Rates & Barrels - Following Through

Episode Date: June 4, 2020

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In a world of uncertainty, one thing is for sure, cancer doesn't stop during a global crisis. On Saturday, June 13th, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society will host a trailblazing event, Big Virtual Climb, sponsored by AbbVie, to support their investment in groundbreaking research to advance blood cancer cures and its first-in-class patient education and services, including financial support and clinical trial navigation. including financial support and clinical trial navigation. Step up to take cancer down by climbing 61 floors or 1,762 steps inside or outside,

on stairs, on the road, or your treadmill. Climb your way. Join us for an opening ceremony and then take on your climb with our heart-pumping playlist. Join us on June 13th from coast to coast as we come together to climb, conquer, cure. Register at lls.org slash bigclimb. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 101. It is June 4th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. You know, we have a lot to talk about again on this episode. talked about on Tuesday and and what we're focused on I think is just as a as a whole as a country right now is kind of what do we do now conversations are happening conversations that weren't happening

even a week ago in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and I think what we're starting to see and what you saw from some of the exchanges after the episode went out on Tuesday was that you had people pushing back with data, no less, trying to dismantle the points we were making throughout the episode. Yeah, it's hard to tell intent i mean i think in one case um because of some of the other tweets they shared with me yes it was uh it was a different kind of interaction one that i did not find pleasant um and it also i think uh pointed to the fact that statistics can be used to lie. I think just straight up lie. One was trying to point out to me that blacks are responsible for more of, more interracial violence, or most of the interracial violence.

And I just, I had to point out that, that if there was no race effect at all, uh, math straight, just numbers and the way that population, like between size works, you would expect that whites would be the victim of most interracial crimes.

I mean, they are the largest group. If you remove white on white crime and black on black crime uh then what's going to happen the the largest group is going to be the victim of the crime so uh I and and I'm sure you've seen some of those memes being posted um about uh crime that kind of a lot of times just straight up uh misrepresents what's the the truth you know um and and does it to kind of uh paint a picture uh that kind of blames black people for their for their their spot in life and then there are other times when it's not as clear uh what's happening because uh there can be good faith uh faith research that's trying to kind of uncover

some of the sources of, you know, these other statistics that we were pointing out about how black people are treated in America. And like, for example, one is that, you know, if you account for fatherlessness, to some extent, the poverty divide goes away. The problem is I've seen that before. I've seen that result before. I've seen that study before. And it has often been shared in a racist manner, saying it's basically black people's fault for for not being fathers and i reject that premise and i reject that notion um but however um i did not reject the sender immediately we had a little bit further conversation about it and they used it as a springboard to talk about trying to work on crime

and racial disparity as a kind of public health crisis. And working in communities to break the by de-escalation of conflicts, promoting scholarship, like a different kind of approach than policing the police. And that resonated with me a little bit. And so what that can be a positive that can happen too is as long as the data is okay and you're not misusing

the results of the data, it can maybe further the conversation. Like, for example, I know that Cleveland is about to declare racism a public health crisis. And I know that some people kind of backpedal, oh my God, you know, everything's racist. And why is that R word used so much? oh my god you know everything's racist and why is that r word used so much and what are you talking about with public health and uh i understand that but at the same time what that does is allow them to use public health tactics to uh attack the problem of racism and so we're already seeing that there are people doing this and they're being effective doing it. I personally think there's enough in the data when it comes to police data that we also have to do the police bit. I mean, to some extent, that's what you're seeing as well, right?

Yes. One of the links I shared on Tuesday was from joincampaignzero.org, and there's a few different types of campaign zeros out there, by the way, so just make sure that you actually go to that URL to get to the page and the site that I'm referring to. And really, I think what you find as you spend time

on the Campaign Zero site, it's going to be a multifaceted solution and it does involve changing the way policing happens in many many ways they have a 10 step outline of 10 categories and broken windows policing community oversight limit the use of force, independently investigate and prosecute, have community representation, body cams, training, and for-profit policing, demilitarization, fair police union contracts. That's a multifaceted problem, and that's just one problem. And we're looking at an entire range of things that need to be addressed. And to sit back and to say that fixing any one part of this is going to solve the entire scope of racial injustice is silly.

It's just not that easy. It never has been and never will be. So you can make donations there, and you can also find a lot of helpful links too. Just to take some direct action, you can find out who your local representatives are. And you can do that on a state level and go ahead and follow through and reach out to your representatives. That's extremely important to actually institute change at the level where laws are made yeah and i think one of the things that ends up being a diffuser of energy when it comes to things like this is uh fracturing a kind of a

disagreement it's like the one i was having with the the person sharing with me um the thing about fatherlessness fatherlessness that could have easily turned into a shouting match where two people that wanted to do some good disagreed so vehemently about how to do that good that they would no longer listen to each other. And then on top of that, even people who are more closely aligned like for example we've got a group of I mean we're 20 plus strong now writers trying to help promote diversity within the ranks of sports writing fantasy sports writing in particular but just sports writing in general and we're having a conversation and it's difficult for us to find a focus. Um, you know, and we keep adding things that we want to do. Um, it's kind of like that chicken and egg thing I was talking about earlier. It's like to do it you know

what i mean like like there's times when i would have seen a thread like this that we're on that we're talking and we're trying to figure something out. And I would have been like, Oh God, just wake me up when it's over. You know, like this is just, everyone's got an idea and it's going off in three different, 3 million different ways. And just, I don't, you know, part of me is just like, I can't handle it, you know? Um, but I'm sticking with it and I'm gonna try to stick with it this time and I keep trying to concretize the conversation and bring us to some form of action just because that's how I'm built but you don't necessarily have to be that type of organizer you can pick something that's more fully formed and support it. Um, and there are these public health initiatives, um, that, uh, you can support, um, at the risk of, of sharing something that, uh, I haven't vetted completely. Um, but it looks like they've done some good in chicago and other places

um there is a group uh there's a group that has done a bunch of a good work that was profiled in the washington post um called cure violence uh the organization takes a public health-based approach to violence um sending trained counselors uh former sometimes former gang members to interview in disputes provide mentorship and other other things like that uh reduce violence through the application of public health methods so um you know if that know, if that's your bag, that's your bag. I think that it looks like they have, um, they have done some good. Um, but my point is, um, let's try to promote diversity wherever we can. Let's try to, uh, help, um, people that need help. And it's not just, I mean, people that need help.

And it's not just, I mean, right now it's all about how black lives matter. But, you know, for me, that's an all-encompassing phrase. It means black writers matter. It means women writers matter. It means all people of color matter. It means that we need to do our best to support the people around us. Yeah, and I think step one, as these conversations have started, that we need to do our best to, um, support the people around us. Yeah. And I think step one, as these conversations have started,

the realization for a lot of us is that we need to listen. We need to understand perspectives that are just different than our own, because it's so easy. It's been so easy for so long to go through life, not hearing those perspectives, not hearing those perspectives, not hearing those voices, not seeing the world through different eyes. And one thing that you touched on that I really want to hammer home is no matter what your decision is to try and help solve the problems of racial injustice. No matter what you do, you have to follow through on it.

We all do. That's going to be the challenge for everybody. This is the thing we're focusing on right now. We can't stop focusing on it when life as we used to know it begins its ascent, its move back to normal. Yeah, and it's going to be hard to have two ideas in your head at the same time, which is, you know, like, I'm going to enjoy this baseball season when it happens, this fantasy baseball season,

and I'm also going to remember these negative things that happened or these negative things that happened all around us and try to do something about them I mean it's it's difficult in podcast form it is difficult for all of us but you know and I don't know if it is you know I personally have sort of looked internally and thought about whether or not I will continue to do my job in the future. And if this is the best way I can help and, you know, what baseball will look like going forward and what fantasy baseball look like going forward. And, um, you know, just the kind of question I think we're all doing about almost everything around us.

Um, uh, and, um, uh, you know, I've seen it from others. Um,

a couple of people in my fantasy leagues, uh, have preemptively decided that they will not participate in fantasy baseball this year, even if there's a season. Because, I don't know, they wanted to take a year off to refocus and maybe rediscover the passion. And then there are other people who are taking the year off for different reasons. At the top of the fantasy food chain in terms of the highest stakes leagues, there are a fair amount of people saying that they will not participate in a 50-game season. And there's some risk of that because right now the tenor of the discussions between Major League Baseball and the players,

the owners and the players, has changed and it's become a question of how many games. So instead of haggling about how much money, they're haggling about how many games because that's the same haggle. But actually, I think it's a misstep by the owners personally because now the owners are on the side of less baseball and i don't think that's something that fans will get behind and i think that uh has made them look worse. So it's a weird discussion now to have a battle between the players for more baseball and the owners for less baseball.

So I kind of think it'll still be, you know, 75, 80 games in the end, maybe with some deferred salary. But if it was 50 games, would you, is there a limit on how much money you'd throw down? Let's say, that can kind of be a personal question in terms of what exactly the dollar amount is, but let's say you would give 100% of an entry fee for a league in a 162-game season. What percentage would you give for a 50-game season? I'm probably closer to 25% of what I would normally do. It's down that much. I think we know enough about what happens over 50-game stretches to realize that a lot

of what separates us as analysts over 162 won't necessarily separate us over 50. And can it still be fun? Yeah, of course. But do you play at the top end of your typical entry level? I certainly don't think it's a good idea. Yeah, I think back to TGF and um my local barf league last year where i started out the first month pretty terribly in both um and end of the season um i think like fourth and both fourth or fifth something like that um which i mean that's not something to crow about, but it's like, you know, obviously my draft was more on the, you know, 12th level.

And I, you know, I worked my way up, you know. And generally, as much as people may want to point to me as someone who's not good at fantasy because I haven't had a lot of wins, I do not end up in the bottom. And, you know, it's hard work. It's knowing which are the best players to pick up and having some. And I actually don't think that my FAAB strategy is as good as a lot of other people's. Maybe that's what's keeping me from winning. But my point is that there is that six-month marathon that does get closer to skill than luck. And I'd hate for my $350 NFBC team to just start out poorly and end up 12th

and be more fodder for the people who want to say that I'm a bad player. Well, yeah, but see, it's kind of funny because if your team gets hot and wins in a 50-game season, are you going to, in your head, tear yourself down and say, actually, you know, I just got lucky. You're just going to feel good about winning, right? At least I would, even though I know that's not true. Like, my first instinct would be like, all right, it worked out.

Should we demand refunds from the NFBC if there's a 50-game season? I don't think so. Those are drafted. Yeah. I mean, these are questions that have been coming in for a while, and we still don't know. At the end of the day, if I understand what's been reported, the commissioner can unilaterally decide on a 50-game season.

That is actually a decision he can make. We just don't know if he will make that decision. It's something I've been pointing to, that legally the last agreement that was made is the March Agreement. So if there is no new agreement, then the March Agreement is the standing agreement. And in that agreement, it says that the commissioner can set the schedule. However, it says he can set the schedule

in order to play as many games as are feasible or possible. I forget the exact wording. And now it becomes a question of what's possible or what's feasible, right? And the owners say, well, we can't afford more games than 50. Hmm. Maybe they shouldn't be in the business of owning baseball teams then. Zing.

Seriously, if they can't afford it, why are they owners of these teams? Yeah, it's an interesting thing. Yeah, I agree. I think that's why I'm a little surprised the owners have seemingly pushed aside deferred money as not being valuable to them. But the point is that maybe teams are a long-term investment and you buy it for $100 million, you sell it for $1 billion, whatever it is. And maybe they don't make much more than... I have been poking around front offices trying to get some sense of how much each team makes. And maybe they only make on the order of 5, 10, 15 million a year,

which would mean that they wouldn't actually have a ton of cash set aside, you know, free cash from year to year. And I'm talking about the average team, not necessarily the Yankees or the Red Sox and so on. And so maybe they don't have a lot of cash now. So why don't the players say, okay, you know, we'll defer 10% of our salaries for the future so that you don't have to come up with that cash now. You know, you obviously have a ton of equity. You know what I mean? Like these these are these are billion dollar companies you obviously have a ton of equity so we'll let you give like give you time to to come up with the equity to pay us um it seems like a good way out for me 80 games 10 deferrals i don't know it seems possible still

in the context of their conversations but uh of course they're floating this 50 and 40 game nonsense to try and put the fear of god in the players i guess yeah here's the thing that at least in the the way things are playing out as reported on the public side i come away with this impression that the owners are significantly underestimating their ability to actually ruin the game. That is within the range of outcomes for them with a very shortened season or no season at all. And the extremely high values of their franchises might not be quite so high. We're talking about a league that falls below. It's obviously already below the NFL. I think it's below the NBA.

But if it falls closer to the popularity of, say, the NHL in North America, are the franchise values going to be quite as inflated and pumped up as they are right now? I don't think so. Yeah, yeah. I totally agree. Their equity depends on the players, and it depends on the game playing. And we saw that the NFL draft had the largest, the best ratings ever last year. This year

during the crisis. It felt like last year, to be honest. It felt like it was a year ago already. Yeah, everything's time is, every day is either 20 minutes or 20 days. The

NFL draft had great ratings. My point is, there's a thirst. Kids are home. My kids, most of their camps are canceled. I think all of them are canceled. If they came to me and said, my screen time is up today, but there's baseball on. Do you want to watch a game with me? I'd say a couple curse words.

Yeah. You'd have a different small problem to address from a parenting perspective, but that'd be a trade-off I think you'd make at this point. I taught my five-year-old the word turd today before his... He has one of those poop emoji hats, and I called him a turd. And he goes, no, you're a turd. And he goes, Dad, what's a turd? And I taught him this right

before i put him on a zoom call with his class so i i'm 100 sure he's going to mention the word turd to his teacher then i had to put him in time out and picked him up and threw my back out so i have one question for you and i've asked you this before why is 2020 it just is because we need a nadir right it just is um oh my god but yeah i you know there's this opportunity to um climb climb closer because i think uh the for the nba it's a bit of a unfortunate timing hey it's it's unfortunate for everybody it's just terrible you know when is when is good timing for a pandemic but i'm just mean in the course of a season they were right at the postseason so they're having all these discussions about how to start back up again and i think it'll be a

little bit weird to kind of just jump into the postseason and be like, oh, wait, who's on the Lakers again? You know, and like kind of try to remember the postseason. Like there's something that a real great championship run like the Nationals run was pretty exciting. And the reason it was exciting is they went 19 and 31 at first. Right. And then they went on a tear and they just sort of tore through the postseason. And that championship matters because of the World Series, but it also matters because of April, and it matters all the way through. I think there'll be this disjointment

and a disjointed quality for the NBA season where you'll be like, I don't even remember how good the Lakers were at the end of the season. I don't even remember. Nobody knows Lakers were at the end of the season. I don't even remember. Nobody knows who's on the Warriors right now anyway. There would be a weird disjointment. I think there would be a little bit of a chance to pull some NBA fans away

and have a narrative that starts. A narrative that has a start and an end, possibly. And so gather some Cleveland fans and get them in there at the beginning and see if Cleveland can't run all the way to the end, that sort of deal. So that's why football, for example, football has seen the least pain so far

out of any of the sports because they had their draft as regularly scheduled. football for example football has seen the least pain so far out of any of the sports uh because they had their draft as regularly scheduled they have not pushed anything off so people who are fans of football teams can follow along and still have the normal narrative oh my team signed this person signed this person signed this person we're going to be good this year camps are starting up they'll probably play games. You know what I mean? There's that normalcy of one foot in front of the other. And you'll see with us, with fantasy coverage and stuff, it's been so terrible readership-wise and interest and enthusiasm-wise because we lost that one foot in front of the other. We lost that.

We don't have that. When is day one? lost that we don't have that when is day one you know i think hopefully we'll we'll we'll refine some of that enthusiasm once they say okay july 4th day one 80 game season you know let's at least uh tell a story this year and i have a piece coming out tomorrow about how many different minor leaguers um how over around 1200 minor200 minor leaguers were cut last week. And there's a lot of really interesting quotes from players about what it means for them. And one is going to just start a new career, and that's it. His career is going to end in the middle of the coronavirus.

His baseball career is. And there's a lot of sadness, but there were a couple quotes. One was, I still believe in myself. I know I've been released, but I still believe in myself, and I'm going to keep going. And another one was, there were major leaguers who were released today. There are future major leaguers that were released today from an executive. There are future major leaguers that were released today from an executive.

So that's something that I find as a hopeful kind of way to maybe tie together a lot of these different things is, you know, when it comes to these protests and when it comes to the coronavirus and when it comes to the season we're having, like, hopefully we're going to be here to tell a lot of great stories about things that were born now. You know, children that were born now, but also careers that were born now. New directions that were born now. New initiatives that were born now. You know, Phoenix style. You know, like, there's got to be... We're in the ashes, man.

I, my back is thrown out and, you know, last day of school, like it's going to get worse. I've got to do more. See, I,

I, I mean, admittedly as someone who doesn't have children, I have forgotten that school is still actually happening at home and that, you know, you as parents are now doubling as teachers and that structure that you've just maybe started to get comfortable with, that's about to go away.

As much as I hated the Zoom calls, they were an hour or so of respite at the time. but um no i i think that there's um it's it's human being it's human nature to to hope uh without it um you know life is uh does not have um the sizzle so you know i think think you can't lose sight of that. Even no matter what you, however you sort of see these demonstrations, however you see this virus, however you see the response that is needed, I think empathy is important and hope is important. It needs to be a turning point for us. It has to be. And there are definitely some small seeds of hope that I've seen in the last few days. I mean, you mentioned the group that we're a part of that was started up by Alex Fast,

just hoping to improve, working to improve diversity in fantasy sports coverage. And to that end, I don't think I explicitly said this earlier, I'm happy to help anybody who wants help at dvanriperatheathletic.com for emails. Of course, on Twitter, at Derek Van Riper. Anything I can do just to help um i'm more than willing to do it i hope i hope my door's always been open but i want to

make sure if there's any doubt that it absolutely is i don't know if we're going to necessarily codify this like beer of the week and prospect of the week you know cause of the week or anything um and i hope it um codify this like beer of the week and prospect of the week you know cause of the week or anything um and i hope it um i hope that you know our sort of data forward approach um allows you uh the headspace to continue to listen even if you don't always agree with our conclusions. But, and you've always got the rundown to skip it, I guess. But I would like for us to, you know, this is unplanned too. Like, I'd like for us to, as much as it makes sense, and as much as the feedback is still positive for the large part,

for us to sometimes delve into current events and not only do fantasy baseball. I mean, it's what was required of us by the situation now, but it could be something that I think could be valuable. And, you know, if we do it with a kind of sober mind and a look at the data and the research, I think it could be valuable for both sides. I don't know. Feel free to, of course, to skip these moments in the rundown. But, you know, I think we've we've had a lot of fun, though, over the first 100 episodes. I don't want to leave that fun behind.

We were talking about some of our best... We were kind of trying to reminisce about the first 99 episodes. And the one that absolutely comes to mind first was... Well, for me, it was just flipping open the laptop from the winter meetings just in an utter state of death just you know

death warmed up that was how you described it and I tried to like I think I tried to sing something Eno happy winter meetings how san diego treating you so far i think if you can hear what i sound like uh that's one answer the other answer i would give you is thank god for toast with a sunny side up egg that's's all I would like to say about that. Okay.

That's fine. I mean, San Diego, if you had to design a city for Eno or for me or for most people, San Diego checks a lot of boxes to make people very happy. Good Lord. I can see where going into your fourth day in the city with all the things that are happening, uh, you'd be in,

in, in less than peak condition, but I think this show will be a good one. I'm warmed up death and it's my own damn fault. I mean, I started this thing with a beer crawl. We can even have a beer of the week because I started with a beer. We have to have a beer,

but we're going to have beer a week at the end. It's basically going to be a whole segment for week because I started with a beer. We have to have a beer. We're going to have beer of the week at the end. It's basically going to be a whole segment for you to talk about the beer crawl because you experienced a lot of interesting beers along the way. So we'll definitely get to that. But let's start with Garrett Cole. That was the news that broke. Let's get to our beer of the week segment, which is going to be a bit different this week because you set up a beer crawl to begin the winter meetings on Sunday. It's a great way to kick off the trip. I got to tip the cap to you because that's brilliant.

It was stupid. It's brilliant. It was so stupid. It was the dumbest thing. First of all, I announced to everybody my dereliction, that I'm going to be drinking for seven hours on the Sunday before the winter meetings start. that I'm going to be drinking for seven hours on the Sunday before the winter meeting start.

Evan, am I editor? Emma Spann said, uh, we already knew you were derelict. I've considered putting together an actual clip show. Um, it's,

it takes time just to dig back through and cut the audio and put it all back together. If people would listen to it, if I knew if people were like, yeah, I would actually listen to that, I will take the time to do it if I get a little bit of a nudge.

Otherwise, I'll probably just occasionally find a cut and mix it maybe into the intro or somewhere else in the show when it's appropriate. There's some times where the funny, goofy stuff we've done doesn't necessarily fit in a place like that, but I think that's a big part of our show, just enjoying the time we're here.

The outfielder who stabbed. Yes, the oyster burns is probably my favorite moment. Just to break the fourth wall for a minute, for a lot of podcast awards, you submit a clip. If you would like to be nominated, you take your best submission or a series of submissions and bring them to the body giving the awards. And the Oyster Burns clip from last summer, it would have been now that was the clip i i sent in and it wasn't because it was the best analysis or the absolute best of the best rates and barrels but it was to me i don't think i've ever actually laughed that hard while technically working before. So it just stuck out to me as one of the best moments from the show. Oh, yeah.

I guess from an analysis point, one that stands out for me was we both took different approaches to finding the prospect of the week, and we didn't share our prospects of the week with each other before, or maybe you put it on the rundown, but me being an idiot didn't look at the rundown,

and we both had the same prospect of the week,raham toro yeah you stole my guy like how we we didn't use the exact same query and yeah i did have the name in the outline and it was like on the second page you didn't you didn't get there so that definitely taught me to read the rundown more often not every time just rundown more often. Not every time, just more often. More often? No, I mean like this week. I don't even know if we had a rundown.

We do. I mean, yeah, we have one. It's understandably different. You almost having to eat a hat because of Chris Sale and the velocity increase last year. You were teetering on the brink of having to eat a hat because of chris sale and the velocity increase last year you were you were teetering on the brink of having to do that point two of it we were talking about how i would actually eat the hat like what sort of hat and how would i cook it i think we're tough i think deep frying is the winner deep frying i think everybody agreed was probably your best chance of actually finding some enjoyment and having to eat a hat.

Just make it crunchy. I think the food that I compared it to was kale. If you were going to make kale chips, you would just bake them in the oven at a high temperature and dry them out. I thought that – the deep fryer wasn't an option. I thought roasting at a very high temperature was your next best way to go i think actually a combination of the two because one of the one of my favorite uh things to do uh over the coronavirus has been to cook more and to actually look at some recipes and kenji lopez has a recipe where you um you boil the potatoes in basic water.

So you put some baking soda in and it makes the potatoes have a bit of a slurry around them. And then you bake them at a high temperature. And what you end up getting is a crunchy outside with basically almost a liquid inside. And that is what you need. So you basically need to boil the hat first you basically need to boil the hat first you need to boil the hat first

and get it just as wet and just as reduce it to thread as much as possible make that cardboard just as liquid as possible and then bake it with some nice sort of bacon infused oil

or something. Maybe just bacon fat. Bacon fat usually helps the cooking process. Close your eyes and pretend you're eating bacon. Just really bad bacon. Worse than turkey bacon even. Turkey bacon is the worst.

Oh, ow, ow, ow, ow. See see we can't make eno laugh too much because of his back so he's injuring himself while potting right now yeah your battle eno battle san diego is the the name of the episode where you were at the winter meetings we ran we had an hour and 20 minutes on that episode too so not only were you just feeling terrible. We ran an hour and 20 minutes on that episode too. So not only were you just feeling terrible, we ran a solid 20 minutes longer than the typical episode length too on top of that. Yeah, yeah.

I think that was like a night where I, the night before I had done a beer crawl where we went to Half Door, Pure Project, and Modern Times and then ended up at the hotel talking to executives until three in the morning

and then sort of flipped the laptop open at 10 in the morning. It was just like, Oh, wait. Was that the same night that you broke 10 in the morning it was just like oh wait that that was that the same night that you broke the rick porcello signing or was that just later that trip i had a it was funny too i had a um i had a ask me anything an ama on reddit um maybe that week or the next week or something and One of the questions, and I was near the end of the hour, so I don't think I actually answered it.

I wish I did, but I saw it as I was closing up. Why don't you break any real news? I don't know if that's a question that's occurred to anybody who listens to this, but I do have an answer that was different than the other answer because the first answer was, did you see he broke the rick porcello signing like yeah drunk at three in the morning uh no my uh my reasoning is actually that i don't i don't enjoy it i don't it's not it's not an enjoyable process for me. The times that I have actually broken news,

I've felt awful about the, I don't know if it's the safety of the source, but I don't ever want to hurt someone's job because of something I've reported. Maybe they deserve it or something. I don't know if that fully captures what I mean. But if it's just a piece of news about a player movement or something, I don't find enough value in knowing that first that I would want to put someone in jeopardy in order to report

it first. That's what I mean. You know what I mean? Yeah, that makes sense so you know every time i have done it i've like checked back with these sources like a million times about the wording of it and the timing of it and is it okay and blah blah blah and the very first time i did one um i checked back a bunch of times and then at some point uh my source didn't respond so i went with it and i didn't like i slept like two hours that night being like did i just burn a friend like did i just like what happened and then because i'd left the thing being like is

it okay and like wake up in the morning and there's a text yeah it's fine i'm like oh my god and it was like it was the smallest friggin thing it was like contract details on a one-year signing oh my god oh my god yeah in in the scope of baseball news yeah that's i don't know how ken does it man i you know i he just uh i guess he he's just a veteran and he's just, he's had these relationships for so long that everybody just knows that if they give him something, he'll break it. And that it's, you know, there's that presumption of that kind of arrangement, you know. But I don't think that I necessarily have that presumption of that kind of arrangement with the people I talk to. that presumption of that kind of arrangement with the people I talk to. I feel like I would rather always have an off-the-record conversation with everybody I talk to and then come back to them and say, hey, is there any way I can use this?

Yeah, and there's a chance they say no. Sure, sure. There have been things that I know that I can't report. But one thing that is interesting that I'm pulling a string on is that, you know, without minor league baseball this year, because whatever happens in major league baseball, there's not going to be minor league baseball. Without minor league baseball, there's going to be games, man. There's going to be games. And they're not going to be sanctioned by baseball.

That came out in my piece today i i talked to uh a minor leaguer about this and they they were talking about how um you just have to weigh your desire to keep developing with the injury risk and it becomes a personal uh it becomes a personal decision and you just know that baseball will not necessarily support you if you do get injured. So it's an even tougher decision. But if you feel like you are doing the right things in terms of arm care and body care and taking care of your body,

it's probably better to play in terms of health in the end than to take a full year off. I mean, I just can't imagine what kind of athleticism and baseball skills you might lose if you take a full year off. Yeah, I've been wondering about this really anytime I've thought about what the 2020 baseball season would look like from a roster construction standpoint. You and I have talked about taxi squads and some of the logistics involved with that. And I know that Baseball America had a report earlier this week that extended fall leagues, both in Arizona and in Florida, are something the league has discussed. So finding opportunities for players to log innings, to pick up at bats, to continue their development is something that's on the table.

But there is a matter of compensation with that that no one talks about either. Players don't get paid to play in the fall league. Yeah. It's a little bit like extended string training, which is just as annoying. I can't believe that there's these like full leagues

where they don't get paid at all and they're sanctioned by MLB. It's just, you know, part of the whole ickiness. But there is this stipend in my piece that comes out tomorrow with the CARES Act. You can actually have the $400 a week or month.

$400 a week? The stipend is $400 a week. You can have the $400 a week stipend and apply for unemployment. But that may run out July 31st so we tried to help minor leaguers know they have at least that help on top of it and the honest reality is for a large part of baseball has become kind of well to do white kids that have support

and that's just going to continue if this is what's going on well-to-do white kids that have support. And that's just going to continue if this is what's going on. It's actually kind of nice that baseball announced the sort of 30% increase in salaries for minor leaguers next year. As much as that is not enough. But maybe there's some good that can come out of even the fewer minor league teams. Maybe that means more money for the players, the minor league players. Maybe that can mean more diversity going forward because if you can actually make $40,000 or $50,000 playing baseball in the minor leagues right off the bat, then maybe you'll have some other players in colleges and high schools pick baseball. Because, for example, let's say you're a basketball player, you're basketball and baseball, you're pretty good at both.

You know, you're not sure you'd be drafted in the first two rounds of the basketball draft. But baseball seems like it pays really poorly. But let's say you don't necessarily want to go to Greece, or you don't necessarily want to go but let's say you don't necessarily want to go to Greece or you don't necessarily want to go to Israel or you don't necessarily want to go to Russia to play basketball. Um, maybe you'll, maybe there'll be like a concrete choice where you say, you know what? I can only make, you know, $40,000 playing basketball in Greece, or I can make $40,000 playing baseball in Texas where my family is. in Texas where my family is.

So, you know, again, as crappy as I think it is to get rid of these minor league teams, like maybe there's some good that can come out of it. Yeah, I don't know. I don't want to depend on baseball owners to make the right decision, but. No, no. I mean, I think that's where the continued efforts of the people who report on that, shedding more light on it, making it something that people are more aware of,

that will increase the pressure. I mean, the Nationals players, the major league players, Nationals, the Nationals players, the major league players, were going to cover the missing wages to the minor league players. They were going to cover it. And once word of that became public, ownership, the learners, changed course and said, oh, no, we'll pay. We'll pay.

It took that for them to just do the bare minimum in that case i'd argue the coverage helped some too uh brit garrone and emily walden helped sort of shine a light on it and then um you know another thing that i would advocate for is uh either including the minor leaguers in the major league union and making it just a you know an all-encompassing thing or creating a minor league union just to give them some ability to negotiate. Absolutely, yes. That seems necessary in the next CBA, like an automatic must-have. The problem is that you have to give to get, must have.

The problem is that, you know, you have to give to get. And I don't think major league players as a, on mass want to give anything to get that, you know, they, they're focused more on, and I think maybe rightfully so.

I mean, I think to me, the most crucial thing in the next CBA is the, the minimum salary. If you look at it, nearly half of the league is on the minimum salary right now. So if you want to say, oh, the average salary has increased, or, oh, look at Bryce Harper. He's making $330 million.

The sport is healthy. 52% of the league is on the minimum salary. Oh, it's the elite players getting those massive contracts. They're still, they're outliers. Yeah. And I think for a long time, for quite a while, I think the overwhelming downside of a lot of advanced analysis It kind of steered a lot of fans

Like me included To root for Efficiency in the way the roster Was built because initially I kind of bought into the idea that there was A limit on what teams could Reasonably spend if they were close to it It's obviously not true but I think

There's been this kind of realization that, hey, not giving guys a bad contract isn't at all the same as paying everybody appropriately. That's the problem. People need to be paid appropriately. I just think for the very beginning for some people, and again, I was included in this group. It was like, Oh,

okay. They just, they need to be more efficient because I guess this is where the ceiling is. Clearly that's not the case. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And again, you can kind of sense within this one episode, the kind of fracturing that can happen and be like, where do I, where do I pay attention? Where do I, you know, where do I give my emotion and my support?

Um, I can't answer that for you. No, no. I think it's like there's a million and one things need to be fixed. It's, it's taking the situations that you can work on and working on them and just not ignoring them and not being distracted, not casting them aside and not leaving them for someone else to solve but at the other

end it is a balance. You and I cannot individually solve every problem that we are made aware of. We can do our best to solve as many of them as we're capable of solving. But there's a certain reality to this that I think everybody is going to have to find.

And just I guess in some sort of sum up, our door is open. If you want to be a part of that group that's going to help mentor and promote diversity in sports writing, please let us know. If you want to be the beneficiary of that, please let us know. If you would like one of us to help mentor you, please let us know. If you have a cause, let us know.

If you have a fantasy baseball question, let us know. I anticipate that over the next coming weeks we'll we'll get you know to more of a baseball uh themed show but um let's not leave this all behind like if you want to start a conversation about something um please do at rates and barrels at at theathletic.com. My athletic.com email is in my bio on Twitter. And I've never blocked a person. So even some of these people we've discussed on this, like, you know, we've continued the conversation.

So hit me up wherever I can help. Yeah, I'm at Derek Van Ryper on Twitter, dvanryperattheathletic.com because I don't think it's currently in my profile. But again, happy to help in any way that we can and always interested in feedback as well. So feel free to reach out if that's what you'd like to do. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels.

Stay safe. We are back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening.