Rates & Barrels - Miller v. Miller and April's Rising & Falling Hitters

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

Eno and DVR discuss an excellent battle between rookie starters Bryce Miller and Mason Miller in Oakland on Tuesday night before a rookie pitcher installment of 'Would You Rather'. Plus, they examine some of the biggest risers among starting pitchers from the first month of the season.  Rundown 0:35 Mason Miller v. Bryce Miller 6:11 Would You Rather? Rookie Pitchers Edition 14:21 Per-Pitch Stuff+ Question 19:09 Hayden Wesneski's Low K% 22:16 Will Smith Takes Over As Rangers Closer 29:29 Shifting Toward Rostering Non-Closer Relievers? 35:55 April Risers & Fallers: Hitters 46:34 Jack Suwinski's Rise to Shallow League Relevance 52:48 Brandon Lowe's Elevated K%, Power Returns 57:47 Any Concerns About J.D. Davis & Michael Conforto? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/rates and get on your way to being your best self. Head to factor75.com/rates40 and use code RATES40 to get 40% off your first box. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we take a look at some risers and fallers from the first month of the season among hitters. We had an outstanding matchup of rookie pitchers take place in Oakland on Wednesday night. We have a new closer in Texas. We got a couple mailbag questions we're going to try to get to as well. Eno, let's start with Mason Miller versus Bryce Miller. That was actually Bryce Miller's big league debut. We didn't actually talk about him on Project Prospect on Tuesday.

I think we talked about him last week on the 3-0 show as someone who might come up as a result of the season-ending injury for Robbie Ray. And by every account, Bryce Miller looked like he was ready to contribute to the Mariners rotation. Yes. And I think, you know, he was so impressive and the stuff numbers are so impressive. I mean, immediately up into past Mason Miller territory. Of course, there is usually a debut bump. We see it in Velo. We see it in Stuff Plus.

We've seen a lot of guys, even Shane McClanahan, debut at 125, 130 Stuff Plus and then settle in at high teens or something. Usually, though, once a guy debuts at a 132 Stuff Plus, you can say he has great stuff. And you can even say with Mason Miller, you saw he debuted at 130 plus, and now he's settling more into the low 120s. So you saw that kind of debut adrenaline bump with Mason Miller,

and then a little step back from it, but still excellent results, excellent strikeout rate, excellent stuff. Some questioned as to how far into games he will go and how many wins he will get because the Oakland A's still don't have a win from their starter and are

extending that Major League record. Bryce Miller doesn't have that problem. He has a great bullpen behind him i think he has as much runway as he can pitch his way into um and the big question just becomes why weren't his minor league numbers better if he had all this stuff it's a fair question i don't have an easy answer for you i would say that uh four games the big outlier because he did have great results in a ball and double a in 2022 those are pretty good

results in terms of strikeout rate he had a 30 strikeout rate across two levels uh and low three zra so like those were good results this year in four starts he gave up two and two and two and a third homers per nine and that probably is the noisiest stat in small samples that exists it's the kind of thing where he gave up a couple homers you know more than you'd expect and it skewed his whole line so you look at the projection systems, and they all say around a four ERA because he's going to give up a few too many home runs. But I would say Steph Plus says he's not going to do that.

So I'm going to take a high threes ERA with more than a strikeout per inning, less than a home run per game kind of approach to what he can do going forward. So with the impressive debut in this game, I believe was a no hitter for both pitchers going into the seventh inning. Miller on Miller violence. I mean, it was incredible.

And Mason Miller left with a no hitter. He hit 100 pitches. They took him out of the game. Richard Lovelady retired the first batter he faced before serving up a home run to A. He hit 100 pitches. They took him out of the game. Richard Lovelady retired the first batter he faced before serving up a home run to A.J. Pollock. I tweeted at the time when I saw Lovelady get the first out of the inning. Right at that first out, I just tweeted, can this terrible A's bullpen protect this lead? I think within seconds of me hitting send, Pollock made contact on the home run.

It was like, wow. You did it. I caused that one. I did it. So if you're wondering, so two nights ago on Monday night, the Yankees and Guardians were playing an extremely fast game. And Cespedes Barbecue was all over that. They were really excited about it. And a bunch of people I saw on Twitter were tuning into that game, trying to see if the game would end.

It was under two hours. It was what it was tracking for. Domingo Herman was close to a complete game. They made a pitching change that made it really close. The Guardian started to rally. And then of course it was out the window. So they ruined that, but I ruined the A's getting a win for their starting pitcher.

And for that, I'm very sorry, but you all know that I have Mason Miller on teams. I didn't do it to jinx Mason Miller. I didn't do it to jinx the A's. I didn't do it to spite John Fisher, even though I would have loved to. It was actually just an open question because we talked about how awful their bullpen was. Could they actually come through and have this sort of magical moment as a horrendous team? It turns out, no. And the amazing thing was they didn't have a better, awful reliever to turn to. That was their best choice

in that moment, Richard Lovelady. That was just a really frustrating situation to watch unfold. I think that's the thing that's going to work the most against Mason Miller. That bullpen's probably not going to get a lot better

over the course of the season. They could have a few of their spillover starters end up there and not be a 6-plus ERA unit all season long. But even if Mason Miller is going to throw 85 to 100 pitches every fifth day when he starts and actually get enough innings to be eligible for wins, it's the run support and bullpen problems that really don't seem like they're going to go away.

That's your limiting factor, more so than the way the A's have used him so far. That's true. I mean, he came out of one game in the fourth, but then they did let him go to the sixth in the next one. Am I right? 81, 86, and 100 pitches. If he's more efficient, he's fine. Yeah.

Is it worth trying to put these guys in context? I mean, so you got Masonason miller we got bryce miller we got louis varland pitching today uh we got taj bradley in the minors i guess he had a bad game i i mean i don't really track results in the same way so i don't know. Does he still have great stuff? Yes. So check that. Maybe there's some worry about the tiredness factor on a five-day schedule. I don't think so. So let's put these guys in the blender. Taj Bradley, Tanner Bybee, Logan Allen, Gavin Stone, Mason Miller Miller Bryce Miller It's a big would you rather

They're all rosterable to me in 12 team leagues Pick three Bybee is in the group for sure The hardest person for me to decide on in this group Is Tosh Bradley Is he back up if Josh Fleming's foot puts him on the IL Josh Fleming got hit by a comebacker He Is he back up if Josh Fleming's foot puts him on the IL? Josh Fleming got hit by a comebacker. He's back up even if

Josh Fleming... I mean, right now they're... Sorry. I don't know what language that was, but I understood it. I'd say he's back up either way because right now they're fudging two spots with Chirinos and Fleming.

They'd much rather have an actual pitcher in one of those. Bybee for sure. Sorry, that's really mean to those people. They're fine pitchers. Is Brandon Fott part of this too? Yeah, okay. Because he's coming up. You said Stone's part of this.

Varlin's part of this. I think I want Bybee and Fott as the first two and probably Bradley as the third because I am operating under the assumption that you and the, that wasn't the Swedish chef, but it was, it was something.

Yeah. Okay. I don't think they liked the Swedish chef in Sweden. Tosh Bradley, I think is my third because I'm fairly confident he's coming back up and I think he's a cut above the rest. And I think team context is one of the things that separates some of these pictures from each other. I think that's one of above the rest. And I think team context is one of the things that separates some of these pictures from each other.

I think that's one of the big difference makers is looking at who's going to win games and who's not. That might be because these are all very skilled, high quality pictures. Stone versus Bradley, I think is where I would be drawing the line for that last spot. I think Fott's up for good. And I think Bybee's up for good.

And this is just the part of this is the result of all the injuries we're having right now. But some of it's also like these guys are almost all ready to be in the big leagues anyway. I definitely have a different three. And the tough one for me is Bybee because we've now got a couple of starts, and I think people are ogling the gun a little bit um because that fastball is a 97 stuff plus and uh and yes it has good velo uh averaging 95 so far

but it has average shape almost exactly average shape so the the usefulness comes mostly from the velo we've seen other guys sort of debut and then see the velo sort of drop off and i don't see uh at least by stuff plus a a plus plus uh secondary pitch um where i do see that with logan allen um with uh with multiple secondary pitches. So despite the fastball being worse for Logan Allen, I'm going to go with Logan Allen as my third guy. Taj Bradley is my second guy. And this might be surprising. Maybe I'm too in too deep on this first start, but I'm going to go with Bryce Miller first.

And when you mentioned team context I just see there's a definite role there for him the other guy that came up and went back down and might even be hurt already yes he's hurt already the other guy that just had a start for them a spot start for the

Mariners you're talking about Easton mcgee yeah he did not have good stuff numbers and i believe he's hurt so uh unless they're going to bring up emerson hancock like they need bryce miller bryce miller has really good scouting numbers um and uh really good stuff plus numbers it goes hand in hand the team context is there the stuff numbers are there the scouting numbers are there so that one's my lock for number one bradley is um the the model likes him the scouts like him and i do believe he's gonna be up that's what makes him hard to rank um if we wanted to just focus on ones in the big leagues and give me an out, then I would go Bryce Miller, Logan Allen, Tanner Bivey, probably.

It's a two from the Guardians. Yeah, I think they need it. You know, Cal Quantrill's not pitching that well. Zach Pleszak's not pitching that well. So even if Savali gets healthy, I think that they can go in different directions in that rotation. The only people that that from a veteran

standpoint that i would immediately just award a roster a rotation spot to are shane beaver and aaron savali actually um when i'm talking about the veterans right well the healthy ones tristan mckenzie has a spot once he's healthy right okay so yeah yeah right so when they're all healthy tristan so i'm awarding the veterans three spots. That leaves two spots that you could fill with Plesak and Quantrill. I, me personally, wouldn't. And there could be one spot

because maybe you say Quantrill, 93 stuff plus, the history of doing well with that cutter and finding his way through games. Plesak does not get any of that rope from me. So there's at least one spot when everybody's healthy. And I don't think that there's going to be a time when all four veterans are healthy. You've definitely seen enough of Zach Plesak for the Cleveland Guardians

when you have all these other higher ceiling young starters turn to them. Challenging and fun would you rather though? Because I think you could argue a lot of different combinations of three as your preferred choice. Violin's going to get a month. I think we don't know what happens when, when Tyler Malley comes back. So also his,

his stuff plus numbers in the minors uh were good fastball good slider and then everything else sort of average below average so is he a two pitch fastball slider guy that's going to have some issues against lefties or not uh those are the questions you know uh that go beyond kind of just an overall stuff plus number the kind of stuff we've been talking about here in terms of kind of looking at the arsenal a little bit deeper than just the overall number who else was on the list at mason miller i just i think it might be 75 innings i mean if they got 75 innings out and they might shut him down i mean you know it's just he's he put a big zero up before if you if you do that to mason Mason Miller from a workload perspective, I think you're setting yourself up for multiple years of a non-starter workload.

I think you have to push him more. And we talked about what he did back in college. I think they can use that as their starting point. I think it can be closer to 100 or 110 innings for Mason Miller. And then next year, you're looking at maybe like a 140, 150 range. And then the year after that, he's like every other starter i think that's we ignoring somebody in that group that we we talked about stone we haven't seen stone yet stone my big comp is still tony gonsolin that's the one i figured out i pretty much because the the fastball stuff plus numbers aren't great tony gonsolin's fastball numbers aren't great gonsolin has a great splitter.

Stone has a great splitter. They both have averages, above-average sliders. I think Gonsolin is the comp there. Gonsolin's been up and down. I don't think Stone is necessarily going to hit the ground running and dominate. We had a per- per pitch stuff question that came in from mike kind of fits into this conversation mike's curious if the per pitch stuff plus on fan graphs is normalized by pitch type or by overall stuff plus numbers hopefully this question makes sense but basically if i look at a guy that has a 120 stuff plus slider

is that an average slider or a 20 better better than average slider? I thought about this when looking at Hayden Wisniewski, and I decided to drop him my 16-team lead because I thought he just lost minors eligibility. Does his fastball stuff plus suck? And his heat map is all down the middle despite having secondary. So there's a Wisniewski question there too, but just from a per pitch number. Is it indexed the way, say, WRC Plus is

where 120 does in fact mean 20% better than league average? On the single pitch level, 10 points is one standard deviation. I believe that's correct, on the single pitch level. But once you aggregate even up to a single pitcher's pitch type, it starts to lose that. And you can't really say 20% better than league average. I think it's more useful to kind of put them on a leaderboard and kind of compare them to like.

So I'm going to put all starters on here with 10 innings and put new sliders among starters. And there we go. Hayden Wozniacki has the 23rd best slider among starting pitchers. He's got that sweeper, and it's right there. It's kind of funny. Schmidt, Tyon, and Wesnenski right there in a row with very similar sweepers. And that's behind the power sliders of like a Reed Detmers,

who's got the 19th best one. John Gray throws both kinds, but he's up there at 16th. George Kirby throws a sweeper right now, and he's at 11th. Brad Keller throws a sweeper. He's at 10th. Shohei Otani's sweeper is at 7th. Mitch Keller's sweeper is 5th and Jake DeGrom's power slider is number 1

and that's a 178 stuff plus so you know maybe we could have done a better job of that there are different scalings with different stuff plus metrics and it is

annoying and you can't quite say it's 20 better than the average um but when you put it on leaderboard you can get some good context out of it so hayden wisniewski does have a top 25 slider and then uh a an above average cutter and then his forcing fastball is poor awful it. It's really bad. And, uh, his sinker is good. So you can see that against righties,

uh, you know, a decent sinker and a plus sweeper. Uh, he's pretty good against righties against lefties. He's got an average cutter and a poor forcing and a poor changeup. So he's in a little bit of a boat like Clark Schmidt. If you're wondering why Clark Schmidt's overall stuff plus numbers are great

and his results are bad, is that Clark Schmidt is throwing his sweeper and his sinker to lefties, and he needs to stop doing that. And his foreseam fastball actually grades out better than his cutter, and he's been falling in love with his cutter. So I do think a pitch mix change over time could help clark schmidt i'm not sure what to do with wesnenski um it's an uneven package across the board and someone like tyon is better because tyon's foreseam is better

and tyon has a curveball which hayden wesenski doesn't have so there's a you know there's you can look at two guys that have similar stuff plus in numbers and there is a difference between them and in terms of saying something is 10% better than league average or whatever I'm sorry that it doesn't work out better that way but if But if you want to look at overall Stuff Plus, basically 100 to 110 is really good. 110 plus is like near elite and anything over 115 is elite. is elite. Because you're talking about when you're at 120 stuff plus, like Eric Cole,

you're two standard deviations above the mean there. As the league continues to lose pitchers to injury, and we have all these waiver wire guys coming in, some of them are interesting rookies, some of them are more organizational guys that are going to get hit around a little bit too.

Having that separation continues to have a lot of value. Surprising thing with Wisniewski for me is just how low his strikeout rate is right now. 13.8%. Very, very low. Last year in that debut, he was sitting at 25%. Projections push him a little closer to the high teens for the rest of the season. I don't know if the big breakout we were hoping for from Wisniewski is coming this year.

It might take another round of adjustments, perhaps in an offseason, for him to find something else that works, because that four-seamer is just a problem, to put it very nicely. I think if you are judicious about when you use him, you can still use him some. I would have used him pretty easily at washington i think and he had a good start um i would have used him at oakland and he had a good start uh i would have avoided cincinnati uh and uh he had a bad start uh you know would i have used him against against Seattle when he was absolutely horrible?

I might have caught some flack there. Yeah, home at Wrigley. Home against Seattle. Yeah, that was probably a play. That early in the season, that was probably a play. I would not have played him. After that blow up, I would not have played him against LA. And I'm not sure about San Diego.

San Diego was in the midst of a slump, and that was pre-Tatis, I think. The 27th? That was right-Tatis, I think. The 27th? That was right around the time he was coming back, so I think he was back for that. In any case, it's not an offense that's super scary. Yeah.

It hasn't been so far. It might get there, but yeah, Hayden Wisniewski, a bit of a disappointment so far. Do you have an idea of where he's going from here? He pitched on the second. Next few starts. Or Hayden Wesneski. I wish I had all the schedules memorized. That'd be great.

So it looks like he's got Miami at home. That's a go. At Minnesota next week. That's the real question, right? Because there might be some leagues where Wesneski popped up on the wire. Oh, is it a double tap? No, Marlins is this week. So it's a two-start week this week that people maybe would have picked him up for if he was dropped.

But would you hold him and use him at Minnesota? I probably wouldn't. But then see what guys do after that. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. At Phillies, no. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Mets at home? I think you drop him and maybe try to get him back by May 25th.

16-team league, maybe a little more borderline, but I don't think he's a must-hold in those leagues. If you found someone more interesting to pick up like Mike did, I think you probably made the right choice, especially if it was in a prospect spot because we're talking about so many higher-ceiling guys coming up and getting opportunities this year. He's generally someone...

He does point out a fact, which is that someone's overall stuff plus can be pushed by one elite pitch and there are concerns about how a thing fits together uh because if you look at say strowman strowman has the same stuff plus but he has um a better cutter uh and um a better curveball so if he's facing lefties, he has more of something he can do against lefties. Yeah, that's a really good point.

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Let's move on to a new closer in Texas. And thank you for that question, by the way, Mike. Will Smith is taking over that role, which is a little bit of a surprise. Will Smith is just not quite the guy he was a few years ago when he was basically a top 10 closer when he had a hold on that role with other clubs. I see a guy that's sort of just like a good-ish reliever, but like a 7th inning guy that's a little bit overmatched as a team's air quotes, best reliever. Getting good results though so far, and the K rate's back up from where it was last year. Will Smith last season had the K rate dip below 25%. He's back up closer to 30% so far, and the K rate's back up from where it was last year. Will Smith last season had the K rate dip below 25%. He's back

up closer to 30% so far this year, and so far he's kept the ball in the yard, but if you look at the home run to fly ball rate, that may just be some good luck cooked in there right now. What are the odds that Will Smith keeps the job, and then who do you like as the next option up if the Rangers

are forced to make another change in the coming weeks? K-BB is pretty good on him. So that's as the next option up if the Rangers are forced to make another change in the coming weeks. I don't... I mean, K-BB is pretty good on him. So that's a piece of context. But we're still in the area where Stuff Plus beats K-BB. And he has a 79 Stuff Plus on the fastball. I think that's going to burn him eventually.

80% of the balls he allows contact on are in the air. That's not going to work. I don't think so. Especially with the bad fastball. Some of those are just going to turn into homers. And homers, I think, are the easiest way. Homers and walks are obviously the way you lose your job. But homers are, I think, easier because lose your job but homers are i think easier

because it's like oh well we lost the game like walks you have to string a few together so i don't think he's one of the better league i would put him in the bottom it's interesting he is a closer and there are situations where we don't even know who the closer is so he's not like ranked 25th 25th through 30th right like those are the situations where we're like like i don't even know right what are those situations where are some some closers situations we just don't even know who the closer is like oakland i guess finnegan oakland yeah we feel like oakland like what is the closer in oakland uh they'll have to win one to figure it out we get some committees i mean the angels look like Yeah, we feel like Oakland. Who's the closer in Oakland?

They'll have to win one to figure it out. We get some committees. I mean, the Angels look like a committee that sort of tilts to Estevez, but when healthy, Quijada's been a part of that. So that makes them kind of closer to the bottom, I think. Iglesias is coming back, so Atlanta's solid. Cubs are in turnover right now. It's Boxberger for now.

But I think Will Smith is in the Brad Boxberger bucket for me. It's like 26th through 28th closers. Maybe like 20 to 25. Because I think you'd find five situations that are overall worse than. All right. So like Finnegan and the Nationals. Let's do it. Let's do it.

So Finnegan and the Nationals are worse. Lang and the Tigers. Yep. That's worse. Whoever and the Nationals. Let's do it. Let's do it. So Finnegan and the Nationals are worse. Lang and the Tigers. Yep, that's worse. Whoever and the A's. So we got three. I have Estevez over Smith. So I'm putting Smith in my bottom five. Fair enough. Because I think we're running

out of bad situations. It's Clay Holmes. I know you didn't like him coming into the season. I wasn't really out of bad situations. It's Clay Holmes. I know you didn't like him coming into the season. I wasn't really as worried about him. It's been a bumpy start for him to this point. He got a vote of confidence from Aaron Boone. So we'll see, see how far that carries him.

But Clay Holmes is not looking like the guy we saw a year ago. Michael King is a good pickup. I tried to sneak him by in labor and Ian Khan got me last week. Michael King is a good pickup. If you're sneak him by in labor and Ian Conn got me last week. Michael King is a good pickup if you're looking. I would say in Texas, Jonathan Hernandez is the guy to pick up if you're looking. He's the guy who has six holds, so he's right

behind Will Smith. He throws really hard. He has a 108 stuff plus. His sinker is a 102. He's a sinker, slider, righty. Maybe he has some issues against lefties. Maybe Will Smith comes and poaches a save or two from him against the lefty. But he takes the boxes of a normal closer. Like, does he throw hard?

Does he strike people out? Does he have good stuff? Yes, yes, yes. Will Smith, does he throw hard? No. Does he have good stuff? No. He's striking people out for now. I don't know if I see a ceiling for Will Smith that's higher than what we described.

I don't know if he could go on a run like this for more than a few weeks before it all falls apart. I think the Rangers are one of those teams that care. That Mark Melanson season where we're all like, no, he can't. It's not going to work. I guess that's always possible. Michael King is really interesting. They use him for more than three outs at a time on a pretty regular basis,

so they just like the versatility, at least the way they've been using him. But at least when he pitches, it's close games. Clark Schmidt could take that Michael King role, honestly. If there's some upheaval in the rotation, if Rodon ever figures it out or whatever they decide to do in the rotation, Clark Schmidt could take that.

I also don't think that after the issues that Michael King had in terms of injury that you can do multi-inning all year. I mean, look at him, 63, 51 innings in 34 games. The way they're using him, I don't think, is necessarily good for his health. Yeah, that's a potential downside. He's been great, though, so far. Yeah.

20Ks. He's just good to pick up, even if you just want to keep your ratios down and gobble an occasional save and some wins. Do you think, with the league run environment being what it is that these non-closer multi-inning relievers especially become more viable to roster yeah i i do think so if you think about like what's on your wire in a 15 team league in terms of pitching and the league average era being 4-3 we've already talked about about with my co-manager on my main event team

that this week we put in Jason Adam. And we did it over Ross Stripling, so we maybe made the wrong move because Ross Stripling was a two-starter, and we just didn't like that away start in Houston. Then he pitched well there. Watch him give a bunch of runs to Milwaukee in the second start at home but you know we were comparing that to JP Sears and then some other waiver wire starters and we moved up the relievers and ended up going with Jason Adam over Ross Stripling because we thought if we're going to get a five.5 ERA from Stripling this week

we would rather get fewer innings of a 1 ERA from Jason Adam. Well, I think that paid off. You already got a save from Jason Adam early in the week. We can move a lot with some saves. That was part of the equation too.

I think Adam is close to King where it's like you don't think he's the closer but you might get some saves and he's gonna have good numbers otherwise you know yeah i wonder if that's gonna end up being a winning strategy though where a lot of teams that were previously planning on going seven starters two relievers used six starters and three relievers and did better because they won in ratios you know they they did fine i don't know and if wins are harder to come by because young starters are pitching and they're not getting as deep into games there's a lot of ways that the the shift can actually happen and i think that could be something that we're on track for based on the way things have

gone so far and weekly leagues just having one on your roster if there's injuries to rest your squad or you lose like let's say you're running out of free agents auctions auction money like it's kind of good to have one guy there you're like oh man it all came down and uh i either have to start like joe musgrove in colorado or you know michael king and you're just like um phew thanks i gotta have michael king you know what I mean do you have any other players like this that sort of just jump off the page in the model I know a lot of people are looking at uh Yenir Cano in Baltimore we have multiple questions about him and his model numbers but it's the guys that are not closing but they're in good situations

as far as teams that win and they're just just pitching really, really well. Cano fits that description, but doesn't pop in the model right now. Well, I do have some news about that. I checked with my modeler about that situation, and it's a unique pitch. So it's a little bit like Alexis Diaz, where if you are truly a unique pitch, Alexis Diaz, where if you are truly a unique pitch,

then the model doesn't know what to compare you to. You know what I mean? He doesn't have a sidearm release, but he gets extreme movement. Let me see if I can catch this real quick on a... I don't want qualified. Let's see here. Sinker Z. Let's see. Oh, I hate this because if you do it by bottom, you have to go find it. It shows you all the people who don't have sinkers first. Thank you for

that. Where are the people with actual sinkers that drop a lot? I would like those guys oh yeah yeah i'm page seven thank you uh oh here we go sinker z jimmy herget is up there janir cano oh i love it that sinker z who has more sinker z adam simber side armor tyler rogers side armor ryan thompson side armor tim hill side armor alexis claudio side armor yanir cano has the most sink out of any more over the top release point and so there's just no other pitch to compare it to in the model is doing basically high level comps, you know, it's like looking for other pitches that move like this and how they did. So there's nothing to compare it

to. That's the problem. I would say that cano probably has elite stuff. Kind of looks like it when you watch it. Yeah, if you look at it, you know, yeah. So that's's that's a miss for the the model but it's it's it's something that once we retrain it that's why we do retrain it every year at the you know once we get a month or two of information we retrain it on that new information because you have to you have to capture these new people uh that have unique stuff but uh i think an easy way to kind of capture some of these guys that would be good to pick up

are just go over to Fangraphs, arrange the relievers by stuff. And then I have in my secret sauce pitches, just so you have an idea of how many pitches are going into that stuff plus number. And then holds. And holds, I think, are just a good idea of like, you know, where's that guy being used and so

griffin jacks is again it has six holds that's a guy that they use uh to get a bunch of outs with his elite slider uh and he's number four and overall stuff plus because of one elite pitch but it it works for him uh another guy that's near the top is Brian Abreu. He may even step in for Ryan Presley if Ryan Presley gets hurt. Another guy with a lot of holds and a lot of stuff plus is Brian Baker. He's got six holds and he's 12th in stuff plus. So it's really easy when you start picking him off this way. I know Steven Wilson's overall numbers aren't great, but he's got six holds the overall numbers are starting to normalize and uh and he's uh he's he's 18th and stuff plus jason adams on this list caleb theobar is a bit of an interesting name on this list um craig kimbrell is still on this list so that's all those are the

top 30 guys in stuff plus that also have more than four holds. Yeah, I was looking to see, too, what Carlos Hernandez has been up to. I see him popping in the model, 480 ERA, 147 whip. That guy should be so much better. The game log. The game log. It's a blow-up, I believe. One meltdown.

Yep, one meltdown. It really is. If he took the one, he didn't One meltdown, yep. It's one meltdown. It really is. If he took the one, he didn't get any outs, and he gave up five runs. If he took that out, his whole season, he's given up three runs. So I think he's the kind of guy where he's going to keep getting closer and closer

to the end of the game. He's going to get more holds and maybe steal some saves because Chapman is still a lefty, still wild, and isn't their main closer, isn't Scott Barlow a lefty? Barlow's a righty. Barlow's a righty, okay. So at least second righty in that pen. And then Scott Barlow, I think, is probably on the softer end of closing situations. Yeah, he's had two outings like that one where he's given up combined six earned runs in two outings and I think one earned run across every other outing. So he's sort of in the wobbly vending machine spot where one more wobble and it falls over.

Yeah. And honestly, of course, they could go to Chapman. They could go to Chapman. Your friend had a vending machine fall on him once. I'm remembering. We've used that analogy before. Sorry, Jason Chan. His leg's okay by now, probably. We haven't even gotten to the hitters, man. We're going to get there. It's fine. It's fine.

Here's what we did. Here's the methodology for the hitters. I took a look at the Bad X from the full season, like opening day, and I compared it to what I ran yesterday on May 2nd. And I was looking for the players who moved up the most in WRC plus and the guys that moved down the most. And it's interesting because projections do change pretty fast. If the season never stopped, it would be like harder to to make decisions i feel like i think we make we make more confident decisions because everything stops and we can assess everything a little more in detail take our time think through it and then we go back at it again

but they're always changing the league as a whole because of the run environment projections for hitters are just generally better. There are some players who have been projected for a worse WRC Plus for the rest of the season than when the season began. It's a pretty small group, though, of guys that are actually negative. I think there are 588 players in this list, and number 555 on the list is the first one with actually a full negative drop, a one point or more drop in WRC+. So most players stayed the same or got better. So now it's more of like, well, who improved the most?

Because that's what you're looking for, for meaningful changes. Who are the projection systems, or at least which players are the Bat-X buying into the most? Jake Berger is the biggest mover by WRC+. He started the year with an even 100 WRC+. He's now projected for a 121 the rest of the way. So you've got Berger up top. Giancarlo Stanton, who's hurt right now, plus 20. Rowdy Tellez is a plus 19.

Nolan Gorman, who's been fantastic so far, a plus 18. Goes from a 97 to a 114. Clearly a much more interesting player today than he was when the season started based on those results. You've got also, I think, a class of players which are just like kind of aging veterans that showed you enough batted ball oomph to kind of readjust the aging. You know what I mean? Because you're going to, like, year to year, you're going to be like, oh, Paul Goldschmidt is old. Oh, wait, he's still hitting the ball hard.

Okay, let's readjust. So Mike Trout, Paul Goldschmidt, I think Max Muncy, they count as veterans. Anthony Rizzo, they count as veterans that the sort of batted ball data has been like, okay, whatever the aging curve said before, let's readjust that because he's still hitting the ball hard. Yeah. So there's some pretty interesting names mixed in here that are not top end players or not

prospects who've gotten better. Hunter Renfro was kind of a surprising name to me, just someone that I thought was very oatmeal-y. But to see him almost near the top of this list in terms of his improvements, showing a ton of power, again, not a surprise. Clearly has a strong hold on an everyday role. Most of that lineup is actually pretty healthy right now. Unfortunately, Logan Ohapi, who was high on this list, is down with that shoulder surgery,

but this is a group that gives him a chance to put up some pretty big counting stats too. So I think I mentioned Renfro as a possible cheap power play about a week or so ago, someone you could go trade for. I just don't think people value him that much and they probably should. And this shift sort of supports that. Yeah, he's not my favorite kind of player,

but he also is the kind of player that has kind of whittled away at the kind of flaws that i saw i you know sometimes you you you sort a guy and i sorted him i think as a 30 k rate like six percent walk rate guy at some point and uh and then you don't necessarily always check your priors you know and it's it's really interesting to see that in the last three years he's more of a 21 strikeout rate eight percent walk rate guy which is like kind of completely different you know and he's improved his swinging strike rate while maintaining these really plus batted ball numbers i kind of saw him as like um poor man's chris davis with a c you know?

But even Chris Davis, when he was a feared slugger, had higher walk rates because people were just afraid of him as a slugger. So I'm not sure that Hunter Renfro is going to age really that well, and I think that's part of why he signs these one-year deals and gets traded around. I think people see this as a package that might not age that well he'll go back to being kind of a five five and six and 30 guy uh but at the same time right now you're talking about what is he doing right now what age is he right now he's 31 and he's hitting the ball really hard again

um and he's making more contact than he's ever made so uh seems like this is the time to buy on a short-term basis for sure. Yeah, and I think don't buy, I guess. And I think it kind of fits into what we talked about on Project Prospect, too. There are certain types of players that in Keeper and Dynasty Leagues, people don't value that much. The reasons you just outlined are the reasons why Hunter Renfro tends to be overlooked in those formats.

You might be able to go trade for him and actually hold on to him longer than you think. I mean, we're going back to 2021 now to see a player who's been at least 13 better than league average each of these last three seasons and he's lowered his k rate again this year maintaining a good enough walk rate very early in his career didn't walk enough last five years he's walked as much as you need a player to walk probably kind of in that sweet spot where takes advantage of the opportunities he's not too patient if such a thing really does in fact exist. Quality of contact also

pretty consistently good there as well. Up to a 48.3% hard hit rate. A little surprised to see the barrel rate down for Hunter Renfro, but good things across the board here. Two guys that are relatively new to the redraft pool for this year, Nelson Velasquez and Kerry Carpenter.

The Tigers rebuild situation leaves the door wide open for a guy like Carpenter to play more. The Cubs, being a little better than expected out of the gates, I think have tougher decisions to make. I don't know why they're still playing Eric Hosmer instead of Matt Murphys. I can't explain that one. But Nelson Velasquez is the type of player, it's a little bit like the Christopher Murrell profile for me, where, yeah, there are some things that I'd like to see improvement on, but the things he does well, the quality of contact he's capable of making,

does put him on the radar for me as someone that should matter at least in 15-team leagues, if not eventually in 12s. Yeah, what are these centerfield starts? Was Bellinger, oh, that was paternity leave for Belling these center field starts? Was Bellinger... Oh, that was paternity leave for Bellinger, maybe? Yes. Bellinger had paternity leave. But he stayed up after that.

And now he's DHing and left fielding. So if we're looking at the Cubs depth charts, he's threatening Trey Mancini and Eric Hosmer's playing time right he could also just play Hosmer not at all cut Hosmer play Mancini at first base and then use Velasquez in the corner

as a fourth outfielder slash DH yeah the big thing for Velasquez that I think is changing his projections is that he's making a lot more contact and i guess he's doing it in a way that is uh is shaping the projections but i don't know if that's necessarily true either maybe it's the max ev because he's making more contact on a per pitch basis in terms of swing strike rate his strikeout rate is

down low but if you look at his projections you did the bad x it's still for a 32 strikeout rate so let me see you can actually do you can show preseason projections same right next to uh so the biggest movement has actually been his power and i don't know if that's a league-wide thing because the drag on the ball is different this year it seems like there's some evidence the ball is different again this year. Or it's because he once again hit the ball really hard and has been barreling balls. And that that's moved the Bad X power projection up.

The median across this group for increase for slugging percentage is 17 points in slugging. Nelson Velasquez has a 44 point increase. 44, there you go. So there's a pretty healthy jump. It's still a fringy, almost league average, slightly below league average outcome

because with swing and miss, he projects for a low average and limited OBP. I think it's just a question of how much can he improve. The K rate at AAA last year was 36.2%. The brief time he was there this year, only 14 games, he didn't prove it, 29%. So maybe we could see a 30% to 33% K rate at the big league level, and that's enough because he hits the ball really hard. 14.5% barrel rate through his first 86 big league games,

that's right in that range where the swing and miss and the quality of the contact are at a level that a team will accept if other things fall into place. If the defense is good, if they see other tools they like, a guy like this keeps playing. Kerry Carpenter is a guy that I have poo-pooed in the past. I just didn't really want to believe in part because of his age. He's already 25 years old. We dropped him in the first week in Maine. Well, did you make a mistake?

Are the projections making you feel bad about that? The hard hit rate is up for the season, and he is chasing pitches outside the zone less than he did a year ago in a similarly sized sample, albeit this is still less playing time than he had last season for the Tigers. We don't know what his true talent, balls and play numbers are going to look like those are

that's actually kind of a a difficult thing when you look at two guys that have a 29 strikeout rate and hit the ball hard um i think it's kind of difficult to know exactly which one's going to have like a 240 batting average and which one's going to have like a 220 batting or 210 you know what i mean a lot of that comes just from luck on balls and play and sometimes it's just luck or sometimes it's like oh he hits the ball hard in line drive angles unfortunately hitting the ball hard in line drive angles is not something that's like super sticky you know um so right now he's a 250 babbitt last year he had a 303 babbitt he could stick.250 all year and just be a.220 hitter with 20, 25 homers, in which case he seems a little bit replaceable.

He's not stealing bags, not going to help you in batting average. But if he gets it back up to – in the minors he had some levels with a.330 Babbitt. If he had a.330 330 babbit from here on out, he'd be like a 260 hitter with 25 homers. Then suddenly he's above average or at least above replacement in most leagues. One of the more interesting players that's moved up, and I think people have already picked him up in a lot of leagues,

is Jack Sawinski. I put it to Al this way on Friday. I said, is Jack Sawinsky a shallow league player now? Is he someone that in a 10-team league has a spot? I mean, based on the slash line, it's a clear yes. There's power. There's a little bit of speed. He seems like a big part of this step forward for the Pirates this year.

He's also chasing fewer pitches outside the zone, making more hard contact, and hitting the ball in the air more often. So doing a lot of good things all at once here through 23 games. There is a mechanical change here. I just talked to one of the sitting coaches yesterday, actually, about a change he's made in terms of how his front foot lands. And he's landing's he has an open stance like kyle schwarber uh but he used to land open and i used to have him sort of pulling off of the outside corner and um i think that uh you know part of this improvement has been he's landing closed and he's emulating kyle schwarber a little bit i think kyle schwarber is just a fascinating guy to compare him to because you're talking about another guy who doesn't have great batting averages but does have great power and has

closed up holes in the past. What you're seeing from Jack Sawinski is a really steady improvement on his K rate from last year. Really up and down around 25% as opposed to 30% if you look at his day-by-day graphs. So I think it's possible we're in the middle of a breakout. He's 24 years old. If he strikes out 25% going forward, he's going to be a guy who uh ends the season i think with uh 25 to 30 homers and uh i don't know 15 steals that's a pretty big time player i mean he he's he has to be owned everywhere easy top 100 guy then with those numbers that's like more a top 50 player yeah i think this could

be a breakout i mean you know i think that the the feeling around him you know from uh you know just people who were watching him was this is a guy who was super toolsy you know and if he could improve any his contact ability at any bit he was going to stick because he's one of these guys who runs fast throws the the ball hard, hits the ball hard. He's an athlete. And so you see this step forward and walk rate and this step forward and strikeout rate and step forward and contact rate and step forward and chase rate. You're like, oh, this could be it. Now, he could go back in the tank and hit 200 from here on out.

He'd still end the season with 230 and 25 and 10. Yeah, and that would have played in a lot of leagues. from here on out, he'd still end the season with 230 and 25 and 10. That would have played in a lot of leagues. There is some risk that the batting average is worse going forward, but I would point out that the batting average projections here range from 230 basically to 245. Worst case

scenario, you're getting a 230 hitter with a lot of power and speed. He definitely should be owned everywhere. I wanted to ask you about J.J. Blede because we know with the A's opportunity should be there. Maybe it's at the expense of someone that we liked a bit this offseason, Connor Capel. Blede is putting together

a really nice run at AAA. Capel's interesting. He's playing fine. He's just boring. Yeah. It's like, well, how long do you stick with that? He's 99 WRC plus you know strikes out a little bit too much for his skill set no power but runs okay like defense is all right you know it's pretty boring i wonder and then what's on the other side uh on the other side of

ruse is ramon loriano who could get traded um and uh and then you got brent roer who's factoring in a DH in the outfield who I think could be a little bit of a breakout. I'm surprised we haven't seen him move a little bit here. But with Capel, there's an opportunity for Bleda. And I think the big thing that's moving this projection change is just the best strikeout rate of Bleda's career ever. Yeah.

It's by far. I mean, it's by a lot it was it's strange to me is that he he was supposed to be a very polished college player coming out of that draft and marlins took him fourth overall i think most people thought he was going to move quickly and contribute the debut last year was was rough from a surface number standpoint 167 277 309 he wasn't chasing pitches outside the zone. It was only 27.8% O swing. Nothing wrong with that.

8.6% barrel rate. Not bad. A ton of fly balls, a ton of fly balls, 23.7% ground ball rate. I was surprised. We talked about it at the time when they put them in center field, but you know,

you're rebuilding, I guess you try to do things to make players more valuable. I would almost want to know with Blede, how much of it is just being completely healthy, and then how much of it is being in this environment in Las Vegas, and the PCL where the ball tends to fly pretty much everywhere. Yeah, and that affects pitch movement, right? So maybe the breakers just aren't as nasty a thing either. But Miami's AAA affiliates also PCL.

And he struck out 27% of the time in the away from Miami. Yeah, so it's level improvement in a place where he played recently. So the other part of it is that he changed his swing. Is there an adjustment similar to what Swinsky made

that J.J. Bledeus made? And a lot of people haven't had a chance to get eyes on it yet because it's happening in AAA. Yeah. It's interesting that it's moved and a lot of people haven't had a chance to get eyes on it yet because it's happening in AAA. Yeah. It's interesting it's moved the projection so much. And now the Bad X projects a 25% strikeout rate.

This all plays a lot better at 25%. The OBP starts climbing over 300. And then the power starts to shine through. Nolan Jones, because of what he's doing at AAA has improved his projection. We've talked about it before, just blocked by the Rockies right now. The, the addition of jerks and profile hurt Nolan Jones a lot,

and there's no real, no real end in sight for them to change, change their plans with profile. So I think it's just more of a wait and wait and wait situation for Nolan Jones. But once he gets the call, I think I'm going to be interested in him from a fab perspective. At the other end of the list, I think the most surprising name near the bottom is Brandon Lau. He actually has dropped five points in WRC Plus since the start of the season.

It's not like he's dropped enough to where I'm worried about him. I was trying to say, why? Why would he be projected lighter than he is right now? Oh, it's a strikeout rate surge. K's up, yep. 30.1%, and if he continues to do this, and the

barrel rate doesn't stay at the upper end of his range. Which is, it's the highest it's ever been. I mean, it's obviously a small sample, but... If that kind of comes down and the K rate doesn't come back down with it, then you've got a much more challenging player to throw out there as often as the Rays play him.

But the power looks like it's still completely intact for Lau coming off the injury, which for me was a big deal, since he was very hurt last year. Only played 65 games. We didn't know if we were going to get the same guy from a power perspective. I wonder if it would look like if you took his rookie year

or 2019. But 2019 had the rabbit ball, so it's kind of hard to compare that. If you took his rookie year and made it a full season, you would get a 233 average with 22 homers and 8 steals. 22 homers and eight steals 24 homers and eight steals yeah it's not

that far off that and for what it's worth the bat x and the bat are lighter on lao's rest of season projections than the other systems too so just a little little inkling i think um you know it's possible this would be a good time to sell him if you were a seller yeah i keep really just moving to someone that's looking for the power and just move on i mean i don't think his strikeout rate is going to get significantly better with like a 17 swinging strike rate i think this is more likely that it's the beginning of the strikeout rate getting worse. Well, and I think what it could be, if the Rays end up moving on from Lau at some point this year,

it could open up the door for Curtis Mead or somebody else in that organization to get a lot of playing time, which I think is, that's the thing I'm keeping the eye on it for. The replacement might be even more interesting than Lau himself. Yeah. The other guys at the bottom uh there's some that i i do understand um you know alec thomas and

stephen kwan as much as i i still like alec thomas uh obviously he is uh not um he's striking out more than he did last year. And the barrel rate is probably not enough to move it higher. In fact, the Bad X, even though a 9% barrel rate and a 110 max EV, the Bad X is the lightest on his power. That one doesn't make sense to me. I think the underlying numbers for Thomas have all improved enough where I'll take that little uptick in Ks. He's walking more. He's swinging at fewer pitches outside the zone. He's more than doubled the barrel rate from last year. He kind of player that in the long-term league, if I'm playing for the future, he's one of the guys I'm trying to get back

as kind of a second or third piece in a trade because the surface numbers don't look good. Whoever has him right now might even be playing him and you could get a lot more from him going forward than he's provided to this point. Yeah, the one that I think makes the most sense to me is Stephen Kwan because he has zero barrels

on the year uh and his max ev has gone down three uh and is now one of the poorest in the big leagues um and already was poor uh so you know to me it's like okay this is more like a zero power profile now and the bad X has the smallest ISO, and it starts with a zero in terms of projected ISO. And that is eventually going to affect your batting average. So the Bad X is one of the lower end on the batting average too. So it's saying 278 for Stephen Kwan with three homers and 17 steals. It's a really weird line. It's a guy who's going to

finish the season at like 273 with three homers and 25 steals. It's still going to be above zero in terms of fantasy value, but he may affect your power more than you expect it. Yeah, I'm fortunate I did not take Stephen Kwan anywhere. I just didn't see enough at price to justify it, even though I think he's a fun, real-life player. So far, so good for the first month. Kind of helps me that he's going the wrong direction, even though I'm not actually rooting against him.

He's just not everybody else's team. Then you've got the weird thing where I really like J.D. Davis. He has really improved his defense. I had a fascinating conversation with him about how he's changed the way he sort of hops into the play as a defender. He's one of the bigger defensive turnarounds in baseball. He looks like an everyday third baseman. David Villar has played himself out of it, so you've got a role there.

Davis has always hit the ball hard fascinatingly he has improved his strikeout rate by reducing his barrel rate has one of his worst barrel rates um somehow from talking to him the way that he talks about it is sometimes you just say i'm gonna he said just literally to me the other day sometimes i just i'm gonna touch this ball because i know I can hit the ball hard. So let me sort of focus on contact. Right. And maybe that hasn't served him that well. And maybe that's something he can change pretty easily where he's like, okay, uh, let me, let me muscle some balls out of here either way. I mean, the fact that he's got what the best strikeout rate in last three years, still has a decent barrel rate, has a good max EV, and six homers and a 291 average, and seems like he's playing every day. I think he needs to be owned in every league.

Yeah, I think it's interesting. Surface numbers look good, so I think more likely than not, J.D. Davis hasn't been dropped or anything. So playing time looks more secure with that improved defense. The knock on him was that he was really a DH previously. If he's going to play good defense at third base, you're exactly right. They can make him an everyday guy. And then Michael Conforto, who I think you could almost immediately say, if there's anything wrong, it could just be knocking off the rust.

The barrel rate's back to where it was when he was good. Worst strikeout rate, you know. Yeah, so he's flailing away a little bit, but still hitting the ball really hard, which is a sign to me that he's physically feeling pretty good after the long layoff, and it's just a matter of maybe getting the timing all the way back. Also,

aging is a factor. He's 30, so being a couple years older, the K rate was going to jump up anyway, but I'd be very surprised if we got to the end of the season and this K rate's still above 30 i would say that was a pretty surprising outcome i think it's more about 25 27 agree with you let me see if i can see preseason projections for the bad x uh 163 iso 170 iso now 21 strikeout rate was the projection for Conforto from preseason.

And the Bad X only moved to 22.7, but that's the biggest mover there is that number. Everything else is about the same in terms of ISO and walk rate. And so here again, it's the strikeout rate moving things. The strikeout rate is something to think about and he probably may you know will have a lower batting average than you might have expected and a higher strikeout rate but will it stay at 30 and will it stay at 200 for michael confordo i don't think so it's a pretty good line to buy into the only drawback doesn't really steal a lot of bases but i think run production is going to be there we talked about him as a pretty firm regular

on a team that mixes and matches at a lot of places. I think that's still true about, they were super excited in San Francisco to get Mitch Hanager and Michael Conforto back, which says to me, like they think they are everyday anchors in that road, in that,

in that team. I know that Hanager did have some sits against righties and I got some panicked texts from people. I got some texts from people saying like oh my god is he a just versus lefties guy and that is not the vibe i get in san in san francisco i think it's more like he's been very hurt and we're we're going to give him some days off and maybe sometimes that'll be against righties but he's not a guy who sits against righties we didn't they didn't pay for that you know no uh they they didn't they didn't expect that and so i think conforto and hanager are the guys that they want in there

every day and then other guys like peterson uh just stremski um yeah i think tyro needs to be in there every day um so there's there's definitely you need to have three four five you might even need to have six guys who are mostly in there every day. And I don't think these guys are on the outside of that. Tyro Estrada off to another good start too. 342, 397, 514. Easily the best slash line we've seen from him so far. Nine for 11 as a base stealer.

He's also popped four home runs this year as well. The underlying numbers look mostly the same. He's actually chasing a little more and striking out a little bit more, but because the playing time is there, defense is solid. I think he's absolutely in that group of guys that they are going to put out there just about every day. I wonder if free swingers early in the season are more likely to start hot. The reason I say this is batters as a group swing less in the first month and that's attributed partially to batters being behind and pitchers being ahead uh and so walk rates are highest in april uh but what if you were just the guy who uh swung hard and and swung a lot

you'd be different than everybody else in april You know what I mean? Maybe there's something there. I wonder if free swingers generally have better Aprils. I wonder if I should look into that. He's a free swinger, but he is a hit tool guy. He's not a guy who misses a lot and has a tiny walk rate. I think if you have a 17-20% strikeout rate, you can have a 5-7 tiny walk rate. I think if you have a 17% to 20% strikeout rate, you can have a 5% to 7% walk rate. Maybe a healthier Giants team is capable of moving its way up in the NL West.

I've been pretty hard on them. I feel like they're still missing a few pieces, and I think I've got deked a couple of times by the magic of 2021, but they're probably not as bad as they appeared at the very beginning of the season. A bit of a buzzsaw of a week for them, I think, because Mexico City was tough. but they're probably not as bad as they appeared at the very beginning of the season. Buzzsaw of a week for them. I think because,

uh, you know, Mexico city was tough. It sounds like that was a really hard road trip on everybody. And it's also the elevation and just being a very different place. They've never gone as a team before that. I think you can overlook how stressful that actually is. Yeah. Yeah.

So, uh, um, ballplayers like is. Yeah, yeah. Ball players like routines. You're hearing, oh, they're injured. They came out of Mexico City injured. They're griping. They're talking about it. They played poorly. They played poorly after Mexico City.

They got injured. Well, Jastrzemski's information is interesting. It's just a week. And Brandon Crawford's injury is just a week, they think. So maybe the next week won't be great because those actually are kind of important for them defensively. But at the other end, they could have a better stretch coming. I think for me, the question is really going to be more about their pitching.

Would you pick up Yaz if he was dropped? yeah I do I would 460 ADRA is a team right now though for the Giants that's surprising especially playing half their games in that ballpark and mixing and matching and doing all the different things they do

I think Stripling is going to be better I think Mania is going to be better. The usage is so weird with Mania to this point. I think they don't trust his command, and it hasn't been great this year, but it's been okay in the past.

And then Mania's stuff number is artificially low right now because he pitched in Mexico City. So it's actually higher. Mexico City is higher up than Denver. So before that start,

he was looking like he had actually really improved. Stripling has turfed the splitter that everyone liked because he can't command it. And so I expect his sort of command ways to come back, and that's sort of what we saw in the Houston start. Webb is a stud.

I think Cobb is underrated. And then, you know, Discofani and Wood are just sort of veteran guys that can have a good start. So I think this would mostly turn itself around. Good news if you are a Giants fan. And bad news for the rest of the NL West because that division might get a little bit tighter in the weeks and months ahead that's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels on our way out the door, a reminder you can get a subscription

to The Athletic for $1 a month at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels is a great piece that Eno and Britt and Will Salmon worked on looking at the possible impact of the pitch clock on pitcher injuries, we're going to talk about that sure in detail on the 3-0 show on Thursday. So be sure to check that out over in the Athletic Baseball Show feed.

You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me at DerekVanRiper. We're back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening. Thank you.