Rates & Barrels - Searching for Post-Hype Breakouts

Episode Date: January 28, 2020

Rundown1:14 More Marte Par-tays in Arizona10:28 Assessing Pittsburgh's Return25:58 Castellanos Goes to Cincinnati34:58 Searching for Post-Hype Breakouts: Hitters43:45 Searching for Post-Hype Breakouts: Pitchers Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRipere-mail: [e-mail] Get 40% off a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 64. It is January 28, 2020. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, more Marte Partes in Arizona. The Reds signed another outfielder, and we attempt to find this year's post-hype breakouts. Some housekeeping first. We are available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much anywhere you want to listen to podcasts. So if you're enjoying this show on a platform that allows you to rate and review it, please take the time to do that. We really appreciate it. And tell your friends if you think they'd like the show as well. Some of you might

be listening to the show for the very first time. If you are, welcome. If you're not already a subscriber to The Athletic, you can get 40% off a subscription at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Everything we do is included with the subscription. We've got a draft kit launching on Monday. Yes, the day after. I don't even know if I can call it what it is. The day after that football game everyone's going to watch, we will have our fantasy baseball draft kit launching for 2020. two years of Starling Marte for Leover Piguero and Brennan Malone, plus some international money going back to Pittsburgh. First part of the question I have for you is in terms of home park changes and moving to what should be at least an equal, if not better, supporting cast, does this trade change Starling Marte's value at all for you for this season? I think I saw either it was a Rob Silver quote or something that kind of

resonated with me, which was just weird. He said something like, you know, every spring when we're going over our projections, we love Starling Marte. And every October when we're going over our team, we don't love him as much. And I can see why, I guess. You know, he's interesting because he's always projected to have a good batting average, you know, good homer totals, you know, be like a 20-20 plus type guy, and he's done that in his full seasons, you know, four out of the last five times, shown good power, good speed, good batting average in his last four of his last five times, showing good power, good speed, good batting average in his last four of

his last five seasons. And the one in between, one was injury and one was a 3-11 season with nine homers and 47 steals. So he's been a good fantasy outfielder, but he's never cracked 100 runs or RBI, which I think goes to what you're saying. It's, you know, partly supporting Cass, but it also kind of points to the secret problem he has staying healthy. He's only cracked 600 plate appearances twice. And so, you know, when you look at the projections, I think a lot of times we say, oh, Steamer, 664 plate appearances, 24 homers, 26 steals, up the runs on RBI on the new team, loving him. He's never done 664. His career high is 633.

So I don't know. I think yes, but there's also a certain amount of depth that the Diamondbacks have created that will allow them to sit him. And maybe they'll have more healthy sits in order to keep him healthy and get him sort of across that 600 plate appearance total. Or maybe they're more likely to sit him for 15 days now if he's got a minor injury because they've got enough parts to maybe put Quetel Marte in center and play Jake Lamb

and Eduardo Escobar on the infield. So this is the reason why I'd like the D-backs a little bit more, and they've got this depth, and it was a great move for them. But where I would like to up him, starting Marte, and it runs an RBI, I may want to ding him in overall playing time. And I'll take the under on 664 projected plate appearances yeah that's a pretty big number since he's never done it before like you pointed out but i do think he's pretty safe for 2020 i don't know if he's going to really run a lot more uh i do think

there's a chance that he can a better chance he can replicate the runs in RBI as we saw last year, which probably weren't going to repeat in Pittsburgh as a result of the trade. 97 runs in Pittsburgh this year. I don't think there'll be a single player who does that. No, we'll talk about what's left behind there in just a moment. I think one... Murder and mayhem. It's not pretty. It's very Pirish.

The situation, though, in Arizona, I mean, Josh Rojas was a guy that I liked as a super utility player, and he still kind of fits that mold. But with Marte, Quetel Marte, moving to second base with Starling's arrival, that pushes Eduardo Escobar over to third. It probably pushes Jake Lamb into kind of an infield, corner infield, ventral. Maybe there's trade coming, but this to me looks more like an Arizona team that did well with pitching and run prevention and didn't

do as well with offense a year ago, trying to get better offensively and strengthen one of its weaknesses. I think they want this depth because injuries do pile up and you want to have a lot of flexibility to give guys days off and to have that depth when you need it throughout the year.

You know, we've learned from other teams in the past, there is still money to be saved, even if you've tendered a guy a contract, if you release them in spring. The Rays did it a couple times. There's other teams that have done it. The Diamondbacks seem to be running their team a little bit more Raysian than they have in the past where they'll they'll be coming

going at the same time buying and selling at the same time um they've done that the entire time they've been this new regime has been in place mike hazen has been in place so i would say that jake lamb may not make it to the uh opening day roster because right now he's a slightly overpaid, no clear platoon. I mean, I guess he could be the heavy side of the platoon at first base, but I think Walker probably is ahead of him on the depth chart internally over there in Arizona. So that means that Lamb basically has to have a great spring. And as silly as that sounds, because that's a weird way to make decisions, he's that marginal on this roster. I think he has to have a good spring to make the team almost.

Because if you take him off, you get an extra roster spot somewhere else that could be Josh Rojas because LoCastro is your backup center fielder, which you kind of need. And then Vargas, his first name is... Ildemarro. To be difficult for me, I think. What is it? Ildemarro.

Ildemarro? Ildemarro, yeah. That's not bad. Ildemarro Vargas, I just remember it being long. Ildemarro Vargas is probably the backup infielder, and if you just say, hey, Escobar is going to be our starting third baseman, then Vargas is probably the backup infielder. And if you just say, Hey, Escobar is going to be our starting third baseman,

then Vargas can back him up. Um, and, and, and back up basically three infield positions. Now, uh, then all of a sudden Jake land becomes a backup first baseman,

which you don't necessarily need with a Steven vote on the roster. Who's a good hitting, uh, catcher and be Kevin Crt on the roster who's a good hitting uh catcher and be Kevin Krohn on the way um and Kevin Krohn's a lefty right Kevin Krohn's a righty oh no yeah Seth Beer is a lefty Kevin Krohn kind of just looks like another Christian Walker like he's kind of the same profile but they, but they got Seth Beer coming, and I think probably Jake Lamb makes it through another season. But if he has a bad season or a bad spring or an injured spring,

I could see them moving on. Yeah, it's pretty interesting to see how that depth situation is going to play out. I still think Escobar plays a lot. Nick Ahmed, because of his defense, still plays a lot. Not really worried about those guys. I would look at Lamb, maybe Walker as two losers, and then Josh Rojas potentially. But Rojas is so versatile.

If they were to move away from one of those infielders, I think he ends up being just fine as a capable backup in outfield spots and around the infield. Yeah, like Vargas is your defensive everywhere infield replacement and rojas is a slightly more offensive one um and so i think i would rather have those two guys in my primary bench spots i have to kind of re we have to recalibrate a little bit how this will work because almost every team now is going to every team now is going to have 13 batters you know and so that does allow for more shenanigans. That does mean that

you almost want to shave, especially in the AL, I think you want to shave especially in the AL? In the NL, I think, where you shave a little more playing time. In the AL, they would have gone to more pitchers in the past. The would have gone to more pitchers in the past. The AL was probably already at 13 pitchers for most teams, I would guess. Either way. Because you don't need a bench pinch hitter and platooners as much in the AL.

Yeah, I guess you don't carry them as it is. I just wonder if you'd use them just more as straight pinch hitters, though, and less as guys that come into the game and stay into the game. Well, anyway, it's something that's happening across baseball that we're not seeing the same peaks in terms of playing time. There's load management in baseball now where they're giving healthy players programmatic rest. There's the fact that we used to have the 10-day deal. It's going to 15, so maybe rest. There's the fact that, you know, we used to have the 10-day DL. It's going to 15, so maybe that'll go in the other direction.

But we use the DL. We have unlimited DL spots as teams. So, like, the teams, you know, use that. Look at how the Dodgers have used their DL recently. And we're doing things in the bullpen where we're sharing saves totals. We're more likely to be preventative when it comes to a starting pitcher having some sort of issue. All of these things are pushing innings totals

and plate appearance totals down for everybody. It makes our game even more challenging. Yeah, it's good. It makes it. Yeah. It's good. It makes it more fun. It's good to have different ways to build rosters. As far as the return the Pirates got, let's start with Piguero. I mean, he's a very toolsy, young shortstop.

And reading some of the reports from Fangraphs and a few other places, it sounds like he's going to stick at shortstop. There was some concern initially that he wouldn't, but he's far away. But he's the type of high upside prospect that you want to get back, especially if you get back two guys. They got back Brendan Malone and some international money as well. I don't know if you'll see him pop up on top 100 lists right away in 2020, but he certainly has that sort of upward trajectory and gives this Pittsburgh system a nice boost.

has that sort of upward trajectory and gives this Pittsburgh system a nice boost. Yeah, I think the questions with Pagaro are really more, is he going to be a serviceable guy that strikes out a little bit too much and doesn't have a lot of power? Or does he combine the best aspects and become the guy that maybe has an average walk rate a better than average strikeout rate you know average-ish power and good speed and great defense so you know if you're looking for a high upside prospect in your dynasty league like uh you know he could be someone to put on your radar now that um you know they have every reason to uh keep him going and there's nobody really going to block him at the top. Yeah, I mean, I think there's, you look at like O'Neal Cruz, but they're several years away from being on the same roster. And honestly, O'Neal Cruz is such a monster that everyone,

like with Carlos Correa and Corey Seager, everyone's going to be talking about how he should be a third baseman the whole way through. So, you know, there's a possibility that O'Neal Cruz, that people say he could stick it short, ends up moving to one side or the other. Brendan Malone is the pitcher who went back the other way. In reading Keith Law's article on The Athletic,

92-95 from the right side, has a slider that's his best pitch as of right now. I think there's definitely some projectability, given how young he is, and that there could still be a little extra velo coming from him. Fangraph's had him at a 45-plus for the future value, with already a 55-grade fastball, a 50-slider, a 50-curveball, a 40-changeup. That's really good for a guy drafted out of high school who's only been in professional ball for part of one year now so again this is the kind of direction that the

pirates didn't really have for the better part of what 30 years you know this is a team that's been just kind of mostly stuck at the bottom i know they had a three-year run of success from 14 to 16 if i'm getting the years right off the top of my head, where they made three consecutive postseason appearances. But they haven't really chosen to go into full rebuild mode. And I think now with Ben Charrington and the new front office in place, they at least have that. They've at least decided, we're tearing it down. We're going to acquire a lot of young talent. It's going to a while but it's there's actually an end goal four or five years down the road that you didn't necessarily feel this team had in a lot

of the last two decades well i mean i think that there's a a problem that's a little bit rotten at the top there it's one of those bad ownership situations i think and And the Chris Archer deal that may have ended Neil Huntington's, I don't want to say career, but like ended his tenure with the Pirates. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if ownership had something to do with that, because the way that team was going, before that, they were kind of a team like the Rays who will buy and sell at the same time and just kind of try to be good every year and don't give up your great prospects. And then all of a sudden, for some reason, they give up, you know, Austin Meadows and Tyler Glasnow for Chris Archer. Like it was totally out of character, I thought, for Neil Huntington.

And it wasn't even in a season that seemed to make a lot of sense. So unless their pitching analysts thought, you know, if we do this with this with Chris Archer, he'll be an ace. I don't see how that happened. It's a weird situation. refused to really push payroll past the bottom third of the league. And, you know, it smells to me, it smells a little rotten to me. And I don't like that they've got a $40 million payroll right now. I know that they're trying to rebuild. And it is good to have clarity. And I guess, you know, it's better than muddling your way through a Chris Archer trade like that again. But at the same time, I don't really love this whole situation with the Pirates. It is an ownership problem.

It's 100% Bob Nutting. I don't think there's any reason to consider it to be anything else. They had a $74 million payroll last year. That's very, very low for a team that was having a good amount of success just a couple seasons ago. They got up to the 90 to 99 range in the 15 to 17 window. But it's been going down each of the last two seasons, obviously down again three years in a row. As far as the playing time fallout goes in Pittsburgh, Jared Oliva, prospect of the week alumnus, might be a winner in terms of eventual playing time in the Pittsburgh outfield. I mean, he hasn't played at AAA yet, so we're probably not going to see him for a couple of months into the season.

But I think there is a chance that we're going to see him for maybe half of 2020 as one of the regulars in the Pirates outfield. You know, he was one of the few at the Arizona Fall League that I enjoyed the sound of the ball off the bat. My very unscientific exit velocity measure, my ears. But I thought that he hit the ball well. I did talk to some evaluators and thought he was a little bit stiff in his approach, but I mean, he's not going to be like Andres Torres stiff.

I don't know if you remember how he used to swing. He was like all shoulders. It was kind of ridiculous. But I know this because A, I watched him, and B, because I don't think he can be super, super stiff and have a 20% strikeout rate. There's got to be some hit tool-er-ness in there. There's got to be some adjustability in his swing. Otherwise, he would be having higher swinging strike rates and higher strikeout rates. So as is, I see the potential for a fantasy five tooler. Now I say that

don't get too excited. I don't think his power tool is necessarily going to do 30-30. But could he get close to Starling Marte numbers? Yeah. Yeah. I mean when you look at what he's done in the minors

high A and double A these last two seasons over 30 steals at both stops, some developing power, 15 combined home runs the last two seasons, better walk rates than Marte, slightly higher K rates that could come down. Yeah, I mean, I think he could kind of pull that off. 24% above league average at high A two years ago, 23% above league average at double A in 2019. So I like him as a player. I think in terms of how he fits

for your 2020 leagues, it's NL only reserve and probably draft and hold, unless you're in a keeper dynasty setting. He might already be owned in those leagues, but I think you could justify throwing that dart on him in one of the last few rounds of a 50-round draft and hold at this point. I think I would focus more on longer-term keeper leagues because they may want to just tank the season and keep him down there until

July or whatever. Because in the major leagues, it's funny, looking over this depth chart, you know, you got Brian Reynolds, you got Gregory Polanco, chart you know you got brian reynolds you got gregory polanco and you're like okay you know they've got two decent outfielders as long as polanco's healthy and then i was i was looking over at left field and i'm like who's jay martin yeah jason martin jason martin also recovering from surgery so they got in fact if you zoom back out further they got two corner outfielders coming back from surgery. So they got, in fact, if you zoom back out further, they got two corner outfielders coming back from surgery. And Brian Reynolds, a guy who may not be a true center fielder in the long run.

So there's a lot of tankiness to this team. And I would say that maybe Jose Osuna comes out. Right now, he's only 10% at left field, 10% at right field, 10% at third. I could see him emerging with a full-time job. He's got interesting stat cast numbers in that he does not hit the ball in the air enough, so his barrels are not great, but his exit velocity is actually pretty decent. That's going to be enough to kind of help his Babbitt stay up, give him some doubles. And I think, you know, do a full season of kind

of what he's projected to do. I think like a 270 average and 25 homers. So that to me is your redraft reserve pick. But Oliva, I think definitely zooms up the boards a little bit when it comes to dynasty, just because opportunity has to be part of your appraisal of a prospect. You don't want to wait, you know, four or five years for a guy. You kind of want to wait two or three years for a prospect if you're thinking about things that way. You kind of want to wait two or three years for a prospect if you're thinking about things that way. And so I would say that I think that Oliva is the better talent, but Osuna is an interesting pickup for this year in terms of kind of reserve with upside. Yeah, deep, deep leagues, though, I think is where you're focusing if you're going to do something like that i imagine they're going to probably do something where they play kevin newman and cole tucker in the middle infield together one of those guys as the everyday shortstop one of those guys a regular at second i

mean adam frazier could probably go play a corner outfield spot just because you want to put them on the field somewhere so put them in left platoon with somebody you know that could kind of fill a spot if you're going to move Reynolds to center field anyway, you might as well see what you have in Cole Tucker. I think he's a guy that is lined up to play a lot, sort of indirectly from Starling Marte being traded away. I can't imagine Keone Keeler makes opening day on this roster because unless they keep him for the trade deadline unless their offers are

no good uh but he's only got one season left with the pirates and he fought kyle crick at the end of the season um maybe this new regime doesn't care and it's like hey fight each other it's going to be one of those years it gives people something to write about but they could have a really good bullpen without keone keeler. Kyle Crick is good. Ricardo Rodriguez is good. Michael Felice is good. You know, that's a decent bullpen without Keone Keeler. So I would assume he's gone maybe later rather than sooner,

but I would assume he's gone. You know, this team is actually not that interesting for me, fantasy-wise, because Polanco's shoulder's so bad. He's been a guy I've liked that at this point, the steals are probably gone, and if the shoulder is going to keep bothering him, then how much power can we bet on? I do like Brian Reynolds,

but I think he's appropriately priced. I don't know how much more upside is left. Jose Asuna's a good deep sleeper. Kevin Newman debuted at 26 years old. He doesn't have upside is left. Jose Asuna is a good deep sleeper. Kevin Newman debuted at 26 years old. He doesn't have much upside left. And in fact, I think he'll regress. He doesn't have the kind of power or batted ball stats to really keep up a high BABIP.

So I think he'll be kind of an empty 280 with like 15 steals, maybe 10 homers. And that's coming off of last year, and that's not that exciting in most leagues. So in Kevin Newman and Brian Reynolds, you have your best probably fantasy assets on this team. And I'm not super excited about either. Joe Musgrove, there's something there. There was a little late season velocity tick. I noticed he was actually over 94 in the late season. And if he comes into spring throwing 94, if he's sitting 94 for three plus innings,

I would take notice. I wouldn't necessarily notice if his first outing is 96 or 95 because they're throwing one inning. A lot of times they just let it air out. But if he starts doing the longer ones and sitting 94 still, I'd bump up the projections a little bit. Maybe he can do like a 3-7-5 ERA, you know, 8-plus strikeouts per 9, and be a useful guy, but not necessarily someone who's about to jump into stardom um so you've got in Reynolds Newman and Musgrove three useful guys um Chris Archer turfed the um

the two seamer late in the season and became legit like normal old school Chris Archer which is like a 4-2 ERA lots of strikeouts and lots of homers. So again, a flawed, useful guy. Newman, Archer, Musgrove, Reynolds, flawed, useful guys. That's about it. And then Josh Bell probably going to regress a little bit. I don't think that they figured him out in the second half, but it's just he had such an out there first half that I think he's just much more like a 270-30 home run guy.

And so I wouldn't price him at anything close to 40 homers. Yeah, Bell's interesting from a trade ship perspective because he still has a few years left. I believe he's a free agent after 2022, if I'm not mistaken. So that's a bit of time left. But trading first baseman, it's tough to do, right? Doesn't usually get too much back. Yeah, so they don't have a lot of exciting tradable assets.

I feel for our guys, Rob Beer-Temple, Stephen Nesbitt. They host the Yinzabove Replacement Podcast. It's going to be a long year on the Yinzabove Replacement Pod. It's going to be a very long year. You almost hope Keelan and Craig stay on there so there's stuff to report on. Right, yeah. I mean, there's got to be something there to get excited about eventually but it just might not be 2020 hopefully for their sake something happens

something good happens and players i mean i love o'neill cruz i just picked him in the baseball prospectus um you know prospect draft start a prospect draft at the first of the second round so you know there's something exciting about someone that, you know, I think I was saying to you, like, I think if there's anybody in the minor leagues that could be a rod in the future, it's O'Neill Cruz. Now he has to cut the strikeout rate some, and he hasn't had that season where he puts like the better strikeout rate together with his best power. But, I mean, just look at the guy. He's like 6'7", just sinewy, lovely body. Wait. Anyway.

What happened? I like O'Neal Cruz, and he's already in AA. So watch him sort of take off this year in AA. I think that could happenal Cruz and he's already in double A. Watch him take off this year in double A. I think that could happen. Yeah, maybe that's the key. If you're on the Pirates beat this year, you just take a lot of road trips to watch the prospects and just

get the stories there. Because the Pirates are really the only team in the NL Central not trying to win this year. The other four teams are either pushing chips in or have a strong enough core where they think they can contend for a division title and make a run at a playoff spot. And the Reds continue to spend. They added Nick Castellanos. It's pretty interesting because Castellanos lands in the most hitter-friendly park that he's played in. Of course, he started his career in Detroit, spent the end of last season with the Cubs. I

didn't see the Reds adding another outfielder. And one thing that I may have overlooked yesterday when this news was announced was that Nick Senzel's coming off of labrum surgery on his throwing shoulder. So my snap reaction was, oh, maybe Nick Senzel and or Jesse Winker are now trade pieces for some sort of Francisco Lindor blockbuster. They could upgrade shortstop, give up major league-ready young talent. Maybe they match up there. I think this is actually just a team that has playoff aspirations, doing a lot like we talked about the Arizona, where they want depth.

They want to be covered in case things break down or in case things don't work out. And Castellanos as a hitter is going to fit in great in that park there's no doubt in my mind about that i also think moving him into great american ballpark where the outfield is smaller reduces the magnitude of his terrible defense it's not going to make him a good defender it's not going to make him an average defender it's going to make him slightly less of a liability in the field than he has been in more cavernous home parks. Yeah, yeah. I think it's a good fit for him.

And there is an overlay, I think, that maybe Trent Rosecrans tweeted out that shows Castellanos batted balls in Great American, and it's pretty exciting. I wouldn't necessarily do that because there's atmospheric situations going on. You don't just take all your batted balls and put them. And also he has to play. He's only playing half the season there.

But steamers up to 28 homers. I could see him easily hitting like 33, 34, 35 homers this year. And that's exciting because he's really, he's kind of like your hit tool guy where he barrels things up really well. He has a high BABIP every year. And he's also an expression of why hit tool is not all in strikeout rate. Because you saw early in his career, he was like a 24, 25% strikeout rate, but he still also an expression of why hit tool is not all in strikeout rate because you saw early in his career, he was like a 24, 25% strikeout rate, but he still had the plus hit tool.

He still had plus Babibs. Um, and he still made the most of his contact. And then as he matured and cut that strikeout rate a little bit, now you see what a kind of plus hit tool guy can look like. Um, even if it's not necessarily a superstar. So I think he's going to have like a 285 average and you know, like 32 homers this year, which is above his projections. Very excited about him. I would also say that if you're preparing for drafts, one of the easiest ways one of the lowest tech ways to do it is to just go through the depth

charts of Fangraphs because those power the projections on their site and those are going to go into the auction calculator and so people are going to just run those and you're going to have people in your league that are just running those and right now the Cincinnati Reds depth chart on Fangraphs is 100% wrong like there's I mean there's no two ways to put it like it right now it has Aristides Aquino getting 70% of the right field at bats and Jesse Winker getting 20%. And that is just wrong. And it's not all Fangraph's fault because Shogo Akiyama doesn't have a card yet. And so once you put in Shogo, I think this will make sense.

And I do think that they worked their hardest to get things right. So I'm not trying to denigrate anybody, but I'm saying this is an opportunity for fancy players. So I think what's most likely to happen is that Shogo is the starting center fielder on opening day. Maybe Senzel opens on the DL. And you're right. This is a team that wants to make the playoffs. They're building in depth and they'll just see what happens. You have Castellanos, Shogo, and Winker as the everyday outfielders, in my opinion. Aquino as your DH slash against lefties, because Winker is pretty bad against lefties. So maybe they just, they're going to bake in a platoon there with 13 batters. You know, it's much more

possible to do that sort of thing. So they're going to bake in a platoon there. And then when Senzel is healthy, there becomes a question of like, oh, well, how's Mike Moustakas playing at second? And how healthy is Botto? And is Suarez healthy? And if everybody's healthy, it does get a little bit more crowded. But still, Senzel has enough versatility to maybe spell Mike Moustakas once a week at second, and spell Winker in right field, and spell Shogo in center field and spell Nick Castellanos in left field. So I still think that Senzel will get to like 400 plus plate appearances, but I would put him squarely behind Castellanos, Shogo Yakuyama and Jesse Winker in

order of plate appearances. appearances yeah I think Winker and Senzel end up being pretty close because I think Winker will probably end up having to sit against lefties since they have 400 400 to 500 plate appearances maybe yeah and I think just because the injury he's coming back from is less significant than the one that Senzel is coming back from that would also lead me to give Winker the slight edge, but I think you do have them tiered the way I would. Castellanos and Akiyama play a lot. Senzel and Winker play quite a bit. Aquino, we already had some reservations about him on several pods in the last couple of months. He's got minor league options left as well, so if they want him to play every day, they can send him down to AAA, let him do that, bring him back up when there's a little more playing time available.

I think this really hurts his value. And yeah, I think those projections, as far as the playing time go, have not fully caught up to that yet. I just I'm I'm bummed. The only place I have him is a deep dynasty league where he's an obvious keeper. The only place I have him is a deep dynasty league where he's an obvious keeper. But I'm bummed this happened when it did because I wanted people to keep overpaying for him in redraft leagues. And eventually that's just not going to happen anymore. It's going to be very clear to everybody that the playing time is not there, barring an injury or two to some of the other outfielders in the mix. If Senzel is healthy, then Aquino could easily, he has an option left.

He could go down and then senzel becomes winker's primary platoon partner um and also kind of moves around so um i think you know josh van meter is probably the biggest loser in all this um he becomes i don't know they've actually got senzel listed as the backup shortstop on fangrass which i don't know, does that make them more wrong? Or is that kind of an interesting opportunity? In terms of your idea of Lindor and Seager, you know, Ken Rosenthal had a great piece today about, you know, how that fits financially, they've already broken a team record in Cincinnati, in terms of payroll, adding an $18 million Lindor might be too much, especially since you won't be throwing much money their way. And they've already tried to do a deal where Lindor goes to the Dodgers,

Seager goes to the Reds, and something else, and then a bunch of prospects go to the Indians, and that fell through. So I don't think there's another level. I'm not sure that I see Senzel as a shortstop, but the problem is I don't know who their backup shortstop is. It's not Josh Van Meter. No, they don't have that player on the roster.

I mean, Jose Iglesias was that guy last year. If Senzel's like a decent backup shortstop, then he becomes the Van Meter, basically, and he just plays everywhere. I mean, if he's athletic enough to transition to center field well, which I think he did last year. I don't think that was a disaster by any stretch of the imagination. If he's athletic enough to play there and play third and play second

with the amount of shifting teams due, it doesn't seem that far-fetched that he could be the backup shortstop. Maybe you play him behind like Bauer, who's a little bit more of either a fly ball or a strikeout or a walk. Fewer balls in play. I do like it, though, for his potential value in season going up. If he ends up playing a little more of a super utility role, it just makes it easier to fit him into different spots in your lineup. And if what we're saying or when we were talking about this depth chart and how it's going to work out,

And if what we're saying or we're talking about this depth chart and how it's going to work out and this depth chart not being right right now, Senzel is going to be dinged perhaps too hard by some of the depth chart stuff. So depth charts has a 472 plate appearances. So you just have to kind of think to yourself about whether or not you think, you know, as a backup shortstop and in these different positions, he can do a little better than that. I think that's probably a pretty good number on him though. I don't know if I see him getting much higher. It's a little more than I thought when I clicked over, but you know, it's certainly possible that he plays more than that. So we got a question from Steve G about post-hype breakouts. Good broad question. I think that will help a lot of people out. And he writes, there always seems to be a few post-hype breakouts. Good broad question. I think that will help a lot of people out. And he writes, there always seems to be a few post-hype breakouts each year,

specifically players that were once huge prospects that have lost their luster only to pop up a few years later. Two that come to mind last year having been on the same team, Yohan Mankata and Lucas Giolito. My question to you guys is this, who are your 2020 versions for those guys who were once big prospects that might only be a tweak or two away we've talked about the tweaks that giolito made picking up that extra velo moncada was more aggressive but you know who fits that group and i i narrowed the list down because

it could be a ton of players and you can certainly add more to this, you know. But just for the sake of kind of thinking about how highly regarded Mankata and Giolito were as prospects, I looked back at the 2017 and 2018 top 100 prospect lists from Eric Langenhagen and Kylie McDaniel, and really just focused on the top 30. I was looking for guys that haven't put it all together. So we'll start with some hitters. I'm going to run through the names.

We can pick on whoever you like and add to it. J.P. Crawford, Brendan Rogers, Louis Brinson, Corey Ray, and Luis Urias are guys that are very highly regarded as prospects. They've had limited chances in most cases to play in the big leagues. I think Ray is the only one who hasn't debuted yet. And their stock has fallen considerably. Do any of those hitters pop to you as guys that could put it together in 2020?

No. So, Brendan Rodgers is kind of exciting in that he's got that home park. You know, I think Story, even with his extension, is only there for two years. And anybody that could play regularly on the infield in Colorado seems like a fun bet. Even his projections, which, you know, a projection for a minor leaguer, take it with a grain of salt, still say he could hit 270 with 25 homers over a full season. Brandon Rodgers is interesting.

The one problem is he's coming off of a torn labrum. It's a big deal. It's not the right time to buy. Or maybe it is if you, if you can wait, if you can wait, it's an okay time to buy, uh, because it's probably near the bottom of his, of his value, but I don't think it's going to happen this year. You know, uh, you know, he's going to be coming off of, off of the surgery and they still have a story and they've got, you know, a litany of people at second base. So I don't think it's him. a litany of people at second base. So I don't think it's him.

J.P. Crawford, I actually like J.P. Crawford in the old sort of fan graphs, like 1.0 sense, in that I like that he walks a fair amount. He makes good contact. He looks like he could put up maybe a league average power line. He steals some bases. You could see him put... Back in the day, I would have said, give him a 300 BABIP, and he'll have a 250 average, and maybe 18 homers, and 15 steals.

Now you're talking about someone who's relevant. It's not super exciting. And then maybe he takes a leap. He's only 25 years old. Maybe he takes a leap. The problem is, now that we have StatCast numbers, I can tell that he just hits the ball with such little authority. I mean, it's like 84 mile an hour exit velocity.

It's just not exciting, you know? He's probably not going to have a league average power line. And he's probably not going to have a league average BABIP, which means he's going to be valuable because of his defense and because he can sort of walk and dink and dunk his way into okay offense, but it's just not going to be good for fantasy. Louis Brinson, I think, is just a total mess. Corey Ray is a total mess.

Did you mention that last one? Austin Hayes. I threw him into the mix just kind of as we were talking because I was looking through. You did say Luis Urias. I did. Yeah, Luis Urias is in the mix too. If the wrist thing is not a big deal, then yes, he's the one I'd pick.

Or maybe Austin Hayes. The last two are the best ones. The last two are the best ones. I shouldn't say no as a blanket statement. Luis Urias could put it together. And I think he's a likely candidate to do kind of what I want out of Crawford, where he can hit for the average power, walk, and throw in a few steals and get to something like 260 with 20 homers and five steals. That's not at all that hard for him to do.

with 20 homers and five steals. Like, that's not at all that hard for him to do. So I think that's, he's an interesting one. And Austin Hayes is going to get all the burn in the world, man. You know, the world is his oyster this year. I think they're going to just put him out there and let him play. And even his projections are pretty fun. You know, 250 with 20 homers, eight steals. He's definitely a guy I would in AL only, yes,

please. Beyond that, I think he's tickling at the feet of mixed leaguers a little bit. What I'm trying to figure out, going back to Brendan Rogers just for a second, is that he hit the DL back in June with what they called a right shoulder impingement, and

things obviously got worse from there. The exit velocity numbers 86.9 definitely on the discouraging side of the scale but i wonder like how much of that gets dragged down because of his attempts to play after suffering that shoulder injury you know like that's something that i kind of wonder about. Or if the impingement was there for a few weeks before he actually went on the IL, like that was working against him.

We don't know. His line doesn't read, you know, his line coming up doesn't read like someone who couldn't hit the ball. Right. Like the track record, age to level production

was really good. And that kind of leads me to believe that what happened last year was at least somewhat, if not entirely influenced by health. Yeah. And, you know, the, my position on health has become muddled because of new research, but, you know, I used to think that, you know, buying on someone who played through injury was a good one because their projections wouldn't capture that. But the problem is that, you know, present injury predicts future injury. And, you know, present injury makes you weaker in certain spots and makes, you know, makes everything more difficult. And big part of aging is just injury. So I would say that a young player, you know, someone who's younger than 27 years old

that has an injury gets it fixed. You know, I could see that as an opportunity to buy. But if it's an older player, it makes you wonder about their ability to bounce back in the same way. Because I know because I can't bounce back in the same way. Because I know, because I can't bounce back in the same way anymore. I'm an old man. With Brendan Rodgers in a redraft league, he's cheap. He's probably one of your last picks, even in a 15-team mixed league. He's got an ADP close to 500.

I mean, if you're buying him, I think what you're buying is the next third baseman after Nolan Arnauto gets traded, I guess. You believe Nolan Arnauto will get traded and a starting third baseman won't come back. That's what I think you're buying if you're buying him. Or that the Rockies do something they haven't really done in the past, which is just wake up on opening day and say, hey, Brandon Rodgers is our second baseman. Play the young guys. Play the talent. It's an option.

You can always do that. I'm a little bit more excited about Sam Hilliard in that sort of vein in terms of redraft because Sam Hilliard has power and speed and David Dahl is hurt all the time. Ian Desmond shouldn't have a job at this point, I don't think. Rymel Tapia may not be a Major League outfielder. And those are your left and center fielders as a group.

Yeah, play Sam Hilliard and draft Sam Hilliard. Yeah, please play Sam Hilliard. At the price, I don't care if I have to cut him in every league because he's not playing enough i will continue to draft sam hilliard hoping that they just go ahead and turn him loose i think he could do a ton of damage even if he weren't in colorado but he is in colorado for half his games totally agree with you on rymel tapia he's a fifth outfielder probably at this point. Shouldn't get more playing time than that anyway. The pitching side is usually pretty messy with injuries.

I mean, that's part of what led Giolito down the path of not having the same stuff that made the Nats draft him as an early first rounder years ago. So you look at Alex Reyes and Brent Honeywell, A.J. Puck even coming off Tommy John surgery. Forrest Whitley's coming off a weird year last year. There's some injuries sprinkled in there. Michael Kopech. What do you make of those guys

as pitchers that may put the pieces together here this season? Michael Kopech has a real chance of being an ace. And he's just got intense movement and velocity on his pitches. And I think it's mostly just about his health. I mean, he's got like an inch and a half of rise on regular four-seamers, which is amazing because he throws 97 on average. And usually when you get over 94, 95, Walker Bueller told me the Dodgers told him that,

you know, you don't convert as much spin into ride past 94 miles an hour. So pitches tend to straighten out, but not his. 97 with, you know, an inch and a half, two inches of rise on people. So, and it's not even straight left to right. It's got wiggle. The change has five inches more drop eight mile an hour, uh, difference. I think it's going to be a good pitch. Uh, and so far it's gotten 15% whiffs and hasn't given up a Homer and 46 pitches. Uh, and the slider, uh, I don't have the spin direction in front of me right now. Uh, but it looks like a power curve because it's got more drop than most.

And I can't imagine with something that has 11 to 12 inches different drop than his four-seamer and 13 mile an hour difference, that he can't make that work. So I know that command is going to be a question for Copac, and commanding anything that moves that much and goes that hard maybe is a big ask, but I don't think his walk numbers have been out of sight bad. When he throws 97, I don't think he should be necessarily giving up homers like he's projected to.

I absolutely think Kopech is draftable in every league. He's definitely going to make my top 75. He's got nasty, nasty, nasty stuff. I don't, and he's, I think they're, that team wants to win right now. They're going to, they're going to put them in there. So if we want to, if I want to pick one name off of this whole list, if it's a hitter, it's probably Austin Hayes. And if it's a, If it's a pitcher, it's definitely Michael Kopech. I think the other thing people get really hung up on

with guys that fit into this group are workload concerns. Kopech, of course, coming off Tommy John, having not pitched in any minor league or major league games last year. I think he did some instructional stuff.

It's really difficult to come up with that number. Like, okay, how many innings do you comfortably project? You go back to 2018, Michael Kopech had 140 and two-thirds innings between AAA Charlotte and his four-start run with the White Sox. You give him a year off, maybe you don't go much beyond that, but is it fair to assume that he can come back and at least match the 2018 workload? He should be pitching in spring.

What are they going to do in spring if he's already finished his program? He's already pitched in some instructional stuff, and he's pitching in spring. Are they going to say, no, we're still going to put you on the DL to start the season? Or we're going to put you in the minor leagues? I think they're going to set him in there, and they're going to find ways to skip his starts and maybe send him down around the all-star break and shut him down as soon as they're out of the playoffs. And I think that gets him to like 125 innings.

And if he's got 125 innings with the upside that I think he's got in that arm, he's relevant. Yeah, I don't know if it's paddock. Clayton Kershaw almost won a Cy Young with like 150 innings. I don't know if he gets to paddock ratios anytime soon because of the walks. I don't know if those are going to go away quickly, but it could be a lot of strikeouts in that limited workload as well.

I like to pile up pitchers like this in the draft and hold format. I like having three or four of these young guys that have kind of questionable workloads because you just end up with enough viable arms in a format like that. You have depth. You can get away with it. And they tend to be a little bit underpriced. Their price reflects a normal bench where you have to make a decision to cut them, not the type of league that you're playing in where everybody gets to carry extra arms. It worked really well with Paddock, Urias,

and I think Lizardo. I had all three of those in one league last year, and I thought, at the price, hit on one, get something from the other, and if one busts, no problem at all. I think a similar approach is something you can pull off with guys like this. I mean, Brendan McKay, I don't think he's really fallen enough stock-wise to put him in this group. But for some reason, it seems like people are a little bit off of him in redraft leagues right now. Not like ignoring him, but they're just not that excited compared to how excited they were when he came up to debut with the Wings last year. What's up with that? The new prospect sign. Now he's had 50 innings of a five ERA.

We don't like him anymore. Yeah, but he had a 56-16 strikeout to walk. That would normally get us excited, right? He's in that group of players that, had he not debuted, his price would probably be higher. Be a bit better, yeah. Getting there and getting hit a little bit

actually hurt his stock when that's actually an achievement of itself. Yeah, yeah. You know, the Rays continually make me nervous in terms of playing time, but there's a lot of opportunity when you do get someone right. And I think, like, if someone steps to the forefront like a Blake Snell did in the past and just says, no, I deserve this playing time, they give him to him, you know? They didn't muck around with Austin Meadows that much last year, you know?

Willie Adamas played, you know? So, you know, they'll play around with Tsutsugo and Choi and Diaz and, like, who plays when. But in terms of if Brennan McKay comes into camp and blows him away, then sure, Ryan Yarbrough can be behind Yanni Chirinos. They might just combine those two as a sort of tandem. And McKay can run and be a regular pitcher. One thing I will say is between the organizational thing and the fact that Brent Honeywell has missed two years, two full years. I don't know if he's necessarily on my list of, you know, stacking young guys with playing time

issues. I'd rather much rather have AJ Puck, who pitched in the major leagues last year, and pretty much pitched with two. I mean, it says he threw 10% changeups, but he, he, he told me he didn't feel like he had that. So, uh, here's a guy who threw last year with two pitches, uh, and did well, uh, it spent, it was out of the pen, but now he thinks he can get the changeup back. Uh, and maybe even the curve ball, like there's definitely a lot going on there. And if you step in the box against them, I mean, I, I did virtually. I didn't actually. I would probably be dead. But if you stand behind home plate when A.J. Pluck throws, you can see the hair.

The slot isn't necessarily Randy Johnson, but the hair, the wildness, the way he just feels like everything's coming at you a million miles an hour, his extension is good. He is a scary, scary guy to step in against, even more so, I think, than Lizardo. Lizardo's stuff is great, but AJ Puck is the one that's scarier. So if I could get Puck and Lizardo on my teams without spending too much money, I can. One caveat is, let's watch to see what the hype machine does. There is a delicate balance between,

oh, he's a good value because he's this price. And I think maybe he can throw more than a hundred innings versus, oh, the hype machine got him. And now everyone's paying prices. Like he's going to be a three, five ERA for 150 innings. Yeah. Where would you cap that workload? He had 125 innings before he got hurt back in 2017, missed all all of 18 and then just kind of picked it up in rehab last year got 30 or so across a bunch of different stops like where are you comfortable projecting workload for aj puck in 2020 i was talking to our beat writer alex coffee about an appropriate over under for combined innings from lizardo and puck and i set

it at 250 lizardo is probably a little bit closer to being the bigger half, but if you made me put a number on both of them, I'd probably say 130-140 on Lizardo, and 100-110 from Puck. And maybe they get lucky and get more, but that's probably a fair place to put those. If they get lucky and get more, but that's probably a fair place to put those. If they get lucky and get more, I think it's Luzardo that they push because he just threw more innings last year. Yeah, that makes sense. We've got a couple more questions to get to before we sign off.

This one comes from David. Why don't people talk more about the next potential step in the Yandy Diaz progression? next potential step in the Yandy Diaz progression. He seems like a Yelich light opportunity, especially in dynasty leagues, hard hits, barrels, exit velo, and learning to adjust launch angle. Yandy Diaz doesn't come up a lot in off-season conversations that I've listened to. I think we talked a lot about him early last season when the power was ticking up to that level for the first time, but he missed so much time with injuries it does seem like people are just sort of shrugging their shoulders and saying well it's a crowded infield the braves mix and match a lot shrug emoji like that's that's the

sort of the response people are giving uh what do you think about diaz you know i was in on last year uh traded for him at devil's rejects with james anderson um he's our third baseman this year so we're really hoping that he plays a larger slate of games i think injury has been part of the question of him coming up he doesn't have a ton of um you know 600 700 plate appearance years on his roster uh going backwards. So,

and then with the fact that his defense is not very good, um, you're, you're going to have to bake in some stuff, but, uh, you know, with the depth charts giving him 590 plate appearances. Yeah. Yeah. I could see that, you know, and I think the, the projections are a bit light, um, given that his barrel rate was so amazing last year. It's funny, because Andy Diaz did not really up his launch angle much, his median launch angle, or his average went from 4.4 to 5.7. But his barrel rate went from 4.4% to 10.4%. So he kind of just when he when he squared something up, he just lifted it better. So it was his well hit balls were in the air.

So I could see him outdoing the projections when it comes to power. So I could see him. One of the things about Jelich Light, he's not going to steal any bases. Right. I don't even know about the five stolen bases he's given. I mean, the dude is a truck, but not a fast truck. Not one of those hot rod trucks. So I'm thinking 275 with 20 to 25 homers,

good on-base percentage, very good in on-base percentage leagues, definitely a useful player. I just don't think he's going to jump into that star status, that star echelon. He's 28, doesn't steal bases. You know, there is the defensive part of it. Finding the next Jelic, that could be a future goal or topic or article or something, though.

I think we could kind of take a run at that. The other part of the question or separate question that David sent us was Chase Anderson has been working on a new pitch. Any interest in the late rounds in Chase Anderson with the move to Toronto? You know, one thing about Chase Anderson adding a new pitch is that I think the ratio of how excited I get about a new pitch, the ratio of how excited I get about a new pitch, the other side of the ratio is how many pitches the pitcher has um and right now chase anderson has five pitches so i just don't know if it's necessarily the same thing to go

from five pitches to six as it is to go from like for example when you go from two to three pitches it's got to be huge that you might change yourself from a reliever to a starter with that you know just think of frankie montas but if you already have five pitches like what's he even gonna throw he throws two fastballs a change a curve and a cutter is he gonna throw a slider and the number of people who throw three breaking balls and command it and separate them and actually have three breaking balls is very small it's's part of what Max Scherzer does. And then there's not a lot of other people. Shane Green tried to do it, and he didn't pull it off.

Chad Green tried to do it and didn't pull it off. There's a lot of people who've tried to do three breaking balls, and there's only very few that have figured it out. So I would say I'm not super interested in Chase Anderson. Maybe his home park situation got a little bit better. Uh, and so maybe his home runs, uh, as projected are raw are wrong. Um, so I think he, you know, he's projected at almost two homers per nine, which is kind of unsightly. Um, but I could see him, uh, having a four ZRA and being useful in certain leagues. I just don't know what that pitch is and how much it's going to change his life.

He's probably an on-and-off-the-roster sort of player in a 15-team mixed league. If you get him cheap in an AL only, he might be slightly profitable, but I think you've got to be kind of careful with how you use him with those matchups that he'll face in the ALs. He strikes me as like a dollar pitcher really maybe two yeah but you might return five or six again we're talking like al labor like a 12 team al only league we're not talking 15 team mixed league most most likely i think is um you know he serves a little bit of the importance of looking at weekly projections and 15 team leagues i bet you there are some weeks where he's a good pitcher, like a top

100 type pitcher that he's totally useful in that week. And then weeks where he's the 300th pitcher you would want to use because he's got a start in Baltimore and a start in New York or something. Yeah. I could live with that. I'm looking at the ADP right now.

He's the third anderson among pitchers being drafted 529 is adp he's better than that but he's just not a guy you're gonna draft in a mixed league and hold all season long unless it's that 50 round format and most leagues aren't like that so i i see him as more of a hey you're gonna spend two percent of your fab plan for this two-start week, and you're probably going to cut them and fill that roster spot with somebody else the following week. So useful, but not consistently

rosterable. Beer of the month coming up just around the corner. That's going to be on Thursday. We're going to do that on the last Thursday episode of every month going forward, so get excited for that. As always, you can reach us via email, ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com if you want can reach us via email rates and barrels at the athletic.com if you want to send us an email be sure to spell out the word and if you do that

don't use a plus sign or hit the and symbol just rates and barrels spelled out at the athletic.com you can find eno on twitter at eno saris i am at derrick van ryper we got several other great pods that have launched recently here at the Athletic. And our full suite of fantasy baseball shows will be up and running next week. Tomorrow, under the radar with myself, Nando DeFino, and Ian Conrun. So be sure to check that out. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening. Thank you.