Rates & Barrels - Midseason Problems, Young Pitchers to Target & Trying Making Sense of Byron Buxton

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss a few different midseason problems and try to determine which is the easiest to solve in the second half, plus they examine several young pitchers that might be worth acquiring via trade or pickup for the long-term future before attempting to make sense of Byron Buxton's unusual 2022 season (so far).  Rundown -- Midseason Roster Flaws -- Where Have Steals Come From This Season? -- Pricey Closer Panning Out (So Far) -- Fighting Tanked Ratios with Trades, Young Pitchers -- MacKenzie Gore's First Half -- Other Pitchers to Target -- Paying Up for George Kirby in Long-Term Leagues? -- Has Reid Detmers Changed with the Return of His Slider? -- Who Is Byron Buxton? -- Did Brendan Rodgers Figure It Out? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first six months: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Monday, July 11th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. I want a Slurpee. I guess it's probably because of the date. I'm just looking at the 7-11 written out. Gotta stop and get a Slurpee today after I get the oil changed. That's on my to-do list. On this episode, we have a mid-season check-in. We'll talk about various problems that you may or may not have right now what's the best problem to have if you're looking at the second half of the season because most likely everything's not going perfectly everything might be going pretty well but you may have some ongoing flaw you're trying to fix we'll talk about

which flaw is the easiest to deal with which one might be the most difficult to deal with as you try and navigate the second half of the season we We got some long-term pitching targets. We're going to take a bit of a deep dive on Byron Buxton, who's having a great season, but still a confusing one as we try to figure out what his long-term value really is. And we probably got a Brendan Rogers question later on the show as well. But we begin with the mid-season check-in. And simple question for you, Eno. Of the teams you have, which one has the greatest flaw that is giving you fits as we move into the middle part of July?

Yeah, you know, I'm chasing strikeouts everywhere. And I think I would do that no matter what the state of my team was. I'm always looking at the two start weeks and trying to catch pitchers in the right part of their season when it comes to their opponents. That, I think, is always going to be there, so I can't point to that. That's my number one thing that I do on the weekend. be there so I can't point to that that's like my number one thing that I do on on the weekend it's just sort of sort through pitching schedules uh and and decide uh how I'm going to attack that part of the pool um so I think no matter what most of my teams are in good spots I think no matter what I'd be doing that but um I think the reliever thing is the toughest for me because I am generally doing well in saves,

and the Pitching Plus model has been very good for me, but I also didn't spend much. Sometimes you'll get a good pitcher that's not fully the closer. For example, John Shriver right now is on a bunch of my teams. If he's not fully the closer, I don't know if I want to put him in my lineup over a pitcher that definitely gets a start. What if I get three outings and no saves and three Ks? That's not really a great use of the week for that roster spot. Then I put John Schreiber on my bench. And that's even worse use of a roster spot because now I have a reliever on my bench. And how long is that going to last?

So then, you know, inevitably, a week or two later, I drop that guy if he doesn't become the closer for a two-start pitcher because one of my other pitchers is injured or something. So that's been the most frustrating cycle for me. And I don't know if it's a little bit like the strikeout thing something i have to do every year you know it's not like my teams are last in saves uh i'm doing really well it's just that it's mostly turned out

two guys for me like i have romano and bednar or romano and Barlow. And I feel like I'm always going to search for the third closer, you know? And so I don't, I don't know if it's just something I have to do every year or if it's something that I need to change my, my process on. And, um, it's borderline, you know, staring at Shriver on there and being like, man, if I, if I'd messed a little bit more in closers and had a real true number one, and Romano was my number two or something. If I had invested a little bit more there, then I wouldn't be spending so much free agency money or time and energy attacking this part of the pool right now. know yeah i think that's the tough thing is because back when 2022's draft season started the double tap of great closers was something i was comfortable doing when it was a third late third for hater or hendrix and then a fifth for orion presley or risa leglacius i was willing to

pay the price then but the prices kept ticking up to the point where it became less feasible and even your actual snake draft position sometimes put you in a spot where you couldn't even get the guys that you wanted from the elite group. So then I had to move away and kind of employ a strategy more like what you're describing. And I did that on a team in my big auction where I also had my two aces both get hurt. Walker Bueller down for a significant period of time. Brandon Woodruff has lost some time. Fortunately, he's back and looks really good. And I think the I'm trying to decide if that's an actual problem or just bad luck, because if I was only chasing saves, if my ratios weren't a mess on top of being light and saves, that team would be in a great spot. It's got the best offense in the entire contest. So that's a success in that regard. And if I just pick two different healthy top end pitchers, that team is probably at least cashing within my league and maybe even getting a bottom cash spot in the overall.

And I'd be just flipping for saves, trying to find some source of 15 to 20 saves in the second half. That wouldn't be a bad spot to be in so i don't know if there's much to learn from that but i do think looking back and saying was cheaping out on saves was that the right idea and i don't think it was i think the hybrid is probably the right way get one early overpay maybe for that first one try and find that bednar type for the second one and then that pursuit of the third closer. Everyone's always looking for a third closer, right?

How many people come out of the draft with three closers, and it's like, bam. I think it's the thing you have usually for about a half season, because you either get a half season from a full season because you have a committee person, who then maybe because of an injury gets a run where they're the only guy getting saves, and then they go back to being the committee, so you use them more.

Or you just get kind of lucky and find that mid-season post-trade deadline pickup. So for the last two months of the season, you had a third closer. For the first four months of the season, you didn't. And I think that can be just fine because if you have a closer for, if you have a third closer for two out of the six months of the season and your other two stay reasonably healthy, you're probably top three, top four in the category with ease. So you're getting plenty of standings points there. But the Melanson, Kittredge, yikes, whoever else is on that roster is long gone too.

I mean, that was a disaster cheaping out on closer scenario for me in the place where I needed the most. And this weekend was a chance if I hadn't decided to punt saves to maybe go back into the pool, AJ Minter getting some chances for a few weeks with Jansen down and then Brett Martin in Texas. So I know as someone that has Barlow in a lot of places, how worried are you about him taking some time to get that job back? Even though the numbers and the model look good, we talked about the swinging strike rate

pointing to a higher strikeout rate probably in the long run. Does that kind of put you in this uneasy spot where you're trying to throw a little extra fab at some of the sources of saves that are starting to pop up again here in the middle of the season? Yeah, I think Barlow will get that job back. I mean, if I'm looking at the numbers, his stuff is steady or up even, you up even over the last few outings.

And his command has been generally trending upwards. So I think he's going to get that job back. I'm not too worried about him. But yeah, I mean, once you make that decision to punt, then your life clears up a little bit. you make that decision to punt then your your life clears up a little bit uh but you know another thing that um has worked for me that uh i think would be just awful on the wire is the strategy we talked a lot about pre-season about just getting a bunch of guys a little bit of speed it's really worked for me i mean they I have a bunch of guys with six steals, you know,

on my typical roster right now. And, um, I found like in some places I'm first in steals and I'm really surprised by that. Cause I didn't spend any, what I thought draft capital on specifically steals, you know,

it was like, just get a lot of, uh, well-rounded guys. But if I didn't have those guys, I think looking for steals on the wire is awful because there are some guys who steal and a lot of them are bad baseball players so then you're like have this like the jorge mateo situation where you're like do i want steals this

bad it's a luxury if you have enough of everything else where you can roster a player like that then you did a lot of other things right and i think that puts a ton of pressure on you to to be in a position like that so it can work but it's not ideal i mean i've got one league i'm leading the league in steals the dc league got a good team in that league actually it's currently in first we'll see if it can hold i mean a lot of dcs aside from avoiding catastrophic errors just avoiding injuries and making sure you still have players to plug in throughout the second half so if that team stays healthy maybe it's got a chance to be really good but i'm trying to look back why why is that team actually good in terms of of having some steals and i think it's because I spread them out.

I think it's because I tried to make sure that I wasn't too dependent on any one or two players for saves. I mean, or for steals. There's a bunch of guys that run on that team. Bellinger gets some. Jelic gets some. Jelic is actually getting a lot of his value from steals right now. Tim Anderson gets some. Marcus Simeon gets a bunch.

It was built into the core, but it still wasn't Starling Marte or Trey Turner in the first or someone that gets 30 plus in the projections. It was a lot of guys that might be more in the 10 to 20 range as the core bats, and then a few guys that on the bottom of the roster might get me a handful. Let's look at the top 30 in steals right now. I just sorted the fan graphs, minimum 50 played appearances. And what I want to do is go through the top 30 in steals right now and take away a little bit of the Jorge Mateos where I don't really want to roster them, right? So let's list the players that you picked up off of the wire that are in the top

30 of saves that are that you really want to play um and that weren't drafted so the list starts with john birdie who's actually leading the league in in steals and has been a humongous boon however i think my conclusion after reading this list might be that there was one John Birdie because the other option is Jorge Mateo which I don't really want to play then it's a bunch of people were drafted Harrison Bader who I think really toes that Mateo-ian line

but if you want to put Bader in you can put Bader in then a bunch of guys that were drafted all guys who were drafted drafted drafted drafted Adolis Garcia no even in 10s and 12s Then a bunch of guys that were drafted. All guys who were drafted. Drafted, drafted, drafted. Adolis Garcia? No, even in 10s and 12s. I mean, Bader was drafted in 12s for sure.

Garcia was probably drafted even down to 10 team leagues. Tyro Estrada? There's, okay, there's a guy that was an early season pickup. People weren't that excited about him. He's played more than expected, and he's just been a really good roto player. Yeah, and then, so Dylan Moore and Andrew Velasquez, I say is below the Mateo line. And that's it, Jace Peterson.

So, and he has 10 steals and is a part-time player. So I don't even think that he counts. So the answer is Tyra Estrada and John Birdie, right? Yeah, it's basically to hit on those two players to have someone that you feel pretty good about. And then one of the problems I had with Estrada and John Birdie, right? Yeah, it's basically to hit on those two players to have someone that you feel pretty good about. And then one of the problems I had with Estrada is that a lot of teams, because there's so much depth in the middle infield, Estrada was kind of a tough player

to even fit into your roster unless you had bad luck with health in one of those spots. Yeah. Then let me do this with homers. I expected a little bit different result, but I still think the comparison will work. In the home run category, you have, as undrafted players that are doing good, Christian Walker, 10th in homers, right? Yeah, probably undrafted in some 12s or dropped in some 12s at least um brandon drury 18th available everywhere at one point yep patrick wisdom 27th or is he the

mateo line i mean he's hitting 230 got the k rate down a little bit he's he's the power equivalent he's also got six steals too right and then you And then you've got Jock Peterson and Rowdy Tellez. It matters a little bit, the depth of your league. I don't know. It's closer than I thought, right? But I would say that it is easier to jump in this pool. Yeah, a little bit. I mean, I think it's also harder because a lot of those speed sources

are utility-type players players who depending on how good they actually are at playing the positions they can play struggle to get in the lineup for any other reason than players being hurt in front of them like tyra strata is pretty close to that line you know like even now he's kind of plays more when people are hurt yeah so i mean if you had to choose for the rest of the season we'd rather be chasing saves or chasing steals which of those problems do you think is actually easier to deal with right now 100 there's so much there's so much uh upheaval in in the closer category right i almost wonder if the way as frustrating as it is compared to what we spend on draft day to have players who

end up in committees players that get hurt if team spreading saves around a lot more at least gives you a chance to stay competitive in that category whereas steals don't really work quite like that and i'm starting to think about who who could be the next john birdie we talked about it a little bit last week on the Athletic Fantasy Baseball podcast, looking to the upper levels of the minors for players who are running. And I think Esturi Ruiz and Estevan Floreal

and Bubba Thompson were a few of the names that came up. And you're still just like wish casting for an opportunity for those guys. Even someone like Thompson, who's on a team that is still figuring it out, putting pieces together for the long-term future, there's no immediate path for him to start playing at the big league level. And then on top of that, all of those guys have to hit big league pitching. We don't know if they can even handle top-level pitching.

On top of that, the league doesn't value speed as a single tool that much until it's the playoffs you know i mean like that's you're not gonna you're not gonna get a chance based on your speed you're gonna get a chance on your plate discipline and your power you know so it's like this weird thing that nobody in baseball is necessarily you know targeting or trying to put on their team i mean yes there are teams that run uh and they want young that's usually like young athletic teams that realize they can get an advantage from their young athletic players on the base pass as well. But I, I would,

I wouldn't say that like teams are targeting speed in the drafts, you know, or, or, you know, or teams have meetings where they're like, we are going to be the go, go,

you know, white socks or whatever it is, you know, like this. I, I just don be the go-go, you know, White Sox or whatever it is, you know, like this. I just don't see that around baseball. You know, you're most, most likely you get a young athletic player who gets you 10 steals to 15 steals. And they're always like opportunistic, you know, Kyle Tucker, you know, is a great example where he doesn't have the great speed, but he's young and he cares about it a little bit. And, uh, he just,

he's, what is he like? He's like 64 for 68 in his career or something on the base pass. But, um, uh, you know, I think that's,

that's where I shop and I, I don't want to be, uh, you know, sorting for the last seven stolen bases. You know, it seems like the top end of the closer pool has been a surprisingly good investment to this point. You look at Hayter and Liam Hendricks.

I know Hendricks missed a little bit of time on the IL, but I think if you drafted him where he's going and he stays healthy for the rest of the season based on what he's doing to this point and what he's likely to do in the second half, you know, you're not disappointed. Raizel Iglesias, Classe class a edwin diaz they've been good romano's been good jansen around the il stint has also been good i mean roldis chapman's probably

the the earliest closer who's been a bust and he also was on the il and now might not get his job back i mean i think that's a bit of a question for the second half as well we've talked about presley as someone that definitely is scarier now than he was back during draft season, but he still kept it together. He still has returned enough value to where that's not at all a problem, and he's done enough to hold his job, at least so far. So I wonder if what's going to happen is,

if the season kind of plays out the way that it started with the closers, if we see even more inflation on the higher end guys going into 2023 oh god one more bump like that because presley that presley jansen romano group they were going between about pick 70 and pick 85 for the final week of draft season the first week of april and if that value was all really solid and people said, you know what? The committee closers are out there and yeah, you can find saves, but you spend a lot of fab along the way.

I still want to just lock it in. All of a sudden, those guys are going and pick 50 to pick 60 range. And we're talking about seven or eight closers going in the first five rounds for four rounds, maybe even of drafts next year. I just, uh, I can't get with it dude i can't i it's not my deal it's not my bag i can't do it because it's so role dependent there are right now rice illigalaceous is a 450 era and 12 strikeouts per nine maybe 13 there are what 50 relievers like that in baseball if you take away those 15 saves he's not he's not useful at all yeah it's it's not great and uh for leagues that can't change i can't yeah i can't i understand that like um other people can lose their jobs i guess like a first baseman a slugging first baseman could lose their job, I guess.

But what happens is, Rice Iglesias is probably pitching at, you know, maybe it's all just bad luck, but he's probably pitching at like maybe 80% of what you expected or something, right? If he pitched at 70% of what you expected, he could lose his job, you know, and then be worth zero.

Whereas if you, you know, then be worth zero whereas if you you know put a lot of money down on pete alonso and he has a season where he's 70 as good as you expected he's still gonna play he's still gonna hit a lot of homers it's just gonna it'd be one of those years where he hits 230 or something you know what i mean like uh there's there's just that thing where you know it's the same thing with steals people um but i saw something interesting from jeff zimmerin where he said that he looked at all the players that um have time in triple a and the majors so basically looking at replacement players and he found that same number again 650 so 650 ops so that's why when you're dealing with steals people a lot of them

are projected for 650 to 700 ops if they've if they fall short of that if they do the 70 percent year uh and they have a 630 ops they're not in the major leagues anymore um and and generally speedsters especially if they don't have much power, do live in that 700 OPS range. So if you're looking at anybody who's projected to have a 700 OPS, that's something to be worried about, because the 700 in the years where it's 70%, they can drop below that 650, maybe it's 60% a year, whatever it is.

I want to be clear of 700 OPS on all the guys I'm drafting yeah I think in season maybe the rules become a little bit different because you can look at a team like the Angels see the injuries that piled up on them and you look at Luis Ranjifo and say well he runs

pretty well he's got a little bit of pop and he's probably going to hit 6th in an order that has two of the five best players in the league on it. So that might just be enough for him to sneakily provide some value where he doesn't hurt your batting average, even though he's a flawed player. Maybe you get cheap speed that way, but it's not the profile that back in March that you'd want to be betting on in the 15th round because things can obviously go very south for that player.

It's like a 670 projected OPS. Right. No, but he's also, I think he's also what makes it hard to go after steals is because you're much more likely to be able to put together a few guys that can get you three or four steals than to get John Birdie, who there was one of, you know? And so it's a lot easier to affect your place in the ranking, your place in the, in the steals rankings by little, you know, by just taking Rangifo maybe over Michael Chavis or something. I want those three or four steals

and maybe get one standings place with these little handfuls of steals that you can pick up than it is to actually move hard in the category. Or go back to what one of our listeners suggested a while ago and just stream against Noah Sindergaard

every week and just find the only available player that could steal bases who gets matchups against Noah Sindergaard in a particular week. There's a steal or two in there. Just talk yourself into that. I'm sure the results there are going to be suboptimal. I think the worst problem to have is tanked ratios, which is, again, it's not something you did by design on draft day. It's probably the result of some misfortune or maybe misreading the middle part of the pitching pool. I think that could certainly happen. You make some wrong moves there,

and you get a bunch of guys that come up with four ERAs instead of mid threes and guys that have a home run problem or whatever it might be. Sure, that gets to be a problem. Correcting it is just miserably difficult, and I think it kind of leans into our next segment we had a question from jake and madison he wanted to know if we have any long-term pitching targets that we're interested in so if you're chasing ratios this time of year you're

obviously taking more aggressive swings with pitchers than you ordinarily would at this point you can't lose ground so you're trying to gain ground in wins and Ks, and you're just hoping that you find the right guys in the second half who can actually make a difference. So I think the spirit of this question was more keeper and dynasty oriented. This will probably help people in all different kinds of leagues, more or less, you know, who are we trying to target right now on the younger pitching front?

And then the other part of the question was focused on Mackenzie Gore as someone that we've now seen a half season from at the big league level. So we'll start with the Gore part. What do you make of Gore now that we've got a first half at the big league level in the books from him? He started out really well, but there has been a little bit of a drop-off in stuff as he's pitched. His first few starts were well clear of 100 in stuff plus. His last three starts, 87 stuff plus, 97 stuff plus, 80 stuff plus.

So we're definitely not seeing the best from from him and i think given his history it is fair to wonder what the role of fatigue and if he kind of had that adrenaline bump when he first got into the big leagues and has kind of lost some of that but unfortunately so his location numbers are also uh going down so um you know what looked like a player that had 100 to 105 type stuff, so above average stuff and above average locations, all of a sudden he's giving you below average in both counts. It speaks to the knowledge that you want track record. Do you want something to believe in? I think those first two starts are still his upside. And so if you want to buy him in a league where you're not competing this year, I think it's still probably a good idea.

Because I think he'll go as far as he can this season. There might be some ugly spots along the way. They'll probably have to give him a rest at some point. And he'll be more prepared to give you a full season of his best work next season um is the theory there but i do admit that you know the combination of poor results and uh poor underlying numbers in the last three starts have me worried yeah so he started the season span eight starts, 57 to 17 strikeout to walk ratio, one home run allowed, which is just absurd. No one's doing that over eight starts consistently.

The Ks were there. The control was good. Home run rate, good fortune. Kept the ER at 150 for the first eight starts of his career. Just an incredible run for him. The schedule also got a little bit tougher in the sense that he went into Colorado for a start back on June 17th, caught the Phillies as they were waking up in the late part of June,

caught the Dodgers on the road, and then just most recently had a really bad start against the Giants at home. I think you're right about the fatigues because of the lack of innings in recent seasons. And I also wonder where that stuff number might go coming out of the all star break, like just having a couple days, basically a run through the rotation maybe where he doesn't go

i wouldn't be surprised if they skipped him once and put nick down make nick martinez in for for a start or whatever yeah that might help start him up on the right foot for the second half but i do think as a likely playoff bound team especially they have to figure out what they're going to do if they want to use him in the postseason and how they're going to possibly keep him fresh between now and october because that's a legitimate concern they may not need to use him they may just be able to go other directions because they've got so much pitching depth but i think it is a real problem for the Padres to figure out. Yeah, and in terms of help in targeting him in either keeper leagues or for this year, I'd be much more nervous about buying him for this year

than I actually would be in a keeper league. I think he would be a decent pickup, but I wouldn't trade a real bat for him. I think I would try to pick him up uh give like a super veteran like a josh donaldson right wouldn't that make sense in a keeper league josh donaldson for for mackenzie gore yeah old it might be a little more productive than donaldson's been so far but that type of player someone someone old doesn't have much keeper doesn't have much keeper value left yeah they might be offering a bit more in the short term but you're you're thinking you know next season and beyond for that player probably won't be that valuable and you're playing for the future anyway.

I think that makes sense. I think we've seen enough good from Gore to put him in that sort of category. Who else are we targeting right now, either via trade in long-term leagues or even speculating on some players off the wire where appropriate? you know where appropriate um yeah so uh you know i i yeah i have this i have a list that's mostly keeper i wanted to just uh really quickly because you know to finish off our last conversation like who would i buy low on that i thought could move the needle on on on ratios and maybe strikeouts and would be worth a large acquisition and might be available i think somebody like brandon woodruff qualifies for me but maybe his owner has been waiting for for him to come back too you know um so you know sometimes it's it's hard to try and go trade for a guy that just came back um so you know otherwise uh you know buy lows are are not, super clear to me. Cause even like somebody like Berrios,

who I like, you know, there has been a reduction in stuff and you know, that's, I think he's a little bit more scheduled dependent than I expect, than I expected him to be in the past. Do you have any by low veterans that, that you actually like? like it's it's kind of an interesting darvish kind of was there but he's pushed the ratios back to the point where i don't think you're getting any real discount on him anymore so he kind of fell off the list in the last couple of turns yeah the woodruff thing like everywhere where i would want him i already have him so that's that's a bit of a problem i think i was digging a little deeper i was looking at carlos carrasco in a deep league as a super cheap player to trade for i mean

the k rate's solid walk rate's pretty good home run rate's not bad we know the park is good era is about a run higher than the fip right now it's not nearly as sexy as the top 10 top 15 type starting pitchers that we're talking about but i just think you need gettable targets yeah to actually go out and find some value and i think he probably fits in there for me projections mostly agree the bat's a little more bearish on him with the only era before projected for the rest of the season for carrasco but zips has him just under four. Steamer has him a little further under four than that. Pretty good whip.

Pretty good strikeout numbers, too. Yeah, I think Luis Garcia, you know, I think could be better than a 3-8 pitcher, you know, for the Astros. So I think he's, you know, he could be a quote-unquote buy low. And Jose Urquidy, the model still likes him, and he's been much better lately. Trevor Rogers is improving by the model, and the results are just inching towards being better.

So I actually could see putting the by-low moniker on him. And then Taiwan Walker is... there's a segue for you okay i got a segue here we go taiwan walker is attainable and people expect him to collapse but i we like the new pitch mix we talked about that in the last episode and so i think he's not necessarily a by low he's just sort of against the expectation of the owner maybe someone you could buy at a reasonable price that could continue his production despite people's doubts about it and that's um something that i could see out of like julio urias or joe musgrove in a dynasty context. Now, in a one-year context, everyone's going to say, those guys look great.

Why would anyone sell them? In a dynasty context, I think people could look at the velo drop-offs for both of them and say, maybe I'm selling high. Maybe Urias and Musgrove are just about to get worse because they've dropped this velo. And I think that would be a buying opportunity because I see them as pitchers, a hybrid of the two best pitchers I want. And you'll see this in a list that comes up after this of names that are lesser names, right? Urias and Musgrove are guys who have

multiple pitches, command of multiple pitches, and still have high stuff numbers despite the low VLO. So I think that makes them safe. That's something that I like to see in a long-term acquisition. Lots of pitches, command of lots of pitches, and good stuff despite the VLO. So that's something I like about Urias and Musgrove. The rest of my list kind of splits to either you get the stuff or you get the command uh because otherwise like why could you buy them like you know i love stuff and command at the same time

uh you know the people who have that are garrett cole corbin Burns, Kevin Gossman, Aaron Nola. Impossible to trade for in most cases. Shane McClanahan. So good luck in those guys. But if you just want stuff, I think there are three names that stick out to me as possibly available. Nick Lodolo, Hunter Green, and Luis Patino. It matters what your league is like, how much they covet young starters like this, how much they know what a stuff metric is, or that sort of deal.

But I do think even someone like Hunter Green, who's throwing hundos up there and has great starts, I do think that their owner, you know, might look at that 570 ERA and just be like, this guy does not have any command. And, you know, I need something for this year, so I will let him go. And you look at Lodolo's injury history and Luis Patino's injury history and say, these guys are never going to be healthy. I'm going to trade them. And for you, you're just saying, I hope next year is the healthy one. I hope next year is the one where he figures out that command a little bit

because they all have ace-like upside. Yeah, a lot to unpack there. One passing thought. I'm still a believer in Urquidy as well. I still see that swinging strike rate compared to the strikeout rate and think there has to be a little bump in K rate. There just has to be.

The pitch mix is deep enough where I think he's got lots of ways to fool guys. He's got a couple of ways to possibly get whiffs. It's pretty amazing. His career numbers so far, he's got a 372 ERA for his career and a 110 whip. That ERA is even a tick high for a guy that has a 110 whip. 212 Ks and 266 inningsnings that's one of the flaws home runs have been a problem for him every year he's been in the big leagues yeah in that park especially it's a little bit surprising but i think there's still more good than bad in that profile and i imagine

let's go three years into the future the year is 2025 And the first round of fantasy drafts in 2025 is Tatis Acuna, Julio, Soto, hopefully Wander, and like 10 closers. That's the landscape. That's the world we live in. But we're still, in 2025, going to be believing in Jose Urquidy because he is

maybe the pitcher of the podcast over the history of this show's existence. He's that guy we keep looking at and saying, no, there's got to be another level. There's got to be another level. There's got to be another level. And he's beat his advanced ERA predictors three out of the last four seasons. So there's also something in there, too, where you look and say,

even with the home run problem, I could see him just turning out like SP2 ratios with a low K rate the rest of the way. And there's a chance he still gets better. Yeah, definitely schedule dependent. Uh, and you know, the schedule has helped him a little bit recently, but, uh, and it's, it's, it's also like, it's such an interesting thing for me because before the pitching plus model, the stuff I would have looked at, yes, I would have noticed the swing strike rate. And I might've, I might have I might like that about him but otherwise uh he would look fairly average and probably not be a pitcher I'd be that into with those low k rates so Velo's up a little bit this year compared to last year too right I think he was 92 and change last year at the fastball he's about a tick up

from that so I think that's another another thing that I'm clinging to with Jose Urquidy but the the young pitchers I mean I like George Kirby a lot, too. If you're going to pay up, if you're closer to competing in a long-term league and you want to go out and maybe you can find someone that has a little bit too much pitching and not enough hitting and you've got too much hitting and not enough pitching, that's the kind of player that I think I would like from a multi-year perspective because the command is just absurdly good. And I think you can look at him and say, there's probably one more level stuff-wise that he could reach because he's only 24. If he doesn't reach it, he could still be extremely good for us. I mean, I think what we're seeing right now is kind of a nice floor, 378 ERA, 124 whip so far in his rookie season.

He's doing that with a 3.3 percent walk rate that's his lowest walk rate since he was in short season ball when he literally didn't walk a guy for 23 innings what do you think about george kirby's ceiling i mean the floor looks great do you think there is one more level he can unlock with maybe a slight uptick in case yeah uh you know he's uh he's amazing the the location plus model does not have a large spread uh normally it might be something you've noticed if you are sorting the leaderboards that other other pitches have more spread um I've seen something here in Kirby's line that I haven't really seen before. I'm seeing 130 location pluses on the regular on his slider. So that's pretty much the best I've seen.

He hasn't done it all season, and he started out the season around 100. But that indicates that as he's getting comfortable, he is really nailing the slider location. And, you know, he may not have the overall stuff that we'd hope for, but the curveball has actually been settling into 150 stuff plus. That's where the range is higher and you regularly see. Like Matt Brash's slider was a 180 stuff plus.

But in the curveball, he's got a 140 to 150 stuff plus action pitch extraordinaire. In the slider, he's got a pitch he can locate maybe better than anyone or as good as anyone and then the change up flash is better and flash is worse it it's been as low as 70 this year and as high as 130 by stuff plus so i would say as that change up firms up you've got a four pitch guy with elite command. Yeah, I do think there's another level for him. And I think he's the best of this other class.

And he's sort of the elite version of some other names I have for you. These are pitchers with close-to-average stuff and better command. In smaller samples so far, that could be interesting. Cutter Crawford, Max Castillo. Cutter Crawford's with the Red Sox. Max Castillo with the Blue Jays. Bailey Falter with the Phillies. And then Jeffrey Springs with the Rays. Those are guys that I absolutely wouldn't spend a lot of trade capital on, but I would look to acquire them because their approach is a little bit more Kirby-esque

than Hunter Green. And in some ways, that makes them safer to remain starters than Hunter Green. It may also cap their upside. It's more likely you're getting the next Cole Irvin or Paul Blackburn in that group than you are the next Jacob deGrom. Sure.

I think that's reasonable. I was just thinking about the Rays situation because you mentioned Patino before and Springs just now. And the Rays, it seems like they see what the model sees in Springs. They've been giving him chances this year, and he's done really well with those chances. So you start to kind of project their rotation for the second half unless they go to a sixth starter i mean mcclanahan and boz kluber maybe they have to manage drew rasmussen's innings carefully springs would give them five if all those guys are in there josh

fleming's back up right now as As someone who really likes Patino, I am a little bit concerned that he doesn't necessarily fit into their rotation right now, barring some kind of tweak, be that a six-man rotation temporarily or some kind of manipulation of someone else's workload. Almost certainly, it'd be Drew Rasmussen, if anyone. Yeah, I mean, there could be an opportunity for him to pitch for a couple weeks

while Rasmussen is down. They have to time that correctly. I think they would have rather that Patino was up now because he was trending towards that until a blister hit. Then they could have maybe given Rasmussen a two-week blow around the All-Star week to keep his innings down that way I think they could go to a six man rotation because they want to keep all their innings down on their young guys and they want all their young guys to be

ready for the playoffs but they also have to win now because they're slightly on the bubble when be ready for the playoffs but they also have to win now because they're slightly on the bubble when it comes to the playoffs so i think it's fascinating and that patino is therefore a better bet in long-term keeper league situations where even if he doesn't necessarily do something for you right now his future is still bright i want to try and preemptively ask a question that people listening might be asking. The Reid Detmers new slider, does that change anything for his outlook? Because the model did not like Reid Detmers last year. It didn't really like him at the beginning of this

year. And me being the dummy that I am, bet against the model in multiple leagues and held Detmers too long and then cut him too late. And then it went back and picked him up this weekend because I'm just that kind of amazing glutton for punishment. Yeah. I just figured let's just get torn up again in the second half. Why not break your heart into another thousand pieces? You know, the model actually liked his slider,

likes sliders a lot. This put it at 130 stuff. Plus on the eighth, that's the start you're talking about, I think. And it had liked his old slider as much as the high 120s. There was one start with 144. If it held at this new stuff plus, it would probably be a better stuff plus than his old slider.

But the one thing that really stood out is he located it better than he had all season. the one thing that really stood out is he located it better than he had all season. So whether it's because it's his old slider and he can command it better or because it's inherently better either way, I do think that's a big deal because with that slider, you know, his forcing fastball,

you know, he basically approaches like, it's okay. It's not great. It's okay. It's like an 85 to 90 stuff plus type forcing fastball. And that might be good enough if the slider is really good. But the curveball still rates poorly and the changeup still rates poorly. Or the changeup goes in and out so he i think he's still one trick away from but here's you know he's also

a type that you can get which is you know i think of like spencer howard or even glenn otto or you know these guys that uh don't look that great in the model right now but have four pitches you know there's there's always a reason to bet on a pitcher like that because they have four chances to tweak a pitch and change everything and they're just showing the ability to manipulate the ball in different ways you know so uh that on that level i can get with detmers yeah i think in really deep keeper leagues i do think the spencer howard by low pick up off the wire makes some sense to me too. It's got to be 15 plus teams looking to the future. It's not necessarily someone that you're going to look at to help

you outside of maybe the occasional two-start week with good matchups in the second half of this season. Ruanze Contreras, we talked a lot about him. I think he fits in this group of longer-term targets. Going to be a little more expensive, closer to Kirby maybe in cost, not all the way up quite that high. One more name, though, that I think is really interesting is Brian Abreu. Maybe it's the patterns in my brain just saying, hey, it's a Houston guy with great stuff who's not in the rotation right now, but then if someone leaves or gets hurt, he's suddenly that next guy. Maybe he's their new Christian Javier. With Javier in the rotation, Abreu's the kind of guy that just throws gas in the bullpen,

has a really good stuff number, obviously has some command concerns that are reflected in scouting grades. You can see it in the pitching model. I think he's got a 95.3 location plus number right now, but a 135.9 stuff number. It looks kind of Dylan cease. Like when you talk about the amazing stuff, shaky location,

and it's, it's more than, it's more than a couple of pitches that he has in his arsenal too. So I think there's at least a path long, long term for Brian to braid and maybe surface as a member of that Houston rotation. Yeah. Yep. Uh, just, uh, long term for brian abray to maybe surface as a member of that houston rotation yeah yep uh just just doing very little uh research uh but just looking at the model there's a interesting name that's popping out to austin pruitt this is this is more like the spencer howard just pick him up

and and put him on your bench and think about it for a while because the results aren't great, the strikeout rate's not great, but he throws a ton of cutters and he's starting to I think he might push his way into that Oakland rotation and then you might have yourself somebody that could be the next Cole Urban. It's not super exciting, but depending on the depth of your league, Stuff Plus loves his cutter, and he throws it a ton.

That's the deepest league recommendation we've probably ever given anyone on the show. Austin Pruitt. Well, Bailey Falter is right there, too. Well, he's Falter still in his 20s. Pruitt's 32. Yeah, right. So be careful with Austin Pruitt. That's a really, really, really deep recommendation.

Well, it's kind of amazing because the rest of the Oakland staff just looks so terrible by stuff plus. It's just awful. They're one of the worst teams I've ever seen. Yeah. They're really bad right now. We'll save that for a separate episode. Just how bad are these Oakland A's?

A question that might have more broad appeal, who the heck is Byron Buxton? I think if you're someone who has Buxton on your teams this year, you're happy because things are going really well. He's been mostly healthy with some load management. We're well on our way to the biggest workload he's ever had over a big league season. He's pacing out for about 550 plate appearances this year.

He's hitting a ton of home runs, barreling the ball the way he has each of the last two seasons, making some better decisions at chasing pitches outside the strike zone to bringing the swing percentage down just a little bit, hitting the ball in the air more than he has the last couple of seasons. It's all it's only coming together for Byron Buxton as a power hitter. And yeah, I know when you hit for more power, especially home runs, you lose some stolen base opportunities, but he's two for two as a base dealer. And maybe the weirdest thing of all, two for two as a base dealer and maybe the weirdest thing of all this was brought up in an email question byron buxton has a 208 babbit this season for a guy that hits the ball really hard and is a great runner that is very surprising so what do we make of buxton this

question came in from office to the max on twitter which makes me want to buy a ream of copy paper when I go out to get that Slurpee. No, I want to do the kill the copier scene from Offspace. You want to do that? You want to do that at the end of the season? Yes. We'll clean up all the pieces. We're not going to leave pieces of office printers at the park. That's wrong. Bad for the environment.

Dude, he's got that 52% fly ball rate. i i get itchy all over my body when someone has a 50 fly ball rate i just i checked out i think that's it i think that's it man i think you know the he had a 51 fly ball rate in 2020 and a 241 babbitt so uh i think that something happens uh once you once you kind of hit that point of no return there was the reason i i think this goes all the way back to a short second baseman who played for the blue jays and the diamondbacks aaron hill aaron hill he had terrible babbitts. The worst. That was when Babbitt was everything

too. Yeah. He had bad Babbitts at a time when it was going to get you all the attention you didn't want. And all the time it was like you know, I feel like I probably wrote a piece like this. I mean it was a while ago. You're always like, oh

man, he's hitting 205. It's going to turn around. He's got a 196 Babbitt. You can't do that all year. Well, he had 54% fly balls that year, and for 580 plate appearances, he did have a 196 Babbitt. And every year that he had

just the awful Babbitts, you can just look at the fly ball rate, and those are the years where he had the 50% fly ball. So he's the patron saint of why I get itchy. And then the other guy is Jose Bautista who also had low batting averages and low

Babibs. For his career, he had a 264 Babib and a 46% fly ball ball rate but there were some 50 pluses in there when he had a 54.5 fly ball rate his babbitt that year was 233 so i don't know i haven't actually seen someone really uh lay it down like that um like do like actual research rather than just sort of look at a couple numbers and declare that something is true well i just i think this is one of the more bizarre seasons i've seen from a player that's doing a lot of things right that i think is generally making people happy he's been a 20 player by the rotowire earned value calculator among outfielders though that's actually just outside the top 20 among outfielders

because it's such a power heavy thing yeah batting average killer almost everyone in front of him runs a little bit and there's a few exceptions. Jordan doesn't run. Trout doesn't run anymore. Who knew? I thought he'd still get to six or eight bags, but I guess he doesn't have to. I mean, he's got his money, and all the incentives in his contract

are based basically on playing time. So now his desire is aligned with the team, which is to stay on the field. So I wouldn't be surprised if he barely steals five more. But now we're talking about Byron Buxton as a threat to hit 40 home runs in a full healthy season. The power numbers back it up. The approach and the contact quality.

Yeah, the barrel rates through the roof last three years. He's walking more than ever too. So I think that part's real, but I guess it comes back to we made byron bucks to a three true outcome guy god how how do we take a guy who could have been like a originally a shame on his face steel player and we turned him into a 45 homer five steel guy that hits 220 and wins a gold glove in center field. You know, and his value to the team is going to be fairly similar in both ways. Although, you know, yeah,

his best seasons statistically at the plate have been the ones where he's hitting like this for power. All right, the projections all have him between 246 and 253. So are you at least buying the range for the projection for the batting average? Or are you saying he's still likely to finish below that in a typical year? I'll take the upper range, man. He's fast enough to create some batting average with his feet. We'd love to see the K rate come down just a little bit more.

He's up at 28.5% right now. If he could get that back down closer to 25% like it was last year, that would also help. If you look at his rolling fly ball rate, there was a chance that it was going down, but then the last 10 games it spiked again. 60%. It's 60% in his last 15 games. Byron Buxton, next season as of right now,

top 40 overall player? Top 50? Maybe back end. You can't push him much higher than that. As of right now. He's not going to steal bases anymore. I mean, he's comparable to Kyle Schwarber. That just doesn't work.

That's so weird. My head doesn't make sense. You can't be that fast and that good of a base dealer and turn yourself into Kyle Schwarber as an offensive player. That's not an acceptable adjustment. That's not an acceptable adjustment. That's very strange. I don't... I mean, I'm sure we've seen

weird stuff like this before, but I'm really struggling to find out or remember when it was. Buxton is projected to be a $10 player the rest of the season. That would make him the 30th ranked hitter by the Fangraphs auction calculator for the Bad X.

So number 30 hitter, factor in the pitchers, yeah, that's about 40 to 50 overall if you're thinking about second half and beyond for what he's projected to do. It's highly unusual. Very strange for people who made the bet on him this year and and are reaping the rewards but not the rewards they expected or hoped for they might be chasing speed and hurt in batting average right now and they're like that's why i had buxton on my squad well you're probably not wrecked in batting average because you weren't looking at him as a guy that was going to hit more than about 250 260 anyway most likely even though it was a good average last year. I don't think anyone was really banking on that.

But thank you for that question. One more came in. This one was from Luke on Twitter. He's curious about Brendan Rogers, who's been hitting a lot better since the end of April. Baseball savant numbers look good. So Luke's wondering if there's a chance that Rogers has figured it out and is really starting to deliver on his potential as a former early first-round pick. As someone who has Rodgers in a league, I have noticed that he is pretty much unplayable

outside of Coors Field. That is one of the more extreme road splits of any qualified hitter in the league this season. He's got a 58 WRC plus on the road. I believe he's got single-digit counting stats in terms of runs and army plus on the road. I believe he's got single digit counting stats in terms of runs and army highs on the road at the midway point in the season. I checked it fairly recently. So I'll see if that's still the case.

And I think the other problem with Brendan Rogers that's been there forever is that he does not steal bases. And it is a weird, weird profile to have up the middle to our guy that does not attempt to run confirming right now he's up to 10 runs scored but eight rbis on the road in 34 games this season all eight of his home runs have also come in colorado yeah i'm not gonna i'm not gonna go to bat for him per se but i did want to say there's in an unqualified good thing happening under the hood for him and that is that for a player that once had eye surgery and improved his plate

discipline and and abilities of the plate with that it's very comforting to see that basically his chase rate is just going down over the course of the season it's a consistent improvement as the season's gone on so that i think uh can lead to a guy who can hit his projections of like a 330 ob obp and like a 450 slugging. It's a perfectly prominent guy. I think even if you had to put him in at home and away, you would just smush those two numbers together and still get a guy who hits, I think, true talent-wise, 270, 25 homers, zero stolen bases, 330 OBP, 450 slugging.

It's a pretty good player. 80-80 for runs and RBIs, give or take, depending on where he's at in the lineup and maybe possible improvements. It's not going to be top five at any position, right? It's not going to be. It's just okay. It's mountain oatmeal. Yeah.

I don't know what you call that. Mountain oatmeal but uh 9.1 barrel rate career best there so i think that's where a little bit of optimism comes from that the power we saw last year hit 15 homers in 415 plate appearances that 25 home run ceiling you put out there is possible you put right that over the second half of the season maybe it's the 20 home runs this year instead of just doubling up and barely beating last year's total i think that's possible so the k rate being down the walk rate being pretty good there's there's good stuff happening and goes without saying that he's way better in daily leagues where if you can have him as an extra piece and then you're putting him basically putting him in when he's home i'm in a 16 team keeper league where i'm trying to sit him on the road as much as I can.

That's pretty much the... I'm at the mercy of my own depth. If my depth is healthy, I can do that. If my depth is not healthy, I won't be able to do that. But thank you for that question, Luke. A quick update to pass along. You might remember back when the season started, we shared a story.

One of our listeners whose wife, Karen, was in need of a blood stem cell match for a leukemia treatment. Some great news that a match was found. We don't know if that match came from someone listening to this show, but we appreciate anybody who took the time to see if they might be a match to get into the database for that. Obviously, it's a potential life-saving difference. Just really good news to pass along that came in just a few days ago. So we wanted to make sure that we passed that along.

Oh, I do have one last business, point of business. Chicago, I'm coming. Batten down the hatches, close, lock the door. Don't let me in. I am coming for P pitchfork this weekend uh so if you're at pitchfork music festival you may spot me i will be having a meet-up at the beer temple on thursday night uh from 7 to 10 uh doesn't cost anything to attend. We are also not giving you anything. But, Ephus, my collaboration with Old Irving Brewery, will be on tap.

That's a fun beer. It's a 5% hazy pale ale. Somewhat in the style of Cellar Maker out here. So, I'm bringing some California with me. And then I'll be at the game on Friday. So, the Cubs day game on Friday. I was going to say which one.

There are two teams there. That's right. Sorry. I'll be at the Cubs game on Friday. And hopefully I see you. I look forward to Chicago. I haven't. This is a trip that I used to make almost every summer for a while

and haven't since COVID. So I'm excited to get back into Chicago. That was it. Point of order resolved. Very nice. Oh, and I guess the other travel-related thing, I mean, first pitch Arizona, it's on the calendar. I know they're not taking reservations quite yet

as far as actual registrations for the conference go, but the dates are posted by our friends at Baseball HQ, and it's the first weekend in November. It starts on November 3rd, runs through Sunday, November 6th. So if you're the kind of person who likes to plan ahead, especially with plane tickets, which kind of seems like the math is in your favor to get those reserved sooner rather than later, you can start hunting for your flights.

I think more information about the hotel and location and room blocks and all stuff will be available soon so we'll share that once it comes around but we've talked about that trip for years on this show it's one of the most fun things you can do as the baseball season comes to an end i know this year's trip falls on the fall stars weekend so you get to see the showcase game with all the prospects kind of in one place which is a really nice thing to have there's a new home run derby this year, right? They didn't do that. You were there last year. I didn't go last year.

But the home run derby. I like home run derbies. They're fun. I've never been to one live, so I'm kind of excited about that. I think that's the ticket. For people who don't love it, on TV, it's like,

ah, another home run, really? And then there was all the Chris Berman years where it was like, back, back, back. And you're like, no, no, stop it please please stop the bracket the bracket format was one of the better all-star festivities adjustments that major league baseball has made in my lifetime the bracket is a lot better yes and the time competition yeah the time stuff and and then just live you're like wow like what the feats of strength are more impressive when they're actually there when you're on when you're on yeah so i was

talking to a pitcher and he was like they definitely juice the balls for this okay so okay turn off the gravity for all i care it doesn't matter good i'm okay with it i i if i'm watching guys hit dingers to the moon i i hope they do it with a juice ball so the ball actually makes it to the moon what's the problem here yeah yeah so um anyway if you can make it to a home run derby they're fun you should do it i mean if we're talking about the hot dog eating contest they make the hot dogs smaller. I don't care.

It's all about seeing if... I don't know if they've ever changed the hot dogs. They're the same as they were 20 years ago. I don't want to participate in it. I don't even want to watch it. If we're going to go for the record every year, you've got to do something to give them a chance. I was watching one, and they barfed,

and they had to put it back in, because otherwise it doesn't count. And that's why I regretted immediately bringing up the hot dog eating contest. If you would like a subscription to The Athletic, if you still want one, they're $1 a month for the first six months at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels.

We are back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.