Rates & Barrels - Emerson Hancock Debuts and Oakland’s Rebuild Continues

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

DVR and Al discuss where to add recently-promoted Mariners pitching prospect Emerson Hancock and what changes to expect in the Orioles’ rotation in the coming weeks. They also consider whether the ranks of teams to stream pitchers against has changed over the course of the season, and whether Matthew Liberatore has earned our trust in favorable matchups. DVR and Al talk about the growing ranks of young players on the Athletics’ roster, and they conclude by looking for saves in the Tigers’ bullpen. Rundown 0:46 This week’s biggest news items 7:29 Should we be streaming against the same teams we streamed against earlier in the season? 17:48 More news items from the past week 26:53 Hitters of note 43:29 Two-start pitchers and streamers 48:37 Closer corner: Should we add Beau Brieske? Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Al on Twitter: @almelchiorBB e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Friday, August 11th, Derek Van Hyfer here with Adam Melchior on this episode, we dig into some of the biggest news of the week, trying to find some waiver wire goodness as the weekend approaches. We've got a few promotions. We've got a few teams changing up their rotations. We've got some guys working their way back from injuries. We have a Lodum favorite looking really good in a, well, previously tough spot, at least,

against the Tampa Bay Rays. So tons of ground to cover. We begin with a promotion in Seattle. Emerson Hancock has joined the Mariners rotation. This one was spoken into existence while we were recording Project Prospect on Tuesday. It was literally the moment that Emerson Hancock's name was mentioned. We saw that tweet that he was actually going to come up and make his debut. It was five innings, one earned run, two hits, three Ks, three walks,

and an announcement that the Mariners may actually turn to a six-man rotation once Brian Wu comes off the IL with a forearm injury, or if Brian Wu comes off the IL with a forearm injury. But Al, we're always looking for pitching. Emerson Hancock, former first rounder back in 2020. He's been a pitcher on the Keeper and Dynasty League radar for a long time. What do you think he brings to the table in redraft leagues? I definitely bring something for 15 teamers.

I think when you're looking at setting your bids this weekend, take a look at the game log for Hancock before he got called up because the overall stats at Tacoma weren't that great. And even during a very good stretch right before he got called up, not a ton of strikeouts, but the walk rate came way down. And he was really effective. So he clearly earned that promotion. I think he's sort of borderline for 12 teamers, a guy that you could use based on the matchups. He certainly got a great home park. So I think that would certainly benefit having him on the roster and being able to use him for home

starts. But not somebody that you would necessarily have to empty the remainder of your fab as small as that might be at this point in the season. But definitely make a good faith offer. I think he'll be useful. Yeah, it should be an interesting week. Two turns on the road if he stays in that Mariners rotation. The first being at Kansas City on Monday, which why not? You would love to use them there. If you have to commit to both starts,

you have to take a start in Houston for the second one. So I do think this trends more towards someone you'd want to use in a 15-team league as opposed to a 12. Look a little further down the road, he'll get the Royals again at home the week after a two-step. So there's some appeal here in a pretty wide range of formats, in part because the cost is low. And I think the other tricky thing,

we've talked about this throughout the season, with the AA pre-tacked ball, and that was in the Southern League, if I remember correctly, that wasn't supposed to be used for the entire season. So you're changing the ball. The ball they were using at the beginning of the season is not what they were used to. There's so many moving parts for the pitchers that have had to deal with these conditions. I wonder if we'll see more than a few guys have better numbers at AAA and in the big leagues than they had at AA just because of unusual circumstances like that.

But I do think it's more of a command and control first profile for Emerson Hancock. I think you're right to point out that low K rate. Even when he's had a lot of success, you go back to the start of June, during his time at AA, a.273 ERA, a.97 whip over 52 and two-thirds innings. He was rolling along with a 50 to 10 strikeout to walk ratio during that span. So a lot was going right. And that included one real meltdown start on the 5th of July. He had nine runs in one and two thirds innings. Without that, these numbers would be even better. So a really nice turn for him after a disappointing first two months at the level. Yeah. And also, yeah, thank you for pointing out that was double A, not Tacoma.

That's just a lazy habit. If they're coming up to Seattle, they're just coming from Tacoma, but he made the trip from Arkansas. So, yeah, I think that it's important to keep the tack ball in the context there of evaluating that game log. But yeah, he's definitely had a few clunkers, but overall the skill set is one that, again, doesn't make him a must-add in every format,

but should make him valuable in a lot of leagues for rest of season. And also with Brian Wu, I had read, and again, I don't know how well this is actually going to pan out, but that he might actually have the minimum stay on the IL. So that would certainly affect everybody in the Mariners rotation if they do go to a six man in a week, week and a half or so. Yeah. They're saying it's a minor forearm issue. So hopefully that is the case. And it's a quick turnaround for Brian Wu. The other big pitching development this week was the word that Shane McClanahan has likely suffered a season-ending injury, which opens up an opportunity in that Tampa Bay rotation.

It's just not the way that we wanted someone to get an opportunity. Zach Littell, I think, gets stabilized by the absence of McClanahan, and Taj Bradley probably gets to come back sooner rather than later. Now, the actual plan around the upcoming schedule is still up in the air as it tends to be with the Rays, but they could go in the direction. It doesn't necessarily have to be Bradley right away. It could be someone like Cooper Criswell. They could throw other bulk relievers in there and just mix and match. someone like Cooper Criswell. They could throw other bulk relievers in there and just mix and match. But I'm curious in the more shallow formats where Zach Littell is still available. We're now

three starts in. He's gone 10 Ks, one walk, a couple of wins in those three starts over 17 innings, sub three ERA, pretty good whip. It's just a really low strikeout rate. Are you interested in Zach Littell knowing that this previously temporary opportunity to start looks like it's going to last for the rest of the season? Well, I think I'm not that interested in adding him where he's available because I think he's kind of maxed out his roster appeal. And it's like you said, the strikeout rate.

And one of the things with the rays in the past where you had starters who were you know maybe at the back of the rotation or uh were bulk relievers or you know swingman role and they had some appeal because you figured they get some run support you get a little help from the ballpark but lately the um you know the raise offense is hasn't been what it was earlier in the season. And I think you alluded to that at the top of the show. So that's something to keep in mind as well, that if you're using Littell, you're probably not getting the strikeouts. And you might not necessarily get a ton of innings, at least for the next couple of weeks.

And you can't necessarily count on a win even if he does make it five innings so i don't see a lot of upside there yeah i was thinking about that ray's offense and they have tumbled pretty hard after that fast start are they a team that we should be streaming against i mean look at what matthew liberator did to them on thursday night maybe a little extra chip on his shoulder it was was the organization that traded him to St. Louis. But eight innings, seven Ks, no walks, just two hits, 15 swinging strikes. He was up nearly a tick on both the four-seamer and the sinker. Everything else in the arsenal was up even more than that. And he had a huge 50% called strike and whiff rate on his curveball. So Matthew Libertor really had everything working. How much of that was Libertor stuff taking a step forward?

And how much of that was this Rays lineup being a bit lost here for the better part of two plus months now? Yeah, I was talking it up to the ladder just because what we've seen from Libertor so far with the Cardinals this year is that's just very much out of line with that performance. So I did chalk it up to the matchup. And I was thinking a little bit earlier today, looking at some of the more recent global rankings, you know, looking month of August,

14 days, you're not, not, we're talking probably samples that are too small to trust, but just kind of getting a sense of where, that landscape look like post-trade deadline. And yeah, I think the Rays are a team that we can pick on now. And I think they are a team where we can maybe discount the importance of a good outing against. And on the other hand, earlier you made an allusion to the Royals and being a favorable matchup. And I think when it's all said, I would agree with you with that, but they had the little winning streak, which of, now is well in the rearview mirror. But they're still scoring some runs.

And you've got a number of hitters. MJ Melendez has woken up in the second half. Felix Fermin has hit well. People who aren't catcher eligible are hitting well. Michael Massey, of course, Bobby Witt. So they're not, I hesitate a little bit in terms of, is that an automatic stream or is that lined up a little bit more dangerous? And you look at the A's, the Marlins teams that in May were just slam dunk stream candidates and it's a little bit more complicated now. Yeah. How much of a snapshot are you taking in season when you look at a team's

form to determine matchups? And some of it is figuring out, was there a major injury, right? You think about when the Yankees didn't have Aaron judge, they went from a team that you'd be very careful with, especially throwing your lower end starters against them at Yankee Stadium to one where you could take almost a waiver wire starter in some instances

and throw them out there against the lineup they were putting together. It wasn't just the judge injury. It was also Anthony Rizzo before we realized that he was dealing with post-concussion symptoms and a few other players who were really underperforming. But do you go back two months, three months? April matters in some regard, but it doesn't matter as much as we've seen more recently, at least in the way I look at this. And I just did a leaderboard for June 1st forward.

So you're getting more than two months of information. That has the raise kind of in the league average range for WRC plus 101 as a team, 24% K rate. It's actually pretty high. 24% puts them inside the top 10 in a bad way. So you don't want to be in that position. So I would say the rays are one of those teams that early in the year we were avoiding. I'm at least at the point, I'm not necessarily streaming against them with anybody, but I'm not afraid of throwing pitchers against them now that I would have been reluctant to throw against them back in May. That's a really good way to put it.

Yeah, it's just that that perception for me too has changed. And I don't want to overstate, like I mentioned, the A's. I wouldn't have much hesitation to stream a pitcher against the A's, but you just have to look at it a little bit more carefully. And it's the same thing with the Royals. So all in all,

I don't think that that landscape has changed too much, but I think the Rays are definitely one of the teams that's changed a lot for. I would add the Giants to that too. And it's kind of come full circle because I remember the first week or two of the season and we had a conversation about streaming against the Giants

and you were all for it and I wasn't so sure. And they actually hit pretty well the first couple of months, but I think the last month, month and a half, they're right by the bottom. And I think they're, especially when they're at home, they're a very good team to stream against. Yeah, same leaderboard, just looking at team performance going back to June 1st. The Giants are 26th in WRC Plus as a team.

They're hitting.229. They're striking out 23.9% of the time. revelation on the athletic baseball show earlier today that the Brewers offense is actually a lot like the Giants offense the main difference between those two teams from a real life perspective is that the Brewers have been a great run prevention team their defense is phenomenal the Giants defense better than recent years but not as good as the Brewers but being being frustrated by watching those teams makes a lot more sense to me now seeing how statistically similar they are. All of that's to say that I'm not afraid to throw mid-range starters against the Brewers. The park doesn't scare me that much.

The lineup doesn't scare me that much. The Tigers are still in this cluster. The Giants, the Royals, even with their improvement, they're still more of a bottom five offense. They're just not atrocious anymore. The Pirates are still pretty weak. The White Sox are watered down. The Rockies are still the easiest matchup, especially outside of Coors. They have a 73 WRC plus as a team going back to June 1st.

By far the lowest, and they strike out a lot at 27.2%. The other lineup matchup related question I had for you for today is the Twins. They have the highest strikeout rate in the league. They do enough damage because they're fourth in barrels over plate appearances. But it's a 104 WRC plus to 240 average. You're not looking at this team and saying it's just impossible for an sp4 or an sp5 to work through that lineup so do you seek out teams like the twins that strike out a lot but don't necessarily have a bad offense they might be closer to a league average i think this would also

describe the mariners to some extent their third and strikeout rate during the span and they're 10% better than league average. So it's a little more risky with them, but what do you do with teams like that? Or, you know, chances of getting a lot of whiffs are actually very high. You know,

I probably should have been paying more attention to the team strikeout rates, but the, the stat that, you know, when we're doing these searches, the ones, the one that I actually pay the,

I pay the most attention to even more than Wobe or WRC Plus is ISO. Because that's where, you know, a start can really go wrong. You have a team that maybe is in the bottom third overall, but they've got an ISO that's like 180, 190, 200. And that's usually why they're down there is because they've got a high strikeout rate too. And I tend to avoid those teams when streaming. Now, this time of year, I think you can parse that out a little and say, okay, my ratios are kind of shot. I don't need to worry maybe about that starter's ERA, but can that starter, even in four or five innings, get six or seven strikeouts? So I think that that's a calculus that I need to be making more going forward in the leagues where strikeouts matter and ratios don't.

But I guess my thinking has been, if you're facing a team that's, you know, an upper 100s, lower 200s ISO, no matter how many strikeouts per nine you're getting, you may not be going very many innings. Yeah, ISO is a good way to think about it. It's right on the same leaderboard over at Fangraphs too. So if you're just using that for WRC plus or K percentage, it's right there. You can click on it and see. Sticking with that June 1st forward split, not surprisingly, Atlanta, the team to avoid,

you would avoid them anyway. They have a 249 ISO since June 1st, 125 home runs. The next closest team in homers during that span, the Angels with 96. The Reds have 94. Houston's got 92. Texas has 91. But the top five teams by ISO during that span, Atlanta, the Angels, the Rangers, the Reds, and the Dodgers. Twins are right up there at six.

Astros missing Jordan Alvarez for a stretch there. Not surprisingly near that spot at number 7. Lipping it upside down, though, this does reveal some of these teams that we've been trying to pick on a lot more. Dead last in ISO, going back to June 1st, are the Giants at 133. The Guardians at 139. The Marlins at 139. The Brewers at 142. The A's at 144. The Pirates at 144. The Marlins at 139. The Brewers at 142. The A's at 144.

The Pirates at 144. The Royals at 147. The White Sox and Tigers at 148. The Nats at 154. The Rockies at 155. And you get to some surprises. Arizona, who the Diamondbacks have really been struggling. They're in a terrible losing streak right now.

They're at 157 for their ISO since June 1st. The Rays are at 160. and the Jays are at 160. That's where you start to get to these teams. You're like, whoa, how much do I want to lean into that? Because you believe in the sum of the part, the individual pieces. You have to start believing in the sum of the parts. That's how I would describe the Blue Jays. It just seems like it's only a matter of time before things start to click again for a lot of those Jays bats.

Yep, that's the exact inner dialogue I have when I look at that leaderboard and I see the Jays much lower than I expect them to be. It's like, no, I don't trust that 160 or whatever number it is that's coming up. They're just close enough to being in the middle or outside the top echelon that I would stay away. And I admit, I grant certain teams kind of that luxury, the Yankees, who have, like you said, struggled for so much of the year during stretches. If I'm looking at last 28 days and they're kind of in the middle ground, it's like, okay, I'm going to avoid the Yankees. But yeah, the Blue Jays, I've definitely'm gonna i'm gonna avoid the yankees uh but yet the blue jays have definitely given a lot of benefit of the doubt too so i have to recuse myself from analysis

about matthew liberator much as i have to excuse myself for any and all future analysis of victor robles might not be a problem since he doesn't have any sort of impact right now being on the IL. Matthew Libertor's next start comes against the A's on August 16th. That's at home. And then he's got a two-step the following week at Pittsburgh and then at Philly. Always comes back to the second one, raining on the parade a little bit. In what types of leagues are you throwing Matthew Libertor with those matchups coming off of the best performance of his big league career? Well, I think I'm waiting for that Oakland start, which I realize is a real opportunity missed potentially.

But again, because the start against the Rays was such an outlier, and before that start, Matthew Libitor was just an avoided all costs category for me. I want to see it one more time, even if it's against a team that we pick on a lot. And then at Philadelphia, that's scary. And then I think we can issue the usual caveat of,

well, if you can split the starts, at least that first start, that looks pretty good for him. If he does okay against Oakland, I'm a little more aggressive than you are with Lieber tour. I think people sort of understand that at this point, definitely want to throw him against Oakland. I will use that as sort of the basis to whether or not I would actually want

to throw him in a 12 team league with two road starts the following week. If he can build some momentum off that start against the Rays, I will continue to be excited about what he might be able to do here in these final two months of the season. I mentioned a couple teams shifting into six-man rotations. The Nationals are among them. I would say Josiah Gray and Mackenzie Gore are the most fantasy-relevant starters in that rotation. Gore, especially given his injury history,

it makes all the sense in the world that they would handle him carefully, but they've got enough other guys who are going to probably approach or even top their previous career highs and innings, so I understand exactly why the Nationals are doing it. I don't really like any of the other starters out of Corbin and Joe Andone and Jake Irvin and Trevor Williams. I am curious to know what you make of Josiah Gray's season. It's been some highs and lows.

The ERA at 369, easily the best of the three seasons he's been in the big leagues. The whip is still bad, though, at 144. The K-rate is sort of okay, not great. 110 strikeouts now and 126 and two-thirds innings. And he's got both a walks and homers problem the good news is the home run problem was worse last year he has fixed some of it but is this the best version of Josiah Gray we're going to get or do you see reasons to believe that he can whittle away even more at those ratios yeah this terms of ERA, it could be a career year for gray,

but I am going to differ slightly in interpretation because you're, you're, you know, you're saying that he still has a home run problem. And so he's, he's actually cut the home runs per nine by more than half, which is pretty incredible. But again,

when you're giving up 2.3 per nine, like he did in 2022, there's a lot of room to cut that in half. But, you know, in the, you know, environment, you know, current environment of baseball, I mean, I know it's not the most Homer happy of seasons that we've seen, but, you know, if you look at the last, you know, several years combined, I mean, a 1.14 home runs per nine is not terrible. It's not ideal, but it's, I wouldn't characterize that as a home run problem. He has increased the ground ball rate.

I'm going to check now because I think he's cut the barrels way back. No, he's cut it just a little bit. But better to be 8.0% barrel rate than in double digits where he was the first two seasons. So he's clearly making progress. And that, for me, was always the biggest concern that I had about Josiah Gray. So he's gone from avoid at all costs to being somebody because the home runs are not the extreme problem that they were that you could use them in selected situations. And that's something I couldn't have said about him last year. Yeah, maybe still just a streamer for 15-team leagues. Occasionally, the two-start weeks could put him onto the radar

in some more shallow formats than that. But the Nationals are off each of the next two Mondays, so with the six-man rotation, they will not have any two-start weeks in that group. So that's the cost of that adjustment for us in weekly formats. A rehab assignment to follow up on. I haven't thought a lot about John Means this season, Al, but he has started his rehab assignment through two scoreless innings last time out. We talked about this a little bit on the 3-0 show with Walker Buehler, and I'm curious what your expectations are for Means once he's

fully stretched out again. Do you think he can claim a spot in that Orioles rotation? And what types of leagues do you think he could make an impact down the stretch? I think he could because I don't know that Cole Irvin has an absolute lock on that sixth starter spot. So I would think that that would be a way that they could get Means in there. But you've recused yourself from Matthew Libitor analysis. I think I need to recuse myself from anything involving Tyler Wells. I'm highly invested in him coming back and rejoining the rotation.

And I don't see how there's going to be room for both means and Wells, I guess, unless somebody gets hurt. So, yeah, I don't know I would like to think that Wells is is ahead in the pecking order but I think there's a lot of question marks there about how that's gonna turn out the next few weeks. Yeah I think there's still something to be determined for the postseason. If you're trying to say who are the Orioles' four best starters right now, Kyle Braddish easily gets one of those spots. Jack Flaherty should get one of those spots. And then you want to give one to Grayson Rodriguez because the talent is off the charts and long-term. He's the starter that I think

most people think will be their best best guy, their true ace. But then you could kind of see a case for means to squeeze in there. If Wells gets back to the way he was pitching before the downturn that caused the Orioles to back off him for a bit and send another double A, then he certainly could claim a spot in that top four. But I just don't know what August and September are going to bring for a guy like Tyler Wells. I love that they use them like a regular starter. I had him in a lot of deep leagues this year and I've been really happy with the results. I'm nervous about what it's going to look like when he comes back, but they may have the luxury because of Means' return

and because of some other success in this group of starters to use Wells as a multi-inning reliever again. They could go back to using him as a bulk guy. They could use him one time through the order and have him piggyback behind a starter that might go a little short, and that might be the most effective thing they can do with their pitching unit. So that's where I have some hesitation with Tyler Wells. And I think the other thing with Means is just like, we didn't really

get a good look at him with the new dimensions at Camden Yards. So the problems he had, also another guy with home run problems, those should be at least somewhat reduced at home. And that makes him a higher floor guy for me upon return. But I still think it's probably more of a 15-team profile for Means. I think it's going to be a streaming situation in more shallow formats where he becomes very matchup dependent. And I'm not sure where the K rate's going to go. I think that's part of my hesitation too.

If I was convinced that John Means was going to come back and miss bats right away, I'd be more aggressive with trying to stash him in like a 12-team league. Instead, I'm taking more of a wait-and-see approach because we've seen lower K rates in 2021. And before he got hurt in 2022, he was in that lower 20% range. I think that's probably where his true talent level lies. Yeah. And just as you can make an argument that Wells has had the experience pitching out of the bullpen. And so that just might be a natural place to ease him back in. It's also a natural place to ease means back in too. So I just, this could go any number of ways and maybe they both wind up losing out on on rotation spots and looking at it

from a postseason preparation perspective that does make some sense because that gives them a ton of depth in the in the bullpen and they've they've got a pretty decent starting uh contingent right now so uh yeah i don't know i just have to uh i wish there was a way to put up a shrug emoji up on the screen here because that's my conclusion. Yeah, it's a watch list situation at the very least for John Means in a lot of leagues. Let's move on to a few bats. A couple of recent promotions. Lawrence Butler gets the call from the A's,

and JP Martinez is coming up for Friday's series opener between the Rangers and the Giants. We've been wondering if the Rangers might turn to Evan Carter at some point and lean into some of their prospects for a little bit of bottom-of-the-order help in the outfield. Martinez getting that chance, putting together a really nice season at AAA. He's 27 years old, so that's going to probably temper some of the enthusiasm. But if you're just looking for the biggest all around Roto impact out of both Martinez and Butler, who do you actually prefer at this point? Well, I made what to me sort of felt like the bold move in the waiver column saying that I think Martinez actually. move in the waiver column saying that I think Martinez actually, I don't know that it's necessarily the high percentage move, but I think that, I think he may have the higher fantasy

ceiling right now, because I think that the Rangers would at least, it would behoove them to maybe give him a shot at replacing Grossman against right-handed starters. Cause just his splits against righties have been pretty atrocious. And there's just a, you know, there's a lot of speed there. So even if it was a, you know, three, four start a week assignment for Martinez, he could be helpful with stolen bases. Whereas with Butler, he was kind of close to league average, both at AA and AAA. He's going to a tough park, won't necessarily have be in a great situation for run production so i i feel like his ceiling for redraft this year is 15

teams and uh you know just might his his biggest um his biggest asset for fantasy just might be you know compiling uh counting stats because i I think Butler will play a lot. But I'm not super optimistic that he's going to help a lot in any particular category. I think I can get on board with Martinez as the higher impact short-term pickup, even though I would keep her in Dynasty League and be more inclined to prefer Lawrence Butler. In part because the quality of contact Martinez was making was really good. 35.7% hard hit rate at AAA this year. Cut the K rate from 31.7% down to 24%. He's drawn walks for years now in the upper levels of the Rangers system. He mentioned the possible platoon role with Robbie Grossman.

JP Martinez is a left-handed hitter. He would be on the big side of platoon. So there's reason to believe this could definitely work. And he's 33 for 37 as a base dealer with a dozen homers. Well, so there's some pop, there's speed, there's a pretty good eye at the plate, and seemingly improving contact skills too, so I'm cautiously optimistic this actually will be a nice productive run for J.P. Martinez. As for Butler, the numbers were pretty good at AA. He showed power, showed speed, 41.8% hard hit rate during his brief time at AAA Las Vegas.

I was thinking about this more in the broader context of these Oakland position players. Because now you've got Butler, Zach Galoff who who's been red hot, Jordan Diaz, who's been kind of up and down on the roster throughout the season, Tyler Soderstrom, who got promoted recently, Esteri Ruiz, who's now healthy again in center field, Shaylang Lears, who debuted last year and has been behind the plate a lot. I don't think you'd necessarily have to include J.J. Bledet and Brent Rooker as part of that group because they're a little older. You can talk about them if you want to. And you've also got Daryl Herniaz playing really well at AAA, someone that could play shortstop and join this group. Who do you like out of that

roster that the A's have put together, that young core? I mean, who do you think will actually be fantasy relevant the furthest into the future? I think there's maybe like one low-hanging fruit guy of the bunch, and then there's a few others that are intriguing, but it's so hard to tell if they're more than regulars, if they're more than just guys that are going to play a lot and pile up good stats simply because they have a job. Well, I'm curious who the low-hanging fruit option is because i see possibility with with pretty much all these guys but nobody that really excites me that much i i want to be more interested in ruiz than i am but i just i that's always the thing with um players who uh don't have a lot of power but have the ability to steal a lot of bases is just,

are they going to get on base enough? Ruiz has surprised me this year. I didn't think he would get this many steals. I didn't think he would get this much playing time. But I do think his ceiling is a lot more limited than pretty much anybody else on the list here. Diaz is somebody I think I've kind of undersold this year. And some of that had to do with, as you said, him not really sticking in a regular role, but now he's playing pretty close to every day, but makes a lot of contact, has some pop. So I kind of like him.

And Soderstrom, he's just, he's very young. So the results haven't been good so far, but I could see next year or maybe the year after that he becomes a much better hitter at the major league level. And I think he's got the highest, uh, probably the, the highest ceiling of anybody here. And then Gelof has been really, uh, you know, surprisingly, uh, potent so far, uh, showing a lot of power. Uh, again, I don't know if that's something that's going to last past, uh past the small sample that

we've seen so far, but it definitely has me intrigued. Yeah, I think Soderstrom was the guy that I thought was the low-hanging fruit just because the age to level production, the power he showed at AAA, expectations from the scouting community are just a little higher with him than they are with the rest of this group whereas a lot of these guys are sort of fringy top 100 prospects on a lot of lists soderstrom was inside most top 100s that i recall seeing galoff i think is the guy that i have come to i'm having a difficult time in a keeper league including him in a trade as a possible secondary piece because i keep looking at the underlying contact numbers and saying yeah the strikeout rate's a little high and it's been high since double A back in 2022, but he's making a lot of hard contact. It was a 42.5% hard hit rate at triple A this year,

45.6% so far in the big leagues. He's lifting the ball enough to do damage. He's showing some speed and I think he can play a couple of infield spots well enough where even if we don't know where exactly he fits in defensively, he fits in somewhere. And I think you could look at Jordan Diaz and say, he plays a few spots too, but he might not be as good of a defender as Zach Galoff at those. So you start to kind of have a real life value component to figuring out how they in the organization might prioritize this group of players. So I think it's Soderstrom who I like the most long-term, Gelof probably second, and

then it's wide open after that. I think this is a much more intriguing group of position players, though, than what the A's started this season with. You can sort of see the rebuild taking some shape, at least on the position player side in Oakland. Let's get to a few more bats. A couple catchers among the most added players at the position this week, Mitch Garver and Gary Sanchez. I was curious if you're choosing between those two,

more likely in a single catcher league than in a two catcher league. I think they're pretty well rostered in most two catcher leagues. Who do you prefer for the rest of this season? I would say Garver because I think they have very similar capability for, for hitting home runs, but Gary Sanchez just has no batting average upside whatsoever. And I don't know that Garver's that much better, but I, you know, I would certainly trust him more to,

to not completely tank the team for average. So I give Garver, give Garver a slight edge, but I didn't write about either one of them this week. I've written about them in past weeks, but I mentioned Melendez before, even though he's not catching now, still catcher eligible and Fermin,

but the number one Roto catcher since the All-Star break, any guesses? Freddie Fermin. He is sixth. Melendez is fifth. I thought it was going to be Freddie because every time I've looked at the free agent list on CBS for like the last 30 days,

he's one of those players that shoots up to the top of the list. So I figured I had that one. Well, when I looked at Melendez, I thought that this is how I wound up doing the, doing the sort. When I looked at Melendez's number since all-star break, I'm like,

he's gotta be the number one catcher. He's fifth. And for me, it's right behind him. So number one, and with a 9% roster rate on CBS, same as for me, by the way,

it's Ryan Jeffers. Oh yeah. He's playing a bit more, which is tricky because it's another crossover from the athletic baseball show. We're talking about the central divisions today. The twins have so much swing and miss in that lineup as we were discussing earlier on this show, but Jeffers has always shown this ability to do damage. Double digitdigit barrel rates every single year he's been in the big leagues. I was a little bit surprised when they brought

Christian Vasquez in because I thought Jeffers was good enough to be a starter. I just didn't think Christian Vasquez filled a need. I thought they could sign a veteran backup and let Jeffers catch 100-plus games this year. Maybe they're making that switch now but a 285 381 500 line now for the season it's 219 plate appearances but that's like a 20 home run catcher with a good batting average despite a 30 percent carry I think that's the the one thing that makes you worry about the batting average is there's always been swing and miss and there's not really a lot of signs that that's gonna go away for Jeffers, but I think he belongs in the conversation

with these two players, with Garver, former teammate, with Gary Sanchez, and I think the thing that separates Garver and Sanchez for me, it's the Rangers versus the Padres. The Rangers have a fantastic lineup. I think you're just going to get better counting stats from Mitch Garver along the way.

Yeah, that's an excellent point. Yeah, that definitely works in his favor. So that just makes me feel even better about Garver. The other thing with Cary Sanchez, Ethan Salas might just be in the big leagues before the end of the season. I'm being facetious. He's very, very, very young, but he's already at high A, which I'm starting to think we're going to see Ethan Salas in 2024, which is just absurd for a teenage catcher, but here we are. I was curious if you have any interest in Ramon Laureano.

He's getting a fresh start in Cleveland. I thought this season was going to be good for Laureano. I think he was my most rostered player coming out of draft season, so yeah, bad call. That happens sometimes with your later available players. They're easy to get. You end up with five, six, seven shares of them, and it doesn't work out. He ended up on a better team,

but it's only a slightly better team. And even that, with all the changes in Oakland, you might argue that the supporting cast top to bottom for the A's helps provide better counting stats than the supporting cast in Cleveland. Nevertheless, there's power, there's speed. Can Ramon Laureano live up to his rest of season projections, which point him to like a 240 average, some power, some speed, and enough to make a dent, I think, in 15 team leagues if it comes true. But are you buying it?

I think, you know, the projections that you're talking about, I think for the most part, yeah, the move to Cleveland, I think in terms of lineup support, it's a pretty lateral move, but it's definitely an upgrade in terms of the park. So probably see a little bit more power there. But, you know, I was high on Laureano too back in March, and I thought he'd be one of the players that really benefited hugely from the rules impacting stolen bases. And he's played 67 games. He has nine steals. So that's a little bit of a higher rate than he's had the last couple of years, but nothing really exciting. So I kind of put him in a way in the Lawrence Butler category. Like I think he can give you a little bit of power, a little bit of speed,

but not enough to really move the needle. So at this point, I'm looking at Laureano as 15-team filler, and depending on how the playing time shakes out, maybe somebody who's on the bench more often than not. Fair enough. How would you compare him to Davis Schneider, who may be more than just a cool story.

I almost called him a schnorty because of the name Schneider. I'm tired. I've been drinking coffee all day and I'm still tired and it's almost three o'clock in the afternoon, which is not a good sign for how my weekend might go. But the thing about Schneider that really caught me by surprise was that he showed good plate skills at AAA. He was really going to age appropriate to be at AAA this year. There was power. There was speed. He's been a pretty efficient base dealer going all the way back to high A to start last season.

And the underlying contact numbers have been good, both at AAA, 42.5% hard hit rate. Even in the big leagues right now, 33% is not terrible. It's at least good enough to hang on the roster especially when you have a good eye at the plate yeah I mean so you had that great series against the Red Sox to make his debut and then he went oh for the Guardians the following series and I think that's kind of important because uh Kevin Kiermaier could be back, I think, in about a week or so, not too long. And Whit Merrifield's been out in the outfield in Kiermaier's absence. And so you get the moving parts shifting. And if Merrifield gets back in the infield, I don't know where Schneider plays, at least not as a regular. And so if he comes out of this week, let's say he has another rough series heading into next week, maybe he's back to Buffalo. Maybe he's, or if nothing else,

starting two times a week. So I think it's really important to see how Schneider does this weekend because the Blue Jays will have some decisions to make when Kiermaier comes back. Yeah, it might be under the microscope as far as what that role is going to look like in the next few weeks, but I didn't expect to see upper-level performances in the minor leagues quite as good as what Davis Schneider had put together, given how little I feel like I heard about him prior to his arrival in the big leagues. For really deep leagues, Alfonso Rivas, I noticed, is playing a lot in Pittsburgh right now. He was hitting a ton in El Paso. Everyone hits in El Paso. It's part of the PCL, high altitude, all that, but there is a lot of playing time here, and I'm just wondering if he's

going to actually exceed expectations by virtue of just good counting stats. Barrel rate's up so far this season. We'll see if it sticks. It's a very, very small sample size. I just thought it was kind of intriguing since he's bounced around between a few orgs and has never really had a long run of playing time. We saw 287 plate appearances for the Cubs last year, only a 307 slug. So this is probably more of a mono league sort of play, but it just surprised me to see how much Rivas was getting in the mix for a Pirates team that's been shuttling infielders up and down in that roster all season long. Well, that was the thing I was going to point out, if you didn't, that even when somebody comes up and gets some regular playing time, makes an impact, it seems like as often as not, that player two weeks later is on the bench or back in AAA. Not that player two weeks later is on the bench or back in AAA.

So it's been sort of frustrating. It just seems like the Pirates this season have just been throwing everything at the wall to see what might work. And not really giving a lot of players very much of a chance. I mean, it seems like there's maybe three or four players in that lineup that really have been constants. So I don't know if Rivas is going to be one of them. And I remember it's like deja vu DVR because this time last year, Rivas was playing a lot for the Cubs. And you were, I recall, you were pretty interested in him. And I just thought, well, this is kind of a batting average only first baseman. And I'm not sure I see the appeal. So I haven't really, I think I've not really moved off of that spot. But we'll see. We'll see if he gets the playing time in Pittsburgh. And if that, like you said, the increased power, if that translates to PNC Park, then I definitely need to reevaluate.

Yeah, for anything beyond a monolig, keep an eye on the hard hit rate. See where that goes with more playing time. If that starts tracking towards the 40% range like it was at during his time at AAA, that might be your signal that deep mixed league roster ship is actually possible. Until then, take a wait and see approach. Two-star pitchers and streamers, I didn't do as much with this group on the rundown this week because it's kind of gridlock out there. I was looking all over the place trying to find unrostered starters that could be pretty useful. Dakota Hudson is a somewhat low-rostered pitcher who's

got two home starts for the Cardinals, home against the A's, home against the Mets. That might be a go if you're chasing bulk. It's always scary because Dakota Hudson doesn't miss a lot of bats, but that first matchup is just enticing enough for me to at least think twice about it in leagues where he's available. Yeah, and I think if you're looking in deeper leagues than Hudson maybe, I think he's really risky, but again, you're just going for bulk. I think he's one of your better options. J.P. Sears at

St. Louis versus Baltimore, not great matchups, but I think he's decent. You mentioned Hancock before, but I think if you're going a little bit shallower if you're looking 12 team leagues i like brady singer we talked about him i think last week he's got two starts this coming week he's got the mariners at home cubs uh at wrigley which is i mean the

cubs again if you do kind of the shorter range sort, the Cubs have been one of the best offensive teams the last several weeks. So I don't know how scary we should necessarily make that. But I think, you know, Singer's pitched so well for the last really last couple of months that I think I would, I would chance it with him. And I know there was one other, but I'm absolutely blanking on it right now. Also, well,

my guy, Wade Miley has terrible matchups at the Dodgers at Texas. So I think even I have to avoid Wade Miley. And I guess one other thing that I should add to DVR is that Graham Ashcraft has the first start of the week for the Reds. It's a five game week. So they've got the two game series against Cleveland and Ashcraft's got that Tuesday start. So if they stay with a four man rotation, he would get the Sunday start, but

that's also the projected return date for Hunter Green. But Hunter Green had a rehab start on Thursday night that looked like it didn't go very well. And I'm curious to see if I can find any reports about if that's altering their plans, if there's any concern there about Hunter Green, or that's just one of those kind of random rehab start lines that I shouldn't pay any attention to. Last I saw, they were planning on giving him two more rehab starts before bringing him back. So I think he's more than a week away still, but getting close,

which is certainly good news if you've been stashing Hunter Green on the IL. We talked about streaming against the twins earlier. Reese Olson just pitched really well against them this week. Six scoreless eight Ks. Would you try to go back to that? Well, and some shallow leagues where Olson might be available. Yeah, no, I definitely would. I like him.

I've been actually kind of, yeah, not kind of stashing him in my 12 teamer. Cause he did go through a little bit of a rough patch, but I didn't want to drop him because I figured he was capable of that kind of start that he had on Thursday. So I like that call. I like that call a lot. And the pitcher that I was blanking on a moment ago that has now returned to me is Nick Pavetta. And he's still out there in some 12 teamers. And his matchups are pretty decent. He's got the Nationals and the Yankees on the road.

Those venues aren't great. If this was classic Nick Pavetta with the home run issue, that'd be really scary. But I think I'm going to trust him with those starts. Yeah, I think the other name that has come up on a few of our episodes, Xavier Curry, gets an opportunity against the Tigers. It's a home start. I think if I'm chasing innings in a deeper league, I think Curry is actually someone who's at least on my bid list this weekend

just because I just don't have a lot of respect for the Tigers lineup right now. I love what Riley Green's doing. I know there's a few other success stories mixed in there, but there's not a lot of depth. I think you can actually get away with throwing some lower end or unproven starters against them and live to tell the tale. If you picked up Cole Reagans last week, or if he's still available in your league, would you throw him on the road at Wrigley for his lone start during the upcoming week?

The good news would be if you don't use him or if you pick him up and stash him at Oakland is the matchup that he has the following week. So I'm curious what you're doing with Reagans. I do have him in a 15 teamer and I think that's, I'm probably going to start him, but I have to look and see what my options are. It's not a slam dunk because of that matchup, but I'm definitely not automatically benching him either. He's just been too good in those first three starts. Yeah. Yeah. I think the other guy I'm still looking at, I think I praised Luis Medina on this show last week for improved control, and he rewarded me by walking five and going three in the third against the Giants last time out.

Another turn this weekend, hopefully an opportunity for him to turn it back around, but he's got another good matchup coming up next week. Actually, a tough matchup coming up next week, home against the Ori, before an easy matchup the following week at home against the Royals. So I'm at the point in the season, Al, where I'm looking two weeks down the road for a lot of potential pickups just because there are so few pitchers available in a lot of the deeper mixed league formats that we play in. I did have one other Tigers pitcher I want to talk about before we go. Bo Briskey picked up a two-inning save on Thursday against the Twins. So he's pitching well so far this year.

All but one of his appearances have been out of the bullpen this year. 10 Ks against one walk to 208 ERA,.92 whip so far. The way they're using him doesn't necessarily point to traditional closer as the immediate opportunity. But two saves now in the last three appearances for Briski. Yeah, and his profile doesn't scream closer, but I think that could be a wide open situation because Alex Lang's profile also with all the walks doesn't really scream closer or at least not a reliable one.

So it's a time of season where I think the Tigers probably want to see what they can get from Briski and maybe some other relievers too. Maybe they blow that wide open and look ahead to 2024. So as somebody who's got Lang in a few leagues, I definitely need to be looking for reinforcements and probably will at least consider Briski in the mix this weekend in terms of trying to look for some potential saves rest of season. Yeah.

Briski, I think, is a good deep league target right now. You know his pitching model has him with four above average pitches, a total of a 116 stuff plus, a 111 location plus, and a 115 pitching plus number. It could work really well out of the bullpen, especially. Maybe we'll see him get a chance to start again at some point, though, too. If they keep using him for 30 pitches at a time, all it takes is a couple of appearances, and he could suddenly go four or five innings and change things that way. But I do like him a bit as a reliever. And I think if you want to buy into the Tigers as a younger team on the rise, I think that's very reasonable.

He could emerge, Brisky could emerge to be a closer for them by this time next year. A regular closer, that is, even though he might not have that role right now. I think he's doing enough to earn a look in deeper leagues where saves are probably clustered pretty close together at this point in the season. That is going to do it for this episode of Rates and

Barrels. If you've got a question for a future episode, you can drop us a note via Gmail, ratesandbarrels at gmail.com. That's the correct email address on Twitter, alz at lmailcurebb. We'll be right back. for the first year at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Monday.