Rates & Barrels - Joc Pederson to Atlanta, Byron Buxton's future in Minnesota, and Eno's vision for the future

Episode Date: July 16, 2021

Eno and DVR discuss the Joc Pederson trade, the Twins' attempt to sign Byron Buxton, and their plan to trade him without an agreement, Eno's new preferred mode of transportation, Tyler Mahle and similarly undervalued pitchers, and our collective miss on Nomar Mazara.  Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic for just $3.99/mo: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels presented by Topps. Check out Topps Project 70 celebrating 70 years of Topps baseball cards. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris with you on this Friday. The second half of the season getting underway later today. It was supposed to start on Thursday. We'll talk about why that didn't happen in just a few minutes. We'll discuss a trade. Jock Peterson is now in Atlanta. There's a story that Ken Rosenthal wrote for The Athletic about the Twins attempting to extend Byron Buxton. And should those efforts fail, they are strongly considering trading him.

So kind of at a crossroads with him in that organization right now. And we'll talk about a few other All-Star Week related questions and really interesting question about Tyler Malley as well. So tons to get to on this episode. You know, let's start with that trade. Jock Peterson goes to Atlanta. It's an Atlanta team that I thought might be stuck in sell mode last time we spoke

just because of the injury to Ronald Acuna Jr. prior to the All-Star break. Simple one-for-one trade. Bryce Ball goes to the Cubs as part of the return. I think this is the beginning of the Cubs spinning off some players. Probably more trades to come from them in these next few weeks.

Let's focus on Peterson for a moment. The overall numbers this year are a tick below what we're accustomed to, but this looks like a pretty low-risk sort of move for Atlanta to bolster the offense. And if the next two weeks go really poorly, they have a guy that would probably be of interest to some other contending clubs

if they decide they fall too far out of the race in the NL East. Yeah, for some reason I don't buy that aspect of it as much because we already saw the return for Jock Peterson and it wasn't great. There's also this mutual option that's on the table. So I could see this actually being one of those things where they brought him as much for the beginning of next year as for the end of this year. You want to have as much outfield depth as possible with a guy coming off of ACL surgery, so that much like Tommy John, you can give him as much time as possible. You just don't want to push it, don't want to put Acuna on the field before you have to. So I think I would assume that even if they don't make it, I don't see them buying anymore, but I also don't see them selling. I see them sort of holding on.

They're only four games out, trying to make a run at it, even without Acuna, and then just being cool with wherever the chips fall. I hadn't noticed this, but Alex Anthopoulos has six straight postseason appearances as a GM. Probably the longest. Or as a front office executive. The longest active streak outside of the Dodgers front office. I mean, something like that. Not bad.

I mean, the Red Sox didn't make it a couple times yankees they had a break a few years ago time is a flat circle the year that they sold chap the year they sold chapman and miller right anyway that's pretty impressive so i mean maybe maybe he'll do another small buy or something, but I just don't see them turning around. Like, turning around and selling, that means you're just going to get something worse than Bryce Ball. Probably. Which, hey, Ball might turn out into something.

He's a massive man who has massive raw power, 70 on fan graphs, but also 80 in our hearts. But the problem is that he hasn't really turned that into game power this year. And he is also just such a big lefty that he's got nowhere to go but DH in terms of going down the defensive spectrum. So a lot of pressure on those types.

Like, imagine if you had cj crone for sale right which is like you know he's right-handed it's not a perfect compliment not not the perfect you know one-to-one thing but cj crone is also just like a first baseman that hits okay um and he's established himself right you wouldn't get that much for cj crone no you absolutely would not given some of the limitations you wouldn't even get that much for CJ Krohn. No, you absolutely would not given some of the limitations. You wouldn't even get that much for CJ Krohn if he had five more years of team control left. It's just not a player that's valued by the market right now in baseball. So I just assume they'll hold on to Jock and that they may even exercise the option because against left-handers, Jock Peterson is a perfectly cromulent player yeah i think we're

going to see some pretty unusual things at this deadline we're going to see some players that have struggled all season in the minors at various levels they're going to get moved because there's some buying opportunities out there and then we're going to see second halves that are quite a bit better than first halves that might just be players finally knocking the rust off and being comfortable in game situations again. And when we look back a few years from now, we might find trades, maybe not this trade necessarily. It might not be Bryce Ball. But we're going to look back at some trades and go, wow, I can't believe they got this guy in this trade.

Yeah, and that's a really smart thing to say because I think that when we had these trades of Chapman for Gleyber Torres, even at the time, Gleyber Torres was pretty good. So even at the time, people were like, okay, wow, they really want the championship sort of deal. Cease was very well regarded as a prospect. And what was it? Cease and Eloy for Quintana? Yes.

At the time, that was already like, ooh, Eloy's a good hitter, good prospect. I think this, yeah, this year we're going to have, like, names where you're like, who? But then maybe five, six years from now,

like, whoa, that was actually a pretty good get. And I think, you know, just the 2020 lack of minor league season is the source of that. And I tried to talk to some of the prospects of the Futures game about this. Like, what did you do? And they did admit that facing the same people over and over again was maybe sub-ideal.

But one thing that I'd never thought of before, it really gets you comfortable with one pitcher, right? Like, it almost could be a good thing. Because then you really start to like you like i think it was alec thomas who's who's like a outfielder who's got who's playing really well for the diamondbacks he was telling me like you could you could see like you could start to see what pitchers were trying to do to you like you could really see it like you could really be like like following along because you're like, Oh, I've been facing this guy. Like, I know he likes to do this and then this and then this. And there's to like, yes, you'd rather see a lot of different pitchers and be able to do that for everybody. But maybe it's just so ridiculous when you see pitcher after pitcher that like, at some point, you're just sort of

reacting and you don't play that game of like, you know, Oh, he did this. He's going to do this. You're just sort of reacting, but maybe seeing the same guys over and over again and gets you like juices you to like veteran status where like David Ortiz is like, apparently was the savant at like, Oh, here comes a fastball.

Oh no. Breaking ball comes. You know what I mean? Like here comes a breaking ball. So like, uh, that's a skill that veterans have where they can kind of anticipate what pitch is coming next and maybe facing the same guy actually makes you a little better at that but in general i agree with you i think that

um there's you know some people that just struggle in the first half this year because they haven't seen live pitching in a year uh especially people that weren't at the alternate site so i'd say i'd say we'd see a lot of people that weren't at the alternate site. So I'd say we'd see a lot of people that weren't at the alternate site that would be traded that may have better second halves, yeah. Yeah, I never really thought about the number of adjustments you'd make as a result of facing the same pitchers over and over and over again. I mean, the value of that exercise would ride entirely on how many adjustments the pitchers were making.

If you had pitchers that weren't trying to do different things. Maybe how good the pitchers were, right? Right. If you're facing good pitchers repeatedly who can make all the adjustments, that probably does have some value. If you're facing a lot of bad pitchers or just pitchers who were not either being instructed to make adjustments or simply weren't doing it on their own, then you were just getting reps and going down that staleness path. I would say even the mileage of that might vary from organization to organization and even player to player, depending on who they were matching up

with most frequently. Let's talk about the Byron Buxton situation, because this is pretty interesting. Ken Rosendahl had a story about it. The offer from the Twins is supposed to be pretty similar to what Aaron Hicks got from the Yankees a few years ago. Apparently the team's latest offer to Buxton is in excess of the $70 million that the Yankees gave to Hicks. It makes sense because Buxton's a couple years younger now than Hicks was the time that he signed his extension. I think it is an interesting comp just because Hicks had a lot of injuries, took a little time to get to the level he reached a couple seasons ago. Obviously, both are good defensive, great defensive center fielders, so that sort of makes some sense.

The weird thing is, if they're unable to reach an agreement, the Twins are then going to possibly flip the switch and just trade him away, be that at the trade deadline or prior to his final season of club control. Buxton is a free agent after 2022. The potential extension has a bunch of incentive clauses in it, which makes sense given the amount of time that he's missed. I guess I'll just put it to you this way. If you were calling the shots in Minnesota,

would you be more inclined to push for the extension with Buxton based on what we've seen kind of going back to 2019 now with his offensive development? Or would you be more inclined to try and trade him now and see if you can get some more young talent back into the organization? I think I do want his next three or four years pretty badly. If you look, his sprint speed has not fallen off. So athletically, when he's in there, he's still elite. He hasn't fallen out of the top 1% of the league in sprint speed, as an example. And at the same time, his learned skills,

like sort of the learned facet of baseball is nearing a peak in terms of like looking at his barrel percentage he used to hover at three to five percent went to eight percent in 2019 14 percent in 2020 and 21 percent this year and uh his max ev mimics that he kind of was a 110 guy and then uh the last three years it's 114 112 and 116 so um he's definitely unlocked something in his swing, improved his strikeout rate. So like he's he's learning the game really well. And yet he's elite defensively. So I think I want his next three years pretty badly. And I might be willing to pay for his next six years to get the next three years. And on top of that, you have the possibility

that he doesn't cost as much as someone, as anybody else with his sort of upside, because of all the injuries. That's definitely going to have to, despite the fact that some of those injuries are just hit by pitches and freak and this and that, you just have

the fact that he's never played more than 500, 511 plate appearances at his peak. His average season is, even if you account for 2020, his average season is about 200 or 300 plate appearances. So that might give you a discount. And then one of those years, you get the full 700, 650 plate appearance Byron Buxton experience, which I think could be MVP level.

That's the kind of skill that he has, where if he put 650 plate appearances together with a 18% barrel rate and that 30 plus feet per second sprint speed, I mean, you're talking about an elite center fielder with, you know, I'm not saying that he's a perennial MVP candidate because there is this sort of sliding thing that's happening where he's getting older and learning the game, but then the athleticism is going to have to fall off. But I do think he could win an MVP. That's how skilled he is. So if you get him for a hundred million, I say do it. Yeah, $100 million for six years. And again, you can tack on some performance incentives.

If he stays healthy and he's playing really well, you're happy to give him the extra money in that case because he's healthy and productive and your team's probably doing very well. I would agree with the MVP sort of ceiling. I think in Ken's piece, he suggested an eight to ten war type season right like a peak bets peak trout type year i don't know if he's gonna have multiple years like that but i think even just a normal healthy buxton season like a good healthy buxton season would probably come out to be like a four to five win type year the defense is that good the offense has come a long way i think there are some pretty clear limitations in terms of what he's going to do with his obp right he's never drawn a ton of walks.

He's probably not going to change his play discipline so much where we're talking about a guy that's going to be a 350-360 OBP guy. But the bat has him at 278-330-565 for the rest of the season. The bat X. Yeah, you want a 900 OPS center fielder, like a lead defensive center fielder? Yeah, you do. Yeah, that's definitely worth extending for the long haul. So I'd definitely be on the side

that wants him to stay and would definitely look at this team and say they've got a lot of guys that are coming off the books who are short-term deal guys anyway. The core is actually pretty good here. And like many teams, they don't have as much pitching

as you'd want. The situation is like this. Jose Barrios and Taylor Rodgers are also free agents after 2022, so they're on the same contract cycle as Buxton. You've got Nelson Cruz, Anderson Simmons, Michael Pineda, Jay Happ, Alex Colomay, and Hansel Robles all expiring at the end of the year. Most of those guys will probably get traded between now and the end of the month, at the end of the year. Most of those guys will probably get traded between now and the end of the month, just based on the Twins having a lost season.

But you have Alex Kirilov, you have Trevor Larnak, you still have Donaldson signed to a long-term deal, you got one more year of Sano, you got the possibility of extensions with Buxton, Barrios, and Rodgers, you got Royce Lewis coming back from a torn ACL. So you've got plenty

of talent. And this is still, to me, one of the more... Soggy is the wrong word. Spongy divisions in the league? I feel like you can make a lot of moves. Soggy is not fair. Soggy is too gross. Spongy. The spongy division.

You can bounce around. Yes, winnable. It's a more winnable division than most. That's the right word. Use the right word, podcast host. Try to describe the division the way you describe beers. No, but there's also just, I think it's awkward in terms of rebuild. Who's the sort of bellwether for a rebuild?

Kepler? Who would you trade that would actually get you a lot back that would be good for you in the future like yeah you could trade barrios and but i don't know it'd just be one year right so that's not the kind of deal that gets you like the sale deal where you get moncada you know what i mean like the kind of revitalizing deal um I don't think you get that for anybody unless you sort of package Barrios and Kepler to somebody, you know, like maybe the Red Sox, and then they give you, you know, Duran and,

you know, like, I don't know, Casas and a pitcher or something. I don't know. Like, I'm sort of, but I'm saying, if you don't do that, I think it's a lot easier to be like, hey, we have a pretty good team for 2022. We're going to have some money to spend. So we can spend it on that sort of one-year pitcher thing or the two-year pitcher thing. And if we had a better pitching staff and the same offense, we would be

a contender. They have one of the best offenses in the big leagues. And I think it can survive losing Nelson Cruz because you move Sano over. Now you play Larnach and Kirloff every day, right? You move Sano to DH. And there's an opening at first for either, you know, just a real like CJ Krohn. You know, or you kind of rotate your your outfielders through the box and healthy. Then Larnock or killing our Kirilov is playing first base, you know? Yeah, I think Kirilov actually played for space in my league.

So, you know, I think that I think that they have the personnel to lose Nelson Cruz. They should invest all that money into pitching. And I think they should just go for it again next year. And then maybe sign Berrios long-term, or maybe there's other options of what to do. And I think you can get... See, at the trade deadline, you have people who are more desperate, and they know they're going to the playoffs,

and so they'll pay a little bit more for, and they know they're going to the playoffs, and so they'll pay a little bit more for something because they know they're going to the playoffs. So I think the difference between selling Barrios before his final year and selling Barrios at the trade deadline in his expiring deal is actually not that much. Interesting way to think about it. I also think, though, the other part of all of this is for Barrios, you need pitching long-term, clearly.

You don't have enough at the stands right now. Yeah, I mean, you could extend him, for sure. I think extending him makes a lot of sense. Is he the type of pitcher, especially, that you feel better about on a longer-term deal? I mean, the command is pretty good. The pitch mix is deep enough. It's not a power approach. He's not good because of velocity, necessarily.

So I could see Barrios actually aging reasonably well. And I think he fits as a guy that you would want to give possibly like a four-year deal to keep him around as a fixture in that rotation for a while. Yeah, I mean, the one question that I have is that he hasn't really developed a new pitch while he's been there. And I just wonder if like a slider or cutter would be good. And I wonder why he hasn't necessarily developed a slider or cutter. Now it could just be that there's something about his release or the way that he pitches that just doesn't lend itself to it. And he's tried.

I know that I've heard, you know, he's talked about trying to have two shapes on his curve ball. So I don't think he's uncoachable, but that's the question. I think the only question heard, you know, he's talked about trying to have two shapes on his curveball, so I don't think he's uncoachable. But that's the question, I think. The only question I'd have is, does he have enough pitches to kind of be, to kind of spread it out and take advantage of his command? You know what I mean?

Like, does he, he only has three pitches. So, you know, is he going to, is he going to have, you know, is he going to be able to develop that slider or cutter that he might need when he's a little bit older. That might be something they would know internally better than we can tell from the outside. And that might be actually, I think, a fairly big decision, a fairly big sort of point to debate in whether or not you should extend him.

Because people can have pitches and have more pitches last longer. I mean, look at Zach Reinke. A lot more adjustments you can make, and you can withstand Velo dipping off. Even if Velo is not critically important for Barrios right now, it's still important. It still matters. You lose that.

The fewer pitches you have, the more Velo matters. I mean, that's like, that is researched and almost can write it in stone. Last Twins question for you, just thinking about pitching and Wes Johnson and what they've accomplished in the last couple of years as an organization, as a group, do you still view them

as at least an above-average organization for developing pitching talent? because they do have a couple of younger guys duran and blasevich and maybe maybe there's a little help coming from them i think duran's got an elbow injury right now but do you still view them as a good destination can they be the kind of team that goes out and plays it cheap in free agency or trades for someone who just hasn't unlocked anything can they actually be that organization that gets that extra mileage out of arms? I mean, their reputation took a big hit this year.

I don't think if they had common pitching this year, they'd still be in it. And, you know, they failed with Hap, who was succeeding in Yankee Stadium a year ago. They haven't also really developed a young guy since Burrios. It's fair. I mean, we're kind of waiting. They had some of these guys come up and be competent in sort of short stints, but then none of them really popped and been like, okay, now you remember the starting rotation.

Right. I mean, like Duffy and Rogers in the bullpen, I think you could probably say those guys are success stories. Sure. But you should have been able to develop one of those guys as a starter. Yeah. Yeah. And like, I mean, let me just look at their depth chart.

I was trying to think of some of their who they're like low velocity like lewis thorpe you know those guys weren't ever going to be good so the like ever going to be aces so the fact that you know lewis thorpe has you know given them some innings is okay you know the fact that randy dobnak who was a you know an independent league signing uh has given them some innings is okay uh, the fact that Randy Dobnak, who was, you know, an independent league signing, has given them some innings is OK. But the fact that Maeda and Happ dropped off and the fact that none of the nobody else that was like actually like maybe a top rounder, you know, like an actual first or second or third round pitching draft pick. None of those guys has popped yet. I think we could probably look at Bailey Ober as a guy that's a positive development story though, right?

I mean, the early results at the big league level still leave something to be desired, but level to level, he was great in the minors and was a 12th round pick. So maybe they got something there. And like i'm saying i'm not changing my opinion completely um let me see here bailey over 94 stuff plus 117 command plus uh he fits uh something we were looking for later uh in the show um but uh yeah

they took a guy who uh doesn't have uh that much raw stuff and took advantage of his command and his four pitch mix and have coached him up and done well with him. So congrats on that. I'm not going to change my opinion of some of the members at front office completely yet. And so I do think they have it in them. But this year was the first year I was kind of like a little disappointed in their pitching program. Yeah, it's going to be a very big stretch between now and opening day of 2022

to see what they're able to do with this roster, who stays, who goes, and which players they take some chances on as they try and get back into the mix in 2022. Okay, you know, let's get to a couple other news-related items. The start of the second half of the Yankees and Red Sox was supposed to take place on Thursday night. It was a standalone game unfortunately multiple positive covid test for the yankees led the league to postpone that game the status of friday's game at the time of this recording still somewhat up in the air though i thought i saw a couple rumblings that they expect to be

able to play so we'll see if that actually holds why i'm getting a uh test today right yes so i think it was i think it's one of those things that we probably started to take for granted in the last couple of weeks as we moved around a little bit. I mean, I made a trip out to California, as people know, looking for a place to live and just thinking about it, getting homes like that was that was as many people and places and exposures as I've had in a long time. And you can be as safe about it as you want. You're still just putting yourself in a different sort of environment.

And I never thought about the All-Star game being a temporary just petri dish of all these people coming from all these different organizations. You've got these procedures in place. You've got your routine sort of hammered out as a team right now. Some teams have reached that 85% cutoff for vaccination. A lot haven't. So you kind of felt like, okay, the league's in a comfortable place right now. The All-Star game was exactly the kind of thing that could lead to a surge in tests. You have people going home.

You have people seeing each other who haven't seen each other. So I guess we shouldn't really be surprised by this, but it's just another reminder that, yes, we are still playing baseball in a pandemic. And, yeah, we're still going to have a few setbacks probably between now and the end of the season. Yeah, yeah. And they played, you know, it's like the main thing, you know,

for me, my interaction with players is always outside. I know that there were some people that talked to them after the game downstairs. I wasn't going to take part in that. But I was happy that my interactions were outside and that I didn't interact with any Yankees. But if you were on the American League team, you're in the same clubhouse as people from opposing teams, which doesn't really otherwise happen. as people from opposing teams, which doesn't really otherwise happen. So shout out to everybody who came to the meetup. That was fun and mostly outside.

Shout out to the people that shouted at me in the media area. I too would have enjoyed having a beer with you, but I unfortunately had to work at that time. Tough break. There were some Rates and Barrels listeners that we saw, so it was pretty cool being out there. But I'm sorry for what it's going to do to the sport.

There's definitely going to be some ramifications from it. Hopefully, they won't be too bad. Also, I feel bad for the Yankees because they were one of the 85% teams that were 85% vaccinated. They've now had their second outbreak this year. The good news is, I prefer to see it as this. I've seen some people be like, oh, this means the vaccine is no good. I prefer to see it as this. I've seen some people be like, oh, this means the vaccine is no good. I prefer to see it as this. It means the vaccine is pretty good. Most of the players on the Yankees that have gotten COVID have been non-symptomatic

because the vaccine is most effective actually at preventing hospitalizations, The vaccine is most effective actually at preventing hospitalizations, is most effective at presenting at preventing the sort of worst case scenario for people. And it's not actually, you know, going to ensure that you never get it. And so, you know, I think historically the Yankees, even among the people who've tested positive, only one of them was symptomatic that had the vaccine and was symptomatic. And there have been some that have been symptomatic that didn't have the vaccine. And then there was the large part where people who had the vaccine and were asymptomatic would not have known that they were positive in any way if they weren't tested as often as baseball players. So in this way, I think baseball can show us a little bit about what the vaccine means, what the vaccine can do for us, what it can't do for us, and what the future of living with this disease is, you know. We won't, in our lives,

get tested as often as baseball players. There's a chance that you vaccinated people out there have been COVID positive since you've been vaccinated. You didn't feel bad. You didn't really notice. Maybe you had very, very

ignorable types of symptoms. Maybe you felt like you had a cold or something. You didn't think anything of it. So, um, it's upsetting, but also I think a window into the future, you know,

um, and, uh, gives us, uh, data. Now I'm sure this, I'm sure this is data that like the CDC can actually incorporate because there's very few other populations

that are tested as often as baseball players. So you get a better sense of how effective this is as a vaccine. Sorry for the Yankees and Red Sox and Yankees fans in particular because the Yankees really need to get going. They really need to burst out of the gate in the second half, and it's going to be tough if they're down a couple of relievers to do so. Not great timing for the Yankees. Maybe one of those

universes conspiring against this type of season. Definitely not something we expected to see from a team that had reached that tier one group of 85% vaccination for sure. The other subplot of that game being postponed was that it debuted the arrival of Jaron Duran for the Red Sox. He was scheduled to play his first big league game on Thursday. If Friday's game happens, it should happen on Friday. Duran is an interesting player, though, you know, because we've talked about him, I think, before on this show. At the alternate site last year, he unlocked a lot more power.

I think most of us heard about that and said, that's great. Let's see what happens when he's playing in games. And what happened when he played in games this year? He showed, yeah, that power is for real. He's actually hit more home runs at AAA in 46 games this season than he did at all of his minor league stops in the previous two minor league seasons combined. So we have a guy that has power, he has speed, has pretty good play discipline. The K rate has increased as he's moved up and with the added power. So there's a little bit of a trade-off there, but I think

that's a trade-off you'd absolutely make. And I think as I look at the projections for Duran, But I think that's a tradeoff you'd absolutely make. And I think as I look at the projections for Duran, we know there are some limitations with projections for players about to debut. Even more so when there's no 2020 minor league numbers to factor in. And even more so when a player made pretty massive changes in that non-existent 2020 season. So what do you expect from Jaron Duran? How does he compare to other players that have been called up this season? And even to Jared Kelnick, who's going to get his second spin against big league pitching starting on Friday? I think the floor is lower and the ceiling is higher than someone like Kelnick.

Because as you can see with that variability in the strikeout rate, I think sometimes I really like looking at the different projection systems and seeing sort of a range of possible outcomes within them. And if you look at, you know, Steamer, for example, there's more of a 22% strikeout rate, which would be an improvement from what he's done in AAA. And that might reflect the fact that, you know, historically, AAA strikeout rates are pretty close to Major League strikeout rates, and this is a player who's also had lower strikeout rates than lower minors. However, I see that explosion in strikeout rates and tend to kind of hew a little bit closer to the bad X, which gives him a 27% strikeout rate.

So there's a big difference between a 27% and a 22% strikeout rate. The 22% strikeout rate, you're talking about a guy who could be a plus in batting average at 27 percent um you're more talking about a guy who might hit 230 or 240 with power and speed either way the speed uh is what uh fantasy owners will will gravitate towards i think the everyday role is what separates him from somebody like Vidal Brujan, which we've already sort of seen is kind of stuck in that up and down. Maybe what happens when Margot and Kiermaier are both healthy, kind of not sure how often he plays. Duran seems up to play. There's already talk of Christian Arroyo playing some first base, which means Enrique Hernandez is playing more second base, which means Duran is mostly their everyday center fielder for a while. That could change if he fizzles out.

This is a contending team. They can always move things back towards the way they've been playing, but they're going to give him a real shot at playing every day, I think. You almost wonder if they're giving him a two-week look to decide if they want to trade for one more bat, and if that's a first baseman or a second baseman, they shuffle people around based on what they can get. Yeah, because you get this look at him.

You say, okay, yeah, he's holding his own. We feel good about this. I mean, they've got plenty of flexibility with some of the bench pieces they have there, but Kike has been a better defender in center field than I realized realized I think it was in that Buxton piece that Ken Rosenthal wrote where I saw a defensive run saved like that was not something I expected to see Kike Hernandez among the league leaders in among center fielders but I think yeah Duran does everything he can be their best option in center field on an everyday basis I I do like him a bit more than Brujan, a bit less than Kelnick, even though that speed could give him a little more

short-term fantasy appeal than Kelnick. If they're both available, I think I'd be inclined to still go after Kelnick first, but they're both going to be pretty big, big guys, even with Kelnick's struggles at the end of his last stint in seattle wow enrique hernandez even by outs above average uh ranks as equivalent or slightly better than trent grisham uh mark kanha yeah not expected at all not for me anyway yeah that's just because he moves around so much i don't expect someone who moves around that much to generally be that good at a position was playing a little bit more second base for the Dodgers, you know, more kind of more of an infielder it seemed.

Although he did play some outfield there too. But yeah, yeah, it's to know what to do at the trade deadline. I agree with that for sure. Got a bunch of questions that came in in the last couple of weeks, trying to answer as many of those as we can over the course of these episodes. This one is related to the All-Star game being at Coors Field. Abe was wondering if he should be worried about All-Star pitchers in their first post-Coors outing because of the impact it can have on a pitcher's stuff. Any thoughts on that i mean we've got pitchers that throw there all the time and then go on to pitch some more else and i never i never look at the schedule and say i'm not using this guy because he was in colorado is that something we should be mindful of um

the i think i think the effect would be primarily to command i know that urquidy had a drop off of stuff but he's had the shoulder issues and when i just try to think about it logically what happens at cores is your pitches move less and then the next start after your pitches move less. And then the next start after, your pitches move more. I think then the biggest impact would be on command, right? Like you're trying, you think it's going to be one place, and instead it's another place. So I think in the end, what the writer wrote about it just being one inning

means I wouldn't be really worried about any of them. Because's just one inning and they mostly probably went in there and just try to throw as hard as they could for an inning right I mean that's what you see is Otani throwing hundreds up there and uh and for the most part people just throwing hard and just getting three outs so um I just can't imagine that their command will be completely affected. But if you pitch nine innings there, and then in your next start out, you'd be like, whoa, yeah, my curveball moves again. Yeah, I mean, 20 pitches or less probably doesn't take a long time to sort of recalibrate from a doubting like that. So I would err on the side of not being too concerned about it either. on the side of not being too concerned about it either but it would be interesting to see especially with the the command plus metrics that you have if there are consistent drop-offs for those guys leaving cores making that next start somewhere else and how long it takes to get it

back if it takes a start or two or three probably only takes one but just how much of a drop is it and maybe it's more like mid-pack starters that we'd be more careful with. We're not going to take an ace and not use him because his last start came in Colorado. But Abe ended that email with, thanks for always helping me with overthinking. It's part of the gig. We're all overthinking everything all the time.

This is the podcast of overthinking. It really is. I got an email here from tim who wanted to know if anyone had figured out which baseballs were used during the derby of course we know that those were not humidor baseballs so a little extra life there but did anybody ever figure out like what batch the home run derby baseballs came from no um i wasn't allowed to touch those or getting more close i mean it's the it's a zoo dude i mean the one thing i would say is it's fun uh it's fun to see people uh you don't see that often um it's fun to congregate it's fun to congregate. It's fun to do these events. Um, uh, uh, uh, I ended up, so after the all-star game, I don't think I've told you the story yet. Uh, so after the all-star game,

um, I, I, I hoof it over to Bierstadt because they have a slow pour pills, which is amazing. It was so good. And they were closing at 10. So I'm like running out of the All-Star game, running past people. I get over there. I get the slow pour pills. And it's closing at 10.

So I'm like, I guess I'm just going to go home after this. And I'm texting with Trevor Plouffe. And he's like, oh, yeah, we're going back to the house. Come get i'm texting with uh trevor plouffe um and he's like oh yeah we're going back to the house come back to the house with us and i'm like all right uh so as i'm leaving there's a scooter there i jump on the scooter um and i'm driving the scooter waiting for the address to the house from plouffe when he gives it to me it it's pretty far. It's like 18 minutes by car. It's like 45 plus by scooter then, isn't it? I'm on the scooter anyway. I'm just going to do it.

And there was plenty of opportunities to, you know, this is the thing that's so sad about this. Is that there was plenty of opportunities to undo know this is the thing that's so sad about this is that there was plenty of opportunities to undo my wrong decision you know there was at any moment i could have gotten off i passed other areas with bars at any moment i could have gotten off of the scooter and called a lift you know there were open bars i could have gone into a bar and had a beer while i'm waiting for my lift you know like like plenty of ways to undo this dumb decision but instead i was like well i'm halfway there you know so anyway the last third was along the street called colorado street which is like a four to six lane

thing with no bike lane and i'm kind of, I'm on this scooter late at night. I don't have any reflective gear on. There's no bike lane. I'm kind of sitting here with cars driving on my scooter, going 15 on my scooter. I'm like, this is dangerous. I'm going to get on the sidewalk,

which I tried to avoid with the scooter. I tried to be a good scooterer and I wasn't generally on the sidewalk which i tried to avoid with the scooter i tried to be a good scooterer and i doesn't generally on the sidewalk but i was like it's late at night i don't i want to be on the sidewalk so i'm driving along on the sidewalk and bam i run into a car a car was turning into a strip mall and didn't check the sidewalk because why would you check the sidewalk and i'm on the ground bleeding uh i i'm bleeding from my knee i feel like i've sprained my ankle my head hit something my bag is on the ground next to me the scooter's on the ground next to me and this woman gets out of the car and it's like what are you doing there i had to ride away and she's just like yelling at me and i'm like lady

i know it was my fault can you just give me a second i just let me unravel myself like please and she's still yelling at me as i get up like she's still yelling at me i i can't believe i didn't get a a phone call from her last night i i i'm gonna pay for the dent in her car there's a little dent in her car so this was like little dent in her car. So this ended up being probably something like a $500 scooter ride. And I show up finally, like 35 minutes later, to the John Boy house party. And I'm just bleeding and limping and just ragged. And at least it made for an okay story

for the John Boy people. But my wife was not super proud of me. This might be our public appeal to make sure that I am included in future All-Star Game travels this year. It wasn't going to work for different logistics.

You know, just get a damn lift. Right. I would have been the little voice on the shoulder actually saying the good thing. I'm not getting on a scooter. I'm not taking a scooter 45 minutes to this party. Let's get a lift. 40 minutes in Denver. You dented some lady's car.

Oh my god. When you said scooter at the beginning of the story, and you had not told me this story before, that's why my reaction if you're watching on YouTube, was my face was hilariously red because I was laughing so hard. I thought, you don't have any visible injuries on your face. So I thought, okay, you didn't have the unfortunate Jason Collette scooter experience. Oh my God. Collette was in my head the whole time.

You took a silver medal from fantasy scooter stories. Jason Collette. I love you, Jason. Sorry. I hope no one ever tops Jason's because that was one of the scariest accidents I've ever seen the results of. I didn't see it happen, of course, but he was in rough shape. All I got was basically like a half dollar raspberry on my knee and very hurt pride.

And now I have a very annoyed phone acquaintance. Just waiting for you to pay for the dent in the car. Every time she calls me, she's like, I don't have time for this. And I'm like, yeah, well, my knee doesn't feel great either, but... What kind of car did you hit?

Apparently a new one. Oh, just a new one. She tells me. I don't know. That'd be pretty... I'm trying to put myself in the position of this person driving a car and turning into a parking lot and having someone smash a scooter into my car in the dark. I can understand her being annoyed. Yeah, that'd be a little annoying too.

She also just moved to Denver, so maybe scooters weren't as much of a thing as where she's from. But in general, other than that, I loved scootering, dude. I saw this vision of cities in the future where we close down the centers and the car parts, like the roads, are for scooters. And people can walk on the sidewalks. It was pretty awesome. My hotel to the All-Star game was like a mile. And I could have done that and arrived all sweaty and gross every day

because it was pretty hot. Or I just scootered. Showed up fresh as a breeze other than the time I hurt myself. I'm actually surprised you didn't end up in a breakdown where John Boy showed you coming to the party and explained all your injuries.

Oh, there were social media there that said we need to get this up on social media stat. I was like, legal ramifications. I don't know. Let me play out the string with this lady before I start. I was like, this sounds more like a podcast or meetup thing. Well, so to answer Tim's question, no, we don't know which baseballs were used in the home run derby. No, I don't know.

It was a mess out there. They weren't letting us anywhere close to the balls. I think the most nefarious thing is just they could have chosen between 2020 and 2021 balls. There might be some balls flying around. So they could have used some 2020 balls. But that's about it. I don't think there's any 2019 balls still sitting around. Well, those bonus ones are something else entirely

because the cover is different on those. So who knows what those are. Maybe they are made for the Home Run Derby. We saw a new record, 518 feet. Yeah. From Story. Story broke the record. Story, I think, has at least the longest Rockies home run in Colorado,

if I'm not mistaken. And now he has the longest home run derby hit in home run history, 518. That'll stand until next year when someone hits one like 525. I don't know, man. No humidor, altitude. Denver is the tough thing there. They'll find a way. They'll extra juice the balls.

They'll find a way. Let's be fair. They'll give him golf balls and metal bats. Let's get to a couple more questions. We've got one here about Tyler Malley. Coming into the season, he was all over breakout lists, but now halfway through the season, the industry seems to have soured on him. The source of this seems to be mainly predicated on drops in spin rate and velocity since the crackdown,

but considering how many pitchers have had similar drops, it feels like he's being treated harshly, especially since his skills look better than ever. Malley has a career-best 20.7 strikeout minus walk percentage, currently has a better XERA and hard hit percentage than last year. Also very intriguing according to Eno's latest rankings. He has a rare combination of a command number over 120 and a stuff number over 100 possessed

by only him and Aaron Nola in a day and age where Velo and Spin are all the rage. Could Elite Command and Decent Stuff be an under rated asset? Wondering where you stand on mallee going forward whether you still believe he's a breakout candidate and if we should be buying low and apologies for the 100 million times i said tyler molly over the years that was one that i just flat out had wrong

so thanks to the pronunciation guide it's tyler mall, and it has been corrected. What do you make of the skill set and of Malley in particular, Eno? I love it. The projections say he's going to be more of a four-year RA guy, but I buy the high threes. It's a really nice strikeout rate. He has that plus command command so the walk rate should be good i think the home run rate is a function of his park uh more than anything um

i think in in any other park he'd be easily a mid threes guy um and i buy in on him and i actually think that he is part of a type of pitcher that can be undervalued um i just sorted by command plus there's like you said there's not a lot of other people can be undervalued. I just sorted by command plus. There's, like you said, there's not a lot of other people that have above average stuff in that elite command plus. But if you soften your definition of average

and you talk about something that's like 110 plus, 110, over 110 command plus, you get some interesting names. Jose Berrios, Julio Urias, Zach Gallin, John Means, and Kevin Gossman and Adam Wainwright are the veterans that show us the pathway. None of them have ascended to kind of Jacob deGrom territory. Well, that's unfair, maybe. I mean, none of them are the best pitcher in baseball.

But also, none of them, would you describe any of them as even a fantasy number one? Gossman's closest. Yeah, I would say he's the closest. But I think those guys pop and have a year where they're close. You know, Barrios this year might end up in the top 15 or so because he's just having a great year. But one thing that I do like about that group,

they're pretty dependable. Think about Adam Wainwright, man. Dude is old as rocks. Rocks are old. He's like the Camry you bought after college that you still have 15 years later. You're like, this car is still working. Yeah, my Honda Fit.

You were driving my Honda Fit. I bought that thing for $15,000. It's a nice little car. We bought it off. I bought that 12 years ago for $15,000. We paid it off really quickly. And I just took it in to get fixed for the first time in 12 years. And I spent $800 on a new belt.

I spent $800 on that car in 12 years. Was it after I drove it before? Okay. Yeah. COVID COVID did a number on it. Cause it just sat, it just sat there for a year. Um,

and we had to, we had to do some stuff, but, uh, anyway, uh uh that's what i think this group is is your honda fits um and in fantasy pretty pretty awesome to to buy uh to buy there because you just don't spend that much money you don't spend any money on wayne right gossman is one of the best bang for your buck starters in the big leagues this year. And so let's soften the definition even further because if you want to get sleepers,

there was not really much shopping to do in that group. The one name that did actually pop at that level was Austin Voth. Also not Austin Voth. Also not Austin Voth. Austin Voth may only have a 102 stuff plus number because he's been mostly relieving. I would believe that number would drop, but he has multiple pitches and great command. Now, guys who are just around 100 100 that are interesting include Chris Paddock 97 stuff plus 118 command plus I love that one JT Brubaker

this is why he's been on these lists let's see here Kyle Gibson actually just and Zach Pleszak are veterans that sort of belong in this grouping but there was one more Bailey Falter and Kyle Gibson actually just and Zach Pleszak are veterans that sort of belong in this grouping. But there was one more. Bailey Falter and Jordan Montgomery are both guys that have 110 plus, command plus, and sort of 96 plus stuff plus.

So there's some names for you. I put a dollar on Bailey Falter in AutoNew when I saw that. Jordan Montgomery, it's a little bit tougher, but Bailey Falter's in a tough park, and we may all have DHs next year, and Bailey Falter may be just as good as Jordan Montgomery by these metrics by next year anyway. But Jordan Montgomery also costs more. So Bailey Falter and Austin Voth

are your let me just pick up a guy on my Dynasty League just in case yeah your deep deep league sorts of targets are possible streamers in more shallow formats when the opportunities come along for those guys so thanks a lot for that

Tyler Malley Tyler Malley question we got one more item to get to not an email but just a news item Thanks a lot for that, Tyler Malley question. We got one more item to get to, not an email, but just a news item that I thought was kind of interesting. The Tigers have decided to designate Nomar Mazzara for assignment, and they made a few other moves. They promoted Derek Hill from AAA. They sent Willie Castro down, brought Isak Paredes back up, and I think we've talked about Paredes before as a guy that I think is going to hit in the long run and eventually develop a bit more power. But Mazzara just never became the hitter, at least he hasn't yet become the hitter that I thought he would be.

I thought at his peak, we'd see 25 to 30 homers, great run production, and a good batting average. And even if he was always the kind of guy that was a bad defender, maybe, I don't know, like an Eloy where you're like, yeah, we got to put him out there he's in left field we deal with it whatever he plays a corner he's below average guy but he hits enough it's all worth it i thought he'd be that kind of player he's still young enough where it's not impossible but i'm really curious to see if a smart team actually takes the chance or if he ends up maybe playing in Korea or Japan or if there's some other path for him to become the player, or at least the hitter

that I and a lot of other people thought he would be a few years ago. Yeah, I thought he was Juan Gonzalez, but it turned out he was Eric Hosmer. You know, the thing that you could use old school numbers to spot him coming, I think.

It's just that he hit too many ground balls. And he had some sort of ground ball type swing that was exploitable. His strikeout rate started going up. And didn't produce... Max TV over 111. That raw power, he just never really tapped into as much. He never had a good barrel rate really um and uh i saw the max ev the low strikeout rates and thought all he needs to do

is lift the ball a little better he had a couple seasons where he lifted it a little bit better and showed you maybe there was a chance for him. I always think of that shortened 2019 season as when I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. See, if you pro-rate that out, it's like a 30-homer season. He did it. He finally did it. And then, you know, oh, now he's going to the White Sox. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice home park.

I'm not hectoring anyone, man. I was in love with Mazzara. I thought there was a couple times where he was almost like next Winkerish, right? Because he had that 20% strikeout rate, had some like, you know, ooh, look, if he did this a little better, this a little better, he could really pop. I saw someone say that Harrison Bader is the new Nomar Mazzara, but I think there's a couple things that really separate Bader from Mazzara, which is that, one, Bader plays excellent, excellent center field defense.

Yeah, athleticism is pretty different with those two players. Has better plate discipline and has three barrel rate seasons out of his five so far that have been better than Mazzara ever did. So I don't really see it. I see Bader as having some issues with strikeout rate and putting together and stuff. But right now, best swing strike rate of his career,

best K rate of his career, playing center field defense, still stealing bases. Right now, I think, is the time to pick up Bader. If you can get him, if you can trade for him. I know he's only hitting.234, but if he has any better batted ball luck, he could end up being a 250, 330 guy with 25, 20 type homeruns and stolen bases. Yeah, I like Bader quite a bit. I think I have become so locked into the players that because of their defense, they keep getting more and more

opportunities because you get second and third lives, right? This is why I will continue to make the Victor Robles mistake. This is how years ago when Brendan Crawford first became a useful fantasy player, how you would have been on the right side of that eventually. Usually these guys are better suited for really deep like AL and only leagues and 20 team mixers, but you do have to keep following them. Chances to play are chances to improve. And with Mazzara, he doesn't necessarily fall back on that.

So where he ends up is going to be tricky. Defensive value is also a little bit like command, right? It's like if you have it, you're more likely to hit your better outcomes. And if you don't have it, you're more likely to hit your better outcomes. You know? Yep.

And if you don't have it, you're just more likely to hit the bad outcomes. It doesn't mean that if you have it, like Billy Hamilton has it, but he doesn't have the other stuff. On the extremes, if you're just all command or all defensive value, it doesn't always make it. But if you have some defense, I mean, that's what I talked to. Sorry, I just saw the video of Jason Dominguez's triple. Have you seen the slide at the end?

Mm-mm. Never seen the slide yet. It's like he catches a spike and goes head over heels into third. But he's not hurt. and goes head over heels into third. But he's not hurt. I talked to Bobby Evans, who was one of the executives that signed Belt, Crawford, and acquired Longoria.

And who am I missing? Belt, Crawford, Posey. And he actually shouted out defense as one of the main reasons they signed him to those deals because he said no matter what, they're going to have defensive value for you. And if their offense vacillates, oscillates, oscillates, vacillates something else. Oscillates, spins, right? A fan oscillates. I thought a pendulum oscillates.

Well, I will educate myself while you continue that thought. If it varies around a mean of league average, then that's fine. But they'll always have defensive value. I think that's borne out to be

true. Belt has been the best offensive guy, but he's still a good defender. He's not like anyone's talking about. He needs to be the DH. Longoria is still a really good third baseman, and Crawford is the oldest shortstop in baseball. Yeah.

Is that wrong? Still. Oscillate to swing or move to and fro as a pendulum does. Yeah, baby. Weird. Not real happy with myself right now. My chat

starts now. Yep. Eno's got to go to his chat. If you'd like to join that chat, well, you can do it next week. It's going to be for subscribers only. Three, nine in a month gets you in the door at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Gets you all the great writing. We do everything on the site,

all the sport coverage, all the national stories for baseball, the fantasy stuff, fantasy football coming up for a lot of people as well. So we've got the draft kit that just launched earlier this week. So be sure to check that out. If that's your thing on Twitter, he's at,

you know, Sarah's I am at Derek van Riper. You can drop us a line rates and barrels at the athletic.com. That is going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening.