Rates & Barrels - How the Reds' Pitching is Clicking w/C. Trent Rosecrans

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

C. Trent Rosecrans joins Eno and DVR to discuss the Reds -- including Andrew Abbott's fast start and track record of posting ERAs below his projections -- the ascent of Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo's missing strikeouts amidst good results, and questions around the quality and depth of the Cincinnati bullpen. Plus, they examine the profile of Nick Kurtz, who has been promoted to the big leagues by the A's less than a year after he was drafted fourth overall out of Wake Forest. Rundown 2:06 Please Help Us Understand Andrew Abbott 9:00 Jose Trevino's Impact on the Staff & Clubhouse 12:08 The Little Adjustment Paying Off for Hunter Greene 18:11 Nick Lodolo's Missing Strikeouts 22:05 Nick Martinez as a Great Fit 27:07 What's Going On with the Reds' Bullpen? 34:15 Nick Kurtz Gets the Call from the A's 45:53 Craig Yoho Joins the Brewers' Relief Corps & Logan Henderson's Outlook 54:00 Brandon Young is Back in the Mix for the Orioles Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social Follow Trent on Bluesky: @ctrent.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris With: C. Trent Rosecrans Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We've got every dunk, buzzer beater, and game-changing play covered. Join Dave DeFour, Zina Kata, and Espe Rojini Monday through Friday for fast recaps, and join me and Alex Spears Saturdays for Saturday Slammin' Jam with playoff trivia and some big-time vibes. All the playoff intel you need, faster than your morning coffee. Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you pod, we're there. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Tuesday April 22nd. Derek Van Riper, Enos Saris and Trent Rosecrans here.

We're gonna talk reds. We're gonna try and solve the mystery of Andrew Abbott. So we had to bring in the person we know who has seen as much Andrew Abbott as anybody on the planet. Trent, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm guessing his parents have seen him more. I didn't have a chance to reach out to them. So the people that whose numbers are saved in your phone

That you knew would be busy and not doing anything What other qualifiers are we this is like this is like, oh, yeah He's great against left-handers in day games in August of odd number of years So yeah, I'm honored. Thanks a lot the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the

the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the

the the the on the roundtable. Yeah, Karig doesn't want that to be any good. So like everything he just wants people to be like, oh, it was so much better when Karig was there. And so I think that's kind of what's going on. I've heard that too. Try to dig into that a little bit. Like it's weird because I knew him forever.

And now that he's like the boss, we get those little notes like don't look Karig in the eye. It's weird. You have to like talk to his assistant now that he's management. Oh, yeah. Everything goes through Craig's assistance. Are you sure it's not an AI bot, though? I'm not sure.

All right. Well, let's dig into some reds. Please help us understand Andrew Abbott. And the main confusing part is that he continues to beat ERA indicators, right? So if you look at the time that Andrew Abbott has been in the big leagues, he debuted in 2023. If you look at pitchers with 200 or more innings during that span, he's like middle of the pack in war,

67th out of 121, close to middle of the pack in K-BB but he's tied for 40th in ERA with Zach Gallin which blows my mind because when I'm thinking about pitchers and ranking them, Zach Gallin and Andrew Abbott are not even in the same tier, they're not even in neighboring tiers. 92nd in Sierra during that same span and 95th in Stuff Plus. That's the part that confounds us as stuffists, as people who want to make it all make sense. Please help us understand how does Andrew Abbott keep getting away with this and outperforming his projections. Is there a stuff minus? Like, you know, he has decent stuff, but it is that difference.

Is it as simple as knowing how to pitch? I know it's a cliche and it's like annoying because especially the people I'm talking to now really like answers and really like finding answers and finding really good reasons for these things. But I think I think the big thing is, is he just knows how to pitch. And there's something to be said for that. It's like, you know, I love quantifying things. I think it's, I love reading, you know, and trying to understand some of it, because I'm not bright enough for it. But like, I love these kind of things. And I love like them as theories and all that. But

there's always going to be margins. Like, how do you measure a catcher? Like all that's in the margins. And I think there's almost like a, is there a stuff minus today already use that joke? Or was I thinking that joke? I don't know. It was like a stuff minus is like the difference between your stuff and your results, or something like that. He locates well, he has good enough stuff. He's also left handed and and that's important as well. So I can't really solve any riddles for you, but I can tell you that old

cliche that he just knows how to pitch, but he always has. That's what he was at UVA. He wasn't the guy coming out. You look at him and he comes off the bus and he's got, he looks more like the guys who are led into the clubhouse at 330 than the ones who have inhabit that as usual. I mean, he would be fit in in a press box. But it's just what he does. He does well. That's living on those margins.

I feel like we should introduce Trent to Lodum. So we had this idea that popped up on the show a couple of years ago. We were talking about Matthew Libretor was the inspiration for this. He had reached the point where he was no longer a prospect. People were excited about he wasn't getting good results in the big leagues. No one liked him anymore. And I was at the point where I said, great, that's what I want. I want players that no one else likes because they're less expensive in fantasy baseball.

They're less expensive in real baseball. Like it kind of goes into the weird is good. We call it load them because at the time our third host tried to smell model backwards on the fly and, you know, flipped a few bottles. So we kept it because it makes a lot of sense. I think Andrew Abbott does embody this. And I do think the intangibles that you're referring to, the pitch ability, sequencing, there's all these things guys can do that make them more effective. He probably does some or all of those things and as a needs to know the answer sort of jerk, I have come back to one thing on multiple occasions that Abbott does well. Because he pitches in Great American Ballpark, people forget that it's a small outfield.

Like yeah, you give up homers, but it's less ground to cover. And Abbott gives up a lot of high catchable fly balls. So I think there's something in the batted ball types he generates. Some of that might be angle, it releases from a high angle, maybe the pitches and how they move. And it just doesn't quite get captured in our numbers. And he's going to have this run for a few years that probably is mid and high 3s ERAs despite 4 ERA projections, and we're all going to sit here and go, how's he doing it?

And by the time enough people believe in it, the stuff's going to deteriorate and the home run rate's going to go up and he's going to get pummeled and he's going to pitch to those projections or worse after a few years of exceeding expectations. I think that's what's going to happen. For global warming in there and it's a disaster. No that is actually I know it's like half kidding but not half kidding. Because if you look at his monthly splits I mean you remember the story of last year right? Like I feel like he is, when we talk about living on the margins, there's a double-edged sword there. It works, and it works for reasons that we may not be able to fully understand or explain,

but you are on a margin. You're living on a razor's edge. And I think that razor's edge for him is, he has a 57% fly ball rate. It is fly ball after fly ball after fly ball. And I think that just the weather warms a little bit and August, you know, he goes from having like a one and a half homers per nine, which is already like, you know, pretty high, but you know, it works

if he's not walking guys and you know, giving up solo jobs to, you know, in August, it's, you cover baseball in Cincinnati, August in Cincinnati is, you know, arm shredding territory. It's just it's where all the balls leave the ballpark, right? I mean, it's and it's where, you know, we haven't seen Andrew Abbott make it through an August unscathed yet. Yeah, and it is tough.

And that's one of those things I'm going to be really interested. I don't think we have enough data on this yet, but to see what kind of difference Jose Trevino makes with him. And the game calling and that kind of things because, you know, if you're looking at margins, that's one where maybe you haven't make the margin a little bit wider. If you have somebody who, yeah, and not to say anything against any of the other catchers, but that's one thing that Trevino is known for is that game calling and the game planning. And that works great hand in hand with a guy like Andrew Rabbit to me. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people focus on that trade and we're like, you know, oh, you give up a really nice piece and Fernando Cruz, who, you know, I think everybody in Cincinnati knew he was, it's not like they were surprised. They knew he's a good pitcher. I think it was more, you know, I think everybody in Cincinnati knew he was, it's not like they were surprised.

They knew he's a good pitcher. I think it was more, you know, Tyler Stevenson is a great offensive catcher. Like it would be nice to have somebody who was a great defensive catcher to sort of pair with him. So it's an interesting idea. And like, you know, they liked what they saw from him right away with Trevino

and he got signed to an extension in spring training. And I'll tell you what, that was an interesting thing. This is probably the wrong show for that, but at the Red Spring Training, they have kind of like a rooftop deck that overlooks the practice fields and whatever. And we've done a couple of those. I think when Eugenio Suarez got an extension, they had a little press conference up there when we had a couple things up there. And then when Trevino got his extension this spring, he was up there and we watched.

It was like 9 AM or whatever. We watched every player on the team come up and watch this. And then there was almost like a receiving line after. No way every player can. They just got traded to the Reds. He'd been there for a couple weeks. Like maybe a month. That's pretty impressive.

That's something right? Yeah, like I turned to my Matt Chapman presser who after a year people were saying, oh yeah, he's like the leader of the Giants Clubhouse, but nobody came by or anything. You know, you know, Hunter Green, there were a couple guys there for Hunter Green that was at the stadium here a couple years ago, early in the season.

There might have been some with with Gino as well. And Gino's one of the most liked people in the game. And had been there for a while, overperformed. He's a great guy and everybody loves Gino. But that's what really stuck out to me is that everybody was there. Every single player in that clubhouse was upstairs watching. And that's that, that says something to me. Maybe he has a little bit something to do with our next question on the cry

on to Hunter green, huh? I mean, you know, he's catching him. And I think a lot of it in I'm working on this story as well. Are we, or we've moved on to Hunter green because I'll can start rambling about Hunter green, you know, and, and, and actually as one of the parts of the story, I was going to be like, this is a little sausage making where like, I don't know something and I don't know how to find it out. Oh, I'll just ask, you know, and you know,

is like one of the worlds like DVR, you can back me on this. And I'm not just saying this because he's here cause usually I don't do that, but like, you know, is one this. And I'm not just saying this because he's here because usually I don't do that. But like, you know, he's one of the great teammates of the world, like super glue guy. It doesn't matter. I'll be like, hey, I was kind of thinking this. And then it just sends Enos like brain going

and you know, gets as excited as you do and sends you a bunch of stuff. And it's like, oh great. So now it's there. And so basically, like the very little thing that I've noticed with Hunter Green, this is very simplistic is he's throwing more strikes. And throwing strikes is good. And so I talked to him about that. And I don't know if this is a cliche that's been said a lot of times, or just

stuck in my head. And it's probably going to be a lead here soon, just because I enjoyed the word play. But what Hunter green said was it takes balls to throw strikes in the big leagues. Oh, that's ready made. That's a, that's a, that's a title need. That's a title. And so it takes balls to throw strikes. And this is a guy in a very unique situation. You know, someone who was the number two pick in the draft

was on the cover of Sports Illustrated when that was still a thing in high school about the savior of baseball, who was a two-way player. And because he was a two-way player and because he had such a special arm, didn't pitch much in high school and then he had you know elbow issues and Tommy John and miners I am willing to say and Hunter backed me up on this is almost like yeah, of course. I would think this is pretty rare, but I am guessing

That he is at 25. There are very few 25 year olds who have thrown more competitive pitches in the big leagues than everywhere else combined. We forget, like not only is Hunter young, he was 17 when he was drafted. Not only is he young, but he's also an experienced and this is him becoming experienced. And you know, you could say like, you know, because he would young hunter would kind of nibble some, right? And you look at these and you're like, hey, can't get out of the fifth.

And that's nibbling. And this hunter is like, yeah, this is my stuff. Hit it. You know, you know, Sarah says I have really good stuff. Well, you try to hit it. And I think when you come up and you don't have much experience and all your experience is against the best players in the world, that's a very difficult thing. And even someone is confident and talented and smart as Hunter Green. You know, you have some instant feedback mentally and you have to be able

to prioritize or compartmentalize that. And so I think that's something that he's done is he's become to that point where it's like he almost sees himself as everybody else does. We're like, this stuff is just amazing. Throw it in the zone. If they hit it, they hit it. And he's also improved his command. He's added that split finger, which he's throwing more and is more effective. The slider, I remember, you know, seeing him pitch in Chattanooga a couple years ago when he opened there and just texting with Kyle Bodie at the time who

was with the Reds at the time and Kyle just saying no I think his slider is gonna be his best pitch and it's like the other ones 103 that's pretty good yeah that's lighter and then like I watched a couple of them and it's like yeah man that's legit and so really that I don't know that the splitter has to be as good as it's gotten, but it's still like, that's a really good arsenal, those three pitches and finding that third pitch that he can reliably throw either four strikes or that looks like a strike was also huge because it's just that tiny little wrinkle in the back of your mind for the hitter and when the ball's coming at you 103 or consistently 100 which we're

seeing right now any little thing in the back of your mind is working against you. Yeah I saw that excellent start out in San Francisco against Logan Webb, I believe it was where they were matching zeros. And, you know, he did lose a little bit of Elo off the fastball because he was pitching, I think he pitched into the ninth or, or, or maybe the eighth. Yeah. It was the ninth. There was two outs on the ninth. Yeah. Yeah. He got all the way. Yeah. He was more like 98 and the hitters. Yeah. He's done. Forget him. He was more like 98. And so some of the hitters, yeah. He's done.

Forget him. Right. I think some of the hitters are like, well, screw that. I'm going to sit slider. And I think some of them were sitting slider and swung for the slider and got the splitter. That was his, the game plan. It felt like was dominate with the fast ball, you know, slider second time through. As soon as they think they have something with the slider splitter.

And I think I focused ahead of the time being like why is he throwing a splitter? Is he gonna command that pitch? But now it's just like throw to the zone and let everything move off of that So here's some fodder for your piece Nobody in the big leagues has thrown as many pitches in the strike zone this year as Hunter Green and has thrown as many pitches in the strike zone this year as Hunter Green and his whiff rate on those pitches is third best. So I mean you could say that like oh Logan Gilbert, Imanegah, like they have percentage points more whiffs but he has the most whiffs in the zone because he throws the most in the zone. Like Shota is like they're throwing more pitches outside the zone they're

dancing around a little bit more than him. He's just like, fill it up. This is my stuff. You can't hit it. Yeah, and he's right for the most part. I want to ask you about Nick Lodolo. Where are the strikeouts? The results have been fine to these first few starts,

but I kept looking at Nick Lodolo around all the injuries and thinking, hey, if it all comes together, like he's a legit number two, number three starter, the stuff's down a little bit into Velo on the fastballs down a tick so far. But what have you seen so far? And where are we going from here if the Lido can stay healthy? Yeah. You know, I think and you know, and I kind of talked about this, the shape of that curve ball, that is breaking balls a little bit different. I'm not sure I I haven't talked to Nick about this. Uh, he, he, uh, he just came off paternity leave, but I was going to talk to Nick the other day.

And I think a lot of it is kind of goes back to the same thing. We're talking about hundreds throwing strikes. That's what a lot of these guys just keep doing. And you know, his, his breaking ball, I keep calling it a breaking ball because I did the story a couple of years ago. I forget which one he called it. He and his catchers called it a different pitch. One called it a curveball, one called it a slider.

And hopefully that's a lead to some shenanigans. Yeah, but it's it's one of those where it's like, yeah, two or whatever. You know, you know, that pitch is on when you see him hitting guys in the back foot. Right handed hitters in the back foot. And I remember his rookie year, I went back and he led the league and hit batters and I went to see how many, and I think it was something like 60% of them were back foot, hit the right-handed batter in the back foot. Cause it is such a big tailing,

huge pitch that I think he's not using it quite as much or he's shortened it and changed a little bit in order to throw it more for strikes because a lot of times it was making this way across the zone and you would see guys swing it balls that hit him on the back foot which is crazy but if they're able to handle it up, it's always a ball or called a ball. So I think that's probably part of it, but I, that is just kind of off the top of my head, what I've seen and kind of the things I've talked to. And I haven't talked to him specifically about that, but I mean, quite honestly,

a Lido, we're talking to Cincinnati Reds who play a great American ballpark. And we're talking about these pitchers You know, and then we're also thinking like oh you're gonna add Rhett Lowdier and chase burns I mean we saw what Rhett Lowdier was able to do last year In a short period and that's another guy who's a pitcher, you know and then chase burns is a guy who has Stuff that like even Hunter Green goes.

That's great stuff, you know? And so that's pretty interesting to me. And it's been the question on this team, most of the off season and continues to be is like, where does the offense come from? And I think there are some ways that they can get there. Um, we haven't seen this whole team yet and we haven't seen Tyler Stevenson in Austin Hayes since he's been back has been good. So we shall see, but like, I think they have enough,

especially in this division to be around for quite a bit. And that's the strength and depth of starting pitching. When you're talking about, you know, your two highest paid players, I think, kind of off top of my head, I know they're highest paid and maybe they're second or third are starting pitchers that we haven't talked about yet. And Brady Singer and Nick Martinez. Those are going to be extra guys if everyone stays healthy the way they're they're built

right now. And Martinez, the qualifying offer, I think he was right on that line where they probably knew there was a good chance he was going to accept it. Otherwise, they wouldn't have offered it. I think it was one of those for them that they were like, either way, they're cool. It was one of those things where like, OK, we're going to spend this money and we'll spend it somehow. If Nick Martinez does it, we have a note. We have a guy that we know can pitch in multiple different roles

and is willing to. And they also know him well enough that, you know, a year before you can talk to everybody and he could say, yeah, I'm willing to go to the bullpen or start. I'd rather start, but I'm, I'm happy if I, I'll be fine if I go to the bullpen, if that's where teams need me. People can say that, but he actually went through a season where he did that. say that, but he actually went through a season where he did that and at no point was he a malcontent about it. Like he was the same guy and I think as much of the 21 million, the qualifying offer they gave him, it was certainly deserved and paid for what's on the mound, but it's the stuff off the mound that also helps, especially with a young rotation, young pitchers.

They brought in singer who's who's more veteran, but you know, this is building around and rabbit Nick Lodolo, Hunter Green, Rhett Loud or Chase Burns and they had a year with Nick Martinez to know exactly how he meshed with those guys and those guys all adored him. You know, those guys I remember vividly, it was the Friday, the last Friday of the season, we're in Chicago, uh, Martinez threw a complete game, lost one, nothing to the Cubs. And afterwards I just like talking to some people and then I was like,

Lodolo, it was Lodolo and Abbott and they're standing next to each other. And it's like, Hey, can I ask you guys just a second about Nick? And they're like, Oh yeah. Like he's the guy you watch. Like I want to be like Nick Martinez. Like I watch him every day. What he does. That's all I do is follow what he does.

He is the most prepared. He's the best. And like the fact that the guy can do that, show that he's not a jerk about it and everybody recognizes it. That was the same one where he'd bought all the rookie suits, you know, and they got delivered in Chicago. I think it was a couple of veterans, but he was among them.

That stuff that's important, and they knew from having him from one year that if they brought him back, if he came back, there is positives all around. He's fascinating. I believe he's the only major league pitcher to have thrown in the major leagues with a pulse on his arm. He's super dialed in to tracking his fatigue and his throws and everything. So, you know, if they're like glomming onto him, like there's a possibility he's helping kind of expand health outcomes for the young pitchers because, you know, that's what he's the thing that he's most fascinated by other than the pitch design that got him that Vulcan change and got him back to the major leagues that That was important for him. But the other thing that's most important for him is understanding how his body reacts to workload and how he can be a reliever and a star at the same time. How he can kind of go seamlessly in between those because really the big thing is how do you respond? Like how much rest do you need? And like how does your body respond? And so he's

really on top of that in terms of tracking his health. He works with Casey, uh, Casey Mulholland at connect pro who is also just all about that, you know, pitching requires building up and rest and you have to, you have to really science that up. And that was the thing that Bodhi wanted to do too, in Cincinnati was really track everybody's throws and dial that in. So if they're listening to him that way, that could be good for their health outcomes. Just wanted to mention also Lodolo up in zone, right? So he's also throwing more strikes and maybe he doesn't have quite the dominant stuff

as Hunter Green. So that might lead to some balls and play, but maybe they're balls and play that he wants. Maybe they're okay balls and play. He's had that issue too, not being able to go deep. Strikeouts are great and they're, they're important, but easy outs are awesome. You know, nine pitch innings, six pitch innings, uh, 10 pitch innings are, are important. And, uh, who gives a, who cares what the exact stat sheet looks like as long as it's zero.

Yeah. Well, as exciting, I think is the starting pitching looks. I guess, sorry. I'm sorry, I went into real baseball for a second. No, we are seamlessly both. No, no, I know you guys, I'm not saying anything like that. But as exciting as the starting rotation is, here comes the whammy sound. Whammy.

The bullpen, what is going on in the bullpen? Like as the cry on ass, is there anybody who's gonna be the closer this year? I kind of like Ashcraft to be the closer. I don't know if he gets there this year, but I think I could see him having a 20 save season at some point. Maybe next year. I think Alexis Diaz has been Confounding a little bit. I heard his hamstring and that is really hurt you know, he's not the most consistent guy with his mechanics anyway, and it threw them all out of whack and That's where all the walks are coming from and that's where the walks are coming from I watched him like I know is in spring right before they decided that he was gonna start on the IL I I watched him like I know is in spring right before they decided that he was gonna start on the IL I

Was on the backfields watching and then I was talking to somebody afterwards when it one of their pitching people in it And they're like well what you see has like it looked like he was just off like all there is like three or four calls that were balls or strikes that could have gone either way and He was just on the wrong side of him because he wasn't consistent. And then, you know, I talked to him and he talked about how like his landing foot wasn't strong. Like, you know, like he would land and that ankle would kind of move a little bit. Whereas he goes like, you know, what I'm working on is just sticking it and staying, keeping it straight. So that again, kinetic chain, everything stays in line. And I think that has been the biggest issue. And like people said, like, you know, the ball tracking, like the flight and what it's doing

in those times, that was all okay. It was just the location being off just a little bit and being inconsistent. And so because his, he wasn't landing quite right. Like sometimes it would be a little bit more, sometimes a little bit less. And it was difficult to find just that consistency. And that's what they really want. The landing leg is the hamstring here. Uh, yeah. I've read a recent analysis that suggests that one's the rougher one.

Cause the pushing off is not as important as landing. Landing is... Yeah, it's stability, right? The power is going to be there. You don't need to be as precise with power. Power is not for precision. The back leg, the push-off leg is for power. The front leg is precision.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you. So you think it's Pagan for now, or do you think it's heading towards Santillan? If Diaz has a couple more good outings, he'll get a shot. A big part of that is, again, we're talking about personalities, is the type of person Emilio Pagan is.

His ego is not getting in the way there. Again, I know I say this like Pagan is Pagan and Nick Martinez are cut from a similar cloth that way with the way they deal with everybody. And then numerically, like Pagan has a home run issue and that can. Yeah, that can come especially anytime, especially in this ballpark, especially as a yeah, yeah, maybe getting out in front of that and making that role change soon. Makes sense. If Emilio is going to be your closer for a little bit, make sure it's an April.

Yeah. Right. Be glue early in the season and then move back and get to the six, seventh inning role that we're used to seeing Pagan in the rest of the way. And he is a guy that is, you know, Hey, it can only help that he, that he has had this good start, our relatively good start and help later in the year. But the bullpen, I'm excited about Ashcraft and you know, who else is excited about Ashcraft?

And again, this is part of the other part is Graham Ashcraft. He's he knows he loves the role. You know, it was one of those things where he was always kind of a default starter. The idea all along was we really think this is the back of the bullpen guy, but then he just started out so well. He got a spot start in Toronto a couple years back, and then he just kept pitching well enough and better than the other options. And so I think this is kind of going to what they thought he was gonna be all along and that's a guy who maybe

you use him a bit like TJ Anton was used a little bit hopefully not with the same injury problems but where it was there was a point where TJ low TJ Anton was just a high leverage reliever whether that was the ninth or the sixth or the seventh. And I think Graham Ashcraft is a guy you could see that with. I'm curious to see how they put the pieces together because I think until they sort the roles out, that's going to be maybe the biggest weakness on that club. When you talk about sorting out roles, and you talk about managers who are very good at that, the guy they have now is very good at that.

And he has quite the track record with guys knowing their roles and him believing that it is very important that guys know their roles. It's a huge change. Just seeing what Tito ends up doing over the course of this year and beyond, I think is going to be pretty important for the Reds in determining whether or not they get back to the postseason and actually make some noise in October at some point with the core that they have in place. Trent, we appreciate your time and your insight.

We know you got to run, so we'll let you go here, but we'll catch up with you again soon. Sounds great. Thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it. And whatever Mark said, don't believe him. You guys are doing great. We appreciate that.

It's the nicest thing anyone said about us all year. Thanks, Trent. That's a tall bar, I'm sure. All right. Have a good one, guys. The NFL draft is almost here, and the athletic podcasting network has you covered on Wednesday. That's tomorrow, April 23rd. Diana Rossini will share all the info she's hearing the day before the draft

live on Scoop City's YouTube channel. That's going to be at 4 Eastern. Then on Thursday the Athletic Football Show kicks off. A two-night live event on night one. Robert Mays, Derek Claussen, Dane Bruegler and Bruce Feldman break down all 32 first round picks in real time on night two. Robert, Derek and Dane return to cover all the picks from rounds 2 and 3. You can watch the Athletic Football Show's 2025 Live NFL Draft special on their YouTube page beginning at 7 Eastern on Thursday, April 24th and 6.30 Eastern on Friday, April 25th.

Highly recommend it, it is very informed coverage of the NFL D draft and a much more pleasant listening and viewing experience than the mainstream coverage which is just loud and in your face. If you like loud and in your face, ok, then maybe that's for you. But check out our stuff, it's really really good. Let's get to some baseball news you should know. Nick Kurtz on his way to the big leagues promoted by the A's will be joining the club on Wednesday. I have seen a lot of AAA data on Nick Kurtz pop up on my timeline on Blue Sky in the last couple of weeks, and it makes sense. He's doing all the things we want power hitters to do in the minor leagues.

Highest level is pop seven homers already. It's a 321, 385, 655 start at the plate. 26 K's and 97 plate appearances. So I would imagine that as Nick Kurtz gets his first exposure to big league pitching, there might be a little bit of swing and miss there as he makes adjustments. But this is a quick path to the big leagues for a guy that went fourth overall in the draft last year. Less than a calendar year after being drafted. Nick Kurtz is going

to be a big leaguer. How quickly do you think he's going to make the adjustments? And you know we talked a lot about Chandler Simpson and the unique profile he brings and just trying to find the fit on the roster. Like is Nick Kurtz actually up for good? And do they just find a way to between first base DH then having Rooker play more in the outfield. Can we see Kurtz, Soderstrom, and Rooker as a regular trio in the heart of this athletics lineup? Yeah I don't think you call up somebody with this much pedigree, this much interest, a top 25 prospect who was your first round pick and has torn through the minor leagues like this, I don't think you call them up to play for, you know, intermittently for seven days and send it back down.

You know what I mean? Like, I don't think that the corresponding, this is one of those times where the corresponding move is almost a little irrelevant, you know, like I, I know that I really harp on that, but when it's a top 10 prospect, they could just play their way into it. They're treated differently. They're given more chances. This isn't calling up, you know, a hundred and fiftieth ranked prospect because your second baseman, you know, has a sore hammy, you know, this is a little different. And so I've been trying to figure out how it's going to work. And I thought that I'd heard that Nick Kurtz was gonna play

in the outfield, but I'm looking at baseball reference and fan graphs and seeing no record of Nick Kurtz playing in the outfield since one game in the fall league and otherwise college. And so I don't think he's going to start playing in the outfield in the big leagues. Brent Rooker, on the other hand, has played in the outfield a fair amount,

46 times in 2021 when he came up in Minnesota, 60 times in 2023, and three times this year. So I believe, and I'm excited for this in a couple places, that Brent Rooker is going to get outfield eligibility. The way this works is that Nick Kurtz has to outplay Miguel Andujar, who has been fine, but is a 30-year-old right-hander with no power. And so to some extent, that is a low bar to cross.

You could play some games where Soderstrom catches some and you get Kurtz and Rooker in at DH and first and that gets Andohar some playing time. Maybe Andohar plays against lefties for Lawrence Butler and plays when Soderstrom catches. Boom. That's enough to keep him on the roster, keep him playing regularly, keep some value for the Major League team while giving Nick Kurtz all of the runway he needs. Yeah, I guess there's a few ways they can do it. Soderstrom behind the plate would be fun in the sense that it adds

eligibility to a player that's mashing. I'm less sure they're going to do that. I think Rooker in the outfield more has been in the works for the last 10 days or so. I think of the three times he started a game in the outfield, all of them have happened since April 12th. So it was almost like they were letting him show that his arm was recovered from surgery. Rooker joined us in the offseason, mentioned he had that procedure and wanted to give him a couple of games out there, make sure everything was all good and now they're going to go ahead

and flip that switch. Maybe that's the most frequent adjustment, but you're right. The option of using Soderstrum behind the plate, maybe if Shay Lang Alliers is hurt at some point, that's one way they can move things around, take some of the pressure off of Rooker's defense and play some of the other depth guys on the roster. But as they pointed out in our Discord, listeners were quick to acknowledge this. The A's are an easy rule of five team. Like when you look at their core, like they have quickly positioned themselves

as a good lineup that has an identity, has a core that is going to be out there most days and actually can do some damage like it. It's a good group of bats when you look at Butler, Rooker, Soderstrom, Langoliers, even if you don't count them in the five, like as the catcher he could be a sixth guy that's out there all the time. Wilson is an everyday guy at shortstop even though he's not necessarily a power hitter. He's going to be a productive offensive player and then you know JJ Bladay is probably part of that core group as well so it's gone a lot better than I would have expected. If we had a conversation about where the athletics were headed this time last year

I was way less optimistic about their bats than what they've proven to put together and this I mean a year ago Nick Kurtz wasn't in the organization yet. We didn't know who that fourth pick was going to be. We didn't know if Jacob Wilson was gonna hit enough to be a viable major leaguer. Lawrence Butler hadn't had his breakout yet, right? Like a lot of things have changed for them in the past calendar year.

Yeah, I think there's two things that the A's do really well. I think that their major league hitting coach is a good one. And they recognize, this maybe just says three things, but they recognize that they, and they've said it publicly that a lot of player development happens at the major league level. You can only get the player close enough to the major leagues. They still have to make that last hurdle in the major leagues. And the third thing they do well is that solution to doing well in the major leagues and making

that last hurdle is to give them time. I can't point to anything other than maybe the easiest thing to point to is JJ Bladay's 2023 and 2022 seasons. He comes in, 2022 is Miami, he'd been terrible in Miami, they're just dumping him. He comes to Oakland and he performs mediocrely. I mean, a 91 WRC plus with poor defense, a 195 average, 310 OBP, a hole at the top of the zone, 0.4 war, there are lots of teams that would say, okay, thank you, you know. And the Oakland, because they do these mini rebuilds

and they're not trying to fit a ton of prospects in at the same time all the time because that's the one thing that can happen with like hey the Orioles right it's like where do you play Connor Normie you know what the A's would never have to I mean not Normie or or Mayo right you know then one thing the A's would never have to debate do we have place for these guys you know they'd just be like no we have to be good again in three or four years. You know, yes, you were up, you're playing.

And so Lade got another shot and he is now a viable everyday player for them. And so I think Lawrence Butler struggled when he first came up, but they they he knew he would have runway, you know, so Rooker bounces around, he finally gets a long look from some team and shows how good he is. So that's a broken record at this point, we've talked about this enough, but I think that also says something about what's going to happen with Kurtz, right? They don't really call guys up to like, you know, play a little bit.

He's going to play if he struggles, he'll go down and when he's ready, he'll come back up. That's been their pattern, which is a much easier pattern to deal with than what some other organizations do when they're a much easier pattern to deal with than what some other organizations do when they're a little more quick to make those adjustments or they're competing and trying to thread the needle perfectly with player development and winning right at the present time.

Yeah, I'd almost say that Kurtz could struggle and still stay up. Maybe, yeah, it depends on the magnitude of the struggles. If he's taking good plate appearances overall, strikeout rates manageable, then yeah, you'd probably let him work through it. By raw projections I just ran the auction calculator again to think about Kurtz from a fantasy perspective because we had that mailbag question on Monday's show asking about a lot of the pop-up first baseman or the younger

guys that were playing well, Aranda, Torkelsen, Soderstrom obviously was kind of the cut above the rest, the guy that we really liked in that group, But Nick Kurtz is going to be the next wave of questions. It's like he's obviously going to be a popular pick up in weekly leagues. He's going to be picked up immediately in a lot of first come first serve leagues. Do you see enough ceiling and enough short term playing time to pick up Nick Kurtz in 12 team leagues or even in 10 team mixed leagues? Does he hold up well enough to take a spot from some of the veterans we talked about yesterday or is he more of a speculative ad where you pick him up, maybe you don't play

him right away in those shallow formats because you want to get a look at how quickly he can adjust. Well, his swinging strike rate almost doubled, you know, from A-ball to AAA. So I'm a little worried that he will actually swing and miss some. And if he swings and miss some, he may have some of the projections 222 average, some 240. And I think that might hurt him a little bit in the 10-team league situation. But there's also the chance that some of that's ABS related and that he has a good eye and

that it was just a struggle to figure out, you know, what he should do against the automatic balls and strikes that they're using down there. There's some chance that he just comes up and he's hot again like he was when he first hit double A and hit 3.08. I know those only 15 played appearances, but you know, he hit 3.21 even with that 27% strikeout rate in triple A. So, yes, the long, the short answer is yes. He's he's worth a pick up in every league in the 10 team league. Like who are you? Who are you dropping? Like that's what I hate about 10 team leagues. It's like dropping someone good.

Letting Nathaniel Lowe go as your corner, a 10 team or to make that space. Ryan Mountcastle. I mean, it's probably guys that were one of your last picks that are just good enough because they play every day, but maybe don't have the ceiling you're looking for. I guess I could do it. I mean, it's crazy that Nate Lowe is hitting 300 right now. Nate Lowe is doing exactly what you would expect Nate Lowe to do in a good Nate Lowe

year. I think I could drop both of them though. You know, they're both like 260, 15 homerun hitters the rest of the way. Which is, seems like you drop one and you can find one later if you need to. Right, because the possibility with Kurtz is if he does click right away.

He's a 280, 20 homer hitter the rest of the way. Right, a little more average little more power Like that door number two in this case actually is more interesting But we're excited to see what that debut brings for Nick Kurtz couple other debuts Craig Yoho a favorite from our discord got to the big leagues he's promoted by the Brewers and He debuted Monday night Against the Giants Yoho is a little strange, the pitch movement is strange because the change up is very similar to the Devin Williams airbender.

As we previously talked about the velocity, the fastball velocity is not the premium top shelf typical closer fastball velocity but there's a world in which Craig Yoho eventually gets saves. I just don't think it's anytime soon. I think it's more of a he's part of the high leverage bridge to the ninth inning rather than their solution for the ninth inning at some point in 2025. I wouldn't be surprised if his stuff plus goes up tomorrow. Remember that the first day the arm angle is imputed, it is guessed by a mini model that we have, and I could see his arm angle and that sort of mini airbender that he throws.

It was misclassified while we were watching as a curveball, and I think that is a little sign that it'll do well once Arm Angle is put in. You know what I mean? Like, if the machines are like, curveball! And you're like, no, that's the little mini airbender, dude. That's no curveball. I think, you know, if you can fool the machines, there's something good going on there. So I would expect a stuff plus to go up.

Also, another piece of evidence I have of that is that his stuff plus in AAA was good. We have discovered that our stuff plus in AAA right now is relative to AAA. And so it is overshooting the mark. You have to subtract like 15 points of stuff plus to make it relative to the big leagues. We're fixing that. It's one of those years we have a new model. It's like when you get a new model car and it's like all the little things are, you know, here and there. we got to figure it out. Any case I think Yoho does have the stuff possibly to close later. I do think Abner Uribe is first in line.

I think so too. He's off to a good start if they need a replacement for McGill just being a little closer to the ninth inning already being on the opening day roster. I think all of those things sort of matter in the shorter term decision making. But excited to see Yoho in a bullpen that seems to need a few fresh arms in it. Yoho Piamps looks like he might be trending into DFA territory. Every bullpen's got a guy like that right now, and unfortunately it looks like that might be Piamps in Milwaukee. I also noticed a couple things. The corresponding moves here. Nester Cortez on 60 day IEL. He had that PRP injection a couple weeks ago now But that gives you an idea

The best case scenario for him is a second half return at this point even that it's not necessarily guaranteed The corresponding move to get yo on the active roster was optioning Logan Henderson back down to triple-a That was done in part because Tobias Myers comes back this week. Myers will return to the Brewers rotation on Thursday so there wasn't a spot for Henderson anyway. But I did want to ask you what you thought of Logan Henderson's debut on Sunday. That came against the A's back in Milwaukee by the raw numbers. 9Ks over 6 innings. It's about as much as you could ask for. Got the the win just a really good all-around outing but did it with a pretty unusual mostly fastball change-up mix like Logan Henderson's been strange like as a prospect but the

results have been there so I'm just curious what you think of the first big league look we got at Henderson I don't normally sort of prefer change-up first guys and he's obviously one of them. You know, it's kind of amazing in that start he used two curves and three cutters. So 45 four-seamers, 33 change-ups two curves, and three cutters. That seems unsustainable to me, but it also suggests that he is comfortable throwing changeups right on right, that it's a good enough changeup to do so.

He had eye-popping strikeout rates in the minor leagues. I just think that there's going to be some struggle at some point where he has reverse splits and is trying to figure out, you know, a better way to get righties out because I do think right on right changeups can work, but you are aiming for a little part of the inside corner where it's easy to throw balls or have it leak over the middle of the plate where people can hit it. That's why round and right changeups are usually avoided, but if he shows exceptional command and stays out of the happy zone, worst case scenarios,

more walks are coming. And that's what he saw in AAA. Any case, I just hesitate to put my full stamp of approval on him because it is a fastball changeup. Like who else do you know is great at fastball change up and doesn't really throw anything else? It's like what Chris Paddock came up as. It's like, you know, it's I think the game plan in this case, we see this sometimes in

debuts and the game plan was simplified by design because if you look at what Logan Henderson was throwing at triple A, the cutter and the slider got more usage at triple A to begin the season. Almost 10 percent slider usage, 13 percent cutter usage, right? That to me is a little more viable than almost entirely foreseen change up. Right. Like getting those other two pitches in even 20 percent of the time combined will give him more options and maybe make him less likely

to have a same-handed split problem like you talked about. Yeah, AAA, the slider was rated below average by the stuff plus that is relative to AAA. So. That might be why they didn't use it a lot. Yeah. In that debut. I mean, who are even great starting pitchers

who started this way, who started out this way, who, like, you know, at their core have a great change up and have Michael Walker. Yeah. And it took Walker a while to be consistent, good Michael Walker. So I could understand where your hesitation comes from there. I'm doing starters by pitch type value. Jameson Tilesons kick change is number one. That's per hundred thrown. Let's just do regular pitch type value. Nick Lodolo,

number one. Andrew Haney, Michael King. But I would say he's a sweeper first guy. Scoobble. Scoobble, all right. Scoobble. Christopher Sanchez. Christopher Sanchez was the one I started thinking about. Yeah, that's kind of similar. Christopher Sanchez Sanchez was the one I started thinking about and it's like yeah, that's kind of similar Christopher Sanchez, they don't really throw similar But okay. Yeah, and then Michael Walker still on there Freddie Peralta is on here I guess he's kind of always had a good change-up and has kind of fiddled with the breaking balls a lot Yeah, I mean fastball Freddie at the beginning was like, well, jeez, was he 80% fastballs? I mean, it was. I don't think Logan has his fastball, though. No, no, I don't think so either. Pepio? Well, we got time to think about it.

I'm not saying it can't happen. I'm just saying that I don't think he's as good as his debut made him look. That was a great debut. So yeah, hard, hard to follow that up and maintain that sort of level. But I'm sure we'll see more of Logan Henderson at some point later on this year. And hopefully we'll see a few more sliders and cutters once that happens. I did see a note that Brandon Young is back in the mix for the Orioles. They put, I think it was Cody Poteet on the IL. After that 24 run. Yeah, after the Sunday meltdown for that Orioles staff

And they may need to use young as a starter again this weekend But I just wanted to ask the same kind of question we asked about Henderson What did you see from Brandon Young in his debut last week and could he end up being at least? Partial answer to some of the Orioles pitching woes. Yeah, he's a little bit more easily read because there's a prototype here He's got good secondaries and not great fastballs. The nice thing is, and in today's age, of course, he has multiple fastballs. And so his job is to learn from what Kate Povich has gone through and what other young pitchers have gone through

when they find out that their fastball that was good enough for the minor leagues is not necessarily good enough for the major leagues and that they really have to mix it up as much as possible. I don't think he has elite upside, but it is nice that he came in and through basically every pitch 25% of the time, which is he's already learned it because in triple A he was 42% fastballs. He was 42% fastballs. He comes up to big leagues He's 30% fastballs and he's basically, you know throwing everything a quarter of the time to curve in the change are good Major league pitches the fastballs are mediocre. I think he'll be fine I think he's a matchup streamer matchup streamers play especially in deeper leagues. So there's your takeaway So do you like Logan Henderson a little more than Brandon Young? Yes because there could be, you know, like maybe he learns from Tobias Meyers to like,

just throw the fastballs hard as possible. Him and Tobias Meyers should be talking to each other. Tobias Meyers is another fastball change-up guy who's like trying to, you know, make it, make it a bigger arsenal beyond that. Yeah, so there you go. Gives you an idea of some of the newer pitchers we've seen and what to think as they try and carve out roles here in the near future One of their notes that I saw as we get ready to go out the door Spencer Strider back to the aisle with a hamstring Strain suffered while playing catch. I mean, I think the silver lining here is that it's a hamstring strain his legs By the way looked a lot stronger I don't know if anyone really noticed it other than a few people in blue sky,

but as you'd like to say, he, their hands, just hams, hams, this absolutely hams. Also Max Meyer, you know, just looking great. Just absolutely. He, he had like the second fewest pitches for 14 strikeouts in the game. The Cincinnati offense is hit or miss and maybe they got tired scoring 24 runs the day before. But Myers absolutely, you know, everything that his draft position suggests. Interesting debut also for Caleb Durbin hitting a ball at the top of the zone out in San

Francisco you know between him and Turing maybe if they you know hit 20 homers 25 homers together then maybe that'll be everything they need. Yeah well we were watching that game last night and it was the Brewers Giants game last night and the defense initially, early in that start for Quinn Priestert, he was getting phenomenal defensive work. I mean, Jackson Chorio had a diving catch in right field in the second inning with the base loaded.

40% catch probability. If he missed that, everyone scores. And Quinn Priestert gets gombored, or we get gombored, and Quinn Priestert has a completely different line. As the game went on, so I was watching the Brewers feed, I imagine you're watching the Giants booth because, you know, it's a good booth. And the Brewers booth is good too, I just didn't have the choice to toggle back and forth. But the Brewers booth was talking a lot about San Francisco as the sun goes down and how wet the grass gets there because of the marine layer.

And I don't know if I've just ignored Giants booth talking about that in the past or if they just don't talk about it because it's the home park and it's like that all the time but is that something you see whereas the like the middle innings begin at night games the the grip the infielders are getting trying to field balls starts to get worse like you could see it for a good infield defense like the Brewers were uncharacteristically struggling to make pretty routine plays. We couldn't figure out there was a Durbin play where was it the spin on the ball or

was it the wet grass or what was it? I haven't necessarily heard that before, but I do know like living here that there are just times where it's just wet. It's a little bit like a Seattle wetness where it's like, it's just wet. It's just like a hundred percent humid, it's just like 100% humid. It's just like walking through water. There's just water everywhere. It's like it's not raining, but there's water everywhere.

That's a common feeling in the Bay Area. So I could see that. I'm going up to the city today and probably tomorrow. So I will see if I can catch a Giants infielder and ask him about that. I think that's an interesting question. Yeah, because the implication was that the Brewers had a few guys including Durbin who'd never played on that field before and Then it was a little more problematic for guys that were on his Durbin. How out of position is Durbin at third? I mean was he more of a second baseman with the with the Yankees? I

Feel like he played a lot of both both I'm gonna check it just because I I should know this is a thing I should know Caleb Durbin has played twice as many professional innings at second base than he has at third he's played seven hundred and sixty seven innings defensively at third base in the minors 1490 at second so you know more comfortable at second but not they don't have a throwing speed up yet for him so i don't know i don't know what his uh what his arm is like derby but two ranks is not good i guess well he's hurt right now too like he's playing like they were remember they were gonna play him short this spring they decided to move him back over to

second in part because of his arm so So it's a little bit of that. Essentially 31th percentile this year. But he was 23rd percentile last year, so he doesn't have a third baseman's arm necessarily. So why are we talking about Caleb Durbin's arm? Because I think Caleb Durbin's defense matters a lot for his playing time. So if you picked him up this weekend or you're thinking about picking him up, he needs to be a good defender. And there was one play that he stole a hit from Willia Domiz, had to make a tough throw and had plenty of arms.

So I like again, judging it on a very, very small sample. And the one that we thought that he might have miffed or whatever in real time, it looked like he miffed it. But when we talked about it, it was there was weird spin and maybe it was. So it looks like I think mostly good grades for for his debut. So I don't know that he's like what he 10 10 teams I don't know if you're getting on the tens, but I do think in least in 12 14 15 teams. Yeah I think I think he'll play there and he's got 90th percentile sprint speed

So that bodes well as you're trying to squeeze these go-go Brewers here. They go. It's fun. It's fun to watch We are going to go on our way out the door. A reminder, you can find us on blueskyenosinoceros.bsky.social. You're verified now, so I gotta get on that train. Very fancy. I'm verified on Instagram where I have a thousand followers. It's about a thousand more followers than I have on Instagram. Yeah.

I don't do much over there. DVR.bsky.social, if want to give me a follow there as well. Thanks to our producer Brian Smith for putting this episode together. Thanks again to Trent Rosecrans for joining us to talk Reds. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.