Rates & Barrels - Project Prospect - Expectations for Elly De La Cruz

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

DVR, Eno and Welsh welcome in the debut and expectations for Reds top prospect Elly De La Cruz. Andrew Abbott vs AJ Smith-Shawver, listener mailbag and more! Rundown 0:34 Elly De La Cruz 4:55 Eno is the Elly ice-man 9:08 Is Elly more Javy Baez or Tatis Jr? 21:11 Elly or Volpe ROS 22:56 Reds future lineup 29:52 Andrew Abbott 34:26 AJ Smith-Shawver or Abbott ROS 39:09 Will Eury stay in Marlins rotation? 51:11 Luken Baker 53:43 Henry Davis to Triple-A  61:00 Listener Questions  Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's Tuesday, June 6th, Project Prospect Edition. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris, Chris Welsh, all here with you for what is the beginning of a new era of Reds baseball, which I hope, I hope was written in the Roto-Wire player note by my good friend Clay Link. Ellie De La Cruz has been promoted by the Reds. It has finally happened. After all of our frustrations and whining and hoping and praying, it has finally happened. And look, this is going to be a big part of the show today because we're excited about it.

We've seen the improvement in the strikeout rate this year, down to a 26.9% K rate at AAA. If you are not familiar with Elie de la Cruz for some reason, that is a big deal. This is a guy that's run 30% K rates at other stops, but he's very young for the level. Walking 14% of the time, which is great even when you account for

the automated balls and strike system at AAA. So it's not just the byproduct of that. And of course, the tools are off the charts. Hits the ball extremely hard. As hard as anyone you're going to find in the minor leagues. Run. We're talking about a possible five category player. So Welsh, I know you have been amped up for this.

You were actually on a live stream when the news broke earlier. So very fortunate timing with this happening before our pod today, but pie in the sky, immediate expectations for Ellie de la Cruz are probably going to push bids and redraft leagues where he's available. And there's plenty of leagues where he's not, they're going to push them through the roof. This is going to be one of the most expensive hitter that you see added in

leagues. We get to fab this weekend. Yeah. Yeah. A couple of this is funny. I was actually on this like tirade of complaining about like, what the hell are the reds doing? Like it made no sense why it didn't happen.

Like if it were to happen in a month, why would it just not happen now? There's no extra advantage. None of it made sense. And I was like complaining and like, what are we doing? I was going to do my little sign. I had the Brandon fought one of Ellie.

And then literally as I shut up, I noticed two minutes prior, the reds had given him the call up. You know, the one thing I'll say about this whole thing too, I actually think, and this is not to like harp on everybody, but if you're bidding a whole lot on Ellie,

you did it wrong because I'm not crazy about like, Oh, you got to go preemptively pick up all these guys left and right. But this is the guy that you like preemptively pick up. Like if you having to bid for Andrew Abbott, I kind of understand that. Like we weren't really sure where the Reds were going to go with that. But Ellie De La Cruz was definitely somebody that you wanted to jump in on. It's been a phenomenal year.

I actually made the change. I know we're going to talk about some of this probably next week. I've got some my updated. I do monthly dynasty and prospect lists for fantasy are updated. The athletic I'll be doing an update on my dynasty list next week. But I made that move to put Ellie as number one

overall on the prospect list because there's a clump. There's actually a really nice clump that's sitting in there of, you know, Jordan Walker, don't fall off of Jordan Walker. Jackson Holiday is insanely talented. I don't know if people even realize

in the month of May in his league, he had the best batting average. And this is a guy that got repromoted hitting over 400. Jackson Churio belongs in there. But Ellie Daly Cruz has just become the cream of the crop. I love the ability to lower the strikeout rate.

The EVs are world renowned right now. And I look back since May, and this might seem stupid, but this is like a big development for him. He had more games from May until his call-up without strikeouts than he had multi-strikeout games. And I know that might not seem like a big deal, but it is.

This is a guy that's been striking out over 30% of the time, 30.9% in AA last year, 30 in high A, 31 in single A, and he has cut that rate down. He had one really bad game in the last month where he had a five strikeout game, but eight games without strikeouts since May 1st, and only six games, I believe, five or six games that were multi strikeout games. So it's all coming together and he's going to take that to become a really big, impactful fantasy option. But we do have to watch what that swing and miss is going to do at the major league level. But this is the guy that you get jazzed up for.

I'm not sure there's going to be another guy with the type of buzz. My prediction would be Jason Dominguez would get the same type of buzz simply because his name, if he gets called up later this year. But this is the pinnacle of prospects right now. And he's a must own. Whatever your question is, he's a must. You have to own him. Eno gets to reap the benefits because everybody in his Atena League was trying to get Ellie.

You now get to bring Ellie up without having to pay the price or make a move. You know? Yeah. Should I, should I be the cold water? Yeah. Try to be the cold water. Let's go talk about strikeouts and the swing and miss rate.

Yeah. It's cold water. Nobody likes this guy. You want the projections? Nobody likes this guy. They're on your side. I, I just did a simple query uh age 21 or less in triple a since 2010 now there's just one thing that's uh that i have to say right away which is kind of amazing there's only been 33 player seasons like this since 2010 so just the fact that he's 21 and

made it to triple a is weird he's already on a list that includes kyle tucker ozzy albis uh anthony rizzo uh will myers ahmed rosario cory seager manu margot i mean these guys are a lot of them are big leaguers however all those guys that i just mentioned strike out less and so i just sorted this list of 33 players all 21 and younger at triple a qualified bats and i sorted them by strikeout rate number one which is actually a pretty good comp maybe javi baez okay that's not good cold water but it exists number two here's where the cold water starts domingo santana number three john kensky noel number four franklin barretto that name gives me shivers you're right nobody likes this guy you know nobody likes this guy tyler sodastrom ellie de la cruz Cruz, Tyler Soderstrom is doing it this year,

so kind of hard to say anything about that. And then there's actually a four percentage point drop between Elie de la Cruz at six and Willie Adamas at seven. So I would have to say that I think a really good outcome for Elie de la Cruz is like a Willie Adamas with more power.

Are you talking about a rookie year outcome or are you talking about peak year outcomes? It's very important to clarify this. Why am I not talking about peak? I mean, I'm comparing them as 21 year olds in triple a right but you're talking about what we're going to get or likely what we're going to get from ellie de la cruz as a rookie because this is where the tension about sort of peak but okay you're talking about peaks because i think there's there's two pretty big conversations it's like what is he going to do right now and then what is he going to become later and there's that tension messes with Fab every week. It messes with drop decisions.

It messes with the conversations people have on their podcasts and things they write because you write off a player temporarily and it doesn't mean you don't like them in the long term future. It just means you don't like them right now. As Mr. Coldwater,

I'm going to finish throwing the cold water on because I was talking about sort of peak and career arcs. So I think there could be something similar to Ellie's career arc to Willie Adamas with more power and speed. That would be a really good outcome. I think a Javi Baez career in general could be one of the outcomes for Ellie DeLaCruz, which would be great in the short run, but may have some ups and downs.

And then if you want to talk rookie season, Javi Baez is probably the best comp out of all these guys for lots of different reasons in terms of athleticism, power, you know, all these things. This is what Javi Baez did in 2014 when he was called up from triple a with a 30 strikeout rate 169 batting average 227 obp 324 slugging six percent walk rate 42 k rate one thing i was

going to throw in there too javi baez actually ironically might fit this mold but one of those arguments to and it's not everything but you know when you're talking about uh the skill level and stuff how many of those guys have 117 mile an hour uh velos on every any given night like maybe Javi Baez a lot of those guys you I would also consider that you know who I was thinking about I did this 112 113 yeah no he's like the guy of all those other names you were talking about he actually might have been relevant of like not hitting 117s but hitting like 112s 113s like on a nightly basis that was kind of his game so that's a pretty

good comp i've been sitting on this and this might be a little too much i just talked about this on my prospect one show that's just me ranting into the airwaves, into the universe about things to myself. But I was thinking that what Ellie's doing right now reminds me actually a lot of Fernando Tatis Jr. in those early years. And while you were talking, I was trying to kind of take a look here. Prior to his call-up, the only difference here is Fernando Tatis actually got skipped from AA into the majors and didn't hit AAA. But at AA. They wouldn't have shown up on my query, right? Yeah, he might have. But at AA, because he had a similar, if everyone remembers,

remember like Derek Hardy's projections? It was like everybody, there was the big fight about the talent level versus the strikeout rates. Fernando Tatis Jr. at AA in 2019, or 2018 when he played the full season, 27.7% strikeout rate. In AA in 2017, he played only a little bit, 29.8%. Even in low A, he had a 26.5%. So it's not a perfect comp,

but it's relative to where Ellie is now to where Fernando Tatis was right before the call up. And then he came up and in his rookie season, Tatis had a 30% strikeout rate, 22 homers, 16 stolen bases in 84 games played. So you actually have a potential for Ellie to play a very similar spectrum of what Tatis did. And you've got big hard hit numbers like tatis i just think that that might be an interesting comp though i think there might be a little bit more swing and miss in ellie's game

than tatis i just feel like that might be a fun comp to kind of sit on especially in the world of projections and the hard hits i just don't think there's anybody that compares to ellie outside of maybe tatis or you know your bios one is actually pretty good. Yeah, Tatis, I mean, he spent 102 games between 2017 and 2018 at AA before he got promoted. I guess he had another couple in 2019 as well, but the K rate was in the high 20% range

and the walk rate was below double digits. So there were concerns about his play discipline right away. I think this is where the age to level conversation and the research that you brought up last week, that's where I'm kind of saying, yeah, the strikeout rate, it's a little concerning, but don't lose sight of the ridiculous tools

and what he's doing at his age and wipe that away because the strikeout rate's a little higher than you want. I mean, we know the league as a whole strikes out more than it has really at any point since any of us cared about baseball. If you do extraordinary damage and you connect and you have the speed to fall back on, you can do just fine with a 30% K rate upon arrival

and maybe improve that over time given how young he is. That wouldn't be a surprise at all if two, three, four years down the road, we're talking about a guy that has whittled that K rate down from the 30% range to the lower 20s or at least the mid 20s. That would make all the sense in the world since he's so young. Yeah. And also, look at some of the patients that has evolved in there. Going back and just doing the Fernando Tatis thing. Going back and just doing the Fernando Tatis thing.

Fernando Tatis only at one point in his minor league career had like a double-digit walk rate, 14% at high A, or I'm sorry, at low A when he was 18 years old. Otherwise, it was sitting in the eights. Ellie, while lowering his strikeout rate, raised his walk rate 14%. So you saw him learn to cut down. You saw, and especially over time in the season, you saw him readjust there. You saw him walk more. You saw the hard to cut down. You saw, and especially over time in the season, you saw him readjust there.

You saw him walk more. You saw the hard hits at a level. I don't know if we've seen in the minors, at least, especially because we can track more than ever. And he has a similar skillset as far as the power speed combo. I know it's absurd because you don't, you don't want to do the Harold Reynolds where everybody's Bo Jackson,

you know, during the MLB draft, he's like, that guy's like Bo Jackson. That guy's like Barry Bonds. You don't want to do that with everybody. Bo Jackson, you know, during the MLB draft, he's like, that guy's like Bo Jackson. That guy's like Barry Bonds. You don't want to do that with everybody. But in Ellie's case, this is something I think we can do.

I think it's great that you're bringing some of the bad comps in there because all of this excitement I'm throwing at everybody. I actually agree. I think Ellie could go through some struggles. He we've seen it in the minors. We've seen huge, big strikeouts. We've seen the streakiness.

He had a five strikeout game less than a week ago. Ellie's going to have some struggles, but Tatis had those struggles. And he has that skill set like O'Neal Cruz. There's the other one. O'Neal Cruz, regardless of having bad average woes, had that last month where things started to click last season. And you saw the huge hard hit kind of mask some of the problems.

And you saw those stolen bases. I think some mixture of O'Neal Cruz to Fernando Tatis is where I live with him, but that doesn't mean he's not immune to problems this year. Cause he's a rookie and we're still seeing him adjust age to level. Again, the excitement should be there. You should have some cold water, but I don't know what the cold water for me would stop me from jumping all

the way in on Ellie de la Cruz to own in dynasties and in redrafts. If I have the ability, I want to get him because if he goes on a hot streak and I think there's cold water, you could probably still move him for a King's ransom. So there's not a reason I wouldn't want in any format to own Ellie. So I've got a lot of NFBC leagues or the leagues where Ellie's available in the pool this weekend because he wasn't drafted and held this entire time,

right? You can't pick up players in the minors unless they were picked up on draft day and then thrown back in the pool. So he's available in a good number of those leagues. I have a league. It's a main event qualifier, 15 team league. And my team's contending.

The only spot that matters is winning. My team's got a shot to win. Second place doesn't matter in this league. Here's my situation. Anthony Volpe at short, getting the power, the speed, but low average. Struggles we talked about on yesterday's show. And then I'm kind of rotating waiver guys in the middle infield right now. Tucapita Marcano is the current option there.

Jose Caballero is on my bench. I mean, in this situation, I've got a pretty good team, a decent amount of fab, and a clear possible upgrade in the middle. That situation is probably one where I'd be about as aggressive as you can be with a player. Yeah. Push it all in. Because this is it.

This is your shot. If first place is all that matters, or cashing in some cases is all that matters, this would be a spot to do it. So I think your team need always is an important thing to consider with a bid. But Eno is right to bring up Javier Baez. We've seen this with players before.

I think the weird thing about O'Neal Cruz, we were watching him last year. We kept saying, come on, bring him up, bring him up, bring him up. He wasn't that good at AAA. It was 232, 336, 422 was the final line that he had there. They promoted him. The K rate jumped, but the slash line was a little

better with the slug and a little worse with the OBP. By WRC+, he was better at the more advanced level than he was at triple a Ellie's been so much better at triple a than a guy like O'Neill Cruz, where I just think the, the adjustments while they're going to happen,

I don't think it's going to be quite as harsh as what we've seen with bias and probably not even quite as harsh as what we saw for O'Neill Cruz a year ago. Also a ballpark factors. Think of him. He gets to do all this in great America ballpark. Like that's a, that's another nice little little tiny added plus we should

throw in. Yeah, it should help the Babbit. Exactly. For a guy that is going to be absolutely mashing baseball. So, I don't know if you had any thoughts on the Tatis and O'Neal Cruz comp. I think the big difference, I think what might

all hang on is chase rate. And I don't think that chase rate is we talk about a lot and maybe we overvalue it. There are players that succeed with high chase rates and so on and so forth. But if you're talking about this set of players, Javi Baez, Fernando Tatis, Willy Damas, the thing that really separates the top end from the bottom end is chase rate. The big thing that really torpedoed Javi Baez's career has been chase rate. And he's never really been below 40%. I mean, he debuted at 39.5, but let's just round that to 40. He's a 40% guy. If you look at Fernando Tatis, he's more like a league average guy, 32-33. That's the league average. I guess the good news on Elie De La Cruz is I've got this piece from Baseball America

who says that his chase rates in the minors were 33% and 32%. And so that puts him closer to Tatis than it does to Javi Baez. And I just think that's a little bit of a proxy for like, where are the strikeouts coming from? Are they just coming from just having no idea where the zone is? Or are they coming from a power specific approach where he thinks it's going to be a fastball and it's not, you know? And I think it's better to be a fastball and it's not you know and i think

it's better to do the latter than the former the former when you just have no idea where the zone is i think you really get into trouble because that's two things right no idea where the zone is you can still get screwed on fastball slider right but then you can also get screwed on that's not even close to the zone, dude. You know, but if you have an idea where the zone is, then at least you won't do that thing where you've seen Javi Baez do where he thinks it's a fastball. He swings and it's a slider in the dirt, you know,

and it's just like, you won't necessarily, like, if you do have a sense of the zone, you can be like, well, that's, that's,

that's a little too low. Even if it is a fastball, because every batter is like, go, go, go, no go, right? Like, every batter has to start their swing to hit a 95-mile-an-hour fastball. So they have to start their swing. And then there's a moment where they say, nope, and they stop. Javi Baez, for some reason, doesn't stop. And it looks like maybe Elie deela Cruz has that ability to stop. His overall swing rate has been down, too, in this piece that I recommend.

And I'm very jealous of J.J. Cooper for having these numbers. But he says his overall swing rate is down, too. But, you know, it was 49% in the low min minors which i think is like oh i can hit the ball 118 i'm gonna swing at everything that's what i would do right i mean if i can hit 118 i would try to hit every that's the problem that's why i'm nowhere near a professional athlete i have no discipline whatsoever if i had a rocket arm i I'd throw my arm out, just throw in stupid stuff for no reason. But down to 42% in AAA. So 42% is actually sort of patient. So you've got a guy who does not, who in very, two very specific cases, how much he swings and how much he chases is separating himself from hobby bias.

So I think, you know, I think I would put it something like it's just to be conservative i think there's like uh what like a 20 chance he's hobby bias yeah you're like sort of setting a floor at happy bias that's a good floor and that's it's smart to do like sort of 30 to 40 chance he's willie damas who's better than than hobby bias in a lot of ways you know maybe not have the same peak but you know better on a year-to-year level maybe um and then uh you know 30 to 40 percent chance he's fernando tatis i take those odds those are pretty good odds that i would battle with right now dvr was mentioning a guy that he has. Would you, not that you have to make this decision, but who would you rather have rest of season

knowing what we know now, Anthony Volpe or Eli De La Cruz? Oh, crap. You just picked up Volpe on Sunday. I just got Volpe in TGFBI, but there's no way that Eli De La Cruz is going for the 108 I got Volpe for. If they were the same price, I'd take Eli. I have an NFBC league, by the way, which i picked up ellie two weeks ago thought i was getting head and i and i lost el nil cruz at the beginning of the year so i get to just play the why the game in the player pool that means that

somebody drafted him and dropped him yeah i might he must have been he was available i had picked up ces which i've been sitting on and i was was able to get Ellie De La Cruz two weeks ago. That's crazy. You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself. You live for experience and lead by example. You want the most out of life and realize what you're looking for is already in you. This is for you. The Canadian Armed Forces.

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You know, and also the last little thing to throw in, look at what the Reds did with Matt McClain, where they immediately threw him in and let him be the number two hitter. Start thinking about where, what about he's hitting four like what if they throw ellie in at four probably at worst five what do you think they do defensively at third base i think he's going to third nixon's l went to the il for this move um when corresponding move tells us everything well but when um when ellie and mLean were playing in AAA together, whenever Matt McLean was shortstop, Ellie played third base. So this is actually that corner that they've done before. Ellie might be a more natural shortstop,

and maybe this comes back to that athletic piece of like, is there something with India if they want Matt McLean to be a second baseman? I think it'd be really interesting if McLean starts playing some second. Something to watch, but then what do they do with India? But I think what it is is Ellie is going to be their third baseman. Yeah, Ellie is their third baseman. Maybe they move around, and whenever Nixon's out comes back, he's out on the outfield.

That's done with. Ellie's not giving that up. Ellie is their third baseman for the rest of the season, unless they did. Now, here's a more funky one, is what if they said, we want Ellie to be our shortstop, we want McLean to be our second baseman for the rest of the season unless they did now here's a we're funky one is what if they said we want ellie to be our shortstop we want mclean to be our second baseman and then jonathan india flips over to third base like that's a possibility he doesn't i don't think he has the arm for that i don't think so either so they're gonna have to figure it out that's why i think

they're just safe selfishly i want i have like five uh middle infielders in in my uh main and i would just love it for mclean to play third third, but I don't think in all these commutations and permutations that McLean ends up at third. No, McLean's arm I think they'd like better at second. So Ellie's got a huge arm, so he can easily play third, has been doing it. So that's my assumption of where he goes. Here's a weird thing.

So there's Chris Anacarnasio and Strand is the open question about what happens next. And while they've done a great job of putting everybody so far and Encarnacion Strand is kind of could he be the straw that breaks the camel's back in terms of where India goes or what happens with India? Also, Joey Votto is struggle bunny right now in the minors. I was really surprised to see this. He's not hitting for power and he's striking out 41 of the time how long can they rehab him 30 days right i don't know if he'd stay if he wants to do 30 days down there but it's but he obviously pushed the rehab

off remember like he was like he was like i'm not ready and so they put him back on the il and i mean he nobody knows you like you so uh i don't know if he's still not ready 114 iso he's hit the ball 1079 which is uh would put him back uh five years in terms of max ev uh 41.5 strikeout is just weird as heck for him. 15% whiff rate. I don't know. Like maybe they just find, they just, they're like,

nope, he's back on the IL, you know? I think he's actually the toughest thing here because I really wish they would just, you know, pull the rip cord because CES makes all the sense in the world to be their DH because he can play some 30,

can play some first Spencer steer has played so well and that's been my kind of caveat to jumping all in on spencer steer or ces because i don't know where vato how do you fit steer uh ellie mclean india and ces well i think it's the vato ces steers how do you make that work? Steer can also play the corner. Steer has been phenomenal. Sub 20% K rate, hitting 288, eight homers, three stolen bases. He's projecting out to be close to like an 80-80 guy, 80 run, 80 RBI. He has been so underratedly good, you can't take him out of the lineup. Also, I think he was the highest war Cincinnati Red in the month of May. You can't take him out of this lineup.

So how do they, this is why CES I think is still down if they could just I think pull the Joey Votto thing and make that go away but you can't to see I know you can't that's what I don't know how to do it. They're going to end Joey Votto's career in Cincinnati with a DFA that would be worse than the possibility of

the you know the Jonathan India moving off his position or Jonathan India being traded. Oh, my God. Who isn't more beloved than Joey Votto? Yeah. The unceremonious DFA of Joey Votto would be a horrible plot twist for the Reds. But this is really an impressive. I suppose they could fall worse behind because their pitching is not quite there.

They're 27-33. At some point, you just bring Votto back up for like a you know a farewell tour and that just means that CES maybe maybe they put Votto back on the IL he comes back off the IL doesn't know the 30 you know and then you know comes back later in the season when someone else has heard or I don't know like it's that is I think the the last great mystery about the reds but and if the reds are that that's a problem you could just not play every day that's an option yeah you could be a bent yeah but see the problem is also it's like they've got how many guys can you have that can play first base you already have steer you have ces like you've got all these guys

the india is kind of a first baseman yeah i'd be curious if they made a move in that direction if maybe they changed positionally some stuff. But also something that'll be interesting to watch is if they treat CES from the school of hitting prospects in what they did with like Ellie. They pushed him this whole time. CES is like three weeks behind, if you remember. He had like three weeks at the beginning of the season.

Maybe they've got a set amount of at-bats that they want these guys to get. And they've got a two or three week-bats that they want these guys to get. And they've got a two- or three-week window. Because I don't see how much longer they can keep him in the minors in Justify, but they've got this roster crunch that maybe they're buying themselves two or three weeks between the development of what they want him to do in the minors and where Joey Votto's rehab recovers. It's a great problem to have if you're a Reds fan and you're a Reds team,

but it's frustrating to see Ellie as if you're a Reds fan and you're a Reds team, but it is, it's frustrating to see Ellie as long as he was in the minors and Christian and Carnacion Strand still sit down there when, you know, in 300 hitting 10 homers over the last 30 days. I mean, he's been a monster as well. One question that occurs to me when you look at the standings,

2733, when you talk to, when you're, when you listen to us talk about what we think is going to happen with this team. I think one of the is going to happen with this team, I think one of the big questions is, is this team good? Because if this team is good, then you don't really want to have Votto up to not play. You'd rather, I think, have Encarnacion Strand up to play first right now than Joey Votto.

Two different players, too, by the way. Chase Raitt is astronomically worrisome about ces and joey vato has always been a patient so it is very interesting maybe they could hang out together are they hanging out together where's they should mold become one play yeah exactly i don't know they should become yeah vato's in triple a maybe maybe they could uh figure something out but uh you know i i look at this uh this rotation you know, Graham Ashcroft is something that my model really likes, but he's obviously a two-pitch pitcher with flaws. I think Hunter Green is an ace, and I think he's growing into it. I think another pitch would be good for him, but he's doing, like, I wonder what Spencer Strider would do in Cincinnati.

You know, like, it might look a lot like Hunter Green, actually. You know, although Atlanta's a little bit hitter bit hitter friendly you know there's some similarities there between those two guys that i i think that i'm gonna call hunter green and ace i'm gonna call ashcraft a project i'm gonna call luke weaver the veteran um that's the veteran hangers on i'll call lodolo the possible two three that took a step back. Wild card. The wild card. I'm going to call Williamson a back-end guy.

I think he could have some Wade Miley-esque success by doing cutter change. And then new entrant, Andrew Abbott. Yeah. Who had a really nice debut. The model doesn't love his fastball, but the model is a little bit biased against lefties. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but we did not platoon adjust in stuff plus. That happens in pitching plus.

So there's a possible, there's a little bias against lefties, but still, 90 stuff plus on the fastball. I don't think it's a great fastball. He does have a great breaking ball, and he locates it well. And that might be enough to be at least a you know a mid mid rotation guy like think about it how much of a league this is a slider league he's got a great slider and he can locate it or he's got a breaking

ball and he can locate it it might be called a curve um and that might be good enough you know uh to there's a lot of guys who have success with that as their basis. Didn't get a lot of swinging whiffs in this first game. I think he had 10 total. Something to watch, too. This is something I'm going to pay attention to that I think we saw very early on with, like, Taj Bradley, Tanner Bybee, and how it adjusts was Andrew Abbott. You can kind of see, like, with how dominant that big breaking curve. They call it, you know, the curve. there's a sweeper in there as well.

Yeah. And how he adjusts us, but like how that would be difficult in the minors for guys to deal with. And you could see it in the first end of the majors. He wasn't getting whiffs on the curve ball, 11%, nine swings, only one whiff, but eight called strikes. It ended a 39% CSW. So look at the whiff rate garbage, but called strikes and whiffs huge, huge.

That was the biggest one because guys weren't ready on how to approach that curve ball. So my point is, is what happens when you're not getting a bunch of swinging whiffs and then the league adjust to the curve ball guys know how to start looking for it more. And he was a 60% fastball guy. I just don't know what that's going to look like.

A key throws better strikes than a guy like Brandon fought did, but we're also seeing what's happening with Bryce Miller and what's going to happen. That's a big adjustment period there too, where it's a great fastball, but the secondaries, you know, don't scare people as much.

Like he's throwing strikes with these, which you weren't seeing from Fott and we're not necessarily seeing from Bryce Miller, which is a good sign. But like, how is this going to mix when there is a better feel for who Andrew Abbott is? I love his ability to throw for strikes, but he gave up like eight homers

in a short stint in AAA. I'm worried about fly balls in that ballpark. And I'm worried about like what level the strikeouts are going to be but that's me it's me doing the you know the cold water thing on him it was an awesome debut guy gave up one hit i mean it's crazy okay he didn't get a bunch of page though if you want to look it's like negative it's a it's bad vertical movement on all those pitches yeah we'll have to see i thought his fastball it had more velo than Eric Lauer's four-seamer, but it had that sort of like,

how are guys not hitting this vibe when I was watching it? It looked like a surprisingly hittable fastball. Brewers have been bad against lefties all season. Second worst WRC plus as a team, 71 actually. So I'm not trying to say that's the reason why he was good in this outing, but they're horrible in that split as much as that could possibly matter i thought the command of the curveball was a little bit inconsistent he missed pretty badly i think with one to joey weimer that went to the third deck but it was foul by about 20 feet so that could be a problem if he's not locating that consistently on it yeah yeah so i

mean the park always scares us away from the more mid and back-end rotation guys. Maybe Abbott's the kind of mid-rotation starter that's a little better than average in terms of the strikeout rate, and that makes him pretty appealing for fantasy. But if I'm comparing him to Reese Olsen and A.J. Smith-Shavar and Brian Wu and the guys we were talking about on the Monday episode,

he's definitely behind Smith-Shavar. He's short- term maybe ahead of Wu because I think the way the Mariners might use Wu could make him pretty frustrating whereas Abbott has job security. I think Abbott versus Reese Olsen is the more fair sort of toss up and Reese Olsen's home park gives you so much more

buffer. Olsen is a stuffist with bad command and Abbott gives me a little bit more of the command and less stuff vibe let me let me push back on the aj smith shaver one just for a second because this is a good because i was just asking this question uh earlier today is i think this is like i think the stuff is better for smith shaver but i don't think there's a guarantee that he sticks in a rotate i know they're putting him in friday but this and this comes back to my mix of trying to figure out how the hell teams are.

That was sort of my read first, too. I thought Wu and Smith-Shavar were going to be glue guys rather than necessarily rotation mainstays. And I've had a bad read on how teams are approaching. I thought Mason Miller never had a shot at coming up as early as he did with 30 innings, and then bam, he's in the rotation. Smith-Shavauver i have a hard time believing at his age level and where he's gone that they are going to just give him

a rotation spot and he's running with it the reds have essentially given abit 68 innings last year they brought him up to be a long relief guy to help the bullpen smith chauver that's how i read it yeah he pitched two and one third against the diamondbacks. He was good. His curveball all over the place. He couldn't command it. Slider looked good. It's really big. Yeah. And fastball looked good on the command.

His first strikeout was against Corbin Carroll. This is all great. I don't get the vibes that they are going to hand the rotation spot rest of season to him. So I think this is Smith-Shavar with good stuff who might be in and out of spot starts versus Andrew Abbott, who they are handing a rotation spot to the rest of the year. So that's why I think that the only, the only pushback I can give you on that read, which I agreed with and was my first read is that the corresponding move was

Soroka getting sent down. And I suppose the way that you could be right is that Max Freed comes back. They just moved him to the 60 day IL. That's not a good sign. I think that was, that was retro. the way that you could be right is that Max Fried comes back. They just moved him to the 60-day IL. That's not a good sign. I think that was retchable. He was already out for half the season. That's like the DeGrom one. Everyone's freaking out about DeGrom,

but he can come back in three weeks. Now we have a better sense of when he might be back. That's just how the roster works. That's how you wanted a roster. They needed the slot maybe for Seshava to put him on the 40 man. They got Dodd and Schuster and maybe

they intertwined those guys. I mean maybe I'm making too much about him not being able to give you starts all season. Or maybe they just

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FedEx, where now meets next. Yeah, that's kind of how I feel. He's down and the stuff wasn't there. And I don't know when he's going to get it it but until he gets the stuff back he's not back is that a is that a worry is that enough of a bet while you go with a guy who can pitch the rest of the season and assuming that shaver can't keep it that's like my question to you guys with that is we all agree how do you want to use smith shaver's innings best do you want his stuff wanted to be a starter for like two months and then not and then a reliever in the in the playoffs yeah i think that's the idea i think

that's the team context but like we all agree smith chauver stuff is the best here is the bet but is it enough that we don't think he's going to be able to stay in the rotation to take abbott or is his stuff too good we say screw it we don't think about too much of the future we know we got two or three starts let's bet on him over the season on Abbott. Because I think that is a decision that a lot of people are going to have to make. I'm just one foot in front of the other. I see them both having rotation spots. I like Smith-Schrauber's stuff better. I'm just going to think about the now. And I'm just going to take Smith-Schrauber over Abbott. I think that's how I look at it too. I'm playing more like a month at a time or even a couple of weeks at a time

because within the chaos, like we were talking at the beginning of the show about Ellie and the range of outcomes for... Morton could go down. Elder could go down. Anybody can go down. Yeah, the range of outcomes for an elite prospect, a guy that was number one on some lists

and top five on everybody's list, there's a pretty wide range of outcomes for a player that good. The range of outcomes for any of these pitchers is much wider. And I mean, for Smith Shover, just the fact that he's in the big leagues this year at all is a, is a big surprise.

But I think because of what the Braves did last year with Harris and Grissom, that really makes me comfortable believing that they see him as their best option right now. But as we saw with Grissom. That really makes me comfortable believing that they see him as their best option right now. But as we saw with Grissom this year, at the beginning of the season, nothing's permanent. If they don't like what they see,

if they feel like a veteran is a better option, they'll push that button and they'll make that adjustment if he's not ready. So there's a wide range of outcomes. So if you think the stuff is better, play for the stuff. In terms of my model,

I default towards fastballs. I like guys with really good fastballs. I think that some of the guys that we've seen, some of the outcomes that we've seen this year have really flown from, you know, who had a good fastball. I know that Bryce Miller is a bit of an exception to that, but Bobby Miller,

Taj Bradley, you know, there's, there's some really good fastballs among the rookies that's that have succeeded the difference between sishmaver and andrew abbott for me is the fastball and one thing i throw into to your point like and you were at you were kind of like creating this pseudo like hey there could be this like consensus guy and there's nothing to read yuri perez could be gone in a week trevor Rogers just had, I think, like 15 swinging whiffs in his rehab start. Uri Perez is really struggling

with the command, I think. But he's getting away with a lot of stuff. Uri Perez, I think from a stuff perspective, is like my favorite that's up of all the guys. I would bet on him. But all of that said, the Marlins could just kind of just say, all right, you did a great job, kid. You know, whoop, take

it easy. We'll talk to you later. And when Trevor Rogers comes back and they could send him down, so it doesn't matter the prospect pedigree and how well they've gone in. I think it's, I mean, just to, we're going off track a little bit here. I don't know.

We always do that. That's, we could just call this the off track show. Project off track. But yeah, I mean, I think Braxtonrett would go down first braxton garrett's been pretty good i don't know i mean i don't think yuri's going anywhere so i i know what you're going with it so you're probably actually right i think this is just the dilemma edward cabrera i has re-established dude edward cabrera before me see, what's this one? Remember our Edward Cabrera show like a month ago?

Yes, dude. 11 walks in May for five starts. Before 517, he'd never had consecutive starts with less than like five walks or something. It was pretty incredible. And then in 517 against the Nationals, six strikeouts, zero walks. At nationals six strikeouts zero walks at colorado six strikeouts one walk he did have some regression at angels five strikeouts four walks

at oakland 10 and 1 are these bad teams that he's not walking nationals rockies and a's is it a matchup thing it's so so tempting, though, because you're like, if he could command the ball, he's starting to do it. Yet another, you know, dude with a capital D. He's had, in his career, Edward Cabrera has had two months so far where he's had a walk rate under 10%. End of last season, so September, October, lumped together, 9.8%. It was in 27 and two-thirds innings. And just now in May, 9.4%.

So it's happened twice. So two out of the last three. It's a bit of a bit of a marker. I mean, what did we, what did we find when we were looking through comps for, you know, we found Daniel Cabrera, the worst players. We found all the guys that we used to like, but what could be good that weren't good. What was the number we were using? We're using is like 14% walk rate.

Oh, yeah, God. We were using the career number because the career number is a problem. The larger sample is a concern. But he'll play so much better at 9.8. If he could get it to 9.8, even 10, then he's on a different list. He gets different comps.

Then he's just a high-injury-risk guy because he's had a bunch of arm stuff. Then he kicks the control concerns, and he's that electric guy that could come up and be a top 10 starter if he's healthy. But if he's healthy, he's carrying a ton of weight there, and you have to value him more like a 30 to 40 range starter. Let me ask something. Who would you rather have rest of the season, AJ Smith-Shaver or Yuri Perez? Yuri has more innings, has a really nice home park, and a really nice fastball.

So I'm going to go with Yuri. Okay. It sounded like you were going in another direction because you were saying like, I mean, 2-5 ERA and the struggles. Yeah, well, I just wanted to point out that Uri Perez has a 90 location plus and where Cabrera has 100. This is actually a really difficult... So, you know, I've brought this up many times

on the show over the years. Even though the Verducci effect has been debunked, the management of young pitchers hasn't really evolved much past that. As far as the increases and the reasoning is, well, it's just how much more we give them. The publicly stated reasons at least haven't changed a whole lot.

The Marlins are 5 over 500. They've been fortunate in that. If you look at their Pythagorean record, they should be closer to 500, if not below 500. 8-2 in their last 10. Good young team. Needs bats. Has some pitching depth. I've made the case before

that they should trade pitching as soon as they have enough healthy pitching to deal someone and make the offense better. I have some sourcing that says that Rodgers has been on the block. All of that is normal and fine and great. But if you have to call the shots with Uri Perez and the playoffs are a possibility for you and his long-term future is important, all of these things are a real decision. So if you're Kim Eng and you're in that front office and you're trying to come up with a good plan, what is the smartest thing you can do with Uri?

Do you back off him as a starter and use him for an inning or two at a time at the big league level? I don't think sending him down and having him throw at AAA does a whole lot. Yes, you can control the innings without hurting your big league club that way and you have the options, so it's there. But isn't there a case to be made that if you're going to manipulate the innings in a way just to keep them fresh for later in the year that you skip them on off days and use them in a relief role for a while while everyone's healthy the all-star game the gambit right send them see that

for sure for the all-star game you know basically don't pitch him for two weeks and then and then ramp him back up so he takes like three weeks off in the middle of the season. Just for context, Uri Perez, 78 innings in 2021, 77 innings in 2022, and already at 55 innings this year. The sort of established number that we've sort of seen is like kind of plus 20%, plus 20, plus 30 innings. seen is like kind of plus 20 percent plus 20 plus 30 innings so you let's say you have 105 innings uh for yuri perez and for smith chauver uh you've got um something similar but minus 10 innings right because he had 68 innings last year i thought i said said. Smith-Shawver had 68.2 innings last year and has used up 28, 35, 37 of them.

So you could get Smith-Shawver, I think, to 90 innings. And you could get Uri, I think, to 100, 110. Same kind of problem, though, for both of these teams. And maybe your option is to say, well, if you're the Marlins, we don't really know if we're going to be a playoff caliber team come August, but our best chance of even being in that position when we can do something about it at the deadline is to use him now when he's healthy and just max him out

and then say we hit August 8th or whatever day he runs out of innings. He's gone to the pen. He's in the pen or he's just shut down for the season and we we have enough pitching and we're going to get by without him I don't know slower they go to six man I mean they could just do their thing do the three week move to maybe a six man

towards the back end of the year and then like you guys are saying if you're going to make a real run maybe it is back into the bullpen because you wouldn't want to do that now and then try to – you can't stretch back out. It's like once you do it, once you open that, you're done. Like if they move him in a bullpen role, then you've got to go through stretching,

and I think that's a bad thing for a young guy. So I think they're going to work it through. But it does open up this conversation that like – But if you're from Marlins and you make it to the playoffs, you're going to want to have him in the playoffs. I can't even mentally have the the like rational conversation around like okay well you know we can get into maybe one fit just best players go out there like these guys are professional athletes they're doing that like i i get there's arm constraint issues and stuff like that but i

can't i can't even have a normal conversation with if you're winning and you have this great guy you can't send them away and you can't you can't cost your team and all of this just off of making sure you don't go 15 especially when the science isn't necessarily there right it's crazy it's crazy to me i think with with yuri perez one difference is that smith schauver had 68 innings and then the year before had like i don't know he had two in Major League Baseball, you know, in professional baseball. That must have been the year he was drafted, so maybe he had some college innings.

But Uri Perez has hit a level that he's met twice in a row, you know? So he's at least made it to 75 innings twice in a row. So I think he could make it to, you might be able to push him to 120. But even if you're pushing him to 120, you know, that gives you 75 more innings this year. That doesn't give you enough to get through the whole year. Gives you 15 more turns to the rotation

at five innings apiece. And you need about 22 turns to the rotation to get through the rest of the season but what if you six man it what you know that's what they should do i think that's that's the move that's what i would choose for now because someone's gonna get hurt and if no one gets hurt someone could get traded and you can solve the problem a little later you kind of defer it to a future week or a future month and the problem problem with six-manning is usually that you have an ace that you don't want to have less of. And I'm not saying that St. Alcantara is bad.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying this rotation is actually fairly good all the way through. So it's not like the Mets where if the Mets go to a six-man, they get less of Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer and more of Tyler McGill. With the Marlins, they have so many young guys that maybe they'll even pitch better on more rest. Maybe that'll help Sandy. And then you might have like a really dominant pitching rotation that's that's that makes sense one through six you know yeah so a lot to be determined there but the innings concerns for both aj smith shaver and yuri perez are very real based on what we've seen in the past but shaver i mean he's a

high school kid drafted just a couple years ago no so that high that's that high school year where he has two years he has like three innings in the complex smith shaver how much does that even matter how much does your high school workload matter if you're trying to go if you're going back two or three years looking at workload and one of those years the senior year high school you threw over 100 innings that year does that mean you can go over that because you've done it before and you didn't break i went to college game last night i saw stanford uh beat texas a&m the guy who pitched the last four innings was the best pitcher for Stanford this year, Quinn Matthews, I believe his name was. I'm more sure about the first name because we were yelling Quinn.

But Quinn had pitched Friday three or four innings, and it was Monday, and he pitched four innings, I think. That's college baseball for you. I mean, look at the—arguably would be the number one pick if Dylan Cruz wasn't there at LSU. Paul Skeens. Paul Skeens, they let him throw 100 in the eighth or something. 124 in the ninth.

He was in the ninth. He went almost— 124 pitches? 124 pitches, and it was into the ninth. And this is a guy that is going to be the, he would be number one if Dylan Cruz wasn't there, but he'll be number two. He'll be the number two overall pick.

And just think about, and that is actually one of those weird things to think about in pitching development. Like, I think the Nationals have that pick. Are the Nationals going to want to taper things down with the usage that's going on in college? It's a both side argument of like, maybe high school and college usage is part

of the reason they want to really baby. But also it could be something to say, well, these guys have had the workload before. Like you can press these guys a little bit harder than, you know, these really stringent markers that you guys set for innings and amount of pitches and stuff like these guys can do it. But I know it's the fear of injury and long-term development and stuff. But the Paul Skeen stuff was wild.

I just think it's awful. There's so much at stake for pitchers to stay healthy, get drafted, get that big bonus, and get their professional career started. And for the college coach, it's like, hey, I just want to win. I don't think there's a major leaguer that's thrown 120 this year, right? Not even close. It'd be a short list if anyone's done it. I haven't seen anyone do it.

It's crazy. Yeah. A couple of things that were on the rundown. We'll fly through these in rapid fire fashion. Lucan Baker is getting a look in St. Louis. He was on a 54 home run pace at AAA. That's with a 162 game schedule, which they don't play at that level.

He's already listed by Fangraphs as a DH. Welsh, I know a guy can't play a spot defensively if when he's debuting in the big leagues in the right hand corner of his Fangraphs page, it just says DH. But is there enough hit tool for Baker to actually get to that power consistently and be an impact big leaguer despite

his defensive limitations yeah i mean the only other place he could play is first but they kind of got that short up in st louis it's kind of a little bit covered so they don't have to you know think too much into it um you know like when he first came out he hit 300 in his first professional um stint kind of thought that that was going to happen, but then he failed to be over 250 for the rest of his minor league career until this year where he just started hitting. Sometimes the things click late. He's got monstrous power.

Three hits, I think, in that first stint here. So there's something there, but I also think it's the same level of Juan Ypez. It's like that. Like Juan Yes has a little bit more defensive ability i think he's actually a better hitter but there is pure raw power to luke and baker um he's somewhere between maybe the crons you know kevin cron and he can go play in japan to maybe cj cron and it working out like somewhere in that spectrum. That's a Sam Lewis too. 26 year old righty.

But you look at Nolan Gorman as a guy that you don't want necessarily playing defense every day. Alec Burleson who's been an up and down guy isn't really a good outfielder. Yepez who you mentioned. This is a team that's supposed to pick it everywhere and they're starting to draw people out that don't pick it anymore. Having other guys with similar limitations also makes

it less likely this could work out but they gotta they gotta get any moises gomez who's been kind of kicking around but he he just um he like was one of the minor league home run leaders last year kind of started out slow he just hit 13 homers in may he started back up again wow um that's a that's one of those guys that like i feel like gomez would maybe be a better bet than luke and baker like you literally only have baker up for the bat and i don't know how um i think it didn't newt bar go on the il was that the was that it was on the il i think that one hurt you know when it happened like i think ours new new bar is hurt i think you know back contusion this sounds to me like a short-term move yeah that does uh henry davis got bumped up to triple a now you

want a player that we can now that ellie's up if we want a player that we want to hit the table for and say hey wait let's get a look at henry davis pirates still hanging around in the nl central you know come on is is this going to happen? Are we a few weeks away from possibly seeing Henry Davis? We could use another boost in the catcher pool. You know what I want to see that's going to show up fairly soon on Fangraphs is AAA Max EV from Davis. I think that would be a somewhat relevant piece of information

because we have the 70-70 power uh grade from fangraphs and a 50 60 game power i want to see some actual numbers on that i would love to see that um but uh what's really interesting to me is the guy that has a 35 45 hit hit tool grade on fan graphs has an 18.7% strikeout rate with a 7.4 swing strike rate Henry Davis does in double a I mean that's pretty good for a guy with no hit tool also interesting they brought him up uh to play with I mean before the season everybody only cared about Andy Rodriguez no one cared cared about Henry Davis. I still like Indy. Indy's been struggling, hitting under.250, four homers, four stolen bases.

Strikeout rate's still fine. But Henry Davis was playing a little bit left field in AA. So you're very curious to see the mixture of what's going to go on between Indy and Henry Davis. And if he beats Indy up. Because Indy can play a lot of positions too. Well, that's what we thought. I always thought if you were going to say one of these guys was going to play at a position it's like that's indy

like let indy go play in the middle infield and henry davis can be the catcher but it might be the opposite and it'll just be interesting to see like that's right when when one is catching the others maybe playing in the field somewhere at triple a so far andy has only played catcher i do know that part of that has been uh and part of uh as i understand that some of the sort of struggles offensive for andy is that the real the real thing that they wanted him to work on in triple a this year was uh was the defense i mean that's that's not uh that's not uh saying anything that that is not somewhat obvious from just you know kind of he's a 45 55 field on on fan graphs you know um so that's why they played him constantly at uh at uh catcher

which is weird because it's so is henry davis the better catcher so he comes up that you're gonna see something happen here right yeah because uh maybe andy will start playing other positions because they're like no henry's the better catcher and so would we were gonna make a decision now you know what andy you're a multi guy and and no i'm saying andy is the multi guy and henry is the catcher but uh since they're both at the same position at the same level we're gonna see something there so i would watch the positional game logs almost as much as the results you know it's so fascinating and that's a going a whole thing because we got to go but like i'm so intrigued at how catchers specifically the offense can trail when they focus on defense this exact same thing happened with carson kelly and i remember him talking many hours in the day like it's really hard to prepare for both when carson kelly was

drafted by the cardinals he was an offensive bat, and he was so behind on his defense, he put all his focus in there, and his bat completely trailed behind, and it took him like two years to get that offense to catch back up to the focus that was being put on defense. I just don't feel like we see that anywhere else. The closest thing to positional players have

is when they go from being a contact hitter to trying to hit from more power and then you'll see them like struggle and and try to move through that but you don't see like fielders have offensive woes while they're learning to play another position it's just specifically catcher learning to be more of a defensive i mean at least the the announcers talk about this i don't know if I've seen a study on this, but I see announcers talk about taking your defensive struggles on the field. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And maybe it is more prevalent.

Taking your defensive struggles to the plate. That's a thing that it's like sort of collective wisdom, but it's not something I've seen necessarily studied. I think it's a thing that could happen, though. It's just it's the psychology. It's an effect of, yeah, of compounding your errors, right? You make one mistake, it turns into a few more. It gets you into a funk.

Take it to the bat. It's going to be different. People are going to vary a lot in how they cope with those micro failures and maybe some larger failures along the way. I think Davis and Rodriguez, how they're used at AAA is going to shed some light on how the Pirates might actually see them fitting in together at the big league

level. I think we could see both in the next few weeks. They're in first place as the show starts today. They're not just hanging around the NL Central. They're winning it right now. And they just swept the Cardinals. Congratulations to Pittsburgh. I mean. That's put them back in the basement.

There are weird things in this world that bring me joy. And the Pirates sweeping the cardinals just warms my heart in in it's like it's a little bit of an nl central guy over here puppy swarm videos pirates sweeping the cardinals donuts that's makes me so happy i'm sorry cardinals fans itinals fans. It's just I have to root against you. It's just the way I have to be. You were born into this. I was born into it.

I moved into it, I guess. I moved into the rivalry. All right, a couple mailbag questions real quick before we sign off. Carrie wants to know, in a league where you can pick up minor league players during the season with exciting new pop-up players, how long do you hold on to guys like Matt Mervis and Joey Weamer, guys who are getting the opportunity at the big league level?

Is it higher the pedigree, the longer the hold time? Or if you have guys like Carlos Jorge, Ben Brown, A.J. Smith-Shawver, who was in the minors at the time this question was written. Do you actually go out and take a chance on the next wave to be called up? How do you make those types of decisions? This particular league is 12 teams with 240 minor league players rostered so that gets pretty deep i mean i would just say like a higher pedigree i try to not be as turnstile especially if this is is this a keeper or yes reach okay i wasn't sure

if this was like redraft so yeah like top 50 prospects in struggles. I'm not looking to cut Matt Mervis immediately for what I would assume is a post 250 level guy that you could pick up. But in redraft, if you were holding a bunch of prospects, I would probably, you know, two or three weeks. And if you see major struggles, like Mervis would be someone you could probably move on from. And I would want to pick up some of those pitchers. I'm not sure I'm answering that super great, but like I don't want to let go of the high pedigreed rostered prospects

after two or three weeks in any keeper-based format, like Matt Mervis specifically. Yeah, Mervis is particularly tough because the gap between what you would do in a long-term league and what you would do in just a 12-team redraft league that doesn't have that sort of depth, it's a really tough call. He's fourth among rookies in barrel percentage, minimum 50-play appearances,

but he's striking out just over 33% of the time, so he's had this slow start. He's probably going to keep sitting against lefties. Waiting on that in a more shallow league is pretty frustrating. Weimer is the really tough sort of player for me to evaluate. Because he's actually useful, too. Like, he's being useful right now. I mean, six stolen bases. I mean, nine stolen bases, six homers, right?

Mm-hmm. And if you take a look at the bat over the last couple of weeks, it seems like he's made a few adjustments. It's a better stretch from him offensively. So you have this power-speed combo. It comes with a bad average right now. He's a great defensive center fielder, which has been a really pleasant surprise for me. I didn't realize he was that good

once Garrett Mitchell went down. I thought they were going to be in trouble rotating through center field, but Weimer has been fantastic out there. Will he be in trouble, though, when Garrett Mitchell comes back? That's not happening until... Well, Mitchell's coming back this year.

Yeah, probably not until next year, and if it happens, it's going to be September. I mean, I think Sal Freelick could eventually enter the equation. And then we've talked about the possibility of Churio just being one of the other big prospects that because of team need, maybe he enters the equation. And that hurts Weimer's playing time. But Tyrone Taylor's hurt again. You look at the way that team's built. I think Weimer is like solid.

And I think the growing pains you're getting in year one are not surprising, given some of the flaws we've seen. But he might be another good example of a player that because he struck out a lot in the upper levels of the minor leagues, people look past the power speed combo. I mean, 26 for 27 at double A as a base dealer last year. Sign me up. That's fantastic. But the decent power, like good power on top of that, the setup is a little odd. It's a little odd. It's so odd. It's a little odd.

It's one of the weirdest setups in the league. He looks like a little person, but he's big. He kind of does this weird little setup. He squishes in. He was worse in the AFL, and he fixed this bit. He would do the bat out more. Yeah, he does that. But he did it more prominent.

The first time I saw it, I was like, I hate this. This will never work. And then he kind of adjusted it i don't remember the specifics of who the pickups were but you know like if i was going to pick up a pitcher for a hitter i would want more sample out of the hitter especially if they'd been ranked in the top 50 now if they'd been ranked outside of the top 100 you know know, and we've got this hot young pitcher, then maybe I'd make that jump. So yes, I think pedigree matters. But then also some of the small sample numbers matter, the barrel numbers matter, you know, the swing strike rate matters. And so those things are going in all sorts of different directions for Mervis and

and Weimer. And that's that's difficult. But you can look that Mervis never uh and Weimer and that's that's difficult but you can look that Mervis never really had a swinging strike rate this high in the minor leagues um and so that should be going in a different direction and Weimer and Mervis both barrel the ball so that's good that would buy them more time on my roster you know the the more you can barrel the ball the more that I can see something that's different from the minor leagues and for what you're doing the major major leagues in a small sample, the more I can be like, okay, you know what? I'm going to wait a little bit longer to see if Mervis is going to strike out less. And I'm going to wait a little bit longer to see if Weimer, you know, Weimer's batting average is going to settle down as, because I, yes, I think he's going to whiff, but he barrels and he's fast.

Maybe there's could be a little bit more batting. If Weimer can hit 230, he's actually a pretty good prospect. I mean, he's a pretty good player. 230, 20-20? You know, yeah, I'll take that. Yeah, that works. 230, 20-30? That plays in a lot of leagues. Although, you know, as the rules have shown,

average league-wide is up, right? Compared to past years where it averages down. A 230 hurts you a little more in this environment than it did in past years. And the steals help you a little bit less in this environment with more steals out there. But there's room to move up, too, because that lineup is a land of opportunities, especially with all the injuries that we've talked about on this show. Thanks for that question, Kerry. One last question from Johnny.

Which side of a keep-forever deal do you like more? This is head-to-head categories league with OBP. Teams can keep up to seven players for as long as they want. Are you on the Michael Harris and O'Neal Cruz side or are you on the Bo Bichette side?

Welsh, I'll go to you first. Ooh, that one hurts. Well, the Michael Harris side is what makes it so difficult because his struggles are very much in everybody's face, especially for keeper leagues. I don't want to contextualize this because if I'm a winning team, there's no way I'm giving up Aubuchette

even to get two pieces with Harris' struggles. But from a pure keeper standpoint, getting O'Neal Cruz and Michael Harris, I think O'Neal Cruz can still be an absolute stud and compete against Boba Shett once healthy. And then also getting the gamble on Michael Harris for him to rebound on what he was. I would lean on that side,

but that is really tough because Boba Shett is Boba Shett. I mean, that's top 20 dynasty keeper. Cruz has a little ways to go to be that, but then you're also getting your second bet. I think that is a trade on dynasty keeper. Cruz has a little ways to go to be that, but then you're also getting your second bet. I think that is a trade on both sides. It would be difficult.

I guess I lean O'Neill Cruz thinking about keeper, but no way I'm trading Boba Shett if I'm winning. Yeah, the stolen bases seem to be dropping out of Boba Shett's, you know, bag of tricks. At the old age of 25. Yeah. And so if I recalibrate and think of him as a 325 to 30 homer hitting 5 to 10 stolen base guy, yeah, I still want him. I'm going to take him.

This is a classic, I think. It's hard when the upside is good but you know what i'm not sure the upside for either of the two players you're getting is a 330 homer hitting five stolen base shortstop i know that cruises yes you can hit that home run mark you can surpass that stolen base mark i don't think o''Neal Cruz is ever going to hit 300. Ooh, DVR, are you going to go with me? I feel like you're dancing around here on video. Harris has been unlucky.

One note, Harris has been, I think, a fair amount of what's going on with Harris is just bad. It's just unlucky. I thought that, yeah, I talked to, I think, Keith Law. It was a Friday episode of the Athletic Baseball Show, and then I saw a couple of Braves games over the weekends, and I saw Harris smoke two balls that should have been hits that weren't. I was like, wow, this is the micro sample validating what I thought I saw.

It's the same as last year. He's walking more. He's doing a little better in that department. If Michael Harris was still hurt in this 37 games of what looks like bad luck hadn't happened, you'd feel a lot differently about this trade. If you're only looking back at last year and say, hey, a 10% barrel rate, elite center fielder, one of the best teams in the league. I'm going to get my 300 average from the Harris side.

Room for growth in terms of K rate and walk rate. We've seen one of those things already improve. I think when we talked about Harris throughout last season. I saw a lot of Boba Shett's approach with him. I was like, okay, this is power speed. It's coming from the left side. Not all pull. It's not perfect, but it works.

This is a really good player. I think I would take this. I'm almost tempted to say that you could maybe even squeeze out more for Boba Shett right now. But I think it's a pretty fair trade because I think both Harris and Cruz would be in that keep seven group. What I'm really curious to know is if the team that's trading the two players actually has too many keepers. That's why they're trying to pull this off. And if that's the case,

you can definitely leverage getting something else back out of that team. Also, the missing information is who does the second keeper push off of yours? Right. Who is not on your keeper list by taking right who's not on your yeah that is very important second one back yeah it is important because michael harris is we don't i don't want to call michael harris a slam dunk last year this is a slam dunk uh top seven keeper but where things are at we don't want to say he's a 100 slam dunk keeper so who does he push off michael and and they're in in these keep seven situations these small small keeper situations, I don't know, I've put together some packages that you might be like,

what, you gave up these five players for this one? And it's like, yeah, the one is better than the five is my keeper situation. That's all I care about. I'm just trying to get to seven keepers. I do lean on best player in trades, and Bichette is the best player. But this one particularly, I got to stick on the one. It's closer than a lot.

It is very close. Really, really tough. Make it two votes on the O'Neill-Harris side, one on the Eno side with Bichette. Yeah, I'm sorry. Sorry to go against you, buddy. Send donuts next time if you want me to vote for you. I can be persuaded with deep-fried sugar.

We are going to go. On our way out the door, a reminder that you can get a subscription to The Athletic for $2 a month at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. On reminder that you can get a subscription to the athletic for $2 a month at the athletic.com slash rates and barrels on Twitter. You can find, you know, at,

you know, Sarah's can find Welsh at, is it the Welsh? You can find me at Derek and Riper. That's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.