Rates & Barrels - Jackson Holliday's Arrival, Ceddanne Rafaela's Early Struggles & Looking Ahead at Weekend Pickups

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss recent progress in the Ippei Mizuhara story, as Mizuhara is in the process of negotiating a guilty plea with federal prosecutors with evidence suggesting that Mizuhara may have stolen more than $4.5 million from Shohei Ohtani. Plus, they consider the arrival of Jackson Holliday and his 2024 comps before taking a look at several minor league injury updates, the early-season struggles of Ceddanne Rafaela, waiver-wire targets, and a few mailbag questions. Rundown 2:07 Movement in the Ippei Mizuhara Case 5:25 Jackson Holliday Gets the Call to Baltimore; Debuts Wednesday 15:17 Spencer Arrighetti: Promoted by Astros to Fill Rotation Vacancy 18:16 Minor League Injury Updates: Junior Caminero, Jeferson Quero, Robert Gasser, River Ryan & Walker Jenkins 27:42 Ceddanne Rafaela's Ongoing Struggles at the Plate 37:22 Good News (Nick Pivetta), Bad News (Yoán Moncada) 43:13 Early Waiver Wire Outlook: Colton Cowser, Cody Bradford, Bryce Elder and José Soriano 55:30 Mailbag Questions: Pitching+, David Bednar's Hold on the Closer Role, and JP Sears Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! https://www.youtube.com/c/ratesbarrels Subscribe to The Athletic for just $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Ferales, happy Thursday. It's Thursday, April 11th. Derek VanRyper here with Innosaris. On this episode we have an update involving the Ipe Mizuhara story as it's become the former translator for Shohei Otani. We've got our first 2024 installment of Project Prospect, which is no longer a full episode, but a portion of an episode or a segment,

as we like to call it in the podcast world. We're also gonna have a weekend waiver preview talking about a few players that might be trending their way onto rosters this weekend. If not sooner, you might have some daily league opportunities to make moves for these players. And we've got a few mailbag questions from our discord to get to at the end of this episode as well. If you're not in the discord yet, grab the link to join that. It is in the show description. You know, how's it going for you on this Thursday? Good, good. I'm red-eyed and allergic as usual, but it's getting hot here now. So it was 80 during my run yesterday. So I guess spring is over. It lasted like two weeks. I have spring here now. It was 63, I think, when I ran on Tuesday. Oh, and what's hilarious about the first like 58 degree day in, I'm assuming Milwaukee,

in Boston, it was like people were taking their shirts off and like everyone's outside and you're like, it's still kind of cold guys. Yeah, it's I saw people walking around in shorts and T shirts this weekend when it was in the mid fifties and Hey, you're a little early. Like you have gear for this temperature too, but you're choosing not to use it because you used it a few months ago and you're so excited. You don't want to break it back out until October. So I understand it happens, but I'm glad things have finally progressed out of the dredges of winter here in the upper Midwest. So the breaking news of the last 24 hours, Ipe Muzahara is negotiating a guilty plea

in connection to the purported theft of money from his former friend and translator he worked for Shohei Otani. Federal prosecutors found evidence that Muzahara may have stolen even more than the previously reported $4.5 dollars to pay for gambling debts and the evidence alleges that Mizuhara altered the settings on Otani's bank account so Otani would not be aware of the transactions, which sort of answers the big question of, hey, wouldn't you get a notification

if someone wired $500,000 out of your bank account at some time? Well, apparently not if you turn the settings and notifications off, as may have been the case here. So it seems like we're speeding along to a resolution. And, you know, as this continues to move forward, it doesn't seem like Shohei Otani would face any sort of disciplinary action from Major League Baseball, given that, by the way, this is being reported. He was just a victim of theft it's one of those updates that seems to follow the company line the The oh it wasn't Otani didn't do anything wrong here

You know like seems to follow along and kind of it gives us a little bit of detail like oh This is we're starting to hear a little bit more about how you pay may have managed the finances and manage that whole bit. I wonder if we'll ever know the whole story is how I feel now, because I feel like we'll just get little drips and drabs from this. I don't know. I don't know. It's it's an unfortunate thing. The thing that's so tough is that we'll just never really know how much Otani knew about the situation that takes getting all the way into someone's head. You know, it's like, you know, they'll just, it's not like he'll have written down something that is like here,

you know, you pay, this is for your gambling debts or for my gambling debts. Like there's no, there's no a canceled check or check receipt somewhere with the memo line gambling debts. Yeah, exactly. So I don't know. I think, I think this is also, it's going to be a little war shock things where just people are going to believe what they believed from the beginning. Yeah, I tend to think that.

I've been trying to keep an open mind and like, trying to sort of sift through the evidence, but I don't know that we'll get all the evidence and you've got people boldly declaring all sorts of things. I guess that's sort of how the new cycle goes. Yeah. Not really the business I want to be in, but this kind of fits into one of the more likely progressions for the story. And I think the interest level went from, I don't know, nine or a ten on the one to ten scale when the story first broke down to about a two or a three based on how

people are reacting here on Thursday. So that's where things are. You can read the latest in the Atlantic and on the New York Times. They had a story about it. Say the likelihood of Ohtani being suspended is in the single digits now, percentage-wise. I'd be stunned at this point based on what has been reported if that were to happen. Now, a lot of things are happening on the field.

So we begin today with Jackson Holliday. He made his debut with the Orioles on Wednesday, 0-4-4 with an RBI. Totally makes sense. And I think maybe the logic for the Orioles in sending him down was that the first level at which Jackson Holliday had any sort of resistance in terms of competition was AAA last year.

And even still, a 109 WRC plus in a small sample as a 19-year- old at AAA is fantastic. They sent him back down, he spent 10 games there, he was breaking AAA. He had a 182 WRC plus in the brief time he was there this year, right? He was striking out less than he did last year at the level, he was walking more.

The whole team was annihilating AAA. Poor AAA Charlotte, they've been on the receiving end of a lot of it so far, but I think as far as just saying, okay, let's make sure he's completely ready. They ticked that box quickly. I didn't think it would take long, but where do we go from here? I mean, projections for Jackson Holiday are underwhelming. The bad X has him at 257, 330, 378. That doesn't quite line up with my personal expectations for Holiday, but just how far away from the projection are you willing to set your own expectations? The one addendum that I'd give

to what you said about the way he blew through the minor leagues was that spring training, though he did fine, did have one little warning marker, which was a weird 31% strikeout rate. So I think that was sort of part of it too, was like, you know, these two things together, let's put him back down there in AAA. And then it was like, well, it's painfully obvious. Also, you know, sometime around the time that he came up is just around where you get that extra year of team control.

Just need to throw that out there. You know, whether or not it was wrangling or just trying to get him to prove that AAA was not useful for him anymore. He's back up. The big thing that I'm watching is swing strike rate. It's been really low, but it has kind of risen in spring training against major leaguers. And so I wonder again always I always wonder with the 20 21% guys, when they get to the big leagues, is it going to stay around there or is it going to jump? And then, you know, yeah, the power I think is an interesting thing because he's had some

times with the power look like it could be legs. And we don't have a tracked exit velocity above 108.2 for him in in sort of the in the major league way. Like I'm sure there are other people have minor league track records for him, but I don't have those in front of me. That's where the growth lies. The growth lies, the question lies in the strikeout rate and the growth lies in the power.

I think the baseline for him is for the rest of the season, I would give him an easy 260, 275, 15, 10 to 15 homers and 10 plus steals. Again, is it the 15 or 20 homers? That gives you a rookie of the year. Right. And that, of course, would change the service time outcome for holiday, too. If he's top three in the AL and rookie of the year voting, he crews a year of service time. Always get rewarded. There's a few ways this can play out too,

with the new rules. So it's still an early enough call up. Maybe that's why they played with it. They're like, oh, he's gonna be top three in the rookie of the year. He might even win top three in the rookie year. He gives us a pick. Let's get the extra year back

so that when we lose the extra year. Oh God. Did you know, like I'm laughing about it, but it's sad. But it's like, you know, someone has modeled this out. Someone has thought about this. It's just the weird part of managing baseball rosters. You have a set of rules.

You have to work within those rules and try and do the best you can as an organization. It's not always doing the straight line. Let's put our best players on the roster sort of approach. But I think with Holliday, he's shadow league relevant. Even if there's a possibility that he comes in a little lighter than other players that you would have in your middle infield, there's a chance that he exceeds the numbers

you threw out there. Some percentage chance that is higher than most. I do think when you have really young for the level prospects who are not putting up the max exeveelos that we tend to look for, it is less problematic. This came up back in the days when Juan De Franco was a prospect. I think that's going on here to some extent with Jackson Holiday.

I also think if you read some of the reports about physically how he looks this year compared to last year, a lot of that physical growth has taken place since last season. So it would surprise me very little if he has a few of the hardest hit balls we've ever seen against big league pitching, simply because he is stronger now than he was over the last two seasons as he was making his way through the minor leagues. Nobody like underlined that better than a guy who just came to San Francisco this week in CJ Abrams took a high and tight 94 from Kyle Harrison that's lefty on lefty and went center tank tank through triples alley passed almost into the water.

And I was like, this man has grown manpower. And I was sitting here talking about his max exit below two years ago. So like, yeah, I think, you know, I was also looking at Jackson Churio's numbers and there's some rumblings on the discord about, you know, should I trade Jackson Churio in a redraft because 30% strikeout rate, 14% swing strike rate, not a great max EV, not a great hard hit rate. And maybe, but maybe not, dude, maybe not, because growth can happen even within a season.

And I think we've already seen some of this coming with Jackson Truro. And if this is a bad 10 days for Jackson Truro, he'll be fine. If this, if this is a bad 10 day stretch for him, there's no demotion risk. There's nothing to be worried about whatsoever. He moves around the lineup a little bit. I think if he settles in, he'll be high in the lineup consistently. I think it's more, right now,

a case of trying to put him in spots to be successful and build up his confidence. I think we're gonna see some of that with Jackson Holiday too because the Orioles have the luxury of a lot of other good players. Like you don't have to put immediate pressure on Jackson Holliday. You're trying to win games right now and develop players.

So walk that line as you see fit. So I think that totally makes sense. But I would agree, like the first 10 major league games for any player, you don't wanna draw a lot of conclusions about that. Like that's a very slippery slope, especially when you're talking about some of the elite of the elite prospects in the game.

You were saying 260 to 275, 10, 15 homers, and I think 10 steals was sort of your baseline expectation for holiday. What kind of veteran player has a projection like that? That's sort of the next iteration of finding the appropriate short- term comp, right? Like who else who else does something like that? Let's see here and look at 2023 and sort by stolen bases, not in the elite.

I actually could look a little bit like Randy Arroz Arena light. Tyra Strada last year pretty much nails it. Oh, you know, you know,'s numbers actually fit that pretty closely? Cabrion Hayes, projection wise. 261, 15 homers, 71 and 66, I think for runs in RBI, 16 steals, I mean that's, again, a very good player from the start. I think the Tyro Strada one's funny though

because in a 10 or in my kid's six person league, whatever, like you could have Tyra Estrada and Jackson Holliday could be out there. And I would make that switch. Right, because of the ceiling potential. If it doesn't work, you can go back and find someone else on the wire, similar to Estrada. You're not going to find someone with that,

even if it's a lower percentage outcome. You're not gonna find that ceiling. Would you drop Cabrion Hayes in that situation for holiday? I guess so, maybe. Yeah, in a super shallow league, yeah. We've had, Cabrion Hayes has had enough bites at the Apple at the big league level where the chances. Would you drop Andres Jimenez?

Ooh, probably not. That's closer to the line. I think there's also a little more categorical juice that I expect from the stolen bases from Jimenez. So it's 2024 only. I think I'd take Jimenez over Jackson Holiday. And that has freezing cold takes potential just written all over it.

How about George Springer and Cody Ballinger? Spicy. Now, would you take holiday over those guys for 2024? Oh, you're thinking about it. They're old, old. Come on, man. You'd love George Springer two months ago. That's true. That's true. Yeah, I can't do it

Look Cody Ballinger's it's kind of a boring ass start. I'll have to say Yeah, well, it's early. It's still very very early Let's move along through some other prospect related items of Spencer our Aguetti I saw an unbelievable number of spaghetti jokes in the timeline. This has probably been happening to Spencer Arrighetti his entire life. I mean, you can't look at his name and not just see spaghetti. It's in it's right there.

You just knock a few letters out and spaghetti. I get it. But this guy is just trying to live his life. Just trying to pitch in the big leagues, which is hard enough. We don't need the what is your spaghetti policy? Yes. Yes. Yes.

But the debut was shaky, three innings, seven earned, seven hits, three walks, three Ks. He's supposed to get at least one more start, according to Chandler Roem of The Athletic. It's because Fromber Valdez has left elbow inflammation. To this point, nothing more serious has been detected by further imaging, at least that we know about. It's just inflammation for now.

What did you see from Arrighetti, even though the surface results were disappointed? Did you see an arsenal that was impressive, even though it wasn't necessarily effective the first time out? The fact that he had 95 was decent. He had some good swing strike rates in the minors Model didn't really like it. It seems like an emergency type situation, you know, the foreseen fastball

Looks pretty average and a lot of his Plus a lot of his red on his fangra on his baseball savant page are horizontal which you know Baseball savant page are horizontal, which, you know, it can work. But, you know, it's kind of a weird combination to have this this really sideways sweeper with a fore seam. And the last reason that I remain a little bit worried is 30 command grades and walk rates that were pretty bad. So I think that's part of the picture as well.

So I'm mostly out. You're not going down the road of, hey, the Astros do this all the time. I thought if we're going to get something good from Spencer Arrighetti, be that in the immediate future or probably more likely in the longterm future, maybe it's like a Reese Olsen sort of package where you see some pretty big strikeout rates

in the minors, but also with some control issues that need to be ironed out, that low command grade is the biggest thing for him to overcome. I don't think it's the quality of his pitches that's going to be the problem. I do think it's his ability to locate that's going to determine whether or not he is a good

or average or even a successful big league starter, or if he ends up eventually moving to the bullpen. But I think by need, he's at least gonna be an up and down guy for the Astros this season. He doesn't turn into something a bit more because they're struggling with depth right now because of a few injuries. Few other prospect injury notes to follow up on.

Good news here, Junior Caminero could return from the seven day IL by this weekend. That's according to Mark Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. I think we're at the point right now, given that the injury was previously reported to be relatively minor. Kevin Harrow's still probably a stash for most folks, and probably the best available position player stash

in the minors now that Jackson Holliday got the call. Yes, definitely, definitely. Although I have one for a little bit later that is more of a long shot, but yeah, yeah. Definitely Junior Kevininero, the best in the minors, James Wood, Dillon Cruz, right there. I think I'd still, if I could only have one,

in most redraft situations, you're looking to be able to stash one, I think it's Caminero that I prefer. Okay, I'm with you. More polish on the hit tool is the biggest reason. I think there's more questions still about Wood, and even Dillon Cruz in that regard. We haven't seen as much of Cruz in the minor league since he was drafted last summer.

But I do think Dillon Cruz is one of those guys that in a very short sample somehow temporarily lowered his long-term stock enough where he became a reasonable target and the opportunity to do that should fade pretty quickly. Some follow-ups from Milwaukee. Jefferson Caro will have season-ending shoulder surgery. It's a torn labrum.

Initially, they described it as a dislocated shoulder, so they're waiting for inflammation to go down, but there is significant damage in there, so he's going to miss the 2024 season. So pretty big loss for the Brewers from a catching depth perspective. This is a guy that's actually one of the best catching prospects in baseball.

So now his debut is on hold for another year. On the pitching side, Robert Gasser scheduled for two innings at Extended Spring Training on Saturday. So you could see probably a lengthy rehab assignment for him sort of stretching out. But given some of the issues the Brewers are dealing with, already using Aaron Ashby earlier in the week, I think Robert Gassiter is becoming a more important part of their 2024 plan than people previously anticipated.

Yeah, I mean, DL Hulbs, Vito doesn't look that great. His stuff didn't look that great. Yeah, is Jacob Mizorowski, you know, his timeline pushed up, you know, when he's when he's ready to go is like that. Is that a possibility? I think they're going to throw anybody they think can help them win games because they're still winning games and they're doing it suboptimally in terms of like, you know, with their start, their starting staff. So I think I think anybody who pitches well in their system right now will be good. We'll get a look from them.

The gasser. There's a lot more experience at AAA 135 135 in a third innings last year, plus 26 in a third to finish 2022. There's really not much left for him to prove at that level. He cut the walk rate last year. The Ks have been there. Yeah, Mizorowski has more to prove with the walk rate for sure.

And they sent Mizorowski back to AA to begin this season. So he's in Biloxi right now, not Nashville. I think Mizorowski is more of an August sort of call up for them and maybe even in a bullpen role initially, even if they still like him longterm as a starter. And I think Gasser's the guy that ultimately, maybe falls into like the number three, number four starter role over the course of this season.

So track his rehab, try to stash him where you can. He's probably a little too far away to stash and redraft right now, but I think there's gonna be a point soon where you're gonna wanna add Gasser to those rosters. I got a little pop-up prospect for us. Oh, got one. A little random going off of the rundown.

I love it. A little sword action. This dude leads AA in home runs, and he was a round three pick in 2022. So it's not really out of nowhere. He does play for an organization that I sort of doubt their ability to have a great impact on player development, but there are some changes under the hood. Colby Thomas has three home runs already and in his first taste of double A.

So it's kind of funny. There's that big jump. I mean, I'm not saying that I care about results on a weak level in the minor leagues, but it is interesting to make the jump from single A to double A and just do it, hitting the ground running underneath the hood. Best swing strike rate if the season ended right now, but a little bit of improvement best swing strike rate if the season ended right now But a little bit of improvement swing strike rate and then he went from pulling the ball a lot to pulling the ball all the time 63% pull percentage that could go either way We could see the strikeout rate kind of go up or we could see him really establish that he's a power hitter That's kind of where it goes with the extreme pull guys. So just a guy to watch, Colby Thomas looking good right now. Power and speed. And if he can keep the strikeout

rate under 25%, then maybe an okay batting average with that power and speed combo. Yeah. Great start for him so far. See how these next few weeks play out. 510, 190. Ooh, I kind of love this guy. Yeah. I don't always trust the back of the baseball card heights and weights on prospects. That's very much true. It could be a little random. But we'll see.

We'll see if we actually get some eyes on him, see if it's a real 510 190. River Ryan has been placed on the 60-day IL with shoulder fatigue. That's according to Jim Callis of MLB.com. He's just posed. That's such a weird separation of diagnosis and move. His shoulders a little fatigued, 60 days. There's nothing about River Ryan that is as normal, that's ordinary. I mean, you look at the way

people assess and rank him in the prospect community and you have the high folks, people like Eric Lungenhagen. Eric Langenhagen has top 20 overall. He's like 19th on that list. Keith Law had him at 33. Our buddy James Anderson has him at 166. The reason being is there is significant reliever risk in the profile. But the thing about River Ryan that makes him so interesting is there's this sort of de-Grammish late bloomer potential,

which is a super unfair thing. I regret saying that. I'm not gonna edit it out. I'm not gonna ask Brian to edit that out. But he's a former two-way player, right? Started pitching late and he has four pitches and three of them are above average and the command might not be that bad.

And the other odd thing about River Ryan is that the Dodgers acquired him from the Padres. That's all very weird and very interesting so huge K-Rates in the minors I think a big part of it you know is that 60 day IL means you're on the 40 man roster and 40 man roster spots are precious and if you are someone who threw a hundred and four innings last year you could very easily get to whatever limit the organization has for you if you take two months off like you could still get close to like 130 140 and be available for the

postseason regardless of what you think River Ryan's long-term role is I think you could probably objectively look at his stuff and his ability to miss bats and say he's probably on that roster in October if he's healthy. So maybe it's more of a roster management, long-term health play where yeah, there's a real injury here and we don't really need him now so we're gonna let this thing calm down, bring him up in June, have him pitch a little triple A

and then see what our needs are at that time. That's sort of the vibe I get from how they're handling this. Or something worse is there and they'll tell us about that later. That's sort of the vibe I get from how they're handling this or something. Something worse is there and they'll tell us about that later. That's always a possibility. I'm going to stay on the optimistic side and hope it's more of the former. The back end of the Dodgers rotation.

There's a big question mark in Clayton Kershaw right now. They're filling it with, you know, some interesting guys, but Emmett Sheehan is hurt. I'm not a big Michael Grove fan. I'm not probably as much of a Gavin Stone fan as others and so. Maybe there's some daylight there were Clayton Kershaw says no I actually need the whole year. James Paxton says it's time for my yearly break. Emma Sheen is not back and they don't really want to go Yarborough Grove a lot,

but they're still Kyle Hurt, so there's a lot for him to be in the majors, I think, other than a reliever this year. Still got Landon Nack. There's another guy that they could use at some point. He's working as a starter right now. Triple A's gone at least five each of his first three starts,

so I always love to see how the Dodgers pull it together, and just think about where people were on Emmet Sheehan this time last year. Someone's gonna pop in that system. That's just the way Dodgers player development tends to go, just the question of who it's going to be. Couple of injury things to get to, Walker Jenkins, one of the top prospects in the Twins organization

is on the IL right now and Fort Myers due to a hamstring strain. Doesn't sound too serious, but that's why he's not playing right now if you're looking for some early season numbers from him. There's still a prospect already in the big leagues. Sedan Rafaella is likely going to see some time in the middle infield. This is according to Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic. Initially Alex Cora said that they weren't going to try and move Rafaella around to help

backfill in the middle infield with Trevor Story suffering that season ending shoulder injury. They have changed course on this. The defense at centerfield is phenomenal. This is why people are pretty confident in the floor with Raffaella. The bigger question is going to come down to the adjustments he makes at the plate. And so far, the start to 2024 looks a lot like what we saw in the brief time he was up in 2023. The K rate's over 30%, right? The walk rate's under 5%, and he may never be someone that draws a lot of walks.

Some guys are just good hit tool guys that swing a lot. 48.9% O swing percentage is a problem for anyone. Even if you're a good bad ball hitter, you're probably swinging too much at pitches outside the zone when you're living near 50%. So I'm starting to wonder if Raffaella needs to turn things around at the plate in the next couple of weeks while Von Grissom works his way back to avoid getting a brief taste of triple A again, because I think there's a growing chance they want him to iron out some of these these plate discipline issues against the lower level of competition before bringing him back up for probably an extended run again

But I just I'm worried as someone who has Rafael on a few rosters I'm worried the bottom could fall out at least temporarily with playing time despite his versatility and his defensive value Speaking of bottom. I've got a graph for those who want to see it. It's a little bit small You might have to make your screen bigger. But if you look at this basically just as a grouping of players, what I've got is walk rate on the left, K rate on the bottom, and then by color is their isolated power. And the reason I did this is I wanted just to show you that like, OK, 22 percent is league average. So you can actually cut this thing into quadrants, right.

And if you look at it, you're just like, OK, the the bottom right quadrant is the worst quadrant. That's low walk rate, high strikeout rate. But if you've got a red dot, you can make it work. And so Jose Siri is down there in that part. Luke Rayleigh has a red dot. Adam Duvall has a red dot. Those guys have made it work. Christian and Karnazio on strand is down there in that part. Luke Rayleigh has a red dot. Adam Duvall has a red dot. Those guys have made it work. Christian Encarnacion Strand is down there. He's got a gray dot.

So, you know, he could go either way, but, you know, he's he's got that power profile that makes it work. Right. Now, if you look down there and you look at the blue dots, now you're looking at probably the worst players in baseball over the last year. So you've got Kevin Smith down there, Christian Betancourt, Oscar Gonzalez, Edmund Sosa, Trevor Story. I know there's the intercomponent, but that's that's what you're looking at down there in the bottom right.

Elu Harris, Montero. So you're looking at you'd have a bad walk rate. You have a bad strikeout rate and you're not giving me power. That's the grouping that you're seeing down there. And that's where you find Saddam Rafaela, so he needs to hit for power if he's going to have this kind of approach or he needs to hit for contact if he's not going to have that power. He has to do one of the two things given his inherent swing strike rate.

I think it has to be the power. And then looking at his kind of, you know, his eggs of Velo's, his historical power, I'm becoming a lot more pessimistic about him. The one thing that does happen, though, and of course, obligatory

Aaron Judge breaking my map. That's that dot at the way top. That red dot at the very top of the screen. That one almost near the key. It was further to the right. It'd be like kind of hidden back in there. Yeah. Yeah. And then Nolan Shanuel is great because he's got he's he's one of the few people

in the top left. Great walk rate. Great strikeout rate. Dark blue dot. He's up there hanging out with Pavin Smith, JP Crawford, Sal Freelick's up there in the left top with a blue dot and Anthony Rendon. In any case, it's a fun map. I'll tweet it out later with with the show so you can see it in more detail. But the thing that I was looking through and this is the name that I teased earlier as

an interesting name at the top of the minors that may have something to do with this is that let's okay so the bat is like borderline major leaguer right now like it's really it's pretty bad and he has some work he has to do who plays in center field if he goes and i don't have a great answer for you because Tyler O'Neill is listed on that depth chart but he had like a zero outs above average there's not that many guys you take that like a zero outs above average. There's not that many guys that you take that have a zero outs above average. You put them in center. They could take them from the corner and put them in center.

You know, what are the other options? Jaren Durin lost a pop-up in left field that went right to him. And I don't know what happened. Maybe there was some sunlight issues, but like if he's gonna miss balls They go right to him and we know he doesn't run good routes. Like he's not my guy Will your Braves not my guy Roman Anthony's my guy. Oh

Roman Anthony's my guy. He's got this weird thing with a strikeout rate is not consistent and right now he's striking out too much But it's really early the give me two weeks and Roman Anthony's strikeout rate is 23%. I don't know, maybe. You gotta find somebody in center. He's played 13 games above high A. This would be closer to like a Michael Harris level of aggression if they were to give him six more weeks at double A and say, all right, you're our best option. Let's go. Right. That's because didn't Michael Harris have like 40 games or so at double A when the Braves brought him up and they said, we know the gloves ready.

We think the approach is good enough. Let's see what happens. And they were right. I think the flip side is that Roman Anthony is still powerfully young, too. Like, it's not like I think Harris was a little bit older. Yeah, Harris was his age 21 season when he debuted. Yeah. Anthony's 19 right now. So it might be pushed in the realm of, of what's actually possible, but I do look at this team and wonder that's what's going to keep Raffaella in the big leagues.

So it's weird that they're not talking about the middle infield because the need seems more stringent in the center. Yeah. Yeah. The, who would they play in center field question is a real one. I wonder, is there, is there a bad team that has a good defensive center fielder that you could get for next to nothing without swinging some kind of big trade you know I'm not talking about oil the Rockies are gonna see that one through we know we know how they operate but

who's playing center and for the White Sox know that I love that so the first place your mind went Dominic Fletcher, Kevin Pilar. Well, there's your guy that used to be. Oh, Kevin Pilar, there we go. Kevin Pilar for nothing, and he's your nine hitter, and you give Raffaella a couple weeks in the minors, and then Raffaella comes back. He's just not as bad as Raffaella with the stick, and not as good as Raffaella with the glove,

but sort of sticks it out for you. Maybe the Reds start getting healthier, Stuart Fairchild. I like that. He's looked pretty good in this series that the Brewers the Reds start getting healthier. Stuart Fairchild. I like that. He's looked pretty good in this series that the Brewers and Reds have been playing. Pulled a home run back from Willie Adames, I think. Oh, how about a big trade though? Jazz.

Jazz, like that's. That's kind of a fun one. That's a fun one because jazz is, I think, interesting enough in center field where he's an upgrade over what you have right now. But you don't have to keep him there long term. If you want Roman Anthony to be your centerfielder in the long run, you can move jazz to a corner. You can easily tweak that later.

You can move jazz back to the dirt if you want to at some point. I kind of like this one. What you got, you've got two years, three years of team control. So it's going to have to be a big deal. But it fits a real need. You could put sit down in the deal, give them back something that they can work on for a while. You have to put more in.

But I like where this is going. It's an idea. And guys that have that less than patient approach don't seem to be well, different Marlins front office now But Rafael is a good player and long term I just think it's a it's going to be a winding road Potentially before he's doing all the things he's capable of doing at the plate at the major league level So yeah, maybe that's the angle the other part of this though is like what are the Red Sox expect from their roster this year?

How aggressive they wanna be trying to win right away versus letting it play out with players they like in the long run. I think that's another consideration because if you believe that Rafaela is a potentially elite center fielder, that's a valuable thing to have. You could play Roman Anthony in a corner

instead of playing him in center, right? You have a lot of different ways you can slice it. But all this is to say, Rafaela's short-term outlook is cloudy even though they're going to move him around, even though he's got that defensive value. Speaking of the Red Sox, some potentially good news, Nick Piveta could return soon after the 15-day minimum stint on the IL. And with the flexor injury, I was thinking initially that might be a lot longer, but we'll take it. You know, in a time where a lot of the pitching injuries have been major injuries, the possibility of this being a relatively minor one is at least still on the table.

My bold prediction that the Boston would be a top five starting rotation in the big league in the in the American League seems pretty milk toast right now because Boston has the best starting pitching in the big leagues. Yeah, you're riding high right now. Well, we'll see how this continues. I don't personally believe so much in Whitlock start, but I'm buying the rest.

Hauke, Cutter, Baio, like, you know, I think that they're good pitchers they're good pitchers and better too. So just get healthy. Well, do you want me to get the fire truck? You can do a victory lap around the kitchen. Yes, Thursday, April 11th. Thursday, April 11th, I take a victory lap for my Red Sox bold prediction.

No, that's not your style. That's why we love you. Yo and Munkata, bad news division. Out three to six months with an adductor strain. I don't think it's a bad one. It's gotta be like a grade two plus, right? Somehow in between grade two and grade three. Yeah, like that's not good.

It doesn't heal well, surgery's on the table. That's what you would think with that six month long end timetable. This is just turning into a disaster season for the White Sox, whose best players are dropping like flies all of a sudden with similar injuries. Yeah, the third one that's like sort of hernia groin, oblique, adductor, like that's that's the that's the core core. These are core muscle problems.

And you got to look at your training. And you gotta look at your training. You gotta look at your training process. You gotta, like, I know it's only three guys and you could say it was just three guys that in some of them had injuries before, but the oblique is hugely important. And so you need to think about things internally, I think. Do you remember when Tyler Thornburg

got traded to the Red Sox and misread the training program and got hurt? He did stuff wrong and it was a complete accident. It was awful. It turned into like shoulder and thoracic outlet. I sometimes wonder when we see a cluster of injuries like this that are so similar, like was something-

Is there a communication problem? It was just something wrong in the training program. Like what caused this group of injuries that are so similar to impact all these guys? I mean it could be nothing, it could be a coincidence, but it's odd to say the least. So I once again look at this depth chart and I say, okay, well who's playing? Is someone interesting playing right away? No, Lenin Sosa's grabbing all the playing time right now. I think the interesting name to watch for is Brian Ramos

later this season with a lengthy absence from Moncada. If Brian Ramos looks ready in the minors, Colson Montgomery looks ready in the minors, having a spot wide open on the left side of the infield, another spot that wouldn't have been previously, gives you a chance to maybe see both of those guys. One guy plays short, Ramos plays third. There you go. Two prospects up by see both of those guys. One guy plays short, Ramos plays third. There you go.

Two prospects up by the end of the season. Yeah, and I picked up Ramos. One thing I like is decent walk rates, decent strikeout rates, decent ISOs. One thing I will point out, probably the reason why he does not get all the way to the top of your various, he's 50th I think on Fangrass,

but the reason he doesn't go up higher is that the strikeout rate comes with fairly high swing strike rates for Brian Ramos. The walk rates are inconsistent and the ISOs are never over 200. That's sort of a benchmark. I like to be like, oh, that's kind of realish power. So he could just come up to the big leagues, put up a worse worse walk rate than average, a worse strikeout rate than average and average ISO and not be super exciting at least right away

But I have stashed him in a couple places Oscar Cole us is also getting some burn and he was a load him favorite load him is the The opposite of model there's a lot of correctly a lot of yes Well, I think correctly a lot of things that we shouldn't like about him at 25 You know you got to discount a lot of his minor league numbers because he's kind of he's been older for the level for a lot of those And his defense is really poor And the barrel rates haven't been amazing been a little bit up and down power wise

But you can flip that on his head and say, hey, here's a guy who's got playing time and playing time is as much as anything. It's only one play to parents so far, but I see the sort of the waves parting where at some points it's like, well, he's on the Major League roster and Eloy's hurt and Robert's hurt and Moncada's hurt. So we've gotta play him, right? So I see more playing time coming for Colas in the next week.

Yeah, they brought him up on Wednesday. So here it is, they should let him get regular run, especially with all the injuries they've got right now. I do like Ramos for Otto New as someone that could become relevant in a 12-team league relatively quickly I do think Ramos has a bat that I believe in I'm a little more optimistic than you are But I think it is good to point out the swinging strike rates not necessarily

Dovetailing the way we'd like to see with the plate skills. He's shown He's been also very young for the level though, too So I think there's still some growth potential for Brian Ramos his bat Speaking of playing time if you think about the weekend waiver wire, Colton Couser, after a pretty quiet start, just being kind of sporadically used, seems to be taking over a larger share of the role. Austin Hayes has been a little bit quiet early on. Couser started back-to-back games Tuesday and Wednesday. It still could be more of a big side platoon role for Couser, but he was under 30% rostered in the Rotawire Online Championship when I looked this morning. So I think there's an opportunity here,

he's under 40% rostered in CBS leagues. Are you buying the Orioles are willing to start shifting things around a little bit given what Causer showed this spring and given the early struggles of Austin Hayes? So on the 9th they faced Bayo. It's a righty changeup guy. And on the 10th, righty changeup guy, you could have actually played Austin Hayes, right? Changeup first guy.

Yeah, right on right, changeups are not ideal, right? Right. The next day, Cutter Crawford, I think Causer is probably a better matchup against Cutter Crawford than a right on right haze. Crawford's got like three breaking balls and a big fastball with a ride. The Bayo one is interesting.

We haven't yet seen him start against the lefty, so I would say that part's not on the table. But it is interesting to kind of pair this with the Jackson Holiday move. If the Jackson Holiday move is more about,'s just put these guys on on the table and go for a run, right? Or then more that then oh, we got the extra year. We get the extra year back I'm like all that machinations then maybe it's just time to play the young guys that are good and and and And make Hayes more of a fourth outfielder. That could be what we're seeing. Do you want something more definitive? No, go ahead. I mean, if you got, if you got something else, go ahead.

Otherwise we can keep it rolling. I'm not being definitive. I think big side platoon expectations are fair right now. I don't think they're going to turf Austin Hayes completely. That's that. That's why like it's too much. He's too much of a good player to just like let go completely. I'll take big side platoon, Austin Hayes, a little bit more than small side platoon.

So then you have to kind of look at the upcoming schedule for the next week. Or even just, if we're doing the waiver search, kind of start it for the following Monday, because you're thinking about it from a weekly league perspective. Orioles have five out of six matchups against righties coming up next week.

They do see three lefties the following week, the week of April 22nd. So maybe you get a little uptick in playing time for a week and a slight drop. Also depending on who else is healthy, but five out of six in a week, that's enough to at least stream Colton Cowder next week. Varland, Paddock, Lopez, Marsh to open the week. What's interesting there is that if you have that kind of league where it's a weekly league but you can move hitters in and out on Thursday,

Kauser, Varlan, Patek Lopez Marsh, you could take him out to avoid the Reagans. He might sit against Reagans. Yeah, you'd sit him for the whole weekend if you do that in most leagues, but still, you get the first part of the week, which is the back end, a couple of the back end starters. But it does make them hard because then the next week,

you are looking at Tyler Anderson, JP Sears. Detmers. Nestor Cortez, Carlos Rodon, like you might not even wanna start them at all that week. So when I see something like this, I say I'm not gonna pay $200 out of my thousand for Colton Causer. Yeah. And I think in some of the shallow leagues where he's more widely available, he could be a recipient of some pretty big daily leagues a little bit different. Yeah. Daily Moves leagues.

He should be rostered because things are trending in the right direction and you can lean away from the times when he's not in the lineup. Let's talk about Cody Bradford for a moment. He was a big ad over the weekend. We didn't really talk about him on the Monday show, but I think with another strong performance on Wednesday, yeah sure, it was against the A's. He's on even more radars. Great start to the season for him. 140 ERA at these first three starts. K-Rate's up a little, walk-rate's down a little. Is it more of the same from Bradford? I mean, how do you see him fitting into this Rangers rotation and then just how far into shallow league territory do you think Bradford goes? It's funny because like, here's another one of my, uh, he was like one of my deep

league, you know, draft and hold, you know, 700 pick sleepers. And I'm excited that he's done this, but I have to kind of flip and be like, I don't think he's a shallow leaguer. My evidence for this is that like, you know, this curveball, I'm really surprised that stuff plus thinks it's average because the curveball is 75 and a half miles per hour with below average drop and below average horizontal movement. So somehow that grades out to an average or slightly above average curve ball. I'm not truly sure how so, and that is his first breaking ball that has ever averaged, has had a stuff plus above average. He's still throwing the slider that stuff plus hates and at his core, he's a four seam changeup guy. Stuff Plus does see that. It'll give him a decent,

it gives him a 90 Stuff Plus on the fastball. That's okay for his V-Lo and a 103 on the changeup. So at his core, fastball changeup, and then he's throwing this really slow curve that doesn't have outstanding movement. It's a kind of just a, like, is that, okay, that's your solution? You know what I mean?

Like, I just, I think it's a little bit a, a trick of the schedule is how I would, I would say is that he's somebody I like in certain situations, but Oakland and Chicago, you know, to start the season, the one good start was against Houston. I'm going to say he's a 15 team kind of stream type, maybe a team streamer,

which is somebody you put on your roster, but you don't start every week. That's the for this I'll push him I mean seven and two-thirds one in one earn run allowed against the Astros second that's a pretty good start That's a really good start. He's got to win every single game He's pitched so far too, which is fluky and random, but I don't know man I don't think it's a breakout, but I think he's giving them something they really need with the starters that are out right now. It could be better than Lorenzen, could be better than Heaney, even if Heaney can't fix things.

I think there's a chance. It's a slightly bigger arsenal than Heaney, right? Like Heaney's still kind of plugging along at two pitches. And it's gotta be better at the command than Heaney. So we've got a three-pitch guy who does throw a four-pitch that's bad, but like he kind of only breaks it out against lefties, the slider. no need for a deep dive here

But is there an Atlanta starter you're trying to pick up this week in place of Strider? I mean you look at the upcoming schedule Alan Winans was supposed to get that chance Wednesday that game got rained out Bryce Elder Hurston Waldrup AJ Smith Shaw we talked a bit about this group on Monday The way the schedule lines up the Strider spot is at Houston to begin next week on Tuesday So you're not playing any of those guys against the Astros anyway But you're basically looking down the road to a to start week at home

If there's one guy that emerges to get that with the Marlins and the Guardians on tap in some deep leagues You got to be a little bit ahead playing one week further out. I love that schedule. Is there someone you actually want to use and have rostered for those turns? If I hear Bryce Elder has got the drop, I'll take it. You'll take the chance on it, because he pitched well for that.

He's more polished. He's a polished guy. You see any changes in spring from him? Yeah. Good changes. I don't know why, yeah, his stuff loss was up. He was one of the biggest gainers. I don't changes in spring from him. Yeah, good change. Why? Yeah. His stuff was up. He was one of the biggest gainers. I don't have a real reason why, but also he was a guy who outperformed stuff less last year and had a good

change up and like, you know, had multiple pitches and it's just kind of a polished like a young polished guy. It's kind of an interesting guy to look at. So elder Smith Schaver. That's more of a like, you really want to roll the dice. But because I also just don't know how many innings

they'll let Smith Schaver pitch in each of those games. Whereas I think if you're looking for wins, which normally you are in this situation, Elder is more likely to pitch deeper into the game. Yeah, especially if you don't really know going into the weekend, Elder, if he's available in your league, could be a really inexpensive pickup now at the uncertainty the uncertainty takes the ability of having an extra roster spot available

But that might be the smart play interesting stuff did tick up a bit in the model during the spring I'm curious what you make of Jose Soriano. He got the start against the Rays on Wednesday He's working in the rotation right now for the Angels Watching him. He had a bit of a funky first inning. There were a couple infield hits, there was a wild pitch with the bases loaded that allowed two runs to score, and he kind of settled down a little bit after that,

finished with six Ks in the outing. So maybe there's at least some deep league appeal. What do you think about Jose Soriano in terms of stuff? The walk rates, I think, are the thing that have always made him something of a question mark for long-term use as a starter. I think he's got it. I mean, above average fastball, he was holding his VELO. We got a group chat message that it was 97 and the six or something. Geez. And so, you know, he's holding his VELO. He's got a legitimate slide, a slider. I mean, like a really, really good slider and a legitimate splitter.

So I think that's by itself is a is a is a decent, you know, foundation. Yes, the command is going to make it a, you know, maybe there's possible blow ups in there. He's had walk rates of 1518. There's a there's a 20. That's a short sample. But yeah, you'd expect 11 or 12% walk rate going forward.

But some of the projections like a ATC has a four Oh eight. That's not bad. Yeah. I mean, it's not a 15 team. Not with a great whip. So be careful on your whips. I, this is someone who has risen to perhaps the team streamer status and and if the command pops Which right now it's it's okay 99 location plus is I would say better than you'd expect for somebody with a 12% walk rate So if his command pops and which that can happen at any given year, that's when you have these sort of oh He's better than I expected kind of years.

So he's again, like I would play some above elder in my decision tree, because he's in the big leagues. Elder is like a, maybe he's will be, you know, I would hope that I have a roster spot that I'm, you should designate a roster spot for like fungible. And maybe I don't play this guy that I comes out of this fungible spot. That's Soriano for me. I would put him on that tree. Yeah, so it sounds like he's a little more for you. Like if Edward Cabrera is here and Joe Boyle's over here, you're a little closer on the Cabrera side of like wild sometimes,

but stuff might be good enough to overcome it. Yeah, he's on that spectrum though. Yeah I mean like that's the group of pitchers that show skills like that. I mean Boyle's running like 15, 18s. Yeah Boyle's walk rates are just unbelievably scary trying to try and work through. A few mailbag questions here on our way out the door. We had a question from Michael C in the Discord. Maybe I've missed if it's covered before, but how do the components of pitching plus work together?

For example, Aaron Nola has a 106-106 stuff in location, but a 101 pitching plus. Savali has the same pitching plus number, but he's a 98-99. And then Ranger Suarez has an 88 stuff and a 105 location, but he's a 101 pitching plus. So how should people sort of rectify some of the differences when they see a good or bad pitching plus number,

but the components don't seem to quite line up the way they might think? Yeah, I mean, the big thing is that pitching plus is a third model. It is not a rehashing of the other two models. It takes an aggregation of the two. It's separate. Yeah. Yeah. It takes the same inputs that are in location plus and stuff plus,

but it respires them to basically be what long time readers of mine will understand that I've done things like arsenal grades where I tried to kind of put together a whole grade for the whole Arsenal. Pitching Plus could be that someday. Right now, what it ends up being is overly influenced, I think, by early location data. But theoretically, what it could tell you is something like this. Slider command is more important in today's league than change-up command. So I don't care that he has a 1-10 location on his change-up because he can't throw that four strikes in counts where he needs it.

So pitching plus could theoretically say, well, Joe Boyle has slider command, and that might be good enough even though he has no fastball command. This player doesn't have slider command and doesn't have fastball command and his location plus is being propped up by changeup command and that's just useless. You know what I mean? Like, so there's, it's a theoretical third model where it can kind of look at the arsenal and kind of look at these different things and decide that things are more important than other things. It's overly influenced by location plus. So it needs 300, 400 pitches. So it's not that useful in small samples. So I tend to ignore it a lot. So we need another two starts probably for most guys. Yeah. And then

early season stuff. And especially if any of your time talking about like on the pitch level More than that. All right. Good question though Michael. Thanks for sending that our way Here's one. This is from mosos one in the discord I love trying to say the tags cuz I'm sure they're they're not like emphasizing the wrong character But how would we even know is there a pronunciation? No, there's no pronunciation guide in the discord. Come on, how do we not have that yet? It could be like MoSauce1. MoSauce, ooh, I kinda like that.

It could be MoSoS1, I don't know. I'm just guessing, I appreciate the questions regardless. Is David Bednar in danger of losing his job as the Pirate's Closer so far? Six earned in four and a third, three blown saves, six to one, K to BB, only one homer allowed. Is it random bad luck or is it actually a cause of maybe some stuff deterioration?

I mean, with our oldest Chapman there, there's a possibility. Chapman is just the ageless wonder that, you know, if you look at max pitch velocities, he owned like the max pitch velocity in each of the years between like 2016 and 2021 or something just like it's a Rolls Chapman and then Rolls Chapman again and a Rolls Chapman. And even with the reduction stuff, he's he's he's pretty good.

And he you know, for what it's worth, he's not just a thrower like he's out of the sinker and the splitter. And those are his best pitches by Stuff Plus now. So he's changed over time. But I would say that I still think Bednar is the favorite. I think he's still got the job. And what I saw when I watched him was he lost the curveball. One of these blown saves, like he hit a guy with the curveball.

And then you could see that there's a Mike Petriello tweet about it, where you could see on the scatter chart just like all his curve ball. And then you could see, like there's a Mike Petriello tweet about it where you could see on the scatter chart just like all his curve balls, none of them were anywhere close to the zone. So I think there's like maybe as a blister or like he's just, there's something going on with the curve ball, but I can't believe that he's just,

can't ever throw the curve ball again. Yeah, that'd be pretty odd if that's the case. I do think you're right about the presence of Chapman, though. It gives the Pirates a capital P, capital C, proven closer that they can go to if Bednar's struggles persist for another few outings. And even if that were to happen, it

may only be a temporary demotion, because I think Bednar's still that guy long term they see as their primary source of saves. Multiple people asked us about JP Sears who in the model seems to have an improved arsenal but by results, I don't know, seems to be extremely hitable. I mean, 868 ERA so far in two starts and 4.5% K rate, 92.8% zone contact percentage in these first couple of outings. So what's going on with JP Sears,

who's throwing four different pitches right now that are above 100 in terms of stuff number and has like a 114 stuff number overall and 103 location and a 108 pitching plus number early on. Yeah, so there's a piece by Michael Rosen and his Twitter handle is by Michael Rosen. It's R-O-S-E-N. That pointed this out for me. I hadn't seen this myself yet.

I had planned on looking at Sears today. Throw out the chart. These are Sears release points. You can see that the difference between his foreseam and his sweeper, that's more than six inches. And when Rosen put up, you know, some screen grabs of the release points, I thought I could see it. It is a question of if hitters can see it and know right away, or if they could tell you with their sort of precognitive brain, like if they could tell you with the brain that speaks that that's what they saw. But I do think that sometimes hitters see

things that they can't tell you why they saw it. We know that pre-release information is super important for hitters. So I put these things together and I say, this is a problem for JP Sears. So you're not looking at JP Sears as a bargain bin, bottom of the waterfall, one dollar pickup expecting things to be good.

I mean, the schedule's also kind of important for him regardless of what you think about his talent. He's got the Cardinals at home, Yankees on the road, and the Orioles on the road as part of a two step if you're looking at his next three starts from the weekend out. So. You say Yankees on the road?

Yeah the two step for the week of April 22nd would be at the Yankees at the Orioles. I don't think you wanna throw that in most situations. Maybe the Cardinals at home, if you want to just, but streaming a one-star guy just doesn't happen in a lot of leagues. So it seems like a miss for me. This was the same problem that Bryce Miller had last year.

And what Bryce Miller has done since is change his slider release so it's more like his four seam release and go to a splitter. Sears has a good foreseam. It's a flat foreseam with great vertical approach angle because he's short and it has more ride than you expect. It is a good foreseam. His change-up is decent. He could throw a cutter and break out and it would have lower stuff plus than his sweeper. But the sweeper here is not maybe the best move because people are gonna see it.

What Bryce Miller ended up using his sweeper for was freeze takes. They see it, they don't swing. If you can get it in the zone, you can get some called strikes. That's the best thing that Sears can do with that sweeper. But it's hard to get pitches with like 15 inches of horizontal into the strike

zone. Like the strike zone itself is not that wide. You have to basically throw it at people. That's got to be uncomfortable. Like really, like you don't really spend your whole life pitching, throwing at someone. And now you get this pitch that you have to use a different mindset for. But that's that's got to be tough to get over for some people. I found this in the bin of maybe not the best

sweeper plus player match. But hey, sweepers are in, so try to add one. Damn it, stuff plus, screwed me on this one. On that note, I think it's time for us to go. If you'd like a subscription to The Athletic, they are available at the athletic comm Slash rates and barrels if you want to follow, you know on Twitter, you know, is that you know, Sarah's I'm at Derek van Riper the pod is at rates and barrels

We have a live stream again on Friday with Trevor May that's gonna be at 1 o'clock Eastern on our YouTube page So be sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel We haven't done that already and fun wrinkle this week new new new segment new segment We are going to solve a problem that major league pitchers haven't been able to solve for about a decade So how about that? We're gonna figure out how to get Mookie Betts out Yeah, good luck easy very very easy as we we learned in an extra long planning meeting That's gonna do it for this episode of rates and barrels we're back with you on Friday. So that's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.