Rates & Barrels - Midseason Buy-High Considerations & Weekend Waiver Preview

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss midseason buy-highs while taking a trip through the FanGraphs 2024 Player Rater. Plus, they discuss a few pickups to consider ahead of the weekend, including Jhonkensy Noel in Cleveland, Heston Kjerstad in his second stint with the O's this season, and David Festa joining the rotation for the Twins. Rundown 3:55 Gunnar Henderson Makes the Leap to First-Round Status 6:31 Ranger Suárez: No. 1 SP in Player Rater for 2024 (So Far) 11:15 Accounting for Wins in a Player Rater 15:15 Adjusting Ratio Baselines for Run Environment 18:08 Which Hitter(s) Are You Targeting? 25:14 Brice Turang's Step Forward and Projecting Ceiling Comps 34:11 Which Pitcher(s) Are You Targeting? 41:35 A Case for Joe Ryan 43:55 Weekend Waiver Preview: Jhonkensy Noel & Heston Kjerstad 54:32 Weekend Waiver Preview: David Festa & Hayden Birdsong\ Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit mx.ca slash ymx. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash y amex.

Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Oh, Oh, Welcome to Rates and Barrels, Thursday, June 27th. Derek Van Riper, you know, Sarah's here with you on this episode. We'll dig into some mid-season buy highs as promised earlier in the week. We're going to have some more fun with that new FanGraphs player raider.

The tool you can use right off their page is go to the fantasy tab, hit that link and you can have fun all afternoon with that. We're going to dig into some players we're gonna buy high. We're gonna talk about choosing a direction. How to not be the angels in your fantasy league because as we discussed on Tuesday, you don't really wanna be the Anaheim Angels right now. It's not a franchise that you wanna model

if you are playing fantasy baseball. We'll dig into some weekend waiver preview players as well. Some interesting names added to the pool. Kind of mushing together Project Prospect and the waiver preview this week. Eno, how's it going for you on this Thursday? It's going great. Weekend approaches. Weekend approaches again, yeah. We're deep in the throwing program with my eldest. So today is a go to the Little League Park and do the full, the whole thing. The big practice that we do. The big workout.

Very nice. One of the fun things is in coaching, you know, they have this idea that you wanna vary the implement. And so when we do a round of hitting practice, we start with this really weird looking thing. It's still pretty baseball-y because you kind of want to keep it baseball-y. You don't want to be jumping around playing basketball or whatever.

It's supposed to be baseball-y, but it's really strange. It's a ball that's on a string and you attach the string to the fence behind them. Then I pull the two strings apart and it sends the ball down the string. You know what I mean? Can you imagine that? The reason I like it is that it flattens their swing out a little bit. If you have a really uppercut swing, you'll hit the string instead of the ball. Or you'll hit the ball in this way where it goes up and down instead of straight back

to me. It kind of flattens out their swing and a lot of kids end up having uppercut swings because when the coaches pitch to them they pitch they're six feet tall and they pitch these crazy like you know like downward trajectory like almost curve balls you know and so a lot of little league kids end up you know with these uppercut swings. We start with that then we do a little bit with like this little rebar bat that's like this thin, and he has to hit little tiny balls that I throw at him.

And then he has to hit with the wood bat, the like major league level wood bat that's super heavy. And then he gets to hit live batting practice that I have to pitch from regulation 50 feet away. I have to pitch as hard as I can to be as good as 12 year old and and he takes live batting practice off me so it's all an exhausting but fun kind of thing because you're just you're trying to trick the brain into kind of reevaluating hitting at every different and every stop I just

think it's great that you have to use a day that's not a run day for you to do this workout because it sounds like it is a lot for you. I do because it's really tiring. We couldn't do it yesterday because I ran eight miles. Yeah, you can't do both on the same day. That's the downside of being on the wrong side of 40, right? That's the cliff that I am rapidly approaching and I am not excited about it. I was talking about some midseason by highs that looking at the fan graphs player Raider

Every time I look at this thing Gunnar Henderson moves up another spot He's now third among all players for the entire season approaching $50 in value which look we talked about Gunnar Henderson a few weeks ago as someone that maybe we somehow Underrated even has a highly regarded prospect because I don't know if anybody thought future first rounder in fantasy was what we were looking at, but that's what he'd be if you were doing a second chance draft in the next week or so. If you're doing a fourth of July, second half draft, something like that.

I think Gunner's going in the first round even of a 12 team league. And I think that's where he's headed for 2025 drafts as well. I have no knits to pick. I think he's the complete player. He's even reduced his strikeout. So it's really the only thing that you could have said about last year. And it's really, it's not just been like,

oh, year over year. Basically he struck out a little bit too much when he started playing in the league, and then ever since then it's been on a downward trajectory, his strikeout rate. So Gunnar is a complete player. You know, how many stolen bases will he have next year? Maybe he only gives you like 12 or 15 next year. Stolen bases age terribly, you know. So even if he steals 20 this year is no no lock for 20 next year But if you basically back of the envelope him next year the projections are gonna say something like, you know

280 35 homers and 15 stone bases. That's always a good and there's always the possibility He will continue running more because he's still really young. I mean, it's still turn you'll turn 23 in two days Yeah, there is the you know, the thing where like sometimes your power hit or you like Don't don't hurt yourself out there, right? So that could keep him from being I don't know 40 40 guy or something But there's a lot of ways he can still be really good and kind of holds So the reason I bring up gunner though is because if you're in a situation where somebody thinks,

hey, I can cash out right now, I'm happy to trade for Gunner Henderson as a first round caliber player right now. I think he just fits into the conversation that way. The harder thing to do is to look at the top earning pitcher. My guess is he's not available anywhere. I don't think you're getting him. I think whoever has him liked him when they drafted him in the late second round, early third round, and they're just happy that he's been even better than they could have hoped.

It's a harder proposition doing this on the pitcher side where Ranger Suarez, as the midway point of the season approaches, is the top earning pitcher so far. Just over $35. I'm using the 12 team settings right now just for anybody who's like, oh, I'm using 15. It's different. That's why I'm using the 12 team settings right now just for anybody who's like, oh, I'm using 15 it's different. That's why I'm using the 12 team settings. He's doing this from outside the top 300 during draft season. And when you look at the other names that have really popped so far this season on the pitching side, it's been kind of a group of aces that you expected to be there interspersed with guys that have taken massive leaps. Ranger from the pick 300 range to number one, right?

Seth Lugo cranking out a ton of value being the fourth ranked starting pitcher right now. If you listen to the show, Edo talked about Seth Lugo a lot. Hopefully you reap the benefits of that. Chris Sale having a bounce back isn't as shocking as Lugo and Suarez being up there, but there were plenty of people that were ready to give up on Chris Sale because it had been such a meandering road full of injuries in recent years. Tanner Hauck kind of taking that leap much like Ranger. He's the sixth rated pitcher so far on the season. You got Wheeler and Gray and Burns in there and then Garrett Crochet, who I've admitted, I kind of laughed at the White Sox when they said they were going to start him because I didn't think health-wise it

was even an option and it's gone incredibly well. So you got a bunch of names on here that are surprising but Ranger still being here as the calendar nearly flips to July, that is still surprising to me. Even as somebody who looked at him six weeks ago and said, okay, he's probably better than I thought. I didn't think he would sustain this level for another six weeks. Yeah, I mean, there's something to the fact that, you know, he's got multiple fastballs. You know, he really does throw three fastballs, and that's been something

that can mess with pitching models and messes definitely messes with hitters. You know, to each each handedness, he can basically throw two different fastballs and he even throws a sinker sometimes to opposite handed guys. So that's three different fastballs that you kind of have to honor in the same range. And the curve and I think the change has kind of taken a step forward this year and is a better pitch. I have to say that I don't buy this one as much. You know, you do have your guys in any given season that don't have great stuff, that do

put together good seasons. I don't know, I guess Andrew Abbott is not a good example, but Eduardo Rodriguez had a 3-3 ERA last year. Dane Dunning was in the same sort of stuff range Command forward kind of multiple fastball guy He had a 355 ERA last year, you know, I'm looking at Kyle Hendricks had a 374 last year Michael Wacha multiple fastballs great great change up location over stuff. He had a 322 ERA last year. I mean, Braxton's Garrett's 362, Merrill Keller's 329, Wade Miley's 314. I just, this is this is where I kind of place him maybe on the upper end of that. This is where I kind of place him, maybe on the upper end of that. But that's where I think he lives for me.

I may be wrong. Looking back at the Raider from 2023, Zach Efflin was in the top five. The top five were Garrett Cole, Spencer Strider, Blake Snell, Zach Efflin, and Kyle Bradish. And Efflin I think is probably the most surprising name of that bunch. That to me is more of the ceiling, right? Where it's close to a strikeout per inning for Ranger Suarez. He's probably not going up another level beyond that.

That's fine. You can be a very good starting pitcher, especially if you're a high volume starting pitcher at a strikeout per inning. Last year for Eflin, it was a 350 ERA at a 102 whip. So, you know, fine in ERA, excellent in whip and 16 wins. And I think wins are one of the things when you're looking at the player Raider you really have to be mindful of what's happening in that column and

It's more than that for Ranger But the 10 wins are the thing that kind of jump him up from maybe being the seventh or eighth best Fantasy starting pitcher to the number one spot. I may not change much in the next few years, you know I mean, they're well set up. Pretty good team. Yeah. Well set up right now. So I do think he could slide a little bit over the course of the second half, still

be really good, still be someone who's on a bunch of teams that probably cashed this year because of where he was taken and just how good he has been. But then I think, you know, if I'm looking for air quotes, undervalued pitchers because they aren't winning as many games like Cole Regans is 27th among pitchers in the player Raider with 120 K's in 98 innings at 303 ERA a 115 whip and I think when you start looking at Regans versus some of the names ahead of him even Ranger Suarez all the way at the top I think a lot of people would say yeah I would take Regans over Suarez I'd take Regans over Tanner Hauck I would take Regans over Sonny Gray even in many Regans over Tanner Hauck. I would take Regans over Sonny Gray, even, in many cases.

Maybe that's more of where the would-you-rather line is, but the big surprises in that top 10 are all guys you'd still probably put behind Cole Regans, even at the midway point of the season, if you're re-racking for the rest of the year. Yeah, that's a good point. Freddy Peralta's five wins are affecting his player raider, you know, where he is on the player raider. Fromber's win total probably has a little bit to do with that.

But Logan Gilbert has been so great that even though he only has five wins, you know, he's kind of he's still a $24 player. So wins is definitely a thing that you can circle So wins is definitely a thing that you can circle and buy based on the peripherals and hope that the team improves around them basically. Yeah, and the flip side of that is Gavin Stone, who's now in the top 20 in the player radar because he's got nine wins. He's only got 70 strikeouts and 89 innings.

We talked about the possibility of him maybe adding some Ks over the course of the year. Still a decent swinging strike rate At least one that's higher than the strikeout rate that Gavin Stone has put together to this point in the season But it's a 273 ERA. That's a huge part of the ratios are good a 112 whip still very good as well Gavin Stone's tough though again Is Gavin Stone more like a Ranger Suarez in terms of his ceiling or is there another level beyond that? Given that we haven't seen as much of Gavin Stone in the big leagues yet?

The vertical movement on Gavin Stone's fastball is improving as he stays in the major leagues. I think, you know, sometimes who was it that was talking about this? Mark Kotze was talking about, you know, bringing Lawrence Butler up to the major leagues. And one of the things he said was, you know, we do player development at all stages, but one of the stages where we can do the most of the players, the big leagues. And so sometimes you'll find that you get to the big leagues and your best coaches are there.

So Stone isn't gonna necessarily finish off and get more vertical break in the minor leagues if Mark Pryor has some ideas for him in the major leagues, that'll make it happen. So I see Stone as maybe possibly taking the next leap. I also wanted to say, I just sorted by wins in this thing, and it is just sort of amazing. You have basically every player with more than seven wins is worth basically $10. The only person who doesn't have, who has more than seven wins or seven wins is worth basically $10. The only place, the only person who doesn't have,

who has more than seven wins or seven wins or more that isn't worth $10 is Logan Allen, who has a 572 ERA and a 155 whip. But it is worth pointing out. How does he have eight wins with that ERA and that whip? And then you were just saying, you were saying Cole Reagan's can't win. Seth Lugo has 10 wins. No, yeah, that's the thing. They're just so noisy. Like we know that it's not it's not new. But I just think when you when you're trying to find in season values and opportunities to leverage in trade, it's one of those areas where the in season value has some sogginess,

I'll call it where you can kind of fudge things a little bit to your liking and it's just it's an area that you have to pay attention to even though we know the category is flawed. It's interesting too the thing that the player radar really highlights is the run environment. So if you look at the sort of the way you know did sort by wins you say oh Grayson Rodriguez Carlos Rodin okay nine wins sub four ERAs, low one, two whips, strike out per inning stuff. Okay, good.

They're both below $10, which is a reflection, I think of those ratios not being as good as we're accustomed to them being, right? If you go back maybe three years, go back to like 2021, those are good or very good ratios. In this run environment, those are closer to average ratios for the slice of starting pitchers that are frequently used in fantasy league wide. I realize they're better than league average. But when you narrow down the pool to the guys that are actually being used in a lot

of 10 and 12 team leagues, it doesn't play up quite as much as we are accustomed to. The run environment kind of constantly going up and down is itself something that can be leveraged in fantasy sports. And just the knowledge of the fact that batting average is the lowest thing ever, my eldest in his first fantasy league basically punted batting average in a head-to-head league. Because he was like, none of these guys

have a good batting average. I'm like, yep. And so that's something that you can look at when you're buying a player is just, you know, a batting average that somebody might think is bad ends up being okay, you know, if they under further reflection and, you know, similar. You were just talking about with URI and WIP. I just have wins reverse sorted and I'm like looking for some players that I think will win more teams, more games going forward that I think might be sort of buy lowish.

They're not buy lowish in that their ERAs are bad. And so they wouldn't show up on my buy low list the normal way I do it. But just sorting by wins reverse, Reese Olson only has two wins. Taj Bradley only has two wins. And like, you know, just when you're doing that and you're looking and you're trading with somebody, they might, you know, on some level, just look at the player raider on some level, you know,

cause there's always like that analysis where you can like look at, you know, that you can analyze the trade in Yahoo or whatever, you know. Cutter Crawford having three wins sticks out for me. So, you know, those are three names that have had some up and down to their careers. And maybe the other owner just looks at the other fantasy manager, just looks at the player raider and says, ah, yeah, I can trade this guy away. Yeah, definitely be that way. So we'll hone in on some more specifics, right?

So I want to take the broad view and explain like what's kind of good and bad or how we should really use the tool more broadly. But who specifically stands out to you? Who are you looking at and saying that player is more valuable than I expected and I'm still going after them? We'll start on the hitter side. Which hitters do you think are most intriguing as midseason buy highs? Well, I have a trio of guys that when I look under the hood, I don't see signs of Really extraneous good luck now

I'm gonna say these names and maybe you'll think and there's no way I can get them but that's the whole thing about buy high is You never really know until you try you know, and you are trying to buy someone that is doing well. So that's what we're doing here. I've got Josh Naylor, Jackson Merrill, and Jordan Westberg as guys that are in the top 40, I believe, in the player radar. And I don't really see any signs that what they're doing is unsustainable. In fact, with Josh Naylor, there's a really low batting average in balls and play that seems really out of place. And we're heading into the warmer part of the season in Cleveland. So, you know, I think if you can get them,

there's no reason not to. And if it's if the person who sells them thinks he's just a 240 hitter, I think you might see as much as 280, 285 going forward. That's the nicest thing about like a buy high is that there's elements of buy low in it, you know? With Jackson Merrill, I think it's hard to know exactly what his true talent power is this far into his career. And we've seen a little bit of a mini explosion recently in power. Maybe that keeps him from from being acquirable. But given you know 111.6 max EV, given you know the great contact rate and the power and speed combo, I would buy Jackson Mero saying if all I get going forward is 280, 1010, that's fine. Is there a chance there's a little

bit more power there? I think so. And then Jordan Westberg, he's the only one that I think has like a little bit of a negative in that his strikeout rate is starting to rise. And we talked a little bit about it. He has a really unique approach in that he's pretty aggressive. He chases a decent amount and his swing strike rate is a little bit high and that aggressiveness has served him to not strike out in the past. The strikeout rate is sort of starting to meet the swinging strike rate if you look at the rolling graph of strikeouts for Jordan Westberg, but it is such a nice sort of balanced

line of power and speed that I think think I'm still gonna buy anyway. He's the one that has a little bit of a shade of probably possibly positive luck that may go the other direction going forward. Yeah, I could see a little bit of that. I had Westberg on my list too, though. I really like what he's done all season. It's been fortunately one of my multiple teams hits so far.

I hope it holds up to the second half. Underlying power numbers are still good, right? He's getting more hard contact than last year even. And I thought he was off to a nice start at 44.5%. He's up over 48% right now, lifting the ball consistently, double digit barrel rate to go along with it. If the K rate comes up, I do think the walk rate may come up a little bit too.

Maybe it's just being a little more selective. I mean, he used to walk a lot more than I did. Yeah, so that part of his game might help. That could create a few more opportunities to run if the power dips a little bit. So he has so many ways to be good. And of course, the Orioles lineup is still solid. Still lots of ways they're gonna put runs on the board.

So you're getting good run production, good RBI totals on top of all of that. So I think he's just a really nice all-around player at this point, and still maybe has one more level in terms of ceiling, but even if he doesn't, the pace he's on right now would make him a pretty firm like fourth or fifth rounder, I think, in 15 team leagues if we were redrafting today, and that's probably

where he's headed again for next season as well, barring some kind of massive collapse. What about Jaren Duran? I think he's at twenty seven fifty now. Twelfth hitter. I seem to feel like I see more quality plays from him in centerfield because it's well, it's a highlight. If you're not watching games start to finish, they're not usually showing you

that the blunders, the misplays. I've watched some games start to finish and definitely seen some blunders, but he has the physical tools to pull it off. the misplays. I've watched some games start to finish and definitely seen some blunders, but he has the physical tools to pull it off. So maybe on some level it's just a little bit of coaching, a little bit of experience and just seeing the ball more in the outfield. Maybe he's just going to become a passable center fielder by just working at his flaws basically. Yeah, I think that's what it seems like is happening. Again, the Red Sox not high on my viewing priority list, but what I've seen has been better

than what we've seen in the past. So becoming more important on that side, playing a ton and he's healthy, right? We were worried about, I think it was the toe coming into the season. That doesn't seem to be a problem. He's played 81 games so far. He's running, he's getting to the power.

He's striking out a little bit less, really doing everything you want, and I think he's proving himself to be a really good source of batting average. Jaren Duran's projections are all more in like 260 range, I think the bat X is the highest at 271, but he's at 287 this year, 295 last year. So I think you're talking about someone who might be plus

in a category where it's hard to find someone who's plus. He's at least passable in the home run department. He's good in stolen bases and then there's the runs and RBIs you're getting on top of that. I think there's a chance that Jaren Durant still isn't being treated quite like an early round pick via trade. So maybe you're doing just fine even though you're paying a lot more than you would have paid to get him five or six weeks ago.

And what I like about his line, Jared Dern's line, just like Josh Naylor, is that there is a little whiff of upside here still. And that comes from the fact that he's hit a ball 113.1 miles an hour, but has only turned that into an 8% barrel rate. So the raw is there and what I'm looking at is a 29% pull rate that's down from even where he started in the big leagues. Now the higher pull rates did not turn into good batting lines for him. So maybe this is the best approach for him.

I'm not trying to be his hitting coach. I'm just saying maybe Just like with the outfield defense component maybe as he matures he knows when to take that shot and pull that ball and Pull it in the air and maybe he can add that to what's already a compelling existing baseline so basically what I'm saying is Duran has a little bit of upside beyond what he's doing right now, which is what if he does what he's doing right now and adds power to it? And that would be really good if that happens. So it's nice to have that extra way to possibly get a little

bit better. I had a few questions that I'm not sure I'm going after them, but I'm trying to decide if they make sense because of various characteristics about these players. But Bryce Terang, it's happening right before my eyes and I didn't see it coming. I didn't. I didn't see another level from him. I actually thought at the time when the Brewers added Joey Ortiz, I thought Bryce Terang was

in danger of losing playing time against lefties. He drops in the order in those spots, which is fine. You're still playing and sometimes it's only two played appearances anyway before they're into the bullpen. You might see a couple righties anyway, but he's getting to his power a little more. He's striking out less. And of course, the speed's fantastic. I mean, Bryce Terang is on pace for 50 steals this year as things are going right now. He has to hold something close to this massive jump in OPP for that to happen, but are we buying this?

Is Bryce Terang the latest addition to the Andres Jimenez, Bryson Stott, Haseong Kim bucket of players that gets to more power than expected, but also runs wild and maybe even is very good in batting average too, which also props up that value. Yeah, I think Kim, I'm glad you said his name, Kim kind of leaps off the page. I just sorted qualified batters by swing strike rate. Luis Arias was of course number one. Yandy Diaz is number two. I don't really think he's a comp for either of those guys.

Diaz hits the ball harder. And Arias' K rate is a third of two ranks. So he's still a unicorn. Then you get Mookie Betts, who is just his own man. Isaiah Kynar Falafel, Falafel. I always want to say, you're hungry. That's all. It's almost lunchtime for you. I think the risk he's for left, actually.

Yeah, Isaiah Kiner, Falefa better than Falef ass, as we saw on the scoreboard. Like this poor guy is just living his life. There's a risk he's hit him. He does have more speed than Falefa. So if you just gave Falefa 20 extra stolen bases right now, how much more value would you be? Right. It's a decent floor if that's who he is.

If he's kind of Falefa with speed, that's great. If he's Kim, don't look too hard at Kim this year. Think about Kim over a two or three years stint. I think he'd be very happy if Turing was like Kim on an average year. I'm not sure the power is there. So I'm going with Kynar Falefa with Speed. Brendan Donovan with Speed. That's still a good

player but maybe not someone you're paying premium for. It's funny you don't like Nico Horner. I do not like Nico Horner. Nico Horner has about the same swing strike rate as him. Yeah I think with Nico does Nico Horner have less power than Bryce Terang though? Nico Horner has hit the ball 110 miles an hour this year but has a 1% barrel rate. Terang has only hit the ball 106.7 but has a 3% barrel rate. So there's a bit of a game versus raw situation here but I personally would say that I think that Horner has a little more power than Turing. Yeah, they're pretty similar profiles actually. So that's the built-in warning for me. A little bit of a dampening of your flame that's burning for Turing.

Well, see, here's the thing though. The main thing I didn't like about Nico Horner during draft season was just the price and Bryce Terang was a bargain, but if Bryce Terang is going into the Nico Horner 2024 ADP range, then maybe we have a bit of a problem there if we don't see more raw power coming in the future. It doesn't look like it's there. That's why I was so skeptical, even though he's a great defender, I thought Terang would be good in the 75% of the plate appearances he was getting.

I was just worried about what was going to happen with the other 25% of the playing time. There is a little bit of a lesson here. I just sorted last year's stolen bases, and I'm looking at below average power with stolen bases. Nico Horner was fifth, and is qualified so I'm sure let me make it what do you think 400 I'll make it 400 all right so 400 stolen bases oh yeah that helps actually so Estreire is second in stolen bases the 0.091 ISO pass right let's make a rule uh let's make a rule one one uh 50 ISO okay Nico Horner, 100 ISO. Pass. Ha Seon Kim, 138 ISO. Pass.

I got him nowhere. Willy Castro, 154 ISO. I say just pass. It's so close. Bryson Stott, 138 ISO. Pass. And that's our first pass that would have hurt us a little bit this year. Yeah, I think so. But how much? For having missed the landmines that we have so far, I would take losing Stott, right? Right, it's been nine bucks in a 12-team league. So almost break even, like a slight loss.

Oh yeah, because you paid for him too. So there was a cost for stock. So we so far have missed like four landmines and lost for it one guy who was cost. Andres Jimenez, 147 ISO pass. Is he worth what he cost? Six bucks so far, no. I don't think he's worth what he's cost. Tommy Edmond 150 ISO pass. Whit Maryfield 110 ISO pass. Bryce Turang 082 ISO was 24th in the big leagues

in stone bases last year. He might be the guy who costs us the most so far. And I think the rule still stands. Tyra Estrada 145 ISO pass. Michael Garcia. Yeah, so5 ISO pass. Michael Garcia. Yeah, so where are we at on Garcia? He's at $15 in terms of what he's returned so far. So it's been good where you got him. It's been fine. He's probably been the guy who's cost us the most with this rule. Turing's been more valuable, I guess. Turing was the best profit so far anyway, at least.

Turing was the best profit so far anyway, at least. Turing and Garcia are a little bit different than the other ones in that they cost the least. So if you make a rule that's like, basically they have to have league average power for me to buy them for stolen bases unless I can get them after, like, do you have an ADP or something? Garcia, he was fringe top 200 and he got hot and moved up at the end draft season. Let's just let's just say outside the top 200 generally, or at least the first 10 rounds. There's a rule.

There's a rule. They have to have the average power for me to buy their speed unless we're like past one pick 175. Oh, not pick 175. That's that's only hitters. No, yeah, you were overall overall. So past pick 175. That's only hitters? No, yeah, you were overall. Overall. So pass pick 175. So if we are past, you know, 10 to 15 rounds, depending on the depth of your league, you

know, then you can start to be like, all right, you know, this may not work out, but I'm going to take my shot at finding the next tour rank or whatever. It's just making sure that you're not paying a premium for a somewhat discoverable skillset. We've talked about it in other contexts before. You wouldn't take a low average masher in the fourth or fifth or sixth round, generally speaking, if they didn't offer up something else. They would need to be elite in terms of power

and run production to offset the low average. Yeah, I don't end up with Kyle Schwaber much either. Right, even though the numbers would say, oh, you can actually do OK with Schwaber here. It's like, well, I think I can find something pretty close later on. We will at some point talk about how there were some late power bats that people really liked from a barrel rate perspective, power perspective that have just not performed. I think Nelson Velasquez has joined Matt Walner in the 2024 Disappointments Club.

It was inexpensive. It didn't ruin you. But if that was your I'm going to get my power later plan, it hasn't really come together the way we've hoped. The pitching side of this is interesting, too. I think Ronaldo Lopez comes up in a lot of these conversations because he's popping on the play orator. We don't know what's going to happen in the second half in terms of fatigue, but he's made it through full seasons as a starter before

because the team is good, because he looks pretty good. I'm inclined to just lean into it and actually go get Ronaldo Lopez in leagues where I need pitching, because I do think you have a more willing trade partner in those cases Then you do with a lot of the hitters that have exceeded expectations because those hitters have become really important But I think when you can on both sides of a trade see the potential downside I think that's when there's still an opportunity to actually get something done and Lopez Maybe he's a ten or twelve dollar pitcher the rest of the way

But I don't think you're paying a lot more than that in terms of what you're giving up Maybe you're sending a hitter in a one-for-one swap. Are you giving up a hitter? That's I don't know Like could you give him Tyler O'Neil for Ronaldo Lopez would that deal get done right now if that fit the needs of both sides the thing that bugs me a little bit is just when you when we talk about when we think about innings limits and we think about guys who are going past where they've been in the past a lot of the times we just worry about shutdowns or will they be removed from the rotation go to the bullpen you know we we worry about sort of the one zero problem which is the on off problem either

they're a starter or they're not there is a secondary problem which is the on-off problem either they're a starter or they're not. There is a secondary problem which is they could just fatigue in their current role. So they could leave him as a starting pitcher and you could start to just see the VLO go down. We have not seen that yet. In fact, right now in his last two of his last three games have had the best VELO of the season as a starter, 96 and 96-3 against Baltimore and St. Louis. One thing we have seen though that worries me, and it's just this last game, four walks against five strikeouts against St. Louis. St. Louis is not necessarily one of the most disciplined teams.

Maybe they swing a little bit less than other teams. What if we start to see more like that? More five strikeout, four walks performances in five or six innings. That would be a concern. But I think when you pull back and look at the game log prior to that four walks, one against Detroit in five innings, one against the Orioles in six, one against the Nats in six inningsnings two against the A's in six innings You know one one two all the way back to May 7th against the Red Sox was the last time you walked for and

The thing that Lopez is doing really really well during that span that entire game log I just went back through to May 7th. He's given up two home runs They both came in the same start against the Nats So even when he's walking a few guys if he's's not giving up homers, we can live with that. But that is a huge source of noise in small samples. You know, the bat says 424 ERA 127 whip and a 1.13 homerun per nine going forward, which is basically just in line with his career numbers. But it is funny to think of his career and be like, oh, yeah, he's just going to be like his career numbers. But it is funny to think of his career and be like, oh yeah, he's just gonna be like his career numbers.

Really? This guy? This guy has had very different years in his career. Oh, and he's had massive home run problems in the past too. I mean, I realized 2019, there was, there are more forces working on cancer in Aldo Lopez that season, but 35 homers and 180 forwardings is bad even

in the context of what 2019 was. 25 and 188 and two thirds the year before that. But it's those workloads that I'm like, you know what? He might just be fine. He's 30 years old. He knows what to do to get through a season as a starter. He made 65 starts in a span of two years, between 18 and 19.

And he's on a really good team in the national league. Maybe not an elite team at the level they were last year, but still a very good one that should be a little better at the plate in the second half, provide more run support, and will continue to probably get better via trade too. So like you still put the up arrow next to Atlanta as far as team context goes. I do have one thing at my disposal.

Updated stuff-based projections from Jordan Rosenblum. And I just wanted to check what we got for Lopez because the projections on Fang graphs range from 339 ERR to 420, Reynaldo Lopez, 393 and a 25% strikeout rate. Funnily enough, there is nobody really in that range except for maybe ATC. So if you're looking at projections on fan graphs, the stuff-based projections agree most with ATC. That's a really credible picture. And I think that the sort of the error variance

might be towards being better than that. That's where I'm at. That's why I'm playing it that way with Ronaldo Lopez, but could be stepping on a new rake. As long as it's a new rake, we've approved it, it's okay. You can actually do that. This, with Lopez, I'm okay with this. with Crochet I have a little bit of a problem with trying to buy Crochet.

Yeah, the extra outcomes on Crochet, I think, it's added weight on a shutdown or an injury. I feel like Lopez has a better recent health track record, so you're not also worrying about that on top of different role and other things that can cause his value to just plummet. At the very least, I mean to say it very simply, Lopez has thrown 180 innings. I looked at Greg Crochet's line back all the way to college. The most he's ever thrown is 65, he's at 95. So Crochet is just already in uncharted territory. And you know, for what it's worth, I know that they're, you know, they're, they're watching Luis Hill and you know, they're going to figure things out,

you know, the way they can. But you know, as Luis Hill goes into uncharted territory for his innings, you are seeing a little bit more of a walk problem sprout up for him recently. It looks a little bit more like what we thought Luis Gil was as a prospect and what we thought his flaws were in that the walk rate is kind of exploding recently. And that may have to do with fatigue. I know that in a single game basis, fatigue has a lot to do with losing your command.

And there's fatigue on a single game basis and then there's fatigue that's sort of cumulative. And maybe Heal is hitting a little bit of cumulative fatigue. So in terms of buying high, I don't think I have Luis Heal on my list. Any other pitchers though that are popping? We talked about a few just based on the win problems

from earlier, right? Like that creates a few opportunities, but anybody else just thinking that you're kind of leaning into and saying, yeah, big number on the player rater, but anybody else you're thinking that you're leaning into and saying, yeah, big number on the player, Raider, but I'm in, I'm buying it. Joe Ryan, it's only five wins. So if you, you know, one thing that's common to

like my conversations about Naylor and Jaren Durin is that I like to buy, if I'm buying high, I'd like to have at least one little thing I'm circling that could go better, you know? So five wins for Joe Ryan on a good twin squad like why doesn't he have eight or nine? You know, like I don't see a reason there's great bullpen decent offense and then on top of that Joe Ryan's Velo is climbing and He added a sinker. That's what I talked to him about most recently And so that gives him two fastballs a gyroslider a sweeper. That's what I talked to him about most recently. And so that gives him two fastballs,

a gyroslide or a sweeper and a splitter. The closer he gets to being a full arsenal guy, along with his bread and butter, which is that fastball and splitter, the better I like him. And so I'm not necessarily saying he's going to have much better than a three three ERA or a point nine six whip going forward, but I think he could settle in around there and add more wins. Yeah, I think the the tweak, that sinker tweak is a big one for Joe Ryan because the home runs have been a problem when he's had those those bad stretches and I think having that different look with the fastball, that different shape goes a long way towards possibly mitigating his biggest flaw. He goes so fastball up in the zone heavy that even if he threw a high sinker it would look

different like if somebody was like oh fastball high zone here we go and they put the they put their four seam swing on it they could get sawed off or fouled it off or whatever free strike somehow you know. Yeah definitely I like that Jill Ryan caught, but he kind of stood out to me a little bit, too. And I was scrolling through the player, Raider. We're going to save the don't be like the angels. I think we talked enough about the angels on Tuesday, ragged on them enough as an organization will kind of bump that back to Monday. Some ideas for when you should actually be all in on a team

and when you should look to the future. That's the main idea that we're going gonna get to probably on our Monday episode. Let's get to some weekend waiver preview names because there's some interesting players out there this week. John Kenzie, Noelle, comes up, debuts with the Guardians, smashes a homer, and the video of his teammates at AAA reacting was pretty cool to see that going around

on Twitter on Wednesday night. But I think Noelle might be the kind of player that is a little underrated right now in prospect rankings because it didn't go great last year, even though there was power. He had 220 got on base at a 303 clip. There are defensive limitations that are very, very likely to put him at first base, maybe in a corner outfield spot. But this is really a first base sort of profile.

This year's been a lot better at AAA Columbus, right? He's already popped 18 homers, got a 359 OBP. How do we put into the right context, how do we put into context when someone's dominating against this level of AAA pitching that isn't very good but this is a player that was highly regarded before 2023 for his bat and his ability to be a middle of the impact power guy, middle of the order impact power guy. Is this actually a sneaky pickup hiding right out there? I mean the homer in the debut doesn't help, that's going to draw extra attention but I think there's a chance that he can just carve out

a spot and be a regular for the Guardians. We've talked about them for years needing more power and they've already taken a step forward this year as an organization. They're much better in that regard in the lineup already, but Noel might give them something they were hoping to get previously from Kyle Manzardo. Yeah, what is going on?

Like why is he up? Naylor is hurt, right? Well, I saw in the Discord, Naylor has been out of the lineup recently. I didn't see the reason given if there's been an injury announced. I thought I was listening to their cast and he was banged up somehow. He's dealing with something. David Fry seems like he would be a great first baseman. He is playing PHDHC. That's what he's been playing. That would allow, when everybody's healthy, for Naylor to be the first baseman. Naylor's

played some outfield. Is there an opportunity in the outfield? We've got Will Brennan playing well enough to keep his job probably. Tyler Freeman in the middle of losing his job. Daniel Schneemann is percolating. He has RF, RF, CF, oh, PHRF, CF, and 2B and CF. So Schneemann seems to be kind of going towards an outfield job. And then you got Kwon, can Kwon play center? Can Kwon play center? I mean, probably?

He's played seven times in 2022, that was the last. They don't use them there, but I the number of players I see playing center field and other teams that I didn't think could play center field and knowing how good good Quan is in left. I mean, Tommy Fahm out in

sight in center for Chicago. Yeah. Do you think Elliot Ramos was going to play center field? I did not. I didn't. But I mean, they seem to have settled in Quan and left. So Schneemann and Freeman are battling for center. Brennan seems to be ensconced. Nailer is ensconced. Frye is maybe CDH. I'm just trying to figure out if there's a real opportunity here. I'm not sure there is. I'm going to say I'm not in. You're not in. I'm not in. The big improvement for him was to become more aggressive

and hit the ball before he struck out. It wasn't that he necessarily, I mean, he improved his swing strike rate from 15.2 to 14.1, neither of those numbers is good. And so he's become kind of ultra aggressive and that is good for his power. It's good for getting there before he strikes out. I don't know if that's good for a debut.

Like, I don't know if that's good for, like pitchers might see him coming, right? Oh, here's this ultra aggressive guy trying to pull the ball for power. You know? That seems like maybe it's gonna be, you could pitch to him. I'm not sure I see the long term opportunity and I think the adjustment will take a while for him.

I think they can because of the versatility of their roster, they can let him play for a few days, see if they like what's happening and run with it if it works. I'm a little more optimistic about the ways they can do it because the Guardians are one of those teams. There's plenty of them around the league. They don't have that many high volume everyday guys. They push the mixing and matching and defensive versatility about as much as anybody right now. Because you look through and you're like, OK, Stephen Kwan, he's there every day. Jose Ramirez. Yep, he's there every day.

When healthy, Josh Naylor is pretty much there every day. You see him pretty much mostly him and is pretty much there every day and there everybody else even David Frye who we like Plays a lot of Rokeo, right? Even yeah, even a Rokeo doesn't play as much as you'd think And Rokeo plays a little more than you think because of his glove I guess he has had three days off in the last two weeks. But I guess my point is, I think they can. He's a nine hitter.

They've got enough guys that are in the bottom half of this lineup who don't play every day, who can play multiple spots, where if they really feel like they're getting a valuable contribution from someone they bring up, be that Noel, be that Manzardo a second time, or whoever it is, or Schneemann, they can play. Freeman has options, Schneemann has options, they can even play around with the Constitution

of their Major League roster. Yeah, so I'm watching closely over the weekend, I've got some Thursday fab, I'll bid, I'll take the chance, it's not going to be super expensive, it could pay off and if it doesn't, you know, I'm not really that much worse off for it because it's kind of the meaty part of the roster that you're okay with. Like you're not messing with that to go get them. You're messing with those fringe guys that are always up and down and on and off our rosters. What about Heston Kirstad? Think things will be different for him this time around.

He's played two of three since getting back up. But it looks like maybe it's a big side platoon opportunity in left field with Austin Hayes. Like, does that change anything for you in leagues where Curse Dad's available? He's really interesting because the prospect group probably disagreed with themselves on this one. You know, you're talking about age at level he's 25. So So you wanna discount a lot of what he did. If you take a 24 year old at AAA with a 116 WRC plus as he was in 2023 with Kirstad, you're actually not super excited about that.

That's kind of like the right agent level with 16% better than the guy, which is not that great. This year he comes back though, and even though he's old or oldish for the level He had a 150 WRC plus and got to that power. People were like is it real power? Is it not? I was really impressed by my looks at him in the fall league It is weird that he has struck out 30% of the time so far in the major leagues But it is only 58 played appearances. So I'm willing to say that's going to improve

It's long-winded way of saying I don't know. I don't really know. You know, Kyle Stowers is kind of interesting. They've cycled through him. Mayo, Norby, like Norby was up for a little bit. Now he's gone. It could happen or it couldn't. I will say though, I see the opportunity because I don't think that they want to play Hayes a lot. I will say though, I see the opportunity because I don't think that they want to play Hayes a lot. And if the opportunity is there, it just takes a hot streak. So I would be, I'd rather put money on Kirstad than Noel. I think I'm probably going Kirstad over Noel where both are available because I think I'd trust the floor as a hitter more. But if I'm interested in Kirstad, I'm definitely putting Noel on that same bid list. I think there's even there's shadow league power with both of these players if it

clicks in terms of playing time. So that's that's where I think they kind of belong in the same group. It looks like Luis Matos is back with the Giants. So you got to think about Matos perhaps in some deeper leagues. We got Joey Loperfito back in the pool again. So a lot of familiar names also kind of coming back around for their second run of Fab. And that's just sort of how it goes. But the pitching side is a little better than usual this week because- I do have one hitter to add to the list.

I just looked at, I'm one of my sorts in my 15 team leagues on NFC. He's just last seven days, ABs. Wish it was PA, but that's alright. Ramon Larianno is third on one of my lists. He's playing a lot right now. He is playing a lot. The numbers aren't there, but he, I will say this, he has never played in a home park as friendly to power as the one he's in now in Atlanta How much that means but the bad ex says he can hit 244 316 414

If you extrapolate out their projections to full playing time It looks like almost like 1010. It's's still deep, deep leagues mostly for Lloriano, but yeah, getting enough of an opportunity where I think short term could at least help you backfill if you're looking for some playing time in that last outfield spot. That Atlanta improves over him at the deadline because they are a team that is aggressive at the deadline. Yeah, he's got a month to really show something with this club, maybe even a little less

if he slumps hard enough. David Festa coming up for a debut on the pitching side. You've talked about him before as a project prospect, prospect of the week selection, and everything looks really good in the underlying numbers. We have 35% K-rate this year at AAA. The only real flaw has been an increase in homers. We haven't seen David Festa give up homers like he has this year with St. Paul, but he's coming up

I think because Chris Paddock is down right now. So I will always make the argument that Chris Paddock just might not be that good. And if David Festa is good, perhaps he can actually stick around for a little while. Yeah, and the Stuff Plus numbers say he is good. He had similar Stuff Plus to Nick Lidolo in AAA, just short of Bobby Miller. And the fun thing was that he, you know, there was a command blip for Festa at times in AAA last year. He had a 17% walk rate maybe ABS related. This year his location plus was positive so if you look at all the pitchers that have above average stuff and locations in the minors this year it's Paul Skeens, David Festa, Shane Baas, Wade Miley, Justin Verlander, Alec Marsh, Andrew Bash, Edward Cabrera, Slade Saccone, and Tyler Alexander, and Brian Wu, and that's it.

And Christian Scott and Will Warren. So it's a good group to be in. I mean, there's, there's, they're all major leaguers almost. You know, like most of the guys I've named are major leaguers or top prospects. So Festa belongs. He's coming up. He's got a legit three-pitch mix, fastball slider change-up. It's a four-seam fastball with good shape.

It's a hard gyro slider. That combination is resistant to platoon splits. Both the four-seam fastball and theroslider don't move in a way that that makes him vulnerable to left handers. And even if he is a little bit, he's got that change up. So I'm pretty excited about this. And I think that Paddock might be out, you know, there felt like he was fighting for his, his, his starting spot for a while.

And I think he lost that fight. Yeah. And you got Simeon Wood Richardson still pitching really well in the back of that rotation also. So maybe that's the ongoing competition for a spot as well. It's maybe three guys kind of pushing for those two spots in Minnesota. Paddock is down with right forearm fatigue, so it doesn't, you know, have like a structural concern, at least right now.

But given his history of arm injuries especially I think they might be a little more careful with Paddock trying to get him back from the IL. Hayden Birdsong came up for the Giants and I just grabbed the screenshot of his pitch mix and four seamer change up slider curveball I think all those secondaries actually graded out his above average pitches. The model didn't like the four seamer but he throws it pretty hard. It's probably ride related. I was looking at the pitcher list player page, I think it had about 15 inches of ride. So that's probably the main issue.

My question would be, you know, scouting grades over at Fangraphs had like a 60 on that fastball and like a 30 on the change up. The change up looked great. The fastball only by Velo looked great. Is this just a matter of maybe, I don't know, like how he was using it and it looks good against lower level pitching? So, you know, that's part of the calculus. I'm wondering more about the change up in the fastball because I could imagine as a scout seeing that fastball and going, okay, this is a good fastball. He's locating it well, good life, okay.

But the changeup graded out so well and didn't get a good scouting grade. Yeah, the thing about ride, I'd be tempted to be like, oh yeah, they just missed the fact that it doesn't have good ride. But most scouts that I know that are worth their salt have established relationships with track man. Yeah. People at parks. And see it too. They could. They're behind the plate, right? Yeah, they're better. They're better. Better scouts than I am in terms of their eyes. You

know, they're in the behind the plate. They can see the hitters, how they react to it. And then lastly, there are a couple, you know, my league stat services that can give you some stuff like this. So maybe it's just a disagreement when it comes to, you know, what movement profiles work. I do believe that, checking myself here, but I do believe it was kind of too plainish movement. Do you have the horizontal on it? Mm, I'll just see if I can grab that real quick.

I'm looking over here at Savant. I hate the fact that of course, that Savant has different naming characters, other different numbers, like in terms of movement and stuff, but they have him as below average ride and above average horizontal. 9.6 inches of horizontal,

I think on the forcing fastball, they have it as three inches above average. That's fairly significant. So maybe the scouts felt here's a two-plane kind of a rider of a pitch and the model just doesn't like it. I will say that I'm going to come down slightly on the more negative side. I watched most of that start. His command's not very good. His command's not very good and the one thing he did do is he didn't get key hold so even if he was in like a 2-0 count, he would sometimes throw a breaking ball anyway or rely on his V-Lo or whatever it was but

I'm gonna put him sort of in the streamer bucket. Well, it works in that park though We'll see how it goes as far as the health of the other pitchers that could temporarily bump him back to the minors But I kind of came away with a little more of an optimistic long-term view. If I'm playing in a keeper or dynasty situation, autumn new, might be worth trying to get him cheap, stash him away and just kinda see what happens over the second half of the season. There's a good starter kit here.

Three good secondaries, that's pretty solid, right? If you can improve the command or improve the fastball or add a cutter, there are some ways that Hayden Birdsong could be a really quality starter at some point down the road. We are going to go on our way out the door. A reminder, you can get a subscription to Athletic for a dollar a month for the first year at theathletic.com, slash ratesandbarrels. Find Eno on Twitter at enoseris.

Find me at Derek Van Riper. Find the pod at ratesandbarrels. We're back with you at one o'clock Eastern on Friday on our YouTube channel. Thanks for listening.