Rates & Barrels - Shōta Imanaga Expectations, Choosing a Weakness & Early-Round Skepticism

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss Shōta Imanaga's move to the Cubs and expectations for him in Year 1 against MLB hitters. Plus, they return to the draft room for the first time in 2024 and discuss choosing a 'weakness' in your roster foundation, early-round players they're skeptical of at their current prices, and unique considerations when playing in a draft-and-hold league (no in-season pickups). Rundown 1:42 Shōta Imanaga to Cubs; 2024 Expectations 11:10 Choosing Your Foundational Weakness 22:13 Nolan Jones' Surprising 20-20 Campaign, Top-50 Status for 2024? 28:09 DVR Is Flip-Flopping About CJ Abrams 31:49 Choosing an Elite Closer over an Early Speedster? 35:51 Concern About Gerrit Cole's Small Skills Loss in 2023? 43:30 Looking Back at Past Earn Values; Cooling on Aaron Nola? 49:42 Trusting the Vlad Jr. Steamer Projection? 52:55 Mike Trout's Difficult Plate Appearance Projections 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 Subscribe to The Athletic for just $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Wednesday, January 10th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris on this episode. We have some process related things that we're going to talk about because we're back in it. We are drafting against each other. I didn't know it when I signed up for a draft two nights ago. I saw you talking about drafting. I was like,

well, maybe I should draft. And you clicked into the same one I was in, so we're in the same draft room, which is, you know. Well, actually, I bought a three-pack, so I didn't even... The weird thing about three-pack is you just have to...

You just kind of give them your preferences and then they just fill it. There you go. pack so i didn't even the weird thing about three pack is like you just have to uh you just like kind of give them your preferences and then they just like fill it there you go i didn't i didn't mean to but then i was like oh our league just filled a lot of familiar names uh industry folks there are just very good nfbc players in this particular league there's some listeners mixed in there too so should be a fun room we're about i don't know midway through the sixth round as we start recording here on this wednesday so i'm sure we'll we'll talk about some things that have happened in the early rounds so far talk about in the next couple of episodes we'll talk about something as it happens since i'm about two away from picking yeah i probably get a pick during the show today too live thought process should i do it

well i don't know we could try it and i don't know if it'll be repeated so we could try at least one time give us feedback if i do if i make my pick live on air tell me tell me if that was interesting or don't do that again we may be able to just get us there with one topic first and that is shota imanaga nearing a deal with the Cubs. Sounds like it's close to done or almost done at the time of this recording. A complicated deal is the term that I've seen thrown around, so I don't know if that means multiple opt-outs or deferred money or some combination of both or something else entirely, but this would be a pretty big get for a Cubs rotation

that needs at least one more high quality starter. So we did this a little bit with Yoshinobu Yamamoto the week you were gone. We were talking about the impact he should bring and can reference the piece that you wrote looking at his arsenal. What are we talking about with Imanaga? What is the possible payoff for him as he makes the move to Major League Baseball? possible payoff for him as he makes the move to Major League Baseball. Well, the positives are immediate with Imanaga.

He would have the fastball with the most ride in baseball the minute he lands. I mean, yes, they use a different ball in Japan, but I'm comparing to the WBC where they used a Rawlings ball. And yes, that was a tournament where he only threw like 45 fastballs, but stuff like shape and stuff plus in 45 fastballs is usually enough. So I would say he will at least immediately have top 10 ride in baseball. And so you're comparing him to guys like Felix Bautista, you know, there's, you know, Alex Bessia, Nestor Cortez has a lot of vertical rides. So that's a group that you're looking at. But if you look at the top 10 guys in ride, Ipanaga's release point is 10 inches lower on average than that top 10 group.

So it's a combination of a really low release point five and a half feet mostly people are six plus you know and uh five and a half feet plus the most ride in baseball i think the fastball is really going to play and there's this aspect of you know there's some heat maps in there from lance broszowski uh in the piece that maybe he hasn't been using the ideal strategy for that fastball. So just looking at heat maps, he does not throw it where the other guys with high ride throw their fastballs. So there's something of upside there. There's also upside in his flaws. Like I looked fastball slider, they look good. It's interesting Yamamoto, you know, his slider didn't look that good.

But everything else looks so good that you're like, he's going to be good. With Imanaga, it's more like fastball slider are good. His strikeout rate in Japan last year was better than Yamamoto's. You know, his strikeout minus walk was better than Yamamoto's. So, a lot of things there. The bad stuff, the curve and the cut are not great. But, you know, is that upside? You know, I think that represents upside. Like think about somebody like Jordan Montgomery.

What are you going to tell Jordan Montgomery? Like what, like, do you, do you have a plan for Jordan Montgomery? Like, Ooh, come in here and we will do this. No, you're just like, that is Jordan Montgomery. He strikes out fewer people than average but he's got a really good collection of pitches he knows how to use them bam that's jordan montgomery i'm not going to tell him what to do you know but uh with imanaga you have a little bit of like hey you're coming to america let's try this should we try gyro slider instead of a curve should we try

this or try this so a lot of different things uh that represent upside and the deal to me which is anywhere from 2 to 30 to like 5 and 80 jim bowden has some some reporting that sort of represents that uh as a possibility i think more teams should have been on him i think the giants missed a missed an opportunity here especially given the biggest flaw for Imanaga has been home runs. And you would think that that would be something that San Francisco would kind of pounce on. But, you know, they, for whatever

reason, didn't stay in. I hope I'm not giving away too much of the piece. There's a lot of interesting stuff in there, but I would say that the comps are in the eye of the beholder, I'll say. Nestor Cortez, Joe Ryan, Christian Javier. Those are the places that I found guys with a lot of ride, fastball slider types, home run issues, high fly ball guys.

home run issues, high fly ball guys. The interesting thing about that group, there are some really good seasons in that group. And there are some pretty bad seasons in that group. Well, and I think every time we talk about Joe Ryan, I think about how effective he was initially upon getting to the big leagues and how it sort of tapered off over time. I know there's some deception in his delivery that helps make his fastball play up

and everything. So it makes me wonder, and even Nestor Cortez, right? The success he had was two years ago now. I know he was hurt last year and that may have been a big part of why he wasn't quite the same guy. It gives you this sense that, hey, maybe Imanega comes over and is good right away, but then the league starts to figure it out if the other secondaries don't come around. He's 32. He's like 30 also. Out of the box, he should be pretty good. And then it's just a question of how quickly the league can adjust and whether or not the rest of the arsenal comes together.

That's an interesting take. Also because the league as a whole is getting better at hitting pitches with the right. You know, we've got the whole Marcus Simeon, Matt Olsen, Alex Bregman philosophy of aiming at the top half of the ball when the guy has right, you know? And so, you know, maybe they're they're more prepared for it. I will have to say, though, that, you know, just think about the market. If you put those guys on the market, Javier, Ryan and Cortez right now.

I think they get more than what Imanaga got. I guess they're younger, but. You know, that's why I said that the comps are in the eye of the beholder. You know, some people might hear that list and be like, oh, that's that's why I said the comps are in the eye of the beholder. Some people might hear that list and be like, ooh, that's stinky, especially since the years that all three of those guys just came off of bad years. Well, now that we know where Imanega's headed,

I'm assuming we'll get some stability in where he's being drafted. The range of where he's been picked just in the January drafts is huge. Early pick of 109, late pick of 278. Average is 87th overall among pitchers to 20 ADP.

He's probably going to push his way up 40 or 50 spots. Yeah, I guess it's interesting. I mean, I would have loved for him to, like the best case scenario would have been San Francisco for me. You know, a guy with a home run problem, want to put him there. Or maybe St. Louis. Both of those places would have been best case scenarios for me.

Wrigley is interesting because the wind blows in sometimes. Sometimes. And then it blows out sometimes. Sometimes it blows out, yes. Day games, are we really worried? I think this is a middling situation for him. But I do, I think I still like him better than ConsenSys, I would say. And so I'm in on those prices.

I think that, you know, it's your taste for risk. But at those prices right now, the risk is priced in. At those prices right now, the risk is priced in. If he starts going regularly at 100, as excited as I am about him, what's the would you rather at 100? One of his teammates, Justin Steele, goes around pick 100. I mean, even if you distrust Justin Steele, he's shown it in the big leagues at least. Right. I would take Justin Steele over in Monaco. That's not really a tough one for me. Dylan Cease goes up in that range.

I just made my case for Dylan Cease on the last pod, so I don't need to make it again. But yeah, I'd take Dylan Cease. Walker Buehler. We don't know how many innings they'll let him pitch, but yeah, I'm taking Walker Buehler. Cole Reagans goes in that range? Yeah, I'd take Cole Reagans.

Right, so I think that'd be hyper-aggressive. I think the range where you start to think about it, Chris Bassett goes around 140. There you go. Now you got me listening. Jordan Montgomery, Merrill Kelly, we've talked about that cluster before. I think when we talked about Chris Sale moving to Atlanta, he's in that cluster as well.

That's probably where Imanogawa reasonably belongs with the Cubs. Probably a guy you're going to use for most of his matchups. Maybe you err on the side of caution initially in some of the more difficult spots, but even in division.

I mean, I'm not, out of the first month of the season, if they're playing in St. Louis, I'm not sitting him for that in a deep league. In Milwaukee is a little scary, but it's the Milwaukee offense. So no offense.

No, I didn't build it, man. Like it's, I didn't build it. My fingerprints aren't on that roster. It's still Boos Homer's, the park, American family field, but everything else about the park has actually started to play a little more pitcher friendly. So that's kind of a strange quirk of the last couple of seasons as well.

But yeah, I think I'm in kind of in that 150, 160 range potentially, and that's probably about where he's going to settle now that we know where he's likely to go. As I mentioned, we are back in the draft room. You're not on the clock yet. I think it's going to happen while we're recording, though. But I had to say, it's a two-hour pick clock. The person on the clock two seats away from you has just over an hour to go. So most likely, you will get to pick during this show.

I was thinking about this from the perspective of where you want to be in the draft order. We think about that a lot more closer to March, like the main events, the higher stakes leagues we play in. And it matters regardless of the league you play in. And I think the way you have to think about it is mapping out what happens with different foundations, right? Like when you're trying to build a good team, you have to think about where you are in the draft order,

what is likely to be available at each of the first few turns. So I'm curious, how far out do you try and script something when it comes to your draft strategy in a snake draft? Is it four rounds, six rounds, 10 rounds? Where do you sort of say, this is far enough for me to know what my foundation looks like and what I have to do the rest of the way to put it all together. I may do less of that this year than I have in the past. And here's my reasoning. Ronald Acuna Jr. right now, with the settings for NFPC, which is 15 teams, two catchers, all that stuff, is pricing out at $55. And second place in the auction calculator, which is Aaron Judge,

I don't necessarily agree with that because they're giving him 679 plate appearances, and I don't know if I'm giving him 679 plate appearances. But second place is Aaron Judge at $34. That's a 20 difference and even if you uh even if you go beyond that so so first of all like if i'm doing if i get to decide what where i'm drafting i'm drafting first i'll take well yeah i'll take a cunha thank you very much so okay so we're setting up our what do we want to do what do we want to do first okay first i want to take first so then you're like oh would i like to take the turn or whatever well you know the 15th best hitter is uh is not a 30 player

whereas the sort of top uh five to eight players are $30 players, maybe in the top 10 Corbin Carroll by the auction calculator is the 10th best bat, he has a $30 value. If you go over to pitchers because of the the the offensive explosion, there's one $30 pitcher, Spencer Strider. So I basically just So I basically just want to draft in the order of the draft. I think the one aspect that I don't like, you know, I just pointed out that there's $10, $30 hitters and there's one $30 pitcher. I really don't like nine through 12 or 13.

I don't, I don't like that. Because you're just not getting to choose the best players. And you end up with choices that are so hard. You know, like 12 and 13 are Trey Turner and Bryce Harper. It's just, it's a pretty old group. And the projections say those aren't at all first rounders. pretty old group now the project and the projections say those aren't at all first rounders so that just could be a quirk of our draft but you know you also uh earlier around there have a choice of freddie freeman i ended up uh nine which i didn't think was a big deal but

i really wanted to tease, Strider, or Tucker. They went in the three picks right before you. Six is Tucker, seven is Strider, eight is Tatis. So I ended up with Juan Soto. So the back end of that deal, and you were 14, and you ended up with Otani, and 15 is Jose Ramirez. The back end of the first round is old people. Now, Soto is 26 and an impending free agent. So that's why I took

him above Aaron Judge because I just believe that Juan Soto is going to get out in the field every day because he's trying to get $450 million. So, you know, he's going to be out in the field every day. I don't necessarily think Judge is going to be out in the field every day. So I wanted to max out my plate appearances and yeah,

if judge gets 670 plate appearances, he will be worth more than Soto. I understand that. I just, it was a bet against that, but I'm just saying, I don't love those decisions between nine and 13. You can get me back in at 14 and 15.

Cause I can be like pop pop. I get two guys. I, uh, I. I get two guys. I've made this case before. I like picking at an end where you get the two picks together. Yeah. You don't love 14 so much. You gave me some cuss words when you said you had 14.

Yeah, I've been swearing a lot. You still have to wonder what the other guy will do. It's the weather. You know what it really is? It's like you almost get two together but you really have to pay a lot of attention it up well you have to look every single round you got to say okay what is the person next to me have and i've got to decide like which of the things i want is more likely to be taken with those two picks and then sort of guess right on that so that that's a game in and of itself and so much and early on you can just totally get it wrong where you're

like he already has a shortstop. He's not going to take another shortstop. I want a shortstop. I'm going to leave that shortstop out there. And then he's going to be like, two shortstops. Got one for my MI. And you're like, ah! Yeah, so there's that aspect of it where that's what I was more mad about than the players that I was going to get.

Because my team started Otani, Jordan Alvarez. Like, that's fine. Sluggers, Jordan Alvarez. That's fine. Sluggers. Those guys can hit. That's wonderful. The thing that I think about a lot is trying to decide what my early round flaw is going to

be because you generally in Roto, 5x5, you're chasing 10 categories. If you're thinking about the first six rounds, you probably didn't cover all 10 categories in the first six rounds. It's possible, but it's unlikely just because things have to break absolutely perfectly for you to have an ace and elite closer,

plenty of speed, all the power that you want in the foundation and guys. That sounds like a 10 teamer. Yeah. Usually it's more of a 10 teamer can it happen sure but more likely than not in a competitive room you have to give something up and in this environment the thing that i'm most comfortable giving up is speed right steals are easier to find and i think they're going to enter the league at a high rate too i think you're going

to find that when players come up and take over spots when fourth outfielders get the play is more likely to give them the green light yeah they're gonna offer up that as some categorical juice i mean just look at nolan jones we're gonna talk about a little bit more later but nolan jones like didn't have that much speed and they were just like hey we're the rockies you're young the rules are good like fine go for it 20 stolen bases yeah so it's like otani runs, of course, because he does everything. Soto runs a little bit. I did the same thing as you, by the way.

So we're going to be eating the same trough later. Fantastic. So excited for that. And it came down to, I mean, the choice ended up being saves or steals. What am I more comfortable finding more of later? In this particular format, draft and hold league, this is a draft champions league at the NFPC. It's 50 rounds. There are no in-season moves.

And the longer I've played these, the more I've been adamant that I want one of my closers in the circle of trust, which in any given year is like 6 to 10 different closers. This year, there's probably 7 or 8. Being in an end, especially, you know, after round three, round four,

there's going to be a nice run of that group. And it comes back to you in round five or six, and it's sort of, you get what's left, or you can be a little bit more of an aggressor and take someone at the beginning of the group. I decided to be more of an aggressor and take Edwin Diaz, because I think he's just very safe.

And I hate taking closers early but i'm with you on that because in this format in particular because of the things you said but also like the thing that's most precious in draft and hold because you don't have any ability to uh go to free agency the thing that's most precious is roster slots And so if you don't take an early closer, then you're going to have to dedicate more roster slots to relievers because you're going to have to take more chances later. So you might have to take

six or seven relievers. Now you have 40. What is it, 40 or 50? 50? 50. You have 50 roster slots. Six or seven doesn't sound that bad, but you have to like,

you have to like you have to have all your third baseman for the year and like i'm always like get three third baseman you know get three i want three of every infield yeah you can count uh one guy twice if he's got eligibility so that's why multi-eligibilities are good but i want to have three of every position so if you want to have three of every position and like seven or eight outfielders and like 14 starting pitchers, you run and like three or four catchers, you run out of relievers. So then you start making decisions like, am I going to have an eighth outfielder or am I going to have another reliever? And taking a shot at a late reliever is just so painful because you're like, even when you're like, oh, I like this guy. He could close. Like his stuff plus is good. Like he's on a team with a bad closer. Like what's a percentage likely that that guy closes? And how much value does that player have if he doesn't close?

Like zero. It's like Julian Merriweather. Oh, good. There's a format. We can draft Julian Merriweather. You were right. He almost had 100 Ks last year. He got the ERA into the mid threes.

Whip wasn't great. But he had like five saves. Yeah, two. Two. The hit rate on those late relievers, I think it's low when you consider that the saves are so important. If it was saves plus holds, then of course you could wait more on relievers.

But you can't because of the way these are built. For agency leagues, you can wait more on relievers. But you can't because of the way these are built. For agency leagues, you can wait more on close. I also have a lot of confidence in my ability to find position players in those late double-digit rounds that are going to end up being useful. I don't want to throw away those roster spots on relievers. I'd rather have as few relievers as possible to then have a bunch of guys that I think can come up, play, or multi-position guys, bounce back guys.

Every combination of hitters available late. The biggest decision ends up being, I think, usually a prospect or a reliever. And you can make the argument that those prospects don't hit either. But when those prospects do hit, and if you're picking among the top five prospects or top 10 or even the top 15, or if you're picking a prospect that's in a team where you're pretty sure he's going to play, like Nolan Jones last year. He was on my deep league lists, and that's a great outcome. Didn't he go like 20-20?

Yeah. And he didn't cost you anything. He cost you the same as a reliever in a draft and hold in the 35th round. So I would rather be shopping in the Nolan Jones bucket than the Julian Merriweather bucket because both of those worked out, quote unquote, but the Merriweather got you two saves. Nolan Jones was fantastic and a smart trade for the Rockies. Like you have to give them some credit for this. They don't get credit very often, but this is a 30-30 pace from Jones because he only played 106 games. So he went 2020 in 424 plate appearances. It's a 15.7% barrel rate underneath,

an improvement in the K rate that we saw during his brief time in Cleveland. He was at 33% when he debuted, get that down to 29.7%. He walks. He is tooled up. I think when you look at the StatCast numbers, I remember looking and seeing he had maximum arm strength and better speed than I thought. There's a ton of raw potential in Nolan Jones

that made him intriguing a year ago. I think the hardest thing for me is knowing how inexpensive Nolan Jones was in drafts last year, knowing some of his limitations with the strikeout rate, and then seeing the market just go kind of all in on him this year, where he is consistently a top 75 pick. That's the latest he's gone in January, but more likely he's a fringe top 50 guy. And I just think I'm a little unsure because even with all those things that I like,

I wonder, okay, he's a left-handed hitter who strikes out a lot. Is he a platoon risk? And then even though he hits the ball hard and runs well, is he going to have a 401 bad pip again? Coors helps for sure, but how much batting average is he giving back?

Projections, the steamers got him at 265. That feels about right. If he's 265 with 25 homers and something close to 20 steals again, I'm probably wrong. So am I being too stubborn about the price increase on Nolan Jones given the tools, the underlying skills, and the setup for him in Colorado?

I think so. I'm going to take the pro Jones side of this because this has something to do with Lars Knutbar for me. So Lars Knutbar, I took my shirt off with him. I trained with him. I thought he was going to be a sleeper. I saw his bat off with him. I trained with him. I, I thought he was going to be a sleeper. I saw his bat speed going up. Um, I picked him up in one of my deepest,

uh, prospect fantasy leagues, devil's rejects. And, um, and then there was like a roster crunch early in the season. He hadn't quite taken off and I dropped him and someone else picked him up and they got the benefit of what new bars done since.

And recently I tried to open up talks to, to, to trade for new bar. And do you know how painful that was? Everyone knows how much you like him. So that probably didn't go well, but also I have to now pay full price, right?

For somebody that I had picked up for free. And that's what I think you're, that's the similar emotion that I think you're dealing with. Yeah. It's like, it's sticker shock. It's just knowing like, Hey, like I thought I could. He was like free last year. Yeah. More or less. Interesting thing too. I suggested the possibility of being platooned based on what he did against lefties. They shouldn't platoon and they should keep first off at the Rockies. Right. Exactly. Like on what he did against lefties, they shouldn't platoon him. They should keep, first off, they're the Rockies. Right, exactly.

Like, is he like your best young player? I'd like him better than Tovar. There's a really good chance that he's your best young player on the big league roster right now. Why on earth would you platoon him? The only thing I could think of is, well, they're the Rockies. 130 plate appearances last season against lefties.

Nolan Jones only had a 26% K rate. He struck out less against lefties than he did overall. He had a 314, 377, 522 line. It's a 130 WRC plus. Yes, it was a tiny sample. But based on that, you keep playing him. Generally, he hits the ball hard. You were talking about his BABIP,

and he was in the Cleveland organization, and he ran BABIP's over 400 at three levels. I mean, that's pretty good. His lifetime minor league batting average on balls and play. And I'm just eyeballing this. I think it's like 370. I mean, that's how intense his Babib's were in the minors. And I know bad defense, minor league Babib. I'm not saying that that ports over. I'm just saying like when you see a projection for a 348 babbitt uh this next year that's not only cores it's because he hits the ball freaking hard so i think yes he's going to strike out and there is some risk in the batting average um but i also think that you know the projection says 16 stolen bases he stole 20 bases

last year and 400 plate appearances. Why are we saying that Nolan Jones is going to steal fewer bases next year? Because of regression, because he didn't steal as much as the minors, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think that the rules, the rule change is messing with projections. There was a couple other ones we saw. We saw Trey Turner's stolen base projection is pretty low. Yeah, yeah it was down some of this might just be age getting baked in some of it might be steamer not fully projecting the stolen base environment to be the same in 24 as it was doing traditional projection strategies where it's like well one of these years is not like the other one of these

years should get like double or triple weight, you know, because that's the year with the new rules. Another one was CJ Abrams. Stole 47 bases. He's 23 years old and they say he's going to steal 30 next year. It's like, why? Yeah. Of all the things.

So we could sit here and talk about CJ Abrams for 25 minutes. We have been. The group chat has been talking about CJ Abrams for 25 minutes. We have been. The group chat has been talking about CJ Abrams for a while. I've already flipped twice, I think, on CJ Abrams. And if you go back a year, I loved him last year. I thought the best case for CJ Abrams going into last season was that. Was what he did, probably. Well, it was injuries.

Injuries plus the lost pandemic season meant he got to the big leagues with about as few plate appearances as any non-Angels prospect in the last five years. So there's like tons of lost development time as a result of that. So I thought, OK, C.J. Abrams could still get a lot better given his age and all that missed time. And he played a ton. age and all that missed time. And he played a ton. He did get better because the barrel rate jumped from 2.1%

in his rookie season up to 6.9%. Which for him, that's a huge improvement. I wonder how sticky it is. There's a couple things that you look at and you say, okay, Chase is a lot outside the zone. 38.6% O-swing. Still an improvement from when he debuted.

Step in the right direction. Only a.27 the zone. 38.6% O-swing. Still an improvement from when he debuted. Step in the right direction. Only a 279 Babbitt. That's kind of interesting. It's like the it's like, okay, that seems low for a guy that runs well. Yeah, he doesn't really hit the ball that hard. Right. So maybe it's only a slight bump there, but even

if he gets up to 9,300, that's a little increase to the batting average. That's probably where you find 15 points of average. Steamer has him at 261. He hit 245 last year. I think that here's the problem that I have with C.J. Abrams. It's probably a me problem.

When I look at a player, and I see a below average real life offensive value next to his name, and C.J. Abrams has that. This is the Bobby Witt scenario. Yes, I have a very hard time in the first three, four, five rounds of a draft saying, give me that guy.

And I think more often than not, when you find a player with that profile, it's going to be someone who plays a lot like Abrams value wise, where speed is the number one thing you're going to get. And the rest of the profile is a little bit more concerning. But you're worried about less playing time or going down in the order. If they're a below average hitter, why would they hit one, two, three? Except it's the Nationals. It was the Royals.

It's the same kind of argument that I was putting out there with Nolan Jones. It's like, well, as long as we trust the organization to do the right thing, in Colorado, it's hard to do. Washington, I have a little more faith that they'd say, let him play, let him figure it out, let him figure out lefties. Even if that means he drops to 7th or 8th in the order against lefties, if they're winning more games than expected

and they have to manage the lineup in a way that makes them as competitive as possible, is he going to lose playing time or is he just going to lose batting order position? People don't muck around with shortstop. You know, it's like people don't want to do platoons at shortstop. No. No.

That's why I think it'd be bottom third. I think he's up locked for 600 plus, you know. And if he's going to get 600 plus, I think he's going to get 40 stolen bases at least because he got 47 last year. You know, I think, you know, 260, 15 homers, homers 40 stolen bases like i think he's actually going sort of near where he needs to go so in our in our draft uh he went in the fourth round in the with the eighth pick so that's around 50 you know 53 yeah slight I think, relative to where he usually goes. For my game, at that point, I had Juan Soto, Vlad Guerrero, and Corbin Burns. Yeah, we both passed on him in the fourth round.

We both had a need for some speed. I had him right there. I was staring a hole into him because with Soto and Vlad Guerrero, I was like, I could use some speed. But that conversation, Todd was like, I could use some speed. But that conversation with Todd Weller, speed saves. I really had that decision and knowing where I was

and looking at the draft pool, I took Emmanuel Classe. Now, first of all, the stuff plus base projections have Emmanuel Classe with the lowest projected ERA in all of baseball. So that's kind of cool.

And that's kind of maybe an argument that he's number one among closers, you know? So, you know, I'll take a 201 projected ERA. Plus, when I looked at Classe, who was left? Iglesias, Doval, Romano, and Bednar. Those are all guys that I was okay with, but there were 16 picks before I go again. Guess what happened? They all went. They all went before the end of the fourth round.

Yeah. They didn't even make it to the next round. So after you took class a, there were three, it was Abrams, Scooble, Nola, and then Iglesias, Duval, Matt McLean, Romanoano and bednar that ended the fourth round so i feel like i made the right decision because then otherwise if i if i had taken abrams there i don't even i would i would like i'd have to alexis diaz is the only guy that would have been there for my next pick yeah and the consideration i had was the diaz pick in round three and also wanting to get at least one starting pitcher in my first four picks because I was looking at Yamamoto. And I think in my first draft rankings, they're not published yet, I've got them inside my top 10.

I think the main reason I have them in my top 10, the piece you wrote was very convincing. The main reason I have my top 10, the piece you wrote was very convincing. You can't have an arsenal that good and be less than a top 15 or top 20 starting pitcher. But the more I looked at all the risk, all the profiles up there. The comp there was Gossman with an elite breaking ball. Gossman's never had an elite breaking ball. And Gossman himself is a top five pitcher. Right.

And we talked about the workload a couple last week a little bit it's like well the dodgers already do this with their pitchers yeah they're already backing off guys a little bit there's an interesting tidbit in andy mccullough's uh mailbag this week about it i didn't realize how pervasive it was i mean basically their starting pitchers make half of their starts on extra rest. It's probably a well conceived idea to keep them fresh for October, which is fine. I just think as the ceiling of other starting pitcher workloads has fallen, teams being more careful in managing their rotation the way the Dodgers do and other

teams do it, a few other teams do it too, it's less of a detriment to their individual value, right? Because that workload gap gets smaller. So I saw the same kind of thing you did, right? I was starting to think about Abrams. Like, hey, you know, with Jordan Alvarez as my second hitter, I'm already light on speed. So I have to make sure that if I see someone I really like from a speed perspective,

I have to jump in. I like CJ Abrams more than Nico Horner. The more I look at those two players. Those are the two I was playing with. I was hoping that maybe by not taking Abrams, there's more available to me later in terms of speed at shortstop. But my next pick, i can go through the reasoning there in a second but yeah so for me it was yamamoto expecting a run similar to what

happened from my early round hitters where i took corbin burns second so that's a little bit of difference you had you had a you had a sort of a pressing need where you're like starting pitching still don't have one and what's interesting is that i thought about burns and garrett cole i had cole in the queue of course because i was picking 14th overall and i didn't feel great about it i kept looking at it i'm like this is weird like i usually love getting garrett cole late in the first round what's what's going on like what am i afraid of we actually had an email about this so yeah so let's get to garrett cole for a second because i think there's some things that are happening when we evaluate pitchers right now,

and it seems like no one's really immune to it. And Garrett Cole is coming off of an excellent 2023 season, right? 263 ERA,.98 whip. How about 209 innings of those ratios, too? That's so valuable. Well over a strikeout per inning still. It was the number one. He was the number one.

He was the guy. The issue is the strikeout rate dropped. That's the concern. A little bit of the velo drop. Velo drop. Strikeout rate came down with it. Swing and strike rate underneath that K rate. Also down.

Not a surprise. He's 33 now. The stuff came down just a little bit, even though the stuff's still very good. The email we got was wondering in part too if he got lucky on homers, if that was just a big part of why everything popped for him ratios

wise and if that might be covering up some of the skills flaws because Sierra, one of the ERA indicators, popped up to 363 for Cole last year, so a full run above his actual year. Since he's became who he is in Houston. Right.

His last season in Pittsburgh. Yeah. Yeah. I was his last season in Pittsburgh was the last time he was that bad in Sierra. So considering this and the email also was asking about, you know, just power pitchers and long-term workload.

This is a guy that's got over 1800,800 regular season innings on his arm. Pristine, dude. Is it time to actually worry about Garrett Cole, or is that just making a problem that doesn't really exist? Well, one thing that I saw that looks intentional is that Garrett Cole increased the usage of his cutter and his curve and decreased the usage of his slider last season. And we even had a conversation about this in spring training

where he didn't want to use the cutter too much because he didn't want it to affect the shape of his foreseam, but he was interested in replacing some sliders with cutters to left-handers. And that's, in effect, what he did. Now, it's only one percentage point when you look at it overall, but it's more exaggerated when you look against lefties. And what would happen if you reduce slider usage against lefties and increase cutter and curveball usage against lefties.

You might give up fewer homers. So I think there's some explanation for the lower home run rate. However, you're right. In terms of statistics, that's the noisiest statistic. And we have a demonstrated four-year run, even when Cole was a beast, of a home run rate more like $1.25 per night. Last year it was $0.9. So that's why the projections have the home run rate coming up.

They have some positive regression in the strikeout rate, but not much. And the projections, you know, 373 ERA from Steamerer that still feels a little high yeah i think so too i mean he hasn't had 373 since that last year in pittsburgh even with those home run rates even in new york and you know maybe this is the beginning of him throwing the cutter what if he throws a cutter 15 of the time next year and staves off home runs that way? I have so much respect for him in terms of just how good he's

been. He has 1,900 innings basically of a 317 ERA and a 29% strikeout rate. He's a Hall of Famer. Yep. I know he's a hall of famer yep so i know he's 33 and at some point you start worrying about this but think about the other hall of famers that we've seen pitch recently max scherzer and justin

verlander when did you really start to see some cracks in the foundation at 40 hold on a minute hold on it was scherzer i think i'm with earlier than that oh verlander with verlander and some of this coincided with the core muscle issue that he had back right he did have that surgery about 10 years ago he had that so what happened was that during his time detroit after he turned 30 verlander had that season He threw 206 innings with a.454 ERA and a.140 whip with 159 Ks. And I remember talking to, I think at the time I was hosting Short Hops with Bernie Pleskov, and we both made like a top 25 starters. We're like, he's done.

Verlander's done. He's not Verlander anymore. That's a much worse season than the Cole one. Cole just won Cy Young, and we're talking about other problems. I think Cole is more closer to Verlander. So you're going to see him rattle off another five years of a three-something ERA, 3-2. Yeah, and Verlander bounced back to a 338 and 109 for the ratios in 2015. A 304 with an even one whip, 254 Ks in 2016.

And then 2017 was the year that he got traded to houston and then everything kind of like ticked up again once he got to the astros like that's when he kind of hit this this late career stretch where he was just unbelievable i i wonder someone like garrett cole and the concern about how he ages being a power pitcher points to how close does he sit to his max, how much of that wear and tear, that cumulative wear and tear builds up on him. It's a bit of an unknown. Everybody's different. But Garrett Cole does seem more like a Verlander or a Scherzer in terms of arm care, how he approaches hitters, the depth of his arsenal, knowing that as he loses something, he has to add something

to counteract it. This seems like a profile that's still going to be very good for a long time even if it's not 30 plus percent K rates anymore. If it's 27, 28 percent for the next couple of seasons, it's not going to be the end of the world. Yeah.

In terms of his average and max like you know he's he's still maintaining like a two mile an hour difference in fact last year he was a little bit further from his max than usual so in some ways last year was a conserved momentum year and he won the Cy Young you know what I mean like he was like I'm going to step off of my foreseam a little bit he still hit 99 100 as his max um but he sat more 96 97 um and uh he's like and instead of you know you know using the slider all the time um I'm going to mix in some cutters and curves and try to reduce the home run rate. It almost seemed like Cole was entering a different phase, but it's not one that I think

is going to be much worse. I'm still on the Cole train. Ooh, John Cole train. I think we could look back at the 2024 draft season and a bunch of us that took those, those hitters that we like for five category production and we didn't at the expense of Garrett Cole. We might say,

Ooh, we maybe, maybe we chased pitching unnecessarily. We had a shot at a guy that was going to be top three again among starters. And we decided to take a bat. You know, another thing that I'm doing this year, that's a little different.

So I'm doing some blurbs with my rankings and that's making me kind of go under the hood a little bit. But also one thing that I'm doing while I'm writing these blurbs is looking at past end of year auction value results. You know, and that's a little different. It's a little bit weird to do that because we look at projections and we put the projections in the auction calculator, we get a number and we're like, okay, uh, Aaron Nola is a top 10 pitcher by projections in the

auction calculator. I'm totally fine with that. I, I see why these things were regressing this way. And I, his stuff and, you know, like stuff. That's how I've tended to look. I'm looking at the stats. I'm not going to look at what he was worth in fantasy last year. I'm going to look at the stats and try to build a picture and then look what that would be worth. But this year, I've been looking at what they actually finished in, just so I can get a sense.

How good have they actually been and so with garrett cole um you know i you you got last year you got the number one uh uh ernie a starting pitcher and then over the last six years he's averaged the ninth best starting pitcher right so you're buying a tremendous amount of floor like you can buy garrett cole and you could get the average finish from the last six years and he'd still be a top 10 pitcher for the year and probably with a lot of innings so you'd probably be like i'm happy with that you know what i mean so uh that was illuminating for me the other one one was Aaron Nola. So Aaron Nola, the projection for him on Steamer is $22. You know, that's, I think it's back in top 10. It's more than Logan Webb.

It's more than Luis Castillo. It's more than Corbin Burns. You know, like Aaron Nola is projected to be worth more than Corbin Burns in the coming season. And that just didn't sit right with me for a lot of different reasons. And so I thought, let me look back and look at what, because I feel like Aaron Nola every year, the projections is like, he's going to be good. And then I'm like, well, what was he actually worth? So these are the last three finishes for Aaron Nola in the auction calculator. 58th, 18th, and 51st. So

I'm not going to take somebody who's done that and who is not leaving his park, is going to play in front of the same defense and just project him into the top 10. I'm just not going to do that there's he hasn't done that so as much as i like aaron nola he's dropping for me in my in my means tested rankings in my in my blurb tested rankings and in this look and then you know that's part of why we're doing this draft right is to like let's let's start actually putting these these rankings that we're doing into play and see what we're actually going to do so you know what did he go nola went fourth round to team six so that's about pick 55 and among starting pitchers that's one two so the starting pitchers that went were strider first, which is...

I think most people are agreeing on that. Cole second. Burns to me third. Wheeler fourth. Castillo fifth. Gossman sixth. Glasnow seventh. Gallon eighth. Kirby ninth. Pablo Lopez tenth.

Yamamoto eleventh to you. And Scooble and Nola 12th and 13th. That's a little bit closer to where I have my rankings, but right now in my working rankings, I have Nola 16th. And there's a bit of a down arrow there, because I have Gallant behind him, and I'm like, I think I like Gallant better. So, I think Nola might end up like 18th in my, in my, in my rankings. And that's the best finish he's had the last three years.

So I don't feel that bad. You know, it's just, it's, it's partially the home run rates. They tend to run a little higher for Aaron Nola overall last season or two years ago, 2022. The ratios came way down.

The home run rate was way down. And I just wonder, was he just lucky on homers? Was that most of how he did it that year when he popped? I mean, that's another thing about Cole. It's like, yes, okay, let's say he's a little bit, he was lucky on homers last year. He got a long string of demonstrated good results with the home run rate right whereas

with nola if you say okay he got lucky on on home runs that one year well in the years where he had normal home run rates quote unquote he wasn't that super useful the thing that gives nola a decent floor though even if you got a down error next to his name it's like the walk rate continues to be great right so usually he's even if the era bounces up the whip stays really good this doesn't walk a lot of guys because of the volume you know high wind probability pretty good strike out totals the volume's been very good it's just for me it's lowering my expectations of what his true ceiling is it's just dropped a bit compared to where it was two or three years ago, and I would have been more aggressive with Nola and played up his volume a little bit more.

I see a few cracks in that foundation now. I've got him 11th right now, so I'm a little higher on him than you are, but it's a really tight group right there. I've got him behind Kirby and Gallon. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Your means testing is a little bit off here. Oh, I guess you had Yamamoto 10th. I have Yamamoto 7th.

Oh, wow. All right. I have Yamamoto ahead of Luis Castillo, Kirby, and Gallon. One spot behind Gossman. I do have a funny little other anecdote about the queue in my thinking. So,

my draft went Soto in the first round of the ninth pick, uh, Burns, uh, Vladimir Guerrero, just the, the, the auction calculator was just spitting out an insane number for him where I was like, he's a $26 player and everyone else I'm looking at right now is $20. Like I can't just ignore $7. And it is a little weird because it's like, yeah, Vlad Grimero projected for 36 homers hit 26 last year. You know,

like, are we sure about this? But I took the shot. And so then my next pick, and then Emmanuel class say, so my next pick was right before bedtime. So I had to set a cue and I set a cue and I feel good and bad about this, but it's just funny because I go to bed and I set a cue and my

cue is Nolan Jones, who we just talked about. I liked the idea of getting some speed and power and getting a Coors guy. I didn't mind getting another outfielder. I put Paul Goldschmidt in. Paul Goldschmidt is, the auction calculator really likes him. And then also he's bat speed training at driveline. And I just like that. And like, he's going to be a non-zero in steals too.

So it's not adding steals, but it's not putting a zero in steals. So like all my guys are going to get five to 10 to 15 steals. So I'm going to be adding some steals here and there. So I wanted to put Paul Goldschmidt on and then Grayson Rodriguez projects really well. And I like him.

And so I put him third in my queue. Nolan Jones went right before me. I got Paul Goldschmidt and Grayson Rodriguez went right after me. So I felt good about my queue making abilities. right before me, I got Paul Goldschmidt and Grayson Rodriguez went right after me. So I felt good about my cue-making abilities and reading the room. But, you know, I think my team has the same flaws as yours. I've got Goldschmidt, Soto, Burns, Classe, and Val Guerrero. And what do I have?

I have 30 steals, maybe. Yeah, you've got the thing you have. Val Guerrero and what do I have? I have 30 steals maybe. Yeah. You've got... The thing you have, I think you have plus plus run production though with that group. Should be a lot of RBI. A lot of runs. Should be a good batting average. Should be a lot of homers.

Three hitters that should never ever get days off. Most hitters in this range, the first few rounds don't get days off. It's just a matter of staying healthy. But I also like that two of these guys are first basemen. Durability, usually a little less

of a concern at that position. The Goldschmidt going to driveline, even at this stage of his career, I think he's a little underappreciated because his career has been happening in the shadows of Mike Trout and even Manny Machado to some degree. Like that cluster of former first rounders who continue to age really well. I kind of like Goldschmidt the most of the bunch right now with Manny coming off surgery and with Trout's volume projection just being necessarily lower.

They went right there. Trout's volume projection just being necessarily lower. They went right there. So yeah, Manny went right between Jones and Goldschmidt. Manny went in there. Manny had surgery, like you mentioned. And Trout went at the beginning of the sixth. So the old guys are... That's like a little bit of an old guy cluster.

I love that Goldschmidt has shown more durability than trout and also the same maybe a similar amount of like dedication to the game is that the right word um like trout had a whole high in a swing early in his career and then he just spent the whole off season and closed it you You know what I mean? That's the kind of player that I see Goldschmidt as being. It's like consistently, like Goldschmidt used to be an oppo guy, and then later in his career he learned how to pull fly balls, and then maybe in this last stage of his career,

he has one more great season in him because he went and did bat speed training for the first time in his life. So I'm just really interested to see how that plays out for him. And I think the floor for him is still pretty high. Worst case scenario, I get something like last year, I think. Yeah, that looks like a floor. I mean, he still had a 12% barrel rate last year. Run production, excellent. And yeah, even the bags 12% barrel rate last year. Run production, excellent. And yeah, even the bags, 11 bags again last year.

So you're not taking a zero in a position where a lot of people do take zero or something closer to zero. So I think that kind of falls into that. Every little bit helps with steals, especially if you wait. That's part of how you make up some of that ground from those first couple of picks

is finding a few guys that, like a catcher that runs a little bit can be a little bit helpful in a situation like this too. But Trout, it does mess with your head. You're sitting there late round five, early round six, and you see Trout sitting there, and you're like, well, I don't know. He's had 861 plate appearances the last two seasons combined.

Is it fewer than Stanton? I saw something. It is. Over some time frame, it's fewer than Stanton? I saw something. It is... Over some time frame, it's fewer than Stanton. It's only 45 more than Eloy Jimenez. Wow. It is compared to Stanton?

Let's see. I think that is less than Stanton, because Stanton had a 600 plate appearance season, I'm pretty sure. 867 for Stanton the last two years. It's a lot of missed time. Trout was 861.

Ah! That is spicy. And Trout in the auction calculator looks like a good pick. With 658 plate appearances, man? I'm sorry.

I don't think so. I don't know how you project his plate appearances because the back wasn't the problem last year, right? We were worried about the back. We thought the back initially... Was it the calf last year? See, we're forgetting all the injuries because there have been so many.

It's horrible. It's not the way it there have been so many it's horrible it's not the way it was supposed to be it was a hammate bone so that's kind of fluky so if you're projecting based on the context of the injuries gone no more hammate if you're basing it on

the fact that the back actually held up and that they have no reason to back off of him other than once every three weeks, every month, there's a chance he's a max volume player again. They won't prevent him from being close to that. It just comes down to him and the stuff that's happened and whether or not you believe in that. It doesn't really steal bases anymore, so you're not getting that. the thing that led me to pass on trout seeing him there in round six

it was tempting for sure was that having jordan alvarez as my second hitter i did not want another hitter especially in the outfield where i think i have to get a lot of my bags to make up that ground i don't want another outfielder who wasn't going to steal bases so maybe it's overthinking it a little bit by process but that was part of what made it easier for me to pass. I actually thought Jazz Chisholm might have been a better fit for my team in that spot. The problem with Jazz is just tons of strikeouts and tons of injuries. It's not positionally interesting anymore. No. The projections love him. 28 homers, 28

steals. Comes with with a 246 average but if you feel good about what you've got for average foundation and you want a player that's projected to do everything Jazz does make some sense. He's on my queue and I feel like comfortable talking about this because the next person is

in the now picking green light. Oh, the light is green. And you're going gonna have to you're gonna have to actually you know publish this so uh number one of my queue is kyle bradish to get a second starting pitcher that i have in my top 15 uh to pair with corbin burns i think that's going to be what i take but other than him i've josh low for the stolen bases, Christian Jelic, well projected but older, and Jazz Chisholm as my next

group because I do need to start thinking about stolen bases. That's where I'm looking. In the outfield and the middle infield, they're going to be filled with stolen base guys pretty much. I do wonder with Jazz, it was turf toe. He had surgery

for that. How much is he going to steal? He was still running around that injury, though, last year. 22 for 25. Super efficient as a base stealer. Still had a 12% bail rate. Oh, no, the light went black. Why'd you do that? It turned off.

You just came and looked and said, I've got time. I've got time. Later. I've got an hour and 24 minutes to pick. Frustrating. I'll come back later. I'm going to go eat this sandwich and think about it.

Yeah. Hey, we see you. When that light goes green and then it goes off, there's always someone in the room watching every single time. Speaking of sandwiches, I think you've got a hard out here. Yeah, I've got to head out. Dog needs to go to the vet. She's fine.

It's her annual checkup, so big day for her. She actually likes going to the vet because she gets attention. She gets attention every other day, too, but she gets extra attention. A little bit less with the baby around, I'm guessing. A little less on the day-to-day, so she's dealing with it. She's doing great. As always, we do have a special running. If you're interested in a subscription, theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels, $2 a month for the first year,

so be sure to get that discount. If you don't have a subscription already, you get tons of draft season content that we're rolling out. My Emanaga breakdown. And then also my hall of fame ballot reveal are up today. If you, if you sign up, you can read both of those.

If I were a gambling man, I would say we're probably going to talk a little bit about the hall of fame ballot on the three Oh show on Thursday. So be sure to check that out over in the Athletic Baseball Show feed. We'll have Katie Wu in for Britt. Britt's on vacation. So we'll have a ton to talk about, including Chaim Blum joining the Cardinals front office. Pretty nice ad, I think, for St. Louis.

So theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. $2 a month gets you the door. You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek from Riper. Follow the pod at ratesandbarrels. That's going Riper. Follow the pod at Rates and Barrels. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening.

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