Rates & Barrels - Kristian Campbell's Demotion & Weekend Waiver Preview

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

Eno and DVR discuss the Red Sox's decision to demote Kristian Campbell to Triple-A, a benches-clearing sequence between the Padres and Dodgers on Thursday hours after the Dodgers denied ICE access to the Dodger Stadium parking lot, and fan ejections during a doubleheader between the Pirates and Tigers, before looking ahead at a few players to consider as waiver-wire pickups this weekend.Rundown2:43 Kristian Campbell: Headed to Triple-A11:14 Padres-Dodgers Finds a New Level17:01 The Bigger Story: Dodgers Deny ICE Access to Stadium Parking Lots22:37 Multiple Ejections at Comerica During Pirates-Tigers Doubleheader25:35 Lars Nootbaar and Tough Shallow League Decisions31:45 Most Added & Dropped Hitters (6.20.25, CBS)40:21 Parker Meadows' Falling Projections46:17 Michael Harris II: Projections Holding Up Despite Disappointing First Half51:51 Jo Adell: Continues to Hold K% Improvement54:44 Most Added & Dropped Pitchers (6.20.25, CBS)1:03:29 Essential for Left-Handed Starters to Get Grounders in Houston?Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.socialFollow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.sociale-mail: [e-mail] our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFeSubscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrelsHosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno SarrisProducer: Brian SmithExecutive Producer: Derek VanRiper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Friday June 20th, Derek Van Riper, Inosaris here with you. On this episode we have a top prospect going down to the Miners, Christian Campbell headed to AAA. We'll talk about that decision from the Red Sox and what might be next for one of the game's most exciting young players after a difficult first foray into the big leagues.

Not the first player to have that, certainly won't be the last. The Dodgers-Padres rivalry has found another level of intensity. A lot of players getting hit by pitches this week, including one that injured Fernando Tatis Jr. on Thursday night. So we'll dig into what's happening there. And we've got our usual Friday segment digging into some weekend waiver wire preview. Looking ahead to some of the names we might be thinking

about adding and dropping from rosters with weekly deadlines. You know, how's it going for you on this Friday? It's good. Last night was fun at the Alunoo meetup with Niv Shah. We discussed hot dogs and baseball and beer at Bear Bottle. It was a good time. The game was interesting. The Giants won a close one where Devers was instrumental. And the fans are just super welcoming to him. It's huge ovations every time he comes to the plate. So it's kind of a fun time between that and all the John who lead chance. It's it's kind of a fun time at Giants games right now.

Yeah, it's good to have that hot dogs consumed by you or only hot dogs consumed by Niv. Actually, no hot dogs actually consumed just discussed. He has the crabs. He had the crab sandwich. It's a good choice. I've heard good things. I didn't get it when I was there. I had nachos at the public house.

Is it still called that? Yeah, it's not the public house anymore. It's 58 social and the beer menu is worse and the food menu is worse. That's brutal, man. I had nachos and I think it was a blind pig. You were working. I wasn't. Blind pig is still available. That's the one saving grace about 58 Social.

They still have blind pig on tap. That was a good day. The brewers were in town. It was right after I moved out to California. I had nachos. I had blind pig. I was sitting, I don't know, a few steps away from the Willie Mays statue,

just an all-around great experience. So if you haven't been to Oracle, everyone tells you it's great, I will confirm that. It's a great ballpark to go visit, highly, highly recommend it. Let's get to some baseball news you should know. Christian Campbell is headed to AAA. The question we usually ask when a prospect like this

gets demoted is, is this the best choice for long term development? I think the immediate defense I have of the Red Sox decision making process here is we're almost three months into the season. This was not a knee jerk reaction. This was not as quick as Jackson Holliday getting sent back to triple A by the Orioles last year.

So just based on a full on like legit sample size, I think you have a pretty solid defense of process there. What were we seeing from Campbell that you think may have led to the decision to send him down for a bit? Yeah, a little surprises. He wasn't as bad as Jackson Holliday. He has an 86 WRC plus, Christian Campbell does. So it's not that bad.

He has an 86 WRC plus, Christian Campbell does. So it's not that bad. But I do think that the big number that I circle and that I think you can see if you look at a rolling graph here is that he stopped hitting fly balls. And it was pretty precipitous. When I see something like that, I think he's either pitched a different way. Actually, that's what I think. He's being pitched the different way. Yeah, actually, that's what I think. He's being pitched a different way and he hasn't adjusted back to it. And if you look at the ground ball graph, it's the same thing in reverse.

So just hitting more and more ground balls as the season goes on. If you look at his stats over time, you can see that Christian Campbell has struggled with hitting ground balls and that he took big leaps forward in terms of what we thought of him as a prospect and we thought of him as a bat when he hit fewer ground balls. So I think this was just the thing they had circled. It was probably, remember in spring when they were like, Kristen Campbell wasn't hitting that well,

but they were like, he's ready. I bet you he's hitting fly balls. And then when he stopped doing that, they were like, uh-oh, we've got to figure something out here. So I guess it's the right move. I see a lot of people in the comments of my thing and on social media, like this is an indictment of the Red Sox hitting program.

Listen, I want to be fair. If DriveLine's hitting program that's installed there is not good, then let's be fair, if DriveLine's hitting program that's installed there is not good, then let's be fair about that. But this seems like a really early time to start ringing the bell on that one. Yeah, I would definitely not be going down that path right now. I would point to that same program, perhaps, as the reason why Campbell had such an explosive breakout last

season across three levels. Like we were just talking like like a month or two ago. We're just everyone's talking about how great their hitting program was. So yeah, that's that's a little too fair weather. Slow down the the curves on these things. It's it's like it can be breakneck. I know. I know like being a fan, it's a daily level thing. And so you're all the way in and So, you know Campbell sucks now, but like he didn't suck to you know, three weeks ago four weeks ago So I think that taking the longer view is part of that You know like I wrote a piece today about you know people that you should drop And Campbell actually was one of three players whose projected OPS has dropped 50 points since preseason.

So Michael Harris II, Christian Campbell, and Matt McClain were the three highest guys who have seen their projections drop 50 points between preseason oopsie projections and rest of season oopsie projections. And so, you know, there has been a change, but the projections are still pretty decent. And you know, one of the reactions was, well, you know, you guys should be looking at actual results more than projected results. Like everybody dropped all these guys already. That's surprising to me because I feel like people are

a little bit too early to drop bats in particular and The list that I had of droppers included Anthony Santander Matt McClain Trevor story Maybe I just play in two deeper leagues where I'm like those were all I thought they were all so rosterable guys So I thought there's worth discussing them as potential drops. So Campbell, I think, you know, is a drop in most leagues if he's not, and if it's not a keeper league. I think that there is an interesting case to discuss for 15 teamers where second base sucks.

Yes. And there's a question about Christian Campbell and second base kind of in this conversation. Defensively a question about Christian Campbell and second base kind of in this conversation. Defensively this year, Christian Campbell has a minus 14 defensive run saved so far at second base. It's a minus 8 outs above average. Those are about as bad of defensive numbers as you can put together in a half season's worth of innings at any position. So I'm kind of surprised that the defense is that bad, given how much he moved around last year,

kind of coming up to the Red Sox system. But the question we always ask is, yeah, like, do you have a position you play well? Can you play multiple positions well? Is that why you're moving around? Or are they looking for a spot that you play well? And maybe it was a little more of that. But also at the same time, in reading and hearing about Christian Campbell a year ago, I don't recall ever stumbling into anything that pointed to defense

that bad. You do see a 30 grade on his glove from the future 40. And there's a chance that I might have skipped right past that. I might have just been a little too eager to jump on the great offensive skills. And I still think is a very good long term profile. Like I get the sense more that Campbell's going to hit so much that where he fits defensively, where they find a place where he's comfortable and maybe he'll improve over time. We see plenty of guys come in as below average defenders. They find the right spot and they get back to

even just being passable somewhere, and that works. Even think about the guy they traded away, Endeavors. Endeavors played as much third base as he did, in part because of other guys on the roster. Sometimes you just have to play a spot that you're not that good at because that's how the pieces fit together. So unless the defense long term somehow is so bad that he can't play every day and I don't think that's going to be the case. It's something

to watch but not necessarily something to completely panic about in long term leagues. Yeah. And as to the second base sucking, when we were looking at it earlier, we were looking at, you know, earned values and we were talking about earned values in full dollar amounts, but I realized that the positional adjustment for second base has changed. And so if you actually look at unadjusted value, there are only six second basements that have above average or have earned money with their bats. Six. There are 16 short stops that have earned money with their bats, six. There are 16 short stops that have earned money with their bats without the positional value,

the positional adjustment. So, I mean, that's why I couldn't give Matt McLean the fully unqualified drop situation, because I was like, wow, second base is really tough. You know, and this guy's still got a shot at 2020. So I, I think you gotta, you gotta hold on to him, even though there are a lot of markers that are going the wrong direction from McLean. And it might be the same for Campbell in some decently 15, 18, you know,

obviously, and I'll only, I'll only you're going to hold on to him. But even in a 15 team, maybe you wait a week or two to see if this is like, oh, he's just taking, he's taking grounders at first, he's playing at first, and he's coming back up to play first base for them or something, you know? Yeah. And as you try to figure out what the Red Sox are going to do short term, David Hamilton has been playing second base. If Alex Bregman gets activated soon, Marcella Meyer probably moves over from third to play second,

and Hamilton kind of goes back into a bench roll We don't know what the corresponding move is going to be on Friday You'll probably know it by the time you hear this podcast It could be the activation of will your a brea you a lot of different ways the Red Sox might go But at least the time that they let us know that Campbell's going down We did not know who was coming on to the roster busy day around the league on Thursday. Padres Dodgers really seemed like it found another level of intensity.

It's been two series in the span of a week. I think when you take rivals and you put them in a home and home situation like that, you are very likely to get a situation like what we saw on Thursday night. Fernando Tatis Jr., as I mentioned earlier, gets hit by a pitch pretty clearly, I think unintentionally in the ninth inning. Rookie pitcher coming in just trying to get through a five-nothing game. Ran a fastball in.

Unfortunately, it hit him in the wrist. X-rays initially negative, but the way Tatis was talking about it, saying it doesn't feel great, does not give you a lot of hope that it's going to be a no-miss time situation. When you were saying the x-rays may have showed something problematic even though they came back negative. Yeah, there was a report that there were some gray areas there and that he needs additional imaging. That is not not good news.

And you know it turned into a whole dust-up where at some point it looked like Mike Schilt and Dave Roberts might actually come to blows. That was pretty intense once Robert Suarez hit Shohei Otani in the ninth inning. I don't know if there's clearly retaliation, although I will say in a 3-0 count to basically throw as hard as you can and not down the middle. I don't know. Suarez immediately eject they ejected. From the Padres standpoint,

Tatis has been hit 26 times in his career, which A, means he doesn't crowd the plate. 26 times in a career, that's like two months for Anthony Rizzo. And so, 26 times in his career, six of them by the Dodgers. And I thought, well, the divisional opponents, maybe how much more could that be?

Well, then you look and you're like, okay, the Dines Giants have hit him four times So it's a little bit more than you'd expect because the Giants have played him just as much as the Padres as the Dodgers and they've Only hit him four times But then I looked at who on the Giants has hit the has hit Tatis and this is the most unsurprising Factoid who do you think on the Giants hit Tatis the most three times out of the four times? A Giants pitcher has ever hit Tatis. I should know the answer to this. I kind of feel like it'd be... Madbum?

Yes! The timing might make it not a great answer, but it was Madbum. But it's like rookie Tatis, you know, being all flashy and veteran Madison Bumgarner. Bumgarner being Bumgarner, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So once you account for that, I would say the Dodgers have hit Tatis more than expected. And it may just be strategy. Maybe they're just, they pitch them inside and that's their strategy.

So when Shohei got hit by Robert Suarez, Suarez got ejected. Benches did not clear then because in part Shohei kind of waved at his dugout and was like, nah, don't, I'm fine. Kind of gave him like a, let's just calm down. He even went over to the Padres dugout later and was talking to them. So he was trying to make, he was trying to take the temperature out of it a little bit.

It seemed like it, right? And that earlier confrontation, I mean, like I get it. Like if you, we've talked about the Padres roster and how top heavy it is right now anyway, and you have the best player on your roster getting hit a lot is going to frustrate you. Every person that dug out manager, whoever it is, I'm not usually a guy that's like, yeah, Mike Schilt's right. But I think in this instance, yeah, Mike Schilt's right, but I think in this instance I understand Mike Schilt's frustration.

What I really have a hard time with is the Suarez hitting Otani situation. Right? Like, yeah, it's 3-0, so you're probably going to walk him anyway, so that's why you do it even in the ninth inning of a game that's not actually over. Of times to do it, you're like, well, if if we're gonna walk him anyway, sure. What I really don't like about it is if you drill someone with a fastball up upper back, you're getting close to the head. And you think about what happened on the other side of the country on Thursday when Hunter Biggie got hit by a line drive in

the raised dugout at 105. I realized 105 off the bat when you're in the dugout is slightly different than 100 when you're in the dugout is slightly different than 100 when you're in the box but just imagine someone's trying to hit you on purpose. They grip the ball a little tighter, it slips and it cuts a little differently and even though hitters as Jed has told us many times they know how to protect themselves at that level, anything can happen. You could miss, you could hit someone in the head accidentally, get someone in the face accidentally and cause a massive problem right? And that's where I start to get really frustrated by the Beanball Wars and the old school and I for an eye sort of approach these situations even though I get

it. I understand why Mike Schilt was then losing his mind given the frequency given that Tatis had been hit for the third time in the span of 10 days by the same team. Yeah, just a crazy time, though. These are definitely rivals right now. I know that Max Muncie was saying that the only rivals we got as giants. But in terms of intensity of games, I think that's just that was just kind of trolling. Yeah, was that trolling or was he trying? Was he just trying? I don't I can't come up with the the tone in which that's not trolling

Yeah No, these guys aren't our rivals. Well, we just play them like any other team Because they don't see it that way doesn't seem that way on when he watched the games I mean, no, it was a pretty good series You know the hitting of people aside. And around this Dodgers team, I mean, there's been a lot happening in the real world. And Thursday, US Customs and Immigration Enforcement, ICE, was denied entry into the Dodger Stadium parking lots. The game was played as scheduled.

Dodgers put out a message right away indicating as much, and then they were planning an announcement of their plans to assist the immigrant groups that have been affected by militarized raids in the city and that's been delayed. So you take the context of what's happening in Los Angeles right now. Kike Hernandez last Saturday had a post on Instagram supporting the immigrant communities affected by these raids. No other Dodger has come out and publicly said anything. People were giving Dave Roberts a lot of shade for saying he didn't know enough about it to speak intelligently about it.

A lot's been happening. Prior to Saturday's game, Neza, who performed the national anthem, sang a Spanish rendition of the anthem. I didn't even know where that version originated. It was actually commissioned by FDR in 1945. It's called El Pendon Estreado. So the Dodgers have tried, I think, as an organization to stay out of a situation that basically showed up on their doorstep on Thursday. And where it goes from here, I mean, we'll get the statement soon. I understand there's a planned protest

that was scheduled for this Saturday at Dodger Stadium and maybe catching some wind of that is what prompted the Dodgers to say, we have a statement coming and now we're just waiting to find out what that statement is. It might be obvious where I stand on the issue as a current immigrant with a

pending application for citizenship, but I think the one thing I can say is that this is going to be something that I think it's going to be really hard for people to stay out of. You know, when we talk about, you know, politics and sports being separate, I think that is a misnomer and it's practically impossible because there's people playing the sports. There's people, you know, people's politics. Just even the Dodgers themselves have a, you know, a political legacy that is stained by the fact that to build Dodger Stadium, they used imminent domain

to uproot an entire mexican american community that was there made promises to give them housing you know after they were uprooted never came through on those promises. Planned some housing in the area that was never built and then alone behold it's dodger stadium right on chavez ravine right on where. And behold, it's Dodger Stadium, right on Chavez Ravine, right on where people used to live, where Mexican Americans used to live. So it's really hard to stay out of this family and fellow journalists from San Diego telling me about just services that were rendered that are now completely gone because the people that were rendering those services are either too scared to show up to work because work is where the raids are happening or they have been deported themselves.

ICE now has close to 60,000 people in detention centers around the US and I feel like this is just one of those things that it's going to touch everybody. And so if you feel very strongly on perhaps the other side of the issue than I do then Maybe you're happy about it but you know, I think that it is one of those things where we're gonna increasingly see corporate America and Teams have to make some sort of stance on the issue. They're going to be cornered by just The reality of the ground the situation on the ground. Yeah, I think that's exactly what we're seeing play out right now based on what happened Thursday at Dodger Stadium.

But well said, it's just one of those issues that these teams are such huge parts of the community, right? Beyond the Dodgers, but we think about professional sports as large pillars in the communities in which they play and part of that responsibility is being there for the people that support you right and and it's got to be a two-way street and so far I feel like the Dodgers have really just come up with nothing prior to Thursday and I think that's disappointing in the face of what LAFC and Angel City have done so far

being clear in their position on this issue. Yeah, I mean, just think of the legacy of Latin players in baseball. Like, come on. Like, what? What? Like, you got to embrace that right now, dude. You got to embrace that right now dude, you gotta embrace that. If you try to play shenanigans right now, you put a whole thread of baseball history at risk.

It's hard to believe, to be honest, that we're just like, hmm, we don't know what's going on. Like, no, you need to know what's going on. If you really don't know, you need to know. And if you're pretending you don't know that's actually worse in this situation But I'm sure it's not the last time this is going to come up based on the climate. We're in right now Elsewhere in the game I noticed on Thursday. There was a doubleheader between the Tigers and the Pirates

There was video going around of Dennis Santana, Pirates Reliever, taking a swing at a fan. Yeah, what's the story? Like, what did the fan do? Like, I just saw the video of it. Yeah, I haven't found a reported clear description of what the fan did, but in Dennis Santana's words, the fan crossed the line. I mean, they're hanging over their head.

You can see them hanging over the bullpen like that. You're on top of a person like I'm trying to pitch and you're like, yeah, you're warming up in the bullpen and you're there. And I know like game in and game out. People are saying stuff to players all over the field, anywhere where they're nearby. And the bullpens in most ballparks, many ballparks now are set up where fans actually get some pretty close access for interactions.

So it's not like these guys never hear anything. They hear stuff every single day and for a player to like take a kind of leaping swing, the fan was up pretty high. They couldn't couldn't get to him. There's a security guy next to Dennis Santana as well. There was that incident and then later in that game, at least later that day, I think it was all because we were both part of the night game, there were fans near home plate that were ejected after saying some things to Tommy Fam.

And I couldn't find out what exactly was said there yet either in preparation for the show this morning. So it's just like, and the interactions between fans, gamblers, and players, it just it feels like they keep getting worse. And I understand like the stress of the world, I think, rises and rises and gets people to react in certain ways. And I think maybe frustration from other things kind of carries over. Obviously, alcohol can be involved in these situations, too. And that causes people to say just absolutely ludicrous things. But the temperature in these interactions, just I can't believe it's reached this level where the things people are comfortable saying has just hit this new

level that you never thought was possible. Yeah. Yeah. Literally had conversations like that recently about non-sports things. Yeah. Yes. This is a broad statement. I mean, so it's like really intense. Things people have been emboldened to say to other people in the last 10 plus years now, it blows your mind. I thought we handled this. I thought we were like, cool. Unfortunately, we apparently have not handled this

and we are still going through it. Onward and upward, hopefully. We'll move our focus over to the weekend waiver preview because man, the world is heavy to put it mildly. I wanna talk to you about Lars Knutbar because man, the world is heavy to put it mildly. I wanna talk to you about Lars Knutbar because you were talking about drops. I don't think he was featured in your column but I did notice that he is the most dropped healthy hitter

right now by percentage rostered on CBS down 83 to 69%. And you dug up the charts kind of looking at what was going wrong for Lars Newt Barr. He seems to me like such a good high floor player that giving up on him is a really, really hard thing to do. This graph is really surprising to me, and I don't understand it at all because the thing I wanted Lars Nudbar to do forever he is doing. He is literally pulling the most fly balls of his career and his Woba just went in the tank. Like what? And there's not really evidence that he doesn't have enough juice in the bat to like you don't want everybody to pull fly balls right? You don't want guys who have like a maxi V of 107 pulling a ton of fly balls, right?

You don't want like Luis Arias pulling fly balls. You want him to pull some, but you don't want him to make that his approach. But somebody with a 113 maxi V like Lars Muehbar has, you know, you're like, Hey man, if you could pull some fly balls, you get that barrel rate up to 12% again. Like you had once you get that ISO ISO to 200 and that could make everything look better. He's finally doing it and you're like why isn't it working? I would not drop him myself but and it is weird you see that 46% fly ball rate highest of his career like I'm not dropping him. I do think that high floor is going to work out but yeah is, I can see why a 10 and 12 team crowd might

be dropping him because even the projections at this point are for a guy who's probably a 250 28 guy in terms of homers and stolen bases. And that's pretty boring. This is going to come up again when we talk about Evan Carter Carter But you know, there are these kind of boring stat lines where you're like, oh, that's not really helping me in any one regard And so somebody who had him thinking oh, I'm gonna get 15 steals is like I'm not getting the steals I want I need to go buy steals or they're like, oh he's gonna break out and hit 25 homers And they're like he's not gonna do that this year I need to go get power I'm missing I could see how people be like I'm missing something out of this line that I had hoped on and so therefore I'm gonna move on but I also just think at the end of the year

2528 is going to be an above-water above average But it definitely above water fancy line, you know, like it's not going to be replacement. It's going to it's going to earn dollars in every league. I could just see why people might be like, I need something more in a certain category. I keep looking at the underlying numbers and I'm like, I can't drop them either. He's doing too many things I care about well. And then the playing time questions around injuries in the past have really been the thing that have held Newt Barr back from breakouts and full breakouts anyway in previous years.

He's had, I think, a total of what, seven days off all season, and three of them have come in the last 10 days. Now he's dropped down in the order. He was leading off most of the year. He was the primary leadoff guy in this Cardinals lineup. He's never had 600 plate appearances, so I guess fatigue could be a factor. Is that where you're getting at?

Maybe, or maybe there was a minor injury that caused them to sit Saturday and Sunday, and they're just trying to get him right, but now he's dropped to seventh in the order twice. He hit fifth on Thursday night. Just having a hard time figuring out what their internal plan is for Newt Barr. And if it's just, no, keep doing what you're doing,

then maybe the optimistic projections end up coming through. But as you said, if he's not to steal more bases. He's obviously doing something different. I mean, the fly ball rate is like, there's something very obviously different. I would have assumed that would have been a good thing

based on how hard he was hitting the ball most of his career. I'm like yeah hit the ball in the air more you should be that kind of player that should lead to better results instead career low slug. He's getting the ball out in front more than ever before his ideal attack angle is 58 percent the most pull attack direction he's had the highest attack angle he's. I guess his tilt is the lowest it's been, but he has surprisingly low tilt. But he's figured out somehow with surprisingly low tilt to get fly balls. So you there's still like a part of me is like, man, I can't it's catnip dude. It's like 74 mile an hour bat speed, you know, like with contact ability and play discipline and he's putting the ball in the air like what?

Mm hmm. I don't know, man. I'm still in. I do think that give me your share, I guess. Yeah, like you'll be the one picking him up in leagues where he's been dropped or you'll be the one still trying to trade for him if someone's got him on the bench. Like I get it. I can understand that for sprint speed. He's 49 percent on sprint speed. We know that that alone is not the driver behind stolen bases. But if you look back early in his career, he was 11 for 12 in 2023, somehow only 7 for 10 on the base pass last year. And he's 4 for 8. That part of his game is weaker than I would expect.

Even if he wasn't going to be a 25 plus steals guy, given how often he gets on base, being at least an average runner, being that he's been efficient in the past, I would have thought 15 to 20 bags were actually within reach for Newt Barr. But he's a full 10th of a second slower to first base now than he was when he first came in the league. So there's definitely some slowing happening.

Yeah, some trade-offs in there. But taking a look at that big board from CBS again, some movers in terms of being added some slowing happening. Yeah, some trade-offs in there. But taking a look at that big board from CBS, again, some movers in terms of being added to rosters. We talked about Brady House earlier in the week. He's up to about 35% rostered now. Jurik's in pro-far starting to get picked up in leagues because he will return from suspension on July 2. And as Brian Snicker has described it,

he will return to being the number two hitter in the Atlanta lineup upon return, which I guess just means steady playing time and as that lineup maybe rounds into form a little bit more could be good all around production from Profar. So he's one of those guys now, it's the 20th of June for a little over a week, like 10, about two weeks away from that date rolling around.

I think that's two weeks from this past Wednesday. You probably have to make the move now in leagues where pro-fars available if pickups require the use of fab because the longer you wait, the more expensive he's going to get. I'm not that interested though, honestly. I don't think he'll steal 10 bases

or even on a 10 base pace. I don't even know if he'll still, I think he'll still like three bases and hit like seven or eight homers and have like a two 40 average. That's what he was before last year. And I'm not even, I'm not even making any sort of comment about, you know, getting off the drugs or being on the drugs or whatever it is. I'm just saying just using his career as a base path and, you know, and looking at the fact that he's 32,

like I think the best thing to expect is a 240 average and seven homers and three still at stone bases. It's, it's pretty, pretty vanilla. I think he's a deep league pickup. He's been pretty inconsistent. And I think it'd be weird to drop Newt Barr to add Profar given Profar's longer track record of not doing the things that we want Newt Barr to do and think that Newt Barr is more likely to do given that he's still four or five years younger. Yeah I'm not

making that switch myself. Evan Carter pops in here again still 66% rostered. You know Cam Smith kind of in a similar range like there could be some shadow leagues or cam smith is Actually available. I guess I could see Dropping Lars new bar for Evan Carter. You're gonna get more speed and you're just hoping that the barrel rate Which is the standout number? You know for Evan Carter, I did agree at the meetup last night that Evan Carter is interesting in this way. Evan Carter might be the kind of guy that in keeper leagues is acceptable

to trade away, but is also somebody you would want to get if you were rebuilding. The reasons why he's you want to get him power, speed, plate discipline, good contact ability could be a guy, especially in OVP leagues, that has like a 350, 360 OVP, and the potential to be a 2020 guy. The reason you trade them away is that the bat speed is below average. You know, a lot of the numbers like the hard-hit maxi v bat speed numbers, they're all blue on Statcast. The only thing that's red is barrel and it just seems a little bit weird to have barrel rate be red when those other things are all blue. That's where I would be like I don't know and

the way he's kind of doing is by hitting 51% fly balls which will have an effect on his babbip and keep his batting average low. So he could be a guy who kind of hits soft fly balls. There is a risk in this profile. And that's why you trade him away is you say, I think he's a 240, 15, 15 guy. 240, 15, 15 guys, you know, when I start giving you the comps, you're going to be like, that is not super exciting. So last year, 240, 15, 15, Willie Castro, Jesus Sanchez, Sedan Rafaela. Yeah, but that's a floor or a median outcome, right?

But there's a chance Evan Carter's more. He can get better. He's young enough to get better. And again, pointing back to his health track record, with health, maybe we'll see more pop. We'll see an increase in strength as he gets further away from those injuries. Yeah, could he increase his bat speed? We don't, you know, we haven't seen a lot of evidence of like an early rise among young people. Like the bat speed thing looks mostly like a plateau that

then just goes down, but that doesn't account for health issues. And maybe even just like if you had a bat speed aging curve that include the minor leagues, I would think that there are some people that are adding bats to be in the minor leagues, right? They're just getting bigger. Like some of them are like 18, you know what I mean? Physical strength still increasing. I think I lean a little bit more towards I think he's going to be kind of like a 250, 15, 15 guy. That's like a Jonathan India actually, I think is a pretty good comp. So that's where I lean. But I still like him. That is still

a very good Major League player. That is still someone who will get a free agent contract, you know, that is still someone who will be in the league for a long time. But in terms of fantasy, I'm a little bit nervous that that ceiling actually isn't there. Camp Smith is also a part of this conversation for Shadow Leagues right now and I think the overall body of work for him in his rookie season is good. It's got a 118 WRC plus. There's absolutely no world in which you should be disappointed that a 22 year old rookie who cruised through the minor leagues is doing that in his first 61 big league games. And it seems like the arrow is pointing up. The thing that's probably keeping Cam Smith off of shallow league rosters is even within this most recent stretch, if you kind of go back just

from May 1st forward, K-Rate's down a little bit 25.5%. It's two Hummers and two steels around a 303 366 439 line so he's 31% better than league average by WRC plus but the roto goodness in terms of power and speed in particular isn't there yet but the reason why I think you would be excited about Cam Smith is that much like Evan Carter because he's young he could still get a lot better and I think the key difference is I think we see a little more evidence of Cam Smith having present power that he can tap into even though it hasn't shown up consistently just yet.

It comes in the form of 88 percentile bat speed, right? And a 78 percentile hard hit rate. It's just gonna come back to lifting the ball a little bit more consistently, squaring it up a little bit more often if he's going to have a bigger second half on the power front. Yeah, and one thing that he's doing is, you know, getting the ball out in front a little bit more as he goes.

His swing length has gone down. And unfortunately, his ideal attack angle has gone down. But you know, he is a guy with decent amount of swing tilt, and really good bat speed. So I think he's going to figure it out. I think in terms of like ceiling, you're talking about Evan Carter versus cam Smith, I'm going to take cam Smith ceiling actually. You know, I think 22 year old with that kind of bat speed, that kind of bat shape, he may not have the steel upside that Evan Carter does, you know, the OBP might be a little bit different, but I love I think there's real power in this bat. And I think that Cam Smith could be somebody you really target in Keeper

Leagues and try to put a package together for. Still in that group of difference makers that you might be able to trade for before that level of production gets to the point where anybody in a keeper or dynasty league is like, nope, this guy's a foundational piece, keeping them building around them because I think that's the type of ceiling that camsmith brings. Already gone like in a 20 team like in a devil's reject I don't think you have no chance of getting a camsmith. Too late in the league that deep but in you know 12 teamers where you keep five or keep six and maybe you feel really good about four.

They could be looking at 270 with five homers yeah you can have camsmith. I think if you if you're just short on keepers in a league like that it's okay to have three or four clear like obvious early rounders and then take a shot on someone like Smith who is your last keeper in the group and ends up being someone you're really happy you kept because the second half is good and the hype and the helium moving in the next season only carries him further and further up the board. I think on the hitter's side, you had Parker Meadows in your drop column on Friday.

He's at 34% rostered right now on CBS, and Parker Meadows is one of those guys that I think has become a little bit of a favorite on this show. We think his glove in center field is great, and because of that, he plays a lot, and having that playing time fortified by defense there's reason to believe that maybe in the best years from him 2020 in the big

leagues is at least possible but he came up because his OPS projection has dropped considerably since the start of the season. He has dropped I think 20 to 30 points in projection since the beginning of season and the reason that I made one table that was just pure who's dropped the most but like Juan Soto's on that table because he dropped 20 points from like a 950 OPS projection like a 930 like you know something that you don't care about really unless you do care I do still believe that that Wonsoto's not gonna hit 40 homers again. That might be a wild take to some as it has played out in social media,

but I don't think it's that wild actually. He only hit 40 homers once in his career year and has reverted to the form he had before when he was a mid-30s guy and is still in the elite bat and I'm not talking crap on Wonsoto. So anyway, the point is I did another table where I then said, Hey, who has dropped more than 10 points in projection? And also let me sort them by the worst OPS projections.

So he has not only gone down, but he also has one of the worst OPS projections. And people might remember that we had a kind of, I think it was a, was it a six 50 rule from Jeff Zimmerman that if you were projected for a six 50 OPS that you shouldn't really be picked up, you shouldn't be drafted because major league teams don't want to play players with six 50 OPS is they traditionally move on from those players. Well, the oopsie projection for Parker Meadows for the rest of season is 658. Obviously, that is made more complicated by his glove in center field.

But it does speak to the fact that they may eventually find a equally good defender that has a better bat, especially if he plays to the 650 OPS projection. especially if he plays to the 650 OPS projection. Yeah, it's kind of wild if you take the OPS leaderboard and then flip it upside down using only qualified hitters and kind of go through and say, okay, who are the guys that play a lot that have been woefully underperforming and have maybe even put themselves in danger

of losing a share of their playing time in some cases or all of it, depending on their contract and their defensive value and all the different factors that can kind of keep you in that mix. Among qualified players, Joey Ortiz has the lowest OPS. He was all over this piece. Yeah. It's so embarrassing for me.

Of 5'15 so far. It's wild that he's been this bad. I'm very surprised. He's losing time. It's not, he's not this bad. I'm very surprised. He's losing time. He's not an everyday guy all the time. I find that whole situation to be really frustrating because I think if you were completely healthy, there's like Bryce Terang at short is an option, but then it's like, well, who are you going to play at second?

Because you're still trying to figure it out with Durbin and some guys at third, right? It's just not, it's clearly an infield that is one very good big leaguer short of being a complete infield. I have a hard time coming to any other conclusion when I look at the way that roster's built right now. Yeah, but you know guys like Michael Conforto, you know, they're playing time is at risk. This is, that's a team that, that won't care about the 17 million, it won't care about some costs and will want to improve at that position. They have young guys that have played well, Pahez, Outman, they have options if they wanna move on. Luis Ranjifo, I think, has played himself out

of the discussion for, I don't think he's actually a threat to Christian Moore once they get healthier in that infield. I think he has played himself into a utility role with his 540 OPS so far. But Matt McLean was on my list. Michael Harris was on my list. In terms of fantasy, they do steal bases and will keep themselves afloat that way. But you never know. I think the Reds are a fascinating, we should have Trent on again because I think that there are some fascinating decisions coming to bear there.

Spencer Steer was pretty much a recommended drop for me. I was looking for evidence that the shoulder was getting better. I found none of it in the swing data, swing acceleration. All of it is poor and poorer than it was last year. The four stolen bases is not enough. McLean is stealing more bases. And I saw a little bit of daylight there. Steer, I think this will just be a

lost year. Now, in keeper leagues, maybe you just acquire him and hope that the shoulders healthier next year. But if it comes down to a roster spot between Spencer Steer and Cristian Encarnacion Strand, there was somebody in my

comments that said they were sure that it would be Steer that would win and Encarnacion Strand that would not. Are you sure? I'm not. I haven't moved off that belief that with Steer he's just hurt. There's nothing in season about that that's likely to get better because it's either gonna take a lot of rest or it's gonna take some kind of procedure for the shoulder injury to go away. And as you said, there's no recent evidence of that shoulder feeling better

in the metrics we can see. So why go to that level expecting things to turn out? And maybe it's the I.L. Maybe that's the solution is they have more options available. Harris, I think, is someone people ask us a lot about. He came up in our under discussed hitters a few days ago just because we really we really haven't talked a lot about how much he has struggled. It's interesting that both Harris and Brenton Doyle pop on the bad OPS among qualified hitters

leaderboard because if you run rest of season projections for the bat X and Luis Roberts actually in this conversation too. These three guys Robert Doyle and Harris are 19th 21, and 22nd in rest of season projections from the Bat X, if you run them through the calculator. For out-trippers? Yeah, they're all still by the numbers. I can't drop a Harris. And I bought him in a dynasty league.

I mean, I still think that that strikeout rate plus a, you know, in other years, a 10% bail rate. I think he's going to end up this year at 2020 and, or, or close to it, 1820, just like he's been doing. And I think that is a valuable player. It doesn't look the way I want it to. I, we've talked about chase rate, but you know, at this point, I don't think a 24 year old, I mean, we need to, we need to just fetishize chase rate for this guy.

I think he can go get the ball a little bit more, the pull rates down a little bit, the ground ball rates up a little bit. But I think these are little, little problems. I think he can click and I think he's a little bit streaky because his approach isn't great, but defense will keep him on the field through all of these streaks. And it's not the same as Parker Meadows because the projection is a hundred points different in OPS. He has a 765 OPS projection even if you do the error bars around that it's he's going to clear the 650 benchmark that we put up. And I think somebody reminded me

at a point when we talked about Harris in the outfield previews, I think it was, I just brought up the kind of odd nature of being really good upon arrival and getting a little bit worse each year in the league and how that's unfortunately the Dylan Carlson arc. Doesn't mean that Harris is Dylan Carlson. It just, I was using it as an example of a player where we've seen it, we saw it from before. We just thought, oh, Dylan Carlson, great.

He's everything we thought he was as a prospect. And not every player improves. I mean, that's the fallacy that. That's the fallacy is like I am very guilty of looking at players and saying, well, you're going to get better because you're young. So now you may have peaked already or you may have had an approach that the league figured out and the adjustments that you need to make back are just adjustments you don't have. I don't know if that absolutely is the case with Harris.

I do agree with you that because of his defense, I don't see enough of a threat to his playing time. I guess the thing you got to keep in mind though is that he's got options and if they feel like they've got enough outfield depth on the roster at any point, if they think a couple of weeks with Gwinnett is a way to help him get confidence back, that kind of demotion seems like it's at least in the range of outcomes now. But I would assume that after two to three weeks, as long as things kind of got back on track for him, they'd bring him back up and he'd go back to playing center field every day.

I have some interest in long-term leagues where I can trade for him. Not no longer asking him to improve, I'm just asking him to get back to 2023, or get back to somewhere between 2023 and 24. Can he hit me 260 with 16 homers and 15 stolen bases? Right, and I kind of felt like the difference between 23 and 24 for Michael Harris

was a little bit of health in there and then some bad luck on batted balls also being folded in. So yeah, the gap between those two seasons seems pretty reasonable where it's the kind of approach, because he chases so much, he's gonna be volatile week to week and even month to month, but he puts enough balls in play, hits the ball hard enough where good things

are gonna happen when he's playing well, and I think he can be above average in the batting average category, and then that makes him okay in OBP, even though he doesn't walk a lot, and if he's getting to that power, close to that 20 homer level, you come out of it with seasons that look like

year two and year three, And that's good enough. But compared to where he was being drafted, it means Michael Harris has been an overdraft. I think the market has been collectively overestimating what he brings to the table. And I think you want to factor some of that into the rest of season projections. Like, do I want to trade for him right now, expecting 275, 318, 447 and the equivalent of a 2225 player the rest of the way? I'm not buying in expecting that. I think you can expect more like 70 to 80% of the projections.

It's kind of wild how much the projections agree on the player Harris is supposed to be given that volatility. We went pretty quickly past Christian and Karanas, I guess the reason I have her optimism there is that the bat speed is back, the power looks pretty good and the contact is the best it's ever been. So really just take a pitch, dude. Just take one. I think that could unlock a lot for him because right now they 1.9% walk rate. That's the big thing I have circled for him. Adele is a guy who's out there on some wires and he's kind of graduating, you know, the deepest leagues and now becoming relevant in 12 and 10 teams leagues. And I think he's absolutely a guy that there's a certain case that for,

if you are in a league where your batting average is pretty much set and it's not great and you kind of AKA punt batting average to some extent, pick up a Dell. That is a really clear, easy way to think of a Dell. He's just going to hit two 20, but he's going to get to 30 homers this year. And he's probably going to do 220, 30, 10. And I just see growth in his stats. You look at his rolling stats and he's just hitting fly balls again. And I think that's been good for him in the past and rolling Wobba, but also he's actually cut the strikeout rate. The rolling strikeout rate is south of 30%. It was down to rolling 15% at one

point and it's back up a little bit, but a little bit of evidence that he's figuring out something at the plate when it comes to contact and putting the ball in the air and he's always had great power. Thinking about a low average big power bat that probably won't run very much if run at all. Michael Tolya is back up for the Rockies. So if you are chasing power right now, what is your interest level in Tolea? He's available in about 75% of CBS leagues right now. Well, I mean, I guess the problem when he was down was that when he was first up was that he just wasn't, you know, hitting the ball hard. The bat speed upon his

return is the same as it was before. There hasn't been much change there. He is getting the ball out in front a little bit more than he was in May. So he's being more aggressive. The fast, fast swing rate is up a little bit. So I think he's just realizing like, I'm gonna make my money on balls and play. And so I'm gonna come up here and be more aggressive.

And I think that's probably good for him. But if I was going to choose between Adele and Tolia, I actually choose Adele. It's the contact for Tolia is pretty legendarily bad. Yeah, I think if I'm looking at similar players that are rostered more highly, what would I be doing? I'm not cutting Reese Hoskins to get Michael Tolia. There's a lot more floor in a player like Hoskins, and I think Hoskins

might be a positive outcome for Tolea if he's able to whittle away at that K-rate. But I think the swing and miss he has shown kept me away during draft season. It's really limiting my interest, probably the leagues where I've punted batting average and need power. That's about the only circumstance in which I'm interested in Tolea, at least at this time. Let's move the focus over to some pitching before we go. Looking at the big board again finding some names that are moving up and down on rosters. A bunch of Red Sox pitchers are kind of popping as far as

guys that people are unsure of. Hunter Dobbins is one that I think people want to know a little more about. Like what is the appeal of Hunter Dobbins is one that I think people wanna know a little more about. What is the appeal of Hunter Dobbins? Should he be rostered in 12 team leagues? Is he more of a streamer for you? What's the overall outlook for him? It's like a poor fastball, decent curveball, like decent breaking ball guy with enough command

to kinda make it all work. But at 18% strikeout rate with Fenway, calling Fenway at home, he's a situational play for me. Yeah, it could be rough if that K rate holds. I wonder if that's the K rate he'll continue to hold. 10.1% swinging strike rate underneath that 18.4. If he can get that K rate into the 21, 22% range, I might become a little bit more interested.

But every time I've looked at Dobbins on teams where I need pitching, I've found a reason to go some other direction. Usually it's just streaming somebody with a more favorable matchup and I end up missing out. That's the way it's played out at least to this point. The hot name was at least before he got option was Emmett Sheehan. And I was making the joke that he must be one of the most auction guys.

Cause we got the notice that he was being demoted while we were at the meetup. And lo and behold, Nif Shaw was like, yeah, third most auctioned guy on Auditor right now. And that's one of those ones where you're auctioning him and you're like, oh crap, I guess I'm gonna get him for a dollar now. The reason to get Amache in anyway

is it looks like an 80 grade change up with at least a near league average four seamer. The reason not to is the breaking balls look bad. With the right hander in particular, I just think the bar is pretty high. Successful like comps for a right hander with a good change up and not great breaking balls include basically Chris Paddock as one of the most successful, I believe. Oh, that's one of the most successful. Yes.

Yeah. So I do have a bit out on Emmett Sheehan in a rebuilding squad in case the stuff numbers are just wrong on the slider the first time through, or if maybe he's going to be one of those unique guys. I mean, he has pretty outstanding strikeout rates. So maybe he just has that feel. I guess another name that I should put up there

that maybe the best comp, it's not quite the same, but Kevin Gossman, I think of splitters as changeups. I think they belong in the changeup class. So, Emmett Sheen could be Kevin Gossman, that's enough reason to kind of be interested. I think that would be a very positive outcome and will make people a little more excited than the Chris Paddock comp.

If you can remember Kevin Gossman's peak at all, that would make you pretty excited about that. So totally makes sense people be interested, especially in Adenur, you have those bigger rosters, you have that play for the future angle, you don't need immediate value from a player like that. Jacob Lopez, man, like what on earth is going on? So many swinging strikes.

Like this is, it's just, it's breaking, it's breaking the model a little bit. And is it a, in a Chris Bubichian sort of way? I had to pronounce that in a very gentle sort of way to make sure I get the syllables where I wanted them. I don't know, I mean with Bubec you can at least be like, oh that's a good foreseeing, that's a good change up and you know he's a lefty so you're not as concerned if he doesn't have a good breaking ball, right?

And what I see with Bubec is regression on the breaking ball but still a good core. I don't see that with Lopez. Nothing stands out in terms of, you know, it is a 90.7 mile an hour fastball. Not good. He does have a low slot, but it does not really have surprising movement

off of that slot in terms of dead zone movement. It's just a low slot. None of his, you know, stack cast movement numbers are really that incredible. There's not a lot of red. The red is when it comes to sideways movement, duh, because he's got the low slot. So there's not really, I can't make the case for him.

And in Sacramento, game time temperatures are now approaching the high 90s. So I do not think you want to have a marginal athletics picture on your hands. Chase Burns has a similar situation in terms of he's going into a park that is about to get hot. And I believe, you know, somebody was saying, well, 77 degrees yesterday in the paddock game that it wasn't really that hot.

It was 67% humidity. And one of the weirdest facts about baseball and science is that humidity is good for batted balls. I do not understand it, but it is true. It has something to do with water molecules being lighter than air molecules. But when you're sitting in 67% humidity, it doesn't feel like that's a good place to be for a batted ball, but it is. So I think Chase Burns is headed for some difficulty when balls are put in play off

of him, but I did look at his minor league stats and we've got a 128 stuff plus on the slider, 118 on the curve. The comp that I come up with just sort of eyeballing major league qualified starters is Sunny Gray perhaps because that stuff plus would line up with Sunny Gray's stuff plus. I would have to give you a bit of a younger Sunny Gray because even though it's a 95 stuff plus for Chase Burns on the fastball, I'm sure it's a crisper fastball than Sunny's throwing right now. I mean, I don't think Sunny's ever thrown

anywhere near as hard as Chase Burns does. Right, so a young Sunny Gray should be exciting to people and I think it is enough stuff to deal with that park. I'm interested in Chase Burns and I would get him ahead stuff to deal with that park. I'm interested in chase burns and I would get him ahead of his call up if that's possible in your leagues. Early career, sunny gray. I'm looking back at 2013 when he debuted, 2014 was his first full season in Oakland, averaged 94, three on his fastball at his peak.

So like sunny gray, but with four plus more ticks on his fastball at his peak. So like, Sunny Gray with four plus more ticks on the fastball. Yeah, it's weird that there's stuff plus on the fastball would be similar. 95 stuff pluses, so it's not great shape, and you have to think, what do you think 94 in 2014 actually translates to in 2025? Yeah, you got to be.

It might be 96. It might be a tick or two, Yeah, I think you could probably make a pretty good argument for that. We did see Lance McCullers go on the IL with a foot sprain, which I think leaves the door open for a pitcher we talked about earlier in the week, Brandon Walter. We've talked about Colton Gordon a lot. Walter has become increasingly my favorite of the three. Really? Like he's just quickly moving to the front of the line? Well, I used to like Gordon and I still do. And I think it's amazing they've gotten as much

as they've gotten out of Gusto, Gordon and Walter. Like these are not, nobody was like circling these names before the season. If you do her, I call you a liar. If you were, we need some receipts Yeah, exactly So but with Walter the shape is really intriguing It is a little bit risky like I remember Chris well like you know had an 89 mile an hour fastball and stuff

Plus still loved him, you know, so it is risky when you have the low fastball grades and stuff less likes you However, he's a lefty So, you know even that 90 poo is you know You want to give him a little bit of credit for being a lefty being weird hard to see we were just talking about how righty's Are having a hard time off of lefties this year? And so I think Walter is my favorite now of the three and at least by the model You've got two above average pitchers pitches for Walter compared to zero for Jacob Lopez. If you're just kind of looking at the available lefties in your league and Houston, obviously hot, sticky place to pitch to but you know, indoors climate control little different situation there. there. I do think as a lefty though, knowing that righties have the Crawford boxes, there's a slight Fenway-ish sort of fear that I have about an unproven lefty calling that ballpark home.

Eventually you get to the point you get comfortable with an Arsenal and Framberville does such an extreme grand ball machine that I think we could pretty quickly move past it with him and even Dallas Keitel. Think about the success Keitel had there several years ago. I guess it is a tough park for lefties usually. It is. If you don't have a good, I think, heavy sort of ground ball tilt. But good news, Brandon Walter gets a good amount

of outs on the ground, like 52.1% so far in the big leagues. He was at 60.5% at AAA. We've seen big ground ball reach him in the past. So I mean, I think that's probably a big part of why they think it can work for a guy like that. I like him. You know, I was watching the Justin Verlander game pretty intently.

You know, Cleveland was having trouble scoring runs. One of the things that, and they scored three off of him in four and two thirds. One of the things I've just noticed with Verlander is the stuff on the fastball is not that good and he still likes the fastball. So he'll still, he'll get into trouble with the fastball sometimes. And he's become in his age pretty much like a mediocre fastball, good secondaries guy. And he doesn't really have length. So I'm a little pessimistic about Berlander actually. Like if you can't start him, like you let's say you started him at home,

the last three starts, it's Arizona athletics and the Cleveland at home. You think, okay, that's three starts that I have to be able to start him in if I want to. They're all at home. So for that, you got 14 and two thirds innings with 12 strikeouts and seven walks and seven runs. Yeah I think we were I think when we looked at Verlander early in the year we thought maybe there was still some more ceiling there if he made a few

big adjustments. I do think it's a little more, more park dependent than we thought even back then. And it was already park dependent. So the first start off the IL though, now it's like park plus team. Like you can't, like, oh, you can't start them against Arizona. Well then the bad game was against athletics. That's when he just, that's when his peck issue propped up

and he had a 91 mile an hour fastball. So I guess the good news is Verlander had 93. 93 5 and so he's at least the guy that pitched against Arizona right I think if you take that slice of five starts before he got hurt when it looked like he was putting it together And this is definitely cherry picking in the game log, but bear with me It was 29 and a third innings over five starts so almost six innings per start only 23 K's Seven walks a little bit of a home run problem sub 3era that's more in line with my expectation for this version of verlander it's still usable

it's still better than some of the waiver wire names that are out there but that shallow league appeal has slipped considerably that's probably the main takeaway after talking to andrew baggerly on the show earlier this week though I do look at Lenden Rupp as somebody that might be Susceptible to a move into the bullpen to eventually accommodate Carson Wissenhund So we'll have to keep an eye on how things are going in the back of that Giants rotation here in the next days Watching Brian Bayles next start because I knew that new cutter I think that there's a possibility he breaks out from this

sort of 45% owned on CBS into the 70% owned if he backs that up with a second game where he uses the cutter a lot and he does well. You know when you have a pitcher like that at least there's like a reason to be like what am I looking for and you're looking for cutter usage and kind of folding back in the sweeper you know with a lot of the lower owned arms, like I don't know what to tell you what to look for with Chris Paddock. I think he's just a guy that can be useful sometimes. Price Elder, I don't know what you're looking for.

In the lower owned bin, Brandon Walter is obviously my favorite. I'd be looking at that. It's starting to get uglier at the bottom of these pitching waiver wire Situations there's more names where I'm like, nope. Nope. Nope. No, nope. No That's where the important guys like burns breaking through that's where it's gonna help right We need a few more guys from the miners to pop up I think blade Tidwell is the one that's going to get the opportunity for the Mets this time. So it's not going to be Nolan McLean, but I think we were a little

excited about Blade Tidwell's stuff back when we spoke to Lance Brasdowski. Geez, was that two months ago now already? Where's the time going? My goodness. Yeah, and Tidwell has, you know, I think, backed up most of his minor league stuff plus numbers with his major league ones. So there it's good for us with the model in terms of, you know, these things are porting over it looks like four or five above average pitches by stuff plus. So you know, I'd like to dwell as well, you know, I want one of those guys to get a big chance and to show them what to show them what the current state

of Mets pitching, coaching, and development is. I think it's a good audition for Tidwell. Do you see a path with all the injuries they've packed up, piled up recently that at Philly on Friday night, if Tidwell pitches well, you look at what they've got lined up for next week, starting the series against Atlantics, four games. They go Blackburn, Frankie Montas,

who struggled in his rehab assignment, then Holmes and Canning. David Peterson's been great. He's lined up first start for the series against Pittsburgh on the road at PNC next week. There are soft spots there. If Tidwell pitches well, he could stick, right? At least in the range of outcomes.

Montas, they were already talking about him possibly being a reliever, and if the strikeout rate wasn't there in the range of outcomes. Montas, they were already talking about him possibly being a reliever and if the strikeout rate wasn't there in the minor leagues. So if the strikeout rate is not there in the major leagues and Montas, you know, started his career as a reliever, I could just see this being the bell curve of his career. He's back, you know, back to relieving. If they've already talking about it in the media, I think that is a big sign.

The other one for me is actually Griffin Canning. I know that he's been pitching well, but the indicators aren't that he can continue to do this. What he's trying to do is basically, this came up on the craft, is he's throwing the fastball outside of the zone and the breaking pitches and the change-ups inside the zone. And so what that does is,

for hitters who have a fastball mentality, they are swinging missing on the fastball, not because it's of good quality, but because it's not in the zone. And so I have to think that there's an adjustment the league can make pretty quickly to him, which is sit slider, you know, and that's what you'll get in the zone and spit on the fastball. I think once they do that, some of these indicators will start lining up with projections that are pretty uniformly for a four oopsies, the most positive with a four 30, but that also might be a run environment thing.

The bat is not alone with a high force projection. So if he starts getting blasted like that, I think, you know, Griffin County, they can say thank you for your service so far. And, you know, we're going to start using you as a sort of a piggyback with with Tidwell. So I think that's a soft spot. And then Blackburn has been oft injured and does not have amazing stuff himself, although I think he's a little bit less risky than canning. No less risky than canning. Canning has had some of that correction kick in these last couple of starts two home spots We probably felt good about using him where you're rostering him against the Nats and the Rays a combined ten earned runs allowed over Nine and two-thirds at a nearly a full run to his e ra up to three eight

I guess I'll say equally risky people might look at blackburns stuff or and and you know current numbers and be like How could that be I would say equally risky? So you know 50-50 shot one of those guys loses their spot in the rotation I'd say it's more than 50-50 shot than Montaz Montaz does so there you go there's an avenue for Tidwell there's your name probably the lowest rostered pitcher that we talked about on today's show that could be available pretty much everywhere when things run this weekend but the results on Friday might matter you may get some news on Saturday that gets optioned down if it doesn't go well. We're going to go on our way out the door. A reminder, you can get a

subscription to The Athletic at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Find Eno on bluesky, enosaris.bsky.social, imdbr.bsky.social. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. Have a great weekend. We're back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening. They just like the way it sounds when I say Big Dumper.