Rates & Barrels - Early Season Starting Pitcher Risers

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss news and notes from the weekend including an encouraging diagnosis for Spencer Strider before examining several risers from Eno's first in-season update of his 2024 starting pitcher rankings.  Rundown 4:20 Underwent Internal Brace Procedure Rather Than Second Tommy John Surgery 7:28 Another SP Injury for Arizona: Merrill Kelly 13:10 Francisco Àlvarez: Out 6-8 Weeks 21:46 Eno's Updated Starting Pitcher Rankings ($) https://theathletic.com/5426812 27:31 Reid Detmers' Early Success 32:22 Casey Mize: Will Strikeouts Show Up With His New Arsenal? 38:09 Javier Assad: What Eno Likes About Him 40:51 Brady Singer: Moves Up Slightly! 44:21 Zack Littell: LODEM Goodness? 48:56 Paul Skenes: Callup Coming Shortly? 53:47 Where the Money Went: Looking Back at Weekend Pickups Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! https://www.youtube.com/c/ratesbarrels Subscribe to The Athletic for just $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Monday, April 22nd. Derek VanRyper, you know, Sarah's back here with you on this episode. We've got some news and notes from the weekend. We got fresh starting pitcher rankings from Eno that dropped the day after he went to fish at the sphere. So we'll talk about some of the biggest movers on the list. People were, I saw the responses when you posted that, they're like, he's at the show last night. The rankings dropped today.

Legend. And I'm just laughing to myself. I'm like, do you think he did the rankings after the show? I did finish them in a casino while a friend of mine was gambling. So you were OK. So you were up in the room. You were not at the table.

No, I was downstairs, but but yeah, I was downstairs, but. But yeah, I was working the the the the thing that happens at the end of the rankings is that I've been looking at them for three, four, five, two weeks, three, four, five days, two weeks, you know, like I've been looking at them forever and I've been moving this guy. He must be, yeah, I gotta move him up. I gotta move him down. Would I really moving this guy. He must be. Yeah, I got to move him up. I got to move him down. Well, I got to.

Would I really take this guy over that guy? Ah, you know, like I'm just looking at them and constantly sorting them and sorting them and sorting them. You know, I'll do things right. Like the beginning, I like put players in big chunks. So I'm like, these guys are 50s and that's a 30 and he's 20. You know, like put them in chunks and then I get into it like, oh, no, no. These guys go. So but I there's in chunks and then I get into it like, Oh no, no, these guys go.

So, but I, there's just a moment where I'm like, okay, I just have to turn in. I just have to hear here. I could keep, you know, shuttling them around, but here you go. And of course, as soon as they publish something, Oh no, Kelly has a what yeah, there's that factor. Yeah. That's a tough one. I just put these in or they'll like call up somebody and like, I feel like where's Bob Dylan?

I'm like, I didn't know he was up. Yeah. Time is a factor. How was the show, by the way? It was crazy. I mean, this is the sphere is this huge venue. We have 18000 people in there and the screen is just bigger than any IMAX, any screen I've ever seen. And for some of the songs, it was it was surprisingly boring what they were putting up on the screen. But from what I gather, you know, it's kind of hard to ask a band to like have a show that's just for one venue you know like to have a bespoke show for this one place that has a huge screen and so. They did do that to some extent for this but i have a feeling that year three or four they're really gonna nail it because they will have had the experience of being there for a while. And a couple of the couple of songs, you know, they had

visuals, they were interacting with the song as it was going in really interesting ways that were pretty far out. So that that that I was like, if they could just do more of that and like, you know, use the venue more. Like for one song they had these, um, they had these actual lanterns come out, um, in, in front of the screen and then the screen itself was, had lights going into the background.

So it was like you were at in front of a lake with reflecting lights and these lanterns were up, but there was like a 3D aspect to it. So I could see them really leaning into that combination of the screen and some 3D aspects. So it was, uh, there were, I would say it was, it was really fun. It was mind blowing. Uh, I want to go back, but I might want to give them a year or two to figure it out. The 11th, you know, clone still trapped inside this fear, wandering around, trying to figure out how it all works, where it's all plugged in.

Let me out. He's happy. I'm sure he'll be fine. Be sure to hit the like button on this video and subscribe to our YouTube channel if you haven't done so already. We'll start today with some news and notes. Spencer Strider, we learned over the weekend,

had internal brace procedure on his elbow, so not a second Tommy John surgery. Last had Tommy John back in 2019 when he was in college. Interesting thing about the Strider diagnosis though, is that it was a loose bone fragment that actually caused the problem. It wasn't just a typical tear of the UCL. Yeah, I guess apparently, and this can happen. They thought that the tip of his, of his elbow had just broken off. And that,

that literally is a thing that happened. I think that's what happened to you Darvish before that's where you Darvish had a stress reaction. So they, you know, they're like, you can actually stress the ligament so much it's pulling at that bone. I mean it's attached to that bone. So like you couldn't have a stress reaction, stress fracture. You can have a bone chip come off of your elbow due to just repetitive stress down there. But once there is a bone floating around there, it, you can't see exactly when you're looking at the MRI,

you can't see if something is torn or not. So the bone fragment, they, when they looked at MRIs, they're like, well, there's a bone fragment, you know, and we don't know what it is. And it had apparently been a piece of calcium that had developed over time as a reaction to the stress. Um, and, uh, once that broke off, they thought it was original bone, but it was actually sort of a stress reaction type of deposit, but kind of a calcium deposit that looks like bone bone fragment.

They'll call it a bone fragment. But because they couldn't see what was going on when they got in there and move the bone, they were like, Oh, well, the ligament's actually in decent shape. And when you don't have the full tears, you can do the brace and the braces is. Like you'll say six to eight months, but I think it's more like we'll get you back on the field in 12. Whereas TJ, they say it's 12 months, but you get back on the field and like 14 plus. Yeah. I think it's possible we'd see Strider on opening day,

but the very least it's more like a calendar year from the time we last saw him pitch, like you said. So it, instead of being a delayed like June, July, 2025 return. Like a Robbie Ray. Robbie Ray had full TJ a year ago and like he's not about to return. Right.

Strider had a lot of questions he was being asked about the increase in injuries and part of his answer was like, well, I don't have three hours to answer all these questions right now. But I think there was, Strider seems like a very thoughtful person about the craft. And I think there'd be a lot to dig into with him,

but I think the critiques are that he throws so hard. He's one of those guys that sits close to his max. And a lot of people, you know, we worry about that being something that does cause injuries because we're seeing strong links to that. But it's not the only thing that causes pitchers to get hurt. And that's what I think people lose sight of that every single time we talk about pitching injuries.

Well, he did this. It's like, well, he also did these other things. He had a curve ball. TJ City. Yeah, it's just stupid. It's how many other people added curve balls? How many people throw curve balls? Like what? It's how many other people added curve? How many people throw curveballs? Like what?

It's silly. And I think what's also silly is we've talked about this idea a week or so ago. I think it was last Monday. We were talking about, well, maybe people were going to back away from the guys that sit too close to their max. OK, fine. But buy up all the shares, get all the Merrill Kelly's because that'll work. He's got a Terry's major strain.

He's already had one MRI. He's going to have another MRI as a follow-up on Monday, which never seems good. Two MRIs always seems like a longer sort of absence is expected. Not twice the fun. No, no, I've never had an MRI. I would love to complete life to its full potential without having one. That would be a successful outcome. I had one for a health thing and I came out of there like,

we think you're all right, except for this one thing in your nose. And then I looked it up and I was like, holy crap. You know, if it is that, you know, that's a big deal. You know? And I went into this thing and like five seconds into the thing, he's like, you don't have, you don't have nose cancer. You're all right. But the MRI itself sucks. Cause you're like, when I had on my head, you see your whole head in there and then you can't move. And it's just white. Like you're just looking at a white machine. You're just sticking your head into a white machine hole. You know,

like there's no, like you can't move. If you get claustrophobic at all, it sucks. There's just like one little sort of beeping noise, and you just have to sit there for like 15 minutes. It's really crappy. I guess with an elbow, at least your head's not in there probably, but. Yeah, it's on the machine, I guess. Depends on the design. But anyway, the the Diamondbacks rotation

is a little banged up all of a sudden because Ryan Nelson has already joined Eduardo Rodriguez on the IL. I assume this Merrill Kelly situation turns into an IL stint in the next couple of days. It's just a question of how they're gonna set that up. But when you look at their depth, this is one of the weaknesses of the Diamondbacks.

They don't have that next wave of starting pitchers ready to go. It's maybe taking someone like Logan Allen, who's working in their bullpen and making him a temporary starter because you got Gallon, you got Montgomery, you got Fott, Slade Chikoni is on the roster right now. Am I overlooking any depth guys or am I right to be skeptical of some of those those younger options? They're gonna have to turn to as they try to work through these injuries. I mean slayed Sikoni

Sochoni It was Chikoni Well, I just looked up two C's in Italian is Chuh. Yeah So but there's not it's not Chukoni, it's Sochoni. Sochoni. So I think it's Sochoni. That's what I'm going with. Sochoni.

Looks okay. He's got two good breaking balls at least. And I think he can function as a depth guy that comes in and at least gives you around league average production. You know, so that's one way to paper over it. I don't know. I wouldn't say that they can afford a bunch of injuries. I don't like I don't even know who the next name is up. I guess this says, Oh, I don't like Tommy Henry that much. Tommy Henry.

He's usually the first go-to that schedule permitting when they need someone. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not that big a fan of him. And Bryce Jarvis is, is, is kind of already in the bullpen. And even when he pitches, he pitches, he throws like more sliders and he throws fastballs. And Christian Mena. We'll see acquired from the White Sox. So kind of interested to see what they're able to do with him.

Yeah. But some decent strikeout numbers in the minors. So I guess Christian Mena's like someone to look for, you know, when he comes up. I've got somewhere AAA numbers that he might be on. Let me see here. He's, because how many, like what is the rotation right now? It's Gallon, Montgomery and Fatt with the assumption that Kelly's going to the IL,

Nelson's already there and Erod's now on the 60 day IL. So, it's like Chikoni and Tommy Henry are in right now. Christian Mina has an 85 stuff plus in AAA. All right. That's not going to do it. How about Blake Walston? You get numbers on Blake Walston? His walk rate's been through the roof.

He got to AAA all of last season there. 69 stuff plus. That is not nice. It's a problem because he's walking a lot of guys and it doesn't look like it's a bigly arsenal. We've talked about the difficulty of Reno in the past as one of the more challenging PCL environments to pitch in, but that doesn't scream instant relief for the bullpen or for the rotation. No, it doesn't.

And it does make you wonder about their pitching development in general. Yeah, it's a little bit light at this time. So we'll see if they find someone interesting, but if they do, it's not obvious who that pitcher is based on what we're seeing to this point. Some other injury news to get through real quick. Francisco Alvarez out six to eight weeks. He had surgery on the UCL in his thumb. Kind of a big deal.

I mean, it's going to put Omar Narvaez and Tomas Nido into the lineup on a regular basis, probably in some kind of tandem at this stage of his career. I'm not sure Narvaez is more than a three or four day a week sort of starter. Once Alvarez comes back, and we're talking about early June, mid-June probably for that timetable to actually play out, I always worry with thumb injuries that power doesn't come back right away. And surprisingly, Alvarez wasn't really showing much power early on anyway. Just one homer in 16 games, 364 slug to this point after popping 25 homers as a rookie last season. Yeah, I think it was going to come. I was just happy that a little bit of a reduction in the strikeout rate. Yeah, I guess a 110 max CV is a little bit lower than he had last year and the barrel

rate was definitely down. Definitely too many ground balls, but I think it's a little bit about pitch selection. He has a little bit of a hole high in the zone and so he's trying to figure out how to develop maybe a flatter swing that can get that high pitch. So there's a little bit of just adjusting and adjusting back going on. I remain pretty upbeat about this guy. Yeah, I like him long term a lot. If you're in a keeper dynasty situation, kind of look into the future.

This might be a window where, hey, you've got an older veteran catcher right now and something else that the team that has Alvarez wants. Maybe this is a good time to trade for him because the second half could still be a good productive one for one of the game's best power hitting young catchers. The interest over the weekend seemed to be in Travis Darno because Travis Darno did nothing but hit homers over the weekend. He had four in the series against the Rangers, three of them on Friday night alone. He's playing a lot right now because Sean Murphy's on the IL.

I think it's funny only because when we talked about the Atlanta catching situation, we were both really high on Murphy. And part of the reason was that we didn't think Darno had anything left in the tank. So I love that he's proving us wrong in this window while Murphy's out. No, he's still good enough. He's certainly helping right now, kind of filling the void of a number one catcher very capably. Things on a list with Gary Carter

as one of the very few catchers that has multiple four home run games, but. Yeah, three home run games. Yeah, Johnny Bench, I think was the other one. Yeah. Just good company for sure for Travis Darnow. Topped out at 18 for the season in 2022. So I mean, I love baseball though.

You know, like, I don't think he's this good, right? Like he topped out at 18. Like, what are you expecting out of him this year? I think he's going to return to being mostly a backup when Sean Murphy's back up. But you know, that's something that's cool about baseball is that it's something like that can happen for any kind of player. He had 225 with a 288 OBP and a 397 slug last year. So I'm still keeping my expectations in check, even though he had an amazing weekend

against the Rangers. Speaking of the Braves, Ozzy Albies actually already shed his walking boot and he's taking grounders already. So it sounds like that toe injury that popped up on him last week is going to be a relatively short absence. Yeah, yeah, there was some thought that he might even come back sometime this week, but it's most likely next week. Eligible to come out the IL on Friday. So much, much better news than expected there. Tristan Casas landed on the IL with a rib strain. It seems like things are starting to really pile up on the IL with a rib strain. Seems like things are

starting to really pile up on the Red Sox with all the stuff they've been dealing with. Rib strain is the injury though for Kassas. Left Saturday's game with discomfort and you always worry it's kind of like an oblique or something that you really need for rotation and that something like this can end up being more of like a month-long sort of absence. I have not seen a timetable yet but Alex Cora responded with a yes when asked if he was concerned about a lengthy absence. So if you have Casus and you didn't make plans this weekend for some long-term replacements, this would be a good time to start looking. I mean rib strain, I don't know what the difference is between that and like an adductor or oblique situation.

It's all, I think, a sort of continuum up and down the ribs there and into the nether regions. But all of that is due to baseball being a rotational sport and wanting to turn the body fast. And so the thing that really sucks about it, and I talked to Lars Neubauer about this with his cracked ribs, is that you just have to wait till it doesn't hurt and then wait another day and then try to do your baseball stuff.

And if it hurts again, you have to sit down and wait another couple weeks. Very, very frustrating injury to try to work back from. I think initially the playing time increase probably goes to Pablo Reyes or Bobby Dahlbeck. Like those are the bench guys they have right now. I don't know though.

I look at this team and I think, you know, maybe you could play. In manual Valdez at first base once Vaughn Grissom's back, it could be a pretty fluid situation, Brandon belt still out there as a free agent. Like if you're taking this season even remotely seriously and you're not getting production at first base or you got an injury like this, how do you not give Brandon Belt a call? Yeah. And like how how much better with this whole lineup and teamwork if Yoshida, you know, could play some first, you

know. You know, you know, I would try Yoshida there. I try William Rebreu there. Neither one of those guys is great outfield defenders. And they are good bats and they're way better bats than Dalbeck and Reyes so. I wouldn't be surprised if you you get some video soon of like you know some people in Boston trying trying their hat at first base. Will your bray you will be featured later on our where the money went. But he was a big pick up this weekend because due to sit down, Rafaela playing some shortstop, Jaren Duran playing some center Tyler O'Neill having a concussion.

Will you were brave, you played through the whole weekend, and he's kind of a fun player if he's going to get playing time in that he you know he makes consistent powerful contact it's you know he I think he's going to run high batting averages and balls and play and be on the upper end of where his strikeout rate would have him I think it's a good hit tool. where his strikeout rate would have him. I think it's a good hit tool. And so I think he's a guy who's gonna hit 240, 250 with I think like kinda 20 home run power and some non-zero speed. Depending on how this first base situation shakes out, Willier Bray could have playing time

even once Tyler O'Neill returns, which is probably tomorrow. They're saying that Tyler O'Neill returns, which is probably tomorrow. They're saying that Tyler O'Neill will probably be activated off the concussion IEL on Tuesday. Yeah, and the Brae you started seven straight games last week, so if they can find more playing time for him, it's extended runway based on what had been happening for him with the Red Sox. One more news item to get to Frankie Montas likely to miss his next start. He had hit in the forearm by a comeback or on Sunday. So like missing only one more start would be a pretty positive outcome,

given all the possibilities of something like that. Yeah, yeah. And one nice thing about the Reds rotation as it stands is Nick Martinez is like this really interesting kind of he's doing the same thing he did in San Diego. I thought that they were going to sign him and make him just a starter, but he's kind of a bulkish, you know, six starter on the on the active roster kind of player. And so I would assume that he's most likely to pitch three innings in the next, in the Montas start that, that, that he misses.

And that they might be able to get through it. I mean, they're finding guys, Fernando Cruz is fun. Emilio Pagan is good. Diaz is struggling a little bit in the closed role, but the bullpen is not terrible. I've usually been pretty critical of that bullpen too. Yeah. It does seem a little better than it has been. Cruz is a good call.

He just looks like he's got, look at that nasty splitter. Nobody can do much with that and he's been excellent so far. Nine appearances, 18Ks and nine innings already. He's just cruising, for lack of a better word, to this point. But yeah, I think Nick Martinez is that glue guy that sort of holds it together for the Reds. Let's get the Edo's new starting pitcher rankings.

We'll talk about some of the biggest risers and followers, mostly focusing on the risers today. Couple of guys higher up on the list, Joe Ryan and Shota Imanaga jumping up into the 19 and 20 slots. So about 10 ish spots up, which with some injuries and other things going on, it's a pretty significant jump relative to where they are on the list. And we talked about Imanaga coming off his excellent debut against the Rockies a few weeks ago. He's finally allowed earned runs.

It took him until his fourth big league start for for that to happen. But excellent results so far, a 21 to two strikeout to walk ratio in 21 and a third innings, he's gone more than five innings in three of his first four starts. Had a tough matchup against the Dodgers that he sort of just held his own and only through 43 pitches. But I think that was a rain delay. I don't think that was a performance related thing. So what have you made of these last few looks we've had at Imanega?

Is it just a case where not only are people seeing this for the first time, but is the stuff even better than expected? Yeah, I mean, there's stuff with a capital S and there's a stuff with a small s and I think the smallest stuff has been has been there for you, you know, Imanaga, but like the the the capital s stuff Not really stuff plus has not loved him and I've even gotten some sort of private Feedback that you know, some people think that one or two plus on Shota's fastball is too low. But that's still that's still good for a fastball. The fastball slider combo is really good. I think the splitter is being undervalued by this model. That is going to be a theme today that we are

going to talk about is the possible undervaluing of a couple splitters here. If you make that splitter more like league average, then he has, Shota has above 100 stuff plus. What's interesting is that this stuff plus then drives the projections that we have. Shota and Joe Ryan's ERAs are the only ones over 4.2 in my top 30 in terms of projected, this is Jordan Rosenblum's projected ERAs using the PP ERA, using stuff. Plus they're the,

I pushed them higher than my projections because I'm just saying like Shota looks like he has what he needs. Like in terms of a fastball slider, splitter combo, people are having a real hard time seeing it. He's a short guy. So it's like, it comes in really flat, uh, really good vertical approach angle on that. So I'm believing the strikeout minus walk rate, which is 24%. The average is 12%. Uh, I'm believing the incremental like the pitch by pitch stuff plus, uh,

I'm believing some of the results with Joe Ryan, we've seen that stuff plus never loved his fastball, but it always worked pretty well. And that this year he's added a splitter that once again, stuff plus doesn't love. Joe Ryan's splitter is a 96 stuff plus. However, and then slider, slider doesn't love either 99. However, just watching him, like he has settled into this hard slider that he uses and the splitter.

He trusts this, the hard slider, the sweeper, the splitter, you know, he now has like a larger array of pitches to go to. It's not always going to be the fastball high in the zone when he needs Called strike or whatever so you know and then I look at 31% strikeout minus walk rate And I just say this is a guy who's always struck out a lot of guys not walked many players And now he's getting more comfortable in his secondary pitches And that's gonna be the way he avoids those homers that have always been the problem. Um, I, I just, it's not always just a hundred percent model for me. You know what I mean? It's like these guys have full arsenals and,

and are succeeding with them. And there's enough to like within it to say, I'm going to look past the iffy stuff plus numbers on these guys. No, I think that's fair. I mean, I think the skills flaw for Joe Ryan has been predominantly struggles with homers, right? Like that's the thing that pulls him away

from some of the ERA indicators over the years. Like you look at the gap between his ERA and his Sierra, oftentimes it's at least a half run. Sometimes it's even a full run like it was last year because of homers. But even with that flaw, he was still missing a ton of bats. He wasn't walking guys. And it was supported by high swinging strike rates. So if you add weapons to that, it makes sense to be more aggressive with Joe Ryan.

I'm wondering if we're hitting a peak, like even with those adjustments, if you can actually move up much more. No, I don't, I don't actually think so. I mean, he's throwing really close to his max, close to his max than he ever has. So I don't think there's much more Velo in there than 93.8. Hopefully he's kind of an athlete. He's like a water polo player. So I'm hoping that, you know, in terms of stress on his elbow, in terms of, you know, his injury outcomes that, um, that he's fine in that, in that way. But I just, I, I don't think that any one of his pitches is elite elite.

And so therefore I hesitate to say, oh yeah, there's another, like he, he could win the Cy Young. Yeah. I think that's, that's a fair assessment of a pitcher that looks really good and is really good for fantasy purposes, but also for real life purposes for the twins. Let's talk about Reid Detmers. I got a lot of questions about Detmers.

I stepped in on a Friday chat while you were away at the end of last week. And a lot of people are just wondering, you know, is this real? Is Reid Detmers actually turned a corner? Is the arsenal better? We've seen runs from him in the past where he looks like he's figuring it out and then it sort of just unravels and he goes back to being 24, 25% K rate, slightly elevated walk rate and kind of average home run rate in terms of skills. The ratios kind of come out as league average. And it's it's frustrating because you keep thinking there probably is one more

level there. And now that we're seeing it over another stretch here in April, the same questions are coming back. The one thing I was pointing out is I didn't really see enough of an uptick in VELO to say, oh, well, this is the reason. It's not really that. To me, it looks like he's just locating things better. If you're watching on YouTube, just take a look. You're not watching on YouTube at his baseball savant page.

Look at where he was throwing his pitches last year versus where he's throwing them this year. You'll see a lot more consistency, right? Four seamers at the top of the zone, sliders down and in to righties more consistently where he was getting a ton of plate last year. He's not doing that as much this year. It just seems like everything's a little bit more crisp with where he's executing his pitches. Yeah, there's some slight changes. This might be one of his better fastballs he's ever had, at least in terms of, you know,

IVB vertical break. He's showing the best vertical break on that. His slider was really successful when he was throwing it harder and it was 89 last year, it's 85 this year, but at least 85 is still the magic number. 85 is the sort of threshold where breaking balls get better once they're over 85. So seeing him still above 85 with a slider is good news. I generally think of him as someone who just goes in and out a little bit.

And when you point out to me these heat maps that I see see I bet you that in the bottom ones which were last year there were three or four week segments that look like the top ones you know in fact when I look at those heat maps the bottom ones could just gobble up all the top ones right like there's it's not so different it's just that the bottom ones are more robust right right yeah you worried that like over time you would lose the look at this of those clusters because they were there within the same ranges that's one way to think about it for sure. I just think you know overall the the the issue with most of the angels is. There there's only like one really good fastball in the angels rotation. Soriano?

Yeah. And everybody else's fastball is pretty bad and they have sometimes they have good secondaries and Detmers has good secondaries. Detmers might have the second best fastball in that rotation. We'll see Chase Silth, Sil Seth. Sil Seth, that's a tough name to say. Chase may, may be there when he comes back. I'm still interested in Chase. Like years later, still, still interested, still watching.

But he's hurt right now. So, uh, Detmers is, you know, he did go up in my ranks a lot, um, because I was really skeptical before. Um, and where did he go from and to, let me see here. I thought he was on our list. Yeah. He went, I had 60 and he was a hundred before. Yeah, he went, I had 60 and he was 100 before. So he's moved into my top 60. He's definitely, you know, in that 60 to 75 range is, you know, what I would expect to be your last pitcher on a 12 teamer. Don't you think that Reed Detmer sounds

like a perfectly credible last or second to last pitcher on a 12 team rotation. Yes, absolutely. Like that's that's the level I think he has pitched at to this point in the season. The would you rather of the day is which name would you rather have to pronounce correctly with a stadium of people watching you for a million dollars, slayed, Saccone, slayedade Sikoni, very hard to say that, or Chase Silseth. Like, oh my goodness. Definitely not Chase. Do not roll off the tongue.

I always want to put an H. I want to make it like Silseth or Silseth or it's the S-H in the middle of that. That screws me up. The broadcasters nightmare roster. We should assemble that at some point in time. Let's talk about Casey Meyers for a bit. If you've watched him this year, you can tell he's not the same pitcher he was in previous opportunities in the big leagues with the Tigers. The stuff just looks better.

But if you look at the Fanographs page, you see, oh, it's a 17.8% K rate. Ooh, it's a 7.6% swinging strike rate underneath that low K rate, which leads to an immediate question. Will the strikeouts be there going forward if we trust that the stuff is, in fact, a bit better for Casey Meis now in 2024? Like there's a there's a couple where there's a couple of pitchers where, you know, we'll talk about today that you're just like, yeah, this has to work, right? It's like, it has to work. This is,

this is the kind of stuff that we're doing in pitch design sessions. This is like what teams they're like, okay, you take this guy and you, you know, like you, you, you put this in and you, you create more IVB or you, you know, and then, and then you come out the other side and you're a better pitcher, you know? And, um, we haven't quite seen it for Mize. We've seen the changes in his, uh, in his arsenal. And um, what we've seen is that he added, uh, you know, in, he added a vertical break

on the four seamer. Um, I mean, he went from below average and, you know, he had a vertical break on the four seamer. I mean, he went from below average and, you know, over time he added three inches of vertical break on his four seamers. So this is a, that's a big difference. You know, his slider, you know, when he first came in the league, it was a cutter. And now he's, you know, getting about eight inches more drop on this power slider as opposed to throwing a cutter that he was throwing before.

And you've got plenty of other changes. I mean, he's basically revamped his whole thing. He was kind of a sinker first guy when he first came up. And now this year he's not even throwing a sinker. So he's four seam, curveball slider, and the split finger was his moneymaker all the way through. That's the one that hasn't changed much over time. Now, when you look, when he first came up

in the big leagues in 2020, his vertical movement page on baseball savant is all blue, other than the split finger. And now in 2024, it's all red. So he's really, really changed, uh, what he's done. I mean, it's a, it's pretty remarkable to, to add that much, um, vertical movement. I watch him because I was like, you know, what is going on here? I think, I think there's some old habits, like there's some old habits like there's some old habits where he's like a sinker guy and so he has to reshape his command and rethink his command and rethink

his approach because he's a new pitcher is a different pitcher now so that's what I would blame it on I would blame it on the kind of bumps in the road when you when you sort of refashion a picture and you like I think you saw this is Yusei Kikuchi. Yusei Kikuchi now is the best version of himself but at one point he changed all his pitches and didn't have good natural command and he was like he was like awful for a little bit. He's throwing a lot of the same pitches that he threw when he was awful. He's just sort of you know over time figured it out. Uh, one thing that, um, who was the, Oh man, there was a, like a tiger's pitcher who had a great change up and slider,

but he had, didn't have great natural command when he started. And then over time he added better command of the change up and slider. How long ago was this? I mean, I interviewed him. He ended up on the Mets, I think. Ah, anyway, he told me, this picture told me that, um, you don't practice your secondary pitches as much in bullpens and you can't always get to the same intensity in bullpens. And so there's a natural ability to add secondary command of secondary stuff over time. Um, and that, that just comes from practicing your pitches in the game.

So like no matter what you do in the bullpen, like Joe Ryan's splitter last year was fine in the bullpen when he got into the game and threw as hard as he could, it wasn't great It was bad. So there's like there's like only so much you can do in practice environment That's what i'm seeing with kzmyz. He's taking his toys out into a non-practice environment And he's figuring out how to get outs with it in the games as opposed to In front of the track man, you know? And I think it's going to work out.

I don't know what the timeframe is on that though. Is it this year? Is it next year? I think he's like way better of a, of an acquire, uh, for me in keeper leagues. Like I think I will, I will throw like a big old capital B buy on him in, in keeper leagues where you might be able to get him because people who have invested in KC Mize, you know, I look at like, oh, 17% strikeout rate. Like this ain't working. Bad swing strike rate. This is he's about to get blown up. They can look at his projections and say he's projected for a four and a half ERA by most systems. Well, not my system. I believe in him. I think that's exactly what you have to play against when you're trying to make trades,

since the things people are looking at when they're evaluating their own players are rest of season projections and same things we talk about on the show all the time. So you need something that's a little bit different. That's actually going to lead you to take a chance on a player that someone else might be comfortable parting with. Let's talk about Javier Asad and I think he came up maybe in a waiver preview a couple weeks ago. I'm still kind of surprised that you are as into Javier Asad as you seem to be. So a simple question, what do you like about him?

He's been great so far. 211 ERA, 103 whip, 21 whip 21 case 21 of the third inning so. The results are fantastic and it's easy to jump on board with anybody who's pitching like that for a handful of starts but what is it that makes this work. Yeah i just i think that he's pushed a sinker forward and so now against righties he's pretty dominant in terms of like you know sinker breaking ball. Against righties, he's pretty dominant in terms of like, you know, sinker breaking ball. That's a good that's a good work against righties and even stuff less will agree that that should work. Against lefties. Yes, there's some question here, but I wanted to look at his pitch chart from Brooks here.

You can ignore those those those red dots that are not all the way out to 10. Those are from years before. He's pushed that slider to more of a sweeper so he's basically baby sweeper, curve ball, cutter, fore seam, sinker, and change up. This is why I like him. I mean these these are different pitches they are they he has refined them he has three breaking balls that are very different from each other. Um, and I think that just gives him a real chance to sort of mix and match his pitches, uh, and get by against lefties and dominate righties.

That's this, that's the kind of package I see it's, it's got some similarities to other pictures that have struggled. Um, you know, that have that kind of sweeper sinker package as their basis, but he's showing more touch and I think his cutter and sinker are pretty good. So his forcing may not be great. He's going to struggle against some lefties, but I see the package there for him to do great against righties and to just get by against lefties. And I think that deserves, you you know I put him 79 I'm not trying to like

say he's a top 50 pitcher but that's big up from 160 so I think he's a he's a usable guy in most leagues I might avoid throwing against the Dodgers or maybe in Cincinnati I wouldn't want to throw him in Cincinnati. Yeah, yeah, yeah. May want to know which way the wind is blowing or how lefty the other team is, but otherwise, like want to start him more than half the time.

Yeah, a regularly used starter from a guy that was previously like an NL only option is a pretty big move for the first month of the season. So I think that's probably the way to look at at a Saad at this point. Brady Singer getting more love on this show this season than I ever expected. Well, it wasn't all love,

but it seems like it's at least trending in the right direction as he started to make a little bit of a believer out of you with some of the adjustments he's made. I don't know, man. We've got this chart up for Brady Singer, which is so this doesn't have him on it. This is last year's heat map for four seamers. But I just want you to imagine you see where the gray line is.

That's league average and you never want to be there. League average is almost always in blue because that's where, you know, hitters are most trained to be. This is vertical movement against horizontal movement for four seamers. So take that gray line and then go down like three boxes. And when you get to that real dark blue, that's where Brady Singer's fastball is,

his four seam fastball this year. It's enough of a new wrinkle that, I think it's working in the short run. And, you know, he's got the best strikeout rate of his career. I think that's partially due to the sweeper that he's throwing. But at 91.9 miles an hour with basically

dead on league average movement on the fore seam and sinker. I'm just I just think that the fastballs aren't going to be good enough. You know, I just I just don't trust it. Yeah, just for context, you've got to in the 90s at 92 in your ranking. So that's a little more of a moved up a lot. And I still don't like him is basically kind of a 50 50 start versus sit situation. I think being in the AL central leaves the door open, though,

for a few more streaming opportunities that might be helping keep his value. There are a bunch of people in my rankings around there that I found I had to one of the hardest things about doing rankings is that you're doing it for all these different people in different leagues and you have to kind of try and figure out how to broadcast that you know different guys have different like uses in different leagues like around 100 right where I have Brady Singer I also have guys like Sean Manaya and even even Chris Paddock is down there. I mean, Lance Lynn is only like 10 points away from Bray Brady Singer. Like Michael Walker is down there.

Paul Blackburn, JP Sears are down there. So in that sort of, you know, a hundred ish, hundred to 120, I wanted to put guys that are useful, that you will pitch sometimes, that, you know, maybe streamers or maybe, you know, you have on your team that you only pitch half the time. It's fair. Yeah, I think that's a tough part of the list for sure. I mean, Jameson Tyon just came back and I look at him as like a would you rather versus singer. I would take Jameson Tyon for sure. If I had that choice, I think it's that I think what we saw in the second half last year was real.

I think Tyon was starting to realize that he had a better pitch mix making those adjustments than he did early on in the year when he was maybe trying to do a little bit too much. But that group, yeah, super tough because it's guys that they can hit a really tough stretch of schedule and you may have to cut them because you can't stash them for two or three weeks. That's the sort of vibe I get from guys in that kind of picture 90 to 110 range on most lists.

Let's talk about Zach Littell for a minute. The results are great. The model is not on board. Mr. Lodum, analog over here, I love him because 24.7% K rate early this season, 5.6% walk rate, showed excellent control last year, showed flashes of making those changes already, even on the fly with the Rays and I think a full off season to tinker some more can only be a good thing. Is it just the splitter that the model doesn't like,

or is there something else that the model doesn't like about Zach Lutel? I mean, it's really his fastballs that it hates, and his fastballs haven't really performed all that well. So, you know, that's what they really hate, but let's watch the splitter. Like, I mean he hides the fastballs. The nice, that looks pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a little slow, right?

That's the thing. It's not, it's not a high V lo splitter. Yeah. And so it, it lost like a couple ticks off of last year. It's shaped a little bit differently. The model says this year, 87 stuff plus, but I looked and it says that last year is 112. So I think that, especially with a small sample change up, I think you'll kind of want more context. And so I think if the splitter is performing well and also has had like good

marks in the past and looks like that, I think there's some, to some degree, you can say, okay, you know, the model is missing the fact that he has a good splitter. And so now you have to put him, if you, let's say you have a good splitter and he has a decent slider, now you put him in the bin with people who don't have great fastballs, right? And then you start asking questions like, well, does he have the command to kind of not put the fastball somewhere bad

when he's trying to hide it? Because he's definitely gonna be a kind of guy that's trying to hide the fastball. It's not a good fastball. One concern that I have with him, just looking at kind of the top shelf numbers, the old school numbers is that he has a basically the same swing strike rate as last year, and for some reason his 19.5% strike out rate from last year has turned into a 24.7 for Zach Littell.

Like I, how, how do you do that? And so I went down to look at, Oh, he must be getting some sort of extra swing somewhere. His chase rate, I mean, depending on who you're using, his chase rate is up a tiny bit. And his swing rate is up a tiny bit, but it doesn't... I don't really understand how he's getting the more swing strikes. In fact, I would guess that it's something as silly as first-pist strikes. And I'm only saying silly because

first-pist strikes are only something that you can get away with. If he's like throwing a lot of fastballs for first-pist strikes or sliders or something, it's only something you can get away with for a little bit before the scouting report changes. Like what if he's just throwing a bunch of sliders in the middle of zone on all counts get into one and everything is flowing better from there well that's gonna be filtering through all of the. All the advanced scouting and eventually some people are gonna take some nice swings on those sliders in the zone whatever it is. I fundamentally see this as a fungible pitcher and that's what the league has seen him as. You know this is kind of a waiver claim guy and I don't think that they've changed enough about him that I that I believe so I'm I'm kind of out on him. I'm just like blindfolded on like I don't know why it's

working but I'm gonna keep trying it until it doesn't which is probably gonna lead to some kind of like two and one thirds innings, eight runs, nine hits blow up on my roster at some point and probably in a matchup. I wouldn't expect it to happen. And here all this, this is pretty funny. So I love Javier Assad. I have him 79. I hate Zach to tell I have him 73. So, yeah, it's all context.

It's like, you know, if someone's trying to sell me Zach Littell in a trade as like, uh, like as a guy that I need or whatever, I'm going to say, I'm going to start looking at all the flaws, right? If I'm just looking at, you know, both of these guys, uh, picking them up off the waiver, I'm looking at the schedule. That's, that's how I put it. They're in, they're in the schedule dependent part of the rankings. Fair. Okay. Yeah.

In the 70s, I think you would look at that as something that could differentiate between two guys for a short period of time. One more riser we'll talk about. Paul Skeens jumps up a ton. This has to be timing, right? What are they waiting for? The Pirates are off to a good enough start where you would want the support in the rotation. Skeens looks like he's completely over matching hitters at triple A. He's got a 57.4% K rate so far. They're using him in

short outings just to keep more innings in the tank for later. That seems to be the pretty clear approach so far. Two, three innings starts, two, three and a third inning starts. So when do they flip the switch and see how it goes for them at the big league level? Yeah, I have a feeling that it's any minute. I mean, right now they're, uh, barely holding this, uh, five person, uh, starting rotation together. Um, but Mark Gonzalez has shut down.

Um, and so, you know, if you you if you look at it, they've been they've, you know, have a Quinn Priester start in there. You know, Bailey Falter has moved all the way in. But they seem to be kind of skipping the fifth spot in the in the in the, in the, um, in the rotation some, I don't know. Uh, you got Jared Jones in there and you kind of want to limit his innings, right? Sort of, but not, I don't think you have to worry a lot about Jared Jones. No, it's just that like around off days and stuff. You can mess with them a little bit. You could use the off days as an off day for all your starters and not kind of make them kind of do a four man rotation. You know what I'm saying? I'm not, I'm not saying like you need to, I'm not saying you need to sit Jared Jones on innings. I'm just saying that,

like it might be better if they had actually five starters. Uh, I'm not in on Quinn Priester. So they're like, there's basically an opening in the rotation for the pirates. It's like, I think Paul skeens can be up next time that opening comes through. Let's see. He last pitched on the 18th and they've been giving him extra rest between starts, too. He's pitched on the 30th of March, 5th of April, 12th of April, and the 18th of April. So he's not even going every fifth day right now. I wonder if they would go to a six man rotation temporarily and then take somebody out later.

I think you just keep Quinn Priest. If you need to keep, if you can keep Quinn Priest on the roster and get Keen Skeens on the roster, there's always a question of like, is there somebody on this roster that they're trying to still evaluate and they don't want to drop you? You know what I mean? So that could be, there could be somebody there.

But I think you could just keep Quinn Priester on April 24th against Milwaukee. Quinn Priester's there. Give Paul Skeens that start. They could, I mean, you think, okay, there's a few things. Like they would probably debut him at home because a lot of fanfare, you want that. If they don't do it there,

and that'd be on five days rest instead of four, which they'd be adding the schedule they're on right now, you'd be looking at a series in Oakland on the road, you probably wouldn't do it then, and they're back home against the Rockies the following weekend. So it would be like, Sunday, May 5th, would be Priesters turn against the Rockies

where he'd get a matinee in front of the home fans and a layup matchup too. Like that might be. So I think fifth or 24th, either one. And I think, you know, you keep Quinn Priester on the roster and you, if you're only getting three and the three and a thirds out of skeins in the, in the miners, you're, you're likely to get something like the Jared Jones thing that everyone's so mad about where he's super efficient and gets through five innings with, you know, 70 pitches. Uh, and then, you know, you kind of maybe want Quinn

Priester for the sixth anyway. So either way, I think you, you do it on the Quinn Priester day. Um, and with Marco Gonzalez shut down and Quinn Priester, like just being like, eh, in a time when they have lost six in a row and have come back to earth. I mean, I think it all comes together April 24th against Milwaukee. If they were up to me, that's what I would want to do just because why not, why not use the innings against Freddie Peralta? The fun pitching matchup to watch. Yeah.

Two and eight in their last 10, still 11 and 11 though, thanks to the fast start. But yeah, get out of that little tailspin. You got help, use it. And I don't know who they're really like, really worried about losing, because they've got enough guys in the bullpen with options. Like Ronzy Contreras, Josh Fleming, and Bailey Falter are the three pitchers on the roster right now

without options remaining. So. And I think they do want to keep those guys, but actually Bailey Falter is in the rotation with Paul Skeens in this in the way that we put this together. Right yeah Priestor could just go down because he's got options. Yeah. So that's an easy adjustment if they decide to make it. Or Luis Ortiz who's you know hasn't been great in the bullpen. Yep give him some more opportunities to figure it out at Indianapolis for a little while. Let's get to where the money went.

Talking briefly about some of the things that we saw happen on the waiver wire over the weekend. Any big hits for you? I think you said you all payamps was a well executed bid. Yeah, we fought. We fun. Fun won that one. Sixty three to 58. It's always nice when and that I think that just describes how excited I'm about pie amps is you know A real big closer that you think is gonna be a closer all year goes for like a hundred and eleven 120 something in there

We just thought that he could be the closer until Devon Williams comes back. I Yes, I do believe Trevor Megil is a better pitcher Actually, I do believe that I think I believe Abner Rebay is a better pitcher. Actually, I do believe that. Uh, I think I believe Abner rebate is a better pitcher. There's a little bit of a command issue there, but sometimes your closer is just the guy who's dependable veteran, you know, just, just does, just does the job until devil wins gets back, you know, and you don't put too much pressure on younger guys like Megil and Abner and you need them anyway to strike out the middle of the order in the seventh, you know, so, um, you know, there's lots of different ways to get to a win.

And I think that Piams is someone that could just give us a month worth of saves. We put them on our main event team with Jeff Hoffman and we're just trying to just find a second closer without spending, you know, 120 bucks on one. So that's that's where Piamps went. Other names that were kind of in that range that were sort of like 20, 30, 40 dollar relievers were Ryan Stanek because Andres Munoz is just not pitching the ninth. And it is weird. I got some pushback saying that his stuff was down and someone saying that no, they're using him as a fireman or whatever. But the stuff plus on Andres Munoz fastball right now is 85. And so he is not exactly what he was once. And so I think there's an opening in that Mariners bullpen and I don't know who's going to step into it because Stanek has the stuff stuff but he also has a 19% strikeout rate

And maybe Matt Brash Comes back and steps into that role Either case you've got two guys with pretty good stuff in Munoz and Stanek who are walking the lineup and That seems to be a tough place a tough thing to do as a closer. So that seems to be a tough place, a tough thing to do as a closer. So Stanek is was something that somebody that a lot of people, you know, took a chance on this weekend. Yeah, so a little bit of interest in Hector Naris.

He came up in the chat on Friday and Naris's stuff was down a little bit compared to where it was last year. It's been a bumpy start the year for him. But the reason people are interested in Naris is just because at Bratislava, not the closer right now. It's more open than anybody would have thought for this stretch of April. At least I thought Alzolay was the guy at least until a longer term implosion. So revolving door for the Cubs right now. They're even using Mark Leiter late in games and I just don't trust Mark Leiter's stuff late in games. So, you know, Yancey Almonte is a guy who has the stuff,

but he's a little bit more in that Stanek Munoz package where he's, you know, the command is pretty bad. A few guys that we expected to see get picked up this weekend, Andy Pahez, Willier Abreu, Landon Nack, they were pretty popular for reasons that we had previously outlined. Abreu's playing time, Pahe's being used like a everyday guy, at least for now, and not getting at least one more start. So I think maybe the interest in him is more of a streamer.

Like, hey, let's throw him against the Nationals. And maybe he ends up becoming a streamer that sticks. Yeah, I mean, you're seeing like Grove and Stone, like trying to trying to hand games off to each other. I mean, they're they're they're struggling a little bit more than maybe people expected given all the outlays this this offseason. You've got class now, you've got Yamamoto. And I think really the rest of that line, the rest of that rotation is up for grabs.

Maybe when Bueller comes back, you've got those three. And then Bobby Miller, when all four of those guys are healthy, those four, they get their spots. I still think that fifth spot is like, could be next. It could be next. It could be Groves, could be stones, you know, probably stone is slightly the favorite, but, um, there's stuff I like about neck that I don't like about stone. So, um, I think that could, could just slide in their head of stone and

be the fifth starter, even when people are healthy. So I put some $30 bids on him. That's, that's not breaking the bank. Uh, but it was way more than the secondary bids when I, and I won them both times. Uh, so a little bit of regret that I didn't just, you know, tap that number down a little bit and save myself some money. But on the other end, I'm happy that I got a player I wanted. Last name to throw at you before we go.

Mitchell Parker, 12th innings, two earned runs, matchups against the Dodgers and the Astros last week, 12 Ks, no walks. Where did this come from? I don't know. I mean, the command is good. And again, a good splitter. We've got a lot of guys with good splitters that are kind of confining the model a little bit Least this time stuff plus says the splitters is best pitch. It says as fastballs not very good It says it's curve balls. Not very good. So I'm I'm just not going to I'm not gonna go in

Deep on on a national starter, especially their home park is not really conducive to wins. He doesn't, hasn't given up a homer yet. Of course he's going to give up homers in Washington. So I don't really believe. Yeah. I've, I didn't throw any bids out there despite an excellent week. It's a great story so far.

This combination of skills is something we've never really seen from Mitchell Parker at any level before. Usually control has been a problem for him. You go back to high A and double A, you know, the strikeouts were there, but the control was such a problem that you didn't really see a quality big league starter

in the making. So fun story so far, but I think Paez was, you know, my big regret. Uh, I had a number that might've won them in a couple of leagues and then dropped it down, um, little bit worried that of course there's the, the possibility that once Hayward is healthy, uh, Paez goes back down. Uh, but with Hayward and James Outman, there are two outfield that has could really you know take as his own. He's been playing centerfields that's why i got the big good you know and i had a will your brain and someone in one place and then. Gavin sheets was available to me in tgfbi i took him over bray you.

I took him over bray you and my reasoning was i really needed power and i believe sheets will give that he's also doing something very interesting where he's chasing less than ever chased swing and missing less than he's ever swung and mess. And also hitting more fly balls there he's there three hitter that's one of the reasons why I decided I was just gonna take him he's there three and four hitter every night and he's playing out there every night if it's in first or it's in the corner outfield. So this is I think a kind of a sneaky pickup. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. I mean, I think consolidating things he's done in the past all at once and adding those fly balls, it's at least an interesting enough thing and a small sample to take a chance on because he's maxing out playing time. It's a bad team, but it's a hundred percent playing time. That's hard to find over Colas. They chose him over, you know, that guy that they traded for.

Fletcher. Yeah. And the other guy hit the other guy. Anyway, the other guy. I know you're talking about. Fletcher's up. So he's playing. Zach Deloach. Yeah, Deloach. They chose they chose at least tryingoach, Zach Deloach. Yeah, Deloach. They chose, they chose at least trying Sheets for now over Deloach.

And of course, Deloach or, or Fletcher or Colas could play their way past Sheets. But Sheets is kind of like a veteran at this point where he puts, if he puts it all together, they have him until 2028. Like just, there could be, you know, develop a league average outfielder out of Gavin Sheets and at least know that you have that going forward. There are enough years of team control left that that's worth trying.

Still a skill that you could develop as an organization. It would be helpful. It will suit you well in the years ahead as you try and dig out of the current hole on the South side of Chicago. We're going to go on our way out the door. A reminder, you can email us, ratesandbarrels.gmail.com. You can join our Discord. The link is in the show description or you can contact us on Twitter, enosatinosaris.

I am at Deriff and Riper. The pod is at Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening.