Rates & Barrels - Encouraging news for Tatís, an extension for Ross Atkins, the A's brutal week, and Akil Baddoo's opportunity in Detroit

Episode Date: April 7, 2021

Britt and DVR discuss the Fernando Tatís Jr. injury, two small early-season trades, an extension for Ross Atkins in Toronto, James Paxton's early exit, a sluggish start for the A's, and a few first-week surprises including Akil Baddoo and Mark Melancon's emergence as the Padres' closer. Rundown 2:37 A Tatís Injury Update 9:58 Rougned Odor Goes to the Yankees 15:14 Benches Clear Again in the NL Central 20:38 Ross Atkins Gets a Five-Year Extension 27:25 James Paxton's Early Exit 33:51 It's Too Early to Panic, but the A's Have Had a Brutal Week 41:44 Akil Baddoo Getting PT on the 'Fun Bad' Tigers 45:47 Can Yermín Mercedes Keep the DH Job? 49:42 How Long Will Mark Melancon Hold the Closer Role in San Diego? 57:25 Doug Jones and Unorthodox Closer Arsenals Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Please fill out our listener survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/athleticaudiosurvey Subscribe to The Athletic for just $3.99/month to start: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Wednesday, April 7th. Derek Van Ryper, Britt Giroli here with you on this fine mid-week day. No Eno Saris again today. Eno on vacation all week. We're all gone in our own directions on Friday and back on Monday. So a lot to get to, though, Britt. It's been a fun opening week. We're almost a full week into it. Second series are winding down. Fernando Tatis Jr. suffered an injury since we last spoke.

We got an update on that. There were actually two trades on Tuesday, which was bizarre, like actual big league contributors getting moved. That doesn't usually happen during the first week of the season. Benches cleared again. And of course, it was in America's division. We'll talk about why that happened. Unfortunately, James Paxton had another early exit in his first start in his return to the Mariners on Tuesday night. And we had a great follow-up email from one of our listeners, OJ, about a closer who was a little change-up happy about 20 years ago. And I certainly forgot that this player was out there throwing change-ups like crazy. But how's it going for you on this

Wednesday, Britt? It's going well, DVR. I know we were talking a little off air, but I love this time of year because, as you said, there's so much baseball going on. No one's been eliminated. It's a fun time to watch. It's a fun time to overreact because a good couple days and all of a sudden you're atop the leaderboards. A bad couple days and all of a sudden you're the Atlanta Braves and everyone's acting like the sky is falling. So, you know, maybe if you're in Oakland, the sky is falling, but it's probably been falling for a while. So I just love this time of year. I have employed your strategy to watch multiple games.

I meant to tell you I've been testing that out. I do like it. It's better than the random flip. When one game's on a commercial, it seems like the other game is too. the random flip. When one game's on a commercial, it seems like the other game is too. So shout out to DVR in helping me do my job,

which is to watch more than just the Orioles and Nationals here in Maryland. You're going to be so amazed that the quality of the baseball played in the other 28 Major League cities. You'd see those teams, of course, passing through and going on the road, but you'll find that the quality of play somewhere is good every day in Major League Baseball. And that's not necessarily true, especially in Baltimore, unfortunately, during the time that

you cover the Orioles. A few nice runs, but a lot of bad baseball on the ledger for you as well. But let's start with Fernando Tatis Jr. A pretty scary injury because he suffered it Monday night swinging the bat, swung and missed on a pitch, and immediately crumpled up on the ground, walked off the field holding his left arm. At the time, it immediately reminded me of injuries that Ricky Weeks once suffered for the Brewers. his wrist swinging the bat because he had such quick hands and he was so strong that his wrist literally just couldn't like physically hold up to the way he was swinging the bat and that ended up being a season ending injury for weeks at the time so that was my fear as a Brewers fan watching it but a lot of people were worried that with the known shoulder issue that Tatis has been managing that this could be something very serious. We did get a follow-up

on Tuesday, and it seems like good news. It's a rest and rehab program that was recommended for a slight labrum tear in Tatis' left shoulder. So it's his lead shoulder as a hitter, his non-throwing shoulder, and this is according to Dennis Lin from The Athletic. And the subluxation that he suffered on Monday night occurred when he swung and missed. So that's pretty normal as far as just dislocating a shoulder. But when you do that, other things can start to tear and break down because the joint is not correct. So I'm cautiously optimistic. He's going on the IL. I'd be stunned if he's back in 10 days, Britt, because they still have to manage his long-term health for this season, even if the fear of him making this injury considerably worse by playing again this year is relatively small. Yeah, so a couple things jump out to me here,

Derek. One, I think we talked about this the last time when it was just a, oh, we found this shoulder injury in spring training. We found it on the MRI. We knew he had it. And I said to you and Eno, well, that's not great. He's so young. You really should feel bulletproof at that point in time. My main concern, one, it's great news it's not a full tear because just judging off of, let's just go off of pitchers, for example, the labrum surgery is a surgery where guys just don't come back nearly as well. Obviously, he's not using his left arm for velocity, but as an example, it is a long year plus kind of rehab. It's bad news. When you're talking about the slight tear, what you have to kind of balance here is the rehab, the making it stronger and also not over aggravating it, which, you know, as the most troubling thing probably is this seemed to be an injury

that only came up off the field until now. Now is the first time, or the first time the Padres are admitting that it happened because of something he did on the field. He aggravated somehow playing. He's not going to stop playing. He just signed a ridiculous contract. So you're right. I think they're going to have to manage his workload, not just with this 10-day IL, but giving him brief blows throughout the season.

I could see something like that because, you know, this isn't something that you're going to be able to fully ever take care of. It's going to be something that has to be managed. It's going to be something that has to be aggravated. That's going to be, you know, you're going to try to not aggravate. It's kind of like tendinitis, right? That never really goes away. You just have to find a way to rest and rehab and strengthen it. That slight tear is not going to magically not be torn anymore. You're just going to get it to

a point where it's not aggravated because you don't want to make it worse. You don't want to get to that slight tear. Now we're talking surgery. Now we're talking a year plus. So I'm a little concerned. I do think it was good news overall. But certainly, like we said, the biggest issue with Tatis is going to be keeping him on the field. It's not any opponent. It's not any question about his ability at all. I mean, this guy is just can do it all the speed, the running, the defense, the offense. The biggest issue is going to be health, unfortunately, and nobody can really predict that. And I think the questions we'll have once he's able to come back this season,

and again, I think it's probably more like weeks as opposed to months, based on the way they're talking about it and the reports we're getting right now. Aside from getting those days off, I just wonder, is the power going to be slightly sapped? Is he going to be the same guy

that just sculled the ball almost as hard as anybody in the game? Is he going to be willing to make headfirst slides and trying to steal bases? Or are we going to get a version of Tatis that's just a little bit less? Just because he is trying to avoid further aggravation of the injury. I mean, it's always the question you're wondering about when a player is dealing with something like this that they don't want to make a lot worse. With the Padres, I mean, they're built for an injury like this. Losing any player as good as Tatis is impossible for a team to completely cover for, but their depth is almost as good as any teams in the league. Haseong Kim is going to get a lot of that playing time at shortstop. They brought him over from the KBO. You look back at some of the numbers that Kim put together overseas, he was

40% better than a league average hitter in each of his last two seasons in the KBO. Low strikeout rates, double-digit walk rates, power and speed in his final season in Korea, 30 homers and 23 steals. So yeah, it's not Tatis' level. And obviously we know there's a bit of a gap between the KBO and big league pitching, but they have a guy that has power, has speed, has a good hit tool who might be able to help keep the offensive production afloat at shortstop. And of course, top to bottom, they're one of the better lineups in the National League. So I think they can weather this. The problem is if they were going to chase down the Dodgers and win the NL West,

that was already going to be difficult with Tatis completely healthy, and now that task just became more difficult. Certainly it has, but do we think the Dodgers are going to have this clean bill of health? Probably not, right? So I agree with you, it is a huge hit. I do think the one saving grace here, as you mentioned, is it's not his throwing arm. Because if it was Tatis' throwing arm, I think we are talking about a different player or a player who has to make significant adjustments because you're constantly aggravating it. I don't know if, I don't know

Tatis very well, but I don't know if he's the kind of player who can change his game. You know, you talk to guys all the time and managers will always say, well, we tell guys, you know, to play it safe or to play it smart. Maybe don't crash into that wall in April. And you can't tell big league players that. That's how they got up here. That's what makes Tatisso special. And I remember, you know, your boy Victor Robles with the Nationals.

They had this big talk with him about, you know, changing the way he played because he was getting hurt a lot. Because he was getting hit by pitches a lot. And it's really tough, I think, for these young, athletic, dynamic guys to be contained. To be told, slow down. Don't make that leap. Don't make that jump. So I don't know if Tatis can change his game. I just hope that this is an injury that he finds a workaround because it's not that dominant arm.

Yeah. I'm cautiously optimistic, I think, as I mentioned before. And we have seen Robles as a good example. Bryce Harper early in his career, smashing into walls and you get the coaches and you're eventually saying, hey, look, we know you're excited. We know you want to make an impact on every single play. Don't hurt yourself smashing into the wall in the outfield. Just things like that have come up with players like this before. So I'm also encouraged by the fact that it's not his throwing arm because I feel like that would just provide a lot more stress, repeated stress on this injury for Tatis. So hoping

all the best for him as he tries to get back. A couple players on the move as I mentioned up top. Rugnit Odor is a Yankee now. And I think as Levi Weaver pointed out, Rugnit Odor without his beard is going to be a sight aside from just seeing him in a new uniform

because he's one of those guys like he's been a Ranger his entire career. He debuted as a 20-year-old. Very up and down career so far. But for a guy who's only 27, Britt, Rugnit Odor has over 3,400 career plate appearances in the big leagues already. So he's got a veteran's track record, even though he's still possibly in the first half of his career.

It's a big possibly because he's going to have to make some adjustments, even though he's shown really interesting power to this point. The average is often low. The OBP is very low. But the Yankees have this track record of taking players that didn't have even nearly as much apparent raw ability as someone like Odor and making them very productive. I mean, Gio Urshela, great find for them. A guy that bounced around, never really stuck in Cleveland, quickly passed through Toronto. He's a regular third baseman. It looks like a great find for them. Luke Voigt,

often injured, of course, but on the field looking like a gem that they have found and developed as well. So I'm really curious to see what they can do with Odor. I mean, he's a lefty bat going into Yankee Stadium, which automatically gets us excited because the short porch is going to help boost up that power even further. I know short term, there's not a regular spot for him to call his own. He's a super utility guy now. But this is one of those acquisitions where because of the organization that made the move for him, I'm not quite ready to give up completely on Rugnett Odor. Yeah, I agree. And I'm glad you mentioned the swing versus the stadium because I think it's tailor-made for if he's going to bounce back or be that guy. Yankee Stadium is the perfect place for him to do so.

So I like this deal. The Rangers aren't going anywhere, right? They're widely predicted to finish last in the AL West. I think this is a smart trade for both sides. You know, the Rangers get to save a little bit of money. They get a little bit of return. I thought it was awesome, Derek, how when you think of Odor, what he's most known for is that punch. And the Rangers, of course, in their farewell to him, they have like four or five

different photos. The punch is one of the photos. The team has the punch. And I just thought that was unbelievable. You know, I am curious to watch him in the Yankees lineup. What I think people don't realize too, when they go to the Yankees is one, these players are expected to win. And two, when you go to a good team, you're not the guy anymore. You know, he's not going to be the guy. He's not Judge. He's not Stanton. And some guys really thrive on that. You know, just whatever they do is a bonus, is an extra. The

Yankees don't need Odor to go to the playoffs. I think we all had them pegged at the top of the AL East without him. And I think when you slot him in, you know, in the right pinch hitting spots,

starting the right games, they become a better, deeper team. And so to me, I think this is a win-win. I honestly didn't... It's one of those moves, Derek, where they're like, oh, that makes a ton of sense.

Why didn't that happen a few weeks ago? Like what changed? Rangers wake up and realize on April 7th, oh, we're not very good. We're not going to be good. I like to believe that this probably had laid the foundation for in the offseason. They probably looked at it, agreed on who was absorbing what amount of money because he's making a significant amount of money. The Yankees are very into the luxury tax threshold, staying under that. And then they were finally able to make this deal.

But I think it's good. I think it's exciting. And also, if the Yankees have a brawl, we know they've got a guy. I mean, they've got a good guy here. If we're going to add it to our list of, you know, if you're acquiring a new guy, that's significant. You know O'Dour's going to run out there. He ain't scared to throw a punch. He's seen it. No. And that punch, I saw it this morning because I was looking for a Rude Odor gift for the Fantasy Baseball in 15 show. And it's like the only gift that comes up when you search for him. So

it's like, I don't want to just wake people up with that punch. It's very, very out of context right now. But the thing that stood out to me about that, when Rudo D'Odor punched Jose Bautista, that looked like a guy that knew how to fight. Someone taught him how to throw punches at some point in his life or self-defense, boxing, whatever it was. That was a legit punch. And Bautista was not expecting it because probably every other time that Bautista was in a situation where someone ran in the field and looked like they were going to fight him, they didn't throw a punch. So he wasn't expecting it at all. And it's funny that that's an iconic moment for him in franchise history, especially since the other iconic Rangers punch is Nolan Ryan putting Robin Ventura in a headlock and just repeatedly punching him in the head when Ventura tried to charge the mound against them in, what year was that? Like 92, 93. So I'm sure that... I guarantee... I've never been to the ballpark in Arlington,

old one or new one. I guarantee that somewhere in that stadium, on the club level, maybe it's on the concourse, there is a framed photo of Nolan Ryan punching Robin Ventura. I'm sure it's there. And I'm increasingly convinced that there's also a photo of Rougnod Odor punching Jose Bautista hanging up, maybe right next to it. Agreed. I mean, it's what brawls should be. Now we get these brawls that are guys running out of the bullpen. And they're not really brawls. They're more like, hey, guys, we're all here. Check my attendance box. I'm for the potential fight and then they go back you know it's basically it's basically what we've seen here over the first week in baseball i mean we saw it last night again with your team with america's division uh with the brewers and uh i gotta say i'm not very

impressed with the early brawls is it it COVID? Is it just the players? You know, I think here's the problem. I think baseball throws the term brawl around way too liberally. Like, that wasn't a brawl last night. It wasn't a brawl over the weekend when benches cleared with the cards and reds either. cleared with the cards and reds either. And I think in the case of Brewers-Cubs, this one was already kind of simmering after Monday's game. On Monday, Wilson Contreras got hit in the head by Devin Williams, just front and center on the helmet. If you're watching on YouTube, right on the logo, just drilled him. Contreras stayed in the game, shook it off like

nothing happened. And Tuesday, Freddy Peralta had the start for the Brewers. Pitched pretty well. Command is still Freddy Peralta command at times where he loses hold of one and comes inside. Well, he spun Javi Baez out of the box with a pitch up pretty close to Baez's face. And Baez,

his reaction as he kind of spun away, you could tell he was pissed. You knew he wasn't happy about it. So that escalated a situation that was already bad on Monday. And then Brad Boxberger hits Wilson Contreras with a pitch in the ninth inning. The Brewers were up four. There was no reason for them to hit him. Obviously, they were just throwing inside.

So I think for the Cubs, it was kind of a no-brainer. It was like, all right, enough's enough. And my question for you, I've talked for a long time now about how I don't like beanball wars. When the game is you hit one of our guys, we're going to hit one of yours. To me, that's stupid. That's just caveman stuff. That's really like an old school thing that we're better off without that in baseball. But if the alternative is benches and bullpens emptying and everyone running out into the field and getting face to face and then things sort of dissipating is that better because like on

the one hand i think people still get pretty excited about it like they get excited about the possibility of the punch and at least in this case you're not you're not throwing a ball at someone so if you're going to get suspended like you choose to throw a punch in the moment and you get suspended for a few games, it's not this ambiguous. Was he throwing at him or was he not throwing at him? Like a punch, pretty clear. You intended to hit that person.

So I'm just trying to decide this is actually better. Yeah, I think it is. Because as you said, the beanball thing's not great because now you have guys who not only, I mean, first off, we're throwing really hard nowadays. Much harder than 10, 15 years ago. So, yes, going anywhere near the head, we're not talking about a guy being on the IL for a little while. We're talking about permanently ending a guy's career with these kind of shots.

So, I do think it's better to just have both sides empty. And let's be clear, DVR, if somebody wants to punch, the issue with these brawls I have is everyone gets super mad. And it's like when you're like, yeah, meet me in the parking lot. And you're like, whoa, well, I didn't want to escalate it like that. I just wanted to show you that I could, right? Once everybody actually empties, most of the time no one does anything. And honestly, one of the best ones I've seen live was when David Ortiz stormed the mound at Fenway Park against the Orioles. Kevin Gregg was a closer. Everyone hated him.

He wasn't good, right? Orioles fans hated him. So David Ortiz comes stalking out. Like 99% of the league is going to cower. No, Kevin Gregg sucker punched him. And after that, Orioles fans loved him. Didn't matter how many games he blew because he stood his ground

and he punched David Ortiz and they went at it. But most of the time, these guys just want to be heard and act tough. And yeah, I pimped that home run. Yeah, well, so what? And just jawed each other.

So I'd rather they jaw, they stand on the lawn, like it's some kind of like Bruce Springsteen concert for a little while, and then they clear. Then hitting him in the head. That to me just is the epitome of a baseball player. They're all tough. They're all ready to go. And oh, geez, we're doing this for real? Well, I'm going to stand behind this guy. Hold me back. Hold me back.

Yeah, it's like a cartoon in some ways. It's a little bit weird. But eventually, Brewers Cubs, I think they play nine times in April. If there's a few more inside pitches, a few more guys get hit, there will be punches thrown. Because I think it's easy the first time this happens to not be so mad to throw a punch. But the second or third time it happens, someone will actually get hit. It's going to happen happen but if this is how baseball wants to settle its differences it's a slight upgrade for me over the beanball wars and the i wasn't throwing at him like that that's bs at least if you go out there and fight and you throw a punch i'm like okay like i you you did hit him and you wanted to hit him because you chose to do that

like intent had to be there um i prefer that they just get on with it and keep playing and not worry about it, but I'd be mad if dudes were throwing 95 up on my face. I can't be angry when players retaliate or get frustrated by the same thing because it's probably terrifying for that to happen. I'm going to have to do my best

Eno here because we have a little breaking news. That's terrible. I will try to cut Eno here because we have a little breaking news. That's terrible. I will try to cut Eno doing that in front of that just to bring our spirits up. Wow. Eno, come back.

I can't carry this show. No, the Blue Jays have announced a five-year contract extension for Ross Atkins, which is interesting, notable, obviously. The Blue Jays are a team on the upswing here, right? I think nobody is denying that. Five years is interesting. I always go back to the Nationals because, one, they're super secretive about years, and, two, it's only three years for Mike Rizzo, who won a World Series in 2019.

Derek, what do you got on a five-year? Five years is impressive, no? What do you got on the length of that deal, which I think is probably the most important thing? I think most people would take a five-year deal if they had an opportunity, if they were happy where they were at. I mean, I think when you look at this core, Bo Bichette, Vlad Jr., Kevin Biggio, I would say Lourdes Gurriel is probably part of that. Maybe Teoscar Hernandez is part of that core too. The core position players especially are going to be there for about that

long. A lot of those guys have three and four years of club control left. So Atkins now sort of oversees this entire progression, which he was a big part of building it. So it makes sense. I think if you run the Jays, you know, he was a big part of building it. So it makes sense. I think if you run the Jays, you're happy with how things look.

You've got a team that looks like it can be competitive in the AL East, and that's not always true of Toronto. You look at that roster a lot of years, and you're like, this is maybe a 500 team at best. I think we're now looking at Toronto as a possible perennial playoff contender. I think how they develop some of their young starting pitching, a guy like Nate Pearson's really important to their next few years.

Alec Manoa could be really important. Simeon Woods Richardson. I think that's going to be a key area. Adam Klopfenstein. So if they hit on their pitching development, they're going to look great. If they don't hit on enough of that pitching, they're going to have to go spend money to get it. But they're one of those teams that often spends a little less than they

can based on market size. And I think they're at that point where it makes sense for them to be more aggressive. They did go out and get Hingen Ryu prior to the shortened season. So I don't think they're ghosts in free agency by any stretch of the imagination. So this makes sense to me because this seems like an organization that's in a pretty different place now than it was going back five years. And I think if you look ahead five years into the future, you expect this primary core we've seen put together still playing and winning a lot of games. Yeah, no, I agree. I think Toronto's going to be one of those teams, and we've talked about it before, like get on the bandwagon now because they're going to be cool. I mean, they're already kind of cool, but they're going to be cool. I mean, they're already kind of cool, but they're gonna be real cool here in

another year or two. They could, I think still, like usurp the Yankees. If enough things go right for them, if the Yankees have all those injuries that we think they could maybe have again, it's fascinating to see. Still five years, a lot of stability. I think that Blue Jays team, like you said, it's going to be a really interesting time. They're either going to be that team that we all look back on, this dynasty almost, or they're going to wildly underperform, and we're going to wonder why the Blue Jays gave five years to Ross Atkins. And isn't that the fun of this all?

To sit here from our ivory tower, which is these tiny little offices, and critique Ross Atkins. Yeah, looking around for... I don't see... I don't see ivory. But yes, it's one of the most fun things. I try to be as fair as I can be critiquing GMs because building fantasy baseball teams,

it's don't exercise. It's comparable goals, but obviously scaled down to much, much smaller stakes. And I think there are aspects of being a GM when I was younger that I thought were much easier than they really are. And I think one of those is dealing with ownership. I do think there is a relationship there that has to be in a good place if you're going to do all the things that you want to do. I don't think there's any GM in the league. Actually, I think most of the GMs in the league have similar ideas, similar goals, and are sharp talent evaluators overall. They got there for a reason, right?

You're not usually a GM if you don't deserve it. It's hard to ascend to that level. Sometimes guys get there that don't belong there for sure. But generally, those are people that know what they're doing when it comes to evaluating talent and building a roster. But where they get completely destroyed is not having the resources to go out and get the things that would actually make the biggest difference. Then you're choosing your second or third best option, or you don't have the resources to get player development in

place the way that you'd like to. There could always be hurdles like that. And that's not a perpetual sort of get out of jail free card for all the GMs out there who fail. I don't intend for it to be that. I'm saying I've always sort of underestimated the importance of having an ownership group or an owner willing to spend and let a GM really follow through on his or her vision. Yeah, that's an important point because I think as a fan, and certainly as a younger fan, I just rooted for the team and blamed the GM or the president or whoever was in charge. And it's the same thing with the manager, right? You can only manage what you have. It's really easy to say outside of bullpen management, which most of the time now is not really a lot of teams don't allow the manager to make those in-game decisions by himself.

How much actual managing is going on? Right. It's the same thing at the GM president level. They have a budget. They have people to answer to all the time. And I think the more enlightened fans and people are now kind of as we're writing writing about it more, are realizing that it really boils down to ownership. And there's no perfect owner, but if they at least want to win or they want to spend money, then you're probably at least above the average team. Yeah. I think you need a good

front office, but also good people in charge of the purse strings or people in charge of the purse strings willing to let you spend in order to optimally build rosters at this stage. One of the thought on the Blue Jays too, it's not just the young pitching that they have coming up to add to this roster. I mean, Austin Martin was one of the best position players in the draft last summer. He's not far away potentially from contributing in some capacity. You kind of wonder where on the roster does he fit, but I think he's also sort of part of this long-term core. And of course, Alejandro Kirk, the popular young catcher, not far away from maybe taking over at that position.

So this is a really good young core that Ross Atkins and this front office have put together. So if you're a Jays fan, you've got to be excited about what you're looking at for the foreseeable future here in Toronto. Let's talk about James Paxton for a moment, Britt. Early exit for him on Tuesday night, and he just can't catch a break. I mean, it's been back injuries. It's been forearm injuries.

It's another forearm injury, at least as of now. They were calling it after the game on Tuesday. He left in the second inning of his first start back as a member of the Mariners for the test scheduled for Wednesday. I think this is another thing that I used to, I don't know if I ever completely overlooked it, but I think sometimes you get really frustrated with players who cannot stay healthy, but there's never really anyone more frustrated than the player himself in these situations.

Imagine putting in all the work it took to rehab the back injury There's never really anyone more frustrated than the player himself in these situations, right? Imagine putting in all the work it took to rehab the back injury that Paxton had during his final season with the Yankees. You get a deal with the Mariners. You go back to a familiar place. You're throwing hard this spring. You make it through the spring healthy. And your second inning back, you have arm pain again. And you're down again for at least a little while.

This is almost certainly an IL situation. How long it's going to be, we don't know. So whether it's Paxton specifically or someone you've covered, how much have you seen players just struggle to get back like this? I'm sure you've been closer to situations that have just been one setback after another despite a player's absolute maximum effort to stay healthy. Yeah, what I've learned

almost 15 years, Derek, covering various teams in the clubhouse on beats is if there's one guaranteed way to piss off a player, it's to call them injury prone. I think guys would rather be known as lazy than injury prone because it just has that connotation of, well, can't stay healthy. Well, not worth our time. And trust me, I made that mistake of using that phrase on the radio or in print and heard about it from players. It is the kind of that,

that I don't know, the basically the kiss of death. So I think what's unfortunate here with guys is, are they a bust if they don't reach the potential, if they are a career littered with injuries, right? Or are they just like a could have been Mark Pryor's kind of the poster child of that, right?

That's who I always think about up until 2019, Steven Strasburg looked to be that guy who could never stay healthy, who could never really be that guy. I think in Baltimore, Nolan Reimold had back-to-back neck surgeries, was never the same. He was a guy who people forget was a justifiable AL Rookie of the Year candidate his first year. Kind of came out of nowhere. He was supposed to be this great hope for them. And not only could he not stay healthy, but these are massive life-altering surgeries.

These are neck surgeries. This isn't like a sore hamstring. So I think it's unfortunate when you hear about Paxton. Nobody ever should root for injuries, whether you're rooting for the team, against the team, whatever. Nobody ever should root for injuries, whether you're rooting for the team, against the team, whatever. I think people don't realize the amount of work that goes into, like you said, the rehab and the very mental cognitive load, right? It's not just about the physical reps. Guys coming back from Tommy John surgery talk about this all the time, how they call other guys who had Tommy John because it's like, hey, Derek, you can't work for 15 months, but we're going to have everybody else podcast and do stuff.

It's hard to not feel like you're sitting on the sideline and people aren't getting better and passing you and forgetting about you. So there's a huge, like that huge amount of stress in addition to the physical getting back into shape that I don't think people realize. So it's really unfortunate, especially because you root for these guys, right? And you hear about these great stories, guys coming back from all these different arm injuries. Aaron Barrett's another one with the Nationals, snapped his arm in half, managed to come back, then gets a knee injury. And I just, what I think people need to realize is every guy out on that big league field has to have one thing. They have to have mental toughness because they all deal with these injuries,

some more than others. And the guys who are able to overcome these two, three Tommy Johns, these crazy injuries, not only is it the physical gifts, but more often than not, it's that meant that mental toughness of not giving up because so many times in this game,

it's like, well, you're probably done. Well, should I quit here now? Should I just call it a career? And we see that a lot with these injury guys. It's just a really unfortunate label. But James Paxton is an injury prone guy. And it's that it's a terrible label to put on someone through no fault of their own for the most part. And I just don't know if he's ever

going to be that guy that people thought. I don't know if he's ever going to, you know, hit that ceiling that people had predicted for him. And I just can't imagine living out my dream, going through my career and having to deal with that. Yeah. I feel awful for players like this, who are just trying to get out there and do their job and just can't for one reason or another. The body just keeps giving up on them despite the work that they're putting in. I think the rehab worked too. I think the first time I saw a regular person tear an ACL and have ACL surgery and I coached a high school soccer team for 11 years

and one of my seniors had a direct contact ACL injury while I was coaching and I went to go see him after he had surgery. And when you see a person who's had acl surgery just sitting there post-surgery you realize that the guys that we see on tv they suffer at acl you don't see them for a while nine months later they're back and you see them on tv doing workouts and a few months after that they're playing again you're like oh it's magic it's like they just like someone waved the magic wand and they're good to go. It's like, holy crap. Like, no, no, no.

These are major surgeries that guys are coming back from. These are very serious injuries that require extensive rehab. And rehab is hard. Rehab is not a fun thing to do for any sort of injury. Anybody who's had to deal with a physical ailment that is a chronic one especially. You feel like Sisyphus in Greek mythology. You're pushing the boulder up the hill every day only to have the boulder crush you and knock you back down again. So I would agree with you. The mental resolve it takes to get back out there after setback, after setback, after setback, it's just one of those things that I think it's hard

for a lot of us to appreciate unless we've either been in a situation like that ourselves. We've been close to someone who's actually had to struggle getting healthy again from an ailment. We're at this point in the season where panic really shouldn't set in quite yet. But it's a fun time of year to talk about baseball because it's on every day and every team's playing almost every day. We want things to mean something. And there was a really good piece that Alex Coffey wrote for The Athletic on Wednesday morning. And the A's have had an absolutely miserable week. Alex's piece goes beyond that because this is a franchise that chooses to operate in a very thrifty manner. And that's putting it kindly, I think. But the things that are going wrong for

them right now are just extra salt in the wound in terms of a bad start, right? Trevor Rosenthal actually just saw a surgeon on Tuesday who specializes in thoracic outlet syndrome. He's going to be further evaluated on Wednesday. So it could be a very lengthy absence for him. He, of course, is there on a one-year deal. So they're going to have at least a few weeks, if not a few months, possibly, where they're looking for someone to close out games. So Jake Diekman and Sergio Romo and maybe JB Wendelkin are going to get some opportunities to get saves. Matt Olsen's a little banged up right now. Fortunately, in that case, that looks like more of a day-to-day sort of thing, or he could be back relatively soon.

thing or he could be back relatively soon. And the A's schedule-wise drew a tough start, right? An ugly home sweep courtesy of the Astros to begin the season. And then the Dodgers are visiting for an interleague series right now. So things are not looking good in Oakland right out of the gates. And I thought, well, how bad can it be? How much can a slow start like this actually matter? Well, how bad can it be? How much can a slow start like this actually matter? Their playoff odds at fan graphs started at 33.4%, and they're already down at 9.4% after the start they've had. So you can do a lot of damage with an 0-6 start. Yeah, well, it's also the injuries, I think, too, right?

It's the, okay, Trevor Rosenthal's not going to be a day or two. You know, Matt Olsen, it's what, a bruised knee? So that could be a little bit, you know, he could come back, I think, fairly quickly. But listen, this A's team, as you know, like Marcus Simeon, they let him go. Tommy LaStella, they let him go. I have a hard time, and I think A's fans, for sure, have a hard time sort of like rectifying that in our head. Like, are you trying to win? Or are you just trying to keep the payroll low, keep everything tight,

eventually, once in a while, get lucky with these bargain guys, and, you know, top out as a wildcard team? Because that's what it seems like they've been here in the recent past. And I think A's fans are pretty fed up with it. And Alex Coffey's column, as you mentioned, a terrific takedown. The best part is the beginning about how, you know, Fisher's dad owned Gap and talked about how it's not about money. It's about pride. Well, you're not putting a product on the field that has any kind of pride.

And I do think there's a difference here between the A's being 0-6. Yes, you have every right to panic, not just because of the 0-6 start, but because of what's coming, which is nothing. The front system isn't very good. They've got some injuries. The Braves being winless. I don't know about you, Derek, but it bothers me less. Yes, they had a really rough week.

They lost the All-Star game, which is now going to Colorado, of course. They have not won a game. They got swept out of Philly. They lost to a Nationals team that basically is a lot of fill-ins. They've got double-digit guys on the IL due to COVID. I am less concerned about the Braves, more concerned about the Oakland A's as we sit here and look at the only two teams who I believe have yet to have a win in MLB. Right, yeah. Winless through six games.

I think with the A's, they always operate on a thin margin and they get a lot out of a little. That's something the organization has done exceptionally well under Billy Bean going for more than 20 years now, right? This is a long span of generally very successful baseball, especially relative to how other teams have success. successful baseball, especially relative to how other teams have success. And I think what has helped make them good in the past has been hitting on trades and occasionally having some player development success. And I'm looking at that farm system and it is brutal right now. There is not a lot of help coming. Maybe some of the pitching comes through for them, but I just, I don't see it. I think it's one of the worst systems in the league. And I think the, the roster has, it doesn't have that young core that you'd be looking for. Chapman is still there. Olsen is part of that too. So they're, they're good on the corners. Sean Murphy behind the plate is a core player for me. And Ramon

Laureano in center field, little old, but a core player for me. And Ramon Laureano in center field, a little old, but a core guy as well. At least the kind of player that if he's playing well this season, they can trade him and they get something pretty significant back. That's kind of about it though, as far as the long, long-term pieces go, because they've done the veteran duct tape method with other spots. They got Elvis Andrews on the cheap in that trade with the Rangers. They got Mitch Moreland DH-ing. They brought Jed Lowry back.

Those kinds of things can work if everything goes right. They're the mid-pack, high-variance team. When it all clicks, they go to the playoffs. When it doesn't, they trade pieces and they try to start over the next year. This is already looking like a year where they're going to pieces and they try to start over the next year. And this is already looking like a year where they're going to have to go ahead and start over mid-season and

try and move a player or two and hopefully improve that farm system. Yeah. So we both agree that we are out already on Oakland, but do you feel okay about the Braves, that they're going to be able to kind of right this ship here? I know their bullpen blew it yesterday, but certainly I think that they're too good of a team to kind of languish the way that they've been languishing here. Yeah, I mean, I guess I am pretty out on the A's. As much as you can be out on a team after six games, I've at least lowered my expectations in line with the playoff expectations being cut down from 33% to less than 10%. Yeah, less than 10% seems about right. There's a chance they can get out of the tailspin and battle their way back.

The division at the bottom may be weak enough, but they could be a bottom feeder team. They're kind of flashing that in these opening series because it's not like they're playing these games and losing close games. They're getting destroyed by clearly better teams. So that definitely adds some concern. The Braves, I mean, the NL East is just tough.

Like we've said this several times before, top to bottom, it's a good division because even the Marlins, they're a good rebuilding team. They have young pitching that could exceed expectations. They got a few young position players that could still come up and make a difference. So they're going to be a problem throughout this season for the other four teams in the division, even if they're not actually playoff contenders themselves.

The Phillies could score runs, and the Phillies at the front of their rotation are at least good. Nola Wheeler as a one-two punch is really dangerous. If Zach Eflin can hold some of the gains we saw from him in the shortened season, he's a credible three. They start to break down with depth, right? The back of the rotation is not very good. The bullpen is definitely better than it was a year ago with some of the improvements they made. Getting Jose Alvarado and Archie Bradley and Brandon Kintzler at least gives them a chance to be better in relief. I don't know if they'll be above average as a bullpen, but they can at least be a competent bullpen. And we know they can score runs, right?

So we have the ingredients of a team that does hang around, that does win series and occasionally sweep other great teams in the division. And if that happens, they're more in the competitive let's win now cycle. They'd be among the teams that would go to a team like Oakland and add pieces. So the Phillies could become more dangerous over the course of the season. They just have to hang around until July and prove that they deserve to have a couple more players added onto the roster.

Yeah, the analysis is totally stacked. And like you said, it's almost too early to be making predictions, but we're going to make them anyway, or we're at least going to opine on whether it's, what is it, fact or fiction? What did you call it? It's fact or fluke. Yeah, contender, pretender could work if we're talking about teams. But

yeah, factor fluke is what our friends at Baseball HQ call it. So we'll borrow that today, and then we'll come up with our own term next time. I like that. I like that. So the first one I want to hit you with is Detroit. Rule five pick from the Twins, Akeel Badu. What are you buying? Are you buying it here? Are you not? I mean, home run in his first at-bat. He has the big walk-off yesterday versus the Twins, his old team.

I'm sure that felt really great. What do you feel about this, Derek? They need long-term pieces in the outfield. This seemed like a year where if you're going to take a chance on a Rule 5 pick, you might be pleasantly surprised coming off of a year where there were no minor league stats to look at.

For Badu, in any Rule 5 pick, a lot of these guys are making the leap from A ball. He last played at high A in 2019. Showed some power, showed some speed, showed a patient eye, had a lot of swing and miss for high A. Almost struck out 30% of the time at high A in 2019, but he was only 20 years old. So young for the level, very toolsy, the left-handed bat. I'm kind of into this because I think the Tigers can afford to give him 400 to 450 plate appearances. And I know he had a grand

slam in the loss on Monday. So people were excited about that. And of course, the walk-off that you mentioned, I see a guy that's going to go through some pretty significant struggles because he's so young and because he skipped AA and AAA. But I think he's good enough to make it through the year on the roster, which is huge. Rule five pick, you got to stay on the roster, the active roster all season. I think he can do it in Detroit. I mean, the thing that they'd have to do is pretty simple. All I have to do is play him like a fourth outfielder, and if he earns more playing time, play him more. So when he's playing well, he'll play him more. He'll play more for a little while, and if he strikes out too much, he goes to the bench and starts once or twice a week for a while until he shows some signs of making adjustments.

But Robbie Grossman, I know he signed a two-year deal. He's a veteran fourth outfielder in the long run on a competitive team. You don't have to play Robbie Grossman every day. You can play Badu over Grossman. You don't have to play Jacoby Jones over Akil Badu. I mean, I think Jacoby Jones is one of those guys that was showing some signs of possibly having a late breakout in the shortened season, but still has more to prove. There's no way we can look at 108 plate appearances from Jacoby Jones last year and say, he's sticking in Detroit, he's their center fielder. So you've got two spots in the outfield that are pretty wide open, as I see them.

And Nomar Mazzara getting that opportunity in right, Victor Reyes is there as well. I mean, for me, the optimal configuration, if you're trying to evaluate this group, is to go ahead, keep Mazzara playing in right, play Badu more than Jones in center, platoon him straight up, play Badu against righties, play Jones against lefties, and then get Victor Reyes a lot of time mixing and matching with Robbie Grossman. And if you can, you know, get Miggy occasional starts at first base

and have that floating DH spot, and you can use all your outfielders at once. But the problem the Tigers are going to run into, they have a couple infielders that need an opportunity. One in particular that I really like in the short term, Isaac Paredes. I think he's going to come up and play. That's going to crowd up and play. That's

going to crowd the DH situation. So you kind of have to make these outfield adjustments now because you're going to have less flexibility on the roster a few weeks from now once Paredes comes up. And then Spencer Torkelson could crowd the infield even further if he shows this summer that he's ready to come up. But to answer your question, I think at least giving him an opportunity is the right development plan. I think Badu is toolsy, but it's going to be very up and down for him in 2021. Yeah, I agree. I have the Tigers listed today as one of my fun bad teams, which stemmed from a conversation we had on here. And as Derek just mentioned in that great sum up of where the Tigers are, they are fun bad. They've got some entertaining players. They've got some really good core young guys.

And let's get to another. It's fun to look at the stats this time of year because you see all kinds of random names up at the top. And certainly we touched on this a little bit earlier this week, Derek, but right now 565 batting average for Jermyn Mercedes. Also 13 hits. Are you buying this? Is this fact or fluke? What do you got on this?

I think as much as a fast start from a relative unknown player can be a fact, I think this is a fact. Because when you look at the tools for Jeremy Mercedes, it's all offense. It's an above-average hit tool. It's above-average raw power. He doesn't run well. He doesn't have a defensive position. But he's built to be a DH. He's built average raw power. He doesn't run well. He doesn't have a defensive position, but he's built to be a DH. He's built to be that replacement for Eloy and not necessarily to match Eloy's production over a full season, but to be a good enough hitter to hold a regular spot given the opportunity. Is Jermaine Mercedes going to be a viable big league player three years from now? Probably not, but he could actually be a

guy that holds it together for the White Sox throughout this season, does get 400 or 500 plate appearances, and ends up finishing the year as an above average hitter. He could be 20% better than a league average hitter. If you're getting that from your DH, I think you're pretty happy with that. So I'm going fact. I know he's a complicated player for fantasy purposes because he doesn't have a position, so you've got to put him in the utility spot, and that bothers a lot of people. But all this guy does is hit, and I don't really see any reason to think that's going to stop. Yeah, I agree with you.

I think what's interesting here with both of these guys that we've mentioned, and everybody, of course, especially when you talk about young players, is the adjustment period now. It's easy to come out. Guys talk about this all the time in clubhouses. It's easy to come out, have a great two weeks, and then the league adjusts, right? There's enough video on you now that now the league is going to find your holes. They're going to expose your holes up here. Can you adjust back? And I think in another week or two, we'll have a little bit of a better idea

about whether these two guys who are fairly young are going to be able to adjust. And a guy who's not in that boat, who's not super young, who's had a really great start that we talked about on Monday, Nick Castellones, who's, who's really, you know,

his OPS 1.682 leads the league right now. He's a guy who's had a hot start, obviously gotten a lot of trouble, suspended two games for pimping that home run, which I don't necessarily agree with. I don't think you should be suspended for that kind of thing. But I'm buying in on him. I think he's going to have a big year for the Reds. I don't know how you, is he factor fluke for you for this Reds team?

And a Reds offense that we saw in the playoffs last year painstakingly has struggled to score runs. I think if their offense can get going, they can surprise some people. Yeah, I think the format of the playoffs last year was tough, though, because you were catching opposing teams' aces. So, you know, any good lineup can get shut down by a couple of frontline starters from a good team. But I think the Reds, they were, to me, a little bit of a bounce-back candidate as a team. I think I was higher on them than you and Eno were when we were talking about team previews. And with Castellanos, I just see a guy that he's always been able to hit. He's not a good defender. It doesn't matter. In Great American Ballpark, it's a smaller outfield anyway. I look at what he did in 2019 that was split between the Tigers

and Cubs. He hit 289, had a 33.337 OBP,.525 slug. That was the best slugging percentage of his career. Topped out at 27 home runs. To me, that's probably what he is at his best. Maybe the run production ticks up a little bit because of the lineup around him. I was surprised when his strikeout rate jumped last season. And even with that increased K rate,

14 home runs in 60 games last year. The power was still there, even though the average and the OPP fell off. So I'm fact on Nick Castellanos. I didn't think he deserved that suspension either. I thought that was ridiculous. I mean, for what? Enjoying a home run too much? We're suspending guys for that now? What a life. Stop having fun in baseball. Switching to pitching, the leader in saves right now, probably not a huge surprise, Mark Melanson, Padres, three saves. A bunch of guys here that have two, including the Orioles, including Valdez, who we'll get to a little bit more.

Does he have enough? This is a guy who's been around forever, right? He's had some really good seasons. He's had some injuries. He's had some issues. Does he have another 30- season in him? I think he could, but I would still bet against it. I would say fluke because I don't think closers with sub 20% K rates can really be a thing in the long run. I would always bet against that. And I know Melanson's good at inducing weak

contact. Part of the reason it works is because he doesn't give up home runs. That is a great trait to have in a closer. Even Cesar Valdez has shown that at his various stops in different leagues, different teams. He doesn't really give up a lot of home runs. So it's a prerequisite, right? If you don't strike guys out, you must not give up home runs. And in Melanson's case, he also doesn't walk a lot of guys. So it's not impossible. I just see that team being one where their willingness to let him keep getting those opportunities if he struggles, it will be extremely low. They have great bullpen depth. They could turn to Emilio Pagan. They could turn to Drew Pomeragan. They could turn to Drew Pomeranz. They could turn to someone like Ryan Weathers if Weathers isn't getting multiple

innings as a reliever or even working as a starter. Weathers could be a really nice glue guy in that mix. So they have so many other really interesting alternatives. Eventually, Austin Adams comes back. Maybe he gets into the mix. I just think this is a different situation than the ones we were dealing with for Melanson in San Francisco, especially. I know he held it together in Atlanta, but this guy is as old as I am, Britt. He's 36. The wheels have to fall off eventually. It's a nice story. I don't know if it's going to have the happiest of endings for him this year in San Diego.

Yeah, I'm going to agree with you. And also, I've seen a lot of struggles. I've seen him really at his worst, and I don't know if he's going to be able to hold up over the long haul. I think the Padres, being in the same division as the Dodgers, are going to play a lot of stressful, close games. And I think at a certain point in time, as you mentioned, they're going to have to go to that depth. He's not going to be available every night. You're going to have to really be careful with that. I don't think he gets to the 30 save point.

I think when you have a guy that's that old who you're relying on, you have to almost do the load management thing a little bit throughout this 162-game season. So the last one I think is kind of obvious here, but maybe not a big surprise. Garrett Cole, 21 strikeouts, leads baseball. Obviously, it's a little weird. A lot of guys have not had two starts yet.

Cole has. I think you saw in his most recent outing, you saw last night how Garrett Cole, as Garrett Cole goes, the Yankees go. It seems very clear here. I mean, he is the guy they paid all that money to. He's the guy that's going to go out and post double-digit strikeouts. And he's really going to set the tone. I think Aaron Judge has spoken about that a lot. But he is the guy who's going to set the tone for the night, for that entire team.

And to me, that's not surprising at all. I don't think either of us are going to sit here and say Garrett Cole is a fluke by any means. It's just funny how these stats, as small of a sample size as they are, already you're starting to see the cream rise to the top, right? You got Lucas Giolito right behind him. You've got some really interesting, you've got the names. Nobody really jumps out as a, whoa, what's that guy doing up there already? It certainly seems like Garrett Cole is in line to be a Cy Young candidate, if not the Cy Young winner in the AL.

Yeah, I think he's the favorite, too, at BetMGM. Cole looked great against the Orioles in his second start. He didn't look that bad against the Jays on opening day. I think that was a pretty cold day at Yankee Stadium, too. I think he's one of those guys that because of the contract, because of the ceiling, every single time he takes the ball, if he doesn't do what he did against the Orioles in that second start, people are somehow disappointed, right? I mean, it's just the bar is amazingly high for Cole. And he's actually, I mean, he's one of those guys that I think there's still one more 300 strikeout season in his arm.

I think the back part of his career, to me, it's going to be similar to Max Scherzer. I see a lot of similarities in how those guys go about their business, their demeanor. I think this stuff's going to hold up really well for the bulk of that contract. And I remember at the time when Scherzer signed that long-term deal with the Nats, I think the snap reaction for a lot of people was, it's a long time for a pitcher, like any pitcher, right? You're just concerned about that. Obviously, Cole got a massive deal. It's a lot of money, a lot of years. I wouldn't be surprised if we get to the end of that and go, wow, that was actually a good use of a contract like that. Sometimes these long-term deals

actually work out really well. And obviously obviously we know the way the money works. Like you can actually get underpaid over a deal like that, even though there's a tremendous amount of security that comes with a contract that size. So my long way of saying Garrett Cole being amazing for any stretch or Garrett Cole getting back to a full season that looks like what he did during that last year in Houston, that wouldn't surprise me at all. Maybe the ratios have to be a little higher because Yankee Stadium is a more difficult place to pitch than Houston, but I think he's a perennial Cy Young contender for the next three to five years easily. And I think we'll still be talking about him as a guy that you'd want on the mound in a playoff game well into that contract.

Right. The Scherzer is a good comparison because yesterday the Nationals finally get their opening day. Scherzer allows four home runs to the Braves. How many pitchers in the league would have just folded after that and crumbled? Scherzer manages to go six innings. He clearly looked off. Nobody can blame him. He had like five extra days before the start. The Nats have dealt with COVID, a lot of stuff going on. But that's what an ace does, right? Like, his stuff never looked that great, but he found a way to get through that lineup.

The Nationals, of course, walk off because Juan Soto swings at a 3-0 pitch, because why wouldn't you if you're Juan Soto? And he does what he does, which is just be completely ridiculous. But I do think that Cole is one of those true remaining aces that are still in the game. Scherzer, of course, an ace,

clearly on the back end of his career. But I think what I liked the most was seeing Andy McCullough and Mark Horig wrote a recent story about aces and someone said, Scherzer's an ace right here, right in the heart where it matters. And I think that really is probably the best way

to sum up Max Scherzer, given where he is right now. Cole, of course, 30 years old, plenty of good years still ahead of him. Yeah, and just on Scherzer real quick, looking at a start from Tuesday night, still at a 34% called strike and whiff rate. I mean, that's really good. Everything was working despite the home runs. You look at the VLO compared to last season, not really any major drops there. I think the four-seamer was down 0.3 miles per hour from last year.

Not enough to at all be worried. Still was mixing five different pitches. Had the four-seamer, slider, change-up, curveball, and cutter all going. So if anyone's panicking about Max Scherzer right now because of the home runs, calm down. He's going to be fine. He's Max Scherzer. now because of the home runs, calm down. He's going to be fine. He's Max Scherzer.

He's not a fluke. No. No, no, no. The Braves are good. Ronald Acuna hitting two home runs off of Max Scherzer, that's just a great player against a great player. Sometimes one great player does something that makes the other great player look bad. That's just how it works.

Totally. All right, Britt, we had an email come in from one of our listeners. OJ sent me a link to an SI Vault story about former closer Doug Jones. We've already gone to the Kevin Gregg Island of former closers. Now we take a trip to Doug Jones. I don't really know what's going on with Doug Jones these days. I have no guess. I wouldn't be surprised if you said, oh, no, he's on the pregame for one of the 12 teams he pitched for. Oh, cool. That's great. Glad Doug Jones is doing well.

But he's one of those guys, like, I distinctly remember him for years just being one of those relievers who, at the time as a kid, didn't think he was that good. I looked back at his numbers. He had over 300 career saves. ERA was 330. Whip was 124. 909 strikeouts in 1,128 career innings. But here's the thing about Doug Jones that got OJ to send that email. He was written up in Sports Illustrated for being one of the first closers to start prominently using a change-up, which was pretty bizarre at the time because at the time it was just really all heat for the most part. What do you make of this? Does it give you any hope that there's another Cesar Valdez-type story that can pop up? I just thought it was an interesting tie to Valdez since he's like 85% changeups. We don't know what the pitch usage was back then

because we don't have all the cool data that we have now. So I'm sure throwing a changeup a lot back then was 25% or 30%. The game was so fastball dependent back then. I think they would have been surprised by even that much changeup usage. Yeah. I mean, I think they would have been surprised by even that much change up usage. Yeah. I mean, I have a couple of thoughts on this. One, if you are kind of following trends, you know that this game has actually gone the total opposite way, where a lot of pitchers now will throw more off speed than fastballs,

which is remarkable when you think about it. There's actually no, and managers talk about this all the time, there's no fastball counts anymore. Guys are throwing off speed on 2-0, 3-0, which is totally different than where this game was. Do I think it gives me hope for Valdez? No, because I think Valdez is in the AL East. He's on an Orioles team that's not very good.

It's only a matter of time before the league adjusts, right? If you're throwing that, you're just waiting there, you're sitting on that 85 mile an hour pitch, and you're going to crank it. So I don't think, I think this is, to go back to our previous segment, I think this is a fluke. This is all the makings of a fluke here. I am glad he brought that up, because you do forget how different it was, and how, oh, this guy's doing something different. He's throwing change-ups. And unless you're Mariano Rivera and you've got the pitch that has the velo and this movement, the guys know it's coming and can't do anything

about it, Zach Britton's another one that just throws cutters. Never throws another pitch. And when he does, it's like, what's wrong? Is he hurt? Something going on? I do think in the age of the more off-speed pitches, maybe you'd feel better about Valdez, but it doesn't make me feel any better

just because of who this guy is, where he plays, the division that he's in. I don't see Valdez fooling Stanton and Judge 18 times a year. Do you? I just don't see these lineups. We talked about Toronto. I don't see these lineups, and certainly the Red Sox. So I had that big, big extra inning win for Derek against the Rays last night.

I just don't see these lineups that are stacked finding a way or just continuing to baffle, be baffled by Valdez. I just don't. Do you? I think this is a fluke. It just seems like too much for an off-speed pitch. I don't want to be skeptical because I've never seen it before, but I just think, as you said, big league hitters will figure it out. They will sit on the changeup,

and I don't think his fastball is good enough where if he tricks everybody and starts throwing more fastballs, he's going to get away with it. Because if he could do that, he would do that now because it would make him more effective so we'll see i mean again we talked about a little bit on monday i just i thought it was interesting that people were blown away by a closer throwing a change up in the 90s when when doug jones was doing it and he had a much better career than that i remember for a guy

that he threw his first big league pitch in 1982 and threw his last one in 2000. So a pretty long-spanning career. There's also a gap. He didn't pitch in the big leagues in 83, 84, or 85 after that debut. So not sure what was going on there. Maybe some more digging will be necessary at some point. But that is going to wrap things up

for this episode of Rates and Barrels. As I mentioned up top, no show on Friday. A break for all three of us, time for us to recharge and get ready for the next week and let a few more things happen. As we said earlier, it's fun to talk about baseball

this time of year, but we're always looking for meaning in everything and not everything means something. So we're going to sit back, enjoy some games, enjoy a little time off and come back

and have our usual three-show week next week. And Eno, of course, will be back then as well. He's enjoying a long family car ride. Could you imagine? Do you think it would have been a good podcast to just put a mic in Eno's car for that family going all the way from the Bay Area down to the Grand Canyon?

Oh, God. I think we could have done it and edited it, and it would have had five minutes of pure entertainment value, and the rest would have all been cringey. Chaos. Just chaos. Organized chaos contained in a vehicle over a long car ride. Hopefully,

Edo's getting some much-deserved rest on that trip and enjoying his time off. On Twitter, you can find Britt at Britt underscore Drooli. I'm Matt Derrick, Van Ryper. Drop us a line, ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com. If you want to sign up for The Athletic, get the best possible subscription offer we have

at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. We're back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening, EnoVoice.