Rates & Barrels - How The Guardians Have Surprised Us, Misevaluations of Francisco Lindor & The Yankees' Flaws

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

Eno, Britt, and DVR discuss how the Guardians have exceeded our expectations and found success in a different way in 2024, the surprising snub of Francisco Lindor from the NL All-Star Team roster, the actual flaws of the Yankees amidst a 5-15 stretch over their last 20 games, and a few trade fits for Jazz Chisholm Jr. Rundown 1:10 The Guardians Are Making Us Look Foolish, But How? 11:16 Great Defense is Often Underrated 18:02 Trading for Pitching...in Cleveland? 25:57 Why Don't People Evaluate Francisco Lindor Correctly? 33:39 Lindor Snubbed by His Peers!? 40:05 Assessing the Yankees' Actual Flaws 46:50 The Importance of Clarke Schmidt's Eventual Return 54:04 Finding the Right Fit for Jazz Chisholm Jr. Trade Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us Thursday at 1p ET/10a PT for our weekly live episode with Trevor May! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. What's the rates in barrels? It's Tuesday, July 9th. That's right, it's Tuesday, so my neighbors can put their trash barrels away for one more day. I think everyone lost track of the days because of the 4th of July falling on a Thursday last week. It made me confused.

Maybe I think my trash barrels had to go out, but Derek Harper, Inosaris, Bert Jorley, all here with you today. On this episode, we are discussing the Cleveland Guardians. They are making us look foolish as we approach the All-Star break. We're going to take a closer look at why that has happened, our AL Central predictions not looking great right now with the Guardians currently in control of that division. We're talking about Francisco Lindor, an All-Star snub, and a player that people just don't seem to evaluate correctly.

We'll try to dig into that We'll talk about the Yankees actual flaws and maybe justify some of the Yankee panic that's out there And we'll look at some fits for jazz Chisholm jr. Firing up the trade maker 3000 here on this Tuesday, so we begin today with the Cleveland Guardians This is an amazing team and it's amazing for a lot of different reasons. Most notably, they're just playing really well. They're 56 and 33. They played one last game in the Orioles and they have one last win and people don't quite

put the Guardians on that level. I know I haven't put them on that level so far this season. We even tried to make an excuse for why their offense got a lot better, or at least explain it with reasoning with changes around the park. And I think even that has been tempered a bit recently. Zach Meisel covers the Guardians for the Athletic, just wrote about it today because he had a mailbag question. And the question was, is there a wind vortex powering the Guardians to new hitting heights?

And he broke it down by splits. The Guardians are hitting 245, 322, 425 at home, 248, 318, 402 on the road. The slug does go down on the road, but he used SOPS Plus, which measures performance relative to league performance for a particular split, home away results. They have a 107 both home and away. So generally the Guardian's offense is about the same as it is on the Road as it has been at home. So all right, who wants to apologize first out of the three of us?

Because we all owe the guardians an apology. We do. We do. And what's crazy, guys, is that they're... If you told me that they were winning, I would have said, all right, well, they must be winning these games one to nothing and have this lights-out rotation. And, you know, dude, that's what Cleveland does. That's historically what has made them successful

as a team that kind of lives on the fringes, you know, and people have tried to emulate and poach people from Cleveland because they've done so well with pitching. But that isn't the case in 2024. It's the opposite. And you've got guys like Josh Naylor and Jose Ramirez, who I think people were worried that maybe he would start to decline. And then you have guys like Stephen Kwan, who I don't think anyone expected the kind of season that you're getting from Stephen Kwan.

So it is the offense that is carrying Cleveland. And certainly the relief pitching class A has been absolutely terrific. But I think that's the most surprising thing. And that's what I'm really interested because I know, you know, dug into the numbers here, is is it sustainable for Cleveland? Because they're going to need to get rotation help. And to do that at the deadline, you're going to have to give up a lot. And they've historically been a team

that hasn't made big blockbuster moves. They've kind of lived on the fringes. So, you know, is this offense, is this performance sustainable in your mind? I wanted to come on here and push back. I know I'm the king of waffle. So I wanted to be like, I have a hot take. I don't know. It's a hot take. Uh, I still think I believe this. I think they're going to lose the division. I think that the twins are going to take it over. I am not here to apologize.

I do not, I do not believe in most of this. And you said their starting pitching isn't good. Their starting pitching is last in the big leagues in wins above replacement. It's not good. It's not good at all. It's not, there's nothing good about it. I don't, I think they might have one good pitcher

in the starting rotation is how I see it. Their bullpen is really good. That has floated them. That has helped them win the games that they that they can win. But then on offense, yeah, we get back to offense. And I looked at the fact that they just don't hit the ball hard. They're in the bottom third of the league when it comes to hard hit rate and barrel rate. So they are not hard hitters and yet they're somehow, um, you know,

scoring with in the top 10. And then I look, broke it down by individual players and just looked at who is outperforming their barrel rate. Barrel rate predicts, um, slugging better than any other number. Uh, it's a, it's a quality of contact stat. And so, you know, Steven Kwan, number one guy here with a 529 slugging and a small barrel rate. So, you know, if you look at a lot of the guys on this list,

you would say, Oh, some, you know, this is a list of, of overperformance, power wise. David Fry is also on here. Jurexon Profar is probably, you know, everyone's sort of like, power wise, David Fry is also on here. Jurics and profile is probably, you know, everyone sort of like, you know, out of left field kind of guy. And he's on this list. You've got, you know, Mason Wynn on this list, you know. So it's not a list of power hitters and Stephen Kwan is on the top of it. And so maybe maybe, you know, he does have some similarities to Mookie Betts. So maybe this is the beginning of Stephen Kwan's Mookie Bettsism.

But Mookie Betts is such a singular character that I'm not I'm going to bet against that anybody else becoming Mookie Betts necessarily that quickly. So I I generally think this is a team that's over at skis, but the one thing I would say is before, and I, here comes the king of waffles before I wanted to come in here and be like super negative about them. I did do one last check, and they are third in the big leagues in pulling their fly balls.

And Isaac Paredes was on that list and Isaac Paredes is the king of pulling fly balls. If you pull all of your contact, you pull your fly balls, um, you can make the most out of you. You can hit the ball, you know, 101 if you pull it in the air, it's a Homer. Um, and so, uh, they, they have sort of taken a little bit of a page out of the Rays playbook when it comes to offense and it seems to be treating them well. So that's my caveat but overall I still I see the twins pulling together. There's

also I could be a little bit more positive about the twins about the positive things I see on the twins but but you know, that's, I generally think the twins are a better team. Also like just sort of like do a blink appraisal. Just be like, okay, what do I think? Twins starting rotation, guardians starting rotation. Well, yeah, sure. That's an area where the twins would be favored. Guardians lined up. Much closer.

Agreed. Much closer and a key difference though, the twins had a remarkably difficult time keeping their key position players healthy. Whether it's their fault randomness, I think it's more random, but Royce Lewis not being on the field, Byron Buxton often being hurt,

like Carlos Correa even before he was a twin often being banged up. They have a lot of guys that have increased injury risk which I think gives them more volatility in their lineup. One thing I like about the Guardians though, I'm glad you brought up the Esauk Paredes thing because when I saw his name on the list and we were getting ready for the show I thought okay this is the hack this is the thing that people have probably learned from us about hitting the last couple of years. Pulling the ball in the air is really good

and it helps you get away with not having the dark red stat cast power indicators that we're looking for. In fact, you kind of need the dark red stat cast to have opposite field power. That's what it's sort of how the relationship goes. Like Stanton can hit it out oppo. Right, because he just has absurd power.

And if you don't have it or you don't develop it really well, then this is the approach your hitters have to be able to execute in order to get to power. This is a team that last season, they were last in Major League Baseball. The Guardians hit 124 homers. The Nats were second worst. They hit 27 more homers in this Guardians team. And the Guardians already had 103 home runs this season. So they're only 21 behind last year's total. They're tied for 10th in homers right now. It's a 108 WRC plus this year. It was a 92

a year ago. So they flip things in a way that I think is somewhat sustainable. And they've kept that strikeout rate down. So they're pulling their fly balls. They were 29th in pulled fly balls last year. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how you change it that much that quickly. I think there's more to dig into here. They have five regulars with a WRC plus above a hundred, and they may have a little bit more coming because they have some younger players or recently debuted

players that could get better over time. Daniel Schneeman's pretty interesting. John Kenzie Noelle's pretty interesting. Angel Martinez is up right now. Or you could get something out of Bo Naylor. Brian Rokeo maybe could get a little better. Kyle Manzardo could get a little better in another attempt at the big leagues.

So they have a few guys internally that could improve. And I think this will be a little bit different for them this year. So the other thing Zach wrote about recently is that because the Guardians won the draft lottery, they have the number one pick this summer. And that's pretty interesting as a non bad team, actual good team to have that pick that gives them more in their system to potentially trade or at least more confidence in trading away some major league ready talent.

Knowing they're going to get, yeah, Conlon or Bazzana. Probably going to get one of those two guys is going to be in their system and they're going to be like a top 25, top 30 overall prospect. So you can trade someone because you're going to get someone right back in this draft here. So I think that's pretty interesting. Other couple of things that stood out to me about this team,

they lead the league in strikes fouled off. I've never looked at the stat in my life. So I don't even know if it's a thing. Where did you even get that? What even prompted you to look that up? I went so far down the rabbit hole in baseball reference that the dirt was untouched. It was unbelievable.

I was that far down the rabbit hole. I don't know if that's a thing. I think it's a sign of being pesky if you're fouling pitches off. So to swing missing. Good contact ability overall. Right, so you pair that with some of the things they've started to do. It's different. They're top five in 2-0 count scene. So maybe that means something. I don't know.

I just think there's a lot of ways for them to go out and actually address some of their needs. Now, the pitching questions, we're going to get to those in just a second. Those are real. The other thing that teams that exceed our expectations on an annual basis often do is they play good defense. The Guardians play good defense. They're second in defensive runs saved.

They're 13th and out above average, so a little bit of difference there, but they're at least an average defensive team and probably an above average or well above average defensive team, which helps make your pitching play up. Now, can you get away with the league's worst rotation with a league second best bullpen?

I don't think that's a recipe for success all the way through October, but it can definitely work for a half season and leave the door open for your team to go out and add a starting pitcher or possibly two at this trade deadline, because that depth in that bullpen is really good, right? Behind Klaus A, Cade Smith, Hunter Gaddis, Nick Sandlin, possibly two at this trade deadline because that depth in that bullpen is really good, right?

Behind class A, Cade Smith, Hunter Gaddis, Nick Sandlin, Scott Barlow, Sam Hentges, Tim Herron, not household names, but if you can roll six or seven guys out there that have a 15% K minus BB that are just nasty, that's really nice. That takes a lot of pressure off those backend starters. Yeah. If they get two pitchers in, I'm glad you mentioned defense because I was going to and forgot, but the I think it's they've had plus 50 defensive runs saved. I mean, that goes a long way in helping teams that shouldn't win certain games win those games.

If you have a good bullpen, you have good defense, you can at times work around a less than stellar starting rotation. That being said, they have to get at least one starter, if not two, if they're really going to go for it this year, right? Which I don't know if it's going to be a market that they can get to impact starting pitchers without totally sacrificing their future. And that's not something we've seen Cleveland do historically, because they are constantly they play in that cycle of we're going to always be competitive. We're going to avoid the fire sale, tear it down, the prolonged rebuild. But that comes at a cost.

So you look and it's early and I know we'll get to jazz just home later. There'll be plenty of times to talk about who they may trade for. But I don't know if it is possible for them to upgrade that rotation solely at the trade deadline. And I don't think they really have these, correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't have these arms that are going to come up and all of a sudden save this rotation. So that remains like, I'm not gonna go all the way with Eno

and say that we're not wrong at all about them because we're clearly, we were wrong. I mean, we're sitting here in July. It's not May, it's not June. It is July 9th as we tape this episode. And Cleveland is, as DVR said, basically the Baltimore Orioles in terms of record. So we were wrong in a lot of facets. A lot of people were wrong about how Jose Ramirez would perform now that he's north of 30. A lot of people,

I feel like, have kind of been sleeping on Josh Naylor, who probably should have been an all-star last year. And this is the first year that he's going to be an all-star. So, you know, there are things we were wrong about, but there are still some real big concerns, which I think is what Eno is trying to get at, that unless you get two legitimate starting pitchers, you just can't compete with the rest of the rotations in this league.

And we're not mentioning Kansas City, who is like a stone's throw away from competing in this division as well, and who is a little bit of a pesky team. So it's going to be a harder path than I think Cleveland has had in previous years in the AL Central, if they're going to stay on top. One of the thought on the pitching though, Tanner Bybee has been even better than expected. He's actually pitched kind of like an ace. They needed that in a big way. Gavin Williams

just got back from an elbow injury that really kind of first started in March, got hurt lifting weights, had a setback, just finally rejoined the rotation. He's really important for them now. And then Ben Lively, another pitcher who has gone to the KBO, come back and actually had some success, he's been fantastic. I don't know how you project Ben Lively for the second half, you know, but a 314 ERA and a 116 whip. I mean, he's basically done ratio wise, we would have thought a healthy Tristan McKenzie could have done. And McKenzie has struggled, Logan Allen has struggled. They've both been sent to AAA. Carlos Carrasco has been in the back of this rotation.

All three of those guys have run ERAs over five and it hasn't really mattered. The Guardians score runs in buckets with Logan Allen pitches for some reason. That's just sort of random, but it's a good day to score a lot of runs because Logan Allen has been giving up a lot of runs. Yeah, I don't know. I've got, I know that Lively has an interesting fastball that's hard to pick up,

but that might just be something that works for half a season, and then everyone gets a second look at them. We've got him projected using stuff plus at a 4-7 ERA. Carrasco 4-3, based primarily not on his stuff, which has really declined, but his track record. And, you know, Bybee, I like Bybee, but Gavan Williams, there are some ramifications from the injury, I believe.

I don't think he's all the way back. But we have him protected for a 4.1 ERA. So you could make the case of like, hey, By be, you know, Williams as the two, and then we just win games more on offense with the other three. I could see it some but I think if there's any team that needs like a you say, Kikuchi. I think this could be that team and I know he may not sound like an impact arm but he would be immediately the second or third arm in this rotation.

And he's a rental, so he might not cost as much as other arms, and that might fit the way that the Guardians want to work. It would be weird for them to buy a starting pitcher, but I think in this case, it's warranted. I mean, you don't really have, like to Britt's point. You don't really have Arms that are coming up unless Joey Cantillo gets healthy and

And you don't have I mean you have Matt Boyd Who's who's hurt? Joey Cantillo was reinstated and is pitching in AAA. So if you, there's a lot of questions about Cantio's command, by the way. We're talking 12 to 20% walk rates in the minors. So he's not a can't miss starting pitching prospect. In fact, if they traded him for a Kikuchi,

it might make sense. Yeah, I do think Kikuchi is underrated right now. I think he's been one of the latest control improvement reclamation projects in Toronto. Robbie Ray was sort of the first and Kikuchi is now the second. He can miss bats. I think he would be like a number three.

He'd be someone they would use in the postseason. I think part of my Shift with the Guardians believing they're gonna hang around is looking at what they've done at times in the past There is room for them to add payroll there always is because they're frugal But when they've been good in the past they have nudged into that like 110 115 120 range and they're under a hundred million for payroll Right now, so if they're willing to take on some payroll, you know, Kikuchi getting there would be one chunk for the rest of the season, but maybe Zach Efflin,

who could be available from the race, they can get healthy. Max Scherzer's contract's a little bit big. Can they handle all that? Ooh, that's too rich for their budget. Aren't the Mets already paying? It's like a good portion of that though. Oh, that's true. That's true.

But like, he has to prove that he's healthy and productive again. I think Scherzer could get moved. Yeah, but Chris Young did just come out and say, you know, you know, we're going to trade it. We're going to trade all these guys if you guys don't turn it around. I'm sweating about the AL Central. I still have the twins over the Guardians in the end. They have eight head to head matchups against the twins still seven against the Royals.

Are you, are you both staying with your Royals call from the spring? The division. I'm staying with my Royals. No, I'm hoping. Well, the division is still not, is by no means decided. If you look at the division right now, I think the Royals are another team. That's like Seth Lugo, maybe one of the coolest all-star stories. Uh, one of the coolest all-star stories,

one of the better starting pitchers in the American League, if not all of baseball. I think the Royals are going to go as far as Bobby Wood Jr. can carry them, who's been such a dynamic, exciting player to watch. It wouldn't surprise me if they go on a run. I think they're going to be another team that's going to look to upgrade. What's going to be so interesting is like if multiple teams in the AL Central go into this trade deadline, looking to make significant upgrades, right? Like the trade deadline is going to be, and we've seen this and we've talked on this show, they should push it back because there are so many kind of fringy teams that are going to want to upgrade, like the Mets, you know, the players have been talking to Stearns about about upgrading according to our will salmon

So if the Royals approach this deadline as we're still in it and they very much are still in it. They're 49 and 43 It's gonna get crazy. No, I can't get back down on my it's only July. I can't say I was wrong I mean, I was definitely wrong about Cleveland We all were all three of us were but but I am not going to say my prediction on July 9th is no longer valid because I've seen crazy stuff. I've seen the Braves erase double digits. That's a good point, but if you're offering me

door number two, I'm hopping. I'm hopping off the ship. And onto the twins. Wow. Look at him in a few weeks. He's going to be on Cleveland. I can't take it. I mean, part of my reasoning is just that, by the way, this there is a really fascinating thing

called the Monty Hall problem, which makes no sense. But I assure you it's true, which is that if you are given a choice between three doors, Monty Hall used to have a game where behind door and behind one of these doors is a free car and you had to choose between one of the doors and then once you chose a door without opening the door he would give you the choice of choosing the other two doors, one of the other two doors. And here is where my mind breaks and I don't understand anything. And it's been explained to me a million times

in a million different ways and I still don't understand it. Mathematically, it's been proven. I don't even know how this is possible, but it's been proven that you switch. Yep. It's been proven that you switch. You switch. I don't understand that because it still seems like a one in three shot.

But any case, the math says you switch. So if you're giving, I chose door number one, which is the Royals and you're giving me the chance now. And I even have some information about what's behind the doors that I'm definitely switching doors. I'm going to take the twins. The twins are only three up in the wind column. I know like this huge, huge discrepancy.

Here's my reasoning is just that I thought that the royals would be fueled by a real like surging young core of bats. And that hasn't quite happened for me. Just in terms of like they have a 95 WRC plus as a group. You see Melendez struggling. Mike L Garcia has not quite gotten where I want him to be. You know, Vinny Pascantino and Bobby Witt are looking pretty good, but it's not if if if I'd been right and all those guys were hitting, I'd be more likely to take them. Instead, I see a twins team that I think looks pretty strong in every facet of the game. And I do, yes, the injury thing is a huge asterisk, but that's to me basically the only

asterisk because in like, you know, Pablo Lopez, Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober, I see a really strong front three for the rotation and enough depth with Festa and Varland and Wood's Richardson to withstand some injury. I think this bullpen is underrated. I love Dern and Jax. I like Alcala. He throws 100 with a sinker. Tealbar has a great big old sweeper.

Stonemont threw 101 this week. They have a guy named Funderbunk. That's enough for me. Thunderbunk for president. And then, you know, the offense can be a little swing or miss, but I was surprised to see this. I ranked the baseball by strikeout rate, and they are 21st, meaning they're in the top 10 in strikeout rate. Um, and so, uh, that's a, that's been a critique I've had of this offense in the past and you know, that's not really there. So my recipe for the twin success is really simple as Royce Lewis comes back, Brooks Lee stays on the team, Byron Buxton stays healthy. I know, I know, I know, but that's my recipe. That's a tall, I mean, I agree, if all that happens, sure.

What do they need to trade for? Like, I don't even, I don't even know what to trade for them. That's the difference. I think when you look at the twins compared to the Royals and the Guardians, even though the Guardians have that lead, you have to have more trust that the Guardians' front office and ownership especially will actually let them go get the upgrades they need to get or that they're going to fix one or both of Tristan McKenzie and Logan Allen at AAA. Because as constructed, I think that's where things will break down on the Guardians. I think it's the starting pitching. That was the concern we had earlier in the spring when we talked about the division.

They just didn't have that next group of pitchers ready to go. And that's something we'd really grown accustomed to about this organization in recent years. So Britt's staying with the Royals. Edo's jumped ship to the twins. He's joining me where I am. And I'm just apologizing for not respecting what the guardians have done year over year over year.

They're doing it a different way. I didn't see that coming. So I'll apologize for that, but I'm not jumping ship on the twins either. You could see how we would have thought ahead of the season though, like, oh, the Guardians, the King of pitching and then look at their pitching and be like, I don't see the pitching that's normally there for Cleveland. So I, I'm not going to take them, you know? Yeah.

And then their hitting was like, nobody's up? Exactly, like nobody saw David Fry and Stephen Kwong. Not like this. One of five All Stars. David Fry is an All Star. Great story. I mean, one of the reasons why that lineup has exceeded expectations, David Fry. It's nice to see him get some recognition and get a trip to the All Star game next week as well.

All right, so let's talk about Francisco Lindor. A lot of stuff here if you're a Cleveland fan. I mean, we didn't all join the Guardians bandwagon, but I think we tried to make it right as best we could. I wanna know why people can't evaluate Francisco Lindor correctly. So since he was traded from the Guardians to the Mets in 2021, he is eighth.

Francisco Lindor is eighth among all position players in F4. Okay, so almost a 20 win player since the start of 2021. That's really good. And yet again, Francisco Lindor is not an all star. He hasn't been on an all star team since 2019. I don't know why it's there are not seven short stops that are all better than him in war since 2021. It hasn't been one of those situations. And even our own Jason Stark wrote a great piece looking at current players and their chances of reaching the Hall of Fame. And my brain kind of puts Lindor in the same tier as Manny Machado and Nolan Aronado in terms of trajectory right now, likelihood of reaching Cooperstown someday.

I think Jason had Lindor maybe one or two tiers below. So I think that's a common thing. I think there's a lot of people that look at Lindor and see something a little bit different than what I see. So I'd like to know, whether we're talking about Mets fans or any group of baseball analysts, why do people seem to miss on getting it right

with Francisco Lindor and how valuable he is because he has been by career F war in the same tier as Manny Machado and Nolan Arnado up to this point. My mental math was right. I had them grouped correctly based on staring at the fan graphs pages for the last decade. Amazing what kind of skills you can develop if you just stare at the same thing over and over for a decade. Why are people getting this wrong with Lindor? You know, well, this is why I said to you guys yesterday,

can we please talk about Lindor getting snubbed? Because I don't think it gets the attention it should. He does start really slow. Historically, his April's are brutal. And that was no exception this year. I mean, he was brutal well past April and the Mets had a really bad April. So I don't think that helped either because whenever the Mets are struggling and Lindor is also struggling, he becomes the center focus.

And, you know, I know this because I do TV stuff for the Mets station, S and Y. And it feels like every single show the first six to eight weeks is about when's Lindor going to get on track, right? So it becomes this huge thing and people don't realize the value he brings when he's not hitting or, you know, even when he is hitting, people almost don't appreciate that unless he's on some other worldly tear. You look at Trey Turner who got voted in and I wonder, is this a case of fan bases? Because Trey Turner missed considerable time with injury. If Lindor had missed considerable time with injury,

we wouldn't even be talking about him. It was a little complicated this year. LA-Dela Cruz gets in and then DC needs a representative, CJ Abrams ends up being voted and he know, he very much deserved it as well But you look at it and all of a sudden it's like okay. Do we? Somehow overshadow Lindor even though he plays in this big market in New York because he's not a flashy guy He's a guy who's quiet. He's under the radar. He starts off really terribly So even though his numbers are always there, we somehow look at him and say,

man, he didn't have a good season because we remember that bad start so much more than if he had a really bad July, right? I mean, David Fry cooled off considerably this past month. People like don't remember that as much as they do April. I don't know why that is, but it feels like Lindor is a guy. To a lesser extent,

you can make the case that Brendan Nimmo could have been an all-star as well, but, but it feels like Lindor is a guy. To a lesser extent, you can make the case that Brandon Nimmo could have been an all-star as well, but every year it feels like Lindor is kind of that guy who gets overlooked. And I don't know if you gave him truth serum, but if it really bothers him all that much. And I think that's part of it too. He's not this flashy guy. He's not Ellie De La Cruz where people would riot if he wasn't at this game. And I think he's just a very consistent, dependable superstar. And I think if you look at the top 10 players in war

over the last five or six years, he's like the only one who's not an All-Star in there. So it is a very weird like, you know, All-Star, All-Star, Francisco Lindo or All-Star, like we are just just forgetting about how good this guy is. This guy plays at a very elite level very Consistently and for whatever reason, you know, he gets to sit home every year at the All-Star Yeah, I think you know, there's a couple things going on one. I think is it's it's a little bit more defense than offense maybe You know a friend of the show Mike Petriello over at MLB tweeted that he thought that that that Lindor was on on track to be a Hall of Famer.

And he was surprised by how much pushback he got and how much sort of hatred he got for that. But if you just look at just the Machado Aronado comparison, he's gotten five more wins than either the two of those on defense alone. And so it's been more of like, if you just look at offensive value, he's third among those three, and he's first in defense. So I think that like a slightly more defensive first package sometimes doesn't attract people. I think that the first half splits, you're right. Like he has a 125 WRC plus the second half, 113 in the first half.

That's for a career, that's pretty amazing. You don't normally, it's not a predictive thing for most people, but I do think some people just you know Start slow and you know, I do know that around the league people swing less in April And so maybe that just doesn't fit his game Right, maybe as he starts to become more aggressive and seize the zone then he always heats up But maybe he should think about being more aggressive in April or something switch it up in any case

You have a slow starter you have a team leader, like you said, on a team that wasn't doing well. So the question, the question, there were so many questions in April that were like, what's wrong with the Mets and what's wrong with Lindor? And then people start remembering all the stuff about, oh, Tommy Pham criticized their work ethic on the Mets and said they were the least hardworking group of position players he'd ever seen. And, oh, but Lindor's okay. But Lindor said something like, Tommy Fam really showed me what working hard meant. And so there was like, you throw all these things together and you're just like, Ooh, is he like,

does he not work hard? Is there something there? Um, but I think what it really is, um, is, is also just the timing of the vote and then the fact that the vote for reserves is player based. So if you're a player and you're not playing the Mets a lot and you're not seeing Lindor straight up and yet you have a vote, you're on the Anaheim Angels. the Anaheim Angels. You see, all you see are the things on MLB, on MLB network that are like, what's wrong with the Mets? Why is Lindor struggling? And that's what you remember. You don't, you don't, I doubt, I doubt many of the players were pulling up baseball reference or pulling up fan graphs and like, you know, really, you know, taking out pencil and paper and figuring out who they're going to vote for. It was more like, ah, man, I saw CJ Abrams hit that tank

on MLB Network. He gets my vote. Yeah, it is pretty interesting, because if you look at the breakdown of the rosters in MLB.com, they have little characters to indicate which players were chosen by the league and then which players were voted in by other players. If you go through and click through, you're like, okay, like five

pitchers in each team. That's how it works. A couple of infielders in each team, the player selections for the NL infielders, Luis Arias, Mookie Betts. Okay. I get that. Ellie De La Cruz. Yeah. Get that. Freddie Freeman. Yep. I get that. And then Ryan McMahon got in too. So I think it would come down to, you know, do you think Luis Arias deserves it versus Francisco Lindor? Like for me, it's Lindor. Lindor is a good defender. Luis Arias is not. Luis Arias is a fun player in the sense

he doesn't strike out, he get the ball over the field. But who would I rather see in the all-star game? I'd actually rather see Francisco Lindor. Yeah, I just think he's a better fit. And you can just move some over to second base. It's an all-star game. I'd actually rather see Francisco Lindor. Yeah, I just think he's a better fit. And you can just move some over to second base. It's an all-star game. It doesn't matter, right? You don't have to have a, air quotes, second baseman

or someone who's played second base before. Luis Arias is like fundamentally bad at many parts of baseball. Like, I don't know if you've ever seen him play defense, but he's not good at defense. Nah, it's not good. I don't know if you've ever seen him run the bases, but he's not gonna run the bases. Like, he's not good. I don't know if you've ever seen him run the bases, but he's not going to run the bases. Like he's really good at one thing.

Lindor. That's another thing, right? Lindor is really good at all things. Yeah. He's got power. He doesn't strike out. He steals bases. He plays great defense. He's not the best at contact rate. He's not, he doesn't light up stack cast, you know, he doesn't have the best barrel rate. He doesn't, he's not going to steal a hundred this year. He's just going to steal another 25 to 30, you know, it's a, it's a kind of a well rounded defense, you know, a bit with a lot of defense. I don't know.

I think it's hard to appraise, you know, just comparing to Lisa Ryse as a, as a player, which one would you rather have? I mean, to me, it's pretty obvious. It's a no brainer. Lindor, 10 out of 10 times, like not even close. So I don't know. My recurring complaint, if there is one about the All-Star Game rosters, would just be that because of the way voting

works for the starters and because of the narrow time frame people are looking at with it just being this season, we end up with some good stories, but not necessarily the best showcase of the talent in the game right now. And I think if you consciously said, we're taking a look at the last year, since the last time we played an All-Star game through right now, who are the best players in the game, I think you'd remove some of those outliers, some of those, oh yeah, that guy was an All-Star once, like you'd lose a few of those, which, you know,

maybe takes away a few fun stories, but probably keeps someone like Lindor from being snubbed year after year after year, despite being a top 10 player since being added to the Mets in that trade. Yeah, like I don't get too into the All-Stars, but like the Phillies have seven and the Orioles have three. Like there's just a lot of discrepancy. Seven? Yeah.

I mean, sometimes it becomes a question of like, who's drawing better, you know? Because you kind of, you vote at the park a lot. But you know, there's, I'm just pulling up last year's, you know, All-Stars and you can kind of just looking through it, you can kind of pick out, oh, who had the great first half and then faded, you know, like you're like, oh, he was an All-Star. Yandy Diaz was the All-Star starter for first base. Remember he like hit Holmers for the first half and then he kind of

became who he always was afterwards. Whit Merrifield was on that team. I can only remember him being that good. All-star last year? Yeah. How was Whit Merrifield an all-star a year ago? What happened? I think he stole some bases. You barely remember who was on that team too, right?

You more so remember the home run Derbies, or I do anyway, than the all-star game. Austin Hayes was on that team. I think that's a little surprising. Michael Lorenzen was on that team. I think that's a little surprising. Michael Lorenzen was on that team. I don't know, Orlando Arcia, you know, the starting shortstop. Oh yeah. And these are good stories.

I don't want to take away from them. They had goods. They deserved it in the way that it's done, but it is kind of funny because then, you know, when we have the Hall of Fame discussion, just to go forward, you know, on the Landoor thing, when we have the Hall of Fame discussion on Landoor, somebody will bring up the All-Star stuff. And I'm just gonna be like, I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. If I'm voting for the Hall of Fame, I don't really care about All-Star selections. selections because Joey Votto, it does not make Joey Votto worse that he didn't make a lot of all-star games. It just meant that he kind of had an OBP type thing and he was a first

baseman when like Paul Goldschmidt was a first baseman and other first base. There are other first baseman, you know, this, I don't, I don't think that it makes him a lesser player that he wasn't a voted all-star more often. Yeah. I mean, I think Vato was breaking into the league probably around the time that Albert Pujols was still a dominant every year starter. And then like Paul Goldschmidt was there.

So then it was always up to the player vote and the extra fan votes and all those extra, all those little things you do to get those last spots. And those don't always go to guys that play on small market teams. They don't always go to the best players. Like it's silly. And I know it's going to come up when the Lindor Hall of Fame debate happens

someday, assuming he stays in the current trajectory, it will come up. Why didn't you play more all star teams? Like, I don't know. I literally don't know. He should have been on all of them. And I think there's a real batting average bias, you know, among the fan voting. I'm just I want to look for Whit Merrifield's first half batting average last year.

Oh, oh, yeah. Now who's down the rabbit hole? He hit two 90s. You know, you know, I think that was no Stephen Kwan. Yeah, it's not a Luis Araya situation, but it did mask the fact that he wasn't really doing that much else. I think there's a lot of people that sit there in the stands and they see Whit Merrifield

and go, I could have been Whit Merrifield if I was a big leaguer. It's like, no, not even that. He's a good player, but I don't know what he was doing in the All-Star game last year. I don't know. Can't explain that either. You guys are hating on Whit Merrifield. It's because I'm always wrong about him. But by the time I finally came around to recognizing what he was doing,

that's when the decline hit. So I was wrong like four years in a row when he was good. And then I flipped and then he was kind of just barely above replacement level player. And there I was holding the bag. You're like me with a little bit with Chris Sale. I was like, yeah, he's gonna get injured. He's gonna get injured, right?

He's gonna get injured, right? He's gonna get injured, right? No, he's not gonna get injured. Oh, damn it, he got injured. That happens to everybody. Let's move on to this other team that no one ever talks about. Let's talk about the Yankees for a minute. And I'm gonna put the question this way.

What are the Yankees' actual flaws? Like, don't tell me the sky is falling. Just tell me what the problems are with the Yankees. actual flaws? Like, don't tell me the sky is falling. Just tell me what the problems are with the Yankees. They've had a rough stretch recently, and that's to put it mildly. They're 12 and 18 in their last 30 games, they're five and 15 in their last 20, so everybody is panicking in the Bronx.

And it's, yes, a top-heavy lineup around Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, who are two of the three or four or five best hitters in the game over the last five years. They're just amazing defensively. They're not a bad team. Seventh in defensive run save tied for sixth and ounce above average, but the pitching has been a liability recently. So, you know, what's the issue? What does Brian Cashman have to do to fix this, to keep pace with the other top end teams in the AL and to make this team more dangerous come October? I think you have to take a good, hard look at that rotation after Cole and say,

do you believe the early performance of Stroman and Rodin? Or do you believe what you've seen over the last few weeks? Because let's take let's take Heal out of this because he was never really even Stroman and Rodin or do you believe what you've seen over the last few weeks? Because let's take, let's take heel out of this because he was never really even supposed to make the rotation, made it because of Cole. Innings are going to be a factor and the Yankees kind of see him as being a guy they're just going to put in the bullpen later this season. So his slide a little more acceptable, but to me, you got to look at these other guys,

Nestor Cortez, and you have to wonder like, do you believe that Carlos Rodin and Marcus Stroman are going to be able to turn it around? Because if you don't, then you better go out and get some starting pitching. Because that is kind of been their demise. When you look at the way it's starting pitching is gone. Cole hasn't pitched well either. But you're obviously not you have faith in Garrett Cole, a guy who's won multiple Cy Youngs that he's going to get back on track. You know, Strohman has been a hot and cold guy

over his career. He's had halves to seasons that look vastly different. So I think if you're the Yankees, you look and you say, what do we believe here? And do we need starting pitching help? Because, you know, your Orioles are also going to have to upgrade. They have a big hole in terms of starting pitching and they've had a hole. You can make the case they need more than one starting pitcher, but it's going to be a very crowded market. The best thing the Yankees can do is improve what they have. But if they don't believe in those guys, then they better get in the mix for some of these

arms that are going to be available in the next three weeks. Yeah, it's, it's kind of hard to put the finger on one thing. Cause there's just a couple of holes in the dyke. I feel that, um, may have outsize importance and then, you know, you have the Yankees who are in the crucible of like attention and I don't know if you, I wish you could see what it's like to work a Yankees game. It is just, even when they're on the road, there's like 35 media members in there at all times. And so I think that there's a real sort of fascination with like picking apart

the smallest little things on this team. But I would look at the rotation and one thing that pops out to me is Neil Payne, who used to work at 538. He has a sub stack. He had a piece today about how the Yankees are the kings of inconsistency. And he looked at the standard deviation and sort of the ups and downs of their monthly win percentage since 2022. And they are number one in inconsistencies in 2022. In fact, if you remember the 2022 season, there was a lot like this, where they look at the best team in baseball and then there were the worst team in baseball for awhile. And it, and, and it, or at least that's how we read it.

And I think there's, to some extent, we, because of all this media attention, we take something and blow it up. But the fact that they're number one in inconsistency, number two is the Red Sox number, and they have pitching issues, this is where I'm going. But also then Marlins and Angels and Mariners, so it's not like a list of great teams. And then the teams that have the smallest deviation,

the teams are the most consistent, the D-backs, the Astros Astros the guardians the Dodgers. So it is interesting that the Yankees are different than some of these other teams that have had sustained success if you do just a leaderboard of wins over the last few years you get a lot of the same teams on there except the Yankees are super hot and cold and some of the other teams are more consistent. The way that i'm putting this together is the red sox are inconsistent and the Red Sox have pitching issues. The Red Sox have a hard park to pitch in and the Yankees have a hard park to pitch in. And I think what happens is that when something is just a little bit off, when you're doing something just not optimally, when you're just, your hamstring hurts, your your back hurts or you did this little thing wrong or maybe you're not doing the mix completely right you get punished in Yankee Stadium.

That's that's how I feel you get punished in Yankee Stadium you get punished in Fenway you have to be at your best. And so when I see Stroman has like a five and a half era at home I say Stroman is a guy that I signed to get me to the postseason. He's not a guy that I signed to start games one, two or three in the postseason. So I don't think he's the problem, but the problem is that when you have, you know, guys who are like that and then they're not doing their best, they might give up six or seven, you know, in Yankee stadium.

And so I think you kind of have to build a murderers row of rotation in Yankee Stadium To win it all I think you have to think you have two or three aces and That so I do think Rodin has to get back to kind of ace like status and they may need to add to that rotation And then they also they're a team that has like that gets a little old in places sometimes because they they you know they they sign bigger deals and they have guys around for a while i do think it pains me a little bit to say this but i do think DJ Lee Mahieu is is kind of toasty um and i just the bat speed is gone i don't i don't even think he like i've seen him play some poor defense recently too and i don't know that you need to DFA him or something, but like they need a starter at third base.

Yeah, I think you need to find a way to make DJ Nehemiah like a semi-regular as opposed to an everyday guy in this lineup. But I think that's down a notch or two from the biggest problem. I would agree they need one more high quality starting pitcher because I don't know between Cole's injury this year, Rodin's injury history, even Nestor Cortez missed a lot of time last

year. I think you have that elevated risk within that group. You're probably getting Clark Schmidt back from that lat injury later this year. That could be a big return for them. Clark Schmidt was pitching really well when he got hurt. So he becomes more important. And as things stand on the roster right now, if Clark Schmidt were healthy and you had to choose between Schmidt and Marcus Stroman in a playoff game, you'd probably throw Clark Schmidt instead of Stroman as far as like a game for ALCS starter. Right?

So I think a lot hinges on health for a group of guys that have been generally unhealthy. And then you look at the lineup, there's a few things in the lineup that are strange. We loved Gleyber Torres in his walk year. It has not happened so far. Maybe a big second half is still possible, but he's had an 85 WRC plus so far this season.

I think, you know, when I looked at Torres and thought, hey, he's going to be 20 or 30% better than league average. There's going to be some power. He's making good swing decisions last year. It's all starting to click for him at just the right time. He's going to be that third best offensive player behind Judge and Soto. I think they do miss Giancarlo Stanton.

Stanton, you know, I think gets a lot of negative attention for being a DH and for time he spends on the IL, but he still hits balls to the moon. He is their third best power hitter and it's not even close. He's kind of important to them thinking about what their lineup does on a night to night basis. Yeah, it comes a lot of swing and miss, but it comes with a lot of damage too. And then there's Anthony Volpe. And I think Volpe is the trickiest player of all to figure out because I thought what Anthony Volpe did as a

rookie last year, given all the things we say about the Yankees, given the pressure of being the shortstop there, thinking about how good he was defensively, seeing that he got to 20 homerun power, he was stealing bases, he was making good contact. I thought year two was going to be a big step forward. And in some ways it's better, he's striking out less, but in a lot of ways it's a little bit worse. He's not making as much hard contact and he's pounding the ball to the ground. And I wonder, you know, what kind of second half is Volpe going to have at the plate? Like he's part of the reason why their defense is good. So he's going to keep playing. He's part of the reason why their defense is good, so he's gonna keep playing. He's an important part of their team, but I think you've gotta find those secondary bats and get more out of that group of players

than you've gotten so far. So I think the blame can be spread out to a lot of different parts of the roster. And I don't know if I'd sit here and say, you know, this is malpractice. Brian Cashman has to go. He built a crappy roster. He had a good off season.

He traded for Juan Soto. If you add Juan S crappy roster. I think he had a good off season. He traded for Juan Soto. If you add Juan Soto to your roster, you had a good off season. So I don't know, you guys. This is, to me, unless they can't fix Volpi and they can't get Torres on track, to me, this is a team that needs upgrades to the deadline but doesn't need an overhaul to be right back

in the driver's seat in the AL East here in the coming weeks? I think that's fair. I think it's a fair assessment. I think if this was another team, we probably wouldn't even be talking about them. Maybe not to this regard if Skye is falling, but everything is such a big deal with the Yankees that we're like, well, probably should talk about them because they were good. They were bad. Probably they lie somewhere in the middle. Garrett Cole's going to be better. Some of these guys are going to revert. But also, I think the concern is, like Eno said, Stroman, you didn't get Stroman to pitch in games one,

two, or three. Well, then who's pitching games one, two, and three in a playoff series? Who's pitching behind Cole? I think it's Cole, Nester, and then Rodin. I think it's those three. Rodin's got like a 13 ERA over the past month. Yeah, but that's the hard part. And Rodin's got a second part too. So yeah, so that's why I think the pitching is the easiest spot to upgrade if it's there at the devil.

Yeah, because the home run problem for Rodin, last year he wasn't healthy at all, tried to pitch through it. That's very real. I think it's a function what Ino was saying. It's the park. The park works against you. It's gonna amplify your mistakes. I'm surprised he's not missing more bats. That's the one thing with Carlos Rodin. Because the stuff is seems okay. Seems like it's there. Yeah, it seems like he could get back to being that 30% K-rate guy he was during his final season with the White Sox and that lone season with the Giants. If that happens, that's big because that's the guy you want right behind Garrett Cole. If you can get Cole to bounce back. So it's a lot of like rounding up on what's there and getting bouncebacks from guys

that have underperformed recently or maybe underperformed for the season as a whole. I think that's a tough spot to be in. One thing that does make it hard when you're Cashman and when you're trying to improve this team is that the baseline is pretty good. And, you know, it doesn't help you, I don't think, to trade for like, obviously, it's going to be obvious when I say his name, like Andrew Haney, because we've tried that before. But like, it doesn't help you to just go get, you know, a back end starting pitcher and patch up the back.

Right. You kind of need to go get something front line or else it's not even worth it. You know, like you wouldn't even play for you necessarily. So, you know, you either get Garrett crochet again, maybe a Kikuchi. But like, does even does like a jack flairity put like move the needle for you that's another two pitch guy that has had you know some homer issues you're taking him from detroit and put him in yankee stadium i'd almost rather try the scherzer verlander snell grouping you know where you know when they're right they're top end and and and just kind of take that shot.

And again, if you're if you're looking for a third baseman for them, it doesn't help them to get a Patrick Wisdom, even a Ewan, Ewan Suarez or Wilmer Flores like those guys won't really help them. So they have a choice of either we just go ahead with Oswaldo Cabrera, maybe and give him a shot or we go for guess, Renifo is like a middle ground. Renifo would be pretty good for them. Or maybe we go big and try to get either Alex Bregman or hey, Vlad Gror Jr.

is playing a lot of third. So, you know, you start, you start taking some shots like that maybe, but I don't think it makes a lot of sense to shop down market. And I don't know that the, the, uh, I don't know that the blue Jays will. If they were to trade Vlad jr. I don't think they're trading them in division. And I can't even imagine the headlines and the Bragman, the Yankees. That would be different.

And then Vlad jr. playing third base there. Oh, so we don't so we don't really have a great solution for them unless it's like, you know, try to get Renhefo and one of Scherzer and Verlander. Maybe I don't even think Verlander is a great choice and I think the Astros are

going to go for it. So you're you're limited kind of for the kind of like Scherzer crochet Kikuchi and then maybe Ren Hefo. I mean, that's what you're looking for trade deadline wise. I know that in New York, especially, they like to take everybody's best player and put them on the Yankees.

Oh, they love doing that. You need a couple of teams in the NL to have miserable July's to then fall into the seller group and then maybe get a couple other pitchers that could become more interesting. Let's fire up the trade maker 3000 before we go. Which team makes the most sense for Jazz Chisholm Jr.?

I saw Craig Mish from Miami Herald write about Jazz Chisholm being a likely trade piece for the Marlins suggesting the Royals and Pirates might make a lot of sense because they have needs both at second base and in the outfield where you'd have a guy you'd have for a few seasons you have someone that's coming in that's actually having a career best year in terms of cutting down on strikeouts and Jazz Chisholm jr. is finally healthy I mean part of the reason we haven't seen what his true talent ceiling might be is that he's missed a lot of time over the years and he's actually been pretty healthy so far this year so where would you like to to see Jazz Chisholm Junior play if he is in fact moved at the deadline, Britt?

Philly, because I think he actually, I think they could use a little center field addition. And I think he, when you have a personality like that, you have to look at the personality of the clubhouse. It's a fun, loud, veteran-laving clubhouse, and I think he would fit in there. I think he would, you know, I don't want to say fall in line there, but you know, I think it wouldn't be his team by quite a long shot. And I think that might be good for him, for where he's at for his career. And I think, you know, that's a team that isn't afraid to make moves. And so I kind of like that. And, you know, I could see him going a bunch of places. The Mariners is another one, but, um, I like the, I like the Phillies. I think he,

he would add even more kind of fun to a very fun team. Yeah, that's a good one. Um, I think that the Reds are surprisingly struggling in centerfield. Um, they just claimed Austin Slater and, uh, they've got, they've had some injuries to TJ Friedle. And it'd be fun to see jazz chism go from such a pitcher's park to say hitters park. The Reds, you know, could be could augment their offense, which has actually been subpar away from home. And they could augment their offense, not just for this year. It would fit their sort of profile of, you know, when they traded for, I know Sam Mull's

just a reliever, but they wanted to trade for a reliever that they'd have for a while and not trade for a reliever just for one run. So that's, that fits a little bit what they've been doing in the past is try to build a little bit the dreaded online, but also for next year. Yeah. I think that's where the Royals made sense because they need help beyond this season. They could use a boost at both of those spots. I thought that was a great fit logically and it gives them more from the left side.

I mean Whit, Sal, Michael Garcia, all righties, Vinny Pasquentino a lefty so you get a second lefty in there. Michael Massey can play some second base too so you move Jazz between second base and the outfield. Maybe you get better defense from Jazz, putting him back on the dirt as well. So that was the fit for me that really jumped off the page based on needs. Wouldn't be a bad fit in Pittsburgh. Maybe a mystery team swoops in as well. But I like Jazz.

I do like Britt's idea of making him part of a team where there are plenty of other stars, because that takes some of the pressure off for the guy that actually won air quotes, the players poll for this year for most overrated player. I felt like that was a little bit unfair and probably the result of being on the cover of MLB the show a couple of years ago. What about the Red Sox? Yeah, that could be a fit too.

I was looking at Centerfield and they didn't. If they're buyers, we're not sure what they're doing. Yeah, yeah, cost-wise, it's not a big ad. So I don't think that's prohibitive at all. And I think you can move them around or possibly trade them again this winter because teams might still be interested if it goes really well for Jazz there.

So I'd probably put them in more of the long shot category but I think it's a possible fit. I just, I had been looking at the centerfield depth charts and if you flip over to second base depth charts you know the Royals are 24th so there's there's the Red Sox are 24th so there's a there's a chance there that there's a there's a match. Well the Dodgers 20th, but I think that's mostly because Mookie Betts is going to play there probably, and they're not giving him a lot of time

because of the injury. Drop us a line on Discord. Let us know, where's the best fit for Jazz Chisholm Jr. at this trade line, and get the Marlins a couple of nice players back and return maybe while you're at it. Fill out that side. Join the Discord with the link in the show description.

You can find us on Twitter. Brit is at Brit underscore droolie. You know, is that, you know, Sarah's I'm at Derek and right. But the pod is at rates and barrels. That's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We're back with you Thursday, one o'clock Eastern live on YouTube. Thanks for listening.