Rates & Barrels - Searching for Second-Half Role Changes

Episode Date: June 30, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss several struggling players who may open up opportunities for significant role changes during the second half of the season. Plus, the latest installment of Prospect of the Week & Beer of the Month! Rundown -- Opportunities in the Cards' Rotation? -- Brad Keller as a Reliever Would Be Interesting -- Concerns About Cal Quantrill, Despite Good Ratios? -- Looking Forward to a New Closer in Arizona? -- How Safe is Ryan Pressly? -- Joe Barlow: Time to Buy? -- Germán Márquez: Would Teams Still Trade For Him? -- Jonathan Schoop Replacements? -- Second-Half Expectations for Max Muncy & Justin Turner -- Prospect of the Week -- Beer of the Month Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first six months: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Thursday, June 30th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. Kind of feels like the last day of school with it being the last day before a long weekend for many of us here in the States. I'm working on Friday. I've got a show in the afternoon. We'll do the waiver show at 4 Eastern if you want to check that out. You'll see me chatting. Yeah, you're chatting. You'll have the cat gifs going.

You'll answer a lot of questions. There's still work to be done, but it does feel like the last day of school to me or something close to it. On this episode, we're going to talk about some potential second half role changes. We took the leaderboards, flipped them upside down as we tend to do from time to time on this show. I call them laggard boards. I don't know if anyone else calls them that, but that's what I call them because it's really the part of the board you don't want to be on.

So we're going to look for some players that will possibly lose their role, possibly be replaced as a result of contending teams upgrading that spot via trade. Lots of paths. And we're going to take a look at pitchers, particularly hitters, all sorts of guys in different scenarios. And since it's appropriate, we're going to have a prospect of the week before we go and probably a beer of the month since we've got the long weekend ahead of us. I think Eno's got some beer thoughts to share with us on this Thursday. So we begin with pitchers, some of the worst starters in the league. I took the K minus BB percentage leaderboard, flipped it upside down, and I'm not at all surprised to see Dakota Hudson sitting right there at the very bottom of the list. A 2.4% strikeout minus walk rate. That is abysmal. And Hudson's one of those guys. We really can't figure out how he's as effective as he is with underlying skills like that. And he's not the only current Cardinal starter near the bottom of the leaderboard. They've got Andre Palante picking up extra innings right now with Jack Flaherty down.

He's under 5% as well. So we talked about this a bit on the 3-0 show that went up on Thursday. They need, in a big way, the Cardinals in a big way, need an upgrade for this rotation and possibly a second depth option to fall back onto as well. Yes, I think that they need more help up front than in the back. I don't actually think Hudson's going to lose his job because he's basically the fourth starter.

Is he even the third starter? I don't know how he gets away with this, though. I really don't. I mean, what's the pecking order? We've got Wainwright, Michaelis hudson matt so you know they're they're the four that are comfortably in flaherty you're waiting on liberatore i don't think you can count on uh and palante is the step-in guy and palante said the other day he learned a lot from talking to dakota hudson and you can tell because they both have terrible k-bts

and you know you can point to the Cardinals defense and Hudson's ground ball rate, things that won't change in the future. And yes, Brendan Donovan, Edmond Sosa, Edmond Sosa, Tommy Edmond, Nolan Arenado are all standouts when it comes to defensive run saved, other types of defensive stats. So he has a really good defense behind him. But what shouldn't be happening necessarily is, so maybe you can believe his.272 BABIP. His batting average on balls and plays is below league average, and some of the projections say that'll

continue. Zips gives him a.282 going forward and so therefore a.415 ERA. But all of them say he should give up more homers and we just had a whole podcast about how that park is playing friendlier to homers than usual

and what that means. So I would just say this you as a fantasy player should not bet on dakota hudson to continue uh i think the cardinals can be fine with a mid-fours era and a bad whip uh because they are going to hit a lot and hopefully upgrade the front of the rotation i just i just wouldn't bet on Palante to keep his job because even if they get a back-end guy or a front-end guy, Palante is the guy who's going to lose his job. Yeah, and they've got a couple guys at AAA that are pitching reasonably well. There's another, Zach Thompson, knocking on the door, kind of up and down for them.

He could end up maybe taking one of those back-end spots as a depth guy. Connor Thomas, who has not debuted yet, a 24-year-old lefty, putting up decent numbers at AAA. Control first, swings and misses probably second in that profile, but not without some intrigue. So I think we talked about this on 3-0. Steven Matz probably is more important to this team than people realize, but a big part of what's made them different,

they're putting runs on the board at a much more consistent clip. It's so hilarious. He's only one with a good K-BB other than maybe Wainwright, and yet he's the one struggling. I just love it. Love it. Over six. It doesn't even add up.

But a few other names that are buried on this K minus BB percentage list. Marco Gonzalez, are we at the point now where maybe the Mariners could actually think about shuffling someone else into that rotation? It's Ray, Gilbert, Kirby, Flexins, kind of the same guy he's been ever since they brought him in. kind of the same guy he's been ever since they brought him in. Would they go younger and possibly bring up someone from their system to take a spot, or would they be among the teams that might be trading for a controllable pitcher, even though we don't necessarily fancy them surefire contenders for this season? They've graduated so many people.

There is Emerson Hancock, who apparently is sitting 94-95 and totally filling up the zone. You can tell by his walk rates, and also this is something I've heard from the ground level. So you could say it's time for Emerson Hancock. Last year, Hancock threw 43 innings, if I'm reading this correctly. And he's already thrown 29 this year.

So I just, I think, to be honest, I love the list you put together. Other than Palanta, I don't think anybody loses their job on this list. I think that the Mariners need to just throw him out there. And for what it's worth, sometimes uh cutters cutters in particular uh produce lower babbips so cutter pitchers can sometimes beat their k minus bb a little bit uh just it's just a fact of cutters they have the lowest babbip of any of the fastballs um and he does throw a cutter a fair amount um but know, is the pitch that he throws 16% of the time really the reason why he's succeeding despite a bad K-BB?

I'll just say he never has a really great strikeout rate. This year is the worst of his career. But he has a career ERA under four for 750 innings. And he's a veteran, and, and you know whether or not they make it is gonna is gonna depend on him and not necessarily on his replacement i don't think yeah the other names that came up near the bottom that probably should get bumped into a different role and maybe won't james caprillion and brad keller are two that really jump off the page their teams are so bad right who you're to replace them with?

I do think that long term I would be really interested when Keller moves to the bullpen. I think that if you gave him a couple ticks and he just fastball slider and he had to just get through the lineup once, I think he would be much better. So you think you could turn him into

kind of a Ronaldo Lopez sort of multi-inning really effective guy? Or if you just even made him a one-inning guy I think he would be a really fantastic reliever. I could definitely see that for Keller which they don't have an extremely settled save

situation so maybe Brad Keller becomes someone that we've chased as a streamer for a long time who ends up working his way into a ninth inning role in the longer term. I don't think that's going to happen quickly. I do think that he is sort of interesting when it comes to a team that might need depth this year and might consider changing him to a reliever next year. Somebody that could use him in two inning stance this year and then might changing him to a reliever next year. Somebody that could use him in two-inning stance this year and then might make him a one-inning guy next year

because he only has these two years left on his, you know, the rest of this year and the next year left on his team control. He's probably not going to be part of the next good Royals team. The Royals have tried what they're going to try with him. Another team, the Rays are always the one I look for. A team that,

even the Dodgers or something, maybe they need a few spot starts now, but people are going to get healthy. Who does that describe? The Giants were built that way with a few guys they had coming back. Junius is hurt right now. It's the frozen banana team as Grant Brisby, I think, rightfully labeled them. I could see it.

I could see it. Brad Keller, for a few spot starts, and the next year he's in the bullpen. And he's next year's Junius, where he's in between. So I could see Keller moving at the deadline, actually. But I do have one nice thing to say about the Royals. Oh. Wow. Is that damning with faint praise?

Diddy diddy diddy diddy diddy. You have something nice to say about the Royals? So full of yourself, you know. Oh, do you have something nice to say about the Royals? Oh, you're so much smarter than them. Anyway, sorry. I've been very public with my disrespect for Royals pitching coaching and I've written stories about it and I've backed it up with numbers. Jackson Kowar has a completely new fastball and maybe a completely new slider.

He finally has some ride on his fastball he changes release point he is a new pitcher i think that's pretty interesting i think that's sort of interesting the one thing that co-r has never had is command so it's not um something that is a no-brainer but it is something to to store away and especially for you like sort of really deep leaguers uh kowar could be a a prospective pickup yeah i think a lot of times our cutoff tends to be like 15 team mixed leagues because you know you play in the main event i play in the auction championship and that's kind of a sweet spot where almost anyone who's decent in a rotation is viable if not part-time

you know at least occasionally i'm looking at keller as as someone though that probably gets traded that you could see in a more prominent role maybe just in a new team the usage ends up being such that you could use him in a mono league whereas right now you're kind of worried every time he starts against someone who's not a bad team. Cal Quantrill pops up on this list. I think he's probably the most interesting name here because... Him and Hudson, man, just give me that

Tom's like... Yeah, but this is different because the Guardians have young pitching. They actually have prospects they can bring up and they could bump Quantrill into a long relief role, and it wouldn't really be a bad decision. I think it could end up kind of doing something like you described with Keller, where you get two or three innings at a time from Quantrill, and it ends up being pretty good. But then you have a spot for, if they want to be aggressive and promote Daniel Espino, they could do that, or they could bring up Logan T. Allen.

I mean, those are the two pitching prospects that seem like they're the closest to making some kind of second-half contribution. I think the challenging thing about it is I'm not sure there's something actionable you can do in a mixed league right now to stash one of those Guardians prospects, just given that Espino's working back from a knee injury right now, and the timetable for a decision like this could still be more like four to six weeks out it could be something they do after the deadline if they don't make the moves that they want to make to upgrade their their pitching depth they don't go get a veteran to add to this mix which they're so frugal i don't expect them to do that but at the same time if the right person becomes available maybe that delays those young guys from coming up a little longer yeah he's a free agent 2026 um i think this is the the sort of good part of the of a team of players uh and team control where you just keep

him um you know they're they're known as an organization for sort of protecting their prospects so long and not taking a discount on their guys to the point where they lose prospects into the rule five draft because they haven't traded them fast enough so i think they're a team that hoards team control years so i i doubt they're actually going to demote him i i think they're just going to use him when they've got him. I do think it's funny that the shape of a season will really change the way people think about a guy. So, you know, Kyle Quantrill came out and had a.327 ERA in March and April with a.208 BABIP, not supported by his K-BB,

not supported by any of his peripherals. And so slowly over time, that's begun to kind of catch up with him. A 3.69 ERA in May, a 4.06 in June. I think this will continue to rise. If it rises slowly, though, you know, he may keep that ERA a touch under four for the season and make everybody that owned him feel great. But if they actually look through it, they got all their value from him in the first month or so.

So I think the action item here for sort of NFBCers, 15-teamers, is don't be afraid to cut him. It looks like it's going really well, right? But if you can trade him, that's best, if you have trading. But I will tell you this. I have tried to trade Cal Quantrill, I think, maybe 35 times in the last year. How many times have I traded him? Zero.

Zero! Zero! How many times have I traded him? Zero. Zero! I mean, everybody else is looking at KBV and KMISBV and looking at his fan graphs page and saying, I don't really want that. So my guess is you can't trade him. And you're also looking at that three-ish ERA and saying,

well, I can't drop him. I think he might be closer to a matchups guy than you think. So if there is a two-star you really need or a young guy coming up, you're really excited about, like if Grayson Rodriguez comes up and you just want to make that swap, I think don't get too attached to Cal Quantrill and do it. I know that I just said that, you know, cutter guys can beat Babbitt sometimes.

That theoretically should be in Stuff Plus. can beat Babib sometimes. That theoretically should be in Stuff Plus. And Stuff Plus and Pitching Plus does not have many great things to say about Cal Quantrill as a fantasy player. Yeah, I think it's interesting just thinking about the shape of the season too when you look at Zach Plesak, his teammate,

right next to him. Plesak at the end of the first month, or like after his first start in May at least, had a.444 ERA and a.141 whip. He's down at a.386 and a.122. So the ratios today are almost identical to what Cal Quantrill has done, but the last two months have been quite a bit better. He seems to be going the opposite sort of direction. Those two guys in my mind, and Aaron Savali is kind of like this too, they have that flaw where they don't miss enough bats for shallow mixed leagues in particular. I tend to use those guys more in two-start weeks in a lot of formats

and play them for the matchups when I can. But do you see anything different with Zach Plesak that makes you think that he is clearly better or possibly still on the same level as Kyle Quantrill despite the recent success? I will say that he finally has an above average K minus BB in June, a 20% strikeout rate and, and 20%,

20% strikeout rate to 5% walk rate. So that is slightly above average for, for, for a pitcher, especially the starting pitcher. But I don't know that I know exactly how they do it because overall he has the same, he has a very similar profile to Quantrill.

And it's tempting to be like, they do prepare really well for games, but I would say, I'm looking at his vertical movement over the course of the season I'm looking at his velocity over the course of the season it's it's up by the tiniest margin I guess it's up a tick that's probably all it is I would say that also I guess his release point has been changing a little bit. Cleveland does change over the course of the season. It plays a lot more pitcher-friendly early in the season and less pitcher-friendly later in the season. That's a little bit why

I was worried about Quantrill and Beaver as the season goes on. I was expecting more homers. It is interesting to see Plesak add that extra tick. Maybe he'll avoid that homeritis. But I would say that most of the Cleveland pitchers are going to give up more homers as the weather warms, as Tristan McKenzie has. Yeah, definitely a concern with that particular group, especially for the guys that are not missing a lot of bats. Let's get to a few relievers who are lagging in K-BB percentage.

I think the threshold for what concerns me with a reliever is a little bit higher. It takes a little, you can get to the 12% to 15% range in some cases, and still look at a guy and go, I still don't know if I trust this guy in this particular role. Two really easy, low-hanging fruit relievers, both Diamondbacks veterans, Mark Melanson and Ian Kennedy, under 10% in K-BB percentage. This is a team that I think will try to trade those guys at the deadline. I don't know if they're going to really find a lot of willing buyers in that case.

But it could leave someone like Joe Mantoply in a situation where he ends up getting some saves later on in the season. So I do think we're closing in in the next couple of weeks on the point where you, you want to start stashing a reliever who could end up moving into a closer role. And Arizona is one of those places that despite the struggles of Melanson and Kennedy,

and I think either trade or just because of their, their own shortcomings, there's probably a possible trade or possible adjustment coming. Yeah, and there's not really a ton of reason to hold on to those guys for the future. No, no, no, no. They're late 30s. The Pitching Plus model likes Noe Ramirez a little bit more.

But it really doesn't like many of their pitchers at all. It's another organization going their own way. And you may also, Wendelkin actually has the best stuff plus number, but his command can turf him a little bit. And that's been a big part of his lackluster overall numbers, which will probably keep him out of the closing role.

I would, uh, suggest, uh, as I think you have, uh, with your mantiply, um, discussion, just looking at usage and whoever's getting the holds there, uh, is the one to bet on because, uh, there's no obvious, uh, number. There is an obvious replacement for somebody on this list. Hansel Robles, if you permit me to jump ahead. Please do.

Where does he rank on yours? Second worst among the... If you tie Melanson and Kennedy. I made them one group and there's other relievers who don't close who are in this conversation as well if you expand it, but they're not relevant to our game.

So Robles just stood out to me as someone who was getting some save chances earlier in the year, has some pretty shaky skills, and probably is losing those opportunities anyway because Tanner Houck, series in Toronto notwithstanding, is going to keep getting more of those chances. Yeah, but Tanner Houck is also interesting. His stuff plus has gone through the roof

since he's gone into small samples, and so probably he is the guy. But he has, according to Pitching Plus, even as a reliever, had some sub-average outings, which have to do with his command, which comes and goes. And also, I think his pitch mix in general is not very split-friendly, if you know what I mean. Dominates against righties. Yeah. Lefties, you know he may not um be the best option

against the lefty lineup and john schreiber's uh you know collection of pitches is a little bit more platoon neutral as i would say it uh and john schreiber has not had an outing, uh, under a 100, uh, in the last 10 outings. And he's been comfortably over 110. Um, you know, so he's a little bit more steady Eddie. Uh, there is a, there is a universe where John Schreiber gets the job. And so I do think he is, um, one of the better names, uh, to have on a bench if you're prospecting for saves yeah and that's probably still tilted a little more toward deeper leagues if you're in a 12 team league or anything smaller yeah it's probably not where you want to go given the lean towards

some sort of probably an actual first seat closer on your wire right or there at least will be in the next couple of weeks as things change ryan presley has had a weird season he shows up on this list 11.9 k minus bb percentage which again for a reliever is more troubling than it would be for like a mid rotation or back end sort of starter he had that knee injury back in april the velocity was down the results so far this season he's sitting i think with a 386 era386 ERA and a.124 whip. And before the velocity drop, I thought Presley was in that upper tier of very safe closers. Someone that I liked, I targeted, I was willing to go get at a premium back during draft season.

And it seems like there's more of a chance that he could lose his job now than there's been really at any point in the last two, I guess all the way back to 22, less three seasons now. So I guess the question would be, are you as worried about Presley as I am? And do you see the obvious replacement either in Raphael Montero or somebody else in that Houston bullpen that really kind of pops? I did just trade away an $11 Presley in auto new to my man,

Alan Harrison, who's making a run. I'm kind of mid table. So I'm trading away all my relievers, which I think makes sense. Try to get some more later, but you know, it's a complicated story because,

because his breaking ball is so good, Presley still pops as a good reliever. He has a 126 stuff plus. That's on par with Josh Hader. You know, so that's, I think, kind of an amazing little stat there. At the same time, at 93 miles an hour hour what we've seen are worse outings where like he does not he does not have good command because of the knee i think and so if you pair not good inconsistent command with a 93 mile an hour fastball as a reliever you have these bad outings

you know and if he strings together a few bad outings, I think Dusty has some ability to make these moves on his own if he really wants to. And then you have to sort of read the usage to decide. My model, I think, likes Ryan Stanek the best. But you've seen Rafael Montero get a lot of choices. He's pitching really well. Sub-2 ERA, whip just a tick above 1, 30 Ks in 29 and 2 thirds innings, 5 for 5 in the save chances that he's had.

Yeah, but Stanek has a 141 stuff. You know what he does have is a 95 command, though. So maybe it's just too risky to throw Stanek out there as a closer. Maybe he's just going to blow up just as often as Presley. And maybe Montero, despite having lesser stuff, he has... Let me see here. He has 93 stuff, but he has 103 command. So he's just much more likely to give you a solid outing.

Maybe not blow everyone away. So I guess, uh, I guess I'll give it to, uh, Montero. Uh, I think it would be, he's a, one of the better ones.

Uh, what would you, who'd you rather have on your team? If you were prospecting for saves, Montero or Schreiber? Montero. Yeah. You think Hawk is going to run with it?

I think Hawk's going to run with it. And even if Hawk doesn't, I still think the Red Sox are tracking more toward the twins Rays Mariners they're in the the group that just they're less settled on one they're among those teams now whereas Houston seems like they still want to do more of the so dusty he likes having one guy yeah uh but you know Presley blew that game in in New York and uh in for the Yankees and then was out there closing one for the Mets uh against the Mets a couple days later so it might be an interesting time to acquire Presley like say in an auto new or in a dynasty format

where maybe you don't have to pay as much I I think he's an important player if you are not playing for this season and you keep looking at him as a top five, top six, whatever, wherever you drew the line going into the season, you keep looking at him like that, you might be overvaluing him. If you find someone in your league who still values him that way, I think you could move away in a long-term league and feel good about it because saves are so hard to come by,

you can probably still get a pretty good return in a long-term league. Joe Barlow's pitched really well. Sub-3 ERA, whip under one. Only 21 strikeouts this season, which is a little surprising. 25 in the third inning so far, but it's a 12.9% K-BB percentage. It's not

bad, but is it a problem? Even though the results have been good, this is kind of like the Quantrill equivalent of a reliever where uh i guess except pitching plus loves him so pitching plus loves him well that's the reason like this was a case where when i looked at at barlow i looked at the core skills going in into the draft season i was like i just i don't know if i see it with him then i looked at the pitching model and it's like the model loves, so let's take a chance because he's cheap. I've got plenty of Joe Barlow's.

Does it last? He's now 24 of 27 in save chances going back to last season. I kind of think the strikeout rate's going to go up. Look at his minor league rates. He had at times double the strikeout rate that he has right now in the minor leagues. Ever since

he became a reliever, he's never dropped below a 12K9 in the minor leagues and he never ever since he became a reliever he's never dropped below a 12 k9 in the minor leagues so and then you look at his swinging strike rate 14 percent uh you know isn't it normally sort of double your swing strike rate to get your k rate so he's got 14 percent and 20 percent i mean i think most of the projections also project him to improve his strikeout rate going forward. So I don't know why. Like what it is he's doing that's leading to this. He is throwing his breaking balls 60, 70% of the time. I love it.

Well, it's also weird, though, because the projections all point to walk rates that are higher. He's always walked more guys than he's walked this season. He's got a 7.9% walk rate. He's had a double-digit walk rate at every single stop in his career prior to this season. So maybe there's a bit of a trade-off, not missing with non-competitive pitches as often,

and that's put him in the zone a little more often, lowers the K rate, home run rate ticks up slightly. Just speculation. But I think he's kind of fascinating because I think he's still not a top 10 closer for a lot of people. The model would make you think that he could be. The results give you doubt about that so

i just think he's really fun category you know so you know he's and he's not giving you that so so are you buying him are you worried that someone else could swoop in and take the job i'm buying him because i think uh he's young and will hold the job uh for a couple years all right i wanted to bring him up because i've got him a couple places and i'm i'm fascinated by the way this is playing out so far yeah i know it's easy to look at that babbitt and say 194 babbitt he's in trouble but uh i i it's one of those things where like right now yes uh looking at certain peripherals you know cra sierras 392 babbitt is 194. I could see poo-pooing him, but it's one of those things where I think the strikeout rate will rise

and make him deserve his current numbers more. You know what I mean? In other words, I believe the bat pretty well. A 3-6 ERA with 10 strikeouts per nine. 36 ERA with 10 strikeouts per nine. Yeah. That's a mid-road closer that probably will hold his job. Right.

That would be closer somewhere in the 12 to 16 range, probably, if we're kind of re-racking for the second half of the season. One more pitcher I want to ask you about. Not a reliever, just a guy that I think is really interesting if he ever leaves Colorado. He comes up in the show on a regular basis. That's Herman Marquez left his start against the Dodgers on Wednesday with a cut on his right thumb. Results have been bad this year. ERA is close to six. K rate is under 20 percent.

First time since his rookie season that we've seen that the walk rate is still up just like it was last year at 8.5%. Home runs are as bad as they've ever been for him. And even looking at the model, this year compared to last year, and I know there's some quirks with guys pitching in Colorado, but just sort of a 2021 to 2022 comparison, it looks like the stuff has actually taken a little bit of a step back for German Marquez as well, which leads me to wonder, should the Rockies actually trade him now, knowing that there's a lot of teams that need pitching

and there's not enough starting pitching out there? And in this window, when there's still teams that see a lot of value in the contract, he's got one more year already locked in plus a club option for 2024. If they keep holding him and he keeps struggling, they're just going to crater his value even further. Whereas I feel like there's still a little bit of that we can fix Herman Marquez that probably bounces around for a lot of organizations.

There was a lot of interest in John Gray, you know, as an example. Yeah. Who put up inferior numbers to Marquez over time in Colorado. Similar. I think a smart organization would do it because you're going to get more value out of him

because you have that extra year. I thought there were more years on his deal, so I pooh-poohed the idea also because I don't think the Rockies are a smart organization. But it takes two to tango man like you really like you really need to find another organization that that values him and likes him and sees and thinks that they can they can fix him like you said and and then on top of that just as a as a probably as a Rocky GM it's really hard to trade away pitching because you can't buy it in the free agency market.

You're not even getting good results on the road right now. It's been rough this year. This is one of the first times I've had Marquez in any league. And it's been NL labor, 12-team NL only league. You leave a guy in if you get him in the draft auction part of the proceedings. Welcome to a five-year reign. It's gross, man. Jose Barrios. It's terrible. Dancing of the proceedings. Welcome to a five-year reign. It's gross, man. Man, Jose Barrios.

It's terrible. Dancing in the corner. And the thing is, the fastball velo is still there. I saw his start against, I want to say it was against the Giants a few weeks ago, and he didn't look bad when I was watching him. He didn't look like a guy that should be getting hammered the way he's been hammered over the course of this season. In fact, it's going up. He's sitting 96 right now.

The curveball velo is up. All the velo is actually up across the board for him right now. That's wild. I do see in the model that normal thing about when he's away from home, his stuff plus goes up. And when he's home it goes down um so i can see you know basically in his away starts his stuff plus is around 100 and then his home starts is around 90 honestly i mean some are like 83 but uh so that's a kind of a wild thing if there's a 10 point swing for everybody he's in particular maybe a little bit

more effective than most because of the curveball yeah so i think i mean look if herman marquez gets traded up any anywhere i'm interested in deeper mixed leagues again and i think there's at least a chance that they would actually want to do this because imagine if the rays had held on to chris archer a little longer and performance had dipped. They wouldn't have got a return anything close to what they got from the Pirates in that deal. Sorry to bring it up again, Pirates fans. But I think because of the return being so good, people don't look back at that and say that they may have waited a little too long to trade Chris Archer. And I think the Rockies are in danger of waiting too long to trade Herman Marquez, even with the problems

they have replacing pitching. So we'll see. We'll see if anything actually comes from that. We get the hitters to look at here. And I think this is a goofy group of players because these are the bottom of the WRC plus leaderboard, the absolute worst hitters. And a lot like a lot of the pitchers, you look at these, these struggling players and say, who's actually taking their place? Jonathan Scope has the worst WRC plus among qualified players. Who are the Tigers going to play more if they move on from Jonathan Scope? I mean, I don't know if there's an interesting fantasy player in that exact spot or Miles Straw in Cleveland. Miles Straw in Cleveland.

If they're going to play him less, then they need to find a good defensive center fielder and also find someone that hits big league pitching enough to stay in the lineup. So at least with Straw, they're getting great defense, even though he's among the worst qualified hitters in the league so far this season. It's pretty interesting looking at the Robbie Grossman signing and the Scope signing in Detroit and being like, I think we lauded them for trying to put the pieces together

to get better over time and continually try to get better. Grossman's not as big of a problem, and Scope still plays excellent defense, but you're not going to trade them away for prospects. And in the meantime, you're losing the opportunity to try a young player there to see if they can get better. So are they blocking their improvement as a team by signing these guys? If you don't have someone to take the spot, then no.

And I think it's like, are you going to play Cody Clemens? Is it better for your organization to play Cody Clemens in the second half or to just leave scope in the fold or to play Cody Clemens? Is it better for your organization to play Cody Clemens in the second half or to just leave Scope in the fold or to play Harold Castro or Willie Castro? Because it's the usual suspects there. Are any of those younger guys interesting enough to justify that decision? In general, I err on the side of playing the younger guy because you know Scope's not on your next good team.

Yeah. The weirdest part though is that none of those guys are young you know harold castro's 28 cody clemens is 26 these are all guys that are barely uh barely young i mean 26 is you know that's peak age harold castro is playing well enough he's 28 and he's a left-hander and he's got an above-average bat right now. He's predicted to be about average. I could see making that move. But there's nothing Harold Castro has done except for his interesting barrel rate this year.

That would make me think that he was an everyday regular on a good team. So the only name I can add to the list is ryan kreidler who is above average on triple a right now has was way better last year uh and is only hitting 221 but he's got a 323 obp and power and you might want to see what his major league strikeout rate looks like he's the kind of guy that I would say just throw him in at second. He's been playing second in the minor leagues. Just throw him in at second and see if you've got anything with him. I mean, sometimes you just need to see if you have anything.

Yeah, there's some power. There's some speed. Looks like some decent OBP skills as well. He'd be the guy that you'd want to play more by clearing that spot out as opposed to some of the players on the bench right now cleveland just the the straw example they don't have enough outfielders this is part of their problem so i don't trade it away uh they basically released oscar mercado yeah so i don't think they're gonna push straw out right now and i don't think they're gonna trade for a reynolds or a mullins

so here you are you're just you're stuck with him the good news is if you're relying on straw for those cheap steals even though he's hurting you everywhere else you might not lose that source of steals just based on on their circumstances a lot of the cheap speed guys jorge mateo nikki lopez they're struggling in a big way. I could see both of those guys playing a lot less. And Whit Merrifield's on this list. We talked about him maybe a month, six weeks ago now. It's been a little while. And I think we expected a bounce back of some kind, even if this is part of the decline phase for him. And it really hasn't happened yet. 228, 277, 311 line here on the final day of june yeah it's a

little bit like i'm not sure that that organization is going to do anything uh they also have him under contract for a little bit i his trade value is probably not super high because it's not the type of player that a lot of teams value however uh, if they threw some cash in, possibly, which is just a weird thing to say, but if they threw some cash in, there might be a team that does value his speed because as you get closer to the playoffs, the more speed matters.

And then having speed that can actually play and maybe play closer to a league average bat going forward, he is projected for basically league average going forward, is super, super valuable. So, you know, there could be a team that, you know, like remember when the Dodgers signed Hansel Roples? You know, it's kind of like, what? It's about versatility and uh having someone who can make

contact on your bench that sort of deal uh so i could see someone saying oh which merrifield improves our versatility improves our team speed gives us a pinch runner you know gives us a guy that we want on second uh in extra innings that sort of deal uh. So I think it's possible he gets traded. Back to the Cleveland thing, I just wonder if Stephen Kwan can't play center. I'm looking at his outs above average, and he is rated similarly to Aaron Judge, Derek Hill, Adam Engel, Albert Amora, victor robles austin slater so i think it you know it's just

a question i guess of uh how much stomach they have uh for you know changing anything about mile straws usage after they signed him to a five-year extension yeah that's the other part of this right they're not to make that move right now. If you have just signed a long-term deal, and maybe Strah's deal is worth a lot less than a typical free agent deal because of where he was service time-wise, and that's a slightly different factor, you're still probably not backing away at the beginning of that deal

from using a player on a regular basis. That would be a pretty strange decision. Avi Garcia is the other example of this on this list in Miami. Are they going to, in year one of that deal from using a player on a regular basis that would be a pretty strange decision avi garcia is the other example of this on this list in miami are they gonna in year one of that contract start playing him less no like that's just not gonna happen yeah in fact as much as i i i like this list i think maybe you know what's the what's the the's the person most likely to lose their job is probably scope. Yeah, I think that's the one. And, you know, Kreidler is a nice player, but probably a 15-team mixed league middle infielder if you get the security of an everyday job. He runs a little, so that's enough to at least take the chance.

But it's not going to change your immediate fortunes in the second half of the season either. It's too early for the Orioles to pull up Gunnar Henderson, right? Probably. 21, except he's at AAA. And he's having an amazing year in the minors. And amazingly, the Orioles are not completely out of it. Like, what if they wanted to make a run at 500?

That's something that you could tell your owner, right? As a GM. We were 500 this year. We're going in the right direction. I mean, I think you probably want to feel that as a front office. Hey, we've identified good young players. We've done a good job putting the right staff in place.

We've developed them. So I think Jorge Mateo, Jorge Mateo has never struck me done a good job putting the right staff in place so i think jorge mateo jorge mateo has never uh struck me as a good hitter so um i think uh he's he's second most likely to lose their job on this list yeah the cheap bags you're getting from mateo probably go away in the second half of the season and they're not that cheap you're you're spending a price the 199 batting average is a price it's hurting for sure uh nikki lopez probably just becomes a just a regular backup like that's just who he's likely to be kike hernandez has been off to a pretty bad start throughout the first half but i think if you just look at him plus jackie bradley jr and you become even more

confident that jaron duran can keep playing a lot like that's pretty logical to me I don't know if there's a lot to push back on with that the other situation the last one I want to bring up for today on this hit this group of hitters the Dodgers between Max Muncy and Justin Turner are getting a lot less from those two players than we expected back at the beginning of the season and I'm trying to decide if it's going to be internal adjustments, someone like Jake Lamb who they've had kind of stashed away, a prospect like Miguel Vargas, or it's a trade. It just seems like the potential winners in this case are not as clear

because there's also the possibility that between now and the August 2nd trade deadline that Muncy and Turner get back to some of their old ways? You know, the word phantom may be misused here, but some sort of IL stint for Muncy just to clear his head and maybe get a rehab stint, you know what I mean? And maybe just take two weeks off and see if the elbow feels any better his max ev is the lowest it's ever been his barrel rate is still okay uh but it is much lower than it's been the last two years he's just hitting everything straight up in the air

and i think he's hurt so i guess you know there's a question of like, is it going to get better in two weeks or not? But I could see them, uh, putting my expectancy on the IL and you could call it phantom. You know, it's like, uh, you know,

a different team. Like if you, is he hurt, hurt or is he, or do we just want to try and get him right? I think he's actually hurt. He had the elbow injury coming into the season. And let me, if you're watching on YouTube, look at this.

Oh, man, look at that. Look at this rolling WOBA chart. That is what an injured player looks like. I think so, too. So they have to do something about that. I don't know if a few weeks on the IL fixes that. It sounds more like the kind of problem that you need to have surgery to fix. And you need an offseason to recover from that.

So I think that's at least one spot that's somewhat up for grabs for the dodgers we know they're always in on pretty much anyone available in trade they've got young talent to move pretty much anytime they need to but it might be even two spots that they have to figure out maybe one's internal maybe it's a combination of lamb and vargas for one and a trade upgrade for the other, but definitely worried about Muncy. Even more than Turner, definitely worried about Turner as well. We're going to save the trade value of injured stars

for our next episode. I want to get to prospect of the week. You know, anybody catching your eye as you dig through the leaderboards and watch games? Yeah, I need you to go first. I had a name that came up on the Athletic Fantasy Baseball podcast earlier this week. Alejandro Ozuna is an outfielder in the Rangers organization,

and I feel like it's worth bringing him up again because he does a little bit of everything. Age-appropriate, even on the young side for the level at low A he's 19 right now left-handed hitting outfielder six home runs this season 25 steals he's doing that with a 319 413 473 line plate skills are really good he's basically cut the k rate in half from where he was last year he was at 30.5 percent at the same level for a almost identical sample size down at fifteen point two percent right now really love to see that kind of improvement it's a 150 wrc plus one of the most productive players at the level and probably a guy that gets a chance to play at high a for the

second half of the minor league season nice nice well you know i, I should highlight this guy because we were just talking about the Tigers. And they've got a middle infielder that we did not mention earlier because he does not necessarily pop on scouting grades. The fangraph scouting grades for him are 35 plus, which suggests utility or worse. And there's not a scouting reason to like him. There is a stat scouting reason to like him. He has Andre Lipchis. Lipchis? Lipchis?

I'm going to go with Lipchis. Andre Lipchis is a middle infielder in Detroit. He has the best walk versus strikeout BB slash K walk to strikeout rate ratio in the minor leagues. He's ahead of Gunnar Henderson, Bo Naylor, a guy named Andres Alvarez. And for some of them, their high walk, high strikeout rate, a guy named Vito Frischia in Philadelphia in AA, he is 19% walk rate, 23.5% strikeout rate. There's a fair amount of those guys up here,

like Spencer Horwitz in Toronto, has a bit of the same line. But Lipschitz has an 18% walk rate and a 16% strikeout rate, so I already kind of love him, and I don't know why the scouting grades are great, that bad, but, you know, there's a little bit of a difference this year. He's 60% better than league average in AA, 24 years old, and he's never really been that good in the past. So, you know, I think he's found some power, increased the contact rate.

It's the best swing and strike rate of his career. Anyway, he just looks like a solid player statistically. I don't know why. He has speed. He has power. He plays up the middle. They're playing him at some first base this year, so maybe the defense is a question. But second base is a place you can hide a guy who isn't amazing defensively. They need something at second base. Maybe it's actually going to be Andre Lipschitz that comes up. Yeah, there's a couple names in this Tiger system that are interesting. Colt Keith also popped a few weeks ago on one of the prospect episodes as well. So not as close to the big leagues as Lipschitz appears to be.

And yeah, I'd say right behind Kreidler is someone that you want to play someone in that infield who's kind of interesting. Give him a shot. We've seen other guys get the jump from double A. We talked about a guy that was a third round pick out of the university of tennessee so he's a college guy he's not young and see if that step forward at the plate at double a is actually something that can carry over against top level pitching so interesting name for sure let's close it out with a beer of the month segment i mean it, it's the perfect timing going into holiday weekend. I finished the keg.

It wasn't even hard. We did it. You did better than the last time you had a keg. It was a smaller keg. It was a pony keg. Lesson learned. As you get older, go pony. Take the amount of beverages

you were going to buy and divide by two, if you're Eno, divide by three, and then you come up with the amount of beverages you were going to buy and divide by two, divide by three, and then you come up with the number of beverages that you probably reasonably need for the group of people you have. Yeah, there are 60 pints in a pony keg. And so there's still a fair amount of beer in there. But we got 25, 30 people on a school bus during pride weekend to celebrate my birthday uh and the beer that we had amazingly was the veil crucial taunt double iba it's their flagship beer they the veil are part of a group of breweries around dc in virginia in the farmlands there there are some friendly rules and regulations for breweries that grow some of their own product grow some of their

own hops or whatever they're called you know sort of farm breweries so there are a a group of breweries in the Virginia area that take advantage of that. The Farm Belt. There's some name for this group of breweries. Anyway, the Vale was really good. It was really good. Four and a half stars. Just a really nice double IPA where it wasn't mealy and too sweet. It was bright in a way and uh nobody tasted the eight percent uh and everybody had a good time and i only had to have like two beers after i

brought home that's uh that's success after the the half barrel incident from uh really like homer sandwich the purple sandwich that i was doing like homer are you out there with the keg again you know are you out there with the keg again i'm just gonna finish it uh another cool thing about it was it came in a one-way keg i've never seen this before um a one-way keg is for these long uh for long distribution chains where like you know a lot of times you you want to send a keg to a bar and you want to getway keg is for these long distribution chains where, like, you know, a lot of times you want to send a keg to a bar and you want to get the keg back. You know, it's kind of recycling. You get the metal.

It's a big metal thing. They now make these one-way kegs where the Vale just sent out a plastic keg that is recyclable. And what's cool about that, too, is you can see through it. So you can see how much is left. That helps. You're not just guessing. Like, how much of this is the weight of the keg and how much of this is actual liquid?

Should I give up or not, you know, is the big question. And when I could see that it was just a little bit at the very bottom, I had a couple more and it was finished. So I had my first beer from Bear bottle brew company in san francisco and i think one of the things that i like about it just i forget which i don't remember which exact beer it even was but they have all the stats on their beer every possible stat even things i don't even fully understand there's all the information for the recipe their beer almost completely off of what's on the can and i thought that was really cool because it gives you, if you are fully into brewing your own beer and just figuring these things out

and figuring out what you really like down to a precise level like that, they'd make that as accessible as possible. Yeah, I had one of the... Was it a milkshake one? They do like the lactose sometimes. Not a milkshake. You know what? Here's my other beer of the month

contribution. I have decided that I don't think I like lactose in my beer. This is not for me. I don't like that chalky, slightly sweet. I don't know if it has any sort of effect on me that way, but it just... I'll try one.

I tend to find that if I have something with lactose as a taster, like as part of a flight, I don't mind it. And if I get a whole pint of it, it just doesn't work for me. It's by the end of it, you're not into it anymore. I'm just done with it. I wish those beers were five ounces at a time instead of a pint at a time. So I think that's something that I've realized as I've tried a few more of them.

I like what they're trying to do. They're just not for me. I don't even drink dairy i don't i don't have any dairy i cut cheese out of my life so like it was weird to be like oh i want i don't have any dairy but i'd like it in my beer so i agree with you bear ball is really fun and they make some they put some weird stuff in there you know there's there's weird flavors they'll put some uh fruit adjuncts in. They push the envelope. I appreciate them for that.

Surf detective. That's the one I had. My memory is terrible lately. I can't remember anything. And if you're worried about the cheese that Eno's not eating, don't worry. I've been eating all of it. So the cheese balance of the universe is still right where it needs to be. It's so embarrassing when i walk

through the store and i'm getting ready to check out of the grocery store and i've got six different cheese products yeah nice i've got a spreadable bucket cheese i've got some cream cheese in a can that you can spray i don't do the aerosol cheese because that's look if that's your thing good for you i have decided that i can't. That's the seventh cheese. I've cut the seventh cheese out. I have enough forms of cheese in my life. But hopefully everybody out there has a safe and happy long holiday weekend if you're celebrating in the States. Get that grill going.

Yeah, enjoy a couple things on the grill. Try and relax. Hopefully you enjoy a few podcasts along the way or whatever you like to do on the 4th of July. Be safe. Obviously, it's one of those holidays that is surprisingly dangerous. But if you're enjoying this podcast on a platform that allows you to rate and review, we really appreciate a nice review. If you haven't done that already, you can drop us questions for a future episode. Rates and Barrels at TheAthletic.com.

You can ask questions in the comments section under this video on YouTube. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening.