Rates & Barrels - Roki Sasaki is Headed to MLB, Andrew Painter's Fall League Run & November News

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

Eno and DVR return from a brief break to discuss Roki Sasaki's decision to head to MLB for the 2025 season. Now that he's on the way, they discuss a few potential landing spots and how they're currently valuing him for early drafts. Plus, they look at Andrew Painter's return in the Arizona Fall League, Josue Briceño's MVP-winning performance in the league, and another round of November news including shoulder surgery for Zach Neto, more changes to the left field wall in Baltimore, and a temporary move to George Steinbrenner Field for the Rays in 2025.  Rundown 2:24 Roki Sasaki is Headed to MLB, Where Will He Land? 9:50 Would You Rather?: Roki Sasaki v. Other Early-Round (Top 75 overall) Starting Pitchers 21:55 Andrew Painter's Arizona Fall League Return 27:25 Josue Briceño Gets on the Deep Dynasty League Radar in the AFL 34:14 Reading the Tea Leaves: Aaron Boone's Comments on Caleb Durbin & Jasson Dominguez 39:48 Griffin Jax Being Considered for Starting Role in Minnesota 46:19 Zach Neto Undergoes Shoulder Surgery 53:49 Grayson Rodriguez: Fully Recovered From Lat Strain 56:37 Other News & Notes: Charlie Morton & The Rays' 2025 Home Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does possible sound like for your business? It's more cash on hand to grow with up to 55 interest-free days. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit mx.ca slash Business Platinum. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it is Monday, November 18th. We are back. Derek from Ryper, you know, Saris here with you.

On this episode, we have an update on Roki Sasaki. Roki Sasaki is coming to Major League Baseball for the 2025 season. We'll discuss the possibilities of where he might end up. And now that we know he is coming state style, we'll figure out where he should rank among pitchers, at least in this window where we don't know his team. We're talking about some takeaways from the Arizona Fall League. That league wrapped up over the weekend. We're on roll change watch as we are every winter now

looking for pitchers who might make the move from the bullpen to the rotation. There's one in Minnesota that Eno previously wrote about that might be making that adjustment. We had a surprise shoulder surgery, not me, not Eno, Zach Neto will talk about the implications of that and a few other news items to get to over the course of this hour or so.

Eno, how was your week off? Strange. It was very strange to not see you every day. I set up my microphone at the dining room table and just did a, like a dry run by myself, just so I wouldn't get rusty. Your child eating his breakfast. What's the barrel rate on that? Yeah, it was, it was impressive.

No, so the, the highlight of the week, I think, and this tells you how boring the week was for me and how strange it was, was my Instagram feed recommended Elmo singing a system of the down song. And that was probably the best thing I saw over the past week. It was incredible. Oh my God. I started watching Fallout, which my child came into the room and was like, this is a video game. And I was like immediately embarrassed, but I think it's one like Emmys and stuff.

And I don't know. It was, I thought it was all right. This is a video game. So yeah, I'm glad to be back. Glad to be doing the pot again with you today because, um, clearly I need, I need this in my life as part of what I do on a week to week basis. We did get the news. Roki Sasaki is coming to major league baseball.

I've seen a bunch of reports, including one from Ben Badler at Baseball America writing about the timing of when Sasaki is likely to sign. It's likely to be after January 15th, which could put a pretty major hold, at least on the top end of the starting pitching market, because teams are going to build their plans around either having Sasaki or not having Sasaki. That's true. But on the other hand, he's not going to cost a lot of money out of the

current pre-agent budget, you know? So it's not the same as a Yamamoto where you'd be like, well, I don't want to sign Snell and Yamamoto that's $60 million out of my budget next year, which I don't really have. It's more like, you know, you could make a plan. You're right though. You still think of your team as, you know, do I have five starters and, you know, that sort of stuff.

So, yeah, I think you're right that that could put a hold on things pitching. You know, on the other hand, pitching was, you know, from Blake Snell, they, they, there's probably some movement to like sign these guys to get them into camp and not sign them like a two or day or two before the season starts. That did not work out well for Jordan Montgomery or Blake Snell. So, um, you know, so maybe we'll just have a lot of movement at the pitching margin between January 15th and February 15th. Like that could, that could be good.

Um, one way that we're thinking about this, where is it going to go? And this he's in more of the position of Shohei Otani, right? Where he's fielding pitches and the pitches may have something to do with, you know, what culture in that city looks like and where, where they might feel comfortable living, uh, proximity to Japan, um, other Japanese players. And so it's a little bit weird when people are like, Oh, he really likes you Darvish, he might sign with the Padres. Some part of me is like, you're just going to go where the most money is, but

the most money, you know, it's just, there's a cap. And it, and I think what will happen is the reason he's waiting until January 15th is that's when the new money rolls in the four, um, signing international free agents. And so I think that everybody will have the same number for him. It'll be three or 4 million or something. I did see something where maybe some teams have 500,000 to a million more. I don't know if that'll make a difference, but if you're talking about the Padres and Dodgers,

they are among the teams that have the most money. And so therefore I do think it actually, it might come down to something like that. And he's, he apparently idolizes you Darvish, you know, even more than Shohei Otani and, um, you Darvish is a legend in the game among players as just being a total pitching savant and, um, being something that you can learn off of. Almost everybody who's, who's played with, Darvish has learned something from him. And so, um, that would be a pretty good landing point for him. Rocky Sasaki.

I would, I think that it's hard to know that. I don't think he's going to go somewhere that's going to really negatively impact him as a pitcher because the Dodgers, he wins more games. Maybe he gives up a few more homers in terms of park factors. I think the going to Yankee stadium would put a little pressure on him. You know, cause a little bit offensive friendly there, but, um, I think generally the teams that are interested in them are not the Cincinnati Reds and the Colorado Rockies.

I doubt he's going to go to those places. What an upset if that, uh, If that's what Sakya chose, I just really like mountains. I want to live in Colorado. Yeah. So I did see there's a breakdown. MWB.com had a breakdown of international bonus pools for the 2025 signing period.

So if you were to wait and sign after January 15th, which again seems like the more likely outcome, there are eight teams in the top group with seven and a half million in their pool. Reds. There it is. Tigers, Marlins, Brewers, Twins, A's, Mariners, Rays. One of the things I see in a lot of the write ups.

So Mariners and Rays are dark horses there. Cause they have the most money. Brewers? Yeah. The reason being is develop, pitching development is part of this, right? If you are choosing where you're going to go and maxing out money is not the number one goal, then you're kind of choosing based on other factors. And I would say of those teams in that top group,

those three are the three that have the best pitching development. Twins aren't bad. Tigers aren't bad either. So you have options there. Next tier downs, Arizona, Baltimore, Cleveland, Colorado, and the pitching development. Twins aren't bad. Tigers aren't bad either. So you have options there. Next tier downs, Arizona, Baltimore, Cleveland, Colorado, Kansas City, Pittsburgh.

I mean, nothing's impossible, but I don't think I've seen anyone link Sasaki to any of those six teams to this point. And then you go all the way to the bottom. That's what the Dodgers are. But if it's not about every dollar, if it's about going to the right place, then being able to just rake in endorsement deals, then the Dodgers are, but if it's not about every dollar, if it's about going to the right place, then being able to just rake in endorsement deals, then the Dodgers are still just fine for that. Right? So that's why I think you see Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, you see those big market teams over and over and over again for players like this. But if there's going to be a surprise, it's going to be

an organization that has historically done very well developing pitching that that could swoop in Atlanta would also be part of that conversation as well. They're in the middle group with a 6.2 million dollar bonus pool for the 2025 period. I think this is just one like 2003 to 2004. Um, but Steven Brown, um, you know, SR Brown 70 on blue sky. Steven Brown, you know, SR Brown 70 on blue sky. He, he has a post-up where he shows which teams affected the quality of their stuff the most in a positive manner.

Milwaukee, number one, Yankees, number two, Rays, number three, Minnesota in the top there and the Padres in the top there. Arizona up there. Miami just hired Bill Hazel from driveline and Anaheim to be their director of pitching and they are in the top, you know, so 10 along with Baltimore and the Cubs at the very, at the bottom of the top top 10. So, um, you know, that could, that could literally be something his agent is looking at and telling him, you know,

the team that was surprising on this graph that didn't do well, Dodgers, second worst at improving stuff of incoming pitchers, Braves, a bottom five. Little surprised by that. And I wonder, you know, there are some park factors at at play and then I do think this is just one year so you could be the Dodgers and be good at this and just. One year the guys came in or heard or whatever was you know like it didn't work whatever doesn't mean you're terrible at it. So it's just a little snapshot into it but that's something that might matter so Milwaukee Tampa, Tampa, San Diego, I think those are, you know, everyone's

saying it's the Dodgers is all I'm saying. Everyone's saying it's the Dodgers. Rogie Sasaki is going to the Dodgers, but if there, if he doesn't, it could be the Brewers, the Padres of the Rays. The Rays would be a coup. That would be crazy. Well, Hey, we got some stuff on the Rays a little later in the show that might be relevant to this conversation as well.

But I want to keep the focus on Sasaki from a fantasy perspective because there are people drafting right now. I get notifications every day that drafts over at the NFPC are about to fill. It's draft and hold and gladiator format. No in-season pickups, so the players you get now are the players you have all year. The difference in the formats being draft and hold 50 rounds rounds, gladiator, just 23 rounds, no benches. So we're gonna do like a little bit of a thing on that on Friday, right?

Big deep dive on how to play that format, what makes it unique, best ways to attack it. So when we talk about an average draft position, early fantasy value, we're focusing a lot on those leagues right now because they are sort of the beginning of the 2025 draft season. Now, when we talked about Sasaki on our last episode, one thing I said was that I, because of the stuff coming down in 2024, I didn't see the same stuff on the level

of like a Paul Skeens, right? Whereas like when we saw Sasaki in the last world baseball. Yeah, that was Skeens ask sitting 100. Okay. Like first or second round fantasy pitcher, if the innings were there, that was what I saw based on what we're talking about in our last episode.

That ceiling is there if the stuff comes back because the performance in NPB has been better by K minus BB percentage than anyone who's come over so far. That goes all the way back to Darvish and his time in Japan. So it's standout electric stuff, if, and it's a huge if, if it's back to the pre 2024 levels. And then the other thing that needs to be part of the conversation with Saki, given his age, especially some of the injuries he's dealt with workload management is going to be a big part of this conversation with Saki, given his age, especially some of the injuries he's dealt with,

workload management is going to be a big part of this. Like the health grade is not an A. This is not a guy that's avoided injuries and has just been slowly building up. It's a guy that's actually missed a lot of time. In 24 through 111 innings, in 23 through 91, in 22 is 129 in the third. And in 2021, he was only 19 years old. It was 83 and a third. So, you know, we have this temporary concern about was an injury.

The reason why the stuff was ticking down or was it some kind of adjustment he made to possibly keep himself healthier, we don't know for sure. But based on the factors we have right now, where do you rank? I mean, Skeens is the first pitcher off the board. We've talked about that a little bit this? And Skeens is the first pitcher off the board. We've talked about that a little bit this fall. He goes in the first round. Tarek Scubal goes in the first round. Zach Wheeler, Logan Gilbert, they go inside the first two rounds. And Corbin Burns, George Kirby, Chris Sale tend to be inside the top 40 overall. I don't think either one of us wants

to go anywhere near that price range for Sasaki, especially not knowing where he's playing and where the stuff's at. But once you start getting down past the Grom or sale, honestly, and in a sort of related manner, it's like, you know, when they're great, they're great. But, you know, I'm not picking a non a health grade that high. And if you notice the guys that you first mentioned, the first five or six, I think are all a health grades. The only one I think I would push back on would be scubal scubal probably doesn't have a health grade.

I think he's, he's in the critical second year of if he can stay healthy in 25, his health grade going forward could flip to an A we talked about this with Pablo Lopez, you know, the Wheeler too, Wheeler had issues and then he didn't, you know. Eventually you can put together enough of a healthy track record to put some injuries in the past and have that A health grade. So I don't think Scoobal has it right now. I would say Skeens, unless you're heavily waiting how hard he throws against him. But based on like past injuries, like there basically are none.

Yeah. You'd get an a health grade Wheeler would get one. Gilbert would get one. Burns would get one. Kirby would get one. And then yeah, sail the ground. No, no. Garrett crochet is after that.

No, I'm looking and we'll talk about this. And when we talk about strategy, I'm looking to get one of those other ones, or I'm looking to not participate inate in this in the next group. I don't, I don't like that next group. We've talked about this and Tyler glass now, and like it can work out, but you know, Sasaki belongs in that second group. Okay. So the second in the injury risk.

Ace upside group. I would put them behind Yamamoto. Where did you say he's going like eighth or ninth? He's a little bit lower right now. He's 51st in November ADP. So that's a, that's a good start for the wood. Well, that's not 51st among pitchers. 51st overall.

So that's like among starters, that's like 11th or 12th. Yeah. So I put, I put Roki behind him because a young model has shown us that his stuff will port over and that he can get results in the major leagues. Which we think rokey can do but yamada's done it so i'm gonna take that and also they're both injury. Innings risks so it seems about right. If you want to put Roki just ahead of Yamamoto because you think his stuff could be better, which is true, then do that. That's fine. But that's, I think that's where he belongs in that sort of de Grom ish,

sail ish, you know, that group. Okay. In that de Grom sail group, that tier probably runs as far down as Garrett Cole, who has the up arrow coming off of the postseason and pitching deep into games and generally looking more like himself as the season rolled along. Yeah, so OK, so the toss ups would be like Cole Regans versus Roki Sasaki. Cole Regans is going firmly inside the top 50 overall right now. How do you feel about that versus Saki?

Cole was losing velocity over the course of the season and as a 2TJ guy. I'm taking Cole Reagan's. But the way that this will go down though is that we will get more information as we go along. So a little bit of the way I'm thinking about this right now is that I want innings. So much so right now. As the spring goes along and we start de-aiding some information, oh, Rokey's sitting 98 again. He's sitting 99 again.

Then I'll be like, okay, well he looks looks pretty good and he'll be he could move up But for now he's he's behind Reagan's because if you ask me which one of these guys is gonna throw 150 innings next year I would say Cole Reagan's How about this one the next player after Yamamoto? Blake Snell also don't know where he's pitching in 2025 has a pretty lengthy history of injury problems, variety of different parts that he's hurt, but really good when he's on and has two Cy Youngs already to his name, like similar to the Yamamoto argument you made. We know this stuff works against big league hitters. It's been working for years. How do you stack those two guys up? Because I think their workload projections would actually be pretty similar. stack those two guys up because I think their workload projections would actually be pretty similar.

Uh, I will take maybe Roki over Blake because I feel like Blake all slates between 180, 120. It could be Siong's season. Roki could be really special though. Okay. Fair enough. No, no, that didn't feel right. I'm taking snow.

Ah, he waffled already. Okay. Well, because, you know, because 120 innings from Roki next year might be a good outcome. I mean, it would be more than he's done. Right. It would be. He had a 129 once.

Yeah, he had a 129 a third in 2022. Once, you know what I mean? Like 120 would be like a middle of the road outcome for rookie next year Whereas 120 for Blake Snell is actually the lower end of for him Yeah, probably I think that's that's fair I mean 150 probably seems like your upper bound regular season limit for rookie whether it's Dodgers or not I could see teams accommodating him by having a six man rotation and saying, you know what, we want to be advocating for more playing time more. He wants to go deeper into games. He wants more innings. That's,

that's how that's been his stance. Yeah. His, his year over your workloads there, there, every time you look at it, you're like, man, if he could just put a few full seasons together, I think the way we talk about Blake Snell would be completely different. I think you and I are both on Cole being a little underpriced right now. So I imagine it's not much of a question, Cole versus Sasaki.

We would both take Cole. Pablo Lopez coming off of a disappointing first half in particular. I mean, another generally healthy season. How does he stack up to Roki Sasaki right now? Yeah, he's a tough one because the stuff models don't really love him. They could be missing something on his changeup. He does have a wide arsenal.

He has good command. Um, you're starting to see the home runs go up for Pablo Lopez and that fits the stuff model that's when we come out with this new stuff model, and I'm sorry that we're still, we're just, it's done. It's just, we have to clean it up and do all the stuff, you know? Um, we're going to have expected home run rates. And I think what we'll find is that Paolo Lopez is pretty good, but he has a high expected home run rate.

And so I'm going to take Sasaki over him because I'm just worried that like, you know, if you get 185 innings of a four Oh eight ERA, like you did out of Pablo Lopez last year, you're still going to get a lot of value. Um, one point one nine whip, but, um, it could be ballast in certain points, in certain leagues. If you're in like a 10 or 12 team league, like the averages in those categories are lower than that. Right.

You're not, you don't want a four or eight era. You don't want 185 innings or four or eight era. So if he's vanilla again next year, probably Lopez, then I'd rather take the shot at Roki Sasaki's potential brilliance. Okay. This, this will conclude the would you rather the last couple names that I put on the rundown are guys that go around, pick 65, pick 70. Would you put any of Framber Valdez, Michael King,

Luis Castillo, or Shota Imanaga ahead of rookie Sasaki? No, I think there's workload issues among all of them. I think Sasaki even at 90s, he's, he's dropped down to 97 from like the a hundred we saw at WBC. I think even at 97, he's going to have better stuff than most of those guys. Um, so if you don't, if he has, if Sasaki is better stuff and the workload are issues, you might say, well, my King, no workload. Ah, come on.

Yeah, he's got, uh, he's got workload issues. So, um, once you start putting him. Ah, come on. Yeah, he's got, he's got workload issues. So once you start putting him in a group where most of the guys have workload issues or stuff question marks, then I'll take Sasaki. All right. So that effectively makes Roki Sasaki at the present time in these soft rankings,

Edo's SP 15 right now. I'm on board with that. I think at that price, I'd be interested in interested in him. I think there's going to be some people chasing the hype and pushing him earlier than that. So I may end up with very limited opportunities of having Sasaki on teams, maybe keep her in dynasty leagues though. That could be kind of fun too.

I would be way more aggressive than keep her in dynasties because if you didn't, if it doesn't work out the first year, maybe he has surgery, whatever it is, there's going to be a year in there where he wins the Cy Young. That's how I feel about it. You know? Okay. So you do see a future top five starter, assuming that stuff will come back given how young he is. Okay.

Right. Yeah. It's, it's more about the potential innings risk over anything when it comes to being more conservative with them in the short term, but yeah, in the long-term keeper league, um, he's one of the most exciting arms. All right. Well, until we get more news on Roki Sasaki, that will probably be the last time we talk about him for the next few weeks, which, Hey, you know, 21 minutes

on Roki Sasaki is a great way to start off show in November. Hey, it's Lauren Dragon from Wirecutter, the product recommendation service from the New York Times, and I test headphones. Sweat is actually conductive because of the saline content in it, so we basically make our own fake sweat and spray it over and over on these headphones to see what happens to them over time. This is 85 dB of airplane noise. We're going to put on some noise-canceling headphones and see how well they actually

block out the sound. Put them on the ground and kick them over there. Okay. Go. Are they broken? No. I have 3,136 entries in my database. Kids, workout, running, does it have a connector that's lightning or USB-C, what version of

Bluetooth is it, does it have FDX HD? We have ones that track your At Wirecutter, we do the work so you don't have to. For independent product reviews and recommendations for the real world, come visit us at nytimes.com slash Wirecutter. We even have one that's solar powered. Speaking of innings risk, Andrew Painter is back. He is healthy again, was pitching in the fall league, touched 99 with his fast ball during his sixth and final Arizona fall league start, saw that he actually won fall league pitcher of the year honors. You want to see a league that has a lot of awards.

Arizona fall league has a lot of awards. I love it. I'm here for it. Give these guys trophies, give these guys money for going out there and playing because it's fun to watch them. The ADP range on painter right now, earliest pick 246, latest pick 340, roll is probably more just the function of how they structure his innings. I think the Phillies pretty clearly see and value Andrew painter as an

important part of their rotation, but getting him through 2025 is the question. So if we're assuming a price that stays somewhere around pick 200 or a little after, what is your interest level in Andrew Painter based on the stuff he was showing us in Arizona? He's an exciting young pitcher. I think I'd give him about a hundred innings this year total, maybe 120. He managed around a hundred the last time in 2022.

It's the last time he pitched. But, you know, using that as a high watermark, 120 of which may be 20 are in the minor leagues as he sort of tries to stretch out or maybe they, they leave him in the minors to begin the season and bring them up, uh, you know, a month into the season, something like that, um, skip some starts. That's going to make him hard to draft in a lot of formats.

And again, it's excitement for this guy long-term like Roki Sasaki in terms of, you know, if, if it all works out and the stuff is good and, you know, the stuff is good, then there the stuff is good then there's a real excitement about what he could be but in terms of what he will do this season if you're in a redraft league and you're just considering this season i think it'll be a little bit difficult to uh to draft him um in formats where you have like free agency and you've got andrew painter in the minor leagues on your bench and you have stuff you need to do with your team. I think that'll be difficult but in a draft and hold you know you're buying you're buying 100 innings at some point in the season you're

hoping to get 80 to 100 innings in major leagues some point in the season he's that's where he's going so I like the price where he's going I like taking him where he's going I like the price where he's going. I like taking him where he's going. I like taking pictures like him that are six starters with great stuff that will get used at some point in the season, in the coming season. So that's, I like where he's at right now. I would take him where he's at right now. Yeah, I think you just have to be careful with pictures like this when you're in that draft

and hold situation, making sure you don't end up with too many workload restriction guys, but I think the quality of the innings should be high enough. But he's going among those guys. Yeah, like he's being treated similar to other guys with workload issues. Do you have anybody around him? Oh, what do we got here? Let's see.

If you stack them, okay. Workload issue pitchers near him. Center, no, they look. OK, workload issue pictures near him. So just any pictures near him. I mean, it's guys like this Kumar Rocker goes around the same time. OK, I think I take Kumar Rocker, David Festa. I think I take David Festa. OK, they both go a little earlier. Brian Bale, no workload concerns.

Just how good is he concerns so I've taken Brian Baio because that's like 160 to 180 a major league innings mmm Brady Singer so now you're saying there's a sort of a quality quantity toggle that's happening right I still I still think I'm taking singer here because what happens is in these leagues is you would love to have like Singer and Bayo For the last spot on your roster like the starting pitchers so that like you could play singer at home and Bayon the road You know I mean like that's better than like waiting around for painter So yes still taking the established guys here at this point. Okay

Similarly not far behind too. You could see Jesus Lazardo and Bobby Miller coming off the board a little after painter. Like that's both of those guys are on the set. They're in the, that's a group where it's like, I like, I like a lot of pictures in that group. I don't know if I'd want all of them on the same roster. Yeah, you can only have, you can only have one of them. So, you know, I think that you could, you could actually circle a group that is painter and Bobby Miller, and I'm sure there's another name like that where there's injury concerns, there's stuff upside there, you know, they probably have a role and I'd want one of them.

Okay. Fair enough. So you're, if you can circle three or four of them, then you don't have to pay the, the, the, the freight, you know, and then you can, you can circle three or four of them and be like, I want one of these guys and then you wait and then wait to see where the room sets them. And the first guy that goes in that group, you go, okay, maybe this round is the round to take that the one that they got the one of those four, you know, and did you hope that all four of them would don't go over for your turn?

Yeah, I wouldn't expect there to be a wildly different price on that group over the course of draft season. And I don't want to reach for Painter. I don't want to reach for Bobby Miller. I mean, after he burnt me so solidly, I'm not reaching for him. But if he falls in this group of exciting young arms that don't have a lot of innings in them, then I will take one of them. Okay. A few other Fall League notes. Josue Berseno from the Tigers organization was the Fall League MVP. I think their ninth ranked prospect according to Pipeline. Only 20 years old, he actually won the Triple Crown, which the Fall League as people may know, it's a hitter friendly environment. The quality of the pitching is also generally low.

You have a lot of guys with command issues. So the stuff that you're going to see out there is we, I think we did a stuff leaderboard from the fall league last year during our live podcast. There there's not a lot of stuff that looks like major league pitching out there. But for Seno is a prospect who is actually relatively young for the fall league. And I think as someone that didn't really get to play much in 2024 due to injury, kind of put himself on the map. He's shown good plate skills in the past, showed a little bit of power on the complex in 23.

I'm kind of curious just to follow what happens for him in 2025. The very least in deep, deep dynasty leagues. He's on my radar now, whereas before the fall league, he wasn't. Yeah, I like the combination of walk and strikeout rates, real nice contact rates, good patience. I think the question is how much power comes with that. And we just don't really have a lot of access

to the underlying power metrics. And even if his, say his barrel rate was pretty good in the AFL or his hard hit rate or something, that would be a pretty small sample. The AFL is not a long league. So I would just treat him a little bit as one of these kind of like a ball risers. Um, somebody who's passed the complex league. So at least, you know, you're not really going flying blind when you're picking them up, there's all sorts of complex league guys whose numbers just look

bonkers and then they don't, they don't make that leap. It looks like he's making that leap. So those are the things I like about him. Um, the one thing that I wonder about, do you know what position he's playing down there? I didn't see where he was playing down there. Like in general, if he's moving around, we can look it up on on B ref real quick. What is his long term position? The way the Tigers have used them,

he shares time between catcher and first base as a teenager. And he came over so they have him listed as a first baseman. He only played first base in the fall league, but that could be just the result of other teams sending guys they had to have catching to. Right. I just bring this up also because there was another player that came over Tyrone Larranzo who is like in the same position. I mean, the Dodgers caught him this year 44 times

and they played him at first base this year 24 times. And at DH, another six. So like, yeah, they've got another guy. So this is gonna come down to like scouting stuff that I'm not good at, which is which one of these guys is going to be the catcher and which one of these guys has to hit so well that they can be a first baseman. And, you know, the Ronzo has a little bit more of the traditional catcher package where he's striking out 26% of the time, walking 15% of the time and slugging a lot and he could be the kind of guy who comes up and hits to 10 with you know 22 homers.

Something maybe similar to what Jake Rogers does right i'm not looking at his page right now but something like low batting average high strikeout rate high power. like low batting average high strikeout rate, high power. Lorenzo could do that. If he's the better catcher, then he'll be the catcher and he does that. Whereas, you know, maybe Brycenio has a better upside in terms of a batter. So maybe he could supplant Torgelson? Eventually.

Push Torgelson to DH? It's a little ways away. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, he's gonna play a double A this year. They don't put people in the AFL that are years away. Generally. No, the level assignment for this year again, was there was, he didn't, he

didn't move up because he was hurt. There was a good chance he would have played a high A in the regular season if he was healthy. So yeah, if they like what they saw, I believe he's ready. They can aggressively promote him. Sure. I think he's going to hit double A this year. And if he hits double A and they decide, you know what, you're not a catcher. We need you up as a bat.

Then he could be really close to the big leagues. So I don't know. You know, there's a lot to lots of no coming forward and it's not a lot of information gained from an AFL MVP. I mean, no, no. This particular season I even got texts from people who work in baseball. Um, you know, I got a text from an analytics guy, um, that he said, he said, dude, have you looked into how bad the pitching has been, uh, in, in the AFL? Uh, in, in the AFL and, uh, he's a, he's at games with a one club had sent complex guys over. Like they were out of pictures, had injuries or something.

Yeah. So, um, and he was saying, you know, what can we do to fix it? And one idea was, um, allow like minor league free agents to participate. That could be interesting. Yeah. And if you remember the two guys that we interviewed from the fall league, the pitchers, they were minor league free agents. Right. Yeah.

So you're saying before Danny Kerwin and Cooper Adams joined us from the Red Sox organization, they just signed the next Cooper Adams play in free agent. So free agent pitchers, basically guys that have either finished college or, you know, out of high school, whatever, looking to jump on with somebody and they, they would, they would be really competitive and you know, teams might be more interested in sending scouts and stuff. Be like, Hey, you know, it's like a big throw day for a bunch of competitive and you know, teams might be more interested in sending scouts and stuff to be like, Hey, you know, it's like a big throw day for

a bunch of people, you know? Yeah, that could be part of a solution. I mean, there's pictures coming up from all different places now. So it makes, it makes sense to have a showcase league environment. You get multiple looks at players that might improve. And then we would know a little bit more about Brysonia. Like right now we're like Brysonia murdered some people, but they were not good pitchers, probably.

I think it's just a, hey, put them on the watch list. Could be a riser in that Tigers organization. If he does well with the eventual bumped double A might be. The start of 2025 might be midway through 2025, but worth watching. Nonetheless, I did see Caleb Durbin putting up some pretty big stolen base numbers in the fall league. There is, there's some weird, uh, conversation here with the Yankees being like, we can let Torres go.

Cause we're really excited about Durbin and I'm sorry. Like this man, he doesn't hit the ball hard, right? So what you're, he would just be kind of like a, just to be a person like, yeah, he could walk and put the ball in play, but like, I doubt he would be a league average bat and if he is league average bat, he would just be right at league average and it wouldn't be something that the fans in New York would really love. I was like hitting two 50 putting the ball in play and, you know, hitting 10 homers and stealing 20 bags over the course of the season.

It'd be a deep league player in fantasy. If you think it's headed that way and you just want to have a third second baseman in, in the whole draft and hold, then maybe that's a good idea. But I don't think that should be a plan for the New York Yankees. It doesn't seem like a great plan. I would look at Durbin more as one of your last picks in a 50 round league, as opposed to someone you're excited about. I think it's like, hey, look, he had a nice year in the minors.

He's been age appropriate or even old for the level where he's played. Like you said, 25% hard hit rate this year at AAA did pop 10 homers and being in the Yankee system, of course that's not PCL. So there's that 29 for 32 is a base dealer in 82 games and was running wild in the fall league, low K rates too. It could work, but it looks more like a utility profile. It looks like more like you said, Hey, who's the next John Birdie like that could be.

Yeah, that's good. John birdie? Like that could be. That's good. That's a really good one. And I would also like about what I would also say is that if you're the Yankees, even if you are excited about him, you're the Yankees, you're going to sign Jorge Polanco to like a one in 10 or something. You know what I mean? Like, you're not going to just be like, Hey Durbin, here you go. So, um, that could be a plan for them. I don't mind that one so much. That's like the deal nudging, you keep nudging Jorge Polanco under rosters. He's like a position player version of set Lugo for you.

I think he'll be a good deal for somebody this year. Yeah. I mean, get them out of Seattle. Like it's becoming kind of a running joke. It's like, well, once someone who was in Seattle is available, just take the chance and maybe it actually does work. Cause it's so hard to hit there. I did see Aaron Boone also give a quote.

I, Chris Kirchner Yankees writer for the athletic was on hand for it about Jason Dominguez Boone said, I fully expect them to be a big part of what we do this coming year. I love manager speak this time of year. It's like, if you didn't expect that, it's just an absolute nothing burger. But at the same time, it's like, if you weren't saying that I'd be concerned. Like you're just saying the obvious thing that you should be saying because Alex Verdugo is a free agent and Dominguez shouldn't really spend more

time in triple A at this point, right? He's already been there for, well, it's only been 53 games because of all the injuries, but I don't know. He doesn't look like a player that has much left to learn at that level. So this seemingly is the opportunity to start 2025. And I'm kind of excited about him because I think we're in the, we're in another lull hype wise with

Jason Dominguez, relatively speaking. one 50 is his November ADP. I'm okay with him at that price point as a high ceiling player. Steven Kwan, Lane Thomas. Oh, over Lane Thomas easily. Colton Couser. I mean, it's so funny how good the market is. Yeah. Like, okay. Yeah. Uh, Colton Couser doesn't steal as many bags. I've, I,

I could see some growth from Colton Couser though, in another year. So I think I'm taking Couser, but this is, these are pretty appropriate. Would you rather. Yeah. I think if we get more news in a big spring from Dominguez, that price just evaporates quickly. So it's, if you like them, get them now. One of those situations, one more.

Jason Dominguez versus Dylan Cruz for 2025 only. I'm taking Dominguez. You've never really liked Dylan Cruz as much as the masses have liked Dylan Cruz? Yeah. Um, it's this, it's, it's just a wildly oscillating pull rate that I'm just, I'm waiting for it all to click and I don't know how long it will take with Dylan Cruz, but, um, the speed is legit. He stole 12 bags and 132 plate appearances last year.

It's not bad. I think it's it's much more speed than I expected from Dylan Cruz's profile. I would take Jason Dominguez's power over Dylan Cruz's. Yeah, it's fun, though, like Dominguez. We've been talking about him forever because he was such a highly regarded international free agent signing. And it feels like we've been talking about Cruz forever, too. A little bit because he was putting up video game numbers at LSU and even,

you know, before he was drafted, I think fantasy people were excited about him. Now Dominguez is still younger than Dylan Cruz. Yeah, college, it'll do that to you. Yeah. Dominguez doesn't turn 22 until February. So perspective as far as like the relative, he hasn't done it yet. Well, he's still very young and he lost time to injury and it just seems like it's all close to clicking for Dominguez.

Let's get to some other stuff going on around baseball. The twins are considering moving Griffin Jacks to the rotation. You wrote about this, I think after we were talking about Jeff Hoffman getting some interest in free agency as a possible starter. Jacks was in the piece that you wrote, looking at some guys that have the traits that we would look for in someone that could make that sort of shift. And I think with the twins in particular, they're in a funny spot where they're kind of up for sale and possibly just an organizational crossroads

where being frugal might be something they do even better than they've done in recent years. As a result of that, Jax to the rotation makes a lot of sense, even though we're getting good reports on Joe Ryan coming off of that shoulder, the Terry's injury that ended his season. You could look at Griffin Jax right now and say, if they did make that switch on that depth chart, they've got Lopez, they've got Ryan, they've got Ober and then Festa versus Jacks, Zebi Matthews versus Jacks, he could be just as good or better than the fourth and fifth starters currently on their depth chart. Yeah.

I mean, Fangrass has Semyon Woods, Richardson is four and Chris Paddock is five. And you know, Louis Varland is still in the mix there at starting pitcher. And I've seen people say, well, they've got great pitching depth. Starting pitching depth. Why would they move Riff and Jax? And I think it's that, well, if you've got great starting pitcher depth, but you think Jax could be a better starter than those other guys, then great starting pitcher death is bullpen depth. You know what I mean? Like you can move paddock back to the bullpen.

Do you remember paddock actually looked pretty good in the bullpen? I kind of think that's the role for Chris paddock. I think the arsenal is not really that deep. It can't stay healthy. It's not a wide arsenal. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little bit, um, it's a little bit Luke Weaver-y for me, where it's like, Hey, you know, you've tried it as a starter a couple of times. And other than that, you know, rookie year, massive success, nothing come quite close to that. More recently, it's been bloated ratios, but out of a pen might work really well.

And Woods Richardson does not have ideal fastball shape and, you know, is coming off a, you know, for his career, Woods Richardson has a 20% strikeout rate and is projected for a 19% strikeout rate. So even though he had an okay season last year, most models say he won't. Be a great starter and would be a mediocre backend starter, not even an average backend starter. Well, what happens if you put him in the pen and he's 95? You know, does he get past all those shape issues on his fastball?

So yeah, I think the question is you throw Griffin-Jack's in the spring, in multiple innings, and you watch the radar gun. Because when he last started, he was 92 and didn't have the same ride on his fastball, didn't have the same ride on his fastball. Didn't have the same arsenal, um, and was bad as a starter. Now he's 97 as a reliever. What the, the algebra equation is, what is he now as a starter? You know, and I think you can figure that out pretty quickly where, you know, you're two or three weeks into spring training and he's at that three or four inning mark.

Right. And then you see what the radar gun says. And if it says 92 again, maybe you say, all right, well Griffin, we've, we've worked it out so that sometimes you can give us two innings out of the pen and maybe, you know, that'll be great for us too, but it looks like you're, you should stay in the pen, your VLOs dropping too much or whatever. So I think that it's worth a look. Yeah.

And you can turn any one of those guys, Louis Varlin, I think could be a really good guy in the pen. If they just give up on him starting, I think he could be a good guy in the pen because he's got a two pitch arsenal and he'd have a lot more VELO out of the pen. Yeah. I think that's a great call. Could be a simple swap right there. Just making that adjustment.

And you look at the, some of the other guys you wrote up, Nate Pearson, Michael Kopek is a little more expensive than the others that were in the story as far as how the Drafters are treating him because there's the possibility. He's the closer Adrian Moriho is the the big bargain along with Bill Briskey who we saw in a few different roles for the Tigers When you look at this group, it's kind of a similar mindset I think to the limited inning starters like Painter, the guys that we know are going to be workload controlled as starters. You want to take a shot or two on this group, relatively speaking, all after pick 200 other

than Ko-Pek. Morihoen cost almost nothing in draft and hold, going around pick 500. But you also don't want to go overboard. It seems like the sweet spot, spot though tends to be more in the Jacks Hoffman range if only because they're good enough as relievers to close if they land in the right situation or in Jacks's case if John Duran gets hurt right like that would be the the path from to do that. Whereas you know some of these guys that get kind of caught in between roles they might be seventh inning guys if they they're, if they're not started.

Yeah. Pearson Pearson, Pearson's it's close. It's close. He has closer stuff, but Porter Hodge looked pretty good. And then again, if Porter Hodge is the only thing, the only guy in that pen who has better stuff than you, then, you know, now we're talking Pearson is either the eighth inning guy that could close when Porter Hodge is heard or whatever. So I think Pearson's a pretty good one.

I wonder if the Cubs of among their offseason moves spending on the bullpen ends up being something they do where they try to buy their way out of reliever woes a little bit. Their pen has been bad. Yeah, as much as I thought Hodges was interesting at the end of the year, and I've got him on a few keeper league teams, I'm not holding my breath expecting him to be there closer. But then Alzeley is coming back too, and you're a bit like Pearson there. You could, you could talk yourself into being like, Penn will be better this year, even if we don't spend, but they're in a weird spot where it's not really obvious,

you know, where they can spend, they can obviously they can get one soda and upgrade, you know, but like they kind of have representative guys at every position. So it's, you know, the bullpen might be the one place where they could, oh yeah, we can actually spend $10 million there and have a much better player than we have at that spot. What do you think about a one year deal with Ryan Presley? Hmm. His stuff was down. You know, his stuff wasn't as down as far as you might expect.

Kenley Jansen. There you go. Another stopgap sort of guy where it's like, we're contenders. We think he's good enough. He gives us the proven C closer. Let's let it, let's let it happen. Let's see, see how it goes. Yeah.

And then if it doesn't work out, Porter Hodge is a closer than the year. Let's talk about Zach Netto. I mentioned an injury up top. This is the surprising shoulder surgery. Not a complete shock if you had him on your team and noticed at the end of the season that he wasn't playing those last few days,

but at the same time, if you didn't have him and didn't notice that he missed those games, this came out of relative nowhere. Perry Minasian revealing late last week, it was right shoulder surgery, just throwing arm. And he couldn't, he didn't, at least in the initial reports, I was checking with Sam Blum from the athletic about this, they didn't specify the exact nature of the surgery. But if he could miss the start of the season and he had the surgery in November, that tells me that it probably is something with the labrum or something pretty significant because that's like a, almost a six month recovery. Yeah, it's funny that they don't have all the, the, uh, details on it.

Um, that I think labrum repair would have some ramifications for, what we consider kind of burgeoning power for netto. And so if you downgrade his power upside going into next season and then you downgrade his playing time and then do downgrade how often he runs you know if he if he. You know doesn't want to re injinjure that shoulder. I mean, we saw, um, we saw kind of Otani limping around with that shoulder out there. He wasn't going to steal a base, you know? So, uh, this is a significant downgrade for Neto. I, he's kind of, he's going to drop. I don't know that he's a top 12 shortstop for me.

He easily would have been before the injury, but yeah, I think this is like. Kind of a Matt McLean situation for me, where it's like, all right, we're already talking about opening day being a problem, but setbacks happen. Sometimes these injuries just take longer to heal than expected. If you come back too quickly, how much does it impact your power? How much does it hold you back on the base path? A lot of performance questions, even if things go well on the timetable. So Neto goes from a player that I wanted to have as many teams as possible

to a guy that I'm probably just veering away from, unless I'm in a situation where I've got IELTS spots. So we're talking about just a massive discount. Steamer projections with the auction calculator put Zach Neto at 16th right now with a 571 plate appearances. I do believe that 571 played appearances is attainable. However, we just talked about how you have to downgrade that netto's power and the projection says is not going to do that.

The projection system doesn't have a little button where you can play is injured. You know what I mean? So I think it's even worse than that. So Anthony Volpe is right behind him. do that, the projectionist doesn't have a little button where he can play, is injured, you know what I mean? So I think it's even worse than that. So Anthony Volpe is right behind him. I'd rather have Anthony Volpe than Zach Neto right now. Xavier Edwards is 18th.

Yeah, I might actually rather have him than Neto. He's going to play all year. He's going to give you a batting average and stolen bases. Jeremy Pena is 19th. I think I'm taking Jeremy Pena over Zach Neto. So that pushes Zach Neto to 20th. When you put him 20th, you put him up against Tyler Fitzgerald, Willie Castro, Carlos Correa. Then I would say, well, Neto has more upside than some of those guys. He's younger than some of those guys.

Maybe he heals well, you know? So I guess Neto for me is around the 20th shortstop off the board going into the season. And in the post Neto playing time situation, it's some combination of Kevin Newman, at least based on who they have right now, Kevin Newman and Scott Kingery. Luis Ranjifo could play shortstop, but I think he's playing second base based on

the way the team's built right now. They're saying no guarantees to Anthony Rendon for playing time, which you know, Rendon's injury history kind of just writes that for you. You don't even have to say that part out loud necessarily, but Scott Kingery is kind of a forgotten guy. And I was reading Michael Bowman's story about him over at fan graphs and good numbers at AAA the last two seasons, it's far power and speed goes, right? It wasn't like great by strikeout numbers, walk numbers, hard hit rates. 81 WRC plus a 20, 23, 104 WRC plus this year.

This is for a 30 year old at AAA. So, right. 81 WRC plus a 2023 104 WRC plus this year. This is for a 30 year old at AAA. So, right. So it, it's more of a, this would be a good story. If he had a second chapter in Anaheim and found playing time and actually was the player that the Phillies thought he was going to be five or so years ago. Now, fantasy wise does a lot of things we're interested in, but I don't know if that's necessarily gonna pop

in an everyday role. I think it's more of a going to compete to be a bench guy, could get three or 400 plate appearances, could do kind of a low average, some power, some speed sort of thing in a role like that. That's sort of where I'm at with Kingery, even though I'm kind of root and form a little bit. Kevin Newman's gonna be the opening day shortstop.

Just all glove and like, Hey, we know you can play a good shortstop. So we're going to do that. Yeah. 78 career at WRC plus that's not where you project Kingery. And then you have questions with Kingery where, you know, is he the glove that we want them to be? Whereas with Newman, you've like, you know, replacement level type shortstop. How about the angels very active this off season? They're in the news all the time though, right?

To add Newman, add Kingery, add the Netto injury, which is not the reason you want to be in the news. They signed Kyle Hendricks already. We talked about that last time out. Nico Cavadas got an award in the fall league. I mean, they signed Travis Darno to a two year deal. Travis Darno is so weird.

I mean, I guess Logan Ohapi doesn't have great splits against lefties. And even if you do think Logan your star. No, it's so weird. I mean, I guess Logan Oh, Hoppy doesn't have great splits against lefties. And even if you do think Logan Hoppy is your, your stud catcher of the future, you know, he can have a wingman, you know, you can, you can play a Hoppy summits at DH. Um, and you know, no catcher, you don't want any catcher out here, you know, having 650, 700 plate appearances. So, um, I don't think that the techav, the Havistar, no thing is blocking Ohapi in

any way. So I think that was, I actually, I, all the deals that they've done, I kind of understand, I think are fine. Yeah. It's a lot of patching holes, but yes, none of them are exciting, but you know, Kyle Hendricks is in a group of pitchers that I think are worth two million dollars, which is the sort of Martin Perez, Marco Gonzalez like terrible stuff.

Um, but has gotten outs before and could throw 150 innings of, you know, four or five era for you. You know, that's probably worth $2 million. That's probably, so they probably did a good job there. You know, Nico Cavadas, we talked about it. If you could put Nico Cavadas and Nolan Shanuel together somehow, you could just squish them into each other. You'd have a real situation,

an exciting situation at first base. As it is, you have one guy who can hit for power and can't hit the ball, and you have another guy who can hit the ball, but it can't hit for power. I've got a Google alert set up for player squishing machine and I have not received any new notifications since you last suggested the possibility.

If I get one though, I'll be sure to add it to the rundown. I mean, on this one team, you could take Jorge Salernza and Kevin Newman and squish them together. He might have a pretty good player. Mickey Moniac and Joe Adele is one player would be a good player. I mean, yeah.

Well, that one would still strike out a lot. It's still be able to keep playing every day. One roster spot. You know, that's the key. Uh, we did see Nick Martinez accept the qualifying offer from the Reds. Not a surprise. Talked about that a bit on our last episode.

How about this one? Grayson Rodriguez fully recovered from his lat strain. Love to hear that in November and we'll have no restrictions this spring. So how are you feeling about Grayson Rodriguez at the outset of this draft season? Slightly bad news for Grayson Rodriguez though. They're changing Mount Baltimore.

Yeah. They, they, they overdid it. They overdid it. They're bringing one Mount Baltimore in a little bit. And they showed that last year, Cole Irvin had 10 home runs taken away by Mount, Mount, Mount, Baltimore. That's a, that's a big impact on your results. They, they denounced they were changing the wall and Cole Irvin said,

I'm leaving the country. Is he in Japan or Korea? Second on that list was Dean Kramer with eight. I am downgraded Dan downgrading Dean Kramer. I had him on a lot of, um, you know, type of Seth Lugo type lists where it's like, this guy's a wide arsenal in a nice park. I'm not so sure that the park will be as nice to him next year. know, type of Seth Lugo type lists where it's like, this guy's a wide arsenal in a nice park. I'm not so sure that the park will be as nice to him next year.

And he's not really shown a put away pitch for me, Dean Kramer. So Grayson Rodriguez is the best pitcher of these three. And he had like, I forget what six home runs or something that it couldn't be meaningful. It could not because he's also such a good pitcher that, you know, if he just starts putting the pieces together better and like understands the art of pitching a little bit more than the art of making stuff, then he could have a breakout season.

It doesn't matter what Matt Baltimore is doing. So I'm excited about Grayson Rodriguez and the price has gone down, I'm sure. Where do you have him right now? Fringe top 100 overall living in the same range as Joe Ryan, Tyler Glass now, Jack Flaherty and Zach Galen. Easily over Jack Flaherty. Um, I think over Zach Galen actually.

Yeah. I think I might have him over Zach Galen. Um, I think the only one that I, it's hard to glass. Now we're good. It's just, we need more news. I don't know. Um, maybe Tyler glass now over him, maybe Joe Ryan over him. If the news is good.

I'm looking at the guy. Maybe grace is the best of that whole group. Grayson Rodriguez versus Tanner Bybee who's going about 15 picks earlier on average. Would you do that? I'll probably just wait and not take Bybee and if they were at the same spot. Yeah. If they were the same spot, I might take Bybee.

Okay. Well, that gives us a good approximation. Same tier, just matter of timing and getting that exactly the way you want it. But yeah, the grab bag had a few different things in it. The Orioles tweaking Mount Baltimore. So that's bad news for the pitchers. Good news for the hitters at least. We have Charlie Morton news.

Charlie Morton. Charlie Morton planning to pitch in 2025. One more year of Charlie Morton. Kick him around a little bit more. Is there a Groundhog's Day sort of test for Charlie Morton, where like you look out the window in November and you see something outside and it just means Charlie Morton's coming back for one more year. Some teams should put him and Rich Hill on the mound together.

Same one, one person. The players. No, they both have, they both, I mean, I guess it's a lefty and a righty curve ball. I mean, No, they both have. They both, I mean, I guess it's a lefty and a righty curve ball. I mean, it'd be kind of fun if we had for a season, a 31st team comprised only of players in the twilight of their career.

Who all decide, you know, I got one more year. I got one more. The Birmingham old men. Just call me old men. We've got some other stadium news here. The Rays are going to play their home games at Steinbrenner field in Tampa for 2025. They'd also host playoff games. They're making some money off of that.

So they're, they got sort of a $10 million to, to. Oh, that's the deal. They're going to use that extra 10 million. That's going to be the difference. And that's how they're going to get one Soto. So then for years and Rays fans can be upset that. You know, Rays paid for one. That's, that's the argument they'll make forever. I mean, it's, it was the most logical fit just in terms of travel stadium being in Tampa and the, the, the stadium situation is part of why I think the Rays would be a real surprise for Roki Sasaki or, or any, I mean,

they're going to, there, there's going to be people, there's going to be some. The Rays are interested in Wonsoto and they're like offering him one year and 60 million or one year and 50 million or something. You know? And, um, I just can't imagine that any big free agent would take money from the Rays to play in a minor league part. It's the same problem. The A's are going to have really just in terms of like being a coveted free agent and choosing that situation.

I would actually argue that the Sacramento situation is worse than the Tampa one. So I think it hurts. It hurts the A's even more. In this case, I'm referring to the actions of John Fisher, but, uh, yeah, Steinbrenner field for the raise in 2025, since the repairs on the trop. I think it would be better off time and, and money too, with the new stadium coming. I don't know. Like even, even 2026 is a bit of a question right now, but we'll solve that one later.

We'll talk a little bit about this, uh, over the off season, I'm sure. But I do think that the early returns are that this will be slightly better for hitters. Then, uh, pitchers going, uh, moving from the trop over because the trop, what the trop does is it makes your pitches better. Like it, there's a stuff plus power fact, a park factor. And I think it's mostly dome related. So most of the domes you can replicate your pitches just as if you were in the pitching lab.

And so you get that, you, you, you get that high, those high stuff pitches. They think that's a big source of the strikeout park factor in Tampa Bay. Maybe the lighting is a little bit part of it too, but the most, uh, the, the weirdest thing about Tampa has always been the strikeout to walk park factor, where it's the worst place in baseball if you're a hitter in terms of augmenting strikeouts and decreasing walks. So that's going to go away. And that's always helped raise pitchers a little bit and hurt raise hitters. So I would give a little bit of an up arrow to raise hitters and a little bit of a down arrow to race pitchers. Somebody like Ryan Pepeo, I don't know that I care too much, uh, but

somebody like Zach Lattell, I'm not that in on Zach Lattell to begin with. And if he's not going to get that sort of augmentation, that home augmentation, I I'm probably out on it. Hmm. Yeah. I mean, I think they all, to some degree get it. I think we've talked about this a little bit with the Mariners, some of the home road splits we've seen from even Gilbert and Kirby, Bryce Miller, you see much

better results at home because of the batter's eye and different factors there. Same thing happens in Tampa Bay, where I think you're generally going to see nice home splits and slightly worse than expected road splits, but where we draw the lines on this? I mean, yeah, if you trust Pepe O and maybe Boz and McClanahan, but you put Springs in the same bucket as them, or do you put Springs more in the Littell bucket

where you say this might be more of a problem for him, or this might be more of a problem for Taj Bradley, who already has consistency struggles. Yeah, at least with Taj Bradley, I can be like, yeah, the stuff is through the roof, but you know, Jeffrey Springs came back throwing 90 and you might say, well, it was the first year back from surgery and blah, blah, blah. But like what we've found is that three starts after your return from surgery

predicts the rest of your fastball velocity for the season at an amazingly good rate in terms of predictiveness. for the season at an amazingly good rate in terms of predictiveness. So we have 33 innings and 7 starts from Jeffrey Springs at a 90 mile per hour fastball velocity. So I'm a little suspicious of him next year. I know we did get some okay strikeout rate results with a 26% strikeout rate, but I think we are unlikely to get a low 3 ZRA at Jeffery Springs next year. Yeah, I'm kind of hesitant to buy in on that as well. And I think they could make things really interesting just by having a few more options with high quality stuff once McClanahan is available again, especially like that that bumps somebody.

I like most of that rotation, but I do think you want to account for this park factors change. I don't know if it's going to be like the Jays and Dunedin if it's going to be quite like that, but I do want to see some park factors numbers on there and knowing that K's get that elevation in the trop. I think the three year rolling park factor for strikeouts is a 108. It's fourth highest in the big leagues right now behind Seattle, Milwaukee and Atlanta.

That's the number that's probably going to take the biggest hit. And then we have to look at how much balls and play are going to be impacted too. Right. We're going to have a Homer boost. We're going to have a balls and play boost. All those are factors as you try and sort through this as well, but it definitely looks like it's going to hurt pitching. It's a question of how much.

But on the flip side, you get a little boost on the bats. Steamer projection for a junior caminero is so sexy. 262 with a 29 homers. Woo, lovely. The 262 almost feels low. That's the part that I think could be light. Because they're projecting for a 22% strikeout rate and he had some real nice low strikeout rates in the miners and if his new park is at all conducive to making contact then.

Yeah one other update from the Rays before we go Wander Franco now facing a firearm charge in the Dominican Republic and that's just on top of the other case that is actually going to trial on December 12th. Charges include the sexual abuse, sexual exploitation against a minor and human trafficking. Sentence could be up to 20 years on those charges. So maybe a resolution coming here in the next few weeks with that December 12th trial date on the horizon for Wander Franco. There's so many things that we know from this case. Just be amazing if you got acquitted.

The amount of evidence that's been amassed in this one, it just seems like it's an obvious, guilty, and I don't know. I don't know the Dominican legal system. We'll just have to cross that bridge if we get to it. Seems like a go away forever situation and completely justifiable based on what we know in that case. But I know final details, hopefully coming soon as that one, maybe,

maybe gets resolved or the trial gets pushed back again. Cause that's how stuff happens. Right. It's just kind of annoying. Lots of ground covered today. If you enjoyed this show, take a moment, leave us a nice rating and review and jump into the discord, you can do that using the link in the show description. We'll be a little more active in there now that we're back from our week off and,

uh, let us know what you want to hear about in these next few weeks. Got a few ideas for shows, but send us some mailbag questions in there as well. We'll maybe put a few reverse mailbag questions in there in the next few weeks. That's where we ask you questions. We just want to hear what your answers are because sometimes we just want to crowdsource some different things. So you can find us. I'm on blue sky.

I'm just DVR on blue sky. Not, not my full name. You know, you're still Eno Saris over on blue sky, right? That's right. The pod, maybe you'll have an account there soon. Doesn't have one yet. So we'll get that set up. It's pretty active over there. Baseball in particular, the baseball community has been, has been active.

It's been fun. Yeah. I'm seeing posts from people I'm actually following, which is nice after years of not seeing that. I'm enjoying that aspect of, of blue sky so far as well. So feel free to join us over there as well. That's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We're back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.