Rates & Barrels - Spring Job Battles of Interest, Part 1

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

Eno and DVR take a look at several spring job battles of interest, focusing on position players including the opportunity for Brooks Lee to become a fixture in the lineup for the Twins, Colson Montgomery's path to take over at shortstop for the White Sox, Nolan Gorman's chances of being an everyday guy for the Cardinals in 2025, and how Jordan Lawlar might fit into the equation with Arizona with an indirect battle for playing time against Pavin Smith. Rundown 6:30 How Do the Pieces Fit at First & Second Base in Minnesota 14:21 Colson Montgomery & Chase Meidroth Push for Roles with White Sox 23:41 Trey Sweeney's Chances for an Everyday Role 29:20 Nolan Gorman's Power Over Everything Profile 38:20 Breaking News: Chase DeLauter Injury Update 46:58 How Does Jordan Lawlar Fit on the 2025 D-backs? 56:32 Orelvis Martinez and Battles for Playing Time in Toronto Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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imagine how it looks. Is it a morning? Yeah, big time. Nova Kane. Pulling theaters, March 14th. Hi, it's Alexa Weibel from New York Times cooking. Oh, wow! Imagine how it looks. Is that a morn? Yeah, big time. Nova K. Forming theaters March 14th. Hi, it's Alexa Weibel from New York Times Cooking. We've got tons of easy weeknight recipes, and today I'm making my five ingredient creamy miso pasta. You just take your starchy pasta water, whisk it together with a little bit of miso and butter until it's creamy.

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Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Tuesday, March 4th, Derek Van Riper, Innosaris here with you. On this episode we take a look at job battles around the league, some of the places where projections might be a little bit off, where there could be some opportunities to unearth sleepers. Dare we say, I mean, sleepers in the traditional sense really don't exist anymore because everyone is digging into everything all the time. It's not 1999, but at the same time,

we can try to find some players that people are overlooking. That's our goal today. We're finding overlooked players battling for playing time this spring. Opportunity. Players, places where there's opportunity. Yeah, opportunity.

I think that's a great way to put it. Little bit of housekeeping here as we get started. A reminder, we've got two live episodes coming up at the end of this month at the Bear Bottle Brewing Company, the Bernal Heights location. I like to call it Barrel Heights, but I have learned that when someone who is not from a particular neighborhood

renames the neighborhood, that does not typically go over well. So do not give a nickname to a neighborhood that you do not live in. Bad, bad idea. Free a show, 430 start, both days, really looking forward to that. Eno already started making the beer for those shows. Oh yeah, very excited about that. And just to reiterate, free, no tickets, no reservations, nothing needed. Where we were thinking about setting up, you may want to come a little early if you want to get close,

but there's a tension between seeing us and seeing the TV's. So I think it'll be one of those places where you'll be able to move around a little bit. And we'll have the Giants game on the opening day. Giants game will be on and yes, will allow you to watch a little tournament basketball if you want. But only after our podcast is over. Oh, right. Yes. We're going to stop people from watching March Madness during the show. That'll go. That'll go over real well. Yeah. Well, at least it's the first round games, which are usually pretty useless.

That'll go over real well. Yeah, well, at least it's the first round games, which are usually pretty useless. What? That's the best part of the tournament. Yeah, I guess we've had a 16 over one upset by now. Yeah, that should be the second week into the tournament, at least for the men's tournament. Oh, because this is like the playing in or something. This is like the people have to play into the tournament.

You don't watch a lot of college basketball, do you? Some. This is the final week of the regular season. Next week is when the people have to play into the tournament. You don't watch a lot of college basketball, do you? Some. This is the final week of the regular season. Next week is when the conference tournaments all happen and then slow selection. But March 27th is the beginning of what? Weekend two, Sweet 16. Oh, really?

Oh, well, that's too bad. Too bad. We're up against some good games. We ran against some games people are going to care about. Well, that's why we're starting at 430. You can listen to a baseball podcast while watching a college basketball game. That is allowed. That can be done.

There might be some cross synapses. Other business to attend to, join the Discord, the link in the show description if you haven't done so already. Weighing in on something we talked about yesterday. We're considering a P pick six format, a big group over at Auto New. There's a pick six game that our friend Niv Shah put together a long time ago and we are considering that as our listener league for this year.

So just let us know what you think about that as a way to go about it. Be a twist from the set it and forget it salary cap contest that we ran a year ago. Good news too, our good friend Jeff Good, Low Guppy in our discord has the email addresses, at least the ones that you used in the listener league last year. So we can contact you about the league for the top ten finishers. That'll be coming up here shortly. I think one idea we had was to run that as a slow draft, because then we don't have to be at the same place at the same time.

So that's probably going to be the format. Details on that coming soon. We'll be in touch with you if you were top 10 overall in last year's Winsor & Newton League. 12-team league, we're just gonna be all superstars. Love it. I mean, we could find a way to invite a few more folks, make it 15, let you recreate your TGFBI nightmare that you've self-induced.

Yes, we both have de Grom. We've started the TGFBI, we both have DeGrom. In my defense, I picked DeGrom like 10 picks after Derek, so I feel. Guess what, if he breaks, it's still gonna hurt both of us. It's still gonna hurt both of us. And I have one of the most YOLO beginnings of a draft because I also paired him with who I call the Rocket,

because it doesn't rhyme with crochet, but it should. Garret Crochet and Ronald Acuna Jr. I took him 58. That's a big fall. I couldn't stare at his name any longer, and we did have a little discussion in the group chat, which I think might be just really interesting real quick, is that

J.H. pointed out that the Ron Lacuna bad season with the 20-ish stolen bases when he first came back from the other ACL surgery was pre-rule changes on the base pass. So what does that 20 mean in today's stolen bases, maybe 30. Maybe 30. But then dialed back because he's older and because he already said he was gonna dial it back. But I started with Judge and Riley, so I kinda needed stolen bases and I kinda feel like he should at least deal 20. He'll get you something, yeah.

Yeah, and if it is more like 30, then I made a good pick. All right, well there you have it. We'll keep you updated on TGFBI as those rosters start to take more shape. I was informed by Ryan Bloomfield buddy at baseball HQ who's right next to me in TGFBI played against me in mixed labor last week. I'm allowed to draft different pitchers than the ones I drafted in labor. I have not done so so far.

I have a degrom glass.com on there too. We are just. I will not stop. We're just we're going. I will not stop doing. I'm not even sure I far. I have a degrom glass.com last year. We are just I will not stop just we're going I will not stop doing i'm not even sure i'm gonna yo yo, I think I might just yolo Why don't you get yourself some glass now? How about that? Just embrace it man. There's no reason to hold back at this point All right onto today's topics though We are taking a look at some job battles from around the league, either stuff we didn't really get to in detail in the team previews or things that have just caught our eyes in the last couple of weeks.

We're going to begin in Minnesota where the late edition of Tie France maybe helps answer the first part of this question, but how do the pieces actually fit at first and second base for the twins as we try and make sense of playing time and their depth chart. We talked about this in the preview, Willy Castro still projected for the most played appearances over at Fangrass at 537. I think you have to look at this with some more of a probabilistic outcome sort of brain and say okay who of these players can get to 600 plate appearances, right? Injury histories are a big factor for Correa and Royce Lewis and Byron Buxton.

But we've talked about them as being basically everyday guys when they're not on the I.L. So they would sort of tick that box. But who else could be in the 550 to 600 plate appearance range if they carve out the full everyday role because someone or a couple of someones in this group are going to have to do that. I got a name for you. Oh yeah, who is it? Brooks Lee.

Okay, he's projected for an 83 WRC plus by the bad-axe. Why is it Brooks Lee? Yeah, it's not, it's a little bit low to me because I agree he does not hit the ball super hard. 109 in AAA in 2023, but 107 in the major leagues last year, 108 in AAA in 2024. So not, not great there. He did have a better hard hit rate in 2023, 48%. That was down to 32% in AAA last year and 25%. That's not why I'm, that's the, I'm making the case against. I'm not, this is the case for.

He hits with both hands and he can play shortstop. He can play any infield position. And if you've got Byron Bucks on your team and Willie Castro on your team, you may need Willie Castro in the outfield more often than you wanna use him on the infield. So you're gonna give me a switch hitter who makes contact and you know in the past has walked more in the miners kind of shows you

the ability to go the other way and pull for power. You're going to show me that guy and I'm going to say that dude has a big role and I think we have to fit the pieces around Brooks Lee rather than any other direction in terms of this argument because switch hitter shortstop, this guy they loved coming up, this is a guy that was, if you talk to somebody within Minnesota, they say, oh yeah, Brooks Lee.

So I think this is the time that he ascends to the role. And if you look at the pieces around him, you start to see all the flaws they have. And I think their flaws are even worse. I mean, Julian striking out 30 plus percent of the time. Miranda not really hitting for power, although he doesn't strike out, but he doesn't walk either. Ty France is, you know, a credible veteran, but you know, he's not going to stop Brooks Lee from playing. Also, if you start to think about the handedness, I think this is interesting. France, right-hander, Miranda, right-hander, Julian, left-hander that has to be platoon. I almost think that what happens is Brooks Lee carves himself out a full-time role, however you

want to define it, because this is going to be a mix and match team, like the Tigers and the Giants and all those teams, the Rays, they're going to do that. The closest thing to a full-time role will be Brooks Lee, and the closest thing to a platoon might be Julian and France, and I think Miranda might go down. I think Miranda could just be an extra guy on this team.

I'm not as excited about him as some of the projections would be for deeper leagues. I think Brooks Lee's versatility makes a lot of sense. I think being a switch hitter, as he pointed out, could enable him to come out a little higher in playing time, not be platooned in a team that has a bunch of options like that. I also wonder if that projection is just wrong. I mean, you look at what he did in twenty twenty three, that was between double A and triple A, sixteen homers that year in one hundred and twenty five games. Eleven of those were at double A five and thirty eight games once he got the bump

triple A. The strikeout rates never been bad. Draws enough walks to be good enough to get on base at a high clip. That could end up pushing Brooks Lee to a more prominent spot in the lineup, too. Maybe there's a little bit of a table setter ceiling in the range of outcomes for Lee too. There's also a chance that some injury was tamping down his bat speed or his effectiveness at the plate.

Because in 2023 you have a full sample with better hard hit rates and better max EVs. And in 2024 you have this sort of truncated minor league and truncated major league samples that may not just, he may not have just gotten going. You know, this is a 24 year old who really doesn't have much to do in the minors anymore. And so I think he's just to risk to Lee. So I think no matter what he's on the roster, I mean, you can make an argument

I think is just to restillate. So I think no matter what he's on the roster, I mean, you can make an argument that there's some sort of weird Miranda Julian platoon with like kind of the last guy on the roster. Yes, they play different positions, but that could make sense to me. The last thing that I wanted to point out is that if you take Miranda, France, Julian and Lee,

which you can, you run out of spots. That's it. you're done. And you don't get to have Austin Martin. And I'm not saying that Austin Martin is great shakes or that I'm trying to project him for a lot of innings or a lot of opportunities, but I would say that Austin Martin might be a good idea for a team that has Willie Castor and Brian Bruxton ahead of him in the deaf

chart in center? Yeah, I think once they added Harrison Bader though, that gave them the cushion that they needed to rely less on him. Yeah, so maybe Martin is the, in case of emergency break glass in the minors, you know, he has some versatility he can bring to the table. Still has some options too, right? At least one option year So that's the that's the flexibility. I think he ends up probably starting the year at st. Paul one follow-up to yesterday

I don't think we explicitly made a call on this Matt Wallner versus Trevor Larnac If you're only drafting one for 2025, which one do you actually like better? I think I'm gonna go with Larnac I think you can leave him in against lefties a little bit more and He doesn't have that kind of scary K percentage situation that we're talking about. And he also hits the ball pretty hard. That's a big part of it, too, is like he had the similar strikeout flaw before got better in the zone last year and improved it.

I think I agree with you. The floor is a little higher. I have them fairly close in the hitter rankings, which should be actually publishing by the time you'll hear this podcast. So they've been submitted. I did with you. The floor is a little higher. I have them fairly close in the hitter rankings, which should be actually publishing by the time you'll hear this podcast. So they've been submitted. I did my part. And the high rankings are close. The problem is, when we set that up, I did not have a plan for how to compile them for people who didn't fill out the entire position.

So they have to throw those those entries out or fill in some values. So we're very close on getting that done thanks to J.H.'s stealthy back-end work otherwise I'd be at least a week away from getting that done man that was a great idea that needs more programming chops than I have so that's what the status of the hive mind rankings for those curious about that it's happening it's just a little bit off. Let's stay in the AL Central for a minute. You flagged the White Sox shortstop job battle as one that you're interested in. So who do you like in this cast of characters to potentially open the year and be a regular on this rebuilding White Sox team? It's actually stupid for me how many of their roster slots

are locked. I don't get it. It's like too like, oh, we're almost ready. Let's like, let's put together a Tachman, Slater, Taylor, Outfield next to Robert. I think all those guys are gonna make it and they're all on majorly deals. Michael Taylor, Austin Slater, Mike Tachman. So if they're on majorly deals, they're in and I don't know why

necessarily, but I guess that gives you a more respectable situation and with Benatendi Hurt. That's your outfield, Chicago. Enjoy it. And then you've got Andrew Vaughn and Miguel Vargas as the way they're talking about him seems like he's a lock for third and then Lenin Sosa is out of options on the infield. So that's already, you know, four guys, seven guys to two catchers, nine. That only leaves you four spots left on the roster. And you've got Joey Gallo, Jacob Amaya is out of options so you have two spots left and you haven't even awarded a shortstop job yet so I

actually don't think that both Colson Montgomery and Chase Medroth make this team so I think it's like a true battle I think it's a true battle for the roster side they both have options you kind of want the other to be playing every day at shortstop, it's not in the major leagues, right? I don't think you want either one of those guys playing part-time right now. And so this is again one of those things where you think probabilistic and you put Montgomery

with 417 and Chase Metheroth 244, but really the answer is one gets maybe 600 and the other gets maybe 100. Is there any reason why you couldn't just play them both on the left side of the infield to play Maidroth at third, play Coles Montgomery at shortstop and just let it happen? I guess you could. If you did that, your bench would be something like Gallo, Amaya, Maidroth, and either Phil Mettan, is it Phil Mettan or Nick Mettan? Nick Mettan.

Yeah, Nick's the infielder. Nick Mettan or Brian Ramos. That gives you a shot to look at Amaya before you release him in the major leagues. Gives you a shot to look at Ramos maybe, and it gives you both of those guys. Even Sosa profiles a little bit, even though he's out of options,

Sosa profiles a little bit as maybe a utility guy himself. So you could just give Majeroth and Montgomery second and short too, right? You could, I get the sense Sosa's getting a shot at second base though. At least another partial season look as a regular there. It's not a great projection 86 WRC plus does have a little bit of power ten homers

none of them are no you don't see a lot of great I mean it's it's Vaughn and Robert Ben and tendies kind of league average maybe a shade below I'm surprised Colson Montgomery only projects for a 77 WRC plus this is the bat X that we're looking at if you're watching on YouTube so maybe that's part of the reason why it's a little low the bat X kind of notoriously light on prospects And Montgomery didn't have a great year at triple a last year chase Medroth Who's also a prospect with a 96 WRC plus? Well, why is that because major off is an OVP machine, right? I mean that 408 on base percentage last year mostly OVP machine, right? I mean, that 408 on base percentage last year,

mostly playing at AA. I should say mostly playing at 437 in 2024. I was looking at 2023. But yeah, I mean, he's run some really nice OVPs. So I think if Maedra finds a spot, be that short, third, second, I think he can play all three, he's a table setter on a team that clearly has

like a wide open lineup card. You can do almost anything there. This is a chance to be an ascendant player available for next to nothing. I think we're talking about an early season waiver pickup. If he makes the roster, carves out the job, and does what he's capable of doing, I think we're talking about him as a 15 team league pickup because he could be their leadoff guy. Is there any Monkey monkey sphere stuff here? Monkey sphere, to be clear,

is just a silly idea that I have. It's just a way to talk about. So the monkey sphere is that if you have monkeys, the monkeys have a sort of pecking order that they create in their tribes, and if a new monkey comes in, it doesn't matter necessarily what their age is or even necessarily how large they are.

It matters that they're new. You might have the situation where a younger monkey is in charge of an older monkey because he's new to the tribe. This is just tribe dynamics, but I think it has something to do also with how, you know, what happens with Chase Medroth who came to this organization in the crochet deal? Yeah, he was part of that deal. And so he's new. Are you going to put him in at shortstop over Colson Montgomery?

I don't think you would do that now because I think I think you still want to prove as an organization that Coleson Montgomery is not a shortstop. I don't think me droughts the kind of player that's obviously a better option defensively. That's the monkeys for your aspect. He's your guy that you've had that was your top prospect and it was a top prospect across, you know, one of the top prospects across the league, you know, a year or two ago. We also have this. I just wanted to share this real quick. These are the hardest hit balls in the spring. Now, not every ball is tracked.

So this is not comprehensive in any manner because, you know, it's, it's like one in every three parks is, is tracking this stuff, but you've got Tyler Locklear at the top with a one 16.4, he might show up later in our conversation. John Kinsey, Noel also somebody we may end up talking about a lot because I think that Cleveland right field situation is open for business. There you have Colson Montgomery with a 113.4 which is a pretty good number and it is better it's about as good as he did last year and it is one of the things that he has going for him. Now he's also swinging missing a lot

in his first seven plate appearances in the spring. It's a tiny sample, but you know, he does hit the ball hard. And that's the one thing that Chase Medroth does not really have as part of his skills. Yeah, I don't think he has to, if he's gonna get on base as much as he does. You know, I think there's a little bit

of give and take there. Like you don't have to scald the ball if your plate disciplines that good and you put enough balls in play to run three 80 OVPs. I think that's that's a skill set that can still work at the big league level. I did flip this board to sort

by WRC plus. Andrew Vaughn comes in at a 115. Edgar Caro, who I think is, Caro and Kyle Teel are going to spend most of the year in some form on this roster. That's my expectation anyway. I don't think Corey Lee's a long term. Vargas over 100 and they're talking like

he's the third baseman. So I think Medroth goes out. Also, I wanted to point out 40 field. So on the 20 to 80 scale, 40 is below average fielding. That's what Fangrass, the prospect group gave Maydraught for fielding. So I think they lend Sosa who's out of options, makes the team. And Chase Metherroth goes down. And Colson Montgomery is the starting shortstop for this year's Chicago White Sox.

Just let it happen. Let them try to solve big league pitching. I like that. And last year again, it was a down year at AAA, 28.6% K rate. I would love to know from people who got to see him at AAA how much of that was unique to the AAA automated balls and strikes system, that zone, because I didn't really look at Colson Montgomery previously and think there was going to be much of a strikeout problem in that profile. So that's sort of the what was different at that level. He's still pretty young for the level to being 22.

I remain a little bit optimistic about him as a hitter, even though I'm not sure. In five years, he's still a shortstop. That's not going to matter for twenty twenty five. They can afford to give him the look and see what actually happens. I mean, they gave him a 30, 40 fields. Yeah. That's 30 present, 40 future. So maybe neither of them is a shortstop in the future.

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That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N.C-A. Let's stick with short stops. Let's stay in the AL Central. A lot of AL Central talk today, and let's try to figure out what's going on with the Tigers shortstop situation. Is there a world in which Trey Sweeney is the everyday shortstop by the end of this season

for the Tigers, or does he fall into one of the platoon spots? We have been wrestling with this depth chart for a long time now. Quality continues to improve. Plenty of depth options here. It's kind of amazing if you sort by projected plate appearances. Trace Sweeney is not in the top 10 right now, in part because Javier Baez is still there on that long term contract and they might not be done with Baez yet.

I mean in some capacity they might want to use him against lefties which would cut into Sweeney's time but even in a platoon Trey Sweeney would play more than he's projected to play currently if that plays out. If he's the big side platoon option at short and he becomes the everyday guy then he's grossly under projected. So where do you fall on Trey Sweeney? Is he actually an undervalued actual sleeper? Or is this gonna be a bit of a frustrating path

for him to take on a larger role? He's just so marginal on offense really. I do think the defense makes a decent argument for him, but Javier Baez's defense know, defense is still off, is still, is still a good enough to good. So it has to be offense where Trey makes his mark. One thing that has been nice about the spring so far against a tiny sample is just that he's been walking more like he did in the minors.

So if you take last year and you just give him his walk rate from before, you know, he'd almost doubled his walk rate. And if you get him to the kind of guy who can hit 220, 230 with more like a three 10 or a 320 OBP, he's projected for like a 290 OBP. That's the margin. I think if he gets to his OBP over 300, he's the starting shortstop. And I kind of think he does it. And so I've taken some bets. At some point, you got to move on from Javier Bias. Even just on projections alone. Can you move down and see it's 83 WRC plus for Javier

Bias? Yeah, it's an 83. And an 80 for Trey Sweeney. I mean, which one of these guys do you want to put in your sort of developing teams lineup? I feel like it's Sweeney. Yeah, I mean, I think you want to see if Sweeney can nudge the walk rate up, if he can bring the K rate down a little bit, the power and speed combination is at least intriguing. I think with Trey Sweeney, he has run pretty low averages

at most of his minor league stops Some of that's the K rate some of that's probably the types of batted balls that he hits So I do think there's a there's a reasonable ceiling for the type of player he is But does this profile remind you of any everyday short stops? I don't really get that sense either I wonder if Trey Sweeney ends up being in the long run kind of a super sub, a left handed platoon super sub, kind of like a Brendan Donovan with more power in terms of how like how he's used, not in terms of his swing and miss and how he gets there. But I wonder I wonder if that's what the long term plan actually is for him. I'm very intrigued, but I'm also not I'm not sure if I want to be completely in on this situation for 2025. No, no, he's like my third.

I'm recommending him as a third shortstop in draft and holds. Is there anything else on this depth chart job battle wise? And they've got a few injuries piling up. We talked about Veerling getting dained up and Parker Meadows dealing with that nerve issue. Anybody else that kind of stands out to you as being under projected right now with the situation that's happening this spring? I do think that Jace Young and Wensil Perez

are under projected. They are going to make this team. And the team needs them. And right now the team needs them to be starters almost full time at their roles. And now Jace Young has, I think, McKinstry or Baez that he could share some time with. And Wensil Perez may be in some sort of time sharing

with Malloy and Kerry Carpenter. That's sort of over everyone's head on the Tigers, I guess. But I think Jace Young and Wensil Perez are are under drafted. I hesitate to make them sort of 10 or 12 team sleepers or anything though. I think the one thing that does give me a glimmer of hope for Trey Sweeney just to kind of because I do think Sweeney versus Jace Young could end up being a battle later on once they're healthier to see who stays on the roster who has a

larger share of playing time. Sweeney's hit the ball harder than Jace Young when you look at the upper level hard hit rates. So that might be the one extra little thing that Trace Sweeney brings to the table that maybe, maybe, maybe just makes him more interesting than Jace Young long term, even though I think as prospects, Jace Young got a little bit more hype. They came up in different systems too so that that makes it more of an apples to oranges sort of comparison but that's the one thing that that Trey Sweeney has done that kind of keeps him on my radar even though I think playing time could be a little bit flimsy initially. Speaking of hitting the ball hard let's go over to the National League for a bit. Do you believe the Cardinals when they say that

Nolan Gorman is going to be treated more like an everyday player? Do you think that's actually going to happen this year? I do think that their organizational depth chart in the front office has some meaning here. Basically they're in transition from one set of leaders to another. Heim Blum is basically ascendant. So I think that all of their decisions will be more future oriented this year, because if you're Heim Blum, you're not fully in charge yet. So you don't take the blame for this year. And this organization sorely needs to figure out what Nolan Gorman, Jordan Walker, Victor Scott, Thomas Tsegeysi are for future organizations. And I think this will be the year that they

give them their shot. One thing that is interesting is that Aronado has his bat speed back this spring, supposedly. I don't have access to bat speed numbers necessarily for all of his swings, but I have talked to people who do, and if he has his bat speed back, I think what happens is an in-season trade. It's going to become more, or I still think the Yankees, I still think the Yankees are a good option. I don't know why they're slow walking this. But at some point, Arnaud will be gone and Gorman will be a full-time starter. So that can make them not liars even if they are liars to begin the season.

I think with Gorman, it's a lot of the same pluses as Matt Wallner and a lot of the same minuses as Matt Wallner, right? K-rate well above 30%, ability to do damage when he connects. We've seen power off and on in games. Talking about a guy that's not going to be 25 until May, Gorman's been on our radar as a big league player for parts of three different seasons already. Got up to 27 homers with just 464 played appearances in 2023. So we've already got one year of, hey, this is what happens if you're kind of

a strict platoon approach with him. That works out pretty well. And maybe he'll remain a liability against lefties and that'll drag the average down. I think Nolan Gorman's a little bit underrated right now, a little bit underpriced. I think he's a little bit forgotten about. He is hilarious on Savant, dude.

He is below the 30th percentile, so poor in everything, except expected slugging, barrel, LA sweet spot, bat speed. He's first percentile and squared up percentage First percentile on K's and whiffs first percentile in range arm strength and sprint speed Dude is a slugger One thing that I do like to do and I think even early on like we are right now

Which is is awkward, but I think you can start to get a little bit of signal from at bats. Who are they playing? And they are playing Nolan Gorman more than anybody else in camp. Yeah, giving them the heavy, heavy look, right? I think the thing I do when I, when I see the popsicles come up a little more blue than I'd like, I go back a year and we go back to the good year for Nolan Gorman, right? What does it look like then? Sure still great in barrel rate good and hard hit rates still good and sweet spot percentage Was 83rd percentile and walk rate, right? So taking his free passes it is strange to me to see someone who's so good at barrel rate to be so bad It's squared up percentage. Doesn't that seem like a very odd combination?

Is that just the result of a very powerful but wild swing that is, is it swinging so hard that you lose barrel control? Is that where we're at with Nolan Gorman? I guess, but you know, bat speed is 70th percentile, so Wallner is 99th percentile. I would say like maybe not seeing the ball super well, even though I guess chase percentage is 36th percentile, I would say maybe not seeing the ball super well, even though I guess chase percentage is 36th percentile.

I don't know. Yeah, it could be a lot of moving parts. Maybe to get that bad speed, he's sacrificing in other places where he shouldn't. But if he doesn't have that bad speed and he doesn't have that barrel rate, let's say what if he could cut his strikeout rate down to 28%. What if he doesn't his strikeout rate down to 28%?

What if he doesn't have that power and he's just worse? I think this is the type of profile I will gamble on at the price. I don't like taking the high whiff players that show the big power earlier on when they pop and they make that leap. I usually don't go for that, but I'll take the late dart on a player like this. I wonder, too, you know, does he have a trouble any trouble picking up spin? Does he just crush fastballs? Nolan Gorman the last two seasons, 11 out of 18 homers, a low hit 19 last year. So 11 were on fastball, seven were on breaking balls, one on an off speed pitch.

Twenty twenty three, 16 homers on fastballs, eight on breaking balls, three on off speed. I mean, I don't know, man. Like, I just think if they leave him alone, it might be a low average mashing profile. But I think it'll actually work. And I'm starting to trust that they want to just see if he's part of the future or not. Kind of a consolidation year of is Nolan Gorman here as a regular in 2026 and beyond? Let's use all of 2025 to answer that question.

I guess he could strike out enough and play poorly enough to just lose the job. Even if he wins it. So that's in the range of outcomes, but where he's going in drafts, you just accept that. We also have to think like, you know, if there are going to be trades mid season, Nolan Arnado is on it. And then I think that Brendan Donovan would be the type of person you would maybe want to save to trade. Now he has options and you could have him till 2027, but you know, he's cheaper.

Maybe another team says, oh, he profiles as our starting second baseman. You're just using him as a super sub, you know, and he plays all over. You know, there's definitely a team that could, that could give you more in future value than you're getting, than you might get from Brendan Donovan. So this could be something where Gorman is sharing time to begin the season, but gets his full shot eventually.

The one that I think is like a real on-off toggle is Victor Scott versus Michael Ciani. I kind of feel like one of them makes the roster and one doesn't because again, this is sort of the play all day, play every day kind of situation where Victor Scott's not going to come up to play half the time. Michael Ciani is great on defense and Victor Scott had such a terrible year last year and I could, I'm tempted to go over here and say, Oh, Michael Ciani has, you know, 14 played appearances, 15 played appearances so far this spring.

And Victor Scott only has 13. I look today, they're both playing and like, that's not that much of a difference. That one could just go either way. And, and Victor Scott could really, I think, play his way into just being the starting center fielder on this team this spring. I don't think that he necessarily, as bad as last year was, Michael Ciani only profiles as basically defense first center fielder. That guy you can send down, I think.

For a glove first center fielder to play, think of Jacob Young as an example for the Nats, right? I think that's probably a good, hey, like this is mostly glove. How bad can the bat be to keep you in the lineup every day or near every day? Probably like an 80 to 85 WRC plus. I think a team that has any competitive aspirations at all will continue giving you that opportunity if you're at that level.

Siani is projected for a 60. He's below that by a lot. Even if you sort of, you know, put your rosiest colored glasses on and be like, oh, what if he, what if he, what if he, there's not much here. He doesn't hit the ball hard. 26% K-rate? I mean, that's not what you'd expect. Yeah, it's like a guy who you expect him to be sprayed all around, makes a bunch of contact guy, and then you look at the strikeout rate.

My shares of Sione were for like 11 you know 11,000 filters and draft and hold and i'm feeling i'm feeling like maybe that's wasted now if if victor scott's gonna go uh go nuts we do have some breaking news that may serve as a say as a segue if we want oh use it play the jingle breaking news breaking news breaking news we have breaking news, hot off the wire, hot off the wire, here we go. Jason Collette says, chase the lotter out three months with core muscle surgery. Jason Collette reported that?

Or you just saw it on Jason Collette's feed? That's the group chat, yeah, I don't know who reported it. I'd give better credit, but Jason gets the credit here. I think we should flip on over to Cleveland because Wright Field is open. We shadowed that, foreshadowed that a little bit with the John Kensky-Noel hits the crap out of the Brennan, John Kinski-Nuel, Angel Martinez, Tyler Freeman, and Daniel Schneyman. You notice that a bunch of those guys are outfielders.

And so I think there is an actual straight up battle for who plays the most in the Guardians right field and you could have said oh they're just keeping the seat warm for Chase DeLotter but Chase DeLotter can't stay healthy and now is out for three months. Last year Chase DeLotter only managed a hundred and fifty four sixty four plate appearances in the entire season in the minor leagues. So I think he's going to have to just play and try to get healthy, which leaves the door open for Brennan, Noel, John Rodriguez, Tyler Freeman. Do you have a fighter you like?

They're all really kind of flawed. Oh yeah, they're very flawed. I am continually wrong about the Guardians and I shouldn't be because I watch a team that does a lot of similar things and they get away with it kind of in the same way. My brain trying to predict what they're gonna do always goes to a player like Tyler Freeman. Low K rate, 10% better than league average, it's projected to be a part-time player by usage, a little bit of of power, little bit of speed, could do just a little bit of everything.

All right, that's the sort of player they always seem to go for. But when they have guys like Noel, and I would say Jonathan Rodriguez was the name that you mentioned that I wanna say, I mentioned to me as my AL Central hitter sleeper. Before we knew DeLotter had this new injury, I look at Jonathan Rodriguez and I'm like,

what does this guy have left to prove at AAA? I mean, he was there in 2023 for 47 games, popped 11 homers. He was there for 118 games last year, popped 29 homers, 301, 395, 40, stole eight bases in 10 attempts so he can run a little bit, brought the K-rate down from 32.7% to 25.2%

with the second look at the level. There's gonna be swing and miss, much like there is with John Kenzie Noelle, but there's been patience in the upper levels of the minor leagues, and maybe again, there could be some ABS stuff going on there, so you have to take it with the necessary grain of salt, but for a team that is just every year

looking for secondary sources of power, Jonathan Rodriguez sort of pops for me as the guy that maybe is a lot more interesting now because de Lottre, based on who he's supposed to be and the investment they have in him as an organization, de Lottre I thought was going to get a long window this season, now it's probably gonna be more like six to eight weeks at the end of the year.

It's gonna be like an August promotion if he's healthy. And may have something to do with team dynamics, if they're winning or losing or what's going on with that. Right, so I'm looking at Rodriguez right now as the sleeper of the bunch. And I mean, 50 plus percent hard hit right now at AAA over the last two seasons as well. What else do you want in a guy that could come in

and maybe pop 25 or 30 homers for you and near the heart of that lineup? With such little sample for Rodriguez in the major leagues with 40 plate appearances for Jonathan Rodriguez, it may surprise you, but the projection systems have Rodriguez striking out more this year than John Kinsky and Noel. Makes sense.

Who struck out 31.8% last year, but they're all calling, the projection system are calling for an improvement for Noel, who's 23 years old, and as we pointed out, hits the snot out of the ball. I mean, they're both right-handed guys that are young and have an option left, you know? This is one of those ones where,

do you think they can be friendly to each other? Like, what do you know? This is one of those ones where, do you think they can be friendly to each other? Like, what do you think, how do you think they see, like if one's taking BP and he like, hits a bunch of pop-ups and is the other one going, yes. I hope as an organization for the sake of the Guardians, it's not quite like that. But they, they're their own. Your heart of hearts.

But they're their own worst enemy in the sense that if they didn't want that to be the case, then they wouldn't have signed Carlos Santana after they traded Josh Naylor. They would have made Kyle Manzardo the first baseman, left DH as a floating spot and said, Rodriguez has a big arm, he can play in the corner, and Noel can be the DH,

and we're just gonna let these guys both mash for us. And if one of them didn't work out, then of course you just option them down and life goes on. In the past, I think I would have, you look at those projections, I would have said Tyler Freeman, look at that. But there's an interesting thing going on in these projections.

Scroll down to Will Brennan versus Tyler Freeman for a second, because yeah, you look at Will Brennan's projection, 5% walk rate, 13.6% strikeout rate, not much power, right? Then you look down to Tyler Freeman's 6% walk rate, 14.5% strikeout rate, not much power, right? So there is, I guess, a 30-point difference in ISO for Freeman versus Brennan, but if I was on their pages right now, I bet you that their demonstrated ISO is

about the same and they have a three. What is the, the, the Babap? Which one is the Babap number? It's the one left of the average by the thick line. So they have Freeman with a better Babap and a slightly better ISO that turns Freeman into a 110 WRC plus guy and Brennan into a 90. Like I just gave you all the components and for some reason it says Brennan bad, Freeman good. And in the past I would have looked at those projections, looked at that K-rate and said I've loved Tyler Freeman in the past.

I will continue to love him until finally I am right or wrong. But I think that one of Rodriguez and Noel is a little bit more interesting because if one of those guys gets it down to 26% strikeout rate, they are going to be a better hitter than Tyler Freeman or Will Brennan because they will hit the crap out of the ball and they will make enough contact to make it work. So I think this is one of those truest like one of these guys on the roster and playing a lot and one of the guys is guys on the roster and playing a lot. And one of the guys is in the minors and playing a lot. Another one of these kind of one guy wins, one guy loses.

And I think the real answer is would you rather know? It's like the hand that's a bird in the hand versus, you know, the other one. The two in the bush or whatever. Right? So I'm going to take Noel. I'm going to take Noel. He's showing us something in the major leagues. I'm taking Noel. Yeah, it makes sense if you're drafting straight up, it's Noel, but if you're just asking

who could emerge as a result of de lauders injury, that's where I think Rodriguez's opportunities might come from. Like I think he's the guy that gets elevated, gets an opportunity a little sooner than he might have otherwise. Lest you think we are dreaming too hard on someone that doesn't matter at all in Jonathan Rodriguez, there is this quote right here at the top from Steve Stockmar at MLB.com reporting that Steven

Vogt, Cleveland manager, said Sunday that Jonathan Rodriguez is in the mix for the available job in right field, which confirms at both that the job is available and that Rodriguez is in the mix for it. Love it. I believe in Stephen Vought. No. Yes, but you have to remember, managers lie. Oh, they lie all the time. GMs lie, managers lie, everyone lies. Let's move on to one situation in Arizona.

I don't even know if this is a straight up job battle, but it's more of a question of fit. How does Jordan Lawler fit in Arizona? And the more I look at this depth chart, the more I see, you know, the acquisition of Josh Naylor leads to a question of how much they're going to play him at first base, how much they like his glove, how much they want to hide his glove and make him a D.H. And then if Naylor's the D.H., is Pavin Smith the obvious first baseman at least against right handed pitching?

He made some interesting strides last year and projects okay in that sort of part-time role. If they don't mind Naylor's defense at first base, does Jordan Lawler end up breaking through and playing a lot? Not necessarily DH-ing, but just giving everybody else around the infield days off, right? Could you see Lawler playing a lot of second and third while Eugenio Suarez and Ketel Marte get rotated to that DH spot?

That to me kind of seems like the battle of who they're going to play more, Smith versus Lawler, even though they're gonna use them a little bit differently. They signed Pridomo, Gerardo Pridomo, their starting shortstop, a four year extension. Yeah man, they like him. Mike Hazen said of Jordan Lawler,

when he is ready to be on this team, Lawler's gonna be on this team. So, the way you read that, the tone you just used, and again, you were just guessing a tone. I'm annoyed at him. Right, the way you read that made it seem like he's not ready, but that's not,

I don't think that was implied. It was just like, Lawler's going to play when Lawler's ready to play. I think it's more saying, we don't want Lawler to be a part-time player. We want Lawler to be an everyday guy. Well, that's my answer to you, dude. I mean, you were making the case

for a slightly more exciting part-time player, but it was still a part-time player, which to me says, no, he's not doing that. He's in the minor leagues. That's not cool. I don't like that. That doesn't make me feel very good. I mean, you can have Blaise Alexander who, you know, is not exciting but is a right-hander

who can play all over the infield and has had some ups and downs and has been good in his ups. You know, you can play him. He had an 88 WRC plus last year. He's a part-time player. Tell me how you could be named Bla Blaze Alexander and not be an exciting player. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha when at the time of naming plays Alexander, he's gotta make a decision. Well he is 84th percentile sprint speed, so at least he is fast. Right, right, right, but it's just like, man,

he's not a bad player, he's a useful big league player, kind of a bench guy, but what do they need to see from Jordan Lawler before he gets the call? He's been hurt a lot the last couple of seasons, so that's probably what it is, right? That's the thing he can't do in spring, is he needs to play for a month in AAA-9, He's been hurt a lot the last couple of seasons, so that's probably what it is, right? Just that- That's the thing he can't do in spring is that he needs to play for a month, you know,

in AAA and not get hurt. So basically, we're sitting here mid-May, the usual fabpalooza time, the old fabpalooza time before the service time rules changed. Is that when we're gonna get Lawler? Someone's gonna be underperforming or hurt. Lawler goes through four to six weeks being healthy, mashing at Reno, maybe brings the K-rate down a little bit from what he was doing in the very brief time he was healthy

and playing there last year. And then we get Jordan Lawler up in that role that I described, kind of bouncing between second and third and enabling the older players on the roster to DH. Don't you think that he comes up into a role? I feel like more likely he could tell Martez out two months with a hamstring surgery or hamstring, torn hamstring, and Jordan Lawler comes up to play second base. I just want to tell myself a story

that it doesn't take a catastrophic injury to someone off the bed chart for Jordan Lawler to play. That's all I'm trying to do. I just think they will. The other thing could just be they're done with the O'Hanlon or to do. I just think they, the other thing could just be they're done with Eugenio Suarez. I actually think we're approaching the time in his career where that could just happen.

I mean, it looked like that in the first half of last year and then in the second half, it looked like Eugenio Suarez has three more productive seasons as a masher in front of him, right? Who is Eugenio Suarez at this point in time? I don't know if I have a clear answer to that question. Yeah. But what happens what happens if he does the same thing as he did last year to start the season, do they give him the full season again?

I guess so, because it worked out last year. So there's not really a role waiting for him. It's really, really. Rester field if McCarthy's no good. I think you'd get some kind of indication at AAA. Yeah, he starts playing for that. If Jordan Lawler's playing a new position, then they're really trying to break him in

for other spots that he can be used on this depth chart. But I keep looking at him as a guy and keep her in dynastic leagues that I want because I think the power and speed combo is really interesting. And Suarez's contract eventually will run out. Like that is. Yeah, but you don't want to be waiting that long.

This is the last year of that eight year, $79 million deal that he signed with the Reds forever ago. This is the last year of that deal. So the other thing is the Diamondbacks themselves could just not be good. Like I'm not saying that they aren't good. I'm just saying that, you know, people, teams have bad years, you know? And so if they have just a bad year and Suarez isn't doing that great and you know, teams have bad years, you know? And so if they have just a bad year and Suarez isn't doing that great, and you know, then they'll wanna bring them up quick,

you know, to see what they have for next year. Or if they're bad and Suarez is good, Suarez gets traded, I mean I think they're probably, I think they're more in the win now sort of mode. So it would take a combination of the catastrophic injuries you described earlier, where they fall short of projections, end up being sellers. I'm going to disagree with you.

I think we're going to see some significant amounts of Jordan Lawler this year. It's going to come at the expense of Pavin Smith and one other player maybe being a little dinged up. But man, I'm still optimistic for the long haul, even though it's been a frustrating path these last couple of seasons. What's going on with the Yankees at third base, man?

Like you mentioned the Aronado trade earlier. Are they really gonna do this this way? Let's look at these names. Like what is happening here? Why? Why is this happening? I mean, it's time for the Oswald Oswaldos to rule the world. We're doing this again.

DJ LeMay who's hurt again. Oswald Cabrera versus Oswald Paraza. Two guys with 80 WRC plus projections almost the same first name some power some speed why does this keep happening what are they doing? Cabrera is the switch hitters played more in field I think oh no they're both switch hitters amazing yeah it's really amazing and I think they both played in field and outfield. Oswaldo Cabrera actually profiles a little bit better. Why is this the way it is? I just, I just don't understand why.

No Oswald Parazza is the right right-hander. There we go. I'm in the right page. Now he projects better. He's a right-hander that projects to have a 23% strikeout rate and slightly below average power with a little bit of speed. That's the dart throw? I'm like not on roster yet. Yeah, okay. So you think the answer is C, someone else? I do. But I have to admit that when I go over to Freegent Tracker and I've got the unsigned button open,

I've got Jose Iglesias, would you rather him? Maybe. No? No. No, okay. Well, it doesn't get better. Whit Merrifield? Whit Merrifield.

No, no, okay. I'm just gonna... No. No. You're not gonna find it. That page is not gonna turn up a name we haven't seen before. Miguel Sano? No. All right. Why would you do that? You know, the other option is that the Yankees say, well, this is just our cost-cutting measure. This is our cheap. This is our cheapness. This is what we do at this one spot and we're good we try to be good everywhere else you know they are they do have Cody Bellinger who does provide offense in centerfield Austin Wells provides offensive catcher and Anthony Volpe could take a step forward or you just say Anthony Volpe and I wanna make sure it's Oswaldo Cabrera are our worst players on the field

and they're okay. It's not that it's going to sink this team, it's more just like how'd they end up back in this exact same situation with no new contender for the role seemingly knocking on the door but frustrating nonetheless. We had a question in our Discord about the Blue Jays, and I think it was about Orreles Martinez,

and whether we see him possibly finding his way into the mix at one of the, well, it's really just third base. Like, is he the option that comes out of relative nowhere to take on a larger share of playing time at third base? You've got a little bit of Ernie Clement, maybe? You've got- I actually think Clement has just got that job. Do you see how they played him down the stretch?

Yeah, and he was getting some love from the listeners at the end of the season too. Do you buy it? You think he's the guy? I mean, he just projects so solidly. I mean, it projects like a 93 WRC plus to Steamer 103 with plus defense. If you actually scale his plate appearances up to, you know, full-time playing time, he'd be a league average player.

So I think again, like when you have that kind of floor, then you're good. And so I have Clement as a lock. I was looking at the Blue Jays and I think Clement is in and they've got maybe four spots that are gonna be Schneider, Barger, Loprofito, Oralves, Straw. The one thing that, about Oralves, and this seems like I'm talking about a non-secretary here,

but who is the backup center fielder? That does matter to me, because Ernie Clement can be the backup shortstop, and they also have Leo Jimenez, if they can be the backup shortstop. And they also have Leo Jimenez, if they're worried about backup shortstop. Ruelves Martinez was a shortstop coming up. Yeah, man, the depth in Toronto is 50% gross, but 50% interesting.

I can talk myself into a few random guys in this depth chart actually being good. We liked Barger as a kind of a leaderboard guy a couple of years ago. He built like a tank. He'd be a big side platoon guy most likely. I mean, you have Wagner. Let me see if I can, I'm not putting Wagner

as the starter at DH. Okay, so DH is the open role, I think. DH is the open role. So you think Santander's gonna play a corner. Yeah, okay, you're gonna do that and then you're gonna say DH floats. Clement, Bichette, Jimenez, Guerrero, Kirk. Those are my starters.

DH open and then bench wide open. I mean, it's wide open for everybody. I guess, I don't know, I don't care too much about backup catcher there. So it's Will Wagner, Leo Jimenez, uh, Relvis Martinez, Davis Schneider, you've got straw and rodent, you know, and Loper Fido. I mean, it's, I don't, I don't actually don't know.

I don't know how to, how to judge this. Who are they going to be more like, Hey, we're competitors. This is probably it. They're going to be more like we're competitors. How do the pieces fit together best? this is probably it. They're gonna be more like, we're competitors, how do the pieces fit together best? And in that case, it may be straw

and then a Schneider platoon at DH. So is that, who's the left-hander, Wagner? Yeah, Wagner'd be the lefty. Okay, Schneider, Wagner, platoon at DH. Heinemann. Heinemann or Betancourt, either one of those guys, the backup catcher. And then it does come down to Aurelvis-Martinez

versus Leo Jimenez, probably. And it's a, do we want Aurelvis-Martinez to be playing every day in the minor leagues, or is it just time to have him be on the major league squad and we want a little bit more upside with that bat spot? Maybe you do, because if you have Heinemann and Strahl on this team, and you have Heineman and straw on this team and you have one wild card that you can play, maybe it's Arovas Martinez, right? It's better

than Leo Jimenez who's just sort of settling in and being like, well, we don't want to play our bench much. Yeah, and Arovas Martinez made the PED suspension last year in basically a half season at AAA 17 homers in 319 plate appearances, hard hit rate jumped to 45.7% again the PD suspension maybe the PDs were working because a 10-percentage point jump in hard hit rate is significant, but or Elvis Martinez was getting to a lot of power even Double-a back in 2022 he had one of the weirdest seasons. I've seen on paper 203 286 446 with 30 homers and 492 play differences.

And a big strikeout rate. He does have a lot of swing and miss. He does. I wanna see how they shape the opening day roster because I do think if he's on it, they would probably at least try to give him a big side platoon look initially, but it could be a quick hook back triple A

if it's not working, probably similar to Noelel Villamarte's situation in Cincinnati, right? I think once you get popped for PEDs and you're kind of in that is he a big leaguer or not window? I don't think you've get as long of a window to prove it. I think teams are a little quicker, especially when you have a lot of swing and miss in your profile. You could say, well, you know, what about Loprofito, Loprofito? But Loprofito profiles offensively a little bit like Martinez

But with less power, right? Let's top end power or maybe maybe he profiles really similarly. So maybe that's the battle is like hey We have we have space for one guy That is a little bit poor more of an offense first profile that we want on the bench and it's gonna be a little profito or Martinez. Yeah, I mean a little bit more of an offense first profile that we want on the bench. And it's gonna be Loprofito or Martinez. Yeah, Loprofito. Loprofito's not a center fielder, so you can't, I don't think you want him as your backup center fielder.

I think Strah makes this team, as boring as that is. Strah or Jonathan Classe, good enough to be a backup center fielder? I do think so, yeah. Classe, if you want a little bit more upside in offense. Yeah, I was kind of wishy washy when you were saying, you know, Lopofito, comparing Lopofito's power to Martinez, I think we have seen flashes of similar power.

I think Martinez has done it in games more consistently, going back to their minor league track records, but Joey Lopofito was exciting to us when he was breaking through last year because he had 40% plus hard hit rates in the upper levels of the minor leagues. And he can run. He was 27 for 31 as a base dealer between AA and AAA in 2023. And he ran a little bit at AAA last year.

So it really dropped off in stolen bases though. In 2023 he had 51 stolen bases. No, okay. I'm adding twice. Okay. Yeah, you're 27 stolen base in the minors, but last year 13 across the majors and minors. So we're still gonna do this at some point,

because I really like the exercise. We need to have a bad projections draft, because a player like Joey Lopofito has a generally bad projection, but has done some interesting things, and maybe is better than those projections suggest for very low them draft call it what it is a load of draft yes we'll call it a load of draft we're just you're taking

players that the projections don't like they're not on prospect lists anymore they're not popping anybody's sounds like a good thing oh yeah it might be a show thing end of show thing this is like a last 10 minutes last 15 minutes of the show thing we also prepared a thing. This is like the last 10 minutes, last 15 minutes of the show thing. We also prepared a lot more, so I think we're gonna have to do Maraaster battles again tomorrow. Yeah, we'll do that.

We'll get some pitcher ones in, I think, tomorrow too, just to mix it up. So if we missed one, which I'm sure we did, if you have one you're particularly interested in, drop us a mailbag question in Discord about the job battles you'd like to hear about. Give us some feedback on that. Pick six idea for our listener link for this year, you can join the discord with the link in the show description.

Follow us on blueskyenos, enosaris.bsky.social, imtvr.bsky.social. Thanks to Brian Smith, our producer, for putting this episode together, that's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening. Bye.