Rates & Barrels - Oneil Cruz Injury, Early Starting Pitcher Pickups, and the Value of Two-Start Weeks

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

DVR and Eno discuss the lengthy absence on tap for Oneil Cruz, another frantic weekend of free-agent pickups in fantasy baseball, the value of two-start weeks in weekly leagues, and several players of interest as the second week of action winds down.  Rundown 1:47 Oneil Cruz's Injury & Lengthy Absence 6:40 A Woefully Thin Waiver Wire Position 13:26 Pitchers of Interesting From Weekend Pickups 22:41 A Wide Range of Outcomes for Kris Bubic? 25:51 Why Two-Start Weeks Are So Valuable 34:02 JP Sears: A Second Viable Starter in Oakland? 44:28 Digging for Deep League Bats 52:29 Francisco Álvarez's Opportunity to Stick Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Today's episode of Rates & Barrels is brought to you by ... Factor: Head to factormeals.com/rates50 and use code RATES50 to get 50% off your first box. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Best Western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze. And it felt a little like... Come on kids, back to the hotel room. Good night kids. Good night mama. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at best western Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Monday, April 10th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. Eno, back from vacation. Eno, how was your trip? It was great. The weather in New York was weird. There were days that we had that were 70 and sunny and also days where the high was like 45. So that took some navigating. But we checked out the New York Metropolitan Museum. We checked out the Art.

We checked out the Natural History Museum. We went to the Color Factory. We went to the top of the Empire State Building. We went to two Magic the Gathering comic book stores. We went to the park like three times. And we had generally a good time. I ate something like seven sandwiches and tried out something like 15 beer bars.

It's really good for a week, 10 days. 10 days, yeah. So yeah, I definitely average more than a beer bar per day. So I think I have enough for a piece in there somewhere. Yeah, that's just research. That's just part of the job. Someone's got to go out there and do it. So glad to have you back and glad you had a good time in New York.

And that sounds like the Midwest sort of weather that I have been hiding from for the last two years. Just like, oh, you get these really nice days unexpectedly and then it goes back to being terrible again. Just lovely how that happens. Lots to talk about on this episode. We're going to start today with the O'Neill Cruz injury. Unfortunately, the Pirates fast start to the season kind of has a cloud hanging over it now, and I just saw a timetable pop up a little

while ago. It sounds like he's going to miss 10 to 12 weeks after having surgery on the ankle. It was a fractured, suffered from sliding into home plate. Just an awkward collision. I didn't really think it was a dirty play. He slid a little late and just folded up pretty bad.

I was wondering what the White Sox idea was because I saw that happening in real time. And I was like, what are the White Sox mad about? But I guess Sebi Ceballos said after the game that he thought the slide was late. Yeah, it looked like it was late. But it didn't look like it was late for the sake of being malicious. It just looked like late awkward. Yeah. I thought he was running hard,

so he wanted to get there, and he thought the play would be close. I don't know. I also just wonder, the gray area about blocking the lane or not. Yeah. I know the throw brought him in there, and I don't think it was malicious, but wasn't

he in his lane? I don't know. It looked like he was, but it also, to me, looked like if Cruz had just been running on the outer part of the baseline, he would have been okay. He would have had a path where he would have been less likely to collide the way he did. Definitely more hitters with the home plate and with the rules they are, should do that.

I mean, definitely everyone should look as smooth as Trey Turner. But you know how Trey Turner does that, slide past the bag and touch it? That sort of takes you out of a lot of the traffic around home plate. And I think most times that's a good solution. But yeah, really unfortunate because O'Neal Cruz did seem to be improving some of his contact rate problems.

And had been having a decent beginning of the season that could have led to the breakout that everyone was calling for. Especially given how great his discipline has been. I think it's going to be hard for him to really surpass... What do you think the over-under is on plate appearances for the year? He's missing three months off for sure.

So, I mean, yeah, probably 250 at most would be the final tally. Maybe 300 if everything goes really well and he comes back and they just let him play nearly every day, which would be the plan. So long as he doesn't need some maintenance days off here and there.

Yeah, somewhere between 250 and 300 now is the range. I know that there's people out there, even long-term friends of mine, that are texting me about some sort of possibility of maybe trading O'Neal Cruz for a non-keeper in sort of keeper situations. The one I'm listening to is like, oh, should I trade O'Neal Cruz for a year of Francisco Lindor, where I would have Cruz for three? I think that's actually the most difficult

part, especially given that we saw a real advancement. I know it's only 40 plate appearances, but a real advancement in his swing rates and his aggression at the plate. And that's like the key that unlocks everything. I don't think he can be like a 18% walk rate,

20% strikeout rate over his whole career. But if he can be 11% or 12% walk rate and a 22% to 25% strikeout rate guy, this is a superstar, right? Because he does everything else really well so i my tendency to say man three years of superstar i know lindor is great it'd be one year maybe you could win with him my tendency is to err towards you know caution and be like i'm gonna keep o'neill cruz here this still looks like a potential star. It's an unfortunate timing, but

I'd want to keep him. Short term, only league options are maybe like Nick Ahmed stealing some bases and playing a little bit. You get to the deeper leagues.

You could actually use Rodolfo Castro in a 15-team league as a replacement because I do think Rodolfo, that's what happened in the game. Rodolfo went there. Jiwon Bae came into the game and could have gone to short, but they put Castro at short.

So I'm kind of thinking Castro is the shortstop. Jiwon Bae and Tucapita Marcano are going to play more going forward. Those are some solutions there. I don't know. Do you have any sort of waiver wire options in front of you for 12 and 15 team leagues? Yeah, I was looking for a middle infielder in a 15 team last night. So backing up a little bit, I'm a little worried about Anthony Volpe's slow start if you're relying on him. So I was trying to do a little bit of preparation to have a new shortstop at

the ready in case he were to get sent down in the next week or two. He continues to struggle. I could see them making a quick decision to send him down and play IKF or somebody else in that spot for a little while. And in 15s, it's not surprising we talked about it i think during draft season shortstop does actually thin out at the bottom of the pool if only because most teams are playing a star there and if they're not playing a star there they're looking for someone and if they're looking for someone they're not really playing

anyone there on an everyday basis that you'd want to have on your team. Most of the players that you're going to find who are shortstop eligible in a 15-team league, if they didn't just pick up that eligibility this year because they move around, they're like a Miguel Rojas type. The best I could do in a 15-team league yesterday was Brandon Crawford.

I felt like that was actually okay given the circumstances. That was at least a passable sort of replacement. I think you're looking at that sort of level right now in a 15-teamer. In a 12, you may be a bit more fortunate. You may have some guys that actually have a little bit more of a baseline that you could accept in the lineup on a consistent basis. Are you going to get one-for-one production for what you're expecting

from O'Neal Cruz, from whoever you pick up? Of course not. That's not going to happen. It's ugly. I've got a 12 open right now. It's complicated that it's a dynasty and it has somewhat deeper benches than most. Volpe and

Tovar are available at the top, but they're owned. The best options, other than that, by own percentage on Yahoo are John Birdie, Elvis Andrews, and Nick Gordon. Perdomo's there.

I think the only guy that I would take over Brandon Crawford or maybe take is Nick Gordon just for the hope that he gets together. The top end outcomes for Nick Gordon might be better than the top end of outcomes for like a 33 year old, 34 year old Brandon Crawford. Yeah.

You mentioned Perdomo in there. I was just curious. I thought I saw a good line on him so far and he's played well. He's got a 438, 571, 813. I snap said Ahmed to my friend, but maybe Perdomo is the one. You had said before the season started that you thought Perdomo is a sort of hot take-ish, could put things together. He is not hitting the ball any harder than usual. No, he's not.

He does have a 600 Babbitt. Yeah, 600 Babbitt and he's got a 16.7 hard hit rate yeah right so i don't i don't think it's happening right now i think i still stick with ahmed but uh yeah that's that's the deep legs it's a it's a tough place to take an injury i'm hoping if you have him in an mi uh you know in a 12 team league let's see if it gets any better at second. There's a possibility Miguel Vargas is out there for you. Brandon Drury is available in my league. That would be very happy to pick up Brandon Drury at this point.

Josh Rojas is playing and stealing bases. He's out there for me. Those are some guys that could help. The other name that I guess you have to think about would be Kyle Farmer. He's playing quite a bit for the Twins right now too. Probably more of a 15-team league sort of player than a 12-team league sort of player.

It's a tough injury for all sorts of reasons. We want to see O'Neal Cruz play. We want to see what he can do taking those steps forward. It's a very thin position as we try and find middle infield production the guy that i think could become interesting who was picked up in a few of my leagues but is still out there in a few is edmundo sosa al and i talked about the phillies situation with derrick hall going down to an injury and it looked like cody clemens was going

to get the first crack at the big side platoon role at first base. But I started looking more at Mundo Sosa, who already has third base and shortstop eligibility. So he's kind of a nice player for deeper leagues anyway, with corner and middle. I started looking at some of the underlying stack cast numbers in recent years. Barrel rate last year got up to 5.5%. It's not high, but it's not terrible. And he runs well. He's one of those guys he's got a

pretty good sprint speed pretty good max exit velocity it reminds me a little bit of tyro estrada actually where it's sort of like hey if this guy gets playing time and just sees big league pitching on a more regular basis there could be a little bit of a skills improvement just from the the regular playing time and because he can can run, especially, that might actually provide a sneaky amount of value off the wire, given the needs the Phillies have on that depth chart right now. Yeah, I mean, he hits too many ground balls, and he's always had okay max EVs, border on really good. And so really, it's been about unlocking

that power and actually lifting the ball some. Even with this kind of a profile, he could hit 15 homers and steal 10 bags. That's not bad for deeper leagues. The configuration

the Phillies used in their lineup on Sunday, they moved Alec Boehm over to first base played sosa at third that to me makes more sense than forcing clemens into the equation i think clemens is much more of a bench player if you had to choose one of those guys to play a lot i think sosa makes more sense plus doing that improves your uh uh oh man ligament and his right thumb for Hall. So that's got to be at least a month. It's horrible timing for a guy that was just getting an actual shot that was probably never really going to happen for him in Philly.

It's really bad. But for the Phillies, the slightly positive outcome for this is that Sosa at third and Baum at first is a much better defensive lineup for them. And if Sosa can play well enough offensively, this could be a better lineup for them. Now with, I would say, above average defenders at every spot in the infield, that would be something new for the Phillies. Yeah, it's a nice turn in the right direction to see that happening. Whoa, what are you listening to this for?

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Ford.ca. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton bike or bike plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access membership separate. Terms apply. Let's talk about some of the other things that were happening over the weekend from a pickups perspective because I think this time of year, it's really tough to read too much into performances.

We're still talking about three series worth of games. We want things to mean a lot and they just don't yet for the most part. So I think it's a good time to sort of look at what people are doing in our leagues, assess whether or not these are good processes or bad processes and hopefully improve our own outlooks with our own rosters by thinking through these problems.

One of the biggest pickups of the weekend in 12-team leagues was Tyler McGill. And the Tyler McGill-David Peterson battle to stay in that rotation is 100% on. No Verlanders making progress, getting close to a return. We saw some three-digit bids on McGill this weekend. And I remember going back to the beginning of last season when he was filling in for Jacob deGrom. There was a lot of excitement then too because the stuff was really good.

Does he still look a little bit like that guy? I know he had the arm injury last year that cost him significant time. It seems like the hype this time around is lower, but this is a very good situation if Tyler McGill is even 90% as effective as he was at the beginning of last

season. Yeah, I think he's about there. It's down. The velo is down. It's not like when he came up and sort of blew the doors off everything, the velo was up and then he transitioned to a relief role and that kept his velo and stuff plus numbers up despite the, I mean, because of the role change more than anything. So I think that was covering up the fact that maybe he can't really sustain that velo as a starter but the numbers so far this year suggest that he has an average fastball an above average slider and two secondaries that he can make work in the curve and change I think that's a four pitch mix with a great home park and I think that is probably worth bidding fairly aggressively for because it's across the board better than the numbers for David Peterson in the model at least. And in the past, he's beaten David Peterson in the stuff plus model as well. So I think McGill is the guy who's right to state. Now, Carlos Carrasco looked pretty terrible. He looks really bad in the in the model with a 70 stuff plus on the fastball, which is the number that comes online the fastest. There could be something going on with Carlos Carrasco that opens it up for both of them. However, I think being fairly aggressive on McGill makes sense.

go that far because i do have noticed that when i looked at my uh pitching on the wire it still actually looks somewhat interesting to me and in my main we got outbid on a whole pitcher chain just because we saw them as all kind of uh similar this happens and so I don't remember who we lost out on. I can probably figure that out really quickly. But Miguel wasn't available for us. And so these are names that aren't maybe as relevant. It seemed like a lot of leagues. It was Chris Bubich, Bryce Elder, Braxton Garrett, who's back in the rotation for the Marlins.

Those three were pretty frequently added because they were widely available. And because of matchups and two-start weeks and different things, that pulled people in. Saw some Matt Strom bids. Those were relatively small by comparison. But Bubic has been kind of an interesting person to talk about because he's changed his arsenal again. Added a slider. He's picked up velo. I know the pitching models actually like those changes quite a bit.

And I was watching him a little bit yesterday against the Giants. And when I watch Bubic, I try to set a reasonable expectation when someone pops in the model who was previously really bad. Because you don't want to say everything looks better. He's a sub three ERA guy because the guys around him and stuff are that good. It's like, no, it doesn't, doesn't quite work like that.

It's improvement. Is it enough improvement to where, especially in 15 team leagues, you're going to use someone like boobage for these next couple of weeks in most matchups. Cause these are decisions you have to make. It's, it's not just picking up someone because they're interesting.

It's picking them up and using them. And he's home against Atlanta this week. So if you picked up Chris Bubich and you paid 5%, 7%, 10% of your budget, whatever it ended up being, you're probably inclined to go ahead and fire him out there in your lineup right away. So I'm just curious what you make of these adjustments

and how much you trust him with that matchup. And he's got a road stop against the Angels for his start next week, too. Those are two reasonably tough spots for him that are a good test for fantasy managers, too. Yeah, I mean, we're watching him pitch in San Francisco against a team that is up and down offensively. It's fair to say that they're kind of really erratic right now. I don't know exactly what it is, but they're missing against some lineups of some pitchers and thundering against others in San Francisco right now.

But Bubic in his second start, which is not in the Fangraphs numbers right now, as we record, I really apologize for that. There's been a few hiccups as we've been rolling this out and i don't know where exactly those are but we are going to figure it out the second start the sunday start uh for boobage his fastball went from 112 stuff plus to 86 that's the kind of pitch there that's most important in small samples and most meaningful in Stuff Plus in small samples. And he went longer. He had to throw more four-seamers. The first outing,

I believe, was four innings. So there is a chance that those first numbers were inflated by being a shorter outing. His slider is good in the model. The curveball is not as good. And the changeup I'm gonna throw an IDK on. It was a 72 in the first start and a 92 in the second. Changeups are just more erratic in the model. I'm gonna say maybe give him an average change up a plus slider and an average four seam I don't think this is very meaningfully different from other Kansas City Royal starters that have had similar profiles so for me Bubic is a guy who's very schedule dependent I am not ready to put him in my top 50 and so he was in a grouping that I lost out on him, but in the grouping were Braxton Garrett and Wade Miley.

And I preferred Garrett and Miley to him. Garrett has more pitches and similar stuff, and I think better command. Miley is kind of a two-pitch guy but I think maybe three and slider cutter change and he's I don't like his home park as much but he's an established guy who looks like he's pitching fine. So I think I have Garrett and Miley above Bubich. I guess maybe Bubich has a better home park than Miley so maybe Garrett, Bubic, Miley would be my ranking, and all those guys are in the 70s, 80s.

Does that sort of describe how you feel about it? Yeah. I think the ceiling of everything goes right, and that's just a full season of health. The pitch is working. Hitters not making adjustments to make those pitches less effective. It's probably that of a guy that would go in the pick 150 to 200 range. It's like an SP5, right?

If you think back to draft season. So I think it's, for me, I like to think back to how I valued players when we were building teams and then just compare the guys we're seeing like how different is this guy than the guys i was taking at this part of the draft and i think we want guys that are available in fab in the early weeks of the season to be super valuable because we want to think we're making our teams a lot better we're we're taking these steps to make our team win a title and sometimes we are other times we're just shuffling deck chairs right other times we're just shuffling deck chairs, right? Other times we're just like,

it's another, it's like the guy we could have drafted, we could have drafted Bubic at round 28, round 29, round 30. We drafted somebody else instead. And they're basically the same guy and they're both schedule dependent and they both have below average skills.

I'm not saying to dismiss these fast starts either. But what I'm saying is I think sometimes we just lose sight. We do all that research for months and months and months, and then we get to the first, second, third fab, and we start cutting guys, and we start picking guys up, and we're like, it's almost like we have two or three beers, and our judgment's starting to get a little bit cloudy. It's like, whoa, just hold on. Just take a breath and just make sure that you're actually making a move that's good. Not to cut someone who's hurt or someone who's been just truly awful. That's fine.

That's easy to do. But I just think if Bubic, the most likely outcome, even with the changes, probably a top 75 to top 100 starter. Usable, matchup dependent, but you probably cut a matchup dependent starter who's in that same cluster for him. If you didn't have an easy drop for him, I guess that's the bigger point that I'm trying to make. And I'll phrase it a different way. What's the difference between Chris Bubich and Jeffrey Springs? Because I think some people would say, well, look at Jeffrey Springs. He wasn't good before last season. He came out of nowhere and he shoved great ratios

and struck plenty of guys out and was a good value kind of in that pick 150 range who then had the late bump this draft season why can't boobage be like that is is he like that or is he uh i think i think this was a jeff zimmerman tweet did he make enough adjustments with the velo and the new pitches where he's kind of a clean slate where it's like the k Kyle Wright thing last year. Because I thought Wright, this time last year, was one of the easier, this guy is different sort of pickups that I've seen in a few years.

I thought it was a pretty clear, this is worth taking the gamble on, enough has changed, and the team is good. So there are lots of ways for it to go right. Bubish doesn't necessarily have the, and the team is good. So that might hold him back a little bit too value-wise if these skills are only taking a small step forward instead of a massive step forward.

No, it's a good point. I mean, we have these models to react fast. I do think that probably the best place that I'd be looking is Brady Singer last year. And Brady Singer last year popped and was the 42nd best starting pitcher. And I think in a lot of ways has a similar situation in terms of his pitches. I mean, he's a guy with a great, in his case, sinker, slider, and a changeup to perform better than the model set. And I think that's what we have with Chris Bubich right now.

So if you want to believe, I'm not going to stand in your way. What I see there, though, in the fastball taking a step down in the second start of the season when he has to go deeper, that worries me a little bit. Because he's basically a fastball slider guy in this model, whereas Jeffrey Springs was a guy who had multiple pitches. Now, I think there's just a lot less pressure on your pitches. Think of Spencer Strider.

He's the guy who has two top 10 pitches. So what his changeup does matters less right every step you take down the ugly tree every branch you hit down the ugly tree on each of your pitches puts more pressure on you to have more pitches right tyler anderson doesn't have any top 10 pitches and so he has to have like six pitches. In any case, when I look at Springs, I see a wider arsenal that I believe in. When I look at Blue Ridge,

I kind of see a fastball slider guy. Okay. That's a good explanation and I think a fair way to look at it. It's a crazy time of year for all of these reasons. The other guy that was a popular pickup, I think it was because it was a two-start week, is Bryce Elder. I've never seen it from a skills perspective from Bryce Elder, but

I value two-start weeks and we got a question about why two-start weeks are so valuable and how exactly you balance skills versus the matchups versus all these other factors we're trying to take into consideration. It's a really good question. So let's just take the broader part of this first, because you mentioned Wade Miley being someone that you picked up this week. I've got him in a couple places. Not that I think the skills are good. He doesn't miss that many bats. Two starts from Wade Miley.

You're very likely going to get one victory. You're very likely going to get eight or nine strikeouts. You're hopefully going to get ratios that actually help you more than they hurt you. Most likely, you're going to get ratios that are neutral.

You just get more volume from someone like miley than you get from someone like boobitch who has a tough matchup and goes to atlanta like that's or play as atlanta at home like that's that's the sort of decision people might have to actually be making this week yeah yeah and the thing is that the deeper you go, I think if you make an argument about most leagues, 12 to 15-team leagues, you can easily say that a two-start pitcher is better, even at the extremes. So I found a story here by Paul Mamino on Fantrax from 2020.

We actually did the research where he grouped pitchers into elite, above average, average, below average, and poor based on their seasonal ERA. That's a little bit problematic. I would rather have used projected ERA, but it does give you a sense of the groupings. And he said that two starters

for every group other than poor outperformed one starters that were even elite. So even a below average pitcher, and this is someone who has a seasonal ERA between 425 and 475 for him, even a below average two-start pitcher outperformed a one-start elite pitcher. Now, I think that's true, and so there's a lot of leagues where, you know, weekly leagues where, especially 12, you just want to get those groupings.

What I will say is that if you extend this out to, like, the most extreme, say, the most extreme is probably, like, a 12-team AL only, 12-team NL only. Every pitcher on the wire is poor. I mean, there's like there's like every once in a while you you pop and you're like oh I got this guy off the wire congratulations you got the one you know and so there's no way in an NL or AL only league you should be you should be out there churning starters off the wire. It'll go very poorly for you.

And what I found in my 15-team NFC main, NFBC main, was that at least by midseason, that's what I was looking at. I was looking at the poor grouping. And so what I've tried to do this year is, yes, on my team, I will give preference to two starters over one starters and so when i'm setting my lineup i will care about two starts but when i'm picking pitchers up i want them to have the chance to stick on my team i want them to have the chance to stick

further so bryce elder it may be a blind blind spot I know that there are other people out there that put massive bids down for Bryce Elder or not massive but like you know I saw one analyst you know putting $50 bids down on Bryce Elder and I saw him as more of a sort of $6 to $9 streaming guy and I had braxton garrett at 11 because i just thought

it's more likely that i want to keep braxton garrett on my team all year um and so that's how i sorted my way through it and i on and tgfbi ended up with with wade miley with the same sort of Wade Miley with the same sort of approach. Yeah, if you look at the rotation right now for Atlanta with Freed and right down, those guys come back. They're obviously in other spots. Strider and Morton have spots. And then you've got, until Mike Soroka's ready,

the fifth starter spot left. So you don't have that long window. I mean, Elder could take that job. I think he's better than Dodd and Schuster, but I also think Soroka's better than Elder. I mean, none of the stuff plus numbers favor any of his pitches, Elder's, last year or this year. In fact, all below average.

Yeah. But I think this is always just one of these topics that comes up because when you look at Fab most weeks, some of the, well, that guy went for that much pitchers usually it's because they've got two starts or if it's guys that you didn't trust at all and they got picked up oh no they got two starts this week and both of them happen to be good uh miley you know the k rate like we mentioned before a tad on the low side i still i wouldn't worry about that i think part of this too comes back to usage. I think if he is struggling,

he doesn't go through the lineup a third time. If he's pitching well, he gets that opportunity. It's sort of like the way the Rays manage a lot of their, their backend sort of starters. That's the way the Brewers previously used Wade Miley when he was there five years ago. I think that's same situation that we have in front of us right here. I think that's the same situation that we have in front of us right here.

I had some missed bids that didn't go through on Dean Kramer. I think he had a two-start week coming. Brad Keller has popped somewhat in the stuff model. He's added a sweeper. So now he has, I believe, two sliders. Anyway, yeah, I think Brad Keller has two sliders going. He has a good matchup this week, doesn't he? Keller is at Texas. Yeah, I think that's an okay matchup, but it's hard to believe in him fully.

And it's hard to believe in him fully not so much because of the new arsenal, which in his last start, he him fully and it's hard to believe in him fully not so much because of the new arsenal which in his last start he had an above average four seam by stuff plus an above average curve ball and then a really plus slider and sweeper so i do think with you know three breaking balls and a fastball like that he he can be successful this year. It's just so hard to bet on him when the whips in his past have been so high. I know his locations have been good so far, but that doesn't mean that they're going to continue to be, right? I mean, he's a guy who's had struggle with command.

His arsenal is better. In fact, to me, when I look at Brad Keller's revamped arsenal, I like it better than Bubich's. Interesting. It's more complete. But with Keller out there, I'm not going to invest that hard in Bubich because I feel like Keller's still out there. I can just get him next week, especially if he shoves against Texas,

although I wonder if his price will go up then. I think Sears looks a little bit interesting. I think he's at least interesting as an Oakland pitcher. That's a nice place to pitch. Yeah. So this week, J.P. Sears has the Orioles on the road. That's a Monday start. And then he ended up with, I believe, the Mets on Sunday,

but he does get them at home. It starred an A other than Kyle Muller, an A's pitcher at this point. I think that's really difficult to do. I was watching some of the Ken Waldachuk start against the Rays. Painful. And there was a sequence, too, where he had a couple of good plate appearances in trouble. The bases were loaded. Yeah, it was right before the Grand Slam.

And he struck out Yanni Diaz and Wander. And he was doing a good job elevating his fastball. All right, this is a young guy. Maybe he's going to get through this. And this is going to be the moment where the light bulb goes on for Ken Waldachuk. No, it was not that moment. This is a disaster. Sears, I guess I'm curious what in his arsenal makes you willing to trust him or is it just

purely a ballpark play where it's like the command's good enough, he'll avoid damaging contact and if he's pitching at home in the damp basement, it's just going to work because it's good enough. You'll get volume in a super friendly pitcher environment. He's always had good secondaries

and he still does. What makes me a little bit interested in him is that he got 97 stuff plus on 52 fastballs in his first start. And that would be the highest stuff plus he's ever had on his fastballs in the model. So it's he didn't throw a lot of pitches, but he threw. I mean, actually, he did. He threw 90.

Was it 80, 90, 96 pitches, 98 pitches. Yeah, 98 didn't get through five, but he threw 98 pitches. Well, yes, the location plus on five, but he threw 98 pitches. Well, yes. The location plus on some of those pitches was not good, but that's not as meaningful in short terms. Waldachuk's stuff plus is actually super erratic from start to start, so I don't know what's going on there. Maybe he's feeling his way through some sort of arsenal change,

but I think in a keeper league, I'd hold onto him on my bench if I could. I might even consider acquiring. But Sears is a good pickup in deep leagues, I think. He's got a good reputation for a strike thrower with good secondaries.

And if his fastball is going to be 97 stuff plus, that's going to change things for him. That's pretty good for a starter, especially a lefty. Treat yourself to Tim's new fudge brownie lattes, made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice chilled milk, and topped with marbled chocolate curls. Now that's music to our ears. Available hot or iced, only at Tim's.

Curious, how does Sears' arsenal compare to nester cortez in the model just because same organization originally at least for a long time i think sears actually spent time in a different org before that yeah anyway it doesn't matter the bigger point is jp sears this lefty doesn't throw real hard but does have good enough secondaries and the results of the minors have been good at a lot of different stops. If you just look at the ERA and whip numbers and the K to BBs from Sears, he's a pitcher you'd be interested in just number scouting him. Yeah, and I think he's actually very comparable to Cortez. What was happening with Cortez, though, is that he was getting that fastball

bump that Sears is getting now and I think probably the Yankees saw Cortez is adding Velo and Sears maybe wasn't or was stagnant or whatever it was and they thought he was plus if you think back to when

the trade was happening Cortez was shoving right oh yeah he was in the major leagues Plus, if you think back to when the trade was happening, Cortez was shoving, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was. In the major leagues. So it was a little bit like, well, these guys are comparable and we want Frankie Montas, so this is what's going to cost us. Oh, look at those Sears numbers in the minors.

Some of them are really good. Yeah, you can't be that good in the minors and be horrible in the majors can you can you can you really like have seasons and impartial seasons where you're a sub-3 era and a sub-1 whip and then you show up in the big leagues and you're a 450 130 guy that doesn't make sense yeah i mean i think i think he was interesting and then one other guy to keep an eye on he's sort of transitioning from relieving to starting is Matt Strom in Philadelphia

when you go from a one inning start to a four inning start you kind of want to track the changes in the fastball just like i was saying with boobage and so yes in his second start the fastball didn't rate as well however we threw 31 of them and it still was 106 so could he pull a lugo you know where he's gonna just start this year and i think the Phillies could use him. I think he could bypass Bailey Falter. And I think at least the foreseam fastball,

the curve, and the slider, I think, are probably all really good pitches. So I think he has enough of an arsenal to make it work to him. Yeah, that's a pretty interesting one, too. I think he has enough of an arsenal to make it work to him. That's a pretty interesting one too. I'm with you. I think Seth Lugo just came out of nowhere to be a part of that Padres rotation again. I was a little preoccupied the last six weeks before opening day, but I didn't realize he was even in the mix for a spot like that. That was one of those things that flew completely under my radar. He's part of the reason why I bold predicted the Padres to have the best rotational ERA in

baseball, just because I saw in the Padres the best depth that they've maybe ever had. In this recent grouping, you go from throwing it all on on Young Weathers who'd never really played in the who debuted with that team that collapsed and you go from that to back in now having Michael Waka, Seth Lugo, Nick Martinez, Jay Groom, Weathers, Maura Hahn and they even signed Cole Hamill so you know. I think that's a better collection of arms that they've had behind their big three.

The Padres might be the best team in the NL right now. Off to a really good start. Had a great series against Atlanta. We saw that on Sunday Night Baseball as well. I like a lot of things about what they've been doing, of course. They've been pushing all their chips in. I've talked to Keith Law on the Athletic Baseball Show, too. They have done a good job

getting a few prospects into that system again. Jackson Merrill looks like a great pick for them as a first-rounder. The Ethan Salas signing. The Ethan Salas thing, we've got our own prospect show now during the week. Ethan Salas is going to come up a lot

on Tuesdays but I can't remember a 16 year old catcher being anywhere near big leaguers in spring training and catching them on rehab and different that's unbelievable

that is such a crazy high ceiling and I know you are very cautious about catchers in general and keeper in dynasty leagues and expecting too much too fast from them. But this looks as much like an ultra mega ceiling player as we see at the position. I mean, I wouldn't have to point very far for caution onto his own team and Luis Camposano,

who was thought of by a lot of people to be the next megastar at the catcher and has struggled his way through the first few years and some question about handing him the reins as a catcher in terms of what he has to do other than hitting because he hasn't even other than hitting uh because he you know hasn't even done the hitting that he's needed to do but there's it's 104 plate appearance you could say there's a lot there's a lot more in that bat but i think there's been some question about handling

it so i guess it is really interesting that he you know that they're willing to let him handle you know tough situations as a catcher and that they speak so highly of him as a catcher because I think that's actually more relevant a lot of times than what they're going to do offensively. Like Dalton Varshow some questions about him as a catcher. Well he was such a good hitter he hit his way through that.

That's rarer. I think Alejandro Kirk has hit his way into a starting catcher role. But there's a lot of other catchers who had good numbers in the minors, some questions about whether they catch, and then they just end up kind of middling there. Look at Eric Haas as someone who kind of belongs in that grouping, I think.

I was thinking about Will Smith, too, and just the path he took to be the player he is. I don't know if expectations were nearly as high as they should have been based on the outcome, but when you go back to the beginning of his career, low A, high A, the numbers were not bad, but they didn't jump off the page at that point. He was a first-round pick who was a college guy. It wasn't like he needed the extra development time that a high school catching prospect would need, too. That's where I think the extra layer of risk really comes in.

Remember when they sat him for Austin Hedges in the playoffs? Oh, Barnes? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Austin Barnes, yeah. That didn't make a lot of sense then, and it's impossible to believe now. But, but it, it has to do with, with catching. And, you know, there was that, remember there was the whole thing with Doug Mirabelli and, and was it Ari Dickey or Tim Wakefield? Doug Mirabelli and Tim Wakefield were like, they traded away Tim, they traded away Doug Mirabelli and then figured out that nobody else could catch Tim Wakefield.

So they had to trade back for Doug Mirabelli. Famous taxi ride, right? That was him. Yeah, I think so. Just get, come back,

come back. So, I mean, I think solace is someone to get excited about. I'm like, I'm not trying to talk down on him too much, but like, you know,

catchers are tough. It's a, it's a really, really really tough role and for what it's worth i don't think automated balls and strikes are coming i think that's going to be a more of a challenge system that's what the players like better and so framing still matters game calling still matters handling your pitcher still matters that stuff is tough to learn really quickly yeah the more i think about the balls and strikes thing i i love the challenge idea because it'd be so quick it'd be just like tennis you know you don't like the call you signal they pop it up on the board real quick you see it in real time it's like a kind of like the var responses to win for offsides and goals when you watch soccer and tennis tennis tennis does so well with it i just think it's gonna be

so quick so instantaneous it's not gonna be so well with it. I just think it's going to be so quick, so instantaneous. It's not going to be like the reviews they currently do in baseball. It's not going to be like... It's more fun. You know, like when they do the tennis ones, if I'm not mistaken, they kind of...

The crowd's like, whoa, oh, yeah. The crowd gets into it. And tennis crowds are, you know, kind of chill most of the time. Yeah, right. They chill most of the time. And sometimes right. They chill most of the time. And sometimes the most noise they make is on the, is the ball, where's the yellow going to, oh.

So, yeah, I think they can make it work. You know, I did want to call out some interesting hitters that were on the wire this week, too. that were on the wire this week too um i i won alex call and tgfbi and i and in my main one of the reasons i like him is that he has elite uh plate discipline alex call is now starting i think most days i've been trying to watch the box scores and see if they're going to sit him against um anybody but he's a righty so when he he's starting a lot, I think he could be an everyday starter in that outfield with really good plate discipline, really kind of poor max EVs so far, but that's not something you want to hold against someone in the short term necessarily. And I think he's just going to be a guy who gets to a lower raw power more often

and that's not a sexy situation but you see even in the fan graphs prospect grades 50 raw power 40 50 game power 40 45 hit it's not an exciting package but i think it's going to end up being above average across the board and paired with near elite plate discipline i think it's going to end up being above average across the board and paired with near elite plate discipline i think it's a type of player that honestly the nationals don't have and that they need if you're going to play luis garcia who swings at everything maybe have alex call on base in front of him you know what i mean so uh alex calls a guy i picked up everywhere that i could could and I think especially in deeper leagues he's playing all the time

and deserves mention another guy that I'm keeping my eye on and I didn't win is Luke Raley in Tampa another deep league guy but he's a lefty

he's playing. He's slugging. Slugged in the minors. He may strike out more than he's striking out right now, and that might be the part of his line that is hot. He may only be a 220 hitter,

but I think he could hit for power and get on base. Yeah. When we've seen him in the big leagues, it's been parts of three different seasons now, so it's only 62 games, a lot of pinch-hitting opportunities for him, but a 15.2% barrel rate. That is really good,

and it's not out of step with the power that he's shown in the upper levels of the minor leagues. I actually think seeing some of the fluctuations in his K rate, because I expect the Rays to make him firmly part of their mix-and-match platoon club, he's probably going to keep the K rate on the lower end of his range. If they let him

play more, that's when I think it would start to balloon up. He won't face lefties. Right. So I'd probably take the under on a 30% K rate, which is where all the projection systems are, but you're getting less playing time plus every day well not every day playing time but more robust playing time which he's already he's already there more robust playing time should lead to better reach rates and uh and swing rates and just you know better strikeout rates better plate to plate skills because you're just playing more. You're seeing more.

You're in there more often. It's hard, I think, when you're called up for 72 plate appearances spread over a season to really establish your approach at the plate. It's funny that you picked up Alex Call, though, because I actually got him in TGFBI as well. I saw good balanced skills. I wanted someone who's going to play

every day. I think that's one of the big things that separates it, bringing it back to the part of our conversation from earlier. If you're looking for something that's different about a player you're picking up now versus someone you either drafted or could pick up on the wire who has good skills,

the playing time separator could be the thing that makes them more sticky on the roster. The big side platoon guys are on and off the roster a lot of times. So Luke Raley and Gavin Sheets, you have to really look at the schedule for those guys in weekly leagues before you pick them up just to make sure you're going to get enough for them from the week or the week. Whereas someone like Call,

if you see he's getting starts against righties and lefties, that might nudge a guy with slightly lesser skills ahead of guys with more interesting skills for me. I know it's a dangerous game to play in some regard, but you're trying to analyze how teams are going to use their players because ultimately those extra counting stats could make the difference. to use their players because ultimately those extra counting stats could make the difference. And that extra playing time will make someone like call more valuable. If we are in fact, right about the limitations of guys like Ray Lee and Gavin sheets being capped to that big side platoon. There's some,

there's some interesting things going on and what you're talking about. Um, I think about little league and my kids and how rarely they see a lefty pitcher and I think that's I think that's true generally until you get to maybe college you know start to see some lefties but even then I think the population of lefties really doesn't come online until the the minor leagues and so if you're talking about a righty hitter you know they've seen they had the platoon advantage against lefties and they've seen righties their whole life now a lefty could make it through the minors it could make it through high school

little league all that stuff and not see that many lefties and then start to see tough lefties in the minors and then try to be try to do something about it so there's just a difference and if you're talking about the 10 000 swings or 10 000 whatever is like just a difference in volume so and then yeah i think also just in terms of fancy playing like if you have five games out of a lefty last week and you got five games out of a righty last week it's much more likely that that five game righty is a full-time player i mean ref snyder is about to hit like three lefties this week and so he's going to stretch my definition but well yeah i think that's one of the mistakes people can make an early season fab though is not breaking down the why part of of someone's playing time on a micro sort of level we had a mike curling on last week

and i feel like mike has to get to the end of the season and just be absolutely exhausted from digging through the box scores and the baseball reference pages but the the baseball reference batting orders page is probably my favorite visual presentation of what teams like to do i think there's other tools out there that do this bookmark one if you find it and then just change the team part of the url if you uh if you don't want to get lost trying to find it a second time. But you can see pretty easily who the priority plays have been for the Nats so far this season.

They have played 10 games. Jamer Candelario has started all 10 games. Victor Robles has started all 10 games. Lane Thomas. Oh, no. He showed up on some of my pickup lists. I know. He was on a team I co-managed, and I didn't push the buttons.

I didn't reject it, but I didn't push the buttons. I didn't make it happen. He's playing, and he's stealing bases, so he's irrelevant. But you can get a sense for Candelario, Robles, Thomas. They've been priority plays. C.J. Abrams, priority play for them. Nine of the ten games started so far. Dominic Smith, Kiebert Ruiz.

Oh, Joey Manessis also has nine. Kiebert and Dominic Smith and Alex Call all have eight games played. That's a pretty clear hierarchy of who's in right now. So beyond that, everybody else is six or fewer starts. And that includes Luis Garcia, who I thought would be a little more of a priority play for them early on. Corey Dickerson, one. Michael Chavis, three. Riley Adams, two. Part Chavis, three.

Riley Adams, two. That might be part of the Luis Garcia thing. I wonder about that. Yeah. So anyway, I think you can tell a lot about what teams are trying to do with their playing time once you have a few series in. I think it was really hard to do

coming out of the first series, second series. You get to three, four series, you get enough mixing and matching against righties and lefties that you could pick up on the tendencies just a little bit more and start to try and figure out if there are some advantages to be had sure for sure do you pick up francisco alvarez anywhere even though he's not catcher eligible and may take a surprising amount of time to get there no i did. It's pretty big bids in a lot of places.

It's understandable. I think the range of outcomes is very wide for Francisco Alvarez. He's a fantastic hitter. He makes very hard contact. There are questions about his defense. Omar Narvaez is on the aisle right now. Tomas Nito is a phenomenal defensive catcher,

but he's just a clear backup. Then you have to decide if you're going to sit one of your other regular hitters to prioritize Alvarez. So I looked at it and I think I think if he hits, he can stay. I really do. I don't think this is 100 percent. Narvaez comes back and he goes back down. I think it's if he hits enough and he's showing the Mets enough in his opportunities behind the plate where they're comfortable catching him on occasion, then that's fine. And then maybe he can even move up in this lineup just a little bit and end up

hitting something like fifth or sixth by season's end. I think that's in the range of outcomes, even though a return trip to AAA is also in the reasonable range of outcomes for Alvarez right now. Yeah. I just see this as sort of the, the stop start beginning of a catcher's career and i also i don't know for what it's worth i had a prospect i had a a scout in my ear about

him having a very obvious hole in the swing so i know that when he's come up his his swing strike rates have have ballooned and it yes, it's 18 plate appearances. We'll have to see on that. But he also is the kind of guy who has very high swing strike rates for his strikeout rates in the minors. I mean, he had a 19% at AAA this year, 15%, 16%. The last couple times at AA and AAA, those are pretty high. So young for the level everywhere

he's been though 27 home runs between double a and triple a and that was only 112 games last year for francisco alvarez draws enough walks i think to offset some of the k concerns has that good real life offensive player base very solidly baked in curious to see if that hole that you were told about though if that ends up being a problem for him, because if that's there, in addition to some questions about the defense, that does lead to more of that up and down sort of role. But I've pinpointed it. I think if they were going to keep Alvarez on the roster once the Nervais comes back to have a third catcher slash DH type, Tim Lacastro is the guy that has to come off the roster. And I think it's possible because Tim Lacastro has only started two games out of the first 10.

He is your spare outfielder. He's the guy you'd like to have available to play centerfield and maybe steal a base late in the game, but you don't need to have that guy. You can get so much more out of Alvarez's bat by comparison that that makes sense. They've played Tommy Pham in center against

a couple of lefties too, so they've got another guy that can play center if they need it. I don't know if they would play Canna or Marte. Marte would probably also play out there if they had a pinch. I don't think they have to keep Tim Lacastro is what I'm saying. The barrier of who would have to go, low

in this case. That's why I think so much is up to Alvarez's performance. I wonder if center field is the least important up the middle defensive position now that we've changed the shift rule. I wonder if center field is the least important up the middle defensive position now that we've changed the shift rule. I think it used to be second base because you could move them around, you could shift, you could

put two guys over there. I think that's changed. I think you want a good defender at second. The Mets right now seem to be trying out one of the poorer defensive alignments in center. I don't think it's hurting them. Doesn't seem like it's hurting them so far.

That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. On our way out the door, we still have a special offer. It's a dollar a month for the first year at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. Get that while you can. If you don't have that subscription, this is a great time to get it. You'll have all the coverage throughout the season, both fantasy baseball, real baseball. If you're into other sports subscription, this is a great time to get it. You'll have all the coverage throughout the season, both fantasy baseball, real baseball.

If you're into other sports, of course, we're covering those as well. You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper. We are back with you with Project Prospect on Tuesday. Thanks for listening. Thank you.