Rates & Barrels - Searching for Buy-Low Bats, Banking on a Pablo López Bounce Back & Weekend Waiver Preview

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

Eno and DVR search for buy-low bats and discussing the struggles of Austin Riley, Julio Rodríguez, and Dansby Swanson -- plus a group of hitters that may look like buy-low targets on the surface, but could underwhelm the rest of the way. Plus, they answer a few mailbag questions, and look ahead at potential pickups on the waiver wire this weekend. Rundown 1:58 Austin Riley is Going to Be OK...Right? 6:18 Julio Rodríguez & Dansby Swanson 10:53 The 'Don't Buy' Lows 17:32 Corbin Carroll v. CJ Abrams in the Past Calendar Year 23:26 Is MJ Melendez the Opposite of Isaac Paredes? 30:09 What's Going on with Pablo López? 34:25 FanGraphs Custom Leaderboards as Watchlists 37:15 Should the Dodgers Target a Shortstop Instead of an Outfielder 44:51 Weekend Waiver Preview 55:14 First Impressions of Drew Thorpe Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello guys, I'm Ioan Kimmolere, host of the Athletic FC podcast and I'm here to tell you about a mouth-watering summer of international football. The Copa America and European Championships kick off in mid-June and we're going to be covering both tournaments every step of the way. With the World Cup in the US just two years away, the Copa America is the US men's national teams chance to prove they can really compete with heavyweights like Brazil and Argentina, while England will be hoping to go one better than their agonising Euros final defeat last time out. So join me and the Athletics' unrivaled team of football reporters Monday to Friday as

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Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Thursday, June 13th, Derek Van Riper, you know, Sarah's here with you on this episode. We dig into a recent piece that Eno wrote for the Athletic looking at a few buy low targets, guys you might want to be trading for on the hitting side in particular. We've also got a few fool's gold buy lows, the don't bylaws as we're calling them, that we'll give you some warnings about. We're gonna take a look at a few mailbag questions, including one about Pablo Lopez and his underperformance up to this point in the season,

and as we do each and every Thursday, we'll take a look ahead to a few interesting names that you might be considering as pickups for the weekend waiver preview. You know, how's it going for you on this Thursday? It's good. I'm finally on the other side of that illness. Took the kids to the Dutch goose and played some pool and they hit some nice shots.

I had to beat them in the end, of course. Yeah, they're at the age now where I think you you just have to play it out, right? You can't literally let kids at that age win. No, no, especially not the nine year old, because he's insufferable about losing. So I have to teach him how to lose or else it's just going to keep doing this. Yeah. I'll be flipping tables over and just doing stuff forever. So, yeah, we played cutthroat where it's the three of you. And he was OK with it getting down to me versus him for the last ball.

So just not being in last is that's a step in the right direction. Yeah. Learning how to accept losing. Being his brother at least. Yes, there's one win built in there. If you're looking for a small win for yourself, join our Discord. The link is in the show description. Lots of lively chatter going on in there. It's a good place to send mailbag questions because it's easy for us to track them in there. But you know, let's start getting into your hitters to target via trade. And you know, you had a bigger

leaderboard at the top of the piece. You kind of focused on five particular players that you really like. I think the rubric you used for this made a lot of sense. You were looking for players with below league average results so far, but good swing decisions, looking at swing percentage outside the zone and subtracting chases, swings from outside the zone. Looking at the guys who were lifting the ball with hard contact, so barrels, and of course, the guys that were hitting everything hard,

just hard hit rates. So good rubric overall here to focus on as you're looking for the players to go after. And I think the name that most people are frustrated with right now that made this piece, it was an early round pick, looked like a high floor guy, and he was probably one of the least discussed early round picks of anybody going into the top 30 this year, it's Austin Reilly. And we've talked about him as a guy that had a lengthy absence where he didn't go on the IL so that added to the frustration where it looked like he was day to day and clearly he needed more time than the Braves realized initially

He's sitting for the season now with a 225 295 338 line and Three homers through 52 games This is a guy that's popped more than 30 homers each of the last three seasons and he's done it with excellent run production as a key Producer in the Atlanta lineup. So what kind of bounce back are we expecting? Is it a full bounce back is even just 90% of what we're used to from Riley? I'm curious what you see in in like the next three and a half months from him because he's one of the bigger underperformers from the early round so far. Yeah, I mean, the difference between his career pull rate and his current one is, you know,

41 and 38. 38 is his current one. So I think Austin Riley is just searching for that contact point and just a really, we're talking half inches, inches, you know, at most. Like he's just an inch off, I feel like. In terms of hitting the ball hard, yeah, he's had other seasons like he's he's just an inch off I feel like in terms of hitting the ball hard yeah he's had other seasons where he's hit the ball harder I guess you know he's had the for the last three years he's been clear of 114 and this year is 113.5 but 113.5 is still hitting the ball damn

hard and yeah his barrel rates been over 13% for the last three years and it's 10.7 right now I think that's the kind of thing where it just irons itself out So I think going forward you could expect him to hit 275 with like, you know 30 homer pace so he won't end up with 30 homers. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it might end up with 20 if everything goes really well Yeah, and I don't really know why he goes out. And I don't really know, you know, like what this means for his future.

Although I will say he's an incredibly streaky guy for not having the worst K rate. He's not, you know, doesn't have the Gallo or Adele type K rate, but he does kind of have a little bit of their streakiness. And I think, you know, while he's still sub under 30 years old, you can expect that Austin Riley will just have these white hot months and he'll get to 25 homers at least use most years. I think, I kind of think he'll still get there this year, even though we the bad X and ATC, the most bullish on them and say he'll get to 24. If he gets 25 homers, he'll get to those numbers eventually.

It's just like he's going to give you a month every year or two months every year where you're like, does he know how to hit? I don't think that that goes away until he's 31, 32, 33, where like sometime in there, he just can't get it back going again, you know? But I don't think he's there yet Yeah, so much still looks like it's in line with the good versions of Riley That's why I think it's so easy to kind of talk yourself into him as someone you'd go after you're trying to find that power boost trying to make some make up some ground and runs and RBI's and do it with someone that might even help you in batting Average along the way Austin Riley ticks all those boxes. And I think, you know, you wrote about

Julio Rodriguez as well. I think it's easier to convince someone to trade a player like Riley than it is to trade Rodriguez. Even though they're both great players, they're both early round picks. I think there's always the FOMO when it's more of a five category contribution, right? You expected 30-30 production from Julio Rodriguez.

And you also expected the possibility at least of another step forward somewhere, whether that was more bags because he was on base more often, one more notch of power because he hits the ball so hard so consistently or better swing decisions, maybe bumping up the slash line as a whole. Like any one of those things or a combination of those things seemed possible at the beginning of the season. It's not quite as grim as the start has been for Riley because Julio Rodriguez is 16 for 20 as a base dealer, has popped the five homers.

He's not hurting you an average hitting 268. It's just not what you expected for someone who was consistently going in the top five in redraft leagues. Yeah, I think with Julio Rodriguez, like, it's another thing where, you know, why is he so streaky? And I just tend to think that it, it takes him a second to figure out how to attack the most recent book on him. And this year, what we're seeing is a lot more fastballs lowing in. And I think that they're filling them up with both four seamers and two seamers low and in and so he ends up kind of pulling those on the ground or slicing them to the opposite field in a kind of a harmless way. I can't think that he won't get out of that. You know, he's just he was so blinding hot though.

Second halves of both of the last years. I don't know why it seems like he's a second half player, but that's another thing I wouldn't bet on happening going forward either. That's just hasn't been proven to be predictive in any way, like how you do in the first half or the second half. Mark Teixeira aside. There's always an exception. Yeah, there's always one guy who just keeps that going

his whole career. But Julio Rodriguez still a 50% hard hit rate, a 114 max EV and an 8% barrel rate. Like when he makes contact, the contact is usually powerful if not exactly where he wants to do it. 42% pull percentage the last two years for Julio Rodriguez, 34 right now. This is really the common thread among all the guys that I profiled was they're hitting the ball hard, but their contact point, as evidenced by their pull rate, is out of whack.

And the one you could see it the most on was Dainsby Swanson, who is pulling balls down the heart of the plate, pulling fast balls that are middle middle on the ground. And those are the balls you're supposed to hit hard. And in fact, a lot of those, you're supposed to maybe even go the opposite way so that when you catch a slider there,

you pull it and you pull it for power. That's at least a philosophy of a lot of people. So if he's pulling the fastball there, he's out in front. He's got a pull rate, Dancy Swanson does, that's not in line with anything he's ever done before. And what we saw over the weekend was a little bit of more center-center, power alley to power alley instead of down the line, a little bit of the, maybe of the softening of that pull percentage. He is playing around with that contact point. And I fully expect him actually to have a stretch where he hits 275 and, you know, hits you eight homers over, you know, two months.

And then all of a sudden he's right in line to finish the season with, you know, like a 250 batting average and 20 plus homers and, you know, close to 10 steals. And that's what you wanted him for in the first place. Yeah I mean kind of one of those metronome players as we call him where he helps you in pretty much every category maybe he's a little bit of a mediocre contributor in the batting average department that seems to be the low end of his categorical contributions

but because he plays every day because the lineup is at least kind of an average sort of lineup too he's a good source of all the counting stats as well. So I think Danesby Swanson makes a ton of sense as a good player to target, because the floor is so high and a lot of those other aspects we care about are going where they normally do.

The swing decisions are generally good, right? That pull rate is not accompanied by chasing stuff outside the zone. If you see something like that, then you might be a little more reluctant to target somebody as an actual by-low. I think you had this other board that we should put up here. It's the don't by-lows and I'm curious what your rubric was here.

What's the difference? Like what's, what's the concern? The rubric, it was really powerful. I was kind of surprised by it. On the other side for the bylaws, when I just looked at people that made good swing decisions, barreled the ball and hard hit the ball and were below league average last year, every single one of them improved in the second half. And the average WRC plus went from 85 to 125. So I felt like it was a really strong rubric. I thought, well, why

don't we turn it around the other way and look at people who are below average with a stick right now and making poor swing decisions, not hitting the ball in the air hard in barrel rate and not hitting the ball hard in general. You'll see some green on this, but the green is relative. So all the people on this list do not make good to swing decisions, have not hit the barrel and have not hard hit. So if there's green on there, it's just relative to the rest. I think it's still useful to have that coloring because Nolan Aronado is red across the board. The only thing that he's doing right now is making contact.

And I know he's pretty close to league average average but I think he's not anywhere close to where he used to be. He never was a great barrel-er but I continue to think that Nolan Aronato is a poor by-low. I will see if you know I've seen some percolation. I feel pretty confident in that call. The hardest one, the one that hurts me the most in my heart is Evan Carter being on here. I was a big fan of Evan Carter going into the season. The quality of the contact for him is closer in green, meaning he's below average, but he's not as below average as a lot of guys on this list. He makes the best swing decisions on this list, just a little bit too passive to be above average. He has a 5.9%

barrel rate. That's bad, but it's not as bad as it gets on this list and he has a 32% hard hit rate, you know, around 39% as the average. Obviously the quality contacts there are the 26.5% strikeout rate for Evan Carter is not good. I can't really hold on to any one thing that says he's going to be good, except that he still has that good eye. They're still playing him. He still has an interesting skill set. I think he's an okay bylo in keeper leagues, even if he's not an okay bylo in redraft leagues. So yeah, I think the tricky thing about this particular board is the younger players on the list. Carter is if not the youngest he's near that distinction of this group. It's very hard to look at players who are in the early days of their career

the first half season of their career at least by total played appearances and to say well I'm out on this guy because it's not working right away. It's like well no this is there's a growth here that there's, like this is the foundation and then where do we go from here? I mean, on the Wednesday show, Keith Lodge, I mean, we're talking about Colt Keith and I think we saw some of that month to month improvement from Colt Keith from April to May

and he's kind of slumping again in June. But one of the things I put out there yesterday was maybe we just had to be a lot more patient because of the quality of pitching around the league being generally higher and some other challenges in the run environment. We're gonna explore a few of those, I think on Friday as well.

Like there's more going on here than we've previously thought as far as things that are working against hitters right now. And I think- That's true. Our patience has to be more in line at least with the organization's patients I think the Rangers look at Evan Carter when healthy and say we need him to figure this out when he comes back we need him to be a part of our lineup because the

next option up isn't necessarily better and Evan Carter such an important part of their long term future. Yeah just on that first point about you, what the challenges hitters face today, young hitters. You know, I just had a tweet yesterday. There are four starting pitchers in AAA that have not played in the big leagues yet that have above average stuff and above average locations. Those four starters are David Festa, Shane Baws, Will Warren and Andrew Bash. Four.

And one of those had pitched in the big leagues previously before he got hurt. He hasn't pitched in the big leagues this year. So, I mean, like even that, it's like it's kind of a rehab. Extended rehab. He's kind of on his way up, too. So really, there are three guys and Will Warren had a one on one location and one on one stuff. So it's like, okay, like, yeah, you know, that's like standout. And so if you are a hitter in AAA right now, you're not seeing the best of the best. Like you're not seeing the best prospects. And so, so we brought this up in the context of

the Cubs that we've seen some of the Cubs hitting prospects hit really well on their way up and then and struggled the big leagues and I think that's part of the story what we see with Colt Keith this year is that it started out pretty poorly and in fact he looks okay on this because zone minus zone minus chase is the average is 39 and Colt Key says a 35. The average bail rate is around 8 and he's got a 6.8. The average hard hit is 39.

He's got a 35.8. So in fact, you know, him being so close to all those things and having a good K percentage, it's not even a buy low. It's just like a, it's easy to buy for me because I think he'll be better in the second half and then better going forward. The only thing that I would say is I'm not sure what his ceiling looks like and that he may not be a 10 or 12 team player. But you know, like guys like Carter, Beatty, Corbin Carroll is on this list.

Sedan Rafaela, Colt Keith, Gabriel Moreno. I still consider them guys that I would be attracted to in keeper leagues even if I don't want to buy them this year. I was a little surprised to see Corbin Carroll on here, but we know the quality of the contact hasn't been there. I kind of assume it'll come back at some point, but him being on this list is a little bit eye opening for me because he could just struggle all year this year and just have a really bad year and still have a good career. Sometimes people take a whole year to get it back again.

Yeah, Corbin Carroll right now, if you look at a past calendar year, leaderboard has hit 14 homers and stolen 46 bases in his last calendar year. It's one hundred and fifty eight games, one hundred and two runs scored, sixty three RBI's sub twenty percent K rate during that span. But it is only a two4-321-391 line. Much better for fantasy purposes than for real life purposes. It's like league average, even a tick below. Similar players, at least in terms of power and slash line that are in this range. I guess Danzby Swanson kind of fits a little more power, a lot less speed But 231 305 406 and like it's not

Corbett Carroll hasn't cratered to the point where he is without value He's just at a really difficult spot for us to decide like do we think he's Clear by low or is he hiding an injury or playing through something like those questions are still unanswered There's still things we just can't quite figure out with him. I mean, it looked like he's healthy, but I think there is an open question. I think even with the barrel and maxi bees that he's showed so far, he could still be like a 15 to 18 Homer hitter in a good true talent season. Do you know what I mean? So if he is that,

and he's kind of even slowed down a little bit with the with the legs, you know So if he's already slowing down with the legs and you know true talent next year You're kind of projecting him for 14 homers and 25 steals and a 250 average That puts him in a in a different class than he's been in You know, it's pretty interesting is on the same pass calendar your leaderboard CJ Abrams has 23 home runs to Corbin Carroll's 14. He has 51 steals to Carroll's 46. A similar strikeout rate 19.1%. Carroll walks more, but CJ Abrams has been better.

He's been about 5% better than league average over the past calendar year. And I realize these are kind of arbitrary endpoints is diving back in. But I think that rolling one year leaderboard gives us maybe a more complete snapshot of how things are going in the long run as opposed to how things have been going for the first two and a half months. And also makes me pine for some bad metrics that we don't have in terms of that shape. I mean, we, you know, Corbin Carroll talking about, you know, getting too flat and what that has done for him and his power. and then just thinking the way the way that CJ

Abrams swings There's got to be different swing shapes that are just more ready for power You know more suited for power Maybe we maybe if we knew a little bit more about their swing shapes We would know what they're doing going forward least compasano being on this list doesn't bother me so much because he's a catcher and he has a 13% strikeout rate. And if I own Luis Camposano, it is because he's a catcher and he has a 13% strikeout rate. Plays a lot, yeah, catcher two

in a two catcher league works out fine. I thought there might be one more level there. Maybe he'll get there someday, but it doesn't necessarily look like it's happening right now. If you're a veteran on this list, then I'm really worried about you. I mean, Anthony Rizzo, I don't think that there is something to point to. And in fact, somebody asked me about a hitter named Bo Rice or Ben Rice. Ben Rice? Ben Rice is a 25 year old triple A hitter for the Yankees that's, you know, 35 future value by the prospectors.

But given that they're probably saying because his field is 30-30 and he used to be a catcher, they're saying he's not a catcher. He's a first baseman, so he has a big bar to overcome. Well, right now he's got a 258 WRC plus in AAA coming off a 152 in AA He just got promoted and there's more talk now that he is the eventual replacement for Rizzo Got a double-digit walk rate not bad strikeout rates swing strike rates 62 percent hard hit rate right now in AAA I guess Ben Rice could be knocking on the door I like it seems like something that I wouldn't think the Yankees would do is like DFA Anthony

Rizzo when the offense is going that well and he's a credible veteran. But he's on this list of not really doing anything well other than not striking out. And he's got a 78 WRC plus. Some projections have him as low as a 105 WRC plus and that would be kind of league average-ish. I don't know. Think of that name Ben Rice as a 25 year old first baseman, you know, Fangrass and a lot of other prospect lists are not going to like him. But it is still the type of player that might come into New York and just take full advantage of the short porch Yeah, I think that's a great kind of prospect of the week just thrown in there in passing I don't know if they'll make that change

It is the final year the two-year deal that Rizzo signed and they do have a club option on him But you do the same one year leaderboard trick and we know Anthony Rizzo suffered that concussion last season in May Tried to play through it for a little while. He hasn't been the same player since then. He's got eight homers in his last 104 games, 214, 287, 309, it's a 73 WRC plus of players with 300 or more played appearances in the last calendar year. That ranks 262nd out of 279. So unfortunately it just looks like it's a health related decline with Rizzo and you know, whether it's going to Ben Rice or trading for another first base option, it seems like a spot the Yankees will try and upgrade at some point in the next six or seven weeks

given the ongoing struggles of Rizzo. Hello guys, I'm Ioan Kimmolere, host of the Athletic FC podcast, and I'm here to tell you about a mouth-watering summer of international football. The Copa America and European Championships kick off in mid-June, and we're going to be covering both tournaments every step of the way. With the World Cup in the US just two years away, the Copa America is the US men's national team's chance to prove they can really compete with heavyweights like Brazil and Argentina, while England will be hoping to go one better

than their agonising Euros final defeat last time out. So join me and the Athletics unrivaled team of football reporters Monday to Friday as we take you inside the biggest stories from the tournaments with more than a sprinkle of transfer talk on top as well, just search the Athletic FC podcast wherever you get your podcast from. I had a question for you about MJ Melendez again. I think we've maybe kicked this idea around before, but he continues to pop. You didn't write about him, which I think was a good choice.

I think leaving him out of the five players he featured in the article, even though he was on the leaderboard, even though he met the criteria, because we've seen this before. It just reminds me of that line in Moneyball, if he's a good hitter, why doesn't he hit better? There's something is wrong, and it just made me think, is this the opposite of ESOCK Parades, where projections keep telling us one thing and performance keeps lagging underneath that and you know just as you could have something you do that the projections don't capture That's good like parade ace with the the pulled fly ball extreme tendencies that lead him to more power Maybe there's something going on with MJ Melendez that I don't know continues to

on with MJ Melendez that I don't know continues to drive his average on balls and play down. He was at 311 last year and still only hit 235. And for his career he's a 269 badbip guy and a 216 hitter. It really seems like MJ Melendez should get so much more out of his approach and his batted ball quality that he does, even though I don't have the exact answer for why it's not working, I'm starting to think he fits into this group of projection say's good, but we've seen enough to know that he's not quite as good as the projection say,

and because of where he falls in the player pool, he's actually been much more dropable or less rosterable than we've thought for the better part of the last year, even though we've kept looking at him as someone we should hold onto. I've been holding onto him some of my 15 teamers just as like a reserve outfielder that I can I can put in there when I need to. And even that seems like a stretch these days. I've been watching some of his at-pats and honestly he just looks a little lost out there.

It seems like A swings when he should be doing B swings and just not a great sense of the zone even though his chase rates not big. I don't know. It's such so hard to put my finger on. There's like the reactionary crowd that's just like, no, he just sucks. No, no, he does some things well. It just not doesn't it doesn't click. It's the the some of the parts are somehow worse than the individual parts.

It is. It's really, really weird for his career at 26% strikeout rate for MJ and Melendez 11% walk rate 11% barrel rate and a max of you at 113 like if you just put those numbers together for a different player I think you would have better than a 216 average and a 386 luck is a hitter is a hitter only Is it like a Dalton Varsho profile? We keep looking for more and not getting more and he is a very is a hitter is a hitter only is it like a Dalton Varsho profile we keep looking for more and not getting more and he is a very extreme pull hitter and I can't tell him not to pull

Because you know with those batted ball Exit VLOS on some level you're like yeah, you should be a power hitter But you look at a spray chart and it's it's really pull so I wonder if there's also a little bit of like trying to be a power hitter in a park that's not really going to help you. Could be some of it. Yeah. And then on top of that, when you have a 47 percent pull rate, I think you're very pretty obvious in terms of what you want. You want on the inner half, you know, and so what I've seen are at bats where pitchers are like pitching him in off of the inner half so that he just pounds it in the ground foul or or you know pulls it in the ground and then getting him like soft away where he's just

Right over the top of it Something about his approach right now is too too obvious I bet you that's what it is the thing that parade is does in it flips what Paredes does on its on its back, right? What does Paredes do that is so cool is he has like three different padded ball speeds and he kind of he picks his spots and he he seems actually kind of hard to pitch to. Surprisingly hard to pitch to given that he doesn't hit the ball 115 miles an hour, you know? And I think millennials might be the opposite of that where it's like very obvious what he wants to do. And you can just, you can figure out how to pitch to him.

You can avoid the worst possible damage because he's too predictable in his intent even though he understands ball strike really well. Has the eye, but doesn't necessarily have a malleable plan. I guess that would be the way you try to articulate it a little bit. But yeah, it's weird because he keeps coming up on lists and different things as someone who's doing a lot of things right and every time we check in, it's still just more of

the same or in this case, a little worse. The defense is also not very good and I lied a little bit when I said that the rubric that I came up with was undefeated. The asterisk is that two of the players that were in my field from last year didn't play in second half. So everybody that played improved. And one of the people that didn't play in second half was Edward Oliverus. And Oliverus got a lot of crap or the Royals got a lot of crap from people in our sphere about not just playing Edward Oliverus, free Edward Oliverus.

Why are you, why is he up and down and up and down again? And like part of the story is kind of a little bit similar to all the various to Melendez which was not great defense and We're just not sure the offense is good enough to float that not great defense The closer Melendez comes to being classified in that boat the closer he gets to being sent down The good news from Melendez the defense has become a little bit better I think he's like a minus one by outs above average arms pretty good of being sent down. The good news from Melendez, the defense has become a little bit better. I think he's like a minus one by outs above average,

his arm's pretty good. So that helps. I think he's got, I don't remember, I saw the full leader board, but I think he's got quite a few outfield assists. I think there's a reputation maybe that you can take extra bases on him. That always creates an opportunity

to kind of counteract that and say, nope, you can't, I'm gonna take advantage of you running on me and pad my stats that way. So at least there's some improvement defensively. Yeah, he should have an arm former catcher. Yeah. But how 51 WRC plus walking less, just not doing it consistently. It's been been pretty maddening because I had a few deeper leagues. I thought it was going to fall into place for M.J.

Melendez. Let's get to some mailbag questions. First one comes in our discord from Slam the Flap that is a reference to a Mitch Hedberg joke from probably 20 or so years ago but I got it and I love it. Slam the Flap wants to know what's happening with Pablo Lopez. I don't think anything really is out of order. You know, when you look across his line, the big deal, the big difference is just a few homers that he hasn't given up in the past.

And that's the biggest source of noise, just from a traditional standpoint. In picture metrics is short-term, you know, power eruptions. You know, it's just not, it's not predictive in any way. Home runs per nine does not become predictive until you're like 80% of the way through the season. That's the big thing that I see. I don't think it's, I don't think there's much else going on.

You know, Stuff Plus says that maybe the change up isn't as good as the past, but you know, given Stuff Plus ratings with change ups, I'm willing to consider that a wash and that he still has his good slider still has a pretty good curve ball. I think the change up is probably still plus and both his fastballs rate as average or above. So I don't really see a problem here. Yeah, I wonder if there was maybe a stretch where he was tipping pitches or something else was going on because every-

He's being predictable in his pitch mix decisions. Yeah, and it's weird because he's got five and he's using the same mix as last year. If you look at the distribution and you toggle from 23 to 24, it barely moves. It's almost identical in terms of usage, velocity, all of it, it just, just looks like more of the same. Could easily shave a run and a half, two runs off his ERA between now and the end of the

season and it would not be surprising. Five years in a row now, counting this season, Pablo Lopez has had a Sierra under four. And this is actually the best Sierra he's ever posted with an ERA that's as bad as it's ever been. So I think as far as your higher end pitchers that you'd possibly trade for, if we're kind of looking for some guys that fit into that description,

Lopez might be a little more gettable. Maybe whoever has Lopez in your league found enough other pitching elsewhere that they're willing to part with Lopez and get a nice hitter back in return. I would have no reservations about trading for him if I was trying to add pitching right now. I would like to see him maybe go back

to using the sinker more against righties. The one thing that you can see is that he had like a bit of a peak of sinker usage in early May that he's kind of fallen off of since. I think the sinker is a good pitch for him against Ryany's. And so I'd like to see him return to using that. When he did use those against New York and Seattle in early May, he was pretty close to like a 25, 25,

25, 25 guy in terms of, you don't really know what's coming. I got four pitches. I don't want that, I want that so bad. Yeah. And I think that could be good for him. And I know it's a little bit different lefty variety. But even then, what you end up being is kind of a 30, 30, 30 guy against lefties, against righties. It's just a slightly different mix.

I mean, I want to cut the pizza into six slices if I can. Like, give me 16, 16,, and then 16, 16, 16. Like I really, I'm pure sicko. You want yourself a Chris Bassett is what you want. Well, because I could see if I had the chops to, anything close to the chops to be a pitcher, I think that's the type of pitcher I would have become. Because I never would have had overpowering stuff.

I never could have been a Paul Skeens. Maybe I could have been a Chris Bassett. So that's why I just want that. It's like, well, it's more attainable. You could work really, really hard and maybe become a Bassett. I think you need a little bit of good fortune, a little bit of positive genes to also you need that to be Bassett, too. But you need even more to be Paul Skeens.

Yeah. Peter wants to know, how do you track players you're watching on fan graphs? Custom leaderboards, watch list tools, like what's your way of functioning within that universe for tracking players? I do use it that way sometimes. I'll create a custom leaderboard of players, use the dashboard stats.

I do like to have my own dashboard. We've talked about some of the things we like to have on there. I think mine right now for pitching is inning, ZRA whip, it's all the roto categories, right? Like that's that in the first block. And then I got Sierra, strike out and walk right, swing strike.

I like zone contact just to see if that changes a lot from year to year. You're getting hit more in the zone, getting hit less in the zone. I think that's kind of important. CSW's on there, hard hit percentage. I do have home run rate on there, looking again for year-to-year volatility. And then batted ball distribution, you know, fly ball, line drive, ground ball. I'd just like to see that stuff and see how it's relating to everything else that's going on.

So I do like the custom leaderboards. I think you do have to pay, have a membership for FanGraphs to put more than ten players on there, if I'm not mistaken. I thought I saw someone mention that in Discord, but it's worth every penny. I think I'm on the site half the day every day anyway. So it's an invaluable tool for me. But I think a lot of people could find ways to to make it work well. And in terms of like watch this players, my big problem is that watching everybody. Yeah, I think I've tried to use it in the past for

Deeper leagues that I play in I just use it as an easier way to save a dozen players that I'm gonna look at Again in a month to see how they're performing right now. I don't open up 12 individual player pages I find that to be useful So it's just a it's a custom leaderboard that you hit save on once you put the custom players in the downside custom leaderboard that you hit save on once you put the custom players in. The downside, if there is a downside, is that if you are trying to track players in your league who might be on the waiver wire, if someone else picks them up, there's no way to automatically remove them from your list. You have to manually control who's on the list. That's the only gripe I have.

Even the watch lists on CBS and Yahoo where you just have to click the little like watch icon and I feel like I click those icons a lot. And being like, oh yeah, I'm gonna keep an eye on this guy. And then I don't think I ever sort of feel like, let me see my watch list. It just goes away. I guess what's nice on Autonew is that if you click somebody that as a watch list person, when they come up for auction

on the front page, they're highlighted. Yeah, it tells, yes, it reminds me. So you can be like, oh, this is somebody I was interested in at some point, maybe I should take a closer look. That's how I'm using the FanGraph's custom tools for tracking players. Hopefully that helps you in some way, Peter.

One more question here, Matt wanted to know, is it better for the Dodgers to target a shortstop leading into the trade deadline than to actually add an outfielder, right? Because you could move Mookie Betts Matt wanted to know, is it better for the Dodgers to target a shortstop leading into the trade deadline than to actually add an outfielder, right? Because you could move Mookie Betts back into the outfield. And I think there's kind of a few questions layered in there. There was also a specific question

about Beau Bichette being the target. And I thought, if you're trading for a shortstop, is that really what you want? Even if you believe in Beau Bichette as a hitter, do you like Beau Bichette enough defensively to trade for him and then move Mookie back to another position? Last time I checked out above average Mookie wasn't great 261 out of 267 right it's going About as well as you'd expect for a guy playing the position really for the first time on a regular basis at age 31

Which yes, it's possible. It's amazing that he's doing it. Yeah. It doesn't mean that it's like the necessarily like best configuration for them as a team. My only problem with this is such that normally short stops cost more. So what I found in my league where we drafted Mookie Betts and Xander Bogarts, and then when we lost Xander Bogarts, Mookie Betts and Xander Bogarts. And then when we lost Xander Bogarts, Mookie Betts ended up at shortstop

and we've just found it easier to find new outfielders. So Mookie Betts is gonna be our shortstop. You know what I mean? And I think that's gonna be the same thing that the Dodgers find on the market is it's a lot easier to find outfielders than it is to find a shortstop. I mean, I'm just looking through the teams.

If you don't get Bo Bichette, there's not really do you want to do you want to put Paul DeYoung at shortstop and move Mookie Betts off? I don't know if that helps. That's not really the answer. And Bo is minus four by defensive run saved and minus two by outs above average. So, I mean, it's better than what you have. It's not a he's not a shortstop sort of conversation for me. But it's more of a how happy are you with that level? Given the cost, it's still probably going to cost

a lot if Boba Shet gets moved to acquire him, you know, with more than more than a couple months left before he's a free agent. The Boba Shet thing is really interesting from a lot of angles. Will the Blue Jays sell when they're so close to 500? Having the record the Blue Jays have right now in the National League would put them directly in the hunt for the second wild card. They would be three games out. But in their division, they're in fourth, and they seem pretty solidly fourth.

Like, could they leapfrog the Red Sox and be third? Yes. Would that necessarily make them the second wild card? No, because the Royals are playing well, the Twins are playing well, and the Rangers haven't gotten going yet, and the Astros too. So I tend to think they won't sell because there is still that glimmer of a chance of the second wild card.

They play better at times. They could say Springer's gonna get going. If they take Bulbashead off of the market or it never gets on the market, I don't really see another shortstop that's available that moves the needle for the Dodgers. Who am I missing? The Rockies aren't trading Tovar. No. Would the D-backs trade Perdomo

and would that really move the needle? You'd have, I think, a better defender if that's your priority. And I think, you know, Miguel Morojas being old gives you the, does not afford you the opportunity to just play the all glove guy because I'm not sure at this stage of his career he even fits that description. So yeah it's a tough position to fill on the fly. It's a little strange when one of the best if not the best organization in baseball doesn't have that

position solved but when you're good everywhere else it's okay to have a weakness. I guess it doesn't matter as much in the grand scheme of things. I have one name. Is this intense? Francisco Lindor? Oh, I'm listening. I mean, do they have more money? They don't not have more money, but hold on a second. Here's the thing. We have already seen the Mets

being willing to pay down contracts. I think I kicked this out there last year at the trade deadline. I said, hey, what about Lindor before he gets into the later part of his career? He's signed through 2031, a made up year. But it's only 2024. There's a lot of time left in this deal.

How long do you want him to be at shortstop, I guess is the question. I think if you're the Dodgers. He's still eighth and ounce above average. I think if you're the Dodgers... Oh he still 8th an ounce above average. I think if you're the Dodgers you're absolutely interested. I think if you're the Mets like what are you clinging to? I mean you're clinging to the idea that you know what their owner said that like we're gonna be in the World Series in the next three years or something and you're saying we're cleaning up all the all the player development

stuff on the back end we're starting to all the all the player development stuff on the bot back end We're starting to turn out there I think they are like Christian Scott like is an eye-opener for me like they're starting to turn out guys McGill looks like the best He's ever been so if they're starting to turn out arms, then you say hey We could turn this around on the quick and we'd rather have Lindor and sign someone next year What if they sign Soto and it's Soto Landoor in the middle of the lineup and they sign Alonso and all of a sudden it's like, okay, well, this actually this team can score and now they're turning out arms. I think it's that it may be delusional, but there may be a

self delusional aspect to this where they say, we're gonna be competitive in this Landoor window, so we'd rather have that locked down. But, you know, sometimes it's a question of the details. You know, what if the Mets only have to pay down 50 million of it and they and they get out of the rest of it and they still get a prospect they like out of it. Well, that's the thing. That's the bin you'd want to shop into is you'd say, hey, like the Dodgers prospects. Yeah, I can just swayed to Paula. Like I could go try and make a move for him if I pay down some of this and I could add some pitching

or I could add Dalton rushing. How's that do Paula? Like, you know, he, he Paula has been a total relevant relevation, but the Dodgers would be like, well we're not super attached to him. Like he's a 19 year old that, you know, just came out of nowhere. So let's go, you know, why not?

Yeah, I think that's your pie in the sky, best shortstop that could be traded. And it's not impossible, but it's still not likely. It's fun to think about. And I think there's a short list of teams that would be able to take on a large portion of what's left in that contract. And the Dodgers are on that shortlist

and they have a need. So if the Guardians were bad, I think they might have a couple of shortstop options they could trade because they've they make this kind of shortstop you over there. They manufacture shortstops, but they're good. So they're not trading in these guys. Thanks a lot for that question, Matt. The fun fun exercise to think about as the trade deadline approaches here in about 6 or so weeks. Let's move on to our weekend waiver preview.

It seems like a slightly lighter week, at least as of Thursday. Things change very quickly from the time we do our weekend waiver preview until things actually run on Sunday but a couple of hitters that stood out to me is at least far as getting opportunities Spencer Horowitz and Tyler Soderstrom Horowitz is playing a lot for the Blue Jays right now. He started five consecutive games Playing a lot of second base gonna pick up eligibility there. I think with one more appearance there this season. I'm curious if we see there I think with one more appearance there this season. I'm curious if we see average power as a possibility because it's good average good OBP profile, non-zero speed.

Now we're talking about multi-position eligibility and a prominent spot in a lineup that could get better and could heat up and at least be top 10 or possibly top 8 here on out. I don't think that's an unreasonable sort of ask for the Blue Jays. So what do you make of Horowitz as a guy that's been in the big leagues on occasion? This is a second opportunity. Last year we saw him seven point four percent barrel rate. Not bad. Pretty good swing decisions. I hit the ball on the ground a lot in the brief time he was up,

but it was only 30, 44 plate appearances. So it wasn't wasn't much of a look for him last time around. Yeah. I mean, other guys with Max TV's similar to Horowitz, you know, if you include his triple A are Mikel Garcia, Gleyber Torres, Andrew McCutcheon. I think that describes the range of his power fairly well in terms of power upside, in terms of demonstrated power, he's been pretty close to league average.

So I wouldn't give him the upper reaches of that. But in terms of, you know, could he someday hit 18 to 21 homers? And he can just get on base a lot and be a little bit of a catalyst for a lineup that needs one. Yeah, it's an interesting switch to go from Cabin Vigio to this. I think what they wanted out of Cabin Vigio was kind of what Horowitz is doing. Walk a lot, maybe not have the most power, but have enough power.

And Vigio just really struggled with that toggle between power and patience, I think. Yeah, we never quite got the same per game power output that we did from that first season back in 2019. And we know, you know, live ball that year, but 16 homers in a hundred games that year, also stole 14 bases. The weird thing, I remember we're talking about this with you, cause it was like the first year we did the pod,

Kevin Bigio was really good in sweet spot percentage, which is the, you know is the launch angle range, like the optimal launch angle range to hit barrels, but he doesn't hit the ball hard enough to hit a lot of barrels. Like that was the missing ingredient, and now that we've seen him in the big leagues for so long, I don't know if that really leaves the door open

for him to possibly get better. He doesn't chase. That's something he does in an elite level. He does not chase. So I wonder if the Dodgers have some kind of tweak in mind for him to possibly change his profile a little bit. I mean, if you don't do a lot of damage and you start to strike out as much as BGO did this year,

I understand why a team finally moves on. It's just you look like kind of a replacement level guy and they need more than that. Horowitz could be very similar to BGio except for one key ingredient is that strikeout rate because one of the things that that strikeout rate does for BGio is just remove from him the chances of putting a ball in play that could be because he pulls the ball some and he can hit the ball you know 100, 900, 110 and so you're just removing lottery tickets when you strike out 28% of the time because he's

not a guy who does that regularly you know so like a guy who lives above 110 and can hit the ball 115 you know and pulls the ball like that much, then you're okay with him swinging a missing song because when he does it, it's more likely to be hit hard. But if a guy who can only hit the ball 110, you want him to put as many lottery tickets out there because he's not gonna hit 110 all the time. That's his max. I think deep deep leagues, they're still like, and the lonely leagues, you still want to throw a dart, multi-positionality, not a better team, new coaches, new hitting instructors. You never know.

He's not, Kevin Biggio is not completely boring, even though the, it never worked out quite the way we'd hoped for him in Toronto. Yeah. I mean, like Don Manningley is, is leading the hitting meetings in Toronto. That's a pretty old school voice. I would say going from Don Manningley to Van Schoyock, the hitting instructor in LA, is probably one of the wider gaps. Yeah, I would agree with that.

The other player I threw on the board here was Tyler Soderstrom. And I thought Tyler Soderstrom was sneaky in our draft and hold leagues this winter. I, as someone who would get an opportunity with the A's, And I thought Tyler Soderstrom was sneaky in our draft and hold leagues this winter as someone who would get an opportunity with the A's, pick up in-season catcher eligibility, and maybe take a step forward at the plate. And I think those things are all possible, but I do think the catcher eligibility might take a little longer

because he's been up for 27 games in Oakland and he's got one appearance as a catcher, which is not a good pace. That means barring some kind of injury to Shay Lang Alliers, we're probably months away from catcher eligibility in season. But Soderstrom is playing a lot and moving up in the order to it looks like he's sort of settling in as a regular first base option for the A's. Yeah, was Ryan Noda really taking a step back this year? There was an opening there. He kind of fits the bill. I mean, he's very Ryan Noda really taking a step back this year, there was an opening there. He kind of fits the bill. I mean, he's very Ryan Noda-esque. What you talk about is a 30% strikeout raid, like a 10 to 12% walk rate and a 12 to 15% barrel rate.

And I think Sorsum can do all those things. It's going to come with a poor batting average. It just seems to be that kind of a profile of player. It's sort of like deeper leagues. If you need power, that's some places he came with the catcher designation. So, yeah, there's a few sites where he qualifies there. So keep that on the radar. We did talk about Adele Amador earlier in the week and Tyler Locklear.

I actually think Tyler Locklear has a better floor right now in terms of what he's gonna bring as a hitter. Amador is much more of a wild card as far as how quickly he'll adapt to big league pitching, making the leap from double A. But we talked about them a lot on the Monday episode, so no need to really rehash that here. I do think it's kind of now or never time though. If you wanna pick up Noel E. Marte as a waiver pickup

and not have to trade for him, he's eligible to come off his suspension two weeks from today. So Thursday, June 27th would be his first game back if they activate him and decide to put him right in the lineup right away and don't send him down to AAA. And Marte is available in 47% of CBS leagues, 61% of Rotawire Online Championships and 89% of NFBC main events, which I think speaks to the players in that league knowing you just can't hold guys that aren't playing, right? I think this will be the week where teams

that have a roster spot to play with go ahead and add Noelle V. Marte. It's already a little bit late. So the way that I describe this is the Masataka Yoshida change in price over time. And this is just my team, so it's a sample of one, but I'm sure that if we looked at this across, it would fit. Two weeks ago, I bought Masataka Yoshida in one league for $5 out of a thousand because

there was just a, yeah, he's feeling good, cleared to swing, gonna go on rehab soon. Right? Last week in the main event, we bought Masataka Yoshida for $45 out of a thousand. So that goes from, that's a 10% increase, 10 times increase. And that was, oh yeah, Masataka Ishida is on rehab, which is what Noel Di Marte's on now. He's played a couple games already.

Yeah, so last week would have been a week to get Noel Di Marte. If you could though, I mean, it's all like that you have to have him on your bench for a week more, which has a cost associated with it itself. But if you're talking about just fab costs, last week would have been time to get him for five dollars or less This week, I think you're gonna have to pay

50 plus dollars because of what's happened with Kristen and Carnation strand is facing a decision on season ending surgery and then I think just You know in terms of what's going on with the Reds They aren't scoring enough to say no to DeMali Marte No, it doesn't seem like they have the luxury right now I mean they're playing for their season like they're not buried by any stretch of the imagination

but they need to make up some ground and I think it's pretty clear DeMali Marte projects to give them an upgrade once he's back so unless there's some sort of internal frustration over the suspension where they wanna send him down to send a message, I, it's like the punishment is, that's the message. It has been served. It's been served.

So I think you bring him back and say, let's go. You're gonna be the regular third baseman. We want that power, we want that speed. And he was a fringe top 100 consideration by the time that draft season was winding down. I think he could be a big impact player. And he's still going to be cheaper this week than he would be if he's still available next weekend. For leagues that don't pick him up this weekend, it's going to be really expensive because you're talking leading into 10, 15, maybe 20 percent. If he if he makes it to the week after that so that's kind of the inflation you get you go from

like 5% to 10% 15% you know pretty quickly the other name on to throw at you on the pitching side is Drew Thorpe We didn't talk about him at the beginning of the week But he came up and debuted against the Mariners and I think overall was pretty good one thing that caught my eye was that he had a couple of offerings that were of the week but he came up and debuted against the Mariners and I think overall was pretty good. One thing that caught my eye was that he had a couple of offerings that were high in terms of CSW in the debut, the change-up. I saw the unicorn description getting tossed out

there for the change-up. I know when we talked about Thorpe the second time he was traded, some of the enthusiasm about him had slipped. I'm curious what you make of him coming off of his big league debut earlier this week It was two runs only one earned three hits two walks four K's in five innings and it being a no decision because the White Sox Bullpen did things that the White Sox bullpen often does yeah I mean in terms of movement and V lo profile I can see why stuff plus doesn't love drew Thorpe's change-up ELO profile I can see why Stuff Plus doesn't love Drew Thorpe's change-up but I'm willing to give him a Plus Elite change-up not only because of the scouting grades but also because of his command of

it was pretty intense like he was able to dot the bottom of the zone with that change-up in ways that I think will give hitters some struggles but on the flip side with your Thorpe, Cal Raleigh anticipated a change up of his and smoked it for a double. And so it's not an unhittable pitch. And when you look at his fastball, it gets OK. Vertical movement, it has something like a 16 and a half 17 induced vertical movement. What's the B for again? Break. Break. Why does that one always screw me up?

He has a is like a 17 IVB, which is above average. But if you look at a slot, you can tell that there's nothing unanticipated about it. It's a slightly over the top slot, and it's a slightly riding fastball. And on top of it, it's 92. So I think the fastball is going to give him troubles. The cutter was 86. So I don't think it's, I think it's a little bit more of a gyro slider. I think he's a guy that has like three breaking balls more than a

guy who has two fastballs, if you know what I mean. Three breaking balls of which the slider is probably the one that's above average. An elite change up and a poor fastball. I just get vibes of Michael Wacha. I don't know who else is like kind of a change up first guy that has sometimes put it put good stuff around it. But Walker is really the one that stands. Yeah, I think Walk is a pretty good like current example.

Marco Estrada is a straight change. But I just I think maybe he's another another guy like that, where it's a lot of floor, not a lot of ceiling. And when it goes wrong, it goes very wrong but... Renal Blanco? Okay like those are usable pictures though. Better command than Renal Blanco. Okay that's not bad I mean how does he compare to say like Adam Mazer came up? I think I would take him over Adam Mazer you know if I'm looking at what Adam Mazar brings to the table, the Padres young guy

that came, Mazar also doesn't have a good fastball. His slider is very good, but he didn't demonstrate the same level of precision command. He generally has some control, but I think Mer is going to be more up and down. Thorpe has something that he can build around a little bit more than I think Mazer does. And a long runway to stay in the big leagues. That's something Mazer also does not have. I mean, the Padres are getting better and better and they're above 500 now. They are the number one wild card It's switching from who's gonna help us to we know who's gonna help us and we when everyone's healthy They're the ones that are in it's something that you can actually see in their bullpen pretty quickly because

When you look at the Padres bullpen at the beginning of the season it was oh It's gonna be Matsui and it's gonna be this it's gonna be this and you know more Ohan was like We'll use him. You know, we'll try to figure out what's going to be Matsui and it's going to be this. It's going to be this. And, you know, Morohan was like, we'll use him. You know, we'll try to figure out what's going on. And now the end of the game is pretty well scripted for the Padres. You know, it's Morohan, Suarez, and Estrada that really own the end innings for San Diego. And I think you have a similar sorting out process that happens in rotations where you're like, Mazer, you're up, you're helping us,

but it's not like you're taking someone's job. I know running a baseball team is difficult. What I can't figure out is how Jeremiah Estrada got outrided off the 40 man by the Cubs, claimed by the Padres and has turned the corner this quickly. And the Cubs didn't give Estrada a lot of looks. It was like 17 appearances split between 2022 and 2023.

I know the results last year were bad. He walked almost as many guys as he struck out. He had like four homers and 10 and two thirds. But you're talking about a guy that's 25 years old that has really good stuff. I just don't know. I don't know how that happened. I was on Chicago radio with Spiegel there and he said that he asked somebody in the Cubs organization that they paused and Were sad Little bit and then just said well, you know the the Padres taught him a splitter Which been really key to his success and I would just say why didn't you and not so much like this?

This split specifically which is why didn't you keep a guy with that special of a fastball and try other things around that fastball rather than say stuff plus must be wrong, you know, we got, you know, this guy can't figure it out, especially when you're having some trouble in your own bullpen. I mean, he was dropped at a time when it's not like they had figured out their bullpen. No, there were a lot of questions and I realize there's different times a time when it's not like they had figured out their bullpen. No, there were a lot of questions. And I realize there's different times a year when you've got to make decisions. You got to add guys to the 40 man.

And sometimes you just got to make that tough call. And this is the end of last season, right? You got picked up off waivers on November 6. So you're trying to put the pieces together, protect guys from rule five. And that's an opportunity. It's one of those times a year where there are transactions that don't necessarily jump off the page when they happen. But then you look back later and go, oh, that was a sharp move that actually was probably

something like, oh, we got to put Kate Horton on the 40 man or whatever. And let's just just lose a reliever. Right. Just lose a reliever. And I mean, options. We've talked about that before that that can that can factor in. Does this player have options left or not? I thought Estrada still had one option here.

Yeah, he's actually got two option years left. So that one is hard to understand. Back to Mays real quick. One last thing before we go. Here's an actionable piece of advice that I have. I think Brandi Vasquez is ahead of Adam Mazer not only in the model, but when I watch them pitch Randy Vasquez is throwing his curveball harder and harder. It looks like an outpitch. He looks like he's figuring out how to put all the pieces together.

He obviously has those pieces and I just think he's further along as a starter and represents a higher floor for a winning team. I think Mazur goes down, Randy Vasquez stays. Yeah, having the options always helps too, but I think Vasquez also has options. It can be an ongoing battle. I mean, that's the good thing. Even if you get sent down in that battle, the margin's small enough where a bad outing or two

could flip it. But my pick, my quote unquote pick, is Vasquez in this situation. Alright, there you have it. Randy Vasquez, Ino's pick over Adam Mazer in the back of the Padres rotation. We are going to go on our way out the door. A reminder, you can get a subscription to The Athletic at theathletic.com, slash ratesandbarrels. Find Ino on Twitter at inoseris.

Find me at Derek VanRyper. Find pod at ratesandbarrels. We're back with you on Friday at one o'clock Eastern on our YouTube channel. Thanks for listening. I'm Michael Mulary, host of the Athletic FC podcast, and I'm here to tell you about a mouth-watering summer of international football. The Copa America and European Championships kick off in mid-June, and we're going to be covering both tournaments every step of the way. With the World Cup in the US just two years away, the Copa America is the US men's national

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