Rates & Barrels - Early assessments, lost command, trusting Robbie Ray, and ROS over/unders!

Episode Date: May 10, 2021

Eno and DVR answer an excellent group of mailbag questions including the difference between 'reach rate' and 'chase rate', the details of Alex Verdugo's step forward, Dominic Smith and Gleyber Torres'... quiet starts, the "new" Robbie Ray, Triston McKenzie's missing command, and a few over/unders for the rest of the season.  Rundown 0:58 Reach Rate vs. Chase Rate 6:17 Examining Alex Verdugo's Step Forward 18:20 Dominic Smith: Have Pitchers Figured Him Out? 23:19 What's Up with Gleyber Torres? 27:33 Can We Trust the New Robbie Ray? 32:31 Anything Good in Dylan Cease's Start to 2021? 35:34 Where Did Triston McKenzie's Command Go? 41:27 What's Next for Aaron Civale? 46:01 Can Jonathan Loaisiga Work Effectively in a Larger Role? 52:21 Over/Unders! Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: ratesandbarrels@theathletic.com Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic for just $3.99/mo: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Rates and Barrels presented by Topps. Check out Topps Project 70, celebrating 70 years of Topps baseball cards. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris on this Monday. We put out the call for jargon-related questions, and we have a really good one to open with on today's show. So we're going to dig into that as well as several individual player questions. Those are stacking up because now that we're more than a month in, there's definitely a more consistent, is this real sort of vibe going on with a lot of players, fast starters, slow starters, and everybody in between. So we're going to try and answer as many of those questions as we can.
Starting point is 00:00:53 We've got a few over-unders a little bit later on in the show as well. I want to start with this question because we talk about reach rate and chase rate all the time, and it really seems like we use those terms interchangeably. So we had a question from Ben. When you say reach rate and chase rate, do they refer to the same thing, and is it the same thing as O swing percentage? Yes, it is. And in fact, I got into a little trouble with that with my friend Jeff Zimmerman the other day when we were chatting.
Starting point is 00:01:23 I asked him something about reach rate, and he had no idea what I was talking about. And he said he'd never heard that before. So, Mia Culpa, my apologies. The thing is, I just don't think that O-swing, I think it sounds technical, and it sounds more complicated than what it is. So I think that I like reach rate because it's like reaching it at balls that aren't strikes, you know,
Starting point is 00:01:48 like reach rate, you know, I think, or chase rate. I like both of those better than saying, Oh, swing. And so it's like,
Starting point is 00:01:54 Oh, swing. So, uh, but my apologies, that does make things complicated. Um, mostly it's,
Starting point is 00:02:02 Oh, swing on fan graphs, but, uh, yeah. And even on baseball savant, if you, mostly it's O-Swing on Fangraphs but yeah and even on Baseball Savant the easiest way to get it in a leaderboard format is to go to the year to year changes leaderboard and select
Starting point is 00:02:14 O-Z swing percent so I could be more what do you think? Do you think that we should always call it what is on the top of the leaderboard? I guess so. Well, I think there's some extra little quirks that come up with O-swing percentage and chase percentages that you find.
Starting point is 00:02:33 And that the strike zone, I think, is defined slightly differently on Savant as it is on the stat provider that Fangraphs uses, right? I think that's Baseball Info Solutions, if I remember correctly, for those stats. There's two providers on Fangraphs uses, right? I think that's Baseball Info Solutions, if I remember correctly, for those stats. There's two providers on Fangraphs. Right. So sometimes the numbers across different sites don't line up perfectly because there are some precision elements of the definition that cause it to be thrown off. We're still looking for the same thing. Reach rate, to me, seems like something we would talk about with hitters. Chase rate seems more like it would apply to pitchers even though we are talking about the same thing swings and pitches that are outside the strike zone right a hitter is reaching and a pitcher is getting hitters to
Starting point is 00:03:11 chase so if you want to use both there's there's your way to use both to be fully correct we should say oh swing savant oh swing fan graphs vis uh i do have i do have the three open um i've got uh the through the stack as year to year changes leaderboard i have that one um i have uh the baseball info solutions one which is under the plate discipline tag um on fan graphs and then i also have the pitch info uh one leader board open um and so here's one example that would make it seem like oh my god these things are so different so here's robbie grossman robbie grossman on pitch info has a 19% O-swing. By baseball info solutions on Fangraphs, Robbie Grossman has a 17%.
Starting point is 00:04:09 And by stat cast, he has a 14%. And so you're like, oh my god, this is impossible. Like, what the heck? What am I supposed to use? What's the best one? Well, here's a way to say maybe it's not that big a deal. Here are the top five by plate info.
Starting point is 00:04:28 Max Muncy in order. Max Muncy, Trent Grisham, Acuna, McCutcheon, Grossman. Although, hey, real kudos for Acuna to add that skill set. I can't, like, that blows my mind. That made him, like, the best young player in baseball. You know? That one change i feel like anyway back to this it's muncie grisham acuna kutch grossman uh bis is muncie straw acuna
Starting point is 00:04:53 grisham turner um and stat cast top five is muncie nimmo grossman soto grandal so there's some differences but if i had done the top 10, because Acuna is ninth at StatCast and Grisham is seventh, you'll see that they correlate well. They're about the same. And I think that you could just choose one and just make sure that you choose one
Starting point is 00:05:20 and then you can just look at relative changes. We're always talking about relative changes. And if you just choose one and then you can just look at relative changes. We're always talking about kind of relative changes. And if you just choose one, then you're being consistent going back and forth. And you'll get most of the picture, I think. I would kind of tend towards being like Savant, probably the best one, because they will clean up the info and have so much of the info in-house. Because they will clean up the info and have so much of the info in-house. But Pitch Info has done a lot of good for this industry and has their own way of washing things. And it could be superior.
Starting point is 00:05:55 So I think Baseball Institution kind of goes off of game day. So I would choose, I don't know, I would choose either the Pitch Info one or the Savant one, wherever you hang out most. Yeah, and then just stick with that one just for the sake of not changing the measuring stick along the way. I think that's the right way to go. Thanks a lot for that question, Ben. I figure we should define those things right away because there are a lot of hitters that people were asking about. The first one is Alex Verdugo. Chris writes, I'm wondering if you guys can break down the increases Alex Verdugo has made
Starting point is 00:06:28 in his advanced metrics on his StatCast page and his overall approach to hitting and any other interesting facts that you might find out along the way. So thank you for the question, Chris. Verdugo is really doing a lot of things well right now. You know, two things that caught my eye digging into his player page, he's actually striking out less than ever so far this season, down at 12.3%. And that's really good. But the other big thing, and this is something I've worried about with him in the past, he is hitting the ball on the ground less than ever. 44.4% ground ball rate, easily the best of his career. For a guy that hits the ball to all fields and does have some pop, hitting the ball in the air
Starting point is 00:07:06 more often is a very good thing. We've seen that already. Four homers, three steals, 306, 362, 476 line, almost a carbon copy of what he was doing in the shortened season. I think it's really easy to see some legitimate growth in this profile.
Starting point is 00:07:22 Yeah, and you could take one eye to it and be like, well, you know, he doesn't barrel balls that much. His 5.5% barrel rate this year and his 5.7% career is not a huge number.
Starting point is 00:07:38 He's not a huge power hitter. But what I like about what he's doing, it seems like he's settling in as one of the preeminent line drive hitters in baseball. You look at his sweet shots percentage, it's up. He's hitting the ball harder, but his average long-range goal is 10 degrees. It's 8 degrees for his career. He's just not a guy who's going to focus on lifting it.
Starting point is 00:08:00 He's going to focus on frozen ropes everywhere. lifting it he's going to focus on frozen ropes everywhere so when i see you know a little bit higher first pitch swing rate and um you know some changes in his strikeout rate and his reach rate is down his out of zone swing percentage savant no i'm not making fun of the person who asked the question at all i'm making fun of myself that that it is just difficult i think that's that's why jargon exists right is to like to to make things a little bit faster than than being super precise so but anyway his reach rate by savant is down um and uh so i just see him coming it's there's nothing that like really stands out as being like oh this is the one thing he's doing totally differently it's just i think he's really settling in as a frozen rope hitter
Starting point is 00:08:51 i kind of uh you know like some a little bit vatoian in a way you know just not a guy you might have a peak season where he hits 30 homers but more of a 15 to 20 guy year in year out i hate that i always go to this comp when we're looking at a guy that doesn't strike out a lot and hits the ball hard, but hits the ball on the ground a little bit. At least he did, especially early in his career. But DJ LeMayhew has a similar profile, but we're seeing Verdugo lift the ball more than we ever see LeMayhew lift the ball right now. So maybe that comp starts to break down. But when you look back at early career DJ LeMayhew, you had single digit homers in Colorado, which was pretty weird, but you saw double digit speed when we're seeing Verdugo steal bases at a really efficient rate. So while I don't
Starting point is 00:09:36 think he's necessarily going to get you 20 plus bags, he's probably going to get you a dozen pretty easily. So you factor in 15 to 20 homers, a dozen bags, a really good batting average because he's not the kind of guy who's going to hit the ball into the shift. He's going to hit it everywhere. You can't really shift that effectively against them. He's probably above average across the board, which is something that Ariel Cohen was banging the table on this one repeatedly. There's a short list of players who are above average in every rotisserie category. And Verdugo was on that list going into the season, and he's really right there as we played the first month plus now.
Starting point is 00:10:09 Yeah, a little bit concerning that he went from above average speed to below average speed. In terms of his sprint speed, he's down. He was 68% in 2020, and he's 45th this year. So maybe he's trying to bulk up a little bit to hit for more power. That's okay. I didn't think he would be their long-term answer in center field anyway, so I don't think it'll hurt him too much defensively.
Starting point is 00:10:40 And he seems like a really smart, you know smart runner on the base pass. So I feel like he might still get you sort of 8 to 10 every year, even with slightly declining wheels. Yeah, your future center fielder in Boston is named Jaron Duran, and he is currently at AAA. Not crushing it to start. It's only been six games, but not falling on his face either. Kind of surprising to see his K rate up in a limited sample so far,
Starting point is 00:11:05 but that number has to come down before Duran is going to push Verdugo into a corner on a full-time basis. Duran and Vidal Brujan are probably among the biggest ads this weekend in this one space of people that might come up soon that we want to own for cheap before they come up. Right, not having to throw all the fat at them. You might have another week to do that on both cases. And in both cases, I think they might both come up to play center field.
Starting point is 00:11:37 And I kind of like Brujan on talent maybe a little bit more, but I think I like Duran, his opportunity more. Yeah, I do too. I mean, I think with the hit tool Duran has, there's just a ton of floor there as well. I think with Brujan though, I think maybe I like him more than Duran from a fantasy perspective because of the bags.
Starting point is 00:11:58 I don't really see any reason why the Rays wouldn't let him run. And I'd like- They've actually run a fair amount for like a sort of a-thinking team or whatever. That was one thing that happened on their way to the postseason last year was all of a sudden they were the second-fastest team.
Starting point is 00:12:15 And once they got Brett Phillips, they were one of the five fastest teams in baseball and were also stealing bases a bunch. Yeah, Brujan has been ridiculous at Durham to start the year. Four homers in six games, already has a steal hitting.455 of the.571 OBP, so he's kind of forcing the issue. Wander who? Yeah, you know that's the kind of stuff that's happening somewhere. Wander who? Like, no, they're both coming up, and they're both going to be pretty awesome and pretty fun
Starting point is 00:12:40 to watch, I think, for a really long time. We did get another prospect called up over the weekend. Trevor Larnak got the call on Friday, made his debut on Saturday. So he was one of the other prospects that was scooped up over the weekend in redraft leagues. And I didn't really think the bidding was all that aggressive on him. Maybe there's some concerns about him not playing against lefties. And if you think about the current state of the twins, Alex Kirilov has a wrist injury. He had a cortisone shot for that. So we're still kind of in a holding pattern with him.
Starting point is 00:13:11 Buxton has a grade two hip strain. So he's going to miss at least a month, possibly longer. I was trying to make the pieces fit. And the best I could do, if you have a healthy Kirilov and a healthy Miguel Sano and a healthy Nelson Cruz and a healthy Max Kepler along with Larnak, Kepler plays center field, which he's done when Buxton's been hurt in the past. So I think there is a way for all those guys to coexist in the same lineup while Buxton is out. But I think once Buxton comes back,
Starting point is 00:13:36 that's when things could get really crowded. Yeah, I had a slightly different calculus just thinking that maybe Kepler wasn't't great in center and so we just see a fair amount of uh jake cave with buxton out and then buxton would come back and then i thought that larnach was more of a real boom bust situation with karloff's wrist because karloff is going to test the wrist this week and basically the idea is uh if he likes how it feels he's he's they'll just bring him back up like they won't even bother with much of a rehab or whatever you know um because it's just been resting this wrist right
Starting point is 00:14:19 and then if he doesn't like it could be surgery and be out for the year. So Larnach could end up being a really, really good pick if that happens. But if Kirilov does come back, I kind of see it as even with Buxen out, Kirilov, Cave, Kepler, Cruz, and Larnach just spelling guys. But that's interesting that Kepler could play. The other reason I did not bid aggressively on Larnak was just, I just don't see him having much speed, and I think that the strikeout percentage is super variable. Like, I don't think we know what his strikeout rate will look like.
Starting point is 00:14:58 So if he comes up and strikes out 35% of the time, doesn't have any speed, he could be like a guy who hits 230 with, you know, a 20, 25 Homer type pop. Yeah. A left-handed Hunter Renfro or something, which is, you know,
Starting point is 00:15:13 who I went in aggressively instead of, instead of Larnach. Who'd you get? Tyrone. Oh yeah. Tyrone Taylor looks really good on paper. And I think the way I see that situation is you've got Bradley and Kane basically platooning in center. You've got Yelich down probably longer than he was the first time with that back injury.
Starting point is 00:15:33 I'd be surprised if Yelich is back before we flip the calendar to June. That's my bet is he plays very regularly with Yelich out. He's probably the primary left fielder. And then if one of Kane or Bradley gets hurt, he can actually play center. He could be the other guy, right? If it's a Bradley-Taylor platoon in center and then Taylor playing left on days where they're both in the lineup, that's nearly everyday playing time. And the key here is that Daniel Vogelbeck could move to the bench and Billy McKinney can play first base or he does not play Billy McKinney at all. So with Taylor, the thing I keep coming back to is he's had a lot of injuries as a prospect. He wasn't above average hitter at AAA in 2018 when he reached that level in the
Starting point is 00:16:09 first time. And because they've been so loaded in the outfield at the big league level the last couple of years, he just hasn't had more than scraps to play. I think the question I would have for David Stearns, if we were interviewing him, is to say, why wasn't Tyrone Taylor playing ahead of Ben Gamble? I realize Gamble's a lefty and taylor's a righty but taylor looks pretty interesting and i bet you gamal doesn't yeah but it's like at a certain point sure like the the platoon advantage for gamal is nice you can use him more against righties but taylor just looks like a much better bet and do some damage when he's on the field yeah and he does two things that I don't think Larnak has demonstrated he can do completely, or one of them he doesn't.
Starting point is 00:16:51 Larnak does not have that speed. And Taylor is fast and could steal some bases. And then the other thing is I believe in Taylor's strikeout rate a bit more. I think it'll be significantly better than Larnak's. So I'm assuming a slightly better average and more steals. And, you know, some of the same playing time issues. Yeah, the Brewers could get healthy and suddenly he's out of a job. But with Larnac, I think that that situation is more acute.
Starting point is 00:17:20 I see him going down pretty easily. I think Taylor's kind of made his case already. And besides, the difference was actually interesting. I got two or three shares of Taylor for like $35. And I saw Larnac go down for like $230. Some people got really aggressive on that. Yeah, I was more 5% to 8%% on Larnac unless there was a desperate need for hitting, in which case maybe 10 was the most I was going to go. I didn't think 20-plus made sense
Starting point is 00:17:52 even with the way you could shift things around. He's a bat-first prospect so if he hits, and they're struggling right now too as a team, they're well below 500. If he hits, they're going to find a way to keep him. They also aren't doing that well on defense so like you know to to put kepler in center might be kind of like should like uh taking the finger out of the dike and putting in a different hole sure yeah let's let's uh let's go with that dominic smith is a question that came in Maxie. Has he been unlucky to start the year of pitchers figured him out? Looks to me like he might be getting exposed by off speed pitches. Do you think he can recover and is he worth a roster spot in a shallow keeper league, a 12 teamer where you can only keep five? Thanks, Max. I'll answer the second part of that question first. I don't think he's necessarily someone you'd be keeping in a league like that, so you're not necessarily locked into holding him because you feel like he's going to clear the bar necessary to be held in a league where 60 players are kept. But I do think Dominic Smith is a good hitter despite the slow start. 28 games, hitting.222 with a.271 OBP and a.323 slug. It's been rough so far, to put it mildly.
Starting point is 00:19:09 I don't think this is a sign of things to come necessarily because he was 32% better than league average in 2019 and 64% better than league average in terms of WRC Plus in 2020. Basically 20 to 25 home run power during that time as well. I don't think that's completely evaporated. But I do think Smith was dinged up this spring, right? So I wonder if part of his slow start might be some lingering effects of just not being completely healthy.
Starting point is 00:19:36 He does demonstrate something that's interesting. Although I tend to stay away from the X stats, I think they can give you a little bit of sense of luck. And we were talking about how the X give you a little bit of sense of luck and we were talking about how the x stats were a little bit broken this year because the run environment is different and the ball is performing differently um it looks like tom tango made an announcement that uh they have rejiggered the x stats uh to to fit the current reality on the field. So that says Dominic Smith's 283 XBA is a lot better than his actual 222. You know, even though his barrel rate has gone down 8.1% barrel rate
Starting point is 00:20:17 this year in 8.8 career, if he keeps that around 10, I think he will be like a 275, 280 type hitter with 25 homers or plus, right? I mean, that's, you know, 10% barrel rate is not like Stantonian or anything, but it's like top quartile. I still think there's a chance he could get traded in season to a team that will play him at his natural position. But if you look at the playing time so far this season, it's usually just days off against lefties. He's pretty much been an everyday guy in left field against right-handed pitching at this point, spending most of his time hitting third, fourth, or fifth
Starting point is 00:21:00 in that Mets lineup too. They're going to wake up. It's only a matter of time. I think Lindor homered over the weekend. Maybe the rat versus raccoon situation is going to get them going. Or Donnie Stevenson. I don't know what's going on with
Starting point is 00:21:13 the Mets, but it seems like... Why are they pushing this thing so hard? I don't know exactly. It's got some Hank the Dog vibes to me. It really smells like there was a fight between players, and they're just trying to cover it up with this rat raccoon thing. It's just a really bad cover-up?
Starting point is 00:21:34 Yeah. I don't know. Which side are you on? Do you think it's a rat or do you think it's a raccoon? Was there an actual animal at any time? I don't think there was ever a picture of one, but it's New York. I assume it's a rat. I'm supposed to opine on an animal I've never seen? Very important. Yeah, you're right.
Starting point is 00:21:50 Good point. It was New York. Probably a rat. I was walking to, I think it was a Tout Wars auction with Clay Link a few years ago. We were just walking down one of the streets in Midtown and he goes, I'd really like to see a new york rat and right on cue within seconds one scurried by i'd never actually seen one on the sidewalk before either and it's just like oh man that's it's unfortunate the trash collection is done the way it is in new york i think that it leads to more of it the trash is basically just there on the side of the road it's and like not always and not always in in in like they don't really do like the the container thing so much it's just like a bag of trash on
Starting point is 00:22:34 the side of the road my my wife and i were walking home late one day and like one scurried by and we were like that was so close and then we realized that we were on a highway. It was like the meatpacking district where there's even more gross stuff out. Then like 30 rats scuttled across in front of us. Then you called a car immediately. We were like, ah!
Starting point is 00:23:01 Anyway, it was just a... Then on the subways, you will see them down at the bottom. But I don't know. It didn't affect my, I didn't, it wouldn't be one of the first things I said about living in New York. No, I had been there several times before seeing one. So, you know, not as bad as some people might make it out to be. Staying in New York for a moment because we're making it sound so pleasant.
Starting point is 00:23:23 staying in New York for a moment because we're making it sound so pleasant. Gleyber Torres hit his first home run of the season over the weekend, a little later than everybody expected. Yeah, May 9th, I think, was the official date if you're keeping score at home and maybe if you have them on your team, you are. I'm frustrated, you know, because I thought Gleyber was an obvious bounce-back play for this year. I didn't see anything in the underlying numbers last year that gave me enough concern to say, it's fool's gold. It's not going to happen.
Starting point is 00:23:50 I thought, yeah, maybe 38 home runs in 2019 was the result of the ball. And I know he binged against the Orioles that year. Maybe 38 is a career high. But I thought 30 in that park was definitely something he could do again with a good average. And we talked about the plate skills back during draft season. He walked more than ever last year, and he struck out less than ever last year. And I thought that was enough of a positive to get right back in and buy Glaber at the discounted price this year. What are you seeing in the underlying numbers when you take a look?
Starting point is 00:24:25 numbers when you take a look because it's similar to last year where the 240s average you know okay obp sub 400 slug almost a sub 300 slug that home run probably popped him up over that number what's going on here because we're looking at 74 games of glaber torres not being the same guy that he was in 18 and 19 when he broke through yeah there's a fairly distinct you know one of the things i really um i'm drawn to a little bit now um is on the savant page there's a fairly distinct you know one of the things i really um i'm drawn to a little bit now um is on the savant page there's this thing called percentile rankings um and it just it has it has an interesting array of stats with color coding right um and with torres it tells us a very interesting story where he was a guy with a low x obp but high x slugging his first two years and a high barrel rate um and then in 2021 he became a high x obp guy with a low x slugging
Starting point is 00:25:14 and you saw his strikeout and walk rates improve a ton i i see two hitters, right? And so I actually think this is a very exciting time to buy him in a keeper league. In a redraft, I think you have to say it's not likely that he's just going to turn on a light switch, get back to a 10% barrel rate, and get on a 30 homer pace the rest of the year. I think you have to take his power output and reduce it, right? So I think that this year, the most likely outcome is he finishes
Starting point is 00:25:51 with a 260 average and 18 homers and 9 steals or 10 steals. I think that'll still return a fair amount of value to people. It's better value than than say like a custom hero um who was drafted similarly right yeah they were comparable so i think it'll be okay and i think that's a decent floor actually so i'm i'm i put a buy on him i really like his plate discipline and it's very good right now he's a league leader in swing percentage. And so I would say that I love the way that he's making contact. He's got a really good plan at the plate, and he has a history of hitting the ball harder than he is now.
Starting point is 00:26:38 Yeah, I definitely think keeper in Dynasty especially, this is a great window. We're talking about a guy who's 24. He plays up the middle. Even if he moves off shortstop to play second base the pool of great second baseman for the next five plus years is surprisingly thin and the window to get him at anything that resembles a discount would close very quickly i mean if he puts together a stretch in may and june that even looks more like typical glaber it's not a full bounce back but a step in the right direction. That window is going to close very quickly
Starting point is 00:27:06 because expectations were high. He's still going to have Baltimore in August, right? He just hasn't had it yet. It's coming. So I'm in on Torres as well. And I'd be patient. I think in redraft, yeah, you lower that ceiling a little bit,
Starting point is 00:27:19 but I still think you're at a point where you're most likely going to get him at enough of a discount where it still makes sense to trade for him even in redraft situations as well. So in on Glaber, that is the official stance of the show at this point. All right, let's talk about Robbie Ray. He was another player that was asked about with an email came in from Max in San Francisco. And Robbie Ray is one of the more frustrating pitchers
Starting point is 00:27:47 in the league to have on your fantasy team. We have one amazing season. We have plenty of years with lots of strikeouts. And we've even got partial seasons where he's looked like he's figured some things out only to blow up and disappoint everybody. What's interesting to me is that we're getting the great ratios from Robbie
Starting point is 00:28:06 Ray right now. 314 ERA, 115 whip through five starts, 29 Ks in 28 and two thirds innings. So actually a pretty good drop in strikeouts for him, but he's not walking guys the way he used to. A 7.8% walk rate is more than cutting the walk rate in half from the shortened season. This is a guy that's run a double-digit walk rate four years in a row going back to 2017. So I can take this version of Ray, which also comes with a lot of home runs, if he's not going to walk guys and he's still going to miss bats at a good clip.
Starting point is 00:28:37 It's not the peak Robbie Ray, but this might be a lot more sustainable in the long run. Yeah, it is interesting. I think that if you look at stuff in location plus, the last three starts have been above and beyond way better than the first two starts. And with the stuff, I think it's just his fastball has gotten a little bit harder.
Starting point is 00:29:06 You can see he's actually throwing among the hardest, like some of the fastest fastballs he's thrown in his career. So he's doing good Velo-wise there. And his breaking ball got harder too. So that's two things that would affect his stuff number positively. On the location thing, we've got a graphic. Let's check it out. First two starts.
Starting point is 00:29:29 Oh, face off. The first two starts, that's what his fastball command looked like on the first two starts. You see a scattered heat map. He's trying to go inside to righties. He's throwing low in the zone. It's kind of all over the place. And then here's his next one. Boom.
Starting point is 00:29:49 I think it, it looks a little bit like the glass now thing where they're like, don't worry about in and out. We're going to keep you up and down and you're, you're going to throw at the top of the zone and you're going to throw low in the zone and you're just going to keep them going up and down. and you're just going to keep him going up and down. And so it's a much more clustered, like centralized cluster, and it's also higher in the zone on average.
Starting point is 00:30:16 I think those things can help him, and it hopefully will lead to some weak fly ball contact. It's also leading to homers, but he's a guy who'll give up homers all the time anyway so i think that um i think that at this point we can say okay he's maybe he's gonna have uh one of the better walk rates of his career let's let's give him that let's say that there's a there's a fundamental shift in philosophy and how he's pitching and um let's give him you know at least 1.5 homers per nine because that's how he lives his life, two-pitch pitcher who throws high in the zone.
Starting point is 00:30:50 I think that he could give you something like what Zips has planned, a 4-3 ERA, a bunch of strikeouts, and a homer and a half. Yeah, it's weird to see a system with a sub-4 ERA projected, but steamers down there at 380 with a 127 whip. I mean, that seems like the best-case scenario. Giving him his best walk rate of all the different ones. But I don't know. It also gives him a 1.28 homers per nine,
Starting point is 00:31:18 and you have to go back to 2017 to find that for him. But maybe the run environment, I don't know. But he's giving up nearly two right now and that's kind of in line with his recent work so somewhere somewhere in between that steamer and that zips projection is where i land i really need to read the max email because he describes the robbie ray experience as he screams like monica sellis on release which he does he probably is the loudest grunter in the league. He does.
Starting point is 00:31:46 Throws FU gas down the pipe, never walks anyone, and does it all in an obscenely tight uniform. Those pants are so tight, it looks like they're disappearing into his butthole. It looks like there's a shrink machine in his butt, and it's pulling the pants all the way in there. Needs to be more pants where there's not enough pants. That's the visual that I need to give to people,
Starting point is 00:32:08 but they're tight, and it's fun. Yeah, and I think that goes in line with the heat maps. He is just kind of being like, hey, do something with this. It's 95, 96 now. Thank you for not mocking up a graphic of what is happening with ravi ray's pants because i feel like that'd be bad for the youtube viewers to have that going on let's move on to dylan cease manny wants to know if we're seeing anything different in his performance that is encouraging obviously with cease blocks are key but is that the crux of whether or not he can take the next step here in 2021 yeah i i wrote up cease uh in my picture report that came out on friday um there's been uh a
Starting point is 00:32:54 mechanical change he he's kind of like stays back and upright a little bit longer um there's been a command plus change which is kind of hard to affect. That number is pretty static year to year. And he went from 83, which is future reliever, to 91, which is kind of like you Darvish territory. Like, if the stuff is good enough, he'll be fine. And he also starts when he doesn't throw his changeup, which I think is just a bad pitch, even though it kind of looks okay, in starts where he doesn't throw the changeup, he has a stuff number over 120. So in the slider and the foreseam, he has two pitches with a stuff number over 130.
Starting point is 00:33:45 So I don't want him to become only a two-pitch pitcher, but the changeup has a stuff number of 39, and the knuckle curve has a 63. So I would just use the knuckle curve as the changeup and ditch the changeup entirely, I think. Yeah, I have shades of Robbie Ray, young Robbie Ray, still bouncing through my head looking at these walk rates. For Dylan Cease. I realize Ray's a lefty, Cease is a righty, but a guy that has missed plenty of bats so far but just
Starting point is 00:34:11 doesn't get the results you'd expect because the command is so shaky, that's a profile that's often worth betting on. Are you more likely, if you're choosing in a shallow mixed league, if Cease and Ray happen to be on the wire in like a 10-team league or if you're choosing in a shallow mixed league, if Cease and Ray happen to be on the wire in like a 10-team league, or if you're thinking about trading for one of these guys, is it Cease by default because he's younger and we haven't seen him struggle with these issues at this level for as long as Ray has? Or would you be more inclined to go after someone like Ray,
Starting point is 00:34:37 who maybe in this limited last few starts has actually started to show some of the improvement that he needs to show to finally sort of kick these issues aside. I hate to be a cop-out, but I think I'll use the schedule as my cop-out. Cease is much more likely to have a bunch of Kansas City starts and in Cleveland, in Kansas City starts that are going to be a lot easier to take than deciding whether or not to throw Robbie Ray
Starting point is 00:35:05 in Baltimore in August or in New York when that team is firing on all cylinders. So I'll take Cease by virtue of schedule. But philosophically, I have to admit, I tend towards Cease types. I think I'm like everybody. We're chasing that dreaded upside always. The stupid U-word strikes again. It applies to this next guy we're going to talk about, Tristan McKenzie, who's had all sorts of issues with walks. John wrote to us wondering what's going on here. He writes, looking at his strike zone plots,
Starting point is 00:35:43 it looks like he's missing more with all of his pitches compared to last year, but he especially seems to be missing with his fastball and he's throwing it 67% of the time this season compared to 53% last year. What causes a pitcher to lose command like this? Injury, mechanics, or both? Do you think you can fix it in season without significant time on the IL or in the minor? So really good question from John. I mean, I watched McKenzie start. It would have been a week ago Saturday, so nine days ago against the White Sox, and it was fastball heavy. It was 90 to 92 most of the time, missing by miles. It was not young pitcher getting squeezed, young pitcher trying to go in or up and missing just off the zone. It was throwing non-competitive pitches, which definitely gave me some pause. than he has, I thought the sky was the limit.
Starting point is 00:36:44 I thought they could have him take a huge step, and maybe other than some concerns about his workload from the lat injury he had a couple of years ago and the shortened season, of course, being more impactful for a guy like him than some other guys, that was really my only concern. Command, I didn't think was going to be a problem for him, and it's been a bit of a train wreck to this point. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:37:13 wreck to this point yeah uh overall his uh command plus is i was looking at the breakdown by pitch and it's it's ugly but overall it's still not very good either uh it's an 82 overall remember what i said about the reliever shelf uh being around 90 and then it doesn't get better when you go on a per pitch level because the two pitches he pitched the commands the worst are the four seam and the slider which is kind of modern baseball and he's got an 81 command plus on the four seam and a 76 on the slider so he's missing a very key component uh when it comes to uh when it comes to modern baseball. He needs to have something he can command in the zone. His slider is not that hard either,
Starting point is 00:37:53 comparatively, I guess. And so his stuff number is not great, and it's gotten worse with every start, which is kind of the tristan mckenzie story right he came burst on the scene average 94 i think in his first start and then every start after that you know less velo less velo less velo and this year he debuted uh with 100 stuff plus and hasn't sniffed a hundred since so i i'm looking around for something to be excited about and i don't i don't know what it is the slider is the only pitcher with pitch with a stuff plus number over 100 and he can't command it right i think he's
Starting point is 00:38:40 i don't know i think he's kind of stuck i don. I don't know. It seems to me to have something to do with his frame and his ability, his durability and his ability to keep Lilo up. I think the tricky thing here, if you still have him, you're probably keeping him in your lineup for this week because he's at Seattle, and that's a brutal lineup right now. But you go to next week, he's got the Angels. There's no way I'd start him against the Angels at this point. And I think if you're looking at him as a guy that is showing such sketchy stuff and command right now,
Starting point is 00:39:12 that probably makes him a drop in any sort of redraft league other than like an AL only league. I mean, I think Seattle is your last ditch effort. What I'm a little afraid of is he comes out and looks really good and strikes eight guys out over six innings, gets a win. It might be tempting to try and hold on to him, but even if he pitches well in his start this week, he's a bench guy next week against the Angels. You need to see some consistency if you're going to hold on to him. You cannot throw him against an above average lineup like the Angels. That's even accounting for injuries with Rendon not being there right now and that lineup not being at full strength.
Starting point is 00:39:48 I still think that's a matchup to avoid with a guy like McKenzie. Yeah, the only thing I'd be tempted about is to maybe have him. I do have on a lot of teams these team streamers, as Paul Spora calls them, where you've got them on your bench and you use them some weeks and you don't use them other weeks. So I kind of think that's where he lives right now. So you might want to nurse him through that angel start, see what happens in that one,
Starting point is 00:40:13 and see if the next week maybe provides you a double start that you want. But a lot of times I notice with these guys, the double start comes and you're like, oh, like Tyler Molle has start comes and you're like, oh, like, um, who's this? Tyler Molly has, um, Pittsburgh. And you're like, oh, and then he's like, at Colorado for the second start. And you're like, uh. I think
Starting point is 00:40:33 Molly, and we had a question about Molly on Twitter from Jim. It's really hard to sit him. The first start should be so good that even if the second one is a below average start, it comes out to be two usable starts in the aggregate. Yeah, I'm starting my shares. But yeah, it's brutal when your two-start week comes around and you don't feel great about the
Starting point is 00:40:54 second one, even when you feel great about that pitcher as a whole. Colorado is still one of those short list of places that can pop up that just stop you in your tracks with someone like that. Yeah. And that's why Herman Marquez is getting close to being a dropper for me, except in keeper situations where you're maybe nursing him for a post-Colorado existence, which I think could exist. I mean, at some point they've got to get going, and he's probably one of their better trade ships, honestly. Yeah, I think he is, and I think plenty of teams would be interested
Starting point is 00:41:25 if they know that he's available. Let's talk about one of Tristan McKenzie's teammates, Aaron Savalle, one of the more frequently discussed pitchers on the podcast over the course of its lifespan. But the numbers so far are good. Sub-3 ERA at 291, a 104 whip. The FIP says low-4s ERA is probably what you're going to get because the strikeout rate's been low so far,
Starting point is 00:41:48 and the walk rate is okay, not amazing. If he had an elite walk rate, maybe that would make you feel a little bit better about what he's doing. Home run rates down from last year, just under one homer per nine. Last year, he was at 1.34 homers per nine. A lot of favorable matchups. Probably not a guy that even with those ratios, I'm throwing out there all the time without thinking about it.
Starting point is 00:42:08 But where do you fall right now on Savali? Now that we're just over 175 innings into his big league career. I mean, he is a, an Indian starter. He's an Indian starter. You know what I mean? Like he's a Cleveland starter for sure, because he has a poor fastball uh but he has three of them and he has really good command of his slider
Starting point is 00:42:32 um and that's 117 command plus on the slider uh 101 on the curveball and 101 on the two seam. So, you know, and by stuff, I see a curveball, a splitter, and a cutter that are above average. So the way he's pitching now is the cutter is kind of his fastball. The four seam he uses for whiffs high in the zone after people sort of get lulled to sleep by the cutter. And he uses the split finger and curveball
Starting point is 00:43:03 sort of traditionally as whiff pitches. Overall, good command, not great fastball, not great stuff. There are places where I wouldn't want to start him. Would you want to start him in Chicago against the White Sox? No, I would not start him against the White Sox. I would not start him in New York. I would not start him in Boston. I would not start him in Baltimore White Sox. I would not start him in New York. I would not start him in Boston. I would not start him in Baltimore in August or maybe even now.
Starting point is 00:43:29 So there's at least four or five parks where I don't want to start him. But definitely one of the higher-end team streamers. And if you had to start him every time, I think they would even out in the end because Cleveland is a great place to pitch and he has that command. He has a large pitch mix. So I think if you had to start him every time, it would be all right. It's just going to end up more above four than below three.
Starting point is 00:43:53 Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at the projections seem like they're probably too bearish on him at this point. I think he can beat those projections pretty consistently. All the projection systems at Fangraphs are 450 and above with the ERA. They're in the 130 range for the whip. I think he at least beats the ERA, probably beats the whip too. I think he's more of a 4-125 sort of guy that over a high volume of innings, decent number of wins, ends up being a good net positive sort of pitcher, especially where he was going in drafts this year yeah but uh if you're in a 10 or 12 team like i think this is a great opportunity to shop him yeah i would agree with that if you can find someone willing to maybe package him with someone else and get a nice player back in return i don't know if one for one trades for aaron
Starting point is 00:44:39 savalle are going to bring back something huge but savalle plus something pretty interesting offensively could land you maybe a Gleyber Torres or something along those lines. And if you're listening and you say, well, nobody ever does two-for-ones in my league. I can't do a Savale plus somebody for something. Just do a two-for-two and identify somebody on their team that you drop.
Starting point is 00:44:59 It makes every two-for-one look better. It helps the other person conceive of the the deal and be like oh this is way better than that guy who i was rostering and then on your end you can say well that's a roster spot for me but i'm helping i'm helping the trade look better because two for ones are like oh i got another two for one yeah thanks take the burden of the drop away from the other manager. Right, right, right. And just the two-for-one itself, just the whole format pisses people off.
Starting point is 00:45:32 You're right. I think it does. But thanks a lot for – A little bit different in like AL only, NL only. Depth there matters a lot more, I would say. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks a lot for that question, by the way, Tim. I think Tim was also the one that asked us about Gleyber Torres, who we talked about a little bit earlier in the show.
Starting point is 00:45:48 Kind of weird that I just told him to trade for one of the guys in the email and get another guy back, but that's how things work sometimes. Trade Somali for Torres. I love it. Just a happy coincidence. All right, we had a few more questions roll in. The first one came in from Steve, and we were talking about some non-closer relievers that were pretty interesting, especially like bulk relievers that weren't quite starters.
Starting point is 00:46:15 Jonathan Loizaga was the guy that came up. He's got three pitches and really throwing more change-ups this year. Seems to be bulked up too, at least based on the email that Steve sent us. I know in the past, health has been a major concern for Luizaga. It's a big part of the reason why he hasn't claimed a rotation spot just yet. He's been popping on player raters. When you start sorting by just overall value on a lot of sites, he's one of the first pitchers you're going to see available in a good number of leagues. Do you think there's a starter here in the near future or possibly even a closer years down the line?
Starting point is 00:46:50 I, I mean, I see a starting pitching mix. I mean, it's a little bit hard. The stuff number will change when you go from starting to relieving and relieving back again, because your velocity will go down and,
Starting point is 00:47:03 and you know, that'll change. They'll have some sort of cascading effects. But he's a 111 stuff right now, so there is some sloughing off that can happen, and he'll still be a good pitcher. And what I see are three or four pitches that are good stuff or better
Starting point is 00:47:23 in the foreseeing, the sinker curveball and change so that's a that's a wide enough arsenal and then he commands the fastballs at above average rate by command plus and uh overall his his commands are out average so i don't see anything holding him back from being a starter he's one of my favorite starter eligible uh relievers to kind of plug into a lineup. But I, like, I don't have that much optimism for him ever being a starter because he has one of the more legendary injury sheets in baseball, like ever.
Starting point is 00:47:58 I think he was out. I think he was just hurt for three years. Like if you like, look at his fan graphs page and just try to figure out what happened because he was on the giants but not playing in the minor leagues for like three years let me see if i can get that up see giants you have a thing here 2013 giants rookie ball okay he looked pretty good all, but not a good strikeout rate, but great swing strike rate. And then the next note is 2016 Yankees A ball.
Starting point is 00:48:31 That's just amazing. And even with the Yankees, you know, like 2016 was two innings. 2017 was 30 innings. 2018 was 50 innings. 70 innings. 2019 was 50 innings. 70 innings. 2019 was 50 innings. 23 last year. So I think he's just a guy who's good for like 50 to 70 innings a year.
Starting point is 00:48:55 Well, I think we're at least at a point in the way pitchers are used where they could optimize him and the path for him to be a regular three-inning guy someday still exists. If you look at the game blog, though, he hasn't completed two innings since April 17th. So they're using him just like a regular reliever lately. I think that really hurts outside of leagues that reward holds.
Starting point is 00:49:18 And even for the season, I think he's only got three holds. Well, one of the things that is interesting about him, though, is that he's not the setup guy. He's not one of the things that is interesting about him though is that he's not the setup guy he's not one of the like maybe three best relievers on a team that has a really good bullpen so he is going to rack up some of those wins he'll get some wins he'll get some maybe some long longer saves maybe he will get one of those three inning saves but I think he'll get some wins and holds. And so that's why I like him in SB eligible. That's where I'm using him as like a, just get me, just rack me up a couple of wins. Like by the end of the season, give me five wins
Starting point is 00:49:54 and 10 holds, you know, out of it. And then like really good strikeout rates and, and good ERA and like 55 innings. That's a good thing to sort of like just plug into one of your SP slots and just sort of accrue that. Yeah. I don't know if you could really use him outside of 15 team mixers as that last pitcher. I think anything more shallow than that, maybe in daily leagues,
Starting point is 00:50:16 he's on off the roster a few times. You just throw them in there when you're looking for an extra pitcher that could give you good ratios and a high strikeout rate for the innings that he's out there. But thanks a lot for the question, Steve. We had a question come in about Caleb Thielbar. This came from Sean. He writes, he's 34, spent five seasons away from the majors,
Starting point is 00:50:35 including time in independent ball, and throws a 91-mile-an-hour fastball. However, his strikeout minus walk percentage is a Burns-esque 38.5%, and his best pitch is a slow curve, a 70-mile-per-hour curveball with a really high whiff rate. So what do you think of Caleb Thielbar? Is this just a good, funky reliever that is very effective, or do you see something more there? Yeah, lovely stuff, plus number 130 on that curveball. So it's not all about Velo there.
Starting point is 00:51:08 He's got a good pitch. I can't ignore his history, though, or his age, or the fact that his fastball has a below-average stuff number and only goes 91. And then on top of that, there's been some sloughing off in the stuff number recently because I think his velo has dropped a little. In his last start, it was 90.
Starting point is 00:51:42 So that's something to watch. If it stays down at 90 that might uh affect his overall ceiling but uh i think a great find great great development win for the the twins to get this much out of him uh at this point in his career i think it's a lot like the matt whistler situation just you know one really good pitch works fine sixth seventh inning whenever you're just kind of a glue guy that comes in is pretty effective he's cheap so that's obviously important for the team not a guy you can commit to long term but a guy that ends up being a useful part of a of a good bullpen when it's all said and done even though he doesn't have that long
Starting point is 00:52:18 long track record of success uh let's get to some over-unders. This is a fun question that came in from Mike. We should have a song. Over, under, over, under, over. I like it. It sounds like a Hall & Oates song. Did you know that Rich Girl is actually not written about a girl? No. It's written about a guy.
Starting point is 00:52:46 If you change it to rich guy and sing the words, it doesn't quite work. It's something I learned on the Spotify equivalent of pop-up video. If you watch Spotify on Roku to play music, sometimes it just starts to spit out. It puts up the lyrics and then it spits out random facts about the song. It also told me, this is where I also learned that Boys of Summer was a song that was originally written and offered to Tom Petty, and he passed on it. And Don Henley was like, yeah, I'll make that happen. And I just thought to myself, how much cooler would that song?
Starting point is 00:53:22 That song's not bad. And it got covered by the Ataris and was kind of popular again 15 years ago now. That could have been a Tom Petty hit for sure. I think it could have been a Petty hit. I mean, it would sound nothing like the version that Don Henley made, obviously, which sounds like something you'd hear on an episode of Miami Vice. But I've kind of been driving around the car, kind of imagining what the Petty version would have sounded like. And I wish there was some bootlegged concert
Starting point is 00:53:49 where maybe he tried it once or something, but having passed on it, maybe that's bad form as a musician to pass on a song and then to later cover it. Yeah, you probably can't do that. That's probably frowned upon. But let's talk about some over-unders. I don't know where I was going with that exactly.
Starting point is 00:54:09 Oh, yeah, Rich Guy. It's Rich Guy, guy not rich girl even though the song is called rich girl isaiah kiner falafel a player that i've been wrong about as many times as i can be wrong about a player so in in the hall of dvr idiot moves there's a plaque with with Isaiah Kiner Falefa on it, you know, playing and doing productive things for us as fantasy players. Five homers already this season. Over under for the rest of the season would be set at 13 and a half. So basically eight and a half more from this point forward
Starting point is 00:54:37 based on what you're seeing so far. Is there a reason to believe there's actually a little more power in this profile than i and many others previously thought i'm going under there's a bit of a higher barrel rate but unclear if that's been adjusted for the new reality of the ball for his career a very uninspiring barrel rate 1.7 for his career 1 000 plate appearances with 13 homers i mean he's like a 60 ground ball guy no i i i think uh i think he'll end up at like 10 homers and 15 steals. It's a remarkable package
Starting point is 00:55:25 because I think it's only useful in certain leagues. Deep, deep leagues. And in a lot of leagues, he's lost that catcher eligibility. When he was a second catcher option, I didn't even like him then, to be completely honest. But at least I can understand
Starting point is 00:55:38 the rationale of people who did. Like decent adding average for a second catcher. Right, not hurting you as a second catcher and stealing some bases. He's got six steals in seven attempts so far this season. That team stinks. They're going to let him run. If you said over under 13 and a half more steals
Starting point is 00:55:53 the rest of the season, if you said you got to pick an over on homers or steals, I would take the over on steals. I think that's one spot where he can be a little bit better than we expected. Plus he's being very aggressive, and that usually holds. But I'm definitely under on the power even though he's a better player than I
Starting point is 00:56:10 probably gave him credit for previously. Chris Bryant also came up in Mike's email over under 34 and a half home runs. That's for the whole season right? So he's already got a few in the bank he's got nine through 32 games that would give him oh 30 27 26 20 26 more would be the over total to get there so you think brian can get there yeah yeah yeah contract year baby hopefully just healthy but uh best barrel rates of his career. So big that even if you regress it a little bit, I mean, 16% his best before was 11.7%. Even if you regress that a little bit, he's found something. That's how I would put it. He's found something, either health or something mechanically.
Starting point is 00:57:03 So I'm all in. I wonder what his contract is going to look like as a free agent given the up and down nature the ceilings being that of a guy that's been you know a six win player on three occasions those are his first three seasons in the league almost a five win player back in 2019 he's tracking to be a five plus win player in 2021 right even if you slow him down offensively he's already got two almost so i i think that makes him at least a five year sort of player for teams and it's going to be like a 25 million dollar aav i would assume maybe more it'll have to be bigger than
Starting point is 00:57:41 the may the may he won because the may he was way Yeah, so I'm just kind of curious to see how that plays out. Even though I'm wearing the Brewers hat today, I do think a healthy Chris Bryant is just kind of the classic good for baseball. It's good to see Chris Bryant healthy and productive again because he's a really good player. I'm going to take the over on that season-long total of 34.5 because I think he's going to get there. It's going to be close,
Starting point is 00:58:06 but I'm assuming he's staying healthy. How about Jose Barrios? Over under a 27.5% K percentage for the rest of the season. The email from Mike had it at 30, and I felt like 30 is just too much of a leap where I would have to snap take the under, but he's at 27.9 so far this season and that's a career high for him so he's up
Starting point is 00:58:27 from the 23 to 25 percent range so basically will he sustain the k rate that he has now or possibly something better the rest of the way um i'm just mad dude i i had like... Like, I like Jose Barrios. We've talked about Jose Barrios on this. And I think that this year, I have no shares of Jose Barrios for some reason. And I don't know why. Because I've had shares other years. Stuff Plus says,
Starting point is 00:58:59 awesome curveball, average four-seamer, okay, sink or change. Command Plus has always liked him. But I have to admit, as much as I like him, he goes through streaks. And I think this is probably just on one of the better ends of his streaks. I don't think he has to go over 27.5% with the K rate to have the best fantasy season of his career.
Starting point is 00:59:29 That's also true. Even if he just plays his projections the rest of the way, he'll probably have the best fantasy season of his career. If he cuts the walk rate down a little bit and keeps a 25% K rate, that's going to work. He's kept the ball in the park so far. The career best home run rate holds up. That's going to work. He's kept the ball in the park so far. The career best home run rate holds up. That can do it too. I wonder if this season we're getting so far ratios wise,
Starting point is 00:59:51 maybe this is about as good as he can be. A 349 ERA and a 114 whip. If that's his ceiling, I can live with that as someone that's been trying to get the Jose Barrios breakout every year for about four years now. I think this is what I was hoping for last year when I drafted him more often. to get the Jose Barrios breakout every year for about four years now. I think this is what I was hoping for last year when I drafted him more often than I drafted him this year. It's not because I was like, ooh, he burned me. I think it had something to do with where he was available
Starting point is 01:00:20 and where he's being taken and what I was doing at that point. All right. Well, I'm officially going under on 27.5% with the K rate, but that's with the asterisk of I still like him, and I would be happy to have him. But what's interesting, too, is his career number is on 25%, but the league just went from like 23% to 25%, right? So if he was 25% when the league was 23%,
Starting point is 01:00:44 then maybe just 27.5 half is basically the new 25. Just K rate inflation. Yeah. So maybe he's just the same guy. It's just the league striking out more. Yeah. I'll, I'll still take the under,
Starting point is 01:00:57 I can be right at 27.4 and I can, I can claim victory that way. I'll, I'll happily take it. Uh, the last player Mike asked us about was JT Brubaker in Pittsburgh, and I just have JT Brubaker throwing three straight sliders outside the zone to Keston Hira just burned into my memory. Hira flailing at all three of them and just walking back to the dugout like,
Starting point is 01:01:21 hey, what just happened? Why did I do that? But Brubaker looks really good so far kind of on the the consistent list of enos undervalued pitchers and where do we go from here right now he's at 21 with his k minus bb percentage so even like 18 at the end of the year means he's about 16.5% here on out. That gives him quite a bit of buffer. Yeah, the redone Stuff Plus is not as excited as the preseason Stuff Plus because we've been tinkering with it. He has about average Stuff Plus with the two breaking balls are standout. The changeup is about average, and the fastballs are not great.
Starting point is 01:02:06 And I think that's actually, that stuff number fits what he does best. I think he is an average stuff guy with good command. Because if you watch him, his fastballs aren't that great. He's a little bit borderline there. So here's a guy that i'm happy you know i'm happy if if our highlighting him uh led to you rostering him so far um but i also think he's slightly over his skis and would be a decent sell high i think uh if i was projecting him i like steamers 388 era with a 129 whip um uh i could see him being a little bit better than that.
Starting point is 01:02:47 So I think maybe like a 3-7-5, 1-2-5 with a strikeout per inning. I think he can do that. There's just going to be games where people somehow figure out how to attack those fastballs better. Better pirate for the rest of the season, or if they get traded, better pitcher for the rest of the season, Brubaker or Tyler Anderson? I mean, the model loves Tyler Anderson.
Starting point is 01:03:14 I like talking about the model like it's sentient. The model loves Tyler Anderson. Well, I think Brubaker has a more pirish name. He does. Aye, Brubaker has a more Pirish name. He does. I hate Brubaker. If I'm picking, I'm picking Tyler Anderson. Fair enough. I just figured a lot of people probably have them reasonably
Starting point is 01:03:35 close in terms of how they evaluate them and look at their respective strengths and weaknesses. Over-under for me on 18.0 at the end of the season, I'll say slight under here. I don't know why I'm a skeptic on the pitchers. What was the over under?
Starting point is 01:03:50 18.0 what? K minus BB percentage. And he's at? Like 21, I think, right now. Oof, that's exciting. Yeah, it's really good. I just, it's a new level for both. I can't buy the improvement for both just yet.
Starting point is 01:04:09 Yeah, and his minor league career does not support a strikeout rate this high. Yeah. Yeah, if the stuff numbers were better, maybe I'd be a little more inclined to buy in. If he finishes at 15%,16%, that's still good. Doesn't mean he failed. Just more of a number four
Starting point is 01:04:30 starter. He's definitely a major leaguer. Those two breaking balls in this league, that means he's a major leaguer. But I just think that guys with bad fastballs, they just go through stretches where maybe they just lose a little bit of the touch on their slider. They have to go to the fastball and a fastball count and boom,
Starting point is 01:04:47 bad game. Yeah. I'm right there with you. Thanks for the great questions today. There were plenty of them, as I mentioned, and we're always taking questions, rates and barrels at the athletic.com.
Starting point is 01:04:58 If you want to send us an email on Twitter, he's at, you know, Saris, I am at Derek van Riper. If you don't already have a subscription to the athletic, I'm not sure what you're waiting for, but we have a special offer going on right now.
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Starting point is 01:05:23 and you can also support the show by leaving us a nice rating and review if you're enjoying the show on a platform that allows you to do that. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening..

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