Rates & Barrels - Fire Up the Stove!

Episode Date: November 6, 2019

Get 40% off a subscription and to The Athletic and receive exclusive episodes of the show: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Rundown6:30 Gerrit Cole Suitors13:45 If Nats Only Keep One, Is It Strasburg or Rendon?20:00 Pondering Zack Wheeler Offers & Fits27:07 Should the White Sox Copy the Twins?37:38 Yasmani Grandal: What Has Changed In a Year?45:43 Potential Bargains in Free Agency55:58 Prospect of the Week Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels episode number 52. It is Tuesday, November 5th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we will fire up the hot stove. It is our breakdown of the free agent landscape with a few predictions of where some of the top players will go. We'll also discuss the early stages of a mock draft that Eno and I are a part of, along with our friends over at The Pitcher List. We are very inconveniently sitting next to each other in the middle of the draft order, so that will be frustrating, I think, over the course of the next few days while that plays out.

I'd rather have your team, so... The early returns are that I'm beating Eno in this mock, apparently. We'll also have our Prospect of the Week and Beer of the Week selections as well. So why do you hate your team so much you know well i got i just felt like i got cornered into taking chris sale and i have no idea how to feel about it because i took chris sale in the second half of the sort of midway through the second round and he was the last pitcher in my projection set that was projected to be more than $50.

This is a shallow draft, so there are $50 pitchers, and then there were $30 pitchers after that. So it went from Sale at $50 to Bieber and, I believe, maybe Snell at $30 after that. And so I thought that $20 difference, even though Sale never got the velocity all the way back and now has had troubles pitching past August in two straight years, I went for it. If you're new to this podcast, the good news is Eno didn't have to eat a hat

as a result of Chris Sale's velocity fluctuations. He was close, though. And the bad news, other than for people who wanted me to eat a hat, is that he still, at 93.7, lost nearly two ticks. I mean, it was like a tick and a half, and not in a great way either. Although, nearly 240 strikeouts in an abbreviated season. So I don't think that it's very easy to figure out what Cursail would do next year. But I kind of leaned in the way of saying, hey, Clayton Kershaw showed some of these same problems, some of these same signs, and Clayton Kershaw was fine. So maybe we should just trust the track record a little bit more than worrying too much about one tick when it comes to a guy

who still throws 94 from the left side. Yeah, I think Sale, where you got him, is probably close to his higher-end, healthy February price. I don't know if he's going to go a whole lot higher than that. If he comes out and he's throwing 93 this spring and everything looks good,

I think 15 to 20 overall is kind of where he can settle in. And I think you got him at 21, if I'm counting correctly. 12-team drafts are a little different. I'm not used to counting in 12s when I look at grids. I'm used to counting in 15s. But yeah, I think you got him at a reasonable spot. I think it sounds like if you were going to do it again, having Trey Turner in the first round, you would have just gone hitter, hitter and taken your chances and waited a little bit to get that first pitcher. I guess the problem was that I had that $50 price tag when it came to Chris Sale at $50 value. And then I didn't really have that sort of number for anybody else. And

on the hitting side, so all the hitters were 30 dollars all the pitchers were 30 dollars and there was chris sale at 50 so it was i kind of got backed in the corner there as i put it because i also didn't want freddie freeman or jose altuve the highest hit hitters that were on the list um and in my projection set randon did not make the top and i was looking at a trio of outfielders as my second bat. It would have been Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge, or George Springer. And Aaron Judge did not make it back to me. I ended up getting Bryce Harper with the third pick.

And George Springer didn't go to the last pick of the third round. So that shows you that I didn't really miss much. I mean, I could have taken Harper and Springer, but I got Harper anyway, and Springer didn't go to the end of the third round. So there wasn't a player there, hitting-wise, where I was like, I need that guy. Yeah, well, if that's the case,

because the first few rounds are high quality right now, you can take that leap with your pitching and go early on sale and still end up with the hitting that you would have considered in that spot anyway. So I don't know. It doesn't seem as bad as you're making it out. I went Lindor, Buehler, Alvarez. So the Lindor pick came after you took Trey Turner. Bueller was before you took Chris Sale and then Jordan Alvarez after you took Bryce Harper. I was hoping Harper would fall to me at that spot. I was hoping Bueller would fall to me.

I was looking at Turner versus Lindor there at the sixth pick. It's after the first five, which is kind of a consensus. Acuna, Trout, Betts, Bellinger. That of, you know, that's the order it went in, but I think that's, I think they're going to be top five for everybody this year, except for some leagues where, you know, DeGrom or Cole go really early. But Turner versus Lindor,

my projection said Lindor by a couple bucks. There, I actually went against my projections because it was only a couple bucks and because I don't want to draft a Malik Smith. Yeah, I'm with you. So I got the bigger steals thing and Harper versus Springer later on was also more steals. So right now I think I have about 60 steals banked

and hopefully I don't have to draft another person with steals in mind because if i can draft some five six sevens going forward uh i can probably make it so maybe one guy who's going to steal 20 uh and and i'm good yeah that would probably line you up for a top three finish if this were a rotisserie sort of uh build so we'll have updates on Twitter at, you know, Saris at Derek Van Ryper as those picks unfold. We're only in the early part of round four at this point. Let's talk about the free agent hot stove season. You know, let's just break this thing down. I mean, qualifying offers had a deadline for Monday. A bunch of guys who were going to leave their team received one. Some

guys who could accept that qualifying offer, you know offer are going to be kind of interesting to watch as well. And there are a few notable players who did not get a qualifying offer, which sort of bolsters their market since the team that signs them in free agency doesn't have to give up a compensatory draft pick. But we'll start with the big names. Garrett Cole, of course, got a qualifying offer. He's obviously not going to accept it. The same holds true for Anthony Rendon and Steven Strasburg. Josh Donaldson, Marcelo Zuna, Zach Wheeler, Madison Bumgarner also getting qualifying offers. And then the guys that I labeled as could accept, Will Smith, Jake Odorizzi, and Jose Abreu, who we'll get to in just a minute. Garrett Cole, we talked about him a little bit last week in our series review pod. Had the Boris Corp hat on as the evening was coming to a close.

And everything I read on Twitter and everything I read story-wise on The Athletic and elsewhere points Garrett Cole pretty much to the Angels. That just seems like the place he's going to go. There are plenty of other teams that could throw big money at him this winter. Where do you think he really ends up when it's all said and done? I've been saying the Angels and the Yankees, but the Yankees

have set that cap number as a hard cap number. I don't think they're that particularly close to being able to afford Cole unless they basically just renounce everybody else, you know? And the team is good enough where maybe they don't need to re-sign Brett Gardner. Maybe Brett Gardner comes back for $4 or $5 million instead of, you know, MLB trade rumors hasn't projected a $10. That seems a little bit high for me, but

maybe if they just sign a couple $1, $2, $3, $4 million deals here and there and add Garrett Cole to it, they'll crown themselves early favorites. So that's why I put the Yankees in there is because that's how they used to act. That's how they could act any given moment. They could just do it. They could just go blast by the top of the luxury tax. And I think Garrett Cole would love to pitch there. But otherwise, then you start talking about the second layer and there's the cubs are not going to go into that uh into that well i don't think and uh the padres maybe but uh you know it

seems like a lot to ask in terms of adding another really long contract next to Manny and Hosmer. Sometimes people talk about the Strasburg to the Padres, and I could see that just because he'd be shorter and be a little bit less than Garrett Cole. So who's out there that really needs pitching, that has a team that's competitive, that might forego the draft pick and might just jump in there with two feet. And I think that's the Angels.

As you think about big-ticket free agency, is there a team that you could say is maybe a mystery team of sorts? And their team on the rise that's not getting quite as much attention. I mean, for me, it's the White Sox. They don't have a lot of current obligations. They have a young core that they believe in. And maybe they go out there and throw money at Rendon or Cole They don't have a lot of current obligations. They have a young core that they believe in. Maybe they go out there and throw money at Rendon or Cole and do it in a way where people just don't see it coming.

Yeah, they were second or third for Manny Machado. What they're in is the situation the Padres are in with Eric Hosmer is they need to get that first person to take their money and nobody's doing it yet because nobody nobody looks at the White Sox right now and says oh that's a place I want to be so what they're gonna have to do is come in and overpay for somebody I think that's just I think that's the reality of the situation and I'm not sure that like giving Marcelo Zuna five years and 75 million dollars is a good idea business wise and i'm not sure that it's necessarily going to be good enough to turn you know the the turn people towards the white socks in the future but it might be and it won't cost as much as hasmer and there might have been some impact uh onanny Machado in taking the Padres deal,

just knowing that other people had taken their money before, and they seem to be on the rise, and they'll spend money, and they'll spend money again, right? They spent money on Hosmer. They're going to spend money on me. Then they'll go and get somebody next year, right? Whereas with the White Sox, you look at them and you say, who are you spending money on?

What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? Yeah, I mean, I think they're one of the teams that has a guy that might accept the qualifying offer with Jose Abreu. He doesn't really seem to want to go anywhere else. And they love him, and he's been a good mentor, and

he's at a position that does not command a lot of money around the league. Yeah, if you look at the list of available players at first base, third base, and the corner outfield spots, and you look at the teams that have needs there, it's easy to sort of see when you write it out that way. Like, oh, this is part of the reason why this position is getting depressed so much. Like, there's a bunch of teams on that list that need corner help that aren't contending. They have no reason to pay or overpay to get it. It's not like they're one piece

away. The Marlins are not going to sign Jose Breyer. I made a list of teams. Even if Garrett Cooper is no good. The teams that could upgrade at first base, the Jays, the Brewers, the Mariners, the Marlins, the Nats, the Rangers, the Royals, the Tigers, the White Sox. There's three good teams out of nine on that list.

So there's just not going to be that much of a bidding war for those guys. Of those three teams, what is it? At least two normally just find a first baseman. Yeah. They believe they can just find a scrap heap guy that gives them a win and a half or two wins. I'm kind of counting the Nationals. I mean, they've been paying Ryan Zimmerman forever, so it's kind of hard to figure that one out. But, you know, Zimmerman is kind of an icon, and that deal was signed when he was a third baseman.

And, you know, that's a different situation. Otherwise, they've just signed Matt Adams like two out of the last three years. So maybe they're into spending some money on a first baseman, but really the Nationals, it's very obvious that the Nationals have, are going to, I think it's very obvious they're going to keep one of the two of Anthony Rendon and Steven Strasburg.

And my guess actually is that it's Rendon. It probably makes more sense. They've got big commitments already to Scherzer and Corbin, and they could probably go fishing in the cheaper end of the pitching pool. I mean, they kind of did that with Anibal

Sanchez, and that worked out okay. Once you shorten up that rotation in the postseason, I think you'd need two. You need two guys that you really, really trust. Yeah, you'd love to have three or four, but I think two is where the line is going to be. The teams that only have one pitcher that goes six plus

effectively, those teams are really going to need a huge Super Bowl pin to actually make it through the postseason. I think the Nats can tweak and make this work. Yeah, I mean, what you could do is sign Rendon, don't sign Strasburg, and with your extra $10 to $20 million,

buy a couple of relievers, which they haven't really done. So take kind of a slightly different tack there. But I doubt that both Rendon and Strasburg are coming back to Washington. But I do think that what's interesting about this list of qualifying offers is that just putting the qualifying offer on there is going to increase the likelihood that these players

end up on the teams that they were on before. And that becomes more true as you go down the list. So for Cole and Rendon, a team is obviously going to factor in the fact that they were going to lose a draft pick, but they're not going to stop. They're not going to say, oh, I don't want Rendon. It's going to cost me a draft pick. What? Yeah, you get a $200 million-plus outlay on the player, a draft pick.

Less of a concern than when you're talking about a $50 million guy. Yes, and that's why I uh it's going to be really interesting for donaldson ozuna maybe even wheeler and bum garner i mean i think there could be a certain amount of energy between bum garner and the giants and put into an extension especially if he goes out there and realizes the qualifying offer is an anchor on him. And, you know, some of the projections for him are like four and 60. Well, if they're four and 60, dude, just either accept the qualifying offer and pitch for another year in San Francisco at 19 million, you know, or 18 million, whatever it is, and then go out the market and get more next year,

or factor that in and say, hey, come on, San Francisco, I'm worth more than $60 million to you. So that's why I think, you know, Bumgarner, Ozuna, and Donaldson, I think Donaldson is going to stay in Atlanta. I'd seen somebody connecting him to the Rangers, and the Rangers may look like they're ready to spend. They're going to go into a new ballpark. They had some juice behind them last year in terms of being in the wildcard race late in the season. But Donaldson is like 33 or something, and giving him three years and $75 million and a draft pick, I could see him staying at Atlanta. Yeah, that's kind of where my initial read was, too,

was Donaldson stays with the Braves. It buys them a little extra time on Austin Riley. They play Riley in the outfield some. Anyway, they can do the Marcakis-Riley thing if they want to. They've kind of got it figured out in the short term. And Donaldson, he bounced back in a big way. The fact that he was able to stay healthy last season, that was really encouraging. I mean, I didn't know if he bounced back in a big way. The fact that he was able to stay healthy last season, that was really encouraging.

I mean, I didn't know if he could make it through a full season without having calf problems. But it seems like at least a two-year, like $40 million deal is something he could actually get now. Yeah. And I just realized, though, in the middle of you talking that I didn't answer your other question. The mystery team? Yes, a mystery team. You know who my mystery team is and it's it's very specific it's to it's for pitching it's the twins they got they got under a number they wanted to get under and they had a lot of success and they i think they it had to be patently obvious in the postseason that they were a little bit short on the pitching side. I mean, I think they are cut from a similar cloth to a Midwest team just southeast of them.

I think the Brewers and Twins have similar qualities in their roster construction. And I think they're looking for similar things. I think they realize that, you know, in the rotation full of Oda Rizzi's and Kyle Gibson's, or in the case of the Brewers, Chase Anderson's and Zach Davies, that's fine for getting you above 500. It doesn't quite work in the postseason. It kind of ties into what I was saying before, where it's like, those guys are great as fours and fives.

And when you can turn a $4 million free agent into one of those guys, you've done well. When you pay $8 or $10 million for those guys, you're making a mistake. I think they're going to be among the many teams interested in Zach Wheeler. Because if you can't, as a team, use your resources to go get Garrett Cole, or if you're just not a team he'd be interested in playing for, I don't know if the Twins or Brewers fit that. That, at the very top end, that is a real thing. I mean, they get to choose, basically, where they get to go. It's not only who's going to give them the most money. Right.

I think the where the guy's from analysis that we see actually does matter at the very top end of the pool. Yeah, because they basically have three... Manny Machado had three $300 million offers on the table. Right. Well, where do you want to be? San Diego? Chicago? Yeah, and Bryce Harper's like, I don't really want to play in San Francisco.

That's not a good place to choose to go if you're a left-handed power hitter. You're setting yourself up to disappoint everybody. That's why the fences are coming in, which people, fantasy owners, think about this. It's happening. I'm excited for that. But as I look at the Twins, I think,

okay, you're on the list of teams that will be going after Zach Wheeler. We talked about the Astros back at the trade deadline as a team that would make sense. If Houston lets Garrett Cole walk, they may want to try and replace him with a guy for the next three to four years at a much smaller outlay who could actually come close production-wise. I'm not saying Wheeler

and Garrett Cole are equal. I'm saying if there's a second-tier pitcher who has a chance to pitch like an ace, Zach Wheeler is the guy that I think has the characteristics you're looking for. Yeah, and I think there's a similar situation with Cole where people think there's a tweak they can make. And I hope so. I think so. I'm a little bit nervous about this, though, because I've seen projections now for Wheeler at five years and $100 million.

And that's not quite the same as signing Hooli Shasin and thinking you can tell him to throw a slider more. That is not the same thing. The Shasin thing, that's fishing in the bottom of the pool. It's finding a number three starter in results for the price of a five or less. That's what that is. That's a win. But Wheeler, I was looking at the Kylie McDaniel, the fan graphs projections.

Kylie had him at 4 for 68. The median was 4 for 72, and the average was a little over 4, around 77. That kind of feels about right. And MLB Trade Rumors is 100. But either way, that's not bargain binning. So I think if you pay that price for Zach Wheeler and get what he's done in the past four or five years in terms of ups and downs and not quite breaking through to what you think is his upside, except for maybe one season, I think you might be a little

disappointed in that deal. So I'd have to have a rock-solid belief in my pitching program, which is why I do actually agree with you. I think the Brewers, if I could bet right now that one of the Brewers twins or Astros would sign Zach Wheeler, I might actually put money down on that. Dodgers could also end up being in a similar situation. I mean, those are the pitching capitals of the world. Yeah, they think similarly. At least on the outside, it looks like they are seeking the exact same things in their pitching right now. So that's what kind of puts them in the same bucket. But I think he comes in closer to like 4 for 80. Not as high as the MLB trade rumors, a little higher than what we saw in the Fangraphs free agent write-up,

which is one of my favorite pieces to read every year. There's so much work that goes into something like that. Great job by Kylie and that crew to crank that thing out. I think the guys that get squeezed in this market are those corner guys, like Marcelo Zuna. The more I think about teams that need corner outfielders, I can't place him.

Where do you think Marcelo Zuna goes? Yeah, St. Louis. They don't need another outfielder, though. They should let him go. I don't know. He was pretty good there, and it's a hard part to hit in. And yes, they have outfielders, but do they have outfielders? You know what I mean?

Are you going to just really be like, okay, Tyler O'Neal and Harrison Bader each get a outfield spot? I think Bader's a good enough defender where you can justify hitting him in the bottom 30 order, taking a below average bat if that's what he is, and accepting the plus defense.

And hoping for more. And you get the possibility of more. Yeah, you could get the development. And if you're not happy with it, we know outfielders are generally pretty easy to acquire at the trade deadline. You can address that later, and it's not going to burn you in the first four months.

This isn't quite a Cleveland situation where they're going from Michael Brantley to Cargo. Who are your other outfielders then? I mean, I see… Jose Martinez back? Jose Martinez probably doesn't play much out there. Fowler was better than people realize. Tommy Edmund just plays a lot too, I think. Oh, Edmund. And they could go cheap. Instead of going

multi-years on Marcelo Zuna, couldn't they get Cole Calhoun for a fraction of the price? And then put some resources on pitching. Yeah. If you get Cole Calhoun on a shorter deal or a lower priced deal than Zuna, you've got a lefty that pairs nicely with a guy like Tyler O'Neal. And that gives you that extra surplus of playing time you might want because a guy like Edmund, of course, plays other positions around the infield. Fowler had some major injury trouble and performance issues, of course, in 2018. You get a little insurance that way, adding a much less expensive because they're out there. They're saying they're up against their cap already, too. I was reading the Mark Saxon

breakdown of their offseason. They extended Goldschmidt. They're still paying a lot of money for Matt Carpenter. These budgets, and we've said this before, these are budgets created by the team. They're not actual financial constraints that they can't spend more money. It's that they choose not to spend more money.

Yeah. That's a whole minefield. Given what they've got maybe they don't have the money i could see that uh but you know that's gonna but then everybody else is gonna look at hey ozuna's like really he's not like a star he's more like a three win guy and if he's a three win guy and i have to give up a uh a draft pick for him and he's a three win corner outfielder where some of those wins are tied up in arm and not necessarily uh you know and he's like not necessarily like 20 better league with a bat he's more like 10 better than

league with a bat which uh you know maybe you know you what you're hoping is that some team has internally looked at his exit velocity looked at at his hitting component stats, and decided that whatever metric we use to park adjust is not capturing how good he is. Because he's now hit in two of the four worst ballparks in baseball. Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, he's had to deal with that. Nick Castellanos has had to deal with, I think, pitcher-friendly environments as well in Detroit and on the north side of Chicago for a partial season.

I know he had a great partial season with the Cubs, but he's even more of a defensive liability. At least when you look at Ozuna, you can see a more reasonable path for him to stay in the outfield for the life of a multi-year deal. I saw MLB trade rumors put Ozuna in San Francisco, and that is pretty interesting actually because you know they they they do other and this might be past regimes but they have traded for

players that have hit in hard environments so they went and got Evan Longoria because they were like you know Tampa's not a great place to hit he can probably hit here they went and got Andrew McCutcheon because they were like you know Pittsburgh is not a great place to hit. He can probably hit here. They went and got Andrew McCutcheon because they were like, Pittsburgh is not a great place to hit. He can probably hit here. Maybe Azuna will be interesting for them. Castellanos is really weird for me. I wanted to kind of put him together like a favorite sort of balling on a budget group of players. Castellanos has kind of got my eye he doesn't have the qualifying offer he doesn't have a draft pick compensation he's the youngest

free agent on the market and he had that great finish he's probably the best one of the best bats i mean obviously rendon is the best bat and donaldson's probably there. But, you know, what, third best bat, youngest free agent? He's projected for 1.5 wins next year. Hmm. Wow. That is interesting. And that's due to the defensive liability that you're talking about, you know? But not even an average player?

Like, people were talking about him getting $100 million. Like, hopefully he gets $40 million. I think this is an interesting time to try and predict what teams are going to do. Most teams, as we said back in the spring, I think now, most teams are thinking similarly. We're getting more teams that are valuing the same things. Corner infielders and corner outfielders are getting squeezed. We saw it with Mike Boustakis the last couple of off seasons.

I think we're going to see it with Nick Castellanos for his defensive concerns. Back to the White Sox, just as the example here. Instead of going three-plus years on Marcelo Zuna, you go one or two on Nick Castellanos. You're an AL team. You're getting a guy that you can put in the DH spot. You can throw him in the outfield for a

little while if you want to. I think the White Sox should look at what the Twins did, the tweaks they made over the course of last offseason. Look at that division and say, hey, you know what? We got this core we like. We can shop around in free agency. We can be smart about it. Go after the guys that don't

have the qualifying offers. Keep our draft picks and see if we can just catch lightning in a bottle and maybe make a run, if not at the division this year, maybe at an AL wildcard spot. Yeah, yeah. And I think they should. I think they should because they have that problem of maybe not being able to attract the Anthony Rendons of the world. So why not just build as build as you can? Just keep building and just taking whatever deal you think is is decent and won't hamstring the organization i mean you have a short stop and probably second baseman or third baseman you can you can count on uh it looks like you have a pitcher you can count on it's the beginning of a core so you just have to build around it and wait

for other people to show up the one reason that i don't have that much faith in the white socks is because their player development is trash uh it just whatever they're doing in the minor leagues is terrible they're they're just they're not focused on tech they're not focused on data they've got a bunch of old school coaches in there that are not not listening um i think that it goes all the way to the major leagues, their major league pitching coach. And I think there's some real problems there. I mean, their number one pitching win of the last few years did it all on his own.

He had to leave the organization. He had to go back and listen to other people. So here's the question I have for you is when you hit on a guy like giolito as an organization and he does it himself but you think internally that your coaches may have done it or could you let me rephrase that could you make the mistake of thinking that you and your staff developed him when you didn't like are they in the front office smart enough to see that that was not their coaching staff i think so i mean there there's a well-reported you know it's a well-reported phenomenon of what giolito did and how he did it and then james fegan wrote really

well about it and i'm sure they have to read the athletic and sort of someone in there is reading the athletic so um i i i don't know what it is. It has to be systemic somewhere. There has to be someone who feels they're doing things the right way and has shut his ears to the rest. So I don't know. I used to think that Rick Hahn was one you know, one of the smartest gems and maybe I was wrong or maybe I was right and no one's listening to him. That's the hardest thing

to know is the role of the owner, the role of the other, you know, front office execs, who's being listened to. You can't just hire someone, you know, they hired Matt Lyle, who's a coach I respect, you know know a very good sort of internet based or or independent based hitting coach and they gave him the title director of hitting analytics or not even director they gave him hitting analytics coach do you think anyone's gonna listen to that guy you just chopped him off at the knees. Why even hire that guy? You could have called him eyewash coach. It's fair. I mean, it's definitely fair at this point. But I think the White Sox do have one of those guys who could accept a qualifying offer in Jose Abreu. The two, Will Smith and Jake

Odorizzi. If you're advising those guys, I mean, Smith, I think, can get a multi-year deal worth probably 12 plus million a year. I don't know if it's three. That's where I was thinking. Adam Modavino just got basically three for $30. Let's call it that. Will Smith is a closer, but he's not

a role as Chapman level. I've seen the projections have ranged from $45 million for Will Smith to $30 $35 million if it's on the lower end he should take the qualifying offer yeah no matter what

he wants to think about in terms of winning a World Series or where he wants to go that's going to be $18 million in your pocket and then you just have to get $12 million for two years to stay even and you you just have to get 12 million for two years next to stay even you know and you won't have the qualifying offer so i think uh he and obreu are the most likely to take

it odor is he you see him as enough of a sure thing to get a multi-year deal where he can he can decline it yeah i mean as soon as you can get you know three for 40 three for 45 you know it's a lot of years of it's a lot more years and it is a lot more money than just the 18 if you just take the 18 and the arm goes kaput yeah that's a lot of missed opportunity i mean you could try to get some insurance and set it up that way but it's it's still not going to be the same as getting that 45 guaranteed with a three-year deal. A couple of guys that didn't get qualifying offers that were a little bit surprising. Didi Gregorius. And the Yankees have that luxury tax threshold, that cap that they're kind of putting on themselves.

And, you know, they have DJ LeMayhew on the multi-year deal. They have Gleyber Torres who can play shortstop. Miguel Andujar comes back from a season lost to injury. Luke Voigt's going to play first base. They're kind of set on the infield. I think that's part of what drove them to not make that offer to Didi. There's only a handful of teams that really need a shortstop because this is a position that's well accounted for in most organizations at the big league level right now if you said who could be this year's yasmani grandal who doesn't get the big free agent payday that we thought he was going to get didi gregorius might be that guy just looking around the league at who actually needs a shortstop right now i i like him he's on my list he's on my list of

ball my ball and on a budget list i think he's a decent uh player he's actually projected for the second or third most war uh on my list uh he's a definitively above average shortstop for me. There are a couple teams that want to be competitive that need that. I would say the Brewers are one of them and the Reds are another. That was my whole list.

Other than going back to the Yankees and the Yankees staying crowded, those two teams, the Brewers and Reds have a lot of the same needs right now too. I mentioned the Twins before. Yasmany Grandal has been linked to the Reds among other teams. Yeah, it's like I think if you miss out on one, you get the other. They do very different things, but Didi can be a four or five win player. And those are two parks where his pull happy tendencies aren't going to get punished the same way.

Like if he leaves Yankee Stadium and goes to a more neutral environment, he's a very different player. But I think he is a good enough defender. You can give him a multiple-year deal. And I think in those hitter friendly, at least homer-friendly parks, you're going to get a pretty good chunk of the offense that we're used to getting from Didi prior to the Tommy John surgery. I think his first year off surgery especially, I'm not that surprised to see him have that step back this year. I don't think that's skills erosion. I think that's rust from the injury.

Yeah, yeah, it definitely has to be factored in. Projections are actually not that great at factoring in playing through injury. And so that 2.5 win projection might actually be low because it just looks like poor performance, whereas it might have been playing through injury. Speaking of playing through injury, we know Kel Hamels had an oblique injury in 2019. Is he a guy that without a qualifying offer you think is in a nice spot to actually get maybe a two-year deal and bolster some teams rotation with a lot of quality innings. I did him a favor by not offering that, but I guess he would have been on the short list of people who would actually

take it. Probably that, that point of his career with a team that's been good and he's been decent there and it's in the national league, but at 35 years old, it's not going to be more than two years, but it could be some fun sort of two for 20 could be you know the dodgers used to sign people like cole hamels all the time yeah they were the i mean they were the rich hill well the a's got him first but

still yeah the dodgers don't seem to be as afraid of of old pitching and certainly houston hasn't been with what they've done with Verlander. And really, this is the reason I'm putting Ryu on my list is kind of the Cole Hamels effect, which is that for a lot of teams, it matters less how many innings you're going to give them and more are you going to be good when you're in. And that matters because the DL is unlimited.

You know, there's no limit to how many players you can have on the DL. And so if you have any sort of semblance of minor league pitching depth, you can sign someone like Cole Hamels. And when he goes down, Tony Gonsolin comes up and you don't really miss that much of a beat. But you do capture some of that high-end possibility with the veteran. Yeah, so I'm thinking about this just in terms of war. If Cole Hamels, it could be any pitcher, but let's keep it with Hamels since that's where the conversation is right now. If a team sees Cole Hamels as a 3.5 or a 4-win pitcher in the event that he throws 200 innings. That's i think that's kind of an interesting

little wrinkle that we can lose sight of sometimes like why did you lose those innings and and how good are those innings really are they actually a lot better than other players with a similar war who got there because they julio taran their way to a lot of innings yeah yeah compiler or versus uh someone who's excellent. And Rich Hill has been excellent for the Dodgers, you know, in not that many innings. I don't think they would complain about the deals they signed. So yeah, Cole Hamels to the Dodgers. We just did it. Yeah, that does make a great deal of sense. Now there's a ton of possible angles to go with, so we'll try to keep things rolling along here. money grandal what's

really different about him now than a year ago like i keep thinking about this like everyone expects him to get this massive payday and he's a year older he walked more than ever but otherwise he just did the typical yes money grandal thing like if he couldn't get more than a three-year offer from the mets last year what is so different this time around for him well I mean maybe maybe it's as simple as a team chose him you know there's when the Dodgers had him forever and and and the Padres so the Padres said no thanks and traded him and then the Dodgers had him and he seemed like a really productive player but then they showed no interest in resigning him. Maybe then the sort of whisper campaign, what's wrong with

him? What's going on? The pitchers don't like throwing to him. You know, what is it? What is it? You know, maybe that becomes more important. And so then you, the best offer you get is sort of three for 40 or whatever the Mets were going to give. But when the Brewers choose you and the team does well and there aren't as many whispers about them and someone else has made that leap, then maybe you say it's a little bit easier to make that leap yourself as a new team. I just keep thinking there's no way that the modern front office

was totally scared by his 2018 postseason with the pass balls and the defensive issues he had in the nlcs like that that was not a factor right like that could not have mattered to teams in this day and age no i mean yes he's been bad postseason wise but you know a how many catchers uh are still feeling super sprightly and energetic in the postseason after catching all year uh and b we're talking about 96 plate appearances split out over five years it's not it's not meaningful yeah so as as you think about the market for him does he get three does he get 45 or 50 does he end up beating what he would have got if you just take the Mets deal a year ago I think so I think so I think that uh

yeah that deal is this way did he have a qualifying offer on him from the Dodgers he did last year yep so I you know there's also more teams that'll jump in when there's no draft pick associated with it it's just it's just the truth there's gonna be more sort will jump in when there's no draft pick associated with it. It's just the truth. There's going to be more sort of mid-level teams. Honestly, like the Brewers, you would have thought. But the Brewers said, hey, let's go for it. And I think there's also the strategy of if you're going to sign a player who has a qualifying offer on him where you're giving up that draft pick, consider signing more than one if you have the need because the early nature of the pick,

it's worse to sign one of those players in two consecutive off seasons because you're giving up an earlier pick in each of those years. If you stack them, it's a later pick in the year where you sign two. And that's what they did with Moose, right? Yeah, I don't know. Moose didn't have one though either because they traded for him in 2018. That's right. But I think there are teams that have done that.

This has got to go, man. This has got to go. It's stupid. You just don't want to limit the number of teams interested in marquee. If you're the Players Association, you do not want this. You want this to go away as quickly as possible.

Maybe if a team keeps losing free agents, maybe they can be some sort of compensatory pick for them, but not do it without the penalty. Yeah, do it without the qualifying offer aspect because that's brutal. Other names.

I'll just run through the interesting names. Let me know if any of these guys kind of stand out to you as great signings and if you have a particular favorite where you could see them fitting in. Hinjin Ryu, we mentioned a little earlier. Dallas Keuchel, Yassi El Puig.

The Yankees had a big option for Edwin Encarnacion. We knew they were going to turn it down, so he became a free agent as well. And then Drew Pomeranz. Some pretty interesting names on that list because Pomeranz's success as a reliever in my mind makes him kind of like a Will Smith without the qualifying offer. I know Smith has a longer track record of success in the bullpen.

Look at the stuff and how well it played up for Pomeranz. I could see a team going 2 for 20 on him. I love him. He's on my list. I have him at sort of 2 for 16, but Pomeranz is definitely on my list. He just showed you what he can do with good location strategy on the curveball and a 94, 95-mile-an-hour fastball. He struck out more than anybody,

save, I think, Josh Hader. He was second in baseball, 47% strikeout rate in the second half. And that's not like an arbitrary endpoint. That's when he was a reliever right so uh i'm digging on pomerantz i'm digging on puig a little bit and the reason i'm digging on puig is because of ozuna i just feel like puig is a low-cost alternative to ozuna and there may not be as large a difference in actual on-field production next year and the difference in price

will be remarkable you know first of all no qualifying offer second of all you know the projections on price are definitely coming in uh for Puig at about 10 million dollars plus uh cheaper and I see them as pretty comparable players so I like that that. And Edwin, to me, there's one name you've got to say when you're considering Edwin Encarnacion, and that name is Nelson Cruz. Yeah. I mean, Kylie hit that in the fan graphs right up to you. Yeah.

No, it makes perfect sense. It's a perfect call. Shaking my fist at Kylie. Yeah. That's it. I read his post, but I didn't read every word. It's a lot, just it's a lot and you know there's a lot to do and i love kylean so i apologize and throw shade at the same time

no yeah i wasn't wasn't trying to infer that you uh you pulled that from there anything like that but it's you know older guy that doesn't have a lot of defensive spots but he can hit yeah he can hit a ton yeah and and we'll take a one-year deal probably so one and ten uh to your tampa bay rays um for for edwin and canassian i could totally see that although they they've been sort of collecting these uh they've been collecting dh types and first baseman so they may not want to go for it but um there's got to be another team you know like the indians and put frown mill in the outfield or oh the a's although chris davis they pay all that money too there's got to be someone that that's gonna to up for that sort

of a cost yeah the aldh market is kind of brutal again There's just so many teams that have a guy already that fits that description either because of a long-term contract or just because they've already found their Nelson Cruz, like the Twins. The Blue Jays could do it, I guess, but that's a strange

reunion at this point. I guess it'd be cool for anybody that got the Encarnacion jersey for $20 at TJ Maxx, though. White Sox again. Yeah. I mean, I don't hate it. Look, the White Sox can copy what the Twins did last offseason, and it's not

a bad idea. That was a smart offseason, and it worked. They got to the playoffs. I think we often look at the way a season ends, even in the post season. And then we rip a team for not doing better. It's like making the playoffs when I know there's some teams that aren't

trying, but making the playoffs is still an achievement. It's still good. Like it's still a step in the right direction. Yeah. We get very zero sum in baseball fandom, I think. And it's a comp,

you know, it's, it's a win or bust, but that's just really sad for 29 teams every year. I prefer to think that all the playoff teams did something good. Even a couple of the non-playoff teams did something good

this year. The Rangers showed something this year. Yeah, I agree. I think they did. A couple other interesting names now in the the cheap bin you mentioned puig i i think he does stack up favorably to marcelo zuna there's plenty of places he could go um you get down to the the bargain free agents jason castro to me it's like all these teams that might be interested in grandal should be interested in castro as the next best option to fill in that spot.

And I like Castro because he's probably going to be a lot cheaper than Grandal. He is still at least a good pitch framer, even if he's not elite. And he was hitting the ball very hard in 2019. He showed a little extra pop, has a good eye at the plate, kind of just does the things that you want Grandal to do, albeit with a higher strikeout rate yeah and it's interesting he's very coachable because he's made huge improvements in his framing and is hitting at different points in his career uh so you know a guy who's very

coachable who's also going to coach all your pitching staff i think jason castro is great i would say that you know if i was shopping I would rather shop between Jason Castro and Travis Darnot than perhaps spending all the money on Grundahl and Robinson Chirinos, who to me is a bat-first catcher. think I'd rather spend a little bit less and capture a lot of that less easy to see value kind of like the Atlanta did with Tyler Flowers and Brian McCann they had a very decent capture tandem for very cheap and I know that a lot of the fans hated it because it didn't look good but it was a it was a pretty good it was really productive for very cheap. And that's where I'd go. So Travis Darnot goes on my list of cheapos. And I wanted to mention something that came out of Kylie's write-up. Tsutsugo, our main man from last week, my second-time repeat prospect of the week,

Pete prospect of the week. Apparently, according to sources, was hitting over 92 miles an hour on average in Japan, which would make him a top 30 hitter by exit velocity if he came over. And he's definitely coming over. So I think Tsutsugo

and it would be trade rumors for some reason, put in Shogo Akayami and not Yoshitsumo Tsutsugo and I would have it the other way around. Tsutsugo goes on my list of bargain FA. I would believe he'll go to somebody like the Brewers for the Thames deal or less. Yeah, that's been the focus of my last week or so.

I wrote up a piece for The Athletic looking at what the Brewers are going to try and do. Wilmer Flores could be a part of their plan, maybe as part of a platoon at first base. He can play a little bit elsewhere. Flores is interesting to me because he doesn't strike out that much. I think when you put a ton of balls in play, you're going to lose average exit velocity. If you look at average exit VLO, you look at Flores, you say 86.7. Gross. I don't want that guy. That's not

good. It's like, well, he only strikes out 10% of the time. So you're going to get some weak contact sprinkled in there. So my question for you is when you assess a player with core skills like Wilmer Flores, what else are you kind of looking

for to paint a clearer picture of what kind of damage he's capable of doing? Barrels are a little bit more important for this reason because average exit velocity can get you in trouble there. The other thing is

I have a lot of respect for strikeout rate. Just putting those balls in play is good. His barrel rate at 5.1% is not great. But, you know, he puts so many balls in play that I would just think of him as differently, as having different assets, you know. I just put him in a different bin and look for different things from him. So basically, I would draft him for batting average and not hurting me and a little bit of positional flexibility.

So for a team that's acquiring him, I think they wouldn't focus so much on how much power can you get out of him? Can we make him an elite player? It would be more like, hey, can this guy back up first base, back up second base, and swing with the right hand,

which is something he can do. So he becomes like a really decent platoon option, bench bat kind of situation. Right. If you were a team that had Hernan Perez with like a 75 WRC plus as your primary bench guy, Wilmer Flores is a nice upgrade, especially if he's a $3 million guy for one year or something.

I don't think it's going to take much to get him, but I think he's a good player. I think the market's going to miss on him. Oh, this is interesting. He's projected to be 11% better than league average, Wilmer Flores is. Yeah, the steamer projections. And that would beat Marcel Azuna

in three out of the last four seasons. That's wild, isn't it? Yes, but it's worth pointing out that Azuna's projected to be 20% better than league average with a bat. So, why that is, we may have to do a deeper dive to figure out, and I would assume that it has a little bit something to do a deeper dive to figure out.

I would assume that it has a little bit something to do with both health and park because Azuna's had some shoulder troubles and has hit those parks. Yeah, Flores, definitely a Howie Kendrick backup plan. Yeah, that's a good way to put it too. I think teams interested in one will probably be interested in the other. Some pitchers that I'm intrigued by. This one is a little off the grid, but I'm going to throw it out there anyway. Matt Moore. I'm intrigued by Matt Moore. I think if you are a team, any team that just wants to round out your rotation with a guy that could still have

a little bit of upside and has the fallback of maybe being a Pomeranz type reliever if it doesn't work out in the rotation, Matt Moore could be that guy. He only made a couple of starts with the Tigers last year. They were very good. He didn't allow it in a run. He struck out nine guys in 10 innings, tiny sample size, but the velocity ticked up just a little bit it almost reminded me of the charlie morton philadelphia year where he got hurt really early and what he was doing in that like four or five starts he's able to make that year was a lot different than what we'd seen in the past not quite as extreme and a smaller sample but enough there are where i think if you want to take a smart flyer matt mo Moore is a smart flyer.

Yeah, it's interesting also to see that his cutter was slower than it had ever been. When he used it, he used it more than he ever had. And it had the most drop of his career. So, you know, that's not necessarily what you normally associate with a cutter i normally want the cutter to kind of be closer to your fastball but maybe he's found a slider yeah yeah i would take that it looks kind of like a slider and uh you know these are things that change quickly and you can believe them so uh there is, there was something different about Matt,

Matt Moore did last year, different. And he kind of, you know, to be honest, like he kind of did it a little bit towards the end of the, of the year before. But that just makes it even more believable that there's,

there's, he's changing something about his cutter. He's going to it more and he was thrown 93. I would definitely sign Matt Moore. Yeah. Last year, I think he got two and.5 million from the Tigers with maybe an extra half million in bonuses or a buyout or something.

He hits the market, and no one's talking about him. He's going to go to the Twins. How much did they spend on Martin Perez last year? Probably about $5 million. Yeah, $4 million offer they offer more something similar and they say the same stuff to him as they said to martin perez that would be a spot where i'd have a blind interest from a fantasy standpoint even before he throws a pitch in the uniform and if you you hated what martin perez did last year, and you hated that he was on lists as a possible sleeper,

I get it. It was a 5 ERA in the end. But the Twins got value out of Martin Perez. He won games for them. He won 10 games. He won these wins. He had two war. That was a decent way to spend $4 million.

It's the reason why a player like Chase Anderson gets traded or has his option declined when a contending team could say, oh, I can give him $8.5 million and maybe get two war again. There's always a Martin Perez or a Matt Moore or someone for $4 million or less that can also give you that two war that's why players on that part of the curve have their options declined and get non-tendered and end up getting dealt for players you've never heard of so you were all over them not re-upping with eric thames but did they i think they re-upped chase anderson they traded them to the blue jays they they got traded yeah they flipped what's going on i follow too many people on twitter also i'm an old man and i'm losing my

faculties dude i i got locked out i got i got locked out of my phone because i couldn't remember the freaking password like the passcode the four digit passcode that i've used like a million times like listen in the end it turned out that i just flipped two numbers and it has something to do with the garage door being very similar but this is concerning i had to go to the apple store and like reboot the whole thing from scratch that is the concern chase and Anderson got traded. Chase Anderson got traded. Did he get anything for him? Chad Spanberger, which is a funny player because it's almost Corey Spangenberg name-wise. They are totally different players skills-wise.

Okay, so this is why trades like this happen. Whoa, first baseman. First base outfielder, left-handed hitter, better than league average at every stop and he was a sixth round pick of the Rockies two years ago. Didn't have a very good year

on the surface at AA. We've said before, AA didn't have the rabbit ball. He's not a 40-man guy. They don't have to protect him for the Rule 5 draft until next year. It's the kind of dart you take

when you just want to free up the money and spend the money on someone else. Save the money. Yeah, save the money. It was money on someone else. Save the money. Yeah, save the money. It was a little bit better than just cutting him.

Right. And so you take that chance. And if Spanberger has a better year than he had in 2019, maybe you got a guy you protect for the future that could be a part of a platoon if you go one year on somebody for 2019 or 2020, rather. That's how it works. Well, you were basically all over both of them then yeah yeah i mean i in in the projection i wrote up a couple weeks ago i had both of those guys not in the roster construct on you know november 5th whatever whatever you want to put that line i just didn't see those guys coming back it's the funny thing was is trade rumors had anderson's arbitration value at like 10 and a half so there was definitely some value out there relative to like what he's been doing and he he's really good at avoiding barrels he gets soft contact that seems to be a repeatable skill due to that double change up he

can kind of throw the out change-up or throw the strike change-up. Yeah, and he's one of those guys. He's a Tyler Flowers for Brewers fans where they are like, oh, good, he's gone. I hate him. It's like, why do you hate him?

He's actually pretty good for what he's supposed to do. He gives up home runs because every Brewers fan has gone to one Chase Anderson start where he gave up like three homers and they think he's terrible because of that. But if you look at the overall body of work, he's actually good.

He's not good when you have $140 million to spend. You can't spend $8.5 million on him when one of your skills is finding guys like that for $2 million or $4 million. That's true. Hyper-efficiency, man. As far as your password problem, you've got a couple options. You could do the facial recognition options you could do uh the facial recognition you could do thumbprint or you could go uh i use the thumbprint what's the memento

technique well you could start like writing things on your arm give me that guy i had the the i'm so mad i'm kind of a little mad at my technology because I had the thumbprint. Why didn't the thumbprint work? I don't know. So the thumbprint didn't work, which it doesn't, it doesn't seem to work like one out of every three times. And then I jotted a number in and it was wrong. And then I was like, wait, then I started questioning myself.

Why did I get it wrong? What is my actual number? Do I not know my number? So then I started trying different numbers. It locks, it locks for 15 minutes. It locks for an hour. It locks all night. In the morning, I try one last time, and it's locked for good.

At least it doesn't self-destruct. It'd be really bad if the 12th time you fail at your password, the phone just melts, and you're done. The worst part is it's the same as a pin for one of my bank cards. And so today on the way to the Apple store, I went and took money out and was like, oh my God, if I'd had one more chance, I would have gotten it right. I think the friendly tech tip of the week is that I have a case on my phone.

I have to wipe the button. It's not even a real button. It's like haptic feedback. That's why the thumb doesn't always work. Yeah, my thumb stops working after a while because the little cover gets smudged with, you know, I don't know, chili and donuts and whatever else I'm eating. So eventually it doesn't recognize my thumbprint because there's too much food in there.

And if I just wipe out that area, then it's good. I mean, I do wash my hands a lot too, but the residue, yeah. Sure you do. It does screw your thumbprint. You wash your hands with donuts. Yes, that's a ritual in my house. That's how we do it here. I'm not sure how you do it out in California,

but that's how we wash our hands in the Midwest. I wouldn't believe it. Milk and donuts. Sorry, I just offended everybody. No, it's fine. All right, prospect of the week. That kind of was my prospect of the week. That kind of was my prospect of the week. I was planning on talking about

Spanberg as he is. Spanberger. That's going to mess with my head for so long. It's kind of great that they're not going to be teammates at least at this point because that would wreck me. I've got

a two-pack again. My father-in-law was listening to some music out the other day and i said you really like this guy and he's like yeah two-pack um so i've got a i've got a two-pack and i and i think they just sort of represent a type of of player you know when you're when you're trading a lot of times everybody wants the the the stud the higher name the the higher draft pick the this that and a lot of times i find that i can trade those guys for current value uh and then plug in this type of prospect which is undervalued and this type of prospect is the prospect that fangrass has put like a 40 or 45 on they didn't like him at some point or you know there's something they don't like about him. However, the ETA is real nice and short.

And so my two guys are Llewyn Diaz. He was traded for Sergio Romo to the Marlins, and he's a first baseman, lefty, 22 years old. He just spent his first time in double a uh and spent about 300 plate appearances in double a had a rebound off of an injured year last year where the power dipped but other than the injury year in 2018 he's kept his iso basically above 250 in the minor leagues uh and his strikeout rate for the minor leagues is under 20 so you've got this combination of power and contact uh the the walk rate is not

great the fly ball rate gets close to 50 it's a little bit hectic there so the projections aren't for a good batting average obp however he's already projected for a 171 iso in the major leagues right now uh and garrett cooper is the first baseman there and i think that there's a little bit of of pressure on the marlins to have certain to to kind of come up with some wins you know what i mean like you kind of you kind of have to like have something good happen this year because you're kind of getting into that second third year of a new regime where people can get fired you know i think that's true and so i think you know if luan diaz has a good start to the year in double a next year and uh garrett cooper gets injured here comes wally pip situation and if if luan diaz can come up and strike out 18 of the time and have over 200 iso he's a major leaguer i think

um so that's an that's an interesting guy and then a similar situation is dalton jeffries which he's a pitcher in the uh oakland a's organization and he uh you know somebody might look at his and say, oh, he didn't start all his games next year. He must be transitioning to be a reliever. What happened was he's actually coming off of surgery. And so I think that they just sort of broke him in easy style on that and wanted to manage his innings at the end of the season. In 2018, he only threw two innings. And in 2017, he only threw seven innings. So they weren't going to throw him a ton of the season. In 2018, he only threw two innings. And in 2017, he only threw seven innings. So they weren't going to throw him a ton of innings.

He ended up getting to 79 innings. And in those 79 innings, he struck out nearly 11 batters, more than 11 batters per nine, and walked less than one. Wow. So this is a guy who has really good command, mid-90s fastball. The changeup is already 60. You know, the changeup is already 60. So what we're waiting on is the curveball to develop

and how many innings he can have next year. But I could see him having Major League time next year or maybe ending up at the Arizona Fall League to kind of push his innings to like 120, 150, and then being a real name on people's list the next year or maybe ending up at the arizona fall league to kind of push his innings to like 120 150 and then being a real name on people's list the next year so uh get ahead of these guys uh and uh and trade away the bigger names if you're if you're competitive these are the kind of guys you can stash if you're in a competitive dynasty league uh and you kind of want to to get someone that could jump

up in value next year that there's there's like they're coming up on sort of a moment that'll change their their their value yeah that's a really good call yeah i like that those guys could actually break through the organizations they're in right now too i think sometimes those those 40 ish grade guys they're they're blocked too and and that's part of what makes you kind of stay away, but I think I can see both having a clear path to contributing. Spanberger, by the way, if I didn't mention before, 70 grade raw power, hitting the ball

on the ground a little too much last year. We'll see if the Brewers can get them to get that ball back up in the air. Maybe goes back to double A to start the year. Wouldn't surprise me to just see him go to the PCL though and see what happens there. Just let it rip. Go down there.

To fit him in with these three, add a position of organizational need. Yeah, exactly. They could short-term it for 2020 and use a guy like this potentially in 2021. Maybe call him up in September or something like that. Could be a fall league guy. Lots of ways it could play out for him.

Do we save Beer of the Week? Do we go double on Beer of the Week next week, Eno? Yeah, let's do that next week. Right now, I would just do a Jester King Sour I had this weekend. I think I've already done a Jester King Sour. Yeah, I had Zombie Dust this weekend, and it was still really good. I think I've already reviewed zombie dust so if you need selections those are the selections but we'll go more in depth on next week's beer of the week homework i love it yes beer homework

this is homework i can get into too best kind and actually if we'll take submissions too so if you have a very interesting beer between now and next week, Tuesday, hit us up. He's at Eno Saris. I'm at Derek Van Ryper. You can email us, fantasypods at theathletic.com. Just include Rates and Barrels in the subject line if you'd like to reach us that way. That is going to wrap things up for this

episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you next week. Thanks for listening.