Rates & Barrels - Final Opening Day roster cuts, balancing immediate need vs. long-term value, & reconsidering co-closers

Episode Date: March 29, 2021

Eno & DVR discuss the fallout from the final round of roster cuts -- including Jazz Chisholm, Taylor Trammell, Alejandro Kirk and Logan Allen earning roster spots -- plus the balancing immediate needs against long-term value, drawing a draft-day road map, co-closers, and more. Rundown 5:26 Jazz Chisholm Wins a Job! 12:43 Taylor Trammell’s Opportunity in Seattle 15:38 Alejandro Kirk in one-catcher league 19:43 Logan Allen Wins Fifth Starter Role 27:53 Balancing Immediate Need vs. Long-Term Expectations 40:23 Can Co-Closers Work for Fantasy Players? 49:35 Drawing a Draft Day Road Map 55:07 How Do You Identify Streaming Targets This Early? 62:52 Shelby Miller and Comeback Candidates Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Please fill out our listener survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/athleticaudiosurvey Subscribe to The Athletic for just $1/month to start: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rated Barrels. It is Monday, March 29th, opening day, just a few days away. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris on this episode. We dig through some pretty interesting roster decisions around the league. Some very fun young players have won roster spots. We have some other interesting things to get to, including a co-closer situation in Cincinnati. Some helpful late draft season advice if you have not drafted yet. If you've got a draft coming up here in these next couple of days, we've got something that might help you out. Closer runs are getting worse looking back at some of the weekend drafts.

We'll talk about how to handle that, and we'll take a look at some first week observations with four days coming up this week. It's a little bit of a different sort of week to get us started. Before we get there, how's it going for you on this Monday? Good. Good. I've got two drafts today just trying to finish it out one is the uh is one last one on nfbc uh rotowire um and it's not full yet so i think i gotta pimp it and make sure that it gets full the last one i was signed

up for on friday just didn't even. So I want that one to fill. And then I've got my Pitchfork League. What up, Pitchfork? Or former Pitchforkers. Almost all of them have left Pitchfork at this point. But I've got to come up with my Brian Eno-based team name at some point. Got to be something there with Otani. I've got Otani as a keeper.

There's got to be an Otani Brian Eno name. I just got to figure it out. We did get a response to the Who's Today's Brian Eno, so I'll just throw that out there right now. Yeah, one suggestion was Ryan Tedder. His solo work is pretty good through OneRepublic. His production work is littered with chart toppers. In support of your Inbox Zero mission

and recognizing this email is behind the pod discussion by a week. I'll give you just the wiki link if you need more information. Here's the short list. Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Adele, J-Lo, Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and yes, even the lowly island. Yes, that's an impressive resume. That's a pretty good one. I don't know, does he perform as well?

There was that component for Brian, you know that he was on often on stage too um so i don't know if that fits one that does fit that i like uh and i guess i'm just pimping it because i like the music but uh danger mouse uh you know i don't think that i knew uh let me look this up here i don't think that i knew uh everybody he worked with. Because he works with some rock that I just didn't know. What was the rock band that I was sort of surprised? 07, Gorillaz, I knew. CeeLo, there were Gnarls Barkley. That CeeLo one, were Nars Barkley. That CeeLo one, that was pretty good.

But here, he did a Paris Hilton album. That's weird. That's a little weird. But, you know, Brian Eno is pretty weird. He did a Black Keys album. Well, yeah, and Dan Auerbach

was suggested as a Brian Eno. Yeah. I like that suggestion. That spoke to me. Sparkle Horse? Danger Mouse and Sparkle Horse present Dark Night of the Soul. Oh, Broken Bells. That was the name I was surprised.

I did not know that he worked with Broken Bells. So that's pretty wide, right? Yeah. From Broken Bells to CeeLo. Yeah. So our search continues, but we've got some candidates for sure, thanks to David for the email.

Oh, and the last one was Ronson. Oh, Mark Ronson? Sort of obvious. Mark Ronson, sort of obvious. I would have to say, though, I don't think that the... Mark Ronson, and I'm going to offend somebody here because people really love mark

ronson uh mark ronson to me uh is someone who takes something that's been done before and does it again sorry wow i mean just listen to some of the stuff like he's in trouble he's gotten in trouble for this like he's been in court repeatedly for stealing for stealing riffs and if just listen if you listen to the uh look up the one what's the sort of funky one he did with um uptown funk who's that with bruno mars gonna give it to you yeah bruno mars that one if you if you listen if you listen there's a there's a there's a

there's a lawsuit out there if you listen to the other one you're like oh you know what I mean like this is this is on the level of

of Vanilla Ice being like no it's dum dum dum da da dum dum oh that's one of the best defenses of behavior

it's very different of all time like Vanilla Ice defending that riff is like on the same level I'm dumb. Oh, that's one of the best defenses of behavior of all time. Like Vanilla Ice defending that riff is like on the same level as the Chewbacca defense in South Park. Elite, elite defense. What was that? The Chewbacca defense? What was the South Park one?

I'm not even going to do the Chewbacca defense on the pod. People will tune out immediately. But's worth that's worth your youtube searching uh but we're here to help people out last minute drafts of course and a young player is getting some opportunities is where i want to start today's show jazz chisholm wins the second base job in miami isan diaz goes to triple a i do like this as a kind of a late draft season add them to the bottom of your rankings and push them up a little bit. If he was already there kind of play, because Jess Chisholm has some flaws,

he swings and misses a lot, but there's power, there's speed. And I think he's the kind of player that could just take the job and run with it. We saw him when he reached double a for the first time in 2019, carry a double digit walk rate throughout that season, 21 homers, 16 steals in 20 attempts as a 21-year-old.

And he's the kind of guy that had we seen a minor league season in 2020, might have done some pretty impressive things at the AAA level and probably would have played even more in Miami than he did. He saw 21 games with the Marlins a year ago. Projections are really low on him because he hit 161 with a 242 OBP in his brief big league debut. But what is your interest level in Jazz Chisholm given that power-speed combo? I'm furiously looking up his strikeout rate in the spring.

Let's see here, 13 strikeouts and 41 ABs. Hey, that's not bad. 45 AB 45 abs that's really good for him 13 oh that's not that good it's good for him 29 percent did you see i had to break out the calculator no it's almost one-third, you idiot. Anyway, yeah, the strikeouts are a problem. You know, he's hit 268

this spring, but I'd have to assume that the BABIP is really high because he's struck out so often. The walk rate, I guess, is okay. That's good to see. I just think he'll be a guy, he could be a guy that threatens 20-20 plus

on both sides and doesn't have an average over 200. And I just wonder how long they're going to run a guy out like that. Rugenet Odor got a lot of run for being like a below average hitter that was great for fantasy. I actually see a little bit of

accomplishedness there. You know, but maybe more defense from Jazz. I guess if he plays good enough defense then maybe he'll stay out there. I always thought Birdie was going to take that job. I kind of saw Birdie and Miguel Rojas as the veteran glue guys that move as soon as they decide they want to play a younger player.

And that's the right way to go about it if you're the Marlins. But I think the key difference for me, though, looking back at Ruggie Odor's minor league numbers, he didn't strike out as much as Jazz does, but he didn't walk as much either. And I think when you play good defense and you draw walks, you can avoid some of those just horrific slumps where you're carrying a 275 OBP for a few weeks. So that, I think, does keep the playing time afloat for Chisholm. And I do think because of the depth they have, if he struggles enough, they're not going to let him stay at the big league level if he's hitting 190, right? If he's hitting 190 with a 295 OBP, he's going down when there's a minor league season and when there are AAA games to play in.

If he's good, they'll just keep playing him and they'll say, yeah, great. Yeah, we called him up and he's good enough and we're just going to play him and awesome. We've figured out what we're doing in our middle infield with at least one spot. I also think he's a good enough defender where at some point he could move back over and play shortstop again, too. A lot of guys that get moved over to second base because they really can't play anywhere else on the infield. In Chisholm's case, I think it's just the best possible configuration with what they have right now. But he could still end up back over there. Miguel Rojas is a regression candidate.

And honestly, I don't know if he's a... Do you think he's a... You know the term first division starter, right? Yes, I do. Sorry. I've been around baseball for a while. Baseball adjacent. Anyway, first division starter. I don't think he's a first division starter.

No, he's not. He's definitely not that. Jazz could move over there if he finds enough. But it's not like, I guess, Bertie is actually a league average player, I think. He's just old and uninteresting. Right. He could fall apart quickly,

but you could justify not playing him every day very easily. You're not going to sweat it if you're not putting John Birdie in your lineup six days a week. If he's in there three days a week, coming off the bench to the games, that's just fine. I think we got to look at a quick, would you rather? Would you rather?

They can make this call Mauricio Dubon or Jazz Chisel as an MI option. I'm going to wiggle off the hook here. I think there's – you're not going to let me? No, you're probably going to do it successfully. We'll see.

I'm just saying that there's different situations where I'd want a different each one. I'm just saying that there's different situations where I'd want a different each one. If it's like a weekly lineup situation or like a league where I'm just looking for a guy who will start for me all the time, I think I would rather take the shot at Jazz and put him on my bench. You know what I'm saying? But if it's a daily lineup situation where I'm going to plug and play and actually use the guy on the bench a lot, I'd rather have Dubon. Because I think his usage will be predictable. His ceiling is not as high, but his day-to-day utility is higher.

Okay. Let's try one other one. Let's say Jazz Chisholm versus Kevin Newman, who's going to play a lot for Pittsburgh, had a nice batting average in 2019, double-digit homers and steals that year. So you're not taking on quite the same batting average risk, but I think it's probably fair to say both the power and the speed are more suspect with Newman than they are with Jazz Chisholm. Yeah,

that's a good point. It's a, it's a bit of the same idea though. The ceiling is higher on jazz. So if you're chasing ceiling, go for jazz Newman though. You know, had a good spring,

found a certain swing again. And I, I take him over Dubon. I think he'll hit, uh, two 80 and go like 15, 15 or something. It'd be pretty useful. Yeah. That'd be really nice for Kevin Newman.

He's been, he's been free in drafts. I mean, at least Dubon, you're drafting him inside the top 300 overall. So I think if you do want jazz chisel, and you're probably drafting him right around the back of the top 300, that's what it's going to take to get them just because people are going to

see the power and speed and chase it. Obviously have that batting average cushion already built in, because that's going to probably be his worst category almost indefinitely. But if he hits 230 or 240 and walks enough, he could actually end up higher in the batting order. The runs could be there. The RBIs could be there. I think the power and speed will be there sooner rather than later. Let's get to Taylor Trammell. He's going to start the year in the outfield in Seattle.

We thought this might be possible back when Jared Kelnick's service time conversation last happened on this show. So not a total stunner that Trammell is up, but I think probably a more exciting player than you ordinarily get for a prospect traded multiple times. Like Jazz Chisholm, this is a guy that can draw a lot of walks. He's shown some speed in the upper levels of the minors, including 20 steals and 28 attempts at AA as a 21-year-old in 2019. Batting average was a bit of a concern that year, but again, if you walk enough, got a little power, Trammell has that. I think you could end up seeing Taylor Trammell play his way into a somewhat prominent spot in the Seattle lineup. So it's kind of an open audition for him to prove that he's ready as a big leaguer here in the first few weeks of the season. Yeah, I don't know, man.

33% strikeout rate in the spring. Projected to strikeout 30% of the time. It's going to be pretty hard for him to have the OBP you need. He's going to have to really hit the snot out of the ball so that he has a 330 BABIP. He's going to have to walk more than 10% of the time. That will get him to like a 250, 320, maybe 400. He's pretty borderline, dude.

I think what ends up being, he ends up being a fourth outfielder for them because I think he can play enough center. I think part of that, too, is just the fact that they've got Kyle Lewis already there, Kelnick just around the corner, and Julio Rodriguez not that far behind. And eventually, if you don't have anybody that you permanently write into the DH spot, you can get all four of those outfielders playing time together if Trammell's hitting enough. And if he's not, you're right.

Backup outfielder is fine. I just saw this on his Fangraphs page, actually. They're a one-liner on Trammell. It's not a sexy left field profile because of the lack of power, but Trammell is in the Brett Gardner mold, OBP and defense. I mean, that's not a bad player. It's just a question of how quickly he gets there. If he's Brett Gardner two years from now, he's not going to help you a lot in the interim. If he's that player right away, he ends up being one of those great early pickups that actually proves to provide a ton

of value, especially if the bags are there. Yeah, if he's striking out 33% of the time, even if he's walking, it's not going to be a high of OBP. So, yeah, he needs to improve the contact rate. And so I'm not reaching out,

you know, most of these names that we're talking about, like I, I didn't, we did the first week of a free agency auction bidding and whatever. And like, I didn't pick up any of these guys. Really?

Well, this guy, next guy wasn't available in a lot of leagues. Alejandro Kirk made the opening day roster for the Jays. I kind of did a one 80 on him because when draft season started, I was skeptical they were actually going to let him be their DH right away. They added pieces. It got really crowded. Anyway, you look at the situation now. Danny Jansen's not great. He's good enough to be a big league catcher, but he's not necessarily good enough to block a player you really like in an organization. And I think it's become increasingly clear to me that Alejandro Kirk is a guy that this organization

really likes. And of course he popped in the stat cast numbers. That's why people liked him this draft season, even when I didn't. And it looks like the playing time is opening up just a little bit. Do you think we're going to get to the point where Kirk is playing enough to actually be relevant in single catcher leagues? Two catcher leagues, of course, sure. If he was available this weekend, he was picked up. If he's still available in your league in a two catcher league, he's going to get picked up now for sure. But is he a top 12 catcher because of what we saw with the low strikeout rate and the hard contact that he was making in his debut a year ago?

By plate appearance, I think he's the second best catcher in baseball, in projections offensively. So, yes, I would actually pick him up. I'd pick him up now in a 12-team. If he's available, I'd pick him up. I'd want him on my team. I would think

that this first week will tell you a lot. And the guy that you're dropping who's a back-end top 12 catcher, you can probably get back. Yeah, one catcher league, the catcher pool does flatten out quite a bit.

So if you're disappointed in Kirk's playing time, I'd probably give it the shortened week plus a full week at the very least just to see the Jays sort of tip their hand with who he's catching and how often he's playing if you get to the end of the full second week and he's still not playing enough you can go out and get Jorge Alfaro or Jan Gomes or somebody will be there Omar Narvaez if he's off to a good start in Milwaukee will have moved up right there's going to be somebody available Stassi's available and you know how much Stassi's playing, too.

Right. You'll see how healthy he is and how much playing time he's actually going to share with Kurt Suzuki. So I do think that chance is worth taking. It's amazing the projections like him that much because it's like the opposite of what we normally see. Like a projection for a prospect who comes up in struggles comes out extremely light. For a prospect like that who comes up and thrives on a really limited sample size it actually pops but i think a big big part

of that is the low k rate and that's a skill that he's had everywhere he's been so i don't think that's a fluke there's it's not only the the small sample mob stuff it's that his numbers in the minors were so good in such key categories that even if you regress them, they're still good. This dude in the minor leagues basically walked 15% of the time and struck out less than 10% of the time. That's like Mookie Bettsian. Honestly, that's Mookie Bettsian. That's what Mookie Betts' strikeout and walk totals look like.

And in fact, with the strikeout, with the power too, some of his power numbers look better than Betts' power numbers did in the minors. I'm not saying Alejandro Kirk is Mookie Betts. Good point. Good to clarify that. You could almost fit two Mookie Betts in an Alejandro Kirk. No, not these days. He lost a lot of weight. But that's part of the thing too, is I wonder how much Kirk's unusual physique

has played into how he's been evaluated and how he's been written up and how people have thought about him right he's been i think probably overlooked because of of his body type yeah i mean especially a catcher you'd think that that wouldn't be a big deal but that was part of the problem with mookie betts is everyone saw his size and didn't think he had the power yeah so i'm excited that he's on the roster because i at one point thought they would mess around with service time a little bit, try and keep it afloat. They didn't need a lot of offense from their catcher spot given what they've done everywhere else, but they're doing the thing where they actually are playing him. And I think he's at least getting half the time, but he's probably got a shot to pretty quickly take over the bulk of the starts behind the plate over Danny Jansen. of the starts behind the plate over Danny Jansen. This one in Cleveland is one that I was wrong about.

Logan Allen ends up winning the number five starter job over Cal Quantrill. Quantrill's going to go to the bullpen for now. And Allen's going to start the fourth game of the season. And I think when we've looked at Logan Allen in the past, I remember the velo, I think, was the biggest concern. Just a low velo guy that doesn't necessarily have a great secondary offering. Has anything changed?

I mean, the change-up is his best secondary, so you don't have a good swing-and-miss breaking ball, at least we haven't had one so far. Has anything changed for you that would get you to pick up Logan Allen? Well, one thing that he did have, and he managed to coax, I think, the most out of his slider

as he could with this is that he had good slider command and I think that that's part of the package that they look for I mean if you look at it Quantrill and Logan Allen both the guys they got from the Padres both had decent slider command and I think that's a good place to start especially since my research found some indication that slider, the command was more important than stuff for the slider. It's it's it's baseball's new fastball is a slider. So I think that that foundation of good command on the slider and good command in general is going to be good for him. Good slider command, good changeup.

If there's been any... I'm sorry that we just don't seem to have VLO across the board. I really wish we did for everybody in the spring. But I don't know that I've seen a report for Allen's VLO this spring. No, I've lived the life of doing verified Twitter searches, trying to find VLO updates and trying to get clarity on things like this,

and more often than not, you come up with nothing for the same reasons that we're not able to just look it up ourselves, but definitely a hole in spring numbers that will be filled very quickly, right? It's only going to take a couple of starts, two, three starts before you can say, okay, he's picked up a tick on the fastball or he's the same as he was before,

he's lost something. But I just thought this was surprising because for me, Quantrill had better stuff going into draft season. And even if the results were going to favor Allen in Cactus League games, I thought Quantrill was going to be the guy in Cleveland. He still could be. There could be an injury. He could get an opportunity later. But I don't think you're holding Quantrill in a mixed league waiting for that opportunity. You're just going to go pick him up later if that opportunity actually arises. So I think just because of what Cleveland's been able to accomplish with

similar talent in the past, it's kind of a no-brainer to put Logan Allen into your plans for at least deeper mixed leagues. I don't know if you want to pick him up in 10 and 12 teamers. 12s, maybe he's more schedule dependent for a two-start week, absolutely. For a favorable streaming spot, definitely rosterable. But I don't know if he's necessarily schedule dependent for a two-start week. Absolutely. For a favorable streaming spot, definitely rosterable. But I don't know if he's necessarily a guy that you're picking up in a 12-teamer and saying, all right, Logan Allen's on my roster for the rest of the season, and he's going to be in my lineup for most of the starts. He's probably not quite at that level yet.

I bought him in a few leagues on NFC. I think I bought him in TGFBI. I think I bought him in both my leagues on NFB. And the reason is, I think he's their opening day starter. So, the one thing that I just most recently read, though, on our site,

I think, was a breakdown of how the starting rotation is going to work. And they were like, well, anybody not named Plesak, Bieber, or Savali is going to be in a mix. So they were like putting everything on the table where Allen is an opener and McKenzie is a follower. Or McKenzie is just a bulk reliever that follows Allen. Or Quantrill is everybody's bulk reliever.

But it seems like just Allen and McKenzie are ahead of Quantrill for whatever reason. And there is actually, there is signal in spring training numbers. Dan Rosenheck did a big piece on this where he found signal in spring training numbers. The problem is that I think we all often look at like ERA and batting average, and that's not where Signal is in small samples. I mean, if you're listening to this, you know that those aren't great numbers for looking in small samples. But strikeout rate is pretty decent for pitchers. And we know that strikeout minus walks is one of the most powerful

small sample numbers we have for pitchers, and it was just better for Allen. He just had a better strikeout minus walk rate. And if you're looking to make a decision in spring, that's going to be one of the number one places you'll look. Last question then related to spring and job battles. Randy Dobnik, it looks like, is going to be in the bullpen for now for the Twins, just signed a five-year extension.

He wasn't going to reach free agency until 2026, but he had a great spring. K to BB was outstanding. It may only be a matter of time, given some of the pitchers they've got in that rotation. Jay Happ is old. Michael Pignet has been hurt a lot. Matt Shoemaker, unfortunately, has been hurt a lot as well. So even if Dobnik isn't starting at the beginning of the season, it may only take a couple of weeks before he gets that opportunity. But skills wise, I think you could almost make an argument that he's a better option than Matt Shoemaker,

because even though Shoemaker's numbers on a per inning basis had been pretty good around all the injuries the last few years, you want a guy who actually goes out there every fifth day and at least gets you four or five innings. And I think Dobnik could actually do that. So I'm discouraged that he's not written into the rotation right away. But I think compared to someone like Quantrill, who's a really tough hold, you can try and talk yourself into holding on to Dobnik for just a little bit to see how it

plays out. Yeah, actually, I've dropped Quantrill shares, but I've retained my Dobnik shares. but I've retained my Dobnak shares and I think he's a pretty good I mean he's it's a little bit more of a binary situation for Dobnak I think where someone will get hurt and he will replace them whereas the Indians sound like they're playing games they're playing almost like

Rays games they haven't in the past the Indians used to leave their starters in but I think that's once they discover who their guys are they're willing to leave them in whereas right now they have like six guys or seven guys, and they're just willing to sort of mix and match. I think the twins will have five. And when someone is out, Dobnak will be in that five.

So I kind of think that'll happen soon enough. And I wonder if Dobnak will have some value vulturing wins uh coming in in the fourth and fifth four guys like shoemaker and pinata pinata is a two-pitch pitcher he is a he is the guy you never want to see the third time through the order so pinata i would want out often in the fourth and if you can just come in dobnak can come in and pitch five outs there that's an easy way to get a win yeah could be one of those guys that if he were a reliever all year often in the fourth. And if you can just come in, Dobnack can come in and pitch five outs there, that's an easy way to get a win. Yeah, could be one of those guys that if he were a reliever all year,

which I don't think he will be, he'll be in and out of the rotation, could win seven or eight games just as a reliever based on the usage, the quality of the team, and when he's actually getting those opportunities. So I just thought Dobnack was worth mentioning because he had a great spring and because he's more of a hold than a drop.

I mean, Josh Lindblom also kind of fits in this. They are not using him as a starter right now. I would say he's closer to Quantrill where when he gets the opportunity to start again, I'm interested then, but I'm not necessarily trying to hold on to him quite the same way as Dobnik. It's a roster management thing. You're betting on Lindblom and Quantrill. You're betting on a little bit of growth.

Dobnack has shown us that he can be good. And I think part of that great spring was that he has a new slider. So I think that the floor is higher on Dobnack. And I think the ceiling is maybe there. I'd probably take a Lindblom or Quantrill ceiling over Dobnack. But the floor matters in the meantime. Because you've got to keep the guy around. You want to think that you could at least throw him in there, maybe get a relief win, and survive a zero.

It's really important. If you're doing free agency auction bidding, you don't want to push. I made this mistake in the first week. I bought Jake Arrieta as a streamer, but I bought him for $23. I think that'srietta as a streamer but i bought him for like uh 23 bucks i think that's too much for a streamer because you got to think about it you got to do this over and over again 23 bucks in in if you're talking 100 is like two bucks but that's still be a lot to i think spent on streamer because you're gonna want to have a big buy at some point where you buy some big bat for some reason right yeah i mean what it to want to have a big buy at some point where you buy some big bat for some reason,

right? Yeah, I mean, what it took though to get Arrieta in some leagues was that $23 bid. It varied a lot because some people believe in him and some people don't. But it's two starts. It's two starts against the Pirates. So it's streaming for two weeks. I don't think that's a bad bid necessarily. I do think typically

a one-off streamer could go for less than that with a $1,000 budget, but you're using him twice. I had a higher number, and Randy Dobnak convinced me. He called me up. He convinced me. He convinced me that I should put a lower number on Jake, and I'm happy for that because I got Jake, and I got him at the lower number.

But the reason was, well, worst case scenario, I'll put Dobnak in and maybe I'll relief Vulture a win. He'll probably pitch, you know? Yeah. So it's nice sometimes to have a guy with a high floor on your bench so that you don't spend all your money in free agency auctioning right off the bat. Yeah.

I mean, I think the way my mind works, I think too much about the entire season because we spend all a draft season looking at full season projections and thinking about full season performance. And then we get to the first fab or even the first couple of fabs, and we cling to those guys that we're expecting to have the great season or guys that are expected to get that opportunity. And that's why for years I had too many players I was stashing. That was my biggest flaw when I started playing NFBC a few years ago was being too optimistic

about prospects getting called up, part-time guys becoming full-time guys, and IL guys. I just had way too much playing time downside on my bench,

especially in 15 team leagues. Oh, man. You need playing time. And to have playing time always available, my process for fab is completely different than it used to be. I look at every single spot on the roster before I start bidding, and I think about number of games and what the playing time has been like recently. And if I feel like I've got a playing time weakness

that I can't cover by moving players around, I'm looking for someone who's playing a lot. I'm thinking about who's playing a lot more than the best available player. And the reason why I'm thinking about it that way is because I'm still going to think about the best available player. I'm going to get to the top prospect that got called up or the new closer, but I want to make sure I'm not so excited to get the shiny new toy that I might not even need in that particular roster that I'm overlooking the smaller holes that are actually very apparent. So it's just sort of like knowing my own tendency to chase the big bids and fab.

That's all fine. Look at what you need first. You will find that, oh, actually picking up Colin Moran for a dollar is the best thing I can do for my 15 team league for this week because he's got a bunch of righties and he's going into Baltimore and their pitching's bad and that's a good park and I need corner infield at bats. That kind of stuff makes a huge, huge difference. Colin Moran's not sexy. He's not ranked high in the rankings. He's not a guy that I'm going to hold on to all the time, but you have to think about getting through each week. And even I would say, look maybe one week ahead too, because if you start looking one week ahead of the current week, you could save some money on two-start pitchers, especially you can save a little money on some of the hitters that are going to end up maybe going into a place like Colorado.

And it's good to save that fab because you are right. You're going to want to have money available later. And if you're overpaying all the time for everything, you're going to get outbid from about June on on just about everything you need. Yeah. Two thoughts spring out of that discussion was really interesting. I agree with you. It's something I've had to learn. discussion was really interesting i agree with you it's something i've had to learn um and so one thing i did um this on the sunday night was drop a fair amount of alec mills shares and i'm i'm here to publicly apologize to all of you for the alec mills helium um i i will eat my crow i'm sorry the numbers looked right i do think that he's a six start and he'll be he'll be you know he'll be in there he's in this sort of quantrill grouping of like interesting six

starters that will still matter and so hopefully we will still have our day alec mills you and i still have our day in the sun someday but it's not now and so i i pick up a share like jake arietta and drop a drop a share like Alec Mills, because it's just not going to be that useful for me in the short term. And then the other thing that I was thinking about was that there is a tension you're talking about wanting to have money later, there is a tension between hoarding FAB, like hoarding auction, like hoarding free agency. If you have moves, hoarding your moves, hoarding your, your, your auction for free agency, there is a, there is like a tension between that and the earlier you get a real asset.

Like if you get an every down back kind of idea, right? Like you get an actual starter at your position early in the season, you get a lot more value out of that than if you waited and hoarded that money and you were waiting for the trade deadline. And then the trade deadline, as it often is, was underwhelming. And you hoarded all that money to pick up a guy that's only going to play for you for two months when in the first auction of the year, you might have picked up somebody. So I went aggressive in labor where I need to find one or two more starters in the outfield.

And so I spent $11 out of 100 on Akil Badu. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. And what's interesting is the way that my roster is now, I made a couple big bets in free agency like Akil Badu and I think I got Brent Rooker too. And then my bench now is Alex Kirilov, DJ Stewart, some guys with some upside that may come in and be my free agency acquisitions later for free. So that's what I'm hoping is that I find some starters in the meantime. And when those guys come back, they either give me depth to trade or they replace my failed attempts at finding a starter. So I bought Logan Allen in that league for $13.

That's a pretty aggressive opening weekend. I just used a quarter of my free agency auctioning budgets. And I did it with eyes wide open. Just knowing that if these things work out, everything goes better for my team the rest of the year. Yeah, I think that's the right way to go. And that auction was a few weeks ago, so you have a few more viable options available this week than there will be most weeks with it being an only league.

I had a similar situation at Luis Camposano. I still haven't seen the official word if he's going to open the year on the roster because they haven't made a call yet on Austin Nola. But I figured I had a zero with Kiebert Ruiz. I'll throw a couple bucks at Camposano. Worst case scenario, I'm still taking a zero, but I got a guy that if he comes up, might be just as good if not a better hitter than Kiebert Ruiz, I'll throw a couple bucks at Camposano. Worst case scenario, I'm still taking a zero, but I got a guy that if he comes up, might be just as good, if not a better hitter, than Kiebert Ruiz. And he's probably going to play more than Ruiz, unless it's Will Smith who gets hurt. And then Justin Williams was kind of my equivalent to your hitter pickup to Badu. I threw five at Williams because it's a little more temporary with him. With Badu, I think they

could make him a bigger part of their plan. With Williams, I think he's the guy that kind of wins short term with Harrison Bader's injury. So with Williams, I mean, there was some prospect hype a few years ago during his time with the Rays. I think the best we saw from him in the upper levels of the minor leagues, 145 WRC plus as a 21-year-old in 2017. Let's see, we had a 152 in 2019 at AAA. I mean, that was super happy fun ball. 25% K rate. So there might be some swing and miss, but stranger things have happened. He's still young

enough where there might actually be something there. And they're woefully thin in the outfield in St. Louis. It's actually kind of sad in some ways how bad their options are. So I'm just kind of hoping to get a month's worth of big side platoon playing time. And if he holds his own, he's easily worth 5% of the FAB budget. Well, I just did my bold predictions came out today.

And one of them was that the Cardinals corner outfield wouldn't be among the worst in baseball. There we go. I need that to come through now. We'll see about that. It's pretty bold. One thing that sticks out about Williams is that we are missing crucial information with him. 2020, I think, would be super crucial in his timeline to understand his growth as a player, I think would be super crucial in his timeline to understand his growth as a, as a player,

I think, because what we've seen over time is more swing and miss. He's added more swing and miss and more power. And it would just feel better to see one more year with an ISO that started with the two in the minor leagues, you know? Yep. Because you,

you don't want what the projections say is going to happen, which is a 28% K rate or 26% K rate and a 140 ISO. That will be a bad outcome. But there's definitely a chance that he has league average power. And if he does, everything looks better. And non-zero chance that he carves out regular playing time. Right. Big side platoon is fingers crossed.

That's what I'm hoping for. But we'll see if that actually happens. O'Neal, Bader, and Carlson, right, are all righties. I believe so, yeah. Yeah. Carlson's the only one I'm not sure of right in my head right away. But I think they're all righties i believe so yeah yeah carlson's the only one i'm not sure of right in my head right away but i think i think they're all righties so being the best lefty bench bat will i think will get him to four or five hundred plate appearances if he if he if he starts out well

it's all about this first week or two but i think that's the same thing with badu right i mean i'm not i'm not saying that i think he's amazing, because I have my eyes wide open when it comes to his projections. But he's a left-hander. He's supposed to strike out too much, but he didn't strike out that much this spring, which is just a tiny bit of signal, I think. Didn't strike out that much this spring. Has a good eye at the plate.

Is kind of a five-tooler possible. And I don't really respect any of the Tigers outfielders. That's so mean when it comes out that way. It is pretty mean. No, I respect them as they're professional baseball players who are better than 95% of the people who play baseball. They're just not better than the other 5%. Well, yeah.

Jacoby Jones doesn't have to be part of their long-term plan. There's no real reason that you have to keep playing him. And even if you just play him, there's no real reason to play anybody else. I guess Grossman you're paying. But he could be a fourth outfielder. He's not making that much. Yeah. I think he could beat out Jones, honestly.

That's why I put that money down. And then Mazzara, there's like on a one-year deal with him, and I think we've seen three teams quit on Mazzara. Yep. Yeah, if he slubs badly enough, he gets quit on mid-season. He gets quit on in May.

Like that's now in his range of outcomes. I still think he could be an above-average hitter. He's not a good defender, but I think he could be a decent hitter. This is kind of his last chance to really prove it. His range of outcomes now includes being released because they find other players they want to put

on the field instead because that's where the Tigers are at. Badu is absolutely one of them. They're going to be one more crowded on the infield eventually with Isaac Paredes. He's in the minors right now too. I think he's a guy that's going to play in the big leagues for a long stretch this year. So how they make the pieces fit, I don't know, but they're going to keep skewing younger because they want to see who of that younger core is actually going to be a part of the next great Tigers team. All right, you know, so I wanted to ask you about this Reds closer situation because teams have been hinting at some of this

throughout the spring. We've been wondering how some of the timeshares might work. And this one could be pretty clear because you've got Amir Garrett and Lucas Sims, a lefty and a righty. If you think about the way the matchups could play out, a near even split doesn't seem impossible here. So my question for you is, are co-closers more viable than we realize from a fantasy perspective if it's a plan that a team like this

will actually stick to? I mean, if you've looked at projections for relievers, which I think sometimes is problematic just because it's problematic to project a reliever at all. And then you're, you have to make this decision about how many saves to give them. And that just becomes their value in the,

in the auction calculator or whatever. It's all about how many saves they get. But if you look for years and years, how many saves they get. But if you look, for years and years, guys with no saves will pop as having $5 or $10 of value. This was pre-saves Hayter and pre-saves Williams and stuff like that. Even Devin Williams this year, if you give him zero saves, will still project to have $7 value. But we

ignore that because we want to win saves. And we just ignore that value for the most part. Some people, some players take advantage of it. But I think we were all chasing saves to the most extent. So if you give me a guy that I would project to have some value without saves. And now you tell me he'll probably get like 10 saves. There's some people say 10 saves. That doesn't help me. Well, it's 10 saves plus like a two 30 ERA plus 14 strikeouts per night. Can, can you handle that now? So, uh, yeah, I, I have some shares of Sims. Um, I've had them for a while, Cincinnati is number one in fastball spin rate in the big leagues,

and that happened in like two years out of nowhere, and Sims is part of that, so spin it baby, I don't know if Antone is going to figure in, I actually think that Antone is headed towards the starting rotation. I think there's a need there, and I think this bullpen thing early in the season is just about innings and health. He was a little bagged up in the spring training.

I'm just looking at the ATC projections for saves right now, and 11 saves gets you inside the top 30 in terms of save projections. So a 30-10 split would put one guy in the top five range, and then the 10 guy would be almost in the back of the 30. And that's just on saves. Why don't you sort relievers for auction value and give us some that have zero saves? Yeah, that's... What's the value on some of those guys?

That's a good call. We'll run a 12-teamer, ATC, and let's see here. Zero saves, top-valued relievers, or zero save value, I guess it would be. Black eyeball is here. James Korinchak is projected for saves, so I can't call him a zero saves guy yet. But Devin Williams, okay. Devin Williams is worth $7 based on the default settings. $7.

I nailed it. Yeah. I nailed it. $7. It's almost like you spent some time with that tool. So Sims, you'd want to give Sims like a $7 projection, man. Oh, my God. Sims is as valuable as Devin Williams?

I mean, not in the real life sense, probably, but maybe. And in a fantasy sense, you give him a few more saves, but you also give Williams a few saves, I bet. I think Williams gets something because his projected save dollar value is zero and Chad Green is negative 1.4. And I'm guessing Chad Green might be zero and that'd be the value for zero.

Chad Green's a $3 guy, even with negative value. There you go, $3 with zero saves. Trevor May is a $2.6 guy with negative save value. Yeah, yeah. But I have no Trevor May shares, so I can't say that I'm brilliant and I figured this out and I do it. I chase saves like the rest of us.

You still could probably get Trevor May for a dollar this weekend because people aren't going to think about him unless, well, unless Edwin Diaz goes full gas can in the first four days, which is absolutely possible even though he's really good. It's the most frustrating thing in the world with Edwin Diaz. I can't imagine even being a Mets fan because you're like, this guy should be so good. One of the lowest command scores uh even among relievers he's one of the lowest command scores

period Edwin Diaz is in the bottom I think five so the volatility is backed up by the command number in that case but uh to put a tidy answer on it yes co-closers can work because of the way saves are actually distributed and I think Garrett and Sims they're all good yeah I mean like co-closers can work because of the way saves are actually distributed. And I think Garrett and Sims are good. If they're all good. Yeah. I mean, like co-closers in Chicago. I mean, not in Chicago. In Colorado.

Colorado. Daniel Bard's been good again this spring. Maybe we're underselling Bard a little bit. But you know where there's a bad situation is Arizona. Stephen Crichton, no thanks. Yeah, none of those pitchers are that good. Joaquin Soria at this stage, no. They have to go to one of their younger guys.

They have to go to John Duplantier at some point or J.B. Bacoskis. Ginkle. Ginkle could be a bridge, but it's somebody that they optioned down. You're not feeling my ginkle yelling, are you? No. You're like, shut up, you know. No, no ginkle. No, no ginkle.

I don't know why that's a thing. Right. So hopefully the fact that co-closers can work helps you with leagues where you're either picking up players or still drafting over the course of this week. One of the things I did this weekend, I signed up for a main event qualifier on Saturday. I tried to play the auction championship with Ian Kahn, and it didn't fill.

I was doing the online one with Ian. I think it only got to five or six teams out of 15, so of course it was canceled. I jumped into a main event qualifier for next year, 15-team mixed league, and my goodness, the closer runs have gotten worse, so be aware of that if you haven't drafted already. There was a stretch at picks 47 through 50 where the first four closers went. Hendricks, Hader, Chapman, Diaz

all in the early part of round four of that league. I'm not saying you have to necessarily also overpay for closers, but in leagues like that where you have to get some saves, less important in a qualifier because you could punt a category. There's no overall component. Have some plans in place if things get wonky with saves.

Presley, Iglesias, Cambrill. I think you could. They're going up too. Presley and Iglesias are 75 and 80 overall in drafts right now. But I think you could. If your value sheet says pick hater, pick hater, do it. And I think that's fine. And I like those top four.

And if you think that's a value where that is, that's fine. There is also the strategy of if I'm lucky enough to pick the last of those four, like if I happen to be within reach, that's why all those, they went like that. Because someone's like, oh, okay, well, we've set the ceiling with Hayter. Now these next three closers are close enough to Hayter that they're all going to go bing, bang, bang.

So you could be lucky enough to be part of that run where you're just like, oh, some guy three ahead of me took Hayter. Time to take Chapman. But if you're not, I think you can wait a round or two and then make sure that you're part of the presley iglesias kimbrel uh run because i see those guys as kind of the next tier down and um you could try to double tap in there um and that's where

some of my better bullpens have a Presley Kimbrell beginning. I feel okay about that. I ended up in that league. I was picking from the fourth spot. I ended up with Kenley Jansen in the seventh, which is surprising to people who listen to this pod because I think we've been afraid of Kenley Jansen for a year and a half now, and Jordan Romano in the tenth.

That's where Jordan Romano goes. He goes in the tenth. We'll see. Did you try a third closer? Yeah, I took a couple very late darts in that league. Ended up with Gregory Soto in the 25th. Yeah, one of your guys. And that was my only one for now.

But I've got a few potential closers in waiting, maybe lined up for this weekend's pickups. I bought a couple of shares of Alvarado and Free Agency in the first time through. Yeah, I would say that's not a great bullpen. But you didn't spend the same prices as everybody else. Right. I've got an advantage in hitting,

and that draft started DeGrom Bueller, so I've got plenty of starting pitching. So I think it can work because there's no overall component. If the saves go completely sideways, hitting and that draft started degrom bueller so i've got plenty of starting pitching so i think i think it can work because there's no overall component if the saves go completely sideways and i can't find somebody on the wire i can win the other categories and still potentially win the league but the thing i wanted to pass along to people that i found really helpful and i've done this before but doing it more than once think, has helped realize how important and how valuable this can be. I sat down with the most recent ADP prior to the draft on Saturday afternoon.

I ran it back just for, I think, three days worth of drafts, filtered down to 15 team leagues to make sure that I was looking at similar drafts. There's enough volume right now where you can do this with the NFBC ADP report. And I looked through on the draft grid view to see what was happening at my pick for every single turn. I was looking at who was going just before my turn, who was going at my turn, who was going just after. And I was kind of scribbling down notes on a big pad of paper for the first 10 rounds. You could do this for all 30 rounds if you want to. I don't think it's a bad idea to go further than 10, but 10 at least gets you the foundation. And I wanted to make sure that the most likely problems that would come up were all problems I'd thought about before the draft

started. So that way, when the pick clock hit me with one minute, I wasn't panicking. I had players that were in each spot that I expected to be there. And I kind of had the A thread, the B thread, and the C thread. Like, oh, if I've got pitching early, I'm going with these hitters. If I need pitching here because I got hitters these are the pictures i'm looking at if i'm getting close these are likely names so i'm not like searching through the queue trying to cue some players up and and and when you're searching and you don't have those names already in your head then you're going to be uh i think too affected by adp because adp is how those players come up in the queue, right?

So if you're searching for names, you're just going to search for the names that are at the top there and you're not going to think of someone who's 100 or 50 lower in ADP because you haven't thought of it ahead of time. But if you were looking at the value sheet and you're looking at ADP,

you'll have like three or four names for each round. Yeah, I love that. And these drafts flow like according to chalk a lot so i'm i wouldn't be surprised if you told me right now that a lot of times it was exactly the names you'd written down there's no point at which i was surprised by a name the only time i okay so i have my my list is right here it looks it's ridiculous my handwriting's terrible so that's what it looks like that's my it's my organized chaos this is how i i want to Okay, so my list is right here. It looks ridiculous. My handwriting is terrible.

So that's what it looks like. That's my organized chaos. This is how I want to league potentially on Saturday. The only player who wasn't previously written down where I took him was Kenley. And that was a problem that I at least thought about. What happens if saves are goofy early, right? Everybody else I had placed either in the round i took them or right near the round

where i took that player and usually i got the player around later too so that was that was great so i had everything lined up really well so i would highly recommend doing that because it also gives you players to put in the queue so like eno was saying the room usually sorts by adp or overall rank depending on where you're playing. It sorts by a default something. And people who don't do a lot of prep are going to gravitate toward the players on the top of the list. It's just what your brain is going to do, especially when there's a timer telling you you have to hurry. If you have the players targeted already, you can go through, search them, star them, put them in the queue in between your turns,

and just kind of wait and see and go okay i'm seven picks away from my turn i still have four of my targets left i should start thinking now with a few minutes on the clock for these other people what happens if all four of these people are gone what part of my plan am i going to go to check my sheet look ahead to my next round look and see who maybe fell like it's just it's a way to organize the chaos. And I realize my doctor-esque handwriting for someone who has no chance of being a physician is truly chaotic in its own sense, but it works for me.

I'm telling you, it's a way to just gather your thoughts. Did you spend any time going, who is this name I wrote down? Okay, I will admit this to you because you're my friend. Nobody else is listening. Do not tell Steph this.

I write things down somewhat regularly that I cannot identify. I deny this at home all the time. I will scribble down a grocery list or I'll scribble down a note. You're at the store. What is this? I'm at the store and I'm like, i have to pretend like that doesn't happen here because i'm accused of that often and if that's true that means i have to like sit down with a penmanship book and like learn how to write correctly and i really i just don't want to do that i i i think

it would be good for me but i just don't want to do it. So I'm admitting it. I have written stuff down and not been able to read it like 10 seconds later. I'm trying to do better. I'm trying to slow down, but not in March. So, all right. Got that off my chest to feel quite a bit better. But I do feel really good about the team. And again, not being surprised by anything is always a nice way to go. If you can map it out that much,

you will feel so much more comfortable in the moment. All right, we close out with some first week planning thoughts. A couple of things I've noticed, I brought this up on the other shows already, Logan Webb's April schedule is really nice. I think that was driving

some of the bidding on him overnight on Sunday. If he's still available in your league, look at the matchups. It's a good one to start against Seattle. He's got Colorado at home next week, but the whole month really stacks up nice. Kind of the opposite of what's happening in Arizona. I don't think I want to throw any Arizona pitchers until April's over based on their schedule.

So definitely looking at the whole month now that the pieces are starting to come together. But I also had a broad question that was on my mind throughout the weekend. How should we identify the teams that we want to stream against this early in the season? Some of them are obvious. Pittsburgh, okay, that's low hanging fruit. Colorado outside of Coors, sure, we can all get that, but the list is more than two teams deep. So how do you choose which teams you're going to take those chances against as the season begins? Yeah, I think the answer is projections. And I think the answer is projections for longer than we think. You know, there'll be a team that scores a few.

Like, what if Pittsburgh, you know, scores a few runs this first series for whatever reason? I don't think we should actually change our appraisal of them as a team that much based on that. So you can go over to the projected standings at Fangraphs and just sort by run scored per game. Yankees, Blue Jays, Astros, Twins, Dodgers, Red Sox. But then also the Angels are up there with the Braves and Nationals as teams that will score a lot. But teams you want to play against, Pirates, Marlins, Giants, Cardinals, Mariners. Yeah, it's interesting that the Mariners are there. I picked Arrieta over Webb as a streamer because of the AL and the DH.

That's fair. I made a mistake. Well, I think when you see it, this is probably the best way to quantify it, is to look at the runs scored per game projections. And the Pirates and Marlins are kind of in a class of their own. And the Giants exceeded expectations last year. So I think if you're still thinking about what we were doing at the end of last season, the Giants were playing to that level where you're saying,

oh, should we be streaming against them anymore? My argument is that you should stream against them again. They're still rebuilding. They still have plenty of flaws. That's a lineup that doesn't have a lot of depth. Take as many shots as you want against the Giants with pitching. Chris Flexen is streamable. I tweeted this on Sunday.

I have no idea if I want Chris Flex out of my roster beyond the weekend, but I do want him on my roster for this weekend because I do think with the Giants being projected as the third lowest scoring team in the league, that's a good spot for almost any starting pitcher. As long as you think that pitcher has a shot to go five and put themselves in position for a win,

you should take that chance. I guess so. I did a piece with Andrew Baggett about that. One of the best, one of the biggest, it was like the top three turnaround in team offense season to season. Last year was

the Giants. And there's definitely some process stuff that's going on there where they they've improved their coaching process and their way that they sort of try to get the most out of their players. But at the same time, a lot of the bounce back was from Brandon Belt and Brandon Crawford, who are decidedly post-peak. You would expect them to regress back again the other way this season. Just in general, there's one pre-peak bat in that lineup, Dubon.

And his peak is not considered to be that exciting. No, he might be at peak already. He might be there now. So that's part of the problem for me. Yeah, yeah. And Yaz is a good bat. And I think one thing they did was they collected a bunch of post-peak bats because they were easily collected you know like it's pretty easy to pick up a

donovan solano like yeah he ended up being pretty good in the major leagues he's probably gonna aggress some and he also has no sort of dynasty type value has no like long-term value really because he had like thousands and thousands of plate appearances in the minor leagues. Congratulations, you put together a credible offense, but in terms of long-term assets, what do they come up with?

Dubon is more like, I still think, a utility guy. I would agree with that. They haven't yet produced the next bats. I guess I'm waiting for Ramos. He might be up June, maybe. It's possible. So they haven't yet produced the next bats. I guess I'm waiting for Ramos. Yeah. Well, he might be up June, maybe. It's possible.

I think they want to give him a shot sooner rather than later. Let that development continue. He's better than his projections. I'm pretty sure. It's a good one to file away for a possible future pickup this season. At the other end of the spectrum, teams to fear. The Yankees projected for five and a half runs per game. Nothing new there.

How about Toronto jumping up there? Almost 5.4 runs per game. They weren't at that level before. Twins, Astros, you expect them to be there. Red Sox right there with the Dodgers. I think I've seen them that way. I don't know if everybody universally has seen them that way. It just kind of feels like the way they're viewed has slipped a bit since the bets traded.

But they're still an offense that you've got to be careful with. I would say the Angels and Braves, too. The Red Sox, I think, are actually a decent— if we're talking about MGM-type situation, I keep circling around the Red Sox as a decent win-total bet. And over? Yeah, I think that people are sleeping on them. When Chris Sale comes back,

there's a chance when they might have a rotation of five credible alarms. Possible. And the offense, in the meantime, I don't think it's taking that much of a step back. I think the hardest team to figure out right now from a streaming against them standpoint is the Padres. Because the offense is projected to be good. We like what they're doing. They're projected to be the 11th highest scoring team, which when you put them in their own ballpark,

kind of makes them a team that you could still throw at least your mid-range starters against. I think what I'm bringing up here is I don't think you necessarily have to panic when you see an at San Diego matchup, even though that team is good. It's not the layup it used to be where you just play everybody in San Diego matchup, even though that team is good. It's not the layup it used to be where you just play everybody in San Diego, but I don't think you have to cut the starters off quite as early as you think

when it comes to pitching certain guys in that ballpark against that lineup. Yeah, yeah. I'm really interested in how Merrill Kelly does against them this weekend I think that's a great one that's a great first example in a 15 teamer I want to see the velo on Kelly I want to see how the Padres lineup does

also I wonder the nights that Tatis is out does this Padres lineup take a big hit yeah if he is He's being a home run like Friday, right? He came back and home run. I think he's in, but I think they'll also sit him some nights. So there'll be some sort of emergency situations

where the Padres are suddenly fairly pitched. You can pitch to them. Right, yeah. If you take Tatis out, that probably pulls that number down a little closer to the league average in terms of runs scored. Grisham is hurt. He's dinged. Yep. I think he might not

make opening day. Yeah, that's possible at this point. They're a good team. They've got great depth. I'm just saying don't immediately panic when you see it. You also have to put them in the context of the National League, dude. I mean, 11th overall, but there's a lot of DH American League ahead of them. In terms of the National League,

the only teams ahead of them are the Dodgers, the Braves, and the Nationals. The Nationals are barely ahead of them. Yeah, and honestly, I'm surprised by that. I think that's still a good offense. Yeah, but Bell and Schwarber, I think

were good additions there. I mean, they're both getting big park upgrades. That's the thing i kept coming back to as i look at them throughout draft season i felt like they they could just bounce back in part because their environment was now more conducive to big power harrison's josh harrison's projections are not that good though i'm a little surprised that they're just going with josh harrison but i think luis garcia is going to come up and just play good defense at second base in a few weeks. I don't think they're going to hold with Harrison there very long. One mailbag question here before we go. This one comes from Ryan.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about Shelby Miller's comeback attempt. His velocity looks good, and the slider looks like a real weapon in the game that I watched. He didn't make the team out of spring training, but he has an April opt-out, so I expect him to be back soon. Maybe they're stretching him out at the alternate site before recalling him. Shelby has me thinking of other comeback players like Wade Davis. Maybe you guys could highlight some comeback attempts you think are worth tracking when the real game starts. So let's just take Miller first. Do you think there's anything left in the tank with Shelby Miller? I mean, we've seen most recently, I think, Daniel Bard, who I mentioned a little

earlier, that was the most amazing comeback we've seen maybe in the last 10 years. The guy that was gone for a long time, came back and pitched at a high level in Colorado, but Shelby Miller still hanging around the Cubs organization. Do you think we see him give them meaningful innings this year? I hate to plead ignorance, but I just don't have any velocity numbers. That's the number one thing I want to know. It just describes their upside and their health. One thing that we did see as Miller left the league the first time was actually the velocity was still good until the end. The big thing was he just lost all command.

He couldn't repeat at all with his mechanics. Yeah, I guess that's interesting. I think he becomes interesting a guy who could do like a maybe like a 4 ERA with a 1-3 whip and 8 strikeouts per 9

maybe a little bit more always had a good breaking ball I'd be interested there is some crowd there, though. If you want him to be a starter, he now has to overcome Mills and Williams. Yeah, Williams ended up in the rotation for now. Elzele is in there for now.

Yeah. So it's going to be tricky. I wonder if they would bring him up as a multi-inning reliever, though. And I think that's a chance to possibly get him back on track. I mean, it doesn't have to be as a starter necessarily, but it also wouldn't be exciting from a fantasy perspective if he gets back. As much as it'd be cool to see Shelby Miller get his career back on track in whatever way he can,

I don't know if he's going to pitch his way back to even deep league fantasy relevance this year. But I think you're right. I think not knowing Velo readings is making speculating on these situations particularly difficult. Yeah, let me see here. I want to see how many innings he threw.

He had at least seven. Up to 12? Okay. I just saw a tweet from about a couple weeks ago where he had seven already. So they're treating him like a starter. 16 strikeouts in 12 innings with six walks though. That kind of almost sounds like the Miller that we last saw, which was still some velo, still some stuff, but no command. Yeah. I was trying to think if I saw any other names this spring that surprised me as much as Bard did this time a year ago. I think it was our friend Rob

Silver who literally just tweeted something like, that Daniel Bard when the Rockies mentioned that they signed him over a year ago? Hey, look, they got that one right. Hats off to him for that bounce back. Rafael Delis

wasn't a guy that I was on last spring at all. I didn't think he was going to come back and have a prominent role. I think Matt Moore, his return from overseas has been a little bit on our show Harrison, maybe, but I'm not a Harrison believer. I never really was on, on Harrison.

I always kind of wondered what the pirates saw and why they kept pushing him out there as much as they did a few years ago who else who else has been buried and forgotten about yeah i no one no one struck my no one caught my eye this spring if that uh if that provides any clarity it doesn't mean they're not there but man i was trying to think of something i remember there's one name that jake mcgee came back last year too. That was a pretty nice bounce back. It happens.

I just feel like it happens so much more often in the bullpen. Yeah, it's definitely more in the bullpen. And that's where I think if Miller makes an impact this year, it could be in the bullpen. You know, uh, Kimbrough has some collapsibility and there's not,

I mean, wick is a pretty good, but I think he's hurt right now um and so you know i guess it's today is the day of bold predictions if there's here's a bold prediction five saves for shelby miller um i thought that i saw a veteran i do i do it's it's almost in my contract um you know Daniel Hudson is that appropriate I don't know what just happened right there everything just fell apart I I said Daniel Hudson yeah I heard and then I hit my elbow uh well this last Roto-Wire note

is not that great for Hudson but I think he's going to make that team and as much as I think Tanner Rainey is next in line they could go with the veteran if Brad Hand his peripherals continue to decline and it affects his overall numbers

I got a comeback player on the hitter side. Matt Duffy. Matt Duffy made the Cubs. I think Matt Duffy is a decent bench player. I think he's a decent bench player. I don't think he's all that exciting for our purposes, but a guy that we cared about a few years ago.

He took Nico Harner's job. He's been hurt a lot. And David Bodie is the starter that means. Yes, it does. Oh! I think I missed a chance. Hmm. Did you? When this is over, I'm going to furiously search for David Bode shares.

Well, you still got one more draft that you gotta get to. Somehow I saw Nico Horner was demoted and it didn't click in my brain to go running trying to pick up Bodie. Yeah. He's got that opportunity. Always time to make it right. Oh, the other name that I saw, Scott Casimir. He's headed to AAA, it appears, for the Giants. But they're injury prone enough and desperate enough for innings.

That could happen over the course of the season. I don't think Aaron Sanchez was gone long enough to count as part of this. But Scott Casimir, if he comes back at age 37 and gives the Giants some useful innings, that's a pretty cool story. Yeah, he's a nice guy. He's trying, man. He's trying to hold on to the dream. You know, one thing that I think of sometimes when I see a lefty like that is Oliver Perez. And Kazmir doesn't have, like, the same mechanics or anything,

and loogies are going away. But if there's any sort of question about Velo, if Puck sort of establishes himself as a starter, I think there could be a use for Casimir as a lefty in the pen. Yeah. So deep, deep, deep, deep, deep possible sleeper. Not necessarily for fantasy, but just for a guy trying to get back. The last time we saw Scott Casimir in the big leagues,

it was 2016 with the Dodgers. Made 26 starts that year. Had a.456 ERA,.136 whip. Every time you mention Oliver Perez or anyone mentions Oliver Perez, I think back to the early, early part of his career in Pittsburgh. I thought he was going to be really, really good early in his career. Even though the control was a major issue, the strikeouts were pretty consistently there.

With the Mets, we saw some pretty big strikeout totals. But one of the last guys I can remember seeing getting over 100 strikeouts and also walking more than 100 guys in the same season. That was back in 2008 with the Mets. 180 Ks against 105 walks. That is very hard to do because it is very hard to stay in a rotation when you walk that many guys. He has some walk totals that start with 8.

Some walk rates that start with 8. Yeah. Rare. Very, very rare. On that note, I think that is going to wrap up today's show. You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper. Drop us a line, of course, at ratesandbarrels at theathletic. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper. Drop us a line of course at ratesandbarrels

at theathletic.com if you prefer email. And if you're still listening here and would like to get in on a great subscription deal, $1 a month at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels gets you rankings, Eno's bold prediction pieces, everything he writes, everything I write, rankings, all the stuff we do

site-wide, $1 a month to start. It's the best deal that we do all year. For Eno Saris, I'm Derek Van Ryper. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.