Rates & Barrels - Ohtani's Shoulder Surgery, Roki Sasaki's Pitch Mix & An Early Offseason Acuña Update

Episode Date: November 9, 2024

Eno and DVR are back from First Pitch Arizona with a flurry of early offseason updates including a shoulder procedure for Shohei Ohtani, a closer look at Roki Sasaki's pitch mix after his 2024 campaign in NPB, expectations that Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider won't be ready for Opening Day in 2025, plus a trade, a new contract for Michael Wacha, and the path for Jeff Hoffman to return to a starting role once he finds a new club in free agency.  Rundown 2:01 Shohei Ohtani's Undergoes Left Shoulder (Labrum) Surgery 12:17 How Many Players Have Old Injuries to Manage? 21:50 Roki Sasaki Nearing a Decision for 2025 Plans 30:57 Spencer Strider & Ronald Acuña Jr.: Unlikely for Opening Day 38:00 Jorge Soler Traded to Anaheim for Jorge Soler 49:08 David Fry Undergoes UCL Surgery 51:16 Extensions, Options & Opt-Outs 1:11:14 Willson Contreras to First Base & Position/Role Change Rumblings Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tis the season for packages appearing on your doorstep like holiday magic. You know what else is magic? Rakuten. With Rakuten, you can save money by getting cash back at over 750 stores like Sephora, Old Navy, and Best Buy. You can even stack cash back on top of holiday sales. That's like savings on savings. So make sure to shop with Rakuten to get the best deals on gifts for everyone on your list,

including yourself. Join for free at rakuten.ca or download the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N, rakuten.ca. Red One. We're coming at you. Is the movie event of the holiday season. Santa Claus has been kidnapped. You're going to help us find him. You can't trust this guy, he's on the list. He's a naughty lister. Naughty lister? Dwayne Johnson. We got snowmen! Chris Evans.

I might just go back to the car. Let's save Christmas. I'm not gonna say that. Say it. All right. Let's save Christmas. There it is. Only in theaters November 8th, Derek the Ripper, Ino Saris here with you on this episode.

There is a lot of baseball related news to get to. We have an update on Shohei Otani. We may have an update soon on Roki Sasaki, whose status as an international free agent should be determined in the relative near future. So Ino wrote about Sasaki's arsenal. We'll talk about that and the possible impact he'll have if he does, in fact, come over to Major League Baseball at some point this off season.

We got updates on Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuna Jr. We got a trade. We had a surgery for David Frye that we were already worried about. It's also option season. There are qualifying offers. There are guys changing positions, some real, some hypothetical.

We're going to talk about all the implications of that over the course of the next hour or so. How are you feeling coming off of first pitch Arizona? Good. It's always like a marker. It's so crazy because sometimes it's like the day after the last day of the World Series, but it's always a marker for, okay, that's over. Now focus on next year.

It's such a thing in baseball where like, it's such a cyclical, you know, seasonal thing where you're just like, okay, now we switch over and now we look forward. The calendar flips, we were in a couple of drafts that started up in Arizona. They will be resumed on a slow draft clock when the calendar flips to 2025. We're going to save some takeaways from that for a future episode,

because we're talking about draft and hold strategy in its own episode this year. That's coming up probably about 10 days or so from now. So we're going to have a special guest join us for that, to talk about the differences of those leagues versus other leagues. But before we get to that, let's just focus on some news. A special guest join us for that to talk about the differences of those leagues versus other leagues. But before we get to that, let's just focus on some news. Shohei Otani did in fact have left shoulder surgery. It was an arthroscopic procedure to repair a tear in the labrum.

It looked pretty bad when he was like the first game back, especially when he was like jogging back from first holding his arm in like a like, like as if it was in a sling. That did not look good. And the assumption at the time is that that was also with the help of some painkillers too. So if you feel like that with what we assume to be some pretty nice painkillers, you've done some kind of damage. And I guess the other takeaway for me, just thinking about how teams talk about injuries

or how they use players who might be hurt is just because you can't get hurt worse doesn't mean you're not hurt badly. Right. So putting him out there and letting him continue to play in the world series wasn't an indication that there was only a minor problem. It was that he's having surgery either way. So if. It's also a lay room. Like I don't buy that he's having surgery either way. So if. It's also a lay room.

Like I don't buy that he couldn't have made it worse. You know? I think you can almost always make it worse with most things. I think that's a general lesson. But I think the forward looking question with Otani, you know, this is supposed to delay his return to pitching a little bit because it's going to cost him rehab time. Obviously Shohei Otani uses his right shoulder for pitching. He had surgery on his left shoulder, but it still has an impact on what he's able

to do physically in the short term. I thought this was interesting. The reports are pointing to him being ready to DH in spring training and be ready for opening day. Once again, the Dodgers have an early start to the season this year, beginning the year March 18th in Japan the season this year, beginning the year, March 18th in Japan against the Cubs, which, hey, I know we've got to get on our 2025 budget and plans real fast, but I'm down for a live show in Japan if we can pull it off.

Yeah, powers that be if you're listening. I would really enjoy going back to Japan, but there's gonna be some pressure on getting him on the field in his native country. So maybe I wouldn't bet against it, but I might fade him a little bit when it comes to production. I know it's the back shoulder, and we discussed this a little bit when it comes to production. I know it's the back shoulder and we discussed

this a little bit but you know you have to look at some of the comps. I mean I know yeah Bellinger and Tatis were back were front shoulders but I just have to think that he's not gonna hit 50. What is it? How many homers did he hit? 54. 54 54 he stole 59 bases anyway I have to think that he's you know not gonna hit 54 homers again I think you know I think something maybe along the lines of his 2022 you know might be something that's reasonable 34 homers 27 a 273 average. I also don't think he's gonna steal 59 bases. He hurt himself stealing a base.

So I don't know if it's gonna be 11 he stole in 2022. That was before the new rules. You know, the 20 he stole in 2023 seems reasonable. So I guess my back of the. Envelope projection is maybe like a two 80 30 six and 22. It's still very good because you're also going to get 125 to 140 innings, probably from him as a pitcher. If I had to ballpark a range, which it's not SP one by volume, but the quality of those innings should be at or near those sorts of levels in

terms of your strikeout rate and your ratios. And the Dodgers have been, I think more clear than ever about their intent to use a six man rotation, even though they have used one at various points throughout the last few years. This is something they've been doing kind of off and on for a while, just not really talking a lot about it. But I think between the way they used Yamamoto this year, the way they're going to use Otani, it's going to be a six-man rotation. There was going to be a built-in workload restriction for Otani as a pitcher anyway. This is not a surprise. All of these factors kind of swirl together and lead to a question of, well, if you're sitting at 1-1 in an early draft and we're not sure at this early, early stage after surgery, if Otani is

going to be 100% on time or when he'll even be 100% once he comes back, are you taking him 1-1 or are you going a different direction? Because before this injury happened in the World Series, I don't think there was a lot of argument you could make against him, even in weekly formats where you can't get hitting and pitching stats simultaneously. I don't think there were arguments against Otani being the consensus one one entering 2025. At least now I think people could entertain the argument and I would wonder who you'd want to take instead. I think in a weekly league, and I would wonder who you'd want to take instead. I think in a weekly league, it's going to be difficult to use him in the most optimal

fashion. Now if it's a daily league where I have one Shohei Otani and can slot him in a pitcher and can slot him in a util, I think he still won one. Daily league still won one. Daily league still one. Yeah. Yeah. I grew that in a weekly league. I think you're looking at somebody like Bobby Witt Jr.

Is that a crazy idea? No, I don't think so in a weekly league because the, the downside of the six man rotation is losing a handful of weeks where you would have been a two star pitcher. Those are going to be pretty rare for everybody in the rotation, not just Otani. And then you also wonder what iteration of days off the new Otani rules, as we saw in 2022 and 2023, those were much more aggressive as far as how they were letting him work around pitching than what we saw when he first came over. I would imagine we're going to see something closer to that in the long run, but there's still added injury risk of doing both things.

That's been there the entire time. So I think the weekly formats are particularly challenging. I think the thing that I landed on maybe a year or so ago though, was that even if you can't use him both ways every single week, you have to think about in-season play with that flexibility. You have to think about the other guys you're relying on. Let's say you're using Otani mostly as a UT for the first two months of the season, right?

Predominantly, you're just using him for his counting stats as a hitter, and you draft enough pitching where you feel pretty good about your team for the first two months of the season, right? Predominantly, you're just using him for his counting stats to hitter, and you draft enough pitching where you feel pretty good about your team for the first two months. The first two months happen, and either a bunch of guys on your team get hurt, or you're wrong about a couple of guys, and you need a starting pitcher

with great ratios and a great strikeout rate. Finding the equivalent of Otani as a pitcher on the waiver wire is very hard if it's even possible any given time. So toggling Otani as a pitcher on the waiver wire is very hard if it's even possible any given time. So toggling Otani into your pitcher spot in a weekly league and giving up on the hitting stats while it would hurt you, you start getting something pretty significant back with that in-season sort of adjustment. So I think it's easy to fixate on what you were saying before. Yeah, you don't get both every week and you kind of have to decide what you're

willing to pass on for a while. I just think having that in season option when the rest of your roster doesn't take shape the way you want to make the adjustment is pretty darn valuable, even though it's a weekly adjustment. I mean, it's why the Dodgers spent so much money on them too. And why I doubt that Juan Soto gets, you know, all of the Shohei Otani money, because that Juan Soto doesn't open up new strategies necessarily. Juan Soto doesn't offer you the ability to get value out of a player if he's hurt in one way and not hurt in another.

You know, like there's ways. Yes, there are ways that Otani can hurt himself. You know, he may, maybe he can hurt himself in two different ways. Cause there's a pitcher and a hitter, but there's also ways that he can help you if he's hurting one way and not the other, like this year when he couldn't pitch and he still had an MVP level season and, uh, and they want it all. So that's the same sort of thing in fantasy where it's like, yeah, I hear what you're saying. He opens up other strategies for you.

There are, let's say he doesn't see as many bases and you're just killing it and homers, you know, and RBI and you really, you're down to bare bones pitching, you may actually switch them over. So, uh, I hear you on that. Uh, Bobby, what it's just such an easy, you know, high floor with ceiling, not hurt option that I could, I could maybe go see in that way. But when you start talking about other players that are being taken in the top of the first round, I take Otani over all of them.

I mean, if you're talking about Otani versus judge, I know judge is not hurt, but judge gets hurt. They all get hurt. Come on hurt. They all get hurt. Come on. They almost all get hurt. Yeah. And Ellie Della Cruz has the batting average K percentage problem. Jose Ramirez, I just, I don't know.

The projections aren't going to be there. The agent, you're going to put an aging curve on them. Gunnar Henderson is interesting, but that's pushing like right now. His, his, uh, smallest pick is four. That's pushing the right now his his smallest pick is four. It's pushing the room really hard and I'm not like, I think gotten her hands on a great season. I just not, I'm not sure there's a lot more in there,

especially because I don't think he's going to leg it out as much as Bobby wit and steals many bases. So I think I'm with the unwit over Otani at the moment, just until we have more information easily could flip if everything's going as planned. Once we get to February, once we get to the lead up to that early opener, but I think I'm also on Aaron judge over Otani at this moment too. I mean, I think it's easy to take the Aaron judge injuries, the toe everyone. I remember last year there was, it wasn't just the toe. But when the toe injury happened, the takeaway line was,

it's something he'll have to manage for the rest of his career. And you hear that, and it's a little scary. And you're like, oh, man, that's going to be a long-term problem. We should ask Trevor May about this. I wonder how many players have a previously sustained injury that does impact them as far as being something they have to maintain, where it's extra stretching, extra work, extra something, extra agility, extra workout stuff they do just to maintain it, right? I imagine that number's a

lot higher than we think. I think we just were hyper-focused on it because we saw the injury, we saw how much time he missed right after it it and we thought, oh no, this is another fluky weird injury that happens to this guy that's so big that he just has more ways to get hurt than anybody else. I think some of the Aaron Judge injury history is pretty fluky. So I'm not as worried about it as other people are. And look, I mean, Otani was the highest earning player in Roto last year, but judge was two. Judge was almost a $52 player in the player Raider.

I mean, that's, that's far and away number two on that list. I mean, the part of the park that he heard himself on in LA is no longer, it no longer exists. Speaks to your, what are you saying about flukiness? You know, um, on the flip side, when we were talking about pitching and, uh, the Dodgers are going to a six man, I think there's a little bit of, and this, I don't know how much this takes away from Otani as a player in fancy or whatever, but because he's, it's still, you know, hitter plus pitcher.

But as a pitcher, I would sort of downgrade Otani, Yamamoto, Glass now, you know, the top end expensive starters for the Dodgers because you're never really going to get two star weeks from them. And I think the over under on collective innings from the three of them may start with a three. And so, um, you know, I think that means that they're, they're all bad picks for like sort of top 15 as a pitcher. Cause it's somebody's Otani is a pitcher alone, right? So Otani is a pitcher.

I don't think it's top 15. I don't think Yamamoto is. I don't think Glassnow is because, you know, Glasnow just went through this. He had one of the better seasons he had in terms of bulk and he was the 20th best pitcher on the season. So, you know, I think they're all like decent around 20, but I think they're gonna go more expensive than that.

What it also does do though, is open up the back door for depth starting pitchers on the Dodgers being interesting plays. Because you're going to play six of them. And one of the problems with getting a six starter in a lot of leagues is, well, you know, he's going to pitch at some point, but he might not pitch to start the season, that's the whole thing of a six starter is like, well, we got five. You're going to start in the pen or in the, in the minors, not in the Dodgers. The. You're going to start in the pen or in the in the minors, not the Dodgers.

The six guys are going to start in the majors. So it actually makes guys like Tony Gonsolin, Bobby Miller, Dustin May, and Landon Nack a little bit more interesting because they may even if they are slugging in as the sixth starter for the Dodgers start the season in the rotation. Among those guys, I still like Bobby Miller as a bounce back. Tony Gonsolin, I feel like if he's, he's going to be one that has an up arrow on him in spring training, if he's totally fine, because he's, he's got that track record and he's been a starter for them in the past.

So I feel like they have fewer questions about him. And then Dustin May, if he's got good health going, like he's going to be the five starter. And then it'll be between Bobby Miller and Landon Nack, I think. Um, so it's a lot about health, but if they're, if they have good health, all, all four of those guys are interesting, uh, in most leagues. Like it would, I think even in a 12 team, I'd be interested in taking a shot at, you know, Tony Gonsolin or Bobby Miller with one of my later picks. Yeah, all in the range of late enough where if it works, you're happy to have them and

they're going to be impactful enough to be 15 or maybe even $20 pitchers in the format if it all falls into place and inexpensive enough where if you don't like what you see, the role isn't there, they're easy cuts too. It's a sweet spot to live in for an organization that develops pitching really well and gives you a high win probability every single time that you take the ball. I will say really quickly about neck is that the update and stuff plus was not kind to him. He went from a one Oh four stuff plus to a new stuff plus of 91. And frankly, given the characteristics of his fastball,

this actually feels a little better. And also given, you know, how hittable he looked in the post season kind of lines up better. So, um, I kind of like the land and act maybe for those four. Well, Hey, remember Tyler glass now now. They could sign somebody. They could definitely sign somebody. Tyler Glass now just had that interview with Fowl Territory at the end of October, said he had the imaging on his elbow and quote, it looks like it's fully healed. So I hope it is. I'm not laughing at him.

I'm laughing at us trying to be excited and confident about it. Like, it looks like it's fully healed. It's okay. I'm laughing at us trying to be excited and confident about it. Like it looks like it's fully healed. It's okay. So based on the imaging, which is never perfect, it looks like it's okay. Oh my God. How many times do they come looking for second opinion and somebody else looks at it and goes, no, I don't see the same thing. Right.

So we'll see where that goes. The other Dodgers note, by the way, there's more talk of putting Mookie Betts back on the dirt playing probably at second base, which would come at the expense of Gavin Lux's playing time. And I think it's easy to sit here on November 8th and imagine a few scenarios in which Gavin Lux is traded to another club and playing every day somewhere else as opposed to being a super sub

or a bench option for the Dodgers. I mean, I guess so. Um, yeah, I also had to point out that a Muncie Edmund Betts Freeman, um, infield is ancient in terms of, um, what's actually out there in terms of defense and in baseball, I mean, I, I, it hasn't bitten them because they're so good at positioning that they can out position some of their aging athleticism. And I think that's part of the, the, um, the math they're doing. But if they put Pahas in center and that's their infield and they

just, um, you know, spend around the edges on the corner outfield and stuff like that, uh, you'd, spend around the edges on the corner outfield and stuff like that. Uh, you'd have to think at some point it'll bite them in the butt, you know? And so I wonder if they keep Lux around as a super sub just to be like, Hey, we may DFA Chris Taylor by the time spring training ends and, um, you're actually the only person under 30 on this infield. And so I think we want to keep you around just in case, you know, we actually think this was a bad idea and want to put bets back in the corner outfield.

I know as well as anyone, if I finally write off the possibility of the Gavin Lux leap towards, you know, 20 homers and 15 steals. Finally. He can be the Vic Robles of 2025. I know that I can, I can put that into the world, but. Are you forgetting his September? I'm forgetting everything about Gavin Lux's second half.

I realized there was that point, I think it was July where it looked like everything was falling into place and he got to a career high, 10 homers. But the thing that he didn't do that I thought he would do more was run. Oh, it August that was so good. Yeah August. I thought that Gavin Lux would steal 15 or 20 bases because stolen bases are basically free. I thought he was fast enough to do that but I don't know maybe year one coming off the ACL. He wasn't comfortable with that Dodgers weren't comfortable with that. I don't know they let Otani run as much as he did so

something makes me think that Lux just isn't ever going to steal a lot of bases. And that makes me a little bit sad. There's a fair amount of Babip. I know we talked about this, Gam Lux swung harder and, you know, had more power and stuff, but he also had a 390 batting average on balls and play in second half. And no matter what you think of his new approach, I kind of like 390 is not his true talent. So if you take, you know, 40 points off of that, then he's more of a 260 hitter with a 350 OBP 450 slugging.

That seems possible if he's really made a change to how fast he swings the bat. Um, that would be. You know, a 20, like an outside shot at 15, 15, 20, 20, 20, 2010, something like that. Um, that would be a really great breakout season, but you're right. You know, now there's more questions about his playing time. And you look at the defensive metrics and gives a minus two for defensive runs, saved second base, a minus four by outs above average, that position. Little bits. He played shortstop. I think he was fine, but it was like one game like doesn't seem like one of the third in shortstop. No, that doesn't seem like an option at all. It hasn't played for the

Dodgers in the outfield. I think since 2022. So I don't, I don't know. I just don't think the, the traits I thought Gavin Lux had, I don't think the Dodgers agree. Like they see something a little bit different when they look at what he brings as a player. If they do finally trade Gavin Lux, I feel like the only thing they could trade him for is a sword and stop. Or they could just trade him for a reliever.

I think they just get a bullpen arm for him because it's a league average-ish bat with not a lot of power, not a ton of defensive value. I guess he doesn't have the trade values too, yeah. No, I think a second division team would play them every day. The Dodgers won't because they don't have to. Christine, have you ever bought something and thought, wow, this product actually made my life better?

Totally, and usually I find those products through Wirecutter. Yeah, but you work here. Yeah, that's true, I do. We both do. We're the hosts of the Wirecutter Show from the New York Times. It's our job to research, test, and vet products and then recommend our favorites. For instance, Kyra, I think you've slept on what, like 40 mattresses? Yep. And Christine, you've tested everything from blenders to linen sheets.

I love linen sheets. And we're bringing all of this expertise to The Wirecutter Show. Each week, we'll talk to someone from our team of 140 journalists about the very best product picks in every category. Plus tips, tricks, and hacks that go beyond the products. Because we don't just want to recommend great gear. We want to solve your everyday problems. And trust me, we have the expertise to do just that.

Listen to The Wirecutter Show, hosted by me, Kyra Blackwell, and me, Christine Sear-Closette, available wherever you get your podcasts. Let's talk about Roki Sasaki for a moment. Varying reports out there about whether or not he's going to come to the big leagues a little bit early. By that, it's just forgoing money. If he waits longer in Japan,

the amount of money he gets is significantly larger. A decision is supposed to come soon, whatever that means, a couple of weeks I guess. But the more important question for us, I think as people who analyze things from a fantasy perspective, is just how good is the Arsenal now? You wrote about it in detail for the Athletic this week

and I was a little surprised that compared to what we saw in the World Baseball Classic, the dip seemed to be a little bit more than just the environment being different. Right. The World Baseball Classic, the outings are shorter. Guys are pumping on a little more adrenaline. So we tend to see things that aren't necessarily sustainable from starters. You kind of account for that going away from the world baseball classic, but I don't know. I came away after reading your Sasaki story thinking the ceiling might not be as ridiculously high as I thought. Still interesting, but just not a future SP one on the board, like more like

a rotation's ace for a little while, as opposed to a guy that's going to come up and look like Paul skeins coming over from Japan. Yeah. I had, I was surprised by how many questions I had as well, because I remember the world baseball classic where he sat 100, you know, and looked, you know, every bit the guy that through, you know, a perfect game in in in in in Japan and has been a two era guy over there and just been, you know, dominant. But. You know, that same year, he averaged like 98 in Japan

during the regular season. Oh yeah, okay. That's the translation. You know, it's a hundred at the world baseball classic where he's pitching, you know, 60 pitches per outing and it's 98 when he's pitching a hundred plus, you know, in Japan, pitching a hundred, you know, throwing a hundred plus pitches. The next year was a little bit down and the most recent radar gun average that I've got from him is like high 96s.

So you know, the lower the velocity goes, the more the shape matters. You have somebody like Shotai Manaka who came over and you know, had plus shape on his fastball. And so it worked at a lower Velo. And so people anytime Velo comes up, people like explain, you know, you might like our explain something else. And it's like, um, yeah, okay. Shape does matter. Um, the shape in Sasaki's fastballs doesn't necessarily speak that well to it. It's not a high rider. What it is is one of these ones like a Gavin Williams fastball,

you know, if it was 98, 99, 100, it might be a Brandon Woodruff fastball. But this year alone, we saw that how much velocity means to Gavin Williams fastball. You know, because at the beginning of the year, he wasn't throwing his hard and had maybe had some arm troubles and stuff. And it wasn't good. And then near the end of the year, he started throwing harder and it was better. So there's that risk with Roki Sasaki that he's tied to his VELO pretty strongly. And then, oh, his VELO is going down.

So, you know, he's also had a lot of injuries over there. He's averaged around 100 innings per season in Japan. And when you put him on a list like this he looks really good and this is this is the like hundred mile an hour stud that through a perfect game and you know rookie sasaki has the best. You know three years strikeout minus walk rate among. You know peers that have come over and pitch to on j. So he has a 28% K minus BB the last three years in Japan. Shohei Otani only had a 23%. You Darvish had a 23%. Yawamoto had a 22%.

These are all, by the way, plus plus, you know, averages 12, 13, 14. So they're up there. Tanaka had a 22%. Imanaga had a 21%. Matsuzaka had a 20%. So Senga had an 18%. So this is a good group to be in and he's at the top of it. However, he had 30% K minus BBs the first two years of the sample and he dropped to

21 and a half, 22 after that. So it looks like he's at the top of this, but the most recent data actually has him in the middle of this list, which is still good. I mean, if he's around Masahiro Tanaka, dude, that guy came over and threw a thousand major league innings with a 370 RA. So you cannot poo poo that. But it may not be top of the class stuff anymore. So, um, you know, there's a lot of things going on, like how likely is he to come over and you can talk about the incentives, the financial incentives and the structure of what's going and you would say he is not coming over.

There are people who find this very definitively because, you know, he's 23. He's subject to the bonus pool cash for two more years. Meaning that the most he can get is whatever somebody has in their bonus pool a million two million you know as a bonus and then they get signed in their prospect and so they're under arbitration for the first three years. You think wow i wouldn't want to do that if i was his posting team i wouldn't want to do that because now I'm getting some percentage of two and a half million as opposed to some percentage if he leaves, you know, down the line, uh, some percentage of a bigger contract, like a free agent contract, you know? So that's pretty definitively why he won't come. I would say that there's some nuance in this.

That's not just Shohei Otani came over and didn't care about those things because that did happen. But what Shohei Otani represents, which is, you know, to some players in Japan, America, you know, baseball MLB is the prize is the idea is that this is where the best players are and they want to come compete here. And you have someone like this player who came to Stanford to play Rintaro Sasaki. He's as a high school home run record in Japan. And he said, screw all that. I'm just going straight into the system in America.

You know, and he can come back, I think legally, but I think he's saying, Hey, I want to be drafted, I want to play at Stanford a he's saying, Hey, I want to be drafted. I want to play at Stanford a year or two and then be drafted in baseball into, into MLB baseball, you know? So there's, there's some players, that's what they want to do. They want to play in MLB. That's, that's, that's their goal. And when that is the goal, you can have a verbal agreement to be posted.

It can be part of his process. Now Sasaki, uh, uh, sorry, Roki Sasaki instead of Rintaro Sasaki. have a verbal agreement to be posted. It can be part of his process. Now Sasaki, sorry, Roki Sasaki instead of Rintaro Sasaki. Roki Sasaki was one of the last people in his draft class to sign. And that might suggest that there were negotiations happening beyond just the money. And maybe part of that negotiation process is, Hey, I'll pitch for you guys for three years. No, I want you to post me after that.

Yeah. So it's, it's complicated. We don't know for sure, but hopefully we will know soon. I did see someone took Sasaki with the 32nd pick of a recent draft. And then if youPC slow draft. It's very aggressive because there could be a hard no, you could get a zero. Yeah, I'm saying 70 30. He doesn't come over.

I'm not I'm not 90 10 or 100 zero. I'm I'm 70 30 doesn't come over. There's still a possibility. I do think you have to account for the recent drop off and stuff, even though that three year average you talked about stands out. to account for the recent drop off and stuff. Even though that three year average you talked about stands out, I think that gives us an idea the ceiling's still very high.

It's just not clear if that's the ceiling right now. Like his platform year, like Yamamoto's platform year was just as good as any other. Sasaki's is not. Yeah, and I mean the difference, Yamamoto got 12 years and 325 million from the Dodgers last year. He was also a free agent. So.

Right. Waiting two more years. If the internal vibes are that the stuff's not quite as good right now, he can show by staying in Japan, the stuff, yeah, it's fine. It comes back next year. It's two more seasons there, but he stays healthy, stays in the league. He's comfortable with it. He could still come over and sign a young motorist.

And then gets that money later. Yeah. That could still be waiting for him down the road. So that's got to be part of the calculus as well. I guess we'll talk more about what to do if he actually does come over once it happens, but I'm not going anywhere near up in the pick 30 range until we get some kind of confirmation. Even if we had confirmation, I feel like that might be just a tad on the early side because of what happened in 2024.

Some more tricky news to figure out at and around the top of the pool. Both Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuna Jr. are unlikely to be ready for opening day, which leaves a lot of different possibilities out there. Okay. Just because you're not ready for the opener doesn't mean you're out for more than a couple of weeks. But I think in the case of Acuna, we're talking about someone who is pretty routinely still part of the first round conversation in these early drafts that we've seen. And then you've got Strider as someone that looks like a pretty interesting bargain coming off of an internal brace procedure but he's had a Tommy John before so it's his second major elbow

surgery. The range on him seems to be more like pick 100 give or take a couple of rounds but I'm just curious what you're doing with these two players in particular because ceilings are ridiculously high, but in both cases it's their second major surgery on the same area. Cunha being his second ACL repair and Strider his second major elbow procedure. Yeah, I don't, I don't mind where Strider is going at all because, um, he's basically going as an SP three. And if you know, the, the nice thing, as I said at. And if you know, the, the nice thing, as I said, at first

pitch, you know, starting pitcher injuries, a little bit like batting average, where if you take a low batting average guy, you know, it's harder to either have to punt that or you, um, it's something you protect. If you take a high batting average guy, you have more options open available to you near the end of the draft, right? You have other things you can do. You can't, you can. If you take a high batting average guy, you have more options open available to you near the end of the draft, right? You have other things you can do. You can't, you can take a low batting average guy. If you take a low batting average guy and you're trying to massage your

batting average, then you start looking at smaller pools of players, right. Or punting. And so you can't really punt health. I mean, you can, but it may not work out that well for you. I don't have to say that from experience. And so health is like this, the thing that I'm going to probably be a little bit more or just I have been doing this for a little bit is just being a little bit conservative with

health in my first two picks or at least my first pick. Cause I want to have a guy that I think will make it to the end of the season. You know what I mean? And then the thing about having Strider third is if I was conservative, you know, with my first picks and I went Logan Gilbert and then added Bryce Miller or Aaron Nola, you know, uh, for my, my second guy, Spencer Strider opens up as just like this shining beacon

of just like, wow, I could get 145 innings of ACE material right here. You know, pick 100 love that. Acuna is a different story altogether. Cause Acuna is going 10. Ish. Right? Yes. The latest he's gone in a draft that's happened since October is 18th overall. That's not much of a discount.

I can't believe he went first in one. That's stunning to me. But you know, the funniest thing is, wasn't it, it was 2022 when he was coming back the last time. Right. And there was this whole thing of like, oh, he's not going to be ready. Oh, why should you shouldn't take him high? He's not going to be ready. He's not, you're going to miss a month.

And then there was all this like, Whoa, he's not going to miss a month. Like remember that spring training was like, Oh, he's, he's coming back. And then he missed like two weeks or something. The weirdest part was he was mediocre. Like we forgot that there are two risks. It wasn't himself. Yeah. We forgot there's two risks coming off of this. There's a production risk and a health risk.

So I think 10 is too much for me because yes, like he, like things could start getting better and then he shows up two or three weeks after, um, you know, the season starts and he doesn't, and he still gets to 500, um, you know, the season starts and, and he doesn't, and he still gets to 500, 550, maybe even 600 players. He got 735 last year. So let's get, he could get to 600 play prints. He could get to 600 play appearances and hit 15 homers and steal 20 bags.

Cause that's what he did last time. And I think he's going to steal even fewer with this after this injury. So, um, yeah, I think, I think tends to rich for me on Ronald Acuna Jr. Yeah. I think I'm with you right now based on what we know about both players. And I think there's always the performance

question of coming off of his second ACL tear. Are you going to let Ronald Acuna Jr., are you going to encourage him to be as aggressive on the base pass as he was in 2023 when he went 73 for 87 as a base dealer. Like that, I mean, the injury, the second injury didn't happen in the middle of a stolen base attempt, right?

It was after rounding a bag, I think, and hitting the brakes. Yeah. But even, even still, when you consider that it will, it still happened. It happened while I'm running, like in general. He got noticeably slow. Like his sprint speed went down after the first ACL surgery and you'd expect

that a sprint speed would go down again. He is most likely to have below average sprint speed this coming season. Right. There are tons of ways for Acuna to be good, of course, but I just have the hard time going, yeah, second ACL tear is going to keep running. Just like he did. If it happens, it happens, but I'm not banking on that. I also saw some news that Joe Jimenez is out eight

to 12 months after surgery to repair a knee cartilage. Yeah, that could be a whole season. You must have had like micro fracture or something. Like there's more story to this. Like, you know, I know Dave O'Brien was like, you know, doing double takes, you know, he's like, Oh, he's a knee surgery. Like he'll be ready for spring. What? Not too fantasy relevant, but it is, it makes you wonder what was happening there.

Um, you know, and the, for what it's worth, the Dodgers get a lot of crap about health, but you know, the, the Braves were the team that said screw, you know, um, as they call it when you, when you're, uh, load management, we're just going to play everybody all the time. And are they having, are they having a rash of player injuries like position player injuries? Are they? Yeah.

They'd like the Dodgers. They lost a ton of war this year. They had key players down for significant periods of time. Some of it again, a little bit on the fluky side, but not all of it, right? I mean, Austin Riley felt more like an overuse sort of thing. The science is pretty clear on load management being a decent idea that it, especially, I mean,

here's another way of saying it. That maybe makes it sort of an aha moment. Fatigue management. Would you like to have your fatigue managed? I would like to have my fatigue managed. Yes. Um, if, if the powers that be are still listening to our show in minute 38, and I wasn't sure they were listening at minute five, but I would love to have my

fatigue managed. I'd love any assistance in that, that I could possibly have. Braves have been pretty active though, so far. They had a bunch of options and decisions to make. They declined Travis Darnoe, they picked up Marcel Ozone. I don't think either one of those things were particularly surprising. The former, especially because of the expected arrival of Drake Baldwin, who's having a great fall league, but they made a trade.

I think the trade's really interesting. We knew if they were picking up Ozoneuna's option they weren't going to keep Jorge Saler who they acquired from the Giants midseason because those two guys on a roster all season long at those figures just don't make sense you're just not you're not doing that to yourself. So they traded Jorge Saler to the Angels and got back Griffin Canning and I look at this as kind of a win-win it's easy to look at trades that Atlanta makes with Alex Anthopoulos and say, well, Atlanta won this trade.

And maybe they did. Maybe they didn't need Horace because they didn't need Horace Alair getting anything back at all is good. My case for Griffin canning requires you to just take a trip back to 2023 when he had a 25.9% K rate, a career best 6.7% walk rate, and basically just had a home run problem. Injuries have been a huge part of the story for Griffin Canning, so there is a ton of health grade risk.

But as far as getting a fresh start and having some new coaches and some new ideas brought to the table, you could do a lot worse for a player you really didn't need in Jorge Saler than a lottery ticket on Griffin Canning, who I think has to at least be in the conversation for a final spot in the rotation, if everything goes well for him over the course of winter and spring. That's a possibility right now under contract. You've got Chris Sale and you got Strider coming

back, not ready necessarily. Ronaldo, Lopez and who am I missing? Schwalbach. Schwalbach. Yeah. And then you've got a bevy of sort of young arms that could make it. So you really have three guys that are healthy that are ready for the season. I think Canning is going to be in the mix for the starting rotation. I don't, I didn't love this.

Actually this trade, I sort of thought it was a lose lose in a way. Um, because just uses, loses framing the angels were involved. So everyone loses. But I mean, so Kenny, the good news is Kenny has a good slider and a good change up and that's a good basis to begin with the other thing that is interesting about this is that he has and There's this app the dynamic dead zone that max bay created

Um where you look at the expected movement given an arm slot and griffin canning's expected movement is exactly what you would expect given his arm slot Like he is no deception in his fastball. It is vanilla, bad, dead zone fastball. It is terrible. And that is big part of why Kenning has had issues with home runs. The numbers on his fastballs are terrible. They have a guy in Schwellenbach

that they coaxed out of that dynamic dead zone already. They've worked with him to throw a fastball that he cuts a little bit and he cuts the fastball a little bit. And this is a guy who throws a cutter and a slider. So maybe they see in canning that feel for spin quote unquote. They think, hey, this guy's a little bit like Schwalbeck. If we could tell him to cut his foreseam and just get that away from it what's expected, maybe we could have some success with him.

So I think they're like, worst case scenario, hey, we needed an arm. So that's where the win comes in. They needed an arm. They needed more than an outfielder. You know, money wise, it was a good idea for them. They needed to cut a little bit of money. It all makes sense. But stuff wise, I'm a little bit worried that it's not going to be a good idea. You know, this is also a 28 year old who's thrown 508 major league innings, a bunch of other innings. You're asking him to change his fastball. You're not asking him to change secondary. You're asking him to change his primary pitch. That makes me a little bit worried. On the Angels side, you just clogged up DH on a team that has

Mike Trout that really should be moving towards DH. And I don't think you want to put Salera on the field to put Trout at DH. That doesn't make any sense, but you do want to get some miles off of Trout's knees. I think this is one of those things where, you know, maybe there's a little bit of, I better get this team towards contention or I'm out of here from the GM, but it is a little bit like they made themselves a little bit better in a way that. I'm not sure we'll make a difference. I'm going to rewind myself. I'm going to say, I think it's a win win from a fantasy perspective, because Soler ends up in a place where he can play.

Max and it's not a bad place to hit. Right. Hard of the lineup. Just, he can just do his usual low average. Mashers. And it gets a real shot to the lineup. Just, he can just do his usual low average masher thing. And Canning gets a real shot of the rotation. Yes. With a new coaching staff.

I always like, I actually do like pitchers that, that have a new coaching staff. Am I wrong for thinking that the success of Grant Holmes might be even more meaningful than the success of Spencer Schwalmbach, even though the dead zone problem applies to Schwalmbach, same as Giffen Canning. No, Schwalbebach is off of that dead zone. He's- Right, right, right. And I'm saying they, like there's proof that they can do it, but also like the

fact they, look what they got out of Grant Holmes last year. That was crazy. I'm surprised that Holmes at Fangraps is not listed in the top five either. I mean, I'd have Grant Holmes over Ian Anderson and Smith Schaver and Bryce Elder You know, so I think Holmes is the sixth starter In fact, I think Holmes is the fifth starter to begin the season because strider striders not there I'm not sure how much money they have to spend either they're at, you know, 230

Against the 240 first apron. I don't know if they're gonna go into that So they may just say we we're going to do some stuff around the corner edges. Maybe we cut L'Oreal and try to get something cheaper. Maybe we make a trade here or there, but I don't, you know I'm not sure that they are signing Max Fried, for example or Corbin burns. I mean, you can look at this roster and say, they don't really need much.

They just need the guys they had to be healthy. And maybe it is having one more quality bench player. I think people are going to say they need a shortstop. Orlando RC is not the long-term answer. That's pretty obvious. I think it's a question of how you feel about Nacho Alvarez. Maybe if you think he's your long-term guy, at least glove first, good enough to be an option, then you're set at the position.

You don't have to go out and do anything big. So it's maybe bolstering your depth to take some of the wear and tear off of the guys you've used as workhorses in recent years. That might be the best thing you can do. And they're also, they're stacked, dude. I mean, this, this is such a good team that they can afford short stop to not be a good bat. I mean, I think Sean Murphy is going to come back and I think he's going to be an above average bat and be a good catcher. And they made that bet

when they let Travis Darnow go and didn't take his option up. So they're going to have rookies, Chadwick Trump and, and Drake Baldwin are, you know, you're going to be the backups there. They think Sean Murphy is going to play a lot. They think Riley's going to bounce back. Albies is going to bounce back. Molson's going to bounce back. Acuna is coming back. Harris is still ascendant.

So that leaves left field and shortstop as places that they want to be cheap. And, uh, hopefully not terrible, but you know, they mostly just want to be cheap in those places, I think. To your point though, about the angels, I think if you've gone this far where you are pushing trout as a center fielder, I don't think you have to go all the way to DH right away. You can try a corner first, see how that works. You can see occasional DH duty, you know, just, just test a few things out. Whereas in the Otani era, that wasn't even an option.

At least you can still do that. You can take Soler out of the lineup for a day. You can live with the defense in a corner for the occasional start. So you have a couple of toggles. The trickier thing for me is if you want to play him at first base, Nolan Shanuel seems like an important player to them. Even if I don't see him as an important player long-term, they seem to like him. And that, that matters a lot more than how I feel about him.

And they're going to say, well, he had a three 43 OBP and his second season. And he, he added some power. He popped 13 homers and stole 10 bases. And yeah, I guess that's all true. He didn't hit a ball 106. It takes that to be a major leaguer. Really. It almost every rate, like this is the, he's, he may not be a regular still.

I, I, I have to point out, I mean, it's, let me just, I need to do this real quick. Stat cast qualified batters, max CV bottom list list Stephen Kwan Nolan Shannuel Sal Freelick in a ball 1066 I'm not even sure he's a regular yet. He might be Jacob Young 1067. He may not be a regular He may be a glove only guy Justin Turner may not be in the big leagues next year. He suck parades What a downturn and that's 1073 next year. Isak Paredes, what a downturn. And that's 107.3.

So you know, I think the price for entry into the big leagues right now is 108. That's where you start getting Spencer Steer, Saddam Rafaela, Luis Reyes, Jose Altuve, Michael Garcia, Anthony Volpe. These are guys with non-premium bat speed. And Chanuel is looking up at them. So yes for the angels they may have a they may be maybe important because. You know they're not they're not having abundance of riches there but. I'm not sure he's a he's a major leaguer and that's you know it is interesting that Nico Cavadas has been playing a lot. And that's, you know, it is interesting that Nico Cavadas has been playing a lot

in the Arizona fall league and that they acquired him from Boston. And he's also not an exit velocity God, but he's more regular in those ways. He's hit, he had one, one 13 in 2023. He's also really bad at striking out. So he's, you know, if you could just smush Shenuel and Cavadas together, you might have a better player. Well, you can't. So, um, not really just double checking.

You still can't do that. Uh, they also add a lot of rundown, but let's go. Let's go. And the rundown, they had Kyle Hendricks to be the new, according to discord, the new Zach, please Zach. And I said, yeah, that's pretty much it. Eanings.

That's all, that's all you're getting. I'm not sure there's a lot of fantasy excitement. Yeah. You know, at the bottom of the stuff leaderboard is like Marco Gonzalez, Martin Perez, these guys aren't terrible. Like it's not a terrible move to sign Kyle Hendricks, 2.5 million. That's not a bad move. It doesn't mean anything to fantasy. It's probably not a good idea for you to pick that guy up.

But some of those guys will pop. And the worst case it's a guy who's going to throw you innings better than your, you know, minor leaguer who's not ready yet. Right. Just buying innings. That's, that's all you're really hoping for there. We did learn that David Fry had the surgery on his UCL. I think the, well, why'd we think this was happening because he wasn't playing,

you know, catcher and right field. He wasn't playing the spots he could play for months. If, if months of not throwing weren't enough to heal your elbow, then there you go. You're gonna have that surgery. So we do at least have a resolution on that. Not a thing you like to be right about, but more just like reading the tea leaves.

We could kind of see that one coming. Not likely to be a catcher again until I would say mid season next year. I mean think about Bryce Harper, right? He came back in DH and he played and then he even played at first, you know to take some pressure off that arm You know, it's not very likely Who else who else did? Trevor story of Tommy John Yes, he did and he he didn't play shortstop again

until after after the midway point, I think. Right. And a bunch of other injuries kind of pop up around all that. It was he actually did the internal brace instead of Tommy John. But we I think we still like kind of accidentally use them interchangeably because brace is supposed to be faster,

but it might not be. It just depends on how you heal. Yeah, but it might not be. It just depends on how you heal. Yeah, and it's a little bit rarer in position players. So we're comparing to a smaller sample of players. But I would just say, if it was me, I would say he's not catching until halfway through next season.

If he's not catching until halfway through next season, are we sure he's in the big leagues? Because they have Josh Naylor, Kyle Manzardo at DH and first base. Bow Naylor and Austin Hedges just got re-upped. Those are his primary positions. It's going to keep a guy out there to be a backup first baseman, DH. I think it's bad for someone that you mentioned. If they like Fry's bat enough to keep them around, then someone we like will lose playing time. Yeah, probably,

probably Manzardo, but a lot of it's going to depend on how the rehab goes for David Fry. So we'll probably have some more, more answers on that once we get closer to spring training, tons of extensions, options, and opt-outs. We're going to try and fly through these as fast as we reasonably can. How do you feel about Michael Wacha three for 51 to stay with the Royals? The more the price goes up, the more I don't like it.

You know, uh, this is still a decent spot. It's all right. Major league wise, fine. Fantasy wise, just, you know, if you can get him late, that's fine. You know, it's innings. I treat him as fantasy innings. Um, but don't also remember that he's had a fairly extensive injury history. And he's also had seasons where he had like a year that started with five.

So don't, don't go all in, especially season of season. If he's doing well at the beginning of the season, you're in a 12 teamer. He didn't get drafted, pick him up. But yeah, I doubt that I think he's going to gain more expensive every year. And I think he's becoming more of a bus candidate every year. It's amazing to look at it, but six different

teams in the last six seasons and three consecutive years with an ERA and the low threes with good whips too. It's the three years before that were four 76, six 62 and five Oh five. So yeah, well that's six 62 came in just 34 whips to it's the K-rate that can lag. And then the three years before that were 4.76, 6.62 and 5.05 so. Yeah. Well that's 6.62 came in just 34 innings in 2020. Right.

But yeah, to your point, the high fours and fives are there and that was with decent underlying swinging strike rates and things. You're like, well, this is kind of weird. Why is he this bad? So you look at Sierra, you're going to see a lot of fours, that's probably the safer place to expect things to go. Maybe with the defense behind him in that park, it's a high threes instead of a low

threes. It works, but it's not as exciting as we'd probably like it to be. Not a bad extension, but not one that we're in love with either. The Braves tweak things with Ronaldo Lopez. He's got a new three-year, $30 million deal. It doesn't really change anything. I just thought it was interesting that they kind of added a year, basically after signing him to such a similar contract a year ago.

But how about this? A frequently discussed player, Cody Bellinger staying with the Cubs exercising his $27.5 million option. Is he? I knew it. Okay. So maybe I'm galaxy braining this, but is there a world in which Cody Bellinger gets traded this winter and is not on the Cubs opening day roster?

Yes. Because PCA exists and is a top shelf defensive value. Um, and, uh, the Cubs are in the place where they're good everywhere, but they need to be great somewhere. You know, they also probably need starting pitching. The back end of the rotation was right now is Javier Asad, Jordan Wicks and Ben Brown. And they have Michael Bush playing first base and Seiya Suzuki is best cast as a DH. So if somebody else sees Cody Ballinger as a short-term solution at center field in particular,

I could see him being traded. For example, the Angels with Trout at center, maybe they make a play for him. I don't know that they have the assets to make it happen, but it's also unclear what one year of Cody Ballinger with an option is worth on the market. Yeah. Uh, didn't think he was a lock to opt out, but wouldn't have been surprised by it.

I think players like flexibility, I guess that gives you an idea of what they felt his market would be if he tried to go back out there right now, see how the winter treats Cody Bellinger as the Cubs try and shuffle some things on their roster. The Yankees picked up the low hanging fruit of a two and a half million dollar option Luke Weaver. Not a big surprise there. I think we've listed him as sort of the favorite to close there, barring another addition over the course of the winter, especially given the way he was used. The only question is going to be how does his arm respond from the reliever workload that he just had over the course of 2024, even though it was a lower innings total than what we saw from him in 2023, we've talked for a long time on this show about

the difference of the volume of appearances, the number of times you get up there and go max effort, and how that impacts you differently than every fifth day for a larger volume of total innings. a larger volume of total innings? Um, yeah, uh, I still think, yeah, it's a tough one because I, everything else is like, I love him, you know, like he's a stuff plus God and you know, he made all these changes and he just looked great and you know, he seemed to really take to this new role and he's the closer for the Yankees. And I don't think that they have a bunch of money to throw around to get another closer.

And the way that the Yankees and Dodgers in particular have worked is they spend everywhere and find relievers. So even if Weaver loses his job, eventually I'm talking myself into liking him. I know that there's, there's a fatigue component, but maybe that shows up another year, not necessarily this year. Right, and we'll see if they change the way they use them in the regular season a little bit,

if they are gonna use them more to close out games, maybe they ease some of the back to backs, or three in a rows, or different things, or the more than three out saves. There's a lot of ways they can sort of dial down that workload, so I would treat Weaver the way we've treated Clay Holmes in recent draft seasons, kind of a good closer to if he stays in that outside the top 100 overall range, if he starts creeping up higher than that, then maybe I start to back away because of some of those year over

year workload concerns. The Garrett Cole situation was odd. We got that news at first pitch that he was opting out and then before the actual deadline, they said they reversed course. They were still working on possibly adding years, but he is not available as a free agent, even though it looked for a brief moment like he was going to be. Yeah, it's really weird because the contractual language was if he opted out, the Yankees could void that opt out by giving him another year and 36 million. And I think that the Yankees were like, nah, like, I don't $180 million. Your VELO is down your age. Uh, you can go check it out and, you know, check the market out. And I think, you know, I don't know what would have been like 5, 180.

Yeah, I think that's five and 180 if they tacked on that extra 136. I don't think it's impossible. He would have gotten that. I mean, think of the deals that de Grom and you know, something like Scherzer and Verlander deals maybe, maybe, maybe it's signaled a little bit of nervousness about the RSNs and the sort of financial stability of the game right now. Or maybe Cole was like, no, actually I like New York and you know, 4144 is fine. And maybe they can still just add something onto it anyway.

Maybe it's an extra year for 25 with incentives that could bring it to 40 or something. And that's the happy medium that they land on. They, they actually as a team have an incentive of signing him to like an extra, like 15 million to our contract to lower the AAV of everything. Right. So there's probably, probably a happy medium there. Uh, the Orioles picked up Ryan O'Hern's option, but that was maybe a little more borderline, but that one kind of stuck out to me as a, hmm, now that depth chart stays sort of crowded.

And Ryan O'Hern made a lot of changes last year. And I think it's the classic example of taking a different path to the same result, right? He was a 118 WRC plus the year before with a 22% K-rate and a 4% walk rate. So in 2024, he slashes the K-rate to 14%. He walks 9% of the time, most since 2020, and he's a 119 WRC plus. He hit 15 homers this year in 494 plate appearances.

He hit 14 in 368 the year before. So less power, fewer Ks, more walks, almost the exact same result. The way I'm going to ask you this question, if you're the Orioles, are you happy to still have Ryan O'Hern on the roster at 8 million for 2025? I bet you it was debated heavily internally. And I think maybe one of the things that might've turned the tide in his favor is what if he puts together the, you know, 14, 16, 18% strikeout rate with the 10% barrel rate and the 110 max CV that we saw in 2023. So what if he kind of puts together those two parts?

We haven't yet seen maybe the best from O'Hern, but at 31 and 8 million, maybe they also feel worst case scenario, he's a slightly overpriced backup that we DFA cause you know, Jackson holiday and Kobe Mayo, um, are just killing it and we need more flexibility somewhere. You know, I don't think a pro rated eight million at any point in the year for a guy that's been almost 20% better than league average with the stick's going to be hard to move. I think you'll, you'll at least get a taker

on the trade market. Yeah. I don't, he had to be pretty bad to get DFA'd with the last two years he had, but it's very strange and I think you're right. I think that's the, that's sort of the process that I would go through. It's like, wait a minute, either way he's good,

but if he does both of those things, he might be great and even with defensive limitations, we'll happily take that as part of our first base DH rotation for one more year. Qualifying offers came out. Paul Goldschmidt didn't get one. That's probably not a stunner, just given his age and everything. Nick Martinez got one and he's expected to accept it.

So I'm going to ask you this question. If you were in the position of Nick crawl and the reds front office, would you have offered Nick Martinez, a qualifying offer, especially in a year where those are clocking in just over $21 million for 2025. No. No, I wouldn't have. I mean, why not?

He took out 20% of the batteries. He saw was below average strikeout rate. I think he's a classic guy. That's, you know, that's good. In terms of glue, he also had like the best location plus of his career. And still has middling stuff. I mean, it's, it's okay stuff. And then that stuff, you don't even, you'd have to give me splits between start when he was a starter and when he was a reliever in terms of stuff, I would, I would assume that, um, it's, it's below average stuff, even though it's 99 stuff

plus that I would assume it's below average stuff plus given the 20% strikeout. Right. Um, I think this is a guy that you don't even sure if you could hand this, you handle 180 innings. So I guess they're saying he's a starter for us and he's gonna be a starter all year and we might push him 180 innings and even if he's not as good in the 180 innings, he'll give us 180 innings and so he'll give us at least two war as like a sort of average back end guy and that's worth 20 million dollars and we don't have as much risk because it's a one year deal.

That's the thinking process, but, um, I think he was a much better pickup, uh, before when he was signing smaller deals. Um, I think also the proof of the pudding is when you offer someone a qualifying offer and they take it, it's not always, it means maybe you misread the room. Maybe. I mean, I think in the case of Nick Martinez, it's a lot like the skills of Michael Wacha, right? The change-up is really good.

Fast balls are sort of questionable. And for a year, you can probably live with it budget wise. I don't think it hurts them that badly. I mean, I don't think you offer it unless you're okay with the player taking it. Yeah. Like how often do you think a team puts a qualifying offer out there with the, oh man, if he takes this,

we're screwed. Like I think that's pretty rare. I think they have room in the budget. They needed a starter. And you know, I always think that pitchers more than hitters are more likely to take these Because it's a high AAV. It's a high AAV short Deal play for the teams and that's why they're offering them. That's why Nick Pavetta gets a gets a qualifying offer. There's a lot of

You know sort of anger among Boston fans that you know, why give this guy 21 million that hasn't really been that good? We need an ace. And I would say if you let him go, you need to replace him and you still need the ace. So I think you need the ace either way. And actually paying $21 million for a backend guy is sort of the going rate on some level. Like you have to pay 25, 30, 35 million to get somebody that might start a playoff game for you, or you'd be more excited about starting a playoff game. You know? So 21 is, and especially it's low, low risk for them one year.

I think there's a chance Nick Pivetta takes that one as well. Yeah, I think I's a chance Nick Pivetta takes that one as well. Yeah. I think I'm happier if I'm the Red Sox with Pivetta, accepting that I'm with the Reds and Nick Martinez accepting though. I'd like you would not have offered it to Nick Martinez. Maybe would have tried to bring him back on a smaller deal, but I don't love it. The only hitter, uh, that I think is, is, that could be a chance, a la Teosca Hernandez.

Well, taking a one year deal that was a little bit like a qualifying offer with the Dodgers, it wasn't really literally one, but I kind of see him as a similar player to Teosca Hernandez is Anthony Santander. I'm not saying that he's going to take it, but, uh, especially since he coming off a 44 homer season, you know, you think what else does he have to do? The problem is that the defense is not good and he may not be a DH yet, but he will probably be a DH at some point on the contract you sign him. So you have to think about that if you're the acquiring team. And then he's a, he's a chaser.

He's a little bit like to Oscar in terms of he chases like now he's a little bit better than task or making contact. So maybe you could take or talk yourself into saying, Hey, he could chase, start missing some of the things he chase and his strike high rate could go up to 23%, You know, like still manageable. So that might be the math that's going through people's heads as they offer them deals. But I personally would have been more excited about signing

Santander to like a three and 50, three and 60 type deal. I just, there's something about this long-term I don't like. I've seen some projections for 140 million, five, six years. I cannot. I can't see that. You're talking about a guy who has a career 307 OVP. I know that's analog,

but you're gonna look at a guy who is now 30 years old and you're gonna make a nine figure outlay on an OVP like that. If he had a phenomenal, phenomenal glove at a position that teams cared about, maybe not a chance. I think the comps to Teosca are very fair though, in terms of like, look at what the market's done to Teosca. Teosca took a big one year deal with the Dodgers last year.

And even before he was a free agent, we talked about Teosca Hernandez as such an obvious qualifying offer guy. You're happy to go year to year at what is basically a max arbitration number, but you don't want that long term commitment because when it breaks, it's just not that good. Now that they've had like proof concept with him and they've had the money, you know, from the world series coming into the coffers and they don't have to pay the draft pick problem.

I think Teasca comes back to the Dodgers, but Santander back to the Orioles doesn't make as much sense. So he's really harmed by this qualifying offer, I believe. And there is a chance. There's I wouldn't say it's more than 50%, but I would say there's a 20, 30% chance he takes it. I know he just had a platform year that you want, but if he takes it and does okay again, they can't give it to him again next year.

And then the teams that are acquiring him don't have to say, Oh, he has all these flaws and I have to give up a draft pick to sign him. Right. I think it's hard to imagine even if he were to come back and basically repeat what he just did though. Fast forward a year. Okay, he played for 21 million this year. Well, then he can get the three and 60

and the three and 60 team is like, we didn't have to pay the draft pick. Now the three and 60 team is like, ooh, we have to give him three and 60 and a draft pick. Ugh. Yeah. I think that's fair. I think not having that qualifying off

for compensation attached would change a little bit as far as the number of teams interested in Santander and also repeating or nearly repeating what he just did would probably increase some confidence and spit out more favorable numbers from the models that teams are looking at him through. A couple other surprises here real quick.

Robbie Ray didn't opt out. I thought there was a chance he would because everybody needs pitching, so he's still a giant. Are you a little surprised that Robbie Ray did not test free agency with two years left on his deal? I was, I thought he would go 33. Uh, the gas was back. The strikeout rate was back.

The walk rate was back. Um, you know, his agent must've, I know it's illegal, but his agent must've had some knowledge of the, of the league and, and advised him to do this. Yeah. That's what the agents get paid for. Right. So good for them, but two for 50 essentially is what he had to do on the open market to beat what was left on his deal. I don't think that was impossible for Robbie Ray.

Maybe the AAVs would have been a bit lower than that. He just wants to max it out. The age is the real factor. Maybe, you know, some of the money problems and then some of the, you know, how, how well have the Verlander de Grom Scherzer deals turned out? You know, those deals can sour the marketplace on aging starters as well. So I, it could be a little bit of that. Plus he has to think the next two years I'm in a place I'm being paid $50 million.

And it's fairly likely that my numbers will look good in San Francisco. Yeah. So maybe I can get one more two and 50 deal at the end. And maybe I wasn't going to look at four and a hundred. Yeah. Yeah. Getting four and a hundred today might not be possible. Yeah.

So you just, you're getting the better long-term result by sort of choosing where you are right now. I think that's a, it's a good way to look at it. And the other thing that kind of ties into Santander, the Diamondbacks exercised a 15 million dollar option on Eugenio Suarez. He still plays third base. And Rhys Hoskins exercised a player option to 18 million to stay with the Brewers. I think that gives you a pretty good idea of how sluggers with limited defensive values and low OBPs feel the market is going to value them. That Reese Hoskins, even at age 31 right now,

he'll be 32 in March, didn't wanna go back out there. And this is a guy that has a better career OBP than Santander. He's coming off of a much lesser season, of course. Probably the worst season we've seen for Reese Hoskins, highest strikeout rate, lowest OBP, so it made all the sense in the world for him to take 18 million and possibly run it back and maybe better things are ahead for him.

But I think it gives you a hint of the downside of a player like that. And again, I say that as about Reese Hoskins as someone who's a better long-term bat. Once they are a DH, they're in the Jock Peterson bucket who got one in 12.5 and Jock Peterson, despite his maybe lefty righty limitations is good for OBP. So they may not be more than one in 10, one in eight guys, you know, once they are DHS and how far are they from being DHS? So that's,

that's what it's like. If you're looking at Santander and you're saying in the third year, he's a DH, he's worth 8 million that year. And that's a, it's a big problem. Oh, we're going to do this. Whew. Speed run. Or off next week anyway.

All right. Give you guys a longer episode while we're gone. Hopefully you'll just get through all of this one. So the real position changed. The first one that's actually real is Wilson Contreras is gonna move to first base and we're gonna see more of Ivan Herrera, we're gonna see more of Pedro Páez behind the plate, for the Cardinals we'll see if they add

anybody else to the mix. Both kind of exciting. Ivan Herrera I guess is the favorite and he has a interesting combination of max TV and strikeout rate. Like I, I think he used circle him as a sleeper this year. He's got a little bit of speed, a little bit of power, may not be a bad batting average. Like I like him a lot.

I think this is good news for him. A great second catcher, I think in two catcher leagues because the floor is nice. The playing time opened up a ton. And I think yeah, of the two, the much more polished player that we would want for offensive purposes, how interested are you in Wilson Contreras with the possibility of a higher ceiling of playing time? Anytime we get a catcher moving off the position, I'm definitely excited about it. Last season was the highest K rate we'd seen from Contreras since 2021, still

popped 15 homers and just 358 plate appearances, had that bad wrist injury from getting hit by a swing. You know, I think basic volume here, I mean, this is a 20 homer guy with limitations of being a catcher. Maybe there's high 20s ceiling still in that bat. Yeah, I, you know, there was some talk that, you know, all this is a big, you know there was some talk that you know, this is a big you know Mistake the Cardinals made and I have to say over the last three years Wilson Contreras's

WRC plus is 133 that is the same as Matt Olson. It is better than Paul Goldschmidt is better than Pete Alonso It is better than Nate. Hello. It's better than Luis Arias, it's better than Josh Naylor, it's better than Christian Walker, it's better than Vinny Pascantino, it's better than Reese Hoskins. I mean, Wilson Contreras is a top 10 first baseman next year. Easy.

He may not be a top five guy, but five to 10, may not cost that much because people, you know, think of him as a catcher and don't necessarily think of him as an offensive juggernaut. He's going to steal some bases. You know, five stolen bases from your from your first baseman is not nothing. I think the batting average is going to be okay. I think and I think the powers will be there.

So I think, you know, back of the napkin for me is maybe 260, 25 homers and five stolen bases. And I think, you know, Steamer may be undervaluing his RBI contribution with 77 and 79, you know, on Fangraphs because I think he's gonna be their three hitter. The question I guess will be, what's the quality of the lineup? How aggressively are they gonna try and move

someone like Nolan Arñado and how much will that impact counting stats? But at the same time, I kind of look at the Cardinals more like the 2024 Mets where sure, they might move some players, but they're also not going to just throw a season away completely. They'll try to hang around. They'll try to snag a wild card. Do you think Maziliak wants to go, on his last year with like a,

you know, 71 team? I don't get that sense. Even if they're going to be more aggressively choosing direction, they're going to, they're going to play guys like new bar, maybe play more Jordan Walker and give one more year to know that they're going to trade sunny gray away. I mean, that's been, people have been like sort of salivating over getting him. I'm not sure that's going to happen. I think they'll try to build a team

that they think could be competitive. And if it's not, maybe trade off at the halfway mark. Here's a bunch of position moves that I think are more in the could happen than in the will happen bucket, especially because two of these guys are free agents. But Alex Bregman, who had a bone spur removed from his elbow, is willing to move to second base.

We were talking about his defensive value being a big part of why you'd be okay. Giving him a longer term deal, despite his age, right? And I think that's kind of a, if he's on the right team that already has a third base, been sure, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't seek that out as the better place to play him in the short term. That's, that's a agent leaking it to get more teams interested. That's how I see it. And I think actually this next one, you know, that I'll just,

Willie Adames playing third, that's just saying, Hey, yeah, Mets, I'll take your money. Right. Right. I'll take money from anybody. I'll play somewhere else on the infield. I think Willie could stay at shortstop for a few more years and then eventually move, but he could move right away in the right circumstances. Like Marcus Simeon.

Hey, Marcus Simeon could have played short a little bit longer, but you know, and I guess he'd already playing second with Toronto, but I don't know if that's the best example. There've been other guys like this that are just, they just take the money and make the switch. The, um, the interesting thing to me about the Mets having rumored, having put an offer on the table for Willie Domas already is that it doesn't seem like Pete Alonso is a priority if they're going after Adamas and it seems like maybe

Mark Vientos is our first baseman and Alonso is the guy we get if we don't get Soto rather than any sort of early plan. So we may come out of this where the Mets have signed Willie Adamis, Juan Soto, and two starting pitchers. Well, that'd be fun. I might go spend some money. Oh, they're going to spend some money. This is a good opportunity to get some significant upgrades onto that roster. How about this one?

The blue J is considering moving Vlad junior to third base. We're doing this again. Let me see what he, what he did announce above average, but, uh, I didn't think he was such a good first baseman that he should definitely be a third baseman. That has been my assessment as well, even though there have been some times where Vlad has, I think, done some work to improve in that facet. I think by defensive run saved, he was only a minus one this year. He was a minus six in 23 and he was a plus three at 2022.

So one pretty bad year, but okay, otherwise. Third baseman when he tied it in 2019, but he was a plus one third baseman in 2024 and a minus nine first baseman. I mean, that's where you start to look at sample and you're like, okay, 40 attempts at third and he had 290 at first, which one's more likely to be true? Oh, probably the minus nine at first.

Yeah, probably just by sheer volume, but it's interesting that they're kicking it around just to open up something. I mean, I have no problem with it. Schneider at first and second or something. I guess, or maybe they, maybe they have some interest in Pete Alonso and want to just not commit them to DH and have the floating DH, who knows, there's a number of ways. Maybe the most interesting thing buried on this rundown is and want to just not commit them to DH and have the floating DH. Who knows? There's a number of ways.

Maybe the most interesting thing buried on this rundown is Jeff Hoffman drawing some free agent interest as a starter. We talked about a few names that we thought could possibly follow the Ronaldo Lopez track. We just learned, I think today, breaking news, Mason Miller's staying in the bullpen, the A's are not going to do the Garrett crochet thing with Mason Miller, at least not in 2025, but does Jeff Hoffman as a former starter have a good enough combination of secondaries and Velo where he could give up a little bit of Velo, still have enough pitches and enough shape and enough command to make the move

back to starting again. I think it's interesting because most of what we saw of Jeff Hoffman as a have enough pitches and enough shape and enough command to make the move back to starting again. I think it's interesting because most of what we saw of Jeff Hoffman as a starter came in Colorado and well, that's really, really hard to do. Right. I mean, a little bit of a window in Cincinnati kind of splitting the role, but basically made that move for good in 2022. He's such a different player than he was in Colorado, but I think there there's something to this because

I've seen basically when you go to starting from relieving you lose five to ten points of stuff plus and You can lose that You know the worst the place where it's the most important is off your fastball and so somebody like Ronaldo Lopez He lost a little bit more than that. He went from a 124 stuff plus fastball to 91 but starting at Anyone overall he went from 125 still plus to 96. That's a that's a bigger drop, but

It's a similar starting point to Hoffman You know 125 down to 96 Hoffman was 122 stuff plus last 128 and 123 and 116 last year. So if he if he has a less of a drop off than Lopez or about a similar one, he could still have average ish above average stuff for a starter. He has a four pitch arsenal right now with two fastballs, a splitter and a slider. So in terms of width of arsenal, he's got it. And then the last thing I look at is can he command his different pitches? He had above average locations on both fastballs and a 97 on a slider. So in location plus on the slider. So I think this guy can locate a bunch of pitches.

The question is how far will the stuff fall on the fore seam? If it drops worse than Lopez or, you know, even about as aggressively as Lopez, it gets a little bit dicier because then you're talking about a 90 zero stuff plus on the fastball and you know, if it it drops below 90 then you're putting a lot of pressure on how with how wide the arsenal is how much command he is i don't think he has above average command this is the first year he had average command according to location plus so

it's not it's not a set in stone thing but uh i like him just about as much as my nate pierson and griffin jack's idea so i think I might have to write this one up. All right. Well, I'm excited to see that right up. And I think, you know, he does have a few different toggles he can make, but when you're already throwing your slider 40% of the time as a reliever and you're putting more pressure on your four seamer, it's the other pitches that you're going to have to throw more, it's going to have to be more splitters, more two

seamers, I think, or a new pitch. Maybe he can, if he still has four as reliever, maybe he can add a cutter. He can find something else that can come into the mix and also help take some of that pressure off. We shouldn't, uh, we shouldn't, uh, not mention, uh, the Giants planning to move Tyler Fitzgerald off shortstop. Um, I think that bodes poorly for his playing time projection on top of what you would assume was a lot of regression due to the strikeout rate.

So I think there's a large collapse, a possibility with Tyler Fitzgerald. I don't know how much I would invest in him. Right. I mean, I think the giants, regardless of the influence of Buster Posey at this point, I think they probably have some amount of skepticism about how sustainable Tyler Fitzgerald's 2024 is, even if they are in fact proud of themselves for sticking with it, giving the opportunity and developing what they've got so far. Just moving him off shortstop already without even having the new shortstop on the roster

probably gives you a little bit of an indication of that lack of confidence overall. Also why would he say that out loud? Well, he's new to that particular aspect of his job. So that's something he might not tell people in the future. It's not good. You know why? I mean, it's obvious why, right? I mean, now you're talking to Willie Dime. He's like, oh, you don't have a shortstop. Right.

Yes, that's that even if even if people on the outside could look at Tyler Fitzgerald and draw that conclusion, it's different for them to do it than for Buster to say he's moving off shortstop. Say it publicly. Ah, the other interesting thing on the rundown, Ben Brown, it's going to have a scan on his neck soon in hopes of being cleared for a normal off season. I'm glad I'm not the only one who uses normal off season as a phrase after being gently schooled by Pat Murphy last year for asking about Aaron Ashby.

If Ben Brown is cleared for a normal off season, I am very excited about what 2025 could bring for him. I was trying to get him at the end of the season and keeper leagues. I think he could be an impact starter who sort of begins near the bottom of the rotation, but then quickly ascends to be like a number three with lots of K's for that Cubs team. And if they ever make him reliever, I think he's immediately the favorite for closer job. I mean, that's the kind of stuff he has.

So there are a couple of ways that can work out for him. I see a funny one on here. Royce Lewis could see more time at second base. Royce Lewis, who has said he does not like playing second base. That's great. That's exactly what you want for one of the, one of the players that you're going to be leaning on for these next couple of seasons as you probably don't spend a lot of money in Minnesota.

You might be going through an ownership change. You've got TV money problems, all of these things. So you take a guy like Royce Lewis. you're like, why don't you play a position that we don't, that you don't like when you can play a few. I mean, I mean, it's who's the favorite to play third base. They had, was it Miranda? He's not a very good third baseman. Jose Miranda based on what they have right now.

Yep. And then Julian playing more first base if they don't bring back Carlos Santana. Which I wouldn't, I'd be very happy with what I got out of him, but I'd be getting nervous about his age. I mean, he was the oldest regular in baseball last year, I think. So we're gonna start checking in

with some of the beat writers we have about off season plans for teams. I think the twins will be a fascinating one. The Cubs will be a fascinating one. So we'll have those episodes coming out in the near future. I mentioned before we're off during the upcoming week. It's our rare one week off.

We don't take a lot of weeks off. Usually we get one in November. We won't even take Thanksgiving week off. We'll bank some stuff. You'll have some something to do there. Yeah, we'll drop a few episodes even when we're not working at the very end of the year as well. So tons of content on the way.

It's been restorative to have a little bit of a break. I've been thinking about what to do with the podcast. I think we'll have some really fun things to do next year. If there were things we didn't do a lot of, but you liked, please tell us in the Discord, because we are considering all these different options, maybe even some shorts for our YouTube page. And so if you have ideas on that regard, please help us, uh, you know,

get grow and be even better next year. Um, and part of that process is, uh, taking a sort of retreat, one week retreat, uh, and we'll be back with you soon. All right. It's good to do for this episode of rates and barrels, drop those ideas in our discord channel is in the show show description if you'd like to join Discord. If you haven't done that already, that is going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on the 18th of November.

Thanks for watching!