Rates & Barrels - Playing Along with the Pitching Model, Pricey Prospects in Redraft Leagues + Draft & Hold Basics

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss a few questions surrounding the Stuff+, Location+ and Pitching+ model, ways to 'play along', fear of the unknown with 2022 Clayton Kershaw, how to utilize draft capital effectively with prospects in redraft leagues, and a few basic strategy guidelines for draft-and-hold leagues.  Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at 33% off for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Thursday, January 27th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we have a lot of great questions that have been flowing through the mailbag. We got questions about Stuff Plus and Location Plus and Pitching Plus that we're going to try and answer, which will hopefully shed some light on that model and how we talk about it. I just saw your cry on for us today on YouTube.

Yeah, I mean, it's a limited amount of real estate, but I try to make it as valuable as possible. So I'm proud of myself for once, which is okay. What is the DVR plus going to be on this episode? That's the question. So other questions include questions about how to use draft capital on prospects in redraft leagues. That is a great path to go down. Some draft and hold questions in there. Honestly, the questions are so large in scope, there's a chance that we don't get to all of them. So we're not going to spend too much time dilly-dallying here at the beginning.

Not sure where that expression came from or why I just used it. We do have some show business to attend to. We have an announcement of sorts. It is a promotion, I would say, for the Friday installment of Rates and Barrels. As you know at the show that Eno and Britt and I have been doing together really since the summer of 2020, we've moved that show into the athletic baseball show feed, which is awesome because that Friday show generally focuses more on real baseball and the issues plaguing the sport,

the fun things around the sport that are not necessarily fantasy or advanced stats related. So we are now part of the bigger show that The Athletic has. It's awesome. We're going to run on Thursday mornings is when that episode is going to launch. So we'll record midweek.

And the videos are going to be available on the Rates and Barrels YouTube page. So if you want those episodes as a podcast, they're in the Athletic Baseball Show feed going forward. But if you want to just watch them on YouTube, we'll have a carousel for that specific show within the Rates and Barrels YouTube page. Right, so if you just listen to the Rates and Barrels Fantasy ones, that's what you're going to get in your podcast to the Rates and Barrels fantasy ones, that's what you're

going to get in your podcast feed for Rates and Barrels going forward. But if you did like that other show with Britt, then try us out on YouTube or try out the Athletic Baseball show. I mean, it's a really good lineup. I mean, it's like the mailbag with Ken Rosenthal. You know, Jason Stark has great guests. Keith Law's on there. You know, I'm honored to be alongside those great names. And we'll just add some levity. And, you know, I can't help myself. Like, the advanced stats will come with me.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think a lot is going to change about how we approach that episode. I think it's going to be very similar. So if you liked it the way it was, then congratulations. It's going to be very similar. And I think the other thing to keep in mind, too, if there's anything we want to do that is somehow too fun for that feed, it will still happen here. Britt is part of the Rates and Barrels family. She always will be. So, you know,

we'll have our holiday specials, right? If we're going to do a Christmas movie draft again, something like that probably fits better on R and barrels than it does on the athletic baseball show. Unless, you know, if Ken and Keith and Jason and Doug and everybody over there, if they're all into that, then, you know, we can have a big happy family version of something like that, too. But that's the big change. It's exciting. It's a promotion. It's an upgrade.

It's a good thing. And we're really excited about it. ocean it's an upgrade it's a good thing and we're really excited about it and it gives us i think a little more wiggle room within the feed here to potentially grow with more fantasy stuff in the future should circumstances time all those things actually allow us to do that so it seems like kind of a win-win really for for everything we're trying to do and it was always a little bit awkward i mean for for us or for anybody probably to kind of switch gears on fridays i mean rates and barrels is is nominally a fantasy thank you to those of you who listen who still don't play fantasy baseball who've never played fantasy baseball that is that's why that

is amazing we're very grateful that we've found a way to talk about this game in a way that is engaging and fun for people who don't even spend the time playing five by five or head to head or any of the things that we ever get into. So that's the big announcement at this point. So be sure to check out the athletic baseball show. First episode that moved over actually showed up this morning. So we're finishing off a series from that podcast going team by team through each division talking about what the rest of the offseason will look like once the lockout is over. It's an AL East episode for anybody who's interested in that. But let's get to... Oh, one of the lowlights is my budget plan for the Yankees. Oh my God, that was my favorite part of the episode. Like without question.

I would just love the Yankees to roll that out and see how people think of it. The Rayzian plan for the Yankees. Yeah. Would love to see Yankees Twitter that day. And by love to see it, we'll definitely avoid Twitter that day if they follow the plan that you outlined on that pod.

So there's some questions came in from Bill in Toronto who is battling snowstorms and typical winter cold in Toronto. So he's got a lot of questions about Stuff Plus and Pitching Plus and Location Plus. And I know when we talk about it, it's one of those topics that I think can be a little frustrating for some people

because as a model, it does have a little bit of a black box sort of feel to it. We're trying to be mindful of that. We're not trying to present anything as a be-all, end-all to the conversation or the, hey, the stuff plus number is good. Draft this guy. We're out of here. Like, that's not ever what we're trying to do.

It's just a model that I think is designed to help us better understand what's really happening under the hood, so to speak. What is going on with the pitcher's arsenal and kind of tracking how impactful pitches can be and just kind of looking at it through a more, almost a more granular sort of lens and quantifying nastiness, quantifying command, quantifying location, like quantifying some things that previously I think were in scouting reports,

but not necessarily as easy to measure pitcher by pitcher in a very clear and kind of scientific way. I had a pitcher, I had an analytics mailbag go up today with Lindsay Adler. And one of the questions kind of was like, how can we play along? How can we follow along? And I think the easiest answer I have for you, because this isn't a model that produces easy mottos or easy one-line takeaways. The best I can do for you in that regard is vertical movement is a little bit more important than horizontal movement. Velocity matters. And a lot of other stuff matters too.

But one thing that is kind of cool is on the Savvant page, there's a movement profile for each pitcher and it's color coded. And I may not agree with Tom Tango on every single one of his decisions when it comes to the color coding. But generally, I agree with him. So if you want to look at Jesus Lizardo's page, and that's why I also wanted to mention that vertical movement is more important than horizontal movement. If you look at Jesus Lizardo's StatCast page,

you see a lot of blue in the vertical movement. I mean, it's just all blue. And I think that's helpful on the very base level to say, why is this guy who throws 94 seems to have a good out pitch from You know, why from the left side, like, why is he having so much trouble? Well, look at all that blue in the movement. And, you know, it's not just the velocity that matters anymore. And, you know, it is maybe unfortunate that, uh, as we dive deeper and deeper into pitching, we find all these, uh, seam shift

away, you know, like the, the grips matter. And like, you know, that's just not something that I'm going to, it's super easy to like, because even with that, like we hit, we carry the stat axis Delta, and that's the difference between the inferred move spin axis and the observed spin axis. That's already like a mouthful. Right. But then on top of that, it's not always more is better you know that because it's a difference it can go negative and positive right and sometimes it's better to be far uh from the the mean it could be very negative very positive or both good so uh it is what it is we try to explain things as much as possible when you're're looking for changes, I would look for changes in those color-coded savant pages.

I would look for changes on Brooks. And the very base thing that you can do is, if you notice that a player is pitching differently, you can go to Brooks, you can go to savant, and you can see if there is a difference in their movement profile from the year before or their pitch mix. Those are the two, that's the basic toolbox right there.

And be like, oh my God, he's throwing a slider 40% of the time this year. He threw it 20% of the time last year. That's a more believable breakout to me than the guy who's throwing all the same pitches at all the same movements and for some reason has better results this year. So anyway, I've lost the plot again no no no i think i think pitch

pitch usage velocity and changes in movement those are things that are much easier to just go look at on any player's page thanks to savant thanks to brooks thanks to these different tools that are out there so it's important to keep in mind that it's not just here's the number trust it it's look and see like see these changes as they're happening and you're going to end up in a very similar and we are still working on some sort of stuff plus app within the athletic uh i just had to tell you there's a lot of moving parts it's it's a complicated process it's almost like a merger of corporations so um and there there happens to be another another merger of corporations happening So, um, and there, there happens to be another, another merger of corporations happening above

it. So there's a limited resources in the legal team. Anyway, that's too much information, but, uh, you know, hopefully, uh, we'll get it. We'll get it together pretty soon. Next Thursday, we will literally show everyone how to make sausage. So the first, Bill's questions, we were talking about Stuff Plus and Location Plus probably at the beginning of January,

and we were discussing relievers when you brought up the point that pitching plus for relievers is better than projections. And later in the same show, you mentioned that Stuff Plus is stickier year to year than pitching plus. So guys like Blake Trinan and Aaron Loop rank much higher based on stuff

plus than they do on pitching plus, even though as bill points out, they do very well on both. Should we be looking more at stuff plus or pitching plus when planning our relievers and kind of choosing who to take chances on either as discounted closers or as maybe non-closers relievers who could emerge to take on more prominent roles. Apologies. We were testing the model, so we tested Pitching Plus, but I do think that he's connecting the dots correctly here. I think we're talking about the same thing. I agree with his general line of thought that Stuff Plus is stickier year to year.

his general line of thought that Stuff Plus is stickier year to year. It becomes meaningful very quickly. And we're talking about relievers who have small samples. They, by definition, small samples. So I would hew closer to Stuff Plus. I did a sort for minimum, I think it was 300 pitches, you know, for relievers and looked at the stuff plus. And then I picked, you know, usage still matters. That's one of the things that Derek Cardy always found when he tested, he tried to test all these things against saves. And he was like, that prior experience doesn't matter. This doesn't matter. This doesn't matter. You know what matters? Usage. Who's being used in the eighth inning, you know, ends up getting called up to the ninth. So I would add that I do think, you know,

stuff plus for relievers matters. It's how teams make decisions. It's how they assign people. It's how they trade for people. In fact, if you look at, for example, Seattle, they're all over the top 10 in stuff plus with Johan Ramirez at 7 and Paul Seewald at 8. I mean, that makes a lot of sense, given what I know about their pitching development, their analytics. So I would look at the Stuff Plus list and then look at guys that are either

undervalued closers, like Bill says, or 8 inning, seventh inning guys that could get the call up. So to me, the names that stood out were Jake Cousins, second and stuff plus, Johan Ramirez, who was seventh and stuff plus, doesn't look as good by pitching plus because he had an 89 command plus, location plus. I think that can fluctuate. Not only can it fluctuate because he's a reliever and it's a small sample, but 89 is fringe, and fringe location plus changes more than sort of 97 to 105, which is kind of the meaty location plus. That's more reliable. When it comes to 89 location plus, he could jump up to 95 next year,

and that would be huge for him as a reliever. So that's a little bit tough, though, because Paul Seawald is right there next to him and I've found that buying into the Mariners bullpen, especially in like a draft and hold, where you're trying to like, hey, can I buy two guys and maybe shut down that and own that bullpen? I kind of have a hard time identifying like the two guys I would want in the Seattle bullpen. I like Paul Seawald and Johan Ramirez, but you might draft both of those guys late and still miss. So it's a tough bullpen to do that for.

But another name that sticks out for me is Jordan Romano, 16th in Stuff Plus, and he's not being treated as a lockdown closer, and I think he's one of the last in that tier I have Jordan Romano as my first closer in in some teams where I kind of let that one sit for a while but I feel good about it because I think Romano's is lights out and you can easily pair Romano with Julian Merriweather who's a top 50 reliever by Stuff Plus, where I like those two guys as a possible handcuff, as they call it. A couple other names are Andrew Kittredge. He's going to get saves. People don't like him because of the velocity, but Stuff Plus loves him.

Tanner Scott had a 4.5, 5 ERA last year for Baltimore, but the walls are coming in and everyone likes wells but you know it could be scott um and then luis garcia and giovanni gallegos are two um you know top 50 stuff plus guys that i think are closers you know gallegos i think is just being a little overdrafted right now he's the one that has the highest adP out of all of these names I said almost. Yeah, I think him and Romano are probably the two most pricey on a pretty consistent basis.

I'm with you on Romano being a little underdrafted right now relative to what he's done and what appears to be a decent hold on the job in Toronto. Seattle's a really difficult place to speculate. That's part of the problem with some of the teams that are stacking up relievers that pop in a model like this is they have four or five options to use in a spot like that. And I do think trying to crack the code, understanding what matters to a team is more or less what you're doing here with this number. And then seeing the actual usage

pattern and trying to break it from there is probably the best way to solve the who actually gets the role question. That's where I'm worried about Gallegos. For so long, I thought he was the best reliever in St. Louis, and he wasn't their closer. He was good enough to use when he wasn't closing, but that's because the price was cheaper than it was right now. That's the problem I've run into with him this draft season. It's not that I don't like him as a pitcher. It's that we've seen some past usage that makes me worry that even a more analytics forward manager, which is the case now with Ali Marmal over Mike Schilt, Gallegos might just be the guy that pitches at the most

important late inning moment regardless. And it might be 15 saves instead of 35, even though he's capable of getting 35 if they were to use him the way that the Brewers used Josh Hader in 2021. There's a little bit of a Mariners thing going on in St. Louis too, honestly, because Jordan Hicks scores well by this and Reyes scores well by this. So it's like three options. Other teams that do really well, if you want to talk about that kind of team aspect, which I think is really interesting. You know, the Dodgers are all over this. Trinan has the best stuff plus of any reliever in baseball. But Gratterall's not far behind.

Hudson was, I think, the second best stuff plus among free agent relievers. You know, even without Jansen, they've put together a good bullpen again. And then the Astros, Enoli Paredes and Ryan Stanek show up as possible values, but Presley is like a top 10 guy. So it's like, but you know, we're all, this is by stuff plus,

but you know, yeah, I would love to say Enoli Paredes, especially cause his name is Enoli. And then, you know, I'm a cannoli away from being Enoli, but you know,

I, I don't necessarily think that Presley is at a risk for losing his job. So it is interesting to kind of think about the team aspects. But sometimes those good bullpens do create more save opportunities, and the guys atop them are better for it. Presley is better because he has Paredes and Stanek behind him and so on. But at the same time, it does make it hard to kind of corral the whole bullpen if you're trying to do that. Well, I think it sheds some light on the what happens if Presley gets hurt sort of question

because he's so safe compared to so many other closers. I don't think I spend as much time analyzing who's next up there as I would in some of those committee situations or for teams that don't necessarily have a great pitcher in that role right now. So I think that's a really important thing to keep in mind. It might just be an unfortunate injury that opens the door for someone like Paredes to get saves. Maybe he isn't draftable right now, but he's the guy that you're ready to take the chance on when Fab rolls around early in the season, if, in fact, Presley goes down. In the same pod, you mentioned Stuff Plus is stickier year to year than Location Plus. And if Bill recalls correctly, you have some Location Plus data from past years. If Location Plus isn't as sticky, it might be more likely to regress to the mean, assuming you have enough history to have any sense of what a player's past level is. Does that open up an opportunity to rank

starters by 2021 stuff plus and then look at the starters whose 2021 location plus was well below either 2020 or 2019, 2020 to identify the potential bounce back players? If so, who could those bounce back players be? Yeah, I mean, in the spirit of the question, at the top of the rankings, there are some players like Joe Musgrove and Jack Flaherty that had better years. Even Aaron Nola had better years by command by Location Plus in the past. So that could have been uh i mean musgrove had an excellent season so i'm not i don't think he needs to bounce back but it does factor into my appraisal of their them going forward but the way that i use it mostly is that near the end of my rankings i will start taking uh doing a sort where i just sort and see who's the best stuff plus guy that I haven't put in the rankings yet.

And often it's because they have low location plus numbers. And then I can say, well, if this regresses upward or if they make a tweak there, if the location plus is better next year, If they make a tweak there, if the location plus is better next year, or if we don't know his true talent location plus just yet, then these are good players to target. So that's still Christian Javier for me. Nate Pearson is the poster child for this because he was up to 102 late in the season. His stuff plus is really good, but he's got like a 91 location plus, but we don't have that much information on him.

So the other two names that I really think about when I think about this are Edward Cabrera and Tony Gonsolin, both guys that are going to be available late in your drafts. They had above average stuff plus. They have struggled with command in their past past but Edward Cabrera has some really tiny walk rates in the minor leagues and that doesn't mean that necessarily he's got great command but it does mean that he's had better years or he's had better strategies in the past where he hasn't walked that many and Gonsolin's kind of we've seen him yo-yo honestly like we've seen him be like a perfectly acceptable starter and then lose it all in the in the playoffs so uh what if the yo-yo goes in the other direction he seems to be

like maybe the third or fourth starting pitcher in in los angeles right now so the opportunity's never been greater so those are a bunch of names that i think of when when i when i think that's an excellent question because that gets to my ranking process. Because we did so much testing with Pitching Plus and saw how powerful it was, these ranks will hew closer to Pitching Plus, but I use Stuff Plus a lot at certain points. And you'll see in the rankings where you're like, oh, around 75, 80, he just did that sort again where he like,

here are all the stuff plus guys that could that could pop you know um and injury is the same way i'm getting injury projections from jeff zimmerman this year again um he and he's giving me uh projected days on the il um and uh what you'll see is because what happens is like Clayton Kershaw, right? You have to put him somewhere. So you put him somewhere and then, you know,

I go up and down the rankings. I go up and down the rankings and I'm like, who would I rather have than Clayton Kershaw? And that's, I think, a really important line to draw because if they are good

and going to be healthy, then they have to be above Clayton Kershaw, right? But if they are good and going to be healthy then they have to they have to be above clayton kershaw right but if they're not good and just going to be healthy they're probably going to be below right so there's a lot of sort of you'll see like the the injury risk uh there will be some certain lines where like there's little groupings around clayton kershaw like right like right now i'm interested actually where you have Kershaw. We've lost the plot again, but that's all right. I've got Kershaw at like 40, right?

And around him are all these IP risks. Shane Baz, Luis Patino, Alec Minow. Maybe Minow didn't need to be there we'll see that's still a soft ranking michael kopek mike clevenger you know those are all uh those they sort of kershaw was like the magnet for all the ip risks where i'm like oh yeah this is the part where like you take a shot at a guy who may not have a lot of innings but should be good if he's in. Yeah, but then it's also conditional upon what you've done prior to that. Do you have a really stable foundation, or did you already take a little bit of risk with maybe a few younger pitchers

or an ace that has elevated injury risk? If you drafted DeGrom, if you felt like DeGrom in round three made sense. You're probably staying away from Kershaw in that spot because you've already taken on a considerable amount of health risk in the foundation. So that's a consideration too. I think with Kershaw, I'm so pessimistic about his health. So you have him even lower.

It's not fair. I've got him even below Syndergaard and Clevenger. I had him below Severino even. Just below Kopech, below Tanner Houck. I mean, I'm just not planning on drafting him. He is. He's 55th right now. And this is an ongoing process.

Yeah, I'm still working on it. I'm not married to this, but I have found in the early drafts that I've done, I have never been in a position where I saw Kershaw at the top of the queue, looked at my team and said, yep, got to do this right now. I might be reading too much into the Dodgers and the way they've handled him, but if we get out of the lockout and he quickly re-signs with them, that changes quite a bit about my expectations for him,

because if they resign him, they must have some belief that he's actually healthy enough to give them a good number of innings. Unless they were assigned them to a three-year deal and they're just paying for two and three. Yeah. The, the,

the story I have for this, that, you know, I think the feeling was very much when Kershaw got hurt that, wow, this is a big deal. He's out. He might be out next year. This might be TJ. He got the platelet infusion or whatever, the PRP injection, which I don't know how often that's actually worked in the past.

But I keep thinking of Brandon Belt. When Brandon Belt hurt his knee, everybody around the team was like, he's out. It's going it's gonna be another knee surgery it's the knee he hurt before it's the knee he had surgery before it looked bad he can't put any pressure on it like it's he's out he's out he's out and we talked to him when he came back and he said one day I woke up and it felt better so uh yeah I think that I do think that story could go either way i mean you're like you know kershaw woke up one morning and said no i gotta go get the tj so um in that moment there's gonna be a really terrible awkward moment after they do make an agreement where everybody reports to camp at the same time and everybody who hasn't been talking to their teams

has to then be like, oh yeah, my elbow was barking all offseason, but I just ignored it. Or like, oh, I haven't actually thrown for three weeks because I felt some soreness. And he was just like- And I couldn't tell you. And I couldn't tell you.

And they're not gonna necessarily offer that up on their Twitter accounts and stuff. I did get Lands of the Colors to say on Twitter that he was throwing again just by asking him on Twitter. But yeah, the good news might filter through, but the bad news, we're not going to hear about it until there's going to be a week of transactions and bad news

that all of us who are drafting right now are going to be like, oh, damn it. It's going to be tough. So yeah, I guess why lean into that right now? Be as safe as possible right now because it could be another crap show later. Yeah, that's where I'm at, least as things stand on january 27th i like always reserve the right to make an adjustment if more information especially of the positive variety comes to light there was one other stuff plus question that i wanted to throw your way this one one came in from Derek via email, not from me, from a different Derek. What do you do when you see a pitch that passes the eye test,

but not the stuff plus test? He throws Logan Gilbert's curveball and Shane McClanahan's fastball as pitches that stick out to him. Is it possible to project that they are a tweak away from better stuff plus and results when pitches look good by the eye test? Yeah, this is a really interesting question is there's a sort of multi-faceted answer on there which is that step one is there are there are things that are not in this model so ian anderson's change up rates poorly by stuff plus it is possible that the angle of his forearm, the extreme over-the-top release, the way he hides the ball, the relationship between his arm angle and the movement that comes out of it, sort of

people expect him to be a north-south guy and then he actually has some wiggle on his change-up. All of those things are not necessarily explicitly in the model and may not be able to be in the model until we have pose estimation data from hawkeye which is to say uh data about which what the angle is on the forearm and what the angle is here and that stuff exists and teams have it and teams are working right now on including that into stuff models uh because most teams have a stuff model and uh and stuff model and are trying to advance it beyond what we have, and what they're doing is adding body stuff. So that's the first answer to the question,

is that this is an evolving model. We're trying to improve it, and there's aspects that aren't captured so if you feel strongly about ian anderson's change up uh and the model uh you know says it's no good i mean just ignore it man like if you feel strongly it's not like we've figured pitching out i've been trying to but we haven't figured it out. Then there's a step beyond this, which opens maybe, signs some light on what the best

sort of development labs are doing, which is to say, if you track what you can change in a drill, so you can say, hey, wow, if we do this drill, I just talked to Mike Sun from pro play i for a piece i'm doing on the future of biomechanics uh with alec lewis and in this piece he said you can use our app which kind of it's the app that turns pictures into like lines you know turns them into like little geometric lines he says you can use this app to to judge the validity of a drill you're

doing so he said elbert the baseball development group in toronto um they had people that were flying open too early on so when they're landing their trunk was for it was too far forward right and so they did a thing called the janitor drill which is um you kind of do the quato right you show your back to the hitter and you start all the way back and then you turn around and pitch right there's there's deliveries like that you can you can imagine what i'm talking about right yeah um and they used this biomechanical mechanical analysis that was available to them through the proply app to see oh it did change trunk rotation. It had an effect at trunk rotation at football, and it helped us do this thing we're trying to do. So if you line all that up and you say, okay,

with this drill, we can do this. With this drill, we can do this. With this grip, we can do this. If you line all that up, then you can start to say, okay, we can reliably give you a half inch of ride. If you come in here, we can find a way to give you a half inch of ride. If you come in here, we can find a way to give you a half inch of ride on your foreseam. We can find a way to give you two inches of sweep on your slider. We can do this and this and this, right? If you line that up,

you can actually create a kind of expected or goal stuff plus, like a possibility, a ceiling stuff plus, where you can say, hey, right now you're like 99 Stuff Plus, and you could probably make a living in baseball and you'd be fine. But we have these three tweaks we can make, and we see you as like a 102 Stuff Plus.

And you know what? The best teams are absolutely doing this, and you know what the evidence is? All the guys that the Rays get where they're like, hey, we're going to give you one target, right? That's like a location plus play where they're like, hey, if we give them one target instead of four targets, then all of a sudden their location plus numbers are much better. Like Glasnow, right?

Glasnow has – You could probably take a guy that's hitting one target more consistently and give him a second target eventually. Right, yeah. Instead of trying to have four locations work simultaneously, that's hitting one target more consistently and give him a second target eventually. Right, yeah. Instead of trying to have four locations work simultaneously, get one to work, and when you got one, add another. And if you have two, maybe add another.

You can build up that way. Yeah, but Lance Brozdowski has a really cool thing on this on Twitter where he was like, no, they give him one target. Glasnow has one target. The next time Glasnow pitches, watch. I mean, it's going to be a little bit, but they give him one target, and they do this to a fair amount of their pitchers. I bet you Luis Patino has one target the next time glasgow pitches watch i mean it's gonna be a little bit but they give them one target they do this to a fair amount of their pitch i think i bet you lose patino has one target but any case uh uh where i was going with this is the other example is like you know why why are there teams that seem to like acquire a pitcher make a little tweak and

make him better that's because in their model they said hey this guy has an x stuff plus right now but like we think he can get to y if we do these three drills that we've done in the past you know and so that's what the best teams are doing that's what the astros are doing is saying like well you know we know that we can do this for hitters and we can do this for pitchers with these drills we've proven out with these drills so we should go out and look for hitters that are missing this aspect because we think we can coach them up on that you know if they're good at all this other stuff it's almost like oh you know what it's a little bit like uh the rays with exit velocity right they got guys they like to get guys that have plate discipline and exit velocity and they say we're going to try and coach the launch angle into you yandy ds it worked for a little bit. It didn't work.

Maybe it did work. It did work with Randy Rosarena, I think. He was a guy who hit too many ground balls, too hard ground balls, but he's got decent power now. So that's their theory is we can coach up launch angle. If they have the raw plate discipline and exit velocity, then we know we have these drills that can do this. draw plate discipline and exit velocity, then we know we have these drills that can do this.

So unfortunately, that's a little bit hard for me to do in the public sphere because I don't have access to all these drills and stuff. But I did think of this question, did think of spur an idea, which is we could look at what changes are most common in baseball and just say, oh, you know what? Last year, 30 pitchers added a half inch of ride. You know, 25 pitchers added an inch of sweep on their slider. So you could just add that in, you know, and have like a peak pitching plus or a peak stuff plus. And then you could do some sorting in our app or in the Google Doc for now. There's a Google Doc of all the Location Plus and Stuff Plus from last year. It's in a piece called Why Should Anyone Care About Stuff Plus, if anyone's looking for that.

But yeah, if we had like a Peak one in there, you could be like, oh, look, Shane McClanahan, Stuff Plus is 103, but Peak is 106 or something. You could kind of find some sleepers that way a favor uh to me as the producer of the show if you use or look at the show notes just the little show description that shows up for every episode whether that's on youtube or spotify or apple wherever you listen in your podcast player if you send us an email or a tweet and just want to indicate, yes, I look at the show notes, no, I don't look at the show notes,

that would actually be very helpful just to get a sense for if that space has any value at all. For a while, I didn't... Put some metrics on it. Exactly. Yeah, I could put like an Easter egg or something in there,

but now I said something, so I've already ruined the study, but it's something that's a little bit of an unknown, I feel like, that we just don't... If it's helpful, I can put more information in there, but if no one's going to use it, I'm not going to take the time to do it.

But this is exactly it. This is the work of player development. You have to be able to put a number on it to know if it's worth anything. Is this drill that I'm doing, making show notes, is this useful time? Right. I only have a limited amount of time to do anything.

It's important. I will do it. If it's not important, I will not do it. But thank you for the questions, Bill and Derek. A lot of good stuff there. I just know it's an area that people are always asking questions about. So we're trying to be as helpful as we can to shed more light on what's happening in that space. We had a great question come in from Mitch, and it's about using redraft capital on prospects. He writes he had a topic that interested him that was inspired by a tweet calling out the difference between Bobby Witt and Riley Green's ADPs.

Witt goes inside the top 100. Green kind of goes more the back of the top 300, somewhere in that range. The general idea was that both prospects have similar playing time expectations, high ceiling power speed profiles, and have been plagued by somewhat high strikeout rates throughout their time in the minor leagues. And the point was why waste precious draft capital

by chasing an inflated Bobby Witt Jr. at his ADP when you could just get Riley Green several rounds later. So just as a core concept, early prospects versus later prospects. How often do you go after a prospect that gets that top 100, even top 150 range ADP by the time we get to opening day? Because I have I've moved a little bit on this over time. So I'm just curious if there's a non-starter sort of rule that you have, if you're case by case, where are you at on this? This may not be a popular take and it may be a blind spot for me, but heck no, man, I'm not in, I'm not in at all. I'm not going to spend a starting spot on my roster in a redraft on a guy

that I have no idea if he's going to play this year and how much he's going to play this year. I'm not going to do it. I will do it at the bench level. So for example, in these DCs, I've done two DCs, which are draft and holds on NFPC. And the only real sort of prospects that fit this discussion that I have are Vidal Brujan, who I took because I was a little bit short on speed, and I took him in the 24th round of my NFPC. And then MJ Melendez, who absolutely projects to be an awesome hitter and is a really exciting catcher for the Kansas City Royals who happened to have a guy named Sal Perez you know like you know it was a long shot play but he I took him as my fourth catcher so that's that's

where I'm at I will take a shot once it gets to the bench levels whoever's left whoever if I have an area of weakness so Vidal Brujan I was like I could have taken other prospects there um but I took Brujan because I was a little bit light on steals and it was part of a Brujan Robles yeah yeah yeah uh approach there where I took a bunch of uh you know sixth outfielders that could have some speed. So I'm not into it, man. It's like picking Clayton Kershaw. I'm more likely right now to overspend on Bobby Witt Jr. than I am to draft Clayton Kershaw at his ADP just to provide some sort of middle ground.

But over time, I have become less willing to take on this type of risk. Now, Witt had an amazing season in the minors, and it was after a slow start too. We've talked a lot about projections of prospects, how noisy they can be. Part of that's the playing time uncertainty. Part of that is the gulf between AAA and the big leagues right now. I think with Witt, there's a lot of ways he can make value.

I would say it's possible that his situation this draft season is more like Ronald Acuna back when Acuna broke in. And Acuna, if I remember correctly, Acuna that year was going just outside the top 100, but not much later than Witt's going right now. And if I'm way off on that, feel free to remind me that I'm wrong. It's very difficult to land on a player like that and get the production that we received

from Ronald Acuna in year one, right? 2018 is a 20-year-old, 26 homers, 16 steals in 111 games with a 293-366-552 line. That is absurd. But it's so freaking rare, dude. That's so rare.

Trout was the number one prospect. He was amazing. He sucked. Right, but you look at Soto and you look at Jordan Alvarez. There are players that have come up and done it. I would just say because Witt can steal bases, even if the power is not there right away, even if there's a learning curve and the K rate jumps from the low 20s at AAA to the low 30s at the beginning of the season. If you believe the Royals are going to be patient with him, it comes down to how quickly you think he's going to adjust. Generally, but generally, I agree with the idea of just not being interested in part because in a snake draft, it's the opportunity cost that

just stares me in the face. I realize dollar for dollar, you're still going to pay quite a bit to get wit in a salary cap draft auction situation. But if you're looking at the guy next to him in ADP, Chris Bryant, who is more likely to return the value you want in that spot? I think he has more healing than that. In my draft, he went in the seventh right behind Corey Seager and ahead of other shortstops like Carlos Correa, Gleyber Torres, Willie Adamas. I mean, those guys are pretty good.

He also plays a position that is stacked. The loaded position right now. So it's not like I need to rush out and get him. That's why MJ Melendez and Vidal Brujan made more sense to me because Brujan, if he hits, could steal like 35, 40 bases and then that's's gonna be crazy valuable and regard and with regards to his cost you know i got him 17 rounds later you know what i mean like

it's not like oh this guy in the seventh this guy in the tenth it's like i don't know um i just i can't do it and i i've got jeff zimmer my ear. Playing time is king. And playing time on a prospect like that, it's a binary thing. You either win the lottery or you just wasted that pick. Where would Witt really have to be going where you'd start to change your tune? Would it be 50 picks later? Would it be 100 picks later? How much of an overdraft do you think he is, considering the projection,

which the Bat-X projections are now out, along with ATC over on the pages at Fangraphs. If you look at Bobby Witt Jr.'s projection from the Bat-X, that's the most pessimistic of the systems over there. 248, 18 bombs, 14 steals. That's in 127 games. Possibly plays a little more than that. It's a good power-speed combo.

It's an average. It doesn't hurt you. That's worth having on your team in most mixed leagues that we play in for sure. So it's not even a matter of is he rosterable or not? It's just a question of

how much are you willing to overpay relative to that projection for the possibility that it all clicks and 25-25 happens right away. Because that's in the range of outcomes, even if it's a relatively unlikely one from the jump. Okay. So we're going to do this guy, not this guy, but this guy five rounds later. How about Ahmed Rosario in the 11th? this guy five rounds later how about ahmed rosario in the 11th see at that point if wit was going down where rosario was going i could pretty easily talk myself into wit and everyone listening like of course you'd take wit there well okay so we're probably talking about 50 picks and adp yeah because i because that's extreme for me that that in that case that's um uh that would be almost 65 picks between Witt and Rosario.

But yeah, I would say 50 is decent. Witt versus Kelnick, to me, is kind of an interesting toss-up. We've seen Kelnick come up and go through some struggles already, but start to make the adjustments. He went one round later, so he went 15 picks later, basically. But see, I don't think that Kalanick... I mean, I do think... Yeah, Kalanick...

But Kalanick is going to play. Kalanick's playing time is safer by comparison, but how much safer is it? I guess he could go back down. Yeah, if he slumps badly, Kalanick can still get options. Yeah. So the core of the question

was looking more at someone like Jose Barrero, whose AAA numbers in 2021 are fairly similar to Witt's. I mean, Barrero's two years older for the level. That's a huge difference in terms of ceiling potential that needs to be accounted for. But does that fully justify a 300 pick difference in where they go. I mean, with Barrero, he might have to be more of a super utility guy. Kyle Farmer played well enough to probably have some share of the job at shortstop to begin the season. So you're taking on playing time risk, but if you're taking on playing time risk, you'd take it on in the 300 and 400

range if the skills are right. So I just think it's an interesting way to think about it. If you look at guys that played well in the minors who go a lot later than some of their counterparts, you can find some value. The other example that I thought was pretty interesting from the position player side was Spencer Torkelson kind of goes in the mid 200s. And you get guys like Nick Prado and Tristan Cassis who go 200 picks later. For me, I think Torkelson's floor is more like what we saw from Andrew Vaughn last year, and his ceiling is probably higher than Prado and Casas by a decent margin, and quicker path

to playing time. Even though Nick Prado looks ready to play in the big leagues, you talked about MJ Melendez a few minutes ago. They have carlos santana they have sal they have melendez they have prado so it's hard to see how all those guys fit together right now so you may have to wait pascantino yes messed up his name i'm sure vinny vinny yeah let's call him vinny yeah and then uh we had a question about this guy, and I hate to just mention it in passing and not use it in case we need content, but what I prefer to do rather than those guys is get those guys a year later.

After they've maybe struggled or played 100 innings, they have less luster. So my example of that is Brandon Marsh, who I got in the 22nd. I wouldn't even be surprised if there were a lot of leagues where he went ahead of the 22nd last year when he was a prospect, right? As opposed to this year when, you know, he's actually probably got playing time in front of him. when he's actually probably got playing time in front of him. And then on top of that, you have some information about what they've done at the major league level with some stats that can be useful in small samples.

For example, Brandon Marsh had a 10% barrel rate. That's very good. I'm all over that. His strikeout rate wasn't over. It wasn't nasty, nasty. It's not great, but it wasn't nasty, nasty. And he had some patience. So he didn't it a bunch of stuff outside of the zone these are all things that become meaningful pretty quickly so i'd much rather take brandon marsh there uh and in fact i

wasn't even planning on taking brujan but he dropped like 200 or 100 below his adp and at some point i was like well i do need do need steals. I'm just fine. I'll go for it. But that's what I'm like, the post-hype sleeper, quote unquote. I'm a little bit more about that than the hype, hype sleeper. I think the best counter argument to wit,

if you don't want to buy the opportunity cost and the quality of the other players that go in the same range, is that julio rodriguez goes 150 picks later and yes whit played at triple a last year rodriguez didn't but julio rodriguez is the third best projected position player by wrc plus for the mariners this year they have any designs on going to the playoffs and improving upon what they did last year we talked about the limitations of of that lineup on our last episode he's part of the plan like he has

to be part of that so the rules don't change much he's a huge candidate for like a uh uh like a may june uh call up right and you'll get wit sooner like i'd be stunned if the royals made wit wait more than 12 or 14 days or whatever they decide to do oh yeah that there's that first there's that first bit right there's like two and a half weeks into the season you know then there's the super two two and a half weeks in the season you can you can try to manipulate it so they don't get the full year of service time right but then two months into the season is the super two where you try to manipulate whether or not they get arbitration in their third

year or not. Yeah, if that's still a thing. I'd much rather try to catch lightning in a bottle around pick 250 with Rodriguez than give up what I think is a much more valuable pick on a similarly risky profile.

I mean, long, long term, if you said dynasty, who do you prefer, Rodriguez or Witt? I think I'd take Rodriguez straight up anyway. And I think they're closer in skills right now than the draft market would lead us to believe. There was a lot of debate, based off perspectives, about the top three, Rutschman, Rodriguez, and Witt. And I think they went Witt, Rutschman, Rodriguez, and Witt. And I think they went Witt, Rutschman, Rodriguez.

And to me, it's Rodriguez, Witt, Rutschman. Do you think a lot of that, though, is also factoring in where those guys play? I mean, Rodriguez, if he's a right fielder compared to being a shortstop or a catcher and accounting for real life value playing up the middle versus playing in a corner, that to me could be a part of that too yes true they it's a real life list that's a good point uh and rutschman rutschman's value as a catcher could be huge it's true yeah so i i think the last part of mitch's question is have you guys noticed an opportunity to pick up value and dress by avoiding brand name prospects and taking prospects later with similar profiles? Yeah, generally, yes, I think so. The other example in his email, Nick Lodolo going 100 picks behind Hunter Green. I mean, that's two guys coming through the same organization,

pitching at the same levels. Lodolo versus Green, it's a little more of a ceiling versus floor sort of argument. I think most analysts would tell you that Hunter Green's potential is greater, would tell you that Hunter Green's potential is greater, but Nick Lodolo is probably safer. It's because of command and the depth of the arsenal maybe is a little bit better. I don't know if that makes a huge difference for me. I think they're both draftable. If Sonny Gray ends up getting traded,

there's a very easy path for both of those guys to start. Yeah, Castillo could be traded. I mean, there's so many paths for those guys. Again, there's a case to be made for getting River San Martin instead because if you look at the

innings pitched for Hunter Green and Nick Lodolo over the last three years, it's very sparse. How many innings are you going to actually get yeah it's it's going to probably be a tad on the light side in 2020 it's still going to wreak some havoc on us just as far as getting a feel for workloads and and really understanding where players are at in terms of development i think a lot of guys had sluggish starts in 2021 in the

minors because of the long layoff and where they go in 2022 and how quickly they start could actually change a lot about how we view those players going forward. The guys that had the hype previously that don't have it right now are always interesting to me. I mean, I think we could probably say Joe Adele fits into that group now, too. Two guys on one team, Marsh and Adele. Marsh and Adele fits into that group now too. Two guys on one team, Marsh and Adele. Marsh and Adele. I mean, Adele, ADP in the last two weeks or so, just outside the top 225. You're looking at him versus Vaughn,

versus Jesus Sanchez, versus Adam Duvall, versus Harrison Bader, versus Lane Thomas. Like, isn't that weird that we've reached the point where Joe Adele versus Lane Thomas is a redraft question. I know we talked about Justin Upton as kind of a forgotten veteran who still brings a lot of power. If,

if you have Upton and you have trout and you have Brandon Marsh, who's important because he can play center field that can lead to a little bit of a playing time crunch that hurts Adele, but Adele did improve the strikeout rate in a big way last year. And I, I see any, crunch that hurts Adele, but Adele did improve the strikeout rate in a big way last year. And is he any more risky playing time-wise than Lane Thomas? I think so. Yeah. There's some other names. I kind of like Blom. I think he still has some ability, though he's pretty poor defensively, and that's really tough. But if there's an NLDH, I think he gets a little boon there. Gavin Lux

is the definition of a post-type sleeper, although he still gets a decent ADP. Do you have any... Second time he's landed in this space. Perpetual post-type sleeper. Two years in a row now. Still sleeping.

He's outside the top 200 with the Muncie situation that we've talked about, with Seager leaving and just shuffling pieces around, as it stands right now, he looks like he's going to play a lot. So I'd be pretty optimistic about Lux at this point. What do you think about Jaron Duran? I just have a little bit of that bias against players. Oh, Austin Riley last year would have counted uh that's

an interesting one yep doing it obviously doing a google search while on the cast shut up you know um yeah duran i just have the bias against um you know high strikeout rates i i i maybe need to keep you know reinvestigating that bias but uh i do know that like teams that don't strike out that much do do better and that i think that his strikeout rate was part of the reason why he didn't really take the role and run with it last year i think the question is still interesting though because if you again look at projections look at the wit projection that 248 302 421 18 homers 14 steals and you look at duran a little less playing time but 257 316 410 10 homers 12 steals yes that's not as good uh old for the level relative

to wit to be accounted for price is a lot different and he has a lot of ways to make value especially if they don't add another bat to the equation i think he'll end up playing quite a bit. A lot of my interest in Duran at his current price hinges on them not adding another impactful player. Especially in the outfield because I think Kike is best used at second right now because I don't know that Christian Arroyo is a full-time starter at that position. So if Kike is best use at second right now, center field is Jackie Bradley Jr. and Duran. And actually right now,

Duran is the starting left fielder as well. So they could actually probably add one more outfielder and Duran would still be a decent sleeper. I think in that scenario, his buffer for not hitting just gets smaller. Whereas currently... It's like Jackie Bradley Jr. hits every year. I mean, all it takes is a bad slump from Bradley to start the season,

and then they decide he's done, and here comes Durant. But thanks a lot for that question, Mitch. Definitely a lot of value to be had in some of the other prospects, the non-wit prospects, especially guys that were prospects a year ago that have lost that and have now kind of settled into a discounted price. This is a question here from Cody about

draft and hold. He's got his first draft and hold draft coming up in February. He doesn't really know what to do. Referred to himself as a noob and addressed us as non-noobs, and I think that's fair. I'm not an expert in draft and hold by any stretch of the imagination, but I've hopefully played it enough to not do dumb things. I think the biggest question is how do you build out a roster, a 50-slot roster? You've talked about having four players eligible to cover each position. That's a great place to be.

You do that in part with some multi-eligible position players. In some instances, it's just drafting four catchers because you don't have a lot of multi-position eligible guys that can catch, so you have to factor that into consideration. I think it ends up being between 26 and 30 hitters most of the time. A 28-22

split is the ideal split, but you have to adjust that in either direction based on how much risk you have with the pitching staff. based on how much risk you have there will be pitching staff there will be a last pick there will be a last you know there'll be a last three round pick where you're like oh i ended up light here and so i'm just gonna you know i'm gonna shift one bat one pitcher one you know but the the way you put yourself in position to do that is but multi-eligibility but like i said you don't have to pay for the multi-eligibility. But like I said, you don't have to pay for the multi-eligibility.

You don't have to pay for Jake Cronenworth, you know, just because of the multi-eligibility. So I think at the beginning what I just focus on is getting the best players. You'll have a starting lineup, right? Like you're going to have a season that starts and you're going to have just the starting lineup. So you kind of want your starting lineup to be as good as possible. And then you kind of shift into, okay, all right, I need to have four of each. I want to have at

least three bodies at each position, each infield position, but four eligible at each infield position, four catchers, 10 outfielders, 16 starters, and six relievers. But sometimes you'll want to go to seven relievers because you waited on saves. That's the toggle that happens if you don't spend up on saves like everybody else. And you'll notice like Hader will go in like the second round or third round. Like you're going to be like, whoa, why are the saves going so fast? It's because you don't have the waiver wire. And so you need to have some sort of save strategy and what i do is a modified punt i don't do a full punt i don't think it's possible to win like that but i get like romano i got romano and bednar the two guys that show up really good in my model that i got in sort of the eighth

ninth tenth those sort of rounds and i felt like i did enough that I could only have six relievers. But if you punt even further, then you're going to need to have seven relievers because you need more darts. And you're going to have to throw more darts. And that's going to cost you either in your 16 starters, starting pitchers, or it's going to cost you a position player. So that's the kind of, that's the rubric I've fallen on.

I think it's a pretty good one. I did pretty well last year. And it's pretty time-tested. Within those three or four, I would want... It's okay to take those... We were just talking about the prospect shots, right? It's okay to take prospect shots. But I wouldn't take multiple prospect shots within a position

because then um you will get your guys will get hurt your stars will get hurt and then you'll be like oh crap you know i had four short stops but my two starting short stops are hurt and the other two were prospects right so yeah you know like one of the guy that ended up being really kind of important for my strategy was taylor walls because i think taylors is going into the season as a shortstop, but I think he's going to play at third. And I know he'll play at second. So now I've got a guy who's going to have three eligibilities at some point in the season, and he's going to play. And even if he becomes a backup, he's going to be their super utility guy. He's going to play. And so, you know, he can be a guy that has some upside, but he backs up like three positions for me and he didn't cost that much. So identify players that you think might add eligibility or, uh, multi-eligible guys that aren't expensive. And those are really great guys to start adding in the middle to be like, okay, I just backed up three positions as one guy. Bam. Yeah, and I would also try and count the players

that are dealing with injuries right now. I would count them like prospects. So if you happen to like the price on Clayton Kershaw, that's one fewer prospect you're going to draft later just because you're taking a massive playing time risk due to injury. I think you can get by with maybe four out of 50 roster spots, four to five at most, where you're taking on considerable risk. So if you had, let's say you had an infield prospect, an outfield prospect, and two pitching prospects, and then maybe like one guy that has really high injury risk, but you feel like on a per game or per inning basis, you're getting great value.

you're getting great value, that's about as much as you can possibly have as known injury playing time risk going into the season that way. Because if those things don't break your way and then the new injuries that hit your team hit, you are going to be in a spot where you're playing some very sketchy players in the lineup.

And this often comes down to who does best in the battle of attrition who has the most available playing time on their bench that they can lean on so just be really careful with the number of shots you take i'm with you know i wouldn't punt a category completely i probably spend a little more early draft capital on closers than you do but i am comfortable going into a league like this only having maybe one out of my top eight, one of my circle of trust relievers, and then taking shots after that. Because even if I finish middle to pack in saves, that's fine. That'll play.

I don't have to win the category. I don't even necessarily have to be top three in the category to win at least the individual league. But I think punting categories ends up putting you in a horrible spot, especially in leagues where you can't make in-season moves to tinker and make more adjustments. I think punting is an in-season thing that you do in leagues with moves when something's not going well. When you happen to draft Adalberto Mondesi for half your steals and he gets hurt and you can't find steals, then you punt steals because you can trade away some steals to someone else, strong in another category and then supplement what you need on the wire but punting in a format like this is also a bad idea so i would try to avoid that if you can and then lastly there's uh there's the three the three potential holes like the three places where you kind of almost have to pick a weakness right like it's a 15 team league it's it's going to be tough and you kind of almost have to pick a weakness, right?

Like it's a 15-team league. It's going to be tough, and you're going to have to have a strategy about one of these. So saves we talked about. You either got to spend up and not get some of the position players you wanted because you're getting saves that you think are locked down. First base.

First base is tricky. First base goes higher than you might expect you might say oh luke voigt by the auction calculator still ten dollar guys he's still out there i'm fine then luke voigt goes and you go oh i didn't look behind him man and that's how i ended up with luin diaz as my third first baseman. Josh Naylor is my fourth first baseman. He's not even eligible there yet. So in my draft, I picked the weakness of first base, basically, I think,

with a minor weakness it saves. But that's the two. Is there a third one? Can you think of a third one? Speed. Yeah, speed. That's it. Steals. one can you think of a third speed yeah speed that's it steals so you're you know in my draft

what i tried to do was um a modified pun of all three we'll see how it goes i just told you my my my first base board is um jared walsh schwindel uh lewin diaz in florida and josh nailer who's not eligible there so that's the modified punt i like walsh and schwindel but like it's not the best first base group right i would put first base and third base as higher priority positions than they have been in the past because when you think about the way teams handle first base in particular if they don't have a vlad a freeman and olsen a goldschmidt and alonzo and a brhu. Someone who plays that spot every day. Walsh, I think, does make

that cut. I think that's about as thin as you can cut it. Maybe Josh Bell and CJ Krohn and Reese Hoskins, Joey Votto are the bottom here. Everybody else, every other team moves guys around quite a bit. And they'll platoon. And when you have platoons, you're going to lose playing time. They're more multi-eligible third guys

than there are first base guys. Right. that's why i think you can get away with waiting a little more at third base because the the weight at third base options they might not be everyday third baseman but because they play multiple spots they come closer to everyday playing time than your platoon first baseman do yeah like i added nico horner uh david bode and josh van meter late and uh they're all going to have a third base and second base eligibility and uh you know i think to some extent and so they show up as second baseman on my thing but they they were my backup third baseman as well so i'm not as worried about third base first base is tough because of what we're talking about then my saves guys so

this is the modified punt everything strategy just to kind of show you know show my work my saves guys are romano uh melanson bednar um luis garcia in san diego uh julian Merriweather as a handcuff for Romano, and JP Fireeisen in Tampa Bay. Not the best group, but definitely not the worst group. Definitely not the worst group in there. I have one other idea, theory, argument, point, something to put out there as it pertains to roster construction. And one of the reasons why I'm inclined to at least have one closer in my circle of trust and why i'm not afraid to burn the extra draft capital to get two if it breaks the right way for me i'd rather not have to roster six or seven relievers trying to get to that midpoint in saves if i draft too early i'm probably only drafting two more total relievers and just

running with four relievers all season. So if I have two of my top eight, if I have a Presley and Romano combination, right? If I get those two guys, I'm not going overboard. I'm not going Hayter Hendricks necessarily in that draft because I like the value of the hitters and go in there instead of the starting pitchers. But i get two out of my first eight i'm probably drafting a lot less of those darts later and then i have that extra depth i want or i can afford to take the extra shot on a prospect or an injured guy that might actually pop to fill a need elsewhere right so if the cost of getting the two top eight closers ends up being that i waited a little more on starting pitching maybe in that build i'm more inclined to then take a late flyer on a mike soroka or someone who i do have to wait for but once he's back i'm expecting top 20 quality innings from like i think that's

that's the type of decision i'm comfortable making because of what it allows me to do later. It's not just getting the saves. It's that I have more darts to throw in other places that might actually be more valuable in the long run. And ultimately, I like surprised. I'm kind of a deep league aficionado, so maybe it's not that surprising, but I had like 20 players left on my queue when the thing ended. Like I still was like, oh, there's still guys out there. And a lot of them were relievers. You know, there's a ton of relievers you can get in the end game. limit uh i don't think i would necessarily stop at four or five relievers i think six is a good number um but it is kind of maybe uh an argument for get two really good ones and then don't worry about relievers for a long time because they are going to be there for you at the end especially with this powerful pitching plus model at your back. Right. The difference between the dart you're going to throw in round 28 versus around 48 is actually pretty small based on who's still there in the end game. So that's where I'm at. Yeah. For me, it was, uh, you know, that would be Luis Garcia who I got, uh, I had to actually

pay a little bit for in the 29th round. And then my next reliever was Julian Merriweather in the 41st. Is there that much of a difference between them? They're both talented guys. Could close, could not. One more question to get to from Jay Good. And it's a question, it's actually a trade question for a dynasty league. It's an 18-team dynasty league that uses OBP, K percentage, and extra base hits.

The question is simple. Is it Vidal Brujan or Kyle Schwarber? The context, the sun is setting on some of the stars of my multi-title team, but I have some youngsters on the rise, and my pitching is solid. So which side of Vidal Brujan or Kyle Schwarber are you on in an 18-team Dynasty League right now that uses OBP? Brujan's surprisingly not not, for his profile, not going to help you necessarily in strikeout rate

and not surprisingly not going to help you in extra base hits. So it's possible that in this setup he's not that valuable of a piece. If you feel good about your speed, the thing I would keep in mind is that OBP helps Schwarber. He owns that skill. His OBP will always stack up a lot better than his average. It's interesting. If you switch from average to OBP, Kyle Schwarber is basically Manny Machado without the speed.

That's the difference. with about the speed. That's the difference. That's a pretty big jump from where he is an average when you bring him down and he's more like a, I don't know, a Reese Hoskins in the outfield probably is the fair sort of comp you could make on Schwarber. It's a big swing in value actually. K percentage doesn't help him much either.

And the other thing is that like speed is just really hard to acquire. The only way to get speed in a dynasty league is to keep one of your young guys usually, right? Yeah. I think in this situation if I'm looking more toward the future, I'm content to take the Brujan side of this

because one way or another he's going to play. I think the... My understanding is he'll be the walls in him will be backups. Together, they'll back up the whole field. They'll play it everywhere. I mean, the short-term concern is that it's crowded,

and maybe they don't like him enough in center field to actually play him in center if they move on from Kevin Kiermaier because they also have Josh Lowe, who is a good center fielder and can just play that spot. So you're worried that you have a super utility playing time share in the short term, but there's a ton of moving parts in Tampa Bay. If Brujan hits, he plays there. If he hits and there's not a spot for him, he's a piece they can use to go get more pitching

or whatever it is they decide they need in season. So I see enough paths for Bruujan to where if i'm in a rebuild i prefer him and that kind of sounds like the situation that that jay is in here if the sun is setting man don't don't don't push it too hard man this seems like one of those deals where you're like i want to i can still win i can still win and your team's old and you give up a player who two years later you're like damn it. Schwarber turns 29 in March and Brujan will be 24 in February so maybe he's a little older than people

realize but five year gap between them. Speed is hard to find and I think it also comes back to how much you believe in Brujan just as a pure hitter. You're right extra base hits that's still a question. Is he going to do that consistently? We didn't see a ton of game power from him

prior to AAA last year. At least it was Durham, right? It wasn't Albuquerque, it wasn't PCL, but how much do we trust Brujan's power? The good news is that power came alongside an improved ground ball rate. Earlier in his career, Brujan was hitting the ball on the ground a lot.

So some of that could actually be real. And Schwarber's strikeout rate at 27%, there were only 20 qualified batters with a 27% strikeout rate or worse. So it's actually still sneaky bad. Yeah, I think that being an actual category 2 factors in a little bit more. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

And he's getting older. It's probably only going to get worse. So I say hold Brujan. I don't love Brujan, which is why it took so long to kind of work this one out. But I say hold Brujan. Yeah, might be the kind of trade that looks a lot better in 23 or 24,

or the decision to hold Brujan looks better then than it does in 2022, because I think Schwarber crushes him for this year, even in that format with those wrinkles. Yeah, like in that draft that DC that I did, I'm hoping for like a Manny Margot season from Brujan this year, like something where he gets to 300, 400 plate appearances maybe in 20 steals or something.

Yeah, I think that's a reasonable sort of expectation playing time-wise with the way things are tracking at least right now. Thanks a lot for the question, Jay. If you got a question for a future episode, several ways to get those in, you can email us ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com or you can ask a question in the comment section under this video on YouTube. We really appreciate people doing that. Help us defeat the algorithm. help us defeat the algorithm. If you'd like to get a subscription to The Athletic, you can get 33% off the first year at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. You want to get in before the Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit launches in a few weeks. Make sure you have your subscription

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