Rates & Barrels - Opening Series Observations & Dealing with Small Samples

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Eno and DVR take a look back at the Opening Series for each team and discuss their takeaways, along with some of the surprisingly good and bad starting pitcher performances that have unfolded so far. Plus, they highlight a few other important things to monitor in the early days of the season. Rundown 2:40 Where the Money Went: Jason Foley, Kevin Ginkel, Griffin Jax, Brock Stewart, Jordan Hicks & Garrett Crochet 15:52 Making Sense of Starting Pitcher Debuts (Good & Bad) 20:45 Keeping a Close Eye on Zac Gallen's Upcoming Starts 26:51 Bailey Ober's Brutal Start Against the Royals 34:17 Impressive Outings from the Red Sox's Starters 38:32 What Else Matters In Small Samples? 51:56 Trey Lipscomb's Opportunity to Start at Third Base in Washington 55:11 Injury Updates: Eloy Jiménez, Royce Lewis, Edward Cabrera & Sean Murphy Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! Subscribe to The Athletic for just $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Nate Taylor and I cover the Kansas City Chiefs for the Athletic. I love locker rooms after games. When I walk in that locker room, I have the eyes and ears of our subscribers. As a journalist, it's my duty to ask the hard questions and to get some true honesty from athletes and coaches. It's a real joy to cover football, to be a hunter and a gatherer of news, to get something that's revealing that you may not be able to see on television. I'm from Kansas City, so I've watched this team

my entire life, not knowing that this was gonna be my job. There are hundreds of my colleagues who care just as deeply about their teams and give our subscribers those details that they could not have gotten anywhere else. You can personalize the athletic. So the teams, leagues, and riders that you care about most are right there when you open it up.

The Athletic is now included along with everything the New York Times has to offer when you subscribe to the New York Times. You can find out more at nytimes.com slash athletic. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Monday, April 1st. Happy April Fool's Day if you celebrate that. I am not a big fan because I'm a gullible human, but Derek Benriper here with Enos Serres. Like I, you could destroy me on April Fool's Day if you want to. You really could. I'm just, I'm an easy target for it. Yeah. Yeah. Although, you know, some of the stuff that I did

in my last April Fool's column came true. I had to think about some guy making Nutella and chicken, came true. I had a thing about some guy making Nutella and chicken, raw chicken smoothies. No, no, no, no, no. Not raw chicken, but I was reading this interview with Reggie Crawford, this Giants prospect, that said that he was so tired of eating chicken, they just started blending it up and putting it in shakes. So he's cooking it at least, but I mean, oh, that's still no good. Well, on that note, if that didn't gross you out, stick around, hit the like button on this video, subscribe to the channel on YouTube if you've done so already.

Really appreciate anybody that drops us a nice rating and review wherever you're listening to this show. And be sure to drop into the Discord, you can get the link to join that in the show description. So because this is the first full week of baseball action we actually had another fab run and it's the toughest fab run of all because you get a partial week not everybody even pitches in a rotation so you may have a late round pitcher that you're thinking about who hasn't pitched yet and then someone

else pops up onto the scene that you have to decide is This guy that made one start actually better than the player on my roster Do I completely abandon what I thought a week a month ago on draft day to try and you know chase something? So we're gonna examine where the money went in terms of fab some of the bigger bid players in the fantasy world We're gonna go through a lot of the pitcher season debuts that were surprising in the good direction and the bad direction, try to make sense of those, because what I think happens is someone is unexpectedly good

and then we trust them more than we're supposed to. And someone is unexpectedly bad and we're hesitant to throw them in matchups that we would have thrown them in literally five days ago. That's the time of year we're living in right now. We're going to get to what we watch in small samples as part of this show as well. So let's begin with a segment we're calling Where the Money Went. Mostly it went to closers as it often does this time of year because a few new closers have been anointed in the early days of the season and it seemed like in most leagues Jason Foley was the big prize air quotes or at least the player that went for the

most you said he went for 271 in your main event I saw a 302 winning bid in my 12 team online championship league I actually ended up getting him for 57 in another OC. So that's kind of a surprising range, but that also speaks to what happens in 12 team leagues. There's a whiff of desperation in some instances that causes people to throw 25 or 30% of their budget at a player. And sometimes you get a group of 12 teams that are a lot more conservative

and 5% of the budget gets it done. How did you stack up the available closing options with Foley, Kevin Ginkgo and the handful of leagues, Abner Uribe, being the primary sources of saves that people were chasing? You got to play that game. But I just try to, you know, sneak guys in the week before the week after. You know, for example, you know, Hunter Harvey was the dropper in a couple of cases, and I feel like he's someone you could pick up, you know, next week, you

know, there's always I think there's always going to be somebody that's on the wire that everyone's talking about and, you know, put your toe in the water. But I ended up with like, you know, I acquired James MacArthur, you know, because I put 20 bucks on Foley and 20 bucks on Ginkgo, and three bucks on James MacArthur, and got James MacArthur. By tomorrow, he might be the closer for the Royals. So I'm never gonna throw 30% of my free agent oxen money

at a closer. I think part of the reason I had the one league where Foley was cheap was because that drafted really late. That drafted the day before opening day. And a lot of the teams had already accounted for the injuries wreaking havoc on the closer pool. Whereas I think some of the fab leagues where we saw the big bids, not all,

but some drafted a couple of weeks ago and there's been more damage done to those rosters. They're not as in line with what's happening in the market. And therefore people are throwing big bids out there, but Foley did increase his VLO. We talked a little bit about that on the Friday live stream. It seems like the stuff is up a notch. At least it was on opening day. Are you buying that as a new skill for Jason Foley?

Is he the best option for the Tigers by stuff at this point? Because Alex Lang was someone we didn't like at all on the Reliever preview. We looked at that Tigers team and said, this is an opportunity for someone. I don't think we necessarily had a clear sense of Foley versus Shelby Miller versus Will Vest

as far as who they were going to turn to. Even in the spring, you kind of wondered like, hey, Jackson Jobe looks great. Maybe they'll just bring a kid like Jackson Jobe up and see what happens, right? And maybe they're planning on using him as a starter down the road. What do you think about the increase in Velo from Foley early on? Is that sustainable? I like him. You know, they are doing things where

Andrew Chaffin might take some saves away from him. The way you've seen it, both times that Foley's come in, he's come in off of Andrew Chaffin facing a lefty and finished off the game. So if the lefty is the last out, Chaffin might just get the save. Otherwise, I do think he's clearly the best reliever in that bullpen.

Shelby's close though, too. So if he stumbles, you know, one thing that I'm interested in is if fastball stuff plus is more predictive of save opportunities than overall stuff plus, because one thing we noticed about Alex Lang was that it was a breaking ball dominant. His best pitch was his breaking ball. And he was throwing a sinker out there that he was gonna struggle with throwing to opposite hand of the guys. Foley's fastball is good,

but Shelby Miller's is supposedly the best fastball in that bullpen by Stuff Plus. So, you know, I think she'll be most out of the chance. That's part of why I'm not gonna put $300 on Foley. Like I believe it. I think he's the closer now. I think he's probably one of the bottom five to 10 closers in the league. And you should treat him as such.

Right. And if he runs through a month where he's excellent, then the job security goes up and maybe that positioning as far as where he'd rank would jump into the middle third of closers. That's probably a shorter term ceiling for a guy like Foley. If he does it for half season, we could talk about him maybe as a fringe top 10 guy at that point. But I think the gap is relatively small between Foley and some of the next options up in that Tigers bullpen.

So I think that's more of a reason than Foley's skills themselves to be somewhat skeptical. Kevin Ginkle getting the opportunity with Paul Seawald's oblique injury. And you look at Ginkle, I mean, kind of what you see is what you get at this point. Fastball slider guy looks like the Velo is about the same as it was last year. Pitch mix in these first few appearances, same as last year. I don't have any reason to really expect anything different. I think the one thing that's going to hold Kevin Ginkle back from being an elite closer is that the K-rate is a notch below what you get from an elite reliever.

It was 27.6% last year, it's 26.1% for his career. If you don't add a wrinkle, you don't add something, like there's no reason to expect things to be all that different. But if he is the sole closer for a good Diamondbacks team, that might be fine for six to eight weeks until Seawald is ready to return. So, you know, I think Foley versus Ginkgle

was reasonably close. There were leagues where both Brock Stewart and Griffin Jacks were still out there as well. How do you compare the twins options to these other options? Yeah, so that was also my problem is that I'm still sorting through my other options. So, you know, to get fully meant to drop Stewart.

So I was like, worst case scenario, I end up with Stewart. So why not? I'm not going to bid big. You know, I'll just end up with Stewart and see what's going on. Even Tyler McGill, what you saw from him was that he's been used in the most important parts of the games. So he may not look like maybe he's in the mix for the saves. I think he kind of still is in Milwaukee because they've used them to get the four, five, six,

the middle of the lineup. They've used them in the most important parts of the game. So I think Abner has the most exciting stuff of the new anointed closers, right? And I guess they could just give it to them all year. There's always this discussion of why a team that's trying to be cheap would make their young guy expensive.

But you could also just be cynical and be like, hey, Abner Rebite, not gonna be a brewer when he's expensive. Yeah. Just have him for three or four years and then give him somewhere else for the last two. So fun to have this conversation. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. They sweep the Mets.

I come out of the weekend just riding the wave of joy that comes. It was a really backhanded way of compliment, of saying that Adner Rebe is my favorite of the group of the sort of I would take him over both ginkle and I do think it's interesting to wonder some people said that that ginkle would take the job from Seawald but I think when Seawald come backs he gets a job back. Right if Seawald comes back and struggles they could go back to ginkle but I kind of get the sense they acquired Seawald last year knowing he

had control left this year for the sole purpose of answering the ninth inning problem that they were having throughout most of last season in Arizona. We did see Yoel Payamps get the save on Sunday it was because both McGill and Iribe had gone Friday Saturday yeah they're not gonna go three in a row with guys at most points in the season they're certainly not gonna do it this early and you're're right about where they were at in the lineup, I think on opening day, McGill actually had the toughest assignment of all. And we did see Uribe give up a homer over the weekend

to Pete Alonso, but it was one of those homers. Uribe threw a 100 mile an hour fastball on the outer edge of the zone, and somehow Pete Alonso pulled it for a home run. And you're just kinda of like, all right. But I think you just shrugged that off. I think you just say he took a good swing. He is looking fastball and he was ready for it.

Yeah, yeah. You're not going to get out of there completely unscathed in your first weekend, Brooke. Your first weekend as the closer. I guess he got did he get some saves last year, too? He had one. He had one in extra innings last year. But the thing about that situation, leverage index for me is easier to use over about a half season because you can get a better feel

for how important a lot of situations were as opposed to a series worth or a week's worth. McGill's usage against the harder part of the lineup may have just been a coincidence. They might trust him enough to use him there, but still prefer to use him in the seventh instead of the ninth, right? Like that could be easily sorted out with a few more weeks of information. But yeah, it was just one opportunity for Uribe. Last season, after he came up,

Uribe's leverage index was higher than McGill's. And it was lower than Pi Amps, but when we talked about form and how those guys were all pitching at the end of the year, there were at least a few reasons to believe that it wasn't going to be Pi Amps. He was hard to know. Pi Amps doesn't really have the stuff

or the strikeout rate. No, he's probably the third best reliever of that group by a lot, but being the most senior of the three, there's a little extra trust with him too, and all of that is really hard to deconstruct from the three, there's a little extra trust with him too. All of that is really hard to deconstruct from the outside, as we've learned. Now the two pitchers that were available in some places, not all places, Garrett Crochet and Jordan Hicks were probably the most heavily targeted starters.

I'm curious what you make of those two in particular. We talked about Crochet a little bit on the Friday livestream. To me, Crochet is the perfect example of, don't worry about the second half of the season. If you're picking up a pitcher because you need a pitcher right now, a lot of the things he was doing looked really good. You'll find a replacement for crochet when you need one,

either because of injury or because at some point, they taper off his workload. So I felt like 10 to 15% bids on him were actually somewhat reasonable if you're going to buy into those skills. I guess, you know, there is a question of like, especially when someone's so hot like this, look, look what I found I have on my keeper team, I have him forever, is like, well, what if you're competitive this year? Is the play to trade him? Because you might be able to get whatever you want in veteran arms, you know,

and like, like, are you really going to depend on anything more than 60 innings out of crochet this here? Right. How long can this be effective? I think that's a totally fair question to ask. I also think most of the keeper leagues plan are filled with people that look at it the way I do and they're saying, oh, even if he only throws 70, 70 80 90 innings this year. He's probably going to throw 120 the following year Like there's gonna be a long term build-up here We've had a handful of guys go through this in the last decade where injuries kept them from being on the field Their team wanted them to start and to get to a full starters workload. It took more than one season to fully stretch them out. I almost wonder if he's a better hold because the return in the trade ends up being underwhelming in a long-term league

relative to what you could get if you just manage the ups and downs of how he's utilized. Hicks, I think, were starting to get a little more of an indication that the Giants are really pushing for full starter usage. It was five scoreless innings, six Ks in that season debut. So in spots where he was available, people were pretty eager to go get him. I saw some 10% bids in 12 team leagues. 98-6 on the fastball even as a starter. So all the stuff numbers held up and in terms of a command problem, we didn't see it at least in that game.

He now looks like the best option among the starters. AJ Pucks first among the relievers turn starters because AJ Pucks first turn through the order did not look good. Stuff Plus did not like it and he didn't you know he didn't get strikeouts or anything so it's like I think he kind of falls to the back until we see some Ronaldo Lopez action. But I'm gonna take H So it's like I think he kind of falls to the back until we see some Renaldo Lopez action. But I'm going to take Hicks, then crochet. I think Hicks got more innings in him this year. Hicks has got I bet you can do 110, 120 at least some places have him for 140.

So, you know, I'm going to take Hicks crochet and then Lopez Puck among the conversions. Puck was among the very disappointing season debuts, especially coming off an excellent spring where he was just striking everybody out and looked like he was gonna prove the Marlins right for changing up his role and stretching him back out. And that's still all possible.

But what did the model actually show you from that debut? Because I think that's one of the best ways to kind of determine was it just a bad day where in addition to being unlucky, maybe things weren't perfect or were there some flaws here that people were overlooking throughout the spring because the results were just that good? Yeah, I think a lot of times there's stuff plus

where you're like, oh, this guy has a 101, this guy has a 103 or whatever, you know, I don't know how much of a difference that makes. But when I look at the bottom, the very bottom of the Stuff Plus list, I'm almost always like, yep. So, so far this year, the worst Stuff Plus belongs to Zach Thompson, The worst stuff plus belongs to Zach Thompson among starters. Second is Dalton Jeffries. So that tracks so far. Third worst stuff plus AJ Puck. And that comes with a 71 and a 69 on the fastballs

that he threw at least 30 of them or 20 of them. So I think that's a decent, actual decent sample. The rest on here are just like, you know, I think that's a decent actual decent sample. The rest on here are just like you're like, uh-huh. Logan Allen, Bailey Falter, Martin Perez, another worrisome debut DL Hall. 51 stuff loss on the four scene. So, you know, I am a little worried when a guy debuts down here because he's hanging out with Lance Lynn and Patrick Corbin, John Gray's down here, Kyle Freeland's down here. You know, that's not where you want to DL Hall and AJ Puck to be that that doesn't He's hanging out with Lance Lynn and Patrick Corbin. John Gray's down here. Kyle Freeland's down here.

That's not where you wanted DL Hall and AJ Puck to be. That doesn't make sense. Anybody on this part of the list, I have an immediate, quicker hook with. So I'm my 12-teamer. I just dropped John Gray for another pitcher today. The 10 and 12-team leagues in particular where you have to be more aggressive

with players like this. DL Hall, I watched that start because it was Hall against Luis Severino and Severino also ended up with a bad final line. And my takeaway was that Severino deserved a little better than his final result. And DL Hall probably deserved worse. The interesting thing about Hall is that he works really fast

and the secondaries look pretty good. Yeah, the breaking balls are good. But the fastball, just watching it, and we've talked about the difficulty of seeing ride, nothing about it looked difficult to hit watching it. It looked extremely hittable. And as a starter, he's fallen all the way down to 92.8, which is below average, actually now below for a starter.

I know the TV isn't always reliable as far as the VELO readings, it spits out, but it was like 92, 92, 92. I think I saw one 93 at the beginning of the outing and it was just steady in that 92 for the cruising speed. The other question I have for you about this and it probably applies to AJ puck as well Both hall and puck were relievers last season So we saw more below from each of them and we're talking about velocity from March in the case of DL hall He was at least pitching outdoors in New York that AJ puck star

I believe was indoors at home in Miami. How much is whether a concern or a factor when you see early season Velo a little lighter than it should be? Because I mean, Deal Hall gets the pitch indoors for his home starts in the early part of the season. So that will help theoretically if that's the problem. Yeah, and we will see that if you want to predict the rest of season fastball VELO, one start is decent, two starts gets you basically all the way there, and

three starts is like completely stabilized. So you, I think you will have early on when you only have one start out of these guys, you will have some just random blips. I think we saw this in the past, and I forget who the example was, but somebody was pitching in the rain and was cold and his Velo was down like a whole tick and then he kind of in his next start it was just back to normal. I forget who it was but some people were very angry about the fact that I wasn't giving enough credit to the to the weather being part of yes and we even see that Velo peaks in August with the weather. So there's actual even sort of physics reasons that Velo and temperature are related.

But yeah, just to the pitcher himself and the pitcher himself leaving Florida and Arizona and, you know, and pitching in the northeast with the snow still melting in the background. So in the Northeast with the snow still melting in the background. So I'll give a guy a start. One guy that really upset me, though, that is on the bottom of this list is Zach Gallin. He had 83 stuff plus on the fastball. He had no pitch above 100 and stuff plus. And, you know, everything's relative and he could have been that was the game where

they had 14 a 14 run inning maybe he was quote unquote saving his bullets but his fastball veto was all the way down to 92.5 you could give him a whole tick and he would be just barely getting to where uh you know his average was last year so So when I see that, it does bother me. And when it's stuff across the board on all his pitches, that does bother me. So I don't know how much of the alarm bell to ring, but especially since now, Stuff Plus is on leaderboards everywhere.

You're gonna go shop him now, you're keeper keeper league and your other guy's gonna be like, man, I see his stuff, boss, I know what you're doing. So here's the thing, if you look back at the 2023 model numbers for Gallin, is this in the normal range of start to start fluctuations or is this outside of that? Because any given day, your stuff is either up here or down here and that's normal. And if you're outside of those areas where like,

oh, hey, something's totally different. You're above your normal. It's kind of a range that you're gonna find, right? You can do it like as a proxy with the pitch velocity graphs. Yeah, and I'm looking, I think you got a 98.8 stuff plus number on the four seamer from his first start last year for Zach Galen, this is. And then I think if you look at the next outing,

which was April 4th of last year, he had a 118 stuff number. I got some pretty big fluctuation from one start to the next. So I would say like in the case of Gal gallon, to a greater extent than DL Hall, these are more like caution lights. These are legitimate reasons to keep a closer eye on what happens in these next couple of outings.

And the longer the track record, the more like Zach Allen isn't DL Hall. I mean, he hasn't just come up. So it's a sort of just keep an eye out. What are you gonna do? You're not gonna drop. And he didn't even have that bad of a results in the first one. You know, like you got the win and stuff.

So, you know, but it's just, it is one that worries me that he's on that list just because you had so much pitching from him last year, you know, the extra month of pitching. If you just look at his VELO graphs, like yesterday was the worst combination of, like he threw a fastball 90 yesterday, and he's only done that in like four other games.

And in those four other games, he maxed out at 95, 96, and he maxed out at 94 in his last game. So it's the worst sort of band that he's ever had in the game. What do you make of the Kenta Maeda debut with the Tigers? Six earned, seven hits, three and a third early, two Ks, one walk. That should have been a pretty easy spot for him

against the White Sox. He's right there with gallons, 62 stuff loss on the fastball. And we just know that Maeda's fastball is getting worse and worse with every year and I just for me, that's going to be reason he's out of the league. Like if you think about it, 100 Ryu is just he was just here and he was getting out in you know, post surgery and

nobody was interested. And it was because he was 8788 on the fastball. Well, can't have my eight is 889. So at some point that becomes untenable. The problem with Maeda is that he gets Oakland next week. So nobody drop him just yet. Give him at least that Oakland start. Yeah, so that's what I've been going through looking at all these guys that underwhelmed and trying to figure out am I using this player or not. D.L. Hall is home against Seattle in a 12. I'm definitely looking at my alternatives in a 15. He might be good enough to still get into that last spot. I mentioned Severino before.

I've got him everywhere, as I mentioned at the end of last week. And he's got what, the Reds on the road? Like, I don't want to throw someone who I'm not sure about at Cincinnati right now. And even though I have him everywhere, it doesn't mean I have to absorb a start that I don't like. Like you can pull back and just say,

okay, let's go some other direction here. With Severino, six Ks, no walks, 12 hits, bad defense. There was a play at third that should have been an error. They ruled a hit that would have taken a few earned runs off the board too. So the ERA damage was even worse because of a, I think a sketchy call by the official scorer. I thought it was sketchy before it blew up

and turned into a bad inning too. So it wasn't just a results-based sort of thing for me. But I think the next matchup is also key for these guys because with Maeda, I'd throw them back out there again. Even though Oakland, they got Tanner Bybee a little bit, three earned, six hits, four innings, four Ks, five walks. That was a pretty ugly start for Bybee in what should have been a great spot. I'd still throw Maeda against that A's team because I have no reason to think the A's lineup is anything better than like a bottom five lineup right now.

Yeah, and that's a cookie matchup. I think it's even in Oakland. So just really nice spot for my if he can't perform in that one and the stuff plus numbers are as bad as they are and his velocity doesn't crack nine 89. Next week, then I think he's in a group of possible droppers. I mean, what you're hoping from him ranges from a 4.8 projection from Zips, you know, to a 4.3 from the others. So you're just hoping for the average. He's not even going to if he doesn't look like he's going to give you that, then you just got to move on. What did you see in the model from Bailey Ober? He had one of the absolute worst starts of the young season so far.

Eight earned, nine hits, one in the third innings, including three homers against the Royals. I actually have Ober in a league where I also have Max Fried where I also have Luis Severino. All three were active. Oh, and Ryan Helsley is one of the closers on that team and he got there. So I have some, I have some water in the boat with the ratios right now. Water in the boat. Love it. You know, Bailey Ober, I guess there was some good news. He sat 92 at least, but that might also be partially because he didn't go very deep into

the game. Yeah, right. You got four outs. So, you know, I don't know if I want to take a lot of comfort in that. I think that the big risk with Bailey Ober is similar to the one with Miami and he's younger so it doesn't seem the same. But you know, if he's going to throw 91, he's going to have a home run problem because if somebody guesses fastball, guesses right at the right time and he doesn't quite get that

fastball above the top third of the zone, that's why he's going to give up homers. He's projected for a homer and a half. This is part of the Bayley over package. I don't know. Going to the model will just tell you what it's always told you, which is it doesn't like Bailey over, but it could be wrong. I mean, he's a pretty good pitcher. I'm not saying drop Bailey over by any means, but this was always going to be part of the problem was the homers I'm still starting him this coming week He's home against the Guardians and I'm planning on starting him the week after that too because he's on the road against the Tigers

Those are two spots right if I can't use them there. What am I doing? This will be a make or break a Couple of weeks there for my it and over. That's why I had them around the 50s in my rankings. That's where it starts to be pretty much what have you done for me lately. And you could say like, oh, it's recency bias and you're just like trying to ride the hot hand. The difference is that with pitching, you get a whole lot of information every five days.

So you kind of have to, you can use that to move fast and you kind of have to because, you know, imagine if you just got hitter information once every five days, we would make more decisions on those fifth days about those hitters, right? It's actually makes sense to do it mathematically. It's like, once you get more information, you get a bunch at once, you should make a decision that day, you know, dropping him or not. Yeah, I just, I want to give most starters three starts, even beyond like the model validation of the three starts,

but one bad day should not really just completely change your opinion of a pitcher in many instances. Maybe there's a few exceptions. There were some really good starts though. Michael King was weird though, dude. Michael King was weird. He dude. Michael King was weird. He was throwing like 92 with no command. It was very strange.

Every year there's a player that people like that I just miss out on because everyone likes him more than me. And I can't explain what happened. Seven walks, six Ks, two earned, four innings. I just thought he was gonna throw 94 again at least. He's one of the biggest below droppers out there. Right, and he actually has one other appearance

from the series in Korea, but at the same time, it's like he had to ramp up a little earlier because of that, so maybe you have to wait for a fourth start from Michael King, just because of the unusual nature of that schedule. There's some places where, you know, the model was so bad and the upside is so little that I'm that I, you know, like Colin Ray, that was fun. I don't, you know, I don't think that you should bank on it going forward.

The model doesn't like him. The Velo doesn't like him. Swing striker doesn't like him. He didn't get that many K's. I think you'd just be like, Ooh, I got a, I got a good start out of and move on you know you know who else Michael Soroka had a a poor debut by stuff plus and also didn't get any whiffs and also doesn't have great view though I think unless it's a keeper league where you wanna make sure that he's not gonna be good, I would move pretty swiftly if you need to use that spot

on something. So there were some good performances too, fortunately. How about Brady Singer just coming back and saying, hey, you know, check this out. Here's 10 Ks in my debut over seven scoreless with just three hits. Did he actually make some of the changes that we see? He did. But you know, one of the reasons I was really surprised that he had 17 IBB when

we were talking. And then I think Lance Brodsky said that he had 15 IBB in the game. And there's always like this differentiation between like, you know, oh, when I'm at my best in the training environment, oh yeah, I'm throwing up 20 IBBs back here and then getting into the game and seeing, seeing what's happening, you know, there. So I think it's, it's good. And you know, what can happen with a pitcher like this is you have a scouting report, you've seen Brady Singer, but now Brady Singer has two pitches you've never seen before.

And it may lead to a decent year over the whole year, no matter what the model says, because it'll be surprising to most of the people he sees. If you're asking me if I think he's a, you know, he's a good pitcher, like I don't I don't I don't think he's that great. But in Kansas City, you know, new pitches seems like a decent pickup. I would just be really careful with him based on the schedule, I think. Yeah, the good news is being in the AL Central, there will be plenty of soft landing spots, but the truth has probably been that even without changes,

Brady Singer was going to split the difference between 2022 and 2023. That gives him a four, three ERA and like a one twenty five whip or something in that range. And if he's added something, then maybe he can do a little bit better than that. But I wouldn't completely reset expectations, even though it was a it was really a gem the first time out from Singer. I always saw a good start from Jack Flaherty, seven K's, one earned over six innings from him.

Looked like it was just a lot more sliders from Flaherty. That was the the main adjustment. Yeah, it wasn't something that pleased the model very much, but Jack Flaherty has always been a guy that just, almost like with Robbie Ray, where, just has a slightly better than the average slider and just keeps throwing and throwing and throwing. To me, I think that people might be convinced

by that outing that he's an every every starter kind of starter. And I would still be careful with him on the schedule. Big hit for you with Jared Jones, 10Ks in the season debut going up against the Marlins. That was five and two thirds, three earned runs. So he was popular in the handful of leagues where he was available and for good reason. I think people understand why you liked Jared Jones already. So we don't really have to rehash that. But the Red Sox also had a pretty good opening series as far as they're starting

pitching, including Cutter Crawford, seven case from Crawford over six innings, one earned three hits. You're pointing out before the show, though, maybe the real impressive thing was Nick Poveta and his fastball. Yeah, amazingly that Nick Poveta sat 20.9, and he was throwing some pitches with 23 IBB. So if you're looking on YouTube right now, I've got a leaderboard from Alex Chamberlain

of the very best vertical movement, minimum 300 pitches thrown. And only one pitcher has ever averaged point 20.9 or better. And that's Demarcus Evans. So basically, when Nick Pavetta throws, you know, 500 of these 21 vert fastballs this year, he will have the best fastball vert of any starter since we started tracking it. So I don't know where the improvement has come from, but I also know that Cutter Crawford is throwing 20 IVB on his four seam.

So, you know, I don't know if they're gonna admit that they have some secret sauce, but they seem to be getting a lot of good vertical numbers out of their pitchers. Brian Baggo's start was pretty good. And so I feel good about my bold prediction that that rotation isn't that bad and the particular guys in it.

We still haven't even seen Tanner Hauck yet, right? He pitches today because he's got a two-star week and I'm in for this. I mean, especially this two-star week, I think Tanner Hauck is gonna dominate this week. Yeah, it's a good combination of matchups, even though they're both on the road. It's the A's for the first one, Angels for the second one. So pretty good week lining up on the schedule for this group.

They'll be tested a little bit more at Fenway next week. They have a series against the Orioles, so Bayo, Pavetta, and Crawford all line up to face that Baltimore lineup. But I think easy to use them this week and feel good about it given the situation. A couple of things popped just that I just want to throw in there. Christian Javier's change-up looks like it's for real. You know, he got the vert back on his fastball, which was huge, but this change-up that he's throwing, the model likes it. The hitters were having a real hard time with it. That could make him a much more complete pitcher than we've seen before. And I also wanted to point out that Clark Schmitz, you know, package continues to look

like something that could work, you know, and it and then when you watch him, it's still frustrating. Because it's still I think it's still hard for him to dance around lefties. And in fact, when I was watching Michael King, this breed of pitcher, this sinker, sweeper, cutter, change up pitcher, I've seen a bunch of them now, I feel like they seem like they're built to just survive against lefties and dominate righties. And that's totally a viable package, but sometimes it's hard to watch these pitchers against lefties. I think that's part of the seven walks by Michael Caine is just what do you

do with that package against lefties you just kind of try to nibble and get through it somehow. I think if you are playing any sort of DFS and you want to find pitchers to stack against that aren't frequently stacked against like Find someone who has that pitch mix going up against the lineup of lefties and you might have a unique stack that could go off for tournament purposes. That might be one sort of practical application. I don't know if in daily you can take a shot like that

because you're just thinking about it from that sort of mathematical perspective. But then from a season long perspective, are you gonna take Michael King on your roster in those same kind of matchups and actually sit him down? Maybe we'll get to that point later in the season, but doesn't seem like something you would be doing in April. I had him in my 30s, so that's somebody I'm hoping is an actual pitcher and not somebody that I'm just cutting bait on right away if it doesn't work out, you know. Yes, you're giving him more like a month or so at least before you start thinking about playing the matchups more carefully with a guy like Michael King.

Let's move on to some other things that we're watching in small samples. I think the Captain Obvious one has to be playing time. We're looking for players who are playing more than expected and this comes with a massive asterisk. Here's what you have to be mindful of. Schedule anomalies. There are a couple examples right off the cuff, right? Pirates Marlins.

The Pirates saw a ton of lefties because the Marlins are packed with lefties. Giants Padres. The Giants saw all righties because the Padres have an all right-handed rotation. So that's going to throw you the occasional surprise. So I think of like Connor Joe. Connor Joe played a lot more to start the season than he will in a typical week. So you got to be careful in deeper leagues like, oh hey, Connor Joe might be an everyday guy. Nah, he probably isn't an everyday guy unless Roddy Talez gets hurt.

On the flip side, you know, first of all, you sort by plate appearances, it's like all Dodgers and Padres because of Korea. So you kind of have to swim past that. But on top of that, the Padres ran out for righties. And so you might find who were they? Who were they facing? They were facing the Giants. Yeah. Michael Conforto played a lot. That's it. That's the one that we were looking at. And Jung-Hoo Lee played a lot. But Jung-Hoo Lee has that premium defense, signed that big contract. I think they're more willing to play him every day. Michael Conforto had a good start but

yes again there's no lefties in that group that he faced so we may still see him sit for somebody like Austin Slater, right-handed bat that's much better if you just put him in there against lefties. Somebody like Matt Chapman played all the time which which is, I think, not a big deal. You kind of expect them to. They signed that deal. But you never know with San Francisco. So I think Matt Chapman and John Hooley are in that every day play, every day bucket. So it's good to at least see them have the played appearances like that. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good way

to look at that situation. Now Alec Berlison is playing a bit more than expected. I'm curious if you have some interest in Berlison given the number of injuries the Cardinals have been dealing with. I do, I do. I think that they're just gonna play him at DH for now. So, you know, I think Alec Berlison was a guy I got a lot of this this off this this

last weekend. And I also added to or you know, was happy that I had my shares in JJ Bladay and Lawrence Butler, who are also Lawrence Butler played against the lefty and you've got them in that sort of 17 to 18 played appearance bucket, Bladay and Butler. And I mean, other people in that bucket are Masataka Yoshida, Justin Turner, Nolan Jones, Brendan Rodgers, you know, like Alex Redugo. Like it's just a, if this is this is at least the 75% player time bucket. And with a team as bad as the A's, I think with Dan Butler may get closer to 100%. With JD Davis, the other alternatives aren't that great.

You know, he went out there and hit two homers. I don't think that Jordan Diaz is okay. Do you think he's like blocking somebody I get the I get to I get two things when I watch JD Davis. I think he's fueled by rage. Maybe I'm just projecting, but like, I wonder if in his head he was like, take that far on. And then also that the A's may just be in the position

of playing him every day to shop him to send him somewhere at the deadline, make him look like an everyday player again. So that's my impression that he's actually going to play. But what's your impression of JD Davis is playing fine? My impression of JD Davis is that even a bad team can't platoon everywhere and a bad team like the A's

doesn't care if he's a minus eight defender and he can just be a staple in the heart of the lineup and be a veteran on a team that will need some veterans. I don't think it's even about the trade value because like think back to when JD Davis was acquired by the Giants a couple of years ago, when there were still like more future excitement about him, it was for Darren Ruff, right?

That was the trade, like Darren Ruff went to the Mets, younger Darren Ruff and JD Davis went back to the Giants. So I think the league has already sort of told us how they feel about this type of player, but yeah, the opportunity Giants. So I think the league has already sort of told us how they feel about this type of player. But yeah, the opportunity looks good. So I think in like a 15 team league, Davis is going to play enough to be a useful, cheap source of power, at least someone you're going to kind of shove in the lineup when it's a heavier schedule week.

That's that's sort of the best use case for him. I think it's fun when you look at the A's right now, because you could say clearly Gallof is an everyday guy. J.D. Davis is that guy, maybe Nick Allen ends up being that guy because he's a shortstop, but I think her Nias could play more over time. Bladay might be that player, and Butler might be that player too,

based on that early usage. Seeing those guys each starting against the lefty, I think, gives you a sense they want to try it, and it's coming at the expense of Brent Rooker and Asturiz Ruiz. And Seth Brown. And Seth Brown to a smaller degree, yeah. Those are the types of players, just also generally those are the types of players that they're going to move on from, like honestly. I think Ruiz is in that bucket, but the nice thing

about Ruiz I think is that he will, should be able to give you one to two wins of production every year. So even if he's not gonna become that star you were hoping for, like he's gonna be a useful player for you, I think. And so I think he'll continue to play, but the day in Butler just have more overall packages where they could give you patience and power in ways that Ruiz is showing that he won't necessarily.

I'm waiting for Alan's improved bat speed to show up in a max EV or something. So far it's just been one double. I would love to take that guy and give him bat speed. That would be the type of player that would get better. The 4-0 Pirates, again, thinking about the fact that they saw only lefties. That really skews everything because Connor Joe started and let off every single game. Not a sign of things to come. Edward Olivares is going to be a tough player for the short term because he got three starts

against four lefties. He homered and started after every game after the homer he started. I don't know if he's like a regular fixture in that lineup or if he's like a 60s Right, he's Swinsky's gonna play a lot Taylor's gonna play against lefties to the Michael Taylor signing made things a little weird in the outfield because Taylor's a good defensive center fielder and that forces someone else to either play a corner or sit against lefties. You know what it does is like it makes there be a real risk of it being just a straight Swinsky Taylor platoon in center

because Reynolds best position is not center and Oli Varis is not even a good defender. So it makes sense from a team build perspective, but it is not good for fancy players. Reduces Sawinski's total output, might even produce Reynolds's a little bit, and it makes Olivares look like a short side platoon guy. So when I was building pickups this this last week, I put Burleson and JJ Bode and Lawrence Butler in one class. And I had Jake Myers just around there Carlson and JJ Bade and Lawrence Butler in one class.

And I had Jake Myers just around there as players that I think are doing something interesting power wise, have some speed, might be everyday players. I put those guys above all the virus. I've had some places where I had a dollar on him just, you know, but I was, I think we have to treat them in our minds as a verse lefties guy for now. That's the right way to go. Yeah, I don't want to overcorrect for that particular odd stretch of schedule. There was an injury opportunity that opened up right before the season for the Yankees, I think is worth talking about.

Oswaldo Cabrera is now playing third base and actually played his start at shortstop on Sunday because Anthony Volpe was a late scratch that day. But it's interesting that Cabrera could actually end up playing a lot because of the DJ LeMahieu absence. And that's a it's like a fracture in his foot. So that could be a little longer than people think as far as the absence goes. So he's stuck in the bottom third of the lineup, but in deep leagues, I think Cabrera could end up being a really versatile player that does surprisingly well with an increased role. One thing that's weird about a guy who comes up and then plays and he plays and fits and

starts and goes back down is that you never really get that nice like runway to like do, you know, something really special for a whole season. I know that we technically have 518 plate appearances of his career, and that we do have a fair amount of batted balls. We have 353 batted ball events. So I could point to his, his batted balls being kind of meh and boring. And maybe I don't, maybe he doesn't have that much power,

but I'm going to give him a little bit of credit for just how the stop and start nature of how playing time has come to him. So I think maybe he's capable, if you gave him a full season of hitting like 12 to 15 homers and stealing 10 bags and hitting 240 or something, does that sound about right for you? It seems fair, yeah.

Pretty flawed player. But he'll play up because of the park and the supporting cast. So I could just see him being one of those deep league guys that ends up being a useful glue guy, given how he's playing and how much more versatile he appears to be. When they added to that outfield,

he looked like a clear loser, but at least now he's able to play as a backup on the left side of the infield, which says something about how the Yankees feel about as Waldo Cabrera. He could play his way into a starting role there even because, or like, he could play his way into more playing time. Diesel Amehue will come back at some point, but Diesel Amehue can play first in DH and other things. So I think there's a constant battle like between who's gonna be healthy. Maybe just between Stanton, Bamehu, Rizzo, these guys, there's just always gonna be one person who's hurt.

And so Cabrera just plays all year. Yeah, could be the young guy that fills in for all the banged up old guys over the course of the season. One other hitter I wanted to bring up from the increased role perspective is Elaris Montero getting a regular run as a first base DH option for the Rockies. The thing that we just can't figure out

is lineup construction. He begins as the eight hitter. And this is classic Rocky right here. If you can explain it to me, please do. So they face a varietyy on opening day, he hits eighth as the DH grade. Face a righty on game two, still hitting eighth, totally makes sense.

They face a lefty for game three, okay, maybe he'd move up in the order, nope, hits eighth again. They face another righty for game four of the series, he's hitting third. Like Chris Bryant got the day off and Montero jumped from eighth to third in the order. Maybe Chris Bryant was just hitting

third and they would like just put him in the same spot. They didn't even do that. They know because Nolan Jones hit third the first three games and they moved Jones up to second. Oh, that one doesn't even work. No. And they flip the four or five

hitters. Please let it not be. We saw him get three walks against a left hander yesterday. So now he's our three hitter. I know it not be. We saw him get three walks against a left-hander yesterday, so now he's our three hitter. I think that's what it is, but the thing that started to intrigue me with Montero this winter was that there were adjustments made to his swing, and he's been more patient

kind of going back to the spring as well. He's got plenty of raw power. It's just not, it's cutting down the strikeouts. It's gonna be the key to him actually becoming a good fantasy player. The early indications here are at least positive from a playing time perspective. So if you need a silver lining from the Rockies coming off of

a one win opening series in Arizona, they're at least playing Montero every day. And maybe they'll even put him higher in the order over the course of the year as well. Who's suffering because of this choice? Iraqis fans? No, but like we decided that Montero had lost his job at some point

because Chris Bryant was gonna play first and Charlie Blackman was gonna play DH. I think Sean Bouchard going down, Sean Bouchard getting sent down was the extra bat that would have been in the outfield DH rotation that would have caused more of a logjam. New to the pool, players are also something we care about and Trey Lipscomb is getting an opportunity for the Nationals because Nick Senzel suffered a thumb injury.

Just totally missed this one, just over my head. Somehow in all the box scores I've read and all the different ways I've sorted the leaderboards. I just totally miss this guy. Well, a couple of starts and his first big league homer, he's making the leap from double A to the big leagues. And Lipscomb is one of those players that doesn't walk a lot. So there's the question of whether he's going to hit enough to get around the lack of patience

But it was basically 20 homerun power at double a last year. He was age appropriate for the level There's non zero speed and perhaps more importantly. He's a great defender He got a minor league gold glove at third base So if you're the Nationals and you're having this rebuilding year, and this is one of the positions You don't necessarily have the obvious long term solution for, see what happens. See if he can make some adjustments. This is a what could go right sort of play. And given the unfortunate length of Nick Senzell's injury history,

I would lean on the side of Lipscomb playing until he gives the nationals a reason to back off of him. I think it's still probably more of a deep league guy. Lipscomb's topped out at 102 WRC plus in AA this year and had a 100 before so that doesn't traditionally turn out stars. There's things to liken his profile that he doesn't strike out too much and he's got power, a little bit of power, a little bit of speed. If he doesn't have that little bit of power, which we don't know how he built that power if it was on his legs or not. If he plays to a 100 ISO or something, he's going to be a guy who hits 235 with a slugging percentage under 360 or something.

And that's not going to be a great real life package that turns into him being the starter going forward. Like I'm saying, I don't think he still profiles as a guy who's going to take over third base and play that for the Nationals for six years. It's still a long shot that it happens, but just a guy that came out of nowhere that at least in mono leagues has appeal, but maybe even in 15 teamers will carve out a role. The range of outcomes here. I mean, remember Casey Schmidt last year, Casey Schmidt came up had an amazing week and then kind of turned back into the player you'd expect for someone with the offensive profile that he had a lot of ways this can go. it's a profile that he had, a lot of ways this can go. It's a low strikeout rate with a really high whiff rate is one of those things that we talk about as being able to go either way in the big leagues. May strike out more than you expect. And if he does that, and it really puts pressure

on the rest of the park package. But everything works, if everything works, it could still be like a 250, 10, 10 guy. And that's that's lovely. And monolies, it's wonderful to find, to find that on the wire at a low price and a minor in a in a monolig feels really, really good. Couple injury related news items to get to before we go. Eloy Jimenez is in a holding pattern

while they get results on MRI MRI on his adductor. To be injured or is he, he's not being injured. He's already hurt. He's waiting to find out what injury he has. He's waiting to find out the extent of the adductor injury that he suffered running out of grounder on Sunday, which is, that might be the last time for me. I had one more.

Didn't you have like the biggest sigh in the world when Royce Lewis got her? You're just like, oh, man, it was all Royce. No, it was like the second game of the season. You just hit a homer and a double and he's limping off the. Oh, this game. God, man, it was opening day. He was lowered in his first blade appearance on opening day.

So optimism went through the roof and it just deflated so fast. Oh, it was brutal. But that note was from James Fegan from socks machine.com. I with Eloy, I'm most always expecting the longer end of the timetable. Like, yes, it's yes, there's a tear. Yes, it's not a grade one. It's worse. And yes, he's going to miss significant time. We don't know that yet. But holding pattern for now, given the history of the line of decision by the way to James Fegan and to socks machine, I think that's such a great fit. I don't know that yet, but holding pattern for now, given the history of making the lineup decision. Congratulations, by the way, to James Fieggen and to Socks Machine. I think that's such a great fit.

I don't know if we've said anything about this before, but the Socks Machine is a great podcast for the Socks and Fieggen's always done great work. I like this idea of a local pod having their own reporter and going for it on that level. Kudos to them and kudos to them for that match. Yeah. Very cool to see James still cover in the white socks for socks machine. Other injury news that popped up. I saw a rehab note on Edward Cabrera, three scoreless innings in his first rehab start for AAA Jacksonville on Sunday.

So he was able to get to 43 pitches and he was averaging 97.7 on that four seamer. So that shoulder is feeling pretty good for Cabrera, you know. I'll take it. Sounds froggy. We I had it in my list of mid-April guys, so still hoping that that is the case. Might get a note soon from Alex Cobb, you know, throwing a minor league game and being one step or two away from the Giants rotation. It'll be interesting because he'll

be battling Snell on the way back in terms of like to get back fast. I don't want Dalton Jeffries to start another game for the Giants necessarily. I do like Keaton Wynn, but Keaton Wynn's going to the Dodgers today. So good luck, Rooks. That lineup, by the way, is just nasty. I've been watching a fair amount of it because I'm here in Glendora with my brother and sister, Amon. They are Dodgers fans. So like you just there's no place to take a breath in that Dodger lineup.

No easy matchups, at least for the top seven hitters on a given day. And by the time you're down to eight, nine, there's probably guys on base. So or you're just exhausted from finding a way through that. Our outmen and outmen and whoever's in that outman spot and to Oscar. But Oscar was hitting tanks. No, Te Oscar's. He looks like a Dolis Garcia out there. He looks locked in right now.

Yeah. You mentioned Royce Lewis before. The update was that he has a severe quad strain and he's going to be sidelined, sidelined for over a month. So it's still like, it's still not even clear like, okay, over a month that could be. He just like ran up to second base, dude. Yeah, he was just rounding second.

Oh, God. Brutal. Justin Steele's supposed to be back in May. That's the expectation, at least at this point. That's according to Craig Council. So we'll see how that turns out. It's a grade one hamstring strain for Steele. We did not get a grade on Rondos.

It's good to see Yamamoto turn it around and have what you expected out of him. Yeah, big, big step back in the right direction for him. I have to admit, just after Korea, it's like don't overreact to one game, but I was like, God, that's your first game. It shook you a little bit. It did, a little bit.

Last injury note to throw out there, Sean Murphy landed on the IL already with an oblique strain. You could see it in the swing. Like it just, it looks bad. He just like turned around. He like took a swing and turned around. Yeah, he just knew. I was like, it's either a hand made or oblique.

And he wasn't flexing his hand. So I was like, it's gotta be the oblique. Yeah, so that could easily turn into a month long injury too. I've not seen an official timetable on that one yet, but a lot more Travis Darno for the Atlanta lineup in the near future with Murphy on the shelf. So a tough break for him suffering that injury in Atlanta's season opener. They're the worst because with Oblique, you just have to be like, once it stops hurting as you were walking around, then you have to take a big swing. And if it hurts, you have to stop doing it and wait another two weeks. They've got

the depth to just let him fully heal without pushing him too hard so we'll see we'll see if that's what they end up doing I could see them taking a cautious approach just to make sure he's back so they can use him heavily once he's healthy again. That was transaction number one for my son in his first fantasy league. What a fun way to be introduced to the game. Like, oh, your catcher is hurt. It's like in Oregon Trail when you have dysentery.

He's in a 16 league. And so, and it's just the most amazing team. I was like, I love it. He's got his closers are like Edwin Diaz and Andres Munoz. Of course, like his his staff is Spencer Strider, Zach Wheeler, George Kirby, Zach Gallin, Dylan C. Shane Bieber, Blake Snell's on the bench. 16 leagues, man. I was like, if you don't win.

Everyone's team is going to be about that good though. I really I know that's true. And also, well, not all of them. Well, right. This is their first time one kid one kid drafted Alec Marsh. And I was like like what's happening? Did he sort alphabetically my first name in the picture list? I don't I was like how do you even get to that name?

So and I was like well I'm not gonna I'm not gonna help you Felix I'm just gonna tell you general strategy things that'll help you make your own decisions and then at some point I was like no I'm trapped him. You joysticked. Said you were going to do it and you did it. Pick who you want, dude. It's fine. But it should be one of these three guys.

It's cool that they're playing like it's it's a lot more fun to play with a loaded team anyway, because you're watching guys that are superstars. He does like the whole thing that we like, I think, which is to like look at your team and see the stats from last night or see the accumulated stats. Like he's already brought up the league page a few times

and looked at it, so. That's a good start, he's got the bug. We are gonna go on our way out the door. A reminder, get a subscription to the athletic, theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Find Eno on Twitter, at EnoSaris. Find me at Derek and Ryper. Find a pod at rates and barrels. That's gonna do Twitter at EnoSaris. Find me at Derek and Riper. Find a pod at rates and barrels.

That's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening.