Rates & Barrels - Opening Weekend Observations: Disappointing Aces, Committee Madness & Electric Firemen

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss a busy Opening Weekend including a few disappointing performances from fantasy aces, more confusion with multiple teams deploying closer committees, in-season tools they use for managing their rosters, and much more.  Rundown Disappointing Aces: Brandon Woodruff, Shane Bieber & Julio Urías Do Foul Balls Matter in Pitching Performances? More Committee Questions & Electric Firemen Weekend Starting Pitcher Stuff+ Leaders Bigger Leadoff Bats In-Season Management Tools & Projections Plate Discipline & Quality of Contact Steven Kwan's Power Ceiling Hector Neris Appeal w/Ryan Pressly's Velo Dip 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 Monday, April 11th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we will share some opening series observations, including a few disappointing performances from Aces, their first time through the rotation. Committees in action. We'll try to make sense of what we saw some of the bullpens around the league do. Had a great question about some larger hitters in the leadoff spot to begin the season. This subject line was Burley Beef Boys batting leadoff,

probably a top five subject line from the Rates and Barrels email box. We got some other problem players we're going to discuss and what we're looking for for in-season management tools this time of year. What are we using to make these micro decisions? Because it seems like I sweat these toss-ups in the lineup more now than I do at any point other than maybe the last two weeks of the season when you know we're possibly closing in on titles so what goes into our decision making process as we make these micro decisions that we're going to make for the better part of the next 25 weeks you know know, welcome back. It looks like you had a good time in San Diego.

I did. It was expensive, but I had a good time. Did you go to Legoland? I did not do Legoland. I did not do Legoland because the season started right after Disneyland. So you saw me in Disneyland and my wife allowed me to sort of hand the children off to her for the end of the week so that I could live blog and watch all the opening day games. So they went to the zoo, which has a new section on bugs, which my youngest loves bugs. So they had a good time. Went to the Natural History Museum and the zoo.

And I did a little mini meetup at Lost Abbey. Shout out to anybody who came to that. We had a fun time that night. Excellent. Well, glad to have you back and looking forward to looking at some of these topics, including these disappointing aces, because I think there's an overwhelming amount of panic that sets in when you have your first start of the year from your best pitcher, usually someone you took in the first couple of rounds or if it was an auction,

someone you paid $30 plus to have on your roster, and they get hit. You see crooked numbers in the box score. You see walk issues. Maybe in some of these cases, we saw some velocity issues. Three names immediately came to mind for me as I was thinking about the weekend. Brandon Woodruff, his first start of the season against the Cubs on Saturday, just didn't have his typical command. I think that's most of what I'm attributing his disappointing start to. Shane Bieber, I think was a velo drop guy. And Julio Rios, also a velo drop guy at Coors Field on Sunday. So between those three guys or anybody else that really didn't show well their

first time out, is there anyone that you're particularly worried about based on what you saw that first start? Yeah, I really am. In fact, it's easier for me to grab out the guy I'm not worried about. Let me just take Brandon Woodruff out of this discussion, I think. Looked at the the stuff numbers had a 118 stuff poor location numbers he doesn't usually have poor location numbers he talked about poor location after the game said it was one of the worst of his of his career so it all lines up to me I think you want to have some narrative you want to have some story that lines up with it um and so uh this

in that case in woodruff's case the story and the numbers line up together and you can say i think no problem now i think the story and the numbers are a little bit different when it comes to shane beaver so the story is he was down in velo because it was cold and it was his first start of the year and in his career that has been true that he has had you know slower starts velo wise and that you know in colder velo he's had a little bit of trouble with colder days however last year for example opening day he averaged 92 and a half on the on the four seamer and i believe it was 90.9 in this year's start um the stuff numbers are pretty bad uh coming off a shoulder injury i don't know man i know he had a good start numbers wise and so you know people are saying well the final line was great so i don't care but uh beaver that's that was against

uh what was it against the royals royals yeah you know that lineup is getting better but i wouldn't say it's one of the best lineups and the cold also suppresses balls and play so you would expect a few less offense in the balls on that so that was one that really worried me and then urias dude he you know he said after the game there's he already going like narrative numbers theme that we're going with here urias said after the game which was just a weird start i don't know what was going on just a weird day blah blah blah i don't know i looked at his spring numbers and he was averaging 91.6 in the spring. I didn't notice that. So his stuff plus was near 100, even with the fact that Coors hurts curveballs and his velo was down. So if you wanted me to order them, I'd be least

worried about Woodruff and most worried about Bieber. It seems in line with the way some of the reaction I've seen has been to this point. I think the only thing in the Woodruff start that got me thinking, and I don't know if we've ever really talked about this before, the Cubs were fouling off a ton of pitches. The broadcast brought it up a few times, and I was going to ask you, do you look at foul balls as something that's actually problematic? Because they're not swings and misses. They're near hits, right?

I mean, they're closer to hits than they are to misses if we're just kind of thinking about it in a very binary sense should we be worried when we see an uptick in foul balls for pitchers over any number of starts i wouldn't worry about any one particular day right if he wasn't locating as well as he wanted to fine but i just had never thought about it in the broader context before of whether or not these are actually problematic things to look for. Yeah, I don't have an organized response for you. So I'm just going to kind of go through some things I know about foul balls. So, for example, foul balls are at an all-time high. I don't know if you knew that.

That's sort of a league thing. So there is something going on with hitters finding a way to spoil. I know that in and at bat, as you foul balls off more, the advantage starts to go towards the hitter. So put those two things together and you're like, oh yeah, I would also try and select for guys who can foul balls off because as they foul balls off, they get better outcomes than those at bats. And then the last thing I know is that at the extremes, there are players that show the ability to foul balls off and keep that from season to season but it's a very noisy thing

in any for every given player in any given at bat so i would say i am not super worried because there's all that noise in it and uh it's possibly just a one start freak occurrence if it starts happening more then yes i would say that is not as good as a whiff. We prefer whiffs. Whiffs are clean. They don't result in balls in play. You're right. Those fouls are near hits. But there is something going on in the game of baseball where people are fouling balls off more, and it is advantageous to the hitters to do so. I just ran a quick search just to see who led the league, what pitcher allowed the most foul balls? Just out of curiosity thing.

Zach Wheeler was number one in the league. Robbie Ray was number two. Sandy Alcantara was three. Top 10 include Sean Mania, Nathan Evaldi, Walker Bueller, Kevin Gossman, Nick Pavetta, Brandon Woodruff, and Luis Castillo. These are all good pitchers. Part of this is you're going to get more foul balls if you're in the game longer because you're running some volume higher so there's i was genuinely curious because i never really thought about it as a possible problem yeah and it's hard to say that like oh yeah those guys sucked was there a bad pitcher on that list not anywhere near the top 10

the first i mean nick pivetta is the worst pitcher of that group. I guess the first bad pitcher is Chris Flexen bad. Compared to the other guys, he's kind of like a Pavetta with more contact allowed. Tyler Anderson's in the top 20. Cole Irvin's up there in the top 25. Jordan Lyles is up there.

There's an interesting thing about that group though. It's not the most standout strikeout rate wheeler ray alcantara mania evaldi ray has a little lighter than people want him to be evaldi has has like it's like one of those players you're like why doesn't he miss more bats why doesn't he have more strikeouts right woodruff never had like the he's never had like the 12k9 right no but yeah i mean these guys are all good strikeout pitchers at this point evaldi's issue Woodruff never had like the, he's never had like the 12 K nine, right? No,

but I mean, these guys are all good strikeout pitchers at this point. Evolv these issues more earlier in his career. He was like a six to seven Ks per nine. Yeah. He's moved on a little bit now, but I don't, I think that's,

that's fair for the most part. They're all good pitchers, but they're not the best strikeout pitchers in baseball. Garrett Cole's on here at 17, 18. Garrett Cole's 18th on the list. It is a funny event because the thing itself, the foul itself is good for the pitcher. It's still, I mean,

it's a completely positive outcome for the pitcher. Right. But if you were ranking the positive outcomes, it wouldn't be number one all right either a called strike that called strike and i and a swing and miss i have to be ahead of it i would think more to come here or a discovery of work done by someone else at some point that explains how important or unimportant something like this actually would be aside from the disappointing aces that we saw over opening weekend,

we got to see how some teams were deploying their bullpens. And I feel like we got more questions than answers from the opening weekend. It was just nauseating, dude. It was just like, oh, God, like the Rays. Could you just not, like, just for the opening weekend, just do something that we can figure out? Nope. Like, nope.

I thought it was going to be FireEisen because he was pitching in the ninth, and I was like, oh, yeah, it's always going to be Kittredge in the seventh and FireEisen in the ninth. Yep, yep. This is what they did this before with Fairbanks and Anderson. Yep, yep. And then Brooks Raley comes out to get, and I think there was actually two pitchers

after FireEisen. I was just like, man, man, you guys are going to kill me. Well, they came back with Kittredge on Saturday. He got a save. So there's that. Yeah. Yeah, I picked up a share of FireEisen. I think he's going to get five to ten saves.

This is one of the worst parts of in-season management right now, though, is that if you have these relievers that we liked at the end of draft season who you thought were in a committee and maybe only sharing with one other reliever, Jorge Alcala, definitely among those. You see when he comes into the games the first few days of the season, he's pitching in the sixth or the seventh inning. It's really easy to abandon hope on a player after two games of being that far removed from the ninth inning.

And I was trying to decide if the schedule, because we know that opening day for the teams that opened on Thursday, most of those teams were off Friday. There was a built-in rainout makeup day right there, so you don't have to make it up later. So your Thursday usage with an off day Friday might not be your typical usage because you might use some of your a relievers in different situations there. And I thought that might have been happening a little bit with the twins on Sunday because they had a huge lead and they threw both Alcala and Emilio Pagan kind of in the middle late innings instead of the late innings. And I think that's more a case of we have a lead, we're going to protect it, and we're going to move on. But they're playing on Monday, so it wasn't a we-have-everyone-available situation. But I want to be aware of those things

because I think they can mislead us. My theory is that they had lost the first two games and they did not want to go 0-3. And so even if there wasn't necessarily the need for the a bullpen they were like let's practice what a close win will look like so my theory is that Alcala is Alcala is the uh setup guy and Pagan is the closer and that we saw like a mini practice run even though it's a 10-4 game that that's that's sort of how it sits right now and Duran uh John Duran who like we talked about here he has excellent

stuff numbers he's been near the top of the the the early list um I think he's their fireman and so it is a little bit hard with him and Spencer Strider, these two pitchers that are like, wow, these guys, you watch them, you see them getting used, you know they're going to be huge for their teams. But for fantasy teams, unless you have safe-spin holds, I think both of those guys are just going to be good pitchers that help their teams immensely and maybe not help your fantasy team. Because how many, i would put duran before uh you know i'll call it right yeah i mean i so like like if they were winning a two-to-one

game i think it would go duran i'll call up pagan i'm not as confident in pagan's late inning late late inning role as you are i'm not confident confident either, but I just think that's the order right now. I do think this group of swingmen, they're clearly future starters, at least, if health comes through. I think all of these guys are guys we're going to see in the rotation at some point, probably even later this season.

Spencer Strider, Yohan Duran, Clark Schmidt, Ronzi Contreras. I think we can all look at them and see what they do well and say, yes, we want these guys on our roster. The problem is the usage right now is not such that you can comfortably use them in all formats. I think the hard question you have to decide on is, are they good enough to justify an early season bench spot? Those spots are so precious. You're trying to turn over the roster spots. You're trying to find different ways to cover the holes in the bullpen

or to find extra bench bats that might be playing more than expected. And you're looking at these names and you see them and you think about their prospect, their profile and their ceiling and you want them on your team. And then when push comes to shove and you start thinking about actually putting them in the lineup for the week, they kind of seem like last resort. So you're not going to pass on a two-start pitcher for any of those guys, at least a rosterable two-start pitcher for those guys.

But then if you have good streamable one-start guys facing a bottom five team, are you actually going to sit one of those starters to possibly get two relief appearances from guys like strider and contraris and schmidt and duran like i i think they're really tough players to roster and i want them on my team but i can't afford to have them on most of my teams yeah yeah i think you have to pick one if you get one, and even that one is tough. But just as an example, the place that I have chosen Strider over a one-start pitcher, we just did, I think, where lineups are about to lock, is in a draft and hold where my choices are Chris Paddock against the Dodgers and reaver san martin against the dodgers yeah that's an easier situation to go with the relief well strider could come in here and give me three four innings both of those guys could only give me three four innings the you know strider's not gonna be against the dodgers hopefully you know and like you know so you hopefully. But which one is more likely to win?

It actually might be Strider. Because if Reaver or Paddock go three or four, I don't think they're going five or six against the Dodgers. And Strider could be the kind of guy who comes in. I think that's how he's kind of settling in right now is the guy who comes in the first reliever, who comes in in the fifth and the sixth. And that's actually a place to snag a W.

That's what Lil' Izauga used to do. I do think the Dodgers are a matchup you want to avoid. The Jays. The Jays' offense did exactly what we thought the Jays' offense was going to do throughout the season. They did it right away in the first series. I put the Yankees on there, but at least Yankees in Yankee Stadium.

Don't really want to throw your guys there. Yeah, really want to avoid that if possible. What are you doing with some of these other matchups, though? Sonny Gray has Boston, for example, this week in Boston. I generally like Sonny Gray, but this seems like it's on the short list of starts where I don't want to use him. I've got Severino on my bench at home against the Jays.

It's the rare time where I don't want to use Severino because he looks healthy. The underlying numbers were really good in that first outing. But it was only three innings, and it's a tough start. Right, so you might not even be able to go five and it might be bad ratios without the chance of a win even though strikeouts are kind of always there but the jays don't strike out much so i was entering on the side of sitting both severino and sunny gray and that's not normally something i would do for a strider type for strider types or even for committee relievers if it's the general pitching slot because it's one really tough start

that I don't feel like I need to take the risk on right now. And I'm trying to decide, is that a mistake? Is that something I should actually be willing to take on because the higher volume of innings in one start might be the better play. You do want innings. Yeah. Yeah, that's a tough one.

You know, to continue the trend of bullpens that are hard to figure out, though, as well, there's, you know's Seattle, right? We just wanted to throw Seattle out. Yeah, Steckenreiter got a save early in that series against the Twins, and he was hit hard in that converted save. Looked good on paper. Didn't look good if you watched it. And he's like the least favorite on my arms.

there i feel like but you know it's it's one of those things where if they need to use better weapons to get to the sixth seventh and eighth they will use someone else every single time and he'll just be the guy that's left at the end so in a super bowl pen the fourth or fifth most talented reliever might be the guy that ends up getting more saves than you'd expect because they've got so many other better options to use when they're playing the matchups to get there. I thought that might be Seawald, but the Stuff Plus model says he's the best, I think. Munoz always pops, but he also gave up a crazy homer to Buxton. Did you see that thing?

101, about three inches above the strike zone, so pretty much a pitcher's pitch. Buxton took it yard, man. That guy's going to be good this year. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I think Diego Castillo is an interesting pickup.

I put a couple bids in on him. I ended up winning Pagan, which I wasn't excited about, but I paid so little that I'm like, okay, what if that's the situation where Pagan is not the best pitcher in that bullpen but he's the guy who gets the saves you know oh man this stuff is really turning you turning me around but if I had to pick if I had to pick a fireman just to finish it off I had to pick a fireman that I liked it's Strider because I think there's that Tucker Davidson role he could take so i think that

he could either end up being a six starter that's really good or he could do the jonathan the wisaker thing where he has like nine or ten wins out of relief you know so i think that there's i think strider's my favorite fireman and in those bullpens i kind of think uh my favorites right now are Pagan, Kittredge, and Diego Castillo. Diego Castillo. Wow. Still, I mean, until Ken Giles comes back especially, I think it's pick your poison. Choose whatever one you like best. I think Sewell is probably the most interesting to me.

I'm trusting your model in that case. I think because they gave him enough opportunities down the stretch last year, a split could still favor him. I think that's still carrying some weight for me. I think I'm with you on Strider being the best of those current firemen. If you're going to stash one, he was the guy that I was targeting this weekend. With Contreras, I was a little bit concerned. It was only one and two-thirds innings that he threw behind Mitch Keller.

He looked pretty good. The command was a little bit concerned. It was only one and two thirds innings that he threw behind Mitch Keller. He looked pretty good. The command was a little spotty, but I don't think command's usually a problem for him. So I'm, I'm more of a, let's see what happens the next couple of times out and how much they stretch him out because they may be trying to monitor his innings carefully, give him a little bit of a slow lead up.

And then eventually he's going five more consistently, but we may have to wait a few weeks for it. I think he'll take Mitch Keller's job because Mitch Keller is throwing hard, but he did not change the shapes enough. And so the stuff model says he's still below average in stuff despite that tick in velocity. And we know he doesn't have good command. And I don't know, like his appearance sort of four, was it four innings, four Ks, four walks? I don't know if that's going to get it done. So I think Contreras is headed towards Keller's spot. And of the firemen, I think he's got the most obvious starting spot. Like Duran,, I think, is not going to start this year. Strider could start, probably relieve.

I think Contreras is going to start. So if you're trying to hold on to someone that could be a starter, I think Contreras might actually still be a pretty good hold. And I think Clark Schmidt is a little more of a question for me because he's lost so much time with arm injuries that I think the Yankees are going to have to nurse him regardless of role. And I think it's easier to nurse a workload while still getting a lot of mileage out of someone if you're using them two or three innings at a time and not taxing the rest of the pitching staff in the process. You're using him when someone else falls a little short or when someone gets to the fourth or the fifth and you just want to give the short relievers

a breather because Schmidt's rested. I think that's where I'm at in terms of how I expect him to be used in the short term, even though the long, long-term future could still be very bright. Probably starter, yeah. Good dynasty pickup, good guy. If you're going to nurse, these are great. All of these are great dynasty pickups if they're still available. Clark is probably the most likely to be available,

but I think they might all be gone in deeper dynasties. But even in sort of 12 and 15, if they're like keeper situations, they're all like, if you're going to keep one pitcher that you don't know that this is the list, right? Strider,

Contreras, Schmidt. This is the list of really exciting young arms that just don't have the role to make them pop and are worth kind of maybe nursing along pick your favorite and and go with it um but or pick one whoever's available at this point i guess uh but i i do find those guys fun i just wanted to uh i just got a a dump before a stats dump before the uh podcast started so this is through sunday i wanted to just highlight the best 10 uh pitched best 10 starting pitchers uh by stuff plus uh no surprise number one is hunter green with 135 stuff plus uh he blew the doors off shohei otani at 130 and now here's the biggest

surprise uh and this is partially why i'm doing this tyler wells had a 129 stuff plus what he did poorly um it's not location people were hunting hunting the fastball and hitting it. But this is enough for me to hold in deeper leagues. I'm holding Tyler Wells for at least one more start. Garrett Cole. He had a higher stuff plus than Garrett Cole. Garrett Cole, 125. Corbin Burns, 124.

Shane McClanahan was as good as he looked, 121. Frankie Montas had a bad start but it was a 118 stuff plus Hugh Darvish 118 and I think Hugh Darvish has a new way of bringing the ball up in the back a new arm path in the back I thought he looked really good

96 location plus is about all you can expect from him. But I thought he looked really good. I thought Darvish, that was a great start for him. Carlos Rodon, 117. Tanner Houck, 117. So, mostly expected players, but then a couple of surprises I think in Montas and Wells. Yeah, I would say maybe Houck was a little bit of a surprise too.

I don't remember the model being down on him at all last year, but I just think that was a really tough matchup for him going into Yankee Stadium for his first start. And if you look at the splits, I mean, last year, he was great against righties. I think Houck is really important for the Red Sox, especially with sale down, just as a guy that has to pitch really well

if they're going to keep it together in that group of starting five. And probably someone that in leagues where you can make trades isn't valued quite as much as he should be. He might be one of the better starters you can actually go make a reasonable deal for right now. So I'd be intrigued by him

because I think if you got excess pitching and Houk's on your roster, you might be willing willing to move them montas might be on that list too you know like acquirable maybe the person didn't think there's a lot of wins on the table for them you know he's had the suspension he's had the he's had bad stretches you know they could be like oh here it goes again that wells thing is really surprising though i know he did well in the model last year as a reliever i didn't think he would go up with Stuff Plus. It was a very tough matchup for him, though, the first time out against the Rays. Let's get to this observation from opening weekend.

The Burley Beef Boys batting leadoff. We saw Daniel Vogelbach get the leadoff spot for the Pirates on opening day. We saw Kyle Schwarber leadoff in Homer for the Phillies. I believe that was on opening day against Oakland as well. And this led one of our listeners, Sam, to ask us if we have any statistical insight on the Burley Beef Boys batting leadoff or perhaps any clubhouse team chemistry insight. What would be the reasoning for having hitters like this in that spot? reasoning for having hitters like this in that spot whereas you know i think sam as as many of us expects obp speed guys are typically where our minds go when we're looking for players to be

atop the order this is a very different look for a few teams yes um i i hesitate to say it's a full on trend um but i did want to play it's trivia time it's time for you to do the trivia because I'm bad at it so Derek who are the top 5 heaviest leadoff hitters of all time I'm going to say all time but it's the free agency era the free agency era

top 5 heaviest I mean Vogelback is probably one he was the 4th biggest yeah i figured if you made top five he was probably in it okay yeah one one for one this is where the movie takes a horrible horrible turn how about john jaha whoa i'm assuming that's a no. Not on your list. I had to go check real quick on the tallest of all time. He's not on that. Yeah, I think he was a little more stout than tall.

Yeah, a little more stout. I'll take one more guess before we let you reveal the list. I'm trying to think of one more large hitter. How about Migueluel sino mysteriously well done yes miguel sino is actually two pounds heavier than vogelbach according to the listings and so he would slot in at third number one heaviest leadoff hitter of all time was one of our podcast favorites, Adam Dunn. Adam Dunn led off. Okay, yeah, big OBP.

I can see it. Adam Dunn listed at 285, had 15 games. And then the next one only had one game. Snow only had two games. That was a good pull. The next one only had one game, plays for the Yankees. Current Yankee? Yeah. Stanton? the next one had only had one game plays for the yankees current yankee yeah stanton aaron judge i guess judge judge is judge heavier than stanton they're both large i think yeah just taller right 282 on on judge uh and then uh because i had i had this done before

vogelbach i have the other two behind them. G-Man Choi had 18 games. Of course, the Rays would have someone like this at 260. And then Luke Voigt had six games at leadoff at 255. Just for fun, Aaron Judge is the tallest leadoff hitter of all time at 79 inches. Adam Dunn is the second tallest. Giancarlo Stanton, it says here, is only an inch shorter than Aaron Judge. Yeah, I guess that's about right.

I've seen pictures of them standing next to each other. They're just both large humans. They are large. Stanton is the third largest of all time. And then just some fun names, John Mayberry, Jose Martinez, and then Corey Hart had 161 games. That's where it really counts. Corey Hart is actually the start of all this, actually kind of is.

He did have some speed. Yeah, Corey Hart could run pretty well for a tall guy especially, but he ran well regardless of height. I thought Corey Hart was going to be so good. Is that back around the time you started playing? Wasn't he a sunglasses at night guy too? I thought Corey Hart was going to be so good. Is that back around the time you started playing? Wasn't he a sunglasses at night guy too? No, he was a sunglasses at night guy for his walk-up music at one point.

Fairly certain. Yeah. But as far as it is a trend, I would just say that two things are happening. We're not emphasizing steals as much in the game as anymore and so there's just not as many fastly up hitters and then secondly I think that the game is just played differently it like the idea of combining OBP and speed at the top of the lineup it gives you this idea of like oh you know maybe uh he can get on and then steal second and then maybe we can scratch out a run right they don't baseball doesn't play like that anymore

we don't try to scratch out runs we're trying to put up a real crooked number we're trying to get to a five or a six we're not trying to get to a one you know what i mean so um so i think what's happening is we there is speed in the game still, but I think it's been relegated a little bit to like 5th, 6th, 7th in the lineup. You actually see speedsters lower in the lineup. And I think what happens is those guys end up coming up and maybe getting on in the 6th or 7th when you actually start playing for one run. You know what I mean?

I think it's a little bit about like when people come up because the the you know if you're the leadoff hitter you only lead off right once i mean you could lead off again later but there's no guarantee the order order's different right so uh so what happens in the first inning everyone's trying to go for the crooked number no one's's trying to sacrifice. I mean, other than the Royals kind of went hard on this. Did you notice that? They did two sacrifice bunts in the fifth and sixth, and I was just like, come on, guys.

Victor Robles, I believe, tried to bunt during that series against the Mets. He's just gone. I'm so out on Vic. It's over. It's over between us. Relationship has ended. Oh, yeah. I co-managed the team,

and Robles still pops because he's got seven games, and he's going to have a lot of plate appearances. But I was like, should he be in our starting lineup? And I guess he's going to be in our starting lineup for one more week at least.

For some reason, he doesn't want to swing the bat. And because of that, I am out on Victor Robles officially. Mark it down. Monday, April 11, 2022, DVR gives up on Victor Robles. Took about two years longer than it should have, but I have given up. Good question, though, Sam. Thank you for passing that along and for the congrats to Britt as well

for the upcoming addition to her family. If you saw the 3-0 show last week, that news was passed along. We're really excited about that. Let's get to a few more topics here, Eno. I was curious what you thought about in-season management tools. I've got 11 teams this season where i have to set a

lineup so my mondays and fridays and a few other days are pretty pretty busy trying to just navigate all these things and we've talked about i think in season projections being out there but not being as prevalent as you'd expect them to be, given how much we rely on full season projections for so much of the year. I mean, from October until opening day, full season projections are half of what we talk about, it feels like. And then the calendar flips to April, and we don't talk that much about week-to-week projections. So you've mentioned the Ras Ball in-season projections in the past as one that have been out there. Are there any other tools you're using for hitters, especially trying to make these smaller decisions on a week to week or even a day to day sort of basis?

Yeah, no, I'm going mostly with the Ras ball. And what I like about it is it does help me with those decisions we were talking about where it's like one bad matchup for a starter versus, uh, versus, you know, Spencer Strider for, you know, out of the bullpen. Um, so I, I do like that. And then also, I think it's just hard sometimes when you're looking at a guy who's got five games, you know, in two parks and then another guy who's got seven games who might be a lesser offensive player, you know, it's the same sort of decision where it's like do i want the five games of the better player or the seven games of the worst player and that's that's why victor robles pops as like a positive value is because he's got those seven games and like it's him versus like cole calhoun you know in our in our decision making process and you know he pops way ahead of Cole Calhoun,

who has five games, I believe, and also may not start all five. Cole Calhoun can hit more barrels as a part-time player in a five-game week than Victor Robles is going to hit all season. So just think about that. I've been sitting with that for a couple of years, and that's just, that's the truth.

You are, you're bitter now. So bitter. I went from. It was always going to end up this way. You knew it was going to end this way, but I went from thinking about getting the Roble signed jersey from my background. You still were drafting him. So what happened in the last three days, dude?

It's been three days. I've got him on one team. Only one. You got one share? One team. And it was very early in draft season. This pill has been turning to bitter for a while. Yeah.

I just looked at him like, come on, man. This isn't right. You showed these skills in 2019 and then just abandoned your process, I guess. Anyone who wants to bunt that much has no place on my roster. That's it. That's the simple rule. Yeah, I mean, come on, Kansas City, dude. It was painful.

I don't like the way they are trying to play. I like their team. I like their roster. I do not like their tactics. Their tactics are very frustrating. Their tactics are so outdated. Like for the, for the roster they have,

they are playing the wrong way. Yeah. Yeah. One nice thing was that Brad Keller finally threw more four seamers than two seamers and sinkers, you know? So, and the four seam has a bunch of cut on it.

So he could actually be this weird cut fastball slider guy, uh, on it so he could actually be this weird cut fastball slider guy uh still was a two-pitch pitcher and still threw the sinker a fair amount and still part of that whole kansas city rotation that throws way too many stinkers dude just so many stinkers and i i wonder if i just wonder sometimes if there's like one guy in r&D in Kansas City who's just like, please listen to me. It's like Hans Molman. Please listen to me.

And the Royals just keep running him over and slapping him down. Get hit by the bullpen cart walking around in the concourse of the stadium. I've got the numbers. You shouldn't be throwing these sinkers. Please. Yeah, that's probably what's happening if I had to ballpark it. On the pitching side, you've talked about

Pitching Plus, the model being very good at quickly showing you things that might not be very apparent on the surface. Your Tyler Wells example illustrates that perfectly. What else are you looking at? Is there anything that people can apparent on the surface. Your Tyler Wells example illustrates that perfectly. But what else are you looking at? Is there anything that people can see on the outside? If they can't see pitching plus right now,

what should people be looking at with pitchers on a start-by-start basis early in the year as they're trying to decide whether or not they can trust people in difficult spots or if they want to even hold on to some guys that might be off to bad starts who are not in that ace caliber. We talked about aces earlier. You're holding those guys, Bieber, Arias, Woodruff, anyone at that caliber.

They could struggle for a month, and you're still going to be holding them. But for the bottom half of your roster pitchers especially, those are really tough pitchers to make decisions on, both lineup-wise and even on off the roster in smaller leagues. Yeah, that's true. I guess the bottom of the list could be more useful to people. What I will do is update the spring training. There's a Google Doc on the spring training stuff numbers piece.

I will update that. I'll throw in the weekend's numbers there. And I will promise you that there are now two. I don't want to get into too much detail about it but there's two options on the table for for pitching plus that will come to a head some point this season sometime soonish where you will have some sort of filterable leaderboard situation so I can promise you that I'm sorry that it hasn't happened yet uh it has to do with companies buying companies and and legal and you know it just it was a crazy offseason you know i mean like maybe maybe you can understand how something like this could have fallen between

the cracks uh at the athletic in this offseason uh but at the bottom of Stuff Plus, just do starters at the bottom. Jake Odorizzi with a 69. That is not nice. Ian Anderson with a 72. But that's a tough one because people are going to hold, right? And the model never liked him when he was good. Never liked him, and I thought he had a minor injury coming into the start, too. A toe injury. He had a blister.

Okay. All right. Well, let's TBD on him, I guess. I have very few shares because the model didn't like him. But Patrick Corbin with a 74, and I think he had an okay start, right? He didn't pitch terribly. it wasn't last year patrick corbin 450 175 it was four k's and four innings to earn five hits two walks i mean if that's enough uh to sell him i'd sell him i don't know if anyone's buying there i think that's more of a

on the roster off the roster situation yeah so oh oh i do think that is a helpful thing to notice because you might think do i keep corbin now or is he a streamer is that just a fluid spot and i'm saying i lean towards fluid spot cal quantrill uh the model never liked him but he had a good start he had a 79 stuff plus in that start i actually think that there's a possibility for movement because i know that there was a lot of reaction to his ranking in in my ranks so there are a lot of people who think cal quantrill is is is really good so i would i would try to move him if i could um dane dunning was adding a sleeper a sweeper uh and he had an 81 stuff plus um so, I don't know. The start wasn't that great either. So, I think you just keep on motoring on that one.

And then there was the Tony Gonsolin-Tyler Anderson situation. That was interesting. I think they're kind of almost battling for that one spot. Tony Gonsolin showed an 82 stuff plus. So, you know, maybe it's Tyler Anderson that comes away with that. plus so you know maybe it's tyler anderson that uh that comes away with that that uh and then luke waver had an 84 stuff plus before he went down for injury so if you're debating keeping him on the roster or moving on i think you can move on i can't figure out why they are starting caleb smith again this year it seemed like he was clearly in the bullpen and they started him and he got hit and Corbin Martin

followed him in relief and I think Martin at least just from a pitch mix and velocity standpoint looked a lot better than he did last year so I wonder if Corbin Martin is finally going to get that opportunity it's a little bit like the maybe like the Gonsolin Tyler Anderson situation where they just have two pitchers in the same spot and one of them is going to win the job. Corbin Martin had a 105 stuff plus, so I think that was a very good start for him. In 74 pitches, to have a similar stuff plus to Sandy Alcantara, I think that's pretty good. So, yeah.

That would be a sneaky pickup right now, too, because he's not going to show up on any... Like, he won't look good in the Ras Ball thing, right? Because he won't have an actual projected start. They'll just probably give him three innings of reliever-type stuff. But there is that, like... He is in that sort of Clark Schmidt area where he's, like, a good pitcher,

but rather, like, Clark Schmidt's probably not going to start. I think Corbin Martin is headed towards starting, and I think Caleb Smith is headed towards not starting. I think it makes them both a lot more interesting. I think Caleb Smith as a reliever could be good. Extra ticks on the fastball would change a lot for him. Not having to go as deep into that pitch mix could change a lot. Yeah, he doesn't have really good command.

He doesn't have a deep arsenal. Yeah, so just going down to two pitches, just working out of the pen with extra velo, I think that could actually be pretty good. The tool I like to use, it's a paywall tool, but I like the Rotowire projected starters grid because I can look at it. I can also upload my teams into their system

and it'll highlight pitchers that are available. It'll highlight the ones that are available it'll highlight the ones that are rostered it highlights mine in a different color so i can quickly run through it look at matchups try and figure out their upgrades available and i like these using that same tool just to get a sense for matchups on the hitting side you know someone like cody bellinger coming off of a rough weekend in colorado was swinging at pitches outside the zone a lot. I think he had like a 67% O swing percentage of the series, which it's one series, but given the spring that he had,

yeah, he's still pretty lost. No, but chasing pitches outside the zone in a place where stuff doesn't move as much, that's a little bit of a concern. So he's kind of in this hybrid problem player guy where now I'm looking at the schedule for him.

And I think I'm giving him one more shot this week because the back end starters are going at the beginning of the week. But I think as we look ahead to future weeks, if we see a couple of lefties on for a portion of the week, he might be on my bench depending on what's going on with everybody else and whether or not he shows some signs of life but so far we're not seeing it in the very very small bit of sample we've got from cody bellinger to this point but i'm just looking for ways to basically manage the schedule because that's volume is everything in weekly leagues and trying to make sure that i'm not missing out on opportunities to maximize playing time is really important to me. I've got a question here from Doug. Doug would like to know what specific stats do you use to tease out plate discipline and quality of contact? Doug writes, I know the ozone stat on fan graphs portrays plate discipline. Do you look at hard hit percentage or barrel rate for quality of contact?

Your preferred way to isolate both. So how do you handle plate discipline and quality of contact your preferred way to isolate both so how do you handle plate discipline and quality of contact well i do think that uh my favorite stats i mean we we talk about this a lot it's like it's in the name dude uh the rates and barrels you know like we love barrels here and we love i call it reach. Some people call it chase rate. You can call it O-swing. Those are probably my two favorite stats on the hitting side. The only problem is that you kind of want 50 balls in play on barrels.

And I haven't seen actual researched evidence of this, but I would assume that hard hit rate is a little bit more meaningful early and maybe less meaningful later because if you think about it hard hit raises did you hit the ball 95 you know so the denominator is you're not slicing away stuff as much you're just saying did you hit the ball 95 and i think you can quickly more quickly get a sense of who's hitting the ball hard it is better to hit the ball hard in the air and there will be a difference between that and that will become meaningful but it becomes meaningful about a month in right 50 balls in play it's like a month plus in but uh you know if I was gonna if I was looking

at somebody who didn't have a barrel didn't have a barrel yet because that's what we're talking about right like a week into the season might not have a barrel rate yet but that doesn't mean he's gonna have a zero percent barrel right no no of course not especially if they have like a good like what is it 40 45 40 what's what's a good hard hit rate like 40s 50s really good 40s are good yeah 40s is good so if they have a is good. So if they have a good, if they have a mid-40s hard hit rate and no barrels yet, I'm not panicking yet. Yeah, I think those are

where I tend to go as well. I mean, the O-swing percentage, I think once we get two to three weeks in, that's when I start to look at that and feel like we're seeing something that could be alarming or a sign of improvement. You start to see enough over about four to five series

where you can start to begin to say, hey, this might actually be a different player. This might be some skills growth that we're seeing. Right. And it's not like some guys are just like, oh, I'm just going to have a totally passive approach this year. And it doesn't always work for every guy, right? Like some guys don't have a great sense of the zone and they're just not swinging and so what i like to do is like about a month in you can start to pair like results like k percentage and walk percentage results with a with a with a skill change with like a change in approach right so like if the guy's just striking out a ton and his reach rate is down, it might not be good for him. He might be being too passive because he doesn't have a great sense of the zone.

But it really works out well. Even now, you can look and see that Seiya Suzuki is number one in reach rate. That's kind of meaningful to me because it means that his plate discipline is porting over. He is as disciplined as we thought he was. And Stephen Kwan being there is like okay yes these guys do have a really really good sense of the zone um i i have no reason to not believe in steven kwan and i have no reason to not believe in seo suzuki you're right that's that's how it

can help a little bit you know it's like oh steven kwan just a hot start well the process stuff looks like he's got a really good sense of the zone he's always made a lot of contact so maybe you know maybe we can put this up to like a 300 batting average 350 obp maybe it's only going to be like a 420 slugging that was gonna be my question with steven kwan of course got a lot of attention coming off a huge game over the weekend but how much power can we reasonably forecast for him looking at what he had done in the minor leagues? I mean, he popped three homers in 2019 at high A. That was in 542 played appearances. Double A in 2021, spent some time there. Seven homers in 51 games, and then five more in 26 games at AAA a year ago as well. So you're talking about 12 in about 77 games in the minors.

That's not a bad power output relative to his age in those levels. How much do you trust that, though, against top-level pitching, given that we're talking about a guy that still hasn't done that for a very long time? Yeah, and right now he has a 200 ISO, so it looks better than it is, though, because that's mostly based off of doubles, right? He's got two doubles. How many homers is he going to hit, though?

That's the question. He's got a 40% hard hit rate, 10% barrel rate. There's aforementioned awesome league-leading type reach rates, like a 12% reach rate right now's aforementioned awesome league leading type reach rates like a 12 reach rate right now it's awesome i doubt it'll stay that low but still awesome um the the power though the one thing that sticks out on me is a 103 max ev we're in an impossibly small sample but he does have 10 balls in play you know Because he puts the ball in play a lot. 10 balls in play, 103. Let me just...

It's pretty low. Yes, it is low. That's a low max exit VLO. We try not to make too big a deal out of max exit VLO because there are some studies out there that show it doesn't have that much predictive power. But I do think it's a really good descriptor of raw power now do you tap into your raw power or make the most of your lower raw power that's why i think it doesn't has been proven to be have a ton of weight as a statistic but i do think it's a descriptive statistic that tells us something

about raw power so raw power 103 uh why is this on pitchers that was that would have been last among qualified hitters last year it would have been it would have been below rojas yeah it'd been below rojas 105 1046 yeah and and and like put aside the fact that it's not that descriptive not that powerful of a metric uh apparently to because of some research out there and just look at the bottom by maxi v and i don't know man it seems like it's kind of powerful josh rojas kyle farmer mark canna whit merrifield isaiah kinder for leffa nikki lopez david fletcher josh harrison adam frazier that's your bottom dude none of those guys had any power if you get to a hundred batted ball events then you get some other names that show up on the

bottom of the list but it doesn't mean he's not a big leaguer it doesn't mean he's not a good hitter it just means the power ceiling really might be low to mid teens what people said it was right it might be 13 to 16 home runs and nothing more, but it might come with a good average, a great OBP, a high spot in the lineup and a boatload of run score. And then it comes down to, well,

if he's not hitting for as much power as we want, is he running a little bit? Is he a six to eight steals guy that would make a dent in some, some deeper leagues at least. But I just think he's one of those players that's off to a great start people in shallow leagues are probably scrambling to pick him up and he might be a better real life player than he is a fantasy player in leagues that use the typical five by five categories yeah uh the the only thing i have to say in response though is that uh batting average is just a really tough statistic so i do

think he'll he'll provide good value this year just based even in one category you know if if you can trade him for somebody who's more of a five category stud that can might also have a batting average or that had a bad first weekend or something like if you can do the hype trade more power to you but the if you're listening to this uh and your league mates are listening to this i doubt uh you can really turn steven kwan into like a jose ramirez or something you know i mean i have seen a straight up trade for andrew vaughn uh what's the would you rather on that one for you i would take vaughn over kwan better lineup much better power pedigree for Vaughn.

Because I don't think Kwon's going to run that much, you're not getting that much more in that category. And I'll take the guy maybe hitting sixth or seventh for the White Sox as almost as good for run production as the guy that probably hit second in Cleveland. It's a good White Sox lineup. It's a great White Sox lineup. Yeah. I mean, how about you? Are you on the Kwon side of that one?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I think I might be. It's not like if I'm running a real life team, no, I'd rather have one. Interesting, because I feel like real life might make it closer for me.

Like I think the roles are reversed. Yeah. How many players? I'm a center fielder. No, but. You're basically comparing two corner outfielders and one has power in OVP and the other one just has OVP.

I'm really intrigued by someone that makes as much contact as Stephen Kwon does, even if it comes with a lot less power. I think that's a fun player that the league as a whole probably devalues, right? We talked about having diversification of hitter profiles in a lineup. I think if you're trying to

accomplish that, that's really interesting. I think at the end of the day, because of the scouting grades on Vaughn, the pedigree there, yes, okay, I would take Vaughn if you made me choose, but I think I'm looking at the problem differently outside of a 5x5 league

because of some of the things that Stephen Kwan can do. I like Andrew Vaughn a lot, for whatever that's worth, but he's not a good defender, and he should be playing first base, which he could do in the world of you're running a team and you have your choice. Well, you can play Andrew Vaughn in his natural position, so his defense is less of a problem than trying to jam him in in right field. Right.

than trying to gem men in right field. Right. Yeah, I think Kwon in Boston would be an amazing fit there. Just some of these teams that have a lot of strikeouts that could use someone that could sort of one man change it up kind of guy. I don't think that Kwon in Kansas City does much for them. They have the third lowest strikeout rate, and that's... He just wouldn't add as much to that team, I don't think. So it is a little bit different, I think, from team to team, and

from fantasy team to fantasy team, because he might single-handedly keep Christian Pache in my lineup in labor, you know, between the two of them, I might have one good player, but yeah, in terms of fantasy value, I could, I think I want Kwon, because I think batting average is so hard to protect, it's so hard to keep high. I think it's easier to find Andrew Vaughn types. Like, what is he? 250-25 type, right? Doesn't that seem like there's going to be somebody

that pops on the waiver wire like that? Couldn't Connor Joe do that? I think all this comes back to how much more power you expect from Vaughn this year. If you think Vaughn's getting to 25-30 home runs, that becomes a much more difficult profile to find. But if it's more 20 to 25... I think Vaughn's just better.

I think you're going to get more homers. Yeah, you're going to lose batting average. You're going to win homers. You're probably going to push on runs. You're going to win RBIs. You'll lose steals, but by like two or three, maybe. A negligible loss in steals unless Kwon ends up running a lot more than expected.

So I guess all that's to say is I'm pretty bullish on Vaughn coming off a two-homer weekend in his opening series. We've got a Dear Abby-style question here, you know. It's not addressed to an Abby or anyone in particular, but been reading that the Astros are in love with Hector Neris and are

worried about Ryan Presley's velocity, which was a late spring storyline that actually did hold up through opening weekend. Ryan Presley's velocity, which was a late spring storyline that actually did hold up through opening weekend. Ryan Presley's velo down three miles per hour on his four seamer from where it was last year. So that's definitely worth monitoring. What is it that the model doesn't particularly like about Neris? And is there a chance just getting out of Philly and away from the defense with the Phillies closes the gap between his actual and generally much better That's an interesting observation because Ryan Presley did have a 91 stuff plus in his start,

and that's the sound of my stomach dropping because I have a fair i have fair amount of shares and i thought he was pretty safe even if he lost a little bit of velo but no reliever is safe once you lose velo hector naris has a 118 stuff plus which is right there with john duran who we like uh and also there with aj mentor just to give you uh some and blake trinan just a little bit short of blake trinan so he's in a good spot uh i don't know maybe the maybe maybe it's already happened um i don't know that they had to do much i think it was just you know i think that hector Neris is one of those guys, like I remember Jose Leclerc, you know,

where it's just that the command isn't great, the stuff is great, and then in any given season, the command can get better just for a season for whatever reason. And that might be just all that they were betting on. I do see that he threw more four-seamers in this last appearance for the Astros

than he had. Got to switch over from month to game here on Brooks Baseball. Wow. It was like a top 10 number of fastballs for his career or any appearance in terms of percentage of fastballs thrown. So maybe that's the idea. They're just like, you can command your fastball better. It's a good fastball.

Just keep throwing your fastball and then throw the splitter in the middle of the zone. I think that's a pretty good adjustment. And park change is going to lower the home run rate. Throwing more fastballs could lower the walk rate. And then suddenly we're looking at Neres and going, whoa, this guy is really good. Why did the Phillies, a team with bullpen trouble, not want to keep him around? The thing that complicates this, deer desperate.

I don't understand why Ryan Presley got that two-year extension in the midst of being down in Velo. And I worry that having received that two-year extension, maybe the Astros will be a little more patient with him than they would have been had he not signed that. They're a smart team. They're not going to sit there forever and just keep trotting him out there if things start to go wrong. But a three-mile-per-hour drop in velocity is massive.

That is an alarming loss of velocity for a reliever. So I would watch very closely throughout the week and in situations where we're speculating for saves, Neris might be out there at least a number of leagues. He's probably right on that borderline of if you're stashing a reliever hoping to get someone who becomes a closer, he would be on that list for sure. Why not Stanek?

Could be. I mean, I'm not surprised that a team like the Astros has more than one viable replacement for Ryan Presley. That shouldn't surprise anyone. What was the order here that they used them? They lost. They used Stanek in a loss. That's interesting.

The Verlander loss. And they used Neris. What's Neris? Neris has played two games. They won two, so I'm guessing he probably pitched in both the wins. Yes. Montero? This box score is not in consecutive order.

I need to look at the play log. Neris pitched the eighth. There you go. Pitched the eighth and a win. This box score is not in consecutive order. I need to look at the play log. Well, I'm in. Naris pitched the eighth. There you go. Pitched the eighth and a win. So it's Naris, not Stanek. Good. Mystery solved.

In front of everybody. It's embarrassing. Well, hey, look, sometimes you got to show everyone the process. Yeah, I mean, I do think that role is super important. I think all these things like stuff and k percentage can tell you something but that that could be sort of the overarching theme of this podcast today is that you know we talk through some of these really exciting firemen we talk through some of these really exciting eighth inning seventh inning guys and no matter

what you think of duron stuff or strider stuff or Schmidt's stuff or Neres versus Stanek, how they've been used is super important. Stuff like what Mike Curlin does at The Athletic and looking at lineup spots and looking at usage in the bullpen like Greg Jewett does. Those things are super important. They can be more important than any one model, any one sort of, I'm going to use velocity or strikeouts to figure this out. If you have some sort of approach and you use, I'm going to use stuff plus or I'm going to use velocity and strikeouts, you've got to look at the game logs.

You've got to look at how they were being used because Duran may have the best stuff in that Twins bullpen, but I just don't see him as the closer right now. There was one other question that came in about Cody Bellinger that I thought was interesting because it was a Strat-o-matic question, and if you're not familiar with Strat, you play with the previous year's stats. So you already know that Cody Bellinger's card for last year isn't good, but it's a keeper league. So the trade is a one-for-one swap,

and it's our listener Justin Justin, who is from, his words, sadly, Florida, not sadly, Florida. Although there should be a city in Florida called sadly. There could be a sadly in just about every state, to be fair. That's right. Even the states I've lived in, I could say, there could be a sadly part of those states. Oh, 100%. even the states I've lived in I could say there could be a sadly part of those states so looking at the Bellinger versus Evaldi in this context where you you have you have the answer key

you saw what they both did in 2021 and that's in the bank if you make this trade where you're getting the better player for Evaldi and then you're just betting on the future of Bellinger either not bouncing back or Evaldi staying healthy and being effective for a few years to make the trade with your while defense also matters in strat two Bellinger's a good defender in center field so you do get that value what would you do in a situation like that thinking about the long term thinking about the age thinking about the differences in these two players but knowing that you've got one clearly better season from Evaldi already coming your way if you make that trade. I make it.

That's the way I play is I'm almost always going to trade the pitcher for the hitter. In this case, it's the older pitcher for the younger hitter. You're on the Bellinger side of this one. Even with one very good season from Ivaldi in the bag

and one pretty bad season from Bellinger that you're going to have to eat on the card. Yeah. Still buying the dip, even with one year cooked in, which I just thought that had another wrinkle that I hadn't even thought about. Strat's one of those things that someday, probably when I'm retired, I'll play Strat.

When I retire from my job as a baseball talker guy, then'll play that that particular baseball game it'll be a lot of fun because it's just it's more it's more effort more time more well because i'll be able to sit in one of those big comfortable chairs on a you know we'll get together a couple times a week and play strat and we'll just hit the spinner and we're not playing on a computer we're gonna have an old you know that's the problem right you need actual time in your life right but i have more time in the future thanks a lot for the questions a lot of good stuff coming in you want to send us a question for the mailbag rates and barrels at theathletic.com we will be answering more questions now the season has started because it's that time of year if there's things you're're curious about, about what matters this time of year,

what doesn't anything at all is fair game. Send those our way on Twitter. You can find, you know, at, you know, Sarah, so you can find me at Derek van Riper.

If you don't already have a subscription to the athletic, get one for $1 a month for the first six months at the athletic.com slash rates and barrels. That's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We are back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.