Rates & Barrels - Lance Lynn re-ups with the White Sox, Brandon Marsh and Josiah Gray debut, and DVR celebrates a championship

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

Eno and DVR discuss the White Sox's extension with Lance Lynn, the debuts of Brandon Marsh and Josiah Gray, expectations for Touki Toussaint, Brandon Lowe's erratic splits against lefties, and finding a balance between rostering depth and trading a surplus in keeper leagues. Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels presented by Topps. Check out Topps Project 70, celebrating 70 years of Topps baseball cards. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris here with you. It's Wednesday, July 21st. As you can see in that single shot at the very beginning of the video, if you're watching on YouTube, moving is progressing. There are boxes everywhere. There's almost nothing left on my walls. The picture over my shoulder of the old baseball cards from the Burdick collection, that's the only thing left on the walls in the entire apartment. Just to add a pop of color to the videos that I'm doing. And I see you were drinking your cellar so you don't have to move a bunch of bottles. It's such a great technique. It's the last thing you really want to do is drink all of your

boosiest, heaviest beers while trying to pack and get your life together and trying to solve problems every day. Like, where am I going to sleep on this day when I'm in between these two cities? And where might I stop? I know it'll help. 15% stout. Yes, that'll clear my head for me. But you know what?

There was a celebration for me. I am a Milwaukee Bucks fan. I mentioned this in the last episode. I'm a bandwagon Bucks fan. Hardcore back in the day when I was in high school and college. Less so the last couple of years. But Giannis is a must-see TV. Was that the Eric Snow years?

Yes. Yeah. Back around then. Yeah. The Ray Allen, Glenn Robinson team that got knocked out by the Iverson Sixers. That team broke my heart. And then when they traded Ray Allen for Sam Cassell, that was the end for me.

That was when I couldn't bear to watch anymore. Glenn Robinson, that's right. I remember those years. It was an interesting game, pretty ugly up front. But that sort of played into the Bucs' hands, I think, because in terms of who you could turn to when the defense when the when the refs are allowing fouls and the defense is stout. Giannis is up there in sort of Shackian way that he can he can get you a bucket. You know, like he can he can just, you know, back his guy down and turn around.

And he was he had that like four foot hook going. his guy down and turn around and he was he had that like four foot hook going and once he if he has that going then you've got a beast and you just got to wait till the other guy's shots start falling and that's that's basically what happened i think yeah not a lot of answers for yannis in that series he was incredible obviously the finals mvp and even if you're not even like a basketball fan all season that was a fun series to. I was hearing that from a lot of people who don't even watch that much basketball. They were really enjoying what unfolded. So I was excited to get to watch the game

with my wife and my in-laws. They've been helping us pack. So we had a celebratory mug, coffee mug, literally coffee mug full of the Central Waters. Sorry, the glasses are packed. Glasses are packed. The maple bourbon stout, special beer, really good special occasion beer. But I was like, well, it'll taste pretty good out of a mug. You'll smell it really good.

And it actually worked out great. So points for being resourceful. On this episode, we will discuss the extension given to Lance Lynn by the White Sox. Brandon Marsh has been promoted by the Angels. We saw Josiah Gray debut for the Dodgers. and we've got a few more questions to get to from the mailbag as well. So let's get to it with Lance Lynn. Details of the extension, two years, $38 million with the White Sox club option for 2024. That would cover his age 35 and 36 seasons, age 37 in 2024 if they end up picking up that option. And I thought we should try a little Lance Lynn trivia because I have been destroyed by Lance Lynn trivia in the past. There was a game once upon a time called Lance Lynn or Jake Arrieta. And it happened on our podcast Step Right Up, which was a game show podcast we had

two years ago. So if anyone out there remembers that, drop a note in the comments or hit me with a tweet because that was like one of the very first podcasts we launched. And unfortunately, we didn't continue that one even though it was a lot of fun to make it. So Lance Lynn, you know, since 2019, minimum 200 innings for everybody in this group. The group includes 100 more or more than 100 qualified pitchers. Where does Lance Lynn rank in innings since the start of 2019? I'm going with first. He's fifth. So yeah, he's near the top of the leaderboard. 390 innings since the start of 2019? I'm going with first. He's fifth.

He's near the top of the leaderboard. 390 innings for Lance Lin. How about ERA? Can I do any of the innings ahead of him? You want to name the guys ahead of him? Sure. Is Hugh Darvish on there? I got to pull up that leaderboard.

Who else do you think is on there? Darvish is one you think is on there. Not hurt. Not hurt. Darvish is not. Darvish is 365 and a third, so about 25 less. No, Brios is close, 378. Why am I not thinking?

I think the not hurt thing is just a weird one. It's like, Gossman? No, I think. He just started getting hurt. This group is pretty much the guy. There's only one guy in this group that I think is a surprise. Of the four ahead of him, only one is a surprise. Not hurt. It says not hurt is not a thing that stands out in my head.

And then a lot of the guys where i'm like oh marco gonzalez but uh he's hurt this year um why is this not coming to me kyle gibson no no you're you're overthinking it i'm overthinking it yeah garrett cole's number one oh duh and the guy after him is just like the king of the rubber arm this guy is going to pitch forever if he wants to he probably doesn't want to but he could I don't know why Grinkey

oh yeah Grinkey god I'm so bad at trivia I'm really really bad at it alright so just tell me the rest it's Cole, Grinke. Duh. God. I'm so bad at trivia. I'm really, really bad at it. All right, so just tell me the rest. It's Cole, Grinke, Bauer, and Zach Wheeler are the four. See, I was going to say Bauer, but I just felt like maybe this recent thing had knocked him off. And then Wheeler is interesting because he's been hurt.

He just hasn't been hurt recently. Right. He's held it together in the last couple of seasons. So, yeah, just to see him on that list. But Lance Lynn, obviously very durable, provides plenty of innings. Where do you think he ranks in ERA during this same span? I'd go with like 10th. Yeah, very close.

13th. 316 ERA during that span. How about WIP? Smaller, right, I think. But I'm not looking at his this page so I'm going to go like fourth 25th smaller I thought you meant the other direction I thought you meant like a little worse he doesn't have a good whip

114 it's not bad it's hard to believe they're actually tied for 25th there's that many guys that have been better than that in whip with 200 innings over the last three seasons a K-BB percentage this one's your sweet spot That's tied for 25th. There's that many guys that have been better than that in a whip with 200 innings over the last three seasons. A K-BB percentage. This one's your sweet spot.

Well, I don't think it's actually elite because there are guys with higher strikeout rates. I like that you're sleuthing this out. Huh? You're sleuthing this out. I like that you're sleuthing this out. Huh? You're sleuthing this out. I like it. But I think better than Whip. So I'm going to go like 17th. Yeah, tied for 21st.

I think you're... That'd be a ding, ding, ding. I think that's pretty close. 20.3%. And then finally, strikeout total during this span. Oh, but that's like basically another innings question does he have more strikeouts than grinky yes so i'm gonna give him like third ninth in strikeouts nine there's some sick strikeout rates out there so oh because somebody like a glass now could pitch fewer

innings but have like 15k per nine yep exactly but it gives you an idea right i mean fifth in innings 13th in era ninth in strikeouts 25th and whip and even 21st and k minus b percentage lance lynn is a better pitcher than we thought he was when he went to texas a few years ago the question i have for you is how has he done it what has changed about him on the wrong side of 30 no less how has he made adjustments and reinvented himself to become a guy that would get a multi-year extension before his deal runs out at this stage of his career well it's really interesting i was just talking to alex fast from pitcher list about pitching development he's got a couple pieces coming out about that about team by team looks at pitching development and um development. And the Rangers may not have done a good job producing pitchers.

In terms of homegrown pitchers, we're looking back to Derek Holland and Alexio Gondo is the last time they kind of developed in-house starting pitching. And yet, at the same time, they've been pretty good at taking veterans. So I think their major league pitching coaching has been okay. Because they took some veterans, like Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn, and made them better. And at the All-Star game, Lance Lynn said that Texas just had him basically go for more strikeouts by throwing the foreseam more than the sinker.

And that the Cardinals had been all about the sinker. And it's, you know, I had a piece about the adjustments that made the All-Stars. And it's pretty remarkable. If you graph his sinker usage against his K percentage, they're inverted. So that was a very clear relationship. But then I asked him, like, how many fastballs do you have, dude? Because normally people think

there's only like sort of three fastballs, maybe four. And I think you have at least four. And he's like, yeah, you know, I've got a two seam, a true sinker, a four seam and a cut. And then he said, and the cranky does this too. Um, I have a nice and easy one. So he has some sort of batting practice fastball that he throws. Um, and so then I was like, well, doesn't that put a lot of

pressure on your command? Because if you're just throwing fastballs out there, uh, you're not changing the speeds that much. So it seems like it seems like you really have to place those pitches and he said something that uh was very interesting to me that i i haven't studied enough of and i've it's been interesting to me in the background he said yeah but if they know a fastball is coming they're in swing mode um and it's something that adam adovino once said like you know when i first came up everyone said oh you got to be aggressive against adam adovino because you don't want him to get to the counts where he can just put that slider on the outside corner or or past the outside corner so you got to be aggressive you got to swing up there you got to try and get a fastball and he said that adovino used that to his advantage um but then adovino said that one one year he had some trouble

with command early on and the the mode changed and the pitcher that batters came to the plate saying i'm gonna make him throw a strike i'm gonna wait for a strike and that was the really bad year that adovino had so you know swing rate matters and it's not something that we talk about a lot in pitching and you know when i looked at the i look at the major league leader boards this year for swing rate uh it's i think it's a kind of telling number one is cole irvin um on the on the athletics who who does not have great numbers, but he does have good command numbers and has a bunch of pitches. And next is Tyler Anderson of Pittsburgh, which is somewhat similar. On that list also is Urias and Minaya, Wheeler, Kershaw, Jordan Montgomery, Kyle Hendricks, and of course, Lance Lynn, Nola, and Scherzer are on there too.

I would describe all those guys as having great command. So sort of of the top 25, I would say more than half have upper level command. And so I think that's what command can do for you is get the batters in swing mode. And so therefore you can get them to reach more all these guys have above average reach rates and that means they're swinging at balls and turn them into strikes which is huge for a pitcher but it just also means that you're getting them you're getting

the hitter to be aggressive and you can turn that to your advantage because there are guys like Rodon and Giolito on here too who are not big command guys uh but I don't know throw their fastballs enough in the zone somehow have gotten batters into swing mode um so I just think that was a funny a little interesting side thing and Lynn and I had a fun back and forth about pitching and what it takes. He's basically saying if you got him in swing mode and your fastballs all move a little bit differently at the end, you could really take advantage of that. Did you get to talk to anybody else at length about pitching

while you were at the All-Star game? It's such a good opportunity to speak to so many players all at once if you catch the right people in the right spots. Yeah, it's funny because for the most part, I was asking him my one question and peacing out. And you kind of are at these like media tables where local media kind of with the sharp elbows, elbows you out of the way, especially the radio and TV. They have these like boom mics and you'll just be standing there sitting there waiting patiently. And all of a sudden there's like a boom mic that goes right by your face. And then an anchor who's standing next to them being like, hello, you know, is it okay if I just ask him questions? Uh, no, actually I've been sitting here for five minutes. Yeah.

Like, please get out of my face and let me ask this question. But the two that I had, I wouldn't say like super lengthy. Sometimes you can write a piece off of five minutes with a person. That's a sort of dirty little insider secret. But I had that sort of spark with was Lin, where I just got a couple moments with him alone. I think he appreciated the fastball question, and the swing mode thing was really interesting, and we kind of had a back and forth where he was kind of smiling, and it was something maybe different than he'd been asked about,

like Shohei Otani and how good the White Sox will be a million times. And then the other one was Brandon Woodruff, who I don't think I'd ever spoken to before. So I didn't know what to expect. And so when I asked him about his major adjustment, he talked about throwing weighted balls and how that helped him not necessarily change his max velocity, because he said at Mississippi State he was able to touch the same velocities that he touches now. But he said that it was better at changing his sitting velocity,

which I think is sort of a misunderstood thing about weighted balls. I don't think they're great. If you throw 93 now, especially as an adult, maybe as a younger person you can develop max V-low. But if you're sort of an adult and you max out at 94 at 94 weighted balls will help you sit 92 93 instead of 89 uh they necessarily they won't they won't necessarily change your max below uh not not for most people so uh he said he could sit he could sit now he can sit at 94 95 and 96 because of the weighted balls. But this is something, so I've heard that weighted balls change your arm path. And it's because in the back, if you've got the ball

and it's heavier, then your body is just going to organize differently because it's like, oh, this is heavier. Like I'm not going to do this big old, you know, roundhouse thing in the back, you know, big old swinging arm path because that's like a strain on my arm. I'm just going to pick this ball up and throw it because it's heavy. And so that that shorter arm path, I've heard people complain about it around the around baseball. Oh, that's the driveline arm path.

You know, the Giolito, the Indians, the police sack and all those guys. That's the driveline arm path. I don't know. I don't think it causes injury or anything. I don't think that every player needs to have the same arm path in the back. I don't know that it has the same benefits for everybody. But Woodruff said it had this interesting side benefit of um making his breaking ball better um and he had this thing where uh he he he said he was a uh a change-up pitcher

uh coming out of of mississippi state and that he was always better at sort of being behind, like sort of being like, like when you land, like being a little bit later, his arm coming through a little bit later. Because if you're breaking balls, you kind of want to release out in front. You kind of want to, like when you're releasing the ball, you kind of want to stand, you want to release out in front. But change-ups, you kind of, it's okay to be later on because you're kind of coming through like this um you're kind of pronating so uh he said that uh by cleaning up his arm path in the

back he was able to throw uh better sliders because he was then uh with the same delivery able to get out in front quicker with his arm because he was spending less time in the back with his arm um and so he said his slider got a lot better with break with the, with the weighted balls, which is not something that happens for everyone, but it happened for him with his unique mechanics. Interestingly, all of his pitches rate as above average by stuff plus,

but his slider now rates as his very best pitch. So we had this sort of, it's a weird word, giggling interaction where we kept passing it off to each other about rotational energy and about timing and about what you want,

where you want your hand to be at footfall and where you want to release breaking balls and change-ups. At the end of it, I was like, dude, I got to go talk to other people. I would rather just stay here with you for a while, but I got to go talk to other people. Woodruff is now high up on my favorite pitchers list. Nice.

Well, hey. Always was. Yeah, you had him pretty high before, so I'm curious to see how high he goes. Favorite pitchers list. Nice. Well, hey. Always was. Yeah, you had them pretty high before, so curious to see how high it goes. Favorite pitchers to talk to, I guess. Well, that's really cool. And I think the way to ball, I guess cleaning up mechanics just in general,

it does make a lot of sense because if you have to control all of your body to not hurt your arm, you're going to work on being more stable, being more balanced, maybe having a better core and all of those things are going to probably become more consistent over time and then you take the weight away and of course you still can repeat those mechanics more easily because it's like a muscle memory sort of thing you're training in a way that it gets you into that that sequence and

gets you out of some bad patterns so So a really interesting benefit there that, yeah, like maybe the, the main reason you do it is you think, Oh, I'm just going to throw harder. Well, why do you throw harder?

Well, it's because your mechanics are better and more consistent and the command is more consistent too. That might be the hidden benefit of the way to balls for some people. They might just think, I'm going to get, I'm going to get a couple of ticks. Look,

but yeah, I'm also going to get better command. That's a trade. Yeah, it's certainly possible. I, I, I have had someone push back on that.

A neuroscientist that worked with a major league team came up to me after a panel at Sabre Analytics and said that the neural pathways that you use to organize, to throw and command a larger object are different than the ones that you use to command a lighter or smaller object which makes sense if I asked you to

try and throw a boulder at a certain thing you would be using completely different muscles just to put it at the exaggerated level than if I asked you to throw a dart it's just completely different uh in terms of muscles but also apparently in terms of neural pathways so um

it sounds plausible but i would say that that's on the extremes and uh i'd be a little bit surprised if the neural pathways for throwing like a six ounce ball versus a four ounce ball really that different. They shouldn't be that different. They're like the same shape too. It's not like a dart versus a boulder either. It's like these are both balls. There are two people that live in my home. One of them studies the brain and I am not that person.

So perhaps I will consult. Ask her if she thinks it's plausible. This is Van Riper on this one, because this is absolutely her wheelhouse and certainly not mine. Let's get to a Brandon Marsh. He has been promoted by the angels and Marsh is a pretty interesting player because I think there's been developing power. I think it's one of those things that scouts have pointed to for a while,

that they expect him to get to more game power than he's probably shown us at just about every minor league stop so far. A true center fielder, like a guy that will stick in center field for a long time. He runs well. He's got a pretty good arm. So he's going to be defensively playing because he's going to play because of his defense for a long time. How good he is as a hitter. I remember seeing him out and left.

My God, is he shaggy. Really reminded me of Jason Wirth out there in terms of all that hair. Yeah, it's good to have a few more guys like that out there. Oh, he was in center field. Interesting. Three in a row in center. They got Taylor Ward out there. Did Taylor Ward grow a beard?

No, I think he must have just made a catch in left field when I was watching. Covering left field for Taylor Ward. So Marsh is interesting because I think there's at least a great playing time floor because of the defense. As a hitter, he's been good pretty much everywhere he's played. He's been at least an average hitter at every single stop. And he's flashed being an above average player. He's been at least an average hitter at every single stop and he's flashed being an above average player. He's stolen some bases. The projections point to a 240, 312,

384 player the rest of the season. That's according to the Bad X. That almost seems a little too low even though I think there are some concerns about Marsh's strikeout rate in the short term. I guess reaching back into 2017 to 2019,

he didn't really show exemplary power, and he hit a lot of ground balls. And even this year in AAA, he hit a fair amount of ground balls. So I guess there is some question about his attack angle and what sort of power he'll produce, which is why they... Actually, Bad X is the happiest and most optimistic about his power,

giving him 144 ISO. Everyone else is below that. But I don't know. We saw him play. What year is that? 2019? I think it was 2019. AFL?

I was pretty impressed with his athleticism, and he's a big guy, so I think it'd be weird for him to have league average power. He's also had some better results this year in terms of power, 213 ISO in AAA. And that was his first time with the sort of major league ball in AAA. So it could be that the ball helps him produce a little bit more offense at the major league level.

In any case, I think the power projections are uh low and it's possible that the strikeout projections are high because if you look at his swinging strike numbers they've never been high he's actually been very good at making contact i would assume looking at his walk rates that some of his strikeout rates have come from patience so if he's more aggressive on the major league level, you could see a smaller strikeout rate. And he certainly hasn't hit the ground with a ton of strikeouts. So if the power is low and the strikeouts are high,

I think we're looking at a guy who could be more likely to hit 250 or 260 with like a 330 on base percentage definitely a second percentage over 400 for me type of guy who in a full season could maybe do 2015 2010 in terms of 20 homers and 10 stolen bases at least I think that that's definitely in him, I just think maybe we get some bumps along the way in the second half from this particular profile. Waiting it out too long against big league pitchers will be even more costly than being perhaps too patient in the minors. But again, a nice player all around, a guy that certainly fits for them. No Joe Adele yet, and Adele has pushed his overall numbers at AAA to the point where he's got a 112 WRC+. The K rate is under 30%.

So that's an improvement from his first stop at the level back in 2019. Gives you a glimmer of hope that when he comes up that maybe he can keep his K rate kind of in the low 30% range. Adele has 19 horrors and 7 stolen bases. Call him up, man. But just in comparison, Adele has had swing strike rates almost twice as high as Brandon Marsh at every level. So I don't anticipate anything better than a 30% strikeout rate for Adele when he comes up. Yeah, and I think that,

I guess the other takeaway with Brandon Marsh for me, is that it just seems kind of like the scouting community, the people who can analyze minor leaguers with their eyes and kind of project on that, they seem to be generally pretty high on him and what he's going to be able to do as all the pieces come together. Whereas when you number scout him, you kind of like Frankenstein and everything together, and it looks pretty good. But I think the projection from a lot of scouts would be better than what you'd get if you were just projecting them purely off those numbers. Yeah, 6'4", man, I thought he really struck me as bigger than that.

But with the taller guys, that was the thing with Jason Wirth was a little bit of a late blooming because kind of getting his limbs in the right place at the right time to tap into that power, which he didn't have great power numbers in the minor leagues, and reduced his strikeout rate. But I don't know if I'm crazy on this Worth comparison. I don't even know if they... Worth was lefty, right? No, Worth was a righty. But I could could see yeah, I could see a similar career actually to Jason Worth but Jason Worth took a little bit to get going

didn't really have a full season until 2009 when he was already 30 so if he is Jason Worthy and he gets going earlier then that could be a really good career because Worth had 229 homers and 132 stolen bases

and was 20% better than the average with the stick over his career. So really underrated guy. Yeah, well, I think with Worth, people got a little wrapped up in the big contract and him maybe not performing at the end of that, but you could be a good player before, you could be a good player at the beginning and still be a good player overall, even if you don't meet elevated expectations. All right, you know, we had some more debuts. We have a career debut and a season debut to break down. Let's start with Josiah Gray. The

results overall weren't great in terms of the ratios, but Gray did, I think, show an ability to miss some bats. 7Ks in four innings, pitching behind an opener, scattered four runs on four hits, only walked one. I think the question for a lot of people out there, if they haven't already emailed in, is how good was the stuff and command from Josiah Gray in his first attempt to deal with big league hitters? Very good. Very good. Very good. There's always a chance for regression. Shane McClanahan and Alec Manoa have debuted with better stuff, amazing stuff, and then regressed off of that.

that um but uh with this i at least see a four-seam fastball that has a 101 stuff plus 106 if you compare it to other four-seam fastballs so i would say even that regresses that should at least be an average four-seam fastball and then a curveball and slider combination that were both comfortably above average uh even, the location plus on all three of those pitches was outstanding. And when I was watching him, I thought he did a really good job of living at the top of the zone with the foreseeing fastball and not sort of, if you watch Dylan Cease, you'll see living at the top of the zone with the foreseeing fastball. But that also means sometimes two feet above the top of the zone or whatever. It's very scattershot up there.

Gray was just dotting the upper edge of the K-zone box. So there was enough there. I don't get command plus numbers that quickly. They usually have to run through them a day or two after. But I would assume that Gray showed a great command plus because it was pretty impressive to watch his four-seam command at the top of his own. If you've got that and you start dropping the breaking balls in off of that, at the top of the zone. If you've got that and you start dropping the breaking balls in off of that, that can be really effective. So I would say that I'm all thumbs up. I guess the only question for me

is what happens in that Dodgers rotation around the deadline. You've got Buehler, Urias, and Kershaw are in for sure. Gonsolin and Price probably have to sort of prove that they should remain in. Yeah, I think with Gonsolin, he hasn't been as crisp as he was previously coming off the shoulder injury. So there are some questions about how effective he's going to be trying to get deep into starts.

I think he's gone five innings just one time this season. A lot of threes and fours in that game log right now. And David Price, they're just starting to increase his pitch count now. It's kind of like they need at least one of those guys plus Gray currently just to keep things afloat because of the Kershaw injury. Obviously, Bowers on administrative leave amidst sexual assault allegations. So who knows what's going on there? If I was one of the Dodgers right now, I would combine Gonsolin and Gray, I think, because or I guess just maybe just figure it out with the two of the three. guess just maybe just figure it out with the two of the three um have have it so that uh gonsolin's day shows up um uh like maybe like gonsolin pitches either the price day or the uh the gray day

which means it's awkward to do this but not be an opener be a a follower. And have Gray and Price start those days and then Gonsolin jumps in when the game is close but you just don't like what you see or Price just can't go past the third yet or Gray has loaded the bases but you're still winning, that sort of deal. Then you bring Gonsolin in. But I think Gonsolin is kind of a major win from command plus because

even when he was doing so well in those first two attempts of the league command plus that he had reliever like command and I think we're seeing that was definitely the case in the postseason last year and it's definitely the case right now so I think long term he may be a reliever which means either use him as that sort of mid-inning follower with lots of innings type guy, or put him in a trade for a starter. I think you would rather hold on to Gray and trade Gonsolin. And I think Gonsolin's probably going to be valued fairly well by other teams

who could kind of ride some bumps when it comes to making him a starter. I would agree with that and I think they could try and get a more established rental option for the rotation. And if it costs you somebody that you think is a reliever in the future anyway um then maybe it's it's worth it so i would say either way though um gray is i would consider him

kind of a six starter going forward in terms of innings so i don't know if i'd go super hard on acquiring him if um i'm not sure how many innings he's going to give me yeah we've seen this pattern from the dodgers before and i think he's that extra guy right now who could be shuttled back and forth between the rotation and bullpen for a lot of factors that are quite simply out of his control and has options so he can go down and remain a starter i think it will kind of remain a starter the question is will you do it in the big leagues or the little leagues it's not the little leagues the minor leagues yeah the little leagues that's probably yeah that's probably not going to be the

new name of the minor leagues in the long run there were a couple questions about tuki tucant and his season debut of course he's been up and down for parts of three seasons now with Atlanta, but he pitched really well against the Padres, at least in terms of the results, six and two-thirds, innings of one-run ball, five Ks, two walks, three hits, picked up the win on Tuesday. And I think the thing that was most surprising is that the last couple starts he'd made at AAA were also good six-inning starts as well. This is a guy who's struggled with control

really at every turn as a big leaguer. He's had some problems keeping the ball in the ballpark, but not the most extreme home run rate overall when you look at the total body of work, just particularly bad in the shortened season with seven homers in 24 and a third inning. So I'm just curious if you've got to look at some of the underlying numbers with tuki tucson yet

uh guess which of his pitches stuff plus likes the most i already looked it up so i'm not gonna i'm not gonna look like a genius for for knowing well i was surprised it is the split finger i wouldn't have guessed that prior to seeing 145 stuff plus on the split finger, which is something that he sort of has taken on later in his career. He always was more of a curveball, fastball guy looking for that second, third pitch type thing. And so that makes me more hopeful about his future

because between the split finger and the curveball, he's got two pitches that are at least 20% better than league average by stuff. And the other thing that makes me hopeful is his command plus last year was 96, which is a vast improvement over the sort of 83s and 84s and 85s he put up in previous seasons. So those are the good things. And now for the concerns. Now for the concerns. His sinker has a 76 stuff plus and his four seam has a 66 stuff plus.

They don't get a whole lot better when you just compare them to sinkers and four seams anyway. So if he kind of concentrated on the sinker which has 85 stuff plus compared to other sinkers maybe he could make it work but his location plus which is not quite command plus but it's like you know what locations do you throw them to are also below average on those fastballs so i think and i just don't think he has good enough command on the curveball and nobody other than Kevin Gossman has good enough command on the split finger to kind of

use that to gate, to get called strikes. So I think he ran into an aggressive Padres team, which is, we kind of go back to that swing rate idea. You get an aggressive team and then your command looks like good enough and you look great for that night. And then you run into a patient team that just makes you look awful. And. I. I'm not betting hardcore on Tuki. I love him as a person, though. He's such a nice person.

He's one of those guys who calls you sir in the interview and stuff. Just a really nice person, and I'm rooting for him. And if he does do it, he's going to outstuff his command problems. But there are some commanded fastball issues there. Yeah, it seems like he'd have to throw that splitter a lot more than he did on tuesday if he's going to exceed expectations so are we drawing the line at maybe 15 teamers with good matchups being kind of careful with those formats and mostly focusing on him and nl only leagues and maybe in some deep dynasty leagues as a possible stash for the future i I would like to see something here real quick.

I'm looking at team batting stance. Just to sort of check my math here on where the Padres are in terms of swing percentage. Well, they are last in the big leagues. Oh, God. How are you going to be careful with him, dude? How are you going to be careful with him? What's his next matchup?

Most likely. Yeah, that's kind of a key here. He should go. I don't have an off day on Thursday. I'll pull up the grid here. It looks like he goes Sunday at Philly. So we'll get to see him again before Fab runs in a lot of leagues. And then next week, home against the Brewers would be his matchup.

Because at Philly's, I would not want to start him. Yeah. And then you say home against the Brewers. You know, Atlanta is one of the most hitting friendly parts in the big leagues. So home against the Brewers. Brewers have not been scoring a lot. What are the Brewers in terms of play discipline? They are also very patient.

If he does fine against the Phillies in Philadelphia, I would increase my fab because then I think I might start him against Milwaukee at home. All right. So you got to see something good Sunday to be a little more aggressive, but otherwise playing a little safe with Tuki. And I think the, one of the questions that came in about Tuki,

there was more than one pointed to the scouting grades on his fan graphs page, right? 60 grade fastball, 65 grade curveball, 55 change up with a future 60-grade, and then a 50-55 cutter. I mean, that's four average or better pitches

if the scouting grades come up. Right, so he's lost one. What was the command grade? 40-45. Yeah, that's pretty bad. Mm-hmm. So I think that points more toward long-term reliever than successful starter i had a piece man i gotta find this but uh i'll try to find the piece while i'm talking about it but

there was a piece that was shared i think by ras ball um going back and um um, I'm going to try and find it, but, um, he was talking about, uh, it was a football thing. Um, but the idea was that, um, floor, like we should be drafting for ceiling. And, um, it was more nuanced than that but the idea was that at least once you pass a few rounds it's very obvious that um because the replacement level is higher in fantasy leagues almost every single fantasy league than in the baseball. You should be drafting for ceiling because if they don't hit the ceiling, then you're going to replace them with waiver wire. And maybe this is more true in football, but I think it's true in baseball too. And I think it kind of reminds me of that conversation we were having about pitching.

Like, how do you spot future aces? And I don't want to seem like we were being wishy-washy about that and saying it could be anything. But that's the point about drafting for ceiling, is that if they do anything at elite level, then it's like that max exit for the ELO thing, right? If they do anything as a pitcher at an elite level, that describes their possible opportunities, right?

So if cole irvin has the same command plus as ryu which he does you know then he could be hanshin ryu right now in terms of projected outcomes and what's most likely it's most likely that Cole Irvin is not Hunter Nerea, right? Correct. And we've anointed other players future Hunter Nereas in the past and it hasn't worked out and whatever. But the point is, if the acquisition cost is low, and that's what probably I think Cole Irvin won't even cost that much next

year because people will be like, I don't believe it. Or at least I don't believe it on that level. Then there becomes a point where he becomes worthwhile just in case he hits that. Now, of course, that math is a little bit different if it's an AL only, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But in any case, these two things kind of mesh for me where I'm like, you know what? If you're talking about spending a buck on Tukey and putting him on your bench, then I'm all for it because the possible outcomes for him are pretty good.

There is stuff here. There's stuff to like. There are elite pitches in his arsenal. On some, I don't think, if you're talking about spending $20 in FAB on Tukey, then I'm out because I think in sum, these flaws will get to him. Right. It's more likely that the flaws hold him back than the ceiling is reached

because of the things he does really well based on the balance of what happens. But there's enough that he does well. There are circumstances where it makes sense to take that chance. He is not absent upside, to use a word that I don't use very often. He actually has it. There's projectable growth in that profile that you can get excited about, especially in deeper leagues.

I don't think he's if you're a 10 team keeper dynasty league or a keep seven, keep eight, keep 10 sort of league. Long term appeal in two keys minimal right now. Right. But a deep dynasty. You talk about Devils rejects all the time, right? It's a 24-team league. It's huge. Yeah, I wish I had picked him up in that.

I would love to have him on my bench right now. I have Thomas Hatch on my bench. I mean, you know, one of these guys is going to – I just have a varied – I just also wanted to point out that I have a varied approach to picking up sleepers because Thomas Hatch and Tukey Chassain are not the same thing. But you don't want to do the same thing over and over again. Yeah, plenty of ways to get there, which is why we tried to outline a few different paths on that episode on Monday.

Let's get to a few of the questions that came in for today's episode. First email came from Adam. He writes, Brandon Lau is a fun player, 152 WRC plus against righties and a 36 WRC plus at the time of this email against lefties in 2021. Three to four war players that hit 200 are a special breed. Lau's splits, maybe you want to look at Jesse Winker's splits, 180 to 50, by the way. And these questions also apply you want to look at Jesse Winker's splits, 180 to 50, by the way. And these questions also apply to him to an extent. Number one, when do splits against righties and lefties stabilize? Lau is all over the place against lefties through his career. It is up and down year over year. Where should we expect him to end up? Are pitchers

doing something differently this year that's leading to the 40% strikeout rate against lefties? We'll start with this question first. We've seen this from Lyle before. I think it was two years ago, 2019, the K rate was just through the roof high against lefties, and he looked like he was only going to play against righties, and that was going to significantly cut into his playing time, especially on a raised team that is so good at mixing and matching and having platoons put together. Yeah. I mean, a lot of times you just basically want to follow what the team is doing, uh, because that'll tell you more, uh, than trying to, to kind of regress these platoon splits. But, um, you know, uh, here it is according to the book, book, we regressed lefties platoon skills against 1,000 played appearances against LHP of league average splits and 2,200 played appearances against righties at 2,200 played appearances against lefties.

plate appearances against lefties. That means when hitters have less than 1,000 or 2,200 plate appearances against lefties, we estimate their platoon skill to be closer to league average than their observed platoon of performance. So basically, for a lefty facing a lefty, you need 1,000 plate appearances,

and for a righty facing a lefty, you need 2,200. It's like they never really become relevant but that's the that's the conclusion we've come to in the past right it's like you just never you never that's the thing that derrick cardi says there is no such thing as a lefty crusher right yeah like james mccann and i think kike hernandez are some guys especially if you're in the dfs twitter space at all and you're loading up those lefty bashers you're not actually getting the advantage that you think you're getting based on the numbers but that something about that seems incomplete to

me here's what's incomplete about it they're progressing as league average righties do better against lefties in league average so there is such a thing as a lefty crusher. It's just all righties. You know what I mean? Like, until you have 2,200 plate appearances, it's hard to say that, like, this guy or this guy, like Kike, he kills lefties. I don't even think he has 2,200 plate appearances against lefties. No, and I think then you start to run into the same problem that we've talked about in in other types of matchups or splits is the players change over time you're not the same

player for the first half of that sample as you were for the second half like everything everything could be totally different let me see here uh what yeah yeah i mean yeah yeah like uh even adding up uh that's why it takes so much it was because you're adding up plate appearances over a player's career he has enrique hernandez has 1000 plate appearances against lefties and so what we're saying here is he's gotten observed uh 120 wrc plus against lefties and 84 against righties. That's a huge split. We're saying that even though we have a thousand plate appearances, you got to take another thousand plate appearances of league average

and put it on top of that to estimate his, to estimate his true split. So since he's doing, since he's about halfway through that, we can actually kind of uh do this math a little bit in our head let's see here um this is a piece i'm reading from matt clausen estimating hitter platoon skill on fan graphs um and so the average uh wobah split let's see here if we have a writing. The average Woba split is 6.1% of a difference. And his is 40. Is that right? Actually, it's supposed to be Woba.

So 349 versus 294. His is 100. versus 294 his is a hundred um so you would take 50 of a hundred in wobo difference or 50 of a 40 40 let's do the six percent because that's that still makes sense so you got a 40 36 observed you take 50 of that and you take 50 of six percent which is the league average and you hit them together that's 42 divided by 121 so you're expected uh you're expect you would expect the the split between his lefty and righty production to be 21 percent rather than nearly 40 percent that it is now is that i mean was that some easy enough math i'm i'm sorry sorry if I broke anybody's brain, but you would expect basically Enrique Hernandez to do well against lefties, but also to do about half as well

against lefties as he has going forward until you get that even more information going forward. There are lefty mashers. They are right-handed hitters. That's something that Derek Hardy says all the time. So it's a, it's a, there is some nuance to it. Like,

yes, right-handers do do better against lefties. And so if you are a DFS player and you do use righties against lefties more often, then that's a good, that's a good plan. It's just not, you know,

it's not that it re-carry Hernandez as probably probably has this immense skill beyond that. Right. And then the problem would be that in a tournament scenario, if everyone believes that Enrique Hernandez or a large portion of the field believes Enrique Hernandez has that skill, and therefore he is more heavily utilized, more heavily rostered, then you don't necessarily want to use him depending on what you're trying to do. If you're trying to get leverage in DFS, then that matters.

And we're talking about season-long daily moves leagues too. You're not getting as much of a lift from him as you probably think you are, but you're still getting enough of a lift where it makes sense to use him in spots like that. There's a related question. Can you quantify the value in everyday player like Ozzy Albies versus a player like Lau whose weekly output fluctuates with the handedness of opposing starters? Do the numbers say to start Lau against six righties or Ozzy Albies against six random pitchers in a given week? How often does a team generally face six righties in a week per season and where would I be able to find that out? six righties in a week per season and where would i be able to find that out working backwards i don't know if anyone's tracking schedules week over week split by

handedness like that kind of seems like a thing someone maybe could do is someone doing it who's doing it a ras ball they're doing it that's awesome yeah they have a pretty cool tool that I've been using this year called the Streaminator. And it's usually used, I think, by people to look at pitchers because they'll project a pitcher's performance based on their schedule in the upcoming week. And that's a really good way to sort of look at, oh, this sort of icky two-start pitcher or this better one-start pitcher, which is exactly the same question, right? And they also have a hitter version where they kind of look, it goes through the schedule and it looks at handedness and it looks at how many games they have and what you would project. And what's useful about this,

and I'm only sort of speaking in tones like this about it because it's a pay thing. You got to pay for it. But the thing that's cool about it is that's the way to do it. It's just the way to do it. Because all the stuff I'm talking about is going to be hard for you to do in your head. Because let's talk about Brandon Lau, right? Okay, so Brandon Lau has an observed 40% WRC plus split between righties and lefties, right?

Well, you'd have to regress that, you know, because he only has 270 career plate appearances against lefties. against lefties. And so you'd have to do a bunch of math there to get him to that kind of that 1,000 plate appearance level. So you have to do, okay, one times this split versus the stuff I just did, right? And you'd have to do that for all the players on your roster where you're like, okay, all right. So Lau is probably six times a 115 WRC plus and then once he gets that one lefty

so he's really probably like a 108 wrc plus and we got this other guy so uh it's just a lot better if you like set up a system that does all that for you weekly projections are your friends yeah yeah so it's uh it's definitely uh a tool that i can get behind that i've been using and has been really useful for nfbc this year uh you know if i if i disagree at least it helps group it's almost like you know when you look at wins of our replacement okay you can tell me that you don't believe this guy's wins of our replacement that's fine at least it's probably somewhere close like let's say you just don't believe this guy's W wins a replacement. That's fine. At least it's probably somewhere close. Like let's say you just don't believe this guy's a three win player and he's more of a two

win player and he's at like 2.8. Okay. All right. So you, you group them with the two win guys, right? When you're looking, when someone projects it and it says, okay, this picture is in the top 50 and this picture is at one 50, then I can stop my brain from being like but i really like the 150 guy you know but if the the the weekly streamer says oh these guys are both top 75 guys then i can say all right now i'm going to use my gut or my personal stats or whatever i'm looking at uh to then uh parse it further and be like okay i'm gonna put this guy over that guy because even though the streaming error says 175 and 171, at least it grouped it for me, and now I can make decisions on top of that.

Just thinking about this Lau versus Albies thing, though, because that's a possible thing in a shallow league. You could definitely run into a problem like that. How would you decide between them, or how would you determine who's more valuable going into the week with their respective matchups like how do you if you don't have access to those tools do you look at the matchups and say and in the upcoming week for example or this week i think it's two lefties that the rays have in seven games right is that enough to sit low down five out of seven matchups against righties in a week versus if albies plays the same

number of games and you know we the handedness varies it doesn't matter as much as switch hits i guess he's a kind of a variable guy but how do you how do you weigh that well the one thing that's a little different about albies is that um he's got a platoon split that's bigger than you'd expect from a switch hitter. And he's discussed his problems against righties in the past. His power is much lower. His swing mechanics are a little different. He's got this, and I don't actually know how to regress platoon hitters, platoon splits, I mean switch hitters, platoon splits, but he's got an observed 150 WRC plus against lefties and 96 against righties. So I think if it was both the case where both these guys

were facing five righties i might take a lot yeah it's even trickier because of all these splits themselves though too so a great question and one that i think people a lot of us are too comfortable just looking at the schedule eyeball eyeballing it, counting the games, and just kind of pushing ahead when there is a way to be more data-driven with that decision-making. I think the benefits are something that Eno has already talked about, but I think people that use information to their advantage in this situation are getting a leg up that a lot of people in leagues simply are not getting. I kind of prefer daily leagues for this because on the daily league, then you just choose, you only have a little bit of math to do. You're looking at how this player

will do against that player and then it's a little bit easier because you can be like, oh, Winker's facing a lefty today and I've got this guy on my bench facing a righty. I'm going to switch this out. But on a weekly level, you have to do that seven times in one go.

The only problem is with daily leagues, you have to do the work every day. Piles up. If you start playing in 10 leagues, it ends up being quite a bit of shuffling around. But I do think if I played in fewer leagues, if I only played in one league, I might actually prefer a daily league for all these reasons. One more question to get to, and thank you for that question, by the way, Adam. This one comes from Mark. Mark writes,

I'm in a 12-team dynasty league that allows owners to keep 25 players a year, not counting minor league slots, and you can keep them forever. I'm in the middle of a competitive window where my team should be one of the best for at least the next couple of seasons, and I have a lot of depth, more quality players than I could keep for next year. My question is this. In this scenario, would you hold all of these quality

players as insurance for your team to be better able to endure injuries or trade away some of the better first guy off the bench kinds of players to maximize their value before losing them in the offseason? Thanks, Mark. What do you think here? This is tricky because in a 12-team dynasty league, my argument would be that replacement level on the wire is still a little bit higher, even with all those players held over from year to year. The wire is not completely in a complete wasteland. So you can probably find guys who are playing in a league like that. And if you can find guys who are playing to replace guys you lose, ideally you can trade some of that unkeepable depth now while you still have some leverage.

The closer you get to the deadline, the later in the season it gets, the more the other teams in your league know, well, Mark's got too many keepers. There's no way he's keeping all these guys, so I'm not going to give him anything good. So I do think consolidating while you can is a good strategy.

Upgrading some of your active spots with some of that depth definitely works in a league of this size. You said it was a 12-teamer? 12-teamer, yep. I've got a 12-team dynasty situation where I picked up Joey Votto and Willie Adamas

off the wire this year, and they're now starting for me. That's because of myriad injuries. So I think that the replacement level is pretty high. I mean, if you can get Votto and Adamas-type players off the wire, then I think you're covered in terms of injury. And I would definitely try to consolidate.

The only thing I would say is that everybody in these leagues is trying to consolidate, and everybody's coming at you with the two and three for ones. And it really annoys almost everybody to get a two and three for one. So I would say, um, either, um, at least at the very least make it a two or three for three, uh, where you're showing them who they would drop and where the upgrades would be. And if that doesn't work, if they still see you coming a mile away or if they just don't want to let you consolidate, then consider trading for picks.

Yeah, that could work for sure. Trade for picks, trade for prospects, trade for things that you can keep because when they're sitting on your bench, they're not giving you value really. Just to put this into context, some of the final hitters that Mark is referring to, Mike Yastrzemski, Jeff McNeil, CJ Krohn, Joey Wendell, for the most part, those are guys that in a 12-team keep 25 scenario,

they're all going to be kept other than maybe Wendell for pitchers, Sonny Gray, Edbert Elzelie. Those guys are keepers too. And in this case, what I would do with the specific names is keep Wendell because Wendell is a one-man replacement level. I mean, he has like four or five different positions he can play at. It might be tempting to keep McNeil, and maybe that's the case, but somebody might want to buy low on McNeil, and maybe that's the case, but somebody might want to buy low on McNeil, and you don't really want to play him through whatever troubles he's got. Plus, he's old,

he has a bad reach rate, and he may not have the bounce back level that people are expecting from him. So I would trade McNeil and Krohn to somebody. Yaz as a lefty hitter that sometimes plays in Colorado and plays on the road, I think would be a fine bench pairing with Joey Wendell. If you had those two on your bench afterwards, you'd be covered for all of your positions. I think Wendell is a shortstop in most leagues. So you'd be covered for almost all your positions with two guys.

And then you'd have another roster spot or two to come play with on the wire, which I love in those leagues. Anytime I can pull something like that, I would. So I think a crone McNeil package to someone lower for picks or for just a win now piece for reliever, for a starter that makes sure you win this year.

I think that would be fine. I would say in a deeper league, the deeper you go, the more likely I would be to hold more of that depth just because the replacement level becomes worse. So difficult, right? You just, you're not finding quality on the wire,

but in this situation, especially, which I think is a more common dynasty League situation, try to make those moves. Hopefully, that helps some people out there. And good luck, Mark, if you're able to find some deals that actually work for you. Before we go, just a heads up, you can get a subscription to The Athletic for just $3.99 a month at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Gets you all the stuff that Eno writes, everything that I write, all of the fantasy football stuff too. If you happen to play fantasy

football, the draft kit just launched last week. So lots of good stuff rolling out in there and of course all the coverage heading into the MLB trade deadline one week from Friday on Twitter. He's at Eno Saris. I'm at Derek Van Ryper. You can always drop us a line. ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com That is going us a line, rates and barrels at the athletic.com.

That is going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We are back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.