Rates & Barrels - Eddie Rosario, the non-tender deadline, changes in Texas, and early draft observations

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

Eno and DVR discuss the non-tender deadline, Trevor May's move into the Mets' bullpen, concerns about pitcher injuries in 2021, early NFBC draft observations, and more.  Rundown 1:14 The Non-Tender Deadline & $/WAR 8:48 Alex Kirilloff's Path to Playing Time Opens Up 10:51 Trevor May Heads to the Mets 12:09 2021 Pitcher Injury Concerns 19:25 Changes Around the Rangers' Infield 25:31 Catcher Is Still Pretty Rough 30:35 Matt Moore & Other International Free Agents of Interest 42:52 Early NFBC Drafts: deGrom, LeMahieu & Arenado 54:08 Digging Deep: Adbert Alzolay & JT Brubaker Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic for just $1/month at theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. The answer is FedEx. Okay. But what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx. Oh. But let's say that... FedEx.

What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Wednesday, December 2nd. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris, a few hours ahead of Major League Baseball's non-tender trade deadline. Somehow this day just gets bigger and bigger every year, and a lot of expectations that this year will be more non-tendery than ever before as teams try to shed payroll.

We had some early rumblings of something that's going to happen with Eddie Rosario going on waivers on Tuesday. We're assuming he'll clear waivers. We'll talk about him. There's some changes in Texas with Elvis Andrews. Isaiah Kiner-Falefa moving to a new position. And then we've got a few more international free agents to talk about because we've got some breaking news in that area. We're also going to dig into some early NFBC ADP observations

and take a mailbag question or two. Eno, how's it going for you on this Wednesday? I am really tired because the little guy had bad dreams, but I'm okay. I did have an interesting conversation this morning with an agent about today. And there's been a lot of prognostication that today would be... Right word. A plus on the delivery. That today would be a bloodbath, that there would be a lot of non-tenders today. And so I think that Eddie Rosario was read as some as like the canary in the coal mine.

I'm always so proud when I pull an idiom out right. Proper usage. I used the thing right. I didn't use the wrong bird. that he was going to that there was going to be more Eddie Rosarios after this.

So I was interested to talk to an agent today and he didn't represent Rosario or Tommy Pham, who's the other guy that everyone in San Diego is thinking about. And he said that he wasn't feeling the pressure. He thought that it would be a big, big day for non-tenders, but that none of his clients were actually feeling the pressure they were all signing uh they didn't even get a lot of heat from teams uh to sign for a smaller number or anything um that the process seems to be going forward as normal uh but he did but so okay so tommy fam is projected for about 2.6 wins you know more, more than two and a half wins. He's better than a league average player. Um, and he's projected for an $8 million arbitration number. Um, Eddie

Rosario is predicted for about two wins, maybe even a little bit less. So he's just about a league average player. He's projected for $10 million. Uh, both of those numbers, by any look at dollars per war that I've done in the past, should be fine. You know, if you look at dollars per war from the perspective of all dollars spent and all wins available, even if you do that, which includes arbitration, minimum salary guys, if you do it that way, the dollar per win number is around four and a half, four and a half to five. So a two win guy should be $10 million. In the past, we've used free agencies, free agents only to do it.

And then the dollars per win total was around $8 million or $9 million, in which case Eddie Rosario would be a bargain, which is what the kind of arbitration system is supposed to put together. So the discrepancy between these two players' arbitration numbers, I kind of think that the Padres will keep Pham just because they're in a win-now state. I think it might cost more to replace nearly three wins in free agency than it would to just keep Pham at $8 million. I know that he's had kind of a nightmare offseason with three surgeries and stuff. So maybe the medicals end up being the decision-making process.

But I think they'll keep him. Rosario's obviously on the move. There is some effort within the game to change the arbitration process um arbitrators do not really consider uh things advanced stats the most advanced stats as i gather it are leverage index for relievers and maybe uh some uh understanding of war uh for position players it's really disappointing i think it's something you were tweeting about on tuesday night you know why have these independent people who don't really understand how players are valued handling this process that is not in the best interest of the players? It creates these weird

gaps in what players should be paid and what they are paid. I think there is a pretty big difference though between FAM and Rosario. I think all the scouting reports, all the responses to Rosario being freely available, and assumingly by the time most people listen to this, a free agent. I don't think anyone's going to claim him off waivers because they know he will become a free agent in just a matter of hours. I think it's the fact that Tommy Pham gets on base a lot more. That's a huge difference in their overall value. When you look at the year-over-year war from the last three seasons, you see a four-win season. You see a six-win season on the ledger

for Tommy Pham. So even though he's a little bit older than Rosario, he'll turn 33 in March, I think you can make a pretty strong case for Pham as the superior offensive player, right? You get more power probably from Rosario and you can ask questions about Tommy Pham's speed and how well that tool is going to hold up for him in his age 33 season. But if Tommy Pham isn't an $8 million player in the big leagues right now,

that to me is more of a, what are we doing here sort of situation because you're getting a lot of ceiling and you're getting a pretty good floor whenever he's out there. Yeah. First of all, I don't love the

construct of Dollars for War and the way that it values, the way that it makes us think about players and front offices and stuff. And then secondly, I just don't think that I know what the Dollars for War number is anymore. think about players and front offices and stuff. And then secondly, I just don't like I don't think that I know what the dollars per word number is anymore. So it's kind of hard to analyze through that structure. Is it five million? Is it eight million? And is it linear or is it not? I mean,

I think Joe Sheehan makes a good point to point out that is probably not not linear when you look at giving out $330 million for the Stars and not really giving out $8 million for a one-win player. That doesn't really happen anymore. Right. I think it's not linear anymore, even though

there's a piece as recently as last year, I think, that tried to show that it was still linear and on fan graphs. And then I think that it might actually be the 5 million number. I think teams are like, whether I get the win in free agency or from a young player is irrelevant to me you know like i want to get that win and um maybe i'll pay close to eight million for four win a four win player for like an all-star type player for bryce harper uh but i really kind of want to get everybody in that four to five million dollar per win um area even even with those numbers though rosario and fam be okay. At the same time, they might be more borderline than other players.

So we could just see a kind of normal-ish day today. And for all the prognostication about how bad the free agency market would be, starting pitchers, at least by average annual value, are getting decent deals. I mean, Mike Miner, 2 for 18. There's a lot of guys who took the, there's two guys who took the Stroman and, you know, they took $18 million deals. One year, $18 million deals. Smiley getting one for 11. I mean, it's not like a total cratering.

There's not a lot of years in that. But how many years are our teams going to give people right before CBA? Right. There's that, too. I think that's going to lead some players who could get a multi-year deal to take one year for a higher AAV and roll the dice on next winter. See if the cap gets moved or if the minimum salary changes and all of a sudden they look like a better option. So, yeah. The other part of this, too, with Rosario is that the Twins have at least one seemingly ready replacement in Alex Kirilov. So if you're the twins, it's not necessarily that you don't see Eddie Rosario as a $10 million

player. It's that you see within the constraints of your budget, which is imposed by your ownership, you see better ways to spend that $10 million because Alex Kirilov should be able to come close to what Eddie Rosario is supposed to do. That's a big minimum. Right. So you could stack up that $10 million with money that was freed up maybe from Jake Odorizzi becoming a free agent. And you can make a run at Bauer. And that makes your team a lot better because you have that built-in replacement. So this isn't being cheap for the sake of being cheap unless they don't go out and make a move that makes an impact somewhere else on the roster.

And I think with Kirilov, I mean, I think this does bump up our interest in him in early drafts because I think you could see a path for him even if Rosario was still there, but I think you could also see it being a slightly longer path than we might like it to be. But the fact that they called him up and started him in a postseason game for his debut probably says enough about how confident they are in his ability to be ready to go. So even if they hold him down for a few days to preserve the extra year of control, I think we're going to get most of 2021 from Alex Kirilov as a fixture in this Twins lineup. Yeah, yeah. And I think the combination of power and contact is intriguing.

You know, in a league now where it's tough to get batting average, I think he'll have a good batting average. I think he'll steal some bases. Now it looks like he'll have a lot of playing time. I think they're going to throw him out there in left field. Maybe long-term, first base is where he ends up. If he's just competent in left field, he doesn't have to be that good to be as passable or mediocre as Eddie Rosario is defensively. I don't really mean to be mean to Eddie Rosario, but the bar is not high defensively for the player that Alex Kirilov is going to replace. So good opportunity for him and something that looked like it was going to happen anyway.

going to happen anyway. So other news that rolled in on Tuesday, Trevor May signed with the Mets, which was only disappointing to me, you know, because I thought he was the kind of guy that could sign somewhere and be a regular closer for the first time in his career. And with the Mets, he joins a crowded bullpen with the always problematic Edwin Diaz, where it could still work out in a way where May ends up leading the Mets in saves. And Diaz is more of the four, five, six out guy that works in a more flexible sort of role. But I don't think you can go into draft season expecting Trevor May to lead this team in saves. So he goes from speculative closer who could sign with an opportunity to guy that sort of needs something to break his way for those saves to happen in New York. I mean, Edwin Diaz for me is a one-man argument for not investing heavily in top closers. He was a top closer and then he really, really wasn't. And then he was again.

So I, you know, and then a note of caution, just a fantasy note of caution. This next year, I've been talking to people about what this last year meant for baseball going forward in terms of minor leagues and player development and all that. Got a piece coming out. I think there's going to be a ton of pitching injuries next year. there's going to be a ton of pitching injuries next year. I think that, you know, I saw somebody do an analysis where they said, you know, in a given year,

this, you know, doing well on pitching or versus hitting got you this far in NFPC. I don't know how exactly to like, to frame it. I wish I had the tweet in front of me, but like basically saying like, in any given year, basically the top teams were uh good at hitting or good at pitching and this year basically the top teams in the fbc um were better at pitching and what that says to me is there was a ton of freaking injuries and the ones that

were healthy and had the right pitchers they won uh because that's where the that's where the variance was um i think that's going to be true again next year. There's going to be so many variables. I'm going to try to put those yellow flags on the injuries for pitchers, but I don't know that we're going to be able to project it that well because we don't know how each of these pitchers dealt with the downtime or the offseason, what they're able to do, what can Edwin Diaz do this offseason, what is Trevor May's offseason going to look like? These things are going to

be all relevant and basically unknowable. I do think compared to the limitations that players were facing in the shutdown period from the time spring training stopped in March until activity started to pick up again during the summer, I think more facilities are available now by a decent margin. I think there was a lot more uncertainty about how to handle the pandemic and what you could do sort of safely and what you couldn't do. gyms and workout facilities, especially the types of training facilities where players go that are not large group facilities, those I think are going to go back on as business as usual. I think the big question is, we just don't know how much the unusual shape of 2020, ramping up, possibly tapering off, ramping back up, going max effort for a smaller volume of innings, how that impacts your long-term arm health. We don't know if you're going to have pitchers that are tired halfway through the season because they didn't have the same workload in 2020 that they

typically would have had. Maybe the rest is somewhat beneficial for some guys. I honestly don't know. I think picking and choosing what factors you want to account for in terms of injury risk is really important. We've talked about the flags and past arm injuries seem like a bigger red flag for me now than they ordinarily would be. I care about that. I care if guys have had Tommy John or shoulder trouble or forearm trouble in the past. But I think I care more about that now because I do think those pitchers would seemingly be at heightened risk. I think those guys needed to be on a more regimented throwing schedule. And if there were more disruptions for those guys than usual, they would seemingly be in a position to be more susceptible to further injury as we kind of push back into a full season this year. as we kind of push back into a full season this year. Yeah, another argument for not necessarily putting too many ducats down on Noah Syndergaard.

But then you've got someone like Lugo, who just I think is impossible to project next year. You know, is he in the bullpen? Is he starting? And did the sort of up-again, down-again nature of his 2020 in terms of starting and relieving, will that have any long-term effects? All super interesting and tough. But I think that, yeah, I think because of that, the chance that Lugo starts and because of what his role changing last year, I think that May is the handcuff or the setup guy to, uh,

to Diaz. Do you get the sense that the, the pitchers who didn't get to work in big league games, the alternate site pitchers might be the group that is most susceptible or the guys that didn't even get to go to the alternate site, the minor leaguers, the high a double a guys as they try to ramp back up, yeah, they're coming from a place of doing very little, comparatively speaking, that

they seem to be the group that would be most vulnerable. Yeah, that's what my story is about. And in particular, I think Latin American prospects are just hurting right now. Just hurting right now. hurting right now, just hurting right now. They, you know, a lot of the processes put in place to help keep people healthy and training well during this time are based on, you know, technology and even just like technology on the level of Wi-Fi and cell phone coverage. And one of the people in my, in our story talked about one of his pitchers having to walk 20 minutes just to get cell coverage in order to even make a phone call and talk to a coach.

And that's not even covering Wi-Fi, where you may want to have Wi-Fi to log in to be able to have Wi-Fi to log in to be able to input maybe some track man numbers or something. And the academies in places like the Dominican are only allowed to be open like eight months a year. So they're going to have to shut down soon. And they would be a lifeline in this time in terms of food, place to train, place to throw other other people to throw to, Wi-Fi, that sort of stuff. So that's falling out for a lot of people right now. And I think that if there's any population that's going to struggle the most out of this, it's the population that lives in countries where the technological infrastructure is not necessarily there. And maybe this population of prospects that doesn't necessarily have the money to buy to pay like a bullpen catcher and to have a home gym and and stuff like that so

it's already happening you know people showing up massively overweight and underweight and losing two three ticks on the fastball it's it's it's happening right now yeah it's going to be really tough to kind of figure all this stuff out when the spring starts up again because as we start getting velo readings around whenever spring training happens you know there's usually a little bit of a build-up period but you can tell within a handful of spring innings if something's way off from where it ordinarily would be. And I think we're going to see a lot of pitchers who just don't see him right. And I think it's not as though... We worry about pitcher injuries more than hitter injuries for just overuse reasons and all the things we've always talked about.

But you wonder with hitters, Victor Robles kind of stands out in my mind as the guy that showed up and had a pretty different body. It's going to impact hitters too in different ways. I mean, it's just, it's going to be a mystery twist in a lot of player profiles. Like aside from missing data, we're going to have tracks that just don't make sense because we had

no idea how difficult or how limited training and preparation actually was for a lot of these players. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton Bike or Bike Plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate.

Terms apply. Some other news to get to. The Rangers are getting away from Elvis Andrews dot ca slash bike slash rentals all access memberships separate terms apply some other news to get to the rangers are getting away from elvis andrews as their regular shortstop so isaiah kiner falefa you know who won the gold glove at third base is lined up to be the rangers shortstop on opening day in 2021 kind of interesting that they're making this announcement now, but I was reading Levi Weaver's piece about it, and clearly the Rangers have some eyes on the free agents of next off season. Francisco Lindor, Corey Seager, Carlos Correa among them. So they're trying to figure out long-term at the position what they want to do. And Andrews has reached that point in his career where he's probably more of a utility guy, or at least he's going to move off shortstop. And who knows, maybe he ends up playing a competent third base and adds a little power in the back half of his career. I wouldn't expect a ton in that regard. But how surprised were you to see this announcement this early? Because Andrews was kind of unlocking a new level offensively when he hurt his elbow a couple seasons ago. It's a little bit baffling to me. I suppose it's an admission that they're never going to, that Elvis Andrews at this point, the rest of his contract is a sunk cost,

that they're not going to be able to move him. And if they're not able to move him, then they have to figure out how to get some value out of him by ounce above average andrews was a minus three uh and falafel was a plus five i i don't know that i totally understand how transferable this is from position to position but i think at that point when you even if you have like a plus five third baseman and a minus three shortstop, you probably prefer the third baseman or shortstop. So I think it's probably the right move defensively. It's probably the right move for the quality of the team going forward. Maybe it could goose something out of Elvis Andrews that hasn't been there. He hasn't

been a league average player for three years. He was below replacement last year. And if he has no trade value, then it doesn't matter, right? Then it's just like, let's make the most use out of Andrews. He's sunk costs at this point. The best thing he can do for us is play all over the place. So I guess that's the thing. It does make it difficult to fill out a depth chart.

And so right now at Fangraphs, Andrus is at top of the third base depth chart with Odor second. And second base is Solak with Odor second. It's one of those things where these are like probabilistic this is this is a probabilistic depth chart it's not how it'll shake out it's not how the pas will shake out it's like we think this is the most likely scenarios because solak does a rubber arm right he's? He's got a noodle. So you don't want him at third where the thing is open. Odor, I think, has

a decent enough arm that he could play at third. So actually I think Solak playing every day at second and Odor at third is my most likely outcome. Yeah, that makes sense to me based on who they have right now.

And if they get some glue guys in there for a year, then maybe we do see Andrews take on more of a true utility sort of role. Solak, though, is still the most interesting player of the bunch. I just want him to have enough playing time to be a regular, even if it's split between second base and DH, right? I mean, I think there's still some playing time up for grabs there. It seems like they're willing to eat the money with Andrews and Rugnett-Odor. I think that's the other kind of common thread here is the Rangers are at the

point where they realize they're just not going to turn either one of those guys into something that's going to help them much in the long run. And I think with Solak, I think people are overlooking the speed. He was seven for eight as a base dealer in 2020. I know the power really fell off compared to what we saw at the end of 2019. When he got called up, he slugged 491 down the stretch in 2019, only slugged 344 in the shortened season. But I don't think he's an empty power bat. I don't think that's who Solak is at all. There were some good signs, actually. His max EV went up almost to 112,

which is not amazing, but it is above average. It is comfortably above average, and his hard hit rate went up to 40% from 32%, so he's hitting the ball hard. It's just his barrel weight went down. So I guess when he's hitting the ball hard, it's at a low angle and he hits the ball softly in the air. But this to me screams of just needing another adjustment. Small sample, still hitting the ball hard, has a history of good isos in the minor leagues did well in his debut in 2019 is projected uh for sort of just below league average power and 10 stolen bases but a decent batting average so you're talking about a guy who could hit 275 and go 2010 and that's pretty close that's hewing pretty close to projections i think there's uh upside beyond it and i think now we see a starting

job for him. I think second base. Yeah, I think this is about a month ago now. I was tweeting about him. He's 9 for 10 now in his career and still in base opportunities over 91 games, so that's good. 91st percentile in sprint speed, which just backs it up. He does run well. 21 for 27

in 126 games on the base pass at AA with the Montgomery montgomery biscuits in 2018 i just wanted to say biscuits i think he's maybe garrett hampson like from a core roto standpoint but with room for a lot more power in those underlying numbers the key difference is garrett hampson's stat cast numbers in terms of power are not good. Solak's are encouraging. So I think this lines up very well for him. He's the big winner, at least in the short term with all this shuffling. I have an interesting dilemma where I have a $14 Nick Solak in Auto New and an $8 Dalton Varshow. And I have a competitive team. I think there's a lot of people that would say

nope those are too expensive you can get them back cheaper or you can get that value back cheaper i'm not so sure a lot of times i cut a player like this and then they go to they go to uh the the draft and what i find in the draft in auto new is that there are people who cut and have a lot of money and so there's a super amount of inflation at the draft um and do i think solak can be a 14 player next year like a starting level second baseman yeah do i think dalton varsho can be a top 10 catcher next year yeah i gotta keep him man i gotta keep him um and with them you, there's also team concerns like with them, I have a starter and a backup, um, or two backups at every position.

So basically I'm going to the draft, just trying to find dollar guys. So I I'm going to do it. I'm not as excited about Dalton Varshow as the person who took him 31st in an NFPC draft recently. That can't be right. No, we have the draft results. Thanks to my buddies, Justin Mason, Paul Spohr, and Jason Collette

over at Sleeper and the Bust. They found the actual draft. The guy went, Kristen Jelich, 7, Hugh Darvish, 18, Dalton Varshow, 31, Luis Robert, 42, Tyler Glasnow, 55, Glyber Torres 66th

You know what's funny about this to me is it's not a terrible draft Across the board It's just Varshow in the third round Dylan Carlson In like the ninth round Followed by Jared Kalanich This is just a guy who chases youth I'm wondering

If that was Gary Varshow his father actually building a team. You know what? I believe in my boy. Yeah, it is weird that the rest of the team's not all messed up, but you don't have to do that. Now, the interesting thing about Dalton Varshow, I was running the steamer projections through the Fangraphs auction calculator just to get a sense for early dollar values. There's still a lot more to be hashed out, of course. There are only

six catchers with higher projected dollar values than Dalton Varshow based on the steamer projections. How many of those catchers do you think you can name off the top of your head? Because trivia is your strength. You're really good at trivia. That can't be that hard.

I think you can get at least three. I mean, Real Muto. Yep. I mean, I think Sanchez is still in there just because of the power. He's the first guy under Varshow, so I'll give you the free strike on that one. Shoot, I'm already off. Contreras? Yep, he's ahead of him.

Let me see here. Catchers suck. Oh, Grundahl, of course. Grundahl, yep. I'm a big Sean Murphy fan, so I'm going to say him. He's not far. He's right below Sanchez, so he's within 50 cents. Shoot.

Actually, Salvador Perez. Sal Perez is number one right now. But projections love Sal Perez because he's done it for a long time, and it's big power, and you get the catcher juice and playing time volume. All that checks out. I don't think that I know. I guess, shoot, how many have I done?

Three? You got four. Four, so there's two more. And you got the next two behind him, so you're doing well. I don't know. Travis Darnot? Yep. Nice. Good pull travis darno there's a gap between perez and real mudo and then grandal and then there's another drop before you get to darno contraris and then the one more the last one's the hardest one uh i'm just gonna say will smith because i like him yeah i don't know why

his projection's so low he probably should be up there and he's treated like he's up there. He's only projected for like a 230 batting average, right? Yeah. Christian Vasquez, who sort of followed up the 2019 breakout with a pretty good shortened season. There's just a lot of Christian Vasquez skeptics out there, but 283, 344, 457,

the first two numbers of that slash line in the shortened season were actually better than what he did in 2019 walked more than he's ever walked in a season since 2014 man steal some bases and and the projections uh include regression in terms of power uh and batting average so uh it's not like the projection is like in love with them projection says projecting him for 250 with 14 homers and seven stolen bases. In fact, we just had a conversation about how terrible the catcher position is.

Yes, we did. That is what I'll probably title that section. Catcher is about this bad. Yeah. So there you go. Dalton Varshow, I think, keepable in your situation and has a nice projection, even from a system that generally is pretty conservative with players who come up and don't play very well in their big league debuts.

Last time we spoke, we were talking about some international free agents, and there were a couple names that came up. I believe someone tweeted at us wondering about Matt Moore and Casey Kelly. Matt Moore was interesting to me before he went to pitch in Japan. I think a lot of the guys we talked about in the last episode were coming over potentially from the KBO. But as you kind of dig into Matt Moore's season abroad, how do you feel about him potentially coming back to the big leagues? I mean, Moore had an excellent season in Japan. He had 10 strikeouts per nine. That was his best since basically the very beginning of his career in Tampa.

An adjusted ERA around three. But once you plug it into the Clay Davenport translations and account for the quality of opposition, that strikeout rate falls to 7.7 and the ERA balloons to about 4.9. So I think it was a good season, but I'm not sure it was, uh, good enough to make a big difference in terms of the offers he'll get. Um, he may, uh,

find that he wants to stay there. Um, and he may look at, uh, the way America is dealing with stuff. Uh, he got $3.5 million, uh, to pitch there last year. look at the way America is dealing with stuff. He got $3.5 million to pitch there last year. So to come back over,

you're going to say that he's going to do better than Mike. He's going to do at least as well as Miner, right? At least on a one-year deal, right? I mean, if Miner was two for 18, I think Moore would want one for nine. One for eight, one for nine. So I don't know. I would say that it possibly comes over. I just don't know how excited to be about it. I'd say that I covered some guys today that I was more excited about.

I think Dan Straley, for example, coming back over with the 13th highest spin rate on his fastball. You know, excellent ride, five pitches, basically a Cy Young-level season in Korea. I think I would be more interested in Dan Straley than Matt Moore. With the only caveat being that Matt Moore throws lefty, so maybe you bring him as a lefty reliever. That would be pretty interesting. Kind of get that Pomeran sort of effect where you get a really nice secondary to pair with a more lively fastball. I remember back in the day, Matt Moore's curveball was just nasty. Get that back to its previous level.

Add a couple ticks in the pen. You might have something there. I liked him coming off the injury short in 2019. I thought he was kind of an interesting budget free agent target going into 2020. And I was disappointed when he went to Japan, just from the sense of I wanted to see if I was right and see if he had anything left in the tank stateside. So maybe we'll still get a chance to see that. But Kohei Arihara was the other guy, a starting pitcher that you wrote about, and he wasn't on my radar at all. So I'm curious, Arihara versus Matt Moore,

who do you think is a better fit for a big league club at this point? I think the one nice thing about Arihara is he's 27 years old, and he's got like a six-pitch mix where you might be able to dream on one of them and think of a way to put that mix together in a way that's better for him. One of his nicknames was the Japanese Eovaldi, which he doesn't throw as hard, but he has a straight fastball. And so

his big breakout came when he cut his fastball usage in half and replaced him with cutters um i think in america they might you know sign him to try to get him on a on a short deal like a three uh on a deal with some years to it but not much money so like a three for ten or something or three for nine um where maybe he's a reliever maybe it doesn't work out at all and you just you know you sink that cost or maybe he turns into a back-end starter and you've got a cheap back-end starter for three years because he almost completely ditches his fastball and uses the cutter as an establishing piece uh and does like cutter, which would be a pretty unique arsenal in today's game to kind of do cut or change like that.

But he could maybe pull it off. He throws like a split finger and a changeup. So some weird Evaldi Gaussman at 93 miles an hour. Kind of like it, actually. It sounds pretty interesting. I would be interested in someone that has a ton of pitches. Think about how Kenta Maeda evolved. Kenta Maeda came over with a ton of pitches,

and I think that he's been fairly different than he was in Japan. And so he basically just found the pitches that work with this ball, these seams in this league, the pitches he could command, the way he could pitch. And Arihara's numbers in Japan pale compared to Maeda's, so I don't think he has that type of upside, but you could take a shot on him. Sugano is the real guy coming over, Tomoyuki Sugano. He's won Cy Young's over there. His numbers basically fall right in between Kenta Maeda's and Masahiro Tanaka's in terms of their Japanese numbers. And so I think that Sugano belongs in that. We're excited about this player.

We're giving him a fair amount of money. And we're trying to sign him for five years. So Sugano to the Padres, Yankees, Red Sox, that's the kind of, maybe the Blue Jays because they do need a chance at some high-end pitching. So, that's the kind of situation I'm expecting for Sugano. Arihara, I think more a team like the Marlins or the Pirates or Orioles where they're like, hey, we're just going to bring you in here and give you a shot and, you know, hopefully it works out. Pretty much every player coming over from Japan,

I just say Seattle because there is kind of a direct pipeline and an opportunity. So I could see that actually being just a good fit based on need as well. The other name that was thrown our way was Casey Kelly, and the results the last two seasons in the KBO have been good. The ERA that was thrown our way was Casey Kelly, and the results the last two seasons in the KBO have been good. The ERA and WIP look really good, but the strikeout rate has been crazy low. We were looking at the ground ball rate. It's not like he's pulling a Dallas Keuchel and getting so many outs on the ground that you trust him to come over and

just get guys to pound the ball into the ground repeatedly. Is there anything we're overlooking with Casey Kelly, or does he look like a guy that might be better off staying in the KBO? You know, I actually have a little twist to that at the end, but I would say not really a good, great candidate for coming back to stateside. His strikeout rate starts with a six. Straley's strikeouts rate started with a nine

and was cut down to a six in Davenport's translations, about 6.6. So if you're talking about two-thirds of that strikeout rate, you're talking about a strikeout rate in the 4s and 5s for Kelly, that's just not going to fly unless he, like you said, like he's going to burn worms at a 60% rate. And his, you know, last year he had a 50% ground ball rate. It's not quite. But I do think that there's a chance that Kelly goes to Japan. There's a little bit more money in Japan. It's a little

bit better league. They might be able to have scouted him and think that he could do well in their league. That's the kind of move I could see for him more than coming back to the States. One more international free agent that we should talk about because there was some news that came up on Wednesday morning. Oscar Colas, who defected from Cuba a little over a year ago, had played professionally in Japan, didn't play in 2020. He has now been declared a free agent. There was a lot of confusion about the contract he'd signed to play in Japan didn't play in 2020. He has now been declared a free agent. There was a lot of

confusion about the contract he'd signed to play in Japan. That has been addressed in some form. I think this is a really difficult player to figure out. He's very young. He's a potential two-way guy, an outfielder and a guy that can touch like 94 on the mound. Clearly, there's going to be teams that are interested because of the raw talent. I don't even know how he fits in a big league org from the jump. Clearly talented, but what can we expect from him? It's like difficult.

Like we were having a difficult time reading his baseball reference page. Like we couldn't figure out what and where he played um it looks like he played the bulk of his time in the japanese minor leagues where uh he showed a fair amount of patience a great deal of power some speed um 18 or 21 plate appearances in the pros, not much of a sample to say much, but he did hit a Homer. Um, the last time he pitched, uh, was in 28 to 2019 at 19 years old in Cuba, um, where he struck out eight per nine, but I don't know how relevant that is. That's also in 3.1 innings. But, you know, I think of, there are players that come over from Cuba

that, like, there's just precious little information on. There's a thing that happens in Cuba where they don't always play their best players because they're worried that they're going to, you know, defect. They're going to go somewhere. And then the numbers themselves in cuba are often hard to read because you know depending on where they play like sometimes they'll play in uh like i when i was writing about cuban stats i found out that sometimes they'll play at like hospitals and so it's like some of the some of the parks are are fairly nice on the level of like sort of And so it's like some of the, some of the parks are,

are fairly nice on the level of like sort of minor league parks. And then some of the parks are what you would find in your rec league where it's like two 30 to right field. So, um, uh, parsing through Cuban stats is pretty difficult. Uh,

but I would say that any player, uh, that can strike out a per nine, uh, and hit have a 5-16 slugging in the Japanese minor leagues is certainly someone that should be on your radar. He's owned in

my Devil's Rejects leagues where you can own anybody at any time. If you're in a first year player draft this year and he's not owned yet and he's available to you, I mean, how far should we push him? Are we talking about top 10?

I mean, it's super exciting. It's a really exciting profile. I think when I look at the players who are available for the first time, it's mostly the guys that were drafted back in June, any international free agents that have signed. I mean, that's the Torkelson, Austin Martin.

Yeah, I want those guys first. Zach Dean, the Gonzalez group. Yeah, those guys are all ahead of him. But maybe once you get down to... I mean, if you're looking at the back of the top 10 from that draft class, our friend James Anderson has Pete Crow Armstrong as the 10th prospect from that class in his fantasy-based ranking. So if you look at him –

And what does he have him overall? 10th from the draft class and – What would that put him? He would be 91st, so back in the top 100, which given the unknowns and the timetable for at least being a couple years away, that all kind of checks out. Yeah. a timetable for at least being a couple years away that that all kind of checks out yeah i think i think in terms of dynasty i'd be comfortable making him like uh if we're just talking about prospects and not all players i think i could be comfortable making him like a top 75 prospect uh top eight or so uh first year player draft uh we may see he may sign right he may sign soon if

he's a free agent now so Yeah, so pretty interesting story. Just a very unusual and long path to end up in a big league organization for Oscar Colas. Let's get to some early NFBC observations. We're getting draft champions leagues. Those are 50 round draft and hold leagues in the books. So we're starting to get a feel for what people want to do as they put those teams together. And obviously your strategy is a little bit different for a league where you don't make moves in season. As I look at the very top of the board, the biggest surprise to me is Jacob deGrom not being the first pitcher. That's the thing in the first round that actually makes the least amount of sense to me. I think when you run the auction calculator with the Steamer projections, it's Jacob deGrom with the highest overall dollar value above even the top hitters, Acuna and Tatis, and ahead of Bieber and Cole and Scherzer and the other top-end pitchers. And here he is. I mean, again, Cole's going sixth on average.

Bieber's going ninth. But for me, DeGrom is the first pitcher off the board. Yeah, I'm cool with that. It's a little bit rough on us to prognosticate, oh, there's that word again three times. You've got to ban it. Shadow ban. When we don't know about the DH in the National League.

I mean, even if you're talking about like 80% chance that there's a DH in the National League, there's still a 20% chance there's not, in which DeGrom gets a little bit of a boost. Yeah, that's how I've been thinking about the player pool so far. And I think it's an easy enough adjustment, of course, if not. I mean, the thing we talked about when this happened was the gap between the AL and NL pitchers,

favoring NL pitchers because they are facing that pitcher spot. That kind of goes away, right? Whereas, you know, equal skills would previously favor an NL pitcher because of that pitcher spot. That was gone. So I look at this top of the board and I don't know. I mean, I'm not really that surprised by a lot of things here. It's Acuna Betts, Tatis, Soto, Trout, Cole, Turner, Jose Ramirez, Bieber, DeGrom, Jelich, Story.

And then if you go on 15 teams, Freeman, Bellinger, Bauer. We had the conversation about Bauer and kind of wondering, well, if he's pitching every fourth day, if he gets that opportunity somewhere, does he really have a case to be the first pitcher off the board? Because more win probability, lots of strikeouts. I understand where that comes from. I'm still not convinced the team will actually do that, even though it is in the best interest of a team. If they think he stays healthy and remains effective, it's one less spot you have to fill.

It goes in tandem with the one-year deal. It actually becomes a little bit more likely if he does the one-year deal, right? Because the team is like, well, all right, if you injure yourself, it's not on us. Yep, exactly. We're not stuck. We're not on the hook for five more years at $30 million per. So I think it would be likely to go to a team that's forward-thinking and would let him do this and would give him $30 million for one year.

And those teams sound like, to me, off the top of my head, I just can't see the Yankees doing it. Just like organizationally and Cole. I just can't see it. But the Dodgers, the Rays, and the Blue Jays? The Jays certainly have the need, and they have very questionable back-end pitchers. A bit of an Indians connection there with Shapiro.

Maybe he's like, okay, we learned a lot from you last time. Let's see what it looks like to have a pitcher do every four days. And then every four days means that he doesn't have to spend on any other starting pitchers. He can probably just mix and match and do more interesting things in his bullpen and become more Rays-like in Toronto maybe if you've got a guy out there putting up that many innings. I think where he's going currently at 15 assumes Bauer is making

a normal number of starts, not, uh, not going on that accelerated schedule. I think if we were to get some indication that he landed in the situation where that happens, he shoots up probably into the middle part of the round. I could see him leapfrogging Bieber and where DeGrom is right now. But again, I think DeGrom should be going first among pitchers and the steamer

projection seems to agree. As far as the other early round surprises, I'm not sold on DJ LeMayhew as a guy that should go in the first two rounds. I understand that he's a really unique player. He's exceeded our expectations with the Yankees. I think the question with LeMayhew is pretty simple. If he leaves the Yankees and ends up in a more neutral sort of environment, how much are you really lowering your home run expectations for him? Given that he seems to be a perfect fit with his approach for Yankee stadium.

Yeah. You know, there's some, when you ignore it, like, so you can say, Oh, DJ LeMay did well when he left Colorado.

It's not like he went from Colorado to Pittsburgh or Colorado to San Francisco. He went to a place that also fit his swing path and his power and his opposite field type. What if he goes to somewhere where the right field is further back or the walls are higher? So, I would say this. I think that Didier LeMay Mayhew is a great pick in the second round in best ball leagues. And my reasoning is that he could end up back in New York. And he's eligible at first, second, and third.

That's a lot of positional flexibility. And it's all in the infield. That means CIMI on top of that. That's pretty exciting in best ball where the computer basically puts together your best lineup on a weekly basis so he could start for you

at five different positions in any given week. And just the way that he plays, the spray, high contact, high exit velocity to all fields kind of way that he plays could also lead to some killer weeks. I mean, just some like 500 batting average weeks.

So he's a great best ball pick. It's really interesting though, because using the same auction calculator settings as before, he comes out as the 50th ranked hitter based on steamer projections. And I wonder, ranked hitter based on steamer projections. And I wonder, is there too much being baked in from his pre-Yankee home run totals? I mean, clearly a different sort of player with that category the last couple of years. I don't know. There's so much to like. He's similar to, at his worst, probably like a Michael Brantley type hitter. You know you're going to get batting

average. You're going to get batting average, you're going to get run production because he's putting so many balls in play. He's not going to hurt you. It's really hard for him to bust. And if home runs are easy to find elsewhere, in a weird way, it's a mistake that you could probably make, but that price is so high.

The opportunity cost of LeMahieu at 24 is either missing out on an ace or missing out on someone that you believe is a really good five category player or a possible i mean if you're a mondesi person i know you're not but if you want mondesi that's a choice you have to make at that point to sort of take over the stolen base category i think that's where i get stuck it's not that the mayhew himself is this extremely risky player he's not he's the opposite of that is this extremely risky player. He's not. He's the opposite of that. He's probably going to be a good free agent signing

wherever he ends up. I would like him so much more if he were going in that 35 to 45 range because at that point, even just 10-ish picks later, 10 to 15 picks later, I think he compares a lot more favorably

to the bats that are going around there in terms of what you're getting value wise yeah i mean if you're picking him against jose breu uh nolan arenado um you know eloy jimenez then um the lack of steals is not as important right now you're putting batting average and power up against those guys and he's gonna have the best batting average out of any of those guys so uh maybe arenado you know it's a it's a yeah i agree with you i don't expect arenado to stay in the 30s if he's healthy going into spring training he'll shoot up into the second round pretty easily but if you're talking about players that you want to get, if you're drafting early,

I want Arenado every single time in early round three because that's crazy. The only reason he's not a first rounder right now seems to be health. And when he was a first rounder, the only knock was well, he doesn't steal bases. You can get stolen bases somewhere else. We've

talked about how difficult it is, but it's not impossible. Yeah, that's a good's a good play you versus arenado like a bray you is great and i got a few people in the comments on the ranks that said i had them too low everything went right for a bray you last year everything in the shortened season he's a great player arenado's done that for a much longer period of time still has has Coors to fall back on. Maybe there's some trade risk that's pulling the value down a little bit or pulling where he's going down a little bit. But Arenado, if he gets traded, he's going to end up with a contender. He's going to have better supporting cast around him.

So while he might lose Coors, he's still going to put up pretty monstrous numbers. I don't think his power is the byproduct of Coors Field. I think that's legitimate, great power that would translate very well elsewhere. I think he's still, if he's not a 40 home run guy elsewhere, he's still pretty easily a 30 home run guy elsewhere who's going to hit for a high average, and he's going to pile up a lot of runs and RBIs to go along with it. Yeah, I love him there. I did want to make a note about steamer projections and the uh you know the bat projections and um where we are right now and the past season i sort of made this point before but steamer projections is working on integrating more stat cast and that would

separate them from other projections the bat has already done that work so what i'm waiting for is football season to be over so that derrick cardi can release the bat projections um i think they will uh and i think that this season will show more separation between projection systems than any other before in that it behooves every projection system to use StatCast data, especially because there's the chance that these things are more relevant in small samples and we're coming off the small sample season. And I think that could make a difference in some of these players

like DJ LeMay, who's, I think a could make a difference in some of these players like DJ LeMay. I think the top 50 bat projection is too low. Even if we're talking about him being a bit of a high pick at 24 overall, I think that top 50 bat is too low. And I think sometimes stack cast can be the difference between where you see Steamer projecting a guy and where you think he should go. If I had to guess where the bat would have LeMahieu versus Steamer, there'd be a pretty big gap in those projections. The bat would like him a lot better because there is a lot of red ink on DJ LeMahieu's Statcast page. But I'm still not in at 24 overall. If he re-signed with the Yankees, maybe you could talk me into it.

Even that still feels a little bit too steep for me. We got one question to get to. This one comes from Daniel. It was a series of questions from Daniel. One email. Any early thoughts on Albert Alzalea and JT Brubaker? Yeah, if you're going to play in draft and holds or deep leagues, those are the kinds of names you're thinking about in the late, late rounds. Al-Zalai, I was kind of excited when he got called up for the first time in 2019. And at this point, I feel like a lot of the prospect luster, which there wasn't a ton to begin with, has sort of worn off. We're talking about a guy who's going to be 26 in March, worn off. We're talking about a guy who's going to be 26 in March, had issues with walks again in his limited innings in 2020. So we're only looking at 33 and two thirds innings now in the big leagues.

You know, the ratios were good this year. The strikeouts were there, but a 14.9% walk rate is a huge concern. I just don't see how he'd make it as a starter without cutting that down. And I'm not sure we're going to see a lot of improvement in that regard. Yeah. The thing about Al-Saleh, yeah, command is definitely an issue. It's below average command, but I would want to point out his command plus last year was 92. So it's not in that sort of Josh James, this 83, 84, it's within a shot of average. So maybe he can have average command. The bet here would be on the stuff. And what I saw last year was really compelling. The question was if he had enough pitches

and if there was anything beyond his out pitch, which actually I don't even know what the out pitch was supposed to be at this point because he's made so many changes. In terms of whiff rate, the changeup has the best whiff rate. But I think it probably was the curve ball. That's what he had. He pitched the most in the past. What he developed this year was a slider,

which is fairly close to the curve ball. The slider went 83 and had basically a zero drop by Brooks, Brooks baseball numbers. The curve went 80 and had a three-inch drop, negative three. So, like, they're fairly similar. But they're registering as two separate pitches. And the best news is the changeup added, like, two inches of drop from 2019 to 2020 and performed well in terms of wasn't hit for a homer, wasn't hit for a line drive.

He only hit through 31 of them, but the movement profile looks like it could work as a power type change, actually as a straight type change. So it's got a 10-mile-an-hour gap with a sinker, and I see potential here for a really good pitcher. 95 miles an hour, league average command. It'd be more of a stuff thing than a command play. I'm not saying he's going to be a great pick,

but we talked about that pick, that group that makes me all excited, the Tyler Molle. Who else did you remember was in that group? Molle was in that group. Man, Dylan Seas might have been in there. Dane Dunning. Dane Dunning was in there yeah i knew there was a white socks so that that's my first group of sleepers that i really like then there's a second group of sleepers that has like tajay anton in it you know that's where i'd put adbert alzalee kind of like pop up got good stuff doesn't have like an 85 command plus you know like there's some things that could go right

so that to jay antone adbert alzalee those are guys i might have uh around 100 that's where i usually put i put my sort of second sleeper group before you start putting in the boring veterans like lester and gibson and stuff like that yeah his adp alzalee's ADP is 362 since November 1st in those drafted holds. That's 144th among all pitchers. I would assume we're talking about 30 or so relievers in there. I like him better than that. Yeah, he's behind Mike Miner, behind Robbie Ray. You think about Elzele compared to those guys.

It seems about right. I mean, you're taking a flyer, but it's interesting that the stuff is rounding into four. The stuff is way better than Mike Miner. So I might take him over Miner. Ray is interesting because the velo was up. He's in a new organization. There's always a chance that they have some, almost like the glass now, right?

Where it's like either aim at this part, not this part, or let's see if a cutter works, that sort of deal. So I might take Ray ahead of him, but I think I would take him ahead of Miner. So yeah, I had him pegged right, about 199, somewhere in there. A reasonable range. Now, Brubaker fits the description of draft and hold guy. I don't think I would have any interest in him in a normal league where you've got seven bench spots and you're going 30 rounds.

His ADP is 509. Opportunity should be there for him in Pittsburgh. They don't seem like a team that's going to do a whole lot of spending at this point. They're going through the rebuild. Maybe they'll take a few lottery tickets, but he's at least going to have a chance to compete for a spot.

At a glance, you know, 494 ERA, 137 whip last year, but a strikeout per inning, 48 Ks and 47 in the third innings. He was a 26-year-old rookie, so just turned 27 here in November. When you look at the numbers, the command plus and the stuff, how does JT Brubaker look there? He's a command play. 112 command plus. Had some years in the minors. His AAA in 2019 had sub-2 walk rate, 2 per 9. And the years in't know about the stuff I just don't know about the stuff the fastball is bad the sinker might be alright but it's not really a sinker league and if he's a sinker slider guy the changeup

looks terrible against his sinker there's nothing good to say about that changeup so then he becomes sinker slider curve guy and I think he could have some platoon split issues um the put the sinker was taken for some homers i don't know i'm not i'm not in love maybe maybe super late uh i would put him more in like kind of the 125 range where

i put some interesting names but not somebody that I really want to hang my hat on. It's a good way to look at them, I think. The other person that was mentioned, the pitcher that was mentioned in this email, what to make of no hit Keller has the velocity returned? I was trying to figure out which Keller is that. It was not obvious. It was Mitch Keller. What's the other Keller? Brad Keller. Oh,

well, I'm always a little, slightly more intrigued by Mitch Keller, but yeah. And I think he had, he had six no hit innings back on September 19th. So I think that's what it's referring to. Obviously,

neither Brad or Mitch did. Oh, we get a lot of Mitch Keller questions on our show. I don't know what the fascination relative to what he has been so far and what he is likely to become. He was supposed to be a good prospect. Right. But I just –

Stuff looks okay. I think every fourth question we get at ratesandbarrelsatheathletic.com is about Mitch Keller. Just rename it the Mitch Keller Show. You know, the command is really bad, 86. And you saw that, I mean, you saw that seven walk rate last year. And the thing for me with Keller is that it's just a straight fastball. the the the thing for me with keller is that it's just a straight fastball and if he could place the slider for strikes if he had good slider command then maybe we could be talking

about something about him a little bit differently um but um it doesn't seem he can so what do you do with this straight fastball? You know, it kind of reminds me of bad Matt Harvey. You know what I mean? Straight fastball. If it's 93, it gets tattooed. He can only make it work if it's like 98, and he doesn't really have the command to make the kind of secondary first thing work. He's in the back of the top 300 overall,

115th among pitchers in ADP. Again, relievers mixed in there as well. Over Azalea. Over Azalea, lumped right together with Tarek Skubal, Dane Dunning, Justice Sheffield. I'm taking Dunning. And Brad Keller's there too. Taking Dunning

and Sheffield over both counters. Damn it. Can't get away from the Kellers. I'm ranking those guys. Dunning, Sheffield over both damn it I'm taking it away from the Kellers I'm ranking those guys Dunning Sheffield who else did you say Tarek Scooble Mitch Keller Brad

Keller Mitch Keller I see like Brad Keller more than Mitch Keller well just like I think Mitch Keller's floor is horrid and Brad Keller yeah Brad Keller like Brad Keller is like one of the Orioles. The Royals have a tight. They're kind of doing this fastball slider with command thing, right? Yeah, like two pitch starters don't bother them as much.

They must have some analytical finding that they think. I don't know. It doesn't seem like a great strategy. 93 command plus for Brad Keller too. I mean, it would make more sense if he had good command. Then I can wrap my head around how he does it. I don't believe it. Oh, crap.

No, I'm going Mitch Keller over Brad Keller. I just don't. Like, come on. 5.8 K9? Yeah. Last question that came in from Daniel. We mentioned Nitro a while back on, 5.8 K9? Yeah. Last question that came in from Daniel. We mentioned nitro a while back on the show. Where is the best place to find nitro?

Oh, yeah. That's from an analyst at a team. So you just have to play around with it. It's basically like a very relaxed barrel rate. Um, and I just did a baseball savant search where I think I just did over 90 miles an hour and from, uh, zero to 30 as the angles. I thought it was more narrow than that. That was like eight to 32 or something. No, I think I was doing zero to 30. I'm trying to actually make it relaxed. It's basically trying to be a hard

hit, but in good angles. And try to capture just a bigger portion. If you do it right, the leaders should be over 40%. All right. So there you have it. Baseball savant search page, which

I don't know. Maybe at some point,'s like a tutorial video. I think actually Alex Fast made a tutorial video. So I'll try to dig that up and retweet it because I do think that search tool is very useful if you have some ideas of what you want to enter into it. You can get to some pretty interesting custom things yeah the biggest thing that is tough is that um if you're doing like one of the ways to look at it like for this one you'll do you'll do pitch percent like percent um as the result because you want to know how many of their balls in play um over their all of their balls in play were of this nitro right um and so that's why you'll get 40%. The problem is that you have to, there's a link called change total pitch parameters, and that changes the denominator. So if you want to know this over that, then you have to go into that.

If you only want to know over batted ball events, then you have to go click all balls ball events, then you have to go click all balls in play, and you have to put that in the denominator by change total pitch parameters. That's actually one of the most complicated things about Savant, is dealing with the denominator, and that's all in change pitch, um, good luck with that. You can always send an email with, um, uh, am I going to do this? Yeah, I'm going to do this. You can always send an email with a query that you've tried to put together. Uh, tell me what you're looking to do, what you're looking to get. Um, I'll tell you if you got it. Um, and if you don't,'t, I'll tell you what you didn't click and try to fix it and send it

back to you. All cards on the table. Mike Petriello does this sometimes for me. So I'm not, I'm probably not an A plus. I'm not an A plus plus Savant user, but I'm good enough that I can probably help you do what you need to do. There you have it. Hopefully that is helpful. And we appreciate the questions, Daniel. If you've got questions you'd like to send us for a future episode, ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com. We'll get those questions to us on Twitter. He's at Eno Saris. I am at Derek Van Ryper. Some good news, we've got about 48 hours to go. This as of midday Wednesday on our Cyber Monday Black Friday deal. Theathletic.com slash rates and barrels get our best deal of the year. It's 80% off a subscription. It's $1 a month for the first year. So be sure to get that at theathletic.com slash

rates and barrels if you're not already a subscriber. I mentioned this every once in a while. If you're enjoying this show on a platform like Apple Podcasts that allows you to leave us a rating and review, we really appreciate it if you take a moment to hit the five while. If you're enjoying this show on a platform like Apple Podcasts that allows you to leave us a rating and review, we really appreciate it if you take a moment to hit the five stars if you're enjoying the show. It goes a long way

toward helping new listeners find our podcast as they look for new things to listen to. So on Twitter, he's at Eno Saris. I am at Derek Van Ryper. That's going to wrap things up

for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.