Rates & Barrels - Luis Castillo to Seattle, A Surprise Josh Hader Trade to San Diego & Eno's Updated Pitcher Rankings

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss the blockbuster trade that sent Luis Castillo to Seattle, big surprises in the latest update to Eno's Starting Pitcher Rankings, a breaking news(!) trade that sent Josh Hader to San Diego, and much more.  Rundown -- Getting Luis Castillo Out of Great American Ballpark -- Cincinnati's Future Focus -- David Peralta to the Rays -- Eno's Updated Starting Pitcher Rankings (Subscribers to The Athletic can view the rankings here: https://theathletic.com/3458778) -- Chris Bassitt's Ascent -- Breaking News: Josh Hader Traded to the Padres! -- Jon Gray, Year 1 in Texas -- Nick Lodolo: Young Starting Pitcher on the Rise? -- Is Corey Kluber a Younger Adam Wainwright? -- Lucas Giolito's 2022 Slide -- The New Reid Detmers Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first six months: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Try Tim's new Sweet Chili Chicken Loaded Wraps and Bowls today. Take your taste buds on an exciting new adventure for lunch or dinner with our delicious new Sweet Chili Sauce. It's time for Sweet Chili Chicken. It's time for Tim's. At participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Monday, August 1st. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris here with you just about 30 hours before the trade deadline as we start recording on this Monday. A few trades have already happened. We'll discuss the deal that sent Luis Castillo to Seattle.

We got David Peralta going to the Rays over the weekend. And Eno's got new starting pitcher ranks. We're going to dig into those as well as a few mailbag questions. How's it going for you on this Monday, Eno? It's going good. It's going good. I'm excited for the mayhem. Although, I get this weird feeling it's not going to be as much mayhem as people want. I think there will be plenty of mayhem.

I think a lot of the deals last year came down in the last 36 hours. We just got a reliever on the move, Scott Efros. Not the reliever I expected to see the Cubs trade going to the Yankees. And as we learned with Clay Holmes last year, when the Yankees seek out a reliever that you didn't expect in the trade for, there might've been a really good reason for it. So we'll, we'll see. We'll see what comes from Efros joining that Yankees pen,

but the Luis Castillo trade, I think is a great place to start. Seattle didn't necessarily need to be players for Castillo, but it's certainly a smart move given how young the rotation is. I mean, Gilbert and Kirby alone, I think, raise some questions about how much they can work in September and into October without added rotation depth. Now, they have what I would say is a playoff caliber rotation in one fell swoop, and Luis Castillo isn't a rental. So they'd have him for 2023 as well. It was a big haul going back to Cincinnati the other way. Noel V. Marte,

Edwin Arroyo, Levi Stout, and Andrew Moore, the latter two, both pitchers. But the top two, Marte and Arroyo, are pretty clearly going to be impact players as they eventually reach the big leagues. So just from the Seattle perspective first, what did the Mariners get in Castillo and how excited should we be getting him out of great American ballpark? I made an argument on a piece that announced this trade that Luis Castillo is an ace. And I think intuitively and using the evidence that I used in that, I agree.

Because he is a guy that pairs a top ground ball rate with a top strikeout rate. I think there was only one other pitcher that had a better strikeout rate and a similar ground ball rate since he's been in the big leagues. So when you have that sort of a unicorn setup, uh, I think you, you get into the ASTEM. Um,

if you start looking at like Fangraph's war, he's pretty close. I think he's like top 17. Um, and, uh, if you just look at his arsenal, he's,

you know, he's kind of flattened out the four seamer a little bit this year so that it's got a little bit more ride. And that gives him, uh, what looks like an r model like a good uh like above average four seam with an elite change up and a really good slider so that's you know three pitches that are really good by stuff and by command so there's only uh i think there's only like like 14 other pitchers that have that combination of three pitches that are above average by stuff and command, three or more. So you kind of keep getting grouped in these like 15, 16, heaps coming up there.

I ranked him 22nd, though. And I think that part of that is just because he still pitches in Cincinnati. And so I'm still going to hold that park factor against him. So that alone should move him up a little bit. I'm trying to look at the rankings and see who I would have below him, and I think Christian Javier has been turning into a bit of a five-and-dive guy. There's also some risk with Lance McCullers back at some point that he goes back to the bullpen. So I'm going to move Luis Castillo ahead of Javier. Alec Manoa kind of had that injury.

He's also been losing some stuff. So it's possible I would move him ahead of that him. Spencer Strider is a risk to go to the bullpen. So I'd have him pretty close to him if not above him so i think i could move luis castillo with this from 22nd to something like 17th so that's pretty close to ace territory you know for fantasy and for real life purposes i think that's a that word ace is kind of defined differently by everybody it's a kind of defined differently by everybody. It's like kind of a, right? It's just some people are like, there's five aces. I know one when I see one.

I know one when I see one. So are there 30 aces? Because every team has to have a number one? Nope. Yeah. So where does acedom end? Because if I have Luis Castillo 17, going up into him, Cease, Woodruff, Rodon, Urias, Kershaw, Castillo, where does the line for you end? He's kind of on the line, I guess. That's why I was kind of making the argument pro. kind of on the line i guess that's why i was kind of making the argument pro i think he's probably in i think most of that group if not all that group would be considered aces for me i think there are i think there's a difference between an ace and an elite pitcher that that's like the next

tier up right within your group of aces you have some elite players that's your top five top three top seven whatever whatever extra thing extra strikeouts lower walk rate lower home run rate whatever the differences are that's what i think you have the very very top of the world series game one starter or something i don't know yeah yeah the the pitchers that you'd put in the argument for game seven your season's on the line stakes couldn't be higher who do you want taking the ball castillo's not in that conversation, but perennial all-star type starter. I think that's what I would describe him as right now. It's interesting that for pitching half his games in Great American Ballpark to this point in his career, Luis Castillo hasn't

had a bad home run rate really since 2018. 2019 was pretty much like a league average home run rate, and that was a year where home runs were up. And all the way back to the pandemic short in 2020 season, he's been even better than that. So I don't know how much of a boost he's going to get in terms of actual results, but it's a safer floor putting him in Seattle than there was in Cincinnati. And I wonder if in some shallow leagues, there was always that temptation in a tough home matchup to possibly not use him, right? It was just one of those rare things.

Oh, we're in 18 league and he's home and it's the Dodgers in town. So we're not going to use him. That pretty much goes away completely in Seattle. Like any little doubts in those shallow, shallow leagues are totally gone. I wouldn't be surprised if Castillo ends up being a little overdrafted in 2023. We're thinking ahead to the future just because I think people might overcorrect

for the move into the park that used to be Safeco. What are they, T-Mobile Field now? Stop changing sponsors, stadiums, you jerks. I was just checking real quick. He's got 11% usage. Something's wrong here. That doesn't add up to 100. How could this not add up to 100?

It's very strange. I'm just trying to see if he uses a syncer more at home versus away. I'll just look at raw syncer users, 1,400. A little bit of evidence he uses a sinker a little bit more at home just wanted to see if it if it was like uh he was using that to suppress the homers it looks like he uses a sinker and change up a little bit more at home uh than he does away he can he can be a fastball slider guy or he can be a sinker change up guy so it's kind of cool to have both of those in one place. I think it was probably worth it.

You know, you have this baseball trade values calculator that's out there. And people use that to say, oh, massive overpay by Seattle. But I would say that this deadline, there's Castillo, possibly Carlos Rodon and then Frankie Montas and Nate Eovaldi available, right? Given the years of control, Luis Castillo is clearly the best of that four? Yes. And therefore fairly scarce as a resource, right? Here's a guy with another year of control who's the best pitcher

available maybe your calculator doesn't quite handle that 100 correctly your calculator is not thinking about the four or five year 20 million per year contract you need to give someone free agency to fill that spot next year either i i think this is a great return for cincinnati i'm not trying to downplay that whatsoever i mean i think the reds have pretty clearly committed to and free agency to fill that spot next year either. I think this is a great return for Cincinnati. I'm not trying to downplay that whatsoever. I mean, I think the Reds have pretty clearly committed to a young core that should start to arrive probably in 2024. I don't think we're going to see most of their most talented position player prospects before then,

but you think about Marte and Arroyo joining Elie de la Cruz, who just popped up at number eight. Keith Law had an updated top 60 that went up, I think, just earlier in the day on Monday. Noel V. Marte is 12th in that list. Arroyo is an easy top 100 guy if that list were bigger. I think there are some lists that are updated to have him in the top 50 already. And then Cam Collier, who slipped to 18th overall, might be one of the biggest steals of the first round of this year's draft as well so you could see that group and you can get pretty excited about that they do have some young

pitching left i mean tyler malley probably seems like a lock to get traded at this point but they at least have a plan i think my beef with the reds going all the way back to the winkers suarez trade was i thought they were good enough to be competitive the way they were but seeing how they're starting to make this work I can understand because they've chosen a direct direction quickly and are executing pretty well in these deals I feel like it's it's okay it's just not the way you want your team to play because you're throwing away two seasons to get to that next window yeah but you know at least they've developed some players that can get them you know like top end prospects there are player there are teams that maybe are in a worse place you know 100 i think the nationals

are in a worse spot than the reds right now for sure and they have won soto still to trade so a lot could could change or if they but even after that i feel like sort of organizationally after a soto trade you give them three or four top prospects those will be the first top four prospects to have you know this would be the best prospects they have immediately and then i just don't trust the the player development engine there to get the most out of him. And there are pieces in Cincinnati that I still think I respect. And I think they've been pretty good at turning out pitchers, as difficult as that park is to pitch in. I think Malley is a good example.

I mean, he's a guy it took a while to get there, and he may not have the best season right now, but that's a pretty good outcome for his skill set. He was a guy that was a command guy and was low 90s. Now he's mid-90s and has some stuff, and the command's still there. I think they've found their way forward with him. I don't know. It's not exactly how you want to see it done when especially when they seem to be building towards something at that one point but at least

the the band-aid was ripped off quickly and they seem to have some players to be excited about again yeah a quick retooling i think is the best way to describe the plan right now in cincinnati uh the rays picked up an outfielder. I think we were both pretty confident David Peralta was going somewhere. It does make a lot of sense that he ends up in Tampa Bay. Who loses with the move of Peralta into that outfield mix? As a lefty, maybe the newest call-up there in Tampa, Luke Raley. Yeah, I think Raley is the guy that was playing a lot before the trade

that stayed on the roster, right? And Josh Lowe got bumped right off the roster, even though his July was actually decent, 277, 348, 410, 27.2% K rate for Lowe. So maybe starting to figure some things out at the big league level. But Raley, prior to this trade, looked like a deep league pickup. And as soon as this happened over the weekend, I think Raley kind of fell into that three to four starts per week role that makes him tough to use outside of mono leagues.

Wonder if we're, yeah, I even canceled a bid on Raley on Sunday due to concerns. I don't know exactly when the Peralta trade. I think it was after the Peralta trade. The Peralta trade came through on Sunday. Yeah, Saturday or Sunday. Saturday. The weekend was a blur.

So I canceled a Luke Raley claim in AL Labor because I was like, eh, you know, I only have like $15 left in the Navy. I'm not going to spend it on this. Another thing that concerns me about Rayleigh going forward is that he's not really playing center field, and he hasn't in years. So Rayleigh and Peralta, I don't think you really want Peralta in center.

So is Rosa Reina going to play some in center, or what's the plan in center? Is it Brett Phelps and Roman Quinn? Did he stay on the roster? Is Roman Quinn on the roster? I think Roman Quinn is still on that roster, yes. That's so weird because I mean, I feel like you can do better. I mean, I like Brett Phillips as a person and he seems like he's an interesting guy, but he's got a 42 WRC plus right now.

So I don't know. Maybe they've got some good internal news about Margot that we just haven't heard yet because he has resumed running as of last week. I guess if he's running, then you're just like, just hold on tight until Margot comes back, and then we'll have a Margot Phillips center field. Yeah, I don't think a Rosarena has started a game in center field all season.

Looking through, it's all left field, a couple DH starts, and I think maybe a turn in right like once recently. Yes, he started in right field on Sunday. That might have been the first time all season. Peralta hasn't played center field since 2016. He's won some gold gloves in the corners, but I'm just interested in what's happening in center. I don't think that part is figured out.

Maybe they'll just call up Brujan and put him in center, or maybe Margot is closer than we think. In fact, if that does happen maybe Margot is closer than we think and in fact if that does happen Margot is a righty but I think it would be kind of more of a situation where Margot is the starter and Brett Phillips is the backup I get the sense maybe they're not done they're going to try and find one more outfielder someone who can play center field and then if they don't find that player for the price that they like that maybe josh lowe comes back up and is at least a good defender in center field for them yeah there was a one uh rumor linking them to michael a taylor i think yeah i mean someone like that a glove first sort of player that ultimately

chews up a lot of time yeah and maybe he doesn't maybe phillips doesn't start against every righty and taylor starts against all lefties and half of the righties. It would be sad if we get to the deadline on Tuesday and Peralta is the best position player that changed leagues for AL only leagues. I held the hammer. Oh, and I'm getting David Peralta as the runner-up to Castillo. And because it's the Rays, too, he won't be playing as much as he did, probably.

Yeah, a little more mixing and matching going on there. You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself. 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.

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Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca. As mentioned up top, you had new starting pitcher rankings go up for subscribers to The Athletic. If you don't have a subscription, you can get one for $1 a month for the first six months at theathletic.com slash ratesinbarrels. I had a few questions for you. Not of the, they're not mean questions. How did you do, how could you do this? How could you rank this guy here and this guy here?

Yeah, they're not mean questions. They're just general curiosity questions. I think there were a few surprises in the top 30 for me. I think Christian Javier being at 18. I like Christian Javier. I think a lot of people who listen to this show like Christian Javier. I want to know what has changed in his arsenal that could give us some confidence and his ability to have some long-term success in a starting role because previously he was that sort of bridge reliever and there was uncertainty about how he would do having to turn the lineup over two and eventually three times

yeah i just saw enough command actually because i think the stuff the fastball slider stuff has is pretty well established and i just wanted to see enough command and you know he does have the worst command in my top 30 uh but it isn't um i thought with the stuffed number as high as it was, it would work. I might have been too aggressive on him. It also is, he was projected by the bat to be a top third, like a 13th best starting pitcher. And I did want to hew closer to projections this late in the season because they're pretty good at summing up the quality of opponent going forward just the overall results and at this point in the season there are more peripherals that are even more important than than stuff in command because at this point strikeouts minus walks give you more information than stuff in command, stuff in location.

So, you know, I kind of saw that projection for him at 13. I've moved him down a little bit due to concerns about the bullpen and how deep he was going into games, but maybe I didn't move him down enough.

But, he's... I actually have him five lower than his projection you know so like i i agree with you on the concerns well yeah i mean i think if if you group them with other pitchers that have been between roles that are having a lot of success as starters i mean you could maybe lower them and put them in a group with nestor cortez or move nestor cortez up and put cortez with Javier. I think that's how my mind tends to work. I always group these players really close together. I think the other thing with Javier is when we first talked about him as a call-up on this show, probably two, three years

ago now, I think, the arsenal was supposed to be excellent. And it's very good. I think. The arsenal was supposed to be excellent, and it's very good. I think the thing that surprised me is that he doesn't throw the curveball more than he does. 8% usage on the curveball seems pretty low. Is there anything about that pitch? Is it the command of that pitch in particular that maybe keeps him from

throwing that more often to give him that second consistent breaking ball? What's amazing is that Stuff Plus hates that knuckle curve. He gets a 72 Stuff Plus on it. In fact, the locations are what make it useful at all. So I don't know if that's a counterintuitive situation there, but I think the changeup is a complete lack of command of the changeup.

Here's a 96 Stuff Plus changeup and then an 81 command location on it. So yeah, the change up is not really an option um you know he reminds me a little bit of logan gilbert i guess where you've got this excellent fastball with good with good ride and good extension uh you figured out a slider to go with it and uh the the third pitch is surprisingly poor based on the eye test because logan gilbert's curve actually rates similar to this and logan gilbert's curve was always supposed to be his best pitch uh coming up so yeah a little bit of a logan gilbert situation there and i do have logan gilbert uh a few down from him so i don't know he's right there with strider and it's

like these guys i think are gonna be excellent gonna be in i don't know how many innings they're gonna get that's the tough thing about the young pitchers talked about a couple episodes ago you just especially for teams that are going to the playoffs how are they going to get from here to october if they want those guys to still have starting roles and full capacity starting roles once they get to the postseason. The Astros are supposedly shopping Jake Odorizzi and it's like is it to save money so they have another deal on the table that's going to cost them something or to just replenish prospects while they're sending prospects out on another deal? It seems

like too tricky. Yeah, making one move because you think you're going to make another, you have to make sure that other move also comes through. Otherwise, you end up missing the depth that you need to get from here to there. I think that's exactly what Odorizzi is. You still need to get to the postseason. I think you want to keep Odorizzi around to getting there. I think I would rather go to a six-man rotation and just keep all my guys stretched out uh and then have have multiple options in the

postseason there were everyone goes to like three innings in the postseason if you have or four innings in the postseason if you have more guys that are stretched out you have more options to go for anything so i'd keep odorizzi around even if it means going to a six-man rotation. I want to ask you about Chris Bassett. I think among your top 20 starters, he's got the second lowest stuff plus number. A little surprised to see Zach Wheeler just a tick lower than Bassett right now.

But what's enabled Bassett to reach this level? I thought we saw all of his ceiling during his time in Oakland. I thought if he topped out in the top 40 among starting pitchers, that'd be about as high as he could go. So that was just one of those names. I was like, whoa, hey, he knows in on Bassett, like kind of in a big way.

I mean, team context is obviously very good. Ballpark is obviously very good, but there's probably more to it than just those factors. If you have Bassett this high. Yeah, there's been a couple things. His velo has been actually kind of going up since the beginning of the season, and also his pitch mix has changed where he's finally throwing that curveball that Stuff Plus loves so much and that he thinks people would sit on.

There's no way anyone's ever going to sit on a 72-mile-an-hour curveball, Chris chris bassett it's just not going to work they'd be blown out of the water on every other pitch you had um so he's throwing the the the curveball the most he's ever thrown it i think yeah this looks like the most he's ever thrown it for a month or close to it at 16 he's thrown the slider more than he's ever thrown it at uh nearly a quarter of the time um and uh the sinker usage has come down and the four seam usage has come up so um you know there's some pitch mix changes that have made him uh more more uh attractive as a pitcher actually over the course of the season. There are some movement changes too. He's gotten, you know, more drop on his sinker and more sort of drop on most of his pitches generally. And then you look over here, interestingly enough, Wheatler and Bassett,

Interestingly enough, Wheeler and Bassett, who have the lowest Stuff Plus numbers full season-wise in the top 20, they are both also the biggest risers in Stuff Plus over the last 400 pitches, which is something that I tracked this time because I wanted to get a sense of how they, what direction they were moving in with their stuff. There's a little bit of, there's a little bit of proof in our, in our data work that the last 400 pitches of Stuff Plus are slightly more predictive than full season numbers. So basically you got Wheeler and Bassett getting healthy, getting right at the right time, I think. And I think they're there. That's why I have Wheeler 8 and the bat has him 12. I have Bassett 20 and the bat has him 22. So the projection system likes Bassett too, but I thought I was willing to bump him up a couple

based on the fact that in the last 400 pitches, Chris Bassett has a 104 stuff plus. That's nice. That puts him right there with Musgrove. And in fact, Musgrove has been losing stuff and has a 101. That's why I moved Bassett ahead of Musgrove right there. It was just looking at the last 400. And Wheeler in the last 400 has a 102.

But he's been this, you know, Wheeler and Thor, I think, are some of the most misunderstood pitchers in baseball where, you know, people sometimes see the velo or remember, you know, what they used to be or whatever and think these guys, I've seen it said that they're hurlers, they're throwers, not pitchers. And Wheeler has excellent command. In fact, if Wheeler didn't have excellent command,

he wouldn't be anywhere as good as he is um and uh you know cinder guard is hold just barely holding on based on his command i mean the fact that he's got five okay pitches in command that he's more closer to a ryu these days than he is to like a glass now you know true no and that's that's a pretty big step down if you're making that sort of decline. But for Wheeler, he's still got the stuff. So I was bullish on Wheeler, and that's one where I was, given where he is in the rankings, having a four difference off of the bat is a big deal. You want to do the breaking news jingle?

Oh, breaking news, breaking news breaking news oh my goodness what i don't have twitter open wow i saw it before you did so i was like whoa this is actually happening josh hater to the padres the padres get their closer oh i wonder if this takes them out of the Juan Soto mix. I don't think it does. So, Ken Rosenthal, about 10 minutes ago, had they were close. Jeff Passan of ESPN has the confirmation and the return. And I think the way this trade is set up. So, it's Josh Hader going to San Diego.

Taylor Rodgers, who has been struggling recently, going back to Milwaukee. Brewers think they can fix Taylor Rodgers. Lefty pitching prospect Robert Gosser. Outfielder Asturi Ruiz. And Denelson Lemaitre going back to Milwaukee as part of this trade. So a really interesting gamble by the Brewers to make this move. Hayter has struggled a bit recently, which is, you know, probably just a blip on the radar

given how good the stuff is and how long he's been elite. The thing to keep in mind is that Hayter was also going to be a free agent at the end of 2023. So aside from a big bump coming out of the retreat. But Rodgers is a free agent at the end of this year, I think.

Yeah, well, I think with the Brewers, you look at this team and say, if we can get more young talent, that we can either flip it a different deal or it makes us better because young talent is a bit of a problem in Milwaukee. They might use that to go acquire, might use Ruiz in particular to go acquire a bat. Yeah, so this is the tricky, is this one move to not lose ground but then to have pieces to then go make up ground somewhere else i kind of like this for uh the padres man ruiz does not hit the ball hard and

he's a little bit he's already playing the corners like he's not like a standout defensive guy in center i he's not my favorite prospect and so you're giving up that prospect so i do think that the brewers probably have this in mind for taylor rogers i've noticed this thanks to a reader um so taylor rogers went to a sweeper right he he added three inches of sweep on his slider however he lost two inches uh two ticks of velo. And that happens. There's a trade-off between horizontal movement and velo. Not always a good trade-off, though, if you lose a certain amount. It was not.

In the first two months of the season, when he had the regular slider that he had before, he had a 128 stuff plus. In the last two months of the season with the sweeper, he had a 102 stuff plus. So I think the Padres know all about this. I mean, the Brewers know all about this. And I know Ruben Niebla probably knows about it too. But, you know, maybe there's just a, maybe he's like, no, we'll stick with the sweeper. You know, this is going to be good eventually.

Maybe he just, maybe they have different stuff plus numbers. Maybe Niebla is looking at different numbers, but everyone has different models. It's possible. But I would assume that the brewers say to Rogers, hey, let's go back to your old slider. We'd rather have it be 85. And also, he lost a little bit of command of it, right? And command can be as important, in my numbers and some of the research,

more important than stuff for sliders. Because if you can put a slider on the outside corner, does it matter what shape it is? You know what I mean? can be as important in my numbers and some of the research more important than stuff for sliders. Cause can, if you can put a slider on the outside corner, does it matter what shape it is? You know what I mean? Not if you locate it consistently. It's going to drop if you can put it right there. And what's been happening with Rogers is he's been hitting guys in the back

foot when he tries to back foot that slider. Cause it has more sweep and he's just not used to it. So maybe the brewers say, Hey, maybe the sweeper's better overall, but right now we need you to command this. Anyway, it strikes to me that there's that meme out there which is like, what is it?

The Rays do make 15 moves that make themselves marginally worse at a cheaper team, And everyone goes, yay. I get a little bit of that with this Padres deal. I mean, is the Major League team better after this deal for the Brewers? They're not worse. Josh Hader doesn't pitch more than one inning anymore. He hasn't done it in years. So you're getting quite a bit back by adding Lament Josh Hader doesn't pitch more than one inning anymore. He hasn't done it in years.

You're getting quite a bit back by adding Lemaitre just as another reliever. Right now, the Brewers' bullpen depth is a concern. Getting another guy in there, Lemaitre's probably their third best reliever upon arrival. Oh, okay. Things are getting a little bit more dire than I realized in the back end of that Milwaukee bullpen. They've had a few injuries. Boxberger isn't quite as good as he was a year ago. Health is obviously the main concern with

Lamette, but who do you trust more, Trevor Gott, Brad Boxberger, or Denelson Lamette in the seventh inning? Probably an upgrade there. I know being down on Ruiz, that's not necessarily something that makes them immediately better. It doesn't solve the offensive problems.

How much do we like Robert Gosser as a pitching prospect? I guess that's part of the question too. I don't think it makes them a lot worse. I think it gives them more depth and kind of balances out their bullpen a bit, even if their A bullpen is not as good as it was when Hayter was at his best. And if Ruiz, you know, one of the problems with the Brewers' offense right now is strikeouts, right? Like they can hit for power, but they strike out a fair amount.

Ruiz offers at least that sort of tantalizing, maybe he could strike out 17% to 18% of the time in the major leagues and put up like slightly below average power that that would be a very different player than they have right they don't really have that player so sometimes though you know sometimes you you make you have the best of intentions and you're saying a one i want lineup diversity i want a guy who can make contact and sometimes you end up with rhyme el tapia so in fact that name just gives me the shivers when i look at ruiz dude that very well could be like the type of player that he is yeah i think the interesting thing here from the padres perspective is the names that have been bundled together over and over in the possible solo trades.

They did not give those guys up. They're all there. Yeah. So the Padres are clearly not done. Obviously, the Brewers aren't really done yet either. They're going to add some kind of bat, even if it's only a depth bat. So both of these teams, I think, are incomplete in terms of what they're doing but these are these are it's an interesting trade for a lot of reasons i like a little better for the

padres just because i think yeah but maybe you convinced me that that i could i can understand the thinking a little bit more on the on the brewer side but um uh what i like about it for the padres is i think they have a decent depth in that bullpen because they have guys like Pierce Johnson Tim Hill you know there's some some guys are hurting some guys are coming back whatever it is but they have guys they just you know I think they they saw that they didn't have the guy that they wanted the very end yeah it's funny it's the opposite problem yeah so it kind of is like okay we'd rather take the upgrade there because we think that wilson pierce johnson those guys robert suarez we have guys who can pitch the eighth you know and the seventh but we really want a dominant ninth and a guy so i'm i'm i'm on board with this man if devin williams moves into

solo closer role uh that's the best closer it's emerged on the wire all season in every league and i mean it's just it's not even close he's he's been lights out without that slider change i think i'm going williams you know he's also in house and then you can you what you say to rogers is hey we're taking out you're not in the closer role for now you can you maybe get it back but we need you to maybe go back to your old slider and let's and let's let's see what we can do they might use this bullpen the more more like the way the twins use their bullpen like they might kind of go that route they might become a committee team where it's two or three guys finishing games and be seventh eighth and ninth inning guys four different guys get those outs and we mix and

match based on what we need hater didn't seem as interested in doing that especially the multi inning thing maybe they can use rogers for four or five outs on occasion. That gives them a little bit more flexibility. The word of the deadline always, flexibility. But also, I think with Williams, I think you really have to be careful with his health. And so I think you don't want to go back to back to back with Williams. I bet you he's never done it in his career.

And maybe that's the other wrinkle here is you say, well, we had a guy we were using in that role. Now we can use Williams in that role, and Williams might be just as good as Hayter as now, so let's just get more pieces for the other parts of the pen. And maybe we can put somebody else who can go back-to-back-to-back every once in a while in the eighth if we need it. I like the idea that Lumet is actually an improvement

in the back end for them, so they're kind of just, you know, evening out the talent a little bit and getting two prospects that are at least interesting in Gosser and Ruiz. And they might not be there long. Who knows?

We'll see if there's another move coming here before we sign off. Back over to the pitching ranks for a bit. John Gray, year one as a member of the Rangers, has me pretty excited that if he can be a top 30 starting pitcher at this stage of his career, we can still have hope for German Marquez. The thing that really stands out to me with Gray is a couple things. The velocity is up a full tick on the fastball from where it was last year and almost two ticks from where it was back in 2020.

So he's getting better results on the fastball compared to last season, especially. Slider was good last year. It's still good now. It's weird that the changeup is better. Has anything changed with the movement profile, shape of that pitch that would explain why that's worked really well? He doesn't throw it that much. Those are 10% of the time, but it's a pretty big jump from where that pitch was a season ago.

Yeah, I mean, mostly what I saw in the ranking was that, you know, this, I think he's finally really getting to use the two sliders. He's kind of, I think he's using the sweeper more, and he's using the sweeper more. And he's using the slider more than he ever has. So he's kind of a 50-50, forcing in fastball. But you're right. He's using the changeup almost as much as he ever has before.

And I just, I don't see anything that is super obvious in terms of what's changed on the pitch because he throws it about as hard as he did last year it has a little bit more fade this year so that's good news I guess two inches more fade and about the same drop as last year so it's a little bit more side to side than it has been in the past but there's just something uh also that he just seems to believe in it and he's throwing it more it's just confidence you know um in terms of what the the model thinks about his change up um you know i think it's it's going to be mostly all about his fastball slide up yeah his change up is a 81 stuff plus uh but you know i think an 81 stuff plus type pitch that he locates about average

is going to be enough to at least keep people guessing you see somebody keyholing you too much you see somebody really locking into your slider or locking into your foreseam or something then here comes a change up you didn't expect that and if i can throw it in the zone then you're probably going to take it and i get it i get a free strike so i would say generally it's been about the improvement in the stuff for his foreseam and the sweeper uh but he uh is on a a cool a list here of the biggest stuff plus risers that i think people would be interested in in hearing a gram ashcraft uh he's on the rundown yeah the model um the model does not love his stuff but loves his command and uh has been sort of reacting positively to his stuff over the last 400 so um you know it still says 98 stuff plus which is a little bit weird for somebody who

throws as hard as ashcraft does um and maybe the model is just not getting it completely right because Ashcraft throws like a really hard four seam and a really hard cutter. And it's kind of hard to just sort of determine which one is his primary fastball. And you kind of define everything off the primary fastball. So which one is it? If it's the cutter, maybe this stuff plus is higher. We don't really have the ability right now to take our finger and point in the model and be like, no, change it to this as the primary fastball. It's kind of just an algorithm.

But I remain interested in him. I'm a little bit more likely to use him on the road just because the price for a bad start at home is just higher. But that's Ashcraft is number one. Do you want me to kind of do the other guys real quick? Yeah, throw them out there. Flexin2 with plus nine stuff plus. He has changes. He has a new slider.

He didn't really ever have a slider before. Now he has a slider. The model loves sliders. That seems like a good move for Chris Flexen. I think he might be moving a little bit. He's a two-start guy that I picked up last week that didn't drop. He's kind of moving from that to that. Charlie Morton, the stuff is up.

The command is down a little bit, but he's a stuffist from the beginning. I'm happy to see that. I know there's been a couple bad starts but i still believe in him hunter green uh is next and then cal quantrill our man went from 89 to 96 uh still kind of a poor line across the board with a 93 pitching plus i still don't really believe in him john gray right there kyle right uh amazingly dakota hudson going from 68 to 73 still don't like him uh from burvaldez is there i think he's adding a cutter i told you zach wheeler and chris bassett were on this part of the list uh sunny gray Gray, Luis Castillo. And then Zach Plesak may have something to do with why the Mets are into him.

He's been showing a 103 stuff plus in his last 400. So that's decidedly better than he was doing earlier in the season. So maybe the Mets see something there and think he could be a good back-end starter for them. So that's the biggest risers in Stuff Plus. Nice list. I thought there might be a chance we'd see Nick Lodolo on the list and you explain the number of pitches needed. And I think that would explain why he couldn't have been on the list.

He has like 400 pitches for the year. Yeah. And I wanted to bring up Lodolo because I was starting to think about either young pitchers, if I were playing for the future, that I'd be trading for right now, or even just maybe undervalued rest-of-season pitchers. I think Lodolo might fit both of those criteria. I think it's three pitches, and the model really likes him overall. It's fastball, curveball, changeup.

I like that even the third pitch throws it 17% of the time so it's not the the john gray scenario where he has that and he kind of just throws it just to keep people off the fastball it's no this is actually a third pitch that i want to use the ratios right now and eight starts are pretty ugly 423 era 157 whip but 54ks and 38 and a third innings to this point for lododolo. And I think because he's missed time already compared to all the other young starters. Everyone's nervous about his health, right? Yeah, everyone's nervous about his health, but he'll just work like a regular starter. More than a tank. So I think you get five plus innings every single time out.

I mean, the same kinds of things you're worried about with Ashcraft are there with Lodolo. But I think Lodolo's better to the point where I'm really not that worried about most of his home starts. It's a wider mix. He has more pitches. Yeah. He's a better pitcher. Way more he can do.

Pretty sure he's a better pitcher. Fairly confident in that one, yeah. I can see Lodolo being the kind of guy that's not even a top 50 pitcher right now, probably for anybody, who makes a massive leap over these final two months. Hey, if you have him in your lineup you're rostering him while he's doing that good things are likely to happen so i i just see him as a good target right now if you're trying to improve your pitching short

term or long term the the two biggest uh differences that i have maybe in my top 75 between um maybe the three biggest differences between the bat ranking and uh and between my ranking are lodolo aaron ashby and drew rasmussen we've talked about drew rasmussen a lot but he's also a stuff plus gainer right now um and this obviously a little bit harder to use them in certain leagues like a quality start league uh but i think all three of those are guys that i would buy low on they're the model loves them um i think their teams are going to use them what is your uh standpoint on ashby's uh end of season innings and and how that's going to look similar to lodolo missed a little less time i think they're gonna just let him work like a regular starter the way they've been pitching him the last couple of weeks.

Yeah, I mean, you're talking about the previous career high. I think when we looked at this a couple weeks ago, 126 innings back in 2019. He's at 112 and a third. Wow, it is hard to do innings decimal math on the fly.

It's not normal numbers. He can go to 150. He can go to 160 you can go 160 i think you know i think they'll use him maybe a couple of skips in september and then another push back for the playoffs they're if they're definitely in the playoffs and they want to use him a certain time yeah but you can deal with that at the time and he's better than his he's better than his results like lodolo right he's better than his results have been Lodolo, right? He's better than his results have been, I think. Yeah, there was one start in particular I was watching. I think it was even before the IL stint.

He got babbitt pretty good by the Nationals, and it's one of those lines you look at, and you're like, wow, that was brutal. It wasn't a good start, but it wasn't nearly the disaster that the results make it out to be. I think when you're still talking about 80 and two-thirds innings, one bad start still wreaks pretty good havoc on those ratios. Yeah, and any risk of him losing his job when Peralta

comes back? Because Peralta's back any day now. I don't think so. I mean, I think with the Hauser injury as well, I think Hauser kind of pitched his way out of the equation anyway. I know he's throwing and making his way back, but I think Hauser's more of his way out of the equation anyway. I know he's throwing and making his way back, but I think Hauser's more of a bridge guy that they would use. They might need him in the bullpen. I mean, if Lameda's their third best pitcher in the back there, they may really want Hauser in the bullpen.

I think Alexander has options. Alexander and Small are up-and-down guys. So even with Peralta in there, it's Burns, Peralta, it's Burns, Woodruff, Peralta,alta ashby lauer you know yeah that's the rotation so anyway those are those are guys that pop for me and i agree with you 100 of lodolo might even be more acquirable than ashby you know depending on what sort of numbers the other person is looking at and what they expect. At least Ashby's been healthier, right? Lodolo has this aspect of, oh, he could get injured any time, which is true, but maybe overrated in this case.

We had an actual question about Graham Ashcraft that came in. One of our loyal listeners, OJ, was just wondering if theham ashcraft arsenal with that high velocity cutter gives him a path to being a future emmanuel class a what is it about his pitch that gives him such a poor stuff plus number compared to class a who is one of the best players in the model yeah i mean that's i think with class a uh one class A one thing you'll notice is that he doesn't really throw a four seam so the model doesn't have any

problem deciding which one is his primary pitch you know what I mean because I think right now with the cutter they are the model is saying that his sinker is maybe his primary pitch you know I think right now with the cutter, they are, the model is saying that his sinker is maybe his primary pitch, you know,

and then defining the cutter off the sinker. Whereas I think it's his cutter is his primary pitch and you should define the sinker off of the cutter. The thing that's weird for me is even on raw stuff, which has nothing to do with, it's not defined off the fastball

they give a gram ashcraft this model gives a gram ashcraft 50 stuff plus on this cutter so i do know that um usually uh there's a problem if it's a unique pitch. But this reader is saying that it's the same. Let's see here. 97-0-5 for Ashcraft. And Colossae is 90-100-1-5. I mean, that seems pretty similar. We're talking about one inch of horizontal movement difference between those two pitches.

Colossae does throw it three miles an hour harder, which is obviously important. I have to say, man, I think Ashcraft is just filed for me in pitchers we have to watch, pitchers that may in fact make us change the way we do the model or people in the offseason we sort of testing different things on. But I also am not comfortable saying the model is incorrect because Graham Ashcraft looks so good and your model is dumb

because he also has a 6K9 and four-swing strike rate and is not getting the same results as Klaas A either. He's a weird pitcher. The results have been so good throughout most of his time in the minors, the walk rate being career best in the big leagues so far with the K rate being by far the career worst. I don't know what to make of it just yet. I think it needs more info.

If you want to speculate in a really deep league, what to make of it just yet. I think it needs more info. Yeah. If you want to speculate in a really deep league, sure, I get it. Go ahead. He's certainly interesting. I think when Clay Link stepped in while you were gone six weeks or so ago, there were, I think it was Kyle Farmer on the Reds who was talking about

how they thought maybe Ashcraft had the best pure stuff in their rotation, just in terms of velo and movement and being difficult to hit, difficult to see. I don't know if that was a little disrespect for Luis Castillo or just a lot of praise for Graham Ashcraft, but I thought that was pretty interesting because I wouldn't have put Ashcraft in that conversation at the time. I would have thought both Castillo and Lodolo and Hunter Green were all probably ahead of him. So maybe he's the guy we shouldn't be sleeping on.

Here's a question for you. Is Corey Kluber just a younger version of Adam Wainwright at this point in his career? Yeah. Yeah. It's not bad. There's another type of player that you can get that is better than people think. I mean, he's throwing 105 stuff pluses out there at his age, and it's just almost all based on having one elite pitch, just like Wainwright.

But if you have one elite pitch and then some other pitches that you can command, I think it's a model for decent. Think about Zach Granke. Zach Grankey you would think nah at this point you know it shouldn't work anymore right but he still has that one elite pitch which for him is the power change up you know and he can still if he has that in his back pocket the hitters still when's that coming when's that coming oh i should i sit on it oh now he's filling it up zone up with sliders you know so like you know he's that coming oh i should i sit on it oh now he's filling in a zone up with

sliders you know so like you know he's still crafty enough and i think that's that's kluber i will i think you know i have a kluber and cinder guard higher than the bat and i think that's that's what i'm looking at when i when i'm when i'm looking at those two guys it's guys with above average command a a large arsenal. They still have one or two good secondary pitches. Their fastballs aren't that great anymore, but they know how to dance around that and they don't throw the fastballs

as much as they used to. So those are, I think, I think Noah Syndergaard belongs in that grouping. And Adam Wainwright is right there. I have Tyler Anderson right there. That's the grouping of Kyle Gibson is right there. That's the grouping of you're a crafty dude. You're good enough to throw out there most of the time.

Here's another one. A pretty big follower, Lucas Giolito, now sitting at 74th in your rankings. Puts him behind Plesak, puts him behind Sonny Gray, puts him one spot ahead of Kyle Gibson. That is a massive, massive drop for Giolito. I think it's almost a two-part question. It's kind of a, obviously, this is how you feel about him now.

Is it fixable in the offseason? Can Giolito get into a pitching lab and make some changes to reverse this and get back at least up into the top 30 among starting pitchers at some point in 2023? Yeah, I think it's possible the model is missing something on his changeup a little bit because I don't think the model has ever really loved his changeup, and he does have a kind of a unique change up that he throws in unique locations he's got this kind of straight change that he throws high in the zone the model still says it's right now it's still 105 stuff plus uh pitch but maybe it's elite change up you know

it's pretty close to elite change up so everything uh the model says that everything is on the four fastball he's got to get the ride back and And for a little bit, it looked like he was getting the ride back, and then he wasn't. So I think, you know, since he's shown that ride on the four-seam in the past, I think he can get it back. Once he gets it back, I think he'll be an interesting buy-low candidate next year. You know, depending on what the price is, I will probably have some shares again if we're buying him as a three or four because he has the opportunity to be a two and a one again uh but right now this season he's on the list of the top 30 stuff plus losers um and uh since we did the positive side i'm gonna run through the bottom of this real

quick sean mania uh his release point has been. His stuff plus is down to 78 in his last 400. Something is not right under the hood. Michael Kopetic is second. He is also, I think, everything is way down. His stuff plus is down 10 points. And I just, I see some velo droppage. I just see, you know, there's just a possibility there's something wrong health-wise because he's had issues health-wise in the past.

Bruce Zimmerman, I didn't even rank him because his stuff plus had dropped so far. You say Kikuchi, but I'll put an asterisk around that because the 400 pitches is around an IL stint, and he came back with a different slider. So that's something I would just sort of monitor because I think he looks a little better with a different slider. Nick Pavetta, I think has been obviously falling off. Maybe it's just fatigue. It's one of his longer seasons, I think. Mackenzie Gore, we know there was an injury. Spencer Strider dropped a lot lot but that was because he was

so high up as a reliever and he's still so high up as a starter i tend to just like the next guy paulo espino is also down and he's also a role changer i'm a little bit more worried because paulo espino had a 102 stuff plus to start so when you're throwing him now into the rotation he's down to 94 in the rotation. He's a borderline start. He's kind of like a, I consider him a matchup sky. Logan Webb is next. And I think we've seen it in the results.

The results are falling off. I don't pretend to know what it is, but I've seen his B-Low go down. And it seems like his stuff is dropping. Mike Miner didn't even rank him. German Marquez, you know, sometimes the schedule can just screw him. Alec Manoa was a big stuff plus dropper in the top 12 and dropper. So I don't know. That was pre-injury too. So I tended to just, you know he the bat rank for him was 20 i just kind of kept him close to his bat rank in the rankings yeah kopec of the names you mentioned

the kopec drop is probably one of the more troubling drops because he's trying to go through his first full big league season as a starter the The K rate is back down quite a bit compared to where it was a season ago. 21.4%. These walking guys, home runs are a little bit of an issue. Not terrible. Right around a league average home run rate. But not surprisingly, moving back into the rotation, the fastball velo is down.

And it just doesn't seem like this arsenal is quite good enough right now. And I don't know if there's more for him to build on or if this is more of what you see is what you can get. He's down to 94 this month. That's, that's really low. Uh, you know,

I mean, because he's not a guy who has command, right. Right. We just, we know that about him. He has, I think I saw on today on,

and we network, he has like the highest walk rate among qualified starters or something 12.3 percent yeah yeah um so you know i'm really worried about him i think if you could uh send kopec in a dynasty league if you're contending i think the one of the one of the best use cases would be to kind of trade him away for win-now help. I think I would be willing to do that. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm not really interested there. Last player I wanted to ask you about from the rankings, Reed Detmers.

Didn't crack the top 100 yet. Does seem like a different pitcher since coming back from that brief time at AAA Salt Lake. The pitching model doesn't seem to be convinced that Reid Detmers is an entirely different pitcher. But coming off of a 12 strikeout performance over seven innings on Sunday, now has a 362 ERA 105 whip for the season, 75 Ks and 82 innings, but at least six strikeouts in each of his last six starts. in each of his last six starts. So what do you make of this version of Detmers compared to the initial version of Detmers we saw this season and even upon arrival last year? I like the new slider,

and he is on the Stuff Plus risers. It's only, he's risen to 91, but I would say there's a little bit of an asterisk there. I think some of these changes he's made have been within the 400. If you did a last 200, you might catch more of what's going on with this new slider he's throwing. And so I've got pitches per appearance. Let me see here.

This is not my favorite one to look through because that's like every player's pitch every player's pitch in every appearance seems like a nice list yeah it's a really big one um and it's not showing me come on oh this is with bard i took bard out okay i was like it's only bard what's going on here all right congrats to daniel bard by the way, on that extension. Nothing but happy for him. And also, I think that people were kind of giving the Rockies crap for it. And I'm not with that, man.

I think it's a fine deal. He had the best stuff plus of any reliever that was available at the deadline. And who cares that he's 38? It's a two-year deal you know i i i i was into that i thought it was a fine deal um detmer's slider is is legitimately better uh since he changed it since he came back up and in july it's now uh in the 130s and 150s so you might be a little bit more of a guy who hasn't won the elite pitch but he does still throw the other pitches and so you know i i do think his ultimate upside comes from you know

maybe uh looking at his foreseam fastball shape because his foreseam fastball stuff is uh you know in the 60s sometimes but floats in the 80s if he can, if he can improve his fastball shape, he, I think this new slider he's throwing is elite. So, you know, and that's only, that's only on level of three starts. So the 400 start thing is capturing some of that, but not all of that. And so maybe I didn't, I didn't rank him very high, but I did rank him 111 and the bat had him 127. So I did push him a little bit based on that change in slider stuff and you know I'm never going to be the high guy in Detmers across the industry there are people who've been pounding the table about him and you know it's

been a pretty good outcome for this season but I'm mostly excited about the new slider than I am about anything he did before yeah I gave up on him a lot of places and got him back in a few, but not as many as I would have liked and been pretty happy with what he's done so far. But if he's a top 75 starter the rest of the way and in the next season, that's still useful. It's just a case of making sure you don't put him in for the difficult spots. And so far, he's been good with some difficult spots since coming back with that new slider. That's been the killer is like you look at it and you say,

am I going to use him for his home starts against Houston? Probably not. Pitch is pretty well there. On the road against Atlanta, five scoreless innings, 6Ks and a win. So sometimes, you know, you're going to get bit playing the matchups and being safe. You would have had him in probably for the home matchup against the Rangers on Sunday. And that's been the best start that we've seen from him since that no-hitter. Probably even a better start in the sense that he had 12 Ks.

And the no-hitter was almost without strikeouts entirely back when he did that earlier this season. Look at this, dude. Since he switched sliders, and you can see it very clearly where he switched sliders. You just look at the movement profiles. It's switched on July 8th. Since he switched sliders, he has a 1-1-3 ERA with 12K per nine and three walks per nine. 31 strikeouts in 24 innings. Yeah, just different, like a totally different guy. Yeah. I mean, I think that's what you're looking for when you're looking at these guys.

Austin Voth is a guy that we've liked a little bit on this podcast in the past, and he's finally been put into a starting role in Baltimore. And you can see that his pitch usage has changed pretty dramatically with Baltimore. And more curves and fewer cutters. And from watching, I think it seems to be working. It's a little bit more of a borderline case. It's not as exciting maybe as Detmers. But I have him uh you know five or

six behind detmers as a another guy that the rank the projections really don't like um the model likes a little bit and uh is getting a chance and is changing has changed his pitch mix that's something i i think that anybody can look for you know look for a dramatic change in results paired with a dramatic change in pitch mix and just been more likely to believe that a little bit. I just think we're, we're beginning to reach the point where the Orioles should be trusted when they add a pitcher, they can make a pitcher better.

We're seeing that with both right now. I picked him up at a bunch of leagues, starting him in a bunch of leagues to good start against the pirates at home. Maybe he sticks around. Maybe he's a one-off streamer. We'll see. But I'm curious enough about what we've seen so far to take the chance on a stream and possibly have him

stick on some 15-team rosters a bit longer than expected. We need to go. Before we go, I will remind everyone you can get a subscription to The Athletic for just a dollar a month for the first six months at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. We have a live stream coming on Tuesday afternoon.

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the week. You can find eno on twitter at eno saris you can find me at derek van riper that's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels we're back with you on thursday thanks for listening