Rates & Barrels - Rafael Devers to the Giants in a Blockbuster & Shohei Ohtani Is Ready to Pitch Again

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Andrew Baggarly joins Eno and DVR to discuss the blockbuster trade that sent Rafael Devers to the Giants in a stunning five-player swap Sunday, the Giants' increasing commitment at a group of four position players, and the rising importance of Bryce Eldridge's development as a defender.Plus, Eno shares a few comps for Kyle Harrison, and they wonder how the Red Sox might attempt to reallocate the money they no longer have to pay Devers, before discussing Shohei Ohtani's return to pitching and where the money went in fantasy baseball leagues this weekend.Rundown0:28 The Giants Acquire Rafael Devers in Five-Player Deal with Red Sox0:55 How Much Better Are the Giants w/Devers?3:04 Have We Overestimated the Difference Between Buster Posey & Farhan Zaidi?7:02 Becoming Less Risk-Averse9:56 Other Moves on the Horizon?14:44 More Importance on Bryce Eldrige's Defensive Development22:24 Devers' Fit at Oracle Park29:18 A Step Backward to Hopefully Take a Step Forward?34:11 Kyle Harrison's Long-Term Outlook38:10 Shohei Ohtani is Ready to Pitch in Games Again44:27 Jackson Merrill to the Concussion IL & More Injury Notes58:54 Where the Money Went: Father's Day Weekend 2025 EditionFollow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.socialFollow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.sociale-mail: [e-mail] our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFeSubscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrelsHosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno SarrisWith: Andrew BaggarlyProducer: Brian SmithExecutive Producer: Derek VanRiper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that actually they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instac Monday, June 16th. Derek Van Riper, Enosaris here with you and we've got a guest right off the top, senior

writer covering Giants for the Athletic. Andrew Baggerly is here because the Giants acquired Raphael Devers on Sunday. Words that I did not expect to say out loud in year two of a 10-year contract extension for Devers, but here we are. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, sure. Great to be on with you. It ends up being a five-player swap.

Kyle Harrison, Jordan Hicks, James Tibbs III, the Giants' first rounder from last summer, and Jose Baio all going back to Boston. But the first question I have for you is, how much better are the Giants today on Monday than they were just 24 hours ago with the addition of Devers? Well, I think they're quite a bit better and they really think they're gonna be better after Matt Chapman comes back from a sprained hand,

which they think is gonna be, you know, shortly before the All-Star break. They have a position player core that is just absolutely locked in now. I mean, they're taking on eight and a half years of Devers' contract at more than 250 million, a little of it deferred. But then you stack that on the $151 million six year deal

that just gave to Matt Chatlin last September, the 182 million seven year deal they gave to Willie Adamus in the off season, which at the time was the biggest guarantee they made to one player. Obviously, Devers is an even bigger one. All of a sudden, this is a group that's going to be together for a long time. And then you got Jung-Hoo Lee is still in year two of his five-year $113 million contracts. So it does definitely reduce their future flexibility. How this group sort of ages is going to probably determine whether the Buster Posey era

is a success or not in large measure but it took some gumption to make a deal like this to take on everything and give up the talent they gave up as well but you know if you understand the Giants if you understand how difficult it's been for them to get a world-class offensive force in the middle of their lineup whether it's Aaron Judge, whether it's Ohtani, Bryce Harper, getting Giancarlo Stanton to wave his no trade, he said no to them. I mean, I think Buster Posey knows the score, he knows the history of this organization,

and even though he's all about pitching and defense and he basically bought himself eight years of a DH, he knows what it means to have a force in the middle of that lineup too, and how difficult that is, maybe the most difficult thing to obtain when you're sitting in that chair as the Giants president of baseball operations. So took a lot of gumption

and probably a little bit of trepidation, but they got it done and got it done where he can hit for six weeks for them before the trade deadline even comes. And who knows how many games that might impact. I'm fascinated by the, just the difference in the front office, because there's a lot of the players in place were put in place

by the Farhan's IED front office. And yet this is kind of the big deal that we couldn't see Farhan kind of close. And so I wonder if, you know, the best way to see forward for this Giants team seems to be like, hey, have these processes that were put in place by Farhan, have these sort of analytically based processes, have this, you know, hopefully good player development that he was working on, have all that, you know, in place, but then have Buster have like a better sway with the ownership group? Like is there something there where like Buster was like, they were like, oh, this is Buster

and we trust him and like, yes, we'll give you the money you need for this deal. I don't know about that because I do think that when Farhan Zaidi was really empowered, he was pretty carte blanche. I mean, he hired Gabe Kapler, which was not popular. And there were probably a lot of people who had to basically go well okay you know we put this guy in this chair we hired him we believe in him you know this is he's saying this is the right guy to manage and you know I don't think Gabe Kapler was really a great fit as manager the one great year aside that they had in 2021 you look

at they were ready to sign Carlos Correa to a 365365 million contract or $350, whatever it was. And so whether that was driven by Farhan or ownership is something that sort of stays in the C-suite. But clearly, that was a big move that they were prepared to make with him leading the way. And he was all in on Yamamoto. He was a big fan of Yamamoto. They were ready to basically give him the same contract he got from the Dodgers, and

he just didn't pick them Same with Otani. So so I think there was a lot of trust in Farhan He had the the wherewithal to make the big moves, but there is definitely a risk aversion or risk calculation and there were a lot of critics of that regime who thought they were just a little too risk averse and clearly you are Taking some risk here both in terms of the financial consideration you know and maybe to a slightly lesser extent you know dipping into that pool of pitching and sacrificing Kyle Harrison and you know this was really the one shot that Buster Posey had in terms of financial

flexibility in terms of what they have to offer from in terms of prospects and players in the system this is not a robust system but he was able to get a big bat without giving up Bryce Eldridge, who's by far the best prospect in the giant system. They still have Hayden Birdsong who probably I would imagine a lot of teams would have preferred Birdsong in the steal over Harrison. And they still have Carson Wisonhunt at AAA. They're going for it, you know, and there's a lot of confidence. There's a lot of confidence that goes into making a move like this.

You're basically saying to yourself. Okay. Yeah, we're locking ourselves in to this core of players That means we it's gonna be even more incumbent upon us to develop Smartly to draft smartly to have to be able to plug in those more economical components around You know these guys who are gonna be taking up a lot of the payroll and that's's Buster Posey saying, look, we'll figure out how to do it. We got a lot of smart people working here, that's having faith in the people that are around you. And that same confidence to take on Devers without even talking to him about what position he's gonna play, how he's gonna fit.

There's just a belief that, you know what, we're just gonna be transparent, we're gonna be honest, we're gonna go about things the right way we're all gonna be adults in the room and it's gonna work out because this guy is a pro and he wants to play every day and that's enough good enough for me so a lot of confidence self-confidence and self-assuredness went into making a move like this. I like the idea that there being less risk averse that you know because you can see and this focus on confidence because you can see like the Willi Adames deal that was stretching the amount that people thought he was worth like in some ways you could call it an overpay.

However they liked a lot of the things that he did. He fit a position that he needed with offense and they've not wavered in their support of him. There's you know I think they're mostly just like he's going to come out of it on the other end of this and he'sed in their support of him. There's, you know, I think they're mostly just like, he's gonna come out of it on the other end of this and he's gonna be fine with him. I think in a similar way, there might be some really big ups and downs

on how people think of this deal and they might come quickly. Like if Kyle Harrison goes and has two or three good starts for the Red Sox, they've won the deal, you know? And if the shoulders come back for Devers, you know, and there's something wrong with the shoulder or he slumps, you know, they've lost the deal, you know? So I feel like, you know, I would be eating a lot of Tums.

But getting that bat has been the hardest thing for them. It doesn't even matter for them position-wise. Just get that bat. And that's what they've been looking for forever I mean, you know that one of the first things that Buster Posey said when he took over in last October was You know, we're in the memory making business and you know as much as they believe in in pitching and defense Barry Bonds made some pretty darn good memories for fans here over the years and really even through winning the three World Series fans here over the years and really even through winning the three World Series championships there's always been this undercurrent of Giants fans being like

when are we gonna get the big bad? I mean I still think about the complaints when they didn't sign Vlad Guerrero senior and the Angels signed him you know it's it's going back that far to where there's been this sort of this unrequited kind of hope within the fan base that the Giants will go out and get a real difference making offensive player. And they got one. They just got one. He's 28. He's leading the league in walks. He's someone who, you know, if he could be like a Joey Votto into his thirties and be a guy who gets on base a ton and, and hits homers. And I mean,

that would be huge for this franchise. They, they, Bob Melvin was saying he likes the way that Devers sees the ball deep. He can hit the ball with authority the opposite way we're gonna see how that plays when he doesn't have a green monster to pepper the out there in left field but it's always a challenge to come here and hit the ballpark gets in every hitters head whether you're righty or lefty but you know what it's you take some pressure off yourself when the guys around you are performing and and the Giants just got a lot deeper you know Wilmer Flores has got 51 RBI's and he might be an extra guy now. Dom Smith

is off to a really nice start for them but they're not going to necessarily need to give them 400 plate appearances the rest of the way. So yeah, they definitely got a lot deeper and they needed to because this was a pretty shallow position group. Thinking about where they're at payroll wise and given the amount of time we have before the deadline this year, it does seem like there's plenty of room to add more. So what do you think the Giants would pursue as far as other upgrades to this roster? This feels like an all-in sort of move not just for this year but beyond this season. So what other upgrades do you see them going after? Oh totally yeah when you take Jordan Hicks salary going the other way and you pro rate them both down. The Giants basically added about 10 or 11 million to their payroll with this trade for

this year and that still keeps them under the projected to be under the luxury tax threshold. That's 241 million I believe and they were of the mind and ownership basically said, look, you know, we're going to be open to every opportunity. If there's places we can strike and it makes sense, we'll do it. But our by and large preference is to reduce the payroll from where it was last year and get under the tax and reset, you know, the penalties, which, you know, frankly, those penalties are going to be onerous, especially when you have to develop. I mean, you you you have to nail your draft picks. You have to have as much money in your bonus pools

as you can have to try to replenish the system. So, I would be a little surprised if they made a move that would take them over the luxury tax this year, but they are on a case-by-case basis. And it's a little bit of a open question of what their biggest need would be after getting Devers. They certainly still have rotation depth, starting pitching depth. Some injuries can change that real quick and I think probably the best

answer your question is we got six weeks to go till the trade deadline. So there's plenty of time for other needs, other injuries, other things to happen that would change the calculus for just what this team might need to further push it over the top. You know, in terms of what they have, you know, the old, the best acquisition of the trade deadline is a call up or an injury return. What do you see them doing in the short term and the long term in the rotation? And do you think that there's any chance that Eldridge takes some time in the outfield? Just because I wonder, just strictly speaking by Fangraph's depth charts, right

field is probably the weakest place going forward, but it's probably first base still if Devin's going to DH. But I just wanted to know if there's been any chatter about him and sort of what the chatter has been about the top prospects that are ready to come up. Is a wizened hunt going to come up and take Verlander's next start if he can't or how close is he and what's going on with Eldridge? Yeah, well Verlander is going to start in the Cleveland series, I would guess on Wednesday,

if not Wednesday, Thursday. And so Kyle Harrison was probably gonna come out of the rotation regardless. Now Landon Rupp was leaking some oil here in his last start. He's been up and down. I think Hayden Birdsong was really, really good. I do there's going to come to a point where they'll maybe swap out Rupp for Wisenhunt and have him make his major league debut if only because you know Rupp is is already at 75-something innings and you know unlike Birdsong who started in the bullpen or

Harrison who was in the bullpen for a while, their innings are a little better managed at this point and I don't think they want to you to run Roup into the red innings wise. So I do think he's going to get a timeout at some point. And that's probably when we'd see Wison Hunt. They've got Carson Seymour. They've got Carson Ragsdale. All the Carson's.

They have all the Carson's in the minor leagues. So yeah, I think they still feel good about their pitching depth. And what was the second part of your question? Just Eldridge, if he's ever played in the outfield or how close he is to coming up. The two soft spots on the depth charts are first base and right field. Yeah, it's probably a little early.

We got to find out what Rafael Devers is open to, to be honest. That's probably the number one piece of information that we don't have right now. It would be objectively hilarious if he's playing first base next week when the Red Sox come to San Francisco. I won't lie. That would be that. I mean, isn't this crazy? A trade as big as this is, it's a huge story for the Giants because of all of the reasons we've gone into and all the history and unrequited hopes of getting a big bet. And it's a huge story in Boston for all the drama of you know they traded Mookie they they let Bogarts go they this is the guy they extended and barely a year in they can't see eye to eye and maybe they mismanaged you know the communication there a little bit and and all

of a sudden they're moving on from there but they're punting it's huge it's so dramatic and it's such a different story on both sides of this trade but for Eldridge you know it is interesting if Devers is a full-time dh that makes it all the more important that Bryce Eldridge turn himself into a functional first baseman and that's been a difficulty yeah i think he's going to continue to work at first i haven't heard anything different again it's early i'd be a little surprised if all of a sudden they said to him okay yeah let's let's try right field again but you're right in terms of the depth chart what they've gotten out of first base is not good. And obviously they moved on from a lot way junior and then in right field there's still a lot of belief that Mike Kostromski brings a lot of value with his defense. I think he got overplayed a little bit the first couple months.

I wasn't around to watch every day, but that's what I'm hearing. Bob Melvin did start him left on left a little bit which you know probably didn't work out so well but then he gave him a couple days off and Jastremski had a nice series in Colorado so you know if they can maybe mix in Gerrard and Carnacion and he starts coming around he hasn't really had a chance to pick up any rhythm yet after missing all that time with a broken finger that may be what they do and and and maybe there's going to be something out there that makes sense at the deadline. I thought Jaron Durand was the Red Sox player that made the most sense for the Giants. I even speculated that in a trade deadline piece a couple days ago, but I guess they were talking about a different guy at Family Park. It's hard to believe because I think it was the first week of May.

It was after the Cassis injury when Devers didn't want to go and play first base upon request from the front office. And I just I messaged Jen McCaffrey and I said, Is it possible they would trade Rafael Devers in year two of a 10 year extension? She said, doesn't have a no trade clause. So yeah, and here we are a little over a month later. I actually happened. So I thought it was galaxy brain fantasy guy questioning there.

I didn't think there was any reality to it whatsoever and it is amazing that the Red Sox will be in San Francisco this weekend. Here's what I want to see. I want to see Devers start a game at third and make a really big defensive play there. I want to see him start a game at first just so we can all laugh about that and I want to see him hit a homer. Like all three things in one series. I'm asking for way too much but that's what I'm hoping we see in that three game series this weekend and let's have Pablo Sandoval throw come and throw the first pitch out too just rub it in. Let's go.

I mean I could see Devers having a different approach to you know what he does with the Giants than what he did with the Red Sox, just because this is a blank slate for him. Maybe he does regret some of how it went down with the Red Sox, but then also it's not like they're asking him, oh, can you play first base because our first baseman is injured. And so we just need you there for three months and then you go back to DH, right? This would hopefully be more of a, hey, can you be our first baseman for the next five years? It's a slightly different question It's interesting and you know what I I can see both sides of it and you know at first when it started coming out

I thought boy this guy's not a team guy, you know, I mean they have a need it's not like you know They just didn't get a first baseman. They had a first baseman. He got hurt, you know, he's making all that money Don't you have to kind of suck it up and be a leader for the team? And then I read Kenny Rosenthal's piece where he really went into, you know, the lack of communication that went into the before the Bregman signing. It really reminded me of how what I thought was maybe maybe the biggest failure of the Farhanzadi regime was how they handled Brandon Crawford when they were about to sign Carlos Correa. They didn't even have a conversation with Brandon Crawford about moving him off a short

stop, you know, where the guys won gold gloves and his best shortstop in franchise history. They were ready to sign Carlos Correa and move Brandon Crawford to third base without talking to him. So, you know, if that's sort of similar to how it went down with Devers, then yeah, you can't blame him for being upset, you know. Let's show the guys some respect for having the stature that he has in your franchise. And there's probably some a little bit of misgivings on both sides, things that could have been done differently or more professionally.

But it is a sort of a fascinating thing to dissect a little bit because I can see people coming down reasonably on both sides of, you know, no, Devers was selfish or no, the Red Sox were disrespectful. You know, it's probably the truth is somewhere in the middle like most things, but yeah, it's just sort of an interesting thing to kick around. Well, it's the first time we talked about the deal on the pod, Andrew. Probably won't be the last time we talk about this blockbuster trade. We appreciate your time and your insight and all the great work you do at The Athletic.

Hey, thank you guys. This was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me on. It's Andrew Baggerly, senior writer covering the Giants here at the athletic. And it's hilarious too that Grant is on vacation as this happens. So I mean, Grant's probably happy like right like Grant's got by this. Yeah, I think it's just a great deal that kind of hate to be like win win because it's if I had to choose a side I would say I think San Francisco did better in this one. I find Kyle Harrison to be a fungible sort of four-five type starter and you know Hicks

is a decent reliever. You know to give them that up in a teenager, he's like 22, but like to give that up in a bat that's not a top 100 prospect for a top 20 hitter in the game like Devers I'll take the the giant side of it But there is this whole thing like you you come on and the your predecessor has signed a huge deal To a guy that is now a DH, you know, they signed him to a third baseman deal You know and you come on and you have eight years, nine years of DH in front of you and you're struggling to put together

pitching. You know, you don't want to just necessarily clog the DH position when you have other guys. So you want to unlock your roster and you want to make yourself more versatile and able to take trends and table pick up the right free agent and make make the roster fit better like I get I get it I Get it I get it, but I'd say there's lots of ways they could have unlocked that roster There's lots of other players. They could have traded There's lots of different days days that could have grown around it. So and for the Giants It's just like you know, like you say like Devers never would have signed this deal with the Giants

They had that was the cost. The overpay instead of money this time was they had to pay prospects to get this deal. But if they could sign Devers right, like if they could sign Devers right now to $280 million, you know, or $250 million in eight years, I think they would. And I think he wouldn't. So. Yeah, that's the problem, right? They keep finishing second and third,

targeting big bats and free agency. So this is kind of the other path if you're Buster Posey. And it's exciting that he pursued it, which, you know, is probably a function of the division they're in, too. The Dodgers are the Dodgers. The Padres with AJ Preller at the helm are an aggressive club. If you're going to compete with those two teams in particular, you're not going to do that,

taking a middle ground, overly patient sort of approach. And we know the cost of doing business in Major League Baseball is overpaying in free agency. That's just how it works. If you wanna improve the roster that way, you're not going to come out ahead in dollars per war on a lot of those deals. So I think there's a lot of ways to look at this trade.

I mean, the Devers, how does he fit in the park question? I think Baggs kind of nailed that. The key difference for me is not having the monster in the left. Like does he lose a little bit when he goes the opposite way of being outside of Boston? And if anything, does he actually gain on the pull side with the move to San Francisco or does that end up being kind of neutral from a power perspective for him? Well we've got the overlay up right now and it looks

beautiful it looks like hey he's gonna hit more homers but that the problem is that temperature is the big difference here. Whereas Boston's just about to heat up into the summer months, San Francisco is going to stay the same temperature. And so some of those balls just aren't going to go as far. And so, you know, that changes your entire overlay. But I would say that Triples Alley in San Francisco is remarkably close to the most problematic place in Fenway, which is that weird cutout in center field where it gets really deep, right?

That's the hardest place in Fenway to go out. So whatever he's been doing, he's been not trying to hit it to Triple's Alley in San Francisco. So maybe he does have, you know, it's either down the line or it's to the left center. That might actually work in San Francisco. I just think he hits the ball so hard. He hits the ball so hard that he can hit it out of San Francisco. What kind of a haircut are you giving him going forward? him going forward. If you look at the three-year rolling park factors for lefties and you just say, what's the home run park factor? Fenway has been a 90, so 10% below league average, and Oracle's been a 78, so 22% worse than league average for power.

So you're talking about two to three homers maybe a season based on 81 games at home and all that that and eventually maybe as he hits the ball less hard it hurts him a little bit more than it hurts him because he's still kind of in that physical peak or near that physical peak right now. So it's a couple of homers maybe it's is it eight to ten points in batting average not having the monster as a lefty go on the opposite way. Back of the napkin math for me. If you put together the worst parts of what he's done so far

and just sort of say that's what's coming, it would be a 263 average with 27 home runs. That's good, really good. And it's a very tough thing to do in that ballpark, as we've seen for a long time. So if he can do that, applying half his games there, then that's good. That hurts his fantasy numbers a little bit. You were hoping for 290 and 30 plus.

But the supporting cast is better than it would have been in the last several years too for all the reasons that Andrew mentioned right you have Willy Adamis there on the long-term deal you got the Chapman extension, Jung-ho Lee's healthy right now so you put that group together with Elliot Ramos and with the guys that they already had that were coming through that system and it's a much better looking lineup. Entering this week they're 21st in Woba, not surprisingly 23rd in slugging. So this should, the Devers move could probably get them closer to league average in both. Would it surprise you if here on out the

Giants are middle of the pack in Woba and near middle of the pack in slug? Yeah, which would, of course, insinuate that they were better than that. That, you know, after the park factor. I mean, I think there'll be a pretty good road team. If you think of what the lineup looks like, it's a I think it's a pretty good lineup. You know, in terms of your holes, you're talking about Tyler Fitzgerald and Wilmer Flores as your as your worst bats. You know, you're talking about Tyler Fitzgerald and Wilmer Flores as your worst bats. You're starting to put together a real lineup.

I think the thing about the Boston side of this that has to be frustrating, it's not that you couldn't possibly see it coming because if you look at the timeline that Levi Weaver outlined, it was last winter, Devers was critical about the lack of spending, and then this year they add Alex Bregman at his position and you know the fallout of him not wanting to play first base like again I'm with bags where I think this was poor communication and generally you know you can kind of come down somewhere in the middle on this one I think that's a reasonable stance. I think the Red Sox were wrong I think at the point they asked him to play some first base even if he didn't want to do it Devers could have done it it was a choice he made his choice that's what it is, I think at the point where they asked him to play some first base, even if he didn't want to do it, Devers could have done it. It was a choice, he made his choice, that's what it is.

I think it's just weird because it goes back to the what are you going to use the money on now question. You were the team that didn't retain Mookie Betts long term. You let Bogarts go, you trade away Devers. You got all this financial flexibility and the timing of the trades extra weird just because the Red Sox are playing well. They're eight and two in their last 10 and they swept the Yankees this weekend.

So, they're still 30 million, but they had Devers. They were still 30 million under the first apron. They had money they could have spent. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that actually they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer, so download the app and get delivery

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Find these recipes and more at NYTCooking.com. It smells so good. I think this was more about Devers and the front office and Breslo not being in charge based on operations. That's not a good way to make decisions. No, it's not. That's not a good way to make decisions. No, it's not. That's like emotions. Most of what you're trying to do as an organization

is to find and secure, as long as possible, players that are as good as Rafael Devers. That's the goal, generally, of what you're looking for, to build a championship caliber lineup. I think when you put into context that, yeah, they offloaded the contract and if that was really important to ownership or to the front office or both, then you can look at the return and say, okay, they achieved their main goal, flexibility, and secondary to that, they got

Kyle Harrison, who they'll have for a long time, Jordan Hicks, who'll be better if they move him back to the bullpen, James Tibbs III, who was a first-rounder last year, was having a good season at high A this year. Looks like he could be a quick to the big league sort of player, not that they need another outfielder. Maybe he's the guy that gets flipped into the trade. And then Jose Beo is just kind of a long-term dart arm, even though he's got a 40% K rate

in the complex league right now. That's the problem, he's in the complex league. So we don't really know a lot about Bayo at this point. They were interviewing Clayton Kershaw during the game about this, and they said something about, oh, and they got James Tibbs, and Kershaw goes, who? And they're like, oh, he was the first round pick, and he goes, no, no, I don't care. There's plenty of stuff in this world that I'll disagree with Clayton Kershaw about, obviously, go back to Friday.

But look, I look at this and I'm like, okay, you are trying to win at the major league level. That is the number one objective of a front office. And when you do things like this, like the Red Sox just did, I think it's really hard to say, yeah, we're trying our best to win right now. Because unless you think Kyle Harrison is like a mid rotation starter or better, or you really believe that Tibbs is going to change the long term outcome of your franchise, either directly or indirectly by being traded, and that Hicks is going to

be in your bullpen in October, you have to spend the money somewhere. That's the point. You're Boston. You're a big market team. You've got deep pockets. You need pitching. You put together the board of top free agent pitchers that are available this winter. Are you better as an organization if you go plunk down a nine figure outlay on Framber Valdez this winter? Or you do the same with Dylan Cease? Because those are probably the only two guys of the available free agents that I could see getting that. Maybe Michael King, health permitting, kind of fits into that group

too but ugh. You're leading towards no but there's actually a part of me that's like maybe you are and this is why. Boston has been able to develop hitters. They seemed to be doing a really good job of it. Roman Anthony's start notwithstanding. It's like Park that is gonna be conducive to producing hitting and they've had a really hard time producing pitching. So maybe the whole idea is, yes, we can have that $30 million on the books for veteran talent. It just would be better if that $30 million was spent on arms because that's what we need. That's what we need to buy in free agency because we're having a really hard time developing it. So Maybe they think yes, we would rather have from her on a 25 million dollar a year 30 million dollar a year

five year deal Six year deal. I mean, what's it? What's from we're gonna from I get that right you might get 200 million I would say from heromberg Comp and Free Agency, max freed money. Yeah, exactly. Maybe fewer a year. I mean, if freed's already 31 though too. Yeah, I mean, maybe one year shorter,

but probably a similar AAV to free. Well, some of the freed years might have been to stretch out the AAV for luxury tax purposes or whatever. So I don't know. Like, yeah, I'm thinking like a six, six, 200 or something, you know, that's less than Devers, first of all, I guess it's shorter than Devers. And it just addresses something that they think that they can't produce. I'm trying to be as as kind as possible to them. And they like we'd rather spend that $30 million on pitching basically.

The other take is just that you've put yourself in a position where you feel like front office and player are never going to be able to mend that relationship. And you might as well trade Rafael Devers while you still can, because eventually, 10 years of service time, he'd have a no trade clause. He'd be two or three years older than he is right now. All of those factors would be in play. And I think the way that this really could go poorly for the Giants, if I'm trying to just remember some things

that we cared about even three or four months ago, the health of Rafael Devers shoulders. I mean, you brought that up, but he was so limited in what he could do throughout the winter and even into the spring, that that was an explanation that Jen McCaffrey gave us to say, hey, this is why Rafael Devers probably hasn't been himself begin the season. The slump he opened the year in was awful. We're asking all sorts of questions like is he

healthy, is he okay, what happened? Physically that's the question. Like are his shoulders going to hold up? Otherwise I think he'll age reasonably well and the money doesn't matter that much to a huge market team like that when you struggle to get players like Devers in free agency anyways. You don't think he can be like a top 20 top 30 hitter for four years until he's 32, five years until he's 33? Right and then just be passable for some of the years at the end like that seems possible. How many bad years are gonna have in the Bogarts deal?

How many bad years they're to have the Machado deal? Like you're always going to have bad years at the end. Even the Vado deal, which was pretty good, was not great at the end. You know, like just how time tends to work. That's no deal is great in the very end. And this one doesn't actually seem that much worse. And 8250 is like is going to be chump change. I mean, you just saw 770 and you know we saw way bigger

numbers than this one. This is actually not that big of a number like the book cards is actually do more money than endeavors which just is crazy. And then the last part that I find interesting is Kyle Harrison. He's definitely going to a park. Part of where I had him ranked, a large part of it, was park. I don't actually think this is a great set of skills for a starter. So I have comps for him. You can use the comp machine on Alex Chamberlain's thing and you basically take his fastball and say, who are the comps for his fastball? And you see it immediately.

Look at all of their arm slots. Andrew Haney, Sean Manaya, JP Sears, Kyle Harrison all have arm slots around, was it 20 degrees? Manaya of course has dropped his a little bit, so I wonder if Manaya is what the plan is for Harrison. If they're going to drop him and try to have him be sinker sweeper because he does have the same what these guys all have is low slot high spin efficiency. So a bit of a surprising four seamer from all these guys if you think about it Sears, Haney, Manaya, Harrison they all throw four seamers they're not really sinker guys. Manaya with the drop slot has become more of a sinker guy so maybe they think they can drop his slot and get it and make him more just crazy east-west than he is. But the other thing that makes all these guys the same,

again, Haney, Manaya, Sears, Harrison, none of them have good secondaries. There isn't a good secondary in the group. Sears sweeper might be the best or Manaya sweeper but I would say that none of these guys have an above-average secondary period. None of them turn over change-ups that well. None of them have good breaking balls. This is a fastball heavy thing and we've seen that Haney and Harrison at some point was like 92 and then it didn't work and he just popped up to 95 this year and it's working What happens next year when it's 93 or 94? So I want to leave a little bit of room for a mania esque

Outcome for Harrison, but when three out of the four comps are kind of mediocre pitchers That's why I think it's coming for him Right, and I think that Generally is lamb looking at this returning and I think you's coming for him. Right. And I think that generally is why I'm looking at this returning and I think you could have got more for Nevers but maybe the failure in that thinking is that the list of teams that will take on that much money for any player is reasonably short.

And if you're working against time, you're worried about the shoulders, you're worried about losing leverage, whatever it might be. Do you want it to come back out? Do you want it to leak out?osing leverage whatever you want to come back out. You want it to know what this to come back Yeah, and that'd be your third massive misstep in communication as an organization with this player Like maybe that was part of this too is like, let's just get this done move on But what you do with that money is going to be a huge huge part of how you're graded long term on this because at least on the surface

It doesn't look like you did great and actually just to think about what you're graded long term on this because at least on the surface it doesn't look like you did great. And actually just to think about what you were talking about like limited number of people that could take it on two of the biggest teams that maybe could take it on the Yankees and Dodgers pretty much don't have space at DH. Yeah well the you can't. You can't because you got Shohei Otani, who actually is coming back to start Monday's game. So who else were they talking to? Mets? Yeah, you probably could have talked to the Mets,

but then you're also gonna say, long term, you're gonna have Soto Endeavors on the same roster, one of those guys is gonna play the field four or five years from now. You kinda see both of them as mere cut VH ages at the end That's might have said no maybe Yeah, we'll probably learn a lot more about all of this in the the weeks ahead But show hands back as a pitcher, you know before the all-star break and I think some of the stuff

I was reading from Fabian Ardai I did great work throughout the weekend It seemed like the Dodgers got a little cagey about when exactly Otani was going to return and all of a sudden it was like, surprise, he's coming back Monday to start. He did throw 44 pitches in a simulated game last week, but they're insisting that he'll throw between one and two innings as an opener against the Padres on Monday.

I don't know if I just, I don't think I believe anything that they say right now. I think I'm just gonna wait and see like what I expect show hey Oh tiny to go five and be eligible for a win no not based on 44 pitches in his last simulated game last week So I do think it will be a shorter outing even if they're perhaps misleading us again Choose between hitting him and pitching him. I guess you choose hitting him Yeah, and leagues where you got to choose until we see him get all the way back to a full starters workload. Yeah, you just keep hitting him. It's exciting for him to come

back and for the Dodgers to potentially get an impact starter. I mean, Roki Sasaki, despite the fact that he's supposedly pain-free, has just stopped throwing. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. I got a text from one of the people that was at the bar when I drunkenly told everybody this offseason that Roky was going to be a bust. He's like, I guess you were right. But what's weird is, does that mean that like, he's got to like rethink his mechanics completely or does pain free doing a lot of lifting here? I don't know.

I don't have a lot of confidence in this situation right now. I am increasingly pairing what we're seeing this year from Roki to his past injury history, which is significant and worrying that he will need some kind of shutdown, despite what the Dodgers say, like some kind of prolonged surgery and recovery. Like that seems like the direction that we're heading in. And this is, you know, in the face of some good news with Otani and get Blake's nail throwing side sessions again,

apparently Emmett Sheehan's coming back this week. It's wild in Dodgerville right now. What is the September rotation for the Dodgers? Oh boy. I bet you Kershaw just throws 87 and has some blow-ups and isn't vintage, but just he's there. Okay, so we've seen Kershaw for parts of the last two seasons now. His Sierra's over 4.5.

The K-Rate's under 20%. Walkrate's creeping up this year. He's not getting as many swinging strikes. At some point, it's not rust anymore. It's just fading. It's time catching up with you. And I kind of think we're getting to that point. Oh my God. Like, I don't think he's a playoff starter right now, which is the conversation I don't want to have with Clayton Kershaw. Nope. Nope. Nope. But if you think about it, if you're the Dodgers and you just go historically, the ways they just grind through September to then shorten up

that roster accordingly in the playoffs, Kershaw could be chewing up innings at September and be nowhere near the mound in October. Like that's in the range of outcomes, depending on who else is healthy. You could also just start quote unquote, start Kershaw without having any conversation with him and just and be like well you you put like three guys on in a second so we had to take you out. I don't know man.

Right? Let's just pitch him as long as it as it's working and then as soon as there's any sign you just take him out. So I think Yamamoto he could go down is the thing like he had a major injury last year so it's hard to be like Yamamoto will be there but Yamamoto, Kershaw, like Glasnow or Snell? They could both be healthy by then. When everybody's healthy, then they have weird decisions But I guess you just put Gonsolin or May in the bullpen again. I like Ben Casperius, dude I think he could be a really good starter and I want to be like

Everyone go get Ben Casperius, but I have no idea how long he'll be like everyone go get Ben Casperius but I have no idea how long he'll be around. I like Ben Casperius better than Amit Sheehan actually. I like his fastballs better than Sheehan's fastball. Right. But Sheehan's part of the guys who will get us there group at least to the middle part of the season while they get healthy. You know, limitations being whatever they are they are going to need some healthy arms to kind of bridge this gap through the middle of the year. Yeah, the Probables grid over at Fangraphs has been updated to reflect what Andrew Bagley just texted me, which is it is officially now Robbie Ray, Justin Verlander, and Logan

Webb for the Giants in the Cleveland series. And the Dodgers, I've listed Otani for Monday. That might be, is that Otani Kasparis or Otani Lanak maybe? Robileski? Matt Sauer for Tuesday, Matt Sauer broke a record for number of runs allowed by a reliever by the Dodgers or something. Then they just let him die on the vine

against the Padres that day. Oh, nine runs on 13 hits. Yeah, they just. 111 pitches. You're saving the bullpen today, sir. And then Emmet Sheehan on Wednesday, Emmet Sheehan's next start is at Colorado. They're just putting Emmet Sheehan in

as like a regular member of the rotation, which is interesting. So I guess my take is at Colorado. They're just putting Amit Sheehan in as like a regular member of the rotation, which is interesting. So I guess my take is maybe incorrect, at least that's what the probable says. And it says Sheehan over Kasperius as a regular starter. So that's something to watch. Yeah, man, I think the Kasperius interest picked up in the last couple of weeks,

he gets scooped up in a bunch of leagues, understandably so, but there's a lot of uncertainty about How exactly they're going to use him? So much injury news and promotion we didn't get to yet. Jeez, like where do we even go from here? Jackson Merrill on the IL with a concussion that play was brutal because if you didn't see the video of it There was a throw from Gabrielle Moreno I believe is behind the play and Cattel-Martay had to come off the bag to get it and get the tag on and basically he caught the ball right in

front of Jackson Merrill's head first slide so as soon as Merrill came through he just made impact with the glove hand and you both I think Martay and Rolde Perdomo are waving for the trainers immediately it just looked like one of those complete accident fluke type plays that unfortunately is gonna knock Merrill out for at least this week. I mean, it's a seven-day concussion IELTS situation, but possibly longer. You could just tell he he was immediately uncomfortable on the field. Didn't look good at all. It sucks. I mean this has been a so far a lost season for Merrill. I don't think that there's any process thing that went wrong.

You had a choice between Jackson Merrill and Jackson Churio in the second round and you know you could have chosen either way and the guy could have been hurt. You know it's there's we don't have a history of injuries with Jackson Merrill that we have to contend with here. I don't think there's nothing about the way they play the game that suggests that Merrill should be hurt and and Churio not you know so I think it's they're gonna both be second rounders next year maybe maybe Merrill goes down to the third round or fourth round I'll still I'll still pick him maybe Churio goes up to the first round I just want to hear you say it though I could think I don't know if he's quite there yet

maybe I could think of one. I don't know if he's quite there yet. Maybe. What's better than a well marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders.

Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. We will have Logan Gilbert coming off the aisle on Monday to face the aforementioned Red Sox, and given the nature of the Logan Gilbert injury a lot of people were wondering Should you actually start him by the time we hear this episode? We were quartered a little later in the day on Monday to make sure we could have Andrew Bagley on the show earlier But it's an arm injury like do you blindly trust Logan Gilbert in a two-star week where he's got

Red Sox the first one Cubs tough matchup for the second one or do you just let it play out for this week in weekly leagues and kind of wait and see? I love two starts and I you know there's a lot of leagues where I would just to start them but if I was at all watching my ERA and my web I would not because flexor you don't even know how many and it's not just the flexor strain aspect ofor you don't even know how many I mean it's not just the flexor strain that aspect of it it's just you know how many things they're gonna give him how many pitches they're gonna give him like you

know right off the bat even he could pitch well and he could pitch seven innings over two starts and not get you a win he got the 72 pitches for his last rehab outing so I think 80 plus first time outs within range is just a matter of how he feels. Yeah and if the command is off you know the command is pretty important for him so. Yeah yeah that would be the the key as we wait for that but other news and notes include a promotion Brady House is up for the Nationals that one broke I think early Monday as we were putting this rundown together. And Lyle?

Yeah, he's back. So they demoted Robert Hassel III and made the choice to go to Lyle. And so what's the corresponding move for House? Who's House replacing? Oh, let's see. Who is House replacing? Good question because I wasn't even worried about it because I figured it was someone that we weren't that excited about well I just sort of want to know what and they had to make room on the 40 man forum too I believe I'm looking at the Washington lineups right now Tana got sent down oh and I'm I'm guessing it'll say Tana played third who was playing third

Ahmed Rosario was playing third and wow who's playing third Oh Tania was playing third? Ahmed Rosario was playing third and wow, who's playing third? Oh, Tanya was playing third. Yeah. So Tanya's out, House is in. That's the best way you can make a swap is like the guy that he was playing, the playing position that you want him to play is out. This was a good year for House in the minors in terms of power probably his best year for power He had a ball 112 miles an hour and had a 46% hard hit rate

so that's really the biggest question because he's not going to be a Contact whiz kid he's not gonna be a big OVP guy So, you know powers the way he's gonna get OVP guy. So, you know, powers the way he's going to get OVP if he gets it. He's going to scare pitchers if he can do it. It's still a little bit more borderline than I'd like. This is why I don't think he's necessarily a top prospect. But if he can have a 200 ISO in the big leagues, he has a job waiting for him, I think. Yeah, I think with with house, like the glove should be really good. And that alone could secure the playing time. As long as he's not overmatched,

they'll give him some time to work through that swing and miss. He also hits the ball hard enough, gets to the power enough, where if he's a lower average, big power third baseman with above average defense, that works. I mean, in some ways, is that not like early career Matt Chapman?

It's probably how we would have described him for various points in his career I don't know if the gloves quite that level, but it's supposed to be good glove That's a good point in terms of like current batters at third base We have another Type like him. Let's say 200 ish ISO Ryan McMahon with a better glove. Actually, Ryan McMahon's not a bad defender either, yeah. So it's a right-handed version of Ryan McMahon.

That could be fair. That's probably your range with the latter being more likely than the former, but I think House is an exciting player. His promotion kind of being overshadowed by a million other news things that have happened in the last few days around the league. Unfortunately, Royce Lewis is back on the IL with a hamstring strain again.

And it's just like, when, if ever, will Royce Lewis just catch a break on the health front and just get a chance to play even 140 games in a year again? It's just frustrating to see the same types of injuries continue to slow him down. Yeah, it is really too bad. And then he'd just been kind of coming out of the slump a little bit. I don't know what they're going to do.

I like Cody Clements a little bit. I don't know if anybody noticed before, but Cody Clements has upped his bat speed almost more than anybody else in the big leagues. And he had been playing pretty well. He's been still been playing at some at second, some at third. I like him better than Jonah Bride, honestly. And so if they think this is going to be a long, long absence for Royce Lewis, then I

think go to the guy that you think has more upside in Cody Clements, I think, in terms of offensive upside. Go play him a little bit more and make Jonah Bride the backup. I think that's where they're headed. So if you're looking in, I would say, 15 plus team leagues, Cody Clements is relevant right now. Yeah, they've used Bride against a couple of lefties recently so we'll see how they split out that playing time but uh man if you want to feel old Cody Clemens is 29 years old. What is happening? Why am I so old? Why am I getting so old so fast? But yeah the twins are already playing a lot of Brooks Lee, a lot of Willie Castro so it'll be one of Clemens or Jonah Bride picking up that extra

playing time or maybe they'll work in a platoon for Lewis's absence. John Carlos Stanton is coming back in the Yankee series against the Angels and I saw somebody I think it was Michael Waterloo on Blue Sky Say I forgot John Carlos Stanton was in the league which you know is it's true you kind of forget sometimes that he's still a Yankee because he's been out all season with the double tennis elbow extremely rare injury that I've actually never heard anyone get before so nice to see him get back after a couple of rehab games like he played three rehab games at AA he'll be activated probably by the

time you hear this podcast or the day after. Who loses though? We wondered about this when Ben Rice got off to his great start. Trent Grisham had a really nice start to the season as well. How do you see the pieces fitting with Rice, Grisham, Dominguez, and now Stanton coming back

to be that primary DH for the Yankees? As a person who was excited to get Ben Rice in my lineups in the listeners league early on, I think I've noticed, and I'm checking my math here, yes, he has been in a slide. He had a great March and April with a 958 OPS and May Ben Rice was a 739 OPS. In June so far, it's a 405 OPS. I think it could be as simple as sending him down at some point. But he is still left handed. They may still use him and then Stanton against lefties.

But that doesn't make sense. I don't think you treat Stanton that way when he comes back in. So in his first game back, Stanton is the DH against the right-handers. Ben Rice is at first base. And Paul Goldschmidt is on the bench, but that's not gonna be the plan going forward. So I think that Ben Rice is going to lose

a lot of playing time here. Yeah, it's interesting because both Grisham and Rice have had prominent spots in the lineup. I mean, Grisham's leading off a lot against Wrighties. Rice is up there playing first base, mostly DH, but the corresponding move, if they option down their backup catcher, might give us a little bit of a hint too in terms of some of their intended usage. Yeah, I think that'll help maybe help clarify things just a little bit.

I did see Tyler Mee is on the IL now with right shoulder soreness so Kumar Rocker back in the fold for the Rangers. Rocker was among the popular pickups in the main event. We'll get to that in just a few minutes in a very short version of where the money went because this episode is going to be very very long if we don't do that. I do want to remind everyone too, something we did not discuss last week, we're talking about Jacob deGrom as a possible trade chip for the Rangers. I think it was TPHnube in our Discord pointed out, deGrom does have a full no trade clause.

Most players who've been in the league as long as him and hit free agency get that into their deals. He has one, so he would have to approve a deal if the Rangers want to pursue that. That leads to a whole other wild speculation case. Would he approve a deal? Would he want to pursue that and that leads to a whole other wild speculation case like would he approve a deal would he want to leave does he want to go play for a contender or is he just happy with life in Arlington I thought that was a piece of irrelevant news that is I think that reduces the chances of a of a Jacob deGrom trade however the only way that a Jacob deGrom trade. However, the only way that a Jacob deGrom trade happens is to a contender

that thinks that he's the piece that puts them into the World Series kind of deal, right? And that might actually be enticing to Jacob deGrom, right? So it's like, if it is, I don't know if the Red Sox count as that right now, but if they went on a win streak and got into the front of that and were just a pitcher away, they now have more money available to them. DeGrom there makes sense. DeGrom to the Yankees and Dodgers always makes sense because they're always looking to add pitching

before the playoffs. So I think those teams would still have a case to make to him. Interesting thing for Kumar Rocker is that after I talked to him in spring about how he might need a cutter, he said he just didn't have the feel for it. The last two starts, he is throwing a cutter more than a quarter of the time.

That is a huge deal because it gives him something against lefties. He can be cutter death ball against lefties and he can be four seam death ball against righties. His four seam basically has sinker shape. So this cutter for Kumar Rocker changes a lot of how I feel about him. He still had pretty poor locations in his first two starts with the cutter in general, but also just all of his pitches. And I do think that's a bit of a potential flaw for a rocker is not great command, but the arsenal is in better shape right now with the cutter.

And so I think he's got an up arrow next to him. Tyler Malley, it's a shoulder. It's a really bad timing in terms of the trade deadline. Will he get healthy fast enough to be traded at the trade deadline is a question that might be on some minds in Texas. And he was a huge candidate for regression anyway when it comes to peripherals like strikeouts minus walks,

Sierra, FIP, stuff plus, any model suggested that he was one of the biggest regression candidates in baseball. So maybe just get out of the regression by putting him on your injured list and not worrying about it. Yeah, we've seen Mallet deal with a lot of arm injuries over the last couple of years.

They described it as shoulder fatigue coming off of his last start on Tuesday. The move was made retroactive to last Thursday so he's eligible to return before the end of June. We'll see if that's a possibility for Malley here in the next couple of weeks. Since we were talking about Rocker let's take a quick look at where the money went. Not surprisingly big bids on Jacob Mizarowski, Yuri Perez, Ben Casperius who came up a little bit earlier also fetching some pretty big bids in 12 team leagues where he was available going as high as 190 out of 1,000

in some leagues. Shelby Miller, kind of the number one closer available in a lot of those leagues, topping out at 234. Good luck, good luck. I hope, I mean, I hope that works out, but good luck trying to get the bids right in 12 team leagues on closers right now. The range was $11 to $234 on Shelby Miller but we did get the follow-up that Justin Martinez does need Tommy

John surgery so it's a long runway for the rest of this season for Miller to be the guy. Yeah I've been spending a little bit like a drunken sailor. So in my main event, I spent $3 on Liberator, $2 on Luis Sirius. He's home all week in Sacramento. I thought that was a fun one. And a dollar on Kyle Higashoka to replace Pat Bailey, who was hurt. But I did get a Yuri Perez and I'm sitting him in his first week. I paid 66 unopposed in TGFBI. Unopposed. Wow. Well, part of that. So what happens is in in the NFVC platform, if you don't sort by stats,

you get sorted by roster rate. And if you have roster rates that are single digits or zero, you're going to be buried well below the fold. And it was Father's Day. So maybe you got a little extra lucky. Maybe I just got lucky. I'm a little mad. I wish I had put like 36 down or something.

Don't get greedy. But I think it's one of those things. Like there's so many Sundays where there's random stuff that pulls people's attention away, right? So there's like Easter that people care about. There's Mother's Day. There's Father's Day. Sometimes 4th of July weekend.

So you get all these summer weekends where stuff comes up and half the league either gets pulled away or maybe more. They're distracted, not as dialed into fab. It's an opportunity, especially for the players that aren't just popping up at the top of the list. Yeah, I just I thought I might be helpful for people who do fab. My process is that during the week week I'm identifying my droppers. So over the course of the week I want to identify who I can drop and then I set up trees with those

droppers. And the first thing I do is I go in and for hitters I do last seven ABs because I want to know that they've gotten at least 18 to 19 ABs in the last week. Otherwise they're too much of a part-time player to even matter. So that's my first way of doing it. And then for pitchers, I do the schedule and I just look at the schedule and I do it two or three times because they update the schedule, you know? And then sometimes I'll go to the fan graphs, probables, look for people that I might have missed, you know? And then the last thing I do, and I've added this over the last couple of years, I didn't do it at first and I missed a lot of people, is you can sort by date added. If you sort by date added, then you can basically look at the last seven days and then you can

catch all the people who didn't get to 20 ABs because they just got added, right? And so date added is a really good like last way to kind of get them. Now what you'll miss are like injury returnees or prospects that somebody drafted early and then dropped or something, you know. So there's still ways to miss players and I always get mad when I miss out on something like that. But yeah, this week I was pretty mellow except for Yuri and I'm gonna keep Yuri on my bench because you know, he didn't have any strikeouts in the last one. I'm waiting for the command to come back and it's Atlanta so I don't really want to take that chance. It was a speculative pickup for now.

Yeah, only four swinging strikes for Yuri Pera is against the Nationals in that second start on Sunday, but still 99-4 topping out that fastball. So that Velo is still there. I think it is more of a command knocking off the rust sort of thing with him. So I understand the willingness to pick him up, but then the reluctance to start him right away. I think a lot of people that added him probably are a little more desperate for pitching than you are in that situation. And we'll have to just throw them out there right away.

I wanted to mention Brandon Walter real quick. He got picked up in a bunch of 12 team leagues, man. Like a 49, yeah, a 49 to seven strikeout to walk at AAA this year, 19 to one in three starts, 17 and two thirds with Houston. And right now they're using a six man rotation. They've got a stretch of 13 games in 13 days, but you think about the injury histories of guys in that rotation,

a couple of unproven guys in there as well. There's a world in which Brian and Walter is just pitching well enough where he keeps his spot even if they go back to the five man. Yeah and he's got a 102 stuff plus 106 location plus right now the four seam fastball sinker and slider are all above average by stuff plus and the change up is a 97 which is pretty good for a change up and the cutters 89 which is doesn't sound great but it's really important for him to have the cutter as a fastball because the sinker

is his best fastball so three fastballs to two secondaries wide arsenal good command 28 the only thing missing is V lo he does not have good below but at ninety one seven he also doesn't have you know problematic below in Velo in the sense that like, he could still be good. Yeah, so I like him. I'm picking him up where I can. The other name that was picked up in a lot of different leagues is Max Muncie. Not the Dodgers' Max Muncie, but the A's Max Muncie. I found it interesting you mentioned Luis Arias being home in Sacramento all week. I think Max Muncie is going to get a chance to just take the third base job.

Strikeout rates a little high right now, he's not walking yet, but it's his first 113 big league plate appearances and he's popped four homers now in the last two weeks. Just seems like a guy that could become multi-position eligible in a lot of places, but also could take a job and run with it given the way they've rotated through Miguel Andujar, who's now hurt again. They've rotated through Gio Urchella and Urias. They really they don't have that long-term third baseman in place. I think there's a much better chance that Muncie is that guy than any of those veterans take that job and keep it all season. Yeah why did I check why did I take Urias over him? Urias wow Muncie's actually hitting the ball harder than Urias. Maybe I

messed that up. Just in my head I was like Urias has more power. Seven homers in 57 games. It's a 158 ISO so far. Yeah but the hard the Maxi V is better for Maxi V barrel and hard hit are all better for Muncie. I did not expect that. I will say that the hard hit is almost even. They're basically like 30% hard hit guys. Neither one of them is a big hit the ball hard guy and they're both right handers. So it's really a pick on my guess.

Being both righties, they can't just split it and you can't just have the, this is the lefty. He's gonna play more. We're not quite that lucky in this instance, but I think given where they're at in the standings, kind of looking long term, Muncie has a chance. And that's what I like about him for, at least deeper, at least 15 teams and deeper.

12s are a little tricky depending on the schedule. The hint is also in that Urius is playing second, which is where they have somebody returning from injury eventually at some point, Zach Gelof. Yeah, that's true too. So they could coexist for now. The Gelof injury train has been a disappointing one so far. It's going to take some more patience. I think it was a stress reaction on his rib that came up when he was trying to get back. That was a pretty big blow because he was actually on his minor league rehab assignment. He's a grinder.

I heard this about like Kyle Teal too that like they'll just swing and swing and swing and swing forever in the cage and like people have to be like, yo, chill out. It's too much. You gotta take a break. Stress reaction in the rib cage coming back like he was probably hitting the swings pretty hard. Yeah, they were expecting him to go back out on rehab about a week ago based on the last note I'm seeing

at RotoWire, it was a story from Martin Gallegos of MLB.com. Not sure if that actually happened. So we'll keep an eye on that, because eventually Galov could be a nice pickup in the second half of the season if he does get healthy. The other closer thing that was happening was people buying shares of Tommy Canley because Will Vest's pinky hurts. and if he does get healthy. Tuesday which is really annoying so I've basically benched Vest for this week but I have not invested heavily in Canley. There you go so a slightly shorter

version of where the money went because there was a ton on the rundown actually a lot of things in the rundown that we're gonna roll over to the Tuesday episode as well so plenty of ground covered today thanks again to Andrew Bagley for joining us to get the giant side of that Rafael Devers trade which I do feel like generally if the Red Sox are involved in a move, a lot of the attention is, what does this mean for the Red Sox? And in this case, I feel like the giant side is actually more immediately interesting, so they got the best player in the deal by miles.

You can find eno on blue sky, enosaris.bsky.social, imdvr.bsky.social. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. We're back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out.

Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out.

Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Peace out. Your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill.

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