Rates & Barrels - Kershaw is Back! A New Stuff+ Leader, Jesús Luzardo 2.0 & Drop Decisions

Episode Date: April 14, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss Clayton Kershaw's gem in Minnesota, playing the long game with his health, changes made by Jesús Luzardo in Miami, a new Stuff+ Leader, making early drop decisions, and more.  Rundown Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Thursday, April 14th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris on this episode. Lots of pitching talk. We got some questions about what to do early in the season with underperforming players. When to make those decisions to move on. I think that's a very difficult question to answer, but an important one because if you're going to take a chance on someone who's playing well or playing more than you expected, someone has to come off the roster

and it's not always an easy this guy's on the IL so we can make a move. We're going to talk about Clayton Kershaw looking really good in his first start of the season. We'll look into what Miami might have changed with Jesus Lizardo, who pitched exceptionally well against the Angels earlier this week. There is obligatory Matt Brash talk on the rundown because people want to know what's going on with Matt Brash. And then we got a couple other questions. What about Nick Martinez that we'll try to get to today as well?

So lots to cover, Eno. Let's start with Clayton Kershaw and a brush with perfection. Dave Roberts did it again, pulling a starter in a perfect game. But I think he was right, especially in this case, given what Kershaw was dealing with

at the end of last season, right? I mean, we talked about him throughout draft season as someone that had significantly elevated injury risk. And if your goal as a team is to keep him healthy and to win as many games as possible and to possibly have him good to go in October, not pushing him for a perfect game in a game that you had a probably 99.8% win probability for at the time that he exited is actually the right call. point eight percent win probability for at the time that he exited is actually the right call yeah you know uh i think so and i think there was one thing that people are not talking about as

much as just you know the way kershaw seemed about it right like i think it's a little different if he's you know kicking gatorade coolers over you know what I mean like he was he I don't know maybe it was acting job but he was seemed super happy he was he was he gave everybody hugs and you know I think he was happy mostly because at some points in this offseason it seemed like maybe he was headed towards Tommy John surgery you know so I think he was happy to be like hey look I look good let's keep it that way. And he said afterwards, the goal is not some sort of personal accolade. The goal is the World Series.

So in that way, I'm still on track for my goals this year. So I'm paraphrasing there. And I think that Kershaw managers should be happy that he didn't get it because perfect game is not a category in almost any league. And if you play with complete games, I'm sorry, you need to stop doing that right now. I think there are some points leagues that reward perfect games, and I always think that's pretty heavily rewarded already.

Yeah, right. But, yeah, complete games are out the door. i think that you have to separate a little bit from what's going on in baseball with the third time through the order and pitchers not going as far this was about the fact that kershaw had thrown 11 innings in the spring and had was a major injury risk and you know he was on an 80 pitch count you know you got to 80 how much do you want to push him past this pitch count that he trained to get to you know in the past when people used to throw 150 innings they used to uh you know 150 pitches they used to train to throw 150 pitches nobody trains for that anymore they train for 100 and and then the relievers come in so uh i didn't have a problem with it in terms of what i mean means for kershaw

like sure you can go and try and trade for him if you want but you're going to trade at the top of his value and the whole reason that his value was lower to begin with has not changed he's still an injury risk uh it's but it's better that he didn't do that than like i remember i think cory kluber is actually last year was in a very similar situation where cory kluber was also entering the injury phase of his career. He's an older pitcher. He's very good. He got left in to throw the no-hitter. And what happened later that season?

He lost the second half of the season to a shoulder strain. I don't know if he would rather have the perfect game and the shoulder strain, or if he would rather have pitched in October that year. But I think I know for sure that Kershaw would rather pitch in October. And I think this is a different conversation if we're talking about a start in August, because by that point, Kershaw is going to probably be at his per-start max. He's probably not quite there yet.

He's, I think, where he wants to be in terms of what he can do in a start. Obviously, that was on full display on Wednesday as well. But the run-up to the season, we've seen plenty of starters leave early, much earlier than Kershaw did in this outing because of the way spring training was set up and teams want to play it safe and for good reason.

So just nice to see him pitching really well, 13 strikeouts against the Twins for Clayton Kershaw. And I think you're right. Everything in the profile is the same as it was two months ago. So buying high here doesn't make as much sense as buying high in some other instances where some things have actually maybe changed in a more substantial kind of way. more substantial kind of way. Let's talk about Jesus Lizardo for a moment. You know, he was lighting up the radar gun. Fastball Velo looked great. It was actually a very good pitching matchup earlier this week between Lizardo and Patrick Sandoval. And I think when we've talked about Lizardo in the past, the thing I've always been intrigued

by was it's a deep arsenal for a young lefty. And there's always been pretty good velo on the fastball. Now that he's up, I mean, he was at 97.6 with the four seamer in that first star. It's almost, almost two ticks over where he was last year. That changes things a bit,

but what else was different about what the Marlins had Lizardo doing in his first start of 2022? Yeah, there was a lot of stuff that was different, and I'm hoping it was different in a good way. I do know that Stuff Plus was a fan, gave him 112 when everything last year was below average stuff-wise, even at 95 miles an hour. And I think what's key is not only did he change the velocity on his pitches, but he changed the shape on his pitches. The sinker now has another two inches of horizontal movement that it didn't have before.

And the four-seamer, it's still not a good, a great four-seamer. Even by Stuff Plus, it was just sort of barely above average but uh at least it's going it's going harder and it and it has a you know it has a little bit of a different shape itself so uh and then the curveball um it uh it has more drop this year so i think that they're they're they're they're they're they're tweaking the dials. They're turning them. I think that I would like to... I don't know if apologize is the right word. I would just like to point to Lizardo as being a very difficult rank going into the season.

Because for a long time, I had seen the velocity and the potential, what I thought, for three pitches that would work. And Stuff Plus had just said the shapes aren't good on these pitches. And for a long time, I ranked him too high. You know, because look at what he did in Oakland. It was just not that impressive. And so, you know, this year coming into it, I was like, well, yet another year with the low stuff score. And I'm staring at him trying to decide where to rank him. And there was that little kind of voice in my head that was like, well, he's going to get a new voice. He's going to get a new team.

He's going to get a new pitching coach. Like maybe this could be the time that he finally turns that raw velo into something more usable. And I just didn't know how much credit to give the Marlins organization for player development and pitching coaching. They're a little bit of a black box for me. They used to be like a poor organization at that. But they have turned out some good pitchers, and I think they've done a good job with Lizardo. So the question for me is, do you think I should be somehow baking this into ranks?

Should I have some sort of peak stuff, expected stuff? I'm trying to say, like, you know, I could look at all the changes that have been done to pitchers in the past and be like, okay, one inch of ride is attainable. One, you know, one or two ticks of velo additional is attainable. I could look at their past and be like, oh, he's thrown 97 before. Maybe he could sit 97, you know? And I could look at maybe his best curveballs in the past i mean like oh he's done that curveball before so he can maybe do that um so i could come up with some sort of like peak stuff um and then maybe look at the peak stuff number

when a pitcher changes teams does that sound like a reasonable process i'm not sure i think it would make i think i would be like, I mean, I'd be all over like somebody like Andrew Haney, right? And he had a good first start too, but that's just two names, right? Well, and how many times would you end up chasing a player because of potential stuff and they don't make the adjustments. So they try to make the adjustments and they can't. Right. And that those are not, not everything that you think is going to work is going to work. Right.

As opposed to hitters too. Oh, like maybe if I move my hands, I'll, I'll do that. Maybe, maybe you won't make contact anymore. That can happen too.

Or even like Yandy Diaz, right? Like, oh, if only he could lift the ball. Well, like one season he did. Yeah. And then he went back to like one season he did. Yeah.

And then he went back to being Yanni Diaz. Yeah, I mean, it is difficult to continue having success even with the adjustment because the league can adjust back. Oh, okay, Jesus Lozardo is doing this now. We're going to change our approach against him. And then can he change his approach again? Or is his new approach better than what we can do against him now? I think generally, yes. I think it's the right idea. I think trying to get inside the minds of teams that are finding players that are undervalued or underperforming for one reason or another,

I think that has a lot of value. I think you're going to have to add a lot of context to when and why you would want to skew towards taking players that are more driven by potential value-wise than by actual results. could have made for him was that even with his flaws, he was very young for a big league starter. He was a strikeout per inning guy from basically the day that he showed up in the big leagues. And his issues were control in 2021, the walk rate being up, and homers. And we've seen guys fix those skills flaws before. That's a very elementary sort of breakdown of what he was doing wrong.

That's something important to think about. It's like, okay, this guy struck out a bunch of guys. That means something. You strike out 98 guys in 95 and the third innings in the big leagues. That's okay. Something's working. And sure, the 661 ERA and the 162 whip tell you that plenty of other things aren't. And then you look and, oh, the home runs and walks were a problem.

Did he always have that problem? Well, no of other things aren't. And then you look at all the home runs and walks were a problem. Did he always have that problem? Well, no, he actually didn't. He had good, good command and control coming through the minor leagues. Why was, what was the problem?

Was he nibbling? You can start digging in and figuring out, was it an actual stuff problem? Was it a location strategy problem? Was it both? And then, yeah, you could have flags on these players that say,

Hey, look, if the price is low, and it was. The price for Lizardo this draft season was the lowest it had been, I think, in the last three. The price on Andrew Heaney this draft season was the lowest it had been in the last three. I think you'd start to find players that are going late that you should take a chance on. And I think it's also going to steer you right into part of the conversation we're going to have today where how long do you wait to see if these adjustments work? If Jesus Lizardo got hit in his first start, he would have been on the drop line for people in 12 team leagues this weekend, potentially.

Instead, he looks more like a buy high sort of guy. And I just think that's one of the hardest things to figure out is, is this real in a good way or a bad way when we're looking at these micro samples for players? Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's why we have stuff less. That's why we look at Velo. That's why we look at Pitch Mix. We try to see, you know,

has this person actually changed their underlying talent? In the case of andrew haney it's actually not that clear his his stuff plus number went down um and and and for what it's worth if you look at what he did in that game uh it's not like he's never thrown any of those pitches before you know what i mean like it's not like he was like oh like there was there was a story and it was it's a great one by fabian ardaia about um about uh you know haney wanting to throw the sweeper um you know this sort of sideways breaking ball that has some seam shifted wake uh properties Maybe he always threw the sweeper if he threw the sweeper yesterday

because in terms of the primary breaking ball that he threw yesterday, it actually had more drop and less horizontal movement that he had in the past. But it was harder. So he did change something about his curveball but he didn't really change that much about his fastball um it became a little bit more of a sinker and that's it so do you believe that he's so much better now because he added two inches of drop to his curveball

three miles an hour velocity when the stuff says he's the same as he's been see this is where i i think there are so many midpoints between start all the time and i don't want this guy in my roster and And I think with Heaney, that's more of a slight improvement that I would say, okay, keep using him in matchups that are favorable spots at home, cold conditions on the road, favorable matches on the road.

Still be careful with him for now. Let's, let's see a little more Lizardo. I feel like was more extreme in terms of what we saw. I mean, the curve ball, I think he threw it 50% of the time in that start. He's never thrown curveballs that much. Changed the pitch mix, changed the pitch shape, changed the pitch view, though. That's a few more changes.

He brings the chicks to every box, yeah. So I could see reacting more to what Lizardo did by comparison, even though we're reacting in some way to both of these performances. Like he and he wouldn't necessarily be the guy that I'm, I'm going out and, and overpaying to get in a trade again, overpaying relative to what people were doing on draft day. Lizardo might be like,

if I'm on it, if I'm in a situation and you know, I built a few teams like this, some of them, I can't make trades, but there's a few teams I built where I really cheaped out on pitching. Well, somebody has some found money with Jesus Lizardo on their roster because he was a late pick. And that person is more likely to give you a pitcher in a trade for a bad, if you've got a lot of extra hitting than someone else

right now. So they might think they're selling high. It's possible. They might think they're just getting fair value, and that works too, but look for the team that has excess pitching, and I would say a lot of times the people with Lizardo are those teams right now because expectations were pretty low for him, relatively speaking, back during draft season.

Yeah, yeah. I agree on the Haney thing. I think there's an interesting sort of edge case that might sit between these guys is Merrill Kelly his stuff plus is up his velo is up

pitch mix largely the same shapes largely the same would you trust Merrill Kelly against the Dodgers? No but I would trust him more than I did prior to the start of spring. And I think in the case of Merrill Kelly, we saw some of these changes happening in the Cactus League as well.

So this isn't just one regular season start. This is a slightly larger body of work. We've talked a lot about Chase Field not being as hitter-friendly as it was four or five years ago ever since they put the humidor in. It's played closer to a neutral park. So I think those home matchups aren't as scary as they used to be. I would say with Merrill Kelly, most of his home starts, I would use him. Road against the Giants, road against the Padres, those are a fair game.

He's certainly not in my lineup at Coors. He's not that kind of pitcher. There's very few pitchers that not in my lineup at Coors. He's not that kind of pitcher. There's very few pitchers that are in my lineup at Coors. But I would say he's more like Heaney of the two. But I think I'm actually, I've moved more on Kelly than I have on Heaney, relatively speaking. I like Heaney a little bit as an endgame flyer. I previously had no interest in Merrill Kelly. And this spring and what he's doing early on this season has actually changed enough for me where he's in that

want to use him about two-thirds, three-quarters of the time for most of my lineups. I'm doing a piece that's going up tomorrow with the biggest Stuff Plus movers. And Merrill Kelly, I believe, is in the top ten. I can't tell the way this thing is sorted right now, but I think he's like fourth or fifth in terms of increase in stuff plus so um one thing that is a little bit frustrating to me uh just from an analysis standpoint is that if

you go look at something like jesus lizardo's savant page versus jesus lizardo's brooks page the change in movements is not the same well that's fun yeah i can't really tell why i mean i know that they call his breaking ball a different thing curve versus slider i think um but that shouldn't change it because it's not like either of them has him throwing like 50 50 curveballs and sliders the other one's just saying he throws one uh both of them just say he basically throws one breaking ball. So I don't know what that's about. Maybe I'll get further exploration. I'll ask some people some questions. Here's a question for you. Did Matt Brash break stuff plus with his debut? I know there was also a question about his

breaking balls and what I saw, and maybe this is what you saw as well, it looked like to lefties he was throwing a curveball that was a little slower with more horizontal movement and to righties he was throwing one with more vertical movement it was a harder breaking pitch and then the tv feed was calling it a knuckle curve and I think previously it was a slider so what the hell is Matt Brash throwing what What should we call it? It certainly looked like two distinct breaking balls to me, even if the little flag on the screen was calling it a knuckle curve every time he threw it.

He did have two different ones, according to StatCast. He had a slider and a knuckle curve. And the slider is interesting. The slider was uh listed uh somebody went on the radio in seattle and said that their internal stuff plus had matt brash's slider at 170 to 190 uh so here's uh something that can sort of point to uh possible regression coming in the future or or how close my model is to theirs because my stuff plus model had matt brash slider at 219 stuff plus which is definitely the largest number i've ever seen

uh it could be just an early season sample we do want more like uh 300 pitches uh for this model but um you know and i guess it's a little bit concerning that the stuff plus on the four-seam fastball was an 80, despite him throwing it so hard. But, you know, if he can locate it well, and the fact that he just has these two outstanding breaking balls makes me think that, and enough velo, I think that he can pitch past any sort of flaw like that. Plus, you know, it's one start so far. But, yeah, in terms of overall starting pitcher stuff plus, Matt Brash is now number one. Spencer Strider is on here because I'm going to i'm going to give the minimum 75 pitches uh you know or i could just do starters but either way spencer strider has the 144 matt brash is at

137 hunter green at 135 shohei otani at 131 and uh garrett cole at 125. Corbin Burns at 124. So this is a list that makes sense to me. Dylan Cease at 122. Shane McClanahan at 121. So those are... Oh, and Chris Mazza at 119. That does not make sense to me.

Also, Frankie... It's Frankie Montas. And he's at 119. And then after him come Carlos Rodon and Tanner Houck at 118. So still buying Tanner Houck. That has been your Stuff Plus leaderboard update. I love that you did that like a weather report. That's what we want.

that's what we want so luis patino goes on the 60 day il which is not good news for me because i've got him as my most rostered player so replacing him is not ideal the good news about most rostered players when you think about it means that they were cheap generally yeah uh for me they don't end me, the early player. Like the first round pick, you don't end up with the same player every time because you have a different slot. I ended up with a lot of Mookie bets, though. Well, maybe you drafted near the end of the first round.

I had a couple end of the first rounds, and I had a couple open go bid on whoever you want. Oh, right. Got a lot of Mookie bets, but you're right. Part of this is just where Patino goes. 60-day IL, so pretty good immediate clarity that it's going to be a while. They're taking the long road to recovery with him. In redraft situations that are mixed leagues especially, he's an easy drop.

AL only, maybe try to stash him away because innings are innings, and that's all great. You can get that back later. Maybe he has a good second half. I still believe in the talent, but one inning from Luis Patino this year before he went down. Painful. Cody emailed us with a question.

He's a lifelong Rays fan, and his question is, is there a way to predict which pitching staffs are more likely to have more injuries? Or is it me just being a homer in a series of bad luck? I'd love to know if I'm hyper-focused on the Rays' injury woes or if there's a story to tell about how the Rays handle their pitching. And I know this has come up on the show before, at least in the sense that we know the Rays don't shy away from trading for and acquiring pitchers that have scary injury histories. They're not the only team that does this. We talked about the Giants embracing that risk throughout this offseason. Clearly, that's built into their model. But I think with the Rays, I mean, Drew Rasmussen is a great example of this. He had two Tommy John surgeries back in college.

Usually two Tommy Johns is just the beginning of the end for a player's career. It's amazing that Rasmussen's done what he's done so far and all the best to him. Hopefully he continues to stay healthy. But how much of this is the way the Rays push their pitchers or something within their organizational structure? And how much of this is just the types of pitchers that they're willing to take chances on? They just don't shy away from drafting injured players or trading for injured players. Pete Fairbanks, the reason they got him

was because he was oft injured. Nick Anderson had some injury scares before they acquired him. Drew Rasmussen, I think even FireEisen had been hurt. All these guys that they acquire, part of the reason why they can't acquire them is the injury history. And I think for them, the sort of aha moment, the reason why it works as a strategy, is especially in light of this new rule that has changed how often you can option someone is the fact that major league teams pretty much have an unlimited IL.

You know, like you have, you know, especially when you can move a guy to the 60 in season, what happens is that it opens up a 40 man roster spot. So, you know, long-term injuries are that scary uh to an organization in terms of roster manipulation roster use um and i think the idea in tampa and this is i think this works if you think about the last few years the idea in tampa is let's just have a ton of these guys let's just have a ton of guys that are often injured. And if we have all these guys, then at least some of them are going to be healthy at any one point. And I think it's worked for them.

Right. And it goes back to the Grant Brisby, Mitch Hedberg, frozen banana joke in some ways where it's like, well, now you've got Patino and he's on the IL, but you've got some other injured wrist guys. If those guys can just stay healthy through the first half, Patino comes back in the second half and Patino can be used like a regular starter in the second half without any overwhelming concerns about his workload. Whereas I still think as much as I liked him this year, there were going to be some situations in which they might've had to be careful with his

overall season workload in order to keep him fresh for a possible playoff run. So I do think it's probably more about who they're bringing into the organization and less about something they're doing specifically. But I think this is also part of the broader baseball issue of pitchers sitting closer to their max, right? Especially with these relievers that are breaking down. Those like Fairbanks and Nick Anderson, those are hard-throwing relievers. Those guys are max effort sorts of guys. I don't know if that's unique to the Rays. I think that's more of something we see all over the place right now. Thanks a lot for that question, Cody. All right. Let's talk about slow starters. Multiple questions in the email box about that for this week. There are specific examples that we'll get to here as well.

But when do you start to worry about slow starters? Questions from Abe and Jerry. They're looking mostly at endgame players, dollar guys in an auction situation or the last few picks in a draft. Names that came up in the email. Kevin Smith, who's opening the season in a draft names that came up in the email kevin smith who's opening the season in a slump for the a's carlos hernandez who was a very late pitcher to target but also not someone that you necessarily have to hold in my opinion so what leads you to make a decision to actually move on from someone that you liked when you're talking about a week

or three series worth of games i mean if you did not spend that much on a guy then i think that you liked when you're talking about a week or three series worth of games i mean if you did not spend that much on a guy then i think that you shouldn't be married to that guy you know what i mean um i just uh i think that like for example uh carlos fernandez um you know that should have been a decent matchup for him. And the problem has always been command. And he did not show great command. Now, if you're in a 15 team league, and he actually paid money for him, and you you you, he wasn't a bench pick, then maybe give him another start. But if you're more in a 12 situation, and he was a late flyer i think you can move on especially with pitching with hitting you know sometimes it takes a little bit longer but i would have to say that somebody like kevin smith's 23 swinging strike rate and 50 oh swing seems to

me like he's really pressing and of course he's pressing to some you know he just got given a a job and so at some point he'll settle down but do you want to own him in between especially when his projections are and projections are a good way to kind of be like what's the sober look at this right like what's the not the faith casting the sober look at this is he's going to hit 210 with 14 homers and eight steals that's only worth hanging around for i think in uh al only situations but generally i like to look at we talked about this on last rates and barrels i like to look at things like oh swing uh reach rate i call it reach rate i guess nobody else does i should just call it a chase rate like everybody else chase rate chase rate you know chase rate chase

rate and uh oh that is which is oh swing on fan graphs and then uh hard hit rate somebody uh did something fun uh for us uh a listener let me see if I can find this real quick put together a little quick list that was hard, what was it? hard hit rate minus reach rate minus chase rate, you know, chase rate chase rate

and loose moose six on twitter did a quick and dirty pop and plate discipline metric, hard hit minus O-swing. Number one, Wilson Contreras. Number two, Christian Walker. Three, Matt Olson, Mitch Garver, Gavin Lux, Reese Hoskins, Seiya Suzuki, Kyle Tucker, Christian Yellich, and Tommy Pham. So not to say that everyone on this is amazing, but as he pointed he pointed out last year uh the full season results were was definitely a great list uh he said it was definitely a leaderboard you want to be on

and then uh the week one leaderboard last year included cedric mullins tyler naquin and ryan mcmahon so maybe a good way to spot an early breakout i think in this case um i the names that i gravitate towards on this list are christian walker who'd be maybe widely available in sort of 12 team leagues and maybe even on some 15 team league waiver wires um gavin lux as uh maybe someone to buy high on uh in a 12 team or might still be out there uh and then tommy fam is somebody to buy low on um he told me recently that uh he has changed the uh prescription on his uh uh contacts and he's got that eye condition um and he told me in the offseason he was hitting 117s max exit below so i think it's still in there

i think he's in a really great position to succeed i know it's a bad start after a bad year but i still believe in tommy fam that's when you get those opportunities to actually get a player that can make a difference though and it's not going to take that much to make it happen but i think the the al only in the nl only situations are tough because in those cases, guys like Hernandez and Smith, it doesn't seem like enough. They still have a role.

The bar for those leagues many times is does this player play two thirds of the time? If they're a position player or half the time. And as is this guy a starter? Is this guy a high leverage reliever? Is he one of those two things? That's usually enough to at least hold. I think in Hernandez's case,

if you don't have rules like AL labor, where you have to leave a man, if you got him in the active part of the draft, maybe reserve him, you know, just do that and throw someone else out there for a week and just see what the next turn or two looks like before making that decision to possibly make a move there.

There was also a request for me to say that Ohio State is terrible. So I will honor that as a proud Wisconsin graduate. But I feel like it's just jealousy and losing to them constantly in football. That's where it comes from for me, at least, as a Wisconsin graduate. We'll get to a few other questions here, though. And we'll talk about slow starts periodically throughout the next few episodes. Who we're worried about,

when we should actually make those decisions. We'll keep poking around, trying to offer up some help there. Got a question from Idley on YouTube. The question is, what's going on with Tyler McGill's slider? We saw the Velo was up in the first two starts. He's pitched really well so far.

But that pitch in particular was something that Idli was curious about now that we've got a little more info on McGill. Yeah, I mean, everyone's focused on the velocity. The velocity. Velocity. Chase rate and velocity. I've just gone past mispronouncing people flashcards past like mispronouncing people's names just to mispronouncing very common words advance to the velocity that was actually the

the weirdest thing about living in england was oh that couldn't have been good for you innovative it's like what are they saying what What does that word? Aluminium. Yeah, and I still say that for some strange reason. Everyone's focused on the velocity, and that makes sense because he was up nearly two ticks, and he was hitting some 97s and 98s, and that was amazing. But I think the slider thing is just as big a deal. He's added four inches of drop to that slider and he did so

while throwing it harder and that's something that people miss when sometimes when they're looking at added movement usually added movement costs you in velocity you know you think about it just in terms of physics it makes sense because makes sense because you're turning energy that could be going towards the plate into movement, right? And so usually it costs you velocity. And so that's something that people will say is like Jameson Tyon changed some of the shapes on his pitches, but kept the velocity, in fact, increased the velocity on some of his breaking pitches, you know. So that's a really cool dual thing to be able to do. So Tyler Maggio added drop and added Velo on the breaking pitch.

And another thing that is interesting is that his fastball still didn't rate very highly, but it rated better. And a lot of what is driving like his his increased stuff plus number which is up there i think it's a little bit higher than lizardo's i would have i think miguel a little bit higher than lizardo if you were asking for sort of a back-end ranking of these kind of emerging guys um but uh he's being driven still by his slider and change up like It's a slider and changeup are in the 120s, and the fastball is like 105, even though it's going 95 miles an hour.

That's the world we live in. But I think that's still great. It's still a good combo. To get that fastball above average, now he's got three above average pitches by Stuff Plus. He's always had good command, and now the slider is even better than it was last year. Great question.

I think that people are missing how much the slider has improved as maybe being the biggest driver of Nadeau's success. Yeah, that is a strange thing when you add Velo, but you also have more movement. Because I always think of harder sliders, especially just having that tight late break and not the dramatic drop that you want to see. Like what Gilbert did. Gilbert

had a bigger slider last year. Now he has a harder slider that moves less. Yeah, I think that's a really good question. So thank you for sharing that. And as always, throw questions under the video on YouTube. We try to sweep through there to add those to the rundown. I've got a question about Nick Martinez from Paul. He just wants to know your thoughts about Nick Martinez's first big league start against the Giants. A fastball looked like it was getting hit pretty hard early on, but the secondary stuff looked good. What did you see and what did the metrics say about Martinez? I was able to talk to him and it was a fascinating case because he actually did pitch design on himself.

He did a course in pitch design at driveline and did pitch design on himself. So that was, I think, fascinating. I think I might write about that with uh dennis lynn but um so it was a very high level conversation and so you know i was able to talk to him about that that change up and he said you know i had a bad change up in the past and i just basically engineered for more movement and so you he got the movement and so it really had a good eye test component to it. I think if you watch the start, you saw the Vulcan change, you're like, that's a big change-up. It's a real fun one.

But Stuff Plus, I don't know, it said 93 Stuff Plus. So I don't know if I'm kind of like that's one where the eye test and the Stuff Plus don't match up. So I'm kind of waiting a little bit because it was a 96 on the fastball and that's good enough for a starter. And, you know, I would say he's more of a matchup starter with a 96 stuff plus fastball and the 93 stuff change up. But it is a matchup starter that I may want to keep on my bench rather than drop, you know, because it was a good enough start. And the other thing that stuck out to me

was the cutter, which didn't rate that well. And cutters need horizontal movement. That's, if you're looking for something good in a cutter, you want to see horizontal movement. His cutter had vertical movement, but I asked him about that. And he said that it was a weird day for his cutter. So that's something that, you know, you know, stuff plus, you know, that's still, that's why you need three starts. It's like there are days where a pitch just moves a little different, you know. And so Nick Martinez said that his cutter usually has more of a horizontal aspect to it than he did that day. And so if that is true, then maybe he has he's one of those pitchers that has basically three average pitches by stuff plus, which I think is a pretty good pitcher. I mean, that's that's a pitcher that I want in a lot of matchups.

It's not a pitcher I'm throwing against the Dodgers again, not a pitcher I'm throwing in Coors. But it is a pitcher I would probably throw against the Giants, and I think he did okay. And what you saw over the course of the game, too, is he has some pitchability. If that's not captured by the model, per se. The fastball was getting hit early,

and so then he started using the cutter to steal strikes and the fastball and two-strike counts, and he kind of adjusted to what the batters were showing him. And I thought it was a pretty good start. So I'm holding, maybe acquiring in places where I can put him on the bench. I'm not paying anybody in trade assets to get him right now. He's probably in the Merrill Kelly range, just in terms of expected value

and how you're probably going to use him in most league situations. There is a question about daily decisions that we're going to save for our next episode, because we are going to run short on time. We had some tech issues mid-episode. But one more question I think we can squeeze in before we go is a cut line bidding question. And in the cut line leagues,

there are two free agent bidding windows for the entire season. One comes up already next week. The other one I believe is an early June. So the question is from Peter. He just wants to know how much should you spend early? Should be very aggressive for the likes of Steven Kwan and Hunter Green, Matt Brash, and some of the players that were undrafted that could help you immediately? Or do you try and balance things out a bit with the spending?

Because this is a really unique way that Fab is run in this particular format. I had a similar situation to Cutline where all the free agents went into the pool in AL Labor, and we talked about that on this podcast, and I decided to go aggressive and spent 66% of my budget on Anthony Rizzo. And I think this is the same deal. I think you want to be super aggressive because in terms of how much season is left when the second one comes around, there's just not that much season left. What you want to do in the second FAB run in a cut line league is add the cherry on top. You know what I mean? You want to have a championship squad that is ready to go and you add a closer.

Maybe you go hard on a closer. Maybe you go hard on some very specific need. Maybe you just cover needs, right? You want to make that championship squad this time. on some very specific need. Maybe you just cover needs, right? Like you don't, you want to make that championship squad this time. So I would say somewhere between 60 and 70% of your fab you should spend on this one. Right, and that might be all at your top bid.

It might not be just that on a few players. It's really like going all in on someone like Brash. I mean, I think of those players, just seeing where he pops in the model watching that first start i feel like he can do more to help us in the long run i think with kwan it's just an open question as to how much game power there is fun story rooting for the player like the player i think from a fantasy perspective there's still some things that we don't know if he'll do and i think you're to have to pay a really steep price to get him on

your roster right now. I don't, I, the one thing I want to say though, is that I think Kwan could be a really good, uh, cut line is, is it always best ball?

Yeah. Yeah. So if it's best ball, Stephen Kwan is going to like, just think about the week he just had, like he's going to have weeks like that. And you know, there's going to be some weeks would be really awesome to have like a 700 batting average on your squad

you know what i mean um so i think uh i think i might i might do the reverse of you where i would go harder on kwan or uh try to get both with like a 500 and a 300 like even you know if you have to get that aggressive uh because i also think that there are some people like there's probably if tyler maggio wasn't drafted right in some of those leagues yeah so there's some good down bid numbers that could make it okay to be like hey i'm gonna throw like a 530 on kwan and uh like a 230 Brash. And the reason that makes sense for me is that I also have a 210 on Tyler Medjiel and I have like a 200 on Jesus Lizardo, a 201 on Lizard, you know what I mean? So it's like, I'm, I've got some good down bid pitchers that could help me, but I really,

you know, like how many other impact bats are there that I could buy right now? Right. And I think if you only have, you know, 100 or 200 out of your thousand dollar budget for that second fab run, that's fine. You're going to spread that out over multiple players. You're going to have some guys that are playing a lot less than you want either because of injuries or performance. So if you got to replace four or five players later, you'll just make really long lists at that second. You'll have like the 30 through one, right? It's like you have 30 guys that, you know, I just need a middle infielder, just one that'll play.

Give me one. Yeah, I think it does kind of skew more towards like 80% of your budget going out now and the last 20% going out later. But if you want to try and split it and go a little higher to get multiple players, I don't think that's necessarily a bad strategy in a situation like that either.

Thanks a lot for that question, Peter. Fun format. I didn't sign up for any cutlines this year. I didn't do that's necessarily a bad strategy in a situation like that either. Thanks a lot for that question, Peter. Fun format. I didn't sign up for any cut lines this year. I didn't do any best ball. Yeah, missed opportunity for me. Maybe something we can do next year. I was so focused on getting ready for the main that I did all these drafting holds. I just, I don't know.

It was a weird draft season. I think hopefully we won't have another one like that for a long time. Because it got going so, we were like, do we draft now when we don't even know when the season starts? So many players with uncertain status. Oh, the free agents. Yeah. It was a tough one. Yeah.

So I think that I just didn't draft that much in February. And then March rolled around and all of the leagues that I usually do all were piled up on top of each other. So I didn't have a lot of extra time to squeeze in more drafts and cut line. Unfortunately did not make the cut for me, but it is a fun format if you're playing it for the first time that is going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. Before we go, just a reminder, you can get a subscription for $1 a month for the first six months at the athletic.com slash rates and barrels. You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derekathletic.com slash rates and barrels you can find eno on twitter at enoceris

you can find me at derek van riper and as always you can drop us an email rates and barrels at theathletic.com is the best way to reach us or you can leave a comment under this video on youtube just be sure to hit the like button and subscribe to this channel if you haven't done so already we are back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening.