Rates & Barrels - Looking Ahead at a 2025 Draft Board

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Ryan Bloomfield of Baseball HQ and the Bubba & The Bloom podcast joins DVR discuss the third annual "Meatball Draft" a 15-team draft-and-hold league run by Rob DiPietro (@DeadPullHitter, Pull Hitter Podcast) that drafted its first 11 rounds this week. Who were some of the more interesting risers and fallers, and how should roster construction strategies be altered in a format that drafts this early. Draft Board: https://tinyurl.com/Meatball24 Plus, DVR and Ryan discuss a couple of prospects they're trying to stash wherever possible, and a few intriguing names to consider on the waiver wire this weekend. Rundown 1:53 Draft-and-Hold Season Begins with Rob DiPietro's "Meatball Draft" 3:16 How Do You Alter Strategy for Very Early Drafts? 9:12 Paul Skenes v. Tarik Skubal: Round 1 Pitchers 11:27 Biggest Surprises, Movers Compared to Spring 2024 21:12 How Comfortable Are We With Second Tommy John Recovery? 25:17 Pushing Power Over Speed in Early Rounds? 29:55 Jordan Westburg: "Rare" Multi-Eligible Player for 2025 32:07 Corbin Carroll's Recent Resurgence 35:13 Rest-of-Season Projections Thoughts for Final Weeks 40:25 Project Prospect: One Player You're Stashing Everywhere 46:55 Weekend Waiver Preview Follow Ryan on Twitter: @RyanBHQ Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Thursdays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper With: Ryan Bloomfield Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know what's great about ambition? You can't see it. Some things look ambitious, but looks can be deceiving. For example, a runner could be training for a marathon, or they could be late for the bus. You never know. Ambition is on the inside. So that goal to beat your personal best? Keep chasing it. Drive your ambition. Mitsubishi Motors. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Friday, August 23. Derek Van Riper here. You know Saris flying to Chicago for Sabre Seminar, but I brought in a guest, a good friend of mine from Baseball HQ, great writer, great fantasy player, Ryan Bloomfield. Ryan, how

you doing today? I'm doing fantastic, Derek. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate the invite. I think very much conveniently timed given we had our 2025 too early drafted whole draft on Wednesday night. So I look forward to talking through that with you today amongst some other things. So yeah, hope you're doing well. We'll be catching up soon in person at First Pitch Arizona in like two months. So I'm looking forward to that too. Yeah, if you have not registered for First first pitch, there's actually a discount still available through today, through Friday. So good to get the early registration, get a better price that way. Baseball HQ.com has all the details. I think that's the first place we actually have to hang out was

first pitch probably eight years ago, 10 years ago, I don't know, running an auction, doing something. Running the auctions. Yep. We cut our teeth running those auctions for me. That's one of the things at First Pitch is we do these live drafts and you were the auctioneer, I was tracking the picks. We had a sticker guy running stickers and by the time we did it for a couple of years, it was pretty, I must say, a pretty well-oiled machine. Yeah. I think we had that down to about four hours after a while.

First year might've been five and a half, six hours, a little longer. And by the way, if you recognize Ryan's voice, you probably do. The Bubba and the Bloom podcast highly recommended as well. Be sure to check that out if you haven't done that already.

So, tons to cover today. You mentioned it, you were part of the, I call it the Meatball invitational draft. It's a draft and hold that starts up in late August, year three of this, Rob D Pietro, pull hitter podcast, Deadpool hitter on Twitter, puts this together and it's loaded with NFBC players, podcasters, sharp players who are prepared to do a draft in late August. And it's a great exercise because no matter where you are in the season,

I think you could be contending for titles. You could be dragging to the finish line, maybe just trying to cash. You're still starting to think about 2025 if you're a hardcore fantasy baseball player, it's on your mind. You're just asking the kinds of questions about certain players. We were doing it last week just with the Garrett Crochet. I think Paul Skeen saying, okay, just how high are some of these guys

who had workload restrictions, how high are they going to go? This draft answers those questions. And draft and hold season is kind of a growing beast in the fantasy space. I think it fills the void for a lot of people in the early kind of cold winter months when fantasy football is winding down and You're starting to you know put together rankings projections and ideas for the upcoming season and you want to commit to a league

You want to do the fun part you want to draft but you don't necessarily want to do more fab in season, right? So it's a perfect balance of of commitment So the first question I have for you is when you think about drafting whole a league where you can't make in season pickups and then you take the timeline, which is usually early anyway, typically like end of the calendar year for the upcoming season or January, February for some, what do you do when you move all the way into August? Like what other strategy tweaks, modifications and things do you have to

make with your approach? I mean, I saw James Anderson did a recap over at RotoWire and he basically had a lengthy list of injured players that he just didn't have enough information on that were on a do not draft list. So do you have tactics like that that you employ for this particular draft, given the timing? Yes, at this point, at this early stage

of draft and hold season, for me, it's my strategy is really all around risk mitigation as much as possible. Picking players who are not, of course, actively injured. I know James's do not draft list was kind of a who's who of that type of list because at this point there are, yeah, there are guys where there are, you know, Joe Ryan, for example, there are guys who are kind of actively on the IL that we need to make those decisions on in somewhat early rounds. For this draft, it's a 50-round draft, your typical draft and hold, we did the first 11 rounds on Wednesday night. But for me, given this early

stage, it is all about trying to avoid injury, avoid one of those early round picks being down, even at the end of this season. Famously last year, like you said, Derek, this is the third year that we've done this. Famously last year, we had a second round Felix Bautista, which made a ton of sense at the time. And later that week, Felix Bautista in August of 2023 went down and hasn't come back. So it's trying to avoid those as much as you possibly can. We all know it's kind of impossible to try and avoid injury, but I really tried to focus on stable players, especially on the pitching side,

that have racked up a ton of innings in the last few years and have been relatively stable. I think the other thing too is, and this was mostly the case with most teams in this draft, pitching, starting pitching really got pushed down because we're all afraid of that, checking your phone and seeing player X as Tommy John and the season's not even over yet. So those were the types of things that I tried to avoid.

Anybody with really any injury questions were almost off my board entirely at this stage. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And we talk a lot about NFBC ADP with position reviews, position previews. We just use it as a great market for understanding what sharp players are trying to do and try to figure out the best strategies that are going to work in the greatest number of rooms. And I think one thing we try to emphasize every year is when we're looking at the early ADP data, which is mostly from this draft and hold format, pitching always gets pushed down.

It just gradually makes a climb up. And then you get to the point where you get to about mid-March when the NFPC main event drafts start, and that's when pitchers really start to take off because you're at the later part of spring training. You've got better reads on health. Sometimes you get improved stuff, new pitches, different different bits of information that also kind of fuel those players upwards as well. Now, if you're not watching on YouTube, which is most people listen to this podcast, we'll put the link to the actual draft board. 11 rounds have already been completed. We'll put the link to the actual draft board. Eleven rounds have already been completed. We'll put that in the show description. You were in the third position, which looks like a fantastic spot.

Like thinking about early KDS for next year. I think that might be my first choice. Might go 321 for me if I'm at least projecting off that today because Aaron Judge was sitting right there for you at pick three and the two picks ahead of him show Hey, Otani and Bobby wit jr Are to me the other two guys that kind of belong in that cluster before the decisions become just a little bit more difficult Right across the board first round went Otani wit judge

Gunnar Henderson Juan Soto Jose Ramirez Ellie de la Cruz went to Rob D Pietro at seven, Kyle Tucker at eight, Paul Skeens at nine, Mookie Betts at 10, and then Acuna, Scoobel, Julio Rodriguez, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Francisco Lindor to Jenny Butler rounded things out across the top in round one. But yeah, pick three, I mean, like when you got that spot, you had to just think, this is great,

I know exactly what's gonna happen, what's going to happen. Like one of those three guys has to be there and that's the pick. Pick three was, was pretty easy. Yeah. I do feel like it's a top, a top three of, of Otani Witt judge in, in some type of order. I, you mentioned Ellie De La Cruz. Derek, he was kind of the, he was the guy I was, I was somewhat, you know,

trying to make a splash maybe, but, but considering at number three as well. But just given that judge has been a top three player in two of the last three seasons, yeah, that was the move. It was just interesting too, looking at KDS, my cohost on the Bubba and the Bloom podcast, Brian Bubba-Entriken is in this draft as well. He was team eight. And so we were kind of talking through

when we did a preview show of this draft, we were talking through kind of his options at eight. And so like, it felt like there's a clear top three, but then I also felt like that middle round is a nice, that in the middle part of the 15 teamer is a nice place to be right now, because I felt like there was a clear top eight or nine after that.

So, I mean, you mentioned Soto, J-Ram, Ellie De La Cruz, Kyle Tucker, Mookie Betts, like being able to land one of those guys in the first round in the middle of the round is pretty nice. We had no idea. It's funny drafting completely blind. There is absolutely zero ADP.

The kind of the KDS selection is a little bit different because you can't map out rounds two, three, four, because you have truly no idea who's coming back to you. But in the first round, at least it to me, it seemed like there was a clear top eight or nine. And then those two new starting pitchers in the first round, Skienz and Scoobel, which was which was just fascinating. Yeah, I mean, Scoobel had fantastic projections going into 2024.

And the main question was just staying healthy for a full season, which up to this point, he's been able to do. So if he makes it to the final five weeks, I think you're going to see this pretty consistently. Scoobal is going to be right there. Maybe the first pitcher off the board in some rooms. I do think Skeens versus Scoobal probably is the most common toss up at the top. I don't know if there's a third pitcher that will make his way into that conversation.

Corbin Burns' strikeout rate, longer term trends there have kind of pushed him down to the back of the top five range, three, four, five. I mean, this one went Skeen, Scoobal, Wheeler, Burns, and Kirby all before the end of round two. So that kind of makes sense to me based on the bigger picture trends with that group. Was Skeen's actually part of that target you would have considered if you were in Bubba's spot

at eight? Would you have taken the first pitcher off the board or is that something you generally wouldn't do even in a draft that was happening in February or March? I'd wait till March. I would wait till March. We all know how good Paul Skeens already is. And actually, we don't know how good he could be. It's kind of scary to think about that. But for what I just said earlier about trying to mitigate that risk, I'm not going to go a picture in the first really couple rounds of this just because it's so early. And then there is that kind of overhanging question of, and you guys have talked about this,

you and Eno have talked about this a ton, about these high velocity pitchers and kind of famously the entire top 10 on last year's Fastball Velocity Leaderboard, all 10 have hit the IL. And I believe all 10, except for Garrett Cole, are currently on the IL. And maybe that's a one-off.

We're not completely sure, but Paul Skeen's leading that list in 2024 is, I don't want to say a red flag, but it's just something where if there's any kind of smidged out in the first round at this stage, I'm going to put that off, that decision off until March. Yeah, I think that's completely reasonable just to make sure that everything goes the way it's supposed to throughout the winter and then through at least the early part of spring training, if not most of spring training. I think my favorite thing to do with boards this early and just boards really throughout all of the fall and winter is just to see like who are the biggest movers compared to what was happening at the beginning of the season. I think there's a handful of names that jumped out to me right away. Jaron Duran at pick 20.

I know recency bias is going to be a real thing in a draft that's happening while the current season is still playing out. I thought that caught me by surprise. Ketel Marte at the 2-3 turn, if you told me that was gonna happen five months ago, I would have wondered how, but there's been much more power from him this year than I ever thought he'd put together over a full season.

So who really caught your eye as far as different risers that just came off the board earlier than you expected, even if it wasn't necessarily a bad pick, but just guys that you maybe didn't have a feel for going as early as they did. Right. That's the thing with these early drafts is just kind of recalibrate. My mind goes back to last draft season, you get so kind of ingrained in what the ADP is and where some of these guys go. It's a complete recalibration on some of these highest risers and the fallers on the flipside to see that. So certainly Cattell Martell and Jaren Duran, surprising to see them in the second round. Not a bad bit. Those

guys are both first round players or have been first round players in 2024 per the Razzball player rate or so. Just interesting to see those names creep back up. A couple others, the youngins, Jackson Churio, a third round Jackson Churio. I think we need to start to get used to that. Jackson Churio went in the third, I believe to, uh, where'd he go? Uh, Dan Kenyon. So the sixth pick of the third round. And then later in the third round at the three, four turn,

Jenny Butler took James Wood. And so it's, it's those, it's, it's somewhat shocking at first glance to see James Wood this early in the draft. But then you kind of look at what they're doing and how young they are. And especially like in Cheerio's case, kind of that in-season growth. If you want those guys in 2025, you're going to have to pay up with a top three, four round pick or maybe a fourth, fifth round in 12 team leagues. So those were two of the big names, those round in, in, in 12 team leagues. So, uh, those, those were two of the big names. So those young guys, Zach Neto is another one went in the fifth round of this.

I believe James Anderson took, uh, Zach Neto in the fifth round again, completely, completely validated 2020 guy at this stage in his career. So, uh, yeah, those, those, those young names rising up the draft board, just something we're going to have to get used to in 2025. Yeah, Jackson Merrill early in round four, I think that was pick 49 where he actually came off the board. So I think what's interesting is when you look back at what was happening this March

and you see players like Churio, Merrill, they get the full bump because they've been fantastic this year. And you look at someone like Wyatt Langford, who has missed some time with an injury and just hasn't quite found his stride yet. He goes in round 11 to Steve Weimer. It's like, if there was a point this past draft season where Langford versus Churio was a toss-up.

I think for a little while, Langford actually had the upper hand. I think more people preferred Langford to Churio was a toss up. I think for a little while, Langford actually had the upper hand. I think more people preferred Langford to Churio in the redraft for a stretch to begin the year. To see that gap right now, that makes me wanna just wait and say, look, I fully acknowledge how good both Merrill and Churio are. And I want Jackson Churio to be a first rounder

as much as anybody playing fantasy baseball wants that to happen. But the value seems to be more in rounder as much as anybody playing fantasy baseball wants that to happen. But the value seems to be more in the young guys that didn't click yet because if we believe they're as good as we thought they were even just five months ago, I'm not sure the lack of production right away should suppress their value as much as it appears to be suppressing their value. Agreed.

And again, I certainly, the rises from the Churio, the Wood, the Jackson Merrill, it certainly deserved given what we've seen in their first MLB season. But if you take, right, if you take that macro view of prospects and some of these guys not panning out in the first year, it takes a couple of tries.

I don't think Jackson Holiday was drafted in the first 11 rounds? Why not? Like he's probably close, like probably right around the Langford range, especially given that we're seeing some signs that he's making the adjustments and it's tiny sample, just like the first failure in the big leagues

was a pretty small sample. I think that optimism is still there for a lot of people. Right, and like Evan Carter was not even, was not even even a consideration in this draft and was going very early in 2024 draft. So yeah, if you take that macro level view and kind of somewhat buy the dip on some of these very, very talented, highly regarded prospects that are going

eight, 10 plus rounds later than the prospects that succeeded off the bat in their rookie seasons in 2024. Certainly I think a buying opportunity, like an 11th round Wyatt Langford, just that feels right. Steve Weimer is an excellent player. And I think he, we call him the silent assassin. Didn't talk a whole lot in the Zoom on Wednesday night,

but just nailed those picks from the top slot. And he's actually currently in first place in in this league for 2024. Yeah, he's a fantastic player. Again, this room is full of very good players, so not a lot of real like bargains that you're going to see. But that one jumped off the page is one that could be a difference maker in a pretty big way. I saw Jacob deGrom in round three, and I know things are going really well

with the rehab assignment, probably going to be back in that Rangers rotation at some point in the final month of the season. What kind of innings projection are you giving Jacob deGrom at this stage of his career? We know the per inning numbers should be fantastic. So it's not even, it's the same old questions like, well, if you think he's a 250 ERA guy with a ton of strikeouts and a great whip, even two thirds of a full workload could make him an SP1 on the entire board. And you don't have to pay that price to get him.

But now we're coming off another Tommy John surgery for a guy in his late 30s. So what's the number you're expecting if you were to draft Jacob deGrom? I have no idea what that number is. It's kind of that, it's that annual exercise of, yes, the innings are gonna be elite. Jacob deGrom, it's just what, you know, what's that volume gonna be? I think Jacob deGrom, it's just, it's fascinating.

So much of deGrom's off-season draft price is going to hinge on how he looks in September, assuming he comes back and that sort of thing. If Jacob deGrom comes back and Velocity's there, he shoves, he does Jacob deGrom things, a third round Jacob deGrom, as surprising as that was to me as a pick, might be a bargain in terms of just ADP and that ADP will rise if deGrom looks good. Flip side, if Jacob deGrom has a setback or whatever in rehab or the velocity is down when he comes back or what have you, that price is dropping. So the deGrom pick was fascinating.

I think even in general too, with this draft, there were a number of early picks on players who have not played in 2024. So it was just, I mentioned Felix Bautista last year as a second round pick pre-injury. Felix Bautista went to Ryan Roof of Roto Wire in the third round. And then Shane McClanahan went in the sixth round. Your guy, Brandon Woodruff in the seventh, along with Spencer Strider, Jason Dominguez in the ninth,

Sandy Alcantara in the 11th. So it's just all these guys who have not, and that was one of the ones entering the draft, was like, where are some of these guys gonna go? And it was just interesting to see where the ones with zero sample of 2024, where those guys went in drafts. Yeah, I was looking for Yuri Perez

to see if he was anywhere on the board. I think he might still be available, but that entire bucket of injured pitchers, which seems to be as packed with talented options as ever, all need to be evaluated. And I think if you take what I have tried to do in the past, if you take at least one or two shots on players like that, oftentimes you can get them between like rounds eight and even 15,

depending on skills and past performance. Those are the guys that move the most over the course of draft season. So you're taking on a little bit of risk because yeah, if they have a setback, another injury comes up, sure, you could take a zero or have guys only available for half a season instead of a full season. But the payoff tends to be massive. So I think it's almost like embracing the appropriate amount of risk is a necessary strategy to win a league like this.

It's tempting to avoid it completely, but I think there's an opportunity if you do it right. If you don't go too far with the number of players who are hurt and you don't overpay early for guys that still have pretty major questions, I think you can actually have a lot of success shopping in that bin. And I think Sandy Alcantara is the perfect example of that. Like an 11th round pick for Sandy who is already throwing bullpens at this point. He'll be well removed from his injury by opening day 2025. To get that in the 11th round,

it's like, it is that factor of risk. And at some point, yeah, you shift your mindset from, I wanna be safe in these early, early rounds to maybe embrace one of those two things in the middle rounds. And so Sandy could absolutely shoot up boards, be like a fifth, sixth round pick if everything looks good in spring training and whatnot.

So to get that in the 11th round, it just sounds like that was a Zach Waxman pick. It just sounds like that's a good kind of gamble to make at that point in the draft. It's not going to kill you if your 11th round pick goes belly up and it could pay off massively. And Zach was the one who also took that Shane McClanahan pick in round six. I know it's McClanahan's second Tommy John surgery and I'm trying to make a decision like if two Tommy Johns becoming normal enough where I trust guys to make it to that rehab

and come back and have at least 90% of the stuff they had before the second surgery. But that one, I want McClanahan to be really good again. He's one of my favorite pictures to watch when he's healthy. I'm not sure where I stand on that. It's something I'm going to have to figure out real quick before I find my way into a draft and hold of my own. room ever assembled every Monday to Thursday as we take a deep dive into the biggest football story of the day. Then every Friday, Adam Leventhal and our club reporters will preview the potential tactics, drama and jeopardy riding on the biggest game from that coming weekend. Check us out wherever you get your podcasts from for free.

We hope you can join us for what is set to be another blockbuster, Susan. I mentioned earlier you started with Judge, you got speed right after that in round two with CJ Abrams. I think it's a good balanced combo for your foundation. You did take a starting pitcher in round three with Logan Gilbert. You had the choice between Gilbert, DeGrom, Sale, Dylan Cease and Blake Snell. Those are the other pitchers that went in that round. And then Tyler Glasnell fell to the fourth, probably because he's on the I.L. right now with elbow tendonitis, which is exactly the type of injury

and diagnosis that you don't want right now, because it's always the kind of thing that could be worse. You could find out there's some kind of tear or something that needs an actual procedure, but we're in that sweet spot where maybe the Dodgers think they can rehab something like that. So I completely understand being cautious with someone like Glass now as much as I like him and I'm willing to buy into the risk most of the time,

but how'd you land on Gilbert out of the starting pitchers available? Was it needing to get a pitcher early or was it feeling like you got better value trying to get a foundation with pitching as opposed to going after some of the other bats that were available? For me, it was, I did not want to totally abandon starting pitching, but I did, you know, if I was going to take a starter, I didn't want someone who was, who was too old and I want someone with innings. And Logan Gilbert is, he is that dude. We've got 185 innings in 2022, followed by 190s already at 165 this season.

Next 2025 will be Logan Gilbert's age 28 season. So I just felt like that was pretty safe and I'll just hope that the Seattle Mariners learn how to hit in the off season and get that man some wins. But Logan Gilbert was, I was actually, it's kind of crazy how good the Mariners rotation is.

Four fifths of the rotation, Paul Sporer kind of called this out on Twitter yesterday, four fifths of the Seattle rotation went in the first seven rounds and the entire rotation was drafted. Then this draft, Brian Wu went towards the end. But Gilbert and George Kirby were my two that I was looking to get at the two, three turns. So lucky that one of those fell to me. It was interesting comparing that perceived safety of a Kirby or Gilbert with Chris Sale,

who was really the other one I was thinking about. Chris Sale is not as young, of course, as Gilbert and Kirby, but he's healthy, he's shy young, skills are excellent. So I could see Chris Sale who went later in the third round moving up to the early second, maybe late first if he continues what he's been doing in September and then looks good next spring. So I think sales a good example though of someone you can target like if you go back and look at where he was going in this format this time last year. That's what I was referring to earlier as far as finding a ace type skills with questionable injury situations at a later price and then possibly getting the big hit

if it actually works out. That's like the best case scenario almost in terms of just how good Chris Sale has been. I also wondered how much the change of scenery, right? So many things weren't going well the last couple of seasons health-wise for him in Boston. Maybe just a clean sheet in Atlanta also helped a little bit too to get him back on track and back into this range. A couple other picks you made here that were pretty interesting. Marcelo Zuna having a great year at the plate, a late round four hitter.

I mean, if he played in the outfield, if he ran a little bit, if he did anything else, he'd go a lot earlier. And there's a shot he could actually make a run at the Triple Crown this year, which is pretty remarkable. So more power on that base with Judge, I think that makes a lot of sense. I'm finding with the new rules, and this was my approach going into this season as well, that I'd lean more power than speed early, because I feel like you can find plenty of bags throughout the middle rounds.

Like that's been my belief. Is that something you've noticed or tried to implement on your teams, or just random best available in the case of getting Ozuna in that spot? Yeah, for me, it was just random best available, not really even looking at positions. I mean, the thing with Ozuna, it is a UT only play

in the fourth round, so there is that. But I just, yeah, like over the last two years, Marcelo Ozuna is fourth in Major League Baseball in a number of barrels behind just Judge Otani and Juan Soto. Yeah, like over the last two years, Marcel Ozuna is fourth in Major League Baseball in number of barrels behind just Judge Otani and Juan Soto. And I think another, and something we haven't talked about, I'm looking at, and something that sneaks up on you with this early draft is, you know, contract status. Who are free agents next year? It's something that like I, you know, just haven't been looking, I'm so ingrained in 2024. Ozuna has a $16 million club option for 2025.

So I would think Atlanta picks that back up and keeps riding with Ozuna next year. So I, presumably the Braves lineup will be a little bit better. Everyone kind of coming off a collective down year except for Ozuna in Atlanta. So I like that one. Yeah, there's a little bit more variance year to year from. So I like that one. Yeah.

And there's a little bit more variance year to year from him than I would have expected. There was a point not that long ago where performance plus domestic violence suspension, there were reasons to believe that there was no chance the Braves were going to pick up a club option on Ozuna in 2025. But now that seems like a lock, like they will absolutely pick that up because he's been great for them in a year where so many players have been hurt and so many guys have taken a big step back from 2023. The other picks that I thought were pretty interesting on your squad, Shota Imanaga is for me, one of the more difficult pitchers to evaluate because of the unique nature of his fastball.

My only concern about him is just that as hitters in the big leagues get more looks at that fastball, maybe they'll find ways to attack it and he'll have to pivot to other pitches in his arsenal. But it feels like a pretty good value where you got him late in round six because the ratio should be good, the K-rate should be solid.

And I have to think after what's been a disappointing year on the north side of Chicago, the Cubs are going to put some more resources into that roster to give him a better supporting cast specifically in the bullpen protecting leads, right? So I think the, the Cubs overall direction heading into 2025 is an assumed up arrow. That's kind of a good thing as far as team context goes when you're doing early drafts. I think so. I think so.

And I'm somewhat hedging that, you know, I'm kind of hoping that the, we can take with someone like Imonega. I don't look at first half, second half splits with everybody, but I think with Imonega, you can kind of use that to see, maybe get a gauge for how hitters are adjusting to that unique arsenal, to that unique fastball.

And show it to Imonega for as hot as he ran early in the season. get engaged for how hitters are adjusting to that unique arsenal, to that unique fastball. And show it to Imanega for as hot as he ran early in the season, the skills have actually, in my opinion, been even better in the second half. The K to walk was at 20%, which is already really good in the first half. That's ticked up to almost 25% for Imanega in the second half. So my hope is that this is Imanega kind of adjusting back to the hitter's adjustments within the season in the second half. So my hope is that this is Imonega kind of adjusting back to the hitters adjustments within the season in the second half.

And so that's why I went there in the sixth round. And again, it's that innings base. So we don't have the full major league sample with Shotemonega, but average about 150 innings a year overseas before coming over to the big leagues. So I feel like that's a relatively safe pick in the late six.

It was funny, I was actually, but in between Imanaga and Tanner Bybee, who, you know, first snipe of 2025 for me, Bybee went two picks earlier to Mike Maeger in the sixth round. So both super stable guys, I think, with pretty good skills. It's nice to get that first snipe out of the way in August. Yeah, just shake it off. Shake it off early. I think with pretty good skills. It's nice to get that first snipe out of the way in August.

Yeah, just shake it off. Shake it off early. Yeah, you know it. It iron sharpens iron. You kind of get tough in August and you're ready to go by by February in March. I like that you got Randy Rosa Raina in the 7th.

I've been waiting all season for the bounce back because the underlying skills for me weren't falling fast enough for the production to wane the way it did in the first half. I think things have looked a lot better kind of going back to, I don't know, the middle of June or so with him. I know Seattle is a difficult place to hit, but Tampa Bay is too. So he's going from one tough hitter environment to another. I'm not that worried about what the ballpark will do to him in this particular case.

And Jordan Westberg is a guy we've talked about a lot on this show. You got him in the eighth round. I think there's still a few ways he can get better, but at the very least, he looks like a really nice floor player in a great lineup. So to get that late in round eight, like pick one 18, like I would take that all day. So I thought that stood out as just a really solid pick. Even if he's more of the same next year, I think you'd be okay in that price range.

And I think somewhat a forgotten man, right? Because he's been on the IL for a little bit, with a fluke injury and one of those, maybe that slips through the cracks. The biggest thing with Westberg and James Anderson put this in his, his wrote a wire article. This was a startling fact. Only out of these first 11 rounds.

So 165 picks, I think like 50 of them were pitchers. So let's just call it a little over a hundred hitters out of those 100 hitters. Only five have multi-position eligibility entering 2025. Westberg is one of those with second and third base. So that was very intriguing to me from a roster build standpoint. I mentioned picking Ozuna with utility only in the fourth round.

I wanted to get some flexibility in there, but yeah, there are right now, as of now, there are only five. Sedan Raffaella, Westberg, Jake Berger at first and third, Spencer Steer and Matt McClain. Those are the only five hitters with multi-position eligibility that were taken in the first 11 rounds. Mookie Betts will probably pick that up and it gets some shortstop outfield for next year. But that was pretty

startling to me. And that was another thing that not only just like who's a free agent come entering 2025, but just getting used to these new positions. We're so used to this player at this position. Brent Rooker, for example, is trending to UT only next year. I did not even know that. He's got like 15, 16 games in the outfield. So it's just, it's not only calibrating those kinds of risers, fallers, free agents,

it's getting used to new positions, something that seems so basic. But yeah, that was certainly something that interested me with Westburg getting second, third, middle, middle corner. So we had a couple of questions from the listeners, not about this draft in particular, but about a few players who were in this draft. One question came from Robert about Corbin Carroll. And Robert wanted to know, could Carroll's resurgence be just a slow recovery from the shoulder injury that he was dealing with, kind of going back to the middle of

last season? Are there any metrics that back up his recent surge at the plate? Carroll didn't fall as far as I would have thought. He went 18th overall, but I think it's because he's really kind of starting to salvage his season over the last five or six weeks, starting to look more Like himself this draft had been even during the all-star break Carol may have gone early round three because things looked pretty bad Just a month and a half ago for him So did you see anything in the underlying numbers with Carol that have have given you some more confidence that he will

Continue to produce like a first round or the rest the, and maybe end up being a value at pick 18 in this early draft? I mean, I was considering Carroll at the two, three turn, for sure. I mean, this is someone who we forget, you know, less than a year ago was a top five player with all those steals and whatnot. So it's just, you know, I'm not gonna sit here

and pretend to know how, you know, it's all about the health of that shoulder. Certainly what we've seen lately from Corbin Carroll, eight home runs over the last month with the power to kind of back that up. And on top of that, Corbin Carroll isn't really selling out for that power. The K-rate has been pretty stable over the last month.

And I recognize we're looking at a one month sample, but when you're looking at someone like Corbin Carroll with the injury history there, you just want to see, does he have the ability to hit the ball hard consistently? We have seen that lately. So with a good finish, I absolutely think Corbin Carroll sneaks up into that mid second, maybe early second round there.

It's just, it's so hard to tell when that, when, if that shoulder will officially be 100% healthy for next season. Because I think I can say with pretty good confidence it was not healthy over last off season. So, you know, what makes us think it'll magically totally heal up this coming off season, but we don't know. But no, really good sign for Corbin Carroll

of last month that the power has been there and he's not sacrificing going all out, sacrificing contact going all out for the power. Yeah, and one thing I've wanted to take a closer look at with Carroll is just what's happening when he gets fastballs. And last season he crushed fastballs. He was a plus 12 against four seamers in terms of run value.

He's a minus nine so far this year. But I think part of the adjustment he had to make was catching up to high four seamers in particular It looks like that adjustments happening I don't know if it's physical or not My argument with Carol going through the winter was that you know if if he was hurt even though they were obviously Contenders last year and they made it to the World Series if he was hurt They weren't really backing off him down the stretch at all last year Maybe because they couldn't but the way they used him getting of this season other really backing off him down the stretch at all last year, maybe because they couldn't. But the way they used him at the beginning of this season, other

than like dropping him in the order, I got the sense that everything's been physically OK. It's just been the performance because of the need to make those adjustments that's been holding him back more than the shoulder. Again, outside looking in sort of thing, but interesting question nonetheless. Got a question here from Professor Alan K. Chen trying to tinker with the roster before playoffs begin next week. Are there some rest of season projection systems that are better than others? Also curious whether the rest of season projection simply converge later in the season because there's less room for

variance in performance, so I was thinking about the rest of season projections as basically your your template for what twenty twenty five projections might look like, at least in terms of slash lines, rate stats. And you can sort of manipulate playing time to your liking. And if you do something like that, you do have to add players back in because some guys don't have a rest of season projection because they're out for the year. And other guys are significantly reduced because they're going to miss half of what's left of the season. Right. So you do have to tinker with those accordingly if you're using them for 2025. But what have you found with rest of season projections? It's actually funny you mentioned that

because that's exactly how I built my draft list for this draft for 2025. I took Derek Cardy's bad X projections for hitters rest of season because that's a blend of kind of their true talent base plus sprinkling in what we've seen from them this season because that's a blend of kind of their, their, their true talent base plus sprinkling in what we've seen from them this season. Cause that's, that's always the challenge in this early draft is how much do you weigh 20 current season performance versus the, you know, that skill baseline. And I just took those rest of season projections,

gave everyone equal playing time and, and saw who bubbled up. And it was a pretty good kind of starting point. Yes. Like a Ronald Acuna isn't in there. You need to add some guys in, like you said, but I felt that was a pretty good starting point for me building the list for this draft. Now to Alan's question, since he's in the playoffs beginning next week,

is kind of rest of season for 2024. I'm more of the opinion that, I don't want to say I'm throwing up my hands at how we predict September, but it is so hard to project anybody with any reasonable confidence over a full season, maybe, and certainly over the last month. So what I would do to kind of answer Alan's question

is use rest of the season project. You know, I get into the debate, is one better than the other? There's so many components to a projection, the playing time, the skills and rates and all that sort of stuff. You could look at preseason projections as kind of your base, but what I would do,

especially with playoffs in this last month of the season, more so than ever, is focus on schedules, focus on sheer games played, platoons. So for example, like this coming week, the Royals play eight games. They have a double header with Cleveland on Monday and then a full slate after that. You've got like Detroit, Toronto

facing seven right-handers this coming week. So when he left, he's there. I think trying to squeeze and look at schedules and platoons is, you know, maybe use that with the rest of season projections, but just try and maximize those, those played appearances over the last month.

Because again, I don't think we can project player performance really well at all over a one month span. So why not just give yourselves as many bites at that Apple as possible and try and maximize those games played and those platoon advantages as much as you can, especially if you're in a playoff format.

Yeah, and I think building on that, I would look more at something like Razval's weekly projections this time of year than the rest of season numbers. And I think Alan kind of hinted at this a little bit. If you look at just differences in like runs and RBI, any categorical differences, and then run them through an auction calculator in a partial season,

a very small difference in projection has a disproportionately large result. So you might see a $15 player versus a $10 player and like, Oh, I'll take the $15 guide. The difference could be like a handful of runs in RBIs. And I think we're at the point in the season where it's like, well, that's pretty random. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't put a lot of stock into that $5 difference now for the rest of the season the same way I would if we were doing this

with a full season or even a half season worth of projections. And in roto leagues and category leagues, a projection system isn't gonna know how, if you need steals or don't need steals, like, I mean, a couple of steals can throw off projection, dollar values, an insane amount over a month, and you may not even need them anyway.

So, so yeah, that's a really good point. And, and full agree, I subscribed to Razzball and use their weekly projections as part of my fab process as well. So shout out to them. And I, I, yeah, I would agree using that really more so than a full rest of season projection. Yeah, my brain just does not slice the season down into one week increments as well as it should.

For as long as I've played fantasy baseball, I still have much more of a macro view of the season than a micro view. That's one area of opportunity for me as a player to get better going forward. But thanks a lot for those questions, Alan and Robert. One question for you, we're going to do a kind of a brief project prospect this week. Is there one prospect in keeper, dynasty leagues, Auto New, any sort of long-term format that you're playing in that you are stashing everywhere, that you seem to be higher on than most people, if not everybody? Because we manage a league together. We're in the XFL.

I think combined our age is closer to the average age of the rest of people in the league So I think that's why they let us in because you know, we're close to like 75 probably 77 combined that's like there that's the right number to be eligible for XFL and You know we've had a lot of conversations trying to figure out our 15 keepers that leagues particularly challenging because Your minor leaguers count towards that group I play in some leagues where you get 15 off your your active roster if you want it plus up because your minor leaguers count towards that group. I play in some leagues where you get 15 off your active roster if you want it, plus up to 10 minor leaguers. XFL is just a flat 15.

So we're always kind of playing this game of how good is this prospect today? And then how good is this prospect really going to be down the road where you have to really balance that out? But in other formats, you can wait forever. There's some dynasty leagues where you hold everybody or auto new. I think you can justify sometimes holding onto a one dollar prospect that is less than five percent roster in the entire auto new universe. So just kind of a blue book open any format.

Who's the one player you're stashing everywhere right now that you like more than others people do? Yeah, I will say one thing we are good at in XFL is predicting injuries. We're great at it. We should just publish our roster again every year so people know, like do not, it's a simple do not draft list. It's funny, I texted you once. It's like I'm starting, I'm getting to the point where I feel sorry for the career of anyone who we either require or pick up. But I'll throw a name out there. This isn't the deepest cut in the world since I'm not,

I'm not a huge prospect guy, but I always lean on the baseball HQ prospect team. Chris Blessing heads up our team over there. And one thing, one guy that we are super high on is Kevin McGonigal, the second baseman out of Detroit. McGonigal was our number 24 prospect on the baseball HQ mid-season prospect update, elite, elite bat to ball skills.

We even went as far as saying McGonagall is one of the best pure hitters in the minors. And this is his first year of pro ball. It's a 21st full year of pro ball, 2023 draftee. So he's just 19 years old at high A, which is, you know, hopefully that kind of, that meets the stashing requirement. You're a couple years away with Kevin McGonigal,

but the speed that he's got some speed, that the hit tool is just again, elite. And you're just kind of hoping a teenager grows into more power as he rises up in the minors, which I think is a pretty reasonable bet. So Kevin McGonigal would be my deep stash for guys you can hold for a few years. And best of all, DVR, he is not on our XFL team.

So has a pretty good shot of staying healthy throughout his minor league career. Yeah, I think as long as we keep him off our roster, everybody else should go out and get Kevin McGonigal. I think on looking at James Anderson's most recent update to his top 400. He's within the top 100, but not so high that everybody everywhere has him and wants him. That's exactly the sweet spot for a player that you should try to stash away right now

while you still can. I've got Parker Messick, a pitcher in the Guardians organization on my auto new team. I don't have him everywhere because in a lot of my leagues, I can't add prospects right now, but I will try to get Parker Messick everywhere. Watch a little bit of video. And the amazing thing is he wasn't on my radar until draft night. I had ESPN's MLB draft cover, John, and on one of their scrolls, they were running best position player and best pitching prospect for every organization.

It was just on a loop. So it was Kylie McDaniel's rankings. Parker Messick's name popped up for the Guardians. And I thought, wow, I trust the Guardians to develop pitching. And it seems like there's a little bit of a gap this year where they don't necessarily have a lot of great prospects ready because they've graduated so many in recent years. But I kind of trust them to figure it out. So Parker Messick's name flashes by on the screen. I go to auto new and like, oh, let's start. Let's start the auction. Let's just throw them out there for a buck and see if I get them.

I land them and I'm like, all right, cool. Parker Messick's on my team now. That's fantastic. So what I'm wondering is if Parker Messick gets a little bit maybe overlooked because if you watch video of him, it's a pretty big body. It's similar to maybe like an Alec Manoa body type. And the mechanics are a little bit funky, but I don't know how you could argue with the results. I mean, he's a college guy drafted with the second round in 2022. So he's cruised to the minors sub two ERA, point eight, six whip,

thirty four point eight percent strikeout rate at double A tons of swinging strikes underneath that. I mean, like I know the quality of competition in the minors has been diluted because of injuries and a bunch of different factors. I know there are different rules across different leagues that make analysis really difficult, but I'm starting to wonder if Parker Messick just gets dinged because he doesn't fit the mold of what a great pitching prospect should physically look like. And I think that's kind of a stupid reason

to write a person off. Agreed. And I think one of the biggest things you just mentioned is kind of our, I don't want to say blind faith, but they have earned it. Cleveland as an organization in terms of developing pitchers is, for me, is pretty huge and I even wonder with Messick, you've got 45 innings at AA, a pretty steady rise. Is this someone thinking, going back to my draft

and not even, not even keeper league, but draft and hold brain, is that someone late, you know, 40 plus rounds who could make, potentially make an MLB debut sometime in the second half of 2025. I'm not totally sure, but the age and the kind of rate of Messick's rise might lead to that. So I am actually jotting that name down as we speak

for the for the for the meatball 2025 draft. Yeah, and a hat tip to Eric Langenhagen who probably explains exactly why people aren't all over Messick. He writes the end of his latest Guardians recap. All of Messick's secondary pitches are above average in terms of visual evaluation of stuff, but some Quants don't like him as much as the Scouts tend to

and metrics like Stuff Plus don't really like his pitches. There's been no change to Messick's grade. Still tracking like a number four or five. Pitch ability started with a great change up. So I mean, Eric has both worlds there, like Scout and Quant, so he's a little lower on Messick than me as someone who's more of a number Scout. I don't have a stuff model for AA. So I can't be scared off by that. But it's trusting

that something different can work. That's more or less where I'm at with Messick. He's getting such great results at AA. I find it hard to just write that off completely. Let's move on to our weekend waiver preview. You did a great job with the fab write-ups over at Baseball HQ. A lot of names out there. A lot of times we focus kind of on 12 team leagues. Sometimes we dabble in some of the 15 team mixed leagues in this show. I mean, it's like 15 minutes of waiver talk most Fridays. It's not designed to solve all of your waiver problems,

but to talk about a few players of interest. Connor Norby up for the Marlins again, It's not designed to solve all of your waiver problems, but to talk about a few players of interest. Connor Norby up for the Marlins again, and I thought he'd go right to Miami, but maybe there were some service time considerations that kept him from debuting immediately. 12 games now, a couple of homers. I think he's playing every day for the rest of the season. We saw what he could do at AAA between last season and most of this year in the Orioles organization. What are you expecting from Norby with what looks like a pretty clear runway of

playing time for the rest of the season now with the Marlins? And that's the big thing. And that kind of goes back to what I was just saying to one of our questions from the professor is one thing I think we can project in this last month is playing time. And it does seem like Connor Norby is going to get that runway at third base for the Marlins. Now, how will that play out in the final month? I'm somewhat skeptical. I think there's a bit too much swing and miss for Norby. We can't really look at his major league returns. The sample is already tiny, but he just kind of got jerked around by Baltimore and didn't really get in the groove. But the K-rate in AAA for Norby was up near 30% and a lot of whiffs in the majors so far. And then you kind of tack on a pretty suspect lineup

outside of Jake Berger and Xavier Edwards there in Miami. So certainly could go off and get the playing time to do so, Norby, the rest of the way. I just, I don't know how well the hit tool translates into short-term production. And we have seen the kind of recurring theme this year, hitting prospects kind of pretty much put up a dud in the major leagues in their first, second, sometimes third exposure.

So I'm skeptical, but again, the playing time's there at corner infield. If you need playing time and if he runs into a hot streak, could certainly see it in more of a 15 team play for me. Yeah, I think that's the depth where I'm more interested in Norby in the short term. And what happens down the stretch will give me a better read on whether or not he could do enough in 12 teamers to begin next season. I think there's a lot to like here. The other part of this too is that just as I have some trust in the Guardians being able to find and develop pitching prospects, we have a bit of a clean slate

in Miami, right? It's the Peter Bendix led front office right now. There are a lot of people go in that organization, so it's kind of a blind faith, like, do you trust Peter Bendix and crew to identify quality big leaguers similar to the Rays? You can't just put them on that level right away, but it's just different than previous iterations of the Marlins that the group that traded away Christian Jelic in a blockbuster deal and got nothing back, right? Like this isn't that Marlins front office. We didn't get to see enough of the Kim Eng front office.

So I don't even know if we could evaluate that era because it was so brief, but it's another new era of Marlins baseball to try and kind of pick through. So we'll see if they have that ability, but I'm at least open minded to the possibility they might be able to find quality hitters better than they have in years past. What are you doing with Spencer Torkelson? I saw he's still available in about 50% of RotoWire online championship leagues. I mean, a lot of people are still desperate for power.

He just homered for the first time since May 26th on Thursday. I would think the Tigers give him everyday run the rest of the way. Why would you bring him back up if you're not going to play him? But do you see enough there in the profile to bet on some kind of power surge down the stretch? I think, I think it's power only. I think, yes, I think, I think Torkelson can, I mean, we saw it in the second half last season when Torkelson just went bananas that, that, that,

that guy is still there. That talent is still there. I just, if again, look at those categories down the stretch, if you're bunched in batting average, I think Spencer Torkelson could be a, a one man wrecking crew in that, in that category. It, despite the getting called back up from AAA recently and getting, I think four hits in like his first game back with Detroit in the majors. It was like a 30% strikeout rate in AAA for Spencer Torkelson. So I think for what

the what what torque could could give you power wise and I agree you will you should play every day for Detroit down the stretch. Just be wary of that that batting average floor. I think it's I think it's it's a pretty low floor for Torkelson in those ratios. For the rest of this season only, would you rather, if you had a corner vacancy, use Torkelson or Andreas Chaparro, who's playing a ton for the Nats.

And if you look at AAA production this year, was a lot better than Torkelson was at that level, but doesn't have the big league success that we saw from Torkelson in the second half of 2023. I'd go Shapiro. I mean, the prospect pedigree, the scouting reports on these two guys are wildly different. Obviously, Torkelson very, very highly regarded. But I think with this last, you know, going into this last month, again, looking at the season in terms of like four weeks left, I think you've got to go with someone with the hot hand, Shapiro, who has had a pretty major rise in Washington's system. And that has translated over so far to the big league. So I'd go Shapiro over Torkelson in a vacuum the rest of the way.

They've shown us, the Nationals have shown us, they will play some of the kind of unheralded all-bat, Nogla. I mean, Joey Menestes was older than Shapiro and they gave him a shot. So I think they have a good mindset of like, hey, we've got some playing time, playing time is valuable currency. Let's see what he can do because if he actually hits as much as we think he can hit,

we can keep him around. He can be a part of our 2025 plan. If it doesn't work out, then you burn five or six weeks late in the year. And people have spent playing time on worse players than Andres Chaparro. So I think I'm with you. I think if I'm trying to thread the needle, find the right corner solution, I'd actually take Chaparro over Torkelson despite Torkelson's success

in the second half of last season. A quick note, schedule related, Rockies have seven home games in the upcoming week, so that's going to make Rockies bats a lot more interesting, including one that you and I have on our keeper league team. Jordan Beck, seven consecutive starts since rejoining the lineup on August 13th. Nolan Jones, Brenton Doyle getting the other two spots regularly in the outfield.

They're DH-ing Charlie Blackman. I think the Rockies are actually doing the right thing. I mean, the absence of Chris Bryant certainly helps a lot of times to open up one more spot. But Jordan Beck's really interesting. What do you think we're looking at as far as rest of season production? Is it kind of the one-man wrecking crew potential on the batting average given what we've seen in the brief glimpses so far? And is the risk worth it in this case, because the ball part could offset some of that? Yeah, Beck's fascinating to me because it's kind of, he's

been a different hitter in the majors than what we've seen so far in the minors. The, the, the, the K rate for Jordan Beck in the minors this year, AAA was like in the low twenties that has ballooned to I think mid 30% K rate in the majors, so Jordan Beck has not been able to really make that adjustment against major league pitchers. Not to say that's not going to come though. And we don't know when that's gonna hit. So you might as well take, especially in this course field

is very much a monthly park factor park as well. So like course field in the summer, seven games at home, I think you take a shot on it and just hope that the strikeout rate kind of comes down a little bit for Jordan Beck because the rest of the package, the power, the speed is pretty good. And I think he's going to play a ton, agreed that it should play a ton. I think he's going to play a good amount down the stretch. So Jordan Beck, I think again, kind of a 15 teamer, deeper league guy, but if that carry comes down at all,

I think the tools are there for him to produce. Yes, streamable, at least for the upcoming week, given the playing type situation and the seven games at home. I think that's the main thing. And if you're looking in a keeper or dynasty league and he happens to be out there, you can just pick him up, stash him on your roster, see what happens and maybe you end up with an inexpensive keeper come springtime with Jordan Beck as well. Drew Romo also maybe a consolation prize if you're in a two catcher league and you missed out on Adrian Del Castillo. I don't know if, if Romo has the same raw power, but you know, if you're looking for playing time behind the plate, you could probably do worse.

Speaking of doing worse, pitching is an ongoing problem in every league. It makes me wonder, this is probably a conversation for a different day. If maybe we have too many active picture spots in fantasy baseball because when the game was invented, pitchers didn't break this often. The game has changed. Pitchers break all the time and now we're sifting through very fringy starters in a lot of leagues, just trying to find anyone with a pulse or a good matchup that we can actually throw out there. But we've talked a lot about Bowden Francis on this show,

an Eno favorite for a long time. He's pitching really well, still only rostered in about 50, 51% of online championship leagues. Tough matchup though in Boston, so I'm not sure I'm like geek to do that. And thus my ratios are already pretty banged up. I want to ask you about Cody Bradford though, because it seems like Texas might have one,

maybe two opportunities for guys you could pick up. You got Bradford with, because it seems like Texas might have one, maybe two opportunities for guys you could pick up. You got Bradford with a 41 to six strikeout to walk ratio this season and 43 innings, maybe getting a two step home start against Pittsburgh. And the second one, if it holds up would be at Cleveland. So the volume should be there if he ends up making both of those starts. If Bradford ends up making both of those starts, cause I think the question with Cody Bradford and no doubt the skills, even, you know, he missed a good amount of time this season,

but the pre-injury skills for Cody Bradford, remember he was kind of a fab darling back in April, looked really good before hitting the IL and has really picked up where he has left off with Texas since returning. I just don't know if Cody Bradford's gonna stick in the rotation. The Texas rotation to me is just like a conglomeration

of moving parts. We talked about DeGrom at the top with our 2025 draft preview. He's coming back. Max Scherzer presumably is coming back shortly. John Gray's returning to the rotation. I know Tyler Malley just went on the IL. But Cody Bradford could be the odd man out

at some point in Texas. I don't think you worry about it quite yet. I think you go for the skills. You live kind of start by start this late in the season and Cody Bradford at that potential two step could be, could be awesome. And again, bet on the skills. You know, you certainly don't hope there's another setback

or injury to Texas's rotation coming, but it's been a but it's been a rotation beleaguered by injury. So I think you just kind of roll with it while Bradford is still in the rotation. Just know if you have Bradford, that possibility exists where he might go back to the bullpen if those, you know, Gray, DeGrom and Scherzer all come back. Yeah, the Scherzer setback maybe keeps the door open a bit longer. I think they're going to bring Jack Leiter back into the fold. But the way they use Jack Leiter at AAA makes me think they could piggyback him behind somebody else. I mean, it's written in pencil for sure.

But I guess the takeaway is keep an eye on what the the news is telling you about the Rangers rotation, because that's where an opportunity to find a useful starter could be. And even Leiter at AAA has last eight out outings 56 to 14 strikeout to walk in 36 and two-thirds innings it's the duration of the outings that's been inconsistent the quality of the results has been a lot better from him I know you and Bubba talked about Osvaldo Bito. I didn't get a chance to listen to the episode from Thursday night yet I'm on a pretty funny schedule here with the kid and everything But are you in on Bito? It's at Cincinnati in leagues where he hasn't been added yet for his next matchup. So tough ballpark, but a lineup that just hasn't been as dangerous as we thought it would be this year. Yeah, Bubba and I had a friendly little back and

forth with Osvaldo Bido on our, we do a fab preview show every Thursday night that drops on Fridays for the Bubba and the Bloom podcast. And yeah, there was some lively debate as we normally podcast. And yeah, there was some lively debate as we normally do. I was more on the negative side for Osvaldo Bito going forward. I can't get over the lack of control. I think the walk rate is high and is going to stay high. This is someone who doesn't really throw strikes. The metric I use the most to kind of look at control and walk rate is just simple ball rate, ball percentage. At Baseball HQ, we've got some pretty good research that kind of look at control and walk rate, it's just simple ball rate, ball percentage. At baseball HQ, we've got some pretty good research that kind of validates that as a key indicator for control.

Your league average on that's like 35, 36%. Beto's up near 39, 40%. And I just think he's running pure with home run luck. He's running pure with Babbitt right now. I think Beto is personally a trap. Could be wrong. Bubba's a very smart analyst and he is very high on Osvaldo Bito going forward, especially with the matchups. So take that as you will. But I'm personally thinking we've seen the best that we have seen this year from Osvaldo Bito.

I think it's so much more comfortable to use him in his home starts, just given the way the park plays, because if he has a bad day with command, it's so much more comfortable to use him in his home starts, just given the way the park plays. Because if he has a bad day with command, it's less likely to bite him in the form of homers, at the very least, and maybe it's just a few walks that you're worried about. But I think he's going to end up in this bucket of guys that have great stuff that are frustrating on a start-by-start basis, where if you were to be in a deep enough league where you had to use them a lot

and you didn't have the luxury of trying to pick your spots, you might be better off than trying to match them up based on difficulty. I think that's my current read on him, but I'm really interested to see what happens over the final few weeks of the season. One thing that has changed, he's getting more swings and misses in the zone, which if you have command problems, I think could give you some confidence that you can be in the zone more often. And then that can maybe start to erase some of the concerns that you outlined. So there's a glimmer of hope, but it comes with plenty of risk.

Other question I had for you is thinking about possible bullpen changes against Serentity Dominguez. Maybe isn't the answer in Baltimore that we thought he was just a few days ago. Who do you, who do you like possibly taking over that role in Baltimore if they make another change? Yeah, that was, uh, and actually the second half of this season, there's just been so much closer turnover. It's, it's been pretty wild in Baltimore.

Certainly has been one of those teams with, with Craig Kimbrough kind of disappearing and doing his normal second half fade act. So yeah, Sir Anthony Dominguez was kind of like last week's fab darling and he's treated us with two losses on Monday and Wednesday. I think he still gets some run there. I certainly don't think Baltimore goes back to Craig Kimbrel. He pitched a sixth inning in a game this week and gave up a home run there. So I think Kimbrel's pretty buried. You could maybe take a stab at Yennier Cano. He's kind of traditionally been the eighth inning guy for the Orioles if you want to. But I just I think Dominguez has some leash for another blown save

or two. And I actually think he's good enough to where that that's probably not going to happen. So I just think it's it's I think Dominguez is going to be safe, but yeah, certainly a lot of movement there in the Orioles pen. Both losses for Dominguez were quick burns. Eight pitches on Monday, 12 pitches on Wednesday, which tells me, I didn't see the outings, but it tells me he wasn't kind of laboring or struggling. It was done and it was done. So I don't know. I think, which is kind of what you want, right? If you're watching your closer, just tell me how it ends. The 27 pitch balloon save is just, it's even worse. Yeah, I mean, the results end up being about the same,

but it just, cause you keep clinging to that little bit of hope they're gonna get the pop up or they're gonna find a way to maybe get a a borderline call some way to wiggle out of it. And then it's just like, no disappointment, disappointment, more disappointment. Other two names that are interesting. Edwin Nusata has been fantastic in that raise bullpen had a four out save to convert the first opportunity the raise had with Pete Fairbanks on the IL. I think he's already been sort of scooped up as a ratios play. But now it looks like he might be the short-term favorite, maybe in a committee,

but at least another source of saves for the raise. I think it's more a committee. I think it's more of a committee there with Tampa with Fairbanks out. The save on Wednesday went to Manuel Rodriguez, kind of the day after Uceda pitched. And it was the day after a nine pitch outing for Edwin Uceda when he got the save on Tuesday,

did not pitch on Monday as well. So I would think Uceda was available on Tuesday and did not get the save. So again, so hard to kind of see what these teams are thinking, but to me it looks like a committee between Uceda and potentially Manuel Rodriguez. I mean, Richard Love-Lady got a save for Tampa

on last Saturday. That was probably more a middle relief kind of matchup based thing. But I don't know if Tampa has a guy in the wake of the Fairbanks injury going down the stretch. They've done this before to us, where they just pull up the rug and say,

yeah, we're going back to the old committee ways. But the other name that I think is interesting is Porter Hodge for the Cubs. They DFA'd Hector Naris and we were talking about park factors for pitchers on the Thursday episode. One thing that I noticed was that Philly is actually good for Stuff Plus. Houston is good for Stuff Plus. Naris has had more success in those places and now he's back in Houston.

I don't think he's going to be amazing again, but I'm actually going to watch carefully to see if he starts to get a little bit back because that would track with just how stuff moves in those different ballparks. But the Cubs have had problems in the bullpen all year. Hodges at least someone different. He could miss some bats over a 30% strikeout rate in the season. I know the location plus numbers are where he lags from a model perspective, but this actually looks like an intriguing late inning arm for the stretch run for a Cubs team looking for some answers. I agree.

And I think the Cubs might want to see what they have in Hodge as a potential closer for next year. And certainly a 23 year old, the skills have been fantastic. He miss swing, you know, missing bats, DVR 13% swinging strike. He's above that, that, that 20% threshold for K minus walk that I always like to look at. Porter Hodge is at 21% there. So the skills are looking pretty good.

And did get the most recent save for the Cubs. Picked up the save on Tuesday, August 20th. I think Hodge's main competition is Jorge Lopez, who previously got the save behind Hodge on Saturday. But I think if we're trying to prioritize closer ads for this coming week in fab, I think Porter Hodge is your guy, certainly over USADA in Tampa. Yeah, the best thing about making the calls on an early waiver preview is like three more days where the games happen before weekly fabs run. And then there's two more names that pop up.

You're like, ah, here we go. Here's more possible sources of saves. And I think that's that chaos continues to make the game fun, even though it makes it more difficult at the same time. Ryan, before I let you go, let our listeners know where they can find your work. Absolutely. Appreciate again, appreciate the invite DVR. You can find me on the Bubba and the Bloom podcast.

We record twice a week. Wednesdays, we do a Bloom Board episode every week. And then Fridays, we do our weekly fab preview. And then my writing over at Baseball HQ, write a speculator column every Wednesday, a fab column every weekend. And I will be out at First Pitch Arizona on the day after Halloween.

We'll be trick or treating with the little ones Halloween night. And then I believe we're both flying out Friday. So I will see you there, my friend. Yeah, very early Friday morning flight looks like my itinerary at this point. I gotta lock it in. I've been trying to see if I could find

some kind of late night Thursday thing, but probably Friday morning for me this year, staying until Monday will be the way that I go. But thank you for joining me, Ryan. Find Ryan on Twitter at Ryan at BHQ. Be sure to check out the Bubba and the Bloom podcast. Bloom boards are awesome on Twitter too. There's not a lot of things I like about Twitter, but bloom boards are actually one of the things that keeps me going. Keeps you coming back. That's good. Glad to hear it.

Keeps me opening the feed and having to get off for you and go back to my actual feed and see something like, this is Actually, this is good. This is helpful. So we appreciate all of those. Be sure to check out Ryan's work at baseball HQ as well. If you'd like a subscription to athletic.com slash rates and barrels get you the door to dollars a month. That's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels.

We're back with you on Monday. Thanks for watching!