Rates & Barrels - Jordan Montgomery, Nola v. Snell, & October Injury Updates

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

Eno and DVR discuss the recent success of Jordan Montgomery and changes he's made since leaving the Yankees via trade in 2021, Aaron Nola v. Blake Snell as real-life free agents and for 2024 fantasy value, and several offseason injury updates including shoulder surgery for Brandon Woodruff and Kyle Wright, knee surgery for Byron Buxton, turf toe surgery for Jazz Chisholm Jr., and more.  Rundown 1:40 Jordan Montgomery 3.0 & Future Outlook 7:53 An Intriguing Market for Free Agent Pitchers Awaits 11:05 Clayton Kershaw's Health 13:08 Shoulder Capsule Surgery for Brandon Woodruff & Kyle Wright 18:40 Justin Verlander is a Top-___ Pitcher in 2024 24:29 Nathan Eovaldi's Postseason Success; Challenging Projection 29:34 Blake Snell v. Aaron Nola 41:25 'Sitting Slow': How the Astros Hit Sonny Gray? 44:31 Byron Buxton Undergoes Knee Surgery 52:05 Kim Ng Chooses to Part Ways with Marlins 58:36 Jazz Chisholm Jr.'s Turf Toe Surgery; Chisholm v. Varsho in 2024? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic for just $1.99/mo for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Monday, October 16th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. A big thank you to Chris Welsh and Al Melkier for all their work, not only throughout the season, but also during my last stretch of paternity leave. You know, it's good to be back. It's good to have you back. Well, it's fun. It's a fun time to come back in the middle of the postseason. You know, after a fantasy baseball season has ended, I'll pass along my congratulations to anyone who did well in their leagues this year hopefully we had some role in that either just by entertaining people or by actually

helping I wonder how much I can actually be helping someone if I'm not winning a bunch of my leagues myself but it sounds like based on some stuff I saw on Twitter based on a few emails that there were a few based on some beer deliveries yes thank you very much for the beer for helping you win i love that that is a nice uh that's a nice perk to uh to say the least but i think we can start with some playoff thoughts because everybody's watching the postseason everybody's excited about what's going on there we'll dig into some off-season news there's always the the surgery news dump that occurs after a team's season is over so as each playoff team gets eliminated you find out just how hurt someone was because they invariably undergo a procedure

many of them sort of known injuries but a few surprises mixed in there but some playoff thoughts i wanted to get into jordan montgomery for a Pitched really well in game one of the ALCS on Sunday night. Just wanted to ask you, since Jordan Montgomery left the Yankees via trade, it was the Harrison Bader trade two years ago now, what sort of changes has he made both in his time with the Cardinals and now more recently during his time with the Rangers? Yeah, ironically, given last night when it seemed at times that he was pretty junk forward,

the biggest change since he's left the Yankees is to highlight the fastballs more. So since, you know, with the Cardinals, he really ramped up the foreseam usage for a short period of time. That has gone away but um he he kind of toggles that and plays with that so sometimes he he throws more four seamers i think than then teams expect um he's thrown the sinker a little bit more this year and um there's a little wrinkle it's kind of interesting he has a cutter and by stuff plus it's his best

pitch or a second i think second best pitch uh second to his curve and he doesn't throw it he doesn't quite trust it yet it had short sample bad results but uh it was good shape and it got good whiffs so i think the cutter would be a really kind of a perfect compliment to this and it if he does ever get any better from here on out uh it's due to the cutter i do think he needs to get better i think he's a really interesting draft for next year because people are going to remember how good he was in the postseason people are going to remember the era i'm not sure that they're gonna remember this jordan montgomery uh had the 10th lowest uh strikeout rate among

qualified pitchers so you know there's only 44 qualified pitchers anymore but uh uh if you just take him and put him among his compatriots in the bottom 10 I don't think you want to be here Patrick Corbin, Miles Michaelis, Jordan Lyles, Bryce Elder, Tywon Walker, Dane Dunning, Kyle Gibson, Sandy Alcantara, and Jordan Montgomery. That's the bottom 10. The best ERA was Bryce Elder's 381, and he had like a five and a half, six in the second half. Dane Dunning is actually the best ERA is Dane Dunning's 370. He also had a 4.8 ERA in the second half. I wonder how much different halves and maybe some luck with homers or luck with balls in play will make people think of Jordan Montgomery and Dane Dunning as obviously better than the rest of this

group. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I mean, it's weird to say. Jordan Montgomery's done a great run. He had a great season, but where do you rank him next year? For me, he'd still be at least outside the top 40 starting pitchers. He's in the glob, the dreaded glob, as we describe it each and every year. I think the case for him, though, is that the ratios have been really good. Even during his time with the Yankees around, it was Tommy John surgery that cost him all that time in 2019 and a good chunk of 2018. For the ballpark especially, he handled things pretty well. Now that he's in a place where home runs don't get that boost you're starting to see that next level it is interesting that he doesn't miss that many

bats we're in this era especially where if you're not missing bats it seems like it could really backfire on you it almost seems like this is the the best possible version of montgomery if he doesn't increase his strikeout rate. This is a very high-end 90th, 95th percentile sort of outcome for him that we've seen so far in Texas. But knowing that he has the possibility for one more adjustment with that cutter, that makes me a little bit excited about him. I'd be very curious to see where he ends up in free agency. I think trying to figure out what he's going to get in free agency, or if you're in the position of a decision maker, what would you want to give Jordan Montgomery? Part of the funny thing about the qualified pitchers list is just being on it is a skill, right? Just being

healthy enough to make the qualified pitchers list has some value to major league teams. And of course, Patrick Corbin's really stretching that statement. That's a push. If Corbin were a free agent, somebody would give him a minor league deal with an invite to spring training. We need innings. Jordan Montgomery going to get more than Robbie Ray and Kevin Gossman? Probably?

I don't know. Maybe. Maybe better health record. They had way better strikeout rates. In terms of platform years, I think their platform years were better in terms of how, in their most platform years were better in terms of how you know most recent season when they entered free agency we've seen more k's from montgomery

in the past we saw strikeout printing stuff from him during that final season with the yankees and the swinging strike rates are pretty good yeah uh and it looks fairly durable uh in this environment and more durable maybe even than robbie ray when he signed his deal i think it could be around there what what they get they got like 5 and 125 basically yeah and i think marcus stroman was that same winter as well so maybe he had a lower strikeout rate and he got like 5 and 75 or something with an opt-out that That might be where I would estimate just based on how teams would view him as 3 for 71 with an opt-out after year 2, which

we just lived year 2, so Marcus Stroman could opt-out. What if you just give him a longer version of that? So like 5 years but an opt-out after 3 or something? 4 and 100. 4 and 100? Yeah. That's probably probably maybe it's 5125 maybe you know it is a few years later so 5125 is not the same as giving ray and gossman

5125 i think he'll i think he'll slide in right there because i think that people will think this is um a more durable uh version of stroman so stroman himself is gonna probably be on the market i think i think one thing we we were, we were getting ready for the show, looking at the potential class of free agent pitchers, some knowns and some unknowns with player opt-outs and team options. If you're a player with a chance to opt out as a pitcher, it would be highly unlikely that you would pass on the opportunity to go into free agency right now there are plenty of teams with deep pockets that need pitching yeah i mean i think there's a sort of desperation the list looks okay to me it looks fairly healthy if i was if it was a normal year and i was shopping and i said okay the top end is blake snell and and aaron nola um probably eduardo rodriguez is going to be out there and you got Stroman and Jordan Montgomery

that's a pretty good top end there's some shopping to be done there and Sonny Gray, let's not forget Sonny Gray I think he goes into that group and then you've got your bounce back guys I think that in terms of 1-15 or 2-30 with an opt out, like Lucas Giolito is a guy that'll get something like that. Luis Severino is going to get something like that.

Tyler Malley coming off of injury is going to get something like that. Um, and then you've got some interesting one-year guys that are still trying to establish themselves like Sean Minaya. Uh, I think we'll be, might be back out there. You know, Andrew Haney is always, it seems like, an adjustment away. He has such a great fastball. You're just wondering if there's just like a secondary you could give him that would get the next level. Alex Cobb might opt out. So there's a fairly good upper class, middle class, and lower class

to this group of available pitchers however uh the need is i think pretty strong i think that's what you're talking about in terms of like i i was just looking at the nl west and i feel like you've got uh the padres have like three spots i would i would say that like people are like oh they've got these guys in the minors and i i've already forgotten their names but uh they've got some guys that are close in the minors but i almost no team is like yeah we're going to like just paper these rookies into a spot in the rotation they almost every team wants to have like even the potters themselves they did this before you want to have five veterans in your rotation and then you count on the rookies as six seven and eight you know um and if you do that

uh right now lugo's probably going to opt out uh uh nick martinez may may opt in but michael walker i think is going to opt out unless the they take a-32 on him. That's their option. So that's a big choice to take for a guy that doesn't stay healthy very much. So if they don't take those guys back or those guys go on the open market, they'll have Hugh Darvish coming off a surgery and Joe Musgrove, who ended who ended the season injured and nobody else.

So they'll have three spots that are rotation. The Dodgers will have two or three. I mean, Clayton Kershaw, we were, you know, he might retire. Yeah.

I mean, Kershaw is considering having another examination on his shoulder. And when he came back from the aisle this year, the VLO was down. We all saw what happened to him in the postseason his stuff his stuff was through the basement like his stuff was 83 in in in his final starts in the regular season in the playoffs this is a guy who has like 105 17 107 like whatever whatever he was saying about feeling right and just pitching poorly

he was hurt yeah yeah it would be a very disappointing final chapter to a Hall of Fame career if this is the end for Clayton Kershaw, but sometimes that's the result of pushing yourself physically as far as you can go and having your arm just break down before you decide to call it a career. It'll be 36 in March. I think with Kershaw, I just keep living in this space of it's the Dodgers or the Rangers or it's retirement.

Those are the three options for him at any given time. It's probably always going to be a one-year deal. It's probably going to be a relative bargain based on what he does in a typical season, even if you bake in 50 to 70 missing innings. I think we just learned something from Brandon Woodruff, which is if you're in a very

early draft and you're drafting right now or you're thinking about keepers decisions right now i think you just have to be really conservative because he's got this extra uh risk that you know he's gonna go in and they could say you know he might even come back try to come back and they could say you know your your labrum's frayed or whatever. We've got to get in there. And if they do that, then you'd be lucky to get any innings from him this coming season. Brandon Woodruff was kind of in that, I don't know what's going to happen stage. And then he had anterior capsule surgery, which I thought that Julio Urias had had had labrum surgery. And it may still be maybe these things are related.

But I looked it up and it said that Julio Urias's injury was a capsule injury. Yeah, the capsules are a problem for a couple of guys right now. Brandon Woodruff could miss all all 2024 after having that repaired. I think Kyle Wright had, if not the exact same surgery, a similar surgery on his capsule on the same day. And the thing that's really weird to me is that even if these injuries are only similar and not exactly the same, Woodruff pitched so well when he was healthy this year. Wright, to me, it makes sense. He never looked okay in the times he tried to pitch.

Brandon Woodruff looked like typical Woodruff working around it, which I think makes this all the more confusing and frustrating. Yeah. The reason why they're immediately counted out, I was reading a study about capsule surgery, 19-month possible return. Yeah, yeah i mean that puts him like maybe

delayed in 2025 depending on how everything goes yeah so it's a legit one and people who had it in their late 30s didn't really come back or in the mid to late 30s didn't really come back so right you know could be more in the ureus camp where he's younger and he's going to come for the woodruff i don't know i don't know what to count it right 30 he's right in the middle is he young enough to to have good outcomes or is he on the old side i don't know like uh i would be very careful with him and and if i don't think in like an odd new situation you know i've got him for like some bargain, 18,

$21, something where it's like, you would totally keep him even for a year off. If it was just Tommy John, you would just kind of nurse him through, you know? Uh, I don't think I'm going to keep him because I just don't know the,

the outcomes here. Aren't like, Oh, he's just having Tommy John. He'll be fine at 2025. It's not, it's not quite like that. So,

uh, all those things are things are sucky and bad, but they also mean, you know, even the Brewers may want a veteran starter on the market because they've got some young guys coming up with Mizorowski and Ashby, who I think move up on draft boards a little bit because they're going to need them. You know, they're going to need, I would say, 150 combined innings from Mizorowski and Ashby next year. Yeah, and just to give everyone the update on Ashby, he was dealing with shoulder stuff pretty much all season.

I think he threw three, six, seven innings in games trying to get back at the end of the year, basically in a rehab assignment. The velo is just starting to come back for him. So even Ashby, to me, is more of a lottery ticket as far as your early draft goes. Well, Mizorowski would be a lottery ticket most years because he just touched AA. But I feel like everybody in that organization

is one chair closer because of the Woodruff thing. Yeah, Robert Gasser, too. And I think when you look at a team like the brewers it's the sky is falling in in terms of like brewers twitter and oh the window's closing corbin burns is gone like it's unbelievable how negative coming off of a quick postseason exit but another postseason appearance for an organization that hasn't had a lot of success they're in they're this window. That's probably the most successful stretch in franchise history. That's why I think they might keep Burns. I think you can talk yourself into it because why,

why would you break the band up any earlier than you have to given how good Burns is. If you're not good, if you're underperforming, could trade a mid season and still get something back and it would still help your future. Freddie Peralta is really important to them now. We saw a nice

second half from Freddy. I think we talked about it midseason as a guy that really deserved better results in the first half. I'm glad that worked out. If you traded for him midseason, you got the best of Freddy Peralta. They've got outfield depth to trade from. Jackson Churio, probably not far away from the big leagues.

Plus the young guys they brought up this year like freelick and weimer i think the big question is also like robert gasser is he going to be good enough to be a big league starter and give you five innings consistently control has been a problem for him in the upper levels of the minor leagues can he get past that and contribute they have done a really surprisingly good job patching holes with Wade Miley and even Colin Ray and Julio Teran. Yeah. I can't believe they got anything out of Julio Teran. I was like, what is happening?

I was sure it was going to be like a six ERA. And it started to fall apart a little bit. It started a lot better than it ended. Yeah. But that was the bid they shopped in and they still won the nl central so that was pretty remarkable to your broader point the the optimism this time of year with pitcher injuries should be as low as it is at any point because there's so much that's unknown you want to start to be a little optimistic maybe february march you know guys are in spring

training they report get past the announcing surgery part it's a little bit rarer to announce a surgery in february i mean sometimes sometimes it happens but you know yeah they're trying to come back and they ramped it up and then something went pop but you know most of the time you hear about it right after the season so yeah early draft season alive and well i can't believe people are drafting a lot like it's i'm excited that people are drafting more at this time of year than ever before. I hope it continues to grow. And there are plenty of people out there that they love this podcast and they probably don't listen in October and they're going to pick us up in December or January or February. And I totally understand that. But if you don't want baseball to stop,

if you like fantasy baseball year round, it's finally here. It's like becoming a more normal thing. Yeah. Where do you draft Justin Verlander if you're drafting or just-round, it's finally here. It's becoming a more normal thing. Yeah. Where do you draft Justin Verlander if you're drafting him just right now? We just saw... I thought that was... I would describe it as gritty,

solid, not outstanding. He didn't really have his best fastball. He only threw one fastball over 96 uh him and jordan montgomery had the same fastball velocity that was uh unexpected thing that happened in the game last night so uh at the same time uh his fastball is now uh for the year was below average stuff plus he's obviously not exactly who he used to be because you know the strikeouts the whiff rates were all down um and yet he he grit his way

through 160 innings and was a top 20 starter i just don't think that i can give him uh automatic top two and i when i say top 20 starter auction calculator year to date uh verlander uh 20th or 21st right uh around kodai sanga chris bassett and pablo lopez freddie peralta that's the grouping he's in um and i don't know that i'm going to push him. I had him in the top 15 to start the season. And so, listen, if you draft him in the top 15 and got 21st out of him, you're not sad. That wasn't a bad outcome for you. But next year, just a little bit more risk.

Going further into the postseason, the fastball is just not as good. So I think that's kind of where I'd put him. 20th? Yeah, I might even go a little lower than that. It's going to depend on a lot of risk tolerance with younger pitchers that haven't done it before. There's so many injuries, though. How many innings will he give you?

So many injuries right now. Guys that are going to miss either all of 2024 a significant portion of 2024 that i could still see verlander maybe 30 to 35 among starting pitchers on most sets of rankings how many innings would you project him for i mean coming out you're gonna push him down that far i mean it may end up being higher just based on all the absences but well okay in this auction calculator situation so you're taking kodai over him yeah uh sunny finished ahead of him you're taking sunny gray ahead of him probably that's closer because sunny gray's had a lot of

injuries they'd be in the same tier for me chris bassett i'm not taking chris bassett ahead of justin berlinder i don't think i think what this becomes is it becomes an exercise of looking at the guys that were lower in the auction calculator that were going to throw more innings. Who will get ahead? Who's going to jump ahead, right? Tyler Glass now is 28th. He might be ahead of him. Easily ahead for me. Freddie Peralta, 23rd. You might push him ahead of Berlander just because he's younger.

I would. It's not me being a homer. Glass now, yeah, I think you mentioned Glasnow a minute ago. Pablo Lopez had a big VLO increase this year. What you're just hoping for is 180 innings instead of 160. Maybe if they both throw 160 innings, Pablo Lopez's innings are going to be better next year. Here's Lopez at 194 this year. How is he below Verlander in auction value?

Yeah, I don't know. I know the value calculation formulas can vary a lot, but Jesus Lizardo versus Verlander for next year, I think it'd be on Lizardo for sure. Lopez didn't have a lot of wins. That's silly. We know that's a noisy, noisy very noisy stat scooble scoobles ahead of verlander for me next year for sure oh spicy maybe hmm max friday not tenor bybee max bybee bybee probably not but bybee's not like

miles behind him he's just behind him a little i don't know when you start getting used you're talking about 30s and 40s like when i look at 30s and 40s uh you know the 30th uh like the those those players this year nathie nevaldi was 35th tyler wells was 36th uh jose barrios was 38th and then it gets kind of crazy like Wade Miley was 46th Cole Reagans and Aaron Savali were 49 and 50

so hmm I don't know that I'm going to push Verlander all the way down into 30 here's the other part of this 20 to 25 for me of course the team situation is still good He'll be sort of 20 to 25 for me. Of course, the team situation is still good. He'll be in Houston again next year.

He's 41 years old. In terms of the underlying skills, the stuff has backed up a little bit. K rate's down and the walk rate is up. Do you think at least one of those things goes back to previous norms? If one of those things goes back to previous norms, how much more

likely is it that it's walk rate as opposed to strikeout rate given his age and given the decline in his stuff? Well I don't know there's a certain amount of interrelation with all this because you know he threw fewer fastballs this year

and you know those are the pitches you can supposedly command so the more he throws sliders and curves the the more he might have more walks you know but it was his worst fastball velocity since 2015 and i can't imagine it's going to get better next year although i guess a year out from surgery people might point out that it could get better but usually it's command that gets better so i'm going to guess Walker. Yeah, that's where I would be too, which is fine.

How would you even compare, circling back to the postseason for a minute, Verlander versus Nathan Evaldi? We've seen Evaldi go through velo fluctuations and wild swings and effectiveness. And of course, he's pitching very well in the playoffs. Again, I had to do a little bit of pre-show research just to see how good is Nathan Evaldi in the playoffs, really. And actually, he's basically, from a ratios standpoint, he's John Smoltz with about a quarter of the innings. John Smoltz had 209 playoff innings in his career, which is bonkers. playoff innings in his career,

which is bonkers. There's only three. Third in playoff wins they showed behind Verlander and who was first? Andy Pettit's got 19. Yeah, Andy Pettit's first, yeah. Andy Pettit has the all-time record for most postseason innings, by the way.

276 and two-thirds. Verlander, 220. Tom Glavin at 218. But anyway, Evaldi has been excellent. Sub three ERA, great walk rate, great strikeout rate has shown up in multiple post seasons.

Now he's only 33. I say that every time I'd bring up Nathan Evaldi, he's three or four years younger than I expect because of how long he's been around the injuries he's dealt with. How much do you trust Evaldi with similar flaws, but a track record that's also very good, even though it's not a Verlander-type track record? Do you trust the walk rate to come back down for Ivaldi next year

after basically a recent career worst, like a five-year worst at 8.1% this year? I don't know i i trust yvaldi like um unfortunately like i trust a lot of other old veterans that i'm not sure about the innings it's like it's sort of the kershaw conundrum again where it's like yeah i think he'll be good for most of the innings that he's in. And I know that, you know, 144 might look good and you add, you know, the postseason numbers in. But, you know, Ivaldi wasn't good for all those 144 innings, you know.

And it is just scary to see two straight years now where he starts the season at 97, 98. You know, last year he started the season 98, 97, and then it was 94 to end the season. This year he started 96, pumped it up to 97 a little bit, and then it was 93, 94 to end the season. In the playoffs, again, he's 95, 9, and he said there was a mechanical fix

and some stuff he was doing differently, but this is just too much of a pattern for me to ignore and so i would assume that you know next year riavaldi will throw 100 innings i like you know 20 innings i hate and uh and leave me in the lurch if i'm in head to head at the end of the season so you know it's not necessarily something i'm signing up for too hard but in like nfbc style leagues you know why don't i just take the hundred you know it's 100 innings of good that i want and then maybe i just drop him uh when he gets into that uh bad velo stage what do you think evaldy without looking I know you've got the player auction calculator up. How many people actually dropped Evaldi when the velo was down?

I think they all nursed him along. I think people did. I think some people. I think 12 teamers. I think that's where I find the 12 team league versus the 15 team league to be a lot more difficult is that you almost have to cut them in a 12 and a 15 you feel like you can't.

That's a miserable spot to be. Where do you think you've all be ranked among starting pitchers on the auction calculator for 2023? I think I just saw him like 30. Yeah. 35th. Yeah. Yeah.

Right there with Jordan Montgomery, Brandon Woodruff, Tyler Wells. And I almost exactly nailed it. I mean, that was like my ranking for him. It was like 35th or 38th. And it was,

it was head of everybody. And then, you know, the mid season drafts, that was like my ranking for him. It was like 35th or 38th, and it was head of everybody. And then, you know, in the midseason drafts, I was like, people were like, why are you low on him? I'm like, well, I was high on him, but now he's losing his B-low, man. I got to point to that, you know. So, I don't know. I think he will be, again, similar back in top 30. I don't – I can't push him higher totally fair but i think i think this is it's a similar feeling that i have about verlander at this stage and that's why you

have verlander a little bit lower than i do yeah right because i could see it they're both draftable and i would also throw back the idea that if you're going to take pitchers like this, be careful with the number of pitchers like this. That's what I'm saying. The one thing I hate about it is it's more of a normal profile. It's more of that like, man, there are always guys that I think I can get 100 good innings out of in this draft. Who are the guys where I can get 150 or 180 good innings? Those are the guys where i can get 150 or 180 good innings those are guys i have to prioritize and i guess maybe sadly i wouldn't necessarily put either of these guys on that list here's a

question for you both fantasy for next season and even from a real life perspective if you were in the position of signing one of these guys to a mega deal bl Blake Snell versus Aaron Nola for 2024 and beyond. Blake Snell ended up finishing just behind Garrett Cole, tied with Spencer Strider in terms of dollars earned by that Fangraphs auction calculator that we keep bringing up. And Aaron Nola, who by stuff, I would always wonder, how is he not more consistent? He seems like he'd be like the most consistent 15 to 20

dollar pitcher year over year instead he's he's above that range and below that range this year was 47th in the auction calculator that's just weird to me but which of these guys would you actually trust more from a long-term perspective and of course which one do you like better for 2024 based on how things stand right now we don't know where they're going to pitch next year so that's a huge variable yeah it's uh it's a tough one because um so guys with good command uh we did have some findings billy bean mentioned this and jeff zimmerman looked at it and there was a little bit of a whiff that you know guys with good command have better longevity are injured less and Aaron Nola by location plus is you know depending on where you put the the selective end point he's top third or first or whatever you know so he's

top three or first so he he definitely is a guy who commands the ball well um and the question for me is just uh at what point does he drop into that kind of miles michaels uh grouping of pitchers where you're you know your stuff has dropped to the point where you're just a command guy. And if you just look at something like fastball stuff plus for Aaron Nola, it's gone from 114 in 2020 to 95 this season. There are plenty of people who survive with that considering that his knuckle curve is still plus pitch and he's got other plus pitches and he has this excellent command but you know there you know when do you become miles michaels is a question for aaron nola whereas blake snell

is coming from a very high stuff uh uh perspective but he's also riskier because of injury riskier because uh this is one of the years where he actually mixed up his pitch mix the most. But that also led to a lot of walks. So, you know, how often is he going to come out in the fourth? And how often is he going to give you 110 innings instead of 180? He seems to kind of alternate two or three seasons of 110, 120 with one season of 180. So Nola is going to be more of a guy who's going to eat up innings and be more solid. But if you were going to come down to the postseason and I could tell you both of them are healthy, which one would you want?

For just like a game seven situation like who do i want taking the ball i mean right now nola looks great he's had a great postseason it looks amazing yeah i think today this stuff is close enough where i would take nola but i think the problem might be that if if you're right if it goes down year three of a six-year deal, I might feel better about my chances with Snell. So a tough question for sure. I think I would take Nola. I think I tend to, when it comes to keeper dynasty, trying to think about what a front office should do,

I would err on the side of caution and prefer Aaron Nola. Will you rank Aaron Nola over Blake Snell next year? Assuming similar park situations, where it's not like something that can throw you one direction or the other. Probably Snell over Nola. Assuming another one of Snell's signs were the Yankees. Probably Snell, yeah. Just slightly.

But, man, I don't know. It's a volume game. People are like, he's waffling yeah i am waffling i i think you have to look back at blake snell's track record and remind yourself that yes 180 this year was great and he's done 180 one time before 2022 128 2021 128 and two-thirds 120, 107. That's a lot of risk baked in. And Nola is 180, 205, 193. Yeah. Yeah.

This year, the worst year we've seen from Aaron Nola in the last five worst non-COVID year is Blake Snell's best for innings. And I think given what we were talking about earlier with all these pitchers that have either risk because they're young or risk because they've dealt with other injuries already i think i'm putting a premium on someone like nola who not only gets volume but still does miss a lot of bats too he's not he's not doing it the way that peak sandy alcantara was doing it low k rate huge volume counting stats end up being fine right right he's doing both simultaneously so it's it's tough i think what will end up happening in drafts is that um i'll just see more snell types like you know glass now snell evaldi verlander are already you know snell's on the upper end of that but it's already like how many innings am i going to get you know but they're going to be good when they're

in there's so many of those and there's actually not that many of the aeronolas you know where i i might uh and we're talking probably you know it's you know it's hard sometimes to just know industry stuff. And even ADP numbers aren't very useful right now because, yes, people are drafting, but it's not a lot of sample. So it's hard to know what the industry will do. But let's assume that these are all like in the sort of late 20s, early 30s. You know, maybe Snell jumps into the top 15 or something in some ranks or, you know, it was a good season. But let's assume they're

all in sort of 25 to 35 range because they could be um so i've i've taken a stud what i'm gonna say is well hey i've got four or five i've got four guys who could give me 100 innings this year that are good and one guy who gave me 200 in 100 innings that will probably give me 100 innings this year that are good and one guy who gave me 200 in 100 innings that will probably give me 200 innings i don't know how good they are i think i'd rather take the 200 inning guy and just take whichever of the other four drops so if i end up with um you know nola in the evaldi because i passed on Snell. Aren't I getting more... Didn't I do the right thing scarcity-wise? You know what I mean? I think so. I mean, I think you can make an argument that from a stage of his

career perspective, there's nothing that prevents Blake Snell from topping 200 innings other than his own efficiency. Part of the reason he doesn't get there, if he's not hurt, is because he walks a lot of guys. Pitch count goes up. Innings count suffers as a result of that. But again, the scarcity aspect of this, yes. You can very easily look at a typical Blake Snell season.

Again, look at 21 and 22 instead of 23. Look at the innings. Look at the ratios. Look at the Ks and say, hey, wait, those young stud pitchers that I'm really worried about, either the time they're going to get called up or how their innings will be managed, they're more likely to do that than anybody else I can draft in that range is likely to match what Aaron Nola does because there are actual restrictions that keep those guys from even being able to get to Nola's recent volume floors. And those innings matter.

Blake Snell in 2022, I just ran the auction calculator, 50th best pitcher by Fantasy. You might look at that and be like, 338 ERA with all those strikeouts, awesome. But the 120 innings matter. It made him a 50th best as opposed to and yes, you can add in what you get off the wire, blah, blah, blah, but that becomes very specific to your league. Most of the time when you're drafting, I think at least the top three pitchers, you're hoping for an all-year pitcher. You're hoping for 180 innings.

Yes, those pitchers that you put the over-under at 120 innings or whatever, those pitchers that kind of you put the over-under at 120 innings or whatever, those will be interesting drafts next year considering how many injuries we had this year. The fact that the offensive league-wide went up and so it made it even harder to put together a pitching staff. Like, yeah, it's going to be really difficult when you're looking at a second and third starting pitcher

to push the button for a guy who might give you 100 innings. Yeah, so a debate that will likely rage on through position preview season and probably through the winter meetings from a real-life perspective too. I don't know what more we can learn. I guess this postseason, if you're looking for something to learn, I think, and it's not sexy and it's not exciting,

but I spent a lot of time talking about it in my live blog yesterday, sometimes fastball velos. Because Jordan Montgomery pushing his fastball velo to some of his best numbers, what if he averaged 94 next year for the season? That would be something new-ish. It seems possible given the VLOs he's throwing right now. And it seems on the other side,

it seems possible that Justin Verlander could spend next year averaging under 94. So I'd be interested to see how his VLO looks in his next start out. I'd be interested to see what Max Scher looks in his next start out I'd be interested to see what Max Scherzer's velo is when he comes back see how bad that shoulder injury was and how quickly he can bounce back from it and and how hard he can throw these are it's you know it's better than focusing too hard on the results you know and just be like ah Jordan Montgomery he's an ace

you know well I you know there's a there's a thing out there I think it's Petriello but somebody has a heat map of where um where Montgomery threw a sinker last night and it's it was like 80% shadow and shadow is this uh this zone that's like not the heart of the zone uh and not outside of the zone it's that those edges all the edges yeah and so he threw a ton of sinkers and he and like if you're watching the game you know you know that was true like there were so many sinkers just on the black just inside you know there was one where nate lowe like sort of hopped out of the way and it was like oh damn that was a strike you know and like so many of those that were just perfectly placed and i don't know i just yes that demonstrates good command but doesn't that feel a little bit

tight ropey it's like if he doesn't throw 80 sinkers in the shadow range does he get blasted because there were some there was some hard contact so i don't know right and i just think i still think we're seeing an outcome based on how he's pitching right now that is a very very favorable outcome for a good but not elite pitcher like he's getting closer to elite results than he should with the stuff that he currently has that's not at all throwing shade at him. He's showing up at the best possible time, but it makes it tough to evaluate him for the future. You had something in a live blog last week. It would have been Twins-Astros.

I think it was the game the Twins got eliminated in. And you wrote that the Astros might have been sitting slow. And that might have been how they hit Sonny Gray because Sonny Gray's best pitch, Savant has six different pitches, has been the sweeper. And the Astros maybe effectively took that away and I was wondering how often do teams try and take away an opposing pitcher's best offering by using an approach like that and what's the downside like does the does the downside of that approach vary does it hurt you more to sit

slow if Sonny Gray has a better fastball? Does Sonny Gray's fastball just being kind of okay, velo-wise, make it possible for you to sit slow and use the approach the Astros used more effectively? Sonny Gray had the best sweeper in baseball this year. The batting average on it was 097. He threw 576 of them. The the batters hit 097 118 slugging uh with a 53 strikeout rate

it is sort of amazing that to think that the astros might be like, yeah, let's sit on that pitch. But what they did see, I think, was that Sonny Gray in his start before, in postseason start before, ramped that sweeper usage up to 40%. And once you start throwing a pitch 40% or 50% of the time, this is the fastball thing, you can anticipate it. And now you're anticipating it,

you're keying into it, you're swinging at that velocity that's sitting slow you know you're you're putting yourself in the best position best position to succeed and um you're taking advantage of something that's actually predictable where you know the whole job of the pitcher is to remain unpredictable so you know over the course of a season i think sunny gray would easily correct this you know, over the course of a season, I think Sonny Gray would easily correct this. You know, like you would see like, oh man, I've been throwing the sweeper,

people are sitting sweeper, okay, time to break out more curveballs. And I just think in the game, they didn't adjust fast enough. You know, there's, because they're like, with every one of those sweepers, you're like, well, was that just a hanger,

quote unquote? Was that like just caught too much of the zone or was he anticipating it and uh and so if it's a hanger you think well i just can't hang one like that again you know and you're like gotta bury these more i would if i was the catcher i might be like hey let's uh you know they did do a couple sort of freeze you know called strikes on fastballs uh that seemed like maybe they were figuring it out. But in the end, he gave up six hits on a sweeper, which with a 0.91 average is not – I can without looking tell you that that didn't happen all year.

It seems impossible that it could have, given how amazing that pitch was for him throughout the year. But I just thought that was a really interesting thing that came up on the broadcast that i happened to see in that live blog that you were working on last week speaking of the twins byron buxton had arthroscopic knee surgery and i don't know if i believe them but the twins are insisting that byron buxton will be able to play center field and I kind of think for me unless they knew he needed this surgery like all season long and their their way of managing it was DH offseason surgery it gives enough time to recover and then he could be Byron Buxton defensively

again if that's what they had in mind the whole time great good for them I thought they were trying to save him for the second half of the season. That was not the plan for me. It's more of a, I will believe it when I see it. So now from both a fantasy and real life perspective, we're looking at this guy that the most exciting facets of his game is still on hold, right? He's a fantastic center fielder when he can play out there. I don't know if he'll be that guy. If he does play out there again with all the injuries he's dealt with over the course of his career. And from a fantasy perspective, it's a UT only bat on a guy whose injury history is unfortunately about as full as any position player in the game during the time that he's been in the league. Yeah.

You know, we say that we're not that great at predicting injury and don't want to put the injury prone tag on anybody, but I think you can put it on him. Yeah. I think it's a combination of bad luck and other factors, but it's what he's got. It's just too stark. You have one year with the 500 and not even another year with over 400 plate appearances. It's pretty obvious. The thing that's fascinating to me is

if you just take the counting stats off and the plate appearances off, he's had some good seasons in the last three years you know despite being really small sample in terms of plate appearances like he did 306 of 19 homers and nine stolen bases in 2021 even the with the lesser batting average in 2022 he had 224 but 28 homers and six stolen bases. And even this year, with a 207 and 17 homers and nine stolen bases, if you don't look at the runs on RBI, that's a player that's valuable in AL-only leagues, right? So what's fascinating to me is, like, this player has fantasy value.

Maybe it's just DFS when he's healthy and he's in. But is there a format? Is there a format where you would draft him and even think about wanting to draft him and maybe putting the extra buck on it? What I'm putting forward is maybe

it's AL only. Because even if he just gives you 207, 17, and 9 again, something like that, that's valuable in AL only. You may not spend that much to get it. And then there is still the superstar chance of 450, 500 plate appearances and 30 home runs and 10, 15 stolen bases. There's still a non-zero chance of that.

I mean, it gets smaller and smaller every year so is is ale only the place to to consider him like really deep leagues is that is that where he is now yeah it's almost counterintuitive because replacing players in those deep leagues is so difficult but i think the price has finally come down enough on buxton where expectations are across the board a partial season. And because the skills at their peak are so far away from the skills at their floor, I think we've reached the point where if you're in AL labor in March, late February, and Buxton comes up, you're probably talking about single digits for what he goes for in a salary cap situation, right? I'm interested because you know what else goes for single digits?

Lefty platoon outfielders that might get you 450 plate appearances. Yeah, yeah. I mean, $7 to $9 on Buxton could be enough to actually get him. It probably depends on when he's thrown out and a couple of things like that. But it makes sense because the underlying numbers, the barrel rates have been good. Four seasons running. He's been more patient the last two seasons. The approach is just a little better than it was, even though he strikes out a lot. 30% works when you hit the ball as hard as Byron Buxton does. And even with a knee problem all season, nine for nine is a base dealer.

Still stolen. He's a very problem all season. 9 for 9 is a base stealer. Still stolen. He's a very efficient base stealer. You don't have to draft him expecting the pie-in-the-sky season anymore. You can just draft him as a last outfielder who's UT only for the start of the season, of course.

He might be handsomely rewarded. Even at MFBC because he might drop all the way to bench rounds. Right now, two drafts just in the last few weeks that are in the ADP report. ADP is 295 overall.

Where does the bench start? Who's he around? It's like Tommy Pham, Max Kepler, Luke Raley. Those are in and out of the lineup type players. it's like Tommy fam, Max Kepler. Yeah. Luke Rayleigh. Yeah. Those,

those are like in and out of the lineup type players. I might take bucks in there. Yeah. If he stays down there. And I think until, until there is some kind of indication, yearly cycle of hype with him, that cycle can't begin until spring training at the earliest. Yeah.

Get some good health news. If he's actually playing center field in the Grapefruit League and he has an amazing spring, then there can be some helium. But the helium would bring him from the pick 300 range to what? Pick 200 at most? He's not going to crack the top 200. You can't forget the rest of the plate appearances. No, of course not.

So I hope he's healthy. I hope this actually gets the job done for him. But it's just one more line on a very crowded injury ledger. And the same could be said for his teammate, Alex Kirilov. I just saw he had surgery on his right labrum. That injury popped up in July, kept him off the playoff roster. And we know Kirilov has had wrist surgeries in recent years. And I'm at the point now with Kirilov where I think I'm just you know you think about him

more as like a cheap keeper dynasty league sort of guy on the bottom of your roster I don't even know if I want to wait it out right now I think I just want to let somebody else burn that roster spot and if he makes it back healthy which we always hope players do at that point I could be excited about him again there's a fairly boring uh you know strikeout rate barrel combination here that's developed it's kind of strange we're talking about a guy who basically over the last two years has put together two-thirds of a season with a 24 25 strikeout rate and a seven percent barrel. It's just a weird combination that I would not get excited about

unless it still had that Fangraph's 50-60 hit tool grade sitting on the same page as that. You're like, okay, he could get that strikeout rate down. And a 7% barrel rate works if he strikes out 20% of the time because you're 280, 290 average with it. I'm still, from a skills perspective, a believer, but I think the injury situation is so bad that that's what's holding me back. Yeah, I wasn't even talking about the injury aspect.

Yeah, I think the chances that he lowers the K rate are still there and he makes a lot of hard contact. Hard hit rate, brief time at AAA this year, K rate are still there, and he makes a lot of hard contact. Hard hit rate. Brief time at AAA this year, Kirilov was there, 48.1% hard hit rate. It's ridiculous. And we've seen flashes of that even at the big league level around all these injuries.

I think the injuries have a big, big influence on why that barrel rate hasn't been there. Labrum's a big injury to come back from. Another big news in baseball right now this was a shocker that came across on on monday morning kim eng has chosen to part ways with the marlins there was a mutual option in her contract she decided not to exercise it there was a statement that kim eng released that and outlined some of the reasoning behind it and it sounds like it was more about the ownership's lack of interest

in investing in baseball operations the way that Kim Eng wanted them to. This is pretty interesting because there are other teams looking for GMs right now, including one in Boston where she has previously worked. Kim Eng's resume, we talked about it when the Marlins hired her as the GM back in 2020. It's two resumes full of qualifications to be a GM so she's got plenty of places she could go next this seems like a pretty big blow for the Marlins though coming off of a playoff appearance and having so much positive momentum outside of that Sandy Alcantara injury the most wins uh in the last 10 years or something for the marlins in a season uh definitely uh you know and it doesn't seem like when she talks about you know different visions for the future there's a couple things that come to mind one is you know you know major league

investment but she did manage to convince ownership to push payroll from 84 million in 2022 to 110 in 2023 um and you know that manifested in you know not every signing was great but uh you know you got the cueto uh signing the the you know um uh the some of the additions that they did in trade like the josh bell edition i think you know by they did trade away Segura but like in that I think they ended up taking on uh some money um and at least the the chance that Bell opts into 16 and a half million in 2024 um so there was definitely some investment in the major league product but um the other things that that can can turn one sour on ownership is meddling uh which i don't know if that would come up in a contract negotiation

situation he knows exactly how much he's going to meddle she's not going to ask him during a contract negotiation are you going to meddle less no no you get that get that exposure from working yeah you know that just for a while and yeah so so then there's personal investment so like she's she might have asked hey don't put me don't make me a lame duck GM next year we just had some success extend me and he said no um or uh investment in non-major league uh stuff so sort of investment in in the minors investment in player development investment in staff i need more need more analysts i need more this anymore that so um you know those are the different ways that that ownership that the gm and ownership might come to head to head I think that maybe it was investment in the team at large that would show if you invested

in me in a two or three year deal. You know what I mean? Like invest in me in a two or three year deal so that I feel that I can believe you when you say that you have a commitment to investing more in the team largely. If you are not going to give me a two or three year deal, then I don't even believe you that you're going to invest anymore because I will be a lame duck GM. And so, you know, anytime I come to you asking for something, you know, we don't even know, you know, we don't have a relationship beyond 2024.

You know what I mean? beyond 2024 you know what i mean so um it probably came down to an extension but that extension meant a little bit more probably uh given other context given the state of that division the core atlanta has in place you know what the phillies are doing right now how they spend the mets and their long-term intentions to spend well they've already done it but to spend as much as any franchise in the league if you go if you go to ownership in miami and say look here's what here's what we're up against we need more and that question could be asked a thousand different ways but the answer is effectively yeah no we're not going to get to that level you might know like we're just not going to consistently hit the goals we're not going to get to that level. You might know, like, we're just not going to consistently hit the goals we're trying to hit in this division, given who three of the other teams are. And that doesn't even mention the Nationals as another team that could pretty consistently outspend the Marlins.

Historically has done a lot in free agency and has a nice core of young players coming up right now, too. So, yeah, I think choosing carefully and being able to possibly go out and get another job, I'm really curious to see if Kim Ang ends up in Boston or somewhere else before long. I wouldn't be surprised if that's how this ends up playing out. I did not see that coming. Yeah, what was the other surprise you mentioned

where the White Sox surprised us by locking up chris getz so early but uh they could have had a choice of kimang or who's the bloom yeah that was sort of a surprise so right and i i think you know you and brit sort of laughed at me for saying hey maybe maybe the guy that wasn't in charge has some new ideas even though he didn't do particularly well in the role that he had in the organization you don't think of the white socks as this beacon of great player development he did hire some interesting guys did you see he hired um he hired uh brian bannister i did not see that but that's that's an interesting hire uh they were all former players. All former players, probably players you played with.

They were all former players, but they were former players that had been in analytics roles and were a little bit more analytics forward. So, you know, the banister hire was an interesting one. I circled that a little bit. What I want to see for the sake of White Sox fans is I want to see new people brought into the organization with new ideas and a new approach because if it's more of the same, of course, you're not going to shake things up all that much.

But had they waited, I don't think there were other teams based on subsequent reports and everything. I don't think Chris Getz was necessarily going anywhere. quite as much as they did, and they missed out on opportunities to hire some potentially higher ceiling, likely higher ceiling candidates that have come available in the time since. But hey, Jerry Reinsdorf had a plan. He went ahead and stuck to it. One other Marlins thing, Jazz Chisholm had a turf toe procedure that was expected throughout the season. He actually had a good year playing through that injury plus others. 19 homers, career high by one, 22 steals, one off his previous career high there. 97 games played. This is becoming a problem for Jazz too.

Some of it's maybe the way he plays makes him more susceptible to injuries, but he had an oblique injury in July. He had a toe injury in May. Both of those things put him on the IL. Had a minor shoulder injury back in April. And this toe thing that was there for a good portion of the season. So I'm curious if you are at a point with Jazz where you say, you know, yes, there are injury profiles I run away from at early-ish mid-round prices, but there's enough he's done well around these injuries where I want to give it one more shot with Jazz in 2024. Yeah, I'm not quite going to throw the Byron Buxton tag on him yet.

I mean, it's just not quite the same length of time with these problems. He has a 507 plate appearance on his ledger in 2021 and then 241 and 383 after that jazz does and so I feel like he could have a 507 again you know like that wouldn't be crazy also the difference between him and Byron Buxton on some level is age Byron Buxton is already 29 and that that means he has yes this longer track record you can see all these, but also just means with injuries, it's going to be a little bit more of a bounce back and a little bit more of a stretch to think of a 650 plate appearance year.

Whereas a 25-year-old Jazz Chisholm, like if he had a 650 plate appearance year this year, it would be a little bit out of the norm, but I mean, it wouldn't be crazy. So it would just be like oh finally he had that that final healthy year and if he does do that then i would see like you know what 28 homers i could see 30 30 yeah i i think with jazz it's like the underlying numbers improved in 2022 in terms of the barrel rate and hard hit rate jumping and And he held some of those gains in barrel, 12.2% this year.

And it's easy to say, well, maybe the injury is a part of the reason why he didn't fully repeat. That's at least possible. But he also made slightly better swing decisions for the second year in a row. He cut that O swing percentage down to 28.5%. It's the second year in a row he's pushed that in the right direction. That makes me think that the walk rate is at least steady where it's at right now but there's still some room for improvement there from a real life

perspective that adds the value just getting him on base more to steal more bases but also to score more runs so i think this is still it's the type of profile that could be very much like too risky for me in the future, but I haven't seen enough either. I think if he's going pick 60 to 75, so like late round four, somewhere in round five, 15 team league, does that seem fair for you for jazz? Yeah.

Um, let me do something real quick. I'm just going to, uh, uh, this is like ROS. I don't think it has next year in it yet. Yeah, what is this? I don't even...

It says Bryson Stott has 13 plate appearances projected and $128 value. So I don't think this is useful. But I guess what i'll do instead is just look at uh earned value uh for 2023 in terms of second baseman um you're talking about uh bets uh going first uh simeon and albie's going next nico horner uh up there and then you've got the second base quote-unquote blob maybe uh which might be uh catel marte luis arias glaber torres and jazz ah but jazz outfield only now. Oh. Thank you for pointing that out.

So now Jazz goes up against Randy Rosarena. No, Rosarena is higher than that. TJ Friedel was 23rd. George Springer. George Springer and Jazz Chisholm next year. Jazz. A lot of ways for it to go right for Jazz. Maybe that's a good would you rather. George Springer is definitely somebody you would pencil in

for more plate appearances. He's also 34. You don't know how many homers are going to give him how about uh jazz versus say a suzuki i mean say a suzuki is a really good all-around player 285 357 485 pop the 20 homers was not efficient as a base dealer in a season when everybody could steal a lot of bases but quite a few things did go right in year two for Suzuki. Some injuries situation with Seiya. I'm a little surprised he got the 583 plate appearances given what my personal interaction with him was on my teams.

I think I'd take Seiya. But the shape of Seiya's production is a little bit more replaceable. Although I don't know if that's true anymore in the age of the hyper stolen base environment.

Here's another one for you. Dalton Varshow. Also now of course an outfield only dalton varsho versus jazz chisholm dalton varsho has stayed very healthy took a big step back in year one with the jays upside being that i'm taking the counting stats could be so good for dalton varsho too in that lineup i don't know way i don't know yeah I guess in some weird way like you know he never really had a great hard hit rates but they're pretty good hard hit rates he never had great barrel rates but they're pretty good barrel rates he has pretty good max ev he has 27 homers on his

resume he steals bases I mean we're just looking for like a slight a like a slight adjustment in the offseason and you would pencil him in for 550 plus plate appearances either way right and 20 homers and 15 stolen bases either way and then you're talking about upside beyond that i wonder what the categorical ceiling in batting averages for dalton varsho because Jazz hits the ball harder on a regular basis at this point and the power speed blend I mean in basically two-thirds as many games the power speed combo from Jazz Chisholm was right there and I think hitting the ball harder gives you a better chance of doing more on average for Jazz too so unless unless you think varsho because of the k rate difference is going to spray the ball over and hit 260 270 because of that i i gotta take jazz

i think there's a even with the injury concerns i think there's quite a bit more to like and one of the things i was doing with jazz and with buxton and all them was papering over runs and rbi with my hand and getting really excited about everything else um and i just have to push back with varsho like even if he doesn't hit 260 you know the strikeout rates that line up it should produce more runs and rbi so now i'm giving plate appearances and runs and rbi and play appearance is not normally a a category but even among the five categories i'm giving runs an rbi to darton varsho off the bat i feel like we got our first 2024 bet uh brewing here i think i think jazz beats him in those counting stats even runs an rbi yeah because i think the difference in whether they're going to hit in their respective lineups.

I think, yeah, quality of the lineup difference certainly favors Dalton Varshow. Plate appearances. That works against Dalton Varshow. I'm taking the plate appearances in the better lineup. So I'll take Varshow's runs and RBI. So if I'm taking runs and RBI for DeVarshow, then you got the other three categories. So if I'm taking runs on RBI for DeVarsha, then you got the other three categories.

And yeah, I could see Jazz taking those three categories, which means that overall maybe you should take Jazz. But you can see why it's difficult. Oh, yeah. Played appearances also give you more chances for the home runs than stolen bases. Yeah, even as bad as this season was for Dalton Varsha, he still popped 20 homers, stole 16 bases. So it could have been worse, believe it or not.

Yeah. All right. So we've got an episode for next week sort of written in pencil. If you have unusual hitter seasons that you'd like us to talk about, send us a tweet at Rates and Barrels, or you can email, I guess, to ratesandbarrels at gmail.com.

Just let us know which unusual hitter seasons you're most interested in hearing us discuss we'll put some of those names on the rundown and talk about a bunch of guys that are very confusing coming off of 2023 we may have introduced a few of them over the course of this episode just sort of organically but we'll get to some more names

on next week's episode so if you're watching us on YouTube be sure to hit the like button on this video if you're not watching us on YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel. There could be some fun stuff that randomly shows up there someday. You never know. We've got big plans for the future.

On Twitter, you can find Eno at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you next week. Thanks for listening.