Rates & Barrels - Rotation rankings, Votto & Mullins adjustments, and reliever-starter interactions

Episode Date: April 23, 2021

Eno, Britt and DVR discuss Britt's recent rankings of all 30 teams' rotations, Joey Votto's surprising late-career adjustment, Cedric Mullins' decision to give up switch-hitting, and the interactions between starters and relievers.  Rundown 1:05 Britt’s Rotation Rankings 8:34 Jon Gray: 2021 Trade Target for Contenders? 16:52 Biggest Potential Movers 18:38 Making Sense of Oakland 26:48 Joey Votto’s Unusual Late Career Adjustments 37:21 Cedric Mullins III Gives Up Switch Hitting 44:23 Leody Taveras’ Struggles 49:58 Reliever/Starter Interactions 61:25 Replay on Stolen Bases is Brutal Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic for just $3.99/mo to start: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it is Friday, April 23rd. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris, Britt Giroli here with you on this episode. We will discuss Britt's rotation rankings. Britt has fallen far into the abyss of ranking things now. She knows our pain, the difficulties that come along with it, and of course the ever-loving comments of rankings that nitpick every little thing you do. So we're going to talk about her rankings, the toughest rotations to rank right now, teams most likely to rise, teams most likely to fall. We have another installment of Is This

Real? inspired by several questions that came in over the past few days. And we'll talk about the need for replay on stolen bases to be fixed, because I have a bone to pick with what is happening on stolen bases right now. But we begin with Brit's rotation rankings. And a good morning to Thor, who is joining the show. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see Thor join Brit today. You know what? They said we couldn't get a high-quality guest on Fridays, you guys, and I am here. Star.

Although he's bored with us yeah he will not bark which is good but he will definitely yawn so if he yawns move it along to the next topic all right he's just here to keep us in check one animal segue yes they said you needed a younger demographic and so i brought thor in here he's gonna make us cool make us hip uh. Guys, I am retiring after my list. I don't know how the two of you do it. I would like to step off the stage unnotably, dishonorably. That was a very difficult, ridiculously difficult. I thought lists were for lazy people. Like, here's my grocery list.

Instead, I challenge anyone listening to this podcast to list anything in baseball. The first five, easy. Last five, easy. The middle, I just got consumed with 12 versus 14 and 16 versus 18. And no matter what, you're going to piss somebody off. So it's like, I just spent all this time and it's such early in the season that one night, one game changes everything. The Nationals get two back-to-back quality starts. All of a sudden, they're not the worst ERA. They like leapfrog 10 teams. So you look like an idiot.

So I would highly recommend leaving the lists to Eno, to DVR, to anyone but me. Yeah, yeah. It is, I mean, that phenomenon lists to Eno, to DVR, to anyone but me. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it is, I mean, that phenomenon with the first five and last five, you know, I'm like, put Joey Lucchese in the last five, put Garrett Cole in the first five, and now I've got 155 to put in between. Yeah.

And, and even, even in the tiers, I think you can, you can kind of like, like you could do that blink analysis that I call, right. Where you'd like the first time you put the list together, right. You're like, I'm just gonna just put it down how I think. Right. And then, so you have an idea. Okay. All right. These are like the top five. I like how you did tiers in the article too. Right. Like these are, these are like these, this one's separate. These ones are in a good pack then there's a kind of mediocre pack and then there's like the bad pack right but then within that like how are you supposed to choose between the 25th and 26th best rotation right exactly yeah like 12th and 14th i totally get it and like right now do you think the rockies or rangers rotation is better than the yankees how much do you go off of preseason rankings? Because we're only three weeks in. I think if you did the list in July, you'd at least have some runway. Right now, you're still going off of expectations. Right?

Like the Padres. Okay, their record's not great, but they've played the Dodgers like a million times already for a good chunk of these games. So how much do you base that off of? Right? The Yankees are about to go play Baltimore. So their numbers are going to look probably markedly better here in a few days. So it's just like almost impossible.

Some teams, and then because of COVID, the Mets played like 11 games. The Dodgers played like 18. And you're like, what do I do with this? So this wasn't the most fun thing of your life? I love doing rankings. No, and I literally thought it was for lazy people, like lazy journalists. Like, let's just make a ranking. Let's make a list.

And it was harder than an investigative story because it just keeps changing. So, again, I challenge the people listening here to make a list of anything related to stats. Not like your favorite. Nothing subjective. Try to make a list and see how difficult it gets when you get to that middle portion. Yeah, I think the tricky thing

that Eno said is if you start to come back to the list multiple times or if you start bringing in more information. So if you start off, you kind of do it with gut feel and then you bring in projections

and then you bring in results so far and then you start looking at, oh, who's hurt? Who might come up? Every new variable you introduce is going to lead you to make some tweaks a little more. And you're never quite happy with it. And then as soon as you publish the list, something else happens. And you're either scrambling to update the list again.

Or you're like, well, this is the first thing I'm going to change the next time I do this. And then a thousand more things happen before you do it again. But I don't know. Something about never having the perfect set of rankings keeps me coming back, which is kind of insane when you think about it. This will never be right, but I'm going to keep doing it anyway. The player rankings have the added bonus. At least with a team, you didn't forget a team.

There are 30 teams. You put them all in there. I have to run back after this podcast and add Sixto Sanchez and Carlos Carrasco to my rankings because they hadn't pitched yet. So they didn't show up in the leaderboards I made, you know. So mea culpa. I am sorry. We did not. I will.

I will put them in. Luckily, you have all 30 teams in your rankings. Luckily, you have all 30 teams in your rankings. Unluckily for me and my bold prediction that the Cubs would not have the worst, I think the Cubs would have the best rotation in the Central, or maybe I said not worst or something, but they are the 29th rated team by strikeouts minus walks. Their bet on command doesn't seem to be working that well.

I do think Kyle Hendricks has better days in front of him. Maybe Alec Mills will join that rotation. But being 29th in strikeouts minus walks, 30th is Colorado. That's one metric that I used heavily in my pitcher rankings that I would look at if I did a team ranking. It lines up very well with yours um i just think that uh a couple teams that that stood out were uh atlanta 11th in strikeouts minus walks and the yankees rotation is fifth in strikeouts minus walks so there is some uh possibility that's like just just a really good uh small sample stat because it removes all the noise

of balls in play so uh that could be a sign that those two teams well i where did you have atlanta i don't think you have a much worse than 11 no i had them both as like we need to get better like things are going to turn around uh because i yeah i didn't want people to get on me for you know saying oh the Braves rotation's great. When they lose two starters in three days, they've obviously had some depth issues. And obviously we know the Yankees have had some struggles early on as well. So the Nationals are in there under that whole category of like,

things have to get better, right? Because they can't actually get too much worse, I think, for some of those clubs, right? It also, doesn't this also right now, the way we're talking, this speaks a little bit to the fundamental issue with rankings, which is that some will come to it thinking, sort of, this is how they've been so far. And others will come to the rankings thinking, like, this is how they will be going forward. Yes.

Yes. And if you wanted to do, this is how they've been so far, you could just, I guess, go start to finish an ERA or whatever, right? Just like make a list. But when you do that, you're like, wait a second, the Rockies, the Rangers, you have all these teams at the top, at least when I did it a couple of days ago, it's probably vastly different now. And you're like, okay, are these teams actually going to hold on?

No. There's all these peripheral stats that suggest that they won't. So, and also... Yeah, Rocky's 7th with NERA right now. Yeah. Ranger's 5th. That is a little weird. John Gray's been really good. I have John Gray in NL Labor, so it's

the deepest league I'm playing in this year. It's a 12 team NL only league. He's a reserve for me. I only want to use him on the road. And I believe his only... Yeah, he's been shoving at home. His only road start this year was against the Dodgers. So I wasn't putting him in for that. And I didn't use him at home because he was home against the Dodgers.

He was home against the Astros. And he was home against Arizona. So I've had him on my bench the entire time while he's thrown 22 and a third innings with a 242 era and a 112 whip and i know let me tell you i know if i change my mind if i start playing him in spots where i wasn't going to play him before it's not sustainable it's coming back to earth we know who john gray is john gray we talked about max scherzer as a trade candidate last week john gray is the kind of guy that a team could actually trade for if they want rotation help be that that the Padres, the Yankees, or the many other contending teams that are one starter short of getting to where they want to go. John Gray could be one of those solutions.

You take him out of Colorado, we push Reese's at, we start over. I think there's a good pitcher in there. He's just stuck in Coors. Yeah. I mean, I agree with you. I also wonder, like, is the Giants sustainable? I had them up kind of high because they rank so high. And also, though, if they do well, because of the division they're in, everyone's got them ticketed for third place no matter what. Do they trade all these guys because they're all on one year deals? So when you rank these guys, do you go based off of the triers? Like, do you care that Matt Harvey got his first win in two years? Like, do you care about the teams that aren't competing? I put them in their own section solely because I didn't want to deal with

them. You go stand over there. There's a lot of, there's a lot of up and down that's going to happen in Baltimore, right? Like Dean Kramer is going to come back and Keegan Aiken, and they're just going to try everybody out. And you know, there's going to be some heartache and pain. Yeah. So I sort of think that like, if you're in that rebuilding team, like why, why even, why even do it? There's going to

be some rookies that are going to fall on their face. And like, you know, I don't think that they're, those guys are there yet. So I think it's a fair, fair way to do it. But you know, the Rockies are striking out seven per nine and walking four and a half per nine it's just yeah there's there's nothing that says sustainable about that to me though some commenter said you must not watch the rockies okay fair i've been called out uh there's a lot of games at night uh and he's like well there's been a lot of walk a couple of the walks are skewed because there were some really high walk outings that skewed that now i have not had a chance to go back and see if he's like, well, there's been a lot of walk. A couple of the walks are skewed because there were some really high walk outings that skewed that. Now, I have not had a chance to go back and see if he's correct.

If there were like, you know, an eight walk or a ten walk. Thor's done. We mentioned the Rockies and he's now left the entire. God, you guys are talking about the Rockies? I'm out of here. Yeah. God, you guys are talking about the Rockies? I'm out of here.

So I don't know if you stumbled on that, Eno, or if it's a commenter that's trying to, you know. I mean, I suppose in a small sample, that's possible. But I mean, you know, we're talking about 20 games. So what's he talking about? There's like other two games with 10 walks? Right. I mean, I guess that I think that also says something about the talent of your team if you had a couple games with that many walks, right?

Well, yeah. Austin Gomber walked seven against the Dodgers at Coors in his first start. That was his first start in Colorado, at least as a Rocky. He has poor command, though. He also has poor command. Yeah, and even Gray, who was pitching well, has a pretty high walk rate for a guy who's pitching well. So I don't see it lasting.

I just think the usual flaws for Colorado pitchers absolutely still apply. But the Giants are really interesting because they are exceeding expectations. The park helps their pitchers exceed expectations. Kevin Gossman now versus the Kevin Gossman that Britt saw in Baltimore for a long time, he's a different pitcher now. I think it's fair to say that. And even someone like Anthony Descalfani, who in a homer boosting park like Cincinnati was really kind of facing an uphill battle, now he's got a lot more cushion. It starts to break down for me at Alex Wood and Aaron Sanchez and Logan Webb, I thought was going to be in a position to take advantage of a pretty favorable schedule in April. I would say that also kind of works for the Giants pitchers as a group so far. schedule in April. I would say that also kind of works for the Giants pitchers as a group so far. I don't think their depth is very good. Even if Gossman is good and Descalfani is decent, I'm not sure Wood and Sanchez are giving them quality innings all season long as starters.

I'm a little surprised that somebody hasn't popped yet. I know I have some respect for what they're doing as a player development program. Matt Daniels from Driveline is there helping on the pitching side. Their pitchers seem well coached when I talk to them. Logan Webb talks about the shape of his pitches and what he's trying to do and this and that. But I'm a little surprised the Giants finally produced a reliever the other day. I don't know if you guys saw. We were talking about him on the Fantasy in 15. Was it Gregory? What's his name?regory santos throwing 99 with 90 90 mile an hour sliders it's like oh finally you got your own of these you know like everyone seems to have one of these

now finally the giants have one i'm a little surprised they don't have like a pop-up starting pitcher prospect like we're still talking about lo Webb. It's been three years. Where's the next guy? Isn't there supposed to be a guy by now? There was a tweet earlier this week from the Giants prospects Twitter account. I never know which of

those teams have an official prospects account and which one is a fan analyst sort of account. They did have a pop-up guy. I'm blanking on the name right now. I'll see if I can pull it up. The other reliever they called up this week was Camilo Duval. And the beat writers covering the Giants were pretty excited about him.

The thing that gives me some pause is that I'm seeing the dreaded 20 command grade next to his name on fan graphs. You do not see a lot of 20s even for Major League relievers. That's tough to do. Impressive. Where is the ball going when he throws it? That's tough. Is that Henry Rodriguez level?

How do you make it up with that? I don't know. The walk rates in A ball were above 4.5. I think the stuff obviously is good. The velo in the debut, he's averaging 97 on the fastball and throwing sliders half the time at 85. So it could work if he starts to find the zone.

Maybe he just throws everything to the middle of the zone. Yeah, I mean, did you guys see the Giants last night had a bunny? They had like a special bunny at the stadium. Then, of course, I checked both of our Giants writers to see if anyone did a deep dive into the bunny, but nobody did, unfortunately. I know. I wish I had known.

Don't touch. Put the bunny down. What's that? Is that from Con Air? He has that really terrible Southern accent. Put the bunny down. Does anybody get this? Nobody gets it?

I haven't seen Con Air. You haven't seen Con Air? What? I'm sorry. It's a classic. Is that an actual classic or is it an Eno classic? It's borderline classic.

I'd say Eno classic. But the bunny was like a special... What do they call the special aid dogs? It was like that. Oh, it was like a helper animal. Yeah, because it's like, how do you get this in? They won't even let you bring purses anymore. It's not like you could shove them in a bag, right?

They don't let you bring anything into stadiums. It was like a special, what's the name of those? It was a service animal. A service bunny. That's what you got. I love it. I do too. Like, unbelievable. Yeah, I mean, i i you know i think you're right

i think the depth is the problem and and that's like how far do you want to go in these rankings do you want me to go like pick the teams use seven eight nine starting pitchers in these rankings do you want me to consider like the giant seventh starter and how much weight should i give that right it's like there's only i think we can all agree there are some, like, smoke and mirrors and there are some legit rotations. Milwaukee's legit. The Dodgers are legit, right? But then there's also, like, the Giants I'd put under smoke and mirrors right now.

I'm not super convinced, right, that they're going to pitch to that level. 18th by strikeout minus walks. Yeah. But a big part of it is suppressing homers, which is kind of just their park, you know, more than anything. Yeah, so that becomes a problem when they go on the road. I thought the Giants and Red Sox were the teams most likely to fall based on where they were in this set of rankings, Britt. I thought the Braves and D-backs were the most convincing teams to move up. I think for me, Arizona is a

little bit different. Zach Gallin just came back, but I also think it's only a matter of time before Corbin Martin takes somebody's spot, whether it's Merrill Kelly or an injury or whatever it is. Corbin Martin is going to be in that rotation. He's probably going to make that rotation better. And I think the D-backs are such an easy team to just breeze by for a lot of people because it's Dodgers Padres in that division, right? It just, they're so irrelevant unless they find their way into the wildcard mix. And even that takes so many things going right. But I think their starting pitching going forward

will exceed a lot of people's expectations. Yeah, they were one of the teams that kind of struggled because Gallant had just came back, like where to put them, right? Are you going, again, are you going based off potential or are you going based off of what they've done before? And the most confusing team has to be the Oakland A's who have now won what, like 11 games in a row or whatever it is, after starting 0-6, tied for the worst start in franchise history. What do you do with them? Like, where do you put

them? And what about the Angels who, you know, they have Otani, and he's a big deal. Dylan Bundy should be better, but certainly they're a team carried by their offense. So there were some teams where I was just really kind of like, well, shrug, no clue where to put them. We'll just throw them in the middle here somewhere, because I honestly have no clue where to put them. I agree, the Red Sox rotation is going to come back down to earth here slowly. Their offense has really been carrying them. Same thing with the Royals. There's teams who have, the Reds, there's teams who have out hit their pitching

and gotten off to a good start. And that's going to change here a little bit, somewhat. You know, the Reds aren't going to sustain that offensive pace over 162. But there are teams like, I don't know, you know, you're around the A's a lot more than I am. What do you make of them? Are they just going to like quietly win 90 games and we're all going to laugh about how

they started off with that ridiculously terrible week? I don't know, actually. And sometimes like bullpens matter to the starting rotation ranking, you know, it's because like if you're going to look at wins at all, a lot of times, like I don't think the A's bullpen is very good. And that might that might make them look worse, especially you like inherited runners you think about right like Montas puts a couple guys on the reliever comes in lets them in that makes Montas look worse right um so there there is like a sort of whole team aspect to this just like you're saying about out hitting the rotations like you know you you might

think that the Reds have a better rotation because they've had wins. But if you just look at the rotation, how good has it been? So when I look at the A's rotation, also, I'm looking at it through the lens of these rankings that I just put out, where I'm using stuff and command numbers, right? And they just don't look that good for a lot of the A's. And I'm a little bit surprised by it. But like Luzardo has by this number a 90 stuff and a 99 command. So like I think you would be looking at him as being sort of a league average pitcher, right?

You're looking at Montas who might be the ace. He has good stuff, 110 stuff, but 95 command, and I think that shows up in some of his really good and really bad outings. He just gave up six runs the other day. So, then you get into

the rest of it, and they're decidedly mediocre. I mean, Bassett's 93 stuff, 94 command. Who's after Bassett? Sean Mania. Mania. He's pitched well.

Outperforming his stuff in command numbers, though. One of the guys that I have as coming back to earth. Let me see here. Sean Mania, 75 stuff, 98 command. I have him as 114th best pitcher so anyway uh just in terms of stuff and command they don't stand out you know montas is the leader but uh also has poor command and so it's not gonna always work out um you know i i i would not say that that rotation is very much above average. I think this is the kind of rotation where, do I put them 12th or do I put them 16th? I don't know.

I think Jesus Lizardo is pretty fascinating, though, because I think he gets at something that makes ranking individual players or teams particularly difficult. It's the untapped potential, right? He is this right now. He is 99 command and 90 stuff right now, but he's not supposed to be those things. He's supposed to have better stuff than that. He's still so young. He's only thrown 89 and a third innings in the big league so far. He's 23. For years, it seems like he has been right next to Julio Urias in my pitching rankings because they're both young lefties with high ceilings. So my mind wants to group them together. There's a big difference right now

in terms of what they're doing, right? No, that's an excellent comparison to make because Urias used to have two breaking balls, right? And one of the problems with Luzardo is his breaking ball. It's kind of slurpy, right? And both of them, Urias and Luzardo coming up 95 mile an hour from the left side with a good changeup, right? You could describe both of them the same way.

I think Urias has a slightly better command, but you're getting really close to a comp with just the two of them. Then the breaking ball. Okay, so Urias had these two breaking balls, and he's been playing around with them, playing around with them. And then finally this year, he kind of merged the two breaking balls and he's been playing around with them play around with them and then finally this year he kind of merged the two breaking balls and that that new breaking ball that curve they're throwing right now is by stuff the second best curve in the game behind glass nails among starters so he found something where he was like oh and i kind of i'm waiting for lazardo to throw like a cutter and then he can have the slow curve ball as like a, just a change of pace velocity wise and do cutter change. I'm waiting for something because I think I agree with you.

Every time I look at those numbers, I'm like, God, Lizardo is not better than this. Um, and I, but I think it would, then I think of when I watch,

I'm like, Oh, you know, that breaking ball is just not good. Yeah. It's kind of slurvy and, and, and iffy 23 though too, it does seem like we've been talking about him for a while. And maybe part of slurvy and, and, and iffy. 23 though,

too. It does seem like we've been talking about him for a while. And maybe part of that is I covered the nationals. You know, he's kind of the one who got away along with Lucas Giolito. You know, the nationals take a lot of flack and we've written it, you know, that they don't develop starters.

But if there can be an old 23, he's it right. I mean, he could figure it out at 25, still be super young. And we're like, Oh, what took Lizardo, he could figure it out at 25, still be super young. And we're like, oh, what took Lizardo so long to figure it out? Like 23 years old. And in fact, I think this is, I think there's something to this with starting pitchers in general. A lot of times you look at, if you look at the leaderboards among position players, I feel like you see a lot of 25 year

olds, 25, 24, even like younger. You'll see Soto and Acuna. You know, you'll see like 22 and 21-year-olds, right? When you look at the leaderboards for starting pitchers, though, you'll see 37-year-olds. You know, Max Scherzer. You know, you'll see these guys. You'll see DeGrom. You'll see older guys.

And I think it's partially because starting pitching is about having a lot of pitches that are good and and having command and that's something that can take time your man improves over time um and you know as a starting pitcher it behooves you to add another pitch add another pitch and add another pitch and at some point you're like oh this is the collection of pitches that i've got that'll take me through the heart of my career yeah and you And that can stave off velocity loss. There's proof that even though relievers lose velocity quickly and lose production quickly,

starters lose velocity about the same rate but don't lose production at the same rate. And that's because they mix it up. They have all those different pitches. They have better command. So I don't know why that was relevant to anything we were talking about. I was interested. I enjoyed it.

That's all that matters, right? As long as we're having a good time. No, Luzardo could figure it out. Luzardo could figure it out. He still has a lot of ways to figure it out. And I think worst case for him is a closer. You know, like he could easily I think be a 97, 98 mile an hour guy with a change up and be a closer. And I would say they're probably two full years away of him not getting it as a starter before that's even a consideration.

There's still enough good things happening in the underlying numbers to keep trying to make him a starter for quite a while yet. Make sure Thor knows, since he left and bailed on the show, that he should be trading for Jesus Lizardo in his fantasy league. He might be pretty happy if he does that. All right, let's get to our next segment. Is this real? We started this up last week. Is this the real life? Where are you supposed to go there?

Didn't have it queued up on the phone this time. Yeah, I thought Britt had the next line, and then I was going to keep it moving. Oh, I was not aware. Karaoke, karaoke, karaoke. I guarantee you that the fastest path for us to get several one-star reviews after talking politics

would be to do karaoke on the show. Yeah, I was unaware that I joined an acapella group, but I'm here for it. Oh, God. College acapella groups. Oh, God. What would we call this acapella group? There's a Twitter question for you. Throw that one our way at ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com for the email.

And you know, Sarah's at Derek and Riper at Brit underscore Jiroli. I have no idea what we'd call that. Yeah, I don't think that was a good idea. We would obviously we would obviously call it Deb, which is the three of our initials.

There you go. That's not bad. Sounds like an 80s band. It does sound like a hairband. Now someone's going to Photoshop all of us in the hairband garb and that's going to be ridiculous.

So have some fun with it, I guess. But let's start with Joey Votto since we're already having fun. We got a question from Daniel. He wants to know, is there anything in the underlying numbers that are driving the bounce back that we're seeing from him? And I thought for a few years when we've been disappointed by Votto, I thought, this is weird. He's the kind of guy I didn't want to bet against because I thought his approach would age as well as anybody's. And even if the power sort of waned in the final years of his career,

he'd still hit for a good average. He'd still draw walks. He'd still be near the heart of that lineup and be a good run producer. So fantasy-wise, he'd be just kind of the classic tortoise sort of player. Throw him in your lineup, and you'll get where you want to go by the end of the season, and it might not be exciting. Hasn't really been that way, though, in 2021.

So do you see anything in Votto's profile that stands out that makes you think that what he's been doing early is actually sustainable? Yeah, he's not really doing that at all. He's aging in some other weird-ass way. It's very strange, actually. Benjamin Button, have you guys seen that movie? Where they age as in reverse? Kind of.

He's hitting for more power than ever, and his stat cast numbers are better than ever, and he's being more aggressive swing rate-wise and reach rate-wise than almost ever in his career so he's kind of turning into like uh i'm just gonna swing real hard all the time guy which i never thought that would be what vato would be uh but it's working out and i also have this funny thing uh he went to driveline uh and and the way that i hear that now when i when i write that or see that is um those dumb ass commercials he went to jared yep yeah it's you know i i have my brain works in that same way

well i don't know how much arrested development you guys have watched but uh for people who've seen the show tobias funke becomes friends with car Weathers, the actor who played Apollo Creed in the Rocky movies, because Carl Weathers is a character on Rest of Development. And the way Tobias says Carl's name, Carl Weathers, I hear that sort of soft Weathers. When I read Ryan Weathers' name, it's Ryan Weathers. I can't stop it. These are the brain worms we have. This is what I have to live with in my own head. And yet somehow I'm a functioning adult, mostly. Most of the time I'm a functioning adult doing things that other adults do.

When that's happening, I don't know how to stop it. So apparently the training that he did there, so you might be aware of sort of weighted balls. That's kind of what people think of when they think of driveline pitchers using weighted balls to get velocity. But weighted bats actually work for batters too. Weighted bats are a way to develop bat speed. I mean, it's the same fundamental idea, which is to use to vary the weight of the implement you're using to kind of you do this in weightlifting, right? Like you do you have to let you do you do you do a lot of reps with the low weight, right?

Even if you're trying to train to do a big weight, right? Am I wrong? Yeah. There's also the principle of overload here, which is exactly what you do in any kind of strength sport in general is the overload principle. Go to the max, go max all the way up. Or you even go beyond that, which like for squatting, for example, you'll do a squat not all the way down or you'll bench and you'll hold it a few inches off your chest to give yourself that progressive overload so that your body is used to that and your body just continues to adapt, right? So it's the same thing.

And the heavy bat's been used in on-deck circles forever, but they just kind of like mess around with it. This is more – it seems more concentrated. Like hit with this. This is more like your half bench presses. Like it's like you use a really heavy bat and you take a bunch of swings and then you wait a day, you recover, you let your body recover, you do the light bats the next day, which help you, light bats help you kind of with that control, that command. And then you go back to the heavy bat to develop bat speed. So, you know, I think that they kind of did a bat speed program with him. And what you see in the StatCast numbers, I know that the ball is flying a little differently this year,

but there's also in 2020 numbers for Joey Votto, which suggests the two best max exit velocities of his career. And this year is the best barrel rate of his career. But last year was the second best barrel rate of his career. So he's never been actually a guy where the stack has numbers pop. He's been a guy that had elite plate discipline. And he's kind of giving away some of that plate discipline to hit the ball as hard as he can.

Right. And I never predicted this, but it's something I love about Joey Bono. It reminds me of Mike Trout, where Mike Trout, when he came up, Jeff Sullivan wrote a couple pieces. It was like, oh, Mike Trout is amazing. We all love Mike Trout, but he has a hole that's high in the zone. And I feel like Mike Trout read that or just knew that that was happening in the scouting reports.

He went in the offseason, developed a little bit of a different swing, like a little bit of a different way to get to the high pitch. And now, yeah, he's not his best part in the zone, but he can hit a high homer. And the same thing happened with jumps in the outfield. They said that his defense wasn't good because jumps were bad. So he spent a whole offseason working on jumps. And now he's, despite his age, a pretty credible center fielder so uh i feel the same way about joey vato he's like anytime you're like ah he's done and i wrote a piece i think a couple years ago i was like joey vato's done can you show it

to him in the clubhouse he hasn't taped up in his room somewhere i'll show this nerd wait till i see you know again yeah it Yeah. It's fascinating, though, the concept to me of making pro sports harder, but it is how people improve when you get to that level is everyone can swing the normal bat or throw the normal ball and you're going to hit that peak, right? You have to make it harder for your body to adapt to continue to get better. That's what people don't realize. Just get into the big leagues. Players talk about this all the time. Getting to the big leagues is actually easy relative to staying in the big leagues, right?

How many? And being great. Right. And continuing to get better every year. That's really the difficult thing. And I think to do that, you have to continuously push your body. You know, especially as you get older, you have to continuously find ways to get better. And what I like about Vado and what Driveline does really well is that how do we continue to adapt, right? The body is constantly adapting.

If it's constantly adapting, it's constantly getting better. While everybody else is maybe staying stagnant, then you're still ahead of the game, right? So I think that, to me, is what's the most interesting, hearing about that kind of training, because it happens in every sport. Yeah. And that's what you do when you get used to throwing a football 50 yards. Right? How do you get better?

Well, you practice throwing either heavy football or throwing further. Right? You don't just keep doing the same thing thousands of times. That's more where you get the repetitive injuries. Right? So with Joey Votto, he's not- And also, just you're not pushing your body to go further. You don't just keep doing the same thing thousands of times. That's more where you get the repetitive injuries, right? So with Joey Votto, he's not- And also just you're not pushing your body to go further. You're not getting better. I've noticed it with running.

It's like I settled in at some point at being able to run 15, 18 miles a week. But if I don't push myself for the longer runs, the five to six mile runs still feel the same. They still feel as hard. I'm not making them easier, you know,. They still feel as hard. I'm not making them easier. And I'm not getting anywhere. I'm not going faster on those runs. I just kind of settled into this rut where I just do the same thing. So I have to throw in a nine mile run. I have to throw in an 11 mile run in order just to kind of make my body be like, whoa, like that, like we need the recovery. And then next week the five-mile is super easy.

That's one thing. The other thing that I was thinking about was Mitch Hanegar, who was just talking about this on MLB Network yesterday, where he was coming back, and he's like, in order to be ready, I had to challenge myself as much as possible. I had to feel uncomfortable as much as possible in the offseason. And so he did things like not only do I turn the machine up to 100, but I turned the machine up to 100 and stepped five feet closer. I was like, whoa, dude.

I wouldn't be able to, like, fart that fast. Like, what are you talking about? You're going to be able to hit a 100-mile-an-hour fastball from, like, 55 feet? Right. So I don't know. It's true though it's the only way for these top one percent already to get ahead of everybody else right if you're doing the same thing everybody else is doing it's very simple when you put it like that if you're doing

the same thing everyone else is doing you're gonna get the same results as everybody else this literally applies to everything even beyond exercise yeah like you have to do different things you have to get out of that comfort zone. Your body is just, your body can adapt. Your body is built to adapt. If you're not pushing it to adapt, you're just not going to get better. And in the case of professional baseball, yeah.

There's kind of a mental corollary to this, huh? I mean, I try to, I think about this with regard to, you know, writing and stuff. It's like, should I, I'm not the greatest person at R or SQL, any of this research, you know, the statistics, right? Should I be working on that? Or should I be working on my strengths? You know, should I be, you know, working on like, you know, trying to augment my strengths and just hire a researcher like I've been usually doing to like help me with the research

part. But just by challenging yourself that way even if i don't end up doing the r or doing the analysis myself um i'm pushing my brain to think about things a different way i'm learning uh and i'm and i and i might take something out of that that at least makes a conversation with my researcher better you know like i i can now interact with my researcher better uh because i, like I can now interact with my researcher better because I tried to learn the language or whatever. So, yeah, I think that

it is one of those things that it's really hard to do, but it is also the thing to kind of do to stave off aging in your own life. You know, just try new things, continually try new things. The people that try new things

and continue to try new things age better, I think. So, you know, try to try new things age better, I think. So, you know, try to run two or three miles further. Try to read a book that isn't of the kind that you would normally read, you know. Try to learn a language. I'm plugging away at Duolingo. I don't think I can speak Spanish to a player anytime soon, but I can order the red shirt at the store. Ah! To start?

Oh, Camiseta Roja. Look at Ian. Yeah, the Camiseta Roja. I am inspired. Quisiera la Camiseta Rosa. Let's get to Cedric Mullins for a moment because there's another change that's taking place here. Cedric Mullins for a moment because there's another change that's taking place here. Cedric Mullins was a switch hitter for years coming through the Orioles system.

He has stopped doing that, only hitting from the left side. And I was looking at a piece that was over at Fangraphs that was pretty interesting because the splits for Mullins when he was a switch hitter weren't good. It wasn't working for him. He was good from the left side. He was bad from the right side. He was good from the left side. He was bad from the right side. And the interesting thing about that for me was that when I number scout a player, I'm looking at the overall results, rarely digging into splits, at least at first glance. I'm just going, okay, how was he overall? What was his WRC plus? How much did he strike out? How much did he walk? How much power did he show? Well, that includes a bunch of plate appearances that were just bad because he was trying to do something that's really hard. So I'm curious. We'll start with you, Britt.

What do you make of Cedric Mullins only hitting from the left side? He's hitting.328,.392,.478 this season, entering play on Friday. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. The numbers suggest that he should keep going. Keep going until the numbers suggest that you shouldn't, right? Then you go back to the drawing board. But I think, listen, I think switch hitting is one of the hardest things in any sport. In general,

it's a general consensus that hitting in baseball is the toughest thing to do in pro sports, right? If you succeed three out of 10 times, you have a 300 batting average, you're really freaking good. I have never been able to understand how people can switch it and switch it well at the highest level. So to me, for Cedric Mullins,

taking that away, letting him concentrate on just one thing, one swing, one side of the plate, and also playing the outfield seems to have worked. And he's a guy who for years you heard about in Baltimore is like the next coming, right?

He was the reason they moved Adam Jones out of center field because they had Cedric Mullins. They had to play this guy. And we're still kind of waiting for that, for that guy. We're still kind of waiting for that breakout season. So it is really early, but I like what he's been able to do. And more importantly, I think for a younger player or a guy who has struggled to put together that season guys is I think he's gaining confidence now. I think when you have these switch hitters and it's like, oh, he's better from the left side. Oh, he's better from the right side. Profar is a good example.

You know, we try to turn them around so that he bats from the weaker side. And there's a lot that goes into it mentally for hitters. I think for a guy like Mullins getting out out to that strong start, confidence-wise, helps build on that. And I would totally ignore the other side of the plate for now and just see if I can become Cedric Mullins, the outfielder of the future the Orioles thought I was going to be, and a productive hitter, no matter what side of the plate that is. That's how I feel about Cedric Mullins. that is. That's how I feel about Cedric Mullins. Yeah, and I think it is an interesting thing that I think regression is coming, and he doesn't have the most power, and he doesn't have the best track record of patience. But by having that early batting average lead, I think it will cover

some of that regression. And at the end, I do think he'll do better than his rest of season projections. So I think he can hit at least 275 going forward. And if he can do that, I think he's the best centerfield defender they've got. So I think you've got like a three or four year center fielder there at least, where he's going to hit 275, have like a 325 on base percentage, and hit, you know, seven to 10 homers a year, and just be generally a good player. But I don't necessarily see this as like the beginning of superstardom, because he's 26. It's very likely that we're kind of seeing him in the middle of his peak year, or it's all come together in the right age range for him. See, I'm kind of going to split the difference.

I think we're going to see ups and downs because he hasn't been in the big leagues that long. Like any player who's limited with experience, pitchers opposing teams are going to find holes. He's going to have to correct for them. But not having to do that with two swings speeds up that process. I think he hits the ball hard enough enough even though the barrels haven't been there given that we're talking about a guy who's now focusing only on that one swing there could be

some late bloomer potential here and i think you want to project him and look at him based on his production floor right if you're picking him up in fantasy in a shallow league or trading for him you have to think about the likely outcome. But I think you do get the cherry on top being everything starts to click and he actually unlocks a little extra power. Instead of hitting eight to ten homers. He's in the right park for it, too. Maybe he hits 20 home runs because by the second half of the season, he's unlocked something in his swing and he's barreling up the ball more than ever. That, to me, is at least plausible given what we're dealing with. I also like the fact he's an above-average runner.

He's a 60-grade runner according to Fangraphs, 85th percentile in sprint speed. That's a team that even in that park is still going to have to manufacture some runs. I think he's going to get green lights over the course of the season, too, if he continues to get on base. One thing that's also interesting, I think, in this discussion is are there any other candidates for this? Are there any other candidates for this? And my mind immediately went to Ozzy Alves, who is just a terrifying force against lefties. And even in this poor year for him, he's been league average against lefties,

where he's been way worse against righties. And if you watch him, the things look pretty similar from side to side. But if you watch him, you know, the slings look pretty similar from side to side. But, like, if you talk to switch hitters, they'll tell you, like, I feel like a completely different person from one side or the other. Yeah.

And so I kind of almost like this idea for Albies to just be like, hey, you mash from the right side. That's your better swing. Why don't you just watch some righties from the right side? Why don't we just have a couple at-bats where you're facing righties from the right side and you're using that swing and see if you get into something. Yeah.

I mean, the platoon advantage is worth chasing, but not if it's complicating their lives and keeping them from being better players. Yeah, the late bloomer discussion is interesting to me because people have always said in baseball, like statistics, you know, the advanced analytics can miss those late bloomers, right? Doesn't always account for two things, steroids and late bloomers. And could Cedric Mullins, he is 26. I do feel like I've been, I at least being in Baltimore for a while, have been talking

about him forever. However, he could still have that 26 to 30. He still could have a good few years in him where maybe he's not at his peak yet. I agree with DVR. See, Thor's back as we're talking about the Orioles. Thor's a good boy. Big Orioles fan. Big Cedric Mullins fan.

I'm here for Thor's approval. Yeah, aren't we all? That's all I'm seeking. His tail was, for the YouTube watchers, his tail was wagging behind you. It almost looked like it was your tail. This is a weird moment for me. Well, there's nowhere to go but down here.

So let's talk about Leote Tavares. The question that came in about him was, is Leote Tavares a lost cause? And this question came from Timothy, who also asked about Cedric Mullins. I don't think we could call any player this early in the season a lost cause. And then in any year, regardless of age. But then we start

taking in all the factors with Leote Tavares. The player he was supposed to be initially upon entering the Rangers system, the player that we thought he was a few years after that, and then the player he was when he debuted last year, it's been a roller coaster so far. A lot of highs, a lot of lows. I think he's a good long-term center fielder. He's a good defender. He's going to get chances to play. The worst case scenario, he's a bench outfielder in the long run, but there's still a chance he's a regular center fielder, probably a guy at the bottom third of the lineup, but he's been so young for the level everywhere he's played, guys. He's overmatched right now, and I think had we seen him longer in 2020, we would have seen more of these flaws get exposed a year ago. Only played 65 games at AA before making the leap last season. So I'm not

surprised to see him struggling. I have him on exactly zero teams because it was a speed first profile that had some swing and miss flaws in it. Long-term keeper dynasty leagues, you know, for the Rangers, if you're a Rangers fan, I wouldn't give up on him. I think he's going to take some significant time at AAA, figure out how to hit there, and then come back maybe August of this season and be the regular center fielder for the Rangers again. Yeah, I think he fits into our long-term conversation, DVR, about surprising strikeout rate surges in the major leagues because if you look at the minor leagues, he was always running strikeout rates as low as 10%, 11%, 15%.

It kind of went up as he went up. And then he went from 20.5% in AA to 32% and 45%. So I think that's actually the major key for him because I don't think he's going to be a power hitter. But if you look at Cedric Mullins, you'll see a guy who's striking out 20% of the time in the major leagues. That's actually better than average these days because average is 25%.

Nuts. I didn't really think it would come that fast. So you have to kind of recalibrate now. 20%? Oh, he's a good contact guy. So I feel like if he can figure something out and come back and strike out 20% of the time, then he has a chance. But in terms of is he done this year, I actually think he's going to go down pretty soon.

Because if he hasn't... Is he already? He's barely playing right now, but I think as soon as there are AAA games for him to play in, season starts May 4th, he's going to be there. Adoles Garcia is taking starts from him in center. It wasn't ever supposed to necessarily be Adoles' thing, and maybe it won't work out, but he's very fast.

He's apparently improved his reach rate. So Adoles Garcia is becoming a pickup, I think, in 15-team leagues. I think if he shows this power and he shows a better reach rate, if you look at his game-by-game reach rate, there's a piece by Levi about that just today. If you look at his reach rate, it's improving over time. And that would be a big thing for him because if Adoles Garcia can have some patience,

not strike out as much, he has the raw power, he has the speed, he might end up taking the job from him. But I think if Tavares then shows in minor league games, oh, he's figured something out, he's not striking out as much, Garcia would be better on the court.

Yeah, that definitely makes sense to me. The other thing with Leote Tavares that makes him complicated, he's another switch hitter, right? I mean, that adds to the adjustments that he's going through. So I got to dig into his numbers a bit more. I know looking at MILB, what year is this? What is wrong with this website? Is this the worst website in the entire world? I've got some splits here. He's a lot better against lefties than righties in the minors. I don't know at what levels. So thanks for that. That's super helpful.

Good job. Future research to be done. Well, I think they had a lot of budget cuts. It used to be like an independently operated site from MLB, but now it's under the umbrella from what I understand. Oh, so they fired a bunch of people? So I just think that there's a lot

of stuff. Back in the day, I used to freelance for MILB. There used to be game recaps. I remember following games on my computer and calling minor league coaches at night and stuff when I was trying to break into the business. They don't really do that anymore, so there's been some adjustments.

I think our new Cardinals reporter, Katie Wu, was a minor league reporter for MILB.com. Yes. Yes, she was. So, yeah, it's kind of a – I also think there's just so many players, it's maybe tough for people to keep up on those stats. I don't know. But I agree. It freezes a lot on me. It's tough to find any, like, definitive stats there. It freezes a lot on me. It's tough to find any definitive stats there.

It's weird. His major league splits are better against lefties. Hmm. Yeah. Well, nevertheless, it adds to the difficulty of making the adjustments, right? As a switch hitter doing that for the first time, I think he might actually develop a little more power over time. We saw some last year.

It's not a complete fluke. He's not a small guy. Fast center fielder is my mind immediately. It's like, oh, dude's 5'10", 170 pounds. No, he's 6'2". He's going to probably develop a little more pop as he adds a little more mass. Still young. Yep, still very young. One more question that came in this week, and it was inspired by Andrew Chafin, I believe, who kind of has a Benjamin Button thing going on himself. Looks like a guy you'd see on a 1988 Tops card with his mustache and hair sticking out of his hat. He was wearing a shirt along with the other Cubs relievers

that just says, Failed Starter on it. And it inspired a question from one of our listeners just kind of asking about the different ways that starters and relievers might be separated in some instances and their opportunities to interact with one another at various points during games and around the clubhouse. So I want to throw this to each of you. How separate are starters and relievers at various points throughout the year? It seems like in spring training, they're kind of next to each other working together all the time. But after

that, things might be a little bit different. Yeah, I think bullpens just, you know, being on a couple different beats, they're definitely their own little click, especially if they're pitching well. Because keep in mind, they spend every game together. They're out in the bullpen. They're the only people watching the game with each other day in, day out. You know, in the dugout, there's more movement. Guys are hitting. Guys are coming in from the field. In the bullpen, they just sit there.

And they chat. They chat about the game. They chat about life. I would love to. It's been a long dream of mine. It would never be allowed. Sit in the bullpen for an entire game with them, and just write about what goes on. Obviously, they would never let me near that.

It's a very sacred tradition. Also, it's often fairly obscene. Yes. Also, it's probably not printable. It's not the first bullpen that I've seen had shirts. There's been tons of little groups that- Was it the raised stable thing? Yes.

Well, that was from the Kevin Cash quote of, I've got a whole stable of guys who throw... Was it the raised stable thing? Yes. Well, that was from the Kevin Cash quote of, I've got a whole stable of guys who throw... Who can throw 99 in your head. Yeah. But, you know, I think the Nationals maybe had something one year with the bullpen. The Orioles... I mean, the starters too are their own little clique. There's like these cliques within baseball. The starters

are also their own little clique because there was a team I covered where all the starters, it was good luck, they'd all watch each other's bullpens. So, again, it depends on the team, but by your very nature, relievers are on a weird schedule. They're on a different schedule.

In what other sport is half your team somewhere else watching the game? It's the only sport, right, where it's like that. Where they're... Well, yeah. It's interesting. For a while, it wasn't like that. Well, yeah. It's interesting. For a while, it wasn't like that in San Francisco, right? I think there might be one other place where the bullpens are on the field. They used to be at Wrigley.

They moved them. In Tampa Bay, they're on the field or in the dugout. In Tampa Bay, the visiting, they had these weird folding chairs for a while, and they were on the field in foul ground. The A's. The Tampa Bay, too. They would turn around, and I think I got my sister tickets once to a game over there, and the relievers would turn around and chat in the third, fourth inning to fans.

The one thing that was unique about San Francisco, though, was in Oakland, even though the mounds are on the field, the bullpen sits over there, like you're saying with the folding chairs. They still sit out in a different spot. The thing that was unique about San Francisco was the relievers sat in the dugout. Oh, that is unique. And I tried to talk,

I was trying to develop a story about this at some point. I don't think it ever, I don't think I ever wrote it. But when I talked to people about it, they didn't really have any good stories or they didn't really they were like oh yeah like i was over there you know picking madison's brain about cutter grips like i just think that this you know like the starters are like the cool crowd you know like they're the kings of the roost whatever and uh the relievers like the oddballs you know and i think that a lot of relievers especially if you just got called up you would never go walk over to madison bumgarner and ask him about his cutter grip no you might ask the

guy sitting next to you in the bullpen because you've already heard all his opinions about you know you know whatever you've had you've been talking through games, you know. Yeah, that's true. It's definitely a weird – baseball is just weird in that regard, I guess, because there are – you're right, the starters are the cool group, and most relievers want to be starters. Nobody – it's very rare for someone to come up and just be a reliever their whole career.

Most of them are failed starters, whether it was in the minor leagues or in the big leagues or at whatever level. They are failed starters. And they all, outside of like some of the recent cachet over the last, like, I would say, what, 10, 20 years over closers, maybe getting big money, being a starting pitcher pays. You get the money. You get the fame. You get four days off, basically. You know, like, you have a good start. You're living large for the next couple of days.

What are you doing? You're stretching. You're throwing 30 pitches. They've got great schedules. So every reliever, for the most part, is jealous on some level of starters. They want to be starters. Yeah. And maybe so maybe you could try as a team to like be like, we are all one.

Like that's what every team is trying to do, right? They're all trying to foment this idea that we're all on the same page. Let's all have t-shirts. You can talk to anybody. This is a really cool place and we all love each other. They're trying to do that. But there's the fact of your schedules. I mean, you alluded to this.

There's just the fact of your schedules. Starters throw. They might not even be at the park one of your schedules. I mean, you alluded to this, like there's just the fact of your schedules. Starters throw, they might not even be at the park one of those days, those other days, you know, then there's a rest day. There's a day where they're just like pouring over scouting reports, right? They have a very sort of one, two, three, four, five, you know, uh, relievers kind of just have to get up and be like, what's, what's going on today. Yeah. Oh, I had the day off. I can lift. Okay. I'll go live. You know what I mean? It's like, uh, there's no, uh, there's, there's just a sort of fly by the seat of your pants. And, uh, I've been used two days in a row, like Lucas Sims last night. Uh, you know, he'd been used, uh, two days in a row and, Lucas Sims last night, he'd been used two days in a row.

And I'm sure he thought, I probably won't get used again. I have this injury history. I'm a new reliever. But they needed him three days in a row because they went to extra innings. Didn't work out. That's just the life of a reliever. You have to also just have a short memory. You know, it's almost plays, for starters, it plays to have a long memory.

I talked to Alex Wood once, and I asked him about Yosemite Grandal, and I thought I was asking him about throwing to him as a catcher, and he thought I was asking him about a plate appearance against Yosemite Grandal, and he started listing out different pitches he threw Yosemite Grandal.

And if you remember that, that's when Alex Wood is a Dodger, so he's talking about like three years before he'd faced Yosemite Grandal as a Dodger, as a brave. And he remembered the pitches in the sequence that he threw Yosemite Grandal. And this is not that's I think you talk to some of the greatest pitchers. They can do that. Yeah, you're right.

Like, I remember that, A.B., you know, but a reliever. It's almost better to wake up and be like, what? Something happened yesterday? Nah, I didn't blow the game yesterday. I don't know what you're talking about. Yes. And like,

what I don't think people realize either, and I had to learn, is relievers are on a different food schedule. Stargers have like their pregame meal and they have their traditions and relievers are like, hey, someone's got to pack the backpack full of snacks

because if I'm going into the seventh inning, I'm going to need a Red Bull. I'm going to need a coffee. I might slam some pixie sticks. Like everyone's got their own little thing. And like you don't see Max Scherzer snacking between innings in the dugout, right? So it's a totally different schedule

that guys have to get on, right? Like, hey, we might need you at 1030. That might be the time we need you, you know? We need five minutes. So you're doing the JC Romero, right? You're slamming that Red Bull and you're coming out of that bullpen. And you've got to be ready. You've got to be like jittery adrenaline on edge.

It's got to be such a tough life, man. You slam a couple Red Bulls. You go in high effort. Every part of your body is just like, ah! And you do it for like five minutes. And then it's like 1030 at night. And your body's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're like, well, I'm done.

Yeah, I got to go to sleep now. And your body's like, go, go, go, go. Yeah, it's like, okay, can I go to sleep soon? And your body's like, no! Rage! Well, yeah, and on top of all the caffeine, you probably ran out to five-finger death punch or something. So that brought you up another level too.

All the things that get you fired up, it's like building your own personal Vegas for five minutes and just indulging in everything that makes you go completely bananas and then going out there and throwing 95. It'd be fun. And a future question, if you were closer, what would be your entrance music? We'll give you guys a week to think about that one because you don't want to screw that up. You don't want to

go with the five finger death punch in that case you want to do a little better I think if you can no disrespect to that band. I don't want to start a beef with them. And I think there's actually a difference between that and batting walk up music because for a long time my answer would have been rat-a-tat I think there's a wildcat or loud pipes.

There's a really cool entry and like entry music. But I think that works better for batting because it's actually a little bit mellow. And so, you know, you might hear it a lot, right? Yeah. And so you get like three or four plate appearances. You don't want to pick a song that's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Yeah. You go, first pitch happens, yeah. Yeah, right. And it's also my fourth plate appearance of the night. Okay, okay, I got it. That's why it's kind of funny that What's-His-Face, yeah, 0 for 3, and it's like, 0 for 3, but amp it up.

That's why I thought it was so funny when What's-His-Face did Careless Whisper, because it's like, no, I just kind of want to reset. I just kind of want to reset. I just kind of want to step to the plate and kind of reset and be in a good spot. So Careless Whisper was as good as anything. But I think Relieving, I would

want something super high energy. I want to do that. Who is it that ran? Was it Broxton? It was a bunch of dudes. Todd Coffey used to do it. Yeah. I want to run. I want to run out of that gate. And I want it to just be like... So it's going to be a different answer than Ratatat, for sure.

It's going to be something loud out of the pen. I agree. The chill walk-up music as a hitter is very different than Fernando Rodney walking out to live the night, I think it's called. It's Lil Jon and Hardwell. It's just loud. It's loud. It's a club banger. It's going to get you moving. With our talk about relievers versus starters, most of the time, the starter music, there

is a starter warm-up music, right? Most of the time, it's actually pretty mellow, right? For the most part. You could write your own and rap your own. Max Scherzer's Dr. Dre, though. Oh, cool. But yes, you're right. Cool.

But I've seen a lot of Bumgarner, right? And Bumgarner does this, it's like Fire on the Mountain, but it's not the dead version. It's like a country version. Of course. And it's just... Sounds about right.'s like a country version. Of course. Sounds about right. He's a secret cowboy. That totally fits.

Yeah. But I think as a starter, you kind of want to just be like, yeah, man, I'm chill. I'm good. I'm ready for five innings. I got it. Yeah. Now I'm going to write a song called Secret Cowboy and try to get Madison Bumgarner to use it.

It could be done. Last topic for today. I'm convinced that replay on stolen bases needs to be modified, and this is a common play. People see it all the time. They complain about it all the time. I don't know why it bothered me so much last night,

but Chris Bryant was thrown out on a stolen base attempt, and it was the classic. He beat the throw. He got to the bag, and as his body slid over the bag he didn't even really go past it but his his arms were just over past it and his legs hadn't his knees back knee hadn't got to the bag yet and the tag was held on him the entire time he was called out on the field. He remained out on review. That, to me, is just a classic application where they're

applying the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the law, the rule in this case, where that's a stolen base. And pre- replay, I think the call on the field would have been safe more often. The reason being, umps want to get the call right. Umps don't want to have the

red checkmark next to the call, having it be overturned, right? don't want to have the the red check mark next to the call having it be overturned right so they have to call it the way replay is going to see it but 10 years ago the call on a play like that is safe more often than not and it should be you should be safe in that situation so am i taking crazy pills or am i right to be upset about what we're seeing uh i think you're right. I wonder, does the bigger bases that are coming, that are being tested in the Atlantic League, does that fix this, make it better? It certainly helps stolen,

like they want to have more stolen bases. So you're right, you've got to fix it. Otherwise, you're not going to incentivize guys to steal bases when you're going to get calls like this. So I agree with you, DBR. I saw your tweet, and you're not usually one to throw shade. So I agree with you, DBR. I saw your tweet and you're not usually one to throw shade on Twitter, but you tweeted about this too. And you're right. They have to get those calls. I also think after a minute of replay, if you can't make a definitive

call, then like just let it stand on the field. I'm tired of waiting five minutes, five plus minutes in a sport that's already got a lot of dead time, then we've talked about that. Like replay should make the game better. If it's not making the game better, then we need to sit back and say like, what was the point? What are we really doing? Like an obvious.

Yeah. It's for obvious cause. It's for obviously getting it wrong. Right. So it's not really that amazing to watch the same thing over and over again for three minutes and be like, oh, is it? Oh, I think it's like watch it for a minute if you were obviously wrong or obviously right then get it right and then move on because even because we've seen also some plays like that crazy play

at home um with uh alec bohm yeah where they looked at it for three minutes and everyone is pretty sure they got it wrong yeah right so it's like you congratulations you just took four minutes of our life we're still having the same argument we would have had if you hadn't done the replay yeah it's almost worse they looked at it and determined like you know what i mean rather than if they hadn't like ignorance is bliss right like oh bang bang they missed it no you had time yeah but the that's an argument i guess against replaying i do like your idea of maybe just cut it off in a minute and if it's obvious then you do and then if not bam we move on i like that idea the other idea that i like is um uh the one you're describing with brian it's

not what i expected uh what i think of the play at second that i don't like is a pop-up where they are above the base, but there's a millimeter of space between their foot for a second. It's not even really possible to see with their naked eye, but they keep the tag on them, and then they review it, and they're like, oh, yeah, when you popped up. And people say, the devil's at me. They say, you're taught a pop-up slide through all of minor leagues, little leagues. Everyone should be able to do a pop-up slide. Yes.

My point is that on a lot of those pop-up slides, you think you're doing amazingly? If we put a camera on it, you left the bag for a little millimeter, right? And so it's not in the spirit of the pop-up slide. It's not in the spirit of the game.up slide. It's not in the spirit of the game. It's like the technology has gone too far. Like if you leave the bag for a millimeter, I don't think you should be out. So I think one thing I've heard is like

that the space above the bag is like it extends above the bag. It should at least once you've reached the bag. You shouldn't be able to be safe because you had your hand above the bag before touching it, but if you've reached the bag you shouldn't be able to be safe because you had your hand above the bag before touching it but if you've touched the base and then your body is then above it you're good

yeah like you've sort of come to an island like you've made the place you know welcome to second base island like over sliding the bag should be pretty obvious. It shouldn't be like, oh, yep, he was off by a millimeter. Actually,

that was my idea about the space above. I like Britt's idea better, actually. I think because if it was a minute, all those millimeter stuff, you might not be able to do it in a minute. You'd just be like, whatever the call on the field was, stance. Because we can't. I'd have to replay it in a minute. So you just be like, you know, whatever the call on the field was stance,

because we can't, I have to replay it a bunch of times and try to find that one millimeter. So yeah. And inconclusive by time. Yeah. And everyone's like, well, it's a big play in the game.

Well, how many balls and strikes get missed every night that are also big plays in the game that changed the very effect and change the outcome. So like, I get out of here with this millimeter stuff. We're not getting those right by the millimeter. Yeah, exactly. So, like, get out of here with that.

Yeah. Hey, nothing's perfect, but I think we can make an adjustment here, and it's going to make the game a lot better. We have to go. Thor is dozing comfortably, I think, over Brit's shoulder, so I'm glad we did a good job getting his late morning nap in.

Doing good work here. If you want to see Thor, check us out on YouTube. Hit the like button on the video. Hit the subscribe button to get all the shows on YouTube. If you're watching us on YouTube, be sure to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, any of those places where you can listen to a podcast. We're more portable

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Rankings check out everything else on the site 399 a month to start the athletic.com Slash rates and barrels That is going to wrapathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening.