Rates & Barrels - Pete Alonso back to the Mets & other news

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Eno is joined by Sleeper & the Bust co-hosts Justin Mason and Jason Collette to talk about how they got into baseball, their upcoming drafts, some MLB news from the week and they take a few mailbag questions Rundown 0:57- Intros & how they got into baseball 11:55- Upcoming drafts & any surprises 18:08- Pete Alonso is back with the Mets 28:20- How will new parks effect Rays & A's players this season 38:08- Is Junior Caminero ready to take a big step? 42:44- Ben Gamel goes back to the Astros 45:23- Yoán Moncada 1 year deal with the Angels 47:26- Harrison Bader signs with the Twins 50:42- Tommy Pham joins the Pirates 52:11- Any concerns about Skenes recent workload? Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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paying your bills could sound like this. Yes! Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month. Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. This is not the voice you are used to hearing at the beginning. I'm so sorry for that. And I'm so sorry for the poor hosting job that I will do henceforth because I'm just not good at this.

It's usually DVR who throws it to me. That makes sense. But DVR's got some family situation going on right now. And so thankful for our guests today. We've got Justin Mason and Jason Collette in town to help us through this process. Please, please help me. Please help me say something, Justin.

Tell us a little bit about your background, both in baseball and without you know what you do, how you got there and what you do outside of baseball. So I am Justin Mason. You can reach me on social medias at Justin Mason FWFB. I am a writer at fan graphs and a writer at fantasy pros and friends, fancy benefits. And then I also do podcasts, obviously, uh, over on fan graphs with Paul sport and Jason Klett sleeping in the bus and over with Dave McDonald at friends of fancy benefits. Yeah. I've been in the industry for nine years now. Oh,

I also run TGFBI, which is starting to get going here soon. So yeah, I do a lot in the industry. Outside of the industry. I'm a full time addiction counselor, I kind of run the addiction side of the welfare to work program in my county. So that that keeps me busy during the day. So yeah, I love what I do. And I'm really, really excited to be talking to you. We don't get to talk on pods anymore now that you're over here, but I got my start on the sleeper on the bus producing for you. That's right. One thing I didn't know about your that

has just occurred to me is are you a little bit more in like management or are you actually sort of one on one counseling a lot? So my job is in the counseling sphere is really weird, right? It's very different than most counselors. I do a lot of everything. I'm the only only counselor in my entire department. And so I kind of run that whole side of things. So I'm not technically a manager, because I'm not actually managing anybody but myself,

but I do everything, which is cool because it gives me an opportunity to do a lot of different things. I mean, I ran two groups this morning. I've got two individual sessions later this afternoon. So it's a really, really cool job. And I've been doing it, God, like almost 18 years now. So I love it. Super important one. I wonder what your thoughts are in gambling sometimes because of, you know,

Oh, I have thoughts. How, how that dovetails. I mean, it, it does it, does it, does it manifest when you, do you ever counsel anybody on that one and does it manifest in similar ways? Do you, do you see similarities? I mean, it's less of a sort of a physical addiction. A lot of the addictions you probably deal with are more to an actual drug or something, but it's got to be very similar.

Ryan Henson What I call it is a secondary addiction. I know that my industry doesn't call it that, but it's a little bit different than like drugs or alcohol, which have a physical hold on you. And so I think of things like gambling and food and shopping, you know, excessive shopping, things like that, as kind of secondary addictions. But it's very, very similar. And I've worked with people for a number of years on it. And it's really interesting to kind of have that end of a job and then work in the fantasy industry where gambling is becoming a Huge part of it and DFS was a huge part of it kind of the gambling sphere as well

I mean fantasy baseball in general is I mean, you know on a core level is gambling in in a lot of you managed your own Issues well, I can't gamble You know, I'm legally in California in California. So and I can't gamble on sports in California. And I don't trust online offshore stuff. I know other people do. Have you found yourself having to limit yourself in any way with fantasy sports? Oh, for sure. Yeah, I mean, if people have listened to my podcast before, they know how many leagues

I play in and how crazy that gets. Thankfully, I've been very profitable the last few years, but like this year, I'm like limiting myself. I've cut back on leagues. I think I'm only in like 12 leagues. So which for me isn't very much considering I've played upwards of 25 fantasy baseball leagues in years. So yeah, no, it's something I got to keep an eye on because I'm in recovery myself from alcoholism and drug addiction. I've been sober coming up on 20 years in April, but I still have all the same symptoms of an addict.

So I have to be really, really smart about like, you know, if I go and gamble, like go play poker or something like that, or if I want to like sports bet when I'm in an area I can like to be really smart and not take my you know debt or credit cards with me and because I limit yourself somehow pre limit yourself so but I'm interested to see the effect it has on people as sports betting becomes more and more legal around the country. I don't know if people know this about myself I find myself there's a spectrum of you know of addiction and compulsion. I tend that direction. What I've found is I just have a personality where I just limit it.

I spend a lot of attention limiting it. So I always just have rules about all the things that I do. Not on Mondays, not on Thursdays. It's helped me so far, but I definitely, you know, have tendencies in that way. But we also have another member of Sleeper in the Bus here, Jason Collette. Tell us a little about, you know, why you're so into baseball and how'd you got into this? I mean, you just told a little story about the wall behind you and it's sort of like

just a super fandom. But I know Roto Junkies comes into it and you've got a lot of history in the game. I grew up in Houston as an Astros fan as a kid, parents divorced moved to Florida where this is how old I am. There was no baseball in Florida at the time. So I was like, what do I do? And that's how I started doing sim baseball on IBM PC. Anybody knows what those are playing Earl Weaver baseball, which was way

ahead of its time. So started doing that. And then I got to college at UCF. And I was working in the kitchen at Burger King and a guy was like, Hey, do you play fantasy baseball? I'm like, well, I do stuff on my computer. He goes, well, this is kind of the same thing. We need somebody to step in for an owner who is in jail for a little bit. And I was like, okay. So then I started playing, I started playing fantasy baseball in 1993. And I got step in for an owner who is in jail for a little bit. Okay, so then I started playing I started playing fantasy baseball in 1993. And I got the writing bug in 1998 for roto junkie. Because again, we just had the Marlins have been around a couple of

years, the devil race just started. And I just I would still go into minor league baseball in the Florida State League. So I said, Hey, I can just start writing about what I see here. Not that I'm a scout. It's just Hey, you know, this guy looked really good. And whatnot. So I got the writing bug. And road junkies was like a website that was mostly forums, but also had content. had content. Yeah, I had a front page. It was the forums were were heavily populated, a lot of activity, but there was a lot of content. Like I wrote the farm futures column and then it became something else but there were different things happening. And I'm still in contact with some of those folks to this day. That's how great it

was as a community. And you know, you can still check out some of it rj bullpen.com I had to change the name because long story there, but then got into the podcasting side of things when Paul and I were at baseball prospectus together. And that was really the genesis of where sleeper and a bus came from is way back then. This was like 2011. We started talking about by Kevin Goldstein and Jason Parks were guys like, hey, we started you know, we were listening to them and they were like, you guys

should do a fantasy podcast. We don't know how to even do the audio part. Like, oh, we'll show you that. So we got started doing that. And, you know, it's been been doing this a while now. And I enjoy that. And around all the different stuff by day. I mean, I don't have the fascinating job Justin does, but I work in educational technology with schools. And I used to travel all over the country and working with customers, both to put out fires and to help them build solutions. And now I'm more on the solution side of things.

And it fits very nicely into doing podcasts and interviewing and having conversations with people because it's what I do by day. That's what I can do, what I do by night. And I enjoy both equally as much. The heavy travel. Have you been to most of the stadiums? I know that you you kind of put stadium travel like you've done that. You've been like, Oh, I'm here for work. And you know, I flew my daughter out to meet me. And like, I know you do that. So have you been to all 30? Or I have been to all current 30 because Sacramento is not in play yet. So now it's like, do I have to go to Sacramento? I've now I've been to Sacramento a couple times for work. I've never been to a game at the stadium, right? I've been to a game at Steinbrenner Field, but so now I feel like I have to go to Sacramento

somehow. But yes, I've been to all 30 and I think it's up to 36. If you count like old Baltimore Stadium, I went to my first American League game was the Twins and the Orioles in 1988. Astrodome, old Miami Stadium, old Yankee Stadium. What's your favorite old stadium that's not around anymore? The favorite stadium is not around anymore. I didn't get to go to that many because the travel, honestly, the travel for me

did not start until I got into the late nineties. Like I went to Dodger Stadium for my 30th birthday. Uh, happened to my parents who are living in California. I went out, but I didn't get to go to a lot of the old stadiums, but I can tell you my biggest regret is my best friend and I not going to Detroit for Tiger Stadium. Like we talked about it, we were living in Orlando, and we were like, we were both early teachers,

had no money, and it's like, that's a long drive. And we didn't make it, and we were like, why didn't we do this? We look back and we still like, we should have done that trip. So I really regret not making that one. The nice part of that story is though is that Comerica is pretty nice. Like, you know, it's a great park. Yeah, yeah, I think I would put that it just in terms of looks and stuff. And you know, the beer and food is pretty good. And like, I

think that's like, kind of a top 10 park for me. Do you have a do you have a park that might be a surprise that's in your top 10? I mean, I think so many people, there's a consensus around like Petco and San Francisco, I think, and, you know, the kind of the jewels like the Wrigley Fenway types, but is there one that you think is kind of underrated? I mean, my favorite one is Target Field. And usually when I bring that up, people are like, really? And I'm like, yes, I love Target Field. And for some of the same things you said about Camerica, they have a lot of local food, a lot of local beer. And yeah, that's that's in my wheelhouse. Those are two things I really enjoy. So it's that when I went to

Target Field, I've been multiple times, always when the rays are playing, but I'll make that trip up there. But I've thoroughly enjoyed my time at Target Field walking around sitting in different places. And that's one of the best parts about usually going by myself is I can just go sit anywhere. I'll go sit here. I'll go sit there and take that out of a target field is to me is the best bang for your buck going to the stadium.

Yeah. It also feels like you're close a lot. Like, you know, that's a, that's an underrated part of it is that I think they, they sort of like built it into the ground. They like sort of like built down. And so there's somehow it feels like you're just like in this like little cave or something. Yeah. You're coming in at the concourse level. When you come in, when I came in last time I was coming to the right field. And if you're in the 100 level, you're walking down to your seat.

Yeah. Yeah. I like, I like that place, but thanks for coming guys. And this would have normally been a news and mailbag some, so I think we're just going to jump into it a little bit. Actually, I wanted to check real quick. Are you guys in any drafts right now? And how many? I'm going to start with you, Justin, because I'm sure you are. And how many have you had so far?

I'm actually not currently in the draft. I do not have another draft until we get together. I think was it next weekend for Bar another draft until we get together. I think was it next weekend for birth for the weekend after I think the weekend. Yeah. Two weeks for barf, which I'm excited for. But like I said, yeah, I'm trying to cut that raining chap right here. There we go. I tried to get. Yeah, you ended up second, right? I think I ended up falling out of second. But yeah, I think I felt a fourth. But yeah, I tried your your team was just too good to catch at the end. So, but I've done I did three gladiators early on in the year. So I have no No free agency. Yep. You got you get the guys you get which it's a it's a cool little format to kind of practice Drafting if you're going to do some really big money drafts, they're only 50 bucks. They go really quick

The problem is if you have one really terrible player it can really sink your season So like my first ever gladiator can't drop them. Yeah. I had Alec Manoa, right? The Alec Manoa went from an SP one to like unusable. And like, I did the math on at the end of the season, I would have won the league had I not just taken if I if I drafted you, you know, I win that. And it's been like, I take a zero on the spot. And so like, it's a it's a tough format because like, for instance, like I drafted Lucas Erceg in one of my gladiators. Well he's probably not the closer anymore, or at least he's sharing the role. So like, but at least he probably won't be as bad as Alec Manoa was. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, they

do them early and they don't do any after I think the new year. So like you're kind of stuck, like taking a lot of guesses and gambles on who's going to be good and who's not. Did you try any sort of like punt saves or saves high because you know, because there's an overall, so you want to kind of try to compete for the overall by not going all in on things, but, or putting something. So for me, like, you know, it's just a good way to learn the player pool, right, and kind of learn the ADP early.

So I do recommend the gladiators. If that's people, uh, something that people are interested in next year, cause they're done for this year. Do you have a year guy already in that one? And those three, anybody that you had on all three? Not really. I'm still, I'm'm still like doing my projections. I just finished my hitting projections.

I'm starting my pitching projections probably this afternoon. So I'm still kind of formulating who I like and who I don't compare it to ADP. I know that like Harry Carpenter is going to be one of those dudes because I'm like I just totally infatuated with him from the inside. But the pitching I haven't quite developed as well. I mean, they're definitely guys I like, but I think a lot of guys like people like Spencer Schwalbe Bach or, you know, those kind of guys this year. Jason, you take a little bit slower approach to drafting.

I don't I would be wouldn't be surprised if you had a draft at all yet. I'm in one right now. I did. I did dry January. I don't drafts in January, which is unusual. Yes. And so I had the first pitch of Arizona speakers league. I have won that and I finished second in the last couple of years. That was really tough because you're starting that in October. I mean, that's, that's, well, no, this one actually starts in February, but that, yeah, this one's a little, it's this year we started late last year, we started a little earlier because it's the draft and hold. But yeah, historically, we've started early for this reason, whatever we didn't start until February 4. And so I'm picking 14 to between Doug Dennis and Todd Zola. And it's already been like Snipes City, back and forth. But that is what it is. So that I did have XFL at first pitch Arizona. And that is a little tough because that's just piece of paper depth charts.

That's all you're allowed to have. So you're sitting down you're drafting in the first weekend November with absolutely no numbers. Everything's in your head. I do love that concept. It's a it's a keeper league dynasty contracts. Everything goes up either three or $5 depending on if you acquired the guy from during free agent or if you acquired them through the minor league reserve phase. And so we have the reserve draft the same weekend, second weekend of March. So we split up the auction

and the reserve draft in that but it's again, it's tough because you can't look at any numbers when you put your team together but you can get some nice bargains. Oh, that would be murder on me because just from the depth chart aspect, I'd be like, me because just from the depth chart aspect, I'd be like, wait, wait, wait, who's available? So everybody comes in with just pieces of paper where they're scratching names off.

Everybody has the same. They print it out and this is the depth chart and that's what you're allowed to use. That's it. And you're allowed, you can't, it has to be a clean piece of paper. You can't come in, you can highlight certain things, but you can't go in there.

You can't have any numbers written down. It is a very, this is the way you do things. And so it is, it works out nicely. I mean, I love the difference of that because often you'll go to a draft and everybody's like looking at their laptop screen. And that's part of, I mean, you and I have sat at the auction table together. Part of the fun is looking around and seeing like you get uncomfortable or you flicking me off when I bring up a guy that you like, uh, things like that. And off when I bring up a guy that you like. Things like that and you don't get a lot of that if you're just if you have your screen if your nose in the screen the entire time. So I do love how it forces you to look around the room and play

that way. Yeah that sounds like a lot of fun. We may not be able to get together this spring. I will see you at at barf Justin but I don't know if I'm going to first to get together this spring. I will see you at Barf, Justin, but I don't know if I'm going to first pitch in Florida this year. Oh, it's not, it's virtual. So if you don't come to Tilt Wars, then it will be a no. And I've got, you guys are at Barf next weekend.

I've got Warf, I've got the Waffle House area, Roto-Fance. That's it. It is the best name. It is the best name. And when I go down, I have breakfast at the Waffle House before I go to the draft. So my son goes with me for that one. Oh my god. Waffle House is such a big part of my youth. Literally the only place open after midnight and a lot of places, you know,

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Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. All right. Well, we got a little bit up in the news here. P. Delonzo is a Met and the contract is in some ways weird in some ways expected. I mean, I don't think that anybody was like, oh yeah, that dude's gonna get, you know, $200 million and all the years he wants. And I think just, you know, the the glove, maybe the

body, I don't know what it is, but that type of player has not been just, you know, the, the glove, maybe the body, I don't know what it is, but that type of player has not been getting, you know, all that he wants, you know, for a while now, although, you know, Matt Olson got a pretty long deal. So you know, I thought maybe he could get something along the Matt Olson deal, but he did ended up getting $30 million for 2025 with a $24 million option for next year. The barrels are down a little bit. It's not a good glove, but he's projected about three wins. So this is actually a bargain by war and they don't, they're not locked into all these years. Do you think the market, you know, the baseball's market is a little

bit too down on this type. Should he have gotten more? Why didn't he get more? What do you guys think on Pete Alonso? I'm gonna throw it to you first, Jason. Maybe it's just the body type. You mentioned Matt Olson. I mean, there's a difference. You put Matt Olson and Pete Alonso next to one another.

You can say, okay, yeah, I see this. Maybe it's the body type and the whole Albert Pujols situation, how that Miguel Cabrera how he aged. But for a lot of that contract, they were still really good hitters in this situation. And so maybe this is gone. The markets over correcting a little bit here. I mean, I, I love this for his

fantasy outlook, because we just saw what Juan Soto did to Aaron judges RBI production last year. And now you're talking about Lindor, you're talking about Soto in front of him. And if Lonzo hits cleanup, and they put Brandon Nimmo third, there's a lot of trap, potentially a lot of traffic going to be on the basis. So I have this is the best landing spot for him. Because the talk about him possibly going to Seattle or San Francisco. It's like that would have been awful for this.

But him going home and having what he has in front of him, and behind him, this is great. And And obviously he wants to prove everybody wrong. He's gonna try to go out there and put up another monster season. I mean, it's kind of ludicrous to say his floor is a hundred RBIs, but that's his floor. If he doesn't end up with a triple digit RBI total, something seriously went wrong.

This seems like it makes him a little bit of a potential bargain in drafts right now. I'm looking at his ADP. He's like, you know, almost 30 points behind Matt Olson. But if you use steamer, he's projected to be better than Matt Olson. If you use the bad X, you know, just a little bit worse. Do you think he's a little bit of a value right now? Justin Mason? Yeah, I think he is, but I don't think that's going to last very long. I think the reason he needs a bargain is because he was on design. And now that he's signed and going back to New York, he'll go right back up to

Matt Olson's area, be a top 35 pick, which is fine. Like he's a duty gives you a lot of power from a fantasy perspective. I was a little surprised that there's a report that he was offered a three-year deal without an opt-out And I'm surprised he didn't take that. To be quite honest, I don't know what the money would have been on that. But considering like Vlad Greer Jr. is going to be on the market next season, like, are you really going to do that much better even if you have a good year? Like, I don't know. Yeah, Vlad's going to be much younger than him.

And yeah, I know what he's thinking. And I wonder how much that played into teams not wanting to like the teams like the Red Sox or the Mets or the Yankees not wanting to go out and spending the money on Alonzo because they know that Vlad Jr is going to be on the market and they don't want to be tied into something potentially next year. So I mean I would have loved to see him in San Francisco. I mean, I think that power plays anywhere, but I think the better spot for his fantasy values definitely New York. So glad to see him go back there. I suppose there could be a little bit of a bet that like, oh, you know, they might extend Vlad. And if they extend Vlad, all those people that were looking their chops at Vlad, I opt out and I can be like, well, I'm here. I just don't know that they're going to extend Vlad considering like the last thing I saw was like they were close to like a hundred million dollars apart on a contract. Like if you're that far apart,

like you clearly do not value him near what he values himself at. And I don't think. I think that'll be a really interesting number that we see because you know, one of my things, how Vlad is that so weird is that if you look at the bad X or some of the projections, like he's but often been projected to do something he's never done or he hasn't done in like since Dunedin, you know, since they had that crazy year where he wasn't, he wasn't in Toronto.

And I think everyone, like everyone loves his exit velocities and all that, but like, you know, he doesn't really lift the ball and body wise is he that much better than Alonso? Like, is he really the one thing he has going for him is age, of course, because he's younger. So it's 25 years old, a guy who can hit 300 and get you 700 played appearances a year like that has so much value, especially in fantasy, but in real life too. I mean, you just think he's gonna age. Okay. I think the question is how many years is Vlad Jr. get? Like, is he one of these guys who gets a 10 year deal? Because that's something I think the back end may look a little bad.

It's been weird with Vlad Jr. because we've seen his body type kind of ebb and flow. There have been times where he's looked a little soft and there have been times where he is like even last year at one point looked as fit as he's ever been. So it's kind of gone gun both ways, which is a little bit crazy considering how young he is. You know, we kind of expect as guys get older, they're going to get a little larger. That happens. And do you get a little nervous that we give them 300 million and then he was

shows up next year. And he ate it all. Was that like, as the Boston Red Sox, how they felt about Pablo Sandoval, because I mean that Pablo Sandoval problem. Right. Or the running joke when junior came in era was going through AAA, the scoreboard was say even, even MLB.com had him at six, three and 157 pounds. I'm like, yeah, maybe at some point, the more time to update that one. Now he's hitting

how now he looks like, but the concern I made this crack a couple of weeks ago, it's like the concern is he gets on the Miguel snow path to size, because so no was a big, similar thing that's no got large in a hurry. And so that could be one of the factors. But you guys were talking about first base. Josh Naylor is also a free agent after next coming in the next season. Yandy Diaz is a club option. I'm just looking at the position.

So there's a couple of a couple of ways to go there, too. I wonder if the Rays are going to pick up that option. I would guess no wonder if they trade him before before. I kept guess. No wonder if they trade him before, uh, before I kept seeing that he's going to trade him, Detroit would be a fit. They don't need to trade him. That the contract is not, it's not expensive, but however, the market demand, if somebody came across with the right offer, you know, they could do that, move Brandon Lowe over to first base and call it a day.

I also see that they think about things and sort of, you know, sometimes two or three years out. And if you think about the kind of guys they've been collecting, they've been collecting some guys that are first base DH type. So if you think about Christian Morrell, Jonathan Aranda, I think even Curtis Mead is sort of, you know, on that like more first base DH corners aspect. It's getting a little crowded there and Aranda just got awarded his fourth option. So that gave him that gave the raise like another year to push this can down the road.

But at some point, they know that's coming to fruition. It seems like it's all going to come to fruition right when the idea is options up. So that's why we're saying they're going to trade them before they they wouldn't want to just like not have the option and just lose any trade values. So that's you know, if that does like is there a market for a guy like Yandi when teams already have a bunch of like first base only types like that don't have a lot of power. Like that just seems like a weird market for a guy like him. Like what would the Rays really get out of that? I mean, the one nice thing about him is it's an elite plate discipline with elite exit velocity. So it's maybe you could get some team.

That's like, we will finally get him to lift the ball. Well, he was lifting. I mean, to be fair, he was doesn't ever want it last year fair, he was looking at every once in a while last year until he got dinged up a little bit. Then he couldn't lift it anymore. And then he fell back in and oh, there was an injury aspect to that. I think I missed that but that's part of the problem when

you're a guy built the way he is. 30 inch python. Yeah, I mean it if you like if you ever go to the gym, right, like, and you see like massive bodybuilders that can't extend their arms all the way, it's because they're the tendons in their biceps have shortened right from I've got the same problem. And yeah, we used to say that in Atlanta about Ron Gantt that he got too big. Yeah, yeah. And I think guys like that in baseball get injured more because they just don't have the flexibility because they're just too strong. I mean, look at the guy like Tyler O'Neill, right? Tyler O'Neill is just like massively built dude. His dad's like a bodybuilder, right? So like, but he's always hurt because he doesn't have that flexibility. When Aaron Judge started doing yoga, started backing off the weights, he started to stay

healthier. And so I wonder if Yandy Diaz needs to go see the yogi that Aaron Judge has been seeing. I'm also wondering how much not being on the synthetic surface as much that won't be a because that was always part of the platoon story in Tampa Bay was giving guys time off from being on the synthetic surface and now that they only have to play the synthetic surface in a couple of road parks and they don't have to worry about it at home that could help because some of Yandy's issues were hamstring is always something in the lower half and if he doesn't have his legs he's not

lifting the ball and he would always try to play through it because he's not going to run much. And it was still would hurt. So the yeah, the synthetic surface is eliminated at home now. And that should help with some of this. That brings up a mail back question we've got. You've talked about how you anticipate Sacramento's ballpark to impact their performances. What about the Rays? We had another one who gets the biggest boost on the A's and Rays and who hurts the most. If he stays in Tampa, it sounds like you think that Yandhi could have a pretty good season

on that turf. There is a, he's a right-hander and the right-handers had that really nice short porch down the line that Paredes took real advantage of. What are the sort of dimensions of Steinbrenner? We've talked a little bit about how the trop used to augment stuff and stuff plus. And so the pitchers like really work to the their peak value basically. So some of their I think some of their pitchers will take a step back. I think personally, Pepio, you know, can handle it.

You know, he has good enough stuff and good enough collection, but I actually worry a little bit about Boz and some of their other guys like what happens if they're not at like, especially like a Littell like if he's, you know, even has even less stuff like, you know, like what will happen. So what do you think about the the hitters and the pitchers? I hadn't thought about this synthetic turf thing being being helpful for some of the hitters staying healthy. The other piece about this is Steinbrenner Field, identical dimensions to Yankee

Stadium, but the difference is the environmental factors. You don't have the heat influencing Yankee Stadium until you get into the summer. Well, in Florida, heat starts impacting right away. You also don't have the sea breeze coming off the coast coming off the Gulf Coast. Yankee Stadium is not that farther in phase. You got that factor. And so it in the Florida state and this would apply to Sacramento to like in Florida Sacramento has been kind of a kind of a pitcher's park for the PCL. But that's the PCL. Yeah, hitting influence in the major leagues, right? So yeah, when I look at this, obviously some of the left handers, Brandon Lau, Aranda, Josh Lowe, these are guys from the lefty side that should help

with that and then from the right side, Yandy Diaz and Curtis Mead are both guys that have a more natural right center swing and it could help them untap some potential value. Yeah, Yandy's not the parade is pulled. Poor guy not off there. He will. I mean, if he gets one hang, he'll he'll crank it that way, but his natural right center. I mean, think back to the 2000 was a 19 when they were playing

the A's in the ALCS or the LDS and he was just hitting those home runs of the opposite field that he can hit. He's got the power to do all of that. So that's where I want to see. But the whole park factors, you kind of have to throw it out the window because we know what the dimensions are, but we don't, we've never had, we never had the environmental factor of Florida sitting on top of the Yankee stadium dimensions. And I'm concerned about all the pitchers.

I mean, that was a great example of that. We haven't had major league games in Stein Rainer Field in August. That's not, we're not going to have that many because the schedule is front loaded, but let's be real. The weather in Florida, in Tampa, in April and May is still pretty damn hot. As somebody who moved away from the state because he couldn't take it anymore. Do you think there, do you agree with my Pepio take or take that there are some pitchers that are more worrisome than others? I agree with the take. And I also agree with like Lutel

because he's got to walk such a fine line. And part of being a tropical field, the dimensions were very favorable for if you could give up a lot of contact the center field, it was 404, but it played like 444. And that would certainly help. We know the impact on the induced vertical break. And that's not going to be there. So when you look at how things happen, even the raised hitters, they are always worse at home than they were on the road. And the pitches were better at home than they were on the road. And

now they're essentially playing 162 game road schedule, you kind of have to throw out everything you all your preconceived notions about raised hitters and pitchers and and see where it goes, especially if they do make these trades. If Yandy Diaz does go somewhere, Pete Fairbanks is in a similar contract situation, they have plenty of options behind him. He could be traded now. But I believe they're trying to wait out because we still got Finnegan Jansen and Robertson on the on the free agent market,

who could walk into a closer role and there are several roles begging for their skills. The bullpen though in Tampa is pretty sexy though. Hunter Biggie, Mason Montgomery I think has like top 10 stuff plus in the revamp and so they always have arms but Justin what do you think about Oakland to Sacramento? You're cold right now. Yeah Sacramento is gonna get pretty hot pretty quickly. But you know, maybe we'll see like in April, like in April can still be kind of cool there. So do you think it'll be kind of a slow burn where you know, we start to see some more crazy eye popping numbers from the hitters in August? or what do you think of what's going

to happen in Sacramento? Yeah, I mean Sacramento gets pretty dry usually around June. So sometimes in May. So it might be a little bit earlier than kind of August. But I mean, it's just a massive change from the Oakland Coliseum. You're going from pretty much like the worst hitters park in baseball to what I'm going to guess is going to be closer to like an average MLB park like right in kind of the mean don't overrate it because it's PCL park but also don't be like

oh it's a great PCL park it's still a PCL park and so like the hitters like like a guy like Zach Geloff for instance I don't like Zach Geloff as player. I don't think he's a very good hitter in general, but he's gonna go to a much better park for him and he's probably going to play every day with the athletics. I love Lawrence Butler this year, but everybody loves Lawrence Butler this year. So I really liked Soderstrom as a dude. I really like Langoliers.

I was gonna call him Bangoliers. I think all those guys I was going to call them bangoliers. I think, I think, I think all those guys are probably going to match a lot of homers and I wouldn't touch really any of the pitchers other than Jeffrey Springs. The one thing I want to caution people with this, because this happens every time there's some sort of dimension change in a park for fantasy, is this often gets overrated in the ADP. And don't find yourself like pushing these guys up too high or too low one way or the other, the raise in the Sacramento athletics of Oakland, Las Vegas,

because people will overrate this. We have no idea exactly how they're gonna play. We can just kind of give our best estimates. And some of these pitchers that are gonna be down downgraded are probably going to be downgraded too far. So if there was a pitcher like, for instance, for me, it's Jeffrey Springs, that I really liked prior to this happening, I'm going to take advantage of the drop he's going to be getting. If you like Pepio, if you like Taj Bradley, like take advantage of those drops and don't overspend on some of these hitters because we have no idea how this is all going to play out. I really care mostly about the core skills. If you like the core skills before you should like them still now. Yep, and I tried to I talked to scientists I talked to you know, I tried to do my best journalism and

I thought that the the balls were gonna get dried out in some places because the humidor works to bring everything to the middle And I thought maybe some balls have been soggy in San Francisco And I thought maybe San Francisco would play up and San Diego I thought maybe the balls have been soggy there that humidor is gonna dry them up and they go further and They were that was a big nothing burger man man. I don't think the humidor really did that much to the game. You know, it's a tiebreaker situation. I've, you know, I'd look at it. So I will say in the draft that I'm in, I got to the fifth round and I was looking for a specific, I was looking for power from this one particular spot and both Brent Rooker and Kyle Schwab are on the table. And I ended up going with Rooker as a tiebreaker

because of the ballpark. And I wanted a little less batting average risk because Schwab has been from 260 to 195 over the time but that was to me that was those were factors that but the ballpark situation was a tiebreaker. It wasn't a I'm targeting him. It was one of the one of the data points that I was looking at for what's my decision here. And then Swarbr ended up going five picks later and Ozuna went in between me taking Rooker and Derek taking Kyle Swarbr. For what it's worth, Rooker is the youngest of the three. And, you know, I think maybe being a little underrated. Yes,

obviously, last year will be probably his peak year, but maybe the park kind of soften some of that regression, you know, by giving him a couple of homers he wouldn't have had before. So yeah, I tend to agree. The one problem with Oakland and that take is that I just, the pitchers are pretty bad. Yeah. And that's the problem. That's the only reason I'm interested in a pitcher is because it's Jeffrey Springs.

Like I, yeah, I mean, Mason Miller is going to be fine. Yeah. And is because it's Jeffrey Springs. Like I yeah I mean, Mason Miller is going to be fine. Yeah, I miss him. That's about it. Yeah, I have a little bit of love for Mitch Spence but I'm gonna say it's a little bit of love because I just took

him in like the 46th round that 15 team draft and at least they have more than one pitcher draftable. Yeah, the White Sox who white Sox pitchers get drafted. It's a miracle. I, the White Sox whoof. White Sox pictures get drafted. It's a miracle. I only mentioned like the like don't overrate these things just

because like I know there will be teams in TGFBI or in the main event that will stack Oakland hitters or and or Tampa Bay hitters just based on this. These are still not that good of offenses. Like just because like they're getting a little boost doesn't mean that this is going to be the end all be all. If you really like a guy, go for it, but temper yourself. It may not go crazy. I think Taya Stolestrom is a deep league, interesting one. I do want you to tell me a little bit about Junior Caminero, Jason, because you've been watching him for a while.

One thing that's difficult for me is that I can never trust Tampa to just play a guy, especially a young guy, and just install him. Do you think this is the year that they do just install junior Cameron Nero at third? And what do you think he can do? The last I saw he's hitting 115 mile an hour tanks to center and down in the Dominican. So what's what do you what do you think is coming for junior? And then taking 115 minutes to get around the basis, which I love. It was amazing. And I, I loved that. I was having a conversation with some friends this morning talking about. They want to be entertained by baseball.

And one thing I posited was, okay, if you hit a home run, you shouldn't have to circle the basis. You should be able to just celebrate. You want to be entertained. Just that's what he was celebrating. Stayed at first for like a while. His whole team came out. So I mean, to me, and I'm actually working on a piece right now of working on the data

for this. I'm going back to my roots and writing a D raise Bay about this. But I'm looking at like how long did they let guys bake in Durham? This used to be like the Desmond Jennings thing. It turned out they'd let Desmond Jennings bake for a while because Desmond Jennings really wasn't that good. And they've let other guys like everybody like me, me, what like, Curtis, me, well, he's got some defensive challenges. Yeah, yeah, when that trade happened,

when it was Curtis me for Christopher Sanchez, you know, hey, the Rays pulled another one that when it happened now, it's like, can we have Christopher Sanchez back? Yeah, me, it's got defensive challenges. And that's this, it's a club that puts a value on defense. And if me can't find a defensive home, they have to find one for me, you can't find a defensive home for somebody in the major leagues, you have to go give them time. If you have an option, you're going to Durham to get it. So it's one of these things that looks coming off a shortstop. So he's got a he's not he's not as bad a glove as a Rhonda Meade, you know, those guys, correct? Yeah, Rhonda and me definitely have defensive challenges. And so that's one of the thing and that's why they've sp them. But for yes, I feel

going to be going there p he's not going to get play just go and play. And so the data is that they're bake as long as they used there's a good reason beh manipulation. It is they have defensive challenges. Like at one point, he just couldn't

make throws. It couldn't make throws from third, they tried to find it from second, he couldn't throw and Aranda has been a footwork challenge. And so yeah, again, you've got to go, you've got to get that time to work through those situations. Kevin, I was not showing those kind of flaws that's going to lead him to sitting down and from the pitching side of anybody in the pitching they've been rather aggressive with the pitchers and getting them to the major leagues in recent years and that's what the data shows. Yeah the only reason Bob was limited by injury and yeah they were they were he was on the fast track so. Right.

Yeah I think I agree with you I did wonder if they did they wanted just to have people in the major leagues between 22 and 27 you know or like you know just to have people in the major leagues between 22 and 27 You know or like, you know They only wanted them in the major like it was like some sort of slow walk to like just get their peak years And then bye bye because there is some aspect to that But what we see from aging curves and what we I think we know from player development is that? Players get into the big leagues now. There isn't a lot of like up in the aging curves anymore It's sort of like they in the aging curves anymore.

It's sort of like they come in and they're pretty much ready and they're good. And then they start going down. So I think the Rays are more more about like, hey, let's it's like a pitcher with good stuff in bad command. Like you can have everybody, all your fans yelling, why isn't a run to play more? It's like, well, dude, we can't play him a second. We can't. Right. Where do you want us to play more. It's like, well, dude, we can't play him a second. We can't write. Where do you want us to play

him? They value defense. Defense has always been something they have put a priority on. And if you can't play defense, you're gonna have a tough time cracking the lineup. They can only accept so many challenges like behind the plate right now is the catcher. Yeah, they added Danny Jansen. But if I'm an opposing team, I am running all day long on Ben Ruffett and Danny Jansen, they're just not good at controlling the running game. And the pitchers aren't that quick to home plate either. It's not a situation that they

really address. So that's an area of weakness. And last year, they allowed a lot of steals. And it hurt the pitching staff because of it. And you know, I was hoping they could go get somebody like Carson Kelly, who would have helped in that area. But they went Danny Jansen instead. I'd like Jansen's bat, but it's not the defensive upgrade they needed behind the plate. Right. I didn't even thought about that. We got a couple of, uh, kind of nothing burgers after that in the news. I mean, I just think that some of them are kind of funny. Like, um, the Astro signed Ben Gamble the day before the Astro signed Ben Gamble and we'll

be tradeors had a whole big piece that said, can the Astros find their left-handed outfielder bat without going into the luxury tax? And then literally the next day it was like, Astros signed Ben Gamble, and it was for $200,000 plus a million if he makes the team. I've been actually stacking plus a million if he makes the team. I've been actually stacking Houston outfielders way late in draft and holds. Like I've done like this like Meyers, Melton, Dubon thing where I'm just like, hey, you know,

this is a pretty bad outfield. You know, somebody's going to play all the time. Do you like anybody in that outfield? What do you see going on in that outfield? No, you're just shaking your head. No, no, I don't. I mean, like, I cannot believe this. I'm not counting Jordan Alvarez, obviously. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't consider Jordan an outfielder. I mean, he's got a DHA all year. So yeah, no, I don't I don't like anybody

in this outfield. There's no one that I want to put on my fantasy team. I guess like maybe I'd take a gamble on like a chase or a jasper kormick rebound yeah but like ultimately no this is especially because I play a lot of deeper leagues but I mean even in shallower leagues like you win by volume and can you guarantee me any of these guys can volume or they all gonna get like 450, 500 play out appearances. None of them have a caring tool, you know, for fantasy. Meyers glove. Not for fantasy.

Like, you know, maybe Meyers is the guy, right? Maybe he can volume because his glove keeps him out there every day. That's sort of my bet. Yeah. But the problem is that they're one of the best outfield prospects. Melton is a left-hander where Meyers is a right-hander and supposedly has a really good glove too. So it's, you know, that could get pretty dicey in a second. Well, they could use both. I mean, they don't need to, they don't.

Leave us as losers though. There's a lot of times because you're. Well, no, I just mean they put one out in one of the corners and put the other one in center. Like, I mean, it's not like Chas McCormick or Ben Gamble or holding anybody off at this point. Oh my gosh. It's I mean It's such a it's such a weird place to be for Houston to I think this is kind of How Houston falls apart how the end of the dynasty happens is? These like kind of weird decisions, like giving too much money to Jose Brey, giving too much money to these older guys on the corners

and then just being like, Outfield, I don't know. They've still got some good players. Here's another funny one, Juan Moncada to the Angels, one year and five million. So my question to you, Jason, is do we care? It is the most angel signing of angels signing. Like if you were to tell who's going to sign you on my card, the angels probably were one and a half to one odds to make that happen. Uh, and so now you have two of the, the lowest internal flickers of flame and

redone and the micada on the same roster, this should work out. Amazing. I mean, we're talking about a guy that went from a five year $50 million contract to a one year $5 million contract. And he certainly earned that one year 5 million with what he's done the last couple of years. You know, the opportunities there if that internal flame starts burning again, because it's not like much is nailed down there. You can find the opportunities.

You can find the opportunities. Mccona's seeing the end, right? If he doesn't do it this year, one in five could be your last contract. Correct. The Angels have done some nice things with some reclamation projects, but this could also turn out like their signing of Miguel Sano just like it was fun for two weeks and then it went away and he was gone. And he will be playing in the Mexican league or Korea or somewhere else. It's just a shame that somebody yet when Boston traded your amicada is like, oh my god, why? And you kind of look back at it like, oh, okay.

Yeah, it's funny when you can be right and wrong about a trade a million times over and like and you can be like, like they could have traded one micotta because they're like, oh, we don't really like his internal motor or, you know, we don't think this is going to be this and this, but he was like good for the White Sox for a little bit, you know, and he was, and that was one of the last kind of like top five bat prospects to be traded at all. You know, like people don't trade that level of prospect anymore. And I think people don't remember how good of a prospect Juan Mercado was when he was

traded. Like we just don't, we don't do that anymore. But then you can be right about it too. The years later we can say, see, it's like see Chris Sale finally broke. The twin sign Harrison Bader for one and 6.2 plus another two in bonuses. It's a little bit more money, so maybe we should care more. I think maybe this is the Margot role, right-hander backing up in center. Margot only got 343 plate appearances.

The one thing is, Bader has, you used to kind of pull for power a little bit and he went away from that for a long time do you think there's any upside here where he could push Buxton to dh no i think this is a straight platoon with walner or or larnard i think that's what it is and you know defensive replacement you know or injury replacement if the twins are going to be good they should not be having harrison betty in their lineup. And it's a crime. I got to talk with DVR about it on pitchcon because we were on the grading out all the teams all seasons and it's a crime that Minnesota

only moved this off season has been Harrison Bader. I think Aaron Gleeman had a story that kind of reduced all of their signings since Correa to maybe $8 million in like three years. So hey, $6 million. They put some money on the table finally. We do a build a bench here and that means there's four players in your build a bench.

You've got to have the backup catchers, Christian Vasquez, you got to have a backup shortstop. In this case, you can maybe use one of your other starters, Brooks Lee, to backup shortstop that might give you a little bit of flexibility. Our build a bench here is Christian Vasquez, Harrison Bader, Willie Castro, and that leaves one so maybe Julian. And Julian is a lefty. So does that mean that one of Larnac or Wallner is the winner and gets to play all the time? I think both of them are going to have strong

cypher to him. You could probably play Castro and Castro Bader and Buxton on those days maybe. Austin Martin, Harrison Bader. Yeah, build a bench rules. You can't you just put Austin Martin on this bench. It's not you can't there's no room. And I would say safe room for Manuel Rodriguez, but he's another lefty. Roster resource has both Martin and Harrison Bader on the, uh, on the bench. I don't know how they do that. Then they've been, then Julian goes back to the miners.

Now they have Julian on there too. There's roster rules, man. You got 26 guys, you got 13 or batters, nine or starters. Oh, bucks is in two places oh yeah i know bucks can barely play one position all right so yeah i guess you could do i guess you could do that i guess the bench would be martin castro baiter that now oh somebody we've, we've listed as a bench guy as a starter. So Bader is a quote unquote starter in this situation. Okay. We figured this out. Yeah, I think you might be right. I love Walner and Larnac.

I really like Walner this year. I know I mean, I would love to see him learn how to hit lefties, but even just as a strong cycle tune, like I think he's a great, you know, fourth mean, I would love to see him learn how to hit lefties, but even just as a strong cyclotoon, like I think he's a great, you know, fourth outfielder guy that could have a huge massive season as a powerheader. He hits so hard, dude. Yeah. One that nobody cares about, but I think is funny, the Pirate Sight and Tommy Fam for one year and four million dollars, Connor Joe is going to make the same amount of money and they just won't let Billy cook. So, Tommy Fam, do we care? Do you think he could? He could. I mean, there's a slight chance he could just take a role in that outfield. It's not a

very good outfield. I care. I honestly do. So, coming into this, I've been making the case for about two months that Spencer Horowitz should be strong side platoon leadoff hitter for this team. He's the one guy on this team that outside of Reynolds who can get on base. Pittsburgh was bottom five and on base percentage and runs scored last year.

And you look and they had Isaiah, Isaiah, Isaiah kind of filet as their projected leadoff hitter who doesn't get on base anymore. Yeah, he can still steal a base, but you got to get on first to steal second. I actually like this. If I'm Derek Shelton, he can still steal a base but you got to get on first to steal second. I actually like this. If I'm Derek Shelton, I can have Tommy fan leading off against lefties and Horowitz leading off against variety

suddenly the top of that lineup looks a little more dangerous than it did when IKF was sitting in there. So of all the the small moves this week, I like this one the most. My boy, Jack Swinski gets probably starts in AAA or maybe he could be the lefty behind fam so you know at this point in the career, if Swinski has a great spring or whatever, then fam is getting paid on the level of he can be a small side platoon, you know, right. It's not gonna he's not gonna stop anybody and then Swinski putting it all together at this point is probably a low, low

confidence bet anyway. Staying on the pirates. We had a mailbag question. That was interesting. Um, I had a question about Paul Squitz. I know his last year in college, he pitched 122, not including the college awards series, so maybe another 20, along with 133 last year, because he throws so hard, am I overacting to think he's, he's had a strong workload the last few years?

The way that I'm reading this is, is it too much? Or is it too little? I mean, this is something we run into with young pitchers is right, like, oh, he throws really hard. So is this too much? Has he thrown too many innings throwing this hard? And we're worried about that. I think normally we'd be like, oh, this is great. He has innings. I remember when Brandon Fatt, you know, came up we're like, oh, at least he's prepared to throw innings, you know, I guess it's sort of generally, what do you think about Paul skeins in terms of workload and injury risks here?

There's no magic formula that says anybody's been managed correctly. I'm always more concerned Justin Manit mentioned just Spencer Schwellenbach earlier, that's somebody went from zero because he missed the entirety of the 22 season to 65 to a big jump. I'm more concerned about those because again, that baseline of zero happening. So with skeins, again, there's no magic formula

for this to work. So if you wanna have concern, have concern, if you know your favorite phrase, you know you would wanna YOLO, YOLO, go ahead, enjoy it. But if it happens, it happens. I'm just like, I was more concerned about the zero baseline within the last two years. And then a big jump. This is where I was with Strider last year. This is where I am with swelling back

this year. I mean, I just have concerns about taking any picture in the first I think you're giving up a lot of hitting talent. I don't think there's anything to worry about specifically with schemes. I think he's also kind of a unicorn type of dude. So like comparing him to other guys who can do similar things to him, I think is unfair to him because we just haven't seen a guy who can pitch the way that Skeens has, you know, and so trying to say, oh, well, he's gonna get hurt because of this.

I don't know if that's true. And like, and I think Pittsburgh's done a really good job of protecting him on its way up. And now it's time to let him loose a little. I have him first in my Pitcher rankings and partially because there's a just a whiff of better health, I think than Therese Google, who's had multiple arm injuries. Absolutely. Wanted to thank you guys for coming on. Thanks so much to Justin Mason, Jason Collette. Sleeper in the Bust is the best. Shout out to Paul who's sick, but get back on recovery soon. And I hope to see you guys soon. I always enjoy it when I see you and thank you so much for coming in. That'll do it for us at Sleeper

in the Bust. Please, I don't know what Derek says at this point. He says something about smashing the light. He usually says rates and barrels. Yeah Yeah, yeah, that's true. You're on here. I sleep with the bus today. I guess Go smash their like button and two and I've told you I'd be a terrible host To see you Monday. Thanks for listening. Bye Yeah, baby See you Monday! Thanks for listening! Bye! Yeah baby!