Rates & Barrels - Spring Training Injuries and Stuff+

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

Eno is at the trop recording live on location. Welsh and Eno are talking about the latest spring training injuries and the new stuff+ release. **Warning: Welsh is a dummy, and had a mic issue that is less than we normally expect** Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Treat yourself to Tim's new Fudge Brownie Lattes, made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice-chilled milk, and topped with marble chocolate curls. Now that's music to our ears. Available hot or iced, only at Tim's. Welcome in, friends, to Rates and Barrels. Thank you very much for tuning in. I am Chris Welsh. Today joining me is Eno Saris, and I'm actually doing a special open without Eno because I want you to hear my voice normally. I want you to know that I am aware of hear my voice normally. I want you to know

that I am aware of mic settings, and I just want you to know that I am aware that my voice is going to sound a little different in this one. Through all the chaos of everything with Eno on location here, my microphone got messed up. So yes, I am aware that I'm going to sound a little hollow-y. I apologize. I'm going to go sit in a corner and think about what I've done for a little bit, but we do have a great episode and I know you're going to enjoy it. Regardless of my bad audio, I apologize once again. I'm wearing the dunce hat until the next episode. So here's Eno and I. I'm Chris Welsh and joining me today with probably the greatest backdrop that you've ever seen that isn't like a Zoom backdrop, of course, is the great Eno Saris. From the trough, I'm telling you, you guys have to go to the YouTube right now because it looks like those fake Zoom backgrounds where someone puts in like, oh, I'm just going to put the whole baseball stadium.

You literally have the whole baseball stadium. I'm watching players walk behind you on the field you know yeah it's uh it's actually my first time at the trop so uh it's uh i think it's actually maybe an underrated place it's uh it's really like bright i i've heard players complain about that in terms of like losing balls in the in the ceiling you know uh but it's also kind of cool as a fan because it's it just feels really sort of bright and vibrant without being like you know 90 degrees and humid you know so uh it's a pretty cool stop on my spring training jaunt here uh was in cardinals camp a little while back talking to Tyler O'Neill and Giovanni Gallegos about being slow. Oh, did you say about being slow?

He's a pitch clock guy, so we talked a little bit about that and his bullet slider. So, you know, today talked to Pete Fairbanks about his incredible stuff. Plus, we'll have a little bit more about that later. But also had a little discussion with Drew Rasmussen about his sweeper. So I love spring because you can hit a bunch of camps in a row and people have a little more time. So it's been fun. It's a little bit tougher where you're at.

Funny enough, you just said Tyler O'Neal. I just saw him yesterday because Team Canada, I was over at Mariners camp. Canada was playing Seattle Seattle and I didn't realize that they decided to come do BP over there and Tyler O'Neill walked out, a former Mariner, so he was comfortable with the complex. Freddie Freeman didn't come out, but Tyler O'Neill came out and oh yeah, WBC is going on, which is kind of just a crazy, crazy odd thing. But in Florida, there's a lot more traveling. I can go to every park i think within a 40 minute span but as i'm told it is i've had multiple players tell me that we're used to be east coast and come over to west coast say it is night and day experience coming over here because

the travel is so much easier so you can't really go and see on your jaunt you can't really lock into everybody right i can't really do like you know multiple camps in one day like you can kind of do that in arizona it's kind of tough here but what i have noticed is a little bit of segmentation between the east and west coast here in in florida where um over where i was earlier in jupiter you've got the astros the mets the cardinals i think somebody else and they they could i think they just play each other a lot because when i drove across from West Palm Beach to Fort Myers, it's a long drive. It was like a three hour drive. There's not really a highway that does it. And I can't imagine that the Red Sox are going to play the Cardinals a lot this spring. I mean, maybe I'm

wrong and that's on the schedule, but probably once, you know, so, and then tougher for a rider to kind of do them both. So now that I'm up here though, you know, you've got Bradenton, Fort Myers, Dunedin, Clearwater, Tampa. So there's a bunch of teams near Tampa. And I hope to have some fun talking to some players over the next couple of days. Yeah, I was about to say, is there any previews of players that are coming up? Or maybe even if you don't have it locked down, are there any wants of what you're going to try to do over the next couple days?

Well, generally I'm talking to a lot of guys about sweepers, talking to some hitters about launch angle and strikeouts. I've been working on a piece for about a year about the relationship of launch angle and strikeout. So that's what I've been sort of generally talking to hitters about. But other topics include the pitch clock and how that's going to affect baseball. Not in terms, I did talk to Gallego sort of about what it's like on the inside, but, you know, try to deal with that.

But also just were players resting on purpose to throw harder? And if that was the case, will there be more fatigue and how will that manifest so um that's uh that's an ongoing conversation this spring yeah is that similar to that thing that was going on with chris bassett like a couple it was like a week ago chris bassett's velos across the board were down down by like two to three miles per hour and everybody had a panic and i think he just kind of, now this is what I want to do. He wanted to keep it down in spring. There's a lot of spring, like reactionary stuff from Bassett and all the low velocity stuff to like

Dylan cease getting rocked. Sometimes those things can coincide to these guys, not wanting to put it out on the field right now. And we can get some big overreactions. I'm not a big C sky. That might not be the case, but I was curious. Is that like what the Bassett thing is?

I think I care a little bit less when it's results. Like the 11 runs Seas gave up? Yeah. He could have had a start like that in June and his 10, 15 starts before and after it would have just covered it up. People have bad

days. That's what I'm not so concerned about about but i would say i saw those basset comments and i don't quite buy it i mean yes guys are down earlier in spring and there's a ramp up but the ramp up is usually on the order of one to two ticks over spring so two more than two plus is concerning overall. And I don't really... Oh yeah, you did it on purpose? I don't know. Okay, we got you. We did it on purpose, Chris.

That's what I tell my kids. I airballed that shot on purpose. That was a good dad move. Maybe it was just a dad move. He was playing with us. I love it. I'm very much looking forward to all the great stuff. As Eno said, Pete Fairbanks, looks like there's a conversation. Gallegos, Tyler O'Neill, great stuff that will be coming down on The Athletic, which is a great reminder.

You guys should come and sign up. Theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. $2 a month gets you rocking. And whether it's articles, other great content, Eno has got all of that stuff going on. Going to update the ranking soon. Yeah, it's articles uh other great content you know has got all of that stuff going on gonna update the ranking soon yeah it's kind of that time i mean we're into the what do we got like probably the next two biggest draft weekends i would say this weekend that may be two or three weekends that are coming up here have you finished all your drafts no i think i'm going to join like

an nfbc uh al auction maybe because i just practiced that with my labor auction this weekend. And so I think I might do that. That might be fun. You're a madman. Do you think there's going to be a point with the DH, the advent of the DH now that AL and NL leagues will go by the wayside in the next five to 10 years? It's just a random thought I just had.

Like I know it was so big. No, because I think it's not so much about the difference of the leagues. When you do a monoleague, it's about really forcing you to know the depth of the player pool and really forcing you to make decisions one of the things that's um i think tough about like sort of eight and ten team leagues a lot of times is like you know i can just have all stars like how many how many like real hard decisions are you forced to make but But the deeper you get, the more you have to be like, oh, man, I have to skimp on closers or mid-level starters or the outfield or third base.

I have to make some really hard decisions here. Otherwise, sort of playing middle of the road doesn't really work. So it's kind of like in basketball or in head to head where you'd be like, the deeper it goes, the more like I got to punt something. I got a category. My only argument to it is, is like,

I felt like ALNL, their life, the depth thing is right. You're a hundred percent right about that. Like it's, I think it's fun test for fantasy baseball players. I think people that have played for a long time, you know,

understanding the depth and knowing it is there, but part of its usage was about the differences in the league and that was why people would like to do al and l there is now no different there's a balanced schedule there's dh across the board it's now almost just be kind of like well we used to do it so let's keep doing it i feel like there's less of a reason for fancy people like new people to come in that's why i'm curious in five to ten years if that's a format that just kind of dies away Because why would new people want to go play it when there's literally no difference anymore? Yeah, I mean, it's it's definitely not It's definitely also not something that I think would be appealing to a first-time player It's really, you know, it's not even jumping to the Jeep end

It's like I'm gonna jump off the 60 foot cliff instead of like hopping into the pool you know yeah like the person that's listened to their dad for like 20 years be like uh you know nl ball is better because they hit it but that's gone like no one's gonna have like why nl and al are different it's just a random thought i had when i think because i do this big 16 team al nl we call it the AL, NL Masters. So you're saying it could be replaced by mixed, but just like 20 or 30-team mixed. Yeah, well, I'm saying it's just gone. The idea of people wanting to solidify,

I want to play an NL or an AL only, the differences just make it almost irreverent. It's almost just like I'm playing a football NFC league. There are just no differences in the leagues. I feel like if there's... There's still differences in the player pool. For example, if you're looking at starting pitching,

the ace pool in the NL is much deeper. If you're looking for aces, it goes 10-12 deep. That could make you change your strategy. I think the strategies are different in AL versus NL.

I think they are probably even more elite closers in the NL. Hayter, Diaz, Helsley. In the AL, you got Bautista, Presley. Klasse.

Maybe it's the same. There are differences in the player pool, and that, you know, I think that's strategy. Anything that forces you to consider different strategies, I think, makes the game better. The fewer strategies there are to win, the worse the game is, I think. That's, I think, relevant for regular baseball, too. One of the cool things about these new rules is it kind of creates the idea

that maybe like a go-go team, like a real, like, you know, we're going to steal bases all the time team, maybe that could be a more viable strategy with the bases and the things the way they are. And, you know, the one thing that might be going away is like a team like the Cardinals, you know, betting on contact and infield defense. Does that go away or, you know, like, does that work in a in a anti shift environment? So this, you know, there's always a give and take with new rules.

Yeah, I think it makes you a better player. Surprisingly, if you when you play in L or L only. But I definitely think if there was one format that would be on the chopping block, it would be that, just a side point. As you go by and listen to the episode, by the way, you know he is not only at the Trop, but in the press box, so who knows? Maybe we'll get some

awesome writers that will walk by and get a side interview, but there might be a little bit of people hanging around, and we're almost worried, because you had this amazing shot, but the internet was shododdy but you were able to move down in a press box into a better spot and the internet is good so we're rocking so just everybody got us here that you can hear the like warm-up music there's a little tiny thing it's actually really good it's very very sometimes it's really loud

yeah you know well I got like this uh this documentary style tour you know like where you know was he's like all right hold on and you know just walk through the holes in the back and i'm seeing people and the internet's going and it was really loud as people are going but you found this amazing spot and luckily it's not bad at all so uh and then the episode today we're planning to talk about some of the news that is going on and stuff plus is uh out there and we're going to be talking about that at the uh the back end which is going to be very cool just got released today so strap in for that but the big piece of news that really does have like an adp effect and i'm really dying to dying to hear what you have to say because i've talked to multiple people about this

and i've kind of settled on where i'm going to move him. Carlos Radon is a big, massive injury where he is going to start the season on the IL. He underwent an MRI on Wednesday, and it showed a mild strain, which essentially it was like this superficial forearm muscle issue. Now, I watched an interview where he was super dismissive of it, super dismissive. He was like, hey, listen, if this was September or October, I'm playing. No big deal. One of his quotes was like, I don't want to be good until the all-star break. I want to be good the whole season. So it's very precautionary. Going in with an arm issue and the IL is the scariest thing a pitcher can do yet he is massively dismissive about it

i want to first get your take on the injury itself and then we're going to talk about the ramifications what it is for fantasy because i think most people are in agreement that this has to be not a free fall but a pretty big fall yeah, like you just signed a deal and you're on a new, you're on a new team. And yes, there is the pressure to be like, let's make sure he's healthy through the course of this contract, the course of the season.

And that's more important than starting on day one. Same time. Most people prefer not to draft pitchers currently injured. And that's why I, you know, I managed to get Tyler Glass now with like the 200th pick in TGFBI because nobody really wants to be like, okay, I'm going to take him, but I can't play him for a while. So he has to, he has to go really far down, I think. And I think where I have him,

so I originally targeted right around where I have him so i originally targeted um right around where i have clayton kershaw you know sort of 34th he's got a 144 inning projection the three era and 27 strikeout rate but i had about 170 innings for college for done before and how many are you going to really dock him for this so i docked him to about 150 and i was like well okay he's gonna have more innings than kershaw still probably right yeah and he's gonna have more strikeouts than kershaw he's got to project a 32 strikeout rate and our model says he's gonna have a 289 era so um i think i think where it will get hard for me is maybe around Frambois Valdez or Luis Severino, which I have 25 and 26. So, I think Carlos Rodon drops to sort of Blake Snell-ish level, 25-24. And that would, you know, for example, for Blake Snell, I have 156 innings, a 3-1 ADRA, and a 31% strikeout rate.

So Radon belongs ahead of him. And that's sort of where I have it right now. That's hilarious, by the way, that you're mentioning all of these guys. Because the consensus we started with was around the mid-20s. I settled in with Radon right behind blake snell but it's the same exact thing like i have uh i have to update my numbers here but i want to say that i put radon at 27 and i have blake snell at 26 right now so that's exactly the move that i made and it's significant and on my overall that pushed him right at the 100 marker.

That was kind of where I had those guys. I do know in drafts that Blake Snell is going a little bit higher. I actually pulled up NFBC Draft Champions March 1st on, which has about seven drafts in it. But doesn't really have the Rodon injury in it. It doesn't, though. And that was kind of the sneak. Actually, here's an ironic thing.

Blake Snell is going at 114 in those. In the overall draft champions, what was this right here? The overall draft champions, Radon was around 30, something like that. No, I'm sorry, like 42. And since March 1st, it's 31. So Radon has not updated. And by the way, I had it mixed up. Snell was 105 since March.

The 112 was like the long-term. Yeah, so if you want to have like a relative range, I think that's where Radon goes. Here's another fascinating, who would you rather have, Radon or Joe Musgrove? Joe Musgrove coming back from the toe injury, going to miss a couple starts. They might miss the exact same amount of starts.

Just one was dropping something on your toe, and the other is an arm issue. I also have a fairly significant difference in projections with Musgrove only having about a 25% strikeout rate and a 3-3 ERA. I have Radon probably ahead of Musgrove. I do have Musgrove a little bit ahead in innings, maybe 10, 15 more innings.

It's a little bit less of annings maybe 10 15 more innings it's a little bit less of an injury uh but with the difference in talent i mean radon is the only guy um i have with a sub 3era uh underneath uh justin verlander at nine you know so uh if you did something where maybe you got uh brandon woodruff or sandycantara early and you felt like I've got bulk and I'm doing good and then you skip out on the early number twos, you could maybe take Radon as a late number two and maybe Snell too as a late number two and maybe get some really tasty stats out of that. But it could end up being what, like 450? Not 450. That would be too much. It could be like 350 innings in the end of sub-3 ERA if you paired Sandy Alcantara with Carlos Rodon.

Yeah, your model then beats any of the projections that are out there. They're playing it very, very safe, though, because Radon is at a sub-2.9 ERA, two straight years, and every projection system has him over 3. ATC has got him at 3.16 as an aggregate. Well, that was something that happened when we used stuff in Location Plus

to power our projections. We had a larger spread in BABIP, and we had some higher-end projected strikeout rates than most of the models. So Rodon is a stuffist. Whoa, what are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking? You know you're driving a 2024 Ford Escape with available Alexa built-in, so you can change the music.

Oh, yeah. Alexa, change station to 99.2. See? Oh, yeah. Alexa, change station to 99.2. See? Purchase a 2024 Escape ST-Line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment. That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40,294. Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca. This episode is brought to you by Peloton.

Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton Bike or Bike Plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate. Terms apply. and interestingly enough, he had the 16th best stuff. Carlos Rodon does according to your model and I believe that's the same with the fastball was also 16th. So big fastball and the stuff plus and overall stuff plus 16th.

And there's a couple of really fun names. A little bit Strider S2 just had the column this week about whether or not Strider can make it work with two pitches and, you know, Rodon is largely a two-pitch guy. And, you know, I think it's a little bit more common with these engineered pitches where you're like, well, what if he has a top 20 fastball and a top 20 slider? Why should he throw a suboptimal changeup that he can't really locate? Or a curveball?

I think the positive, though though coming out of this just is like that you're not saying hey i'm done like this this forearm injury isn't something that has taken him off the board because i know some people will be like all right cool i'm gonna rank him here but he's not really draftable in my eyes you're still comfortable because i mean you had to assume almost that rodone would have an injury this year so now you have any earlier uh like it's so same thing with Tyler Glassnow. I'm not totally all out because I wasn't putting Tyler Glassnow down for 200 innings. And even with the oblique, he could still put up the sort of 130 to 150 that I thought he could.

So this is interesting, though, also from a team standpoint. The New York Yankees just got hit by a whirlwind of injuries. I mean, with Frankie Montas maybe not out for the full season, but probably with that sort of stuff, even if he comes back maybe in a relief stance, well, that was a guy you had slotted in for starting pitcher innings. Now you're losing Radon for the beginning of the season. That means Clark Schmidt and Domingo Harmon make this rotation.

In one case, I'm happy about that. Clark Schmidt is a guy that I'm excited about, and I think he's draftable in almost every league. Really? Yeah, because he's got upside. If it's the kind of league where there are certain leagues where you can't make free agent moves or you make very infrequent free agent moves, that makes it a little bit harder because I'm not sure how long he'll be in the rotation. He could be the first guy out when Rodon comes back.

But most leagues, to start the year, to have a young guy who I think has a lot of upside a good pitch mix he's now throwing a cutter he wasn't throwing before now he's kind of cutter sinker sweeper it's this new new type of pitcher that's out there uh and he's got a good velo uh and he's got actually a decent four seam so it's a it's a pretty good package he has good command uh i think he could have a mid-three zra with a good strikeout right now. Okay. Yeah, sign me up for that. Yes, I don't know about the innings all year.

So if it's like you have to have innings all year, then maybe take Kyle Gibson and get your dang innings all year. But in terms of starting the season, yeah. Clark Schmidt is a – I don't know where am I going to put him. Yeah, I'm very curious about that. He's draftable in like all formats. We're going to go as low as 12 team. I mean, is that going to give him –

Our model spits out a 3-6 ERA with a 26% strikeout rate in 121 innings. I wonder if you should be pushing that innings number now, right? Let's push it to 135 innings or something because he was already going to get 75 to 100 just as a normal six starter, and now you've got these injuries. So I'm pushing it to 135 innings, which means Aaron Savali, I've only got down for 130 innings. He's got a 3.89 projected ERA, 23% strikeout rate.

He's at 70, so above 70. Garrett Whitlock I've got for 130 innings, 357 ERA. Yeah, Garrett Whitlock. Okay, that's the range. 65, 66. That's where he's sitting right now before I officially put in my...

But, you know, Freddy Peralta, I only have down for 130 innings in a 33-4 ERA, and he's at 51. So, if you want a range, I would say low 50s to mid 60s. That's a pretty good sell. That's a pretty good sell, and I think— Isn't that most leagues? Yeah.

It seems like most leagues. No, that's 100% most leagues if you're getting into that. That's a back-end rotation. Last year, eight pitchers had 200 innings pitched. How many do you think are going to hit that this year? I think I made a bold prediction last year that nobody would, so eight was too much for me. But I keep thinking that they will have a year where there's no 200s.

One thing is that bold prediction was sort of born out of a couple of the craziest years we've ever had as a human race, maybe. That's why I asked, because we're kind of three years out of that space eight so i think we'll you know i think we'll at least have five this year the the pitch clock is an interesting thing though it's a little bit more of this chaos that we keep putting on ourselves so that's fatigue that's injury that's you know what i mean like that could lead to a lot of guys having to take a two-week blow at least to just be like you know turn the clock off for two weeks please i need to rest well that's why i answered the question because it's like if uh if we're going to go under this number i am actually very worried about the pitch clock causing injuries and

the the just like these guys are trying to do it in practices and spring training on the backfields and stuff but this is not norm of what they do in any of their normal sessions so just changing that overall over time in the season i'm worried it's going to cause more if we might be the year to like bet on young pitchers who've been used to doing we've been doing this yeah exactly but that's like if we're going to be under significantly you know should we be valuing guys at 130 and 140 innings just a tad bit more because that might be closer to the baseline than it would be if we were like, if you were like, we're going to have 12 pitchers. Now that we're out of COVID and now

that, you know, guys have a couple years back under their belts, we can get back over 200. If that's not the case, maybe 140 is a much better number. Kind of make me go back to like that Grayson Rodriguez thing we talked about or people trying to say, yeah, Spencer Strider, if he only gets 150, like those guys should all maybe boost that just a tiny bit.

It's relevant to the DeGrom discussion, you know. Thank you, thank you. If DeGrom gets to 140, he's probably the best pitcher in baseball by war at least, and probably by fantasy values. So, you know. Yeah, especially if there's only five. Yeah, if we've only got five guys at 200,

and a lot of guys are sitting in the 170s, like 140 is not crazy, crazy off. He might out-K most of those guys. I think he can get up. I mean, 140 innings at Jacob deGrom and 200 innings at Sandy Alcantara. Who has more strikeouts? Who's going to have more strikeouts?

I think deGrom might. But the Yankees in general just got hit so hard. I mean, Harrison Bader's hurt too. So, you know, I would love to have like a, oh, Clark Schmidt, you know, on the pitching side, I'm like, Clark Schmidt,

that's who I want. I want him more than Domingo Roman. I'm into Clark Schmidt. That's an easy call. But with Bader being out, I don't have an easy call because I'd love to be able to say, Anthony Volpe's with Bader being out, I don't have an easy call because I'd love to be able to say, Anthony Volpe's making this team now. But I don't know why I would say that. The only reason I would say Anthony Volpe's making this team now

is that Oswaldo Cabrera is making the team. He probably was, but now he has to because he can play the outfield, right? And so I guess you have Hicks going over to centers more, and your regular starting lineup with Bader out would be Hicks in center, Cabrera in left, Judge and Stanton kind of doing right field and DH. I think that still leaves room for Volpe, but I don't know who the backup outfielder is that Volpe is kind of pushing.

Or, and this is really important, if you see Volpe or Oswaldo Peraza with an outfielder's glove on in the next week, that's really relevant. Because that changes how likely they are to make the team. Because I'm looking at this and I'm like, who's the backup outfielder now? If it's Esteban Floreal, I'm not interested. You know what I mean? And I don't really see it. Maybe Rafael Ortega makes his team. I'm not that interested in him either.

But I'm really interested if Volpe starts playing in the outfield. I want to be. I'm a very big Anthony Volpe guy. I didn't care about the struggles as much. He struggled for two months. He really came back in spring. He's been showing off the power. It's really good speed.

Defense might be like a notch behind Oswald Peraza, who looks like he has a lot to make this team. If the word came out, and I don't know why they would do this, but this is what you'd be listening for. If somehow they're like, hey, we wanted to play Stanton a little bit more in left field and get him off the DH, that would perk my ears up because then you could put Gleyber Torres over at second base and you could have Peraza and Volpe play the infield,

and then you'd have Cabrera. Donaldson? You'd maybe have Donaldson DH more? Yeah, exactly. You could do something like that. Or LeMahieu and Donaldson play some DH? Those would kind of perk my ears up a little bit. I know Peter Gammons just said yesterday

he put a stamp, which someone must have told him, got a stamp of like he thinks Volpe was the one. The only difference is they have to make a move off the 40 man. They don't have to do that with Krause. They do have to make a move off with Volpe. But we can't discount the value of the pitch. Have you talked to any team or any team personnel about how

they actually value players breaking camp and vying for that pick have you talked to any teams about that because i know we all just presume i'm just curious if teams actually are sitting back being like we need to play out for this extra first round pick no i have a i have that's not i don't think not from what i'm considering i have talked to some people about how they make their their decisions and how difficult it is um and generally they're just frustrated that you know it has to be a small sample and they're they're trying to make this you know really big decision for you know and it's usually like two or three guys right you know there's two or three bubble guys but there's this huge decision for 2-3 bubble guys, and

it might matter what they do in 2-3 weeks. That's just poor timing, and I don't know how to do it any different. It's just how it works. You have to set your roster at the end of spring, and you actually give them a fair amount of time with 5-6 weeks, but sometimes it ends up

just being the end of camp where like, oh, now that Vader's hurt, we have to make a decision next two or three weeks. If Ortega goes nuts, maybe he just makes the roster. Because there has to be a roster move, I think, for him too. Yeah, I think, yeah, because he's

in NRI. He's in NRI. So, you know, they're like staring at a roster move no matter what. And, you know, if Volpe had, you know, played more outfield, then I would say he's making this team. I do think no matter what, it's slightly more likely that Anthony Volpe makes this team now. Okay, that's an actual little plus here. Yankees have been hit.

The Astros have also been dealing with stuff. Astros general manager Dana Brown said Wednesday that Jordan Alvarez was pain-free and going to resume swinging a bat. Today's we're recording this or Saturday, which is great news. You know, I in multiple drafts, it was the industry stuff. It was TGFBI and my tout draft and hold. I happened to be right in that window where Alvarez was hurt and everyone was terrified. And I happened to also have a back-end pick.

TGFBI had the 15th pick and he kept falling. And I took him in both spots. Do you think that was a window where someone like myself was able to take advantage and got that bonus where we would never get Alvarez? Or are you still concerned overall about this injury that he's had, even though he's going to be coming back this weekend? You know, I had some pushback on Twitter where I've talked about his knees and someone said he had the knee surgery. He's fine.

Even if he's fine in the short term, any surgery has long term implications. You know, there was some research that Michael Salfino was was putting out on Twitter about how this. And I know Alvarez's wasn't an ACL, but like, for example, guys who come back from ACLs in football, generally if they were above average, they become average. If they were elite, they become above average. You drop a tier based on the implications of that surgery. There's long-term implications. You know, the site in which you were you had surgery is not as strong as it was before it's cleaner than it was in the short term before

but like a place where there was no surgery is going to be better off you know what i mean like uh in this case we don't have surgery it's a hand thing in this case we don't even know what it was. It's like the NHL things. You know, he's out tonight with an upper torso injury. That's a pretty baseball move, though. All right, so then the question is, like, are you comfortable drafting Alvarez? In this general area. Yeah, tell me where it hurts.

Yeah, somewhere over there. But, like, are you comfortable drafting him now with this news, or is he still – He was never off my list. He was never off my list. Even the only sort of caveats I ever had with him is he doesn't steal bases, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable putting him down for, like, 660 plate appearances. But he does so much in the plate appearances he does have that, you know.

And it's not – I don't think we're in a Stanton, you know, mid-career Stanton situation yet. I'm not putting him there. He's ready to swing away and he's going to be ready for the opening day because you only need about two to three weeks as a hitter. So he's fine. He's good. I never really had him off my list.

I don't know if i move him much above like what would you who would you rather mookie bets or uh alvarez uh mookie bets hands down i had mookie i had mookie but i'm probably a little bit higher than most of them but that's that's a decision people make around yeah well you know what i think also changed here so from march 1st on in those draft champions i still have this up he was adp 15 that is where he fell down I still have this up, he was ADP 15. That is where he fell down to where, well, prior to that, he was somewhere, I think, actually have it right here. He was 10. He was 10 before that.

So he moved down five spots, which is significant in the first round. That's a third of the first round in 15 teams. I would rather have him than Corbin Burns, I think. I agree. I agree. Now, here's one that happened, though, was Vladimir Guerrero also gets hurt. He's out of the WBC because of this knee injury. He just started working out yesterday. There's another guy. So you can't justify Vlad over him right now.

They're both dealing with something. I thought I thought the end. They both fall too much, you know, and by projections, they're both like, you know, top five type players. Well, like we need steals. My first round pick. I can't take that guy. Well,lad's projections have been absurd but like the inadvertent thing that happened was freddie freeman has just kind of jumped it seems like he's the guy that's jumped over freddie was going 14 prior to all this and he's moved up to 12 which is one spot lower than vlad but higher than alvarez and he steals bases and he's going to benefit from the shift.

Freddie, Vlad, Alvarez. How do you order that? I've got Vlad ahead. Knee injuries out of order? It might be Vlad, Freddie, Alvarez. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, Vlad did get out there.

That's the thing that you want. He was out working on the field, working first base drills, I believe, yesterday in camp. I think he'll be ready for opening day too and and freddie steals bases so you know that's kind of fun and then you know of the three i think freddie might have the best batting average your jordan will have the best uh home run total and vlad might have the best combination of stolen bases home runs and batting average? Because Vlade steals bases. You can get a couple in there. I mean, Freeman's going to probably, he's going to double up

both Vlad and Alvarez combined. Maybe. Vlade had eight last year. Yesterday in camp, when Freddie Freeman was in the cage, he was wearing an all-red Canada track suit while he was hitting. And this incredible moment was when they got

done they got on a golf cart Larry Walker in the same matching red Canada track suit gets in the driver's seat Freddie sits next to him and then Tyler O'Neill who was showing off the guns with just a probably a small

whatever you know wearing one of those belly shirts can you have you seen those belly shirts he wears? He's wearing a belly shirt. It was the tightest shirt you've ever seen in your life. Is there any other player in baseball who wears a belly shirt? The only other athlete I can think of is Ezekiel Elliott, who has the belly shirt. Well, okay. So those are some nice stomachs there.

I guess. Between the two of them. But the visual of the two red Canada track suits in the golf cart with tyler o'neill holding on to the back and looking at everybody with the shirt out like it was just it was a wild it was a wild thing to see it was like welcome to the wbc um all right one other big injury and then we'll blow through the other little quick ones and then i want to talk about um i want to talk about the release of stuff plus on fan graphs is andrew. You want to talk about, I gave you, I don't know if this is,

this is breaking news or if this is the news you're referring to, but I might have to do, do, do, do, do, do, do,

do, do. Uh, we have a, is this the one you're referring to top Phillies prospect, Andrew painter? It's from Jeff dot E T D H. Oh,

Andrew has a tear in his UCL. I know, you know, I was not going to look. I was going to talk about the mystery, and now we have some definitive news. He has a tear in his UCL, the team announces. He will sit out for a month and then start a light-throwing program to see if he can pitch through it. That's horrible news.

I'd almost rather they shut him down and have the surgery because although if he had the surgery, he would miss all this year and maybe start next year. And I think even with a month, you can, you still have enough leeway. Well, if with a month,

he would miss all of this year and then just miss the first like month or so of spring training next year. So it might be okay to wait a month and see if he can pitch through it. There have been guys who pitched through it. Kenta Maeda pitched through it. He got surgery in the end. Masahiro Tanaka pitched through it. He did not get the surgery.

Didn't Radon have a UCL issue that he didn't get surgery for, or was that a different one? That might be true. Then there were also all the Angels that tried to pitch through it, and most of them got surgery in the end. So this was scary because Andrew Painter, you know, probably arguably the top pitching prospect in baseball, him or Christian Rodriguez.

Phillies were talking about him breaking camp, not even at 20 years old. He has this arm injury. We don't get any information. They sit back. I saw last night that the word was they're waiting for a second opinion. And that's where I got really worried about that. Second opinion usually means bad. I don't recall the last time a second opinion came back and they're like, no, bud, you're good. You know, let's, let's get pounds. Like, no, it's always bad news. And I didn't even see this

because this actually seems like they're often looking for better news. Yeah. I guess he had someone to tell us, but yeah, Jeff Passan reported a tear looking for better news. Yeah, I guess he had someone to tell us, but yeah, Jeff Passon reported a tear in his UCL. So, I mean, how do you approach that? Do you think a couple of players have,

I guess, come back from this. Do you think this is the approach of the young pitcher like this and he can recover? Is that Jeff Passon's handle now? Yeah, he did. That's a,

it's a joke because of, it's a joke because he got hacked and they were trying to sell you the Ethereum through his, through his account. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a joke because he got hacked and they were trying to sell Ethereum through his account. Yeah, yeah. It is Jeff Casson. Yeah, yeah. I think it's a happy anniversary. I think one year today he got hacked because it's Jeff.eth. Okay.

It is Jeff Casson's handle, which is funny. I saw him at that. I'm glad I just reported him as Jeff.eth. I know. You said that. I'm pretty sure that's Casson. I actually saw him at Rangers Camp last week. He has phenomenal hair said that. I'm pretty sure that's Castle. I actually saw him at Rangers camp last week. He has phenomenal hair in person.

I will tell everybody that. So, like, you see a UCL tear. What type of fear? Like, do you actually think? You were giving, like, okay, you know, these guys have recovered. But do you think? Do you want any part of that right now? Not even a redraft.

It's more like in a bigger dynasty. This is now a keeper dynasty question. not even a redraft. It's more like a bigger dynasty. This is now a keeper dynasty question. I think the only situation where I want him is if I'm in a rebuilding situation and now he's cheaper to get. Also, this is... I don't usually trade for pitchers anyway, even if I'm rebuilding.

That's usually a capper situation where I try to build my lineup, you know, as I'm rebuilding and then start trading for pitching when I'm like, you know, there. so i wouldn't normally trade for pitching prospect anyway but in this case it might be the price drive so low that you get him for i don't know who would you like a yandy dia somebody like if it's deep enough league right where you're just like here here's a guy that can help you this year obp you know 20 team league maybe league. Maybe I'm going too low. What's the acronym? Tin stamp or whatever? There's no such thing as

a pitching prospect. What's the type of a veteran bat that you would trade for Painter right now? That costs more than a Yandy. What if it was... It'll cost way more than a Yandy. Here's the funny thing.

Even if he's heading towards surgery. Here's the funny thing. Even if he's like heading towards surgery. Here's the funny thing. He's not going to have much of a discount at all in dynasty keeper. It's not what will happen is he's got to be owned by the team that is in a win now mode. If you were to try to go acquire Andrew Painter, you're just not going to get the big discount. The argument I always have with prospects too, when prospects get hurt in their prospect land, it doesn't really change a whole bunch.

This is a little different because if he broke camp and he had a full season, that's kind of gone. But let's just say Andrew Painter didn't. How much does this set him back? Maybe a year? In a prospect world, you can kind of stomach some of that. So I think he went from untouchable to he's acquirable. How about Jake McCarthy?

You're the craziest person I know. I was literally going to say that name. That is the name I was going to throw out to you. I swear to God I was going to say that name. McCarthy was the one that I think that might be interesting if a win now team had. Maybe you throw a little Jake McCarthy there where I think that could work. Or you might have to invite some of the pitchers.

Especially because there's the steals aspect. I mean, like Rowdy Tellez is around the same number, around the same, you know, like established younger-ish. If you were not a win now team um would you move um logan gilbert i was gonna say kershaw but i feel like that would be an instinct yes would you move like a logan gilbert for an andrew painter no man the two homes too much what if andrew painter is logan gilbert that could happen all right would you move um these are really tough joe Ryan. I feel like Joe Ryan is a line. That's interesting. Joe Ryan has added a sweeper and could break out this year.

Right now. He's kind of a one pitch pitcher, the fastball. He doesn't have any of the VLO. The painter does. A painter has much more upside. I think even with a sweeper, Ryan is kind of like a number two,

number three. Now you're getting closer. Okay. Last one. Lucas G Alito. Yeah. Last one. Lucas Giolito. Yeah. Especially if I'm not winning now. Are you buying into the changes for him?

Like the weight loss and the change in his, uh, in the way he's throwing his arm angle? Uh, I mean, he's, he's, he's worked to arming. I'll change before to great success, but, um, those things make me really nervous when you start talking about changing your body as a pitcher uh and changing your arm angle now i start thinking well maybe it works for you but i also think your injury risk is way higher yeah okay uh that's huge news uh that's breaking for us i did not see that as we started up from jeff.eth happy anniversary jeff uh the other two quick are they actually the other last one was the Marlins picked up Uli Gurriel.

So Uli Gurriel now with the Marlins first base. That is going to affect, I'm guessing, Garrett Cooper. It looks like that would be an effect to his value because DH is set to be Jorge Soler. If Soler was pushed to the outfield, this really is going to kill my Brian De La Cruz, who I have in the athletic draft guide. He's one of the sleepers I love.

He's Teoscar-like to me with those big hard hit numbers. So we're going to have to watch how it goes. But Yuli Gurriel jumps in and kind of becomes an intriguing NL-only first baseman, don't you think, Ian? Yeah, it's interesting that Cooper is projected to be 15% better than the league average with his bat and is a solid player. And they're projecting him for more plate appearances he's ever had. And I wonder how much of what he's done has been affected by his splits.

So I'm checking that right now before I say something wrong. Because he's a righty. He's been better against righties. Of course he has a reverse split. But you wouldn't project a reverse split. And Gurriel is also a righty. I'll also point out, like roster resource, maybe they haven't updated, but

boy, do they update quick. They don't have Gurriel on that starting lineup. They still have Garrett Cooper starting as his first baseman, hitting fourth. So just with that. Let's build a bench. Build a bench.

If you're building a bench, you got to have a backup shortstop. That is maybe Jose Iglesias, who just signed with the team. He did just sign a deal. Yep. And John Birdie would kind of probably fill the other spots. I mean, Iglesias can play the middle. Birdie could maybe play there, but also plays your backup outfield. Birdie seems like he's making the team. So you got Bernie

Iglesias. You got Nick Fortes as backup catcher. That's three of your four spots. And then what you're leaving on the table is Jesus Sanchez who they have Jesus Sanchez or Brian De La Cruz. They have Brian De La Cruz starting. Sanchez is on the bench.

Here is the caveat, though. Sanchez is a lefty. And Birdie, Iglesias, and Fortes are all righties. And Gurriel and Cooper are righties. And I have Sanchez as the breakout candidate of all of these names. You know what I mean? With the fact that Gurriel and Cooper are both Reyes, I kind of think it's Gurriel or Cooper.

We'll have to see. Cooper is one of my favorite later drafted first basemen, but Uli Gurriel does make a ton of contact. I like the idea that this team is going to be running a lot in front of him. But he hasn't even been slotted in here yet. Maybe they just haven't made the moves. But Yuli Gurriel, one of those late spring signings. Plenty of other news going out.

WBC is going to push a lot of information. Hopefully not having injuries or anything like that. Hopefully not all injuries, yeah. That's what we're like. It's been fun to watch Yu Chang tie it up for Taipei today. He was pumped, and the stadium was rocking. And, you know, I'm not a jersey guy. I don't think I have a single jersey.

But that Newt Barr Japan jersey, it's sexy. You got to pick it up. It's a tight jersey, plus the name is awesome. Two O's and two A's, and's and like the combination of that name with that with that nationality it's just a it's just hilarious and funny and great and then it he's such a great personality that it just all ties it together that's one of the first jerseys i'm like maybe i want that one and he's like and he's my my literal like biggest breakout guy biggest drafted player this year i'm tied with him

athletic can we get some new bar jerseys over to you know and i please can we please do that i did i did finally get him in tgfi i was pretty excited about that i needed i needed speed and even i jumped him off his adp like 30 or 40 points maybe maybe 30 points and felt good about it afterwards everywhere i can i've been citing i've been citing that great interview you did by just also to plug go back and watch i was watching it just the other day. I rewatched listening to you and a new bar right on the YouTube channel. Uh, just like, I like seeing him react to things you said. It's a great interview where he talks about, you know, what he did with driveline work last year and how it's improved and what he's worked on this year.

It's just a killer interview that you guys should make sure to go check out. The last little bit here, you know, I wanted to talk about this. Stuff Plus has officially been released on FanCrafts. And, you know, you've talked a whole lot about it. People can go and check it out. And I got to tell you, it's phenomenal. It's phenomenal in that, you know, we can look at not just the stuff, the location, the P plus, but there is like fastball plus we can go and take a look at it. So talk to me about the release on that and how spread because you know stuff plus and location plus and pitching plus they center at at 100 per pitch and so then when you start summing it up by pitcher

they have different spreads so example one standard deviation of stuff plus is 12 whereas one standard deviation of location plus is three points and so we have all that described in the glossary and you can kind of see that but um you know it's fun like right now i have over at fangriffs i've got a minimum 20 pitches um and i'm looking at fastball stuff plus and i'm doing it for starters and uh one thing that really pops out for me is dustin may has the fifth best four-seam fastball stuff plus. You know, it came in 30 innings. That's enough of a sample to actually just say he had a really good four-seam fastball last year.

That's part of why I'm picking him as a breakout player. But you can also, you know, temper your expectations sometimes because you see, for example, Gordon Burns has the 12th best fastball stuff plus. Well, we know he didn't work when he threw that fastball. And look at his location plus, 79. It is like easily the worst. And then you look at his sample, 0.2 percentage thrown. So, like, you know, you have to kind of think about the sample of everything.

And you have to sometimes look at the location because if it's a really bad location, And you have to sometimes look at the location, because if it's a really bad location, Dylan Cease, for example, sixth best stuff plus, 94 location plus. That's really bad. Or you say Kikuchi. Everyone's having him as a breakout pitcher this spring because he does look pretty good. The velo is there.

He has a 108 forcing fastball stuff plus. He has a 91 location on that pitch, and it's pushed the pitching plus on the pitch below average and i'm not sure that he's as much of a breakout pick as people are saying because when i watch him i just see a guy who has no command of the four seam and we have no command of the four seam that puts so much pressure on your command on your on your secondaries and if you want to just see you know what his how his command of his secondaries is now you can kind of do it in a sortable way.

You know, another guy's a really big fastball, no command of his Ryan Pepeo. He's 27th enforcing fastball stuff. Plus, and as a 92 location, plus, um,

if you were worried about ruins, it can try this as command one Oh six stuff. Plus on the, on the fastball 97 location. Plus. So, um, you know,

there are some custom date ranges here i haven't played with them let me see if i can do a custom date range on the pitch modeling stuff because if you can that's really fun so now you can do like a back half of the year do you like the final like two months or something like that oh wait i'm, I still have the minimum IP. Let me see if I don't do minimum IP. Doesn't look like it's working yet. There's going to be, you know, this is just getting it up on the site right now. You know, if people do want custom reports, I'm still going to be writing about this at Fangraphs. I can do some custom stuff. We'll have some spring training stuff reports that come out that won't necessarily be on Fangraph.

So there'll still be a lot of value to the extra reporting I can do on top of it, the extra fun I can have on top of it. But just having, this is something I've wanted for everybody to have the ability to just go out there and sort this stuff for themselves and have fun with it.

The Google Doc really was something that upset me. Understandably so, as it always does. You know, I want to ask you about one other guy real quick, and then there's another part of this modeling that you and I were talking about off air. But someone that just stands out to me, he's been a draft target of mine, and hopefully I'm looking at the same stuff you are because I'm under just stuff plus and then i sort of buy stuff plus and on the stuff plus fastball as well is charlie morton charlie morton's just a big standout guy where as far as what i'm looking at he had under stuff plus the 15th best overall and on fastball it was 16 with a 116 um which just stands

out just overall stuff plus and fastball stuff plus he's just one of those just names who's littered between christian javier and shane mcclanahan and you darvish and cordon burns and it's like in the middle there is charlie morton with that post 180p is just just such a fun target yeah why am i not getting that what do you what are your settings right now uh i am on leaderboards uh pitching and starters i had my numbers were a little different than what you were saying so your minimum ip is qualified no 20 i also did your 20 qualified uh minimum innings pitch i followed you and you're sorting by stuff plus fastball oh are you in the in the first part fastball plus um and then i clicked on stuff plus on the on the meter down there so stuff plus fastball well you know there's

going to be some kinks i'm not seeing morton that's strange yeah like when you just go straight into there and if you're just on standard stuff plus and then you sort by stuff plus uh charlie martin 15 with a 116 stuff plus i mean i do believe in that i do believe in that the overall stuff plus if you just sort by stuff plus like come on martin where are you there you are 15th yeah i do see him there um and he's literally between javier and rattan yeah but uh if the way i look at it, when I look across, I see a 93 stuff plus on the fastball. It's a 151 stuff plus curveball. So Charlie Morton, to me, is in that sort of Adam Wainwright territory

where he's got that elite breaking ball, and he's still got it, and that's a decent way to age, as we've seen from Wainwright. Now, as long as he's 93, 94, uh, I think Morton can be, you know, a really good pick. I'm not sure about Adam Wainwright. He's pumping 86s right now. And I'm a little bit worried that that's, uh, that's too slow, man. This is a fun tool, by the way, I'm looking here like one. Okay. So this will actually set up here zach allen jumps out to me 15th stuff plus uh or 16th stuff plus fastball at 113 he has a 128 on i believe this is the sinker um yeah look at that he's he has he has positive stuff plus on all of his pitches

and the change is 99th i did want to that is what i was going to you i was taking you to the change up because you were saying that there's some modeling stuff with the change of specifically and that's the only thing that he doesn't just blow our brains out here of crazy numbers you know changes are really hard to model harry pavlidis did a really good job of sort of pointing out that you either have a straight change where the velo differential is big or you can have a power change where the velo differential is small and the movement differential is big um and if you ever want to read some really cool research he has what makes a change up good on baseball perspectives that's part of my journey into into all of this um but hopefully

that's you know in our model we've also been able to add seam shifted wake to get a sense of like, when do the seams make the change up better? Um, and I think Logan Webb, who's third in, in, in starter stuff, plus, uh, on the change up, I think that's a seam shifted wake pitch. Um, you know, you've got Corbin Burns, but, uh, it's a really interesting list because you also have players where you're like, I don't know if I believe this. So Adrian Martinez from Oakland has the second best changeup stuff. Plus Chris Flexon is fourth. Bo Briski from the Tigers is eighth. It's just a slightly weird list where you're like not a hundred percent sure, but also Tyler Wells is 18th and Ross Striplingoss stripling is first and you know there are a lot

of change-ups on here we're like yes yes that is a very good change-up so um i would just say that if you like a player like zach gallon and the change-up results are there and our model sets the below average change-up maybe trust the results a little bit more or if a guy comes up like a brian bayo um you know and uh and you're wondering you know another nice thing about the fangraphs thing is you can actually just do a custom player list where you just put the player name in and then you can just see all his numbers across the board um and this says you know 96 on the fastball 115 on the slider 76 stuff plus on the change up except his change up had an amazing results and right wasn't he as a prospect coming up wasn't that the change up was

brian baio's change up right yeah so i would say take that with a grain of salt if you like brian baio you still like brian baio that's fine and then you can kind of if you wanted to kind of do your own little model where you took change up stuff plus out and saw who was good without that, you know, you could do that now because you can download things off of, off of fan graphs. And if you're looking up one player, this is going to update in the morning. If you're going to look up one player, you no longer have to bug me on Twitter. Just go over to fan graphs and see, see who, you know, if there's a debut,

you do have to wait till the next day. Cause, cause of how the data works. But you know, if there's a debut, you do have to wait until the next day because of how the data works. But you know, a lot of, I think a lot of like the day after Ricky Tiedemann's debut, you're going to have a lot of fan crash traffic on the Stuff Plus page, I think. Yeah, 100%. I think this Stuff Plus Plus curve jumps out to me because Dustin May breaks the system

with an over 200. And in the top 10 with the Stuff Plus, I'm assuming this is the curve uh not a cutter i think this this really fits like do do this list because then you're like yep those are the best curveballs in the game well check this out this is what i like in the top 10 of the best curveballs there are only four that have an over 100 change up that's dust May, Charlie Morton, who had the fourth best curve, and the second best change-up of this group, Sandy Alcantara

and Julio Urias. So again, if you start pairing groups together when you're looking at this type of stuff, it really makes, again, Morton kind of stand out, and Dustin May, that's like wild numbers, why we get excited about him. With a 121 stuff plus on the fastball as well, he might be the most interesting of all those players. It's really cool. Everyone should go check it out. it out go to fan graphs and just have some fun and stop

tweeting at you know just no no always tweet at me it's fine i will have i will have some goodies that won't be on on fan graphs but like uh like spring training stuff plus minor league stuff plus um you know maybe some some some time splits and stuff like that we did find that for example the last 400 pitches of stuff plus can be more predictedness sometimes than the full than the full year stuff plus so um you'll still get pieces from me on on the athletic about like you know leaders in the last month you know spring surgers that sort of stuff like i'm definitely going to have a spring stuff plus surgers piece coming out soon.

That's that's on the board. Well, make sure you guys go and sign up today. The athletic.com slash rates and barrels, two bucks a month. It's literally the best deal with incredible stuff on there. You can get the draft kit for your drafts over the next couple of days. My dynasty ranks are up there and tons more,

you know, we did it. The internet held up at the stadium. We're literally at the trop, and it's the best background ever. Let's go watch some baseball. Can you see who's back there? Can you see a player or anything like that? I can't.

Who's back there? I can give people a little... Oh, we're doing BP. Look at this. Yes, this is Braves BP we're looking at. Okay. Is Acuna down there? Austin Riley?

That's awesome. I think this is Riley. Oh, is this Riley? at. Okay, is Acuna down there? Austin Riley? That's awesome. I think this is Riley. Oh, is this Riley? No, no, no. You know what? The number's too high. Let's pretend it's Austin Riley. No, actually, who's 17?

We're going to say Austin Riley. It's cool. This is a cool segment. So check out the YouTube. Make sure you guys subscribe to it as well. You know, literally walk away from the camera. it's cool this is a cool thing so check out the youtube make sure you guys subscribe to it as well you know literally look at it like for a second if you can see like like how much is going on you know like they're doing stuff in the outfield this is a live infield practice off of the vp they've got the uh they've got the um the barriers at first second and third so players can sit back there uh they can talk to coaches there's guys that's short there's guys in between the the bp pitches you know something i've been seeing i don't see them

have out here but i've seen i've seen them have a lot of pitch clocks come out here especially when they're doing live bp set or live uh pitching sessions this is just normal bp so this clock is definitely part of the training environment now they're definitely everywhere i'm going like they've you know i'm seeing like you know pitching coaches lugging the big led pitch clock that they took out to the live you know what's so funny last thing uh brad hand threw a session the other day over at salt river and it was mike moustakas's like first time and he came out i got i videoed it and right before dude comes out, he rolls the big track man piece and another dude rolls out with this giant led light and they went up,

they said, they said, you know, they said the track man, the clock. And then, uh, Mike Moustakas proceeded to beat around Brad hand for a little bit in his

practice of trying to make the Rockies roster. So that is spring training. He just signed with the Rockies. And that was two days ago. He, um, was, I think it was a minor league deal,

and he was very happy about it because he was getting some hits. All team officials were watching him because they wanted to have some competition against Nolan Jones, and he might be a Rockies third baseman if all goes well. Mike Moustakas there, not too shabby, and he was hitting a rock. He might be a Rockies second baseman. He said McMahon was going to push to second base and was going to be the second baseman for the year.

Yeah, because McMahon is younger and is a better defender. Yeah, a bunch better defender. You don't want Mike Moustakas there. And then that leaves Alhurst, Montero, Nolan Jones, and Mike Moustakas. And like I said, all team officials were out watching Moustakas. They had the track man. He was happy about it. There's a deep pull for you.

I don't know if I'm rushing in 15-teers yet but you know colorado rockies third baseman i don't know never know all right uh that's gonna do it he's gonna go out to some games i'm gonna do the same thing so thank you guys so much for hanging out with us we'll be back next week for you know i'm welsh i'll talk to you next time thanks for listening.