Rates & Barrels - More Moves! Seager, Ray, Ozuna's Suspension, Báez, Iglesias and Trades

Episode Date: December 1, 2021

Eno & DVR examine another 48-hour flurry of activity including Corey Seager to the Rangers, Robbie Ray to the Mariners, MLB's retroactive 20-game suspension for Marcell Ozuna, Javier Báez to the Tigers, a catcher carousel, Raisel Iglesias' return to the Halos, and more.  Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Wednesday, December 1st. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. Riper here with Eno Saris and the transaction palooza continues as we approach what we expect to be the beginning of a lockout overnight. Pencils

down. Pencils down. There's no time for physicals now, so maybe Wednesday midday, Wednesday afternoon as we record this, maybe the moves are pretty much done for a little while. I would say a lock. You know, it takes at least 24 hours to get someone in through a physical. But since we last spoke, a lot has happened,

including a story from Bradford William Davis. Plenty of physicals. Plenty of physicals have happened, but Bradford William Davis had a story about highly variable baseballs in play throughout the 2021 season. We're going to save that for Friday, with all the CBA related stuff because we have the triumphant return of one Britt Giroli to the show that day. And there's plenty of non-transactional stuff to get to. So we're going to kind of put that over on the Friday rundown and kind of pick up where we left off on Monday.

Because I think within, I don't know, an hour or two of us recording the Monday episode. You got Robbie Ray, right? I don't know, an hour or two of us recording the Monday episode. You got Robbie Ray right. I got Robbie Ray right. I got that. The timing of when that episode came out and when that news broke, hopefully to anybody who's ever thought about how long it takes to just edit a podcast, they would know that I couldn't have possibly cheated. Why would I do that? It's a dumb thing to cheat about or lie about. Anyway, Robbie Ray became a Mariner.

Corey Seeger went to Texas. I think we were split on this. I think I looked at Corey Seager and the idea of them getting another infielder after getting Marcus Simeon, another middle infielder, and I thought, oh, that seems weird. And you said, no, this is real.

They're in pursuit. It happened. Corey Seager joins the party in Texas. It's 10 years. It's $325 million. And I got to say, regardless of snap reactions to the deal and whether or not in year 9 and 10, Corey Seager is still the kind of player that you want to be giving $30-plus million to,

I love when teams who haven't been spending start spending again. I like when teams are trying to get actively better. And when you take Seager and Simeon alone and just add them to a Rangers roster that was pretty flat and pretty boring for most of the 2021 season, you could be adding as many as like, what, 15 war probably? Like if you think about like high outcome, like high end outcomes for both of those players, you're probably bumping at least 10 war from the two players combined. And they're probably not done, right? They made the John Gray move. They have other players they're going to bring in. Maybe Kyle Seeger ends up joining his brother in Texas too, because there are plenty of spots up for grabs.

But I was surprised by some of the reaction I saw about Seeger in particular, where there was this implication that he's not going to age well. And I just wondered, where does that come from? Because he doesn't strike out a lot. He draws blocks. He does plenty of damage when he makes contact. And he's not going to be a shortstop for the life of the deal, I don't think, because he's pretty big for a shortstop anyway. But if you're looking at hitter profiles, other than a major hip injury,

which he's a few years removed from now, what are the long-term concerns with Seager that would make someone think that he's not going to age well? I suppose it is that injury history. For me, the things I look at for long-term aging are strikeout rate, reach rate in particular. It's one of the reasons I didn't like the Javi Baez deal. And by all accounts, you know, Seager may not have Vottoian discipline, but he doesn't, it's not a problem there. And he has a really good hit tool to add to that. So I don't, I think it would just be the injuries.

And I don't know. I think that sometimes the 2020 messes us up a little bit. You know, 95 games last year, 134 in 2019, 52 out of 60 in 2020. It's not like Iron Man. He's projected for 136 games and still manages to get five wins out of that.

The one thing I did notice, though, when I aged the deal and just did a sort of rough and dirty aging curve, which kind of know, kind of take a half win off every year. They were paying for about, using the steamer projection there for five wins, they were paying about 11 million per win over the life of the deal. And then everyone was over the life of the deal, and then everyone was clowning on the Simeon deal, and they paid,

according to projections at least, they're paying seven million per win on the Simeon deal, so I don't know, like, the Simeon deal actually seems like a little bit better, yeah, he's, you know, he's older, but he's, there there's your iron man i wonder if there's some i think with isaiah kinder falafel and josh young the idea is probably this is kind of reading the tea leaves a little bit of sourcing i think young might start the season as the third baseman kinder falafel is now your your utility guy and that's a really i think think the best way to use Kainer Falefa. His offense is not really great, but his defense is really good at shortstop. Now it doesn't matter as much that Corey Seager might miss some games. You've got a really competent backup in Kainer Falefa. And now you tell me Jung, Seager, Simeon, Lowe, and I think Lowe has another level to him.

That's pretty exciting. Yeah, that's a good core. There's going to be a few more pieces probably sprinkled in. Now if you are one of the mid-tier free agents out there, you're thinking about Texas and saying, hey, look, I got a good supporting cast around me. Maybe this is a better place to go. And one thing I mentioned on the Monday episode was I was definitely concerned about Marcus Simeon's counting stats taking a hit because this will not be the Blue Jays lineup,

even with Corey Seager in it. It's still a notch below. But how good is the offense as currently constructed? To me, it's kind of maybe a league average sort of group altogether because of the star power and not much more than that. But again, they're not done. One thing I like is that what you see from the Cole Calhoun one for five deal is that an older corner outfielder is an easy place to get a value. So maybe they get Jock Peterson. Maybe they get Tommy Pham. maybe they get tommy fam maybe get eddie rosario but

there's an easy way to make left field uh you know bring it up to the standards of at least of right field but maybe league average and then um all the places where they are not good which is center third and catcher you know if you're putting kinder falafel if you're putting leotis taveras if you're putting jonah heim those are the places where they're below average offensively they each have an exciting young player there they have young at third they have well dolas garcia isn't young but he's at least a backup plan to leotis taveras between the one of them one of the two of them might might turn into a league average guy neither is projected to be a league average guy but there's there's reasons to maybe believe in either of them uh and then they've got sam huff coming behind the plate and all those guys are

i mean pretty much ready could start the season with the team and i wonder if they would also be in the market for a possible trade i mean wilson contraris could be on the move we'll talk about the jan gom signing and they do havereras could be on the move. We'll talk about the Jan Gomes signing and passing later. But they do have to spend some attention on the starting rotation still. I think that's why they were in the latest rumor I saw for the Rangers was talking to the Reds about Mali or Castillo. Yeah, that certainly makes sense from Texas' perspective. Why the Reds are even interested in moving those guys,

I do not quite understand but nice job by the Rangers so far spending a lot of money really fast and I'm curious to see what other pitchers they're able to add behind John Gray because that's still a pretty clear need there but I I have to say that they I tweeted something about the Rangers thing. It was just not a fun couple of days on Twitter because of just one tweet of the Rangers lineup. I had half of the Rangers universe was yelling at me because I put McKinney in over Adoles Garcia. I'm not that big a fan of Adoles Garcia.

He has the flaws that really get to me of just just terrible reach rate, you know, combined with a terrible strikeout rate. Like, he doesn't have the hit tool to be swinging at half his pitches outside the zone like he does. So I just don't think he's actually that viable going forward. But yeah, maybe I should have put him in over McKinney. So I made a little mistake there, but I had, you know, all of Rangers universe clowning on me. What about Adolesco's year? Rookie of the year? I'm like not in my book. Not even close.

And then I had the other half of baseball Twitter universe clowning on me because they thought I was saying this was like a great lineup. I was like it's better. It's better than what it was which was maybe the worst in the league last year., it's better. It's better than what it was, which was maybe the worst in the league last year.

So it's better. But to tell the truth, and this is the kind of thing that does not play on Twitter, which is just so aggravating, I agree. I don't think it's that great of a lineup yet. I think that they did a lot of good work. And yeah, I maybe should have put Garcia in over McKinney, but I don't think either of those guys is a solution going forward. I mean, McKinney's been released now, but anyway, they have work to do.

But it is, I think, I agree with you. It is nice to see a team try to put in the work. It reminds me a little bit of the Padres signing Machado. You know, it seemed like a year too early, and then Machado is still there playing with good young players coming up around him. Right, and I think you have to look at free agency that way as a multi-year sort of thing. Who's available next year? Is the class of shortstops available next year anywhere near as good as this year?

Of course not. So if you want to get an impact shortstop, you have to be a year too early. You're talking about a 10-year deal anyway. What's the difference? Get the guy you want when he's available because he won't be available this time next year. Robbie Ray did end up with the Mariners getting a deal pretty similar to the one Kevin Gossman got from the Blue Jays. 5 for 115 was the report that I think we ended up seeing at the end of this. It makes sense from a fit perspective. I think this

is going to be a really good rotation fairly soon because you're talking about Ray with Logan Gilbert with volume guys like Marco Gonzalez and Chris Flexin in the short term. I think Justin Dunn quietly improved in 2021, even if he's more of a 6'7 guy for them now. It really hinges on the arrival of guys like George Kirby and Matt Brash, who you mentioned has a great slider. Emerson Hancock's not that far away. This is a really good group of pitchers that the Mariners put together. It's a good mix, like totally different

guys. You got some young guys, you got lefties, you got righties, just all different things they're doing with that core five. Maybe they're going to get one more veteran to sort of hold things until some of those young guys are ready. But this is another team. They've had that young core coming together for a while. Totally makes sense that they're spending.

And I just like the complexion of the AL West is changing. Whereas for the last five years, it's been Houston's division with the A's providing most of the pressure. Now we're seeing the Rangers and the Mariners really starting to try and close that gap. And of course, the Angels, they spend, they have star power. So this could be one of the most exciting divisions in the league, if not the most exciting division in the league in 2022. I think it might push Carlos Correa back to Houston, if I think about it, because we were talking about how soft that lineup starts to look

if you have holes in center catcher and short you know um you know it's not like uh you know yordan can score all the runs himself um so i do think that there might be an arms race kind of going around that that maybe pushes the astros to go to 340 or whatever it takes to get Carlos Correa. On Robbie Ray, it's my least favorite deal of the big pitching deal so far. You know, he popped on a year-to-year level because his location, you know, his location's improved. He improved from a 91 location plus in 2020 to a 103, I think, in 2021. And I guess that's sustainable, but the stuff number wasn't great and if he reverts at all and i think his past uh shows us that his command isn't great um then i

don't think he's gonna be uh so i don't know am i saying he's not gonna be a cy young guy i guess maybe that's just yeah like duh you know um but uh we've also seen from his history that it's not just like he'll revert to being pretty good instead of cy young level it's like there were some seasons in there where he wasn't good and he's a two pitch guy you know i don't know well i think the thing about robbie ray that that sticks with me at least is year to year the control improvement over a full season should be legit. It shouldn't be the kind of skill that just completely disappears again. There were enough changes made mechanically and approach-wise.

Yes, but it does for him. He had a one-year pop in command, and it went away. Yes, it's risky. It's definitely a risky deal, but I do like it in terms of fit because the problem I had with Gonzalez and Flexin is they're both low K-rate starters. You can have maybe two of those guys,

but you need guys that can miss bats. It's true. Gilbert's going to miss bats. Ray is going to miss bats. Even if the walk rate keeps back up, probably Ray always strikes guys out. I think Gossman would have been a better fit for the Mariners, honestly. Just because

and maybe there's a preference here for having a breaking ball guy versus a change-up guy, and maybe that's legitimate, especially if splitters, you know, I'm hearing Nick Pollock in my ear right now from Pitcher's List. He's not the biggest fan of splitters specifically because they are hard to Nick Pollock in my ear right now from pitcher's list. He's not the biggest fan of splitters specifically

because they are hard to command. They're hard to harness. And so maybe that's where the decision-making came in. But Gossman has a high strikeout rate, has a longer demonstrated strikeout rate and walk rate success, has had problems with homers, but the AL West is a good place to mitigate homer problems. So I think that might have been a better fit in my eyes.

Kudos to both of them. Interesting to me that they got the same deal. Interesting to me that Gossman, like the Jays had Ray on the one-year deal and then went out and signed Gossman first before Ray signed with someone. To the same deal. Clearly, the way they view pitching, unless Ray didn't want to go back to Toronto, I haven't seen anything like that. I have to say, my stuff and location numbers are vastly superior for Gossman.

They're not even in the same stratosphere as Ray. If they're looking at numbers like that, then that might explain the idea. Yeah. So now the question is, what does Marcus Stroman get? Well, probably five and probably something in this 110 to 115 range. Yeah, something within about 10 million of that. He might get angry if it's not a dollar over. But to be fair, the reason why these guys got the big deals is partially because of the strikeout rates, and he just doesn't have that. But as I detailed in my piece, there are still reasons to believe in Stroman.

The wider arsenal, the ground ball rate, the health, those all point actually to Stroman over the other two. Yeah. So those are the two huge signings that happened after we stopped recording on Monday. And if you weren't following Twitter or if you weren't looking at Roto-Wire or Roto-World, like a news aggregator, just to see everything that was happening or trade rumors, whatever you like to use

to gather your news, there's a good chance that you missed Marcelo Zuna. The league retroactively gave him a 20-game suspension. So the time he was gone last year, he was on paid administrative leave. Time served. It's done. Counted counted his time served i think that would effectively mean that he's paying back 20 game suspension worth of salary right because you're not that's not paid leave so it's not going to be a big amount right it's it's one of these stories that it's these domestic violence

stories are always complicated because of incomplete information, but we've seen the league, even in the absence of charges being filed and even in the absence of a conviction, being willing to suspend players for these incidents. at other suspensions under this policy. Julio Arias got 20 games back in 2019 for a domestic violence incident, right? So we've seen 20 games before. We get a lot of 15 and 20 gamers. Roberto Ozuna back in 2018 got 75 games, which we've seen longer ones like that. Yeah, that's one of the longest ones.

Odibel Herrera got 85 games back in July of 2019. So just looking at it compared to other domestic violence incidents that have taken place since this policy went into effect, it's at the shorter end of the range of games suspended. And that got a lot of people angry. And I can understand that because the initial details, which we all remember so well uh were salacious uh terrible sounding um talk of strangulation of him hitting uh his wife with

his cast and just awful stuff and then it turned out that the uh the cops were lying about a lot of it and uh the stuff got dropped and so now we're left being like, well, you know, what was the truth in this case? And so then you kind of say, okay, well, you know, baseball has, has investigated, you know, this stuff pretty intensely in the past. And in this case, maybe we can assume maybe it's the same. They've, they've, they've looked into it as hard as they can. And in the past. And in this case, maybe we can assume maybe it's the same. They've looked into it as hard as they can. And in the past, they've levied long suspensions, even when there were no charges filed. But I don't want to appeal to authority and just say, okay, well, baseball

said it was 20. So it was 20. So maybe it's not that big a deal. But I also have no power of my own to know more than these investigators. Like, you think I'm going to get more if I call his agent? You think I'm going to get more if I call Marcelo Zuna or, you know? And in this case, I think I wouldn't even get more if I call the victim because that's who, you know, the the the team is trying to talk to. So, you know, did he get 20 because the victim decided not to talk? And in the other cases, the victim did talk. Or did he get 20 because the victim decided not to talk? And in the other cases, the victim did talk or did he get 20 because this wasn't that big of a deal, but there is a history

of domestic violence between these two. It's so complicated. I grew up seeing this sort of stuff in Jamaica. I saw it up close. I saw domestic violence up close, like in my, what I would call my family in Jamaica. And it was awful, and I never want to support it. And then I put this up against the fact that I just don't know the details. I don't know what happened. And I also put it up against the fact that I want, I believe in redemption and that once people go through these programs and get punished, that hopefully they've learned some sort

of a lesson and they can grow from it um you know but i i don't want to support uh this um i just you know like this is why people don't talk about it because i think that you know you could get you can get like anyone's listening you can rightfully be mad at me for any one of the things I just said. And I understand. I'm just trying to lay out what I'm trying to figure out morally in my head every time I encounter something like this. And I don't have an easy answer for anybody. I don't know what to do. Like, honestly, I just don't know what to do. Like, honestly, just don't know what to do in

these cases. We get questions from time to time that are even just broader about, you know, what do you, what do you, what do you guys think about supporting a team that enables a player to keep playing after serving time when it comes back? Yeah. Like the Phillies kept Odibel Herrera and ended up playing him a lot in 2021, right? It didn't look like he was going to make the roster back in spring training. We had a question come in like, what do you guys think about this? Should we not support this team? I've had people ask from a fantasy perspective, do you roster these guys? How do you handle them? Well, we all get to choose individually how we build a team or how we spend our money or who we support or how we do these things. I don't have a clear answer because of how complicated

some of these issues can be. I have a... I err on the side of skepticism, not necessarily just with the league, but with the legal system punishing correctly in these instances. And again, I think the details that you mentioned with the story changing...

Well, I mean, one big pointer that you're correct is just the fact that how few of these have gone anywhere legally. Right. I mean, so even ones that have turned into 80, you know, full season suspensions, these guys haven't, nothing's happened to them legally. Right. I don't want to use anything related to how the legal system handles these cases as some sort of definitive judgment for how to proceed or how bad something was. Because then there's nobody beating anybody. Because we're measuring iterations of horrible. We're starting at horrible and then we're layering more horrible on top of it. I looked at Ozuna.

Geez, I started looking at the rankings for this season, I don't know, six weeks ago, right? And you have to put the name down somewhere. The job, this isn't a poor me look at the job. It's like, what do we do now? I have to put him somewhere. I don't care about that.

That's just part of the job. I can look at numbers and fit him in on the list with other guys who are supposed to play the same number of games and do the same thing. The question of whether or not I want him on my team is a different question. Once you start asking those questions, where do you draw the line?

I'm perfectly fine just not having Marcelo Zuna on any teams. I don't care. I don't need a known abuser on my roster. Fine. I can set that as a rule and just live by that, and that's fine. I don't expect that everybody else who plays the game is going to abide by that. That's my own personal ethical code and my own personal way of going about it. But you will find if you have a mentality like that, you have to draw a line somewhere.

And it's not as easy as you'd like it to be. I think there's a part of me, at least, and part of a lot of people that's like, fire him into the sun, make him go away forever. Well, that'd be great. That'd be a convenient way of not having to talk about it and talk about the issue, talk about the player. Unfortunately, that's not an option. This is reality. He's going to play. He's going to play a lot. He's going to hit home runs. And someone in your league is going to want him on your team. And maybe that person's you. And I'm not here to pass judgment on people that say, you know what? He served a suspension. Hopefully he's better and we're moving on. If that's how you want to approach it, that's how you should approach it.

But it's just one of those things where this, what we do know, the little bit that we do know is bad enough. This was the case with like Jose Reyes a few years ago too. I'm comfortable just saying I'm out. Like I just, I don't need to deal with this. I'm not cool with this. He also made it easier on us because he was the terrible player and it wasn't at that point.

Sure, like that complicates things too. And again, I know this is trivial in the grand scheme of things, but it's a question we get. It's a problem we all have to look at you know sure like that that complicates things too and again like i know this is this is trivial in the grand scheme of things but it's a question we get it's a problem we all have to look at in some regard and i don't think that throwing your hands up and saying we don't know anything so therefore i don't care i don't think that's awesome you know because there are times when we know a lot and so are you just gonna say okay i only care in the times we know a lot right so but but there's such a slippery slope too because um you know the thing that nobody talks about in baseball

and and maybe in society is larger it's like there's uh you know between you and your wife or just in general you may have a moral code about cheating uh and then there's what happens out there and if if it is against your moral code uh you know if cheating is against your moral code um i have some bad news about baseball players right and i in that i don't think that's any way comparing it's not domestic violence and you know but it is but it's that like it is that part of that process now that like if you do open it up and say like i'm going to think about the morals of these players and think about if they line up with mine then it's then it just feels even more

impossible when you're like wow i i don't want to i don't want to i don't want to you know support these people either you know these types of people or these types you know it's like i don't want to support these people either, these types of people or these types of people. It's like, I don't know, man. It's tough. I am generally trying not to have Mizzou on, but at the same time, in my value sheet in this auto new league that I'm in, I'm doing an auto new mock draft, and in my value sheet it said 16 bucks and on the in the in the auction room he was at six and i was like god dang it like at least can't get i can't let the person who's gonna say i don't care about this uh get him for super cheap so i price enforced a little bit and then when it got up to 10 i I was like, whew, I'm out.

Thank God. Yeah. The downside on that one is if you're just doing that just to say, hey, look, I just wanted to do right by the rest of the league and push the stat generator. Again, I'm playing devil's advocate. Right. I'm going to push this stat generator to $15 and then back out because that's what my sheet says. Braves outf sheet says. Well, suddenly like you have that player and now I'm doing some weird moral

gymnastics, man. I know, I know I'm, I'm throwing this out there so that people know that like, I'm not, I'm not trying to look down my nose at anybody. I'm a flawed person.

And you know, I don't think this is, I don't think that was the right move. I didn't feel good about it, but I also was like, I don't want the guy who decided he doesn't care to just get Marcelo Zuna for three bucks. And I guess I'm more just in the boat of saying. I don't care.

I don't care. If someone gets him for a dollar in my league, I don't care. They did that. They did that. They can enjoy a possible $15 profit. Good for you. Like, I'll just go get someone else. Like, it's fine.

Is there, like, is there a sunset on it? Where, like, because this is what we were talking about with, like, Odibel's, you know, service time came back. Like, I do think that people forget. I don't think that people remember as well that, you know, the Aroldis-Chapman situation. I mean, it didn't turn out to be, you know, like 81 games or whatever. But, like, you know know there is that on him and you know he there was no change in his auction value from season to season

no and he's been on i mean like again acknowledging he's been on teams that i've had like and i think if you co-manage a team with someone that can also add a layer of complexity but i've had teams that i've solo managed where chapman's one of my team in the past. And again, we're working with the information that's reported, which is not even complete information, and trying to decide, okay, this crossed the line, this didn't. And retroactively,

I'm looking at the Chapman situation. If you start to get on the road of, here's what was reported, what else happened? My brain goes to the more bad stuff happened that we don't know about that's that's where i start to go and if i take the very like this is what i know and i base it on that then i kind of like round the other way i don't i don't like that i don't i don't like i want to give people the benefit of the doubt generally speaking but i don't want to give

people who are abusers the benefit of the doubt, which is, again, this is all probably a little circular and weird, but I don't think it was an accident that this news was slipped in on a Monday when transactions were just going off because everybody was talking about everything else. We put it on a Friday news dump, but they couldn't do it on Friday. This Friday because nothing else is going to be happening in baseball on Friday. No, and of course there's one more huge suspension they have to address at some point in the coming months too. Which I wonder actually if the lockout, I think that they won't be able to resolve that. They have to wait until the lockout's over to handle further suspensions?

Yeah, because the idea is that teams can't talk to players. And I think that goes all the way to like baseball's administration won't talk to players because they are en masse not employed anymore. Well. are on mass not employed anymore well because there is no agreement between the play the labor and the and the owners and like i think baseball's front office really represents the owners right like that's what we say about ranford and stuff right well it makes it makes sense based on on that logic i don't think we've had a situation like this with this policy before where a suspension would be hanging in the balance the way it is with, of course, Trevor Bauer.

It's going to be so awful, too, because he's going to fight it like nobody's fought in the past. Yeah, it's not going to be a fun week, month. It's not going to start resolving itself, I think. I don't know this for sure, but I think it won't start resolving itself until they have a CBA in place again. Which could be

a while, but we'll get to more. Something to look forward to when they get back together again. Yeah, something to look forward to, exactly. Moving on to some more moves, though, there were some trades. Jacob Stallings went to the Marlins, which I think is more of a two-catcher situation.

Going to play a lot, handlesles the pitching staff really well. Won a gold glove. Good things all happening there. I think their return is a little more interesting just because Stallings was going to play a lot in Pittsburgh and he's going to play a lot with the Marlins. Zach Thompson was sent back to the Pirates as part of that return. And Thompson's one of those guys where the results were good.

The underlying numbers raised some questions. So I'm just curious what you see in Thompson and if you like this move for the Pirates who quickly added Roberto Perez as a replacement for Stallings and now they have their veteran bridge to Henry Davis. So I think catching-wise, they're kind of the same, but now they get a controllable pitcher that could chew up a lot of innings and maybe be an above average starter for them

yeah i mean thompson 94 stuff 99 uh you know 100 command uh it's interesting because i think the corresponding move was releasing cool who has 103 stuff uh and 91 command uh so i don't know if they're like making more of a bet on command here in this situation. Either way, the pitching plus, the overall number, is better for Thompson than Kuhl. So maybe they just see they like the command and they think they can change the shape.

It could be as simple as that. In any case, I guess Thompson is a better pitcher than Chad Kuhl. If I was out there looking for relief, though, I would look at Chad Kuhl because I would say that here's a guy with good stuff that maybe if we turf two pitches and make him just a two-pitch guy, maybe we can get rid of that command problem. Yeah, yeah. Chad Kuhl.

The Stallings-Roberto Perez thing is just a little bit weird to me because the Marlins could have just signed Roberto Perez. I think Stallings is a better defender, though. I guess, but I always heard that Roberto Perez was really good in terms of game calling and framing and receiving. I've always heard that his guys love him. I guess his offense has really fallen off. Holy crap.

For the last two years, Roberto Perez's WRC Plus is below 50. Wow. is below 50 wow so also as a part of this i think alfaro jorge alfaro ended up in in san diego which is just kind of a hilarious little like like texas two-step i don't know what that is you know just they all like they all just switch catchers you know're like, okay, I'll take yours, you take mine. Somehow, through all of it, Zach Thompson's on the Pirates. But Alfaro has fallen off. I remember people pushing back when I said that the Phillies went from near bottom in catching to basically the top by trading Alfaro for GTO Romulo.

I have to say, uh, what happened with Alfaro since has, uh, made me more right than wrong. I don't, I don't know. I hadn't checked in with him a while cause he's not my type of player.

I mean, big strikeouts, but, uh, he, the power disappeared. I don't, I don't understand what's going on with Jorge Alfaro.

Well, if you looked at him as a pure backup option instead of as a starter, right? Good defense, big arm, has some pop, can run into some homers, steals a few bases too. He's got 10 steals in the last two seasons. Still has a near 10% barrel rate for his career and had a 116 max EV last year. He just can't make contact and doesn't take a walk. There are plenty of less

interesting backup catchers in the league than jorge alfaro so if that's how they see him and austin nola is the primary guy and it's maybe like 60 40 favoring nola or even a little more favoring nola well i think there's some some there's also the the point that maybe alfaro could be a starting level catcher if Nola's injury doesn't progress. So you got a little more depth there, whereas Victor Caratini ends up being the Udarvish catcher. I think the surprising thing for me, though, is don't they want to play Luis Camposano?

I just wonder if maybe they have a trade in the works where he ends up going somewhere else. I mean, the main problem in san diego remains uh eric cosmer um it it is amazing when uh when you think oh you know years from now 20 million dollars a year won't be that big a deal um then you look at the current padres and you're like oh man it is all like if they had that $20 million right now, they could get a lot better. They're getting zero from Eric Hosmer and they're spending, they're spending, let's see what it is, 20 million, 21 million on them this year. The luxury tax estimate for them right now is 202 million on roster resource and luxury tax estimate for them right now is $202 million on roster resource and luxury tax

was like $205 or $210 last year. So they have no money. And so I find that kind of interesting that maybe Alfaro, Caratini, Nola, Camposano, like maybe there's a trade happening there. And the trade would have to be

for a reliever. That was maybe a starter. That was a good bullpen, though, last year. They didn't lose a ton from that group. Except the closer. One more reliever would be nice for them. It could be for a frontline reliever, maybe with the A's,

although they have Sean Murphy. But who's looking for catching and has pitching? Well, the Brewers. It says the guy wearing the Brewers hat. They added Severino to the Narvaez duo, though, so that's a fine option for now. They haven't made trades with each other. But see, the Cubs are also selling Wilson Contreras,

and they just signed Jan Goms to guaranteed money $13 million over two years. So the trade watch is pretty high over there, and that means that if you're selling Luis Camposano, somebody can say, well, I can take Wilson Contreras. So now you're saying, okay, which rebuilding squad has some pitching and would take a catcher? And I don't think there is a team like that. Yeah, I'm looking at some of the catchers that are available.

The Jays actually have young catching available because Alejandro Kirk and Gabriel Moreno plus Danny Jansen, There's not enough playing time there for all those guys, so one of their catchers could be on the move. Could one of the Mets want a catcher? They'd want Nola. They wouldn't want Caprizano. They just spent money on McCann, but they could go younger and work in

somebody else. I mean, there's a few teams that could use one. Guardians. Guardians are Austin Hedges and Sandy Leone right now. And they've made a deal. They've got Bo Naylor coming up soon. They've got a young catcher already.

It's kind of strange. Teams are a little more set at catcher than you'd expect. Houston probably would look for an upgrade. Also because the bar is so low. Right. I guess you could say there's lots of teams that could use an offensive catcher. Martin Maldonado is more of a backup that plays like a starter.

And we were talking about how Houston was having, like had too many empty holes. Maybe they'd want an actual offensive guy there. I would say that they'd probably go for Wills Contreras over Camposano or Nola. Yep. So you could go there. You could look at the Angels as a team that would trade for a catcher.

I said in the last episode I like Max Stassi, but a lot of injuries there, so you could add a catcher there. Mariners, if you're not in on Cal Raleigh, but I do know the pitchers love throwing to him. Cardinals, how do the Cardinals feel long-term after Yachty? Do you want to get Yachty's replacement and have him work with Yachty there or do you think you're just wasting time?

They seem to be building for now to trade an arm that could help them this year for a catcher that could help them next year. It'd have to be probably a three-team trade to get them involved. This is a long way of saying it's... It's kind of weird.

I don't know. I don't... Like, if we ever once in a while have that, like, fixing the... You know, fixing the Padres. Do-do-do-do-do. I don't know how to fix the Padres. I will point out that if you look at team war totals

in terms of the depth chart at Fangraphs. The Padres have the third best war totals in baseball. Nope, that's not right anymore. After some moves, the Padres are now 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6th. But still top 6th in the league. Right there between the Astros and Blue Jays I don't know it seems like an okay place to be yeah we got really far into the weeds on catchers so we could talk about the other guy that signed a hundred plus million dollar deal oh no wait no

no let's talk about Jorge Alfarra some. Let's talk about another guy with bad plate discipline. This is my least favorite deal so far. I mean, so that's the thing, too. So you mentioned like Robbie Ray, like 5 for 115. You're not wild about it. Javier Baez, 6 for 140. The Tigers have spent in the past. They've held off for a few years because they've been rebuilding.

Like the Rangers, nice to see them spending again. Not every deal can work out long term. Again, we want to see players get paid. That's awesome. That's great. I think when they were previously looking at Carlos Correa, I was really excited about them being the team to get Correa instead of the Yankees or instead of having to go back to the Astros. Baez going to the Tigers is fine, but it is a profile that you just look at and say, if I had to bet on a profile to not age very well, that offensive profile is it, despite his ability to do a ton of damage when he connects

because it's just, it's year over year. We're talking about almost 200 games going back to the shortened season where he's got a K rate over 30%. I think he's kind of crossed over to this range where I don't think that's necessarily coming back down, right? When he was sitting in the 2018, that 2018 season, Javier Baez had a 25.9% K rate. If he lives there, that works. has had a 25.9% K rate. If he lives there, that works. Once he gets north of 30, I just

think you're giving away too many played appearances. We've talked about O-swing percentages before. You're always going to find him right or near. He's not the worst. He's always right around there. Usually, he's worst among qualified hitters because he keeps playing because his defense is good and he does

a lot of things well. 47% of the pitches he saw outside of the zone it's mind-boggling as gifted as he is as tooled up as javier baez is i am surprised by this yeah and just as an example like you know i talk about vato a lot vato is like at 18%. That describes the gap. The biggest gap in baseball is Votto to Baez, basically. I just tried to do the math real quick using steamer projections, and it looks like they paid $21 million per projected win. I just don't understand why. Why would you do that?

The only thing that I could say is, I went on Michelle Beadle's show, and she was like, well, aren't the guys in the room, can't they see these things? What are they saying in Detroit that makes them think that they should sign this? And I was like, well, okay.

So I guess you would say Steamer's defensive value is like, well, okay. I guess you would say Steamer's defensive value is wrong, right? Sure. Steamer says he's going to be slightly above average. Maybe you say he's the best shortstop in baseball. Maybe you say outs above average has it wrong because outs above average

has him 82nd in baseball overall and behind Marwin Gonzalez as a shortstop. Behind Eric Gonzalez. Behind Haseong Kim. Maybe say all those were wrong. We have him as the best shortstop in baseball.

He's projected as an offensive hitter to be below average next year. as an offensive hitter, to be below average next year. And he's been below average in basically half of the seasons he's played. And offensive projections are better than defensive projections. Our offensive projections are decent, really good. The best thing we can do in baseball right now is project a hitter. So I don't get it't i don't get it i don't get it i thought he would i thought he would really fall and end up getting like a 3 and 45 or something that somebody would jump because they're like oh well for the next three years he'll be all right at 6 and 140 boggles my mind. Right. If you said pick the deal that you think could be Hosmerian a few years in,

even though they're very different players, this is it. Like you, I would have thought three for $60 million. $20 million a year for three years. For short term. That's fine. You don't get screwed. At least you have a defensive shortstop for a while. They've got so few long-term financial commitments right now

that it may not matter. It really might not. It could all end up being fine. It's funny, there's an opt-out after 2023. You're almost happy as a Tiger fan if he plays so well that he opts out after 2023 because you crushed it for two years. You got Elite Baez for two years where the K rate did come back down. The defense was really good.

And your team was probably a lot better than expected, sooner than expected. I think I would still be happy if those things happened and he opted out and he went somewhere else because just that reach rate, that type of offensive profile is the worst when it comes to aging. Even with those flaws, look at what he's done in the last three full seasons. We throw out the 2020 season a lot of times because it's just garbage, but a 116 WRC plus in 2021 for Baez, a 112 back in 2019, and a 131. That was a career best in that amazing 2018 season.

You must, on some level, think he can get back close to 2018 if you give him a contract like this, which I'm kind of excited to learn someday why. He's only done that once in his year. I would be very surprised if he got to a 110 WRC plus next year

and did even a 2019. He's done it each of the last two full seasons though, so I don't think it'd be that surprising. Yeah, I guess. And the thing I hate about this part of our conversation, I feel like a jerk because if you're a Tigers fan, you should still be happy that they're out spending money and adding a player. Your team is better with him than it was without him. Like, that's the truth.

And I really do enjoy watching Javier Baez play. Yeah. I really, I do enjoy watching Javier Baez play. Yeah. And I don't want to be part, like somehow complacent in some grand, you know, nerd bias against Latin players. I think that's frankly a canard and just not a good line of argument

because there are plenty of players that do have play discipline. It doesn't, it's not, there's not, there's not something inherent about coming from the Dominican Republic or coming from a different place where you just don't walk. That's, I mean,

no, that's an absurd trope that needs to go away. It's a problematic thing. If you think about it that way, I think, uh, in terms of stolen bases, like, you know,

if you can do them at a high success rate people will still let you do them um i don't know i don't think that that the nerds are at fault here for you know whatever uh yandy diaz is you know a great player it's just you know and it's the best thing that he does is not reach at anything. It's almost irrelevant, but it's something you have to point out. There's just these players that I wouldn't bet on Javier Baez's profile as much as I enjoy watching him play. Yeah, one of the most fun players to watch, just the kind of guy that if you're in this market, adding middle infield help at that price for that amount of time,

you missed out on a player that will probably do better, relatively speaking. I think that's where I'm at. It reminds me of Pablo Sandoval, where growing up here in the Bay Area to some extent and seeing him firsthand do so many great feats and then just being a loving person and a great clubhouse guy that was a real glue guy for a lot of those Giants teams. Same time when the Red Sox signed with that deal, I wrote a piece about how much I thought it was a bad idea. Just have to give your analysis, I think.

Yeah, sometimes it's how it goes. A few more moves to get to. Larry Garcia re-up with the White Sox. It's a three-year deal. I didn't see money on that. He's a play-everywhere sort of guy. $16 million. $16 million?

Yeah. Nice. Good for him. I don't think – I mean, it's not going to hamstring them. And I think in some ways he's like like chris taylorian yeah less power but yeah yeah um you need guys like this they think he's better you know better than maybe even his war suggested he is because he can play everywhere and brings up the floor at a lot of different positions so yep so i think that's a smooth move for them to bring him back. Joey Wendell, also a trade by the Marlins.

They acquired him from the Rays. Very similar idea. I'm surprised that Birdie couldn't do this for them. Yeah. Birdie, I said this at the time, the problem or the concern I had with John Birdie, it took him so long to get that opportunity and to do well with it. It was such a great story. The aging curve, the simple fact that he was 29 when he broke out,

that gave me some concerns about his ability to sustain that. Held into the shortened season in terms of WRC Plus, did not have a good year in 2021. So I get it. I understand why they'd make that switch. But yeah, I mean, unfortunately, the John Birdie situation didn't play out the way some people had hoped. But Wendell above average in most facets of the game. I remember when he got traded to Oakland, I said to Billy Bean, most people think this guy doesn't have a carrying tool.

He doesn't have a thing that he does well, that well. And Bean said he's just, yeah, he's average or above average in most facets of the game. That's why we like him. And he ended up being right about that, I think. I think as he ages, it'll help him find a niche as maybe a platoon may back up. I see a potential natural platoon. If Brian Anderson is bad next year, then Joey Wendell will get the bigger side of the platoon at third base,

and Brian Anderson will be a platoon partner. If Brian Anderson is good next year and Joey Wendell is also good, I could see Brian Anderson going back to the outfield and Jesus Sanchez and Brian De La Cruz basically taking center and fourth outfield between them. And if Joey Wendell is bad, then he's just a backup at third and second. The return for the Rays was Cameron Meisner, a first-rounder, 35th overall pick in the 2019 draft, left-handed hitting outfielder, 23 years old, struck out 27.4% of the time in a brief taste double ace,

but most 2021 at high A was above average in terms of WRC+, has power, has speed, speed draws walks needs to cut down on the swing and miss as he advances to be an impact player but looked pretty good in the afl uh and then has had a very high success rate on his steals and you know it's like 6 4 220 or something so he's he's a physical specimen that uh that could break out key here of course the raise among the teams. Years of control. No arbitration money.

40-man roster crunch, too, also playing into this. Taylor Walls probably plays a bit more because Wendell's gone, so that's good news for him. He can be a guy that plays all over for them. Plays a legitimately good defensive shortstop, but they have that Wander Franco guy there. I think that Walls has a higher ceiling than than wendell yeah because he's a switch hitter he has the ability to tap into that power uh and he has patience what's

what's interesting about it is as a switch hitter with more upside i find it fascinating to try and prognosticate where he's gonna go because you could could just slide him in as a platoon partner, but as a switch hitter, he becomes the, the put the left hander at third and the right hander at second. And then all of a sudden he's basically got a full-time gig, right?

Yeah. Or like 85% of one or 90% of one. Pretty close. Brandon Lau, like you kind of don't want to play him against lefties. And Yandy Diaz has been a lefty, kind of sliding towards lefty only. So there is an opportunity there. The only obstacle I see is, other than continued moves and signings,

is Vidal Brujan. Now, if they bring in Vidal Brujan to be second base center, depending on how much they want to play him at second, then that makes Walls more of a platoon guy at third. Still, big side of platoon, maybe, and still a switch hitter. So I think Walls is kind of a fascinating dollar play in leagues next year, at least as the roster stands now. Yeah, good glue guy, and one that has, I think,

a little bit more categorical juice than a lot of the other similar players, more than Wendell, more than Larry Garcia, even who we just talked about more than David Fletcher when he's not getting everyday volume. Right. I mean,

I think that's, that's the sort of thing that makes walls pop just a little bit. Chance to take a full-time job too. I wouldn't necessarily, I mean, Wendell has an outside chance of taking a full-time job too. I wouldn't necessarily, I mean, Wendell has an outside chance of taking a full-time job, but I don't see it right now that he's, that I wouldn't say he's definitely going into that. No, I think they see him as someone that plays multiple spots, like four days a week. I think he's in about four days a week.

But I think in all this, Louis Brinson DFA'd by the Marlins, by the way, maybe a fresh start somewhere else, new hitting coaches, gets him back on track. He's had a few fresh starts, though. Yeah. This next one will be his fourth organization? Yep, that'll be his fourth, but someone will take a chance. Why not?

Clint Frazier added to the Cubs as well. I mentioned Jan Gomes earlier on that two-year deal. Yeah, Louis Brinson of the Cubs. Come on, Brinson and Frazier out there. I like Frazier. to the Cubs as well. I mentioned Jan Gomes earlier on that two-year deal. Yeah, Louis Brinson of the Cubs. Come on, Brinson and Frazier out there. I like Frazier. See what you get. It worked with Wisdom and who? Their first baseman, Schwindel.

Frank Schwindel, yeah. Clint Frazier, I mean, I saw this comp go up on Twitter. He could be this year's Jock Peterson for them, even if he's not playing for the Cubs after the trade deadline. He's playing for someone as a contender's fourth outfielder type. That would make sense. Yeah, there's some swing and miss, but he draws

a ton of walks, double-digit barrel rates in three consecutive seasons. Who's this? Brinson? Clint Frazier. Oh, yeah. Frazier. I'm in on Frazier, man. I thought that was a great deal. I think it's weird that Avi Garcia is like a four-year, 50-plus million dollar player and Clint Frazier is available on the scrap heap. That is a great comp too because Avisel Garcia had trouble getting his

footing early in his career, right? A lot of injuries for him too. And Avisel Garcia has decent reach rates and he is an amazing athlete. And Clint Frazier is similar in that regard. And then Avisel Garcia is terrible at roots and makes the least of his defensive abilities. And Frazier is the same way. And I guess for the Yankees, they were just like, well, we just can't have another terrible defender. Because right now we have Stanton. We have Judge.

Judge is a pretty good defender. But we have people we need to play dh and we don't want to have a young guy that is struggling in new york and also can't play defense he's a great fit for a team light on big league talent in the corners uh because they can they can afford to run them out there every day maybe this could end up being the 2022 version of the Hunter Renfro edition by the Red Sox. I think there's another similar player. I think Frazier is a really fun pickup in drafts. Yeah, just plenty of playing time, easy power,

probably good counting stats with the runs and RBIs to support it. Yeah, there's obvious batting average downside. Who cares if he hits 230 or 240 where you're drafting him? Better in LBP leagues. What you're getting from him overall, definitely good enough at the price. Cesar Hernandez ends up with the Nationals. I mean, still more of a monoleague sort of player. I think the speed's tapered off. He's not the same. He hit a bunch of barrels last year. He became kind of more of a power hitter. Yeah, he's not the same OBP machine that he was a few years ago, though, either. So

it kind of feels like this might be one of his last opportunities as a regular. Yeah, I thought it might have been a better fit to go to the Blue Jays on basically a cheap option for what they're going to do, which makes me think maybe the Blue Jays will go get Chris Bryant. Because if you actually look through free agent infielders that are left, it's Chris Bryant. Like, and I'm saying non-shortstop because, yes, there are, there's Story. So I guess they could be in on Story. I doubt, you know, Correa's not going to come over as a third baseman unless they give him $350 million, which I just don't think they're going to do that.

So I guess outside shot of story on a cheaper deal, maybe Bryant or maybe they're done and it's Espinel and Biggio. Yeah, Biggio could end up playing a lot more than expected. This is one of the fun things about drafting this early if you think they get shut out on the other options if they don't make a trade then he'd probably be the guy most likely to fill the bulk of that playing time even though they'll mix and match and and do some different things they're going to add someone to that depth i think they have to add someone because espinal is kind of a defensive guy you can't you can't have holes at second and third they'll add one if they only had, that could still be good for Biggio. If they add two, then he's more of their utility guy. Yeah.

Yeah, I think Biggio will play. I think, yeah, no matter what, because I think they're only going to add one. But let me give you, I mean, there was some Freddie Freeman rumors, which, I mean, it would make that offense pretty awesome, but it would also put Vlad back at third.

And Biggio's not a good defender. So you would have and Springer's getting older in center, so your only really good defender would be Bo. I don't see that happening.

The Freeman-Dodgers stuff is more realistic. We have to include Rizzo to the Blue Jays if Freeman to the Blue Jays is a possibility. But other than that, close to average at all, Donovan Solano, Josh Harrison,

Kyle Seager. That's the cheap option that's left. Trade. The answer is a trade, I think, because, again, the catching depth they have. That catching depth could get them an infielder. Yeah, it could be. Although I think that Kyle Seager would actually be a fun little thing. And the thing that the Cubs are doing right now reminds me a lot of what the Giants have done, right?

Just go out and claim all the near Major League Ready free guys you can claim. Who cares if they're 28 or 29 or whatever? Get good coaching. Coach them up and have them be good. It seems kind of

reminiscent of the Giants plan. Why not in Toronto just sign Kyle Seager as your Rich Hill of offense? I had to get him in one more time. You had to get a Rich Hill mention in talking about an old third baseman. Third baseman. You need some assistance. Kyle Seager third for the Blue Jays for me, baby.

All right. The other playing time winner, I think, of all the moves position player-wise, Rugnador ends up with the Orioles. I mean, I think it was Rob Silver who had a WRC Plus by year tweet. Was it a trade or a claim or what? He was a free agent. They just signed him. So WRC Plus by year, yes, Rudnit Odor is not a good player.

The guy that we saw back in 2016 probably isn't walking back through the door. The thing is, he's going to play. He could have a massive year. He could be a 205, 210, 215 type hitter with a crappy OBP, but he'll pile up homers. He'll pile up runs. He'll pile up RBIs. It might be the kind of player where you've got to make sure you're heavy on batting average

to offset the counterweight because he's going to play so much and hurt you so much in that category. But everything else, categorically speaking, is probably going to be average or better if you assume he's an everyday guy in that hitter-friendly environment. And I don't think that's an unfair expectation. Just a wild-ass projection. I just want to read this. I'm just going to read it. It's just wild.

212 batting average from Steamer, 285 on-base percentage, 413 slugging. That sounds bad, but it's 18 homers in 384 plate appearances. So if he does get to 600, then you could be talking about 30 homers and a two 15 average. It's it's look, it's draft and hold season and guys that will play as much as he's going to play are definitely draftable. So for monolingue purposes for draft and holds,

I think this is actually one of the few places he could have gone to be interesting. Yeah. I mean, they just punch someone again. Ah, uh, let's get to some pictures.

Uh, we've got Alex Cobb going to the giants, which costs Joe Palumbo, his roster spot, Joe Palumbo, non tendered. Maybe he'll end up back somehow, but,

uh, you were on Alex Cobb as a good sort of bargain. Hang on somehow. Bargain bin pitcher. Big loss for the Angels, really. So I guess Sammy Long and Tyler Beattie, if they don't sign another one, one of those guys is going to actually pitch a fair amount

in the big leagues next year. I mean, either way, even if they add another guy, Sammy Long and Tyler Beattie are going to matter to the Giants next year. That's okay. It's not a problem. I like what they're doing. Cobb to me was an absolute value.

His stuff was only about 97, but his location was really nice. And his splitter doesn't get great whiffs in the zone, but had a really low zone rate. So if there's any chance that he could throw some splitters in the zone, which is something Gossman did, to have basically a ball-to-strike splitter, and they would have just worked with Gossman. So maybe Andrew Bailey can get him to throw a ball to

strike splitter and that could actually be part of of even better season from Cobb in San Francisco yeah I mean we're assuming universal DH at this point so you still have that but a more pitcher friendly environment I think is a nice little win for Cobb. Really nice curve and splitter combo. Once he got the splitter back after his injury, he was really good. I mean, the sinker isn't great, but he has three pitches that he can move in and out. Kind of similar to the way we described Wood and Anthony Descafani and when they would be in lineups.

I think Alex Cobb is going to be in lineups for pretty much the same matchups. Yeah. Same kind of usage if you end up getting him probably in that two-fifty range. Maybe you're just a slight bit – maybe you just like – maybe you don't pitch him the time that he's away at the Dodgers and home at the Padres. Yeah, that's about it at Rockies just because of the park. Right.

James Paxton signed with the Red Sox with team options for two additional years. He's still working his way back from surgery. So I don't know if there's a massive 2022 interest for me, but curious to see if he can make it back because projections are always good. The per inning projections are good. And I wonder, since you love Rich Hill so much, could James Paxton, different in terms of velocity, but could he be the kind of guy that battles all being a surprisingly effective per inning guy for longer than we'd expect, despite

all of the injuries that have slowed him down in recent years. I don't know. I think that the reason Rich Hill has hung on for so long is the same reason Adam Wainwright has hung on so long. He's just an elite curveball. I'm not sure that I'm going to give James Paxton's cutter that designation. Fair. I'd be more likely, I mean, Cobb maybe could be someone that could stick around, but I don't know if that curveball is elite.

Who's a young man with an elite curveball? Urias might be heading that direction. Yeah. I'm just going to go to, let's see here, pitch info, pitch values, curveballs. Best curveballs in the game as a proxy real quick. Charlie Morton. Yeah, Charlie Morton is doing that right now. Burns.

Yeah, I guess it could be Burns. Nola. He's already elite, though. Maybe nola hangs out for a long time but some of these guys are i expect elite guys to age gracefully i just think paxton we for rich hill he disappeared for a few years we didn't even he wasn't a wasn't pitching anywhere right his road back was a long road back paxton's's already 33, and it's been, what, two years now where he's made a total of six starts because of injury? I mean, I hope he makes it back because there's plenty of Ks. It's a solid walk rate.

Home runs are a bit of an issue for him, but there's still quite a bit there to be excited about. So it could be one of those guys that it's a minor move right now, but we look at it a year from now and say, hey, look, this was actually a pretty smart move by the Red Sox getting some high-quality innings before other teams were willing to jump in with James Paxton. I do wonder when he's going to come back. He missed

almost all of last year. He pitched one inning. Theoretically, he could be back in May or June, but then you have to put that up against the background of his other injury proneness. Yeah, a lot of forearm issues even prior to the Tommy John for James Paxton. Non-tender related stuff. Matthew Boyd, as expected, among the players non-tendered. I think Richard Rodriguez was another notable.

Daniel Vogel back. Boyd could be Rich Hillion. I think he's kind of a one-tendered. I think Richard Rodriguez was another notable. Daniel Vogel back. Boyd could be Rich Hillian. I think he's kind of a one-pitch guy. Yeah. I think the breaking ball is pretty good and the fastball is pretty bad. Probably more of a 2023 guy, though, just coming off the injury.

So not necessarily a guy I'm all that excited about in the immediate future either. But I think the bigger news, aside from the non-tender stuff, which was whatever, it's fine. Raisa Iglesias goes I think the bigger news, aside from the non-tender stuff, which was, you know, whatever, it's fine. Rice to Iglesias goes back to the Halos, which they needed to make a move. They needed bullpen help. They stay with a guy they're familiar

with. It is a four-year deal. I think I know, talking to Keith Law on the Athletic Baseball Show, he's not a four-year guy for relievers and most people aren't. I don't think most people go, yes, I want to sign a reliever for four years. Iglesias, though, has aged very well. Him and Loop had the best.

Loop was number one, and Iglesias number two. Best stuff plus among free agent relievers. They went and got the two best guys. He's going to be 32 in January, so this covers him through his age 35 season. I think the thing about Iglesias that makes him a little more interesting for me is he's a three-pitch closer. Yes. And I think that will give him a chance to actually age a lot better

than fastball slider guys. Yeah, there's a lot of evidence. Starting pitchers don't lose strikeout rate as fast as they lose velocity. Relievers usually lose strikeout rate as fast as they lose velocity. Relievers usually lose strikeout rate as fast as they lose velocity because they're usually two-pitch guys. And so once you start losing some fastball, you lose it. But if you have more of a starting pitcher arsenal, I think you can age better. So absolutely, he can mix it up, you know.

And it makes it harder to just sit fastball on him. You know, what's funny too is I don't know if he's still doing this, but he used to have three release points, too. If it gets real iffy for him, he can start to do the El Duque and see if he can get some outs just with three different release points. I think that bullpen is probably okay now because they'll now just hope that some young guys pop and jump in there with those other guys. And right now, the rotation, Otani, Syndergaard, Sandoval, Lorenzen, Detmers, Suarez, might look good with one more in them.

It might look good with a Rich Hill in there. Two episodes in a row. We're going to shut that down right now. It's my Brewers. Rich Hill is my Brewers. They still needed him in middle infielder. Holy cow.

Among the many places where I still think Trevor Story would be a great fit, Andres Munoz, who I think people maybe forgot about a little bit. He was part of that big trade that the Mariners and Padres made. The Austin Nola. Jeez, who else was in that? Luis Terenz was in it.

Ty France was in it. A bunch of players were in that deal. He gets a four-year $7.5 million deal. I think it buys out all of his arbitration years. There's some team options in there he's coming back from tommy john late in 2021 the reason i think this is interesting is because when you start looking at the the mariners bullpen you could talk yourself into

oh let's say five different sources of saves and i don't know if they're going to really land on any one guy. They've got Ken Giles working his way back. They've got Munoz back in there healthy now. Diego Castillo, who they acquired from the Rays. Paul Seawald, who was great last year. Great stuff numbers. Stuff Plus loves Seawald. Over 100Ks, I believe, in the regular season last year.

Drew Steckenreiter is also there. Diego Castillo was a closer. Yeah. Close to them. Are they going full raise? I mean, just based on the group they have? That's a really good bullpen, man. Yeah.

I mean, I could be wrong and half of them get hurt and it looks terrible, but to me, that's a really nice bullpen. Andrew, this is fun. So here is the best stuff plus last year with no minimums. Okay? Number one is just ridiculous. Jack Mayfield with three pitches had a 213 stuff plus.

The infielder from the Angels. Number two, Josh Reddick with one pitch had a 166 stuff plus. So position players do such weird stuff when they go out there and pitch. It just breaks it. Mike Freeman, four pitches, 166 stuff plus. Andres Munoz with 17 pitches, 154 stuff plus. Okay. I mean, that would also break the model in terms of what

the elite of the elite relievers who throw a lot of pitches actually get, but Andres Munoz was exciting from the time that we first heard about what he could do. I think he was one of those guys people forgot about, and I honestly have

no feel for what I want to do with Seattle's bullpen and i'm doing the reliever rankings i think i've got four or five guys ranked inside like the top 40 to 50 relievers oh and we had we had a draft i was just doing a draft and hold and we were kind of like let's just i was like seawald stuff plus is great you know and he was like dude i don't like in a draft and hold situation i just don't want to take part in it because in draft and hold, handcuffing does make some sense to buy like two relievers and one bullpen and hope that you get the closer there.

I think to really handcuff this Mariners bullpen, you'd have to buy like four. And you shouldn't do that because it could be number five. Four roster spots. Yeah, and it could be Munoz you buy everybody but Munoz and it's Munoz yeah you're just limiting your own ceiling going that route I mean I I initially have Seawald ranked the highest and as this gets more complicated he's going to fall probably down to the I don't know 20 to 25 range because I expect him to get the most and the guys in that range it's like to 25 range because I expect him to get the most.

And the guys in that range, it's like Gregory Soto, who I think was named the Tigers closer in A.J. Hinch's end of season. Like Prescott, like it was one of the questions someone asked him, like in one of his recent media sessions,

someone asked it. He's the guy, at least for now. So maybe you put him like in that range. Lou Trevino, Scott Barlow, the Royals are a shared situation Trevino I think is one of the worst incumbent closers in baseball yeah so in the

cluster of teams the Padres are part of this mess right now I mean for now Mark Melanson is still a free agent so you're talking about like relievers 25 through 28 I think that's the low end of where Seawald's going to fall. Seawald's so, I think he's undervalued. And I think just generally in real baseball,

and I would love to have him on my team. And I think they did such a great job coaching him up. But in terms of saves and fantasy, I'm not sure he's a great bet. Well, what they said today, Paul Seawald's our closer. We're going to have one closer. Everybody else is going to be flexible. Paul Seawald's the guy. We're going to have one closer. Everybody else is going to be flexible. Paul Seawald's the guy. We're making the Paul Seawald video. We're making a Paul Seawald song. We're having Paul Seawald at the ballpark every Sunday.

It would zoom up a little bit, but I'd still be worried. A member of Paul Seawald's family will throw out the first pitch every Sunday home game, all season long. In that case, he would be probably fringe top 10.'d be right near jordan romano yeah what's the

difference between those two guys if yeah because romano loves romano but i'm all over romano because i just don't see as as much of a challenge to his throne and there's a 250 pick gap in very early adp between seawald and Romano. Job security is going to cost you something. Woof. I mean, that's brutal. Other relievers that signed, we got Kirby Yates getting a multi-year deal with Atlanta. He's coming back

from Tommy John. His surgery was in March, so he might not be ready for the start of the season. Could even miss a few months into the season. He's had surgeries before. Yeah. I mean, i don't have any expectation for yates to do anything in the short term eventually he could be a problem for will smith but not worried about that in the first part of the season will smith is the biggest impediment to keeping his own job like he just needs to be locked down to keep it dan Daniel Hudson went to the Dodgers or stayed with the Dodgers. Top 10 list for stuff plus for free agents. That's the other bullpen

right now with Kenley gone. How much do we want to assume it's Blake Trinan? I think that's a question we'll probably wrestle with a lot in the next few months. I would assume Trinan. I think I would have him above Seawall. I think he's a little bit closer to not having as many contenders to the throne. But, you know, depends on when you're drafting too because Kenley Henning out there, I feel like there's at least a chance

that the Dodgers re-up Kenley. Yeah, I have Trinan at number eight among relievers, right ahead of Romano. Actually one spot, two spots ahead of Kenley Jansen as well. I mean, it's nasty stuff and right now he seems alone but if they sign Kenley jansen as well and right now he seems alone but you know if they sign kenley jansen all of a sudden he you know trainings at 35th it's over ranked based on adp but some sort of weird confidence that he's the guy and kenley jansen's

not coming back rooted in nothing i have no sources with the dodgers well they did not take part in anything before the lockdown which i think has to do with the fact that they're in the luxury tax and they among they and the yanke the fact that they're in the luxury tax. And they and the Yankees just wanted to know what the luxury tax implications would be going forward before they made their plans. Yeah, that definitely could be a big part of it. And then I think the last move, the last reliever, Daniel Bard staying with the Rockies, avoiding arbitration. I would have thought he was maybe a non-tender candidate. Good for him that he's sticking around.

Still not a bullpen that I'm interested in whatsoever. Aside from... I guess the Steves is the closer, is my guess. Even with all the usual issues, though, in Colorado, where they've had a few decent closers, we've talked about that before, they are a legitimately awful team. They're bad.

They are going to struggle to win games. Maybe not to the degree that Orioles have in recent years, but opportunities are going to be a problem. I think Bard has pitched his way more into the bridge roles as opposed to the endgame roles because they made that change late in the year.

If you had to take a chance, Carlos Estevez or Robert Stevenson I think would be the two that I would think about as the most likely sources of saves. But I think we did it. I think we got through another massive list of transactions, which is great because they're going to be gone for a while.

We're going to have to find ways to answer questions and do some other things. If you've got mailbag questions that have been sitting in our inbox for a long time, there's a good chance they'll be dusted off and answered in this upcoming stretch. We'll also look at early drafts. We'll talk about draft and hold strategy.

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