's tough to look at that name in the lineup and just be like you know I've had people adding me that he's going to be in the minors I it's still quality contact when he makes contact and he struck out 30 percent of last year too I just see someone who's stuck in between the fastball and slider right now so austin riley used to be stuck between the fastball and slider he's obviously not stuck anymore so the other question jake had that was related is if you're looking at something like x wobba and you're looking at the rolling averages that we've been talking about a lot in recent weeks, is it still meaningful despite the lack of calibration?

If you see the trend going in the right direction, is that still something you want to get behind? I guess so. And I did want to point out that I think that I believe a little bit more in the signal in XBA than I would be in X-slugging because XBA is about those line drive angles. You know what I mean?

And X-slugging is about those line drive angles. You know what I mean? And X slugging is about those power launch angles. And we're going to see a larger problem in the launch angle and the power angles. So XWOLBA kind of takes the two of them and smooshes them together. Pretty interesting, too, looking back at the four outfielders from a few minutes ago. Jesse Winker, 294 XBA, Verdugo, 287, Reynolds, 249, O'Neal, 220.

The other little separator if you're trying to sift through a problem similar to that one. One more question to get to. This one came in from Rob, more or less to question about what we're seeing from Julio Urias now, because there were some early warning signs. Has anything changed the underlying numbers with the pitching model or with performance that would make us any more or less confidence in Julio Urias than we were probably about a month or so ago when he first

came up with someone that might not be as valuable as people thought he would be back on draft day? Yeah, there's still some worrying signs in terms of like the velo and stuff but when he his first two starts 87 stuff plus 94 stuff plus uh a good example of why three starts is important because the third start was 116 stuff plus and ever since then he stayed above 100 so um he has managed to keep his locations really uh strong all the way through but he's been uh you know basically a 110 pitching plus guy for the last five starts um i'm i was always a cautious hold uh because i believed in him so much and because i he hadn't really caught that that three that pretty pitch special he was really affected i think poorly by the lockdown and not being able to be in touch with the coaching staff um but right now uh his fastball is an 83 stuff plus change up 109 curveball it's a sweeper it's one of the better ones in the league it's 137 so he's got two plus secondaries

the fastball is located enough to make it work i do think his dynasty status is affected by this because that fastball as you can tell the the stuff on that is uh a lot softer now. And we're talking about a guy who has had labrum surgery and kept a nice 94 mile an hour, 95 mile an hour velo for five years and now has dropped below 93, which is below average for the league. So I think in terms of the rest of this year, I'm pretty happy with what he's done and I think he's going to be fine. I think the projections are actually a little bit too pessimistic about him. But in terms of dynasty value, I do think he's taking a hit.

You know what? I also am looking at Rios and seeing he's a free agent after the end of next season. I don't think the Dodgers are extending him. I think he's a guy they're going to let walk. season, I don't think the Dodgers are extending him. I think he's a guy they're going to let walk. There's enough long-term concern here, even if you believe he's a top 20, a top 25 pitcher with ease the rest of the way.

I think you can certainly make that case. What if he comes back next year and he's sitting 96? I would be like, well, that's good news. I would also be like, can he sustain it? Is it good for him yeah just a really tough pitcher to make the the five plus year commitment that it's going to take to probably get him in free agency once he gets there look at what happened with lazardo like it was really nice that we got all that extra view though and it did bump him into playable status but it was tough on his arm

massive age gap here but just thinking about multi-pitch guys that locate really well and had a lot of success with that approach. I mean, his former teammate, Hyunjin Ryu, is that the second version of Urias as we get further into his career? Is that the type of pitcher that he should more or less try to be?

I mean, if you're lucky, Adam Wainwright, you know, because, or like a Rich hill with slightly better command and other pitches i don't know like he has one great breaking ball so there is there are stuff there's stuff i like about it but in terms of like remaining a top 20 top 15 type pitcher i i don't know if you do that you know once you start having a 92-mile-an-hour fastball, for example. I think there's something with Urias, though, right now where his trade value in fantasy, his reputation is still above what he actually is right now,

even with some more encouraging stuff numbers over the last four or five starts. It's an interesting sell-high in dynasties, right? I think it's a better time to cash out yeah maybe you could go get like a a corbin carroll you know like we've been talking about you know maybe you could go get like a really nice hitting prospect you know if you're in a dynasty league and you can trade urias straight up for corbin carroll right now i think you should do it that'd be not a bad one that'd be even if fun trade. Even if you trade him for a Gunnar Henderson

plus a young major league or something. You would shoot yourself in the foot a little bit. You'd have to consider how competitive you are this year. I see a guy that is not likely to be a top 10 starting pitcher again when I look at Urias right now. Doesn't mean he's bad, just means that we've seen the very best of him and it might be more of a long-term future in that SP2, SP3 range as opposed to having that fantasy ace status that he had for a little while. So take that for what it's worth. Hopefully it is in some way helpful. I am glad I don't have him all over the place

because I think it's going to be a little more of a sweat than we anticipated at the beginning of the season. If you've got questions for a future episode, you can send those our way via email, ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com or drop them in the comment section under this video on YouTube. If you're watching us on YouTube, be sure to hit the like button on this video and subscribe to the channel.

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