Rates & Barrels - Edwin Díaz's Sticky Stuff Ejection, Max Scherzer Returns, and Lowered Expectations

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss another busy weekend of baseball that included a sticky-stuff ejection for Mets' closer Edwin Díaz, the return of Max Scherzer to the Rangers' rotation, more injuries in the Marlins' starting unit, Giancarlo Stanton's quietly strong season before a trip to the IL, and much more.  Rundown 4:57 Edwin Díaz: Ejected for Sticky Substance Violation; 10-game Suspension on Tap 10:11 Max Scherzer: Picks Up Victory in Return from IL 15:02 Jesús Luzardo Likely Out 4-6 Weeks 22:36 Giancarlo Stanton's Quietly Good 2024 30:25 Which Early-Round Player(s) Are You Avoiding in Trades? FanGraphs Player Rater: https://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy-tools/player-rater  45:45 Where the Money Went 58:05 Weekend Drops Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Monday June 24th. Derek Van Riper, you know, Sarah's here with you another busy weekend in baseball, lots of injuries. We get Max Scherzer coming back from a long stint on the IELTS, pitched pretty well his first time out. We'll dig into all of those news items. We'll look at some of the sources of where the money went over the weekend, as we do each and every Monday, some of the more interesting pickups

from weekly fantasy leagues. And we'll take a look at some players that were dropped going the other way in 12 team leagues. Plus, we got a new tool that actually is not that new. We just didn't see it before today. Van Graaf's now has a player Raider. So we'll talk a little bit about some ways that we're going to be using that going forward as well.

You know, how's it going for you on this Monday? Doing great. I am. Older now. Yeah. How about that? Yeah, that's like definitely past the point of which you're like, yay I'm older now. Yeah. How about that? Yeah. That's like definitely past the point at which you're like,

yay birthday! And a little bit more like, hmm. That's a number. What do you got now? You got a good baseball number at least? Yeah. I wonder who has my... 44? ...adventurism number 45. Yikes. 45. Prince Fielder I think might've been a 45. No, no Prince was 28.

Baseball reference has a whole, of course they do. It's amazing. The best war with my number is Bob Gibson. There you go. Although he wore a lot of numbers maybe? I know, those are his years. Pedro Martinez, dude, 45. Pedro, yeah. That's what I was thinking. I knew there was a 45 in there.

I remember. OK, I feel better. It's Pedro year. Papa feel there. Cecil or 45 Prince. You think I would know that I watched more Prince than Cecil, but I did watch both. That's how old I am, I guess. When I quantify it that way. Yeah, 45 great baseball number. So I think you've you've done well. This is a good year for you. And Garrett Cole is he still

wearing it? Yeah he's still wearing 45 that's cool. Yep. I wonder if he's wears it because of Pedro. That would be that would be surprising to me but kind of cool. It's you know that's one of those things that I don't care about. You don't think a lot about jersey number? I don't. I don't care. I don't know. It's like, I'm like, I don't know. And there's like a whole bunch of trivia based on it and stuff. And I'm like, I have no idea.

What number Jersey? Like I only remember like Michael Jordan 23. That's like pretty much it. That's all I remember. I guess I remember judge 99 because it's just like 99. Sure. But like when the kids were choosing their uniform numbers recently, or when they are choosing their uniform numbers, they'll like be like, did somebody wear

this and I'm like, probably do you want me to get that baseball reference page open real quick and tell them, look this one up kids. So the younger one who's really into swag has like chosen a lot of like double zero and like, just like he's always choosing it for how it looks, you know? And then Felix, the older one has been more like, who did Buster Buster Posey had eight? I'll do eight. You know, it's like, so I've had to learn a little bit about it, but I've also told them guys on the, I can get my phone open if you want me to.

That's a good way to go. It's a big deal. Coaching in high school. That was a big day. It was always done by seniority on the roster. So when I had the varsity kids, you know, the oldest varsity kids, the kids had been varsity longer. So if I had a three year junior, they could pick before a first year senior on varsity because that was their number last year. You know about the monkey sphere right? Monkey sphere? There's this idea that in

monkey cultures the new monkey that has just joined the group is at the lowest rung of seniority no matter what his age is or what his size is. Oh really? Yeah that's the monkey sphere so. We uh. You ran things by the monkey sphere. So we, uh, you ran it, you ran things by the monkey sphere. Well, thinking a little bit more about myself. Yeah. That, that tracks. I like, I like how things, um, I like how they, you know, when that, when the new player joins the team and they're like, Oh, what number are you going to take?

And then there is, I think a very similar kind of stature question of like, well, Juan Soto has come to the team. So sorry, reliever X, like, you know, you're just gonna have to give it to him. But then Juan comes in and doesn't want to be a dick. So he'll be like, um, well, Hey, I'll give you this watch, you know, I'm getting paid $30 million this year. I'm going to give you this little watch. Thank you.

And then somebody writes a feel good story where like, and one Soto gave him a watch for his, you a watch for his number. Wish I could be 22 again, be nice. Yeah. Good to push reset. Wish I could make $30 million a year. Yeah, let's get to some topics. We got a suspension incoming for Edwin Diaz

because he was ejected for a sticky stuff inspection failure on Sunday night. A rough year continues to get worse for Edwin Diaz. You know, it's not quite the party hangout bounce back campaign that I had expected for Diaz coming into the year. ERA is still just below five. The strikeout rate, while it's not at the astronomically high rates that we've seen at this peaks, is still not terrible, just a shade below 35%. But the ups and downs continue and this is another down with a 10 game suspension looming.

Yeah, I mean, the pictures looked fairly, fairly obvious, like he had stuff on his hand and there's like a. I don't like doing this because it's like punitive and like, you know, like I'm not trying to cast aspersions on his game, but there's like a very obvious dip in spin rate on his fastball that happened during enforcement. And then there's a very obvious climb back to his old spin rates. I'm just telling the, the, the story of the picture of the graphs that I'm looking at, you know? Um, and then there's the,

the images they had off the hand. So I don't know what to say in moments like this. It's like, I hope that he can come back and command the ball, the, for him command of especially the slider, I think is just as important as any spin rate benefits because he does not have good natural command. So it would suck to lose him for 10 days and then have him come back and not not have that same grip and sort of go back to the struggle bunny that he kind of was at the beginning of the year. Maybe it kind of a lost year for Edwin Diaz. It's kind of hanging the the beginning of the year. Maybe it kind of a lost year for Enwinde as it's kind of hanging the precipice a little bit.

But if you can come back and find other ways to grip the ball that are legal and, and, and, uh, refine his command, he did seem like he'd been doing better since he came back. Right back to the familiar faces of Adam out of, you know, maybe Reed Garrett, the closer by committee approach, perhaps until Diaz returns from a suspension that I don't think is official yet, but is likely to be official by the time most people get to hear this pot. It's it's basically automatic unless required.

Yeah. Unless the appeal is successful. And I don't get the sense this particular appeal is going to be successful based on. I mean, it's such a subjective moment that I think there's just nothing to say, cause you can say I didn't have anything on it and then they say, well, the umpires have full ability to enforce this stuff. So yeah, the report says you did. Right. So like what, what do we do now?

You know? Um, but, uh, I don't think it was Drew Smith because, you know, Drew Smith was kind of, the deal was that he was the pitcher that was left over, you know? He was not used in the eighth. So he does have some interesting pitches, but, and decent stuff plus, but the Velo is not there. He's not a Velo guy and I just feel like

Velo actually matters outside of stuff you know when it comes to I mean 94.7 I guess is Velo but like Fur, Reliever that's barely above average. So yeah I kind of I think it'll be one guy that I'd like is dead Neil Nunez. Dead Neil Nunez. But I don't think the usage suggests that he's about to step in. So I guess it's Reed Garrett. I think when you look at this bullpen though, and consider different possibilities for the second half of the season, you know, more likely than not, Diaz is still the guy. He's got a big contract.

They probably can't move that contract without eating a lot of money. We've talked about it before, maybe they would be willing to do that depending on the prospect they could get back. It's probably a bullpen we're not thinking about that often unless Diaz actually gets hurt again at some point. But I do think keeping an eye on those next options up will become more interesting after the trade deadline because if the Mets were to slide away from contention in the next five weeks or so, a few of those veteran relievers would be gone. And then someone like Nunez could emerge in the event of a Diaz absence, right? Like that's where the surprise could be. The twist could be later this season. Are we? Yeah. Are we so but I will mention Nunez is. Leverage index when he's put into the game, this is on fan graphs, the GMLI,

and that just says how important his plate appearances were to the outcome of the game or how how how much leverage there was. Over the last two weeks has been third to Edwin Diaz and Sean Reed Foley, and though Sean Reed Foley does appear there when you go over to holds, Nunez has two holds to Reed Foley's one. So Nunez has been in the mix for setup. Just throwing that out there. A name to file away, depending on how things break for the Mets here in the next Yeah, a little bit more like maybe he'll establish himself as the as the setup guy and then take it after if you know, I we'd suggested, you know, something like Edwin Diaz to the Reds,

which I, you know, I think something like this almost makes it more likely maybe that the Mets would want to like eat some of that and get rid of him. It just doesn't it? That's kind of the time I might read it. So would it make it more likely the Reds want to like eat some of that and get rid of him. It just doesn't. It's kind of the time I might read it. So would it make it more likely the Reds want to acquire him? I think the Reds would want to require him if they was like, Oh, we're not have to give up a big prospect and we're paying $30 million or $40 million for the next three years of Edwin Diaz.

Like, you know, it's more of a question. Can we afford it or not? Cause it will help our bullpen. I'd love it. A lot of good stories can be written off of it. You're right. The Diaz brothers, the Diaz brothers being in the same bullpen, that'd be fun. Let's get to Mack Scherzer's return.

He pitched five innings, five scoreless innings struck out for, didn't walk anybody and got a win even though he threw 57 pitches. So very efficient return. I was looking at the pitch mix, three used pitches the four seam or the slider and the curve that chewed up about 85 percent of what he threw a four seamer was used about half the time down a Little bit from what we saw a year ago 99 was the average on Sunday in the return Scherzer averaged 93.7 on that pitch last year slider I think was a little closer to its previous norm curveball down about

0.7 miles per hour, but not an alarming drop in below, but overall seemingly a pretty successful return for Scherzer, especially given how few pitches he had to throw to get to those five frames. Yeah, I'm a little worried. I mean, you get a lot of signal in that first VLLO reading. Stuff was pretty far down. He's never been a stuff king. He's had turned in some good seasons with lower stuff numbers just based on having a big mix and having good command but I mean the worst stuff plus that we have on record for Maxxer's was 98 and that game was 82

that's we're seasonal stuff plus that we have so he's pretty far from where he was and 92.9 is not especially good so So it's just, you know, if you're looking at him versus someone like Garrett Cole as like, you know, okay, they prove they're healthy, you know, is this the time to buy? Garrett Cole had a slightly larger drop in Velo. But if you look at his stuff plus, it's still pretty good. It's not as standout as it was. Either one of them could get injured again. I mean, you'd rather buy coal than Scherzer, even considering the price. Not even close.

Even considering the price though. Right. I think we're at the point with Scherzer and Verlander, given their ages, given the injuries they've dealt with recently, where they live outside of the top 40 among starting pitchers, at least as they are right now, with diminished stuff relative to what we've been accustomed to in the later part of their career. Could they rebound back into that range?

Yeah, it's possible, but it's harder to bet on that given how old they are. It doesn't mean they're without value. It just means you can't, I don't think you can set and forget them. You can't just throw them in your lineup and never think twice about matchups anymore. I think that's more where we're at with those guys. But if you said the would you rather is Justin Steele versus Max Scherzer, like is that a fair question or is that a runaway for Steele? I think I'd still pretty likely take Steele, but I think you're zeroing in on it a little bit.

Let me see where I had Steele in my last working ranks. I had Steele 40. Somebody else, Blake Snell's around there. Seth Lugo, Seth Lugo or Max Scherzer. Max Scherzer maybe. Yeah. Yes. Okay. So that's the right cluster.

Very rosterable, very usable, but just not an automatic. Yeah. Not bad. You'll take it. I had Verlander at 52nd. I think that was maybe right around the time he got hurt again. Yeah, I think you previously had about 36 based on the published list. So same tier.

Yeah. Excited to have them back, even though it's not, you know, late career stud version of Max Scherzer. That's the that's the summary for me. Dane Dunning gets bumped from the rotation, by the way. He's among the most dropped players as a result of Scherzer's return. Here's one from Miami. Jesus Lizardo likely out four to six weeks and this is due to a lumbar stress reaction. The Marlins have been just crushed by pitching injuries in the last year or so now. Like this group of guys on the IL includes

Sandy Alcantara, Yuri Perez, Lizardo, Edward Cabrera, Braxton Garrett's on the 15 day I.L. again. Ryan Weathers is on the 15 day I.L. again. Sixto Sanchez, who they were just using kind of to fill in for all these injuries, is also hurt. I don't think he's in the same tier in terms of how much they expect from him in the long run. But it's hard to build around pitching because this happens, but it seems like Marlins pitching has had a ridiculously unlucky combination of injuries that have overlapped, that's really dragged them down here in 2024 and kind of going back

to the middle of last season. Yeah, They, what do they teach as an organization? Is there some link there? The one thing that they do teach, I think is the power change. I know you have, and I don't really necessarily agree with him, but I know you have Keith Meister bringing up the power change as a reason, uh, pitchers are getting hurt more now. I would say that we might not know exactly what the power changes ramifications are on the elbow is directly measured or

as like a grouping like, oh, here's how healthy the power change guys were because it's a kind of a relatively new phenomenon. I mean, the charting of the power change is a little bit starts with Felix Hernandez, you know, and Zach Greinke. So I don't know that we know the long term health implications of the power change are, but everybody that everybody in the Marlins that threw that power change is gone. Everyone in the Marlins that through that power change is gone.

Is hurt. Um, but. They also did some acquiring of players with some track, uh, some tricky track records like the rays. So like Jesus Lizardo has had injury concerns his whole career, right? Right. Yeah. He was definitely someone that had above average risk throughout his time in Oakland. But that was just built into the profile.

He's had arm injuries in the past. This is just something different being a back problem, but Rogers has Rogers has been hurt a lot over his career and I think weather's being hurt I would describe it a little bit more as he just Started throwing as hard as he could to try and stay in the big leagues. I mean, yeah you believer and like we mentioned that now he's throwing really hard and throw close to his max and and Luzardo is a little bit like that, too.

So it's like, you know, that's a little bit more. There's more research behind that. Glenn Fleissig has shown that the closer you throw to your personal max, the more stress you're putting on the elbow. So that's that tells a little bit of the story of Weathers and Lazzardo. But I don't know that there's a lot of opportunity now. The second like the second grouping, the guys that are going to move into these these roles, I'm not that interested in any of them except for I am interested in Max Meyer.

I think Max Meyer getting a chance is good, but I think Max Meyer getting a chance is good, but Yanni, Chirinos Sean Anderson if they give six dough a chance I'm Roderick Munoz mostly Like two week streamers that they're both at home at best You know like I'm not that interested in most of them Meyer

I would put a little bit of bit on and put a little bit of interest behind once they announced it, it's just, they seem like they're dragging their feet on that announcement for some reason. Well, you mentioned before Max Meyer's pitch mix has been different during his time in AAA when he comes back up to the big leagues, it's probably more just let's just get guys out. You know, we don't, we don't care about developing the pitches as much change up while he's down there.

And I doubt he's going to work that hard on the change up in the big leagues. Like you still care, but your, your priorities shift with the, the move back up once he comes up and that Braxton Garrett injury, I mean, that's a left full forearm flexor strain. That's not necessarily a quick return either. And that's a precursor to Tommy John, by the way. The kicker with Garrett too is like he's the more of the crafty, not a max Velo, you know, not a high end Velo guy. Maybe it's close to his max, even though it's a low max, but you would think that Braxton

Garrett and his approach would be more sustainable. Yeah. I mean, it reminds me a little bit of that, uh, Drew Haugen piece on, uh, down the farm, suggesting that spin, uh, matters. Although I don't know that he's necessarily high spin, but he does have a good breaking ball that 83 mile an hour raking ball you have. But yeah, I mean, you wouldn't think the guy sitting 90.7 is the, is the one going down right now.

I just bring it up because I know people are thinking about future strategies and saying, maybe I'll be more careful about the amount of velocity. I have my roster. You'd be like, oh yeah, he's the load him. He's the going to be healthy all year guy. He's the command guy. Load them picture friendly ballpark, a home streamer and usually even get away with road starts, but yeah, the

what I did with Sud Lugo. Right. I was just like, yeah, most of the time I'll play him. The state of the depth chart with all these injuries, Trevor Rogers, Rodri Munoz, Yanni Chirinos, Kyle Tyler. You didn't even want to say these words. These are just, I mean, Kyle Tyler. Some of these guys are just like last chance saluting types.

Kyle Tyler was at AA last year and was a starter all year, but had a 563 ERA and a 160 whip as a starter. Striked up for any stuff, but it wasn't working. He was 26. So I mean, there's just, there's not a lot to get excited about. It's wild though cuz stuff plus doesn't mind him Now maybe there's a bit of a deep sleeper there if but it's for innings But still it says he has a really good curve ball and a pretty good cutter. Does he actually throw the cutter? He throws the cutter. Yeah 50% of the time

Interesting, so he's a cutter curve guy where the other pitches aren't that great and his strikeout rate in the majors is awful I don't know I could I could see like in my 20 team or if I'm desperate for for some some some arm that might do something just picking up Kyle Tyler and using him at home for a little bit and seeing if the stuff numbers are right. But. The prospects that you're waiting for by the way in Miami

beyond Max Meyer, Noble Meyer, who's just been bumped up a level somewhat recently. I think he's pitching at Haie Beloit right now. He's 19. He's in a lot of top 100 prospect lists. He will probably be an impact pitcher when he gets there, but probably not going to see him until late next season at the earliest. And they have no reason to start his clock.

And he's so young that no one's accusing them of anything, you know? No, no. But they also have Thomas White in that same rotation. He's there by their other pitching prospect. It's a little further down most lists. So they got some guys, but it's not like the next wave is right there. It's more like getting these guys back from injuries. Yeah.

Let's talk about the Yankees for a moment. Giancarlo Stanton likely out for four weeks. He is down with a hamstring injury. And it's a rough time. And because Jason Dominguez just went down for eight weeks with an oblique injury, this could have been the path for Dominguez to get some experience at the big league level instead Dominguez is out until like mid August potentially.

So this is turning into a lost season for him. And I think outside of Yankees fans and the people that actually had Stanton on their rosters, his season has been largely underappreciated hitting two 46 slugging four 922 18 homers, 45 RBI and 34 run scored in 69 games and being in that lineup certainly helps power still there. And the average hasn't meant as much of a drag as we've grown accustomed to in recent years. So this is actually a little more significant,

both to fantasy managers and to the Yankees than people might think on the surface. That's sweet. Is good. He's still got it, you know, and. Yeah, I saw something I saw like a Mike Petriola appearance, and it's like, you know, people have been really fascinated by the idea that like this bad speed list has bad players near the top or,

you know, it doesn't explain everything. And, you know, there's great players, not great bad speed. But I think he said it best on the appearance. I saw Mike Petriola said in aggregate Swinging harder is better for for your offense. Sure Yeah I mean this is the other part of Stanton though that we've that we've definitely seen was that you just you knew that if you were gonna draft and

Did you'd have a you'd have a real hard choice at some point about you know Keeping her or not and you knew that it would either come due to like a real hard choice at some point about, you know, keeping him or not. And you knew that it would either come due to like a real long slump at the beginning season where he's hitting 180 or something like this where he's playing fine. And then you have to decide what to do for four weeks. I think I might drop him just because it's a soft tissue injury in a place where he's gotten a lot of soft tissue injuries.

And what if it takes six weeks instead of four? You know, yeah, he's a drop in leagues with no IELTS spots, but he's definitely someone you'll want to try and scoot back up once he gets closer to returning him in. Like there's clear, consistent, everyday value in what he's been able to bring to the table. The longer term thing with Stanton, it's kind of interesting. The big contract he signed several years ago now with the Marlins runs through 2027 and he's sitting on 420 career homers. Given the bat speed, given the quality of contact, given the amount of time left on

his contract, I think he's got a pretty good shot of getting to 500, which is obviously a huge number for milestone purposes and not something we see that often. And yet I just feel like his legacy has been largely shaped and overshadowed by time spent on the IL, which maybe is a little unfair relative to the full scope of his accomplishments as a big league player. Yeah, he was a really, really impressive player for eight or nine seasons. And then I think when he got to New York, it was just, it was kind of a combination of having a little bit of that, maybe.

High maintenance body. You know, like just, I don't know what, I don't know how to describe it, but he's it's, it's a great body. I don't know how to describe it, but he's it's it's a great body. I'll take his body. But in terms of like, you know, you know, was he too big or like, did he not maintain it right? Was he not flexible enough? Whatever it was, he had soft tissue injuries, even when he was a guy that was at the top of his game. And then you add that to age and then a big market.

I think it's a really toxic grouping and these people say like boomer size and was is wrong about a lot of details reset you know the end he's got to stop signing people to his contracts when they're old and. I'm like well inside him and. I'm just sat inside when he was 25 so it wasn't the original deal that was necessarily the problem it was acquiring him right when he was about to get old, right as he was getting old. They got the worst parts of it, which, you know, that's that was a choice, but it's not like they signed Stanton at 39 years old or whatever.

So I do think he probably has he's going to get all three of those seasons. I don't think they'll release him just because I yelled veterans like this. It's okay. You can kind of sneak them by on the aisle. If he needs like a phantom I'll to get right at some point, they'll do that. So I think you could give him 20 homers a year for the next three seasons. I think he's going to get there. And then I think we're going to have some pretty interesting debates someday, hopefully five, six, seven years down the road when his career is over, we can talk a lot more

about is this actually going to be a Hall of Fame player or is he going to be one of the near misses from this era? I think people right now would say near miss, no chance, but I think there's a way he could actually put that together. Good combination of factors he brought up though that have really shaped the perception about the player he is and off the cuff without looking this up, who did the Yankees trade to get Giancarlo Stanton?

Do you remember any of the players off the top of your head that were in that deal? Was Cameron Maybin in that trade? That was the Miguel Cabrera trade. Who did the Yankees trade for Stanton? I can't think of a single Yankee like prospect in the big leagues for the Marlins. You're correct about that. They did get one at the time, current big leaguer guy that's no longer playing in

the big leagues back in the written in the deal. Oh man. I can't remember. And the Marlins had that player for two years. Wow. That's all they got. I remember at one point summing up like what they got for that outfield. Um, it was bad. Like, I mean, the yellow trade was a bad trade, of course, too.

They didn't, they didn't do well in those two deals. Yeah. Um, who was it? Starlin Castro was the big one here. Oh, I liked a little bit, but it was after, it was kind of after we decided he wasn't as good as maybe we thought he was. Yeah. And the prospects, Jose Devers and Jorge Guzman.

So they basically just took the contract. It was a money dump. Yeah. It was clearly a money dump and the Yankees can afford it. And any, any year in which the Yankees don't win a world series, it really hasn't been John Carlos Stanton's fault. Even though, you know, boomer, a Sia sin might think that. I think that the replacement now is a Trent Grisham and JD Davis.

You know, they do have, uh, probably enough defense. Like, I think you can play judge and center still, you know? Um, which means that maybe, um, JD Davis plays more than just versus lefties, but it is a handedness, a platoon that could just go up by handedness where Grisham plays against righties and Davis plays against lefties. Yeah. See that working out that way. But Grisham, I haven't been playing him a lot so far this year. Uptick in playing time for him might not matter that much.

I thought it would go better. I thought there was a chance he'd bounce back and at least for, you know, deeper leagues, like mono leagues, where you start five outfielders, he'd play enough and do enough with those plate appearances to be useful for homers. He's like a pull fly ball hitter, you know, or pull hitter that hits fly ball sometimes. Like you'd figure that maybe he would like that short porch. I guess that my defense would be like, it's hard to get into a rhythm when you've only had 80 plate appearances all season. That's the late part of June. So maybe getting more regular run, at least against some varieties would help them get back on track, but they can shuffle things around in that outfield quite a bit.

I mentioned up top that the Fangraphs player raider, a new thing they put out there in May is available and there's a few different ways to use it. And it was the Stanton value on the season that I was most curious about. In 12-team, 5x5 leagues, Giancarlo Stanton, who had an ADP outside the top 250 overall, has actually been about a $15 player. $14.90 if you want to be specific down to the first decimal. You'd be really happy with what you got so far if you took that flyer on Stanton late. But we started thinking about this from the negative perspective first. The early round disappointments.

Which early players are you looking at right now on June 24th and actually saying, you know what, I don't want the discount. Like how high up into the early rounds you willing to go before you find a player and say, yeah, I just don't want this guy. I'm not even worried about the fact that I could get a 50% discount compared to draft day. I still don't think the bounce back is going to be good enough to make it work. I'm sorry to say this and I'm going to apologize to our listeners and maybe I

should have moved faster on this, but I'm starting to feel this way about Corbin Carroll. Oh, you're getting to Corbin Carroll now. I know we've talked about him and I've said, I think it'll be better and I think he's turning around and this and that. Here's the, here's what really worries me. That's, that's been happening and it's going to be related to a player that is on pickups this week. He's sitting against lefties.

Yeah. Now I saw that it was starting to happen. That's pretty strange. I do not like that because it just turns him in weekly leagues and even in daily leagues, it turns into somebody that you that you're not like going to start every day. Like I don't least want to pick somebody up on a on a on a on a budget that I'm like, at least I can start him every day. Because the other guy that I was going to bring up that we haven't talked about as much is Ozzy Albies. And Albies was the 19th player picked according to their ADP that they're using. And he's been worth eight dollars,

you know, 850 in a 12 team league, which. You know, is one of the worst numbers around him. I mean, like Lindor, who nobody thinks is having an amazing season is worth twice that and was picked right ahead of him. And then Bryce Harper, who was picked three ahead of him, is worth $34, you know what I mean? So like, it's an outlier. You could say he's a buy low. And the reason I don't think he's necessarily buy low

is that just none of the markers that scream to me that he'd be having bad luck are there. that he's having that he'd be having bad luck are there. You know, like he's basically doing every as he always is doing everything he's done always. Just a little bit worse. And there's no real reason to say, okay, he will do this more going forward. His max EV is down, but he's had other seasons where it was down worse than this. His barrel is is down but he's had other seasons where his barrel wasn't it wasn't any better than this you know his hard hit is down. These are the seasons where is hard it was worse so just know what he's doing now makes me sort of reevaluate all the other stuff he did in a worst light you know. I'm like oh this is the obvious was always there know what I mean? I'm like, Oh, this Ozzy Albies was always there. It's how I feel when I look at his line.

Um, and so with Albies, at least you could say I'm trading for somebody that I can get. Maybe he's available. Sometimes trading is about what I can get. Can I get anything? Uh, and he might be a gettable. And if he is gettable, at least, you know, he's going to I can get. Can I get anything? Uh, and he might be a gettable. And if he is gettable, at least, you know, he's going to play every day. As opposed to like Corbin Carroll. We're like, I might have to sit him against lefty.

Now, Al is better against lefties and righties, but the, at least the playing every day is that's a huge deal. I mean, that's what a lot of people are going after when they're just trying to stream bats and 15 team leagues. We're all, a lot of times we're just all looking for playing time. So if I'm going to buy one of these two that I don't really like as much anymore for this season, I still think Carol's a pretty good buy for, for, you know, dynasty.

Albies and Albies might be a little bit worse of a buy for buying dynasty, but both of these guys are like, I don't really want to acquire them. At least Albies will play every day. Yeah, I think you, you took a couple of names and Carol and Albies that are at least players that a lot of people would have wanted at one point recently. I think people gave up quickly on Nico Horner this year, relative to expectations I have. Nico Horner is a guy for me that I wasn't in love with the idea of paying full price for his profile during draft season, but there was one league labor mixed labor where I had to do it or felt like I had to do it because he just

built average plus plus bases. You needed to stone bases. I thought I was going to win average in steals with the foundation I put in place and he fit perfectly for that. And it's been it's been kind of the double whammy because aside from the average being weirdly low, that might as much either is not running as much and he lost his place atop the order. But kind of quickly, they just didn't.

The Cubs haven't been using Nico Horner the same way this year. And I don't know what the reasoning is for that exactly. I haven't been able the reasoning is for that exactly. I haven't been able to hone in on that. There was a stretch where he let off like mid April to mid may kind of regularly and mostly until these last couple of days, he was hitting sixth, fifth and sixth a lot for the better part of the last six weeks. There is a numbers based idea for this, which is that a high contact player can be more useful in the sort of fifth slot.

Because you got guys on base more often and just trying to make something happen, right? That's the argument for it. You know, he's not if you were a slugger and high contact, then you would be like fourth or whatever, you know, and he's even hit some fourth and If you were just a bad player, then you would hit Like seventh eighth and ninth or whatever six seventh eighth and ninth. So fifth is like this one place where it's like Oh, it's my last good hitter. If he had better OBP, he'd be at the top, you know Or if he was a better hitter overall, he'd be at the top But his particular skill is good enough to put here and hopefully drive some people in. I do think that some of this is batting average on balls and play, and he should get that batting average rest of season back to like a 275, 280 level.

He's pretty much demonstrated that for his career. And so I'm going to give him a 280 average going forward. But I may not give him even the steals that the projection systems are giving him. I think he may only steal like 10 or 12 more. Um, which means that you would come out of the season. Once you add the 270, what he's already done, you'd come out of the season with like a two 50 for Nico Horner with like six homers and you know, 24 steals.

It's not gonna feel good. Not at all what I was hoping for. Very, very frustrating player that I thought was actually kind of mostly floor. I didn't think there was going to be this big drop. If I did, I wouldn't have anywhere near him, even that spot where it made sense from how I was building a team perspective.

I was wondering too, if maybe, you know, he runs more when he is leading off, he still leads the Cubs in games in the leadoff spot. It's just that Mike Tachman has been there more than I expected and Tachman gets on base, right? I mean, like there's, there's a case to just go ahead and use Tachman more often in that spot right now. Uh, but six for six when Horner leads off in 34 games as a base dealer. So maybe that lineup spot also

dictates how much he runs because there are guys on base when he's hitting in the middle of the order. There are tendencies, yeah. Yeah, there are tendencies. You steal fewer bags the lower you go. There's some sort of bump sometimes in like the eight spot in front of the pitcher or something. I don't know. Which is gone now. Which is from the, yeah, which is gone. So some of that research is a little bit old and has to do with pitcher lineups. But yeah, you kind of steal bases a little bit less

as you go down the lineup. I remember this was a conversation with Tommy Edmund when Tommy Edmund was starting to lose his leadoff spot that you saw that his steal attempts would probably go down. I think we saw that's what happened with Edmund. I do wonder when I'm looking at this, like, I'm surprised by how bad Luis Robert Jr.'s and Beau Bichette's numbers are to date. Robert was out though with that hip injury.

That's true. So you got that like 98 plate appearances. You're like, okay, I understand the rest, you know. And so this might be more specific to both. So when I do like bylaws, or I'm looking at I usually open a player page right now without opening up the player page, I'm looking at Boba Shet and wondering if you've played this much all season, and you had this bad, is it possible just that you don't look at the peripherals and you don't and you just do a kind of a smell test like a kind of visceral reaction and say, nope, I don't want that. This is a, this is a lost season

because you might think Randy or Rosa Reyna's season has been bad, but he's been worth almost $10 more than Bo Bichette. Happens when you go into the red. Bo deep into the red right now. Minus eight. I mean, I do know there's maybe a little bit of touch of gambler's fallacy here. You know, like of, you know, oh he's due. And like maybe you buy him and he gives you the like regular $20 pace going forward. At the end of the year he's worth $10 and you got the good part. That's totally all possible but there's something about it being so bad that like I'd rather buy like a Michael Harris who's been worth 10 cents.

Just because his struggles have been not as bad you know so there's something kind of that leaps off the page. You know, so there's something kind of that leaps off the page. It's a it's maybe a question about Nolan Jones, too It's like maybe maybe there's this might be a good study It was like if you get to a certain point and you're this far negative and you've played Then you're not really a good bylo candidate just just because it's you've been that bad. I Think there's something to it Yeah that bad. I think there's something to it. Yeah, if it's in the bow side with the playing time, if it's more like Robert and more like Jones, where half of the season almost has been lost to injury, then I think it's kind of a different group altogether.

Yeah, you just have to have to look at it through a slightly different lens. I think the other player that kind of stands out to me, even though the value is good so far, is Pete Alonso. There was a question in the Discord actually earlier today about his batted ball stats, like his underlying stat cast numbers and wondering, you know, what's really going on there and it's still for the season. Pete Alonso is in the 87th percentile and barrel percentage, so still very good.

But if you do look back at 2023 when he had the wrist injury or even 2022 when he didn't, there was a lot more red. Like there was more consistency from him across the board and he was striking out a little bit less than he is now. It's only 20.5%. It's not that bad, but it's not as good as it was two seasons ago. Hard hit rate a couple of seasons ago was higher.

It's down to the 53rd percentile right now in terms of overall hard hit percentage. That's kind of a surprising turn in the wrong direction for Pete. So what do you think's really going on here? Yeah, it is funny. Like if you just took the name off of it and just looked at the key peripherals that I like, actually there's a lot to like.

You know, the best swing strike rate of his career. You know, you say that the K rate is up, but it's it's better than when he debuted, when we thought maybe he'd be like a 27% strikeout rate guy. Yeah. 13% bail rate, 116 max. E.B. for Pete Alonso. Like he's like he's kind of, you know, he can be a push hitter sometimes where he's hitting the ball out to right center. I believe when he won the hitting Derby,

he was like hitting home run Derby pitches out to right center. Pete Alonzo was so like, um, he can sometimes get a little right center, but he's not, I don't think that's what's hurting him. Like a 44% pull rates, like fairly ideal. His hard hit rate has been higher in the, in the past and his ground ball rate is higher now than it's been in the past. So there, there is something going on, but generally a lot of the pieces are still there and I think for me he's a buy low.

You look at the track records so good power wise. Yeah. And the barrel rate is not far from where he was. Like 13.2 right now for him, barrel rate 13.9 for his career. It's like he's not not barreling it. I think if I would tell the story is that like, you know, he's looking for basically the high fastball, which you can actually tell when he steps to the plate, he does that little half swing and it's for a high fastball and he's telling you, put it right here.

And pitchers are, you know, trying to throw him sliders in the zone and have low fastballs and he's trying to fight it off a little bit. You know, that's what I see. That's the story I see. And I think given that, you know, he's still been 27% being a better league average The floor is pretty good like if you just gave me what he was what he's been doing for the rest of the season you would still end up with 241 and like 35 homers and

I think he's going to narrow that gap with a couple weeks in August I think he's going to narrow that gap with a couple of weeks in August, where he just white hot and it's going to be more like two 50 40. And then it would fit right in with the rest of his career. Do you seek out Alonzo before you seek out Matt Olson? If you're trading for them, it might take a little more to get Olson, but I think they're similar enough in draft day costs where you're probably talking about similar returns via trade. Yeah, that's funny P Lonzo was taking seven picks later and has been worth more than Matt Olson Matt Olson's strikeout rate is too high and his

barrel rate is the worst of his career his max EV is even down from the last three seasons so there's something going on with Olson. I might actually go after Alonso first, especially if he was slightly cheaper. Yeah, it's strange to see that just slight, slight downturn in production from Olson right now. It's picking mitts in a profile. It's still fine where it is. It's just not what you were hoping for to see him. He'll still end up at $2,50, 32, 33, 34, 35,

somewhere in there just like Pete Alonzo. But I see a little bit more of an inkling of like, you know, if I was going to give one of them like a white hot two weeks, um, it might be Alonzo. I know. So that possibility to trade to help them. Yeah. Alonzo being I don't know. Also that possibility to trade too. Also that possibility to trade too. Yeah, Alonzo being traded somewhere, that'd be amazing. We're gonna dig more into this tool going forward, but I just saw the post about it finally today,

even though it's been there for almost two months now. Keep up DVR, try to keep up. Couple other news items real quick as we move into where the money went. David Bednar was placed on the IL and not surprisingly, Aroldis Chapman was the most heavily added player in leagues overnight, Sunday into Monday. The Bednar injury, fortunately, doesn't sound like a terrible situation.

But obliques are obliques. Obliques can take a little longer than you like. It's a strained left oblique. So maybe three to four weeks, something in that range is like kind of a good outcome. If it gets back faster, I think it'd be worried about a setback. But all right, so the money went to Chapman in leagues where people need saves. That makes sense. Ben Rice, who we talked about last week in conjunction with the Anthony Rizzo long term stint on the I.L.

And Spencer Turnbull was a popular pickup because we learned that Tywan Walker has a finger injury and he's going to miss some time. So I'm curious of some of the names we saw getting bigger bids. Do you think any of these guys end up pulling in significant value for those who took the plunge over the weekend? I like Turnbull. I don't like his home park situation amazingly, but I think I would call him sort of like a 60% starter. You know, like would you start, I know the Braves are heating back up again. Would you start, I know they don't, they're missing Acuna, but would you start Turnbull

against the Braves and Philly? Probably not. No, I probably wouldn't start them on the road against Atlanta either. But yeah, losing a home start is always rough, but Philly's park still does that. And yeah, to your point, Atlanta for the season, sitting with a 102 WRC plus, I think if you split that down just to June, you're going to see something a little bit better, but you also have Turnbull's actual schedule as it stands is at Detroit,

at Chicago, at Atlanta, which I don't know, I would start in for that. And then verse Oakland. So basically three out of four. And that's that's sort of where I have him. Seventy five percent starter. So I think that's a pretty good pickup for people that got him Chapman. I'd like, but I think it's, there's not like this heel pitch so well that when Bednar comes back, uh, Chapman is still the closer.

So you're basically just buying a month of a closer. So whatever you think a closer is worth for a season, then you're buying, you should be spending one sixth of that or whatever. Um, it also matters of course, like what your save situation is and blah blah blah blah. We ended up in main event getting Keegan Thompson for $5. We had put a $16 bed out of $1,000 or something on Chapman and he went for $37. So we just weren't willing to go all the way to the top there on Chapman I got Stanek in a similar situation for around 16 bucks. Stanek actually I think maybe pitches way into being closer all year.

Man I don't know what they're doing with Munoz I don't know I don't I can't explain it. I think it's that Munoz is maybe a slightly better pitcher that they use in more important situations. And Stanek is a guy that has such bad command that you don't want to bring him into a situation with people on base. And so you kind of make Stanek the clean ending guy. Yeah, that makes sense for Stanek, given some of the things we've seen from him

over his career. I think it's just weird he doesn't strike more guys out. That's the thing that continues to hold me back from being excited about Ryan Stanek. Looking at the usage for Keegan Thompson on Sunday. Oh, that was so annoying. He faced 11 batters, went two and a third. At least he did that early enough that we turfed our like

$16 bid on Keegan Thompson. So you saved it. Yeah. I mean, I thought there was a point going into the weekend. It might be the latest option. And I think following Javier Asad into that game and pitching as long as he did is maybe a little indication from the Cubs. Like, no, that's not quite our plan right now for Keegan Thompson, but I think he could do it if they gave him the chance.

What is the plan? Because I don't know who their closer is, or I guess it's Naris, but I wouldn't want it to be Naris. They have the third worst fastball stuff plus in the bullpen in baseball. They don't really have an obvious guy stuff. Plus plus says that Tyson Miller is interesting but not great. And I don't know maybe Ben Brown will come back off the island be a closer. I actually thought they would use Tyson Miller the way they use Keegan Thompson Sunday night when they claimed him off waivers I thought he'd be a bridge guy in that bullpen anything could be subject to change pretty quickly given the needs the Cubs have but yeah he's done multiple multi-ending things himself I mean that just tells you that he's

not really kind of like a dominant VELO closer type which they just don't have they don't really have that many good relievers yeah 45 pitches for Keegan Thompson on Sunday night. Yeah. Not a lot of guys do that and then become a closer quickly. So keep that, keep that in mind, I guess, as we continue watching what the Cubs are trying to do in their late inning situations, uh, Spencer Schwellenbach actually has a two-star week this week. So I think that's what kind of pulled people in 12 team leagues in at St.

Louis is the first one that's actually happening today on Monday. He was available in TGFBI, the great fan of the baseball invitation, which is a 15 team league on the NFC platform. And I was like, Ooh, I'm pretty excited about him. And I like, you know, I was like doing my little how much is too much and like kind of the was the guy the guy going up the mountain the reference sometimes oh the yodeler from yeah the yodel right and I did some stupid-ass thing like I was like oh $37 that'll get me Spencer Schvellingbach and then the news came in. 130, I lost 130 to like 37.

I misplayed the situation before Hurston Waldrop got hurt. I was in a league where I dropped the low triple digits bit on Waldrop because I said, I'm gonna believe in Waldrop. I'm gonna believe in these two pitches. This is gonna work. Maybe he'll be just a little bit better than Schwellenbach and that'll even though I like both.

And that'll be the answer. And it wasn't because Waldrop got hit twice and hurt on my roster for my troubles. So I'm looking to see if I actually, I did get Schwellenbach though much cheaper. I think I got him for 37. Oh, see, which is what I wanted him for. So I overspent on Waldrop and it bounced back.

I wanted him for that. So maybe I saved it. Coming off this to start week. He's going to be home against the Phillies next week. That will be a start in which Spencer Schwellenbach is on my bench. So yeah, let's see. In bar, if I got Stanek for 26 to six and slayed to Kony to unopposed, I had I Jonathan Cannon, even though there's a really bad start from him,

I had him on my list, maybe around Slade for like a buck. He went for six. Um, I do still think Cannon is like a low rent Michael King, which is, um, a worthy, a worthy useful player and a lot of 15 teamers. That's a compliment, right? I got my Otto Lopez. 16 bucks unopposed. I should have, yeah, I should have been mower, but

I just, You were just really excited. No, also, um, I had an issue. Um, let me see here. Vaughn Grissom and Ryan McMahon has a really terrible schedule this week. Hmm. So, uh, and I didn't have a second basement, so I'm putting in Otto Lopez for four games over Ryan McMahon at Houston for two games in the beginning of the

week, and I guess that probably wasn't worth 16 bucks, but it does give me an option to move on from Von Grissom may just keep Otto Lopez around as the backup MI instead of on Grissom. If we get any more bad news from Von Grissom or you know, he comes back and he's playing boring. So I'm basically putting longer some on notice with my auto Lopez acquisition. You should only because Von Grissom started doing baseball activities two weeks ago and to my knowledge has not played in a rehab game yet so they're really bringing him along carefully.

I don't know what the hell is going on. Did you pick up Emmanuel Valdez anywhere? He was the one right behind Otto Lopez on the tree. Yeah. Maybe that would have made sense. They're on the same team, you know, with Valdez. I mean, it's just like, Hey, like this is, this is his chance. We've talked about the prove it.

You, your windows open. It might be open for a few weeks. Do something with it. He's actually doing something with it. Some of the underlying numbers in terms of the quality of contact are actually really good and if Grissom just keeps taking longer than expected, the window stays open longer than expected. There was a lot of Ben Rice.

Did you get any Ben Rice or did you just watch everybody else get Ben Rice? I watched other people get into Ben Rice. There weren't I mean, my worst catcher that I could have dropped for him in the leagues were would have made sense to do something like this was Cabert Ruiz. And I was just staring at Caber Ruiz and I was like, this is not a guy I'm dropping for, uh, you know, six, eight, six, eight weeks of Ben Rice. I have enough. I have enough belief in Caber Ruiz to at least get the batting average up going forward.

Yeah, it seemed like it was Ben Rice and Freddie Firmin were the two catchers. People were trying to go out and add where they could. I mean, shake up in St. Louis because Yvonne Herrera got hurt and was already playing a little bit less. But also Wilson Contreras is supposed to come back on Monday. So that was a guy that was rostered a lot of places coming back to take away playing time from someone we were using as a placeholder. on Monday. So that was a guy that was rostered a lot of places coming back to take away playing time from someone we were using as a placeholder.

But Firmin versus Ben Rice, the great question of our times is which of these in season free agent pickups will end up being the more valuable second catcher? I mean, I think Rice's opportunity is good because it's the Yankees and- But it's limited by time, whereas Firmin might have run way to make himself.

The catcher, even with Perez, like the aging and stuff. Yeah, for me now has been up basically for 120 games in the big leagues, mostly over the last two seasons, 13 homers in 30 391 played appearances. He's 6% better than league average. It's nice. He's good defender, too. in 391 plate appearances, he's 6% better than league average. It's nice, he's a good defender too. So he's looking like a guy that can take some of that wear and tear off of Salvador Perez, which is nice for the Royals

to have that flexibility, but also offer us something, at least in leagues that require two catchers. So I think that was part of the reason why he was a popular pickup. A lot of people out there had to replace injured catchers with I think Luis Camposano hit the aisle with a minor injury, Gabriel Moreno went down the Herrera situation so yeah it seemed like maybe a quarter of teams out there

were trying to figure out catcher this weekend yeah using the bad X and the auction calculator for mean is 26 I don't know if they have rice counting as a catcher on this so I don't see him anywhere the Ben Rice projection from the bat X 232 305 395 Actually, I should think he shows up a little higher than Freddy for me and if he's that I Think we're all trying to get the next David Fry. I think that's what we're all thinking. Yes We go after Ben right killing Yeah, David Fry, killing me.

Love it. 700 ADP. Six best catcher going for it. David Fry, by the way, since people are wondering, with the new player raider, 41st hitter in a 12-team 5-by-5 play. Number 41. $17 so far this year. He's been fantastic.

I wish I could have found you that name. I found you some names. I did not find you David Fry. Any tough cuts for you? It looked like Joe Adele of all the players that were dropped. It's the usual suspects in terms of injuries and then Charlie Blackman with that Rockies homestand being over and having a five-game week. He was a popular cut as well, but it was guys like Rizzo, Lizardo, Jose Soriano, who's got an abdominal issue. Braxton Garrett, we talked about earlier, Bradish, like those were your main cuts. But Joe Adele was the only heavily dropped player who's playing a ton and just not producing. So we'll talk a lot more about Adele probably on a future episode.

But did you have any cuts that sort of jumped off the page to you, even though they weren't injured players? Hmm, not really. Yeah, James MacArthur, I guess. I saw somebody in in. Discord was like mad about my James MacArthur pick and I was like, dude, like, I mean, he got you some saves and it didn't cost you anything, right? I mean, you didn't take my advice and like go spend a lot of James McArthur.

So I feel like that's a median outcome for like, it's actually a pretty decent outcome maybe for that type of player who wasn't the closer in spring like You know, but I don't know that he's the closer now I don't know who the closer is now and I kept and he kept being on my bench and I was like I think I'm wasting this bench slot. So I ended up being like I want to have more high velocity Like I want this to be a kind of a churn and burn spot. I need to get something out of this spot now I'm just I can't wait anymore for James R. Carler. That's how I decided.

I guess that was the toughest cut. Yeah. Add the Royals to the list of teams that really need some more bullpen help. Everybody needs Tanner Scott. Everybody needs Tanner Scott. It seems like an exaggeration. Is there anybody else that could go? We'll talk about it a little bit more.

I also picked up Reed Detmer's in the main event, which I think we'll talk about Reed Detmer's more tomorrow. But, you know, as the trade demo approaches, we should, we should identify, I have a piece this week about like who might be traded. And I think that the next idea would be a fancy piece being like, who might get an opportunity behind the guys who get traded. But, you know, my name, my my eyes keep kind of circling on Michael Kopek. I mean, the reason why is not that he's been like a dominant closer or anything, but that I know that

like play like teams value stuff models across the league. And we've also seen a lot of teams for closers in particular, it might be that clean anything we're talking about, value stuff models across the league and we've also seen a lot of teams for closers in particular and it might be that clean inning thing we're talking about being willing to take on pitchers that don't have great command if they have great stuff especially in the bullpen in particular and when you get Michael Kopek you could tell yourself you know we get him for a few years and we get him for this year and all of next year and he's not going to be that expensive and he could be at least our

setup guy if not our closer. I think he would make a lot of bullpens better and he has to be attainable and I don't know who would close after him maybe Leisure maybe somebody else maybe Brebia but when you talk about available relievers, Michael Kopeck jumps to the top of my head. Yeah, I think we're always starting from the teams that have clearly punted this season. Yeah. And working from there, I think once we start getting into

those glob teams at sync, then we're going to find a few more names that stand out. Would the A's, all the stuff stuff you see about the A's bullpen is, would they trade Mason Miller if they're blown away? Well, sure. Any team will trade anybody if you overpay enough. But Lucas Ersegg seems like they'd be more likely to trade, and you'd have that same benefit of multiple years of control.

You'd have him for a long time. As long as he's good, you'd have him. And maybe you can still talk yourself into the possibility that as someone who was a position player for a long time has literally been pitching full-time for what? Four seasons now, the airsig could still get a lot better and be an elite reliever for several years. I'd like to say that nobody's giving away Gleyber Torres for a reliever for several years. I'd like to say that nobody's giving away Gleyber Torres for a reliever.

But we had Cole Regans for a role as Chapman two years ago. So I do think, you know, selling a top of the line reliever, even if they don't necessarily have a lot of use, control can still get you something. So, you know, if anybody in Chicago is listening, you should probably trade Michael Kopeck and maybe even Garrett Crochet. Wow. The Crochet thing is even bigger question. It's really, I think that's a fascinating, super complicated question. Yeah. Kopeck, I think you can pretty easily talk

yourself into finding a suitable trade partner and moving on accordingly. But so many good teams or what look like good teams need those boosts in the bullpen. I do think what you get in the return could be pretty interesting because there won't be, I don't think there will be enough quality relievers to meet the demand of all the contending teams based on how things are shaping up with a little over a month to go before we get to the trade deadline. I think the biggest names in, in the biggest teams in baseball,

the most important teams in terms of record over the next few days and what will happen in the trade deadline are probably the Blue Jays and the Mets. The Mets have been playing a little bit better recently. If they stay in the Drey deadline, then they then there's a lot of players that come off the market. The Blue Jays have been not playing so well. There's seven games under in a very crowded division. They're getting inching closer and closer to being selling.

Of course, the bullpen's not a great place to look for them because it's been so injured, but you'd have to think that Chad Green, Jimmy Garcia, and maybe even Romano, if they're healthy, could be available. Yeah. Even if we don't know what they're going to do about Bo Bichette and Black Guerrero. That's like the Blue Jays are super fascinating. The Mets, if they fell back, could offer a lot of players. So those are the two names, the two teams that I'm kind of circling is like what happens in the next month or so is, you know, the next three weeks may determine a lot about what happens at the trade deadline.

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. A handful of other teams kind of floating in that exact same place right now. They could be on the obvious sellers list once we get to that late part of July. We are going to go on our way out the door. A reminder, you can get a subscription to the athletic should be a dollar a month right now at the athletic.com slash rates and barrels. Our annual best deal we offer is up right now. You can find Eno on Twitter at EnoSaris.

You can find me at Derek VanRyper. Find the pod at rates and barrels. Join our discord using the link in the show description. That's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We're back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening.