Rates & Barrels - Early Spring Training News Analysis

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

Eno and Al dig into the biggest news items from the early portion of spring training and assess the fantasy impacts. Rundown 1:47 News impacting pitchers (Tyler Glasnow, Joe Musgrove, Chris Sale) 12:33 Gavin Lux and Yordan Alvarez updates 22:05 A position battle on the Cardinals 25:43 Injury news in the NL Central: Seiya Suzuki and Tyrone Taylor 31:00 How will the Rockies replace Brendan Rodgers? 34:15 Clean-up surgeries for Rhys Hoskins and Ozzie Albies 39:39 Early sluggers and Stuff+ standouts Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Al on Twitter: @almelchiorBB e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Treat yourself to Tim's new Fudge Brownie Lattes, made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice-chilled milk, and topped with marble chocolate curls. Now that's music to our ears. Available hot or iced, only at Tim's. Hello everybody, this is Alan Melchior here, this is Rates and Barrels, I'm here with Eno Saris And we've had a few spring training games in the books, you know, so good time as any to review some of the early news out of the spring training site So that's pretty much going to be the theme here. It's all injuries. Isn't it always, though? Well, this early, there's not too much to talk about in terms of performance, but that's not going to stop us either, right?

We'll look at a few early numbers. But yeah, unfortunately, it's going to be a lot of injury news. It's a drag, but we all, I think we've been playing for a while. We all know the drill at this point. So speaking of which, the 2023 Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit is available now on The Athletic to get you ready for those drafts that you still have coming up. Just go to theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. And there you can sign up for a great deal two dollars a month for the first year

and that gets you in the door for the draft kit and of course for everything else so you know let's dig right now right now i've got up those deep sleepers that we talked about the deep pitching sleepers that we talked about last week finally got them on the site and i realized looking back that in last year's deep sleeper article i recommended spencer strider so obviously in this year's article i will also recommend someone who will break the rookie record for strikeout rate it's matt that's that's a fair you know that's a fair promise so there's your value right there i love it so yeah go check it out and again you get a great deal on it as well so yeah now let's go go ahead and dig into some of these early news items.

And as you kind of pre-announced, we have some bad news, especially in terms of pitchers. Actually, one kind of good news item we'll get to, but a couple of really bad news items. Tyler Glass now out six to eight weeks with an oblique strain. He is currently sitting at an 85 ADP on fantasy pros. Obviously that's not going to be the ADP going forward. So how long should we wait to, you know, take a,

I guess now we can call it, take a flyer on Tyler glass now and, and who in the race rotation now maybe gets a chance. You know, what's weird about it. I only had him down for like 130 innings. So he could still get to 130 innings. I mean, like, he's going to start in like May, maybe,

and he'll have one more IL stint, and he'll get to 120, 130 innings. He's still good. I mean, yes, it doesn't, it's not the right foot. And it's also annoying because it reminds you that it's just not all only about the arm. There's all the other parts of the body that can fail. And it is unfortunate for him. Throwing hard is a source of injury. I think that's something you should think about when you're building your team that maybe some soft tossers that will give you innings totals are good like for example on my deep sleeper list I have

Kyle Gibson I'm not recommending him because I think he's going to break out I'm not recommending him because I think he's going to be amazing I'm recommending him because he's top five in innings in the last eight years he's probably going to to pitch. It might not be that bad. It'll be useful and he'll give you innings. So I think there's some sort of marriage between innings and quality that you have to think about. I don't know. It's different for everybody. People, there's a lot of people who are super risk averse. Right now I'm in my TGFBI draft and I think we're in the 12th round and Tyler Glass now has not gone. He sits there lonely atop the pitching queue and everybody's wondering when somebody's going to go. I have as starting pitchers Shane McClanahan, Hunter Green, and Luis Garcia.

So I keep looking at him and I keep wondering when I'm going to take the jump. The problem is also the shape of the innings has changed. If we thought we were going to get 130 innings, but at least he would start the season with us, then we could think, okay, we can start the season with him. If there is a big injury, we drop him. You know, the decision is later. But starting the season with somebody on your bench who's injured is a different proposition. Yeah, that it is.

And your discussion of your TGFBI draft, that's a good segue for me to talk about the next news item. And that is Joe Musgrove, who hurt his toe, broke his toe, dropping a kettlebell on it, his big left toe. So that's news that hurts in a couple of different ways. Now, I took him.'ve taken him already my tgfbi is also in round 12 i took him in round eight and now i'm wondering if i've already made my first drafting blunder after the news or before after the news because i i figure his doesn't seem it's not obliques are worse for sure exactly i mean they're both pain related injuries but obliques are worse. For sure. Exactly. I mean, they're both pain-related injuries, but obliques are more important to the process of throwing fast. Like, for example, torso rotation, speed, velocity,

describes 25% of your fastball velocity. So it's probably the biggest thing, and that's your obliques. Obliques are a big part of that. I don't know. I think the prognosis on Musgrove was two weeks, no throwing, and then he'll start throwing. He'll just be two weeks behind. It could be like the Wheeler thing, where we all

freaked out about Wheeler last spring. I don't even know if he missed a start. Maybe he missed a start. be two weeks behind in spring uh you know two weeks from now he he pitches one inning then he pitches three innings and then or two innings and he pitches three innings then he can pitch four probably opening week because that was that was kind of my thinking uh it also might be a mistake to just assume that it's only going to be two weeks I mean that's you know best case scenario. So there's a big risk because the timetable is completely undetermined at this point.

But I made a calculation at that point that I thought there was a leveling off of the pitching quality at round eight. And why not get a potential SP2 as my SP3? Right. That was the thing. I mean, right now I'm looking at pitchers that are healthy. I'm looking at pitchers that are projected by my model to have mid threes and higher ERAs. 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, right? I think average is going to be 4.1 or something.

So I'm looking at 3.7. Tyler Glass now is projected by my thing to have a 2.2 ERA. So it's the same thing with Musgrove it's like oh there's a 3-3 ERA on the table who's a little bit hurt but not a lot hurt or I'm going to go get like 3-7 oatmeal you know

I think if you have some I think it also depends on how many pitches you have in hand how many starting pitches do you have before you have I had two but and here's where I am questioning myself one of them is jacob degrom so going risky i see your future at the first two of three which is not well i have shane mcclanahan and a rookie so if i made tyler glass on my four there would be a fair amount of risk but i don't know pitching staffs are risky, man. They just are.

Yeah, it's kind of hard to get around that. I got Max Freed in between the two. So I feel great about that. And that I just literally, as we were talking, picked up Pablo Lopez for us before. That's good. You kind of went more, you kind of alternated like super high in quality with closer innings.

Although Pablo's had some issues with innings. Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't put him in the Gibson category in terms of reliability. Obviously, a much higher ceiling than Gibson. But you mentioned Luis Garcia. I had him in the queue, I think, right after Pablo Lopez. Chris Bassett, I think, is pretty safe. They're all going kind of in the same neighborhood.

So, yeah. Especially given how I've drafted so far, I, you know, I may need to get Kyle Gibson on there eventually. But yeah, Glass now is dropping further than Musgrove. Yeah. I think he should in all honesty, because of the type of injury and the timetable as we know it. So that said in San Diego, any fallout there, obviously, you know, being cautious with drafting Musgrove, but any fallout in terms of who could replace him that would make any difference in their draft status? You know, it's pretty interesting.

One thing I saw was that Nick Martinez threw four innings. I was really impressed. I mean, that's like four innings. I was really impressed. I mean, that's like four innings at this point. Everybody else has thrown two. And I thought it might be the WBC, but he's opted out of the WBC. So I think Nick Martinez may be a starter all year. And I think this injury solidifies that. Yeah.

And so now you're talking about Waka is the four to begin the year. Who is going to step up at the back end of that rotation? You start to see why this rotation does not have a ton of depth. It's going to be Jay Groom or Seth Lugo. Then there's also the question of, you know,

if Seth Lugo was going to be a starter, you know, should he be pitching two-inning stints already? And I'm going to answer that question right now. Because I don't think he has been. I've been watching the Padres. I don't even know if he's pitched yet for the Padres. I don't think he has been. I've been watching the Padres. I don't even know if he's pitched yet for the Padres. I don't think so. And again, it's early.

Most teams have played like five or six games at most. Yeah, but one thing you do notice is that, for example, Nick Martinez has six innings pitched. That's why he went to four. Jay Groom already has 3.2 innings pitched. That's interesting. Well, this is the kind of spring training development that we should be paying attention to.

And Ryan Weathers has four and a third. I do want to switch over here real quick. I do have spring training stuff numbers. And no Ryan Weathers. I hate it. It's always like, did they pitch in front of the machines? Ryan Weathers has poor fastball shape. He does have six strikeouts against one walk,

and he has the second most innings. Seth Lugo has pitched one game and has two innings so that's that's starter workload though yeah that's that's he's on the starter workload but he's behind groom and weathers which i think is interesting and again this early it's so hard to tell if that means anything uh i'm not sure where he is and but i would see where what his next start is if seth lugo if seth lugo goes four in the next one he's probably jumping up ahead of Weathers and Groom and he's the five yeah all right well a situation to watch at least for the the early weeks and obviously Musgrove uh situation to watch very closely too because we

don't really know a whole lot yet about the timetable and I did say there was one piece of pretty good news and that is that Chris Sale is to be on a mound in a competitive situation. He's going to make his first spring training start in his first start period since last July, coming off of the fractured pinky. So he is going to start on Monday. Sale right now on Fancy Pros with a 154 ADP. So heavily discounted, but again, for good reason. He has not pitched much the last couple years.

He also did not come he didn't come back with his full stuff when he did uh at least not by by the stuff rating so we the the the pitching model has a 373 era i i'm not going to claim that that's you know rock solid and he has no upside beyond that it's obvious that he's chris sale so i'm pretty interested to see how this start looks. Yeah, so something to watch on Monday. Mark your calendars for that. That ADP, that seems pretty much risk-free to me.

Especially since despite the stuff numbers being down, he had a 3 ERA for the last two seasons he tried to get out there. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely, I think where he's going, he's an interesting pitcher. Whoa, what are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking? You know you're driving a 2024 Ford Escape

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at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate terms apply all right well let's uh move on over to hitters actually a lot more going on here with hitter news the big big news of course is gavin lux is out for 2023 we just talked about him you know last week and some good developments uh on driveline a little bit of excitement around that but of course it's just a terrible news that he'll be missing the season with a torn ACL in his right knee. He got injured during our Monday episode. I actually did the little breaking news voice with Chris Welsh

and was watching the replay live while we were recording the audio. So it was pretty rough to see i have seen already a lineup for the dodgers with chris taylor at short which i thought was done with but um you know with miguel rojas also uh there was some some injury news with him but i think miguel rojas is the starter. You need to have somebody on the roster that can back him up, and I guess that's going to be Chris Taylor. Okay.

Well, I think that's significant because, yeah, I wouldn't expect Taylor to play much at shortstop unless whatever this is with Rojas is serious or lingering. But I think just the fact that he'll see some reps there, or we can suppose that he's going to see some reps at shortstop given how the dodgers manage the roster given how versatile taylor is i have to think that that's that's a pretty much of a an upwards arrow for for him yeah i think it does uh make sure that he gets close to full playing time because he had some risk of losing the centerfield job at least

against lefties to Trace Thompson so maybe he's the center fielder against righties and the backup shortstop and the backup second baseman I think it also some people are asking if Michael Bush is going to get the call up and I think the Taylor news of playing short suggests not really because you can have three players for second base you don't really want Muncy over there but if you've got Vargas Taylor and Muncy to cover the position you don't need to call up Bush so I don't know that Bush is necessarily number one with a bullet on this depth chart. I will say Miguel Vargas seems pretty assured of full playing time right now. What do you think about this Dodger lineup just in general? I think it's not as deep as it's been in recent years.

And that's something that we really, I think, should take into account when we're drafting Dodgers and thinking about the run production aspect. Is there reason enough there, you think, maybe to downgrade, especially in the lower part of the portion, some of the Dodger hitters? It's possible. I also think of the Astros lineup that just won the World Series with Chaz McCormick, Martin Maldonado up the middle. I think teams are okay with two empty spots if those spots are defensive forward. And the Dodgers are blessed with a great offensive catcher in Will Smith,

maybe the best offensive catcher in the business for non-fantasy reasons. I think fantasy is probably still Real Muto. But overall, I think the lineup is still strong with the two weaknesses being Miguel Rojas and center field. And the days that Taylor's in center, that's not that bad. But maybe I overrate David Peralta. I've always liked David Peralta, and I think at least against righties,

he's going to be a credible guy I'm also interested in J.D. Martinez reuniting with the hitting coach that really helped him break out and Van Scoyock the the Dodgers hitting coach and then even if J.D. Martinez doesn't you know improve I mean which is actually you know not very likely at 35 years old. Even if he doesn't improve, last year he was 20% better than the average. He's likely to be about that. So I think in terms of holes on this roster, you're talking about Rojas and Thompson, really. And that's not that bad.

I will have to admit, I was including Peralta in that. But as you were talking, I realized, you know, that's a pretty nice park factor upgrade for him from arizona so and he's been a guy who you know that barrels the ball makes contact uh you know you know he's an overall he's he's better player than i think people realize and um you know at very least league average uh but yeah okay if they've got three holes, then it's probably one more than they've had in the past. They also have the propensity to find people. What if this guy, Altman,

turns out to be something? I think maybe Altman is maybe a little bit more likely to get some playing time. Hayward seems penciled in as going to play against righties at some level. So if Hayward has a great spring, could he play center?

I don't know. At this stage, I wouldn't assume so, but who knows. But you do make a very good point about the Dodgers just finding people. The list is long and growing. Muncie, Taylor, Justin Turner uh you know find people who were journeymen and make them into really productive regulars so I mean Thompson had a 142 WRC plus in 255 plate appearances last year so I think if you limit him to lefties, you're getting the best out of him. Yeah. So probably not much there in terms of changing what you factor in for run production. Just Vargas is solid now.

I think Vargas is pretty solid. In my TGFBI, I took Lars Neutbar, big surprise. And Miguel Vargas was the very next pick. So that's that. And that was the 12th round. So that tells you a little bit about where these types of players are going. I think Newt Barr, you know, has a little bit more assured shot at like something like 260, 25, 10. But they're kind of similar players in terms of making contact, having a little bit of speed. I believe a little bit more in Nubar's power.

Yeah. I got sniped on Nubar, so you, of course, got the job done. No surprise there. Just cost me a second closer. All right. Well, let's pivot to the Astros, who you mentioned just a moment ago, and some good news there. The general manager, Dana Brown, expects Jordan Alvarez to be ready for opening

day. Of course, he's been dealing with a hand injury, which I feel like has been slightly putting a damper on his ADP on fantasy pros. He's going to typically ninth. And do you think he should be more, you know, like top four, top five, with that good news? he should be more you know like top four top five uh with that good news he doesn't steal bases and his knees aren't good um those are the only two knocks i can put on the best hitter in baseball um you know i continue my annoyance with the astros in not really telling us what's wrong with his wrist. Yeah. And to some extent, Dusty almost flaunting it and being like, oh, with HIPAA, I don't have to tell you anything.

Well, I'm not a lawyer. I don't know exactly how, you know, what HIPAA is, but I do know that it's tradition that the manager tells you what's going on. That's like what happens you go into the dugout and the first thing that happens before every game is how's that injury how's it going how's it progressing what's going on when are they coming back that's like the first 20 minutes of every manager scrum so uh the astros continue to annoy me when it comes to not telling us what's wrong we don't know what's wrong with his wrist. Yeah, and that would be...

Just that he might be ready for opening day. I would love to know what's wrong with his wrist. Right. You know, like it would be able to help us a little bit know what's going on, but he's got something on his wrist. Okay, thanks. Well, and I think you add that to the concerns that you raised, that maybe that, you know, you don't take the chance on him if you're at 5 or 6 for that reason.

He's going 9 and 10. Down there, you start having some question marks. You also start having more players at the back end of the first round that don't steal bases. If it's like Jordan Alvarez against Freddie Freeman, he does steal some bases, but he's older. Will he keep stealing bases? The age is a question mark. You know, that's, you start having a few more questions.

Oh, you know, do I take Jordan Alvarez or Corbin Burns? Or one's a pitcher, you know, they have the propensity to break. So, yeah. All right. Well, I guess we'll just be drafting in the dark uh still as far as uh jordan alvarez is concerned now you know oh and it's listed as hand and wrist in different places those are totally different that is true yeah i said hand you said wrist so uh hamate well and it might be a hand if it is then that yeah that's that's a big deal why am i seeing

this in so many different places? Oh, God. If it's a handmaid, that's surgery, and he loses. It doesn't necessarily impact his power. People think that it impacts his power. It's not necessarily that it impacts his power. But surgery always means recovery in three or four weeks or something at least. Yeah. Well, I'm really interested in your interpretation of this next piece of news.

Tyler O'Neill and Dylan Carlson are competing for the center field job. Now, that doesn't mean that there's just one starting role for the two of them. It's just who's going to cover center. But as you brought up, I think it was last week, you know, that Jordan Walker, he could be on this roster opening day or if not, then probably very soon after. So there is going to be a glut in the outfield as the the Cardinals always seem to have so I will say about you know I look at this piece of news and to me this is much worse news for Dylan Carlson than for Tyler O'Neill but I know what do you see yeah Dylan Carlson has not wowed with the bat.

You know, in terms of plate appearances, which is, like I've been saying, is one of the things I look at, we've got Jordan Walker with nine, Dylan Carlson with eight, and Tyler O'Neal with eight. So they're obviously taking a long and hard look there. Alec Burleson also has seven, and he's maybe an option for a fourth outfielder if they decide to send walker down i hesitate to even turn the page over to the standard results to look at what's going on oh my god jordan walker slugging 778 and tyler neal slugging 375 and carlson's second slugging 375

that's i'm not going to think about it don't think about it don't look at the results not O'Neal slugging 375 and Carlson slugging 375. I'm not going to think about it. Don't think about it. Don't look at the results. It's too early to look at the results. But this is a staring match here that is happening at center field. And I think the projections prefer Tyler O'Neal. And so if they're going to go with Tyler... And Carlson has options left, right?

I will check that because I'm actually not sure. Let me see. Yeah, I'm sure Carlson has options left. Let me see. It's right here on Fangraphs. Three options left. Oh, wow. I guess he never got option.

But that would be kind of a seismic thing in a way because he's been up for three years and hasn't been optioned but um uh you know it could also just be we want to see how they look in these places and uh uh you know carlson seems headed by the projections if this is going to be the case for a backup center field job. Well, let me reframe the question in a way that I think is more impactful for us when we're staring at our draft cues. So I'm working on a piece, not right now, but on either side of this podcast.

On the top 10 players, I'm going to fade based on the chances they lose some playing time this year. And in an initial draft, I thought maybe this, maybe this is a signal that Tyler O'Neill should be one of those. I decided, no, I'm not going to fade him at all because I think whatever the competition

is, I mean, he's going to, I think he's going to play full time, no matter what, even though he's coming off of sort of a down year. I mean, he's projected for a one 26 no matter what even though he's coming off of sort of a down year i mean he's projected for 126 wrc plus dylan carlson's projected over 106 and you think about the error bands around that you know that means tyler o'neill is likely to be anywhere from like 106 to 140 or whatever you know and uh that means that dylan carlson could be anywhere from sub league average to maybe where Tyler O'Neal is projected to be.

So that's a big enough gap where I'm saying, if there's a loser here, it's Dylan Carlson. Yeah, okay, so no reason to fade Tyler O'Neal as far as either of us are concerned. All right, moving within the division here, Seisuzuki could miss opening day for the Cubs. He's got no oblique strain. So any fallout here,

either in terms of waiting on Suzuki or elevating somebody who could fill that slot? Yeah, I hate these obliques, man. Oblique is like the worst thing to hear in spring because they're just going to be behind. He's projected to be the best hitter by the Bad X. He's projected to be the best hitter by the Bad X. He's projected to be the best hitter on the Cubs. So obviously he'll be fine when he comes back in.

But who would replace him in the meantime? I think this solidifies Christopher Morell's spot somewhere, right? Like makes him more likely to hang on to third base and maybe Wisdom or maybe Wisdom plays third and Morrell plays the outfield. Wisdom and

Morrell are both projected to be around league average. Just looking at the projections, there's nobody that pops out other than like, maybe Miles Masturbione makes the team on the back end because there's an extra roster spot. But I don't think that means that he starts. Nelson Velasquez could get more time in the outfield. He could get that roster spot, but I don't think he gets a starting role.

In terms of a starting role, I think that just solidifies morale and puts wisdom into some sort of platoon. starting role i think that just solidifies morale and puts wisdom into some sort of platoon because wisdom is not great uh against righties um so i guess you know there could be like there's it does open the window just a little bit for matt mervis yeah it's a just a little bit of a crack there for matt nervous mervis you know uh? And Matt Mervis does lead the team in plate appearances, and he has a 33% walk rate, which is pretty nuts. I don't think he's going to sustain that just going out on a limb. I'm just guessing. But it is funny because his walk rate really went up every step

as he went up in uh you know through the minors yeah and so there was some question of like what's going on there it seems like he does have a good eye otherwise he's struck out as many times as he's walking he's hit a double so uh i yeah too too early to say that but you know given that he does lead the lead the lead the cubs in plate appearances and Morrell is right there with him, those are the two I think that could benefit the most from this injury. All right. Well, let's stick in the NL Central here with the Brewers.

Tyrone Taylor to miss at least the first month of the season with the right elbow sprain. Is there anybody? I don't think Taylor was going especially high anyway, but is there anybody to fill the void there? Brian Anderson comes to mind that now becomes relevant. I have liked Brian Anderson in a lot of drafts so far and still do. And for me, this puts a hold on a job for him. So I think it also opens the door, I think,

for Garrett Mitchell to take the starting center field job. He's been playing a lot for the Brewers, and let me see, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see that he leads them in plate appearances. Not quite. He's one or two off the lead. But, you know, the big thing with Garrett Mitchell is, you know, he's shown some power.

But, you know, another question for Garrett Mitchell is strikeouts. And, you know, he had decent strikeout rates in the minors. And then last year in his first taste of the majors, 41 so i think we're all looking at that and right now uh he struck out three times in night nine plate appearances so that's not the best strikeout right that's something i'd watch but i think garrett I think Garrett Mitchell was close to a lock anyway because a lot of places had Tyrone Taylor as a corner outfielder. But I think this makes it more likely he makes the team. Maybe Sal Frelick backs up Brian Anderson in right field

and the opening day. Maybe Bryce Turang makes the roster now because Luis Urias, Willie Damas, Bryce Turang, Rowdy Tellez across the infield. I think that is more likely now too. Although how excited I am about Bryce Tourang, I don't know. The power has not really been there. Powerless guys have to do everything else for me to really get to the table and uh you know the walks are there maybe the contact is there the defense should be there but does that make him a great

fantasy option i don't know the projections are for like a 230 average you know even a full season uh you know he would give you 12 homers and 15 stolen bases or something. Yeah, which is something a little more exciting with maybe a 260-270 average, but that fills maybe a late-round need. Deep league. Yeah, or certainly deep league, yeah. Now here's a news item we were talking about just before we started recording. You know, Brendan Rodgers has dislocated his shoulder. There was a piece on MLB.com that suggested that Alan Trejo

would be the most likely player to step in, fill in for Rodgers. I've not seen the timetable. I think maybe you've seen something a little bit more updated and detailed than I have. What's your take on the situation? They said that there was some damage to the shoulder capsule and that surgery is on the table and he might miss the season. That's unfortunate because I had Rodgers in one of my breakout articles. I don't remember which

one. But it's too bad because he had been progressing in his career. It's also too bad for the Rockies because he's one of their few good players. And, you know i i don't think alan trejo is a very good player we're talking about a guy who's had very inconsistent power uh even if he does get to that power he's got very little patience and uh contact is also a question mark but um if you're looking for uh sort of a warm body that can hit 250 uh with with 15 homers for you. I don't think that, you know, with Garrett Hampson gone, I don't really see that much else as an option. Maybe non-roster Harold Castro as an option.

He might make the team. But I think, you know, one thing that they do do is, you know, show their internal internal guys uh favorites over over external guys and harold castro um you know al trey is going to be better defensively he's a he's a shortstop yeah you know from a fantasy perspective we don't get a vote in this but you know i might root for cast Castro because at least he has hit for average, and maybe with the move to Coors, we see a little bit more power. A little bit of intrigue there.

Definitely we're talking deep league with either of these candidates. So something to watch there, and again, especially to see if Rodgers is going to be draftable going forward. Yeah, what's the bench in Colorado? If Rodgers is out for the year, build a bench. The build a bench is Brian Servin at backup catcher. You've got to have that. Backup center fielder on Fangraph says Harold Castro is in the mix.

I don't know about that. Randall Gritchuk, I think, can still probably backup center, but that's not a great option. And he's a starter somewhere else so i think harold castro makes this team harold castro looks like he's needed in center backup middle infield he's listed as the third shortstop on this roster uh so you got harold castro brian servan on your bench man there's still a lot of open spots there I suppose

Iluhira's Montero could make it Sean Bouchard is going to make it so that's your bench probably Bouchard, Castro Bouchard, Castro Servin and

one more so Castro's definitely on this team. I think Castro just made the team. Let's go to a couple of items that I personally don't think have a lot of impact, but again, I'm kind of interested to see how this might or might not change things for you. Reese Hoskins and Ozzy Albees both

having some sort of cleanup surgery in the offseason. Hoskins with arthzie Albies both having some sort of cleanup surgery in the offseason. Hoskins with arthroscopic knee surgery back in December. Albies had surgery on his right shoulder in October, and he had been dealing with an impingement prior to that. And of course, Albies dealing with a variety of injuries in 2022. I believe that there was no labrum damage to Albie's shoulder, as far as I could tell. And that is good news. So an impingement is not quite labrum fraying.

Any sort of labrum repair is a bigger deal. So I think that's what they, when they say just a regular cleanup, you know, it seems, seems not such a big deal. The type of knee surgery that Hoskins had also on the lower end of knee surgeries, meniscus is interesting though,

because you have a choice between sort of repairing the meniscus, which takes more rehab time, but is better for you long term. And do we know if it was meniscus repair? I don't recall seeing anything about that. So I don't. Yeah, repair. It was repair. I think that's better for him. I think that's better.

Because the other kind is they basically just take the meniscus out. And then you're kind of bone on bone. You have a risk of arthritis going forward. I know we have doctors who listen. I'm sorry if I got it wrong. But my understanding is that repair takes longer to recover from so if there is anything for Hoskins it would be that he had to do some rehab this offseason couldn't do as much hitting but I don't know he seems like he's one of those fall out of bed types don't you think like yeah

worst case scenario hits 220 with his 35 homers? I don't know. It's a difference that matters, but I guess the question is just, for me, he would be kind of a fallback option anyway. So at that stage, I don't know that this is news that really would make me wait a little longer. Yeah.

The first base is a sneaky, tough position. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it is sometimes nice to get that Vlad Guerrero, Freddie Freeman, you know, guy at the beginning that just locks it down because, you know, Rowdy Tellez is one of my favorite last chance saloon guys. And when you're kind of after Rowdydy telez there's a bit of a line there where it's like i'm not as excited anymore about any of these guys what have i done yeah

well i made a point in the tgfbi to get matt olsen pretty early because i do think there's a substantial fall off there and it's not in the same category with vlad but um you know freddie freeman certainly but uh much better than there's in the reese h Vlad, but, you know, Freddie Freeman, certainly, but much better than the Reese Hoskins of the player pool. I think there's been a little bit of a change in how the league works first base, too. You know, I think we used to have a lot more teams like the Rays that were just like, hey, we've got some guys and they play first base, you know, and like, we'll figure it out. hey, we've got some guys and they play first base, you know, and like, we'll figure it out. There's been a little bit more of, look at the Yankees spending money on Anthony Rizzo, you know, and you look at the Dodgers going

and getting Freddie Freeman. And you look at the Astros paying Jose Abreu. Those are three of the most progressive teams in baseball if they're actually valuing first base and making it that such it also means that there are fewer teams where somebody will gain first base eligibility yeah

that used to be something that happened more often this is sort of anecdotal in terms of but I think now when I think of someone gaining uh something i think of outfield maybe um no that's uh that's a good point and it's things have gone sort of topsy-turvy from you know say 10 years ago when uh short stops were really at a premium and it wasn't that deep of a position and it's like you got first base eligibility well so what um and now it's really kind of flipped uh where yeah mostly i think because uh shortstop is uh where you put your

most athletic young player you put your star you put in and so every team is scrambling hard to have a good shortstop you know and the there's not that many teams that are doing what the braves and dodgers are doing right now which which is stopgap type stuff. But the Dodgers sort of backed into that. They kept Gavin Lux in a lot of trades. They didn't want him gone. They wanted him to be their shortstop of the future. So that's what they wanted.

And I think the Braves are still headed towards Von Grissom. I'm just a little bit worried about how much Orlando Arcee is playing. Yeah, that's a good one to watch too. Because yeah, I've not been that interested in Grissom because of the same concerns. So yeah, that's a good one to watch. Well, you know, speaking of spring trends and spring numbers, we did promise at the outset here that we would talk about

some very, very, very early spring numbers here. I'm just going to bring up a couple of players. And then, you know, I know you've got some spring stuff plus numbers that are interesting. But a couple of players have already joined the three home run club, Jared Kelnick and Ronnie Mauricio. Interesting in different ways, obviously, for, you know, Kelnick. We're not that surprised maybe that, you know, he would show this kind of early power. But he kind of, I think, needs a good spring maybe to rebuild our confidence in the fantasy community. And then Mauricio, I mean, can he force a roster spot out of this? I don't think he's at that point yet, but

I still think that Beatty's ahead of him. And if it's not Beatty, then it's more likely to be not Beatty. Then I don't think it'll be Mauricio. I think it'll be more likely to be some sort of veteran approach there at third because they still have Escobar, and instead of having Beatty or Mauricio as a third base option. They could just have Luis Guayarmi and then have an extra outfielder, you know, which they seem to have an extra bit of those. Maybe Ruff makes the team instead of Beatty, that sort of deal.

I don't think Mauricio is about to make this team. And the other thing that's interesting about Mauricio is that he's had, he's shown this, he's shown power. That has not been the problem. And so the real question for his ceiling, I think, is patience. At this point, I think he's shown that he could come up and hit 240, get on base at like a 290, 300 level, and hit for maybe league average power.

But that doesn't sum up to a great major league real-life player. And so he's kind of more interesting to fantasy players than in real life. And the big question is, can he either just get back to 15% K rate and just be a guy who walks 5%, Ks 15%, and gets a lot out of his balls and plays and has a 320 OBP? That's one way of going forward for him. The other way is he's got to be more patient. So those are the two things I'm looking at

a little bit more than the power output from Ronnie Mauricio. All right, all right. Well, let's get to those numbers that you were very excited about, Stuff Plus. Oh, yeah. It's fun to get Stuff Plus. I was just talking to Jordan, who points out that the regression amounts by pitch type are very small when you look at some of our best pitches. In terms of four-seam fastball, 18 pitches. At 18 pitches, if you were going to project someone's Stuff Plus on their four-seam fastball going forward, you would start to use their actual Stuff Plus. So it takes 18 pitches until you start getting more signal than noise. And in fact, we are already at 18 pitches

for some of these four-seam fastballs with great stuff. Trevor Meggel leads the spring training people who have pitched in front of machines. So not all of stream training. Also, you had to have 18 fastballs, but Trevor Maguil had a

142 stuff plus on his 21 fastballs. That is really good news. That means the VLO's back. That means at least the fastball in place. I also like that he was talking curveball with Max Scherzer. If he can just put together one really solid secondary, he has kind of okay secondaries.

If he could have like a really like a plus secondary with that fastball, he has breakout potential and much more than David Peterson, if you ask me. All right. I'm more excited about Trevor Magill than David Peterson. Yeah, and those two pitchers become a little bit more relevant because there was a news item within the last day or two about the Mets going to a six-man rotation when they don't have a break in the schedule. I think it's like 10 straight games, but also not just limited to that either. So it's not going to be a six-man rotation all season long, but enough that let's say somebody like Miguel gets, you know, certainly gets more of a chance to start.

And then, you know, you get your foot in the door and maybe there's an opportunity for a bigger role. So is that something that you... I mean, I'd like that for injury prevention and load management on Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. I don't like that because it means fewer starts for Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. And it's the type of thing that people say in spring, and then they discard as soon as the Phillies are in first place, and they're not. You know what I mean?

So I think that we should take that with just a little grain of salt. But, however, with a rotation that old, with that much injury risk, frankly, I think Magale becomes super interesting. Even Peterson. They're going to use both of these guys. I'm just a little bit more excited about Magale. Also in second place there among pitchers

that pitched in front of the machines and threw 18 fastballs is Luis Ortiz. Love this guy to death. I just, I don't think they break camp with him. So that's a kind of a guy to stash for later. Bednar's in full form. Nate Peterson's 100 mile an hour fastballs are on this list. Ricky Tieneman only threw eight four-seam fastballs, but he had a 128 stuff plus.

That looks nice. Luis Severino struggled, but his fastball was at a 127 stuff plus so I am still on the Luis Severino train and everybody's asking everybody everywhere is asking what did Andrew Painter look like in the numbers Andrew Painter had a 110 uh fastball four-seam stuff plus, which I think is lower than you might expect given the VLOs he was putting up. So there is, you know, people were right to maybe question the shape on his fastball. However, it's still a 110 stuff plus on the fastball, and he still throws as hard as he does.

So I think he is good as long as he throws that hard. Andrew Painter's curveball did not register well, but he threw one and the cutter and slider did well, but he only threw nine. So I just wanted to comment really quickly on his fastball because he did throw 19 of them and we're starting to get some notable, somewhat actionable numbers. So if Painter does have a 110 stuff plus fastball, then giddy up.

All right. All right. Well, I'm looking forward to coming back to this, revisiting this a little bit later in spring training when we've got more pitchers pitching in front of the cameras, when we've got the machines and we've got more pitches to talk about. Because if somebody's thrown a pitch three times, we certainly want to see a larger sample than that. So there's no, there's no

regression amount on our list. It's that little. The forcing fastball, our model does the best on that and the slider, sliders, 19 sliders. If anybody's interested in this, it's sort of wonky, but it does tell you if you're looking at per pitch type numbers for stuff plus these are the most uh these are our strongest foot feet forward the forcing fastball 18 slider 19 you know curveball is 14 uh and knuckle curve is 21 so i would say you put those two together and you get around 18 19 sinker we've got up to 20. So we're doing good there. Change up 40. And that gives you a sense and cutter 31.

That gives you a sense of the weaknesses in the model. Those are the things that we're always trying to mess around with. Those are the things we're trying to improve. And, and then also, just so you know, the locations for all of these, the fastball does well, but it's at 227. So that's why location plus is important, but it takes a long time to come online. All right. Well, again, we'll see, you know, some more meaningful numbers as we get deeper into spring training. Of course, there's always, you know,

caveats with any kind of spring training number, but at least there's, you know, something that can help to inform us. So interesting topic. And that said, if there's things that you have questions for us about or things that you would be interested in having us discussing, shoot us an email. You can email us at ratesandbarrels at gmail.com. So that's ratesandbarrels, all spelled out. You can ask in the comments section, that's right below this video on YouTube, or you can find us on Twitter. Eno is at Eno Saris. I'm at Al Melchior BB. And that's going to be a wrap then for this episode. But we will be back on Friday with actually I will be back on Friday with Greg

Jewett. We'll be talking all kinds of reliever talk. That'll be good. And we'll have you back on the show next week. So thank you all so much for joining us here. And we'll be back again with some more good stuff. Thanks for listening. Thank you.