Rates & Barrels - MLB's latest attempt to reduce foreign substances on the ball, spring velocity risers & 2021 pitching management

Episode Date: March 24, 2021

Eno and DVR discuss MLB's latest plan to crack down on the use of foreign substances on the ball,  Rundown 2:11 MLB’s Attempt to Crack Down on Foreign Substances 11:21 Fantasy Adjustments; Great Straight Changeups 21:13 Spring Velocity Risers 30:24 Pitching Management 36:28 Interest in Rich Hill? 45:20 Garrett Crochet as a Future Starter? 48:47 Non-Closer Relievers of Interest 53:42 In-Season Projections & Player Valuations Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Please fill out our listener survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/athleticaudiosurvey Subscribe to The Athletic for just $1/month to start: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It is Wednesday, March 24th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris on this episode. We have a few big stories to get to. The biggest one is an attempt by Major League Baseball to crack down on foreign substances on the baseball. So we'll discuss the attempts and what they're going to try and do and whether or not this is actually going to work. I had a great question about spring velocities and a few general pitching thoughts as well as some specific player questions. So we're going to try to get to as many of those as we can over the course of the next 45 minutes or so. Ido, how's it going for you on this Wednesday? I'm like this because if I go like this I go like this sorry that was a

YouTube moment I am just I am just slaughtered I don't know man I just I've had a really couple bad nights sleep but just and it's like I'm just a baby man it's like just a little bit of of snot like sore throat in the back of the throat and i just can't sleep man oh god it's just been terrible last couple nights i hope i think i'm past it it doesn't doesn't seem like it doesn't even seem like that bad of a cold but it's like my first one in 14 months so i'm like oh i'm an old man i'm take a nap today, and then I'll be better. But you guys get this cracked out, crazy version of myself. So I'm sure I will say something, A, dumb, and B, that I shouldn't say. So, hey. Hey.

All right. Cool. Let's go along for the ride. More work for me as the editor. All right. Sweet. Sorry, dude. Fantastic. more work for me as the editor all right sweet sorry dude fantastic let's test those video editing skills out that we're learning on the fly let's see how we somehow make his eyes look

normal in this part well i'm not messing with those those are great i'm gonna try and make your eyes look like this all the time just for entertainment purposes but here's the story uh jeff passon had a thread. Jeff Passon of ESPN. Major League Baseball sent a memo around. It was first reported by Joel Sherman of the New York Post. Major League Baseball's attempted to crack down on foreign substances, and they're trying to do it with increased monitoring by compliance officers, inspections of baseballs taken out of play

that will use a third-party lab to check for substances, and spin rate analysis. baseballs taken out of play that will use a third-party lab to check for substances and spin rate analysis the compliance officers will monitor dugouts clubhouses tunnels batting cages and bullpens they will take a random sample of balls in the lab will search not just for the substances themselves but the type being utilized and statcast data will compare spin rate to career norms. Again, these are from the Twitter feed of ESPN's Jeff Passan. So I had a couple of questions immediately. The big one that most people are wondering about is how likely are they to enforce this? Because there are some at least yellow flags with some of the ideas as we currently

see them but just in general is this a deterrent by policy or is it going to be an actual deterrent by practice once we get to the point where we're playing some games in 2021 you know the term eyewash right i'm familiar uh i there's i think there was a whole article on it i think mark karrig or lindsey adler did a thing about eyewash eyewash is um uh something that uh is done for show and does not have actual implications i i'm i'm trending towards that as my analysis for this that that this is baseball letting everyone know, hey, we're trying to do something about this. Here's another thing we're doing about it before. So that, you know, sort of CYA is another term, cover your ass.

So that if this does blow up, if this does turn into something, they can say, look, we left a paper trail. We tried. We did this. We did this. And I've even, with Britt, detailed the different ways they've tried and to some extent i think that's it's an honest try where like they they have tested out the sticky ball and they they have uh test out different substances and uh now they're trying different enforcement ideas but here's the problem so let's just go through the enforcing ideas. One idea. They're going to get balls that were in play and be like, hey, there's pine tar in this ball.

So therefore, you are now suspended. Well, now the MLBPA is like, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're in here. We're going to defend our person. And I think they'll have a plausible link of just being like, hey, the catcher touched that ball, by the way. Right. I mean, there's almost no ball that either the catcher or the bat did not touch. Right. Right. Even the dirt. If it if it went near if it went near like if it was like it would have to be a wild pitch.

Right. It'd have to be a it'd have to be a wild pitch that did not touch the catcher, did not touch a bat, and did not touch the on-deck circle where pine tar is. So it would have to be this wild pitch that just had dirt and pine tar on it, and then be like, where did the pine tar come from? And it would have to be one of those balls that was given newly by the Empire, right? That wasn't one that was used for the pitch before. So all these things have to come into play in that case i guess the pitcher would be in trouble are they really going to go through that whole process where they find every wild pitch from every pitcher that touched the bill of his cap before and then and then get them okay maybe i doubt it um then the spin rate analysis

okay well you've incentivized now if you're not doing the minor leagues. You've incentivized people, everybody in the minor leagues to be like, oh, better start now. And if you are doing the minor leagues, you just told everybody in college, now's the time.

And for everybody else, it almost seems like it's made the situation more unfair. Because anybody who has been getting the advantage now can. And anybody who hasn't been getting the advantage can't join in. Right. Yeah, you've accidentally grandfathered in the people who were already doing the thing you didn't want them to do. Because they've established the baseline with their foreign substance. So they can just continue to use it.

the baseline with their foreign substance so they can just continue to use it. And the people that weren't doing it no longer can begin to use it because then they would have that suspicious jump. And of course, there are other questions. How far back do you look at StatCast data? How do you establish that career norm? That's kind of what you're driving at by saying that pitchers in the minors or in college might start doing that now. If we're talking about a two or three year or four or five year snapshot even of career norms, that becomes problematic for a variety of different reasons. I mean, there are other ways to change spin. There are other ways to go into the lab and actually develop a pitch that spins and moves differently, right? So you do have to be mindful of possible changes that way. I'm not sure. And you know, that, that would come up too.

If someone was about to get popped for a spin rate increase, that'll come up too. I'm not sure. And, you know, that, that would come up too. If someone was about to get popped for a spin rate increase, that'll come up too. I know, for example, that spin rate is tied to velocity. So somebody could say, I just had a velocity increase, but if they, if they, if they account for that somehow and say, you know, you know, Bauer, for example, Trevor Bauer has concluded that he thinks the only way to improve spin rate is pine tar substances. And they've done a fair amount of study at that driveline. However, I do have pitching coordinators and coaches that tell me there are ways to increase spin rate. They also haven't told me what those ways are.

So I lean towards pine tar is is the easiest at least easiest and maybe only but even then I think it's rough what if somebody was injured and they come back and their spin rate is up that's one thing that we do know for example that teams track

spin rate as an injury prevention model that if a pitcher's spin rate drops precipitously in game, they get pulled. So if it, so that person is not in trouble, but what if it drops, he's injured and he comes back and it's up. I mean, you'd be like, well, I was, I was injured now back now and popped because my spin rate is up? Yeah. I think honestly just thinking about this from a perspective of up against the MLBPA and in a room with Arbitrator, I think you'd have to line up everything.

I think it'd have to be a wild pitch that didn't touch anybody's hands, didn't touch the catcher's hands, had pine tar on it, and the guy had a spin rate increase. And how many of those unicorns do you think we're going to find over the course of a season? Yeah. And woe be that person, man. I would feel so bad.

I'm sorry you're late to the game. I'm sorry that this happened to you because everyone else cheated before you. I don't know why I picked Chase and Shree. I just imagine some reliever throws a wild pitch and they're like, you, you're the guy.

You did it. You did it. What? This is the only instance? We have that iconic picture of the ball stuck to Yachty Molina's chest protector, right? Oh, it's one of my all-time favorite Yachty or Molina photos. As a fan of a different team in that division. So almost every Cardinals pitcher has plausible deniability.

Like, no, no, he did it. I didn't know he was doing that. It's just Yachty, dude. He's just covered in pine tar. Oh, man. Yeah, I think it'll be really tough to really pop someone. I set the over-under on suspensions to pitchers. Because also, last year, they said we're cracking down, right?

I think one, you know, the one thing that I think is good is if it is cheating, it shouldn't be just like laying around. You know what I mean? Like, I think in some situations teams just had like, here's the pine tar table for pitchers. So, I mean, maybe that'll reduce it somewhat. Just that it has to be more surreptitious, because they're actually going to have people walking around looking for this now. And so I guess some of the things that happened in the past to me, like I've

seen pitchers load up with pine tar in front of me, I guess that won't happen so much. Well, yeah, they might think you're a surveillance officer undercover as a reporter. You never know. But they'd be somebody. You never know. That undercover as a reporter. I would be the writer. I never know. But they'd be somebody. They'd never know. That'd be really sneaky.

That would be really sneaky. You with a fake mustache on. I'd like the Bobby Valentine. Yep. That'd be amazing if that was their plan. I'm not not a compliance officer. Well, that's exactly what you'd say if you were. So I think we've got this completely figured out.

I mean, I was looking at this and wondering, is there anything that we want to adjust from a fantasy perspective? And my snap reaction is no. I'm not going to ding Trevor Bauer because I'm afraid that Bauer is going to change what he was doing. Again, he established new norms last year, so that's his baseline. I don't think there's a strong case against him at this point. And it's from my reporting that baseball

met with him twice, knew he was going to do it, and was watching him. Yeah. They watched the guy the whole year. So, man, I don't know. I think it's eyewash. And my reporting, you know, with my reporting on my own was 75 plus percent. And I think that stands the test of time. Now, 75 plus percent, I think, is interesting.

As Brad Zeder came out and was like, I didn't use it. And I'm like, well, you're a sinker baller. You know, I'm not sure that you would want to use it from your angle. And so maybe it's fair to consider populations that might not benefit from time to pine tar, so won't be using it. But so to that end, I thought maybe straight change up, right? Because a power change converts a lot of spin into movement. Power change is all about movement.

So a straight change, like a split finger, maybe you don't want a lot of movement. You don't want to change spin into movement. You're kind of trying to reduce spin. That's, I think, a straight change and a split finger are a little bit about reducing spin so you get more drop. You get the sort of fall-off-the-table changeup. That's a straight changeup, velocity differential, and not much spin.

So I tried to look up straight changes in the game, and because I have 8,000 Excels open, it'll take me a second. Nice. That's not it. 8,000 Excels open. It'll take me a second. Nice. That's not it. 8,000 Excels is a lot. That's not it. There it is.

Okay. So just a simple query was the fastball differential, fastball changeup differential and speed. So who throws a great straight change? And number one on the list I think is great. I only did this among qualified pitchers, but number one on the list I think is great. I only did this among qualified pitchers. But number one on the list is Lucas Giolito. That's a great straight

change. If you've watched him, it's beautiful. And he even throws it high in the zone to play off his high fastball. I think that is a legitimate straight change and it's possible to me that Giolito does not use Pintar because he wants that ball to

kind of slip out of his weaker fingers um matthew boyd patrick corbin doesn't really use the change up a lot lance lynn doesn't really use the change up a lot hengen ryu maybe you know his bet his best breaking ball is probably a cutter. I still think he would probably get some benefit out of Pintar on a cutter, but maybe he doesn't. But we'll get to a name eventually where you'll be like, oh, okay. Dallas Keuchel, Jose Barrios, Brandon Woodruff, Chris Bassett, Max Herzer, Trevor Bauer. So I would not be

comfortable saying this is a group of straight changers that won't be affected by any sort of crackdown. It's a little bit like the dead ball situation where it's like, I understand there's an edge to be gained by trying to analyze this stuff.

I just think there's a lot of variables going in different directions. It's a little bit also like steroids. They crack down on steroids. Who got better steroids? Who stopped using steroids? Who was using steroids and stopped? Who started using steroids but started using better steroids they don't catch? You know?

Like when somebody gets popped for steroids, everyone's like, well, these people come back from getting popped for steroids often have great numbers when they come back. So maybe it wasn't the steroids. Or maybe they're still doing it. Maybe they got better stuff. And the last thing I want to say is bullfrog sunscreen and resin and rosin is one of the most effective

grip substances. And what are they going to say? There's rosin on this ball? There's sunscreen on this ball? You can't really get mad with people using the rosin bag or putting sunscreen on this ball. Yeah, you can't really get mad with people using the rosin bag

or putting sunscreen on when you play an outdoor sport in the sun. Even at domes, man. It would just... I could say all the Tampa Bay Rays are now at a disadvantage all of a sudden. I'd love to see it, actually. I'll check some home away splits on spin rates for the

Tampa Bay Rays. Not to throw them under the bus as a group, but it would be interesting if there was a huge change in home away splits on spin rates for the Tampa Bay Rays. I mean, the roof at Miller Park is closed quite a bit, so maybe you'd see a little bit of that

with some of the Brewers pitchers. I don't know, man. I think they would still just use it. Like, is the roof ever open for, like, batting practice and close to the game or, like, open during the day? Or, like, could they say I took a run that day? I ran outside and had some bullfrog on me? They could make that argument, but I don't think the players are going for runs

outside the ballpark. Runs outside. In that area, that's just not a great set of running trails there. I ran outside by my apartment before I came in. Yeah, I don't know

about that. Listen, it's almost more about, could you say that that rather than would they do it. Or just as a defense in the case of possible discipline. But that's the part of the problem that I think that stands out the most to me is there's so many ways to talk your way out of it. The chain of custody on the baseball is going to be unusually complex in most cases. And if you throw out all those cases, there are very few left

where you could actually catch somebody with this. So I'm with you. I think this feels a lot like eyewash to me. Maybe we'll be proven wrong, but I just don't see how they're going to actually enforce what they're trying to enforce in this case, even though their intentions might be good. It just doesn't seem like anything're going to actually enforce what they're trying to enforce in this case, even though their intentions might be good. It just doesn't seem like anything's going to happen.

That is one thing I would like to say, is that we're talking about all-time strikeout rate high and wanting to have more balls in play. And there is a part of me that says, yeah, go for it. Try and stop this because it increases, the data says it increases. The data says it increases fastball stuff by about 10% and increases breaking ball stuff by about 20 to 30%. So if you could just reduce pitcher's stuff by 10 to 20% by eradicating this, theoretically, you should see strikeout rates go down.

Right. Get a few more balls in play. That kind of gets things closer to where the powers that be want it to be. But we're also realists. We're also realists, right? It's just like, how is this actually going to play out? And it's going to play out with arbitration meetings between the MLBPA and the agent and the team and the MLB and Rancor ahead of a CBA and

alienating a large group of the baseball constituency in terms of all pitchers. I think the easiest thing to do is maybe pop somebody who's super obvious about it. But I would love to see what Craig Kimbrell's hat looks like this year. Did Austin Riley just take Brubaker deep for the second time? I know he hit one earlier. I can only see the game as a reflection in the picture over your left shoulder.

Riley just took Brubaker deep his second time in the game. Brubaker, okay start. Three runs, though, in four innings. Riley's a big boy. Braves are a tough matchup. They were nasty last year. They could put up runs in bunches.

They're going to be a tough matchup, of course, again this year because it's the same core in place, and they brought back Ozuna, so that's definitely one of those matchups I fear with my mid-range pitching even. Especially a guy like Brubaker, who I know you like. He'd be nowhere near my lineup, especially early in the year against a lineup that good.

Even at home, even in Pittsburgh, I don't think I would trust him. Short of like an NL-only league where anybody pitching is pretty much going to get in for the innings. But I'm sure it's not the last we've heard of MLB trying to crack down on this. And we will have stories as more information becomes available. Over-under on 2.5 pitchers popped this year. Suspended for... I'm inclined to say under. I'm sorry.

Were you transitioning? That's fine. I think it's under, though. I really do. Yeah. Do you have any reason to believe it's over? No. No.

Because there is no compelling reason. I think the obvious guys will just find a new place to put it. Craig Kimball will have a nice clean hat. Or he'll just come out with a brown hat. He'll come out with a hat made of pine tar. It's just brown hat. You'll come out with a hat. You'll come out mysteriously wearing brown hats. Come out with a hat made of pine tar.

It's just my hat. That's a good idea. Got to block the sun somehow. All right, you know, we've reached the final starts of spring training for many pitchers as we have just a week now

before we get to opening day. We had a question coming from Mike, and this is a topic that we're looking at every spring anyway, so I figured this was a good time to bring it up. Mike wanted to know, are there any really interesting velocity gainers or important velos you've seen in the spring? We've seen a few guys fluctuate.

He mentioned Carlos Martinez in his email. At one point, he was 94, 95. He didn't hold that. But is there anyone you've seen that you're pushing up your board as a result of their velocity this spring? Yeah. Unfortunately,

one of the best resources we have is the Spring Chinese Velo Tracker that Jeff Zimmerman puts together. He's having a tough time. Shout out to Jeff. Uh, hope that, uh,

the family situation, uh, see some better days, uh, in the coming days. But, um, he hasn't been able to update it as much.

So we have some early stuff, uh, on there, which, uh, Justin Dunn, um, really stood out as,

as having good velo, uh, early on. And one of the keys is to track how it goes going forward because sometimes in their first one, and this is what I think has been a confounding effect with this, is in their first outing, they're out there for an inning. And sometimes they'll air it out.

And some people say, oh my God, I remember last year, people were like, you Darvish threw 99 or something. Well, you Darvish's max pitch velo was 99 in the season before. And he was in there for an inning, so he aired it out. His pitch velo on the season didn't end up being that big of a difference. But as they start to throw more, and this last start for everybody was almost I would say a polished start. These last

two are polish it off, right? This is a four inning start they're doing now and the next one's a five inning start or five plus. And so if they can go four innings and show better VLO like Robbie Ray then I'm definitely

interested. So Robbie Ray I've moved up on my boards a little bit. He's sitting 95-8 in four innings, and I doubt that the Blue Jays will use him for more than five. So I think he's going to go out there and sit 95-plus. And we all know that 94 is a big shelf. So even if Robbie Ray doesn't improve his command and doesn't hit a third pitch that he uses a lot, then I think Robbie Ray moves up a little bit.

I see some good below from Jesus Lizardo, Sandy Alcantara. Tyler Glassnow was out there averaging 98 the other day. But some of those guys you already knew they threw hard. And some of those guys, you already knew they threw hard. And some of those guys already carry pretty significant ADPs, right? I don't know if Luzardo would jump a lot with the extra velo this spring. I mean, I think people had enough reasons to

like him already. We're talking about a young lefty with three pitches and at least what should be decent command of those offerings. So people are kind of buying in already on him. Mike Miner came up on the early spring risers board too. I think he's a little bit like Robbie Ray in terms of where he goes in drafts. I think it's easier to bump somebody up when they're going around pick 300 or 350

because it's not that much of an increase. You're not giving up something really good by taking that guy 30 40 50 picks earlier right if you bump mike minor up to the 250 range it doesn't feel like you're reaching that much and you know think about minor that's kind of interesting you know if you go back to 2019 200ks a 35-2-4 whip, so good ratios, lots of innings. I know the track record of staying healthy is a bit bumpy. It looks a little worse than it really is because he spent 2017 working as a reliever in Kansas City. But going back into the AL Central, being in a pitcher-friendly environment, I could see him bouncing back.

Maybe we get the low fours ERA that we got in 2018 as opposed to that mid threes. But if you're looking for a lot of innings with plenty of cheap strikeouts, I think Mike Miner can deliver on that. Yeah, yeah. I think also the park gives him an easy way to play him. If it's best ball, I'm sure he's going to have some great weeks where he has two starts in Kansas City and cleans up. So definitely have moved Miner up a little bit.

There's also something interesting that I was thinking about when you were talking about Miner. Innings are going to be tough, but Mike Petriello came out with a good article today on MLB.com about innings. And one of the things that he pointed out was that some teams will actually look at 2019 and kind of use that to describe the upper bound for innings for a pitcher. And so that would create some problems for the younger pitchers that we all like that didn't pitch that much in 2019.

some problems for the younger pitchers that we all like that didn't pitch that much in 2019. But it does also give some value to pitchers like Mike Miner. Unless I'm not actually looking at his card right now. He pitched a lot in 2019, right?

He was 208 in the third innings. That wasn't one of his injury years. Yeah, exactly. I think that those kind of players that did pitch a fair amount in 2019, they may be our league leaders in innings pitch this year. Well, I think that approach better fits into how I think training works in general. I mean, if you went through a normal offseason, and I think most players did, I think the ramp up to the shortened 2020 season was very weird. We saw some guys

doing the dream tryout thing in Florida, right? There was the secret game that was happening there. Some people were involved in stuff like that. There were some guys in Arizona doing some things. There were other guys making mounds from 2x4s and stuff they were buying at Home Depot and trying to throw off of mounds built in front of their garage. That's a little bit different. That's not going to the gym and working out like normal. innings in a savings account and then you just slowly use them the following year. Our minds are kind of wired to think like, oh, this is what he did in the past, so this is what he can do now. I think if you've done it before, especially, you're pretty stable. You went from a normal end of season through a typical progression into the winter, came into spring training, had a full spring training. I think guys are going to be more prepared to get back to those 2019 workloads than a lot of people have thought throughout this draft season. I do

think you're right to point out the young pitchers who don't have that previously established level. Those are the guys the teams are most worried about, and they're the guys that teams are most likely to manipulate. So whether they are physically ready to do more might not matter as much because how the team chooses to handle them, and that might be determined by any number of variables, not the least of which is how good is this team, that might shape workloads more than 2020 itself, like teams trying to accommodate something they don't need to necessarily adjust to. Almost every time you're coming out of a draft, you're going to have some sort of hole in your roster, right?

You're going to have something where you're like, okay, saves are on the waiver wire every year, so I'm going to be hunting for saves on the waiver wire this year. I came up 20 steals short. I'm going to be looking for speed on the waiver wire this year, whatever it is. We always have something that we kind of have pointed out. I have a feeling that no matter what you think you're going to be looking for this year on the waiver wire, the answer is innings. And so it's a little bit late to be discussing this as a draft strategy thing, but it is interesting to think about investing in sort of higher end closers that you think will keep their job.

And so then you don't have to be chasing saves and innings with your fab, right? Because you're going to have a limited amount of resources when it comes to getting free agents. And I think we're all going to be struggling. I mean, you should read that Petriella article. I mean, if you've been reading my stuff, you, a lot of it was already in there, but just the fact that there's all these teams trying different things between, it's not just six man,

but there's also tandem starting. There's also like, Oh, we're going to have this rotation now. And we're gonna have a totally different rotation in two weeks. There's just the idea of like sending young guys down to keep their innings down, then bringing them up and then sending someone else down,

that they're going to be doing all of that. So you're just going to find, I think you're going to be surprised by a pitcher where you're like, whoa, they sent him down? And you're going to have a surprise hole in there, and you're going to be looking for innings at some point. And you're going to have these tough decisions about, well, I thought this young pitcher was definitely in the rotation, but they sent him

down and so now do I keep him? Or do I turf him and look for innings? I think it's interesting that there's a quote in here from Jed Hoyer, the Cubs president of baseball operations. The idea of a set five-man rotation

is not going to be a real thing. I think you're just better off getting your mind around that. But why? Why is that not a real thing? Thinking about their rotation, we've talked about them a lot as a group that doesn't throw particularly hard. They've clearly done some things very differently. Kyle Hendricks isn't a guy you're worried about from a workload perspective. You think of him as almost rubber-armed. He's going to go out there and throw as many innings as possible because he's so efficient, too. He could lead the league in innings this year because he's good at not having to throw a million pitches to get through any one inning. And they also don't have that much depth.

I mean, past Azoulay, I mean... Yeah, who are you putting out there? Yeah, right. I mean, Alec Mills threw 140 innings between AAA and the big leagues in 2019. You're going to mess around with the schedule to keep him at like 165 and not just let him go 180, 190. What's the difference? Like, I just I don't believe that. I don't know if they're just saying that because they're being asked questions and they actually don't know.

But it seems like they're erring on the side of that's let's meddle in this thing and maybe we're going to make a problem for ourselves that we didn't even need to do anything about well i would say that having optional picture optionable pitchers is a huge currency in the game then uh because you can bring them up for a spot start and they can actually be good. And then you can send them back down again. And the next start they throw two innings because they're just managing their innings. And the minor leagues don't matter. So I think somebody like Mackenzie Gore, everyone's like,

how many innings is Mackenzie Gore going to throw? Should I draft him? Should I draft him? I have no idea. And really, he's just going to throw them in such an erratic form that I almost don't want to own him because he's going to be like he's going to be down the minors and then be like oh you darvish needs to blow you know we're gonna we're gonna sit him for for a week uh and we're not going to put him on the dl so you can't really dlm or ilm and and now we're going to bring up out azalea for one start. And that's what we were talking about when we meant there's not really a five-man rotation.

It's really five-plus. It's like, oh, man. So Gore is going to be unownable unless I can just pick him up. It's almost like DFS is going to be more fun this year. Because at least you know who's starting and who's on the roster, you know, when you're making your choices. Just thinking about the Padres, though, for a second, we went through this with Chris Paddock just in 2019, even when Chris Paddock was really good, right?

They were very careful with how they used him. He went down across the All-Star game. Yeah, he went down around the All-Star break, and then they had to shut him down a little early. And again, if you're preserving innings because you're trying to get to October and you're trying to have your best pitchers available then, that's not a new problem. That's something that teams wrestle with all the time as they're trying to carefully build pitchers up. are going to come together. I think this was true of Lance McCullers last year too. And obviously when the season got shortened, that became less of a concern, but how we played a normal one 62 last year,

how Houston was going to try and get McCullers to 130 or so innings. Like, that's a great question. What are they going to do? Are they going to bullpen him for a while? Are they actually going to try and send him down? Like it'd be very bizarre, but there's any number of ways that you can get to the total that you want to get to. But with Mackenzie Gore, much like Paddock,

you're still thinking about the multi-year future. You're still trying to make sure that Mackenzie Gore 2021 is as good and healthy as he can possibly be. But you're also thinking about 2022 and 2023. So you don't want to jeopardize the future. He can throw 100. You also want to build him so that in 2022, maybe he can throw more than 100 innings, right? Right. So if you look back, if 2019 is the guide, I mean, he got to 101 innings between high A and double A. And if you said we at least want him to get that many,

okay, that's a good starting point. You should want him to get more. You should think that the next progression is probably in that 130, 140 range. That's what he should have thrown last year if everything was healthy. And then he would have been at 170, 180 by now. So I don't know. I think you could argue that 150 is actually a reasonable target for him. And even still, okay, that's going to be a couple times where he's not available for you over the course of a 26-week season. You might not find out about that in a weekly league in time to take him out of your lineup. So that's going to be frustrating. You might take a zero on occasion.

That could happen. But I also don't want to say that this is so unprecedented that we haven't dealt with this kind of problem before. Because we have seen problems like this for top-end pitching breaking into the big leagues for the first time. Because teams are always careful with pitchers like that. Yeah. Yeah. I just think it'll be a little bit worse than usual because the rosters are bigger.

The injury the last couple of the last year was three times. So I think it will at least be above average injury season. And then they're also going to be more protective than usual of those innings and the young players because we just have that hole in our history. So I think it'll be a rough year for pitching, which is great because I faded pitching because of all the injuries. Yay! Yeah, not going overboard with early pitching,

finding a bunch of mid-tier and late-round pitchers that you like, and then playing the wire. I think that's a good way to go, but I think if you're going to do that, suggest that if you still have drafts left, maybe it's better to spend a little more on two sources of saves so you're not stuck throwing valuable fab dollars out there, chasing closers while simultaneously bidding against the entire league for starting pitcher replacements that everybody's going to be chasing everyone's going to want to hit their innings minimum everyone's going to want to make sure they've just got nine

healthy pitchers available in any given no zeros no zeros we uh had a question here about rich hill this came in from ryan he writes i'm super in Rich Hill. I know that he's very old, but I have a feeling he's going to be the greatest behind the opener guy of all time in this year. He excels when there's trouble. He'd be the perfect pitcher to throw behind an opener, and he gives you four or five, even six innings if you need it. And his numbers get better as more people get on base and closer to scoring. So if your opener gets in trouble, you bring him in to shut them down. His strikeout rate also goes up in those situations. So I think the question is just generally like, do you bother with Rich Hill in a year where you're already worried about pitchers getting messed with a lot by their respective teams? Because Hill, it's just a matter of health.

If he's healthy, the Rays can just keep running him out there every fifth day. But we have a multi-year track record of a guy very late in his career who just doesn't stay healthy. And it's blisters and sometimes it's arm stuff. I mean, 2019, 58 and two-thirds innings from Hill. Last season in Minnesota, it was 38 and two-thirds. So even in the partial season, it was a much smaller workload than we were hoping for. And we finally did see the K rate drop off in a big way last season. So what do you think 2021 brings for Rich Hill in Tampa Bay? Yeah, it might be interesting to see if he can bring the velocity up a little bit in shorter stints. The last note for him says that he gave up three earned runs in 2.2 innings

with three strikeouts. That's a little bit, since that's the 20th, that's a little bit behind other pitchers, I would say. Like Brubaker today pitched five. Um, like brew breaker today, uh, pitched five, um, and guys that are like ready to start the season are, are throwing four and five right now. So I'd say he's a start behind. Um, so maybe they are grooming him just to get to four innings. So the next time he goes out and he goes, you know, three plus, and then he's just a four inning guy for them. That's obviously something that Ray's do. Uh, and maybe in four innings, he he won't throw 87 he can throw more like 88 89 um but uh the declining velo is a real thing

um and one thing that happens i think with a declining velo there's this weird thing that this kind of nexus of things that occurs late in a career. So I think the reason for those numbers for him in, in those clutch situations is because those hitters might be aggressive and be swinging. And that plays into his hands because he doesn't have great command. And so at some point, though, pitchers hitters are going to say he can't find the strike zone and I'm not

going to swing. And if you get to that point and they stop swinging and then he has to come into the strike zone with a seven mile an hour fastball, that's when you get into trouble. So that's how that's that's what happens at the end of pitchers careers. And I would say that Hill has one foot in that bucket, you know. foot in that bucket you know um and it's it's always interesting when someone like wainwright and granky like managed to make it work but i say the difference between like a guy like wainwright ranky granky ranky uh granky messina a lot of those guys who aged well those are command guys and rich hill is not a command guy yeah it's pretty interesting to see what he's been

able to accomplish with those shortcomings and a guy that has even when he's been good had an above average home run rate in recent years too last year was kind of an exception we did see the walk rate tick up so it could be a pretty slippery slope if they guess right it's a homer. All of that being said, he's basically free in mixed leagues right now. Yeah. I trust him enough to draft him at price. I don't know if he'll stick on my roster all season because if injuries come or when injuries come, I don't know if I can justify stashing him on the bench for several weeks,

but I do think he's viable. But then I think what I'm looking for is this. I want to know from the Rays when he's viable but then i think i think what i'm looking for is this i want to know from the rays when he's starting you know yeah do you have any reason to believe that he's not going to be just used like a regular starter at least to begin the season yeah i was surprised to to see the assumption of having an opener or whatever but um i could almost see him being an opener being a weird sort of two to three inning opener uh because as I've said, Josh Fleming, I think, is the glue that will hold the staff together at the beginning of the season.

And Fleming is going to step in behind him, Waka, and Archer. They may need another guy to step in behind. Because what's the overall average innings per start for Waka, Archer, and Hill combined? 3.5? I was going to say about 4. Yeah. They're going to need some glue guys

when those guys start, and it may need more than Fleming. You say I'm not going to keep him around for the whole season. I agree with you, and so therefore I want to know when his next start is. That's how I feel about him. I want to know when his next start is that's how I feel about him

I want to know when his next start is I want to know who it's against and how they're going to use him otherwise I'd rather have like Alec Mills who I know will pitch against the Pirates or whatever you know right so the Rays open with the Marlins

so I'm in on those matchups for whoever the Rays are trotting out there. It's just a matter of getting a hold of the schedule. What if he gets the fourth game? If he gets the fourth game, he's got Boston at Fenway. What's your trust level with Richie? Zero. I think the Red Sox are an above-average offense. I think that's fair to say.

Fenway, dude. A lefty in Fenway is tough. Fenway, yes. Lefty in Fenway is tough. Yeah. Fenway, yes, lefty in Fenway is worse. And just also, that's a zero in the first week if it's weekly liners. Right. So if he's not getting a start in those first three games, then you're looking at a two-start week that you probably don't want to use

because they've got the Yankees, even though it's the Trop after that. So unless you feel good about using him against the Red Sox and Yankees in a two-star week, you got to be a little careful with them early in the year. So draft him somewhere where you've got some bench, you know, maybe more than five, seven bench and you're sort of wait and see ish.

You know, you're just like, okay, like I would rather he like he was shelved on my bench than I put him in and he got shelled, right? Because then I could be like, well, okay. He survived a two-star week against Boston and the Yankees. I guess I got an asset on my hands here.

I was just wondering if the pitcher grid over at Rotowire has started to take shape. That's a nice tool to have at your disposal. I mean, we're just getting to the point where we can start to read into when guys are throwing their final spring starts and how that lines up for the beginning of the season. Although your Brewers are playing shenanigans.

Are they? Peralta got the A game and Lindblom got the B game, but they're pitching on the same days. Well, maybe they're competing for the last spot. I mean, it seems like they're competing for the last spot in the rotation, and they're going on the same days. And you could say Peralta got the A game, so he's got it. But I don't know.

I think DeGrom is pitching in a B game. It was flipped last week. We just saw Lindblom pitch an A game a week ago. I know, but DeGrom is pitching in a B game today, I think. Yeah, I think it's got more to do with who's getting on the bus and just logistics more than intent. Yeah. When we're going to see this team next, that could be a factor.

That's DeGrom. Who that team's going to put in their lineup. I bet you DeGrom is playing against the Nationals or Phillies or something. Yeah. Why give those hitters an extra look at him yeah yeah the peralta one seems like he's definitely trending towards taking that spot i agree i i think he is very likely to open the year made you violate your pledge eat that hat i didn't say his name you're gonna weasel out the hook on a technicality. I love it.

Before I was lucky enough to find this as an occupation, I considered law school, so I'm going to weasel off things when I have to. Didn't I weasel off the Chris Sale hook by like 0.1 mile an hour fastball velocity? You got out of that by the thinnest of margins. But we have determined that high temperatures on a baking sheet, if you had to eat a hat, you'd want to dry it out, crisp it up a little bit, try to make it like... Air fryer. Yeah, air fryer would work. But anything that would work to make kale chips would be your best

chance of actually eating a hat if you were to lose a bet. Maybe the key is to not make a bet where eating a hat is your punishment. Something to consider, I guess. All right, you know, we've got a couple more questions to knock out before we go. This one comes from Grade School Slap Hitter from St. Louis.

The question is, what do you think of Garrett? It was signed. It's not even a Twitter handle. It's just the way it was signed. What do you think of Garrett? It was signed. It's not even a Twitter handle. It's just the way it was signed. What do you think of Garrett Crochet? I watched him a lot in college and think he could be a legit superstar. Do you think he gets into a starter role at any point this year, or is he going to stay in late-inning relief?

Thanks, grade school slap hitter from St. Louis. I have not thought about Crochet as a starter. I have thought that they are going to use him as a leading reliever for the indefinite future. Haven't really stretched him out. Yeah, there's not really any signal based on how they've developed him thus far that they see him as a starter. They see him as a lockdown reliever who will be part of the bridge to the ninth inning so long as Liam Hendricks is their closer, and that could be for a long time given the money they just gave Hendricks. It is a really good, it is actually a three-pitch mix that there's a possibility there

because the change-up gets six inches more drop than his fastball and four inches more fade so that's a really nice change up um there's his slider is weird it actually looks slurvy because at 86 miles an hour you say oh that's a slider except he throws 100 so it's a 14 mile an hour difference you know de grom throws 100 and has a 94 mile an hour slider so uh i don't we don't need to get into semantics of what actually is a slider you sure but um uh there's i think there's already enough sort of injury history with crochet crochet crochet that one gets you every time i said i said uh i tweeted that he had a a crochet rocket but that's a course of my head is a crotchet rocket um no i know he doesn't say his name that way shut up um no i you know he already got injured man he throws really hard and um i think they

just gonna use him that way let me see if I have a command number on it. Because the two things that make a guy a reliever usually are command. Because there are two starting pitchers, right? I think the things that make a pitcher a reliever are command and injury. Almost more than size of repertoire. And 86 command plus. Pretty much reliever command. Yeah.

I think it's the command and the injury component that's keeping him from being a starter. Plus, they just haven't used him that way, right? They're not stretching him out. They're not talking about stretching him out. Yeah, I mean, they could change their mind going into spring 2022. They could do what we've seen plenty of teams do

with their relievers and give them a shot and see how it goes. But I think we need to see some signs of growth with the command in that relief role and a completely healthy season

as a reliever before they'd even start kind of pushing him in that direction. Yeah, I agree. We got a related question from Jason. Jason wanted to ask our opinion on points leagues like AutoNew

where you just need the best and most efficient innings regardless of role. So the TJ Anton tier of guys. Who are some of your top targets for 15-team and higher points leagues? Looking for relievers where you don't necessarily have to target guys because of their role as the closer. So non-closer relievers that you feel really good about. I'd say Tyler Duffy is pretty high on my list. I don't have to worry about him getting saves in a format like that. He can just go in, strike a lot of guys out, and be very effective. And that plays really well in points leagues that require you to use

relievers, especially if you can't find someone who's at least temporarily starting. That's the sweet spot. We've talked about that before. The guys that have relief pitcher eligibility, who move into the rotation, they're going to outscore relievers, short relievers, in just about all formats. But sometimes you have to use an actual short reliever who's not getting saves in those situations. So Duffy's a guy that definitely pops for me. Yeah, he might get you an extra couple of points when it comes to getting some saves there. I mean, that's going to be a crazy, crazy situation there.

Guess who's projected for the highest K-9 in baseball by a steamer this year the like tyler matzik mr rocket really yeah wow crochet above hater and then diaz uh but i thought that was a a useful way to sort projections um and look for undervalued names because point systems always revolve around strikeouts and what you're really looking for is as many strikeouts as you can get in the fewest innings. So some names that pop on that list are Trevor May in the top 10.

Caleb Ferguson, but I'm not going to run. That's in one inning. Yeah. Yeah. I just mentioned that because it's kind of funny. Andres Munoz, but he's hurt. Liam Hendricks, but he's hurt. But non-closers, non-closers.

Josh James. That's an interesting name. A lot of strikeouts there. If he's hurt. But non-closers. Josh James. That's an interesting name. A lot of strikeouts there if he's healthy. A lot of strikeouts. And a potential for some holds I think. Depending on which system he's in, holds do have some points.

I think he could be... Him and Enolis Paredes are both pitchers I like a lot who are going to be really important for that team, going to rack up the holds and maybe some wins or whatever, but definitely some innings and strikeouts. Enolis is hitting like 99 this spring. How about Corey Knievel?

Austin Adams and Corey Knievel are very similar. Oft injured, big strikeouts, deep pen, but still could be useful. And I think for me, I trust the Dodgers' eye when it comes to rehabbing relievers. They sought out Knable when the Brewers were going to non-tender him. They had a lot of success with Jake McGee a year ago as a reclamation project. Even if Knable's not getting any saves because they've got other options there, if Jansen falters, he could still miss a ton of bats 126 K's from Kniebel in 76 innings back in 2017 88 K's in 55 into third innings in 2018 before he got hurt so K's galore and holds if those matter obviously

he'll be getting a lot of those because they're projected to win a ton of games yeah i wonder if there's uh something to be found in the multi-inning guys alex reyes has probably a fair amount of value in this format where you know you're kind of holding him for possibly starting but the team has said 100 innings that means early on at least he'll be a reliever projected uh for top 50 in strikeout rate, some upside beyond. You know, I think that's a good one. But finding the multi-inning reliever before the season starts is very hard. I mean, we know that Julian Merriweather and Alex Reyes have been put down for this sort of deal.

We know that, like, you know, six starter losers, like a Josh Lindblom, perhaps, or guys like that, that have to stay in the big leagues that can't be optioned those guys will be interesting for innings in shorter stints because any failed starter makes a good reliever almost almost across the board but knowing who those guys are ahead of time is gonna be pretty hard. Yeah, I think that's a really tough thing to figure out because, again, teams say they're going to do one thing and don't necessarily immediately start using pitchers that way until there's a need to use them that way,

and we end up getting fewer innings than we want in some of those instances. But hopefully that helps you out, Jason, and I'm hoping that grade school slap hitter can get into the cage and add a little power at some point before softball season comes back around. One last question to get to on this episode. This one comes from Lombardo and Sully. Lombardo, at the keyboard, writes, Sully and I play in a long-term keeper league with 14 teams and nine hitting and nine pitching categories. We created custom dollar values for the draft using the fan graphs auction calculator.

And we're looking for a similar way to value players in season for trades and the wire. What do you and Eno recommend? Is it using year to date values in fan graphs or is it something else? So what do you do when we actually have some numbers inside the season what do you do to evaluate players for trades on the fly i don't want to speak for fan graphs um and give them a functionality they're not planning on doing but in the past there has been a an option for ros projections in the auction calculator. And I think that it's as easy as them pressing go on that because they get rest of season projections from Steamer, the bat.

Most of their guys give them rest of season projections because when you look on the Fangraphs page, in the projection slot, they'll have rest of ROS projections. So I think that's the best way. So hopefully they'll have rest of ROS projections so I think that's the best way you know so hopefully they'll do that do you work with any other auction calculators that I don't for any in season stuff I

think the trickiest thing is going to be players that are just wildly different than expectations extreme slow starters and extreme fast starters because the projections will adjust, but they're going to adjust in a way that projections adjust, you know,

very grounded in reality, which is helpful, but not necessarily indicative of what you could do trade wise. Like if you had a fast starter, you might be able to get more, you might be able to get more than what the values suggest for those players, because something might be completely different. The projections can't

capture. So I would say that's a really good tool to use. Yeah, it's a keeper league too. So be careful. There's an age component there too where no matter what they're projected for this year, you have to leave age as a category

where you look. If you have projected dollar value, also put age next to that, right? Because there's going to be a real drop-off in trade value at 28, 29, 30. This might seem like too much, but I would look at the auction calculator, but I would also look at in-season rankings,

which we do at The Athletic. I work on those. I update mine. We answer questions, of course, on the show throughout the year. That's fine too. But I would also look at something like Ian Kahn's Dynasty rankings,

which he has in the two-list format. He has the buyer list and the seller list. He has an explanation of how you can use it. Even though your league's not Dynasty, I think that's going to give you a better idea of the long view of the player values involved. Because if someone is off to a fast start and things are changing, he's going to account for that. But you do want to look at

it from more of that multi-year sort of perspective. So if you can balance out a couple of tools, just to get a few different snapshots of how you could look at that valuation problem, I think that's going to get you closer to something that gives you confidence, but also an accurate market sort of value for those players. All right, we made it through. Eno's still in one piece. His eyes look a little more normal. No, no, no, they're back. If you're watching us on YouTube, be sure to hit the like button on this video. Hit the subscribe button on the channel. We appreciate everybody who's jumped in there. As I mentioned earlier, theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels gets you in the door

for a subscription at $1 a month to start. It's the best deal we do all year. So definitely take advantage of that if you're not already a subscriber. And if you're enjoying this podcast on a platform that allows you to rate and review the show, we'd really appreciate it if you left us a nice review. That goes a long way toward helping new listeners find the pod. On Twitter, he's at Eno Saris. I am at Derek Van Ryper. Eno is going to get some rest we are back with you on friday thanks for listening