Rates & Barrels - Staying awake for Seattle, Luis Castillo's struggles, and avoiding a duel

Episode Date: May 14, 2021

Eno, Britt & DVR discuss the debuts of Jarred Kelenic and Logan Gilbert, the ongoing struggles of Luis Castillo, Jack Flaherty's continued to push toward 'ace' status, the Yankees' COVID situation, the Astros' decision to do something good, and the show's first brush with getting challenged to a duel.  Rundown 0:27 New Names? 2:08 Day 1 in Seattle for Jarred Kelenic & Logan Gilbert 9:45 A Change in West-Coast Watchability Rankings 16:28 Luis Castillo Continues to Struggle 18:42 How Does Jack Flaherty Outperform His Underlying & Advanced Metrics? 23:40 What's Going On with the Yankees & COVID? 31:09 The Astros Do Something Good 39:00 An Attempt to Avoid a Duel Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic for just $3.99/mo: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels presented by Topps. Check out Topps Project 70 celebrating 70 years of Topps baseball cards. Derek Van Ryper here with Britt Giroli and Eno Saris on this episode. Please, it's Eno Baller from now on. What? What? I'm jealous of all those guys' names, man. Oh, the hardest names.

Dude, some serious names on that list. Eno Baller. Love that. Do you think that's on his birth certificate? Do you think it says Ben Baller on his gift certificate? Yeah. That would be pretty sweet if it did. We were looking for a nickname for Brit a while

back. I think we landed on Blaze Giroli. Is that what we decided on? We never formally pushed that in, but that was the clubhouse leader, I think, at the time. Yeah, I think so. I think even just like Blaze G just sounds pretty legit. Nice. Jiroli is just so long and complicated

and Blaze G simple. People pronounce it wrong. Just G. Just going down to one letter? People do that to me all the time. I was E for a long time. That's true. I'm B a lot.

So, yeah. They don't call me D. I get the extra two letters at least. You're three letters. Yeah. You have to go. Well, you think you wouldn't have to go from three letters to one,

but then there's the people calling me E. Actually, you know what? There is someone who calls me D. Now that I think about it, old family friend. I'm not sure why. It's really strange.

He thinks you're a d***. Probably. Most likely. That's the only explanation, right? It's like one of my dad's friends. I'm sorry. He's known me since I was a little kid, so he knows. We've already gone off the rails and we haven't even gotten to the first item.

Sorry, back to the rundown. Sorry. Yeah, you know what? I'm not going to tell everybody what we're going to talk about. It's going to be a surprise as we go. Big surprises. Yeah, flyin' blind. Blame me. Well, we have two new prospects up for the Mariners. We saw the debuts of both Jared Kalnick and Logan Gilbert on Thursday night,

and we talked about Kalnick and projections back on the Wednesday show. You know, they let him off, which is pretty cool, and kind of makes me excited about them just doing the simple right thing of maximizing his playing time as opposed to burying him in the bottom part of the order and making him earn a spot that's higher up. Yeah, I think just having more plate appearances will be awesome. It shows a lot of faith in him, which is good. It won't be a deal where he starts hopefully dropping the lineup or not playing every day or whatever they're they're putting him in and plugging and playing basically i also hope that this means maybe a little bit of patience for him and i would say that uh i don't know the returns were a little

bit mixed i don't think he looked overmatched but um i don't he did reach a fair amount. And I would like to see him kind of take to that leadoff role and be more patient because he's had different walk rates in the minors, you know. So it's an open question of how patient he's going to be. Yeah, I agree. He didn't look overmatched. He just looked like a rookie. Very jittery. And I think it was his second at bat, guys, that second strike call borderline. A veteran hitter probably gets that call. And then it kind of forced him to be aggressive and to chase pitches outside the zone. So I think, you know, part of it's going to come

with time. Part of it's just going to come with experience in the league, knowing the strike zone, getting those borderline calls. But I think there was a lot to like about it. If not for that spectacular play by Josh Naylor, he'd already have a hit. So I thought it was an encouraging night for a guy who, as Derek, I think, mentioned off-air, makes Seattle infinitely more watchable than they were even a week ago, even a day ago. Their offense is pretty bad. Their offense is bad. They almost got no hit anyway.

For the second time in, what, eight days? Yeah. Yeah, eight days? Yeah. Yeah, they're not great. But at least they're bad watchable. We've talked about this before on the show, right? They're entertaining. Right. I thought they both settled down a little bit.

It is interesting to think about the jitters. Can you remember? I think you tweeted about the first day, your first interview. Yes. Your first day in the clubhouse. And I'm thinking about just how like I still feel like a rookie a fair amount like because there's so many sort of unwritten rules and oh you shouldn't do that you can't stand there and all this stuff I'll still

find out like oh I'm not supposed to be here right now and then then COVID just made it worse you're like I'm not I'm in the wrong place I'm doing the the wrong thing. But like, I just remember I was allowed to have a field pass as a blogger for the Mets. They had like a big day where you could just be on the field. And I was asking players as they came out in the field to talk to me and they all said no. And so the first, like, it was all rejection. Like, the first day was all like, no, no, no, no. And I was like, oh, God, this is going to be terrible. And then Lucas Duda said yes. And I was like, oh, oh, no, no, no, no. And I was like, oh, God, this is going to be terrible. And then Lucas Duda said, yes.

And I was like, oh, oh, okay, uh, uh, uh. And I stumbled through some questions. And he's like a lovable guy, but pretty boring. But, you know, not a bad way to break in, I guess. You know, at least a nice guy. You didn't give me great answers or anything, but like a nice guy that didn't, uh, didn't, uh, take me to task. And, uh, I just remember being like, I, like you saw it a little bit in Logan Gilbert, right? Like the first couple of innings, I was like, Oh buddy, can I just give you a hug? I kind of felt like Gilbert was trying really hard

to control his emotions. You'd see him walk off at the end of the inning, and his face, it wasn't... Doing deep breaths. It was just kind of like, it was tightness, right? He was trying to keep himself from getting too amped up, most likely. I imagine that's the feeling you get, right? You could see it. Kellnick's got a lot of movement in his swing and his stance anyway. Like, when you watch him get in the box,

he's moving around quite a bit. Batting stance guy kind of nailed that, by the way. With Gilbert, I almost wondered if he was overthrowing a lot of his pitches early on, too, because he's known for having good command, and his command did not look very good for most of that debut. And I wouldn't ever take a pitcher who shows shaky command in his debut and say, yep, that's it. That's the problem. I think this is a guy that's going to settle in fairly quickly. Both of these guys, I think they're up for good, barring some catastrophic failure. And I don't really see either one of them in their profiles having a lot of risk that would make me think that they're headed back to Tacoma anytime soon. I think this

is going to be two long-term fixtures for this Mariners team. As far as the watchability index on the West Coast, Dodgers and Angels are kind of battling with the Padres for the top spot, right? The Padres are probably first. The Angels, because of Otani, maybe have passed the Dodgers. And then you've got Seattle kind of in the second tier, but they're moving up. They're in first place or whatever, but I don't think that they're winning the watchability battle. I'm sorry, Jets fans. Just that they're winning the watchability battle. I'm sorry.

No. Just not when you've got all these stars. They're all kind of like 29 years old and okay. Yeah. Yeah. But just the stuff and location plus numbers came through on Gilbert just to pass those along. The slider, the harder breaking ball that he had, it was like kind of 84 and had like a little bit more sideways movement.

That was his best pitch by Stuff Plus 110. His foreseeing fastball was average, and the model really did not like that loopy curveball that he threw. That's the one that Fran Mill Reyes hit out, right? I think so. I think that's the one that Fran Mill hit. The one that was kind of like 75 to 77, 79 in there, and it was like more 12 to six. That has like a 67 stuff plus. In terms of location plus, he did really

well on the slider and the foreseeing fastball, but also not so great on the knuckle curve. So yeah, I think there could be some nerve action there where, um, you know, I'm, I was a little surprised by some of the Velo readings. Like I know that he's added Velo, but like he was sitting 97 and stuff. And,

um, I kind of feel like he's going to settle in maybe at 95 and maybe better command. Yeah. The, the, the nerves are real, but you've seen some debuts over the years.

I mean, plenty of debuts, right. Do you see a pretty clear difference in the first start for a pitcher versus even just the second one? Yeah. And, you know, you nailed it. The velocity tick up is a big one. These guys are, like, shaking.

I've seen guys throw it to the backstop their first, you know, like, just they're that amped up. Especially pitchers, I think. Hitters, once you get that first step back out of the way, I think it's a little bit easier to concentrate maybe, to like zone in. But if you're a pitcher, you're not used to the stadium. You're not used to everybody focusing on you. I mean, you guys have been to a minor league game. There's a huge difference between the crowd and the atmosphere.

So I think for pitchers- Half the crowd at the minor league game is just there for like the food and like they're barely watching the game. The beer line is longer a lot of times than like the ticket line. So, yeah, I do think that for pitchers it's a lot worse. But hitters certainly too. I think, you know, had Kalnick gotten a hit, I think he would have been more relaxed, right? Those guys who get the first hit and they're first at bat, it's like, oh, okay, it's off.

Like I can do this. Once you get your first one out of the way, guys talk about that all the time. Your first hit, your first home run. You're like, okay, I'm good. I'm do this. Once you get your first one out of the way, guys talk about that all the time, your first hit, your first home run. You're like, okay, I'm good. I'm here now. Because so many guys have that fear of, will it translate? Whether they actually tell you

that they have that fear or not, they all kind of have that little fear in the back of their heads. So both these guys in Seattle are going to be fine. They're both legit. I expect Kelnick will get off the schneid here sooner rather than later, but I agree on the watchability.

And honestly, unless Otani is pitching, I don't think the Angels are quite as watchable because their pitching is so bad. Yes, they have some much-watched players, but it's more like, let me flip two Mike Trouts of bat, then let me watch nine innings of an Angels game. Yeah. I don't know. I struggle with that because when i look at the individual players

i think that their pitching is okay like bundy uh otani uh haney uh cob like like it seems like it's okay and then even in the bullpen it must be like their fifth starter you know quintana and their sixth starter sandoval or or something, and their middle relief. That must be what's been doing them in. I honestly think they should be better. This is like the fourth time in a row year-wise where I'm like, the Angels look okay. And then I'm like, why are they bad?

Well, Bundy, I think I saw some stats that said that Bundy is a victim of a lot of bad luck too. His stats aren't terrible, like you said, but I think he's actually pitching a little bit better even than some of the stats would suggest. That's something you might want to look into. I saw that recently. I forget exactly what it was, but he's definitely a guy who I agree. He was their opening day starter. He's their guy there, and he's pitching better than he ever did in Baltimore with less stuff.

And I spoke to Dave Wallace, a longtime pitching coach who was in Baltimore for a while, and he mentioned Gossman and Bundy and how guys kind of evolve. And I know we're going to talk about Jack Flaherty a little bit later in the show, but I think sometimes we get so caught up in the numbers that we also don't realize what goes between the ears and how big of a deal it is to just learn how to pitch at this level. And that's what Dylan Bundy has done. Not with the stuff he had in Baltimore, but he's a better pitcher now in Anaheim, I think, than he ever was. Yeah, I think he has basically the same strikeout rate as last year, the same walk rate as last year, the same ERA estimators as last year. And last year he had a 3-3 ERA, and this year he has

a 5 ERA. So I agree that there's some luck there. You could look at something like strand rate where, you know, normally 70% of the people on base are stranded there, don't score. And for him it's 60%. So there's definitely some luck stuff there. And I just – sometimes I like to not look at the numbers and just be like, what do I think? Like what do I think of this rotation?

If you told me you had Bundy, Haney, and Otani as your top three and Cobb as your four, I'd be like, you're probably okay. It's not like a league leading thing, but if your offense is good. And then if you tell me about the offense, you'd be like, I have Trout. I have Fletcher, who's like a contact god. I have Otani. Rendon. Rendon. I'd be be like then you're probably okay i i would say that you're like at least i would say you're probably headed for like 86 wins

i mean you look at the teams they're they're 16 and 20 yeah you look at the teams are in last place right now the angels the tigers the orioles the nationals the pirates and the rockies the angels and to a lesser degree the gn, the two you look at and go, they're probably not last place teams. The Nats could be. We've talked about their flaws a bit over the course of the season. But the Angels, I'd be shocked if they stayed in last place. Rendon's missed time with a couple of injuries,

and getting him back helps. One more great bat in the offense, one more great glove on the field, too. They definitely seem better than the Rangers and Mariners. Easily. I know. Easily. The Angels, to me, were a sleeper to in the offense. One more great glove on the field, too. They definitely seem better than the Rangers and Mariners. Easily. I know. Easily. The Angels, to me, were a sleeper to win the division. That wasn't an outlandish prediction going into the season.

So I would still hold out some hope. They're only four below.500 in the middle of May. It's not as bad as the Twins situation. They're 11 below.500 now after losing to the White Sox on Thursday. I mean, that's a bad situation. And they have an actual, I don't know if it's like an in-stone flaw, but like their pitching is a problem. Their inherited runners are a problem, too. Like their inherited runners are off the chain bad.

And Levine the other day was going on Twins Radio, and my friend Derek Wetmore does a great job with that. And he kind of pointed to how they're unlucky in a lot of facets but what i took away from that was even if they were lucky if you reverse some of those like unlucky trends they're 500 team that's still a massive undersell this team was built to win the division right i picked them to win the division if not finish second um taking the luck factors out and saying yay we'd we'd be 500. Like, that's still not good. That's not anything to hang your hat on. And I actually think there's stuff to look back on and be like, oops, you should have spent more money on pitching.

You know, like, oops. Because look at this. By war, they are 29th. Oh, my bold prediction that the Chicago Cubs would not be worse than their division for pitching is even worse than I thought. The Cubs are 30th. Oh, my bold prediction that the Chicago Cubs would not be worse than their division for pitching is even worse than I thought. The Cubs are 30th. Oh, no. Stay hot.

The bet on non-velocity stuff not looking good six weeks in. Let me see. Does it get any better if I just do starters? No, they're last. They're replacement level as starters. They have zero war. Okay, yeah, let's move on. Yeah, I mean, it's brutal.

I think with the Twins, Barrios has pitched well. Happ hasn't. Pineda's been actually lucky, giving up home runs, missing bats, and keeping the walk rate kind of close to his career norms,

but has a legit home run problem that has not surfaced in the actual results yet. So his ratios could be going the other way. We've talked about Maeda on this show. has a legit home run problem that has not surfaced in the actual results yet. So his ratios could be going the other way. We've talked about Maeda on this show, massive home run issues, K rate down,

but I think my stuff is still there. I think he gets back to being high threes, low fours, ERA, Kenta Maeda. I don't think he goes back to being 2020 Kenta Maeda because he couldn't get back to that level. It's almost impossible to do that over a full season. So they're not totally screwed, but they're definitely in trouble.

And I would look at them as a team that has, has to get on a really nice run sooner rather than later. If they're going to start justifying making improvements to this roster, once we get to the deadline in a couple of months, I would feel so much better about them. If like Jordan Balaslovich or like one of these young pitchers they had was like um you know top three pitching prospect-esque and like was ready to step in because when I do that thing where I'm not looking at the stats and I say okay Berrios Maeda Pineda Hap yeah you're making a very uncomfortable face right now. Yeah, like I almost take the angel's rotation over that.

You know, Berrios will be better on the front end. What? I think you should write a NotStats article because I think it'd be very un-Eno-esque. Yeah, sometimes I just go with my gut. Yep, sometimes you do. We had a question come in about Luis Castillo. He kind of fits into this underperformers to worry about. He had a start at Coors on Thursday night.

That's usually not a place where a pitcher off to a slow start is going to get well. Yes, the bad start for Luis Castillo got worse. The question specifically that came in from Ryan there were actually two is the command plus score on his fastball and slider worse than last season and if it's a mechanical issue for Castillo is it something that you think can be fixed mid-season we previously discussed him on the show it was because the velocity was down early in the year but opening day in Cincinnati was like 42 degrees. So hardly optimal conditions for a hard-throwing starter like Castillo.

Now that we've had a little more time to look at him, Eno, are you starting to see legitimate drops in the Command Plus numbers? Not really. The four-seam fastball is average, and every other pitch is above average by command plus I do think that stuff has been the issue and yesterday's 70 degree start at Coors was the warmest start that he's pitched in so if you look at his stuff numbers they were actually rising until the last two starts so I still have some hope him. I don't know that I call him in like an unqualified by low, but if you just look at his pitches separately, the changeup is still above average. The location is still good on all four of his pitches. The slider is still around average.

And if he can just get that fastball velocity back up, I think he has a chance to be good again. Interesting. I, too, do my best work in 70 degrees. I've come to really appreciate the low 60s. I think a 62-degree day is just about perfect because then you get to evening, you get to have a nice fire outside in the backyard, throw on a sweatshirt. I stay comfortable all day. I can run at 62 degrees and not feel disgusting.

I don't know. That's my optimal temperature since everybody's asking and sharing optimal running temperatures. Got a question that came in about Jack Flaherty. This one's interesting just because people have always kind of said, is Jack Flaherty really an ace? And Steve writes, Flaherty seems to outperform his stuff and command numbers. Any idea why? My first thought is we were just talking about this with some of the Angels pitchers, Dylan Bundy being a bit unlucky. Sometimes we get fixated on the ERA indicators, the fielding independent pitching metrics,

which are good in terms of distilling a pitcher's actual skills. However, baseball is not a fielding independent game. There is a defense that plays behind Jack Flaherty, and that defense happens to be very good. It's been pretty much a top five defense for his entire career. So I would say if you have a guy who is consistently pitching in front of a defense that good, you are setting yourself up at least with one possible path to outperform a bunch of different metrics. What about the Adier Molina factor too? I don't think people realize when you have a catcher, not saying he can turn everybody into an ace, but I do think he can help separate. I do think he can help guys,

you know, he can get borderline calls. I do. I think there's a lot of trust there. I think you can't quantify with numbers, everything that a guy like Molina brings to that staff. And also having a guy like Wainwright on staff who speaks his mind, never doesn't speak.

His mind is a guy who wants the ball. No matter what we can all admit that his best days are behind him as a pitcher. However, he's still got that bulldog mentality. He reminds me a lot of Max Scherzer. And I think for Flaherty, you know, having the defense, as you mentioned, having Molina, and then just having it between the ears, as we talked about earlier in the show, it's one thing to have the stuff. And we've seen cases like this before, where guys seem to have it all. They can't miss guys and they can't put it together at the big league level. So as much as we can quantify things, we still can't really quantify guys who just know how to pitch.

And I think Jack Flaherty is one of those guys. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And also the park, you know, it's like he's in a very comfortable situation. You home park is probably almost tied now with San Francisco after the changes as being the most pitcher-friendly. He's the kind of character. He kind of reminds me of Patrick Corbin. When he's in the situation, I like him, but I wouldn't necessarily pony up a ton of money

to take him out of that situation you know as a free agent because then he loses yadier then he loses the home park and now you're you're getting a fastball slider guy with you know on the tail end of how good the fastball is the other thing that comes to mind is he has an excellent slider and an excellent fastball the command plus is good on both of them on those two pitches and the the stuff plus is very good on the on the slider so i i think that is actually a like very important for a modern pitcher to have a very good slider that's one that's one of the things i'm taking away from gilbert is he has good command and a good slider and at least he has that you know You know, like that's, I think, the foundation almost for any pitcher.

And if you look at any pitcher that has two pitches and is overperforming, Oscar Hinoa, even Michael Pineda, you know, I think there's a lot of examples. Even Kenta Maeda. Like, yes, he has a lot of pitches, but he has a slider. His slider is his best pitch and it's his best pitch by stealth and command and what how did he break out he just started throwing the slider a ton so i think this is a slider league and jack flaherty is one of the best sliders in

big leagues and so that's that's almost all the story you have to tell and i know that like yeah if you look at some era estimators you look at strikeouts minus walks, you could be like, hey, he's not this good. I think he's a low threes guy. He might have a couple of bad starts in him, but, you know, I think this is who he is. You guys would both agree that you expect him to continue outperforming the ERA indicators for all these different factors.

Yachty, the defense behind him, the park. This is a sustainable, beats the advanced number sort of guy with the skills that he has and with those factors that we're talking about. Yeah, I think so. I don't think this is a case of a rookie having this crazy stretch that we know is going to somehow kind of fade. I like Jack Flaherty. I think what Eno said, he's not this super impressive guy. I wouldn't draft him as an ace to build around on a team, but he's a guy who I'd like among my 25. I think he's a good clubhouse guy. He's a guy who speaks his mind. I think he's got a good presence. So yeah, I think it'll probably continue. Maybe not at this rate, but I think he'll continue to outperform some of his stats. Well, we got almost 500 innings and he's got a.3270 RA. I'm

feeling pretty good about that's sort of where he is. Yeah, so a really good two if he doesn't meet your qualifications for what constitutes an ace, I think, at this point. Very sustainable skills and another good start to the season here for Jack Flaherty. Alright, if you've been

watching baseball Twitter at all and reading The Athletic in recent days, you might be surprised to see that there are members of the Yankees, both on the coaching staff and actual members of the team, missing time due to COVID. for reduced restrictions going forward. And it's led to a whole mess of different questions. Lindsay Adler did a great job breaking it all down, explaining who's been impacted, how they think this happened, what's going to happen next. The Yankees have kind of said publicly, we're a case study right now. We're trying to figure out what's going on just like everybody else.

So Britt, how surprised were you to see this, knowing what you know about how teams gather, how they operate, how the restrictions have been changed? Did you expect something along these lines to occur even with a vaccinated team, or did this catch you as off guards that caught me? Yeah, I was shocked. I hope it doesn't ruin it for in terms of rules being relaxed, because we need to get there. We are still on zoom only. The CDC has said that you can wear no masks if you're vaccinated indoors or outdoors. Yet, the reporters were still not allowed near players. So my first thought was, oh, God, we're never going to get out of field again. But I think when you look at it closely and you see like some of the threads from people way smarter than me who

deal with this stuff, you realize that this was going to happen at some point. It's just baseball is set up perfectly for it to happen because, you know, if somebody gets it, they're all stuck in these little rooms. I think I saw somewhere that there was a rain delay. So the coaches would have all been gathered inside in this room during a rain delay. Like, okay, now I can see how it happened. But for me, it doesn't change how I feel about being vaccinated and moving forward. I don't know about you guys, but that's how I feel. Yeah, I think this is actually really awkward, I think, because I think a lot of us are going to get it. I think that after we get vaccinated, if we got tested every day, like baseball players, a lot of us would be surprised.

Be like, what? I'm vaccinated. I have it. And I think the idea, for the most part, is like I was telling my kids to stay on the walk. It's like your body is practicing for the next time it gets this. And so the next time it gets this, it's like, oh, yeah, we got the plays already. We know how to deal with this. And so I think it's actually okay. This New York thing is not that devastating to me because all of them but one were asymptomatic. And so what you're saying is that probably the one that was symptomatic did give it to the rest of them.

Right. Because you kind of you need to be symptomatic on some level. You have a viral load in order to sort of give it to other people. And so what you're what you're finding out is like if you are symptomatic after you've been vaccinated, then you should put a mask on and then you should go get tested. But if you're not symptomatic. then you should go get tested but if you're not symptomatic the only only gonna know about the baseball players because they get tested every day you know what i mean yeah so it's it's uh it's kind of awkward because i think if those people were in real life seven of the eight of them would still be at work and it'd be okay they wouldn't be passing it on to other people and and they would be living life but because we're kind of like still have the old rules in place they have to stop playing baseball

and and stop coaching and they have to do it for 10 days even though they're they're probably not they're probably not gonna spread it to anybody so um this is and i'm not trying i there might be somebody who's mad at me already for saying the things I've said. I think this is just going to be, is just indicative of how difficult it will be to open up. And I have sympathy for anybody who is mad that the CDC said that we could take masks off when we're vaccinated.

I understand that it's going to be tough because you don't know that everybody's vaccinated and people who are not vaccinated are going to take their masks off. And that sucks. But mostly, if you're vaccinated, the likelihood you go to the hospital from this is very, very low. Extremely tiny.

And I do think there's an impetus on us to open up and to go back to something normal-ish. So, I don't know. I think that this is just a microcosm of what we're going to be dealing with everywhere as we try to open up, we try to be post-vaccinated society. Yeah, it's just there will be some setbacks along the way. Yeah, it's just there will be some setbacks along the way. I think the thread that Zach Binney, who has been quoted in a few pieces on The Athletic, his thread kind of explaining what happened and what it really means. I think that helped put my mind at ease a little bit. I mean, you have to consider that for the most case because he had the virus and was fully vaccinated and now he's unavailable at least for a little while.

It seems like they're a little unclear about the full scope of a positive test at this point and whether or not a player has to be out for 10 days. That's still pending. It's the kind of thing that the league at some point will figure out, okay, actually a couple negative tests in this situation, it's safe for a player to return like there's still some of this that is being learned as we go because the science

has moved so fast throughout this entire process and this is our first pandemic like this that has changed everything about day-to-day life for us that any of us have really ever dealt with yeah there is some leeway in the rules for the commissioner to kind of make a decision, and I wonder if that leeway will allow him to consider how symptomatic a player is, for example, and consider that if they're vaccinated and asymptomatic, perhaps they're allowed to get back on the field quicker. Yeah, so hopefully things are headed in the right direction. I i saw on thursday it was the first day with no new positive

test for the yankees so it does seem like things are trending back in the right direction and you remember back to when like the marlins like the in like the first time when everything was going bad remember how bad that felt and we're like the marlins and we were like baseball's done do you remember you get remember getting texts from people like did you get any of these texts brit i got texts from like agms and stuff where they were like yeah we're done yeah like like this is over and there were like three or four games that were canceled one in one slate one day and that's when i that's when everyone's like god we're done and i really do think that if like one more team had had a breakout

we might have had like at least like a two or three week you know everyone stopped playing baseball um but we we kind of got through it and i kind of think that this is the the new version of that where we're gonna have a couple breakouts like this, where they've, you know, they're vaccinated, but asymptomatic, and we're just going to have to figure out how to get through it. Yeah, I remember those, those early season Fridays from last year, when we were doing this pod, it just felt like the sky was falling each week a little bit more. And while this is a setback, it seems like a relatively small one based on the outcomes

that we've seen to this point. Britt, you wrote up kind of a notebook piece that had a few interesting things in it this week. And the Astros did something good. And one thing we've talked about a lot on this show.

Yeah, well, you got to get credit for it. If you do something good, it should be recognized as something good. So the Astros have actually covered the cost of housing, provided housing for their minor leaguers, which people listening might be saying, wait, that's not covered? And if you think about a minor leaguer possibly being promoted multiple times in a year and the logistics of having a place to live. Usually, you're going to live with roommates, multiple other players, probably more players than you should have in a one or two-bedroom apartment. It's a logistical headache that most of us don't wrap our heads around, especially for guys that

are making a few hundred dollars a week in some cases. What do you think led the Astros to go ahead and do this? Because this is pretty unprecedented. Yeah. So here's the crazy thing, guys. It was really hard to confirm this because I don't think the Astros wanted people to know. It's this positive thing. And they didn't want to comment on it. Reached a few people.

It took me forever. I heard about this from other minor leaguers because they were like, hey, did you see, yeah, did you see what's going on in Houston? And for a while, nobody in Houston would tell me if it was true. And I'm like, well, I can't run with this unless somebody actually tells me, you know, it doesn't matter. So that means, that means they think it's a, like it's a, it's an advantage. It's not something they're doing out of the goodness of their hearts. They think this is like a tactical advantage. I think so. And then I also think,

I also wonder is ownership or the front office worried that other teams are going to be mad at them because now they're pressured to do the right thing. Right. So I thought that maybe. You curve breakers. Yeah. Maybe that's another thing too. Like how dare you pay for these guys to live in furnished apartments?

Like they need to slum it. But the problem is, as you mentioned, Derek, so with COVID this year, you can't have like six guys in a one bedroom. Like I talked to a lot of different guys and most of them have one person that's in their pod that they room with on the road that they're allowed to live with at home. And so that's it. If you have a family, if you have a wife, guess what?

They cannot stay with you in your hotel, in your pod on the road. So the whole situation isn't great. Finally, yesterday, they relaxed the rules. Same thing as big leagues. They relaxed the rules for vaccinated minor league players. But I hope this becomes the norm because if you can furnish an apartment for them and take away having to find a lease, having to break a lease, which ruins your credit score when you go up and down or you get hurt or you get demoted, traded. There's all these things that play into it.

So having the security of, okay, I know where I'm living and I can use the money I make for food and utilities and training and my family and other things because they only get paid five months out of the year also. So getting these teams to pay for the lodging for really this year is four months, right? It's one month less, even though they're getting paid that month still this year.

So four months- It's not as amazing as it sounds at first. It's not 12 months. So I honestly, I hope other teams do feel pressured to do this because I think it should be the bare minimum. You got rid of 40 affiliates. Yes, you're paying them a little bit more, but I bet the money equals out because you got rid of 40 affiliates.

So there's a lot less players. So I hope this becomes something that we're not like, yay, Astros. And it's great. It's great PR. It's great. It's awesome the Astros are doing it. I hope every team does it, though. And they're like, wait, why aren't we doing this, too? It's so simple.

point of view, which I'm not always trying to go the cynical route, but if you just want your players to perform better and to get good rest and not be constantly stressed about money and logistics, this is one way to do that. This is one way to increase player performance. This is one way to make happier people, happier employees in this case. So it seems like a relatively small thing. Obviously, teams can afford to pull this off, but so much more control. I think this is kind of back to the way minor league players eat too, right? If you owned a team, wouldn't you want everybody who was in your organization to eat good, healthy meals every day? Wouldn't you want to invest in that? It's kind of the same sort of thing where it's just like, hey, look, you're a member of our organization.

We can take care of you. We will take care of you because we want you to thrive. We want to make you as healthy and productive as you can possibly be. And it's the same as with minor league travel not being fun at all, like the long bus rides. And one of the few silver linings about the minor league shrinking and some of the changes they made to the schedule, it is less rigorous travel compared to what we're used to having longer series before you jump back on the bus and head to the next town. So small steps, baby steps in the right direction. And yeah, my best guess as to why the Astros wouldn't want anyone to know, there's actually two.

One, they don't intend to do this forever. So they didn't want to be known that they're taking it away if they're going to take it away later. Or two, they see it and they're like, actually, we found that when our players sleep and don't worry about these things, that they're more productive. And then we can get them through the minor leagues faster or we can trade them because their performance is better. And it's good for us that way. They are a super tech and data savvy team. They have these things called URA. I don't even know how to say it.

I've just seen it um these like rings you know what i'm talking about brit uh you've seen them wear these rings that they're these rings that that that that track your sleep schedule okay so they're like what's it called it's like a it's like a whoop band it's the same thing yeah yeah there's whoop and then there's like an ura is like the is like a ring um and it'll track your sleep schedule your heart rate and certain stuff and and and download it to an app um and if they were doing that um you know in some sort of rigorous way and then realize oh the guys who have uh who live like six in a in a pod or whatever they're all like sleep deprived and all the guys who uh had the like 600 the the big uh the 600,000

or million dollar uh signing bonuses and and have like an apartment uh they they all have way better sleep cycle numbers uh they could there could have been sort of a data way into this there could they could have actually sort of spotted something and just been like, oh, yeah, this makes a lot of sense. And a lot of times these things pay for themselves. If you think about it, like having a cost controlled reliever for the first like four, three years of his deal. Right. He costs one point five million dollars. Imagine you created one Edwin Diaz out of this. You know, like imagine that like, like somebody who was like sleeping poorly and just wasn't any good

and just fell out of the organization and never went anywhere versus that guy slept well and ended up as an Edwin Diaz, right? That is enough to pay for all of the housing. Just finding one Edwin Diaz is enough to pay for all of the housing for all of the housing. Just finding one Edwin Diaz is enough to pay for all of the housing for all of the other guys

for all of the years that Edwin Diaz was in the minor leagues. So if you think that, if you run some numbers and you think that doing this will create at least one player, then it's going to be worth all the numbers. Yeah, so motivation aside,

if there's a reason for teams to do this, I actually don't even care what it is because it seems like something that would really help players a lot. So kudos to the Astros. Things I did not think I would be saying. Words that I didn't think I would put together for a very long time.

All right. We had an email come in from loyal listener OJ. And as I mentioned earlier, it was titled, well, he said in the first line, he has a quarrel with us. Loves the show. So I'm glad we're... Actually, I think I do have the answer for what happens with a quarrel. How do you end a quarrel? A duel. Oh, jeez. I hope it doesn't come to that. Hopefully we can diffuse the situation before it actually becomes Pistols at Dawn with OJ. Because I think OJ's emails are insightful.

I think he's a consistent supporter of the show. So I would really hate to end up in a duel situation with him. Really with anyone, but with OJ specifically. You have besmirched my name, OJ. Besmirched. There's only one way out of this. Things are escalating real quickly around here. So the email reads as follows.

I mentioned it started with a compliment. As always, I enjoy your podcast immensely, but I do have a quarrel. First, you guys seem pretty harsh about the Angels cutting Albert Pujols, even though he has something like a negative war over the last six years. I get that it could have been done differently, but it seems like the elephant in the room is that guys will justifiably try to squeeze every day they can out of those contracts that strangle teams who shouldn't have offered them to begin with. Everyone has also buried the Red Sox for not signing Mookie and Cleveland for not signing Francisco Lindor to similarly awful deals. Suppose we give Mookie the benefit of the doubt and say he's going to stay as productive as Joe Morgan, a similar-ish player, but one who stayed at second base, will even give Mookie that renaissance year that Morgan had in 1982, are the first few great years enough to justify paying Mookie so much during the extended decline? And does it make any sense to pay Lindor for that twilight when he's an average four-war

player for this early part of his career. Just curious how much you guys think a team should pay for the good, knowing that they're on the hook for a whole lot of bad. He also offered up Nomar Garcia Parra as a potential Francisco Lindor comp. So I think our beef, just to, again, try to diffuse the situation and avoid pistols at dawn, I think our biggest beef wasn't that they got rid of Pujols. It was that they didn't have an obvious upgrade for their lineup to call up at the time that they did it, right? A healthy Brandon Marsh or the promotion of Joe

Adele, I think all three of us would say that probably makes them immediately better. But when you call up John Jay, and no disrespect to John Jay, you're not making your team better. So the timing was just really bizarre from that regard. But I think we all agree, though, that it was time for Pujols, relatively speaking, to go. They didn't need to keep him around if they were going to contend. Yeah, and I think my beef is a little bit about giving the player room for like celebration and sort of allowing him to do the kind of go gently into the night tour that we've seen from other players. I mean, I guess this is where COVID might've been a problem here because I think the best

case scenario would be sometime in September last year. Let's say we all had fans at every stadium, then telling him, we're not re-upping you next year. Like, we're going to DFA you in the offseason. But we're going to tell you now so that we can, if you're cool with it, we can do a bunch of celebration stuff. We can have Albert Pujols night at the park the last night of the season, and you can have, and we'll talk to the PR departments, and maybe we're in St. Louis in a week. You, and we'll talk to the PR departments. And if maybe when, maybe we're in St.

We're in St. Louis in a week, you know, we can do a thing in St. Louis, you know, that sort of deal. And because of COVID,

you couldn't really do that same thing. So maybe they should have done that two years ago. It would have been okay. Like in 2019, it might've been all right to say, we're going to DFA you in the off season. That's how bad he's been. It's like two,

three years running. They could have said this and could have set it up differently. So that's been my main thing. It's not getting rid of him. And then to the larger point about players, I think if you get six, seven, eight wins, if you get like six wins or seven wins out of a player in the first few years, then it is worth it. Because not only does that change how they age, it means that you get an all-star, you get a superstar, and that is worth everything because you only have 25 or 26 roster slots. So if you can fit six wins into a spot there, that is so much better than having three two-win guys, you know?

Yeah. And that means a lot more to like the Dodgers and Yankees and the team the Mets thought they were building, which is like we need a star here because we can get lots of two- and three-win players. We have lots of those, but we really need a six-win player. And so we're going to pay up front. And if he gets six wins, aging says it'll age and he'll still be an average player at the end.

I think that's what they thought they were getting. And maybe Lindor's only a three to four win player in which case that deal will turn out to be pretty poor uh but i don't think the mookie deal is looking as bad damn don't quarrel with eno that was it was good no i agree with a lot of his points i agree with all his points i mean what, which of the deals, do you think the Betts or Lindor deals, did they stick out right away to you, Britt? No. Do I think either of them are bad now?

No. From the team perspective? No, and Pujols deal is an old regime deal. It's like the A-Rod deal. We used to pay people based off of past performance, and clubs knew those last few years would be painful. Same thing with Miguel Cabrera. You know when you sign those deals, they're going to be painful in the end. That's kind of the old regime that you were paying. Those were older. Yeah, there were older players too. Less dynamic players. I think there were 32 and 33 when they signed these long-term deals. Bad, bad idea. Yeah. And you were paying for past performance too. And that's something that needs to be obliterated in baseball. You're either going to pay them more when they're

under arbitration. You're going to pay them more when they're good, or you're going to pay them for their past. You can't have it both ways. We can't decide, hey, we're going to stop paying guys because past 35, they're done. We're going to stop these contracts here. Well, okay, but you didn't pay these guys. And we're also only going to pay them $500,000 when they get to the major leagues and they're really good. So you have this tiny window as a player, and I think that's what's creating a lot of the issues with the union and the league now is, okay, if you want to pay these guys, pay these guys. But these guys used to be told

cash in when you become a free agent right off into the sunset right you can play till you're 38 you won't be very good the last few years but it's okay because you are underpaid the first five years but it doesn't make sense anymore and that's why you look at a deal like pool house and you have to remember that was an old regime contract. Those just don't happen anymore. Nobody does that anymore. Right. Yeah, I mean, I think Lindor, the hope is he gets it back on track. He's young enough. He's not.

And he's very different than Pujols. He's a shortstop, so he can play third. There's a lot of places, a lot of sort of bumps along the ugly tree that he can go down. The ugly tree. Very nice. I mean, the thing we didn't see back at the time of Pujols' deal and similar contracts in that era, the closest thing we saw to it was the Evan Longoria contract, which is nothing compared to what Tatis just got from the Padres a few months back. And I think when the Tatis deal happened, if I remember correctly,

we said it's possible that he ends up being underpaid for the actual production that he provides the Padres over the life of the deal. It's actually very possible that he over-performs it. And he was the youngest, most dynamic. Well, I don't know if most dynamic. Betts and Lindor are pretty dynamic. But at the time of the signing of the deal,

the youngest and most dynamic. Right right but you're still taking considerable risk with anyone on a 14-year contract at 340 million so I think if this is the new adjustment if we're no longer going to pay players for who they used to be on long-term deals and instead we're going to maybe slightly underpay superstars and that slight underpay is still 25 million AAV and that's going to keep going up over time, that's a better place to be if those are my only two options because you don't have these awkward endings. You don't have these frustrations that develop for players who were great. I think that was the saddest thing for me with Pujols was that people really started to just resent what he got as a contract when he deserved it years before he actually got it.

That was always the problem. So hopefully we have diffused the quarrel with OJ. Well, it is awkward, though, because if you look at Miguel Cabrera, for his baseball life, he's produced value equal to his pay. Right. And Pujols, I think, is above that. I think Pujols actually produced more value than he's actually paid over time.

But just the shape of it makes us think so differently about it. So it all comes back to getting the CBA right and getting players paid a lot earlier. I had not thought about Nomar as a comp for Lindor. But the injury aspect and the power outage a little bit I just think so much of our current view of Lindor is skewed by six slow weeks with his new team and not what we've seen

from him since he broke into the league in 2015 like look at the last six years instead of the last six weeks and I think you feel quite a bit better about that long-term deal and power is the thing you know least about in small samples. And right now he's got like a top 10 strikeout rate in baseball. So if he does bring the power back, he could have a great year. It's just, you know, the power is missing right now. All right. Well, thanks for the email, OJ.

If you'd like to send us an email, ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com is the best way to do that. On Twitter, you can find Britt at Britt underscore Giroli. He is at Eno Saris. I am at Derek Van Ryper. If you don't have a subscription to The Athletic, you should get one. Theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels, $3.99 a month gets you in the door. Hope everybody has a great weekend. Rates and Barrels is back on Monday.

Thanks for listening.