Rates & Barrels - Outfield Breakdown, Part 1

Episode Date: March 10, 2020

Rundown2:17 Choosing From the Big Three7:25 Cody Bellinger & Mookie Betts11:49 Buying Juan Soto as a First-Round Pick?16:45 Old & Boring: Charlie Blackmon & George Springer19:23 Concerns About Jorge Soler22:11 Luis Robert vs. Victor Robles vs. Tommy Pham vs. Ramon Laureano30:07 Is Aaron Judge Discounted Enough?32:18 2019 Surprises: Austin Meadows & Ketel Marte38:28 Buying Benintendi?48:58 Outside the Top 30 in the Outfield54:46 Eno Finds Something to Not Like About Max Kepler61:17 Byron Buxton Returning From Surgery69:16 Bryan Reynolds vs. Lorenzo CainFollow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRipere-mail: [e-mail] Get 40% off a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 76. It's March 10th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. The Positional Breakdown series is coming to a close on this episode. We'll talk about outfielders. If we need to extend it to Thursday's episode, we'll do that, but we're going to try and cover everything we want to cover on today's show. If you're enjoying this podcast on a platform that allows you to rate and review it, please take the time to do that. We'd greatly appreciate it.

It's one of the few ways you can really support our work. The other way you can do that, if you're not already a subscriber to The Athletic, you can get 40% off a subscription at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Thanks to the many of you who have signed up for The Athletic either in the last few weeks or even prior to the existence of this podcast. Eno, how's it going for you on this Tuesday? Terrible. Terrible. I feel like butt. terrible terrible i feel like but feeling like but is not a good feeling this is an especially terrible time to feel like but though because the looks you get the i was like literally talking to another parent at school today and when i mentioned i was sick they like took four steps away from me yeah yeah everyone's on high alert and for good reason.

It's nice to see people paying attention. It's good that people are aware of what's going on around them. If you have a common cold right now, you might be judged as though you have something worse. That's just sort of the nature of what we're dealing with right now.

At the time of this recording, it's Tuesday morning on the West Coast. Tout Wars on for this time of this recording, I mean, it's Tuesday morning on the West Coast. Tout War is on for this weekend at this point. We'll see how things progress here in the next couple of days, but certainly a difficult time. And obviously, we've heard the news in the last 24 hours that all major sports have shut down locker room and clubhouse access temporarily to non-essential team members that would include the media. So that's changing coverage and different things. And obviously, people get pretty upset about that for some obvious reasons. But anyway, we're going to

talk about outfielders. We're going to get into it. We'll start right at the top with a very simple question. If you were to draw the first pick in your draft and you had your choice of Ronald Acuna, Mike Trout, and Christian Jelic, who do you actually take when you have to choose between the big three? Still Mike Trout for me. I have seen some stuff.

I believe Ron Chandler talked about it and some, or maybe Tony Blangino actually. I think Tony blingino talked about how mike trout is about to become a more typical aging slugger and he talked about how his fly ball rate went through the roof last year and we've talked about you know how 50 fly balls was worrisome trout was at 49.2 last year he only stole 11 bags only took off 13 those are both career lows for full seasons and you know i could see i could

you know you could look up and see him become a little bit more vulnerable on the strikeout rate he's had bigger strikeouts rates in the past and that's going to be where his decline i think comes into play will be in the strikeout rates so you could see some you know i don't know if it's next year or the year after but you could see some 275 you know 35 to 40 homer seasons um that's still pretty good yeah his floor is still ridiculously high if you're going straight off the projections i think they're still going to guide you to Mike Trout as the number one overall pick. I mean, his projection from the bat is still just ridiculous. 301, 438, 636, 48 homers, 15 steals, 117 RBIs, and 125 runs scored.

Based on that, I totally understand it. I think where I get pulled into going to Acuna is thinking about it from a non-trade league perspective and knowing that coming back at the 2-3 turn, it's already becoming difficult to find great sources of stolen bases at the back part of the top 30 because guys like Starling Marte, who we'll talk about in a few minutes, gets pushed up the board a little bit in those formats. So in leagues where you have trades to get the bags you need, in leagues that aren't high stakes leagues where everyone's not inflating the guys who run early, maybe there you do go the safer route with Trout at one. The thing about just projections is it's not just that Trout comes out first. Depending on which calculator you use, he comes out first by a lot. I did one run of the Axe. It might have been for labor, for AL only. I think he was

at $52. That's nuts. $52. And the next person was at $42. So a $10 difference at the top. And if you do the regular auction calculator, that doesn't seem very realistic, actually, though. Just in terms of, like, he went for $43 or $44 in AL Labor, and Brett Sayre, who helped develop the axe and worked on that and probably had those projections in front of him was in on him until 43, but out at 44, I think.

So I just don't think that it was very realistic. But even if you run the auction calculator from Fangraphs, he's like $2 or $3 above the next one. So I think that's mostly from that floor bringing up. And also, wasn't there sort of an air of i want to get to 40 40 from acuna last year and like what if he has 20 steals you know in the second half next year does he maybe not take off as often yeah like if he can't reach that barrier is he's gonna say okay well i'm not doing that i'm gonna because there's not that much real-life value to the team.

No, and they're contending. And I think that's the thing that makes it so tricky to rely on high-end steals from a guy who can do so many other things. I think Christian Jelic, though, 30 for 32 last year as a base stealer. I've actually got Jelic first. Massive knee injury.

He's been fine this spring though he debuted on friday they just signed him to the extension has he attempted a stolen base i think he's only played in two spring training games so far so i don't think he's attempted one at this point i would watch i would watch i would find that interesting actually yeah we'll see what happens there i mean even if he cut that in half, like Jelic could run more like Trout. I think he can actually hang with him, though, in terms of batting average and power. I think the run production is going to be a good question, too. I mean, I think that's where projections are definitely going to favor Trout.

He's done it at that level for so long. Yeah. But I think for me, Jelic is the guy I'm taking first, then Acuna, then Trout, but I'm thinking, again, about a non-trade scenario. Ideally, I just have the third pick, and I take whichever one's left, but I realize it's a cop-out, and you're only going to get the third pick, you know, one in 12 or one in 15 times, so it doesn't always work out that easily. But let's move on. Let's move through the rest of the first round quick. Cody Bellinger mookie bets the other early first rounders with outfield eligibility we talked about bellinger i think a little bit on the first base episode i think he proved that 2018 was actually the outlier and what

we saw last year and in 2017 that's really his true talent level uh do you buy into the batting average i think we talked about this before like the k rate was down so much last year it's hard it's hard to think he's going to hit 267 again in a season like he looks like a legit five category player as well who could just as easily crack the big three in 2020 uh i mean he's got all the tools to do it yeah i mean there's a massive change in his ability to cover the entire plate, and sort of a gelling of two different approaches, so that now he can kind of slap the ball, the high ball the other way, and launch the low ball, which makes him just, you know, along with his good plate discipline, makes him a really fearsome hitter so i the only thing there with him is that like when

you steal 10 to 15 bags i feel like it's hard to gauge how long you're going to keep doing that there are some guys i'm thinking of chase utley let me let me look at chase utley because i remember chase being like oh he's bone on bone in the knee. He's going to stop stealing bases. And, well, he did at the very end. But from 2010 to 2014, he basically averaged 10 stolen bases a year. And I was already saying, oh, you know, the knees are bad. He's not going to steal any bases. But he just stayed at 10 for a long time. I forget who else.

I guess Votto. I'd like to see what vato's done because he you know he stopped making stolen bases a priority uh yeah and he's been around five for the last so he used to be like you know he can get 10 to 15 from from joey vato and then he just kind of went down to five so i just feel like with ballinger he's a little bit even he's like a little bit closer along the curve to being like what we talked about with trout like to being more like that i mean i know he's athletic but in terms of what he does on the field um and what he does for your fantasy team i i'd only bank on 10 steals next year yeah i think he's lower end of where the the big three finish

in that category but i think the average can be there. The power can be there. The run production can be there in that lineup, in part because of Mookie Betts now being a part of the Dodgers lineup. Any adjustments for you with Betts moving out of the AL into the NL? I mean, do you change your expectations for him in any categories? Do you think he racks up a slightly lower total of plate appearances because of the pitcher spot in the NL? Like, what is your adjustment, if any, for Mookie Betts in L.A.? I mean, I suppose he won't score 135 runs again.

And that did help prop up an otherwise lackluster line for Mookie Betts. I mean, not for anybody else. But at the same time, you know, I know that that stadium is actually pretty good for high drives, turning high drives into power. We've talked about that. So, you know, when he hits to the green monster in Boston, like, it turns those things into doubles half the time. You know what I mean? So there are probably some lost homers against the green monster that it'll turn into homers in LA. And you look at his projections, they run from 30 to 34. Like I'll take the 34 actually. And in terms of stolen bases, like, you know, I don't know,

the Dodgers are not really, you know, I don't really push it, but the national league game, You know, they don't really push it. But the National League game, because of that pitcher and just because of the way the lineups aren't necessarily as stacked top to bottom, you know, maybe he gets a few more chances to steal bases. Maybe there's a few more situations where it makes sense. So if you give him 20 stolen bases and, you know, 33, 34 homers, I think the decision between him and Ballllinger is actually a pretty tough one.

Yeah, I'm with you there. I think it's a nice loaded first half of the round. And we talked about maybe where you would take the first pitchers off the board, Garrett Cole, Jacob deGrom. It's probably after Bellinger and Betts are both there, after they're both gone. Once those two are gone, then I start pivoting to the pitching side. The other outfielder that we see in the first round, Juan Soto. Based on projections, I think the bat has him as the sixth most valuable outfielder behind only the five guys we just talked about, so ADP following that right

now. It's really interesting to me, though, that Juan Soto is basically like a younger version of JD Martinez. You might get some steals from Soto. You're probably not going to get any steals from JD at this point. So that's one of the differences. Do you think Juan Soto makes sense as a late first rounder at this point? Are you buying those projections as stable at this point? I am, and it's mostly because of his elite play discipline combined with a really good hit tool. I think that he could be at risk of losing

some power if the ball deflates a little bit because he does hit to the opposite field, and he did have a little bit of a leap in power if you just look at his ISOs from 2018 to 2019. So I could see maybe him hitting only 30 homers. But in that situation, everybody's hitting fewer homers. And his spray hitting still helps him, you know, hit for batting average. And I feel like he's just got immense floor. I think it's almost, in some ways, it's almost second to Trout in terms of floor. I don't know the ceiling.

The ceiling is there for Acuna and for the other guys. But in terms of floor, this guy just does everything right. You know what I mean? It's like, what's the worst he can do next year? I feel like the worst he could do next year is hit.290 with 28 homers and five steals. Yeah, that is a really nice floor.

And we're talking about the worst. And that's for a guy who's 21 years old. Yeah. Yeah, he's him and Acuna, I think, are probably one-two in terms of dynasty assets. Yeah, I think that probably makes sense at this point. I mean, you could I think the steals are going to taper off for Jelic, even if it's not a big drop in 2020.

We only have a few more years where he's going to be running anywhere near as much as he was running in 2019, especially. So you do have to look at that pretty carefully, because Soto might be a top five player for the next five years with ease. That's the type of hitter that he is. And yet it feels like he's exceeding expectations relative to what people thought he might be as a prospect. But the next little chunk of outfielders are mostly like late second rounders were Bryce Harper, JD Martinez,

Starling Marte. They're all in that range. I think Starling Marte, as I mentioned just a little earlier, he's getting that extra category juice and steals. That's what's nudging. He has ADP up into that group. Harper and JD seem like really nice floor guys for late in the second round.

I mean, especially even if you're coming back through the middle of the round, if you started with a pitcher to build around one of Harper or JD as your first bat, seems like a nice foundation. Yeah, we're in that Raz slam. Are you in that Raz slam? Yeah, I'm in the Raz slam. We're slamming. We're slamming the Raz.

That was such a... I don't know what that means. Is that like the next iteration of this slaps? Yeah, right. Which I don't even want to say like because i don't i don't want to ruin that one like if i start saying it i'm the beginning of the end of cool language and and my wife has an uncle who is the end of that process when it gets to him it's over i the definitive end he's one of my favorite people, but once lingo or a joke reaches him, that is when I know it is officially over.

I have to stop saying that. I got Jordan Alvarez round two, Bryce Harper round three. I'm on the turn. That's round two, 12, round three, one. Alvarez, Harper. Springer almost...

No, Springer didn't get back to me. But in another league, I got Springer in the third. To me, Harper was a 12-team. They basically end up second rounder, and I felt good about that. I feel good about his chances to do a little better

in his second year in a new situation with Kutch back, you know, the rest of the lineup there. Not necessarily protecting him, but having ducks on the pond, you know, making pitchers just a little bit more nervous. And so I like Springer and Harper. I don't love Marte and Blackman at their ages and at their draft positions. But then I come back around after those groups and there's two droppers, Eddie Rosario and Marcelo Zuna that continually drop every year and just seem to give up really steady production.

I get kind of twisted on the old boring players. Blackman is a guy I actually kind of do like because I'm not really expecting steals anymore. I mean, the park just gives him an amazing floor. Springer seems fairly priced. I don't think we have to ding him a ton for the sign stealing scandal.

Maybe you want to just shy away from astros really early because you're afraid of the hit by pitches and you're afraid that being the villains of the league might take a toll on on players like that could happen also he's 30 yeah and you know he probably just had his peak season right i i mean that's what i said i think at the time when when the scandal news first broke is that George Springer was a guy that we would have been regressing anyway coming off of last season. He went from being undervalued last year to maybe a tick overvalued, but I think he's pretty close to his fair market price right now in terms of where he's being drafted in that 40 to 45 range. But that next tier that you were referring to, where Marcelo Zuna, Nick Castellanos, Eddie Rosario, even Michael Conforto, they all live there. Those are all players that I could see going a little bit earlier next year. Maybe Rosario's kind of topped out where he's at, but it seems like Zuna's a little underpriced right now. He's in a slightly more hitter-friendly environment. Castellanos is in a great spot, and this is the most hitter-friendly park he's ever been in, having played most of his career in Detroit and then a little bit in Wrigley Field last year. And then I still see that extra level potential with Michael Conforto. Generally, that group doesn't steal bases, but I think they can be pretty close to what you're going to get

from Blackman and Springer at prices that are 40 to 50 picks later in most rooms. So I think the best argument against Blackman and Springer is the presence of that next tier of guys that are sitting out there a few rounds later. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And Rosario and Ozuna just, they drop forever. I need to get the ADP up. But, you know, Rosario for the last three years has averaged 280 with 28 homers.

And I know homers, you know, aren't as useful anymore because everybody's doing them. But, you know, the 280 is. And 28 at least keeps you afloat, if not, you know, a little bit positive in that category, so, you know, to, to where he's going, Rosario is going 91, uh, well, you know, okay, that's, I guess, decent, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna assume, oh, there's Azuna, 96, but compared to other outfielders, like Jorge Soler going before them, Jorge Soler's floor is pretty low considering the strikeout rate has oscillated pretty badly

and he's striking out a lot in the spring. And I've never watched a Jorge Soler bat and thought, this guy can see spin. This guy looks like he's in control up there. That's not an assessment you've made of Jorge Soler. No, it is not. And then Joey Gallo, I think we've seen he could hit 205 this year as much as he does other things that are good.

He's going ahead of him. And then, yes, Tommy Pham should go ahead, but Tommy Pham's going 75. So Tommy Pham at 75, I know he steals some bases, so he's getting that bump, but I think Jorge Soler at 86, whereas Rosario at 91, and Ozuna all the way down at 96, 10 picks later. And if you're looking at the three of those around 86, I think you could say, I'm going to let it ride, and worst case scenario, get Ozuna back. And Ozuna's max pick is 149, whereas Rosario's is 129, and Soler's is 128. So there's a lot of leagues where Marcelo Ozuna is the one you get,

and the prize that you get for Marcelo Ozuna is a guy who's averaged 280 with 30 homers over the last three years. with 30 homers over the last three years. And I also did a little bit of a query where I just looked at first half versus second half reach rates. And the five biggest improvers in the second half last year in reach rate were Yasmany Grandal, Yasiel Puig, rest in peace, Manuel Margot, JD Martinez, Marcelo Zuna. Um, and if you just combine that with looking at his splits, uh, for the second half, uh, his second half, he, uh,

did not hit well in terms of BABIP. Uh, but, uh, you know, his, his walk to strikeout rate was 14% to 20%. And I think that could help him a lot in terms of adding on to the fact that he's going to the friendliest home stadium he's ever been to. So you add the best walk rate versus strikeout rate of his career with the new stadium, there is some upside. It's not just boring veteran this there is some actual upside you know and i'm gonna wait around and if he's the worst

case scenario then i'm i'm into it the thing i like about the outfield is that you can wait a while and you could still fill categorical needs in pretty much any of the five rotisserie categories even outside the top 100 overall. That's the thing I like about the outfield. There's so many different types of players you can get in the middle and late rounds. There is a cluster we should talk about right around pick 75 in terms of March ADP. You mentioned Tommy Pham before. He's kind of in the 75 to 80 range, probably because of concern with the elbow injury that popped up again this spring that slowed him down at the end of last season as well.

So you got Pham kind of bunched up with Luis Robert. Surprisingly, his ADP has stayed in this range. I think it's going to shoot up as we get closer to the end of March. But you have Pham, Robert, Victor Robles, and Ramon Laureano, five outfielders you look at, and you could see contributions maybe in every category from all these guys i think there's some risk for a low batting average in year one from luis robert i think there are questions about victor robles's power i would say of all those players because of fam's injury loriano looks like he might be the safest right now but they're all interesting and

maybe double tapping and getting two in this range might be the way to go. Where do you stand on this group? Is this a group of players that you generally like? Is there anyone that really stands out to you as a particularly good value from that cluster? I just want to point out that ATC has Ramon Lariano worth $5 less than Pham. Robles is sandwiched in between. And Marcelo Zuna is worth

another $2 more than Pham. Just thought that was an interesting thing to point out. Otherwise, I would say, you know, obviously Robles' speed is the safest. But in terms of boom or bust, I actually see it a little bit differently. Laureano's safest in terms of his power, you know, his batting average, run production. I think all those are probably safer than Robles, who may end up at the top of the lineup or at the bottom of the lineup, depending on how he hits and how the season goes. Pham, who seems like at a risk for, you know, possibly missing half the season with elbow injury because he's got a tear in that elbow ligament, and also steals bases at a level where, you know, a 5-10 bag drop is fairly significant.

All of a sudden, he's just a guy who gives you a few stolen bases as opposed to someone who you can depend on. just a guy who gives you a few stolen bases as opposed to someone who you can depend on. But I want to mention that the Axe has Laureano with 25 stolen bases, which seems like a reach to me. But if you give Laureano 25 stolen bases, he's the best of this group. He's a great defender too, which continues to drive playing time. I think the biggest question that I have with Laureano is where does he actually settle in to the A's lineup? You know, I think the biggest question that I have with Laureano is where does he actually settle in to the A's lineup? I think there's a chance Victor Robles moves up to the leadoff spot. We talked about that previously as his driving factor in terms of what brings him

upside is the possibility for more runs scored and growth as a hitter. He's also very young, missed a good chunk of 2018 with a knee injury. Laureano, I think, could end up hitting low in the order, just like I expect Luis Robert to be low in the order, at least for this season. Pham, by projections, does make the most sense here. It's purely a health question for Tommy Pham. I'm not worried about the skills at all at this point. Yeah, yeah. He only reminds me of, statistically,'s like it's a perfect comp.

Can you guess? It's perfect. A current player? Like their careers are a little different, but there's like a five-year level where they're the exact same player. Charlie Blackman? Shin Su Chu. Oh, there you go.

Yeah, that is a good statistical comp because, yeah, you get a little bit of everything. You get a good OBP to go with it, too. That's the thing that stands out. Bigger ground ball rates than fly ball rates. The sort of 2020-esque stuff. The really good OBP. Which is interesting because Shin Su Chu only did that until

he was... Before he signed that big contract with the Rangers, stopped stealing bases. But he did it from 2019 to 2013. 2013, he was 31. Pham is... 32. Pham has a bit of a chip on his shoulder, though,

and he hasn't gotten that contract, right? Like, if he signs that contract, I feel like maybe he stops doing bases, but until then, he's doing everything he can to increase his value, so. Yeah, that's long been the appeal of Tommy Pham. He absolutely has a chip on his shoulder. He felt like the Cardinals kept him in the slow cooker at AAA far too long.

And he was mashing there and not getting opportunities. I think he's always been mad about that. And I think he's right to be mad about that. Just like you said, Chu signs a big contract. He goes from 21 stolen bases to four in the next year. And I don't think that's necessarily Chu saying, oh, I got my money. I'm done. stone bases. But it's a combination of that and the new team saying, hey, we just signed to a long term contract. And we kind of did it for OBP and power. So, you know, we don't really

need those extra 16 stone bases. And I think for Chu, it's generally worked like he's 37 years old. And you know, he just came off a season where he was 12% better than the average. Some people might say that contract was too much money and for too long because the defense ended up going south on him and he ended up being a DH. But in terms of being a good bat, he's been above average every year and every year of the contract, and he's averaged around 10% to 15% better than the league average.

I mean, I don't think that's that bad of a signing. No, very steady player, and a guy we'll probably mention again at the end of the pod when we're talking about some late options because the price is still really low. Even if you have to bring down his power projection as a result of the changes to the ballpark in Arlington, that's still a really nice floor player.

And I think the Willie Calhoun injury even further stabilizes Chu's role. I don't think there's as much playing time downside. Word on how long he'll be out with a broken face? It sounds pretty bad. I mean, he's going to be reevaluated in two weeks, but that just means they can't really tell how bad the damage is right now, which is really unfortunate. Oh my god, and Nick Solak. Oh yeah, Nick Solak.

So I think Solak's going to play more directly in left field. He's the guy that plays with his own position now with Calhoun out. And Ruden Odor, who I think was really on notice to begin the season when everybody was healthy, he now has a little more room to try and take care of it. I think he still has the month and a half. If Willie Calhoun comes back three or four

weeks into the season, which I doubt, even with a broken jaw, I doubt it's much longer than that. If he comes back in with three to four weeks into the season, then Solak's looking for a job somewhere, and Odor's hitting 190. Yeah.

There's still a path for him to lose the job, but I just think the... It gives him like a week or two more of a breather, probably. Yeah. I'd be surprised if we saw Willie Calhoun back before mid-May, and I would not be surprised if it was like a half season. I mean, concussion, fractures, it all depends on the extent of the damages to the bones in his face.

He does have screws in his face. Yeah. You have to have another surgery to get the screws out sometimes. The other thing too, we always have to worry about this when a player gets hit like that is you just might not be the same player in the box initially. There's a big mental hurdle

to overcome after a traumatic injury like that we saw it with jason hayward i mean at least it seems like a part of what made hayward so different was getting hit in the face with a pitch uh years ago i i it's really hard to quantify obviously but it's just something that you have to at least think about when it comes to Willie Calhoun. Some other early thoughts. A couple quick questions for you. Is the discount on Aaron Judge enough? His ADP since March 1st is pick 75.

He's got the stress reaction on his ribs. His timetable is a little bit up in the air as well. I kind of feel like if you're going to take any injured players that early, you're really taking on a lot of unnecessary risk. But if he's only out for a few weeks after the season begins and he comes back and he's the Aaron Judge we expected, the payoff can be pretty big. So I understand why people would want to take this risk, but is that enough of a discount to do it? It's really interesting because his projection with 524 plate appearances, which I don't think, maybe that's conservative, maybe that's too low, but I wouldn't buy much higher than that. His projection is actually, by ATC, is pretty boring.

$13, he's between Trey Mancini and Michael Brantley. What's Trey Mancini's ADP? He was inside the top 100. I think he might be slipping right now a little bit, but Mancini, 114 since March 1st. So that's weird. So you might actually be overpaying. ATC's projections for 33 homers in the 524 plate appearances too,

so it's not like it's a terrible projection or something. It's actually probably the best projection out of the four in terms of what he'll do. And the other five have less playing time. So I actually think maybe the 75 is not discounted enough. Yeah, I would like him to fall more if I'm going to do it. And I think, again, I'm very NFBC-centric in my mindset. A lot of the leagues I commission don't have IL spots either. Playing short is difficult.

And as more injuries pile up throughout the rest of draft season and at the beginning of the season, the roster crunch you feel becomes more intense when you've already got one big piece locked into a spot. So if you do it, I think you want more of a discount. And if you do it, it's just Aaron Judge. It's not I'm taking Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. You just can't do that. You can't load up on injured players and hope that they all come out just completely healthy at the end of all this.

Two guys that we kind of glazed over a bit earlier, two surprises from last year, Austin Meadows and Ketel Marte, very different players doing it different ways. Marte has the better projection based on the bat. It looks like a totally different player too. Our friend Chris Welsh was at D-backs camp recently, and he said it looked like Marte added another 15 pounds of muscle. He's that much bigger. The stolen bases are probably capped at what we saw last year. If he gets 10 bags again, great. Did you see enough positives from him last year at the increased fly ball rate, more hard hit balls to believe that he can sustain something close to 2019 as his new baseline and justify being taken in the first

three rounds i mean he basically doubled his barrel rate and i believe in barrel rate his expected batting average is 299 so even though there's a regression there you know it's not to a really low percentage that was top six percent of the league his expected wobo is top three percent of the league you know well i'm not all the way. His expected Wobo is top 3% of the league. I'm not all the way there on expected Wobo for pitchers, especially on pitch types and stuff like that, because we haven't really seen anybody prove that it's useful. But it is more useful for hitters.

And in terms of describing what he did, it was not completely lucky. He deserved a lot of what he did. But that being said, I was surprised to see Austin Meadows has both a better barrel rate and a better exit velocity than Quetel Marte. So maybe that's just a function of age or whatever, but Austin Meadows has a 12.5% barrel rate to Quetel Marte's 9.3, 90.4 exit velocity to Quetel Marte's 89.8, a higher expected slugging percentage.

His expected slugging percentage was 547, top 10% of the league. He had a 558 in reality. And didn't he steal more bases? Yeah, 12 bags for Meadows. I think he was caught a lot, like, didn't he steal more bases? Yeah, 12 bags for Meadows. I think he was caught a lot, though, too. I feel like he was, like, 12 for 19, kind of trying to pull that off of memory in terms of the caught stealing.

So I thought I remembered Dusty Wagner and Paul Spohr talking about that earlier this winter, that they were maybe worried that Meadows won't have as many green lights. Yeah. It's possible, right? If you're that good of a hitter and teams just say, you know what?

You're not that efficient as a base dealer and we don't want you sliding head first in the second base. It's not worth it. That could get shut down. The profile doesn't scream like he needs to steal a lot. His sprint speed percentile ranked last year was 78.

So it's not like, oh, he's a burner and he's got to go. As I look at Meadows, at the 2-3 turn is where he often goes. ADP right around pick 30. I think it's an appropriate price. I don't know if he's going to get a whole lot better than what he was last year. So that might be the thing I look at and say, yeah, I want someone who runs a bit more. I want something else in that spot. But I understand why he's there. I'm not worried about a collapse with him. I think the underlying numbers do support what he did. And the same holds true for Ketel Marte. I mean, I think there's more skepticism

when a player's in the league for a few years before doing that whereas with meadows it was really his first full season at the big league level people are quick to jump on board there with quetel martin though you are getting a sub 15 strikeout rate it's been under 15 in each of the last three seasons including the big breakout power year a year ago. And I would also mention that Cattell Marte would probably play second base for me. I don't know if I'm having a freakout or something, but second base freaks me out.

No, it's bad. I saw the chart that Zola put up at first pitch Florida when Poindexter was showing us the shape of each position yeah a couple weeks ago i think that's very real having gone through a few drafts and auctions now and different formats too i've seen it play out the late options at second base are very much uninspiring uh it's amazing how it pales in comparison to the depth at shortstop where i think i've said this on the show before you can go with a shortstop as your middle infielder and your utility this year and not look like a dummy like that's how

good the pool of shortstops is yeah that pool is i think it actually makes some sense in terms of like how real baseball is played and how real baseball teams are put together there's actually something to be said for this mirroring real baseball, because what do you do when you have a hot athlete, just like a top, top prospect, a guy who can hit and do everything and looks the part? You put him at shortstop, right? And that's where you put your best athlete. That's where you put your best player, basically.

And what do you do at second base? You find a guy. In a related matter, I played second base in right field in my last year of my playing career, because they were just like, he can't hurt us as much over there. So, you know, second base is where you find a guy, you put a guy, and it's not necessarily where you have a star. And I think that actually kind of is true over the history it's just that there was a period of time where we had i think maybe like the steroid error basically where we had yoked up the

the typical second baseman to the point where you know brett boone was like it was like a decent play and the position didn't look so bad you know but now we're back to you know i think the reality situation even if you're running a major league team, you're probably just putting a guy at second. Yeah, I think that has become a position, especially with shifting, where teams are increasingly comfortable hiding a guy with limited range or maybe the dreaded bricks for hands and noodle arm, as you've said with Nick Solak. Really, really want you to make that into a character someday uh let's talk about andrew benintendi for a moment high expectations for him last year heavily discounted price right around pick 100 in terms of his march adp to this point average exit velocity kind of leveled off at 88.6 it was only 0.2 miles per hour above where he was in 2018 k K rate went up a little bit.

He still drew walks, but it was just kind of an underwhelming season. 13 homers, 10 steals, run production wasn't very high. A disappointment across the board, but do you see a bounce back coming from Andrew Benintendi, even if he splits the difference between his 2019 cost and his 2020 cost in terms of what he's actually returning value-wise this season? It's amazing. The distance between very top prospect and superstar in the league is just a chasm, man. Andrew Benintendi, we were at, what is that field in Staten Island? We were at the Staten Island Yankees,

I think. Yeah. Their field. And I was talking to a PR guy that worked there, and he said he'd only seen one player hit the ball into the water. Because the water is like, you're up against the water, but the water is like another,

I don't know, 30, 40 feet. Like there's, there's like a fair amount of concourse out back there where you can just hang out and then there's water. And he's only seen one person hit the ball so far that went into water and it was Andrew Manitendi. And, you know, I think when he was coming up, everyone was like, oh my God, 30, 30 is a possibility. This guy can run, This guy can field. This guy can throw. This guy can hit. And he can do everything. And he gets to the major leagues. And right now, his speed percentile last year was 54. I thought he was super fast.

Yeah, I thought he was too. He was at 68th percentile in 2018. He fell off pretty hard. He was 89th when he first came into the league too. I think he he played hobbled so i think the thing that stands out to me though for all the things that went wrong the barrel rate did tick up a little bit last year that makes me a little bit intrigued that he could get to some more power this year the average launch angle was 17.3 meaning that he's really you know really trying to lift the ball. Almost to his detriment, if you have an 8% bell rate and a 17.3% launch angle, you're really pushing it.

There's some guys who have it at 20% and stuff, but usually they have that dreaded 50% fly ball rate. I know what he's trying to do. I don't want to be too out on a guy at 25 like the peak year could be could happen any moment and maybe he puts together a 10 barrel rate with 65 percentile speed sprint speed and you know hits you 25 homers and 15 bags we know that he has good hit tool and they should be able to hit around 280 that that would be his peak year. I think 280, 25,

and 15. Totally possible. Good player. Probably his 75 to 80th percentile outcome for him this year. If he did that, that would drive him up probably to like a third or fourth round value. So, there's no reason

to be totally out on him. No, especially when you're talking about a guy who goes in the seventh or eighth round now. Right. So you're talking about him or Conforto. Conforto is currently hurt. Um, you're, he's behind Mancini. Like I could actually see picking him over Mancini because Mancini is just like kind of a boring slugger type. Those guys do seem to grow on trees a little bit. I think as you move into the back of the top 200, you can still find players

with that skill set capable of matching that production. He's talking about trying to lift the ball, and honestly, if he could lift the ball better, Mancini, then he could hit 45 homers. He's not like he's without upside but we're all chasing steals and uh benintendi at 106 or mercato with a sprained wrist at 115 easy call for me benintendi at this point so i mean they are pretty similar better player all around too a little a little

more polished at this point but i think those two are pretty similar i think the the peak season you described for benintendi, I think that's in the range of Mercado's peak seasons. I think having gone through it, having failed, having played a bit hurt last year. Yeah, and you're also going currently hurt versus currently healthy. And I'm not saying that Mercado is going to deal

with this all season, but he could. Yeah, it's the kind of thing if he comes back too quickly, he could have a setback it's just easy easy to aggravate stuff like that when it's it's part of hitting it's a really interesting moment in adp though i just want to point out that most people are going for pitching in this group in this group exactly yeah from like 101 and sunny gray down to down to Danny Santana at 127. So, yes, you take Ben Antonio over Santana every day of the week, I think. Between those guys, it's like 80% pee.

Well, there's so much of an 80% pee. 20% poo. That's a terrible mix. Yeah. 20% poo. That's a terrible mix. The only thing between two players is a series of body secretions. That's bad.

Take the player. No, I think it's an interesting thing because there is a sort of up and down that happens. Ooh, Hammer Candelario goes deep. I like that. I love spring training randomness when we're recording. What happens is, so there's a lot of people going for two aces or trying to get the two top pitchers, right? If you try to get the two top pitchers, then you need to come back and get a lot of hitters.

So you see these peas at the top, and then there's like a lot of position players. And it seems like the moment where, you know, around 50, you know, Corbin, Sale, Giolito, Kershaw, Nola, those are people picking their first ace, or they're trying to pick two of those because they didn't get two of the first group, right. And so a lot of times I've jumped in and gotten like Nola Paddock, right? That's 51-53. So that's me sometimes coming back in, and then there's the other people that did it, the P's at like 20 and 15. But no matter who you are, you kind of at 100 want to come back to the table for a pitcher. Yeah, I think there are so many interesting names in that range. That's why you're kind of steering away from a player like Ben Intendi, not because you don't necessarily believe in him, but because the needs and some of the drop-offs after that

range of pitching, I think is pretty significant. I think you end up with guys that come with a lot more skills risk. You end up with guys that maybe don't bring quite as much ceiling. I mean, there's a handful of guys in that 150 to 200 range every year who pop up and become top 50 players the following year. But you can also go extreme the other way. I think I've made it a Shane Bieber versus Nick Pavetta sort of thing. Like a year ago, that was the toss up you might have had in that 150 range. If you picked Bieber, you did great. If you pick Pavetta, not so much. If you picked them both, well, you did okay if you picked Pavetta not so much if you picked them both well you did okay because you still had one really good player and as long as you didn't hang out of Pavetta too long it all kind of worked out but I do think but pivoting to other positions

is definitely going to happen in that range one thing that could be fun is if you have three before 100 you can take off at 100 and yes it might cost you Mike Sirocco who's in this group might cost you Carlos Carrasco uh Frankie Montas and Zach Zach Wheeler in this group. But you know what? If you have three pitchers in hand, those three pitchers, you know, could be less exciting to you than getting a Benintendi, you know, at 110 or 120 or something. His max is 155. So, you know, there are other players here. So, you could get Carlos Correa. ADP's at 99. His max is 154. You could get Mike...

So, you could come through this, and instead of taking the pitchers like everybody else, you could come through like, you know, two-round thing or three-round thing and come out with Carlos Correa, Mike Moustakas, and Andrew Benatendi. Whereas other people came out with, you know, Raizel Igas, and Andrew Benatendi. Whereas other people came out with

Rysel Iglesias and Frankie Montas. I think it's something that BatFlipCrazy on Twitter has been doing. Pocket aces. If you go pocket aces, you're going to load up with bats in this range. These are the types of bats you're going to be pushing, hoping that they return

early round value. That's a way to build a team that can absolutely work. It really just depends on the health of your two aces. I mean, look at Justin Verlander. Yeah, they're crumbling every day. Max Scherzer's got a side thing right now, so that's making me real happy. Oh, really?

That sucks because of the back thing before. Yep, that is definitely a concern. But yeah, these are the types of hitters you are probably concentrating on in these rounds if you've gone aggressive with pitching early on. You might be looking at closers in that range, though, too. The Black Tux believes every groom deserves a better experience when it comes to finding formal wear, a suit or tuxedo, for their big day. Did you know the Black Tux was actually started by two guys

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the position because that's where things really get fun. And I hinted at it a bit earlier. You know, there's a bunch of players that go in this range who can do everything. Top 140 overall? Top 40 at the position? I guess we'll say outside the top 30 at the position because that's kind of where we left it before. Ben Attendee was 30 by ATC. Yeah, yeah. So you get to get to the Fran Mille Reyes, Oscar Mercado, Michael Brantley,

Kyle Schwarber, Max Kepler, David Dahl range. season yeah yeah so that you get to get to the friend meal reyes oscar mercado michael brantley kyle schwarber max kepler david doll range i mean there's there's something to like about just about all those players like mike michael brantley if tommy fam's not the most underpriced outfielder this season it's michael brantley right i mean why is he going at pick 130 how is he not a top 75 player yeah and he's such a steady productors Yeah, and he's such a steady producer. He's such a steady productor. And the thing that has gotten me is that I heard at some point that his ankle was all gobbled up and he'd never play again. And then the Indians gave him another year in 2018, and he had a 124 WRC+. And then the last two years, he's had 1,200 plate appearances.

I think that being able to DH some has – am I making that up? I think with Alvarez there, he doesn't get to DH a lot, but they do have the option. I'm seeing 129 in the outfield, 148 overall. It's not a lot of DHing. Well, I don't know. I just know that he's got elite hitter toolishness. And for this piece that was coming up that I'm publishing tomorrow, it looks like we talked to Trevor Bauer about different things he could do against hitters. And he talks about

how he has to do like the most radical sequencing he can think of to mess with Brantley. And Brantley will still fist a single or leg out a double. And Bauer will feel like he won. Because he limited him to a single. Yeah. So he just said he's such an amazing hitter. He was talking about throwing three straight change-ups to Brantley. And he said, I haven't thrown three straight change-ups all year.

Then in the next at-bat, he threw two back foot sliders. And he's like, that's not my thing. I don't do back foot sliders. Of course, that means that you're stretching your command, the limits of your command. And so you're going to leave one somewhere where you don't want to and Brantley still wins. So he's such an excellent thinker. And, you know, I can put bat on the ball so well that it just puts all pitchers, you know, on their back foot and kind of makes them feel like they're going to make a mistake. Plus, in an era where the league average batting average is like 250 or something, to have a guy who's hit 309 and 311 over the last couple of years is just very useful.

And you could pair him with Joey Gallo right here and come out with a guy who hits 260. Joey Gallo right here and come out with a guy who hits 260. You know, you two guys that average 260 with, you know, 35 homers and 10 steals each or something. Yeah, it's a,

it's a really nice way to go. I think that's the key to Gallo in general is just making sure you pair him with the right type of player. Brantley is one of the few players that you can get a bit later than Gallo who actually does that job really effectively. These guys are all pretty similar. Franmiel Reyes, Kyle Schwarber. Those two guys are almost identical in terms of the profile. Trey Mancini's not that high above those guys,

but playing time's not really a concern for either one of them. I think there's a little bit of batting average downside, but mostly it's just big power production. I think Schwarber is actually still somehow a little bit underpriced. Maybe I've always just been the Schwarber guy, but I don't see why you would

prefer Trey Mancini to Kyle Schwarber outside of home park maybe. Now I realize Mancini's got a health issue he's dealing with, but prior to that especially, it just didn't make sense to me that there'd be a preference for Mancini in that situation. ATC has Schwarber worth like 50 cents less than Ben Attendee, and Schwarber's going 144.

Ah, one thing is we're using NFBC ADP, and there is a little bit of weakness for Schwarber, which is how often he plays. Yeah, that kind of went away a little bit last year. I wonder if that holds up. I mean, defense wasn't quite as bad for him. So I think that was part of it too. We saw him get to 155 games, 610 played appearances.

That's true, 610 played appearances. It's not 700, and that might be his cap. And all the projections actually have him for doing less than 600 played appearances. But his defense didn't keep him off the field it wasn't it's not like bottom 10 type defense so yeah but reyes projections are so similar like 250s batting average 30 plus homers 90 runs driven in you know 575 plus plate appearances he's ripping the cover off the ball this spring too. And he's going 139

to Schwarber's 144. If you want some power production because you went for steals pretty early, you can leave those two on the board in about the 8th or 9th round and just wait until you can't wait no more. Yeah, and I think they are

good reasons to not necessarily invest in Jorge Soler, who we kind of talked down earlier, right? If you see Schwarber there 50 picks later, we have to be because I just don't think he can bring... So much helium on that price. Yeah, everyone's buying last year like he's going to repeat it, and I think the track record of injuries especially

is concerning when it comes to Soler. Max Kepler's the other guy who's very similar i think in terms of the profile now and a little less raw power but i just believe in what the twins have done with their hitters like i think they are very solid now as an organization low average big pop good run production i think the stolen bases are officially bye-bye he's got five in 15 attempts now the last two seasons it's like someone's probably in his ear saying hey you're really not good at this so just don't do it at all let's just let's just go to zero attempts but nevertheless i mean over 90 in terms of the the runs and the rbis uh what's not to like i mean and the fact is he only struck out 16.6 percent of the time he's had a two-year run with a k rate under 20 percent which

has really been kind of that extra little lift he's put the ball in the air more back-to-back seasons i think he fits in this group but i think he is third in terms of how you'd rank they're not sure berets and kepler there is something that i don't think he fits in this group, but I think he is third in terms of how you'd rank Schwarber, Reyes, and Kepler. There is something that I don't like. There is something I don't like. And it pains me to say it about a fellow German. What I don't like is that something like 80% of his home runs come right down the line. It just strikes me as a bit of like a Didi Gregorio situation where you like him if everything

remains the same the minute something is different you kind of want to be out and he's pushing that fly ball rate and at some point he's going to push it too far especially given uh his intrinsic you know uh stat cast power level if you know what I'm saying. As you raise your launch angle, you get further away from your maximum exit velocity launch angle. Everyone has a maximum exit

velocity launch angle that is usually somewhere between 5 and 10, 12 degrees. This is not helping. I just didn't realize he was pulling the ball that much. 53.4% pull rate overall. He's just pulling it right down the line to hit home runs. In terms of his stat cast,

89.7 exit velocity, 8.9% barrel, 18 degree launch angle. It reminds me a little bit of Benintendi where you're like whoa like you're gonna have an 18 degree launch angle and only eight percent eight percent barrels yeah I'm glad you brought that up with Kepler because I did not notice just how extreme that approach was and that just puts a huge cap on his batting average too like there's yes a pretty low batting average floor with all three

of these guys who pulls the ball 50 of the time yeah but yeah he's going to be heavily shifted and flying out a ton you could you could see him lose 20 or 25 points in batting average and still get to the power for the most part um so maybe i am out on kevlar now does not suggest that he's going to have great batting averages yeah i definitely missed that in the profile. In fact, it's kind of amazing that he hits.252, right? He's never had a good Babbitt because he hits the ball in the air and he doesn't hit it that especially hard.

He hits.252. It's his career high last year. And every projection system says he's going to hit better next year. When he's for four years in a row hit worse. Or three years in a row hit worse. So let me just tell you, I'm not buying the projection system's batting averages.

Yeah, maybe that's why I got a little bit tricked, was just kind of seeing where he was placed compared to Reyes and Conforto and Schwarber. And the guys that I do generally like, he compares very favorably in the projections, but are the projections missing the way he gets there are they missing the same thing i missed when it comes to the extreme pull tendencies yeah i don't know that uh horizontal like pull percentages are in most uh projection systems

we do we have talked about how the bat regressed the league home run environment. So it's not surprising to me that the bat has him hitting only 28. But they're all regressing his Babbitt, or progressing his Babbitt, however you want to say it, positive regression. They're all saying that his Babbitt should regress closer to league average. But with a career Babbitt of 253 and of 244 last year with a career high fly ball rate, I don't see that bad of it moving that much.

I also wonder, yeah, he actually hits a decent number of infield fly balls too. Yeah, because that's the difference. That's the difference between when you look at someone who has an 18% launch angle and an 8% barrel rate, what's missing is the pop-ups. Yeah, that's a good point. All right, so I'm kind of out on Kepler. Entirely too much negativity for my homeboy. Well, yeah, I mean, the problem here is that

there are so many other players to like, though, like in the same range. Like David Dahl plays half his games in Coors. He's had a bad injury history. There's no doubt about that. But at least he used to steal bases. He used to steal bases. He could steal some again.

Babin should be inflated by his part. He's been 10% better than league average since arriving in the big leagues in 2016. So, you know, 111 career WRC+. They're going to play him if he's healthy. They have to play him. 297, 346, five 21 so far. And that's in broken up seasons where he's spent time on the IL.

Yeah. It doesn't have a low K rate that we're, we're looking for from full on breakout guys. But do you think there's anything in the profile that leads you to believe he can improve in that regard? Or is it what you see is what you get. And fortunately he's in Colorado. So he's going to get a lot more mileage out of his batted balls.

Yeah, I just think it mostly just needs to stay on the field. I mean, I think we've seen enough, even though it's been broken up into little pieces. I think we've seen enough to believe in a full season. Another projection system will give him a full season because, obviously, the health issues. Another projection system will give him a full season because, obviously, the health issues. But if he just finally had that full season on the field, I could easily see him hitting 280, 290 with 25 homers and 10 steals. Yeah. Which would be more valuable than Kepler. Yeah.

So I think Dahl is kind of like a poor man's Eddie Rosario in terms of the statistical output. I think the park gives him a chance to close that gap and you're getting him 50 picks later, a little bit younger. So like the Rosario that stole eight bases. Yeah, right. So definitely in on David doll.

I don't think I'm allowed to talk about Byron Buxton anymore. I like him. I explained why I like him before. So I don't think there's anything for us to really get after there. I think the big thing for him is just being healthy, just seeing where he's at as you get closer and closer to drafts. I would just zoom out. I would actually sort of trust the projections at this point. Yes, there could be a breakout where he puts it all together, but what we've just seen is streaks here and there. but what we've just seen is streaks here and there.

So it's hard to believe that even as good as 2019 looked like in terms of strikeout rate and power and keeping the stolen bases, it's hard to believe that that's his baseline when we've seen in higher volume seasons like a half season that looked like that and then a half season that just looked like trash. I mean, I think you have to at least entertain the possibility because he's just resuming hitting this week. This is the first time he's taken live batting practice since...

Was that shoulder surgery? It was, yeah, since he tore his labrum back in September. Ugh. Yeah. So I think what you have to do, if you're going to draft Byron Buxton in that pick 150 range, he's your only injured player you're drafting. You didn't draft Aaron Judge earlier. You're not going to draft an injured pitcher or your only injured player you're drafting. You didn't draft Aaron

Judge earlier. You're not going to draft an injured pitcher or some other injured player at some point. He's the one that you get. And the reason you can do it is because the price is low enough where he has so many ways to make value. The play discipline improved last year. The exit velocity improved last year. He's been an efficient base dealer since day one. There's a lot to like there. And because he's burned so many people at higher prices, I understand if you're out, I think this is an appropriate price for someone who can do a lot of things we need at a nice discount. But again, if you say, hey, you know what? I'm out because of the shoulder, that's fine. You could go with Kyle Tucker a couple spots later.

I mean, Kyle Tucker is on the board. And I waited like Linus in the pumpkin patch for pretty much all of last season for Tucker to show up. This is the year. Are we sure it's not the girl with the football? It's both. Yeah. I was both Charlie Brown and Linus when it came to uh to kyle tucker first i was out

in the pumpkin patch with my blanket waiting for the great pumpkin to show up and then uh you know when kyle tucker was on the roster it was lucy pulling the football away and me falling on my arse so kyle tucker had a kyle tucker was two home runs away. Well, he had a 35-35 season last year combined. That's pretty sweet. 38 homers and 35 stolen bases. I mean, should we be any less excited? I'm stealing five times out of that 35 against 35 stolen.

So here's my broad question. Why are we, the collective we, not you and I, why are people less excited about Kyle Tucker having that season mostly at AAA than Luis Robert doing it at three levels, including high A and AA? Oh, because you have the, what's it called? Where you just fatigue.

The fatigue from 2018 when he came up for 72 plate appearances and struggled. We've been hearing about Kyle Tucker for longer than that. I think we started hearing about him in 2017 because he had a swing change and the fly ball rate went up and the power

zoomed. I think we even heard about that late in 2016. He had a 25-21 season in 120 games in 2017 as a 20-year-old at high A and double A. That's when we... And I think we started him out in 2016

because he showed some power in A ball. And I think in 2017, he went to the Fall Stars game and I interviewed him. And then in 2018, he got no playing time in the major leagues and had a 24-20 season with 332 average in the minor leagues.

And so we've been hearing about him basically for three years. Yeah. So it's fatigue. That's it. And now it seems... I mean, yes. And then also, obviously, playing time risk. But at this point, Josh Bluedick is not necessarily going to keep us waiting too long, I don't think.

Blue being the key word, actually. Here. I have to give my man Grant Brisby all the credit on that one. I stole that joke. Grant's funny. Yeah. Man. Honestly, someone will get hurt,

and Kyle Tucker will be playing really soon. And they might just play him over Josh Reddick outright. Red. Red, not blue. That's going to be in my... I will never forget that joke. Ever. Especially if Reddick was really benefiting from a sign-stealing stuff. I mean, he's... He has not been above league average with the bat or with the glove

since 2017. That's just the kind of player that becomes a bench player really easily. Do the right thing, Dusty. Do the right thing. Some other interesting outfielders in this range. We're probably going to have to split this into a little bit of Thursday's episode.

Maybe not all of it. Should we do late outfielder or Palooza? Yeah, we'll do late outfielder. We'll get through the end of the top 200 on today's show because we're pretty close to closing that out. J.D. Davis, playing time concerns, spring injury. Like the player, I think I'm just out right now. ADP around 173. Willie Calhoun with the jaw injury. I'm I'm just out right now. ADP around 173. Willie Calhoun with the jaw

injury. I'm out on him for obvious reasons. How about some old vets to like in their place? I feel like Justin Upton and Hunter Renfro. Super cheap. People see the flaws instead of seeing the possibility

of good. They can't platoon every situation in Tampa. We should have t-shirts made that say that. And thank you, by the way, for I think at least one listener submitted a stuff-as-t-shirt idea. That's an open call. If we get something that looks amazing,

we'll try to find a way to have it made. So if you want to make a stuff-as-t-shirt, fire those our way on Twitter. But yeah, Justin Upton, right around that pick 200 mark. Why not? Like the counting stats should all be there. You're not worried about playing time

as long as that knee is healthy. And I think by most indications, he's having a pretty normal spring training, right? Have you seen anything that would lead you to believe he's been limited? I mean, he debuted back in late February. So it wasn't like they had to slow play him this spring. Yeah.

I mean, I don't think I'd predict more than three to five stolen bases, so he's not really useful there anymore. But in terms of power, 25 to 30, why not? He's done it forever. Pre-Rabbit Ball, three consecutive 30 home run seasons from 16 to 18, mostly in pitcher-friendly environments. At least 80 runs scored in all those seasons. At least 85 RBIs.

And you're probably going to get a 250 or so batting average. That's not that off from what we were just talking about with Fran Milreis and Kyle Schwarber and a bunch of guys that we like 70 picks earlier. So Justin Upton at that price is a no-brainer. He's really streaky, and I've talked to him a little bit about it. He's trying everything he can to not be as streaky. I think he's been a little bit less streaky in recent seasons. But in leagues that allow trades,

there's always a chance that his hot streak comes early, and you buy him so late that you create yourself an extra outfielder that you can trade later. Yeah, that could absolutely give you that depth that need because if he if he comes out the gate hitting 280 you know with like 10 homers uh in the first couple of months like he could have pretty good value because people be like oh he's just back to being regular justin upton we should have one uh would you rather inside the top 200 because these players, I think, have pretty good. That's a good one. It's a clean, clean would you rather. I think I'm going to have to put that one in the drops folder, even though we don't use a lot of drops here yet. for those players are pretty similar.

I mean, you have Kane in a more hitter-friendly environment. Reynolds has youth on his side. Maybe Kane moves around in the lineup a little bit. I think it kind of depends on how much Eric Sogard plays for the Brewers because he's a bit of an OBP machine. He's a lefty, so they could shuffle some things around. But Reynolds versus Kane, you're looking for some average, you're looking for some

cheap bags near the back of the top 200. Who do you like better for this season? I like... Reynolds' barrel rate is not very good. cheap bags near the back of the top 200 who do you like better for this season i like oh reynolds barrel rate is not very good i don't think he's a very good player i mean i think he's a kind of a solid regular i i'm very skeptical of brian reynolds yeah yeah i don't know i don't know i like you know you might look you might look at his track record and say oh you know 546 plate appearances he's young he's ready to go he's 25 not that young not that young and if if last year was pretty close to his peak it's almost like kevin newman debuted what? 24? No, older.

He's older? 26. Ooh. So this guy debuted at their peak ages. And so we say, oh, 314, he's got room to grow. He'll do more of everything. Not necessarily. He's right there at his peak range.

All the projections actually have him regressing, and that's partially maybe because his barrel rates and exit velocities and certain underlying power metrics aren't amazing uh or just because his minor league power wasn't actually that amazing either so if he regresses the power thing it doesn't give me more stolen bases i mean the most likely outcome for him is like 280 you know rabbit ball 280 20 homers five stone stone bases. Yeah. Yeah. I can see taking, in a keeper league you want that. Obviously take him in a keeper league

over Kane. But as much as Kane was hurt and you know, had, I think he had off season surgery. And he's 33. Like I think he's got to steal at least 10 bags. I'm hoping for 15 out of him.

If he goes 280, 15, 15, he's worth more than Ryan Reynolds. Lorenzo Cain actually hits the ball harder than people realize. He's averaged at least 89 miles per hour in terms of average exit velocity each of the last three seasons. He did play hurt frequently last year, like just banged up all the time. He'd start to recover from an injury and then follow the ball off his ankle. It was like that stupid video

that was going around with the goalie who kept getting demolished in the PK a few years ago. It was kind of a fake video, right? Where somehow he keeps getting up and he just gets hurt again, but he keeps making saves so they keep leaving him in there. Kind of like that. And Kane Kane because the defense was so good continued to push himself through it kept earning the playing time still hit 11 homers and stole 18 bases

with a 260 average that's about as bad as it can get for him when he's playing I don't think you're getting a whole lot more in terms of power I think he can quietly get back up to 25 bags I think the average is going to come in closer to 290. Yeah, because he's the kind of player that his barrel rate's not good, but it actually is good for him because he's playing it closer to his max exit velocity. So he's getting the most out of his batted balls.

That's why he has the Babibs. Until last year, we were all from 380 to 350 in five straight years. So if there's any sort of health uptick, then that Bab from 380 to 350 in five straight years. So if there's any sort of health uptick, then that batting average is going to go up, and he's going to make the most out of his skill set, even though it doesn't have a great barrel rate. We're not buying him for the things. I'm just a little bit worried that there could be a kind of precipitous drop-off in steals.

I think he's probably... I mean, is Lorenzo Cain's speed any more risky than Elvis Andrews' speed to go across positions for a second? Because Andrews goes 50 picks earlier, and we talked about how deep shortstop is.

And with Andrews, I think he's a little younger than Cain. Man, he's been around forever. He's only 31. He's a couple years younger. Doesn't hit the balls hard so you're less likely to get the power. But is there really that much more risk with Kane's stolen base total than there is

with Elvis Andrews' stolen base total? You'd think they'd also have learned some tricks about how to steal bases that doesn't rely completely on being a burner at this point. He's stolen so many bases sometimes he just knows when to pick his moment he's in the 72nd percentile rank last year but in 2018 he was 86 so i think it's fair to think that maybe he could bounce back to 80th percentile

rank in the league you know with better health he's the third fastest for his age which i think is a funny thing to track yeah well i mean andrews is in the 46th percentile in sprint speed, which is way lower than I would have expected. He was 31 for 39 as a base dealer last year. Now, we know sprint speed doesn't perfectly sync up with steals, but that's a lot lower than you'd expect for Aldis Andrews. Yeah, and at this point, the league is not emphasizing defensively with catchers the ability to stop the running game.

No, we're seeing the way catchers are setting up is different, too. We're seeing a lot of catchers on one leg. If you see a guy with a knee out like that, you're ready to run. Yeah, and I think there's going to be, especially savvy veteran players who've always stolen bases, they're going to take those bags because that's in their DNA. That's what those players have been doing for their whole career. All right. So the 19s and 17s I see for projections for Kane for stolen bases is a little high,

but I'll put the over on around 15. I think that's a fair place to set the number because of the age, but he'd be one of the few players I would bet the over on that. And it can go wrong because of all the bumps and bruises. I took a chance. I traded Kevin Newman for Lorenzo Cain in a Dynasty League. I think that was a smart trade. I don't think Kevin Newman has a whole lot more he can do for us. I think

Lorenzo Cain might still have a few good seasons. I think actually his 16 stone bases in his first year might be his career high. Classic DVR Brewers Homerism though yet again on this episode of Rates and Barrels. Send your complaints and your compliments and your questions to ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com. Be sure to spell out the word and if you want to go the email route.

If you want to send us a tweet, you can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper. It would be wrong of me to sign off without saying that we have two other fantasy baseball podcasts that you should be listening to fantasy baseball in 15 that's every morning al melkier michael beller and i host that show 6 a.m eastern new episodes drop every weekday and the athletic fantasy baseball podcast that drops opposite this show plus bonus episodes of that show with some of our mlb beat writers as well michael beller heading that up talking to the beat writers about some position battles so more content that you can shake a stick at, you know. You ever shake a stick at something?

You're 40. I do like those old-timey expressions. Yeah, we do have a soft spot in our hearts for the old-time expressions. But that is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We'll have a little more outfield talk on our next episodes. We are back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.