Rates & Barrels - Jacob deGrom's Shoulder Injury, Torkelson & Brash Make Opening Day Rosters & Weekend Updates

Episode Date: April 3, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss the Jacob deGrom shoulder injury, Spencer Torkelson and Matt Brash making the Opening Day rosters, Craig Kimbrel's bumpy spring debut with the Dodgers, the Angels' decision to DFA Justin Upton, and more. Rundown Jacob deGrom's Shoulder Injury Opportunity for Tylor Megill Spencer Torkelson Makes Opening Day Roster Craig Kimbrel-AJ Pollock Trade Gavin Lux is DVR's New Victor Robles Justin Upton DFA's by Angels Matt Brash & Reid Detmers Earn Rotation Spots Important Show Links! Swab for Caryn: https://linktr.ee/SWABFORCARYN Steve Moyer Memorabilia Auction: https://kitsonauctions.hibid.com/catalog/351463/steve-moyer-estate-and-sports-memorabilia-auction/? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first six months: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Saturday, April 2nd. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. Our first podcast on a Saturday. We have we've done about 300 episodes of Rates and Barrels at last count. Maybe this is number 300 if it is confetti. And this is the only time we've ever recorded on a Saturday and it might be a one time occurrence. We may never record on a Saturday again.

We could do this podcast for a hundred more years and a Saturday may not ever happen again. It feels weird. Feels like a bizarre world situation. We disneyland to thanks i think i'll be in disneyland monday and tuesday and so we wanted to get a podcast out to you before that whole thing went down i think the lockout is the real cause because you booked a trip based on the season starting a couple of days ago, not a couple of days from now, and here we are. Well, I mean, eyes wide open. I was like, either the season gets shoved and we're fine, or the season starts on time and we're fine.

And then the season decided to get shoved, but very little. Just a little. So that I'm hurrying down from Disneyland to San Diego to do some live blogging for opening day. And I think everything will be fine. But it's riding a nice edge. Yeah, we've got a live episode of the 3-0 show on Wednesday, the day before opening day. I hope I said Wednesday. Maybe I didn't.

So keep an eye out on the Twitter accounts for that. But there's actually a ton of news. Teams are making decisions. Injuries, which seemed generally mild for the first couple weeks of spring training, have ramped up. And unfortunately, that includes Jacob deGrom and his shoulder. The injury has been diagnosed as a stress reaction in the scapula. He's been shut down from throwing for four weeks. This gives me an opportunity to right a wrong.

I did make a mistake. I said that it is easier for ligaments to heal than bones. It's actually the other way around. So, sales injury and this one can get blood to the area easier. It's actually easier to get blood to the bone than it is to the ligament. I don't know why that is. If you ask Dr. Nick, I'd be like, hello. Of course, to the muscly parts, not to the bone,

but apparently that is true. So that might be good for sale. This one is a tricky injury, and I'm not going to pretend to know exactly how bad it is. I will say that Brandon McCarthy came out and said that this is something he dealt with over the course of his career, and he came back from it within season a couple times. So he seemed to suggest that it may not be the biggest deal. There were others. I think Kurt Ainsworth,

Korea, Korea. What was his first name? The reliever? C-O-R-R-E-A. Matt? I don't think it's a Matt. Anyway,

there's been some people who've had like, it'd be season ending. I think somebody uh got it in june and came back in september uh so that would be a terrifying timeline i think but just the timeline let's say he just follows the timeline that they've stated i think you're right to point out that he would stop throwing for four to four weeks and then he'd have to at least have a two- or three-week rank up. So now we're talking about missing six weeks, eight weeks? Yeah.

I mean, four weeks of not throwing, that's pretty much April. And ramping back up in May, two to three weeks might be more aggressive. Three to four weeks, probably a little more conservative. That's pretty much May. So we're talking early June before DeGrom is potentially back. And then, of course, he has to get through all that rehab without having a setback.

He has to be healthy once he starts pitching in games again. So what are we talking about, 100 innings? I wouldn't expect more than that. Yeah. If you draft him and you get the discount, and I think at this point it's mostly in leagues that have IL spots. I think if you're playing in the remaining NFBC leagues or situations where you've only got... It's really hard to nurse a guy for two months.

It's really hard. Okay, we went through this with Tatis, though, on the position player side. It's a similar timetable to Tatis. But I think with Tatis, even though it's a hitter and a wrist injury, I'm still more confident in that than a pitcher with a shoulder. Yeah, you're right. I could see that being, you just, it just seems less likely that Tatis will just miss the whole season, whereas it seems like still on the table that DeGrom could just miss the whole season, you know? Right.

That part's there. He could put up a ton of value, though, especially in IL leagues. I am still interested. And this is why rankings are really tough. You know, I would put him around 50 maybe in my rankings because my rankings are for people that have IL leagues and also people who don't, you know? So it's like, I think around 50 is where I had Kershaw before we saw him pitch

right where it's like I think he's going to be good if he's in but we don't know you know around 50 is where the healthy guys you're taking have large injury risks around 50 is where I have Means and Urquidy which I like both of those guys, but they, in Zimmerman's model, both had like 50-day IL day projections. So like, you could be taking a guy who's healthy who misses almost as much time as the guy, as Jacob deGrom, that you said, oh no, he's hurt, I can't take him, you know? So like, I do think a round 50 is where it is. think in nfbc formats you're talking about more like i don't know like a bench pick i think i saw yancey eaton talking about him going 280th and that's that's about where bench is 280 okay and there were some mains where you know when

everything looked good where he went first overall in vegas last week man has there ever been a more precipitous fall than first to 280 the pit in my stomach if and here's here's something i was tweeting about this on friday and i i wanted to see de grom pitch this spring because of how his season ended and i knew that if he did pitch this spring when he was showing us he was healthy if the vila was there that he'd go back up into that first round range and instead of getting the discount at the round two three turn where he might have been available in some early early drafts back in november and december i just felt like that like back then that wasn't enough of a discount for the longer term risk profile. And I'm wondering if my error was a process error related to what we knew about his injuries previously or a game theory problem where it's like if you're going to buy it all, you buy it the discount.

Because if you believe there's a good enough chance he's healthy, two or three weeks of spring training shouldn't change your mind realistically. two or three weeks of spring training shouldn't change your mind realistically like the only time to buy would have been early or you shouldn't have bought at all because there was enough information or enough of a shutdown last year to say no this is just as great as he is as much as we want him to pitch it's way too risky at that price i'm still not sure where i've landed on the how i got it wrong but i was wrong this is what i was getting at uh i tweet about this and i said that my ranking of fourth for him from the beginning of the offseason baked in risk right baked in injury risk he would be number one for me if i thought he was healthy right so he are i already baked in some risk. And even when everyone was saying he's healthy, he still had the theoretical risk of injury, right?

Not actual, not like he is injured now. So there's actual injury versus theoretical sort of injury risk, right? So I never would have taken him first because even when people were talking, he still held injury risk. Like, let's say you think they're both healthy wheeler and de grom going into the season you think they're both healthy they have different injury projections i mean they have to they just they've had different injury outcomes for the last five years or so right so like they would have different injury bars on them so i did take wheeler at a discount in the fourth because I said, I'm not sure this is an actual injury. I think this is still theoretical, right?

I feel like maybe that's a good process, right? Like as soon as they have an actual injury, that changes everything. If it's still theoretical, then it's in the realm of risk. And it's like, then you just want the realm of risk and it's like then you just want to get a discount you know what i mean so i don't think you like i don't think you're wrong to like i especially don't think you're wrong to not to take him in the first round you know but were you wrong to not have done it i would have taken him in the late part of the first round in the last 10 days or so had circumstances just put him there

i just we are human beings and we you know we get caught up in things and it seemed like he was throwing really nice and you know yeah i just i'm trying to figure out i think you try to remember that risk i think when everyone's getting super excited about someone you try to remember the risk and when everyone's super down on someone you try to remember the upside and the real difference is sort of the difference between an actual injury and theoretical so i think that for me wheeler's uh you know shoulder soreness in the off season was kind of like okay so up his theoretical injury risk but not he's not actually currently injured you know what i mean that but i think that's the that's the fine line we're trying to figure out right because they Because they always give us some little

piece of information. Oh, he's got a little soreness. Was this actual injury or is this still theoretical? I mean, you could go through this with non-arm injuries too. They're going through it with Max Scherzer right now. He's got a hamstring injury. They say it's minor. He said he's pitched through hamstring injuries like that before, and it's kind of like, all right, I feel fine about that. This was part of why he was lower for me. Again, to me, that was baked in. Neck, back, you know. Right, because if you didn't have that,

if you didn't have that recent actual injury history, then Scherzer would have gone five to seven picks earlier. That's where he would go based on performance with a clean bill of health. Now, this leaves the Mets in a bad short-term spot for Scherzer if both of these guys are hurt, because the thing I've been chirping all season was at least they've got Scherzer if something does happen to DeGrom. Scherzer, questionable for opening day right now,

and it doesn't look like Scherzer's going to be a multi-week IL stint. If he goes on the IL, it seems like it'd be a relatively quick sort of thing. Fingers crossed for him and for anybody who's got him right now. This puts Tyler McGill firmly in the short-term rotation plan. He's been rostered in a lot of leagues that

have been drafted over the last three months anyway. If you're in a shallow league where he's out there, I think he's viable. And now it puts David Peterson as the next man up, failing some kind of trade earlier in the day on Saturday. There were rumblings of a possible Padres-Mets deal that could have sent Chris Paddock to the Mets. So all of this is to say,

the opportunity for Tyler McGill, this isn't the way we wanted it to happen, but this is a guy that was impressive with some of the opportunities he had last season. Yeah, he doesn't have an above average fastball, but he does have two good secondaries. I think that's why you saw the home run rate the way it was. I do think that there's some opportunity for him to maybe throw fewer fastballs, throw sliders when he needs strikes a couple times. He looked like the command was there for him to maybe throw fewer fastballs, throw sliders when he needs strikes a couple times. He looked like the command was there for him to do something like that. So if he can trust his slider for some

strikes instead of the fastball, maybe he can bring that home run rate down. He should at least be a low fours guy with decent strikeout rate because he has two good secondaries. It's also kind of rare to see a guy that has a good slider and a good change. So that's a good place to start. And I think that we even talked about him and many other six starters as having value this year of averaging 100 to 120 innings because of just modern baseball and the need teams have for six starters and how much they use them. baseball and the the need teams have for six starters and how much they use them so i think mcgill's possible innings totals maybe bump it up to 140 this year he may get uh as much as other third and fourth starters and uh and be a decent decent play um i don't know that i would go running to the wire and dropping you know like a 25 free free agency auction bid,

like an FAAB bid on him like that, just because he probably fits into a class of pitchers, if he's on your wire, that might be just as good. Yeah, I think he's probably an upgrade over Cal Quantrill, maybe, if you've got a situation like that. I don't know if I'd go all-in expensive fab to do it, but I think there's an upgrade to be had there. I think I like McGill more than Josiah Gray. Guys that are going in the similar range ADP-wise, I can kind of talk

myself into McGill over a lot of their starters. Those two names. Well, yeah, you don't like Josiah Gray at all. The DeGrom question, though, to close the book on him, in leagues with IL spots, I think inside the top 50 starting pitchers, I think is fair. I'd be comfortable with that with IL spots because what you do get on a per inning basis might be outstanding, even if it is

100 innings instead of the 180 plus that we were hoping for. In the non-IL situations, I don't know if there's enough of a discount that I'd ever get. Maybe in 180 plus that we were hoping for in the non-IL situations. I, I don't know if there's enough of a discount that I'd ever get. I mean, maybe in the pick 200 range,

you mentioned that draft that, that Yancey threw out there, pick two eighties, the latest he's gone so far. I guess if you're still sitting there at that point, that's an easy cut. As soon as you need the spot and you can just wait and see, but you have to be willing to just let it go.

Yeah, like mentally, once you put that Jacob deGrom on your roster, you can it's like oh it's an easy cut and then you're like i got jacob de grom on roster i gotta keep him there as long as i can it's an easy drop based on draft day costs it's a very difficult drop based on clicking the name and actually pushing the button and submitting it and feeling good about it and feeling like oh yeah no he's not going to go on someone else's roster in a few weeks and come back and be himself and i'm not going to regret that you just have to have that

that sort of conviction when the time comes well i got a free kick at the can for a few weeks need the roster spot okay i move on i get something else i think that's the way you have to play it and as we've said with all these injured guys, Sale, Flaherty, one is pretty much all you can get away with when you're stashing without IL spots, but you can have a couple of them in shallow leagues with IL spots, stash them because you're playing for ceiling

in leagues like that. And you solve the problem later. If you end up with too much depth, make a trade, open up a spot on the roster once they're finally healthy. But out of like DeGrom and Sale and Flaherty, Sale is the one that I would actually feel the best about stashing

given the nature of his injury. Because there seems to be a bit of a finite. It's not so much like, you know, oh, in four weeks we'll see what's going on. It's more like it's a four-week injury. Right. He is not throwing yet, but he said he is feeling better as of Saturday.

And they already had an MRI that said there was healing. Right. Bad news for the Mets. Bad news for Jacob deGrom. Bad news if you already have deGrom on your team. I feel bad for you, especially if you were in when things looked like they were going well. Because I would have been in too had circumstances allowed me to get him in the leagues that have happened in the last couple of weeks. Let's go to the Tigers, where Spencer Torkelson is going to be on the opening day roster. We also got news that Riley Green, who fouled a ball off his foot at the end of the week, actually has a broken bone in his foot, so he's going to miss about six to eight weeks before he's able to start playing in games again. So his bid for the opening day roster falls short just due to a fluke

injury. I don't think Green is necessarily stashable in redraft leagues right now because that's an eight week timetable, plus maybe even a little more time for him to get acclimated to AAA pitching again before they bring him up. So while we could see him in June, Green is firmly on the watch list for me. But, you know, how much do you want to bump up Spencer Torkelson knowing that you're not going to have to wait a couple of weeks for the Tigers to give him that opportunity? Yeah, it's hard to like rein in the helium in a moment like this because this is a top, top prospect that is now, you know, locked into playing time.

Just got like a, he was just presented a glove by Miguel Cabrera. I think it was sort of like, now you are the first baseman, son. I don't need this anymore. Yeah, I don't need this anymore. But I'm just trying to pull up some first base ranks. I'm doing the bad X on the auction calculator.

I don't think this is going to have Torkelson in it with the right amount of playing time. This is pretty new news. I'm not seeing him right away. I would think that I would want him over Hosmer, Schwindel, over Gurriel. Are you going over Voigt, Walker, France? Over Walker, yes. Over France and Voigt, not quite. So this still makes them a back-end first baseman in 15-team leagues.

This is the problem, and maybe I'm being stubborn. Tell me if I'm being stubborn. Because AAA was not good last year compared to its usual quality, I'm very cautious about all hitters right now. I think young pitchers are actually more interesting targets for me. Sure, you can make exceptions. You can say Julio Rodriguez might be good enough to make the leap from AA. Maybe Torkelson's that person

for you. I just think you want to pick your spots really carefully. Torkelson was good at AAA last year. 129 WRC plus. Aged to level he was 21 years old. A little bit old, 21 year old. Only struck out 20% of the time though. I think that was just a fluke. I mean a

233 BABIP. Hits a lot of fly balls. Maybe isn't a burner. So, you know, whatever. Maybe he's a lower BABIP kind of guy. I don't think he's a true talent.238 guy. The projections have that as where he's going to be. The projections, I think, also are a little light on playing

time. Yeah, they only have 450 played appearances right now. He seems like maybe he said it and forget it for that team. If you said he's going to hit 250 with low 20s home run power and 70-ish runs and 70-ish RBI, something in that

neighborhood, that's a good player. That's a solid corner guy. How likely is it that he just mashes right away? The power we saw last year was 30 home runs across three levels, split almost evenly. Let's time at high A,

50 games at double A, 40 games at triple A. Power everywhere and a really good approach. Plenty of walks, not a lot of strikeouts. I think he's really safe, but I keep coming back

to an Andrew Vaughn sort of comp for my short-term portals and expectations. I was just looking an Andrew Vaughn sort of comp for my short-term Torkelson expectations. I was just looking at Andrew Vaughn's page, man. But what's the difference? Okay, this is the other part that we don't know. What is the difference between getting to play at

each of those three minor league levels over a season and then debuting versus Andrew Vaughn? Hey, why don't you just come play a new position and learn how to hit big league pitching after not playing a double-A and triple-A? That's a tougher ask on Vaughn, hey, why don't you just come play a new position and learn how to hit big league pitching after not playing a double-A and triple-A? That's a tougher ask on Vaughn, so I wonder if Torkelson can top what Vaughn did because the build-up was different.

How much does that extra development in the upper levels of the minor leagues matter? Yeah, I was coming at it from a slightly different angle, but it is interesting that there's two angles that kind of put them together. Torkelson does have better raw and game power scouting grades on Fangraphs, and I think generally people just think he has more power than Vaughn did, and he demonstrated more power than Vaughn in the minor league stops that they both made. However, one thing that does make them similar is a bit of a right-center approach, right? They're like these right-handers with a bit of a right center approach right a little bit they're like these

right handers with a bit of a right center approach Vaughn I can't believe this Vaughn pulled the ball more often in the minor leagues than Spencer Torkelson and Vaughn last year in the major leagues pulled the ball exactly as much as Spencer Tokosin did in the minors. So, Apple Power is nice. It's part of why their strikeout rates are lower. It's part of why they theoretically could have better batting averages. It's part of being a complete player. I am not here to talk crap on all opposite hitting. However, to fully take advantage of your power to hit the most that you can hit, pull power is superior to opposite field power. It just is. The pulled barrel does better than the opposite field barrel. It has to do with batted ball spin and so on and

so forth. So I will be interested in what Torkelson's pull percentage will be in the major leagues. If he's pulling the ball 35% of the time like Vaughn did, then I think he's more likely to be like a 260 hitter with 20 homers. If he comes in and starts pulling the ball 40 to 45% of the time, then I can believe more of a 250 hitter with 30 homers. Because both of those things are in that tool bag. It could go either way. I think fantasy players would prefer more pull power. I think you'd take 10 points off the average to get a possible

8 to 10 more home runs. Or 15 more if it all clicks. I think that's what it's like. That's what it's like for Torkelson to fully take advantage of his power. I think the power ceiling is we're talking 35-40ers even in America all right you've you've at least convinced me with a few parts of this argument that Torkelson probably does have a higher ceiling than Vaughn and I've decided how much I care about the upper levels of the minor leagues

actually being a part of the track record you get that proof you've seen some of those things and Vaughn didn't I think it was a tougher ask of Vaughn than it is of Spencer Torkelson in 2022. I think you saw some learning at the major league level from Vaughn. It was just like... Yeah, it was a slow start, and the numbers quietly got pretty good over the course of the season. There is an ideal time to call a player up. It's not a science.

You see from guys like Kellan coming up last year, and then Julio Rodriguez is just raking in spring right now. And it looks like Julio Rodriguez is a star and it looks like Julio Rodriguez is bound for that opening day roster. Does not mean that he will either do what Jared did or he will be a star right away. It's a guesswork there's a ton uh there are a ton of middle ground outcomes between jared kelnick's big league debut and immediate

superstardom so i think vaughn kind of shows you right like what like vaughn like vaughn was a middle ground that was okay he was he a league average bat, you know? And for the amount of bellyaching, I included Vaughn in some sort of fake trade for Blake Snell. And I got, you know, just killed on Twitter. And like, maybe that was too much, but, you know, everyone was talking like he was, you know, the next Miguel Cabrera you know

and then he comes up and he's just okay it's kind of it's even harder sometimes when you look at something I'd be like oh well that was okay so I think probably Tony Russo has like a little bit of a tougher situation on his hands where he's like well it was only okay you guys really want you really beaten down my door here to like make sure I play Vaughn more like he seems like he's a little bit out of luck right now wouldn't you say Josh Harrison was named the opening day or or at least the opening day, or the regular starting second baseman, which pushes Larry Garcia and Adam Engel into the infield and outfield utility guys. I mean, I think we're looking at a situation now,

because of the A.J. Pollock addition, this is Andrew Vaughn sharing first base in DH with Jose Abreu. And if he's not hitting enough, they have a little more depth this year than they had a year ago, and then the playing time starts to become a problem. But it's not just that. It's not just that because if you go Eloy, Luis, Pollock across the outfield, then you have Engel and Lur garcia who they will play liberally so those guys

will play and then anytime you play adam angle you say okay who's gonna dh today so vaughn's not gonna and then there's gavin sheets may even make the the opening roster if javon sheets makes that roster then vaughn's a small side platoon dh it's a really bad role for a young player if you think andrew vaughn is an impact bat and you're using him that way you've done something wrong if sheets makes the roster dude i think the best thing for him might be to go down he's never played there but he was good he didn't fall on his face last year that just seems like a bad outcome yeah it's a tough one well at least they traded i mean that's that was the big news yesterday was other than

de grom was that they traded craig kimbrough for aj pollock um you know there's a lot of people who have been holding on to those those crimble shares i had some early kimbrough shares i was getting pretty nervous about um and then and this funny too, just because what we're talking about, all these like, all these like different outcomes. So like, there was like this initial outburst of like, ah, ha ha, you suckers. You know, I took Kimbrel in the 12th or, you know, like whatever it was, you know,

and you know, he's obvious he's going to end up somewhere. Well, then Kimbrel goes out today and pitches against the Giants on Saturday and just gives up like two homers, one to Austin Dean, was just getting batted around, didn't look that good. What if there's like this weird middle ground outcome where Ken Kimball is traded to a team where he should be the closer, is the closer for a little bit, and loses it because he's lost his stuff.

I mean, that would just be, the I told you so's would just be ringing from every side. Everybody would have thought they were right about this one. I would, even as somebody who just took a couple of late shots on Kimbrel in the past week, and that's, I think, the only two teams where I have them, he was really cheap. The only reason I took him,

and this was, I was talking about with my co-manager or something, third, third reliever on a team desperate for saves. And the reason I thought it made sense was it was after the 20th round. So you say who after the 20th round can jump up to a fifth or sixth round valuation. If a trade does happen or a

manager anoints them or whatever you know like even if a manager said today chris stratton is my entire closer you know he wouldn't be going in the fifth well he'd move up like six rounds he'd move up to the 16th or something exactly he's still chris stratton he's still a pirate so all that is a concern if kimbrell is firmly inside the top seven or eight closers in terms of ADP throughout the weekend, and who knows, the outing on Saturday, it was a disaster. It was a double homer, homer, single, strikeout, and then he was out of the game after 19 pitches.

It's one outing. It's got to be. It's the ponytail. out of the game after 19 pitches. It's one outing. It's got to be. It's the ponytail. I just think the thing with Kimbrell that I will always struggle with this

as long as he's still trying to do what he's doing. If he's good this year, I'll still look back at 2019 and 2020 and wonder why was it so bad those two years? There's fewer than 40 innings combined. So maybe it's not the kind of workload that you'd ordinarily even care about, but it happened and it just jumps off the page. He has lost it before. 40 innings combined. So maybe it's not the kind of workload that you'd ordinarily even care about,

but it happened and it just jumps off the page. He has lost it before. Right. So I think because he's lost it before for a stretch of like almost a little more than a half season, even though it spanned two different seasons, I look at that and a meltdown from him bothers me more than a meltdown from Class A or Presley or Iglesias or the other closers drafted in that range. I think we're quicker to react to a Kimbrel meltdown because we've been down this road a few times before. Edwin Diaz is a little bit like that.

He's the younger Kimbrel of all those other trusted guys. It's the bad command, I think. I think it's just an awful command in this given year. It's not like his VLO. His VLO was down a little bit, but not a lot. Yeah. We got into some of the specs of the fallout on the Athletic Fantasy Baseball podcast. Waiver shows every Friday this season, so be sure to check that out if you're getting ready for FAB, waivers, whatever it is that you do in your league.

And I think Pollock's value is basically the same, but I kind of see a path for him with health to play a little more than he did with the Dodgers. We're just talking about how crowded things are, so maybe it's not that different. But you kind of knew he wasn't going to push 550 to 600 plate appearances, even if he were healthy with the Dodgers, because they mix and match really well. The White Sox depth isn't as good as the Dodgers depth. It's a notch below. So I think maybe there's a path for Pollock to do a little better. Supporting cast is still very good. I think the Blake Trinan situation, so frustrated. As someone that thought Blake Trinan was clearly

going to be the closer, who didn't see the Dodgers on that list of teams where the Kimbrell trade was going to happen. Trinan's a tough right now, because relievers that don't get saves in, if you're in a 15 team league and holds aren't a category, maybe it works. If you're a 12 and holds aren't a category, do you roster guys like Trinan and Devin Williams who are behind a closer? And they've already said they tend to use Trinan as a fireman, which I didn't

believe until they brought in craig kimbrough who you only bring in if you intend to use him as a traditional closer which they said they're going to do yeah i think the the toughest thing is that when you look at in in the rotor wire or the you know even the auction calculator can look at earned value last year let me see if i can do this real quick while i'm talking but uh you can do you know 2020 year to date and you do that and you look at relievers you'll always find a non-closer that you know oh look at this colin mchugh was uh the sixth best reliever last year and was worth eleven dollars what he went seven games eight games yeah but like would you you'd have you'd have to know that colin mchugh was

gonna be that good ahead of time, which, I don't know, Stuff Plus loves him. Maybe it's possible. And then you'd have to leave him in there and not get saves from the only position that can give you saves. It's not like when you have a second baseman that doesn't steal, and you're like, well, I can get steals from my outfield, or maybe even Real real muto and uh

nate low you know i can get 20 steals from there right you can't do that with you can't just be like oh i'll get 20 saves from carlos rodon no you won't it's not gonna work that way so you are gonna you are gonna shoot yourself in the foot a little bit by saves by even playing these guys. Chad Green is a good example too because he's perennially here. You could have him anytime and just plug him in. And he's been worth like $7 to $9 a year over the last three, four years. Chad Green seems like he should be on any fantasy team. He should be drafted in a 12 team.

But he's not because it's the only place you can get saves from, and you're not going to get saves from him. Yeah. Even if they make a change, it might not be him. It might be the Wyziga. It might be someone else. So I think my recommendation is, yeah, in a 12 team team, I know that he could probably return $5, $6 value.

It's just not the right shape of value. It's not what you need out of that player. And I think in a 15-team league, I might hold him in some places where it starts to be like, well, it's him or I'm going to put Tanner Scott, the other guy that I had on my bench that never saves. What I would do is hold Blake Trinan,

sell, you know, drop Tanner Scott for whatever saves you're trying to get and leave Blake Trinan on the bench for a couple of weeks. Maybe we find out that Kimberl's hurt or whatever it is, you know what I mean? Like maybe barely hold on to him, but not like really hold on to him. Maybe in a draft and hold, I will have Trinan in some desperate places where I just need to have some innings. Draft and hold, sometimes innings itself, there's a little bit more where you just need the innings. And so Trinan's innings are going to be good.

Yeah, what he does when he's out there is going to be valuable. He probably will find seven or eight wins along the way. He probably will find a handful of saves on days where Kimbrel's not available or just when the roles have to shift temporarily. But really tough to hold on to Blake Trotton in shallow leagues without holds for the short term. This move, Pollock being gone, I think is another little bump for Gavin Lux. And it could have happened with Pollock there. I've been wrong about Lux

for a year. I've been hanging on to that for an entire year. I think he's probably their primary second baseman. Maybe because of their depth, doesn't play a lot against lefties, but if he hits enough, there's a chance that he could earn that opportunity. I can't give

up on him. And I've talked about him before as a guy that I think could surprise us with speed. He was 4 for five as a base stealer last year. I think you could get an eight to 10 steal season from Lux now that he's getting more playing time. Maybe the power actually gets into the high teens or possibly the low 20s. The plate skills got better last year. The walk rate went up. The K rate came down. There there were some things happening even though it wasn't a great season for lux and it was frustrating from a fantasy perspective that still has the rumblings of a guy that could break out for me and i'm more and more excited about him now with pollock gone than i was with pollock there yeah i mean he's not what people look for he's not what people

look for in front offices anymore he's not what the game is going towards because he does not hit the ball hard. He has like a 4% barrel rate for his career. And that's something we saw coming early on and he's kept it up. But he does get on base. He does play good defense. He is a positive on the base pass. This team looks like they're going to need him. And so I think you're going to get like a 250 average 18 homers 8 to 10 steals that's not that's actually just bumping up the playing time on existing projections so i'm not i'm not uh i'm not faith casting here you know that's that's the middle of the road outcome that's that's valuable uh especially at the positions where you'd be at i think that that the Hanser Alberto signing, in retrospect, makes a little bit more sense.

They gave him a major league deal when it seemed like you might be able to get him for a minor league deal. But now with Taylor probably being more of an everyday starter, now you've got Hanser Alberto being the infield utility guy and maybe Kevin Pilar being the in the infield utility guy uh and maybe kevin pr or pilar being the outfield guy oh i should also apologize it is uh domingo and rimel tapia excuse me for the other way i said it and and oh also mark canna not with a hard h that i was doing so apologize on all fronts but uh yeah gavin lux uh arrow is up i thought you were going to hit mark canna with the guns and roses pronunciation

there i'm not gonna do it okay it would be just ridiculous but if you could hear it in your own mind, feel free to laugh about it and tell us you laughed about it later. I'm in on Lux. I think he's up a couple of rounds as a result of this. I'm a dummy, but the hard hit rate was good. I think when the hard hit rate is at least decent, I think there's reason to believe the barrel rate can improve.

I think we've seen power, even though it came in some very favorable conditions with a very lively baseball at the AAA level. I think there's still a little more power to come for Lux. Plus, we're talking about an organization that's done really well developing bats. That's right. That's right. That's what Jake Lamp said today. He said, you know, why can't I get the bump like Muncy and Turner and all these guys that have come here and Taylor and been so excellent.

So, you know, maybe Jake Lamb makes this team, but we were talking about this probably being more of a boost for Edwin Rios on the back end. But we'll see. They may value Lamb's ability to play third. Rios is maybe a little bit out on that one. But Rios has had a better track record of hitting the ball hard recently. Last note on the Dodgers for me is that I had Haney in the back end of the 90s

going into the season because I liked some of the things about his spin. I liked some of the things about his strikeout minus walk rate. And the homeritis has been all over him this spring. I know he's trying to add a sweeper, like a sweeping slider. I know there's still a chance for breakout, but I think there's a possibility he's in some sort of swing role

and that the four and five pitchers for this team are Gonsolin and Tyler Anderson. Tyler Anderson has been pitching really well this spring and also is a more formed thing you know what i mean it's he's uh especially if maybe you uh could piggyback gonsolin and haney uh and make tyler anderson your four because you're just more sure that he can go five you know whereas with haney and gonsolin gonsolin's command his history as a reliever, Haney's homeritis, maybe just a righty-lefty combo them and try to get six innings out of the two of them combined without giving up a ton of homers.

Anderson, I think, gets an arrow up with just the way spring training is going. Yeah, Haney might be a very quick drop for me in the multiple places where I took the chance because I wanted to see if the Dodgers were right about what they saw in him and if he could make the adjustments quickly. Maybe it takes time. Maybe it never happens at all, but I do think he's going to be right on that roster bubble

for these first couple rounds of cuts. You really don't want to have him on your roster while he's figuring it out. Nope. No, you don't. I mean, they've got plenty of alternatives. Mitch White, we've talked about him on the show. You could give Mitch White a prolonged opportunity. They've got a couple of prospects. I think Bobby Miller's still hanging around camp right now.

He's interesting. He looks good. He's not far away. Yeah, Ryan Pepeo's not far away. They've got pitching in spades right now. So, they can't just sit there with Heaney for 10 starts if he's getting hammered and say oh this is fine just keep just have the money to be like well sunk costs we'll move on yeah speaking of sunk costs and moving on justin upton designated for assignment by the

angels this is the final year of that contract extension that he signed. I remember the day that news broke. I was actually, I think we just landed for first pitch Arizona, and Mr. James Anderson and Clay Link and I were getting breakfast, and one of them checked Twitter, and they're like, whoa, Justin Upton got an extension. And all three of us just said, it's an odd way to spend $106 million. Again, I think all of us are on the, Hey,

pay the players. But I think for a team like the angels that cuts a lot of corners, other places, it seemed like a particularly odd way to use that much money up and said a couple of injuries in recent years. I think that has accelerated the decline. You go back to 2018, a one 21 WRC plus all the way back then.

Popped 30 home runs that year. 2019 and 2021, though, injuries have been a huge part of it. He's been below average since 2019 in terms of that WRC plus. But the max exit velocity last season, still in the top 3%. The barrel rate is still there. He has your sort of... Still been hitting lefties. Still hitting lefties, which that alone,

now that the Angels are footing the bill and any team that goes and gets him once he clears waivers, they can use him just on the small side of platoon. I think universal DH helps a lot too. He's going somewhere. I think he's still going to be useful. I saw people throwing out the garbage can emojis. I don't think he's done when you look at the underlying numbers.

I can understand why the Angels would just say, we don't want to send Brandon Marsh or Joe Adele down. We don't want to do that with them. We want them to play every day because we think they're good enough to play every day. And I don't disagree with that assessment. So on the one hand, I don't think this was a good deal in the first place.

And yeah, Captain Obvious, you're seeing three years of injuries and down performance. But I think they're at least acknowledging the best combination of players they can put on the field, thinking about short-term and long-term and saying a part-time Justin Upton is only going to cause problems for us in the sense of not being able to play Marsh and Adele as much as we'd like to play them. And Upton was actually playing a little bit of first base this spring too. He's been hitting

the ball pretty well in a handful of Cactus League games. So I just think it all comes back to health and at the very least, a small side platoon guy with big power who can play against lefties. But I think he ends up in a slightly larger role than that with probably another contending team. Yeah, I think it's a little bit short-sighted by the Angels. I think there's still some value to be had there. I think the real key is not actually Marsh or Adele. I think it's Ward. Because you can have a team with Upton on it

where you go Marsh, Trout, Adele, Otani at the outfield in DH, and then Upton is backing up the corners in DH and playing against lefties, right? That's not an impossible thing to do. Especially if he's actually good enough to play first base. I think that was the other—Kyle Schwarber did it on the fly last year. If Kyle Schwarber can learn it on the fly, I feel like Justin Upton could be passable at the spot. But, you know, I guess Ward has, you know, 296.

He's almost a, is that a 900 OPS, two homers, really nice walk and strikeout totals. He's just been looking pretty solid out there. So I guess they just figured they want Taylor Ward and more full-time playing i mean i'm not pretending it's not about adele and marsh but it's also about ward because i think they wanted to have ward on this on this team so i mean uh they're probably a better team with adele marsh and ward it's just surprising that they that they're so inefficient with their spending and their decision-making process.

Like, you know, just cutting Pujols and then seeing him go to the Dodgers and having value in the same kind of role that you could have used him in. It's just weird, you know? And this is going to happen again with Upton. So, you know, we've talked a lot about how they didn't really treat their employees right during COVID. Their player development is behind. There's a lot of things that need cleaning up in Anaheim. I'm not sure that this new group of leaders is necessarily doing it

because they seem to be making similar mistakes to what they've made in the past. It always makes me wonder if multiple front offices have this problem, how much of it is just ownership, right? Like we'll get to see Billy Epler, who I didn't think would ever be a GM again, is the GM of the Mets, at least for now. And he's got limitless spending potential. And the Mets appear to be interested in doing those other things that the Angels won't do.

So we'll get to see how that one plays out. But I think the rot you see in Anaheim, that comes from Artie Moreno the same way the rot you see in Baltimore comes from Peter Angelos. It's on that kind of level. So if you're an Angels fan, why does it keep going wrong? Why do you get these types of decisions more or less wrong? It comes from the top. That's ownership meddling.

It's people that don't know the game telling the people who do know the game what to do in ways that then causes all sorts of extra problems that are avoidable for the most part. Yeah, it's just it's just a little bit weird to see Upton have the spring he's having and look at this roster and be like, yeah, there's still place for him on this roster and then see him cut like so close to opening day. Yeah, I thought it would be four to six weeks into the season up to not hitting in a part time role and then a DFA if he didn't hit. I think he's going to hit a little bit. So curious to see where he lands in some deeper leagues. He actually might be relevant, but certainly good news for both adele and marsh they get a little bit of a bump here as the late part of draft season plays out in these next couple of days lots of other news to get to so we're going to fly through some of these emmanuel class a got

a five-year contract extension for the guardians might be the last true closer right if we go five years into the future oh my gosh it's 2027 and every team except the guardians has a committee emmanuel class a might be the first overall pick in 2027 fantasy drafts oh god oh my god and i will still i'll just be older, just more grumpy, just yelling about it. No way, Clyde, they should be going number one. Shaking my fist. I'll never take a closer at 1-1. I took one at 1-6 last year, and he lost his job by the end of April,

and I'm never doing that again. Well, your 2026 season is going to be rough. I just thought it was interesting. He's got user control left, but gets the extension. Probably has as much long-term job security as any non-Josh Hader reliever in the pool

right now. Because Hendricks is old. Liam Hendricks is old. If you're the keeper of Dynasty League and you're trying to hold down some saves for the multi-year future, Class A might be your second best option for that, given all these factors. So a little nudge for him in those formats. How about Matt Brash opening the season as the Mariners' number five starter? Both he and Reid Detmers have earned rotation spots.

We'll start with Brash. A late dart for the better part of the last couple of weeks. This is certainly going to bump him up to, I would think at least 275, 300 overall in terms of a pick range. Kind of back where we were talking about some pitchers in that range a little earlier. We were talking about would-you-rathers

like Cal Quantrill and Josiah Gray. I think he's at least going into that cluster, if not even a little earlier. I push them all the way to 82, where the would-you-rathers would be Aaron Ashby. I would take Brash. That seems appropriate. Brash is in.

Ashby is not, I think, at least to begin the season. Up against Tony Gonsolin, Tristan McKenzie. Honestly, I like Brash brash stuff better i could push him harder than that uh up to joe ryan bailey ober like back in 70s um i think once you get to the late 60s you're talking patrick sandoval wascari noah i don't know there's just a little bit more track record uh you know maybe a little bit more, it's a bad word, leash, but a little bit more. If Brash comes up and struggles, it's pretty easy to send him down and bring up Kirby or bring up one of the other options.

Noah and Sandoval will get to struggle a couple times before they get sent down. They don't even know if they have options. But that's my point. I think that it gets hard to throw him all the way into the 60s. But if you want to take him over Joe Ryan or Bailey over, I'm not going to stop you because I'm a stuffist and Matt Brash has the stuff

and Ober and Ryan don't. But the projections will say take Ober and Ryan. So maybe just take him over, Elisir Hernandez and Tristan McKenzie, because he's hot and he's throwing really hard. And there are some stuff numbers out there that agree with what the eyes say about Matt Brash. I am adamant.

I'm with you on Brash. I think innings could be more front-loaded. I think as they bring up George Kirby and maybe other young starters, Brash could end up as more of a multi-inning weapon out of the bullpen come August, September. Worry about that when you get there. Don't sweat that too much right now because there's a world in which he pitches well enough, and then they start messing with his workload around

the all-star break, and they try to keep him stretched out as long as possible. He could be, if you're asking, who could be a Luis Garcia type this year? Matt Brash could be that kind of pitcher. That could happen. And he can get to 120 innings without it being much of a push. I mean, he got to 95 last year. Yeah, and they may be willing to pull him to 140 or something.

That wouldn't be that surprising if he's pitching well. Reid Detmers, I think I've got as much Reid Detmers as I have of any pitcher that was in the post-pick 400 range. Now he's more in the back of the 300 and climbing. We've talked about him before. Believed to be the most major league ready pitching prospect of that 2020 draft class. I think I'm just going to keep fighting this battle until I lose enough times to give up. But I think when someone comes up at debuts and looks as bad as Reed Detmers did, Edward Cabrera gets this sort of label too. So it's not just Detmers. I don't have a fascination

with this one player. You come up, you pitch about 30 innings or less, and you just get rocked. And everything you did before that was really good. The pitches are good. The command's supposed to be good. I'm in. I'm buying in after the ugly of the ugly ratios. And Reed Detmers is firmly on my, yes, I will pay the increased price list. If he's going around pick 250, pick 275, I'm still in because yeah, it's a six-man rotation for now. He's probably their third or fourth best starter and they might lose one of the guys even ahead of him in that order. So I think he stays in this rotation all year and he ends up being one of the better young pitchers in the pool this season. Yeah, I just wish he pitched in a stat cast park for the spring training

because I have not seen stuff numbers for him this spring. The stuff numbers last year for Eduardo Cabrera were at 103, and for Detmers, they're at 95 or 96. So I think there's a fair amount of difference between those two. I prefer Eduardo Cabrera. However, Eduardo Cabrera probably doesn't have a rotation spot, nanny nanny boo boo you know stick your head in doo doo

i that's exactly where i was gonna go with that i'm not all the way in on reed detmers um for those reasons um i have him around where i have reaver san Martin and Carlos Hernandez who have slightly better stuff numbers. Madison Bumgarner who is throwing two miles an hour harder this spring. And Luke Weaver. So that's the low 100s.

Madison Bumgarner basically free everywhere. Him throwing a little harder. It doesn't take a lot for Bumgarner because of his extension too. You add a couple ticks there, even if he's 91-92 or 92-93, that's pretty good. Opening weekend starter. What's the

matchup? I forgot. So in 2027, when you're drafting Emmanuel Class A at 1-1 and I'm still drafting pitchers that got rocked in small debuts, if that's still happening then, I will willingly submit my face to be used on the label of a paste, like a jar of paste.

I will find a company that makes paste and say, put my face on this jar. Padres at home. Okay, Padres at home. Could be all right. I'd be all right with that. If you're looking for an opening weekend starter it gets worse than it does get worse somehow

just a little bit of strategy if you are in a free agency auction bidding situation like Brash may go really really high you know and if you and if you don't want to spend like $200 out of your $1000 on the first weekend on a young pitcher, what you can do is put in a make-good offer on Brash and then put five pitchers below it.

And put some good, nice, modest bids and then finish with Madison Bumgarner for $3 or something. And you'll at least have something good that come out of it and you'll keep a little bit more money for later and you know it might be the right it might be the right choice there are stranger things that have happened than Madison Bumgarner at 32 years old becoming fantasy relevant again especially since the humidor in Arizona has made that a much more neutral, almost pitching friendly part. 118 whip last season, also lower than expected. He came with a 467 ERA, but usually you don't see those two numbers

that far out of whack. The stuff numbers, he was one of the biggest stuff risers in the second half last year, which very much surprised me. I love the cheap bid. Love that. The first couple of weeks, everyone's eager to spend their money, and sometimes there are players you have to go get because you've got injury issues,

and there's great opportunities that have presented themselves. I understand it, but the contingency bids end up being really sticky players for your roster that come at a tiny fraction of the actual price. I feel like we haven't talked about Blake Snell this spring, and I realized that the reason why we haven't talked about Blake Snell this spring is that he just debuted in the Cactus League on Thursday. Won the third innings, four walks, no strikeouts, likely going four to five innings in his first few outings

when the season starts. What's going on here? There's a little bit of a disconnect between those two numbers. How's he going to get to four to five innings? He's going to go three innings next start and then just jump up to four to five? He threw 45 pitches in that one and a third, so he'll go to 60 next time it'll go

to 75 the outing after that all right so it's possible i'm actually not as worried because he never had good command you know and so i just i you know i think that he didn't have a great outing this is always possible for snell snell has huge break you know bad out, and he's a little bit like the girl with the curl in terms of very, very good or very, very bad. I don't know where that came from. I don't even know what that means. I'm not even going to think about it. Jesus Lizardo has had a nice spring.

Is he kind of also in the group of pitchers we were talking about earlier, kind of like that Detmers cluster? He had a higher ADP to begin with, so you're probably paying a premium if you want to get Lizardo right now. But the spring numbers, 10 Ks, three walks in 11 and two-thirds innings. Last time out, four and two-thirds with three strikeouts, just one run allowed.

That was against the Astros. I don't know if that was an A lineup or a B lineup, but is he fixed? Because Jesus Lizardo carried a lot of buzz the last few draft seasons and this year he has been very affordable relatively speaking yeah I just have to admit I might be wrong about him I stuck to where I have him uh because of uh poor stuff ratings and uh you know I've had a very up close and personal uh you personal view on him here in Oakland, and I just didn't see it for him.

However, I've seen some stuff numbers. They're better this spring. He went to a new organization that maybe had some plan for him in terms of how to change his sinker and his foreseam, which were the problem. It's certainly possible that i'm going to be wrong on him and uh right now i have him uh about 120 next to like dane dunning and nate pearson and mitch white as sort of like you know maybe it works out but the difference between him

and like mitch white is lizardo probably has a roster spot, a rotation spot to begin the season. So you don't have to wait as long to figure out what you've got. So he should be higher maybe, but I just, until I get those sweet, sweet stat cast numbers, I'm a little bit in the dark on what the changes have been that they've made. And sometimes a guy like him can look better, a lot better in shorter stints because he's throwing harder. So we'll have to see what he looks like in five. Yeah, I would say to begin the season,

I look at Lizardo as someone you're probably using as more of a home streamer and a two-start pitcher. You're not necessarily throwing him out there week after week for the first month and just letting it rip in mixed leagues, but getting a few starts with some, some stack cast numbers will go a long way toward giving the model an idea. If a lot has actually changed for Lizardo. I would rather have him on my bench.

You know, I'd rather have him on my bench for those first few starts. Cause it's been pretty bad for a while. It seems fair. Last news item to pass along, Garrett Crochet undergoing Tommy John surgery, so tough break for him. That White Sox bullpen, no Kimbrel,

no Crochet, still very deep, still very good, but if we reach the point in July because of a couple more injuries and maybe a downturn in performance from one of their high leverage relievers where the White Sox need to go out and trade for bullpen help, it's going awful that's gonna be interesting uh you know they might have uh something really interesting in ronaldo lopez if michael kopech is the fifth

starter and vince velasquez is the sixth starter and lambert or stever stever might be hurt too actually let me see this white socks play on the Stever on the 60-day injured list. Alright, but let's say Lambert and Velazquez are your pitching depth. Lopez could be an excellent late game reliever. So they still go bummer Graveman Lopez and they're waiting for Kelly to come back. There's still a lot that has to go wrong for for uh for that bullpen to fall apart I think I hope for their sake it doesn't

but it would just be one of those strange things like oh yeah remember when we thought their bullpen was eight deep oh it's only three or four deep because of all this bad stuff that happened first couple of things already in motion we have to go oh there were a couple emails that passed along suggestions one from ani suggested a clicker so you don't have to reward your dog with the yes or like cue your dog with the yes dog clickers are very good i wanted to uh i wanted to apologize i didn't mean to disparage all dog psychiatrists or say that it was all lark and in fact it seems to be working my dogs now when we go on walks

look for other dogs and look for other humans because they know they're going to get a treat it hasn't worked completely it's not like we can go up to those dogs and hang out with them but it's a start I appreciate that there's been a change I used to watch Cesar Milan and I used to watch The Dog Whisperer.

And this is very different from what it used to be like. And I appreciate there has been a bit of a dogma change when it comes to dogs. Yeah. But I do think the clicker is the way to go. I agree with Ani on that one. The other email that I thought was interesting had nothing to do with baseball. It was a question or it was a response to allergies. We talked about allergies because it's that time of year.

Everything's getting all stuffy. I use this one too. Jeff suggested if you have bad allergies and you've had them most of your life, which actually does describe me until recently, that cutting out dairy temporarily, you might find that your allergies aren't as bad. And if that's actually making your allergies worse, then you know to keep cutting it out. You'll find out pretty quickly if it helps. He said everything used to destroy him. And once he cut out dairy,

he could basically do anything outside that he couldn't do before. Well, since I got that email, I have stopped eating cheese. Now, I haven't cut out butter because it's butter. You can't cut out butter. Butter is so butter. You expect me to do it.

Yeah, what are you talking about? But I have cut out cheese. I usually throw some cheese on my sandwiches or cheese. I can't have pasta sauce, so I would throw some, you know, I'd do cheese in my pasta. I have not had cheese in a week. I actually, you know the the allergies are haven't been as bad as they were but i think just generally i feel a little better uh so my wife is like

looking at me like you better still buy me my cheese yeah well no dairy is causes inflammation so it may be causing the inflammation that's making you feel worse. Give it a shot. We're not doctors. This is a life hack that was passed on by a listener of the show. We appreciate the rates and barrels life hacks because life's challenging enough. We want to make it a little easier for everybody out there. If we can on Twitter,

you can find, you know, at, you know, Sarah, so you can find me at Derek van Riper. You can email us rates and barrels at the athletic.com. I know emails have been piling up. We'll start to

catch up on those now that the season is about to start. As I mentioned earlier, a live 3-0 show coming Wednesday. Time to be announced on Twitter. We're still working on the details of our actual schedules that day, but it's a big season preview episode, which will be on the YouTube channel, but it'll be in the Athletic Baseball Show

feed, so be sure to check us out over there. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on opening day. Thanks for listening. ... ... ...

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