Rates & Barrels - Starting Pitcher Fallers, Prospect News & Weekend Waiver Preview

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss the news that MLB has integrated stats from the Negro Leagues into its official records, a bad day for the Mets, fallers from Eno's latest Starting Pitcher Rankings update, prospect news, and a few names to consider as waiver-wire targets this weekend. Rundown 1:18 Negro League Stats Added to MLB's Official Records 7:06 An Eventful Day for the Mets 11:52 'There is No Way They Are the Worst Team in Baseball' 16:42 Fallers From Eno's Starting Pitcher Rankings Update ($) https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5513570 30:45 The Z-Contact% Laggardboard 36:40 Ben Brown's Excellent Outing, Window to Continue Starting 39:40 Junior Caminero, Jasson Dominguez, James Wood, Jett Williams & Drew Gilbert Updates 47:05 Can Chase DeLauter Take Over a Spot in Cleveland By Season's End? 50:00 Jacob Wilson: Another Low Barreler with a Great Hit Tool? 52:22 Spencer Schwellenback Arrives 56:17 Matt Waldron & Other Weekend Waiver-Wire Considerations Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Raids and Ferales, it is Thursday, May 30th. Derek the Ripper, Eno Saris here with you on this episode. We'll have some baseball news you should know. A big change to MLB's official stats. We're going to dig into great detail into that next week, but we'll talk a bit about it here in just a moment. We had an eventful Mets game for late May. We'll talk about some of the fallout from that.

Got a few injuries around the league and as we promised on the Tuesday episode this week, we've got Eno's updated starting pitcher rankings. We're gonna look at some other movers, mostly fallers, maybe a couple other risers that we didn't get to earlier in the week before we get to our project prospect segment and our weekend waiver preview. So things are jammed packed today and they're jam packed around the entire network because we're in the final four

for the NHL playoffs as well. So be sure to check out the athletic hockey show with Sean Gentile, Sean McIndoe, see what they've learned during the conference semifinal so far. That's on their Wednesday episode. You know, let's start with the baseball news. You should know the Negro League stats have been added to MLB's official record and there's going to be a conversation on the wind up our baseball show on Friday.

Steven Nesbitt's been writing a lot about this. Steven and Chad Jennings will talk about it. Like I said, we're going to talk about this more in detail next week. But I think we're at this really cool crossroads where the opportunity to learn a lot more about baseball history is happening as a result of this project. And this has been two decades in the making, trying to put together official records and kind of capture some of the lost pieces of baseball history. And I think if you stay away from the comment sections under these pieces

and just read the pieces themselves and find the perspectives from families of players that played in the Negro leagues. Find perspective from black writers, find perspective from anyone outside of the comment section and you will find really interesting perspective and ideas. And I'm at the point where my broadest takeaway is that when we talk about baseball history, the players we talk about, that pool, will include players it should have always included. Right? Josh Gibson will be mentioned much more frequently in the same breath as Babe Ruth as a result of changes like this.

And it's complicated, it's layered, but ultimately I think this is a great thing for baseball history on the whole. Yeah, I've made the mistake myself of not maybe correctly honoring some of these stats that have come out in the past. And I think it's because they just, they aren't at my fingertips, they aren't at Fangraph's, they aren't at Baseball Reference. So getting them on there, I

think, is super important. There's an interesting conversation to be had about assimilation where MLB taking ownership of the Negro Leagues in a weird way by doing this. There are some implications there, but I think in the end this is a positive for everybody involved and. One of the ways that i feel good about it is that the panel that made these decisions on how to integrate these numbers and where to put them was a really good panel of wide ranging list of players from bob kendrick who's the head of the Negro League Museum, to C.C. Sebastia, the pitcher for the Yankees. You've got like a whole group, a whole swath of people that come from different perspectives trying to come to some way to bring this in.

And so let's not make this sort of like about an ownership of MLB taking over the Negro Leagues, but more putting their stats on the same par with others and I think that one thing I've learned from doing Hall of Fame voting in the past has been that Every stat requires context every every stat that we want to think of stats as objective facts. And yet, when you look at a Hall of Fame vote and you make decisions, you make decisions about which stats you value over other ones. You make decisions about what context you're going to consider and which ones you won't. What sort of extra outside, you know, legal things

are you going to consider or not, you know, legal things are you going to consider or not? You know, like there's all sorts of things that you, that you consider. And this goes back to like, if you think that Babe Ruth was one of the best players of his time, he did not play all of the best players of his time. And so if you think that Josh Gibson's numbers shouldn't be put on par with someone that played pre-integration baseball, that's weird because what you're saying is that Josh Gibson's numbers shouldn't be put on par with someone that played pre-integration baseball. That's weird because what you're saying is that Josh Gibson didn't play the best players of his time, but neither did the people in the American League and the

National League at the time. They did not play Josh Gibson. And so just putting them there will help. And apologies for me in the past to for any time that I've, you know, minimized Negro League, Negro League accomplishments for I just never had, I don't have the stats in front of me. You know, I haven't had them in a good sort of a way. Now I love, you know, going over to FanGraphs and looking at the new Woba leader for his career is, is Josh Gibson. The new slugging his career is Josh Gibson. The new slugging percentage leader is Josh Gibson. The new WRC plus leader is Josh Gibson.

I kind of love that. And again, you still have lots of context because he did that in 2,490 plate appearances because the Negro league played in 60 game seasons. And so in some places you'll see that the minimum is 3,000 plate appearances or whatever and that's going to Again minimize some of these accomplishments, but I just love that they're there for you You can make some of your own decisions and assumptions when you when you go there, but they're at least in the public record Yeah, we, very well stated, but yeah, we'll talk a lot more in detail

about some of the ins and outs, probably on an episode next week. That is our plan at least at this point. A lot of good stuff on the athletic, a lot of good stuff outside of the athletic too on this topic, so be sure to dig in, enjoy some great weekend reading. On the current side of things,

the Mets had a pretty eventful Wednesday. So Edwin Diaz went on the aisle with a shoulder impingement. That was a pregame move. Pete Alonso left the game being hit on the hand. Yeah, needed x-rays, had a CT scan. Everything came back clean, fortunately. So it looks like he avoided a major injury with his hand or wrist. That's good.

And then Jorge Lopez got ejected by the third base umpire and as he was walking off the field through his glove over the net into the stand. What did he get ejected for? I haven't actually seen the actual explanation for that. I saw the glove throwing. That part of the story has been lost because Jorge Lopez in the time after he threw his glove in the stands was designated for assignment by the Mets and then made post game comments that if you listen to the actual audio versus the transcripts that were put out there, there's some uncertainty as to

what exactly he said in that moment. And I think people have blown up those comments to be the worst they could possibly be and I'm not sure that's quite exactly what was said or intended to be said in this instance so you know Mets Gonna Mets I guess is the the primary takeaway here. The big thing is that you know Jorge Lopez's first language is not English and he was obviously in distress and Clearly I think probably the best move would have been to say hey not right now or at least give him Give him some moments before we do this scrum or whatever. He so he said something about being the worst effing team in baseball, but if you listen it sounds like

He's saying I'm looking and he doesn't even say the word like, but you kind of have to assume that he means like looking like the worst F and teammate in baseball. To be fair to the people that took that quote, they asked him to confirm, but to be fair to the player, he is in obvious distress and some of the additional reporting that came out afterwards from Will Salmon said that he'd already met with the manager and with David Stearns. Now, if you are going to be disciplined on the team and say like, oh, we're going to find you or something, then I think that would be the manager would suffice.

To me, the fact that David Sterns was in on that meeting might suggest that he already knew he's being DFA'd. If you know you're being DFA'd and you say some stuff and then they're like, where's team or whatever, you're like, please, I just don't want to be here anymore. That's the energy he was giving off. Like, I don't want to be doing this right now. I just don't wanna be here anymore. That's the energy he was giving off. I don't wanna be doing this right now. I don't wanna be here anymore.

This is not a good situation. So people that, Spanish is their first language, like Manny Gomez, who was in the locker room, our friend of the show, Arvin Gonzalez, pointed out that it was more teammate than he was saying. So he was sort of saying that he was sorry for throwing the glove and and being a bad teammate, you know His frustration boiled over so now he's no longer met. I think he will actually get picked up, you know There's there's enough stuff there

There's enough, you know He's a he's a viable enough guy to be someone's fifth reliever for sure And so there are better days in front of you, Jorge Lopez. Yeah, I think so. I think we've seen recent success. I mean, even his stretch with the Orioles last season kind of looked a little more like what we saw back in 2022. I think it's strange to take the worst day for a reliever on a team

that is underperforming and kind of use that as a microcosm for the whole season. That's sort of what the framing has been. 22 and 33 is the record entering play on May 30th. I mean, that's not what anybody had thought the Steve Cohen Mets were gonna be like at this point in his ownership tenure. But if you just take a look back at David Stearns taking over the Brewers several years ago,

year one, they won 73 games. It takes a little bit of time. That was a Stearns council team. I think year two, they won 86 games, and in year three, they were one win away from the World Series. Baseball takes time, and people are impatient. I get it. There's no way that they're the worst team in baseball

I'm sorry like you take away the record and look at the names on the back of the jerseys Look at the amount that's been invested in this team. Look at the raw stats I mean by WRC plus their middle of the pack by pitching war their middle of the pack Maybe a little bit in the back like they are not starting at zero a little bit in the back. Like they are not starting at zero. Like, I mean, one of my favorite pickups around the league right now is Tyler Magill, or is it Trevor?

Tyler. Trevor is the brewer, right? Yeah. Okay, Tyler. Tyler looked really good. The VELO was up. When the VELO is up, it's a really intriguing package there for him.

That's a bit of a player development victory for them's a bit of a player development victory for them. Christian Scott is a player development victory for them. So you're actually seeing some of these investments underneath the hood already paying off. They're going to run payrolls that are going to be three times what the A's roll out there. So in terms of player development, way ahead of the A's and White Sox, in terms of investment, way ahead of the A's and White Sox. So like the very least, they're not like A's, White Sox, and Marlins, which their own real nice brand of stink. They're not in that bottom three. In fact, if we were going to do a true talent,

organizational wide, you know, state of the state of the franchise, wouldn't you put the Mets? I mean, 20th, 15th, like they're not like where would you put that? I mean, just this I know this is not a rigorous thing here. We're not doing a rigorous, but like sort of look at it and just guess. If the question is kind of driving at how far away are teams from winning a World Series and if you're just evaluating starting points as of right now, yeah, they'd be mid-pack

because their resources are off the charts and they will get the right people in place. And you think about, if you're not making a push and you're not leveraging being able to go out and acquire whatever free agency you want because either the market kept you away from a guy like Otani or Yamamoto, then what else are you going to do if you're not going to get the best of the best players available? It doesn't necessarily make sense to throw darts out there at the next wave

if they're not going to make a big difference on your outcome for this season. throw darts out there at the next wave if they're not going to make a big difference on your outcome for this season. I mean just look at the Giants like we wanted them to do something they did something they bought all of the second level free agents they spent the most on second level free agents in baseball this year and they're honestly still kind of boring and not that great. Yeah you could put those guys on a team like the Mets and they'd be five or six wins better potentially, but they'd still be third in their division in the current state. So it's the long game.

I'd say they mid pack to answer your question. I mean, they have got a handful of guys that are just not playing very well. Alonzo before this injury, a 761 OPS for Peter Alonzo. That's pretty strange through 55 games. Jeff McNeil hasn't been himself, Lindor hasn't. Yeah, Lindor's kind of a slow starter sometimes. Yeah, he's been just weirdly unproductive. There's a lot of underperforming players here.

I think that's where a lot of the tension comes from. Francisco Alvarez has been hurt. I think once he comes back, that adds a lift. So it's not all as bleak as it's made out to be with the Mets I've tried to say it before I think they're headed in the right direction It's just it's taken a little longer than expected to get the car driving down the highway the way you might like By the end of this season, they'll be they'll be they'll look better at the end of the season They do today, you know, I think the Mets need to do

I'm slightly serious about this. Build high rises towards the water. To change the weather patterns? Yeah. Ha ha ha. There's something weird about how that place plays. It shouldn't be as pitcher friendly as it is, I think. Totally fair.

I'm kind of a little bit serious about that. Maybe they could do what Cleveland did and lop off part of the top of the stadium. I don't think that's the long term plan. It's a relatively new ballpark and I think you expect to be able to fill that ballpark on a consistent basis like two or three years from now because your team's going to be a lot better then than it is today. So you're gonna need those seats eventually, if you're gonna take an optimistic approach.

But yeah, between Lindor and Alonso to establish stars, not hitting their level, you look at Brett Beatty as someone hasn't clicked yet. The Maneel contract was a bad idea. Sure, but it's the combination of a lot of factors. It's not any one thing that's holding the 2024 Mets back. Let's get to some of your other starting pitcher rankings for a bit. We did talk a lot about fallers.

I think it's it's always a bummer to lower players and rankings, especially players who are healthy. It's easier to lower the injured guys. Well, okay, they're just out. I'll deal with them moving back up when who are healthy. It's easier to lower the injured guys. Well, OK, they're just out. I'll deal with them moving back up when they're healthy. And if I don't move them all the way back up to where they were, it's probably because they're not completely healthy. And I feel OK about that.

But the nothing seems to be wrong physically. Droppers. Those guys are kind of a bummer. But Michael King, I think, deserves another conversation because going through the winter, so much stock was put into what he did at the end of last season in the Yankees rotation, kind of being the best current pitcher of the guys acquired in the Juan Soto deal, I think also amplified expectations on him getting out of Yankee Stadium, moving into Petco. All of those good things were all happening together. Some things have been good.

Some things have been bad. We've talked a lot about the issues he has against lefties, maybe being the biggest hurdle for him long term as a starter. Homers have been the main skills flaw so far this year, right? Thirteen homers in 66 innings and even more almost more walks this year in 66 innings and he had in 104 and two thirds last year he's got 29 walks on the season compared to 32 with a larger workload last year so what do you make what we've seen from Michael King are you seeing signs of leveling out because you dropped

him from 32 to 48 so even if you're a 48th ranked starting pitcher, you're usually in the lineup. You're still pretty consistently viable in fantasy. All of his home starts for the most part, I think would be usable. And then you just got to pick your spots carefully on the road based on what we're seeing right now. Yeah. I mean, generally my worry is tied into that production against left-handers and also just that his VELO just fell off so much.

Starting as a reliever and finishing the season as a starter with the Yankees, he basically was relieving for five innings at a time for the Yankees. And I think the approach this year was, I want, and he said this, he said this publicly, the team has said this, it's an obvious need for them for him to pitch as much as he can, right? To pitch a full starters workload. And so he's come into the season

trying to be more of a starter, and that has led to the VELO dropping almost linearly from start to start. I mean, he's down to 92.8 now in his last start. Then you pair that with the stuff rating saying, well, OK, at this VELO, he's not the same as he was stuff wise. The fastballs have all fallen below 100 stuff plus and overall he's sort of average now. And then you look back at the splits and you see like,

you know, okay, versus lefties, you know, he's given up six home runs and, you know, in fact, righties have a higher slugging percentage, 438 against King this year. So really it's, it's just all across the board. It's just, he's not as good. It's not as good as I expected. And yes, the K-Bb is still good, but 26 minus 10 is 16. Average is 14. So neither, if you're looking at the K-9s and thinking he's just as good as last year in terms of that, no, last year he had 29.5% strikeout rate, King did.

And this year he has a 26.2. He's down in strikeouts, up in walks. Velo is down. And so it was just enough for me to say this is not a guy that I trust for every start. And that's a little bit where he dropped below that line. Completely fair. And I think that's a good breakdown of why it's happened this way for Michael King to this point in the season.

Justin Verlander fell kind of from a similar place. He was at 36 down to 52. Verlander's really tough. I mean, I think it's the age factor, it's what was happening last season. The recent outings, including one that just happened against Seattle on Wednesday which would have happened after the rankings were submitted 9k's one earned just three hits over seven innings against Seattle that looks more

like vintage verlander I mean three of his last four starts eight K's eight eight nine nine in there with one one rough outing against the Brewers where he only went four and two-thirds give it four runs away, struck out three. I watched those games. I was at, yes. You're at the Oakland one. Yes. I was at the Oakland one.

I watched the Seattle one last night while the kids were, uh, having their screen time and I would say that the... It's really strange. The execution is not there from pitch to pitch. The shapes are there and the VLOs are there. And overall, it'll say that, you know, the command is fine. So in terms of the model, it's fine. But it's a bit of a like a scouting thing for me where I'm just like, I don't know. I think that the recent run of success has as much to do with the quality of the opponent

as it does with the quality of Irlander. And what made me nervous was that despite he has 20 inches of ride on his fastball and, you know, still throwing 94 miles an hour on average. And so Stuff Plus says he's still good. Stuff Plus has said he's good for the last two years. And now we're settling in. We're settling into a 22% strikeout rate. And I just don't know that that's enough to keep up a low 3ZRA.

I'm a little more optimistic on Verlander. I think in part because he didn't start the season on time. So I think some of that, that's kind of scouting, like he's not locating or executing as well. I think it would surprise me if that didn't improve, at least a little bit going forward. And I think the big thing for me is I'm splitting out the stuff numbers by year, which you can do on fan graphs.

You can hit the split seasons, do a custom player thing, and you can see what's changing along the way. The big difference for me is the fastball is grading out a lot better. The slider compared to last season is a little better, curveball is a little better, changeup is a little better, but the fastball is a lot better. That gives them to me a little higher floor. I'd be shocked if the K rate stayed in the low 20s. I think 25, 26% is still very reasonable.

Maybe even a little bit more than that's possible. Everything we're seeing from the underlying numbers outside of that execution to me suggests that the 2022 strikeout rate is even possible for the rest of the season. And the strikeout rate itself is kind of a process stat. Right. Right. It's not good. Well, it's not good right now, but I think it's going to be better than it has been to this point.

It's fair. I tripped over it a little bit. One reason that I ended up finally pulling him down was that his projection was for a 422 ERA. And I think that's as much aging curve as anything else. So in essence, we're rehashing the Paul Goldschmidt debate here. Yes, I think so. And I think because the granular things we can look at within a player's profile for pitching, I think are a little more reliable right now than they are for hitting

That gives me more confidence deserved or undeserved It's a more confidence that there's a little more in the in the jar when it comes to verlander At this point Joe Musgrove also kind of in a similar shift as far as taking a tumble down the rankings Interesting to his slider by the stuff numbers is up, but his fastball, while it's better than it was last year, is still not good. Some of the concerns you expressed about Verlander, I think I have more of that on Musgrove right now.

Because maybe it's because there's less of a track record in the grand scheme of things, and I think the injury complications seem like they're a little more there at this point. And also, there's a very clear process that has just not been the same since before Mexico last year. He's just as likely to come out there an average 92 in a game as anything right now.

Yeah, 92-6 I think for the season is where he's sitting right now. And the last two starts were like 92-1 and 92-6 I think for the season is where he's sitting right now. And the last two starts are like 92-1 and 92-2. So like not trending in the right direction. While he does have some good games on his ledger, the last one against the Yankees, you know, five and a third, five strikeouts winner and it's got to be considered a victory, you know, on paper in terms of process at least. He had a good start against the Reds before he went on the IL.

So he's had some good starts. But I think the general thing for me is just, he can't throttle the fastball any more than he has. You know what I mean? Like, he's down to throwing the fastball 20% of the time in a lot of his starts. And I guess he can go fastball cutter, slider curve, kitchen sink at you basically. But the hard stuff is just falling so far behind that I just, I don't know. I think he's going to

have homer issues this year because they're gonna sit on those fastballs and they're gonna hit him. He's gonna be able to keep the strikeout rate. He might even strike out 22-23% of the guys going forward and be good there. But I think as a 1.15 homeruns per nine for Joe Musgrove for his career, 1.82 right now, there's a bit of a guessing game when it comes to home run rates in season like this. I'm just going to guess on the heavier side. Something like the Bats 4.12 ERA with a 1.18 whip and 1.3 homers per nine feels about right. Seems fair at this point for Joe Musgrove. Let's talk about Aaron Savali. He's one of two Rays that fell a long way in this update. And it makes sense that ERA, the shade under six, the whip is at a career worst at 134.

We are seeing a strikeout per inning from Savali up at this point. 57 Ks and 56 and two thirds innings. One thing that jumps off the page aside from the home run problem, which he's had at many points in the past, it's a career worst home run rate so far, but a 94.7% zone contact percentage, that is extremely high. That alone gives me some pause about looking at Sierra at 376 and saying he's going to pitch to that going forward. I would be, I'd be very reluctant to buy into that as a true measure of his talent right now when he's getting hit in the zone as often as he is. Yeah, the number that also opened my eyes is the home and away splits for strikeouts minus walks. And it's not something that I normally look at because most places don't

have that big of an effect in terms of stadiums effect on strikeouts. But we know that Tampa Bay augments strikeouts more than anywhere else. I can tell you from my research into Stuff Plus that Stuff Plus is best in Tampa Bay. Domes are good for Stuff Plus. So you get a team that has their own Stuff Plus, that acquires players by Stuff Plus, coaches them by their type of Stuff Plus, and then has a stadium that augments their Stuff Plus. And so you look at Aaron Savalli, and this year he has a 27.9% strikeout rate at home. He has an 18% strikeout weight away from home. And his K-minus PB at home is 22.5, Ferran Savoie away, it's 9.6. That goes from top quartile to bottom quartile.

And you could say it's just a trick of the schedule or this or that, but it goes back to last year when he was acquired by the Rays, same deal. And if you think about his home away splits in context of the team's strengths and weaknesses and what the park does, to me, he's a home start only right now. Even this year, he's got a 4-4-5 at home and a 7-4 away from home. And again, I don't stare too many holes into splits like that. But when you've got the sort of underlying numbers doing the same thing, and you got this whole story of

how the Rays acquire and develop and what their stadium does, I think of him as a half time starter now, at least until he proves me wrong, you know, I would be curious if you looked at a zone contact percentage of leaderboard for starting pitchers. I mean, if you do qualified and you choose, now I'm looking at the stat cast version of this metric, so the numbers are a little bit different,

but 91.5% is a zone contact percentage by stat cast. That's the highest among qualified starters. Aaron Savalli leads the league in a bad stat. Other guys in this leaderboard, I'm just curious if this is a place you'd shop or if it's a metric that needs more context, which most metrics. Savali, Javier Asad, Logan Webb, Zach Galin, Jose Quintana, Miles Michaelis, Christopher Sanchez, Patrick Corbin, Bailey Falter, and Ranger Suarez are your top 10.

And they're all 89.3% or higher. So there are a lot of contact in the zone in this group. I think that the biggest piece of context that you can filter out all the good names on this list except for one with one stat. Ground ball rate, yeah. I mean, that's the other thing you'd wanna put next to it.

So then you're left with a bunch of bad players And then the the I guess the three that we would have to figure out how we feel about them are Assad Gallon and falter falter To be as a flash in the pan I did just pick him up on on you for a buck as I just I need I'm desperate for starters But I think of him as best case scenario, deep league home start.

So that's that's where I'm at with him. Javier Assad, I think is a big regression candidate. I've said why I like him and I still like him, but I like him as a major league average starter. Yeah, and his his results to this point have just been so much better than that. A 281 career ERA, 125 whip in 205 innings like that doesn't seem quite right. Yeah and then I think I don't know Gallin is a mixture of really you know kind of league leading-ish command, good feel for his pitches. He has become more of a two-pitch pitcher recently than I expected, but I don't know.

He also, his stuff is down. So that's part of the story. So I think Zach Galen is basically the big question mark on this list. The other raised pitcher that fell a good bit in the rankings is Zach Efflin. Their strikeout rate's down. Who is 12th in zone contact rate.

Right, he's right there, just missed the cut before. He isn't getting a lot of outs on the ground. Actually, it's like his highest, well, it's his lowest ground ball rate since his rookie season all the way back in 2016. So that's a little bit odd. Fewer swinging strikes, more contact in the zone. You know, the control has always been good.

1.6% walk rate. So like the ratios are good, but the K-Rate's low. Is that the main problem? He's just not missing enough bats and that's where he's going to lag categorically. Well, some of the story was that the Rays took him and pumped up his breaking ball usage and really reduced his fastball usage. And that was part of why he was good last year. And to some extent, I believe it, it's in the numbers. It's, you know, he doubled his cutter usage. He upped his curve ball usage by 40%, not 40 percentage points, 40%.

And reduced his fastball from 56% to 38%. So that's, that all was true last year. He's kind of, I don't know why, but he's gone back to looking a lot more like the Phillies version. At least he's gone back in that direction. Fastball is up, cutter is down, curveball is down. And the curveball being down from 26% to 19.6%

makes me feel like that's related maybe to the back issue. Sometimes you'll hear from guys like I've definitely heard this from some pitchers. I don't that you why don't you throw this pitch that rates so well because it hurts. The main reason he fell though was he was on the IL. He was on the IL and I wasn't sure how long the IL st't would be and I wasn't a hundred percent sure how good he was so to compare all that together Makes me feel like okay. I don't know necessarily where to put him. I put him among some injured players I think yeah and for now It looks like he's trending toward the shorter end of the two to four week timetable that was put out there

It's gonna have a light bullpen session today. He's going to do more on Sunday. And then from there, the Rays are supposed to come up with the next steps. That's according to Ryan Bass of Bally Sports Sun. If he comes back out in 55, he comes back and he's healthy again. I could at least, you know, see him jumping into the 30s, like maybe around you say, Kikuchi level. Kikuchi is going to strike out more guys, though. And that was, you know, that's a big thing that's missing for Eflin even

in our stuff based productions you know he has a 21.8% projected strikeout rate. You can't forget about that you know when you're ranking these guys a lot of the times people are saying well why isn't Brian Bayo higher? Well I've got him projected for a 20.5% strikeout rate you know and that is a category in fantasy. Why isn't Suarez higher? I've got him projected for a 20.5% strikeout rate, you know? And that is a category in fantasy. Wyzen Suarez is higher. I've got him projected for a 21% strikeout rate. So the projected strikeout rate and the health

is really the two poles that required me to drop him. We should have some hitter rankings coming out late next week. It's gonna take a little more time to get that next set up, but looking forward to talking through those once they become available. Let's move on to Project Prospect, which is really another injury segment. Well, this is kind of a prospecty thing.

I did move, I'm playing around with just like keeping the latest rankings in the Google Doc kind of updated and just like playing, just like using that as my working ranks. And I moved Ben Brown up. Ben Brown, when I put the rankings out, Ben Brown was a reliever. And they had just decided that maybe what's his face was leaving the rotation, Kal Hendricks is leaving the rotation.

And so I had him a little bit lower just because I didn't know what his role was. I've moved him up to 73 right now, and he even could be low 60s like Brandon Foddish, Jordan Montgomery-ish. One thing that Brown's not gonna do for you is length. And so he may not get you a lot of wins. He may only go four. He may be like their four, four and a half innings guy. As a two-pitch starter,

you're seeing better two-pitch starters have struggles. So I'm excited about him and the stuff is great, but Christian Javier's stuff is great and I'm not as excited about him. So I'm gonna put him in the 60s for now, Ben Brown. Yeah, the other factor for the Cubs is Jordan Wicks is working through a rehab assignment. So eventually if they activate Wicks,

they gotta make a decision. He could still lose his job. Even though last time out, we saw seven no-hit innings, 10 Ks, just two walks, 93 pitches against the Brewers. Ben Brown looked fantastic. The slider really grading out nicely in the model as well. So I do think it's gonna be a pricey ad

if we're talking about weekend waiver pickups because of how good the last outing was. And it may be a pricey ad. We're talking about weekend waiver pickups because of how good the last outing was. And it may be a trap. You may spend a bunch of money and then you lose them in a week when Jordan Wicks comes back. Lose them and then maybe get them back two weeks after that because everything is written in pencil.

If someone else gets hurt. Yeah. We're going to talk a lot about just how difficult it is to have a limited runway on the Friday show at Trevor May 1 o'clock Eastern will go live on our YouTube page because there are some players that this is not the case for Ben Brown, but sometimes your opportunity to secure your role long term. It's like I think it is actually the case for Ben Brown because they could they can make him a closer just as easily as making him the fist the fist starter right now.

They do have such a clear need in the bullpen, but this is a guess. I think they would use him that way, but still keep the light on for future use as a starter. I think they would at least have that. Some organizations don't have that though, but yeah, we'll dig into some situations like that on our Friday show. So other project prospect news, tons of injury stuff. We're just gonna kind of fly through these rapid fires. The show doesn't end up being two hours long.

Wyatt Langford's back from the IL, so some good news there. So be sure to get him back into your lineups. I don't think he was really dropped anywhere. But a drop that you may have to consider in most redraft situations, Junior Caminero has a grade two quad strain. He's gonna miss four to six weeks. I mean, we can't wait 4-6 more weeks plus maybe more time for him to get comfortable again in redraft,

can we? Yeah, I think that's a drop that you've unfortunately had to hold onto for a couple of months in many cases. Jason Dominguez playing centerfield in his rehab assignment now, he's headed to, it's a question, is he headed to AAA? Once he's eventually ready, or do the Yankees fit him into their lineup? They are killing it right now.

Who do you sit? Stanton isn't hitting for average, but he has 116 WRC plus. He's 13 homers. Verdugo. 117 so far. I mean, kind of doing typical Verdugo things. low K rate, only a 321 OBP, but doing enough where you'd want to keep playing him.

If somebody could play first Rizzo is at 98 WRC plus, but it's not like atrocious work. He has seven homers, you know, he's he's doing okay. None of these guys can play second. So labor Torres is fine for now I hope it's summer of Gleyber, but man, this is this has not been the first two months that I was hoping for from Gleyber Torres Not at all. I mean I've a couple of my favorites Gleyber Torres Cedric Mullins Chas McCormick

Hurt me. I think the takeaway on Dominguez is he might not be an obvious redraft stash because there's not a place for him to Play right now, but as we know that Yankees older core Has injury issues and that could change one of those guys goes down then suddenly you're really interested again I mean here in first place and you don't have like a lot of IL on your bench like it might be interesting to have him for a dollar, you know, on the back end of your bench, because it's not like Aaron Judge is the paragon of health.

And I feel like Jason Dominguez is the obvious replacement, injury replacement, if one of those guys gets hurt. Stanton gets hurt too. Right, I think even Judge, Judge's stuff is a little more fluky in nature, but Stanton, it seems like it is always an I.L. stint looming for John Carlos Stanton, just quad hamstring, things like that, that pop up on him.

Speaking of hamstrings, one of the more popular stashes right now, James Wood just landed on the seven day I.L. I thought he was close, especially with the DFA of Robles. I thought this is more room in that nationals outfield. Yeah, I think it's probably August. I think they're probably looking at James Wood more like we saw like the Corbin Carroll Gunnar Henderson promotions a couple seasons ago, because then you leave the door open for all the perks.

Keep his rookie in 2025. Yep, I think I think that's where they're headed. You play him sparingly so that he doesn't use up all of his rookie eligibility alive. Yep, I think that's where they're headed. You play him sparingly so that he doesn't use up all of his rookie eligibility. Right, it gets experience, you get a better look at him against top level pitching, you see how ready he is for day one of 2025, and then you go from there. That's what it seems like they're doing.

Fortunately, it's just tightness, doesn't sound like it's a major injury for James Wood. Jett Williams had another cortisone shot in his wrist. I didn't see that he had the first cortisone shot, so when I saw a second cortisone shot, I wasn't feeling good, but it actually helped kind of explain why Jet Williams hasn't produced much at the plate this year.

One of the higher ranked prospects out of the Mets system and young for the level at AA, and that's the level where he finished, just played a handful of games there last year, but the slash line has been underwhelming this year. I think health is a huge part of the reason why. My son's a big fan. He likes him, the name?

Yeah, he just also loves that he's short. He's short, yeah. He's rooting for him. So yeah, I hope he gets it together. The fun thing is the amount of power that comes out of that frame. That's what's been missing this year. I mean, everything's been missing. But I hope he gets it right. And maybe surgery isn't the worst thing in the world, if that's what it comes to, because something's not right.

I would say, when I see players like this who are pretty highly regarded on multiple prospect lists and they're having a bad half, bad couple of months, and there's a health related reason, that's a good time to try and get that player in a trade. So even if you are playing for now and you're swapping prospects to get a deal done, trying to get Jet Williams back is a pretty sharp thing to do because he's a big part of the Mets future.

Maybe a part of the Mets more near future. Drew Gilbert will be out until the second half of June. That's according to Will Salmon of the Athletic. I thought Gilbert was a candidate to maybe come up a little earlier if he tore the cover off the ball. He's only played seven games so far this year though. So it's probably more like a late season call if they trade everybody, have spots open and want to do that sort of thing where they give him that look see if he's ready and then maybe have him on the opening day roster in 2025 but less certainty i think with Gilbert than with James Wood probably getting that opportunity Jackson Job completed a side session he's working his way back from the IELTS with some good news there from the Tigers organization Jordan Beck was scheduled to have hand surgery on Wednesday.

I've won him in one of my auctions that day. Beck? Yeah. On the day of the surgery? For a dollar. No, on the day of the injury. Ah, day of the injury. It's tough because the K-rate's been really high, but it's the first foray into big league pitching. What do you expect? high but it's his first it was like first for a it gets big league pitching like what do you expect also you know a little bit of a notch in the belt for swinging strike rate being more predictive than strikeout rate he did have high swing strike rates in the minors even at triple a when the k

rate came down i think so 12.9 is not you see a 19.8 percent strikeout rate you assume kind of like a 10 i think the interesting thing about j Beck, though, is the only level prior to his big league debut where the K rate got really high was his first exposure to double A last season. He was 22, it wasn't like he was old for the level or anything. I like the long-term outlook here quite a bit. The hit tool's the question.

I think you're right to point out the swinging strike rate, but kind of like the Jet Williams situation, although not quite as highly regarded, a guy you'd want to get back in a trade for later, if you're playing for now and can afford to just wait and say, I'll see what happens in 2025. Someone cuts him in auto new and you can pick him up for a dollar or two like that.

Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, still some stash appeal there. Chase DeLotter is back after dealing with a foot injury. He's playing at double AA Akron right now We'll see if he gets going and then Joey Cantillo is starting his rehab assignment Does Chase the Lotter still have a job waiting for him? And as of right now no, he has to stay healthy and produce and down the road I think the question is the question is how good is Tyler Freeman?

I think you know Tyler Freeman right now is playing to 95 WRC plus Which is amazing because you might look at the batting average say what? But it's a ton of contact. It's not it's not completely powerless He has a 109 max CV and a 4.9 percent barrel rate It's a 237 babiff that if that regresses positively 37 Babov that if that regresses positively, you could have a 275 hitter here with, you know, 10 plus Homer and power and 10 plus steals who's playing centerfield decently. It's not always like the long term plan, but it's also kind of hard to be like,

okay, Tyler Freeman, we're, we're trying to chase the lotter now, especially when you're winning, right? Yeah, things are going well. They're showing us a lot more power than we expected and making us look silly for talking them down on our AL Central episode a few weeks back. I do think it's interesting that before the injuries, the Lotter had played more in center field

than in the corners this year. So that gives you an idea of where they're trying to fit him in. And they seem more desperate there. I mean, they're trying Freeman there. They tried to get Florio like they they're trying to figure out center field. They DFA'd straw, you know, like they're worried about center field. I think it's Freeman and Will Brennan to an extent. Like you're looking at what those guys give you with the bat compared to what

the lotter eventually gives you with the bat. And that will be the relative measuring stick for whether or not the lotuter gets up and gets an opportunity in the second half of this season But it's got to solve double a first probably makes a stop at triple a I think we're still talking about a couple of months At the earliest before he's a part of the plan crazy, but Freeman may have more power than Will Brennan I don't think that you would have said that before the season. But in terms of raw power, Freeman is ahead. And in terms of bail rate, Brennan just headed by like a single decimal or a single percentage point. Like, I don't know.

It does line up with Scott. Pick Freeman over Brennan. Yeah, I think I would too. More versatility. 35 raw power, 30 game power from FanGrafx, the last report from them. So I know Will Brennan seems like just a clear backup outfielder.

Tyler Freeman might be more like a regular or a more versatile player because he can play on the dirt and in the outfield. And that bodes well for his long-term playing time. We talked about some low barrel-ers on the show on Tuesday and there was a prospect in the news that I think kind of fits into this. It's Jacob Wilson. He's on the 7-day IL with a knee injury right now. I think by scouting reports, he fits into that Bryce Terang, Stephen Kwan kind of mold that we're talking about.

And it comes down to, do you think he's a good enough defender or he's capable of developing more pop or what what other facets of his game can play up alongside the hit tool if he is in fact going to be a low barrel or in the long run because right now it looks like it looks like a pick that the A's are somewhat right on even though there were more dynamic players they could have taken with that sixth overall pick. And the results have been fantastic. It's just not the type of player that we ordinarily get that excited about from from a prospecting perspective. Yeah, it's super bizarre, actually. I mean, it's like a four percent walk rate, nine percent strikeout rate

from Jacob Wilson, the minors and one tracked ball over 100 miles per hour. It's one hundred point two in AAA. But it's a small sample in AAA of course 25 delayed appearances so we want we want more time there but if he didn't have a 250 ISO in AA I would say this is all legs and this is all putting the bat on the ball and there is no real power here. Van Graaf's raw 30-35 game 20-30 but but hit 6070 on Jacob Wilson. Yeah, it's a really interesting profile. It's Stephen Kwan, Luis Arias at shortstop. I mean, it's obviously gonna have a lot of real value,

but what kind of value he has in fantasy is a question mark. Yeah, I'm finding myself unimpressed from a fantasy perspective, but genuinely curious from a real life perspective. Yeah. If it's enough hit tool to make that work. That's where I fall on these players. I think he has hit the ball harder than 100.

Luis Arias hits the ball harder than 100 in terms of raw power. And if you think about it, Nick Allen made a lot of contact and was a great defensive shortstop in the minors and he demonstrates what happens when you just don't have enough power to be a major leaguer, I think. Yeah, that's a good point. Let's move on to some other news here.

We had a recent promotion. Spencer Schwellenbach debuted for Atlanta and filling that spot, that last spot in the rotation has been a little bit tricky. Couple injuries for the Braves too. A.J. Smith's Schaver is hurt right now. Owen Murphy needs Tommy John, so Murphy was a little further away of course,

but just looking at their current need, Schwellenbach debuted against the Nationals. You know, I thought he pitched pretty well. Five innings, three earned. I think Lane Thomas got him for a home, or 5K, one walk. Did you see anything in the pitch mix and the stuff model that gives you some interest in Schwellenbach,

even if it's only a short-term opportunity for him in the Atlanta rotation? Yeah, a good fastball, you know, and a good slider really. There will be some question maybe about things beyond that in terms of the other pitches he threw. He threw the fastball and the slider only a combined 54% of the time last time out. So he threw inferior pitches and that's why his overall stuff grade won't be that great.

But it might still be good news that he threw those inferior pitches. The fact that he has them, the fact that they may be major league quality. You can't look at one game of stuff plus and say, oh, the curve ball is not good, especially not the change up. You can't say that's no good because of one game. You look at the grade, a 50-55 grade from Fangraphs on the change up, if he does have a 50-55 change up and then has a plus fastball and a plus slider and then evidence in the minor leagues of good feel in terms of walk rates and strikeout

rates at least, I'm excited about him. And in fact, there may be more of a complete package here than you had with AJ Smith-Schroffer. So if the news is that he stays up, and also he sat 95-8. So I'm in. If there's any news that he's staying up or you know I want to see more. I think this was a good debut. One start is really low information for anything but in the stuff model you want to have good foreseen fastball and slider after one start because that's those are the ones that have the most signal and he did that. So you do that. You throw five pitches, you sit 95, eight, you got my attention.

Yeah. And I think that window could be open for a little while. I mean, they're using rake her as a starter right now, but Smith Schafer's injury is a grade two left oblique strain. That's not going to be a quick turnaround. So I'm Schwellenbach will go on the road to Boston as the schedule currently lines up for his second big league start. That's just awful. Could be worse.

Well, I'm hoping, you know, what you could do, what I'll do is put a very small bid on him or stash him in a way where I don't have to start him. And then if I don't win him or, you know, I want to avoid that start in Boston. Sure. I think Schwalbebach's gonna be one of the more widely available options for 15 team leagues.

In some 12s, you're gonna have the choice of maybe going after Ben Brown or Schwalbebach, so I'm curious if you're choosing between the two, how you might rank them or prioritize them. Brown. I know I just said some nice things about Schwalbebach having a larger arsenal, but at this point, when you're making that decision, it's about schedule too. Yeah, it's a good factor to consider and as far as Ben Brown goes his next start would be well

It's gonna be Sunday. We're gonna see him again before fab runs home against the Reds and then next week He'd be on the road at Great American Ballpark against the Reds again If these reds are really bad team on the road, but pitching in Cincinnati is not awesome. But you know what? There's a whiff of dominance about these two pitches that I might risk it. It looked really good and watching them earlier this week against the Brewers. Another pitcher you might be thinking about at least in 12 team days. I think he's mostly rostered in 15s is Matt Waldron and knuckleballing his way to kind of keep a spot in this rotation for the Padres.

Looking at his upcoming schedule, he's also got a two-start week, so even if you weren't interested based on what he was doing on merit, by schedule at the Angels and home against the Diamondbacks is gonna put him on a lot of rosters, at least temporarily, but is there a longer-term case that you can make for Matt Waldron?

Yes, not only that, the next stop is at New York, the Mets. And then it's not till June 19th at Philly that you kind of get a little nervous. Lastly, about Waldron, he is now the reigning knuckleball Velo King. He has now thrown two harder knuckleballs than the hardest that we ever tracked from R.A. Dickey. R.A. Dickey. R.A. Dickey

himself told me that Velo was important for him and in my piece up today I have this nugget, knuckle balls over 80 miles an hour produce a 190 batting average and a 292 slugging. Knuckle balls under 80 miles per hour produce a 255 batting average and a 417 slugging. So 100 points plus of slugging you lose when you're over 80. And guess what? He sat 80 on the knuckleball. Two starts in a row. They've been his best starts.

I think there's a chance here for one of the best knuckleballs of recent vintage because Ari Adiki threw his fastball 85 and he got his knuckleball up to 84. Matt Walden throws his fastball 91. Do you think there's still some room for some growth maybe? Maybe. Knuckleballs are just so unique. There's so few guys that have thrown them that you can't even like project off of them. You're like, oh, he's just got this and shrug emoji. But it's a it's like a smiling shrug emoji. It's like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's it is there's some shrugging in there. It's it's hard to project. We don't have a 85 mile knuckleball ever. So if he throws an 85 mile knuckleball, you know, he will be in rarefied air. He will have no cops almost, you know. And then just the fact that he throws a full arsenal is just super weird he will be in rarefied air. He will have no comps almost, you know? And then just the fact that he throws a full arsenal is just super weird because the way you throw a knuckleball,

you can see it coming. So there's no like, oh, am I throwing the fastball or the knuckleball? Like as the hitter, you're like, oh, that's the knuckleball, you know, in terms of his delivery and stuff. So it is weird that he has these other pitches. He should almost not have the other pitches. The other thing that's cool about the knuckleball is

it moves actually like any other pitch on a pitch to pitch level. So like it moves like a slider or like a change up, or you know, it's just a random number generator. It's a random pitch shape generator. You just don't know what it's gonna be. And so that's what's so brilliant about it. So that's why most knuckle ballers

have just thrown mostly knuckle balls. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Why throw a sweeper when they see your arm slot. If they see your mechanics, they'd be like, okay, this is either fastball or sweeper basically. And then they see mechanics, it's a knuckle ball, but the knuckleball could be anything. Then I think you should,

I just think you should throw more knuckleballs than I think you should throw them as hard as you can. Do you think the ideal knuckleballer has the knuckler they can throw like half the time or 60% of the time, but then they have two pitches that play off each other instead of just one? Like if you were just knuckleball, fastball. If I built the best knuckleballer,

it would be like Ben Brown with a knuckleball, right? Where he's just like dominating two pitch thing, or oh God, what the hell is this? Oh, you're on one of my two pitches? Here, have a knuckleball. Enjoy this. It's extremely hard to do with command. That's why it doesn't happen.

But yes, if you could. Maybe David Fletcher will do it. He could be on his way back. His Velo is a little lighter on the knuckleball so far, but I would look at that and say, well, just give it time. Like projecting how- He struck out Jackson Holliday with the knuckleball. David Fletcher.

Yes, David Fletcher, that David Fletcher, the one with the bookie friend. David Fletcher, David Fletcher's having a much more interesting 2024 than anybody would have expected. Yes, I think so. I mean, he knew. He knew all these things were happening.

Might be happening. But none of us did until March. Since March, low key, very intriguing character in baseball. The other thing a lot of people are going to be doing, of course, this week, they've already taken one shot probably at trying to find some outfield help for Ronald Lacuna jr but if you're looking for outfielders this week there's a handful of names we want to bring up Nelson Velasquez more for shadow leagues i think people have been really patient with him this year just had a two homer game on wednesday do you think the patience will finally be rewarded we know Velasquez hits the ball very very hard so he's to me seems the kind

of player that if he goes on a heater, he could have a month's worth of stats in a week and make up for some lost time pretty quickly. Yeah. And, you know, another one of my favorites, although I didn't spend a lot on him was NJ Melendez. They're playing him and they're winning. But you know, those two things may not continue at the same rate. I think that the more you win, the more you say, do we want to sit, you know, somebody

today for Velazquez? I guess there's some injury though, because Dairon Blanco is playing. So Isbell is hurt. And J. Melendez can't play center. Renfro is not a good center fielder. Velasquez is not center fielder, so that's irrelevant. Darian Blanco is a guy you could pick up if you just want steals.

He's taking over in center while Isbel's hurt. But on the corners, it's Melendez, Pascantino, Renfro, and Velasquez, and there's really actually four jobs for them. So I think what's he who's who's Velazquez fighting Nick Prado himself? He's fighting himself. I mean, yeah, you're always worried about the next guy coming up from AAA. Like even if Prado's not on the roster, but he could be a big side platoon guy. Then that causes problems for Velazquez.

It's interesting, too, to me, I'm looking at the roster rates on CBS. Jake Meyer's still 35% rostered. If that- We made the case for him last week. Yeah, we've thrown that out there before. I thought that number would be higher when I looked into it. So I would say if Jake Myers is still out there and you're in a shallow enough league

and you're reeling from that Acuna injury, that's one way to work around it. Two names to throw at you before we go. Chaz, my boy, went 0 for 4 last night. Didn't know that good. The pressure, the pressure on Chaz McCormick right now is intense. Right now dude, he's not in a good space. If you're in the deep situation and you're looking at guys like Miguel Andujar and Corey Jolks and you're trying to take your shot at one of those guys, they're both like 6% rostered in 12-team leagues, but this is more for like 15s, who do you like better between Jolx and Nduhar as guys on sub 500 teams that should play a lot? I think I like Jolx a little bit

better. Better home park. What Nduhar has going for him is better power, better raw power, but Jolx is going to steal some bases. And Jolx has had better demonstrated power in the past. And And Jokes has had better demonstrated power in the past. And if he hits a ball 110 this year, he'll get more of my attention. Because he steals bases. And he could be a slightly more even line. Whereas Andohar is not going to steal you any bases, he's not going to take you any walks, he's going to hit in Oakland. So you're going gonna really be depending on

a lot of those balls finding grass. Once they stop doing that, he's gonna have a better batting average and equalish power, I think, and less speed. It's really interesting to me that some of the scouting takes on Jelks were, you know, power over hit for a long time because when you look at how he controls the strike zone,

he chases a little bit, but he draws a lot of walks. He doesn't strike out a lot. This is the type of player when you give someone in their late 20s playing time and you're a bad team, this is the kind of player you play. Yeah, we talked about Stone Garret's kind of like that. Just has stuff that he does. It's really interesting on a team like Houston last year, the playing time was going to be up and down, but with the White Sox, just keep penciling Corey Jolks into the lineup.

I think you're right. I think Jolks over and Doohar makes sense, but if you're looking at one, you're probably looking at the other at least as a contingency bid. Good luck with the bids this weekend. We have our Friday livestream coming on Friday at one o'clock with Trevor May, so be sure to check that out on our YouTube page. If you want a subscription to the Athletic, tons of great stuff to read over there. Theathletic.com slash rates and barrels gets you the best current offer that we have available

for that. You can find Eno on Twitter at EnoSarris. You can find me at Derek and Riper. Find the podcast at rates and barrels. That's going to do it. We're back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.