Rates & Barrels - Jordan Montgomery to Arizona, Spring Stats We Care About & The 2024 All-Oatmeal Team

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss Jordan Montgomery's move to Arizona on a one-year, $25 million deal, shoulder surgery for Matt McLain, and an opportunity for Victor Scott II following a late-spring injury to Dylan Carlson. Plus, they examine a few spring stats worth caring about, and reveal their selections for The 2024 All-Oatmeal Team. (Reminder: We *Like* Oatmeal!) Rundown 1:53 Jordan Montgomery to the Diamondbacks 6:32 Matt McLain Undergoes Shoulder Surgery 9:39 Will Victor Scott II Offer More Pop Than Similarly Speedy Outfielders? 16:00 Spring Training Stats We Care About: Stolen Bases 32:40 Spring Training Stats We Care About: K-BB% 40:18 The 2024 All-Oatmeal Team Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes w/Trevor May! (next live show: 3/29) https://www.youtube.com/c/ratesbarrels Subscribe to The Athletic for just $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Wednesday, March 27th. Derek VanRyper, Enocerous here with you in the middle of the week because we weren't here with you on Monday. If you're watching us on YouTube, be sure to smash that like button, subscribe to our channel, leave us a nice rating and review wherever you listen to this podcast, and send Eno some allergy medicine because he looks a little roughed up today. Oak trees, dude. Oak trees are the worst. You know what their leaves are like?

Yeah. You know, you know, like, you know what their, their leaves are like? Yeah. Pain, pain. And then they have that pollen. Oak trees are the worst. If we have an oak tree ranking at the bottom of the list, I mean, a tree ranking, I'm putting oak trees at the bottom.

Wow. All right. Tree rankings for early April when we're waiting for more sample for baseball. That's that's our week one week one Philippines. Week one last 10 minutes of an episode tree rankings. Start weighing in on discord immediately with any insight you have about trees because they're great. I just I don't think a lot about them. Maybe I should. Eucalyptus is a problem around here because they're invasive and they're not from here and they get top heavy and then they're not used to the winds and they pot topple over.

Also at the bottom of my list. I have helped clean up Eucalyptus on a bike path in the name of science in Northern California. So I fully understand that particular problem. but yes, tree rankings next week. I guess we'll be looking forward to. We have too much to do today. Shut up, you know. Yeah. We actually have stuff on the rundown today.

Stop ruining it. Yeah. Uh, we have a signing. Jordan Montgomery has signed with the Diamondbacks one year, $25 million. Couldn't most of the league have found that for Jordan Montgomery, given that most of the league has a need for innings in their starting rotations? And with all the injuries we've had this spring, you'd think that somebody would

be looking, you know, the, the, the Yankees are out here running out Clark Schmidt and Luis Heal, uh, and, uh, decided to pass on this situation. So, you know, I know it's always about payroll. It's always about the luxury tax and so on and so forth. But Arizona is spending some of that World Series cash. I think with Jordan Montgomery in it, they're only up to 167 million this year. It's nice to have a clean balance sheet, I guess.

It's a little funny to like sort of chase money after money though, right? You signed Eduardo Rodriguez. He goes down. You sign someone for more. But Eduardo Rodriguez has signed for longer. This will end up being, I think a two year deal. He vests into the player option. He vests into the player option.

He vests into a player option after 10 starts. So if he makes 10 starts, it can be a two year, $50 meal, $50 deal. But it's a player option, not a team option. So he can join. He can join the market again if he likes. So now that he has a team and now that he ended up in a place that's not a hitter friendly environment, I imagine for the remaining drafts, Wednesday, Thursday throughout the weekend, Montgomery jumps up a little bit in terms of where he goes, how much do you trust his skills at this point?

I mean, we've had a two year window where the ratios have been very good, but the strikeout rate has been down a tick from where it was during his time with the Yankees, right? We saw 24 plus percent K rates from him a little earlier in his career. Now he seems to have settled in kind of in that 21, 22% range. You have a hard time pushing him too much. We've got a four plus ERA projection on him using stuff plus and then. No we got a twenty point five strikeout percent strikeout rate projection which I guess is would be one of his lowest of his career but also is just commensurate with the kind of stuff he has I think and he's never been a big strikeout rate guy. So that's why the market didn't really want to take the plunge for a long contract

despite his good ERAs the last three years. It's a stuff plus league right now and he was on the wrong side of that. I think the Arizona did well to get a short deal that they didn't like 25 million is not actually that's pushing the AAB but it's not pushing it a lot. It's not one of these, uh, Max Scherzer deals where it's, you know, what, like two and 60 or whatever crazy deal he signed at one point with the Mets. Um, so I think it's, I think it's a decent deal. I just nudged him up from the low forties to the, I mean, from the high forties to the low forties. Uh, so I think, you know, my would you rather is Jordan Montgomery or Aaron

Savali. Aaron Savali. See, I have him right behind Aaron Savali still. But how about this? The next one is you say, Kikuchi. Jordan Montgomery. But see, yeah, but that's the part of the draft where with any of those three, you might choose one over the other of the draft where with any of those three, you might choose one over the other for different reasons where you might say, I'm worried about Savali's health history. I want some innings with good ratios. I'm going Montgomery.

I want the guy that brings me the most possible ceiling. That's Kikuchi, but he also brings the most downside, right? So it is a little bit of a fork or to use the tree analogy, you got a few branches here. So you got to choose which way you want to go. But in a vacuum. Might have something to do with what you did earlier. Yeah, in a vacuum, Savali is the one I'd rather have. Not thinking about the rest of the build.

But again, not by a lot because I do trust the ratios. I do trust the park and the team context is good. Maybe we have some questions again about the Arizona bullpen for the reason that we talked about yesterday, losing Paul Seawald makes them one thinner. That could hurt the starters a little bit just in terms of protecting their leads and helping them pile up wins. But Jordan Montgomery goes from the World Series winners to the World Series runner-ups at a very, very fair one year deal that no one would have

predicted all the way back in the start of the winter. We have an update on Matt McClain. He had shoulder surgery. It's not good. Yeah. Cartilage damage and a labrum repair. Labrum repair is bad. In the left shoulder.

Yeah. The lead shoulder for him. Even if he comes back this year, I can't imagine the powers there. It's hard to rely on that. And I think in, in situations where you have limited IELTS spots or no IELTS spots, this is probably not a player you're going to hold. If you do have limited IELTS spots, you hold them until you can't. But the timetable so far into the future, it's late second half, most likely. I mean, I think, uh, Logan Ohapi had this last year, suffered it kind of early in the year.

He came back for like 50 plate appearances or something? Came back and was productive. Like that's almost to me, like the performance part of that's the outlier, right? So yeah, you're looking at several months before Matt McClain is back and the stability that this unfortunately provides Jonathan India, unfortunate for McClain, fortunate for India. Well, he did manage 199 plate appearances, Ohpy did, but yes, I mean, that, coming back with that amount of power after that injury, I agree. Really frustrating, but Jonathan India probably moving up boards even more.

And I think it's easy to lose sight of this. India last year went 14 for 16 on the base paths and just 119 games. So there could be 20 steals with the full season of health and a full season of playing time. And now there's the increased probability of that actually happening because of McLean's absence and the long suspension for Noel V. Marte. Oh, I mean, it's crazy that Santiago Espanol deal that didn't make much sense at the time makes a lot more sense now.

They actually need Santiago Espinol to paper over some of their issues, especially since they let Jose Barrero go. Where did Barrero go? Barrero ended up, Jose Barrero ended up on the Rangers. He made the team too. Uh, but, uh, Espinol takes over for Barrero and gets, I don't know, 300 plate appearances maybe this year. Hey, you want a deep, deep sleeper?

Jose Barrero getting a fresh start in a new organization with Donnie Ecker and a group of coaches that had a lot of success in Texas last year? I'm intrigued. Barrero wasn't bad at AAA. He was 25, but 19 homers, 20 steals and 21 attempts and 80 games. Okay. Could be a late bloomer. It's possible.

I tend to think he's a help at shortstop, but Seager ended up making the opening day roster. So I don't know exactly what Barrera will do. I think it's more of just depth at this point, not necessarily someone you're relying on outside of very deep AL only leagues, but for your last reserve pick in your AL only league that hasn't happened yet, consider Jose Barrero. Rates and barrows all over that last reserve pick in your AL only. We helped even five people with that advice. I feel like our job here is done.

We have some news on Dylan Carlson, a follow-up that he is going to begin the season on the IL. So Victor Scott is headed to St. Louis and I saw a lot of chatter around Discord, around Twitter, wondering if Victor Scott is actually a Sturri Ruiz 2.0 in terms of being this kind of speed heavy player that might not hit the ball hard enough. So this is a little more of a broad question, but feel free to take it any direction you want.

How do you look at players like this, the speedsters that have some power in the minor leagues and how do you discern which of those players has enough power to actually carry that against top-level pitching because what happens a lot of times is premium velocity something these guys don't see enough of in the minor leagues is a normalcy once they get to the big leagues and the power falls off a cliff even though you see productive power seasons at multiple minor league stops. And history Ruiz, as an example, 2021 in 84 games, double a pop 10 homers. But that's pretty good. You'd think 15 plus homers in the big leagues someday would be possible. But then you get to

the big leagues, you get to see some more hard hit data, you get to see barrel rates, get a better sense for how guys pitch them. And you realize, okay, you know, those home runs happened, but the way those home runs happen, make them unlikely to unfold at the highest level. So do you have any of those concerns about Scott and what kind of steers you in the direction of believing in a player's power when they have a profile like this? Well, I have a two part answer. One is that specifically with Scott, I am flying blind a little bit. It's a little bit based on discussions i've had with him that make me think.

He has some nation power in there i would much rather he played a triple a so i can get a maxi v number if not a barrel number. We don't we don't have that with scott so i would say. We don't have that with Scott. So I would say I don't know with Scott. I think he's not raised, but it's certainly possible. One thing that I can look at is ground ball rates. Scott had a 48 in high A, but he only had a 40% in A and double A. So that's a little bit of a proxy for power is at least he wasn't hitting the ball 50 or 60% on the ground. So that's good news. Um, the second part of

my answer is that I think he's not Ruiz because of totally different reasons have nothing to do with power. And that is swinging strike rate. And the one kind of problem that I have with Ruiz, um, is that he's always had way higher strikeout and swinging strike rate and the one kind of problem that I have with Ruiz is that he's always had way higher strikeout and swinging strike rates than I want out of this kind of player. And so when he last year struck out 20% of the time, that doesn't seem like a big deal. That's still better than average. But for this kind of profile, it's not good enough. This kind of profile, if you don't have the power, you need to make a ton of contact,

put everything into play. Think of Luis Arias type. You need to be kind of that guy where you're just putting a bunch of singles in play and then all of a sudden you're on second. And 20% with a 12% swing strike rate is not it for Ruiz, where Scott came up with lower strikeout rates and lower swing strike rates, not by a huge margin, but by enough where it might actually make a difference. And so what you want Scott to do if he doesn't have power is what he did this spring is a 404 OBP, a 15% strikeout rate, 380 BABP might sound high, but you know, what about a 340 babbit?

Then he hits 270 with a 360 LBP. He's still a top of the lineup guy, even without the power. So my answer is I'm guessing on the power. Um, that's just something where you can look at scout grades. Uh, he only has 30, uh, power according to fan graphs. So that's a defensible position. Um, and then, uh, the other part of the answer is what do you do outside of the power that could make you good enough to succeed without power?

And that that's a fine line. There's very few people that do it. It's stepping outside of the offensive profile. The defense matters in a big way. Victor Scott projects to be a well above average defensive center fielder and Asturias does not. Yeah, he's already being platooned and already being moved off center. So that's part of my second answer, which is like, you know, the other things other

than power that makes Scott a better player. I'll turn to the scouting grades from Eric Langenhagen and the great team over at Fangraphs here again for a second too. It's interesting that they had a 35 hit tool on Asturi Ruiz when he graduated, 40 game power and 50 raw. Scott has 45 present hit tool with 50 future, 30 game power present and future, 30 raw power.

So the concerns about the power are real. 70 field, what's the field on the reef? 70 field, 80 speed. And then the hit tool difference. I think the hit tool difference is really, really big. The gap between a 35 and a 45 is like a lot bigger than you realize. So when you pair that with the fielding defense, it might look like the same categorical contributions from a Roto perspective,

but I think the real life implications might be such that Victor Scott is also better because he draws more walks and the OBP stays higher and maybe he can be more of a table setter. So yes, the, the concerns about the power are legit, but they are different players because of other aspects of their profiles. Yeah. But I don't know why, man. I think he's going to develop some power.

I, uh, I just want to be decimated by another Victor. That's I'm ready to move on. Victor in part two. Victor 2.0. That's, that's what I'm ready for. And it, so the one liner, the prospects TLDR line and Victor Scott. Infielders beware Scott is a bunt inclined speedster and potential gold glove center fielder.

When you say bunt inclined speedster, I think of Victor Robles. That's right, he used to fund all of that. I think about my exes. Think about my exes in Texas. Oh, it's a bad place to be. Ever tried to break a bad habit and felt like you're climbing Everest in flip flops? Yeah, we've been there too.

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house. It's built with fidgeting in mind. You can spin your fume around on it. Start the year off right with the good habit by going to tryfume.com slash barrels and getting the journey pack today. Fume is giving listeners of the show 10% off when they use the code barrels to help make starting the good habit that much easier. So let's talk about some spring stats that we believe in because we're kind of bumping into this topic a little bit anyway. And this goes back to Jason Collette at First Pitch Arizona.

If you missed the episode where we previously talked about this, he looked at spring training stolen base attempts last year to try and get a better sense for how much more of the league it was going to run. And based on how much teams were running in the Grapefruit League and in the Cactus League, he actually ended up with a really solid projection for what was going to happen in the regular season. So knowing that we have this kind of significant indicator of how much he's going to run. He was almost like plus 40% and then it was plus 40%. I was, it was really, really close once he ran the calculations and it's leading us to say, okay, stolen bases and spring training probably matter in terms of

team intent because teams are testing that out, trying to see who's effective at running, who's not trying to see if they can get an edge in that area. You put together a table with some leaders, team leaders in spring stolen bases, and there were a few surprising teams on here. The Angels lead the league, both leagues, with 30 steals this spring. New manager, Ron Washington, not a lot of new personnel though, right? Like it's kind of the same cast of characters, less Shohei Otani as far as who is actually stealing bases for this Angels team. Yeah, there's a little bit of a wrinkle there where, you know, Jake Marysnik is one of the

leaders and it says here that he will begin the season at AAA Salt Lake. So, you know, the personnel does matter to some extent, but not fully, you know what I mean? Like just because Mariznik won't be on the angels doesn't mean that they aren't going to take off. It's, it's, it's the reason that this is sticky, I think, is it's a managerial decision. You know, it's, it's like, uh, it's like, uh, go or don't go.

It's like, uh, do you have the green light or not? Do you need to look over and get the sign or do you feel like you can just do it? You know? And so Marysnik or no, I think the angels are going to take off. Adele is actually kind of a funky sleeper out of this. Um, which is that I think, you know, Adele at this point is out of options. Uh, he's got nowhere to go. And the team is sort of desperate for any kind of star power, any kind of young possible star power.

And with Mickey Moniac having the worst plate discipline and plate skills in baseball, like almost literally Adele even though he has some of the worst contact rates in baseball could sneak into this team I mean, this is a team that has Aaron Hicks lined up a DH. He's gonna steal bases He's a kind of AL only type sleeper. I think Adele is only really a keeper and ale only like only type sleeper himself But if he steals a couple bases in the first week, and he's playing every day or playing close to every day I would I would keep a close eye on him if you're in a punt batting average situation

He's a perfect player for that Six stolen bases this spring if you just totally change his stolen base projections He projects in half a season to go 15 15. So if they just decide finally, just to give him a full-time role and yeah, he might hit two 30 and have a 300 OBP, but he could go 30 30 is one of the ugliest 30 30 seasons in the history of baseball would be fun and it's, and it's made possible or probable by this, uh, by this more pop more probable by this, by this, uh, sort of quirk of Ron Washington being the leader there. You got a new manager in Milwaukee, uh, who seems to want to run wild. Uh, I think

that's meaningful for Jackson Churio. Churio's got these sort of he's a rookie projections, right? Well, Churio's power is the question mark, not necessarily his ability to get on base hit for batting average or steal bases. What if he steals 30? You know, the Brewers are second on that list. Lane Thomas leads the Nationals. We all think of Lane Thomas as a guy who will steal 15 or whatever. Maybe not. Maybe it's 40. And across spring training, this is from Jason Collette himself,

across spring training last year, they were 2.18 stolen base attempts per game. This year, 2.24. So generally there's going to be inflation across the board and I'm not sure how it'll play out again. But I think you will see some surprising guys. The one question I have that I always have is like how what will happen at the very top? You know, we had a CUNHA going for 70 but we only had we had nobody else going over 60. Would we have a guy go to 100 or is it gonna to just going to be a lot more thirties and twenties? And I think that's sort of what happened last year.

So I would predict more twenties and thirties. So cheerio instead of the 15 or 18 gets to 25, 30 and, uh, lane Thomas gets to 30, you know, and maybe Adele gets to 20, 20 plus. So those are the takeaways that I have from the spring leaders in that department. Yeah, I was looking back at some of the angels on an individual level. Zach Neto's four for five is a base dealer this year, this spring and 22 games. He was five for six and 84 games last year. He's seemingly going to run a lot more.

So if you add that toggle, yeah, you add 10 to 15 more steals to Zach Neto's projection that would actually do a lot in terms So if you add that toggle, yeah, you add 10 to 15 more steals to Zach neto's projection. That would actually do a lot in terms of where he goes. 2020 or whatever. Yeah, suddenly he's more interesting. I think you kind of write about Adele, at least for super deep leagues. He's six for six this spring. They showed last year they were willing to be very patient and tolerant of Mickey Moniac swing and miss given that Adele is out of options. I think they're going to give him at least a handful of opportunities to break through as a part-time player. Still more of a really, really deep league consideration.

They even had Brandon Drury running this spring. He was 0 for 2 last season at 125 games. He's 0 for 2 again this spring, but it is like everybody is getting chances to do that. I was wondering, is Mike Trout trying to steal some bases this spring? Even Trout's got one. Don't think Trout's going to go back to early career 20, 30 steal seasons again, but he might be more than one or two. He might be five or 10, which is kind of nice if you're expecting zero and you get that little bit of a bonus. So yeah, it looks like a clear organizational philosophy there. I would look at a player like Sal Freelick with the Brewers and say, yeah, not only if

you read coverage about the team, you get a sense that Sal Freelick is Pat Murphy's kind of guy. They have a pretty high level of trust in his athleticism anyway, moving him from the outfield to the dirt and then now back to center field and then probably back to the dirt again later this year at third base, which is kind of remarkable. So I look at that and say, okay, like this is a guy that fits what they're trying to do and he's attempted seven stolen bases and 17 games this spring. He's four for seven, but his minor league success rates, his speed, those things

and his OBP all point to him being a guy that could actually steal a lot of bases and projections are modest. 13 to 16 steals is what you're going to see. So I'd be surprised if Freelink didn't top that. Yeah, I think that's the more likely expectation for a player like that. I saw the Guardians and Nationals popping on that list. Then you have the Nats. not much has changed there as far as Davey Martinez being a holdover manager, but the guardians, I feel like they're a team that we almost never talk about. And usually it's kind of poking them in the ribs for being frugal and saying,

Hey, you can expand, you can try, but Steven Vogt is a new manager, right? They have a new staff. And how do you goose a low power, high contact offense? Run contact offense run? I get them on first, get them to second. Andres Jimenez has six stolen bases this spring and he's, he's third on the overall list. So, you know, if you, if you bought them for 30 steals, I think you should feel pretty good about that. And he could be a candidate for that 4550 level.

Right, right. And something that's happened throughout this draft season, we've talked about CJ Abrams a bunch of times and the early like third, fourth round ADP he carries and saying, OK, like there's a lot of ways for him to even still move up in value if he keeps getting better as a hitter. But there are players like him who were slightly below average by WRC plus that have some power and have a lot of speed. They could put up similar numbers at a lower price.

Andres Jimenez is part of the reason why I was so reluctant to build around CJ Abrams throughout draft season, because I see, I see a similar floor, but I always see a similar ceiling too, because we're still talking about a guy in Jimenez who's 25. Like there's a very good chance we haven't seen his absolute best season yet. And that might just be a combination of, you know, higher mid-teens power that we saw in 2022, a better average in OBP like we saw that year with the added speed from the new rules.

That might be what that career year actually looks like. I'm happy to get that at a discount. So, uh, if you're in the wait a little bit for your speed group, the way that I've been throughout this draft season, Andres Jimenez is someone that might fit really, really well where he's going. And it's nice to see the guardians kind of maxing out those green lights this spring. We've got a blue Jays down table. They're not in the top five, but I think they're six. So, you know, they look like they're running. It is down table. They're not in the top five, but I think they're six.

So, you know, they look like they're running. It is funny though. One player can change the math on this Dalton Varsho leads the entire spring training, uh, with eight stolen bases. The Blue Jays have 18 this spring. So it's eight for Varsho and 10 for the rest of the team. Um, I don't see another Toronto guy in the top 25. So it could just be Varsho and Varsho alone that's driving that train.

But that's a team. I don't know that it's not really a managerial change so much as, you know, it's a team that didn't score as much as they wanted to last year. It's a player that didn't play as well as they wanted to last year. It's a player that didn't play as well as he wanted to last year. It seems to be kind of a pairing of needs where Varsho is probably gonna run a little bit more this year. And just overall, I think he's a guy I'd like, you know? And if you change his projections to 25-20, which is only giving him four stolen bases on a lot of these projections. Then his 240 average that he's projected for 230 240 becomes a lot more palatable.

Is that the right way to say it? I've always said palatable. Palatable. But I've heard you and Brits say palatable and now I'm really not sure. It's the near worm thing. I saw a commercial for tinnitus and I was like, I, that's tinnitus. What are you talking about? But tinnitus, is that like a, well, I don't even know what kind of ringing of the ear. Oh, it's tinnitus. I always thought it was tinnitus. I guess anyway, clearly we didn't go to medical school. I'm Dr. Nick.

Pass classes in English and linguistics. I don't know. Uh, what else is like super meaningful for me, uh, in spring? We've talked a lot about plate appearances, but that can even be, uh, a little bit misleading. Will your Abreu leads the entire spring training with 77 plate appearances. As currently constructed, I see sedan rafael playing center and jaren during during playing a corner. Yoshida playing dh and o'neill playing a corner.

So if a brave makes that team, he didn't have a great spring. And if he makes that team, I feel like it's in a part time role. So maybe it was that, you know, there's that like wanting to see more of the guy, you know, to make a decision versus he's making a team. So second is Wyatt Langford with 71 played appearances. That's absolutely meaningful because he didn't go down. He didn't go anywhere. They gave him play appearance as many as they could every day.

So down, Raffafaela is third. So generally I think played appearances matter guys that stick out, um, in that are high in played appearances, Sal Freelick, second mention. Um, I don't know. I don't know why Alexander Canario is eighth in played appearances. That means something more than I know what to do with it. He was a late roster cut for them though. Like they were trying to get a long look, I think, to decide if he belonged as a

backup outfielder right away or if he needed a little more time as an everyday player. Yeah. So I guess that's a, you know, you got the like, want to take a look to make a decision versus, um, giving him all the, like Jackson Truro is fifth and I absolutely saw that coming a mile away plus the contract and so I have some shares of Truro and redrafts where I thought this guy's gonna play. Here's a name for you. 12th overall in played appearances is a Mr. Lawrence Butler and you know the outfield in Oakland has been playing really well. J.ah Puday has great spring numbers.

I I'm not going to tell you to draft him based on his batting average, et cetera. But, um, Lawrence Butler's playing time comes with a reduced strikeout rate, which would change his upside immensely. That's been the one question about what he has. He has above average power. He has above average speed. He has above average power, he has above average speed, he has above average defense. It looks like he might even have above average ability to get on base. So you're adding a lot of above averages together. If you add in above average strikeout rate and strikeout rate is something I will look

at in spring just because if you had 62 major league plate appearances in the early goings of a 12% strikeout rate from Lawrence Butler, you would take notice, you know? So I know it's not always it's against uneven competition in the spring, but it still matters somewhat. So if Lawrence Butler this year strikes out 24, 23% of the time, you can change his projection to like a 245, 250 average. That's a guy who can hit 250, hit you 15 to 18 homers and steal you 20 bags. Do you want that?

Well, yeah. And I think Butler has more intriguing tools that matter to a major league team more than a Sturri Ruiz. So if the, who do you play against righties question comes up with those two guys. If he raises a corner guy and not a center fielder, he's competing more with Butler in the long run for time. I would give that opportunity. He's been playing center.

That's another thing I look at in spring is where they're playing. But the day has been playing center. Fangrass is on this. They move blood day to, uh, to center 61% of the time, Butler backing him up, Butler bragging Seth Brown up a Butler backing Brent Roker up, Butler backing Estor Ruis up. So he's everywhere on this depth chart and it's just not quite enough,

but once you pair it with the spring trade appearances, you start to think, okay, he's gonna at least gonna play every day that Riz sits, you know, and he might start taking away, uh, played appearances, uh, from Brown and Rooker because Brown and Rooker, or at least Brown, Brown has, um, soft skills for future. You don't bet on a guy like Brown. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be mean, you know, but like he's 31. That's that's the strikes out a lot, you know, never. He has his career.

OVP is 295. You know what I mean? It's like he's he's a guy you have for a while. And if someone else starts playing better than so be it. Yeah. Butler is very interesting, though. And he really last year took that step forward with the K rate while moving

up to double A and triple A. I think that sort of was a good lead up into what he's done this spring that's a continuation that we're seeing right now. I think that's what makes him so exciting and even if there were some warts in his first run against Big League pitching with the K rate jumping the walk rate falling he didn't have a ridiculously high chase rate. He made a decent amount of hard contact, 37% hard hit rates fine for a player that young in his debut. There was more good than bad in the underlying numbers for Butler too. So, really interesting guy that if he wasn't drafted might start popping up on early season waiver wire columns if the playing time is actually there the way we expect it to be given where they're at in the rebuild.

I mean, it totally makes sense that the thing you put together was a spring leaderboard of rotation K minus BB. I believe is what you told me this was. Yeah. It's not, I just wanted to point out that like, you know, the Marlins player development, pitching player development is not just about the park. You know, we've seen some real good advances from Weathers. Myers is coming back.

They turn out guys and they turn out guys who are good in other places too. So it's not, you know, Pablo Lopez wasn't just the park, you know, turns out. Um, and so this is, this is pretty eye popping. The Marlins have a 31.6% strikeout rate and a 5.7% walk rate from their starters this spring. And this isn't even the A squad. You know what I mean? Half their pitchers are hurt. So, uh, I wanted to point that out. I also want to point out that the Tigers are second with a 29.7% strikeout rate and an 8.7% walk rate. The Tigers, that includes Matt Manning who got sent down.

I have, I talked about this on the shares episode yesterday. I have too many shares of Matt Manning. That's a little sad, but for me they got sent out. He's still going to be worth a hundred innings this year. My drafting holds, my keeper leagues. I'm not that sad about him. I'm going to keep him around. But then you said the Mariners, not too surprising. year. My drafting holds my keeper leagues. I'm not that sad about him. I'm going to keep him around.

But then you said the Mariners, not too surprising, the Mets who have been really trying to turn their player development around. That's some Tyler Magill. But 27 percent strikeout rate, 6.5 percent walk rate from their starters this spring. Not too bad, not too shabby. All those guys ahead of the Dodgers. So I just wanted to point out that

there might be some remnants or some artifacts of player development that show in this because this is irrespective of the actual players. This is just a grouping of the teams and their starters, right? And so there's gonna be some rookies in here, there's gonna be some six and seven starters in here, but it is maybe a peak into the teams that are good at developing pitchers, right? I mean, this is what you want to do.

You want to have good K-minus BB. And so the Red Sox are on that list. They are on my bold predictions. We're true up right now. We'll talk a little bit more about those tomorrow though. Yeah, we will save that. Interesting to see Nick Pivetta 22 to four, K to BB, Garrett Whitlock 22 to 3

Cutter Crawford 18 to 2 Cooper Criswell maybe a really really deep league option 17 to 3 Tanner Hauck 16 to 3 yeah those are good performances kind of across the board with a group of pitchers that a lot of people are skeptical of as the season approaches so one thing that happens with a change in regime is not only people tend to think of like pitch shape and, and, um, and sort of, uh, player development in that, in that way. Um, but you can't forget about game day prep and strategy. For example, and this is from my bowl predictions column, but it's just a little bit, so I feel like I can show a little leg.

Brian Bayo has thrown one four seam this spring. He had a six Oh seven slugging allowed on the four seam last year. That's right. We talked about how ineffective that pitch was. So sometimes it's just a fresh set of eyes that say, Hey, that pitch gets bagged. Don't throw it. Let's try something else. So, uh, you know, and then there's some return to health, I think in Whitlock

and how a little bit. And so, you know, that's a rotation, but the, the, the tigers and the, um, the tigers who were second on that list and the Red Sox who were 10th, both made my bold predictions columns. Cause they both seem to be doing something right. And pitching player development. That's, um, been turning things around recently, you know, like I don't think the, the, the tigers at first, you know, it seemed like maybe they were a mess there, but, uh, I think Federer their pitching coach there has been really good.

And, uh, they, they seem to have a good process now. Yeah. And there were some rumblings that Federer was a good long-term fit even a couple of seasons ago, but now they've got more personnel. They have a few veterans, you know, having a guy like Jack Flaherty be putting some things together this spring. He's, he's their leader in strikeouts, 26 to four K to BB and 18, the third inning so far for Flaherty. If you weren't necessarily a believer in November, are you a believer now?

Yeah, how much do you move a guy like based on his pitching coach? Like you can get into trouble that way, dude, seriously. Well, you're moving him based more on Velo and different characteristics of pitches changing, right? Like it's not just the, well, Chris Federer is there. People just do this with Ray Searidge in Pittsburgh. Oh, Ray Searidge in Pittsburgh. Ray Searidge has. Yeah. OK. Like the pitching whisperer is not really a thing.

It's what are they doing and why does it work? Ask more questions like you use use that as a let's see. Is the game plan different? Is something is something better in terms of below something better in terms of movement? Does this guy have a new weapon that he's using against lefties or whatever the previous flaw was? Has it actually been corrected? It's not just Chris Fetter.

I trust Jack Flaherty. It's Jack Flaherty is doing these things. And now I'm interested in at least streaming him at home, right? Because the park does give you a really steady floor. I just moved him due to this conversation. I moved him above the injured players. Uh, cleared the injury glob. If yeah.

And, uh, he's now joined the converted reliever blob. Uh, so he's, uh, he's up to around 81 now. What's a bullet. And my, my rankings 2.0 idea of at a certain point on your rankings list, it's more just grouping like players together and saying, what do you need? Do you need to take a shot at a converted reliever? Do you take a chance at an old guy that has rebuilt his, do you have IELTS slots? I mean, that's something I hope that people know when they look at my,

and they look at my rankings, I put all the IELTS guys together in little groupings. And if you just want to move past motor pass that with your eyes, then do it. Because I can't, I have to try and rank for every team, you know, for every different setting. And so there are definitely places I have unlimited IALs. And I took Jacob deGrom, Justin Verlander, Gavin Williams, and Brian Wu all in one draft last night, cause I have a bunch of IAL slots and it's like, it's a keeper league. Those are good pitchers and I'll figure something else out in the short term.

I should have thought more about that in mixed labor, where we had an early draft and you have the IELTS spots like that. You could take a very injured pitching staff and then say, well, there's going to be a lot of time before the season starts and I'm going to spend a lot of my fab replacing these guys and I'm probably going to find some early season players. Guys like Luis Hill and all those guys, you can be on board for those guys because you'll have slots.

Other guys who have a healthy rotation will be like, well, who am I going to drop to pick up Luis Hill? Like I like my guys, you know? Yeah, that was. That's an interesting idea for early drafts with unlimited IAL. Think about loading up on injury actually. Yeah. More than you ordinarily would.

Maybe not building a whole rotation out of it, but at least just saying, Hey, I want to dedicate three. This is my squad. I'm going to take three injured pitchers. Yeah. I have nine injured pitchers. So I'm going to get everyone from the waiver wire. It's like, well, you're going to spend every fab dollar you have by the end of may.

If you do that. So that's probably gonna work. The de Grom. I hope for his sake, he can come back healthy and give us three, four, five really good years and just sort of erase the, what if you could wave a magic wand and make a player healthy. He's the number one answer. Yeah, he from modern pitching, I think he would be that guy. He's the number one answer. Yeah, he from modern pitching. I think he would be that guy.

Now we get to the real meat of the rundown. It's the 2024 all oatmeal team. This was a request that came in from either of cheeses on Twitter. When, when we get an idea from a person with a handle, that's that good, we have to run with it. That's the rule. All right. And the way we're going to go with it. That's the rule. All right. And the way we're going to go with this, I think, is I'm just going to try and guess them and I'm just going to run through them real quick.

And you just tell me if they made your team that you've put together. Right. We'll kind of mush them together for the actual final team. So we'll start behind the plate. I put one catcher on this team and the ground rules are pretty simple. So if you were kind of playing along as you listen or watch, nobody who has a top 180 P right now can be on the all oatmeal team for hitters. We're looking for a thousand or more career played appearances.

If you're like at 945 or something, that's fine. It doesn't actually disqualify you, but that's generally what we're thinking about players that have been in the league have had a couple of full seasons. And we're not looking at them and saying they could get a lot better just because of skills growth. If they get better, it's because of some sort of later career adjustment, maybe moving to a new park, having new hitting coaches, any of those things are totally fine, but we're not looking at, can Brian Hayes doesn't count as oatmeal just yet.

Even though he might qualify by plate appearances, you kind of have to take away the, he could get better. Sheen that a lot of young players have. Jonahime. Good choice. He was a finalist for me. Uh, I think we could probably debate this one. I put Mitch Garver on there and I think it's because the difference for me between the two is Mitch Garver is an absolute, like what you see is what you

get a lot of the value for this year comes from not having to really catch anymore. Big Dumper is the main catcher in Seattle. Garver is basically the backup. He's a regular DH. His plate appearances could go through the roof. The park could be a little bit of a challenge for him. I wonder with Jonah Heim, if he's actually got one more level. We saw a career best in homers last year. The lineup certainly helped too. The counting stats were great, but man, I think that's a good selection. I think no one's looking at Jonah Hyam and saying superstar. So. No one's yeah, it's like the thing that no one puts the sleeper tag on.

Yeah. No one's like, uh, Jonah Hyam's my sleeper this year. Yeah. So maybe we'll expand the roster at the end too. The rules are fluid for the all oatmeal team. Who'd you put at first base? First base. I'm going to go with Ryan Mountcastle.

Ooh, good choice. I like that as a is what he is kind of guy for sure. I put Nathaniel Lowe in this spot. Oh, that was, that's the that's right next to each other. Yeah. The reason for me is I think with Nathaniel Lowe, he's a little older than some of the alternatives I considered. I gave an honorable mention to Andrew Vaughn who has been around a little longer than you think. And

but we give up on Nathaniel Lowe like turning that pull power on and you know, and hitting 30 homers or whatever that's. Yeah. It seems like it's not going to happen. And even though Vaughn's over 1600 played appearances now over three big league seasons, I think he's a little bit more like the Cabrion Hayes for me where I want to give him one more year. He could still pull it.

Right on that borderline. We're just waiting for it. Also, it's going to be funny if anyone listening comes back in Discord and says, yes, I have eight players from the all oatmeal names on my rosters, which could work at the deeper the league, the more likely it is that a large combination of players like this end up being good players to have. Honorable mention to Justin Turner. There's a weird thing that happens with oatmeal though, when it's super old.

First of all, it's not tasty, but. Sticks to the bowl. Yeah, but they actually can become, not like slippery, but they can become like, not well-priced, you know? And, you know, with, I think with Lowe and Mountcastle, they're, you know, they decently go where they're supposed to go.

It's just sort of filler for your draft. Turner might actually go too low. Maybe, you know? Um, but I think he fits the, it fits the bill to a certain extent. Yeah. He, he could actually be a potential captain of a team like this because you're, you're looking at a player that's played more than you realize over the last three seasons is age 36 to 38 seasons.

Here are the plate appearances, six 532 and 626 he's hit 276 or better in all of those seasons had the one year where the playing time went down with injury where you only hit 13 homers but 23 and 27 homers in two of those seasons too I think Justin Turner is a much better player at this stage of his career than people give him credit for so definitely deserves a mention here because he is very undervalued. Who'd you put over at second base? Um, I was going to say could tell Marte, but he's a little bit too good, maybe. So I'm going to go with Jorge Polanco.

Yes. We are in complete agreement on Jorge Polanco. Why'd you put him there? Um, I just don't think that he's going to hit more homers or steal more bags necessarily. He's not going into a good park to say, oh, this is the year he put it out together. He's got some injury concerns that have kept

him from playing full seasons. So he's not, he's not somebody you're going to grab to help your homers. Not somebody to grab, you're going to help your batting average or your stolen bases. And that's kind of the oatmeal thing too, is like a guy who will advance your team and sort of, you know, not be terrible anywhere, not have a zero. Um, you know, I think this year he could almost put up the, the, the average

line for in a, in a 15 team or the average line you kind of want is I think, for in a, in a 15 team or the average line you kind of want is I think, uh, two 60 or, you know, two 55, uh, 23, 24, and like six to eight stolen bases. And that's like super average. And I think that's kind of what Polanco is going to do. Three consecutive seasons with a double digit barrel rate, that power that he's developed over the course of his career looks very real. Love Jorge Polanco where he has been going. Who'd you put it shortstop?

Because there was a name that I put on this team that made me think of you immediately, and it almost made me think that we would have an argument over if he qualifies as oatmeal or not. Oh, well that is interesting. Um, I think what's difficult about this position is, um, that if you're a young shortstop, I mean, and even sort of, and I, I'm being lowercase, why here as in like, not like 23 or something, like if you're just sort of 24 to 28 at shortstop, Like if you're just sort of 24 to 28 at shortstop, you're probably a star. You know what I mean? Like they're, you know, the top of the, I have the leaderboard set, so it's 24

plus and it's like Seeger, Bichette, Lindor, Bogard's Turner. Like I can't give any of those guys, you know, uh, the oatmeal tag. So I wander a little bit down the list, sort of a WRC plus, and I focus on, uh, two names. Dan's be Swanson is going to be my name. I just, uh, he doesn't inspire, uh, you know, think pieces. There's not a lot of sleeper lists with him on it. He might be too good for this. Um, and maybe a little bit too young but I think he's he's a guy that

I look at there's a couple other names I'm wondering if you're gonna say them but oh so I thought Xander Bogart's qualified as the absolute best player that we could put on the all oatmeal team at this stage he's really pushing that that's he's pushing that upper end of that quality and nobody else that I put on my entire team is really pushing it. And I felt like Bogarts was. So if you want to reject Bogarts, I'm okay with that. Cause there might still be more there.

I gave them the, uh, the honor of being the captain of the all oatmeal team. So sure. So he can be the best. I mean, my answer, I think too, um, is, uh, interesting. What is that on my sleeve? Anyway, uh, my answer, I think too, is interesting. What is that on my sleeve? Anyway, my answer, I think Dancy Swanson would be one of the better ones on this team. Yeah, Swanson carries a slightly higher ADP than most of these players as well. Willy Adames, I guess could also fit here.

That's the other name I was going to say. Yeah. So maybe, maybe it's actually Willy. Maybe that's the true selection. We'll have to hash that one out. One thing about Willy that's a little bit different from the rest of these guys, though, is, um, a, uh, uh, a, a, a problem batting average flaw. So he almost belongs in a bucket of players.

That's like flawed pieces that can fit the right puzzle. Right. You know what I mean? I'm not sure that's quite oatmeal. Eugenio Suarez may maybe like just passed the oatmeal barrier on the wrong side, kind of similar over at third base, and he didn't make the oatmeal team for me. Ryan McMahon actually inspired this question,

and I think Ryan McMahon is a perfect answer, because not only can you play him at third, you can move him over to second. I don't think he's going to get any better at this stage of his career. I don't think he has any threats to his playing time. I think his skills are pretty solid across the board. He's got the non zero speed, three straight seasons with 20 homers.

The batting average could go up a little bit if the K-Raid comes back down to pre 2023 levels. So I think what you see is what you get and what you get is not as bad as people make it out to be. I only have one retort. Oh, Jamer Candelario. Oh yeah. I don't know. Like he just, he seems to be pretty perfect to me. Just, yeah, he's okay.

He's like, if you, if you put forth like, uh, uh, rate my draft and you've literally had the all oatmeal team on your draft is you get no fire emoticons. That's true. That's really true. I think, uh, I left UT open. I thought about Jamer. So I think Jamer is going to slot in as a UT. I think we got to find room for both Jamer and Ryan McMahon.

It's nice to have a couple of multi eligible position players on an oatmeal team, especially. In the outfield, I have a player that might push that Xander Bogart's line. Um, I just think that Chas McCormick is being treated like oatmeal. And so therefore, um, he, you know, I do think he's on the upper end. I, he had a one 33 WRC plus last year, but his own manager didn't want to play him every day. So he didn't have those played appearance totals.

And so you're left wondering what his new manager will do and, and so on and so forth, but, um, he's better than oatmeal himself, but he seems somewhat to be treated like oatmeal I'm gonna throw Max Kepler on as like a very obvious oatmeal. I think he almost, uh, closer to the embodiment of oatmeal. I think he almost, uh, closer to the embodiment of oatmeal. I don't know if I have a third yet, so I'll let you, uh, let you reveal some while I look. Oatmeal hall of fame candidate, I think would be a Max Kepler. Max Kepler. Yeah. Oh, here was my last one.

He's so oatmeal that he might be a bad pick. And this is one of the few on our list that I'm not sure. Austin Hayes. Oh yeah. Because it's so boring and his own team has decided that Colton Couser is more exciting. Austin Hayes may lose time to Colton Couser this year. And yet he had a one 12 WRC plus last year and was an above

average major league player, but he is pretty boring and he's not going to advance you in any of the certain stats other than mainly player, but he is pretty boring and he's not gonna advance you in any of the certain stats other than maybe his batting averages is pretty good, but it's not, nothing's great, you know, and so Austin Hayes is on my oatmeal team. So my trio starts with probably the second best player I put on the roster, Ian Hap.

I think he's in the oatmeal phase of his career. I never feel bad about drafting him where he goes. I think he fits a lot of builds, pretty much a good player in every category. Taylor ward and Alex Verdugo. Taylor ward is inspired. Oh my God. Taylor ward. It's so perfect. Taylor ward and Max Kepler dude, oatmeal co-captains.

Yeah. Uh, I think they think they fit really well. So you put five on there, we've easily got enough room for everybody. But Hap Ward and Verdugo were my selections. And Verdugo, just like Jamer has the, hey, the park could actually make them play up a little bit and you're getting a nice floor anyway,

but same guy doing similar things he's done in the past might actually get a better result. I don't know, a 27, I just, in this new park, I'm just wondering, but you know, you're right. He's treated like it. 2600 plate appearances. Twice traded, right? Yeah. So I think that's more of the team, even teams are kind of more like, yeah, all right,

what you see is what you get. Rotation, I picked four starters, one reliever. I think we're going to have more overlap on this group. So who is the ace of the all oatmeal team in 2024? Chris Bassett. Yes, it's definitely Chris Bassett. I love the high two seamer so much. Like I think about that pitch all the time now,

ever since we did that breakdown. Oh, my 11th bold prediction, which didn't make the list, was Johnny Brito out earns the entire Washington National starting rotation. And part of it was Johnny Brito is a high sinker guy. Ooh. So, okay. It's just a random

interjection from the cut. Yes. Meryl Kelly was the number two starter I put on the all the ice. We are two for two and lockstep. All right. Uh, I'm sure I'll mess this up now. Um, uh, I don't like, do you have any hurt guys currently hurt guys on this? No currently hurt guys. And I'll give you a hint for number three. He's been previously brought up on this episode on this episode. Oh, yeah. Jordan Montgomery. Yeah. Yeah, because these three guys were lumped together in ADP earlier

in draft season, and it was like, yeah, they're all kind of the same. And if you get one great, don't take all of them, maybe on the same team unless it's a super deep league. But I can't really make an argument against any of them. Did you only do three? No, I got one more. He goes a little later, not not a lot later. And I think he's similar to the other guys.

Like he's also on a good team. But one of the traits of a. Marcus Stroman. The totally fine, like I 100 percent agree. I put his teammate, but Nestor Cortez on there. Oh, I almost said that, because he always went for for for. Or close. Yeah. Marcus Stroman. If you expand here and I'll expand it to five. There are no rules here.

Our team, we can do whatever we want with it. So, yeah. Oh, but do you have closers because that's that's hard. I do have one closer on there. And actually, you know what? Marcus Stroman, I think Marcus Stroman's oatmeal. I think Marcus Stroman has a lot of personality. And I think that can just push you right off. Oh, that hurts. Other guys here don't.

The other players on this team do have some personality, but maybe that was part of it. He has outsized personality. Yeah. Yeah. Um, like one closer. Close, I guess, Rice-Eleglacius. If you, if you allow a closer to be like anywhere in the pool, I would agree. I would say Rice-Eleglacius is the oatmeal closer because these. You think he gets drafted too high. Capital C closer. I'd like him the pool. I would agree. I would say Rice Oligalias is the oatmeal closer because these you think he gets drafted too high.

Capital C closer. I'd like him a little more than you do. I did find one out of the top 100 who I think is still better than people give him credit for. And because of untimely meltdowns, he is frequently getting the that guy like that pinch your nose. Clay Holmes? No. Kenley Jansen? your nose. Clay Holmes? No.

Kenley Jansen? Getting closer. Craig Kimbrel? Craig Kimbrel. I think Craig Kimbrel is your oatmeal closer because he's on a good team. That's so weird because he's like, he's like, could be headed to the Hall of Fame. Yeah. I mean, I think that this is just what happens to you as a reliever once you.

Not far off of the Hall of Fame trajectory. You get this old, but I mean, last year, 326 ERA, 104 whip, 94 Ks and 69 innings. Like that's good. And he goes late enough where when you see all the closer inflation that happens late in draft season, in part because of all the injuries we've had this year, it seems like Kimbrel doesn't get caught up in that as much as other more

interesting players do. So I think he's the closer on the all oatmeal team. I think you could still get 25 saves out of Craig Kimbrough at a very reasonable price. Yeah. Yeah. I just, you know, he doesn't have that good natural command. So like, I always wonder this in his worst years where he's lost it, um, you know, he's, he's lost the role due to command. Um, but he seems to have righted that ship to some extent. But it always feels a little bit. And then he,

and he used to be blowing 98s, 99s and a hundreds, and now he's more 96 to 97. So, um, always something to consider, but that makes him more and more of an oatmeal. You know, I mean, that's why I think it's so hard to be oatmeal in, um, in the closer role because it's where you put the young fireballing dude who just has a hundred mile an hour fastball. You know, it's like, it's not a good place for oatmeal. Maybe Tanner Scott, you know, is way too hard to be oatmeal.

Yeah, but the, the, the, the, the command is so bad. I don't know. Yeah. It's, it's really, I think it's hard to be oatmeal here. I think it's definitely very hard to be oatmeal and be a closer, but oatmeal is a good thing. I hope people understand. Evan Phillips? Evan Phillips, until that late surge, probably could have had a case.

Now he's, these last few drafts, he's jumped up. But he would fit, because he doesn't have the elite, elite K rate, even though he gets great ratios, gets the job done, doesn't seem to have as many threats to that role as you'd expect him to, especially given the quality of that Dodgers bullpen. Oatmeal, it's a term of endearment around here, just like clown is a term of endearment in my family. It really is, like it's a bit of an outlier. I wouldn't just call someone I don't know a clown, but I will call my siblings, clowns frequently. And oatmeal is a staple of our diet in the, in the Sarasota.

Yeah, that's delicious. It's good for us. We need to go on tomorrow's show. We're going to dig into Eno's main event team. Take a look at some of the main event trends, how rosters are built differently and kind of figure out if there's any takeaways for other leagues. Just, you know, the highest stakes big league that's out there. There's other leagues that are more expensive than playing.

Look at some bold predictions and make some bold predictions of our own based off of some of those trends, maybe. Yeah, just try to figure out like why do these teams get built differently? So we'll have some bold predictions on Thursday. We'll have some normal predictions on Friday with Trevor, one o'clock Eastern on YouTube for that live stream. So be sure to check that out. If you don't have a subscription to the athletic, get one at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. That is going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We're back with you on Thursday. Thanks for watching!