Rates & Barrels - Project Prospect - Post-Hype Bats to Target

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

DVR and Welsh are looking at post-hype prospect bats to target that have exhausted their prospect eligibility, plus Ceddane Rafaela's outlook and more. Rundown Ceddane Rafaela - :57 Rafael vs P. Meadows - 5:17 Kyle Harrison - 7:09 Miguel Vargas - 13:46 Brett Baty - 21:45 Pete Alonso potential trade - 27:23 Matt Mervis - 29:30 Henry Davis - 34:56 Estevan Florial - 38:05 Easier in Triple-A? - 46:40 Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic for just $1/mo for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Check out this offer from our sponsors: Give ZBiotics a try for yourself. Go to zbiotics.com/RATES to get 15% off your first order when you use RATES at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Tuesday, August 29th. Derek Van Ryper here with Chris Welsh. Eno Saris trying to troubleshoot his internet. So all the best to Eno as he tries to deal with modern technology in a way that probably is overwhelming, to be completely honest. But lots of ground for us to cover today. We got a promotion in Boston. We got Kyle Harrison pitching really, really well in his second big league start. Then we're going to focus on some players who have used their prospect eligibility over the course of 2023 that we actually like going into 2024.

Also a couple of mailbag questions, time permitting, but let's begin with that promotion in Boston. Sedan Raffaella up now for the Red Sox. Expectations here I think are pretty clear for me, Welsh. I think it's just steady playing time he is a great defensive center fielder this is a team that needs a center fielder I think the bigger questions are all focused on what you get out of the box from Saddam Rafaela at the plate so looking at what he has done and having watched him a bit on video, what do you see Rafaela bring to the table initially

as he tries to make adjustments against big league pitching for the first time? Yeah, I mean, one of the biggest things is going to be the ability to be a five-tool player out there to compete for power. He's going to be able to run. He made an interesting adjustment, and I would love to know the full-on logic behind what it was, but in AA this year, you know, he dominated. 294, stole 30 bases in 60 games, so every other game he's stealing a base. He only had six homers, which was fine, and he just, it was very reminiscent of,

maybe like a number two hitter. You'd love a guy to walk a little bit more if you're leading off, but then he comes up to AAA, and it just kind of flipped, and he started hitting for even more power. So in less games than AA, he more than doubled his home run rate, had 14 homers in 48 games, and then only stole six bases. Strikeout percentage stayed the same. Batting average went up. And one of the biggest changes you saw was a lowered ground ball rate. So he was definitely getting the ball in the air more,

which is obviously going to be representative of more power. Just makes really good contact. And, you know, I've been thinking about this, and I'm trying to remember who it was. I saw somebody make this comp of like a Rafaela to Michael Harris type of comp the other day. And I was kind of sitting on that like, oh, that's interesting,

because I think there's something to that. I'm not sure if everybody was really bought into the power potential that was going to be there with Harris. And to be fair, I think Rafaela has shown it off, you know, 20, 20 homers in the minor so far,

he almost had a 20, he just fell short of a 20, 40 season in the minor leagues, but he even stopped pulling the ball as much in AAA. So it's kind of a weird AAA profile overall, but I think he's got a phenomenal approach. I think he's going to make a ton of contact. I don't know where the power numbers are going to be.

I tend to kind of think the power numbers are going to maybe come backwards a little bit, but if Boston's going to let him steal, I think he's going to be able to push for five outfielder 12-team leagues. He's someone I'm speculating on you know we've had a couple of these guys like you know parker meadows has come up and has been decent but rafaela to me is a player that he can probably push three tools to four tools if the homers get

there and score runs i don't think he's gonna hit high in the lineup but i think the batting average is going to be there and we already you know saw him get to have an at-bat. And I think it was yesterday. And he's going to be starting today as we're recording this. So if Rafaela gets regular playing time, he's going to be valuable the rest of this year. And I think this is actually probably one of the better case scenarios for outfielders

with Pereira up, Pete Crow Armstrong just kind of sitting. We don't know what's going to go on with that. I actually think this is one of the better case scenarios of a player we could get at this stretch. If you want to make a prospect eligible run here, uh, because I just like what he does. I like the, uh, the lower ground ball rates.

I like him getting the ball in the air and I'm hopeful that, you know, 25% line drive rate is going to push doubles in so far this year. And he's going to be able to really contribute for fantasy for the next whatever it is, four weeks. Yeah, I think there's a lot of ways this can go right. I am curious to see how the hit tool holds up against top level pitching. I think we've wondered on this show throughout the season, what's the overall quality of pitching, maybe at AA and AAA. AAA in particular has been getting picked on for the last couple of years, thanks to

a lot of pitching injuries at the big league level. Some of the guys that would be stuck at AAA are in the big league, so there's a bit of a gap. The quality of the pitching at that level constantly being questioned. But yeah, you talk about a guy that fits a roster really well, too. I think that's where Rafaela kind of pops for me. It's just that clear path to what should be a near everyday role the rest of the way so i'm with you on the 12 team five outfielder sort of appeal you know he's probably a top 75 player at the

position upon arrival because of the ways he can help would you with some of the possible downside would you rather rafaela or parker meadows right now that's tough uh meadows in some ways meadows feels like a slightly more finished product to me so i think that's probably that's probably a case where i would want i'd probably want parker meadows you know being a year older having seen it a little bit longer in the upper levels but i think you're playing long-term keeper and dynasty i think raffaella maybe brings that extra upside i'd be looking for. So I'm split if it's a redraft versus a keeper situation. Yeah, I'm kind of with you.

I mean, Parker Meadows so far in his seven games, he's got a homer, he's got a stolen base. He's hitting for fine average, but he's striking out a lot, 35% strikeout rate. He walks. So, you know, it's kind of an extreme outcome at bat every single time. Like something's happening, you know, it's kind of a, it's an extreme outcome at bat every single time. Like something's happening, you know, he's striking out, he's getting on base, not a lot of ground out type of things.

You're getting extreme outcomes. I tend to think Rafaela would be more impactful in most scenarios. Just with this though, I kind of wonder, are you going to continuously hit him lower? Meadows can maybe just peak himself up a little bit more. They have, I think, probably more of an incentive to play Meadows every single day than mess around with roster stuff like Boston would that Rafaela might not get every single day starts

where Meadows, I think, really could. So I think maybe by a hair, I might go with Meadows as well. But I wouldn't want both, but I would try to make it work with Rafaela. Or if I missed't want both, but I would try to make it work with Rafaela. Or if I missed on Meadows, I would definitely try to make it work with Rafaela. Yeah, I think that's a good way to look at it too. Meadows getting scooped up in a lot of leagues this past weekend. Rafaela probably going to be one of the bigger pickups

and will likely come back up on the Friday rundown this week as well. Let's talk about a pitching performance from a rookie that we thought we'd see earlier in the season. But performance up to this point was not what we really expected. I'm going to say Kyle Harrison has taken a 1-0 lead against my analysis so far. I was really concerned about the way they were cutting his starts very short in AAA. And maybe I got PCL'd. You know, I tweeted this earlier today.

I don't think you're ever too old to get PCL'd. The league is awful to pitch in. It's wreaking havoc, of course, on offensive numbers. It always has. So you factor in automated balls and strikes and other variables that have made AAA more of a nightmare this year. You begin to think you can't really trust

much of anything that's happening at the AAA level. That's probably a step or two too far. But Kyle Harrison went six and a third scoreless innings, 11 Ks, all of that season highs, of course, just three hits allowed. And his start on Monday night. I mean, he went five innings one time at AAA in 20 starts with Sacramento. So what's happening here? Is this some of the stuff that Eno has brought to the table where the game planning at the big league level is just better, right?

Throwing Patrick Bailey, who's become, in short order, one of the best defensive catchers league-wide, even though he himself is a rookie. Is it just some of those things? And Harrison maybe always having good stuff. The Ks have been there all along my my reservations about Harrison and redraft leagues were not a a long term this guy's never going to be a viable fantasy starter take I'm not there either but I'm surprised to see his best start

of the season come in late August at the big league level in start number two no less yeah it would be beneficial if Eno was here for this one specifically, too, because of his obvious connection with the Giants. And but, you know, let me add a couple of things here with what you were saying. First off, I don't think the worry with Harrison is like unwarranted. Like when you say like you got PCL, like maybe a part of it. But he was a little bit of a different situation. I mean, his first outing of the year, he couldn't get through a full inning, got blown up.

He didn't hit five innings until June 15th, and that was the only time he ever pitched five innings in the minors. While on top of it, he was walking, guys. His first five starts, he never walked less than two batters, and again, he was only going like three innings he had three of those five starts with four walks so his command seemed to be all over the place yes there's the pcl element of you know elevation screwing with some results and i think over time it kind of tapered back down a little bit but my worry early on was the stuff what just wasn't there it wasn't

about oh man you know he's the velos are about, oh man, you know, he's, the VLOs are great and the command is looking okay, but he's getting hit and stuff. It was like, no, he can't go deep. He doesn't seem to be hitting any of his spots against, you know, AAA talent. That had much bigger concerns on how that was going to readjust. But then you get to what's going on now. Yeah, I wonder if it is a, you know, Giants, major leagues,

they know the better way to approach the pitcher. Or if this also was just part of the game plan, because, you know, him only going three or four innings the whole season could have been built up for him to be able to get real major league innings. I mean, it's a little counterintuitive because you would hope, when you get a guy and you want him to go five or six, you'd hope he had gone, you know, like five or six a couple of times in AAA. That wasn't happening. So I think probably the safest thing to assume is the major league adjustments. But we've also seen this with pitchers before. I immediately

thought of like Michael Kopech. Now that's not a good story now, but Michael Kopech. Now, that's not a good story now, but Michael Kopech was such a disaster those two years before he came up. I remember seeing him in spring camps, and he was throwing side sessions and trying to get secondaries to go, and felt like the fastball velo was coming back just a tiny bit. He had nothing on a changeup, nothing on breaking pitches. Results weren't there, and I think a lot of people were just kind of ready to maybe call it off. And then you get to the majors and it was like his first start. All of a sudden, if I'm remembering correctly, it was like, I think he was throwing like a slider and it was like a bunch. And we were like, Whoa, what's happening? And he's getting strikeouts and he just off speed. He looked, he wasn't just throwing a basketball 70% of the time

he was doing pitching. And it was something we really hadn't seen and this was a little reminiscent of that though this was just like more of his stuff his stuff was on display he almost threw fastball 70 of the time in this last start where he had 11ks he got 12 swinging whiffs seven on the fastball that's something that i felt like we would see we used to see in um you know like brandon fought did that like in triple a like we used to see in, you know, like Brendan Fott did that like in AAA, but we didn't see it at the Major League level. His slurve, he ended up having a 50% swing

and whiff rate, and he had a 41 CSW, but a lot of it was about doing something that we hadn't seen him do a lot. DVR, because he was commanding his pitches. He was commanding the zone and that's probably if you want to pinpoint what is the thing that the major league guys did is they probably

found something to simplify to make sure he's throwing strikes or give him confidence to throw strikes because that is a sexy fastball it is a power fastball that does beautiful things and all you hope is he's got a couple secondaries where he can live off of that and you know he he hit 96 on it it was moving he was getting his strikes and he was commanding and that's just what we hadn't been seeing in the minor leagues so that's kind of the big differential so i'm not so sure it is pcl'd so much in that it's a combo of this developmental process for him to do something literally we hadn't like there's no reason to be like oh I take the L like we don't see him go five he went five once the entire year it was complete efficiency at the major league

level with great stuff and another reason to maybe prop up you know stuff plus on a long-term level to talk about you know it's like with hitters like great tools can end up you know, stuff plus on a long-term level to talk about, you know, it's like with hitters, like great tools can end up, you know, having those great results once fully harnessed the same thing with great stuff. Plus once fully harnessed, you get 11 Ks and, you know, in these outings. And we saw some improvements with the control, even before he got promoted, at least in terms of the walk totals and some of those final appearances at

AAA for Kyle Harrison. All right, let's move on to some of the prospects from this season who have graduated from prospect status and may present really intriguing value targets for 2024. And this might be relevant, too, if you're playing in a keeper or a dynasty league where trading never stops. Get some trade deadlines coming up here at the end of this week in a few leagues that I play in. never stops get some trade deadlines coming up here at the end of this week in a few leagues that I play in number one on my list Welsh was someone that I really liked going into 2023 and

this season has not gone well whatsoever it's Miguel Vargas I think everything that went wrong for Miguel Vargas traces right back to the thumb injury that he was dealing with in spring training he was playing in spring training games basically with the directive, do not swing the bat, which, you know, for him, he's got a good eye at the plate. He drew some walks during that span, but I just think that's the kind of injury that without a prolonged shutdown period, it's so easy to aggravate it multiple times over the course of the year. I guess the bigger question is, do you see the Dodgers still wanting to prioritize

Vargas as an everyday player? This is a more complicated depth chart than most, especially knowing they could trade, they could spend a lot of money this offseason. But from a talent perspective, I mean, it's just more of the question of how he fits into their 2024 plans. Yeah, I think my read on it would be prioritizing is they probably want to give him every opportunity to take back a job um they made the proper moves to solidify they don't need anybody you know that's what they ended up doing you get ricky hernandez and they've been into bringing up michael bush finally after what felt like 3 000 years i remember last week i literally was like they'll never bring him up.

And they had literally brought him up the minute I had said that, which was weird. But I have to assume, the weird thing I've noticed is like, no matter what, whether it's been major league or minors, I don't feel like anything has changed with him this year. Like, I don't see any substantial change in the minor league so far as he's been in AAA. Strikeouts are just like a tiny bit up. He's

putting up some of those counting stats that we expected, but it's very similar to years past. Just everything looks about the same. So I would assume, you know, this guy who has a really good hit tool, he can get on base, flexibility positionally. It's kind of a washed year that they're going to give him every opportunity. And that's the only thing I'm worried about is I just don't think it's going to be handed like it was this year, that I think there's going to give him every opportunity. And that's the only thing I'm worried about is I just don't think it's going to be handed like it was this year that I think there's going to be more competition put to it. And it's like, yes, you have the opportunity to earn this job back and it's going to be what steps have been taken.

I don't think there's really any quantifiable stuff we can look at. I mean, if someone had really great minor league data, that might help. But, you know, Roto-Wire's hard hit battle ball data, it's pretty low hard hit numbers. Again, you know, 26%. The Ks, like I said, went up a little bit. There's just nothing that was really worked on. So what that also tells me, by the way, is my agreement with you,

is when you don't see anything like, hey, they're having him pull the ball more, they're having him, whatever it more, they're having him, whatever it is, you know, take more pitches or take less pitches, maybe he's being more hyper-aggressive because the strikeouts are up, that does kind of tell me that that finger injury really did play a big toll in him just being backtracked the whole year, even off of recovery of it. It may have just stunted him from doing certain things.

So he's going to get an opportunity back. This is one that like the data-driven things out there, you know, like the data-driven listen stuff, there's nothing to tell you any huge positive buy from Miguel Vargas. So to me, this would be like, this is prior knowledge of knowing like the impact type of hitter he can be.

He steals, he can be he steals he i mean he's for all intents and purposes a five tool player who qualifies at third base and can play other spots then you have to go on prior track record to being comfortable buying in on him and i think i would because i think they'll give him an opportunity and if he returns to form then i think he's going to get back to it. I just would have loved to see something you could really put your finger on, pun intended, in this minor league stint of like, hey, he's now going in and he's pulling the ball way more than he's ever done. It's more than last year, and it's more than the majors this year,

but it's not something I'm sure is a thing that we can go and read and be like, oh, yeah, this is changing. He's got a higher ground ball rate than he has since 2019 as well. So I think this has been a re-acclimation year. And by those standards, that's someone I would probably still buy on in the off season. Yeah, you look at some of the rest of season projections as slash lines, that might give us a guide of what the 2024 projections are going to point to the bat x is the most optimistic about vargas with a 264 329 455 line and that would be really nice if he could even do that obviously the results we saw between high a double a and triple a in 2021 and 2022 were 300 hitter flirting with a 400 obp at times with power and with some

speed kind of on a 2020 pace last year at triple a would have exceeded that i flirting with a 400 OBP at times with power and with some speed kind of on a 2020 pace last year at AAA would have exceeded that I think with a full season's worth of games at that level. And that's sort of what he's done in the brief time back down there, even though the batted ball types and the distribution of where he's hitting the ball hasn't changed a whole lot. Five homers, six steals and 38 games. I still like that this package is a lot that can go right. He has lost eligibility in some formats. Might be second base only entering 2024. So that could knock his value down a little bit more because people won't be looking at him as one of those draft and hold glue guys

that can cover three or four spots. I'm glad you brought up the stats because that's the only thing I'm sitting here talking about. You have to kind of go back to who he was and just wash your mind of what this season has been if you are of the belief that this is kind of just a missed-loss season due to that injury, which you are, and I think I kind of am, and I didn't give the stats. And that's exactly who he is. He's like a 20-20 base player with a high batting average. He's got over 400 OBP right now

in the minors as well while he's hitting 280. So this is a great OBP guy. In OBP leagues, I'd be picking him up. But if you're comfortable with that, those are the stat lines of who he was, of who he was prior. This is a close to probably over 160 games, a 20 home run hitter. games, a 20 home run hitter. Looks like he could be a 20 steel guy scored a hundred runs in 2022 in triple a. So I'm definitely still like looking at that player and hoping there's not a big regression standpoint, but you know what, dude? Like I think of also Royce Lewis, Royce Lewis, when he came to the fall league

and it was the dumbest question I've ever actually apologized to him for doing it. I asked him, I was like, so, you know, what do you think about this bad year? It was something like that. I was just like, you know, and he was like, bad year? Like he didn't register it as a bad year. And it came from him being like, well, you know, I hurt my wrist. I think it was a wrist. And then he's like, that set me back all the spring training. And then like, I, he's like, I spent the first two months of the minor leagues,

essentially being like my spring training. And I never got my feet under me and he was awful. And people were writing him off. Then he came to the fall league and he hit 360 or whatever. And I think he won the MVP or I don't even remember if he won the MVP, but he was in that kind of running and look at him now. I mean, you went back onto even remember if he won the MVP, but he was in that kind of running. And look at him now. I mean, you went back onto that talent, and he's kind of moved past injury. Miguel Vargas had an injury.

That's the only real thing that I think we can take away from the talent of what this player is. So I guess I have some of that. It can't be one for one, but sometimes I have that prior history of that exact Royce Lewis situation of us needing to understand that sometimes a simple injury, especially in this developmental-ish time, can really just set a guy back. And it can set them back for an entire season.

And I kind of feel like maybe the Dodgers recognize that as well because none of the things they did seem like long-term options that are going to stunt Miguel Vargas from giving him another shot in the moves they made. They just made short-term stuff. So, don't know, you put that all together, it might kind of speak to Miguel Vargas still being a buy, but maybe the top, top high-end value should be chopped off a little bit. Right. Instead of expecting more 2020 type production, maybe it's 15-15, but I think there's still a lot of ways for it to go right for Miguel Vargas. Interesting, I got Vargas and Brett Beatty on a keeper league team, and here I am trying to pump them up as good by-lows. Not because I'm getting rid of them in those leagues.

I'm holding both players in that particular league. Brett Beatty having a great run at AAA after a disappointing run with the Mets this season. We saw the defensive shortcomings. We saw the ground ball rate was a bit high for a guy that you want to see tap into that power consistently. Since being demoted to AAA, he is pounding the ball. 10 homers in 24 games. He's lowered that ground ball rate. He's kept the K rate nice and tidy at 20%,

drawing walks like he did at most of his minor league stops. I think the thing that I'm clinging to for Brett Beatty, it's actually two things. Organizationally, they seem like they're taking a little more of a long view approach. So I could see them being very patient with him in 2024, trying to see if he's a key core player for them going forward. And then from a performance perspective,

I love to see nice hard hit rates, even when the ground ball rate might be high. We've talked about this before. How do you look for future power i just want guys that come up to the big leagues and hit the ball hard right away a 43.9 hard hit rate in the 86 games that brett baity played at the big league level this year to me there's some underlying positives even though a lot went wrong for him at the big league level in his first go-round yeah and the rotowire uh hard hit data 48.6 in around a little over 100 plate appearances and for reference on that batted ball data you get to like 30 and it's like green and

they color code it which is nice green 35 it's like a dark green this is like this is testing the boundaries of how dark you can go with green when you get into 48%. But this has always been his specialty too. He's been doing this for years and years. This guy is like a 110 hard hit machine, and it's just about consistently doing it. So to your point, what is he doing in AAA? I don't think we're going to talk about this guy, but we were actually talking off air about Matt Mervis.

And he was the data darling for many. I liked him. Then you see him in the Arizona Fall League, and then you could see some shortcomings of seeing him play every day, but you would still see, like, big, you know, hard-hit numbers. But there were some deficiencies that were out there. But the whole point of it was what we've been looking at for this year, the expectation is like well that

guy is going to be elite he should probably like dominate in triple a right now especially if you look at the the numbers which was like high walk the k numbers for a big power guy were starting to come down he hit for you know what what was it last year it was like he walked better at every single level he hit had a higher batting average at every single level. He dropped his Ks at every single level. You expect him, that type of hitter, to be hitting like 350, 360. So what I'm bringing that back to is like you would expect Brett Beatty, especially if he's going to be a really good player and there's just a thing or two, you would expect him to be good.

But I think you could maybe toe the line of like, he has been a couple steps even above good because not only is he hit over 300, which is phenomenal. He did hit 364 in 2022, but he's over 300. His walk rate is the essentially highest of his high A or higher career. He had like a very short stint in low A, like four games where he had like a 35%, but 14 and a half percent this year walk rate. And he's also lowered his K percentage to what is the lowest of any time he has played more than 10 games at a single level.

It is the, well, actually now that that I say that, major leagues in 2022, he had a 19% in 11 games. So any 12 games or above, it's the lowest K percentage, one of the highest walk percentage. It's the highest ISO. He's at any single level this year. And you also see that the fly ball rate ended up,

let me go and take a look here. It ended up going up to 33%, which is the highest, tied for the highest he's ever had. Ground ball rate dropped 10% from where it was last year. But the pull rate didn't go with it. So he's just making better decisions to spray the ball around the field with big hard hit numbers. He's the type of guy that will tap into power when he makes contact. So that's one instance where it's like, oh, I don't care if he's the type of guy that will tap into power when he makes contact so that's one instance where it's like oh i don't care if he's pulling the ball as much because when he

makes contact there's going to be big results so all of this is the easy way to say like you're right they've kind of really babied him let him get his feet under i think he's made all the changes you could possibly ask for in the minors. So when given the opportunity next year, because there's some, you see those rumors about like the Mets are going to trade Pete Alonso, almost affirmative in the off season. Who's going to be the benefit beneficiary? Yeah, yeah. To your brewers.

It's going to be Brett Beatty. And I think that this team is also planning on knowing what they have behind the scenes, whether it's at third or first, more opportunity is going to go up. And I think everything that Beatty is doing signals to me as a buy, maybe even more so than Miguel Vargas. Like Miguel Vargas hasn't done anything, but it's the injury. Brett Beatty, I think is continuously showing improvement. And he's the type of guy that has like impact impact. Like he's a 30 plus home run, a hundred, a hundred type of runBI guy, where Miguel Vargas, if we're reevaluating,

he might be more, like we said, 15-15. If he's sitting at the top of the order, I think that makes him a little bit more valuable. But if he's sitting like seven for a whole year, he's just going to be capped. Brett Beatty, to me, is not one of those. So I do think he's even more of a buy than previously stated. Yeah, I think that's a great

point on vargas is where he fits in that dodgers lineup could work against his value a little bit even if he does have that everyday role baby you could see more easily fitting into the heart of that mets order especially if the polar bear to milwaukee dream comes true it was weird before there was that ken rosenthal column that mentioned that those teams were talking i was just thinking about that post deadline as something that would have made a lot of sense because the Brewers desperately need power. Alonzo seems like a great fit in Wisconsin. Seems like a guy that would pop up in Green Bay in November and get shown on the Jumbotron,

just double fisting two beers and just chugging both of them. And the crowd just goes absolutely wild. Going to Packer games without shirt on that type of stuff in december oh yeah yeah you'd see him at bucks games that you'd see him all over the place and i mean maybe maybe not well it's funny too because he's like a florida guy uh he definitely like fits the mold but that would have been a big trade i you know probably i assume it would have been around like a guy like corbin Burns who that that is all nasty and stuff like that I don't know if it's prospect based or major league based or whatever but

you know he goes to Milwaukee that's a whole nother conversation of value and if the Mets are really you know if the Mets are really committed which I still don't believe a part of me but if they're really committed to like we're retooling and we're getting all these then they're going to try to go get a haul and the Brewers still have guys you know and it might be the jacob miserowski's would have to be involved in a trade like that and um you know they got a couple other really good lower level players that would be probably part of what the mets would be doing to retool but that's that would be fascinating either way it opens up that opportunity for brett baity to if you take off like studs on that lineup,

Beatty probably not going to hit lower than five next year if he's given that opportunity. So yeah, the more we talk about it, I really think he's such like a great buy who's not doing anything right now. If you do have a deadline that's still sitting out there or a, you know, it opens up early ish into the off season.

Beatty's a guy I'll probably be drafting in like some of those early, you know early NFBC best balls that are going to happen in November. I'll probably have quite a few shares of him. You mentioned Mervis in passing, and I think Mervis versus Jonathan Aranda is kind of an interesting toss-up.

I look at them as somewhat similar players. I think Aranda's consistent low K rates throughout his time in the minors could probably give him the edge it looks like there's less swing and miss in that profile major concerns about where jonathan ronda plays defensively but if you were betting on one of those guys to break through and have a large role for 2024 is it or is it a ronda oh man see see like i've seen a lot of Mervis and I know what

the shortcomings are but I also have seen that upside like and the upside is light tower power I mean that guy I was telling you off air that one of those homers I have you can check my twitter it was like he hit it from his shoe you you know, his socks, and he just absolutely golfed and launched this ball, which for a lot of people would have looked like a fly ball, but it is just raw, raw power. I don't know. I guess the difference I've assumed with Aranda is like he has hit for average for so long that I assume he's going to be a high batting average

with really beautiful home run numbers in the minors. Neither one of these guys steal i guess i would go with a ronda but i feel like his playing time might be more in question than mervis's like why have the cubs just not given that run to mervis at this point i don't know it might speak that my what's not happening might be louder than anything else but at the same time though i do feel like this team could just let and give him a go where I just don't trust that with the Rays at any point. So I think Aranda is maybe a little bit of a safer bet, but I think Mervis has a better opportunity to be given the job for however long that's going to be than Aranda does. They just don't hand the Rays.

How often do they hand anything over to guys? You know, the short list, the guys that come up and just take an everyday role. That was it. Like who else besides Franco was like really immediately given that spot. I think a Rosarena kind of, but he kind of had to work for it and then he just never let it go.

Nobody else. Who? Rosarena was older too. So it it wasn't it wasn't like from prospect young prospect to playing all the time and that's what makes me wonder like junior cam and arrow is probably the next guy they're going to do that with yeah but you're already seeing it like curtis mead they've kind of been up and down with him or ronda's been up and down it's me like 290 and then they're just like see ya you know then they sent him down that's that's my point is like i don't know when that changes i don't know what the level what it is

that they need to find that makes them comfortable if it's guys that force their hands but i i guess you could say that me didn't force their hand but he played pretty well he played pretty well and aranda has i mean it's like video game type of stuff. When you look 25 homers this year in AAA while hitting three 39, 80 run 80 RBI, it's stupid. So you would expect that you would just be given a run, especially with some of the shortcomings as of late with the roster

construction, but they don't, they just don't. So I think Aranda is the talent, but Mervis might be given the runway to make something happen. I guess it just, then it just becomes a question. Do you believe that's ever going to happen?

And I don't know, you know, I know, I know you talked to, you do the show with Keith, Keith law, and I'm not sure if Keith thinks that would happen with Matt Mervis. You know,

there, when you watch Matt Mervis in person versus the numbers that are on the, the sheet, they're a little bit different. They're a little bit different. When you watch Matt Ravis in person versus the numbers that are on the sheet, they're a little bit different. They're a little bit different, and you're kind of waiting for them to align. And I think that's where real, real baseball for baseball evaluation versus fantasy would kind of clash a little bit. Yeah, I think the key for the Rays, if you're going to open up a spot

to make it easier for Jonathan Aranda and or Curtis Meade to play a lot more, Brandon Lau seems like a guy that has to find his way to another roster. I think he has that kind of team-friendly extension where he's cost-controlled for a while, but you trade him, that opens up a spot in the infield, and that changes the look of things quite a bit. Trade for some pitching. They could use for some, you know,

they're just going to keep stacking up Tommy John guys. You trade for some pitching. But the only problem is that I don't think that opens up for Aranda. That opens up for Meade. Aranda, do they trust Aranda at second base? That's probably a Meade job. Third base, what happens? That's a Caminero job.

So I still wonder, like, where, what would they do? Would they just full-time DH with some, DH with some first base for Aranda? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe they'll trade Aranda to a team that has a pitcher that's been bad for two or three years in the big leagues, and they'll just turn that pitcher into a stud, and that team will at least give Aranda the playing time, and we'll find out why the Rays haven't given him the playing time prior to that.

I feel like the Rays and the White Sox, like get Dylan Seas over with the Rays, and maybe you could trade a Ronda, and then maybe they would trade one of those pitching prospects. I could see where they couldn't afford it, but maybe you'd trade a Boz. It's like a Boz and a Ronda to go to the White Sox. White Sox can do part of their rebuild,

and then the Rays get major league-ready talent. Just something to throw out. Yeah, I'd be really curious to see what those two teams did they hooked up for a deal one more bat that kind of jumped off the page for me from the rookie class that people are probably not that high on but I think they should be Henry Davis I mean we saw Henry Davis come up not really catching so that's the that's the twist right he's made two appearances behind the plate so likely to lose catcher eligibility in most leagues he's been hurt a little bit but much like we talked about i think with brett baity it's the hard hit rate that gets you interested right a 43.4 hard hit rate we've seen a little bit of in-game power five homers in 51 games he's stolen a handful of bases i don't know how much that's going to be a part of his game but

he ran a little bit coming through the pirate system and clearly moving from catcher to outfield has enough athleticism to do a little something on the base pass. But you're drafting him for power. You're drafting him as a guy that has controlled the strike zone really well and I think has realistic 30 home run potential with time. potential with time. I don't know if it's coming in 2024, but I think the other part of the appeal is when I think about what the pirates look like next year, Henry Davis is somewhere in the heart of that order. So you have this higher ceiling for great counting stats because of the way they're likely to use him. You see,

that's a really good point is he's definitely locked into something. The only problem is, is not only, you know, as a batting average struggled, but like, you know, we,

there's some K worries that are in there, some strikeout worries for him in general. I'm a little indifferent on Henry Davis because one of the things is I thought he was going to be a catcher. I thought he was 100% going to be a catcher. Seeing him in the minors, watching him in the AFL, I watched him at Louisville. And you mentioned the stolen bases.

He's been stealing since college. So that is something that is definitely a part of his game, but I think it's more a handful. Like this is a type of guy that I, at peak, I think you could see 10 stolen bases. I do think I agree with you. There's a 30 home run potential in there.

I just don't know where the quality of contact is going to be. And that's the thing that I kind of can't get over with him is how awesome is that quality of contact going to be? XBA is higher. That's good. It's closer to 240. You're essentially at 110 maxi for plus power. I like that. Launch angle, barrel percentage, it's getting, like everything is just kind of getting there with him. So I think you can play like with time and with maturation, he can be a solid player. But if we're also comparing him against, like, let's say Miguel Vargas and Brett Beatty,

he's at the bottom. Aranda versus Henry Davis is interesting because I think we go right back to that Mervis thing. Like, Henry Davis, I think, is way more guaranteed than Aranda still is. But I think Aranda's talent is, like, quite a bit higher. So I would probably put Henry Davis at the bottom of this,

though I would relent on having him just above Aranda if you feel like he's just never going to get a spot. But I think there's been good strides, but we also just saw just whamp down on the consistency as far as like, you know, him being able to hit for high average. So I don't want to say I'm out on Henry Davis because even in a bad year, he's probably a 20 homer, close to 10 stolen base guy. But he's the least interested I am of buying back into prospects that have lost eligibility for next year.

So we're going to save pitching for a future week. That makes sense to have Eno here for that. That is absolutely his wheelhouse. I wanted to answer a couple of mailbag questions that fit into this conversation. We had a question about Estevan Floreal from John. John is in an AL only keeper league and thought one of his best picks this year was Floreal really late

and he's still stuck in Scranton. There are tools here. There's power, there's speed. The big question for Estevan Floreal, as you can see if you look at his Fangraphs page, it's the hit tool. You see it reflected in the high K rate. It's a, according to Fangraphs, 30-grade hit tool with a future 30.

That's not usually something you see on an everyday big league player, but when you have 60 raw power, 70 speed, you're doing a lot of things that we as fantasy players really like. And given that this has turned into such a disappointing season for the Yankees and thinking about some of the veterans,

guys like Jake Bowers that have been able to collect a significant amount of playing time over the course of the year, I am surprised they haven't given Floreal a look. He's 25 already. He's going to turn 26 in November. So if they're not playing him now, I almost think his best opportunity is going to be on a different roster. It doesn't seem like it's going to happen for him in New York.

Oh, I don't even think that's a question. I mean, you're surprised. I'm not surprised because I think the answer is right there. It's because they don't see him as a part of the future. I mean, he is organizational depth. If they didn't have options, I think they probably would have. But what has Florio really changed in his profile? He hit more homers, most homers he's ever hit this year. That's great. It's a 270 ISO, but he's still striking out the same level.

It's like right at 30%. He walks a little bit more. He hits more homers, but you also probably should when you've played at AAA for two years or three years. This is his third year in AAA and not just like a little bit. 78 games, 101 games, 89 games. He has, I mean, that's roughly almost 300 games at AAA. You would expect, the guy who is immensely talented,

because I got to see him multiple times in the AFL, and he is like crazy physical athlete. He can fly across the bases. He hit one of the easiest triples I've ever seen. I was actually going through like old AFL video not too long ago, and I found that triple, and he just flies across the bases. He can absolutely hit for huge power.

There was a time, if people don't remember, Luis Robert was in the AFL at the same time, and Floreal was seen as a better prospect over luis robert in that same period of time because they actually had similar skill sets but florio never got past being the strikeout issues which is a bigger conversation around his ability to hit anything that's not a fastball and he can't put himself in good counts and and he just continuously gets beat. And I don't think that has ever changed. Did he adjust to hit for more power? Yes.

Did he have a better ISO? Yes. Is the batting average up? Yes. But this team clearly had better options. They have got Oswalt Cabrera. They brought up Everson Pereira, who is a part of their future. Jason Dominguez, you could argue, could be up.

Now, Jason Dominguez is having a wildly great second half to the year. And for a guy that was hitting 220 in May, he's up to almost 270 with game-changing stolen bases, making great decisions, hard-hit numbers. It's just there's nothing worthwhile, I think, for this team to even look at him when he's still exhibiting these same issues. So back to your point, he's going to do this with another team. If he's ever going to do it,

you just pray. And this is you and I were talking about the soft air. You just pray. He can find a team that has one of these elusive, great hitting departments that can change. You know, I was mentioning Josh Rojas is praising the Mariners right now for the changes they're making in his game.

This is coming off of a Diamondbacks team that was one of the best offensive teams in baseball, especially early on, but there was nothing happening. I don't know what they were doing with him. He lost his ability to hit for power, and then Rojas lost his confidence. The Mariners did something to re-tap into the power and get his confidence back,

and he started praising their hitting coach. That's what you need for Floreal. You need somebody that can take it and make whatever that adjustment is. You need a Braves team. You need a Giants team. You need a Mariners team. You need one of those that can take this crazy athlete who is 20-20. If he could ever recoup what he does in

AAA to the majors it's top five round fantasy talent for sure but it doesn't translate and that is more probably about the pitch recognition and how he gets himself into counts and can hit like off-speed stuff so you need a coach that can make an adjustment for him, and then he becomes worthwhile. So I would be paying attention to where he goes in the offseason because no doubt it's not a Yankees team that I assume he's going to be with. Yeah, they have kept him at AAA for the better part of three seasons now. So no longer with minor league options. So I think that's the other thing that could steer him out of town.

It reminds me, the way you were describing Floreal tools. It's similar to Jorge Mateo and Jorge Mateo had the same kinds of questions about his hit tool. It even took him a couple of franchises to land in a spot where someone committed to give him that regular role. That happened in Baltimore, but he made quick stops in San Diego and Oakland. And I think in both of those instances, we thought, oh, maybe this is the spot. Maybe this is the spot. So it's funny that it ended up being Baltimore for Mateo. And even though like long, long term, it's not working out.

He's he landed in one of those organizations that we identified as good at developing hitting. Baltimore is in that conversation now for sure. Look at what they've been able to do in the upper levels of their system with the young talent they've had. The Rangers have become one of those teams with Donnie ecker the giants do it a lot of times with veteran players turning some you know kind of cast off waiver wire tyro estrada types mike yastremski

types into good big leaguers there's all different strengths and weaknesses in different organizations but yes there are definitely some teams that are better fits than others for unlocking what a hitter brings to the table. Couldn't you see him be an A, by the way? Couldn't you see Floreal just sign, get traded or sign with the Oakland A's? And that wouldn't be good, by the way. That wouldn't be good at all. No, I don't think that's the outcome you want.

I mean, the park is difficult, but you can look at that team and say, how often do they make players better? Yeah, and it's it's rare i mean you know geloff is a is a breath of fresh air right now with that team but that really was just about his talent shining i'm not sure what they've all really like honed in like sodastrom is still kind of like the same guy he's been to the entire minors you see the strikeout issues but you see like huge big power numbers yeah it's gonna take somebody to maybe revamp like one of the positives of floriel this year it's like the lowest ground but it's a lowest ground ball rate he has ever had between triple a and the majors and i'd say it like that because since 2020 he has hovered between the majors and triple a that whole time

so you see the ground ball rate lowering and he's pulling the ball a little bit less and maybe that's what it's going to be about is someone teaching him to maybe choke up a little bit more and stop trying to swing for the fences and he'd be better set to be you know a lower home run guy just so you can try to get on base and you know who knows but Mateo never figured out the strikeouts Floreal might never uh figure out the strike. That's also why, what did you say? It was like a 30 hit present and future for fan graphs. It's because he's tapped out. That tells you from the prospect analysis standpoint,

that is a player that is tapped out on their hit tool and it would take a miracle or take a massive change that we just haven't seen happen. I guess 25 years old. We haven't seen it happen I guess 25 years old, you know, we haven't seen it happen in four or five years. So everyone's just assuming, okay, none of this other stuff matters anymore because this is at its peak and its maximum.

Yeah, I think you could start to look around the league for other players that are in similar situations as far as like not really having a spot. Michael Bush, who you mentioned last week is one of them. The problem is he has several options left. The Dodgers have that flexibility to just keep him around and use him as an up-and-down guy if they want to do that. I think that's where, as you start to look for other players

that fit into the going-to-get-a-fresh-opportunity bucket, look at that number. Look at the number of minor league options remaining because when teams haven't given someone a chance and they don't have the opportunity to send them back down, that's when they end up going through waivers or getting flipped in a minor trade. And that's usually when they end up finally ending up with a clear path to playing time. Thanks a lot for that question, John. I had a question here from Abe. This is about Royce Lewis's recent comments that the AAA robo umps were extremely hitter-friendly, especially for walks.

Abe was wondering if we need to realign the data we're getting from the minors. Are there rate discrepancies? Notably different this year between AAA and the big leagues. This came up a little bit earlier in the year when we were looking at, I think it was J.J. Bledet, just as one random example of someone whose plate skills looked a lot different in the case of Bladet it was that he was walking a little more compared to his like big league numbers and double a numbers but he started doing that last year at triple a the big difference was he was striking out a lot less a 12.6 percent k rate and I wondered if we're if it's not just inflated walk rates but also reduced k rates that we have to be on the lookout for as we're trying to make sense of some numbers coming out of AAA this year. That's interesting. It does,

like, I don't, I don't have the answer for that. I mean, I could, the recalibration could also be about how zones are, um, you know, how the strike zone is presented to a player. You know, you might just have guys and way that they stand in the box that you know typically uh a real life ump is going to give them a little bit more leeway as far or maybe less so you could do all those things but so i don't really have like a great answer to that outside of the continued conversation of what a mess the mining leagues is in my mind and how it's screwing up player development and every element whether it is our own eyes or just reading off stats for minor league players. It's all a mess, and it's mushed because of all of these different training systems

of the ABS and the tacked ball and just all of this stuff that they're practicing and trying out in the minors. Good that you're doing it but it just screws with our perception of development where like you're saying if it if you have a hitter friendly strike zone environment that hitters can figure out how to kind of manipulate exactly i mean if you know if you know exactly where the zone is without question you have a little bit of an advantage i think a hitter has an advantage on knowing that there's no leeway with the zone. But just these tests just make it so crazy.

And it does come back to just trying to build off of the talent of a player and the skill sets that we know and not pick too hard apart somebody that might struggle here or there or has, you know, like the Andrew Abbott stuff, like 20K per nine with a tacked ball. And same thing with strikeout numbers, maybe rising in those places with tacked balls

and stuff like that. It's just the minor leagues are kind of a mess in general and it's screwing with things. And it's good to know. I think that would be the other thing. It's really great to know all the places that are doing these things so we can put the caveats next to these players but the only thing is it's like you know it's not all of the double it's not all of double a that had um you know the tact ball it was like what was it like the independent league and southern league

yeah the southern league yeah exactly like it would be great if you know it was more widespread so we didn't have to try to play these games of figuring out, so who's doing this and where is this at? And it's just, I hate the mess of it. I don't personally like it. I think generally, and this frustrates me across other sports,

the rules, once you get to the college level and in baseball and the minor league level, should be the same. The rules should be the same. The equipment should be the same. You need to be the same. The equipment should be the same. You need to standardize things at some point. I realize prior to a certain level, cost is a factor and you can't make everything one to one in terms of how the game is going to be played from a very technical perspective.

But using the minor leagues as an ongoing experiment is not a good idea, right? Especially at the higher levels. Like you have the AFL, the AFL has been trying out stuff for years. Cool. Keep doing that. Keep it there. But if,

if I were to lay out the minor league system, here's a major league team DVR, they have triple a, which is the closest to the majors double a, which we could pick major league talent, biggest developmental push. High A, which is the biggest jump, probably,

of any level. From low A to high is the biggest jump. Then we've got low A, and we've got complex. Rookie ball, the lowest level. What in your mind would be the best place to experiment out of those? Would it be the one? The lowest, of course.

Not the highest. The guys that are just about to be at the majors that are making adjustments. You might have guys that are trying to change from being high contact hitters to developing more power. You might have a pitcher that's trying to really establish now more of this breaking pitch. The lowest levels, the complex level. Yes, it's big guys, but guys that are just coming in from the Dominican

or coming in from high school or whatnot, or you get these college guys that come in for three to four days. Let that be the experimental spot, not when they're at the most critical points of their development to make the major leagues, that would not be the place that I would be having major, those types of experiments. Like what Bryce Miller had to do when he told Eno about, you know, the team just saying, we just want you to just throw strikes.

Like, don't worry about hitting the zone, just throw pump strikes and stuff. Okay. That's an organizational thing. You can get past that, but tacked balls and robo umps and uh all of this stuff uh you know automatic strikes all of these things do that at the lowest level experiment have your fun there don't do it at the expense of these guys i don't know if we have like a great track record of players that are suffering from this but it's maybe creating some you know some false uh false positives with players luckily royce lewis is massively talented by the way and it doesn't

matter if he's getting a little bit of an advantage there but it'd just be nice if it was if there's more of a a rhyme and reason to how they're doing this instead of being like let's go the southern league and let's go to triple a and let's go go to AA and let's do a little bit of here, a little bit of there. Yeah. I did think just to put a bow on it from the Robo-Ombs perspective, like seeing higher walk rates from guys that are repeating that level, that would be something I'd be a little more skeptical of.

Jonathan Aranda, who's been featured throughout the episode, is a good example of that, right? 9.7% walk rate a year ago at AAA. That's fine it's a good walk rate 14.7 percent this year did you really improve by that much or is that just the function of the system i bet you'd see in players repeating the level if i had to put a hypothesis out there i bet you'd see two and a half to three percentage points up for walk rates for hitters repeating that level over substantial sample size and that's probably games or more two to three percentage higher than what the normal rate is i mean that's you know it's probably a one for one of like that is an abnormal increased rate um again it's just i don't know it's kind of silly to me yeah definitely silly to me too. Thanks a lot for that question, Abe. We covered a lot

of ground today and we made it through a minor tantrum from my young son too. So I appreciate Welsh's patience and flexibility as we work through a new and exciting stage of parenting in the Van Riper household. Oh, you're not even, you're just getting there. I told you, I was like, I've been through all of them. I've been through all of them twice, so I know the stages, and don't you worry. Takes a village, DVR. It does, and our village is out working on something for themselves today, this morning. So the backup help that's usually here

when I record wasn't available, so I was the backup help. But $1 a month gets you in the door at The Athletic. Great subscription offer we got going right now. It's for the first year at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. You can find Welsh on X, not the drug, the social media platform at isitthewelsh. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels.

We're back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.