Rates & Barrels - Long-Term Outlooks for Buehler & Tatis, Late Promotions & Oneil Cruz Feats of Strength

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss the long-term outlook for Walker Buehler following his second career Tommy John surgery, Fernando Tatis Jr.'s decision to undergo shoulder surgery while serving his suspension, a few approach similarities between Bo Bichette and Michael Harris II, late-season promotions thanks to new CBA rules, Oneil Cruz's Statcast-breaking feat, and much more. Rundown -- Walker Buehler Undergoes a Second Tommy John Surgery -- Fernando Tatis Jr. Set for Shoulder Surgery -- Michael Harris II and Similarities to Bo Bichette's Profile? -- Cade Cavalli & Late Promotions -- Oneil Cruz Sets New Max Exit Velocity Record -- Has Amed Rosario Finally Reached His Ceiling? -- What's Next for Yoán Moncada? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe for $1/mo for the first six months: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Wednesday, August 24th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. I'm back from my little vacation. It was a vacation from the norm. I didn't go anywhere far away. People came to me. Staycation. Yeah, staycation with visitors, which actually was pretty great.

So happy to be back and talking baseball with you, Eno, on this episode. We got a couple of big news things we're going to talk about. Walker Bueller actually underwent a second Tommy John surgery. So we'll talk about the long-term implications of that. We learned that Fernando Tatis Jr. is going to have the shoulder surgery that we wondered about for a long time while he serves his suspension. So some major changes there. It looks like Cade Cavalli is going to come up and debut with the Nationals by the end of this week. And we might see a few other top prospects get chances here at the end of the season due to a rule change in the collective bargaining agreement.

That's kind of interesting. O'Neal Cruz broke StatCast again, so we'll talk about that. We'll talk about some difficult stretch run decisions that are starting to pop up. Of course, new pitchers and new players emerging in the pool each and every week and trying to figure out how much we trust those guys against some of the players we've been leaning on all season. That's among the more difficult things that we can be faced with this time of year. But we should start with Walker Buehler.

Second Tommy John surgery for him. And when the Dodgers first announced that he was going to have surgery, it was kind of in the back of my mind as something that I thought was at least possible because they were not clear about what exactly was going to take place once he had that surgery. We have learned that is exactly what has happened. Given that it's his second Tommy John, it's a longer recovery window, more often than not for something like that.

And given the timing, it doesn't seem like we'd see Walker Bueller pitching a game until the beginning of the 2024 season. Yeah. And the chances that it doesn't take or take hold or the chances of a negative outcome are higher I think I think we're on the level of sort of 5-10%

for number 1 and I think number 2 is closer to 25-30% don't work out so definitely some risk there that wasn't there before or at least it wasn't as bad the first time he had tommy john what do you do in a dynasty league i feel like it's a real tough one

i think i might even sell low because not only is there the fact that you don't get anything this year and you don't get anything next year but then there's the fact that the first year back from tommy john you lose command uh fastball command that's been pretty well documented by research so you may not even get full walker bueller until 2025 he might be a best use to you as almost a prospect piece to a rebuilder He might be best used to you as almost a prospect piece to a Rebuilder. Hmm. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I think he's tricky because he's already 28.

He just turned 28 at the end of July, so he's going to miss his age 29 season. He's going to come back at age 30 with these concerns. After having had some Velo loss, too. Right. So then you're talking about maybe age 31 when you're really excited about what he's able to do because he'd be far enough away from that second surgery where workload would be less of a concern. Maybe the command would be all the way back.

What kind of pitcher is he going to be like after going through all of that? Very fair question to ask. And I believe he's lined up to be a free agent after 2024, so there's going to be incentive for him to obviously get all the way back, go get that payday. And it could happen. It absolutely could happen. But yeah, that long-term league scenario you're describing,

waiting this one out probably isn't a good idea. And you say that knowing the returns you're likely to get in a trade are probably underwhelming. So I'd be very curious to see what has been out there, if he's been moved to any sort of dynasty keeper leagues that are out there. Is it for one prospect? Are you getting that kind of return back? Are you getting old players, the guys that are on the wrong side of 35 that might make you better right now, but really have no long-term value? I would guess it's probably returns more like the

latter than the former right now given the timetable given all these factors dynasty would you rather walker bueller or miles michaels oh lord uh is that okay would you rather old guy i get that pitches now you get a better guy later i mean let's assume just a sort of neutral situation if i'm not playing for a title right now you're a contender you're a contender you have walker bueller you need pitching if i can't find something better maybe that's the kind of trade i have to make because you want to win that title miles michael is pitching pretty well yeah i, sub-20% K rate, not really walking anybody. Doing it over a pretty good volume of innings.

Probably going to come in close to 190, maybe 200 innings by the end of the regular season. Plus some postseason innings. He's worked at that level before. He wouldn't be an amazing keeper for next year. But look at your roster and be like, am I really keeping Walker Buehler in this situation for next year? It depends a little bit on how many keepers you have, deep the league is and so on and so forth but you could you could use them as a as a trade piece if you still have time before your trade deadline how much value do you put in rest of season projections today giving you a baseline expectation for what you would expect in 2023. I mean, this seems like the starting point of next year's projection.

And if you look at Myles Michaelis in that light, a 385 ERA, a 121 whip, a low strikeout rate, that's not a bad pitcher. Those are the ratios of kind of a top 40, top 50 starting pitcher. That plays pretty well. We know the defense behind them should still be good bush stadium still should be a decent place to pitch nl central is not gonna magically get a lot better in one off season it's just it's not built with teams like that i mean the the worst thing that could happen as far as the division context would be the cubs going after multiple big free

agents and trying to accelerate their rebuild by spending their way through it. Not impossible, but even that, that's still not a nightmare scenario for the other pitchers in the NL Central. What's a bigger factor, though, is the new schedule. Ah, it's going to do the Segway sound. Yeah, I mean, just one last thing real quick about Michaelis is that certain skills are stickier year to year uh than they are in season so in season you could say he has good command

uh everything looks good season to season you'd be like well how good is his stuff so his his seasonal projection may actually be worse than what you're seeing in season because his stuff level is lower however i do think uh the new season actually the new schedule probably is a net hmm for him that'd be a net negative it would be a slight loss for the cardinals right facing nl central opponents less often is worse for sure the new schedule came out and it looks like you know there's plus or minus a game or two but it looks like you face other teams in your division about 10 times and that's less than it was before and so you're going to have there's going to be more noise in um matchups every given season because you're just gonna sometimes you get the marlins and

sometimes you get the phillies yeah and like yeah they it will be a less balanced schedule some people will call it a more balanced schedule because you're not uh fighting in the division so often but in some ways it's a less balanced schedule because there's more noise given on what the what random al West team you got. Like, did you get the Astros or the A's? And so there's going to be more chaos when it comes to the schedule. But at the same time, if you are in the AL East, fewer times against the Yankees, fewer times against the Blue Jays,

I'll take it. Yankees, fewer times against the Blue Jays. I'll take it. Do you give significant upgrades to all ALEs pitchers, or do you give greater upgrades to your more fringy players that would be in and out of your lineup in the current format? Right? I mean, here's the thing that I'm trying to say, is that with someone like Garrett Cole, he plays against everyone,

and you end up getting the good results. And while his results will improve, you're not playing that in-out game anymore with the formerly Jordan Montgomery types. Jordan Montgomery's situation is now different. I think it's more like Jordan Montgomery. I think it's like Jordan Montgomery, Ross Stripling, you know...

Orioles pitchers, all of them. Yeah, the trust level for Orioles pitching as they keep going through their process, that goes up when you're not seeing as many matchups against the Yankees and the Jays, the Red Sox, Rays. Like, that's a big difference. Yeah, and you just, it's like, it's, I mean, it'll be in the projections right because every good

projection system has part factors and has strength of you know opponent factors and all that stuff it'll be baked in to some extent but really it'll be that last little toggle that's in your own head when you look at a guy and you say am i really going to take an ale's picture picture right here at this point in the draft or should I take this guy who pitches for the Marlins? And then you're like, oh, wait, I just took Eliezer Hernandez over Austin Voth. I should probably have taken Austin Voth. And I think that's the kind of mental toggle you just have to be aware of next year and try to keep your mind fresh, basically, because it'll be a fresh new schedule.

It's not unlike the changes we already had to make, those mental adjustments of NL pitchers facing DHS, right? We already went through this, where you're in-moment decision-making when you're on the clock with a minute or when a player is up for bid in an auction. You already had to make that switch once where you're not just favoring the NL pitcher

because they face the pitcher spot in the lineup anymore. We're talking about that kind of change because you're exactly right. It's a long-term bias, right? The numbers will have that. Yeah. The numbers will have that cooked in. All the projection systems will have the adjustment. You're going to see some surprisingly, I think, good ratios for pitchers in the AL East compared

to previous expectations. You're going to see some bumps for guys in the the AL East compared to previous expectations. You're going to see some bumps for guys in the NL Central going the other direction. That's just going to be the nature of how this ends up playing out. And we're seeing it. We've started with Myles Michaelis. We've turned to Jordan Montgomery. He's seeing it a little bit in real time where you just take Jordan Montgomery out of that park. And yes, we don't know exactly how St. Louis is playing, but it's going to probably play easier than

New York. Then you take them out of that division and you put them up against some easier lineups. Jordan Montgomery all of a sudden looks like an ace. I think there's some things going on under the hood. I'm not going to pretend that there were zero changes and we shouldn't give the Cardinals any benefit for their coaching process because they have changed his fastball mix a little bit. He's thrown the foreseam more than the sinker. And from what I look at in my numbers, I think it's because he can command the foreseam better.

This is the first four-start stretch of the season for Jordan Montgomery where his command, his location plus, has been above average for four straight starts. And I think back to Luis Garcia, the reliever, who showed up there, and I think everyone had told him to throw the four seam because everyone's throwing the four seam and you need more whiffs, you're a reliever, whatever the reason was. But he could not command the four seam high in the zone. And the Card cardinal said just throw the fastball you can command dude you know and he went to the sinker and had a lot of success so i think there's probably an emphasis on command uh in that uh st louis organization when it comes to pitching which is weird because not all of them have great command but at least within when you look at one pitcher

you know throw the pitches you can command better yeah one extra adjustment though for montgomery beyond those other factors i think it was easy to for me to look at that park change plus defense plus yadi factor like that that in and of itself he could change could change nothing and was probably going to get better results but making one more change on top of that, that could be something that people might have overlooked because it's not as easy to see that or to account for that right away with that move to a new team.

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You live for experience and lead by example. You want the most out of life and realize what you're looking for is already in you. This is for you. The Canadian Armed Forces, a message from the government of Canada. Let's get to Tatis for a moment. He has decided to have the shoulder surgery that was kind of lingering in the background this entire time. You know, had the wrist injury, of course, that cost him this season, then got the 80 game PED suspension, which will cost him time into 2023.

From a keeper dynasty, long term Padres perspective, all all the different factors that we think about with Tatis. Does the decision to actually have the surgery now make you feel better about him in the long run? Avoiding surgery tends to be the ideal outcome if if you can. But this seemed more like an inevitability anyway. So where do you fall on Tatis now that we have this added bit of information? I know that our friend Rob DiPietro had an early 2023 draft at the end of last week, I believe that was. I was gone, so the timing's a little fuzzy. And Tatis went at pick 4-2, so that would be, doing the math, 47 overall. That was before the surgery news was revealed on Tuesday.

So I would imagine with added risk and recovery time, maybe this could leak even a little bit beyond his suspension. We'd probably see Tatisco even later now that we know that he's had this surgery. I think I'd want to get him in the back end of the top 100. I would want him to drop another three rounds. Yeah, so two to three rounds if you're in a 15-team league to get into that range. Here's my thinking.

Dan O'Dowd was on the MLB Network saying that they did not have much success with this surgery in particular in his organization when he was running it. And then I have a name that's on the forefront of my mind when I think of the surgery, which is Cody Ballinger. And that's a little bit more complicated because maybe he had some weaknesses within the zone in terms of his approach. Maybe he had some holes that maybe Tatis doesn't have. However, if you look at them, there are some similarities where you've got the sort of athletic peak, high strikeout rate, high walk rate.

What if the high strikeout rate suggests that Tatis could be pitched to, you know, somewhere in the zone. He's got some sort of hole. And then you throw in a weakness in the shoulder, he loses some power, and then, you know, of course, the elephant in the room, you know, how long has he been doing these performance enhancers and, you know, what effect will that have?

I think the previous study has done a bad job of figuring out how much performance enhancers help, mostly because we don't know when they start or stop doing it, like I said. So I would say big question mark with the performance enhancers, big question mark with the surgery, very small question mark with the plate approach, is not too far off of Cody Bellinger coming off of surgery. Thinking about this a few different ways,

one with all the question marks, imagining a Riddler jacket for a team when he comes back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big question marks, little question marks. Little top hat with the question marks on it. All fair. I still, I mean, in terms of the things you just outlined and how much I'm worried about them,

the shoulder surgery is now at the top of the list. The wrist injury, which was taking him a while to come back from, I think that's still second. I'd probably put the PED questions third and put the strikeout rate fourth of how worried I am, how big the question marks actually are on those particular items. I think the other part of the Tatis profile compared to Bellinger that I think you're right to point out similarities in terms of the surgery itself. The other thing that would give me some optimism relative to previous norms with Tatis is a lot of the value that Tatis brings also comes from the stolen bases. Bellinger runs, like he's had that stolen base part of his profile, but it's more balanced from a rotisserie perspective by comparison. There are more ways it can go right

if Tatis loses some power, but continues to draw walks at a similar clip to what he had pre-surgery. hour, but continues to draw walks at a similar clip to what he had pre-surgery. And even if the K rate doesn't get better, we're still talking about a guy with a 350 OBP potentially that could steal 30 plus bases pretty easily. He's still so young. I mean, after all this lost time, once he's back on the field, presumably in the first half of 2023, Tatis is still going to be just 24 years old. And that's a reasonable difference even compared to the Bellinger situation as well.

There's also, I would add, maybe a scouting component to this, which is, I'm trying to look at it now, but do you have an idea off your head where Tatis' hole is in the strike zone? For some reason, in my mind i could be dead wrong and everyone's gonna laugh at me down and away for tatis seems like the problem spot yep yeah down generally he's a good high ball hitter uh down and in is uh no that's that's good contact yeah so down and away yeah down and away which is I think

superior to having a high in the zone hole it's a more normal place to miss yeah right it's also a place that you can learn just to spit on I think and then the pitcher will hit it

sometimes you strike out and the pitcher will hit it sometimes you strike out the pitcher will miss it a bunch and you don't strike out right where it's high in the zone if you just can't hit it's also down and away is more specific right it's like it's like it's a corner it's a smaller target it's better command of a nastier pitch to hit it throwing hard up in the zone is easier to do relatively speaking and then bellinger was more like three quadrants high and not just high and away or high and in or something so um yeah so i think there is a bit of a scouting component to where the hole is and how likely tatis would be to be able to cover that up or or be productive even with that hole um because i there's not that many hitters that are great low and away

it's kind of one that he shares with a lot of people so yeah right the strikeout rate is the least of the worries but all those worries add up to me not really wanting to spend all of next year the first half of next

year on pins and needles waiting for updates, pictures, grainy photos, grainy workout videos. I'm thinking of the Ronald Acuna stuff where he's like, oh, he's jumping around on some stuff. Oh, he must be ready. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. And Acuna himself has not been, you know, I drafted Acuna in the first round thinking I was getting a deal. And I don't think I'm getting first round value back from Acuna. Not yet. We talked about it though.

Maybe you get it for the final month of the season where the power catches up and then it all sort of comes together at just the right time for him as the Braves get ready for another deep postseason run. I think the would you rather questions with Tatis in long-term leagues are more interesting than the short-term leagues. We talked about the ability to just say, no, I'm not playing this game with Tatis. If you're in a league with no IL spots, the calculus there is very different. If you're in a league with IL spots, that's a little bit different because the per-game production you will get without having to play as short on the bench that might be worth the risk that point where those two lines intersect might make a lot

more sense but you know our early draft and hold and an fbc and those kinds of conversations are are different dynasty and keeper leagues usually have either il slots or deep benches to keep people from having to make a decision based on injury because you know short term it makes sense keep the the waiver wire with full of actual good players make people make decisions about injury and that makes a lot of sense I think in a long-term league you're thinking pick the right players build the right type of team and win and you shouldn't have to drop a guy just because you're you're stuck because of injuries so um i tend to think of a good would you rather for tatis as

being somebody like dansby swanson i'd keep tatis if that were the the 1v1 option that i had even if you were competitive it's weird because the difference, we just talked about Buehler and thinking about the long-term concerns there. It's going to take Buehler a lot longer to come back and then be himself than it presumably will take Tatis to come back and be himself. Timetables are totally different, even though the severity of the surgery

should not be overlooked. I would look at Tatis and say, I don't have this problem. I don't have many keeper or dynasty situations. I wouldn't have that same sort of panic feeling. And I realize there's a big difference in starting points between where they're valued at today in the first place. throw something out there to someone who wasn't panicking but was willing to listen is Michael Harris a fair straight up offer or would you rather just have Harris would you not even make that offer if you were the person that had Harris on your roster right now well that's funny because I was thinking about Bo Bichette as another would you rather at the same position and in some ways Michael Harris seems like a Bo Bichette-ian type player.

Very high chase rate. Goes oppo a lot. Steals bases. Maybe, and Bo Bichette, to be fair, was really successful when he stole bases just last year. 25 out of 26 last year year 7 out of 14 this year um just the chase rate alone makes me think that there's a possibility michael harris is over rallied right now and if you look at the projections which hey maybe it's too early in michael harris's

career to look at the projections maybe he's's still a quote-unquote prospect. But we do have almost 300 plate appearances of this poor chase rate, of this barrel rate, which is pretty good, but of the swing strike, the strikeout rate, this walk rate. So we do have information from him at the Major League level. His projection basically is pretty similar to all of them, which is a 250 to 260 batting average very low 300s obp um and slightly below league average round league average power uh bichette right now

as like his actual results versus is projected uh 250 260 average OBP, and league average power. So, you know, I think you could get more for Michael Harris. No? No, you couldn't. More for Michael Harris than Tatis? I think that's, to me, it's a really interesting challenge trade. I think it would be a good use of Michael Harris. Okay, so that's a reasonable place to put things. I mean, I'm looking beyond the O-swing percentage, though.

Michael Harris has an 11.9% barrel rate. That's better than Bichette's career rate so far. It's better than Bichette was when he first arrived in the big leagues in 2019. And the hard hit rate underneath that barrel rate is comparable to Bo Bichette's, even though since the start of last season, Bichette's a little bit higher than that level. I do think the similarities are real just in terms of the plate skills. Low walk rate for both players. I wonder, looking back at the minor league walk rates for Bo Bichette,

even those are a shade lower than what Harris has done. So I wonder if Harris actually has a little more room for OBP than Bo Bichette does. We talked about this on the 3-0 show. Caitlin McGrath joined us, so we had a lot of Blue Jays talk. With Bo, I think there's a legitimate question about having a hit tool that's so good that you do things that aren't necessarily optimal

for outcomes with it. You can hit pitches you shouldn't be able to hit, and therefore you don't drive as many pitches as you could if you were a little more patient. The question with both of these players is how much can they learn that? And are you more willing to look at a player like Harris, who's earlier in his career, and have optimism about it compared to Bichette, who's been in the league for a few years and has used the same approach and been able to do really good things with it. I mean, this works for Beau Bichette. I don't know if we can reasonably say they have equal hit tools. I don't think any scouting reports would have them on the exact same page, but looking future 55 for Harris,

according to Fangraphs, future 60 for Bichette back when they put that up for him, they're not that far off in that regard. So is it more correctable for a younger player, or is it better to have the certainty that you can do enough to be productive over that longer stretch the way Bichette has been through the early part of his career? Yeah. I was looking at his rolling. I often look at the rolling charts on Fangraphs to just get a sense of how that player's day-to-day approach to his chase rate has changed. That's just interesting. He's had peaks this year where he's been chasing more than half the pitches he's seen outside the zone, Harris.

He's improved. But the valleys are still around 40%. So I think this is an actual real concern for Harris. Of course, he could take a big leap in his second year like Acuna did, in the same stat, in the same way. But given this set of skills that he's showing right now, I think there's going to be a little bit of regression next year. And I would also throw this out. There's an open-ended question.

I don't expect you to have the answer. I don't expect anyone to have the immediate answer to this. But if we saw consistently better swing decisions throughout time in the minor leagues. Would that matter? Or is just the quality of stuff difference between high A, double A, and the big leagues so wide that that's not necessarily a bankable skill when you're talking about the quality difference

in the pitching that we're facing? Just as a comparison, and they're not exactly the same types of players, but here on this level, I think there can be a little bit of a comparison. Oh, my goodness. I think Matt Olsen just hit a grand slam. Yes, he did. It's 13 to nothing. Okay.

Look at the rolling chart for bobby witt jr bobby witt jr came in with a very poor uh reach rate chase rate whatever you want to call it god get rid of reach rates stop calling it uh and uh it was over 45 for the first 25 games of his major league career. There's been just a, it just cratered or just went down from there to where it's never been. It's been higher than, than 40% for more than like two games at a time. And it's gone all the way down below 30% for a 10 game stretch. So when you look at his chart,

you know, for you YouTubers and which way is the right way you're working on that i'm getting the chart i'll have it in a second so so bobby witt up and then down down down down down little up down down down down down down right this is michael harris up uh down up up, down, down, down. You know what I mean? So it's like, I would want to see over the course of your first season more of the Bobby Witt chart than the Michael Harris chart, right?

Like that's real improvement in recognition of the strike zone. And I think that each time that it goes back up again, yes, teams like other teams are scouting you uh they're trying to they're adjusting to your new found chase rate and they're trying to tempt you somewhere else outside the zone right and so it goes back up again a little bit and then bobby witt says no no no i got you i know what you're doing i know i know you changed it from down over here to up over there whatever it is and it goes back down again um michael harris's shows some adjustability but if you just you'd have to take that whole bottom part of witt's graph and

push it up like 10 to get michael harris's chart um so i am biased towards seeing that sort of adjustability uh even in the in their rookie season I threw Beau Bichette on the screen right now too just so we could look at that for a moment. I mean, consistently high, right? There was a little bit of improvement there. 2021 is his second season. Early in the season, he came into the season with a, I'm not going to chase, and then he'd chase, chase, chase, chase, chase,

more and more the rest of the season. This year, you've seen some improvement. That's good. I get the Harris chart as well. Because I think the way you described it was probably fair and accurate, but also very difficult to visualize. Let's see. It looks more like Bo Bichette's first year,

where there is some adjustment, but it ends high. Yeah, that peak, if you're looking at where Bichette was at the end of last season. Bichette has ended the year at 55% in the last 20 games or so. Maybe it was a little more of a warning than I realized. Harris has shown some improvement. I'm not going to pretend he hasn't shown any improvement, but those are still pretty consistently high peaks. If you look at it, that 45% that he's at right now is where Bobby Witt started.

Yeah. Interesting, though. I do think because he runs and he's been so efficient, especially, and he's on a good team. I'm not trying to say he's a bad player. No, that's not what we're saying at all. He might be overvalued in drafts next year. There's going to be a little bit of regression. I might use him to buy

Fernando Tatis, even with me being the one between us that might have had more doubt about Tatis' future. Yeah. Fun to think about the future in these cases, and I just expect Michael Harris to get some significant ADP lift.

Why wouldn't he? He's done a ton as a rookie to get people really excited. All the time. All the time. I wanted to ask you about this. The Nationals are likely to have Cade Cavalli come up and make his big league debut on Friday. And we've had some reports in the time since we last recorded that the Diamondbacks are probably going to give Corbin Carroll a look at some point before the end of the season. It sounds like Gunnar Henderson could actually see a little bit of time in Baltimore before the end of the year. The one situation of these three that's unique, of course, Henderson, if he joins the Orioles, is joining a team that actually is within arm's reach of a playoff spot. Both Cavalli and Corbin Carroll will be joining teams

that will not be in the postseason this year, but there was a change in the CBA that was designed to get teams to be willing to promote prospects sooner, and there are draft pick rewards for the team if they have a player win the Rookie of the Year award.

Why does that matter at the end of this season? Because we've reached a point in the season where you can call up a prospect and he will not accrue enough days of service time to lose Rookie of the Year eligibility for the 2023 season. So I think what's happening is teams are trying to get a sneak peek at how big league ready their prospects are. If you get a look for 35 to 40 days, which is probably going to be about 25 to 30 games, depending on which team calls up which guys win, you can get a better sense with that snapshot of whether or not that player is in fact ready to be a great player from day one next season. And if that's the case, that player has a better chance

of winning the Rookie of the Year award and bringing you back draft pick compensation. So I think this is one of those small wrinkles that's having a bigger impact on how teams are managing young players late in the year. I didn't really see this as something that was going to happen, especially for players on non-contending teams.

Yeah, it's just weird how they make these rules and then you set the front office to it and you have to game it out. What's our best move here? Analytically, what do the Islanders guys say? None of it's really resulted have we has a result has any of this resulted in us seeing uh prospects the best players in the in the minor leagues in the major leagues more often this year it's helping it's not perfect

it's better than it was it's better than it was because under the old rules there's no way you'd see a gun or whatever. No chance we'd... Well, the only reason that could have happened previously is the desire to make the playoffs and seeing him as a clear upgrade over... What about the old September roster rules? We used to see prospects come up in September.

A little bit, yeah. And then you could just demote them longer to begin the next season and then bring them up in mid-May instead of mid-April and preserve the year of service time that way. And I still think there's a chance we'd have that. If someone comes up at the end of the year, gets this look, falls on their face, guess what? Extra seasoning at AAA is now easier to justify. No, we gave him a look. He wasn't ready. Right. Yeah. There's still that. I mean, among the names you listed just for fantasy purposes, I'm most excited about Gunnar Henderson. I think there's a role for him.

I know they had him playing first base and stuff. Yeah, moving him around to the right side of the infield a little bit. Jorge Mateo, I know he comes up every week. Is he good enough? I know we talk about him a lot. He comes up every week on Under the Radar. He's been very good for about two and a half months now. He's actually playing well. It's not just the steals anymore.

He's got a league average batting line. And it's been even better. If you look at, if you kind of cut the season so far into two parts, the more recent half has been better. God damn you, Ian Conn. Wow, he's hitting 317 in the second

half? Yeah. He's got a 166 WRC plus in the second half? This is true. Although second half is a misnomer, right? That means post all-star break. I mean,

we can do the custom date range. It's only 101 plate appearances. Anyway, that's a better than I expected. So, so Jorge Mateo is a building block. Now you could more reasonably look at Mateo in the same way that you've looked at other players that have emerged during rebuilds.

Is Mateo this year's version of Mullins, even though the war is not going to hit quite as much as Mullins did a year ago? I mean, I think you could probably make that case now. And I guess by moving him over to first and second, Gunnar Henderson, they're saying that his arm is not necessarily uh good enough for third because you know playing him over Ramon Urias and making

Urias um you know a part-timer with Odor or whatever or all around the mound seems to make more sense to me uh any case uh Gunnar Henderson, I do like the walk rate. The strikeout rate has actually kind of fluctuated up and down. So that's an open question mark is how much contact he'll make. And so therefore, what his batting average will be. But the power and speed seem real.

And I'd just be watching the swinging strike rate when he comes up early. But I'm the most excited about him. Cade Cavalli, he comes out of an organization that I'm unsure about their ability to develop pitchers. His strikeout rate is lackluster, and his performance has frankly been sort of up and down. I'm on a real wait and see there.

I'm not going to put in a big bid if I have to buy him before I get any of my sweet, sweet stuff numbers. Yeah, yeah. I was going to say, you don't have the minor league stuff numbers on Cavalli by chance? I was looking. I don't think he's in my minor league update. I think Corbin Carroll is actually a little more interesting to me

than Henderson. If I could only have one of the two, and that was something Al and I talked about earlier this week. It's like, can you actually stash both these guys? Not in many redraft situations, but Carroll is doing everything, and he's running even more than Henderson in the minors. I mean, we're talking about a guy who's now 31 for 36 as a base dealer between AA and AAA this year, and that's in 87 games. It's not even a full minor league season so far for Carroll, and that's coming with power, average, OBP to level, especially with all the time he lost last year. Corbin Carroll played seven games before having shoulder surgery last year, still got promoted to level, and blew through AA in a half season.

I mean, he looks like a special player. So I think who are you demoting or who are you taking playing time away from? You've got Thomas, Varshow, Stone Garrett, and Jake McCarthy out there in the outfield spots in DH. Do you just mix it all around? Mix it all around and if you have to play McCarthy and Garrett less, that's totally fine. You live with that. I think McCarthy and Garrett are lefty-righty. Garrett's 26 and McCarthy's 25.

Neither of them was a really well-regarded prospect. So you could basically put them into a platoon and play Carroll every day. And then if Varshow or Thomas need a blow, you know, you got that extra outfielder. Play Carson Kelly a little bit less, catch Varshow a little more. A few ways to make it work.

I think there's a little bit of a downgrade for everybody with regard to playing time if Corbin Carroll comes up. Particularly when it comes to Garrett and McCarthy. I'd be super excited.

Carroll or Gunnar Henderson are my number ones. I know Francisco Alvarez was number one in baseball America, but A, that's a real life prospect list. So they're going to give him value for fielding, framing, blocking that does not show up in your fantasy league. And um i myself have heard some inconsistent reports uh regarding francisco alvarez's uh abilities to handle certain pitches yeah that hits the ball very hard though when he hits it but yeah i think there's a bit of a gap between where these other top prospects are for fantasy purposes and where alvarez is going to be once he eventually gets that opportunity. We had a few questions come in that we're going to get to in just a minute. I just want to throw this other thing at you before we get to those. O'Neal

Cruz hitting a ball 122.4 miles per hour. That broke the StatCast record. So Cruz now has a max exit velo that's above anything we've ever seen from Stanton and Judge and the guys that do this stuff more than anybody, which it's one way to look at a player. no reason at all to doubt the raw power given what we have seen now up to 19 home runs between the big leagues and triple a so far this season and i know the slash line is rough right now 198 249 401 entering play on wednesday but i do like the pirates are just riding it out and letting him get those reps at the big league level instead of trying to play the up and down game. I actually think that there's more of an Austin Riley situation perhaps coming for Cruz than a Giancarlo Stanton situation, even though Cruz has now hit the hardest ball ever in the StatCast era.

And so the Stanton comparisons are apt in that regard but when you hear, there's a good Rob Beer Temple piece about this when you hear what Cruz is thinking about, what he's talking about, what the team is talking about, what they see

what people see when he hits, he's stuck in between and that is something that literally Austin Riley told me in the minor leagues once, where you're stuck anticipating a slider when you get the fastball, you're stuck anticipating a fastball when you get the slider. And I think, you know, looking at his minor league numbers and adding that in and adding the austin riley comp riley also hits the ball really hard i think that this is going to click for him at some point i don't know what it's going to be you know is it going to be this year is it going to be next year is it is it going to take a little

bit longer it could but i do think it's going to click i think another name that i think of is jazz chisholm where you can focus on all the flaws and be like 38% strikeout rate, 16% swinging strike rate, you know, 51% ground ball rate. The hardest hit ball he hit was on the ground. Well, that's always going to be the case because you hit your hardest hit balls at basically at zero launch angle. Uh, and you trade, you learn how learn how to trade uh that oomph for loft uh to hit homers over the course of your career i think cruz has got everything to be a superstar and i would i would put him in that jazz chism austin riley section where maybe it doesn't work out i'm sure there's got to be some players you can you think of a player offhand i didn't't ask you to prep for that or anything, but I'm going to keep talking and give

you a chance to think about it. But do you think of, there's got to be other players in the Austin Riley, Jazz Chisholm mold that didn't make it. Maybe even Andy Marte, you know, who came up with the Braves, was a top prospect, had some issues like this and never really put it together. But I still believe in O'Neal Cruz. This is another just another data point for me. And I don't know how useful the projections are, because I think he's either going to figure it out and be a superstar and blow past those projections or not figure it out and play below those projections. or not figure it out and play below those projections. So it really just comes down to the game theory questions and cost will be a huge part of it.

What is it going to take to get Cruz in drafts? Where is his ADP actually going to land? I think because he has more than one way to be very helpful to fantasy players, he's going to carry a much higher draft day price tag than you would expect ordinarily for a player with these flaws. So that makes them really polarized. And there's going to be people that are, yes, let's do it. But because if it clicks, it could be Riley or it could be jazz or it could be Aaron judge. I mean, Aaron judges first 27 games in the big

leagues at the end of 2016, he had 42 Ks against nine walks, right? It was a 179, 263, 345 line. Comes back in his first full season. Hits 52 home runs, which he's probably going to do for the second time in his career this season. Seems like he's well on his way to doing that. Yeah, Judge is a good comp, too, just because they're so big. They have a bigger strike zone to learn, you know? Like they literally will watch pitches that are balls be called strikes just because they're so tall.

So you can dream on the potential and you can dream on it happening quickly because we do have a few guys who have done that, but he doesn't have to turn into Aaron Judge from 2017 to be very valuable. Where would you be comfortable taking on the risk, not knowing what the final six weeks of the season holds? If he starts to figure it out before the end of the season, which is possible, that kind of blows things out of the water. But let's just say that things look similar from rate stats today at the end of the season.

Like that's where he kind of finishes things off. Where are you comfortable taking on that risk? That's interesting let's see if i have my draft results for my main event because i did uh put him on my main event team um and i drafted him in the 14th round 20 2-0-2. It might have been an overdraft. I could have gotten Eddie Rosario, Josh Donaldson, Nelson Cruz,

Robbie Grossman, Adoles Garcia, Trey Mancini in that same grouping. Those would have all been much safer however I wanted to take a shot at MI Gold and I was a little bit behind on that and the next best middle infielder that got taken after him was Josh Rojas Brandon Crawford and Lise Urias

and I thought Cruz represented more upside than those guys but I would say looking back a bit of an overdraft, and I would love to get O'Neal Cruz in a similar spot, maybe a little bit higher to represent this, the fact that he's come in and done some good things. 175, 150, you know. Brendan Rodgers went 162 this year and doesn't steal any

bases yeah I think the players we need to be looking at are the other top prospects that came up and didn't have success right away Jared Kelnick right he was probably a pick 150 175 range player that seems like the draft day floor

exactly in my mind yeah that's the latest I think you're going to get Cruz if things stay where they are. And I think there's a chance if he does good things. Don't tell me that because I want him again. What are you going to do if he creeps up into the 100 to 120 range? Because I love the players that end up in there. There's always veteran players,

usually guys between about 27 and 30 years old. They have no playing time questions. They have very stable skills. And usually the wart is IL stint, previous season, right? Long-term track record and then IL stint. 1-17, shortstop this year, Carlos Correa. 1-12, Dansby Swanson. Yeah, those are the kinds of players you end up passing on.

1-24, Jake Cronenworth and 125 Ahmed Rosario. So you'd be passing on at least some of those types of guys or those guys, maybe even specifically, Willie Dom is 127. You'd be passing on them for Cruz. That's a little rough because those guys are more easily projectable and they represent less risk. But it does depend a little bit on my build to date to that point. If I got some boring, good pick type middle infielders and I needed to, like last year,

I needed maybe an infielder that represented more upside then I could still see myself picking Cruz. What do you think? Some of these guys are going to go up. Some of these guys are going to go down. Some of these guys are going to go down. I think Ahmed Rosario might end up very similar spot around 125. Who would you take?

O'Neal Cruz or Ahmed Rosario? I think I'd take Ahmed Rosario. Because Rosario, and I think we've talked about him in the not so distant past, does everything, including batting average, and that's an overlooked category.

Run production is probably better than you expect. Power-speed combo. But it's like power-speed light. I mean, O'Neal Cruz is going to out-homer him and out-steal him. But he may do it with a 210 average versus a 284 i'm changing man i'm getting old i i i like i like oatmeal oatmeal i really like oatmeal it's making me not want to call players oatmeal players anymore or for me to just say fine throw some dried cranberries and walnuts or pecans in there and make your oatmeal more interesting.

Ham and egger? Yeah, I like ham and eggs. I like all food. I'm looking at the Rosario. You know what? I think Rosario's power is a tick lighter than I thought, so I'd probably still pass on Ahmed Rosario at that spot. I would take O'Neal Cruz over Ahmed Rosario if the prices are close.

For some reason, maybe I'm just throwing the Andres Jimenez power into Rosario's profile, which is not fair. And I think Jimenez versus Cruz is actually a tougher toss-up, a much tougher toss-up. I think when you, yeah, Jimenez might be, but I think Jimenez might also go higher than that. I think think ahmed rozario is a really interesting thing because you can see his max ev has gotten better it's actually pretty decent this year he hit a ball 115 so you could say oh the raw power is in there i do think after you've given a guy 2600 plate appearances at the big league level you can kind of avert your eyes from the 55 raw power fan graphs gave him you know five years ago or six years ago or seven years ago even at this point um and then max ev becomes less meaningful uh you know as a descriptor of his potential raw power i mean he's he's had a 51

percent ground ball rate his whole career he It doesn't seem like he's about to change it. No, he's not. I'm firmly on the Cruz over Rosario side after the initial waffle. I finally convinced you of something. Usually you convince me of something. I'm looking at the results from that Rob DiPietro draft I

mentioned earlier. Andres Jimenez did go in the early part of round six. That would have been pick 78. There are believers out there. That saying yeah so where did ahmed razario go he they only did seven rounds or at least they only shared seven rounds so far and he didn't get picked which makes sense and cruz did not either go either i don't see him no no anil cruz did not get uh not get scooped up but i would imagine right around that round eight, round nine range of 15 teamers when people are going to start thinking about him for all these reasons. There's so many things he can do. If it clicks quickly, it's to the moon, which is really exciting.

a good reason to pick oatmeal early is that you can be available for this kind of a pick at that kind of part of the draft if you're taking if you're taking shots on bobby witt in the second round then when it comes to here you got to take a med rosario you know what i mean like when they like you you can't take bobby witt i'm talking about last year's Bobby Witt. And O'Neal Cruz on the same team. I mean, you can, but then you're just, that's risk on top of risk. I feel like, you know, you're just, that's boom or bust, baby. Who's the equivalent of that? Gunnar Henderson. You can't next year be like, I'm taking,

Gunnar Henderson's not goingner henderson's not going to go where bobby witt went who's who's like a are you sure i prospect maybe yeah it could be yeah hold on i'm gonna take gunner henderson in the fourth and o'neill cruz in the eighth and i'm gonna win this thing baby that's the way i used to play and it's amazing when it works but it doesn't usually work yeah right or what happens is you have the team that's really exciting, and if you're on the radio, hey, come talk to us about your team. Oh, yeah. We would love to talk to you.

You took those big chances. And the only reason you did well is because you did some other things well that were really boring that they wouldn't even ask you about. They didn't want to talk to you about. You crushed it with a few really old guys that ended up with bigger roles in rounds 15 19 and 22 the at the time you did it you thought you were going to cut those players and you have to be right about two out of the three or all three and they bailed you out it was actually the fact that the last three picks were cory kluver jordan montgomery

right you you tend to need to do a lot of other things right with the boring picks if you're going to go really aggressive with these early high-risk, high-reward type players. But yeah, at DeadpoolHitter on Twitter, no hyphens, no spaces if you're looking to see that board. It's back, I don't know, 15, 20 tweets. So some really interesting names sprinkled in there. A lot of very sharp drafters in that particular event and probably a good indicator of what early NFBC drafts are going to look like given the makeup of that league. Let's get to a couple questions real quick before we go. The first mailbag question had two players in particular about it. Yohan Mankata was actually a drop in a league and he's been a strange player

this year. Top team cut him and he's the waiver claim to give him a spin for the final month or so wondering if you guys are in or out at him getting back to being an above average hitter i'll be considering against other guys like justin turner and jake fraley for a final keeper slot wow it's really it's been a rough couple of years for moncada to be down in old Turner versus Fraley versus Moncada for a final keeper spot sort of decision the speed seems absolutely gone so I might actually take that flyer on Fraley especially if it's a league that rewards OBP I mean he it sounds like it is he's talking about being above average player that sounds like positive WRC plus the rest of season

projection for Moncada's 104 WRC plus and that does not even account for the fact that he doesn't have steals you know so I think this is a player that was uh very exciting and athletic and young and then uh you know he had a real bad time of it with COVID in 2020 um I don't I don't want to speculate that that alone removed his athleticism, but in the meantime now, he just doesn't look as athletic. The flaws that he had in terms of his contact rate and his approach are standing out much more than his athleticism. If you made me buy blind on one of Munkata or Fraley

for next season, I would take Munkata or Fraley for next season, I would take Munkata. I think the playing time is safer. He's still a good defender. I'm really interested to see if he makes some adjustments in the offseason. The underlying numbers are not as exciting as they used to be. There's still a lot of swing and miss. He's walking a bit less.

So you're kind of asking yourself, bounce back to what? 230, 240 with a decent OBP and 15 to 20 home run power? You've got to be in a reasonably deep mixed league to be pretty excited about keeping him there. So definitely not the no-brainer pick up in that situation and hold

that he would have been just a couple of seasons ago. It's hard to make decisions like that. It's on love for Fraley. I mean, they're both 27 and this is the best swinging strike rate fraley's ever had this is the best strikeout rate fraley's ever had this is the uh longest stretch of everyday run i think i mean he's had some close ones in seattle but a lot of those plate appearances were accrued in a part-time role um and you know players will tell you that you improve when you get given everyday uh shots you know i was just talking to jd davis about that where he's just like

uh you know just your ability to adjust and to see what's coming you know it's so much better if you're playing every day um and then the last thing um you know this is this is coming out this week but I learned recently that there are some fast twitch abilities that you start losing that your body starts losing as quickly as 2-3 days so if you're not playing every day

there's a chance that you're losing your max bat speed in those days because you're not even facing live pitching. So there could be an actual physical component to not playing every day that benefits you. see someone who's projected for very similarly by wrc plus who's going to give you more speed and whose career is shaped in a better direction compared to uh moncada's that's that's my uh thing for him i i do agree with you that uh if you just ask me those names and you and we were drinking at a bar i'd say one wakata but with the laptop with the information right in front of you a little more careful consideration yeah no it's a legitimate like tough decision but i think it's gonna come down to playing time and i still think there's there's one more year from wakata to be an everyday guy before the white socks start to look elsewhere if it doesn't turn around.

I think he can make good on that. Last question here. This also came from Mike who sent us the Yohan Mankata question. Ranger Suarez, are we believing what he's been doing more recently after that dismal start? Not really. There's a great tweet from Vlad Rotogut. Yeah, Vlad Sedler. Vlad Sedler. Where he actually predicted Suarez's current run earlier in the season. And his reasoning was that he was going to get

right on the schedule. And I agree with him. I think he going to get right on the schedule. And I agree with him. I think he's just getting right on the schedule. If you look at his Stuff Plus numbers, they are still lackluster. He hovers between 80 and 90 Stuff Plus. He does have average command and a wide pitch mix, but he's only had three, four appearances this year where his pitching plus was above average. So I think he's just a player

that hit a nice part of the schedule. I was pretty skeptical coming into the season. I do think if you look at the projections, kind of a upper threes ERA, 120s, maybe low 130s whip, what you see right now with the ratios is probably about what you get in a typical year i think it's on the higher end i mean risk for that because of the ballpark whip you know and a 7 7k9 you don't usually have a 330 adra yeah it's not a profile that i'd ordinarily want to chase if i do chase that profile it's because i like the park i don't

like the park for Ranger Suarez. Very schedule dependent. I think that's probably the tagline we're going to have on Suarez for the foreseeable future. Washington, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati at home, at Miami, at Washington. Those are good spots. Those are all fine.

He did pitch well at Atlanta at home and at Cincinnati, but that's at Cincinnati after the trade deadline. They definitely are not a very good lineup right now. Yeah, I don't think that's unfair at all to say about the Reds in their current form. Thanks a lot for those questions, Mike. If you have a question for a future episode,

drop us a line, ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com, or you can drop a question in the comment section under the video on YouTube. Be sure to like this video if you're watching us on YouTube, and take a moment to leave us a nice rating and review if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, anywhere that would allow you to rate and review the podcast. If you don't have a subscription to The Athletic, you can get one for $1 a month for the first six months at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.