Rates & Barrels - Impactful Injuries for the Dodgers, Tough June Hitter Rankings & The Weekend Shuffle

Episode Date: June 18, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss a weekend packed with impactful injuries, a few tough hitters to rank as their "new" roles become more stable, Manny Machado's push to play through injuries this season, and fallout from the weekend roster shuffle in weekly leagues. Rundown 3:20 An Apology to Our Friends in Europe 8:46 Mookie Betts Suffers a Fractured Wrist 18:25 Yoshinobu Yamamoto: Goes on IL with Rotator Cuff Strain 24:01 Corbin Carroll Leaves with Oblique Injury 25:50 Trea Turner Returns; Is the Outfield A Possibility? 28:00 Bryan Woo's Forearm Discomfort 30:51 Tough Ranks: David Fry, David Hamilton & Addison Barger 46:57 Manny Machado & Playing Through Injuries 53:05 Where the Money Went: Saves in Seattle & Toronto, Cade Povich and DJ Herz 1:08:20 Weekend Drops of Note Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! https://www.youtube.com/c/ratesbarrels Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Monday, June 17th. Derek Van Riper, you know, Sarah's here with you on this episode. We dig into a rough weekend of injuries. Seemed like last weekend was a group of promotions and promotion news this weekend. Unfortunately, was an injury theme. So we'll dig into that. I've got a few tough hitter rankings. This is the next set of hitter rankings drops on Tuesday. And we'll talk about where the money went as we do each and every Monday. A bit of a challenging fab run for us with Father's Day overlapping.

The Sunday pickups happens every year. It's not a surprise. We know it's coming. We'll talk about a few of the tough cuts that were made as well. You know, how was your father's day? It was good. I was trying to do fab FAB from from the bar on the phone. How'd that go?

Not not great. I mean, I won. I won some guys, I guess. I did have a couple shares of Mookie. We'll talk about the fallout from that. So that was a sad moment Sunday afternoon. But otherwise had a great time. You know, saw my dad and went to a couple cool beer bars in the city and just had a day for myself because I had dropped the kids off. I am a bachelor this week. That's right. The kids and the wife are in San Diego for baseball camp and I am here watching the dogs.

Someone had to stay home and watch the dogs. That's right. I sent you a picture yesterday on Father's Day. There was a special at a grocery store. I don't know where exactly in the country this was happening. It's very distinctly American, I think though. It was a T-bone steak on the styrofoam with the plastic over the top and two tall boy beers.

And it was weird because usually it was a combination of Colt 45 and space dust. Pretty good IPA. And a sweet lager. I thought it looked like the sad dad combo. It was 9.99 and it was a decent looking T-bone too. I just I saw it. It was like, wow, that's, um, that's aggressive. It's like a sad dad with a grill.

There's dinner and drinks all rolled up in one for 9.99. One piece of styrofoam, one sheet of plastic. I just thought, whoa. That reminds me, when I was in England, there was a, there was a show on that said that, um, that it was like how to, how to make dinner when you get back from the bar and it had a can of beans and just cut the top off and put the beans right on the, on the stove. And then he had like, he was eating it when he put like the, he put like a, uh, like an oven mitt on and just picked up the can and ate out of the can. Just ate out of the can.

The things some people do when they lack comfort in the kitchen, right? Just unreal. I don't know if that's a thing people actually do, but it is funny nonetheless. We're going to start today. We talked about the London series a week ago, Friday, not just four days ago. And, you know, we were talking about that series and you were talking about your experience living in London and challenges presented just from the time zones alone and how it was just hard to connect at the time that you live there with the game. Right. And I think over the course of that segment, I think there's a couple of things we really should have done differently.

Number one, I feel like I should have presented the significant number of folks we know and we see on Twitter from all over Europe, loving baseball, covering baseball, and just being excited for that series. That was a huge part of the conversation that I wish I had brought to the table. I was thinking about everything about the series in the sense of, are we going to put a team in London someday? Like, what's what is Major League Baseball's plan here long term? And not thinking enough about just, hey, there are a lot of people

they're going to go to their first baseball games live. And that's such an important moment in fanhood. And, you know, I'm frustrated with myself because that easily should have been a focus of the conversation and it wasn't, wasn't part of our conversation at all. Yeah, and you know, it just, I made a bunch of mistakes that I'm making more as an old man.

Like not only did I screw up time zones, my God, good job there. Uh, that I still do that as a producer. Uh, you know, I still can't confirm. Um, I also did something that's such an old stupid man thing, which is like, I was working on information that was true when I was in London. Yeah. It's been a little while.

20 years ago. So yes, yes. working on information that was true when I was in London. Yeah. It's been a little while since you lived there. 20 years ago. So yes, yes. There are probably some more pubs with baseball on than there were 20 years ago. Good job. You know? Um, and then lastly, I kind of, I, I think my biggest mistake was I was just trying, I was trying to speak of my personal experience, um, and the difficulties that I had as a fan in London. And there's two mistakes that I made, which is just sort of extrapolating that my experience was the average experience.

And then I'd never made the flip, which is, you know, once you have chosen to be a fan, like you're like, you're a fan that should be lauded because you're overcoming so much. Like you're watching games at 2 a.m. Like that's you're a real fan. There's a level of passion that you have to have for anything. If you're watching it in the middle of the night or at strange hours. And when it's not something that is beloved by everyone around

now, you're seeking it out. The BBC is not doing a little, you know, doing a little update about baseball every night. So, um, yeah. So really just shout out to bat flips and nerds and, um, uh, Joel four bases does a really great, uh, uh, uh, uh, preview every season, uh, like an actual print preview that goes out in London and then there's all the UK baseball there's Astros baseball UK there's like there's a lot of team specific accounts that we interact with all the time on Twitter and. I just didn't put the two and two together to be like yeah.

You're diminishing their fan and that is not what I meant to do at all. Like I myself encountered baseball for the first time in Germany. Like, how stupid is it for me to to somehow stumble into telling people are not legit fans or, or, or gatekeeping anyway? Like I, like, I'm honestly just, uh, when I started getting that feedback, I was devastated. So, um, yeah, just, uh, when I started getting that feedback, I was devastated. So, um, yeah, just, I was just trying to speak from my own experience and that it was difficult without lauding the people that are doing it and, um, realizing

that probably it's made a little less difficult since then, you know, there's different ways to, you don't, you know, you don't have to, you don't necessarily have to watch it at 2 AM. You can, you can watch it on, on delay. We now have that don't you know you don't have to you don't necessarily have to watch it 2 a.m. you can you can watch it on on delay we now have that option you know like an LA TV yeah and there and this is specifically this the the bar that they were they kept showing was was kind of was kind of impressive I don't think I don't know if that bar was around when I was there but you know I would have been there a lot if I, if I could have

been. So, um, yeah, apologies from my heart to the UK baseball crew. Uh, and, um, how about this? You guys, uh, beat us in the, in the WBC. That'd be fun. You're going to put that on America? Yeah. I give you one free win of the American WBC. I hope you've got that kind of control. It'd be great story if it plays out that way. But no, to echo what you're saying, we never want to diminish anyone's fanhood. We want people to love baseball because we love baseball and it does not at all matter where you are in this world.

We hope you enjoy the game as much as we do. We want to support you in the love of that game. So really sorry for the way that that segment was put together. It's not, it's not what we're about at all as a show or as people. So our sincerest apologies to all of you. Let's get to some injury fallout. There was a lot. Mookie Betts gets hit by a pitch in the left wrist and it's a fractured bone.

The way Dave Roberts has described it so far, Mookie does not need surgery. So that's good news. Which means it's non-displaced most likely. I mean, I've had this situation where they thought it was non-displaced and did not do surgery. And then three weeks later, we're like, Oh, I guess it was displaced. Thank you. Stanford healthcare. Really good job.

Anyway, now I have a one thumb that's twice the size of the other thumb. It's great. I don't think I ever actually noticed that hanging out with you. Yeah. Well, I'll show it to you. It's all I'm going to think about from now on. If we're sitting around drinking a beer, I'm like, whoa. Anyway, non-displaced fractures is good news. You do have to wait for the fracture to heal.

And bones can often take longer than ligaments because of blood flow. Blood flow to ligaments is a little bit more robust as I understand it. Again, I'm not a doctor. Might just be wading into some bad territory here. But it's still a non-displaced fracture, so that's a good news. Surgery is always bad.

No surgery for now. Out for some time is the current vague sort of timetable. I see some time, my brain starts with a month. Yeah, probably. I think we're talking post all star break. Yeah. And this is a team that, of course, we've talked about recently, having a problem at shortstop.

Mookie's move there while it's like impressive in the sense that he's doing it. That he's capable, but he's not. It's not thriving. He's not he's not. He's not thriving. He's not the best defensive. He's not even in the top half of defensive short stops. No, we're probably going to see a lot of Miguel Rojas in the short term and we'll have to see if this changes their outlook heading into the trade deadline.

Is a shortstop a bigger priority for this organization? We have some feedback of somebody saying, why not Jazz? Which was an interesting idea. But I think that Jazz is pretty far removed from short at this point. I don't know. It just seems like why would like why would we replace a one converted shortstop with another one? You know, like if they want somebody, I feel like it's Beau Bichette. Yeah, we covered that a little bit at the end of the week.

I think it's possible. But with Jazz Chisholm, weren't you surprised in the first place when the Marlins moved him off the dirt, given where they were at at the end of the week. I think it's possible. But with Jazz Chisholm, weren't you surprised in the first place when the Marlins moved him off the dirt, given where they were at at the time? Yeah, which means to me that he's not a shortstop. You know what I mean? Like a team that desperately needed shortstop

moved him off a shortstop. I'm not as convinced that it's a I don't think it's a bad idea. I think if you if you look at the market for trading for shortstop, it's usually thin thin Yeah, I'm looking and sellers right now just as a little side moment I did see a piece supposed by maybe Rob not Robert or Bobby or from baseball protectors That somebody could decide to be a seller that's in that like, you know Everybody's 500 in the end and they I know and and could surprise us. So Who would who who would pull off a surprise sell?

Well. The Cardinals have it, like Tommy Edmond? It's been a long road back for Tommy so far. We did get a little bit of good news that he is now, I think, going out on rehab. Yeah, finally ready for some live at bats, so. Actually, it's not even, it's live at bats. For some reason, it's not even rehab. They're really slow walking this.

He's doing live at bats before he goes out on rehab. Right, it might be a week or so away from the rehab assignment. This is so weird, dude. There's something wrong with his wrist. Yeah, it does not sound like a good situation at all. So I think it is being more creative. But to answer your question, I mean, what would you need as a team to give up on even reasonable playoff hopes?

We'll talk a lot about the parity around the league and whether or not that's a good thing or a bad thing on our episode tomorrow with Britt. What if you could get Vargas and Outman? Like that seems like maybe two major league regulars that are ready to play right now. I don't know. I mean, if Outman, if Outman was a regular, wouldn't he be playing for the Dodgers right now? He's flawed. He's flawed. And so Vargas is flawed, too. It's more of the question of, hey, look, this guy's already 27 years old.

If it were going to happen for him again, if he was going to repeat what he did in 2023, or if the Dodgers believed he could do it, he'd be part of their regular playing time mix. But also, just shortstop is such a festering wound if you don't have one. You know what I mean? It's like, people just want to have a shortstop. You know what I mean? It's like the before you have the rest of the team in place can we have a short stop it's almost like the quarterback of the NFL right it's like.

You want to have a short stop. Think of all the things that people gone through think about all the ups and down the reds have gone through with the other crews of shortstop but they want to have a shortstop so Ellie's the shortstop. O'Neill Cruz can't hit lefties guess what he's still in line up against lefties because he's a shortstop but they want to have a shortstop so Ellie is their shortstop. O'Neill Cruz can't hit lefties guess what he's still in line up against lefties because he's their shortstop. So are the pirates going to trade O'Neill Cruz? No. No, of course not. Would the Cubs trade Danzi Swanson as bad as he's been? No. No. Giants can't find a shortstop. Perdomo? If you look at something like defensive run saved, actually, Mookie by defensive run saved comes out as a four, plus four?

That's interesting. Out to above average. But it's minus five on out to above average. It's a very low down, yeah. I saw a question on our Discord about this. How do you know which defensive metrics to believe when they disagree? I'll say one thing about DRS that's kind of cool is that it's all encompassing.

So DRS includes arm and everything. And, oh, Outs Above Average does a little bit more of splitting things out, you know, into like what they did on the couch versus what they did on the throw. And so like you actually have to, there's an outs above average stat that's like more like DRS, right? There's, what is it? It's not out of average. It's like they have a run saved number.

Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. Is it, it's the fielding, fielding run value? Is that the one? Yeah. Yeah. FRV. That number is more comparable to DRS because it's combining different aspects. Out of average is kind of a clinical look at just what happens, I think, at the catch point at the play point. Then there's the throw and all that.

You know, right. Yeah. FRV, it says throwing plus blocking plus framing plus arm plus RAA. Yeah. Yeah. That's more? Runs above average, yeah. Yeah, that's more complicated. So anyway, I think Mugi's competent, so maybe they'll just do that. I do think that Miguel Rojas has gotten bigger and older and is not a great shortstop replacement.

So maybe what they just do is have a better replacement shortstop. So if you're like looking for that, like maybe the pirates would give up on like an Alika Williams. You know what I mean? Like these backup shortstops. I also just like the one I just threw out was Perdomo. It's an interesting one I think to throw out there. Taylor Walls. Taylor Walls. Like you just get someone who's defensively a little bit better than Mookie that can come in in certain situations and stuff like that.

Yeah, so it might be something like that. I was looking at their organizational depth chart a little more closely, the Dodgers again, just to say like, okay, what's the long-term? I'll look at shortstop for them. Joandry Vargas, who's in the Arizona Complex League right now, he's 18, was a major international signing going back to, I think, one previous J2 period.

He's really interesting, but just far away. And then closer, they have someone named Alex Freeland, a third round pick out of central Florida in 2022, who just got moved to AA about six or so weeks ago. Now, I think it's got a 155 WRC plus in 37 games. 22 year old. Six homers, good OBP skills. The scouting reports really pointed more toward arm and glove as the carrying tools, but I think what he's doing at AA at least makes Freeland a little bit of

a sleeper for me in deeper leagues as someone that may get an opportunity with the Dodgers at some point if he's not part of a trade that gets them more immediate help at the position. Yeah, it's a little surprising to see. Fagrass has a 20 to 30, 20 present value hit tool on on somebody who has a better than average strikeout rate and a better than average swing strike rate. strikeout rate and a better than average swinging strike rate. And they also have a 30, 45 game power. Remember 45 is basically average, even though 40 is supposed to be average. 45 is kind of basically average. So they're saying that he tops out at basically average power and he's had, you know, ISOs over 200, uh, this year.

So, um, you know, there's a little bit of a disconnect between the results on the field and the scouting grades. But that's the state of the position right now. That's the daughter than I thought. Actually, they have some guys. Yeah, it's a little better, little better than I realized just that the help isn't immediately on the horizon. So much of their help seems like it's there when they need it. That's the part that's weird.

They do have a built-in replacement for Yoshinobu Yamamoto. He's on the IL with a rotator cuff strain. And at first I heard that and was like, okay, a rotator cuff stuff's usually not great, but I thought, okay, maybe a month or two. The way Dave Roberts described it was not season ending, but not going to throw for a couple of weeks.

When you start with not season ending, I think, oh, okay, there's some questions about what you're going to get later on this year from Yamamoto. I mean, rotator scrubs between the strains are bad, like just a general rubric shoulder, much worse than elbow. Right. And the severity of the strain was not in any

of the reports I've seen so far. So whether it's one or two, that makes a huge difference as well. And the way he describes it makes me think it's probably more of a two. Whereas if it were like a three, you you have surgery on the table right now. But the good news is Bobby Miller is coming back. Um, the bad news is Bobby Miller's first start coming off the I L will be at

Coors field on Wednesday. So on the one hand, built in cover. On the other hand, maybe not someone you're throwing right back out there immediately given the difficulty of pitching at Coors, especially in the summer. Yeah, the state of the Dodgers is interesting because there's a lot of sort of like reaction. It's an intense fans base, but people who and then with really high expectations, right? This Dodgers team. And so I personally think it's one of the best offenses in the big leagues.

And they're talking about, oh, we're gonna have another October where the offense goes away. And, you know, I think this is a really good team. But now, you know, if I look through the with jaded eyes a little bit, I'm like, well, Walker Bueller does not seem to be who he once was. And James Paxton is has the worst peripherals of like any starting pitcher in baseball. You know, so there seems to be kind of a lot on Bobby Miller coming back right now because Kirk Kershaw was supposedly hitting 89, which means he'd be sitting 87. I don't know. Like, there's I guess there's more questions than I thought there would be for the team

that is obviously this good when it comes to going down the line. I think Bobby Miller is pretty important to them. I do think the Clayton Kershaw situation is better than I expected to be in mid-June. Like he's going to start a rehab assignment on Wednesday. And even if it's a long rehab assignment where Kershaw is making his way back

and slowly building up that velocity, like getting Kershaw back at all seems like a decent size win. Even if he's not late career peak Kershaw, if he's just competent back end starter Kershaw, they could use that right now. It's still valuable. Oh, look at that little troublemaker.

Yeah, it couldn't be outside. He's still an aspiring good boy. He was just he's just sad that the whole family's gone and that it's just me. You just sit in there. He's just sitting in his room. Going for walks or anything. I take him on walks. You just, no, I mean, Kershaw coming back is, is, I mean, it would be surprising

me. I I'm, I'm going to admit that I did not think he would pitch this year. Um, and so that, that could be important. I land a knack. I actually like, so they have some depth Gavin stone, his fastballs improving. Um, and he could, he could see his strikeout rate go up. So there I'm not I'm not around. I'm not sounding any alarm bells. I think this is a great team.

It's just interesting that if you start to fast forward to like what it'll look like in a short series that somebody like Bob Miller could have outsides importance to this team. Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. He'll be very important in a playoff rotation, at least as the roster is currently constructed and as far as those concerns about the Dodgers offense, yeah, they're, they're tied with the Yankees for best WRC plus in baseball, 21% better than league average. They only strike out 21% of the time.

There are, these teams are almost identical by offensive performance. The difference is the Dodgers steal a few more bases. The Yankees hit a few more home runs. That's about it. That's nothing on the margins. I think I might take the Dodgers offense to in terms of I think it's a slightly more diverse offense in terms of approach. You've got some free swingers, You've got some never swingers. You know, you got your Max Muncie, like Max Muncie and Teasker Hernandez could not be

more different. And then you have you have the like the kind of perfect players like Betts and Freeman that make contact and make powerful contact and like, you know, they fit in any lineup. But do you have these like really interesting pieces around them that are kind of more different than the than the Yankees, maybe? Yeah, I think that's a good way to look at it. We've talked about that lineup diversity just being more challenging group of hitters to navigate because you do different things

at the plate. I think the Dodgers do that very well. But I think the Yankees are better than they have been in the past in that regard. I think that's sort of where the Alex Verdugo acquisition during the off season. The Volpe swing change makes him more of a contact guy. Yeah, but you kind of get overshadowed when Juan Soto also gets acquired, so it's fine.

But to have another guy in the lineup that's a low K percentage, tough plate appearance, that's good for a team that occasionally floats into that too much swing and miss sort of territory. Other injury news to get through here real quick. Corbin Carroll headed for an MRI. I haven't seen the results of that yet. It's on his oblique. I kind of thought, well, at least it's not his shoulder.

And he was just maybe starting to look a little more like Corbin Carroll the last two weeks. No homers in that line. Yeah, it's more like Corbin Carroll the last two weeks. No homers in that line. Yeah, it's a 407 OBP the last 14 days, zero homers, three steals, 14 runs, couple of RBIs in there as well. So it's still not quite right. I did end up lowering Carroll to the same spot as CJ Abrams in the makeshift rankings as I'm putting those together.

I think those players are extremely similar in terms of my categorical expectations right now. Now that Carroll had picked up this injury over the weekend, I think you flip them. I think you have to take CJ Abrams over Carroll rest of season just because this, even if this is a day to day thing, yeah, you're just worried about this being another ailment aside from shoulder stuff. And Corbin Carroll showed up on the do not buy by Lodis. The don't buy the don't buy list. I don't know. It's these kind of players are really difficult for me

because you have it. You have somewhat of an established track record. You have things that your eyes tell you. We're like, this is a dynamic young player with with speed and power. And then the peripherals are just like awful. Right now, this is not really anything to hold on to with them, you know? I think at this point, I'm I'm I'm on the don't buy low for this season. But I think I'm still on the buy low in keepers.

You're still on the if I'm not playing for right now, I can make a deal and maybe get a player that would have been almost untradable this time last summer before the pre all star break shoulder stuff kind of popped up and changed everything we've seen for most of the last calendar year for Corbin Carroll. Trey Turner's back for the Phillies by the way, kind of amazing that they played so well while he was gone. But he just didn't even, he almost didn't notice unless he was on your team. You didn't notice because the Phillies have been unbelievable. Edmundo Sosa would simply play less as a result of Turner's return. And they're dealing with another injury right now. JT Real Mudo down. I don't think we talked about that last week because of the timing of the injury,

but he had meniscus surgery. So that's going to take him out for a little while. There was some talk locally about moving Turner to the outfield because Edmundo Sosa had played so well that got shouted down a little bit in the blogosphere. I don't know how terrible of an idea it is considering that. Okay, so some projections have Sosa for 6% better than league average, some for just slightly below league average. If he, and right now he's 136 WRC plus and showing more power than we've ever seen. That could just be a small sample at warm mirage, but if he is 10% better than the average and plays a good shortstop.

Maybe it could be time to, to, to put Turner in the, in centerfield because I'm not sure that Johan Rojas is. A league average bat, you know, and maybe your best defensive team right now is Sosa at short Turner and center.

Marsh and Castellanos I guess. He's not very good defensively but that would be your best defensive team. That would be interesting if they went that route worth keeping an eye on. Yeah, I would just watch Sosa's playing time once Turner comes back.

I mean, if there is any if you hear anything about Turner with an outfield glove and you go by Sosa, I think or injury to talk about here, we've got Brian Wu. And it's been kind of a strange month and change for Wu even a little before that I mean he's been dealing with some forearm tightness forearm discomfort. What was it that he like missed the beginning of the season with? Forearm. Yeah so it's been the same thing over and over again. So he got scratched from a start last week he had an MRI that came back clean he's supposed to make his

scheduled start this week and kind of around all of that, he's pitched really well. He said his last four starts, he's gone six innings, he's only given up a total of three earned runs, all of those came in one outing against the Nationals. So three starts where he's given them six scoreless and on and off sort of forearm problems results for the season through six starts have been excellent. I don't know what to do in a situation like this. When we just saw Kyle Bradish go back on the IL with the UCL sprain, and that was what cost him time to begin the season. I always feel like it's inevitable that the thing that keeps nagging at you is going to get worse if you keep trying to push through it.

Even though I think the Mariners are doing everything they reasonably can do, at least from the outside looking in to make sure there's not a more significant problem for Brian Wu. Yeah, I'm a little pessimistic about his health. And here's the weird reason behind it for me. He threw his slider like 30% of the time last year, and he's throwing it like 5% of the time this year. Like I know that some of this might be you know outcome based like he's getting better outcomes maybe he shouldn't throw the slider that much but you know paired with the injury thing I'm like what if he's not throwing the breaking balls because they don't feel good. It would be a very

logical explanation because by results the results, the slider wasn't a bad pitch for him last year, was it? No, I think it was by season here. Let me see. What do you, what do you do? The slider had a three 48 slugging. I guess, I mean, a two 94 robo like this. It's pretty good.

And a 33% with Ray. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was a good pitch for I remember looking at him in the winter and nothing nothing seemed like and it's not like he replaced it with another secondary. He's just been throwing a ton of fastballs. Yeah. This is weird. I think you just you when they you just happy to get a start from Brian. just you when they you just happy to get a start from Brian.

And what else can you do? You're not going to drop them preemptively. And it just seems like it's headed towards some injury. Right. It's unfortunate, but that's just the on a good off again nature. It's been a little bit of a roller coaster is trying to get them healthy and into each of his starts throughout this season. Let's get to some hitter rankings movers. I find that a group of players right now that I have the most difficulty with

are the air quotes new players in the player pool. It's guys that we've seen for a little while this year, who maybe didn't have a big league track record prior to this season, or if they did, it was minimal. Like you couldn't really draw any sort of conclusion from it. So you're back in, you're back in like April with these guys basically. Yeah, you're kind of in the early days of the season. You're at least in an earlier part of the calendar with these players

than you are with guys that have been up all season who also have previous years that you can really lean on. David Fry, we talked about him a few weeks ago as someone that just popped up and is putting up great numbers. It's continuing We've seen 51 games now. It's 175 plate appearances. He's popped eight homers. He's stolen four bases a 314 440 543 line very unexpected. He's a two war player said pace to be a six win guy Yeah, like what what can you reasonably expect

the rest of the way for a guy like David Frye, who's just taking this opportunity and really running with it this year in Cleveland and someone who looks quite a bit better in terms of play discipline with a little more time in the big leagues. Right. His first exposure last year was a higher K rate, lower walk rate. He did have a better barrel rate, but I would say the swing decisions have changed a lot. Drastically. And he's still hitting the ball hard.

Even a little more so than he did last year, even though the barrel rate came down. There's a ton to like in the profile of David Fry. I will say that the batted ball profile does not super well line up with the home run rave. He has a 5.43 slugging, David Fry does, and a 229 ISO, and he has a 108.5 max EV and 8% barrel rate. You know what I mean?

Like, there's a little bit of a gulf between those two numbers. The raw might be exaggerated. Yeah. I think this is a true talent 20 homer hitter. But, is he a true talent 20 homer guy that because of his place in the kind of heart of this Cleveland lineup that's going to be really good? Yeah, really good with run production and has some speed.

And of course, because he's got catcher eligibility, he should be on in all these. Is he a top 10 catcher? Like we're talking single catcher leagues. Yeah, why not? I mean, think about him versus K-Bert Ruiz. I think it's a snap. They would try for people right now.

If you're in a single catcher league, you say, if Fry were somehow still available, yeah, I'll take my chances on Fry. If I'm wrong, I'm not going to be any worse off than I was with K-Bert Ruiz because it just has not worked out the way we thought it would this year for Ruiz. Yeah. Other catchers near the bottom of Moreno. Jeffers. I mean, Reno was on the don't buy list, too.

I think I would take Jeffers over Fry. This is a would you rather I'd still take Jeffers over Fry. OK. I think so. Take Cal Raleigh over Fry. Yeah. And I think with Raleigh, it's the extreme confidence that the playing time is just so safe, his defensive value. I have to say, the Bat X has Frye fifth.

Fifth among catchers the rest of the way. Yeah. That probably takes a couple of injured guys now. That's still impressive regardless. Now that I've seen this, I think I'm gonna tell my son, he's looking for some help here. I think you might have to tell him to in a 16 league, you should pick up David Fry. Yeah.

I think for me, the, the Ryan Jeffers thing probably comes back to a little more power too, like I'll give up the average from Fry for that higher power ceiling. I actually think we've seen consistent power from Ryan Jeffers as a shared catcher for a long time. Double digit barrel rates every single year. He's been in the big leagues. That to me is a little bit of a difference maker, but it's not a ridiculous question at all. Yeah, I have, you know, so that's you have actually some numbers

here with Addison Barger and Spencer Horowitz. You know, you're you don't even know. Like what the playing pattern is, you know, like you don't have enough bad balls to really say anything. And it's you're kind of looking at the depth chart, trying to figure it out. I think, I think Horwitz is the second baseman mostly, and Schneider is the left fielder and Varsho is the center fielder and Springer is the DH. Sometimes right fielder.

I think they're still going to play Springer in the outfield because Turner, Justin Turner is really more of the defensively. But then you have to ask yourself, is Barger the third baseman? And he played right field on Sunday, right on Saturday, played right on Sunday. I would say that Barger has the has less of a hold on his job than Horowitz. I would agree. Yep. Horowitz is a little bit more boring, but maybe higher floor because he's demonstrated the ability to make contact and

had averageish power at most stops. So you're hoping for sort of a polished hitter that keeps the lineup moving that, you know, is five-6% better than league average just by making contact and having it be non-zero power. Whereas Barger, I think, has a little bit more of a lower floor, higher ceiling situation, which is what is this strikeout rate going to look like? We actually have no idea. If you look at his minor league numbers, Addison barger, he has 33% strikeout rates in big samples and he has, you know, 19% strikeout rates in big

samples. And so, you know, some of that 19% is more recent, so maybe you think, oh, he made an adjustment, but then he comes to big leagues and he's been whiffing a little bit in the small sample we've gotten. If he whiffs more like 30%, then he has to have the upper reaches of his power, which means he has to get to that power quickly or he's back down again, is how I read it. Yeah, Barger's done a nice job whittling away at that swing and miss though. Like if you look back at 21, early 2022, and you look at that profile, I think you'd have a lot more concern about the strikeout rate going completely through the roof. Whereas now I look at him and say, OK, it might be a little bit high.

It might be twenty eight percent, thirty percent, something in that range, but something you could live with if he's getting to the power consistently is challenging because I think in some ways Horvitz is the safer real life player. And the fact they're leading him off, he could be a table setter for them. If that lineup gets going, that could make him valuable. But Barger, I think, has that power speed combo that we gravitate toward a little bit more. We're maybe looking at the high 20s. Horan might be a really boring fantasy. Yeah. So do you want the guy that's more likely to keep the job? Or do you want the guy that's more likely to, you know, do categorical

damage for us. And also, like, how do you rank that? It's where it's like, you know, 80% likely to be boring versus like 30% likely to be outstanding. Placement on a list does not convey all that information, but that's what I find. Like when I do these in season updates, I'm like, this is why this takes so long.

Cause I'm like, I think this makes sense. Then I look at it again. I'm like, no, that's not even close. Try again. And projections aren't that helpful here. And you know, you're, you're trying to forecast playing time on a projection that skills wise is maybe a little wobbly too, because the inputs are limited because of

the up and down. So played appearances are at the heart of every difference in opinion. I mean, that's why I picked Elliott of the cruise because I just thought there's no way he's getting 500 plate appearances. I don't know why you guys are projecting for that. I think the other guy that's fun to try and place here is a little easier to start to figure out. It's David Hamilton. He gets occasional days off against lefties. But if you look back, I think he started seven of the last eight games as this new week begins.

He's moved to a more prominent spot in the lineup and was running wild on the Yankees on Sunday night. And he's also he's survived a challenge. I don't know if you noticed this, but there was a moment where they were like, sit down. Raffaello is going to play some shortstop, right? And then he didn't. So I just think that's kind of like maybe he's there shortstop. And and I've I've I've talked a lot about this on this podcast already.

You know, like he's their shortstop. That's already a big deal. I also think that given a 9% swing strike rate, a 25% strikeout rate for David Hamilton seems a little bit outsized. I think he could actually whittle that away a little bit. Right. The bat of ball power is not why you pick him up,

but it's not zero zero. He could hit maybe 10 homers in a season. It looks like it's still 40. He's still more more than that. He's 18 for 19 already with just 150 plate appearances. So this player profile was very different in the in the previous rules for for disengagement in the smaller bases. I would not have been in on this guy at all probably in those rules.

I would have been with like more of a 10 homer 30 steel ceiling, but Nick knowing that it could be five homers instead of 10. And if he got through a stretch where he's just not hitting enough, he's not going to steal bases because he's not on base enough. But I think David Hamilton does enough things well where he becomes like very shadow league relevant in places where he wasn't previously. And it's pretty amazing because he runs so much that it elevates his profile to that level. But also that lineup position has changed a little bit too. He's moved up in the order a lot in the past week. I think he's had four starts where he's hit second.

So that opens up some opportunities for him as well. It is interesting that when David Hamilton takes a seat, that's when Raffaella plays shortstop. So basically against lefties, Raffaella is the shortstop. And against righties, it's David Hamilton. And I think that could change. But there's, it's worth pointing out that the projections, this is a lowdom situation. The bad ex has David Hamilton as the 32nd best shortstop going forward.

Some of that is played appearances. They have 222 for David Hamilton and something like 307 for Geraldo Perdomo, who's right ahead of him in the rankings. And so if you gave David Hampton more like 330, I'm sure he would move past Bryce Turang who's 24th, but he would be in that Mason Wind Bryce Turang, you know, low 20s, part of the rankings, still low to me for me. I mean, you're kind of maybe buying him for a need

rather than thinking that he's a better shortstop than Zach Neto or Nico Horner, who's healthy when he's healthy, you know? Yeah, and I think you could, I think that Turing categorical comp is fair. Terang's playing time is safer at this point just because he's been up longer and, you know, plays gold glove defense at second base.

That's extra weight. And I wonder, like, is the ceiling for a player like Terang and perhaps like David Hamilton will know more about him as he spends more time in the big leagues. Is it fair to put it at the level of, I don't know what Andres Jimenez did two seasons ago or what Bryson Stott did last year. Like a good Tommy Edmunds season? Yeah, like these players tend to top out mostly around like pick 75 during a fresh draft season.

So if you did a second chance draft, maybe things would be a little bit different. I don't see a power profile in here where they like, you know, turn into Ramirez or Lindor or something, you know, where they add that power aspect and make themselves, you know, a top three rounder or something. So I don't know if I'm reading between the lines

of what you're saying, but on some level, you know, these types could be sell highs in dynasties and stuff. They just seem like a Mason win. Like what is a peak Mason win season look like? And will somebody else maybe value that higher than than you would? I think when maybe has a little more power, not a lot though. I mean, the scouting grades, 35 present, 50 game power for the future, 40 present, 50 raw for the future. The max EVs are, you know, there's a little up and down

because they're smaller samples, but they're similar. Yeah. So I think it is that cluster is probably more his ceiling. That's still a really good outcome. If that's what you are as a player, and that's the kind of guy you get off the waiver wire or in the case of Mason Wynn, someone you got with one of your last five,

one of your last seven picks in a lot of mixed leagues, you're really happy getting those players there because you didn't pay a fifth round pick or a sixth round pick to get a good average. But if you're like a first, you know, if you're a team that's in competition for winning it all and you got win on your team, like it might be an acceptable loss for, you know, plugging every hole, the holes you need. Yeah.

I wonder what the stolen base ceiling is for when he's not running at quite the same clip as even David Hamilton so far. Right. But he's eight for 11 and he's getting on base at a three 39 rate. That's fine. That's good. Especially for his first full season in the big leagues. This is a good overall year. Now, the other way I would look at it, the other player that kind of fits in that bucket is Nico Horner. I just think that average in speed over everything else, I don't I don't like paying the premium for those players because I think they are somewhat findable in season.

They tend to emerge because speed is easier to generate now in the big league. Stolen bases are not as difficult. We know that it's been very clear now this season and last that the new rules just completely change that position or that category. And yeah, it's just it's more yeah, some bases available. Yeah, it's like, you know, in 2019, how did you value in 2019 a guy who hit 250 with like 28 homers? Right, they were relatively easy to find.

So they just weren't as good. Yeah, you needed more power, but everybody was able to just get it from their fourth or fifth outfielder or their corner. Like it just, it was there. It was, it was abundant. So that's, that's sort of where I'm at with this, this kind of a player profile. Like, yeah, that that's the ceiling. And then where do you stop along the way?

Uh, Hamilton versus, I actually found Hamilton versus Carlos Correa was the debate in my head that I was kicking around because Correa doesn't steal bases. Correa is such a strange player. I like him. I see the real. I have Carlos Correa right ahead of Mason Lin. Yeah. I think they are fully acknowledging the limitations that come from giving

you nothing in the stolen base category, even though most players give you something. And then there's the also baked in this, this idea that maybe Carlos Correa is not going to be great in batting average. I tend to think the projections are light on Correa's batting average. So that rankings a tick low. 274 for his career, 308 right now with a high Babbitt for Correa and then 260 in the projections, a lot of them. And he was 291 in 2022.

And I think we know he just wasn't healthy despite playing through it in 2023 when things came down to that 230 level. So I there's there's an interesting thing there that I just an idea. I don't know if we need to flesh it out more. It's definitely off the rundown. But just, you know, Manny Machado right now is playing hurt. And there's, you know, people have like shared images of him, like, you know, sort of loping it to first and not looking great. You know, there is sometimes like, would you rather your guy played hurt or didn't?

I think in the one breath, the people that are. Going to frequently call out the effort of a player, whether it's Manny Machado or otherwise, they might just complain he was more mad than he's not playing than he's not hustling. It's like, well, what do you what do you actually want? And from a production standpoint, though, it's a it's a worthwhile question, I guess from a production standpoint for a real life team, they say is Manny Machado better than Tyler Wade at the plate?

Yeah, it really depends on who is the backup option. How deep is your team? It's like this is why depth matters when your team building is. You can be like, you know what, dude, just take the break. We have a good option. Tyler Wade's not I don't think it necessarily a great option for your fantasy team. I think you would. The shallower league, the more you'd rather they just go on the

high. Machado rankings actually tough right now too, because I don't think his longterm trajectory is quite as bleak as Nolan Aronado is just yet. Yeah. I mean, he's young too. I also can't completely separate the injuries he's dealing with right now from like this guarantee that he'll be healthy in the future.

What if he's just dealing with stuff going forward? And then what if his sort of high pain threshold specifically, Manny Machado has come out and played on ankles that were torn and now I think he's playing with a strained hip flexor that seems pretty obvious when you see him run. It's not good for his production on the field. But if you're in a 15 team league, would you rather have many of the child is sort of limping out there than have to go find a third baseman on the wire right now?

Yeah, I mean, this was a pretty light week on the the wire as we'll get to in just a minute So I feel like the default is I'm definitely holding on to Machado but in leagues where you're trying to get better especially keeper leagues like he a veteran like him despite the track record comes at a nice discount when we're getting close to the midseason point and Things are clearly not right. Yeah, Is he a buy in a keeper thing? It's an opportunity. Yeah. Is he actually going to help get you over the top? Is the second half going to be more like vintage Machado?

Is he the kind of guy that gets the actual break during the all star break that that little run kind of makes him feel better. And then he kind of goes off for two months and changed to close things out. Or is that just wish casting? Yeah. And the projections of course are somewhere in between 260, 15 homers, you know, four stone bases. It's like, it's, it's not going to really, I doubt it looks like that, you know? It's probably better. It's probably better or worse.

I know the distribution is supposed to be like what it is. And my brain's like, no, no, he's either healthy and he's better or he's still hurt and he's worse. Yeah. And the middle is not even, yes, he could be healthier for some stretch and new injury, like whatever new injuries could slow him down at some point. Like I know the projections are supposed to ground. It seems a little bit more like he's going to hit two 80 with 20 homers going

on forward, or he's going to hit two 40 with homers going on forward or he's going to hit 240 with another, you know, 12 homers. Yeah. And then we'll have the off season conversations of, well, is he going to recover? Is he back? Is he a good oatmeal buy? Is he, is he going to be another, I don't know, Rendon type where it's just he's hurt all the time. That's not fair to put anybody, but it's the type of question that comes up when you start to see big time wear and tear pile up and then you worry about more lost time. At least. Oh my God. Did you see what the I think it was Petrillo came up with for Simeon's combined plate appearances last year?

I think it was 900. 900. Yeah, with spring training in the postseason. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. You don't usually see it presented that way. So it's it'd be so jarring if it was on a stat line. Yeah. I don't know. The Machado skills question, though, here's a couple of things that make me think that it's still all generally good.

The Max CV is decent. Right. he's not chasing at some alarming rate. The barrel rate is still within his range over the course of his career it's in the lower end of a range we've seen from him and we know he's dealt with stuff before. His swing strike rate is right where it's been. Still squaring it up enough to get to a 48.2% hard hit rate. The reason the barrel rate's down is because the ground ball rate is up. I don't think that's a permanent. When I looked at it, he was kind of swinging at sliders that were in the zone low, um, maybe in the sort of like protect mode to strike mode, something like that.

And in the past, he's just kind of let those go and waited for something better. It could be something really small like that. And then injury, of course, like if he's not running well, like his bad, it's gonna be great. Yeah, yeah, I think that's what's gonna be funny about the projections going forward is if, you know, 240 something ends up being the final number or even 250 something.

I think projections are gonna really gobble that up from 24 and 23. And what you see spit out for 2025 is going to be on the low side relative to the player he was not that long ago. And that's going to be a story you start to tell yourself when you believe if you believe that he's going to be good open. Buying next year. Yeah. Yeah. He can get back to 270, 280 wouldn't be that big of a surprise. Play everyday guy. Defense is still good. Like I can already tell myself the story of the bounce back.

Of how I picked a Manny Machado in the seventh round next year and profited. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully it's not like the, uh, the Bogart situation as a lot of things reporting towards him being in a good bounce back opportunity. Let's take a look at where the money went this weekend. People chasing some saves in Seattle and Toronto, the other injury we didn't talk about up top,

Yumi Garcia has an elbow injury of unknown severity right now. So we did see Chad Green bids thrown out there. I think that makes a good bit of sense because even if it's a minor elbow injury, which those words don't even go together, unfortunately. Chad Green, an intriguing option to pick up some saves.

What's going on with Romano right now? Trying to get back from his latest IL stint. He threw from 90 feet on the 14th. That was a few days ago too, so. Yeah, they're trying to be careful. It's one of those things where I'm fully on board with Chad Green as a healthy contributor and good pitcher. I don't know how long his stint as closer to be.

It's kind of the same story I told when Jimmy Garcia was available, you know. Like, yeah, fine by him. But so, and for what it's worth, the most of the buys that I've seen in 15 teams leagues for five, 15, 20 bucks. Yeah. Pretty, pretty inexpensive. That's I can get behind that for sure. We, we in the main event put down $15 on him and lost to 25. And that was the biggest number I saw in

my leagues. Out of a thousand. The Ryan Stanek pickups were concentrated at least at 12 teamers, maybe he was already gone in the 15s but I was surprised when I was looking at what the Mariners have been doing with the saves. Andres Munoz does not have a save in June he has made four appearances this month and he's been banged up so that's part of why he hasn't worked that many innings. The back thing has been weird it seems like they've been trying to bring him back I think they're trying to bring him back to the closer role, but it's been weird. They've used him sparingly and like sometimes the first reliever out of the pen. Yeah. And Stanek has four saves in June, including a save in each of his last three appearances.

So on the one hand, it kind of looks like they're messing around again. There was a point when Andres Munoz was probably their best reliever and Paul Seawall was getting the saves. I don't know if we're going back down that road again. Stanik is interesting though, because he's improved the walk rate and he's held it from last year. It's even better than it was a season ago.

But he's not striking as many guys out. Even though he's got a pretty good swinging strike rate So I mean I think it could work for Ryan Stanek But I do wonder if he's got the ceiling of more of like a third tier closer Even if he ends up with more job security than we expected Ryan Stanek is above James McCarthy It's gotta be yeah Ryan Stanek is above. Let's see here.

Kenley Jansen. No, no, no. He's not about Craig Kimbrel. Alexis Diaz. Yeah, you start. That's where you start to think about it. I mean, Alexis Diaz just something does not look right with his command. Yeah, it's all over the place. Command's never been his strength, but him, his brother, both.

When they get when they're not going well, it's a command is like the likely the story. It's been extremely hitable in the zone. He's not getting swing strikes the way he used to. And the walk rates as bad as it's been during any point in Cincinnati for Alexis Diaz. I do think I might like Stanek better than somebody like a Jose Alvarado, because I just have I have no faith in Philadelphia in terms of picking a closer and sticking with it.

They're so good, though. Yeah. But a career high has got 12 already. Alvarado. Yeah. Yeah, I think Alvarado over Stannock for me would be where I'm at right now. Same here. Tanner Scott. Tanner Scott also. He could also just stop closing because he got traded to another team. He's in the Alexis Diaz control is just awful right now.

Position 16% walk rate again and we've seen it from Tanner Scott before. It's not it's not fresh from him. Diaz usually lives in the 12% range. Scott's been here before and now he's back. The ratios have somehow been really good in part because he's just so tough to hit But only eight saves this year for Tanner Scott teams bad could get traded. I Think I'm slight edge Stanek over over Tanner Scott Well, I think we've got a good placement form at least we saw I saw some some big beds for Drew Thorpe.

And Cade Povich. Yeah, I think Cade Povich interest jumped a little bit for two reasons. We saw Kyle Bradish go back down with that UCL sprain, which it feels ominous, knocked him out for a month to begin the season. And Povich went six scoreless against Atlanta, six strikeouts last time out, too. So he pitched well. Thing that kept me away, at least in shallow leagues though, is that you really don't want to use Cade Povich this week. He's got the Yankees.

So you weren't going to pick him up and use him. You had to pick him up and stash him in leagues where he was available. I think also I'm worried that the fastball is bad. 4550 from Fangraphs and 73 stuff plus on a pitch that you know and a stat that that stabilizes quickly and tells you a lot early on. He had a 115 stuff plus on the cutter and in the second start he used the cutter a little bit more but if he goes to the cutter as his primary fastball, he reduces even the little velocity he already had. So he's at 92 with the poopy fastball. He's at 88 with a slightly better cutter. Now he's now he's asked if you're if you're establishing with

the 88 mile an hour cutter, then all of the secondaries, the 82 mile an hour slider, the 76 mile an hour curve, the 76 mile an hour curve, the 85 mile an hour change up, are now playing off the 88. The batter is now starting his swing at 88, you know? And it's not like 92 is that great to begin with, but that's a lower velocity band, so that could affect his outcomes on the secondary pitches. The second start, he looked a lot more like the composed pitcher, um, that, you know, if he's successful, I think it's command and a lot of pitches.

And there is still that ability, but he had a 45, 60 present future command grade, um, and to me, there's just a gulf of, uh, outcomes between those two. If he's more 45 and he's had high walk rates, Povich has had recently, if he's 45 command with a 92 mile an hour fastball that doesn't have good shape, I like, I'm out. I don't think he's gonna be a good, I hate to be so strong about it,

but like that's, if he has 60 command and he has all these other pitches, then maybe it's gonna work. I'm gonna put him more in that Robert Gasser bucket where I like him a little more than you do. And maybe it's kind of like the the Andrew Abbott stuff we talked about on Friday, but with a slightly deeper arsenal and not having to pitch in Cincinnati. He does throw the fastball mostly high. Like he definitely is like living at the top of the zone with that thing.

Yeah. So if that's the location strategy and because he has five total pitches, maybe he can cut that usage down a little bit more, not lean too heavily on the cutter. There's probably a way this can work, but I do think Cade Povich became a lot more important for the 2024 Orioles with that injury news that we got on Kyle Bradish, which never, never good to go back with the same arm injury as we've talked about so many times before. But I think that I wonder, like, what do you think of Thorpe? Would you, I guess, I guess we, it sounds like we both have Thorpe

below Povich then. It's not because I don't think Drew Thorpe can find a way to make it work also, but the team context gap, like if these guys are also in the same tier in terms of general skills and expectations, when a game Thorpe may be very light on wins. And I think there's still going to be some growing pains there, despite the success he's had really at every minor league stop. Because even if someone I like change up, it's not, you know,

he has to figure out how to pitch backwards off a change up, which is not easy. And I just think I don't want to be there absorbing the ratio damage while he learns that. I think he can learn that. But he's going to do it on a bad team where you're just not going to get a lot of help in the interim. So I hope it works for him.

I'm not as excited about Drew Thorpe in the short term as other people seem to have been with their bids. But DJ Hers, this made me wonder like do the Nationals have something going on with their pitching? It's not the first National starter we've had pop up and and perform really well unexpectedly. 13K is yeah, okay, it was against the Marlins. 13K is no walks, one hit in six innings for DJ Herz over the weekend. So that got people excited, understandably so. We're looking for pitching in every corner. This was a pretty minor trade.

They got him from the Cubs, I believe it was last summer. And you look at some of the numbers he put up after being brought over to the Nats organization, a 255 ERA, a 113 with 53 Ks and 35 and a third innings at AA. This year at AAA, the walk rate jumped to 19%. We've seen high walk rates from him. We've talked about high walk rate starters and where it starts to break down. But man, DJ Herz misses a lot of bats.

And it seems like minor league hitters at least couldn't really ever square him up because he's rarely had problems with home runs as well. So what do you think the next few months brings for DJ Hers? Could it be like a little bit of ABS, you know, jumping his walk rate to 19% and he's actually more like a 13% 14% guy true talent hers in terms of walk rate if he is that's right on the line of doable that's you know what we could name the line after Edward Cabrera maybe and so you know then you start to think well is he getting better framing now? And is he away from ABS?

And like, could he have a 10% walk rate? If you could have a 10% walk rate, then I would predict success for him. But it is hard to look at, you know, 14 innings and say he's figured out his command. Yeah, I didn't have the strong urge to get him everywhere I could because I don't know what's coming next. I felt like everybody I looked at as a possible drop wasn't an obvious like, okay, DJ Herz is an upgrade. Plus his next start is at Colorado against the Rockies.

And I just thought, I don't want to stash him. I'm not sure enough to stash him. The start after that's on the road at San Diego, you have to feel good enough to use him in that spot. I think by by deep league standards, you'd probably take your chance on that. Almost regardless what happens in Colorado. But yeah, I didn't see that coming at all from DJ Hers. I don't know if anybody did I bought a couple shares of a Player that I've seen zero buzz about but has two starts this week

Carson spires and The what I like about him is the command grade and the command grades that he's been given in The command grade that he's been given and the walk rates and the location plus don't all line up. So I think there is actually a good command in Carson Spires. And the thing that I really like, even though the stuff plus is not great, is he has three fastballs. He has three distinct fastballs of different shapes.

He's going to be able to throw those in the you know only to the right platoon side. I he's gonna have a fastball strategy no matter if you're lefty or righty and he's gonna mix all three of those up in ways that are gonna keep batteries off balance. And he had really good results at triple a where the ABS was. And he had really good results at triple a where the abs was and i think he's just sort of a maturing twenty six year old lower ceiling. But maybe a higher floor than the projections are suggesting they're all saying a five year and i don't know this is this is somebody who's gonna walk the tight tight rope for me, I think. Yeah, I think he's pretty interesting in this profile. It gives me the Zach Littell vibes now. I got to walk is good. No runs, couple of good pitches, you know, might come out, just chew up five,

sometimes six innings and not give up much. And that is really nice to have in your back pocket, given some of the. Problems they had, we said it on it on Friday, Graham Ashcraft being a AAA right now is a big part of why the door's open for Carson Spires. I would love to know, I have not had a chance to dig into this yet, but something seemingly changed for him when he went back to AA for the second time.

And he's a little old for the level anyway, because he had a major home run issue in 2022. The K's spiked. Yeah, the K's came up, the Wocs came up too, but he struck more guys out, didn't have a home run problem anymore, just got a lot better year over year. And usually we're not that excited about 24 year olds that didn't do well at AA getting better when they go back to that level, but he looks like a different pitcher since. Pitching is so nonlinear for me.

People can turn on a dime. It could be something as simple as he added that third fastball. Like what if he added the cutter, you know, on returning to double A that year? And now all of a sudden he has three fastballs and it's like it all starts to work out, you know what I mean? Mm hmm. So I. I know age. I'm not I'm, I'm not poopooing agent level. Agent level is a very important part of analysis.

I just think it may be slightly less important for pitchers. Because you're just asking whether or not they have an arsenal that works. You know, that's like, that's the real question. I will once again ask that you know where pitchers are coming from. Like it's every corner, right? Yeah, like they're coming from? It's every corner right now. They're coming from all over the place and we're seeing converted relievers from college

become good starters as pros. Bryce Miller, my God. Smaller college programs, Indie Ball. He was a non-drafted FA in that 2020 draft where once the first five rounds went, you could decide where you signed. So he signed with Cincinnati in 2020 when Kyle Bodie was there. So he chose the Reds. Yeah, that five round draft.

That was just so, so weird in 2020 from the drop side. A lot of injuries. I saw Christian Carnassi on Strand, Bradish, Ben Brown injury news on him going to the weekend. Henry Davis is hurt again. A bunch of those guys got dropped. But did you have any tough cuts? Any healthy tough cuts from the weekend? I finally dropped Mim J. Melendez in one league. Talk last week convinced you, huh? Yeah. Then he had a grand slam like on the Sunday or something, and I was like,

should I? I might make one that'll hurt me later. I did drop Blaze Alexander. He's playing third base a little bit more. There's outside chance he takes that third base job. And I just dropped him for Spencer Horowitz. That would be dumb. And then.

Yeah, no, no big drops. One name that I saw on the list that would have been difficult for me that I ended up keeping and I saw on your drops list was Tyler Freeman. I'm happy with Tyler Freeman and what he has done for my teams. I'm happy with his peripherals but I will say that like you know that May when he was hitting 239 I thought we could get we could push this boulder up the hill to the point where he was hitting 260 with 15-15, right? I did think the batting average was going in the right direction.

June, he's hitting 225 again. And I don't really have a reason for it. I mean, when I see stuff like this, I'm like, oh, he must have a 50% fly ball rate. No. Oh, he must be like, be like really weakled with the with hitting the ball. And like, he's not amazing there, but 38% hard hit 109 max EV 5% bell rate. That's non zero power. So it's not he's noodling the ball. Oh, then he strikes out too much. No, he doesn't try out too much. So I do not know why he can't hit for a good average. but I guess most people are just deciding he can't which I don't blame them

It's been three months now almost of 220 batting average Yeah, I don't know if it's because maybe he got one day off in that weekend series He got a day off the week before but he's playing a ton Tyler Freeman's been a huge part of the guardian center like defensively He's stealing homers and like, they're playing him at the top of the lineup too. Right, I think his playing time is still pretty sticky. I think the questions about his skills are not going away. And I will use this as my opportunity for the 26th time

this season to remind everybody that a 98 WRC plus can come from a 223 313 363 hitter. So the environment, the environment, the environment, it is so frustrating, but it is the way things are. I mean, if you double up what he's done so far, 12 homers, 16 steals, 70 runs, 54 RBI's that'd be 124 games. We'll probably be a little more than that. He'll be a productive in the auction calculator at the end of the year.

He'd be a productive player. He would be about zero. Six dollar player or something at the end of the year in 15 team leagues and multi-positional eligibility is nice and where he's hitting in the order, I think would be enough where, you know, I don't know, what are you chasing? And so Jared Kellnick got picked up by a bunch of people because with Michael Harris down, Kellnick let off a couple of times and homered him back to back games over the weekend.

Like is, is that where you're at for a would you rather like, do you want the. The steady Eddie from Tyler Freeman versus the, Hey, Jared Kellnick could still be the guy we hoped he was. Yeah. Um, we did a, uh, a pickup in the main event, uh, Jorge Mateo. We did a pick up in the main event, Jorge Mateo. They've been running through options at second base and it's starting to look like it's Jorge Mateo's job. The guy that we were sure would end up either being a clear backup or getting bumped off the roster is still hanging on. He didn't play Saturday or Sunday. He didn't get hurt again, did he?

I know Tuesday was his first game back from the IL. He started it short that day and he started three consecutive games in the second. Just as Mateo's not in the starting lineup for Sunday's game, Rocco Vacco reports. So he just reported that he's not in the lineup. Okay. Well yeah, but there's no, I think it was just,

there was no reason given. Yeah, I know. No setbacks or anything. They went Westberg at second, Henderson, yeah, there's no, I think it was just, there was no reason given. Yeah, no setbacks or anything. They went Westberg at second, Henderson at short, Ramon Arias at third, and those were against righties and two of those four starts for Mateo did come against lefties. So I still think his, his playing time might be a little lighter than every day, even if he's a bigger part of the plan that we thought. Yeah. We also have Mullins on that team.

So I think part of us, of what we're doing is just trying to maybe have the right guy when the dust settles because Mullins like has been showing these little signs of life and he had this great slide. I don't know if you saw it, but he had this great slide in the 10th inning or the was in the ninth inning just to tie it or something but He does have hits in five straight games such a moments signs of life

I mean the projection for the rest of the season is still good It's a big part of why I'm having a hard time lowering him like as much as some people would want me to The rest of season projection still calls for what? 12 homers, 19 steals from the bat X. 232, 296, 405. Guess what? It's a 101 WRC plus. Yeah.

He's I hate that game. It's the worst game. Yeah. And his defense is keeping on the field. I mean, that was the one thing that has helped me hold on to him. And in the deeper leagues has just been like he's playing, you know. And I know that they there's been some sitting, but it kind of seems like now he's starting against righties and. Perculating a little bit.

It's one of those calls that I thought was a good one when you made it, and I don't know why it's gone this badly for Cedric Mullins so far in 2024. And those little glimmers of hope are just enough to keep you in at times when you might might have otherwise considered getting an upgrade or trying to get an upgrade off of the wire. Oh, for Fido seems like a goodbye with the Jose Bray news. Right. And then he got an option. But he's not he's not in the big leagues right now. They had to wait to bring him back, right? And then he got an option. He had to fade. But he's not he's not in the big leagues right now.

They had to wait to bring him back, right? Because I think you have to stay down for the option. And I'm on the 11th so he can be back in four days. Yeah, it's a 10 day thing unless you're replacing someone who goes on the IL. Hmm. So they're doing a lot of Singleton right now, but I didn't see anybody by Singleton. Nope, I didn't see that either. So maybe the door opens again for Joey Loprofito. We're going to go long episode today, but we've got a lot of great stuff coming up all week.

Got Britt coming back on Tuesday. So we're looking forward to that. You can find Eno on Twitter at EnoSaris. You can find me at Derek VanRyper. Find the pod at rates and barrels. Get a subscription to the athletic at theathSaris. You can find me at Derek VanRiper. Find the pod at ratesandbarrels. Get a subscription to the athletic at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. That's gonna do it for this episode of the pod.

We're back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for watching!