Rates & Barrels - Dodgers Promotions, Logan Gilbert's Step Forward & May Disappointments

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

Eno and DVR discuss the promotion of Bobby Miller and the return of Gavin Stone as the Dodgers turn to their pipeline of starters to backfill from injuries to Dustin May and Julio Urías. Plus, they examine the 2023 step forward from Logan Gilbert, pushing starting pitchers more aggressively in the early rounds of 2024 builds, the recent struggles of Jameson Taillon and Graham Ashcraft, and the potential value of hard-hit averages.  Rundown 4:47 Bobby Miller En Route to Los Angeles 8:06 Reservations About Gavin Stone? 11:23 Why Don't Projections Like Logan Gilbert More? 17:08 DVR Gets Too Cute with a Keeper League Deal, Likely Falls on Face 21:02 Planning A More Pitching-Heavy Approach in 2024 Drafts? 31:52 What's Wrong with Jameson Taillon? 41:39 Graham Ashcraft Slams the Breaks on April's Breakout 47:37 Any Concerns About Julio Rodríguez 51:03 Looking at Batting Average on Hard-Hit Balls 55:34 Power Outages: Ke'Bryan Hayes, Ryan McMahon & Andrew Benintendi Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Try LinkedIn Sales Navigator and get a sixty-day free trial at LinkedIn dot com slash RATES23. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Best Western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze. And it felt a little like... Come on kids, back to the hotel room. Good night kids. Good night mama. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at best western Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Monday, May 22nd. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we'll discuss the highly anticipated arrival of Bobby Miller into the Dodgers rotation. We're going to dig into why projections don't like Logan Gilbert as much as I think they should. We'll talk about Patrick Bailey quietly sneaking into the catcher pool over the weekend and some second month concerns, things that if they had happened

in April, people would be freaking out about them because they've happened in May. Maybe people aren't as in tune with them as they should be. It's just how it works. The stats build on each other. So a bad May doesn't stand out quite the way a bad April can. So a lot to get to. Got a few mailbag questions we're going to sprinkle into this episode as well. But Eno, the most important question on the minds of all Rates and Barrels listeners right now. How did things turn out on the Little League Diamonds this weekend? Oh, they lost in the championship game. Allhouse made it to the second championship game because it was a

double elimination tournament, so they beat Sehei the first time they played him, but the second time proved too difficult. It was a tough loss. 11-9, I think, in six innings. They were

complaining about an inconsistent zone. Wait, the kids were complaining about an inconsistent zone. Wait, the kids were complaining about an inconsistent zone? Yes, the kids were complaining about an inconsistent zone. Where do kids learn how to complain about an inconsistent strike zone? Is that something that they talk about on Arthur and kid shows? Or do you learn that when you're really young? It's actually ubiquitous if you listen to a cast, TV cast.

It's like it's going to come up, right? Like think about it. It comes about every... The complaints about the strike zone are coming from the announcers. They're obviously part of the game when you see managers get ejected or players throwing their eyes and stuff. You can't watch a game and not see or hear something about calls that people are upset about so it is definitely

it's not for me i'm pretty sure and i don't think our coaching staff talks about it because they're 13 year old umpires right they're kid they're kid umpires yeah so we we you know even if uh you know my dad gets a little grumpy sometimes and lets out a that wasn't a strike. I'm like, shh, come on. But it was one of those weekends where they couldn't be sad for too long because there was another party to go to right after that. So it was full of pool parties. In fact, the entire baseball team had a pool party for somebody's birthday the next day,

and they were all just playing baseball in the pool with pool noodles and stuff. What's interesting is I've caught these kids, they've got the bug where they're playing baseball with whatever they have at their disposal at any time. So I came to pick them up from after school care and they were throwing a base. They were throwing a tennis ball and somebody was catching it with his hat.

They were, and they were hitting it with a plastic bat and just found a way to do baseball. My kid was really upset about the game. When I come home, he's throwing the tennis ball off the wall and taking grounders so there's a little bit of like uh they've caught the bug and they're all going to baseball camps over the summer and they're all gonna you know try and get better and you know that was that was the way out of the tears in a way it was all right we're gonna work on hitting

this this off season this summer you know so yeah You just keep on playing. That's the best part of being a kid. I think the, the first thing I thought of though, and they had a party the next day, right? It's kids. Kids are just super busy. It's like in the Christmas story, there's this line, Ralphie says, in the jungles of kiddom,

the mind switches gears rapidly. It's just kind of stuck in there, but that's true. Like when you're a kid, it's like the thing that matters the most is right in front of you. It matter and then an hour passes and something else fun or interesting comes along and that's the thing you care about i bought him a i bought him a uh magic the gathering uh card to uh a deck to uh a pack to to get his mind off it and And yeah, that worked wonders because by the time we were home, he's on,

he's unpacking it. There you go. So Bob, they didn't win the title, but glad they've got the itch and they're excited about just continuing to play because I think that's a, that's what you want. You want kids to be excited about games like that.

Let's get into some topics. Bobby Miller is coming up for the Dodgers. I snuck a peek at the model. I didn't have to in this case because Bobby Miller is just pure filth. But the model also likes Bobby Miller. So this is the classic pitches for a good team, has a filled the arsenal, projects well, ticks all the boxes. This is going to be a potentially very expensive picture to add in Fab come this weekend because he's going to have a chance

to pitch at least once before Fab runs and there's a chance that he actually hangs around for a bit because of the Dustin May injury. We're going to see Miller and Gavin Stone this week because... And the Luis Urias injury. Yeah, Julio Urias is down.

He's got a hamstring injury. That injury doesn't look to be quite as serious, of course, as the May injury. But both of these guys, at least for a little while, are up. So with Bobby Miller, it's really just a matter of is he completely back and healthy after that shoulder injury that slowed him down to begin the season? Based on his latest results for the AAA affiliate of the Dodgers. The answer is a resounding yeah. That was against AAA Sugarland. Thank you to a couple of our listeners for dropping me a note.

It is Sugarland, not Sugarland. Very important distinction. 6K is over six innings last time out, one earned run, two hits, got his first win of the season. But it's the depth of the start and just the overall quality that is exactly what you want to see. And it's just Stuff Plus has him as the second best starter in AAA this year, second to Mason Miller, and yet he does not really have the same

innings concerns as Mason Miller, I don't think, because he made it to 111 innings last year. Right. So he only has 14 on the ledger this year, and I would think that there's a little bit of an opportunity here, like Bryce Miller, where too many people might be looking at those AAA numbers this year and saying, oh, he must have had

a reduction in stuff. Model says no, and this is a guy who struck out 30% of the batters he saw last year in AA and AAA. And I would venture there's the possibility that he is the winner of the young

pitchers looking to get into that rotation battle. If you think about it, they've had Gavin Stone up, they've had there's Ryan Pepio is there, Michael Grove. To me, Bobby Miller is clearly better than any of them. And, you know, I doubt that this rotation will ever be five strong and healthy at the

same time. So I think there's an outside chance that Bobby Miller finds a way to stay on the roster all year. Yeah, I think even if they were completely healthy in the rotation or if they added somebody at the trade deadline, Bobby Miller could help them as a multi-inning reliever. They certainly could use boost in that facet of the pitching staff. So I think that's another path forward for him. Long term, I still think there's a very good chance he's a starter and a good starter.

You mentioned the workload last year, well over a strikeout per inning. I think there's a ton to like with Bobby Miller. So all of this makes sense. One of the more exciting debuts we've had this season. We've had plenty of them. A lot of good pitching prospects have come so far, and Bobby Miller could be even better than some of the pitchers we've seen to this point in the season. Stone, I know you've mentioned before,

I think the main issue is that his best pitch is his changeup, and that's a very difficult profile to buy into. Is that the main source of your hesitation with him, despite really good numbers throughout last season, pitching at three different levels? Yeah, I just don't want to be anti-changeup, but the model doesn't help us as much there's definitely some outliers in that regard um but you know even though i have this top this comp

of like maybe he could be a tony gonsolin type pitcher um you know just he's he hasn't played out that way and um you know to be fair tony gons's splitter rates as one of the best changeups in the game by Stuff Plus. You know what I mean? There's still a chance that he could pull off a Tony Gonsolin-esque career and line. I'm just not sure it's going to be

this year. There's not really much to look at that says Stuff Plus is wrong. You look at that 6% swing strike rate so far, it's not very impressive. And the VLO 93.7 in today's game, that's actually slightly

below average. Amazingly. I don't know. I'm not saying that I'm out on stone for his career, but I am saying that this'm out on stone for his career, but I am saying that this year I would rather have Bobby Miller. Yeah, I'm with you. I think just based on the arsenal,

I think I might have that gap smaller than a lot of other people do. I think with the Dodgers, because I trust them as an organization to do right by their pitchers, to put them in positions to succeed succeed both in terms of game planning and overall usage, that would get me to have more of that, hey, you know, Gonsolin sort of cheats the numbers a little bit. Air quotes

cheats. Everybody, they've had the lowest Babbitt forever. Right, some of that's defensive positioning. Ooh, I'd like to check, do you think they have the lowest Babbitt this year? I don't think they do that would be the first time in forever like i couldn't find a year that they weren't i'd be surprised that they weren't like top three or top five at least that'd be pitching babbitt come on sort because my argument was even without being able to shift you still get to choose where guys play and you could still within the rules make some adjustments dodgers are 12th oh that is very

surprising well i guess who's number one it's always one of these two teams raise yeah so dodgers somehow lost that juice. That's interesting. Well, yeah. I guess the other question would be, is seven weeks, eight weeks a season enough to say this is how it's going to be for the rest of the year, or is this just a snapshot of what's happened so far under the new rules?

Yeah, it's fair to ask. There's some people who think that Kershaw and Urias are the main drivers of that. That Babbitt being down and Urias is not having the best year so far. And perhaps the injury has something to do with it. Possible. I want to get into some other topics though with you today. One in particular, why don't projections like Logan Gilbert more?

He doesn't have bad projections. But Logan Gilbert, for as well as he has pitched throughout his big league career and as well as he is pitching this season, has surprisingly kind of just good instead of great projections. But pretty much all the systems, particularly the bat at a 421 ERA and a 122 whip, important again to point out the context of the bat adjusting more to this run environment than the other projection systems. So you're going to see higher ratios there than you do elsewhere. Other projections all across fan graphs have him in the high 3. Zips I guess has him at a 352.

All of the projection systems have him at a 117 whip or higher. He's been at a 115 for his career. He's had an even 1 this season. But Logan Gilbert has always had good control. Now he's missing more bats than ever. What is it about him that is keeping him from cracking the

top 15 or top 20 by projection? Because if you run the auction calculator for a 15-team league, he comes out as the back of the top 30. You do have to adjust that for a few guys who are currently hurt that would likely be taken after him if we were redrafting today for the rest of the top 30, you do have to adjust that for a few guys who are currently hurt that would likely be taken after him if we were redrafting today for the rest of the season. But I would have predicted that to be more like

a top 15 sort of pitcher rest of the season based on what he's doing right now and what he's done overall throughout his career. Yeah, he's a strange one. But I think I'm a little surprised that the projection systems haven't caught on to his career-high strikeout rate and progressed closer to that because his career strikeout rate, including this year, where he's striking out 30.6% of the batters you've seen, that's a really nice number,

is 24.7% and all of the projections have Logan Gilbert basically with a 24 percent strikeout rate going forward and I don't know it seems like like in a given season if a guy's jumped up to a new level of strikeout rate I mean he's got 50 innings in him you'd think that you would hew a little bit closer to maybe what he's showing in terms of strikeout rate so i also just know that our own projections uh mirrored that of the group we had it slightly better than the bat uh because his stuff plus is pretty good so we had like a four era projected rest of season um so you know our projection system did the same thing as the rest of them but i'd say just using my eyes,

and then just a little bit of a story here that's kind of fun. Logan Gilbert and Ian Hamilton are owners of perhaps a unique pitch. We've talked about Ian Hamilton on this cast, that his slider is weird, but there's a great piece on on baseball perspectives today about uh they're they're calling it a slambo uh because gilbert and hamilton both throw really low spin uh gyro sliders that are like 89 miles an hour and uh they're just uh really strange because they have it's almost almost zero zero just like if you if you shot a bullet you know that's what the bullet has a lot of

gyro spin it has no seams on it it has tons of spin a bullet does so it just it just goes straight and so these these have a lot of spin and somehow not a lot of spin but they also don't catch the air anyway with the seams and so they have almost no movement and it's been really effective and i think for gilbert the key is really that he can command it well and it's 89 miles an hour and it looks like his fastball until it's not but you know you know, Stuff Plus loves his slider more than even than Hamilton's Slambio.

And it likes his curveball for once. So, you know, it never really liked his curveball before. He's made some changes to that. I don't know. It's a great fastball.

Usually it's a little bit down this year, but I would say it's a great fastball usually it's a little bit down this year but i would say it's a great fastball great extension great velo great movement uh and he's sort of figured out how to put the the right pitches around it you know it's i think this is the the sort of art of developing a starting pitcher you think oh the mariners are like hey everybody has to learn a sweeper logan gilbert you got to learn a sweeper. It's not actually maybe a great mix for his arm slot, and he can't command it, but it's the hot pitch. Everyone's got to learn it. He comes up to Big Leagues. He's like, guys, I can't command this thing.

I've got to ditch this sweeper. Goes to the gyro slider, wants to do the Verlander gyro slider, but then finds his own version of it, and now he's really thriving so when i see this sort of stuff happen i tend to believe yeah there's a ton to like in this profile and i'm just looking at this split finger that's popped up on here too he's throwing that 12.5 percent of the time according to savant the spin rate on that is 899 is that right is that a glitch like what what is that i've never i've never seen the three-digit spin because uh his slider uh spin rate is 1500 and that that's incredibly uh small too so he's found a way to like you know not spin his pitches it's really

working for him also his curveball is the hardest has ever been plus the most downward movement he's ever been so uh somehow he's uh found like like just having these harder breaking balls has worked has been really working for him so let's be clear when it comes to shipping internationally can i provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. The answer is FedEx. Okay, but what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about?

FedEx. Oh, but let's say that... FedEx. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next.

Whoa, what are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking? You know you're driving a 2024 Ford Escape with available Alexa built in, so you can change the music. Oh, yeah. Alexa, change station to 99.2. See? Purchase a 2024 Escape ST-Line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months

with down payment. That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40,294. Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca. So I had this problem that came up with Gilbert. I had Gilbert on a team. It's a 12-team AL-only keeper league where everybody's looking for pitching. My team's been really hurt. I got an offer that I thought was pretty fair from a friend of ours. Actually, St. Danny actually made this offer.

I was offered Taj Bradley plus Bo Naylor. It's the two-catcher, AL-only keeper league with OBP for Logan Gilbert. The salaries were pretty fair. Keeper years were pretty even. That'd be pretty tempting. I took it. I always like to get OBP for Logan Gilbert. And the salaries were pretty fair. Keeper years were pretty even. That'd be pretty tempting. I took it. I always like to get a bat for my pitcher.

Yeah, I took it because I thought I had to believe in Bo Naylor. And I think... Well, now Bo Naylor can't throw out a single base runner in the minor leagues. Yeah. The trade was made before Taj Bradley came back up. Yeah. So he was struggling at AAA, but it was also made before the report about Bo Naylor

not being able to throw out base runners came out. But my instinct was, even though I like Gilbert and he's a great AL-only keeper, as much as any pitcher can be a good keeper, it's like, well, I'm getting a guy that I like just about as much in Bradley, plus I'm getting Bo Naylor. This actually seems pretty good.

And the thing that nudged me over the edge was actually a quick glance at the projections and going, okay, projections don't like Logan Gilbert as much as I do. Get out of my own head. Make this trade. It's a fair offer. Make yourself better for the future. And it's the perfect kind of fair trade because I think a week has now passed. Ten days have passed.

And now you hate it? And I would just, no, if it were offered to me again, I might just flip it back the other way and be like, yeah, that's probably good. I'd probably like agonize about whether or not

I was right to switch again. So it's this like super fun deal that I didn't expect to happen. The interesting thing about Tosh Bradley, by the way, I'm glad I snuck him

into the rundown for personal reasons. He may have a two-step this week. They confirmed he's going to start against the blue jays on tuesday if they stay on schedule with him he would go again on sunday also against the dodgers is this a two-step that you actually want even though taj has been really good at the big league level do you trust him for that um i'm throwing him but my main is in last place and we're in the

we gotta do something phase so we are not only throwing him as a two-step this week we are throwing Luis Ortiz in a two-step against the Rangers at home and I saw that tweet the Mariners

it was like two the Rangers have been putting some big numbers on the board oh shush you and the Mariners are going to get better it was exactly the kind of two step where you look at it and you're like that's right on the borderline and I'm probably going to take it and Luis Ortiz is not showing any command

and I think the stuff is still there. But, you know, I think it's interesting just to put Logan Gilbert next to Taj Bradley and Luis Ortiz. It's like, you know, Logan Gilbert has gone through all this. You know what I mean? There's some value in he's made the adjustments and figured out how to make his arsenal work together like i don't know that i'm out on rookie pitchers like forever but i definitely am not going to have as i'm not going to do a big bid uh like i did this year on taj bradley in uh in the main i think next year because like how many rookie pitchers have we had come up? How many times can you spend $200

on a rookie pitcher? Then there's all these other pitchers that are making the adjustments and becoming the pitchers we thought they'd be. Remember the hype around Logan Gilbert when he first came up? Logan Gilbert was big fab. I think that was reasonably well spent until

the very end of the season. The ratios got a little bit bumpy at the end. George Kirby last year, I think, was big fab. Well spent. He was, yeah, that's true. It can work. But I think the problem, the best way to solve the problem is to work backwards. Just like you don't want to be in a position to have to make a big triple digit bid on a closer.

You want to have enough closers going into the season. Sometimes they get hurt. You have to deal with that. Fine, you got to chase saves because there's an overall component to those leagues, and you can't be bad in any categories. So you have to kind of desperate times call for desperate measures it

and just fight for closers like everybody else does. I think the balance of starting pitchers on the roster at the beginning of the season needs to be even more extreme on the pitcher side. I know Dalton Del Don from Yahoo has been just going straight yellow down the draft board for the last two seasons at least. And I think you're going to see a few more people adopt strategies like that, or at least similar to that, where they're going to say, screw this. I went through an entire season where I had to overpay for

pitchers who were young and had innings caps and bad injury histories, and all of that's a choice. Mason Miller was a choice. We knew the risks. We went for it. We got burned. Unfortunately, Mason Miller is going to be the most expensive player you paid for in fab that you cut a few weeks later this year. That's just the truth. Mason Miller was a drop for me this weekend. Hopefully he's back in July, but hey, that money's spent. That's gone.

Doesn't matter. I don't get, it's just gone. Don't cry for me, Argentina. Right. Again, I looked at the profile.

I know why he didn't throw that many innings the last couple of years. And I said, screw that. That doesn't matter. YOLO. I'm going to win. And well, I'm not going to win because of that.. I'm going to win. And, well, I'm not going to win because of that.

So I'm going to win despite that. But you avoid these problems by doing better, getting more on draft day. How much more have you trusted the hitters that have been available on a week-to-week basis? And look at the prices by comparison. The hitters that are coming up, with exceptions of the occasional top prospect type, the hitters seem to be so much cheaper and more plentiful than the starting pitchers, at least in 15-team leagues. 12s, you can find some pitching still.

But it's a little harder in 12s than it has been, too. I guess so. We won Matt McClain for 36 or something. That's it? In a 15? Unless he... I did see... I've got a co-manager so i think there might have been a bump uh after i was looking because we had him at a certain level here main event uh fab results we won oh yeah he bumped it 75 but we would have won it at 36 where we had it. But still, $75 for a guy who is the starting shortstop for the Cincinnati

Reds and has power and speed. You know why he was going to go for 36 though? It's because he didn't have Casey Schmidt's first week. He hit 211 for his first week, drove in one run, didn't homer, didn't steal a base, but still could. And in fact, has more of a hold on a job than Casey Schmidt,

I feel like. It's pretty comparable, but 45% K rate in the first week. So that probably helps scare people away. But if Matt McClain hits a couple homers, steals a base or two in his first week and strikes out 28% of the time instead of 45% of the time,

you're paying three or four times as much. That's just the way it is. It's the overreaction to a little bit of information if he gets called up on a saturday and he's in the pool and we only get one game he costs more because there's not a four game run going into the sunday bidding where we have oh yeah here's what he's doing so far we're pricing him based off of the speed and what he did at triple a and i don't know man like i just my my frustration with fab it goes beyond that it runs on sunday evenings now that used to be my only frustration with fab and now i'm starting to hate it for other reasons well you know it's just it's not easy and on any level like i don't even think the

hitters are easy so that's the only pushback that i had for for you on that but um i am trying to find something oh it's see if i can find it i you know i think the injury has been the real thing like even if you did even if you did do um that strategy we had a lot of pitchers right just like come with me on a ride through the top 30 preseason top 30 on my on my uh on my ranks right david grom hurt spencer strider fine corbin burns not as good as he was but fine garrett cole fine shoya tani, fine. Shane McClanahan, fine. Dang, we did okay in the top six. Sandy Alcantara, hurting probably because of the shift and allowing people in balls in play.

Justin Verlander just came back from being hurt. Dylan Cease struggling. Kevin Gosselin, fine. Zach Wither, fine. Zach Allen, fine. Hey, I'm doing all right. This isn't making the point I want to. Here we go.

Dustin May, hurt. you dervish. Fine. Max Scherzer just back from hurt. Clayton Kershaw on his way to being hurt. Aaron Nola, velo down. Luis Castillo, fine. Premar Valdez, fine. This is really not making my point.

And the guys that have been hurt have had recent injuries. Glass now hurt. Rodon hurt. Rasmussen hurt. All of those guys are red flag guys, and I like them. I like them. That's true. They were red flag guys and I like them. That's true. I like them. They were red flag guys.

It's true. I mostly, hey, I did okay with my ranks. So far that seems like it's all good. Then it goes Bieber who's been just about a top 25 guy with the reduced strikeout rate. Joe Ryan, George Kirby,

Logan Webb. You know what the point I made? I'm good at ranking pitchers is the point I made. I think the point is if a guy has a bad injury history, it holds up. It tends to point to an injury. Max Freed at 29 had some red flags in his arsenal. Yeah, you're right.

And then when you really start getting to the guys who are getting hurt, most of them you kind of knew. Like Luis Severino. Man, I stayed out of injury for the top 50. So you really want to get as many top 50 pitchers as you can, right? Is that what we've learned? Sure. So let's say you were sitting down in Las Vegas and it's March of 2024, and it's the NFBC main event. You made it. You're there in person.

You've done a good job on Friday night eating delicious Thai food but not drinking too many beers. You're sitting there Saturday morning, and the draft's about to start, and you get your flow chart. How many of your first 10 picks are starting pitchers? You're trying to decide on that today based on what's happened to you right now. I think three or four. Three, four. Is that only like one more than typical?

So you're not going like all the way to the other side. I think four pitchers, so three starters. So you're counting a closer as one of those. Four, maybe five pitchers, so three starters. You're counting a closer as one of those. Maybe five pitchers, four starters. That's more where I'm at. More like 50-50 instead of... Usually for me, it's two relievers in the first

10 rounds. Minimum two starters, but then right after that shelf, after round 10, that pick 150 range, there's a bunch of starters I like. The reason those starters are there many times is because they've missed time because of injuries. And maybe what we're going to learn is that, you know, we've known this for a long time. Past injury often gives you a guide to future injury. But what if the pitch clock, if it hurts everyone, but if it takes guys who are already injury prone, it makes them even more likely to

get hurt. What if it adds risk to an already risky group of pitchers? There was a good new piece about this on Baseball Prospectus that sort of fed off the piece that we did. And the new data that they brought to bear was that the slower pitchers are getting hurt more. The people that were slower paced last year are getting hurt more. The people that were slower paced last year are getting hurt more this year. Yeah, I kind of thought that was a possibility just because they had a bigger adjustment to make. They were pushing their bodies a further distance

from where they were to where they had to be than guys who were either close to the limit and only had to move a little bit or guys who were already pitching fast enough because they were already trained and conditioned to deal with working as quickly as you have to work now. If that is a true thing, and that pitchers last year that were slow

are getting hurt more, if you want something sort of actionable about that, I would say that I did do something based on this. We picked up Chris Martin in our main. And I think that Chris Martin is an interesting pickup because I think he's very definitely the setup guy in Boston. And Kenley Jansen has seen some velo ups and downs this year already. He's had injury history, and he was the second slowest or third slowest pitcher in baseball last year.

You know, if you want to pick up Hunter Harvey behind Kyle Finnegan. Finnegan was fourth. I think that seems like a fine way to do things. In terms of starting pitchers, I think that it was Shohei Otani. And I'm trying to find the other starting pitchers here. Corbin Burns. That's interesting with the velo down on him. Michael Kopech. Hugh Darvish.

Alec Manoa. Lucas Giolito. So there's some struggles there with the slower pitchers. And possibly a future injury if, if you believe this, but you know, I wouldn't trade one of those starting pitchers away because they're healthy.

And right now, a healthy starting pitching in the big leagues is super scarce and, and fantasy is, it's, it's a rough go, but it is something to think about. Yeah, there's a lot there. I'm also wondering if we have some guys

who have been in the minor leagues who dealt with the pitch clock already and maybe they're less likely to be hurt because they've been conditioned a little bit longer for an extra season or two. They don't even think about it anymore. When I ask a young pitcher about it, they're just like, what?

I don't know. I mean, it still could cause injuries, but the pitchers that have already adapted to it might be less likely to get hurt compared to their veterans. And the data says that. It's a good piece. So, interesting. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. So, interesting. you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton bike or bike plus

today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate. Terms apply. You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself. You live for experience and lead by example. You want the most out of life and realize what you're looking for is already in you. This is for you. The Canadian Armed Forces. A message from the Government of Canada. Let's get to some other pitching matters. And let's talk about Jamison Tyone for a moment.

Oh, it does not. Ratio punishment. Just absolutely disastrous last week. And it goes back before last week. I think what it did for me, what Jamison Tyone did last week, 10 earned runs in total of seven innings over the two starts. What that did for me was really open my eyes to the fact that he had a 641 ERA and a 147 whip prior to doing that.

And I like Tyon quite a bit going into the season. I thought he was one of those players that right around pick 200 was a good value. I thought his home park was going to make him really stable. Thinking he's only had three home starts so far this year. In two of those, he's failed to even pitch into the fifth inning. It's been rough for him so far. And the Ks last week, even while he was just banging up the ratios this week, it wasn't like he got seven Ks in those seven innings. He got two.

So you took a ton of dead weight in terms of ratios. But what's wrong with Tyon overall? Why are things going so poorly for him? Because getting out of Yankee Stadium for half of his starts seemed like a surefire step forward for him. If anything, it just made it possible, in my mind, for him to repeat what he did last year more easily, even if he took a small step back skills wise. Yeah, I don't know, man. He was super excited about the sweeper and the stuff model likes the sweeper. So it gives him, you know, an above average gyro slider, a plus sweeper, a decent cutter.

You know, his sinkers looks like average in the model. You know, even his locations are not bad. He's above average location plus on every pitch except for the change. I don't, like, I don't have an answer because I really thought the change in Park and Division would be, you know, great for for him. I don't even know if I can afford to drop him considering how unhealthy the rest of the league is. Even by something as simple as K-BB, he's slightly above average. You'd think that he would at least be a guy you can play in certain matchups. In retrospect, if we made him a matchup starter,

we could have avoided some of those blowups. I should not have started him at Philadelphia. Yeah, but you had to start him at Houston with it as part of a two-start week. So it's just kind of like the Taj problem. Taj Bradley, to me, is better than Jamison Tyon. But the same sort of, I trust this guy enough. It's two starts.

If he's bad in one, he'll be good in the other. It'll be a 450 ERA week, but I'll get a win, and I'll get 10 to 12 Ks, and it'll be worth it. And he got blasted. Two on the road is tough. If we did play the single game, daily

leagues, would you start would you start him i mean this is sort of in retrospect it's opening day but like i think we would have started them at home against milwaukee opening day right 100 percent yeah all right so how about uh texas that that uh next week texas is showing a little bit of offense but that's a home attack yeah i would have we still would have used him because at that point, we didn't know as much about this Rangers lineup as we do now. They would have been more in the, yeah, it's okay. We like Tyon enough.

Play him. It's home. Play him. Now you've got nine innings and seven earned runs, but at least you have nine strikeouts. So you're like, okay, at least he's striking guys out. At the Dodgers, with your nine earned run ERA, the seven ERA in your back pocket, I think you almost wouldn't have played him.

You wouldn't have played him. Even if he pitched really well in his first two starts, you would have said, at LA, I'm going to use my next best option. I don't like throwing him. He's right on that line anyway going in. Yep. So you would have missed the best start of the season,

the five scoreless. Imagine that. You would have been active the whole time. That would have been like at Washington. Sure. At Washington, you'd be better off. And then you probably, after that, would have been like, at Washington, sure. At Washington, you would have thrown him. He only went three. That was coming off an injury. St. Louis was scuffling then.

So you really. It was home, too, so you probably would have been in on that. I would have been in on that. I was in on that. I lived it. I was there. So you would have gotten to this place in worse shape than if you just started him every time. But I just think that there's some value here.

There's no... I don't know. I don't really see an obvious, like, oh, you know, there's a real problem here that he needs to fix. You know, he used to have reverse splits, and the sweeper should should be uh making him better against righties maybe the reverse slits weren't actually uh believable because lefties are the team are the side that are killing him this year yeah it's tough he's got two at home for his next

two starts he's home against the mets this week which i'm actually i'm actually i've sat him just because i would have pitched him before but i just need to see something from him now in the 15 he might just be in because i don't think i have a better option at 12 i probably have something better on my bench and then next week he's home against the rays you're gonna throw him even at home against what's been the league's best offense so far yeah that's rough so So now he's going to turn it around on our benches for the next two weeks. Which one is the sweeper? It must be the

curve? It must be the curve that's the sweeper. He's still throwing it to lefties. This could be part of it. So you don't see anything that's totally broken, which means if he's available, you're picking him up and you might even try to make a small trade. I think he's having a little bit of the Clark Schmidt problem because he's throwing his sweeper because he loves it and he thinks it's great. He's throwing it to lefties and lefties have a 429 ISO against it.

It's big. It's a big ISO. iso against it it's big it's a big iso it reminds me of the clark schmidt problem i think there's a certain amount of pitchers that have this new sweeper and are excited about it because the stuff model and because they can see the they can see the movement right um and it's it's a very compelling pitch but we you know we just wrote this whole piece about how it has the worst platoon splits in baseball. I want to see now, because Clark Schmidt just came off one of his best starts. I want to see now his usage against lefties. What has he done? He weirdly started using the sinker more.

He had to wash his hands this weekend, too. Did he? Yeah. That was the drama on Friday night, I think. But he's still throwing his sweeper 20% of the time to lefties. And I guess they're not bludgeoning it. Okay. No.

The sweeper is the slider. 375 ISO against his slider from lefties. Against the sweeper is the slider 375 iso against his slider from lefties against the sweeper like these pitchers need to stop using the sweeper against lefties i think that's it and you got to think that that somebody could be in his ear and tell him that because he didn't used to have a sweeper and he didn't get used to get blasted by lefties he could be like dude just be your old self against lefties. You remember the stuff that used to work in a park where lefties could destroy you? Try that. Yeah.

Throw your cutter and your old slider against lefties and throw your sweeper against righties. I don't know. It's like a shiny new toy syndrome or something. But it seems like, you know, it seems I would rather, would you rather this sort of story from Tyon or like he's down, you know, two miles an hour on the fastball? Oh, I'd much rather have the nothing's been wrong, it's strategic thing because that's so much more fixable.

Yeah, that's what I think. Because what's the easiest thing to do next start? Change your pitch mix. That's a lot easier than change the shape or get Velo back or whatever. So I think I don't want to declare him a buy low that you have to go trade assets for. But he's probably on wires. He probably is after this past week, yeah. If you can just pick him up and just put him on your bench

and just watch him for a little bit. This is a guy who used to be a quality pitcher. It's not like he's just going to unlearn that all in one offseason. If you get a gem this week, that doesn't change anything for you about throwing him against the Rays, right? That was just a bad idea two or three weeks ago. Is it in Tampa? It's home. It's at Wrigley.

I'd like to know maybe weather stuff. I think that maybe some of this, I don't know if we can retroactively do the weather thing for him, but Wrigley plays very differently from start to start. If I could have some sense of what the weather was like and if it was a day game or whatever, those things might matter to me. Because if it was in Tampa, I might actually pitch him

if he has a good start this weekend against the Mets. You know what I mean? Interesting. Usually, not always, usually the wind is more likely to blow in than out. Usually it's more pitcher-friendly. If you can find out ahead of time going into the week that the wind might be blowing out with some force especially. Yeah, it's hard to do on a weekly thing.

It's more of a daily, like, you know, it's hard to do on a weekly thing. It's more of a daily what's the weather like today kind of thing. On a weekly, yeah, Tampa has a pretty good offense. I think I'd probably sit him another week. But if he then had two good starts in a row, then I think I'd be

much more likely to start looking at him that next start that next week. Yeah, story could change with a few more outings. Good to see that there's nothing actually broken looking underneath with jamison tyon let's talk about graham ashcraft who's fallen on some difficult times in may most specifically just two bad starts one blow up at home against the white socks the white socks put eight earned runs on him and one and two thirds back on May 7th. The Rockies got him again at Coors for seven earned. And that was so weird because I watched that game and he was dealing for four innings. I was like, he's going to get out of Coors alive, dude, after I would never have started him here.

I think that there is, I know that his career splits are somehow uh better away than uh better at home than away uh i don't i don't think that's memorex was it real or memorex uh if you look under the hood uh he allowed the same wobo away in the home and that's weird because uh his home park is uh you know a big inflator of offense. But anyway, the story for me and every Ashcraft start that I've watched is deals for three innings and then the wheels fall off. And so I would be much more likely to have started him very conservatively. So if we play the when would you have started him,

conservatively so i if we play the when would you have started him i would have started him at miami uh at pittsburgh and home against pittsburgh so i would have started and maybe three out of the starts he's had so far and i'm a guy who's high on him but we had him as a four true talent era going into the season which means basically a four three uh because of the way the run environment has changed. And that's with stuff improving his projections. So I think this is a guy who's a league average starter with the way that he is currently because of the lack of a third pitch. And if you were very careful with him, if you did my plan, the Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh-at-Miami plan, you would have given up four earned runs in 18

innings. I think the temptation with Ashcraft, though, is that he gets a ton of ground balls, and the White Sox are pretty banged up in the early part of May. I think there's a little more... Is that who he's got next? That's who he had when he got roughed up for eight runs earlier. I think that would have been one where people would have been pretty tempted to play him, especially because he went into it with a two ERA and a one, one seven whip.

So yeah, you, maybe you would have avoided it. Most people. And I would have been on this group for sure. I would have been comfortable throwing him there. He's a ground ball guy. He can,

he can handle his home park better than some of the other starters there. So I would have talked comfortable throwing him there. He's a ground ball guy. He can handle his home park better than some of the other starters there. So I would have talked myself into that, and I would have taken on all that damage. I think this is an okay time to pick him up cheap in Dynasty Leagues because there's a real foundation here. With the cutter and the sweeper, he's got two really good pitches. And just having come this far i think on two pitches like that i think that is there is some proof here of a concept he needs it he just needs

another pitch the sinker is not it he's not been able to use it he's not using it he's become a two-pitch pitcher the two pitches don't create whiffs on the same level as Hunter Green or Spencer Strider, so that is not an option for him. I think he would really benefit from a poor curveball, just a slow curveball that he can drop in the zone, because it would be something that would come in at 79 after he's blown 97s, and they would probably all spit on it. Then he gets a called strike. Ah, called strike.

Now here comes the sweep called strike now here comes the sweeper or here comes the cutter right so and then you get make people play a little bit with that you know 80 to 98 uh kind of difference in velo you know so i do think that long term he's still someone i'm interested in uh but this year i'm being super careful with him anybody that projects i think for like a 4-3 eraRA, you've got to be careful with. We were just saying to be careful with Jameson Tyon. He projects for a high threes. Right.

And he doesn't have to deal with Great American Ballpark for half the starts, even though I think Ashcraft's skills fit that park better than other pitchers that they try to roll through as kind of mid and back-end sort of starters. I don't have any proof of this, but this is something that I've heard from players and coaches, which is that it's possible that this year is all about the blow up,

like the clock helps you get into a bad place. Things can spiral on you more easily because you don't have the time to settle down, kind of regroup. It's sort of like, there's no time for breathing exercises and, you know, and going through the things that your sports psychologist told you to go

through. You just got to keep throwing. And it's just like, it's just like a ball gathering steam, like, you know, a ball gatherings velocity going downhill. It's a car crash sometimes.

And so I wonder if there have been more blowups this year because I just feel like, yes, the run environment is up. But when I tell you that the run environment is up bigger than it's been, other than maybe there have been five bigger run environment increases uh in the free agency era you're like okay so it's like a top six running it's like it's a little bit less than 2019 but somehow maybe 2019 does capture it there were times in 2019 we were just like i don't understand what's happening you know like i have a good pitcher here and he has a five and a half era you know like that's how i feel again this year so maybe it is a little bit like 2019 but there are there

are guys that just have just the hugest eras that you're just looking at being like i don't what happened this wasn't happening last year was it so between the injury and these huge eras it's been a really rough year for pitching yeah it really has been and it's it's not just pitchers that are struggling you see a few hitters that have underperformed recently i don't think i have them anywhere this year just because of where i was drafting but julio rodriguez has actually been pretty quiet throughout may uh we're not gonna look at 17 games for any hitter with a ceiling like this and say he's broken. You don't want him in the first round next year. Give up.

It's not like that. But we're looking at a guy who's now hitting 204, 280, 376 so far this season. The barrel rates are still solid. The chase rate's the same as it was a season ago within less than a percentage point.

So there's not much that's changed there. He's still stealing bases. And when he connects, he is still hitting for power. He's got seven homers on the season. Any concerns here outside of maybe just the young player going through typical adjustments? The league adjusts and the hitters do adjust back. And it's just kind of a cat and mouse game as we've described it in the past. Is there anything else with Julio that would give you some concerns? You know, the book has not changed on him.

They're trying to hit the outside, low and outside corner this year as they have in the past. And he is trying not to swing at those pitches and this year you know you know chase rate doesn't always capture everything because there is also like swing at the pitches they want you to swing at that are in the zone you know like there is a sort of cat and mouse within the zone because it's hard to cover every spot in the zone but he's been chasing low and off the plate a little bit and if you look at his o-swing and use that maybe as like a proxy for you know what his approach has been like he has been chasing a little bit less as the season has progressed I talked to him about this, being like, okay, they're really trying to backdoor you and throw low and away pitches.

When do you decide that's a problem that you need to do something big about? Or it's just a couple weeks and everything will be fine in a week from now without a big change. He said there's always room for making day-to-day changes, couple weeks and everything will be fine in a week from now without a big change and he said there's always room for like making day-to-day changes but you know big changes uh you know that he just didn't really think that that would you know he that was what was in the cards for him so

i think this is uh you know pitchers think that they have a hole on him but if he's able to to do what he's doing um with them trying to exploit the oldest hole in the book you know like low and away you know like uh i have a feeling that uh he's gonna be fine yeah this gets me back to a question that we may have talked about on the show once before this came from chris uh about two or so weeks ago and chris just wrote in that he was looking at hard hit percentage. You know, anything above 95 miles per hour, of course, qualifies as a hard hit. And he's just looking at batting average on hard hit balls.

And I ran that StatCast search to see anything hit over 95. You know, what does batting average look like on those balls? Julio Rodriguez is 293rd out of 306 players. I think I set the minimum to like 20 plate appearances. On Babbitt, on 95 mile an hour? Yeah, he's hitting 344 on balls and he's hit 95 plus. Kyle Tucker is down in this same range where you start to find players that are struggling that shouldn't be on this list. I think George Springer came up on the last episode or one of the episodes last week as someone that we're like, hey, what's going on with George Springer?

And it looks kind of like just it's kind of like zooming in on Babbitt. Like, is what's happening on balls in play like really bad luck? This would kind of point you in that direction to suggest that it is. Yeah. And it's not just that he's doing poorly on the hard hits that he's doing, that he's hitting. It's that he's also hitting the pitches hard a lot so you know it's it's kind of uh a double whammy in this case where like he's got uh you know among hard hit rates he is uh 25th in the big leagues. And so in that top 30,

he's got the lowest slugging percentage except for MJ Melendez and Ahmed Rosario. Those are different kinds of players and this doesn't tell you everything, obviously. But if you look at the slugging percentages, I'm eyeballing it but if you average them out i'm sure you actually get somewhere around 500 as a slugging percentage because you've got some 600s and some a bunch of 600s on here lots of 500s i mean this list that

that i'm you know is headed by matt chapman 514 slugging judge is second and hard hit six 42. Once I was third for 73 slugging, Yandy Diaz is, is fourth, six 11 slugging wisdom is fifth, right? You know, like there's some value to hitting the ball hard. We know this and,

uh, he's hitting the ball hard. You know, he's not getting good results on it, but in terms of strikeout rate and walk rate and ground ball rates, he's nothing looks like it's but in terms of strikeout rate and walk rate and ground ball rates, nothing looks like it's really in trouble. I just

filtered the list down to 50. And he's stealing bases again, you know? Oh yeah, he's doing the things that he needs to do to get there, so I am not worried. I think we're seeing... He could end up with a 30-30 season. And he's probably not going to hit 204 while doing it. Right.

It's pretty unlikely. The other end of that list has some guys on it that have been really good so far, right? Jared Kelnick hitting 623 on hard hit balls among players with 50 or more plate appearances. That's number one in the league. Nolan Gorman at 612. Aaron Judge, I guess I'm not surprised he's up there. He's at 611. Cedric Mullins, I think I just saw Mullins hit another home run over the weekend.

He's been getting to his power a little more than I've expected. So I wonder if you look at the top of that list and say that's a little bit of good luck, probably over their skis slightly based on expectations. Bottom of the list, opposite. I want to pair it also, though, with just a sense of how often they hit the ball hard. You know what I mean? Because, you know, Calny could get fewer results on his hard hit balls, but also just hit so many that it's still fine. You know what I mean? Like he could go from 600 to 500 on those balls and still, if he hits a bunch of them, it's great, right?

Like I'm a little bit more concerned sometimes when I see someone with a decent slugging and a really low hard hit rate, you know what I mean? Yeah. So that, uh, a story Reese, uh,

does not have the, the hard slugging, but he's the poster child for the softly, you know, the, the low hard hit rate. There's something we've been talking about for years, but,

uh, years, it seems like probably not one, but a lot over the last year. But you know, the other, the, the types of people on this bottom of this list are miles straw,

two 90s slugging, Andres, and then Andres, and then as three 42, Louisa rise for 76, but he's, that's a lot of bad love. How's the young Kim with Merrifield,

Reese, Stephen Kwan, Dubon, Frazier, Dominic Smith, not a pickup for me. I guess the names that do make me pause on this are Isak Paredes and Brian Anderson, Cody Bellinger, Jeremy Pena, and Alex Bregman.

Those are pretty good players. Gleyber Torres, Xander Bogman. Those are pretty good players. Gleyber Torres, Xander Bogarts. Those are pretty good players, but I think it does tell you a little bit about maybe where their slugging percentages are going to end up. So maybe Cody Bellinger is a little bit over his skis with a 493 slugging.

And maybe Brian Anderson is someone you kind of want to play at home more than you want to play on the road. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know who's still frustrating to me? and this is a guy we've been talking about for years is kebrian hayes he still is not getting to his power there's improvement though this year he's down to a 14.5 percent k right that's a career best he didn't have a strikeout problem to begin with but he also said he's not going to join the launch angle revolution, whatever that means. He's hitting the ball in the air more than he's ever hit it in the air,

so he's doing it by accident. But he must not be hitting it very hard when he hits it in the air because he's still slugging.351. It's the worst pull rate of his career. He's just not getting the ball out in front, I don't think. It's so frustrating because when we went into the season, we thought, okay, if nothing else, he's going to steal bases at third base,

which he's doing. He's 6 for 11, though, right now. Hit for a batting average, you'd expect. Average should go up if the power doesn't show up. He should hit for 260, 270 average. The bad X still has him at 270 the rest of the way. And 280 XBA. Right. So I'm wondering if this is actually

a window to go trade for cabrian hayes or to pick him up in a 12 team league and just to see if you actually get more like what we expected even though it's still it looks like more of the same at a glance but some of the underlying numbers point to there being some growth let's say you know it's a better barrel rate than he's had in the last two years just by virtue of putting the ball in the air. Again, he has that max EV, so he's got the raw power. So, I mean, it seems like it definitely, there are things that are different this year. And at the very least, yeah, I think you're going to get like 270, 280 going forward. And that means he's going to end up on the season with 250, maybe 10 homers and 25 stolen bases like i'm sure it'll

be positive fantasy value in most leagues it's tough right now but i if you if i give you 250 10 homers and 25 stolen bases don't you think there'll be positive value in almost every league yes yeah even though steals are easier to find. Yes. The ball flies better in warmer weather. We're getting to warmer weather. He's putting the ball in the air more. I think he's going to get on a little mini streak for power and get to that 10 homer. I think in dynasty leagues, we're talking about a 26-year-old with raw power that has a high floor in terms of at least giving you stolen

bases and batting average most years. And so I think he's still acquirable. Could be oatmeal. Could be oatmeal with some pecans chopped up and some apples and dried fruit. And a peak year between 26 and 20 and 30, like could be one of those years. Like think about Yandy Diaz, right?

Is he, does he have like a very different profile than Yandy Diaz? Not really. The big difference for me is that Yandy for a, right? Does he have a very different profile than Yandy Diaz? Not really. The big difference for me is that Yandy, for a long time, hit for average. You knew you were getting that average. But Brian Hayes should, because in terms of underlying process, it's similar. He doesn't quite have the eye that Yandy has, I guess. Yeah.

Strike zone judgment. Really good for Yandy Diaz. Lost power for Brian Hayes. I would say it's similar to what Ryan McMahon and Andrew Benintendi have shown us, too. Benintendi's been awful. I thought he would. You know, never do this. Never do what I did with Andrew Benintendi.

This is a bad process. I saw that he changed his swing to fit Kansas City. And so he became a contact-oriented guy. And I said, oh, that's just in Kansas City. And he even said, I'd like oh, that's just in Kansas City. And he even said, I'd like to pull for more power in this new stadium in Chicago. But don't believe them. You know what I mean?

Like, wait until you see something. Don't be like, oh, he's just going to change his swing when you haven't seen anything that says he is. You know what I mean? I mean, pulling the ball for power works everywhere like right that's the thing like it's it's the other types of power that can be more extreme based on park factors but just about everywhere if you pull it that's true hit it hard it's gonna be good because on the line it's closer he can undo something that just got him a decent contract you know what i mean five years 75 million dollar deal is he really going to change change everything about what he's doing after signing that contract it's so strange to me i don't understand

if he had something that was working in 2021 why on earth would he do something to change that that makes no sense to me none yeah well i mean then he had i guess a good year and once you hit 300 that might be like catnip is it yeah 300 still carries a lot of weight among players they still care about that i think so it'd be so much fun to hit 20 home runs and to hit 300 as long as you're not like horrible and batting average to get there if you're hitting 205 with a 260 obp to get your 20 home runs, that's miserable. Yeah, I mean, he was definitely a better player when he hit.271

and hit 20 homers in.217. Right, the way that Andrew Benintendi hit 20 home runs back in 2017, that's a fun way to hit 20 home runs. Or 2018 when he hit 16 homers and hit.290. He was stealing bases then too. Yeah. He's like one of those toolsy guys that he's hit the ball

out into the water in Staten Island. He definitely has the raw power, but that's fallen off too. He used to hit the ball 110. Now he's hitting the ball 105.7 at his max.

I think he's got bad coaching or something. I think there's other versions of Andrew Penadetti that are better, but I don't want to bet on the White Sox to uncover that because they don't seem to be doing a really good job in hitting coaching. It comes and goes. At least we've seen a few of their bats wake up here in the last few weeks, but I think with Ryan McMahon, the approach looked like it was headed in the right direction late last season.

It seemed like he was starting to pull the ball to get to the power more consistently. You talked about that in the spring. He's got the best barrel rate of his career, so he is getting the ball out in front more, but it's had a deleterious effect on his strikeout rate. Very odd. 32% K rate. Not out of bounds, though,

compared to the upper ends of his earlier career ranges. Are you buying in on this, that he can make a few adjustments and give us the season we were hoping for? I actually think this is a little bit like the Hayes thing where you're like, hey, this is actually good, Rook. I think it's not a Rook anymore, but like, hey, kid, keep it up.

I think getting to a 12.5% he's not a rook anymore. Hey kid, keep it up. I think getting to a 12.5% barrel rate is good. That's a good idea. He should do that. That's the type of hitter he is. He's a guy that should walk. He should be more patient than he is, but he's got a decent eye.

When he hits the ball, he should hit it for power. There's pretty good projections agreement on him too. With all the different methodology between zip steamer hits the ball, he should hit it for power. There's pretty good projections agreement on him too with all the different methodology between zip steamer, the bat, the bat X. 250 to 260 with 15 to 16 homers. And pretty good counting stats, so close to a league average bat that maybe plays up a little bit. I will say that in my main,

anytime we can get him out of the lineup on the road, we have been. It's true of most of their bats, though. That's the usual problem that we've got. Hey, solve a problem for me. Okay, I'll try to help you. I'm going to make you work for me. That always works. My AL labor squad is in first place

and needs pitching and needs saves Reynaldo Lopez has not been the brilliant pickup that I thought he would be and so I'm looking for a second closer behind Duren and

what I've got is Reynaldo Lopez Josh Sabores Carlos Carlos Hernandez. Those are my relievers. I picked up Garrett Acton on the wire because Stuff Plus loves him. He's a great fastball. He's pitching well. There's an opportunity there for him to be the closer. However, I have to drop one of Sabores, Lopez,

or Carlos Hernandez, or not pitch Zach Greinke at home against Detroit this week and put Greinke back on the bench. You probably have to throw Greinke. It's a pretty good start, right? Detroit at home? Yeah, that's pretty useful for ratios purposes. Spores is getting the holds in Texas. Ronaldo Lopez is not

almost. Joe Kelly is ahead of him and now Liam Hendricks is back. How much do you value having a setup guy, a multi inning setup type guy that you believe in from a skills perspective. For me, the answer for Ronaldo Lopez is home runs

have been a major problem. The Ks are there, walk rates up a little. And he's throwing a sweeper to lefties. I'm sorry to say it's true. Yeah. Carlos Hernandez is, by role, is not exactly where I want him to be because he's kind of their opener right now.

See, to me, there's a chance with Carlos Hernandez. There's a better chance that the Royals find a more valuable role for Carlos Hernandez than there is for the White Sox to do it with Lopez. So that'd be part of my thinking there. Spores. All right, Spores is the guy I know the model likes him because we were looking at the Rangers bullpen a few weeks ago. Uh-huh. Do the Rangers likes him because we were looking at the Rangers bullpen a few weeks ago. Uh-huh.

Do the Rangers like him? Right. That matters. I mean, it's not like they're making a lot of decisions in that pen based on stuff. It doesn't seem like they have been so far. This is easily the best he's been in his career, really, at the big league level.

He hasn't really had a lot of time. But they are giving him holds, which is, you know, that's the youth right there. Has he started to move more into the seventh and eighth? level. He hasn't really had a lot of time. But they are giving him holds, which is the use right there. Has he started to move more into the 7th and 8th? Because I think last time we looked at him he was pitching in the middle innings instead. Yeah, he's I think he's, let's see here, in his

game log he's got holds in three of his last four appearances. That's pretty good. They don't really have the back end completely figured out there, so you could make the same kind of argument with Spores, at least in the bullpen, whereas Hernandez could find his role even in the rotation. That's still not out of the question. I mean, they kind of are doing this weird stretching him out. Lopez has holds in two of his last four

appearances, so he's not fully out of the rotation. This is a tough one for me. I might just take the chance to just get one more week of information on the relievers and not throw Granke. I don't hate it because I think you've got a reason to hold each of them, but I almost wonder if Lopez

is the smartest cut because he might be the easiest one to get back or the least likely to be expensive to get back. Unless he gets like a save this week. Hendricks is coming back soon. We don't have an exact date. He's coming back soon and there's already other guys taking on those saves. So when's the next time you're going to throw Ronaldo Lopez in your lineup? I mean, here I have to every week, but yeah. I mean, here I have to every week, but yeah. It's weird how bad he's been.

Projections have him at 434 and a 122 whip. The projections aren't something I really, like from the bat, I don't want to put that in my lineup every week. No, not from a reliever. See, I think you can find, I bet if you look at the wire, you can find some relievers that project more favorably or project equally to Lopez.

Well, all the other guys that I mentioned. Acton looks pretty interesting, by the way. He didn't come up on the Friday show this week, but he, of all the A's relievers that have been spinning through in the last year or so. He's like the first one that actually has like kind of eye-popping swing strike, strikeout rates in the minors

at least. Yeah, like my analog method for evaluating players says if he just keeps the ball in the minors at least yeah like my analog method for evaluating players says if he just keeps the ball in the park which the park should help him do and a lot of his home run issues popped up they got real bad at triple a but that's pcl right vegas so yeah i think this could actually work yeah i don't know about the secondaries as much but you know you if you're a reliever and you've got a hot fastball which he does and it's it's not just hot on on velo it's at 96 it's it's normal velo but there's something about the action on his pitches he's got uh a decent amount of ride for and i and it's a it's a I think it's a good pitch but you know we're gonna learn more as

it comes out we'll see I'll let you guys know what you do and then is it time yeah is it time oh yeah you have been playing this game. And let's see here. Oh, this is a good one. All right. So the game is such. 2022 tops. Okay. And he's a pitcher.

I have to tell you his MLB totals in terms of games, 113 games total in his career. Career. This is a pitcher. I have to tell you his MOB totals in terms of games. 113 games total in his career. This is a pitcher? This is a pitcher. And then I start just telling you, reading the line from 2022 until you can guess who it is. 32 games,

15-5 record, 186 innings. Is that Max Fried? Nope. 178 hits, 70 earned runs, 128 strikeouts, and 186 innings. Yikes. With a.338 ERA and a.121 whip, and he went 15-5. What?

Luis Garcia? Nope. That's a really low K rate. Oh, I'm supposed to also tell you his age. He was born in 1995. So we're talking about a young starting pitcher with a poor strikeout rate and good results. Lots of dubs.

Cole Irvin? That's a good guess. Now you dubs. Hmm. Cole Irvin? That's a good guess. Now you're on the right track. Paul Blackburn. You're talking about the right types of pitchers, but wrong division. Ah, wrong division. Okay. Right league. Ranger Suarez?

No, I was in the right league. Okay. How about... Mally strikes out more guys than that, so it's not him. That's a super low case. It's not Tyler Mally? No, that's a good guess, though. No, too.

So you didn't get 15 wins. The wins thing is such a weird... What do you got? Oh, though. No, two. So you didn't get 15 wins. The wins thing is such a weird... What do you got? Oh, Cal Quantrill. Cal Quantrill. That's disgusting. Anyway, it's been a fun game. No, it's a really fun game.

He says a stack of cards, and I had to try and guess them. That's real fun. How many guesses does it usually take you? Yeah, I've gotten them. I've gotten the one. I've only not gotten them i've gotten the oh the one i i've i've only got not gotten one where he had to tell me who it was yeah but uh i i usually get them and it's usually somewhere between you know three to ten the one that where i got it right away was he was like um this is a young player um who has like uh a thousand plate appearances uh and uh did not play in 2022

and uh in 2021 had like 30 homers or 38 homers or something it's a kunia right no it's the teeth oh to tease right yeah did not play in 20 did not yeah i was like at first i was like what young player with lots of homers? Yeah, right. Didn't play last year? And I was like, oh, I know who that is. Sure, yeah.

That makes sense. I would have got Quantrill after about eight more minutes, which would have been really enjoyable for the listeners for me to just grind through

that as I check all the AL pitchers off that don't strike. I got 15 wins last year for Cal Quantrill. Wow. That was valuable in deep leagues, I bet.

Yeah. All right. Well, on that note, maybe we'll play that game on a future episode. That's pretty fun. Drop us a line. Ratesandbarrels at gmail.com is the best way to reach us via email. You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Riper.

If you'd like a subscription to The Athletic for now, $2 a month for the first year at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. Keep an eye out. Maybe we got a special coming up with the holiday coming up a week from now. Slight schedule change for this week. We'll have 3-0 coming out on early Thursday being recorded Wednesday. We'll have a Thursday episode of Rates and Barrels this week. So a couple shuffles going on. I've got to be off for a couple of days later in the week,

but we're going to have a project prospect for you on Tuesday. Plus, we'll talk about Patrick Bailey on that episode. It seems more appropriate to bring him up tomorrow than it did today because we rambled so much about other players. So that's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening. Thank you.