Rates & Barrels - NL DH Options & Hope Tingles

Episode Date: April 14, 2020

Rundown1:45 A Good Idea to Use DH in NL This Season?12:11 Austin Riley on the Rise?15:53 The Wide Range of Outcomes for Ryan Braun20:31 What Will the Cubs Do?25:18 Opportunity for Jake Lamb & Kevin Cron in Arizona?30:15 Why Not Give Jaylin Davis the Extra PAs?37:24 Obligatory Marlins Talk42:47 The Return of Cespedes!46:05 Is This Franchy's Chance?52:56 Aquino & Hilliard Time?Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRipere-mail: [e-mail] Get a free 90-day trial to The Athletic: theathletic.com/free90days Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 86. It is Tuesday, April 14th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we'll discuss one of the latest rules modifications as part of the ongoing proposals for Major League Baseball to play some sort of a season. That would be the inclusion of the DH in both leagues. We'll talk about who would benefit most on each NL team if that scenario were to play out. Before we begin, Eno, I think it would be appropriate to congratulate our friends over at the Sleeper and the Bus. They did knock us out of the baseball pods tournament bracket in the Sweet 16 round on Monday evening. So a hearty congrats to our friends, Paul Sporer, Jason Collette, and Justin Mason for their victory. And good luck to them as they

continue moving through the tournament. Yeah. No, a nice wave to our friends over there at Sleeping the Bus and a hearty shake of the fist to the organizers for putting us in the same bracket so early and giving us such a low seed. I should have been number one seed. But anyway, it was a fun exercise for us so far, and it'll be fun to see who comes out on top of that.

Definitely rooting for Paul Spohr and Justin Mason and Jason Collette as they go forward. Absolutely. Lots of great shows still battling it out in the final eight, so be sure to check out at Baseball Pods on Twitter if you'd like to have your say in how that thing plays out. Let's start with our first topic, though, the DH in both leagues. This is something that was kicked around last winter as a possible late offseason adjustment. It never really

seemed realistic to me then because it just seems like the kind of thing that would have to really be agreed to in a CBA. Even if the commissioner could push it through, it just seems like it'd be a really bad step towards the next negotiation if something like that were to happen. But given these circumstances, given that if the league is basically realigned based on geography, if teams are playing at their spring training homes

where you have the NL basically becoming the Arizona League and the AL, let's call it, becoming the Florida League. The teams in each league are totally mixed up. And there's a lot at play here because aside from having a mix of teams that traditionally have the DH and traditionally don't, you also have this concern that in whatever kind of season we might get, pitchers are going to be especially vulnerable. You and I have talked about that a lot, and everything kind of ties in with our first two topics, but one way to protect the pitchers a little bit is to not have them hit.

It also fixes the rules problem, too. So from a basic common sense standpoint, I think this makes a lot of sense. Is there anything about this that doesn't seem like a good idea to you? anything about this that doesn't seem like a good idea to you? I'm not a militant, a universal DH supporter. I think I'm a sort of a soft DH supporter.

I think I feel like I can see both sides of the issue in terms of the, how the game has been played, the, the, the history of the game, the idea that these are athletes that should be able to perform all of the things on the field. We don't have, for example, designated fielders. It's not football where you kind of have a whole different group of guys run out to do different things.

You know, baseball's been more one where you have to be able to do all things. But at the same time, the cat is out of the bag and in this age of specialization i feel like you know we have we have pitchers that haven't hit like who was it andrew suarez he's this lefty in the Giants organization. And he played in a high school that had a DH. And in the minor leagues, for the most part, pitchers don't hit. So when Andrew Suarez first hit for himself in the major leagues, it was like the third at-bat that he'd had in the last 10 years. Now, that's not going gonna turn out good for anyone like it's not enjoyable to watch he has very very low likelihood of doing anything and it's just not good tv it's just not that much fun. I don't think there's that much. You know, as fun as like Granke and Bumgarner can be,

they are the best hitters among all pitchers, and they would be the worst hitter on any team. Yeah, that's the thing that always kind of sticks out to me is that even when they have a good year,

which is in such a limited number of plate appearances because they're starters to begin with, their overall numbers are still like a utility infielder at best. And those are the guys that we don't want to watch hit at all. Those are the guys who are there because they play great defense. the overall picture here is still one where I'd rather have Brandon Woodruff healthy as a pitcher than hitting the occasional bomb, right? Like that's just, if those are my two choices, I'd choose Woodruff pitching exclusively every single time, even though, yeah, it is kind of fun to watch him hit. There are other fun guys to watch hit, and the guy that replaces every pitcher in the lineup is going to be a better hitter than the pitcher was. So the universal DH is something I've wanted more and more over time. I didn't care about it as much 10 years ago as I do now. I think it's because the team I root for has had a lot of injuries with pitchers running the bases, getting out of the batter's box, swinging the bat. And after a while, it just grinds you down.

And I just think given the unique nature of what this season will look like if we get one, it's going to be really important to do anything you can to minimize the number of ways pitchers can get hurt. Yeah. Yeah. So Madison Baumgartner, most people think of him as the best hitting pitcher in baseball. He's now had 679 plate appearances spread out over all his seasons. His line is 177-228-303 with a 6% walk rate and a 38% strikeout rate. percent strikeout rate so yes he has 19 homers congratulations basically he sells out for homers in a way that like is just not nobody else would do like nobody nobody else would put that hitter in their lineup so i i i think i'd rather see better hitters and in this specific situation

it makes all the sense in the world because not only are we trying to protect pitchers from injury and dealing with weird schedules and trying to put two teams together and not worry about do they have DHs and all that stuff and who's going to play under what rules and what house are they playing in? Who's the home team? That's actually part of it, who's who's the home team right that's actually part of it right like who's the home team well yeah in the all arizona plan yeah half the teams don't even have a home right in that circuit so yeah they're in a completely different situation it's sort of like when the lakers play the clippers right i mean right like same same arena uh one team is a home team and to declare it ahead of time yeah we just you just declare it ahead of time but that would be the kind of lame to just be like okay we're declaring these so therefore it's al rules so therefore you

have a dh i mean and so the the obvious answer if they don't do universal dh is to give everyone extra roster spot to deal with the situation right so now you're giving them an extra roster spot to deal with the situation probably right? So now you're giving them an extra roster spot to deal with the situation, probably giving them a roster slot or two to deal with the pitching situation. Now you're going from 26 to 29. Might as well make it an even 30. Okay, you've got 30-man rosters. Why not have a universal DH? Now you've got the extra roster slot.

Everyone's got that slot. It makes everything so much easier. lot like you know it makes everything so much easier uh and there's a there's and for for the for baseball as a union the players association of the union they've always fought for the dh because it could be an extra roster slot so they got that 26 extra roster slot if they go to 30 but also institute the universal dh maybe when all this comes goes, we go back to 27 as a thing, and everyone's got 13 pitchers and a full-time DH slot. Yeah, there'd be a few hitters whose careers come to an end in their mid to late 30s who'd probably get a couple more seasons in if both leagues had the DH.

Yeah, but just because there's more demand. Certain AL teams will always just use that as uh like a slot where they just kind of rotate people through um you know that's kind of uh what the rays do to an extent uh the yankees um before stanton were kind of a team that just kind of used that for days off and just just slotted one of their extra hitters in there. But, you know, I certainly think that DHing is a skill. And just from watching David Ortiz, from some research that's out there, there is the chance that DHing is a skill. And I think you've seen some of the better American League teams kind of settle upon everyday DHs. League teams kind of settle upon everyday DHs. Now, if you look at the top of the DH pile,

it's the Astros with Alvarez, JD Martinez with the Red Sox, Nelson Cruz with the Twins, now Stanton with the Yankees, Otani with the Angels. These are all full-time DHs. Jorge Soler with the Royals, even Edwin Encarnacion now with the White Sox. You have to go all the way down to the the raise at number nine to get a situation where it's a timeshare so uh if you were a guy that wanted to to get a job right now um you know you you wouldn't get it with the raise so you're you gotta hunt a little bit further down right uh and you get all the way to uh the mariners with vogelbach, they probably say they're fine. And then there's a funny thing that happens around 12. There's an NL team in the top 15 at DH. Yeah, that is pretty weird.

In fact, there's two. Can you guess them? Let's see. Based on previous eligibility or just how this would all play out? Depth charts as they stand now fangraphs dh depth charts number 13 and number 15 are national league teams hey wouldn't kyle schwarber just become a dh that'd be kind of like a well you're you're thinking ahead i'm thinking as they stand now now who are they uh the dodgers depth and the nationals with kendrick and zimmerman

yeah okay that makes sense so enrique hernandez chris taylor matt beady aj pollock jock peterson that's the old school dh approach you know just cycling through so the I think, you know, now you start talking about who wins if, you know, there is a DH. I think the Dodgers, it's a weird situation. I think the Dodgers win as a group, you know, every worry that you had about sort of about Gavin Lux or AJ Pollock or Jock Peterson, you know, or even if you were rooting for Matt Bay to get more playing time, each of those guys gets an extra, what, 50 PA or something. It's not a lot, but it's enough to be like, okay, I feel a little bit better about Gavin Lux now

because now Max Muncy can play some DH and so on and so forth. Yeah, so let's go team by team through the NL, and we'll go alphabetically by team nickname because things are weird. So I'm going to do something weird. It's just the way the, the rotowire depth charts page populates them when you click on NL, but the Braves. Okay. So Austin Riley, who defensively is probably not going to be an above average third baseman. I think he's the kind of guy that plays a lot more in this scenario. Nick Marcakis doesn't have a spot to call his own. Johan Camargo, who's competing with Riley at third base, those guys have basically one starting spot for the trio, and they'd have two in this scenario. So I think that's where

the playing time would go, but even breaking it down within that group is a little bit tricky i think a lot rides on just how much riley hits if he hits he's an everyday player if he doesn't he's a part-time player yeah yeah but i do think that it uh pushes the needle up on him the most because camargo you know if there is a dh i think it easily becomes sort of camargo place third just because the defense is going to be better you know and then riley uh maybe duval and marquecas uh sort of shuttle in uh with the one outfield spot and the dh spot yeah so i think riley would be the player who i'd be upgrading the most in this scenario from the break because he has more upside than the other guys uh than duval and marquecas and if anybody really stoked you know had claimed to to a full-time slot out of those three i think riley's the the guy has the best chance to do that

yeah i mean as the youngest player too you don't want to have a guy that young playing part-time if he's playing well enough to play more than that that let's talk about the brewers i think with the outfield being crowded thanks to the addition of abby sail garcia ryan braun who just doesn't seem like a first baseman at all i think would just be the regular dh like they would occasionally such a win for him i mean they would occasionally give yell at you a day to dh they'd occasionally do the same thing with Keston Hira, maybe with a ground ball pitcher on the mound, like a Brett Anderson start here and there. They'd throw Brock Holth in at second base instead and play up the defense a little bit.

But that would be Ryan Braun getting as much playing time as he can physically handle, whereas without DH, I think he's probably playing four times a week and coming off the bench twice a week. I'm doing a fun piece right now with Keith Law that's kind of an explainer of the tools. And he tries to go through the scouting description of what the tools are. And then I talk about the statistics that try to capture those tools.

And I didn't realize before this exercise how bad keston here is on defense it's weird and i don't know if it's if it's a situation where he can't get better i wouldn't i think it's hard to say that about any player so i don't watch him play defense and say he's hopeless he'll never be a good defender but he has a ton of work to do i mean we're talking like marcus simeon volumes of work to do and mean we're talking like marcus simeon volumes of work to do and probably not the ceiling because he's not a shortstop right now right like marcus simeon had basic ability at some point in his career that made people say hey this guy's a shortstop and he worked really hard and he became a great shortstop with keston here it was kind of

like hey we hide guys at second base. As a second baseman, I know what you're talking about. Right. So could he become passable? I think so. He makes a ton of throwing errors. And that was Ryan Braun's problem earlier in his career. If anyone remembers, Ryan Braun is a third baseman earlier in his career. I don't remember him having terrible range. I remember him just air mailing throws and just being all over the place trying to make plays from that position. That's a little bit of what I see with young Keston Hira at second.

Imagine how broad the spectrum of outcomes for this year is for Ryan Braun. And none of these are tiny possibilities. There are large possibilities that there's there are large possibilities that he's played the last game that he's ever played as a brewer you know yep there are large possibilities that he plays but plays like part-time and is kind of a replaced like just kind of like a bet a depth a depth yeah bench depth piece um and then there's a possibility it's like the full-time dh in in like arizona just launching homers they're equal like one-third each outcome yeah exactly

at least they feel that way maybe maybe there's maybe the distribution's not nearly that even but yeah as we sit here today in the middle of April, each of those scenarios, I'm just nodding along like, yep, could see that happening. We're a little low on hope. Maybe we're overrating the chance that he's played his last game. But hopefully the next few weeks will give us that hope, and it'll go towards Ryan Braun launching dingers in Arizona. Oh, you're speaking my language.

So I think Garcia kind of indirectly also wins because he's one of the guys who lose. I think Garcia loses more time than, Yelich doesn't lose any in their current configuration. I think Kane they're going to manage a little more carefully because of his age. But I think Garcia ends up being underpriced in drafts as well if the DH spot is there for Braun

because that's yeah there's times that Garcia has to sit to accommodate him there's a little bit of a this the Dodgers thing that's going to happen for any every every NL team which is there's a little slight uptick for everybody right so Ben Gamble will play a little bit more uh Justin Smoke will play a little bit more um and uh you know maybe even brock holt will play a little bit more so like there's there's a lot of players that will get a little bit of a boost but i i think we can agree that ryan braun is the big winner i kind of want to make a cartoon graphic where there were eight pizzas for every nl team and now there are nine and i'm gonna you know give the pizzas to each person accordingly cut pizzas and share them and whatnot.

Let's talk about the Cardinals for a moment. A team with a stupid, bad outfield, but still plenty of depth like most teams where you can kind of see how they might go about it. Here I wonder, Dylan Carlson we've talked about before, he's going to play probably right away when this season begins. Is Tyler O'Neill the first guy to benefit from this?

Is Matt Carpenter not having to play defense? Maybe a big winner here. I mean, I think that's at least in play for them is to say, Hey, you know what? We're going to play Tommy Edmond at third base for the defense. And Matt Carpenter is going to be our primary DH.

Yeah. You know, from what I gathered, Matt Carpenter had a month, and this is when we had six months, had a month or two to prove that last year was not the end before Edmund would basically take over full-time at third base. I wonder what shortened season plus DH dh is a very interesting combination because shortened season would say oh now he's got three weeks or something you know and uh and good luck but with the dh we have place to stick them what's the outfield with carlson o'neill and

bader in it who am i missing fowler f, yeah, and he still owed a lot of money, so it just seems like they're going to play him at least frequently, if not almost all the time. You'd have to think that Edmund and Carpenter win because now you basically start Edmund at third, get the defense from him, start Carpenter at DH. Slight win for O'Neal maybe, but I doubt you're taking O'Neal,

who has these prodigious tools, and sticking him at DH. It doesn't make any sense. Carlson and Bader have defensive value. Fowler has defensive value. I think you just have a four-man rotation in the outfield. That's fine. You have a four-man rotation in the outfield that's fine you have a four-man rotation in the outfield carpenter starts at dh and edmund starts at uh at third and then what happens is if carpenter's not hitting

you can start transferring some of his plate appearances to an outfielder yeah maybe tyler o'neill ends up picking up the extra playing time in that scenario, but Carpenter first just looks a lot more stable in this development. The Cubs are a little bit interesting because they added Jason Kipnis to the mix at second base. Nico Horner still there kind of vying for playing time.

Kyle Schwarber's defense has improved, so you kind of wonder, would they just make him the regular DH? Would they make him a part-time DH, part-time left fielder? As I move the pieces around here in my head, they like Victor Caratini as a hitter a little bit, so maybe they would let him catch a little more and take some wear and tear off of Wilson Contreras. This looks more like a team that doesn't have one big winner. This looks like a team that has four or five guys who all play a little extra. You know, I have an interesting thought just now.

This is a team that is struggling with the cash and is trying to stay under $200 million. And their estimated payroll right now is $195 and their estimated final 2019 was $222. They might make a decision based on keeping someone cheaper. However,

wow! 2021 is the final season for Chris Bryant, Javier Baez, and Kyle Schwarber. Yeah, the band's breaking up soon. Wow. And I don't know. Kyle Schwarber's already $7 million.

I had this idea. He's already $7 million for this year. What if you put him in DH and keep him a little bit cheaper for 2021? But it's just one year. And he's a free agent after that. And then what's the outfield? If they put Kosh Warbrett DH, you're starting Almora. You either start Almora or Steven Souza against righties.

Yeah. Because you're already playing Ian Happ, assuming you're playing him in center field. That's my assumption. But that's kind of a iffy outfield man amora hayward hap yeah it's not it's not great it's not a great outfield at least i mean defensively it could be okay but offensively it's pretty poor but i guess then you'd have schwarber dh you'd still have the hitter in the lineup. Isn't it weird how a team that is so good and still projected to be near the top of their division

seems to have so many holes? It's just a weaker outfield than you'd expect for a contending team. But I guess if you look at the Cardinals outfield that we just talked about, O'Neal, Bader, Fowler, that's worse. But with the arrows going, the arrows are going the right way. And Dylan Carlson changes a lot of that.

It closes the gap. Yeah, yeah. I guess there's holes all around. There's holes all around, I guess. But I think this is just a total mess this is four to five guys who all pick up a little extra playing time i don't see one major winner in all of this that could be a winner in play more now i guess if i had to pick a biggest winner in that outfield mix, he would be that guy. Cause I think now there's a chance.

He's not just a small side platoon guy. Yeah. Whereas previously that's where he was capped. But compared to the other players we've talked about, his gains so far are the smallest of this bunch. The black tux believes every groom deserves a better experience when it comes to finding formal wear a suit or tuxedo for their big day. Did you know the black tux was actually started by two guys who had one of the worst tuxedo

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The Black Tux, formal wear for the moment. Take a look at the D-backs. This is another team, you can look at them, you can kind of see pretty clear patterns of how they're going to make it work. But I think Jake Lamb and Christian Walker platooning at first base is tricky because Walker was good last year and Jake Lamb wasn't. So I think having the DH spot, maybe Jake Lamb ends up getting more opportunities to play than he would have without it. I think he's probably the guy on the big side of a platoon. than he would have without it.

I think he's probably the guy on the big side of a platoon, and maybe they squeeze in an extra righty off the bench, like a Tim Locastro type, and then float it where somebody who was ordinarily in the outfield in those days ends up DHing to rest. But to me, it looks like Jake Lamb and maybe Josh Rojas are two guys that can play a lot more. I think basically Jake Lamb and Josh Rojas are the guys right now on the outs that have the most upside. And this team is the high variance team.

It's the we built an 84 win team that could win 90. And so what they would do is try to capture lightning in the bottle with Lamb or Rojas. And just use DH to kind of see what's going on you know to give them more at bats to those two guys and see if one of them because if one of them can really step forward then you can push Ahmed and Kelly close to the bottom lineup and then this becomes a really credible lineup i mean this basically the 789 for this team might be cole calhoun uh nick ahmed carson kelly which is okay for the nl team they have a couple prospects who would be a bit more interesting though too i mean dalton varsho maybe isn't that far away kevin crone murders baseballs. And he's very redundant without the DH

with Christian Walker there, but with the DH, at the very least, he could be a small side platoon partner for someone like Lamb or Rojas. If we have a spring and we know that there's a DH coming for everybody, I think this is one of the places

that there's opportunity. I think that somebody might play their way into that role and it could be crone it could be rojas and it could be lamb and it's you know that's worth an article by itself i think there's that's at least worth some attention for for fancy players yeah i've got something in mind for this situation, and this is a preliminary conversation to really work through it and try to figure out if we're underappreciating anybody as we look team by team. The Dodgers mentioned them at the top.

They have so much depth. I mean, this is a net win for their offense because they've got so many players. I think A.J. Pollock, who looks like a small-side platoon guy, is probably the biggest winner, but I could see this really being the thing that starts to propel Gavin Lux's ADP up once we get closer to the start of the season. It makes everyone safer for sure.

It's just an extra 600 plate appearances to dole out, extra 600 plate appearances to dole out, probably mostly between Lux and Beatty and Pollock, maybe some Peterson, but I think those three. Enrique Hernandez is currently number one on this, but in terms of projected WOBA, Pollock and Peterson are ahead of Enrique. Matt Beattie is tight with him. I'm not 100% sure that I know exactly which way the arrow is pointing on Kike's career or his offense.

like his offense. He had a good year in 2018, but he didn't really follow it up with... He lost gains that he made in strikeout rate and walk rate and power. And it's certainly possible that he is just a part-time player. A good one, a really good one. But that's not the kind of person where you're like, we need to get that bat in the lineup. That's why he's the top of the DH thing because he's the utility guy right now, and there is no DH in the NL. But I think if there was a DH, they would think about whose bat do we need to get in the lineup. So I guess Enrique could still win because you might play Muncy at DH.

But if you played Muncy at DH, Lux is going to start at second, right? Yeah, exactly. If you play Peterson at DH, pollock is going to play in the outfield so i think enrique actually may not see many more plate appearances because he's still going to just be the kind of plug and play guy that steps in when someone's hurt or or needs a needs a blow i think they like him as a small side platoon guy who can play multiple spots i don't know if they want to push up the playing time unless there are multiple injuries and they have to.

It seems more like a last resort sort of thing for them. So Pollock, probably the biggest winner. Lux becomes a lot safer too. A couple bad teams or at least one rebuilding team that doesn't seem to have that sort of excess, but will do something interesting with it. I mean, that's the thing about the Giants that I like, is that Farhan is turning over every stone, trying

to find solutions for the future, right? So you look at this team and they don't have an excess of high-quality outfielders. They have Hunter Pence back in there, and I think between playing a little in the outfield and getting to DH, he'd

bump up a little bit in playing time. I think he's going to play a good bit anyway. I think it's just a mess where you have a handful of guys who are going to get more opportunities who wouldn't have had them, like a Jalen Davis type. Or Jalen Davis specifically. He might get to play more simply because

there are more plate appearances available. And you want to give him a look because you want to see if he's part of your future. I, you know, I do like the way that Farhan runs things, and I do like the way that they're working, but when I look at this roster, I'm still kind of

surprised at how little upside I see. Like, there's just like, I'd be like, oh, DH, Giants, like, give a chance for a young guy to play where's the young guy you know what i mean yeah well it's because their their wave of young players is still a little bit off yeah you know marco luciano's not knocking on the door right now uh joey bart's not getting that call hunter bishop Bishop, Elliot Ramos, Luis Matos, they have good prospects, but they're two-plus years away.

Yeah. And Jalen Davis just really hits the ball on the ground. 68% ground ball rate last year. And followed, you know, other than AAA for the Giants, mostly 50s in the minor leagues. So, I don't know.

I don't know. There's one projection. ATC has Jalen Davis hitting 245 with above league average power. Somebody that would steal five to seven bags along with maybe 20 homers in a full season. I think that's a deep league interesting line. But I have to point out that's the best league interesting line, but I have to point out that's the best projection out of the five they have on fan graphs and the others have worse batting averages and less power. So, um, I, and that's, that's where I sort of point to is like, oh, you know, somebody could play a lot more Pence, I think was going to play just because they need to have a credible outfielder

on the field at all times. Um, but, uh, I guess the way it is, they'll probably just stick Pence in as more or less the everyday DH, um, with,

uh, with maybe with Wilmer Flores, although they're both right handers, right? Yeah. They're both righties. You know, one thing that I want to just bring up

real quick with the Giants, we talked about the park factors, and we know Oracle is just so difficult for left-handed power hitters. It's extremely pitcher-friendly. Take the Giants out of Oracle, and Brendan Belt sure does become a lot more interesting.

Alex Dickerson in really deep mixed leagues, if he's going to get more playing time, at least has a chance now of of surprising and mike gestremski who i think people barely talk about maybe because they can't pronounce his name um he's one of those guys that becomes more interesting to me too not having to play potentially in oracle park this season yeah but the biggest acquisition that Farhan has put together on this field is Mauricio Dubon. I mean, I think he's like worse Joe Panic.

At least offensively. Defensively, he might be better than Joe Panic. Probably a shortstop. But doesn't look like a league average player to me. I'm still not quite sure what to make of him. I think some of the speed we saw in the minors probably doesn't show up at that same level against better pitchers and catchers. But there's a little bit of punch. There's definitely some speed.

There appears to be a decent hit tool. And there's at least opportunity. I think he might be one of those guys who turns in better fantasy numbers than he should because the team that he's playing on yeah and then the players tend to be good and in a deep league i actually i kind of flip and be like well he should play and you know deep leagues i value playing time uh over over ability almost it helps though like he's often just getting the most at bats i think he'll most innings pitched will win he'll start playing against righties at shortstop this year uh as they start to move on to the post brandon crawford era so if he's going to take a short stop away

from crawford against righties um then flores will play second base against lefties. And Hunter Pence can DH. So that's the versus lefties situation. And then against righties, I think Dubon will play some second base. And Flores will be relegated to backing up third and DH. I wonder if they'll just throw one of the righties out there against righties in left field and let Alex Dickerson be the DH against right-handed starters. That might be the way they sort of adjust.

Penson and the outfield, yeah. But it doesn't look like Flores gets a ton of playing time unless he just starts taking it away from Dubon. Yeah, I guess if they kept Dickerson in the outfield against righties, they could just unlock DH for Flores and see what he does against same-handed pitching. Yeah. It's on the list,

but definitely one of the more tricky situations to figure out. It's a weird-ass depth chart if you ask me, dude. It is. I think it's on the list but definitely one of the more tricky situations to figure out weird ass depth chart if you ask me dude it is i think it's one i think it's a punt it's a it's a we're doing our best to look like we're doing stuff but we're really just waiting for the for the young players to come up yeah i i think they're pretty excited about that core though as they should be top performers in business and sports often attribute their success to their morning routine whether it's waking up early, setting their goals for the day, exercise, or meditation. But not everyone has the time to do it all. With Hydrant, you can jumpstart your mornings. Hydrant creates flavored electrolyte packets you mix directly into

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And for 25% off your first order, go to drinkhydrant.com, enter the promo code RATES at checkout. That's drinkhydrant.com. Enter promo code RATES for 25% off your first order. drinkhydrant.com and enter promo code RATES. Okay, let's talk about the Marlins for a second. This is a team that... Oh, do we have to?

Like the Giants kind of has these funny pockets of guys stuck in a role right now. They brought in Corey Dickerson. So he's probably going to play a lot in left field or maybe he'll be the DH against righties now so you don't have to have his defense out there. But I keep looking for clear winners if they keep Matt Kemp then Corey Dickerson and Matt Kemp DH and you know Magneri Sierra or Louis Brinson or Monty Harrison like some of the young outfielders can

play more because of this so I guess it's exciting in that regard because it should open up playing time for someone who was previously going to get stuck at least to begin the season at triple a you know i don't know if it's just like uh you could call it like fatigue bias but i'm like a little bit more excited about monty than Louis Brinson. Just because Louis Brinson has now gotten to age 25 and really hasn't gotten it going. And Monte Harrison is only a year younger, but he hasn't had all those chances and blown them yet. But that said, the best projection on Monty Harrison's page is for a.224 average with league average power and some speed, and all the rest have worse batting averages.

So I don't know. Who are we rooting for here? I mean, Matt Joyce could be okay. I guess the corpse of Matt Kemp could be okay. I'm rooting for Matt Joyce could be okay. I guess the corpse of Matt Kemp could be okay. I'm rooting for Harrison. I think what we saw from him at AAA last year in a partial season was good enough to make me encouraged. Stolen bases are really hard to find.

He can contribute that. I think he's shown the ability to take some walks, which bodes really well for his chances of actually sticking, possibly in a prominent spot in the lineup in the long run as well. I think he's the guy that i'm really rooting for in this and i just think it's moving a couple pieces around that that gets them there maybe having a dh that can be weird to dh jonathan vr like he's athletic enough to play defense so not not putting him on the field at all seems strange but at the same time you shouldn't block someone in their early 20s

with someone who's probably not going to be on your next great team. So maybe that's one way to look at it too. What a terrible team. It's just, it's sad because they had so much talent. They trained with so much talent, and I'm like, where's the, like's the... How did they get Brian Anderson? They drafted him.

He's their own. No. Is he? I'm pretty sure, yeah. I think I saw him in the folly a couple years ago. So their best player is a guy they drafted on their own. Third rounder, 2014. And all those trades.

And Isan Diaz is... I guess Jorge Alfaro has been all right. Jorge Alfaro is pretty good. Yeah, and I think what's going to be important for them is they need some wins way after the fact with anybody from the Yelich trade. They need Sixto Sanchez to be healthy and good. They need the Jazz Chisholm thing to work out. I guess Diaz looks interesting, dude. Diaz looks kind of interesting. If he comes back and doesn't strike out 30% of the time,

even if he gets it only down to like 25, 26, okay, Diaz looks like he could maybe be an everyday player, like a league average player i think he's gonna be okay i think lewin diaz is also interesting oh yeah i think he might be the prospect in this case who directly could he came over in like a tiny trade like romo or something or yeah they got him from the twins for something not big but i mean i really like diaz's combination of strikeout rate and power numbers looks great leaps off the page for me 23 years old lefty like i'm i'm you know i've had leon diaz on my dynasty teams on and off uh he's like

kind of borderline because nobody wants to put him on their top 100 list or whatever, so he doesn't have much trade value. But if I was a rebuilding team, I'd find a spot for Lewin Diaz on my team for sure. Yeah, I mean, he struggles in prospect rankings, I think, because a player like that has to hit so much to actually stick. It's the Jordan Alvarez problem for sure. It's the Jordan Alvarez problem for sure. And a lot of times, even as fantasy players,

we're using people who are ranking prospects not based on their fantasy value as guideposts. So, yes, I can see why Jordan Alvarez was not ranked super highly among people who are talking about his war potential basically but for in fancy reasons he should have been a top prospect all the way all the way to the you know all the way along so Diaz is not necessary I'm not calling Diaz Jordan Alvarez please don't quote me on that but just you know in terms of like what his bat does in terms of his ground ball fly ball mix uh his strikeout rate like i'm interested in for him for sure let's talk about the mets they have a few ways to make this work the big one is

it would leave yoannis cespedes a place to play and if you put cespedes as your dh you've got jd davis playing left field which would be? I mean, is that the simple answer here? The Mets could really use this. Yeah, J.D. Davis is a bat in search of a position himself. But just the fact that if Yo comes back and he's trying to claw back some of that money on that contract he lost, I think that's a fair amount of motivation for Yo. There's a lot of incentive-laden clauses in that thing now after he hurt himself on his ranch. So I think Yo wants to come back and DH is waiting for him basically. And with Dominic

Smith, they already have another player that could play there. So like you open the season with Dominic Smith and J jd davis kind of splitting an outfield spot and a dh spot um and then if yo comes up either you demote smith because he still has options or somebody's hurt by then and you move things around yeah i think you could also dh cano a little bit play mcneil at second play jd dav Davis at third on those days. I mean, they've got pretty good depth, but I do see Cespedes as the most likely player to actually benefit from this because it's hard to imagine him playing a ton in the outfield, and this really erases that problem. Look at this update.

Rotoire News, Cespedes' ankle would be the most likely candidate on the Mets to handle designated hitter duties if the TH is implemented universally. There you go. This was a season for Cespedes with that rule change. Yeah. Let's talk about the Nationals for a minute. Cespedes for the rest of us. The Nationals.

I think you mentioned before they have a few old guys who could really just benefit from not having to play the field. Howie Kendrick can still hit. We saw that last year. I think in all of this, you open up one more infield spot, we stop asking the question, where does Carter Keboom play? I think he's

the guy that is the net winner, even if it's the old guys who are DHing. I was going to call Eric Thames the winner because I would say that Rodney Zimmerman... Who's owner? Who Rodney Zimmerman is? Oh my god. Love this alternate universe.

Rodney Zimmerman switches to DH with Howie Kendrick and they just really split it off. Aren't they lefty-righty? Yeah. You've got a lefty-righty combination there. Howie has maybe a little bit more defensive value, possibly. He can get

out there and push castro to third sometimes uh so it's castro cabrera kendrick at second and third uh hendrick and zimmerman at dh tames is basically a full-time first baseman or at least full that time lefty first baseman and you still don't necessarily need to put keep him on the roster so could still be squeezed but i don't know i think he's the he's the bat who can play a lot more in this situation it is it's got to be a net positive for him it's a little bit uh it's not like gavin lux where lux is a little bit more in control of a position but it's a little bit like that where he's a little bit more likely to get more playing time this year. Let's go to the Padres. Is this the Josh Naylor opportunity? Is this the Franchi Cordero

opportunity? Franchi's tooled up. Not a good defender really anywhere. That kind of makes me think he's the first choice to possibly do that. I think it's kind of interesting that they don't – I guess Ty France could platoon with him in that DH role.

They could use Dozier there if they want to have Dozier and Profar in the lineup on the same day. You know, given how – Profar showed up in my defense article as – I didn't realize this, but maybe 30 defender. So, you know, I think that with that second base spot being such an eyesore, such a problem, that I think you do want to have a roster that starts opening day with Profar and Dozier,

almost like lottery ticket style, where you're like, one of these guys is going to be fine at second base. But the other guy doesn't necessarily hit enough to be our DH, right? So I think Provar and Dozier make the team, but the DH is Will Myers and Josh Naylor. And the outfield,

Pham, Grisham, Cordero. And it's Pham, Grisham, Cordero, left to right, and DH is Myers and Naylor. cordero and it's fam grisham cordero uh left to right and uh dh is uh myers and nailer of course that means that cordero is going to come off the field sometimes right but then you see so you're basically taking the current right field situation at least based on yeah the wire depth like that at dh and then just bumping cordero and to the big side of and I know I know personally that there are people inside that organization that really really like Franchi and the Frenchman can if it comes to hitting the ball

hard running hard throwing the ball hard so he's definitely an athletic kind of wunderkind type that they're just like can he just make a little bit more contact and there was a little bit of hope in the air uh given his winter winter league stats i don't know i don't even know where to find those baseball reference i think i don't think so no baseball america where have i looked those up before i've definitely looked them up before there's a I think there's maybe on best ball reference maybe right let's see here 2019 Escogido

Escogido in the Dowell Dominican Winter League 364 462 576 but more importantly, 12 strikeouts against six walks in 39 PA. Still a fair amount of strikeouts. Yeah, that slash line was nice,

but I don't know if I'm really going to make a leap off of the low-ish, lower strikeout rate. It's always been one where i've been like yeah i can see what you're saying but i'm not sure about it yes he's an athlete um it's a big boomer bus pick there i think that nailer is a little bit more safe as like a nailer uh nailer and myers get a little bit more of a bump and cordero who's like kind of a boomer bus best ball type you know deep league best ball type pick um he his chances get better but that doesn't mean that like

he's either going to play or not i think you know it's not going to be one of those things where they're like sort of we need him in there for his defense no i think it'll be like either he something clicks and he's plays a lot and naylor and myers share dh or he's maybe not even on the roster yeah could be uh let's go to the phillies real quick uh jay bruce probably the guy that plays more mccutchen should be healthy so he should have an outfield spot to call his own not having Jay Bruce play defense seems like a good choice so he platoons with maybe he's a clear winner dude he's a clear winner yeah he actually gets play a lot of playing time whereas I think before this possibility he was a bad off the bench and alone Lee was probably the only format where I would have thought about picking him up yeah Logan Forsythe doesn't show up on the Fangraphs chart,

but they have him in camp. Oh, there he is, the very bottom of the second base. Yeah, I think Forsythe will make it because they'll want someone to be able to back up second since Kingery is probably going to be the starter at third and can also play center. So Kingery's moving all around. But I think this is a little

bit of a small arrow on Haseley, who I kind of like as a sleeper. Just more chances for him to play and more chances, more at-bats for everybody. But I like Haseley as a guy who could be maybe league average with a bat, league average with a defense, hit 260 with 20 homers and 10 stolen bases. I think he's okay. Yeah, I think he could be passable, maybe for deep mixed leagues occasionally, but definitely going to play enough to where I'm more interested in even deeper formats

like NL only leagues at this point. The Pirates don't benefit at all from this they just don't have enough hitters to even field a normal team right i mean they can do the kebrian hayes thing at third base oh no my dude dude nobody else is on this dude i'm calling him my dude jose osuna yeah i don't really hear anybody else talking about him i think you can claim him as your dude whoo and and people are gonna just love that 265 average with 22 home runs yes can you feel it well that's i mean hey even if you prorate that that's a that's not a bad player well and also that's uh that's in pittsburgh which is a bad hitters park so uh potential in arizona to to but of course everybody i know understand how things work you know everybody

raises up i do wonder if in the arizona thing who, if the Diamondbacks play in Chase and keep that as... Is it Chase? No, what's it called? Yeah, Chase. If they call that home and play in it more than anybody else, the Diamondbacks get screwed more than anybody else in terms of offensive statistics. Just because they're already in their normal... They will be the biggest pitcher's park in the league. Yeah. That would be the biggest pitcher's park in the league. Yeah.

That would be so strange. What a reversal of fortune it would be for that field. Yeah, that would be strange how it's so different relative to the other parks that would be in use. Last two teams, we've got to hustle through them. Reds, we've talked about them having way too many players for a long time. Oh, it's great. Aris did his keynote. Big winner.

Yeah. Not going to get demoted, so I think he's the clear-cut guy. Rockies, I mean, the Ryan McMahon-Garrett Hampson problem basically goes away, or Sam Hilliard can play every day. Ooh, Hilliard, baby. Yeah, I love this for the Rockies

because they need one more spot. Yeah, they could use it. They could use it. It's a big up arrow for McMahon and Hilliard just by the way they'll move things around because Hampson can even play the outfield. So they'll figure that one out. I hesitate to give Hampson a big winner status on this though

because they just don't seem that interested in playing him all that much. I think he's their Kike or something. I don't know. I think Brendan Rod Rogers gets a nudge as well, so just another thing to keep in mind. We did have a lot of mailbag questions that came in again.

We're going to have to push those back. Talk too much, damn it. There was a lot of fun stuff to talk about. Yeah, that's true. Hey, that was that we felt. I got a little of those hope tingles, you know, like, ooh, we're talking about season again. Let's get more of that. Feels really good doesn't it yeah if you're enjoying the show on a platform that allows you to rate and review it

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that is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening. you