Rates & Barrels - Late-season fades, staying positive in a tailspin, and searching for a surprise playoff team

Episode Date: August 27, 2021

Eno, Britt & DVR discuss the teams fighting against late-season fades, attempts to stay positive when things are not going well, which current non-playoff teams they think are most likely to find their way to the playoffs, and more. Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli 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 and Topps.com for all the latest cards released as part of Project 70. Lots of good stuff up right now derek van riper here with britcher ole and eno saris the band is back together it is friday august 27th we got just over a month to go in this season and uh i think we're going to talk about implosions because they happen and they happen every year even though we think oh this is going to be the year where all 12 teams that look like they could make the playoffs are going to go on this nice, even-keeled battle for those spots. It doesn't work that way. Teams implode. It happens all the time. We'll talk about why.

We'll talk about some potential surprise teams that could find their way back into the playoff race, even though it looks right now like things are really starting to clarify. And we'll talk about our priority viewing list for the final month of the season if all of these playoff spots are in fact spoken for. There's also a piece that Tom Verducci wrote about the Rays' approach to relievers that's somewhat related to things we've talked about this week. So we'll probably dig into that a bit later in the show. Implosions, they happen. And I'm going to just kick this right to you, Britt. Which implosion do you want to talk about first? Because we have several to choose from from this season based on what we've seen just over these last really three weeks. Yeah. Let's talk about the Padres because as I was telling you two off air,

my family lives in San Diego. My mother is very upset about this. She has gone to tons of games this year. She really, you know, every, she's a nurse every Friday this year, they get to wear Padres gear. It's a new thing. That whole city has become so swept up in the Padres being good. It's given them some hope finally. And to watch this debacle since basically the last month or so, basically since the trade deadline, that's been really tough to watch. They make the move to fire Larry Rothschild kind of unexpected, but certainly

someone has to pay when a team is this bad. Although you can ask the Mets what happens when you fire a coach. Absolutely nothing really happens when you fire a coach. It's more of a symbolic gesture for a manager to save their own skin. But I think when you guys look at the Padres, am I the only one who's upset about this?

Just disappointed, I guess. Not upset, just disappointed, as my mother would say, in the way the Padres have played here. Like, I was penciling in in October in San Diego, selfishly, and that's not going to happen. And I think when you look at this, there's no one to blame but the San Francisco Giants for having a year out of nowhere. Yeah, no, it seems to me that it has something to do with trading away all your prospect depth for guys like Snell and Musgrove. And so, you know, with a couple injuries.

But, yeah, are they that much more injured than other teams? I don't think so. They're about as injured as everybody these days. They just haven't, you know, the pitching program hasn't produced any young players that are going to take over. But the thing is, like, they're still a good team. They're still battling against the Dodgers. It's not like they were totally out of it in these two games. And I could see them changing things.

If you look at the playoff odds, you say, okay, they have a 20% chance of making the postseason right now. And I'd be like, oh, God, that's so sad. If they won two games and the Reds lost two games, that number would be completely different. Yeah, it's a little bit of a reflection of how much time is left in the season, right? I mean, you can look at the Jays and say, well, they've imploded too, because based on playoff odds they have,

I think expectations in Toronto haven't quite risen to the level where expectations were in San Diego going back to March, even though with the expanded playoffs last year, the Jays were a playoff team. And even though I think we would all agree, they still have a very bright future with the core that they have in place.

But just two weeks ago, Yankees-Jays was a coin flip in terms of which team was more likely to make the playoffs. The Yankees have been red hot in the time since then, and the Jays have gone the complete opposite direction. They've been ice cold, lost a lot of games they really couldn't afford to lose but shouldn't

have lost along the way. So this isn't just like a pick on the Padres thing. It's certainly not just an LOL Mets thing. Several teams go from what looks like pretty good playoff odds in the early part of August to almost long shot odds by the end of the month. And there's a whole bunch of different reasons why this happens. I think in the case of San Diego, Britt, you kind of put this to us before we started recording. Is it because they didn't make a move at the deadline? I don't know, because we know they

were trying to get Max Scherzer. By most accounts, they didn't seem as close to getting him. He would have won some games for them. But they weren't also getting Trey Turner, based on anything we know. So it wasn't like the exact same thing the Dodgers did. But if you just say the Dodgers only got Turner, and the Padres happened to get Scherzer, give them two more wins, and then they're maybe dead even with the Reds today.

They'd still be in a battle, a legitimate battle, because the Reds are a good team. And because the Padres, unfortunately, have had so many injuries this year, they're just not quite the team we thought they could be on paper. Yeah. Although if you're taking Scherzer and giving him to the Padres, you're also weakening the Dodgers. And the Dodgers right now without Scherzer are a very pitching susceptible team. As is, I think they have the bullpen. The reason why Scherzer started last night is because they had an off day. So they were able to keep him on regular rest. And I was talking to some Dodgers guys, and they said that essentially the bullpen has been having to fill a lot of gaps

here. So I think it does elevate the Padres just a little, but it also brings the Dodgers down just a little. But again, at the end of the day, the Giants are winning the division right now. So are you going to go all in on a one game playoff when you're going to face the Dodgers, if you're the Padres, right? Again, it's time to blame the San Francisco Giants. Or Eric Hosmer. Or Eric Hosmer, because not only is he a below average first baseman, but he had all that money created a problem where they couldn't get Max Scherzer. I think that was why the deals fell apart. You know, they had to also move Hosmer in whatever deal they were doing.

And they would have to have created some sort of three-team deal where they're sending Hosmer to the Cubs and the Cubs are going to pay for it. And the Cubs get a prospect and the Nationals get a prospect. And somehow this all ends up with Max Scherzer in San Diego. And I think that's so complicated, it just wasn't going to happen. But I think to me that's really interesting is the role of the media. Because, and I don't, like maybe nobody cares about media criticism, but just think about the Yankees two, three weeks ago, and just how dead in the water they were. And people were

calling for Cashman's job and Cashman had to have like a press conference to be like, you know, I'm disappointed with how people are playing, you know, like, and I'm working hard to make this team better. Right. Like it, it seemed like he was like, like almost like he'd be fired at the end of the season. I got that sort of whiff. And people were just like, oh my god, this is the worst. And now the Yankees seem like a lock to make the postseason. They might even win the division. They're running out the jumbo package in the outfield with the biggest outfield ever.

And I was watching batting practice last night. It was Rizzo, Judge, Stanton, and Gallo. And I was just like, this is nuts, dude. This is nuts. Like, this is like the Bugs Bunny thing, you know? Where they just, like, are rounding the bases, you know? It's the Braves, too. I mean, the Braves have gone on a similar run here.

And what's kind of cool about August is it really separates the pretenders from the contenders, right? Your team makes moves. They don't make moves. This is it, right? This is your team. This is your roster. There's really nothing left. Yes, teams can still make moves in August, but they have to go through waivers.

So they're very – usually they're not big moves. Usually they're small moves. So that's a good point. So, you know, all the criticism of the Yankees, maybe they were made a lot better by the players they acquired, whereas the criticism for the Padres right now and the Mets, there's very little

players to acquire. There's nothing coming. Hugh Darvish came back. That was a little thing. That's a big thing, but that's it. Then they might get Noah Syndergaard. I doubt they get... They might get a start or two from DeGrom in big thing, but that's it. And then they might get Noah Syndergaard. I doubt they get... I mean, they might get a starter, too, from DeGrom in New York.

But there's no opportunity to reverse the narrative by changing the player personnel. Right. And how many teams have a Giancarlo Stanton capable of what he's capable of? You knew he's got these ups and downs and you ride these waves and he's been a big part of how the Yankees have been able to kind of catapult themselves into this thing, right? Like the way he's been able to perform and, you know, is some of it going to the outfield? I don't know. People are speculating. Nobody really knows. But having a guy like that all of a sudden get hot, I mean, there's just so few teams

who have a player like that capable of carrying. In that way, the Mets are closer to the Yankees, right? Because they have Lindor, who's capable of going nuts and has been underperforming. And Alonzo could probably find another level. They have some underperforming players that could do the role of Stanton and just actually play to their, their projections and,

and change, change the Mets fortune a little bit. I'm not sure I see that in San Diego or the only player that I see that is seriously underperforming on the bat side, I think is Trent Grisham and on the pitching side, maybe Chris Paddock. So Musgrove has gone in and out. So, I don't know. Can a reversal

of fortune for Musgrove, Paddock, and Grisham power a real change for these Padres? I don't know. Maybe I was wrong. I was a little bit more optimistic on the radio before they lost last night, and then just the

fan reaction to my optimism has maybe beaten it out of me but i still think it's a good team so i just wonder uh they're only one game one or two games out i don't think the reds are like that amazing of a team so that's that's what's sort of fueling my my decision making yeah one thing that i did not notice until it was brought to my attention on the athletic baseball show. I guess this was probably last week now. The difference in strength of schedule between the Reds and the Padres down the stretch, and that included the series that they just played against the Dodgers, a much tougher path for San Diego than it is for Cincinnati by comparison.

So that is one thing that definitely works in the Reds' favor. But I was fighting against that. I was adamant that the Padres were going to find a way. They would rise to the occasion in the series. This week against the Dodgers, they'll see them again soon. They would say, you know what? No, we do belong here. We're going to win these games. We're going to go punch the bully, and we're

going to be ready. If it happens, it's Musgrove, Snell, Paddock, Darvish. That's what happens. They start pitching really well, and that changes everything. That's all I can really see. With the change, letting Larry Rothschild go, have they done anything in the last few days that you go,

oh, that was different. They weren't doing that before. I think it takes maybe a couple turns, the rotation. They let Snell go pretty deep. Yeah, but does he make that call, or does Jace Tingler make that call? Right. I don't know how quickly you can decide if you've really seen change there, but it finally backfired, too.

They actually did leave Blake Snell in just a little bit too long. That workload was really, really high when Will Smith hit that homer off him. But 7-2, 10Ks. It's nice to see him pitching well again because, as we've talked about, he has been disappointing in a big way. Not the guy they expected when they acquired him. But the long answer here for me with the Padres is a big way. Not the guy they expected when they acquired him, but the long answer here for me with the Padres is

a big part of the reason why they've underperformed this year. Yeah, it is partially the Giants, but it is partially just little pieces of the roster being a win, a win and a half, or two wins less than expected in a division where there's just three really good teams. They're in the wrong division. That's part

of the answer here, too. They just happen to be in that spot. They needed more from the group that is Weathers, Morahan, and Baez. That was going to be their six and seven starters, and they either got injured or fell apart or weren't as good as expected. I think it is a little bit about the pitching program in depth. Because the Dodgers, they always seem to call up some guy and they're like, oh, hey, he threw like five innings, you know, seven punches and two earned.

Yeah, you're Mitch White. And the Padres don't seem to. Yeah, Mitch White, Andre Jackson, Josiah Gray before he left. Like, strange. Well, Gray's what got them Scherzer. I think they're a little better anticipating needs because when the Dodgers got Trey Turner, people were like, why do they need Trey Turner, right? They don't need Trey Turner, but they do. He's helped them win a lot of games. He's been really

good. With Mookie Betts out, he's their fastest player and it ended up being big time. He scored some runs that other players wouldn't have. Yeah, I think the way the Dodgers look at depth and acquiring is just better than a lot of other players. They do have the system. They do develop guys. But let's keep in mind, they lost Dustin May for the year. Trevor Bauer, we don't know if he's going to pitch again this year. And they've been able to weather losing Mookie Betts. They had Bellinger miss some time. They've been able to weather a lot of this. You can't really point to the Padres and be like, this is injuries. I don't think that you can say that.

I think that the Dodgers have a similar amount of injuries and lost players and have just done a better job acquiring that depth. And then look at the Giants. I mean, those guys have all been injured off and on, and they just are really good 1 through 30. I mean, if you look at the AAA lineup for the Giants, something kind of clicks for you. It's really good.

It's not like, I'm not saying it's really good. I'm not saying it would beat a major league team. It's just really good for AAA. They've got Duggar, Dubon, Tauchman down there. They've got a legitimate lineup, 1-9 down there. So if anybody ever gets hurt, you're just like, oh, we have like a legitimate guy the replacement that's going to come up and not just totally stink it up um and

i don't know i i the mets might have a case uh for being more injured than most uh but they might also have a case for having brought some of that upon themselves by there's something wrong with the way Mets deal with injuries. Rather than take shot number 1,462 at the Mets for their inability to figure out how to handle injured players, I'm going to put a question to you guys that I think is pretty fun. Will any of the, let's call them surprise teams, find their way into the playoffs and i'll define that any team that's basically not locked in or on its way to a playoff spot right now that'd be the padres at 20.8 playoff odds the phillies at 14.1 the a's at 12.6 then you got like the jays the cardinals the mariners and the mets those last three teams by the way all under five percent so

will any of them find their way in? Do you have any reason to believe that there is a turnaround coming from any of those seven teams over the final month plus of the season? Well, the Phillies, because they have an easy schedule. They have an easier schedule than the Braves even to close it out. They lost Hoskins.

They did, and so that hurts a little bit. But could Aaron Nola finally have a good September? Nola with Wheeler. Harper seems to be having one of his better seasons. Harper's very quietly having a really good season. You have an easy schedule and a bad division. Could I see it happening?

Maybe. The Braves have a really tough stretch here now. They lost both games to the Yankees. They went on that 9-0 run against teams that are terrible. It is still very hard to go 9-0. They are still a good team. They're playing well. But I could see, I wouldn't be totally shocked if the Phillies edged them.

Out of all these teams, that one would surprise me the least. Phillies' rest of season opponents have a 459 winning percentage. That is the best among the teams we're discussing. Actually, one of the best among any contenders. The second

one is the Reds at 461. Then you've got the worst is actually the Padres at 538. Ooh, that's a funny number. And the Phillies, yeah, the Phillies at 459. Braves, 495. Blue Jays, 495.

I could see the Blue Jays putting it together. You know, Barrios, a little turnaround from Barrios and all of a sudden you're about four deep in the rotation when we were looking at bullpens my numbers say that they were second best in stuff over the last month and just haven't

had great outcomes maybe a little bit better command from the bullpen comes to better results and then Vladito just needs to lift the maybe a little bit better command from the bullpen comes to better results. And then Vladito just needs to, you know, lift the ball a little bit better again. He started to start to hit those ground balls again. And Springer needs to come back. But all those things are like kind of, yeah, sure, Springer should come back. And Vlad still hits the ball really hard. And, you know, they have good stuff.

And the rotation is pretty good right now, one through five, actually. So I could see the Blue Jays doing it. Yeah, I'll stay on the Padres sinking ship. The numbers support it, even though the strength of schedule is tough. What about that sinking ship, though? There's something there. Like, I just think, you know, we write columns, we go into the Zooms, and we ask them, and they have to field questions about what is it like to be on a sinking ship. I don't know.

I don't know if I've ever heard that. No, no, but it starts to make you think you actually are on a sinking ship. Yeah, that's what i'm saying and so i just uh you know the was and i think that like time of year actually matters a little bit too because i don't know if the yankees thing is a perfect map because they they had two months when they're when they're when their ship was sinking they had two months which is more like we have a deadline where we can acquire like we were talking about we're going to acquire players and we have two months to turn this around, we're going to be fine. Whereas when it starts to be like we have 35 days.

We have 35 days, and after the game, this mofo media guy is always asking me about how much does another loss hurt? How much does another loss hurt? Yeah, it feels great, actually. This one felt fine. Angry and sad as a player, right? Which are probably not the best ways to be your best self.

I'm getting a little bit weird and soft. Well, no, no. This is not stuff that's in the numbers. But I have to think that there's this kind of swirling narrative that comes around. If you've got a hashtag for it, it's so easy to just access it again. This is kind of pointing back to the Mets again. Do you think it's weird that when Pete Alonso tries to be positive about the situation

and tries to... He's trying to change the narrative. He's trying to push a positive story and nobody likes... He's exhibiting the qualities of a good leader. A good leader is not going to tell you the sky is falling. A good leader is going to say tell you the sky is falling. Good leaders are going to say, hey, look, we got this. We're going to be fine. We just

got Lindor and Baez back. We can play better than we played. This is an important stretch for us and we can do it. That's what you should say if you're a leader. You shouldn't say, oh shit, we're doing it again. We're LOL Mets again. This is a disaster. What do we do? I don't know how to hit anymore. If he said that, they would

lose it. It'd be hilarious. It'd be hilarious if a player trolled the media that way and said it, but it's just like, what response would be satisfactory to the people covering that team and the people following that team? Do you want more Steve Cohen crap posts on Twitter. Do you want them to be like a WWE wrestling match in the locker room where Alonzo is hitting people with folding chairs in the clubhouse before the game? He's like, yeah, I didn't like J.D. Davis' attitude, so I hit him with a chair. What do you want? I think people want authenticity.

I think people want guys to tell the truth, even though we all know that they almost never tell the truth to us especially not when things are not going well that's a good point i guess to some that a lot of stuff seems fake yeah i think people are upset watching the mets and they want the mets to also be upset by what's going on that's why this isn't the pete alonso several weeks ago this was a big deal. And, you know, I went on this. I go on SMY once a week.

And so it made headlines in Mets land anyway. And he said, you know, he gave some fluffy response to what had been going on when they were tailspinning right at the beginning. And people were upset because they want Pete Alonzo as a leader to say, we should play better. We are better. Fans deserve better. Not leader to say, we should play better. We are better. Fans deserve better. Not like, yay, we're having fun. Let's smile because we get to play baseball. I just think that's a little insulting.

That's fine in April or May or maybe June. But now it's like crunch time. And I don't know what's so wrong with a guy who holds a lot of stock in that locker room holding guys accountable, acting upset, pretending like, yes, it's fun to play baseball, but it's not that fun to get our brains beat in every night. That's not really a great analogy. It's not that fun to lose all the time. But, you know, when they did research into hot streaks and cold streaks, for the most part, they didn't think that hot streaks existed. But there was a little bit of an evidence for Cold Streaks weird and so I just wonder if there's a

I wonder if there's just a psychology to it um it's like a confirmation bias right where you're like we suck and then you lose another and you're like see we suck yeah you don't want to uh go that way on a day-to-day basis that's your mindset every day it will play out that way but it is i mean i think what brit's saying is legit too i mean he could he could preface what he's saying and maybe he did and we just seen the clip but like he could preface what he's saying is like you know it is disappointing and we are all trying to play better but i see better days ahead blah blah blah you, blah, blah, blah. Here's another thing that has been found that came to when I was at Kumon Publishing.

So when I worked at Kumon Publishing, the overall strategy for Kumon Publishing was world peace. The goal of Kumon Publishing was world mofo peace. And I thought that was the dumbest thing I'd ever seen. I was like, what are you talking about? We make children's workbooks. Are you kidding me? However, one of the genesis was something kind of lame,

like some strategist had done some research and had found that positive goals for the overall group got better outcomes from the group in general. But I kind of maybe believe that. I've talked to certain organizations about internal messaging. And the idea is that you want to create a place where the players think they're safe and everything is good and one of the ways to do that is to have these stupid slogans they have every year ride the wave in oakland or whatever you know you've seen these they have a shirts they always have a shirt it's like a stable of horses all this stuff all this stuff is like positive messaging

from the coaching staff to create a positive narrative that everyone sort of collects under and then is like we're right in the way baby you know like we're we're celebrating together we're all rooting for each other and i don't know maybe the mets have t-shirts maybe i just haven't seen them or what it is but in alonzo is is creating an effort in in this way of saying of creating a counter narrativenarrative to LOL Mets. Of like, no, this is the team of champions. Why did Hugh Quattlebaum, the hitting coach for the Mets, bring a stuffed horse to the dugout? Because of the rally monkey, the rally squirrel, the rally cap, the rally whatever.

It's going to be the rally horse in New York because he's trying to like take the pressure off of this LOL Mets narrative. So if there is evidence that positive narratives can have an influence, then I think the opposite is also maybe true, but not as proven, which is that negative narratives have a negative influence. Yes, but him saying they're not playing well isn't a narrative. Okay, fair. But I do see what he's doing as a sort of a way to reshape the conversation. It's a way to take a question about how bad is this loss hurt, you know, and turn it into like something more positive.

A related question for both of you. Let's say all these teams, these seven teams, the Padres, Phillies, A's, Blue Jays, Cardinals, Mariners and Mets, they all fall short of the playoffs. Which one of those teams, if you had to pick one today, is most likely to make the playoffs in 2022? one today is most likely to make the playoffs in 2022. Man, the Padres, like, really, like, they traded so much prospect capital so quickly. They're so aggressive in every direction. When I look at that now, I'm like, well, yeah, it's good,

but they still have the Hosmer problem. And what more money can they spend if they're at 205 by the cap? I don't think that much money is coming off. I don't think they have any expiring players. Any significant ones? Yeah, no. I don't know. I'm looking at it right now. I think that the Blue Jays seem pretty ascendant.

That's what I was going to say. I mean, it's such a tough division, though, dude. It is, but except, like, you know the Orioles are going to be bad for another couple years. So you've got that gimme 18 times a year. Just trying to catch a bad year from one of the other three, I guess. Yeah, it's just kind of what you have to do.

And I also think that, like, you look at the Blue Jays and their young talent and their depth, and, you know, I think they're a team on the rise. I think they're probably better positioned than all these other teams. The Rays are always scary. But eventually, at some point, the Rays always have, like, a random down year, right? Every couple of years, the Rays just, like, are kind of meh. So maybe that's next year, right? Maybe they're reaching the end of their current limits

with most of this roster. I don't know. I think Toronto has probably set up the best to do it. I'm curious what Dombrowski does this winter with the Phillies. They're going in so many different directions. They had the front office shake up. They sold a prospect but bought a prospect in the same deal so i'm not really sure what they're doing and like they're kind of driving in circles a little bit

and i'm curious like whether they're gonna pick a side um some of it is i think the awkward like they're still going through the awkward phase of trying to get rid of the old regime like for example i think uh andy mckale mcphail mcphail andy mcphail is still an advisor, and he's the last GM. Why would you keep him around? Well, Klintak is still being paid. He's the last GM. McPhail's technically their president, I think. Okay, but there's still old remnants, and I think some of what just happened was kind of cleaning some of that up.

old remnants and i think some of what just happened was kind of cleaning some of that up but yeah i mean you have a you have a win now gm uh on a team that doesn't really have any more prospects to train and it's also kind of running up against the cap it's a it's an awkward team i'm trying to decide how real we're seeing from the Mariners right now like how real that is as it pertains to 2022 because we know they've got a lot of young talent Kalanick hasn't been the guy we expect him to be yet but things have looked a lot better for him in August than they did earlier this season so he's at least trending in the right direction you know Gilbert just got rocked by Houston but I thought he was overall putting together a nice rookie campaign George Kirby's on the way Julio Rodriguez is on the way. They have a young catcher, Cal Raleigh,

who's up right now getting some experience. Most of their pitching's still going to be there next year. Novis Martez, I guess. Yeah, yeah, Novi Martez, not too far away. They've got a really nice core, and I think... For me, it's two to three years, because when you think about it, Gilbert struggled when he first came up. You can kind of almost expect Kirbyby and hamham hamcock to struggle at first and then maybe get it going um

and so uh i think it'll take two years to kind of like get julio up and get those pictures of the right moment uh but two two or three years away from like what looks like it might might gel really nicely. What they need right now is a couple more bats and they've got those coming. Then they've got a bit of a parade of arms and not all of them are going to work out, but if one or two of those pop and they sign one more free agent,

they have a little bit of money to spend too, I think. I think in two years, Mariners will maybe even win the division. They'll be that good. Their run differential is minus 58 right now. So that's my plus 90, according to baseball reference. I don't know the exact formula for fun differential,

but that's the exact kind of positive thinking, positive reinforcement that you were just talking about. If you start to believe in yourself and you create a culture of believing that you're going to be a playoff team, if not this year, next year, or the year after, that changes the culture of being a perennial loser, which is more true than not in Seattle, unfortunately. It's kind of like San Diego where you look, you know, there's some good teams throughout their history, a handful sprinkled in,

but it's been a lot of disappointment and a lot of heartbreak for that franchise. And sort of breaking through that barrier is tough. Yeah, you got to really push against it. I do think that they've done some work against that. Even if they miss the playoffs this year, the Padres have done some work against that by having a sustained run, having a winning season, being in it to near the end. sustained run, having a winning season, being in it to near the end. And I do think that they'll find a way to reconfigure next year. And do have some really nice prospects still at the very top of their organization.

So I don't think that the Padres, that was their only chance. No, no. LOL Padres or anything. I think I'm with you guys, though, that I think it's the Jays that's the most likely to make the playoffs, but I'd say the Padres are right back in there again. I wonder if we had to pick today more wins in 2022 in the regular season,

if we had to go Padres versus Giants, because every time we've talked about the Giants, it's like, oh, I finally am starting to believe, I guess. It's so hard to bet on them to do it again. Right. Yeah, you think they're going to run it back and be right there? Average age over there, dude. Yeah, I would say the Padres.

More wins. Okay. So there's still some belief in the Padres, maybe a whiff of disbelief with the Giants because Chris Bryant you know is a it's a rental Willie sign yeah he's a rental or Elliot Romp is Elliot Romp a game changer of a prospect either way and is he ready and Joey Bard just seems like a regular role catcher really uh so and and it's a while till you get to the kind of more exciting bats that

are younger for the Giants. Yeah. So, all right. So we're in agreement, though, on the likely non-playoff team to make the playoffs in 2022. What's going to be the September viewing priorities for you guys? If you're starting to think about, okay, what are you watching? Obviously, raise Yankees Red Sox for the AL East because the two teams that don't win the division probably play for the wild card.

That's huge. Giants-Dodgers to win the NL West and avoid the wild card. Also a massive battle. What else is going to really catch your eye in September when you don't have those teams on, when you're kind of just finding something interesting to get into from just a general baseball perspective. I think you're looking for individual milestones.

Max Scherzer is closing in on 3,000 strikeouts. He'd be just the 20th pitcher to ever do it. You know, you watch him last night and like the guy is like 37 years old and it's just remarkable to continue to watch. I think you're watching Otani, even though the Angels are going nowhere, just remarkable to continue to watch um i think you're watching otani even though the angels are going nowhere because he's fun to watch you know i you know i specifically tuned in to watch the orioles game and the orioles ended up winning which was crazy um but he had a mammoth homer to start the game yeah um baseball's nuts because a team that hasn't won in in like three weeks can all of a sudden tee off on you know baseball's nuts because a team that hasn't won in, in like three weeks can all of a sudden tee off on,

you know, baseball's best player. And it's like, ah, okay, cool. They would do, um,

you know, I think you're watching for some of those individual things. You're watching the NL East. Cause I don't think any team really runs away with it here. As we mentioned, I think it's, it's Braves Phillies, right?

We can all agree on that. Um, but who's going to pull ahead of whom, um, I think is a little interesting interesting and then as we get down the stretch here you're looking at cy young you're looking at mvp you're looking selfishly at who you're voting for i think i have rookie of the year this year yeah so you're starting to watch these races because um they're now they're now coming to an end here it's not june there's not

enough time to right the ship for an individual season. I honestly don't want to see Jacob deGrom back this year. Maybe you guys disagree. I just don't want to see. I think Jacob deGrom is something we should take care of and enjoy for years to come and keep him in like plastic

wrap. And I'm not sure what the advantage of bringing back Jacob deGromom ramping him back up and bringing him back into a mets team that we all agree is toast um is going to do right yeah i wonder because one of my answers is going to be pitching because i'm just a pitching dork and part of it is like guys coming back like sale and thor and deGrom, you know, part of, part of it is like a fantasy thing. I want to see what they look like before next year. I don't want to go into next year and not have seen,

you know, a five inning start from Thor. Cause I want to know what the velocity was like, how healthy he looked. Like for example, he's not throwing his slider or I think, or his curve. He's not going to throw any breaking balls in his return it's

just gonna be fastball change so that's weird and what is that what will that look like and can he be successful like that um so i'm watching that sort of thing so i i kind of disagree a little bit that i think with the grom i'd almost want to just see can he do it and if that thing's about to go like if we're just like if it's just like the rubber band that's about to go, like if we're just like, if it's just like the rubber band that's about to go, then like, then do it. You know what I mean? Like then do it and get the cert. I mean, I don't know. I don't, I don't, I don't know that like he's rested for months.

So if he doesn't, if he doesn't pitch again, then you're just going to like take a whole year off or take like eight months off. And then that's going to, and that's going to mean that he he can he can pitch next year for like 180 innings yeah how much better do you feel about him for 2022 if you see a couple starts i would feel better i would feel better if i saw a couple starts and he was fine because the questions are gonna be well is he really healthy like that's gonna be there probably either way but more of those questions are going to be there if we don't see him pitch again this season i think of all those angels that got like the prp injections and didn't get the uh tommy john and then and waited two or three months and then uh came back

and then had to get the tommy john anyway that's sort of what i'm thinking about but does the i don't think de grom has enough time you guys, to come back, build up, and be this dominant seven-inning Jacob DeGrom to make you feel better. No. So to me, to me, it's almost like not worth it to watch him slog through three innings and be like, okay, is he real? Is he not real? Like, I don't know. Just let the guy rest. I don't worry so much about innings.

Everybody last year had a shortened season and you know yes shot soft tissue injuries are you know through the roof but you're still seeing guys like Max Drescher didn't pitch that much last year did it bother him now like I think DeGrom is in a little bit of a class of his own when it comes to that stuff yeah I mean if he's just now playing catch the progression to five innings would take him like he might be able to do a five inning start like in the last week of the season i feel like does that make you guys feel better to me that just makes me nervous that the mets are gonna rush him or mess it up that's the other thing the mets history with that stuff is another reason why i just want to wrap him in bubble wrap and unwrap

him in march um because what's the right Like they just haven't always done the right thing. So maybe them rushing him to have this feel good moment isn't great. I hadn't thought about this until now, but DeGrom has an opt out after 2022, which is kind of a big deal because if he's healthy at the end of next season, he opts out and gets a few more years tacked on at a very high aav right he's not healthy he probably doesn't opt out and comes back in 2023 pitches and proves it and then gets paid a little later and then but the grom he's complicated because the volume of innings he's thrown is a lot lower than a typical 33 year old because he's a converted shortstop in college doubt it everyone

knows the story by now. But he already had TJ, too. Right. So I just wonder how much the option, the opt-out option for DeGrom is kind of a factor in maybe his desire to get back and show everybody, no, I'm good, I'm healthy, I'm fine.

If he shows that down the stretch here and enters 2022 with fewer questions, that's probably a lot better for him long term yeah it's a great point but uh i mean i i've uh i think that we the the debuts i think we talked about last uh podcast are not maybe going to be that amazing with the two the two roster slot rule in september we're not going to see that many more top prospects. So I guess I'll be watching like Joe Adele, you know, maybe Dylan Carlson, some of these young bats that need like a really good month to kind of prove that they are what we kind of hope they would be, you know. So Marsh, I guess, counts. Joe Adele, do you guys have any more names in that regard,

like sort of young players that kind of, I guess, Josiah Gray I want to see. I want to see Ruiz. Yeah, Gray. I think it's actually Louis Brinson. It's kind of turning things around in Florida. I kind of want to see what that's the result of. Yeah, the Marlins are a late-season look-in sort of team just for the future. We talked about them, I think, way back at the beginning of the year.

A team that was on the rise that maybe would be more watchable this year than it has been in the past. Jazz Chisel, fun to watch. Love watching him. A healthy Trevor Rodgers. I think Alcantara. Jesus Lizardo, if you can turn around. Edward Cabrera. There's definitely interesting young pitching there. I'd like to see them even maybe bring up Jake Eater, but I don't know if that's going to happen

down the stretch. Probably wait until next year to do that. Young players are always where the focus goes for non-contending teams. I hate to force a segue, but there's a team nobody said they wanted to watch. Who's that?

Tampa? I think it's part of the AL East battle. Okay, all right. Yeah, you're right, though. They're so boring. They're in Baltimore this weekend, and I live between Baltimore and D.C., and I'm like, oh, do I want to go see the Rays? Saw them last time.

I mean, Randy was such a fun story last year that I think that you could fall in love with that team. And Randy's still there, but he doesn't seem to be as attention-grabbing. Wanda Franco is really fun to watch. He's really good. And he is coming into his own. But I think it's a fair question. Tom Verducci

had an article about the Rays' pitching strategy. It's something that's come up before. There's parts I didn't like about the story. pitching strategy. It's something that's come up before. There's parts I didn't like about the story. So the parts I did understand about the story is that they have so much velocity in the pitching staff that it's kind of hard to not,

and I don't mean velocity in terms of MPH. I mean velocity in terms of moves. That there's so much coming and going in their pitching staff that it's hard to even know who's pitching for them. It's almost a joke with the Rays. It's like, because of openers and this and that, I have no idea who's pitching tonight. When I go to watch them, I'm like, I have no idea who's pitching tonight.

My assumption is, I have no idea who's pitching tonight. My assumption is I have no idea who's pitching tonight. And so I think that has something to do with their fan problems. I mean, I think it's mostly the stadium, but maybe some of the location of the stadium and stuff like that. But I do think that that sort of velocity. Right now, all of baseball is down 35% in attendance. That's more of, I think, a COVID thing.

The A's are down 60%. They've done some poor marketing decisions, some poor decisions when it comes to what to charge for and stuff like that. But the A's and the Rays also have high-velocity situations. They just traded away Jesus Lozardo, who was supposed to be their, you know, big guy, uh, one of their big two, uh,

to, to, to get a rental at the, at the deadline. Like that's how the, that's how the A's act. And that's how the rays act. They trade away rich Hill,

even though they kind of need him. Uh, they trade away Diego Castillo because, because his velocity was down a little bit, like, and he might be expensive next year. I don't even know why they trade away deal with STS. That part I agree with and I don't like.

The part that I don't necessarily agree with Vujicic on is sort of, and he didn't quite come out and say it, but this idea that them throwing more breaking balls will lead to more injuries, and so they're just chewing up arms on the reliever side. And that's why they have so many injuries. I disagree with that. The research that's out there does not suggest that breaking balls

are that much worse on your arm. There's tons of injuries everywhere in baseball. And the life of a reliever, he highlighted a reliever, Chris Mazza. Is his first name Chris, I think? Yeah. Chris Mazza. He highlighted that he'd been optioned like 10 times and pitched like 11 innings in the major leagues or something and i was like do you know any relievers have you talked to a reliever this is the life this is what it's like to be a reliever like when i was trying to clean up the relief i was making a joke about this in the I was trying to clean up the reliever, I was making a joke about this in the last podcast,

trying to clean up the reliever list. Like half the relievers have been on two teams this year. That's just what it's like. You get traded around, you get option. Relievers, it's worse than any other thing. If you're a position player, even a guy who's struggling like Dylan Carlson or somebody else who's not, you get option.

How many times did Joe Adele get option? Once. And then he came back up. That's how we treat position players. Relievers, this is the life, man. This is what they do. This is what it's like. I don't think, I'm not trying to say don't cry for them.

It's a hard life. But I'm not thinking that the Rays are actually that terrible about it. They just manage their roster that way. More teams are doing that everywhere. Look at the Dodgers. Look at the Giants. Everyone's moving relievers up and down. Yeah, that's not a new thing.

Yeah, exactly. Teams are leaning into this more and more. They're realizing they can use AAA like a taxi squad if they have a lot of relievers with options left. That's just what teams are doing to leverage that depth. That's the way it works. Is this unique to the Rays, though? Is it so terrible?

I don't think it's unique to the Rays. The only difference is they don't really anoint a closer, so I guess it seems like maybe the whole bullpen's always in flux. You know what? Here's the thing. This sort of ties together what we were talking about, the September viewing list and the Rays not being on it. And I thought the point I disagreed with that was kind of snuck in there was that in the business of entertaining, the style of baseball the Rays play does not sell. And I don't agree with that. I don't think their style of baseball is so radical compared to the way the other 29 teams try and play the game that it's harder to be a Rays fan. I think that's total BS.

Complete BS. And I'm not trying to fight Tom Verducci because I don't care about that. Are you sure? Here in Oakland, they're like Matt Olsen and Matt Chapman are already gone. Yeah, it messes with your fan base's heads because you're always thinking about your favorite players leaving. But I guess you're talking about just turning on a game. Just watchability. Does the way the Rays manage their roster,

does that actually make them a less enjoyable entertainment experience? I would say no. I don't think it makes a difference at all. They're athletic defenders. They have funky pitches. They have good pitchers. I don't know. They have good hitters.

I don't know. I think I agree with you in terms of just watching the game yeah in terms of being a fan there's some things yeah like the marketability like there's a reason why i turned on the orioles that night right they're playing otan yeah it didn't it didn't matter to me i don't care about watching the rest of the angels roster there is something to be said for if you're a fan of the Rays, who's your superstar? Who's your guy? Like, I was there in 2008, and this was, you know, obviously worlds away in the sport, but people were upset. Like, Evan Longoria jerseys were everywhere, I remember.

And he signed into a long-term deal. Yeah, those were the guys, right? Those were the guys that this team built around. Those were the guys who, yeah, they weren't there for 10, 12 years, but they were there long enough for fans to get excited and say, you know, I want to go to a game. I want to go watch Evan Longoria. I want to watch this game.

Longoria is coming up next. If you're a kid in Tampa, what jersey are you buying? Right, exactly. So to me, there's something to be said for the marketability of that team, of those stars. Maybe they're exciting. Maybe they're fun. But let keep in mind that tampa's a really small media market so we never get a chance and now with the covet rules you never get a chance to get to know these guys that are no names right i can't just go walk in the raised clubhouse this afternoon talk to a

guy for 20 minutes and write this feature so everyone can get to know a player they've never heard of that's not the way it works now. So I think to some extent, those teams like Oakland and Tampa Bay without the stars miss out on having the media coverage in there because, you know, those guys are maybe the next stars or maybe they've got interesting stories that cause people to pull for them. That's the reason we loved Randy Orezarena, right, last year. Like he had a great story. It was fun to watch. They need that, I think. Tampa needs that. They don't have the huge, big market star power at all.

They don't have that. And so, I kind of see- Like, we would be writing those kinds of stories about Willie Adamas right now. Except, oh, wait, he's gone, right? Or Tyler Glass now. That was a huge loss for them, right? That's a guy who you know is pitching and you know is fun to watch and he will say something and yeah and he's he's a good speaker um so is it fine to mix and match a million guys and not have a starting rotation

and not have a bullpen and no one has roles does it work yes is it a great long-term strategy for baseball i don't think so i mean maybe I'm just completely off base, but when I go to a game, the people around me don't seem to know anything about any of the relievers other than the closer, for the most part. Everyone's familiar with the closer. In Milwaukee, everyone knows who Josh Hader is.

They know who Devin Williams is. You do have to get out of your own head sometimes when you're deep into baseball. But what about the starters? They know the starters, Derek. People come for the starters to some extent. I think the typical fan... They might not know past 2D this time.

But I just think so much of what the Rays do, I think there are bad things about sending players up and down as often as they and other teams do. That's bad. That's not good for the business of baseball from the way players are treated standpoint. It's a bad human look for them. Every team is trying to do something similar.

I don't think it's unique to them. What I think is really weird is I think sometimes we put the Rays in this box where we assume they're doing some things that they're not actually doing. Like Shane McClanahan. Does Shane McClanahan work that much less than a regular starter? I feel like if you ask most people about him, how much does he throw? I don't know, three or four innings? No, he throws more than that. He throws five or six.

He's thrown at least five innings in six straight starts. And we talk about the opener. I just said something about the opener, right? I said we don't know who's starting tonight, but how many openers have they used this year? I don't recall them using many or any.

Yarbrough for a couple, like two or three starts? Yeah, right. I mean, they're doing it a little bit, but it's not like they've done it as much as they've done it in the past at most, not more. I don't know. I just feel like we have this constant, like, the Rays aren't what we want them to be. It's like, well, they have to be different for all the reasons you mentioned, Britt. It is a small media market. The stadium's a pain to get to.

There's all these things working against them. They have a low salary. They operate with this low budget. And because they operate with this low budget, they are going to keep moving players every couple of years. And that's just who they are. If we had 30 teams all spending $400 million on payroll, then every team could have this group of stars that we could watch evenly. But I guess we have to be – we either have to appreciate the fact that with their stupid restrictions, they do what they do and have the success they do, or we have to demand that they spend more money.

There isn't, I don't think, an obvious way to stop them from doing what they're doing. There's no way to disincentivize it. I mean, the rules, the rules, the rules, salary floor, what rules,

salary floor. If you put a salary floor in, which is what Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellick wrote about like a week ago in the athletic. If that happens, then all of a sudden that changes things. It does a little bit, but what we learned from hockey is what ends up happening is Eric Hosmer plays for the pirates. You know,

the pirates want to get to a floor, but they don't really want to spend longterm. So they get a prospect for Eric Hosmer. So that's what hockey happens in hockey's weird little, I'll swallow your bad deal for a prospect, which I guess could help the pirates and could help the rays sort of, but I don't know that it would exactly do exactly everything we want it to do.

The Pirates could take the Eric Hosmer contract without a salary floor and take a prospect if they wanted to. They don't need a rule in place to do that. They could just choose to do that if they thought that was the right thing. But they'd be more incentivized to do it if they had to spend the money somehow.

Yeah, to me, the Rays need a position player star. And maybe that is Wander Franco in a few years, right? If you have a position player star like an Evan Longoria, you at least have some face on that national map to some extent. They'll still get screwed though. They'll get to play nationally televised games against the Red Sox and the Yankees. That's about it. One thing that like, you know, if there was a hard cap, what happens in basketball is that you can then, if there was a hard cap that most people spend to, then you can like fiddle around with like the hometown discount.

There's like bird rights and stuff in basketball, but it's like they've tried to make it so that players will stay with their own team for a while. And I think it's been somewhat successful. If you think about it, like there's been a lot of stars lot of stars that Curry, Trey Young just signed kind of the deal that'll keep him in Atlanta, that sort of deal. I think the stars, to the most part, stay until they get so fed up that they try to do the super team thing. So you could do that in baseball, but I don't know of a way to incentivize the Rays to sign Wander Franco to a long-term deal.

I mean, the incentive for them is saving on future value already, right? Like that's the getting him for $300 million when he's worth $500 million or something. Like that's the... Right. Maybe there's a thing I should say to admit it. I don't know of a non-anti-labor way of incentivizing that. You know what I mean? Like I don't know of a way that's fair to the player and the team to incentivize the Rays to sign into a long-anti-labor way of incentivizing that. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know of a way

that's fair to the player and the team to incentivize the Rays to sign into a long-term deal because we don't have a hard cap. They're not anywhere near the cap. So there's no way you can say this doesn't count towards the cap

or something like that. You know, like they don't care. So I think we may have been split on this a little earlier in the week when it came up. I was still pretty optimistic about the Rays thinking their bullpen

will be a pretty typical Rays bullpen by playoff time. I think you expressed your concerns that they just don't quite have the same mix of arms that we're accustomed to. And velocity. Yeah, and velocity. Where do you fall on the Rays? Are they as dangerous as they've been in playoffs past as they're currently built? Yes. The key is as they're currently built, because they're built to play these matchups. They're built to have a million guys close games. They're built to, like, who knows who's down in that bullpen? Well, who cares? Their bullpen, they all have a million different jobs.

So to me, what makes the Rays so dangerous is they are built to win game by game in the playoffs the way it's set up. Long and slow and these slogs. They are set up to win in the postseason. They're not a we go by these two horses in the rotation and two stars in the lineup team. So therefore, to me, they have the best chance because they have all these little guys sprinkled around. And, you know, they're going to have a few guys that no one's ever heard of that are all of a sudden going to hit in the playoffs and we're all going to be like who are

these guys you know it's going to deep dive on these guys swings and you know all of a sudden before we know it the Rays are going to stumble into the World Series again and it wouldn't surprise me at all because that's what they do much to probably the commissioner's office chagrin right like I think every time the Rays go far a little piece of Rob Manfred's soul continues to die. It's not good for ratings. It's not good for ratings. They're not good for selling T-shirts and sweatshirts. And it's not good because this efficiency model

in a lot of respects has ruined baseball to some extent, right? The focus on efficiency has had a lot of drawbacks in this modern era. It's what we're seeing with the game. But the Rays continue to prove that it works. And until it doesn't work, teams are going to keep doing it. So, yes, I, again. Well, I'm hoping that there's, you know, I'm hoping there's room for kind of the Giants model.

Because I think that they're showing in a way that you can be efficient but also pay stars. And if you can do both of those things, then you can still have something to hold on to for a long time. You can still buy your Chris Bryant jersey because they sign him to a long-term deal, but they're also going to play all sorts of games with that 24th and 25th roster slot where you don't know who their fourth outfielder is or who that reliever is, but that's okay too because, like Derek says, how many people know the roster 25 deep? Right.

I mean, again, the casual fan doesn't necessarily worry that much about it. They tune in. They watch the game. They learn who the players are. Part of that's our job. It's part of the job of the people covering the team, people talking about the team and writing about the team and the team itself, market the players. That's something we call for all the time. This is not impossible. And I think the point that you made about the Giants just now, I love that we're

seeing a team with old players, with air quotes, bad contracts, turning those players into good players again through development and coaching and an approach that clearly has worked really well for them. I hope more teams are inspired by that. Just as many teams have been inspired by the Astros and the Rays and hyper-efficiency. I hope finding these other ways to move forward in player development, I hope that's a big part of the future of the game too, because that does give you more paths. That gives you more players in the pool that can

actually be difference makers. It's not all about getting the guys under club control and being as cheap as possible and loading up prospects. Brits hit on this before with the Orioles. It's like this rebuild might not work. Part of that's just being in the AL East. They could get a lot of good young talent

and that talent could all come up together, and they could be 80 to 85 wins a bunch of times, and then that talent will be free agents, and they'll have never gone to the playoffs with the core that they tore it down to build. And how much of that is the fault of the current front office? The last good Orioles teams,

they were really good, and they just ran up into some buzz saws. Yeah. 14 Royals. Anyway, hopefully that was still a fun conversation. We were having fun as we worked through it, but if you would like to buy a subscription to The Athletic to read about some more fun stuff,

theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels has our best deal. $3.99 a month gets you in the door to start on Twitter. She's at Britt underscore Giroli. He's at Eno Saris. You can drop us a line via email. Ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com is the best way to reach us. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels.

We are back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening.