Rates & Barrels - Opening Day Takeaways: What matters on a granular level?

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

Eno and DVR discuss a busy Opening Day and dig through the box scores while attempting to sift through the noise to find meaningful indicators as the 2021 season gets underway. How concerned should we be with batting orders, early velocity readings, and reliever usage from the jump? Rundown 6:15 Gregory Soto’s Bumpy Save 10:29 Does Lineup Position Matter? 17:22 Making Sense of the Twins’ Bullpen 25:13 Keeping an Eye on David Bednar for Future Saves 31:07 Stashing Jose Alvarado over Archie Bradley 40:52 Regrets on Avoiding Jake Cronenworth? 43:14 Tyler Glasnow’s Slider Usage is Up! 48:13 Luis Castillo’s Velocity Drop  Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Friday, April 2nd, one day of the 2021 season in the books, and it was an eventful one. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris on this Friday, reacting to everything we saw and telling you to calm down. We're going to try and calm you down in many cases. Maybe we'll fire you up in a few cases, but we're here to help just ease the tension going into the weekend. We don't want you to dump all your players

and pick everybody up off the waiver wire. We want you to make the right moves, the right decisions. So we're going to fly around. We're going to do this a little bit different. We're going to go game by game, talk about some things that were interesting, some things that you should not overreact to, and hopefully it's going to be a lot of fun along the way. It was great seeing fans back in the stands because empty stadiums are weird and even quarter capacity stadiums look a lot more normal especially this time of year right i mean snow was falling in detroit yesterday and you wouldn't have that many fans there on a normal opening day with those weather conditions in that team being in a rebuild but uh it made for a lot of fun scenes around the league let's start

with the first game of the day jayays, Yankees. It was a Cole Ryu pitching matchup, so it was a great one for everyone to sort of break their teeth on to start the season. What stood out to you in that first game of the day? Well, it's funny. Gary Sanchez got so cheap in drafts over the course of draft season that even though I was fading him at the beginning of draft season, at the end I got, I think, two or three shares. I think he might hit 210 and that does make it a little bit tough

on you in batting average leagues. It looks like the power is back. I don't think, yes, you can overreact, but he hit the ball really hard it was like 110 or something um and um it also just reminds you it's not necessarily like oh my god you know it's more like oh yeah right you know there was the other gary sanchez other than last year so i don't

know i don't want to i it's not really useful information because either you bought in or you didn't. I guess you could. And now is not the time to send an offer over. No, no. But I was more in on Sanchez than out at the price. I felt like the batting average risk was fine. I'll take that from a catcher. The power is real.

So a little bit of validation for me being on Gary Sanchez, relatively speaking. I don't have him everywhere. I think the flaws are worth it at the price because the run production to go with that power should be well above average, especially for the position. But the real one was, I think, the wish to go out and roster Julian Merriweather everywhere, which if you've been listening, you know we've been touting the praises of Julian Merriweather.

The problem is I think that his usage, and this is why a lot of leagues I think you shouldn't pick him up because his usage suggests they held on to him in case they needed multiple innings. I think that they held on to him in case they needed two innings, right? Because they went into extra innings. I think Dolis is next in line in that bullpen. Yeah, I think that's probably the right way to look at it for now because Dolis ended up working the eighth in that matchup.

Jordan Romano got the win in relief. And I think as a group, I think we were pretty optimistic about the Jays relievers, even though it's a group of not necessarily the most established relievers, right? It's not the dominant bullpen that pops into your head when you think of league's best bullpens, but I think they'll at least be an above average. Their bullpen is better than their non-reused starters, in other words. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the concern I would have for them, especially with the Kirby Yates injury,

they're one shorter in the bullpen, and the workloads are going to catch up to that bullpen if those starters are consistently going short. This is not Kirby. Do people get that wrong? I shoehorned that in. Yeah, you really wanted to show the Pikachu shirt there. Glad you got it some face time.

Julian Merriweather save. Exciting for you in deeper leagues where you have him, not necessarily a guy you're picking up right away. Maybe an AL only staff filler would probably be where the line is still drawn from him. But great arm. So in a league, if it's really deep and you've got a deep bench and you can stash someone, yeah, great arm. Yeah, absolutely.

The Velo was definitely there. I think he had the third fastest pitch thrown in the game. Cole had the first two, but Julian Merriweather topping out at 99.1. So definitely a nice opener for him. Cole did Cole things. You know, 8Ks over 5 and change looked pretty much like himself to me. So I don't know if there's a whole lot else in this game that we need to dig into, but I thought the Detroit Cleveland game ended up being a lot more fun because I didn't know that weather was

going to be that bad until we started to see highlights from it. If you haven't seen it, look for the Miguel Cabrera highlight. He homered in this game and slid into second base because it was snowing so hard that he couldn't see the ball clear the outfield wall. So kind of a fun moment for Miggy there. And I believe it was Jason Stark who pointed this out on Twitter. That was Miguel

Cabrera's first opening day home run since 2008. Seems kind of odd. I mean, obviously a lot of peak years still in that range. Dude, that was the second thing that had happened for the first time

since 2008 yesterday because I did a little research for Trent Rosecrans and Joey Votto popped up twice in his game and that was the first time that had happened since 2008. So,

no country for old men, I guess. No kidding. Yeah, what else hasn't happened in 13 years? It's going to happen. Gregory Soto got the save, and I was recording at the time this game ended, and I was tweeting at you about it. I said, hey, Gregory Soto! And I put the Linda Belcher gif on there because

that's the inside joke, I guess, at this point. You told me not to look at the outing. How bad was it? I was like, don't look at anything else. Just look at the save. He gave up a homer, gave up two hits. One of them was a hard hit.

Didn't strike out a guy. It's one of those things where you just like, you hope it was just a bad outing. Because I would say that one thing that people might rush to take away from this is that Shane Bieber's velo was down. He gave up a homer. He gave up three runs. Matthew Boyd's velo was down. He gave up a homer. He gave up three runs. Matthew Boyd's Velo was down.

Greg Soto didn't really finish the game well. You know, there's a lot of things you could try and take away from this. It was like you said, man, it was like inclement weather. And I remember kind of overreacting to some cold weather velo in the past. I even looked into it and velo wasn't down that big across all cold weather, but I think there are sort of like layers of cold weather. There's like, Oh, it's a little bit nipply. And then there's like, we are in a blizzard. What is going on here?

So I'm willing to give Bieber a pass for the low velo in the first outing, especially since we didn't really hear about it all spring. I'm willing to give Boyd a little pass on that, and I'm hoping that this is just one of those ugly saves that gives Gregory Soto another chance. And then in the next one, he strikes out two clean slate, looks more presidential as it would be. If a player's stability in the closer role were a vending machine, I would say what Gregory Soto did on opening day was the first push

to start rocking it back and forth to tip it over. And for someone who's more established, the first push doesn't happen on opening day with a bad outing right right so it's a few minutes marginal right alex column a doesn't quite have that happening just yet but for gregory soto brand new closer yeah things get a little bumpy right away if you prefer boat analogies the boat is starting to rock a little bit so he can settle it down he can get the vending machine back on all four legs. He can get the boat nice and steady with a couple of clean outings.

And I think in terms of pure stuff, is it fair to say he has the best stuff in the Tigers' bullpen at this point? Yeah, I think so. Cisnero is decent as well. But Cisnero, for example, in a win was used in the seventh. So Daniel Norris is your setup guy? I've always liked Daniel Norris.

That was before we knew that he's a guy that lives in a van. I just don't see him as next closer though. I want to see when they use Fulmer next. I want to see how they use him. I'm a little bit intrigued by Fulmer as a reliever. I think that could actually work. And if Soto, in fact, does tip the vending machine over,

Michael Fulmer could be there to pick up all the Snickers bars. I had a friend in college who the vending machine dropped on his leg. Jeez. And, of course, we all wanted to scatter. We weren't doing anything. Yeah, you know, vending machines just tip themselves over all the time. So I'm sure no one you were with had anything to do with that thing falling over. I bit the bullet.

And even though I thought I might get in trouble, I was like, this guy's hurting. I'm going to stay here with him. He had a big old bone bruise. But don't drop Shane Bieber. Right. Don't drop Shane Bieber. 12 strikeouts in six innings. Turns out he's still pretty good.

Yeah, he is going to be fine. I think the one thing I would ask you, just as a broader question as we keep going through games, does lineup position matter to you on opening day? I mean, you have to account for the handedness of the opposing pitcher, of course, and think about it more like that. But do you start to look at the initial lineups and say,

okay, this is a pretty good window into how the team is viewing where these players belong, at least for the start of the year? I think you'll have to also look in tandem with the handedness of the opposing pitcher. I think that will come up with another name, unless we want to transition to that Rockies game you were mentioning. Yeah, let's go there. We don't have to go in perfect order.

Let's just jump over that one because I think we were talking about this. Josh Fuentes had the two-hole. And as much as I think Josh Fuentes is kind of interesting and I picked him up in a short term league. Who's hurt that's allowing him to play? Oh, Rogers. Yep. So they're playing McMahon at second. But Fuentes is I'm just making sure this I don't, you know, don't say something stupid, but I'm guessing he's a righty.

Yes. So if Fuentes is a righty, I doubt that he's necessarily batting second against non left handers. And it looks like the Rockies have convinced themselves they're the new Rays. And so they're going to platoon all over this new thing called platooning. Hey, they won. They won yesterday. We can't. We can't.

We can't take them down. We can still kick them. Because they didn't start my damn Sam Hilliard, man. I guess Hampson won for three with two runs and a walk. I guess they were right. Hilliard against Kershaw is a tough matchup, but I think you would find a way for Hilliard to get into the game later.

Oh, yeah, or bring him in, sub him in. Instead, they subbed McMahon in and Jonathan Daza. Somebody was making the point that this is a really bad lineup. It's a very bad lineup. Jeff Zimmerman was saying it's bad. And Coors isn't necessarily like a...

It doesn't seem to make home runs happen, at least. I think you're still going to throw great pitchers in there even when the Rockies are good, and the Rockies are bad right now. So it's just a question of how far down your ranks are you willing to go throwing pitchers in Colorado?

That's a little more of an open question now than it has been in past years. When you knew before, most years when they were good, Blackman at his peak, Arenado there, you'd look at that lineup and say, yeah, I'm not really throwing anyone but a top five or top eight pitcher there. Yeah, exactly. Ten, yeah anyone, but like a top five or top eight pitcher there. Yeah, exactly.

Ten. Yeah. But in most circumstances this year, I think you'd be more aggressive. Your shot got rocked. Didn't have a called strike or whiff percentage over 30% on any of his three pitches. Gave up max exit velocities over 100 on the slider and the four seam. Sat 91. I don't know, man.

It's still pretty tough out there, I guess. Yeah, but I think the main takeaway here, does lineup position matter on opening day? I mean, yes, a little bit. It could be an indicator that they really believe in the platoon of McMahon and Fuentes being something that keeps Ryan McMahon from playing against lefties. If Brendan Rodgers were there... It would be annoying lefties. If Brendan Rodgers were there...

He's going to be annoying as heck. If Brendan Rodgers were there, Chris Owings maybe doesn't play. They found a way to get Chris Owings into the game instead of putting McMahon or Hilliard in. And I guess it worked out, but that means that you downgrade Hampson, Hilliard, Fuentes, McMahon, all of them. None of them is an every down back.

And if you're in a weekly league, they're kind of like, they're borderline plays anyway because they're not good bats, right? They're okay, right? If you were like, okay, every time they have five games of cores i'm gonna play them good except like with hilliard this week he had four games in cores and i was like okay i'll start him well i didn't in the end i ended up putting people like brian reynolds and even rowdy tellez in over sam hillard, even though he's home for four, because he was only going to play two of them.

Yeah. That's frustrating because my argument would be instead of trying to mix and match, instead of trying to be the rays or the A's or a team that has that sort of lefty righty balance at the positions was a little bit weaker, develop the players, let the, let Ryan McMahon have a shot against lefty. So you're not winning games is not the goal here. Player development is the players. Let Ryan McMahon have a shot against lefties. Winning games is not

the goal here. Player development is the goal. And if you can give a player who hasn't been getting opportunities against lefties, give those players those opportunities, you might be surprised at what happens. You might see a little bit of growth. You might see a guy that becomes an everyday player instead of a big side

platoon guy. But I don't know. They're following a script without knowing why they're followingatoon guy but i don't know they're just they're following a script without knowing like why they're following it i guess is what they're kind of trying to do yeah i mean like i it's a smart tactic but it's just like you should be doing it for the purpose of something if you're trying to win games great you're trying to win games but they can't possibly think they're going to contend in that division. Austin Barnes started for the Dodgers. I believe he's basically the personal

catcher for Clayton Kershaw. That's not a sign that Will Smith isn't going to start most of the games this year. He did say something about it maybe being more closer to 50-50 than people thought. Every single time that Dave Roberts talked about Will Smith, he was lowering Will Smith's playing time.

It was very strange. I don't think I believe it. They have said this in the past where like, you know, you saw Grundahl, you know, sit for Barnes in the post season. And then they would talk about,

Oh, we're really trying to mix in Barnes. We're really trying to mix in Barnes. And then Grundahl, you know, usually got his 500 plate appearances. Yeah. I mean,

Will Smith played 37 games last year right barns played 22 something like that he was hurt for a little while i think 29 so 60 40 i mean if it's 60 40 pretty typical but that was with a universal dh last year too so i think i think they'll scale back barns a little bit more he's a good defender, but I wouldn't look at him starting on opening day and be worried if I had Will Smith. I don't think I have Will Smith. They could have used one more bat yesterday in the end.

They actually brought Will Smith in for a little bit, but he didn't get a plate appearance. Interesting stuff there in the Rockies-Dodgers matchup. Let's get to the Brewers and Twins. I thought this one was over. I thought the Twins had it in the bag.

They were on their A bullpen, lined it up the way they wanted. They went, I took Hazel to the park and started listening to the game because I had some stuff I had to do. Like, oh, sun's going to go down soon. I'll listen to Uke on the radio and, you know, better luck next time. But they rallied,

and I enjoyed the rally on the radio. The Twins went with Rodgers in the 7th, Hansel Robles in the 8th, and Colomay in the 9th. But I'm not looking at the Twins on any given day and saying that's the pattern because they, I think, are the team most likely to be, like the Rays, start to finish with how they handle their late-inning relievers.

The Twins could be one of those teams that have six different guys get a save between now and the end of the season. I think that's true. But it is interesting that Colomay and Mark Melanson keep getting closing opportunities even though their strikeout totals are mediocre and that the cutter

dampens exit velocity when you look at pitch types, and they're both cutter first guys. Even in yesterday's not great game, column A's average exit velocity, someone did hit his cutter 110, but the average exit velocity on his cutter was 84, suggesting that there was a few that were on his cutter was 84, suggesting that there was a few that were way lower. Yeah, the min was 48.5. So he saws people off with that cutter, and he still does. One thing that stood out for me when I ran spin rates from this year and last year, just wondering, because I did have a couple of DMs of like, hey, are people getting shelled today

because their spin rates are down and yeah uh and because you know they're cracking down on on uh on on pitch grip stuff so they're not using it um and uh i would say that's you know from what i see it's not the case uh column a was one of let's here, 12 pitchers that lost more 200 or more RPM on their spinner on their, uh, fastball. Um, but a lot of those guys did not were relievers, did not throw fastballs as their primary pitch. Um, and, um, I don't know. I like the names on the list of people who lost fastball spin rate are not the reason that people got shelled. Like if you think about like an ace that got shelled, they didn't lose their spin rate.

The people that lost spin rate were Adam Simber, Tyler Rogers, who does he even want? He wants lower spin rates, I think. Chi-Chi Gonzalez probably wants lower spin rates i think he you know uh chichi gonzalez probably wants lower spin rates kyle cody and alex colomay who threw three fastballs so when i did a weighted uh difference in terms of who like what the spin rate was down as a whole you know weighted it was minus 11 and that is not significant. Um, and you know, the only sort of significant starting pitcher that I saw that was anywhere

close to 200 was Zach Greinke and minus one 94. Um, I suppose it's possible, but there's also the question of velocity and I probably still want at least two starts to say, uh, two appearances to say anything really definitive about this. But if I had to guess right now, I'd say no.

And also, I was watching the games and there were plenty of people still touching the bills of their hats. Yeah. Also, Velo was good for a lot of pitchers. Josh Hader topped out at 99.6. Woodruff topped out at 99.2. He was in the high 90s a lot yesterday. I wondered

how much... Hader talked about it after the game. I saw a quote from him. Having fans back in the stadium maybe added a little adrenaline for some players. Being back in their home stadiums for the first time in front of fans. In Oakland, I went to the game last night. It was a sellout, quote unquotequote uh at 20 10 000 people um and it was one of those crowds where you could

hear i mean the astros were in town too so like they were heckling constantly it was funny about it was you could hear every single heckle like you could hear specifically what they were saying you know and like that's like a falling environment with 10 000 people that's kind of cool actually yeah so i heard some very specific ones like nobody likes you alex bregman just very he feeds off that stuff though that guy that guy doesn't care like i mean maybe on like a really personal level like if someone he cared about said they didn't like him and no one liked him that it would bother him but i think he feeds off of it i think he has this uh this side where he likes being a villain he homered in that game

by the way oh yeah i mean he took me aside in the in the in the clubhouse one day and was like tell me why defensive metrics are wrong and i should be an MVP candidate. And I was like, well, they might be. They might be wrong. You do a lot of shifting. They throw out all the shifts. There was one that was like whatever his wife's name was, Bregman's wife, and she married a cheater. But I would say they're not in midseason form yet.

Having been a heckler in my past, and I apologize profusely for all the things I said at Stanford basketball again, I would say that they were not in midseason form. We've lost the plot. Oh, spin rates. Yes, I don't think Alex Colomay's spin rate on his foreseeing being down means that he used to use goop and doesn't anymore, or that there's a general problem with that in baseball. No, I don't think it means that either. Byron Buxton hit a really long home run in that game, 456 feet.

He got a 75-mile-an-hour just grooved pitch from Eric Yardley and killed it not the hardest hit ball in the game no vogelbach had the hardest hit ball in that game he did into the ground though yeah hey you know what we'll launch it next time unfortunately josh donaldson left early with an injury so we'll see if that turns into an il situation i was wondering if they would bring alex kirilov up right away if donaldson misses time because ariaz would have to place a lot of third base and you don't really want to play jake cave like you can't if you're the twins you can't really afford to take a big hit offensively for a couple of weeks like you need kirilov up there to replace donaldson's offensive production so i think there's at least a chance if donaldson hits the il that we'll see kirilov a little

sooner than previously weird quirk in the box score it has luis arias listed as only playing third base the whole game in the first spot and then in the second spot it has josh donaldson playing third base and giving in to jake cave at left field so what happened was luis arise was listed as the left fielder but he never played there because because Donaldson got hurt in his first plate appearance. So it really should say LF three B, but he never played there. I don't know. Like, I'm not a, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna yell at anybody about, I don't even know if it's wrong.

I think it could be right. He might've, I think this might be right, but it does look like they had two third baseman for the game, which is weird. I would agree. I don't think they would want to start Jake Cave a lot. And the easiest way to get more offense back is Alex Kirloff. Donaldson, it was the hamstring, not the calf. However, it's just really old man-itis.

And you're just hoping that it's uh you know not a deal step yeah old man legs unfortunately for josh donaldson at this stage let's get to the cubs pirates matchup you know uh dustin fowler had the hardest hit ball in that game blast from the past uh with uh fowler getting this opportunity in Pittsburgh. Quite a few roster adjustments. Brian Goodwin was the guy that they let go at the end of spring. So at least for now, it's going to be Fowler, Jared Oliva, the guy we're sort of waiting on to get an opportunity in Pittsburgh

at some point in the next few weeks. But the guy that kind of stood out for a lot of people was David Bednar. And I think he came up on this show as either a deep, deep sleeper or a possible fallback option if Richard Rodriguez falters or gets traded at some point. And I think he opened a lot of eyes with that opening day performance. Yeah. I mean, he was in that trade with... Yeah, the Musgrove deal. Ah, right. And so, um, part of the, the, the sort of quantity over quality approach, but looked pretty quality.

Um, and, uh, you know, I think that he was on my radar. I just didn't know how close he was to the end of that bullpen. And I will have to admit, it is nice that he, sat 96 um and uh got

a bunch of whiffs on the curveball and splitter um did not get any whiffs on the fastball or called strike so a little bit uh wild the other thing is kyle crick is away from the team with mono um i i still think richard origas is a closer there team with Bono. I still think Richard Rodriguez is a closer. There are some people out there who still think Kyle Crick is the closer. He just has COVID. So I would say I still think it's Richard Rodriguez. I think there's a fair amount of inertia in this closer thing, especially if everything's going okay, where you say,

we're not going to mix things up. Kyle, we're going to get you into the eighth and stuff. I think that'll push Bednar further away is my long-winded way of saying. Bednar looks close. He's good. I think once Kyle Craig comes back, he steps back one. I think he's more of a watch list guy

that could end the year as the Pirates closer as opposed to someone we're going to be bidding on in fab pickups in the next couple of weeks. yeah, I think he's more of a watch list guy that could end the year as the Pirates closer, as opposed to someone we're going to be bidding on in fab pickups in the next couple of weeks. But certainly looks like a nice piece in that Pittsburgh bullpen. This was one of the games I didn't really get a chance to look very closely at. A couple hard hit balls from Rizzo. Brian Hayes hit the ball hard three times. That's encouraging.

This Pirates lineup, as we've kind of predicted or talked about a few times, play any pitcher you want against them. I know they put five runs on the board on opening day. They chased Kyle Hendricks early. Hendricks only went three. Command wasn't quite there. Which is weird for Hendricks, for him to have an off day. It was a little cold.

Cold early in the season. Don't know how much that played into it, but I'm looking at this Pirates lineup and I'm having a hard time thinking of a pitcher. I've rostered that I wouldn't want to start against them right now. And even though it ended up being a 5-3 game, I think that cold Wrigley is still

a decent place to look for early starts. Oh, yeah, because cool was like couldn't find the strike zone in the first inning. And I thought, Oh God, this is going to go terribly. But in the end, uh, the box score, you know, for cool was okay. You know, two strikeouts, three walks, one run in three innings, uh, one earned run in three innings like you know it wasn't terrible that that that that you get out of that with that uh i think it speaks a little bit to how cold and and and uh

uncomfortable it was for hitters so hayes did take him deep and in the end uh but it was a four-hour affair with lots of different pitchers. And I wouldn't take away anything other than Coltrigley is a good place to stream. Arrieta is still a good stream. You know, I still think that there's some good pirates you can stream in these. I think they'll generally

be lower scoring games. Yeah, I think that all checks out for me too. Just falls in line with my expectations. Braves-Phillies. Interesting matchup here. Gene Segura ended up winning this one with a walk-off hit. I know he's a guy that you've got a bunch of places, so that definitely makes you happy.

Stolen base. John Segura, stolen base. Do you know how rare stolen bases are? It's now the number one thing i look for in a box score i scan both sides immediately for a stolen base and most of the time it's zeros right let's look at this who ran who was running who ran who ran who was stealing bases nobody nobody nobody you know what i look for actually too though when i when i look for stolen bases i want to know who is behind the plate and who is pitching when it happened because that might actually lead you to where the next stolen bases are coming from it's not always

just people are being super albert nudistic about them yeah yeah it's like i think the beginning of last year remember tommy fam was running all over the d-backs i think it was carson kelly who was behind the plate and i thought oh okay i'm gonna keep an eye on who's got the D-backs. I think it was Carson Kelly who was behind the plate. And I thought, oh, okay. I'm going to keep an eye on who's got the D-backs in these next couple series. And if there's a fringy player that I need to put in my lineup or pick up off the wire, I'm going to see if that's a way to get a few extra saves or steals, rather. So it's one of those things that you can kind of poke into a little bit and actually find some sneaky good matchups that people don't usually look for.

I got to complain about the Savant box scores, man. No steals? No steals! It's obviously made by nerds. And I say that affectionately. Because Freed, they're not that interesting, but Nola shoved, Freed shoved,

one stolen base in the whole game. Alvarado pitched the eighth. He did, and Neris was named the closer, I believe, before the game. So after all of that, after all the speculation that Bradley, when he went there, he was going to become the guy that Alvarado made the most sense, they go back to the old standby with Neris, and he was good. He was good this spring. Alvarado made the most sense. They go back to the old standby with Neris. And he was good. He was good this spring.

Alvarado is next. Almost always the eighth inning guy replaces the ninth inning guy. Like usage in in-season closer changes are totally predicted by who's pitching the eighth almost. If there's any doubt, then you can, like if there's two people pitching the eighth, then you start to go into handedness velocity and strikeout rate and that sort of stuff. But Alvarado's next.

Neris can hit a bout of wildness at any moment. So I think he's, even if he is a closer, I think he's a bottom third closer. Or what do you think? 15, 10 to 15? 15 to 20? Yeah. 20 is kind of where he tops out. I actually see a lot of similarities between

Neres and Matt Barnes. They could get you above average strikeout rates. If they're good, they could be as good as anybody. But if they're bad, they're atrocious. I mean, Neres' year-to-year ratios are all over the road. We saw a

510 ERA, a 130 whipback in 2018, a 293 and a 102 the year he had 28 saves in 2019, and a 4-57 with a 1-71 whip last season. Great this spring, though. So at least in good form to start the year. And I would agree with you. I think the other thing that's caught my ear when the Phillies are talking about their bullpen, they lean into Archie Bradley as a multi-inning guy a lot.

That's just been something they've made a point to talk about on multiple occasions. So I think that also makes me think they want to use him a little more flexibly, like sixth and seventh, right? You know, one and a third,

one and two thirds. It's been a while since he's been a starter. He doesn't really have, he has two pitches. I don't know. There's something about him that they like to use him

a little more than the other guys. Maybe his V-Bow doesn't drop off. He probably has better command. He has better command than Harrison Alvarado. Yeah, so you can leave him in there for four, five, six outs in some cases, whereas the other guys want to go three. Three balls

hit over 108, which is kind of a magic number for Max Exavillo. Two of them by Austin Riley. The Austin Riley hype train continues. They'll have to make considerable room for Pablo Sandoval on that hype train. He homered,

by the way. He scored all... He hit in all of the runs for the Braves. I didn't expect Pablo Sandoval to find playing time there at all. Yeah, me neither. That's very weird. So I'm going to not read much into that.

I think NL only, very last guy on your roster. That's as far as I'm willing to go if everybody else is still healthy. One thing to learn. I was going to say not much else to learn. One thing to learn. Adam Haisley started in the center. Yes, yes he did although it was against a lefty is adam hazley a righty though no i'm pretty sure hazley's a lefty that's really big deal then kind of well yeah yeah i mean i think i think that speaks to yeah their lack that's a big deal he's a starting center fielder

he's a starting center fielder boom yeah i got starting center fielder. Boom. Yeah. We got a couple of shares of that. Whew. We're not supposed to overreact, but I still think Hazley in against the lefty, big deal. Yeah. I mean,

it could be more playing time than expected. Looks like Quinn is the defensive replacement. I mean, that's sort of, that's how he hits. He's not enough of a hitter

to play much more than that, unfortunately. It'd be fun if he did because he will steal bases when he gets chances to do it. Let's go to the D-backs and Padres. Madison Bumgarner quickly showing us again

why we don't want to use low-end, mid-range starters even against the Padres. It's just obviously not the Padres teams we're used to. Petco is still a great place to pitch, but that lineup can do damage, and they did plenty of it. 8-7, nice high-scoring game in San Diego in the opener.

Eric Hosmer, a guy that I think I have absolutely nowhere. Homers on opening day after pounding the ball into the ground all spring. Against the lefty. So that makes me feel good. Yep. Oh, yeah. Things are looking real good. There's something else day after pounding the ball into the ground all spring. So that makes me feel good. Yep. Oh, yeah. Things are looking real good. There's something else that we have to learn from this.

Eno is a genius. Tell Marte. Yes, I'll do a victory lap after a four for five opening day with a home run and two batted balls over 105 miles an hour. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm not above that sometimes it's just nice to see someone you have like eight shares of uh do really well uh josh raw starting a second at shortstop is interesting um do you think that he i think he starts at second once nick ah is healthy. Yeah, yeah. Because the defense alone that Nick Ahmed provides, that gets him in the lineup.

He's the guy as long as he's healthy. So I think... But there was a little bit of an undefined timing on Nick Ahmed, right? They were like, we don't know. They gave him some platelets or something. I think it's interesting, though, because Rojas is second base only in a lot of leagues to start the season. So if it ends up being even a week,

then Rojas picks up shortstop to go with it. And it was an 0 for 5, but he was leading off. I think that was something they were doing this spring, but they actually gave him the shot to do it on opening day, too. So I think he gets at least a little bit of run atop the order. If he slumps for, I don't know, a couple series, maybe they least a little bit of run atop the order. If he slumps for, I don't know, a couple series,

maybe they'll shuffle it up and drop him in the order. But he at least has that chance to really hold down that spot to begin the year. You know, I thought Bum looked okay. I think if he gets dropped

in super deep leagues and he's not facing the Padres, I think he could be a decent streamer. I mean, he sat 90 plus, so at least it wasn't 88, 89. He had above a 30% called strikes and whiffs on the four-seam cutter and curveball. He got plenty of whiffs on them, too.

I don't know, man. 14 whiffs on 91 pitches. I think, like, he looked pretty good. He looked pretty good. Even the hit that Hosmer got, it's kind of inside. I didn't expect it to go out. Yeah, so I'm wondering,

day games play a little bit different than night games at Petco, so the ball could carry a little better, I think, in those conditions. I do think the problem with Bumgarner is something we've hit on on a recent show. The Diamondbacks schedule for the entire month is pretty tough. I think he's the kind of guy that gets bounced from rosters a lot in the next couple of weeks. And then we get to May, the schedule gets a little easier, and he becomes a decent pickup that actually sticks around in some at least deeper mixed leagues.

I don't know if we're at the point where Bumgarner is going to be stuck on someone's roster in a 12-team mixed league going forward. But I don't think he's as done as the opening day line would lead us to believe. There's one pretty clear drop in this game. Stephen Crichton, he came in and was pitching in the sixth inning of this game. So if you thought he was going to be part of the saves picture in Arizona, that to me is early enough in the game. I'm going to say it's probably safe to let him go this weekend, barring something pretty unforeseen with his usage between now and Sunday. Weren't they even losing at the time?

Yes, I believe they were. I mean, that's not good. It's not good to be using a losing situation. A losing situation, not even... I guess a little bit... Actually, earlier in a losing situation is better than the ninth inning, down by four or whatever. He's still peripheries, but he's not...

I can't imagine he's their setup guy or their closer. Yeah, I... Hey, kudos to the people who said Mark Melanson would close. I still think he's kind of bottom half closer as is because the strikeout rate Pomerantz is obviously next in line. I would say that it's still worth keeping Pomerantz around three strikeouts in an inning. He's going to keep your he's going to keep your ratios pristine,

give you strikeouts, and he's next in line. I'd rather have Drew Pomerantz than Julian Merriweather. I'd rather have Drew Pomerantz than Jose Alvarado probably, although that one's closer. Do you have anyone else who want to throw in this random who would you

rather? I'm trying to decide if I would hold Pagan in any deeper mixed leagues or not. If he's also a cut, I mean, he gets enough innings and the ratio should be good. I'd rather have Alvarado than Pagan. I'd rather be swimming upstream. I'd rather have the eighth inning guy than the seventh inning guy. Yeah, I suppose in a mixed league, that's probably the move to make. But I think in deeper formats, I've got Pomeranz

and Pagan in NL only. They were cheap in labor. They're fine. Melanson could fall apart. Mark Melanson went from guy that we didn't think the Giants could possibly trade to guy that the Braves paid the rest of the deal for

after trading for him, used him as their closer over a more skilled guy in Will Smith, and then he ended up on a good San Diego team and got a save on opening day. They did let him go, though. They didn't have a closer necessarily, and they let him go. So, I don't know. The cutter,

though, I think the cutter is somehow key to this. There's like the Mariano Rivera, like chasing the Mariano Rivera profile, I guess. Anything else to learn? I think Cronenworth might be their starting second baseman. Yeah, I might have been wrong about Cronenworth throughout draft season. I'm at least opening my mind to that possibility.

I can't, after one day, say I'm totally wrong, but it was put to me this way, actually, during a draft on Thursday. Is the situation in San Diego one where we're making too much of how the playing time is actually being split up? We're saying that Cronenworth doesn't have enough playing time, even though he can play all over.

We're saying he's the ninth guy, he's the tenth guy, and teams play nine or ten guys. They're going to take all those playing time situations and give everybody 90 or 95%. That still adds up. Six starters are still valuable. Yeah. It's like, other than maybe

Tatis, who will almost never come out of the lineup, or Machado, as long as those guys are healthy, they're going to play every day. Everybody else is going to get a little time off. Well, Hosmer should, but he's not yet. Right, but like 90% shares for everybody else. 92% shares for everybody else.

That's still great for everybody else, for Profar, for Cronenworth. So maybe I miscalculated. Maybe I made too much of the depth that they'd built. There was like a tweet out of like, you know, do you have any shot in front of you? Do you have any FOMO players? And I think it's a little bit weird to say,

yes, Jake Cronenworth, you know, on a day when there are, I'm sure there's other players that did well that I don't have any shares of. But for some reason, looking at that, I was like, oh man, he was super cheap. and he's got a cool set of of abilities you know in order to he can make contact he has some power can steal some bags i could see him being on some winning teams at the end of the season where he only gets 500 plate appearances maybe but he was super cheap and he

got the person like a 280 average and you know 20 homers and 10 stolen bases anyway you're just like oh man you got that for free yeah that's always the one that bothers me it's never like a star that you paid top and then went and did star things i'm always like oh you got that guy in guy with a 300th pick. Yeah, it's those mid-round guys that got away that feel like you missed the opportunity the most because they were so affordable. All right, I want to talk about the Marlins-Rays game. If you like great pitching, that game absolutely delivered.

Tyler Glass now looked fantastic. Sandy Alcantara pitched really well. I mean, just a one-nothing game where Austin Meadows' solo home run was the only offense for either side. Eight combined hits in this game. But Glass now, the velocity, he topped out at 100.6 in his first start this season. Yeah, and I was actually even more impressed by how many sliders he threw. He threw more sliders than curveballs. And he's really taken to that pitch. Got 42% called strikes and whiffs on that.

The average on called strikes and whiffs, I think, is around 29. So did really well there. Wasn't hit hard. The max exit velo on the slider was 91. I think that, obviously obviously there's still some command issues. And I think that's a little bit risky to, you know, to go so hard in on a pitch that has more side to side movement than his up down curveball when he has these histories of command issues. So there's a little bit of like, well, let's see what he does against another offense with that pitch. Maybe a more patient offense would have some issues with it, wouldn't have as many issues with it. But five whiffs on the slider, two on the curveball, seven on the four-seam fastball, nothing really hit hard, just a really great outing from Glasnow.

Only 77 pitches to get those 18 outs as well, but I mean, Sandy Alcantara was just as good on the other side, only allowed one more hit, two hits in six innings, seven Ks from him, four hard hit balls, so a little more hard contact against him. But the big question throughout the offseason was, are we going to get more Ks? And a matchup against this iteration of the Rays lineup doesn't fully answer that question, because you

go into a matchup with the Rays, with your pitchers, expecting a bump in Ks. That was their big flaw throughout last season. That could change once we get to the point where if Francisco Mejia is playing more than Zanino, if we get Wander up, maybe we get Vidal Brujan up, you change that lineup a little bit and suddenly they can be closer to a league average team in that category. But until further notice, they're a team that you're going to pick on

if you're searching for Ks. Yeah, it's unfortunate, but it's also true. Tsutsugo leading off, as they said, the only caveat I have to that is that Choi will be back at some point and that also probably not against lefties. Probably a very different lineup against lefties.

Probably get Wendell in there. What else changes against lefties? Mike Brasso would get in. Wendell, I don't know, man. I think Wendell's just an extra guy. Yandy Diaz started against a righty. That was kind of strange to see yesterday. I would have expected that to be Wendell.

That's true. That's true. But he also is often injured, so Wendell will have his uses this year. I still have him as an interesting jack-of-all-trades, best ball, bench-type piece that will have his weeks, but not a super big asset right now. Ches Chisholm debuted, hit sixth,

hit ahead of Alfaro, ahead of Rojas, and obviously ahead of the pitcher spot as well. I like that from a lineup construction standpoint, because one thing that's always bothered me is that you bring up a prospect and you think they're better than all but a handful of guys in your roster, but then you still hit them eight. Oh, we got to ease them in. It's like, it's still the same pitcher.

They're going out there trying to hit. It's not, it's not making his job any easier hitting lower in the line. It's like, just hit them where he belongs. Like make your team optimal for how you want to play it. It's not making his job any easier hitting lower in the line. Just hit him where he belongs. Make your team optimal for how you want to play it. I think it does make it a little bit easier to put him ahead of the pitcher because he'll get some walks that he wouldn't otherwise. But I don't think that it actually helps you evaluate

the player. If you're in evaluation mode at all and you pump up their walk rate just by putting him in front of the pitcher, then you're like, well, what is his actual walk rate you know like is he we saw that with uh with michael franco a couple years ago right a guy that doesn't really walk a lot they dropped him to the eight spot he doubled his walk rate for a little while oh he's got new renewed discipline i might even said that i'm not i'm not i'm not hating on anybody i'm saying, you got to think about that. Alcantara looks beautiful. Love him.

Just really good velocity. Worked the foreseam back in, which is where I thought, if there was any upside left, it was working the foreseam back in for some waves. Because he, you know, made the switch to sinker fine, but now

you threw the foreseam enough when you were throwing it primarily. Why don't you work it back in to add another wrinkle? Then he's a true four pitch guy. Decent command of all of them. Sat 98. I mean, hey, come on. Let's get to the Reds Cardinals game. Alex Reyes just

blowing up the velocity list in that one. No, it was ugly. 11-6 was the final. Eugenio Suarez homered but made two errors. I mean, it was a mess for the Reds. And Luis Castillo got rocked.

And that is definitely a concern. But was there anything in those struggles that makes you think there's going to be a carryover problem? Do we see a velo drop or anything in the underlying numbers that would give you some pause? Or do you think it was just a bad day that going to be a carryover problem? Do we see a velo drop or anything in the underlying numbers

that would give you some pause? Or do you think it was just a bad day that happened to be on opening day? Well, I wanted to say with, you know, with balls and play down so much and, you know, Castillo being a strikeout pitcher, even though he's also a ground ball pitcher, I thought that the Suarez thing wouldn't affect him so much but you just saw uh how it happened you know you just saw that um there was an error and then there was a homer yeah it's just like it's not necessarily always

just the error it's just like it's another base runner, especially if it's somebody that should have been an out. So just flipping that switch from out to base runner is pretty devastating. Castillo also shows as being down in VLO 2.6 miles an hour. That's a lot. Did he really sit 97.5 last year? Doesn't sound wrong. It doesn't sound wrong he really sit 97.5 last year? Doesn't sound wrong. It doesn't sound wrong to you? 97.5?

No, I think he was throwing really hard last year. Not a great start. And it does make me wonder if the defense matters, if we should have thought more about that for Castillo. the defense matters if if we should have thought more about that for for Castillo well yeah definitely definitely a concern coming out of the opener on that side wasn't a great day for Jack Flaherty on the other side either six runs on just four and a third 4k is a couple home runs allowed a lot of hard hit balls from Nick Castellanos certainly a good sign if you had him as a bounce back player this. A lot of people did.

I was a little more into Mike Moustakis, relatively speaking. Very into Nick Senzel. He hurt himself diving for a ball. No word yet how much time he's going to miss, but they said it was a shoulder injury when he left. Jonathan India debuted, hit 7th in the order, went 2-4 with the double, had a hard-hit ball sprinkled in there as well, too. Went two for four with the double, had a hard hit ball sprinkled in there as well, too. So I don't know. I don't know what plan B shuffling big league parts around would actually be. Like, I think they have to stick with this for a while unless they're going to go all glove and bring up Garcia or go to Farmer.

Castillo has been sitting above 97 this whole time. Yeah, he throws really hard. He sat 93 yesterday. I'm worried, man. That's a big drop. I mean, I'm worried. It's the kind of drop that makes you wonder,

was the tech working correctly? Was there something not calibrated right? We'd see with other pitchers, though, too, if that were the case. You'd see bigger drops on guys like Flaherty.

I'm seeing some pretty big drops. Yeah, there's fairly big drops on everybody. Was it a cold game? So, Flaherty was down 1.5. Tyler Webb was down 1.5. Ryan Helsley is a fireballer, but he was down on the four-seam one. Genesis Cabrera was down two. Gallegos was down 1.2.

Come on. Alex Reyes was down almost one. Okay. So let's say we can take one of those and just take it off of his ledger because everybody was down one. That was still another big drop though. Yeah. You need to give him a one and a half.

Like you're still, yeah, it's still pretty lost a lot more than that. Well, okay. So my over under on his fastball next time out is 94, five. And that's still,

that's still not 96, nine, seven, like it used to be. Ah, man. Okay. Maybe, might be used to be. Ah, man. It might be a long year in Cincinnati, man. I feel for our friend Clay Link.

He loves that team, and he's just stuck with them right now. They were so exciting going into last season, too. Indio did well. Yeah. Two for four with a hard-hit ball, a double in there. So, nice day for him. Probably the weirdest game of the day. Royals-Rangers, 24 runs combined.

Oh my good Lord. What on earth happened there? I mean, the interesting thing for me in the underlying numbers, Carlos Hernandez, the VLO leader on the Kansas City side, but there's not much you can do with him from a fantasy perspective in the short term.

He doesn't seem to be close to saves. He's not a very good pitcher either. I think he just throws hard. Right. I don't think he's close to getting more innings or anything. Just one of those guys. Santana hit two balls 110. Yep.

That's pretty exciting. Power's still there for him. One thing I did want to say on the bullpen side is that it was interesting that Holland came in with a ton of runs, but then they went to Wade Davis when it got tight. So there wasn't officially a saved chance in this game, but looks like it's Wade Davis and then Greg Holland. I don't know though, because they didn't even use Stomont.

They sent Stomont down. I don't think they, I didn't see that note if they did, which is weird because so many guys pitched yesterday. Like how would he have not pitched? That's what I'm saying. What were they saving for? They think he's a,

in losing games guy? No. You know what? They were winning by too much to use him. That might be the answer. So he might be the setup guy. Greg Holland might be the mop-up guy. Could be. Yeah, but that big of a lead? He was supposed to come in and just get some work,

man. And then, look, I don't think there's any delivery that I dislike more than this whole thing. He like slaps his glove together and then he falls down. It's the weirdest thing. If I saw someone do that, I'd be like, yo, you are never going to have command, which he never has. I don't even know how he throws it hard. It looks like he's falling down. It's so bizarre. Anyway, I'm not in on Holland. I don't think I don't even know how he throws it hard. It looks like he's falling down. It's so bizarre. Anyway, I'm not in on Holland.

I don't think that Holland is a setup guy. That's what I'm trying to say. Don't overlearn on this one because it was a wipeout game until it got a little bit close to the end. So I think... There was some gross pitching in this game. Stomont setup guy and Wade Davis, bottom five closer.

Yeah, and even that, by Monday, things could look different and Davis could be nowhere near the ninth inning. The Royals messed around a lot with that pen last year, so it's one of the places that I was very hesitant to even throw darts in during draft season. For all the hits in this game,

Lioti Tavares, 0 for 5, 4Ks, he was hitting eighth. They had him hitting eighth behind White, who was DHing, and then Isaiah Kiner-Falefa was the leadoff guy. And Eli White is the other center fielder, even though he's DHing. And Eli White had two hits and a walk. And they're excited enough about him to say, his manager said, I wanted to get eli white in on opening day

so uh i have a feeling that eli white is going to be the starting center fielder there after not not not not long from now and that guzman who they always love irrationally perhaps but also had a great spring in terms of exavilo that they're going to find a way to get guzman in there dh while calhoun is out. So I wouldn't even be surprised if today's lineup, or I don't know if they're playing today, but the next lineup has Tavares out and Guzman in. Guzman in, white in center, yeah. Two names on the Royal side that stuck out for me, Isbell and Taylor.

I've loved Taylor, and he had two hard hits, three hits overall. That was good. And then Kyle Isbell, in his debut, three for five with a hard hit. Rumble, young man, rumble. This is not a bad lineup, and it was on a day without Alberto Mondesi.

He's got that oblique injury, so they had to play Nicky Lopez, and Lopez, whatever, nine-hitter, empty bat. But one through eight, that's not bad. It was Witt, Benintendi, Santana, Sal, Solaire, Dozier, Isbell I think could be a nice piece. And as you said, Taylor, probably a little undervalued.

Great defender, but has some power, has some speed too. And he's a big swing or miss guy, so that's actually pretty great to have in the eighth home, right? It's like, oh, he didn't do anything. Turn the lineup over. Let's start again. Oh, he hit the homer. Bam, now it's a big game. Yeah, this is a good lineup.

I'm disappointed in Brad Keller. I thought that this was a bad Texas lineup, and at home, I didn't see enough of him because he just wanted a third and I was like watching other games and I switch over and he was out already so uh I would have to say he gets a mulligan though I think he's earned a couple more turns through the lineup through the rotation just brutal we got a we got a couple more games through the rotation. Just brutal. We've got a couple more games to get to real quick.

We've got to fly through these Angels White Sox from the late night viewing. Anything catch your eye in that one? I like that Luis Lerobet there is a T in there. Stole a base. Stolen base. Max Stassi, home run. Bang, bang, uh, stole a base stolen base, uh,

Max Stassi home run, bang, bang, boom. Uh, Dylan Bundy and, uh, uh,

Lucas G Alito. That was pretty much a pitching duel. I know that like there were some runs, but, uh, that was a pitching duel to me. I thought they pitched very well, both of them.

And, uh, it was, it was, I thought it was a really good game. I really enjoyed it. A lot of really good pitching from those guys, some good hitting, some timely hitting, and a couple lasers from Lubav and Max Stassi hit the ball 415. Cody Hoyer, who was already really good,

debuted a changeup. I think he could be the setup guy before long because Bomber did give up some runs. Otherwise, I don't know. Strug and say pretty good game. Didn't play Vaughn. That game played the script. I don't know why they didn't play Vaughn.

They don't want to play him in left, I guess. Lurie Garcia. You played Zach Collins over Andrew Vaughn. He don't want to play him in left, I guess. Lurie Garcia. You played Zach Collins over Andrew Vaughn. He's a game you were trying to win. Tony La Russa just want to take him a second. That is a thing the White Sox fans should be extremely upset about.

All that you can hope for is Vaughn comes in against a lefty, rakes, Collins goes 0 for 4 a couple more days, and Tony La Russa wakes up out of his coma. Sorry. How about the game you were at? Astros A's other than

the Gears, which were not in midseason form yet. I thought Bassett pitched okay, but he's not maybe going to have a ton of length. What you saw in Oakland when he came out of the game was that their their middle of their bullpen is not very good uh color i came in and uh you know gave up the gave up the

goose is that a thing people saying gave up the goose uh i don't think that's an american expression they may say in other parts of the world i thought basset looked all right even though the the brain ball is 72 miles an hour it got whiffs um i thought he was okay petite was sitting 88 uh cholera gave it up uh the guy guduan couldn't find the so that was the bad bullpen that we saw pretty much um but grinky you 88, 89 miles an hour, carved him up. I think you saw all of the flaws of the A's on display right away.

Kind of a hit or miss offense, iffy bullpen. I think you can throw some middling starters at the A's pretty easily this year and feel fairly confident, especially in Oakland, that bad

things really are not going to happen to you because it's just not a great lineup. It's very top-heavy, definitely some holes in the bottom half especially. Last game to get to, Giants-Mariners. Buster Posey had the hardest hit ball in that game. Kevin Gaussman was a guy that I missed out on for all of draft season. He pitched well before things unraveled on the Giants pen. Marco Gonzalez got knocked around a little bit in this one. What else stood out to you?

A little bit weird. Montero doesn't really give up homers. He gave up a homer. I saw a bold prediction, or not even a bold prediction, a prediction from Brad Johnson that Rafael Montero might be the first sort of established closer to lose his job. I don't know. Do we know who?

A little bit of tie game is an interesting thing because they might have been keeping their setup guy for after Montero in a tie game. Except it wasn't a tie game. They were going to win this game. Will Vest is the setup guy? Rule 5 guy, Will Vest. What are they doing? I think Misiewicz.

Misiewicz. He's a lefty though. I would say he came in after Montero. I would say he is next in line. That's my guess, but it could be a vest. And they could just let Montero do it ugly.

I don't think there's a rosterable fallback option in this pen yet. I'd be curious to see Kendall Graveman in short relief, though. I think there's a chance that maybe he's actually the next guy. He throws 95-96 with a pretty good sinker when he's doing it. He'd be the guy

that I would think about if I was in a deep enough league to stash the next Seattle reliever. Yeah, Fraley started and left but got in three walks. So, just after I drop him in my 20-team dynasty, I still don't think Fraley

is a big of an asset. Hopefully, Kyle Lewis's injury is short term. And as soon as Lewis is back, trim, Tramiel goes back to the left or Lewis takes over and left. So I don't know. I don't want to overlearn from that Fraley and go try and get him. No Slater's Homer was like 99 miles an hour and oppo.

And I don't want to call it lucky. I don't think any Homer is like 100% lucky, but I don't know that I saw that Homer and was like, oh, Slater, go run and get him. I've seen somebody say like, oh, yeah, you can get Slater like 20 rounds later and get the same that you can get from Lubav. No, man, I don't, I don't think that, I don't think he's going to. Wow. Those are some strong drugs.

I thought that was incredible. I mean, like we're, we are the fantasy proprietors of whatever we're going to call it to eat this, not that of, of player substitutions. But wow.

That's pushing it a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's definitely pushing it. I think the cool thing here though, Slater was leading off, like leading off against lefties in daily moves leagues,

especially. I think that's going to play up pretty nicely. I don't know how much he's going to play against same handed pitching. So I think that really limits his appeal in weekly leagues, even though there is some power, there's some speed, and the shortened season led to some pretty interesting numbers for Slater. We are going to go

because Eno has a chat that's about to start up, so cat gif coming momentarily. You can hit us up on Twitter. He is at Eno Saris. I'm at Derek Van Ryper. If you don't already have a subscription to The Athletic, get in for $1 a month. You got through the weekend to get that at theathletic.com slash

ratesandbarrels. They'll get you all the columns, all the rankings, everything we do site-wide, $1 a month to start. You can email us ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com is the best way to connect with us. For Eno Saris, I'm Derek Van Ryper.

Don't give up the goose this weekend. Enjoy the first weekend of games. Thanks for listening.