Rates & Barrels - Eno's Bold Predictions

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

Eno dropped his top-10 bold predictions for the season on the Athletic this weekend. Welsh is picking to find which makes Eno nervous, plus a breakdown of Eno's main event draft. Rundown 3:10 - Which prediction made Eno nervous 8:00- Bold Ryan McMahon call 10:38 - Votto story and the Reds pitching staff 16:03 - Welsh wonders about pitch shape manipulation 26:23 - Prospects make the bigs 32:21 - Welsh watched Juan Soto on the backfields Monday 37:47 - Eno's Main Event roster breakdown Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh 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

This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton Bike or Bike Plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access membership separate. Terms apply. hello friends and welcome into the award-winning rates and barrels podcast you know the award winning from last congratulations on both your gold and silver yeah exactly you can pat me on

the back good job buddy you tried hard and then we can have a firm shake for, we did it. Yes. Because, uh, in the baseball pods tournament rates and barrels one, and it beat my show, my, my show in this league. As everyone did, everyone did the Spider-Man meme for Welsh. So like Welsh, but,

uh, I can obviously take very, very little credit for here. Uh, you guys do such a great job and, everyone will be pleased to know. I believe Derek Van Riper is returning on Wednesday. I believe. I am very pleased to know i believe derrick van riper is returning on wednesday i believe i'm very pleased to know this yeah you're like i gotta get alan

no no have you been hosting the wednesday ones too i've had to do the hosting on the wednesday ones and i'm not good at it so you're like super excited you're like thank you dvr yeah i'm excited to see dvr back to uh from his hi, much deserved hiatus, having a newborn baby. So we can all congratulate him. And I have very, very much enjoyed, you know, by the way, not only doing which, as far as I know, we're going to be doing a regular project prospect on Tuesdays, but getting an extra episode with you and getting to these Mondays. I very, very much enjoyed it.

I hope listeners have as well. So thank you, my friend, for making it very, very easy transition and really having great conversations with me. I appreciate it. It's been a pleasure. It's also been tough to do five podcasts a week. And so I think you will be doing more than one a week for us. We will need you to step in and help because it's a lot to do a podcast every day, as you

know. So yeah, well, I've enjoyed it. And I've enjoyed, I really enjoyed all the positive comments everybody said about rates and barrels and everyone that listens, you should take pride in ownership as pushing this podcast up because Eno and DVR have created a monster and I am just thankful to be a part of it. And today I'm excited to talk about out of prep time. We're out of all the draft time. It's over essentially. You might have another draft or two on Tuesday or Wednesday coming up here, but we are going to get you guys set because the moratorium is off of the main event. We could talk about the main event,

Eno and I. I'm going to tell them when we get there. We're going to talk about how Eno did and what the team looked like and everything like that. But there was a player that Eno and I were talking about this whole time, and I'm going to see if you ended up getting him, but the moratorium on the big main events there. So we're going to be talking about that. There is some latest news and everything like that, but I want to remind you guys,

you can check out everything that rates of barrels and everyone else has to offer. If you sign up today over at the athletic.com slash rates and barrels, sign up, get a membership. It's only a couple bucks. Sometimes I got the dollar deal going on. I think it's been two dollars go and sign up you're going to get access to everything maybe you still have a draft coming up in the next couple days you can get the

tool of the draft kit my dynasty is up there and a fantastic article which i actually want to talk about for a second it's eno's 10 bold predictions for the season. Very well-written, well-thought-out article. And you guys can get the full list of 10 names if you sign up at The Athletic today. So go and do it, theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. But what I want to ask you, Eno, I read through your article. A couple made me very happy.

I'm going to just spoil one immediately, but I'm not going to say the exact. But your Lars Neupahr prediction, it makes me very happy for how invested I am in Lars Neupahr. It's a great one that's on there and maybe that's going to come up here, but I do have a question for you. And I'm also going to have an answer to this of the 10 that you put together. Great written stuff. Which of the 10 in your bold predictions makes you the most nervous of any of these and i'll save mine for after but as you were writing them you know some may become easier than others i've done lots of bold prediction

videos and stuff but there's always a nervous like it's not gonna happen like maybe it's the least yeah it's the biggest stretch you know it was one that you really had to like dig deep for or you think that has the maybe maybe I think a few of them might have some really high possibilities in there, but like, which makes you the most nervous of not hitting of all of those? I could ask you what you like the best. I think, I think this one, I think this one is not going to happen. The one I have? No, Corey Seeger wins the AL MVP. I, you know, I wanted to put in, uh, the in the new rules. I wanted to have something in there about the shift. You know, the, if you want to know how the sausage is made with my bold predictions,

a lot of it just has to do with the research that I do in the off season, the different, you know, leaderboards you hear on this podcast, the different kinds of things that we talk about. And so you've heard on this podcast that Corey Seager hit the most line drives to the poolside over 90 miles an hour in the right angles. And I wanted to put that in a piece somewhere. So I like Corey Seager. I'd like that he makes contact, makes powerful contact. He's left. He's going to benefit from rules. But Shohei Otani is a beast. And he's left he's going to benefit from rules but shohei otani is a beast and he's not even really the only guy that seager has to swim move fast i mean there's like vladdy vlad guerrero jr could uh be an mvp i mean who are the the projections uh i think you had trout

otani judge or like the top three it's not the same league Judge obviously and one of my other bold predictions was that Trout which I stole from Ian Kahn by the way if you're listening Ian Kahn thank you for that Mike Trout one

I said that he would hit the most homers of his career and in an effort to keep Otani in town. And Trout is projected for more wins above replacement than Corey Seager. So there's my bold predictions kind of going head-to-head. Keeping each other up, yeah. Trout really hit 50 homers and not win the MVP. So, you know, there's some internal inconsistency sometimes.

But I'm just trying to get a couple right. I mean, I'm hoping for three. Last year, I got two right, and I was three homers short from Nate Lowe. If Nate Lowe had hit three more homers, I would have gone three for 10, and three for 10 is my normal one. I was about to say, bold prediction. And I got the Washington Nationals having the worst pitching staff in baseball.

Right. That's a pretty easy one. Bold prediction. That's a pretty good one. You actually have another pitching staff, one that people can read in the article. It's a very good one. It's very much like baseball.

If you can just hit 300, you're doing great. You're doing. Because otherwise they're not bold enough. If I'm, if I'm getting five out of 10, ten right then that's just more like projections that's just more like you know what i think is going to happen this year you know also what's interesting about bold production uh predictions is like i feel like with just a tiny bit of time they can look irrelevant

like i did a bold prediction show like about 10 days ago and one of my bold predictions at that time was that anthony volpe would break camp with the Yankees and win AL Rookie of the Year and at that time I think it looked bolder it was a pretty bold prediction especially with Rookie of the Year right now if you were to like listen to it or if I had written it down read it it would look not as bold it wouldn't look like now that he's broken camp and um um, you know, his odds have moved. His odds were seven or eight to one about a week ago. They moved up to five to one on a L MVP. It's our AL rookie of the year. It's essentially Gunner Henderson, uh, Masataka Yoshida and him now are the top three in the AL side. The one that stood out to me in your article, because there's a lot of big names. There's a lot of like, you talk about like one of the best staffs, but this one just jumped out to me. And it was in your top five of

Ryan McMahon is an all-star this year with the rookies. And I'm really curious if you would expand on it in the article, you talk about, you know, just a more aggressive approach on pull heavy fly ball guys, which I think has something to do with it, of course, but you know, you put him pretty high in this list. And I thought this would be the one that might be a little bit more volatile. But again, it is like top five. So just maybe some quick thoughts on Ryan McMahon making your breakout article or bold predictions. Yeah, it's just, you know, when I look for breakouts on the pitching side, for example, this is a digression. But if I'm looking for breakouts on

the pitching side, what I'm listening for is, oh, I i've got a new pitch i've got a new grip i've i'm throwing i'm changing something about the way i pitch and then you add that to maybe some small sample strikeout rate surge and you're like oh there is something different here or i got a velocity reading and oh man he's got an extra couple ticks like read detmers or something you know that's what i'm looking for on the hitting side it's a little bit less obvious what because the hitting is so complicated but on the hitting side when i hear something like what uh ryan mcmahon said where he said i want to be aggressive on when like i want to he said i want to trust my eyes and so basically saying he's

wanting to be more aggressive, which is another way of saying, I want to get the ball out in front, you know? And so he's saying like on the swings that I do take, I want to take aggressive swings and get the ball out in front. He is a let it travel guy in the past. He was 207th out of 270 or something in terms of, uh, in terms of pulling fly balls. So he doesn't pull fly balls. He lets the ball travel and he hits it all over the field. And that works to some extent in Colorado. But we know that he has pretty good raw power from his max EV.

And then we know from the spring that he hit the second hardest hit ball in front of the machines. And so what I'm pairing is a change in approach with a change in results this is the hardest hit ball he's ever hit and so i'm pairing those two together to say ryan mcmahon is going to hit 30 homers this year it's boldish because he's he's really settled in sort of 20 to 24 he doesn't seem like a 30 homer hitter but in terms of age it's a it's a good time to to make a guess like this in terms of peak age he's right there in the middle of his peak. And there's a couple pieces of evidence around it.

I like it. You guys can go check it out. Like I said, sign up today, theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Or if you're already got your subscription set, then don't worry. You can check it out. Eno's bold predictions for the season is available for you on the app. You can check it out on some tweets, and I highly suggest you go through it. It's a good read if you've got any last minute drafts that are coming up. All right. Some news and

notes we have got. There was one, there was one in there that actually can segue for us a little bit. Oh yes, yes, yes. We were talking about you and I are actually, we're talking about the, it's funny enough. We were, this is a cool moment for me. I always love my Eno moments where before we started up the show, we were listening to Joey Votto. We were listening to Joey Votto talk today. And I had told you, I was telling you just random stuff. I've got a couple of random things to add to some of the news, but Joey Votto had played a low,

a minor league spring training game yesterday. And he traveled, which that's a unique thing for veterans to travel by the way. And what's so cool about that is if you ever see it in the spring, these guys just jump in their car, they drive down to the stadium, in the parking lot, they jump in, they play, they get in their car, and they leave, and that's essentially what he did. And I was like, hey, Votto's starting on the IL.

A little bit more possible in Arizona, maybe. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Maybe not Florida. And he comes and he plays, and I'm like, I thought that was interesting because he was playing on the IL, and you just happened to have this video up where Votto was asked about talking about his favorite guys in the rotation and that was yeah I mean some love to to see Trent Rosecrans actually um he tweeted out today uh that Votto said he was quote still working through some of the rehab process not accumulating enough time in the field not accumulating enough at bats yesterday was the first day where i felt semi-close to being able to play close to 100 so sounds like he's around 80 i don't know i'm guessing the numbers

in there very close to close to close uh but uh it may not be a long time that he's down but i'm also a little worried about a guy coming off labrum surgery when it comes to how much power is going to come back um but yeah when i I was scrolling through Trent's Twitter feed, looking for that quote, I found this excellent interview there at the, at the press conference. And in my bold predictions, I say that the Reds top three of Graham Ashcraft,

Nicola Dolo and Hunter Green are going to give them the, the first big three. I define that as two and a half wins above replacement. So that's top 50. So the first top three top 50 starters, 25 and under, since 2008 when the Giants did it with Tim Lincecum, Jason Schmidt, and Jonathan Sanchez. So the trend in baseball, I think, has mostly been away from the young starter. We saw somebody like Grayson Rodriguez, who seems like he's super ready. He got sent down today.

And we see them slow walk starting pitchers all the time. Brandon Fott, you said, was more ready than anyone. I mean, he had all the innings, and he got sent down. So we're seeing a trend away from young pitchers. but the Reds are going to pitch all these guys. The stuff likes them. And, you know, I think that they can succeed. So the interview was Votto said something about debates they're having about which of the three is going to be the best. And Votto's hilarious because he goes on this whole two minute thing about how Hunter Green has this fastball and Lodolo's hard to pick up

and how he gets reactions at first base from people and how Graham Ashcraft is hard for people to hit. And he's supposed to come to a conclusion where he's supposed to tell them who he thinks. And he led up to it too. He's like, so you want me to answer which of the three is the best? And then he kind of has a big pause and then what was his answer you know and he goes alexis diaz

is a fine closer and you and i just started busting up laughing because i was in the background because i um long thing but you know uh that vato was involved in this uh event with tops earlier in the year and there's someone i know that actually asked him the question and he had just responded like Lodolo. Like he was like, Hey, who do you like? They literally asked it from a fantasy perspective.

And, and Vado was very respectful saying, I really liked both of them, but I would go with Lodolo. So while this video is going on, I'm like narrating to Eno. I'm like, he's going to say Lodolo.

He's going to say Lodolo. And I'm like, here it comes. And then he's like, Alexis Diaz is really good. And then we, we, we loved that. We loved Boston.

He's so smart, though. There was a little bit in there that was really smart that I'm still trying to figure out how to research and how to get right. such a high ceiling when it comes to stuff that when they make adjustments that will kind of reduce their stuff and make them more effective because they started with such great stuff that adjustment's going to work and anybody who's been listening to this knows we talk about how to account for how many pitches a pitcher has, how they work together. Now, obviously, stuff is defined off of the fastball, so there is some interconnectivity. I'm not just looking at each pitch in a vacuum. But at the same time, there's something about weak contact,

something about how hitters can start to, over time, get used to your shapes. So if you throw more pitches, you go deeper into the game. That's a fact. And so there's something that's beneficial about just having a pitch that they don't see very often. And so that's what I think Votto's kind of talking about. It's like, oh, Ashcraft may start throwing a curve

that's not as good as a slider or as cutter, but gives them a different look and gets them a few stolen strikes and gets them a few ground balls when he needs them. Whoa, what are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking? You know, you're driving a 2024 Ford Escape with available Alexa built in so you can change the music. Oh, yeah. Alexa, change station to 99.2.

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You just sparked something in my head that might end up being a really dumb question because you probably covered it a million times but how many pitchers or who are the best pitchers that can manipulate shape as games go on you know like there is a shape to let's just say fastball it's fastball shape are there a lot of pitchers that you know of that in game can manipulate the shape because the thing that made me think about it was um i was actually watching this breakdown video this pitcher that was like i wanted to throw this like it was i'm forgetting who it was but it was this pitcher who pitched against juan soto and he was so excited it's a dream come true and he went through his whole narration of his approach and he was like

fastball here i don't know this is a look me pitch and then the the strikeout pitch he goes i wanted to throw the slider because I, he hadn't seen my slider, but the catcher said fastball up and he strikes him out, blah, blah, blah. And I'm thinking about that, that that's obviously an approach for many pitchers is to be able to, you know, use a pitch maybe in a second at bat that the guy had not seen. But when you get into third and fourth at bats, are there guys that can manipulate shape better than others? And who are those? Again,

if this is a very stupid question that has been discussed, it's pretty smart too. Cause like the trend right now is to have, like have a gyro slider and a sweeper slider. And we're going to have to be pretty smart to capture all those in the tracking systems because they might, you know, on pitch might make it into something else. Yeah. And so for example,

John Gray last year was throwing a gyro slider and like his normal gyro slider and the sweeper at the same time. And I don't know that my numbers were picking that up completely correctly. And so that that's, that's an example. And so my broader answer to you is you know remember we used to say that the change-up was a field pitch and um and i think that's not untrue but if we were ranking pitches based on field pitches i would actually say breaking balls or even more of a field pitch because you have guys that have three breaking balls how many

people have three change-ups you know what i mean like so you know guys that have three breaking balls already have to have a lot of feel they have to be able to quote unquote spin it that's one of the things that we're looking for and spin it doesn't always mean the highest spin rate it means a feel for spin it means an ability to manipulate the shape. And sometimes that lends itself to three distinct breaking balls or sometimes like a Griffin Jacks or a Matt, Matt Whistler, Matt Whistler. Yeah.

Yeah. Whistler. Matt, right. Yeah. Weisler. I think, yeah,

let's go with it. Anyway, you guys know what I'm talking about. The guy who throws it. We're doing different shapes of his name. So keep going. It's all part of the context of the talk. Yeah.

Or even a Romo. Like, you know, those guys who throw 67% sliders, I guarantee you that all of them have two sliders in there. It's interesting. I would say generally the breaking ball, the guys with the best breaking balls, they have multiple shapes they'reiders in there it's interesting i would say generally the breaking ball the guys with the best breaking balls they have multiple shapes they're hiding in there yeah and i'm even wondering about like manipulation of shape on um you know maybe not even like breaking pitches and if that's like if that's something that's very advanced right now or everyone's very focused i

have heard about it from one person and uh it's a persona non grata, but it's too good to not talk about. So Trevor Bauer told me that he would be facing Alex Bregman. And Alex Bregman is also a really smart hitter. And so Trevor Bauer said that he knew that Alex Bregman was training to hit the top half of the ball when he threw Bauer through his four seamer. So he was trying to get on top of that ride, right? And that's been an adjustment that Marcus Simeon has made. Other players have made in order to hit the good four seamer,

you kind of have to aim at the top half of the ball. And then you kind of get it flush when the ball meets as your bat. You know what I mean? It's kind of tricking your own brain. bauer knew that bregman did this and i i even had the video at one point but bauer actually manipulated the ride on his fastball and took ride off see this is that is this is exactly what i'm talking about this is exactly you're breaking down like i'm wondering about the players in game who can find that ability to manipulate shape if that is like a new video i had i swear to god bregman

looks out at bauer he uh like bauer throws one bregman tops it foul and he looks back at bauer like what the f was that fastball you know know? And then Bauer throws another one, and he grounds out. And I think Bregman's, like, looking. And I think I even asked Bregman about it, and he's like, yeah, I was wondering what was up with that fastball. So I would say, again, it's the guys who throw a ton of them. So why Lance Lynn? He throws, like, six fastballs, right?

And, you know, he told me he throws a BP fastball. You know, that doesn't show up. There's no, you know, pitch tracker that's saying like, oh, he throws 5% BP fastballs, you know? But Lance Lynn's probably usually better than his stuff plus numbers. And part of that is because he can manipulate the shape on all his fastballs.

Very interesting. I mean, you are literally the person for, the perfect person for that to come to my mind to ask. I couldn't think of a better person. And that's what Max Scherzer says when he says he hates Stuff Plus, because he thinks that feel is much more important. And I say feel should show in location.

Feel should actually show in Stuff Plus eventually, because you're replicating good shapes. And that's what it's about but uh i have some i'm not i'm not going to discount what he says it's not like stuff plus is the one number that makes every pitcher make sense you know what i mean like yeah there are always outliers you're like this guy's much better or much worse than his stuff plus you've mentioned like change-ups changeups, changeups you've had issues with on stuff. Plus, and, uh, if you, obviously if you're seeing guys manipulate shape and stuff like that in, in pitch, it's going to affect what the numbers look like. So any of them are in perfect systems, but you know, at the same point, it's still probably one of the best metrics that have been out there. So great answer. I'm glad that you had that. That

just was kind of jumping in my mind is I think i even asked you this in that last episode of like how sweepers and gyros are becoming the new trend you just wonder and i was wondering like what are the next trends and i know you and who can actually command both of those pitches yeah when you had answered like change and changeups going into splitters were kind of like your maybe next you know know, bastion of pitches. Yeah, we're working on a piece about the rise of splitters. I mean, like just coming off of that Japanese, you know, pitching staff in the WBC,

splitter after splitter after splitter after splitter, you know? Yeah, well, maybe we'll see some more shape manipulation that's going to be going on in the future as part of it as well well that's what gossman says about his change up too right like he has that fosh grip and he it you know when he really wants to drop off the table he he throws it deep in the fingers and lets it really sort of fall out and then when he wants to kind of control a change up maybe for a freeze take or something he thinks that someone's spitting on his change up. He'll hold it a little bit differently

and throw it a little bit differently and get less action on it, but be able to do that. So anybody who has an elite pitch and throws it a lot, I think has multiple shapes in there. Ooh, do you think, article idea down the future, would you ever be able to, I would be fascinated to have identified the top shape manipulators in baseball.

That would be really fascinating to see. It's so hard to study, though. Let's say you did standard deviation. Yeah, what if you did standard deviation on pitch types, right? Like standard deviation on movement. You could just have a guy who has no idea how to replicate the shapes. It's not that he's trying to replicate different shapes it's just like he can't he can't replicate the shape on that pitch or like the biggest nastiest pitches that have the most movement

will always just show up as having the biggest standard deviation because sometimes it's 24 inches and sometimes it's 20 inches and that's much more than someone who throws like a tight little gyro slider when it's like off by a half inch or something maybe it's something hitters have to answer maybe that's a hitter uh answer to that question where hitters yeah they identify manipulating the shapes on their pitches yeah that would be really fascinating to see uh we got some news and notes and then uh we got to hit some main event here and actually one little uh curtail to the main event uh you know and i were talking a lot before it. And Anthony Volpe was a lot in our conversation. This was someone that you obviously

wanted. You don't have to disclose yet if you got it, but we got official news. I didn't get them. And it was more just that it wasn't, I was necessarily trying to hide it. It was more just that the hype machine, I was trying to gauge where the hype machine was at. And there's always just a relationship between the hype machine and the cost and what you're willing to pay and the risk. So, you know, at that time at the main event, which I did on Friday, um, Volpe was kind of chugging along towards maybe making it, but I still had my reservations. Cause I saying like westberg you know he he got sent down today you know uh there was other uh people that seemed just as close grayson rodriguez i thought he was going to be an oriole and he got sent down today um and so uh that doubt plus the

performance doubt because now that volpe has made it he could still just be met you know like it's still a possibility as much as people like him so you combine those two and it he could still just be met you know like it's still a possibility as much as people like him so you combine those two and it was just still too much to pay the hype machine had gotten going the early main event drafts in new york city with yankees fans that were pretty sure uh that he the volpe is going to make it i think push that price up and uh just went in a place that we couldn't handle it yeah there was a i think i even text you about it like on Thursday because like it really picked up steam. I think on Wednesday of last week where it really started to go and that didn't help,

but we got official word between between, I think Sunday and today is we're recording this, that Jordan Walker, Anthony Volpe, Oscar Colas. And then as of this morning, Bryce Terang. All big prospects that were breaking camps with their teams. A couple players, obviously, maybe to our surprise, didn't. But Walker and Volpe. Walker is pushed, I think, inside of most people's top 100, just in case you do have a draft coming left. I have thought if Volpe was given the gig, he belongs right around the top 100.

And Colasas I think is still pretty pretty being slept on for making the opening day roster but one note is Volpe's going to hit ninth which also could have you know little tiny effects in there um but in my draft they all got there yeah my draft uh Volpe went in the 10th round at 141. He went ahead of Gleyber Torres. He went ahead of Matt Chapman, Carlos Correa, Brian Hayes, Jonathan India, Ryan McMahon. We took a shot on Grayson Rodriguez at 167. And so I think if a Volpe had been there at 167, we might've taken him. That was the earliest that we could really see taking a shot on a veteran. The, what we passed, uh, like we went,

we were at 141 Volpe went at, uh, what did I say? 140. Yeah. It was right here somewhere. Come on. Where are you? Yeah. I thought you said went it was anyone oh he both he went at 141 we picked at 137 so i guess we could have taken him we were pretty focused on getting innings at that point because we had been planning on having a and 17 and since uh we then didn't pick again for so long um we weren't comfortable with taking any of the starting pitchers that were available to us when it came back to us so we so you needed to later in the draft start focusing on pitching right so we took romano and lindor at the next turn that's a tough thing that happens we'll talk a little bit more about the

main event here in just a tiny bit that's a tough thing that happens in drafts when players kind of have their like stationary level of where they go based on what you do sometimes it's not that you don't want a player but you just price yourself out based on draft necessity and that happens plenty of times it happened in a couple drafts i did where i wanted corbin carroll but you know i pushed and needed pitching kind of in that general vicinity and i think that's ended up happening with volpe i want to get back to the main event here in just a second but a couple other pieces with both of the big prospects breaking camp which is awesome and it's going to be a big payoff for people wander franco had a scare this weekend and it's a big scare for me

because I drafted him all over the place because I think he's going to have a big bounce back this year. But luckily it looks like it's all good and he's going to be ready for opening day, which was a huge scare for me. You know, I don't know if you're a big buyback on Franco this year. Well, I am. I think that he's the key for the race season i think that he's i mean i think it's about health to some extent but i'm not ready to say he's injury prone i mean the things that have happened to him hit by pitch you know a little bit of a hamstring thing it's i i'm not i'm not saying he's injury prone yet and so a full healthy season will give him the chance to make the adjustments to unlock some of that power i think we've seen the raw power and the real thing

that's waiting you know i think he's a maybe only like a 10 to 15 stolen base guy in terms of speed but he could be anywhere from a 15 to 30 homer guy yeah totally that's a good way to put it you're 100 right with high high batting average and hitting right in order you know runs an rbi could definitely like a 280 30 15 season it's totally within his grasp but the the power i think is where the most oscillation is between his upside and downside yeah i mean and he's also in the same breath he could be a 325 homer 10 to 15 stolen base guy and he could be 585 plus on run and rbi's you just never know uh with how it goes but i'm a big buyback onto him that was a little one of those scares uh obviously i imagine you and um al talked about it but you know like reese hoskins right

before the season start was like a huge blow for a lot of people um and that kind of changed the landscape we keep having the landscapes change on positions first base is fine but it was everybody was kind of like banking all right if i don't get the elite guys at the top i can still go get one of you know uh hoskins or cron or walker or rowdy telez and then those kind of have moved away i was a little bit worried this was going to be another one of those with all my shares but it wasn't luckily um kyle right is going to be getting the season on the il i'm kind of down on kyle right i wasn't big on him this year even though i felt mainly because I felt like there was a lot of paying for what he did last year on his. Right.

Yeah. I was a little bit worried about it overall, but the IL is going to have dropped his cost a decent amount, but either way, he's starting on the IL for the season. One note, Keston Hira, just little prospect people like me designated for assignment and going to be seeking a trade partner,

the Brewers are. Otherwise, they're going to outright release him, I believe. So Keston Hira might have. They have needs for anybody, right? That seems right. I mean, they also had just, they're such a young team that they could option somebody down that, like even a Rodolfo Castro, I think he has options. If you wanted to option Castro down and just give Hura a month,

Castro has one option left. You could option Castro down and give Hura a month at second base and just see if you care to see more. Who was that team you were saying the other day that did that at the end of the year where they were just picking up the giants, the giants did at the beginning of Farhan's tenure where they just, they went through Connor, Joe,

you know, uh, Mike's just Stremski, a bunch of other players where they just kind of cycled through players. I'd be interesting if the Royals considered doing it. Maybe there's another one. Yeah. That might be one of them.

And then the last note here is Juan Soto, who you mentioned you ended up drafting. And I was on the backfields today and I got to watch him play. And he played in a simulated minor league game. Joe Musgrove actually pitched. He pitched five innings. We can talk about that in a second. That's another one of those that are good. Butan soto had a bunch of at bats he was

playing the outfield he wasn't dhing he looked really good and then right after kevin ac who's a padres reporter was there talked to him after and then almost immediately after i watched him walk off with kevin it was reported that it looks like he's gonna be good for opening day which probably gave a discount you clearly got the discount at what'd you get him at 15 yeah we got him at 17 17 yeah i mean you kind of talked about that prior last week that he would be a guy that would drop so i mean 17 that is a huge discount if you were doing the main event today what do you think he would go for now that he's good uh i don't think that he would jump a bunch but i think he'd jump into the back end of the first round um you don't think he would jump into the top 10 13 something like that i don't know

it's one of those things where the projections love him the projections say he's gonna have the second best year of his career um you know people in San Diego, I think to some extent doubt that because they felt a little bit jilted by his performance when he came over, you know? And I think that people who were watching him in the playoffs or watching him in San Diego, when he kind of got a little bit more exposure, like in terms of recency bias, aren't, aren't super into into them so i'm not saying that there's a big divide on juan soto but you know it's easy to say oh he won't how many bases he's going to steal and you know blah blah blah maybe he's not suited for the new ball and you know but projections love him and maybe you're right maybe he'd sneak into the top 10 i think he would but i tell you all of these

leg issues he said i really question what he's going to try to steal this year. I mean, this is like the bird thing. His sprint speeds are going down and like, yeah. Yeah. Early spring and then right before the WBC. And then this again, I really question what the speed numbers are going to look like. So I think it's way fair. You had a really great point in the last episode you and I did together where it's like jordan alvarez versus him i'm not sure if soto's not stealing he's

much different than alvarez and alvarez might be safer at this point there's better probably give alvarez but soto is also going to benefit from the shift rules more than alvarez because soto does hit ground balls to the full side that's a good point yeah that's a good point uh he looked good out there though just to let everybody know they said he took it looked like way more at bats they didn't have a full squad they're playing against the mariners and the mariners you know great pitching they had like tommy listella was the best player that was playing with them and um they were every inning cycling through so i want to say he got five or six at bats on there the other interesting one was joe musgrove pitched that entire thing And it looked like he pitched what was relevant to about five innings. And I was

being a little snoop. I was being a little sneaky snoop over because the dugouts right here. And I heard him talk after he was all done and he was sound like he was on cloud nine. He said he felt great. And, you know, I also heard him say that he was experimenting with a different grip for a change-up i and and i'm just telling you what i heard him say i was standing five feet from him and i heard him say that it felt really good with this different change-up grip that i didn't hear who he said uh showed it to him but he was out there using that and i thought that was extra sneaky and that he was out there pitching five innings in a minor league game probably is going to show like what a great discount maybe one of the few injury discounts that musgrove was coming into the season and i kind of love the change up thing yeah it's the it's the toughest thing about spring when you get these uh you get these spring updates on injuries

and you don't you don't know how to react and then people overreact but see uh there's an example where people didn't overreact carlos rodon there was more pressure on him downward in the rankings than i thought and the newest news is he's going to miss more time than they originally thought and that's that's the risk where you're like i don't want to take an injured guy who's injured right now because then you know what what happens when they when they get the update. Oh, he's not responding as well. Or, oh, this other thing hurts or whatever. So I can see why people do it. I think with Soto, our bet was just that the upside was so high.

I think Musgrove, my model, has always really liked. And so I would have taken the shot if it made sense in our main. But with pitching also, I'm just a little bit less likely to pull the trigger on someone who's currently uh yeah take any risk yeah take any risk on i like that it wasn't like some arm fatigue issue or something like that with him but he was as jacked up as i've ever seen him uh pitch great love the results throwing some changey grip uh just to be on the lookout for in season maybe that'll be a bigger thing. But you know, when he was going in the sixties and falls to the nineties,

there's a pretty good discount. I would feel good if I was doing a draft in the next couple of days to be able to just boost him up a little bit. I did snag him in a few spots. Speaking of drafts, that takes us to the main event. Will you give us a little experience too? Cause you went out to Vegas,

correct? No, I did not. You did not. In fact, if anybody is out there thinking about doing a main event next year, um, one, uh,

sneaky bit of knowledge is to, uh, break in on the main events that are during the Vegas weekend, uh, but are online because most of the guys who go, most of the people who go to Vegas to draft in person, um, don't,

aren't going to do an online one while they're there. And so you can kind of break in without as many sharks. Yes. So, uh, that's, that was, that helped me along to my third place finish last year.

Um, and, um, hoping, uh, I've got a, I've got a listener who is, uh, my co co-manager on this. And, uh, and, uh, we've, we, we wanted to do things that we didn't end up doing, but we also did a lot of things we wanted to do. So that's what I wanted to ask you is what was the pre, but we're going to look at the team.

I'm going to have you list off some of the team but what was before not what you ended up doing but what was the pre-prep conversation of like how you wanted to attack your draft like what what goes into it for you yeah so i mean the main thing for us was because we have so much good adp knowledge that we can see what other teams have done uh in the, what other drafters have done in the past. We were able to look at what would happen in different lineup slots. They call it KDS, which is Kentucky Derby System. In the beginning, you tell them where you want to draft from. Then they give you

your slot based on, based on luck. It's like a draft order for picking your draft order. Yeah, exactly. And so we, we basically said, okay, what would happen if we picked one through three, we would have this available. We'd have this available. We'd have this available. What if we happen to draft in the middle, we'd have this available. And we kind of planned out the first maybe five six rounds for the beginning middle

and end just in in text back and forth oh if we do this well this this will be available to us so what we decided was we really like the top three actually because what we wanted to do was get two aces we found that there was some research research by the Birchwood brothers on fan graphs that said that main event winners spent more on pitching than other teams and that teams that were closer to a 50-50 split on investment and pitching did better. And so we thought, you know what, there's if we could get 400, if we get 350 innings of just studliness at the top of our draft, that's what we want to do. And so we really were hoping for a beginning that would go Jose Ramirez, Shane McClanahan, and Brandon Woodruff, which looked like it was possible if you looked at ADP.

It didn't end up being possible. We didn't get that draft slot, but if we would have gotten that draft slot, we would have gotten Jose Ramirez. And then we, um, we, we would have gotten Shane McClanahan, but Brandon Woodruff would have gone at would, would have gone. And then we would have had to either pump up Kevin Gossman or take a bat. So even if we, even if it got in the way we wanted to, we would have had to make a decision in the third round that we didn have had to either pump up Kevin Gossman or take a bat. So even if we, even if it got in the way we wanted to,

we would have had to make a decision in the third round that we didn't want to. And so, you know, that's what happens. Every plan that you make, you know, goes to crap at some point.

And so what happened for us is we got the 14th pick. Which is the last plan, by the way, when you were like, you want the top, was that like at the bottom? It was which is the last plan by the way when you were like you want the top was that like at the bottom it was one of the worst the actually the very worst for us was like 8 9 10 because then we saw top six bats that we wanted and so we didn't like 8 9 10 it was you'd have to kind of pump up mookie bets uh you know more than more than adp says you should or take vlad guerrero and not get any speed so we didn't like 8 9 10 we did have 14 15 ahead of uh ahead of like 10 10 11 12 something

like that so um we did we did get uh uh corbin burns as our number one we were i was really hoping for mookie bets but he went too ahead of me um and so we took Corbin Burns and then on the back side we took Juan Soto who who fell um uh pretty strong start Tatis and Strider went in between uh we figured he would take one pitcher and we figured that uh either Soto or Manny would be there for us on the way back um and you prioritize soto over manny yeah and so we took soto and then on the way back what we were hoping for was luis castillo to drop to us at three um where we were picking um where we would be picking at uh the end of three 44 44. So we were hoping Luis Castillo would go to 44. Guess where he got picked?

42. And we said, well, if Castillo is gone, then maybe Wheeler makes this to us. Well, Wheeler went 43. And the next starting pitcher after Wheeler, there's a bit of a shelf there. The next starting pitcher was 57. And anyone who listens knows that Shane Bieber is not one of my favorites.

So we didn't want to pump up Shane Bieber 15 points. So we went with Jordan Romano because at that draft slot, we knew that Ryan Helsley and Ryan Presley and a bunch of the other guys wouldn't make it back to us, which was true. None of them made it back to us. We wouldn't have had a top-end reliever. Not even Felix Baut them made it back to us. We wouldn't have had, we wouldn't have had a top end reliever, not even Felix Bautista make it,

made it back to us. Wow. So that's, you mean that's from the fourth to the fifth round because the third round you took Romano. And then what was your fourth round pick? Our fourth round Lindor. Lindor.

I thought Lindor was like Soto was like a bat who fell too long. You know, Lindor was going in the back end of the second at different times of the drafts this year. So we took Lindor in the fourth and we fought thought with Lindor and Soto like had a good bat base with Romano and Burns. We had a good pitching base and we thought that most of our options were open from there on out. You kind of covered everything.

You got your infielder. You got an outfielder. You've got a relief pitcher and you got a starting pitcher. So that's a, that's a strong core four. So where did you go in round five when none of those relievers came back? Uh, yeah, we would, we would have had to take Camilla Duvall, uh, who we liked, but we think that the giants are going to spread the love around. Um, and so, you know, if Duvall had been our number one reliever, I think we would have been a little bit disappointed. So what, but since we were no longer looking at pitching when other people were looking at pitching and relievers,

we did a fun MI double tap at five and six and went Tim Anderson and Andres Jimenez. And our plan had been to skimp on steals, but we both liked him Anderson. We both like Andres Jimenez. Andres Jimenez is a 95th percentile sprint speed guy. Jimenez there, you know,

and Tim Anderson, we thought would keep our batting average afloat. And we got two shortstops. We thought we might create a little scarcity and shortstops too, you know, by having Anderson in the door. And we've, we just went pop up, pop up and just finished off. Am I, you know, I did the exact same thing, by the Anderson and Lindor. And we've we just went pop up up and just finished off.

Am I, you know, I did the exact same thing, by the way, in a league this weekend where I went Corey Seager and then I got Franco a little bit later and I paired both of those guys in a draft. And then I think my I think my second baseman was Jimenez as well, because I'm obsessed with Jimenez. So I really went heavy. I did the exact same thing. I like the strategy.

I'm obsessed with Jimenez. So I really went heavy. I did the exact same thing. I like the strategy. Yeah. The other thing we found looking at this was that the ADP versus auction value, calculator value was all out of skew for catchers. And we thought getting good catchers was a, was a, was a, was a, was a was a strategy you know that would work for us unfortunately you know it didn't work out in terms of who was available like we really wanted will smith but you know it wasn't available at the right times and so uh at seven and eight we got logan gilbert for more uh more innings that we thought were high floor and high ceiling innings. And then MJ Melendez, who may, along with Varshow, lead the catching position with plate appearances. And we picked MJ Melendez over Wilson Contreras and started a heck of a catcher run by picking Melendez.

heck of a catcher run by picking Melendez because Contreras went, Alejandro Kirk went, Tyler Stevenson went, Sean Murphy went, and William Contreras went all in the eighth round. Wow. So people- So we kicked off, yeah, we kicked off a little mini run there. God, that feels good. Doesn't that feel good when you do that too? Because you're like, yeah- And you got the guy you wanted. You're like, I got my guy. Now you guys just waste all these picks with the guy I wouldn't take. So my players come back to me again. Oh oh it's such a good feeling yeah i feel it i don't

know if we need to go through every pick but i do the next pick is interesting because another thing that i had uh uncovered in my research for al labor but also just generally is that mid tier first basemans were a value this year so i think you've i had this none of this stuff is really stuff i've hid from you the catcher thing we kind of showed up when we were doing research specific to the main event but uh you might have noticed me talking about josh nailer from my al labor uh draft and how much i like Rowdy Tellez. He's been all over my pieces. And so Rowdy Tellez, Josh Naylor. Let me see if I have my main event prep still open, but main prep here. First base, first base, there's a mini tier here of guys who are still worth a lot. Josh Bell is worth $13 in the main event. Rowdy Tellez, $14.

Andrew Vaughn, who is talking about pulling fly balls, which would change his abilities, his upside completely. $13, just the way he's projected. Anthony Rizzo, $13. Josh Naylor, $11. Ty France, $8, $9. So that is a super value tier, because those guys are going around $11. Thai France $8, $9. So that is a super value tier because those guys are going around $200.

You know? Also, Vinny Pascantino is projected right in the middle of that, and he's the one going $93. So he was almost on a do-not-draft for us. So we had two... We had those guys circled. We were like, these guys are all going around $200 ADP. Let's get our guy.

So Rowdy to Les, we got him at, uh, see here. We've got him at one 34. Um, and the, the best part was we also got Naylor and we got Naylor at one 97.

So we got our first baseman, uh, from the scrap heap, but I don't feel like, like, I don't feel like they're scrappy guys. They're both going to benefit a lot from the new rules. And and so we just thought that they were good values where they were. And that's our, those are our first baseman. So, yeah. And also just out of the article also got Ryan McMahon, Ryan McMahon made the roster. People can check out as well. And man, we got 164.

He was a bold predictor. Yeah, we got. And then, of course, you always have to leave something on the side. And so after we took Jordan Romano, we said we're not going to invest heavily in second closers. We think those have really bad outcomes. That's something I've said on the podcast before. And so we got our lead guy, Jordan Romano, and then our second closer is Craig Kimbrell.

And then we took a shot on Hunter Harvey in the reserves. So that's our save strategy. The other thing that we left on the wayside, because we really wanted to hit up the middle with innings. So we got Burns, Gilbert, Montgomery, Turnbull,

tie on, Savali, Grayson Rodriguez, Ryan Nelson, Kenta Maeda. So we wanted a lot of like veterans starting pitches. We thought would have innings. Outfielders fell apart.

So we had Soto and then, so we had Soto and then we, so we had Soto, which we took 17 and we took our next outfielder, Ramon Mariano at two 27. I was about to say, what is that? One 90 or something in between outfielders for us.

So, uh, you know, if there is, and I, I've talked about this meme before with the three dragons, uh, you know, we've got our lineup, we've got our rotation,

and the dragon with the googly eyes is our outfield. It's Juan Soto, Ramon Laureano, Trent Grisham, David Peralta, and Trey Mancini. We got another mid-tier first baseman, and we got him to play outfield. He's hitting the ball harder this spring. And then Max Kepler, who's on. I probably have him on like half of my teams. Okay. Heavy investment. play outfield he's hitting the ball harder this spring so and then max kepler who's on uh i probably have him on like half of my teams okay heavy investment how did you feel coming out of

it though that last thing um i feel great i feel really great i feel we've got power we got speed uh fancy pros gave us a b and said batting average is a risk but with with Rowdy and Grisham and Naylor and Kepler, we have four of the biggest beneficiaries from the shift rules. So we're hoping that if those guys can get their batting average up at all, then we'll be all right. And then in terms of a staff, Burns, Gilbert, Montgomery, Turnbull, Tyon, I think this is a good staff. And then we wanted to have a lot of major league pitchers on our bench and Ryan Nelson

Hunter Harvey and Kenta Maeda on our bench in the first week. That's pretty good. I think Yeah, right. Nelson taking the gig Dre Jamison moving to the bench. That's news too, right? That's news too. Today. Ryan Nelson got the gig. That was another one. You know, and lastly to our boy, history Ruiz made the roster official and he'll be out there. Someone I was trying to target in an AL only league and got sniped on it for the stolen bases.

So would have liked to have seen you got him with all the criticalness of like, I don't know. That would have been funny. If you would have had him on there. I don't, you know, I try not to, I'm not playing games with people. I know there's a fine line, you know, with not to i'm not playing games with people um i know there's a fine line you know with the main event and trying to keep your cards close to your vest i try to you

know the volpe thing i was maybe a little misdirection but i don't think you were transparent you know you were you were i i just expressed my doubts and while i have uh some hopes for him to be really good uh you know it still just didn't make any sense where he was going so well also a guy that wasn't on the 40 man they had those old paraza who was on the 40 man no i think you were very transparent across the board i'm just saying it would have been fun for a guy that you're critical of estrella ruiz for him to have made the team for the stolen there's a prize for everyone there's a prize for everyone where it makes sense you know no matter what you know if i there's i don't i don't i said vinnie pascantino was on a draft list but if he'd fallen to you know

150 or you know 170 where we think he should have been then we would have taken him so there's always a prize for everyone that's right uh that is going to do it for the episode my friends thank you guys for hanging out you can find me on twitter at is it the welsh you can find eno at enoceris and of course you can find us right here at rates and burials. You guys can rate and review and subscribe to the podcast, do all that stuff. We'll be talking prospects tomorrow for project prospect and then DVR back on Wednesday.

Make sure you're on the YouTube channel on the app and on your podcast app for all of the stuff and things. Thank you guys for hanging out with us today. Season is only a couple days away. So get your last minute draft prep in. And if you need more draft prep, athletic.com slash rates and barrels, the draft kit is still out there to help you.

And a whole bunch more. Go read that bold predictions article. Maybe implement that into your draft prep. $1 a month right now. $1 a month right now. That's sick. $1 a month. Athletic.com slash rates and barrels.

I actually did that quite a while ago before i was uh lucky enough everybody to get a subscription now that i'm doing hosting but i did look at me that was part of the athletic extra one dollar a month in your pocket i got my dollar to do literally you remember when you could like be like hey a dollar a month could do what can you get for a dollar right now? You can't get anything. I can't do anything with a dollar. But if I save it up, I could get a cup of coffee in a week. But I had that deal going on leading up into this. So you guys should do the same thing.

Dollar a month, ridiculous deal. Go check it out, theathletic.com. So that's rates and barrels. That'll do it. We'll talk to you tomorrow right here on The Athletic. I'm Welsh. That's Eno. Bye-bye.

Thanks for listening.