Rates & Barrels - Heston Kjerstad’s Debut and Tommy Pham’s Late-Season Surge

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

Eno and Al look into the fantasy viability of recent callups Heston Kjerstad and Pete Crow-Armstrong, and they identify several hitters who could and should still be added in 10- and 12-team leagues. They also prioritize which starting pitchers are worth adding for the stretch run and discuss the Cubs’, Rays’ and Cardinals’ bullpen situations. Rundown 1:00 Heston Kjerstad is the latest top prospect to debut 9:58 Pete Crow-Armstrong’s debut and other big news items 27:37 Other hitters to consider 36:42 Two-start pitchers and streamers 50:53 Closer corner Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Al on Twitter: @almelchiorBB e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everybody, happy Friday to you. It is Friday, September 15th. I am Al Melchior. I'm here with Minos Saris for our weekend preview show here on Rates and Barrels. And this is the second to last one of these because, of course, this is going to be the second to last fab period in most leagues. We will be here on the final Friday of the season, just in case you are thinking that far ahead. But anyway, so things are, it's getting down, you know, it's getting down to the end here. And so we've got some hitters and pitchers to consider for that stretch run. Some big news, a few closer situations to discuss. The usual thing that we do here on the Friday show. So let's get started with it and start with, I think, what would qualify as the biggest news item the last day or two.

Heston Kierstad up with the Orioles. He did not start for that series opener against Tampa Bay on Thursday. But, you know, what are your expectations in terms of playing time and in terms of performance? Well, there's a very interesting discussion yesterday between Tom Trudeau and Eric Cross about Tom Trudeau has a service called Scout the Statline that is basically like an MLE, a major league equivalency machine. Stats in the minors weighs the ones that translate to the majors best and tries to give you an idea of what the best prospects are based on stats. It's called scouting the stat line. It's a pretty cool idea. Every projection system has something like it.

His purports to be the best does come up with some interesting answers, and one of the interesting answers was that before the season, he had Edward Julian. I don't know the exact number, but like top 10 or top 20, uh, where, uh,

most other prospect rating systems had him nowhere close. Julian's doing well. Um, you know, I don't think that we can say right now, we know exactly what Julian's true talent is, but, uh,

it seems to have, to have uncovered something there. And he was saying that Heston Kerstad, you know, given his age, 24, and production at AAA, somewhat mediocre. It's interesting to say that a 298, 371, 498 for Heston Kerstad is mediocre, but it's only 16% better than league average. Estevan Floreal was better than that in the same league at a similar age. So it is a little surprising to me. Then Eric Cross brought up some really interesting counterarguments,

which is that you can't necessarily just use age at level for heston kerstad because heston kerstad got myocarditis and missed like a year and you know there were all these sort of complications that were beyond not just sort of play on the field it's you know issues with his health it's not really something that came from playing baseball. And so can you really count him as a 24-year-old? And this is something that is interesting to me because I liked Jeff McNeil better than some prospect rating systems. I liked Evan Gattis better than some prospect rating systems.

And both those guys had weird reasons for being old at level. Jeff McNeil was trying to be a professional golfer. Evan Gattis was drinking too hard. So these were reasons that they were old at level. And to some extent, I think it played out that those players were better than you might expect given an age at level analysis. So I don't know that I... And then also the last part is we were at Arizona Fall League watching Heston Kerstad, and he immediately impressed me as much as Julian. I was actually pretty impressed by Julian, but Kerstad, I thought, had the ability to make contact, pull for power, and also spray for batting average. That is something that shows up in the numbers.

He's not super pull happy, but he does have over 200 ISOs this year at AA and AAA, Kerstad does. So I don't know. I'm predisposed to liking this guy, but I also understand that 16% better than the average of AAA is not necessarily a forceful argument in his favor. Well, we've got the weekend ahead of us, so we'll get to see, maybe get a better idea

of what Kirsten's role is going to be. Playing time is going to be really important because it is a crowded team. And I looked at the, it's always about the corresponding move, and the corresponding move was sending Ryan McKenna down, not putting Ryan Mountcastle on the IL.

So they're waiting, I think, because that was why Kerstad came up for some reason, I believe. Mountcastle medical imaging revealed no damage to his left shoulder. So could Kerstad just be up for a couple days and then Mountcastle's back in the lineup Sunday. And you're like, I don't know what to do. So I would, I would, I'd be watching the news for Mountcastle. We're watching if Mountcastle's in the lineup and playing time,

it's always at this point in the season, playing time, actually most of the season playing time is everything, but especially now, you just got to take who's playing. Yeah, so that's definitely a job for all of us this weekend to look at that Orioles lineup and try to make sense of what's going on. But even with Mountcastle out on Thursday night, you saw Aaron Hicks there. So I actually want to, before we move on from Kirstat, talk about two would-you-rathers, I guess, and one is, would you rather have Aaron Hicks in a 15 teamer for next week? If, uh, if Kirstad does not play much. I think so.

Uh, I think the playing time has been there for Hicks and I think that Hicks is a better defender and he's a switch hitter. So these are a lot of things that kind of work in his favor. He's above average of the bat this year. Kerstad's a little bit more of a question mark defensively just where he fits in. Is he a first baseman or is he an outfielder? Whereas Hicks can play all three outfield positions so i do believe that hicks uh is a safer bet for sure okay and since you brought up

floreal he also came up this week and has started four straight games for the yankees so do you trust that he's gonna play i think because the yankees are, you know, they have this rare chance to give all their young guys a full month of playing time and see what they learn from it. Usually that's so when now they're in New York that they don't have this chance. So I think Everson Pereira, Estevan Floreal, Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe are going to start every game from here on out. I would guess that Austin Wells gets the primary share of catching from here on out. That's bad news for Jake Bowers or maybe DJ LeMayhew. I don't think there'll be

a primary concern in terms of getting them at bats. All right. Fair enough. But what will he do is another question because Floreal, he did perform well at AAA this year, but at 25, a 130 WRC plus is not that great. It is better than Gerstad, but he's also a year older, and the strikeouts didn't get better. So we, did we talk about this already? Or maybe we talked about it on,

on Monday with Chris Welsh. Yeah. But not with me that I recall. Yeah. But he's still, I mean, he's still missing 15% of the time swinging, missing 15% of the time. And so the only play here is if you just want homers and stolen bases and don't care about batting average. And even then, you have to make contact with the ball to hit a homer. So, I mean, it'll be touch and go. But I think he's an interesting pickup for people that just, hey, what if I could get, you know, in the next two weeks, three stolen bases and two homers? Like, there's not a lot of players on the wire that could do that for you. And Floreal could do that for you.

There definitely aren't. And there's a guy I think we're going to get to later that is very widely available. Not a prospect by any means. He's been around. But I think maybe could be one of the better, bigger impact pickups this week. So it isn't necessarily the biggest names or the shiniest new player. Yeah, my big pickup last week was Jesus Sanchez, which I did preview in our pod as saying he's the big benefit

from injuries in Miami. And as more and more people get injured, you're just like more and more likely that Jesus Sanchez is going to be in the lineup every day. Yeah, no, that's a, that's a, I think a week later,

still a good pickup. If you can, I got it. I think I already got a home around. Well, I do have a couple of other prospects to talk about. One of whom we actually did talk about last week, but Pete Crow Armstrong, I don't believe we talked about because he was not up yet last Friday. He came up on Monday for the Cubs. Cubs have played three games since Armstrong's call up and he has started two of those three games.

So before we get into PCA, I've got Mike Tachman in a few leagues, deeper leagues. But is this the end of the line for Tachman? Or I guess it doesn't hurt to watch what happens this weekend. But should we start thinking about moving on from him? I think so. Tachman had a nice beginning. But in terms of splits, it's been a little bit worse since. I guess I should check my priors. His September 84 WRC+, August 102, July 120. It was that real hot May 149 WRC+, that's floating a lot of his stats, though.

I mean, since then, I'm guesstimating that he has about a 225 batting average, 230 batting average since a 355 May. And also in terms of just raw things like playing time, you'll just see that uh you know june he had 80 94 played appearances uh and so far in september he has 40 it's drying up a little bit for him i just think that you know he wasn't necessarily a full-time player either so you know the fact that he's still on the roster and pete crromstrong the the managers even said things like we're here to win games not develop players right now um I think you know how many more offers uh are they going to give Pete Cromstrong until he's you know the guy that comes in and runs for somebody and defensive replacement and just a guy who's helping them

win I mean I think that's what they're prioritizing right now is wins. And so I wouldn't go too deep in with Pete Cronstong. Yeah, that was sort of my, what I was anticipating with him was that he'd come up and be a defensive replacement and maybe an occasional starter. So the fact that he has started two of three has, was a little bit surprising to me.

But yeah, we'll watch this weekend. I mean, some good power and speed potential there, but also a lot of swing and miss. So there's also some issues with floor even in the short term there for him. And then we'll revisit somebody we talked about a week ago who had just come up at that point, and that's Jordan Lawler. we talked about a week ago who had just come up at that point, and that's Jordan Lawler. And I think that he provides sort of a cautionary tale for the prospects that we've talked about so far because it was pretty exciting to see Lawler coming up.

The Diamondbacks made all sorts of statements about, you know, they're in it to win it, and Lawler's going to be a big part of that. And already he's sitting because he has really, really scuffled in his first few games. So if you picked him up a week ago, do you drop him at this point? Is that too soon? What would you recommend?

I think so. I remain not very changed with regards to my opinion on Lawler's long-term upside. He's had little kind of foibles with call-ups before. And then like when he first got called up to AA, he struck out 29% of the time. When he repeated AA, he struck out 22% of the time. His ISO in Lawler's first attempt at AA was 141

and the second was 211 so i kind of expect uh you know that he's an interesting guy for next year but for this year i would rather have a safer thing all righty uh well let's move on to a pretty big news item in terms of real baseball i'm not sure what the fantasy impact is here but Max Scherzer is out for the regular season at a minimum, could very easily miss the postseason should the Rangers be in the postseason. So to the IL with a Terrace major strain. So obviously, for Scherzer, his fantasy season is done and maybe his entire season is done at this point. But in terms of the Rangers rotation, is there any sort of impact there, especially with Nathan Evaldi struggling again on Thursday

against the Blue Jays? Velocity is still down. He's still not going deep and being all that effective. Yeah, it's interesting. I wanted to look at Cody Bradford's numbers a little bit because he seems to be the guy this glue guy, and he's probably the next guy if another person goes down. And given these names I just said to you, yes, that's totally possible that somebody else goes down. But I think that Bradford's over his shoes when it comes to his current ERA, so I'm not super interested in him. Eovaldi's Fastball Stuff Plus has dropped to 88 over the last 30 days.

He still has above average stuff plus because his splitter is still really good and his slider is decent. But you can only go so far with a splitter being your best pitch, especially if you're not going to throw it. Keaton Wynn is throwing it like 60% of the time. I just don't think he's always going to do that with the state of his health. I would say in 10 and 12...

In 10 teams, he's dropped. In 12 teams, I'd be looking at the schedule. And in 15s, I'd be looking at the schedule. He can still be maybe valuable, uh, based on schedule, but if he's not going five, uh, then he's not necessarily going to get you wins. And since he's come back, he's gone one and a third, two and a third and three and a third. I mean, maybe he's building his way back or maybe they just need to win every game and they're just going to take whatever they can get out of him, which does not suggest he's going to get a lot of wins.

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that number is slowly ratcheting up, but I don't see really got, is there anybody you like that's joining the rotation? Is it Dunning? Who's joining?

I mean, I think Haney maybe gets solidified here yeah but haney and dunning but i agree that oh i do too i do too for sure uh but i like the call on bradford because even if uvaldi uh continues to make starts that he could you know be coming in in the fourth inning and giving you three four inningsnings. Super deep league situation. Maybe he takes over as a starter or as a bulk reliever for somebody else. Maybe he gets you two wins in the next couple weeks

by vulturing off of somebody. Yeah, but it's definitely a tricky situation there. And I know on the 3-0 show, you and Britt talked about the Rangers, their precarious postseason position right now and the Scherzer injury obviously does not help that at all. And the way that Evaldi's been going, that just adds to the precariousness of it all. Talk about a couple other teams and their roster situations.

The Rays, they've swapped a couple of outfielders. Jose Siri with the right-hand fracture. He goes on the IL. His regular season is done. Manny Margot comes back from an IL stint for loose bodies in his elbow. So Margot, I would think, would stand to get a pretty fair amount of playing time these last couple of weeks. They're playing Rayleigh in the center? And they have been playing Rayleigh in the center.

Jonathan Aranda picked up a little bit of playing time. But now with Margot in the mix, I think he's gonna play pretty regular 28 year old what did he play last year first base and left field oh my god i love the rays they're so bad bat poop bat guano i mean the i mean luke rayleigh was a great pickup for them, so I'm not calling that bat poop. And I guess he has some foot speed, so that's okay. It's going to be funny for me if Luke Rayleigh's lined up in center and Margot's lined up in right. It's just, I'm going to be like, what's happening

here? I was not anticipating that, but it's the Rays, so I guess you don't know. It could be a platoon in center because Rayleigh does sit more often against lefties and Margot is a righty, so it could be a straight platoon. I don't see a real winner. All right, fair enough. The Rays being the Rays, I probably shouldn't be overconfident about Margot getting a whole winner. All right. Fair enough. And yeah, the raise being the raise, I probably shouldn't be overconfident about Margo getting a whole bunch of playing time.

So that's, that's an extremely fair point. And then the angels there's of course they've, they've just been a disarray for weeks now, but good news. Zach Netto is back from a back injury. And then angels also brought up Jared Walsh and David Fletcher. I don't know if there's anything there.

Walsh did not put up good numbers in AAA. I'm not sure what happened there. David Fletcher, of course, he is who he is. I think I saw something from Sam Blum about this having something to do with trying to get on their luxury tax. It would make sense. I guess if you are paying like a young kid uh but you have to pay david fletcher anyway because it was a major league contract maybe so you could save the fifty thousand dollars of from paying a young kid because you're paying david fletcher anyway

because you're like the minimum salary is 600, because the minimum salary is $600, right? And so are they really trying to save like $100,000 by playing Fletcher and Walsh over young kids? Maybe. Well, last I read, they were pretty close to the threshold. That's why they did the whole waiver thing. I mean, they're trying everything they can, and it's sad and not good baseball

but is there some way we can profit off this? I don't know what is Fletcher going to play? What's Walsh going to do? They sent Shaniel down, is that what they did? I don't think so I'll double check it but I think he is

still on the roster and see if I can find the corresponding move there. Um, it, Jordan Adams got sent down and maybe, so no, Shanwell, Shanwell is still there. So,

uh, and I guess, oh, maybe it's preparation also for Otani just being shut down. I mean, this oblique thing is lingering. Yeah. You didn't start Otani, did you? I did not.

I learned my lesson from the previous week. It's worked out this week. Yeah, so it's an interesting lineup with Shanual hitting leadoff. Maybe you can think of somebody, but I cannot think of a comp. it's an interesting lineup with Shanual hitting lead off. I, you know, I, maybe you can think of somebody, but I cannot think of a comp. I cannot think of a player with a similar profile. Who's getting this kind of run, who just,

his whole thing is getting on base. There's absolutely no power there. So it's so extreme. Do you know how extreme it is? The only comp I can think of is Lisa rise. And he has to, he has to hit the ball harder to become Luisa rise. Like a lot.

It's crazy. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen, but I actually thought with, with, you know, the low strikeout rate, the high walk rate hitting lead off. I thought maybe this guy is actually doing some damage in points leagues.

And so I did a sort a little bit earlier today first baseman and see a standard cbs points league and he was like for the last 28 days he was like 30th among first baseman so it's not really paying off in any way for fantasy oh 30th among first baseman i thought he's the 30th overall. No, no, no. First baseman. I'm looking at the lowest max EVs in baseball. Shelby Miller has a max EV? What is happening? Why is Shelby Miller? Is he taking a bath this year? I need to know the story on that one. Who's, I mean, I can't even, I'm not even going to, oh, Jordan Lawler, 86.3.

Yeah, yeah, yeah even I'm not even. Oh, Jordan Lawler. Eighty six point three. Yeah. Yikes. Anthony Bam Boom, who has an awesome name. But Cole Tucker. I mean, none of these names are any good. He's closest to Jose Herrera. Tommy La Stella. Sean Bouchard.

It's not a great place to be. He hasn't hit the ball as hard as David Fletcher. There you go. Well, I kind of forgot that Tommy La Stella played this year. Yeah, just a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. All right. There's not really a roadmap for this he

needs to hit the ball harder there uh i i could think of some guys kind of like kyle kyle who i'm just murdered that guy's name uh kyle kai hui i think yeah well they got there's a blast from the best i hadn't thought about in a long time and that dude had like plus plus i uh and good contact skills uh but he still had a 161 iso uh so i don't i don't know that he's a great comp and then then you add in the fact that like you know chaniel's a first baseman so there's like a lot of pressure on that position to perform offensively like the 105 wrc plus he's put up so far this is why he didn't rate that highly for you is uh that's like average for first baseman so yeah and he's not gonna steal bases and he hasn't shown the like you, you know, Luisa.

I think it's another thing is like this. Let's say his comp is Luisa Reyes, right? And you say, well, couldn't he be Luisa Reyes? Yes. Okay. There's one Luisa Reyes. And there are other people who we've comped to Luisa Reyes who haven't become Luisa Reyes. There's just one.

He could just be a unicorn. There's just one. He could just be a unicorn. And even somebody like Stephen Kwan, who has maybe the same skill set as Luis Arias, you know, has hit the ball four miles, five, six miles harder than Shanual so far in his two-year career, has a 100 ISO, and is also not one of the best players in fantasy baseball. Yeah. I mean, when I do a sort, which I do often for people who read my columns, you know, I cite exit velocity on flies and liners a lot because it really correlates strongly with power production. And Kwon's always at or near the very bottom of that leaderboard. And you're saying Shan wills a few ticks below him. So that speaks volumes. Yeah. I mean, thes a few ticks below him so that's yeah that speaks

volumes yeah i mean the one thing that saves kwan to some extent is that he hits ground balls you know uh and so and that's and there was a great article on fangrass by i think it was ben clemens talking about the fact that uh luisa rise is hitting 260 in the last month or two has to do with the fact that he walks such a thin tightrope that he's just barely hitting too many fly balls. Like his launch angle has just gone up like one or two or three degrees in the last month. And that's been enough to turn these like, you have to think about what a tight rope a single is. You know what I mean? You're talking about hitting a ball like 150 feet and not 200 feet and not 100 feet, but 150 feet.

It has to be that like, that just has to be like over the thing, but not far enough that the guys can get it. And also defenders have started playing Luis Arias and they'll do this to Shananuel if he if he has some success the outfield has come in extremely far so now the outfield is only playing 250 feet back you know uh which is like if you if you see it you're like whoa what's going on and and and then the infielders are playing at the very back end of the grass so they've sandwiched him so that the infielders are playing 100

and the outfielders are playing at like 225 and they can run, you know, 30 feet. So they're like, they're making that ban for Luis Urias like this big, you know? It's like, he has just a little crescent moon he can find. And he doesn't run that well and he doesn't hit for power. And, you know, so they're machinating, they're defending their way past Luis Urias.

And Shanuel hasn't even shown that sort of magic ability on that level. So I've seen some people putting Shanuel in the top 10 for their first-year player drafts, and I will not. Fair enough, fair enough. Certainly for fantasy purposes. Like I said, he's, he's doing exactly, you know, what was advertised and it's still not really registering in the formats where you figure he would, he would have the most value. So anyhow, enough Nolan Shanual talk.

Let's get onto some other hitters. Maybe that will be more useful in fantasy. I just, I found a bunch of outfielders of outfielders in researching this week's waiver column who are kind of on the fringes of 12-team leagues. They might not be available, but they very well could be. On CBS, they're in that kind of 50% to 60% roster rate, which tends to mean that you probably will find them on waivers. And for me, top among them was Tommy Pham.

And I say top among them, not only because he's hit really well since going from the Mets to Diamondbacks, but he plays every day. We're going to talk about a couple other players who are platoon players. I mean, he's on your wire. You got to get him. Yeah, there's no question.

10 team, you think? 12 team for sure. Every league. He's stealing bases even. He's like... Nine stolen bases since the trade deadline. Yeah, and I'm looking at the schedule here real quick.

Where are the Diamondbacks? Don't the Diamondbacks go to the Rockies? They got the Cubs at home, and then next week they... Oh, the Giants at home. I thought they had a Rockies trip in them uh no they do they go to yankee stadium i'll take cam the yankee stadium and then after that they go to guaranteed rate

field so a couple of good venues yeah i i think if he's out there you got to pick him up no no matter what your league is yeah now it is a five game week coming up. So we definitely should make that disclaimer. But well, and let's go to the platoon guys that I, you're going to get five games out of platoon guys. Yeah. Right. Eddie Rosario,

Mike Yastromski. They both should have five starts minimum this coming week. Uh, because it also may be black. Well, lefty, but, but also max. So,

all right. So with a, a five game week for fam and let me just yeah okay that is correct i want to make sure i'm correct about that so let's say fam rosario yastrzemski all play five games how do you order them fam rosario yastrzemski. I think I might go Rosario if games are equal.

Because maybe he gets into another game. Maybe he gets a pinch hit. And that. It looks like good Rosario. He's a streaky. For a guy that doesn't strike out a lot, he's super streaky. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. But going pretty well for i think at least a month now a little more than a month so such a great but you know guy to have is like one of your worst everyday players it's like yeah right it's a it's such a smart move by anthopolis i mean because he's such a wild he's just, he's just like a guy who swings at everything but makes contact sometimes. And it's like, that's perfect to have. To have is like your seven or eight hitter. You're like, yeah.

And then we have a guy who might just swing at something you would never want him to swing at and might hit it for a homer. How many times could you use that in a game? Totally. It's working for him. So yeah, those are some 12 team options and then i also tossed willie castor in there he is outfield eligible uh third base eligible in cbs

leagues he's also second base and shortstop so he's quarter infield middle infield outfield you can play him almost anywhere case i mean he's a switch hitter and he's playing center field for them with Buxton out. I believe so, or left maybe. It's center and left and some second. On the 4th of September, he went CF3BP. So he's got that going for him. I mean, they're finding a way to get him in most days, and he has 30 steals on a year.

I think he's a decent pickup for steals. I don't know that it's like a 10 or 12 team situation because it's a little precarious for playing time. But 31 steals is hard to shake a stick at. Absolutely. I think he has started 10 in a row, but I'm with you i don't totally trust that because there are some movie parts on that twins roster uh but oh and taylor is slated to be this is why he's been playing so much michael taylor is slated to be activated during the twins september 14th to 20th road trip uh-huh okay it could it could dry up pretty quick very Very good information there. Okay. A couple other names. Evan Carter, who maybe I could have shoehorned in with the other prospects because he came up around the same time that Lawler did last week.

But unlike Lawler, he's hitting pretty well and playing more coincidentally. It's like if Shanual had power and could play center field defense. Which would be nice. And I guess struck out more. There's no real comp there. No, I like Carter. I think that what he's doing so far speaks really well of him. It's not a good max EV, but if you combine the AAA with what he's done, he's got a 106 max EV.

He's just going to... I think he's just going to be one of these guys that performs on the upper end of his physical abilities. That's a little bit of a, just a read than like something you can see in the stats. But I know that he doesn't hit the ball super hard, but I trust that he will actually do double digit homers at least, but I trust that he will actually do double-digit homers at least in a full season and maybe even get to 20. And he's going to have a fantastic OBP. I think the strikeout rate will come back to normal, and he'll have an okay batting average.

So I think he's a great player. I think he's a really good player. Great, we'll have to see. It might take some time. All right, and i've got one more hitter and i think you know i would throw him in with the the outfields we've been talking about like fam is the easy pickup for me uh carter versus rosario is interesting i like if i needed some steals i might take carter over rosario because i just don't know that makes

sense is going to steal any more bases uh but i i i bases. But I put Carter ahead of Jastrzemski. So, you know, if we're going to rank all our guys, Carter's in the mix. Excellent. Okay. And I have one more, not an outfielder. So this is a very outfielder heavy discussion. But I did notice Dominic Smith is on a bit of a heater. And I feel like we've been waiting for that all year because I don't know I was

certainly among those who thought okay change of sceneries with the Nationals better park as well you know maybe this is when we see the Dominic Smith we've been waiting for hadn't really materialized but has been hot the last couple of weeks and he's available just about everywhere so I wouldn't put him

in the same conversation in terms of you know 10 and 12 teams. But I think for 15 teams, if it's like him versus, and I realize it's different positions, but if it's him and Lawler on the wire, to me it's no question that Smith gives you a better chance next week. If you're making the decision for Sunday, you've got the Nationals got the White Sox at home and the Braves at home next week.

It looks like a seven-game week. That's not bad. The White Sox pitching is pretty bad. Nationals Park is power-conducive. You never know. The Braves may be incended in playing through the motions playing through the motions kind of at that point where they're bringing up all their rookie starters and stuff. So you may get good matchups all week.

I don't think he's a good player necessarily. It's a hot hand play for sure. Yeah, and it's a playing time play, right? It's just like he's going to play every day. The matchups are okay, And he's been going well. But in terms of true talent, I'm not sure he's even a starter in this league. So, you know, that's why it's not 12 or 10 or something. Yeah.

And just to clarify, too, when I talk about or write about, for that matter, hot hand plays, I do want to see something backing up the results. I don't want to be recommending somebody with a 500 BABIP over two weeks. Smith is one of the major league leaders in September in terms of barrels. So he is making a lot of hard contact. He's hitting at the right launch angle.

And he doesn't strike out a lot to begin with. And he's striking out even less lately. So he seems locked in. That's interesting when you're using stats that are meant for small samples but the samples are even too small for them and they go in the face of those stats in the larger sample you know what i mean like he's not barreling the ball for the season and he's got a really poor hard hit rate for the season um but yeah you know if he plays if he plays to like just last year's, you know, barrel rate and hard hit rate or 2021 when he played 493 plate appearances, he had a 40% hard hit rate, 6.5 barrel rate and a 120 ISO.

I mean, he could do that, I think. Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's move on to the pitchers. And again, same as last week, you know, a lot. So we'll probably move through these quickly. But a bunch of two-start pitchers to consider that a lot of these players are available in 12-teamers. A few are available deeper. Well, actually, before we go through this list, one point that I made in the column this week is that we really shouldn't count on anybody to make two starts in a week. And you just, I think, underscored that point by saying, like with the Braves, they could be calling up guys or doing bullpen games or whatever. If Morton was on this list, and he's not, but if Morton was on this list, would you trust him to take two starts? I mean, even last week when people were asking me, is he going to make that Marlins start?

And I didn't know what to tell him, you know, that they've already been skipping days for Morton just to keep him fresh. Yeah. So definitely something to keep in common. I think also a reason to really emphasize that first start in the two step, because you figure that's, that's a pretty safe bet. And so we'll start with Ryan Pepeo, who starts at home against the Tigers. Now that second start, should he make it, would also be at home against the Giants.

I like those matchups in general, but I would feel good about Pepeo with one start against Detroit. Oh, yeah, even just one start against Detroit. And he's, I think, clearly the best pitcher on this list, other than, and I hate to, you like your rundown, but i'm a rundown killer uh brian wu is on this list later and i like him but you know i have to think

that there's a risk that he gets shut down for innings or or moved into like a two inning one inning three inning something kind of uh not so great for fantasy situation. I think the risk is maybe even higher than Pepeo because I think they'll want to keep Pepeo on a regular rotation, keep him stretched out because they have, in LA, they have such a problem with their starting rotation. I think Pepeo might be a playoff starter. Yeah. Oh, I think so. You know, one or two perhaps. Yeah, right. Exactly.

Yeah. Who, who would have thought? I mean, I think it might go Miller, Kershaw, Pepeo. So yeah.

And I, I had a column coming out today that the only reason I'm saying Miller first is because you might be able to rest your bullpen more if you do Kershaw before a rest day. And so I laid it all out. But yeah, so Pepeo is going to figure in big. Pepeo is my favorite pitcher in this list. And he is mine too, which is mainly why I did put him at the top.

And I like Cal Harrison. I did put him second. And I think because the Giants really, they don't have a lot of viable starters. I think he might be the best bet on this list to make two starts, which is actually bad news. Because the weekend start would be at the Dodgers. The first one's at home against Arizona. So I would certainly root for that to be his only start.

I think I like the next name on your list better. John means at Houston is not great, but at Cleveland is okay. And I think it's a similar situation with Means that the Orioles kind of have some issues with innings. I mean, in terms of Grayson Rodriguez's innings and, know is Kyle Bradish getting tired and and what they want to do to set up for the for the postseason so I think means is uh just the guy who comes in and and pitches every five days maybe not a lot of innings but you know four or five innings yeah and you're just hoping for 10 innings from him Houston Cleveland-Cleveland, and one win and a four-yard end. I think he could emerge from the week with three strikeouts. Not because he only got one

against the Cardinals, but Houston and Cleveland, those teams just don't strike out very much. Not a good strikeout play. The velocity was there. Harrison at L.A. That's one you were worried about. Oh, yeah. No, for sure. I think that's a play for strikeouts.

If you're worried about ratios, I think you have to skip Harrison. That would be my thinking, especially since there is some chance that he makes that second start. Let me group some pitchers together here. I think we could probably put these in two, maybe three categories. Cutter Crawford at Texas and then at home against the White Sox. Clark Schmidt, home starts against the Blue Jays and Diamondbacks. Edward Cabrera at home, Mets and Brewers. Let's stop there because I see them as being sort of a,

um, I like, I'm so tempted cause I, I love stuff so much. Like I'm so tempted to be like Edward Cabrera's is a clear step ahead, but he's, since he's come back, it's four innings,

four and two thirds with an opener that does actually help. You know, that's, that helps them get a win a little bit more cause they're just more likely to give you a win even though he does if you start the game and throw four they're going to give the win to the reliever but if they put if you put a reliever in front of him and he goes four he gets the win it's the dumbest thing but yeah it's true those are the rules yeah and his last start with the six walks uh that uh makes me uh afraid like a kyle harrison at dodgers start um our you know mets though and verse milwaukee both home he could walk like even in his last one at milwaukee he walked them six times we gave up two runs so i'm gonna say uh edward cabrera is my favorite of the three

okay yeah i see them as all you know being risk reward type pitchers you know a lot of upside cutter crawford at texas is okay you know there's something tough and i and I feel bad for Heimblum on this one, but Boston Red Sox road ERA is up there with a lot of good teams. And I think there's something tough about pitching at home in Boston that maybe the park factors don't all get. There's an example that I had, which is that the Red Sox righties pull the ball more than any other righties in baseball. And the Red Sox lefties push the ball more than any other lefties in baseball at the plate. And why would they do that? Because the monster. And so if they can do that so readily, you know, and I did talk to.

What was I talking to you about this? Matt Olson, maybe? I was talking to somebody about Parks and how they... Oh, Spencer Steer, I think. And I think he made the point that, well, maybe they acquired the players to be like that. Maybe they acquired players, righties who pull and lefties who... Because I think he was saying,

do you think Justin Turner really just changed his whole approach because he was in Boston? Or do they get Justin Turner because his approach is good for the monster? You know what I mean? Yeah. So that's a good point. Yeah. That's an interesting chicken-egg type question because every year when you do a sort by Team BABIP, they're up there with the Rockies.

Yeah. And yet when you look at park factors they don't register as like you know one of the worst parks usually you know let me look let me look i don't want to talk out of my butt but like i always think you see cincinnati yankees you know uh let me look at the the park the park factors from stat cast i would actually be surprised if they didn't rake really high for doubles i think oh yeah no i, individual stuff does capture it. Oh, look at this. Yeah.

Overall park factor. Boston's number two. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to guess the park factor for Fenway for doubles is like 120 or something. It's number one. London Stadium is number one, but that doesn't count. So, okay.

So, good thing I checked my pri my priors uh it i think it's just a really tough place to to pitch and uh if you think about uh players who underperformed their stuff plus or underperformed generally um the red socks and reds they're right there uh interestingly kaufman stadium uh is yeah doubles, triples park. That's crazy. Historically. Its overall park factor by baseball savant is fourth in the big leagues. Would not have expected that. Tied with the Nationals and ahead of the Phillies. Orioles are seventh on this list, but I think it's over 21 to 2023.

In fact, I think that it's over 21 to 2023. So in fact, I think they're lower than that because the Great Wall was put up and this is a three-year park factor. Right, right. Yeah, you always have to... But anyway, I think Cutter Crawford at home against the White Sox, at least it's not at home against Texas.

Right. I put cutter Crawford second, uh, Clark Schmidt, Toronto is pitching poorly, but it's home. And, you know,

if you want to talk about, about tough places to pitch, uh, uh, Yankee stadium is on that list. Yeah, for sure. Well,

all right. I'm going to group the rest of these, uh, for sure. Well, all right. Group the rest of these two groups of three. Javier Assad. I think I can do this too because there's some good matchups with these pitchers. Javier Assad has great matchups at home against Pittsburgh and Colorado. It doesn't really get too much better than that.

Yeah, I mean, that's one of those... You've gotten into the great matchups, not good pitchers group. Is that what you got? Brady Singer finishes at Houston, which is horrible, but he starts at home against Cleveland. So I would root for him to get one start and I would sort of like that.

And then JP Sears and Paul Blackburn. And let me double check and make sure they both line up. I think they do. Yes, they do. I have those two guys circled. I have them as a cut above. I think that home, they're good pitchers. And that's, you know, Seattle's, I know it has Julio Rodriguez. And so their offensive numbers, when you include Julio Rodriguez are, you know, pretty good, but in the last month or so,

but I would say that, you know, at home against seattle at home detroit plus the talent level of sears and blackburn i'm taking that number one in this grouping uh for sure uh and uh i'll take asad over singer okay yeah that makes sense would make sense to me especially because of the matchups yeah colorado and then uh i don't know if there's anybody in this last group that has anything to offer but i mean they're there what's tough about them is there's some good pitchers in this and next year i want to own some of these pitchers brian woo kyle right taj bradley drew rom they're all lined up for two woo i don't think we'll make the two right i don't know if he'll pitch four innings in each of those. Taj Bradley is killing me. I have him on my main event team, and he was going well,

and then he had a 16 pitch at bat in the top of the fifth, and they took him out at four and two-thirds with the lead. And I was just like, oh, just give him one more out. Drew Rahm is interesting because he does not throw hard and uh there's some there's some okay movement in there but i don't know like it's so weird to have a young guy come up and like he almost are you hurt? Which is like it's a weird thing to ask of a guy but like I mean

it's a 23 year old throwing 89 Who's gotten strikeouts in the minors I know but I guess pitch info says 90.6 so but still that's really low I don't trust him Yeah well overall the results have not been very good uh i think the last start and let me check

the game log to make sure i'm start with remember correctly but yeah last start at baltimore five and a third scoreless with seven also best velo of the season 91.4 still uh still i don't know about that all right so yeah they put them at the bottom for a reason uh if i had to pick hail mary move in deep leagues if i had to pick i'm just gonna well on talent i like brian woo of the group the most uh but i just i think he's maybe the riskiest to make his starts because he's really, really blown past his innings total. So I'm going to take Taj Bradley of the group. Yeah, it makes sense to me, especially with that Angel start.

And I love, you have an asterisk here, Michael King as maybe a pickup for the last week, but they are going to shut him down at some point. And they also have a very strict pitch limit on him. King went, I think, four and two-thirds his last one. Let me see.

But he went to like 86 pitches, and they took him out. So I think he has a hard limit at 85 pitches. So he's a little bit like Drew Rasmussen. Can he get through five innings in 85 pitches? Then you might get a win. I love him on talent. And if it's a keeper league and he's like 10 or 12 team league and you can just stash him, I would.

All right. Well, this week at home versus Toronto, I would feel pretty safe about at least him making that start. The matchup is not ideal and it's at home neither park is really great toronto has been hitting pretty poorly so maybe i shouldn't be as scared of that lineup as as maybe it's just sort of name value at this point all right well i think somebody to at least consider one start pitcher this week and again as you know said maybe not two starts maybe Maybe not any starts.

All right, maybe. So we'll see how that goes. Maybe just six innings over three appearances or two appearances. All right, well, let's finish up here, close the corner. I think there's a few interesting things going on. The Cubs, of course, got a situation that's now maybe in flux with Albert Elzel on on the il is is julian merriweather definitely the guy there or i mean do you not trust the situation my pick i've loved

him for a while people people heard me talking about merriweather i don't need to tell them anymore but uh yeah it's merriweather for me i think fulmer got a save but it was like a one out somebody else pooped the bed and he had to come in situation if i remember correctly so uh i'm taking merriweather all right taking merriweather over again jumping your uh jumping your your go for because i was gonna go where you're going well just trevor may is on here i see trevor May's name and I will take Merriweather over May but uh the other two pitchers you have listed here I will take maybe over Merriweather all right one of whom is Tanner Scott who we talked about last week a lot of right Halsley

who we probably should have talked about last week but I don't think we did I think you just figure Ryan Halsley is the best closer of this group easily. The only problem is they will not pitch him in back-to-back games. So it's going to be hard for you to rack up saves like you have with Tanner Scott. Have you noticed this? I picked up Scott in one of my leagues and was like, yeah, he's going to be the closer. It's going to be fine. And then he has given us in the the last two weeks, like five saves.

Three saves. I have no – because I picked him up too. And Helsley's gotten a few as well in spite of the limitations. I think I would rank them Helsley, Scott, Merriweather, just based on the fact that Merriweather may have some risk around him. Okay. Helsley did pitch back-to-back Tuesday, Wednesday, same in both instances, but only eight pitches on Tuesday.

So that's why they let him back out there. There was sort of a hard rule at some point that he wasn't going to be using back-to-backs, but maybe they want to get his innings up. Well, I'm going to toss out one more, and it's a repeat from last week but more of a follow-up you know that i talked about uh robert stevenson maybe as the secondary guy in tampa and my recollection was you know you i think you thought there was maybe more ways that that could be split

and with again the race being the race that that's you did get a save out of him last week. But he did get a save this week, so does that change anything? I think what I was doing was just pointing out that Sean Armstrong was going to get some holds, and it was SP eligible, and he's gotten two holds in the last week. So that's all I was doing. I do think Stevenson is the second guy. And in some leagues, if you get one save in the last

two weeks, it might be a big deal. Well, and I want to thank you for pointing at Armstrong because I picked him up in a 2014 league last weekend. In a league where there are no...

Yeah, SPRP eligible in a league that's a CBS points league, so it's SPRP slots, and there's no more waivers in that league after last weekend. So I figured, okay, in an emergency, I could slot him in either place. And he's getting points. Yeah, there you go. I'm glad. I can still get Armstrong.

I helped one person with that one. Well, including myself. Probably more. I've gotten some holds from him in my league. All right. Well, Sean Armstrong paying off. Excellent. Well, that's all we've got now for this particular episode.

Good luck to everybody. A lot of people in their head-to-head finals probably trying to stay out of that last week. People that don't do that last week for good reason because uh things happened in that last week that are just weird um so good luck in your finals yeah good luck to everybody uh regardless of roto uh head-to-head your finals whatever it is you're playing for playing for ninth place whatever it is good luck uh the next week or two weeks however you're're playing it. And before we sign off here, just a reminder that you can now subscribe to the athletic for just a

dollar a month for your first year, get all of Eno's content. The one more waiver wire column that I've got to write this year, we're counting it down. All the athletic content, of course, is a part of that. So just go to theic.com slash rates and barrels rates and barrels all spelled out uh and uh go check out that deal so uh just make sure also if not uh if you're not doing so already follow uh you know on twitter slash x at you know saris i am there at al melchior bb and uh yeah so that's a wrap for this friday show

so we will be back on Monday. Have a great weekend. Thanks for listening.