Rates & Barrels - Second-Half Pitcher Workload Concerns & Searching for Midseason Help via Trade & Waivers

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss several pitchers facing potential workload limitations in the second half -- including a large group of rookie pitchers, and a few veterans who have lost time in recent years due to significant injuries. Plus, they attempt to find a few solutions via trade and waivers to help remedy an expected shortcoming of innings during the final two-plus months of the season.  Rundown -- Young Pitchers Facing IP Concerns -- George Kirby & 2021 Injury Impact -- Any Reason to Worry About Shane McClanahan? -- What If You Have Multiple Pitchers In This Situation? -- Veterans w/Major Injuries -- The Downside in Pushing Starting Pitcher Volume From Waivers -- Helpful Changes for Aaron Civale? -- Max Meyer Pops in Pitching Model -- Short Relievers of Interest -- Long-Term Ceiling of Glenn Otto? -- Any Signs of Slowing Down for Nestor Cortes? 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

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Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Thursday, July 21st. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris, back here with you. Island Eno has returned to Eno at Home. And it turns out Island Eno is one of our listeners' favorite characters, I guess we could say, we have on this show. Yeah, shout out to our YouTube commenters. That was pretty funny. Keeps us laughing. Keep the comments coming on YouTube.

You can ask questions there. You can always email us, of course. Ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com is the email address. But on this episode, we're going to take a look at some second half storylines, kind of a second half preview. We're going to take a look at some pitching workload concerns, lots of pitchers that really fall into that.

There are obviously the young pitchers who just haven't thrown a ton of innings in the past, complicated even further by the absence of a 2020 minor league season. We'll talk about the older pitchers who might have been dealing with major injuries in recent years who are pushing their workloads up. And then some of the in-between type players. I think Nestor Cortez kind of fits into this sweet spot of someone that hasn't been a starter for a full big league season before but appears to be in that role

and thriving to the point where we just wonder what does August look like? What does September look like as those innings continue to pile up? We'll take a look around at a bunch of different categories looking for some help for your rosters as the second half gets underway. We've got games again on Thursday, which I've got to say,

the Wednesday after the All-Star game is a lonely, lonely day if you are a baseball fan. You go to the app, you go to the TV, and you just look, and you're like, this is weird. Something's missing. There's just like a part of me that's just gone. I just take the whole day off, mostly because I've just come back from covering, but also because it's a grind of a season.

It's a long season. And then thirdly, because I don't really care about the ESPYs. There's not really a lot of sports on that I care about. It's a day to watch other things. Watched murders on the Orient Express last night. Yeah, what's with the murder stuff lately? I've been watching only murders in the building. I started watching that on the flying that I was doing.

Yeah, that was fun. It's a good show. I've enjoyed it so far. I'm through the first season. So if you are picking that up or have already watched it, no spoilers, please. I'm not a crime podcast person, but I'm maybe on the brink of becoming one. Maybe that's an off-season project. Maybe we'll have a Raids and Barrels murder mystery episode at some point in the winter.

Are you advocating for a murder here? No. We'll save that for the next lockout four and a half years from now. Yeah, right. Who killed baseball? You killed baseball. That's not much of a mystery. I think we can figure that one out right away.

But we'll start with the pitching workloads. I think the young pitchers in particular, this is a group of players that every single year you look at and you say, great, I've done well. I've got Spencer Strider on my roster right now, or I've got George Kirby on my roster right now, or I've dodged a few raindrops with Mackenzie Gore and have been really happy with what I've got from him so far. But what's going to happen in mid-August, late August or September when those guys are maybe just out of innings completely? And I think it's always complicated by each team's individual situation. I think in Atlanta, we've talked about them on the 3-0 show as a team that might benefit from adding some veteran innings to keep both Strider and Kyle Wright healthy. But I was doing some research before the show. Kyle Wright threw 143 in a third innings last year between two levels. So I don't think there's

that much of a concern with him. But Spencer Strider was at 96 in a third innings last year. So they have to be very careful with how they get him from point A to point B, assuming he's a huge part of their plans in October, which there's every reason to believe that he will be. What do we do? Do we use the stuff plus model? Do we try and look at other trends? What's going to be our North Star as we decide how to manage

some of these young pitchers throughout the second half? It's completely lame, but the only sort of snippet in, like viewpoint into this decision-making process by the pitchers, by the teams has been that old adage from Alex Anthopoulos that I quote all the time. He said in press conference to everybody, amazingly when they you know are deciding about their pitchers they just kind of add 20 to last year's innings and that's they only do it because that's kind of what people do i'm willing to go to 25 it's just easy math and i think it represents some hopefulness and then also i'm willing to go to 25%, an extra 25% over the year before for teams that are winning. So, you know, we went through the list,

and for example, as one of the players on the list, Rowan Z. Contreras is over his innings limit already? Or is it an innings limit from last year already? Well, yeah, he lost time to an injury last year, which really complicates how hard they're willing to push him because he finished with 61 innings in 2021. I don't think you look at that and say, well, we can only give him 15 and a third more this season.

That's not going to work because you're never going to get Ruanzi Contreras through a full big league season if you advance him like that. And I think he's a little easier to deal with just because instead of having a lot of missed starts between now and the end of the regular season, it's probably just you're going to go every fifth day, you're going to pitch as much as you can, and then you're going to hit an endpoint, and then we're just going to shut you down for the season. and then you're going to hit an end point and then we're just going to shut you down for the season. The schedule management for the contending players

and the workload management within starts adds two layers that are more complicated. Yeah, it's true. But Contreras is in the minor leagues right now. So, you know, I did make the decision to try to hold on to him in a couple of leagues because I thought he'd be back up. Well, that's 100% roster management though

because George Kirby went down, too. Those two teams are not actually demoting those guys. Yeah. But what's Kirby's number at? Kirby is at 91 innings through the first half, and he only had 67 and two-thirds innings in games last year. I think he had some injuries in the minors as well. So that situation is a little worse,

because the Mariners are in the mix for the wild card and they're they're gonna want him for the postseason even and i think that complicates strider too it's a little bit like mclanahan last year or uh you know any number of players where they're young and then you know they want to they want they also very good so they want them for the postseason if they're a good team so i mean want to they want they also very good so they want them for the postseason if they're a good team so i mean it's a lot of different directions but i think you know i generally if they had a a fair amount of innings last year i'm willing to add 25 so for strider you know it actually looks like maybe 103 or something last year.

Yeah, I had 96 and a third with my back of the napkin math, but around 100. Around 100. I think they could push them to 150. Counting the playoffs? I think that's probably fair, and that's the hard part, counting the playoffs. Which is an indeterminate number too.

So I think another 50 innings for Strider is possible and that would be another 10 starts. 10 five inning starts. Generally I mean the other part of this I don't like. I don't think innings are the way you should really track workload.

Pitches thrown matters more. Yeah, pitches. And then also, I do think the more advanced teams are tracking them through their health stats, their peripheral stats, stuff that shows up in their bullpens, their movement profiles, and maybe stuff like their Stuff Plus in general. But I would have to say that we look through some players and almost all the guys that are running up on their innings limits

are down in Stuff Plus. So Contreras is down 1.1. Keegan Thompson is down 1. Josiah Gray is down 1.3. Aaron Ashby is down 1.5. Mackenzie Gore is down 2.4. Spencer Strider is down 4.5. Joe Ryan is down 5. Spencer Strider's down 4.5, Joe Ryan's down 5.

So that's a bunch of names that we care about that are near their innings limits, and they're all down. It does matter, I think, that Strider was a reliever before and that his after in the before-after scenario is still 136 stuff plus, which is the best stuff plus among any starters. So I think we're not as worried about him. But Mackenzie Gore went from 100 stuff plus which is the best stuff plus among any starters uh so i think we're not as worried about him but mckenzie gore went from 100 stuff plus to 97 basically uh and we've seen it in the results as well so there's kind of the eyeball test uh ashby's is good before and good after and

he's got actually uh some innings in him right yeah he had 95 innings in 2021 but i think more importantly aaron ashby threw 126 innings back in 2019 i think that matters too yeah your previous high is probably where you can project a ceiling from you take that and if you're going to add 20 to a workload a pitcher has been able to hold up with before, tack 20% on to that 126, and that probably gives you a better idea what they're aiming for. Obviously, looking at some of these more granular things along the way to make sure that it's smart and reasonably, you know, properly guided to keep going down the path they're going down. to keep going down the path they're going down. Yeah, and I think there's also a sort of switch that gets flipped where there must be some sort of number where you get to

and they just don't care. Because I'm looking at Shane McClanahan, and one of the reasons I did put him a little lower was I thought maybe they would play some games with him, try to keep his number down. In 2021, he had 123 innings, try to keep his number down. In 2021, he had 123 innings, but he also had postseason. Yeah, a few more in the postseason.

So 128. Let's give him 130 innings. Do we think he's actually going to be limited? So if you do 130 and you give him the extra quarter, that's only 162 innings. So that would say that he'd have as many innings left as Spencer Strider. But that didn't seem right. And then if you look at his stuff plus, if you use that as tracking, he's up. But I do think the Strider thinking with McClanahan is sort of right

because they want him to be fresh in october it's not that they're not going to let him work every fifth day it's that whenever they can if they can get him out after five innings they'll yeah if they're if they get a big lead all right let's just take a little off mcclanahan i think it's more like sevens right now yeah maybe if it could just maybe just becomes more fives before. Like how he started the season. That's interesting. He started the season 4.1, 4.2, had two fives in the next four starts,

and then started settling into six and seven, right? So maybe that's how we'll see him end the season, fours and fives. Or some fours and fives in August, and then some more sixes once you get to late september that way you're you're you're not hitting that level of fatigue again and start unless something you know unless the stuff plus unless the the velocity unless the least point drops you know they're tracking all these things if there isn't any of that they also want to win games and try to win the division and improve their wildcard buy and all that stuff.

You know, their wildcard seeding. They're not going to want to rest him just be like, hey, two weeks off, Phantom IL, I don't think. Right? No, I don't think they'll do that. Because you have to kind of build back up and everything. It's not good for them to stop.

This to me, though, is one of the things we have to guess on the most, which is just terrible because situations can vary so much on an individual level. If you're worried about Tarek Skubal, you probably shouldn't be. 149 in the third innings a year ago. He should be fine. Josiah Gray is another guy that actually— You should be worried about the fact that he's not as good as his numbers, but that's beside the point. But he was pitching well at the beginning of the season, hit a bit of a rough patch.

It's still up and down with Scooble because he's still making adjustments, still figuring some things out. But Josiah Gray is one of the younger starters. If you're getting cheap strikeouts from him in a deeper league, 92 innings already, Nationals aren't going anywhere. There could be an easy early shutdown case for Gray at some point. So it might not be this in-start workload. It's kind of like we talked about with Contreras. It might just be that the time that you're using him ends up falling a little bit short, which is disappointing but understandable at the same time.

I think I made a mistake. I think in sort of like NFPC formats where you have the short bench, you know, five to seven or whatever, if you have a short bench and Contreras gets sent down or Strider goes on a short-term IL or one of these young guys when they do that, I think you should actually drop them. I think the hardest was like Strider,

but like with Contreras, I think I made a mistake. I think I should have used the flexibility and dropped Contreras. Now I've sort of made the decision, so I'm going to wait for some news in the next week or something, and I assume that I'll hear some news about him coming back up, but

same time, I think if you have a short bench and they're starting to play with them, you just don't know what the end result of that playing with them is. And if they're already over the innings they've done in the past, and especially if they're not on a good team like Contreras, I think that's a sort of perfect storm where you say, I love you Contreras and Keeper and Dynasty Leagues. You know, I'm still acquiring if I'm not going to win this year. I still want to hold you if I can hold and

win. But in sort of redraft with a short bench, I don't know what your future looks like. I should just move on and just, and be more flexible and have someone who can help me now, you know? So I know that that doesn't help you so much with Strider. It doesn't help you at all with Shane McClanahan. I can't imagine telling someone, would you tell somebody who's in a head to head league and you know, they're worried about what the end of the year looks like for McClanahan that they should trade McClanahan for a veteran? No. Yeah, I can't do it. I wouldn't be doing that.

I think the other question is, what other corrective actions are there? What else can you do right now? I'm thinking about my Tout Wars team might be something similar to what other people are dealing with where you have multiple pitchers we're talking about. You have some combination of two or three of these pitchers i have strider gore and kirby all on that team hey good job with young pitching so far problem is you're not going to have nearly the volume you want in the rest of the season so i've been trying to make those moves trying to add guys like from reveldez and make trades flipping bats for arms knowing that if i don't have more stability in that group of pitching,

I am going to be chasing so hard on the waiver wire in the final six weeks of the season that my ratios will be in danger. I won't have any fab money left. So you do have to start thinking about how you're going to manage this now. I realize if you're in a league like NFBC Leagues with no trades, that becomes challenging too. But you still have to think about it like I'm talking about with Contreras. You probably should just move on.

Kirby is down too, but I don't know. Kirby's performance has been better. Kirby's team is better. It just seems like they need him. It seems like he'll just be back up again. Contreras, I think, could hit some number and just be shut down. Yeah, that's exactly how i see him right now like he'll if he gets to 100 like what did you say he had 60 last year i think if he gets to 100

that's more than like adding 25 and it but it it it puts him on a progression where next year he could do 130 or 140 and then he could you know maybe be established as you know more of a veteran like can make it through the season type guy right so i think i think he could get to 100 and that's it so now i'm talking about oh i might only get like 25 more innings out of him why did i keep him while he was down so i i think i did mess that one up but uh but yeah when it comes to kirby i would hold when it comes to strider i would hold but you know if you are in in teams that allow for trades and if you are in head-to-head leagues i think it i think it's very likely that strider

moves to the bullpen for the playoffs all the way to the pen really yeah because maybe he can be a guy who gives them one or two innings but just imagine that like you know you have your veteran guys and then you have strider coming in the third or fourth inning in a wild card game. You know what I mean? Just blow the doors off the other team. And I don't think that he necessarily has the innings to start all the way through the playoffs.

And he also started the season as a reliever. So what was his conditioning like going into the season? How many innings did he think he could get this season as a reliever so you know what was his conditioning like going into the season how many innings did he think he could get this season how many innings did the the team think that he could get this season all those things matter because uh you know he's running up closer to to where he was before and then they also have good other players right so i i would be a little bit worried in a head-to-head league redraft where I had Strider. Wouldn't you? Well, for sure.

Just because it's going to be an unusual shape of those innings, regardless of the role they see for him in the postseason. Maybe they're just so excellent that you just hold on to it and just say, hey, if he's a reliever, then I got a guy who's going to strike out 14 guys for nine as a reliever. But you're still realizing right now, you're probably going to need one more good starter once you get to that point in your season. It's not just this group of young pitchers though.

I mean, think about Justin Verlander, Luis Severino, Noah Sindergaard. I think Carlos Rodon to some extent kind of belongs in this group of guys that have had big injuries in the past that year over year we're still worried about workload i think michaelis and tony gonsolin are two big success stories this year i mentioned earlier you know nestor cortez doesn't really have the big injury but it's more of the what happens to him like where does his stuff go so as you look at this group of pitchers the more established guys that you're not necessarily backing off of as an organization because they haven't done it at some point in the past, but just the sweet spot of making sure they're as effective as you want them to be.

Is there anybody from that group that really stands out to you as potentially problematic? It's amazing. You just named three names, and you said Verlander, too, so that's four names. Verlander, Severino, Syndergainder guard michaelis gonsolin nester six names whole six pack okay severino let me see okay severino is down in stuff plus uh but he's still at 109 stuff plus so it's pretty it's still he's still in a good spot the other four the other five all up in stuff plus it kind of gives me that feeling of like, this is the good year.

You know what I mean? Like, they are feeling good. This is the good year. And in terms of what the team's going to do with them, I can't imagine they're going to limit them. Like, some of those guys are in walk years of their contracts. They don't want to be limited. You know, Verlander, Rodon, they don't want to be limited.

They want to put as many innings up as possible because they're going to go back on the market next year. Syndergaard's on a one-year deal, so he probably wants to just keep going. I think Syndergaard's stuff is down. That's amazing. That's surprising. I've seen him throwing things other than his fastball, but just generally his stuff is not good this year.

I've seen him throwing things other than his fastball, but just generally his stuff is not good this year. But I think that a lot of the veterans, you know what you were talking about with the past previous career high? I think with veterans, they look a little bit more to like, what did they do before this injury? What were they doing consistently before? What is a reasonable expectation from them in a healthy season?

Yeah, Gonsolin, as one example, had 128 innings way back in 2018, 26 starts that year between high A and double A. So you push them to 150, 160, and you say, yeah, we're comfortable with that. And they've got a lot of depth. They've got a lot of things they can do to manipulate the roster if they want to. But the other thing with Gonsolin is, I mean, he's been amazing. 202 ERA,.84 whip so far, 11 wins.

Just an absurd fantasy value to this point in the season. Regression is coming for Tony Gonsolin regardless. Even if we didn't have these workload concerns, we'd be looking at him and saying- we didn't have an all-star game. Yeah, if that didn't happen, you'd say, um, 350 ERA, 120-ish whip, and a decent strikeout rate. That's probably what you should be expecting from Gonsolin

despite how great he has been up to this point. I did want to bring up a possible strategy with regards to what we're talking about here, which is I think there's a possibility that maybe you should just keep all these guys while they're pitching, not worry about tomorrow, and then when the time does come that they are shut down and you have lost them,

replace them with middle relievers. And the reason I say this is, there's a great piece by Mike Gianella up on Baseball Perspectives where he looks at in-season waiver wire pickups and where the production comes from on the pitching side. Obviously, the top group is starting pitchers. The 10 best starting pitchers that picked up this year on the pitching side obviously the the the top group is uh starting pitchers the 10 best starting pitchers have picked up this year on the wire they are producing the

most value miles michaels right that makes sense bulk innings picked him up on the wire you can he helps you in so many places k's era what. Great. The next group, and this is the next group of pitchers that has given the most value, were the top 10 middle relievers picked up this season. I just think that's such a hard group of players to squeeze the value out of though because the calculators looking back are always going to lean heavily on those guys because the wins come through, right? I think predicting that is very difficult. Maybe not impossible, but very difficult. And you can start to get a sense of the good teams and how they use

guys on a week-by-week basis. You can look and see, maybe on Sunday, you say, oh, actually, it's been three or four days since Michael King pitched, didn't pitch Sunday. Okay, this is a week to add Michael King because early in the week he's going to get a pretty big cluster of innings. Maybe you can micromanage it. I played that game with Keegan Aiken a little bit. The only retort I have is this. The worst group of waiver wire pickups were the worst starters because now you've got bulk bad.

You know what I mean? And if you've been streaming two-start starters or been scrambling for Ks, then you know. Because, you know, I picked up Michael Pineda in at least one team for that two-start where he was just the poop. I mean, did you see that one? It was like he had like four innings against the royals and i was like and like and like three strikeouts in one of the starts and

the other start he gave up like five runs and four in it and i was just like oh man why did i do that anyway my point is that it does represent an avenue where you can say, you know, maybe I won't go that far in wins, but maybe these young guys and these good starters that I have right now, Kirby, Strider, maybe these guys will give me some padding in wins. And then I can just get somebody that'll pitch in the middle innings that won't necessarily get me saves, but will get me a smattering of Ws and will have like a 12K9 get me saves but will get me a smattering of of w's and we'll have like a 12k9 and this will probably keep me afloat in in the strikeout right and maybe i'm running out of innings too you know like maybe you have an innings cap and you just want to get the most excellent innings out of kirby and strider etc while they're in uh and then just put in some uh some middle relievers at the

very end just to to make the best use of the remaining innings you have left. I just wanted to throw that out there as a strategy because there's going to be an idea where you have to panic. I've lost Strider. I've lost Kirby. What do I do? I'm going to go out and buy a starting pitcher. I just wanted to throw that kernel of an idea in there that you could just buy a reliever. Yeah, Ronaldo Lopez probably becomes your friend, especially in those innings

cap situations you were just describing, because in a lot of ways, it looks like a really good starter for you. It's just over a much smaller volume of innings. I think the other thing to think about, too, when you imagine where some of the waiver wire value comes from small amounts of waiver wire value late season streaming becomes a bit easier because the bad teams get worse and there are even some middle of the pack teams that sink quite a bit because they have some players that start to get shut down so it becomes a little easier just to trade it away yeah yeah just to throw the to throw the Michael Pineda volume play that burned you, or similar plays that have burned

all of us at some point this year. Could be better later in the season when they don't have Benintendi on the Royals anymore. Yep, you get more quad A-type players and lineups at that point in the season, and that, I think, makes volume streaming a little bit safer than it might be at this point in the season. Yeah i think makes volume streaming a little bit safer than it might be at this point

in the season uh it's yeah it's possible uh i wanted to maybe throw some names out there uh i think what you're looking for are relievers on good teams that are like the third or fourth best reliever so it has to be a really a good enough bullpen where the fourth reliever is is pretty good because that fourth reliever is the one coming in maybe in the fifth or sixth and vulturing that win. So names that come to mind are like Drew Smith, maybe Colin McHugh. Who's the guy on the Brewers? I can just throw that one to you. It's not as easy as it has been in recent years. Suter's been getting hit.

It was kind of Suter as the glue guy for a while. I think they have to trade for that guy. Maybe Gustave could be that guy. Milner's a little bit of a specialist. Milner's stuff has been surging a little bit. Gott could be that guy. The Brewers don't have it quite the same way that they have in in recent years and you know they actually you know they're built a little differently where they have like the a squad

anyway and they don't like their fifth reliever has not always been that great you know they kind of always had like the star three or whatever yeah i'm wondering if the giants have someone like that i was thinking on the yankees that chapman could become that i mean they're looking for a way to use him right um i think on the astros it's film uh mayton yep yeah he comes in i mean brian abreu comes in sometimes too one of those two is an interesting play ronaldo lopez is the obvious one i think on the white socks oh the dodgers have to have one. The Rangers have one with Brock Burke.

He's been really good so far. Phil Bickford was better. Hmm. Maybe when Trinan comes back. Gratterall is so up and down. I've seen Price vulture some wins in LA. That's still, I don't know. I think the group of pitchers that meet this criteria

is smaller than you would think. I got one. Matt Brash. Yeah, that could work. They're using him in multi-inning because he still has a little bit of that starter buildup in him. I think Matt Brash is a good pickup for people that are looking for this sort

of thing they're so deep with late inning arms too that you don't really see him ascending in the other direction to become a source of saves at the present time yeah and for those leagues where you have the sbrp he's uh he's become valuable again where now you're just using him for reliever stats out of a starting pitching slot as far as starters being used like regular starters you mentioned a name before we started recording that i've seen available in a good number of leagues because well it's been ugly and i know we talked about him at some point in the last six or eight weeks or so aaron savali i mean if you're just the kind of person that this time of year you're looking at era and you're looking at some of the predictive skills-based numbers, not predictive, but the skills-based numbers like Sierra, there's a big gap.

A 394 Sierra is actually a career best for Aaron Savali, but he's got a 617 ERA and a terrible whip. It's been strikeout per inning stuff so far. Home run rate's actually a tick better than it was last year. I mean, there are some positives here. And as we know, in AL Central especially, there are some pretty favorable spots to use him. So I could see Savali being quietly a nice pickup, and there's plenty of runway in terms of innings left on his arm.

Yeah, it's funny. I had a piece about underutilized pitches, and one of the things that came up was the slider that he has that was rated well, and he's not using it. He's not using it that much. Actually, I think it was the cutter, but I was pointing out that I don't know if he has a cutter and a slider because they're actually pretty similar in in in what they look like um

and i'm not i'm not suggesting that savalli is a reader but uh the cutter's gone through the roof and he stopped using the slider completely um and it's been wonders for his uh for his uh stuff plus he's his stuff plus is now 106 in the last month he's one of the top five surgers among starting pitchers and it's a new mix and that's this that's like 1.0 for me was one of the first things i ever did was look at at players that are pitching differently and then look at their mix and so he he went from using the slider and cutter, using the slider more than the cutter, to now not using the slider at all

and using the cutter about twice as much as he used to. Now he's cutter, sinker, curveball, with some four seams mixed in, I think for whiffs at the top of the zone. And I think that could actually work. And one of the reasons I like that is the cutter is further away in shape um than it was from the slider it is from the curveball right so cutter if you think about shapes and if you think about mechanics and you think about doing this cutter is going to be

very different from curveball in terms of mechanics it's not going to blend together it's not going to become the same pitch cutter curveball sinker also gives you something against lefties um and it keeps him off of it keeps you off your fastball because right now he's throwing the cutter the curve and the sinker all 30 of the time so i think that's actually you know a way that it can work for him and i think he's absolutely someone to pick up off the wire, maybe depending on schedule. I would maybe have an eye for the schedule, but he's one of my favorites. I did a little look at surging stuff plus numbers,

and I've got a couple names off here that he's one of the better ones. Keep in mind that Savali left to start last week with a wrist injury, so he's expected to be out until the end of this month. So it's a possible cheap pickup now, but you may have to hold him for a week or two before he's ready again. Or you can just wait until he's actually healthy and make that move in some more shallow leagues. Here's one that's starting that maybe you can actually just even pick up

for this weekend, depending on the rules of your team. And this is one i'm excited about short term long term maybe but uh but still fairly excited about this guy braxton garrett um and the reason i'm excited is his stuff plus is also up about six and a half and what's so great about that is he's a guy who's demonstrated good command. He's had good command. And now his stuff plus is 99. And now that doesn't sound like super exciting. But for starting pitchers, that's, I would say, a slightly above average.

Starting pitchers are around 97, 98. Because stuff plus doesn't care about what your role is necessarily when it just puts a number on there. So Braxton Garrett now has slightly above average stuff, great command, I would say, and a really good home park. Most of the matchups look good. Would I throw him in Philadelphia yet? I don't know. No, you would not.

I mean, it's getting closer and closer to that point where I just like him enough. And so let that be sort of a clue as to how much I like him. I mean, I picked him up in a ton of NFBC formats. And, you know, I think he's one of the better pickups out there right now. Yeah, definitely interesting name because the home streaming potential is very high when you're talking about someone that locates well and gets to make half of his starts in that nice pitcher-friendly ballpark in Miami. Anybody else that really popped for you as far as help on the pitching front, potentially, from the traditional starter workload perspective?

I think Ross Stripling doesn't really have limits i know i'm not i'm not looking at his player card right now but i wouldn't be surprised he didn't have a ton of innings last year but he's a little bit more like what we've talked about where he's had innings before you know and and i also like from a team standpoint i don't think you're like boy we better make sure ross stripling doesn't get hurt i think you're just like, hey, he's a veteran. You know, we need him. And he's pitching well. His stuff has surged 8.5 points all the way up to 98 with a little bit of pitch mix stuff.

His changeup, and I talked to him about this recently, where he changed his changeup grip. It's the best changeup he's had, I think, in his career. So now he's got a legit change-up. He's worked his breaking ball, breaking stuff to the point where it's pretty good. He's got a wide array of pitches. Good command of those pitches. I think he's a really good pickup. He's also

the opposite of Garrett, where it's just awful matchups. I guess I'd be careful. I'd rather have a bench spot and the ability to put him on my bench and not have to start him all the time, basically. Jackson Kowar for you super deep leaguers came up and had a completely different fastball and a completely different slider, a whole new release point. He has awful command.

And so that's going to make him just a wild ride. But for the deepest leaguers out there, especially as a stash. but for the deepest leaguers out there, especially as a stash. And then I like Edward Cabrera as a stuff plus surger that deep leaguers could jump on. He's an interesting guy to also think about acquiring if you're rebuilding, to think about for the future because he's not completely sure where he is and then lastly just two kind of guys that are up and down on waiver wires in 10 and 12 team leagues even 15 team

leagues they're surging in stuff plus though they're on teams that need them they are pitching a little deeper into games chris archer and marco marco gonzalez are disrespected individuals. And their pitching plus is still way too close to average, but their stuff plus has climbed up. They're obviously flawed pitchers, but I like them more than I did at the beginning of the season. And Marco Gonzalez in particular will give you decisions if you just need decisions. They leave him in a really long time.

He's been the leader in decisions, I think, over the last three years. Chris Archer is a little bit more like, I need strikeouts, and I need them in bulk, and, you know, maybe I'll start him every time he has two starts and get eight to ten strikeouts. The ratios might not be bad from Archer, too, because of the way they're using him. 341 ERA, 126 whips so far this season. You mentioned the usage being slightly better. Since June 2nd, he's made, I think, seven starts now, and three of those have gone five innings.

Doesn't go much further than five. Hasn't gone further than five all year, but all of those starts have been in that span. He didn't make any starts like that through the first two months of the season. So it is more of a deep league play, but I have found myself clinging to Archer in a lot of 15-team leagues where I'm desperate for pitching, and I think the second half could end up being a little better than the first half just in terms of that workload based on those recent trends.

I know he got scooped up over the weekend, so we haven't really done much to help anyone by talking about him as far as making a move. But Max Meyer's numbers looked really good in the pitching model coming off that debut. Yeah, and I think that's an opportunity to buy because you know his team is looking at numbers like that. And it's one of those situations where other people would just say oh he's no good look at his debut but the underlying numbers were very exciting and they poured it over

from the minor leagues on repeat the jose urquidy faith remains strong on this pod i was i'm looking at his page right now and i'm like you know trying to figure out how i was trying to figure out how to lead him yeah just on repeat it's pretty good it's just on repeat he's still he's still showing up we're still trying to figure out when it's gonna happen surging and stuff plus um fantastic yeah the Max Meyer thing though that's kind of kind of like good is that because he already missed some time in the minors you might not have that slam on the brakes with the workload at the end of this season he threw 114 innings last season no it's 111 innings math is fun that's not bad not bad right so he's probably looking at the 140 150 range and so far

this year he is under 70 across all stops i think think the dark horse in the trade deadline is the Marlins trading a starting pitcher. I think they almost, they don't have to do it, but it would be weird if they didn't, given the league-wide need for pitching and the possibility that a team is desperate enough to maybe even overpay to get it. I mean, just Pablo Lopez, like this is peak value for Pablo Lopez. I just feel like, you know, there is always like in the offseason you get more suitors, right? So you could have more demand.

However, the more suitors that you gain in the offseason, this sort of theoretical group of more suitors, also includes a lot of teams that aren't going to be suitors in the offseason, this sort of theoretical group of more suitors, also includes a lot of teams that aren't going to be suitors in the offseason either. You know what I mean? Like, you can say something pithy like, oh, in the offseason, you have 30 teams that, or 29 teams that could be interested, right?

Not really. You know, the Orioles aren't going to buy now and they're not going to buy in the offseason either. So like, could you add three or four teams? Maybe. However, on the flip side, you get so like could you add three or four teams maybe however on the flip side you you get so much more desperation you know from from in-season trades so if you if you could go get pablo lopez right now and and get him for this playoff appearance and still convince your owners

that or whatever that it's for the future and you know got him for more teams, man, I think you might get more for him at the trade deadline than you will in the offseason. In the offseason, you also have more sellers. You have more suitors. You have just more possibilities in all directions. So I think that's the time to strike for them. And if they do that, then Edouard Cabrera and Max Meyer both get.

And Braxton Garrett all still are in the rotation. Yeah, and eventually, you know, Uri Perez, a big part of that rotation there, probably early next season, looked really good at the Futures game. But Pablo Lopez is the guy that makes a lot of sense. And he's complicated because we haven't seen him log a full, healthy season as a big league starter before at 104 innings right now. It's the second highest big league total in the last four years. Kind of came up in 2018.

Didn't have a chance at a full season that year, of course. But it makes a lot of sense if he's the guy that they're going to move and would bring back a lot because he's not a rental, which is really nice for the teams that acquire him. Any relievers that are popping for you right now? Short relievers? Yeah, I had a lot of John Shriver pickups, but if you've been listening to this, I think you knew about John Shriver. One interesting name that doesn't show up,

and I know Tampa is just a total, total mess. But Calvin Fauché, really, Stuff Plus loves him. 157 Stuff Plus. See, I like the fact that he's a righty. And I know that they've been giving lefties some saves and they have multiple lefties, so they don't have to save a lefty um but at the same time like i think that you would play the matchups and it's more likely that you have a righty hitting at the end of the game because it's

just more likely you know there are more righties and so therefore i i think calvin poche and jason adam you know are are gonna be guys that are more likely to be used for a save right i'm looking at the last two weeks worth of games they've got a handful of saves during that time you go backwards it's adam most recently then it was rayleigh the game before that, Beaks the game before that, Poche before Beaks, back to Rayleigh, and then it was Adam nine days before that. Yeah, Rayleigh's another

lefty. And then you throw an Adam in again. I don't know, man. I have some shares of Adam. I don't actually have any shares of the lefties. I'm playing it the way that I'm telling you. I'm not telling you one thing and doing something else in my teams.

I have Adam, and I'm looking at Poche. Maybe I'm wrong. I also think FireEisen's going to come back at some point, and he was getting saves. It's an interesting group. I think we talked about Joe Barlow. Who do you want? I don't want Brett Martin.

At least I don't because I believe in Barlow getting the job back for reasons we've discussed before. There should have been an uptick in Ks. But the question for you is, is Brett Martin just good enough to keep the job no matter how much we believe in Joe Barlow's skills? And if the Rangers are a team that don't mix and match, then it doesn't matter.

They just have two good relievers, and they're using the other guy to close instead of the guy we want to close. I could see them actually sort of pairing the two when they come back. I mean, there's a lefty-righty situation there. Brett Martin is surging in stuff plus, but he's surged from 113 to 115,

so it's not a game changer necessarily, but I have picked up some Brett Martin and there is a situation where he just keeps the gig. One slight note is that they're a team that spent a lot of money and they could want to keep barlow cheap i mean it's a possibility if you spread the saves apart then you keep them cheaper i guess that is always a concern but i'm not not worried too much about it in that particular

instance i was looking at the diamondbacks i couldn't come up with a name that I actually liked there. I mean, Joe Mantiply is having a nice year. He's an all-star, dude. What are you talking about? But do you really trust it? It's a great story. I don't, actually. And they keep giving Mark Melanson.

They still give him opportunities. It's such a bad idea. I mean, the Paul Seawald situation, he's the guy in Seattle. He's gone. He's been picked up for weeks. I'm not really chasing there. I think the Marlins bullpen has been a bit of a mystery all season. I know they just traded for Tanner Scott to get him from Baltimore when the season began,

but if they're shuffling players around at the deadline, Steven Okert could be pretty interesting. I know the model really likes him. I think he's one of the best lefty relievers in the entire model and probably the best available to trade deadline lefty if they trade him and just keep Scott. So I think there's a path for Okert to become more valuable, though I think it's more likely if they trade someone in front of him

as opposed to a different team trading for him for the purpose of making him their closer. Can I just say something real quick? God, man, being a reliever. It's terrible. His hard life. Look at this. He has

142 games in the major leagues. Spread out over 1, two, three, four, five, six seasons. He's been in the major leagues for six seasons, has 142 games. Guess when he's a free agent? 2027. He has one year of service time. Yeah, this is the other.

So we talk about the guys that shuttle up and down in terms of just how difficult that is to just deal with that. But this is the other part of that player's profile that's absurd is that he wouldn't become a free agent until he's 31 years old now. He turned 31 a couple weeks ago. He'll never be a free agent. He'll be 35 years old when he becomes a free agent. That's absurd i do have some some hope for bender actually getting the job back and he did begin a rehab assignment and the model uh still liked him although he not as much as last year he was a little bit of a dropper and i wonder how much

the back had to do with that um and they have a they have a bunch of guys that that are pretty decent in the model i think they they I think they follow something like this. Because Anthony Bass, 109 stuff plus. Floro, 105 stuff plus. Okert, 133 stuff plus. And Scott has always popped in this, 126 stuff plus. The thing that Scott doesn't have that the rest of them do have is command. So I actually think he's on fairly shaky ground,

not for a few reasons, trade, command, and then also just general excellence, general, yeah, excellence of the other pitchers. So Tanner Scott is the guy to have right now, but if you were in a position where you could trade away saves and someone wanted Tanner Scott, I would trade away Tanner Scott. Seems pretty reasonable to me to make that move. I think Bender's my pickup there behind him, though.

I think the Yeri De Los Santos in Pittsburgh is interesting. If they were to decide to move David Bednar, I think De Los Santos is the guy. I don't think they're going to move David Bednar. And I don't think they're going to shut him down either. They were using him to any extent and stuff. I think Bednar is their all-star.

They want to have something nice that comes out of this year. I think he's good all the way through. We shall see. I had a mailbag question come in about a pitcher you didn't mention when we were digging on the waiver wire group. Glenn Otto, who I think at one point had some pretty nice numbers in the model and still isn't bad, but this is becoming more of a,

hmm, maybe what we saw at first is just not indicative of what he brings to the table. So in deep, deep leagues, this question came in from Tom. Do you see anything in the profile with Glenn Otto that makes you think he will be a successful big league starter? I like his starts at home against Oakland. Oh, okay. Damning with faint praise I guess he's a loser over the past

month in the model in terms of stuff plus he's dropped nearly one and a half points of stuff plus and generally none of his numbers now is over a hundred in terms of command you know location stuff i like his slider and anybody who has a 135 stuff plus slider uh can be on my team um and then the knuckle curve still rates as an above average pitch overall and stuff and locations but the fastballs don't look good and um you know sinker's a little bit better than the foreseeing

but he doesn't locate the sinker well so he's gonna have to figure something out and i think it might be just location of the fastball and if he starts locating the fastball better uh we can i think pay more attention again i think you are describing someone who's going to be a very good reliever because give him a couple more ticks and consider him as... Drop the changeup, which is not very good. Right. Increase the knuckle curve and then fastball plays up a little bit

and maybe you still have an occasional third pitch. It's a pretty nice late-inning weapon. Still, having two breaking balls that are above average gives you still a chance and i i think he's the kind of guy that i would love to try again in in reserve rounds and bench rounds uh next year you know but this year i'm just not seeing him as much more than the matchups play tom has an al only three dollars as a keeper i don't know if he's necessarily a keeper

based on what we've seen so far probably a reserve for the rest of this season i would buy him again next year for a dollar i feel like i don't like i don't think after this season he's going to be much more in the dollar play next year right so i think i think i would just try to buy him again next year for there's enough there's something there that is interesting, but it doesn't seem like a keeper to me. Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it, as it goes with Glenn Otto. The other pitcher people were asking about, Nestor Cortez, kind of fits into the broader conversation we were having.

Gets to be an all-star. The more I think about the all-star game and my general lean that it should be a snapshot of the past calendar year and feature the best like as the innings continue to pile up. Is there any sign of Cortez slowing down based on how he's looked going into the break? Because the numbers look even better this year than they did a season ago when he moved into this role. Yeah, he's a stuff plus surgery. I think it's mostly based on the fact that he's throwing that sweeper slider more. And I didn't spot it i think i might have even had him on a leaderboard somewhere when i was writing about the sweeper but he isn't a really excellent

sweeper and when i talked to him at the at the all-star game he said that the reason that he broke out this year or just he broke out with the yankees in general is they taught him this sweeper so between the four seam cutter and sweeper i think you know there are other mixes he can do he's had mixes before we threw the cutter less than the slider and he hasn't done that this year yet so i think he's got a couple more wrinkles and i mean it that way like sort of literally and figuratively because he still has all that deception when it comes to his delivery. And he said he's always had natural command.

And one thing that he also pointed out to me in the interview was that he always had excellent numbers in the minors. And that it was just about porting them over. And I guess I sort of missed that. They're not always incredible. porting them over. And I guess I sort of missed that. They're not always incredible, but ever since he joined the Yankees,

ever since he sort of hit the Yankees' upper levels, they have actually been very good. His first real try at AAA, he had a 1-4-9 ERA with 10.6 strikeouts per nine in 48 innings. And then the second time he did AAA, he repeated it just with fewer strikeouts and a little bit higher ERA. in 48 innings. And then the second time he did AAA, he repeated it just with fewer strikeouts and a little bit higher ERA. But yeah, I think he's probably been excellent

since they added the sweeper. And so I guess I kind of believe in him. I don't believe him in this sort of below 3 ERA, but of the different projection systems, I will take the bats at the very least. 3-7-2 ERA, 1-13 whip, almost 10K-9. That's really nice. You're not that worried about the innings piling up on him then?

I mean, he had more than 93. He had 108 last year. Yeah, 108 plus anything in the playoffs. He had more than 93. He had 108 last year. Yeah, 108 plus anything in the playoffs. And in 2019, before he even got there, he was over 100. He had 111 in 2018.

No, he had 120 almost in 2018. Also, it just doesn't, like, I don't know. It's 27. Let him go. But also, I don't think, I mean, you think about players that are the opposite of the modern fireballing pitcher, and Nestor Cortez is kind of the opposite of that guy, right? He's not your 6'4 guy that throws 99 all the time. He doesn't throw 99 ever. He's this 5'11, more finesse lefty that commands stuff really well

and just seems to have everything kind of working together in sync. It's exactly the kind of profile that people can overlook because he's not the prototype. He's not the pitcher you'd create in a lab or create on MLB The Show from a physical standpoint. And physically, he also doesn't remind me of Andy Pettit at all, but generally, there's a little bit of Andy Pettit there for me. You know, sweeping slider, lefty, good command, some up and down results.

So I think this is a thing that can work. And I think that, you know, the big thing is that the stadium there actually plays best to lefties because the short porch is in right field. Lefties at the plate. So a lefty on the mound that can reduce the efficacy of those lefties at the plate can actually pitch pretty well at home. Yeah, interesting guy.

And I think compared to a lot of the other pitchers we discussed in the show that we really like, a little easier to go trade for because you might actually have someone who rosters Nestor Cortez currently expecting things to fall apart a bit in the second half. That is going to do it for this episode

of Rates and Barrels. Weird schedule this week, thanks to the airlines, but glad Eno made it back safely from los angeles we will have another episode coming up on friday be sure to leave us a nice rating and review if you're listening to this podcast on apple or spotify or any platform where you're able to do that if you got questions for a future episode rates and barrels at the athletic.com is the best way to get those our way if you're watching us on youtube be sure to hit the like

button and subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.