Rates & Barrels - MLB's sticky situation, Rookie of the Year selections, and looking forward to Awards Week

Episode Date: November 10, 2020

Eno, Britt and DVR discuss pitchers' widespread use of foreign substances for grip, spin and movement, Trevor Bauer's bid for the NL Cy Young Award, and their thoughts on the Rookie of the Year winners and nominees. Rundown 0:54 MLB’s Sticky Problem 5:51 Other Ways to Reduce Strikeouts 14:45 Trevor Bauer’s Experiments & 2020 Cy Young Bid 19:45 Why Not Just Legalize the Substances? 21:10 AL Rookie of the Year 25:26 NL Rookie of the Year 30:00 What Does the Future Hold For Jake Cronenworth? 36:33 Ke’Bryan Hayes Could Have Been a Contender 45:18 Anything Else You're Looking For During Awards Week? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic for just $1/week: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. The answer is FedEx. Okay. But what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx. Oh. But let's say that... FedEx.

What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's a live episode here. Monday, November 9th. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris, and Britt Giroli with you.

Kind of flipping the schedule around, talking about real baseball, because Eno had a story that went up. It was our featured story today at The Athletic. Almost everyone is using something, getting a grip on how MLB pitchers are cheating. We figured this was a good time to talk about it with Cy Young Awards going out later this week. So we're going to start there. We'll talk about awards. We'll take questions no matter where you're watching us today. We'll get some questions sprinkled in throughout the next 45 minutes or so as well. You know, let's just dive right into your story. I think the

thing that really caught me off guard is that we've reached this point where you have people now saying 99.9% of pitchers are now using something. It seemed like something maybe half of pitchers or three quarters of pitchers might have been doing, but we've reached the point where this is just a normal thing for pitchers to do, to use foreign substances to get a better grip, but also to increase spin and, you know, to get more late break. Yeah. I mean, I just, I think that maybe like when you ask someone, you get, uh, they get, they give you an idea of like what's happening around them. So it's not, I, I couldn't do it in a way where I'm asking each one and like have great data and can tell you 76.8% are using.

So, you know, what happened is a lot of people said almost everybody. And then other people said almost everybody on other teams, you know, so on our team, it's more like 50%, but almost everybody else over there. So I kind of, it wasn uh my best data moment but it was you know i was like 75 percent is kind of where i'm landing listening to all of you guys tell this to me so even though you know there are the people that are convinced that everybody's doing it i don't think that's maybe true there's there's obviously low spin guys who don't want more spin you know there's there's there's a the sinker guys, and there's definitely some low spin pitches where you don't need it.

But the way baseball is going is the high foreseeing with ride and the sizzling breaking ball, and both of those things are better with spin. Just using pine tar or pelican grip or any of these things can give you 300 RPM. So that's like a definite bonus. And for hitters that say like, oh, you know, I think it's for command.

And I think, you know, I don't want them to hit me. I would just say like hit by pitches are at all time high. Like you're saying they could be worse than this? Like, I don't know. I think that it's mostly people use it for the extra spin rate. So it's a kind of it for the extra spin rate so it's a kind of a performance enhancement it's not the same as steroids though because steroids had

like this whole like it's bad for your body you know like later on you have all these ramifications from it in terms of uh liver and and and there's like neuro uh toxicity stuff and and so you know this one is kind of like i I'm not like hurting anybody. I'm just like putting this grip on my hand and the balls have terrible, uh, seams, you know, cause we've been tracking the whole,

the balls changing things. So I don't know what I think would, it's interesting to me is, um, you know, you talk to a hitter and they're like, screw those guys. Like,

you know, they have to stop it. Like enforce it. You talk to a pitcher and they're like, everybody does it, you know, like who cares? Um, the hitters are using it though. Like, you know, they have to stop it. Like enforce it. You talk to a pitcher and they're like, everybody does it. You know, like who cares? Um,

the hitters are using it though. Right. You know, the hitters are allowed to use pine tar. Yeah, but it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't like change the spin rate.

Like it doesn't have the same effect. It's like, it's a little bit better to grip the bat. It's not like, um, it's not like they are, it's the, the equivalent would be saying you put, you put pine tar on your bat and you get like a tick of exit velocity.

Right. You know? That was true. We've got to figure out how to do that. Yeah. I don't think that's true. I can't think of the mechanism. But what I'm interested in is sort of throwing it back to you guys and being like how much of a big deal is this?

My meter is broken. I don't know anymore of a big deal is this? My meter's broken. I don't know anymore what a big deal is. I knew about the trash can before it was the biggest deal in the world. And then later on, looking back, I was like, oh, yeah, you know, the trash can was a big deal. But what do you guys think? Is this a big deal? Is this a super cheating scandal?

I don't understand. I don't know. So I made some notes in anticipation of this like super huge topic right and let me get my my blue blocker glasses on and let me show you guys um should should this be allowed because it's basically been going on forever um yeah but i had a better note. Yes, but in green. So, either way. Either way. I think this is ridiculous.

You can't, you gotta ask like, can you enforce it if they make it illegal? And the answer is no. That's why MLB has not made it illegal. So, to me,

if you can't stop people from cheating, why not just let everybody cheat? Right? Why not level the playing field? So per these extensive, exhaustive notes that I spent all day doing and then redoing because I realized you guys would read them backwards. And in green. Multiple Sharpies here.

A lot of work. I just don't understand, you know, like where do you go from here? Why not just allow something? Whether it's a sunscreen or CBD, people are going to find ways to cheat. We don't have to convince people that cheating is going on in baseball. So I don't think it's that big of a deal. Even as someone who just said a few minutes ago that I thought it was probably closer to 50% or even three quarters, I wasn't bothered by the 50 percent of the league that I thought was previously doing this. So it doesn't move the needle much for me. I don't know if you have a consistent substance that you try to legalize or if you just remove that rule entirely, if that

actually makes things level or changes anything. I think the problem that people would have in general with the modern game is the amount of strikeouts, right? And I feel like to get rid of strikeouts at this point, it's not just going to be how you police foreign substances. It might be making a different change, moving the mound back a little, lowering the mound slightly. It might be a change like that that you have to do that actually gets you the outcome you want, right? I feel like this is the kind of thing that matters a little, but if you're actually trying to alter outcomes in the long run,

you have to do something more drastic. I think that's really interesting. You know, the equipment that's on the field is like a source of change in the game. You know, we have a user, Paul, here mentions that the hitters get to use batting gloves, and I don't know how much the batting gloves help, but you talk about batting gloves.

You talk about the bat technology has changed. Now you've got the axe handle. You've got the different woods. I've had guys talk to me about this. And I don't know. My brain shuts off a little bit. I guess I'm more of a pitcher guy because I'm like, so the wood is hard pressure treated and the maple is better or the what? I'm like, okay, I believe you.

Yes. But when you think about it in the context of the game, like we're talking about strikeouts being like a big thing in the game. And we just had like, you know, an AL rookie of the year where both guys are striking out 30% of the time. Like it's kind of the future of the game seems to have more strikeouts. So it's like there's this little part of me that's like, wow, this could be an opportunity to actually cut strikeouts a little bit.

If you enforce this, you might actually cut strikeouts a little bit, and that might be good for the game. Now, how you do it is different, though, because if you put the tacky ball in there, and all of a sudden the tacky ball doesn't give you homers, then what if we reduce strikeout rate by one percent and kill half the homers i think baseball would suck there goes all the money too all the contracts are now being structured so that guys like they used to it used to be you struck out a lot no one wanted you and it would affect you in con

in like arbitration and contracts now we know that's the opposite so that's a great point um i do have to say i'm partial to the japanese sticky balls you know i don't know how much uh you did in their research but i tweeted this every day for six months all buck show alter talked about were these sticky balls and i find myself rice balls either yeah i sign i find myself like pretty much an expert in japanese sticky balls now. He brought them in once to show. He was like, feel how sticky these balls are. And I was like, why did I? This is why I got into journalism for things like this.

I mean, there's some weird stuff. I think we could maybe do a tacky ball thing because, you know, the mud thing that we're doing is so antiquated. Like it's like they get mud from this one place in the river and then they put it on and you know the guys tell me in like arizona you put the mud on and it dries really quickly because you're in the desert and then all of a sudden like it's like would you want to throw a ball with dust on it like it it turns to kind of dust you know like yeah why are we doing this still we haven't gotten past like taking mud and putting it on the ball and like obviously it's not working because they everyone's

like and that was a funny thing too like kind of going through this and just like having everyone tell me their their their secret sauce and it's like yeah you know like the pepsi on the thing and then then you gotta you gotta melt in some other like extra sugar like extra sugar in the pepsi but my favorite one uh and and there's like a whole list there's a whole list of like all the different things that that i put in that people have like tried was like cbd oil and shaving cream and all the different like grip substances. But the one, my favorite actually came in after the story published. I got a message from a major league pitcher that said that he used his bong scrapings from his bong.

So people were getting creative. And I think there is something about like the data tech situation we're in that people were like, well, I've got this machine over here. Let me throw some shaving cream some like lubricants like what is what is tyrus sticky grip you know is that a brand what's pelican brand yeah there's pelican i guess tyrus is a competing one there's that that

spray uh can of like grip that they have in the for the hitters you know so like there's all this different stuff i i didn't know about the bong the bong uh resin until until today but what happens is you've got the machine like the rapsodo going and and like like it seems really why not you're like you know the dodgers are interested in you if you have like a 2400 spin rate you've got the machine that tells you what your spin rate is right away and you've got these things around anyway so you're like okay what happens if i stick my hand in this honey and and throw it like how does your spin rate is right away. And you've got these things around anyway. So you're like, okay, what happens if I stick my hand in this honey and throw it? Like, how does my spin rate do it?

Like, I think, like, you know, people, like, I think they would do it. I don't know. I don't know if I'm angry about it. So Pepsi, but not Coke. Like, I want to be clear on this. And also you guys, why did Banana Boat not sponsor this live stream?

There were like a few missed opportunities, I feel like. Come on, we need to be drowning in that Banana Boat money, baby. I need one of these notes to just be like, sponsor us. Yes. What was that sponsor? Are you on paper? Yes, in green. I am not.

It's coming. It's coming soon. The thing about that list, list though it is mostly household items yeah and i think sunscreen uh which some the sunscreen is not even on the list but the sunscreen is what i think i i when i get you know i really understand what brit's saying he's like are we gonna ban sunscreen like how are you gonna enforce all this stuff like you're gonna like people were talking about like the MMA check in. Have you seen that?

Yeah. Have you seen an MMA check in? Yeah. Where they like totally. It's like they put his hands in their hair and they're like go and they touch them in the places. And like I guess they don't have to do that on TV. They could do it before the TV turns on. But it's still be weird to bring your kids to a game and the

umpires at the mound like massaging the pitcher and like touching him all over the place and your kid's like what's he doing? It's like well he's looking for the Tyus clear grip you know right as someone who's been frisked like

one too many times at the airport I feel like that's not great entertainment. Right. It makes everyone think like this is like a police state. And I didn't put this in the story because it's a whole nother can of worms. But think about like entering into a CBA negotiations and you like announce, OK, pitchers, we want to like we'd love to talk to you guys about the CBA. But by the way, all pitchers, total frisk. Total 100% frisk. Then you ban sunblocks. They're not signing up on that.

I have a sunspot. I can sue MLB. Like they just can't. To me, like, I don't know about you, you know, but like when doing this article, like what is the next step? Is there a resolution to this or are we just going to kind of continue to turn a blind eye to it until one day a team has such an elaborate scheme that they've won the world series and then we maybe ban them i don't know just spitballing here well dodgers are definitely a team that people said we're doing 100 but i i wasn't trying to point fingers at anyone i'm not

trying to vacate titles based on their their grip substance or whatever. No, no, I'm not going there. But no, I, yeah, it is kind of an arms race, and sometimes you kind of just want to be like, you guys are children. You know, like, it's just ridiculous. Any little loophole, like, people are just like do-do-do-do-do. Like, because, let's

say, okay, we give them a tacky substance. They have one in softball, right? Like, Gorilla something. Yeah, right? Like Gorilla something. Yeah, they do. Gorilla Glue. Isn't it Gorilla Glue? Something. No, that's what fixes your coffee table. Yeah, that would be like you try to throw the ball and it's like still stuck to your hand.

That's Yachty with too much on the chest protector. Gorilla Glue is too much. What about the stuff that repairs blisters, though? Like where's the line, you know? Can you use something to – because I play you know, can you use something to, cause I played softball. Can you use something to like new skin? Like something that does get a little tacky.

How do you stop that? Bueller had some new skin type stuff on him, but like whatever Bauer was doing was illegal or made the blood made illegal. I don't know. There, there are these weird lines that baseball doesn't really define. And, but you know,

if you're like, if you're, let's say you do give them a tacky substance, it's possible. This is like five years from now, I'm reporting how teams have taken the approved substance and are like sticking some boiled down Pepsi in there to make it better. You know, like what if you only get 50 or 75 RPM? Like, I bet you people will still do it. Right. Yeah, they probably still will i mean i'm glad you kind of brought up the the elephant in the room i mean trevor bauer has pointed this

out and then done experiments and then he puts together a season in 2020 that makes him the favorite to win the nl cy young we've seen bauer pitch close to this level over a longer season one time before but that looked like an outlier prior to 2020. So I'm just kind of curious now, is this the Bauer we expect going forward, barring a major change in the rules? Even if there were a change in the rules, don't you think Bauer's the kind of guy who tinkers enough

to figure out a way to work through it? I mean, is elite ratios Trevor Bauer here to stay? That's sort of the going forward question, regardless of whether he wins the Cy Young. Can we expect him to stay at this level going forward? There was also, I mean, the year before, there was like a real stark thing between, because 2019 was not good for him,

but he had injuries. I'm not trying to make excuses for him, but I think there was like a conflation of like, he had some injuries and like some poor production that we've already regressed towards better production anyway this year. And then maybe he joined in with the crowd. I mean, I think from his perspective, and I don't want to put too many words in his mouth or take any shine off of any award that he might win. But like from his perspective, it was a little bit like, well, I told everyone that everyone was doing this.

I tried to point to Garrett Cole's spin rate increase. I tried to bring this up as an issue. Like back in 2018, he basically told everybody he was going to do it for an inning, and then he did it for an inning, and you could see his spin rates go up, and then he stopped doing it. And he was kind of like, well, if they're not going to bust me,

and they're not going to bust anyone else, and they made this announcement at the beginning of the year, oh, we're going to try and bust people this year. And they didn't bust a single person. And like, I, I honestly, like,

I think if you tried to watch Bauer, you couldn't bust them. Like, you know, you could see some guys where they got the cap and then it's super obvious. And then there's, then there's other people who are obviously doing that aren't as obvious. And,

um, I, I just feel like I'm kind of like hopeless i'm like i i don't know i don't i don't think we can do this i think there's three ways it happens very prominently the front of the cap the back of the cap and then uh the belt that's the other spot too you see like dustin may i think was going to the belt constantly in his playoff appearances the hat is it stains the hat's a terrible way to do it because it's just so obvious, especially if your mix turns your hat white. You get a blue hat with a big white spot on the bill.

And the hair, the back of the neck and the hair is the other spot. We see a lot of it. I don't think he's ever really replaced the hat. I think he just changes the logo. He just has someone stitch a new one on it because he likes the stuff that's embedded in the original hat that he wore when he got into the league. But, I mean, jokes aside, I do think the long hair is the other place players are just hiding it. Like Corbin Burns, every single batter

takes the hat off, gets into the long hair, gets the hat back on. Come on, like that. There's an easy pattern there. But if you watch every picture on TV, even the guys who are using it, you can't always see it. There are some methods that seem to be a lot more discreet than others. And I think that's where if you start trying to ban it, the guys who have a better, more discreet method are still more likely to continue doing it because I think it's still going to be really hard. Given the enforcement with managers having to call it out and knowing their own guys are probably doing it, that's a deterrent in and of itself, right? So I just feel like this is a total gridlock situation. it seems to me the only time it ever comes up is if a manager is just like really cranky about it like if he's somehow you know just wants to to mess with the starting pitcher because a lot of

times guys in the bullpen are like hey man you just ruined it for all of us right yeah exactly it's not our fault you can't hit him the the real story i remember was like uh brendan donnelly who was a guy who walked across the he was was a strike breaker, like he was a replacement player. So people like didn't really like him. And then Jose Guillen had played with him in L.A. and then played with, was with the Nationals. And he went and told Frank Robinson, hey, this guy cheats, you know, he does the pine tar. And like, we don't know if Frank Robinson cared at all about his union status or whatever, but he went out there and did it. And then the very next night, Mike Socha had to come out and try Gary Majewski just because it was like, well, you did this to my guy, so I'm going to get you back.

And they didn't catch Gary Majewski, which does not mean that Gary Majewski was not doing anything. They just they didn't happen to stumble on the place. Like, you know, I hair gel and and sunscreen just make it impossible although you do see it's really funny when you see a pitcher take the rosin bag and just like like right along the arm just like destroy their arm with the rosin bag you're like what i know what you're doing right right exactly so like you know what would be the downside to just using these? Again, sorry, guys.

I have to go back to the sticky balls. Like, what's the downside to using these? I think the only one to me is that you cut the homers. Like, that they, that, that, they, they, that might, and it might be an issue because like, there are drag reasons. Like, a sticky ball probably doesn't run through, doesn't fly through the air the same way, right? reasons like a sticky ball probably doesn't run through doesn't fly through the air the same way right so if it if it if it has more drag because it's sticky then you could really demonstrate you could like and i know that i tried to reach out to some kbo contacts and it didn't it didn't work out but i know that in kbo they made the ball tacky and they've also juiced and de-juiced the

ball they just are like very upfront about it they're like this year the ball will be different and they make an announcement and it's very refreshing and different, but I love that the honesty and also like the grab the, like the cornucopia of like, well, who knows what the ball is going to be like this year. Let's just pull it out. We get that part without the honesty. So I like the iron chef approach. You know, you have a secret ingredient in Iron Chef. You've got a different ball. Yes, I love it. Open your baskets. This year, the ball is sticky.

Yeah, this year, the ball is sticky. There you go. Go to the mound. This year, it's a cue ball. Exactly. Just keep changing it up. I mean, you've got all these different ways you can go about it. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving. different ways you can go about it. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton bike or bike plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals.

All access memberships separate. Terms apply. Let's talk about the awards that were given out on Monday night. Rookie of the Year awards were given up. Kyle Lewis gets the award on the American League side. Luis Robert, Christian Javier were the other two finalists. I think a month into the season, it looked like Robert was going to be kind of a runaway winner. He cooled off quite a bit in the second half. And Lewis was, I think he was a perfectly fine choice for the award. I don't

think the AL had an obvious clear-cut winner. So what was your guys' thought process looking at this pool of AL rookies and with Lewis coming out on top for this award. Yeah, I thought they probably made the right decision. What's tough, guys, and we talked about this so much on Rates and Barrels, is you're looking at that 60-game season with rookies and you're wondering, could they have held it in a regular season? Would it have held up? Would the race have changed drastically? I looked at those three guys and I thought you could probably make a case for all of them. We've talked a lot about the white socks and some of the, the really strong,

like younger players that they have. So I did not have a vote for rookie of the year this year. So I was okay with kind of whoever won. I certainly think Lewis is a deserving guy, had a good season, but again, so much of this to me is just so impossible when you're talking about guys who didn't play very long to start with. And then you're looking at that trunicated season.

So it was really tough of all the awards to judge. I thought rookie of the year when there's no like clear cut Aaron Judge type of scenario was just really tough to judge. Yeah, there's probably another universe where these guys that were obviously tailing off, Robert Robert. Sorry, Robert. That's the way I'm going with it. I've read around. I've read it. I've tried. I think it's Robert. But Kyle Lewis and both both of these guys were really telling off. And you kind of wonder if like if there was another 60 games, would they have come back on fire? Would one of them have separated from the

other by making the adjustments they need to make? And it's also really hard for us when we think about next year is like, which one of these two is more likely to make those adjustments and have the better strikeout rate and improve going forward? Is Robert always going to be super toolsy and just have

terrible plate stats in terms of strikeouts and walks? You know, was Kyle Lewis making real gains? I don't know. But his slide was not as bad, I think, as Robert's. I think that's ended up what got him for it. And I think the pitchers, Javier and Sheffield, were my two favorite pitchers in the AL. And I just think they didn't do enough to, you know, separate themselves. Their advanced stats weren't that amazing. And they just didn't, they didn't have like a two ERA.

You didn't have like a Devin Williams situation where like, they just blew the league away. They were just pretty good rookies. So it was always like a two person race and I, I have no complaints with it. I just want to pat myself on the back real quick. Bold prediction. Kyle Lewis wins a L Roy. I did that.

I did that. Did you, did you, do we have tape? I have it in the athletic in print. I did that. I had nothing to do with him winning. I'm just saying I predicted it.

And there was seven other ones that I'll get wrong. As long as you get one bold prediction right, that gives you currency to get about 20 wrong. I've tried for about three, but right now I'm running on two. And if you, Darvish, win Sai, then I'll get three. And that's always what I want. I think Darvish is perfectly deserving, but I don't think he's going to win. Part of my flaw as an analyst is that in this shortened season, I'm looking back to last year, and I feel like you've got a six-way tie in the National League for the Cy Young Award.

And there's only three finalists even who are going to be part of the award show. But still, I look back at Darvish turning the corner with the walk rate midway through last season. He's been a different guy for a longer period of time. He's been that true ace that the Cubs were expecting when they gave him that big contract a few years ago. So, you know, I look at that and I think, okay, maybe we can do the same thing going forward as we kind of look at the other awards to like lump in some of the stuff that happened in the past. You can't do that for rookie of the year, unfortunately. On the NL side, I think they got it right. I'm a Brewers fan, so I'm a little bit of a homer, but I was looking at relievers earlier today.

Devin Williams, he's the best reliever in the league in the shortened season. You look at what he was doing inside the zone, untouchable, right? And the strange thing is, he's an elite reliever with not terrible command. He actually has almost average command, which is refreshing, right? Because when I look at a reliever leaderboard and I look at the elite strikeout rates, you often see a bad walk rate attached to it because those guys, as nasty as they are, they don't know where it's going. reliable is a command score for a reliever when we're talking about a shortened season, especially? I mean, it's already a lot fewer innings than we get from a starter. How sticky, to use the theme of this episode, is a command score for a reliever over a sample of, say,

20 innings? I asked them and they said they start to believe them at stats that their sort of stabilization point is about 200 pitches. So for a starter, that would be, you know, two good starts. I think for a reliever, you're talking about a couple of weeks. But I think in a season like this, you have a decent idea. One of the reasons that it takes a starter too is that because you have to kind of align the scouting reports for the pitcher with what they're intending to do, right? the scouting reports for the pitcher with what they're intending to do, right? You can't tell what they're intending to do 100% until you kind of see what they've tried to do in the past. So there is like a little bit of like, we have to get the scouting report on this pitcher,

have to see what he's trying to do. And then we can say, oh, he's trying to do this. And this is how good he is at what he's trying to do. So it's all a guessing game anyway with command because you're trying to guess what the intent of the pitcher was, which makes it so difficult. But one thing that makes me a little uncomfortable about Devin Williams and some of these Cy Young guys is they all come out of the Central, and the Central was pretty bad.

And the way the schedule worked this year, it's almost not as weird that it was 60 games. It's weird that they didn't play out of their geographical region, right? So if you were in the center, like, you got to – Central, you got to beat up on a lot of bad teams. And the East, like, I think maybe DeGrom is not getting a fair shake in this NL Cy Young discussion because he had to face better offenses game in and game out

than someone like Bauer or even Williams. Yeah, and that was a lot of the case against Bauer, I feel like. But for me, guys, Williams was probably the easiest pick in the NL. Like you said, he was not just rookie. He was just a really good reliever. It wasn't like, oh, good for a rookie. I believe he is the last reliever to win Rookie of the Year since Craig Breslow, right? And he was a non-closer.

Honestly, and Derek, I'm sure you can speak more to this being a Brewers fan, but that bullpen just consistently is their strength. I mean, you look at guys who have come out of that bullpen over recent years, and you look at the fact that September has been owned largely by Milwaukee, and it's because of the roster expansion, and it's where they really weren't able to do it this year. And, you know, of course, does anybody do stats better than Jason Stark here? I mean, look at this.

Six times as many cases hits. I mean. That's pretty impressive. Wow. And, you know, Chapman obviously a closer, a late inning guy. That's just some, you look at those hits, you look at, that really kind of, wow. That is pretty

amazing. I was looking at also some of the volume stuff because a lot of the arguments against giving, you know, like a pitcher or at least a reliever like one of these awards is the volume thing and um tony gonsolin for example um had 175 batters faced to devin williams 100 and uh devin williams had more strikeouts so uh you know the once you get to that level where you're just so amazing in the viewer and and the difference between 175 batter space 100 batter space is not enough for me to be like oh tony gonsolin was better even though you could make that that argument with war um i don't love war for pitchers anyway so i was cool with it. I think, but, you know,

Cabrian Hayes just maybe didn't have that volume. Speaking of volume, and Jake Cronenworth was maybe just a little step below. I keep trying to figure out what kind of player Cronenworth's going to be going forward. You know, he was a nice story for the first few weeks especially. It was cool to see him get recognition as a finalist for the NL R especially it was cool to see him get recognition as a finalist for the nl rookie of the year award but is he more than a really good utility type player and i feel

like some people have a negative connotation attached to utility player he's legitimately good at playing a few different positions and maybe more of like a league average sort of bat in my eyes like do either of you see more than that coming from Cronenworth going forward? No, I'm glad you brought that up because he was kind of like the early feel-good story of the season. You're like, oh, Cronen's own, look at him go. The issue is the more people you talk to in the game, the more people are divided as what, if anything, to make of this season. You can't really evaluate this as a regular season. And like you said, Derek, you can't go back and say, well, he did this. Look at the back of his baseball card. He doesn't have a back of the baseball card. So I think you almost have to just kind of

hope for the best and kind of evaluate as if it's the worst this season. It seems like a lot of clubs are basically just kind of throwing away a lot of what they saw, regardless of whether these guys were in the big leagues or at the alternate training site, because there was just so much unknown. So for me, I'd probably need to see him a little more. Is he that guy that stormed out? Or is he the guy who the league adjusted to and couldn't adjust back? I mean, how many times have we seen like a hot month

from a pitcher or a hitter in baseball, and they get run up the flagpole, and then they just simply can't adjust back. I mean, how many times have we seen like a hot month from a pitcher or a hitter in baseball and they get run up the flagpole and then they just simply can't adjust? So I don't want to say like the jury's already out on him. I feel like you probably need another hundred games to get even close to what he would have gotten if this was a regular year. I mean, you know, yeah, it really is that way because even though you can say like his barrel rate was pretty good and he hit the ball hard and, you know, I think I see kind of like a Tommy LaStella with better defense, which is a pretty good player. It's a good player. So I think if the ball doesn't change much, I think Cronenworth can hit 15 to 20 homers, steal a couple bags, and be a little bit better defensively than Tommy LaStella.

So I think he's a pretty good player. But it is interesting to think about, is that worth a Rookie of the Year thing? And do you care about the player's future? Should we be thinking about 2019 or 2021 when you're evaluating a rookie of the year? Shouldn't you just say this year he was the best. That's what you should do. But I think because,

yeah, but as a fantasy player, especially somebody in keeper and dynasty leagues, like you want to be right forever. Like you want to have, you want to pick the best player longterm. Like even people who want to vote, want to vote for the guy that thinks is going to be better long term.

I think it's true. There was that one guy. Wasn't it the brewer that won Rookie of the Year and was never any good afterwards? It was Pat Lestache. Pat Lestache? It was Pat Lestache. Sorry. Yes, but also no, because what's his name in Chicago?

Got Manager of the Year, and he was, Rick Renteria and was fired. So you can't be like, hey, let's make sure we get someone with some longevity when we pick this award. I mean, I think you kind of have to like

tunnel vision it for the award. But if you're the organization and you actually have the player, you have to look at it and be like, okay, what do we really have here?

Is it this 60 game stint? Because I've had scouts and baseball people equate that to extended spring training. The regular season for MLB is being valued the same as extended spring training? That to me is just

mind-blowing. I don't know what you do with that. And Eno and I are both kind of interested in this year and what happens overall for all the people who missed out on this season. And this Rookie of the Year is a good example. Are we going to laugh at these picks in a few years? Are we going to laugh at all these awards in a few years?

Dodgers seemed like a deserving title winner, you know? Yeah, and I was thinking about that earlier today. I actually heard an Andrew Friedman interview while I was going to get groceries. Yeah, it was okay. But anyway, I was thinking about this Dodgers team and I was like, you know, it was fitting that they won in the shortened season because they've been so close multiple times because they are so good at scoring runs and suppressing runs year over year over year. They felt like a just World Series winner because they've had perennial success in the long haul, right? They were not a fluke at all to be there and they weren't a fluke to win. in the long haul, right?

They were not a fluke at all to be there, and they weren't a fluke to win. I think we would have different feelings about this season if one of those low-seeded playoff teams had made a run and found a way to win the World Series. Derek's Astros? Well, yeah, my Astros, if they had won, for all the things they've done, they have consistently been a contender.

They've won one already. It wouldn't have been that ridiculous. All we're saying is if you gave Jake Cronenworth a full season, would he have continued to produce at that level? The Astros wouldn't have finished below 500 over a full 162. Almost certainly, they would have

got above 500, and they wouldn't have been as much of a laugher on paper record wise being in the postseason. I feel like I've sort of already made that correction in my mind. But again, as they've become a team that I've grown very fond of recently, maybe I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt. But the other NL rookie of the year candidate I think is really interesting. He might end up being the best player in the bunch long term. I think he'd be everybody's choice for who's going to be the most valuable

of the three finalists out of Cronenworth, you know, Boehm, and Devin Williams. Boehm, because of what he can do with the bat, he's a difference maker

in the middle of the lineup. I think the underlying numbers kind of already support that. And the way he was utilized once he was called up, I think supports that as well. I mean, is that a fair statement that you guys trust Alec Boehm

to be the most likely great player of the Rookie of the Year candidates we've talked about? This is like the best thing I ever did. On the NL side, for sure, for sure. Yeah. I do feel like, too, if he had come up maybe a little earlier, it certainly would have mattered. Right. I remember watching him late in the season. And I was like, man, every club in baseball would kill to have a guy like this to call up. Right. Like he is it. He is the guy he he is going to be very good for a long time health permitting. So yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Yeah, it's too bad that it might have been the difference,

but it really was because if you look at like Cabrian Hayes, like if Cabrian Hayes had been up all season, he might have won it. Yeah, that's true. He's one of the hardest players to project going forward. 24 games from Cabrian Hayes, but they were amazing. Five homers, hit.376, had a.442 on base percentage. I thought he'd be up sooner because defensively, he's probably been ready to play third base in the big leagues for a couple of years already.

Better than Colin Moran, for sure. Yeah, I mean, Colin Moran's a first base DH type, and I'm not trying to be mean to Colin Moran. I'm trying to praise Cabrian Hayes as an advanced defender on the left side of the infield. So he's a great mystery player for 2021. He didn't really get a chance to have the league figure him out yet, and I'm sure it's going to happen. But the question is, how quickly does he adjust back? And that's the great unknown. That's what makes trying to analyze this game so much fun. coming up. We've joked on this show about Manager of the Year being the worst award ever. And I

think Rick Renneria being a finalist after being fired is a pretty good nail in that coffin. So my question for you guys is, if you were going to replace the Manager of the Year award with a new award, what would you choose? What do you think should take its place? Foreign Substance of the Year would be better than Manager of the year. I'd like to see a new list of substances every year. I want people to get really into that, like trying to come up with their own homemade

concoction for maximizing spin. Yeah, see, like if every year you had eight or ten new substances. Lubricants. It'd be like giving out a scientific award, you know? And it just edges Pepsi. Pepsi or Sprite, I mean, this is serious here.

Isn't Sprite a Coke product? You know, you got some rivalries already built in here, you know, with the sticky grip, with the Pelican grip and the Tyrus sticky grip. Yeah, I like it. I don't know. what would your awards be i don't know that's a that's a good question i mean one of the problems is that there's been like kind of uh award inflation right like i would say um a cool reliever award you know to sort of like

celebrate relievers better but there is one there's like there's some award the reliever fireman there's a reliever of the year of the year reliever is one. There's like, there's some award, the reliever, fireman. There's a reliever of the year. Fireman of the year, reliever of the year. It's like somebody, they're all sponsored by somebody, you know?

It's like, I don't know, separate MVP from best player, but there is kind of this Hank Aaron award, right? And there's the Roberto Clemente award for like the good guy. Yeah,

we reward a lot of these guys for, I mean, I don't, I don't, and managers, maybe we can just get rid of it. We live in a society that has an awful lot of award. We live in the participation trophy era.

Okay. I guess so. Just say it. Yeah, I guess so. Everyone gets an award. Yeah. Like,

you know, I guess managers deserve their day in the sun, but you know, I think to me, the day in the sun is when you win the World Series. You know what I mean? When you turn a young team around. The manager gets so much attention from the media,

and they talk to the media all the time. Maybe get rid of it. I don't know. Or just embrace it. Just be like, it's a silly award. We have no way of really knowing how good managers are. And so we just, we do things. You know what, like somebody said,

it's a test for how bad our narratives were in the spring. Whatever team we thought was going to be really bad and we wrote about in the spring and said they were going to be really bad, whichever one of those teams was actually good, they are the manager of the year. It's true. That's kind of how it works.

What about best baseball podcast that used to be a fantasy podcast that occasionally doesn't talk about fantasy? I like what you're thinking. What about that? I mean, that seems like a – It's very specific, but I do like our chances. Yeah, it seems like it would be – Maybe getting some hardware.

Yeah. At least being a finalist. I think we could make it final three if that's the award. It could be stacked, but I feel like we could maybe slip in there. I mean, I like a lot of the other shows that we do here. So I think the competition would be pretty tough. We got a few comments that have rolled in over the last little while. So I was going to pass those along.

The first one is from AJG6882. These guys are throwing 99 plus, and I think they should kind of have an idea where it's going. Yeah, see, I think that's the downside if you if you take away foreign substances command will get worse maybe not as much of a decline as as some would suggest right but it's it's going to be a problem if you have absolutely no substance whatsoever like i i don't think it's used primarily for grip but i think that is a fact. If you also don't do anything, like if you just do enforcement, I think it'll be terrible.

But if you did do enforcement and also give him a tacky ball or some approved substance or something, then that's, I think, probably the best way forward. But, you know, we also have a comment on StreamYard saying that my understanding is that hitters prefer allowing pitchers to use pine tires from Mike.

You know, yes, but at the same time, hit by pitches are an all-time high. So if we just take the grip substance away, are we going to, we've already seen hit by pitches double almost in terms of rate over where it used to be. Are we going to see that double again? where it used to be are we going to see that double again like but at the same time it's also doing something very good for pitchers that's not has anything to do with command so i don't know there were definitely some hitters that were mad about it man i i i know this is this idea that hitters don't care but the hitters i talked to were like yo f them this some of the stuff here's some stuff they got on the cutting room floor.

One player, one hitter was like, so this is what happens. You see a kid come up. He struggles. He goes back down. He comes back out. He has better grip substance. He dominates. I swear to you.

I swear to you that's what happens. Another hitter was like, yo, my friend, the pitcher, opened up his bag one time to show me what he has uh for for you know getting ready for pitching and there were like five cans of crap in there he's like what is all that he's like go for grip it's not like they don't even have one thing they just like just load up on whatever i've seen pitchers like putting it in their glove while they're talking to me. I don't know. It's definitely something they use to get

better. It's not just about grip. Have you seen that too, Britt? Players loading up just in front of you when you've been around the clubhouse? Yeah, it's very much an open thing. Maybe what steroids were back in the day, right? Back in the 80s or 90s, before anyone cared. It is. People don't.

Guys don't care because everyone's cheating. Like Eno's article, everyone's doing it. So if you're not doing it, you're actually behind. So if I'm a pitcher, am I using it? Absolutely. Another thing that we didn't really get into is catchers have it a lot of times on their shin guards and they'll catch the ball, put it on there and throw it back to the pitcher. So there's like no actual way in my mind to totally eradicate it from the game.

So MLB is right to not take up this fight because you're just not going to win. They'd be better off, like some people have already commented on our stream and on Twitter, moving the mound if they feel like pitchers are getting this unfair advantage than trying to eradicate any kind of sticky substance. fair advantage than trying to eradicate any kind of sticky substance. Yeah, I'm increasingly, I'm increasingly into lowering the mound or moving it back. There's something with the mound. And if it sounds like something that's crazy and like, you're like, it's 60 feet, six inches, it always has been. No, it hasn't. It hasn't always been that. We've changed the mound. We've changed the mound height. We've changed the mound distance. Like we've changed a lot of things.

Maybe it has been 90 feet between the bases the whole time. But if someone made a convincing argument that 88 feet would make a difference, I'd listen. Right. Also, when they dreamed up baseball, did anyone ever think that these many guys would be throwing 100? I find this very hard to believe. Back in the olden days, did anyone ever think that, hey, these guys are going to come out, everyone's going to be throwing 100?

When baseball started, they were like, I would like a high pitch, please. I want to send a current pitcher, if possible, back in time, someone who throws 99 with movement and to send them back and just sneak them into a game and then just watch the reactions.

It would be amazing to see that. Like a witch. Burn them. Yeah. Don't send this player too far back in time because bad things would happen inevitably. Anything else on your guys' mind here as we move through the rest of

awards week? Anything you're looking for? I think the NL Cy Young is going to be fascinating. Like Ina said, there's going to be a lot of good pitchers left off ballots. And you know what also stresses me out? And I voted for NL Cy Young, so I had plenty of stress already. But the MVP

ballot is full of stress. The picking in the top 10 is super hard in any year. Try doing it in a year where there were only 60 games and most teams didn't play each other. How do you evaluate? How do you do that? I think I'd actually advocate for a shorter...

I almost want longer ballots for the Hall of Fame and all this stuff. I'd almost argue for shorter ballots for MVP because what you end up doing for 9 and 10 is... I think there's a temptation to be like, well, this guy was nicer. Yes. I agree. Or like I've watched this guy like more.

Yeah. He was good. Angel Pagan. Yeah. See you later. Yeah. Thanks for blowing me off, sucker. Joke's on you.

Right. I agree. It's too long. And I think it's easier to be like these three guys are the best in the leagues than it is to be like, these 10. It gets very confusing. I feel like even top five would be better. But you're right. Once you get towards the end, like the MVP voting is very stressful for that reason.

Then you always wonder that you're going to like miss, leave somebody out that should be in the five to 10. And everyone jumps all over you. And you're like, well, I got the first five, right? You know, it's, it's too many,

too many. It's pretty stressful. Actually. I don't want to be like, Oh, what was us? And like, people are like, we thought I have the votes,

but like, you know, I, I did the manager of the year. Like my first time I had one of the first times I had a vote and I did like, uh, Farrell did well by my numbers and he got fired at the end of the

season I was like had to go on tv and be like I guess I messed up did you though or did they you know because Rick Renteria got fired yeah man I don't know he Rick Renteria seemed like he did a really good job and he he got through to a lot of young players on that team. But at the same time, one thing that is not very statty for me, I did not think that his demeanor during the wild card game inspired much confidence. He looked like he was heavy breathing and had his hands on his knees, and it's just like, yo, dude, you're not doing the bocce thing where it's just like, I am good.

Yeah, projecting confidence is what you want to do in that position. We were going to win this game. Especially with a young team. Bochy, I feel like, really showed one emotion on the field pretty much forever. You just knew what you were getting every time out. Completely stoic all the time. I think that's what you want out of a manager. He's like a profit for the team.

He's like a, a energy setter. He's like a, this is, this is who we are. This is our guy. I'm going to help you guys with this NL MVP thing. I think Freddie Freeman fully deserves it. And there's a narrative push on there,

of course, given how sick he was when he was dealing with COVID prior to the start of the season. But just in terms of overall war and offensive production, I mean, Juan Soto in terms of WRC plus had a better season in 13 fewer games. But it's the complete package. I mean, Freddie Freeman did everything you want a hitter to do this year. If it were a fantasy award, people would be mad he doesn't steal bases. But he's as deserving of the NL MVP really as anybody in the shortened season. But would I be mad if Mookie Betts or Tatis or one of the other stars in the NL got it?

Well, no, because I don't get outraged about these sorts of things. Yeah, that's fair. I don't get really outraged either, but for the players, it matters. It's money. It's status. It's like numbers filling out your Wikipedia page. It matters for the players it matters it's money it's status it's like numbers

filling out your wikipedia page so the hall of fame it matters for the hall of fame later you know and because people that's how they they tabby it up so um yeah i can get behind it i think that freddie freeman was so far better than tatis with the bat in the end that uh that's what that's what decides it even though tatis was awesome on defense this year and impacts the game more than Freeman on defense, you're talking about Freddie Freeman being 87% better than league average and Tatis being 49. I mean, both are good numbers, but I can easily tell you which one is better. Yeah. And I'm also going to say that Juan Soto didn't get the love he should have gotten. And I understand he started the season late. No one knows whether he had COVID or not, so he did miss some time. But a lot of times I feel like Tatis was such a great story that people just blindly put him down without actually looking at a lot of the numbers, in which case he really wasn't, in my opinion, the MVP.

opinion the MVP and not when you look at the the stats and the pure numbers yes he's exciting you don't get bonus points though for being able to steal home that's not what MVP is you know unfortunately not I'm looking into that I'm looking into that because it's a weird thing I'm like getting a little bit into the card world again found my cards uh during COVID and um and I wanted I wanted to write I'm going to write something about, you know, which rookie cards I'm buying. And I was talking to some collectors and I was like, my stance is So I'm interested in sort of investigating. It's one of the things I'm going to do this off season is investigating the notion of popularity and how that reacts. And I think that probably matters for MVP awards. So you're right.

It shouldn't matter how sexy is when he rounds the bases, but it does probably. Yeah, it does. It sells cards for sure. There's a lot of people getting into baseball cards again. It's unbelievable. Nando told me that if you see baseball cards at the store, you should just buy them because they're not usually there.

And you can just resell them on eBay if you don't want them or find someone who wants them and help them out. But it's crazy how popular that has become again in the last few months months especially after that hobby seemed like it was ruined just a few years ago if you are not already a subscriber to the athletic you can sign up for one dollar a week at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels be sure to check out eno's story once you get that subscription or if you already have one on twitter he's at you know sarah she is at brit underscore Jiroli. And I am at Derek Van Riper. That's going to wrap things up for this episode of Raids and Barrels. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.