Rates & Barrels - Injury Updates and Spring Training Stats

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

Eno and Al talk about the latest injury updates, including Edwin Díaz’s knee injury, Tony Gonsolin’s return from a sprained ankle and Harrison Bader’s strained oblique. They also consider whether certain spring training stats have meaning, such as Michael Toglia’s playing time and Oscar Colás’ lack of strikeouts. Rundown 1:16 The media reaction to Edwin Díaz’s knee injury 6:05 Implications of Díaz’s injury for the Mets bullpen 9:34 Implications of Díaz’s injury for the reliever pool 15:36 Mark Melancon’s shoulder injury and the Diamondbacks’ bullpen 18:49 Starting pitcher injury updates (Tony Gonsolin, Garrett Whitlock, Ranger Suárez, José Quintana, Cade Cavalli) 36:11 Harrison Bader’s oblique strain and the Yankees’ roster crunch 39:45 Do these spring stats mean anything? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Al on Twitter: @almelchiorBB e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Al Melchior. I am here with Eno Saris. And it being spring training, and I suppose I could just say it being baseball, we do have a lot of injury news. We will be getting to that shortly. We're also going to take a look at some spring training stats and try to figure out what's maybe relevant and what's not because it's spring training. So we do have to be careful about these maybe relevant and what's not because it's spring training. So we do have to be careful about these stats, but there's some interesting ones. So we're

going to consider those in a little bit. So before we dig into all that, just a reminder that if you have not yet subscribed to The Athletic, now's a great time. You can get in the door at $2 a month. Just go to theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. All the draft kit material is there. There's more to come from both me and Eno and everybody else, of course, at The Athletic. So check that out. And Eno, I know it's, again, sort of a broken record. I know we've done some previous episodes on spring training injury updates, and this isn't going to be the last one either. But let's start by talking about the big news from Wednesday night. Edwin Diaz in the World Baseball Championship game, Puerto Rico, with the big win over the Dominican Republic.

But Diaz in the postgame celebration injured injured his knee, and looks bad. I have not seen anything as of this time. Anytime you can't put pressure on it or can't walk off, it's bad, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So he is slated to get tests on Thursday, which is right now when we're recording this. So I've not seen anything yet. But operating in this somewhat of an information void you know what you know one thing though uh there's been a lot of diaper feeling about this and uh some like really

prominent media people calling for the end of the wbc because of this and i think that would just be a real shame i mean uh just watching these games it's it's really interesting to me too because um you know one personality made a reference to where their grandmothers got laid as that's that's the only reason why people are playing in these certain uh for these certain teams but i kind of um think that some of these teams have really had their own personalities you know and uh they sort of seem to come from their cultures a little bit you know like uh it was very different watching Dominican public against Puerto Rico last night than it was watching you know Canada play Mexico or uh you know Israel and you know so I I really thought that there was some kind of cool like different ways the teams were celebrating and

the different ways the teams showed their pride and i think that they like there is really kind of cool it is a little bit like some cultural personalities coming through some some some countries personalities coming through and then everybody seems to really care about it like everyone is really into it and really having a good time and if the players are having such a good time maybe that should be a clue to us that like you know this is a fun thing that should continue and we shouldn't call for an end just because someone got injured we've had injuries with tanning beds i think chad matola's like career was almost ended by a tanning bed uh we've got massage situations with carlos correa we've got uh we had we've had shirt things are we gonna ban shirts

we've had people you know james caprellian hurt himself putting on a shirt jack please i heard himself putting on a shirt i mean you know if we're banning shirts for baseball players i think we could probably get some people on board but uh the general population's not gonna get behind that so uh i think that some of this stuff is overboard and yeah really my general uh takeaway from the wbc has been this is fun you know trout is out here saying this is just a ton of fun and really fun and like he was saying to other players if you're sitting here watching us at home he's probably talking to the american pitchers who aren't there because uh america might be in a little bit better spot if it had some better pitching. But they've got a great lineup.

They'll slug their way through it. And I think the favorites probably Japan, America. Puerto Rico's looking pretty good. Venezuela's looking pretty good. That's my top four. But it's just been really fun to watch, and I think this is just unfortunate. We've had celebration injuries in regular baseball.

We've had injuries. What was it? Clint Barmy's had some deer meat or something? Deer meat. Trying to lug deer meat up a staircase. Life happens, man. That's right. That's not a thing that happens very often.

That one especially. But no, I had the same reaction you know like kendris morales uh and that was that was that i'm trying to remember that was i think it was a playoff game wasn't that i think the pushback would be that like he was celebrating a playoff game so you know that's a more meaningful game and this was celebrating a wbc game but how often does it happen though in any situation not right it doesn't have that often and also you're putting a lot of your own value system on whether this game is meaningless i mean like if edward diaz was celebrating like that the game was not meaningless to him

so uh i don't know i feel like uh i feel like this game was meaningful to the players that were in it and uh it's just an unfortunate thing that happened. Yeah, no, I agree. And I hate to elevate the statements like the one that you referred to. Because to me, it's just so patently ridiculous and even offensive. But yeah, I mean, it clearly is meaningful to the players. It's fun to watch. And, you know, this sort of thing, it's such an overreaction

because this sort of injury just happens so rarely. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's funny too as fantasy guys, like you can't help that part of your brain. You know, like the thing happens and you're like, I wonder who's going to close for the Mets this year. It is the most awkward segue to make in our line of work. So bad.

And I was at a slow draft at the time that it happened, and I immediately clicked over to slow draft to see how many picks till mine. And I was like, oh, 10 picks. Nope, I'm not getting either of them. So, I mean, I think the main contenders for this are pretty obviously David Robertson and Adam Ottavino. The pitching projections that we've got that use Stuff Plus, actually like Ottavino by a third of a run.

He's got like a 3-2-6 six era in this um and a 28 strikeout rate and robertson uh is projected for a three oh there he is three three actually it's a it's a virtual tie uh three three to a three two six and uh robertson actually has a 29.9% strikeout rate, projected strikeout rate. So I'm glad I checked my work on that one because earlier I looked and it said 3-5. I must have been looking at a different Robertson because my inclination, my gut feel is actually Robertson. And my gut feel is that this is going to be a tough situation. I mean, in part right now because we don't know how long Diaz will be out,

but also it strikes me as a situation. It's a bullpen that has some depth. Brooks Raley in the Rays situation, of course, that's, you know, everybody gets saves there. I mean, not literally, but he got, I think, half a dozen last year, and he's a skilled reliever. He's hurt right now, but shouldn't be out for too long. And Drew Smith, you know, so I could see this going a skilled reliever. He's hurt right now, but shouldn't be out for too long.

And Drew Smith, you know, so I could see this going a number of ways. I don't know that Robertson or Adovino would necessarily get a large enough share that it would have been a good move to make that pick, even if you could have. I don't know. It's only been 10 pitches, so it's a very small sample, but the stuff has been good on Robertson in a virtual tie with Pete Fairbanks. He's closed in the past, and I think they'll probably be looking for a one-person solution, especially since, yes, there were some good depth i i but

in terms of like sort of standout guys uh i think it still is adovino and robertson and i think you want adovino uh for your setup guy in this situation so i think that's i that would be where i would put my ducats all right well uh Well, let's see where you put your ducats. If you're saying that he doesn't necessarily, Dave Robertson doesn't necessarily rise to first or second tier, yes. I still think he's probably a third or fourth tier closer. Okay. Well, if we convert that into RP1, RP2 for, let's say, 15 teamers,

would you feel all right about going after Robertson for RP2? Yeah, I think so. But I'd feel better if I got him as a three. Fair enough. There were probably some leagues drafting as if that thing happened. Just click. Robertson, fourth reliever. Well, let's look a little little bit uh more uh macro uh at this because diaz was

and rightfully so considered the top reliever fantasy wise and i think you know you and i have talked about this at least once or twice so far this spring that uh there's been this trend the last couple of years of going very, very early on closers. And now one of the big names is going to fall a lot. So would that change the way that you approach saves in upcoming drafts? And I could see this going at least two different ways that you could say, well, there's a thinning at the top, so might as well wait. Or, you know, more, well, Diaz is gone and maybe there's more interchangeability

once you get past Diaz. So, you know, how do you see this? Well, it definitely impacts the supply. And so we've got less supply. There's nothing you can argue about with that. How you react to a thinning in the supply is also what you're alluded to right exactly you know that just because there's a thing of supply doesn't mean you have to panic um i had a top tier of six that ended with presley but there's a lot of people and and the market has Hader and maybe even

Williams, Devin Williams, in there as a top eight. And I'm trying to avoid Hader and Williams. Hader because of just the hair up his nose, the command that was so bad last year. I would hate to see that come back. And Devin Williams is an injury risk for me. But if you can include those, you still have seven elite pitchers, elite relievers. And I think in most drafts, I am still trying to get one of those, just one of the cheapest ones. And the reason I'm trying to get one of the cheapest ones is just what happened to Edwin Diaz. The reason I'm trying to get one of the cheapest ones is just what happened to Edwin Diaz. Also, just the fickle nature of the closers role.

There are pitchers like Josh Hader who go in and out of it. People dropped Josh Hader last year. It's the one role where there's a stat you've got that just can be completely eradicated, that people are drafting you for, that can be completely eradicated in one decision by a manager you know like yes there are kind of mild straw types that are a lot better at the top of the rotation at the top of the lineup and if the manager says okay now you're the eighth hitter that that will deflate their value but it's not like taking you out of the closers role like you know what i mean that's like you go from I'm happy about having this guy on my team to I'm gonna drop him next week you know and I just think that's way too fickle of the things but you know yes elite closers do have better outcomes than the lower end closers and so I I

generally try to get one of them but yeah with this there's just one less and uh and and so i might be likely to extend my elite six to include hater to sort of replace diaz but i still see six and six means you know you don't you just have to beat half your league uh you just have to get to you know how you just get one of those um and so i'm also now considering other strategies that i hadn't before of just saying you know the pitching plus model does really well with relievers why don't i just get some middle guys i will get so much value like just imagine usually you're taking in order to get one of these elite closers, you're usually taking them in the top four rounds or something. Yeah.

Right? It has to be the top four rounds. Just imagine, instead of taking that elite closer, let's say you started with Woodruff in the second or third, and you double tapped. And by my rankings, you know, in the fourth, where where am i i've got so many times where let me find it but let's say who like who who might be available in the fourth instead of a closer if you've got an adp or a recent draft open again that would be a good idea wouldn't it um where is my rankings? Yeah, well, I'm thinking like Kyle Schwarber is somebody I think I've taken on that.

No, I was thinking starting pitcher. Oh, starting pitcher, okay. You're talking about a different position. But yeah, I think just keep it within pitching. Like you could take an elite closer or you could double tap Woodruff with maybe Shane McClanahan. What do I have? I have Max Scherzer. I was going to say Scherzer, Zach Wheeler.

Or Castillo, Luis Castillo. Do you know the difference between Luis Castillo and a closer? You're talking about like 130 innings. You know? And I've got him projected for a 312 ERA. Yes, closers probably start with a two, but I don't know, man. I think Luis Castillo is worth more than a closer. I would too. And I mean, this is why- In a vacuum. Yeah. I mean, to answer my own question,

I mean, it changes nothing for me because for at least the last couple of years, if not longer, I'm not taking any reliever earlier than the 10th or 11th one that's off the board because they're just going way too early. And you addressed the whole issue of the risk. I mean, there's just way too much volatility for somebody like that, as opposed to, and I'll make the move to a different position, to a Kyle Schwerber, for example. Right.

Who you're just, the volatility there is like, will he hit 210, will he hit 250? Right. The volatility is like, will he hit 210, will he hit 250? Right. The volatility is not, will he hit me 35 dongs or not? Exactly. Exactly. Well, let's go from the- Could the manager do something,

change something about his role where he would not hit me 35 dongs? I mean, you're not sitting couch forward. No, definitely not. Definitely not. So yeah, a whole element of risk that's not there for a lot of players. So, yeah, let's go from what has generally been perceived as the best closer situation to one of the worst.

And that is the Diamondbacks. But there is some relevant news there. Mark Melanson not likely to be active for the start of the season, dealing with the right shoulder injury. So likely starting the year on the season dealing with the right shoulder injury so uh likely starting the year on the il so but kind of a similar type of question you know in that you have um multiple candidates in a bullpen there i know this is one i've not been excited about i don't think you've been excited about it but at least with one person out of the mix does that make it at all more enticing to try to focus in on one just like you were doing with the Mets bullpen now. It's just a little hard to figure out who is any good in that bin.

It's not very good. However, Justin Martinez has raised my eyebrows, and he's got a 111 stuff plus this spring. That's the best in that pen. You know, McGough was a DVR favorite, and I think he has above-average stuff and good locations and looks like a solid reliever. But Martinez has the kind of turn-your-head, triple-digits, closer stuff. This team, I think, is approaching respectability.

That is so mean. I know. I know how that sounds. But come on. If you're an Arizona fan, you know what I mean. You could say worse. Yeah, I couldn't be meaner than that. I think this team is approaching respectability,

and I don't think they'll necessarily play games with keeping Justin Martinez cheap the might one thing is is do they want him as a fireman in the seventh or eighth and McGough just gets you know the final three batters that's a possibility but if you're asking me to bet on the best reliever in this pen I think it's Justin Martinez and I think he's a little bit more interesting now do you think andrew chafin figures into a big piece of that puzzle given that there there are other lefties in the pen um yeah chafin has never been a high stuff guy he's got right now he's got a 94 stuff plus he's not locating well according to Location Plus. It's a 67 pitch sample so it's not even that tiny of a sample.

He's actually had good appearances. Managers use lefty closers half as much as you'd expect given the number of lefties in baseball. You're right. That might have something to do with do they have another lefty and they need that lefty for situational stuff. Um, but the only things that I've found that are sort of, uh, predictive with closing is usually VLO and strikeout rate. So that's why I

picked Robertson in the last one because, you know, stuff, stuff aside, he had the better projected strikeout rate. And, uh, in this case, I'm going to pick Justin Martinez because of the velo mostly and the stuff which would suggest a higher strikeout rate. All righty. Well, again, like I said, not a bullpen that probably many people are going to be excited about, but I thought it was worth going back to it since that situation has changed. Well, let's get to just a whole bunch of pitcher injury updates. We've actually got one hitter update.

We'll get to that. We'll lump the pitchers together. There's just a whole bunch of stuff here. Tony Gonsolin is throwing out to 120 feet and able to put some weight on his sprained left ankle. Per Dave Roberts, that comes from a tweet from the athletics Fabian Ardia. Still no update on Gonsolin's timetable. So is he a worthwhile risk with upside, or are you just scared off by this injury situation?

He's at the nexus of these shift rules. He's maybe the biggest benefit of the shift rules he's maybe the biggest benefit of the shift last year Tony Gonsolin and so I was a little bit out on him my model does not like him on top of that and so I wasn't going to buy any shares

I don't have a do not draft but like I wasn't going to buy any shares unless he dropped. And there's just seemed to be a lot of people who are really into Tony Gonsolin. So I was going to let them have him. This also just makes it hard. I know, I guess this sounds like he might pitch sometime early in the regular

season. And that's actually good because at least you're not buying someone where you have to sit him on your bench the first couple of weeks. So this is, I would consider good news. Yeah. And I, I would,

would absolutely agree. That was the way I was reading it as well. And the ADP is, I mean, it's fairly risk-free, especially if you're talking about 12 team league, NFBC, it's a one 77 ADP. So're talking about 12 team league uh nfbc it's a 177 adp so i don't know i think i think that's that's that's that's one little flaw with adp

is just the fickle nature of it right it's 177 when you have to think i don't i won't have him for opening week and so then i have to sit him so then he's dropping because he's an injured pitcher and i don't want to pick i'm not picking an injured pitcher who's currently injured. Now with this news, he's not necessarily currently, he's just throwing. And that's why I got Zach Wheeler in like the fifth or something for my main event last year was because he was hurt,

but I'd seen he'd just thrown a bullpen. So, you know, ADP was flagging and he dropped in our league because people thought of him as hurt. And I thought of him as maybe missing his first turn. turn if that he didn't even miss his first turn so uh that's how i see gonsolin is like this adp is going to change and if you are looking at his adp right now don't take it as uh you know written intent well that's a really good point because i'm looking at who's

above him in nfbc right above him is Drew Rasmussen. I mean, there's no way, even with good news, that I'm taking Gonsolin ahead of him. Jeffrey Springs, Pablo Lopez, Jordan Montgomery, Charlie Morton. So, yeah, there's not a lot of room, if any room, really, for Gonsolin to move up. I think he's hanging out there. I think that's where he should be. Yeah, exactly.

So, excellent point there. Whoa, what are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking? Yeah, exactly. So excellent point there. tech pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment. That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40,294. Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca. Treat yourself to Tim's new Fudge Brownie Lattes. Made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice-chilled milk, and topped with marble chocolate curls. Now that's music to our ears.

Available hot or iced iced only at Tim's. All right. Garrett Whitlock. He made his spring training debut through a couple of innings. Looked good coming back from hip surgery that he had in September. What are your expectations for Whitlock now that he's pitching in games? Yeah, I saw that. I was, it's pitching in games. Yeah, I saw that. It was two innings?

Yeah. Two and a third? That's a really interesting number because it's a little one I would have thought in a debut. I mean, there's a lot of guys who debut in spring with one, right? Right. And so he's trying to catch up a little bit, I think, to other guys that are pitching for rotation spots.

I really like him, and I think he can be a starting pitcher, and I think the Red Sox sort of need him, especially with Paxton already going down with injury. He's got an injured hamstring. So where is Paxton going to come back? Is he going to come back with two come back is he gonna come back with two innings if he comes back with two innings it's gonna be a race to see who's who's ready first and brian bayo has options um and so uh he's scheduled to throw two innings of his own

yesterday it looks like uh so they're all kind of stuck at two innings they're all sort of in the battle i would say those three are in a battle for two spots uh how how matters you know cutter crawford has an option i would assume that the guys with options go down because this is a team that does not want to release anyone right this is a team that wants to that you, any team run by Heimblum wants to hold on to their assets as long as possible. So I would assume, actually, that Bayo goes down. And Whitlock does have options, but I do think he's the best pitcher of the sort of Bayo, Houck, Cutter, Crawford group. So I think the opening day rotation is Pavetta, Kluber, Sale, Paxton, and Whitlock. And that makes Whitlock a good pick near the end of your drafts.

Okay, interesting. So Hauk not making that cut. There's something about his pitch mix that kind of goes relieverish to me. pitch mix that kind of goes reliever-ish to me. You know, I know that it looks very salient from the right side, but he just has fairly large platoon splits that I think are supported by the types of pitches he throws. Now, if he's going to throw the splitter a lot, you know, maybe that'll change

his outcomes, but I want to see something here. He allowed a.338 Woba against lefties last year and a.230 against righties. That's an aggressive platoon split. We're talking about a.400 slugging to lefties and a.220 slugging to righties. And that sort of thing is just kind of hard to get by. You can have teams load your, their lineups as lefties. And it's something that people say about slots like that. Yeah. Yeah.

No, that's not like it has. Yeah. And definitely a vulnerability. Well, let's talk a little bit about Rangeranger suarez and i drafted him you know with you in mind if you're wondering why why that's the case we had a conversation i want to say maybe two three weeks ago on the show and you were talking about kyle gibson as kind of a

a type of pitcher that you want to target towards the end of the draft you know for for safety and i decided late innings guys exactly so i decided you know what i like ranger suarez as that is that type of pitcher and as as happens you know in spring trade we were just talking about this before we started recording thanks you know took them and then i think it was the the next day or maybe even later the same day uh the reports came out about the forearm issue. So dealing with some tenderness there. Did play catch on Wednesday, is expected to move on to long toss on Thursday. Still a chance that Suarez could be ready for the first week of the season, but that being a forearm injury

really, really worries me. I've shied away since then. I imagine I will in my remaining drafts. then. I imagine I will in my remaining drafts. So is that overly cautious? They are having a heck of a time in that camp. Let's see. I think Christopher Sanchez was shut down with left tricep soreness. Andrew Painter,

we don't know yet. Maybe UCL surgery, maybe rest and rehab. We'll see on that one. I thought there was a little bit more bad news. But in any case, those two alone were going to be the five and six. And so now Bailey Falter is the the five and i don't know who the six is so this is getting a little bit hairy in philadelphia they also i think are missing their number two catcher garrett stubbs and their number three catcher rafael marchand so things are not hunky-dory there unless Scott Kingery can catch. The solution, I don't

know what it is. I would hold Suarez a little bit longer. We're not playing games yet. We're not playing fantasy yet. So it's just a question of of waiting longer i'm i'm not drafting too many shares of suarez but sometimes he drafts he drops a little bit further than he should because he does seem like a credible uh major league starter that should have like maybe a three a high three zra and uh get some wins it's a tough park but you know get some wins keeps the ball down though yeah that's true good ground ball right and uh i would just hold uh in terms of drafting him uh i might i might hold off on drafting him right now yeah no i i have been tender forearm is like uh-oh next news might be tj so yeah that that is my worry and i was

wondering about that uh you know that pecking order you know six seven starters so you had the same reaction tell you that i did but i want to talk about falter a little bit more because you know i i think this does solidify his position in the rotation more but is that is that enough to make him trustworthy as like a an end game target. He's a low stuff guy that has good command of a fair amount of pitches. My model says it's a 466 ERA, though, with that park. He has a pretty extreme over-the-top release point, though. I do think my model captures that sort of stuff, but it's possible it doesn't. So he's got some deception to him that maybe my model captures that sort of stuff, but, it's possible it doesn't. So he's,

he's got some, some deception to him that maybe my model doesn't get. If you love Bailey Falter, then take him as your last pitcher in a 20 team league. I feel like that's, that's, that's the nicest. You're being mean again.

You know, I am being mean again. I'm being mean again. But then I told Falter something. I was like, Oh, my model says your changeup is the best pitch. And he goes, it's my worst pitch. And I hate it.

So like he's wide-eyed. He's open-eyed about his own talent level. I don't think he would tell you he's the best pitcher in the major leagues or anything. Also, that just park that park is tough man i don't think i really want to buy into that park unless it's arinola and zach wheeler on the top end yeah well then again that was part of what i liked about suarez pre-injury because i do trust him to avoid the home run uh you know even though he's not a huge whiffs guy or anything so uh well let's go on to the Mets.

This is not really an information void here. We know that Jose Quintana is going to miss at least half of the season. He's having rib surgery on Friday. Seems kind of gruesome. They thought it was cancer, and then they said it's not cancer, but he still needs to have like a bone graft. I don't know. Yeah, that's a tough one.

Yeah, it really is. I know who I want, though. Well, and I think I know who you want, too, but go ahead, lay it on us. I'm all in on Tyler McGill. I got a.367 ERA for him and a 26% strikeout rate with a projected 104 stuff. Peterson I have with a 4 ERA and a 24%

strikeout rate on 92 stuff plus projected stuff plus. So McGill's also been looking good this I think that he's – which is the right one? Ty Lohr is the Met. Correct. Now you're getting me. Actually, that's interesting. They're about equal this spring. they're about equal this spring but that's 123 pitches from Peterson and 94 from McGill

so I'm going to rely on last year's numbers a little bit to separate them okay and when do you feel like it's appropriate to get them in the queue I have them around the interesting uh sixth pitchers and ahead of the less interesting fifth pitchers um so for example um around 108 Bailey Ober 107 Nick Pavetta right in there and I have them ahead of

of fifth starting pitchers I don't like as much like Michael Lorenzen or you say Kikuchi or Cole Irvin types you know Paul Blackburn types just because I think Magiel might be the type that you can play all the time whereas uh with lorenzen and blackburn i would want to only play them at home so that especially in 12 teamers that's streaming and in 15 teamers that's the kind of guy where

you're you have to up and down and maybe drop him maybe pick him up maybe streamer whereas i feel like miguel is a little bit more like maybe i'm starting him 75 of the time all right well uh bad news for the nationals and especially for cape cavalli uh tommy john surgery for him so that's uh you know that's that's a disappointing thing because uh he he was appeared to be a lock for that rotation a lot of promise there is there anybody left in the nationals rotation who interests you at this point? Now I'm being mean. Yeah. Wow, this is a mean podcast.

I've never been in on Josiah Gray. I want to check in on his sping if I've got it. Same situation. want to check in on his uh sping if i've got it um uh same same situation 95 stuff plus not many pitches in the sample um it's just a bad fastball and i'm waiting on him he has to change the fastball shape and what i'm saying what i'm thinking about pitching development is that if there's something immutable, I think, and unchangeable and uncoachable, the two things that I think might be it are fastball shape and command. And now, of course, everything you can shave around the edges, you can do this, you can do that. I think you could change your fastball. You could say, okay, we're going to go with a cutter. We're

going to go with a cut fastball. We're going to go sinker you can change it but in terms of like really like hey this guy added three inches of ride to his four seamer i don't think that happens i don't think it happens ever and if it does happen i think it's very limited sample and so josiah gray just has a bit of a dead zone fastball and he has two good breaking balls i don't know maybe he can do a cutter maybe he can do a sinker maybe he can change his fastball type i don't trust the nationals to find that right now um so that's why i have been out on him uh and then i like some of what gore has gore mckenzie gore actually has a good fastball shape the problem right now is that his secondary pitches are just not really there. Let me see if I've got that open. But I've got like a 93 stuff plus this spring.

That's been something that's popped up in the past. Here's her pitch, Mackenzie Gore. Let's see here. Mackenzie Gore. Four-seam fastball, 99 stuff plus. It's been as high as 105 in the past. That's actually pretty good for a four-seam fastball, 99 stuff plus. It's been as high as 105 in the past. That's actually pretty good for four-seam fastball. Then we've got curveball, 81 stuff plus.

Change-up, 69.8. 69, not nice. And then slider, 97 stuff plus. It's not easy to have Slider be under 100 sometimes. So for him, I'm still actually into him long term, and there could be some disruption that makes him good this year. You know what I mean? Like something where he throws his slider harder,

or he changes shape, or he decides to go with the cutter instead of the slider. Goes with the gyro. Somebody teaches him the sweeper, you know? Again, I don't necessarily trust the Nationals to do that, but he also has, I'm sure, advisors privately. You know, a lab he goes to, a pitching lab he goes to. So maybe I like Gore better for next year after an offseason. Or if I see him change his pitch mix during the season, I might jump on him. But that's about it.

That's the best I can do. The best I can do is you're looking for Josiah Gray to throw a different kind of fastball and for Mackenzie Gore to change his secondary mixes. Otherwise, I'm still pretty much hands off on them. Yeah, not a whole lot there. So like I said, a much hands off on them. Yeah, not a whole lot there. So like I said, a whole lot of pitching news. I've just got, well, sort of a cluster of hitter news all on the Yankees. So Harrison Bader is expected to miss six weeks with an oblique strain.

And Isaiah Kiner-Falefa is expected to get some starts in center field this coming weekend and be sort of a super utility player. And that might not sound like a big deal, but he was at least nominally in that shortstop competition with Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe. Of course, Volpe having a fantastic spring. I know a lot of people are rooting for him, but you've got at least a two-man race going on there. And also, I think it's kind of intriguing for Kainer Falefa because I've been looking at him late as a steals source. You know, we're all kind of scraping, you know, through the queue looking,

you know, we're a little short on steals. Where can we go? Is Kainer Falefa going to play enough maybe in this role? He does with the Bader injury, at least for the beginning of the season. So how do you see this all shaking out? You know, infield and outfield are very different skills. I just remember this from Daniel Murphy back in the day. They were trying to find a place to play him in New York.

And I forget who was playing second. They wanted to see if Daniel Murphy could play the outfield. He could not. He could not. Do you think the fact that that kind of it was like obvious pretty quickly i know that's what i was about to say it's like he of all people that maybe hasn't done it before i kind of like he's done everything you know what i mean like i i kind of think that maybe he can do it and i think you know i was looking like, okay, I was telling people on one of these podcasts, if Volpe, you know,

carries an outfield glove out to center with him, then pay attention. Because I couldn't figure out where they were getting their fourth outfielder from. I don't really like Esteban Floreal, you know, especially as a hitter. They can maybe use him as a backup center fielder and use a lot of judge in center so that's still on the table i think i don't think rafael tega's that great i don't think cabrera is a center fielder they just reassigned michael hermasio so you know the list of options there in center are getting thin right now it looks like you know cobbling

together hicks and hicks hicks and judge but if you can put ikf in that picture i think he actually starts to play some because you know hicks cabrera judge stanton uh i think they're all corner outfielders or dhs and so that's four players for three spots with dh right so basically ikf could almost get a starter's workload or you know judge plays in center some days i would say ikf jumps to like a fourth outfielder level that's where i would put him right now and i think that's that's enough, certainly for 15-teamers, I think, to make him relevant, get enough. I mean, he got 531 plate appearances last year. He was a starter for a while.

In Texas, he got 396, 400 plate appearances in 2018. I think something like 400, 450 maybe. So if he gets 450, I think you're talking about like you know four or five home runs and what like 10 15 stolen bases interesting deep league guy because he's a guy you can move around yeah that's that's definitely uh a plus for him to be sure all right well you know i'd said at the outset you know we were going to talk about some spring training stats we've talked about stuff plus i think maybe you've got some. I mean, you've been been dropping stuff. Plus numbers on if you've got any others left in the bag there.

But we've got some kind of more conventional surface type stats that I think are kind of interesting. I'm not convinced that all of these mean anything. But one thing, you know, that that you've brought up repeatedly on the spring training episodes is who's getting a lot of playing time, who's getting a long look. And the player who's accumulated the most plate appearances so far in spring training is Michael Taglia with 47. And pretty good production with those 47 plate appearances hitting 293. He's got a couple of homers. He has struck out 14 times. I don't think we're going to expect him to become you know, become a contact hitter overnight or anything.

It's kind of in line with what I would have expected. But do you think that this bodes well for a bigger role in Colorado? I do have a hard time slotting him in somewhere as a starter. I do think that he's probably maybe a little bit ahead of Nolan Jones. If he's getting more plate appearances than Nolan Jones. And Nolan Jones is having a terrible spring at the plate. Yeah. The problem is that they're talking about Ryan McMahon playing second.

And, oh, by the way, I think there's going to be a bold prediction about Ryan McMahon because he has hit a ball harder than he's ever hit before. And he has the hardest hit ball that's been tracked this spring. Just a little side there. But Alan Trejo is kind of like a I think he's pretty much a fifth infielder type or like a third middle infielder. You know what I mean? So I don't think he's a solution in any position.

So Elohimus Montero, I mean, can you see what positions Togli is playing? I need about a minute, so... But I don't think he's played third before. He's a...

I don't think so either. And by the way just uh minors it's been first and and right and mostly first so is there somebody in the outfield that because a black man is kind of uh you know is listed on the fangraphs death chart as a as a d. They've also got Mike Moustakas in camp and playing pretty well, and he would be a DH. I guess there's an outside chance that, oh, this is what's going to happen. Moustakas is the third baseman. I think this is what's going to happen. Moustakas is the third baseman, rises from the dead.

Blackman plays the outfield. Gritchuk and Daza play center. And Toglia and Krohn split first in DH. Well, that's interesting because I finally pulled up those positional stats. Toglia's played 10 games at first base, by far the most he's played In any position And four games in right

Two games in left One is DH So I would guess Krohn is a little bit more the DH And Toglia's a little bit more the first baseman But I think that's how they make things work Trejo is the super utility guy All around the infield And Daza

I think Grichuk is basically the starter and center, and Daza is the defensive replacement fourth outfielder. It means Blackman's got to play the field. I think that's what happens. All right, well, let's take a look at another piece of data. Jones goes down. Yeah, and I think I could definitely see that. Look at another piece of data in terms of where players are playing.

This one's not a huge surprise, but I think it's interesting. Jake Berger has played 10 games at first base for the White Sox. He has never played first base in the majors or the minors. You could see this coming because the way that the White Sox roster is structured, they don't really have any depth at first base. And I, you know, this wasn't a bold prediction, but it might as well have been one, you know, that I wrote a column where I talked about some players who I thought might be vulnerable to losing playing time. And I thought one of those might be Andrew Vaughn because I just think he hasn't progressed as a hitter the way that,

that I think a lot of people would have expected. That made some people angry. And it did, it did. So that was the one out of all those calls that probably more belonged to the bold predictions column. He was 13% better than league average last year. That's probably enough to float him. I know that the war was below replacement. And maybe he is slated to be, maybe he's headed for DH.

And that's meaningful because so is Eloy Jimenez. And part of, I think, why they let Jose Abreu go was they were like, we cannot have three DHs on one team. And so that puts pressure on Gavin Sheets and Jake Berger to be able to play the field in order to make this team. It also means that dh is crowded it means that vaughn's gonna have to play first base i think that a fair amount of vaughn's negative defensive stats were accrued in the outfield they were absolutely yeah yeah so yeah the hope i think is he's a credible first baseman he He gets up to about two war this year, playing credible defense.

There's always the chance that he breaks out because he does hit the ball hard. He just doesn't pull his barrels. It's way too much the opposite field. That cuts off his power. If he goes and gets the ball, I think he can be a 30-homer hitter. But with his current approach, I don't think he is one.

So I do think it's interesting to sort of point to him as, as, you know, not necessarily all he's, uh, you know, cracked up to be, but I do think he is the first baseman most of the time. And that means if Eloy Jimenez is the DH most of the time, then Berger is trying to be the backup infielder and Sheets is trying to be the backup outfielder. I think there's a little bit of a Berger versus Sheets thing going on. Yeah. So the impact is definitely more for him and finding a way for him to get playing time. But then again, it needs to come at someone's expense. So I just think it's an interesting situation to keep an eye on.

He hits the ball hard. He barrels the ball really well. And his max EV is good. And I know his strikeout rates aren't good. But in the minors, they haven't been as bad. So you could expect him, if he did play, to hit 230, 240 with 25 homer type power. And so I think Jake Berger is kind of an injury away.

If you just hear about an injury to Vaughn, Eloy, Sheets even, I think he's on that roster. All right, all right. Let's stick on that roster. Oscar Colas, who appears to have a starting job, only one strikeout in 34 plate appearances. And so he has managed to convert that into a 364 average with a couple of home runs, so certainly making a strong case.

But I think that's enough plate appearances where it's something to get kind of excited about. Yeah, I mean, the stabilization rate for uh for for strikeout is pretty small uh let me see if i can pull that up real quick so this is this is from derrick card it's old and maybe it's it's not the same but uh it says it stabilizes in a hundred plate appearances okay which and again i don't know that this is apples to apples comparing uh data that i assume is just from the regular season but um yeah i mean he's a third of the way there colossus you said 100 right 100 plate appearances so if you were thinking about his strikeout rate going forward

if let's say you knew his true talent strikeout rate and let's just use his projected strikeout right uh as his true talent so 27 strikeout rate would be his projection what you would do is you would probably take a third of what he's done this spring and and two-thirds of his projection so you would move him by a little bit. You know what I mean? Yeah. But again, that could make a big difference. I mean, if you could just imagine him.

If he's 24 or 25%. You know, Steamer has him at 24%. That's a 255 average with 17 to 20 homers. And that's only in 470 plate appearances. What if he just starts all the time? I mean, he's exciting he's actually pretty exciting yeah i you know there's an outside chance uh for a handful of steals uh he's hit 300 at every spot in the minors of course that comes with huge babbits and

and all that and obviously agent level says he's he's not like a top, top prospect, you know, because he's an A ball at 23 or whatever, 24. That doesn't – he's not a top prospect. And he does not really have much speed, and we'll have to see what his hit tool is like. But players like this sometimes surprise. You think about Jeff McNeil, you know. There's a lot of people when Jeff McNeil is coming up and saying, oh, he's too old, he's too old.

He's not a real prospect. He's not a real prospect, he's not a real prospect, but there are some skills there and they can translate. And opportunity is almost more important than quality sometimes. Yeah. And the opportunity's there for him. Yeah, I'm sorry. Just to play devil's advocate too,

what this reminds me a little bit of is, you know, with the mismatch between what he's done in this initial sample versus what he's done in the minors, Colas last year when anthony santander all he did was walk in april and thought he was you know a completely different player and that and and it came with a tiny chase rate and chase rate supposed to stabilize really well and if you now like go back and you look at the graphs you can do the season i always talk about these the by game seasonal graphs um for uh santander you can throw oh swing on there and you can see that he didn't chase at anything for the first 150 you know 100 or so plate appearances and then he started chasing so you know stabilization you can point to the stabilization rate but if you know if he goes and

then you know reverts back to doing something he did before i don't know what especially if they have a long track record of doing something you know i've learned this lesson so many times i i saw chase rate change on paul de young and i wrote a piece that actually said paul de young is a superstar and there's one guy on twitter who like comes back every three or four months just to make fun of me for that that is that is playing the long game yes it is i hope i hope he comes back this year all right well let's take a look at one other hitter who's uh making more contact than than we would have expected that's reese mcguire also just one strikeout in 26 plate appearances he's hitting 300 with the homer and again didn't want to make too much of this but I think that that's kind of an interesting situation in Boston where you have him and you have Jorge Alfaro and my expectation

has been a fairly even split in playing time but if there's something maybe that happens in spring training that that leans McGuire's way then maybe he becomes more attractive as a second catcher. You know, it's amazing to me. He's in the WBC when he's fighting for a job. He's an NRI. He does not necessarily have a job. I think there was a minor league offer to Jorge Alfaro. Oh, okay.

I think that's right, yeah. But he seems to be, and like fantasy seems to be acting like, you know, he's got that job. I think that's because Connor Wong has options. And so the team is going to say, we can take this credible veteran for now and Connor Wong can work on it. And if Jorge Alfaro stinks for a month or two, then we didn't invest that much and Connor Wong can have his roster spot.

Okay. a month or two, then we didn't invest that much and Connor Wong can have his roster spot. I think Alfaro's got at least a portion of that job. Comparing the two... I don't know, man. McGuire's going to make more contact. He already was before this, but he's not going to have much power.

Alfaro strikes out a lot, but he also got bad pips. Yeah, and he also hits the ball a lot harder. So which one would you rather have? I tend to think that teams would almost rather have the catcher that could run into one. So it's possible that it's a 60-40 in Alfaro's favor, even with the strikeout rate for Maguire. Yeah, I would certainly like to see something happen

where one of them gets a larger share, because at this point it's not really helpful to either of them. And you're right, Alfaro has the higher fantasy upside, because at least there's some power potential there. So yeah, we were talking second catcher impact here at al only deep you know 15 or 15 teams you know if there's 30 catchers uh there's there's some relevance all right all right try not to be mean we're not doing a good job no no i'm, no. I'm trying to turn the tide here. All right, a few pitchers. J.T. Brubaker leading all pitchers in spring training with 20 strikeouts

and just 12 and a third innings and just against three walks. Does this mean anything? And this is including his last start that wasn't amazing? I believe it is because I updated it this morning. I've got, with stats that include last night, I've got a 97 stuff plus, 105 location plus, 103 pitching plus. You know, stuff plus is more predictive, but you know what 97 is? He's 96.6, so he's just there.

But 97 is basically average stuff plus for a starter. So what we're talking about with JT Brubrik right now is an average starter in Pittsburgh. That's useful. I agree. Absolutely. So you take those strikeouts. It's a little bit hard to like,

am I going to roster him for the games I can't play him? Because I'm not necessarily going play like do I want to even in St. Louis St. Louis nice park really tough offense am I gonna play JT Brubaker against St. Louis Arenado and Goldschmidt I don't know I I don't have that much confidence but yeah like the Cubs in Pittsburgh or you know the reds in pittsburgh or whatever like a lot of those in pittsburgh games i want him so that's that's where he's left he's he should be higher in my rankings all right well he's moving right now i was gonna say why you adjust that let's talk about reed detmers i just uh recently wrote about him in my my my how i say this my my guy's column so he's thrown a lot harder

with the slider uh sitting 89 to 91 fastball 95 to 97 and with the increase in velocity that he had when he came back up from salt lake in the second half last year just a totally different pitcher than he was earlier in the year and And I mean, to me, this is super encouraging, super exciting. And there's not that much helium yet in terms of ADP. Maybe that's going to be a short window to be able to get him. Yeah, I moved him up and it's going to look weird because the model didn't really like him. And I don't have spring training stuff. No, he doesn't pitch in parks that have the machines.

But at the same time, any slider with any depth thrown 91 miles an hour, and it already was a top slider, I would predict right now that this slider will be a top 10 pitch by Stuff Plus this year. So he's going to have an elite slider. And then even if his fastball shape isn't great, if he's up at 95, 97, you're thinking at least an average fastball. So now you've got an average fastball and an elite slider.

If he has a third pitch, it doesn't need to be good anymore. Now it just needs to be a pitch that they don't they don't expect you know and so uh yeah i think uh i will have been wrong on the early rankings on detmers i've moved him up into the top 70 uh and maybe i should push him harder but i still have the fact of those sort of poor projections given his last year numbers. All right. Matthew Boyd, also an excellent strikeout to walk ratio, 17 strikeouts against two walks in only nine innings. He is still not yet inside the top 400 in ADP. I grabbed him in the very last round, reserve round in the Nerf draft this past weekend, 30th round, and I was ecstatic. I mean, you have nothing to lose at that point, and I'm excited by the form that Boyd has shown so far. Take what I said about JT Brubaker, rinse and repeat.

A little bit lower Stuff Plus numbers, but Matthew Boyd has also shown the proclivity to just throw the slider over and over and over again, Lloyd has also shown the proclivity to just throw the slider over and over and over again. And there are guys who have okay sliders by Stuff Plus that just throw a ton of sliders and do well with it. For example, Robbie Ray. And so I think that the park is even better, although they are changing the dimensions of Detroit. That's true. So I paused a little bit there, but I have them both at about 120 right now.

And 120 is where I put useful veterans who have rotation spots that you may not want to throw every time. All right. Well, let's just finish up here with the trio of pitchers who in a very small sample, and I want to like underline that, italicize it, bold it, very small sample, have more walks than innings, Tristan McKenzie, seven walks in six, and Zach Gallant also seven walks in six. Is there anything that you see outside of those numbers that causes you concern? He's had two game stretches where he was pretty bad with the walks last year even when he was great. He had an 11 and two-thirds, two games where he had 11 walks

in the beginning of June. And so he will have these little blips and it's part of why he's riskier than some of the guys around him. And I'll just say that, you know, so Stuff Plus went up on Fangraphs. And so there's been some validation that's gone around, some third-party validation. So you don't have to take my word for it anymore. There's been people playing with the stats and seeing what's predictive and what's not and all that.

Tom Tango did some stuff and found that, well, Stuff Plus beat Cameron Grose. But anyway, they're both on Fangraphs, so use mine. But what he also found was he did not find much predictive value in LocationPlus. And so he's a stuffist at this point. We've got a recent conversion, a convert here in Tom Tango, who is really sort of an important figure in sabermetrics. And so I was really happy to see that he did that work. And so I hew closer to Stuff Plus than ever with that validation he's done. And so Cease, I think, can stuff his way through this.

He's just going to throw nasty stuff down the middle and he's going to be all right. Sometimes there'll be some walks. I think his team would be really well suited to give him the Tyler Glass now treatment where he has one target. But I don't necessarily trust the White Sox to do that. Although there is Sam Mondry Cohen, whose analytics for the Nationals is now a basically a coach with the White Sox. And so he's going to be aware of things like this and uh so i could see i could see c's getting it together i just love the stuff did you you mentioned the other two or was did you just start with c's i started with c's but i did mention uh mckenzie and gallon gallon i actually have some spring numbers for 101 location

plus for the spring Gallin I can't find that many starts where he's had these kind of blips but it's also I'm going to be more willing to write that off to just being spring McKenzie uh is interesting because when he started throwing harder so he had a little bit more command but the velo was down then he went down in the minor leagues when he came back up he just started to throw as hard as he could, and the locations were down. So there is some interplay there with what he...

with his stuff and his locations. Right? I will say that I think I'd rather he threw hard. So if that's what's happening here, I would love to know his VLO readings alongside that. But I would say not know his VLO readings alongside that. But I would say not super worried about McKenzie, not at all worried about Gallin,

and just about as worried about Cease as I was in the past. All right, which is probably not that worried. And if you want more Spring Stuff numbers, we do not have those on Fangraphs. You do get those as a subscriber on The Athletic. And I am writing today about spring training stuff plus surgers. And so you can look for that up on the site tomorrow. I will be chatting as well for subscribers. So all things benefiting subscribers.

I also just announced an event in New York. I think it's probably full by now. There was a real rush on the rsvps for the panel however the watch party at other half brewing march 30th the watch party is open for business for anyone i have a beer with other half brewing called staring into the shift it's got an awesome label look for that on twitter uh sometime and a new sandwich which is a kind of a pork knucklet a cutlet uh that we put some matbucha sauce on it's going to be amazing so you can come have the sandwich and have the beer and watch a little baseball with me even if you can't make

the panel portion of the evening all right so yeah, definitely something cool there to check out and also do read Eno's stuff. And with that- Pun intended. Pun totally intended. And if you have questions for a future episode, you can email us at ratesandbarrels, spelled out, ratesandbarrels at gmail.com. You can ask in the comment section right here on YouTube if you're watching this on YouTube. So in any event, for Eno Saris, I'm Al Melchior. Thank you.