Rates & Barrels - Eno's Case for Elly De La Cruz, Pitcher Injury Risk Considerations, and Spring News & Notes

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss a few takeaways from Eno's squad in the Bay Area Rotisserie Fantasy League before digging into the latest round of news as spring training is in full swing. With a lot of positive injury news around recently hampered players, how should you adjust your plans as ADP begins to reflect improved spring health? Rundown 0:50 Eno's Case for Elly De La Cruz 8:10 Recapping Eno's BARF League Build (From Sober Values to YOLO) 13:10 Josh Jung's Calf Strain 15:53 Xander Bogaerts Moves to Second Base 20:49 Whit Merrifield to the Phillies 24:14 Carlos Rodón's Velocity is Back This Spring 36:00 Byron Buxton's Knee is Gone! 41:17 A Quick Nick Lodolo Update 49:23 Are the Rays Backloading Shane Baz's 2024 Innings? 55:41 Starling Marte & Riley Greene Follow-Ups 56:55 A.J. Puk as a Starter & Occasional Six-Man Rotations in Miami? 1:08:15 Applying Roto Advice to H2H Points Leagues 1:13:06 What Might a Team See in Luke Weaver? 1:19:57 Live Episodes in New York at Other Half Brewing! Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our new livestream episodes! (https://www.youtube.com/c/ratesbarrels) Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/B3Ymqwrd Subscribe to The Athletic for just $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Elly De La Cruz Thumbnail Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Monday, February 19th, Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris here with you on this episode, we dig into a ton of spring news and notes, we also got some great mailbag questions that have come in from our Discord, which is now open. And as Eno said last week, it's popping. It is growing and growing fast. So come join us. The link to join is in the show notes for this episode. If you're watching us on YouTube, be sure to hit the like button.

Subscribe to the YouTube channel if you haven't done so already. And drop us a nice rating and review if you're listening on a platform like Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Eno, how was your weekend? Good, good. I had the big barf draft. The winner wins the barf bucket. Oh, it's a bucket and I figured, you know, probably something along those lines. It's the Bay Area Rotisserie Fantasy. what does barf stand for i think i think that's what it stands for but or michaels came up with this one it seems like

there might be extra descriptions just to get the acronym to be barf yeah so uh what's fun about that league is is it's kind of nfc, so it's 15 teams in the same settings. But the cool part about it is that there are different ones around the U.S. And so there's one, there's Glarf and Scarf, and I don't even know what they all stand for, but I think there's one in Chicago. There's one, is thatago i think there's one that's is that great lakes great lakes one that was the one that i was in for a couple years before i moved to california and then i moved back and i couldn't go to cleveland last weekend was their draft i

couldn't make that draft date work so yeah i'm not part of the they're called the Earth Leagues is what they're called altogether. And we compete against each other as leagues. So the winning league decides where the money is going. So we each have a fee, an entry fee, and that's going to go to charity. And the winning league, the league that does the best, ends up deciding where that money goes for charity. There's a bunch of side pots. It's also just really fun to do. I recommend if you have the ability to do one of your drafts in person to do it in person. It's just a lot of ball busting and jokes and people you haven't seen in a while.

It's just fun to kind to do it in person, even if it's not an auction where you have to say anything. We were still doing it on our computers and breaks. I love the chatter. I love the chatter around it. It was just fun. It was like a six-hour draft. That's awesome.

Six hours. Yeah. Maybe it was five, but we were hanging out for a while. We did it at a bar so we could have drinks while we're doing it and you know it's funny because it's also the only draft i really do that i drink during and um and so uh i decided i'd like kind of lean into that energy this year and okay and be like you know you know three or four beers in uh i may i may make some yolo picks anyway so let me just declare this the yolo draft and uh and since i leaned into that energy i ended up with ellie de la cruz in the second so uh that was a bit of a yolo from the start but i

will point out i had a little rant pre-show but I will point out that if you use Zips and you have the 640 plate appearances in there, he's the 10th best hitter in baseball this year for fantasy. And I personally think his risk of demotion is below 5% and his risk of platooning is like 0% because use your GDIs. watch this guy watch this guy and watch him from the perspective of you're the reds and this is your next superstar like that's that's how i feel everyone in the reds organization feels i heard ellie la cruz's name

like four years ago in hushed tones being like you should see how hard this guy hits the ball you know it was like everyone was like know, super excited about him all the way through the minors and the reds. And, uh, and I just, I just cannot see them. Even if he's hitting 200, he's going to be hitting bombs. He's going to be playing shortstops. He's going to be stealing bags. Like there's no way they're sending that guy down.

That's, that's how I feel. So, uh, I don't think it's that risky at all, but certain projection systems ding me for that one. But I had some fun with, we have some news on some of these guys, but Zach Netto is a shortstop that I think has a decent amount of upside.

I'm hoping for a full season, healthy season from him. I think he can go like 15-15 or something like that. I took Caballero. Jose Caballero is supposedly going to be working out as if he's the starter at the position for the Rays is some news that was in our feed recently. And I don't think he can hit the ball hard, but I do think he can steal 20-plus bags.

I took Tyler Black. was, I took Tyler Black. Nice. I took Tyler Black just to get a nice from you on this podcast. That's the only reason I took him. No. Just to appease me? No, that was like six beers in. Yeah, right.

50, 55 stolen bases last year in the minors. Yeah, between double and triple A, only was caught a dozen times. And I think you just had the hey he could have 70 steals and he plays a full season in the big leagues you did the math anything's possible you're feeling very optimistic and like yeah as a hitter i i don't see any reason why they would really want to keep him out of the lineup i think the question is how they fit his glove in defensively and part of the return from the corbin burns trade having joey ortiz there does make things more complicated for black because defense is part of the problem for him yeah and i i just

you know i took him and pete crowe armstrong and jose caballalleros and Tim Anderson that's like kind of my bench and um it's not a bench where I'm like I'm gonna have these guys and replay them it's it's it's the YOLO bench it's like you know you guys are either going to be starters for me and steal some bags when I'm kind of I'm at 160 and I think in today's game you need 180 plus um stolen bases in almost any league that uses categories like that. So I'm a little bit light, but with all those guys on my bench, I'm like, Tim Anderson gets a job as a starting shortstop or a starting second baseman somewhere.

Or Pete Crowe-Armstrong just gets instilled as the center fielder from day one and steals me 20 bags. Or Jose Caballero is the starting shortstop all year. If they're not, I'm going to know in two weeks, in three weeks, and they're not going to be on my bench anymore. You know, it's not. So it's an interesting thing when you think about,

they have these like projections, you know, these draft softwares. One of them put me near the bottom. The other one put me near the top. And I was like, so what's the use? I mean, we're all supposed to look good according to our own projections. We're all taking pics that are looking good according to our own projections. In some ways, going YOLO is a little bit low-dom because it's like,

this is not going to look good in the projections. No projection system is going to tell me that Tyler Black is going to be useful on my team this year. is going to tell me that Tyler Black is going to be useful on my team this year. But just taking that chance and then knowing that your last 10 picks in most leagues are not going to make it to the end of the year with you.

So at that point, you should just be drafting for upside, I think, because the downside is they're not on your team anymore and you're replacing them with wire. So that was my thinking on this. And I had a bunch of sober picks that I love. Like I took Labor Torres and Christian Walker super, super late. They fell, I thought. And so, you know, those are like guys that we've loved on this pod.

guys that we've loved on this pod. Another thing that we just said that was interesting was the reason I could take Eli was because I took the fourth pick. I want Tatis, Eli, and then I knew that because I was

so early in the third round, I'd have a shot at one of the Gossman types. Gossman, Kirby, Luis Castillo, somebody, you know, I thought might be there for me. And I got lucky maybe in a way and took George Kirby. But like, you know, three weeks from now, people might be taking George Kirby in the second.

And they've heard all this talk online about how much Ellie is a bust and like isn't worth his draft price. And then they, well,ie falls to them in the third and they're like well he fell to me in the third why is that any different than what i did yeah took kirby and ellie that's what i got you know like if you if you want to pretend i took ellie in the third yeah to make me you feel better about me as an analyst then just do that there's a lot of ways you can do that the order doesn't matter so much as you just get the talent

that you need over the course of the draft. And I think this happened a few years ago. Nando did something that was, it was not what Ian and I would have done. And I remember us going, well, if you'd done this here, and we like flipped it. So the guy that he took in the third round that we thought he should take it in the sixth or seventh,

we could justify it because we could keep moving guys up. So, well, you could have moved this guy up. That would have been OK. I think it's fine. The other part of this, too, getting away from groupthink or just doing things that people don't agree with is good for leverage purposes. You got a different kind of build. So whether it's a big overall contest or not, you're doing something different gives you a strategic advantage. Whether that's early closers, getting two instead of one, whether that's going heavy pitching early. If no one else in your league does that, I always think there's a benefit to unfolding or unfurling a strategy that most of the league isn't actually using.

And you're right about the projections. The late players, the replacement guys that will be on the waiver wire will give you a much better number in software every single time. But the odds of those players being better than their projection are way lower than the guys you actually took a chance on in barf. And I've played this way for a long time with stars and scrubs in a 15 team league, like tout wars mixed.

I've been in for probably 10 or 11 years now, almost every year I have built a very top heavy team because the quality of the players you can get late is always very good, right? You're not worried about finding enough players you like at the end of the draft. So if you got a seven or eight, $1 in an auction setting it doesn't matter if you got a bunch of guys that don't have guaranteed jobs two or three weeks before the season it does not matter

yeah especially in a mixed league in a in an only it gets a little bit tighter because the one dollar guys and only leagues are kind of crappy but yeah give me a little more careful in those super deep leagues one thing that helped that helped me um you know i think the advantage that i took by taking ellie in the second and not a starting pitcher there was um one thing that was interesting for me was that basically everything that I, like every pick, I didn't sit there thinking about any pick. Every pick was just like, oh yeah, this is who I thought. I looked through ADP before the draft and then I was like, oh, this is who I thought would be here. This is who I thought would be here.

Oh, I got Glaber here exactly where I thought I would get him. And so that made me feel good about it. Despite, you know, at least one projection system tanking me. Well, of course, one projection system, if it gives, you know, Ellie 530 plate appearances, you know, and that's my second round pick, like I'm already, I'm already behind everybody, you know? So that's already like a big toggle in terms of how I'm, how I'm seen. And then, um, what I did do was I tried to invest in, uh, starting pitching in the early mid. So I have, uh, what I think are four, uh, starting pitchers in the top 30 in George Kirby, uh, Grayson Rodriguez, Dylan Cease, and Justin Verlander. You know, I have Verlander like at 30. So I so I'm you know I'm playing with numbers a little bit but you know like uh uh that's I think that that was that felt good about it also like if

Kirby is any lesser and steal in strikeouts like Cease is is gonna get there so um I don't know it felt good all the way through and uh the the only I'll discuss the one um that I got some pushback on that I'm a little bit nervous about because there's, I guess I missed some news, but that's on the rundown. So let's get to the rundown, should we? Let's get to the stuff that's on the script. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of news and notes today.

Josh Young out two to three weeks with a calf strain. He suffered that while fielding ground balls on Friday. Defense, stupid defense, always hurting players. We don't need this. Who needs a calf? Apparently, you need a calf. Apparently, baseball players need that. Josh Donaldson taught us that, I guess, that you need healthy calves.

But I think if they back off him for a few weeks, it doesn't sound like opening day is in question just yet. It's just a matter of getting enough reps and basically not turning this into a nagging problem. It's just a matter of getting enough reps and basically not turning this into a nagging problem. That's what I always want. I want medical staffs for teams to take a more conservative approach this early. And even if that means a week or two on the IL when the season begins, if you can do a better job of reducing the chances of this being on again, off again, I think you're doing right as an organization and by player.

I think that's the much better way to go. For any time that Josh Young were to miss, I think that'd be good news for Ezekiel Duran, who just needs places to play as sort of the extra guy in that Rangers lineup. It's a little fair to ask how much to ding him for this injury. He had a stress fracture in his foot going into 2021, and he tore a labrum in his non-throwing shoulder in 2022.

So this is probably one of the lesser injuries on that list, but it's kind of three for three on coming to camp and hurting himself. So I don't know if it's an off season thing or, uh, if it's just an injury thing for him. Um, I don't know. I don't, I'm not going to pretend I know, you know, it's just, it seems like it, some guys get past this, I think, and figure out, they do some yoga, you know, they figure out they, they add some part to their,

their workout routine that helps them avoid these injuries and some people are just injury ridden their whole careers yeah i'm kind of curious to see what kind of dip there is if there is one at all in drafts uh looking at just the three-day adp from the nfbc pick 172 was the latest that josh young went over the weekend that's about 50 spots off his ADP. That discount seems like it's worth taking if you're doing okay on the injury front as you move into that kind of round 10, round 11 range. Because when he is healthy, I don't see him giving up a lot of playing time. And we've talked about the characteristics in his profile that give him a path to be an early round bat. That is within the range of outcomes.

He has a very very high ceiling so we'll keep an eye on this one because we don't want it to be the thing that puts him on the il more than once during the season xander bogarts we wondered during the padre's preview is he going to stay at shortstop he's not he's going to move to second base they're going to play hassan kim at short good news for xander's multi-position eligibility he'll pick up second base probably within the first week or so of the season. I think this also gives them an easier

path down the road, assuming that Kim gets traded at some point or once his contract eventually runs out. It's easier to plug Jackson Merrill in at shortstop if you just have someone else who's traded or leaves as opposed to taking the guy that hasn't played in the big leagues yet. Theart is like hey man moving the big contract yeah it's just you're

doing this now so it doesn't really it doesn't really matter for our purposes but i think this is this was kind of a long time coming like you could kind of see something was going to change second base is fine i think i'm a little higher on zander than you are at this point because i think some of the lost power in recent years has been the result of nagging wrist injuries. Fair to wonder if those injuries will actually go away, but this is a guy they've got signed for a long, long time, so I think they need to lean pretty heavily on him.

Yeah, Bogarts, by certain defensive metrics, has looked all right, of metrics has looked alright but by outs above average he's been a negative for most of his career. Negative 22 run value for his career. Something that's been better recently

maybe because of positioning or change in his offseason work or whatever it is. It is not because he's gotten any more athletic or is running any faster. He is getting very close to being league average with the speed. And so last year was the first year he was a negative as a runner in terms of the production he put on the field.

So I think this is you know I'm reading between the lines the hardest thing is really defensive metrics are hard to read like we talked about this with the Reds thing and they're like there's some you know there's there's actually a couple that say Elliot Cruz is like an elite shortstop defensively that's what average is closer to that and those that say he's like one of the worst five so that's really hard when you're like it's you don't like look at ops and wrc plus you know you never look at ops plus and wrc plus and one of them says the guy is like a top five hitter in the league and the other one says he's a bottom five hitter you know like you just like that that alone makes you be like how could this be so like different what the hell's going on so i'm just like looking at a guy whose speed is declining uh who wasn't

ever thought of as like a top top shelf defensive shortstop and i'm just sort of telling the story that ends up with him at tech base you know know, this was going to happen. You're right. And then the question of when. I think the real question is, does Bogarts respect Kim enough, at least defensively, that this doesn't affect his psyche at all? But I will say that, you know, last year was probably a very difficult year

for Xander Bogarts, psyche-wise, in terms of, like, coming to this new team. You're, you're, you're not like you're, you are highly paid, but there's like three other guys who are higher paid than you. Like you're like,

you used to be a leader on the Red Sox and you come to this new team and you have to kind of take second or third or fourth chair. And then the team just sucks. And you know, that clubhouse was just awful in terms of vibes i mean that was that was probably one of the two or three worst clubhouses i've been in vibe wise and uh so bogarts comes out of that with a okay season like to come out of that 20 bed and league average the stick still, still have four wins, and be a productive player, I think speaks well to his ability to just work. Not be super obsessed about he's not a shortstop anymore.

We have so many players we're going to talk about today who are actually mostly on the positive end of injury news, but they've been dealing with stuff for years in many cases. And Bogarts has been remarkably durable, right? If you are a risk-averse player, in terms of the injury risk you want to put on your roster, Xander Bogarts is probably highlighted as someone you'd love because he's out there a lot. I mean, the wrist injuries, he's played through them. And even in an air quotes down year, his first year in San Diego,

he was a homer and a steal away from a 2020 season. Yeah, exactly. Took advantage of the new rules, picked his spots effectively, still gets on base a lot, doesn't strike out much, does a lot of things really well. Goes just outside the top 100 overall. A little oatmeal-y, but a nice player overall, I think, at the price. Really does a lot of things well, and that extra versatility will add a buck or two to its value, I think, in the long run.

We got a signing here that we need to talk about. Whit Merrifield signed with the Phillies. I get the sense this is probably some short-term cover for the Brandon Marsh knee surgery that we talked about last week. He probably put him in left field until Marsh is ready. talked about last week. He probably put him in left field until Marsh is ready. When everyone's healthy, where do you think Merrifield's playing time comes from

most days? Against lefties? He'll play against all lefties. Maybe straight up for Marsh, even when Marsh is healthy. But will he take time from anybody against righties at this stage of his career, given that it's a one-year $8 million deal? Could you play a

more defense-friendly outfield by playing him over Castellanos? Give up Castellanos' bat for that? Or just, because one of Schwarber... Maybe Schwarber sits against some lefties Castellanos goes to DH but that's still just the lefties playing time it seems that they'd take it away from Marsh before Schwarber yeah so I guess if Marsh just comes back and he loses the gains that he made in strikeout rate um you know there's been times when he's been uh before he came to philadelphia he was 10 worse than league average of the bat or worse so like if he goes back down to like an 80

wrc plus and it's mostly about defense then he'll start losing some abs yeah and merrifield himself is projected for less playing time than he typically gets by all the projection systems right now so through fan graphs depth charts and considering his age too we're talking about guys 35 years old now but his projection is for 10 to 20 percent worse than the average of the stick so like right i'm not sure i would take that away from marsh especially since marsh offers the more upside in terms of figuring out his power you You have him under team control for longer, right? I'm not that in on this.

I think he may get 350 plate appearances this year. I don't even think when you look at the splits too, you're like, oh, Merrifield must still hit lefties pretty well, right? Nope. WRC plus numbers of 90, 96, and 87 the last three years. It's fine. It's not bad, but it's not someone that you're trying to force in. So I don't know.

Maybe just a slightly more expensive insurance policy than some of the other options they could have put on the roster. A player I've been wrong about about six years running. So don't listen to anything I say about Whit Merrifield because it's probably not worth anything at this point. I just can't figure it out. The number on the contract does give you some clue as to what is expected out of him.

Jorge Soler gets 3-12. Right? 3-48, I think? 3-45? It was a lot more. He gets 15 or 16 a year. 3-42. He doesn't get quite twice as much It was a lot more. Yes. 15 or 16 a year. Yeah. Three for 42. Yeah.

Okay. So he doesn't, he doesn't get quite twice as much, but he gets more because he's expected to play more. I mean, I just not, I don't think that one year and 8 million says he's taking the job from somebody.

It says 400 to 450 plate appearances, unless there are multiple injuries. In that case, they can plug someone in. They like better than their alternatives. That's pretty much it for me. Waver wire pickup later in the season if somebody's hurt. Yep, that's the right way to look at Whitmerryfield in most mixed leagues at this point.

On to the big injury stuff, right? Carlos Rodon, the velocity is back up this spring. Saw a story from Chris Kirshner of The Athletic. And this is pretty interesting because I think when we talk about spring velo, it's always important to look at previous spring velo and not think about in-season numbers. So here's something that was in Chris's piece. At this time last year, Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake said Rodon's velocity in his bullpen sessions was around 85 to 88. Live BPs were 88 to 91, with his fastball touching 92.

This year, his VLO was up to 88 to 90 in the bullpen, and his live batting practices have been 94 to 95, with his fastball touching 97 earlier in the week last week. So this all seems great. I think it's just the age-old question that we ask ourselves with pitchers who've dealt with a lot of injuries. What is the trust level? This is the right way to think about it just in terms of what he's doing now versus what he was doing last year. How do you apply this sort of information to your overall profile and expectations for carlos rodan just kudos to

uh kristner for for putting all that information there you know and just not like you know like losing it over hitting 97 because rodona's hit 97 a lot even last year while he's hurt he was hitting hitting 97 regularly. So, you know, just that bit alone, it does not make me as excited as sort of understanding that he's ahead of where he is normally in the progression. And that's got to be seen as a good sign. He went in the draft yesterday in the eighth round after Justin Steele and Joe Musgrove and ahead of Tanner Bybee and Sonny Gray.

I would take him over Bybee, I think. I think I'd take him over Gray because Gray has injury concerns of his own. He hasn't been a huge innings guy. And if they're both healthy, Radon's going to be better, right? But I do think I'd still take Musgrove over him. Him versus Steele is interesting because I'm not sure if Steele is going to repeat his excellent season he had last year. He definitely has more innings than Rodon, probably.

I find those types of would-you-rathers, those either-ors to be some of the most difficult ones because you're just thinking about very different things. You're thinking about, I see pitching in a couple of buckets. I see Justin Steele. I know he's left-handed. I see him more like a Chris Bassett type where I'm like, okay, it's bulk first. Skills, we're starting to see some improvements. And Steele doesn't do it with a really deep pitch mix.

I've always wondered, okay, when does the other shoe drop? When does this sort of correct itself? There could be more going on there. Always can be. My approach tends to be more to take Rodan or take a pitcher like Rodan instead of Justin Steele. And then Steele turns out a. 325 ERA for 170 innings, and I look like an idiot, and I accept that. But I think the problem I have with this kind of thing is

you always have to gamble on pitcher health early in draft season before it becomes tricky price-wise. Yeah, there might be a point in the spring where it becomes super obvious to everyone that this person is hurt and they're and they're priced tanks early in this early in the spring it's more of a like is he hell here is he not and people sort of deflect towards so he's definitely not held you saw him last year until you know he goes out in the game and throws three innings and sits 95 and strikes everybody out.

Then you're screwed. Then it's already, then the price is up in the next draft. Do you think it's fair to just look at like a three year total workload snapshot and use that as a broad gauge of risk? I mean, Carlos Rodon's thrown 375 regular season innings the last three seasons.

125 a year. That's the same basically as Jesus Lizardo. How about Sonny Gray? How many do you think Gray has? Like a little bit more, like 140 a season or something. 439. And he had 375 from Rodon. Yeah, so Gray and Blake Snell are very close together yeah a lot of

yeah like shane bieber's kind of in that range the low 400 range i think that's not bad i mean in our health grades what we have is last three years days on the il and then career days on the il so those those are the il data points that are in the health grades. It's a very similar approach to what you're doing. Because I just think you can step out of it. One of the more prominent examples I always think about is Zach Wheeler. When Zach Wheeler was a Met, he was constantly in this, can he stay healthy? Are we ever going to see full seasons from him? Those questions were completely fair to ask at the time. They're fair to ask of guys like Rodan and

Glasnow and all the frequently injured pitchers we talk about. It's just, it's not linear. Zach Wheeler didn't pitch in a game for the Mets in 2015 or 2016. He came back in 17, wasn't good for 86 in the third innings. Then he turned in two healthy seasons. And when he got the contract from the Phillies that Brody Van Aken, the GM for the, did I say his name right? Brody Van Wagenen? It's Wagenen.

Yeah. That he said like, oh, he turned like 20 good starts with the Mets into, you know, 200 million or whatever. When they signed him. So this is an interesting idea of like, here's a team assessing risk. When they signed him, he was coming off of 450 innings. Yeah, 450 in about three years, right? So that seems to me like maybe that's a good benchmark where so so we're down is below it but you know how far below it is you know you know 370 to 450 but like anybody who's at 440 450

i think you almost want to be like that's almost average health in today's league you know what i mean i mean another way of looking at it is just saying you know okay let me just put no innings uh limit on here and uh look at all starters and look at who's led the league in innings since 2021 and uh that's sandy alcantara who's like was healthy until he was hurt. Garrett Cole, 591. So that's the good. I have too many results here, but I guess 450 makes you, wow. Wow. How many people do you think have had 450 innings in the last three years? 45.

Do you do this for a living? 38. I did just have a leaderboard up also, but yes. Looking at it. Both A and B. Okay. I mean, average health is Mitch Keller. Marcus Stroman has average health, according to the way we're looking at it right now.

Kind of makes sense, right? I guess so. I think of him as someone that doesn't do the workhorse anymore. Mitch Keller, Marcus Stroman has average health, according to the way we're looking at it right now. Kind of makes sense, right? I guess so. I think of him as someone that doesn't do the workhorse anymore. See, I think Joe Musgrove is over-dinged for his health last year. He has 459 innings over his last three years. He's 32nd. Can we bring Tarek Skubal to the floor and ask kind of the opposite question? Are people just not thinking clearly about how much time he's missed?

Because he's thrown fewer innings the last three seasons than Rodon has, and he goes inside the top 50 overall. Yeah, and Pablo Lopez, who had some injury issues early in his career, 476, 29th most innings in the last three years. Right. He's shaking it, at least for now. Yeah. right he's shaking it at least for now yeah gallon had earlier career injuries that were popping up 515 trevor's had something amazing off air um that i didn't know is that kyle gibson had

rotator cuff problems and didn't get the surgery the late i it was labrum, he said. Yeah. He said he had labrum problems and didn't get the surgery. Kyle Gibson's ninth in innings. 541. Is that the story we're going to tell when Kyle Bradish throws 150 innings this year? I mean, I hope so. I'm always rooting for the best possible volume outcome for everybody. Who isn't? You're a jerk if you're not.

But I think we have a very difficult time understanding pitching injury risk, partially because we don't have all the information, partially because we wouldn't even understand all the information if we had it. And then I think we're also biased by being burned by various pitchers in the past. Yeah, there's definitely that. Oh, well, I had that guy last year. I'm not buying him this year. There's no way I'm taking Carlos Rodon in drafts this year. There's some people that have a philosophy that say, oh, I'm not taking a guy like Rodon or Scooble. I'm not taking Tarek Scooble in the top 50, but I'll take a shot on Carlos Rodon 60, 70, 80 picks later. I understand that. That's a rational way to think about it. But I think you're eliminating the possibility in the case of Skubal, potentially, or more specifically, Tyler Glass now, I think you are writing off the possibility of having the SP1 for the upcoming season if you dismiss anybody who has a bad injury history.

I think you can overlook some opportunities. I think that's what's happening with Glass now. Nick Pollock's point over at the Craft was that of the top 30 pitchers last year, I forget what it was it was like 16 uh made 25 starts 16 of the top 30 by adp made 25 yeah yeah yikes yeah not not a great success rate so we're seeing rodan creep up a little bit adp right now in that 140 range i'm fine with that it's again i'm gonna come back to how much injury risk I already have, but I think this makes sense

right now because the payoff can be huge. He was not available really to me with the fourth pick because he went way on the other side of the draft. I would have had to jump him. I took Cease a bunch of picks after him.

And honestly. I'm still happy with that. I'd rather have Cease than Rodon still. I don't know. I'm going to go check my ranks real quick. To see if that's on my ranks. But I'd rather have Cease than Rodon. Because they both have really great upside.

So in that case. But Steele versus Rodon is actually harder for me because it's like yeah i think rodon's gonna have a much better season if he's all the way healthy your headspace is just totally different choosing between steel and rodon i think you know it's easier because it's like okay well at least they're both going to strike out a ton of people you know and they've had the upside a ton of people. And they have the upside of Cy Young. I guess Steele has the upside of Cy Young because he was in it for last year. But I just think that was going to be his best season ever.

And he didn't win the Cy Young. You know what I mean? Completely rational take. And doesn't mean he's bad. It just means he won't be quite that good ever again. Oh, this is a good cry on. This is beautiful. Byron Buxton.

The knee pain is gone this spring. I'm surprised the knee isn't gone. Kind of believe him, though. I don't know. I think it's... This is another case, though, where, okay, Byron Buxton, let's say he's healthy now, and you like Byron Buxton, okay.

Oh, my God, yeah. These are normal things. He's UT only right now, just for what it's worth, in a lot of leagues. He doesn't have outfield eligibility because he DH'd last year. He's going to play center field. He's going to play center field a lot this spring. If there's a problem, they'll move him back to DH. If there's not, he'll continue to play center field again this year, which is wonderful.

So here's the thing with Buxton. You don't go back to some time in his career three or four years ago and find full workloads. You do that. With Carlos Rodon, you've seen that, right? So I know we're talking hitter, pitcher, but you have other stuff beyond the knee that's been a problem for Byron Buxton. So while I am very happy for him that he feels good and I want to see him play center field, you could almost say, very happy for him that he feels good and I want to see him play center field. You could almost say,

okay, I'll draft Buxton if he's still available where he's been going, but I'm not going to jump on board if he jumps up 75 picks and ADP because these reports are positive and he's back out there in center field. The most he's ever done ever is 511. And the second most he's ever done is 382. So really I'd put, I know know and you even look at projections they're going to be screaming at you to take him you know if you put projections in there because a lot of them have five like steamer has 560 plate appearances in there like they're gonna he's gonna be the value on your board for like five rounds i don't think you can project someone to have a

career high in plate appearances at 30 years old after never having done that yeah that one's tough for me the bat at 440 that would be the second most but at least second most um so i can get with that but uh again we have a use case from this last draft byron buxton went in the 16th um i took zach netto right before him and i took leoti taveras right after him and you know some of it was to some extent it's a little bit of a need because i was looking for some steals. Tavares is probably going to steal more bases than Buxton. But this is very much the Justin Steele versus Carlos Rodon being reversed, right? Leota Tavares is not going to win the MVP.

Byron Buxton could win the MVP if he had 600 plate appearances. If he has 600 plate appearances and plays two-thirds or more of his games in center field, he could actually win the MVP if he had 600 plate appearances. If he has 600 plate appearances and plays like two-thirds or more of his games in center field. He could actually win the MVP. It's not impossible. Leone Tavares would have to be a completely different player. He'd have to somehow find 30 homer pop. I don't know. It's not happening.

How are you rectifying the K rate being back up for Buxton? Between 2019 and 2021, he kept it in the low to mid 20s. It's been 30% and above each of the last two seasons, still putting up huge barrel rate numbers, like double digits every year for four years now. It's the Twins' philosophy. They're very much a barrel, pulled fly ball team. They've always been at the leaderboards for that that is an internal ethos that they have got and the downfall can be

that when you are trying to pull the ball 58 of the time like this is christopher morel territory uh 53 58 like he is just trying to whack that thing um and that's going to lead to some strikeouts so because you're you're pulling the trigger earlier trying to get the ball out in front that's how i explain it he did have uh one year where or two years where he was not striking out as much and pulling the ball and pulling the ball in the air a lot but if you want to add up all the plate appearances he put up in those two years, it's 380. I kind of think he was

whiffing. If you'd given him a full season in 20 and 21, you would have gotten more whiffs. It's just a fun profile because you can look at it and say he was 9 for 9 as a base stealer and his knees felt like crap last year. If his knees feel good with these rules, he could go back to stealing 25 bags, even in a partial season.

He's getting to power in partial seasons. There are so many ways this can play out. I just think it's more like, okay. I tend to think they're not going to let him loose, even if he feels good. I think they're still going to have preventative maintenance. Even in a world where everything feels good and he avoids the IL, he's not going way over those optimistic career high plate appearance projections. That's like a ceiling projection based on them trying to keep him healthy. That's part of the equation for the twins too. All this is to say he's cheap enough right now in drafts.

No problem with it. No problem whatsoever. Because if it's not working out, you cut him. If he's cheap enough right now in drafts. No problem with it. No problem whatsoever. Because if it's not working out, you cut him. If he's hurt, you could even cut him. You don't have to stash him on the IL. So nice to hear he is healthy. There's a big story from Dan Hayes in The Athletic. If you want to read a little more about Byron Buxton.

This is a tough one here. Nick Lodolo on track for opening day. Had some interesting quotes. One saying that his arm is sort of ahead of his leg. Just terms of where he's at his progression everything's good i just think it's like what does that really mean he's still talking about it i i was under the impression that he was closer to like completely healthy but it sounds like there's still something that he's unsure of with his leg yeah what i don't like is that he kind of had like a stress fracture or a stress reaction and they stepped off of it and they gave him like two

months off and he came back and like in his first rehab game back he had the same problems so to then be come back this spring and be talking about it again i don't like that um what i you know why i'm still somewhat optimistic is because it's his left leg and um i have this illustration here this is a skeleton throwing a ball and it happens to be a left-hander so that's kind of cool um and what you see is you know on the right or some of his uh some of the ground forces and and and rotational velocities and stuff but watch the the front leg and watch what that knee does so what happens is um you land with your knee um bent right you land with your knee bent because you have to you're like you're kind of that front leg is getting out there and then um your your leg straightens and that's called blocking and

apparently that angle that straightening of that front knee is super highly correlated to velo like that is a really important thing that happens there on the blocking leg and from what i've seen in terms of research the drive leg the back leg is not as well related to velo and i'm not i'm not trying to make everything about velo but i'm just saying like you know for him to be healthy i think the front leg is is uh slightly more important um especially with the knee doing that very sort of specific movement it has to make that i think looks would would be very painful for somebody who had a front knee problem. His is on the drive leg, so I think he just needs to get it ironed out. So again, I'm waffling because it is a problem that he's still talking about.

I don't like that. I may actually ding him a little bit in the ranks because we want to hear everything's fine. I'm taking a wait and see approach. This is more of me just being on alert. So, okay, it's not quite what I thought it was before. But if he's on the same schedules of their starters, all indications are that he's not behind or anything. If he's going through taking the ball every fifth day once the Grapefruit League schedule up or the cactus league schedule they play in arizona i'm on board yeah this could be part of

the like you know rolling out of bed situation we have right now where everyone's telling us everything that hurts about them or or uh in the case of anthony rendon telling us that uh uh this is just a job uh my children can come before it and uh you know it's just uh it's just a thing i do and you know i i have some sympathy for the things that anthony rodone said you should see the sam blum tweet if you want to get the actual wording correct um but some people are obviously very angry with him. I'll just leave then, you know, why? And I, and I understand that because this is a sport we love and, uh, you know, many of us have wanted to have dreamt of being, uh, you know, a professional player, but I will have to say having, you know, worked really hard to get a dream job of mine.

Um, there was a sort of moment of realization um especially during 2020 where i was like you know no matter what how much you love your job like there is a place for your job in your personal pantheon of your life like like i had my own sort of my family is more important than my job realization during 2020, partially because I thought I was stressing out about like, Oh, I'm like, is there going to be my job? Is my job going to exist? Like, is there going to be like, what would like our, you know, that's something that any sports writer has to think about because our industry sucks for that. But you know,

so I've had thoughts like he's had, and I know that people have wanted jobs like I have. So I have some sympathy for him. But one thing that we've noticed when we do the 3.0 show or we talk here is people don't tend to care about the things that make your job not exciting if they want your job. So we haven't done too much of like, hope we haven't maybe we have but i we haven't done too much complaining about like lack of access here or that player doesn't like to give interviews sometimes it'll slip out because my job is a job like any other job i will complain about it sometimes you know but uh you just have to be careful about complaining about your job in a room full of athletes to a writer who makes

so much less than you. I think he's so, so much less than you and would love to be in your position probably. It's just one of those things where you just have to be careful what you say sometimes. I don't disagree with everything he said. It's just not the right time, not the right place, not the right medium. He just has no feel for... I mean, he's being honest, but at the same time, it's like, dude, we get it. You don't love this game the way other people do, and that's okay.

You don't have to. No one expects that. If you just come back and play 140 games and are the amazing player you were when the Angels signed you, people are going to forget you said this stuff. But until you do that, this is what people are going to start remembering you for because every time there's a microphone in front of you, you say something that bothers people. Just figure it out. I know media is not his favorite thing, but figure it out because it's actually not that hard to understand how to manage this situation. It is funny because I would tell players that media interactions is more important than some players will have you believe. This is something that can lead to more opportunity down the line. It can lead to a job the line. It can lead to a job in announcing, it can lead to a job in coaching. It can lead to, you know, whatever

you want. If you, if you, if you treat media as a possible asset to you, instead of something that you're, that you're, you know, in conflict with all the time, like just think about it as a potential asset. But if you are someone who's made a ton of money and does not want to be a coach or does not want to be an announcer on some level, like maybe he's just, maybe his plan is at this point, maybe I can be just so much of a dick that at some point they just pay me to go away. And that's a, that's a sinister plot. That's what he's going for. I don't think that's what he's doing either. I think he's just being honest and he just needs a friend to be like, hey, man, just like don't even say anything right now.

Yeah. Just go to work. Just go to work without complaining. Go into that conversation saying to your head, I'm going to talk like just try to think about the positives of your job and think about like, I'm feeling good this year. My knee feels good. Like I'm ready to go. All I'm trying to do is get out there and play you know that's good you could even spin it along the lines you're talking about i wanted

to go out there and do my job well you're still talking about it as a job yeah i don't think people have a problem with that yeah but saying it's not a priority because your family's more of a priority you're just like oh you could say these last three seasons have been very tough i'm glad i have an amazing family and that there's other ways to like emphasize how good the family is and that you're trying to do a job and like it's just this one is just uh not the best way all right i'm done giving him free advice he doesn't care anyway so it doesn't doesn't matter doesn't care what i think so okay so shane boz was in my yolo draft i've got him with seth lugo where i was like if i could put if i could smush these guys together i'd have a cy young uh candidate this year uh and i did them in the uh let's see here

where did i get them um 18th and 19th so i don't think i overpaid but you know those are two guys that i was really excited about uh and then i guess i missed this news yeah this one came out just before the weekend shane boz expected to begin the season in extended spring training and there was a story from christy ackert of the tampa bay times that points to boz returned to the rays this summer now that's a that's a broad timetable is that the official start of summer is that just like when it feels like summer which is kind of like memorial day or sometime around then we don't know um but the big thing here is you have to look back at shane boz's past workloads and kind of step inside the Rays front office or imagine you're in the front office and you're trying to decide how much he can throw this year without putting him in long term danger because he's an important part of your future and maybe even care about human beings and not breaking them at their jobs. and not breaking them at their jobs.

So Boz threw 81 in the third innings back in 2019 in A ball. He threw 92 total innings in 2021 and then had 40 innings in 2022 when he got hurt. And he had surgery long enough ago, back in September of 2022, where he had a normal offseason by every account. He was able to throw, do all the things he wanted to do. So this is just thinking about building him up more carefully. I get the sense that this is closer to what the Marlins had to do last year with Uri Perez. And they gave Uri more of a bump than most people expected. So when you kind of look at the previous high watermarks for Boz and start to project off of that,

you might come to a number of like 120 innings. They have not given a specific timetable or number of innings, they, the Rays in this case. So we're left to project and guess. If you said he's back June 1st in the rotation, five or six starts a month, probably let's say five a month. They can stretch things out, use off days, 20 starts, five innings per start. That's a hundred regular season innings. They project as a possible playoff team. They would want Boz for the playoffs, 15, 20 more innings there. That gets you to 120. So that's one way they could do it,

but there's a million other variations here. It leads us to this, this okay how are we managing him from a fantasy perspective then if you don't have him possibly for two months maybe it's only six weeks maybe it's only one month any of those things are still possible and knowing that they're going to be careful with the innings in what formats are you comfortable like do you do you see this news now and you're like well crap that had i known what i know now i wouldn't have necessarily drafted him where i did over the weekend yeah i mean i'm still actually somewhat comfortable with where i've got him because um you know of the guys that um that i'm going to be watching on my bench uh he's the guy i'm going to try and hold on to the longest but tyler black

doesn't get a job out of spring uh i'm sorry, he's a cut. I'm not holding on to that waiting for him to come back up. And I think that's true for Pete Crow Armstrong and some of the other guys. I don't want to get into trouble where I'm nursing too many guys on my bench that have uncertain timelines. So I don't like that. But I do think that I will hold onto Boz for as long as I can because I think his upside is that great.

I think he's super exciting. I put him down for 116 innings in my rankings and still put him in my top 60. So maybe I'm going to ding him a little bit and he's going to be more like 60 to 70, but why ding him if I still think he can get to 116 innings this way? Todd Bradley got 104 last year, and he struggled a lot more than I think Shane Boz is going to struggle when he's pitching.

Part of the reason Todd Bradley got 104 is because he got sent back down because he was struggling and needed to figure some stuff out. So I kind of see him as a hundred inning pitcher 110 whatever it is um however you can manage that if you can manage that and that has value in your league like i still think he has value in the league the thing that is difficult about the way they're talking about this is that he may not he may not open the the season on the il or he will that might be a really big distinction for certain leagues. Yeah.

You know, in this league, actually, I don't care because I don't have an IL in this league. So this week, I'm just, this news is actually not that important to me. It's like, I know that I was going to have to nurse this guy long and try to get him to, you know, to back to play. And he's going to be on my bench. It's a little bit harder if you have a short bench and you have a bunch of IL slots and you're like,

well, I'm going to stash him on my IL. Well, I hope they put him on the IL. Because if they just do this expended string, he has options and stuff. They can just do whatever they want. It doesn't have to be the IL. That's right. That's the tricky thing. Yeah, he does have options left.

And a lot of times, the most annoying thing about the IL in spring is a lot of times they do the IL the last possible day. So you're trying to field a full roster and it's like, you know, March 28th and you're like, can you just put him on the IL please? I don't know. There are plenty of leagues where I'm annoyed by that. Put him on the IL, please. I don't know. There are plenty of leagues where I'm annoyed by that. So, yeah, I can understand. There's plenty of leagues where people say he's not draftable for me. I get it. Right.

And those leagues are leagues that don't have IL or NA designations and have shallow benches. I think that's a very difficult ask at this point. But I think in leagues where you have the ability to stash him, by some means, he's worth stashing because the quality of the innings should be really good. He was the Bobby Miller before Bobby Miller for me. This guy has a lot of good pitches, like a lot of elite pitches. He's really, really good.

We've got a lot of news to still get to. I'm going to try and fly through some of these. Yeah, we talked too much. This is a good one for you. Stling Marte, fully healthy in camp. He's one of my favorite picks. Him and Cedric Mullins, late steals. Love it. Healthy for now.

That's the key. Given his age and some of the stuff he's dealt with recently, but at cost. I honestly like Mullins more than Marte, but I have both on some leagues. No. Pretty nice late outfielder, I think, even though he's old. He's still Starling Marte. Why is Riley Green slightly delayed for spring games? I had sort of forgotten about it.

He had Tommy John surgery on his non-throwing elbow at the end of last season, so just a little behind. It doesn't sound like he's in danger of missing time when the games begin to count, but I don't think we mentioned that during the outfield preview. Riley Green is definitely a player I like, and he's swinging the bat at full speed right now, so I think that bodes really, really well

with over a month to go before we get to opening day. I don't think we have a lot of cons for that one. It's not even like the Bryce Harper situation, right? That was his throwing arm, so kind of a different rehab and all that working back. So I don't think this is really anything I'm downgrading him for, but it was something I thought was worth pointing out. There was a big notebook that dropped in the Miami Herald and it had a ton of good stuff. Jordan McPherson did a great job with this.

AJ Puck continues to stretch out as a starter for the Marlins. We had a mailbag question from Eric about this. What do you think will happen if they continue going forward with this? How do you see it working out for puck given, you know, the stuff that he has? Cause the question's about health. If he's healthy. Okay,

great. That's like step one. But step two is how good is he actually going to be in a starter's role if he's healthy? Yeah, I don't know because right now his best pitches and they all rank very well are the four-seam fastball the sinker and the sweeper so nice that he has two different distinct fastballs that both rate well um and that's always been his best pitch has been his

fastball the sweeper was really good but as a lefty he's gonna really need something that's a little bit more like reverse it has but good platoon splits in terms of something you can get left righties out with and the changeup is not rated super well by by stuff plus and it's a small sample but you know I don't think the changeup has ever been a plus-plus pitch for me personally so is he going to have a cutter or a curve or is he improving the change i'd like to know about that pitch that goes in that slot before i say that because otherwise i mean two fastballs a sweeper and the velo i'd be pretty excited about him as a starting pitcher if I just knew what he was going to do

other than the sweeper. So we have to watch some games, may have to see if we can get some early data on his third or fourth pitch. Yeah. Is this any more absurd than the Giants trying to use Jordan Hicks as a starter? I mean, Pucks got past experience doing it, got to 125 innings back in 2017. That clearly has good stuff. And I don't know, I think it's been kind of dismissed because of injuries. But a couple of healthy seasons in the pen, at least one pretty healthy season in the bullpen, is a step in the right direction. And in some ways, it's less of a stretch because Puck has better command. Right. it's less of a stretch because Puck has better command. That's in

his corner that Hicks has to demonstrate some command of his slider or his fastball or else he's going to be back in the pen, I think. Patrick Bailey's an elite, elite framer though, right? Yeah. I don't know.

I don't know if you can completely frame your way out of that command trouble yeah this is a big sort of like shrug like i'm sort of in like you know depending on the price and like how much of a bench you have and how much of stash you can do um like final final pitcher even in like a 10 or 12 team league puck or hicks like sure why not you know yeah because that's a revolving door spot if it doesn't work and the payoff for both could potentially be enough to keep them on the roster so totally makes sense to take that chance they may be guys that uh more of their innings are you know skewed toward the beginning of the season especially for hicks is you know more of his innings are going to be skewed toward the beginning of the season, especially for Hicks.

More of his innings are going to be skewed towards the beginning of the season when they don't have Robbie Ray and they don't have Alex Cobb. And so if he's going to get more of his innings early in the season when it's cold and they're playing in San Francisco, you could just get those innings early and then figure out your staff later.

Maybe you'll have Shane Boz in your back pocket that you can turn to a little bit later on. That'd be kind of a fun way to get to 180 innings. We got SP1 quality from those two guys. That's amazing. It's cool if you can pull that kind of stuff off. Other stuff we don't have to dig deep into, they're being careful with Max Meyer in Marlins camp.

That totally makes sense. He's working him back from Tommy John surgery. He's actually working out a change-up too, which is kind of cool. Braxton Garrett has some general soreness he was dealing with late last week, so just something to keep an eye on to see if that subsides here in the next week or so. They did have their pitching

coach, Mel Stottlemyre Jr., say there may be some times where they go to a six-man rotation, which without Sandy especially makes a lot of sense given the injuries and the youth in this group of starters so that wouldn't be all that surprising it's an easier way to manage all their innings at the same time kind of right yeah like Trevor Rogers coming back and if AJ Puck is in there like it's not like you have a lot of a lot of high innings guys yeah you don't want to go to

160 170 with a bunch of these guys you can't really with some of them new pitches were also featured in this notebook Ryan Weathers working on a two-seamer, Andrew Nardi working on a splitter, and Jesus Lizardo working on a curveball. Weathers' two-seamer would be interesting. As a lefty, though, it's not going to be the way he becomes a starter. But Weathers as a reliever with a high-velo sinker,

I mean, his shape was never good on the foreseam so just trying a different fastball makes sense to me i think with puck being a starter maybe there's a better opportunity for some high leverage innings in the bullpen for a guy like weathers so wouldn't rule out the possibility of him finding a more prominent role this year but definitely a good notebook there if you want to check that out from Jordan McPherson. The Rangers are not naming a closer yet. Oh, shut your face. Did you get LeClerc this weekend? I didn't this weekend, but I have at least one share of LeClerc somewhere.

Shut your face. You got one. That's not that bad. It just seems like it's an open competition based on the comments Bruce Bochy made. Who did he mention? Zavors? David Robertson. Robertson.

Did he mention any names? I don't think he mentioned any names. I think it was just that they're not naming a closer yet. Wow. I mean, he does probably remember how good Zavors was in the postseason. Might remember a few homers from LeClerc in the postseason too and say, hey, let's look at this and make sure we're making the right choice. The thing he did say is they do want to identify

a closer this spring. I like that. I like the sound of that. Yeah. I think in terms of stuff, it's still pretty clear that it would be Leclerc. It is bad. It is bad command though. I mean i i will give you that and you know that was a problem with naris we are like there are so many times that i wanted naris

to be the closer and he and he wasn't um so i got 107 stuff for the clerk 90 and a half location oh actually stuff says it should be sub wars. I think the models always liked some boards, the best out of their, their options. The last like year and a half, two years or so. Yeah.

Let me see. The updated model sub wars. Stop it. Uh, sub board. Oh my God. I will kill you. Excel.

I have like two things highlighted and it keeps looking at those two no i know it's not there sabores 119 stuff plus 97 location plus so even worse command than uh leclerc robertson has that old man stuff 117 stuff plus 98 and a half location. I mean, they're all flawed. They all have their own flaws. Kirby Yates, 96 stuff plus, 94 location plus. So I'm not putting Yates in there, man.

I'm not putting Yates in there. I don't think that's a closer. And I do think it's going to be do you think Robertson at 38? I think it's Robertson if it's not LeClerc.

Yeah? Yeah. He's done it before. I think that's Robertson if it's not Leclerc. Yeah? Yeah. He's done it before. I think that that's a tiebreaker sometimes. It just gets those guys those early opportunities. You get some momentum. No matter what the model says, Zaborza had some high ERAs. Zaborza

is more the kind that over the course of a season could take the job, right? Mm-hmm. I think he'd be more of your over the course of the season maybe leclerc isn't healthy robertson's not as effective as they want him to be yeah they got to make a change that that seems more like his path i'm still taking the clerk i think you might get a discount given the uncertainty so hey you never know sometimes these things work in our favor. Brandon Woodruff and Liam Hendricks got contracts, two-year deals.

Woodruff goes back to the Brewers. Liam Hendricks goes to the Red Sox. Yeah, I don't think either one of those guys is expected to pitch this year. It's even less likely that Woodruff would pitch this year given it's a shoulder. I mean, Hendricks had Tommy John last August. So, it'd be pushing it to get him back before the end of the season. But those are more for keeper and dynasty considerations. Here's one that'll make you happy.

We need some good stuff here at the end. The Bryce Miller splitter appears to be very much in his plans. I know we were excited about that when we saw the video come out maybe a month or so ago of him working on a splitter this offseason. He was talking about it recently, and he's going to throw it to righties and lefties by all accounts. He also is reworking the sweeper so that the release point isn't so obvious. So he's trying to find a way to throw the sweeper from a similar release point. Maybe that becomes a pitch that comes online for him. Last year was basically just a freeze take pitch.

I like all these things i like bryce miller the red sox and royals made a trade john schreiber went to the royals um and who came back dana evelyn or something what was his name? David Sandlin. He went way back. Dana Evelyn. Oh, my goodness. Former Brewers prospect. David Sandlin, I have a feeling, would look really good in my Stuff Plus model.

And he was an A ball. Oh, where is that? There were some whispers that they did a good job in that trade. He throws a sweeper. He has really interesting movement on his pitches. I kind of think this is kind of a stuff plus pitch. A stuff

plus move from them. Schreiber makes the Royals' bullpen better, but Sandlin might actually be an interesting starter once he gets up to the big leagues. Could take a little while, but end of the season actually isn't out of the question if the stuff is that good.

It's more of a late 2024, 2025 sort of play. Keeper in dynasty is where you're thinking here with Sandlin. Yeah, the Sandlin. I was just trying to find it. Come on. Sorry. This is great radio i know especially at the end here low a final let's see if he's in there

no he's not on my sheet all right anyway i i from what i saw lance portzowski has a interesting tweet about sandlin and uh i like this move and this is is the second time that the Royals have made a weird trade. I know the Adalberto Amonese trade wasn't a big deal. But they make these weird trades for relievers. And I'm like, why are you trading for relievers at this point in your rebuild process? When you're good, the relievers will be the failed starters. Just wait. You'll get good relievers eventually.

It's just the Royals doing their own thing, I guess. I find it really strange as well. A couple questions. Let's see if we can knock a couple questions out from the mailbag. We had one about applying rotisserie advice to head-to-head points leagues, which I think is something that maybe a decent number of people who listen to the show are attempting to do all the time. This is from DKBaker8 in our Discord. I play in a head-to-head points league. I often struggle to determine which advice for Roto Leagues actually applies to me. Obviously, there's

some overlap between good Roto players and good points players, but are there any hard and fast rules for which things to pay attention to for points leagues in particular? I think, you know, in some ways we're suited on this podcast to help you because we're often walking the line between real and fantasy baseball anyway. And a lot of times we'll give you clues about the different values for a player in terms of real life and real life and fantasy and i think points is just a little bit closer to real life value i think the big thing is looking at your point system and just seeing what things might be penalized more heavily by your point system or even

flattened by your point system and listening for that right because knowing that there's not a lot of correlation between steals and the other offensive categories, we talk a lot about steals because of Roto. They're a lot less important in points. A point is a point is a point. So the premium we put on speed, especially is one of the biggest things I would say that you have to adjust for accordingly in most points league systems. Yeah. And you can also like, if, if you know that a case by the batter is a negative point, which it is in one of my leagues, we usually talk about that at some point, about their ability to make contact.

Maybe we'll say, I still think he's a good fantasy player despite these flaws. You might focus on those flaws a little bit more and be like, man, they said he can't, he's not going to get out of this. Sometimes we'll talk about approach and somebody whose approach is going to lead to to more walks in the future and better production or some like the when we talk about big chase guys i think those are people to avoid in points yeah again it's usually

because they they have that extra down like normally the downsides batting average in a rotisserie league but in a league that penalizes k's it might actually be worse than the penalty of those guys in batting average leagues like all that ellie de la cruz talk that i was talking about was definitely a five by five categorical thing because if he has a 290 ovp and strikes out 30 of the time like you know in your points league that i and another thing that i would say is like you know the auction calculator is a friend even if you don't agree with each thing you know it just gives you a really good baseline where you can put in your points on the auction calculator is a friend even if you don't agree with each thing you know it just gives you a really good baseline where you can put in your points on the auction calculator fan graphs you can put in your league settings and you can get a general lay of the land you

can even with some excel work kind of do that versus roto and kind of get a sense of which types of player pools um you know get dinged the most and uh and then you can even sort of fashion your ear for for how you listen to us because it's gonna be hard for us to like break down for every player it's like you know this type of leagues we try to we just did you know for a lot of the players no mono this type it's a little bit easier for us to sort of talk about depth than it is to be like and then this type of league and then this type of league and especially because points um is such a wide variety like is it a k isn't a minus k is it a point a minus point for k's or not you know and it's when people ask me for advice on points leagues generally i'm like well i'd have to know

your whole point system you know right so on some level you're gonna have to kind of you know right so on some level you're going to have to kind of you know take your point system make it part of you and like figure and and find a way to sort of listen with those ears on i basically is a way to put it the thing you know said that i was going to recommend was running the calculator for your league with your settings and then running it for a rotisserie league that's the same size, comparing the values and saying, oh, okay, speedsters, generally top-end speedsters are worth a few dollars less. Or you may play at a points league that actually does a good job of mirroring value

in a roto league. So then you're just kind of left to your own strategic devices. Yeah, sometimes people devalue speedsters too much in points leagues because they're like a point is a point, but you're like, yeah, but a point is still a point.

Like it's still a way to get points, especially in a league run environment where steals went through the roof, right? If they're more plentiful and everybody's getting them, it's not, it's not the way it used to be where the one category burners in Roto were out there and they were totally useless in points leagues because they didn't do anything else that moved you

forward. Great question. Hopefully that helps. Discord's a great way to send those questions, by the way, because we can see how people respond to them and maybe take more popular stuff and make sure that we bring it into a show. One more for today.

Two, because I know the second one's an easy one. Luke Weaver. Grant wanted to know, what would a team see in Luke Weaver? I think he came up when you were talking about players with more than 100 innings with two plus breaking balls by stuff pluses when we were talking about Seth Lugo. One of those times. One of the episodes that Lugo came up, Luke Weaver also came up. The Yankees are the team that took a flyer this offseason. What do you think they might see in Weaver, given what the model is spitting out for his breaking balls in particular?

The revision of the model wasn't as kind to Luke Weaver as it was to some of the others. But he still has a plus slider by stuff plus. So I think, you know, that's enough for them to kind of say, Hey, that, that slider works with his fastball.

And he had above average command of the slider, the cutter, the forcing fastball, the curve and the changeup. So at this point, he's a little bit closer to a wide arsenal with command pitcher than you might expect um but one thing i think luke weaver struggled with for a while was finding a true out pitch um and and finding his identity um you know past the curveball i

think that was like his first um idea of the change up is his is his uh was his out pitch he's a little bit like um uh uh like a michael waka like trying to find a breaking ball that works so what i'm saying uh what i think that the the yankees are saying is okay well the changeup doesn't root well by stuff plus but he it's his out pitch he's been throwing forever he gets good results on it so let's give him the changeup the model says the slider is good and that the command is good on all his hard pitches and that he's he's sort of like got five pitches and you know pitching coaches tell me all the time five pitches uh and pitching the big leagues like i want to talk to you like we have one little tweak or this little tweak and

maybe you can really take off from there yeah and i think there's a kind of a second part of grant's message to us that might deserve a lot more explanation for a future episode he's also wondering if there's a conversation about biomechanical data and the processes teams might be using to identify project acquisitions i think in this case the the arsenal is a huge part of it right just having all these different ways you can tweak something i think that's probably what drew the yankees to luke weaver and they may see something there they you know they also on on a very basic depth basic level they need a depth they traded away all their depth so they needed to have somebody that was credible in that depth position

so that might be all it is but definitely the answer the question about biomechanical thing is really interesting i think that could be a candidate for something with trevor may one very easy way that i can tell you that i know uh teams do is that there are certain biomechanical markers that make you more acceptable for a sweeper addition. And so there are certain players that you can just acquire that have a quote-unquote bad fastball that actually a lower spin efficiency fastball means your slot is in a certain place that's great for a sweeper.

So there was an explosion of sweepers partially because teams were like, oh, I can get this undervalued arm, add a sweeper, and have a much better pitcher afterwards. And so that definitely exists. And I know for sure that there are teams that think of biomechanics as being the way forward in terms of building an arsenal more than stuff grades.

That was something that was very specifically said to me. So for sure you're on the right track with that one. Who's good at doing and who's not? And how much we can play along and get ahead of teams on that is going to be tough, especially because a lot of the biomechanical data is not released. A lot of the stuff that Hawkeye is tracking, we have no access to. Yeah, tons there. I think you're right.

We've got something we should talk about on a Friday episode with Trevor at some point in the near future. Thanks a lot for that question, Grant. There was a Stuff Plus question from Ryan in Discord. Ryan's been looking at the Stuff Plus numbers from AAA in the Google Sheet and wanted to know, what pool of players are we comparing those AAA pitchers to to determine league average? Or is this just something else entirely? So my understanding has always been that stuff numbers are the same across different leagues. If you've got a 110 stuff number at high A, you shouldn't be at high A anymore.

You should probably be moving up, right? Because it's not indexed to 100 as average. It's just raw numbers. Yeah, the model is trained on major leagues. So that's where it's not indexed to 100 as average it's just raw numbers yeah the model is trained on major leagues so that's where the that's where it comes from is like will this be effective in the major leagues um 100 is average on the per pitch level so the average pitch in in all of baseball is 100 but the average four seam is like a 96, 97. The average slider is like a 102. Once you start adding it up by pitch type, it's a little different.

And then when you start aggregating it on the pitcher level, you start to get numbers. 100 is not the average stuff plus for a starting pitcher. The starting pitcher actually is below that for average. So that's a good question and on the triple a level yes uh 100 is still you know average for a major league pitch so um you know the these uh you should see a lot of lower numbers and in fact um you know if you look for people who have above average command and above average stuff in AAA,

you will find that the list is very short. Yeah, totally makes sense. We were talking about the fall league stuff numbers on the live episode with Welsh. And it was like, well, no one really had big league stuff.

Well, yeah, they're all prospects who are multiple years away mostly and all the three guys that had major league stuff were the guys that like had no hope of commanding it like that guy from the the rangers that they had that was like oh yeah really interesting name uh but uh he threw he threw 100 but like it was pretty scattershot. And I was like, could be a reliever. Thanks a lot for that question, Ryan. Quick heads up, we are still working on a big league

that we can all play in together. I did check to make sure the athletics cut line contest from a couple of years ago, it's not coming back for this year. If that was coming back, then we would just jump on board and promote that, but they're not bringing that particular contest back. So we're going to work on our own thing. Hopefully we can get that announced here in the next week or so because we're getting kind of close

to the season. We don't have endless possibilities right now. If you've been listening this long, you probably already know, but just to tell you again, March 20, March 21, New York City, other half we're doing live pods with Trevor May, live Q&As

and a special beer and sandwich again so March 20, March 21 other half in the city I think it might be the Williamsburg location this time, that's called Domino the Williamsburg location

and we will nail all this down we have everything down to a T, but I just wanted to give a heads up again. Yep. Just be sure to mark a calendar if you can make it. We'd love to meet you and see you at those live shows in March. We are going to go on our way out the door. A reminder, you can get a subscription to The Athletic

$2 a month for the first year at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. Gets you in the door. You can find Eno on Twitter at EnoSaras. You can find me at DerekVanRiper. You can find the pod at ratesandbarrels. You can find, you know, on Twitter at, you know, Sarah's you can find me at Derek van Riper. You can find the pod at rates and barrels. You can probably find us more often in discord though. We've got that going to be sure to check out the show description. If you haven't joined that yet,

we'll put a link in there for these next several episodes for anybody who wants to join and chat with other people who enjoy the show. That's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We're back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening. ... ... ...

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