Rates & Barrels - J-Rod to the First Round, Barrel Rate Risers & Other Big Movers

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss the increasing likelihood of Julio Rodríguez becoming 2023 first-round pick, other movers into the early rounds, recent barrel rate surgers -- including Ryan Mountcastle and Dylan Carlson -- the unique challenge of trading for currently injured players, and a handful of mailbag questions. Rundown -- Maybe the Pitch Clock Will Reduce Pitcher Injuries? -- Julio Rodríguez: First-Round Bound in 2023? -- A Very Brief J-Rod v. Acuña Comparison -- Ryan Mountcastle: DVR's Perpetual Skepticism, BB/K Laggards -- Real-Life Replaceable Power? -- Dylan Carlson's Adjustments -- Yordan Alvarez & Other Big Movers -- A Significant Jump for Jazz Chisholm Jr.? -- Eno Turns the Tables -- Trading for Injured Players -- Making Sense of Triston McKenzie Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Tuesday, July 5th. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris here with you on this Tuesday. We dig into Julio Rodriguez and some barrel rate surgers. Eno had a great piece that went up before the weekend. Rodriguez among the players featured in that piece. Easy for me to say, we'll get to several of those players. Talk about some other big movers among hitters who I think are going to be going much earlier in 2023 drafts or in the mid season drafts.

I know some people have set those up on the side. That's where those exist. They live in the side space. Fan tracks has them, but you got to set them up yourself and join them as private leagues. So good news. If you're looking for them. They exist.

Bad news is they're hard to find on a big, big scale. We'll talk about a few other topics, including trading for injured players, the challenges that come from trying to deal for someone like Bryce Harper right now, and maybe in hopes of having him back at the end of the season as someone that can make a very good team, an even better one, especially in head-to-head formats. And we'll get to some recent risers, including Brian Baio, who's going to come up to the Red Sox,

Harold Ramirez, who's playing more for the Rays, and the always confusing Tristan McKenzie. Eno, how was your long weekend? It was great. It was great. It was exactly what I needed. Because of COVID, I wasn't able to see my dad for Father's Day, so he came down um we grilled as we discussed at the table it is practically a requirement to grill on the fourth i believe so we grilled as was our duty and then we watched a stupid movie we watched uh we watched

independence day 2 which was awful yeah i just i had no idea they made the movie but as soon as you told me that's what you did i just thought that probably wasn't good it was still kind of funny for us to sit around and laugh i mean there's some really awful acting some really bad writing and it's not like the first one was like a critical masterpiece it's just that uh it was not a second one like at least it was kind of funny in its own way so this one tried to be the exact same thing and missed awfully there's sometimes you watch something and you think oh yeah the sequel is going to be great and independence day was not one of those movies for me that was not how i felt but i watched that movie 20 years ago i i also took

the kids back to the san jose giants and uh the on set on sunday night and we had an absolute ball like we just had a great time the the kids were doing all the the bouncy house and the foot and the ball throwing stuff that they have outside. They have really good beer there. A friend of mine started Federation Brewing out here, and they've got Federation beers at the ballpark. The tacos were great. The only thing was it was a little bit crowded because it was fireworks night. Right.

But I did get the ball in the hole at the the sort of the the command challenge that they have there uh and i did hit for a cycle on the ski ball thing so i am a true athlete yeah i think that's uh all the proof we need no further questions but uh yeah it was a really great time and because of the pitch clock it was uh it was like two hours two and a half hours at tops and even with the fireworks we got the kids home mostly for an okay bedtime i had a thought about the pitch clock so before we get into the topics that i threw out there in the intro i want to kick this your way do you think it's possible that while some people believe the pitch clock

and speeding up pitchers could cause pitchers to get hurt more often, do you think it could really be one of those just no effect things or maybe even a slight improvement on the current injury rate because guys can't throw their max if they have to make pitches more quickly? Yeah, I think that's a great way to think about how this might end up happening we we have pitchers taking as as long as they can between pitches in order to throw as hard as possible if we limit that amount the hope is the velo goes down if the velo goes down velo is the source of stress it really is the closer you throw your maximum, the more stress you're putting on your elbow. So I have friends like Dr. My Son who will point out that that is not the only source of stress.

The other source of stress is sort of chronic use and chronic, like often pitching close to your max. So let's say you pitched at 75% a lot. You'd still be stressing out your elbow uh but it would be i would say it's better than if you throw a 90 all the time you know so uh i i it's one of those things where i'm also like hey man are we doing really good on injuries are we doing really well on injuries right now it's like you know like it already feels like there's a every year we're like, oh, rash, unprecedented injuries, injury right through the roof.

I don't know. I don't think this one will change that trajectory at all. And there's, I think there's an outside chance that it helps improve it by incentivizing pitchers

to not throw as hard. Yeah. I mean, your conditioning would need to be better but i think part of sustaining your effectiveness with the pitch clock would be dialing it down just a little bit so it crossed my mind i think at the end of last week and i'm glad we've got something to be excited about aside from the games being a little quicker which if you're covering the games helps you but depending on your situation right you bring a family to a game yeah small kids don't want to sit there for three hours and 25 minutes that's just

not going to happen the other type of pace of play which is not just game length but like how long between events sure uh so there's just it's snappier and And, you know, my children are raised on screens. So, you know, they want, I don't know who to blame for that. Maybe me, but. I'm 37 years old. My attention span is getting shorter. Like I'm not going to pretend like I'm immune to it. There was a study that said that actually, that everybody's attention span has gotten

shorter in the iPhone era. Yeah. And this isn't just the elder millennial. I think even my parents, their attention span is shorter than it used to be. So no more shaking your fist at clouds. I think there could be some good from the pitch clock on a few different fronts, and injuries might be one of them. Let's talk about the piece that you wrote that went up just prior to the weekend.

You were looking at some barrel rate surgers, Julio Rodriguez among those players. And Julio has been a frequent topic of a few shows. I had Clay Link on as a guest while you were in Hawaii at that time. He suggested on this very podcast that Rodriguez is a first rounder for him going forward. And then Todd Zola, who I spoke to going into the weekend on the MLB Roto-Wire fantasy show, said basically the same thing. So I'm kind of putting myself in this position of nodding along and saying, yeah, that sort of makes sense because Julio Rodriguez does everything that we want first round picks to do. Do you think it's fair to put a top 15 overall sort of valuation on Rodriguez based on what we've seen now in just about a half season of him in the big leagues? I love the speed. I love the contact rate. You know, I think that he can actually make some improvements in the strikeout rate.

I think he can be a little bit more disciplined going forward than he has been. So there is still room for him to have upside beyond what he's done. I think he's going to end the season pretty close to 30-30, if not there. And maybe he has a season in front of him that could even be better, where he has a 330-30 season, which he probably won't do this year, because he improves his strikeout rate. So I think yes. I do want to point out that there is a slight similarity

to another person in the first round that might be disappointing people a little bit this year um and that's vladito hmm i've got this uh tweet here and i'm i'm looking at at vlad's numbers and maybe maybe i haven't checked in with him enough recently i mean he has 19 homers i expect to have fewer uh he's he's projected to end it with 40 homers. Is he disappointing anybody? Anyway, he does share something with Vladito in that he hits the ball really hard, but his attack angle is not amazing.

I've got this tweet from Tanner Stokey at Driveline that he was just putting on my on my piece and he said that you know in June when Julio Rodriguez was putting up these barrel rates that are so great and and said to me that you know it was about just basically being comfortable put his a swing on the ball and getting comfortable in the big leagues he had a 75 grade bat speed so yeah it's 20 to 80 scouting scale 75 grade bat speed uh bat to ball with 37 out of 80 swing decisions 44 44 45 so average bat to ball average swing decisions elite bat speed and his attack angle on a 20 to 80 scale is a seven no that's it must be his actual attack angle yeah i think you broke the scale but that's a that's a lower attack angle so i think uh in some ways uh some similarities to uh vladimir guerrero jr in some ways a little bit worse because i would say that uh swing decisions for julio for vladimir guerrero

is above 445 and the contact rate is above a 40 so i don't know but he also doesn't steal bases right so how much how much are you willing how much how many flaws are you willing to like look past for the stolen bases this is the question yeah and i think these flaws in a player this young are probably more picking nits than than looking at him and saying this is not gonna. That's the alternate title of this podcast, though. Picking the Nits. That one took second when we named the show three years ago. A lot of people who were not on board with that one. But Julio Rodriguez is a 140 WRC+.

I'm looking at a rookie leaderboard going back to 2010. So just all rookies going back about a dozen years now. Minimum 200 plate appearances, 140 WRC plus, puts him in the top 20 among all rookies during that span. Most of the players ahead of him had very, very good careers overall and are still even mostly early rounders where timeline appropriate. Who's bad on this list? Yeah. Gary Sanchez isn't who he appeared to be at first. And that was, again, that was a very, very small sample.

That was 231 plate appearances. Not a very similar player either. No. But Jordan Alvarez is number one among rookie performances we've seen. Jose Abreu, not quite the normal rookie as a pro coming from Cuba. Yasiel Puig, Aaron Judge. I guess Puig is maybe the worst on this list. Yeah, Puig took the spiral downward pretty fast.

He set a really high bar and then just never really got back to it. Judge, Hoskins, Trout, Matt Olson, Tatis, Otani. Miguel Sano is on here for WRC Plus in a half season, but it's a 35.5% K-rate. I think people knew his limitations or obviously didn't run. Luke Voigt's on here. Juan Soto, Grandal, Pete Alonso,

Ronald Acuna Jr., Bo Bichette, Corey Seager. Anybody that runs is still a top three rounder. But for most of those names, those are consistent early-round players. Consistent early-rounders. And then of all those players, only Mike Trout has more stolen bases among those rookies than what Rodriguez has now. And we're still going to see another 10, 15, maybe even 20 more bags. I think that athleticism will help paper over some of the questions about swing decisions

and power and contact. So, yeah, I'm all systems go. It's all good. You know, I don't think digging the nets is the right move here. I think he's a first-rounder. I think there's a lot in terms of tools that are similar to Ronald Acuna Jr. I think one of the differences for Acuna is Acuna made better swing decisions upon arrival.

27.5% O-swing percentage for Acuna back in 2018 compared to that 36.7% that we're seeing right now from Rodriguez. Where that number goes in the second half probably determines where exactly in the first round Rodriguez goes. If that remains a problem, he probably stays more late part of first round or at least back half of first round. If that gets better, if that gets better quickly, then we start talking about Rodriguez as a first half of round one sort of player. Because Acuna did at some point, even though he started maybe with better swing decisions, he also then improved upon that. Like, there was a big strikeout rate improvement. If we see a similar strikeout rate improvement from Julio Rodriguez, yeah.

We're talking about a front of the... It is interesting to then talk about which one you would have higher. Because Acuna is in his prime. And he obviously is stealing bases after the injury and he has made an adjustment that we're still kind of hoping for from Julio Rodriguez however the fact that Julio Rodriguez might have an adjustment left makes you wonder if there's another level that it could be further than Acuna however However, I'm a big present value guy. So I would have Acuna over Julio Rodriguez. All right, so we're in agreement

that Rodriguez is a top 15 player. I would have Acuna over Rodriguez today for the same reasons you do. I think the present value, the little bit of track record there being a basically repeat first rounder, that would lead me to choose Acuna over Rodriguez if I were drafting for the second half

or if I were drafting even for 2023, which I'll get to do that in three months, not even, less than three months. Something's wrong with me. Eternally looking forward. Something is just so wrong with me. But there is this sort of longer term question that I think is sort of impossible.

And this happens every time we have a player who breaks out and looks like a perennial first rounder. It's what do you do in a keeper league? If someone's trying to trade for Julio Rodriguez or offering you Rodriguez in a trade, like one of our listeners sent us one that was Luis Robert and Brandon Woodruff for Julio. And that's a 12 team head to head league OPS instead of average, just to put a little more context to it. And the lean from listeners was from Chris was to decline it. And I agreed.

I thought Chris was right to turn it down. Even though with Robert, you're getting a guy that has a lot of ceiling who could be a five category player. The age difference I think is a factor here. And even though you're getting an ACE for now and Brandon Woodruff, it's probably not an ACE for three or four years. It's more like an ace for this year,

next year. And then beyond that, you know, who knows it's, it's pretty far into the future. I just think a player like Julio Rodriguez is almost impossible to trade. Tatis was this kind of player a couple of years ago before the injuries, Acuna was like that a few years before Tatis was where you just can't,

you can't get enough ceiling back in the return to justify trading such a young already great player away for future value because this he's the player you were waiting for he's the player you you've tried to build around yeah yeah and what I hear in that in that Woodruff trade is it's probably is it was like a keep five or something? Yeah, I think that might have been a keep five. That's when you're like, okay, so I have to take the downgrade at the hitter in order to add Woodruff and try to win it this year. But you know what the other person is doing. They're just trying to upgrade one of those keeper slots.

There is almost no overpaying when it comes to a keep five. You could offer your whole team except for two or three players. Right, because the elite of the elite young keeper is a lot more valuable, even if we're talking about players that are awesome right now. That's where I'm at. Rodriguez is almost impossible to trade and feel like you're getting fair value in the return for in multi-year leagues. Other players that you wrote about in the piece, Ryan Mountcastle. I am the perpetual Ryan Mountcastle skeptic, and I'm trying to really drill into why. I think you hit on it in the piece a little bit. 25.3% strikeout rate this season, 5.1% walk rate. And I'm wondering if I get caught in, let's call it the

Sabermetrics 1.0 lens. Like why am I so fixated on strikeout and walk rate when he does a lot of other things really well? I mean, Ryan Mountcastle hits the ball very hard. Did it in June, has done it for a long time for the season. He's ninth out of 155 qualified hitters in barrel rate. I think I care more about barrel rate than I do about strikeouts and walks in general. There could be extreme examples. And I guess is Mountcastle's plate discipline bad enough where I should be as skeptical about him as I am. He doesn't have threats to playing time. He does swing at a lot of pitches outside the zone. Six sixth highest o-swing percentage

among those same 155 qualified hitters which does i think lean more to the extreme but you see rafael devers in that range you see bo bichette kind of close in terms of o-swing percentage too and those are consistent early round guys that i really like so am i wrong to kind of push mount castle aside given the strengths that he has at the expense of a couple of flaws i think this is a i think this is a perfectly terrible flaw to have it's it's it's usually leads to bad outcomes it's not it's not a good move i wrote a piece once about how there was a bunch of um there was a bunch of players that had had they've never had it was like a six to one strikeout to walk ratio and we didn't used to ever have players like that and then all of a sudden we started having players

like that in the juice ball era because you could play really good defense and hit the ball really hard and just have awful strike out to walk ratio. And the main player that I highlighted in that piece was Paul DeYoung. Yeesh. And, you know, what's even crazier is that Paul Young at one point, it really improved his discipline at the plate. It just didn't hold. I look right now at the leaderboard. I have it sorted on Fangraph's qualified hitters for smallest BB to K.

And guess what? Julio Rodriguez is 22nd on this list. But, you know, there are some interesting names on here in terms of like Luis Robert. He has the second worst BB to K ratio in the big leagues. But there's also just a bunch of names I want nothing to do with. Avisail Garcia right now is number one I don't this version of Avisail Garcia is not what I want on my team Jonathan Scope is fourth he's been one of the worst batters in baseball

when the regular ones Jorge Mateo is sixth Mikel Franco is ninth you know Adam Duvall is like the patron saint of this Franco is 9th. Adam Duvall is the patron saint of this statistic.

He's 15th. I don't know. I think... Listen, we just did this segment called Picking the Nits on Julio Rodriguez, and this is basically the knit I was picking. And he's on this list. Cody Bellinger's on this list. He didn't used to be on this list.

I don't think it's a good sign if you're on this list. I think, yes, you can be such a freak of nature offensively in terms of having awesome tools. Bo Bichette, Luis Llorabert, they have great tools and they're

going to out-tool their way past this flaw. But I don't think it's a good in the long run you know who's fifth in this is javier baez and i know he probably has one more hot streak in him and maybe he'll be fine and his end of season numbers look the way they always do uh but at the same time i i thought that javier baez contract was one of the worst of the offseason and there's no way i'd hitch my wagon long-term to a player like Javier Baez. So a little bit of a difference maybe between dynasty and in-season. In-season, if the guy is showing plus defense

and he's showing the ability to hit the ball hard, then the BBK doesn't matter as much. But if you're talking about keeper leagues, it does matter a little bit more. So Bobby Witt is on this list right ahead of Julio Rodriguez you the question you have to ask yourself and Boba Shett is there the question you have to ask yourself is when will this become a problem and will they improve upon it those are the two questions you have to ask and I would say this is very comparable to what we see from Randy Arrozarena to mid-20s strikeout rate, sub-6% walk rate.

But the key difference between these two players, Arrozarena runs a lot, Mountcastle only runs a little. You're going to get three to five bags in a typical year from Ryan Mountcastle. And then I think comparing him to younger guys like Rodriguez, too, the age difference is a factor. But also, defensive value is a factor in the long run. It's less of a concern. Yeah, definitely.

This is less of a concern if he's a shortstop as a center fielder, 100%. Yeah, I think the situation in Baltimore for now is fine. I just think this could be the kind of thing that turns faster than you'd think for Mountcastle being the kind of player that does a lot of things well. I worry that he's just too much like a CJ Krohn

or a Christian Walker. And I'm looking at Walker again. Walker has had a weird season. Walker strikes out less, 19.4%. He walks more, 12.5%. He swings at pitches outside the zone a lot less, 24.8%. That's a really good O-swing percentage. Right now, it's a 181 Babbitt for Christian Walker. And I know the type of player he is. He's not the kind of guy that's going to live with a high batting average on balls in play. But that's probably a solid 100 points off of where he should be based on the way he hits the ball. I'm looking at this and I'm saying, okay, even though the projections see more batting average rest of season from Ryan Mountcastle than they do from Christian Walker. more batting average rest of season from Ryan Mountcastle than they do from Christian Walker.

I see the same kind of things that worried me about Walker earlier in his career are there for Mountcastle right now. It doesn't mean Mountcastle can't become more patient. I just see a more replaceable big league player that does one thing well, but a lot of things not particularly well. I'm trying to make sure I'm not missing something in how he hits the ball that actually makes him more stable than some guys that might strike out less or might reach less often. It doesn't have as stream of an attack angle as Christian Walker. So, you know, Christian Walker has that 48% fly ball rate. Last year, Mountcastle was at 43. This year, he's at 36. I do kind of like when I look at a guy

and he has the same amount of ground balls as fly balls. There's something that I like about that. It's an anecdotal thing, but I think it also just speaks about having an attack angle that's not extreme. And we saw with Julio Rodriguez, his is a little bit closer to his stream on the low end. And I think with Walker, what you're seeing is

that's extreme on the high end. And the nice thing about being a streamer on the low end, if you still hit the ball hard, you can still hit 20 to 25 homers and you're going to hit for a good batting average. And so I guess maybe Mountcastle's in that good range where he has a high enough attack angle to hit homers, and it's low enough that he's not going to hit 230.

So I guess that's what makes him good. I do think that at some point the poor swing decisions are going to come for him. He's 25. I'm not sure I would want him on my team when he's 30, 31. But that's the question, too, with that leaderboard I was telling you. It's like you've got to throw age on there. Avisail Garcia is maybe one of the more people to be most worried about on it

because he's 31 years old, and he's still rocking that. And, you know, that that those tools are just going to fall off in terms of what you when you look at aging curves for things like running speed, a fastball velo, you know, defense in terms of the athletic. The most the things that depend the most upon athleticism, they age the worst. So that's why you'd like to have somebody who has a good bbdk right like you have somebody has a good sense of their knowledge of the zone then they can still give you uh you know good stuff when they aren't running as fast and they aren't playing as good defense so mount castle being on this list you know without having those athletic traits, I think it's a little bit worrisome. He's not like a primo dynasty asset, I don't think. No, but if you're

a league full of like-minded players, he could become undervalued. That's the part I'm trying to get right, is I'm trying not to throw out the things he can do along with the things that he doesn't do. Because I think that's when you can start to make some mistakes. But if you said, would you rather be generally into this group of players or not into this group of players? The guys who are low on terms of their BB to walk rate. I would avoid this group as a whole if I had to make a yes or no sort of decision about them yeah i would miss out on a handful of guys that i like i mean sure uh randia roserain is a good player

but he's a guy you would miss out on julio rodriguez dude come on now but old guys on this list especially though yeah those are the guys that i'm not i'm not panicking about brandon marsh but i think it's fair to watch carefully and see where the plate skills go in the second half. Yeah, I'm not as excited about Brandon Marsh as I was at the beginning of the season. I'm glad that his defense is keeping on the field, and it is good defense, but they don't always play him in center field, and the BBK is not good.

Yeah, gives me a little bit of worry about boba shett i guess if you look at this but at the same time like i'm going to pick my spots i'm just going to be very careful with what i choose from this group because that's a flaw that i generally don't want to have if i have it in one or two bats that is plenty i don't want this up and down an entire roster one last point about this it's interesting there's a little bit of difference between Luis Robert and like Starling Marte the way that they get to a low bbdk versus even Mountcastle because Robert is like a 19% strikeout guy with a 3% walk rate Starling Marte 18% strikeout 5% walk rate that's just just like a prototype of player that I can almost get with.

You know what I mean? That's like a free-swinging super hit tool guy, right? I can almost handle that. What I don't want is low contact rates and low walk rates. Right. Yeah, both. And that's where I think Mountcastle's on that borderline. That's why I've generally stayed away.

And when he's good, I miss out. And when he's just kind of mediocre, then I'm not sweating it. He's pretty streaky. I think you're right about that, too. That's what got his name in the article that you wrote. He's had an amazing June. Dylan Carlson was in that piece as well. He appears to be figuring it out. And I mean, given his age and being a guy that debuted in the pandemic short in 2020 season, being patient with Dylan Carlson made some sense. I think if you look at the overall slash line for the season, it still doesn't jump off the page. He's at 255, 318, 418 entering play on Tuesday.

He's at 255, 318, 418 entering play on Tuesday. But we're seeing more hard contact here recently, running a little bit as well. It kind of looks like a big second half might be just around the corner. Yeah, I mean, he's doing what you want all these other players to do, what you want Julio Rodriguez to do, what you want Bobby Witt to do. I think Bobby Witt is doing it a little bit. Rodriguez, he's not necessarily improving his chase rate as much as it might seem. He's still keeping the chase high.

What Carlson did was improve the chase rate, hit the ball harder, and lift the ball more. He's just like, oh, good. You did the three things that would make you break out. Oh, good. You did the three things that would make you break out. The one thing that kind of kept me from sort of anointing him, you know, the sleeper of the article or like the reason we do this is his barrel rate, improved barrel rate, because he had zero barrels in April. Not good. His improved barrel rate was six percent and when i read that i'm like okay we've got like a 15 to 20 homer hitter on our hands now i wrote that in the article and then there was a

impassioned defense of dylan carlson's power ceiling and i realized that I hadn't said this season. So I am limiting Carlson's upside this season to 15 to 20 homers. My question to you is, where do you think his power ceiling lies beyond that? We're talking about a 23-year-old switch hitter with good plate discipline and now that i'm looking at it good but not great power numbers in the minor leagues not consistently great power numbers in the minor leagues it he could still end up only being a 15 to 20 homer hitter yeah i think the tricky things here if you look at max exit velos they're not eye-popping usually you're looking for that you're looking for the guy that does massive damage when he finally gets a hold the one you're not really seeing that yeah kind of average their barrel rate for his career right around league

average too right he's 6.6 percent for his career he's higher in previous seasons than he is so far this year technically league average is around five but when you're talking about like a starter it's like players we care about yeah yeah exactly so that kind of makes him what you said he is for the second half as a long-term ceiling unless you project more based on his size and i think i think being a switch hitter i think would also be a factor i think you'd want to give dylan car Carlson more time because he's got two swings to adjust. He's got two approaches that he has to build through. I think it'd be harder to forecast it based on the numbers because of something very rare and unique about him. Would I confidently say I expect more than

a 25 home run season at his peak? Not based on anything I've seen so far. He's shown the most uh growth you know power wise uh versus lefties this year he's been pretty steady at uh kind of like a 175 iso against um against righties that's interesting because you get fewer plate appearances against lefties and that your split against lefties is always going to be more up and down. But at the same time, maybe what you're saying is true. Maybe he's just getting his righty swing right. I bet you he has a season with 25 or something, but I think that generally we're not talking about a power hitter here.

It just doesn't look like it. I don't see the signs. I think he's a good discipline hitter and he'll consistently be sort of five to ten percent above average uh you know in terms of wrc plus in terms of how he hits but it's not always going to be a great one for fantasy leagues you know what i mean like especially if if he steals like eight this year and then he steals like four next year, you know, like think of you're in a, if you're in like a 12 team keeper league and you've got a guy who's, you know,

most likely going to hit like two 80 with 18 homers and five steals a year. I mean, and he has to, he has worked to get to two 80. You know what I mean? Like his career batting average is two 55. Let's say you're talking about a two 60 hitter. He has work to get to 280. You know what I mean? Like his career batting average is 255. Let's say you're talking about a 260 hitter that's going to hit you 18 homers and steal four bases a year. How long do you want to hold on to that for the upside that he might hit 25 one year?

It's a fair question. I guess the comp that I come up with in terms of what I think the ceiling might be, what if the ceiling is Brian Reynolds? Which is not bad. That's a good player. Reynolds? That's not bad. Which is not bad. That's a good player. Yeah, that's not bad. Because Brian Reynolds debuted at an age that Dylan Carlson hasn't even reached yet.

Carlson's been in the big leagues for parts of three seasons, so they're both switch hitters. They're both not necessarily guys that are overwhelming in any one category, although I would argue that a 300 batting average these days is kind of like the equivalent of popping 35 home runs. But I do think that's attainable. That's almost more attainable than like 30 homers for Carlson,

like a 280, 300 average, because you can see these great strikeout rates of the minors. Right now he has an 18% strikeout rate. If he just added a little bit more power to his current line, he could be a batting average asset. All right, so we solved it. So Dylan Carlson is probably more like a Brian Reynolds-type player than, I don't know, than a superstar, but that's not a bad player.

We're also talking about ceiling. I think he has a Brian Reynolds-type ceiling. He has to do some work to get there. Probability of him getting there, I think, is a whole other matter as well. I want to talk about some other players, though, that are big movers among hitters. And I think Yaron Alvarez became front of mind yesterday because he hit his first career walk-off

on the 4th of July. I think he's got a first-round future. That was his first career walk-off? Yeah, he was first with the Astros. Maybe he had some in the minors or something. That's crazy. So I think he's a first rounder i don't know if he's gotten as much attention as a future current first rounder as he probably deserves he's already played 31 games in the outfield this year how many first rounders we have now 30 30 at least we're playing in 30 team

leagues no i think he's in all right right, so Kyle Tucker is definitely out? Probably. Who else was borderline for us? Is Mookie Betts out? No, Mookie's still in. Yeah, you're right. I got 30 first rounders. Those are the rules.

No, listen, I'm just kidding. I think we got to take Kyle Tucker out, although I love him, right? He's hitting 260, 16 homers 14 steals he has a shot at 30 30 this year I think the problem here I think the extra value we keep tacking on to steals is taking guys like Alvarez who should be first rounders and peeping them out for some he's on his own planet as far as what he does as a hitter. He's up in that Soto level in terms of just how good he actually is at hitting baseballs.

You can't tell me that Vlad Jr. was fine in the early part of round one in 2022 and that Jordan Alvarez doesn't have a spot there. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just hard for me because there are these things sometimes in fantasy where like intellectually you're like yeah yeah i got it i understand like chad green can be a good reliever on my team without saves you know what i mean like it's one of those things where like at the if you do the analysis you look at the end of the year there are relievers that are worth

money that didn't give you saves and maybe you should roster them because they were they were they gave you production but then when you're actually like building the team you're like i'm not i'm really gonna i'm not really gonna pick chad green you know like am i really gonna do this there's a there's a guy out here that could close and i don't think chad green will close this year so i'm gonna take the guy who could close I feel the same way about steals it's like yes you can tell me especially with the auction calculator you can tell me that thanks to the auction calculator this this speed you know this guy with no speed is gonna be like a top five hitter and you should take him but I stared at Max Muncy on the top of my draft board for rounds and rounds and rounds I I don't feel that bad now for having not picked him as much.

Who are some of the other guys? Remember we had this conversation when we were talking about draft season. The guys that don't run that were falling. The don't run guys that fell. Yikes, there's a whole bunch of them. Corey Seager's been that guy for a few years among early rounders. Doesn't steal any bases. bases gets dinged for it i don't know running is also running aside from the fact that you need steals in these leagues running is an is a a marker for athleticism and youth you know and tools so like if you get a whole team just full of plotting three true

outcomers i don't know i guess maybe in head-to-head you could be punting steals but i think i think it would be kind of a risky play for other reasons too right i mean so jordan is 27th percentile in sprint speed and it's the only offensive profile thing you can look at and say, it's not amazing. It's bad. Sprint speed's bad given the knee concerns. I get it. Right, right.

But they play them in the outfield enough for me to be a lot less worried about the knees than we were at the time that the surgeries happened. That's true. And then it's like, how do you not want a guy that's 99th percentile or 96th percentile or higher in walk rate, barrel rate, X slug, XBA, X Woba, hard hit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're not going to get me to say bad things about Jordan Alvarez. I'm sorry. That wasn't the challenge. I'm just like, what does he have to do for us to be like, wait a minute, what if he's better than Vlad Jr.? Yeah. I'm not trying to throw shade at Vlad Jr. What if he have to do for us to be like, wait a minute, what if he's better than Vlad Jr.?

Yeah. I'm not trying to throw shade at Vlad Jr. What if he's just better? Previously, the DH discount and the knees were two things that held him back. He's not going to DH next year. He's going to have outfield eligibility. He already got that. I mean, this is probably a top five player.

Who did we pull out of the first round? We already pulled Bo Bichette out. Bo's out, yep. And we're close to pulling Kyle Tucker out. Bueller's out because of injuries. Bueller's out, yeah. So there's two. But are we going to have a season next year

where there's just fewer first round pitchers? That might be interesting. That might actually happen. I don't know because there would, there's usually three. Is there always just going to be three no matter who it is? I think that we should be learning a lesson if there's always going to be three and it's different ones every year. Come on.

You know what I mean? Like, why are we doing this? Cole is going to be the only one who's going to stay in the top three. Let's see. Who's out of the first round? Trey Turner, no. Jose Ramirez, no. Juan Soto, no.'s out of the first round? Trey Turner, no. Jose Ramirez, no. Juan Soto, no.

Probably back in the first round. Bobachet, yes. Out of the first round for now. Not way out, but out. He took one out. Could take Vlad Jr. out of the first round? No. Not if he's going to hit 40 and maybe get close to 280.

No, I think Garrett Cole is the only... I think he's still the number one starting pitcher. I know other people have Shane McClanahan number one, but I don't know. In terms of track record, if you're going to take Buehler out and replace him by McClanahan, that's fine. That means we only have one person that we've taken out. Shohei Otani, still in the first round? Is he doing something that would, I mean, it's always like, what's your setup? No, we're assuming NFBC for the purposes of this conversation.

Maybe. I think that people who own Shohei Otani and NFBC are annoyed with him. He's on pace to go 36-16 with a 262 average and over 100 RBIs and 94 runs. Maybe not that annoyed with him. I've got him in a league. I'm not bothered. As just a hitter. Just as a hitter. I've got him in a league. I'm not bothered. That's just a hitter. Just as a hitter. I never throw him as a pitcher.

I may have to in that league, though. I think he could be a back-end one, but I think he's probably still in. I have a hard time seeing him getting bounced. We've cut one because Buehler replaced by McClanahan. Harper? He was kind of more light. He's not going to drop far,

but I could see him dropping kind of to where Mookie was coming into last season just because of the injury. So maybe, maybe out just because he's

the first one out because other people get nudged ahead of him and not out because he's being downgraded. He would be a first round bat if it was all bats, I think. Okay, Corbin Burns still there. He would be a first-round bat if it was all bats, I think.

Okay, Corbin Burns still there. But we had three first-round pitchers last year, so Burns just replaces the other one, I guess. Burns is already in it. He was ninth last year, so he's still there. Yeah, I think we just keep him in there. Tucker? We should look at Tucker.

We've mentioned him three or four times, and it sounds like he's— Give me his returned value because I'm intrigued. Because at 260, 16, 14, he's the best hitter on my labor squad just out in front by 30 points. But maybe everybody else is doing the real heavy lifting. What's the earned value for Tucker? What do you think it is in a 15-teamer? I would say top 20 at least, but maybe not top 10. $33.

He's fifth among outfielders and among all players. Yeah, it's inside the top 20. I think it's even borderline top 10. Six, nine, 13. Yeah, so you're not really taking him out of the first round. And he could be doing better going forward. He had a real bad beginning. Acuna is still in.

He was a late first rounder by the end of draft season. Trout, does he come out? Now you're thinking. Yeah, you're thinking again. Because he's not, he's not stealing bases. He's $31. He probably becomes an early second rounder. Yeah.

So Trout's a slight drop. Yeah. All right, so we're taking Trout out too. Trout's out. So we got two batters out. We can replace two batters. Rafael Devers. Was he in?

He was. Well, I think he stays in. What's his earned value? $36. Yeah, he's still in. Buehler's out and Mookie Betts. I mean, Jose Ramirez was in. Easy, yep. Easy in. What's his earned value? $36. Yeah, he's still in. Buehler's out and Mookie Betts. I mean, Jose Ramirez was in. Easy, yep.

Easy in. So we got two guys we can replace, and we're advocating. I forget who we were advocating for last time, but Jordan Alvarez is one. Jordan goes up for sure. Julio Rodriguez goes up. I think Witt's probably like a second rounder.

I agree. I think Witt's a second rounder. Healthy Tatis is going to probably be in there too. See, someone else is going to have to come out. This isn't going to work. Tatis replaces Bichette. Alvarez replaces Harper. Julio Rodriguez goes at the turn.

So Rodriguez could take Luis Robert's spot at 15. Yeah, there you go. That's actually pretty good. That makes some sense. Someone might double up with both of those players. That might be a one-two turn just to go fun and tools. I have done something like that in some of my NFPC teams, though. And one thing that is

annoying is there's so much late value in the outfield that when you go bang bang outfield at the beginning you might be getting great stats but at the end you'll be like i'm taking like a late middle infielder when i wish i could be taking a late outfielder yeah and i found chasing speed too you like to be able to do that from the outfield because you seem to find more bags from that group of players. But how can you complain with a possible 60-60 from your first two guys? The most fun 60-60 you can imagine for 2023. Kind of a wild ride, though, too, especially with Luis Rivera's injuries. He's just like, any time he's chased the ball down the outfield,

like, no, no, let it go. Let it go, Luis. We're not obsessing only with the first round in the future. I'm curious how much you would bump up Jazz Chisholm based on what we've seen so far. We've got improvements in O-swing percentage, walk rate, and ground ball rate. I would look at him maybe more.

You mentioned Witt as a second rounder. I think Jazz and and wit could be comparable in terms of our expectations for next year so you think jazz creeps up into the top 30 yeah i mean it's a little bit like carlson where you're like oh you're doing all the things that i want you to do um over time the uh the question with with o-swing is it's generally better this year his his chase rate is generally better this year. He had a spike in the middle of the year where it was as bad as it ever was last year.

But he then returned back to a lower rate. So I think that's just the process of getting better. It's like you are great, and then you get kind of overconfident or they find some little thing that they can pick at you, some new thing that they're picking at you, You are great. And then you get kind of overconfident or like, you know, or, or they find some little thing that they can pick at you,

some new thing that they're picking at you. And you kind of revert a little bit to, to what you did before. It's like when we're trying to do something better, like eat fewer chips or drink less beer, you know, like, you know,

they're like, you're doing good. You're doing good. You've changed some stuff. You change this stuff. And then family's in town. you're just super stressed out. You just eat all the chips and drink all the beer. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no.

That sounded very personal. That didn't sound very hypothetical. That sounded like a true story. I don't know what family was in town in the middle of the season for Jazz Chisholm, but there is a spike. No, I think this is why there is a weird thing that's true of prospects, which is that high strikeout, low walk prospects still have a higher exceed number than you think they have the highest bust rate of any prospects but they also have this like weird some superstars came out of

that bucket sure you know and i think uh jazzism shows you why because if you are going to continue to advance in the minor leagues despite you know a poor walk right and a poor strikeout right it's because you have a great defense a little bit like what we're talking about earlier right it's because you have great defense and you have great power and chisholm has showed us those things all the way through you know great i guess it comes in quotation marks because i don't know you think they're going to move him to shortstop next year? Seems reasonable. Is Rojas still under contract, though? Maybe one more year.

Miguel Rojas' contract always has an extra year. There's always a sequel. It's like an Air Bud movie. There's always another one. There's always another one. Yeah, 2023, he's already signed for next year. I mean, they could just play him as a reserve. Yeah, move him to second and move Birdie in and out with him. Yeah.

Anyway, I would say he has great defense from the eye test. He's always had the great power. Now he's kind of refining his played approach. Again, this isn't a character that I want at 29 and 30, and there are some Javier Baez-esque facets to his game, no? I would agree that there are some similar concerns, but the biggest difference for me is that we really never saw Baez walk

as much as we've seen that from Chisholm. There's always been a gap with that. So I think there's a better floor as a result of that. Because he runs, and being able to get on base when you run is huge. There's so many guys that could steal bases, but can't get on base enough to even do it. And that's not a problem for Jazz. And the nice thing about Witt and jazz being there in the second round

is that if you do want to go pitcher or Jordan Alvarez or Vlad in the first round, there might be a really nice middle infielder with speed waiting for you. You still have to do more work. You don't just pick jazz chism and pat yourself on the back and say i got all the steals i need but uh but if you paired wit or chisholm with your don in particular i think you would come out with a nice batting average a good deal of power and still you know 25 plus steals speaking of wit right now it's 11 homers, 12 steals, a 233, 284, 435 line. I think the reason why I'm saying top 30 back around two is possible or likely for him is because if you take out the first month that he was in the big leagues, it looks like Witt has already made the adjustments. That forecast is my way of saying that what we've seen from May on from Witt is what I expect to see over the next three months of the season.

And once we tack on three more months of what we've had, like the last two, then we're looking at a guy that's going to probably hit 255, 260 by season's end with a 320, 330 OBP, something close to that range. And then 2020 plus in that range. that's that's the type of player i think he's going to end up being and i just think that's it's kind of like early career ozzy albies where you look at it just in terms of the roto production and say yeah there's a

couple flaws for a young player but zero risk of playing time concerns place in the lineup is really secure and there's enough good here where we think he's going to fix the flaws along the way and continue to make value. And I'm saying that as someone who was skeptical of Witt at his 2022 price. I think the people who were on him at that price are being proven right. And people like me are being proven wrong. Yeah, I don't know that it was a bad process. I think it was a good process. Perfectly fine process.

I'm not abandoning my process as a result of being wrong. It is worth thinking about top five type prospects, top three type prospects in a different bucket, right? And there's different bus rates. There's different possible outcomes. And he's showing us, you know, I wouldn't even say this is an amazing you know top end outcome from he's showing us one of the better

outcomes for a rookie but one of my favorite things to do on on fan graphs is they have these rolling graphs and you know I know they don't have bail rate on there but they do have a chase rate and they do have fly ball rate I use fly ball rate as a bit of a proxy for power and for for barrel rate um just because i want to see them lift the ball it's it's hard sometimes for a young guy to lift the ball and generally over time you actually add fly balls as you age so uh you know if you look at some of these i have i had a couple names that i added to the rundown and i you know we talked too much and the show's almost over, so I better just throw them out there.

Christopher Morell and Jack Suwinski, I think, are really interesting. These are not guys that are going to move into the second or whatever, but they are guys that are playing their way up the board as we speak. We're all watching them trying to see how much we're going to believe them next year. What are they going to do? If you look at their chase rate and fly ball rates and then you put it next to Bobby Witt's, you see more sustained good behaviors from Witt over time and you see with morel actually and with swinsky spikes even in in chase rate as they've gone on in the season uh definitely not great improvement and so that's why wit is a superstar in the making and probably is my high as a second rounder next year. And Morel and Swinski are guys that are going to be working on stuff. May only hit 230 or whatever. But I do really like their barrel rate.

They were both in the top 50 for last month's barrel rate. Here comes my pop quiz hot shot. Oh, no. Who leads the league in barrel rate over the last 30 days? Did you give it away? Is it Jack Swinski? The name has been it jack swinsky the name has been said oh the name has been said but not not just just now in that little bit i was talking well it's probably jordan nope luke voight oh luke voight yeah i did come, I did mention him very early on. You're right. So the reason why I will, with a lower pick and with less investment in dynasty leagues and won't treat as untouchable and amazing, the reason why I will go after guys like Morel

and Swinsky is a little bit Voigt, where it's like, Hey, you can actually hit the ball hard enough to overcome some flaws. You know, it's almost circles around on the conversation we've been having the whole way through. It's the Mountcastle question. I think it's like when, when Ryan Mountcastle requires a, I don't know,

fringe top 100 overall pick, right. ADP probably somewhere in that range. I'm not, I'm'm not i'm not really into that there because i think there's other things you can get in that range that i like better but would i maybe a little morel and sawinski off the waiver wire or next year or pick 250 or pick 300 rounds 100 100 picks later yeah uh so you know that's why I wanted to throw them out there. And then a big mover because he was a different kind of, this is the very best kind of sleeper and mover that you want to see.

If you've got a guy who walks and doesn't strike out and then ends up on the top 50 in barrel rate, you've got to pay attention. Do you know who that is? He's on the rundown. You should be able to guess. I'm going to guess Swinsky again. No, Alejandro Kirk, dude.

Swinsky strikes out too much. Yeah, of course, Kirk. Yeah. That's a huge mistake. Is Kirk playing himself into top three catcher status next year? He's certainly putting some pieces together that make you think he could be there yeah i don't know uh like i have him i have him in a league where i already have my

six keepers and i probably have two or three extra guys that could be keepers and then i got kirk and i'm just like what do i do here especially it's a league where strikeouts are a category he's lovely i we talked about kirk is just one of the more unusual players really in the league where strikeouts are a category. He's lovely. We talked about Kirk as just one of the more unusual players really in the league a few weeks ago or last week. And he's basically, as a hitter, he's like Stephen Kwan, but he hits the ball hard. Like, well, that's really interesting because if there's one thing you change about Stephen Kwan,

you'd say, man, hit the ball harder. And plate skills-wise, I mean, i mean kirk double digit walk rate sub 10 k rate yeah 44.5 hard hit rate so far barrel rate continues to be in the double digits i mean he is he's playing really really well yeah and on pace right now to be a five to six war player too so the real value he's providing to the blue jays is probably even higher than they expected what's his earned value among catchers oh i gotta be top three no it's got i mean um yeah he's two seventeen dollars who's one it's not even it's not real muto it's not real muto Kind of an underrated player in the early rounds. Wilson Contreras.

Contreras. Catcher. I mean, this year, 20 for Wilson Contreras, 17 earned by Kirk, 15 for Varshow, 14 for Real Muto, 13 for Will Smith. I think Will Smith still could end up at the top of that leaderboard in the second half. Yeah. And then Darnot and Jonah Heim, the other two catchers who've earned double digits so far in a 15-team mixed league. Jonah Heim.

Jonah Heim's crushing it in, it was basically everyday duty when they had injuries. I think now it's a little less than that. But he might get more playing time because Mitch Garver said he has a strained, some sort of strained muscle in his forearm or something. Yeah, he still managed to ruin Dean Kramer's start for me yesterday. Arm must be feeling better than terrible.

Oh, man, you know what made me so angry? I got sleep in on Monday, and I bought Braxton Garrett because he was a two-start starter in barf, and the damn game started like 8 o'clock our time or something i yeah it's the same thing happened to me in a weekly league i picked him up i was gonna throw him in for the two-start week oh you were awake in time and then you went for a job i was awake and i thought wow it sure would be good to go for a run it's a holiday and it'd be a good way to start the week off you know be a little healthier eat a little less, eat a little less cheese, go for a run.

So I go for a run and I come back and I pop open my laptop. I'm like, I'm going to make sure everyone's good. It's 9.30 in the morning. Games probably start at 10 today, 4th of July. Why is he grayed out? I'm like, oh, come on. Just a horrendous weekly league error. It's like, actually,

this is still my first full year living out here. So the holiday baseball times are just not in sync in my head. My internal clock is not right. I just wanted to sleep. At least I was exercising. That could really cost me in barf, too, man. I could use extra strikeouts. I needed the ratios in that league.

That's one of the areas where I can make up a lot of standings points, and I went for a freaking jog instead. No standings points out there on the bike path, just to let everybody know. I looked and I didn't find anything. Lots of squirrels, no standings points. One more player you put on the rundown that I think is kind of interesting, because he's obviously a big riser and someone that we're going to be talking about a lot in the second half of the season and probably through draft season next year is michael harris in atlanta i mean this is a situation where they just got eddie rosario back so their outfield's getting a little more crowded that puts a little more pressure on him if he cools off at some point so far it's worked for

harris despite a lot of swings at pitches outside the zone and a ground ball rate that's a bit higher than what he had at double a like there's poor you can see warts but good good max exavilo good barrel rate we're talking about a guy who's 21 in his debut season who has shown consistently good walk rates in the minors doesn't seem to have a big strikeout problem in the minor league track record i'd be really excited if i were a fan of this team and i saw harris doing what he's doing so far even as someone who's skeptical about how good the second half is going to be he doesn't have to be great in the second half to keep regular playing time he's a good defender and takes quality at bats he'll play a lot and because he can hit for power and steal

bases he could be a good fantasy player even with short-term flaws yeah 100 you know there's running out to make a comparison to Acuna he's not Acuna he does not hit the ball he does not barrel the ball as much does not hit the ball as hard hits the ball on the ground too often to be Acuna but could he be a great player otherwise you know uh I do I do believe it. I think next year, you could do a projection for him next year where he hits 260 with 20 homers and 25 steals. I kind of think there's more of a Starling Marte profile here because of the ground balls and the speed being a little further than the power. That's more of the fantasy comp that I would see for someone like Harris,

just based on the early ground. The one thing you have to do is, to be Starling Marte, is steal a lot more bases. I mean, look at the success rates in the minors, though. 27 for 31 at high A last year in 101 games. He was 11 for 14 at AA in 43 games. That's the future of maybe a 20 to 30 steal guy

pretty easily. Again, if the OBPs hold and if organizational philosophy continues to allow players to run as much as they want, they seem like a team that lets guys run. All their great young players have come up and been able to steal bases. And Cunha offered the injury. Yeah, because I'm looking back at young, starling Marte, and that was one of the critiques people had about Marte.

They've always had that. He hits the ball on the ground a lot. It was always a limitation to his power. But he hits it hard. 113 max X of you, though, is not nothing. We were saying Dylan Carlson doesn't really hit. That was 108. 108 is a little bit the dividing line.

Yeah, looking way back. Starling Marte, minor league numbers, also young for the level when he played at AA as a 22-year-old back in 2011. 332, 370, 500, 17.5% K rate, 3.8% walk rate. So Harris walks more, strikes out about the same, hit the ball on the ground a little less than Marte did. Raw power, yeah, I think there's a difference there, but not that much. 12 homers in 129 games.

That was with Altoona for Marte, and then 5-43 for Harris. I think that's probably the direction he's going based on current players in the pool that we're really excited about. If you're trying to get a ceiling for Michael Harris, that's a pretty good ceiling because Starling Marte has been an early-round pick

for a long time. Yeah. It's super exciting. You know, Michael Harris is super exciting. And how quickly they moved him through just speaks to their belief in him. Yeah, they like the way he prepares. They like a lot of things about how Michael Harris has cruised through their minor league system so far. A couple of quick things I wanted to get to, because this has been in the rundown for a little while now, and I know we're running a little long, but we'll fly through this.

Trading for injured players. This is a specific question from Mark on the rundown. He's currently in first place. He's wondering if he should trade Taylor Ward, a healthy Taylor Ward now, to get Bryce Harper for a late-season playoff run, that's a head-to-head league, I would do it. If you're cruising in to first place, you know you're going to make the playoffs, I'd rather have the upgrade later. Taylor Ward's been good.

I think Taylor Ward, a lot of this breakout might be sustainable, but if we're not talking about getting this upgrade now, what are we doing here like you you want that you want a top 10 player later if you can get one yeah the only issue i have with it is that you you're dealing for a perceived upside and then um their play could be affected by the injury even as they come back right if harper comes back and he's not himself okay setbacks there are you know he's not himself, okay. There are setbacks. There are, you know,

he's not currently healthy. So you're taking a swing. Definitely a short-term hit kind of nursing that spot without Harper because Ward's good. Ward's playing really well, but I think if you feel good

about getting to the playoffs, it's something worth doing. I think this is the hard thing that people have had to figure out with Jacob deGrom in a lot of leagues. Like, should you really have been trading for him in the past month? Should you be trading

for him right now? Should you expect a guy to come back and be himself? Generally, I feel like you need to take a little off the projection for any type of injury. For Harper, it's a thumb injury. The elbow, we're not worried about the elbow because he was already playing at a really high level with that. But is the power all going to be there i think you expect 80 to 90 percent of harper instead of everything that's projected for him for de grom what are you expecting from de grom once he actually gets back i know he started as a rehab assignment and was basically striking everybody out it's still going to be a few weeks 100 yes but so is are you getting 80 percent of what you expected from Jacob deGrom once he's actually back? I don't know.

I think it's more like 100% went in. It's just a question of does he grab something else and go back down? Right. How much playing time do you actually get? Oh, you're going to get the Jacob deGrom, but you're going to get him for half as many innings as you're expecting. There's a risk there. He's had setbacks from setbacks. He's been ready to go and then not. He could make it to the big leagues, throw two starts and say, oh, something's not right yet.

Yeah, just 92 innings last year. Hopefully he comes back and is himself. Here's how I'm looking at it. I have not traded for deGrom anywhere. I'm not trying to trade for DeGrom anywhere. I need pitching in mixed tout. I need to find a way to close the gap at ERA and whip. He'd be a great fit. But he's also going to cost so much, right? I mean, even with the injuries, nobody's going to give you a break on Jacob DeGrom.

No, I would have to give up, I think, probably Xander Bogarts or like a $25 hitter to get DeGrom back. And if I'm giving up that kind of hitter, why would I not just trade for Gilito or Woodruff or someone else who's comparable? Yeah, take the lesser pitcher who's currently healthy as opposed to trying the ceiling guy that may come back. Yeah, currently injured pitchers I'm not into. Currently injured position players, I could see it. And it might depend a little bit on the injury. I don't know.

Like what if you got a currently injured hitter that has been having hamstring issues all year? Like what if they tore their hamstring? I don't want to be waiting around for that. Well, it does depend on the injury a little bit but generally trading for injured stars not something i'd do head-to-head leagues especially i'd be a little more inclined to do it because you can you know you're still probably going to get to the playoffs in roto you could lose ground and then not be able to make it up later because every single yeah it doesn't make sense in roto yeah just keep just try to be always first yeah it's almost like consolidating in a keeper league when you're

trading for the playoffs let's make sense of tristan mckenzie or at least try to hit a two start week this past week first start against minnesota did not go well second start against the yankees did actually go pretty well but he he's been pretty disappointing. A lot of home run issues and obviously the weather in Cleveland. We've talked about that a couple of times. It's going to play a lot more hitter friendly this time of year than it did earlier in the year. Do you see anything in the underlying numbers

of Tristan McKenzie that gives you some confidence that he can be the guy that he was in the second half of last season and in the first six to eight weeks of this season? It really seemed like mid-May was about the time that the home run started to come back and really start to bite Tristan McKenzie I think what's going on here is that he's throwing harder he's throwing closer to his maximum and it's costing him command and so you'll see that his maximum has not really changed. His max velo has been around 95, you know, forever. But, you know, he's closer to 93 now sitting. When he first came up,

it was like 90, 91 in last year. So I think by throwing closer, he's, he's improving his stuff and his, you know, his stuff numbers, you know, from start to start are, are fine. They're good. He's consistently putting up 105s, 104s, especially in the last six starts. He's been above 105 in five of them um so you know that part's good it's the command that goes up and down he has starts where he's you know early in the season he had more starts where he was above 100 uh in uh in command and below 100 and stuff so it's like he's he's ending up uh as a very mercurial kind of up-and-down pitcher for different reasons.

But the stuff is getting better generally. I like most of his team situation. I think what's funny is what I would do if I had McKenzie is start him in that first start and not in that second one. Oops. Last week, yeah. If you could play the matchups last week, I would have been that first start and not in that second one. Oops. Last week, yeah. If you could play the matchups last week, I would have been out because I had to use them in weekly leagues.

It ended up working out kind of okay or fine, but it was really disheartening to see the easier of the two matchups go as sideways as it did for Tristan McKenzie. Weird that he's had both flaws, though, and if he puts it all together, you might get that prolonged stretch where he's a low-threes ERA guy with a good whip again because the ingredients are all there. Got a question from John about Brian Bayo,

who's going to come up and start for the Red Sox. I believe that's on Wednesday, and curious if he compares to Daniel Espino and some of the other top end prospects that have been discussed frequently in the minor leagues um I don't I don't know that much about him just that he has a it's the great change up right uh that's I think that's his deal. He's got a 60 changeup. I know that I personally have a little bit of a bias against changeup pitchers. You want a breaker. A really good breaking ball, ideally for the swings and misses.

He's been getting good strikeout rates, but if you look at his whiff rates, the wh's he's been getting good strikeout rates but if you look at his whiff rates they are the whiff rates are insane and the strikeout rates are good you might see something similar in the big leagues I think the bigger question though has been command for Bayo the slider is supposed to be about as good as the changeup based on the fan graph scouting grades and home run rate hasn't been a problem for him in the minor leagues I wonder if that'll be an issue with the command problems in the big leagues. And then if the walk rate goes up, he's in more trouble.

This is one of the lower, they have a 30, 40 command grade on him at Fangraphs. And he's never had a walk rate over four per nine. Right. It's kind of strange, isn't it? Yeah.

It'd be something to watch. I mean, listen, no one has to yell at the radio i understand that command is not just walk rate you know i'm just saying that it's you know usually they line up i mean he had he had seasons where he didn't even walk three per nine um and in a couple and well those are smaller sample but a couple seasons where he didn't even walk two per nine so um yeah this is i think it's gonna be fun i do what i do have a bias towards and this is kind of interesting

i have a bias towards change up pitchers in terms of watchability like there's i think there's almost nothing so awesome as a change up that has a ton of movement because it just seems so almost unnatural it comes out of the hand instead of going you know glove side which is like okay that makes sense in my brain like a great change-up just veers off arm side it's just like super improbable and it's super crazy looking i think so i i love watching good change-ups i'm definitely going to watch his debut i don't know that um like people are asking me if they should drop established starters that are pitching well and i'm just like no i don't think so you can drop a streamer you can drop a a back-end guy like would you drop a

tyler anderson for him no i don't think baio is necessarily permanent yeah they've got a lot of guys coming back including sale and i just think back think a lot of the Red Sox young starters that have been filling in could end up in the bullpen. Bayo could be one of them. They might see him as a multi-inning weapon that they can use to help bridge the gap between their starters and their bullpen arms. That could totally happen.

But I think the reason Bayo doesn't come up in the same conversations as Grayson Rodriguez and Daniel Espino is that command grade. I think the other difference, though, is that even the best pitches in the arsenal of Rodriguez and Espino are higher graded pitches than Baio's best pitches. So it's a little bit of both. So I think that's part of why he's been more in the second tier of pitching prospects. Doesn't mean he won't be good. I mean, my top tier in the

minors is espino meyer and rodriguez and yuri perez for me is in that group he's so young 19 at double a i have a little bit more track man movement knowledge about meyer espino and and grayson rodriguez so i always fall back on that a little bit but thanks for that question john last player we're going to talk about today paul wants to know we think of harold ramirez who has been hitting in a prominent spot in the raise order and he's got first base corner first base outfield eligibility so a little bit of flexibility in a lot of leagues that is there something you see in harold ramirez that helps you understand why the rays seem to like him so much and why he's starting to take away some playing time from a guy like Josh Lowe? I wonder if he's got the defensive chops. So I wonder what,

if it's really, you know, something that I would want to do in center field, they are not playing him in center field. As you can tell from the sort of 1b slash of it's there's you know the cody bellinger and almost nobody else is also playing center so they are not using him in center which i think that's why josh low has to play is because they're out of center fielders they're playing kiermeier in center again now to kiermeier being healthy yeah that that's that's sort of left in the shoes between Lowe and Ramirez in a corner. And I'm surprised they're not giving Lowe more chances, but Ramirez is producing.

He's a win now. It's a win now situation. And if it's going to continue, then Lowe will go down. What they like about Ramirez is he has a plus hit tool. When they pick up guys like Paredes, right? When they pick up guys even like Orozco and Orozco and his strikeout rate is higher, but they have good hit tools. And they like guys who have good hit tools.

What's interesting about Javier Ramirez is he has this good hit tool and then he has 114, 115 max EV. So he's a little bit like yandi diaz right guy who can put the ball in play hits it really hard and doesn't lift it it's a it's a profile they like yeah a lot of a lot of well-struck balls for ramirez i think just raise doing raise stuff though in terms of how frustrating it is if you're trying to see if Josh Lowe can provide bags for you. I think it's hard to break in when your

playing time is up and down as Lowe's appears to be right now. And Vidal Brujan's one level even below that right now. So you've got to think a trade is happening in Tampa Bay. Someone, one of those guys, I think is on the move as we get to the deadline. Thanks a lot for the

great questions for today's show. You got a question for a future episode? Drop us a note. Ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com. Eno is at Eno Saris on Twitter. I'm at Derek Van Ryper. And if you are listening to this podcast but do not have a subscription to The Athletic, you can get one for a dollar a month for the first six months at theathletic.com

slash ratesandbarrels. We got a 3-0 show coming out on Thursday morning. We are back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.