Rates & Barrels - New Catcher Options and Changes in the Diamondbacks' and Cardinals' Bullpens

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

DVR and Al assess the potential fantasy impact of several recently-promoted prospects, including catchers Henry Davis and Bo Naylor. They also discuss where Joey Votto, Alek Thomas and Jesse Winker should be added, now that each is back on their active major league roster. DVR and Al size up the pitching options on waivers, including Graham Ashcraft, Jameson Taillon, Paul Blackburn and Bryan Woo, and look into the closer situations in Arizona and St. Louis. Rundown 0:53 Top news items of the week 21:40 Hitters of note 38:04 Pitchers, including streamers and two-start pitchers 56:15 Closer corner Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Al on Twitter: @almelchiorBB e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It is Friday, June 23rd. Derek Van Ryper, Al Melk, you're here getting ready for the weekend. Discussing some of the stories of the week. Looking for some potential streamers. Taking a quick look at some bullpen situations that might be in flux. Trying to help you get prepared for another weekend of pickups and maybe trades in some cases too. I think the trade winds are blowing. I think everyone's at that point now.

We're approaching midseason. If you thought you had a need a month ago, you proved to yourself over the last four weeks that need probably still exists in many cases, and you should do something about it. So this is a great weekend to start making some moves if you haven't done that already. And Al, we begin, as we do each and every week with the news of the week. A couple of young catchers joining the catcher pool. Henry Davis getting promoted for the first time and actually playing in the outfield for the Pirates and Bo Naylor

getting brought back up by Cleveland. He debuted at the end of last season and kind of surprisingly didn't get called up until the middle of this month. I thought he'd be up in May, just based on some of the offensive needs for this Guardians team. As you look at Davis and Naylor, and you think about all the different types of leagues we play in, two catcher leagues, single catcher leagues, what type of impact are you expecting from both of these players? I mean, from a long-term perspective, I see two guys that are easily single league relevant,

but I think you can probably argue a case for each of them, depending on what your categorical needs are and who you currently have occupying those spots on your rosters. Yeah. Well, I think they both can make an impact in one catcher leagues, but it's sort of borderline. I think I wouldn't expect either Davis or Naylor to necessarily, and this is true with most catchers, not help you much with batting average. I don't know that either is going to have tremendous power. But Henry Davis had his first home run on Thursday night against the Marlins. There's some power there. And there is with Naylor, too.

two. I actually think I had sort of a hard time in the column this week prioritizing them because I try to do that as I list the players and make it clear who's more of a priority than somebody else. And I gave a slight edge to Davis, a little bit more of a pole hitter. So I think that the power can translate a little bit more quickly for him. He's definitely at a disadvantage in terms of park factor in comparison to Naylor. So basically in the final analysis, I think it all sort of washes out and I see them having kind of similar value, like guy that could be on and off of waivers in a one catcher league. Yeah. Easily must add players in two catcher leagues where available though,

because there's, there's almost no chance that, you know, there are 24 plus catchers better than both of these guys the rest of the way. The thing that leads me to Davis over Naylor, if you're stuck choosing between the two right now, is the way the Pirates are playing him in the outfield. I think that just bodes well for his path to a larger role. Two starts in right, two starts at DH.

I'm with you on the power. I think Davis has more raw power, but Naylor has above average raw power as well. We've really seen him turn his career around over the last couple of seasons between AA and AAA, and he can run a little bit too. You might get some steals from the catcher spot out of Bo Naylor. So yeah, the usual batting average risk applies for both guys because they're young and getting prolonged exposure in the big leagues for the first time. But I think these are profiles that you generally want to bet on. And it's been a strange year at the catcher position. We've talked about that a few times on this show, but better days are ahead as you continue to add high-quality

young players like this. I guess the big question will be, is Henry Davis going to catch enough for the Pirates in the second half of the season to be catcher-eligible going into next year? I guess the good news is, if you have him in a keeper league or a dynasty league, if the answer is no, it means he's probably hitting enough as a right fielder DH where he just kept his job and they were happy with everything he was doing offensively and just let guys like Jason DeLay and Austin Hedges do the defensive work behind the plate. So the good news is you've got a great offensive player. The bad news is the threshold for being a really good outfielder is quite a bit higher

than for being a useful catcher. By all accounts, Henry Davis is going to hit in the long run, and he might hit actually even sooner than that. It's just a question of where they're really going to slot him in in the next few weeks. Other call-ups for this week. in the next few weeks. Other call-ups for this week on the pitching side, Gavin Williams was promoted, yet another Cleveland Guardians starter. We talked about him a bit on Project Prospect. And I think as we try and prepare to bid on Gavin Williams this weekend in weekly leagues, it's really a question of how much do you trust that the Guardians want to keep

him in the rotation over the likes of Cal Quantrill, who's just starting a rehab assignment and could be back soon, and how much they like him over a guy like Tanner Bybee, who, as you were pointing out, actually has struggled in his last four starts. or do you think they are prioritizing young pitching right now in hopes of taking control of the AL Central and maybe offsetting some of their offensive flaws by becoming even better at run suppression with their pitching staff? Well, I do think it's probably more of an audition, but I also think that Williams has a chance to win that audition, to do well in it. So yeah, neither Tanner Bybee nor Logan Allen is really pitching particularly well lately. So I could see either one of them maybe getting sent back down.

I could see Quantrill maybe going in the bullpen. So just because Quantrill's coming back doesn't necessarily mean that I think that one of those rookies is going to lose their job. But I do see Williams as being on sort of an equal footing with Bybee andbee and Allen. So, you know, his first start was fine, but not, you know, in terms of breaking down the peripherals, not, not overwhelmingly great. So I think there's room for him,

maybe to go on that same path that Bybee's gone on to not have the kinds of numbers that he put up in the minors, But I would be, oh no, I shouldn't say I'd be surprised if Quantrill remains in the rotation rest of season, but from a fantasy perspective, I kind of feel like it's a shame because he does have the least upside for our purposes and fantasy of that group. Yeah, Cal Quantrill is a very difficult player to evaluate. I know he has wreaked some havoc on Eno and I throughout the last two-plus years now

because the ratios have been very good going back to 2021. That was a sub-3 ERA with a 118 whip, 121 Ks, and 149 and two-thirds innings, kind of split between the rotation and the bullpen that year. Last year as a full-time starter, a 33338 ERA, a.121 whip, only 128 Ks in 186 in a third inning. So not missing bats the way you'd expect a starter to have to miss bats to have some success. And then this season wasn't pitching all that poorly

until his last two starts before hitting the IL. The injury that put him on the IL was shoulder inflammation, which makes you wonder, in those two starts against the White Sox and Orioles, when he gave up 14 earned runs over eight and a third and turned his ERA from a 406 to a 561, was he pitching hurt? The Guardians might have a better indication of that than any of us do, but that has to be part of the calculus as well. If they see him as the guy that delivered a lot of innings at a high level over the last two seasons, they still think Cal Quantrill's that guy. They're probably not as quick to bump him from their rotation as many of us in the fantasy

community would like them to be, but they would be right. If they can get more of that from Quantrill, then they should do that. Now, with so many young starters, the other thing that I've wondered is if the Guardians would consider going to a six-man rotation because they're going to maybe want to manage the innings a little more carefully later on in the year, but still want to have everybody stretched out in case someone gets hurt. It's almost the thing that you do because you've got enough depth and because at this point, Shane Bieber is not elite Shane Bieber. He's just kind of a good starter. So you're not hurting the rotation as a group as much by having him go every sixth day instead of every fifth day. So I think there is a case for Cleveland to consider that given all these factors.

And, you know, unfortunately, Tristan McKenzie, second arm injury of the season. And you just you kind of you expect the Guardians to be very careful with him. It's multiple weeks because it's a UCL sprain right now. So trying to make sure that heals up and it doesn't turn into a Tommy John sort of situation seems like a priority. So I would imagine we're not going to see Tristan McKenzie until sometime in August if we see him again this year. So it is thinning out a little bit in Cleveland. And all of this is a long way to say, you know, Gavin Williams, I think, could struggle in a two-step this week and end up getting optioned when Quantrill's healthy, or he could pitch well and change the Guardians plans or just sort of prove like, no, I'm ready.

I can contribute and I'm going to be part of trying to get this team back into the postseason. It's a great combination of matchups at Kansas City for the first one, and then at the Cubs for the second one. The Cubs are kind of like a league average sort of offense, but at Wrigley especially, it's not a park that you generally fear unless the wind happens to be blowing out that day. So I'm in on Williams, but it's not the mega hammer sort of bid, even though I think there are really interesting skills here. I think the situation is a little more complicated than a lot of the other pitching prospects that we have talked about on this show over the course of the season.

Yeah. And I'm not sure who's the hammer prospect at this point, the hammer bed, because we've talked about that pretty much every week of the season. And we've also talked about how we're now getting, a lot of us are getting a little bit low on fabs. So I think it's, Williams is a good pitcher to exercise a little bit of caution with this time of year it's such a grind you know we get half a season left to go and i've got a bunch of leagues where i've kind of had a split i've had two teams that have been in contention the whole time got two that have been right in the top of the the bottom half of the league so like a 15 team league where i'm in like ninth place but you look at those you're like okay those teams could still cash and And then a couple duds.

And all of those teams have kind of just drifted toward the middle. And I'm like, oh, this is brutal. Like the good teams aren't getting to the top. The bad teams aren't sinking to the bottom. And the middling teams are just getting a little bit better. Like they're all going to require a lot of extra attention and really smart bids over the course of the second half if they're going to become teams that cash later on this season. I think the player that we want to keep a close eye on this weekend is actually David Hamilton. He might be the watch of the weekend if such a thing exists because the Red Sox have had trouble at shortstop all season long.

David Hamilton, I think, has been on the radar for people in the prospect community because of his speed in the past. He's shown more power this year at AAA Worcester, which I believe is the correct pronunciation. Worcester. Worcester. All right. B minus on the first one, A on the second one. Worcester. We're not locals to the area, but nevertheless, AAA. David Hamilton could just hit enough to be the shortstop in Boston. That's in the range of outcomes, and I think that's pretty exciting given the combination of tools and that it's more than just speed. I think that was one of the concerns I had about Hamilton when he first emerged on my radar about a year ago. Yeah, there's tons of speed here, but is he going to hit enough to even get on base to use it? If he can do some damage, that might help his chances of sticking around and

being a viable deep mixed league player. Yeah. You know, my concern, well, I guess there's a couple of concerns about how well the, the triple a stats will translate to the majors, but also I,

even though the Red Sox have a clear need for Hamilton in the lineup, it just seems like they've, they've not settled on their on their middle infield situation. And I don't know if Hamilton is going to create more stability there. And I think you could get some of the same things that you get from him from Samad Taylor. But I would like to see Hamilton get a really fair shot at regular play. I think it would help the Red Sox and obviously could help us in fantasy.

Yeah, I think for me, both players are versatile enough to carve out a role at other positions if the first place they get a look doesn't work out. But Hamilton having that little extra edge, being able to play a position of need in particular for a Red Sox team that's still hanging around. Yeah, they're last place in the AL East, but they're still over 500. There's still reason to believe if they play well between now and the deadline, they're pushing chips in this year as opposed to trading players away. So I think there's a similar profile for sure to Saban Taylor, but I think Hamilton might be of a little more interest to me just because of the clear needs for the Red Sox right now. So big news from the Rays the last couple of days, and hopefully these are both much about nothing.

Shane McClanahan left his start on Thursday with mid-back tightness. I think the general reaction on Twitter was fearing much worse than that. And we'll see if any further tests turn up anything else. Sometimes you're worried about a lat or something like that that could actually be a problem. Kevin Cash said he hopes McClanahan will be okay after receiving treatment, which isn't really much of anything. It's like, well, that's kind of what we all hope, Kevin. So glad you're on Shane McClanahan's side too. Seems kind of important to your team's chances of winning the World Series. But joking aside, for now he's day-to-day, and I think the thing that's been strange about the Rays,

we talked about it maybe a month or so ago on the Project Prospect episodes, the Rays don't have that clear next guy up right now in their organization. They've really had to test that depth already because of injuries they've dealt with, with Springs, Rasmussen, Shane Baas being down. You could already see Yanni Chirino sort of getting by in a way that doesn't seem sustainable. Josh Fleming's hurt. He's a guy they've turned to a lot in the past.

And I'm wondering if McClanahan does miss some time and the Rays get to a point in their schedule where they have to use a starter every fifth day or use someone for bulk every fifth day. Is there anyone that really stands out to you on their depth chart, either in the big leagues as a reliever right now or in the organization at AA or AAA that you could see emerging to chew up some quality innings for them?

Well, the name that stands out to me is Cooper Criswell, and he's already had a few of those bulk assignments. So on the depth chart, that to me looks like the pitcher who would best fit that role. And he's not particularly exciting for fantasy purposes. So I don't think there's a lot here if McClanahan is out for a while, unfortunately, other than mono leagues and really, really deep mixed leagues. Yeah, it actually probably turns into a situation where the Rays have to go out and trade for pitching real soon if we find out that McClanahan is going to miss significant time.

For now, things at least appear to be trending in the right direction as of early Friday afternoon. We'll keep an eye on that, of course, leading into next week. The other news from the Rays was a strange story that popped up on Thursday that Wander Franco is getting benched for a couple of games for basically not being a good teammate. It was a little vague, and I think it was the kind of thing that Kevin Cash was trying to keep in-house, which is good. That's kind of the opposite of what we saw happening in St. Louis earlier this season. I don't think this really means a whole lot, short-term or long-term. I mean, yes, he lost the start on Thursday.

He'll lose another one on Friday, but it sounds like he'll be back in the lineup before the weekend is over, and that'll be it, unless the issue comes up again. But because they were so vague about it, I don't really have any reason to approach Wander Franco any differently

for the time being. Yeah, right. It leaves you wondering exactly what happened there. But I don't think it's a big deal for us fantasy-wise, unless it's just a really toxic situation that maybe does affect him and his teammates down the line. And there's absolutely no way to know what's going on there. So I'm just going to go

on the assumption that this is something that's going to keep them out for a couple of games and then it's probably going to be forgotten. So this is a situation that we've been more excited about probably two years ago if it had happened, but Nick Gonzalez has been promoted by the Pirates. Brian Reynolds, unfortunately, went to the IL with a back injury. Gonzalez is one of those players that back when he was drafted by the Pirates as a first rounder in 2020, he put up some huge numbers in college, and there were some projections and models that really liked him and thought he's going to come up and be a big time impact player in the big leagues. And it looks more like he's just a solid

potential everyday player, but not the kind of guy that you're looking at as a shallow mixed league contributor, even though the tools are intriguing. This is a guy that has above average raw power and has some speed, but even the numbers at AAA this year, he's kind of age appropriate for being at AAA, 57 games so far, six homers. He's one for four as a base dealer, 28.6% K rate, does walk a lot, 13.4% walk rate's good, so the OBP is solid. But to me, Nick Gonzalez just looks like a guy, like someone that you'd pick up for NL-only leagues. Maybe there's some deep keeper and dynasty appeal right now, but I don't know if he's really going to end up on any of my rosters, even in a 15-team mixed league, unless we get some indication that the Pirates

think he's a viable table setter who can be a clear leadoff guy. I think that's the way that he works his way into maybe some 15-team value is being at or near the top of the order and just getting on base like he has in the minor leagues. And a lot of that was BABIP-driven too, so I don't even know how well that that's going to translate. But yeah, as it stands right now, I'm not even sure that there's a regular role for Gonzalez. The Pirates all season long have had this kind of murky infield picture, and this just makes it even a little bit murkier. So I don't know what it does for somebody like Tukapita Marcano or for Jihan Bae. I don't know that there's really much of a change for anybody there yeah no something to keep an eye on just the role for Gonzalez but not a must-add sort of player

even though at one point people were very excited about what he might do as a big league hitter has had some injuries though during his time in the minors too so that could have slowed down the production just a little bit as well we talked about Tarek Skubal on last week's show as someone, if you want to get a little bit ahead of a possible return from the IL, you might want to try and stash him. Matt Manning, also in that situation where he might be back sooner.

He's probably coming back next week. Just actually had a 73-pitch start, four scoreless innings at Triple-A Toledo. Six Ks, good. Five walks, eh walks not so good but the first start back is against texas anyway al so if you are going to go pick up matt manning this weekend you're probably doing it as a pickup and stash because you're interested in what he can do later the bigger question with manning though has been the performance even last year the ratios

got a lot better but somewhat similar to what we were talking about with Cal Quantrill earlier. The underlying numbers didn't fully back it up. And you can make a lot of cases for Matt Manning. Health has been a problem for him, and he's so young and had such great stuff coming through that Tiger system that I think he's a tough player to write off completely. But what are you expecting from Manning now that he's coming back from this foot injury and is about to rejoin the Tigers rotation? I think the Quantrill comp is a very good one. And I think maybe I trust Manning a little bit more to actually put up the good surface stats if the peripherals aren't improving this year. But yeah, he's had trouble staying healthy.

So that's something too in the back of my mind is, is he going to be able to stay healthy for the rest of the season? Is he going to get enough run support? So there's a whole lot of questions there, but I'll almost certainly be bidding on Manning this weekend in 15 teamers, but probably as a contingency bid and definitely not starting him against Texas. If you look at the pitch mix this season before the injury, it had changed a little bit. Last season, it was about 60% usage of the fastball, 23% usage of the slider,

10% use of the curve, and 8% with the change. He bumped that curveball usage up mostly at the expense of the change, so it became more of a fastball, slider, curveball guy earlier in the year. We'll see if that ends up leading to some better results over a longer window, of course. We only saw two starts from Matt Manning before he ended up on the IL, but really strange to see this guy with a 16.1% strikeout rate for his career. So tread it carefully. The park helps a lot.

You might look at Matt Manning as more of a deep league home streamer at this point, and if the stuff comes all the way back to where it was before the injury started to slow him down, there, of course, is still room for more. But just temper those short-term expectations. As far as Scooble goes, it sounds like he may need one more week, only two and two-thirds innings on Wednesday. So it's going to be a little longer potentially before he comes back. Or if they do bring him back, he might not have a full path to five plus innings the first time out. So be very mindful of that. But I think Scooble's by far the more interesting guy by skills. We've seen the Ks at all the different levels. So I like some of the adjustments he made last year before this injury slowed him down. And I think there's a chance Scooble could be a top 30, top 35 starting pitcher once he's back. Not a lot of players like that pop up in the pool this time of year. hour moisturizing body wash is infused with vitamin B3 complex and has notes of rose and cherry creme for a rich indulgent experience. Treat your senses with NuoLite Indulgent Moisture

Body Wash. Buy it today at major retailers. You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself. You live for experience and lead by example. You want the most out of life and realize what you're looking for is already in you. This is for you. The Canadian Armed Forces, a message from the Government of Canada. Let's go to some bats and just looking kind of more at role changes and some other activations. Alec Thomas getting an opportunity in Arizona again. And it looks like they've settled in to what they sort of had at the beginning of the year, Al, where Corbin Carroll is the regular and left. Alec Thomas is the regular and center, Jake McCarthy is the regular in right, and Lourdes Gurriel is the DH. And that means

Pavin Smith is sort of the extra guy. And that kind of makes sense to me based on the various skills that this group of players brings to the table, because Thomas is a good defensive center fielder. Before his demotion to AAA Reno earlier this season. It looked like he was one of the more unlucky players in the pool. He was hitting the ball hard and just wasn't getting good results. He's done a good job keeping the strikeouts down, just like he did throughout his time in the minor leagues. So I'm actually kind of intrigued here. He still hits the ball on the ground more than you would like, but at least for deep leagues where you've got to have five starting outfielders, I think Thomas could at least be a useful, inexpensive pickup this weekend. Yeah, no, I agree a lot of times with these

players that are kind of post-type candidates. You can kind of slide them through with a minimal bid. And I think that Thomas could very much be the player that we were expecting to see late last year when we were really wanting him to come up then and looking forward to him earlier this season, somebody who could hit for average, a little bit of power, a little bit of speed, kind of just a little bit of help everywhere. And I don't see any reason why, unless he really just can't get on track offensively, why he wouldn't be the center fielder for the rest of the season going forward.

It was a little surprising to see Pavin Smith get as long of a look as he got, speaking of post-type hitters. Yeah, Pavin Smith just seems like a guy, lowercase. I don't think I would say that about Alec Thomas yet. There's still a lot more he could get to, and the Diamondbacks are right to distribute the playing time the way they're doing it. It makes sense to me, at least, from the outside looking in. Smith might get the occasional start, but he's basically an NL-only league guy that's going to play once or twice a week at most, so long as everyone stays healthy. I'm curious with the injuries the Dodgers have been dealing with,

Max Muncy being down right now, Chris Taylor being hurt, Michael Bush and Johnny DeLuca are both getting opportunities to play. Do you see either of them doing enough and offering enough to become relevant in some of the more shallow and mid-sized mixed leagues that are where they might be out there? I actually don't just because the injuries that you mentioned seem to be short-term ones. I mean, we can't be totally sure until we know that they're coming back, but there have been reports still pretty recently that Muncy will be back this weekend. I haven't seen anything about an I.L. stint for Chris Taylor. And Bush certainly isn't

forcing the issue in terms of his offense right now. So I think it could be short stays for both him and DeLuca. Yeah, we've seen a little bit of Michael Bush at third base. So I think the big question for him has been where does he fit in defensively? And I like that they're trying some different things with him. He's a hitter over everything else. I just also have wondered if he's going to get his best opportunity to play somewhere else. Maybe he's the kind of player that other teams will seek out at the trade deadline, even though he's getting some opportunities with the Dodgers right now. I think it's five consecutive starts going back to June 16th, but not cashing in on those opportunities just yet. And I don't think they'd be very patient with him if he doesn't start to produce soon,

especially with Muncie potentially returning just around the corner. DeLuca, I'm pretty interested in him from a skills perspective. I think you're right to be cautious about him because I think as a right-handed hitting outfielder, he looks like he's going to fill the Trace Thompson role. And you think about having James Outman and Jason Hayward, who's been fine kind of in a limited role. DeLuca probably compliments guys like that, and that just limits the playing time, even though we've seen power, we've seen speed from him throughout his time in the Dodgers system. Yeah. I mean, the skills are definitely intriguing. It is just a question of opportunity. And we've talked about this, it seems like for years now, TBR, that the Dodgers don't just

settle on a lineup. So maybe there is room for DeLuca, maybe more than Bush at this point, to work his way into, I don't know, three starts a week or something, give him some very deep league appeal. But as good as the minor league numbers have been this year, I just, I don't know. Maybe he does work his way into something bigger. Maybe it's like a situation like without men

in spring training and early in the year where we all kind of doubted the playing time and it was, it was there for him. He forced, forced the situation. So maybe that can happen with DeLuca, but I, I wasn't really looking at him this weekend as a, as a fab target, to be honest. He's got to take advantage of the opportunities when he gets them though. If he wants to carve out that larger role so far, it hasn't happened. It's only been 10 games 10 games but interesting tools if things turn for him in los angeles let's talk about joey vato for a minute he is back finally rejoining that crowded reds infield and what types of leagues do you think joey vato is rosterable at this stage i mean last year we saw a pretty massive drop in terms of overall production. It was a 205, 319, 370 line.

Health likely had a lot to do with that. The year before, 2021 was ridiculously good. 36 home runs seemingly out of nowhere, a barrel rate that was way above previous career levels at 17.2%. It's so hard to figure out what comes next with Votto, and then you add in the complications of maybe getting more days off than we've ever been accustomed to seeing for him, but it makes sense. He's 39 years old, and his team is better than it's been in a few seasons. So where does Votto fit at this stage of his career, given the recent track record and the state of the depth

chart right now in Cincinnati? It's so hard to know because you figure Christian Encarnacion Strand has to be coming sooner than later. I mean, the Reds are going for it and it's paid off. They've got this massive winning streak. They're out in first place now. But I also don't see Joey Votto being an insignificant part of this playoff push. So I think maybe you see more of Spencer Steer in the outfield when Encarnacion Strand comes up. To me, that would make the most sense, and you could still see Votto mostly at DH.

But that doesn't answer your question. I'm not thinking of him as a 12-teamer kind of guy right now. I don't think I have to make that move, given the kind of season that he had last year. I don't think people are thinking of him as an impact player when he comes off the IL, but he sort of has been in the few games that he's been back. We're seeing some good things from Votto.

It's a really good looking lineup now. So you can imagine if he's hitting kind of in the middle of that, you know, fifth and sixth, there's some run production opportunities. And I just, yeah, I have a hard time picturing Joey Votto unless he reverts to what he did in 2022. I have a hard time seeing him as that guy that only starts three or four times a week. Yeah, you start to look at some of the guys that you would possibly drop for him in our 16-team league, which has some keepers too. So that dries up some of the young players that you might turn to when they

get promoted. I thought Votto was actually an upgrade over Carlos Santana, Santana at the very beginning of the season when the pirates were playing well, look like he was going to have that one last interesting season. The last couple of months really since then, like almost two months now haven't looked like that at all. I thought Votto was an upgrade in part because of what you said about the lineup context. The park still helps quite a bit. I think a lot of what we

saw last year was the result of Votto not being healthy. I'm not buying and expecting 2021 again to be completely clear, but I think if you look back at what he was doing in 2019, if Joey Votto was relevant in your league back in 2019, he's probably still relevant in your league in 2023 based on skills that are probably more like an 18 to 20 home run player prorated over what's left of the season. Good run production and probably not a liability in batting average. Some of the other depth corner guys can really hurt you in that category. I know it's strange to say it about a guy that just hurt you in that category a season ago. That would be surprising to me. I think it's at least a 240-250 range average with room for a bit more than that,

given the type of hitter he is. He's such a hard player to bet against. Betting against Joey Votto seems like a fool's errand, especially in a year where things are getting so much better around him with that Reds club. I want to get your thoughts on a former Red, Jesse Winker, because my thoughts are irrelevant. Do you have any reason to believe that Jesse Winker is actually finally healthy? He did finally hit his first home run as a Brewer this week,

crushed one out to center field. It wasn't a cheapie, but it's one home run so far this season. So is there any reason to be optimistic that Winker is in fact fixed? I remember seeing the numbers from his rehab assignment at AAA. Those looked good too. So that started to pull me in a little bit. But help me from falling into the same trap again, Al. Is Jesse Winker actually useful in 12, 14 team leagues?

Or has he fallen into the very deep leagues only category? I think right now it's the deep leagues. And some of that is expectation, too. I finally dropped him in TGFBI, which for those who don't know is 15 teams, last weekend. So I held the faith with him for a good long time. He was definitely one of my sleeper slash bounce back, uh, candidates going into draft season this year. I thought that he got sort of a, a raw deal statistically in Seattle,

had better indicators than, um, what the, the surface stats, uh, suggested. Uh, but so, you know, for him to go to a nice environment like Milwaukee and you're getting more of the same or worse, uh, at some point I point I did lose the faith with Jesse Winker. And I think a lot of people have. So I'm not saying I've given up on him, but I think that last season combined with the first half of this season, you can take at least a week to wait and see.

If he catches fire in the next week or so, then yeah, then I'm probably back here next week saying, yeah, I'm going to bid on him in 15-teamers. I doubt I'm getting to that point in 12-teamers for a while, but I think that's my plan with Jesse Winker. Yeah, I think the things you have to keep in mind too is that even if he begins to hit again, he's a big side platoon guy. You're not going to see Winker play very often against lefties.

I think he's made two starts all season when the Brewers have faced a left-handed starter. So that chips away at his value. We did just see on Tuesday he dropped to fifth in the batting order too. So for a long time, most of the season, he's been hitting second. Kind of a prime spot. Already dropping him to fifth makes you wonder, could he fall even further or just lose time outright? One thing that happened that could actually buy Winker a little more time,

unfortunately, Sal Freelick, who just got back from a thumb injury at AAA, has suffered a knee injury. The extent of that is still unclear, but one of the guys they could bring up into that position group to possibly replace Winker may be delayed even longer because of another injury. So if you pick up Winker, I think you're doing it as a near min-bid sort of thing. It's more of a speculative ad. You've got to really watch the schedule carefully and make sure they're seeing mostly right-handed starters if you want to take that chance.

Unfortunately, one of my more rostered players this year, and it has not gone well. It's part of the reason some of those teams are drifting around in nobody's land in that 7th, 8th, 9th place in 15 teams leagues, which just feels awful to be there. It could be worse. The bottom is worse, but the middle doesn't feel good once you get to June. You feel like you should have made up some ground by this point in the season. Jorge Alfaro actually has a new club. I was going to mention him with the other catchers, but he landed in Colorado. So does that change anything for you about Jorge Alfaro?

Is it enough to at least make him relevant in two catcher leagues again, kind of similar to Gary Sanchez we talked about a couple of weeks ago when he landed in San Diego? It does, absolutely. So not relevant in one catcher leagues, but if the trend continues, he's going to play a lot because he's been DHing more than he's been catching. So there's a role for him. There's obviously a nice ballpark for him. Alfaro is not necessarily the hitter who's going to make the most out of playing in course field because he's more of a line drive gap type hitter, but he could do nicely in batting average. I mean, we've talked about him,

maybe not this year, but I know past years DVR, he's just a unicorn of a hitter that he strikes out a ton, but isn't that bad for batting average because he just, he hits a ton of live drives, strikes out a ton, but isn't that bad for batting average because he hits a ton of live drives, doesn't pop out, is a BABIP-hitting catcher, which is a very rare thing. But in that environment, he could be even more so. So that makes him totally relevant in two catcher leagues. Yeah, I think that's where I'm at with him too. I'm surprised they're DH-ing him as much as they have so far,

but it's Colorado, so I shouldn't be. I just surprised they're DHing him as much as they have so far, but it's Colorado, so I shouldn't be. I just have to get over it. They're just not going to do the things that I would do if I were calling the shots, and that's fine. That's their choice. Let's talk about a few middle infield depth options as we wrap up the hitters. Andrew Velasquez is going to see what looks like a pretty significant uptick

in playing time for the Angels, a bunch of injuries around that infield, so he's going to get maybe everyday run temporarily. So you look at Velasquez versus Jacob Amaya, who's getting a look right now with the Marlins and Zach Remillard, who I think is a notch below both of these guys. He's playing some second base right now because Tim Anderson's out. Elvis Andrews is playing some short for the White Sox, but Anderson's not on the IL, at least at the time of this recording. So I think Remillard's just like a min-bid, AL-only, stopgap sort of player. I would say he's even less interesting than Samad Taylor, who we talked about earlier in this episode.

Oh, for sure. And Taylor wasn't even part of our conversation last week. So is Andrew Velasquez actually a decent source of cheap stolen bases if you're trying to find something to help you on the waiver wire this weekend? I think he is. Stoll, I think it was 17 last year. Like you said, he's got some playing time ahead of him now. I don't know that you're going to get much else with those stolen bases. That's the frustration I felt with the Alaskas when I had them last year. But I pretty much knew what I was in for. I thought maybe, especially with the Angels Park, there'd be a little bit of power more really than he had. Maybe that's still a possibility,

but I think you have to, if you're looking to add Velasquez this weekend, you're doing it thinking you're going to get steals and maybe negatives elsewhere. Yeah, and it's pretty rough. It says a lot about how bad their depth got chewed up in just a matter of days. 75 WRC plus for Velasquez

at AAA. So he wasn't even taking advantage of being in the PCL as a 28 year old. So it's cheap speed that will likely hurt you elsewhere if you're trying to go that route. Amaya is kind of interesting. I think it's just, I'm not as convinced that he's going to play a lot. I don't really know what to make of him from that perspective. Numbers at AAA were actually a lot better than Velasquez. 278, 346, 472. Played pretty well at that level with less power before being traded to the organization. I believe Amaya was the return in the Miguel Rojas trade between the Marlins and the Dodgers.

So a little bit of power, non-zero speed. Do you think he'll play enough to be relevant? I don't think so. I mean, so far, he's made a couple of starts both against lefties. So that's maybe the role going forward. And the Marlins kind of shift people in and out of roles. We've talked about this before with Garrett Hampson and Jonathan Davis. And so maybe Amaya will have this stretch where he'll get some more regular run as a starter. But even if that happens, I wouldn't necessarily expect it to last more than a week or two. So I'm not really looking at Amaya in really any mixed leagues this weekend.

Yeah, I think it's more of a wait and see sort of situation. NL only is totally fine. Third base is still kind of a funny spot for them. If they were going to maybe say, let's move Joey Wendel off short and just let Amaya play every day, that's your best bet as far as how the, they've made up so much ground. They played so well and put themselves in an unexpectedly good position right now in the NL East and the overall playoff picture in the NL. Best Western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze, and it felt a little like... life's a trip make the most of it at best western let's get to the pitching there are a few names I wanted to bring up that are not streamers, but they're also not quite in the news. Graham Ashcraft is supposed to return from the IL

this weekend, and there is a lot of tension between bad results and good stuff with Graham Ashcraft. I'm curious if you are interested in taking on the risk. Are you betting on the stuff, or are you cautiously letting someone else take on the risk. Are you betting on the stuff or are you cautiously letting someone else take on the risk while he sort of works through some things? Because the schedule coming back for Ashcraft is not particularly easy. He gets to Atlanta this weekend, his first turn back, and it doesn't really get better in the immediate future. Well, I think that that Atlanta start is going to be critical in terms of setting bidding expectations this weekend,

because if it's a good start, then there's an easy narrative for us all, right? He's back, and this is who we expected back in early April. And I personally am hoping that Ashcraft has that good start against Atlanta, because I was one of those people who rostered him a bunch of places and then dropped him fairly recently. So yeah, I'm watching that start in Atlanta because I do want him back on my roster. And it's just a question of how much I'm going to have to sacrifice to get there. If it's not a good start against Atlanta, then I'm probably going with some contingency bids on Ashcraft and in leagues where I can stash him for a week or two. I think the good news is when you have an ERA over six, the bids are pretty light.

So if you believe it's not going to cost you a lot to find out. Similar to what we said with Matt Manning earlier, it's a home matchup against the Padres. I'm not really psyched about throwing Ashcraft in that spot if I can help it. So if you do pick him up this week, it's probably because you want to use him on July 5th. He's got a road start against the Nationals if the schedule holds. That would be a spot where he'd at least be a streamer. If you have to look that far ahead, some people actually have to do that because leagues are that competitive. put the pieces back together at AAA Reno. Zach Davies has an ERA over seven. I don't know why they signed Zach Davies in the first place. I realize Brandon Fott's been worse than that during his time in the big leagues,

but only five starts at the big league level this season. You compare that to the results at AAA Reno, which we've mentioned many, many times in this pod, is one of the most difficult places to pitch in the PCL. Over a strikeout per inning, only 11 walks, does have a bit of a home run issue, but we're seeing more signs of success that are kind of resembling what he was doing last year

upon getting to AAA for the first time. So is this the time to go ahead? If Brandon Fott has been dropped in your league, are you trying to get out in front of the D-backs making that change given how much Davies has struggled? I think it is. And we've talked about this sort of situation with Tarek Skubal the last couple of weeks. And the situation still applies for him because he's probably not coming back this week, but it's good to get ahead of that with him now as much as you can. And the same thing for Fadami. The Diamondbacks really need him. The Giants are making a run.

I'm sure they want to try to protect their lead. They're, I'm sure, looking ahead to the postseason and they need Brandon Fott in that rotation. So I don't think it'll be long before he's back up. There's lots of room for him. just one of three pitchers, really, I think who could be expendable in that rotation. So I think now is the time to go a little bit under the radar and try to bring Fott back onto your roster. Yeah, back-to-back starts from Davies where he's failed to even complete four innings. So aside from getting hit, he's not giving them length, putting more strain on a bullpen that is kind of okay at the top, but is not particularly deep. So that's adding to the problems in Arizona right now, even though things are going very well overall for the Diamondbacks.

I was also looking for a possible solution in Boston. Tanner Houck is going to miss a lot of time. Unfortunately, got hit by a comebacker and is going to have a procedure to insert a plate, I believe, to repair a fracture in his face. So all the best to him. Those are always scary situations. And it's probably going to be a couple of months before we see Houck back on the mound again. So the Red Sox are looking at maybe Chris Murphy, who's been stretched out as a bulk reliever, to step into that rotation.

And he's looked pretty good in that bulk role. and he's looked pretty good in that bulk role, but I don't know if there's anything here immediately actionable, even though there is this sort of open spot with a start against the Marlins coming up on the schedule. Yeah, that's my thinking too. Deep leagues.

Murphy would be somebody interesting, but also Nick Pavetta. I mean, I don't know if they're considering him for that sort of role or putting him back in the rotation, but we talked a couple of weeks ago about how Sean Minaya has really flourished since getting moved into a bulk relief role

and Pavetta's sort of been like Minaya light. I think maybe not quite as impressive, but definitely better results in that role. So I don't know that I'd be any more interested in Pavetta than I would Murphy if that was the solution that the Red Sox were going to, but I think there's definitely a place for either or both of them in deeper leagues. Yeah. The funny thing is if they do go back to Pavetta or if they end up going with Murphy, however they handle it, whoever that pitcher is has a chance at a two-start week the following week. Unfortunately, it's a home start against

the Rangers before an easier home start against the A's. So for deep, deep leagues, something to keep an eye on if we get some clarity from the Red Sox as to how they want to address the absence of Tanner Houck. As far as your more typical two-start pitchers this week, how lucky are you feeling if you're going to pick up Jamison Tyon and throw him out there? You've got the Phillies at home for the first matchup,

and then you've got Cleveland at home for the second one. We know the Guardians have had all sorts of issues putting runs on the board. So even though I don't love the first matchup, I think that's a risk I'd be taking if I'm chasing bulk this weekend. Yeah. I mean, when you ask how lucky I feel,

this is a move I make if it's head-to-head and I feel really compelled to add a second start, and the other options aren't really great this week. Yeah, the matchups don't bother me at all. Having Cleveland as that second start definitely puts Tyone in the worth considering category. Keep looking for reasons to believe things are going to get better and it's hard to find them. I mean, the last 30 days, a 533 ERA, a 137 whip, still not turning things around there. Sometimes you see guys struggling with the ratios and they're getting Ks.

That's not the case with Tyon either. 18 strikeouts in his last 27 innings. So it's a leap of faith, but it's a strange week. A lot of the, there are a lot of good, clearly rostered frontline starters with two starts. And then there's a bunch of threes and fours kind of sprinkled in that you don't feel great about, but they're not horrible either. They're just good enough to tempt you to think that it could be a good idea. Maybe that also describes Alex Wood, but I think part of the reason I'm looking at Tyon ahead of Alex Wood is just a more difficult combination of matchups. At Toronto for Wood is one that I'm really worried about. And at the Mets, you know, Citi Field plays pitcher friendly. But I just think that's a rough combination. You know, maybe if those were both at home, that'd be enough for me to prefer Wood to Tyon. But I'm curious what you make of Alex Wood in a season that has been pretty up and down. I mean, there have been a few moments where it's looked like he was going to put it together and more moments where it looks like he's just not going to be used quite like a full starter anymore.

I mean, look at his workloads this year. He's got two starts, I think, two outings this year where he's gone five or more innings. Yeah. And, you know, that's one reason to, to deprioritize him. And yeah, that at Toronto is pretty disqualifying for me. So I'm not excited about Tyone, but if I'm going to bid on, on both of them, I'm definitely putting a little bit more, maybe a lot more on Tyone than, than I would on Wood. Those bright spots for Wood, two outings against the Dodgers this year, totaling nine and two-thirds innings.

And it's nine and two-thirds scoreless with four hits and nine strikeouts. It's just, it's hard to make sense of it. But I think if you are going to try and play those games with Alex Wood, you're better served doing that when he's pitching at Oracle Park. I'm curious what you think about Paul Blackburn for the upcoming week. He's got the Yankees and the White Sox both at home in Oakland, which I think we generally like. The situation with the Yankees, of course, Aaron Judge still not back.

He's not going to come back during the upcoming week, by all indications. It's still going to be a bit longer. It just makes me wonder, how much are you picking on the Yankees, especially when they're on the road? I mean, Yankee Stadium's just tough, so if you put a middling starter out there, especially a righty, they can really get punished. But you look at, you know, J.P. Sears is going to start against the Yankees in Oakland this week. You're going to see Adam Wainwright, Jack Flaherty, and Matthew Libertor all pitch against the Yankees in St. Louis. So are the Yankees actually a team you can stream against

a bit more aggressively right now? That's putting a little bit more strongly than I would. And this is something that I addressed in the column this week. So if y'all haven't read that yet, check that out. But they've been, I think, the worst offensive team in June, whether you measure it by run scored or by WOBA. So that would definitely recommend them as a team to stream against, but they're like right in the middle of the pack in terms of ISO and, and home run to fly ball ratio. So there's, there's some power there. And I think actually pretty high up in terms of barrel rate too.

So there's several indicators to suggest that there's power there and they, they're getting a comically low batting average on balls in play. Josh Donaldson, I think has one hit on a ball in play this month. So, you know, just an extreme example of kind of the difficulties that they're having and why they're having so much trouble scoring runs. So I think that's just a way of getting around to saying that I think that the Yankees offensive slump is going to end at some point, you know, pretty quickly and pretty decidedly. There's even without Aaron Judge, there's still a pretty decent lineup there. So I wouldn't start Blackburn with that two-step

because it's the Yankees. It's because the White Sox are a legitimately favorable matchup. And with the Yankees in Oakland, not because it's so much the Yankees away from Yankee stadium, but that it's the Yankees in Oakland. And I like Blackburn with most matchups in Oakland. He's hasn't entirely ditched the sinker, but he's definitely de-emphasized it in favor of the slider. So you're seeing actually a pretty nice strikeout rate so far for Blackburn. He's been pretty good. So I would trust him with these matchups and definitely at home.

Yeah, and he might not have the benefit of pitching at the Oakland Coliseum much longer. The trade deadline is looming. He seems like a guy that could just give other clubs valuable innings as they try and get from here to there as far as the playoffs are concerned. I don't know if he's in a playoff rotation for most teams, but he's at least good enough to be a back-end starter elsewhere. I think I would throw Sears as a streamer

in even like a 10 or a 12-team league if I was looking for some innings this week because I think the Yankees can strike out a little bit in that matchup. Sears is probably a tick underrated in some circles. The Cardinals starters are trickier because I just don't know if I believe in Adam Wainwright at this stage. Flaherty is a constant puzzle for me. I think I would probably stick to deeper, like 15 team leagues with Flaherty.

And then Libertor gets them as part of a two-star week. He gets the Astros without Jordan Alvarez for the first one. And then he gets the Yankees without Judge. Both of those starts are at home. So I think Libertor, even though I want to believe in him, even though he's a Lodum guy, the guy no one likes that I want to believe in, I think he's still more of a deep league streamer in this spot because we're just not seeing enough consistency from him on a start-by-start basis right now,

which is why he is a Lodum guy in the first place. Yeah, and it's not like we were talking about with Tyon. I don't view the Yankees or the Astros as great matchups, even though they're both down their best hitter. They're still good hitters in those lineups. Uh, I don't know if we've talked about Yiner Diaz, uh, it's certainly not, not talked about him enough. Uh, but he he's, he's among those, uh, catching eligible targets, uh, too, with the others that we've mentioned and filling in nicely for Alvarez there. So yeah, there's, there's not enough from

Libretor for me to trust him with what I consider to be kind of middle of the road matchups. Yeah, Jainer Diaz, I mean, if you're in a 10-team single catcher league and you're thinking about Diaz versus the prospects we talked about earlier, there's probably a better case for Diaz as the short-term play. I think we're seeing a 15% barrel rate so far this year with a sub 20 k rate it works this guy can hit and eventually if they like what he's doing behind the plate defensively he could he could actually be a good long-term catcher i think there's a ton to like here um he has not been discussed enough and being in the heart of that order right now especially sort of props up his value a little bit relative

to a lot of other catcher eligible players so many catcher eligible players end up stuck in the heart of that order right now especially sort of props up his value a little bit relative to a lot of other catcher-eligible players. So many catcher-eligible players end up stuck in the bottom third of their respective lineups, and that's not the case at all for Yainer Diaz right now. Getting into a few more of these two-start pitchers and streamers, Colin Ray and Julio Teran get the same matchups at the Mets, at the Pirates, I think, as well as it's worked for the Brewers with those two guys overall so far this season. 15 teams and deeper is where the cutoff is. I don't feel great about it, but you could do worse, and we'll talk about some players you could do worse with here momentarily. Martin Perez might not be worse, but I've never fully trusted him for volume, Al. I think he's the kind of pitcher that when I don't use him, he's great.

And when I try to use him, he reminds me why I shouldn't have him in my lineup. It's still a low strikeout rate again this year. It's down from where it was last year, 15.3%. It's not like he's doing it with an elite walk rate either. And he's got a home run problem again. Part of what made Martin Perez so good last year was that he kept the ball in the park at a rate that we hadn't seen really since like 2016, 2015. And now the home runs are back.

And I think this is who he is. I think this is what you get. And the best thing about Perez right now is that the Rangers score a lot of runs and your win probability is high. So if you're chasing wins and you're not worried about ratios, that first start against the Tigers especially is probably enough to kind of nudge me back in. But you've been warned. This doesn't usually work for me. It's going to work for really any of us. And I started to think, well, maybe Perez is going to be the guy that he was last year. And I was all in on Perez going into this year because I thought, okay, the change has been made. He's getting more grounders. He's getting lower grounders. Like you said, as a result of that, he's keeping the ball in the park.

Just a decent enough strikeout rate to make it worthwhile. And he's had some of those 2022 type performances lately, earlier this week against the White Sox going seven deep, went seven deep against the Cardinals earlier this month. So I start thinking, oh, maybe he's back. Well, here's the ground ball trend for Perez's last few starts. 44%, 47%, 44%, 32%, 39%.

Those are the last five starts. So no, if those were like 55%, 60%, I'd be back in. But I'm not trusting Perez if he's not keeping the ball on the ground. I think it reminds me a lot of the profile of Marco Gonzalez. It just doesn't work for me. I don't know when it's going to be good and when it's going to be a problem. I can't find the patterns. I can't find the matchups. I can't find the rhyme or reason other than the lowest hanging fruit to throw them in my lineups. And that's what I think

the Tigers matchup is. That's the lowest hanging fruit. So I think that's what got my attention. But maybe other folks out there can figure it out. I cannot. Other names that have the two starts, Johnny Brito at Oakland at St. Louis and Trevor Williams at Seattle at Philly. I don't think I would use them outside of mono leagues. And even there, I'm kind of thinking about throwing bulk relievers if I'm trying to protect ratios at all.

I'm with you there. 100% good matchups, but I just don't trust either pitcher at all. The other pitcher we should talk about only has one start, but he's looked pretty good. It's Brian Wu. Lots of strikeouts so far. We just saw him Thursday night against the Yankees. Five more Ks and five in a third scoreless innings. Just two hits. Had nine strikeouts against the White Sox over five and two-thirds the turn before that.

And even seven strikeouts against the Angels inx over five and two thirds the turn before that and even seven strikeouts against the Angels in his second big league appearance so after that rough outing debuting on the road against Texas he's shown a little bit in these last few outings and I think they're going to handle him pretty carefully I don't think you're going to see Brian Wu going six plus very often the Mariners have a deep bullpen I think he also might be the kind of guy that relies so heavily on two pitches that getting through the lineup twice is probably the goal. And if he can start to get through it a third time, that's fine. But I think he's more of a back-end guy for now with this arsenal whose strikeout rate makes him play up a lot in fantasy. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So as long as

he's getting to five innings gives you a chance at the win. You're going to get the strikeouts even in those somewhat limited innings. That game Thursday night against the Yankees, he had a no hitter going into the sixth inning. So once he gave up the two singles, they got him out of there. So, you know, I imagine we'll see a lot of that where, you know, once there's a sign of trouble, the Mariners go to the bullpen. But yeah, last, I think it's four starts. Really impressive. So with a good matchup this week, I would definitely favor him over almost all the two-star pitchers

that we've mentioned so far. Yeah, I'm with you there. I think there's a little bit of longer-term appeal too because if he keeps pitching well, they don't really have a reason to bump him out of that rotation anytime soon. So good streaming opportunity home against Washington, even in some shallow leagues where Wu may have been previously left on the waiver wire. A couple closer notes before we go. Scott McGuff, maybe it's a better late than never sort of call. I liked him a little bit back at the mid part of draft season. Wish I had him more places,

but the truth is I would have been forced to cut him before. Now I wouldn't have enjoyed this payoff that much anyway, in a lot of leagues, all I'm wondering about is whether or not Arizona will either abandon the committee or simply make Scott McGuff the head of their closer committee kind of seems like the ladder is happening. And part of what happened this week, Andrew Chafin was actually down for a couple of days with an ankle injury. So the extra save opportunities that went to McGuff may have been partially the result of Chafin not being available. But it looks like he's a key part of the best relief group that Diamondbacks can throw out there. And as a team that wins a lot, that's going to lead to some save chances. So if I said over under 11 and a half saves today forward for Scott McGuff in 2023, which side of that would you be on? I'm going to take the over. I'm going to take the over because

he has, like you said, pretty much moved into that larger share of the committee type role. And if he continues to pitch like he has the last few weeks, I think that that could morph into just the sole closer kind of situation for him. He is not allowed an earned run in any of his last 16 appearances. That's a total of 21 innings, a 30 to seven strikeout to walk ratio. He's only allowed one barrel during that time.

So all the indicators look really great over this extended period and uh i i just think it's going to be hard for them not to go if they don't go to him in the ninth it's only because maybe the the really good hitters are coming up in the eighth uh but i think i would expect that mcguff will get the bulk of the saves going forward yeah maybe it's a lefty righty thing too if they're going to play the matchups where if he's splitting chances with Chafin, who pitches the eighth, who pitches the ninth could just depend on the handedness

and the difficulty of the matchups in those frames. But I think being part of a committee or leading a committee is fine. I mean, if Evan Phillips is valuable to you, then Scott McGuff should be valuable to you in your leagues as well, right? That's the kind of mindset that we should have. And looking at the leaderboard for saves real quick, we've got 10 different relievers, no, 22 relievers with 10 or more saves already this season. That seems like a pretty big number for June 23rd.

I'm going to have to look and see if that compares to past years. But are the committees changing or are we just more aware of them? That's the bigger question. The other closer note for this week, Jordan Hicks seems like he's done a really nice job with Ryan Helsley down. Do you see anything different in Hicks? I saw a note that he moved

to the first base side of the rubber, and since then, the walk rate had come down. I'm kind of surprised it took this long to make an adjustment like that. That seems like a very simple tweak, but it wouldn't be the first time that a reliever with excellent stuff made an adjustment like that and got completely different results. Yeah, yeah, right. It sounds easy to us, but who knows all the things that have been tried. I mean, he's just getting a ton of strikeouts, more than he ever has, because even when he first came up and we were all really excited about Jordan Hicks, it was like, okay, this is not going to be the best strikeout pitcher, but he's just got nasty stuff and he's not going to give up home runs and he's going to be really effective.

stuff and he's not going to give up home runs and he's going to be really effective. But now you're actually getting the strikeouts from Hicks. So my biggest concern is that I don't know how long he's going to have the job. I'm not sure when Helsley does come back. I'm not sure what Helsley's role is when he comes back. I would suspect maybe then we go to a committee or at least a two-way split between Hicks and Helsley. we go to a committee or at least a two-way split between Hicks and Helsley. So between the two, I would definitely much rather have McGuff this weekend, but be happy to get either.

Yeah. How many saves does Ryan Helsley have this season? I don't know. I'm just guessing. I'm asking you to guess. I'm sorry. Okay. I'm going to guess eight.

I'm going to make that clear. I'm going to guess eight. Yeah. You're very close. He's got seven. For some reason in my head, he has and it's giovanni gallegos has eight so this is another one of those committee situations where you could very well see hicks sort of replace gallegos and then it's hicks sharing with helsley or it could be all three of these guys so even if you are you're worried about

you know what happens next once Helsley gets healthy, I don't think it's a zero for Hicks going forward. I don't know if I'd put the over-under total up at 11.5 for rest of season saves for Hicks, but 6.5 maybe would be a fair number, and I think you could go over that. So as you look at the saves category in the standings, you may find that a third reliever that has a partial share is actually very valuable if saves are really tightly clustered. And in many leagues, they are. So I think standings will probably dictate just how much you want to go after Jordan Hicks. But

it's never been a question of stuff. And it does seem like he's made some adjustments that have made him a lot more effective recently. It's nice to see the Ks. It becomes a better staff filler with those Ks if you can sustain that improvement. We are going to head out on our way out the door. A reminder, you can get a subscription to The Athletic for $1 a month for the first year at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. You can check out Al's weekly waiver column. That is up right now. You can check out all the other great stuff that we've got.

Fantasy football season is just around the corner too, so if you want to get some of that content, we've got that. Everything else you could want all for one low price, $1 a month for the first year. You really can't beat that. On Twitter, you can find Al at Al Melchior. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Monday. Thank you.