Rates & Barrels - Rivalry Weekend Waiver Wire Preview

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Eno and DVR discuss several news and notes around Major League Baseball including another unfortunate injury for Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa, and potential improvement from the Royals' lineup in the months ahead before discussing 'Rivalry Weekend' and several players on the roster fringes in fantasy baseball leagues.Rundown0:57 Byron Buxton & Carlos Correa in Concussion Protocol8:23 Maikel Garcia: Skills Growth *and* First Quarter Heater?14:12 Spencer Strider: Returning During Nats Series: AJSS Sticking?21:56 Other News & Notes: Eury Pérez, Tyler Glasnow, Spencer Horwitz, and Carson Palmquist28:22 Rivalry Weekend: Anything You're Excited About?37:38 Weekend Waiver Preview50:20 Hitter Leaderboard: This Weekend's Bats to Consider54:21 Intriguing Names on the Pitching FrontFollow 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 SarrisProducer: Brian SmithExecutive Producer: Derek VanRiper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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To play now, go to theathletic.com slash connections. Book the Rates and Therols. It is Friday, May 16th. Derek Van Riper, you know, Sarah's here with you. It's a fantasy Friday. On this episode we dig into some news and notes from around the league and we get ready for this weekend's waiver pickup. Keeping the format we adopted last week, taking a look at players moving in both directions, trying to figure out what to do for the guys that seemingly are stuck in the middle. I think that's the slice of the player pool we're going to focus on at the end of the week, most Fridays throughout this season. A quick reminder, you can join our Discord

at the link in the show description. Be sure to leave us a nice rating and review if you listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and be sure to hit that like button if you're watching us on YouTube. You know, let's start with the news. Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa in the concussion protocol after a collision in the outfield. Correa was just backing up on a shallow fly ball, eventually kind

of stopped and braced himself. Byron Buxton made the catch and ran right into him because they inevitably going to collide. If you watch that play, it was like it happened in slow motion. The brutal part about this, both in the concussion protocol, but Byron Buxton has a pretty extensive history of concussions. I believe his most recent one that we know about. It was described as concussion-like symptoms, which to me means you almost certainly had a concussion. That was in 2020.

In the postseason, he was limited to pinch running duty in that wildcard series. But then, if you remember the really scary incident involving Byron Buxton in his double aid debut, all the way back in 2014, his first game, he was making a diving catch in the outfield and had a really bad collision where the people who were there reported he was unconscious for approximately 10 minutes. That situation, I remember when that happened, because there were so few people covering that game, I believe it was in New Hampshire, details were super sparse.

And the fact that he came away from that with only a concussion, I say that as someone who says a concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury, so there's no rule such thing as a mild traumatic brain injury, so there's no rule such thing as a mild traumatic brain injury. They're all bad. Like, the fact that he didn't suffer a paralyzing injury in that collision actually is miraculous. All this is to say, I think Byron Buxton might have the worst injury luck of any player in my lifetime. I cannot remember a guy who's been snake-bitten by more unfortunate injuries on top of nagging

chronic stuff that most players deal with at some point in their career. So being in the protocol doesn't mean he necessarily has a concussion, but that is obviously the fear. If you watch the video, it absolutely looked like a situation where both of those guys could have suffered one. Yeah, it's just, it makes you almost laugh. he's having one of the better starts of his career. He seems like he's healthy for a nice long stretch. And and then they run into each other.

It's like what are you going to do? Yeah, like not a collision of the bag with the opponent, like nothing. Just running into a teammate who's also had some, you know, strange injuries and bad luck himself. It's like your two most injurious guys just running into each other. It's like, no, I couldn't believe it. I'm like, amazed Royce Lewis also wasn't converging on the same ball. Like the twins will figure out to have some way to have like a four way collision in the outfield. It's baffling, right.

And to your point about Buc, I mean, having a great start to the season, 10 homers in 41 games, 8 for 8 as a base dealer, still playing great defense in the outfield. We've seen in recent years, the per game production has been excellent. The power has really ticked up and stayed there for several years. This is the sixth season in a row in which Byron Buxton has run a barrel rate of 13% or higher. He's at 16.3%. What's come with that added power is more consistent swing and miss, I think I would say, but you'll take that trade off every time, right?

This is a guy that's proven to be 30, even 40% better than Lee Average. You look at his WRC Plus when he's out there. So just to have that possibility of him having a healthy season where, you know, maybe a healthy season for Byron Buxton is 140 games like he did back in 2017. We saw 102 a year ago. He was laying the foundation for one of his healthiest seasons before this happened. It's just just an absolute brutal twist of luck, twist of fate. I hope, hope, hope that this ends up being a non-concussion scenario

And then he's back out there in a couple of days, but just a heartbreaker Yeah, really is you know across the board like you know even Matt Waller comes up and gets hurt It's just I don't know what's going on there. This is a twin statements They've won 11 games in a row and you hear that you're like really well Let's you watch the twins that might surprise you in part because in their last 20, the Twins are 15 and five, but the Tigers are also 15 and five. The Royals are 14 and six.

The Guardians are even 11 and nine during that span. Like they're not making progress in the division because two of their teams in division have played just as well. And that's just a stunning thing about that division right now. They're cruising. Four of them with 40% playoff chance are better.

And the twins actually have the second best playoff percentage by Fangrass with 60%. We've talked a little bit about the Guardians weird run differential. And I think the Royals are a good team. So I think it might end up Tigers, Twins, Royals. Do you think there's another chance of multiple wild cards coming out of the central?

They've certainly done everything they need to do early to leave that door open, but I'm still not there yet. I'm shedding the skepticism with the Tigers, as we talked about earlier in the week with Josjean. Like I'm buying them as a more stable front runner and playoff contender than I was throughout the second half of last season. I've moved on them.

I'm not sure I'm on the, I know the Royals have played well. That lineup just does not do it for me. I can't talk myself into that group of hitters being consistently good enough all season long as they're currently constructed. I mean Jack Kegley-Nolan is gonna come up at some point right? That's that's gonna be a lift. But when you look at that lineup, like what do you see? I'm talking about them as maybe are they, are they deservedly a bottom five lineup all year?

Are they that bad? It's hard for me to imagine them even with Jack Heglinone popping up and being more than like the 20th best lineup in baseball. And right now I think to this point in the season, they're 26th in Woba. Yeah, 27th in WRC plus one aspect that they are good at is they are second in contact rate that has been a Royals thing.

Although I would point out, I think that their park is one of the few parks that decreases strikeout rate in terms of park effects. So that has to be mentioned as part of it. Just the the ISO is pretty terrible. Third worst in ISO backed up by the stat-cast stats, you know, in terms of hard hit rate. 23rd in terms of barrel rate. They are 27th. They just don't hit the ball hard. So, you know, having somebody like Haglion could make a difference. He hits the snot out of the ball. You give Pascantino a shot at being a hard hitter. I mean, the hard hit numbers are okay for him.

Mikel Garcia is having the breakout that I thought he'd have last year. Yeah, let's talk about that. Is that real? Do you think it's real or do you think it's... What percentage of his skills gain in sustainable growth and what percentage of what he's doing right now is first quarter of the season heater? I'm definitely going more than 50% skills gain because what we've seen is that year over year improvement in swing strike rate. And what we saw is that last year he made some improvements. He actually improved his swing strike rate, he improved his strikeout rate, but he took a little step back in hard hit rate. And that was unfortunate because he doesn't lift the ball well. And so he kind of hit the ball softly on the ground and that didn't turn out to be so good. What he's done this

here is he's improved his swing strike rate again. he's proved his strikeout rate again, but he's brought the hard hit back. And he's lifting the ball a little bit more. So again, I get a little bit of a whiff of that like Luis Garcia Starlin Castro thing I talk about a lot, which is like, it's catnip for me because it's incremental improvement year over year. And I just like, oh yeah, this guy's just getting better year over year. But there is a sort of borderline quality to it. Like, even now a 6.9% barrel rate is just barely above average. The max TV is just barely above average. The hard hit is good, but it's not like real standout.

I think that the real skill here is putting the ball in play. And he's putting the ball in play and he's not doing it softly. And so I believe in him. I believe in him, I believe in him. I think he's going to, over the course of this year, hit 12 to 14 homers and steal 40 bags. I think they'd be really happy with that if that's the outcome.

There are some differences in some of the decisions he's making with his swings. Last year he was hitting the ball outside the strike zone a lot more than he is right now. Now, when he's swinging less overall, but he's making more contact in zone, those seem like the kinds of skills adjustments. I think it's some some balance of like maybe 50 50. Like, I don't think he's a superstar. I don't think we're talking 20 40.

Like, I think the power is the area where I think we are all reasonably skeptical. Six point nine percent barrel rate instead of 3.7 and 3.9% the previous two seasons. I think when you see these lifting the ball more and consider how much hard contact he makes, you can buy that sort of gain. It's not a ridiculous jump. So I think I'm buying your power increase,

like the amount you suggested, like low to mid teens probably seems like the reasonable ceiling. And I think India will be better going forward. So, you know, that's five guys that I think are league average hitters or better. You know, and I think, you know, Sal, Witt, Pascantino, it's not a middle three that would be

even top 10 in the big leagues, maybe. I'm not slagging Bobby at all, to be clear, but just like the combination of all three of those as a core of your lineup is not, right, not top 10. But, you know, once you start talking, well, the five, the five is okay. Then you say, well, Cags actually could maybe supplant Sal or supplant Vinny or make it a slugging four. And then you've got six that you kind of believe in. You're reducing the amount of holes you have in lineup. Then you start talking about how bad is a, you know, Massey Isbell, you know, bottom of the lineup.

It's not Fermin or whatever it is. It's not terrible. There's other teams that do that. So I think they could get out of the bottom five. I think a CAGs actually could be enough. It's not that. There's other teams that do that. So I think they could get out of the bottom five. I think a CAG actually could be enough. It's not that one player changes everything. It's just that one player makes the slugging part bigger, makes the whole thing longer, and makes it more like a middle of the road lineup, maybe a top 12 lineup.

If they get the top 12, then they have exceeded my expectations by quite a bit. I do expect Vinny Pasquantino to be better than he's been so far. Sal Perez to be better than he's been so far. India, right? Yeah, I think India is a little better than he's played up to this level, but you were right to call out some of the concerns about his power. Leaving Cincinnati, going to Kansas City really kind of lowers that part of his ceiling quite a bit, but maybe he'll contribute more as a base dealer

as the season rolls along, gets on base more. Maybe we'll see some part of his game tick up that way. They're still going to have to make a move or two to bolster this supporting cast if they're going to be a more dangerous playoff team. If they kind of run it back with what they've got and then Keglionin's it being the the main The main addition to the roster instead of an impact bad the deadline that I think they're

Probably going to get a similar result to what we just saw in 2024 Now that I've said top 12 and I'm talking about one bat it's aggressive But could they get too close to league average? I think you know even one bat plus some of the positive regression, which is just a weird thing. But you know what I mean? Positive regression for Sal in India. I think that and Pascuatino that like this could be somewhere around the league average lineup. Given Sal's age, given India's injury history,

I'd be a little more worried about their respective positive regression than I would be about little more worried about their respective positive regression than I would be about Vinny Pasquantino's. I think of the three, he's the easiest for me to just say, nah, this is not who he's going to be this year. He will be fine and that's a guy that I would be trading for in leagues where I'm allowed to do that. Let's get to some other baseball news you should know.

We'll move through these relatively quickly. It sounds like Spencer Strider is going to be back during the series against the Nationals. The only question I have for you with Strider is he threw a simulated game this week. The VELO is down a little bit. Does that worry you or do you kind of put that more in the bucket of let's see what happens

when he's actually in a game situation because we know simulated situations are just not the same. The adrenaline's not always there, and it's hard to make a one-to-one comparison when we're talking about a non-game situation versus a simulated game situ... or simulated versus an actual game situation. Yeah, I would agree that we should give him some slack on this one.

And also, given his injury history, does he really want to use his primo bullets in this situation? He just wants to get up there and feel good. I would think in this instance it's just making sure he doesn't tweak anything and letting it rip. Maybe they keep him at 75 or 80 pitches that first start back because he threw 65 pitches in the simulated game, so I think you want to account for that.

So there are Atlanta related news though. Ronald Lacuna Jr. currently rehabbing in AAA with the Gwinnett squad. No word yet on the timetable for his return I did see a note suggesting he may just stay with the other affiliates that are not traveling so he can avoid road games as he continues to make his way back from a second ACL tear. Other news though it's interesting with Spencer Strider coming back It might cost Grant Holmes his spot in the rotation as AJ Smith Schaver is pitching Well, this is according to the Athletics David O'Brien. Do you think that's a call they're gonna get right? Do you believe in that decision to keep Smith Schaver in over Grant Holmes if that's what Atlanta chooses to do?

That's sad for Grant Holmes because I mean he's pitching well enough to be a Major League starter although he's got negative war because he's given up a bunch of homers. He also has somewhat borderline stuff at 90 stuff plus but it's like it's 90 stuff plus with two good breaking balls, good command. Hmm. If I was forced to choose between the two, I would choose AJ Smith-Shawver. In that way, I think it's the right choice. It just seems a little sad for Holmes because I do think he's a major league quality starter. But it's not the end of the road for him necessarily as a starter.

He's just in that swing role. They just prefer Smith-Shawver every fifth day. They think there's a little more ceiling there and I don't think they're wrong for believing that. So tough break for you if you've been in a deeper league though relying on Holmes as a starter, knowing that he might have a reduced workload trying to work out of a pen. So we'll see if that's the move they officially end up making, but that appears to be the direction they're headed, according to D.O.B. Chauver is just another thing that I think is so weird about, even with stuff models. And the weirdest thing about pitching is that, you know,

Logan Gilbert comes up and he's throwing a curveball and he's like, yeah, the curveball is my best, my best pitch. And this is going to be my moneymaker in the big leagues. He comes up and baseball tells him, no, your curve ball is not good. And he's like, tried like four curve balls since. And you have Jake Odoritzi, he's signed to be a fastball slider guy.

He finds the splitter and he never finds a really good slider that works in the big leagues. And AJ Smith Schauffer, when I first heard of him, it was, you've gotta see this fastball, you've got to see this breaking ball, he's gonna make it, he's gonna be good. And I think he's gonna be good, but his best pitch right now is the splitter. You never really know. You never really know. I mean, it's just, we have different information now than we used to. I think that's the other part of it that always makes this kind of funny.

But I think it also depends on how similar your pitches are to the bulk of the pitches in the big league. And then whether or not those pitches have any characteristics that make them move differently than expected, too. If your stuff, like by by velocity is good, by results has been good coming into the big leagues, it might be more ordinary than you think because everybody in the big leagues has a fastball like that or not everybody but many more people in the big leagues have a fastball like that. To your point when you look at his movement on the four-seam fastball, 16 inches vertical break, I mean the 95 is nice and he was 96 last year and as a prospect he was throwing

up some nice numbers, some triple digits sometimes. But now he's settling in a 95 on a fastball with 16 inches of vertical break, which is basically zero. It's basically dead zone. And the curve ball, it's 77 and it has huge break and it looks really good, but versus average has one inch more vertical break than average and one inch more horizontal break or one inch less horizontal break than average. And at 77, it's not a standout V-L below. So you look at the split finger and you're like, oh, okay It's actually kind of a weird split finger because it's less dropped an average

But in this case, that's good. It's like a straight change split finger Like how many people do you know throw one of those a straight change split finger? Yeah, it sometimes does not move. Remember, we saw this for Schafer. We did that video. Right. So here's the other thing I would say that might explain the disconnect between the things that people were telling you

to watch with Smith Schafer previously and what's working for him now. I wonder if, and this comes from the Scouting is Very Hard book that we try to like kind of poke at all the time and add new chapters to. If you have good velocity and good command of a fastball and scouts see that, like what's there to worry about?

I don't know how easy is it for a scout to pick up on a dead zone fastball if the VLO is good and the command is good. Like, is that something you can really see well with your eyes while you're watching? You know, I've talked to Scouts about this and they've told me that sometimes you see it in the reactions from hitters, you know,

sort of surprised looks or, you know, just the way they're swinging under it or swinging over it or whatever. I just find it personally myself, almost impossible to see ride. You know, you can see a straight fastball. You can see if it sideways pretty easy, but like that hop. But I also know that like Verlander on the mound can throw a pitch and be like that was a 17.

I wonder how much of that is eyes and how much of that's actually feel. Feel. I think it's feel. That's my my suspicion. If you get a chance to ask him, I don't know if he'll even tell you. I'm going to the park today That might be a field thing. I'm writing a piece about vertical break I'm gonna talk to him about it His perspective is different than everybody else's perspective trying to watch that pitch though, too It's a bit like Barry Bonds. They I just do it

Little bit why is Michael Jordan not a good coach? Just do it. Great slogan though. Are you ready to rock big savings? Rakuten's Big Give Week is a festival of savings with up to 15% cash back at your favorite stores. We're talking up to 15% cash back at Sale, Ray-Ban, Puma and more. Shoppers in the know get the best savings when they use Rakuten.

They shop the brands they love and earn cashback on top of deals. Big Give Week happens only once a year, and the cashback rates are through the roof. I'll be shopping for some new shoes and some new electronics and getting up to 15 percent cashback on it all. I get my cash back sent directly to my PayPal, and it feels so good whenever I see it hit my account. Join for free today. Hi, it's Alexa Weibel from New York Times Cooking. We've got tons of easy weeknight recipes, and I'm gonna make two of my favorites for you today. For my five ingredient creamy miso pasta,

you just take your starchy pasta water, whisk it together with a little bit of miso and butter until it's creamy. Add your noodles and a little bit of cheese. Mm, it's like a grown-up box of mac and cheese. An easy weeknight recipe that feels like a restaurant quality dish. Next up, I'm making my vegetarian mushroom shawarma pitas. This recipe is just built for efficiency.

You toss your mushrooms and red onion in your spices, throw them in the oven. By the time they're done, your sauce is ready. You've chopped your cabbage and you're ready to assemble. It feels crazy that something that tastes this complex and looks this colorful and beautiful is actually really easy to make and takes just 20 minutes of active time. It's just delicious.

New York Times Cooking has you covered with easy dishes for busy weeknights. Find these recipes and more at NYTCooking.com. Smells so good. Couple of notes to get to, Yuri Perez averaging 96.9 on that fastball. Last rehab start came Sunday, 42 pitches, three innings in that outing,

up to a nine to three strikeout to walk in six innings with Jupiter. It sounds like maybe an early June return is when we're gonna get him back. So I think maybe we put Yuri Perez in the leagues where he's not already stashed away on the IL into what was previously the seat occupied by Clayton Kershaw the injured pitcher that you actually really want to have in a couple of weeks when he gets back

Probably worth scooping up now if he's eligible to be added in your league. Don't Spend too much. I mean you like San Yel Contra is just a warning sign that, command doesn't always come back in the first year, and it's not like Yuri Perez, his best feature was command. This is true, but I'd like to just look right past the mistakes I made in the last couple of weeks and see if I can do right. Just do it again. If I could steer harder into it

and just be right on the other side of it, like, you know, I was wrong about Sandy, but I ended up being right about Yuri Perez, even though the process was flawed just about the same I'm trying to pull myself out of that just double down double down good to see that this stuff is there that's down a half tick but it's a half tick and it's early in the process I guess yeah I'm not too worried about that I am worried about Tyler glass now not having a timetable yet to return to Mount work.

He's throwing on flat ground. But look, there was a rake out there and I took the chance. I stepped on it. Right. Sometimes that happens when you dance in a field full of rakes. You know, dance somewhere else next time. DTR. Well, no, I mean, in pitching, you have no choice. Yeah, but like you knew you knew there was risk in this case.

So I deserve this. He's projected to still, you know, throw like a hundred and ten innings basically. Oh yeah, I believe in that. Like truly I believe he'll get some reasonable number. But the path to get there has not been pleasant so far. Hopefully it's soon that he'll be actually throwing from a mound. Spencer Horowitz comes off the IL on Friday, so the Pirates offense should be fixed, right?

I mean, a lot riding on Spencer Horowitz coming back and being a guy that goes above the projection, given the issues they have had putting runs on the board. I like Horowitz, but he does not hit the ball that hard. So he does not solve their power issues. I don't think I saw him on your list, and this is a deep poll, but there is a guy on the Pirates

that does hit the ball hard, and he is hitting the ball hard, and he's getting his first shot, and I like him. Is it Billy Cook? No. It's Alexander Canaria. Yeah, no, Canaria hits his ball hard. Canaria is playing.

If you look at the lineup tracker, and I think he's playing in a way that may not matter that Horowitz is coming back because he's playing left field and center field and center field at times has been a pain point for them with at least recently O'Neill Cruz's injury. But outfield in general, I think they could use another outfielder. They were forced to put Andrew McCutcheon in left field. I think that Canario could take left field for himself. I don't think that Jiwon Bae is a major league hitter. And I think Triolo Gorski and Davis and even IKF and Frazier all look like backups to me. So if there's somebody that could force his way

into the rule of five, you know, for Canario, it could be him. And I know that he has flaws. I know that he strikes out too much, but what we wanted out of Sawinski could be coming from Canary with a little bit less speed. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like another Nelson Velasquez type player where, yeah,

like it could go up in flames because there's too much swing and miss. But if he's connecting and doing damage the way he can with raw power like that, they need it, the door's wide open, he'll get chances to play. So I get it, I get why people are excited. Billy Cook, by the way, at AAA so far this year,

still looking for his first homer. I think something's wrong, I think he's hurt. His hard hit rate's down 20 percentage points from what it was at AAA a year ago. At least during his time with Indianapolis. He was closer to, he was 32.3% before the trade and he's twenty six point three percent now. So there you go I mean, it's it's just not quite working for Billy Cook Horowitz is a deep leaguer Yeah, 15 teams and deeper I think for Horowitz for the time being see how it goes Carson Palmquist coming up for the Rockies

debuting Friday at Arizona. Yeah,, gets the debut on the road, but what are you doing with Carson Palmquist? NL only leagues like most Rockies pitchers if you're thinking about it? I don't even want Rockies pitchers in NL only leagues. I mean, so many of these NL only leagues, you gotta stick them in. You can't really take them out.

Yeah, you can't really, this is all you got. I can't do it. A lot of high K rates for him in the minors a little bit of a walk Problem, but I don't know I I'm a little more intrigued by palm quiz than the typical Rockies prospect But the situation hasn't changed enough teams brutal right now. I will not be Pursuing from a fantasy perspective Although I will be tuning in and seeing if he can make it work as a big league starter. Stuff Plus says the sweeper is good, which is a little bit of a red flag because you don't know.

Not only is it a red flag because maybe the league is getting used to sweepers, but it's a red flag because it's such a platoon dependent pitch that, you know, a 119 Stuff Plus sweeper could be something he can't use against lefties at all. And so everything else is under 100 stuff plus and the fastball's under 90, so. Sorry, Rockies fans, another bucket of cold water, even as Kels and Plumquist gets that opportunity. Like, come on, good results in the minors? Like, I'm excited for him.

I don't, I just,. Let's see how it goes. Let's talk about Rivalry Weekend just for a minute. I was trying to figure out why this was a big deal and I read one of the stories at MLB.com and there's a sponsor for Rivalry Weekend. So I was like, oh, that's why they're playing that up. Right. It was a surface to put an ad on. I get it. I understand. Everyone has to make money. I wanted to ask you though, is there anything cool about Rivalry Week and anything that you're actually excited to see? I mean, some of the rivalries are not perfect

because you can't line up all 30 teams to see a true deep-seated rival. I mean, the Vedder Cup is cool. It's actually funny. And it's funny because Eddie Vedder grew up in Evanston, Illinois, and he's a fan of the Cubs. He's not a fan of the Cubs. He's

not a fan of the Mariners or the Padres. He lived in Seattle and he lived in San Diego. But he's a Cubs fan from Illinois, and they play for the Vedder Cup in that rivalry. The Vedder Cup is the Whitehawks Cubs, right? No, the Vedder Cup is Mariners-Padres. What? Yes, that's the Vedder Cup. They're selling merch for it. I mean, I think Marinus Padres is funny because they share a complex. Right, yeah, they share.

That's as much of a rivalry as they actually have is that they probably hate each other, their prospects hate each other because they see each other all the time for instructs. Some of these are weird. Tigers Blue Jays? This is the fight for, what's that bridge? But it doesn't go to Toronto, it just goes to Windsor. The Windsor Bridge. Oh yeah, there you go.

Also known as the Gordie Howell International Bridge. I think they were tapping into hockey. The original six rivaled between the wings and the Leafs is much stronger than Pistons Raptors, you know Lions Argonauts or I think Tigers Blue Jays It's an old AL East rivalry. So explain to me, three KMA twins Brewers Packers Vikings. Oh They've been playing interleague together for a long time. It's become a little bit of a rivalry and the Brewers used to be in the AL I mean some of these are obvious some of these I mean angels dodgers is like it's one of those geographical things that like

has never really played out in In like the actual games like I don't think that there's an actual rivalry between Angels and dodgers fans or players or whatever. Well, but the angels are 75 and 73 all time against the Dodgers. There you go. The angels have a lead in the all time series that could quickly evaporate this weekend. When we have our episode on Monday, do you expect the angels to still have that lead or do you think the Dodgers go in there, get that sweep and flip it? Seems like a sweep.

The headliner for this is Mets Yankees. Yeah, it's gotta be, right? I mean, that's the one. Those are the two best teams going out of this subway series, same city and Soto return and we're definitely leaning into Mets Yankees in our coverage. So that's why I put up a piece about Juan Soto's bad speed today. It's down and you can see though that Lindor

is on there and Vientos is on there. You can also see that like not all these players are struggling. You know this is the list of biggest bad speed droppers and Naylor is not really struggling, Landoor is actually having one of his better starts to a season, Langleyers is like semi-breaking out. Willie Damis is struggling, but Elliott Ramos is not that bad, and then Michael Harris is struggling, but I wanted to point out a few things. Harris, Ramos, and Soto, and Contreras, and Langleyers to some extent, they lost some bad speed, but they still have good bat speed, right? So that seems not as worrisome

as people that are dropping below the line. Then there's also the fact that everybody on this list has a shorter swing right now by swing length. Right, that matters. What you'll see is these guys have moved their contact point. You know, they're not getting the ball out as far in front. I think there's been a league-wide emphasis on making contact. And I think that a lot of the league's hitting coaches are talking about going the other way, making contact, good three strike, two strike approach. And Soto last year pulled the ball at a career

high rate. And I think that had something to do with his park. And so now he's in some ways just reverting. It's not necessarily that he's lost two miles an hour bat speed. And then if you look at Kyle Bland's swing acceleration app, you'll see that Soto went from like 95th percentile in swing acceleration, which accounts for swing length. He went from the 95th to the 90th. It's still a pretty small drop, right?

I mean, you're not panicking about that. My conclusion was more that maybe he's not going to hit 40 homers again. Maybe that was a little bit of a Yankee park thing. He wasn't really a 40 homer hitter before. That was the first time he hit 40. I don't think we can just assume. The park factors couldn't have been better. Yeah, the park factor he had 40. I don't think we can just assume. The park factors couldn't have been better. Yeah, the park factor was an issue. And then, you know, I think he's just always been a

sprayed around, you know, 420 OBP guy, you know, it's like, I do wonder I didn't address this in a piece that, you know, you haven't for 13 years. And some people brought up Joey Votto in the in the comments. Votto did something similar where he was like this is my approach and it's gonna lead to the best longevity that I can have Because pitches outside the zone are not a place to eat when you're in your 30s, you know But I do wonder that like Votto some of that day new mom was not That attractive. I mean there's there's times when it was rough and not that attractive. I mean, there were times when it was rough. And even Votto himself had I think a little bit of a crisis, maybe like a mid-lifion crisis in baseball where he couldn't decide between like, oh, maybe I do have to hit for power, you know, and

I do have to maybe pull it. Like if this bat-sieve keeps dropping, which is what math says it will and what history says it will, then he won't be hitting the opposite field homers out. And so when does he become a 18 homer, 400 OBP guy? And that matters when that happens. That batter is still useful and good, but that batter is not worth all that money. No, but that's probably going to happen sometime around 2033. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't seem like it's imminent. worth all that money? No, but that's probably gonna happen sometime around 2033. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't seem like it's imminent.

Because he's 26 right now. But opposite field power is finicky, I would say. You have to have a certain level of bat speed to do it. So here's my question slash pushback. And I think we had this conversation once about Freddie Freeman, wondering how Freddie Freeman was going to age, but don't you get the sense that a player like Juan Soto, who's had elite

plate discipline pretty much since the day he showed up in the big leagues, and does have still very good bat speed now at his peak, and will likely have at least good bat speed for a while, don't you think, and you're describing with Vato too, he has different approaches he will use at different points. As his athleticism wanes, as his strength wanes, don't you get the sense that he is smart enough to make significant adjustments to his approach and rely less on opposite field as he doesn't have the power in the future to hit opposite field homers.

I get the sense he'll just turn the dial a few times and we're going to see early career Soto, peak Soto, near post peak Soto and far post peak Soto and they're all going to be still like even very good even if they don't look the same on paper. Yeah, I could see him dialing up the pull power again, going, you know, because he did it once. He pulled 45% in one year, last year. And so what I could see him doing is, and if you do that later on,

when you don't have the bat speed, the strikeouts go up. So I could see him having sort of a mid-30s where he's striking out 24% of the time. Right. Still fine though. And pulling the ball 42% of the time and still getting to like 25 homers and a 400 plus OVP and maybe just the batting average is down in the 230s, 240s instead of the 270s, 280s, yeah. I think that's what's more likely to happen, even though there will be adjustments that need to be made along the way. I think the expectation I have, and a lot of people have, is that we'll just make them. Like we've got a lot of evidence that you can make changes along the way.

Good point. Let's get to our weekend waiver preview. Would you rather? A giant game of would you rather, in which we don't even put that many players up against each other. It's just kind of a conversation about is this a good idea? Should you really be making drops here and additions here? Here's the way we're going to visualize it this week.

There's a page over on CBS if you happen to play any leagues there. It's a roster trends page and it will show you the most added players alongside of the most dropped players. Where I think it's really interesting is if you go through the most added players alongside of the most dropped players. And where I think it's really interesting is if you go through the most dropped players, Kobe Mayo got sent down, Novy Martez hurt, Andres Mendes is hurt, move past those guys. Like there's a clear reason why they were dropped in some leagues. They're not that interesting to talk about or think about right now. Look at the guys below that who are healthy, right?

Sean Murphy and Christopher Morl, Cam Smith, we talked about with Chandler Rome earlier in the week, Luis Renjifo, Spencer Steer, and they're at varying levels of how highly they're rostered. But what I think you really wanna do is look at some of the players that are in a similar range for roster rates

on the drop list and compare them to the players who are rising, the ones who are being frequently added, and start to say, okay, these are real situations people have. They're sitting there with Luis Renjifo. Keith versus Morel. Keith versus Morel, or Renjifo versus Morel,

and they're trying to make those decisions. I mean, these are the types of decisions in season, I feel like, that ultimately shape a lot about what happens to your team because you're trying to find upgrades. You're trying to win on the margins, right? Like these are difficult choices to make. We're making them every week in some fashion.

The names and faces change, of course. And we had Dalton Rushing get called up. We had Moises Ballesteros get called up. So if you're sitting there with Sean Murphy on your team and rushing and Ballesteros get promoted, do you see an actual upgrade in either of those guys? Earlier in the week we talked about Ballesteros short-term maybe getting some run because of the HAP injury but we don't really see how the fit is there with Amaya and Kelly behind the plate and then once you have Hap come off the IL,

Seiya Suzuki's your primary DH, there's just not a spot for him. So that seems more like a temporary bandaid on a bad catcher situation in fantasy than an immediate rest of season sort of fix. And even with rushing, I think there's a cautionary tale in the roster rate of Drake Baldwin.

Drake Baldwin's playing really well even with Sean Murphy back from the IL, but the volume of playing time is gonna be a cap even on Dalton Rushing. You might like the situation, you might like the skills, but how much can Dalton Rushing possibly play as long as Will Smith is healthy and the primary option behind the plate for the Dodgers? Drake Baldwin, even counting those plate appearances where Sean Murphy wasn't there, is the 17th best catcher so far. Really?

The auction calculator. 17th best. Even if he continues that production, it's not really an option in most leagues. I mean, yesterday, you're two catcher leagues. You could think about it, but that also includes the time when Sean Murphy was out. So it seems like 17th is about the best he could be going forward. And so that's the prism I see Dalton rushing and Moises Ballesteros through is like, they could be a backup. It could be a backend second catcher in 15 team leagues. That's if it works on a per game basis. If they're not playing well, then they fall below that line.

Even though the ceiling is eventually top 10 at the position. I feel like that's a generic throw with the catcher. Augusto Ramirez has been 23rd. Yeah. And like of all those guys out of Murphy, Ramirez, Rushing, Ballesteros, don't you just prioritize almost by playing time expectation right now as opposed to skills? I'm taking Murphy easily. And I don't even know, I think it does get hard if you've got, I mean it might get even

harder if you've got, like Alejandro Kirk has been a little disappointing to me, 22nd, even though he's got the playing time. So I guess You could look at Alejandro Kirk versus Drake Baldwin and be like, well at least Drake Baldwin's gonna run into some I think I'd still keep Kirk the to catch your Puzzle is always a bit messy, but that's one of the decisions people are gonna be thinking about I think it's maybe cutting Sean Murphy for a younger catcher that doesn't play as much and I don't think I'm on board with that even though I like the ceiling of both of those players. Let's take a look at some other highly rostered guys that maybe should be more rostered out

of Josh Smith who's going to play even more with Corey Seager down, Jonathan Aranda, Josh Lowe who just came off the IL, Spencer Steer and Sedan Rafaela. They're not 100% Owen, they're all kind of under 80%. I think Rafaela is the low of the group at 61%. Who deserves to be aggressively added even in shallow leagues out of that group? Is it clearly Josh Lowe? Do you expect him to be a near everyday guy again for the Rays now that he's healthy?

I want Josh Lowe. If it's a would you rather Lowe versus Spencer Steer, who do you like better for the rest of this season? Because that feels like a tough choice. And that is one of your type of like 10 team, you know, type choices. I have Spencer Steer and Josh Lowe, both on my 12 team dynasty.

So I'm hoping for better days. I guess what I might lean into with Josh Lowe is just like if the stolen base upside is about the same, which I'm hoping, it's kind of hard to tell with an oblique injury. He only stole one base on rehab and you just, you don't know. But I think if on some, I would say that the stolen base upside is equal. The max level of EV right now for Lo is not as good as Steer, but in the past, it's been better. So I would say that Lo's quality of contact

has been better than Steer's in the past. I'm gonna lean into that. Projections do have a slight edge for Josh Lo as well. So I think that's kind of where I would be if I'm choosing between them in a shallow league sort of situation The next group is probably where a lot of people if you're in a 12-team league you're looking at names like this

Jordan Lawler who got promoted earlier this week. You might be looking at him versus Mason Wynn He's also sitting around 60% rostered. I don't think of Mason Wayne is that available, but yeah wins playing time is Way safer right now. I think I'd only win in a 10 team. I don't think Wynn should be on any way over wire. I was really surprised to see that number. And he's been very good so far this year. He's popped five homers, only two for five as a base dealer.

So that part of his game, even though he mentioned wanting to run more this winter, I think it was during their winter caravan event, whatever they call it. It remains a frustration. I think he can do better than this with the running game, but I'm happy to see that he kind of is returning that non-zero power that I saw in him. And shout out to the discord user that said, I was a little bit down on myself for the Joey Ortiz call and

said but you also said to pick up Mason Wynn. So don't get so down kid. It's nice. Nice to get the you did you were right about this and then like they come back. I feel like the calls so far for me this year have been maybe even at best probably slightly in the red. So I'm a little tense about everything to be honest. So yeah, like when, I was with you on Gavin Williams, man,

like even from like an analog perspective of look at the bats he's missed, look at the results, the stuff looks like it's good. Organizations, they're like, it should work for Gavin Williams. So I'm not bailing on a call like that. Like BD last night and people were like is this time to give up on Bito? It's like yeah, it is. It's it's a location problem. I hope nobody started him against the Dodgers I didn't that if you did that like you really

Really kind of walked into the problem is you can't start against the Dodgers and then next week so next week He has a to start at home to at home and they're not like scary opponents and you're like oh if I can't use them for this I can't use it for anything that's that's like if you won't if you don't start be done next week then he just don't bother yeah deep deep deep leagues only the corner margins right now so you look at like Ryan McMahon is under 60% rostered in the CBS leagues. You got Jake Berger who the Rangers brought back up. He's seemingly always available in this sort of range. Jake Cronenworth versus even Colt Keith who's still down around 40%. I know he was on

the rundown last week. We didn't talk a lot about him and even Cam Smith. Like they're all just lumped together. I think after our conversation with Chandler about Cam Smith, I'm still pretty optimistic. Whoa, whoa, what? Okay, so you're talking from a keeper long-term. No, I mean, even a redrap. Watching the box scores? He didn't play?

He hasn't played since we talked to Chandler. Yeah, well, okay, sure. The long-term optimism, definitely greater than the short-term optimism. What are we talking about, two games since we talked to Chandler? You said them both off? It's just weird.

Chandler's like, yeah, Desenzo. And then I look in the lineup, oh, Desenzo's in there again. And Kansas is the nut. And oh, Desenzo's in there again. And Kansas is the nut. Two straight games? Yeah, I'm not saying throw a bunch of fab at him and get Kobe mailed like I did two weeks ago.

Like I knew that was probably a bad idea when I did it. What I'm saying is, if you're in a spot where you can stash and wait and possibly go through that demotion phase that Chandler talked about where they may send him down for a little while, maybe even give him some reps in center field, make sure everything's good and then bring him back up later,

I think there's still going to be a good payoff. My optimism came from the way he takes his plate appearances, the swing decisions he's already making. I think this fits more into the guy that's going to be very good just making the necessary adjustments. Yes, he's been too passive. I would agree with that.

It seems like based on how well many other things are going, he's going to be able to make that adjustment sooner rather than later. It may take a demotion, but I would say Cam Smith to me fits more into the, this is why you have a bench. Like if you can burn one spot on a player that's not helping you a lot right now, you still want to do that in midsize leagues, because I think he is still pretty important to the Astros in the bigger picture of 2025. Even if there's a detour down to double A or triple A for a little while. One thing that I've been I'm moving on from Kansas Smith and redraft leagues. It has to be a deeper league like in a 15 team league.

Even then, I think I'd just be like, it's time for who's going to help me now. I just don't like it when they fall out of the lineup. I'm investigating my own biases when it comes to Colt Keith and Jake Cronenwerth because when I see them next to each other, I'm like, I like Jake Cronenwerth. No, they're the same guy? They're the same guy. I think what happens in my brain sometimes is a prospect like Colt Keith rips up the minor leagues age appropriate. It looks awesome. And you think he's gonna be better than Jake Cronenworth.

So when he's worse, then you start to be like, nah, I'm out. When he's worse, short term, you're like, ah, okay. But then you have to realize, Jake Cronenworth as a big league player is a good outcome. That's a good big league player. If Colt Keith on paper is very similar to Jake Cronenworth in the long run, that doesn't mean Colt Keith is bad. It just means Colt Keith had a slightly lower ceiling than some of us hoped for.

I'm going to take Cronenworth over the two though because I think he'll play more. I mean, I think Keith is sitting against lefties. He still sits against at least some lefties. I don't know if it's all I'm gonna pull up my Which would you call it the one day my magic lineup page or something you're making fun of me I love it now I was making fun of you. I'm wrong I made fun of my wife for forgetting a cell phone in college your people to reach you all the time You want to be able to call anybody you want, text anybody you want, make plans?

It defends, I was like, oh who do you want to talk to people on the phone a lot? And that's not what cell phones are now. No, they've changed. The device has changed a little bit. I mean, okay, I'll give you a couple years older than me. But even my first phone wasn't an iPhone, it was a flip phone, it was garbage. You mostly talked on it, you occasionally texted on it. Kult Keith sat against a righty and played against a lefty and sat against the lefty,

the two lefties before that. And he's de-aging some. It's a little bit inconsistent. I'm just taking Jake Cronenworth because he also is hitting the ball harder and pulling the ball more. And I always have this idea that Jake Cronenworth could pull the ball more and have more power.

And he's stolen a base. Keith's next stolen base will be his first of the season. So when you wanna put in your head like, oh, these guys are both 250, 18, five guys, well, the guy who's more likely to get to the five is the guy who's at least stolen one base. Not for nothing, but I think your feelings about Cam Smith are similar to my feelings about Evan Carter because of the injury factor, even though he's getting

the run right now, I still think we have to wait for that payoff a little bit. And I find the waiting for someone who wasn't healthy to get right, to be more frustrating than waiting for a minor league demotion. Because the injury's more of an unknown. Maybe you can watch the underlying numbers, quality of contact, you'll see some indicators starting to trend in the right direction. But like a 28% hard hit rate for Evan Carter

does not suggest that he's fully healthy. Right, and I think he could be healthy later this year or next year and still be really good, he's really young, but I don't know man And it's like a back thing where we just don't really have insight to how much pain he has on a daily basis how it's Affecting him how about this? Would you rather would you rather if you're looking for middle infield help roster Trey Sweeney or? Gabriel Arias and just set it and forget it for a while Who do you think the better player from a fantasy perspective is going to be? He has the better bad at ball quality, you know 112 max TV to trace me is 110.8

Aries also has I'm scanning over here Where's that barrel rate? 9% Sweeney 6.6% But the big number for me is Sweeney 22% strikeout rate, Arias 27. Okay, Arias. He's got the shortstop job.

They pretty much stopped playing Brian Roquio as of last week. They just. I think they demoted him. They switched it and haven't looked back. Arias and Sweeney, I think are underrated options. And one thing that's interesting though is that Arias has multiple position eligibility.

I don't think Sweeney does. And so they're both interesting. They're good stop gaps if you have an injury at MI. But Arius is a CIMI. What he is to me is premium roster spackle. He's a very good bench, util guy that you could, oh, my CIMI's hurt, let me put that in there. You know, he's great. If you need one for the top of your bench, it's Arius. Let's move on to some pitching for a bit. High, but not 100% rostered guys. One would you rather?

Gavin Williams, ride a out with Gavin Williams? Or jump ship to AJ Smith's Shalvar base that we talked about earlier? Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo and I go, la la la la la. I don't want to hear that his Location Plus is awful and that he's thrown enough pitches to care about Location Plus for Gavin Williams. I do want to point out that his Location Plus was not terrible the last two years. And so this isn't like me falling in love with Edward Cabrera over and over again.

It's not the same. It's someone who for some reason has lost command. I wonder if it's a little bit like the Tristan McKenzie thing where it's like either I can have a little bit worse fastball and more command or I can have a better fastball and no command. There's a one game, 55 location plus on Williams ledger in Toronto that I think is making the number of seem worse. He's had three games in the 90s or 100s.

I'm going to take Williams. I might regret this. It was an opportunity to jump off the train if you wanted to. I just felt like it had to be out there. But yeah, you see guys like Sugano, Andrew Abbott. I'd rather have either one of Williams or Smithschauffer over both of them. I like Sugano more than Abbott because of the park if you have to make that choice the the mystery of Andrew Abbott will Befuddle me for years. I'm not gonna flip on it and then get crushed with a 650 ERA

What we've seen from Abbott goes seems to pitch well early in the year And then the weather warms up and things start to unravel and we're getting to that point. It's starting to get warm and the weather warms up and things start to unravel and we're getting to that point, it's starting to get warm. You don't need your fancy stats with Sugano to realize that something's amiss with a 13.9% strikeout rate. Yeah, you wanna be careful with that. Throw them at your own peril.

I think there's a couple guys in the under 60% bin. Clayton Kershaw returns this weekend. Ryan Weathers is back. You get Colin Ray, Eric Fettier in that group. They're more just like on again, off again streamer types I think where you're just looking at matchups and in the case of Ray, looking at what the wind is doing if it's a day to day sort of thing

where you can make moves the morning of. But Kershaw versus Weathers in situations where both might be available. Who do you like better the rest of the way? I'm gonna take Weathers 97. Weathers. On the fastball. I never thought, never thought I mean like Kershaw keeps getting older like I just it's also it's like can I take something that like the box that has something known a little bit more known in it versus the box is completely

unknown like just in terms of fastball view like Ryan Weathers is in 97 with one of his better shapes ever and Kershaw might come out throwing 87. A complete unknown to Timothy Chalamet plays Clayton Kershaw coming off of an injury in 2025. I'm taking Weather's. And there is a name we haven't said yet that I'm taking right after Weather's. Who's that?

Will Warren. Will Warren, okay. I'm Will Warren-pilled. I did an episode of The Craft with Nick Pollock last week, this week actually, where we watched a Will Warrens versus Luis Castillo start and basically announced over it and talked about it. And Will Warren was bending everything everywhere. The other thing that I liked that he did in that start was he really used his curveball. He used his curveball more than he had all year.

Stuff Plus says he should be doing that. And that allowed him to dial down the fastball usage. So in that game, 25% fastballs for Will Warren, 20% sinkers, 29% sliders, 14% curveballs, 13% changeups. I like that. I like that. He nibbled a little bit and he may just have to be a nibbler. He may have a sort of Clark Schmidian up and down in his career. But then you look over at K-BB, 28% strikeout rate, 9.5% walk rate. That's an above average K-BB. Sierra 3.47 for Will Warren. There's a lot of good indicators on here. Now I know maybe he goes home and it's next start and it's not a great start for him in terms of the roster probables grid over at Fangraphs. You've got Will

Warren's next start home against Texas and then at Colorado. It's a mixed bag. I think I'm throwing him in Colorado. What are we afraid of in Colorado? They don't even have a group of guys you fear in that park right now. Yeah you're right. I mean Stephen Kolic went out in that 21 to nothing, you know, Stephen Kolic really threw like a nine inning shutout against them. I mean, you might be afraid of the fun house, but you're not afraid of the clowns inside, are you? Well, Warren for me is a deep league pick up and he has been for a little bit. Yeah, he looks pretty good. Now, if you're looking in some leagues, like 12 teamers, he might be sitting out there with the likes of Zebi Matthews, who should be coming up with Simeon Woods Richardson getting demoted by the twins and Logan Henderson, who's staying in the Brewers rotation after joining them Wednesday in Cleveland. So you got a couple of interesting names. You mentioned Stephen Colick, too. They're all under 40 percent.

This actually looks like a slightly better than average week to go out and get some pitching if you're looking to get some upgrades. Yeah, Logan Henderson is interesting because he's a fastball change guy without a great breaking ball, but I believe the model probably isn't capturing how good his change up is. If it's giving an 86 stuff plus,

the prospects report on Fangrass is a little bit closer to my eye test, a change-up for Logan Henderson And it is a change-up. He uses same-handed. I think he's I think he's good I'm not sure because it isn't my type of pitcher. I don't normally go for you know 93 stuff plus guys without a good breaking ball But I think that stuff plus is missing on the changeup. So I think I have Henderson after Warren not too far behind. And I have them ahead of Ray and Abbott and Coleck and Gusto.

We talked a lot about Gusto yesterday. So I have Henderson fairly high up just behind Warren, because I like Warren's breaking balls. I like his whole mix. Other names I'll throw into the conversation before we go, we have, on the rundown it says Sports Paddock, which either means autocorrect got me or I need to go see a neurologist because

his name's Chris, we talk about him a lot. He's under 20% roster on CBS. You have Paddock, you have Hunter Dobbins, and you have Chad Patrick. His role in that Brewers rotation, I thought was much more flimsy upon arrival than it actually has proven to be. I looked at him and said,

there's probably like a really short shelf life to this actually working. And here we are, and we're eight starts in now, 319 ERA, 125 whip. It's not amazing strikeout stuff, but it's at least working as far as helping them chew up innings effectively. I don't want to chew I'm not I don't know that I'm in on that one Paddock though is is a start-by-start basis for me. I I think that there are some starts

I would I would use him. I'm surprised that he did well in some of the starts He did but like would I start him at home against the Giants or in Cleveland? Right now at Baltimore probably, White Sox, yeah. So I would have gotten, if I had him rostered, I would have gotten some of the goodness that he's had because if you look at his season, he's really had the bad first two starts and since then he's only had one start where he's given up more than two runs. And the strikeout rate is decent. He's leaned into his change up usage.

And by the way, Chris Paddock is my siren song or my... Like when you're like, oh, Logan Henderson is great. What are you talking about? He's a top end stud prospect. I would respond with Chris Paddock because Chris Paddock came up and blew the doors off the league and made me fall in love with him. And he had a 93 mile an hour fastball without a good breaking ball and a change up he could use against both sides, a change up he had great feel on, a change up that maybe the

stuff models didn't really capture. And Chris Paddock has had Chris Paddock's career since then. So Logan Henderson to me is not anywhere near as exciting as the Bubba Chandlers of the world. There's a huge gap between Chandler types and Henderson types. And I think maybe you're right to call out the Paddock comparison, just like think about how good

he was to start his career, that's fair. With Henderson, you know, we'll see what else shows up as far as the arsenal goes, but it seems like the change-up is going to be the main thing that he's going to use really for swings and misses for everything. It's going to be a big part of his success. There's one last name on the hitting side that we didn't talk about with Chan the Rome, we didn't talk about him earlier. I'm wondering what your explanation is for this player.

Shay Wickham, if they're going to send Cam Smith down, Wickham's maybe one of the guys they could bring up onto the roster and play if they open up a spot. Continues the hit for power at Triple A last year in 108 games at Triple A, 25 homers, 26 steals with a 19.8 percent strikeout rate. He was 25. So he's old for the level right I get it. What's going on with Shay Whitcomb? He don't think he didn't come up in our conversation with Chandler, right? Am I am I misremembering that conversation or did we just not even bring him up as someone that is kind of interesting if he

Ever gets the chance kind of wish I could just like dial up the transcript really quick and do a control out. I don't think he came up though because someone in our discord said hey Shay Wickham is really blowing up and they're like yeah he continues to do it and it's not like Trey Cabbage. My first thought was it's a Trey Cabbage situation. Like no he doesn't strike out as much as Trey Cabbage. No and even the swing strike rate, it doesn't suggest that he'll blow up. And then even last year when he wasn't great, he was still making contact.

And the hard hit and the max of you are decent. One thing you just have to remember with Che is he's 26. And so when you look at like a 143 WRC+, I believe, wasn't it something like 20 points per year? Yeah, right. If you're young for the level, you get a boost. But if you're old for the level, you know, that's got to work against you. I think he's at least a year older than AAA average. So it's more like a 120 WRC plus. And then you look back at his first shot at AAA in 2023 and he had 73 WRC+.

So there's something, maybe there's something a little bit soft about this. Like the strikeout rate was way worse in the low minors. Has he really figured something out or is that going to come back? That might be the risk. In terms of what I think that will happen with the Astros, I think this is exactly what will happen. I think they will demote Ken Smith and they will call up Shay Whitcomb Well, at least you got a player to be excited about as a bridge player and if it works

Maybe you get something a little more than a bridge player. I want to see what he does He's played a bunch of different spots at triple-a this year. Whitcomb has played Let's see seven games at third He's played ten at first. He's played three at short Couldn't he take Brandon Rogersgers job at second base? 18 in the corner. I mean, if they're playing him all those other spots at AAA, you'd at least think second base could be on the table. He played there last year. It looks like 18 games he played at AAA.

And Rodgers is a little bit the past. They like, we're evaluating him. I mean, he's 28 years old. You've given him 97 played appearances. In terms of bat of ball events, you've got 52. 50 is the magic number. The barrel rate is good, so I guess you could use that as an excuse for saying, hey, we like him. But Rodgers also is up to a 16% swing strike rate, 37% strike out rate. So even if he's barreling the ball when he makes contact, this is not the profile that you expected. You expected a guy who was gonna make good contact and then sometimes hits you 15 homers or something.

And this is gone awry. There's something strange about this line from Rodgers. Maybe he went and did some bat speed training and the power is good, but it's totally screwed him in terms of making contact. Even the projections if you want to like lean back on the projections oopsie is the the most excited about him probably because he did increase his bat speed and yet says 102 wrc plus that seems surmountable for shea wickham. I would agree that is indeed surmountable.

Shay Wickham. I would agree, that is indeed surmountable. Oh man, I was trying to see who gave us that note about Wickham. Gilded Age. Shout out to Gilded Age and our Discord for that. Join the Discord, the link in the show description we need to go. Quick shout out to our producer Brian Smith. Thanks to Brian for putting this episode together. You can find Eno on BlueSky, enoserus.bsky.social, I am DVR.bsky.social.

That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Monday. Wish me luck, I'm teaching a third grade class now. Wish me luck. Thanks for listening. Will he ever get a chance to cook? Are you ready to rock big savings? Rakuten's Big Give Week is a festival of savings with up to 15% cash back at your favorite stores.

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