Rates & Barrels - Heaney to the Dodgers, Verlander's Workout, and Changes in Oakland, Cincinnati & Texas

Episode Date: November 10, 2021

Eno, Britt & DVR discuss the early happening at this week's GM Meetings, Justin Verlander's workout and comeback bid, Andrew Heaney to the Dodgers, the Mets' ongoing search for a new general manager, and big changes in store for the A's, Reds and Rangers this winter.  Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels 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 Wednesday, November 10th. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris, and Britt Jolie. Britt on the scene at the GM meetings. That's in Carlsbad, right? Carlsbad, California this year. Not San Diego, near San Diego, so a beautiful location. A lot to talk about.

We've got a signing. Andrew Heaney has a new team. We have a workout. Justin Verlander threw in front of lots of people, so we'll talk about that. It sounds like the A's are going to go through a teardown, possibly the Reds as well in some fashion. And, of course, the Mets are still Metsing. They are in the news. We'll save them for later because I really never set out to host a Mets podcast, you guys. I don't want that to be the show. I don't know how important it actually is until they make a real decision. We'll get to that a bit later on. But Britt, I wanted to ask you first, what actually happens at the GM meetings? And how are they different than the winter meetings that people are a lot more familiar with?

Those, of course, happen in early December and are heavily covered on MLB Network throughout the entire event. Yeah, what is nice about these guys is they're a lot less structured a lot more chill um basically as a reporter you're just meeting as many gms as many front office members as possible they're staying in this hotel in carlsbad so the place is crawling with baseball people who um they all kind of look the same now there's definitely a front office look have you guys noticed like it's like the like kind of like lulu lemon-esque like nice polo with the slacks and the half dress shoes half sneakers um and then they're all walking around with backpacks with hand sanitizer clipped to the outside so they literally all look the same uh and your job is to figure out who is part of what front office it's a it's an incredible game uh i i was looking at the media

availabilities too it's not like it's not like uh the winter meetings where they're like at three o'clock you'll get you know bob melvin over here right it there's they just they're just standing there and then the media get them yeah for it was an hour yesterday it was um al today will be nl we get an hour so there is some structure outside here there's some structure they do the only structured part of it yeah yes um but the nice part there is it was people were kind of waiting in line so you got one-on-ones with jams it wasn't like everybody ask all your questions for jerry depoto right that people were kind of like lined up so you could get guys one-on-one to meet uh gms and so that is helpful right we are not just this faceless part of a 20 person scrum that's funny i saw a picture of

cashman talking and i thought it looked more like a scrum he had a scrum uh just because it's the yankees he had a scrum but he but most of other GMs, it kind of worked its way into lines. I think with cash money, he probably would have been there for three hours if he had to do one-on-ones with all those people. But DePoto had a pretty big line, and he kind of talked a lot about Seattle and the rise that they've had. My favorite Jerry DePoto line from when I was speaking to him yesterday was, I was asking him about transactions

because as you guys know, we may have a lockout, in which case there'll be a freeze on transactions. And then we could see a flurry. So we could kind of see an off season similar to like the NBA or the NFL where everyone signs at once. And I asked him like,

would he like that in baseball? And he was like, no, I work early. You know, I get my stuff done in November. I don't want everyone else to all be in and aggressive like I am. And then he goes, I love transactions. Yeah, he does. He knows. I mean, it's good.

It's good that he knows. And he's laughing along with us on that one. Well, they're among the teams that seem to have flexibility. You either have flexibility or you want flexibility. Or you want flexibility. Which, it's so funny because when you use flexibility instead of money, and you can take away the actual payroll numbers. It sounds ridiculous.

It sounds ridiculous, but it shifts the burden away from how much a team is actually spending. It just gives you a sense of direction and makes everything more vague. But Seattle and Texas, I think, were two teams that sort of caught my eye at seeing the occasional tweet coming through where it seems like they're putting on all the indicator lights that they are going to spend quite a bit this offseason. The Mariners' payroll is about $40 million below where it was last year. And then, you know, there were crazy numbers being bandied around for the Rangers, like $100 million below where it was last year. And then there were crazy numbers being bandied around for the Rangers,

like $100 million. But they are at $50 million, and that's a ridiculously small number for a team that just got a new ballpark and has spent more in the past. So I could see the Rangers spending $50 or $60 million and the Mariners spending $30 or $40 million at least. Yeah, I love transactions. Jerry DePoto, I feel like we should put that on T-shirts. Might already be on a few T-shirts.

The first transaction, first notable transaction I think that we saw, at least in terms of a free agent signing, Andrew Heaney quickly signing with the Dodgers. And I think he was among the players we thought could sign quickly because players who are coming off of a bad season, they benefit more from finding the ideal fit right away before opportunities start to disappear. Give me my victory laugh.

The floor is yours, sir. I said, Andrew Heaney will be the first one to sign and he'll sign this week. I almost literally said that. Like hours later, he signed. Yeah, no, it's a get your sleeper time because the top end talent will want to set the market. So the very top will want to get four teams involved,

get that mystery team involved, get the juices flowing, get that number as high as possible. The second tier guys that are going to get multi-year deals want those guys to sign first because they say, well, Harper signed for this much. I'm not Harper, but I'm going to get 80% of that or 75% of that.

So they want the market to be set. But the guys who are going to get one-year deals, they just want to get 80% of that or 75% of that. So they want the market to be set. But the guys who are going to get one-year deals, they just want to get a deal in a place that they might play. So you could see, I think, somebody like Tommy Pham. I don't know if Jock Peterson is going to get a multi-year deal. But these kind of corner outfield types that often sign for 1 and 10, 1 and 8, you could see those guys sign before December happens because they're like, no, I just want to go somewhere where I'm going to play.

That's the Andrew Haney deal. I think he saw that they probably have about three starting pitchers right now, so they can sign two more starting pitchers and he's still in the rotation probably to start the year at least. I think they saw that if we pay $8 million, we can pay for 2018 to 2020 Andrew Haney, who was worth about $8 million a year, even with the homers. And then they see the high spin rate. They see certain facets of his pitches that they think they can maybe change,

and maybe there's upside beyond that. So I think it's one of those no-duh kind of, you know, we saw this one coming a mile away kind of deal. I mean, the only thing that we've been saying is maybe Haney to like the Giants, you know, because the Giants just signed like three one-year guys that all popped for them. Still a few more of those to go around, of course. Yeah. Farhan got executive of the year here which is no i guess no great shock right because it's regular season only um i do wonder though with the dodgers does this prohibit them from

signing clayton kershaw again or a max i don't know if it actually prevents them from doing it but maybe it's a sign that they don't intend to i think yeah they didn't give the the the qualifying offer to kershaw so there's something going on there, and now there's rumors of him retiring. Whoa, I hadn't heard anything like that yet. That's interesting. Well, because the general manager, I think it was Friedman, said, if he wants to come back. And everyone was like, does he mean to the Dodgers or to baseball?

So perhaps a poor choice of words. Yeah, well, we don't like, I mean, I just assumed that we won't see Kershaw next year because I'm doing fantasy drafts and such. And just reading between the lines, I'm like, I think there's a surgery coming here. Yeah, it might be a lot like the Verlander situation where it's a lost season.

And I think at the time that we spoke on Monday, you know, we didn't know what the results of Justin Verlander's workout were. So Britt, what was going on with Verlander earlier this week? Your victory lap time. That was your piece of news. That was yours. So what transpired with him? You guys, that was such an, I'll tell you off air about how I ended up getting that

story because it was so odd and so random. What transpired with him? You guys, that was such an, I'll tell you off air about how I ended up getting that story because it was so odd and so random. But so Verlander, who we know got the qualifying offer from the Astros, chose to have like a private tryout where he invited some teams. And then, of course, like more showed up down to Eric Cressy's place in West Palm Beach. Now, Verlander's not like in mid-season form here yet. He's going to have a couple of these tryouts. But I think what he wanted to do was gauge interest,

let these teams know that he seems to be kind of hell-bent on not taking that qualifying offer, getting like a two. Even if he gets like a two for 25, right, I think he's looking for the years and not necessarily another one-year gamble with that qo and there's a lot of interested teams i mean the tigers keep getting linked to him i don't really see that as being a tiger's thing certainly he's got familiarity with aj hinch um the yankees obviously were there eric cressy uh works for the yankees so there's a lot

of ties there and then the rangers who we talked about have all this money to spend um and like no they're not probably going to compete next year but I think they think let's get somebody in here for a year or two like Verlander who can like help anchor the staff and help give us a veteran presence and you know there was 18 to 20 teams down there in Florida he's going to do it again like I said and James Click said yesterday he looked like Justin Verlander again. So I think the Astros have a little interest in retaining him, certainly, because they gave him the QO. But even during the playoffs this year, I heard from Houston people

that they were kind of expecting him to turn it down, and it seems like that's pretty much the way he's leaning. Yeah, I think as someone who's won a World Series, has accomplished all the on-field things that you would want to accomplish over the course of a career, it's kind of choose your own adventure with regard to which contender you want to go to. I expect him to go to a big market team. I don't know why I just assume that. I mean, he could go anywhere he wants, but the Yankees make a lot of sense.

The Dodgers actually wouldn't be totally ridiculous. I think that would be the thing that would keep them from bringing Scherzer back, right? If you went for Verlander instead, you wouldn't bring Scherzer back in that scenario. Maybe the Giants would actually be a fit, right? Because if you look at their current core and you say, well, how do you make this team better without making a massive long-term commitment in free agency? If you don't really think that any of the guys that are going to get eight plus years are good fits, maybe Verlander's one way to possibly do that if you're the Giants. In my mind, I keep putting him on all the biggest market teams. I just did a little quick Google search to find out how old his daughter is.

And she's two. And that actually says to me as a parent, this is a decent time to go to New York. I don't necessarily maybe want to have like a six and a 10-year-old and pull them out of their, you know, wherever they are and stick them in New York and be like, hey, kids, we're moving to New York, you know? But a two-year-old is like, yeah, sure, daddy, let's go. And Kate Upton herself may like living in New York with him

and may like that as a family choice. So maybe it is a play to get the Yankees involved. And the Yankees seem to be talking like they're going to spend again. They're talking about, you know, Cashman admitted he's having a conversation with two high-profile shortstops, free agent shortstops. And he said something about having more flexibility. Maybe they wanted to stay below the tax line for one year, two years,

reset the whole thing, and now they're going to go blow past it like the Dodgers have been, in which case you could see them double-tapping and getting Seager and Verlander would be a would be a pretty big upgrade for them in two places that they could really use. I tried to speculate on this earlier in the week, Britt. that Max Scherzer going to prove you wrong, hyper competitive level that only a very small sliver of even elite athletes get to. Is he cut from a similar

cloth as Scherzer? They both scare me when I'm talking to them. Yes. Is it fair to put them in the same group? They're similar. Fitching-wise and yeah, they both have that bulldogdog i want to be the guy on the staff right and so it was interesting in detroit when they were together and david price um kind of as three cy young winners i think there were some like um issues

at times because you had so many alpha males so they are very very similar uh pitchers personality wise they're a little different like especially on days that they don't pitch. Scherzer's a little more friendly, gregarious, a little more goofy. Verlander is very keep-to-himself kind of guy. But both of them want to pitch until their arm falls off. And both of them are a little bit of a throwback to a yesteryear pitcher because if you watch Verlander when he was good, lots of times his last inning, his velocity was the best and Scherzer you hear him grunting that last like 15 to 20 pitches

so he's a guy who saved some in the tank too and so I do think that they kind of have that same mentality I kind of feel as if you get to that level and these guys are competing with each other now like if Verlander signs a two-year deal, I'm sure Scherzer's going to be like, well, I want to do better than that. I don't care if it's a dollar or more. I do think there's that kind of competitiveness between two guys like that. But Scherzer's the top pitcher on the market, right? Yeah, I mean, well, it depends.

Like I was talking to Perry Manaisen about this yesterday. And as you guys know, the Angels need anyone not nailed down in pitching. And he was kind of saying like okay but you look at the end of max scherzer season and are you going to bet on that because he didn't do that well right so what about some people saying like strom what about kevin gossman yeah gossman stroman uh because because stroman makes like he he continues to reinvent himself and evolve he's not afraid to like try different things and um he's been a guy who's been fairly durable.

So there really isn't like a consensus. Number one, there's no Garrett Cole out there, right? It just depends on what you need and what you're looking for. Really? And a lot of these guys with the uncertainty rope. Yes.

A lot of these guys also with the CBA uncertainty and kind of Perry kind of pointed this out, may take one-year deals because they're not sure what the ramifications are going to be. So they may take a year somewhere like what Marcus Simeon did, where he bet on himself, went somewhere where he knew they would make him better, really like the training staff in Toronto, and now he's going to cash in. So you might see that from some of these pitchers, which I thought was a really interesting concept. shin so you might see that from some of these pitchers which i thought was a really interesting concept stroman's gonna go for the years because he said something like the fight to get to free agency was so long you know he took the qo last year yeah i think stroman is gonna want years but it is interesting they're very different because stroman is like i have six pitches you know but i'm a sinker guy which is not like what you know we will we were really looking for as a baseball

team the last couple of years. Gossman is like, I've got the high riding foreseam, but I don't really, I don't have breaking balls and I really only have two pitches that are good. You know, so, you know, each, I mean, Scherzer is the most complete, but then you have to see, you know, how he broke down a little bit, how the injuries have been starting to creep in the back. you know, how he broke down a little bit, how the injuries have been starting to creep in the back. I mean, it is not an obvious answer. I still think, to me, I still think Scherzer is the best option on the market. But I do wonder if he wants like four, five, six years,

then I think most people would want to pay him for like three years or something. So you're seeing this more, like you're saying Scherzerzer in terms of 2022 war is the best picture on the board. That's sort of what I'm saying, yes. It kind of all depends on the years and the money. That's the ticket with everything. I see all these rankings of players and I'm like, it's so hard to rank free agents because you don't know what they're going to get. agents because you don't know what they're going to get so like do you want korea at 340 million and uh seager but what if seager gets you know 240 then i think i'd rather have secret you know

what i mean so it's like uh it's kind of i i might do a piece where i take the fan graphs, you know, the fans have like they project basically deals, and then pick out of those the deals I like best. Yeah, it's just sort of an interesting concept, in my opinion, that the CBA may directly impact that too. Not even the future, but what they're looking for. That was an interesting point. I hadn't thought of. Yeah, I think that that rolls into the whole like the guys are going to get one year $8 million deals, we might see a bunch of them sign in the next two weeks. So here's the question for both of you. I think we have to compare apples to apples

in terms of free agents that are similar in age and similar in terms of contract duration expectations. So Scherzer shouldn't be part of this conversation, but Robbie Ray versus Marcus Stroman versus Kevin Gossman, I think that's sort of the... Those three you could probably put in the same group. I think within reason, they're going to get a similar number of years and similar amounts of money. And if you're interested in one, you're probably interested in the others. you're interested in one, you're probably interested in the others.

I think the fear with Robbie Ray is probably his pre-2021 walk rates. Yes. Gossman, it's the homer rates. Yeah, Gossman, it's the homer rates. And with Stroman, I guess it's just there's more contact. It's a lack of strikeouts. It's a ground ball profile, right? It's a lack of strikeouts. So I feel like the Stroman profile ages the best.

If you say they're all going to get four years or more, who do you trust the most over the longest deal? It's probably Stroman just because of the way he attacks hitters and having multiple deeper arsenal. I think that keeps him as a valuable starter longer than Ray and Gossman will be if something goes wrong for them. Yeah, because Ray and Gossman are also kind of two-pitch pitchers. Right.

So my lean would be Stroman if I'm shopping from that group. Yeah, I mean, you're right. The big concern with Robbie Ray is, is he going to all of a sudden turn into a pumpkin and become old Robbie Ray? But maybe not. Guys change. Guys evolve.

And certainly, look at Simeon, certainly a lot of guys raved about Toronto and the staff. And I think as we look at teams who are successful,

like the Giants, what they did this past year, there's going to be more emphasis on, especially in shorter deals, what the club's infrastructure is. Like, can these people

make me better? Right? It's like the next wave of, you know, they're holding on to their prospects now, right? So the whole tanking method is getting old and it's not as sustainable as it was because you can't stockpile draft picks

and then trade a bunch of AA guys and have them all come up together. So the issue becomes like, okay, how do we make our current people better? And you do that by the support staff and the coaches. And I think that's kind of going to be a thing. Now you saw the giants do like load up on coaches and you saw a lot of teams poach some of the giants coaches.

So to me, and you know, I know this is something that you've kind of delved into a little bit, but that to me seems like the next level, the next layer of this player development thing is who can get these guys just a little bit better, right? That team is going to have a lot of success. And that's really interesting to me because it mirrors what's happening in analytics. So right now there's more of a supply of smart

analytics people that could be your player development analytics or your R&D analytics. could be your player development analytics or your R&D analytics. They're now choosing, if you'll see, there are a lot of job offerings on Fangraphs. I'm retweeting them all the time. I've been trying to connect people I know who want analytics jobs to these jobs, and they keep telling me, no, I won't work for that owner. I won't work for that team. I won't work for that owner i won't work for that team i won't work for that gm and so now there are uh i think this is almost something you'll see that that is true for the labor market which is people i think people's relationship with work has changed over the last two years and people kind of don't want to work i think this and this might be a segue to new york man because people just don't want to

work in places that suck you know they're just like hey you know we all realized how flimsy life was the last couple years we were all touched by death in the last couple years and where we work became the thing was like you know, I don't want to suffer. You know, I don't want to suffer. And then you hear, you hear Sandy Austin come out there and say, well, New York is not a place to be comfortable, whether it's me or the media or this or that, you know, you're going to be challenged here.

And to me, that sounds like a toxic work environment. It's like, I don't, I don't want to work somewhere where like every day someone is challenging me and like up in my business and I may have to fire, I may have to wait out the father and fire the son. And for a year, I just have this guy sitting over my shoulder. No, I don't. Sorry. Nope. And that's why I think, you know, you can

try and parse each one and be like, oh, well, Stearns, Milwaukee said no. And well, Theo, you know, he really just wants to play with his kids or whatever it is. You can come up with excuses for each one of them. But there's been 12 names now. And we got down to the guy that hasn't even been in baseball for four years. So I think it looks like a toxic work environment. People don't want to work there. Right. And that's not going to change overnight.

This is a longer term sort of problem that the Mets are stuck in right now. I mean, they went from the pie in the sky list to the, hey, this guy used to work in baseball. Is there not a list of thousands of people in between those two points that are more qualified? There was a rumor of some guy that used to play that now owns car dealerships. Adam Cromey is the guy, the former Nass GM is the guy you're talking about who's out of baseball. He is a strong candidate in fact i heard yesterday and joel sherman just reported this morning i couldn't get second confirmation um but i can go with it now steve cohen met with him yesterday um so it seems like it's a serious thing it seems like um they're close even though nothing is done yet now the issue with that is not only has he been out of baseball for four years, but there are still people as bad as this job is who would have taken this job.

So if they were just looking for like a three or a four, they could have found somebody to do that. And I think, you know, you had some good points. I was talking to AGM yesterday and we were about to head to the GM availability. And I was like, well, maybe in a few years, this will be you. And he's like, I don't want that to be me And I was like, well, maybe in a few years, this will be you. And he's like, I don't want that to be me. I was like, what do you mean? He's like, number two is the best job in baseball. And he pointed out that many number twos or, you know,

GMs that aren't at that president level, AGMs, guys are making seven figures. So they have a, what is the difference between a million and a million and a half? And you're in the room. Is it a huge lifestyle difference? You're in the room. You get to make decisions. Yes, you get to make decisions, but you don't have to deal with the media. You don't have to deal with the constant speculation about your job.

So, and I really hadn't thought of it that way. And I think these front offices now value stability and value. Like I like my life. I'm a two. I'm making a ton of money to live in Minnesota or Milwaukee or Cleveland or wherever it is. Why would I want to uproot my family, my wife, my life to make a little bit more money and to deal with all that stuff? And I hadn't really thought about it that way.

But the way front offices are prioritized now, they are paying their twos and threes really, really well. i didn't realize kevin yeah kevin goldstein went on twitter the other day he used to work in the uh houston front office and he said uh i realized i never want to be the gm agm is where it's at yeah because i mean for all the reasons brit described like do you want to be constantly under the microscope for what ends up being... It's more money, but at a certain point, you have enough. You're comfortable. You have everything you need.

You're taken care of. I'm sure there's a special brand of the Alpha Alphas that are just like, No, I want my name stamped on every move. I want this to be like Stearns' Milwaukee Brewers. I want this to be like, you know, Stearns' Milwaukee Brewers. I want this to be, you know, Alderson's Mets, you know. And that varies by market, though. I think that even varies by long-term glory. You know, people probably won't remember the AGMs

on these winning teams, or at least won't, you know, write fawning stories about them. Yeah, right. Sure. Yeah, exactly. People inside the game will remember, like, who was in the room for those teams, but most of us will never even think about those people.

But you have longer longevity, too, because if you're an AGM, you're not going to get fired like the GM, right? And if the GM moves on, lots of times these AGMs stay. They do. Or they're well-liked. They latch on as an AGM somewhere else, right? And they don't have that negative connotation of the GMs who failed. So, and this is fascinating.

And, you know, I don't know, maybe we can do a piece this winter if we're bored about kind of the evolution of the AGMs and how it's really become like this primo job that many guys see as being like a stable route. And you look at like, let's say like a guy like Sam Fold, for example, like he could have been in the dugout, right? Former player. But you look at front offices and there are a lot more stable jobs

than being in a dugout, than being a coach. So it's just interesting to me how this whole thing has kind of evolved and changed over a little bit. Let's do this. Let's do this. I got the perfect way to write about it. I got a perfect metric I can come up with it's it's pretty interesting excellent excellent and um i

was actually speaking to someone in philly yesterday and they said that they were they were teasing fold because he never got contacted by the mets and they were like god you must be horrible at your job everybody else they're having such a hard time, which I find amazing. Oh, my. You're not on the list of 12 or 15 or whatever it is now. Well, we'll see. Of course, everyone's terrific at his job. Let's get that out there on this pod.

But it's just a funny thing, what it's become with the Mets. Maybe between now and the next time we speak, the Mets will have a new GM. Maybe. It seems like getting that done would be helpful as they try to go about the rest of their off-season maneuvers. But hey, what do I know? Let's talk about a possible teardown in Oakland. Possible? Eminent?

Certain? No. What's going on here? My hot take is no, that people are wrong. It's not going to happen. you're wrong this is two things they are always trying to compete and they are always selling so i think that they will sell a player or two the other thing is right now their payroll is exactly where it was last year it just means that they can't buy they can't sign anyone so i actually usually don't huh they usually don't sign they don't sign that. They usually don't. Huh?

They usually don't sign free agents anyway. So I think they only need to make $5-10 million a room. So I think one of the guys will go. And I think the one guy that will go will bring back someone who plays his position. So something like, and I know that some Oakland fans are like, we don't want Luke Voigt, but something like Olsen to the Yankees for Voigt and some prospects would actually make sense.

Because you play Voigt for Olsen, and maybe you get an arm back or an arm or two back that you can then plug in to your rotation instead of going to the free agency market. I think it'll be smaller stuff. Because I just don't think that this isn't a team that in the past has sold everyone. When was the last time they sold everyone? They really don't do that. No, they don't do the Marlins level fire sale, the Tobias Funke. They're having a fire sale. I think they wouldn't trade Chapman. Right now, you're trading Chapman at the bottom of his value. Yeah, I think Chapman is the easy hold hold i think olsen's the kind of player that the market generally doesn't value that highly but if you could get back voight and i don't know

luis heel or or some major league ready arm davy garcia i mean you do that about him yeah like that's that's to me it's a no-brainer olsen would be a great fit in yankee stadium i'm sure people are all over that as a lefty who improved his K rate and could just rip the ball into the short porch 40 plus times over the course of the season. But... Minaya and Olsen is the most that I'll say goes. You think two?

Two out of Olsen, Minaya, Chapman, Bassett and Montas, I guess. Minaya goes for like two young guys that they hope to plug into the rotation right away that are cheaper. Because he's $10 million. And then Olsen goes for Voight and something like Voight and some prospects and they save $5 million that way.

So they'll save $15 million doing that and then they'll spend the $15 million on relievers. That's what they do. And if they can hang around, if you think about it, if you keep the two guys who, if you keep one of the two guys between Minaya and Bassett, one of them, they'll both be free agents after next season.

Those are qualifying offer guys. Yeah, exactly. So if you're going for it and you're successful, you have that option. If you go for it and fail, you can trade them in July. Trade Bassett in the middle of the season, yeah. They do that. They definitely do that. They trade guys in the middle of the season.

Yeah. Okay. What do that. They definitely do that. They trade guys in the middle of the season. Yeah. Okay. What do you think, Britt? Are we too optimistic about Oakland not tearing it down? I mean, maybe. I'm with you, though. They always seem to want to compete. They're like the Rays.

They are never going to be out there being like, we've got big money to spend. Let's go. They're going to kind of acquire low-level people by volume and see what hits. They can't get the A3 agents, so they're going to get like a few C's and see if one of those guys ends up being a surprise. That's really been their playbook. That's how

they trade too, right? They don't even trade they don't even try and trade for the very best prospects they try to trade for three or four, you know like Simeon, you know, etc. Simeon Bassett, etc. When it doesn't work out, theimeon Bassett, et cetera. When it doesn't work out, the Donaldson trade didn't work out. That one did not work out.

It was Barreto. What was it? Does anybody remember? Barreto, Graveman, I think was in that trade. Yeah, Barreto and Graveman and something. Was Sean Nolan in that trade? Yeah. Yeah, that was not great.

The other question, though, I think, as I look at Oakland, and this is the only reason I think they might go a little more aggressive with making moves for the future than they ordinarily would, it's a bad farm system. Worse than in past versions of having to retool. And I wonder if that makes them a little bit more aggressive because they need to pile up more pieces for the future as a result of the lack of young talent they currently have in the organization.

There's also the stadium thing is different, so it seems to be coming to a head. Yeah. Definitely. Not a fun offseason to be an A's fan, I would say. Is it ever, though, really?

Losing the team, though, that's an extra cloud. That's not – yeah, that wasn't always looming quite the way it is right now. That's worse than trading Donaldson away. Right. As much as that sucks, that whole possibility, it seems increasingly real that they might be on the move to Vegas. But the other team that apparently doesn't have flexibility or needs flexibility or wants flexibility is Cincinnati. And just two winters ago, they were aggressive.

They went out and they got Nick Castellanos right away and they were spending money. And it looked like they brought in Derek Johnson from the Brewers to be their pitching coach, and they extended Sonny Gray. Everything was kind of like pointing towards Cincinnati being a mid-market or even a small-market team that was going to punch above its weight class and be this legitimate contender for a few years in the Central, and now they're walking that back. I mean, I don't think Castellanos goes back, and they're apparently trying to trade Luis Castillo? He turned things around after a slow start this year. There's plenty of teams that would be interested in him. So Wade Miley, they just gave away. Innings are important. You need innings. And they just let Wade Miley go.

So, I mean, they've got some young pitching. They've got Hunter Green. They've got Nick Lodolo. So they could rely on one or both of those guys to be part of the rotation. That just seems like a pretty hard turn from where they were two seasons ago. What do you think about a Reds teardown, Britt? Yeah, I think any teardown is bad for the game. I want all these teams to try. I think you look at Cincinnati and it's an example and it's example of you know maybe they were aggressive

and obviously they were aggressive in the wrong ways right they made some mistakes and they weren't able to translate that into winning seasons and so now they have to cut budget again and kind of retool but i wish that wasn't the case i guess more so um if we learned anything from alexanthopolis and the braves is that you really are only trying to construct like an 88 win team you're just trying to punch your ticket right you're not unless you're the dodgers or the yankees you you're not going to have the payroll um or likely the star power to try to get these 100 plus win teams the giants obviously this past year as well but so i think if you're the reds they're not in this like they're not in the nl west right they're not in this like they're not in the NL West. Right. They're not in this division where you're like, oh, man, they're going to just be buried

for a while. Like, why can't they compete? I why can't they? I really don't understand. You know? Yeah, I think the most I think you were right when you said they made some mistakes like the Moustakas deal. You know, they somehow because of their arbitration raises, they're still $10 million above where they were last year.

So a lot of the young core that was exciting, the Winker-Castillo group, they've just started to get expensive. And if they want to keep it to $120 million like last year, then they have to cut $10 more million, and they're not going to trade Moustakas. Nobody's going to take Moustakas. Nobody's going to take Suarez.

And they don't want to trade, you know, I think he might win Rookie of the Year India. I think Tyler Molle, he has two seasons of control left, but he's also only cost $5 million. So it's like Castillo, I guess, is the guy that they could trade. But it just seems sad. Why can't they float a $130 million payroll and try and compete in that division? I mean, the division is there for the taking.

Yeah, that's the thing that's frustrating is there are two teams trying in the division right now. It's clearly the Brewers and Cardinals. Cubs are doing a retool, probably not a full Baltimore five-year sort of thing. They're going to do some things and try and turn it around faster, but the core should be good in Cincinnati. It is strange. The players they've spent on, they hit on Castellanos, they missed on Moustakis. They're fine with the Sonny Gray extension, 11-ish million per year for what he's provided. That's fine.

That at the very least innings, but it's above average innings in terms of quality. Eugenio Suarez hasn't been the same guy since he suffered that shoulder injury with that pool accident. Maybe he never comes back so that there's, there's a guy they have on the books for a long time that limits what they can do. Shogo Akiyama was a miss.

So a few more misses than hits where they've spent. And I guess if those are the perils of a team in this range making mistakes, I understand why they don't even bother trying on a multi-year deals because all of a sudden you're just going in the direction with a core that is exciting and I think is headed in the right direction. Molly and Winker, Stevenson and India, that's a good core group to build around. What we know about finances for teams, that's what's publicly known,

they should be able to float $130 million payroll. Teams on average, this is a quote I've got here, in 2020, teams on average generated $122 million in TV revenue. The one source. That's one source of revenue, and that's a very steady source of revenue. Yes, that's average. You have other sources. That's average, so Cincinnati could come in below that,

but that's before you count a single person coming through the turnstile. Yes, they get a bunch of money from MLB every year. Yeah. And the MLB advanced media money that each club gets or signage in the park you know all the there's all sorts of other strategy streams it's like this is just one thing tv money national tv money so uh i uh we'll see i mean it they're the only team that lets us see their finances are the braves and uh they made a fair amount of money last year which may be unfair because they were good and yeah and maybe it's unfair because they're good and their other teams aren't weren't as good blah blah but

like i have to assume that given the information we know most teams made money i've got one more uh it's a happier question. We just had a couple of teardowns. One more topic I want to throw at both of you. I mentioned up top, Texas is among the teams willing to spend. And this Rangers team, for me, has just lacked direction for the last couple of seasons. They've been sort of not really floating at the bottom. I guess they've sunk to the bottom of the AL West. And I find it difficult to see what their true identity is as a franchise.

But if they're going to spend aggressively in free agency, who should they spend the money on? It's one thing to say we're going to spend more. We're just talking about the Cincinnati team that spent more and made a few mistakes and then had to backtrack. I don't know if Texas is necessarily going to follow that model and whiff badly, but who would you spend it on? If you're Texas and you're going to increase your payroll maybe by as much as $100 million

from last year to this year, who gets that money, Britt? Who stands out to you as someone that makes a big difference for that franchise for the foreseeable future? You've got a Carlos Correa, don don't you don't you get a short they need you get a short stop and you get like you get pitchers too but texas needs an identity right they need like a face of that franchise and i think you get a guy like correa who's a star who loves the spotlight loves the media loves everything that comes with it um and it's still got some really good years left. So I think you get a guy like that. He's dynamic. He's fun to watch. You know, if they miss out on that, do they try for like a Javi Baez? Like maybe Javi Baez, in my opinion, probably has just as much upside. He's

just not as consistent. His lows are really low. So you're not really sure what you're going to get. You have to be confident that your coaching staff and the people around them can keep hobby bias kind of producing and maybe do something about that strikeout to walk rate. That's really poor. Uh, but I think you've got to, you've got a position player. You throw a lot of money at a guy like Korea, you get a few pictures and then people feel good about the Rangers and kind of the direction that they're headed in here. That's what I would do. I agree. I think you got it you got to get an offensive talent at the middle kind of full if i think to me is a really good utility guy josh uh you could put you could start the season with him at third josh uh young carl young baby

yes josh young uh josh young uh i think he's. He could either start the season or come up soon. I think Solak, there's a little bit more left in that bat, plus second base is sort of where you put guys, so maybe Kainer Falefa goes there. Nate Lowe, they've bought a young prospect at first. They've got outfielders out there and coming up through the system. So I think that shortstop just needs to be addressed. You get that guy.

And then, like, yeah, like a Verlander thing would make sense because they popped. This is the one thing that they have done well over the last few years is short-term old starting pitchers. So they've been pretty good at that game with the Kyle Gibsons and the Etc. So continue that and get a replacement

at shortstop offensively for what they lost with Gallo and hope some of these guys come up. In the meantime, one thing I do like that the Rangers are doing that might be more important than any free agent that they're doing is they are maybe the most aggressive team in terms of acquiring talent in the front office. I don't think that I've,

anybody I've talked to has talked to the Rangers. Anybody that I respect in the game that doesn't have a job in the game right now has talked to the Rangers. They've hired Darren Willman, who might be the guy to hire for sort of internal systems in terms of like, we want to have something that looks like savant inside internally for all of our everybody to look at, you know, that's huge. And that's going to be Darren Willman's job. You know, they're hiring pretty aggressively. Donnie Ecker, I think, was the best hitting coach that they could have hired, and They hired him to be their offensive coordinator. I think they're doing a lot of work behind the scenes.

They're looking aggressively to change the player development situation, just change the relationship of analytics to what's happening on the field. I think they're doing a lot of good in that way. Correa is the ideal big fish if you're Texas, but if someone else comes over the top and just outspends you, or if he prefers a similar offer from the Yankees or wherever he wants to go,

like if he doesn't choose the Rangers, are you happy to throw similar money at Corey Seager? Is it just for you guys? Is it someone up the middle, regardless of how far down the list you have to go? Even if you end up going down to the Marcus Simeon level, which is not at all a dig at Simeon, it's just kind of the, comparatively speaking,

it's a much smaller deal in terms of length and overall value than what you're going to have to pony up to get to the Correa and to the Seager level. That's number one priority. And then you look at the pitching. The current guys on the depth chart right now, Dane Dunning, Spencer Howard, AJ Alexie, Taylor Hearn, they have a couple really good prospects coming through. Cole Wins not far away.

They obviously got Jack Leiter in the draft. One really nice starting pitcher does make a lot of sense, be that Verlander or someone else. They also then need to buy Alex Cobb and maybe even throw Chris Archer in the mix. It's like an A, a bargain, and then a middle infielder. And then probably like a Michael Conforto or one other bat that you can play.

Because you look at the outfield right now, DJ Peters, Adelise Garcia, Leote Tavares like i think taveras is your everyday center fielder for defensive purposes alone he took a step forward at triple a he didn't have an amazing year but it was a solid year overall age to level so i think you need corner outfield help in addition to the up the middle infield hub you could almost sign anyone because of your team and just move who you have currently around. Dude, we just spent a lot of money. So it's probably like $30 for Seager or at least $25 a year. We'll say $30 for a shortstop. $30 for a shortstop.

Yep. I think Conforto is like sort of $15 to $20. I'm going to say $18 just to kind of hedge the higher end. Okay. All right. If you're going to get Verlander-ish, then I think you're going to have to go 2 for 30. I think so too. 20 million there because

I think it's going to be a lot. 20 million a year? Yeah. Derek, you guys put 20 million a year on a guy who hasn't... Wow. If you like what you see, you like the medicals. We're 15, like we're just fudging the numbers anyway so it's 15 or 20 whatever it is but it's a top-end free agent that's not um

i mean even you could maybe even get uh uh stroman for 20 million a year just have to be like five and a hundred yeah um but uh so 20 million for that i would say eight uh eight seven eight for like a alex cobb type yep i think that's a fair number there's there's a bunch of one and eight guys out there just like haney uh i like cobb cobb is my my favorite uh post haney uh uh and rich hill they could maybe get rich hill too for like four All right. So you want to throw Rich Hill into the mix, too, or $80 million for five players? Woo-hoo! There you go. And then you wait.

You get a little extra payroll. Maybe you make some moves at the deadline to help you for the future, too. I don't know. I think that's a great offseason. That's spending $100 million, man. That's $80 million. Yeah. I mean, they could maybe do something like that, I guess.

It doesn't go as far as it used to i guess how good would they be if they added all that i mean let's throw the war calculations in so we're assuming about a five win player at 30 million dollars a year for that top end free agent yeah you're hoping for maybe a three war season from your confortforto. Like that's, that's if things go well, you're hoping for four ish war from your $20 million pitcher. I mean, you can hope for more if you want, and you're hoping to get probably two, two war out of your $8 million pitcher. And if you bring in rich Hill and maybe you get another one there.

So you got a five, a three, a four is 12. You got about 15, about 15 wins above replacement. All right. That takes them from second worst. If you act, if they got, if they bought 15 wins above replacement. That takes them from second worst if they bought

15 wins in free agency. That takes them from second worst right now on the depth charts all the way up to the raise. We are really good at spending other people's money. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. We're really good at it.

That would put them 11th in the big leagues. And we'd probably talk about the Rangers more than once a year on our show if that happened. So I'm excited. I hope that's something that they actually do because I want teams to spend. I want players to get paid. I want more teams to be in the market than sitting back and saving for some future year that we may or may not make it to as a league. If you do not have a subscription to The Athletic, you could sign up for a year. I think we'll make it through a year. The asteroid may get us. You're right.

In the event of the asteroid, I don't know if we can offer refunds, so I'm not going to say that we will, but 33% off a subscription for your first year at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels the lawyers got in my head just now I'm like actually I can't promise that we can refund in the event of an asteroid on Twitter she's at Brit underscore droly he is at you know Sarah's I am at Derek Van Riper follow the pod at rates and barrels that account

might tweet something someday barrel up on the like button if you're watching us on YouTube but that's going to do it for this episode of rates in barrels have a safe and happy Thanksgiving we are Barrel up on the like button if you're watching us on YouTube. But that's going to do it for this episode of Rates in Barrels. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. We are back with you in two weeks. Thanks for listening.