Rates & Barrels - New Steals Sources, Late Promotions & Endgame Help

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

Eno and DVR consider the implications of new 2023 rules on stolen bases. Will players who currently run occasionally end up with bigger increases than top-end speedsters? Plus, they look at several potential late-season additions capable of making a positive impact in the final weeks of the season.  Rundown 1:21 How Stolen Base Opportunities Might Change 9:12 Unfortunately, You Can't Switch Defenders That Way 15:33 Ezequiel Tovar Gets a Late Promotion to Colorado 20:21 Jordan Diaz's Look from the A's 27:36 Eno Speaks Italian 32:23 Bubba Thompson: Is This Real? 38:08 Edward Olivares...Again? 44:16 DVR Finally Gives Up on Nick Senzel 47:08 Late Pitching Help! 55:17 Weird Season: Chris Taylor Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Thursday, September 22nd. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. I've got the brightest forehead in the business thanks to, I think it's noon, midday sun, and a newly painted building across from mine. It's painted white, and it's just reflecting everything on me. All I heard is you painted your forehead white. Yeah, pretty much. If you're watching and you're like, what's wrong with this face? I can't see.

I kind of can't see my own notes. And yeah, I'm blinding Eno on the other end. So we're doing great. But on this episode, we're going to take a closer look at a few more implications of the upcoming rule changes. We're going to talk about some late-arriving, potentially useful endgame players into the pool because there's been a few more call-ups that have probably gone a little under the radar in the last couple of weeks. We've got a prospect of the week segment on the rundown.

We'll see if we actually get that far. We've got at least one candidate in our weird seasons category by request, Chris Taylor. So we'll get to him a little bit later on in the show. But I was thinking a lot about stolen bases because you wrote about the rule changes, some of the stuff we've been talking about in the podcast recently. And the good luck Noah Syndergaard vibes, I think,, it's kind of an overlooked aspect of this. It's like, which pitchers who get run on a lot now are going to be dealing with even more guys taking advantage of the circumstances. And you and I were going back and forth before we started recording. One simple thing that I had not thought about, we were talking about the time for runners to get from first to second while stealing a base, right?

Bases are bigger, they're a little closer together, therefore that number is smaller. But I had not thought about where the fielder is at second base on a caught stealing attempt. He's now closer to home plate. So that pop time, the time for the catcher to get the ball down to second base is also going to be a little bit shorter, and that might reduce some of the increase in stolen bases that people are expecting. Yeah, I did some math where basically I said if a guy is 4.5 seconds to first base, that's a good proxy actually for getting to second base

because it requires some getting going, getting going right like sprint speed is not actually a great measure for this because that's like a top speed so we've said in the past that jeff zimmerman has found that times to first are more predictive than sprint speed in terms of stealing bases so if you're 4.5 to first and it used to be 90 feet uh and then you is now uh 88.5 or 89.5 feet uh you're now 4.7 about 4.47 so it really doesn't move you that much on the on the curve um you know and i was saying that that might take somebody you know on the curves i was drawing that that might take somebody, on the curves I was drawing, that might take somebody that's taking off in 5% of their opportunities when they can to taking off like 7% of the time

when they get to first base. So I don't think that we're going to see any 70 steal guys, along with the fact that it's a shorter throw to second. I don't think we're going to see any 70s still, guys. But I do think there's a population where it's super interesting, which is the guys who are 4'5". So the guys who are like sub 4'5", like 4'3", 4'2".

I've got the spreadsheet here. I can tell you who those guys are. 4'3", 4'2", that's Ozzy Albies, Jorge Mateo, CJ Abrams, O'Neal Cruz, Bryson Stott is a 4'2", Jose Siri. I mean, these are the fastest guys in the game. Cody Ballinger is still a 4'2". So Harrison Bader is a 4'2", 5". Those are the fastest guys in the game. And I think they will take off more. I don't think it'll turn Trey Turner from a 25 steal guy to a 50 or, you know, I've seen mentions of 70. I just, I don't think that's going to happen. I think it'll, you know, those 25s will turn into 30s,

that sort of deal. I actually think it would be kind of, you know, those guys take off a lot. If you look at it, Harrison Bader takes off 22% of the time that he has know those guys take off a lot if you look at it harrison bader takes off 22 of the time that he has the opportunity to take off the league average is five so he's taking off four times more than than the average guy at first so like what are we saying he's going to take off half of the times he's on base we're going gonna just double that i just because of four or five inches i i don't know so i i think the most interesting are the guys who are four four four five to to first base because it's a first base because those guys right now are decently fast and they steal some bases i'm thinking of guys like tony camp is four five to four point four five four point

five to first base um tyrone taylor is 4.5 to first base uh hasung kim jerks and profar these are guys who steal five or ten bases what if the math changes what if those guys steal 17 18 you know what if the the no the go no go line is is so different for them that they're like they actually double their like i there's i i'm no do you think that what's the over-under for trey turner stone base next i'm making a line right now it's not 50 right no i i look what i think the sports books will put out there? Probably something in the neighborhood of 36 and a half. That's decent, but it's not double. But there's going to be some guys in this 4-5 territory that are going to double their stolen bases.

There's going to be some guys who had 7 and are going to have 15. And in the piece, I had an example of like luis urias and joey gallo guys who had like two or five stolen bases next year they might have 10 next year uh i just don't think that the top top end guys are going to double uh double their production so that's that's my guess the thinking here so just to kind of clarify the hypothesis, is that the burners, the guys that already are among the league leaders in stolen bases, they take off at a greater percentage of the opportunities they have to run.

They already take advantage of so many of those chances that that number is not going to go up that much because they already run a lot. And the math for them is not going to be changed by four inches like they're so fast that you know they steal the bases off the pitcher that's that's something that's true you steal the base more off the pitcher than the catcher so they just take off as much as they can uh yeah bobby wood jr takes off 21 of the time he the time he has the opportunity to. And those slightly slower guys who are still fast enough to steal bases, they will run more because they don't maximize their opportunities currently.

They're a little more selective. And they're also, the math is so close for them. Yeah. That's why they don't go. The go, no-go line is so important for them. Turner is like, you know, I know when I can go, and I go most of the time that I know I can go, and turner is like you know i know when i can go and i go most of the time that i know i can go and i'm successful you know uh you know somebody who steals five or ten bases is more like it has to it has to be like noah syndergard yeah right like i'm gonna steal

on noah syndergard i don't know about anybody else so maybe then they can steal on some other guys uh as well so i just think that there's a math for no go no go no go and it's really scienced out right now and the guys who are right on the cusp will get the green light more often i guess the only other thing that changes the equation that we haven't talked a ton about is the limited number of disengagements as they call them the throwovers. Which is, you have to do that if you have a pitch clock. Because if you think, if you don't have a limit on throwovers

and you have a pitch clock and somebody is just getting close to their time, they just throw over to first base. Yeah, just reset it that way. Yeah. So I think that could be the other part of this that does increase attempts overall, knowing that they can't

come over potentially without a penalty. There is a weird third. You can have a third throw over as long as you catch him. Right. So I think there'll be more pitch outs maybe. Maybe. Because if you had your two and you think the guy's

going, do a pitch out. So we'll see. Yes, that will have an effect on it and if i'm wrong i think that that's the part i'm getting wrong is that that will allow you know longer leads and uh especially on the third after the two throw overs but um you know then we had the shift rules and mea culpa here for uh misunderstanding a rule that was on the books uh the way that the rule is stated uh it's i think it is such every team has to designate two infielders on each side of second base and this is the part i did not get who may not switch sides during the game except if there's a substitution for one of those infielders. So the only way that Jorge Polanco can go play short is if the shortstop is out.

Right. And then they bring someone else into the game. And he's switching there for the rest of the game. So there might be still some substitutions where at the high-impact point of the game, a high-leverage point of the game, they're just like, we just need to do this right now. But that means you can only do it once per game or twice per game depending on how

many substitutions you have it does not mean and then also uh some people pointed out that um people don't usually get increased position eligibility for switches within games or within like plays. Um, and I was remembering Anthony Rizzo having second base eligibility. Remember that? Yeah. So it comes down to whether or not the stats provider or the league officials commissioners that you're using, if it looks at games started by position or games played at position where an

appearance within a game might count for the latter but not the former because it's not a start yeah so uh uh so we won't see a radical increase in position eligibilities probably um i also don't think that we're going to see a lot of outfielders playing behind second base. We were just outlining before we started here this situation. Let's say it does make sense to play your outfielder. You're going to say, we just really don't think this guy is going to hit to left field. This lefty is going to hit to left field. We're going to give up the chance of maybe anything that goes left field is a double. We just don't think he does it at all.

So we're going to send that outfielder over to play rover. You know, while that, while the Joey Gallo, let's call him Joey Gallo. While Joey Gallo is stepping to the plate, you can do that. You can probably jog your guy over. You'll have enough time. It's not just the 15 seconds. You have the walk-up song. You have him coming to the plate.

You can walk a guy over. Now let's say it gets to two strikes, and your scouting says, Joey Gallo with two strikes will try to go to the other side. Now your outfielder has seven seconds to sprint across the field and find his spot over and left. And maybe you can do that, but how often do you want your outfielders doing that?

So maybe in year three, four, or five, we will see outfielders sprinting around the outfield. But I doubt we see it in year one. And some of my evidence for that is there are no teams right now doing anything radical. You think like the A's or the Nationals or the Marlins, they could be trying out radical stuff right now in anticipation of these moves. We don't see that yet. If we don't see anything that radical in spring, I doubt we're going to see it during the season. When you saw four outfielders, you saw it in spring first. Yeah, it'll be a good test of what we might actually get when the games count, what they're willing to show us in March when the games don't count.

Plus the teams want to try it and see if the commissioner says they're willing to show us in in march plus the teams want to try it and see if the commissioner says they're breaking rules right are we breaking rules are we comfortable doing this is this exhausting i mean and you'll see it you'll see them trying in spring so uh the outfielder thing is something to watch for in spring i think um and then i stand by our initial analysis that um you know, on the individual player level, we were not going to see that many more hits. I think the biggest beneficiaries, and these are very similar to the ones we talked about on the show, when I really drilled down, the biggest beneficiaries are Matt Olson,

Rowdy Tellez, and Charlie Blackmanman all getting about plus 10 hits Corey Seeger is at about plus 6 so there are players who are going to get more hits but I think in one of our examples we gave someone 14 hits and it upped their average like 10 points that would be a really high end so I know that some people were talking about

people upping their average 20 or 30 points and I don't think I see it. It can happen, but it won't happen solely because of this rule change. It's going to happen alongside of regression and other things. Right, exactly. Yes.

Yeah. Don't tell me that someone who's like a 230 BABIP this year who has like a 320 BABIP this year, it's like all because of the ships. No, it's like, oh, he also hit the ball harder. Oh, that's a new thing that actually matters even more. Thank you. And second order effects where they see what's going on and change their battered ball distribution.

Right. I don't know if that will happen in year one uh because for example we had a launch angle revolution right the ball was flying in 2019 and all through the juice ball era from 2015 everyone's like oh my god you got to put the ball in the air elevate to celebrate all this stuff and the average launch angle across the league went up like not even a full degree. So it's like elevate to celebrate, elevate to celebrate. So,

you know, I think second order effects, like, you know, they're going to try and hit it over there. Uh, that'll take some time. I, I like the piece.

I think people should check it out. The athletic.com slash rates and barrels. If you don't have a subscription already, you can see it in greater detail some nice charts uh pretty much anytime you cite cameron grove in a story or on the podcast there's something pretty interesting there too so just a lot to to unpack as we continue preparing for these new rules here in 2023 treat yourself to tim's new fudge brownie Lattes. Made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice chilled milk, and topped with marble chocolate curls.

Now that's music to our ears. Available hot or iced, only at Tim's. 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. for you the canadian armed forces a message from the government of canada let's get to some late arrivals some useful end game players i thought that we were finally done seeing prospects getting opportunities turns out i don't really know anything i'm just guessing all

the time and walking through life with a shiny forehead and a blindfold on. So yeah, it's, it's just, that's just me. That's just where I tend to be most days. Ezekiel Tovar is getting a look from the Rockies. And I think if you're looking for a tooled up player that has the talent to help you potentially in every category, I mean,

it's his first taste of a big league competition. So there's plenty of ways it could go wrong as well. You might not find a more exciting player debuting this late in the season than Tovar. If you've missed out on the other waves of prospects, this is pretty exciting news. I think one of the few drawbacks is something that came up on the Athletic Fantasy Baseball podcast

last week. The Rockies end their season, I think with a six game series against the dodgers so a lot of dodger pitching for them three of those are at home well i actually i think it's all in la because it's the makeup games from the first week of the schedule getting tacked back onto the back no so you don't get the Colorado games. As if the Dodgers needed more help. Are you kidding me?

I believe that's exactly what it is. Ah! Oh, what a cruel world. Oh, my God. I am so sorry, Colorado. I mean, they'll be fine. But yeah, starting Friday the 30th, they have a three-game series with the Dodgers that then is connected to the three-game series.

Maybe, but their 15th best pitcher in their organization is still okay. Michael Grove can still shut them out. Yeah, I mean, the fun thing with Tovar is it's pretty hard to kind of spot a weakness. There have been times when he didn't walk that much, but there's been other times where he has walked an above-average rate. He's always made good contact. The power has been there ever since A ball. So I believe in that. There is a question of,

if it's like, if it's like, you know, average above average power, or if he's going to tap into more than that. Um, so he could be more a, uh,

I guess I don't want to say worst case, worst case scenario that he doesn't work out, but, uh, a, a reasonable expectation for him might be 275-15-15. Right. Next year, I think he could push Rodgers to second.

Yeah, I think that's likely. Especially if he's playing now, they believe in him. And as long as he doesn't fall on his face. And then the hope uh you pay for that and you get i don't know 290 25 15 25 10 you know maybe i think if he starts hitting for more power he may not steal as much but that's just what happens with young players but i mean there's uh there's nothing if you're in one of those leagues where you know it's uh you the guy has to be in the major leagues before you can pick him up this is like a real boon this is huge in those leagues because tovar has increased his stock so

much this year that he may have been previously unrostered and i think that's what's really really pretty wild about all this. It's yet another player who is spending very little time at AAA. I mean, there's also the group of players who have spent no time at AAA, already young for the level. Tovar just turned 21 on August 1st. So the season he had was a big success. Missed some time, I believe, with a hamstring injury, a pretty minor injury that he had in the middle part of the summer. But 13 homers,

17 steals and 20 attempts in 66 games for someone that just turned 21 at the AA level. That's incredible. And I think they will accommodate him. His defense will be prioritized. They'll shuffle things around. I have a hard time

setting fair expectations for guys that get a test like this because I thought Von Grissom and Michael Harris and some of the guys we've seen come up this year would be challenged to consistently hit big league pitching. And I'm wrong about them. Not that I think they'd be good players in the long run. I like Harris a lot in the long run. He's proven me wrong again and again and again throughout his rookie season. All of this is making me more open-minded about what a player can do upon

arrival when an organization trusts them to move this quickly. Yeah, I hope it's not just a let's take a look because Rodgers is hurt and Rodgers is still going to start at short beginning of next season. It's still a possibility. It's possible, but I don't think that's what's going on here.

But it's not just Ezekiel Tovar. I think we had a prospect of the week, Jordan Diaz, a few weeks ago. He's getting a chance with the A's right now, and it makes sense. He's 22 years old, just turned's right now, and it makes sense. He's 22 years old, just turned 22 in the middle part of August. Missed a little time with some injuries. Put up great numbers both at AA and AAA this year. 19 homers combined over 120 games. Good average. OBP, not as high as you'd expect, if only because the walk rate's been living in that 5% range, but he makes a ton of contact, a player that I really like,

and I'm glad we're getting a look at him in these final weeks of the season because I think he can actually help in some of our deeper leagues, and I think there's a good chance he sticks and is a part of the opening day lineup for the A's in 2023. I think so, too. Seemed comfortable in the clubhouse. One place that I don't see uh it didn't seem super super comfortable to me was second base uh i thought he made a few plays i just was there

on tuesday he was playing second base and i just i thought he looked uncomfortable there he booted a play uh even a play that he made it was one of those things where it was one of those Adam plays where the runner was slow and it went right to him and he still took a while

to get the ball up and throw it to first it was way closer than it should have been and it took him he didn't seem comfortable out there at second base. So I would say he's definitely a third baseman for me. For fan graphs, he was a 35-55 fielder. So I think that sort of agrees with what I'm saying. In the minor leagues,

this year he played 41 games at first. Seven games, or I have to add them all up. 10 games at third. It's strange because he did not play well defensively last year. Again, young for the level.

In 2021, 52 games for Diaz at third base. He had an 875 fielding percentage. I don't remember seeing a fielding percentage that low. We don't usually use numbers like that. But the reason we don't use feeling percentage usually is because a guy with exceptional tools can maybe get to balls that other people can't. That's not what's happening. Right. Yeah, this isn't freak athleticism gets to every ball and then can't make the throw because it's an impossible throw.

It's more probably doesn't play on the left side of the infield. Is he a first baseman? Can we hide him at second base? Or do we have to think about even putting him in left field? And with the shift rules, that's what I had with Cameron in there, was that there's more pressure on second baseman range. And if he's got an 8.75 and looks the way he does to me, to the eye in the field,

they are trying Dermis Garcia there at first, and Garcia's hitting for power, but he's also striking out 45% of the time. So it may end up just being a little bit of a battle there or some sort of platoon. They're both righties. Maybe they're the first baseman in the DH for this team next year. But I don't think either of them has defensive value. And if I had to pick one, I'd pick DS. Well, they do meet the requirements for the A's of being league minimum salary players.

So first base and DH make all the sense in the world. Also, I've been asking around, and I don't know. I'm pretty sure about this. And if there's any agents listening or any team officials, I know we've got a few that listen. So Elvis Andrews has an option that vests at 550 plate appearances. He was released by the A's this year. And I'm pretty sure they thought, no chance he makes it to 550.

Guess how many plate appearances Elvis Andrews has? Well, I just looked it up as you were talking 521 it's gonna be a photo finish I think he's gonna get there they have 13 games 521 he needs 29 in 13 games he needs 2.2 plate appearances per game by the White Sox and he's been playing so well for the white socks that even if tim anderson's come back he might play some second phase dude yeah if he gets to 550 this is the part i'm not so sure about but i'm i'm pretty sure it is the way it works is he was released he cleared waivers the a's are responsible for the rest of his contract. The White Sox are paying the minimum wage for him.

And if he gets to 550, the option vests, and the A's will owe Elvis Andrews $15 million next year. Is it safe to say that Elvis Andrews, in that situation that you just outlined, would be the highest paid player on the A's payroll in 2023? Yes. And if it does happen i think it's even less i think it's like they won't even go they'll just won't spend money on anybody they won't even do the like the jed lowry thing they'll just be like oops there goes all of our free agent money i, this is mind-blowing because they had a payroll of $83 million on opening day of 2021. Yeah.

They had an opening day payroll of $47 million, according to Kotz, opening day of 2022. Maybe they wanted this to happen so they could be like, it looks like they're spending more than they are. No, they didn't want this to happen. I don't think so. I think they just didn't think he'd get to 550. They thought he wouldn't sign somewhere else, and if he did, he wouldn't play as much as he's played, but he has played really well.

He's one home run away from a 15-15 season. This is actually pretty cool that Elvis Andrews is being productive again. Yeah, yeah. The defense isn't great, but since he was a good defensive shortstop to begin with, he's been all right. The best WRC plus of his career, thanks to the rest of the league sort of cratering around him.

But yeah, I was texting one agent about it, and he thought it was funny and and i said something about the a's and he said well f them of course the agents don't like the a's i'm not even dependent upon commission salary yeah i. I don't like what they're doing right now either. It's just kind of gross. So I'm out on that. But some other players that might be helpful. How about this one?

Let's see if I can mess this one up. Yep. Miles Mastroboni. That's pretty good. I'm going to give it 8 out of 10, at least. I think that was good. My wife yells at me in Italian for some reason. Really?

Yes. Yes. That is her chosen language of yelling. It is a good rage language. So Mastro Buoni makes a lot of contact. And I would say probably doesn't have that much power. He's showing a 170 ISO in the minors, but he also has 23 stolen bases.

And what I've learned is that when you've got a fast player with like a 150 to 170 ISO, a lot of times those are leg doubles. I call this the esturi ruiz rule so i think uh interesting guy to pick up he wants stolen bases um he can play let's see where he's played this oh my gosh his play where he's played chart is just everywhere to read everywhere he's Played chart is just so hard to read. Everywhere. In 2022, he's played right field, center field, left field, shortstop 13 times.

Third base only twice. Second base 57 times. So Lau is out, right? Yeah, he's hurt again. Tough loss season for him. And he was Lau, right? Or he was Lau? Which was Brandon?

Low. Remember, he's low. Okay. We should do flashcards. So Mastro Buoni could get some starts at second. It's not like Walls has been hitting the cover off the ball. And if he does, and center. I mean, Siri. I don't know know i don't really get the obsession i've you know talked with twitter people about siri 80 wrc plus it's all defense you could make siri

your brett phillips sort of defensive backup in which case uh you could start master bruni sometimes in center so i don't know uh i i don know. I don't think he's a definite pickup, but if you're desperate for stolen bases in like an AL only, he might be someone to look at. Where did this power come from? Where did the efficiency as a base dealer come from? He's 26 at AAA. He's been at the level for parts of three different seasons.

We're talking about a cup of coffee in 2019, nothing of real significance. But he's a much better player at the same level this year than he was a season ago. But also, to be fair, most of his full sample seasons have been above average by WRC Plus, too. So it's not like an out-of-nowhere guy. But you're right.

In terms of stolen bases, his previous high was 15 or 18. He got caught seven times that year. Then he stole 15 at one level and got caught 13 times. This year he's stolen 23 and only been caught three times. Yeah. Well, it still bodes well for him to do any. 16 homers, I think, is a bit of an outlier. Look at some other guys that might fit into this conversation.

Five last year. Matt Wallner in Minnesota getting a chance to play. It's all power, mostly. I mean, he was in the Futures game back in July. They've got Wallner and Cave playing there pretty regularly with Kepler and Buxton

out, but both those guys really swing and miss. Yes. A lot of swing and miss in the profile even even even as we saw at double a this year walner started the year there 31.3 k rate got down to 27.5 in 50 games at triple a i think he's gonna hit a ton of barrels he walks but he's just that sort of player where it's probably a low batting average despite the ability to do some damage yeah and their swing and miss rates are way higher than somebody like uh mark matthias yep uh who right now is sporting a 35 strikeout rate as a uh second baseman i guess in texas uh but he has a much lower swing strike rate. His is like 11.6 to Walner's 19. And

Mathias has a history of better strikeout rates. I picked up Mathias in a couple places, just in case it's lightning in a bottle. They seem to not be in love with Nick Solak, and they've tried a bunch of people in that sort of I guess it's not second base outfield backup infielder you know situation I think mostly the opportunity lies for the Rangers in the outfield should we revisit Bubba Thompson we've had some people question if we're right about him or not. Yeah, I know he's the ultimate Nando guy. We talked about him a little bit on Under the Radar yesterday, and I kind of chuckled at the Bubba Thompson recommendation

when Nando made it, and I think if you picked him up for cheap speed, you've been rewarded. He's held his own as a hitter. 16 stone bases. Yeah, he's offering a lot of speed. He's shown power in the minors. We haven't seen it in the big leagues yet.

I'm still a little skeptical, but at the same time, there's a window for playing time there. He might have to begin next season on the depth chart as a bench outfielder. He may have to earn a larger share of playing time depending on what they do in free agency, but I'm

slowly coming around at least to the point where i see him as a viable deep league source of steals that you could actually trust going in the next season i don't mix leagues right now he's playing enough you can just use him i still think there are a lot of long-term questions about the type of player he's going to be yeah i just think it's's weird to have this kind of profile be playing left field. You know, he doesn't barrel the ball. He doesn't hit the ball hard.

He hits the ball on the ground a lot. He doesn't make a lot of contact. So there's really a lot of pressure put on his legs. Maybe with the new rules, maybe he's like a 40-steal guy that has like a 310 on- base percentage and a 330 slugging next year and he makes it work but uh i don't know i this is not the type of profile that i that i go for but i think it's it's gonna come down to things like how valuable is he defensively

if he's a great defender in the corner left field he should be an above average defender and left with speed like that right i mean like that's he looks like a defensive backup to me except he's playing left field that's what i don't get yeah it's it's a tricky tricky profile to sort out so i would if you if you don't believe in him too much i think that's uh the biggest sort of center and left are the biggest uh you know because i think adolis can play center so there's two spots in the outfield they're up for grabs and you've got mark matthias uh josh smith maybe bubba thompson and then x y or Liotis Tavares is still there. Close to a league average line right now.

Showing some speed, a little bit of power. It's kind of what you'd expect from him. That's what I'm just saying. You cannot have an outfield of Garcia, Liotis Tavares, and Bubba Thompson. I'm sorry. That's not a winning outfield. Guardians pull that kind of BS.

But the Guardians' collective strikeout rate for those three guys would be like 12%. Yeah, that is the main difference, right? The collective strikeout rate for these guys would be like 28%. I was skeptical of the Adelise Garcia call when Nando made that one too. And Garcia, after a bad second half last year, came back this year and had a monster year. What do you do with Adelise Garcia next year? I threw this out there yesterday,

and Nando expects more of the same. He's like, if he was going to collapse, it would have happened this year. And he might be right. Well, I mean, he's 30, so I don't think the collapse will come right away. But I think the collapse will come earlier than people expect. And he does hit the ball really hard, and he does have prodigious tools,

great arm, fast. He's going to make the most of his balls in play and his opportunities on base, and maybe the stolen base rules will help him there too. I just think probably I wouldn't play him in center. So if you want to go with Dolez Garcia, Liotis Taveras, you know, then that's fine. But I just don't think you put Bubba Thompson next to those two. You know what I mean?

Then Bubba's the fourth outfielder and you're probably, I think, I still think Michael Conforto in Texas makes a lot of sense. If he's healthy, put him in left field. Bubba Thompson can platoon with him a little bit, play some center if Tavares doesn't work out. I think you're in a good spot. It depends on kind of what the walking papers for the new regime are a little bit.

Is it like build from within? Then Mark Mathias has a shot. Then Mark Mathias will be in a group of five that are out there trying to beat Bubba Thompson out of that left field spot. Yeah, the Mathias stuff is pretty strange because he was in the Brewers organization earlier this year. Eight homers, eight steals, 50 games at AAA.

He's 27, so he should be good. But it was with a high walk rate, with a pretty good K rate. It was actually a valuable overall offensive line. It reminds me a little bit of Mark Khanna coming up through that system. Yeah, and he's flashed power and speed around some pretty big injuries too. I think Matthias had a bad injury in 2021 like a shoulder or something that cost him the whole season. He may have had a shot. He had 16 games between 2019 and 2022.

You've got to look at him and say, he's 28, but he also would have probably played a little more in the big leagues if he were healthy the last few seasons. Yeah, so I think he's interesting. I think he's like a super deep league keeper, like, you know, stash, dynasty, like, you know, see what happens. If they don't sign an outfielder, I think there's a possibility that there's a pop-up outfielder in texas next year i don't have a lot of faith in taveras either so uh there's an there's a chance that you play garcia in center taveras is the backup and thompson is up and down again and you have you know you have two outfield spots that are available in texas, that's a possibility as well. Edward Olivares playing a lot again for the Royals.

Oh, he'll be back down again. Yeah, is there any reason to think this is going to last? He's producing this season 40 games, 304, 357, 443. Okay, that's pretty good. 20% K rate, that's fine. Barrel rate's not bad, 5.6%. It's not good, but it's not bad either all right like this is a solid player he's kind of a jack-of-all-trades guy you know what i mean

like not he doesn't nothing is elite i actually actually kind of like this kind of profile where it's like you know he's not an atrocious uh chaser he doesn't he doesn't walk a lot but he doesn't not walk uh he he's not like a guy who has a 10% strikeout rate, but a 20% strikeout rate in this game is above average, better than average. His swinging strike rate is better than average. His barrel rate is about average. It's like everything's average.

He's out of options. He's got to be. I think this is his last year of options. Right. He'll be out next year. Next year is the pooper get off the potty moment the royals will know they can't you can't move them up and down kyle isbell isbell to me is is more defense forward so i could see isbell taking over taylor and center

is taylor free agent i feel like they signed michael taylor forever even though they didn't it was it was the two-year deal that somehow has lasted five years. Yeah, he's got one. But it's a two-year, $9 million deal. So Taylor can be the backup. So I think Isbel Waters-Taylor is some sort of solution for center field, right? And then they've been playing Melendez in the outfield. And then they've been playing Melendez in the outfield.

I don't think that's ideal, but you could do Melendez at catcher outfield, I guess. That's a little bit weird. You have Vinny at DH or first base. I don't know. They're still feeling some stuff out here, aren't they? They've kind of moved past Lopez. Maybe they give adalberto mondes another chance at third and they go adalberto bobby witt massey pascontino on the

infield melendez is a dh catcher with sal and uh center field is taylor waters oliveris that i mean taylor waters isbel that leaves left field for olas. So I think he might be the starter to begin the season. I don't believe much in Nate Eaton, who also should be on our list of young players that are getting a lot of playing time. What's strange is I know he has a different defensive background, but I get more kind of Nicky Lopez vibes where he's just fast. I think you just named 14 players for nine spots for the Royals.

They need pitching. No, I mean, Witt's in. Pascantino's in. Perez and Melendez are probably CDH. Yeah, they're playing. So those are three locked-in positions. Yeah. I'm not that interested in any of the other players i mentioned by the way in terms of eden i think dozer even he had like a

nice little bit this year but i'm not that interested in going forward i'm not that interested in michael massey so of those players i'm most interested in edward olivaris actually i wonder if they're going to set a record for most players non-tendered at a deadline. That's interesting. I mean, there's going to be some house cleaning, for sure, with the new regime. Because they've got a bunch of guys who are ARB 2 and ARB 3.

They are a small market team that controls costs, so maybe it's minor trades for some of those guys, too. Hmm. Yeah. It's just trades for some of those guys too. Hmm. Yeah, that's, it's just, it's a, I mean,

Mondesi, what do you do with Mondesi? Really? Change in the front office. Dayton Moore's gone. He's no longer the president of baseball operations. JJ Piccolo taking over. It looks like he's going to keep the spots.

Not just an interim thing, at least based on what we know right now. How much are the Royals really going to change? I think it's, it's more of an open question. I don't know. I don't know if they're going to have as much of a shift as the Tiger. We talked about the 3-0 show. We talked about the Tiger situation.

That feels like a bigger organizational change. Yeah, because they're leaving Piccolo in power. But he can still change things. He can still fix the pitching problem or try to in his way that's possible i think in his in his situation um he might actually trade some of these like i already did one where they did emmanuel roberto for luke weaver i could see them trading uh some of these uh you know who are we talking about here we're talking about uh nikki lopez uh ryan o'hearn um hunter dozier right guys like that don't seem like they're going to be around

in this organization much longer yeah for for pitching and i don't actually see them cutting brad keller or amir garrett or scott you know obviously not scott barlow but like i don't actually see them cutting brad keller or amir garrett or scott you know obviously not scott barlow but like i don't see them cutting any of their arbitration pitchers because i think what they'll think they can do is improve the pitching program and improve the pitchers they already have by improving the coaching at least that's what i would do if i was put in charge of the royals i would would clean house on the pitching program. Yeah, I think that's the first place we expect to see the big changes there. But a handful of players for sure that just look like they don't quite fit in the organizational plan. And by some means, they'll probably be playing elsewhere next season.

Are you ready to admit defeat on Nick Senzel? Oh, yeah. Of course. Are you ready to anoint his successor as Mike Siani? Less eager to do that but I'm open to

any and all players getting chances in Cincinnati right now because we know it's a great place to hit. It takes average power and makes it above average power, at least in terms of the home run output goes. The thing about Siani, 49 for 61 as a base dealer and the kind of guy that doesn't strike out a lot, gets on base because he draws his walks.

Yeah, okay, I can get on board with this profile as one that is exciting. Career high 102 WRC plus in AA. Pretty young for the level. Most of it stops. Left-hander. Age appropriate. I'd say this guy is like a draft and hold steals bench like eighth outfielder yeah

he looks more like a bench outfielder than the long-term solution but they don't they've got a few long-term solutions that are not that far away from the big leagues so maybe 2023 is an audition year for players like ciani maybe he just and lands in the right spot i think organizationally they have uh more infielders than outfielders coming up so they may have a round of trying some outfielders and then uh moving infielders to the outfield. It's an interesting situation there. I like Steer, but he's not playing as much as I thought. He got a little bit hurt. That might just be it.

64 plate appearance is not bad, but no barrels. Very few barrels so far. What about this name, Akil Badu? Remember how people felt about Akil Badu back in draft season? No, I don't know. I mean, I was out. You were out, but think about what's happened this year. He got demoted.

He's come back. Hasn't produced at quite the same level or anything close to what he did last year as a Rule 5 pick. Had a 300-405-500 slash line in 30 games at toledo playing a little bit more again for the tigers down the stretch made a lot of contact in toledo too there's power there's speed there's a pretty good eye at the plate given that he was making the leap last year from high eight of the big leagues some pullback some growing pains are not that surprising are you in on badu as either a late season roster filler

or even the kind of player that if you pick him up really cheap right now, you might actually in a very deep league want to have him on your roster for 2023? I like that since he's come back, the walk rate is up. The strikeout rate

is also 32% since he's come back up. WRC Plus is 84. He's got how many stolen bases? Four stolen bases and eight tries since he's come back. 221 average. I think I would throw him in the Ciani bucket. It's fair. How about this?

How about pitching help? You got anybody, either starters or relievers, that are getting chances late in the year? It's important. I pointed this out on the Waver show last Friday. Bailey Ober is finally back for the Twins. That's been a long time coming. I think he's one of the better pitchers by projection, at least,

that's come back at the end of the season. Who else are you looking at that might be either overlooked because of injuries or just overlooked because they they weren't necessarily a top prospect coming through a system and now they're getting a chance josh winders uh stuff plus is back up again since he's come back back up he took a two-month detour and now that he's back it's uh looks pretty impressive again and that's in 67 and 82 pitch uh stints so ober i think is probably already gone everywhere you want him um but uh i think windinder is a decent backup if you want to go even deeper

Henriquez showed a nice 105 stuff plus in his debut and he might be the guy replacing Sonny Gray but also showed zero command so definitely more risk

but if Winder's out there i like him uh for the for the rest of the uh this this season um i'm now checking the schedule what is the what does the twin schedule look like twins have really let me down in recent weeks yeah you might not get a lot of wins i mean they've been really hurt i mean you know cave and we just talked about cave and walner but uh they end up with uh the white socks but at home and not in chicago so that's good they end up in detroit and then they end the season in chicago so uh if i could get a winder uh or overstart at home or in Detroit, I'm into it. And even Henriquez maybe.

But that last series, I just think in Chicago it can go either way. That park does give up homers. Hayden Wesneski, I think, is still part of this conversation. I think we've talked about him. I mean, if he's out there. Yeah, I think he's long gone. Yeah, he's super exciting. This is a forced segue to fit it into this because it fits in this,

but also prospect of the week. My prospect of the week is in the major leagues, and his name is Luis Ortiz. Ah, Luis Ortiz. And he came up and had a pretty decent start against the Yankees. Five strikeouts, two walks, one earned. Only three hits. Also went into Cincinnati and gave up no runs.

You know, has had a decent ground ball rate so far. And Pitching Plus thinks that he is actually ridiculously good, is what Pitching Plus says. I have him right now as the... i mean this is crazy it's only 157 pitches i just want to put that out there but the number one starting pitcher is by stuff plus that's pretty good number one pitcher by stuff plus yeah number one starting pitcher. Yeah. That's pretty good. I think that's worth throwing out there.

I now need to see what his ID is. So he's 68247 because there's another stupid Luis Ortiz. So it says his fastball is a 143 Stuff Plus. And, you know, it's characterized as a four-seam fastball, but it has a lot of sinker properties to it um it says that his uh sinker uh i don't think we have a sinker in here for him it says the slider is great and his changeup is great so um i guess the one thing that could make you uh nervous is he's just thrown the four seam which is actually a two seam and the slider most of the time but if the change up rates well and he's struck guys out and he's kept the ball on the

ground and he had an amazing season you know with a real breakout season in the minor leagues where just showed great ground ball rates great strikeoutout rates. I know a.464 ERA and AA doesn't leap off the page, but it was a really good season, really high swinging strike rates, and I think this is going to be one of their breakout pitchers. Him and Ronzi Contreras and even Mitch Keller are all very interesting late- game plays for me next year. And decent spot starts down the stretch here for me. Yeah, with the park and the division, plenty of streaming opportunities there. I think the 117 whip gives you a better clue as to where the ERA is likely to go.

Probably more of like a mid to high threes ERA sort of picture based on the actual skills that he showed. Didn't have a walks issue. Homers were the problem. They generally have not been a problem for Luis Ortiz with that arsenal. It doesn't seem like that's going to be a major problem for him in the long run. So I think it's a great call to a guy that didn't pop on organizational prospect lists in terms of where he was ranked. But if you read the scouting reports about him, they actually pointed to a guy that could

take a step forward and it's happened, which is nice to see for the Pirates. I'm going to go with Tyler Gentry in the Royals organization, an outfielder. He's put together a nice season, started the year returning to high A, a little old for the level to be playing there. He turned 23 back in February, not surprisingly handled the level very well at a 165 WRC plus strangely struck out 25.7% of the time during his time there actually cut the KRA in a longer stint at double a this year, much more age appropriate, even though he's still a little bit on the old side there, 16 homers, eight steals at double a, and basically a half season's worth of games showed the power and speed of course, prior to that a lot to like here and i think even though you were naming a lot of depth pieces for the royals and he's a righty so that

could work against them he's he's very tooled up depending on how things clear out might be a guy that we actually get a pretty good look at probably in the second half of next season right i imagine this is a player you're going to send to triple to start the year and see how things go. But an injury or two could open up a path for him. Yeah, maybe not even just injury. I think probably what's happening here is the new regime says, hey, we're testing everybody out. You give Oliveras a chance at everyday play to begin the season. You probably give Isbel, go Oliveras, Isbel.

Give all the young guys their chances, and then a month or two in the season, one of them has pooped or is getting off the potty sort of deal. You know what I mean? I feel like if Olivares doesn't start out that well or if Isbel doesn't really show the offense, then you say, okay, you're more of an organizational depth or a backup piece, and we want to see what this guy Gentry can do.

Who knows? Maybe Olivares gets traded to an organization that wants to play him more. The Royals being out of options say, oh, yeah, you know what? We don't want to deal with this. We want a guy that we can send up and down. We only like sending you up and down. And Gentry, he was a third-round pick in 2020, so the age being a little old for the level,

he played college ball at Alabama. It starts to make a little more sense when you think about the context. It's not like he's been stuck in the minors for five years or anything like that. He's still relatively young for his professional career at least. If Piccolo had anything to do with that pick or if he was a Pico guy could go faster than that yeah so tools are there for tyler gentry it's a matter of finding an opportunity for him

in kansas city uh one more segment before we go it's called weird seasons and there's only one player we're talking about today so it's weird season the first time what the heck is going on with chris taylor we had a question from one of our listeners about Taylor and I thought it was worth bringing up because you know with Taylor there was some swing and miss in the profile previously and being on the wrong side of 30 I think it was fair to wonder how that might play out over the life of a four-year deal since he re-upped with the Dodgers back during the winter. But I didn't think we'd see a jump from a 28.7% K rate last year to a 35.9% strikeout rate. That's a massive leap among the biggest risers in strikeout rate when I looked at that year-to-year

leaderboard. Hitting the ball in the air more than really he has at any point in his career. So I wonder if there's a change in approach or something else going on with Taylor that's caused this change. Yeah, he's weirdly aggressive given his chase rate. He has a good chase rate, but he's really aggressive in the zone. He has a 50% swing rate, which is not what you expect for a guy who has like a 25 reach rate so or chase rate so he's just a guy uh who i think is being too aggressive in the zone i have seen

some analysis that has said that uh he makes poor decisions on swings even though it doesn't look like that here's a guy who walks he doesn't chase you can still make poor decisions within the zone he doesn't chase you can still make poor decisions within the zone and so i wonder if he is trying to defend the zone you know basically he thinks he needs to swing at everything inside the zone and he could be more picky within the zone even i think he would benefit from swinging less this is a very aggressive year for him in terms of that swing rate i mentioned being the most of his career and his zone swing weight being the most of his career. So he still offers a lot of value in his versatility, his defense. It's getting on base a decent amount, you know, given how bad the batting average is. But I think to kind of tap into that power and, you know, return to where he

was, he needs to be more disciplined within the zone. If you had to forecast it right now, he's on track to get to about 450 plate appearances this year. Do you think he plays more, less, or the same in 2023 when we get the final tally for next season? There's a bit of a question as to what happens to Cody Bellinger, but I think if Cody Bellinger, if you just thought of him as a one-year $15 million deal,

you'll keep him in town. Joey Gallo is a free agent, and I kind of doubt that they sign him. Trace Thompson is a bit of a breakout for them. So I could see them kind of, I know they're both righties, but I could see them kind of penciling in Taylor and Thompson and perhaps Vargas as a threesome that will paper over any missing spot for them. So basically left field. And they go into they go into the next season looking very much the same the big if they have a big acquisition if they have a big spend it's going to be a short

stop i don't think that they shift taylor back to short stop and if they push lux over to short then i guess they could go big on judge hard hard to imagine at the same time uh not that hard to imagine aaron judge it's actually kind of to me it's almost hard to imagine the dodgers without that turner level star on them next year like if they just let turner go yes they can move lux to short they can move taylor to second to partner with Muncie at second. They can find a left fielder. They'll be fine, but they won't be the Dodgers as they were this year. No, they would theoretically take a decent step back from elite of the elite to being right with the rest of the pack offensively,

which is still amazing, still very good. But that would be taking kind of the Houston approach. George Springer, you're a free agent. Letting some guy some guy go we got someone else here we got gavin lux carlos correa your free agent yeah all right we will be all right we'll we'll figure it out so they i mean they're good enough to do it it doesn't seem like the way that they're they're operating at this uh particular point in time but definitely a weird season from chris taylor nice to see the barrel rate is still intact and probably still a guy I'd be comfortable with for draft and hold purposes for 2023,

even with that K-Rate being up. Oh, I didn't answer your question, did I? I think he's another 450 guy. Yeah, I don't think it's going back to a max volume. I don't think he's 600, yeah. So know what you're getting into if you take that chance, but I do think there's enough there to roster him and he's not going to disappear in year two of's enough there to roster him. He's not going to

disappear in year two of a four-year deal. It's just not going to happen. Yeah, they're not releasing him or anything. No, and they'll put him in spots to do as well as he can do, even with any potential limitations. We are going to go on our way out the door. Quick reminder, get a subscription to The Athletic for a dollar a month

for the first six months at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Oh, you got beer there. Baltimore. I'm sneaking a little beer of the week. Stuff Plus. Your beer. Check it out.

Full tilt. Very nice. Only beer with heat maps on it. No, it's another great looking can. They do an awesome job with the art. Yeah, it was fun. Looking forward to trying some of that here over the course of the weekend. On Twitter,

Eno's at Eno Saris. I am at Derek Van Ryper. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening. Thank you.