Rates & Barrels - Final Streamers and Looking Back at 2023

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

Eno and Al wrap up the Friday edition of the show for 2023 by recommending a handful of streamers for the final weekend and reviewing the trends that made this season an interesting one from a fantasy perspective. Specifically, they look at how the regulation of shifts and increase in stolen bases affected the fantasy landscape, and they looked back on a busy season for prospect debuts. Rundown 1:06 The latest news 6:26 Streamers for the final weekend 11:04 The latest news, continued 20:06 Looking back at 2023: The rule changes 33:21 Looking back at 2023: The never-ending Prospect-Palooza 45:44 Some ERA risers and fallers 48:33 Final thoughts Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Al on Twitter: @almelchiorBB e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everybody, Alan Melchior here. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Friday, September 29th. I am here with Eno Saris for the final Friday, Rates and Barrels of 2023. Where does the time go, Eno? We'll be answering that question. Or it's a long season. But, you know, the news is not as, you know, splashy as it is normally, but we do have a few news items. We'll even talk about a few potential streamers for the weekend, the final weekend, and mostly just look back on 2023, which was a very, very interesting season for all kinds of reasons that we will get to. So let's let's get to it, you know.

And actually, let's start with something that you and Britt Shirley talked about a little bit on the 3-0 show. And I don't know that we need to go in depth, but Ronald Acuna becoming Major League Baseball's first 40-70 player after becoming the first 40-60 player. You've got to do one before the other, of course. But, I mean, not only is it just a monumental monumental achievement but i did want to lead off with this because i think his season in a way is reflective of what made 2023 so interesting i mean steals were way way up this year um but power was up a little bit too maybe not in terms of power output but i was actually surprised to find you know that as of right now as we're talking here actually on thursday that the average exit velocity on flies and liners for the entirety of major league baseball 93.1 miles an hour is the highest since the the beginning of the stat cast era not by a lot but it is it is the highest so the ball

did change a little bit again uh and was not quite 2019 so if you're looking at that number is 2019 the highest uh i get four okay for this particular stat it's actually higher than 2019 oh interesting uh drag has some uh thing to do with this bounciness has is more what we're talking about here and bounciness should be more similar year to year drag is the seam height bounciness is the core of the ball but they made the core of the ball less bouncy two years ago and so it shouldn't be the bounciest ball of the stat cast era so it is interesting that it's number one yeah and again by by a slim margin i think 2019 was second and I think it's like a

one-tenth of a mile an hour difference between the two, but I would have expected to be like half a mile per hour slower or something than 2019. But if you go and you look at actual power production, if you look at ISO, if you look at home run to fly ball ratio, those things are well behind the 2019 pace. So I'm not sure what a fair thing to make of it. But anyways, just coming back to Ronald Acuna Jr., he took advantage of the new rules to an even greater extent than I ever could have imagined. You know what it may have something to do with is the fact that it may actually be an artifact of the shift rule changes in a weird way.

be an artifact of the shift rule changes in a weird way. Because if you think about it, pulled ground balls are a symptom of an approach that is attempting to pull fly balls. And pulled ground balls for a long time had been losing value as people had been shifting and shifting and shifting and shifting more. If you reduce the amount of shifting you can do and increase the value of a pulled ground ball you increase the value of a all or nothing kind of get the ball out in front approach and so uh maybe there'd been some hitters that had been trying to you know spank some little dribblers the other way that were like hey why am i doing

that anymore you know the shift rules have changed. So I don't know if it would happen like that in one year, but it's possible that just a few people doing that change the numbers just enough. We're talking about small differences, like you said. So, yeah. And we'll get to the rule changes more in depth because there were some very interesting things, but the increase in steals was really, really dramatic, more so than I would have even guessed six months ago. But let's get to a few news items before we dig into the kind of bigger picture of 2023.

Jemmer Candelario was activated on Wednesday and started against the Braves on Wednesday night, went 0-3 with a walk. And so now that just extends a slump that Candelario had before going on the IL with a back injury. He is now five for his last 55. That's an 0-91 average, but three of the five hits were home runs. So what do you think about Candelario? If you've been waiting for him to come back and you're in a league where it's either daily lineups or twice a week lineup changes and you can get Candelario back in your lineup, what do you do? Get him back in there. I don't know.

They're going to feel their best lineups. I don't know that they'll screw around too much with Wisdom at third when they could play him at first or DH or something. So I think Candelario gives them their best chance and they're going to go with him as much as possible. So the matchups for the Cubs don't look good on paper, but this will be a reoccurring theme. You do not know which starters the Brewers are going to put out there this weekend the Brewers are looking to line up for possibly the Cubs again and so I don't know that they're going to put out Burns and Woodruff and Peralta against the Cubs this weekend in case

they see the Cubs again on Tuesday or Wednesday or whatever so So, you know, I think you just say, who are my best players at this point? Who's most likely, if you have to choose on Friday. If you choose daily, then you just have to kind of stand over that thing and wait for the lineups to come out, I guess. Yeah, so if you're in a daily lineup league, that is the MO for the next few days here. So, well, you know, while we're on the topic and talking about Candelario,

what you can do if you actually have a decision to make with him, you and I had a little discussion before starting to record here about whether it makes sense to try to stream one last time. Again, if you're in a league format that allows for that after the initial start of the week. And if you're in, you're in, because at this point, you're not going to change your ERA too much.

Right, right. So who do you have for a potential streamer this weekend? I've got two, one old and one new. The old guy that I like is Quintana. I think they're just going to start him. He's at home against the Phillies, and I have no idea what sort of lineup the Phillies will put out there.

It may be the defense first one. They may sit a Harper, sit a Schwarber, you know, sit a big bat. Plus it's a nice park factor in New York there for the Mets. And the other one, same day though, Saturday, depends on your need for Ks, your sense for risk. But Connor Phillips is going against the Cardinals.

And Chris Clegg tweeted this today. He's at Roto Clegg. MLB Stuff Plus leaders in September. Minimum 20 innings pitched. Corbin Burns, number one. Kyle Brage, number one kyle brage number two connor phillips number three so uh it's obviously comes with really bottom shelf command but uh i don't know against a cardinals team that's just playing out the string

arenado's on the shelf um i think that's a pretty good matchup. Yeah, no, I agree. And I just did a sort, you know, to check myself before I talk about a pitcher or two that I'd be interested in. And I've been just, pretty much for the month of September, I've just been all about picking on the Angels. And so there's one particular matchup I really like against them this weekend.

So I just wanted to check myself and say, okay, are the Angels still kind of bottom feeding in terms of WOBA for the month of September? And yes, they are. They are 29th out of 30 at 286, but the White Sox are at the very bottom. So the Padres going against them. I'm looking at fan graphs here.

They're showing Nick Martinez on Friday. So he would definitely be available. So I think that's kind of an interesting possibility there. But going back to the Angels, very interesting matchup on Friday. Ken Waldachuk and Chase Silseth and both of them would definitely be available or highly likely to be available in your 12 team leagues. or about Walda Chuck, and I pulled up some splits for him. And in the second half, he has allowed a.303 WOBA, which is outstanding,.380 ERA. So he's pitched very well for an extended period of time, and I love the matchup. Yeah, he's been featuring his changeup more, you know, as the season has gone along.

And a slight tick in Velo that came from some outings in the bullpen. I don't know exactly where his Velo will be. The only thing that makes me nervous about that matchup is not the Angels themselves, but it's their stadium, which has been playing a little bit more hitter-friendly. But if you want to pick on the Angels, it's not a bad way to end the season with J.P. Sears going on Saturday or on Sunday and Joe Boyle going in between.

Joe Boyle is another Connor Phillips-type, super, super high stuff, low command. But the command hasn't been playing as bad as I expected in the big leagues i i i i bet that i couldn't get anybody with the uh with the team or the player to tell me anything about it but i bet that um joe boyle has simplified the approach somehow and maybe is targeting areas where the misses aren't so bad because, you know, he's only walked 8% of the guys he's seen so far. I've seen him in person. It's standout stuff. So, you know, again, depends on your sense of risk and the fact that he may

not get you a win. He went three in the first, six for a win in the second. But that's the Padres and the Tigers. So, Joe Boyle, put him just below Connor Phillips on the high risk, possibly high reward list. All right. Well, a few intriguing names to possibly add over the weekend. And let's take a look at some names to, well, in some cases, maybe subtract. Matt McClain, we'll subtract him because he's been out for several weeks, but he was supposed to come back this weekend and re-injured his oblique.

So his regular season, and actually his season probably entirely if the Reds somehow do make it into the wildcard picture, His season appears to be done. He finishes with a 690 batting average. That would be historic. A 290 batting average, 16 home runs, 65 runs, 50 RBIs, and 14 steals in 403 plate appearances. And even though he missed the latter part of the season with this oblique injury and missed the first quarter of the season because he was still in the minor leagues. with this oblique injury and missed the first quarter of the season because he was still in the minor leagues. He finished 16th among shortstops in roto value,

5x5 roto value according to fan graphs. So pretty remarkable season for Matt McLean. Yeah, I wonder how much... I keep thinking back to your piece about McLean versus Steer and their approaches at the plate. you know, I keep thinking back to your piece about McLean versus steer and, uh, their approaches at the plate. And,

you know, there's not, it's not a profile that makes me, um, uh, that, you know, I kind of like steers profile better steer,

like, as you pointed out in your piece, uh, pulls fly balls more, uh, you know, when he's going for power. Otherwise, he has a really good two-strike approach, strikes out less than McLean, walks more. Not as good defensively, which matters. But when you look at this 385 batting average on balls in play for Matt McClain, you know that there's a risk that he comes back to earth when it comes to batting average. And he's not necessarily a standout in the power or stolen base department.

So what if he comes back for a sophomore year, Matt McClain, that hits 240 with 18 homers and 12 steals or something. I mean, that wouldn't be bad, but it might be less than people paid for. And then there's this sort of tertiary risk that I don't know is like a big deal and you shouldn't really think too hard about potential trades, but it does seem like the Reds may be active

in trying to trade a possible bat for a possible arm. I listen to local radio here in San Francisco, and they're throwing out Kyle Harrison for Matt McClain ideas. I don't even know if that's in the realm of the possible. What I'm just saying is if you are in a dynasty league or you're drafting super early and you're looking at McLean, there's a small amount of risk that he's not a red next year. I don't know.

I do know that he has way more trade value than Jonathan India. So depending on what they're trying to get back in Cincinnati, they're going to have a lot of options. Yeah. Well, that's a type of trade that would favor both teams, although I would think I'd rather have the Harrison end to that. That's interesting. Well, like you were pointing out, and as you allude to the fact

that I did write a piece on Steer and McLean, and so I kind of broke down the the potential you know holes uh in mclean's offensive game and the the real risk for for regression and that that risk just gets magnified if he leaves cincinnati and goes almost anywhere else and sanford because of san francisco that's really that really i have a real hope though that he can cut the strikeout rate i know in double a matt mclean had a 28 strikeout 28% strikeout rate and that that's the big sample and the small samples around it have the 20% for

Matt McClain and then 28.5% in the major leagues. A 10.5% swing strike rate and a 28% swing does not produce a 7.7% walk rate and 28.5% strikeout rate for me.

There's something that can improve there. I don't know what it is. Maybe be a little bit more aggressive or be more patient. But there's a guy who had twice the walk rate in the minor leagues and 10.5% swinging strike rate is league average. So there's something missing if he's swinging and missing at league average rate, but striking out at a much higher rate.

So there are ways he can improve as well. Okay, well, that's absolutely fair. Let's talk about another player whose season is done, Luis Robert Jr. He has gone on the I.L. with a left MCL sprain. It is reportedly a mild sprain, but with just a few days left in the season,

the White Sox obviously not going to the postseason. That is it for Robert this year, a 264 average. And just a really kind of explosive breakthrough for him. He finished ninth among outfielders in roto value and 20 steals, a lot of run production. Where do you see him? Do you think he's a top 10 outfielder again next year, or do you see regression for Robert?

Well, four or five years from now, I care more about his strikeout rate and his reach rate. But in the short term, it's just about your taste for injury risk. I mean, there's no other way to put it. He's excellent when he's out there, and he ended the season injured. I wonder how much that'll be in people's minds. There's a possibility where the fact that he ends the season injured is something that people remember when they draft,

and then they don't push him into what i think the second round where he belongs um and if i'm getting him in the third round if i was able to get a hitter i think will stay healthy all year and then get a pitcher and then get robert like yeah i'll do that i'll take the injury risk if i have to take him second and push my pitcher into the third you know maybe i will do it too but uh i better have a nice healthy first guy yeah and i think that's a really important strategy and maybe one with a great batting average because you know there's some up and down risk on on his batting average too yeah yeah uh all right, just one other player I want to talk about, you know, before we can blow this out into a bigger perspective. I thought was interesting news that Chris Paddock made it back this season, pitched a couple of innings in relief against the A's on Tuesday.

Paddock, of course, had his second Tommy John surgery last year. He tossed 40 pitches, got seven whiffs, and eight called strikes. So that's, you know, that's really impressive. Also was throwing a couple ticks higher than he was. And granted, it was a two-inning appearance, but a 95.7 average, 95.7 miles per hour average fastball velocity. Also zero grounders, which again, that's, you know, small sample fun, but kind of a wild stat there. Yeah.

I'm glad to see him healthy. You know, I think I wonder how long he was dealing with that pain. You know, these are, you know, very small sample, but the stuff numbers line up with what you saw in terms of Vito. And, you know, he, one nice thing too, is he had his change up back, uh,

all this work that he'd put in on his slider and his cutter and his curve ball. Um, he was a fastball change guy at heart. And when you come back from Tommy John, they don't let you throw all those breaking balls at first. And I just talked to Keaton Wynn, the guy,

the Giants guy who throws 60% splitters, and he said that before he had Tommy John, he didn't even throw a splitter. But he was so bored during Tommy John, they said, you know, during the recovery, they said, you can't throw your breaking balls. And he said, well, can I throw my splitter? And they said yes. And so he threw his splitter

over and over again. And now he throws a splitter 60% of the time. So Chris Paddock was allowed to throw his changeup. He got his changeup back. He had a 124 stuff plus on the fastball, 125 stuff plus on the changeup. That's his foundation. The 111 on the slider, that works, you know, and, you know, he would be a great reliever for them in the postseason. I think that'll be where he ends up. When it comes to projecting that out for next year, I'm going to be interested. I think they will probably stretch him out and put him in the rotation,

but I want to know something about what their plans are for him. But nice to see him back, reliever for the rest of the way, and definitely somebody to put on your sleeper list for next season. Yeah. You know, he's interesting because he did have more success being basically a two-pitch pitcher than, like you said, when he expanded the arsenal. But so many variables are, like you said, maybe he was in pain for a while and that was more the issue than necessarily which pitches he was throwing. But yeah, good to see him back. Absolutely.

So, well, let's take a look back at 2023. I realize we're not completely done yet, but we're with just a few games left. I think we could take a look at some of the big changes in the landscape and how that translated into stats for fantasy. And so a few things that we need to look at. Did having legislation of shifts make a difference? Did that matter? The stolen base rules, how much exactly did that affect things? Obviously it did affect some. And unrelated to the rules, all the prospects, so many, so many prospects debuting this year. It just made it a really, really unique season. But I took a look at BABIP trends since 2020. So not a really big time horizon here, but I think it proves the point. Overall BABIP in 2020, 292. It was the same in 2021. It was 290. So almost the same in 2022.

This year, the major league wide BABIP as of right now is 297. And if that doesn't seem like a big change, consider that on pole balls, the trend for those four years goes 275, 282, 283, and then this year 292. and then this year 292. So might not be completely mind-blowing, but I think it's a difference that made enough of a difference, if that makes sense. Yeah, there were shift limits, not a shift ban. I mean, that's one thing that people used colloquially. You just say it was a shift ban,

but you were still allowed to shift. And so I think a lot of those micro shifts where you've got really detailed game plans, guy walks three steps this way, two steps that way, that's a symptom of modern baseball, and there's almost no way to legislate that out. So this was a return to like five, six years ago, not a return to 20 years ago.

But it was, I i think somewhat welcome in the batting average department department uh there are some secondary effects uh what i was talking about earlier in terms of league-wide uh trends were people pulling the ball more on the ground because uh of that shift restriction yes they were uh last season this this that this season that we're in uh is the second highest rate of pulled ground balls in the stack cast era um and first is 2020 so you know i don't know you know how how meaningful that is it's more like a two month split than anything but uh uh could be the highest uh of pull-around balls. And so, you know, are we going to see more Joey Gallows?

I don't know. You know, it does run up against what teams know is a positive trend in the postseason, which is that teams that make more contact in the postseason win more, even more than they do in the regular season. So there's some tension in team building with, you know, what should we do for the regular season and how much of an eye should we keep on the postseason? Obviously, being too much of either thing can be an issue. I think the Guardians show you if you are too in on contact without looking at power,

that's, you know, not really a good outcome. And I think, honestly, as good as the Twins are, they show you a little bit of the risk of being a launch angle pull team, they strike out more than teams. They are streakier and they can be pitched to. So those teams are maybe in the same division and close to polar opposites. Yeah, yeah. That's an interesting contrast there. And I don't know that there's a whole lot of fantasy relevant, you know, something that's actionable to offer here uh yeah i think it's just

an interesting trend and like you say it doesn't mean that we'll see more joey gallows that would not necessarily be a good thing because the real joey gallo offered very little value this year so yeah and like i mean you know we all uh pointed to kyle schwarber as benefiting from these rules. And he ended up the 18th best outfielder by the auction calculator. But he did it the same way he's always done it. He had a 190 average and was painful to own in a lot of leagues. I'm raising my hand. Yeah. to own in a lot of leagues. I'm raising my hand. Yeah, I don't really.

I saw that Kyle Tucker and Cody Ballinger were on my preseason list as players that would benefit from the shift restrictions. They ended up having good seasons. But I also had Rowdy Tellez as someone that would benefit from the shift restrictions. juan soda was on that list that was good uh but there were other it's not like everybody um just benefited across the board all the left-handers who pulled the ball a lot uh just benefited uh from the the shift restrictions uniformly you know know? Yeah, yeah.

I think that's the big takeaway there. Stolen bases, you know, I'll certainly be, I think, going in with a different approach next year as opposed to this, because I had no idea it was going to affect it this much. Basically, with still a weekend's worth left of games, there's been an approximately 40% increase year-to-year in stolen bases. 2,486 last season.

So far this season, 3,416 and counting. And there were 24 players with at least 20 stolen bases a year ago. Right now, that number is at 49 players and counting because there are four more sitting at 19 one sitting at 18 so you know that number could be 54 maybe yeah 53 54 uh by the time the season's done yeah and uh i was off on on some predictions there i thought that some of the more interesting decisions would be the go-no-go line. So guys who had iffy speed going more often. Maybe there's some evidence that's true. I mean, Freddie Freeman having 23 steals, he's not the fastest guy in the world.

Tyra Estrada at 23 steals is somewhat interesting. But we definitely saw some players go for it harder than I expected. I did not necessarily expect to see a 70 stolen base season and did not expect it from Acuna Jr. a year out from surgery, but then also having Nico Horner, C Abrams, Bobby Wood Jr., and Corbin Carroll all steal more than 40. Julio Rodriguez at 37. Haseon Kim at 36. Did not quite see that. And then some of the guys I expected to steal 10 to 15, they're there.

I thought Gleyber Torres would get close to 15. He got 13. I thought Willie Adamas might get 10. How many did he get? Also, he just was far less productive this season than a lot of us expected. It's kind of hard to

protect anybody and then you're trying to project them with the rules changes and then maybe Willie Adamas just had a bad season that had nothing to do with the rule changes yeah right maybe he just his you know his uh maybe his his athleticism was down or you know maybe he was hurt or you know maybe he just wasn't seeing the ball right so um but there wasn't necessarily an explosion of 10 to 15s uh a lot of the guys i see here in the 10 to 15 i'm like yeah sure i don't really uh see anyone that surprises me here um you know brian reynolds with 12 or paul

gulchman with 11 that surprised me i don't know there's no there's the the biggest surprises were in the places that i didn't expect them which is just people just really going for it and going for that 50, 60, 70 level. Yeah. No, that was something I definitely didn't foresee and missed out on. And I think in a way then, the field is not equalized in the way I thought it would be. Yeah.

So there's still a premium to be paid for what are now 40, 50 steel. Yeah. And some teams really decided to push it, and some teams didn't as much. And so, yeah, I think that going forward, I may have my more traditional grab ste steals as I can foundation, but I may want to get a 30 plus candidate, you know, so I don't know where that starts, but, you know, Acuna, Carroll, Witt, Abrams, Horner, Rodriguez, Kim, Stott, Lindor, Jimenez, Trey Turner, Kyle Tucker. I may want to have one of those on my teams next year. And a name that I don't think I heard you say was Astori Ruiz.

That's right, because I have the qualified filter on, which is something I have to stop doing. Yeah, it's a tricky thing when you're sorting for steals. But I thought that might have been intentional. Well, I'm going to stay away from Jorge Mateo. So the expanded list includes Jorge Mateo, Willie Castro, Elie De La Cruz is up there. I'm not going to stay away from him.

But Nico Horner, Astori Ruiz, Jorge Mateo, Jake McCarthy, Bryce Terang. These are guys that got close to 30 steals or got 30 steals and didn't get 10 homers. And I just don't like those players. I just feel like those players have one foot out of a starting role. We saw Jake McCarthy lose his role. Bryce Terang could totally lose his role next year. Jorge Mateo could just be a backup next year.

He was at times this year. He was for a big part of this year. Willie Castro was a backup. Nico Horner, I like, and it does come with a good batting average, but Ruiz is going to go through this season with fewer than two wins. He's not going to be a league average player this year.

And it's just not the kind of line that I like. It's better than Jorge be a league average player this year. It's just not the kind of line that I like. It's better than Jorge Mateo because he makes more contact, but it reminds me of Jorge Mateo in a way. Plus defense, plus speed, lots of other questions. Yeah. I think for

me, a takeaway, and you can tell me if you agree or disagree with this, but I think the days of targeting a Tommy Edmund or a Jake McCarthy, which I saw people doing this year, or a Mateo, a Jiwon Bae, for 20 to 30 steals, I feel like that's over. Because there's so much potential. There's other people who can't do it. I mean, there's so many people, even in that 20 to 25 range,

that did hit homers. You know, like, why not Anthony Volpe instead of Juwan Bae? You know? Is the cost going to be that much different? You know, Volpe has his own concerns, but at least he hits for power and is going to play shortstop for the Yankees next year. We don't know where Juwan Bae is going to play next year.

So I'd be very careful. You know, if it came came with elite defense that's where it doesn't with Ruiz you know it doesn't come with elite defense with Ruiz with Nico Horner it does so at least with Nico Horner I'm like well the defense will keep him in the lineup the batting average will keep his his auction like his production above zero and his uh steals will help my lineup you know that's that's the line for me is between nico horner and astori reese is like you know does he feel check these other boxes yeah yeah so uh definitely some changes not the ones i i necessarily anticipated how about how about jared duran yeah well i mean he's kind of a different case altogether because he's just you know a post-type prospect that i i didn't see bouncing back the way that he did yeah and on the other

hand uh looks like he's never gonna play center again or i don't i mean i think he's that seems like it's over so elite defense is not going to keep him in the lineup. The power, it might be enough power. But there's a question mark there. I might like some Durans on my team, actually. Yeah, well, there's... The batting average won't be 295 again, but, you know, 180 ISO, you know, with 24 steals? I could get with that. Yeah, no, the power speed i mean that that that is not going to

go out of style that's you know that's why i differentiate between him and you know say a tommy edmund right um so no definitely would be interested we just have to see what the role looks like it's going to be next spring uh so well i want to to get back to the prospects, the never-ending prospect palooza of this season, which again was something, even with the changes to the CBA, I did not foresee literally every week having compelling prospects being available on waivers, getting the call. And yet I found some rankings that I found pretty interesting. So I looked at the top hitters and the top pitchers in terms of F4. And I understand that doesn't necessarily track with fantasy value, but I think it speaks to a little bit because it's also in terms of

how valuable is the player to the team and therefore the security of their role going into 2024. But we'll look at WRC Plus in a minute. But top five hitters in terms of F4 for this year among those who made their debut. Prospects who got called up made their MLB debut. I'm going to leave number one blank for now.

Let's see if you can guess it. Number two was Patrick Bailey. Number three was Zach Gelof. Number four was Edward Julian. And number five was Jose Geloff. Number four was, uh, Edward Julian. And number five was Jose Caballero. So not exactly a star studded top of the leaderboard there. These are people who made their debuts this year. Correct.

So it's not Gunnar Henderson. It's not Corbin Carroll. Yeah. Cause I was like, I've got that open dude. It's Corbin Carroll. Yeah. Yeah.

No, no. I mean, I had to be careful and kind of cherry pick some guys out of that. Like, oh, no, no. They did play last year. Josh Young. So now I have to think who played last year. But I mean, I wanted to look at that list because, again, you know, from week to week, it was, oh, who's coming up?

And yes, number one was Matt McClain. There he is again. So of all the prospects. Did Nolan Jones play last year? Maybe a little bit, yeah. He did play last year, yeah. Because he ranks high among rookies. Yeah, if you're just looking at rookies, it's a pretty different leaderboard.

But Christian Encarnacion-Strand, way down there. I'm trying to think of some others that were widely, highly anticipated that didn't rank very high. There were a few, and Carnassian stands out for me. If you chased rookies this year with fab money and stuff, I think you did pretty well. What were the biggest – I did bring up Anthony Volpe. Let me see what his auction value was.

In 15-teamers, Anthony Volpe was $5. So if you chased him with a big fab acquisition, you didn't lose, but that's the 26th best shortstop. Is that, okay, I was going to say, is that 12 or 15? So it sounds like you've got it set for 15. Yeah. Yeah, because I spent a dollar on Volpe and a 12-teamer and then cut him within weeks into the season.

And I bought Volpe post-cut after somebody had spent more on him than I did. So there's some of that. On the pitching side. Well, you know, before we get to the pitchers, that's why I talk about WRC Plus, because the leaders in that among those who debuted this year were Julian and Gelof. And again, not the ones you necessarily would have predicted.

Yeah, and interesting that both of those guys are all-fields hitters. I had a note in my notes column today about Gelof that could lead to some research. I don't know exactly how to formulate the research yet, but Gelof does not have an outstanding... He has a poor max EV. And among rookies, his max EV was in the bottom five or so.

108.5. It's bad. Yeah. And he has an okay hard hit rate. Among rookies, his hard hit rate was half, like just in the medium. Barrel rate though,

he's in the top third. And, you know, I talked to him about it and he was the top third and you know i talked to him about and he was like well you know i feel like i could hit the ball 110 or 111 but when i swing like that i feel out of control and so what i'm trying to do is hit the ball 106 a lot you know i'm trying to get hundreds 102 106 if i do that a, I'm going to do well. And there are going to be hits and there are going to be line drives and there are going to be doubles and there'll be some homers. But if I go for the 111s and 112s, you know, I don't know what those will be and I'll feel out of control. So it speaks a little bit to the disagreement i think in analytics circles about

the value of of max ev and 85th percentile ev or 90th percentile ev people have done like straight correlations and said there's no correlation however i do think it describes uh raw power it describes the potential uh for a hitter. It's one of those things, almost like Stuff Plus, that's more important in small samples, more important with younger players. If you've been a major league player that has hit

25 homers a year for four years, do I care about your max EV anymore? You know what I mean? Yeah, they've proven themselves. But Zach Gelov, on the other hand, is a guy who's still in that, like, I don't know what he is, you know?

So you'll look at his barrel rate, and you'll look at his max EV, and you'll look at his hard hit rate and be like, man, what is his ISO going to be? And you have ATC over here, rest of season ISO 114, and you get the bat saying 198, I think that's a pretty big spread.

So whoever's drafting Zach Gelov next year, you're either going to get a guy with 10 homers or you're going to get a guy with like 22. Yeah, and I have a sense that people may pay a little too much next year. It's possible. I mean, the 27% strikeout rate, you know, he, in the minors, he had, you know, in double a hit a one 67 ISO. So it's not, it's not a fait accompli that he actually has the power he's shown in 282

plate appearances this year. So Gelof is going to be a very interesting name for me next year. Yeah, very. I'm sure we'll be talking and writing a lot about him a few months from now, if not before. So yeah, let's go to the pitchers. And I did the same leaderboard, F4, for pitchers who made their debut this year. So number one is Kodai Senga, which again, you may or may not want to include him. So if we just look at people who have not pitched professionally elsewhere, Tanner Bybee, Bobby Miller, Andrew Abbott, Bryce Miller, Grayson Rodriguez, that would be your top five.

I think you did well if you chased rookie pitchers. I mean, we drafted Grayson Rodriguez in our main event. And shout out to my co-owner there. Thanks for battling with me, J.H. We made it into the sort of out of the basement. We were like last at some point, and we'll end up anywhere from fourth to sixth. A lot of hard work.

We dropped Grayson Rodriguez and somebody else got his excellent end of season. If you set the standard as useful at some point in the season, most of these guys that debuted this season were useful at some point in the season, most of these guys that debuted this, this, this season were useful at some point. Now, if you set the, the list at like, you know, useful all season, uh, then you could have gotten stuck with some bad starts, uh, from Taj Bradley. Um, you know, T JP France, uh, was pretty up and down. Uh, Brandon fought, uh, was bad at the beginning.

Um, and, uh, you know, there's some, some landmines that were there. Um, others, if you were at all cautious, uh, like Jesse Schultz or, you know, any of that, you know, into those kind of low stuff pitchers. Um, I think you can avoid a lot of the pitches that weren't that good. Yeah. No, I agree. I mean, it's I think more so with pitchers than hitters

that if you were chasing call-ups with Fab that you had a pretty, I think, a pretty high probability of hitting whereas with hitters it seemed like a little bit more hit or miss and the, maybe some of the more unheralded ones being a little bit more productive, but it was, it just made for a really fun season.

Yeah. McLean, you know, we, we got him on our, on our main event team. And he was not our most expensive acquisition. In fact, I don't think we've think we spent that much to get him. So, you know, that ended up being a good one. What were the big, what were the Faber-Palooza names this year on the hitting side? Like I said, Encarnacion Strand, although it was late, it seemed like we waited forever. Yeah, and then Ellie was the big one. I don't know.

I don't think too many people are complaining about it. It's a little bit like Volpe. Vol Ellie was the big one. I don't know. I don't think too many people are complaining about it. It's a little bit like Volpe. Volpe was a big one. Volpe and Ellie, like, yeah, it wasn't great, and maybe the shallower your league is, the more angry you are. But, like, 15-teamers getting 20 homers and 24 steals from Volpe or 13 homers and 35 steals from Ellie DeLaCruz aren't whining too much about the batting average, I don't think.

Yeah. Jordan Westberg was another name where I was thinking of somebody who came up and we waited a long time. He didn't really play as much as I thought maybe he would. Jordan Walker. That was – he got drafted, didn't he? Or was he – Yeah, yeah yeah because he was

my memory is right he was on the opening day roster but still qualifies as somebody who there was more fabulous on the pitching side wasn't there like I think there was that's a thing yeah we our biggest in season acquisition is Todd Bradley

which unfortunately was one of the pitchers that didn't work out so well. Yeah, it's funny how my memory was that it was maybe more even between the hitters and the pitchers. The shape of the season is also interesting because Andrew Abbott looked amazing to begin with, and I had a note in my column about how I talked to Andrew Abbott about, you know, his stuff.

And I was like, why do you get middle-middle takes? You know, and I was like, I even said stuff like to him, like your stuff isn't jiffable and like, you know, like, you know, how have you had all these strikeouts? And he wasn't necessarily, he wasn't really upset with my line of reasoning. He sort of got it he's like i don't know i don't know like uh i've just always gotten middle middle takes he's like third in the league in middle middle takes uh this year and on the fastball and i was like you you

got a lot of fly balls he's like yeah always gotten fly balls and you know i guess it's led to some homers but you might expect more hom homers given his park that he plays in. But I will say that a 4-7-9 ERA in the second half, you know, has made me feel like, you know, I wasn't too far off on my concerns with him. And I don't necessarily – I think he may get overdrafted by people who didn't have him, you know, looking at the full season numbers and loving them. And then underdrafted by the people who did have him who remember how it ended. Yeah, that's probably true.

Maybe there's a broader lesson in there. Yeah. Don't hate people too hard. Like if you had Taj Bradley, I'm trying not to hate Taj Bradley that hard next year. He still has an excellent fastball on the raise. Good pitchers park. You know, there's the strikeout,

nice walk, right? There's, there's good stuff there and I'm not going to hate him for what he did to my main event team. That's, I think that's very admirable. Well,

you know, we're, we're not going to go through the entire list, but maybe just a little food for thought here. I did in our rundown put some short list for pitchers who saw their ERAs rise higher than certainly most pitchers this year and then those who improved the most. So anybody on either list who you think is worthy of a special mention, caution, slash, I don't know, maybe a potential bargain next year, anything along those lines? I mean, Dylan Cease for me is a potential bargain next year. If he falls into SB2 territory, he still has that stuff. He was on that list of September stuff, guys.

The stuff hasn't changed, really. There's some small nitpicky type stuff that you could get with. It's just, I think, mostly just the command. The command makes him a risk every year, but it's only a certain amount of risk. And so once you start getting to SB2s, you're starting to draft pitchers

that have some sort of risk. Injury risk, this risk, that risk. Then they're really comfortable with him. Christian Javier, on the other hand, there was an obvious change in stuff. The fastball lost some of its shape and velo, and he's a two-pitch guy. So that makes me nervous all the time. That makes me nervous all the time. And so Christian Javier is sort of more on my don't draft list.

Michael Kopech, bad knee, had surgery on it to end the season. It just seems to be an ongoing thing. They're already talking about putting him in the bullpen. I don't know how long I'm going to sort of chase an underachiever. I try not to put people on do not draft lists, you know, but he's closer to that than not. And then Sandy Alcantara, depending on injury outcomes, is interesting to me. But you have to admit that you put him on a fairly high injury risk for next

year, you know, because he's got a tear. A sprain is a tear. So he's got a tear you know a sprain is a tear so he's got a tear and he's gonna be throwing through it and it's you think someone who throws hard like he does is gonna just basically tear it eventually um you darvish is somebody that i will draft you darvish is somebody on draft i don't find his injury as concerning uh the particulars of his injury and i think that he uh underproduced his peripherals and I think he's still got something to give. And I think now you're drafting him like an SP four or something.

So I think that there's going to be some value there. Yeah. I took a look at him at a column fairly recently, and I think I came to pretty much the same, same conclusion. So I imagined he came to pretty much the same conclusion. So I imagined he will come pretty inexpensively next year. So, yeah, certainly be tucking his name away. So I put it in the rundown.

Very last thing, you know, final thoughts. Just seemed like it'd be a good idea to wrap up our Friday Rates and Barrels for 2023 with some kind of overarching theme. And I had something in mind to say, and I have completely forgotten what it was. So I probably won't have anything very profound to, to wind up my contribution for the year here, but it wasn't my best season. I'm going to have a couple wins. AL labor.

I was a top three for a while. I may end up a third or fourth main event Main event will probably end up around fifth or sixth. It's not my best season. I'm proud of some of the in-season struggle that I put up. And so I'm going to take that as a positive. I'm going to use as an excuse the changes in the rules. I think that was hard to model, uh, going in.

Um, uh, I did notice that if you look at, uh, guys who pull the ball and hit it hard. And so, uh, you set like a threshold of a 40% hard hit and, uh, and look at the highest pullers. Those guys did have really good Babibs. Those guys are Bryce Harper, Juan Soto, Tristan Casas, Shohei Otani, Raphael Devers, Corey Seager. And so that list is good. However, you got guys who are right close, and Kyle Tucker.

You got close guys who are right there in Kyle Tucker. You got close guys who are right there, 39% hard hit and pulling Kyle Schwarger and Max Muncy, who still had a 211 and 225 Babbitt respectively. So we're going to have at least a season's worth of data to chew, but we're still going to have that issue of maybe that guy just had a bad season that had nothing to do with the new rules so it's going to be difficult but at least I think we'll have fewer rule changes in this upcoming season hope to tweak

Stuff Plus a little bit in the offseason, do some weather adjusting platoon adjusting make it a little bit better and make that make those projections better, maybe start aging different pitches differently. If you think about Christian Javier,

what if you aged his fastball going into the season and took a mile per off of it and said, what would the stuff be? If you took a mile per hour off this pitch, maybe we could have seen that coming from Javier. And I'm definitely going to include some analysis of how many pitches a pitcher throws as part of my analysis for how to sort of translate stuff into results for starting pitchers because that seems to matter. So those are the things I've learned this year. And I hope that you guys learned along with us and that your teams did well. It was really nice to get some DMs about championships

and wins that they thought had something to do with rates and barrels in my analysis. So that kind of stuff always makes me feel better about my teams and so I welcome it anytime. And I look forward to seeing anybody who's coming to the Arizona Fall League. See you there in about a month. And we'll be back on air around that time, you know, closer to the Arizona Fall League as we start up the process for next season.

season. But sincere thanks for everybody and for you for helping with the podcast this year and for the listeners for listening. Yeah, certainly, Mike, my thanks go out to everybody who has listened. And like you know, I hope that you found this helpful. And yeah, it's always such a great thing at this time of year when people let us know how their teams did. We're very, very grateful and appreciative of that. Also, just a programming note slash discussion. I think we're back for one last show on Monday. So stay tuned because I think we're back for one more episode. So this is definitely it for the Friday show. I'm finding out live.

No problem. We can always do another show. But as the playoffs go, I've always found it difficult to kind of do a show because the people who are still paying attention to baseball are usually paying attention to real baseball. The people who are still paying attention to baseball are usually paying attention to real baseball. I did get a note about a type of fantasy

you can play in the postseason. So if we do have a show, maybe we'll talk about a fantasy game you can play in the postseason, maybe set something up. That's always fun. That's on the table. So yeah, keep your eyes and ears open for that.

Keep your eyes and ears open as to whether or not we do have one more episode of Rates and Barrels for this season, but definitely winding down to a close. So again, thanks to everybody for listening. And yeah, Eno, thank you. It's been such a pleasure working with you on the show this year. And of course with DVR,

I don't know if you hear us out there, DVR, but it's been awesome working with you and looking forward to doing that again in the future. So anyways, that's a wrap then. That's a wrap for Rates and Barrels Friday shows 2023. So thank you all again. And I'm very quick here to try to wrap this up. But I do want to remind everybody that we do still have the $1 deal that you should check out for The Athletic.

It includes all of Eno's work, everything in fantasy, everything on the site, $1 a month, every month for the first year, just go to theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. So on that note, thanks again, everybody. Best of luck to you. Thanks for having me.