Rates & Barrels - Forgotten Players, Mailbag Fun + the Ultimate Sandwich Condiments

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss several 'forgotten' players -- including Angels starter Griffin Canning -- plus their 2022 expectations for Josh Donaldson and Dylan Cease, leadoff hitters in danger of taking a tumble down the batting order, and more.  Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at 33% off for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it is Monday, January 24th, Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris on this episode. We will discuss some players that we believe are forgotten players. Not necessarily players who've been completely gone from baseball, but just players that have not been a part of our conversation throughout this draft season. The kinds of players that when you are thinking about a depth chart, you're thinking about playing time, you've probably forgotten about these guys. They're because of injury, recent performances, or a variety of other reasons.

Sometimes we see guys that were prospects who play enough to lose prospect status and then kind of fall in between AAA and the big leagues end up in these conversations as well. So a bunch of guys that fit into one of those groups. We've got some questions from you, our loyal listeners, that we're going to get to over the course of the episode as well. Eno, how's it going for you on this Monday? It's good. It's good. I didn't really do anything this weekend.

Just hung out, watched some movies with the kids. We did a little hike in Wunderlich Park around here. Saw some deer and newts. Newts? Newts and turkeys running around. Yeah, I'm used to seeing deer. I'm used to seeing turkeys. I don't think I've seen newts in a while.

Yeah, this place has like a newt pond. So we were waiting for the newts to kind of stick their heads out of the algae pond. It was kind of cool. It's like a green pond, almost like a tennis court. You know, just a perfectly green, flat space. Excellent. And then a little newt head would pop out. Well, the good news is there could be some more pickleball in our future.

Because I think healing has occurred in the last week or so. Yeah. Getting back at it, stopping and starting might be possible again for your ankle. So I think that's a good sign. good sign yeah yeah my legs are all good we'll figure out figure out the fainting thing later i'm gonna run a lot this week to get into extra good shape for the upcoming pickleball rematch from a couple weeks ago but let's kick it off with our forgotten players and i mean there's a lot of ways we can go at this we can alternate i think the first guy you picked we sort of brainstormed on a group of players that we thought were eligible and then each took a group of guys that we want to talk about one that you

have on your list i'll tee it up first justin upton i think he's just forgotten about because when he's healthy even though he has the flaw of likely providing a low batting average, he's an above average source of homers and runs and RBIs. That is definitely something that you get with a healthy Justin Upton. And he fits into the conversation we had with Britt last week when I was saying, look, I think the Angels might have some bounce back potential that could send them into the postseason. Another part of how they get there is getting, even if it's only 500 plate appearances from Justin Upton, if they have a healthy version of Upton in the mix with Mike Trout, with Brandon Marsh, and with Joe Adele,

that's a great four to have as your core four in the outfield. Yeah, he's projected by most projection systems to be an above average bat. And it's just the kind of, of player, uh, that, uh, I think, you know, real baseball and fake baseball, uh, managers forget about, uh, which is just the, the, the old veteran. Um, you know, it's not, you know, you might, you might think that he had a bad season last year, but he still hit 17 home runs, uh, was slightly worse than league average with the bat. And, you know, I think in the right situation for a team that improves their depth around him, he can be really useful.

I think that, you know, for example, the Giants seem to have figured out that, you know, older players don't, you know, don't cost as much on the on the free agent market and can be in tandem with a good coaching staff and just kind of everyone has their role philosophy can be very useful. So I think in the fantasies in the realm, if you're just looking for late power with a guy that will steal enough bases to not be a complete zero there, he's now come to the point where he's basically free. Not that I see anything in his line that's super compelling,

other than the fact that he's kept his barrel rate high all this time. Of course, his strikeout rate is getting worse as he ages, but he can still hit the ball hard he can still run okay and there's always a chance for kind of a late Renaissance season at 34 and I think with Upton compared to some of their players we're gonna talk about he doesn't need a trade he doesn't need something to break his way he'll just just get the chance. The first guy I wanted to bring up is Miguel Andujar. Miguel Andujar needs to be traded. He needs a new start. He needs to go to a worse team that will just let him play.

Defensive shortcomings aside, a lot of injuries. He was up and down last year. The little bit of time he spent in AAA, we saw a sub-10% K rate. We actually saw a double-digit walk rate for that little while. I don't know if we can put too much stock into that. I'm still stuck on 2018 when it comes to N'Douhar. I still believe that there's at least a good regular hitter in there. I think part of what makes him appealing to me is that you can get good batting average from him.

A 270-280 batting average from him is totally possible. I think the issue, of course, without a trade, is playing time. I don't think the Yankees like him as more than a glue guy. And yeah, opportunity can open up because of the injuries that they're often dealing with, but they also could be looking for an upgrade. And I think, and Duhar is the kind of player that could be bundled in a package to get the upgrade that they actually need. And a team like Oakland, among others, would absolutely have the capacity to find a spot that N'Douhar could call his own. DH is an inevitability.

You have more teams that could leap at the chance. I'm thinking of maybe the Padres who currently have Jerks and Profar atop their DH heap and heap I believe is the right word. Marlins perhaps. I could see

the Phillies maybe wanting to add some thump to their DH position. And then there's always a chance that a team like the Pirates or Cubs, that the Cubs took Clint Frazier off their hands, and there might be a team that is willing to give them something small to just rehab that, rehab Andujar as a possible, you know, flip for the future. So someone like the Pirates, you know, could always, you know, employ Andujar for a year or two and trade him along after giving him a chance to rehab his, you know, his value on the market, really.

Yeah, I think the other couple little things I like in the profile, we still saw a max exit velocity in the 72nd percentile last year. So that's good enough raw power to pop 20 homers, I think, in any park with the playing time. He's not a bad runner, 64th percentile in sprint speed. So not a clogger on the base paths, even if he's not necessarily going to offer us anything in the stolen base category and i think one thing i used to get fixated on with players who have a profile like the one and duhar has is i would get too stuck on the low obp and not really connect enough with where that batting average is likely to be for his career

parts of five seasons now he he's a.278 hitter with a.309 OBP. There is a real-life flaw there. I am fully acknowledging that, but most of the leagues we play in are not OBP leagues, and I think he does own the skill of being a sub-20% K-rate guy at the big league level who makes enough hard contact to where I can actually bank on that as a real skill. Yeah, I think one of the reasons that nobody's really beating down his door is that his barrel rate has been pretty lackluster for his whole career. And he probably over-performed his barrel rate in 2018 when he hit 27 homers. He only had a 6% barrel rate.

So I think as a true talent guy outside of New York, which helps augment power, kind of think he's probably like a 270 hitter that can hit you 18 to 20 homers. However, that's more than some teams have at their weight, especially in the NL when it comes to their DH spot. So could be some movement there. Or he ends up being a guy who ends up getting DFA'd for a roster spot. And that's how he ends up on the Pirates, you know.

There are multiple paths. I threw the 2018 spray chart up on the screen. I think it does point to what you were suggesting, that he probably outperformed his barrel rate in that great year. So that's why I'm not expecting high 20s power if he goes somewhere else. He's put him into a less hitter-friendly environment, more of a neutral environment. That's where I'm getting that 20 from. Almost all of those home runs come into the pole side, a few into the short porch and right.

He's a right-handed hitter. Teams can't shift him. And like I said, he's not a bad runner, but there are some limitations that you want to account for. Looking at this chart, I'm like, if they put him on waivers right now, I'm pretty sure the Giants would claim him. The Giants ballpark is a tough one.

However, if you're a righty with full power like that, you can poke him out a lot easier than lefties. I wouldn't be surprised if something like that uh you can poke them out a lot easier than uh than lefties so i wouldn't be surprised if something like that happened but uh the name that inspired this whole segment i thought you would start there i didn't didn't feel like it i don't know why i think it's because i i realized that when we were talking about the angels last week that i completely forgot about this guy and he would have supported my argument perfectly because he's

someone we'd like. It's Griffin Canning. We had a question about Griffin Canning. The reason we didn't get to him is because there was a question that we were trying to get to. We ran out of time. So Casey chimed in on our YouTube page, which is a great way to ask questions, by the way. Ask questions under this video if you're watching us on YouTube. We'll get to those on a future episode. He was looking at all the skills, the stuff plus, location plus, all the things that we look at for a pitcher. And everything kind of looks pretty close to average for Griffin Canning in that regard. But as Casey pointed out, a really high home run rate, an elevated walk rate, 10.1% as well. We talk about home run rate a lot. And we say it's one of those things that when it gets extremely bad like that, even if the player has legitimate home run problems, you can bank on some regression toward a more normal level than two homers per nine.

But the question that Casey was driving at was, with the arsenal that Canning has, it's a good changeup and a good slider in particular how can he have a walk rate that high when his location numbers aren't that bad and like what does he need to change in order to like make the most out of the arsenal one theory that casey put out there was that you know he has this great slider and eight out every ten of those sliders might be great pitches but the other two miss so badly that they get punished. And that's a huge part of why there's a home run issue, even though most of the time it's a great pitch. So I was curious if you think that that sort of thinking might be an indicator of what's really going on with a guy who on the surface looks like he should be probably like a number three or number four starter type

that the Angels could desperately use. Yeah, the homers and the power that he's given up have mostly come off the four seam he's given up 20 homers on the four seam at 283 iso slider a 172 iso uh you know that's that's not great for a slider either there is some sort of power thing there is some sort of you know he's allowing powerful contact it doesn't really show up in the pitching plus model because the location plus on the side is 109 uh location plus on the four seam is 95 so you know maybe he's uh struggles to locate the four seam um and i just don't think that's necessarily a uh in this case it's not like henry rodriguez i mean it's not like, it's not like Henry Rodriguez. It's not such a bad thing.

He could overcome this. 95 to 100, I feel like perhaps better coaching, better preparation for the game, better ideas of where he can miss with the foreseeing. for the game, better, uh, uh, better ideas of where he can miss with the four seam. Um, you know, all those things could improve, uh, his location plus on the, on the four seam. And then I would see a totally viable, uh, pitcher because he is above average stuff on the change up above average stuff on the slider and, uh, and average stuff on the four seam. So, I mean, it's a guy that has a three pitch mix. He has a chance, maybe slightly

better peripheral health leads to better locations, maybe better, you know, game day coaching, game day prep leads to better locations. You know, if he goes back to like a 1.2 or 1.3 homer per nine, like he had his first two years, he will be very good and he'll be better than his projections and he'll have probably a high three zra um so all those things uh i think are interesting to me the one thing that does stand out is none of his pitches are uh really good by stuff plus they're all like 102 104 you know 100 such sort of deal. So maybe what he's really missing is an out pitch. But when I see that slider, I see what could be an out pitch. And late in the season last year, his last five starts, both breaking balls were greatly improved.

And so I think health is really the thing that kind of will bring this all together. Yeah, I was looking at the career splits with the Fangraphs splits tool just to see how much of the issue might be against lefties. I think it's really not just that. He had a reverse split in 2021, which for a year doesn't necessarily mean anything. Slider has that 280 ISO against lefties. That's interesting.

Yeah, so it's kind of a mixed bag. It's not just a lefty problem from what I can tell looking at some of these surface numbers. But yeah, I mean, better game day strategy could be a part of it. I'm just thinking about a full season of Rendon at third too. Maybe that slightly helps just this pitching staff as a whole not have so many guys that underperform expectations

with ratios. Not that he's a ground ball machine or anything like that, but definitely a guy that fits our criteria for someone we forgot about. Definitely someone who is still interesting at the price.

I think everybody we're going to talk about in this block of players is usually available outside the top 500 overall in drafts for the most part. So you're getting guys really late. We're talking about guys that in a deeper mixed league might not even be drafted for leagues that have in-season moves. They might be people that you're putting on the watch list thinking about picking up early in the season if things break their way. I would say Upton might be the most shallow league relevant player of all the

players we're talking about so far. I literally got Canning in my last DC draft and hold, and I got him in the 42nd round. So the only starting pitchers I took after him were Corbin Martin, Alec Mills, and Miguel Yajure. So he's definitely someone who can be part of your back-end DC strategy, I think. Real, real late. I think you had another pitcher we wanted to talk about in this section.

There's only two pitchers that made this part of the show, which is a bit surprising for us, but we also have Pitcher Week coming up in a few weeks when we'll unearth a whole bunch of pitchers that no one wants to think about. The other name that came into my mind recently is Tyler Beattie. I think it's because I saw our friend Nick Pollock tweeting about Beattie as his sleeper pitcher for 2022. There's one really odd thing about Beattie in particular that makes me really buy into that narrative. It's just that the Giants seem to have a way of taking guys coming off injury, getting them back to where they need to be to be effective.

We're talking about a four-pitch starter, pretty good velocity. Obviously, he's shown little flashes in the past of maybe having another level that he can reach so in the parts of three seasons in which we have seen beady at the big league level you know has he shown enough to make you believe at a price of almost zero that you should be taking a flyer he's got it's actually hard looking at the model it's kind of hard to really evaluate him because he threw eight curveballs last year that were registered in this, and he had a location plus of 13 on them. I've never seen that.

There's a little graph that shows all curveballs, and his curveball is the one with the worst location plus last year. But it was eight of them, and I'm not putting a lot of value on that. the worst location plus last year um so but it was eight of them and uh you know i don't i don't want to put i'm not putting a lot of value on that i will just say that his foreseam doesn't have ideal shape so um i don't know i don't know how how much i'm buying into it um uh i would like to see what health can bring he's's had real glimpses. And also, it's kind of weird.

It's not that much of a crazy thing to say that maybe he has 13 location plus on a pitch because he has really poor command. But, you know, one of the things that's interesting about injury, and it confounds research about the effect of Tommy John injury and and it confounds uh research about uh the effect of tommy john injury and stuff like that is that um sometimes like when when a ligament goes it doesn't necessarily go like people have this idea of like snap pop or i felt it go or whatever um and then we also i don't think it necessarily does that for everyone. And then we also know that there are pitchers that

are pitching with partially torn UCLs all the time. Like Masahiro Tanaka and I don't know, there's various other examples. I have this feeling that sometimes a major surgery can fix something that had been ailing and then can actually improve someone's command in the long term because they had been actually pitching through pain.

And they'd been making either small adjustments to do that that weren't that weren't great for their command or they just weren't able to fully execute their pitches like they needed to. just weren't able to to fully execute their pitches like they needed to so you know uh beaty's not my favorite uh sleeper uh but i mean he throws the ball hard uh he has uh three viable pitches and um maybe now we get to see him fully healthy for the first time ever in the big leagues so that that that seems worth uh paying attention to for sure and we saw him back in 2019 mostly and it was a 375 era 119 whip at home at oracle park and almost 10ks per nine with a good walk rate had a bit of a home run issue even then because there is a propensity to allow some hard contact, but at a bare minimum at that price, a home streamer on a team that is good in a pitcher-friendly park, that ticks enough boxes.

And I think if the season started right now, we'd be talking about BD as probably the frontrunner to be their number five starter. So I think there is a good path for him to at least get that opportunity. Maybe an on-again, off-again sort of guy for 12-team leagues and things more shallow, but I think in draft and hold especially, probably a bit of an undervalued pitcher at this point. And even if you think Sammy Long is ahead of him, which I kind of think so, Long went, for example,

where is he? Come on. Look at this huge board. Long went in the 37th round. Oh, and Beattie went in the 37th too. That's crazy. I would have thought that you could wait three or four more rounds after Long. So I've got the next guy I want to ask you about, Edwin Rios. If you wouldn't have put him in your group of players for today, he would have been in mine because the stat cast numbers have always been good. I think people liked him going into last season because of the possible spare plate appearances he could pick up

moving around a couple spots for the Dodgers. So what is it about Edwin Rios that gets you excited about him as a late flyer? I just love barrel rate, man. He's got a really good barrel rate. I know the strikeout rate isn't good, but when he's going well, he adds walks. He could be a guy who hits 230 but has a 320 OBP and a really good slugging percentage next year. And then it's a bit of an NLDH play as well.

But I will say that over time, the Los Angeles Dodgers depth has been tested and hasn't necessarily come up as it has in the past so I think there's an opportunity here when you look at a depth chart where Luke Raley is the primary backup outfielder other than Chris Taylor Chris Taylor is now the backup the primary backup at 3rd second, center, left, and I guess they didn't want to also put him on right. So Taylor is like getting pretty stretched here. So Rios now only has to beat out Luke Raley and Matt Beatty, even without the NLDH, right?

and Matt Beatty even without the NLDH, right? He just needs to come to camp and show that he's better than Luke Raley in right field or Matt Beatty as a backup first baseman. And the backup first baseman for the Dodgers gets some play because if Max Muncy goes down with this UCL injury and he actually has surgery, then you need an everyday first baseman. Even if Max Muncy gets healthy, he plays second a fair amount, and that would open up some time for Rios at first. So you're talking about a guy who barrels the ball really well, who is like a player and a half away from significant time on the depth chart, right? Yeah, I mean, career 28.6% K rate,

but a 10.1% walk rate. With the damage he does when he connects, you can accept the whiff in the profile. And it's possible that as a part-time guy, he hasn't really found that actual baseline yet. We know it's harder for part-time guys to really settle in and get that K rate where it should be

over a longer stretch of playing time. So yeah, I'm with you on Rios. No issues there. I'm going to keep taking guys who don't necessarily barrel the ball as much as we'd like them to because I'm really smart. Josh Naylor, I think, is a guy that I still can't give up on. And he's not like in Victor Robles territory because expectations have never been that

high. But why not first base in Cleveland? Like why? Why mess with Bobby Bradley? Like for years during his time as a prospect in Miami when he broke in in San Diego. For one reason or another, depth chart crowding has pushed Naylor into the outfield. He's a first baseman. Cleveland needs a first baseman.

And he's still actually young because he got into the bigfield. He's a first baseman. Cleveland needs a first baseman. And he's still actually young because he got into the big leagues so quickly. I think Josh Naylor will turn 25 this spring. So we had a good max exit velocity number. Even though we're not getting great barrel rates, he's a better barreler than Miguel Andujar, who we were talking about earlier, has the low K rate that we like.

At least a big side platoon role seems very doable for him in Cleveland because they don't like to spend money. And Josh Naylor is cheap. So am I right to still have some interest in Naylor, who has been slowed down by injuries yet again here in 2021? I like it. And I think the most difficult thing, and you just heard me, you know, go all barrel with Edwin Rios, despite the strikeout rate. Um, the difficult thing is like how you, how you value the hard, hard, the hard contact you value it by a batted ball event, in which case, uh, Naylor, uh, you know, uh, Bradley's way out in front with a 15%

barrel rate based on batted ball events but if you do it by plate appearances it kind of gets closer. 328 plate appearances and 27 and he's got 633 plate appearances and 29 so they basically have the same amount of barrels. Naylor has 300 more plate appearances. It kind of goes to that point where Naylor's going to keep putting the ball in play. It's not that it's completely powerless,

but it's a little bit more of that Yonder Alonso profile. Like the pre-30 home run Yonder Alonso profile. Cleveland keeps making these bets on these guys that make a lot of contact, some of it slightly hard, and then hoping that they can help them sort of unlock another level of power. You think about it, they did it, I think, with Harold Ramirez. They did it with Cesar Hernandez. They actually did it with those two players. They did it, I think, with Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor as well. So there's some track record there.

And I took Naylor in my DC recently where I didn't want to spend like a four or five round premium on some of that. We talked about this. I didn't want to pay, get Jake Cronenworth like four or five rounds earlier than my auction value said, just because he had multiple positions. So I ended up finding players that would add positions later. I got Gleyber Torres. He's going to probably add second base. I got Nico Horner is going to add a shortstop and maybe third base. I got Taylor Walls is going to add second base. I got Nico Horner is going to add shortstop and maybe third base. I got Taylor Walls is going to add third base. And I got Josh Naylor, who I think will add first base eligibility. And I think he will push Bradley because Bradley and Naylor, they're both guys that are, I would say, borderline for first base. They're both guys who are projected to be league average or worse. And Naylor's projections are actually better across the board

because of his ability to make contact. So I think that one is going to be a battle, and Naylor might win it. Yeah, Naylor, 25 in June, just to confirm what I was saying earlier, still pretty young for a guy that's had a decent amount of time in the big leagues, but it's been up and down, and that includes the first pandemic year. I mean, we're talking about only 633 career plate appearances so far. He's popped 16 home runs even in those circumstances. It's only a little bit below league average, and it's a little more than that. It's about 87 WRC plus so far.

The projections do like them though. And the projections for Bradley are for 95 WRC plus. So they're right there with each other. It's a different package. It's a different way to get there, but they're about the same. What's really interesting too, you mentioned before that max EV

is probably just like a data point that can give us an idea of a player's raw power potential right game power raw power clearly not the same thing and it's interesting that nailer is one of those guys whose max ev numbers look just like bobby bradley's but the in-game power output has lagged behind that sort of ceiling to this point. And that fits his scouting report. Look at that. Fangraph's 70-70 raw power, 45-60 game power. Right. So I guess still wondering, is he capable of reaching that level? I would say we haven't seen enough to say that he can't.

That's why I'm interested. And Cleveland being Cleveland especially, I just think there's a great chance. And if you said, which profile do you want to take the chance on? I'm much more interested in the guy that strikes out under 20% of the time, even though we're seeing Bradley get to that power more often in games. I think it's more likely that Naylor adds game power than it is that Bradley reduces swing and miss, given what we've seen from them so far.

Yeah, the strikeout rate is here to stay, I think, with Bradley. I mean, he's kind of shown that at every level. I got him in the 39th, so he's a late pick that you can pick up. And then what I've also noticed is that first base is kind of tough when you start getting, like, my rule of thumb in DCs is I'm trying to have four of every position and I'll count them if it's multi-eligibility you know like I'll count them you know end up being more than I have players you know what I mean but I want to have four eligible players at every

position and I had a hard time with first base um you know I even drafted fairly uh early with Walsh I got Jared Walsh and Frank Schwindel in the first 20 rounds, you know, later than other people got their first baseman. But then I took too long and I had to get Llewyn Diaz in the 35th just to get a guy. And then my fourth guy,

I don't actually have one. It's Naylor. So I would say watch out for first base people. And if you get stuck like I did, Naylor is at least a way to kind of say, maybe I'll get a fourth eligible guy in season. And first base outfield is actually, I think, a pretty powerful combination. So, you know, that's a good double to have, I think. I also noticed that all doubles are not the same.

You know, I got Torres and, you know, I got guys that had second base and short. I got Brandon Rogers and Torres and stuff. There's a lot of those. There's like a fair amount of those. And so it doesn't add that much value, you know. And so I ended up with like five or six second basemen and shortstops, but they're like the same three players same profile on repeat yeah so i don't know i i think that first base outfield is one

of those profiles it's uh that's uh in that in that same draft i had a uh you know i got about like 80 steals doing my like i'm not gonna pay for steals thing and i realized i had like one starting spot left and i was like well 80 is not enough and i only have one starting spot left so i ended up just taking shot after shot on late speed so my like bench outfield in that league is uh vidal brujan victor robles for you thanks uh thanks thanks uh uh aaron hicks um and uh and christian pache in fact uh the the next two names on mine i'll just double tap uh yeah for the sake of comparison, but Christian Pache and Adam Haisley. Now, what I like about both these guys is they have the potential to hit for both power and speed.

They are in the conversation for center field for both teams that probably need a center fielder. So they are players that have the skill package that their need that their team requires um and yes they you know they have their warts um pasche has struck out entirely too much uh and is still projected to strike out too much uh his quality of contact hasn't been amazing um but i do think he's the kind of player that could barrel just 5% and still strike out 27% of the time and still get an everyday job and end up with something like a 240 batting average and 15 homers and 15 steals, you know, because his defense is that good. because his defense is that good. So it's not the most exciting thing. We're like, ooh, I identified a change in Pache's swing.

Or like, oh, I know he's going to be a good hitter. I don't necessarily think he's going to be a good hitter. But I think the teams often use defensive first guys in center field while they're cheap. And Darien Ciarte, early on when his defense was good, use defensive first guys in center field while they're cheap uh you know and their ncrt you know early on when his defense was good um you know they uh he was useful so i think that he could fulfill that sort of ender ncrt type role uh for the braves and uh and be useful in my league and hazley's uh you know the same thing but a totally different package where um you know he isn't as good of a defender as pache but he's probably a better hitter

uh and for his career uh he's hasn't really shown uh the barrel rate that he uh showed i i've seen some minor league uh barrel rates on him and and I still think that there's an opportunity there for a guy to hit maybe 250, 15 homers, 15 steals, but in a kind of completely different way of getting there. So in both cases, what I really was looking for was opportunity and the chance that their skill set fits that opportunity. And I think right now I would say that neither team has a good starting center fielder. Wouldn't you agree? That seems fair. And I think there's even a greater need in Philly to figure out who that is. I think Atlanta can be more cautious with Pache if they want to.

And they could also bundle him as part of a trade because there's plenty of teams that would want his defense alone in center field. And I think that for a young center fielder, especially on a team that has other guys that can hit, that describes Atlanta's situation, I think, really well, they're willing to make that sacrifice. They're willing to hit him in the bottom third of the order for a couple of seasons to see if he can figure it out.

And I think that's what led me to Leote Tavares on the other side. I wasn't excited about Leote Tavares going in to 2021. I thought there were reasons to be skeptical. I think the speed he's showing us to this point in his big league career, 18 for 19 as a base dealer now in 82 games, that should get you really excited. There's still a lot of swing and miss, but for a guy with that much speed, he's showing the ability to hit the ball hard. I mean, 17 home runs at AAA in 87 games.

I know it wasn't a great year in terms of WRC Plus in the PCL from him. It was just the 98, so kind of a league average performance, but he's a 22-year-old. I don't think you have to look at what Tavares did last year and come away entirely disappointed in that. I think with all the changes in Texas, the supporting cast is better. His chances of leading off in the short term are much lower than they would have been without additions like Marcus Simeon and Corey Seager. Just because they're going to put the best possible combination together.

They're not just going to put a guy up top to maximize his playing time if they have some aspirations of making a run maybe at a wild card, but we need cheap speed. We like guys that can do it with other things. Tavares ticks a lot of those boxes. Not quite the defender that Pache is because very few players are, but he's also

an above average defender at a position of need for the Rangers. So I'm still in on Tavares as one of those guys that people liked a lot more a year ago. And he still, to me, has a good path this year to make an impact. Yeah, he's interesting. The one thing that makes me nervous is that Adoles Garcia by outs above average was a plus 11 outfielder. So it's possible that Adoles Garcia is the plan in center field right now. We know he has a cannon for an arm, but he actually runs decent routes as well, according to outs above average.

The nice thing about the Rangers, though, is there's a fair amount of opportunity, I think, in that sort of outfield DH group. Cole Calhoun could regress, be done, be hurt, all the things that happen to kind of a player of his age and caliber nick solak uh is right now the the the front runner in left field according to fan graphs um i think he needs to establish himself as better than he has been and then uh willie calhoun is also listed uh at the top of the DH chart. And I think he needs to do better than he has in order to kind of establish himself. So you have three guys there that need to establish themselves. And even if all three of those guys play,

Tavares might make the team. I have another Haisley-type player, a guy that's a little older, who's gone through the upper levels of the minor leagues and really kind of held his own everywhere he's played so far. Taylor Trammell. I would say because the Mariners outfield is more crowded than the Phillies outfield, it

takes more going his way, but Taylor Trammell has always done a great job controlling the strike zone. Strikeouts until he got to the big leagues really weren't a major issue. I know when he first got the double A, there was a little bit of a jump, but I still don't think that's a long-term concern about a lack of hit tool. I know the grade on his hit tool is actually a 40-45 according to fan graphs, but I like the way that he's always been able to take walks. He's showing power.

He's been efficient as a base dealer in some of the upper levels of the minor leagues as well. We've talked about that gap between AAA and the big leagues being really wide. I mean, a 22.9% K rate with Tacoma last season, 42.1% during his time in the big leagues, and I think it was even heavier at the beginning of the year when he got that opportunity. I think there was some improvement as the season went along. I know we're talking about a crowded situation depending on who's all healthy. Obviously, Kelnick is up. Julio Rodriguez is coming. Kyle Lewis, if he's healthy, has a spot. Mitch Hanager is going to play a lot. They still have Jake Fraley around too. This is another one of those

teams though. If Taylor Trammell can find a role, I think he can exceed expectations. I wonder if a trade will matter. It seems to me, I mean, like we know his general manager likes to make trades. If you had to bank on a depth chart being changed by a trade, either the player himself or someone

blocking that player, Seattle's a good place to wish cast that. Yeah, and I think if somebody else sees him as more of a center fielder than they do with Lewis and Kelnick and Trammell, I think, and in Fraley, the Mariners have four guys, and they may not have a single kind of every down back kind of center fielder, right? So it'd be interesting. I think maybe Trammell's defense is the best of the four.

I think that's kind of the problem with Seattle's core. If you're going to pick Nitz and their great core of young outfielders, it's not necessarily, at least from the guys we've seen so far, there's not a clear cut. This guy's easily a defensive center fielder in the big leagues. Yeah. So, I mean, that might mean that he does that weird thing where, like, you know, somebody gets sent down

and Trammell stays on the team because he can actually play, he can actually come in as a defensive replacement in center field. Yeah. But definitely a good profile. And DH there I think could be a floating spot. I think, unfortunately, with Kyle Lewis, there's so many recurring issues with his knees that it's difficult to pencil him in for more than a partial season.

Yeah, or that was my thinking too with Atlanta. If anybody's yelling at the radio that Ronald Acuna Jr. is the starting center fielder there, in my mind, I kind of pencil him into a corner at this point just coming off of that injury. At least for the first half of the season, I would want to kind of keep the pressure off him in center field. And you'd think that the Mariners might want to do something like that with Kyle Lewis. So, you know, with Intramel and Pache's case, I think there's something similar where they might make the team and be useful part-time players, fourth outfielders, defensive replacements. If you're going to trade one of these outfielders isn't mitch hanager the one that gets traded

most likely yeah except that i mean he's the best right now offensively and uh you know with the signing of robbie ray uh and the the way that they've kind of improved you know i just finished seeing is uh john bois um super cut of the the seattle mariners history oh i haven't seen that oh my god it's it's tough because it's like a three hour and 40 minute watch i mean it's really everything about the history of the mariners it's great so funny um and uh i don't think that until i watched i mean i, I, you know, you know, Mariners, it's been rough. Uh, when you watch it,

you're like, wow, it has been really rough. And they do like the, uh, the games over 500. Like they, they kind of do like a win chart for,

for every year. And that's like the kind of the basic visual you get, um, as the movie continues. And like, there's so much red on this chart that, you know, I,

I see the Mariners as trying to compete in the short term. I think they're trying to build to win now. So what was the, what was the beginning of that conversation? Would they trade? If they're going to trade somebody, would it be Mitch Haneker? Yeah, but only if it fixed something for them defensively.

And I think offensively, they really need him. I mean, who else on this team is right now like a threat? Kyle Lewis when he's healthy, maybe. Jared Kelnick could be. I guess you could say maybe Ty France. Yeah. I mean, that's your three, four hitters, France, Hanager,

and it's not good enough yet. So if you trade Hanager, you're trading your best hitter. You're definitely expecting Kelnick to continue building on what he was doing at the end of last year. Well, yeah. I could talk myself into them getting better.

I'm just saying I don't... In the context of them year. Well, yeah, I could talk myself into them getting better. I'm just saying I don't, in the context of them trying to get better, trading Mitch Hanager is a rebuild move. Yeah, well, it just depends on how they want to handle the playing time with the younger options. And maybe they wait and see how things play out in spring training,

see how health is a factor in this conversation too. I mean, Hanager's injury history, Kyle Lewis's injury history could make this a moot point pretty quickly. There could be plenty of playing time for Kelnick, Rodriguez, and Trammell if Lewis and Hanager are both down with injuries. Because Fraley, Fraley to me is more of like a good bench outfielder. He's not a guy you want to put out there for 600 plate appearances, even though the tools are interesting and always been somewhat interesting. If he got, if he made a little more contact,

he could be Robbie Grossman. Oh, that's a, that's a fun, positive spin on Jake Fraley that I had not previously thought of. So thank you. Thank you for the Griffin canning question, Casey,

because that just sent us down the rabbit hole of players that have been forgotten about. Yeah. Like three quarters of an episode. But that's the thing about questions. Good questions lead to us thinking about random stuff. So, always good. And, again, if you comment on YouTube,

defeat the algorithm, that's good for us too. So, thanks for sending that question in on YouTube. I got another question here that did come in from YouTube. This one came from Omar. Thoughts on Josh Donaldson's 2022 outlook. He had the best ball outcomes of his career and seemed to get unlucky. Now, I think just as a blanket sort of assessment,

Donaldson is hitting that point in his career where he can do really well in terms of quality of contact and not necessarily reap all the benefits of that because of the aforementioned cranky calf among other things yeah i mean i i i kind of figure he'll be good but he won't play that much you know they're already doing that thing where they kind of rested him uh they rested him just randomly kind of load management type stuff right so i i i like him and i have shares in a lot of places um but um weekly leagues he's gonna kind of steal from you a little bit without you knowing you know like look at look at this 136

like even his projection he could hit it 136 games 570 plate appearances he will be valuable to his team if he's healthy in the playoffs he could actually drive this team uh if they made the playoffs he could drive this team to to to some interesting outcomes however your fantasy team with 570 plate appearances means that you're just going to miss a game from every week. That's definitely the concern. It's why you're getting a big discount. I think the follow-up question is if he's going around pick 200, even in leagues that are weekly or with twice weekly moves, is that enough of a discount where you say, I'll take on that risk. I'll deal with having to shuttle him in and out of the lineup on Fridays a few times

when the calf starts barking or when something else comes up, because the quality of contact was great. I mean, 17.4%, it's a career-high barrel rate for him, at least as long as we've had barrel rates available in Donaldson's career. 52.7% hard hit rate, not a surprise to see that with the barrel rate where it was. Still not striking out that much and still drawing walks. So there doesn't appear to be much skills erosion here, if any, but it's just physical erosion of cumulative wear and tear.

I took him at 229. Yeah, see, there's a spot where it makes sense. Yeah, and I figure I've got him and frank schwindel uh for like util and corner and uh there'll probably be some weekends where i say oh what do i do here is donaldson gonna sit this weekend uh and it'll make it rough but uh there is a lot there in terms of uh power and um and contact honestly it's to get that combination of power and contact, honestly. To get that combination of power and batting average is rare. Got an email from one of our YouTube viewers.

Babik wants to know two questions, actually. They're in a keeper league. It's five by five, head-to-head categories, and they have to hold a minimum of five players, sign to one- to three-year deals, or franchise them. Looking at guys like Tyler O'Neal, Cedric Mullins, Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, all will be available for 2022. Thinking about where they're going to go price-wise,

O'Neal in the $24 to $27 range, Mullins in the $28 to $32 range, Trout in the $35 to $40 range, and Betts in the $33 to $38 range. Just for context, he had Betts at 42 last year, so ended up throwing him back. Which of those four at those ranges is the best bang for the buck between O'Neal, Mullins, Trout, and Betts? With Trout costing the most, Betts being a bit less, Mullins a tick less than that, and O'Neal likely just a notch below Mullins. I had a snap answer to this one. I thought Mookie Betts kind of made the most sense.

I think I'm probably fixated on that he was 42 a year ago and that you might get him for almost 10 less than that. If you get him at the mid-30s, that seems like a pretty big bargain. I'd rather pay the extra dollars and have that extra floor. I think with Tyler O'Neal, my biggest concern, even though he does an extraordinary amount of damage when he makes contact, it is hard to live with a K rate that high and not be some sort of liability in batting average. So if we're talking even an $8 difference to get up to bets from O'Neill, I think it's worth every single one of those dollars,

especially when you account for the Dodgers lineup being better, Dodger Stadium being a better place to hit. You could probably talk me into Mullins at a similar price to O'Neal as a better option than Betts. And I'm not afraid of Mike Trout, but I think the gap between Betts and Trout is actually pretty small right now. And Betts seems like he's right in that sweet spot. Yeah, I have Betts and Trout pretty the same. So if Trout is going to go for more than Betts, I think I'll take Betts there. I know that O'Neal was number one in baseball in the expected extra base hits metric

that was more predictive than Barrels. So I find that interesting, but it does go to our conversation that has been throughout this episode of that relationship between making contact and making powerful contact. O'Neill is sort of just an exaggerated version of Bobby Bradley. He just can steal bases. And so I gravitate towards the all-around players that do make contact and may not make as powerful contact.

Why not Mullins, though? Why not Mullins? I don't have a strong argument against him. I think the the biggest thing I'd be worried about with Mullins and this is even without the adjustment to the offense if you you're moving the fences back a bit in in left field when I look at run production a year ago from Mullins that's the category that I just don't know if that's going to change much. Yadley Rutschman will be up, sure, but how much more help

are they going to have? 91 runs. That was in a massive season where he did a million things right and played every day. I think your counting stats could be just as good as he was last year and the counting stats could be the same or even slightly worse as a possibility

just because of things that are out of his control. So I think that is my reservation with Mullins when I have an opportunity to spend a little more and get someone like Betts where that's not a question at all. Betts had 58 RBI last year, but he also had 125 fewer plate appearances. Yeah, missed a lot of time. Also a down year. So you'd be buying a star on a bounce back and it's a 29-year-old bounce back, not a 32-year-old bounce back. In fact, that's an interesting thing is that Betts is only two years older than Mullins. This is the same kind of conversation

they were having on the fantasy football podcast this morning when it was revealed that Cooper Cup is older than Allen Robinson. Wow. Which if you follow football, you're like, wait, what? It's only two months, but it is true. So the takeaway for me is Betts.

I think that's the sweet spot for skills value you're not overpaying i think you could still be a 40 guy i think that's still in there skills wise if i was a rebuilding squad this sounds like a keeper league you know he's saying these things these players will be available if i was uh trending towards rebuilding or like trying to build a squad as opposed to like win next, then I might actually take Tyler O'Neal. Because he'll be the cheapest of the group, and he's the best age range to price to possible outcomes. I mean, you might get the guy who hits 250 and goes 30-30 next year.

And get him for $10 less than everybody else is getting their players. So that's the only way I think that I would take Tyler O'Neal over the rest of the guys. Otherwise, I'm settling into kind of a Betts-Mullins debate, and I think you convinced me I'd take Betts. I think auction nomination order could be a factor. If all four of these players are still in the queue and your turn comes up, you might say, let's see if I can get O'Neal for that low-end price.

If you get him at 25, you're just happy with that. I think if you throw him early, I think he goes for more. I throw Trout first. I think you throw Trout first. I think you could throw O'Neal second because I think the desperation on whoever's last in that group

could make that player the second most expensive of the group even if they are not the second best player by projection of the bunch. Yeah, but I think the Mullins hype will make him go pretty high. I might leave Mullins for last to make sure that the Sharks are in the water on that one. Throw Trout first just to see where maybe the ceiling is on this group. Like, what if he goes to 42?

Wow, then maybe I'm going to shift gears and do Tyler O'Neal, you know? Right, because Betts might not be that far off of Trout. I would assume most of the room will look at Trout's number and within two bucks have Betts right there. Right, so if Trout goes to 42, then you kind of think, oh man, Betts is going to cost me 40. Let me throw Tyler O'Neal now because maybe I'd rather have Tyler O'Neal for 25 than Betts for 40. Then if Betts, if O'Neal runs into the 30s and you're not comfortable with that, then you know, well, okay. At least I have Betts and Mullins left to spend some money on. I got a shot at the other two and I'm probably paying less than somebody else paid for trout.

Yeah. Just a few ways to think about it. That's an interesting thing. You know, I don't agree. You know, I don't agree. There's some philosophies out there that you should only throw players you

want. I don't think that's necessarily true. I think you should only throw players that give you information. Yeah. So they tell you about the top of a, or the bottom of a, of a top or the bottom of a position, or they tell you about how much people will spend on the first rounders,

or what the first round premium is, or they'll tell you what the steals premium is. So in this case, I think I would throw Trout to kind of see where the ceiling is. Have a reason for every player you nominate, but you don't have to nominate only players that you intend to end up with because people, maybe they'll take advantage of that.

They'll pick up on it. You'll be paying extra. That's just the way it's going to go. You're going to get plus one to death at the high end of the pool. Oh, I always get plus one to death in the low end on my dollar pitchers. Oh, it kills me.

In fact, I've started budgeting $2 for late game pitchers because I just know that there are guys out there in the room that'll, oh, you know, wants this pitcher for a dollar. Nope. You should never nominate a pitcher that you actually like for a dollar. I know. Yeah, I can't.

You specifically. I did start nominating pitchers I didn't want for a dollar and did get the room to take them off my hands for two. Yeah. Yeah, just be the roadrunner. Don't be Wiley Coyote. Babik had another part of this email that I thought was interesting and probably a little more broadly interesting to people out there listening.

In your opinion, which of the following cheap leadoff hitters will still have their job as a leadoff hitter over the course of 2022? Which of these guys do you prefer? I kind of have them in three groups. I have Tommy Edmond by ADP. He's kind of off on his own.

He's inside the top 100. Miles Straw, Akil Badu, Colton Wong, and Enrique Hernandez, all kind of in the 130 to 190 or so range. And then there's Josh Rojas, Lane Thomas, Rymel Tapia, and JP Crawford. And I grouped them together because I think they have

different things that make them interesting. Edmund goes the earliest because even if he loses his job as the leadoff hitter, he's probably not losing enough playing time to become irrelevant in a 12-team mixed league. The only way that happens is if he gets hurt, even if he falls in the batting order,

he's still going to play a lot because he can play second. He played second base really well last year. They can put them in the outfield. They need to play them a couple of their spots. So Edmund just has like the safest playing time floor overall, even if he might be just as likely to lose his hold on the leadoff spot as some of the other players that are in this email i think out of straw but do wong and kike i actually think wong and kike are safer to stay

in prominent spots in their respective lineups just based on how those teams are built but do i think kikagri anywhere. I mean, he has lineup risk and some playing time risk just because of the lack of experience. I think you have to account for that even though you get some possible growth potential. What he did last year, as we've said, was amazing for the

time off that he had before doing it. Myles Straw, who we've talked a lot about on this show, I think because of the previously mentioned the Guardians are cheap mindset, I think he's more like Tommy Edmund and Wong and

Kike in terms of overall playing time security, but I think he's less safe in the leadoff role than Wong and Kike are because of his own limited skills. He's got the second best projected OBP on the team by Steamer, at least. Yeah.

Steven Kwan might make him third, but who else is going to take that from him? Even if I go down the OBP list, unless they make Jose Ramirez lead off, but I don't think that's ideal. So then you go down the list, Josh Naylor is going to be protected for 10 points less OBP. Also be a weird-ass.

He'd be a weird leadoff hitter. Yeah. Fran Milreis is not going to be their leadoff hitter. Nolan Jones. Harold Ramirez is gone, I think. So Ahmed Rosario with a 318. Is he going to take his job? I'm still just worried that Myles Straw is not a good big league hitter.

And that lowers the OBP enough to where he loses his hold on the role. I think if he's in baseball, he's their leadoff hitter. You know what I mean? Gross. If he's a starting level player in baseball, then he's their leadoff hitter. Which means that his risk is is what lineup risk like Bidu, right? Yeah, I think it's more

lineup risk than playing time risk for sure. Yeah. So I would say of that group, Bidu is the most risky. Hernandez and Wong are kind of even for me in terms of how likely they are to just stay atop lineups.

I guess I like Kike a little better because in the Red Sox, offense is better than the Brewers offense. So that could be a separator there. From the last group. Wong has the fourth best projected OBP in Milwaukee's lineup. But the guys that are projected to be better. Kane, super injured. Part-time player.

Part-time player. And then Urias. Not necessarily a leadoff guy. Not necessarily not a leadoff guy, but a little more punch. So you probably want him closer to the two spot. And then Jelic. But Jelic, I don't think you want him leading off. No.

Yeah, okay. I agree. Wong. And then Boston, Kike. I don't know. Kike's not that good of a player. Every time I say that, I look at the numbers, and I'm like, he's better than I realized.

He's better than I remembered. The sixth best projected OVP, seventh best projected OVP in Boston, Bogarts, Verdugo, Devers, Martinez, Casas has a better projected OVP, and Plo, Casas has a better projected OBP, and Ploiecki has a better projected OBP. I think that says more about their offense as a whole than it does about Hernandez's shortcomings, though.

Yeah, but I think you could lead off Verdugo pretty easily. You could. Verdugo's easily the biggest threat to Kike having the leadoff job. I'll say my idea of the safest are actually Wong and Straw in that group. I'm going to go Wong, Kike, Straw, Badu out of the second group.

Out of the last group, I think these guys all have could lose their job risk across the board. Rojas, Thomas, Tapia, JP Crawford. Crawford, because of his defense, is just, he's going to play. But he'd be a lot more useful as a, he's mostly useful as a collector

of plate appearances. And so therefore, his value is super tied into being, like if Lane Thomas makes the Nationals but isn't leadoff, he's still got some interesting facets to his skill set. But if J.P. Crawford is the eighth hitter for the Mariners,

he becomes a lot less interesting. Now he's not even going to give you a lot of plate appearances, and he's still going to hit.275 with eight homers and four steals. Who do you think is the biggest threat to Crawford as the replacement in the leadoff role in Seattle though because I think if I'm counting correctly JP Crawford let off 108 times I'm looking at a player page chart at Roto-Wire that has him at leadoff 59 times against righties and 49 times against lefties So Crawford has the third best projected OBP behind Ty France and Julio Rodriguez.

I doubt Julio Rodriguez is going to just make the major leagues, and I don't think Ty France is a leadoff hitter, especially since we just made him the three or four hitter, right? Toro is right there, though. Adam Frazier? Like, good Adam Frazier could be a threat to Crawford, I guess. Fraley, Toro, and Crawford have basically the same projected OVP. Hmm.

Yeah, I... And then Kalnick. I think a Kalnick breakout, you might actually put him one or two in the lineup, right? Yeah. Crawford definitely has some bottom third of the order potential, even though job security relative to the rest of the group, just playing time-wise, might actually be the safest even though he's drafted the latest.

Yeah. Yeah. I think he's actually pretty safe. I think he's, yeah. But he's the least exciting hitter probably of the entire group. But, you know, he does what he does, and this is a team, you know, they'll reward him. He's like one of their veterans now.

So just stick him in there. And you're not going to stick Kalnick or Kyle Lewis coming off of injury in the two or three spots or in the one spot, right? Because you kind of want to take pressure off them. Kalnick, I think, could be up somewhere in that mix. This is going to be Crawford, Toro, France, or Crawford, France, Hanager. You know?

You could almost write it in stone, I feel like. Josh Rojas for 2022. What's your overall takeaway on him? I haven't drafted him anywhere yet. I haven't even felt like it was Rojas versus someone I did take in any spots. It's not that he's out of bounds price

wise. He's not even a top 200 guy by ADP right now. But my auction calculator says he's below replacement. So even when he does go, he's going, like he was going in places where I had players that still were worth $10 on the table. You know what I mean?

So I just couldn't, I couldn't do it. He went in round 17. I took Frank Schwindel that round. And then I took Tommy Pham. Both those guys I had valued at $10. And I had Josh Rojas at $0. He's also projected to have the 8th

best OBP in Arizona next year. I mean, I don't even have to read the names off because once you're 8th, you're at risk. You know what I mean? He's predicted to have the same OBP in Arizona next year. I mean, I don't even have to read the names off because once you're eighth, you're at risk. You know what I mean? He's predicted to have the same OBP as Josh Van Meter. Yeah, I think I'm just out on Rojas because I don't have a reason to be in. Yeah, I couldn't ever figure it out from the beginning

other than opportunity. He does, I guess, decent plate discipline, but not great contact skills, or at least not demonstrated great strikeout rate yet. And the barrel rates are pretty boring. They're below average for a starting position player. So I guess he steals bases and plays a lot of positions. I would probably take the chance on Dwayne Thomas instead.

How many bases is he going to steal if he's the backup player? I mean, you get the glue. You get second, short, outfield. You could pick up third. He had 14 games there in 2021. So you just get a lot more position flexibility than you do from the other players in this group. But if you told me he's playing four times a week in 2022 by the end of the season and when he plays, he's not even leading off, I wouldn't fight back on that at all.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't mean to be pessimistic on a guy that a lot of people like. I mean, there's obviously still an opportunity there because the Diamondbacks are not a very good team. You know? And I guess you would say third base is available? Yeah. That could be his spot.

That could just be his. I would even say that shortstop might become available because Nick Ahmed is a steady Eddie that might get traded. And also is steadily boring and he could get replaced, but I don't think Rojas is going to be the guy to replace him. It's not ideal.

But yeah, Nick Ahmed, backup option for the Angels if they don't get what they want elsewhere. That could be a thing. Everyone's going to the Angels now. But it doesn't really help Rojas that much because Rojas is battling Van Meter and I don't think he's going to play short. Geraldo Perdomo could come up and play shortstop,

and they could just use him at that spot. I think Rojas is a bridge player for them until they solve those other positions that he can play. So maybe he plays more than I expect because of where those younger players are, but I don't see enough to be excited about him. Thanks a lot for that question, Babik. Let's go to this question from Robert. That's a question about Dylan Cease.

How are you guys feeling about Dylan Cease this year? Projections show a great K rate and EnoStuffPlus has him at 113, but he seems to have control issues. Steamer has him at a 9.5% walk rate. Zips has him at 10.9% and Loc has him at 97.2 seems like a pitcher on the cusp of going to the next level but looking at underlying numbers to see if you can get his control any better or if his control get better with a different pitch mix thanks for all the work you guys do on the pod i i keep wondering if dylan sees is actually a little underpriced

relative to someone that i really like and freddieta. That's the problem I've been running into every time I've looked at. Better stuff plus than Freddy Peralta, saying something. Looking at how they each did it last year and seeing the pretty significant difference in the end of season numbers, it's the underlying skills that look actually more similar than I expected based on their gap in adp i will say this though that location plus uh is the worst uh location like i have him in my top 40 right now don't see some i'm working on my ranks and uh i have him basically 35 ahead of Blake Snell because Blake Snell is the only other guy who has a location plus that bad.

And the thing is, yes, location plus isn't as sticky year to year, but it is stickier in the middle. So if Dylan Cease had thrown, you know, like five games last year and had a location plus of like 93, I'd be like, well, you know, how much can I trust that? It's on the extremes, and on the extremes is where location plus is less predictable. It's predictive.

So, in the middle, from, say, 97, 95 to 105, 110, it actually has more predictive quality year to year. And it fits with the scouting port, honestly. He has bad command. So him and Blake Snell, I think, kind of belong together in a way because I see Cease having similar ups and downs in his career because they both have excellent

stuff and they both have really poor command. So I can't push Cease. For example, Freddy Peralta, 98.6 command plus, and Shohei Otani, 97.7. Those are the only other two guys in my top 40 with below average location plus.

And I don't know. There's some risk there, right? But Freddy Peralta is still better than him at command. I think it's tough because if Dylan seizes an undervalue, there's a good chance that Freddy Peralta is a little overvalued right now. It doesn't mean that these are bad pitchers. It just means that people are overcorrecting based on results that are probably almost impossible to sustain, barring further improvement.

I think I probably have Peralta and Otani lower than most people. Because as a pitcher for Otani and Freddy Peralta, I have them 20 and 21 right now. That's probably lower than the group, huh? I think that's lower than the group does. I think Peralta, I want to say, is 15th by ADP. Let me take a look at the pitcher list here. Not the pitcher list like our friend's pitcher

list, but he's 19th when you have closers in, so you take out Hayter, Hendricks, and Rice. 16th among starters in ADP based on last 10 days or so for Freddie. Yeah, I think for me it's the command that's at risk. Seems fair to me at this point.

I think if I had a more stable 1-2 or at least a stable first starter, I'm not against Cease where he goes, but I would be careful about expecting one more step if he keeps those skills exactly where they have been i have seized really close to lance lynn and like they're not at all the same picture not even close to the same picture so you know i think like who i picked first would make a big difference about whether i wanted lynn Cease there. Thanks a lot for that question, Robert.

Got one here from Max. It is a question about Marcus Stroman. Max is getting into cut line leagues. Those are 10-team leagues with an overall prize, the best ball format. You only make pickups twice in season, once in April, once in June, by the way. If you end up playing that, it's a bit of a different format, but another good way to add a league without adding a lot of in-season work uh innings pitched are very important in that format so max wants to know why doesn't marcus stroman pitch deeper into games got a handful of good pitches he gets ground balls usually i think of these as a recipe for high

innings per start but it was not in stroman's case last year puzzled max in san francisco i actually think that uh a few starts kind of messed things up he had uh i think he had a game that was delayed in the middle um like a rain delay game that he didn't come back in so he has a three inning start i think that might be the rain delay one um then he has a one that he just went 0.1 and faced two batters so i don't you know there's some rain some delayed games some injury maybe coming out of a game um i don't know why he has those but if you take those out and i know that like, he was good in the games. He was good. The most fun way to use stats. But if you just take out the 0.1,

uh, and the, the one and the three, like, uh, I see a lot of sixes. Uh, let's just take, uh,

uh, from, uh, July onward where he doesn't have any of those ones or 0.1s. He had one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, from July onward, where he doesn't have any of those ones or point ones, he had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 starts. And out of those 16 starts, he went 6 in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. I don't know.

Seems about right for today's game. Seems fine to me. I don't think he's that much of today's game. Seems fine to me. I don't think he's that much of a risk for coming out of games early. I think he's actually just undervalued. I think he's undervalued because he doesn't miss a ton of bats. And the skills that he has, inducing a lot of ground balls, being efficient, I think that's all stuff that he consistently does. There's no control issue to speak of. So I'm in on Stroman, even in non-cut line situations, because he's going outside the top 150 overall.

I actually do think there is some hidden upside in Marcus Stroman. I'm interested to see what a new organization, new pitching coach, does with him, because he could go more slider heavy and and do do like basically a slider cutter where you know if he did cutter slider if he became a little bit more like you Darvish hmm I think he could actually and use the sinker a little bit less I think he could actually, and use the sinker a little bit less, I think he could actually strike more people out. So there's always a little bit of an upside there for the strikeouts, but I think just generally he's a solid guy. He's a solid, large pitch mix, athletic on the field in terms of fielding position.

He's going to actually give himself value fielding his position. in terms of fielding position. He's going to actually give himself value fielding his position. I hate to keep coming back to this, but I took him as my third starting pitcher in the 12th round. And he went ahead of guys like Jordan Montgomery and behind guys like Clayton Kershaw

and Sonny Gray. Yeah, I mean, I prefer Gray to Stroman if you give me the choice, but I think that's a pretty good approximation of expectations. More Ks from Sonny Gray, but probably more stable ratios from Stroman, especially landing in a pitcher-friendly environment with the Cubs. I mean, I love Tanner Houck, but Tanner Houck was the guy taken right after him. I don't know, man. They're very different.

Tanner Houck could put 60 innings up in the big leagues this year. Tanner Houck is actually, to me, more of a reason not to pay full freight on Dylan Cease. Interesting. Because you can, I think Houck, I'm more bullish on the innings than you are. He has a fair amount of risk in his profile and so you're talking like there are some yeah because tanner hawk right around tanner hawk uh shane baz went

um and tarik scubal went uh and logan gilbert you know those are all in that sort of three round uh bit there so why pay cease uh why pay uh you know a lot for cease when you can have these young pitchers that you're excited about that have their own risk uh but go later i have similar upsides yeah one way to think about it if you if you don't like the cease profile where he is going right now you can find similar pictures available later take on a little injury, not injury risk necessarily, but innings risk, and you may end up coming up with a guy that is going 100 picks earlier next year in some of those cases.

We'll get to a few more of those guys during pitcher week. I got a sandwich-related question before we go. This comes from another Robert. We all know about replacement-level players, but what about replacement-level condiments and sandwich toppings? As a self-professed sandwich guy, which Eno's kid

has also labeled him as a sandwich guy, Eno must have some war level ranking for his sandwich toppings and condiments. If I want to make the ultimate war witch, I need to know Eno's rankings. What's at the top? I feel like you're more of the,

this is what I have in the fridge, and these things will taste good together. So you kind of choose based on using leftovers, which is a really smart way to use your leftovers and to stumble into new flavors. It's also a way to get super embarrassed by, there's a guy out there at Beerinator. Beerinator. Oh my God, his sandwiches. out there at beerinator uh oh my god his sandwiches he like bakes his own bread uh you know like smokes meat like made his own giardiniera like you know just like ridiculous stuff where i'm like ah i took this meat and put some jelly on it uh but any case i like that you went with the dr strange love voice there is that who you become when you're making sandwiches?

No, maybe not. Maybe. I will say the easiest thing for me to answer in that question is my replacement level sandwich, which is I almost always have cinnamon raisin bagels around. And so my replacement level sandwich, which I have a lot more than I would admit to on social media because everyone wants to shame me about cinnamon raisin bagel usage, is cinnamon raisin bagel, Swiss cheese, and salami. Bam. But I think that replacement level is probably around 6 out of 10 in my rating system. If I rate something 5 out of 10, I don't want to eat it again. So that makes it bad, which I know, I know.

But there's always rate inflation on stuff. Right. You need to have the scale go nice and high. People give IPAs they hate three and a half stars. It's among the reasons why at some point in the last year, I was like, I'm just done with untapped. I don't need this anymore. There's so many beers out now. I'm just done with untapped. I don't need this anymore. There's so

many beers out now. I'm not going to repeat beers very often. My memory is not total crap. If I've never heard of the beer name before, I haven't had it. That's my new system. And if I don't hate it, it's good. Yeah.

And if it's really, really good, and I want to take some home then i'll remember that as like a top of the scale or near top of the scale but usually i'm just like i'll just get something else next time because people keep making great beer i was thinking you know my my sandwich situation salami also salami is just like it's good for a while pre-packaged stuff that doesn't get gross so i think that's why i always have salami around too. Sourdough out here is, San Francisco sourdough is a real thing, but even at Safeway, there's a good loaf of sourdough for like five or six bucks that is really good bread.

You get that Watsonville sourdough? Yeah. That's good bread. If you live in a place where you're getting that as your default bread, you've got a good bread game. That's the other thing I always have. Yeah, I would say that my other version of the replacement of a sandwich is like sourdough with those ingredients yeah it's just sourdough salami and munster it's munster's the cheese we always have

laying around so that's that's just my hurry sandwich but the topping i really like on a sandwich is blackberry jelly man after my own heart. That is the good ingredient. You could have it on hand for PB&Js or whatever. If you're just English muffin in the morning, you want something sweet on there. But if you're doing turkey, I think turkey or even chicken, like if you do a chicken breast, you slice that up.

Blackberry jelly just gives you a totally different flavor profile on the entire thing. I think for a more bland meat that's a little under seasoned, it can do a lot of the heavy lifting. You can do blackberry with giardiniera, which also lasts a long time. Throw that on there with turkey.

You got a great sandwich right there on pretty much any bread. When I get fancy, I have a hot pepper bacon jam from Pepperidge Farm or something. Pepperidge Farm remembers. Hot, hot bacon, hot bacon jelly. It's a little bit like your jelly idea, but it has a little bit of spiciness to it and some bacon. I do the fried onions.

Trader Joe's has them. Some other people have them, like the crispy fried onions. I like to throw those on. I like to throw those on. I like to make sure I have some pickled red onions around, so I just keep a jar of my own pickled red onions. Those are... And then my favorite sort of personal concoction that I've come up with over the years is sriracha honey mustard,

but I just put that together on the sandwich. I just squeeze all three of those things on the sandwich and spread it together on the sandwich. I just squeeze all three of those things on the sandwich and spread it together on the sandwich. But I like that topping. Somewhere in there was an answer. Trader Joe's is good for your sandwich condiments. They have the sweet chili sauce, which is really good on stir fry, but you can also throw that into a sandwich if you need to.

And then I think their Carolina barbecue sauce is pretty good too. It's a little more of like a deep yellow Carolina gold, I think is what it's called. It's a little tangy, but I've also dumped that on a chicken sandwich before. You take a pretty bland sandwich and make it really interesting really fast.

I like the crunchy onions thing. That's a great idea. It's about time to get a sandwich. If you've got a question for a future episode, you can email us, ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com. You can leave us a comment under this video if you're watching us on YouTube, or even if you're not, you can just go to the YouTube page,

click on the video, and leave us a comment there. Help us defeat the algorithm on Twitter. You can find Eno at Eno Saris. You can find me at DerekVanRiper. Be sure to barrel up on the like button if you are watching this video on YouTube. That is going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Thursday.

Thanks for listening.