Rates & Barrels - Do We Need 100-Win Teams?

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

As things currently stand, no team will finish the regular season with 100+ wins for the first time since 2014. Does the unusual shape of the standings and the lack of exceptional regular season clubs matter? Eno, DVR and Britt discuss the causes for the lack of dominance, and wonder if common approaches to roster construction are a contributing factor to this year's parity.  Rundown 2:47 Does It Matter If There Are No 100-Win Teams? 8:11 Measuring Team Quality Beyond Win Totals 12:48 Will Long-Term Injury Trends Make This Type of Season the Norm? 15:28 Regular Season Dominance That Didn't Lead to a World Series Win 21:05 How Mad Would You Be Without Playoffs? 24:23 Unique Approaches From Guardians & Red Sox 32:46 Organizational Brain Drain 39:53 Will the Red Sox Make the Playoffs? 47:04 How Does 2025 Look for Boston, Tampa Bay and Toronto? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us Thursday at 2p ET/11a PT for our weekly live episode with Trevor May! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels What’s the Orioles’ secret to developing great hitters? Rival teams have theories ($): https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5696854 The Red Sox have an innovative pitching strategy, but has the league adjusted? ($): https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5704202 Hosts: Derek VanRiper, Eno Sarris & Britt Ghiroli Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it is Tuesday, August 20th, Derek Van Riper, Enos Saris here with you on this episode. We answer a question about this 2024 season that people have been kicking around on baseball Twitter. Why are there no 100 win teams? And our question that's related to that is, does it even matter? Maybe it doesn't matter.

Maybe it's just the thing that we'd like to see that doesn't actually impact the quality of the game whatsoever. So we're gonna tackle that, take a look back at some teams that were really good in the regular season and why they didn't necessarily have success in the post season,

in the vein of a Brewers Guardian series that happened over the weekend. And we'll take a look at a story that, you know, recently co-wrote with Jen McCaffrey about the waning effectiveness of the Red Sox reduced fastball usage as a pitching staff. That seems to be dwindling over the course of the year as far as how well it's working for the Red Sox will dig into why that might be the case. Before we get rolling, a reminder, join our discord.

You could do that with the link in the show description. If you're watching us in YouTube, smash that like button for us. We'd really appreciate that. How's it going for you on this Tuesday? You know, good, good. Oh, and I want to do this at the top of the show this time, uh, Chicago. I'll be, uh, in you on this weekend for Friday. These, all the prepositions were wrong in that statement.

Phrasing, bad phrasing. It was really good. It's just amazingly all the prepositions just all out of order. If you just recycle and put the prepositions in different places, it works. But on this Friday, I will be at the beer temple, uh, at six o'clock PM and we'll be hanging out. I also, if that, if you can't make that, there is a meetup for the Saber seminar, which I also recommend you going to the Saber seminar is pretty cool. It's a bunch of stuff about like the you Darvish

ism, like, you know, what does it mean to add an extra pitch to an arsenal and what's the value of that? And, um, you know, just a bunch of research has really cool stuff. And, um, Saturday night, there's a meetup for that at Maria's package goods, uh, in, in Southern Chicago. So that's Saturday. Uh, and then Friday is the beer temple. A little bit more just me and my buds hanging out. Uh, you're welcome to come. That'd be fun.

All right. There it is much better to put that at the top of the show than in the final 20 seconds, as I've learned over time, the first few minutes, much more valuable than the last few minutes, though we love everybody who sticks around until the very end of all of our episodes. All right, so let's get into this. So I saw a few days ago, I saw a friend, Melissa Lockard, kind of pointing to this idea that there might not be a great or dominant team

in baseball this year. And I think that's an interesting thought because some years they're just aren't like some years the the best teams are closer to the pack and this could be one of those years. And then I saw Jeff Passon from ESPN put out a nice long tweet on Monday. The best team in baseball is on pace for 95 wins. The last year without a 100 win team was 2014. It's even worse than that. I mean, that's a focus on 100 win teams. But Neil Payne, who has a good sub stack, wrote that in the, this is a quote from him, in the 162 game era, no season has ever failed to see at least one club win 95 plus games.

As you remember from our pre-production meeting, I don't think there's anybody in the Fangrass projections that's going to win 95 games, even 95, not even 95 plus. And only three seasons, 67, 82 and 89 featured just one team crossing that threshold. So not only are there no 100 win teams, but there may not even be a 96 win team. So looking as of this morning, as of Tuesday, noon Tuesday, Fangraph's projected win totals. The Dodgers are right on that borderline.

They are projected for 95 wins exactly. The Phillies are projected for 94. The Yankees are projected for 94.3. So we got a few teams in the range of that 95, but it would take a really big run, not impossible for any of those teams, for any of them to get to 100. We're talking about a five or 10 game win streak

changes those numbers. But it seems like we're probably not gonna have a 100 win team this year, which I think also has some pretty obvious connection to the injuries that both the Braves and Dodgers have had. We talked about the baseball prospectus injury ledger and that tool tracks the wins above replacement lost to the IL.

Both of those teams are above eight wins lost. Now most teams are in the range of about four wins lost. Kind of look at where they tend to cluster. So they have the Dodgers at eight wins lost. Were you looking only at hitting or pitching? It's combined to everything. Wow. I saw another estimate that was 16 plus wins lost.

And maybe that's projecting season ending injuries. I don't know. Maybe they count slightly differently. Like maybe they'll continue accruing that over what's left of the season. Like how do you count River Ryan right now? Right. And also like for a player like that, the projection would probably be pretty light anyway, but it's easy to know that they both have had major injuries up and down that roster.

Right. So if you take two teams that have been 100 win teams recently who were projected to be right around that number or even above that number, depending what projections you looked at and you take away a bunch of their key players. Well, there's part of your answer right there too. Like this conversation might not even be happening if those teams had average health luck this year with their key players, that might be something that would single-handedly erase, you know, two teams that should have been there,

not being there. Yeah, I think we'll return to these themes of free agency and player development. It's going to be a lot of sort of the underground teams when we go through these different conversations we're having today. That's, I think, going to be a big link is how teams are built, how teams win. And if you look, the Dodgers last year were number one in days lost to the injured list last year, and I even looked from 2016 to 2019 and the Dodgers were, I was eyeballing it, but top two or three, they were, you know, consistently top three from 2016 to 2019.

Another team that has often been built like this are the Yankees. They often have years where they just have lots of years lost. And so I think that if you build your team in free agency, if you build your team with free agency to some you build your team with free agency to some degree, at least, and to maybe a larger degree than other teams, you are going to have injury days lost. I mean, there was a long time where the Cleveland guardians had the fewest injury days lost on that pitching staff.

And we were, we had to throw a caveat on there being like well They also just don't usually get to free agency with their guys You know They usually trade them away before they're there because they're quote-unquote old this baseball old. I know I know I'm old old And so these I think that's part of the picture is that the daughters are a team that spends liberally in free agency. And that's one of the downfalls of that approach. I think that they are still a great team. I just think that one year they're going to have like great injury luck and show us and show us maybe even 110 win team.

Like I think you could rerack this team next year, you know, and do things totally different in injuries and they could, and maybe get a little lucky with run deferential or whatever and they could have 110 win team. I mean, just think about, you know, a fully healthy daughter's squad. It is a great team, is it not? Yeah. I still think it's in consideration for best team in baseball, despite all of these factors.

Right. So I think the other way you could look at this too, is you could pull back and say, well, maybe we should measure the quality of teams without looking at wins. Cause we know wins can even be a little bit noisy because of the timing of those injuries or if they overlap, especially that could make them more catastrophic for a stretch. Or, you know, you look at the Pythagorean record versus

the actual record and you'll find a gap of a little bit. So it's a little bit of a gap. timing of those injuries or if they overlap especially that can make them more catastrophic for a stretch or you look at the Pythagorean record versus the actual record and you'll find a gap of three, four, five wins sometimes. But think back to last year, Atlanta's offense was as good as any we've seen in the last 25 years by WRC plus, right? They didn't strike out, they did damage, like they were just ridiculous top to bottom. strike out, they did damage, they were just ridiculous top to bottom. Houston's lineup in 2019 was at the same sort of level. Those were both 124 WRC plus levels. I think a multi-year view of the components of a roster could give us a better context of the quality of the teams in any given season than the actual records up and down the standings.

I also think the other factor in all this is the quality of the teams at the bottom. And when there's a handful of teams that really bottom out, that can also skew records a little bit as well. So if there are some horrific teams at the bottom, maybe that elevates a few teams in division that see those teams more often. We do have a horrific team at the bottom in the White white socks. But I don't think that the A's and Marlins are really horrific. You know, they're more just baddish. They're typical bad. I'm sorry to throw the A's in there. I mean, Rockies and Marlins, they're typical bad.

They're not like all time bad. Right. Um, and there really are only three of them because then you get into the A's territory where like they'll, they could win a series against you, you know, if you're especially not careful. So, um, so, you know, I think the white socks being so bad makes us think, oh yeah, there are, you know, problems at the bottom, but actually it's a fairly even situation. I think there's a tempting, almost anything I've read about this and even Neil Payne goes there, I'm not sure this is true yet. There's a tempting thing to blame, which is the playoff structure.

Right. Just getting there, right? More teams get in. So let's just get there and treat it as a crap shoot. So we'll lower our own internal threshold of what we're trying to accomplish in the regular season simply because it's not worth spending the extra 30 or 40 million on payroll knowing we can get there and still win even if we don't spend that money.

That doesn't describe the Dodgers. No, not at all. So it's a narrative that works to some degree. Maybe it describes the Yankees. Could the Yankees have made one more signing? I guess, but it takes two to tango. I mean, you got to have the player that you actually need and want to fit the roster too.

Yeah. I do wonder, you know, if there's, you know, in that second grouping behind the Dodgers, if there were, there was a little bit of like, Oh, we could be better, but this is a good enough team to make the playoffs. And then we'll just see what happens after that. But that probably is offset to some degree about teams that are lower down that, you know, did add a little bit that may not have added, you know, cause now there's a playoffs roster for them to have.

So maybe there is a little bit of an evening out through a parody throughout all of this. Yeah, that could definitely be the case. I think we've got Britt Giroli joining us today. Britt's been fighting her way onto the connection as she travels. How's it going, Britt? It's going well. Thanks for being flexible, guys. I am here and ready to join the conversation. Yeah, hotel Wi-Fi is an adventure at times. I didn't think it would be in 2024, but it still is on a regular basis. One thing Eno and I were starting to break down is looking at the quality of teams outside of record

to get a better sense of how good they really are. With the Yankees in particular, you just brought them up. They're the 11th best offense we've seen since 2000. They are in a recent history a great lineup at the very least. We've talked about injuries they've dealt with in the rotation, Cole missing time, Marcus Stroman underperforming, Rodin being pretty uneven in performance overall this season, better lately than he was to begin the year, right? So they've had their share of ups and downs, but I think they look like a really strong team, at least in terms of their ability to put runs on the board. Whether or not their pitching is more

than average or a tick above average, that's probably still worth debating. Now, Britt, the question we're also kicking around is why won't there be a 100-win team this year? We were looking at the Dodgers and Braves and saying, the massive injuries they've dealt with, key players missing time, have also dragged down their win totals a little bit too. I think they look, and in the case of Atlanta, they're not getting some of these guys back,

they look a lot worse on paper than we expected them to, and that has also changed the perception about the quality of some of the top-end they look a lot worse on paper than we expected them to. And that has also changed the perception about the quality of some of the top end teams in the league this year. Yeah. And the Phillies were on 106 win pace, I think as late as June until they had their swoon. So I wonder guys, if part of this is just going to become the norm, not because teams aren't trying and not because teams, you know, there won't be dynamic teams, there will be dynasties, but because of the injuries. The Dodgers are a great example. The Braves are a great example.

If injuries keep going up, are we going to see more and more of these 90-95 win teams? Because no matter how good of a team you are, your second, third, fourth, fifth line of defense is going to be not as good as that first team that you constructed. So I wonder if this is not really a result of like parody and more a result of just like skyrocketing injuries and the fact that guys are hurt all the time. You talked about the Yankees. I'm here in New York and the huge issue is Clay Holmes because they don't have a lot

of pitching, right? Well, you look at most of the contenders and there's bullpen problems outside of the guardians. There's been bullpen issues almost everywhere. And a lot of that has been injuries and underperformance. And I just wonder if health is going to dictate how good we see teams, not just this year, but in future years. Yeah, I think health is a major source of chaos in terms of luck and what we call luck and what we call great seasons. You know, you've mentioned this before too, aside from pitching injuries just being on the rise over time as guys continue to throw harder and add spin, hitter, like position player injuries also tracking in the wrong direction too, because guys are swinging way

to bats and training differently and adding more, like more than ever in terms of power. But there seems to be a cost to that. And there's also some like with hitting there's this interesting thing where there's these old ways of like, Hey, just grind it out. Just just to spend some more time in the cage can actually lead to injury. Because you can go in there and be like, I'm gonna take 200 swings and figure this out, you know, and then you get in the game and you're like, your obliques like 201 swings too much. Yeah, that's not ideal.

And as we talked about a Monday show, Cabrion Hayes was playing with a herniated disc in his back for most of the year, just went on the IL on Monday. So, there's all that. Hello people, Iowa Kim Wallera here, host of the Athletic FC podcast. The new Premier League and European football seasons are here and the Athletic FC has you covered. Join

me, David Ornstein, Phil Hay and the most stacked footballing newsroom ever assembled every Monday to Thursday as we take a deep dive into the biggest football story of the day. Then every Friday, Adam Leventhal and our club reporters will preview the potential tactics, drama and jeopardy riding on the biggest game from that coming weekend. Check us out wherever you get your podcasts from for free. We hope you can join us for what is set to be another blockbuster Susan. We hope you can join us for what is set to be another blockbuster season. There's another related idea to teams not being dominant in the regular season. We've had a handful of franchises that have done really well for prolonged stretches in the regular season,

and it hasn't fully translated, at least in the form of winning a World Series in October. And I think there's two things in play here. One, it's the expectation or the idea that the only way to measure a team being successful is the World Series win, right? Getting to the playoffs, winning a series, winning a couple series, maybe even just making it to the World Series. Those are all good things too. But we've sort of fallen into this trap, I think, in a lot of sports analysis of, did they win the title? No?

OK, it wasn't a good year. And that's a little bit off. But if you go back to even the moneyball A's, and I'm talking specifically about 2000 to 2003, those were great regular season teams that didn't have success in the postseason, but they lost in the ALDS in five games, four years in a row. That's a pretty hard way to go out.

And in terms of quality in 2000, they were second in the league in WRC plus. They were eighth in F war as a staff for pitching in 2001. They were tied for third in WRC plus. They were second in the league in F war and pitching in 02. they were fifth in WRC plus and third in F Warren pitching. So they were consistently like top five in most of the things we care about for three of those four years. And they just happened to get bounced by a team that also was in that kind of range. They got knocked out by the Yankees twice.

Yankees always strong and juggernaut back then, spending a ton on payroll, having a loaded roster. The Twins got them one year and the Red Sox got them one year. That's just the nature of playoff baseball, isn't it? Or is there actually something in the roster construction that we can look at either with that team or other great teams that have been good in the regular season since and haven't won in the postseason that has made them fall a little bit short in October. The numbers you put out there are kind of interesting because I would say off the top of my head, you can get there with run to prevent prevention. You can get to the the postseason easier with run prevention.

But from what I've looked at, you know, the old adage is pitching and defense wins championships, but I think it's more pitching and defense actually gets you to the playoffs and then hitting is what you need in the playoffs. And from my research, hitting like WRC plus is one of the tighter things that actually has some correlation to postseason win success. The other thing I found was that your top two hitters for the top postseason teams, your top two hitters were like a win and a half better than you than the top two hitters for the other playoff teams.

So in other words, having to stud hitters. So that would be one thing that could say, well, you know, those moneyball A's never they did have great hitters, but they never went and added a stud hitter in, in free agency the same way that they wouldn't have traded for a Juan Soto and signed an Aaron judge. You know what I mean? Like having two studs like that, I think could be something that's of outsize importance in the postseason. The way I say it is if every team that makes it to the postseason is good at run prevention Then having two guys that can be like I don't care about your run prevention and I'm gonna hit it over the fence anyway You know might have sort of outsize importance in the postseason

But the fact that those A's teams were so good at hitting and still lost Maybe just points to kind of randomness Yeah, I don't think anyone has figured out the the playoffs that's why we see so much randomness remember the royals team that one what characteristics that they had they had a really good bullpen. I didn't have this incredible lineup they were pesky they were lucky it really good batting average on balls and play so you know does that mean the that mean the Yankees are going to go really far because they have judge and soda? Maybe, but not when Clay Holmes is blowing save after save. Right. So I think the problem is the playoffs are such a short, small sample size that the rules like an executive told me once, like in the playoffs, the rules don't apply. Like you, you work like hell to get into the playoffs. And then you basically roll the dice, which is how Billy Deano, we saw at Oakland anyway.

Like you don't have any control. Teams that are hot, we saw at Texas last year. Teams that are hot, stay hot, end up going far. Teams that maybe sit around that are better teams that just like are caught flat-footed, end up going home. I don't think anybody has figured out yet how to crack the playoffs because so much of baseball comes down to momentum

and it's such a small condensed period of time that any team for two or three weeks that gets in the playoffs can win the World Series. And I don't think that's true in a lot of other sports. I think with baseball, as we've discussed before, the best team doesn't always win. The best team doesn't often win. It becomes a who's hot and who's the healthiest

when we get to the real tournament time, which is essentially what the World Series is, is basically a condensed baseball tournament. A tournament, a series, measures something that's very different than a 162-game regular season. That's just the simple fact of the matter. Now, the other thing I was thinking about is Premier League season just started up

and Premier League soccer, no playoffs. Regular season champion is the champion of the league. And Manchester City, I believe, is going for their seventh title in eight years. How mad would baseball fans be if the regular season wins? See the old Yankees. If there were no playoffs. Yeah, how many years, there would have been some stretches where it was like Yankees, Yankees, Yankees, and they won a lot anyway. Playoff

fields were smaller for a long time too, but I feel like that'd be unsatisfying in a different way. And there is no perfect solution because the playoffs are about TV revenue. They're not designed to crown the best team. they're designed to make money. So it kind of creates this problem where it's like, well, unless you make series longer, which I don't think you can do because you're going to be running into early mid-November instead of just the first couple days of November, that doesn't necessarily work. You can't really shorten the regular season. I think we just have to look at what we actually gave in front of us and say, what kinds of solutions are there? What can you actually do? And maybe it is building a roster that's a little bit different than what other

teams do. Maybe being different ends up being the strategy. I'm starting to wonder too, if the ideas around building a great roster are so homogenized across the league that there's just like a script that a lot of teams are trying to follow. And as we know, when you play a lot of different games, the more people, the more teams, the more groups trying to do the same thing, the less effective a strategy often becomes. So do you feel like there's a group think, a mindset around baseball, at least on some common fundamental roster building principles that have reached this level where teams are generally too similar and the ways

to win are greater than the ways that are actually being utilized by the league as a whole. There's this, uh, a quote by, uh, Derek Gould, uh, who's, who's writing a piece that's, he called it how the Brewers beat the Cardinals at their own game. And in the tweet he writes, Brewers have become Midwest leaders by excelling at the advanced analytics of pitcher development, the chemistry of young contributors, the wizardry of opportunistic free agent signings, and the alchemy of just the right trade. And to some extent, I know that's like, it's a little bit vague, and it's not exactly a roadmap where I'm like, do this, do this, do this.

But I do think it describes the ethos of what every team wants to do. You know, they, they want to add in free agency, but not too much, just a really smart little here, a little bit here. Really, what's going to make it work for us is the young players, we're going to have really good player development. And so to some extent, even though they're doing it maybe a little bit differently, the Orioles and Brewers are doing similar things in terms of focusing on trying to develop young hitters, build a lineup that works, and then use advanced pitching analytics to like get the most of the pitchers you have and try to and try to develop pitchers because you know you need to develop pitchers because you cannot build a staff out of free agency. It's just like in the era of injuries, you cannot build your staff out of 28, 29, 30 year old pitchers. And so I think that describes it to some extent,

but there are teams that are doing some innovative stuff this year that I don't necessarily think everyone's doing. I mean, the Guardians with their sort of fascination with making contact. I mean, just like contact over everything. You know, the Red Sox throwing fewer fastballs than has ever thrown before. There are some wrinkles that I think are different from team to team. The Guardians tried to do that last year though, and it tanked the contact approach, remember? Right, but they're still making contact. This year they've sort of found a way to add power to it.

Yeah, but that was Stephen Kwan's. There's been some like surprising, I think, guys from that lineup, but I wonder how much they learned from that because that was the whole key. Wasn't it with the new rules was going to be, we're going to make contact. We're going to still bases. We're going to put pressure on you. That was kind of the ethos of what they were trying to do. And you've seen some other teams try to replicate that. It's still a lot of as a strategy, but they're still below average by WRC plus and 13th in isolated slugging, you know, so, you know, or if I did it by slugging, they're 17th. So, you know, I don't know if it works,

but it's it's it is an idea. It is something that seems different, right? Yeah, I mean, but does that matter if they're winning? Britt, I think the Royals example, their postseason success, you know, getting a title and then losing in seven to the Giants in 14. Ooh, it is like the Royals. It is like that. It's a lot of contact and a really good bullpen.

It is another way to win. I do think it's been shown as a way you can win. And maybe if you simulate the season a hundred times, it doesn't win as often as what the Dodgers and Yankees and Phillies and the big market teams do with more loaded rosters that have more power and more dominant starting pitching, but it does win. So if you are playing with a smaller payroll and again, a lot of that's by choice, but there's going to be a gap between the Dodgers and Guardians payroll, even if the Guardians spent more, The Dodgers will have more to spend.

That's just simple facts of how TV money comes in. I think that can work. What's interesting about the Guardians this year is that they're not getting to quite as much power now as they were earlier in the year. And much like the adjusted approach that Eno and Jen McCaffrey wrote about with the Red Sox, it seems like advanced scouting and opposing teams can figure it out and break it down. They'll pitch you differently.

In the case of the Red Sox, hitters come to the plate with a different approach and then it's kind of like, okay, you made your adjustment, the league adjusted back. Do you have another wrinkle that will continue to make you as effective as you were at first, or in the case of the Guardians offense, do you go back to being the lineup you were in 2023 when you were great at tempering strikeouts, but you were not good enough at

doing damage? Because I think if you can't do some damage, it puts a lot of strain on your pitching staff in October. That would be the main fear. And I've said it many times before, I know we've been Guardian skeptics. We're going to look like total idiots if they win the division and win a World Series, or even go to the World Series this year. I'm worried that their pitching is just not at the same level

that it has been at other points when they've been really good. Right? If you go back and look at some of the Guardians teams from the last 10 years, 2017, that pitching was the best pitching we've seen by war of the last 25 years. That's elite of the elite pitching that they had then. They're not anywhere close to a level like that right now. So I think that's what has left me in that, how long is this going to work dead zone with the Guardians all season long?

Yeah. The thing though is that they benefit from, in my opinion, is there is no super team as we talked about about earlier in the show. And if it comes down to bullpens, who do you like better? The Orioles bullpen or the Guardians bullpen? The Yankees bullpen? Just scratch out a lead. Be winning two, one in the seventh, you know? Yeah, I think they're one of the more dangerous teams that they get in because so many teams have pitching issues. The Dodgers, the Phillies, these are teams that they get in because so many teams have pitching issues. The Dodgers, the Phillies, these are teams that over the last month that have been in the bottom 10 or so of the league in relief pitching.

So who do you trust more? You trust the Guardians, I think. Even though they have a lot of holes, everybody has a lot of holes this year. There is no super team. So it almost is a good year for the Guardians to be what they are because if they're a team that makes contact and all it takes in the playoffs is a ball to go through somebody's legs, I saw it with the Nationals who should have lost the wild card game. As you know, it's against the Brewers, the ball goes through

Trent Grisham's legs and all of a sudden they win the World Series. They shouldn't even have won the wild card game. So teams that make contact and teams that can pitch in the bullpen are deadly teams in the playoffs. Milwaukee in the last 30 days has a 189 ERA out of the bullpen. The thing about the bullpen, I think though, that is so tough is that it's such a moving target. It's like who's good right now and who is good all season. Like I was just looking, you know, I was expecting because we, we love the Cleveland bullpen, but like, um, you know, in the last 30 days, 12th in war, but

for the season, um, you know, even, uh, 16th in war out of that bullpen, of course, that's like the whole bullpen, but we're just talking about like, you know, class a and, you know, the three guys that would actually pitch in a postseason. So that's another thing that makes the postseason so hard. But, um, you know, I do think that, you know, to some extent, when, when you, when you do straight from the herd, you do inspire teams to double down on their advanced scouting. And so, you know, I was thinking like Steven Kwan, I wrote about him in June when he was, you know, slugging so well. And I wrote that, you know, he was taking these chances on certain pitches.

You know, what I didn't write was that I could see that he was taking chances on inside pitches and he was trying to turn and burn on some of those for power. Um, and then what I've seen is he's been thrown some front door, uh, changeups and, and, and pitches that, you know, look like they're going to be inside cutters and stuff that don't do what he expects them to do. He's had a 130 ISO, uh, isolated slugging, 125 isolated slugging in July and August, those are below average numbers.

So, you know, the other thing that I wrote about today with Jen McCaffrey is the Boston Red Sox have thrown the fewest fastballs in the pitch tracking era You know, and so, you know, that's an innovative strategy. I love it. This was what we're talking about We want teams to have different ways of winning kudos. Love you Boston. They come out of the gates They have a two a 2era in April and everyone's like oh my god this the rotation is not actually bad it's good you know and then the league adjusts almost immediately and starts sitting slider and in this piece i have swing rates that show that normally you swing on the fastball the most against Boston's rotation.

Mostly people are swinging at the slider more often. And that's because they're getting more sliders. They're getting more sliders in counts where they need a strike, where the pitcher needs a strike, getting more sliders in the zone, getting more sliders middle middle. So you're going to start sitting slider in those situations. And that has been very much like the Kwan thing where it's like, oh, you're, oh, you're trying to hit for power this way. Like I'm going to use that against you.

Um, and what you see is the Red Sox have in the second half, a, like a four 90 slugging against their, their sliders. It's like the second worst in baseball. Um, and now they're having to kind of bring some of those fastballs back and like, try to mix it up. So, um, I guess my point is like, you know, we're talking about these innovative strategies and I love them. And I think it's always worth doing them.

But another thing that I listened to is that an analyst told me if you have an edge, it's going to last, you know, if you're lucky, it's going to last one season. Before everybody else either copies it because it kept working or they just break it down. Writes an Orioles type piece where they're like, we got to copy those guys. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that happens too. So there's also organizational brain drain that happens in the sense that you do something

really well as an organization. The teams that are struggling fire a bunch of people and they're gonna come to you to start hiring replacements, right? So we've seen that happen in a lot of places. You think about just how a lot of people in that Orioles front office group came out of Houston, right, like that tends to happen.

The Rays have been dealing with this for years. Or the 65 coaches they fired, they had to get those from somewhere. Right, people came from other organizations, which hurt the organizations they departed in some cases if they didn't find suitable replacements. So there is a question I have for both of you about the Orioles story you wrote last week.

How long do you think they have an edge in hitter development before A, this group of players gets older, which is like four to six years. That's pretty normal. And B, before they start to lose the competitive edge, or at least everybody else just does it, either they either have their ability to hit on the same level,

or they start to break it down with pitching strategies. They start to find some stuff that works, even though for now, the Orioles seem to be so effective at handling stuff high and low in the zone, as you both wrote about. Britt, have we started to see other organizations come calling for the front office members and coaching staff up and down this organization yet?

I mean, I'm sure they have, but the one thing they have that you mentioned, you know, poaching from other organizations. The Royals didn't really do that. Yes, they had Michael Lias and Sig from Houston. But coaching-wise, a lot of those coaches didn't come from Proball. They came from independent labs. And I wrote about this in January about the shift from teams taking, oh, let's pillage the Dodgers or let's pillage whatever. Because one, that's difficult. You have to often promote people for them to go to another organization. And

two, a lot of the work that's being done at the drive lines and the tread athletics and the Cressy sports performances is more cutting edge, more innovative. You can experiment more because you're dealing with, as someone explained to me, you're dealing with like a small jet ski, as opposed to an enormous yacht that takes a long time and everybody pulling in the same direction to see results. You can tinker, you can be risky, you can be innovative in these labs. A tanker?

You don't love tankers. A tanker. I was trying to think of like a Titanic type boat, like totally, totally whiffed. I couldn't think of like a carnival cruise ship. You're trying to turn one of those around. So that's what the Orioles, like if you look at their coaches, they hired a lot of young guys, a lot of guys who don't have traditional backgrounds. And that is also kind of the new wave of coaching is coaches who understand the data, but also

understand the nuance of the game and like how to bridge that. And I do think the Orioles are going to be pillaged, probably front office wise, coaching wise, certainly over the next few years. But I think what they've done and they're not the only organization that's done this and bringing in innovative people and testing out new theories and saying like, we're bad. We burnt it to the ground. Let's experiment. Let's use COVID, which is what the Orioles did,

as a time to get our young players better. Just basically make it like a baseball camp where we play baseball all day with these young guys. That's how a lot of these guys rapidly got better. I do think the smart organizations are doing that. And I do think that it's not as simple as saying, well, let's just pluck these three coaches from the Orioles. Now we're going to do what the Orioles do.

That there has to be an up and down organizational philosophy and a lot of places don't have the guts to do that. You know, I had somebody from the Orioles kind of explain to me, like Eno and I had written, 65 new hires in 18 months. Lots of organizations do half rebuilds, right? Where they kind of slowly phase people out.

The Orioles came in and like torched it and right? Where they kind of slowly phase people out. The Orioles came in and torched it. And it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. People were very upset about how it went down. And there were some difficult decisions. And I'm sure some days that Mike Elias was like, this is not a very fun job. But they stayed the course

and they knew the only way to turn this around quickly was to make these hard decisions. And I think we see a lot of organizations go half in on their rebuilds. And that's why they can hire all the smart coaches they want. It doesn't work if you're not all pulling on that same string from the front office all the way down to the Rover in the Dominican summer league. Yeah. There's an interesting type of brain drain that I, that I hadn't really

thought of before, which is that, um, I talked to, in, in preparing for that piece, I talked to some, uh, teams and one, one team said that they, um, had brought in a coach to interview them and just ask them basically, what do you guys do? And so it's like interrogating and I don't even think they hired that coach in the end, they just interrogated him for what, what the Orioles are doing. And then they also traded for an Orioles player and then asked him what they did in Baltimore.

But that goes on everywhere. Yeah, I mean, but everyone knows what the Orioles are doing. It's like, can you implement it? No, yeah, I totally agree with you. I just think it's funny that that's the kind of like subterfuge in baseball. They're all just trying to, Ooh, what are they doing? It's just a recipe. All you have to do is just get the person that has the recipe card in their hat.

And then if you get their card, then you know everything they know. But really, I mean, I think also back to, um, when we talked to Kyle Bodie at, uh, at the winter meetings, one of the things he said was, you know, like you have to create a sort of a mill that will create new coaches, like you have to create because you're always going to lose people. And so you have to have a structure in place that sort of coaches the coaches. And that's when he started talking about AI, because he said with AI, I can actually build an artificial coach that has my information base within it.

And that can, that AI artificial coach can then coach the new coaches that are coming in. And so if I lose anything, I still have this knowledge base from which I'm coaching the coaches and, and, and so I keep my strategy, I keep my, my, my thoughts, my organizational beliefs in this place. And we can use that to coach the coaches as they come in. So yeah, I don't think any organization is doing that, but DriveLine is, and that speaks also

to what you're talking about. Maybe it's a little bit easier at DriveLine to get all your coaches to record their coaching sessions so that you can put it in AI and develop an AI coach. That's probably easier than telling all of your 6,500 coaches that you've got. Hey, you need to record all your coaching sessions so we can put it into the AI machine so when you leave, we can use the AI to coach the new coach. Yeah.

Like, you just sort of, you can see how that might work at a small organization. And then a big one, you have too many people being like, Oh, F you. How do I turn this thing on? According to my session. Yeah. Sorry. I, yeah, was it there? I, I forgot to do it, man.

Sorry. Let's talk about the AL East as a whole though, for a minute. How is this going to play out down the stretch and you know, with, let's start in the middle, let's start with the Red Sox. What happens over these final six weeks or so, given what we've seen transpiring over the second half of the season so far? Do they find a way to the postseason

or are they one of those first few teams just on the outside looking in in October? I think the latter. I mean, I know, you know, has dug in on them a little bit more, but I just don't really see it. I think, you know, early on, they were like a pleasant surprise, especially on the pitching front, as you know, noted in his latest piece. I just look at it and I look at who they have and what they're up against. And I just don't think they're a better team. I don't think we're going to get

three American league East teams in. I think there are other, you know, you look at, you know, for example, we talked about the guardians. Well, how about the Royals right now up to 70 wins, you know? So I think there's going to be a lot of competition for those wildcard spots. And I just don't see the way the Red Sox have played in the second half, inspiring a whole lot of confidence, um, that they can be one of those teams. Again, the wild card is so close that they can reel off, they can win seven of eight, right?

Make me look like a fool and that's fine. That's the way that this wild card was kind of created. But I personally, if you had to ask me today, who's in, who's out, I have the Red Sox as one of those teams that are on the fringes, kind of looking in at the playoff race. I just noticed two weeks ago on August 6th, their playoff odds at fan graphs were right around 50%. Now they're down just a tick below 30%. They're 29.5

entering play on Tuesday. I mean, do you agree with that assessment? You know, do you think they're going to be first team out or second team out in the AL this year? I'm surprised I haven't, you know, I don't check the standings every day. I'm a little bit more sort of player focused. Um, you know, but this is the time of the season where you start looking at the standings every day. And I was a little surprised to find that the Orioles and the Royals and twins have five more wins than the Red Sox.

Um, I thought that was closer. And so I was prepared to make the argument that the Red Sox can do this. I do think that, you know, five, uh, five wins back is maybe doable with, you know, kind of six weeks left. Um, the thing that is in the Red Sox favor is getting Tristan Casas back, um, and, uh, child Oler Neal's back healthy and the last turn through the starting rotation they've been playing with those pitch mixes that was another part of the piece was like Brian Bale brought his four

seam back and it's not he's only throwing eight times a game but that's enough for hitters to sort of sometimes get a four scene when they expected something else. And, um, and so we're seeing that this last turn through the rotation was one of the better ones that they've seen in weeks. If that can kind of get going, it's just, you know, who has a better bullpen than who has a better bullpen, twins, Red Sox Royals. I would probably put Red Sox last I would I'd probably go twins then Royals then Red Sox Who has a better rotation?

The twins are reeling a little bit. I'm said the Joe Ryan thing was is really unfortunate for them Yeah, it does change the ceiling and floor both in because he's important for them. Very very important So I don't know I go I think I go Royals Red Sox twins ceiling and floor both in, because he's important for them. Very, very important. So I don't know. I go, I think I go Royals Red Sox twins. Agreed. You go Red Sox, you go Red Sox as for the second best rotation out of that group. Jeez, I'm looking since June 1st. I mean, I, yeah. Since June 1st, the whole pitching staff, only the Rockies and Blue Jays have been worse by war than the Red Sox pitching since June 1st. So that's coming up on a three month snapshot. Are we doing all year?

Are we doing right now? Right now how we're ranking now? I kind of feel like they're coming out the other side of an adjustment, but also I'm just, I'm just sort of looking at the players themselves. I'm trying to take them out of their park. Yeah, yeah. You're maybe going like one step too far, but during the same span, the Twins are fourth and the Royals are tenth in war among pitchers

So even if you'd factor in the Joe Ryan injury I think you're looking at two teams that might be closer to like a top ten group of pitchers So you're putting the Red Sox third out of those guys and starting maybe the Red Sox find their way back close to average But I think there's still a bit of a gap between Those other two clubs and where the Red Sox pitching is right now. Line up Red Sox first? Yeah, which twins are available? Is Buxton healthy?

Which twins are hurt? It's the constant question I have with them is like, oh, who's actually... The twins are all healthy. If Correa and Buxton are in the lineup, then maybe twins. I think that's a legitimate toss up. Those teams are both really good offensively. I could see them both being good. So, but even the Royals own sort of two out of three in advantage over the Red Sox. Yeah.

Yeah, I think the Royals are, I take the, I mean, you guys know I've been on the Royals all year, but I think the Royals over the Red Sox and the Wild Card for sure. And where does that leave them going forward? I mean, the nice thing about the Red Sox in the wild card for sure. And where does that leave them going forward? I mean, the nice thing about the Red Sox is that I think that they found some young pieces this year that are going to stick.

I mean, in Jaren Durin, I think I don't necessarily love Saddam Rafa'ela as much as some out there. But given his unique, you know, abilities on defense, a little bit of versatility there, given his wide base of tools, there could be a step forward and approach next year. And I think, you know, he at least belongs on the field with everybody. I think the same can be said for, you know, Hamilton and Abreu. Like, I think this lineup will be mostly the same next year, even if they lose Tyler O'Neill. That's something I think the same can be said for, you know, Hamilton and a Braille. Like I think this lineup will be mostly the same next year, even if they lose Tyler O'Neill, that's something I think that they can get maybe in free agency.

You know, like they just need a bopper. Maybe they could put you sheeted back in the outfield. They can need a bopper anywhere. They could sign a little, they could do that. So I think the lineup is still going to be above average to top. 10, five to 10 next year. I think this is a good lineup. And I think Rafael is going to take a step forward.

I think even Casas might be healthy all year. Like, I think it's a good lineup. It's a good thing to build on and the rotation is decent, but I don't see, like, I don't love Quinn Priester and I don't, and I, and you know, the, the, they've done some work on like trading for guys like Greg Weissert and Justin Slayton and like doing some stuff in the, in the bullpen that might be better next year, but I don't see, I see the same kind of thing happening next year where it's like the lineup is good. What are we going to get from the staff?

I think when you look at their organization right now, I like the fan graphs, you can look at the chart and see the future values. Their top five, top six prospects are all position players. They've got a lot of guys that are close to helping too. Kyle Thiel could give them a lift behind the plate next year. Marcella Mayer could play somewhere up the middle. Roman Anthony could be in that outfield. Oh yeah. Christian Campbell is a breakout guy.

That's kind of exciting. They've got a lot of good young bats coming. So the Red Sox, I think are going to be maybe a lot better as soon as next year. And they're not bad as it is, but the question will come down to pitching, whether they trade for that pitching from some of this position player surplus

or try to spend in free agency. They don't have a 50 future value pitcher in their organization, apparently. At least how it stands right now. So that's their current big problem. They fix. Put together a big trade for, I mean, we've done this a many times and Marlins pitcher, like, is there, is there, is there a pitcher out there?

Like should they trade for Garrett crochet in the off season? Probably. Yeah, but there's like five or 16 switch to trade trade for Garrett crochet. I don't know. I feel like we're going to look, this is my last comment of the red Sox, but I feel like we're going to look, this is my last comment of the red socks, but I feel like we are going to look back on the high and bloom era more

fondly and more fondly. He did a lot of really good work in Boston that I don't think really got appreciated, uh, because the big lead team was bad. He drafted an iron and Anthony until that. Yeah. And you know, kind of set up to fail in that ownership said, we want you to build up the farm system privately and then publicly it was, well, where were the Red Sox?

We're going to also win now at the same time. And you can't do both really well when, you know, you're, you're just not set up with this great farm system to start. So I think some of the stuff he did, will people kind of appreciate the job he did. We'll see kind of what Breslau does with this next iteration now, but yeah, they are set up well, but you look at the Yankees and Orioles, the top fighting for the division

of both of them, neither of those teams are going away anytime soon, especially Baltimore. When you know, when I did our potential Olympic piece, it was like the Orioles in field, because that's how good the Orioles are still projected to be in 2028. So I don't know this year, I think they're really evenly matched. I don't know how you guys see it. It to me, it's a coin flip right now for who gets the division. Um,

but I think as you get deeper 25, 26, 27, 28, um, obviously the Orioles young core is still going to be under team control and probably in the prime of their careers. Yeah. Do they want to slow play these prospects, the Red Sox, and try to wait until the Orioles are older? No. These guys are knocking the door already.

I think you bring them up and say, we're going for it right now. I mean, there's a couple of things for both the Orioles and Yankees were looking beyond this season. Orioles pitching is not amazing. You know, like at least you can maybe get them there. Corbin Burns is a free agent. What if the Red Sox sign Corbin Burns? Take them from the team ahead of you.

That makes a pretty big impact. And there aren't a lot of guys that could be that good in free agency. So the replacements might have to come via trade for Baltimore as well. I mean, I think I'm Orioles over Yankees for the division. I think they're both really good teams. I think it's gonna be fun to watch those teams battle it out over what's left of the season. I think the two teams at the bottom of the

division right now, looking at them, looking at the Rays and Jays versus the Red Sox, who's 2025 are you buying right now? Like how would you rank them in terms of likelihood of going to the playoffs next season based on what they currently have, what they're showing you right now and what you expect them to do between now and this time next year? Well, this off season is going to be a pivotal one for the Jays and I wonder what they do. Does everybody keep their jobs? Are we assuming that in Toronto?

Because that could be a place where they make some changes. I think if you were going to- So I almost my answer, because I think they might actually make some. And if they do make changes in the, in the front office, because, uh, you know, there has been a lot of underperformance and they kind of went half in on the rebuild. Well then that looks a little bit different, right? Um, I like some of the moves they made at the trade deadline. I think they're better set up to win again and their plan is to retool and win in 2025.

But my question is, do we assume that everybody stays intact there in Toronto? I wonder if you were ownership and you were planning basically a rebuild and you were gonna clean house in the front office, I think you would tell your current free office, front office to sell during the selling period. I think there's always the question of, if you know you're going to make a change in the front office,

just say we need to cut budget or something like sell, sell, sell. Vlad Aguirre. I don't want to pay for next year. You want your new front office to be able to come in with trade chips or you want your new front office to come in and supplement the roster in 2025, I think you're gonna win. I would just assume that the new front office would come into a rebuild. I don't know. I just think it'd be weird to keep Vlad and keep Bo through the trade deadline, then have a new group come. What are they going to do in their first year? Just status quo or sell Vlad and sell Bo like, I don't know. I don't know. And maybe they don't change over.

I think they get, I think they get one more year is what I'm saying. What I'm saying is they get one more year because if you look at it, this, this, the, you know, they get so many free agents and so many people are gone in 2026 that you're just like, okay, this is the last rodeo. And you probably tell them, you can sell, you can buy some, some free agents on short-term deals, but I don't know that I'm going to okay you on like a 10 year deal with anybody right now. Because this team, you know, is on the old end, you know, it's, it's, it's now or never for this team. Yeah, I think for this core. Yeah. And then like they don't have, at least at the present time, they don't have any elite prospects coming up.

So that's the other part where the cupboard needs to be restocked. And I think you have to decide is the core good enough to make one more run against these other teams in our division? Or do we have to start tearing it down now to get good sooner, to not push that timeline out another year into the future? Because I think the reason why I'd be a little more optimistic about the Rays by comparison, I think I'd like their group of pitchers better. I think a healthy full season from Shane Baas next year

will look a lot different than the post-Tommy John surgery season he's having this year. They have some really good hitting prospects coming. Right, you've already got Junior Caminero up, just brought him up recently. Carson Williams popped on our who's going to make Team USA in 2028 projections. He's getting close. So you have a guy that's going to play shortstop soon.

That's been a bit of a lagging spot for the last calendar year plus now. Xavier Isaac may be an impact bat at first base eventually too. And we know they find they find guys, they find ways to backfill on the roster. They're probably going to make a couple of trades again this winter. They were aggressive at the trade deadline, trying to get better for the future. So I think the Rays are better set up. I'm trying to fight recency bias because you still have, you know, Vlad, you still have Bo, you know, there things could go better for this team next year,

but I think they might be last place again. They might be. It's a tough, it's a tough sledding in there. And I, Vlad looks like MVP Vlad, but it's just a wasted season right now because nothing else in the roster clicked. I mean, Bo hasn't been the guy we expected when he's been healthy and he's missed about half the season now with injuries.

So that's been a problem. George Springer showing signs of aging. I mean, Springer and Gossman look like like the wrong, wrong side of the aging curve. Like it's not it doesn't look good. Yeah, I think the quality of their pitching is going to lag. Yeah, but they were a team that almost got Otani. So, yeah, I don't know. Are they going to go out and spend a ton of money?

I don't see it. I mean, Bassett's throwing 91 now. Berrios is fine, but you know, he's like a mid rotation guy that's locked up 20 million dollars a year till 2028. I mean, I don't know. It's if you were a Blue Jays fan, like what's the narrative that they that they get better next year? So, Bull Bichette is better.

I think they're going to spend it for agency. Bull Bichette is better. The bow rebound, you keep Vlad, you know, you have a couple of your younger guys that have been playing, they take some small steps forward. Spencer Horowitz like fits somewhere that you thought David Schneider might fit, you know, maybe Horace is better fit. And he, he's like a league average guy. Jordan Romano comes back healthy. Uh, maybe Varshow. Could there be a step forward? I mean, he's 28 now too.

So yeah, I'm starting to think Varshow is what you see is what you get. Kind of an average hitter. Kirk could be better. Kirk could get better, but Kirk's been struggling for more than just this season. He has not looked like the guy he was when he arrived in terms of the quality of contact and it's just not, it's not working for him. It's been really strange. If you have Romano and Chad Green in healthy in the same bullpen,

the bullpen could be better. But comparing that, like the, what could go right there to the youth that the Red Sox and Rays have and the current cores that the Orioles and Yankees have. And of course, throughout the winter, the Juan Soto free agency story will be one of the major storylines of the winter. I keep in my head just re-signing him to the Yankees for an absurd amount of money. It seems like a natural fit.

It also seems like if they lost him, it'd be very hard, even though he's going to be expensive to get that quality into the roster other ways. I'm guesstimating, but I think they, uh, the, uh, blue J's will have, if they want to stay under the first apron, they might have like $50 million to spend. Next year. But that sounds great, but like, that's like two players. Doesn't go far. If you want like, if you want really good players, you know, that's two players, maybe. The Yankees, I,

I don't know how to prognosticate on them because they're at 302 million this year for the luxury tax. Yeah. They're just going to blow over it. Yeah. Are they just going to ignore it going forward? I don't know. Well, otherwise you don't keep Soto. So yeah, they will. Soto is not the only thing they need. So I know, but they will save some money, but they're going to lose some players. So they lose Rizzo. You know, I'm guessing they don't pick up the club option on Rizzo, um, or Lu Chirvino.

So that's 23 million. Uh, they lose, uh, Gleyber Torres. I bet you they don't pick that up. That's 37 million. Verdugo goes, that's 45 million. Clay Holmes, if they let him go, it's 51 million. Loaiza Gut. So it's $55 million of free agencies, but some of those were real good players.

I mean, one of them's, and I haven't counted Soto, so that's $90 million of free agencies, but some of those were real good players. I mean, one of them's and I haven't counted Soto, so it's $90 million of free agents. Um, so I think they can get Soto back, but if they get Soto back, how do they replace all those other names? I said, there's 40 million plus AAV is going to go right to Soto. So he's going to take a lot of that. So then they have to replace like five or six kind of regular players, you know, with the other 50 million. They already got ahead of that.

I know Jazz got hurt, but it's a pretty big addition and he's in arbitration years. So he's cost controlled. So that's a big help for next year that wasn't there all year. Didn't, you know, didn't stay healthy long enough to make a massive impact for this year. He's kind of like the Gleyber replacement if he doesn't play third. Maybe they try to get Chapman to play third. That would make sense. Yeah, but the shorter deals, I think, for a lot of the guys around Soto,

it's just the nature of having a top heavy roster like that. Even New York, you're just going to try and find that's what Rizzo was. Rizzo was two for 40 with an option, right? It's going to be papering over some of the gaps with guys like that. Do you get in trouble at all? Like, do you get into San Diego Padres type trouble if you have Judge, Cole, Rodone, and Soto tied up for like eight years at 35 to $40 million?

Not if you're the Yankees. The problem for the Padres, it's not a problem for the Yankees. Yeah, it could be true. It's just different. It's hard to bet against them though, in terms of like, you know, they're probably going to get Soto back. They're probably going to spend a bunch of money to, you know, improve around them. So I doubt the Yankees go to last next year. So you know, I think it'll be a dogfight at the top, you know, maybe Yankees Orioles again.

I mean, I hate to just do say what's happening right now. I could see the Rays joining the fray at the top and I could see the Red Sox doing it. So I think it could be kind of a four way battle next year. It's gonna go back to one of those years, I think next year where 2025 is gonna be really tough again in the ALE. It's not easy now, but it's gonna be harder,

I think next year than it was this year for the teams trying to win that division. We are gonna go on our way out the door. A reminder, you can get a subscription to the athletic, theathletic.com, slash rates and barrels. You can read that collaboration piece about the Orioles hitter development that Eno and Britt put together. You can read the one that Eno and Jen McCaffrey wrote about the Red Sox pitching

being less effective now with their reduced fastball usage. Be sure to check all the other great coverage out as well. We've got fantasy football season just around the corner. Lots of good stuff, all for just $2 a month. Find Britt on Twitter at Britt underscore drole. Find Eno at EnoSarris. Find me at Derek VanRyper. Find the pod at Rates and Barrels. It's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels.

We're back with you at 2 o'clock Eastern on YouTube on Thursday. Thanks for listening!