Rates & Barrels - Roki Sasaki's Debut & Our Most Rostered Players

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

Eno and DVR discuss Roki Sasaki's big-league debut in Game 2 of the Dodgers-Cubs series in Tokyo, the now-restored DoD page about the life of Jackie Robinson, a second option for Jared Jones' elbow injury, and other spring news and notes -- including an encouraging outing from Tyler Mahle. Plus, they reveal their most rostered players (so far) ahead of the 2025 season. Rundown 2:15 The Free Look at Two Games of the 2025 Season 3:55 Roki Sasaki's MLB Debut 7:21 Movement Profiles of Roki Sasaki's Pitches from Baseball Prospectus 14:51 When to Consider Giving Up Switch-Hitting (inspired by Tommy Edman) 21:13 DoD Deletes Articles About Jackie Robinson's Army History (Update: Restored Wednesday afternoon following the recording of this episode) 25:53 Jared Jones: Getting Second Opinion on Elbow Injury 30:28 Jace Jung's Demotion to Triple-A; Spencer Torkelson's Opportunity? 41:31 Is Tyler Mahle Feeling Froggy? 46:02 Our Most Rostered Players: Players We're Leaning On in 2025 53:30 Eno Attempts to Guess DVR's List 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 Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You can find us on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. podcast. Welcome to Rades and Barrels. It's Wednesday, March 19th. Derek VanRyper, Inosaris here with you on this episode. Game 2 from Tokyo is in the books. The Dodgers sweep their opening series against the Cubs. We had the highly anticipated debut of Roki Sasaki.

It was brief as expected but we'll dig into what we saw from that start. Tons of other spring news items to get to on this show as well and later on in the show we'll talk about some of the players we are relying most heavily on for our teams in 2025. That was a mailbag request from Dr. Tim that I think we can certainly oblige. I think there's no reason why we shouldn't throw that out there because it's fun. You should know. Like who exactly who you think it is. Mostly a list of players that you've heard us talk about and hype up for the last several months, but you never know. Maybe the occasional twist or turn along the way.

Be sure to join the discord. If you haven't done so already, you can do that with a link in the show description. And if you're going to be in the area in San Francisco next week, we have two live shows you are invited to attend. Both of them, March 27th and March 28th, Thursday and Friday. 430 Pacific Start Time. Bare Bottle Brewing Company, the Bernal Heights location. We've got a special beer, Kayakers Cove.

Eno helped brew it. We've got special guests. Trevor's gonna be there with us for the first show on Thursday. Ben Clemens of Fangraph's scheduled to join us on Friday. So we're looking forward to having a couple of nice beverages over the course of the evening and just hanging out throughout the day

and enjoying the start of the season together. Yeah, I can't wait. I mean, it's super weird because the season started, but it didn't start and it started. It's not really started. The baseball reference said something about, you know, nine days until the season starts and all the people were like, uh, it started. They're like, we're well aware of this, but we're counting, you know, terrestrial opening day is the real one or something. All these R-Line leagues are like trying to figure out what to do with it too, you know. I think a lot of leagues you could like you could try and game the system by you know

drafting something that has already happened. Oh right. Getting credit for it. John Bertie's two stolen bases in the opening series for example. Landon Nack getting the win in game two. You know, these things are going to be utilized in the free peek scenarios where you draft after these games and they still count. So yeah, there will be some leveraging. I've settled on one thing though, cause I've debated this a bunch.

And I've checked, like last year, I think I drafted Jason Hayward in a couple of leagues just to like, you know, get him for those games and then was kind of disappointed with the return. And I know that yes, you could win or lose the season by one win or one stolen base or whatever. But you have to also think that the bottom of your roster are lotto tickets. And when you are saying I want to draft this one win from Landon Nack, you are also saying I don't want to draft potential 20 saves from, you know, I don't know, Bo Briskey or Mike Holderman.

That's a choice to be made. I mean, yes, it's not one. It's 100% of one win versus a 20% chance of 25 saves or whatever. But you know, the math might actually be to go towards more lottery tickets and not, not just buying one win. Depends on the format. I think 12 team leagues, there's going to be guys like Holderman available on the wire most of the time, 15 team leagues, something a little bit deeper. Maybe you're better off playing that lottery ticket game little bit of give and take there but as far as the more functional the broader interests go it

was the debut of Roki Sasaki in game two we saw him a couple times this spring and we knew based on the duration of those outings in terms of pitches that it was going to be about 60 pitches or less for Rokey in this matchup against the Cubs. And you know, we saw a little bit of everything. We saw the adrenaline and the electric velocity, especially at the beginning of the start. But we also saw it again in the final batters he was facing in the third inning of this outing where he was touching triple digits at various points with the fastball.

The splitter just looks nasty, dude. It looks like one of the most filthy pitches in the big leagues and I think the the only real question that is Pending for me with Rokey is where is the command going to settle in like you can see this being a highly anticipated debut in his home country on a big stage and Extra adrenaline maybe being almost a net negative even if it brought an extra tick or two on the fastball That it probably hurt from a command perspective because he was all over the place Even with the fastball like there was really nothing in the arsenal that he was locating consistently

Well, even with that splitter being as filthy as it was I think you see like one that would have actually been a called strike of all the pitches that he threw so some fastballs missing in the meaty part of the Plate some non-competitive ones and the final line was okay all things considered But where do you stand with Roky now that you've seen him a few different times and trying to put what happened in? This game into appropriate context. I was at a bar late night in Arizona. It's a great story incoming right here. With multiple directors of R&D and analysts, a scouting cross-checker, just a cool group of people and near the end of the night someone declared, all right, let's have it.

Your boldest predictions, the ones that you wouldn't even put in your bold predictions article, you know, like, come on, like, let's go. And there were different names around, going around, and I said, Roki Sasaki is just gonna be okay. Did they all just start laughing at you? Or was the response? Yes, they thought it was pretty bold. That was pretty bold. I mean it probably took a lot of liquid courage to get to

the point to say that out loud in front of the people you were with. My cop has has been Kevin Gossman but when you talk about and Kevin Gossman like a Kevin Gossman with the 99-mile-an-hour fastball would probably be pretty good. I mean, Kevin Gossman himself had some really excellent seasons. You know, he had the 2021 with the Giants with a 281 ERA and just buckets of strikeouts. I think that a Kevin Gossman outcome for Roki Sasaki would be a disappointment given all the hype he's gotten. And there is one thing that Roki has not demonstrated yet in the major leagues that Kevin Gosselin really has, which is command. Now, one thing that is cool about Sasaki's splitter is I think that he has

pretty good feel for that. And if you saw that even that spray chart of where he was throwing him, it was in a pretty decent locations, you know? And then there was this article on baseball prospectus that was really great that showed, and if you look at, you can look at his movement here. Like one thing that stands out for me on this movement profile is that Roki Sasaki's fastball is exactly dead zone. So if you look at this,

this is expected movement given their arm slot. And if you look at this, this is expected movement given their arm slot And if you look that fastball the black dots are the actual movement and the and the sort of black shading behind is what you'd expect so he is Exactly what you would expect from the fastball and which is why he threw 66 of them and got two whiffs yesterday So I know it's good V lo But it's not good shape. And I don't want to get too far into that because obviously Paul Skeens, we said he didn't have ideal shape and he just blew everyone away. So the splitter there is non-expected movement. The

slider is bad. But one thing that this story pointed out, and the story is by Mario Delgado Gonzor, who I met this weekend at the Saber Analytics Conference. It's a great story, you should read it. What he points out is that even though the slider is poor and expected movement, it actually like looks a lot like the splitter and has some commonalities with the splitter so he might be able to play a poor slider off of the splitter and make them both better. I'm just wondering if that four seam is enough.

I think he's going to have to throw a sinker or cutter or something to mask the four seam because I think what we've seen so far, even in minor league games and spring training games, and now this game is that that fastball is not fooling anybody. We've seen really good swings off that fastball and two whiffs out of 66 thrown is poor for a fastball that goes 99. So that was my boldest take on Roki. My real take on Roki is that he's got some flaws and we're talking about him like he has no flaws.

And he may be able to mask those flaws and show the kind of ability to pick up pitches that he hasn't quite shown yet. But if he can pick up a cutter or a sinker, I think he'll be a lot better. And just overpowering them and throwing a bunch of those splitters like Kodai Senga doesn't have great command, doesn't have a great breaking ball, doesn't have a 99 mile hour fastball. But Kodai Senga has a cutter and we may find some point at which Roki Sasaki needs another pitch.

As far as the depth of the arsenal command questions, you know, the problems you're raising, the dead zone fastball not necessarily having the cutter, the two seam are ready to go. Most of that seems sort of normal when you consider that Roki's 23, you know, it's just unpolished because of age and experience and even though he's been dominant in Japan with the arsenal he's been working with, it doesn't mean he's going to do the exact same thing out of the box. I hope people listen to the show haven't had that expectation all along. I think the market's been somewhat reasonable on Roki overall. I did the ADP on Roki Sasaki, do you feel like people were overreacting

this draft season to what he was likely to bring to the table? We've talked about all the workload restrictions that come from being as part of the six man rotation, but I'm looking at the recent ADPs. The brain just picked 62 to 118, so the average is pick 90. Like pick 90 for a guy with these skills.

So that would be a high end number two or a low end number one. More of a high. And what do you just sort of IDP? What's he what number SP is he? knocking out the relievers. Probably about 25. Yeah, so like a two, a typical two. Well, that's totally reasonable. When he starts the upper range

of that is not reasonable to me. And what I have found is that he isn't just in a pocket that I haven't been buying in. It's fine. That's actually, yeah, you're right. That is restrained. There are definitely drafts where you'd be like, that wasn't restrained. He's somebody who's like loves Roki, you know? But the overall numbers are fine.

Yeah. I think that actually describes what I'm talking about, which is like, hey, this guy has the upside of, you know, has the middle outcome of a major league starting pitcher that people, you know, during his peak drafted all the time as a borderline one slash two, right? Kevin Gossman just two years ago was in the almost exact same position. Yeah. And if you want to use that Gossman comp a little more, think about how long it took Kevin Gossman to be the good version of Kevin Gossman. It didn't happen quickly.

That's the risk, right? Because you're buying the young Kevin Gossman. So what if you get the Baltimore years, you know? Yeah, I don't think it will take quite as long in this instance, but you never know. I mean, that was also the old Baltimore Park that was really hard to pitch in. And I would say that it was an old environment for pitch design. We're a little bit better now at really dialing in what a pitcher should do and

what that pitcher should look like. I think in this case, what you have is you're just looking for him to throw a hard breaking ball. This is what Tobias Meyer said. I just want to throw my breaking ball as hard as possible. I can't spin it. That's what he said. What does Casey Meyers says? I can't spin it. I just want to throw my breaking ball as hard as possible. I can't spin it That's what he said. What is Casey Meyers says? I can't spin it

I just want to throw my hard breaking ball as hard as I can So, you know if you can get Roki to throw a 90 mile an hour cutter Gyro slide or whatever it is, even if it doesn't spin great. It is an amazing pitch by itself That's sort of what I'm looking for some other takeaways from this game in Tokyo for. Some other takeaways from this game in Tokyo. Shohei Otani homered of course because you knew Shohei Otani was going to homer at some point in one of these two games. He almost did it on the first pitch of the game. The crowd roared like off the bat like they thought it was going to go out and that was a pretty fun moment but he got his homer later on. Got a little help maybe from fans

behind the outfield wall but upon review still a hom homer. So, can you imagine being the crew chief that has to announce to the crowd at the Tokyo Dome? It's not a homer. It's not a homer for Shohei Otani? I think peer pressure may have been a factor in the review. There was a collective agreement like, it's a little borderline. Maybe we should just say it's a homer for the safety and sake of everybody on the field right now. We're not doing any conspiracy theories here.

Not with the homer. It looked like a homer. It looked like it hit the fan high enough up where if you kind of projected where it was going it was just barely going to clear the wall but if you want to steal a home run Enrique Hernandez got one so there's another one of your random guys that'll end up getting drafted late where you get the free peek oh there's Kike home run let's get that on there Tommy Edmond actually has the first home run of the 2025 season and I thought there was an interesting question or discord Brockness monster Frequent discord user like what is a message in discord just a message right doesn't have a stupid name. It's not skeet Cringe every time I say it. Yeah. it well It was just it was a public message But it's just a post Brock wrote their Cardi had a piece a few years ago how there were no lefty mashers guys that truly

Could hit the 135 WRC plus the plinth advantage and would likely be like average without it if we made We think Tommy Edmond of being so good against lefties What if he kept that swing and stayed right-handed against righties, comparing his bat speeds from both sides? Like should Tommy Edmund effectively give up switch hitting and like when would you make the case for that given that mashing lefties alone isn't usually enough to float playing time. Edmund's different because of his defensive versatility, but for plenty of guys there's been a point in their big league career where they've had to say, yeah, I'm just better off hitting from one side,

even though I've been able to switch hit up to this point. Cedric Mullens is the guy who did it, you know, who just stayed lefty. And I guess the guy that I would think of on the other side is Ozzy Albies, who against righties has a 96 WRC plus and against lefties has a 144 WRC plus and that split is beyond what you would expect if he's a true talent 144 guy against lefties then he should be I't know, like a 125 guy against righties, you know?

And the statistical answer is that, I mean, I guess he's getting close. He has 2,900 plate appearances against righties. The one that you don't know if you believe is actually the one against lefties. You don't know that he's a 144 WRC-plus guy against lefties because he only has 947 played appearances there and you're looking for a thousand plus in the split. But that's pretty close to a thousand. So when you have a split that big, he's actually getting pretty close to where the math is saying something's wrong here. He's an outlier. And I guess that's an easy answer. But the other thing is what happens when you get this far into a split that much and

That big is that he's doing just fine The way he is, you know, I mean, it's like are you gonna go to Ozzy Albies? Who has you know 21 wins in the major leagues in terms of wins of over placement has been a you know 8% better than league average Are you gonna go to him now and say, you know, oh yeah, you really need to stop swinging from the left side. I don't know. I think it would take a really bad season.

You know, it would take a really bad season on top of having. Robust splits that tell you the same. I know we looked this up at one point, but Ellie Dela Cruz, you know, has a pretty different bat speed on the two different sides too. So I wonder how much that information being more readily available to teams might eventually lead them to encourage switch hitters to make that change, right? Like that's just a new, it's a really new way to think about how much better you are

at swinging the bat from one side versus the other. I mean, you just can't forget that these are people. You know what I mean? It's like, you can make the statistical case for this, but you're gonna come up to Tommy Edmond, who just signed, what did he sign? A five year, $75 million deal.

Tommy. Tommy, take all those at bats from the right side. Yeah. You got to stop. I got to stop doing what? And this, these are guys, a lot of them. I mean, some come to switch hitting late. Maybe it's easier to convince them to stop. But all these guys been switch hitters since little league. I don't know, man. There's that adage that as the coach, you can be part of the solution, but you can also become the problem, which is that if you come to somebody who's doing fine

and say you gotta stop switch hitting, then you become the problem if it all falls apart. But if they are having a terrible year, that's why I said that the math is, the real situation is you have fairly robust splits where they're getting close to a thousand play appearances in the split and they are struggling. That's the one time you might come in

and you may want that bat speed at part two. Cause you can say, you can come in and say, the splits say this and then they say, well, I just need a couple more at bats. It'll be fine. And you can say, well, the bat speed also says that you're different. Maybe the player would listen, but it's also just the coaching process is really hard

It's really hard because your ego's on both sides You want to be helpful? You don't want to be telling them everything you know and like try to prove to them You know everything and you should be listened to it's something that takes time And you know the stupidest part is coaches don't get time. Coaches get fired the quickest. So it's really difficult to be able to develop a rapport to the point where you might be able to suggest something like this to a player when you know that you will be the first one

fired if the player sucks and if the team sucks. So you think it's more of a last chance saloon late career sort of thing than more of like a mid career. Hey, I might just be better if I only hit from this side you think that's the more likely time we'd see that change I mean the Mullins change was pretty the other major inflection point is when you're breaking in like right when you're breaking into the big leagues you're saying okay this worked up until this point at every level but it's just not working anymore so now I'm going to go ahead and switch going to go ahead and sure he was a big leaguer.

You know, that's the difference. Once you become a big leaguer and you're doing fine and you even got a free agent contract, like, I don't know, that's the time to tell somebody. Well, and it's also to like if your better side is the left side, that's you're going to have the bigger share of a platoon. You're going to get the larger share of playing time. So I think that that's right.

If that's like you're the only thing right thing righty that's gonna be a real hard sell it's like oh no don't put me in that box but maybe Tommy is in that window because he didn't get the payday right if the Dodgers were to go to him and say what do you think about this I it's a fun question and Edmund continues to do a lot of damage against lefties living up to the hype so not at all surprised to see him get a homer in that matchup in the series in Tokyo. Some other news in baseball that I didn't expect to see this has popped up Tuesday night on my feed. Craig Calcaterra, who writes the Cup of Coffee blog newsletter, was all over this story and the Department of Defense's website deleted a Jackie Robinson story, several stories.

The URL's been tweaked and it's ugly, right? It's an ugly story, it's an ugly situation. It's the kind of thing that you never really expect to happen and then you see it happen and you're like, okay, this is gonna get corrected, right? Like I have this built in assumption that this will be fixed very soon, and yet I have a little bit of doubt in my mind

that I didn't previously have, right? Like that's sort of the new part is like, I think they're gonna fix it, because why the heck wouldn't they, given who Jackie Robinson is and his importance to American history? Yeah, I mean, there's just so many different ways my mind goes with this.

And as a data guy, some part of it is that we've shown that peer-reviewed studies, that diversity has a positive effect on something as simple as income or profitability of corporations. I mean, we've shown as a country that we are stronger with more immigration and diversity. And now this has become a bad word that needs to be scrubbed. Today Calcutta had some further reporting that MLB itself has taken the word diversity off of its pages, describing their different efforts in different places.

And so it's become this bad word. And I don't think that like, I don't think that it's necessarily somebody calling around being like, you need to take this word down. It's become this word that's such a touchstone for debate and so vilified as a word that people are sort of taking it down, I would read it as sort of out of worry, out of like keeping their head down,

don't take our funding away, don't do this. So like literally I think it's an AI scrub of anything that could be considered diversity based content. And it's just so silly and it's so angering. I mean, think about the history of baseball. Think about your favorite players. Are they all white?

They are not. Are you proud of Jackie Robinson's place in baseball history? I hope so because as a sport, we retired his number in every team. You know, like, I mean, this is a fascinating and amazing player that withstood so much to do what he did on the field. And that should be something we're proud of.

That's the thing that I land on. It's like, that should be something we're proud of. We should have so many articles about Jackie Robinson, not fewer. And so even if it does get fixed, you know, there's also a trickle down where there will be other pieces that don't get fixed. Right. I think the response, the outcry for someone of Jackie Robinson's status will be different than for other people who have served this country whose stories are less known.

I think that's where it's kind of like there's still parts of this that are going to be impactful. Other pages that are gone that people aren't going to realize are gone, or many people aren't going to realize are gone. They took down the Navajo codebreakers. I mean, that's a fascinating story that has to do with data and language and, you know, the Navajo language is like an unbreakable code almost. Critically important in winning World War Two. Just deleted. Forget about that.

So, yeah, so it's it's ugly. I'm curious to see where this goes next. I hope it's correction and apology. I'm not expecting apologies. Just sort of reading the room. But man, like we should be celebrating Jackie Robinson. We should be celebrating diversity. We've reached the point where people and companies

are hiding from this as a lightning rod term. And it's like, that is absurd. I can't believe we've reached this point. That is where we are. So we'll see where we go. We got Jackie Robinson Day coming up here in less than a month. So perhaps we'll see some changes on MLB's website

and otherwise between now and then. Moving on to our more traditional topics. Makes me mad too. Different reasons, different kinds of infuriating. Is this a Monday? Yeah. God damn it. It's a Wednesday in the middle of the week.

Just a Wednesday, man. A** day. It's a crappy Wednesday to put it mildly. So this situation, Jared Jones is going to miss his final spring start. I just saw another update on this story. He's already getting a second opinion on the imaging after having some elbow soreness. No, no, no, no. Someone asked earlier in the week, second opinions ever good?

No, not really, not usually. It doesn't mean there's nothing going on. It just means the extent of the something going on could be very bad. That's the worst, man. God. He's exciting, man. He was throwing a sinker.

I thought he was really gonna put it all together this year. That's more of a, okay, well, let's just find out how bad the news is once that second opinion comes in. Pirates do have some pitching depth to lean on. We've talked about Bubba Chandler, Thomas Harrington, Braxton Ashcraft. So at least in the short term, maybe in the long term, this is going to open the door for somebody who we didn't have projected to be part of their rotation. I wonder if Harrington makes it.

I mean, Bubba is obviously the more exciting prospect. But on some level, when you're watching these games, it's almost like in Little League when you know there's a guy with good stuff and there's a guy with good command and the the guy with good command gets put in by the coach because there's been so many walks but I was having a little trouble with the zone right now and I watched Thomas Harrington yesterday and It was only 93 but it's a really good sweeper. Stuffloss actually liked him in the minor leagues, and he was doing a much better job commanding it. It looked really poised out there.

I don't know what numbers to put on this, because I don't even know what number we put on Jared Jones being hurt, but let's say it's 75%. I mean, that's not good. Well, yeah, even if it's some rest and a PRP injection, it's still going to be weeks before he's pitching in games again, most likely, just based on what they're reporting right now. Yeah, then I guess there's whether or not they're on the 40 man, which I don't know

about Harrington. I think Chandler is. Well, anyway, I would say that Harrington might be even with Chandler for odds for taking over. It just means more of that depth will be utilized. And just thinking about Harrington with that fastball velocity does have a 45 grade from the fan graphs crew on that pitch. So it's not necessarily the fastball that's made him an interesting prospect.

It's it's the secondary is the curveball and the change up change upgrades out as his best pitch command grades out well. So it's a little more of a command and secondaries over Velo profile anyway, which seems kind of odd because you're not usually as into pitchers that that great out that way. My takeaways were non positive. I was like, oh, 93. I think I even said that to you. We got online today. I was like Harrington was only 93 yesterday. I was like, was that down? It's not. Let's just. That's just. I don't even said that to you when we got online today. I was like, Harrington was only 93 yesterday.

I was like, was that down? It's like, no, that's just it. I don't even know. Yeah, I guess that's it. I'm looking at game started. It's Keller, Jones, Skeens, Haney. Haney's in now, I guess. I think Haney and Falter are in, and they still need a fifth, which Harrington, Fulmer

have starts. And Chandler's starts were against, were not starts, they were against the second, against the minor leaguers. So Harrington's start yesterday may have even been a reaction to the news? Maybe. Put him in against the major leaguers, see how he looks. Anyway, Harrington in your deepest leagues becomes a pickup. That's the, I guess, positive silver in mining.

Harrington versus Richard Fitz as an in-season pickup in leagues that are already drafted where they're both on the wire. I'm going to take Harrington. Okay. Maybe more of a long-term opportunity since the injured pieces in that Boston rotation are kind of all expected to make their way back over the course of the first one just Like makes it a little bit easier Yeah, a little easier to stream working if it's could be 97 and and be great and have like a four three

Ra anyway, because of that way it is possible some other news to get to we had a bunch on the rundown yesterday We didn't get to because we ran out of time. How about this one? Jace Young optioned to triple A and it's gonna be a combination of Zach McKinstry and Andy Ibanez playing third base while Matt Veerling's out. Could see some Javi Baez there too though depending on how much they want to play Trey Sweeney at short. So I don't know like Jace Young didn't do himself any favors this spring it was pretty quiet spring for him at the plate. And I feel like when you're in a crowded roster situation like that, it's enough to kind of nudge you off or onto the roster. If you have a bad or really strong spring,

you can actually swing that decision just a little bit. I think in redraft leagues, other than like AL only leagues, it probably makes them a short term cut while you wait for that next opportunity to emerge at some point in the weeks ahead. Yeah I think that the underrated part of this is Spencer Torkelson playing pretty well, if that makes any sense, because they're playing some Spencer Torkelson in the outfield and I think they just wanted to maybe reward Spencer Torkelson for having a good spring. And both Young and Torkelson have options,

but maybe they just saw they liked one way better than the other and that they could maybe cover third base with some credible veterans in a platoon. So the corresponding move for Young coming back could be Torkelson going down. And maybe that's the toggle that they're playing with right now. It could be yeah

I think with Torkelson it's also gonna hinge on how much they played Carrie Carpenter in the outfield as we talked about before But he's popped for Homer so far this spring 25% carry getting a lot of run to 40 plate appearances already So they have been taking a long look at him so far and it's easy to forget We're only two years removed from that 31 Homer campaign that had everybody thinking that maybe Spencer Torkelson was going to make good on being a first overall pick. You know, back in 2020, he was the number one overall guy. And I just thought there was maybe a better floor than what we saw last year. But the thing that I've always been confused about with Spencer Torkelson, it's like even when it's good, it's never great.

Relative to his plate skills, it's always a lower average than you'd expect, in part because of the batted ball profile, I think too. Tons of fly balls, it's gonna happen like that. I wonder if we can still see a scenario in which Torkelson comes close to everyday plate appearances on this team, or if it's still gonna be more of like a semi-regular.

Most likely it's 350 or 400 plate appearances, as opposed to 550 or 600, right? But maybe with an injury or two, there's still an outcome where Torkelson's a high volume player in this Detroit lineup again. Yeah, I just wonder also what the park interaction is. Maybe there's a time that Spencer Torkelson is a regular player just on a different team

in a different park that doesn't maybe just put him in a weird head space when he's hitting balls all right and they're not going out because it's Detroit or whatever. You know what I mean? Like he's in Arizona right now and he's hitting tanks. You know, it's like, and is he gonna go to Detroit and just, you know, they're not gonna go out

and he's gonna get depressed and he's gonna try and change something again and it's not gonna work and he's gonna go down. Like, having a more pitcher-friendly park does make hitting development even harder, I think. And you have Indyung and Torkelson, two guys that I still have some hope for, but I just don't know how it's gonna work out. Interesting thing for me to do with Torkelson for his career, and weather's a big factor. We know Comerica plays really tough on hitting in the early cold months of the season. For his career, Spencer Torkelson has an 81 WRC plus

in the first half, 118 in the second half. He goes from a 349 slug to a 462. I mean, he's hitting 50% fly balls. Like he really cares about the weather. Yeah, I mean, over a multiple year sample, he starts to go, okay, maybe there's just a seasonal park factor that really works against him because of the type of player he is too.

Like, I don't know, there could be a little more going on with Torqueil than you think. And it's like the cheapest price that's been in a couple of years if you wanna try and take that flyer at the end of your roster, because the early season opportunity might be there. If you're playing for now, playing for the immediate, who can I use because they're playing a lot?

Looks like Torquilson's gonna play more than we expected, at least to begin this season, as this roster begins to take shape. I did see a story. This seems like there's still an open question in Boston about who's going to close. There was a report this morning that came out that suggested a role. This Chapman is moving into the primary role. He's the in-house favorite right now.

I think that was Sean McAdam and Chris Cotillo that put that one together. No announcements been made yet, but if you're taking a late flyer in the Boston bullpen, who is it? Is it Chapman? Is it Hendrix? Is it Justin Slayton? Is it someone else entirely? Who actually ends up leading this team in saves when the dust clears in 2025? I'm going to Slayton. I mean, Chapman just is wild and I feel like he's getting wilder as he gets older you know I don't know if he needs to like reach further back to get the same Vigil or whatever but I think that's just again it's one of those things at the extremes in the middle maybe command is fungible and it doesn't matter as much as the old-school head thinks heads think it does but on

the extremes I think it does matter. I mean it's really really hard even to put somebody like Edward Cabrera or Joe Boyle in as your closer I feel like. You know what I mean? Like if they're just spraying it and walking guys they eventually will lose their job. The easiest way to lose your job is walk the bases loaded or give up a homer and Chapman can do that. Not the homer but he'll walk the bases loaded and. And that's just, you don't want to see that from your closer. I think Slayton is just, and it's weird to say this about like a rule five young guy, you know, that just got to the big leagues, but he's a little bit more refined. I mean, it's just more command. I think it's Slayton. You might have to wait a little while for it to develop though. That's the tricky part.

You might think Slayton is is gonna lead the team in saves You might not be getting any saves in the first couple of weeks of the season. It could be Chapman It could be a committee It could take some time for Chapman to lose the job if he gets it first But that appears to be the way the Red Sox are leaning still a lot of questions about how they're gonna handle second base It seems like every day you read a story about them and it's all about Christian Campbell and whether or not he's gonna break camp with The club I think we'll all just have to like wait until they give the final word Those are really hard to read like I don't understand like they're all the updates are like

It could be it couldn't be and then and then the headline is like he's the starter and second base You like what yeah, not what the update says If I had one the update says. If I had one thing I could be on the floor, be a fly on the wall for for a major league front office, it would just be the conversations around these types of situations like how do you make the final call on this? How do you decide that a player is or is not ready based on what's happening in the spring environment? Especially if you go by just what he's done at the plate this spring It would be a clear no he's struck out in a third of his plate appearances so far

Sitting 158 with a 289 OBP and a 211 slug. It's only 16 games. It's spring It doesn't mean Christian Campbell's not gonna be good, but if you needed that little thing Cotillo's report said something about like his at bats have started looking better. Sure. They've started looking better. But do you feel like that is enough for a guy that's only played 19 games at AAA? And I say this as someone who thinks Christian Campbell is going to be a great player. I wonder how you would talk yourself into that decision if you'd say, well, the alternative is only David Hamilton and David. We kind of know what David Hamilton is,

we don't quite know where Campbell's at. And the worst case scenario, Campbell comes up, struggles for a couple of weeks, we send him down. Like, did the Orioles do wrong by Jackson Holliday, trying to break him in, send him down, break him in, send him down a couple of times last year? Like, is that the worst thing in the world? It depends on the player, I think, in a lot of situations.

Well, that's what they said about the Astros and Cam Smith and stuff. What we said in yesterday's show was just that like, you know, they said there was this quote in Chandler-Rome's article that like, you know, from a scouting background, you know, Dana Brown from a scouting background believes very strongly that, you know, just giving them every day at bats is a huge part to developing players. So, you know, I wonder if there is a split when it comes to data and scouting on this idea. But just from a human standpoint, you know, David Hamilton has had found some success

on the roster in the big leagues in an uncertain role, I would say. He's been okay. He's been okay. And he hasn't always known what he's doing tonight and like he you know where he's playing tonight. And that seems like a really good guy to have on the roster. I think David Hamilton is making my roster no matter what. So the real question is, you know, do we want to try and give Christian Campbell like a month just as a starter because he's probably has he definitely has more ceiling than Hamilton. Or do we put him in the minors where he's playing every day and have a subpar option at the major league level,

given that Hamilton's ceiling? So that's probably the kind of conversations they're having. They're talking about floor, ceiling, every day at bats, that sort of stuff. It was a 92 WRC plus last year from David Hamilton and his first prolonged opportunity as a big leaguer. He debuted in 2023 with a tiny sample, hard to read much into that.

There's speed, there's a little bit of pop. He didn't strike out a ton. He played good enough defense at second base to keep you afloat there. Defensive metrics are really kind to him, actually, and suggest that he's a pretty good shortstop, that maybe he should be the shortstop over story at this point.

So they may end up having Hamilton and Campbell up the middle at some point a lot of different ways it could play out and it will hinge a lot on just how healthy Trevor story is this year which hasn't been hasn't been the case really for him at all during his time in Boston stories having a nice spring by the way popped a couple of homers 406 450, striking out 26% of the time, but that's just picking nits. I think as far as Trevor's story, kind of nudginess.

Hey, I'm healthy, I'm feeling good. That's the kind of spring that makes you think that he's feeling pretty good. Feeling froggy. Feeling froggy indeed. Is Tyler Malley feeling froggy? He was a... Dude.

He's 92. 8 on the fastball Topping out at 95 for the range was 90.4 to 95.4. But the good news here is that last week? Malley was sent for an MRI because of some forearm soreness like a couple days later He pitched in the minor league game You'll notice it's a lot late in spring if guys are banged up They'll play in minor league games because then you can retroactively put them on the IL if they need an IL stint to begin the season. The fact that he pitched in a regular Grapefruit League game on Tuesday, I think bodes very very well. He also threw five innings. He pitched well, but yeah, 92-8 on the fastball.

That's a great sign for Tyler Malley. Kind of lives right near that spot where the fastball can become a big problem if he loses a tick. And apparently that's what, you know, his camp's stance was, was that there was going to be more Velo in there as they approached spring training. I was hard for me to believe after, you know, the injury news. And so I was I had him on a basically do not draft list, but I'm making doing my working ranks right now and gonna update them on Friday and The last thing I did with tally molly's name was move him up. Not a lot though

It's the direction that's important. It doesn't the magnitudes not as important. Yeah, I think I'm gonna have I have like maybe 109 innings on him still mid-4s ERA projection but I can put him maybe in the usable veterans category which is right around Jameson Tyon, Chris Paddock, you know Tony Gonsolin, Davis Martin so I will have him maybe in the late 120s. The late 120s so yeah just, just barely usable veterans, I think. It's when the Bluth Company gets upgraded to don't buy on the Mad Money with Kramer scene of Arrested Development and Michael's eating breakfast. Don't buy.

You hear that, Mom? Don't buy. Like, yeah, yeah, really moving up there. But I'm actually a little more optimistic about Malley than you are, especially given the depth of that start. And he's more important to them right now. I know they added Patrick Corbin just for depth purposes, but John Gray got hit by a comebacker in the wrist.

Cody Bradford's got the elbow injury, so they're going to open the year on the IL. So I think Tyler Malley as a glue guy for the Rangers, at least from a real life perspective, will matter even if his fantasy utility is more of like a streaming option for most people out there. Yeah, I think the underlying news also is that both Rocker and Leiter are making this rotation out of spring training. You feel good about that?

Don't really have any other options. Well, we do have one more news note to go over, but that is relevant to my player shares. Go ahead, you can introduce it jung-ho Lee real quick he's got a back injury but I heard yesterday was watching the game that it's nothing structural so they think he's gonna be back MRI came back clean so I think it's gonna be just a few more days and maybe opening day still possibility for jung-Hoo Lee Annoying though that like now he's starting to you're starting to be like do you get hurt a lot? mmm

Too early the major injury last year was pretty fluky So let's just let's give it a little more time pop the brakes on that one, you know Yeah, we are still yes and keeping an eye on you Darvish elbow inflammation after his last start So we'll watch that. Oh, that one's not fun, but I think that means that Matt Waldron makes the team. I don't know It's Waldron or Vasquez or maybe it's both now Is it both well and they were talking about Kyle Hart versus Colick for the last spot? So maybe it's Hart and Colick getting in like there's there's a few different ways they can go I'm not sure any of those are good options beyond and leagues. Cease King Pavetta draftable in all leagues.

Darvish I think still draftable until the news gets bad. More in IL leagues and stuff. I still think he's a good pitcher. So yeah, FanCraft's dope chart has Hart and Kolek before Vazquez and Valdrin. Hart's spring hasn't been good though, has it? No, and that's where I saw some rumblings that Kolek had sort of inched ahead of him when there was only one spot available, but I don't know, that one could come down to the wire. In any case, it's Jack Leiter who's on my player shares. Oh, okay, so let's talk about that.

Who are you leaning on most heavily in 2025? See that's a, it's a funny way that you've put it on, put it that way. Like I would say these are not players I'm leaning on. Because I was thinking about this too, because I was looking through my teams and like at the top of your teams, the players you're leaning on, and on your teams, you shouldn't necessarily have a ton

of the same shares because you'll have different either auction strategies or draft slots. You know what I mean? Like you shouldn't just be like, I'm taking, you know, Jackson and Merrill in the first round no matter what my pick is. You know what I mean?

Yeah, you probably don't have eight Manny Machado teams out of 12. Like, you know. Exactly, yeah. So the leaning on part, I'm just objecting to that because these are my lottery tickets. These are almost all guys I take after round 20. So you've got the sheet, put it up, mister.

Yeah, fine, I'll put the sheet up. Everybody knows who's gonna be number one. I mean, it's like the least surprise, a lot of times. So here- It's actually number two, too, I think. Here's what you're getting at, though. I mean, it's like the least surprise a lot of times So here it's actually number two, too I think here's here's what you're getting at though what you're getting at is the players you end up with the most of when You play in multiple leagues are cheaper players because they're easier to get your draft slot doesn't matter Because at pick 250 300 350 400, you just take whoever you want. You're not following the tighter orders of what's likely to happen

and trying to thread that needle and max out overall value. You're just trying to find the guys you like. So that's how you end up with Osvaldo Pito on 10 teams. 10 teams. I think I have like 11 teams. So. It's 10 out of 11.

Pretty much, Pito's on like every team I've got. That is remarkable. You know, the average place that I draft him is I think literally like round 26 or something or 25. You know, it's, I just think he's a great late dart to take. And Ryan, so the most, the players I'm leaning on the most, I think so are the highest ranked players here'm leaning on the most, I think, so are the highest ranked players here. And that would be Ryan Pepeo, who I have five shares of. I've taken him as my third starting pitcher in some leagues.

I'm happier when he's like my fourth or fifth starting pitcher. So that's a little bit more I'm relying on. If he has a really bad season, that's not gonna be good for me. The other player that's like that is Andres Jimenez and Brian Reynolds. Very different types of players, but I think they're sort of oatmeal-y in that they're probably going to play in their top three or four line-up slots for their teams and play every day. Jimenez a little bit more for his defense, Reynolds a little bit more for his offense, but they will provide steals and homers and be pretty good players.

And they go at really boring draft slots. So none of these guys go in the first 10 rounds of your draft. But Ryan Pepe, O'Brien Reynolds and Gavin Williams and Andres Jimenez are probably my highest pick shares. Why do I have four shares of Jake Myers? Because in all of my draft and holds, I took Jake Myers. He's a pretty good fifth outfielder. He's gonna play.

He's their center fielder. Why do I have four shares of Colin Holderman? Because in every draft and hold, he was my final pick, 50th round pick. Hey, that might be a good one. Might be really good. Might be a good one. Might be a good one. Might be a better pick than you even thought at the time.

Like you probably thought David Bednar's back or his elbow or something is a problem. Great. I got the Pirates next closer on. This might happen a little sooner than expected because Bednar still getting hit this spring, as we discussed yesterday. Yeah, I think that was the spirit of the question. Like, who is the most important to your teams because you took them a little earlier and you've got them multiple places. Anybody in that pick?

100 to 200 range would count for sure like if you've got Andres Jimenez on four teams under his him in is actually pretty important to you because structurally You're probably trying to make up rounded steals Which means you didn't draft a lot of steals earlier And if you're wrong about him you're chasing speed in pretty much all of those leagues potentially given the categorical balance of what he provides. Yeah and we have player tiers coming out tomorrow top 100 players Tyler Kepner, Aaron Gleeman and I not only put together our heads and ranked the top 100 players in sort of a war setting not necessarily

fantasy and then we went out and got quotes from people and I got a quote from a scout that was pretty negative about Andre Zeminis. I don't have it right in front of me, but so he was not very happy with my analysis. My analysis is just like elite defense. They traded for him. I feel like that's like they want to plug him in and just a little bit of like, Hey, maybe they can find something that he once had, you know, there's been a little bit more power this spring and he's still not striking out a lot. So, you know, what if he does have a one 50 ISO or a one 60 ISO this year, then he's going to be a guy who hits, you know, two 60 with 18 homers and steals 30 bases. Like that's not like, I'm not hoping for the hits, you know, 260 with 18 homers and steals 30 bases.

Like, that's not like, I'm not hoping for the moon. You know, that's pretty much, would mean he's best season, but it wouldn't be by much. So that's sort of what I'm hoping for. If I get 250, 10 homers, 25 stolen bases, I'm sure it'll actually still be worth around that draft slot. Yeah, you'd probably get a lot of runs scored to go with it.

So, so at least decent RBI totals as well. I think Jimenez is fine where he's going. And I think you're right to look back at 2022 and 2023 and say, well, there's no reason why you can't still do that from a Roto perspective. And the playing time, because of the defense, the contract, the fact that they sought him out, all those things, he looks like a really stable player

going in a range where guys can actually start to lose their jobs. So I think that's probably the case i would have made for andres jimenez regardless of what that scout thought yeah thanks thanks dude yeah i got your back you know but uh gavin williams and ryan pepio also slot into something that i found which is that starting pitchers a little bit like catchers these days where like Paul Skeens aside they usually actually debut and struggle you know like it's really hard to be a major league starting pitcher and I think a lot of our development process is stuff

optimization and they get to the big leagues and they're like oh I'm supposed to get people out I'm not just supposed to throw the nastiest stuff I've got you know and it becomes a little bit more about how do these pitches fit together. So I really like young players who have come to the big leagues and struggled, but also shown something good, you know. So in Pepe on Williams, I feel like that's something I can. You can almost put that over onto hitters, too. Like I'm a little bit more interested in hitters

who come up, done a little something than I am really wanting to put a lot. Like even James, like James Wood, like I'm more comfortable, I'm gonna make a bold prediction about James Wood this year. And like I'm way more comfortable doing that. Oh, oh, James Wood, that's on your shares. No.

I like James Wood. Now, the problem with James Wood that's on your shares? No. Oh. I like James Wood. Now, the problem with James Wood specifically and getting him on a lot of teams I have found is that- It's higher and higher cost now. The cost is up and it's also a range where I'm often drafting pitching. So I'm just usually looking for something completely different. Like the fourth.

Yeah, kind of a fourth rounder. Fourth is a lot of, yeah. And when I go like pocket aces or pitching a little earlier, that's when I end up, you know, it just depends on where I was in the beginning of the order and there's factors that lead me to either be in the spot where I feel like I want to take James Wood or be in a spot where I don't. Who do you think my most rostered player is though?

12 leagues. I had to show you mine because you're the producer of the show and so you had to get my list and put it up there. Yeah, mine. But you didn't have to show me yours. So I can do this, I can do this. Very quickly, I'm sure these two are on your list. Jacob deGrom and Tyler Glasnell.

Glasnell's number one. I have them in seven out of 12 leagues. Spanning keeper and non-keeper formats. DeGrom? No, not on your list? No, I think DeGrom. I've got three DeGroms. So I mean, four out of 12 sort of makes the cut

for being a lot, or five out of 12 would be my most rostered guys. But yeah, Glassnow is my most rostered player right now, which is hard to do with a player that goes, well, he's just at that threshold, where he's always there late enough where you can keep getting him if you want to. I mean, there's one on the rundown from today

that I'm mad about. Jared Jones. Jared Jones. I got him in five leagues. That's gonna be a problem. Do you have Jesus Lazardo in a bunch of leagues? Not yet. I'm trying the last couple. Trying to rally back. Here's the look. Here's what I got. Oh I was gonna guess one more. I was gonna guess Brent Brown. Yeah but Brown was on my list. Yeah because he's very very inexpensive and it's kind of an easy sort of cut for leagues to have cuts and there will be value. I was gonna guess from Brown. Yeah, but Brown was around yeah, because he's very very inexpensive And it's kind of an easy sort of cut for Leagues that have cuts and there will be value is like your IL League

Stash kind of yeah and one keeper actually to keeper leagues. Yeah, because Long game stash I started to think about guys coming off of Tommy John surgery similar to prospects in those leagues where it's like Well, it's just instead of having 12 prospects I'll have 11 and I'll have a pitcher that looked really really good before he got hurt and then maybe next year I'll have a top 15 top 20 starter that didn't cost me more than like a 9th round reserve pick, right? That's sort of the way there. Piled up a bunch of Tony Gonsolin shares because of how inexpensive he's been so he's on 5 of my teams right now.

Colt Keith is actually my most rostered hitter which I don't think I've been targeting Colt Keith. I think I've just been waiting too long to get first base depth and seeing him as someone that will pick up in season eligibility there. I've seen Colt Keith as a bit of an answer to some of my roster problems where I'm getting floor but I'm also getting I think it's still one more level of upside looking at what he's been able to do up to this point. I think we started to see some of those adjustments from him in the second half of last season. He fits into that group you're talking about.

I got it's been in the big leagues and is at least done enough to keep his job right or you could say okay now I can project that that next sort of level on him. He really strikes me as a cheaper Jake Cronenworth, because Cronenworth is first base, two second base eligible. I think of him as sort of like a 260, 18, five guy, you know? And then Keith, the error bars are beyond that, right? Like maybe he can do better than that.

But he also goes after Jake Cronenworth. And I have some Jake Cronenworth shares and some Cole Keith shares in leagues where I'm like, oh, CI, MI, first base, second base, those are some cool positions to fit all in. One of the other underrated things you can do is infield-outfield. So that can be really, really helpful, especially actually among stars, because you might be able to move your O'Neill cruise from shortstop to outfield. You might actually want to do that depending on maybe a Danza B. Swanson fell to you, you

know, and you're like, well, I could use cruise in the outfield. So multi-position is not just for draft and holds. I just want to point this out to we just finished a draft with the listener league and Joey Ortiz gaining shortstop eligibility will mean that on my roster, and I try to do this even in rosters that are not draft and holds and where there are FAAB, I can get people off the wire if somebody gets hurt, I try to have coverage on my team. And this is why I want to have, so on that league, once Joy Ortiz gets shortstop eligibility, I will have two players at every position in my roster and like six outfielders, right? And the idea is if someone gets hurt,

I will have a replacement on the roster that I can move around depending on what's on the wire. You know, so like, if there's like an outfielder on the wire, but I need a shortstop, you know, or if there's a third baseman on the wire and I can move joy or tease, you know what I mean? So like, it just gives you more flexibility, even in leagues that are not necessarily super deep, it'll make you more able to go to the wire and get what you want as opposed to being like, well, there's only one shortstop worth a dang out there, you know? So that's something I would suggest to you, especially in head to head, you can, if you

have multi-eligibility, you can move guys around and get that extra day, you know, on a non-full day or, you know, so there's a non-zero benefit to it and it has to do with rockstar flexibility and it is the fantasy version of Chris Taylor and Enrique Hernandez and all these guys. And it does exist, there is value there. I don't know how much to put on it. If you're looking at your auction calculator, I'd put like maybe 50 cents or a dollar on the guy.

But sometimes we put a dollar on a guy and he moves two or three slots in the rankings. Yeah, for years I talked about that with Todd Zola on the RotoWire pods and usually one to $2 was sort of the higher end range of what you would add and Peace of mind is worth it right being able to go into the waiver wire Just take the best available hitter because you got enough coverage everywhere on your roster already is great

You end up with better results than if you have to force somebody in that fits a specific spot It happens you can't you can't always have it But I think you should be more aware of it, especially in leagues that have lower position games played requirements. I think it's a little easier to have that depth too if you're in a league that only requires 5 or 10 games at a position to qualify. But more to come as the week rolls along. Be sure to join our Discord, the link in the show description.

You can find us on BlueSky, Enos, Enosky.social and dbr.bsky.social thanks to our producer Brian Smith for putting this episode together that's gonna do it for this episode of rates and barrels we're back with you on Thursday thanks for listening it's just like bink bink bink bink you know