Rates & Barrels - Matt McLain Arrives and Jake Burger Stays Hot

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

DVR and Al look into how Matt McLain and Casey Schmitt stack up against other hitters in the shortstop pool, and they make the case for adding Jake Burger in a wide swath of leagues. They also consider the fantasy impact of the returns of Matthew LIberatore, Gavin Stone and Taj Bradley to the majors, and sort through a less-than-inspiring group of streamable pitchers. Rundown 0:29 Where should Matt McLain and Casey Schmitt be rostered? 12:28 Jake Burger’s return and other lineup developments 23:33 Josh Lowe is the No. 4 Roto outfielder? 28:09 Rotation developments 42:33 Streamers/two-start pitchers 54:34 Closer corner Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Al on Twitter: @almelchiorBB e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Best Western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze. And it felt a little like... Come on kids, back to the hotel room. Good night kids. Good night mama. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at best western Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Friday, May 19th. Derek Van Ryper here with Al Belk. You're getting ready for a busy weekend of waiver wire action. Kind of recapping some of the biggest things that have happened over the last week or so. And one of the most exciting things that has happened, Al, is we have another rookie shortstop in the pool. We talked about Matt McClain in detail on the Project Prospect episode on Tuesday, but I think the

question going into the weekend is, does Matt McClain offer enough to break into the shallow league range? Where are those boundaries for the shallow league threshold when it comes to the shortstop position? Because Matt McClain, at least on paper, can offer something in pretty much every roto category. I think the bigger question long term is whether or not he's actually going to hit the ball hard enough to get to the power consistently. Maybe there's a little bit of batting average risk there, but he steals bases and he's in a home park that would potentially mask over the power flaw a little bit being in Cincinnati with Great American Ballpark working in his favor. So how are

you comparing McLean to the other rookie shortstops and just the shortstops in the pool in general as you look at a possible upgrade on the wire across your leagues this weekend? Well, yeah, I agree with you. This is pretty exciting. And I think that he definitely should be in 12-teamers and I think in 10-teamers. And we've talked about this from time to time, DVR, but I hold a little bit of a different standard for 10-teamers because there's always so much talent on the waiver wire there that I feel like you can take more risks. that if you're in a league that's got obviously a shortstop slot, but let's say even a middle infield slot, that McLean is necessarily going to be, say, one of the 15 best shortstops rest of the season. But I think that his upside is such that you can take that risk. And if it doesn't work out in, say, two, three weeks, you can toss him back and still get

a really good shortstop. It's less the case in 12-teamers, but I just think that that potential power-speed combination is something that's going to be hard to find once you get to that level of depth. So I would certainly be looking to pick him up in the 12-teamers. And then in 15-teamers, I think we're back in triple-digit category there for Fab.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, the need for speed isn't as dire as it's been in past seasons. The new rules have opened up more sources of stolen bases. But one thing you have to keep in mind in Roto Leagues, if everyone's getting more steals, you need more steals. So I do think you have to look at him from that category first and sort of work through the rest in terms of how much you trust him. Looking at rest of season projections, I have the Bat-X opened up here. Just comparing McLean

to other shortstops, I like to use catch-all value projections like WOBA or WRC Plus just to give you an idea of the real-life value a player offers because the real-life value will drive playing time, and playing time will ultimately be the thing that gives us the stats that we need, right? So if you look at Matt McLeain rest of season right now, the Bad X spits out a 241-316-426 line, and you might hear those numbers and think, oh, that's not that good for a short stop. It's actually not that bad for a rookie short stop. It's 27th among short stop eligible players on this Fangraphs projection screen that I've got open. That includes guys that play other spots, of course.

For reasonable comps, you don't have to go that far up in this Woboat list to find someone who is a top 100 player. Andres Jimenez was a top 100 player by ADP. and I think the only difference for me is that Andres Jimenez has a little more established track record where you can trust him not to be a liability and average that's to me the biggest difference they both have questions about power fewer questions about Jimenez's playing time by comparison but that's actually the type of player that McLean can be if he's getting on base enough to use his speed the longer term questions about the power, you know, that would temper my ceiling bids on him. You said triple digits, right? So if you're talking about a $1,000 budget, 100 to 120 is probably where I'm at, like a 10 to 12% of your

original budget feels about right in some of those leagues. I think as we learned with Casey Schmidt, how you begin your career, what you do in the handful of days leading into when fab happens can have some pretty significant effects on how much people are willing to pay. So if Matt McLean goes off all weekend, that might cost you more money. And then you have a more difficult question that you have to figure out come Sunday evening. But you look at McLean and compare him to even Anthony Volpe. Projections on those two guys are very similar. Rest of the season numbers are better on Volpe for stolen bases. Similar in power, similar in runs, similar in RBI.

Slightly higher K rate for McLean. But overall offensive value, very comparable if you're using Woba as that baseline. So I do think you can justify bidding in more shallow formats. I don't think you have to go quite as high in shallow formats as you do in those 15 team leagues where anybody who could be potentially good across the board draws the big bids, like you said. But I think this does give us a better framework for where his profile fits. Tyro Estrada projects very similarly. Tommy Edmund projects very similarly. That's sort of like the, if it goes right, that's the fantasy bucket McLean is more likely

to fit in. If it goes wrong, you start looking to the lower end, other players that are below him in terms of Woba. John Birdie with fewer steals, I think would be in the what could go wrong category as far as his overall offensive value. You see guys like Hassan Kim kind of in this range

with slightly lower projections Nico Horner Nico Horner is probably deserving of a separate conversation at some point as far as someone that is just a little bit unique in terms of how he produces his value and I think that makes him undervalued maybe a lodum guy for those who like to listen to this show throughout the week but this is a this is an interesting group of players because I think they're very volatile and the stolen bases are a huge part of what makes them either extremely valuable or potentially not that helpful at all because you're chasing one category and getting almost nothing else elsewhere. Yeah. Well, and I want to kind of make an

addendum to that Woba comparison, which I think is a really good stat to start with in making these comparisons. But it's not going to weight stolen bases the way that it would in Roto. And so when you're comparing McClain to some of these other shortstops and he looks comparable, when you take into account the fact that he's probably going to get more steals than a lot of those folks, I thinkpe is a really really good comp and volpe has been starting in my 12 teamer for me the last couple weeks so i feel pretty confident that if i had mclean obviously in a different league not where i already have volpe but uh you know i'd feel

comfortable starting him particularly for for home here for Yeah, and even with Volpe, we've seen the growing pains on full display so far this season. The first month has been underwhelming. The overall season slash line, 215-307-399, probably below what he's going to do for the rest of this season and probably well below what he's going to do as he gets more big league experience. So just a reminder, a lot of ways this can play out. An exciting player, one of many we're going to see coming to Cincinnati and one that actually probably does break into some of those more shallow formats out there, even though there's a lot of ways it can

play. A lot of those players I mentioned have been rostered and dropped in 10 team leagues in recent years too. So we get Andres Jimenez questions. It feels like every couple of days, what's going on with him? What should we do with him? In a deeper league, let's say you're in a 15-team league, I would not be looking at Matt McClain as a clear and obvious upgrade over Andres Jimenez in a deeper league like that. But the more shallow the league, the more willing I am to take the chance because you're always looking for something that could be better.

It's such a dangerous game to play, though, because it just feels like you're chasing ceiling, and ceiling can take a long time to be better. It's such a dangerous game to play though, because it just feels like you're chasing ceiling and ceiling can take a long time to be reached. Yeah, that's for sure. But you can always go back to the safety of the replacement level. And that's why it's a little bit of a different animal when you're talking about who to bid on in 10 teamers. So Casey Schmidt, he's still out there in some leagues, and I was really hung up on the lack of power above high A from him, even though we've seen him hit balls pretty hard. We talked about that last week.

He's got a rocket arm. Looks like a legitimately good player on the left side of the infield, which is great for his playing time. And I still think we're just wondering, what kind of hitter is he really going to be? It's only nine games. It's been great in terms of what he's offered so far. Hitting a couple homers, driving and runs, scoring runs.

He hasn't drawn a walk yet. He's swinging at pitches outside the strike zone at a 48% clip. That's probably not who he's going to be long-term because guys like that end up being massive average liabilities and they get sent down. We've seen some barreling. So it's like, we have more information, but I don't think we have any answers yet because it just hasn't been long enough. But I'm wondering if, as you've seen more of Casey Schmidt, if you started to adjust the leagues in which you are interested in him in. Well, I think that, you know, the more that I've seen of Casey Schmidt, it sort of validates my initial thinking on him

because there was quite a bit of hype when he first got called up. And then, yeah, the first three, four games, he just, you know, was unstoppable. But he has cooled off a bit. And not that he's not hit the last four or five games, but you haven't seen the power. I think he's not hit the last four or five games, but you haven't seen the power. I think he's hit one double in the last five games. So I figured, just like you, DVR, I wasn't counting on a lot of power from Schmidt. And one, this is relevant to him, but relevant, I think,

to other players as they get called up. You referenced the fact that he's been barreling. I do like to lean, and anybody that reads the columns or listens to this Friday show knows that I lean a lot on exit velocity on flies and liners, because it is a little bit more granular. And because also barrel rate is, for the vast amount of cases, it's a really reliable stat. But the thing is because it's, yes, it's a barrel, no, it's a barrel, it's an either or,, it's a barrel. It's an either or. With small samples, it could be a little misleading. So Schmidt's been averaging, I think it's, I want to say 91.5 miles an hour in exit velocity on flies and liners. That's not really very good. Now it's still a small sample, but I guess maybe it's a bit of confirmation bias for me, but that's kind of the neighborhood I

expected him to be in for that stat. So I think Schmidt is somebody that definitely does have value. But I'm not there in terms of 12-teamers. I think he can hit for average, produce runs. But I'm not expecting a lot of power. And the home park doesn't help with that either. And I just think there's always a question of having raw power, but then being able to get to it right away. I think there will be power eventually. a question of having raw power, but then being able to get to it right away.

That's the question. I think there will be power eventually. I thought that about C.J. Abrams, a different kind of player, because when you look at C.J. Abrams' build, you can kind of tell, like, that guy's going to get stronger. He's so young. He will get stronger. The power will come eventually. You know, we're seeing flashes of that right now, but you see a similar exit velocity on flies and liners from C.J. Abrams right now. And because C.J. Abrams can run really well, you get steals and you can sort of live with the lack of power right now. If Casey Schmidt doesn't run or run very much at all and he gets stuck in the bottom half of that Giants lineup, that kind of keeps him right on the outside looking in at those shallow leagues. He's still more of a midsizesized league and deeper league sort of player, but I do think it's become clear that his defense

is important for the Giants, and they will prioritize finding ways to get him into the mix, which is a nice thing for them to have. They needed some reinforcements from their system this year, and perhaps they'll have more a little later in the year depending on how things go, but I don't know. I just

like what he's doing from a few different facets, but there's some vibes of like a better real life player than fantasy player early on. And maybe I'll be wrong. I've been wrong about Casey Schmidt about 10 times already in two weeks. So who's to say that the 11th time isn't just around the corner.

Let's get to a few other big items from the week though, Al. Kyle Farmer is playing a lot if we're gonna stick on middle infield for a second, I just wonder, is he anything more in the eyes of the Twins than a seat warmer for Royce Lewis? We're talking about a guy in Farmer who's more of a deep league sort of glue guy. He's going to play enough to just help you with counting stats until someone or something better comes along. something better comes along. But am I overlooking Kyle Farmer? Because part of what led me to really write him off going into this season for drafted holds and AL only leagues was the massive drop off and park factors

leaving great American ballpark and going anywhere is going to hurt you in home runs. And I just thought the bits of power we saw from farmer in the past, we're probably going to evaporate going to Minnesota. Yeah. That was my assumption too. And he is legitimately hitting the ball harder so far. So that's why you're seeing a little bit of an uptick in the power numbers,

despite the fact that he has had that big downgrade and park factor for the home games. But just looking at the fact that the Twins have got Royce Lewis playing a little bit of third base already in the minors. It just seems I'm considering that Farmer is a seat warmer. But you never know. You never know. But that's the assumption I've been running on.

With the increase in hard contact, though, we have hard contact. We've seen a jump in K rate compared to where he's been the last few years from Farmer, too. So it's been kind of selling out to get to that power we're also not seeing a lot in terms of tools he's on the wrong side of 30 he's already 32 i think there's this uh like age in my mind of 27 or 28 because he didn't really get a chance to play a lot until last season but we're talking about a guy that's currently 17th percentile in max exit velo and 32nd percentile in sprint speed so i definitely see more of a seat warmer it's fine to pick guys like this up they're usually min bid players they just kind of get you through a few lineup periods until someone comes off the il so that's the way i would look at him if you see him kind of popping in terms of counting stats i think you want to be

careful about expecting too much from kyle farmer. Sticking with position players for a bit, Oscar Mercado is getting playing time in the St. Louis outfield. The team that had too many outfielders like three weeks ago now doesn't have enough because Dylan Carlson has joined Tyler O'Neill on the injured list. And instead of bringing Jordan Walker back up from AAA, they decided to give Oscar Mercado a look. It'd be nice for the cardinals if they could you know take someone else's outfielder who didn't work out and make that player work for them so they've had it go the other way a couple times recently but what do you see from mercado i mean this is a player that we did actually like in the fantasy community a

couple years back and at least temporarily he appears to have a path to some time with the cards yeah well he had the you know the rookie season season where he showed some power and some speed and was close to league average in overall production. And so you thought, OK, this is a nice start. This is somebody with a prospect pedigree. He's going to build on that. But that's been the peak for Mercado. And I haven't really seen anything from him in the minors that suggests that he's getting back there, much less building on that rookie season. So I tend to think that he's going

to be a seat warmer too, and eventually, and hopefully, we'll see Jordan Walker back in the not-too-distant future. But certainly deep leagues, mono leagues, he appears to be prime for some playing time for at least a little while. So at a minimum, he's got that value. Yeah, we'll always have 2019 from Oscar Mercado. And we learned in hindsight, you know, the year the rabbit ball was very kind to a lot of players who didn't have as much power as we thought. It's a Victor Robles problem, just in a slightly different form with slightly less speed. But I fell for it in 2020. I had Oscar Mercado on some teams because I thought i thought hey this is a guy that can fill up multiple

categories didn't have any issues with strikeouts didn't hit the ball particularly hard i guess that was probably the the warning sign was the three percent barrel rate back in 2019 15 home runs in a partial season on a three percent barrel rate that should have been the indication that there wasn't a lot there but probably more of an nl only sort of guy if you're looking for some playing time in those deeper formats this weekend i saw mickey moniak getting chances with the angels unless they're going to play taylor ward less it looks like moniak is a true fourth outfielder for the angels right now yeah and that seems to be the role that he always winds up in whenever he comes up. But as compared to Mercado, I'm sort of intrigued by Moniak. And as you mentioned in our notes here, Taylor Ward's not hitting very well.

Maybe there's an opportunity there to steal some playing time from him. And there's power. I mean, the question is just, can he cut back on the strikeouts? He doesn't have a big problem with that when he's in AAA, but every time he comes up, he strikes out a lot. So at some point, is that going to catch up? I don't know at what point we maybe should give up on that hope, but I think it's not time yet for that. I think there's still some hope that Moniak, first of all,

has an opportunity, and secondly, can take advantage of it. Yeah, I see him still as more of a monoligue player. I know there were some folks excited about him in mixed leagues when he got the call last weekend. I do like that they're using him atop the order. When he plays, he leads off. So it's probably just occasional starts against righties for now, which does make you start to ask questions about Taylor Ward in shallow leagues.

If he's the guy who loses, is there enough there to keep rostering Taylor Ward? Just four homers so far in 44 games. We've seen the barrel rate almost cut in half from where it was last year. 12.1% last season, all the way down to 6.3% this season. The big difference for me with the approach, Al, is that Taylor Ward is chasing pitches outside the strike zone at a previously high level. Back in 2021, it was a 29.2% O-swing percentage.

That's not bad. But when he was really good last year, he cut it to a career best 23.6%. And now he's up above 30 again, close to 32%. So it just seems like the approach has kind of gone backwards for Taylor Ward and we're just not getting nearly as much damage as we were getting a year ago. Yeah, it's puzzling. And I think, you know, since you've laid out that, that trend, that chronology for him, that if he does continue to get chances, he'll probably figure it out. And just to add to that, I mean, he's gone from being really selective to just having a pretty average chase rate. So it's not like it's, it's a, it's a major flaw. It's just not been a plus for him so far this year, but you know,

maybe there's a little bit of competition on his hand. So I think it's, you know, that's the bigger issue than me being concerned that over the course of 162 games that Taylor Ward is going to show us that he just wasn't at all really who we showed to be last year. You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself. You live for experience and lead by example.

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Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca. Let's get to some other bats that are back in the pool. Yasmany Grandal and Yohan Mankata back from the aisle. Very good news for the White Sox, and even better news, perhaps. Jake Berger is back from that oblique injury, a little faster than I expected. I see oblique. I assume we're looking at close to a month for an absence.

Fun facts here about Jake Berger. I'll throw the first one out there. You found the other two. Jake Berger has a better rest of season WOBA projection from the Bad X than both Yohan Mankata and Yasmany Grandal. And I think back when Berger first started playing, I think it was the time Mankata actually got hurt,

I wondered if they might be tempted to play Mankata a little bit less and keep playing burgers to get that offensive lift. A 351 rest of season Woba is really good. If you look at that just in the broader population of hitters, I'm just going to throw the filter on for everyone. There are 579 hitters projected by the Bat-X. A.351 Woba ties for.58. It's very good. Jake Berger is a player who's available in a lot of leagues. In deeper leagues, you could probably trade for him pretty easily, and he might prove to be more impactful than people expect. Now, I think the risk, of course, comes from how they make the pieces fit. But if this team ends up trading players away later this summer,

there's an even better chance that Berger's an everyday guy if he doesn't already have that kind of earned based on how well he's performed on a per-plate appearance basis this season. Yeah, and that's been the question all year long with Berger. I mean, every time we talk about it, it's like, well, he's hitting and hitting and hitting more. But when everybody's healthy, which never seems to be the case for the White Sox, where does he play? But they're going

to have to figure that out. So yeah, you gave us the first fun fact. And I mean, very closely related to the first fun fact, why does he project for such a high WOBA? Well, he's not just hitting with a lot of power. He's hitting with pretty much more power than anybody in the major leagues. Only Aaron Judge has a higher barrel rate than Berger. If you look at the whole pool of players who have hit at least 50, 50 batted balls. So Judge is kind of in a league of his own, as you would expect 28.6%, but Berger's right there at a exactly 25% barrel rate. That's, that's outstanding. So he should be projected for, for really great production. Then you already alluded to the final fun fact, which is that he's out there.

Like you said, you may have to trade for him in a 15-team league, although not necessarily. It might be available there, but anything shower than that, Jake Berger is probably on your waiver wire. He's got less than a 30% roster rate on CBS and an even lower roster rate on Yahoo and ESPN. Last I looked, which was just yesterday, I think it was something like 11% roster rate on Yahoo and ESPN. Last I looked, which was just yesterday,

I think it was something like 11% roster rate on ESPN. So I'm sure it'll be rectified. I hope it'll be rectified in the next week or so. But right now, you got to say that Berger is clearly the most under-rostered player in fantasy. Yeah, it comes with a batting average liability. I think that's the one categorical shortcoming as a result of how he gets that power. It's big hacks. He's not getting cheated up there. It's a career 31% K rate over just over 300 plate appearances. The one reason

I'd be somewhat optimistic about that number either holding or going down, well, there's two reasons. Projections have him closer to 28%, which I think makes sense. He's been such an in-and-out-of-the-lineup player over the last parts of three seasons now at the White Sox. It's very difficult when you're not getting consistent run to get settled in at the plate. So if you have a 31%, 32% K rate as an every-other-day or twice-a-week player, and then the switch flips and you get

that everyday role, you can simply improve by getting more consistent reps at the other end. It can go both ways. Opposing pitchers can carve you up more, right? If there's a book on you, if there's a hole in your swing, they're going to find it. But I think with Berger, because he has such a great barrel rate, 17.6% for his career, he's the kind of player that can get away with a 30-ish percent K rate. There's a clear need for power bats with this White Sox lineup. I think this is a slightly risky profile that I'm willing to take a chance on

because there's enough that I like where I think it can all work for Berger. Yeah, and I want to address that point too, about the playing time, because I was surprised to find, respond to a Twitter question earlier this week. Somebody was asking about a Josh Lowe trade offer. He's the fourth ranked, or at least of like two days ago,

he was the fourth ranked outfielder in Roto value, period. Number four. And he doesn't play every day so you know maybe it would do jake berger a favor to you know to skip a day or two a week uh because he's shown that in that somewhat limited uh role that he you know he could put up huge numbers josh lowe is really interesting because i think when we we see players get to fast starts, and this is more than a fast start now. I mean, this is a month and a half, 36 games for Lowe in particular.

We see some skills improvement that's not just a little. It's a lot, 23.5% K rate. That's 10 percentage points better than the K rate that he had last season as an up and down guy for the Rays. The barrel rate has almost tripled that's really nice to see and we're not talking about a player whose babbip is off the charts high that's not fueling the batting average right now it's a lot of things that you can kind of grab onto projections still see a guy who will go back to a 30 k rate and what's really interesting is in the underlying numbers,

Josh Lowe has increased his O-swing percentage. And I think in the past, I have been very quick to dismiss players who are chasing more often and say, oh, this is fluky. This isn't going to work. They're getting really lucky.

But I have more recently started to wonder that if part of the makeup of Josh Lowe's profile has always been he walks, but he strikes out. Maybe the ideal situation for a player like him is to actually walk a little less by swinging more, being more aggressive, like taking a more aggressive approach. yes, your O-swing goes up and your walk rate goes down, but if your K-rate comes down with it and you're doing more damage, that can be a profile shift that while some things are going the wrong direction,

the overall approach and the overall package is just better. And that's, I mean, a guy that has power and speed too, so there's a lot of ways for him to make value. So I think this is is actually this is a lot going right even though there are some surface blips that would make you think oh maybe maybe he's not actually this good i think the usage for the raise is more of a longer term problem than the underlying skills right compared to the other elite outfielders he's gonna have a hard time staying that high up on earn lists if that that role wasn't become an everyday role,

but his per plate appearance effectiveness might be higher right now because he sees very few lefties. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, yeah, in his particular situation,

the handedness is probably enhancing his, his value. You know, whereas that's not quite the same situation with burger, but yeah, all I'm just saying is that if say say, when Eloy Jimenez comes back, that there's fewer plate appearances to go around, that's not necessarily the end of 12-team relevance for Berger.

Right, and you could bid now just more on the shorter-term expectation, and you'll still probably have a chance to get Berger in a lot of leagues. And looking at Lowe real quick, it looks like he's had three, four, he said four days off since the start of May. The Rays haven't seen that many lefties either. I'm looking at their schedule. In May, they haven't seen that many lefties.

They've only seen, going back to April 19th, the Tampa Bay Rays have faced one left-handed starter. That's weird. That's very weird. Very improbable. Yeah.

Yep. Not a lot of pound signs on the baseball reference page for the Rays. If you're not familiar with that page, it's the batting orders page. So if you go to a team page and you go to the other menu and click batting orders, you can pretty quickly click on a player and it will highlight where they were at in the batting order. Of course, you can see if the opponent's starting pitcher was a lefty or a righty because they put that little pound symbol on there next to the game. So yeah, not a lot of lefties in the Rays' recent pass. That's another boost for Lowe. Even with that, they've given him four days off in May. So they're not pushing him as hard as they have to, in part because they've

got depth. That's what teams with depth do. They tend to utilize it to keep everybody fresh. But rest of season projections still very low on Josh Lowe. I'm higher than the rest of season projections, even if, like most people, I'm not expecting him to continue what he has done up to this point. Let's get to some pitchers, Al. Matthew Libertor back in the equation for the Cardinals. They do have a schedule and five healthy starters that allows them to not force it. They don't have to start Matthew Libertor anytime soon if they don't want to.

They may throw him out of the bullpen if they need to this weekend between his starts, which happens sometimes with guys that aren't necessarily locked into a rotation spot. They could also go to a six-man rotation. I think you could defend that with St. Louis, and you wouldn't be making a bad case given some of the injury issues they've had. Could be a way to keep Jack Flaherty a bit more fresh, take some mileage off of Adam Wainwright

at this stage of his career. I could kind of see that. Steven Matz has a pretty rich injury history, so maybe you can avoid further problems with him by giving that extra day of rest on a regular basis. Not having a spot to call his own, but pitching well against the Brewers in his first 2023 start. How are you handling Matthew Libertor this weekend? In, say, 12-teamers, it's still wait and see.

And I mean, the good news is that Ali Marmal has said that Libertor is going to stay in the rotation for the time being. I don't know what sort of time period that actually that actually means his next start the next week, the next month, who knows? Uh, but, uh, at least you figure he's going to make that next start in Cincinnati. I don't really like the idea of starting him there. Um, and because it does look like they've got six starters for now, you can't count on him getting the Sunday start on regular rest. So in 15-teamers, I'll aim to get Libertor. I would bench him this week. If I'm in a league, that would allow me to do that.

But 12-teamers, he's on the watch list. See if those enhanced strikeout and whiff numbers can follow him from AAA to the majors. It's been well publicized that he's put on some bulk in the past year. He's throwing about two miles an hour harder. So that's all really encouraging. Also, just want to make sure he throws strikes too, because I'm worried that even if the velocity maintains and the whiff rate maintains,

that he still might walk too many batters. But he's a must-add in 15-teamers. I didn't realize this was happening in the schedule other than during the All-Star break, but the Cardinals have a gap in their schedule where they have two consecutive days off. Huh. That's really strange.

It looks like it's happening again in June. So June 22nd and 23rd, there are no games on their schedule. I'm just looking at their MLB.com schedule right now. And the same is true for May 31st and June 1st. Is there like an overseas series or something? I think there might be. I thought I saw something about that, but this is at Pirate. Yeah, nothing at a glance on the schedule indicates what's going on.

There's got to be something like that. They do have a London series later on this season. The second two days off that they have in June is before they go to London. Okay, that makes sense. The one before the series in Pittsburgh, I don't think, is coming back from anything. They're home against the Royals off Wednesday, off Thursday at the Pirates. There's no indication of that being an abnormal schedule thing. So I don't know where that came from or why that's there,

but that's part of why they've got some extra flexibility as well. I don't think we'll see a lot of that on schedules unless they're finding in Major League Baseball that having little gaps like that actually help teams reset their rotations and keep guys healthier over a full season. But I'm somewhat optimistic about Libertor being a better option than Steven Matz. I'd still be bidding this weekend, even with that matchup against the Reds. I think I'm just not scared of the Reds. Yeah, the ballpark worries me, but I'll take my chances, at least in 15 team leagues with Libertor in that matchup.

This is the Matt McLean Reds. This is the Matt McLean Reds. This is the Matt McLean Reds. It's a new era. Got to get my buddy Clay Link on the show and ask him how he feels about the Matt McLean Reds compared to the pre-Matt McLean Reds. Let's talk about Dustin May and the Dodgers rotation for a moment. It's a flexor pronator injury for Dustin May. He's going to go the route of the PRP injection, so they're hoping it's more of a four- to six-week injury.

For now, at least according to the Athletics' Fabian Ardaia, there is not damage to the UCL for Dustin May. That's at least what the report is right now. So somewhat encouraging, I guess, that May is going to try and avoid surgery, but this opens up a spot in the Dodgers' rotation. We've seen Gavin Stone once already this year. Michael Grove is nearing return from injury. I looked into it too. Ryan Pepeo just had a setback with his oblique injury, so he's still not quite ready to come back. that Bobby Miller had his best start of the year at AAA. He, of course, was slowed by a shoulder injury earlier this year. He went six innings, pitched really well against the Astros AAA affiliate.

Sugarland or Sugarland? Is it like Candyland or is it? Because that's two separate words, I assume it's Sugarland. That's how I've been pronouncing it. But I might be a total idiot because I've never been there. Likewise. So what are you doing with the Dodgers rotation depth? I mean, there were already questions about the possibility of Stone coming back because Noah Syndergaard is now running 170 innings over the last two seasons

with a low K rate. He's under 17% going back to last year. It doesn't look like he's turning things around anytime soon. They may be stuck with him in the rotation for a little longer just because they don't necessarily have someone else that they fully trust to fill in. How are you bidding? How are you approaching this group? Because there could be a lot of value here if you play it right. Oh, absolutely.

I mean, you figure he's probably in there for the next month or so. And, you know, you've talked about this DVR. You play for the stretch in front of you, not the whole season. So he'd be a good addition in 12-teamers and 15-teamers, must add. I probably wouldn't go as far as triple digits there. And first of all, a chance that he's not even available in some of those medium and deeper leagues anyway. But because the timetable is sort of uncertain beyond the next month in the deeper leagues,

I don't know that I would go the full 10%. But I expect that he'll have some value. There's strikeout upside there. There's run support. Good bullpen. So I think 12 teamers, you know, probably, you know, 3%-ish bid, 4%. I think it's worth it. Yeah, I might even bump that up a little bit because of the team context.

I think there's so little that separates a lot of the guys on the waiver wire that you have to look at those secondary factors as the big difference makers. But Gavin Stone, 10Ks last time out, also against the Astros, AAA, Sugarland affiliates. I'm going with Sugarland. It's two words.

You want me to say Sugarland? Make it one word. Five and two-thirds, two earned. His season high in K K is a good sign. I think the question with Stone will be, how does he bounce back from that debut? But the Phillies were a pretty tough draw for that first time out.

I think he could at least be a top 75 to top 100 starter with some job stability. And unfortunately, May's injury seems like it's going to provide that. Are you going to try and stash Bobby Miller anywhere just given that he might have an even higher ceiling than Stone? I know stuff-wise he's going to be off the charts good at the velos all there and everything is fine on that front at post-injury because it was the impressive thing I think with Bobby

Miller right now, it's 28 Ks against six walks so far in just 21 and a third inning since coming off of that shoulder injury at triple a at the end of April. Yeah. I 15 teamers. If there's room, I think that he's the one Miller's the one to target. Uh, so yeah, I think that's, that's a good move because I think eventually he's going to be up. It's just a question of when, and I want to add something to stone too, because as I was talking, I realized, um, you know, I said three, 4% on Stone and 12 teamers. I'm like, well, I don't think that's what I wrote in the column. And I remembered that the Dodgers do have a really tough schedule coming up.

So they've got a road series in Atlanta where I think Stone would make his next start back. And then they've got a series with the Yankees. You said that at Cincinnati doesn't particularly worry you at Philadelphia. So there's some tough series potentially up ahead. So I don't know that necessarily you have to go, you know, full throttle because the schedule, if people are paying attention, that may actually cool some of the interest. Cause I'm not sure I would want to start him against Atlanta in Atlanta

this week. No, that's pretty risky. I would try to avoid that if possible. I think that's where there's a pretty big gap between a 12-team bid and a 15-team league bid. 15s, you need anybody with a pulse and a shot at a win. 12s, you can be a little more picky about when you're going to take on some risk

to those ratios. I think there's definitely ratio risk going into facing Atlanta lineup at second in WRC Plus League Y. At least they were at last glance only behind Tampa Bay. Yeah, and then he would also line up for a start against Tampa Bay on Sunday. Not great. Not a great way to break in.

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So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. The answer is FedEx. Okay. But what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx. Oh. But let's say that... FedEx. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx. Where. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next.

Ranger Suarez is back from the IL, by the way, Al. And I think he's right on that line of not being good enough where people would stash him if they had limited or no IL spots. So he'll be pretty available this weekend. I've been wrong about Ranger Suarez at basically every turn of his big league career. I generally don't trust the mid-rotation back-end types in Philadelphia because the park is so hitter-friendly. I don't know.

I know we're all desperate for pitching, but what are you doing in leagues where Ranger Suarez is available? Yeah, I don't think I'm really on board for for adding him in 12 teamers although as i'm saying that i actually think he's pretty comparable to graham ashcraft and not the graham ashcraft that we thought we had in the spring and we're hoping for this season but the one who's who's shown up who i mean his era is bloated now because he just got got hit around in his last start but i still think he's i've got him in my 12-teamer. I'll stream him. So maybe I should rethink Suarez, but he's definitely anything deeper than 12 teams,

he's a must-add because he does have that same profile of... Could be a decent strikeout pitcher and get a lot of low soft contact. And that'll get the job done even in the home starts. Yeah, we saw really great numbers from him once he shifted to the rotation two years ago. Those ratios were just absurd. I think 2022 has given us a better foundation for what to expect strikeout rate-wise, probably something closer to 20% as opposed to 25% plus,

but that should play. And I think when you look at some of the projections for him, the bat is the most pessimistic, 448 and 141 for the whip but you see some sub four numbers across the board otherwise maybe you split the difference and say a low fours era that actually plays just fine if you're getting wins and I think with the Phillies they're a good enough team where they can kind of help do that they can provide run support they can actually do an okay job with that bullpen a better job than they can in the past, protecting some leads. So I'm in on Suarez, even in 12 team leagues this weekend.

And I think I'm a little worried people are going to overbid just because of the desperation around pitching in general. Taj Bradley, of course, is back up with the Rays. I don't think he's available in a ton of leagues because I think in most leagues I play in, people just said he's got to come back soon. Unfortunately, the injuries happened and opened up the door. But any sort of shallow leagues or leagues where Bradley was dropped, I assume you're willing to be somewhat aggressive again, despite the fact the race sent him down. Just given how much their situation has changed since they made that call to demote him a couple weeks ago.

Yeah, I mean, that's obviously a big change from when we were last talking about bradley you know a couple few weeks back and i mean the only reason i would think that you would even consider not adding him back in 12 teamers is just because he has struggled a bit at triple a but my feeling is that the the raise rotation situation aside i mean this is the same player that we were touting as one of the major rookie pitchers this year. And a few games, AAA shouldn't change that. So especially now that if you do factor back in the fact that the Rays have a really serious need for him, there's no reason not to be adding Bradley where you can. And I think what we've seen so far through four starts is five innings pretty much every time. I think he went five and a third once.

20 batters faced every single time. I think usage will probably be controlled like that in an effort in part to maximize his effectiveness. He's still got things he's working on. That was pretty clear during the time at AAA. But part of what I like about the Rays and the dodgers are like this too i think the astros fit into this conversation i probably put the brewers in this group as well they tend to manage in game in a way that benefits us as fantasy players with the ratios it can be frustrating from a wins perspective but they're much more willing to play matchups and not overexpose a

starter for the sake of bulk. And yes, I think that gives me a better feeling about using Bradley, even when you see issues with command, right? If he has fastball command issues, our friend Jason Collette was tweeting about that in the start against the Mets. Bradley was able to work through it. And I think I have a lot of confidence in DeRay's game planning and putting him in a position to be successful, even if he's not going to go six or seven, maybe at all. Maybe it's going to be a lot of five and five and change and less than five inning starts. I would bet on the ratios being better than expected as a result of how they handle pitchers in Tampa Bay. Yeah, it's a great point. And as you said, probably the usage will be controlled.

That's maybe a minus or would definitely be a minus, but I do trust the organization in terms of the pitchers they develop and the pitchers, for example, like Zach Eflin that they bring on board. Exactly. Let's go to the streamers and two-steppers. Real ugly, ugly group here. I mean, not like in terms of physical appearance. I'm not making any judgment there.

It's not my turf, but the names that we're looking at, the results so far, it just feels risky, especially if you're in a shallow league and looking for these guys. This is more of a deep league segment. Again, this week, it just kind of plays out that way. The guy that I think I'm most interested in is Dean Kramer. That gives you an idea of where we're at. It's a start against Texas, which isn't some sort of low-hanging fruit, easy stream.

But Kramer is pitching well. We're going to see him again against the Blue Jays this weekend. I dropped him in our deep keeper league, the 16 team league or 16 team Maki, where anybody who pitches can be useful. And he's been pretty sharp recently, but do the underlying numbers support what Dean Kramer has been doing? Do you see any sort of adjustments he's made, pitch mix, or anything that would make you optimistic about his chances of continuing to pitch well? I haven't really seen anything that particularly encourages me or discourages me about Kramer. We've kind of seen this from him before where there's three or four starts where it looks like there's something there, and then he kind of resets to the previous level. So I think that more than anything kind of makes me shy away from him as a two start

guy. Also, and this is the risk of, you know, talking about these things on a Friday, is that Fangraphs on Roster Resource, they actually got Kramer making the start on Sunday in Toronto, which obviously would rule him out for a two start week. So there's a little bit of uncertainty there. But even assuming if he does make the two-start week, like the last three starts overall, those results have been really great.

And you think, well, maybe there's something here, but all season long, he's been giving up a lot of hard contact. He's given up seven barrels over those three starts. So then that makes me think, okay, if he does pitch against the Rangers, that's a team that can send the ball into the stands. That feels too risky. So I don't, I don't love Kramer as a two-start option.

I just keep looking at this rotation and yeah, I'm, I'm paying, I'm just penciling them in for one. I think it's, that's, that's been my expectation going into the weekend. We'll see if anything changes, but I keep looking at this rotation and thinking DL Hall's got to come up. Right. So if you're in a situation where you're thinking about stashing Bobby Miller, changes but i keep looking at this rotation and thinking dl hall's got to come up right so if you're in a situation where you're thinking about stashing bobby miller you may also want to think about stashing dl hall i think with hall we've seen a couple of big strikeout performances 8ks against durham back on may 4th 9ks against jacksonville back on may 10th just three innings pitched last time out against syracuse, had three Ks.

I don't know if there was a rain situation or what caused that start to be cut short, so that might be worth looking at. Maybe they're just managing his innings, but the big number for D.L. Hall is walks. Two walks in his last two starts over nine innings, had a couple of two-walk outings earlier in the season, so maybe we've seen him take that step forward control-wise

to the point where the Orioles. Will try to use him in this rotation again. If they do that. It's because they went to a six man rotation. Because someone got hurt. Or because they decided to use Dean Kramer. In a different role. So I just think he's still on that borderline for me.

As far as even holding his spot. And they've been pretty creative. With the usage of guys like Austin Voth. And Cole Irvin. Both of those guys are in the bullpen right now. So I don't think they'd have any hesitation about moving Dean Kramer around if they felt like D.L. Hall was a better option. So I think that's kind of looming in the background too. And that's part of why I've had a hard time buying into Dean Kramer and part of why I was probably not very patient with him earlier this season.

I don't know if this matters to anyone, but Patrick Corbin has a 392 ERA and a 126 whip over his last seven starts. The problem, it's only 5.4 Ks per nine during that span. Good walk rate, reasonable home run rate, but I don't know. I don't think I could do it, Al. I wanted to bring him up because he deserves credit for not going out there and just getting hammered start over start. He's actually pitched pretty well when you consider the shape most people's ratios are in right now.

Yeah, yeah. Well, he's one of two pitchers that, well, we are discussing him now. There's a second pitcher I think we're going to get to that almost made it into the column this week. And, yeah, especially with Corbin, I just couldn't quite get there couldn't quite uh put him in the circle of trust and especially with the the low strikeout rate and the low uh swinging strike rate um it just seems like there's there's too much margin for error and too much room for for regression what a fade for a guy that in the year of the rabbit ball in 2019 had 238 strikeouts and pitched to a 325 era

with a 118 whip over 202 innings i mean it's just been unbelievably bad in the years since it'd be fun if he got it back together the one thing you're gonna get is volume the downside is if he's bad you get bad volume so the the weight of the blow-ups becomes even heavier if they just let him go out there and chew up innings because, hey, someone's got to do it. I don't know. I saw that. I couldn't believe it. I double-checked the numbers. Wow. Sub-4 URA over 7 starts.

Didn't think we'd see it. Brandon Bielek gets a lot of mentions on this show. Streaming option at Milwaukee. This is one where I still think it's tension between my trust in the organization, wanting to believe what I see in some of the scouting reports about him. And then looking at the surface numbers and having a really hard time

convincing myself that it's a good idea to use Brandon Bielek as a streamer. Yeah, I do too. I know he came up, I think it was last week and I don't remember who the other thing, there were two other pitchers, and it was sort of like, if you have to start one of these guys, he was in that conversation. And he's still there.

And yeah, the ERA is pretty low, but he's also got a strand rate that's around 92%. So that explains it there. And that's not a comforting explanation because strand rates pretty much always settle back down into like the low 70%. So, yeah, I'll take a pass. I think it's tonight, Friday night, against the A's as a start.

So you will get to see him again before that opportunity against the Brewers. And if he pitches well against Oakland, I'm sure that's going to draw a little bit of interest for deeper leagues. But tread very carefully despite the org and despite the occasional glimpses of success that we've seen from him at other levels you wrote about marco gonzalez this week and i understand why he did it but i don't have to like it al yeah i i won't force you to uh ed you know this is this took a little bit of convincing of myself um but i came out on the other end as opposed to, you know, with Corbin. Because first of all, let's just start with the matchups in the venue. Home starts lines up for two home starts.

Now, it is a Tuesday start. So maybe a little bit of risk that he doesn't get to the Sunday one. But a Tuesday start at home against Oakland. A Sunday start at home against the Pirates, who the last few weeks have been the worst offensive team in baseball after being one of the best. So as long as that trend persists, those are two really great starts. And pitching at T-Mobile Park is generally a very good thing

for Mariners pitchers or really for any pitcher. And over the course of his career, Gonzalez has put up much better numbers in his home starts. And this year, the surface numbers haven't been this great, but if you dig a level lower, the Woba against is in the like three teens, like 312 or something like that, which is pretty good. At least it's decent. And you figure he's not going to be likely to give up the long ball there.

So, you know, two very, very good matchups in a very pitcher-friendly venue and a good track record of pitching there. That, for me, is enough. Deep leagues only, of course, but I think I'm extra cautious because he got rocked by the Red Sox in his last outing. It was eight earned over one and two-thirds, so it was really, really damaging for anybody who had him going, mostly in AL only leagues. Hopefully that was a spot where you'd say, this is a lefty that doesn't strike a lot of guys out going into Boston. Not an easy matchup.

Hopefully it was a deep league avoid, but if you had to take on those ratios, I'm very sorry. Everything was wrong. I mean, yeah, it's an offense that's been one of the best for the last several weeks, not in Seattle.

And also I'm here in Massachusetts, so I can test the fact it was cold and windy that night. So it was less than ideal pitching conditions in every regard for that game. All right. That's the Al deep cut streamer that you may not want to watch the outing,

but you could try in deeper leagues to get away with it, given those matchups for Marco Gonzalez. I think it was two weeks ago when Eno was on the show with us. I said, I'm finally ready to give up on Michael Lorenzen. And he said, hey, the pitching model actually likes him. And of course, the home park is a favorable home park. He gets pretty good matchups this week at Kansas

City. And I know the Royals have actually shown some things offensively over the course of this month. We just talked about the White Sox getting healthier, so that's not necessarily a cakewalk, but Lorenzen does catch them at Comerica Park. So given the state of pitching, maybe I was a little quick to write off Lorenzen.

Maybe I should take an L and reconsider him, at least as a deep league streamer. But how do you feel about this combination of matchups for a guy that has let us down in the past, but continues to show the occasional glimpse of maybe being able to figure something out? Yeah, in second thought, I probably should have found room for him in the column. He was the second pitcher I was referring to before in combination with Corbin, but

I don't like the matchups quite as much as the ones for, for Gonzalez and not a ton of swing and miss there. That's never really been a part of the appeal with, with Lorenzen. So that it's funny because I know you seem very scared off by the idea of the, the Gonzalez two-step, but this one to me seems a little riskier than that. So, so I, I could certainly see using Lorenzen and 15 teamers, but definitely not anything. Now I think shallower and just to piggyback on your Royals comment that this time last week,

I think they were the number one Woba team for the month of May, but I went ahead and streamed Michael Waka against them this week. It worked out really, really well so far. So yeah, I wouldn't worry too much. I don't worry too much about the Royals no the the overall you know week-to-week trends even month-to-month trends for team context it can change very quickly all it takes is a handful of big days and suddenly the numbers look really good so i would still view the royals more as a team you want to pick on than one you'd even think twice about starting someone against even at the level of mich Lorenzen fantasy baseball such a weird game though you start talking yourself into Michael Lorenzen

on the waiver wire for a two-start week like minutes after you talk yourself out of using Noah Sindergaard and you look at their numbers you're like wait a minute if I just covered up the names just looked at the stats I'm like these guys are actually pretty similar now which is sad that Sindergaard's in this now, but it's just weird. I'm talking myself out of a guy who used to be really good, who's now at this level, for a guy who's been at this level for a long time, and I'm hoping will suddenly become good?

That doesn't make any sense. It's the same picture meme. Yes, the Spider-Man meme pointing at each other. Three more names from the two-start bin. Brandon Williamson looks like he's going to get two. Cardinals at home.

Cubs on the road. Tommy Henry. Why is he still in that rotation? At Philly, home against Boston, and Dylan Dodd. Tough matchups, both at home, but Dodgers and Phillies. So if you are a Dylan Dodd truther, I think this might be a week to probably still quietly put him on your bench and see what happens.

Take the victory lap just by having him still rostered if it works out. But any interest, any one of Williamson, Henry, or Dodd? No, it's a no, no, and no for those three. All right, mono leagues only, if even that, depending on how deep those leagues are. Looking into the bullpens, we talked earlier in the week about Wandy Peralta getting saves. Then he served up a walk-off homer. We saw Ron Marinaccio get one on Thursday night against the Blue Jays for the Yankees. So they have got a lot of guys in the mix right now.

The Marinaccio save may have been in part because of limited availability for some of the other high-leverage relievers. We saw Michael King get a save recently. Clay Holmes, I think, had pitched on consecutive days, so he wasn't necessarily available to even go on Thursday. And we talked about it earlier in the week. Eno and I were looking at Holmes and saying he's still probably the guy that's going to lead this team in saves this year. But when you look at this Yankees bullpen and how that's been managed recently, are they turning into one of the dreaded committees? Are they becoming more like Seattle of last season where you could recognize that Paul Seawald was probably the most valuable reliever around this time last year or by June of last year? You could see it like, oh, yeah, Paul Seawald is going to get a good number of saves, even if he doesn't get them all.

Is that where we're at with Holmes? And how do you sort of find value in the other guys that get into the mix? I think that's a fantastic analogy with the 2022 Mariners bullpen because yeah, right now it's kind of a mess. I did pick up Peralta in your league, but it's a very, very deep league where if there's anybody who's getting saves at all, they could have some value. But I'm also holding on to Holmes in the several leagues where I drafted him. So I guess I do believe that when the dust clears mid-season, he's going to be back in that role full-time because I just think he's, aside from King, I think he's the best in that group. And I just think that King's got so much value in that kind of flexible role

where he can give you multiple innings and come in the game at different times. But yeah, right now, I think that the only value, even including somebody like Holmes, is just a very, very deep league. The other situation we should talk about is probably Arizona. Miguel Castro picked up a save. That was Wednesday against the Athletics. He's been pretty good this year, right? Good ratios, like a sub-3 ERA, sub-1 whip.

And this was after Andrew Chafin had pitched the previous two days. So it's not as though Chafin's job is necessarily up for grabs, but maybe is a sign that Miguel Castro is the next guy up as opposed to Scott McGuff if something happens to Chafin? That's how I read that situation exactly. So, yeah, after he got that save, after Castro got the save, I went and looked at Chafin's pitching log and like, okay, so Chafin's fine, but Castro's the next guy up.

I'm not particularly worried about Chafin. It's just something I think to make a mental note of because I do think Castro was good. And I think given the opportunity, he'd be somebody to target. I just don't think that that opportunity is there right now. And we're seeing from Miguel Castro right now

is a heavy slider mix, throwing that slider more than anything else. 47% slider usage, really kind of throwing it down and away to righties, burying it against lefties uh sinker change up also part of the mix for him i think the other thing that i haven't fully adjusted to is brent strom being the pitching coach for the diamondbacks so when they have a guy like this who emerges like being sure to look again and see if there's anything that's

different about how they're being used where where they're locating, movement on pitches, different things like that. With Castro, it's interesting. He's actually throwing with less velo than he has in the past and getting better results too. So something that bears further exploration, but that's been a bullpen where I've been kind of waiting for something to change. Chapin's not a bad reliever. I was actually surprised he didn't get scooped up by someone else earlier in free agency.

But this is one where it's a good enough team where if it changes hands, you might get a nice reward from whoever takes over the job if they can hold it for themselves. It's also possible that this becomes an ongoing committee situation as well. There are plenty of teams shifting into that mold. That's just been the way things are going league-wide. We are going to go on our way out the door. A reminder that you can get a subscription to The Athletic for just $2 a month for the first year at

theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. You can read Al's weekly waiver wire column. I know Eno had a pitching piece that went up on Friday as well. So be sure to check those two things out as well as everything else we've got on the site all for one low price. You can find Al on Twitter at AlMilkierBB. You can find me at DerekVanRiper.

That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Monday. Thank you.