Rates & Barrels - Paul Skenes Gets the Call, Tyler Black Demoted & A Rays' Rotation Shuffle

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss the highly-anticipated debut of Paul Skenes, set for Saturday against the Cubs, before digging into a deep list of news items including an injury for Christian Encarnacion-Strand, a quick return to Nashville for Tyler Black following Christian Yelich's activation from the IL, Taj Bradley's return to health, and the triumphant return of Prospect of the Week.  Rundown 0:57 Paul Skenes is Joining the Pirates! Rest of Season Expectations? 9:14 Christian Encarnacion-Strand: On IL with Fractured Wrist 20:06 Christian Yelich's Return Bumps Tyler Black Back to Triple-A 26:50 Finding Replacements for Willson Contreras (Fractured Forearm) 30:22 A Setback for Max Scherzer 33:31 The Rays' Rotation Shuffle: Taj Bradley is Back, Ryan Pepiot to the IL, Shane Baz at Triple-A on Rehab Assignment 46:13 Braxton Garrett: Tread Carefully Upon Activation? 49:42 Project Prospect: Bryan Ramos, Rhett Lowder, Mason Black & Parker Meadows 60:11 Other Waiver Targets to Consider: Jonny DeLuca, Again! Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! youtube.com/c/ratesbarrels Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sasquatch here. You know, I get a lot of attention wherever I go. Hey Sasquatch, over here! So when I need a judgment-free zone, I go to Planet Fitness. Get started for one dollar down and then only fifteen dollars a month. Offer ends April 12th. Forty-nine dollar annual fee applies. See Home Club for details. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Thursday, May 9th. Derek and Ryper here with Innosaris on this episode. We dig into some fantasy baseball news you should know, including the

promotion of Paul Skeens, which is coming this weekend on our third, maybe our fourth attempt. We actually got the date correct. So it is finally actually will be right. Let us guess enough times. Eventually we have to be right. The simple way it's going to work. We'll talk about expectations for Skeens, other big news items. We've got some players coming off the I.L. We'll get to our weekend waiver preview and our latest installment

of Project Prospect as well. As we mentioned at the top of our episode, we've got a Discord, jumped on in there, the link is in the show description. Let's start with Paul Skeens, you know, the big story of the week, right? We've talked about him a lot over the last few weeks, expecting this day to come. The debut is Saturday, it's against the Cubs, it is at home. All I'm seeing around Twitter is chatter indicating that this is the most highly anticipated pitching debut since Steven Strasburg, which I don't really have any pushback on.

I think in terms of hype, in terms of the dominant skeins has shown in his brief time in the minor leagues, that's a fair sort of assessment. And the follow- ups to that have all been, oh how high is too high to rank him now that he's joining the big league ranks? Is he a top 10, top 15, top 20, top 25? Where do you think he fits? If you were re-ranking pitchers today, even before seeing the first Paul Skeen's major league start, where would he go? A lot of second chance drafts are kicking off here. So this is a real question people are trying to solve.

I think in many leagues Skeens has already rostered. In shallow leagues he's going to be picked up anywhere where he's not already rostered. But what are we getting right out of the box? This is where I think Stuff Plus really helps us compare apples to apples a lot better than we would have in the years when Strasburg came up. We didn't have models like that. He has comparable, like second best to Stuff Plus in AAA and he combined it with above

average locations in a way that almost nobody else, actually in a way that nobody else in the top 10 in Stuff Plus did. And so he seems polished. He has a large mix. He's even added pitches this year. He seems really ready to go. When I was ranking, I found that we had a 3.48 ERA projection for him based off of his minor league Stuff Plus numbers. And that puts him

in the upper echelon already. I mean we have a three four seven for Tariq Scoobal. You know we have a three four three for Freddie Peralta. So that suggests that you could put him in the top 10 if you really wanted to right away. I had him at 64 because despite all of our guesses as to when he would start, I didn't know when he would start and how many innings I could give him. And I gave him 95 innings for the season, which at the beginning of the season seems terrible. This point in the season, it's still 95, right? That goes up against all the other people

who've pitched already. And so their numbers are smaller in terms of rest of season innings pitched. He's become more comparable to other people. And so you could move them up if you believe in, you know, ninety five, a hundred innings out of him. Twenty eight percent projected K rate is is is really, really good. And so you could push them all the way to maybe 15 where I have Chris sale and Dylan cease with three, six ERA projections, 28% strikeout rate projections, more innings than I have for, for skeins, and then you just,

you have to bake in some of the risks that he's not as good as Dylan cease and Chris sale. So I don't know that I would push him past that. But behind him, if you do push him to 15 would be people like Joe Ryan, Kevin Gossman, Zach Gallin, Zach Efflin. Can you do that? Can you push him past that? I don't know if I could go much lower than that. If I trust the expectations are fair. I mean, the changes to the pitch mix are real. Keith Law wrote about that for The Athletic. I don't know if I could go much lower than that if I trust the expectations are fair I mean the changes to the pitch mix are real Keith law wrote about that for the athletic He's not just you know force theme slider. He's got the splinker. That's been working really well at AAA

That's the new pitch. Yeah, that's gonna be a problem for everyone because we've seen guys with great four seam slider combos Dominate with those two pitches you give him more weapons to work with and the ability to locate. Big things could certainly. I think it's easier to put them against the guys that I have in the mid 20s, which are like you say, Kikuchi from Bravaldez, Blake Snell, Aaron Nola, Bobby Miller, Justin Steele. A lot of injury concern there. I think it's easier to maybe put him ahead of Shota Imanaga and Joe Ryan just because they've had home run issues in the past.

So, yeah, I think he would slot in sort of 18, 17, 16 for me. I guess that's a fail on me to have him all the way down at 64. But like, you don't know, like they could have played this game if he's not ready for a couple more weeks. And I think even, you know, putting him at 18 might be a little bit. Pushing it, I mean, there's a lot of people who come to the major leagues who are supposed to be amazing and have adjustment issues. Just look at Grayson Rodriguez last year, whose stuff plus was impeccable. And when he came up to the big leagues, got punched in the mouth

and had to sort of figure some stuff out before he was who he is now, basically. Yeah, I think that's fair. In the range of outcomes, even for someone who's really, really good, it's not necessarily flipping the switch and being Stephen Strasburg right away. Strasburg's debut season back in 2010, 291 ERA, 107 whip, 92 Ks in 68 innings. That was an ace. I had my very first meetup ever at a bar in New York City

to see Strasburg's debut and Giancarlo Stanton's debut. I think they were on the same day. Maybe one of them was like the second day or something. It was close enough where it was like the first time we'd seen them. And Strasburg dominated and I think Stanton hit like a laser. Like some sort of, I think it was like one of those things where we were rewarded for our anticipation.

They did debut on the same day. That was June 8th, 2010. So yeah, it's a day I remember because I scored it. I've talked about this on the show before. I scored Strasburg's game. I was watching it on my laptop on MLB TV because I didn't have MLB TV on my TV back then. We didn't have Chromecast and Smart TVs back then.

So I was huddled over a laptop in my dining room table with a score pad, like, I don't want to score this game in case it's amazing. And it was, it was a fantastic debut. So I didn't even really see the Stanton debut because I only had one screen going and it was locked. Yeah, we went to a bar that had good beer and like five TVs of it was in Chelsea.

I don't even remember the name of the bar, but there was a lot of cool people there. I mean, Jesse Spector was there and there was, I remember it was a fun time. And then we had five guys was downstairs and we had five guys for dinner after that. It was good. Yeah. It was a was a fun time and then we had five guys was downstairs and we had five guys for dinner after that It was good. Yeah, it was a good day. It was a good day What's your plan for the skeins debut? Ah

Be at Little League watching skeins pitch on my phone How many other parents are going to be huddled around you watching Paul skeins on the phone instead of watching their own kid I don't know. You can do both. But there's a no but there's a there's an interesting thing there. The link between being into Little League and playing Little League and knowing about the Major Leagues is not as strong as you might think. There's definitely some kids who just play Little League and have no idea about who plays in the major leagues and anything about major league baseball.

Part of being a kid, right? If you're a kid, sometimes you do other stuff. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, I think we're gonna see a really nice outing from Skeens this weekend. I don't know what my plan actually is yet. I'm gonna try and watch it live.

I'm sure I'll be interrupted. Don't have to rewatch it later. It's just the way life is right now. But I'm with you on that top 20 range being kind of appropriate for Skeens as far as our expectations out of the box. Even if he's less than that, he's going to be in lineups. He's going to be very good, I think, for the bulk of the time that he's up going forward. Let's move on to a few other news items.

Christian Encarnacion Strand was placed on the IL on Wednesday with a fracture in his wrist. Turns out he was hit by a pitch in late April, I think it was the 27th, and there's a right ulnar styloid fracture that will keep him down for four to six weeks. So he's been playing in pain. Been playing in pain for a couple of weeks. Hasn't looked like the same player he was last season. Was already in a little bit of a slump to begin the year, but I did look at the hard hit chart yesterday,

and there's a noticeable drop from the time the injury happened. So the quality of the contact went down after the injury. Ks are about the same as last year, still 28.5% K rate, and Cardinale-Sion Strand's been walking less than he did last year, and he didn't walk a lot. 5.8% last year was a pretty low walk rate for a slugger.

He was down to 3.3% so far this year. I got a nice comment from someone in the updated rankings wondering how I could possibly put CES ahead of Nolan Aronado and I mean, now that he's hurt, obviously that would flip because four to six weeks is enough to probably drop Christian Encarnacion Strand in plenty of redraft leagues. It's really hard to nurse a 10th round pick through an injury that long, especially when

the struggles were there pre-injury. I think there's a bigger question in play here though. When you look at a player like Encarnacion Strand, who does hit the ball hard, or at least did when he debuted, gets to that power right away and has great results coming through the minors but doesn't necessarily have the characteristics that are what you look for in a prospect. Where do you go as far as your expectations? Do you trust the results or do you say as good as these results are there's still a lot of ways it can go wrong in the sense that he has a questionable hit tool and isn't

necessarily a good defender. And once things get more crowded again in Cincinnati, the projected playing time risk that was there early in the winter could actually come back because he didn't do enough pre-injury to begin the season to take advantage of the opportunity of being an everyday guy. Yeah, I mean, it turns out that the playing time risk in Cincinnati was not about Elie De La Cruz. It was about all the other people around him because he's the one who can play shortstop. And that's something we talk about a lot on the show

is just that the shortstop plays. And the first baseman is at risk. I think that's what we've seen with Christian. One thing that I think we've seen that we have not seen from Nolan Aronato is the thing that is most tightly correlated with max EV is bat speed or the thing that bat speed is most tightly correlated with is max EV in terms of outcomes, right? And I think that makes sense because Batspeed describes your raw power output.

And then it's the finer things of how often you square it up and what your swing decisions are that mean game power and what your path is, right? Are you hitting into the ground or not? You know, these are the things that can keep you from Mac from from using like from making the most of your raw Batspeed of your of your maxi v. He did not have the ground ball problem. The swing decision is there. There you know he he chases a

lot. He never really walked a lot. But I could see you know who I kind of see when I'm looking at this Chris Davis with a C. I do think what's going to happen is the bat speed, once he gets healthy, the bat speed is going to be there and he's going to show us that he can really punish the ball. What happens when you can really punish the ball? Pitchers don't pitch you as close to the center of the zone. That's something we've seen from a baseball perspective. They did a cool piece on, I think it was Rob Arthur did a cool piece on projecting breakouts by watching pitchers pitch them further from the zone because they're more afraid of them. And from my piece yesterday about how there's this weird chicken and egg thing with like players play better if they see worse pitches, but players who are better see worse pitches.

but players who are better see worse pitches. You know, like just imagine pitching to Aaron Judge. What are you gonna do? You're not gonna throw him stuff down the middle. Well, and that was the Vlad Jr. conversation when he came up is that he was being pitched like a seasoned big leaguer. Exactly, yeah. Teams were pitching away from him, around him

in ways that you didn't ordinarily see for a rookie breaking into the league. Like the level of respect he was getting in the scouting report and in the approach was off the charts high. I think, you know, the reason that I bring up Chris Davis is that it didn't, it didn't click for him right away. It took him a little bit of time.

He had some success early in 2008, His rookie season, he had 126 WRC plus. And then he didn't get above 100 again with Texas. And remember, they traded him to Baltimore and then he kind of took off in his second chance. And there's a lot of similarities with

Chris Davis because Chris Davis is Maxi V that we have on file. The best one from the middle of his career was 113. Well, what's in Carnation Strands? It's like 114, 113. Chris Davis's strikeout rate was 30 percent. You know, CES is 28. Chris Davis's walk rate in his first couple of tries of the big leagues was five percent, six percent, five percent.

You know, so I do think that we are going to get some monster seasons first couple of tries of the big leagues was 5%, 6%, 5%, you know? So I do think that we are going to get some monster seasons from Christina and I, I just don't know when it's it's like one of those things where it's not a very good approach and he's going to have to get to some power and then he's going to hit some mammoth home runs and then they're going to be more careful with him. He's going to get walks that way. I. I know health was a factor in 2014 for Chris Davis. Again, Chris Davis with a C, but if you kind of look at the four year peak for him, those first four years in Baltimore,

you can even count the fifth year, count 2016 too. I mean, that's a lot of power, a lot of run production, even though it came at times with low averages, three of those five seasons, he hit 262 or better, right? It's the benefit of hitting the ball really, really hard is you can run a crazy high bat, and it's also the function of hitting a lot of home runs. Like your average ticks up, sometimes you do that too.

And it's the old Baltimore, which is more like the current Cincinnati. So I, you know, if you're in a keeper league, it's not, if you're in rebuilding, it's not a bad time to try and get them. If you're in a redraft league, I you just got to drop him drop him and be excited about maybe picking up as a power source once we flip the calendar to June and he gets back from that injury because the crowd the crowds

coming more in late June and beyond no V Marte suspension ends in the final week of June forget the exact day it's like June 25th, sometime around then. Matt McClain has another visit with doctors to determine what his outcome is for this season. Maybe he's back in the second half. If you get both of those guys back, that adds some pressure around the infield because of the mixing and matching they can do.

But there may be, if he hits the shorter end of that recovery window, there may be another three weeks or so for Encarnacion Strand to try and put the pieces back together before things start to get more crowded in Cincinnati. They need it. I mean, their lineup overall has been surprisingly light in production. Mike Ford's on the team now as a result of the IL move, and I think Santiago Espinal plays a lot more now.

Deep Leaguers should consider him. Santiago Espinal does not have power upside. I think Deep Leaguers should consider him. Santiago Espinosa does not have power upside. I think Deep Leaguers should take a look at Mike Ford. Watch, especially if you have like a Sunday, you know, free agency period, you now get, you know, two or three days to watch the playing time. Because they're, you know, just by projections,

like Zip says he can be 17% better than league average. He's got some nice projections for a guy that was just available in May. Yeah, I mean, he's 31. It's a little bit old, so maybe you can't really believe in those projections, but the worst projection is for league average. So if you're like in an NL-only league, you might get a free, you know, 230 average and 10 homers, you know, out of this guy. And that might be that might be valuable for you.

It could be if you had CES and then a lonely league, this could be the best option for you on the wire. Here's a type of would you rather that we don't usually do. But you mentioned the rebuilding thinking about multi-year leagues. Would you rather target Christian and Karnazion Strand or Spencer Torkelson as a by low longer term option at first base? I think Torkelson, I will have to say it's for reasons that I may not say yet. Just know that Dezval Savant is coming out with some cool new stats on Monday and Torkelsen doesn't look that bad in them.

Yeah, you get the everlasting Gobstopper machine approach going on right now. But it is funny when you look at them from just a raw numbers perspective. We talked about Torkelsen during his time in the upper levels of the Tiger system, not putting up numbers that jumped off the page even though the power was there. Things looked pretty good, right? 25 homers in 90 games between AA and AAA in 2021. He played at high A earlier in that season, but with slash lines that were just like, oh, kind of a low average, good OBP masher. And he walks more than CES, he strikes out a bit less but he's had this really weird fluctuation in performance where as CES almost everywhere he played put up just

gaudy numbers at the plate and totally different in terms of pedigree too. Yeah, Torkelson was league average in his last stop in AAA. Really bizarre for a 1-1 guy so I don't know, I thought that was an interesting one to throw out there but I do think Torkelson is safer, even though there's a more amplitude, more variance. If you try to put the waves on where things could go for Christian and Carnatio and Strand. Worst floor because of the worst home park, but better bat to ball, better swing decisions. And I don't know if Torkelson's hurt or whatever, but in two out of the three seasons so far, comparable raw power.

Interesting to keep an eye on that. I think the Monday episode might focus on some of the new toys at Statcast if you're wondering where we're headed to begin next week. If you're as obsessed with basketball as I am, then you know there's no better time of year than the NBA playoffs. Hey guys, this is JJ Reddick. Twice a week, I'm cooking up something special for basketball junkies on my podcast, The Old Man and the Three. I bring on guests in all stages of their careers to talk

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So more news that you may want to know. Christian Jelic came back from the IL, which is good news for the Brewers. The corresponding move was not great news for a lot of fantasy managers. Tyler Black gets optioned to AAA. Yeah, it's in that range. Wasted. It's in the dumb range of outcomes that I think we did mention last week as part of the Thursday episode in that even though Tyler Black was hitting in the heart of the order for the six games

that he started as a brewer, there was the Nathaniel Lowe example in Tampa Bay that I pointed to as the time that I learned this could happen. Where I thought at that point, several years ago, I thought if a player comes up and is in a prominent spot in the lineup and they don't fall on their face. And we can have that conversation separate. That probably means the team really likes the player. And it just doesn't mean anything. It just means they like them in that spot at that time with the other alternatives. The questions around Tyler Black.

I mean, what can you possibly have learned in seven games about any hitter? This is the problem that every team faces right now. Yeah, the K- jumped 34.8%. He's never struck out during a long stop more than 20% of the time in the minors. His 7.5% swing strike rate does not suggest a 35% strike rate. No, Tyler Black was at least 30% better than league average

everywhere he's played since high A. I know there are defensive limitations. That was brought up last week too. I just think when you look at something like what Ken Rosenthal wrote about this morning at the Athletic and you see the lack of quality pitching at triple A quantified by stuff plus, you say, okay, he's clearly figured out triple-a even

though it's been 64 games between last season and this season Tyler Black's not gonna get better against big league pitching by going back down and seeing triple-a pitching so each rosters different each team situation is different as we often say what I really can't figure out is that even if you want to play Tyler Black less with yellowch back and being able to move as different as we often say. What I really can't figure out is that even if you wanna play Tyler Black less with Yelich back and being able to move other guys around, why do you wanna play Jake Bowers instead

when Jake Bowers has a longer track record going back to last season with the Yankees where he's striking out 35 plus percent of the time? I know he's a great defender, but why? I think this dumb answer here is. Options Options again? Yeah you lose Jake Bowers. A slightly smarter answer might be that he still has decent bat speed, Bowers does. Right but if you don't make contact. Yeah black doesn't. Yeah, okay, so the cost of their respective approaches

is reflected in their strikeout rates. So I want you to just, everyone, if unless you're driving a car, just close your eyes and imagine a scenario, which games that matter are being played for the Brewers in August. Which would you rather have? The games on the line, and let's say you're down one,

there's two outs, and there's a runner on second base. And the game really matters. Bowers could win you the game. Black has a higher chance of tying the game. Yeah, like, that's one way to look at it. I don't think the possibility of the home run, in that case, given the likelihood of a strikeout. I don't think the trade off is quite right in that case. You know, I think by that time they

might make a different decision. But then if you dinked around, if to save Jake Bowers, you had to send Black down to triple A where he can't adjust the big league pitching, he's just there, he's just waiting. If he's less prepared for that situation later that you need aren't you messing up instead of using him kind of as a three times per week sort of player in the short term one thing that's interesting is that to rank who does not have Bryce to rank who does not have amazing bat speed but does have a nice short quick swing it has benefited from last year right Right. Yep. He got four hundred forty eight played appearances with 60 WRC plus.

But the defense is a bit of a component here. Why did you keep touring in the big leagues for that long? Because he was competent with the glove. And I mean, he's a elite defensively. He's a right. He's a shortstop playing second base and he's a legitimate good shortstop. So you got that. I mean, you could do a smaller version of this this and since we're talking about Jake Bowers the

glove is not as important because you're talking about your first baseman you know and you have you know you even have DH open if you want to put put a reset for a sum so I would say that if you did and what's funny is I just found the place where I did pay 50 bucks for him I didn't even start him. You didn't start him. You probably had to cut him. It's just money out the window for now. Well, I may hold him for a week or two, cause my team is in first. I have another option on the bench for depth.

We'll see. If I hit injuries, he'll be the first to go, right? But right now my team can handle it. And if I just hold him for a couple weeks, maybe at point the team is gonna make a different decision about Jake Bowers You know, I don't know what they're waiting on in terms of barrels The barrels are good but I think you can believe the 35 plus 30 at least 30 plus K percentage from Bowers at this point and His babbub is not terrible. So, you know, you can believe the batting average and OBP right now pretty much. Yeah, it's just this whole situation is frustrating.

I think you may be in some situations where you have to cut Tyler Black in redraft right after spending money on him, because you just can't wait on a guy that this is more of an indefinite. OK, I don't know when he's coming back. He could be back in the couple of weeks. You could be back in a couple of months, depending on. But Jake Bowers has never put up a positive Winslow Well replacement, and he isn't now.

No, and even though he's reinvented himself, he used to be a little more of that OBP, almost like slasher that would get to occasional power, and now it seems like he sells out to get to more power. The previous version of Jake Bowers is easier to justify. Yeah, it's not any different. Annoying, very annoying situation, but not completely unforeseen. Let's talk about Wilson Contreras for a moment.

He suffered a fractured forearm on Tuesday, got hit by the swing of JD Martinez. We're going to dig into a little more about why that's happening and an overall trend on our Friday show, One O'Clock Eastern on our YouTube page with Trevor May if you want to watch that one live. But this really leaves the door open for Yvonne Herrera now to get another long window of playing time. And if you've been looking for a second catcher recently, it's not great out there. It usually isn't on the way of her wire.

So this might be a rare opportunity to get someone at least that brings a few interesting qualities to the table. We saw them on display earlier in the year when Herrera was playing a little more. I think Wilson Contreras had a hamstring strain or something kind of minor that cost them all the time, but low K rate, you know, okay swing decisions and pretty good power of what we've seen from Herrera

and the limited sample. The raw power is good. He's been getting to that raw power more than he has in the past. And I think that's what describes his sort of sometimes 100 ISO in the miners and sometimes 180 has been a fluctuating ground ball rate as he kind of tries to figure out how to make the most of his raw power. Right now in the majors, you know, it's a 41 percent ground ball right. It's he's getting to his power. It's it looks like the one of the best versions of himself.

I think he's definitely in deeper leagues. Your best situation. I'm looking right now at my 12 team, one catcher, just to see who is available and who I might pick up. I still like Kavir Ruiz, but if you're looking for a little more power, Shay Langley has a lot of nice things going on in terms of bad ball stats, power. And he just had himself a double header for the ages. He just broke the record for RBI in a doubleheader for the Oakland A's. I think he had eight yesterday. Shay Langleyers I think might be my pick up.

The other pick up, if you're a little bit more batting average focused, I think Tyler Stevenson is going to hit for more batting average going forward. I obviously think that of Kavett Ruiz, but I think Tyler Stevenson has more power. So I guess for all around goodness, maybe Stevenson. If you're just trying to replace power, Shay Langley, there's yeah, Langley leaders. I mean, if you if you just give them last year's bad bit based on like a reasonable adjustment here, just a little more luck on balls and play

adds about 60 points to his average and O.B.P. If you did that, he wouldn't be available anywhere because the power's been there. The playing time's there. So I do like Langley is quite a bit reminds me a little bit like a Cal rally. I mean, he doesn't strike out quite as much. So there could actually be a slightly better batting average in there. If he if he figures it out. Yeah. Contact quality.

Very, very good for Shay Langley. So I like those calls for your single leagues I'd say Stevenson versus Langelier is a tough toss-up I might might prefer Stevenson because you're getting a little more in the average department Yeah better park and and he's one of the biggest Barreirah risers in the league so it just didn't make my article because he didn't have the the cutoff the plate appearance I don't know. It kind of stands out on the season stat grid if you're using that page over at Fan Graphs. Mike Scherzer has actually been shut down

from throwing for the next few days. He's trying to come back from a back injury. He's got a right thumb and forearm issue. So that's a bit of a concern. The main thing is that he's working back from the herniated disc in his back, which he had surgery for in mid December. He's five years younger than me,

but he's feeling what I feel, which is, you know, I figured out the Achilles problem from my running a little bit by wearing a compression sock when I run and walk around. It just traveled up. And so now my hammy's a little tight. Uh-oh. You don't want to go much higher than that.

As you get older, it's just like, oh, okay, it's moving. It's now lower back. He's just left the lower back and went into his thumb somehow. But yeah, I just this is the really the toughest part of ranking pictures that are injured, especially if they have long trackers and you expect them to be OK when they get in, is you just don't know when they're going to get in.

You think you have a timeline and then you don't. Remember, Alex Cobb was supposed to be ready. The hip surgery, they made advancements in hip surgery. He said this time they did the hip surgery, got on the bike, right. And he got on the bike like two days later. Last time he had to sit for a month, you know, so everyone's excited. So they ramp them up. Oh, we ramped him up too fast. His he's got a flexor

He's got a flexor soreness not quite they want I don't want to call it a strain And so now the timetable is early June for Alex Cobb, which was kind of what it kind of was Before we heard he was doing well So I would just like whenever you hear good news about a guy's coming back. Look at the age Just look just go find the age number and make, mm, okay, he's feeling good now. He's feeling froggy now, but we'll see how he, how he, you know, when they ramp up the thing,

what happens to the rest of his body. So I, I still like him for when he comes back, but I don't know when that is. And I may start doing something on the rankings in the future, a little bit, maybe a hybrid of what Nick Pollock does, a pitcher list, he does not rank pitchers that are hurt at all. And what I may just do is pull pitchers

who are currently hurt out of the regular rankings and maybe do a little bonus ranking. Well, yeah, put them on the side because some leagues have IL spots. A lot of leagues have IL spots, but then within that group, you can't, you can't stash everybody. Usually you have some. So maybe just have like a, a three tiered injured ranking of like 20 to 30 pitchers of like,

might be back soon. Like, you know, I don't know, some sort of tiering where I'm like, you know, these guys are interesting. You gotta keep track of these. Don't forget these guys because you don't want to to forget the guys are injured just because they're not ready now. Like we've done something. I've stashed Max Meyer in some leagues. It's not an injury, but it's a similar situation. I've stashed Taj Bradley before now he's up. You know, I, did I just, I jumped on the, on the rundown, but it's not a problem. Taj Bradley is up with the raise and that's because Ryan Pepio was

hit by a comebacker. Didn't look like it was very comfortable for Ryan Pepio. Fortunately the follow-up scans didn't reveal any sort of fractures so he is playing catch again already. It might be a minimum stint on the IL. We haven't really talked about Pepio in season yet, but so far so good. His first seven starts with the raise, 360 ADRA, sub one whip, 11 walks in 36 and two thirds. That was the big question skills wise. For the brief time we saw him both at AAA last year and with the Dodgers, Ryan Pepio's control

was just miles ahead of where it had been really throughout the rest of his professional career. And it really seems like that skill has changed for the better. It seems like something he clearly owns. Now the key difference is, with the lower walk rate, the home runs have stayed up. The home runs were up at AAA last year,

they're up with the Dodgers last year, they're up with the Rays so far this year. I think it's 16 home runs over those three stops going back to last season. And that's in a sample of 64, about 111 innings, give or take. So the home runs are there, but if they're solo shots, it's really not that big of a deal

because he misses a lot of bats and he's not giving away free passes. Was that Pepio you're talking about or did you transition to Brad? Pepio, yeah. Yeah, that was Pepio. Yeah, I don't really have anything bad to say about Pepio. I think this has been on the top end of what you could expect out of him, which does suggest maybe some regression going forward. But given their success with other guys with some command foibles

their one catcher target kind of approach and some of the slight changes to his pitch mix going a little bit away from the change-up which I think he does not command well and making him a little bit more of a fastball slider guy with change-ups in the right situations I think all those things have contributed to, uh, to better command numbers. I kind of expect more of the same from him when he's healthy again. I'm not really sure. Uh, like a contusion, it could be a bone bruise. Like there are just cause it says contusion doesn't mean he's totally out of

the river and like out of the, out of the way and like, he's gonna be fine. It's just gonna be 10 days and he's gonna be back. But I, I do kind of, I'm on that side of it where I think he'll be fine. Bradley, you know, coming up, I'm excited. I always have been. He has the fourth best stuff plus in the AAA. He's one of the few people coming up with, you know,

okay command numbers and great stuff plus numbers. He's had a taste of the major leagues and should be a little bit more ready for it. This time, I will say that the per pitch numbers suggest that there hasn't been a huge change. The one big change is the split finger looks the best it's ever looked. So if he comes up and so he's thrown 73 foreseams, 34 cutters, 32 split fingers, and 20 curve balls in my minor league sample.

So he's using the cutter as a slider, as an outpitch, and I guess he's gonna use it more against righties than lefties, but he hasn't had much success with that. The curve ball and this cutter have below 90 stuff plus, and the cutter has below 100 location plus. So some of the flaws that were there before are still there. In terms of like, does he have a slider? Not really.

Does he have good command of anything? Not really. Does he have an amazing forcing fastball? Yes. Does he have a really of anything? Not really. Does he have an amazing fore seam fastball? Yes. Does he have a really good split finger? Yes. So there's some news here in that split finger. There's some of these same old problems.

I don't know why he can't throw a slider. I don't know why the team is fixated on this cutter. I think with a good split finger and a good curve ball, he needs something to get right. He's out. And I don't think the cutter is that. So anyway, I, I don't know exactly what he'll do when he comes up. I know I'm excited and that I want to have him on my bench. Maybe, but then what if you waste one of the starts on the bench and then

Pepe goes back and Bradley goes back down. Yeah. I mean, because of the way they handled them last year, and there's certainly the Maybe, but then what if you waste one of his starts on the bench and then Pepio's back and Bradley goes back down? Yeah, I mean because of the way they handled him last year there's certainly the question of how sticky is his roster spot. I think if he pitches well, and I think our friend Jason Collette backstage at one point sort of confirmed this,

Tyler Alexander's the first guy out of the rotation. The question, I think the bigger question with Bradley is what's going to happen when Shane Baas is also ready? Then is it a six man rotation? If everyone's healthy, does the lesser of the two go to the bullpen or back down to triple A because having options, that is certainly something the Rays will take advantage of if they need to.

The related question though is the practical applications of Taj Bradley. His roster rate is around 50% on CBS. It's 58% in the Roto-Wire Online Championship. A lot of IL stashing, cause he was on the ILs. Even in the competitive 12 teamers at the NFBC, he's available in about 40% of leagues this weekend. And there's some guys that are rostered on the pitching side at much higher rates than I would expect

that are ahead of him. So he's gonna jump. Taj Bradley is gonna be probably in the 90 plus percent range. I mean, if Jose Budo is rostered in 90% of leagues, if Edward Cabrera got up into the 90% range, that's where Taj is headed, if not even a little higher because there's pedigree and excitement. And they have him on Fangrass lined up for three starts. You don't even know if he gets the three starts, but his next two starts are.

Tomorrow against the Yankees, at least that's at the trop. That's at least that's home. The 15th at Boston against Tanner Hauck. Yikes. Then the 20th verse Boston at home against Tannerock again. And then if you're lucky that he just stayed in the rotation, because they do sprinkle some Ryan Pepio in and actually start losing Tyler Alexander, that's that's funny. I like the schedule thing at Fangrass.

It's they actually take Tyler Alexander out of the rotation for you and replace him with Ryan Pepio and keep Bradley in the rotation. So that's a quote unquote base case scenario, I guess. Then you finally on May 26 get the Royals at home. I mean, this is partially related to my piece about hitters that have seen the best stuff plus, right? Like if Bradley was a royal, I think he would have a much different ERA at this point in his career.

Yeah, I mean, that's the nature of trying to break in with an AL East team. Sure. But OK, let's let's assume even on a first come first serve league, you're going to say, I'm not using them against the Yankees, but I want my roster that's on the that's on the extreme end of matchups. Well, then like if he dominates the Yankees at home and then you're like, OK, I'm putting them in and it's at Boston then you're like, okay, I'm putting him in, and it's at Boston, and he's like, oh. I think you have to have a sober view of the Red Sox.

The Red Sox are fine, they're a good team. They're not a great team. I'm talking about Fenway more than the Red Sox. I think Fenway is worse for a lefty than a righty on the pitching side. I think when you look at the split so far this year, you see a Boston team that's league average against righties strikes out 24.5% of the time.

It's a perfect test of, OK, can we use Taj Bradley against a team that looks like it's an average average is good, a fine offensive lineup, but in a somewhat tough park. Can you use him there or not? I think he's kind of on that borderline where you're thinking about it, but he's probably more in than out.

If you can't use them against the Red Sox, there's a lot of other teams you can't use them against too. Yeah, then it becomes like kind of more streamish or like 50%ish versus you want a guy in 12 teamers that you can start at least 75% of the time if he's on your roster. I think that's kind of where Bradley's at for me. I think there's enough good to try it.

One footnote, it comes in a very small sample, but Stuff Plus has made for this, and there are results things that point to this as well. Shane Baas does not have his stuff back. Shane Baas's four-seam fastball Stuff Plus so far is 91, and even his slider and curve balls are at 107, 109. And what we saw in his last start was no whiffs on the secondary pitches.

You're talking about the AAA rehab start. Yes. And that's where my sample comes out of. So that could be one start, and maybe he's just trying to feel good and not get hurt. But I do have Shane boss stuff in place. Like there was a couple of stashing in a few places and I've been waiting on them. And I'm getting nervous because it was such beautiful stuff.

Maybe it just couldn't be. It just wasn't, it just wasn't meant to be like the time I asked Pete Fairbanks, if maybe his stuff was too good for his body to contain. And his response? I hope not. Why would you ask me something like that? Yeah, that probably made him uncomfortable. I don't know. He's a,

he's a weird guy. I never thought about it that way. I don't know why I thought Pete Fairbanks was born in Australia. He was born weird guy. I never thought about it that way. I don't know why. I thought Pete Fairbanks was born in Australia. He was born in Milwaukee. Why didn't I think Fairbanks was from Australia? I think Grant Balfour was born in Australia. Yeah, I know other players were born there. I don't know why in my head. I don't know if the name sounds a little Australian or what exactly it is. He looks Australian.

Yeah. So I was hoping when you gave me the answer, it was going to be an Australian accent. I was looking it up and I was like, no, he's born in the wall. Why did you think he was Australian? I have no idea. Imagine being the first person to ever send a payment over the internet. New things can be scary and crypto is no different. It's new, but like the internet, it's also revolutionary. Making your first crypto trade feels easy with 24-7 support when you need it. Go to Kraken.com and see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. See kraken.com slash legal

slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. kind of blending the weekend waiver preview into the news a little bit. Robbie Grossman has been acquired by the Rangers. We talked about the Wyatt Langford injury and the window to try and get Wyatt Langford in long term leagues, maybe being open just for a little while while he's down. What are the expectations for Robbie Grossman? I remember a time not that long ago when people were a little bit excited about him because he had a 23 homer, 20 steal season for the Tigers. I mean, is he at least the kind of guy in a deeper league that could fill out your last

outfield spot because he's part of a good lineup in the time that Langford's down? The thing that Robbie Grossman has is a really short swing. It's really, it doesn't, it's not long. And so that's why you have these really nice swing strike rates. And he pairs it with really sort of extreme passivity. And so what you do, what he's doing is he's delaying the decision as long as possible and then has a short, quick, a quick swing that does not produce power and will not. It will not produce power.

So you are hoping for deep league OVP sort of production. This is still probably skewing more in the direction of the mono leagues and like 20 team leagues, but not necessarily a lock to be added in 15, more schedule dependent in a 15 based on how they're using it. Yeah, I mean like a batter, batter streamer, I guess, in those. And even then I'd rather it was kind of an OVP situation. Although with that kind of a nice team there,

then he should be able to get on base and maybe give you some runs in RBI, which is just kind of what you're looking for when you're streaming. Maybe cheap bags, a few cheap bags at least. This is a run that's got a 50th percentile sprint speed. Really good in the bat tracking. Okay, there you go.

You're not supposed to gobstopper. Keep the blanket on the machine until Monday. Brexton Garrett back from the IL, Edward Cabrera quickly replaced him on the IL, unfortunately, with another arm problem, so that's a downer. I'm so sad about that. And I think it does point back to a little bit of the Billy Bean comment about liking strike throws because they stay healthy. We have seen some really nice stuff, some really nice strikeout rates. This year, even a 375 Sierra from from a

Cabrera. So, you know, it should be producing better outcomes, but it's really, really minus command and it's manifesting now in in health issues as well. Yeah, it's been a problem for him up and down in his career. And with Cabrera, 14.4 percent walk rate again this year. I've seen enough bad, bad call by me. I'm just ready to. I mean, for what it's worth.

I told people to invest on the sort of like one of your last pitchers. I don't you know, I don't think I needed to cowtow and genuflect, but he was not he was not the linchpin to the, you know, 2024 successful season. But I do have a fair amount of shares. But Garrett's back, so I'm curious what you think about Garrett kind of working himself back into the Marlin. That is not a mistake there.

If you're looking at it. It's an 8.9, it's not an 89. Yeah. So yes, the change up stuff plus number is an 8.9. I've never, I don't remember ever seeing a single digit number on a pitch before. Especially with like a good enough sample like that. Yeah, 36 of them thrown. So what's going on with Braxton Garrett's change up?

It doesn't like it. You know, I think that his best pitch is that slider. The problem, and for a while it didn't register that high and so this might not look that unfamiliar, but when we redid the model, his slider stuff plus went up and this is low for that. So this is a guy who has low stuff plus and it's even lower now.

And then he's also a guy who used to have five location plus that were above average, and now he's down to three. So I'm not racing, I'm not gonna put like a, I wouldn't put like a 200 on him. Like I would, like, you know, 200 out of a thousand, I'm not going that far. I don't even think I'm going a hundred on him.

Because the guys with, that have this package that are kind of lower stuff and high location Like my I don't know if it's his theory. It might be just theory rather than like really proven in any way But we do know that location plus isn't sticky year to year as a sticky year to year My theory is that they need to be healthy, you know they need to feel good to get the most out of that package. And I don't think that he necessarily feels that good. And we know that his location plus is down. So I'd say 50 out of the thousand, 60 out of thousand.

I get it. You're looking for a starter. He might be more in the streamer, but he only might be more in the streamer. He's home against the Mets next week, so I think that's a good first opportunity. The weekend start is home against the Phillies if you're in a league where you can make a move a little bit sooner than that. I'm not sure I'd want to use him for that first one back from the IL in light of what we're looking at here.

Quickly, let's look at a few prospects that have been moving. Brian Ramos got the call from the White Sox because injuries have piled up on them on their infield. I think it was a Danny Mendick IL stint that brought Ramos got the call from the White Sox because injuries have piled up on them on their infield. I think it was a Danny Mendick IL stint that brought Ramos up and after a slow start at double A, he was actually on a bit of a hitting streak at the time of his promotion. I think that goes back to April 25th. He had eight straight games. He had a hit at double A. Got a little four game hitting streak going right now.

Put up a good numbers last year at double A, which is why I think the early struggles at that level were somewhat surprising, but I almost wonder if when you spend a half season at a level, and you do well, and you get sent back to the same level, if mentally that might have some kind of impact on you that makes you press or makes you different. Lindor talked about that a little bit, it's bored.

Yeah, it's like, hey, wait, why am I here again? Why am I not at least at AAA playing at Charlotte? Do not have confidence in me. Am I not one of your top prospects? Yeah, I thought that was a little bit bizarre. So yeah, 14 homers in 77 games at that level a season ago with a 369 OBP. I think the fact that they're giving him an opportunity just means that, hey, if he hits enough they're not going to send him back down.

They're the White Sox, like they are a blank canvas at many positions right now. All of his like process stats don't look anything like they did in the minors though. So it's hard for I know it's only 16 played appearances, but like, he's not whiffing and he's not pulling the ball. It's very strange. All of it's very strange. I just, I would look at what he did in the liners and be like, I don't know that I'm that excited

about this guy. I think it's a deep leagues only for now, but if you got him in a keeper in dynasty league, it's a hold to see how this first run against big league pitching goes for Brian Ramos. Rhett Lowder got a bump up to double A in the Reds organization. I think he's kind of interesting because as we get closer to the big leagues and we're

always looking for quality pitchers, tough to find them. This is a guy that went seventh overall in the draft out of Wake Forest just a year ago. It looked really good at high A, debuting there. 28.4% K-rate, 5.9% walk rate, lots of swinging strikes. Overmatching the level, I think is a fair way to put it, but double A kind of gives you a better sense of the timetable, if Lowder is going to continue to move quickly or if it might be a little more of a wait and see sort of summer for him, but I think there's a chance he continues to fly through that red system and there's enough of an opportunity there where if he continues to pitch well

I think we could see him before season's end. It's true and they're doing well enough where we don't know what role it's gonna be Right could just be in whatever they need at the time But I think he could leapfrog a few other organizational guys and get there sooner than expected Yeah, speaking of organizational guys. I think he's off the 40 man at this point. I'm not sure. But Elliott Ramos is back in the big leagues. Well, he's back on the 40 if he's back in the big leagues. Right, that's true.

So maybe he never was off the 40, but he's got like one option left and it's like near the end a little bit for him in terms of like chances and he's going to have to make the best of his chances. I'm trying to find what the corresponding move was. I know somebody's hurt. Who is hurt? It's not Elliott Ramos while you're looking. It's so interesting. He's had great success at triple A since the start of last season and he wasn't. Oh, I know. He's had great success at AAA since the start of last season.

And he wasn't, he wasn't like terrible before that. It just wasn't exciting prior to that. It was kind of, and the maxi V's have gone up and are plus like the, it looks like he's found his plus raw power and then the ISOs are really good again. So I saw him at Modesto in 2019 and I thought this is a star. I mean, he at the time, I mean, yes, slash lines are slash lines, but he was hitting 306, 385 with 500 slugging in Modesto, which is kind of a pictures park. And he was hitting to both, both gaps for power and he was

running and everything looked good. I think the speed has kind of dissipated a little bit now. I mean, we're talking about he's 24 now, but the raw power, I think, has increased over time, as well as some of the swing and miss. So I do think we're talking about a guy who might strike out 30 percent of the time, and he's going to have to scare pitchers into a good OVP, probably, because the swing decisions aren't amazing. But he does have the raw power to scare people and he's up because Jorge Soler is hurt.

That's right, yeah, Soler went down. That could have been in the news section there. He's down with a hamstring injury, I think it was. Shoulder? Yeah. That's worse. That is worse and it's a shoulder strain and that could be any amount of time. It could really, I don't know the severity.

And so I guess Ramos is gonna get a little bit of burn here. Yeah, at least for deeper leagues, maybe worth the kind of a backup bid, kind of a waterfall sort of player that you need to get someone on the roster. The playing time could come out a little heavy, and then you end up with someone that you got at a discount because you didn't wait for the week's worth of proof that you often want to wait for before making a move.

He's a right-hander, but so was Soler. So he just kind of fits in and they don't have a ton of bats. Like Flores, I think is, I think it's on the down part of his career. I know that it has come suddenly and he was so useful last year, but he's dropped five miles an hour in max.eve. So like, this looks to me, I mean, I don't think he's hurt. He hasn't admitted to it. It doesn't look good for Flores. I don't think that like,

they really want to play Flores a ton more, you know? So it's Wade at first, Estrada at second. They're kind of like become more conventional and just playing people. And Flores is ton more, you know? So it's Wade at first, Estrada at second. They're kind of like become more conventional in just playing people. And Flores is a righty. So if Ramos, you know, if Ramos hits a homer, like that buys him five more days probably, you know what I mean?

So that's why I think he's interesting. I think the giant call up everyone's been looking at is Mason Black. He debuted recently, 92-7 on the fastball. So it's not necessarily the velocity that we're looking for. Fastball, slider, occasional changeup, I think was the mix that we saw his first time out.

What do you see in Mason Black? The control wasn't good the first time out either, but the results have been solid as he's made his way through that giant system. There's things I like. It's an interesting slot for Mason Black where it's not quite all the way down. He gets a lot of horizontal movement.

And it's not terrible vertical movement. It's kind of an interesting fastball for Black. And it's a really good slider. I did see some struggle against lefties. He was struggling. He kind of tried to use a lot of sliders against lefties I think eventually Bryce Harper got to him, right? And I think he had a three run homer off him. So I'm watching I'm

Interested watching what he does against lefties kind of sort of on the peripheral a guy that I care about especially since San Francisco's such a nice landing spot for a pitcher, I'd rather have Keaton win, so he's interesting. The matchup, if he stays in the rotation next week, is home against the Rockies, so that's worth getting excited about, at least as a streaming opportunity,

even if he's not someone you're going to keep on your roster for the long haul just yet. So that's where the interest is. But Blake Snell seems to be making more progress than expected coming off of the grade two adductor strain. So the window might be a little shorter for Mason Black than we would have thought when we first heard about the Blake Snell injury. One other item to pass along, Parker Meadows finally optioned a triple A recently.

What's the long term outlook for you? Are you trying to go after Parker Meadows finally optioned a triple A recently. What's the long term outlook for you? Are you trying to go after a parker Parker Meadows where he's available? He's not really a stash outside of like a lonely leagues as far as your redraft interest goes. But this went really, really wrong in a limited sample about as well as things went for him at triple A last year. It's about as poorly as they went to begin this season with his return to Detroit. You know what he came up with?

He came up on the Dylan head search, remember? Yeah, that's right. You know that Parker Mendoz has some really bad seasons in the minor leagues. Yes, he does. I mean, like the 2019 season at A-ball, an 80 WRC plus, first exposure to high A in 2021, 94 games, 73 WRC plus. It just makes you wonder when you see someone get to a level,

struggle, take a long time, adjust to get better. How much longer does it take to figure out the big leagues? We've seen plenty of guys go on to have long term success that do that. They get promoted. They strike out more, they slump. They figure it out. They get better. But if it takes a half season to do it at different minor league levels, I would take a lot longer against top level pitching.

Yes. And then you add in the age factor, he's never really been that young for those levels. I'm disappointed. I thought this would work out better. The barrel rate's okay. The max CV is passable. The swing strike rate is too high.

And then there's gotta be some portion of this is luck. I mean, a 128 bavip, you can only earn so much of that. I would say a 75% fly ball rate is too aggressive. You know what I think he should do? I think he should try to do the Anthony Volpe. And flatten out a little bit more, not necessarily have a swing that's trying to make the most of his power. I know the power is what gets you paid and what gets you gets you playing time,

but it's obviously not going to work. Even his projections right now are for like a two 15 batting average and a 300 LBP. And those are even the some of the better projections. So he needs to do something that allows him to make more contact. Yeah, he's flashed it at times, but it might be a swing change in order. And he's been age appropriate for levels.

He hasn't been, well, he's been a little young for some of his stops too. When he repeats, he's more age appropriate. When he gets there, he's a tick on the young side. I'm still interested from like a keeper dynasty perspective as a bottom of the roster sort of stash, but like auto new for example, I had him on that team. He's a cut that I try to get back cheaply because I don't want him for three bucks. I want him for one.

I want the absolute bare minimum price for a player at the bottom of my roster. As far as other Waiver targets you're thinking about this weekend I saw a few interesting names looking for for hitters that are playing a lot more Johnny the Luca who I think got a mention Last week because the Rays the Rays of the Rays they're always messing around playing time He's still to jumps out and he's been playing more centerfield too, which I think leaves the door open for a longer a center field too, which I think leaves the door open for a longer run of regular duty. And he's got some different tools too. A lot of ways he could be useful on that team.

The initial expectation was that he'd fill the Manuel Margot role, but three of his six starts since coming off the IL have been in center field so far. You know, one thing that caught my eye about DeLuca is he played center field. Yeah, that's what I, half the time he's starting. He's starting center. And that changed my opinion of him a little bit because I was like, well, I like Richie Palacios. I don't think Randy Rosarana is losing his job. But, you know, I've always thought that Siri is so defense, like defense forward in his package that what he offers as a player that he could he always has the risk of becoming a fourth outfielder defensive replacement somebody that only plays against lefties. a righty but if you just you just trust his bat more and you just want to put Siri only in situations where he can succeed better then you know Johnny De Luca could take for

take center field. Yeah that's what I'm looking at with series I'm just wondering like hey is he is he actually sliding into the background here. I mean he's a strange player because especially if he's not getting to the power, it's just all defense. That's it. That's all you're getting. And he has not been given that power as consistently this year as he did a year ago.

I mean, there's a little bit, there's more base running in the league these days and a 42% strikeout rate is pretty bad and honestly could be presaged by, he last year had a 20% spring strike right now he has 19. I mean, that's gotta be, let me just just look that's gotta be one of the worst swing strike rates in the league It's series out of options to stick they're gonna have to make that decision It's kind of a bigger picture one the Luka does have options, but he's playing so much I don't think they're sending him down anytime soon among

Is a Zekiel Tovar has the worst at 21%, but that's qualified. So if I make it 50 plate appearances, Arius is up there. Sirius 7th. Yeah. Gabriel Arius, Ezekiel Tovar, Paul DeYoung, Jan Gomes, Estevan Florio, Chris Bryant, Jose Ciri, Byron Buxton, JD Davis, Nick Castellanos. This is not generally where I like to shop. No, it's a group of players I mostly don't have rostered.

So strange, strange company there for Jose Siri. But yeah, Johnny DeLuca probably going to be somewhat popular this weekend, too, if that playing time runs all the way through Sunday. If he started nine consecutive games or something running into fab, he going to draw some five percent bids but probably justified given the combination of tools. We talked about Joey Loprofito a lot last week. John Singleton is emerging to be a little bit of a problem in the Loprofito regular run of playing time window and Singleton is actually doing a little bit more this time around in the big leagues than he did a year ago.

He's kept the K rate down. He's drawing his walks, got a nice quality contact as far as 40% hard hit rate again. This could actually work in deep leagues on the corner. It's just it's probably a big side platoon situation, so that's not over the top. Exciting, but it's causing problems for other players on the roster. We like at the very least. Yeah, you know, I like Singleton. I mean a 114 max TV is like there could be more barrels in there.

And they let him play last night against Carlos Rodan, they actually let him start against the lefties. So we're now at eight consecutive starts for Singleton at first base. Low Profito's playing more on the outfield because of the McCormick injury. If you take the BAP about of this, you're talking 21% strike rate with an 8.5% swing strike rate, 8% barrel rate, 114 max EV. You'd expect better than a 239 average. You'd even expect better than three homers, I think. I guess it's the barrel rate.

The barrel rate is unimpressive. Would you rather actually roster and play Singleton or Andrew Vaughn at this moment? Oh, good Lord. Oh, good Lord. It's not a good situation if that's your first base option. I have been wondering if Vaughn is is somebody I want to pick up. I think Singleton. I mean, yeah, Vaughn is not pulling the ball. He has an even smaller barrel rate. His max EV is worse.

His strikeout rate is worse. His swing strike rate is worse. All the process stats that I look at are worse. He's not hit a homer yet. It's just strange that this version has showed up because he seemed like he was gradually nudging in the right direction or at the very least had found 20 homer power and was just gonna be an everyday guy that showed up hit for an okay average drove in runs on a bad team and we could we could live with that and it just hasn't been that guy to this point. One more name to throw at you on the hitting side

Brett Harris getting an opportunity for the A's he's popped three homers in seven games low strikeout rates pretty much everywhere he's. He's popped three homers in seven games. Low strikeout rates pretty much everywhere he's been. He's been a little old for the level along the way. Some speed mixed in as well. Is there anything here with Harris getting an opportunity in Oakland? We'll see. One thing I've noticed about Oakland hitters is not a lot of pull, a lot of patience, letting it travel, high walk rates. And that doesn't usually translate to the kind of power he's showing in this small sample. And if you look up and down at his ISOs, they are

unimpressive. The weird thing is for him to come up and not have a good batting average and hit homers when past has shown that he could probably have an okay batting average and okay OVP but not hit homers. So I think this is one where the small sample is pushing in the wrong direction. Yeah, it's strange, but yet another player popping up in Oakland with more playing time than expected and cashing it in in some ways so far, just the- We didn't get to my prospect of the week.

Well, yeah, we're running out of time, but the prospect of the week makes its triumphant return at the very end of this episode. So we'll put it in here. Really quickly, David Festa has always had good stuff plus, but recently you can see on YouTube, Location Plus is better. And as I don't believe necessarily in Samuels Woods Richardson, I think Louis Varland has taken a big step back. David Festa could be the next guy that comes up. Obviously, Kate Horton, Jackson Job, and Paul

Skeens are the class of the minor league prospects and they still all are above David Festa in terms of stuff plus. But if you're looking for who's behind that group David Festa might be the name. Yeah pretty interesting group of names there. Kate Horton with a 90.1 location plus so that might be 77 pitches though that usually takes a little bit longer he doesn't have bad command grades that's one where I would wait for more information. David Festa has bad command grades but he has 448 pitches so that location plus becomes more interesting. Yeah, I think Simeon Woods Richardson is another great load them pole. Like what's gonna really happen with him

with more time in the big leagues. It doesn't seem like the results should be this good, but he's done it for stretches really, really young for the level throughout his time in a few different organizations. He's been traded a couple of times. It's basically a dead zone fastball in terms of movement. 92.9 is a mile an hour shorter

than most fastballs and in I don't necessarily see a standout. The slider being 87 miles an hour is interesting. So he's got a good slider, but he throws the fastball at a conventional rate. And so far, he's got a 276 slugging on it. I just don't believe that I don't know if I believe that the ex-Wolba is The ex slugging on it is 608 Yeah, that's going to be a problem eventually my prospect of the week selection after a lot of back-and-forth is Moises Ballesteros in the Cubs organization. He's at double a right now 188 WRC plus entering play on Wednesday, really

good plate skills of course when you're putting up numbers like that. So they've been 22 games getting to some power, just three homers. He's listed at five seven, a little bit of an undersized player might not even be a catcher long term, but it might not matter because he's going to play all season as a 20 year old at double A. So I'm really curious to see where this goes. Maybe a guy that just hits his way into a different position if he doesn't stick behind the plate in the long run. I mean, there's a little bit of a opportunity maybe at first base. Matt Murvis is getting another shot and it's, it's not looking great right now.

And he was been optioned. I missed that, but he's been optioned. So it's not like DH and first base are on lockdown although you may still get Morell headed there and Patrick Rizzov is back up but Bush is not great defensively either so you know it's not like they have an amazing defensive team and can just plug him in but maybe we're seeing the after that streak that Homer streak earlier in the year, I know he hit the walk off this week, Michael Bush went real quiet prior to that walk off. He's got a 34.5% K rate for the season. So some of the early things that have gone right

have been kind of overshadowed by the major flogs that we've been working on. He's a real agent level guy. If you want to get excited about his minor league numbers, you need to look at the age. He's 26 right now. He was older than the level a lot. We need to see that K-rate come down and come down quickly if Bush is going to make himself a part of the Cubs long-term plans. Nice

start though from a power perspective with the seven homers through his first 36 games but be cautious about expecting that to continue given the more recent swing and mistrends we're seeing from him. We are gonna go on our way out the door. A reminder, you can get a subscription to The Athletic at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. You can find Eno on Twitter at EnoSaris, find me at Derek VanRyper, find the pod at rates and barrels.

We've got our live stream coming up on Friday with Trevor May at one o'clock Eastern on our YouTube page. We hope to see you for that. That's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. Back with you on Friday. Thanks for that. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We'll be back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.