Rates & Barrels - Raisel Iglesias to the Angels, buy-low candidates, and aging curves for late breakouts

Episode Date: December 8, 2020

Eno and DVR discuss Raisel Iglesias' move to Anaheim, buy-low candidates, keeper and dynasty league strategy, aging curves for late breakouts, and more.  Rundown 1:25 Raisel Iglesias to the Angels & Reds Bullpen Thoughts 14:23 Is Tomoyuki Sugano a Good Fit in Anaheim? 17:08 Gio Urshela Has a Bone Chip Removed From His Elbow 22:08 What Characteristics Age Well in Young Hitters? 25:01 Buying Low on Bryan Reynolds? 28:15 Finding a Balanced Approach in Long-Term Leagues 32:22 Targeting Rebound Candidates  40:32 Backing Up the David Dahl Love; Still Interested in Sam Hilliard? 46:45 Teoscar Hernández & Aging Curves for Late Breakouts 57:34 Dustin May and Betting on the Breakout 69:19 Dynasty League Setup Ideas Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Buy a one-year subscription to The Athletic, get a FREE one-year subscription to gift to a friend: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. The answer is FedEx. Okay. But what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx. Oh. But let's say that... FedEx.

What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Monday, December 7th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris.

Day one of the winter meetings, at least it technically is on the calendar, even though the winter meetings are happening virtually this year. Can't wait to have virtual beers. Don't even seem like they're happening this year. No. year. I can't wait to have virtual beers. Don't even seem like they're happening this year. No. Even the manager sessions are pushed back a week, and the activity has been pretty limited. Although, we were getting ready to do the show a couple hours ago, and we were both lamenting the lack of news in the last couple of days. We did get a trade, but a surprising trade too. We'll talk about what happened. It was a Reds Angels deal

that sent Rysell Iglesias to Anaheim. And we've got some long-term questions that people have been wondering about. We're going to look at some characteristics of young players that we think age well over time. We've got a question in the mailbag about Dustin May that we'll get to. So we'll break it all down. And you know what? Hopefully more news will happen over the course of this hour or so. But even if it doesn't, we got something. We got one. We got one deal on day one of the winter meetings. As I mentioned, Rysel Iglesias, now an angel. It's interesting because the Reds non-tendered Archie Bradley. So they have lost two key pieces from the bullpen from the end of last season. They've shaved some payroll in the process.

No way Ramirez and a player to be named later was the return. I tried to find something interesting about Ramirez, you know, and I came up with absolutely nothing other than to say he throws three pitches and maybe if you're doing the bullpen arms on the clock sort of thing, with absolutely nothing other than to say he throws three pitches. He throws three pitches. And maybe if you're doing the bullpen arms on the clock sort of thing, he's kind of right-handed, a little bit lower slot, but it doesn't really get me excited at all.

No, no. He throws 88. I think he's just cheaper. He's a million dollars, and Reis Iglesias was over nine, and I think that's really cheaper he's a million dollars and ricela glaces was over nine um and i think that's that's really most of it i don't think that they can necessarily slot noah ramirez in at closer he's not somebody back end guy but there's a great piece from jason stark about how the central is basically everybody's punting all of a sudden and that most of the non-tenders came from the central most of the non-tender money from the Central. Most of the non-tender money came from the Central. That maybe the Central was more affected by the lack of fans in their seats because their TV deals aren't necessarily as good as they are in the East and West Coast.

And so, like, we get into these places where I don't know. I don't know financially, like, how bad the Reds are off. And I actually don't even know if, you know, the knee-jerk reaction is, oh, they're rebuilding now. They've given up. They're jettisoning pieces. And maybe that's true, but they need a shortstop. And maybe they can actually do that thing that every general manager tries to say they

want to do, which is get younger and more flexible at the same time. I mean, if they end up using this money for Haseo and Kim, they get a 25-year-old shortstop, right? And they make a bet on their player development system, their Kyle Bode driveline mid-east. Mid-east. I don't know how to describe that place um but uh driveline not west um that uh uh they're making a bet on kyle and and the group to to produce relievers because i

think that's the number one thing that a good pitching development program can do is produce relievers um you know starters are just a little bit more of a complete package where you have to have three, four pitches and a lot of things have to go right and you have to have command. And, you know, I think that there's not as much of a science for that. It's a lot of luck. You know, Jacob deGrom looks like, you know, the most finished product we've got. And it took a Frank Viola curveball. It took a Johan Santana change-up grip.

It took a Dan Worthen slider. I mean, it took three, four different people to make Jake DeGrom who Jake DeGrom is today. So I could see it working out. You know, like Lucas Sims, my favorite for the closer role there. You know, generally teams use lefty closers less often. Do you think Amir Garrett runs with it? I mean, that's obviously the two.

And with those two, you already have pretty good back-end arms. And if you think Tajay Antone is not going to make the starting rotation, he makes a pretty good reliever. And now all of a sudden, maybe you have what you need and you don't need to pay $17 million for it. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to be the guy that defends teams for shedding payroll, but if they're just reallocating resources, I think you could say that the Reds' bullpen depth

last season was a strength. They can lean into that. They can basically take the money they were going to spend on Iglesias plus someone like Bradley and put it on a shortstop. That does all sort of check out in my mind. I'm not going to get irate about that. Garrett is the guy that I had actually ranked

at the bottom of my reliever list, even when we thought Iglesias was going to be on this team, because I thought he was slightly more interesting. But you absolutely have a case for Lucas Sims as a short-term sort of draft and hold target. Teams are, as you mentioned, reluctant to use lefties as closers in some instances, but it doesn't seem like it's that difficult to get a lefty. And if we still have the three batter minimum rule, you know, it's use your best reliever when you need to use your best reliever. It's not really the same sort of lefty specialist arrangement that it would have been. So I look at those two guys.

Lucas Sims' walk rate last year still up in that 10% range, but misses enough bats. rate last year, still up in that 10% range, but misses enough bats. He's actually a lot like Trevor May, actually, in terms of a guy we were excited about and hoping he'd get a closer opportunity somewhere. So I think wherever you've got Trevor May ranked, Lucas Sims is probably right in that same range until we get further details. Is there any underlying skill for either one of them that gives you any pause? I mentioned the walk rate with Sims, but you look at Garrett, he's kind of the same. 10.1% walk rate last year. It's been higher at points in the past.

A little bit of a home run issue for Garrett as well. But both of those guys seem capable if they get to claim the job as their own. Yeah, it almost feels like a 50-50 split for me. Both these guys have years where the command is just not there and you're kind of you know, which one is going to have the command next year is going to have most of the saves, I think. You know, you just, you look at Sims' home run rate and you look at Garrett's walk rate and they kind of just go from year to year, you know. Garrett has had two full seasons in the major leagues with a walk rate that starts at five.

It's five plus per nine. So I think if he does that again next year, it might become a little bit untenable in a closer's role. But I also think that with the fact that they're lefty-righty, and that this team seems to be trying to push itself into the new millennia in terms of strategy on the field, I could see them both getting saves. Yeah, maybe it is just playing the matchups and letting both guys make a run at 15 or so saves and letting the situation dictate who actually gets those opportunities. It's also interesting that they made that small trade with the Rockies.

Robert Stevenson, who I think would have been part of this conversation, is in Colorado now, so that's one fewer holdover option. You mentioned TJ Antone going to compete for a starting rotation spot, especially if they're going to go cheap and not add pitching this winter. He's absolutely in the mix for that fifth starter spot. They want to start Michael Lorenzen potentially too, which I still don't quite see. But is there anything you look at with Lorenzen

that makes you believe that a move to the rotation could actually work for him? Yeah, there was a fairly large change in sort of pitching mix, pitching selection from Lorenzen last year where he kind of upped the slider usage to the most he's ever done, really reduced the sinker usage, and became a fastball three breaking ball guy with a changeup.

He throws 17% of the time. In fact, when you look at it, it kind of looks like a starter's arsenal. He has multiple pitches he can get outs with. The question I think maybe might be his fastball's not very good, so it's kind of straightish. Maybe it works out of the bullpen to some regards

at 97, but what's he going to sit when he comes out of the rotation? I can't say that his reliever numbers stand out as something that could be reduced and be better. You know what I mean? He hasn't been that

great of a reliever, so I don't assume that he's going to be a great starter. He usually doesn't work backwards that way. Even with that deep mix of pitches, you should have been lights out as a reliever. He was good in 2019. That was kind of easily the

best year we've seen from him in the last three. You go back to 2016, he had some success that year as well. It's kind of surprising to see the amount of inconsistency, but two breaking balls, a changeup. If he sits 94 as a starter and leans on the fastball a lot less, maybe he ends up being

a low four ZRA guy. That seems like the best case scenario for him as a starter, as currently constructed, barring a big change with the heater. Yeah. I've seen some excitement for Lorenzen. And I don't know, sometimes you have to back up and remember the projections. Allow yourself to get excited about a player within a range, but remember that projections are usually the anchor for that. In terms of his foreseeing at 97-mile-an-hour, good. No rise above average. Just a little bit more wiggle than average, but his sinker, who a little bit more wiggle than average but his sinker who has a

lot more wiggle than average he's just gone away from so it's not like he he values that so much change looks like a straight change the slider is good the cutter is okay all kind of comes together as like maybe it could work i don't know why it would necessarily work better as a starter though you know yeah so i i want to put i'll put him in that um sort of hundred-esque range but i'd rather have a guy like dane dunning um i'd rather have a guy like justice sheffield i think so he's going to be behind that group. As far as Iglesias goes, I had him fourth among relievers in the initial set of rankings. No reason to really move him up with the change in team, but I do think this fills an area of need for the Angels. You talk about teams that have struggled in the bullpen for the last few years.

Hansel Robles was a nice story in 2019. Robles was a nice story in 2019. The 2020 chapter of that book was unfortunately not as fun as the 2019 chapter. So I think Iglesias can continue to do what he's done to this point. I believe in the skills there. And I think as we go around and look through the second tier closers this year, there's less certainty than usual, even in that range, because you have a few younger guys like James Karinczak and even Nick Anderson, who pitched really well throughout most of 2020, where you look and say, I'm not even sure those guys are the guys. Based on skills, they belong in the top 10, but based on opportunity, they might not have any business being in the top 10 among relievers. Plus the industry-wide assault on our game.

Just the industry-wide noise and uncertainty surrounding any closers role in any bullpen and any likelihood that any person gets even 75% of their team saves chances at this point. I mean, I just think it's inevitable that everyone's going the Mike Shanahan way. I don't actually see the personnel to Mike Shanahan. There was Myers, Mayers? Mayers, yeah.

Mayers, who looked like he'd done something good last year, but also was a bit of a pop-up late career type situation where I feel like it could just as easily go away. I mean, he had a strikeout rate last year of 36%. His high before that was 21. So, I mean, obviously he's changed something about his pitch mix and doesn't use his fastball as much anymore and went to a cutter much more often.

But I think it's better to have him and iglesias and i don't think that um you know mayors would be like the incumbent or anything he would just now he's their part of their their late inning group and you know buttry is pretty good but you know he got a couple chances and didn't quite take advantage so i think i'd'd put Buttrey in the second seat now and then Mayers and Peña right behind him. Yeah, I think they're still probably a good reliever or two away from having a playoff caliber bullpen, but the fact that they went out and added some payroll

and made this move is a much needed upgrade. They might find somebody in spring too, right? Yep. You do some minor league invites. You bring some guys up from the minors. And if they don't make it as a – it's becoming time for someone like Berea to either be a starter reliever and maybe if he's a full-time reliever, they get a little bit more out of him or something. Jake Feria is still sitting there.

So something could happen there that gives them some depth and makes it work out. It's way better to have Iglesias at the top of that bullpen. And now I just see them as needing a couple arms. It almost doesn't have to say what kind. I mean, I think they need a starter or two, but they could play this a couple different ways. They look like they're spending a bit at a time

when a lot of other teams are going the other direction. For the new GM, Perry Manassian is at least a step in the right direction as he tries to get Mike Trout back into the postseason. You know what would be a really interesting signing for them? Tomoyuki Sagana. You know what would be a really interesting signing for them? Tomoyuki Sagana. Yeah, that would be interesting. There's a world in which Sagana and Otani become a pretty lights-out duo at the top of rotation.

Interesting for marketing purposes. One of the only ways to get a potential top of the rotation arm right now with just money and not having to spend $35 million in one year or $30 million in one year like Tebribauer wants you to. I do think the plan for Otani

is still one of the great unknowns for 2021. Maybe they have a roadmap that they've charted out. Maybe they actually think he will be a two-way player still, but they have to have more contingency plans in place at this point, including a move to the bullpen, including not being a two-way player anymore. I think we're getting closer to a longer-term decision

with how Otani is going to be handled. The command was brutal in the couple starts that we were able to see from him in 2020. It seems like rehabbing as a two-way player had a pretty negative impact on him as a hitter because what we saw from him as a hitter upon arrival was a guy that, hitting full-time, to me there was a first-round ceiling, talent-wise, in his bat

because you had power, you had speed, you had the ability to hit for some average too. A legitimate middle-of-the-order run producer who helps all five categories. He wasn't that guy at the plate in the shortened season either. I do think we've talked about all the different scenarios, different types of leagues where Otani becomes more valuable, leagues with daily moves and then leagues with weekly moves where he becomes more valuable, like leagues with daily moves, and then leagues with weekly moves where he becomes less valuable. I hope we get clarity before spring training, but I don't think we're going to be that lucky.

No. Now, with a little bit of reduced expectations and those numbers from 2020 baked in, the projections have him kind of looking almost like Tommy Pham. Not a bad player, but not Babe Ruth from

Japan either. Yeah, and if he doesn't start, then he becomes a closer. A closer plus Tommy Pham in one roster spot, though. Still pretty useful. The format is key, though. In leagues with weekly moves where you can't manipulate him between hitting

and pitching, he takes a pretty big hit adp in early nfbc drafts is 228 for shohei otani so definitely a discount but i think that's one of the formats where it's pretty difficult to maximize his utility the other news item i wanted to get to is geo urshela he had a bone chip removed from his right elbow. The estimate is a three-month recovery, so he should be pretty much back to normal by early March, a little after spring training begins, if everything is running on time and maybe just ahead of spring training, and if things end up being slightly delayed. But I think Urshela is an interesting player because, as I mentioned at the top, we're going to talk about young players who have characteristics that we think would age well. And I think a guy like Urshela is

the opposite of that. He didn't have that. He was the kind of player that had to bounce around between a couple of teams before getting another clear opportunity. He was blocked in a big way in Cleveland, but I keep looking at him and I think for the most part, he showed us that what happened in 2019 wasn't a fluke at all. I mean, he bumped up the exit velo a little bit, held the launch angle and barrel rates right around where they were during the breakout season, even cut the K rate a bit and drew more walks. I mean, the encore was actually a notch better than the breakout in some ways. So he looks like the kind of guy that sort of defies aging curves and often surprises a lot of us. And it's a tip of the cap again to the Yankees for player development. They seem to do this really well. But I do think players like Urshela are guys who are undervalued

for a few years in the fantasy community before people finally accept that they've just reached this new level that nobody really had previously forecasted. Yeah. There's just a couple weird things about him, which is that the barrel rate's not very good. At 6%, weird things about him which is that um you know the barrel rate's not very good at six percent

you know average quote-unquote average is 4.5 or whatever but the median's a little bit higher than that so it's it's fairly average in terms of uh power but you know i guess a projection for 20 homers at this point is average um you know he's fairly close to average power and with the contact rate the batting average has been good so that's part of why he's good the other thing that is weird for me is that by ounce above average he is a below average fielder and we've always had this sort of uzr fueled and maybe i test fueled uh feeling that he's a plus defender. My question just is if he is. And does that matter? I mean, I think it might matter a little bit

if DJ LeMayhew and Miguel Andujar make the team out of spring training next year. There's the slightest whiff. Or if they sign a shortstop, move Torres to second and sign DJ LeMayhew. If his defense is not that good and the bat takes any step backward, it's just one of those things where it's just a crowded-ass

team. To me, a lot of times people say in fantasy we overvalue yankees or whatever uh maybe that's true i often undervalue yankees to the point where i miss out on them because i'm afraid that the playing time isn't there for them and i think it played out a little bit like that for mike tauchman i mean there's reasons to like mike tauchman there's lots of reasons to like mike tauchman he does a lot things well, and he did them better when he got to New York. But when everybody's healthy, he's not playing. him to unless the injury or two he needs to become a full-time guy actually play out so you end up you end up with a guy who stays on your bench even when you need to play someone because the other outfielder on your bench probably plays more than talkman does yeah and it reminds me a little

bit of the rays you know the rays you have this this this constant feeling that you know someone's only going to play four games this week. I do think with Urshela living in that pick 150 range in early drafts, I'm not staying away from him at that price. I think I would love to know more about their plans for the offseason. If they do add two infielders, then that could be a problem. But I think their internal evaluations and what we see with our eyes with his defense is more in line with reality.

I don't think he's a bad defender. I'm surprised the numbers come out the way they do. So it's something I'd want to dig into a little bit more before fully committing. But in terms of what he's done as a hitter, I'm really not that skeptical, even with the barrel rate only being a little bit above average. I think I've seen enough growth to say, hey, this is real. He's in a good lineup. It's a great park. All those things really keep that floor pretty safe

as long as the playing time doesn't fall out from the bottom on Urshela at this point. 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 members membership separate. Terms apply. Let's talk about some young players. And broadly, characteristics we're looking for that we think are going to age well. This is a conversation we probably should have had before I did the XFL auction over the weekend.

It's a keeper league auction similar to Tout Wars. auction over the weekend. It's a Keeper League auction similar to Tout Wars, and my team is probably still about a year away from really starting to make a push into a competitive window. So I was trying to find underpriced veterans that I can trade and young, keepable, interesting players who were underpriced. And I'm not sure that I nailed it. I'm actually pretty convinced that I didn't. But we'll talk about process and some things that we look for in these circumstances. It works in redraft leagues too. Obviously, you're still looking for a young player with growth potential there as well. So as you're starting to put together the foundation of a young hitter,

what stands out to you? What means the most to you with a young hitter as you're trying to look for someone who can still take a step or two forward in the future? Well, I found this really cool piece by Matt Hartzell on, I don't know if it's on Medium,, from the beginning of 2019. And he kind of went through the different aging curves to look at how different skills age. And we've talked here about all the time about how contact outside the zone ages. But he added in the wrinkle of sort of aging, hard hit rate and some other things. And then looking at groups and how they age. And he's got this table and it suggests, quoting him here,

in order, it is best for hitters in order to age well, to hit the ball hard first, not chase pitches outside the strike zone second, hit the ball in the air third, make contact fourth, and then fifth, spray the ball to all fields so uh i think that generally describes uh the the check boxes that i go through when i'm looking at a young player unfortunately hitting the ball hard is not necessarily something that we have data point on but that's why we talk about max exit with the velo as being important for you know looking at a young player if they have a decent max exit velo as being important for you know looking at a young player if they

have a decent max exit velo and they don't chase the pitches outside the zone i'm already and i'm already involved i'm interested i'm looking at that player pretty hard yeah i think that's a great starting point because it gives you an idea of patience and selectivity at the plate and it gives you a pretty good idea of just raw strength and those two things in concert are going to lead you to home runs or well-struck balls that at least become hits whether it's a just a single or double whatever it's still good that's a good combination of granular skills and they present generally very quickly we had a surprising young player in 2019 in Brian Reynolds who came in, 16 home runs isn't like this league winning sort of player,

but he had 16 home runs in 2019, hit 314 with a 377 OBP. He slugged 503 and he fell apart in 2020. And I don't think I realized how bad his 2020 was because I had him nowhere. Like I just ignored him completely in my drafts this past season. And I started looking at the underlying numbers and they really weren't that bad in 2019. Like if I'm honest about what I care about in a young player, Brian Reynolds did most of those things.

I'm looking for a low K rate, a reasonably low K rate. 22% in his big league debut. That's certainly not bad. Showed some patience. 8.4% walk rate in that rookie season. You look at some of the X stats underneath the slash line. 300 XBA supported the 317 that he hit. It wasn't a complete fluke average-wise, even though he was a little bit fortunate. You look at all these things and you see an 89.5 mile per hour average exit velocity

almost made me think that there was potential for a little bit more power in the future. Man, it fell apart on him in a big way. Even in a year in 2020, he barreled up more balls. His overall average of velocity dropped two miles per hour. The K rate jumped more than five percentage points, 27.4% K rate, but he did draw more walks as well. So it was a bit of a mixed bag, even though the results are terrible. And I bring him up because he's not old. He may have been able to turn around that miserable 2020 if there were more time, more games for him to move through. So I guess this is kind of a follow-up question. When you look at a player like Reynolds, who maybe went through the adjustment phase more in 2020 than he did in 2019, which bit of what you saw are you more willing to buy into? The harsh 2020 or the encouraging first steps that he took in 2019?

Yeah, I think at Reynolds in particular, I would look to his barrel rate and his hard hit rate and his max EV, which were all steady, actually even had a better barrel rate in 2020. So in terms of the stat cast numbers, he improved in that regard. And then I'd take a look at his O-swing, and by pitch info, it improved. And no matter what metric you look at, it's at least league average, so it's not necessarily a big source of a problem for him. He doesn't live off of contact outside the zone either because he's slightly below average there. So he's not someone that should fall apart because of his play discipline. And his batted ball stats suggest that he had a poor year with regards to luck last year.

batted ball stats suggest that he had a poor year with regards to luck last year so um you know i i think he's absolutely a buy low and i think he's really interesting in um the types of strategies that i like to employ and i think i used to kind of be one note and i discovered that i think to to do better in dynasty leagues you want to employ all three of these strategies. And so one strategy is if you're going to get youth, try to get the very top of the line youth. If you're going to buy high by the very highest, identify the can't miss type prospect that you think is totally worth it and go and get them. I've done that before with Ozzy Albies and Mookie Betts and Cody Bellinger as

prospects. done that before with Ozzie Albies and Mookie Betts and Cody Bellinger as prospects. And I think it's very rewarding because you do want to get youth. I used to only do the go find the Brian Reynolds types, right? Go find the late blooming starters types in pitching. Go find the value in veterans because in dynasty leagues, people overvalue youth too much, right? So you can do that. The problem is that you miss on top-end talent. Top-end talent was top-end prospects. You know what I mean? You can find a lot of good players. Brian Reynolds could be good again. He's not going to be a star. And in order to get a star, sometimes you have to go get the youth. So as one strategy,

I like to, when I want youth, I try to identify exactly who I want based on strikeout minus walk rates, what I can gather about hard hit rates, that sort of deal. That's one thing I'll do. Another thing I'll do is try to find the Brian Reynolds of leagues and do that. And then the last thing is, I think, continually try to compete, which is a little bit along the lines of the fine value in veterans. together faster and slower than you might expect sometimes so that if you if you keep a representative team around you might find and you can be generally rebuilding or generally uh building to win um but keep a keep some veterans around if only to sell them to people who need them during the season you know i mean don't i i really i i will never run out of lineup that's all prospects that take zeros and everything even if the the league settings allow me to do that. It's against my nature.

I will at least go find a bounce back Brian Reynolds to at least sell him for something. You know what I mean? So those are my three kind of dynasty strategies. I think there's a case for the complete teardown, take the zeros approach in certain leagues where you know you're not going to be able to make a lot of good trades for the young talent you need, where that's your only path to having the long-term top-end prospects you talked about in those circumstances. dynasty leagues full of sharp players. I am more inclined to try it there. This particular league is a 15-team keeper league. It's an auction. Minor leaguers are definitely held onto in big ways here because their salaries go up more slowly than players that you get in the auction. So there's a long-term benefit toward holding prospects and at least acquiring them while they're prospects and making them kind of long-term fixtures. So I think it makes it difficult to make trades. And the types of players that you can move are usually established veterans with a good track record that people say,

you know, this actually is a big upgrade. And I think if you completely dismiss getting those players as you're trying to become more competitive, you are missing out on one of the few paths to improve your team in this keeper league. But I do think I'll get a lot more from Javi Baez in a trade than I would have got if I had taken the 26 bucks I spent on him. And bought five middling prospects. Yeah, and just added it to a couple of the guys in the bottom of the roster. So it is having that right sort of balance. I think that three-pronged approach you described is definitely in line with what I generally try to do. And the other thing that I did in this auction, the player I went after anyway, was a couple other bounce back guys,

actually a few of them, Mitch Garver and Omar Narvaez, both. And a bit like the Brian Reynolds situation, you know, these guys are obviously not young. They are not high ceiling guys. They are much cheaper in redraft right now than they were this time a year ago. I think I just had to sit back and say, okay, we just saw a 60 game weird pandemic season.

If I believe in these players just a few months ago, in the absence of something that would lead me not to believe in them anymore, I should still see them as good discounted auction targets. And maybe Mitch Garver shares more time with Ryan Jeffers than I'd like. But for $5 in the auction for a guy in a two-catcher league that had even been available last year would have probably been $18, $20 because of inflation. That seemed like a pretty obvious sort of target to me. Narvaez in dollar days, I think that's what could go right. I was kind of following the org's lead on this one. The Brewers could have non-tendered him. They didn't. They brought him back and they've got a lot of catchers on the 40-man roster. So I think they're sort of doubling down on the analysis that led them to

acquire him in the first place. And there's a good track record of a guy that gets on base and maybe unlocked more power than ever in 2019. So I want to see how that plays out over a full season in 21 in a great hitter-friendly ballpark. And then the other guy, Slater, that one was one where I don't think I realized just how good he was last year. And we're only talking about 104 plate appearances for Austin Slater with the Giants. There is some interesting stuff that could happen in this outfield because we know Farhan

Zaidi is not going to just sit back and watch the same players go out there every day and be just kind of average. He's going to tinker. He's going to make waiver claims and small trades. And he might even be a little bit aggressive in free agency with some of the more interesting players who became available. But I thought there was more good than bad in the Slater profile to the point where I started to wonder if maybe he's another sort of late bloomer who doesn't fit the aging curves that we're accustomed to, but now that he's getting an opportunity, he might actually be maybe not as good as Mike Yaz has been,

but still that kind of player who could actually be a part of the next competitive Giants team. Yeah, I think one thing that people might miss when they look at Slater's profile is that the breakout began in 2019. He had just absolutely no angle on his balls in play. I mean, he was a zero LA kind of guy where, you know, two to 3% barrel rate the first couple of years, just absolutely probably in my mind,

screwed up by the Stanford swing in Stanford and had 61% ground ball rates. And that's why I think, you know, when I listed that stuff that's important for young players, hit the ball in the air is good, but it's not necessarily, you know, it's not one or two. And even I think I'd personally put it behind make contact. I think I would say hit the ball hard, not chase and make contact. Put hit the ball in the air third because there are players that do manage to change their batted ball profile. And you've got Austin Slater going from 61%, 63% ground ball rate

to 52% last year with a 10% barrel rate, which is absolutely good, to a 39, 40% ground ball rate last year and a 14% barrel rate. Now, I don't think he's going to keep the 14% barrel rate because what we saw with Garver, there's going to be regression, but if the regression takes him back to around a 10% barrel rate, yo, that's good. There's

something here. What I don't understand is his strikeout rates because I watched him a fair amount being out here and seeing him at Stanford and I think he has a good hit tool. So I don't know if hit tool is not captured 100% in strikeout rate. That's probably true. But what you have here is sort of an under-the-radar, had hit tool, changed battered bowl profile guy.

And there's a long story of guys like that. We pointed out on this podcast about Jesse Winker was going to do that and then he did it. I think there's some similarities with Winker, even though Winker had better strikeout rates. Yeah, I do think when you have the foundation of a good hit tool and you start making changes to your swing, you have a chance of fighting back against the potentially increased strikeout rate you're going to deal with while you're making those changes to your swing. I think trying to launch the ball can come at the price of striking out more. And there's probably a year or two in some cases it takes to really get fully acclimated to that swing and to make the hit tool you had kind of work for you

with your new approach. So I just, I saw way more things to like than I expected when I was digging into some, some players prior to that auction. Austin Slater, not a guy I was thinking about at all until I started looking at some of the, the up arrows. If I'm looking at this page, it's the Baseball Savant Player page. If you scroll down toward the bottom, they have a year-to-year changes section on there now. And it's awesome. It's got about 15 different metrics that we talk about a lot. And it gives you year-over-year improvement or decline. So you can see the trends really easily.

improvement or decline. So you can see the trends really easily. So just another small wrinkle put into a site I use all the time that makes it even more user-friendly. But he definitely fits into the cheapy Brian Reynolds. Hopefully he's more of a top 150 player than a top 300 guy. I don't think I'm getting a superstar, but the type of end game flyer that you want to take because you could turn a $4 or $5 late auction buy into a $15 guy. And you need a few of those at the bottom of your roster if you're going to either make trades later or if you are going to make a run. Yeah, exactly. And with the accelerated timeframes for prospects in today's game, accelerated time frames for prospects in today's game, some of the guys that you...

And with all the things we can't know about how fast people are going to move through the minors right now. We don't even know... If you had a guy who was in high A before 2020, where is he going to go next year?

So, right now, I think it behooves people to be like whoa you know people might get moved fast if they if teams have no money they they just the the the rush to get a full team for of guys on the minimum is is going to go across the league and so that might mean uh more prospects make it to the big leagues faster. Then the time frame changes, and then all of a sudden you're happy to slot in Brian Reynolds as your fourth outfielder because Julio Rodriguez and Jared Kalanich are playing in the big leagues. So, you know, I think it's always worth – and what you'll find, too, in dynasty drafts, whether it be auction or snake, And what you'll find, too, in Dynasty drafts, whether it be auction or snake, I think these types of veterans stay there longer or are cheaper than they should be. Everyone's sort of chasing Julio Rodriguez's when there's the three strategies blended together because if you just go full hog into prospects, I think you're in the crab bucket with everybody else.

And you're just all fighting for the top prospects. can fall to you or which prospect doesn't cost them at the very top of the line, while also just sort of grabbing veterans as they fall. That's generally been my strategy. Also threw a $5 bid in on David Dahl late because I just disagree with the Rockies at every possible turn. But again, we've talked about Dahl 10% better than league average every year before 2020, had his spleen removed. That was a big part of Friday's show. I think he might end up with a contender. I don't think the only interest in him is going to be from teams like the Tigers and the Pirates and teams that are a few years away, hoping to bolster their organizational quality

of position players. He'd fit in those places. But if you told me that David Dahl is going to sign with the Braves, I'd say, well, that makes a lot of sense that he lands in a great lineup and doesn't have to deal with the difficulty of going on the road from Colorado. I think we've learned a lot about that over the last few years that as much as not hitting in Coors sucks, you make up some of that by not having to go in and out of Denver and struggle with the road adjustments that a lot of those hitters have dealt with over the last several years. Jeff Zimmerman has a fun little easy-to-remember mantra

for guys leaving Colorado. It's not as easy as don't just look at the road split and say that's what he's going to do. So, you know, David Dahl's road split is, you know, 248 average, 302 OBP, 420 slugging. That's not going to move the needle much in most leagues. But the actual sort of because of that, what happens to you when you leave town and the whole just the whole way the courts can screw you in all these different ways

Jeff Zimmerman found that you can take three times the road plus one times home to kind of guess what they'll do in the future so So, yes, that does mean that he's more likely to hit closer to 250 and so closer to 420, but you still have to add in that awesome, at least one part of that awesome home split of 318, 361, 556, which describes his upside. So I think that the only thing that worries me is the team that knows the most about his medicals let him go. And we know that his medicals are a disaster in general we also know that he had shoulder surgery and that

last year his max ev dropped four miles per hour and his barrel rate was the worst of his career and his hard hit rate almost cut in half so maybe it's just one bad year and he you know more time away from that surgery will make him better. That's what the bet is going to be. But it is also concerning that the Rockies who are on top of most of this or are the closest to this decided that they were going to let him go. If it were the Dodgers who made that decision, I would stay away. But because of the org making the decision, I'm convinced that they have it backwards.

I mean, we're talking about a guy that had a barrel rate about 9% to 10% in 18 and 19. So that's a pretty big drop, as you mentioned. But health, definitely a concern. And that's why he was cheap. But if he were staying in Colorado, he would have been a $15 player in this auction. And I got him for $5, not knowing where he's going to play. But I did think there was ceiling with each of those guys, bounce back potential with each of those guys.

And I think in leagues where your top prospects are already kept or they're drafted separately in reserves, that's the sort of mindset you need to have as you're rounding out your roster, looking for those what could go right sorts of players. I'd like to point to a real quick little guy who's now more interesting in Keeper Leagues and Dynasty Leagues, Sam Hilliard in Colorado. If you look at his team or projections, you will not be impressed. He's projected for 236, 298, 421, the equivalent of about 19 homers and 12 stolen bases.

With the 236 average, I think you'd think this is a deep league guy automatically. However, two things stand out to me. Better walk rates than he had last year in the past uh better obp in his first go at the league um and steamer legit told me and i repeated this on this podcast here that they're looking to include more stat cast in their numbers going forward um and that's important when you're looking at the small season and when i look at the stat cast for sam hilliard i see a really good barrel rate it was 13 in his first go 10 last year i could see it uh being in between those two which would be very good i see a pretty good max ev it was better in his first year 114 but even 111 last year is good hard hit rate uh 44 last year so

this is a guy who hits the ball really hard. He runs really hard. He's an athlete. And if there's at all any improvement in his strikeout and walk rates, I think we could see a guy who is like 250, 350 with like a 200 plus ISO. So now you're talking about a guy who's going to hit 250 with a 350 on base percentage something like 25 homers and 15 stone bases because he'll be playing mostly full time and when i look at that outfield he's other than blackman he's the only guy i want to play out all the time yeah you have to play sam hilliard if you're the rockies at this point there would be absolutely no excuse not to i was actually on him in 2020 when things were more crowded. So definitely in 2021

with Dahl out of the equation. 5 for 5 as a base dealer so far in his career. 13 homers and just 201 plate appearances. I think everything is good. No doubt about the actual tools. I do think the

downside that he brings is low average, like 300-ish OBP. Kind of like the career numbers so far, 236, 308, 527 to this point. But he can be better than that. He's a little old. So if you're thinking about aging curves and development. I mean, he's right in the middle of his peak. He's 26. This is the peak year.

So he could really have his peak year right now. We did get a question about aging curves. This came from Cameron, and he was wondering, for players who are late breakout players, how do aging curves differ? For example, what do you guys think of Teoscar Hernandez, who seemingly broke out in his age 27 season does this mean he is likely going to regress from here on out or does it differ from him because of such a stark breakout it's a really good question it's very difficult to answer and i've tried i've

reached out to some people i've looked through that's why I ended up with that piece that I mentioned earlier. Like, you know, I've been looking around and I have not found anything definitive on this. So I cannot tell you an answer that just says, yeah, this is what's going to happen. But I can tell you the way that I reason about this because I've thought about this for a long time, not just this week, where, you know, what do you do with these players that, especially if you have these dynasty strategies that I'm talking about, you're going to end up with players like this, right? Because you're trolling the wires for older players and you're looking for opportunity and you're looking for guys and you just picked up to Oscar because he hit the ball hard in 2019 and he had a chance to play in that outfield or whatever. So you'll end up with these guys that pop up.

And the patron saint for me is Ryan Ludwig. We talked about him a fair amount. Ryan Ludwig was with the Cardinals, had a breakout season. But just in talking with you, we were talking about who were some of the names we were talking about in terms of late breakouts. who were some of the names we were talking about in terms of late breakouts? Jose Bautista, I think, is maybe the best of the fantasy stars of the last 10 years or so. And I think those are two good names because they describe the range of possibilities. Ryan Lopovic is what I would – had the career that I would tell you that Teoscar might have,

which is that the late breakout came because he had to be closer to his peak in order to even be useful, in order to get the starting job. He had to be closer to his peak in order to get the starting job. And so as he falls off of that peak, he goes back to not starting quicker even than you might expect, or that you're just looking at the very top of his aging curve. So once he goes back down again, he's just not useful, just like he was before he was 30. And that describes basically how he would ride Ludwig. So he was a league average player. His breakout season came at 30 years old with the Cardinals,

and he had a five-win season. He had a two-win season the next year, and then he only had one more season where he was above average. So he turned 30, had a breakout season, and so you might say, whoa, this is the new Ryan Ludwig. He had 37 homers. Everything looks right. It wasn't all Babbitt-fueled, even though it kind of was. But you could argue your way into it and be like, this is the new Lion Ludwig. Well, it went away pretty fast. So that's what I would think.

Then you look at Jose Bautista, and he had that excellent season at 30 as well, right? Yeah, I think his first great season was then. I think we started to see signs that something was different in like 29, when he was 29. 08, 09, there were little flashes maybe, but it was really 2010. It was that age 29 season.

113 homers to 54. He did not go gently into the night like Ryan Ludwig. I mean, he just rattled off a short peak type, like near Hall of Fame short peak. He won't be in the Hall of Fame discussion because the rest of his career didn't work out.

But from 30 to 35, 36, he was a perennial all-star. And it's possible, Teoscar, especially since there are some things in common where the defense wasn't that great for Bautista and the place that he found for himself was basically DHing. And I think the big complaint about Teoscar, other than the strikeout rate, is the defense. But if they find him a home at first or at DH or something,

the bat has been above average for four straight years and he did just have a really good year. If I would have been happy to acquire a player like this in these dynasty leagues, I would also be the first to trade them away is how I put it. Like I don't, I would not count on Tasker Hernandez continuing this for many more years. I think the other example that kind of popped into my head when we were

talking about Batista is Luke Voigt and Max Muncy, I think kind of fits into this same sort of recent bucket as well. I picked up Voigt on the waiver wire in a 20 team dynasty league in RDI. And I was so sure that it wasn't going to last over a full season, I flipped him to our friend Clay Link for Willie Adames. So I think Clay won that trade, at least to this point. And maybe Adames' 2020 gives me some hope of steering out of it eventually. But it's easy to give up on those players in a trade

because they feel like found money when you hit. For every Luke Voigt and Max Muncy, you probably have two or three guys who do fall on their face, who do, because of their lack of defensive value, end up in a part-time role and wash out of the league pretty quickly. You do end up with more Ludwig-type players, guys that you could be regulars, but just didn't end up being regulars. And you don't want to be left holding the bag with players like that either. That was my thinking anyway, when I traded Voight away. And two years after that trade, I see Voight a bit differently now, but hey, look, we all saw 700 more plate appearances. We all got more information. So without the benefit of that, I think I was at least right by process to be skeptical of how valuable he was going to be as a 27-year-old, a then 27-year-old coming off of this monster partial season.

Yeah. I guess the through line that is meaningful here though is, and this is actually a positive for Teoscar, is that if you can hit the snot out of the ball, teams will find a place to put you if you're kind of elite at that. And so the question is, how long will he be elite at batting to the point where they'll just find him a place to just bat? But the person to think about to some extent

might be Nelson Cruz, who had a late breakout, was a bad defender, didn't seem like there was a place for him until he was just the awesome DH every year. Yeah, I mean, I remember Nelson Cruz also being pretty injury prone, always dealing with hamstring injuries and things in his late 20s during his time with the Rangers. I look back, though, and I remember, I distinctly remember,

part of the issue with Nelson Cruz early in his career was that people said he struck out too much. He was only striking out 26.1% of the time in his worst strikeout season back then. That was too much. Nelson Cruz striking out, he struck out 38% one year. Yeah, I mean, it's just like I know tolerance for strikeouts has increased. I know that strikeouts are just up

in general, so 26% 12 to 15 years ago might be roughly the same as striking out 30% now, but Teoscar Hernandez has only had one season, and it was a very, very small run in 2016 with the Astros where he's been under 30% with his K rate. So I think that's a key. He's not a big walker, 6.8% this year. I guess 9.7% in 2019 gives you a little bit of hope. But

if I had Teoscar Hernandez in a keeper league or a dynasty league, and I had an offer that interested me, I'd be much more inclined to trade him away than to ride it out in most situations. Doesn't doesn't scream like a building block to me, you know, in terms of the things that we've talked about, he's not that great at not reaching a pitches outside of zone as part of why he strikes out so much. He's not as terrible as not reaching at pitches outside of zone. That's part of why he strikes out so much.

He's not as terrible as you might expect, actually. But contact rate matters, and his contact rates are poor. I mean, you know, zone contact matters, and he makes contact 10 percentage points below league average in the zone. So he does not have a great hit tool. I'm assuming. If we know. If we even know what a

hit tool is. I'm looking back at the old fan graphs grades. This is from 2017. They had him at a 45 with a future 50, which isn't bad. It's not his best foot forward. That doesn't point to another level coming that you're going to get this big improvement. Raw power and speed, yeah. Although they said 50-55 field,

and I think that ended up being not true. Give that extra 5 or 10 from field to power, I think. That'd be game power, especially. It's pretty clearly something he has. But if you're a competitive team, keep him. I mean, he's 28. The next couple of years should be okay. I think that he could be likely to age poorly at sort of 31, 32

and not necessarily wanting to have him around. Yeah. I mean, I think the difference between Teoscar Hernandez and Domingo Santana, who just signed to go play in Japan, is pretty small, or at least it's a smaller difference than you think. That's a good pull. And Domingo Santana had that great year with the Brewers. It was before they acquired Yelich, I believe, was the year, 2017.

And then they added Kane and Yelich, and everyone said, oh, they'll make it work. They'll find playing time. I think they knew that that approach wasn't necessarily going to work in the long run, and that was with a better foundation in terms of walk rate too domingo santana had double digit walk rates in three consecutive seasons bad defender big power a little bit of speed tasker has a little bit slightly better sort of batter ball profile in terms of you know barrel rates and stuff

more barrels yeah but that's the difference. Right, so Teoscar Hernandez is one very disappointing season away from playing in Japan. And I think that's a more likely outcome based on how teams measure players than another

level, another step forward at the plate, and a future top 50 fantasy player. I don't see that happening. I don't see another level from another step forward at the plate, and a future top 50 fantasy player. I don't see that happening. I don't see another level from Tasker Hernandez. No, I don't think so. There's going to be some regression. Even if he's good, there's going to be some regression.

Got a couple more questions to get to before we go. How about a pitching question? This one comes from Ryan. He writes, hey guys, just had a thought on Dustin May and wanted to hear what you think. Everyone in the fantasy community seems to be off of May because he doesn't miss enough bats. Here's the thing. He checks so many boxes.

Spin rates off the charts. Elite velo. Prospect pedigree. Can attack hitters vertically and horizontally. Top three organization in terms of developing talent. What is there not to like? He hasn't optimized his pitch mix yet and is still extremely young. It seems a bit extreme to pass on a guy because of his rookie

year swinging strike rate. Additionally, looking at it from a gambling perspective, when something looks enticing and the public is betting heavily the other way, those are the best kinds of bets. He also includes May has a 158 ADP, which is from those early NFBC drafts champions leagues. We talked about May quite a bit around the postseason. I think the tagline on Dustin May, if you turn him into a movie poster, is why doesn't he strike more guys out? Because he is filthy. He is fun to watch. And I mean, I agree with Ryan's general sentiment here. I think that 150 range is kind of a sweet spot where you can take a chance and be handsomely rewarded with an SP1 or an SP2. Or you can buy Nick Pavetta, the incarnate version of the Zonk card from Let's Make a Deal. Wait, what?

They're not near each other in ADP. No, not current Pavetta. I'm talking about Pavetta from like two or three years ago. Oh, good Lord. I thought you were saying that they were going near each other in drafts right now. I was like, okay, that makes it obvious. I'll take May. No, Pavetta's ADP is 480.

So he's an absolute endgame flyer right now. But that's the type of miss you can have in that range. I do have to pick just a little bit at the question suggesting that he can work both horizontally and vertically. I mean, the difference between him and somebody like a Walker Bueller is fairly intense when it comes to vertical movement. Because Walker Bueller has about 10 inches of ride, speaking Brooks baseball language here, 10 inches of ride on his fastball and then like, you know, 8 inches of drop on the curveball. So you're talking about 18 to 20 inches of differential there. And May has 3 inches of quote-unquote ride on his sinker because it's more of a dropping pitch and 5 inches on his curve. So you're talking about eight inches differential there.

So Walker Buehler essentially has twice the drop on his curveball because everything's sort of measured off of the fastball. So May has intense side-to-sideness that maybe he can figure out how to capture, but what we found in our research is that vertical movement is more important and he actually kind of suffers when it comes to vertical movement. At least when it comes to sort of the stratification of vertical movement and how different his pitches are from the vertical movement standpoint. Now, because of that spin

rate, maybe he changes something and captures some spin efficiency on the four seamer and changes the profile on that pitch. Or maybe he just learns to work the sinker cutter and curve in ways he hasn't done yet, work side to side, improve his command on side to side, and get people out that way. done yet, work side to side, improve his command on side to side, and get people out that way. I do think that once everyone agrees on something and the whole league starts designing pitches that way and looking for pitches that look like that,

that there's always going to be room for like, hey, what about Sergio Romo? Or, you know, at some point, maybe what about Dustin May? Like, why can't he succeed just because he looks different? At some point, being different is good. So I don't know. I just wouldn't. I don't know that I've found that everybody is out on Dustin May. I think if I tried to go get Dustin May in a Dynasty League right now,

I would face a pretty hefty acquisition cost. That's why I haven't put the stamp of, let's go in a different direction of approval here on Dustin May. Let me ask you, it's kind of a philosophical question, but I'll use an example. If you're looking at May versus Mike Soroka, another guy who doesn't strike as many hitters out as we would all like in the fantasy community, when you look at Soroka's arsenal, both of these guys are good at controlling walks too, so I think it's a fair

sort of comp. Who do you think has the better stuff or the better arsenal in terms of having the best chance to increase their strikeout rate going forward? I think Soroka because he could increase his slider usage. And right now, 24% slider usage. I think he could push that all the way up to 35, 40% by the time he's older. And I think he will push that all the way up to 35%, 40% by the time he's older. And I think he will push that number as he ages. And I know that Dustin May also throws the sinker a lot and could do that. But I think that basically I think Mike Soroka's slider is better than Dustin May's curveball.

And Dustin May is already throwing this past season, already throwing breaking balls nearly 40% of the time, if you count them together. Yes, you don't really have that ability to amp up the usage a whole lot. Not as much. I mean, Soroka's still throwing 64% fastballs between his foreseeming sinkers, so I think he could, over time, change that up a little bit. One other thing that makes soroka good is his change

up and the change up does not is not is the for pitches is the worst correlated pitch to overall swinging strike rate and strikeout rate so the change up is still kind of used for soft contact and he has a straight change which is even rarer so So he could be one of those guys that just does a little better than his strikeout rate. You know, I got into it with Braves Twitter for just suggesting that there might be some regression coming for their pitchers because all of their young pitchers, Anderson, Soroka, and Freed are all projected to be worse next year. That's just how projections work. I was just bringing out the idea that there was a fair amount of uncertainty in this Braves rotation.

Because they have a lot of untested guys. And then they have a lot of really old guys that have some injury concerns. So between the two, there's a fair amount of risk. I think more than most. However, if you were going to bet on one of the trio of three young pitchers in Atlanta, it's Sirocco for me, because you have an explanation of how to proceed with a lower strikeout rate. For me, it's that straight change. When you look at Ian Anderson, the changeup does not have the characteristics of a good changeup, either straight or power change. And so I wonder

how he's going to keep striking people out when his changeup doesn't look that good and his curveball doesn't look that good. I don't know what's going on with Ian Anderson. And then Max Fried is a two-breaking ball, more conventional pitcher. He should strike people out. If he doesn't strike more people out,

his numbers are going to get worse. And he doesn't have, you know, we'll see what the velocity is next year. Soroka's the guy that I would say that I would bet on to beat his peripherals of all the guys I mentioned. Interesting, too, that Soroka and May have similar ADPs, of course.

Soroka coming off an Achilles injury. I think there's an understandable desire to wait and see where things are at come February with his recovery before going overboard. But I do think May at the price is interesting, as Ryan pointed out. I'm not avoiding him at that price. I'm not going to necessarily at this point look at him and say, you have to take him there. What's the Would You Rather game? So you're saying Soroka's there? Who else is there?

Soroka's there. May's there. And ooh, we got a few other interesting names here we have tristan mckenzie in this range we have frankie montas in this range we have patrick corbin who's quickly becoming a green eggs and ham kind of player for me so probably not going corbin out of this group uh charlie morton for his return to atlanta goes in this, man. So the old guys all had like a minus one plus tick in velocity last year. And Morton kind of got his back at the very end, right? Like that was the silver lining. Yeah, but that's a sort of playoff adrenaline situation. I don't know how comfortable I am baking that one into next year.

So the old guys have definite markers against them and then mckenzie uh lost velo over every start start over start and you know looks like he weighs 110 pounds i love the org's ability to develop pitching like i will rarely bet against cleveland stuff is nice and the stuff is actually, I think the stuff for McKenzie is better than Plesak and Savali for sure. I do worry about McKenzie holding velocity over a season, a full season especially.

He couldn't even do it in a 20-game season. Because that body, it's so thin. He could get stronger. He could bulk up. He could add 10 or 15 pounds of muscle between now

and the start of the season. And those concerns would be ease. I mean, the other guys that go kind of just below this range, it seems like there's a pretty big drop off here. You have Tyler Molle, Chris Bassett, and German Marquez as the next three. A couple more interesting names, Savalle and Javier go a little bit later than that. Yeah. It's always a moving thing. Do do you invest if it's an auction do you invest the money in the soroka level may level pitcher um or do you do it in a bat there and take uh take molly for less and um and you can do that in a snake draft too wait wait for molly or or or take or jump above i think i would I would want actually one of that group and Molly. You know what I mean? I think

they're different enough in tiers that I would want one of these better pitches along with Tyler and Molly. I would rank them just going off the top of my head right now. I think I would go Soroka, May, McKenzie, Montas. That

is very similar to the order I have them in, but I have Montas a little higher. I have Montas just below Soroka. Montas, McKenzie Montas. That is very similar to the order I have them in, but I have Montas a little higher. I have Montas just below Soroka. Montas McKenzie? You have Montas ahead of Soroka. I got Montas behind Soroka, but ahead of May right now. Yeah. Risky though.

It's just weird for me that I understand there were some health concerns and he did the movement on the slider did get better over the course of the season for Montas, and that could be all that it was, that he just lost the slider with the back injury. But it is weird for me that he had such great velocity in 2020 and such poor results. Yeah. It's an interesting chunk of the rankings and of the ADP, though, because you throw in David Price, who didn't pitch in 2020. I'm kind of intrigued by him in that range. I liked him a lot going to the Dodgers, but that was a nice get for them. So assuming he's fine coming off of a year of inactivity or not pitching in games anyway, I think I'm kind of in on David Price in this same cluster.

Thanks for the question, Ryan. Let's get to our last question. This one comes from Jared. Jared's in the process of putting together a new startup dynasty league with about 20 teams, looking for some unique ideas with salaries, contracts, leaving the entire player universe open, making it half snake draft, half auction.

So he's wondering if either of us play in a fun league with unique settings that we'd be willing to share. Ideally, this will be a true dynasty league and not a keeper league. So, you know, you play in a few long-term leagues. What wrinkles would you suggest that Jared should have for his new dynasty league? I think you want to think about tankers. I think you want to think about tankers. I think you want to think about. How you incentivize everyone to try.

Most years. And what you do with. The empty lineup characters. If it's fine with you. If it's fine with you. Then just let it happen. But if it's not fine with you. Then there are things like second half tournaments. The prospect pick

is different you're you're you're right you're like the the order for the prospect pick is different than the order for the redraft um maybe the second half winner gets the first prospect pick so that um you know there's different ways you can play around with it to incentivize every team to try uh you can even just put in the rules. Everyone has to feel the lineup. You can have high plate appearance and innings pitch limits with some penalties if they don't get to 750 innings and a certain amount of plate appearances from their lineups that they have to pay double next year. One thing I've seen that's interesting is you have graduated payments

where if first place gets $200, that last place is paying $50 to $75 of that, and 11th place is paying $50 of that. You know what I mean? There's a way where the worse you are in the standings, the more you're paying. I'd like the open universe for the player pool. I'm only in one league that has that where literally anybody playing baseball is eligible to be drafted as a prospect. If you had a kid in your neighborhood that you thought was going to be awesome someday

and he's playing little league, you can draft that kid in this league. It's a funny wrinkle. draft that kid in this league. It's a funny wrinkle. If you're like Tim McLeod and you watch a lot of baseball from Japan and Korea and you're familiar with the posting system and what those players are going to do, you could be a year or two ahead of those guys posting in a league like that.

That gives people a different way of building rosters. I think the open universe player pool, it takes a special group of owners to make it worthwhile. I think if you only have a couple people that would even dig that deep, it kind of does more harm than good. But if you know that the people in your league are all really into digging into every possible corner for players, I think it's cool that if you're in a keeper league, Adley Rutschman was rostered before the Orioles drafted him.

That's fun. That gives you more incentive to keep looking at different areas to make your team better. Yeah, yeah. There's different ways you can make an impact, basically, and find players. I definitely agree with you uh that i like that um the other thing is how do you uh how do you try to incentivize movement player movement

and one of my favorite platforms auto new is um has arbitration in it and basically your players that you've got um all of them kind of become more expensive year over year. That's fairly standard in a lot of dynasty leagues. But then there's like this voting process where your league mates actually can be like, yo, he has Mike Trout for, you know, 15 bucks. I'm going to put an extra three bucks on that. And so your very best players, just like in arbitration, become more expensive quicker and are harder to retain. I like that because I don't like it when one team somehow has an outfield of like Trout, Acuna, Soto or something. It happens. And it happens happens there's a consolidation factor where teams uh pull together the best uh talent because they're trying um and then all of a sudden you look up and you're

like how much let's do against that um and so i i my favorite leagues that my favorite league that i talk about here all the time is devil's rejects and there is actually no penalty for um the players getting older and you could actually just have a super team for a long time but the the people in this team have been in this league have been in it for so long that um they tend not like there's so much trading they tend not to hold on to any sort of super team uh for that long so um maybe it won't be that big deal if you think that everyone's going to trade a lot, but I like baking in something when it comes to inflation, basically.

Yeah. Given the choices, and I realize Jared doesn't want to do a keeper league. He wants to do a dynasty league where you keep everybody. I like the keeper leagues with salaries more than I like straight dynasty leagues because it does force some of that long term decision making. Eventually the contracts roll over. You do lose players. You do have to make a decision to commit to young players at a certain point. You can't just kind of hold them in perpetuity. I think that it resembles some things that teams have to go through in their evaluation process that I really like. The problem is you start to get to a point where the rules get unnecessarily complicated. You have extensions and you have only certain players who are eligible for extensions. You only have certain players who can be cut. Those types of things do get a little

bit messy. So I understand why keeping it simple in Dynasty is also appealing to a lot of people. So half snake, half auction, i think that gets pretty messy i feel like auction is good if you're going to hold the salaries going forward right if you're not i i don't think you want to have an auction element in a keeper or a dynasty i do like with auction though you have a price tag on that player and so it becomes easy to do some sort of inflation right so so eventually somebody will get untenable even if you bought um you know somebody before they were popular and you've got them at 15 like at some point you'll have some rules where that that player will be much more expensive so um i think the auction plus inflation is a good way to go. But something you said earlier,

messy. Auction and snake. And if you have too many rules and too many things in too many places, it gets messy. Then nobody wants to commish. Nobody wants to do the thing where they have, you know, oh, everybody has.

Did you check your minor league protection list? I don't want to check it. Are all your guys under? No. Did everybody check it? Did everybody do the thing? And where is the master sheet? I don't want to check it are all your guys under no did everybody check it did everybody do the thing and where is the master sheet i don't know do i do i have the master oh i have the master sheet don't i and then you know like nobody really wants to do that it's hard enough getting everybody to pay the the the the uh the tithe you know i'm regarding everyone to

pay the dues you know there's uh you don't want to add more layers on top of that of wrangling people and trying to herd cats. If you're going to have penalties in your league, would you have people pay more up front and then just give money back to those last place teams? Or would you really just make a point to only put people in the league who you know are good for the penalty money later on? Because that's the only downside. I like having penalties for being stuck in the bottom of a keeper league. It means you're not doing your job. You're not turning your roster effectively. You're not making pickups or you're not making smart trades to help your team. There should be a penalty for that because you're making it easier for other teams in the league to

do well when you have teams that are not trying or not doing a good job it's true it's risk not to do it before the season you want to do it with people you're sure about but the easiest way to do it is to say at the end of the season hey jim you owe bob 40 bucks right um and you have basically like four or five that's how I was in one league with a friend where at the end of the season, there'd be a big email and he would say, oh, Bobby Bud did this by picking this guy. And, you know, he was great and this and this. And at the very end, he would say, OK, Bob, you owe this person 40. This person owes this person 40. This person owes this person 50. There was only about four or five lines on there because it's basically the bottom paying the top.

And there's a bunch of people in the middle who don't pay and don't do anything. And it worked out okay. So it can be done. There's personal responsibility there, right? Yep. Bob, you owe Jim $40. And then you kind of get a little help as the commish. Those people can put some pressure on to collect.

You don't have to do it all yourself. Yeah, exactly. They want their $40 and they know who owes it to them. Right. So if Jim wants to send Moose and Rocco after Bob, that's on Jim's hands. It's not on yours. I'll look the other way.

Well, he owed him 40 bucks. So there you go. Hopefully that helps, Jared. And obviously this was a nice, fun, long episode. If you're enjoying this show on a platform that allows you to rate and review it, we'd greatly appreciate it if you took a few minutes to do that. Lots of you have done it. Thank you to the many of you who left us a nice rating and review. On Twitter, you can find Eno at Eno Saris.

You can find me at Derek Van Ryfer. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.