Rates & Barrels - Project Prospect - Prospects on the Fast Track

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

DVR, Eno and Welsh are taking a look at Prospects on the fast track. Is Brett Baty here to stay? Zach Neto or Edouard Julien? Plus a now hilarious conversation about Mason Miller vs Brandon Pfaadt minutes before Mason Miller is called up. Rundown 0:46 - Brett Baty 6:20 - Minor league hard hit hard leaderboard 11:46 - Yeison Morrobel hard hit numbers 14:39 - Lenyn Sosa a thing? 17:39 - Zach Neto 20:24 - Volpe vs Tovar vs Neto 32:29 - Edouard Julien 33:50 - Of course Welsh brings up Corbin Carroll 36:21 - Could Vaughn Grissom go to the outfield? 42:38 - Old crusty vs lottery tickets 45:24 - Matt Mervis vs Nolan Jones 51:28 - Mason Miller vs Brandon Pfaadt 56:38 - Ricky Tiedemann vs Kyle Harrison Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Today's episode of Rates & Barrels is brought to you by ... Factor: Head to factormeals.com/rates50 and use code RATES50 to get 50% off your first box. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Best Western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze. And it felt a little like... Come on kids, back to the hotel room. Good night kids. Good night mama. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at best western Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Tuesday, April 18th. It is Project Prospect. Derek Van Ryper here with Chris Welsh, Eno Saris, digging into some recent promotions and debuts, and looking at a few players who are cruising in the minor leagues right now in hopes of finding future value, be that for Redraft leagues this season or even for keeper and dynasty leagues.

So it has been a very busy week on the prospect front. We are going to get started right away because we may not cover everything on the show sheet. We're going to start today with Brett Beatty, who last season, you might remember, Brett Beatty had the highest WRC plus of any hitter among qualified hitters at double A. Did that as a 22-year-old. He was number one. Logan Ohapi, for what it's worth, was number two. It was a 160 WRC plus.

Had nothing left to prove at that level. Got a brief taste of triple A to begin this season. And now he is up for the Mets. And I'll start this with you, Eno. Brett Beatty up for good based on the Mets' needs and based on what you've seen from him as a prospect? I think so. I always ask when I'm in the clubhouse or when I see something like this, what's the corresponding move?

I think what's the corresponding move often tells us a lot about what's happening. The corresponding move is I put somebody on the IL, then you're tied to that. You're tied to, oh, when that guy comes off the IL, then, you know, like first example, maybe I think it is Oswald Peraza up. Oswald Peraza, the corresponding move is Giancarlo Stanton goes on the IL. So if Oswald Peraza, when Stanton comes back, there's a very high likelihood Oswald Peraza goes back down. And so in this case, I don't even know what the corresponding move was.

It's not an IL. I think Tim Lacastro went on the IL. I don't know if it was actually the move. The Phantom IL. No, that was actually, that was the move, but that wasn't like the move. Right, right. You know,

Beatty doesn't go back down when Tim Lacrastro is healthy, if he's even hurt. Not to cast aspersions. I'm just saying, this stuff happens in baseball. They'd rather keep him around. So the corresponding move is not one that is temporary. And the people that were in the way, quote unquote, for Brett Beatty are still on the team.

So I think this means that Eduardo Escobar, who has actually traditionally been better against lefties over his career, is now in the lineup against lefties at DH going forward. And only sometimes in the lineup against righties when someone is hurt or needs a rest. And that means Brett Beatty has full runway. Okay, so let's think about this in terms of short-term impact first. Welsh, how thin of a league can you justify picking up Brett Beatty? Based on scouting report and your expectations for him, is he a shallow mixed league player right away? Yeah, I don't know if he's a 10 team, but I absolutely think you jump in on 12 team.

I think it's a must-add. I think he's at kind of the top of the list of the prospect run. Not a great performance in his first game, but what did he do? He did what Brett Beatty does. He hit one 100 miles an hour on a line. He is just a constant hard hit machine. And if he gets a full season, he's going to put up big hard hit numbers. So I think in a 12 team, you can do it.

Also look at the position. You know, we've spent so much time in the offseason talking about positional scarcity, especially in like the corner infield and stuff. And he qualifies at that spot. He's a corner infield spot that we want to fill. So yeah, I think there's so much that works in his favor, you know, lowered strikeout percentages, hard hit balls are still there. Getting his feet under him is going to be good. Hopefully he's not going to hit eight, you know, eight is going to be a little weird seven or eight. I think he's got like a high

of maybe getting up to five if the ball is really flying off the bat, but he is here to hit. They're going to give him every opportunity. And I a 12 team uh 12 team higher you can justify it i'm looking at last season when baity had that brief cup of coffee with the mets he had a max ev of 113 miles per hour and if he had been among qualified hitters on the stack cast leaderboard that would have put him 21st right behind hunter renfro. That's incredible raw power. And that kind of raw power usually can get away with an elevated strikeout rate. I think we've talked about this a lot over the years. You know,

the projections for prospects can be extremely noisy. I look at the projections on Beatty and they're certainly, they're not bad, right? I'm looking at a 247 to 254 range for the average. Already better than the ones for Escobar. Right. That's sort of the one key.

Is the projection better than what they have? In this case, yes. And this projection leaves some room for Beatty to exceed. This is a very reasonable projection that he can hit based on what he's done so far. I think the category that I'm actually most curious about is batting average. He might be one of those guys that hits the ball so hard that he's less of a batting average liability than someone who typically strikes out 25%, 27% of the time. Yeah, there's an interesting thing going on in his profile,

which is he hits too many ground balls. And I saw him at the Futures game, and I said, what about the ground balls? And he says, I don't care. I'm trying to hit the ball hard. And there's a little bit of an interesting back and forth said, what about the ground balls? And he says, I don't care. I'm trying to hit the ball hard. And there's a little bit of an interesting back and forth there, which is if you hit more ground balls, but you hit the ball hard, that's good for your batting average.

And so he may run high BABIPs. He certainly did in the minor leagues. And so maybe at the same time, we want to see him lift the ball to hit more homers. And so it is kind of good to see that at AAA this year, he did start to lift the ball more. But in essence, he does two of the things that I want most out of my young hitter. He hits the ball hard and he makes contact. Even those elevated strikeout rates, they don't look that bad to me.

They don't come with big whiff rates. And in AAA this year, he is on a great list. I went over to Rotowire, which has some really fun things. If you pay for a subscription, you can get hard hit data on minor leaguers. And you have these cool filters. So I put a filter on it. I said more than 25 plate appearances this year under the age of 23 and the strikeout rate under 23%.

So, I mean, there's still some guys there, you know, 22%, 23%. It's not an amazing strikeout rate, but it's pretty good. It's enough contact where I'm not, I wouldn't say, oh, but what about his contact? And the leaderboard is killer. First, you have Wendell Morero. He's just a 22-year-old at A-ball. but what about his contact? And the leaderboard is killer. First, you have Wendell Moreira. He's just a 22-year-old at A-ball.

You guys rightly pointed out that's a little too old for the level, and his actual results aren't that amazing. But number two is Brett Beatty. Number three is Jackson Holliday, who's a total stud that everybody knows. Number five is Junior Caminero. If you don't know who Junior Caminero is, you should know who Junior Caminero is. And if he's available and you can stash prospects, you should stash him immediately. After Junior Caminero is Kyle Manzardo.

So this is a good list to be on. I did have a couple names I wanted to throw by the Welsh because I don't know these guys as well. A couple names on there from the tigers gage workman 23 year old and double a with a 41 hard hit rate and a 22.6 strikeout rate and a one three ops and then when seal perez uh a second basis two two guys up the middle both 23 both hit the ball hard 40 of the time both uh strike out less than 23% of the time. Do you like either one of these guys? I like Winseal Perez.

I don't like Gage Workman. I've actually watched Gage Workman a ton because he used to play here at ASU. And then he also came over here to the Arizona Fall League. So with Workman, I like the improvement. So with Workman, I like the improvement, but this is also a guy in 2022 who at AA, the same level, had a 40% strikeout rate. So maybe he's going to be a slow go guy and maybe he's got to really like learn and dominate the levels. But it went from at 21 years old, a 26% K rate in A ball.

High A, he went to 34%. And then he went to 40. I mean, he literally increased his strikeout percentage across the board. Now the, the positive was that he came over to the AFL. He got some work and he was able to clearly improve some of the back to ball skills,

but he's been like a big stolen base guy. And I think a lot of the big stats are kind of mirage. I'm just not super into him. It is great that he returns it, but he was kind of a defensive guy. Actually, a traditional shortstop at ASU, but he ended up going over to third base just positionally because they had Alika Williams, who was there, who was a stud who plays for the Tampa Bay Rays.

That's an old designation. He's not a shortstop anymore. Yeah, he's not, but he does have the defensive ability and the physical presence for it. Just offense wasn't his side. Winslow Perez, though, that's a guy that i like um i don't think either one of these guys forever he's been on for a long time he's got to get on the 40 minute but he's and he's only 23 years old he's only 23 years old uh but low strikeout rates he's never had a 20 strikeout rate in his minor league career uh did a pretty good job last year he hit double a he hit over 300 the counting stats

weren't super big, but he walks, he doesn't strike out. Yeah, so that's why I like, I like Winseal's a guy that could end up making a roster, not put any big stats up. He's probably not a, I don't know, maybe like 250 plus prospects, you can really justify him.

I just don't think Gage Workman, and I know that, you know, a lot of like automated stuff is going to like what he's done early on, but the track record of who he is outside of finding out like you know big major swing and approach changes which i haven't heard of i i would have very little interest in this hot start of his yeah i think with uh winseal perez i just think the tigers have had a handful of other infield prospects like this at recent years that have all turned into sort of utility players that bounced around the league. None of them have really become special players. I think one of the few that a few years back did become a

special player happened well after he left Detroit was Eugenio Suarez. I think at one point in time, Eugenio Suarez was more like some of the other middle infield prospects we've seen come through Detroit. And people didn't think much of it when the Reds made that trade to get him way back when. But I don't know. I think part of this is, for me, it's like an organizational concern. I don't trust them to get the most out of their talent right now. And I think that's something that keeps me from throwing darts in the lower levels of their system or even up to the AA level of the system, which is where Perez

is right now. Shots fired. Has it gotten any better? Kerry Carpenter? Is that all I've got? I was waiting for more. Who else? Riley Green? Torco? Riley Green, I think there was some good stuff. I'm hopeful for Riley Green this year.

Yeah, I don't know if it's to be clear. If you draft someone in the first round, Torkelson went 1-1, Riley Green went fifth in the draft. That's not a development project. That's just keeping the car on the road is really all you have to do. In those cases, maybe in Torkelson's case, something's going wrong. Maybe the car is not on the road. It's like the Angels.

Just don't screw it up. They're just like, let's get them quickly to the majors. That's like the Tiger's same approach. Just don't screw this up. Yeah. I do think one of the guys you were mentioning before the show, I think you may have mentioned him in that group, is Jason Morabel in the Rangers organization.

Because if you play in a deep keeper dynasty league where at least 200 prospects are rostered, I think of leagues like the old RDI League, the Roto-Wire Dynasty Invitational, where you could just throw darts at lower level guys and kind of designate a couple of spots to a player like this. And you see what happens over the span of a couple of months. Does he earn a promotion to another full season level? Do the tools start to come out in the form of significant in-game production i think morabel is one of those players that could shoot up lists when it starts to fall into place it seems like there's a lot there for him to work with and i think i trust the rangers organization a bit more than the tigers to maximize the value of a player like that. Yeah, where was he on that list? Because I know he's got Roto-Wire's hard hit strength data.

He's at 50%, also 50% medium, so no soft hit strength currently. And this is a guy that I've seen a whole bunch. What was his metric on there? He's right between Holiday and Caminero. So he's in like the top five. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, which is incredible.

And I've seen a ton of Morabelle because he was out here. Rangers and Royals facility is like my home facility over here. And I've seen him a ton through ACL all the way up to complex. And he's a big physical guy. They list him around like 170. He's probably closer to 185, 6'2". And he hits the ball extremely hard. He's still a little bit raw.

There's still a little bit of work to be done, but he doesn't strike out a bunch. 19 in A ball. Yeah. Last year in Complex League, he had an under 20% strikeout rate, which is bad pitching, but there's a lot of free swinging guys.

He hit over 300, and then he was able to move to A ball. This year, he's not hitting the ball. There's not a lot of results, but he's got a really low BABIP right now with huge hard hit strength, and I think it's going to readjust. He's not hitting the ball there's not a lot of results but he's got a really low babbitt right now with huge hard hit strength and i think it's going to readjust he's not striking out again and i think that's a guy that's got that 25 plus power if that bat keeps developing i'm actually a very big fan of yes i'm moribel other other names uh down list that

are just notable are ronnie mauricio uh who's hitting the ball hard and not showing better patience, but I think the contact is just as important. If he can strike out, you know, 23 to 24% of the time in the major leagues, even if he only walks six to 7% of the time, if he hits the ball hard as he is right now, I think he can be an asset in the major leagues.

So, um, you know, I may have been a little bit wrong about him. It seems to be coming together for him right now. Tyler Soderstrom is everybody's favorite. Kobe Mayo is right there as well. So those are some names to just know that they're doing well in the early going.

Whoa, what are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking? You know you're driving a 2024 Ford Escape with available Alexa built-in, so you can change the music. Oh yeah. Alexa, change station to 99.2. See? Purchase a 2024 Escape ST-Line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment. That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40,294. Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca.

Treat yourself to Tim's new Fudge Brownie Lattes, made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice-chilled milk, and topped with marble chocolate curls. Now that's music to our ears. Available hot or iced, only at Tim's. One name that is up in the major leagues, not to segue too hard away from Beatty, but this one is a lot less exciting. I don't know where you have him, Welsh,

but James Anderson has him as the 254th prospect. I wonder if that's underrating him. Lennon Sosa is going to play i think in chicago either at second or short uh with tim anderson out for a month and lenin sosa was hitting the ball hard 38 of the time with a nine what is this a 14 strikeout rate and a one four ops in the major league in the minor leagues and one thing i like about lennon sosa also is um i he just improved as he went along you know like every time he hit a level you know he he leveled up you know basically and uh and so his power has just been slightly growing as as he's i don't know filled out or whatever it is or worked on his

swing but he hasn't struck out more so i don't know that he's going to walk much this could be another sort of 5 and 20 guy in terms of walks and strikeouts but um if the power comes along with him he has a nice home park i don't know you could get uh three or four homers uh over the next month from him and maybe a stolen base or two yeah Yeah, I have him a tiny bit higher than James. I had him at 194 on my list. If people check that out on the in this league, that's where I've got him as far as prospects go. I'm a little bit like I'm just worried about the cap of the overall production.

He did hit 23 homers last year with a really big batting average 315. I just wonder, is he more of like a 15 and 10? He doesn't really steal. As far as like fantasy production we're talking about, he has 17 career stolen bases in over 400, almost 500 games. So he doesn't really steal. So if he's a 15 homer, five stolen base, yeah, with like 280, he could be a decent, you know what he could be he

could be old like the bad yoan moncada that's like your bad yoan moncada numbers of where he'd get to but that's also like saying that he might be still underrated because this is an awesome production for 12 team leagues but for much big deeper leagues this is the type of production to get for almost free that you would want to jump on and the hard hit numbers i think are a real big positive yeah probably a player that you're looking at as a candidate to start at second base in 2024 alice andrews there on a one-year deal and it's just strange to see a middle infielder that is a very average runner 50th percentile on sprint speed i think even the fan graphs scouting report has 40 speed on Lenny Sosa. Like, how are you playing up the middle with 40 speed?

That's actually pretty hard to do. It's a really unusual profile. Six foot 180, so it's not like he's, like, big or anything. Maybe it's just, like, bad running technique or something, you know? Like, just inefficient, like, arms flailing, just, I don't know. Maybe that's actually Coach Arm's flailing. He's just running around. Yeah, he's just got. I don't know. Maybe that's actually Coach Brown. Arms flailing. He's just running around. Yeah, he's just got a really bad gait.

That's my first guess. He doesn't run well. Some other players that have been called up recently, Zach Netto up for the Angels. Really quick mover through the minor leagues. I mean, this is a guy that was drafted last summer. 13th overall pick in the 2022 draft. Welsh, even for guys you expect to move quickly,

less than a year from the date they were drafted is pretty extreme. So what are your expectations for Neto? I mean, part of the appeal during draft season was that the Angels have a clear long-term need at the position. He looks like he's the guy for the long haul. Is he truly ready? And is he ready to help fantasy players from the jump? Yeah, there's no doubt.

Like this one shocked me. I wasn't, I really undersold what the angels were going to do with their system and move these guys. I mean, I, what was it a month ago or less? I was on the backfields of the diamondbacks watching a double AAA extended spring training game where like Jordan Lawler's playing up against Zach Netto. And now we're seeing Zach Netto in the majors. And I didn't think that was going to happen, but I've always been a big fan. If anyone has followed me for a while, they've known I've had Netto over Brooks Lee, who is a big power bat who came out

of the same first year player class with Minnesota, because I like Neto to be a five tool potential player, um, big high leg kick in the early counts. He kind of completely, he drops the leg kick completely on two strike counts to try to have more of a contact approach. He can run, he can hit for power. He's kind of a smaller physical player, but barrels up the ball. I think there's a real possibility for the rest of this year. You could get in.

I mean, the power is a big question, but if he kind of finds his approach, this is like a 15, maybe 15, 20 type of player. And if the angels continue to lead him off, not only to get him going,

but they like him in that spot, it really opens up a ton of possibilities for him. So I think you got to watch the strikeouts. He's maintained that pretty well in the minors. It was only 23 in that first game, but it's going to be how the power ends up developing. But I think he could score a ton of runs if he's leading off and he gets to stay in that general space.

And he's going to run because he did that in the minor leagues as well. He ended up stealing eight stolen bases in what equates to just under 40 games. And he ended up hitting eight homers. So it's an eight and eight in under 50 games. So you can do the math if you want to play around with it, but it's a good approach. He can get a little bit more wild. I am a Zach Netto fan. Immediately threw him into that leadoff spot too.

So giving him chances right atop the order. It's funny because I think when, when we get a look at a player at multiple levels, and usually it's either a half season or even a full season per level in many cases, I think we have a greater sense of confidence that the player is going to succeed in the big leagues even if we shouldn't

because the realistic comps for Netto are guys that were on opening day rosters like Ezekiel Tovar and Anthony Volpe. They're all kind of in the same bucket of unproven against big league competition, opening day rosters like Ezekiel Tovar and Anthony Volpe. Yeah. Right. That's just, they're, they're all kind of in the same bucket of, of unproven against big league competition, even though they've got different paths through the minor leagues that brought

them there. So how does Netto compare to both Tovar and Volpe? Just looking at it from a rookie shortstop class perspective. I mean, if you're asking me here, I think this is an incredibly hard question. You know what I was thinking about too? I was thinking about Tovar's struggles

and like how early on, remember, you know, we were doing that episode and I was like, hey, remember, you didn't really love Tovar and it almost could be like, oh, let's not bring that up. You never said that, by the way. But now look, like it's actually exactly

what you talked about in the early AFL when we saw him. He's showing off the lack of really any contact skills. And the minors obviously were big, but he struggled. He's really struggled. And I'm struggling with dismissing Tovar over these other players right off the bat. If I'm talking about this year, and I'm not talking about long term, well, actually both, number one would be Volpe. I'm not going to long-term. Well, actually both number one would

be Volpe. I'm not going to give up on Volpe through some of the struggles. He showed off a three stolen base game. I believe he's got seven on the year, which is still crazy. He's hitting obviously under 200, but he runs, I think a little bit of a higher BAPIP he has in the minors. And I'm hopeful that that lead off spot is going to get him going and more opportunity. So I'm going to go Volpe. And then I think I'm going to go Tovar Neto. But I think Tovar Neto are super, super close in this. Tovar's struggles worry me a little bit. We might talk about a middle infielder.

They've got some other options that are sitting around there, maybe even in the lower minors of some adjustments they can make as far as a roster goes. But I don't want to give up on Tovar in the Rocky stuff, but Neto is super close. So Volpe, Tovar, Neto for me. What about you, Eno? Yeah, I still got Volpe, number one. I mean, they're using him. They're going through these foibles with him,

and he's stealing bases. I think they like that dimension that he adds to the lineup. He's walking, and he doesn't strike out. Yes, he strikes out more than Tovar but he doesn't whiff more than Tovar. And so if I was going to put an arrow on those strikeout rates, I might put more of a down arrow

actually on Volpe's because 18% whiff rate for Tovar in his first go, 15% this year. I think the projections putting him down for a 20% strikeout rate going forward are missing the boat. I think this is one of those types of players where the contact rate issues were hidden either by level or competition or whatever it was. And that major league pitchers are exploiting that when it comes to Tovar.

So I don't, I'm going to take the over on the projected 20% strikeout rate for Tovar. So it's an easy Volpe for me there between the two of them. Nito is Neto is just so it's, there's such a small sample it's so hard and it's funny because I kind of always have an eye for projections and I know that they are less useful

for prospects than they are for regular players but I also know that there are people in front offices who got their jobs because of their MLEs, their major league equivalencies, their ability to project prospects. And so you can kind of look here and you can kind of see the different approaches with prospects. I think Zips looks at it and says, oh my God, I've got nothing here.

You know, I've got 190 plate appearances in the minor leagues across two, across two levels. I'm basically going to project him to be the league average prospect. And so Zip says he's going to have an 82 WRC plus, no power, and too many strikeouts and no walks. Steamer is always a little bit more likely to regress them towards league average. Just plain league average, not just like a prospect average, but like a league average. And so Steamer has them basically 98 WRC plus.

That's like, oh, hey, that's the guy. He's going to be league average. You know, I don't have any information, so he's league average. But ATC is now on the player pages. That's Ariel Cohen's projections. You know, and the bad is always a little bit more negative on prospects.

So they've got a 95 WRC plus for Neto. ATC gets a bad rap sometimes as just looking at the other projections and stealing from them basically or sort of spidering from the other projections and being a multi-projection, a sort of spidering from the other projections and being a multi a multi-projection a sort of conglomeration of projections however that can't totally be the only thing it does because atc has them for a 107 wrc plus and has him for the most power

the best walk rate the best strikeout rate just the best overall line out of anybody. So ATC is doing its own things under the hood as well. And I think that's a good place to look. If you're excited about Netto, look at ATC. 248 average with a 160 ISO, 14 homers, and 9 stolen bases. I think he can be a 250 15 10 guy and if he is going to have a nine percent walk rate he'll stay at the top of that lineup you know i i wanted to bring up one thing i'm curious that your guys's take on do you think that with net with netto specifically

that if he were let's say a raised prospect and he was brought up, obviously not Bonifranco, but follow me here. You would have a lot more sample, though. No, but that is actually my point, though. What if you didn't? What if a team like the Rays brought up a player in this type of sample size? Would we be oohing and aahing over ourselves? Do you think there's an element of because he's an Angels prospect

and they get a bad rap for their development that we're not giving extra credit for really the magnitude of how projections put like organization in but well yeah here's the generally i do think yeah we're like we're definitely we definitely have bias when it comes to organizations where we're like oh the rays got a pitcher it must be good you know good. Oh, the Angels screw everybody up. It can't be that exciting. I was sharing my biases a little earlier. Organizations I don't necessarily trust. If I'm throwing a dart on a prospect

that has similar skills to another prospect, I might go to the organization that's had more success turning those players into regulars or above average regulars or potentially stars. I think the Netto timetable is interesting to me because last season we saw Atlanta do this with Michael Harris and we saw them do it with Von Grissom. And what I mean is we saw those guys get promoted to the big leagues

with similarly low volumes of playing time at the AA level. Because to me, the lower levels of the minor leagues are fine. It's good to get that information if you have it. But AA means a lot more to me than just about any other level when I'm number scouting. And if a team has a need that's great enough, and they think someone who's played only 43 games at AA, they think they can fill it. That's the case for Michael Harris or last year for Von Grissom.

22 games at AA or this year for Netto, between this year and last year, 37 games at AA. That can work. It can work for some teams, but I think you're right, Welsh. The team doing this is always going to draw a certain level of either hype or scrutiny. In the case of the Angels, it's scrutiny because they do so many things as an organization

that many of us think are very dumb. If the Rockies did this, we'd be laughing in their faces because they're the Rockies and they can't have nice things because they choose not to have nice things. So I think what happens is we talked about some of the players that we'd be dropping in the middle infield on the Monday show, right? Guys like Gene Segura, they kind of steady Eddie boring veterans. You get to week three, week four of the season, those guys are underperforming. Situation doesn't look good. And then a Zach Netto comes along and you're like,

that's it. That's the guy. That's the guy that I'm going to take a chance on because if he's atop the Angels lineup, which he has the skills to do, if you're wish casting a little, but if these things go right, he is better than the old boring steady Eddie player that I had because there are multiple ways he can help my team.

So I think the Angels are one of those teams that have not been in this position very often. It's a little bit more of a, can't think of a time where they had a player like this that they were pushing aggressively. Even Adele, there was obvious flaws in Adele's line. This one, you kind of look at Neto's minor league production, and there's nothing to say, oh, well, he didn't do this.

Well, and since Welsh hasn't mentioned his name yet, I feel like it's important to throw this guy's name into our conversation today. But Corbin Carroll, for different reasons, lost a ton of time to injury and didn't play that much in the minor leagues. If you think about it, right? It was 42 games back in 2019, lost 2020 season. And it was 90, 91 games between double A and triple A before he debuted last year. That's a guy that was drafted out of high school.

And that's under a full season. That's under one full season of actual work. To your point of a high school hitter. Yeah. Yeah. With a major shoulder injury that he came back from. And look how quickly we all jumped on board there. So I guess if nothing else,

the way players have been getting to the big leagues faster and having some success quicker than expected, I'm very open-minded to the possibility that Netto actually is like theth or 7th best hitter on this Angels team, and clearly their best option is shortstop, and good enough to help us right away, even though he didn't have time

to go through a couple of prospect list seasons, if you will, and make the move from fringe top 50 guy to clear top 40 guy to inside the top 20, and now he's creeping to the top 10 because of graduations. He didn't go through that progression. He didn't get to ride the hype train that long. And I felt like that may have kept prices down and fab over the weekend and

redraft league. That is, that is almost exactly what I was kind of alluding to is I think there is a sleepiness to it. Maybe we've been inundated with prospects inundated with some that haven't quite worked. You know, Volpe,

some people are questioning Tovar. Some people are questioning. But then also on top of it, like we're not giving the credit due to a prospect that played under 50 games in the minors because he's an Angels prospect. And that's I completely agree that I don't think you see the effect of what he probably should have cost compared to what he ended up doing because of all of those factors. And he hasn't failed. And the only other thing we can speak to is sample size. That's all that we else we have. It's sample size doesn't work well enough, even though that sample size has been pretty much all good the entire way through. So I think he's a really fascinating one that,

you know, I'm a little biased to Volpe because he's a, it was a top five prospect overall that I think he's a special, special talent. But I think that Neto versus Tovar one is way closer than people are really understanding. Cause the biggest question I got over the weekend was Neto or Edward Julian. And I think it's clearly Neto also in that case, even though I think Julian's a good bat, but I think Julian is, you know, for the birds here because they're bringing up Polanco and Kirilov. There's the corresponding move. Exactly. Like he came up because of injury and you probably go back down because of health.

Where Neto doesn't have that. They're committed. I mean, they already they booted David Fletcher. David Fletcher, they outrighted. He's on a five year deal. Yeah. And I think they outrighted him today is what I saw. Yeah, he's off the 40 man now. Yeah, so this is Netto's job for the foreseeable future,

which makes him all that more interesting. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is

everything. Rent the Peloton Bike or Bike Plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate. Terms apply. Why did they do that extension with David Fletcher? Never mind. We don't want to talk. Let's stop the show. Because they were desperate at short, you know.

They thought it would take longer for Netto, maybe. That would be the Orlando RC deal. Julian's interesting in his own right and deserves a little bit of attention. He had a 26% hard hit rate on Roto-Wire. And I think that's pretty interesting because he's an oppo guy. He's a let it travel oppo guy. We saw him in the AFL in the home run derby. Everybody's saying, why is he in the home run derby?

And he didn't perform all that well. I think he did hit some tanks. But when he did hit the tanks, they were oppo, which is weird in a home run derby. And so really his whole bat path is to the opposite field. And I think that does actually, that explains his 26% hard hit rate. And it explains why my sort of estimation of him is a little bit more muted. I don't believe he's going to hit 25 homers. I think in the major leagues, he's more of a sort of 11 to 15 homer guy and yes

he may have a great obp uh but if he's 11 to 15 homers he has had high strikeout rates he could be a 230 330 400 guy you know it's interesting uh just thinking about that weird combination you know what i mean like 15 homers in like five to ten steals and a bad batting average it's a strange i don't i don't have a comp for you the one thing that just came to mind when you were mentioning that was um if anyone was watching any of the broadcasts yesterday with the diamondbacks not to make this again about corbin carroll but they were showing all about it's always about corbin carroll by the way he walked for the first time which if you guys saw my celebration it was an incredible moment when he finally walked for the first time this year which by the way i think he like led spring training in walk.

So it's such a weird thing that's happened, but they were showing his spray chart. And what's fascinating about him, all of Corbin Carroll's homers, because Corbin Carroll's also kind of an oppo guy, his entire spray chart. You know, if,

if you're looking at the full plate, it's like here, it's all in the middle. Hits it ball harder. He does hit, he hit a one 11. I think he was his hardest hit ball we've had registered. But he doesn't have a pulled ball this year.

A full pulled ball hit this year. They're all like right and left center. All his homers came center. And all of his other hits came there. He almost had one that got taken away yesterday. But he's not pulling the ball. Which would be interesting when he starts to pull the ball. But that makes me think about like Edward Julian.

There's a similar approach. 60% pull percentage. It might be like, if you go and look at the actual spray chart, like they're not like full, like hard, hard pulls. They're more like middle line. You know what I'm saying? Like they might still register it as a pole, but when you look at the actual spray chart, they were noticing there were no actual like hard line, right field pull balls, which is

crazy. Interesting. So he's trying to be very up the middle yeah which is like the five wedges instead of three then you take out the the pull balls yeah but i'm just aligning that to like julian that is a similar thing of like what corbin carroll's doing right now like julian has a same all fields approach which might actually take away from their game both of those guys take away from their game a little bit. Julian can hit the ball really, really hard.

It just hasn't happened yet. And I think when that adjustment starts coming in. One for four Sunday playing for it in back-to-back games. The first time he will be transferred to AAA soon. It could be activated in about a week, says Phil Miller of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Once he comes back, you've got your starter at second base. Your starter at short is healthy.

Your starter at third is young and playing well in Juan Miranda, or well enough, I think, to give him more leash. Would you, if Miranda continues to struggle, consider Polanco at third? Have you watched him in the field? I don't think Polanco at third is great. His arm strength is not amazing, right? Yeah, I don't think you'd want to play him at third.

Polanco or Julian? Would you play either at third? At least not Polanco. I haven't seen enough Julian to know where he really fits defensively, but the way they have moved him to different spots coming through their system, it kind of seems like they're not, they're not sure of where they like him. It's not a third.

It's not a third. I saw him a gajillion times on the AFL. That arm is not for third. There are actually a lot of projected talk was him going in the outfield, even though he played second base solely through the AFL, but they're talking about left field. That outfield is crowded. I think,

I mean, not, not necessarily too crowded. Like if he just played his way into it, he could maybe play his way into it. But even at third, I think they have a backup plan, which is Donovan Solano playing third and Kirilov or Gallo playing first if Miranda needs to go back down. But I don't think that they're going to pull the plug that quickly on Miranda.

So I think that Julian is, is, has among the players that we've discussed today, he has the hardest row towards full playing time. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's really crowded.

And I think it's a similar exercise to figuring out what happens with Vaughn Grissom. Once Atlanta is completely healthy. We got into this a little bit on yesterday's show, just in the sense of, could they just move them to the outfield on the fly and let go of one of the veterans or maybe two of the veterans between Eddie Rosario and Marcel Ozuna. I realize Ozuna is a big part of the DH picture as well, but what do you guys do in long

term leagues with guys like this? Julian and Grissom and plenty of other players like this. They don't necessarily have one position to call their own. They look like they're above average offensive contributors with their various skills. How do you decide when to roster players like this? When are the skills good enough to cope with the uncertainty of where they fit on the roster? This is almost like the opposite problem of Oswald Peraza, who's a slick defender at short and runs really well, but might not hit enough to play in the big leagues. So he has a position and he doesn't have a bat,

but these guys might have enough of a bat to just kind of force the issue regardless of where that ends up being. So what do you do in these situations? What we've been doing, which is you kind of look at the organization and look at opportunities. And I see Grissom as having much more opportunity in that outfield uh in atlanta than julian has in the outfield in minnesota because eddie rosario has a 47 wrc plus right now marcelo zuna has a 21 now wrc plus is not something that stabilizes that quickly but these are guys that have struggled in the in the short-term past as well and so you know and then

in the case of marcelo zuna maybe some other kinds of baggage that would uh lead the the team also they're 31 and 32 and so you know the time that's the time starts ticking on you pretty hard around then where if you're not playing that well the the team wants to compete for the division title, thanks for your service. We've got this hot young rookie who can't play short, and we want to play him somewhere. So one of you guys has got to go. And they started that process last year, by the way,

if you remember, when Ozzie started to come back, they started to get him working, Grissom in the outfield. Yes, they did. But the only problem that ended up happening was then when you got into the offseason and Dansby was gone. They needed a shortstop. They spent the entire offseason,

him and Ron Washington, working at shortstop. And then at some point in that spring training, they were just like, nope, this doesn't work to whatever level. And then they gave that nonsense about Braden Shoemake and they obviously re-signed Orlando Arcea. But we just don't know the full landscape of Von Grissom. I would have liked to have seen him playing some outfield in the minor leagues. I don't just recall before he was called up.

But I think he has an exponentially better path of staying up in the majors than Julian does right now. Not saying that he's such a better bat, but it's just like, like, you know, said, it's just the, the path of being able to play in the outfield, the injuries that, that, uh, infield has already shown. I think it behooves them to do it. And, you know, Hey, Brett Beatty, Brett Beatty, questionable defense. He made his way on. I think Grissom can do the same. And Grissom also now has, uh, two to four weeks of runway to be like, hey, my defense isn't that bad.

Exactly. Give me a shot. You gotta put me in. And if he's striking out, I mean, his first couple games, what does he have? His four games already, he's got a 5% walk rate. If he keeps his strikeout rate low, and he's walking, and he's hitting pretty decently,

and he's a big contributor on hitting pretty decently and he's a big contributor on the back end of that lineup like what's going to be the justification to get him out of strikes out a lot too yeah yeah so i think i think i think he makes a lot of sense and and again you can start now you can start building this huge who'd you rather because now we got like julian and grissom and volpe and net. And it just becomes this big clump of incredible prospect decisions we get to make, which I think is so much better because coming back to what DVR said earlier, you can just start dumping off

some of these like old crusties that you just don't know if they're going to work. We would have loved for Gene Segura to work, but you can move on from the Seguras and the Colton Wongs and take the high upside. I also think some of these old crusties will be there for you later. Yeah.

Like you could drop Segura and if it doesn't work out, pick them back up again later, like especially depending on the depth of your league. But I was looking at some names down, down list for MI Brandon Crawford, I think will be there for you if you need him. Miguel Rojas will be there for you if you need him. You know, depending on what happens with that Alberto Monasty in his playing time or Enrique Hernandez in his playing time, they will

be there for you needs him. Maybe Whit Merrifield, maybe there's an injury in front of Whit Merrifield and he suddenly becomes more of an everyday player. So there's all these kind of older guys that other people will be dropping to. Right. and so i would i would give it a shot at almost any of these guys uh julian being only the one that depending on the depth of your league and and what you are actually risking i'm not sure if i'd go there um but any of the rest of these guys i'm definitely in a 10 team league almost all of them because in a 10 team league if it's a girl what where how high do you drop maybe see girls not even roster in a 10-team league? Almost all of them, because in a 10-team league, if it's Seguro, how high do you drop? Maybe Seguro's not even rostered in a 10-team league.

Would you drop Tyra Estrada for a shot at greatness? Ahmed Rosario's kind of hurt right now. Would you drop an Ahmed Rosario, Kattel Marte? Kattel's getting hot. Kattel's getting hot. Those three players will buy it. Baez might be the easiest of them to cut.

Those are the kinds of players you should think about cutting in those shallow leagues. And I think that's why I have such a hard time playing in formats like that. Because I've listed all four of those names. I'm like, those guys should play. Those are rosterable players. And I can't bring myself to cut them. So that's a weak spot in my own game. I like that term, though, that Eno said, the shot at greatness them so that's that's a weak spot in in my own game I like

that term though that you know said the the shot at greatness because that's kind of what that is like I don't I'm not driving Cattell Marte but like there was strata's kind of interesting you'd want to hold on to him but to your point like the shot at greatness is like look what Grissom did as far as like you know stealing bases last year you know what if that started to pick up in that time and he was stealing bases significantly or Volpe really you know volpe was sitting out there man volpe versus estrada is like a fascinating one uh preseason drafts it was volpe you could justify a way my maybe he would be lower but like i would drop estrada for volpe in a 10 team league if he were there and he might be in a 10 team jay cronenworth? Oh. Same problem.

Guy that should probably be rostered, but... I would, actually. That's a young Krusty. I would drop Jake Cronenworth for any of these players. Any of them? Even for Grissom? Okay, but even for Grissom. He doesn't run anymore.

Cronenworth. Cronenworth. Cronenworth. And over the years, he's added more swing and miss. And so he might just be a 240 hitter with 18 homers. So a young Krusty, but in a good lineup. Yeah. A mid-Krusty. A mid-Krusty.

You can't actually be young and be Krusty. So that's why it's like if you're late 20s, you're a young crusty. But you can't have old player skills too early in your career. That's a good point. That's exactly what he's showing off. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. How about some other stash time toss-ups?

I was cooking these up last night while I was up at weird hours. What do you guys think about this one? You only have one stashed away for this year. Matt Mervis or Nolan Jones? Nolan Jones, for people who didn't see the tweet, spent almost a week on the Rockies roster last week and didn't receive a single plate appearance. Of course.

And by the projections, by the Bat-X, he is projected to be their fifth best hitter this season in terms of WRC+. They traded for this man. This dude has some tools. He's shown us through StatCast that he has actual tools that are well above average. And the Dumb Dumbs in Colorado decided not to even play. They just said it's a pinch hitter.

They couldn't even find a random plate appearance late in the game where they were getting their asses kicked and they could just bring him in for one good swing. They couldn't even do that. Anyway, Murphys versus Nolan Jones. Who are you more likely to stash? I think I just answered that question for everybody by ranting accidentally. Who do you want? I'll go first and I'll jump in.

I think this one is tough from a Nolan Jones has a better path right now. LOL, except if he doesn't, if he's on the roster and he just sits there. I'm going to go with Matt Mervis here because I got to think about like potential offensive upside. I've never been like a huge Nolan Jones guy. I always like that, you know, he walks a whole bunch from an OBP perspective and he's got big power, which absolutely can play in Colorado. But Mervis is kind of back to his old tricks. walks a whole bunch from an OBP perspective, and he's got big power, which absolutely can play in Colorado.

But Mervis is kind of back to his old tricks, and that's what seemed to be lost in all of spring training. He's walking more than he's striking out. He's hitting close to 300 again. He's got some good power numbers that are out there. I mean, this is what you wanted to see, and hopefully defensively he's stepping up a little bit. Hosmer, I think, has been playing all right. I don't know if the Cubs are in any need anytime soon. I this will be a mid-season see here's the difference I believe that by mid-season Matt Mervis is their guy in some way

like he's the first baseman and maybe Hosmer's a part-time player something like that where I don't believe that with Nolan Jones I don't believe that ever happens there's any commitment to Nolan Jones ever and I like the offensive skills of Mervis so I would still go with Matt Mervis simply because he is kind of back to everything that is going to get him to the majors and be the Cubs first baseman

you know sometimes we don't give the Rockies enough credit they're 5 and 12 no no no no no no no in this very specific way Sometimes we don't give the Rockies enough credit. They're 5-12. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. In this very specific way. Oh, like we don't give enough credit that they'll do the wrong thing? Yeah, they'll always play the wrong player.

This is what I'm saying. Let me finish. Elu Harris-Montero has 48 played appearances and is playing okay and seems to be getting most of the time at third. Ezekiel Tovar has 56 plate appearances and seems to be the shortstop. So sometimes they

give their young guys a try. Right? Tovar is 100% getting option this week now after you said that, by the way. He might get option before this pod ends. It's marking down. It's like 225 Eastern as we're saying this and You said that, by the way. He might get optioned before this pod ends. It's market down. It's like 225 Eastern as we're saying this,

and it's right in that sweet spot before the transactions for the day start to come flowing in. I'm waiting for the text. Like 90 minutes from now, I'm going to get a text from one of you, and it's going to be Tovar going down. They're going to trade for Garrett Hampson again from the Marlins, and they're going to have him play over Tovar. So just watch. I'm excited. But, yeah, to your point,

giving back to your point, I'm actually surprised Montero is getting his playing time. Tovar is out there. But Nolan Jones is going to be an outfielder and they went inside jerks and pro-far. They did that thing that they always do. That's the dumb thing. Don't do that. You didn't have to do that. You didn't have to do that. And that

sort of slams the door on him until there's an injury and even then, the corresponding move is an injury, and it may just be Nolan Jones up for a day to not do anything, go back down. So that was a really disappointing use of him, and I think that's enough for me to say, Matt Mervis. for the rest of the season. Eric Hosmer is the ninth best projected cub for the rest of the season and still a 102 WRC+. However, that comes with a 16.5% strikeout rate, which goes with his historic strikeout rates. And yet this year he's striking out more and whiffing more. And that is something that's going to happen to him as he gets older i mean he's

a 33 year old uh and even as a 33 year old projected to be a 102 wrc plus at first that is below average for a first baseman so right now the cubbies are doing pretty well and uh there's no real pressure on him patrick risdom is doing a lot of the uh the heavy lifting power wise and um you know it kind of coming together but uh the longer eric has a 70 wrc plus and matt murvis is rocking in triple a i think that the uh the switch is just sort of begging to be made and it's not going to be a injury replacement it's going to be at eric cosmer dfa matt mervis up situation yeah like david fletcher with the angels just gone i wonder if they'd ever be comfortable doing hosmer mancini in the outfield and then uh mervis at dh i wonder if they'd ever play that game with us. That would be pretty bad for defense, I think.

The argument I can make is, if you're doing well and you are building momentum with a core of some sort, why hold this millstone around your your ankle you know what i mean like yeah bring up matt mervis in a situation where like hey we're not bringing you up like to save the cubs we're bringing you up because it looks like the cubs are ready to go and you should be on the cubs and we're gonna bat you eighth. You know? Why not? That's a really good point.

So, I think... Who did you pick? Did you pick Nolan Jones here? No, I'm picking... I'm the king of wafflers. I'm picking Mervis. Oh, okay. Mervis is my guy. I think he's super smart.

I like his approach. I think he's a viable major leaguer, and he's going to be up pretty soon. You almost accidentally defended the Rockies there. We got some feedback on Twitter about Montero in specific, and I was like, you know, you're right.

They did give Montero the burn. And I think we early on said that they might not. I have him in one league. I'm pretty happy with it so far because it's worked out better than I expected from a playing time perspective. How about this one on the pitching side?

Brandon Fott, who's been held in a lot of leagues in the early weeks of the season, or Mason Miller in Oakland? You talk about someone that should just be on the big league roster by sheer talent and who he'd be replacing. I think Mason Miller kind of jumps off the page. I'll go to you first on this one, you know. I talked to Mason Miller at the Fall League, and I've talked to a couple scouts about him. I'm a little nervous it's reliever long-term. There's stuff about his mechanics, his health, and also just his arsenal.

When I talked to him in spring training, he was like, fastball cutter, and I was like, and? So Stuff Plus is going to love him when we get the update. But Arsenal size and mechanics may not. And so also the A's have a ton of pitchers. I know you're saying the runway is open because they're not all good. Right. But at the same time, they have a ton of pitchers so

i i want to push the go go go button uh because it's a nice home park and stuff but i i'm feeling for some reason a little bit of distrust about how long he's up for what the deal is what the role is that sort of deal welsh well i mean everyone knows how I feel about Brandon Fott, but real quick, Mason Miller, I want to point out another stat. He does not have 30 innings pitched in professional baseball. So that's going to probably jump out to you. Now, AFL, he got a few more, but if I'm doing the quick math here, it's just under 30 innings pitched.

Most teams are not going to push this. And what would that do, by the way, if they were to push? You would push them into a relief role. The A's are in all of the, I don't know, I don't want to call it incompetence, but just the garbage that the A's are right now in their lineup and their stadium and everything that's surrounded around them right now. What they're not going to do is they're not going to destroy a prospect. And I don't think you're going to bring up a guy with 30 innings pitch,

regardless of how great it's been. I think they want to simmer this in a little bit. And again, if they did, I think it would be in relief. So I don't think that's a huge big plus or very limited starts. Yes, he's exciting, hits 102. Big physical guy, but there's relief risks totally. Maybe you could argue what they did with AJ Puck wasn't the best. So maybe they would learn from that. So all of that is aside to not just talk about Brandon

Fott. Brandon Fott has not been fantastic. That is a worry. His homers are through the roof. That is still a problem, but he's got a higher K per nine than the previous year. He's walking guys at the same clip. His left on base percentage is atrocious right now. Or actually, it's really, really high. So you know that's going to come down. And for overall ERA, the homers have gotten to him. He had some bad calls in one of those starts I mentioned, three and two thirds, no hit. I am still a big Brandon Fott guy. The PCL is relentless across the board. And I think it's pretty clear cut here. And I've seen this exact question like 12 times about Brandon Fott

versus Mason Miller. It is clearly Brandon Fott to me because he put up like 160 innings last year. He can go 160 plus innings with the Diamondbacks this year. Mason Miller cannot. So I will go with Fott. Yeah, the workload once he's up would be a big concern for Mason

Miller but I do think he could be pretty useful even in smaller leagues on a per inning basis even with all the concerns he both outlined those are valid concerns for sure looking at what he did in his most recent triple a start it was a ton of four seamers andters. 54 out of his 64 pitches were either a four-seamer or a cutter. By stat cast, he threw nine sliders and one changeup. This is Mason Miller? This is Mason Miller, yeah. He threw 64 pitches through five innings, struck out 11 in that start.

And it was all fastball cutters. 42 four-seamers, 12 cutters. Nine sliders. One change. It's good to see that they wanted to develop that that was when my question was about is that you know are you going to do cutter slider however you can hear already from that where it's like brandon font has a full arsenal and there is some relationship there where you have to be careful if you chase stuff plus too hard you

get a bunch of relievers is something Jeff Ponce says that I kind of agree with. And so there's an interplay between pitches. Like, for example, I wrote a piece today about the sweeper and the sweeper has some problems. And in that piece, I quoted Chris Langen from an interview

that I did on this podcast, driveline guy. And he said said sometimes you take a sweeper guy and you say, okay, let's take 10, 15 points off of stuff and give you a gyro slider, a hard bullet slider that you can command because we have these other things that say that if you can miss by less, then you can get more chases. You can get them swinging more. So the gyro slider is to get them to swing the sweeper is once they're swinging you know that sort of deal um and so you start to have these weird effects where starters the

pitches pitch together and that's why um you know stuff plus for example is super powerful but it's a little bit more powerful on relievers than it is starters. One more name to throw at you guys. Another one that has some innings concerns, not nearly the innings concerns of Mason Miller, but Ricky Tiedemann for the Jays or Kyle Harrison for the Giants, who is the better redraft stash right now. If you are desperate for pitching Welsh, you can have this one first. I think this one is astronomically difficult simply because Tiedemann, he just pitched the other day,

actually watched the entire start, but it was his first pitch back from that injury that he had. And I think this was a double-A start. I just don't know how much they're going to baby him. And Kyle Harrison, I don't think, even though his stuff plus was rocking, has not looked good. He didn't get through his first. I mean, I talked about it.

He didn't get through three innings in his first two starts. His second start, he was much better. It was against Brandon Fott, but he had a 12% whiff rate. He was not striking, at least when I had looked at it, it was like through five innings. He was not striking anybody out and that is his bread and butter. So I think he's still trying to figure out who he is. And I don't think the Giants are going to push him. So I'm going to go back to Ricky Tiedemann, even though I think they need to get him work back up. He was on a pitch count. He pitched about, he struck out nine by the way. And he had a 55 pitch count. I think it was, he went through three innings, struck out nine, Ricky Tiedemann did, and he looked phenomenal and he needs to be built up. I think, I think Ricky Tiedemann, even in that could still beat

Kyle Harrison up, even though he's in AAA because of those early struggles. So I'm going to go with Ricky Tiedemann, but I just, it is tough. Like Ricky Tiedemann is clearly the better pitcher to me, but they're going to make sure that this injury does not creep back up, but Toronto is going to want to win and he's going to be a good, he's going to be a good piece to help them do that. Yeah. You know, one thing that's tough is um you know with the with the idea that there are ghost il stints you would never if you're the blue jays release chris bassett to call up ricky

teeteman right you would never release alec manoa or even joserios, you know, to call him up. But would you ghost IL one of those guys? You know, but then the corresponding move is this ghost IL. And then, you know, you send Barrios or Manoa down. They're gone for two weeks and they come back and they rehab for a week and they shut everybody down in the minor leagues. And then you've had Tiedemann up for three weeks. Now what do you do so uh i think that they give them a lot of

runway however over in san francisco you know they have like six uh starters on the major league roster and i in fact have talked to a couple of those starters and heard kind of just little minor grumblings of like oh yeah we're piggybacking or whatever you know um if you look at it it's webb cobb benaiah discafani stripling and wood so they are doing some sort of six-man you know piggyback uh we'll get you in when we can get you in sort of deal for some of these guys i think they just officially moved stripling to the bullpen they just announced like two days ago too so that's another that's part of that yeah that's in there for now oh that's amazing yeah which i was not gonna be like it's not gonna

be one inning stints in the bullpen no way so they're just moving him and what's weird is they still have junis so it's like they're just moving Stripling into the Junis role which means that Cobb is going to come out in the fourth inning again and you're going to start to hear it from these pitchers if they keep coming out in the fourth inning you know what I mean? So they're playing a fine line there where they've got a lot

of starting pitchers I mean I count Junis still as a bit as like a kind of a long reliever slash starting pitcher so they're trying to get away with seven starting pitchers on the major league roster. So I think that Tiedemann has to be counted as closer because ghost IL or real IL, I would take him over Mitch White if I had a need in Toronto. Yeah. I also wonder if the Jays would be more likely to go to a six-man rotation anyway.

The downside is fewer starts for Kevin Gossman, but you look at the struggles of Benoa. Bassett had a rough start to the year. Just stretch everybody out a little bit. You're trying to pitch into October anyway. It might not be something you do all season long, but it might be something you do

at a point during the middle of the season if you hit a rough stretch of the schedule. I'm healthy and I'm rocking down here. You still have guys up there with five URAs in the rotation. Gausman just got lit up the other day. To your point, it just gives a little bit more breathing room. I would imagine Tiedemann's going to be ready by the beginning

of May. Again, they moved him up to around 50 pitches. Next start, he probably goes to 75. Next thing you know, by May, he's good to go. I think that's a they moved him up to around 50 pitches. Next start, he probably goes to 75, and then next thing you know, by May, he's good to go. I think that's a really good call. Blue Jays would probably benefit from it. The other thing you can do is, is it all close when you're doing these

depth chart ruminations? I do think maybe Tiedemann has more upside. I really like his slot. I really like his slot. I really like his pitches from that slot. I think he could be a really effective pitcher. He doesn't seem to have any of the same control issues

that Harrison's been having. 100%. Yeah, I'm with you guys. I want Tiedemann over Harrison as a stash at this point. We're all on Matt Mervis, by the way. I would also prefer Fott to Miller, but if I don't have Fott, I'm not sad about having Mason Miller. I think they're just going to let him go

and see what happens. I think he's 24 years old. It's somewhat similar to the Clark Schmidt problem the Yankees started to run into in recent years, except the difference is the A's don't have a rotation like the Yankees have had where you can just protect them as a multi-inning reliever.

You have to just let it happen and just see how it goes. It doesn't mean full workload every fifth day, not until the end of the season. There will be babying, but it might just be go out there and go five. We want you to be a regular starter. We want to see if you hold up. If he doesn't hold up, he comes back later. He's that reliever that Eno was

talking about. Today I learned I like Mason Miller probably a bit more than I should. As we sign off, a quick heads up, you can get a subscription to The Athletic for just a dollar a month for the first year at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. It gets you all the great written content that we have

on the site. You can find Welsh on Twitter at isitthewelsh. You can find Eno at EnoSaras. You can find me at Derek Van Riper. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.