Rates & Barrels - Early Draft Season Observations as Spring Training Begins

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Eno and DVR share a takeaways from the early part of draft season as spring training camps get underway, including the benefits of waiting to build a pitching staff (so far), and how looking back at some of last year's biggest rebounds can serve as a helpful reminder of the different sources of late-round value. Plus, they answer mailbag questions about past Tommy John surgeries, possible Astros regret with the Christian Walker deal after Pete Alonso's two-year deal with the Mets, and the dynasty league mindset of trading down a top-tier player to play for the future. Rundown 5:20 What Have You Learned From Winter Drafts? 9:17 Waiting on Starting Pitching Feels Great 16:02 Looking Back at Pitching Rebounds From 2023 to 2024 19:05 Looking Back at Hitting Rebounds From 2023 to 2024 26:45 Watching on Second Catchers is Gross 35:04 Accounting for Tommy John Surgeries Further in the Past 44:03 Do the Astros Regret Their Christian Walker Deal After Pete Alonso's Two-Year Pact? 50:06 Dynasty Trading Mindset: Flipping a Current Top-Tier Player Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Producer Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's free and easy to use, and you can get cash back deposited into your PayPal account or sent to you as a check. It's the smartest way to shop, plain and simple. Start your shopping at rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N.ca. This is an ad from BetterHelp Online Therapy. We always hear about the red flags to avoid in relationships, but it's just as important to focus on the green flags. If you're not quite sure what

they look like, therapy can help you identify those qualities so you can embody the green flag energy and find it in others. BetterHelp offers therapy 100% online and sign up only takes a few minutes. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com. Rugby Rates and Barrels is Monday, February 10th, Spring training is here. Dodgers and Cubs have reported we're 10 days away from a Cactus League game because they are beginning the season early in Japan so everything everything's a couple of days ahead in those camps. Thanks again to our friends, Justin Mason and Jason Collette for stepping in on the Friday show.

You know, thank you to you for doing a great job. Lead host did not do a great job. I enjoyed it. I think a lot of people enjoyed it. I told people to smash the like button for the wrong show. We love sleeper in the bus. You could smash the like button for the wrong show We love sleeper in the bus you could smash the like button Do a great job But because other housekeeping to get to real quick hive mind rankings are all available in our discord join the discord the link in The show description if we get some more participation on relievers

the discord the link in the show description if we get some more participation on relievers starting pitchers and outfielders we can actually turn out some group rankings early next week so jump in do those this week we'll get those rankings turned around for you next week small signings happening around the league i don't know are we going to talk about jason hayward and connor joe the padre is like sure yeah you added a couple guys to your roster nice nice job padres i'm still waiting for the big trade. That's what I think the answer really is in San Diego. So that's the transactional stuff that you guys didn't get to on Friday.

It's happened in a day's sense. It was a pretty quiet weekend in baseball. Yeah, you know, I had the Padres' corner outfield and the Astros' outfield, you know, circled as two places where the teams don't have that much in terms of resources, I think, you know, it's always a guessing game, but they're really tight up against certain rules from baseball in terms of financing, but also the, you know, the different caps and aprons and the luxury tax.

So the way I read it was the Padres weren't going to spend much and the, and the Astros weren't going to spend much after, you know, at this point. And so I was, you know, I thought those were places that there could be some opportunity for maybe some guys in-house to make it happen. I would say the Padres in-house options are worse than the Astros in-house options because I like Jacob Melton a little bit and I think Chas McCormick can bounce back. So there's some stuff that I like. I think Jake Myers has a carrying tool,

which is his defense. In San Diego, they were looking at Ornelas. I just don't think that they were ready to lock that in going into the season. So now they just bought the cheapest platoon that you could put together in Hayward and Joe. And that's your lefty righty platoon out there. I don't know that there's really fantasy opportunity here. Maybe Hayward at 35 gives you 10 homers and a 230 average with non-zero stolen bases. I mean you have to be a pretty deep daily league to want to play him and Joe I think is just gonna face lefties so you know not not a great situation out there but this is what happens when you sign Zander Bogarts to a 300 million dollar

deal. It's the Zander Bogarts slander yet again.ander's slander comes back even has nothing to do with him. It has something to do with him. It's part of the way they spent and then of course the passing of Peter Seidler and now the fight within the family over the club and all sorts of factors now really kind of limiting what they can do with that roster. I think they're limited a little bit. There's a lot of, you know, oh can they trade Suarez or trade season king and I think they're limited a little bit. There's a lot of, you know, oh, can they trade Suarez or trade season king? And I think one of the problems is if they trade Suarez,

I actually don't think that maybe Suarez has the most value on the open market because if you think about it, he's owed money. You know, nine million dollar AV is not nothing and he doesn't have he does have high stuff, but he doesn't have the strikeout rates of a closer. So you know, I think you're limited in selling, you know, a guy that you base based selling to the biggest markets, right? You'd be selling to the Dodgers and the Yankees and stuff. Who else can have like a $9 million setup guy, basically, not a lot of teams.

And so I think that maybe the market for Suarez is limited and then the problem with trading King and Cease is you're worse. So he has to pull some rabbits out of his hat and I think that was what he's trying to do with Hayward and Joe. Well if you want to find a path to make that roster better, I saw those stories about Baltimore being linked to Dylan Cease and the asks that the Padres were making, some of the names at least they inquired about doesn't mean they're trying to get all of them at once. That still looks like the best possible fit if they're going to resolve it on the trade front. But time's ticking now that teams are

starting to report to camp. One of the big things that I want to talk about with you today, you know, for people who are just kind of plunging into baseball today not the Super Bowl has passed pretty uneventful Super Bowl if good if you're an Eagles fan but kind of boring if you're a neutral observer is talking about what we've learned from winter drafts baseball season never stops for us fantasy baseball season never stops for us and we've been doing slow drafts draft and hold formats I just did a 12 teamer with our buddy JH over the weekend so all the formats. I'm rolling over contracts, my keeper leagues, I joined Devils Rejects so everything's been happening for the last couple of weeks where I've been thinking about

every different kind of format. We had auto new cuts and I wanted to ask you what have you learned from winter drafts so far? We have some people listening who maybe haven't gone and listened to all the position previews yet. Just as far as roster construction and observations about the player pool as an entire unit, what have you come away with so far in 2025? I think in terms of strategy,

one of the most obvious things for me is that I'm comfortable waiting on closers. You know, we talked about this in the closer episode, but with Durant and Munoz, you know, you've got guys who have elite results on the field. And what I see is just a whole industry that is spreading the saves around more. And so if you just get a guy who's going to be in the mix for saves and have elite, has elite results on the field and is projected to be elite and has elite stuff, then I think, you know, sort of chasing that guy who's on the team that's gonna, they're gonna give them every saves chance.

I think that's going the way of the dodo in a way. I mean, like there are gonna be some teams that do that more often than others. But I think that, you know, if Daniel Nunez, for example, this year, I think Daniel Nunez on the Mets is a really good reliever. And I think he's healthy enough to maybe throw in winter ball,

meaning that I think he's gonna be to maybe throw in winter ball, meaning that I think he's going to be part of the mix this year. If he is as good as he could be, he could take some safe chances from Edwin Diaz, not because Edwin Diaz is bad, but because teams do this now. You know, we did get the whole like Tanner Scott is in the mix and now we're getting more updates that Tanner Scott is actually the guy. But you don't think Evan Phillips is going to go out there and get a save, you know, when there's three righties in a row that can't handle a sweeper.

You know, there's definitely a trend in baseball where it's not dominated by one reliever. The saves chances are not dominated by one reliever. In the face of that, I'm just gonna get what I think are Elite Relievers and they don't have the same price tag as other guys if they happen to, if people think, oh, the Mariners are gonna mix it around. Well, yeah, do you think Moonyoes is gonna end up with 25 saves and like a two, two, three, oh, ERA?

I do. Yeah, I think that's a reasonable expectation and I'm finding, I still want one, like we talked about on the Reliever episode, one in the circle of trust one out of the first eight or nine because I do think the skills drop off a little bit. You get some major health questions or you get questions about the size of the job share.

Those those pop up pretty quickly at least within that top eight top nine even the guys that share occasionally are still getting 80 percent plus of their team's save opportunities. It's not a 50-50 scenario. As you move further down the board, that starts to become more in play. And that's kind of factoring in job loss and a bunch of other things. You start to lose skills. But I'm with you overall. I think you can wait a little bit longer on relievers because saves are spread out.

To get those second, third options, to get extra depth, to find quality options late seems a bit easier now than it was in the not so distant past. I think you can wait on starting pitching a lot, at least in these early drafts. And we know that as you get more information, as we get velocity reports, as we see workloads. It's a funny cry on. It's a great one. Feels great. We know it feels great to wait on starting pitching.

I have some proof. I'm in a draft and hold with Jason Collette and Paul Spore, who unfortunately couldn't join you guys on Friday. Justin's not in this league. I'm not sure why. He could be. Maybe he's not in yours. But we're doing these drafts all the time, these 50 rounders.

And I went from the 10 spot, the Kyle Tucker team, if you're watching us on YouTube, I went six straight hitters to start in a 15 team league. And then I started loading up on pitching in round seven through 10. So I went Tyler Glass now in the seventh, Grayson Rodriguez in the eighth, Jared Jones in the ninth,

and Tanner Scott in the 10th to get my first closer. closer and I have no regrets and the only thing I'm really wondering about is if that combination becomes impossible to get at those prices the further we move into draft season maybe Jared Jones stays about where he is but I think with glass now and Rodriguez yeah like the first two starters I took like glass now saying his elbow thing at the end of the year was tendonitis If he goes out and proves that this spring price goes way up Grayson Rodriguez healthy this spring price probably picks up a couple of rounds Tanner Scott the more the Dodgers keep talking with him being their primary closer the price goes up

So like Jones might be the only one who sort of stays in the round eight round nine range might be the only one who sort of stays in the round eight, round nine range. But I wonder, are we also gonna benefit doing something like this on a regular basis? Because when you look at a draft board, just look at the big clusters of yellow across the top. There's a bunch of teams that have three pitchers in the first four rounds now.

That's become more common. Oh, look at team one. They have Snell, Classe, Munoz, King and Webb. Just the first six picks with Otani. And again Otani. They got all pitchers. And you got Otani, if all the pitchers you draft after Otani breaks and Otani's healthy,

you may throw Otani for a few weeks. It's a weekly format but I've increasingly found that I want to have a build that does not look like the other teams in my league. I want something completely different. I want to be looking for different things at different times than the bulk of the other teams I'm drafting against. I think it leads you to different corners of the player pool. If you're playing in a league with an overall prize component like some of the NFPC contests, I think it has some value in terms of leverage there. But even in standalone leagues, I think you want to get away from the prevailing, let's build a team this way, sort of mentality that might be permeating most of the other members of

your league. Yeah, looking at your draft board, I really like it. I mean, specifically also because I've been taking burns in the third, but usually later in the third So you would have had to take burns pretty early in the third you had an option to get him in the fourth didn't know you went right before you in the fourth and Burns versus Langford is a tough one anyway, but I probably would have gotten burns there because I just love the health grade and In drafting holds I you know I've been pretty conservative with my first pitcher. The one thing that I would have liked maybe for your team, given the choices you actually

had was maybe, and I know Logan Webb went like eight picks later, but if you put Webb where you had Schwaber, I'd like your staff a little bit better. Because then I think Webb plus Glasnow Rodriguez and Jones is like, there's a little bit of the, what I call the YOLO yo-yo where, you know, you go with, uh, Logan Webb's high floor and innings, and then you add all the strikeouts and some of the risk after that, you know, that's a picking the knits. I also just, I find it hard to build with Schwaber sometimes with the two 10 batting average, but you kept your batting average pretty high at the top. There's always room for just not being a top three

or four in one category and benefiting from that. What do you call it? You call it soft punt. So that's the only knit I'd pick. I think it would look a little better with Webb at the top there, but I do like what you're saying is, is, um, you know, shopping in different places. And, you know, I tend to think of it as, you know, I like to get my third in drafting holes for particular, I like to get my third sort of positions, like in field positions, uh, set kind of early because I want to take, and this is, this goes into my next point, but I want to be left in the bottom of the, like the last 20 rounds. I want to be just taking relievers and like long shots and outfielder. And I want to be able to get, you know, catch whatever's coming,

you know, in terms of where there's actually, Oh, this guy's shouldn't be available here. And it's not what I thought I would be picking right here but I made a build early on where I have my three short stops, I have my three third basements so I can just go and take these guys. Like in a draft I just did I finished because I'd done that and I was I was safe everywhere. My last two picks were Cassie, Owen Cassie and Alexander Canario. And I was just like, Hey, why don't I, I had to say as a Zuki early, this is kind of fun. And I sort of dovetails into my next point is anybody can break out. And that's why I've talked about the YOLO Yoyo. And that's why I talk about Cassie and Canario because everyone sort of thinks Cassie's more exciting.

He's like ranked on, on positional things and everyone sort of like Cassie's more exciting. He's like ranked on on positional things and everyone's sort of like Cassie's the guy but if you actually put up his numbers against Canario what you see is they are both guys who hit the ball pretty hard and strike out a lot and Canario actually has more defensive value he's more likely to be able to play center and then lastly Canario doesn't have an option So I think Canario makes the team and what happens when there's an injury I think a lot of times the guy who's on the team already gets first try or if Suzuki needs a you know blow but doesn't go on the IL who's gonna get a shot Canario. So my point is that you know everyone's excited about Cassie

but Canario could get the first shot and anybody can break out so I made these boards here that this first one is pitching because that's what I was thinking about. These are the pitchers that broke out the most between 24 and 23 and it's using the auction calculator. And at the top is Jack Flaherty who was worth $19 this season and was worth minus $9 in 23. So he gets a big breakout. Then you have Chris Sale, Ronel Blanco, Trevor Williams, Dylan Cease,

Tarek Scoobel, Carlos Rodon, Luis Loverino, Hunter Green, Ronaldo Lopez, Luis L. Ortiz, David Peterson, Brady Singer,

Bryce Miller, Tanner Hauck, Tyler Anderson. And I changed the inflection on my voice to kind of give you a clue as, some of these guys, oh yeah, everyone's in on Scoobel. Everyone loves Cease's stuff. Like, you know, Rodone's stuff is like Hunter Green. Yeah. But you know,

there's all these other guys like Tyler Anderson and David Peterson and Renell Blanco that broke out mostly because of opportunity, right? They're not very good pitchers. You know, they're just guys who were in the right place, the right park, the right time, were healthy enough, had enough command. I mean, there's certain ways you can try to put some stats around this and figure those guys out. But I think mostly it's opportunity.

So when I look, you know, at my last draft, I look at my late pitchers. I got Luis L Ortiz in there, Sean Burke, Osvaldo Bideau, Luis Garcia. I mean, he's just going to come back and pitch at some point, and it's not like he doesn't have a role waiting for him. You know what I mean? Like he's going to pitch for the Major League team. And then I've got guys like Mitch Spence and Randy Vasquez.

And some of them have like a stuff is component but you might be surprised if you look at those guys and look at their stuff rankings or whatever. It's not obvious and they're not pitching prospects. They're not, none of those guys are, Jacob Mizarowski or who are some of the top pitching prospects right know, Jacob Mizorowski or who's, who's, who are some of the top potential prospects right now that we're Jackson Jobe or Noah Schultz. Noah Schultz.

Yeah. Like other people are taking those guys because they think breakouts have to be upside, like upside has to equal breakouts. And my point is opportunity is more important and, opportunity is given to people that have more upside, but not always. Sometimes it has to do with options. Sometimes it has to do with age. Sometimes it has to do with how many innings you put up last year. Do you have the innings on your arm? Sometimes it has to do with contracts. You know what I mean? There's a lot of other things that come into that. And so, you know, I think options are a huge deal. Slade Ciccone has options. So he's going to go back down even if

he's more exciting than, I don't know, Lively or somebody, you know, that's in the top of that rotation. So I think on the hitting side, it's a little bit less obvious, but I think you still see on the hitting side, you know, Aaron Judge broke out, O'Neill Cruz, Colton Cowser. These are top prospects, Mason Nguyen, Elliott Ramos is a little bit of a surprise. Lawrence Butler. But they had power and speed and Shoa Hotani, Elliot L. Cruz. Saddam Rafa'ela was somebody that I touted a lot last year. And it was not because I don't like his plate approach. I don't like him this year as much.

I don't like his plate approach. I don't like him this year as much. I don't like his plate approach I don't think he's actually that defensively versatile. So I'm not touting him again, but last year I touted him because they signed of that deal. He was gonna be on the Major League roster. He had speed He was going really late and there was an opportunity there for him So, you know jerk soon profile there's gonna be veterans this year that are just given the job somewhere and you know Just could have a great year like Joyce and profile. But Jesse Winker is on this list. Josh Smith, that's an opportunity moment, I think. Tyler Fitzgerald just stepped into an opportunity.

Brenton Doyle, to some extent. David Hamilton. So some of these breakouts are pure opportunity, but you'll see that the top of the hitting board is mostly like top prospects who hit the ball hard and are young and play good defensively. Right. Like it's the top breakouts are kind of who we thought they'd be a lot of times. I mean, there's no Jackson holiday up there. And so there are busts among some of those guys. But the top breakouts every year in hitting, I think, come a little bit more

from people we expected to come from. It's the season to shop new styles, electronics, and definitely a holiday trip. And what if each time you made a purchase, you got a little something back? With Rakuten, you can earn cash back on just about anything you buy from over 750 stores. So if you're looking to buy a new phone, clothes,

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Start your shopping at rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure. Stay two nights and get a $50 Best Western gift card. Life's the trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. One thing too, when you look at deep negative values from the

year before, a lot of times it's going to come from guys that were hurt. They didn't play a lot, so they ended up double digits in the red because they played 50 or fewer games and weren't productive during that stretch. And then then they came out played more and played better and then of course returned you know 10 to 15 dollars in value I think those are the those are the kind of the hacks you're looking for the oh this guy was up and didn't do much well okay like what's he gonna do with an actual safe amount of playing time sometimes the roster just opens up it's not even anything the player did it's just somebody moved on via free agency somebody got got traded, somebody got hurt,

and then the full-time role popped up for players like that. I mean, Mark Vientos, right? And I think a big part of our game is trying to find the next versions of those. We're always a little bit hesitant to take a player like Vientos and say, okay, I'm in at full 2025 price after seeing what he could do in 2024

I think the goal is always to find the next one You're gonna do better in the endgame if you can identify players like that. Everyone's kind of like well, of course You're gonna do better not paying full price. There's just still super cheap like Luis L Ortiz. I agree with you I would I was expecting to be like, oh we had the breakout. So is gonna cost more but he's still going in like the had the breakout so he's gonna cost more but he's still going in like the 40th. Yeah I think with Ortiz because it wasn't in a full-time starting role that was probably part of the reason people haven't gone all-in just yet. I think the second reason is it still came with a 19.2% K rate. You can put up good ratios but if you're under 20% for a K rate, I think that's going

to generally keep people from going really aggressive. Thinking about a pitcher though that fits the bill perfectly from that first board. If you're looking at 2024 negative value players that could be good in 2025 just by finding an opportunity. And the other way to think about them too is to look at guys in new organizations who might have new pitching coaches, new voices in their ears just giving them something different in their game plan or in their arsenal. Griffin Canning makes a lot of sense right we saw a Mets pitcher David

Peterson on the list that you put up but like Griffin Canning getting a fresh start with the Mets seems like it's only a good thing it's a great home ballpark it's an organization that has I think a better plan for pitching now than it has had in a long time. If you look at Griffin Canning's career two years ago in 2023, 25.9% K rate, a career high for him in the big leagues with a 6.7% walk rate, a career best. Lots of swinging strikes, just wasn't getting the results you'd expect. The one good thing he did in 2024, 171 and two thirds innings, when you do that with a low K rate and bad ratios, you pop up as a big negative on the player rater. But I generally like Griffin Canning as one of those what could go right

late darts. A guy that looks ridiculous on the surface, has bad projections for the most part, but actually could be sneaky good. Yeah. I tend to think of somebody like Randy Vasquez on the, on the Padres because he does have an option left, but the team doesn't really have any other options. I mean, right now Vasquez is their fourth starting pitcher ahead of Waldron. And they've kind of traded away a lot of their starting pitching depth. So I don't even know that there's a great prospect that's pushing any of them for their roles right now. Maybe they'll go and buy a veteran and maybe Vasquez has to, you know, use that one option

and go down, but I think they don't have much money. And then Vasquez himself has certain things that are kind of in his favor. A 102 Stuff Plus is not amazing, but if you kind of look at the breakdown, you realize, oh wow, he has an average, an above average four seamer by Stuff Plus and above average sinker by Stuff Plus and above average curve ball, above average cutter by Stuff Plus and above average slider. So you're like, this is a wide mix. And then you look over at the

arsenal metrics that they've got at BP and he's near the top. He might be number one. He's tied for, you know, pitch type surprise, pitch type probability. So like, like biggest mix, he surprises people. He has a really huge movement separation between all his pitches and he has a, he has like a 80th percentile, 90th percentile velocity spread among his pitches. So what he's missing is, and it's pretty obvious if I've, if I just told you that he has all these things and he's so great, what he's missing is touch, you know, and he doesn't have bad walk rates. He doesn't have great location plus type numbers.

Sierra's not saying that he's a sleeper at all. The strikeout rates haven't been good, but he had better strikeout rates of the minors. And I think it's just in terms of unlocking how he uses his separate pitches and that last little bit of touch and feel that I think there's something there. And more importantly, there's opportunity on On the hitting side, you know, and anyone can break out a name for me is Alejandro Kirk, who has ended up being my second catcher in both of my draft and holds so far.

And you made a comment about people got traded away, like they were up, they weren't great, you know, and then people got traded away from their situation. Well, Danny Jansen's gone. Alejandro Kirk is gonna get, you know, all the plate appearances he can eat. I see still a great contact rate and you know, max EVs that suggests that. You know, he could hit 20 homers if he turned more of those max EVs into,

into a high line drives and fly balls and barrels. So a lot of good under the hood here. And he's a really good defensive catcher. So they're gonna say, hey, worst case scenario, we'll put a league average bat in with a great glove and he just plays as much as he wants to, I think. One related observation I've had in my early drafts is waiting on that second catcher in two catcher leagues

is kind of gross. Alejandro Kirk is one of the few guys I like. There's been a last chance saloon moment where I'm like, oh, Jeffers went, better go get Kirk. Right, and I've had that happen a couple of times where I've been kind of waiting to get someone like Kirk. I like Patrick Bailey fine, because he's going to play a lot.

I still probably like Bo Naylor more than most people, but I feel like it's risky, and then I have to draft a third catcher that I think is going to play a lot, and it's like, oh, now I'm allocating resources towards catcher I don't want. So I do think I've confirmed my ideal plan in a few drafts of getting someone a little bit earlier

for that second catcher spot. If I can get two out of the top 15 on my board at catcher, I think I'm a little better off than if I wait and try to play that game. Because someone else might like Kirk, someone else might like Bailey. That little run might happen. Or I might have a greater need of my roster than second catcher. I think that's what I've found too is that with some of my

builds I'm too light on starting pitching, I've made me a third closer already because I wait a little bit longer on closers or there's a corner or middle problem or I need some speed that I can rely on. I'm just finding that when I wait too long on catchers I don't like it, I'd rather address that and not have someone that might be in a 50% job share, that has strikeout problems, or just offers all sorts of downside at what is kind of a sneaky high price

when you look at some of the alternatives. I like so many other players that go in that pick 250 to 350 range at other positions. I don't wanna take a catcher in there, especially when it's rarely a player that I like. pick 250 to 350 range at other positions, I don't want to take a catcher in there, especially when it's rarely a player that I like thinking about a hitter, bad, bad hitter. I think we're going to do this in the form of a draft at some point, we're going to draft players with bad projections on the show, kind of build a whole episode around that.

Got to iron out some specifics like we're going to pick a projection set, chop off all the players that good projections and then just see who can do the best out of guys with high ERAs, low strikeout rates, all that. Should be a good time. The 700 OPS crowd? Yes, under 700 OPS. We'll have some filters, I think, to knock that down. Like the worst hitter from last year that I keep drafting.

Hmm, who would that be? Jake Myers. Jake Myers is for you? And I think that what you might learn from it is that defense matters. Especially one of my favorite things to do in outfield late in these draft and holds is draft center fielders. So I've ended up with Siani and Jake Myers and guys where the glove will get them out there and I think you can learn something from Kevin Kiermaier's career,

which is, you know, the glove can keep you out there. You know, it can be overrated when the bat's really good and people are like, I don't know where he'll play. If the bat's really good, they'll play you somewhere. But it's almost the same as if the glove is really good. It may be that Siani's glove is so much better than Victor Scott's glove, that Siani gets that job. Or Scott's bat's just not ready yet. And that could be part of the equation too. An actually bad hitter or just a guy

that didn't play a lot last year. I think the guy that I still really like is Christian Encarnacion Strand. He fits perfectly into the, doesn't have to be amazing to pop up on next year's hitter board because he was worth like Minus sixteen dollars. He only played a handful of games hundred and twenty three at bats or something Was hurt when he played and I liked him last year and now you're getting a pretty big discount still in the same park Are we that worried about playing time?

I mean if he hits I think he plays. Like Jammer Candelario isn't that scary. They've got Noivia Marte as a big question mark also in that corner mix. Their DH situation. You know, Fraley. Fraley's fine against righties, but he can play some in the outfield. It just seems like it's a soft enough depth chart where if Christian Encarnacion's strand is healthy, that should be a pretty good bounce back candidate for 2025 that just had a really lost 2024. They were a sort of sneaky bad offense last year. Once you kind of account for the park, which I think screws up a lot of the analysis, they were, they had an 87 WRC plus and were the 26th best offense.

So if somebody comes and has a big stick, they're gonna put them in the lineup. They're gonna figure out how to do that. I agree with that one. One thing I've been learning is that the yolo yoyo has been really good for draft and holds. I don't know if it'll continue to be something that I care about as much in other leagues. But in draft and holds, I don't know if it'll continue to be something that I care

about as much in other leagues, but in draft and holds, one of the things that's really tough is that you want to make sure you have the plate appearances. You want to make sure you have coverage at all the positions. You want to make sure you have floor. That's where it becomes really important to me that like anybody can break out. So, you know, you can't just be chasing prospects. If you need coverage at short you know, you can't just be chasing prospects. If you need coverage at short or whatever, you can't, like if you have a shortstop and then you have two prospects behind him at shortstop,

you're in trouble. You know what I mean? So you kind of need somebody who's gonna play. So the way that the YOLO yoyo has really worked out for me is like my third and fourth shortstops in the strafing hold are JP Crawford and Marcel Omeyer. That's like an example of the YOLO yoyo, which is like JP Crawford is going to play and he might not be boring. It might be pretty boring.

May not have the upside. He could still break out. We've had, we've had a breakout season from him specifically, but mostly it's just about, hey, having a major league shortstop. And then Marcelo Meyer, you know, people are, you know, not as up. We heard Keith Law himself say there's some real flaws in there. We've even heard the team say he might play at some different positions However, I think Trevor story at shortstop is a little bit of a pain point for the Red Sox I think he might not be a great defensive shortstop

He's getting to the point where he's the age where people move off a shortstop So that's the the upside but at third base. I have Miranda, Ezekiel Duran, and Jose Miranda, Ezekiel Duran, and Jace Young. And that's another version of the sort of yoyo, where they each have different amounts of opportunity and playing time available to them and what they can do with it. But they're sort of 90th percentile projection. Ezekiel Duran probably has the most boring 90th percentile projection, but he's gonna be on that roster. If you look at the way that roster is built,

he is the backup at like five different positions. So I think he makes the roster. Him and Josh Smith are like the backups on that team. And they're both, I think, good pickups for late, because we've had a lot of injury from those guys. Adolis Garcia is getting older. Evan Carter is coming off a big injury. You know, I think Simi was playing through some injury last year.

So there's definitely something there where you can just take a backup like that and pair him with someone like Jace Young, who has to play his way into more playing time, maybe because there are guys in his way. But if he's anywhere as good as his brother, like there are some similarities, it's not just the name. It would be, I think, really tough for Jace Young if the Tigers are the team that swoop in and get Alex Bregman late in free agency. I think that would be the kind of move

that would really hurt him, but if you are convinced that Bregman goes back to Houston or just doesn't go to Detroit, then I think you're dead on. I think Jace Young, at least for some prolonged stretch, has a meaningful big side platoon role for the Tigers. I believe that Bregman does not really want to sign with Detroit because of the park factors. I think that's pretty logical,

especially if it's a short pillow deal too, right? If he's got to go out and prove it somewhere else outside of Houston and then try to get a bigger payday next winter, if he's going to be in that group of players then yeah that's not exactly the first place you would want to pick to try and boost up value or sustain value for a one year deal. We've got a bunch of mailbag questions today. We should dig into some of these because they have been piling up during our position preview

series. Let's get this one, this one's from Darren. Darren wanted to know, how we view starting pitchers far removed from past Tommy John surgeries. Does it give you confidence they're so far beyond the previous surgeries or are you wary there may be a shelf life on the procedure's effectiveness?

And in the Discord, Darren compiled a pretty big list of guys that were like eight plus years away from TJ. It's a ton of different names, right? It's all the way from Colin Ray to Patrick Corbin. Guys that we've forgotten, basically, that had TJs, because it was so far into the past. So how much does that matter? We talk a lot about recent TJs.

We're always looking at guys that were down last year, two years ago, and say, okay, now they're two years removed. They're fully back to their normal workload, their stuff came all the way back, but what do you think about the ones that are further in the rear view mirror? There used to be this concept of the Tommy John honeymoon

where they had four or 500 innings in between, like after their first Tommy John, where they weren't likely to have another one, but I don't think that that's necessarily held up to more scrutiny in terms of research because we've had revisions. So some guys will come back for a little bit or try to be making their way back and then have to have to go back on the night for a revision and it can happen any time again. I mean,

like Spencer Strider did not have 500 innings between his Tommy Johns or whatever it since between his Tommy Johns or whatever, since between his elbow surgeries, whatever, however you. And I think it actually, even the internal brace stuff makes it hard for us to know how we're counting internal braces. Are those Tommy Johns or not? Because he didn't have a full tear, Strider didn't, but he did have enough to miss a lot of time and have an elbow surgery that basically counts as Tommy John. So, any case,

I would say that just putting more time in between you and the last Tommy John suggests that maybe you found healthier mechanics and you found a good place and that you're fine. I would think that, and this is a little bit just sort of conjecture, but I would just say every year is a good one. Yeah, every year further removed is good and you're not really, after, I don't know, three or four years, I think you almost forget about it to some degree, because you've held up long enough. I can speak from a piece of knowledge, using Jeff Zimmerman's health grades,

I know how his health grades work, and so if you have had tummy John or if you had had an arm surgery, anything like that sticks with you your whole career in the health grades. So it will change your health grade if you have had Tommy John. But he also puts more weight on injuries in the last two seasons. So there is a tension between have you ever had surgery, then you're probably you're capping

out at maybe a B plus. You know, that's if you're looking at health grades and you're like, why does Zach Wheeler, you know, right now still have like kind of a B ish health grade. And that's why, cause he he's had the surgery. You also get worse grades from people who've had injuries in the last two seasons. Right. And I'm that Wheeler example is a great one because I think a lot of people have just forgotten about it, or if you're relatively new to fantasy baseball, you just oh yeah.

Back in March of 2015, Zach Wheeler needed Tommy John surgery and it took him a while to get back. He had a setback. I think he lost all 2016 as a result of that. But I don't think about that at all with Wheeler anymore. I mean, it's it's like a back burner. Oh yeah, that happened. I ding him partial grade, but not enough to be meaningful at that point. It's enough for me to have them third. You have them third on your rankings.

Yeah, like it's very, at the very top you have to pick some nits, you know. Rankings published day, which day is that? Wednesday! Wednesday, okay. Yeah, I'm furiously trying to finish all the blurbs and That's what's on the table for me today Awesome well a lot of the guys that if you look at the full post on discord a lot of them you guys you forgot I had Tommy John some of them don't throw particularly hard though either I think that's the other variable that that kind of gets mixed in there. It's like well, okay, Logan Webb

Like I'm not really worried about Logan Webbs past Tommy John surgery because he's not really out there trying to throw 97 he just doesn't do that I just look at him as like this innings eater that has a different approach has found some fastball velocity is in the health Grades yeah I almost think the weight of fastball velocity for me is still probably greater than past TJ's once you get past like your three I've done this before and we've talked about like sometimes it's relative velocity who's throwing closer to their max. But we we did.

You know, there's been some research being done that that shows that they could not better predict injuries by looking at how close you throw to your maximum. And that just overall velocity was a better, a better metric. If we just look at like, for example, if we look at 2023 and we look at the guys who threw the hardest in 2023 on their fastball, the list is not super nice in terms of injury. Sandy Alcontra, Spencer Strider,

Hezlou Luzardo, Garrett Cole, Luis Castillo is the only one who stayed healthy, George Kirby stayed healthy, Johan Oviedo, Tommy John, Zach Wheeler's there, Fromber's been good, Logan's been good, but Kodai Senga is next, Blake Snell is on this list,

Hunter Green is on this list. It's the Swiss Army flags, you know? All the injuries that you can see here. But Bobby Miller got hurt. Grayson Rodriguez missed time last year. He's on this list. Shane McClanahan, TJ. Shohei Otani, TJ. Tyler Glass now is on this list. So it's a minefield when you're throwing hard. The problem is that the guys who throw hard are the guys who can get 30% strikeout rates and have the elite numbers.

So you still have to shop in that bin. But this has been part of where the YOLO YOLO has come up for me too. I need to have my high strikeout rate guys. I need to have my glass nows and snels and I need those guys. But I'm going to pair them with some high floor guys. I want to put this board back up from earlier in the show just for a second. I wanna ask you, can the YOLO yo-yo

include the man on the flying trapeze because the roster I talked about before, Glassnow, Grayson Rodriguez, Jared Jones, who throws very hard, healthy last year though, Shane Baas, Nick Lodolo, those are my first five starting pitchers in this league. I have not yo-yo'd back yet. Am I simply performing a more dangerous trick

or a higher difficulty trick with the yo-yo because obviously I'm going to backfill with a lot of safer, air quotes, oatmeal-y or boring pitchers as I round this thing out. But they are available. I mean, Mitch Spence, Javier Asad, like, you know, those guys are all available later. And they don't, and other teams who maybe were more conservative, like the yolo yoyo can't just have a larger time component to it, in other words, you know?

Like you're in the middle of the yolo still. And you're probably, I think it would be smart for you to YOLO, but another thing that you could do is just maybe you can do something with multi-eligibilities on the hitting side, or you have fewer relievers or something to where you just throw more quantity at this problem, right? So you're just like, I have took a lot of upside guides,

but I also took 15 SP. Normally I sort of aim for around 13, right? But if you just took 15 SP, that gives you two more chances to have healthy pitchers at the right time. Yeah, that was my thought, was like, okay, you don't have to go back and forth consistently pick by pick. Sometimes you can just go boring for a while

and then take all your shots late, or you can take more shots early and make sure you just backfill with the boring options late. Or you can take more shots early and make sure you just backfill with the boring options late. Yes, will Griffin Canning and Randy Vasquez probably both end up on this team? There's a good chance that that'll happen. But thanks a lot for that question, Darren.

I think the main takeaway is the further away that Tommy John surgery is, the less we tend to worry about it because once you get past three years or so, you almost forget they happened in a lot of different cases. Got another question here. This one's from Brock Ness Monster. Do you think the Astros might have any regrets about their Christian Walker deal after seeing how free agency played out for Pete Alonso? And I think this is almost a great question for Brock Ness Monster.

I think we've seen in first pitch before in Arizona. Thanks for the question, Brock. I think this is kind of like when you're at your own auction and you got to make a decision on a player and you say, okay, I got 20 bucks on my sheet for Walker, I'm gonna get him for 18, hour goes by, people spend a lot and Pete Alonzo comes up and Pete Alonzo goes for 18 also.

And you say, hmm, that really stinks. Dollar for dollar, I'd rather have Pete Alonzo than Christian Walker. Well, at the time, you assumed that Pete Alonzo was gonna go for 22 bucks or 24 bucks, and you felt like you were getting a good price on Walker. I think something similar probably happened here. Now, this is not anything I've read in a report.

This is pure speculation. My guess, Eno, is that when free agency started, if the Astros inquired about Pete Alonso, the number of years and the total outlay it was going to take was greater than what they ended up giving to Walker. At the time, their expectation internally was probably not the final outcome for Alonso,

so if they were interested in Pete Alonso, I don't think they thought this was a realistic scenario. Otherwise, yeah, maybe if they could swap, they would on those deals. And also, we don't know if the interest was mutual, right? We don't know if Pete Alonso even wanted to go to Houston. I think that was sort of this lingering thing I've wondered about the entire time Pete Alonso has been out there. I'm like, does he really want to leave the Mets? It kind of just seems like these two need each other more than they want

to admit. But what do you think about the premise? There's also, I would say, some payroll situation, good stuff going on here where maybe, they have obviously said stuff like, oh, well, if Alex Brightman wants to come back, then we'll go past the first apron. But right now, they're at 237 million, and the first apron for the luxury tax is 241.

So to some extent, there would have been more ramifications for signing Pete Alonso than Christian Walker. The contracts seem close, but in terms of A, B, they're not. And they would basically have had to go into the luxury tax to take Pete Alonso, whereas they didn't for Christian Walker. And that seems to be important to them. So I don't know if you can really just say, oh, it's six of one and a half dozen of the other

as much as I think the AVs on those deals make them different. But yeah, I think another way I think about this is I'm a little bit too likely to hold a guy in auto-new. It's been bad for me in terms of my gameplay. One of the things I say is, oh, this guy will go for that if I throw him back.

And that happens all the time where you throw a guy back and you're like, oh, guess I should have kept him because, but that's not, I think the right way to think about it, which is that you can throw a guy back and maybe you can get him back at the same price or maybe it opens up that money that you have opens up opportunities. And maybe have opens up opportunities and maybe it's not opportunities that aren't even at that position.

Maybe it's like, oh, you find, oh, well, people threw back a lot of second baseman and you know what I mean? Like you have just more options. You have money at the thing and you can find that production at a cheaper rate if you throw that guy back. If the projections or whatever you're looking at suggests that you shouldn't keep him. So that's a little bit of like,

they could have waited longer, right? They didn't have to make that decision just then, unless the agent's like, well, the Yankees are calling. That's the whole bit of information that we don't have in each of these scenarios. How many other teams were interested where were they at in The process which teams were the player interested in like that could be a huge factor It's one of the only times some guys get to choose where they go

So I think that matters a lot too by projections. It's interesting Christian Walker projected for a 235 315 439 line this season by the bat X Which is nice and up on fan graphs as well. So we got that to add to our projection shelf 29 homers Pete Alonso 246 332 480 34 homers difference of 12 points of WRC plus favoring Pete Alonso I think by WRC plus Pete Alonso is projected to be the fifth best first baseman this year from the bat X.

Three ahead of him makes sense. One still kind of breaks my brain. You wanna take a shot at these real quick? Is Yandy the one that breaks your brain? Yeah, Yandy's the one that breaks my brain. Like Vlad Jr., yeah, Bryce Harper, yeah, Freddie Freeman, yeah, and then there's Pete. He's right next to Matt Olson.

Again, actually five points better than than Matt Olson and I know you guys talked about it for a bit on Friday I mean I think that the little discount you're getting on Pete Alonso probably will go away he'll creep up a little bit in ADP maybe seven to ten picks between now and the end of March but man if you told me Pete Alonso is gonna come out and hit one homer this year for every million guaranteed on that two-year deal so you could opt out of it. I wouldn't push back on that at all.

I still think that power ceiling is there for Alonso. There might be some pangs of regret on some level. I think also you never just, you never knew, you could join the Pete Alonso circus. You never knew how that was gonna actually end up. True. Yeah. Could get strung along, could use this leverage and then miss out in the end and then someone else like the Yankees sweeping on Walker And who's your it's kind of why the Mets ended up with him, right?

Because they were like well, we actually have a pretty good team without you like we're not desperate Yeah, yeah But I'm big fan of Pete Alonso for this year in particular really like where he's going right now still like him Even if he does creep up seven to 10 picks as I suggested before. Thanks again for that question Brock. Got one here from LJPolite in our Discord. Hope I'm getting that right. LJ wants to know, how do we think about dynasty trading mindsets? One example, contemplating tearing down, easy for me to say, from a superstar like Ronald Lacuna Jr. Knowing he can break fantasy feels tough Especially if you haven't won your league yet, how do you address a situation like that?

Where you've got a very very high-end player. You're probably not going to win the league with that player as your core How aggressively do you seek to move a player like that and get enough of a return to actually? Make a run in the near future. It might be a flaw of mine, but I just hold on to those guys. Oh my heart. And I'm just like, you got a chance. Like just try to build around it. Just pick up high variance prospects and guys around it.

And you know, I, I, I'd trade those guys too late. You know, if it's like, you know, the middle of the pack guys, I'll trade any day, you know? And that's why I traded Cody Bellinger in my dynasty league at one point, because I was convinced he did not have that Okunha-like upside anymore. Ah, okay, so. If I still think he has that upside,

I wanna hold on to him. If I don't, then I'm out. Then I'm aggressive. Yeah, I'm just trying to think of like, a specific example of tearing down with Akuna. Akuna is complicated because the second ACL tear is a great unknown right now. I think because you won't get the mega return for him today

and until we see him again. It's not a good time to sell him right now, yeah. I think you'd rather just hold and see like, what the profile looks like. If it's a specific question about him. But then, generally, there's a general question behind this too. Sure. You could be talking about Juan Soto. No health questions at all. You could be talking about Kyle Tucker.

You could be talking about anybody in that mid to late 20s range where they're still in or around their peak. Those are the guys you're trying so hard to either draft or trade for before they break out that when you finally have one, it hurts terribly to try and trade them away. I just wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it because I think you should be able to turn your team around in three years, at least. Otherwise, you're spending a lot of money

on that fantasy league to try and turn around. The teams that bother me the most in my industry leagues are the perennial rebuilders that just continually trade and trade. They're always after the big stars and big prospects. Every once in a while, they'll get a guy, but they just don't have enough team around it and they'll end up selling that guy again. It's the pump and dump crisis that they just end up always perennially rebuilding.

So I would rather be what ends up in my case, what ends up happening is that sometimes I get languished around third and fourth place because my team's a little bit older than other people and I don't have those top top prospects sometimes. But I found that you can find them. I mean, we found Junior Kameniera and Zero Hope on our Devil's Reject squad while contending, you know, not having to trade for them even. Those were straight pickups. I mean, yeah, if you if you have that ability

on the one hand, if you have that ability, I think it gives you the option if you get a good deal to trade a player like that away. A lot of people don't find players like that. On the one hand, if you have that ability, I think it gives you the option, if you get a good deal, to trade a player like that away. A lot of people don't find players like that. If that's the case, I would not be willing to trade away from that top tier. If I were going to do it,

if I were gonna move a top tier player, a top 15-ish player in dynasty, I'm probably looking right around the recent debuts or guys that are very likely to debut this year. I am not trading into the distant distant future I don't like 17 18 year olds even hope like hope would have to be a throw-in because he's still so young and even like Sebastian Walcott I mean, he's number one prospect a lot of list Keith number two

He's at double a right now Like are you taking a Cunha and flipping him for Walcott plus something else right now? Maybe that's the right thing to do, but I'm not wired for that. That's some Tom Trudeau stuff, man. Yeah, exactly. I would want somebody in the big leagues. I'd be more willing to take Dylan Cruz almost as the centerpiece. You know?

Wow. That surprises me. Wow, that surprises me. Well, that's so much floor. I would want better pieces maybe around it, but I would take Dylan Cruz plus a 19-year-old. You know what I mean? So that at least I bought the floor back and I have a player that, you know, anybody could break out.

Dylan Cruz could still break out. Yeah, I think it's also being honest about the rest of your roster is probably a huge part of it, too like if it's a Cunha and you're just holes everywhere then maybe you can try to trade further into the future and get that three or four player return back and have To take some shots on guys further away, but if you're reasonably close I just I can't talk myself into making a trade like that

It's it's generally go find the things that are old and undervalued in your league and just patch as many holes in that roster as you can and keep going for it while you have a player like that still in their peak. Kunye may be a little more complicated because of the injuries but definitely something a lot of people are thinking about this time of year. Choosing a direction in their dynasty league. I got one more question here from email. This is from Dynasty League. I got one more question here from email. This is from, this actually is pretty funny. This is from Spencer. To your knowledge is Billy Cook aware of Eno's campaign to prevent him from playing baseball? If so, does Billy seem to be taking it in good humor? I don't know if he knows about let Billy

Cook but if we if we end up making a t-shirt for it and have some of them at spring training, maybe he'll be like, what's that all about? Yeah, yeah, he's just, hey, we made you a shirt. He's like, I can't wear this to work, man. This is like a complaint about my role. I can't just like. You're right. I can wear it at home.

Yeah, can you imagine if he's wearing that for BP? I'm imagining Billy Cook just being a guy that goes about his business, just a regular, like wants to break into the big leagues, just does what he's asked to do. Like, annoyed that they signed Tommy Pham privately, but wouldn't say anything about it publicly. Just being like a good employee of the Pirates and just having this moment where he walks out in the field with a let Billy Cook shirt and everyone is like who is this guy? We've never seen this side of his personality before. That brings me some joy. Hopefully at some point he will become aware.

I don't think Billy Cook knows that we exist if I had to approximate. No, that's my guess as well. If you want to send us questions, email works, ratesandbarrels at gmail.com. We'll dig into that inbox again here in the near future. Discord's probably the best way to do it. You can join the Discord with the link in the show description, we've got a mailbag channel, so drop your questions in there.

We have something called a reverse mailbag channel. That's when Eno and I have questions for you as listeners. So if we have a question for the group, we put it in the reverse mailbag question. If you've got a question for the show, drop it in the regular mailbag channel. As I mentioned earlier, jump in on those hive mind rankings. We really need more rankings for relievers, starting pitchers, and outfield. I realize starting pitcher and outfielder, those are longer forms to fill out, but once we get a few more of those in, we can actually turn around some ranks from your fellow listeners. That'll be a lot of fun to have that.

You can find Eno on BlueSky, enoseris.bsky.social. You can find me, VBR.bsky.social. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening.