Rates & Barrels - Starting Pitchers that Eno Loves in 2025

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Eno and DVR catch up on a few intriguing baseball news items from the first week of spring training before diving into Eno's recently released 2025 Starting Pitcher rankings to discuss several pitchers that Eno loves in 2025. Rundown 1:13 Ronald Acuña Jr.: 'Taking it Easy' on the Basepaths After Second ACL Tear 5:37 Francisco Alvarez: Big Swing Changes This Winter 12:48 Shane McClanahan: No Restrictions This Spring 17:39 Buying Into Hunter Brown's Step Forward in 2024 22:31 Similar Vibes Around Grayson Rodriguez? 26:57 Some Love for Luis Castillo?! 31:33 Spencer Strider and Leaning Into League Rules 35:26 Clarke Schmidt: Can a Full-Season Like 2024 Happen? 39:35 Why Eno Believes in Clay Holmes as a Starter 48:24 Other Late Pitching Options Getting Love in the Rankings Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Check out Eno's 2025 Starting Pitcher Rankings at The Athletic ($): https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6128052/ Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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slash connections. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, Friday, February 14th. Derek and Ripper EnoSaris here with you. Yeah, it's Valentine's Day and hopefully you realized that before you heard it from me. But if you're hearing this on Friday afternoon and frantically scrambling to salvage the day Valentine's Day and hopefully you realized that before you heard it from me. But if you're hearing this on Friday afternoon and frantically scrambling to salvage the day for some reason, my thoughts are with you. I hope you can find some way to make the people in your life happy. On this episode we are going to discuss Eno's recently released 2025 starting picture rankings. We'll look at some pictures that Eno loves in 2025.

We'll look at some guys that Eno loves in 2025. We'll look at some guys that maybe are a little overvalued by the market, at least in Eno's eyes. We'll dig into why that might be the case. We've got some spring news and notes to get to before we start on the news. Just a heads up, you can join our Discord. A lot of lively chatter in there. If you're looking for a fantasy league to play in, got a channel for that.

You're looking for some news, rankings, looking to talk about a particular team, all of that under one roof. You can join with the link in the show description. You know, I think we're at the very fun part of spring training where every news item feels like it matters even though it might not matter. So it's sort of a game of reading between the lines in some cases. I did my best to pull my favorite notes as I looked at RotaWire this morning and was trying to gather up the best of the best and I want to start with Ronald Acuna Jr. This is a tweet that David O'Brien covers the Bravest Athletic put out. Acuna said he's planning to take it easy on the bases after tearing the left ACL in May. Of course it's a second torn ACL, on the bases after tearing the left ACL in May.

Of course, that's his second torn ACL, tore the right one a couple of years back. And he said he's running at about 90 to 95%, but he feels more stable on the knee than he did coming back from his first surgery. So I think this falls under the confirms our suspicions and isn't necessarily bad news, but it just kind of says, okay, Acuna is likely to be a different kind of player

in 2025 at least, maybe we'll see him run more in future seasons, but does this change anything for you about how you feel about Acuna for the upcoming season? I think it just highlights the risk of taking him where he is, it's, you know, maybe he feels better than he did last time, so maybe the power's a little bit better than last time, but I don't think that you're going to get like 70 and what do you think the over under is, you know, for his stolen bases?

I mean, I would almost put it at like 20. Yeah, I was going to say like 18 and a half, 19 and a half. That was the first number that popped into my head. And it's just because you don't, especially for that lineup, you don't need a Cunha to run wild. You have enough mashers. When that core is healthy, you're not really worried about scoring enough runs.

So why expose them to unnecessary risk? There'll be situations where it makes sense and it'll still run some. But yeah, let's just say 19 and a half is the over under. Does that feel about right to you? Yeah, I mean he came back last time and had 17 stolen bases so if he feels a little bit better that sounds right. Stability on the knee though I think is really important for what you said before. The power

could come back a little quicker. Maybe he'll be a more productive hitter this time around if he's feeling better on those legs. So that was one of the things that caught my eye scanning through the news earlier in the day on Friday. Also saw an update on Felix Bautista. He said he's currently at about 85% strength in his throwing program, but he's confident he'll be a hundred percent by opening day. Bautista is about 16 months removed from Tommy John surgery. Now that note came from Jake Rill covers the Orioles for MLB.com.

I don't think there's much as far as how I would alter my approach with Bautista. But when we talked about him on our closer preview, there is a question within the tier of choosing the healthier options right now over him, right? Maybe he falls to the back of the circle of trust if we have these lingering questions further into the spring about how he's feeling. It's true. it's true. And if this continues the way it sounds like it's gonna go,

we may not really have like radar readings. We may have those like, he looked good or he touched whatever, you know, but not in game stuff. If he's gonna be 100% by opening day, we may see him after, you know, the Cubs Dodgers series, which may be meaningful for people who are drafting. I think if you're an Aurelius fan, it's okay. It's good news, it's fine.

You weren't expecting him necessarily to be ready right away. Yeah, I think this is right in line with expectations for me with Batista, so we'll keep an eye on it. But also with relievers, you know they they can start pitching in games in mid-March. Still get enough game action in before opening day to where everything remains on three outings or something. And you could do that in a week and a half, two weeks. Yeah. And they might be careful with him on back to backs anyway, coming off of Tommy

John surgery, so you might not see that in the spring because you might not see it for a little while in season either. I think that's maybe one of the unknowns. A few not see it for a little while in season either. I think that's maybe one of the unknowns. A few save opportunities could go to someone else in those situations in that Orioles bullpen. I also saw a note from O's camp Trevor Rogers weeks behind with a knee injury so he will not be ready for opening day. Just another bit of bad news on Trevor Rogers.

We'll see if he can turn things around at some point in 2025. Our friend Will Salmon over at the Athletic had a piece about Francisco Alvarez retooling his swing mechanics at Maven Baseball Lab. It was a recommendation from JD Martinez. And like Francisco Alvarez has plenty of power. He was banged up last year. And what we saw in his debut, I think,

is a glimpse of what the future might hold. I find this really interesting because you can already pencil Alvarez in as a low average mashing catcher whose defense keeps him in the lineup a lot and that alone makes him very valuable. If you could add more to his approach, you could see him use the entire field when it's appropriate to do so, then he could become a 250, 260 sort of hitter with that big time power as well.

So I thought that was a really encouraging what I did this offseason sort of story that we'll put together on Francisco Alvarez. Yeah, I'm doing this while we go. So this may not end up in the podcast or on YouTube, but I'll share it in the discord later. You should see his heat map. It is pretty hilarious I just shared it in slack if you want to see it But he demolishes everything on the inner third as you might expect. Oh, actually, that's the outer third. He's a righty

Huh? That's not that's not what I expect at all. He has a problem up and in I guess going the other way could help You there too. I mean you kind other way could help you there, too. I mean, you kind of slice it then instead of trying to instead of trying to turn and burn on that up and in pitch. Maybe he pushes it to the opposite way. I was expecting him to be a lefty looking at this real quick, you know, knowing that he knowing that he likes to pull.

But I did know that he's a low ball hitter. He is a low ball slugger. So maybe this just makes him better on pitches high because you can just sort of, you know what I mean? Like you can, instead of like trying to scoop everything, you can kind of just like, kind of get your bat to it and push it the other way. In general, like this is the kind of adjustment

that if he pulls it off, it could sort of leap him up a level because I think it would increase his BAPIP, it would, you know, maybe increase his on-base percentage, maybe increase his batting average, and you'd believe that the underlying 115 max CB plus bat speed would still be there. So I'm generally for this. Yeah, he has big kid power, as we like to say. And in that full first season debut, it was a 44.3% pull rate last year that went down to 34.8%.

In the story, he's quoted as saying, I'm very powerful. I don't have to pull every pitch. So it's just an awareness of, you don't have to try and hit 450 foot home runs all the time if you have a more balanced sort of approach. So I want to see where that leads Francisco Alvarez and kind of see what it looks like once we get to some spring games around this time next week.

I did see Joe Ryan having no issues with that shoulder. It was a Terry's problem that slowed him down at the end of last season. He threw 36 pitches Thursday with no discomfort in his first bullpen session. So that's some good news. You know, I was thinking about the Alex Bregman signing with Boston a bit more since our episode yesterday and, you know, Bregman passing on a six-year deal with the Tigers is really good news for Jace Young because that's one of the spots that you could see Young collecting a lot of playing time this year. And there's also some pretty good honesty and bitterness from Scott Harris about Bregman

going the other direction, choosing the Red Sox offer over the six-year deal from the Tigers, which I loved it. I want GMs to just tell us how they feel and kind of build up those rivalries. But as far as Jace Young goes... Did he mention the park at all? Did Bregman mention the park? Harris? I didn't see that in the quotes that I saw,

but doesn't mean he didn't mention it. He's coming from San Francisco, where they sometimes have to overpay or have a hard time convincing hitters to join because of the park. And from what I understand, that was part of Alex Bregman's decision making process as well.

Yeah, the other thing on Jace Youngmill that I thought was kind of interesting, he did have a minor wrist surgery back in December. And I just think about it, his brother has had so many problems with his wrist, so I'm like, oh man, I hope it's not like that. But situation. I wonder if it's mechanics of their swing.

Maybe they break their wrists a weird way or they do something If any of you are that are listening or swing mechanics gurus, you know, let's do some pause screens and See if we can figure this one out or maybe it's genetics, you know, obviously they share genetics. They actually you know share minor league numbers Like they're not that far off. They both walk a lot, have good swing strike rates, maybe have a slightly higher elevated strikeout rates because they're so patient and have 200 ISOs up and down the minor leagues. So it's weird to me sometimes to have people be so like kind of be more bullish

on Josh and just sort of ignore Jace. I have two shares of Jace already. And I think that as a left-handed, I think that's a good thing. will be so like kind of be more bullish on Josh and just sort of ignore Jase. I have two shares of Jase already, and I think that as a left hander, you know, I think the most likely outcome, especially now, is that he's in a lefty righty platoon with Matt Veerling at third base. Yeah, and that's big side platoon that'll work in a lot of deep leagues. There's always the chance to veerling moves around enough. If Jase Young's hitting a lot, then he could end up scooping up a little bit

of time against lefties as well but I would start there are other places veerling could platoon yeah if he could push him off could be a good spot for him and look he's going outside the top 30 rounds right now and 15 that's a great spot I think he'll move into that bench range once we get closer to like main event drafts and things that are closer to opening day. Oh, interesting. Maybe he's in my third basement,

I think, in two draft and whole drafts. Some Dodgers news to pass along. Clayton Kershaw headed to the 60-day IAL after resigning with the Dodgers. That's not really that surprising. That's sort of like built into the, we're bringing him back and we're gonna create a roster space by not putting him on the roster right away.

That's the magic. But the other thing that I spotted was a quote from Dave Roberts talking about Michael Kopeck being behind schedule and the possibility of Kopeck opening the year on the IL with the forums that was bugging him at the end of last season. How about that? Body Nightingale, he ends up being right, dude.

I love it, dude. Bob Senior. Yeah. Yeah, because his son's Bob. Son's Bobby, yeah. Bob Nightingale. You know, he reported that, and then the Dodgers pushed back and said, oh yeah, he pushed the, like, he threw through those things. He was okay.

He was like, no, I guess not. Thanks. Thanks, everybody, for lying to us. It's really fun. Yeah. Makes the makes the job so much easier. Makes makes analyzing the game from the outside is just just peachy. One of their pitching related note to pass along Shane McClanahan. No restrictions this spring. He's 100 ready to go. That's according to Ryan Bass, one of the reporters on field for the raise on the FanDuel Sports Network South, I think is the proper name of the channel now. for the raise on the fan duel sports network

South I think is the proper name of the channel now it's the TV affiliate of the raise it's all I'm gonna say we can just talk about it now we have this on the rundown but you know I ended up being low man I guess on shame in a clan of hand at least compared to ADP what is the what is the number? It is minus eight. So I have him 42nd and he's 34th by ADP, thanks to your Cracker Jack pre-show work. And the reason was, I think innings. They said 150 should be fine. I said they're going to keep 20 of those in their back pocket for the postseason if they can.

And so I put them down for 130, and 130 with the risk that we haven't seen him pitch yet. For example, I have Sandy Alcantara for just a few, maybe 20 fewer innings or 15 fewer innings than Christopher Sanchez. But I have Christopher Sanchez ahead of Sandy Alcantara, even though Sandy Alcantara has shown us what Christopher Sanchez. But I have Christopher Sanchez ahead of Sandy Alcontra even though Sandy Alcontra has shown us what Christopher Sanchez could be. The reason I have that is because Sandy Alcontra hasn't gotten into a game. I'm always gonna have a bias against pitchers that

are returning off of Tommy John and just haven't been in a game yet. I'm gonna dock them 10 innings, I'm gonna dock him a point in the rankings or two. I mean, it's always going to cost them in my estimation because at least we saw Jacob deGrom out there pumping hundos. You know what I mean? Like he was out there doing what he does and there can't be like, oh, you know, he's delayed coming back. I just think I like Walker Bueller. We were thinking, oh, we're gonna see him. And then we didn't see him. And that wasn't good news. I like Shane, it's a second Tommy John.

We haven't seen him pitch. It's nice to hear this news, but. You have to be careful with guys like this. Yeah. At what point do you become comfortable? Is it the end of spring training, everything's on schedule and the stuff comes back? Is it the first in season update? Is it even end of spring training? Everything's on schedule and the stuff comes back? Is it the first in-season update?

Is it even more like mid-season because you want to see stuff hold up for a few months and physically see the arm hold up for a few months? Spring, not like the first or second spring outing. As I've mentioned, I really don't like when they report that a pitcher touched something. They come out and they throw in one inning and it's almost like the reliever version of themselves

and we all go and really, you Darvish touched 97. And you're like, yeah, he's touched 97 every year of his career. Good. I mean, sure. So it won't be the first or second outing. So it would be something like mid, mid spring. I want to see like a four or five inning outing with the stuff there.

Am I being conservative? Maybe. Maybe. Does that cost me him? Maybe if you're six to 10 spots off of where someone goes and it's that early, there's still a chance you could end up with a situation. We have to think about drafting them. They fall in a room. They may be right at your bank. And you may have built a team where you have to think about drafting them. If they fall in a room, they may be right at your rank and you may have built a team where you don't have that kind of risk yet and it may actually make sense.

So it's like, you could be behind the market on a player, it doesn't mean you're going to get shut out completely because you may end up in a room full of people who are skeptical for the reasons you just outlined. Yeah, yeah, there's definitely people who have kind of do not draft lists and you'll see you'll see guys Just drop and if I went with Corbin Burns or Zack Wheeler first and I followed it up with Hunter Brown or Grayson Rodriguez I could see taking a shot there, you know And and and I you know, let too many guys go instead of going sunny gray with those three

Which is where I have you know, instead of going Sunny Gray with those three, which is where I have, instead of Bernardo Lopez with those three, instead of Yusei Kikuchi with those two, actually Shane McClanahan makes a great third for those two with the YOLO yo-yo. I think we have to make some actual yo-yos at some point. It's gonna be a good undertaking. Where can we get some nice custom yo-yos made? point. To distribute, that's gonna be a good undertaking. Where can we get some nice custom yo-yos made?

The internet, pretty good resource. I'm sure we can find a place. It's the season to shop new styles, electronics, and definitely a holiday trip. And what if each time you made a purchase, you got a little something back? With Rakuten, you can earn cash back on just about anything you buy

from over 750 stores so if you're looking to buy a new phone, clothes, skin care or a getaway well you can get cash back so treat yourself, family and friends and book that holiday trip now. Start getting cash back today by joining Rakuten it's free and easy to use and you can get cash back today by joining Rakuten. It's free and easy to use, and you can get cash back deposited into your PayPal account or sent to you as a check. It's the smartest way to shop, plain and simple. Start your shopping at rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A.

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Let's talk about some pictures that you love in 2025, or at least like more than the market does right now. I was not at all surprised to see Hunter Brown much higher in your rankings than he is by ADP. My methodology for anybody who wants to replicate this was to take ADP, remove as many of the relievers as I could manually spot because they're not flagged accordingly, and then just look at the difference between the ENO rank and the SP ranks that were left over.

So that's a pretty big gap. That tells me that you're probably going to end up with a good bit of Hunter Brown beyond whatever shares of Hunter Brown that you have, right? As you've talked about and as we've discussed for a long time, we know that people move on players over the course of the season. We see risers and fallers. There are other folks out there who are also into Hunter Brown the way you are. That will drive it up even further.

But there's a good chance Hunter Brown won't be 33rd and ADP three weeks from now, right? As more and more people see the gap there, they're gonna be more excited about Hunter Brown. So what is it about Hunter Brown that continues to give you confidence that you could maybe go ahead of the market, not as far as you have him ranked, because there's kind of a delicate dance here.

You wanna make sure that you're not overpaying, even if you're trying to clearly get your guys. And actually where he goes I will jump him over ADP because especially if you have like let's say you're somebody who drafts in the first five picks or something and you just know you have 15 picks to go you know and you like Hunter Brown best like yes you're jumping him 10 points on ADP or something but it's like I get there get him or I don't, you know? And so sometimes I'm fine with jumping.

I wouldn't jump him like three rounds or two, you know what I mean? Like I'd try, if it's less than that, then maybe I say, oh, I hope he gets back to me, you know? The sort of writ large thing about him is just that he always had a good arsenal of pitches where he has feel for spin, really good hard cutter slider thing, a pretty good knuckle curve, and a good fastball.

That's why we always liked him to begin with. His location numbers were always better than his command grades coming up. And so I said, this is going to click at some point. And the day that it clicked was May 12th, May 11th last year. That was the first year he threw the sinker more than 10% of the time. After that date, he threw the sinker 22% of the time. And his ERA in that in that time frame was a 246 which might have had a little bit of luck in it 276 babbit point eight home runs per nine but the underlying numbers did still support it to some extent 322 FIP 325 X FIP you know I got a Sierra in here somewhere. But basically, more than a strikeout per inning, less than a walk every three innings, and

just excellent all-around numbers, 19% strikeout minus walk rate. So I'm just saying, I believe that's the real Hunter Brown. Maybe there's some regression. People see him a little bit more and he's more mid threes But where he's going mid threes is fine Yeah I think the thing that really stood out to me too is the consistency start by start with the workloads. I mean from May 11th on Hunter Brown went at least five in every start There was a stretch from May 22nd on where he went six in like 11 or 12 straight starts

And he was just he was really important for the Astros. He reminds me a little about like Brandon Fatt where you're like, okay, the innings are there. Like they built him up right. Like he is ready to go 180 if, you know, if he's pitching well and they want him to, you know? So that's another thing I like about him is

he's a little bit like oatmeal with upside. Yeah, I just think the horrible April, or March and April, it hides the breakout on the surface with Hunter Brown. It was there for five months. If there was going to be a massive adjustment back to what he was doing, I feel like there was enough time.

September would have been bad. For teams to start doing that August and September, yeah. He's gonna be on a leaderboard that we're gonna do in a second, but we've got a couple leaderboards, but Hunter Brown's like on all of them, so you'll just notice that as we're going through. It comes up a lot on different boards we pull,

and then Grayson Rodriguez right there next to Hunter Brown, also getting a similar bump relative to his ADP. You got him about 13 spots ahead of where the ADP has been over the last seven days. We're using NFBC ADP for the last seven days to get you a more accurate snapshot of what people are doing in drafts that are happening right now.

We've talked about Rodriguez as another guy that's figured it out for a few different stretches, just needs to stay healthy from start to finish in a big league season. I feel like if he does that, then we're going to have him as a possible SP1 in the future. I think he has shown glimpses of that kind of ceiling. It was a 361 Sierra last year on the strength of a 26.5% K-rate,

a slightly improved walk rate, tons of swinging strikes. We know the ballpark is not as much of a hitter friendly environment as it was a few years ago because of changes even though they're going to move the fences back in a little bit around Mount Baltimore. I think Grayson Rodriguez ticks a lot of boxes and is ready to take on a larger role with Corbin Burns moving on in free agency. Yeah Grayson shows up on our first board that I want to share which is having an excellent change up slider and above average fastball. So this is every pitcher with 50 innings that had an above average change up, above average breaking ball, and at least one above average fastball.

Ooh, Tyner Bybee, I think I might have, maybe I should have taken him off. I don't know how much he throws that sinker, but whatever, he can be our emeritus in there. He does have a good breaking ball and a good change up, so that's fine. But Tarek Scoobel, Tyler McGill, Carlos Rodone, Grayson Rodriguez, Bobby Miller, Cole Regans,

Ryan Pepio, Tanner Bybee, Paul Steens, and Ryan Nelson. So this isn't obviously a list of the best pitchers in the sport, and I think it's because some of these guys are change-up first and You know that can be problematic if you don't have a feel for spin I think Casey Meyers is the kind of the worst-case scenario where you just don't have a feel for spin your change-up is Not good enough to be like a Kevin Gossman change-up and then you get in trouble, but Ryan Pepio is a guy I really like this year.

I think he's on the rundown. And Grayson Rodriguez reminds me of somebody who's like Ryan Pepio in that he has a great change up and he's throwing the slider harder. He's gonna find his way against righties actually, is gonna be the more difficult split for him. And you can see that his splits against handedness kind of go that way where like

he actually has a reverse split because he has a better change up than slider. But if he has a 108 stuff plus slider and has kind of fiddled with the curve ball, you know, I think two things, I think he needs to throw the change up more against righties. He threw it 138 times last year and had a 161 batting average and a 306 slugging when he threw the change up to righties. So like, you know, throw that change up to righties a little bit more and refine the touch on the slider and you'll, he's going to clean up those reverse splits and cleaning out the reverse splits is how he becomes dominant because he already dominates lefties with

that fastball change up combo. So I think he's a little bit like Pepio, where he's like, but he doesn't have Pepio's like inconsistent command, right? So if you had Pepio with a better, maybe a better fastball and better command, wouldn't you be even more excited than you were about Pepio? So I think this is like he's like Voltron and he's got the pieces and he needs to just like put them together. Yeah, I think that slider does make a big difference against righties because it's

it can be the the pitch that gets whiffs in the righty righty matchups the way the change up is the pitch that gets a lot of whiffs against lefties that's the key I think that's a really thing really important thing to point out and last year just getting it up to 15.8% usage maybe that's the beginning of things to come maybe it's a 20 or 25% usage. Maybe that's the beginning of things to come. Maybe it's a 20 or 25% usage pitch for him this year as they continue to tweak that arsenal a little bit. Lot of ways Grayson Rodriguez can get to that breakout

this year though. So I'm glad to see you've got him a bit ahead of the market because he's someone that I like quite a bit where he's going. He's been part of my let's wait a little bit on pitching and then take a couple of guys close together sort of plan I feel really good about how that's gone so far One surprise in this range a guy that I did not expect to see you ranking ahead of the market is Luis Castillo He's 20th on your rankings. I did not know that I was in

29th by ADP again, not a massive like oh well You know loves Luis Castillo is going to have him everywhere. But I feel like with Castillo, we're kind of just waiting for the graceful decline to begin. And maybe it already has in some ways. Right. We're talking about a guy whose ERA has crept up a little bit each of the last two seasons. The whip at 117 also reached a three year high, but he's been generally pretty healthy when you take a snapshot of the last four years, like 150 and a third innings was the lowest total of those last four seasons. What do you think it is about Castillo that lands him here? Is it the home park? Is it that he's made a couple of adjustments and slowly kind of widened that arsenal to have a good plan that works effectively against hitters on both sides of the plate. As you might expect, this is not me, you know, being sweet on Castillo and giving out my flowers on Valentine's Day, as Brian is saying,

because there's an artifact of the rankings here a little bit where behind Castillo is Spencer Strider, Shohei Otani, Roki Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. And they are all short innings, high, like good per inning out cut, right? And I have Luis Castillo ahead of them and behind them, I have Pablo Lopez, Logan Webb and Aaron Nola. So you could say Luis Castillo is just the same as Pablo Lopez, Logan Webb and Aaron Nola, right? If that's the case, then Luis Castillo becomes a 26 and I'm only three spots ahead.

I think the reason that I put him up there was I have Bryce Miller above that crew and they have very similar projections. In fact, Luis Castillo has a better projection in terms of strikeout rate than Bryce Miller, which might surprise people. And the park is part of this because obviously Arenola pitches in a tougher park. Logan Webb has a higher ERA projection and a much lower strikeout rate projection, of course, because that's that he's a different kind of pitcher. And then Pablo Lopez has a higher ERA projection. So I just thought that Luis Castillo was better than that group of oatmeal.

He was the oatmeal with raisins in it. He was the oatmeal with the cinnamon and the sugar and like, you know, maybe the raspberries, you know, the other guys are just oatmeal. You've been watching me make breakfast? What's going on over there? My wife eats oatmeal like three days out of four. I've gone real heavy into oatmeal in the last few months. No more eggs in this house, not because of the economy,

but actually just because my kid can't have eggs, so we just keep him out of the house now. That's right. So yeah, it's oatmeal every day for me, which makes me not want oatmeal as much on my rosters, I guess. I think. I've had enough of this at home.

Yeah, the way you describe this though, I'm just like, yeah, I kind of like Castillo better below the likes of Pablo Lopez. I feel like when you make a change to the rankings at your first update, the influence that I have on you will quietly happen. He might drop below that foursome of like, you know, oh, these guys could give you 130 innings with a 2-5 ERA. Yeah, and it's because-

But I do like him better than Lopez and Webb and Nola. So I think he might drop down to like 25. He'd still be ahead of market. He's one of my favorite kind of large quantity pitchers at that spot. He still throws pretty hard, swinging strike rate, even though it went down 11.8%, but not bad. The control problems that occasionally plagued him

early in his career have gone away. Like we're looking at six and a half to seven and a half percent walk rates. He also made a change to his breaking ball last year. At the beginning of the year, he was throwing it really slow and he said he was doing it on purpose and it sucked and it was a bad idea and then he went back to throwing it the other way and was better.

So I'm like, some of the numbers last year are just like, he got some bad advice. I don't know who he got it from. Normally they're good there, but that did not work. Yeah. I think I'll end up with him in situations like you described though. You break into that next group,

couple guys from that group are gone, I need a pitcher like that. Sure, at that point I will get him, but I'm not taking him over those lower innings total, higher ceiling guys. Yeah, you like those guys. I love pitchers. You like the writer. man, that's where my heart is, right? If I'm sending chocolate to anybody,

it's pitchers like that. That's where I'm going. The other guys that are in this range, Spencer Strider, not a big surprise. You got him 14 spots ahead of ADP. Now we know an injured guy like Strider can show us something in spring training and catch a lot of helium. So some of this is maybe getting out in front.

It's another elbow surgery, not a second TJ, right? It's an internal brace, but not a full on TJ. So it's a little bit like McClanahan. You didn't tear the ligament all the way. But it's a little bit like McClanahan and that it's the second major arm surgery. I think it's fair to categorize it that way. It is fair to call me out on being maybe, you know,

two-faced on this one, because I haven't seen him. But also his high-end projections are even better than McClanahan's. Like I've got McClanahan's projections for like a 3-4 or whatever, and Strider's 3.01 is his ERA projection. It's nasty. This isn't a Joan Gatcha situation.

I'm not Joan Calamizo. You know, I'm not pulling that off. But I guess I'm trying to figure out when and how to take the appropriate injury risk shots. I mean, the truth on Strider, and deGrom is kind of like this too, where the ceiling has been so unbelievably high that even when you lower it by 15 or 20%,

a reasonable amount to reflect the possible loss of a little bit of VLO, a little bit of stuff, a little bit of command, whatever it might be that could be missing, it's still an incredibly high ceiling. I think that's part of how you get there with someone like Spencer Strider. You're gonna have to wait for him though.

And I said this in the blurb, cause I wrote a little blurb for the top 75, which is, one of the difficulties of ranking him is, if you have IELTS stints, he could even be higher. Cause you'd like, this would be one of the best stashes you could have. Like, and he gives you a roster spot in April, which is great.

If you have IELTS stints, you take Strider and you're like, I'm gonna have some tasty stuff for the five, five months. Right. And you get an extra roster. It's like signing Clayton Kershaw and putting me under 60. I.L. You know, you have an extra roster spot to play with. And when is it most important to have an extra roster spot to play with? It's like April when some guy comes out and shoves in his first start and shows he has a role and you're like, oh, I'm gonna pick that guy up.

And now you have two pitchers, you know what I mean? And you can backfill Spencer Striders missing month with this hot rookie and drop somebody else when Strider's ready. So I mean, there's a lot of what your actual roster rules are that mean a lot. It's a little bit harder in something like the main event where you'd have to sit on him

and have him not pitch for your team and have him be on your bench. So I would actually dock him another 10, 15 spots in the rankings for a main event specific ranking. I think he would have to be around Hunter Green or something, where you might expect Hunter Green to miss time with injuries. So if you got five months of Hunter Green, you'd be happy.

And if you've got five months of Spencer Stratton, you'd be better than that. So that was a very difficult ranking for me because of the specific rules. Totally understandable. And if your league rules are, in fact, more open, if you have multiple IL spots or unlimited IL spots, take a cue from the Dodgers. Take advantage of the way the rules are structured in your league and take on that extra injury risk where you can stash those players away. That's the thing that we kind of get caught on is because our conversation begins with

NFBC ADPs and draft and hold ADPs, we're a little bit fixated on the non-IL situations. Well, there's a lot of leagues out there. Most leagues out there have some kind of IL. So this is a case where regardless of how shallow the league is, obviously the ceiling is so high, you want to use an IL spot on someone like Strider because the payoff can be massive if he's able to make it all the way back. How about Clark Schmidt still on the list? I think this is almost more where the market hasn't caught up to where you've been on

Clark Schmidt the entire time. You've liked him for a while. And this is actually a very similar ranking to last year. Yeah, and he did the things I think you wanted him to do. It just happened to be in a season where he lost time with a significant injury, right? So maybe some below average health grades just based on what's happened to him

over the course of his career and what just happened most recently in 2024. But a sub-3 ERA, a sub-120 whip, plenty of strikeouts. This looks like a consolidation of really good skills and a great approach. Yeah, and really a sort of coalescing of his approach towards his lefties where he is a cut or curve guy against lefties and against righties. He's a sink or sweeper guy, but the touch and feel the stuff that I'm talking about with like Grayson, like with Grayson, yes, I want your slider to be better, but I also want you to throw your change up against righties more.

You know what I mean? Like the same idea happened for Clark where he was explicit about when he said to me is like when I first came up, I was like a stuff plus creating machine. And I was just like, throw my best stuff plus pitches, and that's it. And then I realized that I had to be a little have a little more touch to it. And you know, if I am just cutter curve against lefties, then they can anticipate me much better. So why don't I throw some backdoor sweepers, which makes them think about that. And then I think about the backdoor sweeper and I throw the cutter inside. You know, so there's like, you know, I think there's some maturing of his process that is actually emblematic of how difficult it is to be a starter in the league this year.

But he's done it, you know, and I have him in a little mini tier of injury. Right with Shane McClanahan and Kodai Senga. Their projections are all for mid threes with 25 to 26% strikeout rates. And I have them all for about 125 to 130 innings. That feels right to me. You know, would I take Kodai Senga and Shane McClanahan? I would take Shane McClanahan against Clark Schmidt for sure. And I think I take Kodai.

I have them right next to each other. Maybe I take Clark Schmidt over Kodai, but there's gonna be some spring aspect to this where we're gonna get some news. I mean, that's a real sort of pick them for me. I mean, let me turn it back on you. Like, which of those three do you want? And is it very clear?

Would you even have them, do you have them in very different places in the rankings? Or this feel like they're close to each other and it's like a pick-em sort of situation? I guess I'm surprised at the gap in ADP between them, because they are more similar. And when you consider that Senga barely got back last year, I think very, very limited use in the playoffs.

Schmidt, at least, was back in September, even though it wasn't quite as good as it was pre-injury. He was Foreign change every time out there on but Clannaghan we haven't seen at all I think it's the ceiling on McClannaghan was so high Before the second day. Yeah, he's still first for me Senga versus Schmidt Like in some way a Schmidt's a reason for me not to take Senga at cost.

Or at least to wait in these early drafts, see what Senga looks like throughout spring training, and then reevaluate it later. I think you've got them in the same order I'd have them. I think that's the way I would approach that group. How about against somebody that's a little bit more boring, like Sunny Gray, who's like right before them. You two might have them both ahead of Sunny Gray.

Early February, mid-February, I'm probably Sonny Gray over all of them. Yeah, because you're like, yeah, I get the innings. I'm playing against the unknowns in a lot of cases right now. He's been a pitch in St. Louis, he's gonna give me 160 innings at least. Wide Arsenal has that nasty sweeper, like there's just enough there for Sonny Gray

to probably be a little safer in terms of innings in the group by projection, even though you could see all three of those guys being better. That's actually possible. Even if Sunny Gray's not bad, all three of those other guys could end up having better seasons when it's all said and done. Clay Holmes made it on the pitchers Eno loves group with a plus 31 you've got him 53rd in the rankings He's about 84th by ADP among starters in the last seven days What are we seeing from Clay Holmes that makes you believe it's going to work for him as a starter with the move to the Mets? He threw a fastball in the playoffs and not just one single one He threw I don't know, it may sound ridiculous, but he threw like seven or eight of them.

And yes, that's only seven or eight, but those were the seven or eight best fastballs he's ever thrown by Ryde. And so what I'm not asking him to have an excellent force aimer, I'm just asking him to have a better force aimer than the one he had the first time he tried, which was on the level of like a 50 stuff plus

Nasty gross don't throw that thing kind of pitch, you know You know, he's going to be at the very least way better than Eric Fetty You know what I mean? Like sinker slider to slider. You know what I mean? Like sweeper slider like With more V lo than Eric Fetty better sinker than Eric Fetty. He's got a starter's package. He's got what it takes. He's got more VELO. I think he's going to keep maybe a surprising amount of VELO that people think.

I think he's going to show a surprisingly good four seam. He's in a great pitcher's park. He's actually been pretty durable 4A reliever If you look at his innings totals, he hasn't really been on the IL. So I'm gonna put him on the upper end of the innings projections for conversions. So I have him at 125. If you put him at 125 innings,

I've got Nick Lodolo is near him in the rankings. I have him at 131 innings. We just talked about Clark Schmidt. I have him 128 innings. So he's around where people don't have as many innings. You know, we just talked about Clark Schmidt. I have him 128 innings. So he's around where people don't have as many innings. Like once you get past 50, your expectation of innings goes, I think from down to maybe 130, 140 anyway. Right. And I think his per inning goodness would be really good. Also, he's a little bit like Seth Lugo, where I'm

like, at least I'll use them at home. You know, and I'll at least I'll use them at home for the first four months. Nick Pollock makes a great point when we were on the craft together. He was talking about somewhere around 50 and below on the rankings. The percentage likelihood that the player ends up on your team at the end of the season drops below 50%.

So Clay Holmes is almost like a spring play. If you had if you had Jordan Hicks last year, the number that the auction calculator speaks out for what he was worth last year is wrong. Because that assumes that you rostered Jordan Hicks all year. And nobody rostered Jordan Hicks all year. Most people that had Jordan Hicks last year had him for the first three months that were great. Maybe played around with playing him just at home for the first the fourth month, and then dropped him probably for the fifth and sixth months, right? So,

Clay Holmes, I'm saying, I think he'll start the season out great. I don't know how he'll finish the season. I think he'll give you three good months, maybe four. It's pretty cool because if you take a look at the Fangraphs playerator, and I think Raz Ball has one that does something kind of similar, you can look at the week by week dollars earned and you'll realize, oh yeah, when I was using Jordan Hicks, he was actually good. I might have used them for a few starts when it was starting to unravel in June, July. There's a point where you are taking on some of that water with the ratios because you thought he was going to turn it around and he didn't.

But you definitely didn't continue down the path in a 12-team league, or even a 15-team league, of just burning a roster spot and trying to squeeze value out of it when it was clear that it just wasn't working for him at that point in the season. So I do think there is something needs to be maybe recalibrated with how we look at those overall values for the season, if we're not actually absorbing that. Maybe just a mental recalibration, you know? Yeah, yeah. I think that's a good a good point So the clay Holmes like best case scenario I mean you could maybe say the best case scenario for reliever going into the rotation is what Ronaldo Lopez just did in Atlanta with 199 era and a

111 whip and a hundred and that would be better for Hicks to do what Lopez did is just be heard at the end of The season not pitch like to just like just the IL. Just stop pitching for a while. Just go on the IL. That's the secret. I mean, I think that's the everything clicks. You get lucky on some, you pitch well and get lucky. The home park's going to help him towards that too. I mean, it helped Hicks of course, but also he's a little better than Hicks in terms of

his weapons for whiffs. He's demonstrated more whiffs than Hicks in terms of his weapons for whiffs. You know, he's demonstrated more whiffs than Hicks did. Yeah, I think that's maybe an underrated aspect of Clay Holmes at this point. A couple other names I want to get to. We'll go a little faster with some of these. You got Luis Severino a bit ahead and Osvaldo Bido. So we've talked about the A's and moving out of the Coliseum and the difficulties of pitching in a PCL park that will probably be very hot for a good portion of the year as well.

What is it about Severino and Bideaux and maybe some of the other A's pitchers that has you interested? Is it mostly for deeper leagues, draft and holds and mono leagues, or do you see a case for any of these guys as 15 team leaguers that you can draft and possibly use for even more than half of their starts.

I do think we do not know exactly how this park is going to play and that at this point in drafts, these are good plays to be like, hey, what if it plays better than we expect? And then on top of that, these guys both do something that I find really intriguing, which is have two fastballs that are above average by stuff. Plus, this is a list where most of the players on this list are really good. So I'm going to skip the first one real quick, but if you're watching, Max Fried, Aaron Nola, Bryce Miller, Luis Severino, Osvaldo Bidot, Randy Vasquez, Tyler Magill. I'm not saying those guys are all as good

as the other names I've said, but they share something. They share two good, hard pitches, and that's always gonna make things harder on batters that face them, because you just, like I talked to Brent Rooker about this and he's like you do have a different swing if you want to hit the fore seam and you want to hit the sinker you have a different swing and honestly it's mostly about that flat versus scoopy you don't want to be a little bit scoopier against sinkers which drop you know you kind of want to meet that plane and you want to

be a little bit flatter against fore seamers if you're a really good hitter you have both of those meet that plane and you want to be a little bit flatter against four seamers. If you're a really good hitter, you have both of those in your bag and you happen to be good at guessing which one's coming or you see it really well or whatever it is and that's what makes a Soto or you know makes a judge but most hitters are better at one fastball than the other. So these guys will always have a weapon depending on which batter you are. They'll know that if you're more scoopy or if you're more flat, they'll know to go to the sinker or go to the fore seam. That just means that you're in a better situation against every batter.

You know, you have at least one fastball that's going to work against them. I think if you look at the arsenal stats from from baseball perspectives, what you'll find is guys with two fastballs generally are above the mean when it comes to these Arsenal stats because they have wider Arsenal's, they have bigger shape differences that's true of both Bideaux and Severino. The wider your Arsenal is, the better your Arsenal stats are at BP, the better you are third time through the order. So that means you can go deeper

into games, you can get wins. Do I know exactly what their ERA is going to be? you are third time through the order. So that means you can go deeper into games, you can get wins. Do I know exactly what their ERA is gonna be? Do I know exactly what their home situation is gonna be? No. But I do think that offense is gonna be better this year. I think they're gonna get more wins

and these two pitchers I think are better suited to maybe go deeper into games than other people on that roster. So I think these are the two pitchers that I have circled for Oakland. Ah, Sacramento. Appropriate sound given the circumstances under which the team is no longer playing

in Oakland of course, but the need for at least two of those starters to consistently go deep, I think was highlighted in our team preview, right? The bullpen is improved at least in terms of the A bullpen, but the depth is not there. And you just can't burn out those top two or three relievers by having to lean really heavily on them for more than

a few weeks. Four or five outs or whatever, yeah. Yeah, you really wanna limit that. I think that's part of the appeal of Severino for them in particular, right? I think you can be a bit of a workhorse in that rotation. But yeah, BDo still has some of that untapped ceiling that we like to look for. A few other later options, I'm going to go a little faster on naming those.

You're pretty high on Luis Ortiz in Cleveland, almost 40 spots ahead of ADP. So what do you think this year looks like for him? It's a stuff plus play. What we've learned from stuff plus is that you can actually out stuff a poor strikeout rate. I think a lot of people are, you know, projections and people are looking at the poor strikeout rate for Luis Ortiz and saying, somebody with an 18% strikeout rate can't,

you know, put up these numbers. And what I'm saying is maybe they can, you know, maybe they can. And also beginning of the, beginning of the season play a little bit with Ortiz, Cleveland plays much better as a pitchers park early in the season when it's cold, they're going to have good matchups again in the division.

So it could be one of those things where you have him for a couple of months, he's useful, and then you start being more careful about how you use him after that. Long-term fans of our show will not be surprised at all to see a plus 22 next to Edward Cabrera's name. Your 22 spots ahead of ADP on a guy who's electric. We need that drop, Brian, we need that drop.

I can't quit you. I get it when I watch Edward Cabrera and it's working. I understand why you like him. I've always understood that. I think when we looked at extremely high walk rates over time, the comp we kept coming back to, this was probably two years ago now with you and me and Chris Welsh on an episode,

it was like Edinson Volquez. It was like, oh, that's what this is. But what do you keep seeing here that makes you come back for one more season of frustratingly high ERA and WIP numbers? I mean, this is just the dumbest, most boring thing ever. Home ERA, three, nine, three. Away ERA, four, seven, zero.

I mean, yes to all the things you're saying. Yes to maybe he could just take a step forward. Maybe he could throw a cutter or maybe throw the slider more. Find a pitch that can help you out of your command problems, right? Like the people always think it's like, oh, he has to figure his mechanics out, but people have differing command of their different pitches.

So maybe there's a pitch that can help them out. Like maybe Hayden Burnsong throws a sinker or a cutter and gets out of it. You know, that's how I think about it. Edward Cabrera is he's shown the affinity for spin. He has a great change up. Maybe there's a cutter slider, something in there that he can, he can feature in counts where he needs strikes. I think the coaching is getting better in Florida and very worst case scenario. I pitch him at home.

Yeah. I think that's fair. Home streamer this late deep enough leagues. That's the case for the clicks. You might get something more than that. If it doesn't, you're not really out that much in terms of draft day cost on Edward Cabrera. Sean Burke, almost 30 spots ahead of his current ADP.

I wonder what it's gonna take for people to come around on Burke. I mean, it's a wide open rotation. We saw him debut last year. Other than the team being bad, I think, are you seeing a guy that's gonna beat the projections? Basically, are you backing the oopsie projection, a 394 for the ERA and a 135 whip

instead of the mid to high force ERA as you see from nearly every other projection system? 100%, I mean, that's the basis of my affinity for Sean Burke. But on top of it, I do have a little bit of a fun, I have a fun comp for you, Freddie Peralta. Oh, okay. Sean Burke has mucho mucho extension. So he's got that fastball, that exploding fastball

that Freddie Peralta has. The fastball is his best pitch. The joke with Freddie coming up was he was Freddie fastball. But as with Sean Burke, as with Freddie Peralta is like kind of a harder kind of gyro slider and a bigger curve behind it, that Stuff Plus thinks are kind of average pitches. I think he's going to fiddle with those and he's going to go in and out maybe. Freddie Peralta goes in and out. He has awesome second halves as he kind of puts them together,

but I'm going to bet on a guy that has an excellent fastball with excellent extension, excellent VELO, and think that he can kind of put together pieces around it. It may be frustrating. It may be more of a dynasty play more of a, you know, bench and draft and hold where you're like, you know, you don't want to take him in 12 teamers, I don't think, unless it's one of those bench things where he's like, I'm gonna, I have him here for his first two starts

on my bench, and if they're terrible, he's gone. The Freddy Peralta comp is interesting though too, because the thing I noticed looking at Burke is he's had trouble with walks, and that trouble got worse during his time at triple-a which made me wonder if there was something about where he locates abs or anything like that that might be a factor where we could see a little bit of correction at the big league level where he's less of a liability in that department but that was something we saw freddie peralta struggle

with especially at the beginning of his big league career it's become less of a problem for him over time i think there's a there's an element of it too, of just trusting your stuff. Say, hey, I could be in this zone and it's not gonna be a problem. If you're thinking about the psychology of a debut, it's much better for him to come up and throw 19 innings of a 1-4-2 ERA

with a 13% swing strike rate if you want him to trust your stuff, right? So it's that simple that sometimes 15 innings can kind of push you in the right direction where he's like, yeah, I came up and Pepeo said this. He's like, I came over the Dodgers and it went OK. It wasn't like the best thing ever, but it went OK. And I was like, oh, yeah, I can just throw it on his own. So like, you know, sometimes 15 innings can really push you

in one direction or the other. I imagine there's some kind of internal pressure that some pitchers feel even before they reach the big leagues of saying, I wanna have excellent stuff, I wanna locate it perfectly. And when you put that on yourself and your command is still developing, you end up walking more guys than you should

because you could have been more in the zone. The ways you were going to miss were actually not going to hurt you as bad as you thought. And maybe once you get to the top level, you can have been more in the zone. The ways you were going to miss were actually not going to hurt you as bad as you thought. And maybe once you get to the top level, you can miss with more confidence because big league catchers and coaches are telling you, it's okay, go into the zone. The coaching aspect is really difficult

because you could have been told by all your coaches in high school to throw low in the zone and get ground balls and whatever it is. And then you come to the White Sox and they're like, oh, your fastball plays at the top of the zone. You got to play at the top zone. Now you're doing something you've never done before, you know, and you're trying to refine that command.

Then you hit ABS, ABS is really finicky at the top of the zone and just, you know, not giving you anything. Whereas a human on bite give you, especially on top of that, you don't have any value of the framing anymore. Whereas if you get to the big leagues and I do think Cuero has a good reputation for defensively. I'm not so sure about Thiel, but generally, you can get some value out of framing, whereas you can't in ABS, right?

So, definitionally. So, there's a couple ways where this can go well, and the nice thing is good fastball at its core. And as far as Kyle Teal defensively goes, I've never seen or read or heard anything bad about his defense, so I don't think he's a something that's not a catcher playing catcher. I think he's an actual, at least average defender

behind the plate, maybe even a little better than that too. So I think that young tandem will be okay, kind of breaking in with some of the young pitchers that they're trying to get into the big leagues consistently in that white socks rotation. We saved the guys Eno likes less than the market. We'll put those into a future episode because I think they're worth talking about.

You did mention the Clannaghan earlier, but there were some good reasons for that. We've talked about a lot of these guys throughout the starting pitcher previews that are on the other side of the equation, but they'll come back around on a future episode. I've got a little fun game for you before we go. It's not trivia.

It's not trivia. I just wanted to ask you a silly question. Anybody watching just saw my face. Do you have any players in Major League Baseball whose name or general vibe reminds you of Valentine's Day? Kevin Keirmeyer. Why? I like his eyes.

Okay, just a handsome human that just makes you feel like, yeah, like, you were humans, like we're nice looking, like it's good. Okay, it's more like that. Okay. I think Gialito is pretty handsome too. And actually Gialito was someone that kind of popped as someone you like a bit better than ADP right now and I think some of that could just be health. He seems to be healthier than we thought he'd be at this point in the calendar.

Yeah, I did not. Handsomeness is not one of the metrics that I... Not in stuff plus? Not in stuff plus. The face. Face plus. Handsome plus. Yeah. No, that was partially because Gio Lido says he's got no restrictions. And I think of all the people that we've talked about, like, you know, the socks with the

contract and with his background are just like, gonna be like, yeah, just go. Just pitch, please. We have questions with workload and health on other pitchers, and of course with Gia Lido as well, but at some point in the rankings, and he's 89th for me, you just circle their best year. See, that could happen. Yeah. So, uh,

I liked him better than like burritos and walk and some of the other kind of veterans down there, but not much. It's he's in that crew of a veteran that could pop. I do think G Alito's name reminds me of gelato and gelato is delicious and something that I would try to get on Valentine's Day, so Positive association there. I think there's a there's an old cut for All Valentine's Day team that they put together our producer Brian Smith sent me There's some pretty low-hanging fruit name a Tyler flowers is the catcher and Cory hearts the first baseman There's some deep deep cuts in there though cupid childs at second base and in the article one of the best second baseman

Of the 19th century we talked about the 19th century on Thursday a little bit back He's much better than the guy who like stabbed his teammate in the nuts or whatever. Who's that guy? Oyster burns, I hope they're still burnt. I don't think it was in the nuts that okay I think we had that level of detail rather have have Cupid than Oysterburns on my team. Yeah, Cupid Child's not a magical matchmaking angel. At 5'8", weighing 185 pounds, he was much larger than the average professional ball player. In account of his 1888 tryout with the Kalamazoo Kazoos

described him about as wide as he is long. We need to go back to those old nicknames. Tatis is, I think, also very attractive, but he has this countenance that you can see if, so my in-laws are season ticket holders for the Padres, and so they will go to events, and my mother-in-law always comes back and is just raving about how nice Tatis was

and how he really talked to the kids and he was really present with them. And he really gave them attention. And he was, for lack of a better word, loving and caring. And I think that is an aspect of Fernando Tatis that some people don't get to see very often. kind of loving and caring like and I think that is an aspect of Fernando Tatis that some people don't get to see very often. They see him on the field and it's more braggadacio and sort of celebration right where he's actually seems like a pretty decent person. Yeah when it comes to personal interactions. Always nice to hear that especially with superstars with any

player that you see on the field. Closer on that team, by the way, from Cut 4, a guy named Slim Love, who is 6'7 and 195 pounds. Can you imagine being 6'7 in the early part of the 20th century? I mean, the world was not built for 6'7 people now. How should we normalize better nicknames? Like Chris Sale, Slim Sale. Slim Sale? Yeah, I don't know.

Maybe we can get some kind of new nickname for Chris Sale. We can work on that in the Discord. You can drop those. Who's the modern day oyster? Dude, just for anybody out there who's not familiar, this is the deep cut. Oyster Burns, by our account, maybe the worst teammate in Major League history.

It's possible. Check out his Wikipedia page. He was not a pleasant man to be teammates with. Join our Discord and suggest the nickname for Chris Sale, an early 20th century nickname that would be appropriate for Chris Sale. We'd love to hear those. You can check out all the good stuff we have

on the athletic at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. A subscription gets you Eno's rankings plus more fantasy baseball content. It's gonna start rolling out I believe next week is what I saw in one of the Slack messages that was going around recently. You can find us on Blue Sky. Eno is enoserus.besky.social.

I am dbr.besky.social. Thanks again to our producer Brian Smith putting this episode together. That is gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening and happy Valentine's Day. I like you. I like you a lot. It's tasty dude. Yeah.