Rates & Barrels - Shane Baz Is Back in the Rays' Rotation & Finding the Next Hunter Brown

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss the busy long weekend in baseball including the return of Shane Baz to the Rays' rotation, the quietly productive season from Luis L. Ortiz, who now has an opportunity to start in Pittsburgh again, and the search for the 'next' Hunter Brown. Plus, they take a look back at where the money was spent in weekly leagues.  Rundown 3:10 Injury Updates 8:26 Ranking of ROS Impact of Currently IL'd Pitchers 16:53 Shane Baz Returns to the Rays' Rotation 22:37 Is Luis L. Ortiz Having a Breakout? 26:16 Can We Find Another Hunter Brown? 37:05 Yilber Diaz Getting a Look in Arizona 41:17 Where the Money Went: Brooks Lee & Yariel Rodriguez 51:37 A Splashy Bid From Eno 1:00:41 Spencer Arrighetti and 'The Line' for Pitching in 12-teamers Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Thursdays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. What grades and barrels? It is Monday, July 8th, Derek and Ryper, you know, Saris here with you on this episode. We'll dig into some news and notes from the long holiday weekend here in the States. We had the return of Shane Baas to the Razor rotation. We'll talk about how he graded out in that first performance and whether or not we'd actually take the chance on Baas against the Yankees this week, which is not as simple of a question as it seems on the surface.

We're going to take a look and see if we can find the next Hunter Brown. By that we mean someone who is not pitching well right now, who could for a prolonged stretch pitch a lot better as Brown has recently. Take a look at where the money went this weekend, including a big splashy bid from Eno in his NFBC main event. And we'll take a look at a couple of interesting drops, time permitting as well. Eno, how's it going for you on this Monday? It's good.

We had the cousins in town from Hawaii. And so it was a lot of boy stuff we did laser max where I made sure to reestablish the record at the San Carlos laser max in the was like the pop a shot like the the basketball arcade game. That's always my go to their we go kart raced. go-kart raced. We went to the mall and went to Hot Topic, which is really surprising for me. Hot Topic had a certain place in my head and it wasn't necessarily like

tween boy. But I don't know if you know that story. It's kind of I thought it was like sort of teen girl, you know, stuff. And now they've really kind of changed. They have like, like me miss shirts. Sure. You know, and like and so the boys bought like

one piece and and bluey shirts. And they also have like cheap earrings and like jewelry. So we went there and we went to the magic store, bought a bunch of magic cards. So it was a fun time. Of course we did the prerequisite grilling, but it was really hot. So there was a lot of, you know,

in between doing things, a lot of laying on the couch groaning. Yeah, forced, forced cool downs as a result of the heat wave. Yeah, we got pretty lucky. Nice long weekend weather-wise here, a little bit of rain. We got a ton of rain all spring and summer, but no 90 degree days. So I feel like that's a win around the 4th of July.

If you can keep it in the low 80s high 70s That's where it was for most of those four days that we were off if you'd like to join our discord There's a link for that in the show description should be sure to do that It's a good place to be lots of lively chatter about a bunch of different topics. Let's get to some news There's some injury updates to start off today's show Bryce Harper could be back on Tuesday. They were just gonna wrap it, kind of push through these just to get them out there.

But I'm actually pleasantly surprised in one link where I've got Bryce Harper because I thought with this being the week before the All-Star break, maybe they would just give him the extra few days and let him come back with a completely clean slate in the second half. So some good news on that front, but Blake Snell is supposed to come back on Tuesday.

So make sure he's in your lineup if you're looking for that boost in pitching? Question mark. It's it hasn't been the year we thought it would be for Blake Snell at all. Year one with the Giants, but a few injuries have slowed him down. The late signing, you look at the kind of underlying numbers, it doesn't look that different from a velocity perspective. The walk rates high, but it's not that far away from where it was a year ago. I tend to think Blake Snell is going to iron it out and be mostly fine.

I think the best point I've heard about Blake Snell was something you said, I think at the time he signed or maybe when he had his first couple of rough outings with the Giants was that it may take him a little while to get on the same page with a new catcher just because he's actually a relatively difficult pitcher to handle and we look back at his time in San Diego and his worst year with the Padres was his first year with the Padres.

So maybe there's a bit of a learning curve there for Snell and Patrick Bailey to sort of get them the same page and find that consistency. Bailey is a really good framer. I definitely saw it in the first two games where he just seemed a little surprised by movement patterns or, um, maybe surprised by the wildness. Maybe he needs to, um, you know, figure out how, I mean, one of the things that Snell does is he's wild above the zone. Um, and, um, I think a lot of catcher training right now and framing

training is on like when we talk about catchers getting closer to the plate. Um, that's for getting low breaking balls. And if you see the one knee down and all this stuff so a lot of the attention in framing right now is how to take the low pitch and make it a strike or make it look like a strike or make it as it appears whatever you want to say framing is. And so it's a little bit reverse on the high strike you know there's different ways to set up and it favors taller catchers, you know, in terms of framing. So maybe Patrick Bailey, you know, actually needs a little bit of technique because there's not. A lot of guys who live like Snell does,

I guess maybe Harrison's a little bit similar, but Snell has a lot more ride on his fastball than Harrison. So yeah, it could just be comfort there. I tend to think that like this is a guy who's never had great command. But I also think that the defense behind Snow has been inconsistent in terms of personnel. I don't know that Brett Wisely is a great defensive shortstop, but it has, you know, now there's more Nick Ahmed there and I think it's settled down. What do you think of the Giants defensively? I think they patch it together in a way that makes it very difficult for them to be more

than average defensively as a team. And they tend to be an old position player core. I know they've got Elliott Ramos and Luis Matos and a couple of younger guys now taking on larger roles. Ramos, of course, hitting really well. Matos sort of slipping into more of a small side platoon role. Then they were sort of miscasting those guys as center fielders. So I think that works against them a little bit too.

Even some of the younger guys they have have to sort of play out of position because they're pretty old. So if you said, guess where they are as a team before looking it up, probably bottom third of the league. If we're looking at maybe defensive run, saved. They're better than that. Um, you know, defensive, well, close, close to better than that. Defense around saves 18th ounce above average, 11th, UCR one the World Saves 18th, Outs Above Average 11th.

UZR 150 18th. So, you know, they're not much better than what you said. I would say they're a middling team. But I would also say that the personnel has been up and down and that there is a chance. I don't think that Elliott Ramos is the best, most amazing defender in center, but there's a chance that with Nick Ahmed at short and Elliott Ramos in center and a healthy Tyra Estrada at second, that this could be a slightly above average defensive team.

That's the ceiling, I think, though, based on the personnel they have available. And then they're they're dinged up a lot, too. So that always kind of chips away at the the quality of the defense behind that pitching staff as well. But Snell back on Tuesday, if you want to get them into your lineup. Some news on Clayton Kershaw, he's going to have a rehab start next time out through a two inning simulated game on Sunday.

Dodgers were happy with what they saw. Probably still a slower progression than we have for the typical veteran, just given that we're coming off of a pretty major injury for Clayton Kershaw. But we did have a question in our discord from Jeff A. Wondering how we'd rank these IL pitching stashes for their impact the rest of the year. It was DeGrom, Kershaw, Jeffrey Springs, Kodai Singa, and Robbie Ray, who I still think is the forgotten injured pitcher that could come back and be pretty impactful in the second half,

especially when you consider the park. And even though we just talked about the defensive limitations for the Giants, maybe being above average if it all works, or slightly above average if it all works, Robbie Ray, like last time we saw him was missing a lot of bats and he had sustained the control growth that we saw back in 2021. He did that for his first season in Seattle. So it's been a long time since we've seen Robbie Ray on a big league mound. But the last two seasons of Robbie

Ray were really good. but the last two seasons of Robbie Ray were really good. Yeah, I continue to be skeptical, skeptical on Kershaw. It's going to possibly hurt me in the end. But one of my main indicators when people come back is the radar gun. A lot of times because we don't have anything else, but also I think it's a decent way of looking into their health. else, but also I think it's a decent way of looking into their health. Mark Pryor touted Kershaw's fastball as hitting 88-89, so that's his max. So if he's hitting 89, he's going to sit 87.

I don't know. That's just, I know it's Kershaw and he's legendary and he's going to the Hall of Fame. But you know, he's never sat under 90. In any of his seasons. So sitting 87, I think makes me nervous. What we've heard that was good news from the Kodai Senga start was that he was hitting 97, 98. He cruised first rehab start two and two thirds.

No hits, no runs, no walks. Six K's look really, really good. I mean, is the question pick one of these guys? That's how would you rank them? If you could only stash one. I mean, I think for me, Senga versus Gray. I thought Kodai was heading for surgery, but you know. So far so good.

I think Kodai Senga versus Robbie Ray is a pretty interesting toss up at the top of that list. I think Springs would be next for me. And I think I'd put Kershaw ahead of DeGrom just because I think we have to wait longer on DeGrom. What DeGrom gives us might be the best of anybody, but it might be the shortest window of all these guys. We also got some interesting news and and who knows what

that everyone's everyone's speaking to three different audiences right now. But as when the trade alliance coming, if you hear GM comments, the GM is talking to his players, he's talking to the media, he's talking to other GMs. You know what I mean? They're always they always have like three different ideas to try to broadcast. You know, but Chris Young did come out and say that he would make most of his starters on one year like the free agent to be available at the trade deadline, barring unforeseen circumstances

or borrowing a change around here. So, you know, part of that is, hey, guys, you know, start winning or I'm going to trade. We're going to be sellers. Right. Part of that is, hey, give me call. You know, I might sell my pictures like, you know, call me for trade. You know, other GMs. But part of it is like, you know, broadcasting to fans. Oh, I'm not just happy with this.

This is not just cool with me. Like I'm doing something about this. I'm making a very look at my face. I'm not happy about this. But the last the last part that I think is interesting, Jacob Graham, if they are sellers, what what does a return for Jacob deGrom look like? You know, how much urgency is there?

Do they just want to get him like two or three good starts at the end of the year? And that's it. He threw a bullpen session in mid June and there hasn't been a lot in the way of updates since then. That's started the rehab assignment yet. I think it's going to be a three or four week rehab assignment. Once the Grom does that given again, the lengthy layoff. And again, if they're sellers, why, why, why are they moving at us?

You know, I think it would just be, yeah, if he's ready, he's ready. And we want to make sure he gets the rust off and goes through the off season, feeling confident in his arm again. I think that would be the main goal for de Grahm with several years left. And given the importance he's going to have for the Rangers for these next couple of years, at least the expected importance, I think it's easy to lose sight of this because it's been around a lot of missed time. But when you look at the last 32 starts for Jacob de Grahm, and this spans three seasons since 2021, his last 32 starts, Jacob de Grarom and this spans three seasons. Since 2021, his last 32 starts, Jacob deGrom

has a 293 to 23 strikeout to walk ratio in 186 and two thirds innings. Imagine you got that season. That's why we all come back to the trough for Jacob deGrom. Yes, this is why we will say. That season would be so epic. I will take that chance. Do you want 180 closer innings?

If he gives you 25 starts with a 2 ERA and a point, he had a 0.65 whip during that span. Oh, man. If he does anything close to that for even two thirds of a season, you're going to be really happy. That's why we bought Tyler Glass now this year. Yeah. That's why we bought Tyler Glass now this year. Yeah. So I know I know I'm going to be dumb enough to get DeGrom on some teams in 2025. I can already see this train wreck happening.

Unless he comes out and says, my arm feels awful. I've lost seven ticks. Don't don't expect anything from me. Don't drop me DVR. Yeah, I need I need a message directly from Degrom himself to not fall into this trap because he's still so good when he's out there. So do you agree with me that it's Senga versus Rey at the top, Springs as the clear three, and then maybe Kershaw over Degrom just based on timelines?

Yeah, one thing that worries me a little bit about Springs is coming back from Tommy John, Command comes back after stuff and Springs is a little bit of a command over stuff guy. Yeah, he needs that to be good. They might be okay if he comes back and is a little bit better than Letel and a little bit worse than Eflin because that slots into their rotation, they need that. But will you as a fancy player want a pitcher that's a little bit better than Letel and a little bit worse than the towel and a little bit worse than than that? Eflin

Right, that's fair question to ask with Springs. I think that's that's why he's clearly third Do you have a strong preference between Senga and Ray? I might take Ray just because I just have that little voice in the back of my head thinking, you know surgery could still come for Kodai It's like, you know, he'll come he could come back a little bit like a Bradish situation, but he could come back and pitch well for a little bit and then just say, nope, in the end, I did have to get the surgery.

I think I'm Rey over Senga because we've seen a high level for a longer period of time. But anybody out there that wants Senga over Rey? That's true, there's questions of what is Kodai Senga's true talent? We don't actually maybe know it. He was great in the second half of last season. I think we're headed on the right path with him.

But I have a little more confidence in Robbie Ray's skills. Just just a hair at this point. And I think that home park and both have good home parks. But I love the situation for Ray being a starter in San Francisco now as well. Continues to land two teams in a row now. He's been on a really nice picture-friendly ballpark for his home starts. I hope we brought this up on Friday and I think we did, but time is running out. Zander Bogarts is in rehab right now. Yeah, I'm stunned by that. We didn't talk about that because I thought that injury was going to take longer when Bogarts got hurt.

I mean, I think at the time it was reported in a way where they weren't really clear about a timetable. But it was kind of like two months. Two months at least. And I think even at one point it sounded like there was a chance he wasn't coming back at all this year. But now, like he could return before the All-Star break? Big part of why Bogart's got scooped up in a lot of leagues this weekend, which we'll look at a few other players that got added in just a little bit. But I wanted to ask you, how did Shane Baas look in his return to the rotation?

Was it good enough where if you're in a 15-team league where pitching is really difficult to find, you're just letting it rip again against the Yankees this week. And the Yankees have been struggling in a big way. We're going to dig into that in greater detail on tomorrow's show with Britt. Five and 15 in their last 20 games. Pitching in particular has been rough and the lineup kind of behind Judge and Soto

just hasn't delivered. But Boz went six that first time back for the raise. It's like he's scattered seven hits, gave up three runs. It wasn't amazing from a ratios perspective at six K's one walk. I think all in all, it was a pretty successful return given how long he was down. Yeah, you know, he's maybe not all the way as good as he was in the sort of flashes that we got before. I remember in the futures game, he had like the best stuff plus out of any pitcher. And, you know, in the twenty twenty one glimpse that we got a 13 innings, he had a one fifty nine stuff plus on the fastball and a 144 overall, which just bonkers.

That's that's like what you'd expect, like a Felix Bautista number to look like. Except he was the starter. And then in 2022, wasn't quite as good. 119 stuff plus 128 on the fastball, 119 overall for Shane Baas. And then this year, not as not as good as that. 121 stuff plus on the fastball for Shane Baas and then this year not as not as good as that 121 stuff plus on the fastball for Shane Baws 113 overall. But as you can tell those numbers are still comfortably over over 100.

And and so I'm in I think there's going to be some bumps. I'm a little bit nervous that this week, I think, is the Yankees. But at least it's not the Yankees where they had the best offense in baseball. It's been the Yankees of the last month where they've been. We'll talk about this again more tomorrow, but it's been, you know, like the 11th best offense. So and I think he's home. So those things will help him. And so I don't want to waffle. I am all in I'm buying I would like to have him everywhere. I think he's I think he's relevant every league.

I don't know how far up I want to zoom him up my rankings though because he's not quite as good as he was before. because he's not quite as good as he was before. Yeah, I think if you put him in the 30 range amongst pitchers, that'd be a fair but aggressive sort of ranking based on still above average stuff. And what looks like a pretty clean runway to stay in the rotation and not have major workload restrictions moving through the second half. I mean, you look at the workload at Durham, it was 10 starts, but it was only 39 in the third innings. So they really did a good job,

and in part because he wasn't crushing it, they did a good job keeping that workload in check for Shane Bos, pitching a lot better, of course, before they brought him up too, right? Those last four starts were much better. He went five innings in three of those four outings, six, seven, eight, and 10 Ks, no homers allowed.

So I think everything is still on that long-term up trajectory that we're hoping for. Yeah, there's some sort of up and down again in the vertical movement on his fastball. And so I was glad to see that he at least was close to where he was before. So his fastball in 2022 did have maybe about an inch more ride, but at 96 miles an hour with above average ride, it's still a good fastball.

So it's, I don't wanna damn with faint praise just being like, yeah, he's not as good as he used to be, he's still really good. just being like, Oh yeah, he's not as good as he used to be. He's still really good. And our projections have him with basically a four ERA and a 23% strikeout rate. And I think those are low, but those compare favorably with Jack Flaherty. For example, who's in our top 30. And so I would at least, I think a tough rank might be him versus Pepeo or.

Him versus Pavetta maybe going forward. I think I would take Boz over Pepio. Pavetta is a tougher one because Pavetta is like the Whitmery Field of pitchers for me, right? I always a little bit off. And I think, I think Pavetta is more likely to beat his ERA so far going forward, if his skills hold, than to continue at a four. I think he's more of a mid threes guy. Like I'm kind of buying Sierra on that ERA if he's still missing bats at a 28% clip. It's weird, is weird getting hit in the zone a little bit more. So the home run problems that have always been there are there. But this looks like a better version of Pavetta where the results haven't fully backed the underlying skills being better. Yeah, both of our projections are for slightly better for Pepio and Pavetta over Boz. But I don't think this last update in projections had his current stuff plus.

So there there you go. There's the gap for now. You mentioned Jack Flaherty, by the way, he could be in your lineup again for weekly leagues scheduled to start Thursday against the Guardians to home start. So it depends on how much you respect and worry about matching up against the Guardians, I guess. But I'd err on the side of Flaherty being good enough to handle that matchup capably with it being at Comerica Park.

Some good news here. Also, this is a guy we've been waiting on for a long time. Luis Ortiz might be putting the pieces together. My man. Yeah. I mean, hey, putting the pieces together. My man. Yeah. I mean, hey, like it's better late than never. Right. I mean, for the season, a sub three ERA, it's a 118 whip, just three homers allowed now in 61 innings. Homer's been a problem for him in the past.

He's had two recent outings as a starter where he's been really good. Right. Six innings, each of those starts, 12 Ks combined, no walks. Is anything different? The location strategy, pitch movements, velocity. Like, what do you see with Ortiz that's enabling him to have some success outside of a lot of those appearances being out of the bullpen? Well, I think a main thing, and it's actually cost of a little bit of stuff plus upside, but it's helped him with

location so much is the advent of his cutter. He has added a cutter. I mean, it's not that he's never thrown it before. It's not out of left field, but he's throwing it 20% of the time and he hadn't ever thrown it 1% of the time before. And what the cutter is taking away from for Luis F or L? He's L. L. He's L. Luis L Ortiz is that he can't command his change-up. And so he's reduced the number of change-ups and replaced them with a pitch he can command the cutter.

And now he's a guy who has three good breaking ball, three good fastballs of which the sinker is I think plus, but as a starter, it's, it's only sort of above average. It was when he was a reliever, it was like, you know, really good V lo really good sink. You know, now it's a it's a pretty good pitch. I would say he has three above average fastballs in the fat in the foreseen, the sinker and the cutter with the sinker being his strength. The nice thing is with the cutter, you know, he can use that against lefties. It's the modern wrinkle on pitching that we've been talking about

in the multiple fastball thing. So you take that and then you take his one-on-one location plus for the year, you know, which includes some starts and includes all that relief time. I would say that's, that's the biggest thing is replacing the changeup with the cutter and having good command. He always had a plus breaking ball. He always had a pretty good sinker. Now he's kind of putting it all together.

And, you know, I do want to see one last thing. What his velocity has been in starts versus before. He's maintaining. Yeah, he's sitting 96. So I don't know. He hasn't had the Vila really go down since he went to starting. I think he could afford to maybe slip to 95 or something, but really good breaking ball, really good sinker, new cutter. I'm in,

I tried to get him where I could. Yeah. Probably a relatively inexpensive ad where available. The reason they have a need right now, Jared Jones down with a lat strain, a grade two lat strain, which is not great, but also, but also I think there's a reason that you could tell yourself a story that even when Jared Jones comes back, he stays in the rotation, and that is a Bailey Falter

has not been playing well. There's another word for it. Right, and he's down with a tricep problem. Oh, he's hurt. Yeah, he's also hurt. So there's two guys there. There's. Oh, he's hurt. Yeah. He's also hurt. So there's two, two guys there. There's two spots that he's can, he can play for.

Yeah. So part of the inspiration for putting Ortiz on the rundown today was this idea that perhaps we could find another Hunter Brown and I think you can, you can basically make this universe as large as you want, you just need a pitcher who has not performed well. It could be someone like Ortiz who got moved into the bullpen. It could be someone maybe even as good as Carlos Rodan who's just been awful for the last 30 days.

It could be guys like Brian Bayo who were kind of trendy during draft season and still haven't put it together yet. Up and down type guys like Spencer Arigetti or Randy Vasquez. But you're looking for bad recent performance, good underlying stuff, the possibility of making an adjustment and then having things click. And I was just looking at the player, over at Fangraphs again this morning. Hunter Brown has been the number one rated pitcher in the last 30 days, which if you told somebody that in the middle of April,

they might have laughed in your face, even though we all liked Hunter Brown a lot throughout draft season and of course, last year when he was breaking through with the Astros. Yeah. I mean, I think like how much are we, what is the story we're trying to tell? Like, is it the adding of a pitch? Is it the changing trying to tell like is it the adding of a pitch is it the changing of a profile? Is it the adding of a fastball specifically? I mean I think for Hunter Brown the big thing was Stuff Plus loved his four seamer But batters could anticipate it better because it was his only fastball

And and because he his cutter is more of a power slider that he doesn't really use like a cutter. So adding the sinker in there just gave him a wrinkle, especially against righties, where he didn't have to go to the foreseam and made him less predictable. So in some ways, you know, there's still the chance that Graham Ashcraft sinker, you know, gives him that, even though it's not fully working out that way. But I is that the story we're trying to tell, you know, gives him that even though it's not fully working out that

way. But I is that the story we're trying to tell, you know? I think some of that actually applies to Ortiz where you look back at last season. Ortiz is four seamer was crushed last year. Opposing hitters hit 383 and slugged 704 against Luis Ortiz's four seamer. So far this year 214 304 for the average and slugging against. And I would say that there's a very good chance that the addition of the cutter has helped make that four seamer much more effective. And given that we're talking about a guy that throws really hard, a lot of times we're talking about these at a fastball guys as they throw 92, 93, you're more in the Colin Ray, Tobias

Meyers backend starter bucket. When you do that at 95 or 96, I think there's a lot more ceiling and growth potential there. Yeah, I mean, I also just like, like, there's not a lot of names that sort of pop off the list for me. In terms of, you know, this, this is proliferating through baseball right now. The, you know, I, I put it on a story recently, but the number of pitchers with three pitches has gone up 40%.

Three fastballs has gone up 40 percent in two years. So this is proliferating so fast that it's kind of even hard for me to find pitchers like Freddie Peralta, you know, leaps off the page to me as someone that like what if he threw a sinker? It'd almost be like Tyler Glass now adding his two seamer, you know? It wouldn't be something a pitch that had tremendous sink because of the Freddie Peralta's mechanics But it could make him even more dominant against righties and and you don't know maybe he can command it

He's not struggling though, so he doesn't count as the next Hunter Brown Mm-hmm. Yeah, you gotta have the low you have the the low bottom out floor where everybody's like it's a 12-team league I don't know if I can keep this guy. I mean, there were 12 team leagues where Hunter Brown got dropped at the end of the season because things were so bad. So that's where I think. That's where my brain goes is like, how bad does it have to get? Dropable in 12 teams, ideally. But I think. Yeah, because again, I keep coming back to like Dylan Cease,

I think should throw the cutter more. And I think that would help him with some of the stuff that kind of keeps I think would help him with his walk rate and maybe his home run rate. And that would make him go from a player that's owned in most leagues to a player that could be like top 30 top 20 going forward. So again, I haven't I haven't quite thread that needle that you're looking for. All right. Well, we're going to keep digging around. We'll see if we can find someone like that. I thought the other way to possibly break it out is to look for guys that have a ton of pitches that haven't really popped yet.

Right. I think Randy Vasquez has quite a few pitches. Yeah. It's just finding the right mix. It's fine. It's tweaking the mix, like scrapping one a little. They were throwing one a lot less and then throwing one or two of the good pitches more. Like maybe that's the thing that makes someone take off. So I think that's the that's the profile that I'm probably hunting the most right now on the wire or in inexpensive trades, because I think those are the somewhat gettable pitchers out there that could be heroes for us in the second half.

You know, I've always like wondered, you know, why Haney or Harrison, Kyle Harrison or Andrew Haney or John Gray don't throw sinkers because they throw these weird kind of dead zone-y fast balls that have sideways movement. I talked to John Gray about it a little bit, and he said that his ball naturally moves more like a sinker towards his arm side and more like a fore seam to his glove side. So he's kind of hiding a little bit

of different profiles in there. And that might be the case for Haney and Harrison as well, who throw a lot of fast balls, who probably their fast ball is their best pitch for all three of them, though Gray has a decent slider. You know, I just wonder why they have never tried to lean into the sinker profile and maybe do some seam shifted wake on their on their sinkers. But I do know that the pitching coaches for these guys have all considered that. So whatever reason there is,

I kind of doubt that it's gonna change on a dime, you know? Yeah, it doesn't always happen quickly. The only name I want to throw at you that we haven't talked about in a few weeks at least is Brian Bayo. And I think it's odd that he's been the outlier so far for a Red Sox rotation where so many pitchers have exceeded expectations this year. And Bayo if you kind of looked at core skills to begin with some of the minor league results say why why isn't he also thriving.

And maybe it's just going to happen in the second half because they're still working through some of those tweaks with him. through some of those tweaks with him. Yeah. I mean, they, they very famously said that they were going to go away from the four seam in, in Boston, um, and away from fastballs in general. And, uh, in his last start against Miami, uh, the forcing came back and it was. His best, or maybe the second best start of the year. You have to tease that apart from the fact that it was against Pittsburgh, the other one, and the last start for Brian Baio was against Miami.

So his two best starts of the year are not against premium offenses. But it is interesting to think that they're gonna roll that four-seamer back in for Brian Baio and try to use it, and maybe it's just a surprise pitch and not something that's like sort of foundational for him. Um, I'm interested to see where that goes. Like I think more pitches is better for every pitcher, even if it's not your best pitch.

I think this could be a good thing for Brian Bayo. I keep trying to convince myself that a slate's a Coney is going to be a thing too. Yeah, me too. I just keep falling into that trap and then it'll be off a roster, have a good start, go back to the waiver wire, try to add him again. Just on again, off again. K-Rate's been a little bit lower than expected. ERA shouldn't be this bad.

The home run rate's been a problem so far, so that's part of what's gone wrong for for slayed to this point but he's one of those guys that I just keep in deep leagues especially keep thinking maybe the second half we better. Yeah I wonder if he could throw a two seamer. He has an 1165 ERA at home. Also, interesting enough for a guy that has two decent breaking balls, he has allowed a 552 slugging and has allowed righties to do better against him than lefties. So he seems like a real candidate for a two-seer. What you're trying to do with the two seamer in the situation is give yourself a fastball that's better against righties. And he's obviously having some trouble against righties.

So maybe Sleipzakoni is your next Hunter Brown. Although really, I go back to the fact that Hunter Brown is a little bit unique in that he had pedigree. He was a he was a prospect, you know what I mean? I would think he had a better pedigree than Slay Takoni. That's where I kind of landed on Bayo. I'm like, you know what? Bayo was supposed to be good, is supposed to be good, could still be good. And I think if you trust the organization and the way they can make some adjustments, maybe that's what it is.

It's not as easy to see it. It's easy to see it in hindsight, much harder to see it at the time because unless you were the one going out there trading for 100 Brown and adding 100 Brown, you probably watch someone else do it. And that's frustrating when things click and we're all looking for pitching just about all the time. It's just the way it is. If you have a lot of good pitching, it starts to break down.

You need more. If you never have good pitching, you're chasing it because you're trying to make up ground as fast as you possibly can. So let us know in Discord if you have candidates for the next Hunter Brown, the pitcher that you would barely want to start right now that could go red hot for a dozen plus starts in the second half and carry you into contention. I think Bayo is our Hunter Brown because first of all, you have this really small sample of the four seam fastball coming back on top

of that. He's forcing fastball this year has an inch more ride and he was throwing a 97 in that start. So that's kind of exciting, you know, and it mirrors kind of Brown's up again, down again. You know how good easy good prospect pedigree good other pitches where you're just trying to add a fourth pitch and make it really home. We were just talking about the Diamondbacks a minute ago. They have a guy, Yilber Diaz getting a look in the rotation this week. And I was, I saw the, I was looking at the Roto-wire projected starter grid, getting ready for the week, saw the Y Diaz in the rotation this week. And I was looking at the roto wire projected starter grid,

getting ready for the week, saw the Y. Diaz in the grid. I was like, wait, who? And I had to click through. And I saw that our friend James Anderson actually had Yilber Diaz inside his top 100 prospects list in his last update, which is clearly a riser. Yilber Diaz was not a top 100 prospect on any list that I saw going into the season. And Arizona is one of those places where opportunity is certainly there because Jordan Montgomery

is on the IL. Merrill Kelly has a long-term injury that he's been down with. Blake Walston just got hurt. So I think this is a situation for Diaz where if he pitches well, he could actually hang around for more than just this first turn against Atlanta but seeing that he was briefly in triple-A I was curious if you had some stuff numbers because the results were really really good these last two times out 21 strikeouts in 12 innings and just two walks yeah stuff less does not like him and I'm trying to figure out why really quickly the 80 88

In the minor leagues so far for us And let me do this real quick sort by ID Yilber Command thing because the pitch grades from the fan graph scouting report are actually really good. 60 fastball, 55 slider, 55 curve, and it's 30 with future 40 command. Yes. The command is a big question. You can see that just from the walk rates. Um, and he had a 98 location plus in the miners, uh, which might be decent actually.

So he's gone to a cutter. It looks like now. So he's gone to a cutter, it looks like now. And the stat-cast pitch definitions are forcing fastball, cutter, and slider, which is a, it's not a unique combination, but it's not like, who comes to mind that's like that? Maybe Walker Bueller? He has a curve. Yeah, Bueller's got a curve. Ryan Nelson's a little bit like that, maybe?

It's a little bit, it makes me a little bit nervous. You know what I mean? Like there's no curves, there's no change, there's no sinker, but it is two fastballs on a slider. It just doesn't, it says the four-scene fastball is 78 stuff less and the slider is 72, which is, that's a low number for a slider. So I don't know exactly what's going on there but and so I would never use this information to say that I'm out on a guy like preemptively but if I did pick him

up and you know I wouldn't start him in my first start if he had these numbers in the miners and I would also point out that the the command grades are backed up by big walk rates. So those are two things that are kind of against him before he steps foot on the field. But that doesn't mean he can't be good. I mean, there's it's really complicated to be a good starting pitcher. I would I would definitely I'm going to watch it.

You know, I'm going to watch it start. But I I'm not predisposed to, you know, I need to have this guy before he comes up. Yeah, I think it's definitely worth keeping an eye on. I think what's other, what else is interesting in the profile so far is the home run rates have been pretty good at most of the stops. Had a bit of a blip at high A where he got up there, but if he's someone that issues walks,

but doesn't really give in and misses, if his misses are more in the outside the zone situation and in less in zone then maybe that's how he makes up for it maybe he's one of those higher walk rate guys that gets by by not getting squared up as often yeah and maybe cutter slider is actually gyro slider and sweeper or gyro sliderider and curve, you know, like these names sometimes don't mean much until you see the pitch. I mean, if it was foreseen fastball, cut fastball and gyroslider, I'd be like, yo, I don't know how it's going to work because everything is just too similar, you know?

Yeah. Well, I think we'll be we'll be joined by a lot of folks curious to see what Yilberdias can bring to the table for the Diamondbacks Let's take a look at where some of the money went this weekend in our leagues We talked about James Wood a lot last week There were NFBC leagues where Wood was only available for the first time Sunday night So not surprisingly he was heavily added and at a steep price where that was an option but I think we should talk about Brooks Lee a little bit because he was available almost everywhere this weekend outside of keeper and dynasty situations.

Royce Lewis getting hurt again, opened the door for Lee to come up and make his debut. He's shortstop eligible now. He's probably going to play a lot of third base and pick up the corner to go with that middle infield spot. So that's kind of nice. And Brooks Lee was obliterating AAA this year once he got healthy. Popped seven homers in 94 plate appearances,

showed great plate discipline. This is a pretty interesting profile that actually came a lot cheaper in a lot of leagues than James Wood did. I got outbid nine to eight in one league. I should have obviously put a little bit more in there. It was a hundred dollar league with no zero dollar bid. So bidding is really tight in that league.

And I think our buddy Ryan Bloomfield was on that swooped in with the extra dollar on me. So big mistake on my part not going like, I don't know, 11 or 12 on Brooksley, because there's probably a situation that could unfold where he continues to play even after Royce Lewis eventually returns. I was willing to go to 50 out of a thousand. And so 5% yeah, that wasn't enough to get him. He mostly went well, one league he went 67 and my TGFBI

another 121 and in my main event 123. So people were pretty excited. I just wasn't willing to go there because I just don't understand how Brooks Lee has managed this level of power considering his bat of ball stats. Like I just don't get where it's coming from. He had a 1049 max EV and AAA and that's not the be-all end-all of any stats, but it's 1046 this year and even if you add 2023 AAA that's 109 so now we're talking about 300 plate appearances where the best he's hit is a 109.

Also his hard hit in AAA this year was 31% and it's 33% of the big leagues. Like there's just something missing for me in terms of I would want a hard hit or the barrel or the maxi V something to sing to me as to why you had a 300 ISO in the, in, in AAA this year. And I don't see it. So I think it's a much more likely he's kind of this one 75 ISO guy that we saw in AA in 2023 and if that's the case he can still be a good hitter, you know, but he won't be a great one. If he does, if he has a 175 ISO to what he's projected to do he would be a 250 hitter with

something like 18 to 22 home run power. That'd be all right if you ran a little bit. Yeah, he has some running. I mean, but this year combined two stolen bases. Yeah, it doesn't look like a big part of his game yet. Also, he's banged up, so who knows? I always find that really hard to figure out. It's like, is this a player who won't run at all?

Yeah. Run much because they just don't run. Or is waiting for his hamstrings to feel better or whatever. Yeah. You know, even if it's like a hand injury or something, it's like, well, you probably don't want to go try stealing bases when your hands all messed up. So you, you just want to stay healthy and play. So that becomes a big part of it.

I also wonder with Brooks Lee, you know, where was he hitting the ball? That's something I want to look at too. And it looks like a pretty decent distribution from AAA looking at a spray chart right now. It looks like a guy that doesn't have like all pull side production or anything. But it's also not a guy who's going to make the most out of, is not a parade ace. I was hoping to see more of a paradease from like, yeah, you know what? It's unique. It works. But he's a switch hitter.

So I wonder how much that's kind of a funky part of Exivilo. But I mean, one thing I'm really circling is 30% fly ball rate in AAA with medium, with like, below average, I would say, bad ball stats. So he's not doing the paradease where he's making the most out of fastballs and pulling them. It's it's a it's a blah line with the blah that blah. OK, it's a it's it could be a strong batting average distribution, right?

Forty five percent ground balls, 30 percent fly balls. You know, that's that kind of a line drives situation, right? So that could be, maybe you say he's okay, he's a 275 hitter, okay? Maybe I believe you, but it's not one that should produce more than 20 homerun power. That's where my line is. It's like, I just, I don't think it's above average power.

I don't think it's above average power yet, but I'm wondering if it can be. I'm looking back. So the player profile, this kind of reminds me of, I know he doesn't switch hit, but it's early career Willie Adames, where he's kind of good at everything, but not great at anything.

And this is better plate discipline from Brooks Lee than we saw from Willie Adames. Better contact, I want to say, but the swing strike rates have been moving up and down. Yeah. So when Willie Adamis broke in with the Rays, he caged about 30% of the time, just under that. Only had a 29.6% hard hit rate. And I think at the time we would have looked at that and said, Oh, that's not, that's not great. But he was a 22 year old hitting big league pitching for the first time. Right. Right.

And then you say, okay, well, what was the max EV back then? If that gives us a North star for power potential, 110.6 was the first time. Right, right. And then you say, okay, well, what was the max EV back then? If that gives us a North star for power potential, 110.6 was the max EV from Willie Adamis. So better than what Lee's done. Better than what Lee's done. And Willie hasn't really, like the first three years in the league, like 110.9, the second year up was the hardest hit ball of his first three years.

So it's not, it's not like a finished product. Anytime you get a play that's just in the big leagues for the first time, it's not like a finished product. Anytime you get a play that's just in the big leagues for the first time, it's easy to sort of make that assumption. Yeah, my opinion is on him long-term or different than, you know, what I gave you is my opinion on him for the next two months. Right. He might be, Brooks Lee might be a little bit tricky in a 12 team league to keep on your roster and in your lineup consistently. At a 15, it might be good enough to play. He might have enough hold his own sort of skills

to just give by. If he starts stealing bases someday, maybe it's a Danzbe Swanson profile in the long run in the infield. Remember also that the corresponding move was Royce Lewis being hurt. So there is a possibility that he is just in Royce Lewis's spot until Royce Lewis comes back.

Yeah, I think the defensive versatility is something that works in Lee's favor though, because they could let Willie Castro be a true utility guy. They could play him more in left field eventually and play Lee at second base. And that's something that Julian couldn't do really. Yeah, so I do think that. Bruce Lee can play all over. Bruce Lee offers a little bit more of the roster that gives him a chance to hang around. That's that's where that extra game for me, you know, and open up a spot for Lee,

you know, while while the rest of this coming back. So, yeah, I could see the arguments for him. But without that standout bad at ball stuff, I was just I don't believe the the current ISO or even the AAA ISO for for Brooksley. Twins have had a few red hot hitters. I mean, Jose Miranda has been just ridiculous. Like he's a top 20 player in the player radar for the last 30 days. Got a 424 average three homers, just a steal during that spam at 23 RVIs.

15 run scores. He's been really good. And Buxton has been great to six homers, three steals, 357, 21 runs driven in and 21 run scores. He's been really good. And Buxton has been great too. Six homers, three steals, 357, 21 runs driven in and 21 run scored. He's 10th, tied for 10th in the play-a-rater for the last 30 days among hitters just in 12 team leagues. So I think the twins are starting to put the pieces together around a lot of injuries. They still look to me like they're maybe the most complete team in that division. Even the Guardians have just opened up an impressive lead. They can make it a battle, I think.

If you're in the position of the Guardians, we're gonna talk a lot about them and maybe issue an apology for doubting them a couple months back. Do that tomorrow, but I think the twins of the team you're more worried about as they're currently built than the Royals, even though the Royals continue to play very well also.

I'm saw their names here though, from where the money went. Yari El Rodriguez. I think this is like 50% streaming. Yeah. Two start situation. I think he's, he's got Arizona this week is the matchup. I think he was two. Two start.

No, I think he was two last week, but two starts in a row where he went at least six innings and struck six out. I think I think that's sort of the the reason people were more aggressive with him in more shallow leagues this weekend. What do you think about Yariyahu Rodriguez? I mean, I think he came up maybe a month or so ago in one of our conversations. Has anything changed now that you've had a few more looks at him? He's OK.

I I was a little nervous. I think the two start one of the matchups was was not ideal. Let me see what his game log says. Oh, yeah, one was I guess was Houston and at Seattle and I liked him, you know, a little bit but then I, you know, imagine go back to before the first of July and you're looking to pick him up and you think, oh, I can get two starts out in the next week. He had just thrown one inning and one and one and a third. So I was just like, he's not stretched out. Like it's really amazing. He's gone to six now he's gone to six. I think of him like completely differently and think of him as a credible

streaming option that I would just avoid against top five, top 10 offenses if I could. Yeah. I think with the Ariel Rodriguez, I watched a little bit of them. And there's in the delivery, there's a lot of ways to disrupt the hitters timing. You know, so I think that's one of the things in the toolbox that might make stuff play up a little higher above the actual raw pitch grades for him. So that's part of why I'm intrigued by what he's been doing here recently.

Projections aren't bad. I think you see low fours, a lot of places, kind of 1.3 whips, not bad in that regard, but probably more of like a number four starter right now based on what we're seeing right now. The streaming makes a lot of sense. And Arizona's a team I don't think you have to be afraid of. I mean, why would you really worry about matching up against them?

I'm curious. What did you do as far as your big moves this weekend? Oh, I guess so. Arizona 11th best offense for the season and in the last 30 days, fifth best 126 WRC plus in the last 30 days for Arizona. And I did not expect that that I know Christian Walker was Crushing the Dodgers all all weekend Christian Walker has a 164 WRC plus over the last 30 days and listen to this. Okay. Tell Marta 145

Jock Peterson 142 Lord's Creed jr. 142 Suarez back off the mat 247 396 397 for you honey Suarez 133 WRC plus in the last 30 days even Corbin Carroll with a 105 and finally got a homer I don't know I'm not saying that you're wrong I'm just saying I think I am I'm sneaky sneaky offense I might be a little bit afraid of him, but, yeah, I mean, sometimes you got to throw him. I just don't I don't think I'd circle Arizona, you know?

Yeah. And for one starts, if I'm streaming for one starts, it's usually somewhere I'm like, oh, Oakland's in town or they're in Oakland. You know what I mean? Like, it's usually I'm trying to circle an offense. It's I'm trying to target somebody. What I did was one of the big things that I did was bought Edwin Diaz in my main event. And I actually thought this was a funny story beyond just, you know, nobody cares about your fancy team kind of stuff. So we had like 390 left or something.

Yeah, 395 or something. And we wanted to prepare a max bid for Edwin Diaz because we had been limping along with Josh Hader and Jeff Hoffman as our main closers. And so I decided that I didn't like the max bid. So we had a max bid on the table of like 327 or something. I was like, Oh God, has Edwin Diaz been the same since enforcement? Like, what is he going to come back? Is this command going to be good? Like we're going to spend all of our money on a closer. Oh no, I don't want to do this, you know?

Um, but we do need a closer. It's actually, it's really important for us because we've streamed our way to the top of the case and near We're doing we'll go 11 wins and at some point we may want to switch our Focus and start playing like three closers and four closers, you know at some point we need to do something a little different and Diaz offered us that opportunity and And so I argued my Kohan are down to 265 You know before And so I argued my Kohler down to 265, you know, before before Sunday.

And then Michael Koepke, who is one of our closest, we just picked up, blew the save and I got so mad that I went in immediately after he blew the save and upped our bid to 317. Just out of spite and hatred, pure reactionary, uh, juice there. And we bought, we, uh, juice there. And we bought, we wanted three 17 to 300, uh, Edwin Diaz. And, um, so we've got something like, uh, 75 bucks for six weeks or something. 70 bucks for six weeks.

Uh, and so we're going to be doing a lot of $1, $1 bids from here on out. But, you know, looking at my, at our pitching staff, I feel like we have now seven pitchers that we want in our lineup every week. Um, which means, you know, we have three or four pitches on the bench, two, two more pitches in the lineup. We have a lot of flexibility in lineup and in the, in the starting pitching. So the real question will be, will our $70 get us through the year? Um, on, you know, helping us with our offense. So I look at my office though, and this is something you're reacting to pre show

is, you know, I look at our offense and I can identify five guys that should be doing better going forward than have done. And I can identify five guys that should be doing better going forward than have done. And so to some extent, the plan now for our main event team is, Hey, we're going to be sellers. If you don't turn it around, we need to give the motivational speech to our hitters. So we're basically, we're like, Hey, our future is in your hands your hands hitters We can't we don't have much money to change things around here And so that's that's where we're at there. I also Bought Xander Bogarts picked him up for 31 to 27 bid Hopefully just a week before he would cost a lot more

and I Tried to get some Luis Ortiz, didn't work out. Ended up instead with Dean Kramer, where I won him in one league, 33 to 17, and lost him in another league with the exact same settings, 107 to 23. And you only beat 23 in the other league because you didn't need them as badly. Yeah. What was that was the difference in your bid? Yeah. Yeah. So I there were better other pitchers.

You know, sometimes my my top bid has has something to do with the other bids below it in the tree. Right. So if I if I look and I say, OK, I want Dean Kramer, but this league also has Jose Soriano available and two or three other pictures I like. The fact that Jose Soriano was second on that brought Dean Kramer's bid down in this league. And the other league I was looking at, I was like, I don't really want anybody but Dean Kramer, you know. So it's the availability means something. So I instead of getting Dean Kramer for one hundred and seven, which I think is a little bit over your skis. I mean, he's a he's a decent pitcher, but he's maybe a step above streaming.

I got Jose Soriano for seven bucks, you know, and Soriano's availability brought Dean Kramer's bid down in that league. Yeah, Dean Kramer is pretty interesting right now because he's been running the best whip that we've seen from him in the big leagues, a 109 for the season through 55 innings. Best K rate we've seen really over any long stretch. I think when he came up in 2020, he had 18 innings where he was better than he is right now. But this is an improvement over what we've seen previously.

Swinging strike rate doesn't necessarily back up another massive uptick in strikeout rate, but it's kind of a home run problem profile, but it's working pretty well. Dean Kramer looking like a little bit more than a temporary rotation guy. And they've had a lot of problems. If you look at the players that were shifted around or cut from rosters, Cade Povich got

rocked by the A's on Saturday. They said Cole Irvin's going to the bullpen. I mean, Kramer is increasingly like part of the core rotation in Baltimore. I think going into last season, it felt like that was his last chance to lock down a spot. He did well enough to do that, but now he's pitching at another level above that. And he doesn't, he doesn't have an out pitch. I think for me is the reason why he can't get too excited from him. He doesn't have a single pitch with a stuff plus over a hundred, but I will say that in his last start against Seattle the splitter looked pretty good

and splitters you know sometimes you know take a little bit more time and stuff plus and if he does have an outpitch in that splitter that changes things because he does have three average-ish fastballs and so he can be a kitchen sink guy he he does have good command, and so there are things I like about him, but he's sort of in search of an outpitch. So if you want to watch his next outing, you're watching the splitter and deciding whether or not that can be a real outpitch for him. Another way you can tell that he doesn't have a great outpitch is a 20.5% strikeout rate for his career and a 9.8 swing strike rate, 9.7 this year for Dean Kramer.

So he's not great at at whiffs. And that's something that we are always looking for in fantasy. And that's why the bat has Kramer with a four, six, seven ERA and doesn't believe in him at all. I someone who rosters a lot of Jamison Tyon, I find myself intrigued by the Kramer like that. Similar expectations, I think Tyon's fastballs grade out worse than Kramer's, and Kramer's non-fastballs grade out worse than Tyon's. Yes, Tyon's breaking balls are better.

You just kind of look at both of those guys and say, yeah, they're just good enough, and I think if I like the team context or the park or maybe both in the case of the Orioles, that's enough for me to sort of round up, even though there are some limitations. One of those pitchers that you sometimes have in your lineup sometimes don't, but it's like a little bit too good to drop. Right.

Probably my seventh starting pitcher at best would be where I want Dean Kramer right now, but the idea, I don't want to drop them because he's an Orioles. The Orioles are good. They win a lot. He can go five plus. Like there's all those things I always talk myself into in as far as holding on to someone like Dean Kramer But yeah, the Orioles sort of led the way with pitching drops between Povich and Irvin David Festa quick return to triple-a After another bumpy outing against the Tigers, maybe it'll happen next time around. It's possible

I think what's hard is that the 12 team line for pitching. It's very tough to define it. Spencer Arragedi seems to be on that line. David Peterson right now seems to be on that line. Those were guys that had two steps last week. They got cut out of the weekend because they only have one start or a more difficult start coming up on the schedule this week. Yeah, yeah, I think Peterson is just easier for me to hang on to. I picked him up in my 12-team dynasty for the weekend.

And he's just easier for me to hold on to because, you know like sometimes players are just as useful as how easy it is for you to figure out how to use them. And with David Petersen, it's like, OK, I'm going to start them at every home start. And then I'm going to if it's a two starter where one's a home, one's away, I'm going to have to think about it a little bit harder. But otherwise, there's you know, it's easy for me to figure out how to start him. Aragetti, I think it has to do with command and he has good breaking balls but not great fastballs and so when he can command the fastball then it all works. But if you look at Aragetti's line and you try to be like, hey, could I have avoided

the bad starts for Aragetti? I don't think that you would win that game I mean what we did we have a game a name for this at some point But you know, let's say would you have started him at Toronto? Maybe in a 15 team or yeah 12 no well that was a blow-up You would have started him at home against Colorado and that would have that would have been the best start of his career.

You would you have started him at home against Detroit, though? Yes. Yeah. So that's the worst start of his career. One and a third with seven earned runs. Would you have started him at home against San Francisco? Yeah.

Would you have started him at home against Milwaukee? Hmm. Let's see. The Brewers and Diamondbacks are really similar in terms of what their lineups have done this year. Underrated lineups.

Yeah. Underrated. But I think I'm I'm poking the bear with both of them. I mean, clearly based on what I thought of Arizona earlier in the show. But I've been critical of the Brewers lineup as one that at the beginning of the year looked like it was top five, top six, and it's kind of slowly sinking back closer to league average or

slightly above. So long way of saying, yeah, I probably would have thrown Arrogantty at least in a 15, but maybe also in a 12. He would have been in that situation we just described with Dean Kramer, where maybe he was my seventh or eighth best starter, but by matchup that would have bumped him in because someone else's matchup might've been more difficult. I just, I just, yeah, it's just, yeah, at Seattle, he was great at Oakland. He wasn't, you know, five innings, three earned runs. That's another guy that looks like Tyon on paper.

I guess it's just, I mean, not really though, because he has this high end upside strikeout upside, you know, but it comes with like really bad command. Most dames and then when the command is good, he's everyone's like, why, why is your model hate our gutty? And then when the command is bad, nobody's asking me about him. You know, so.

It likes the secondaries, it likes the slider, the curve, and the change up. And that's where the similarity, just looking at the model numbers on them. Oh, okay, he does that stuff well, but yeah, it's the command right now. But Eregede would be somebody that I could keep talking myself into, right? Because, oh yeah, well, the Astros, they still have that reputation

and he shows these flashes. So maybe I'm constantly looking at him on the wire and trying to, trying to make it work, but it was last week. So one name to stash because I think the next time we get a health update, he'll be picked up everywhere is Ben Brown. I saw him go in a couple of places and we put them on some lists. But it was just, you know, below Kramer or whatever. So, um, you're running out of chances to pick up Ben Brown on the cheap again, I think.

I think there's room for him, especially with the Assad injury and, you know, and the chance that he becomes a closer. So it's, I think he's just a guy. If you have deeper rosters, even in a 10 team or 12 team, he could be worth picking up. If you have deeper rosters, if you don't have deeper rosters, even in a 10 team or 12 team, it could be worth picking up if you have deeper rosters. If you don't have deeper rosters, then it's kind of hard to hold on to guys like that while you're waiting. Yeah, I think this next week going into Sunday,

especially keeping an extra close eye on news and figuring out who's actually coming back right out of the break and who's still maybe a few weeks away from returning is gonna be a way to possibly dig up a bargain or two in fab. Like if you're on it, you're more likely to find a couple of those players. If you're not, someone else is going to find those players instead. So we'll try to help out with that. We got a little bit of a show schedule note.

We're going to flip the order of our shows. We're going to put the live stream with Trevor on Thursdays. It's going to be one o'clock Eastern, same start time over on YouTube. Of course, you don't watch it live, pot'll drop in the afternoon. And then on Fridays, we're going to do all the fantasy stuff we were doing on Thursdays. We're going to try that out for a little while and see, see how that feels. I think that's going to work out really well. Theory being we just want you guys to be there live with us because we can get more live

questions, more live reactions. It makes it more fun. And maybe more people can can get to a live show on Thursdays. Fridays are the getaway day, uh, of, of the work week. There's too many of us that are trying to leave early, especially during the summer, trying to leave early, pick up the kids, go for a long weekend or whatever. So, um, but we're going to try Thursdays out now through labor day, especially people are trying to just get out the door on Friday.

So, yeah, Thursday, one o'clock Eastern on YouTube for the live stream this week. And I think most weeks going forward for us, I feel like to get a subscription to the athletic, you can do that for two dollars a month, the athletic dot com slash rates and barrels will bring you to that offer. You can find, you know, on Twitter, you know, Sarah's can find me at Derek and Ryper find the pod at Rates and Barrels. And as I mentioned earlier, you can get the link to join our Discord

in the show description. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for watching!