Rates & Barrels - Pressing Reset in Early May

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

Eno and DVR discuss the surprising early May demotion to Triple-A for Jake Burger, and look at some of the biggest movers on the O-Swing% leaderboard  from 2024 to 2025. Plus, they discuss another injury for Mike Trout, Jazz Chisholm's shift to the IL, and a few intriguing names to consider on the waiver as the weekend begins. Rundown3:40 Jake Burger Optioned to Triple-A10:02 O-Swing% Changers: 2024 to 2025; The Rangers' Aggressive Approach16:59 Mike Trout Placed on the IL24:37 The Angels' Curious Late-Inning Bullpen Management30:06 Jazz Chisholm Jr.: Oblique Injury Leads to IL Trip35:19 Updates on Gelof, Ohtani, Darvish & Buehler41:15 Pitchers to Consider50:22 Shelby Miller's Path for Saves Opens Up Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.socialFollow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.sociale-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFeSubscribe 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

Hey, it's Noah Chestnut from The Athletic. If you're into games and sports, pay attention. I'm going to give you four sports terms. You tell me the common thread. Ready? Game. Match. Point.

Set. This one's kind of a gimme. The answer is how tennis is scored. Do you want more of a challenge? Check out Connections Sports Edition. It's a new daily game for sports fans. To play now, go to theathletic.com slash connections. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. it is Friday, May 2nd and Derek Benryper, you know, Saris

here with you on this episode. We dig into some news and notes from around the league including a surprising demotion of Jake Berger. We have Mike Trout and Jess Chisholm back on the IL. We've got some mailbag questions to get to and we'll get you ready for some weekend waiver wire pickups. I don't think it's going to be quite as loaded as last weekend's group but there's still three days worth of games that could shake things up if you got Sunday night pickups coming up in your league so it's

always fun to say that on a Friday and then watch the chaos happen over the course of the weekend series. You know how's it going for you on this Friday? I'm exhausted I just barely made exhausted, I just barely made it. I just barely made it. It has been a long, long week. It has been the longest of weeks. But my guy, Matt Denowitz, who helped create Pitching Plus is in town.

So we'll hopefully figure out a couple things in Stuff Plus this weekend. We're wrongly scaling minor leaguers among minor leaguers. So we have to scale minor leaguers to the major leaguers and that'll help, you know, make it more predictive and make you have a real understanding what that stuff plus is. Like for example, Blake Tidwell is coming up, you know, this weekend. And if you look at the stuff plus numbers, I think I have on the sheet or what I'm looking at, you know, it looks amazing.

You're like, Oh, one 37 stuff plus sweeper, you know, five pitches above a hundred stuff plus, you know, like this guy's gonna got everything it needs. Well, the four seems a hundred stuff plus and the sinkers one 10. And this is compared to other triple A players, not to major leaguers. So I think he has some uncomfortable things in common like a Will Warren, although the model likes his changeup more than likes Will Warren's. So maybe there's somewhere between Michael Warren and Will Warren and Michael King.

That's where Blake Tidwell is. He's in that group though, cause he's a sinker sweeper guy and he has a four seamen changeup and a gyro slider and it could all work work but it's not as Good as the stuff numbers I'm looking at you know I'm trying to mentally scale that down So I'm excited, but you know I don't think this is like I don't think you have to put 150 dollars on them Yeah, if you guys that have debuted recently or will debut soon that are in the mix in the waiver

Segment later on in the show. Hope you and Matt get out for a beer or two. I think El Pine Inn was my preferred near spot. That's actually on the schedule for today, today afternoon. It's a good food spot. Like they have a good wide menu, something for everyone. Pretty good beer. Nice laid back beer garden. Great spot. It's outdoors. It's like up into the foothills. Yeah, it's great. We're going to also go to Giants game on Sunday and something called Post Rock on Sunday night,

a post rock show, which I don't know what that means. They just make noises. I don't know. I think it is. I think it's just noise. Now I'm curious to learn more about that on Monday. I mean, it sounds much more like a regular Eno activity than the fight club. The fight club made me think, are you okay? Little league in there. Sounds much more like a regular Eno activity than the Fight Club. Yeah. The Fight Club maybe think, are you okay? That also slipped a little league in there. I'll do that again, that was fun.

No, they'd realize you got out without fighting last time though, so if you go back in there, they're going to recognize you. Let's get to the news though. Jake Berger, option a AAA for a reset and when I read the news and make assumptions, I make assumptions like well surely Jake Berger is chasing more pitches outside the strike zone or surely Jake Berger is striking out at an alarming rate compared to his career norms or surely Jake Berger is not making as much hard contact as we're used to and actually none of those things really seem to be the problem. Jake Berger is actually chasing outside the zone less than he

has over the course of his career. He's got a 39.9% O swing percentage this season. Not that that's good but it's a 41.2% mark for his career. He's always had an aggressive approach. 29.6% K rate. It's up a little but 27.7% for his career. Okay, kinda what you expect. Last season he did have an oblique injury in April, it slowed him down early. Once he returned from that, hit 253.303 with a 4.64 slug, hit 26 homers from May 6th on last year.

So this time last year it was a slow start, attributed to injury. This time around, I don't quite know what the problem is and the plan is to bring him back relatively quickly, but what do you do in the interim if you're trying to rely on Jake Berger for some power in your corner infield spots? I don't know.

It's even hard for me to diagnose how long you should keep him. But because there is something wrong here in that Jake Berger's pull air percentage was right around 20% for three years in a row and that was a little part of his breakout was going from 17% up to 20 22% 2023 is best season he had a 22% pull air percentage. It's 12% right now. So there's something going on there. I'm trying to look at his heat maps. He's swinging at low pitches like he usually does,

but he's trying to swing at some inside pitches. You'd think he could pull that in the air, but he's not. He's kind of inside outing them. So there's something maybe a little bit wrong with this shape of his swing, if not the speed of his swing. You can also see it in the pull percentage. His pull percentages generally was 45 to 50 percent, and this year it's 35 percent.

So Jake Berger is just a fraction of an inch off, I would say. You know, still hitting the ball hard, still has the same approach he ever did. I have to say though, I always thought that this kind of a streak could be in him. It's never been my favorite type of player. And I think if I had to circle one number that makes me not love Jacob Berger as a player is the 15% swing strike rate this year, 16% career. It's just a lot of swing and miss and it doesn't come with a good sense of the plate. So he's a guy who's kind of swinging from his heels a little bit like a Robert Junior or something. There's talent there. He's an underrated athlete in that he actually has decent sprint speed.

And I say actually because we all know why I say actually. He's a big dude. But it's an all or nothing slugger type. And it doesn't come with the walks. So I think, you know, what you find is that these guys have really terrible streaks sometimes. I think it's really hard for a player like Jake Berger with this skill set to thrive in a lineup where every single game matters. These players seem to do a lot better in rebuilding situations where you can just absorb the slump, let them work through it, get the heater right back a few weeks later when they start to click again. The rangers just don't have the luxury of waiting around to figure it out. And the replacements blame Crim, an interesting story out of their their minor league system I don't know if there's an actual like advisable pickup decision to be made there and this is a guy that has 27 good plate skills in the minors you know 20 plus home or power but once you do the agent level reduction on his WRC

plus it might actually be below average. Yeah, I mean the projections actually have some kind of wide ranging numbers for them. I'm a little surprised there's not more agreement here. The bat actually comes in with an 87 WRC+, and a 291 WOBA. Zips comes in with a 106. But the bat is generally the hardest on rookies.

Yeah, and Zips comes in with a 106 WRC plus 318 Woba so you know take your high end take your low end kind of go to the middle you're looking at what like a 95 ish WRC plus and a 303 305 Woba which is where Steamer and I think oopsie kind of fall in that sort of range. I think this could be a good story I don't know if there's a an actual move outside of AL only leagues despite the upper level success. You know, I'm looking through their lineup tracker for Texas and Berger was playing a

decent amount of first base. So the only name that I want to throw on the heap that actually could play first base in his stead and could maybe land in a platoon with Crim is Dustin Harris. And Dustin Harris feels like maybe a name that you've heard on the pod for a while and he has been around for a while but he's only 25 in 2025. And Dustin Harris therefore has a little bit more projection left than Krim. He wasn't doing that great in AAAa Harris was before he got called up and his triple-a numbers in 2024 Were below average. So I don't really have something where I'm like This is why you should roster Dustin Harris over Blaine Crim other than really age

Maybe some speed there for Dustin Harris some versatility that might give him the lineup even on days when he's not starting at first and then a in the lineup even on days when he's not starting at first. And then a decent swinging strike rate that should produce a better strikeout rate than he's got. And maybe a chance that there's a good hitter here. But there is a problem in Texas that's a larger problem than this. This is the changers in O swing percentage. And he's got Adolius Garcia fourth

in adding Chase percentage. And you can see that he's a guy who's kind of bounced around on Chase percentage. His best year, he really reduced it, or at least in 2023, he really reduced it. He really reduced it kind of off of some of his prospect days. So he'd done some good work, but maybe too talent wise, maybe this is sort of reverting, you know?

But you'll also see that Leodi Tavares is on here and that Wyatt Langford is on here, and then you can see that the Rangers are chasing more than anybody else in baseball, and they used to be an average team in that regard just last year. So there are more guys chasing on here at a time when the zone is smaller, as we reported yesterday. It's just a weird combo. It's hard to get out. I think if I'm diagnosed with this,

I'm Dr. Nick, not Dr. Nicky Lopez, who is one of the droppers. I would say that they're pressing as a team. I know it's not a scientific diagnosis. It's not, oh, they're, you know, they're having trouble against this pitch or that pitch or whatever I think that sometimes it can get around that like you're just you're pressing as a team We could look at pitch type value and look at what Texas is doing on different pitches and they're they're really hurting on fastballs Unforeseen fastballs. They just don't have a positive pitch value on any pitch

other than the sinker. So it's not like, oh, they're getting filled up with this and they're not doing this. It's just a general thing that seems to be catching of something's not right in the approach, or maybe it's just everyone's butt's a little tight right now. Yeah, I mean, I think you have to always look at this next to overall swing rates too. That's the other component to think about. Adolis Garcia has never swung at as many pitches, period, as he has so far this season, up to 57.8%, by far a career high for him. First strike percentage now up to 71.7%. This is a bad overall trend, I think, for Garcia. Even Leodi Tavares, up to a 52.4% overall swing rate.

He's usually in the high 40s, so he's up. So I think you're onto something as far as there, could it be a combination of pressing, but also maybe having a philosophy, trying to be more aggressive, trying to do damage in certain situations, maybe earlier in counts. Is that something you could maybe trace back to? having a philosophy, trying to be more aggressive, trying to do damage in certain situations, maybe earlier in counts.

Is that something you could maybe trace back to? They are number one in swing rate. So the more you swing, the more you chase, all this stuff comes to the top. When you look at swing rate at the top, it's not obvious that it's a terrible thing to do, but I will say that Colorado is second in swing rate. Boston is third, and they have a 109 WRC plus, and the athletics are fourth, know they have a 109 WRC plus and the athletics are fourth and they have a 109 WRC plus but I will say that generally other than those two teams the top 10 teams in swing percentage are below average by WRC plus and if you go

the other way and you take the bottom 10 teams in swing percentage there are five teams that are above average and two or three more they're at 97. You know what I mean? The worst team is the Pirates who swing the least so maybe there is like an oh we swing too little and they're at 78 WRC plus but everybody else at the bottom of the swing rate is above average or better including the Mets, Phillies, Dodgers, Orioles Orioles Yankees Diamondbacks like I don't know man Brewers up there You know you take the swingers and it's Texas Colorado Boston Athletics. I get it Miami Cleveland who lives on on commanding the zone and contact Toronto who's trying to do contact but is being out homer by everybody and losing games

the White Sox and the Angels and the Royals. Like I know which side of this list I'd rather be on. If I, if it always like gonna be one of 10, I didn't know which one, I'd rather take the list of least swinger teams. Yeah, I'm with you on that one. And looking at this leaderboard again, I mean, Corbin Carroll has the third greatest increase

in O-swing percentage is working for him so far. I mean look at the results from Corbin Carroll. Nine homers already through 31 games hitting 286 with a 349 OBP, a 609 slug that'd be a career high as well. He's doing a ton of damage it's come with a higher K rate than we've seen the last two seasons up at 25.3%. But if that's the payoff, that increased aggression is good, right? I think it is a sliding scale or some kind of bell curve overall, where your aggression needs to be at the appropriate level. And I think with Corbin Carroll, he's tinkering a little bit with that. Corbin Carroll's air, pull air percentages is the best it's been. You know, you just look at 16 percentage, 11% in 2022, 24% this year.

And just like watching him, he looks a little different. He's like trying to, you know, I don't know if I'm making faces. He's like, he's like, you know, are you watching this year? No, he's like, yeah, he's like, try to get going faster. And he kind of like, is a little bit more open I think and then he like he's like kind of like Trying to like come into the zone a little bit and trying to like I don't know It looks like he's trying to pull the ball here

It sort of looks looks like what he's trying to do and it's working So it's you know, he has a certain level of power to if he's on the top end of that He's an MVP candidate if he's on the bottom end of that, he's an MVP candidate. If he's on the bottom end of that, he's a four to five win player. So he's there's no problems here. But this could this could be the way to win some hardware. Yeah, I was just thinking about that and seeing if we have any clear differences in terms of the stance for Carol's looking to see depth in box. That's about the same as it's always been.

Distance off plate, about the same as it's always been. Distance between feet is a little different. Not really that much more open or closed compared to the past. Just looks different. Yeah. It's about how he's like gripping the bat and how he's like... he just looks a little more intense at the plate this year. It's like that's the word I'm looking for. It's very strange. Hey, it's working for him so far. So anybody who watched the Dimeback some more, get in the discord and tell the word I'm looking for it's very strange. Hey, it's working for him so far So anybody who watched the diamondback some more get in the discord and tell me if I'm crazy Let's get this other news though Mike trout placed on the IL with a bone bruise in his knee and inevitable it's just

When it's never gonna end or I was gonna ask you when did they do it on something? Well, I think this is a surgically repaired knee. The initial report Ron Washington said there is no structural damage it's anticipated trout will be sidelined for a relatively short period this is from the rotowire player update though no timeline has been announced like oh okay so we really don't know I look at the start to the season, nine homers already. It looks a lot like what he was doing a year ago, running a little bit, not quite as much as last year.

But last year, Trout popped 10 homers in 29 games to start the year and then was hurt. Popped nine 29 games to start this year. Now he's hurt again. Low average. Yeah, geez. Lower OBP than we're accustomed to. Team sucks.

36 Ks already this season in 121 plate appearances. So that's not like off the charts bad, but it's still in that higher end of who Mike Trout appears to be now. So I like the discount on Trout this draft season. And yeah, we all know this is part of the package especially at this point in his career But like is he someone you're still holding on to until you have more information At least in most leagues because there is at least still power there despite all the other

warts you were alluding to Yeah, I just you know, the angels are, there's not really any, I think you had in the rundown that their Pythagorean is even worse than their actual, which is 12 and 18. They're 10 and 20 by Pythagorean, they're 12 and 18 by reality, so, you know, got that going for you, I guess.

Well, it's just like, the team context isn't that like, we need to rush them back out there, unless you're Ron Washington, of course. I would rather have Mike Trout than not have him. But the team context isn't that they're going to rush them out there to be competitive. The player context is get this right, and get right. I would hold them as long as I could, I guess. I would at least hold them for the next injury update.

I think what I'm finding with these news is that like a lot of players like this caliber are worth holding for one week. And I know there's like the real change, like they really want to like, what do I do with this roster spot? But it's one week. And in one week, the news can go either way pretty quickly. You know, like I was saying about AJ Puck, we got the news from AJ Puck and he's more the two month problem. But it could have been the two week one where they're like,

everything's fine. He's gonna start throwing next week. So with trout, it's like, you wait for one piece of injury news, I think. And I think the who gets playing time as a result of trout's absence. If Thursday night was any indication, maybe it's an easier path to let Travis Darnoe and Logan Ohapi be in the lineup at the same time. One catches, one DHs. They put Jorge Salera in right field. That's the move.

That was the first move anyway. They don't have anything better. What could they do? Rendon, Micada, Hurt, Nicky Lopez. JD Davis got DFA'd, so he's not even around you can't kick it came around anymore Tim Anderson's not call up did they call somebody up when they put him on the aisle Christian Moore that would be more exciting no pun intended Christian Moore right now is striking out a little bit too much but

walking a ton not really getting to the power the same way, but for a 22 year old in double A, he's keeping his head above water. Still an interesting player that I think in the big leagues could like 240, 2020 or something. He might be Galoffian. Yeah, I think it's definitely got that high end swing and miss concern, cause we're at 45 double A games now. Age appropriate of course, but like a 28% k-rate there

That's surprising that the projection systems don't spit out a higher rate on him as good as get off So maybe get off in with more with less speed. I don't know if this is the thing that would push Christian more into the equation I think maybe he's on more of a Once he gets on a heater then they'll call him up sort of timetable. But I was watching this Angels game last night. It was Angels Tigers and Jorge Saler almost had a two homer game. Javier Baez pulled one back from him.

I can't believe how easy Javier Baez makes playing center field look for a guy that's been a shortstop his whole career. Like, and I say this as someone who, I understand how the defensive spectrum works. I understand that playing center field is easier than playing shortstop But you shouldn't look that good in centerfield that quickly. That's pretty amazing

Just to finish off the thought about the them is I don't think Nelson Rod is ready I mean, he's 19 and it's not like he's killing it and down there either and even with Christian Moore Like I don't think that I'd put it a bunch of money on it and with Javi Baez I don't think I'd put a bunch of money on him either in waivers because, you know, the flaws are still there at the plate. And at 32, I don't trust, you know, the 377 batting average on balls and play for Javi Baez or 291 average. So, and I don't even trust that he'll steal that much. And then I don't trust that longterm Meadows or Vierling or any of these guys won't just come back

and take the job back away from him. Meadows did some light throwing in the outfield on Friday, which means maybe something. And he's on the 60 day IELT, which sounds terrible, but I think they put him on it to begin the season. So he could still be on track to be back at the end of May. Yeah, late May would be the earlier window for guys that were placed on the 60 day to begin the season.

Baez, I popped up that O Swing chart on YouTube again because I noticed he's actually swinging less outside the zone, 39.4%. Whoa. It's a nice improvement for him. It's about five percentage points off of last season. He's lived between 44 and 48.7% going back to 2021. Always, of course, has had that free swinging sort of approach.

The surprising thing is that we're also seeing a drop in hard hit rate. So yeah, I don't know if the adjustments are necessarily going to make Baez stick as a more interesting player. He's just mostly swinging less across the zone. It's not like he's really improved his plate discipline. It's just, he's just swinging at everything less.

Yeah, well, but that, in some cases, that is improving your plate discipline. Like if you swing too much, like then swinging less is improving your plate discipline. Yeah, I guess so. But the projections for him, the most optimistic projection from him would be Zip's 239, 283, 376.

That doesn't play. There's a gap between value as a, can play all the important positions defensively in the big leagues, real life player versus fantasy player. Somebody I need to put in the lineup every night. You're not putting a guy with that line in the lineup every night if you have options. I'm gonna put that down as another cool story though,

seeing him play center field. Also got really frustrated watching Reid Detmers and watching Ron Washington and the Angels manage Reid Detmers in a situation where they could have gone to the bullpen, got a righty righty matchup instead, but were content to let Reid Detmers struggle with fastball command

and throw his 71 mile an hour curveball My brain was breaking watching it because it just felt like they were just leaving him out there as some sort of weird Punishment even though it was a winnable game where they had viable options ready to go Yeah, I think there's more to this story. There almost has to be. Yeah, there's something going on here. I always lean sort of towards the player, but it's not always the player. It's not always the player that's in the right. Maybe they've been asking him to do something that he just won't do. Maybe throwing more curveballs was the thing they asked him to do and he's like, look.

And they're like, you know. So I don't know. I think there couldn't. This is like another Griffin canning situation where like I just, I, I just see him on the Mets next year, Detmers and I, and I might be interested. Just seems like a guy that should throw three fastballs and the curve ball and like throw the slider 35% of the time. Be smart. If they made a change like that, I just cannot figure out what their actual plans are as an organization. They're turning into the Rockies right before my eyes. I'm

like, why do you do these things? These just, these do not make sense. You're right. Read Detmers. The turnaround will happen somewhere else. The Mets, the Rays, the Brewers, somewhere. And sometimes these fresh starts, I could say this like, you know, having seen my children go through the Little League, like, there are many managers out there that just sort of succumb to the last thing they saw, you know, and kind of form an impression of a player based on something, you know, these are emotional moments. You're in this game, you're trying to win it, and then the player does something you don't like. He does something you didn't ask him to do or he executes poorly and you are in this heightened emotion state. You remember it

in a way that I think cements it. And then it's very hard then for the player to sort of get out past that. Then the confirmation bias comes in. Everything, everything they do after that. Like, oh, I knew this guy was sucked. Yeah. And the players like, I'm trying, man. Like I'm trying, you know? So I think Detmer's still with a slider, 87, 88 mile an hour slider that he can command like that. He's going to get another job. It's just, there's nothing to do about it right now.

Nothing actionable in the short term. And I thought Jose Fermin is pretty interesting, a guy I hadn't really seen much before. He was the right-hander other than Kenley Jansen, who was up, ready for a matchup that could have been, you know, a game-saving decision had they gone that route. Dylan Dingler hit a mammoth home run. Off of Deatmars to make it five runs or whatever?

Yeah, to blow it open. This is from the Discord and I'm sorry, I can't have Discord open during this, otherwise I would give credit. Discord is a big sort of suck here on the RAM. But I do know that someone posted a Fastball Stuff Plus. I don't think it was qualified pictures. It was all stuff and was for me on there?

Yeah, it was TPH Noob. I'm breaking the rules. I'm running. They gave me a jumbo laptop though. So, you know, because of the production. So I think I can get away with running discord while I record the pod Tbh is a power user and thank you for that and was it was it for me it was fastball stuff plus and for means on There it was minimum one inning pitched the best fastballs by stuff plus so far for me in a 146

There he is two innings pitched fastballs do festival stuff plus does come online really fast and You know, I don't think I check real quick. It's not the situation where he throws Well, he does throw the sinker more often. So that's going to actually improve his fastball stuff plus, you know what i'm saying? he's a sinker guy who surprises a little bit on some level with the fastball, but That's why you ought to add him out of you know a second and it's level with the fastball. But that's why Adam Auvino is second. And it's not because his fastball is amazing, it's because his sinker is amazing, if that makes any sense.

But Jose Fermin up there with Mason Montgomery, still like Mason Montgomery. Jack Leiter fifth as a starter. Yes, it's a good list. Yumi Garcia got the save last night, didn't he? Yeah, because Hoffman, Hoffman didn't pitch two innings the day before. He's just a really good pitcher though, Emi Garcia.

So if you're in saves and holds, or if you're in a type of league where setup guys are held, I would hold Emi Garcia. Like Hoffman could get hurt. He had the bad medicals. Absolutely. I saw Jazz do this. It was so obviously oblique.

And he like went on to hit a triple, like after he heard it. And I like went on to hit a triple like after he heard it. And I was like, you should have taken him out of the game. And I'm surprised he was able to hit a triple with a hurt oblique. But I was not surprised to hear later that his oblique was hurt. Yeah, so it's been a strange start to the season for Jazz and obliques, we sort of assume a month will be eligible to return, you know, May 10th, but it's a 181-304-410 line now through 30 games.

Six steals, seven homers, good power speed combo, 39 Ks in 125 plate appearances. Swing strike on the higher end for him. Yeah, I'm a little... But not O-swing. I'm a little perplexed by this. I famously said I was on team Jazz over Jaren Duran as a possible early second round toss-up. I think that came with the extra context of wouldn't actually take either one of these guys

in this spot, but if I had to take one, I would take Jazz and I don't know. And if you revisited that, you would take Duran, right? I think I might. I mean, Duran's striking you would take Durant, right? I think I might. I mean, Durant's striking out less. Yeah, better floor. I'm only two homers, though. He's healthy.

Yeah, but he's healthy. He's healthy right now, yeah. The injury part of this is an easy flip-back call now, but I'm wondering why I was so wrong about Jazz overall. A big part of what I believed in was that he was running a lot more after the Yankees traded for him and I think that's mostly, that part's held up. I'm just wondering why the the rest of the profile hasn't come through

the way we expected. Yeah it's a little weird to like return to the strikeout rate when it's been up now. Like don't look at strikeout rate and look at swing strike rate. There's been some fluctuation 12.5% in his first full season for jazz chism 13.7 in a second 15.2 for jazz and his third 12.6 last year. So you're like, he's improving, right? Like he found what he had. That's the story we had, which was like, he's in a new park, he's got his old hitting coach back, he's found what he's had. You can look at his pull percentage and there has been some up and down

the pull percentage as well. If you've ever spent an entire season swinging and missing 15% of the time, you have this volatility in you. And I think that there's just something about his approach that maybe his contact moves around a little bit, his timing moves around and it's just not always on point. And I think he's just a streaky hitter.

If he was healthy, I would expect him to have a crazy ass month that like got him back over to and end up the season at 250 with, you know, 28 homers and I still think he'll get to a lot of his numbers. Now minus a month I guess. I've seen a couple of points this year where Jazz has been burned by close calls and I wonder if he's been near the league lead in pitches outside the zone that have been called strikes.

The opposite of what we were describing yesterday right? Strike zone is shrinking but sometimes players get burned on calls more often than others and it's not he's not at the top of the list think he's got ten and the league leaders got 16 there's two guys three guys at the top jungle Lee Lamont Wade jr. And Geraldo Perdomo or all the league leaders there Soto with 14 James wood with 14 Wade is really interesting because he doesn't swing and I do notice notice that like umpires, at least in little league are like, Oh, you're one of these guys who's up here to walk and they get a tougher zone. I think sometimes I don't know. I don't know how you'd study that in the major leagues, but it seems possible. Just look at all the lowest swingers and see if they're getting squeezed, if they get squeezed. But there are these biases because they're human beings. We have established that umpires in the past have shown bias by race, by ethnicity, by star level.

You know, so jazz sits at the crux of a couple of those and maybe, you know, maybe the way he acts, you know, earns them some bias or not. I love him as a player watching him. Like I've had very few shares in the history of my playing fantasy baseball. I may have had one or two shares of jazz chism in the last five years. Yeah, and the injury history is a big part of what scares people away. It's been a lot of different ailments

over the course of his career. Hopefully this one ends up being more like a three to four week thing as opposed to something longer for jazz. I did see Jorbit Vivas is back up for the Yankees, having a nice start at AAA this year. I don't know if he's gonna play a ton. If they were going to platoon with Vivas and Pablo Reyes

in Jazz's place, then it could be a temporary big side platoon role, but they also have Oswaldo Cabrera, Oswald Perra, they've got other guys they can throw into that mix. So the Vivas nice start at AAA may just make him sort of an extra bench guy in this window but I'm curious. I want to see if he gets a little bit of a chance. Some other news to pass along somewhat quickly here.

Zach Galoff is actually starting a rehab assignment. You mentioned him a little bit earlier in the show. Kind of a forgotten guy and especially because the A's lineup has put runs on the board pretty consistently and Galov's coming off of a disappointing and injury impacted sophomore campaign, had power, had speed, but had the K-Rate soar up to 34.4%. Despite the fact, O-Swing comes up again, his O-Swing was almost identical to what it was when he debuted and was really effective throughout the second half of 2023 so it's a little bit of a strange twist there but

I am curious so what are your what was your overall assessment of Gelof coming off of the down year was he a middle infielder you like despite the flaws I think baseline expectations are low average with power and speed but if things things click for him again, he could actually be a five category player in a rapidly improving lineup. Yeah, I enjoy talking to him and I know he's a Rook or right and some of the soft skills I thought could lead to a breakout. So I do have a couple shares because he was so cheap also going into the season. I thought he was and if he just looked at just his projections and just had a sober look at his projections, he was gonna be an

above the fold player, above replacement. Like he was gonna be a player of value that was going pretty late. And so I did try to take him as like an MI or a bench, you know, a third MI in a couple of places. I think I've dropped them since. So maybe I'll look, see if they're on the wire. I'm, I do still think power and speed is there. I did want to test something.

I have now sorted the major leagues this year by swing strike rate. And I'm going to name to you the players with above a 14% swing strike rate that I would be sad. I didn't own. Brent Rooker, Julio Rodriguez, Bryce Harper, Rafael Devers, Austin Riley, maybe Trevor Story, Corbin Carroll. I have some shares of Danzi Swanson,

I think he'll turn it around, he'll be fine. Christian Walker's right there, Jazz. I would say of the 28 players that have a 14% swing strike rate, I have a bunch of shares of these guys. I have a bunch of cost hours, you know, but would I be sad if I just made a rule that I don't draft a guy that has more

than the 14% swing strike rate? How many of these guys would be actually sad that I cut out of my life? I'd say like maybe five of the 28, maybe six. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think it's interesting too, that Trevor Story's name came up in that group, because I think that might be a realistic comp

for Zach Galoff for his career. Minus Coors, but actually maybe the new space is like Coorsian. It's close and I think the flaws we saw from Story early in his career, there was some swing and miss, but it was power, speed that he was getting to consistently and had he not been playing half his games in Coors, I think he would have been more of a questionable source of batting average for a lot of those peak years. How he would have aged without injuries is, we'll never know sort of question beyond whatever happens in this next couple seasons

But also story was hitting balls harder than get off has so far You know if you look at maxi being barrel rates and stuff so Gail off is a little bit of a test case for I think something that Jed Larry's been talking about Sort of functional power or guys that get to their power more often, or get a good swing off, or make good contact, and maybe don't have the elite bat speed, but get to what they have more often. And that's something that I had a conversation with Gelof

when he first got there, and he said that's a goal of his. I don't have to hit the ball 120 to get out of the park. But we also know that if you can hit the ball 120, it changes all of your potential outcomes. It changes your ceiling. So I'm always interested in where Gelof's power is going to end up. If it's more the 151 ISO he threw in 2024 or more the 237 he showed in his debut because there's a bit of a gulf of value there. That's a difference between a guy who's going to hit you 20 ish homers and a guy who can hit you 30 homers. Yeah, makes a pretty big difference if you can get to the higher end of that power range outcome. Some other quick odds and ends Shohei Otani has resumed a regular throwing

schedule twice per week. That was paused briefly after his stint on the paternity list in April you Darvish likely still several weeks away from his debut probably a late may return this according to AJ Cassaville of MLB calm terrible time to stash him though. I mean you have to hold them three weeks Well, yeah, and there's gonna be one of stash. Every week you don't stash him. It's more expensive. It makes him more, yeah, exactly. It's on the radar for everybody. There's one we're gonna talk about in a couple minutes

that I think we're also entering the sweet spot for and he's a little bit forgotten about somehow, even though he's probably a future Hall of Famer. See, Walker Bueller is back in Boston for further tests. He's dealing with some shoulder soreness. There's Saturday start TBD, at least at the time of this recording. Sean Nuka might make some sense for that. I noticed he threw 97 pitches back on April 23rd, then moved to the bullpen for one relief

appearance on April 27th, only threw 16 pitches that day. He'd have plenty of rest, could probably give them like a regular starter's workload or close to it on Saturday if they want to go that route. Gialito came back into that rotation and there are some good signs in that the change up is there, the command was not bad. The bad signs are that he does not back to the fastball he had. His fastball is better than I suppose in 2022 and, but it's not back to kind of a vintage G Alito fastball and neither is breaking balls. So I have a comp for you on G Alito.

That may upset you. OK, I have low expectations initially. So Chris Paddock. Oh, yeah. Have any mentioned a Chris Paddock hits me upset? Well, yeah, have any mention of Chris Paddock hits me upset Forcing this belief that there's still More ceiling there than there really is which you know in fairness, but also Fastball change-up guy that doesn't have great breaking balls that has had homer issues good command But not the greatest fast not the greatest fastballLow, you know. I think there's some similarities there.

I don't see a reason to necessarily quibble with the 4-6, 4-5 ERA projections for G-Lito, even if it will come with maybe OK strikeouts. Yeah, I think for deep leagues, maybe useful, but you got to be a little careful with those matchups. That's probably somewhat of how we would describe Paddock, although I will point out Chris Paddock. Park sucks. Yeah, the park's parks not soft landing spot with paddock had the bad start against the White Sox his first time out right he's usable now or

straight starts where he's gone five innings he's given up a combined five earned runs across all of those outings and basically you just chop off that first bad start against the White Sox on the road in March, you'd have a guy that has a three ERA over 24 innings, only 20 Ks, so a little light in that department, and a 129 whip. I think yeah, useful back end guy is as much praise as I can throw at Chris Paddock.

He just bothers me because I want Festa and Zebby Matthews in the rotation, that is what I want. That's thebby Matthews in the rotation. That is what I want. That's the reason why Chris Paddock irks me. Logan Evans was a guy that someone in his organization sort of pulled me aside and was like, this guy's a dude. And when he first came up, he didn't, his first start, he didn't really show the strikeouts,

but I think the sweeper is really good. The fastball mix, at least the cutter and the sinker, threaten average. So it is a guy that could have a elite breaking ball mix and just enough fastball to make it all work. There are plenty of cops, they escape my head right now, but this is a type of package that can work in the big leagues.

I think the walk rate will come down even as a prospects guy. He had a 50, 55 present future from Fang graphs on command and he walk rates and the miners are great. So I think the walk rate will come down. Maybe he sets it settles in at 18, 19% strikeouts. And because he has these great breaking balls, I would actually reduce the home run projection that a lot of these places have and give him sort of like a four, two ERA guy. Some runway with the different injuries

that they're feeling in Seattle. Right, so for the guy that just said that Paddock and G. Alito are back end guys you have to be careful with, the difference here is that you can probably just use Logan Evans for most of his home starts and not worry about that. And then occasionally spot him in for the road matchups.

And I think the way the team's built right now, Logan Gilbert working his way back from what they said was a grade one flexor strain in his pitching arm, that is certainly a good outcome, good diagnosis. Plus George Kirby trying to get back before the end of May. It may only be a handful of starts before Logan Evans gets bumped out again, but I think

what Logan Evans is doing right now is he's putting himself ahead of Emerson Hancock on the depth chart. So as spots become less available in Seattle, I think the priority is going to be using Evans for those turns as opposed to Emerson Hancock. We had some question in the Discord about Gunnar Hoagland, Gunnar Hoagland stuff, so are we interested in this athletics call up? You know, we, I think Michelle Lockard broke the news that he was coming up. He was a first round pick for the Blue Jays that came over in the Chapman deal?

That would be the Matt Chapman trade, I believe, yes, because he was the 19th overall pick of the Jays in 2021. I have to say that the Stuff Plus is not exciting because, again, this has scaled two minor leaguers, and his best is the change up in curve at 103 stuff plus and everything else is below. So I am expecting below average stuff plus, possibly even poor stuff plus in the major leagues. And you look at his strikeout rates in the minor leagues, not very good. So I would have to say I'm not very excited about this call up. I'm probably slightly more excited because he could actually stick

But it's still more of a deep league sort of play. Who's the? Corresponding move they boot who's gone who'd they kick out? Severino Springs Sears Bido JT. Ginn is on the IL. It's Ginn. I guess that was the move Yeah, and the the related question people are asking is why not use Mitch Spence instead? I would ask that question because Spence has been pretty good on the bullpen and he was pretty good last year and they seem to have made some sort of decision on Mitch Spence. I don't get it. Not that you're wrong at all,

but they also need relievers. They do need good bullpen arms. Other than Mason Miller. Yeah so I mean maybe part of the thinking is well we do like Mitch Spence but maybe he's a better fit. This is where we need him. Yeah. Because we are actually trying to win and find the postseason. Other names that I thought were kind of interesting Noah Cameron pitched well in a spot start for the Royals he's back down in the minors and I think that's probably what's gonna happen with Blade Tidwell who you mentioned earlier we'll see him get a look from the Mets this weekend and then probably get sent right back down to triple-A at that's more of like a stash question beyond like a first come first serve pick them up

and stream them sort of usage who would you rather have stashed away in a deeper league where starters might be at a premium would you rather have stashed away in a deeper league where starters might be at a premium? Would you rather have Cameron or would you rather have Tidwell? I think Tidwell, I know that their minor league stats look very different in terms of results. Blake Tidwell is running a five ERA in AAA. I just like the per pitch numbers better. Tidwell has more VELO, he has more dominant sweeper,

and the sweeper, sinker against righties, fastball change-up, gyro against lefties package is out there and has had some proven success. Now, I don't know where he is on the continuum, but I'm more interested in that. A couple of guys getting back from injuries. The park is good. Don't ever forget the park. It just makes it easier to use them. The park's huge there, but you also have veterans

coming back, Lance McCullers nearing a return. Clayton Kershaw's actually getting close. He's the guy that is also in the you darvish bucket of, hey, we're probably a few weeks away, but Kershaw went five in a rehab start recently. He was a 60 day IL guy as well, so he's still a few weeks away from being eligible to return.

Did you see anything about Velo? I did not see Velo right away, but based on the picture we've seen It doesn't always matter. The last three years, the blind gamble here is that there's still something in the tank worth chasing, right? And I don't know, if you're going to do it, it's cheaper to do it now than to wait until he's all the way back. That's true. Is there a world in which you could see him being like a usable even in 12 team league starter still?

I wanted to be like 90 plus, but in 2022 and 2023, which is not that long ago, he averaged 91 on the fastball and he put together 260 innings of a two five ERA, two four ERA. So don't forget that. Yeah, not that far in the rear view mirror, man. Yeah. It almost doesn't matter what his stuff plus is. I do I do care a little bit about the fastball. Like if he's 87, I'm I don't know. One other thing to get to here before we go, we'll save some mailbag questions for Monday.

Shelby Miller's path to get saves opened up a lot because in the time since we last spoke about Shelby Miller, Justin Martinez lost Velo and then landed on the IL with what they're calling right shoulder inflammation. And given the massive velocity drop before the IL stint and given that the news on AJ puck Also got worse. I'm curious what kind of bids you're throwing in the direction of Shelby Miller in leagues where you're in need of saves I did have a Thursday night league which uses a $100 budget where the winning bid was 14% of a full budget I imagine in redraft situations if you're in the NFBC main event, you may have to go

even higher than that, but I do think for the broader range of leagues, that's probably about right if you're really content on trying to come away with Shelby Miller as a source of saves. Like if I had somebody else in that bullpen that I could circle and say, you know, don't take him because he has below average stuff and he's 34 and he's not necessarily projected to be that much of an asset in the bullpen. It's like a fourish ERA with a 23% strikeout rate. It's like, I don't want wanna pay $140 for this closer.

I'm not hedging here, I'm just telling you, this is the bad bullpen on a good team. And so I would assume that he's the closer at least until August 1st. I don't see somebody else. Ginkgo is fine, but Ginkgo also has below average stuff and also has a kind of mid-3s 24 to 25 percent strikeout rate projection

so I guess the only thing I would say is if you want to put a dollar on ginkle and $10 out of a hundred on Shelby I'd rather do that than Pay like $20 out of a hundred for Miller. That doesn't seem to lead to move. You're gonna be somewhat cautious with Shelby Miller, which is totally understandable for the reasons you mentioned. And Ryan Thompson pops in the model but doesn't miss a lot of bats.

So I don't think that's going to be his function. They don't like that slot for closing because it has a huge platoon split usually. And usually you can use Ryan Thompson to get out of jams. I mean, right. Like 61 percent ground ball rates each of the last two seasons. Like you're picking your spot with him and not using him in the ninth inning. Tyler Rodgers. It's not exactly Tyler Rodgers, but Tyler Rodgers has never really been this closer for the Giants.

With you there, Zach Agnes getting saved for the Rockies. If you're looking for a less expensive option. And the bid on Agnes was 7% in that same league where Miller went for 14%. So maybe that will guide you just a little bit. I mentioned up top, not as many interesting bats out there right now. I'm looking at Zach Dezenso maybe as a guy in deeper leagues.

It's playing a little bit more again for the Astros. He's kind of intriguing. Eli White's playing a lot in Atlanta. I wouldn't spend a lot of money on him. I think the name that I'm most intrigued by is actually Angel Martinez. A long time deep league follow for me. We know the Guardians with so many. Is he the last man standing in center field?

I mean, maybe. And he was hurt last year. And I think that may have had an impact on some of the quality of Contact so he's still pretty young still just 23 years old these switch hits Just of course because every every Guardians prospect is a switch hitter, right? Yeah, and also makes a lot of contact Yeah, that's that tracks and also doesn't hit the ball that hard Yep, I had 36% at triple at AAA to start the year and 35%. In the little time he's been in the big leagues,

maybe, maybe, maybe for deep, deep leagues, but I didn't see much of anything that was like an obvious pickup on the hitter's side this week. Maybe like sort of injury related. I think the other one is, you know, Jack Caglioni's stash, you know. Yeah, we're at that point now.

It's kind of the last minor leaguer that could come up and really have an impact right away that I've got circled. Maybe in the Discord you can point some hour out and we'll talk about them next week. Yeah, we'll have a chat in there, try to find a few other intriguing names as the weekend unfolds. Be sure to join the Discord, the link in the show description, you can find Eno. I'm bluesky, you know saris.besky.social, I'm DVR.bsky.social. Thanks to Brian Smith for putting this episode together.

That's gonna do it for this episode of Raids and Barrels. We're back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening. What's going on, dude?