Rates & Barrels - Shohei Ohtani Agrees to Record-Shattering 10-Year, $700M Deal with the Dodgers

Episode Date: December 9, 2023

Shohei Ohtani is a Dodger! In an emergency podcast special, Eno and DVR discuss Ohtani’s record-shattering 10-year, $700 million deal with the Dodgers. Plus, they take another look at the now finalized trade that sent Juan Soto to the Yankees, and a swap that gives Tyler O’Neill a fresh start and a nice home park for right-handed power in Boston.  Rundown 0:17 Shohei Ohtani is a Dodger with a 10-year, $700M Deal 10:12 Ohtani's 2024 Fantasy Outlook w/Dodgers 15:09 The Juan Soto Deal Goes Final 21:31 Michael King's Health and Effectiveness as Full-Season Starter 25:35 What's Next for Padres? 31:15 Concerns About Blake Snell's In-Start Workloads Are Overblown 39:08 Tyler O'Neill Traded to the Red Sox Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/c/ratesbarrels Give the gift of The Athletic this Holiday Season! One-year gift subscriptions are just $19.99 at theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it is Saturday, December 9th. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris here with you for an emergency Saturday pod in what will be a day Dodgers fans probably remember forever. Shohei Otani has picked a new home and it is as expected from the very beginning, I think, by many people, the Los Angeles Dodgers, a 10-year, $700 million deal. It just got announced by Otani himself in an Instagram post a few minutes ago, so we haven't had a lot of time for it to sink in, but that was an eye-popping number, and we were expecting some pretty big numbers on this contract. Yeah, I guess I have to apologize for my analysis. I had it at $450,000. I thought maybe it could

climb to $500,000, but $700,000 is a lot. I think, as a caveat, one news that's coming out, Jeff Passon is reporting a lot of it's deferred and he said a significant amount so that changes uh the calculation of what the present dollar value is and i know that's kind of boring it's kind of important though too because 700 million could be the number that is on the contract but in terms of present value maybe it is closer to 600 or something if he is deferring like 20 million a year you know as far as you know somebody like strasburg did you have to start taking the effects of inflation and kind of reducing that number in any case it's a whole big old number and some people were like well why you you know react to the number so much because it's 700 million i mean the largest contract before

this was 426 i mean yeah i'm excited for the dodgers i'm excited that they got this two-way player one of the you know most unique players that we've seen ever um and it's gonna be really exciting but you know there's still that risk that what we don't know what his arm is going to be really exciting, but there's still that risk that we don't know what his arm is going to do going forward and that this $700 million is depending a lot on marketing dollars that, you know, who knows? It's depending on stuff that's not a burden in hand and that's not usually what teams do.

But I guess the Dodgers were excited enough to drop the baggiest bags of all bags on the table for show. I took the final number as a sign. The Dodgers are confident he's going to pitch for at least some portion of this deal. We know he's not going to pitch in 2024. The expectation is that he could be ready to hit by opening day or at least soon after. We have some past precedent here because he's had Tommy John surgery during his time with the Angels. The specifics of this elbow surgery are not crystal clear. Perhaps some more details about that will unfold now that the contract has been agreed to but either way i came away thinking

the dodgers must see a future in which otani can contribute as a starting pitcher at least for a portion of this deal there are so many things that make him valuable to a major league organization beyond his on-field role but this is just a massive, massive get for the Dodgers. And the expectation, I think, came from the fact that they dropped their payroll. They were fifth in payroll in 2023 on opening day, and getting to reset where they were within the competitive balance tax was a huge part of going in and making a big splash this winter. It's going to lead to a lot of speculation as to whether it's going to be more than Otani, but thinking about just how much he adds Otani as a hitter for 2024, this should vault the Dodgers to the top of war projections once

that's baked in, because this is adding an elite hitter to a lineup that already could do a ton of damage yeah dodgers were third in wrc plus last year if you'd rather uh ops they were second uh i guess there's a bit of a park adjustment there um you know it was a great lineup that struck out uh a little bit more than the braves but walked a little bit more than the blaves slug walked a little bit more than the Blades. Slugged a little bit less than the Braves. I mean, those are the two classist lineups in the bigs. Those are the two that are going to go up against each other. With Otani in the fold, I mean, what's the would-you-rather on lineups here?

That's interesting. You've got Acuna and Betts Freeman and Olsen and then it's Otani versus Albies yeah I I love what the Braves have put together in that lineup Riley I think yeah I think I think you put Riley in that spot over Albies, but I think this would be advantage Dodgers at this point or a fantastic push. And this, of course, kind of puts these two teams as your early favorites to collide in the NLCS. And we know there's a lot of things that can happen in playoff baseball, especially with the expanded playoff field. But as Otani goes, one area that I'm thinking about is the counting stats. They could be better than ever. I mean, look what he was able to

accomplish during his time in Anaheim, and now we're going to upgrade the supporting cast around him even more. So aside from that power-speed combo that he brings, he's coming off the best slash line of his career kind of by a healthy margin. Otani hit 304, 412, 654

last season. That's a 350 ISO, just video game numbers. I know that term gets thrown around more than it should, but you take him and put him into what should be the best lineup in the entire league. More runs, more RBIs, all those things should go up. Maybe the stolen bases could tail off a little bit. I think the one thing I've always wondered about is, as you get yourself into a better lineup situation, it becomes less important to steal bases because you have guys that can do

enough damage where taking the extra base isn't necessarily the same risk reward proposition it is when you're a team that might struggle to score runs consistently. Yeah, he might replace that with some power though though. If you look at StatCast park factors, Dodger Stadium is the second friendliest place to hit homers. Angel Stadium was fifth, but Dodger Stadium is an upgrade when it comes to power. Otani already slugged.587 at home against.525 on the road. at home against 525 on the road. So, I mean, if you're reporting over a 600 slugging for a career, last year he slugged 654.

I mean, it just feels like he could repeat last year pretty easily. You're older with the elbow injury, but with a little bit more of a park boost. And then you're right. I think the runs in RBI are really going to get a boost there. I think the whole the runs in rvi or are really going to um are going to get get a boost there i think the pitching side is interesting the he hadn't i think the the best guess and a lot of this has been close to the vest and you know people are a little angry today because of some of the reporting there are some mistakes made maybe in the reporting process but on top of those mistakes uh were was a very secretive otani team like you know we know for example very little about his elbow surgery last year and that's kind

of rare normally uh the team announces it you have some idea you have actually a very good idea of what happened and you know in this case i think they limited what the doctor could say and they limited what the team could say um they limited what the team could say. And so we're reading between the lines and thinking it might be an internal brace situation, which has a quicker turnaround time. But that doesn't mean he's necessarily likely to pitch next year. And even though the tear was a new part of the elbow, it's still a second tear in the elbow. If you compare him to other places places the reason i got to around 450 was i was going to give him bryce harper's deal along with jameson tyon's deal uh that got you to about you know 400 million that's a two tommy john guy that got the biggest deal for a two tommy john guy ever

before um and uh and then i thought well maybe this is a bryce harper for blake snell deal you know that's his comps recently. There's some comps there, a little bit wild, very good stuff. And instead, he got Bryce Harper plus Garrett Cole, which, I mean, I'm not here to say any contract is a bad contract. I don't want to rain on anybody's parade. I'm not trying to focus on that, but I do think that, I think it's interesting that there's a fair amount of risk here

when it comes to the arm. The Dodgers seem to not care about that. Perhaps their thinking is, well, if he doesn't have to throw on a starting pitching rotation, maybe we can have Mike Trout because he's physically, I think, able of playing center field.

He's one of the faster players in the big leagues. He can play at least a really strong corner outfield. So what if we got Mike Trout who can also be like Edwin Diaz? So then you start getting, it's still only like $530 million. So then you have to add the marketing money. So then you're saying, we got Mike Trout plus Edwin Diaz plus $15 to $ million dollars of extra marketing money every year i'm just not sure i wouldn't necessarily if i was running a business bet on money that wasn't in my pocket yet if you know what i'm saying yeah but you just look at the the way it would play out if he couldn't pitch

but could play in the outfield center field right field wherever that big minus you see from the defensive rating goes away right he's going to be at least average probably a good defender if it ever comes down to that and then the war numbers go through the roof so you could also look at it someday and say it's ended up being a great long-term deal for all of these reasons it's still in the range of outcomes even though we're in the stratosphere in terms of what the final dollar amount was for this contract. I'm curious what you think about Otani from a fantasy perspective this year. I looked at the December ADPs over at the NFBC. Pick 14, right at the end of the first round of a 15-team league is where Otani has been going.

And he doesn't have that same appeal that he had last season. I talked about the possible value of taking him as kind of a middle-of-the-first-round guy, where if your team lost pitching along the way, you could shift him into a pitching role and backfill your utility spot with the best available hitters from the waiver wire and from your bench. You don't have that luxury this year. We're just evaluating him straight up as a UT-only player with some potential early-season playing time risk. So are you in or out at that range? And are we wrong if we're assuming that he's going to creep up a few spots

as a result of landing with the Dodgers? At the very top of a draft, it's possible that your positional value is overrated. Because at the very top of the draft it's possible that your positional value is overrated you know because at the very top of the draft you're just assembling the best collection of stats you know you're just collecting somebody that can hit over 300 hit you a bunch of homers and steal you bases you know somebody that gives you everything so if somebody gives you everything you know uh at utility is it really that bad you know is that really that bad to to clog up utility quote-unquote when you know uh at utility is it really that bad you know is that really that bad to to clog up utility quote unquote when you know you can just get a late round shortstop to play

shortstop you know it's like he's a great bat and i don't think that that's a bad idea to to draft him there i think it seems fine um and in terms of risk, I mean, it'd be nice to be like, oh, he's not pitching. Could he step in the outfield? Well, we saw from Bryce Harper recovery from possibly the same surgery that Harper did not play first base until the second half, so till late in the second half. So I kind of doubt that he's going to play in the field it's going to be util only um i think you're right to wonder how many stolen bases but even if you you're not it's not going to be a zero you know i think if he gets to you know 15 stolen bases he at least treads you water there you know 40 plus homers 300 plus rb 300 plus uh. And it's possible he gets to 250 plus runs in RBI.

I mean, 250 to 300. It could get pretty intense there. Yeah, I could see just some massive seasons here at the beginning few seasons of this deal from Shohei Otani, just given all of what the Dodgers have in this supporting cast. And I think the other kind of secondary benefit of this deal being done is now the rest of the offseason can actually happen, right? It wasn't the only thing slowing down the market,

but the highest of the high free agents, Yamamoto, Bellinger, Snell, those names are going to start moving off the board now that Otani has a home because many of the teams that were finalists for Otani now have large shares of budget available and clear opportunities to upgrade their roster. So I feel like we're going to get to this point even a week or two from now, we're going to say, wow, it kind of feels like we had a month's worth of transactions jammed into two weeks. And I think it's because we're going to have all this urgency around being a team that gets a big upgrade before someone else snaps up those players.

Yeah, I mean, this frees it up. The Blue Jays obviously had some money that they wanted to spend. And, you know, they haven't been necessarily rumored in on Yoshinobu Yamamoto or Blake Snell, but the rumor mills on those guys have just really taken the backseat to the rumor mill on Shohei Otani. So, you know, what if the Blue Jays say, hey, we were willing to drop some serious coin. We are ready to go right now. Right now, we've got somebody named Nathan Lukes at the top of our left field depth chart. And adding Yamamoto, and I don't know who's the best outfield situation. What if they went for Bellinger and Yamamoto?

Because they said, this money's burning a hole in our pocket. the best outfield situation? What if they went for Bellinger and Yamamoto? You know, because they, they said this money's burning a hole in our pocket, you know, that would, that wouldn't necessarily be Otani, but it would be a shot in the arm for a Blue Jays team that has a lot of things you love about it and seems to just need a little bit more

investment. If you're a Blue Jays fan as disappointed as as you are that you didn't get Otani, the fact that you were a finalist, hopefully is that signal that your team's going to keep spending and keep trying to get over the top with the core that they currently have in place. It would be very disappointing if they're not in on at least one of the other big free agents and possibly two, given some of the needs in that roster i think yeah even as it looked on friday with some of the reports that were going around that otani was toronto bound it wasn't it was the guy from shark tank big disappointment for all of us can you imagine the surprise when when when you get off the plane and you see 10 times as many people there

ordinarily see like what what happened what's going on hovering around taking pictures of you probably a slight moment of panic you're like did did something happen did did somebody on my team did some news break about me that i don't know about like what's going on that had to be frantic to the pr people yeah is everything good uh i think a lot of people were starting to point out the the depth in that blue jays lineup is also up in the air right now. But it's so early in the offseason. There are plenty of teams you can look at. Quality teams that are missing one or two of those lower impact signings that will end up being significant upgrades too.

The Jays have those needs on top of the needs to get those bigger pieces up at the top. Since you and I last spoke, the Juan Soto trade went official and we pretty much had it. When Ken Rosenthal joined us on the pod earlier this week, the names involved, I think we had every single one, at least as part of the show. So I feel great about that. I feel like, hey, it's good to know things were as close as is reported. And that actually played out the way everyone expected it to. What blows me away with the Juan Soto thing, you know, even with more time to reflect on it, is that nobody else really seemed to get close. And we're talking about one of the best hitters in the game. Now that he goes to Yankee Stadium, I saw some people pointing out that he doesn't get the ball in the air consistently.

There's been some variance in his average launch angle and his approach over the course of his career. Juan Soto to me seems like the type of hitter that makes adjustments to his environment better than most. And he could see that outfield wall and maybe do something about it. Yeah. I just, I don't see him struggling to take advantage of that ballpark. I think this is going to be a monster year for Soto.

Now that we know he's officially headed to the Yankees. You know, one thing I, I stand by that I said in that podcast was just that if this is what this, this is the deal that AJ Preller needed, this was the only team that could give it to him. You know,

I suppose maybe the Marlins have to be on that list. And so what would the equivalent Marlins trade be? It would have been Edwardward cabrera you know i mean max meyer who's coming off injury uh sexto sanchez who's hurt i mean they they don't even really have that depth you know they're not going to send ryan weathers back you know uh the mariners okay the mariners could have maybe built one we know though that the mariners have made deals that are a little bit more have more to do with cutting cash than adding cash um and so they don't really seem like the team that would have added soto but let's say they were willing to give up brian wu emerson hancock is

hurt uh darren mccauhan is like a hasn't even proved himself in the major leagues and you know so they have to give up wu and miller what do the marin So they have to give up Wu and Miller. What do the Mariners do after they give up Wu and Miller? There weren't many teams. Oh, the Twins. How about this? The Twins give up Louis Varland, Simeon Woods Richardson, and a prospect.

That's closer. But then the Twins have to go and then basically spend money to backfill and even the yankees who were able to do this um which i think speaks well of their player development um the yankees now have according to fan graphs uh the three six nine ten eleven twelfth best rotation which is now i'm not saying that they're they're like top three or four or five is is is the 12th best, but they lost all their depth, you know, and that's that's part of any sort of, you know, what do I think of this rotation right now? Clayton Beater is their

number five with 111 innings. I don't I mean, I know a little bit about Clayton Beater. I like Will Warren. He's their number seven. What the Yankees need to do post this trade, because they gave up all their depth, is go buy another starter. So they've got a $30 million player, and they have to go out and get another $10 to $20 million starter to make this work. So it was a very interesting trade,

because Preller, it's almost like Preller had to do this. And so he like backed himself into poor decision-making by making poor decisions in the past. You know what I mean? It's like, if you hadn't signed Xander Bogarts, you could have just kept Soto and spent the $25 million you're spending on Xander Bogarts on pitching. You know, that would have been work.

But since you did buy Xander Bogarts and nobody wants Xander Bogarts, you need That would have been work. But since you did buy Xander Bogarts and nobody wants Xander Bogarts, you need pitching. So what are you going to do? Trade Soto for pitching and not get a top-end hitting prospect back, which is what everybody would want to do when they trade Soto,

is get Jason Dominguez. You know, get somebody like that. You know, get a Volpe back if you don't have a shortstop. You know, that sort of stuff. So sometimes bad decision-making begets poor decision-making down the road, so I'm not trying to defend the trade overall, but I do think that given this history, probably did fine.

I mean, I think King is a really good arm, and the other arms are, I think they're going to produce like one or two, you know, mid to back end rotation arms, which is, that's, that's actually really gold. People aren't like, Oh, a number three or a number four. Ew. It's like, what? Do you know what those are going for in the market right now? Yeah. When you're talking about 12 to 13 million for a Lance Lynn or a Kyle Gibson

and you need three of them you right and you have you know money issues as the Padres do right now that's 35 million dollars that you don't have so yeah you get several of these players back I mean it speaks to the depth the Yankees have developed these were unheralded players across the board in terms of when they were drafted when they were signed so you have to give them some credit on that front for turning these guys into quality big leaguers that a team would take back in the Juan Soto trade. And I think when you think about the differences in the park, it just gives you so much more floor. For all the concerns you might have had about Johnny Burrito as a back-end starter,

a number five guy for the Yankees, a lot of those fade away when you put him in Petco because of how the park plays and how different it is. The big question is going to be Michael King. Can he stay healthy enough to work as a starter all season? And how effective will he be in a starting role long-term? Because the Yankees have had plenty of needs in the rotation that have come around due to injuries and underperforming players in recent years. And when you look back at the time that Michael King spent in the Bronx,

you're talking about 15 starts over the last three seasons. Yeah. Sorry, I'm going to a boxing match today. And my kid's going off to his last jungle book play. He's the Python Kaha. And so this all came down at a crazy time in our household uh but yes michael king uh michael king has had some gruesome injuries his last injury was a fractured tip of his elbow i don't even know how to say the thing he fractured it's like the old oleocron joint or something sounds like uh out of uh transformers but uh

he said he like the from the he was writhing in pain. He's fractured his elbow before that, I think, or fractured something else. I mean, it's been a bad injury history for him. And I don't know that you can necessarily put down 150 for him. But the nice thing is the other guys, they can all throw 150. I don't know if you want them all in the big leagues but they've all got to 130 140 innings last year in johnny burrito and randy vasquez at least you know those two uh come with the innings even drew thorpe the minor

leaguer uh through 130 innings last year so all of those guys have innings king has the upside i guess thorpe has some upside, but you know, when you're talking about a guy who just barely made it to double-A, you can't be like, oh yeah, we're penciling him in for 150. So, you know, I think that they got innings in the latter half. They got upside in the top half. And, you know, I wrote this in a piece. If you want a more detailed breakdown, it's up on The Athletic, but, you know, Johnny Brito and Randy Vasquez are the types of pitchers that Ruben Niebla would love to get.

And, uh, you know, I had a pitching coach tell me once that, you know, give me guys that are right between triple a and the big leagues that have a wide arsenal. I love that.

We're going to tweak this. We're going to feature this. We're going to drop this. We're going to do this. And that's, that's, that describes Johnny Brito and Randy Vasquez. now i don't know about out pitches randy vasquez change up maybe uh johnny burrito sinker is pretty good um so you know i think they have

what it takes uh but it's more of a sort of wide arsenal that they're going to figure out but um yeah michael king you know if you're talking fantasy or if you're just a padres fan trying to bet on trying to think about like what he's going to do in the future, it's going to be excellent when he's in. I think it'll be really, really excellent. He has the sweeper with the most sweep in baseball, basically. It's like 18 inches. He has a really decent changeup that he locates well and gets the most out of. Both fastballs are pretty good. So, it's a it is a little bit like the clark schmidt hayden wisnenski package with the sweeper and the change up you know uh but it's the best version of that you know it's it's a little bit more like what you're seeing uh from the mariners out of

somebody like brian woo and and and and just more polished you know he's been doing it longer he's figured it out i just uh just you're just hoping for good health from him. I think the other part of this trade that's pretty interesting is Drew Thorpe. I mean, he adds another quality pitching prospect who's not far from the big leagues to the Padres system. If you think about Thorpe as a guy that spent some time at AA last year, got up to almost 140 innings between high A and AA, could pitch in the big leagues by the end of 2024. I don't think that's unrealistic. You got Robbie Snelling who got up to double A even though he was just 19 last season. That's really encouraging. Dylan Lesko, a guy that would have been drafted earlier, maybe the first pitcher off the board

in his draft class in 2022 had he not had Tommy John surgery. He could be a quick mover. So there's a future that's not that far away where some combination of those guys could also be in this rotation behind the likes of Musgrove and Darvish. a starter or maybe maybe maybe enough to buy a starter or reliever and an outfielder um considering that they had some money to spend beyond and they already saved some money by uh sending out scott barlow um so if they have enough money uh to do something like this and i'm saying let's say they have 20 more million dollars right the money they basically the money they saved in soto not asking them to spend any more beyond that i would say you know go get uh maybe someone as boring as martin perez um and uh and or or if you can convince like a seth lugo to come back on the top end but you know i i'm not asking them to to re-sign blake snell um and uh and i think just adding another veteran pitcher

would be a good idea um you know maybe they can start renegotiating with michael waka uh maybe it's just a michael lorenzen you know somebody that'll come in um and give them a veteran so that they have veterans one through five basically to start the year then i think what happens is, you know, you start to see a percolation, you know, where, okay, Brito's not as good as we thought he was, you know, or, you know, Michael King is hurt, or, you know, Hugh Darvish is hurt, whatever it is, then you start to see those guys. And I think that's what you see, what you see, like, people are like, oh, we're going to depend on Snelling at all and Thorpe.

Like, I don't think you do that. Teams don't do that. They don't want to pencil in a young guy right away. They want to see, they want to let that guy come up when there's a need and sort of prove that he can stay. So, I mean, even if it's something as boring as Martin Perez, maybe that saves them a little bit so they can get Jordan Hicks, you know, and Jung-Hoo Lee. Like, you could maybe fit all of that into the Soto contract, which is kind of amazing. And it tells you what I think the Padres are thinking about,

which is just we have too many needs on this team to keep Soto. And so we're going to basically spread him around. And, you know, I see what he's doing. There are other mistakes that got us to this place, but it's still going to be a pretty good team at the end of it. The other player involved in the trade that I really like a lot more for 2024 now

is Trent Grisham. I think he showed flashes again in the middle of 2023. There was a point where I thought he was lined up for a pretty big second half. The quality of the contact was getting a little bit better. Some of the things he was doing with his approach were adjusted. He goes from one of the most difficult places to hit home runs as a lefty to the second best park in the big leagues by stat cast park factors to hit home runs.

It's not the only thing he does to provide value. I think being a legitimately good center fielder, that adds something significant that the Yankees needed, right? We're going to see Aaron Judge in center field probably more than you and I would like to see him in center field, but Grisham at least gives them a credible option on the roster to take over that spot. They could play Alex Verdugo last. I think there's still some questions about what they're going to do

with Giancarlo Stanton and that contract. If they were to move Stanton off the roster by some means, more likely a release than an actual trade, or at least a trade where they eat a ton of money, then they could shift things around to make these pieces fit a little bit better. There could be another trade coming on the horizon, but I actually think Grisham was an important secondary piece for the Yankees here, and I don't think he's just a simple throw-in.

Yeah, I think he's going to make it to opening day. You know, he's going to be on this team, and I think he actually is a pretty good fit. Jason Dominguez can play some center, but he's hurt right now, and even when he comes back, since he's coming off of Tommy John, I believe, right? He's, how much do you want him to be throwing a lot? You may want to ease him in a DH. I mean, just think about other Trevor Story, Bryce Harper. They're older when they had it, but they didn't come back

and necessarily start throwing competitive throws right away. So this eases the Jason Dominguez situation. Stanton's hurt all the time. I mean, his DM said that. And Verdugo is not always healthy. And you don't always want judge and center. So Grisham's going to steal at-bats here and there. I just don't know if he won't get to the same sort of playing time

that he had before. I think he might top out at 400 plate appearances next year. But it'll be 400 plate appearances that are good for the Yankees in particular. And if you look at the Yankees in terms of a lineup, in terms of having some backups everywhere, Oswald Peraza is a backup everywhere. Oswald Cabrera and Everson Pereira are outfielders that can come up if someone's hurt. You know, They've got Rizzo and LeMahieu being able to play first. Their lineup seems pretty set, at least in terms of having a really good one through five, one through six, and then also having backups at every position. So I think they're going to

they're going to really focus in on getting a starting pitcher in here. I think Blake Snell would make a lot of sense for a team that has had really good bullpens in the past. And I also think that people oversell the sort of Blake Snell can't make it through the fifth. I mean, if you just look at last year, 6th, 7th, 6th, 6th, 6th, 6th, 6th. I mean, he actually made it into the 6th in more than two-thirds of his starts.

I don't know if that surprises people, but Blake Snell was excellent last year, and he was not necessarily a huge tax on the bullpen. In fact, of his last 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, nine starts in a row uh he went six or seven yeah so here here's my note if you listen to the other baseball show as well you've heard this before i am not blake snell's agent i will continue to insist that i do not represent blake snell but if i did i would be quick to point out to teams that snell pitched six or more innings in 20 of his 32 starts last season. Just for comparison, Spencer Strider did it for 21 of his 32 starts. Corbin Burns, 21 times in 32 starts. Aaron Nola, only 22 times in 32 starts. Justin Steele, 22 times in 30 starts. He only had two

turns in which he went four innings or less. So the blowups aren't as often as you think, and he gets as deep into the game as most of the other top starters in baseball. So the blowups aren't as often as you think, and he gets as deep into the game as most of the other top starters in baseball. So I think a lot of the downside concerns with Blake Snell have been blown out of proportion, I think is the fair way to say it. Does he have issues with walks?

100%. But he seems to have a skill of reducing hard contact and having a really low hit rate. There's some part of that he controls. I do think if you put Blake Snell on a mound with a terrible defense behind him, you can really add some bad downside possibilities to his range of outcomes. But as long as he's got at least an average defense behind him,

he's someone I trust a lot. Yeah, you may want to put him on a team that has some minor league depth, which is interesting when you think about the Yankees, because two out of every three seasons, he kind of gets to 120 innings instead of 180. So you may want to, it may be a better fit for somebody like the Giants. Is that possible with Kyle Harrison on the way up, Keaton Wynn showing something, Mason

Black showing something, Sean Higeli being depth at least. The Yankees, the Giants have some need for some star power. They've been linked to Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Jung-Hoo Lee. We talked a little bit, I

think, on this podcast about Jung-Hoo Lee's lack of power. For me, one of his comps is actually Luis Matos, who the Giants have right now. But I do think that what I've heard talking about this with other people in the industry is that they seem a little bit more confident that Jung-Hoo Lee's centerfield defense is better than Luis Matos's. who Lee's center field defense is better than Luis Matos's. And that's been the one thing that's kind of been missing in San Francisco in the outfield is they have a lot of guys who are okay defenders on the outfield, but are poor defenders in center. At this point, you want to Stremski in the corner. You want Austin Slater in the corner.

You don't have, you need a center fielder. And it's kind of hard to buy those in free agency. So I do think that they're going to stick Marks or Luciano at short. I had a source sort of confirm that to me, that he would be the opening day shortstop for the Giants. So if you're looking at ways to improve this team, it's center and perhaps third base, pushing J.D. Davis and Lamont Wade and Wilmer Flores into some sort of playing time situation

at DH. So I think that there's an opportunity at third and there's an opportunity in center. So I don't think that Bellinger is their type of player because they showed when Chris Bryant was in town that they weren't that big a fan of players without um great batted ball numbers you know um but i could be wrong on that maybe it's cody bellinger maybe it's jung hoon lee makes a lot of contact could be a scooter-esque player for them where he just comes in and makes a ton of contact and plays center field that could be an upgrade for them um and then matt chapman um is somebody they've been linked to i I think that would make some sense, actually. I don't know.

How do you feel about that second half? I know everyone sort of points that second half. Do you think I think there's some injury, but, you know, Chapman barreled balls and played great defense. It seems, especially if it's only like a four year deal, like it might be it might be a good place to shop because the glove is so good that gives him such a nice floor to begin with and i would rather see hard hit balls going the opposite way than see the hard hit rate fall if those are my two choices like which which thing went wrong

he was still hitting it hard he just wasn't pulling it when he was barreling it and we have a long enough track record from chapman's to 2023. That's a little tough in San Francisco, though. That's right to Triple's alley. Yeah. But it'd still be a barrel, right? It'd still be a barrel. Still an extra base hit. I mean, if you expect 20 homers a year instead of high 20s or even 30, then you're probably in the right spot. And I think

the defense alone would probably make him a pretty safe signing even on a four-year deal at $22-25 million a year. And maybe that's a good idea to put next to Marco Luciano. Yes, I think it absolutely is a good idea. If they believe Marco Luciano is a shortstop, that's fine. If they believe they can make Marco Luciano better defensively, okay.

I have no arguments against that. But you can take a lot of pressure off of Luciano if you're able to put someone like Chapman next to him on that side of the infield. The weird thing about this is we've been waiting so long for Otani to sign. And so now there is going to be a loosening of the market. So now we're going to see a lot of deals. We're going to see Yamamoto come through. We're going to see Imanaga come through.

We're going to see Jordan Montgomery and Blake Snell sign because they had to wait for for people to see who had money you know now cody bellinger can go to all the people who lost out on otani and say you know you wanted a bat right um and so we're going to see a loosening of the purse strings from the other teams hopefully um and we're going to see some transactions but at the other hand this is i think one of the weaker free agent pools in memory um and so if you did miss out that may have contributed to that 700 million dollar number for otani in a way you know it's like uh what else are we going to send this on so um you know i i'm not trying to poo-poo blake snell and cody bellinger and them but i see flaws i can i can i can just give you flaws with everybody left, right?

Like Jordan Montgomery doesn't strike out enough guys. Cody Bellinger didn't hit the ball as hard as he used to and was one of the worst players in baseball like two years ago. Blake Snell, 120 innings instead of 180 innings, you know, in two out of three seasons. Matt Chapman hit like 196 after May 1st last year. Seth Lugo, how many innings are you going to get from a guy who was a starter? Marcus Stroman, how many innings are you going to get?

Michael Waka, is he actually any good? Clayton Kershaw, his shoulder is hurt. Brandon Belt, he's like 48 years old. Mike Clevenger, what? You know, like, so, like, and that's, I just read off the top guys for you, like, literally. Like, those are the top guys. What did I miss? Teoscar Hernandez, I mean, that's one of just read off the top guys for you, like literally. Those are the top guys. What did I miss?

Teoscar Hernandez? I mean, that's one of the worst. The anti-agent. Yeah, that's one of the worst, you know, plate discipline packages in baseball, you know? It's like, Whit Merrifield? Like, I saw this thing, and I'm being a little cynical, and I hope nobody makes anybody sad or angry, but I just saw this thing about and I'm being a little cynical, and I hope nobody makes anybody sad or angry,

but I just saw this thing about Witten-Merryfield and the Royals. Somebody tweeted, like, oh, the Royals are interested in Witten-Merryfield. They haven't had a second baseman with an OPS plus over 100 in like 10 years or something. And I was like, and they won't get that with Witten Merrifield. So yeah, probably not going to get that.

What was that? Are you suggesting they could, because he hasn't done that himself in three years. So, um, I don't know, like, I guess Josh Hader,

you could, you could say is a pretty pristine, you know, top of the top of the rotate, like top of the market free agent, but he's also just a reliever and his command like lost him his job. Like he's a little bit closer to Craig Kimbrell, not

this version of Craig Kimbrell, but like, you know, the free agent Craig Kimbrell, then people might want to, that might make people a little bit uncomfortable, you know. Maybe we could try to say something nice before we go that was that was just like a whole uh that was a whole like dump of cynicism sorry about that

i know injuries have been part of the story for tyler o'neill for these last two seasons so we haven't had a chance to see him stay healthy enough to follow up on what he did back in 2021 with the cards that was the 34 homer 15 steel season. Hit 286, 352, 560. The two years since then have been almost identical, like 228, 231 for the average, low 300s OBP, and a slugging percentage right around 400, even a tick below that in 2022. He gets a nice park upgrade, a righty going into Fenway, and more importantly, he just gets a fresh start. It seemed like the dust up that Tyler O'Neill had with his manager Ali Marmal early last season, that was the last straw. I wouldn't have been surprised if O'Neill would have been moved

at the deadline. I'm almost surprised it took them this long to find someone to take him back in a trade because there are reasons to like Tyler O'Neill. How do you feel about him getting a fresh start in Boston where the depth chart is a little more crowded than it was after the Alex Verdugo trade to the Yankees, but they don't currently have anyone penciled in as an everyday DH, right? Now it's a floating spot. And I think that makes it easier for them to mix and match throughout the mix

of the outfielders they've currently got. Yeah. I mean, I guess Masataka Yoshida's defense is bad. I'm going to defer to people who watched him more often. I watched him at the plate some. I can't imagine that I can tell you exactly how good he is defensively, but he was moving towards DH, and Tyler O'Neal's a better defensive outfielder.

So I'm going to guess that the lineup is Tyler O'Neal in left and now jaron duran in center which i think is a mistake i think it's raffaella in center i think jaron duran's a corner maybe raffaella and so i i guess the the loser in this it's not what fangraphs has right now so this might be a chance for arbitrage i think the loser in this is Willier Abreu. He was a winner three days ago. I know, I know, but the problem is I don't think he's a standout defensive piece, so he's not going to play over anybody for defensive reasons. He's a 24 lefty they kind of found rather than a top, top prospect,

and he's got options left. So with O'Neal, you have some redundancy in center. I don't know. I guess he makes – I don't even know if he makes that roster because I think he's – the lineup is O'Neal, Rafaela, Durin, Yoshida. Yoshida can play some outfield. Wouldn't you rather just have like a career backup type, like a ref Snyder or whatever it is that fits your lineup needs more than, uh, like having a young guy like a Bray you in the

major leagues, not getting at bats. Yeah. I, the Bray you problem is frustrating. It's like, he doesn't have a clear defensive home. I don't really think he's got anything left to prove in the minors though. So, I mean, he hit 22 homers in 86 games at triple a this year you're gonna send a little bit of a pop-up situation though i mean he was he was striking out a lot more before before that so yeah and with abs you you do wonder like how much how much of the changes in his plate skills were the result of that system and the impact it had at that level yeah i mean he always walked but yeah I don't know exactly what's going on with him.

But, you know, the batted ball stats, if I knew he had a job, I would say I'm into him because the batted ball power is enough for me to say he can hit 15 to 20 homers and at least 20 homers, I think in a full season.

He had almost a 10% barrel rate and 109 max EV, 11, one 12, seven in, in, in the minors. Um, in, and I did, uh,

there's a nice piece on fangrass real quick, just to nerd out just for the last second. There's a piece on fangrass about like the most important, um, you know, uh, hitting metrics in terms of stack cast. And,

um, you know, one thing that's nice about it links back to an old piece that says for rookies, uh, eggs of velocity is massively important. So that's one thing to note. And then the other part that it said was 95 EV or 95th percentile EV is better than max. But you could use best speed on Fangrass if you want.

That's on baseball savant if you want. But in any case uh his max ev shows to me that he can hit 20 plus homers his uh walk rate is good he has some speed he is a guy i'd like uh i think that is patrick newman from npp tracker tracker at my door ringing the doorbell right now all right we gotta let you go you gotta get to a boxy match one last thing boston righties pulled the ball more than anybody in baseball last year boston lefties pushed the ball uh in the top 10 everybody's trying to go for the big monster i think that might be good for tyler o'neill just a little bit more pull a little bit more pull in the air just having that goal for

him like seeing that big old green thing in the corner of his eye, I think might be good for him. He's been telling me that he wants to let it travel, and I don't want him to let it travel. Look at him. He is a man beast. He shouldn't be letting it travel. This is a guy who should be trying to hit 45 homers, in my opinion, even if he strikes out 32% of the time.

If you hit 45 homers, your batting average is going to look okay. Yeah, I'm with you on the approach and maybe being in that ballpark will force them to make that adjustment i'll say why would i why would i let it travel here like this is the place you do want to get it out in front because there's so much potential value in just ripping the ball at the monster you're probably the first person since like 1970 to go to an early country Western swing show and a boxing match in the same week. So you continue to lead a very interesting life. Shout out to Sam chess. Uh, he invited us, uh, to see some, a really great show at the station in, in Nashville. I really enjoyed that. Uh, Oh, nice. You bought some merch. I bought some merch. I was really into it. I had

a great time. Thanks, Sam. And yeah, I got to go. He's definitely calling me now. Eno is making people late for a boxing match. So we're going to go. Happy Shohei Day. If you enjoyed this show, leave us a nice five-star rating and review

wherever you're listening to this podcast. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Like this video on YouTube. We are back with you next week. Thanks for listening.