Rates & Barrels - Summer Scoring Surge, Trade Tips & Long-Term Considerations

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

Eno and DVR discuss the barrage of runs from Tuesday night and wonder if an extremely hot summer will continue to propel offense around the league. Plus, they discuss a few tips for making trades, long-term concerns about Corbin Carroll's shoulder, aging catchers, and a pitch that might be the most unusual offering in baseball.  Rundown 1:52 DVR Loses Delivery Crown 3:14 Climate Change and Baseball 9:50 Future Adjustments to Stadium Dimensions & Amenities? 14:45 A San Francisco Stumper 19:13 Trade Tips: What Actually Gets Deals Done? 27:43 Cody Bellinger's Long-Term Outlook 34:11 Corbin Carroll's Shoulder 40:38 Dynasty Value of Veteran Catchers (J.T. Realmuto & Salvador Pérez) 50:23 Trust Location+ More In-Season? 52:04 The Most Unusual Pitch in Baseball? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Check out these offers from our ad partners.... Go to zbiotics.com/rates to get 15% off your first order when you use RATES at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton Bike or Bike Plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate. Terms apply. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Wednesday, July 19th. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris here with you on this Wednesday.

On today's episode, we will dig into a very big night of run production on Tuesday and discuss whether or not there might be a sign of things to come, as a heat wave has pretty much covered most of the country. And as we know, warm weather makes the ball fly. The trade tips that we did not discuss on the Tuesday episode will be a big part of this episode. How do you get deals done? What actually moves things along and makes you a better trader?

And we've got lots of mailbag questions. A good question about Corbin Carroll's shoulder and his long-term health dynasty catcher question because of changes at that position with all the young talent coming in. We've got a really fun pitch question about a Pirates reliever. So tons of ground to cover today. Eno, how's it going for you on this Wednesday? It is a crazy day. My broken phone needs to be fixed today.

It's long run day and it's already super hot. I need to run as soon as this podcast is over. It's one of those days. But it's hump day, so just get all that stuff done and it's free sailing from there. Yeah, the heat is a problem everywhere, but it's good if you like run production. As we saw on Tuesday, this was a stat I saw on MLB Central this morning. I actually get MLB Network in my house now. I have it available so I can watch the shows.

There can only be one MLB Network between the two of us. I think as long as one of us watches it, we'll get all the good things. So there were two things I learned from the show. watches it, we'll get all the good things. So there were two things I learned from the show. One, Lauren Shahadi door dashed a tee and it cost her $32, which I thought was, whoa. Well, you were the donut door dash guy. She passed me.

She's taken the crown from me as the door dash champion. That's hilarious. And the other thing I learned was that there were 12 teams that finished the day with run totals in double digits, and that set the MLB record within the modern era. That's since 1900. But according to Elias, the all-time mark was actually 13 teams doing it back on July 4th, 1894. So I think that was America's 198th birthday birthday or so i think that math might be a little off but the teams were very different the game was very i know john thorne but i'm pretty sure back there back then you could like sort of tell the picture where you wanted it i think it was sort of more like akin to uh softball and i don't mean like women's, you know, D1 softball.

I'm talking about more like beer league softball. You know, oh, just put it right. I like it high. Chuck and duck. Yeah. Chuck and duck where they have to throw you strikes and the pitcher sometimes will ask you, where do you want it? It's like, oh, that's fun.

It's a modern record. And, you know, it's related to record and you know it's uh it's related to climate change it's definitely that's something that's on there and i remember i i got this uh study came across my desk uh you know in april um this is study in the american meteorological society uh the bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. And it was a study that looked at how many home runs in the past could be attributed to global warming, and then how many home runs, how that will grow in the future. And it looked over 60 years of baseball data with daily temperatures,

and they found that the thinning and the warming of the air had already accounted for 1% of the home runs from 2010 to 2019, and they thought that 1% would grow to 10% by 2100. Well, that's pretty far away, but it does point to the fact that warm air, the ball travels better in warm air. And I think one of the most counterintuitive things that has come up a bunch in my discussions

of the Petco Park Factor situation and just discussions with people in general, the ball flies better in humid air. And I know that when you feel, the subjective feel of humidity is wet and soggy and thick, right? Like you're walking through water. Like, you know, just sludge almost, you know?

Like if there's a sludge of air that's how humidity feels like in atlanta you grew up in atlanta like atlanta in august feels like you're walking through sludge you know i mean uh that's a that's a human interaction with and it has to do with just you know you're trying to sweat and what it's like the ball's interaction is water molecules are lighter than air molecules just on the sort of on the on the smallest level on the atomic level they're lighter and so the more water molecules are in the air the more there are lighter molecules in the air for the ball to sort of pass through and so you may think it's a super muggy day the ball's not going to travel far in fact uh the truth of matter is the muggiest warmest uh days oh atlanta on july 19th

did you watch that game that game was nutty a game was all over the place oh my god just homer after hom Homer after just, I mean, it interacted. There is an interaction with, with the current rules, I think. And this is the interaction.

I think I've seen some evidence that, you know, there are some injuries that are mounting. So we, we, we, we covered the pitch clock and injuries. And there was a big spike at the beginning of the season. There was a big disagreement about whether or not that spike had to do with the pitch clock and injuries. And there was a big spike at the beginning of the season.

There was a big disagreement about whether or not that spike had to do with the pitch clock or not. I tend to think it kind of did because we had a whole month called spring training of people trying to get used to the pitch clock. And I think that that first wave was people being like, oops, that was, you know, I'm not used to that and getting hurt. Then things have normalized, and it looks more like a normal season since then. But now we may have a second spike where there's the accrual of fatigue over the season, which is going to be higher than in past seasons

because of the pitch clock. So if we start having more injuries again and sort of more than usual July, August injuries, you're going to have a thinning of the rosters, a thinning of the pitching staffs. And so that game in Atlanta, who started it? Elder? Did Elder start and get whooped? It was Elder against Zach Davies, I believe.

So what was Elder in the Atlanta rotation to start the year? Like an afterthought. Eights? Seven or eight, yeah yeah so you're already on your eighth starter and there and Davies is was maybe fifth or sixth but you know he's he's up or down he has good seasons he has bad seasons this was not a good pitching matchup it's one that I would have taken the over on and then it just went south after that because they didn't even know whether to use their good relievers their bad relievers because it's the third inning and it's like eight to seven well are we are we already going to go

into the like you know iglesias you know the the a plan or we just are we in the c plan the b plan what plan are we on so like michael tonkin is out there you know it's just like uh it just it just devolved but even i guess near the of the good pitchers got hit too. Iglesias got beat up. I mean, the end result, 16-13, that's a football score. And it wasn't the only one. I watched the end of the Giants-Reds game. That was nutty.

There was just Wilmer Flores hit two homers. I'm not saying Wilmer Flores is bad, but like, you know, a two-homer night for him. He got interviewed afterwards. Like, you know, he was the star of the game. So, I don't know. I think that this is something that I think we have to think about as fantasy baseball players.

But I think baseball as a league has to think about that because they're obviously trying to manage the interaction of homers and strikeouts, offense and pitching. And they can't come too hard down on the side of pitching and make it so hard to be a pitcher that as the weather warms and these home runs start flying, we start, you know, 16 to 13, 12 to 11 becomes the norm. I do think that fans, I mean, it's kind of fun in the moment but do you like do you think that fans would adjust and just be fine with the game where it was like 12 to 11 every night no because that turns every team in the league into the rockies from a day-to-day perspective. Yeah, it devalues. If there are too many home runs, it devalues the homer, right? And if there are too many runs, it devalues scoring a run.

Yeah, and the league's corrective actions, this conversation does kind of have two sides. It's like, what does Major League Baseball do about this? The planet's getting hotter. I don't think that's... Yeah. Some people disagree with that. That's what's happening.

The corrective actions for Major League Baseball are doing things like pushing fences back, making it harder to hit home runs, which does probably put more balls in play. As we know, you make the outfield bigger, there's more space for the ball to land. That's one that's starting to grow on me. Honestly, there's a lot of people talking about this,

and it's starting to grow on me. That's an easy thing to do, relatively speaking. More stadiums with roofs for climate control, that's another easy thing to do relatively speaking more stadiums with you know roofs for climate control that's another corrective action pretty costly not always easy to do and even the wall thing is is semi-costly yeah that costs something but at least compared to putting a roof on a stadium yeah that's a little more affordable and then you could start messing with the mound doing other things we've talked about that as having a lot of unintended negative consequences where pitch movement profiles are completely different and the types of things that pitchers can do if you move the mound back that could lead to a whole other set

of problems and then you know you look at the fantasy implications of this i think the biggest one is something people have talked about for several years we know that the summer months are the more offensively charged months it's harder to stream pictures now yeah it's harder to stream pictures now than it is back in april and may when the weather's a lot cooler so part of that might be saying you know what i'm gonna go a little heavier with starters over relievers in the first couple months of the season and then i'm gonna shift you know from a 7-2 split, starters versus relievers, to 6-3 or something like that.

There's some actions like that that you can take along the way. If you are in leagues with pitching caps, I think that's a really good way to do it because we see 30-40% of saves come off the wire anyway. So you go into the season and you just say, hey, I'm just going to draft two relievers that I think are good. 40% of saves come off the wire anyway. So you go into the season and you just say, hey, I'm just going to draft two relievers that I think are good. Maybe a little bit higher than some.

Maybe on the higher end, maybe some I think that are really good relievers. And then I'm not going to really bother with the dart throws at the end as much. And I'd rather have a bunch of starting pitchers on my roster to begin the season. And, you know, you're talking about 7-2, you know, you have to consider the bench too. So if you had like a five-man bench, like if three of those are pitchers, I'm talking about going into the season with 10 starting pitchers and two relievers. Right. And then you're rotating from those bench options to max out the two-start weeks and just cranking in as much volume as you possibly can. And then you pick up a closer off the wire.

And then you're back to – now you're down to 9-3. I do think that works. It's a little harder in leagues where there is no pitching cap. For example, right now in my main, we have pushed our way to the middle of the pack and we're punting era at this point so i guess we're okay with whatever you know like we're punting era at this point because we got in such a hole there and the only thing we could do was was work hard at strikeouts but like we threw disc lafani You absorbed that one, no? Well, we had a choice between Michael Grove at Baltimore and Discofani

with Discofani had two defined starts. When you're in a money league, I think one thing that I think that people eschew too much or don't think about enough is if you're in a money league, third place

pays. And if third place pays and if third place pays and you can look at the at the at your standings and say man i'm not going anywhere here and you can make that decision earlier and just be like okay i'm probably not going to win this league by punting two categories you know it's just going to be hard there's going to be somebody who's going to be good across the board. That guy, look at his team. It's ridiculous. If I punt two categories, I might do a third and I still get my money back or

I'm in the money, that's worth doing, especially the bigger the money payout is. I would honestly think that's true for me in dynasty leagues too. I think too often people have a team that's like a fourth place team and are ready to blow that up and i'm like you know and devil rejects

we're up to fourth and i'm like you know third is good it's in the money you know so let's let's just keep at it you know i'm not saying we're going to trade Junior Caminero away. But we're not necessarily also going to trade away all our veterans and rebuild. You know what's strange about days like Tuesday and bad pitching performances? I mean, Descalfani is a good one to call out here because it could have been worse. He went two. He gave up four earned runs. Gave up four hits.

Didn't walk anybody. Struck out five. We got the got five k's you got k's that you're punting era anyway in your specific case yeah but at least they got him out of the game oh before elder they let that guy rot yeah sometimes it's even worse depending on how teams manage their bullpens who they have available fresh you know i think maybe there are some teams that have more depth, more safety nets in place to avoid the worst of the worst blowups. I don't know how actionable that is, but compared to other blowups, that wasn't that bad.

My son asked me an interesting question. He said, who's the best player on the Giants? He's already messing with you. He's a little young to mess with you like that. I said, that is a really interesting question. How did you answer it? I said, they're all the same. That had to lead to more questions.

It did. We had a good conversation. It was a fun conversation. One of those walks home from school. But yeah, I mean, yeah. How do you identify teams that are like that? I think it's sometimes it's a sniff test. You know, who has better pitching depth, the Giants or the D-backs,

without looking? Oh, the Giants do. No question. So who's more likely to get a 10-spot hung on them, Zach Davies or Ross Stripling? Yeah, it's got to be Davies. Yeah. So, I mean, I think some of it is just,

you can just sort of appraise it. But yeah, I mean, in general, you know, what else can you do to be prepared for this? I don't know. You know, we're not that great still at projecting home run rates for pitchers. And That's really what we're talking about right now in July and August. I think there's going to be some good pitchers that get blown up. Brian Wu, after I gave him so much love, and I had forgotten about the innings thing.

I was doing a true talent ranking. We did a true talent ranking of Brian Wu, Andrew Abbott, and Grayson Rodriguez before his start. Where do you have that? You have to go back to the time machine on Monday. Rodriguez, Abbott, and Wu?

Yeah. Grayson clearly at the top. I think I like Wu more than Abbott. Something just isn't quite right for me with Abbott, and maybe a lot of it's the home park. Even though he's been getting good results also the fastball is exactly average shape and you know I I'm getting the elder vibes where I'm like I don't understand this and I don't think it's going to keep going I think hanging out

with you as much as I do has also shaped my opinion of Andrew Abbott in significant ways so yeah but you were the higher you were higher on Wu than I was when he first came up and I've sort of come around and I was I was thinking about pushing woo ahead of grayson now there's an innings component yes and i came up on twitter and i'm like i i apologize woo is coming up on his innings so if we're talking about this year the rest of the year it's clearly grayson and might actually be avid over woo because Shut down at any time. But in any case, Wu got blown up. It wasn't all just bad pitchers, right? It wasn't all bad pitchers. I think Tarek Skubal.

Skubal. By the Royals. Yeah, that's not supposed to happen. It was bad all around. I mean, there were plenty of poor performances though uh alec manoa after looking pretty good against the tigers still doesn't look right i didn't i wasn't in on that one when he came back up for auction yeah so it was it was a handful of different guys i thought too part of the explanation for what happened on tuesday was coming out of the all-star break that

was the fifth game day, right? Friday, Saturday, Sunday, three. So it was all the fifth starters in hot weather? It was more fifth starters, but it wasn't all fifth starters because there were guys that pitched in the All-Star game and then resetting schedules. I mean, I think the Mets-White Sox matchup was Giolito versus Carrasco. That game finished 11-10.

So it wasn't all just the perfect storm of the bad pitchers all showed up and it was hot. It was a bunch of different factors. I would say that most of the bad scores were in pitchers in hitters parks, right? Let's see. Great American Ballpark. City Field. Like Braves is a hitters park.

Truist. Wrigley. Kaufman. Like, Braves is a hitter's park. Truist. Wrigley. Kaufman. No, it was a mix. With Wrigley, it's all about the weather and the... Was that a day game at Wrigley? Day game at Wrigley. I don't remember what time that game was on Tuesday offhand.

I think it was a night game. Tigers-Royals was in Kansas City. But that's one of the places that you're seeing the more elevated temps right now, too. And the Mets game was at home, was not in Chicago. Yeah, it was a mix of ballparks. It wasn't just the hitter-friendly places.

I bet you a lot of people looked at Carrasco Giglio and liked that matchup and thought it would be like a 3-2 game. I think so. You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself. You live for experience and lead

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Best Western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze. And it felt a little like... Come on, kids. Back to the hotel room. Good night, kids. Good night, Mama. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Let's talk about some trade tips. What actually helps you get deals done?

I know you make a lot of trades because you send me questions and ideas. What do you think about trying this deal? Should I take this back? We kind of go back and forth. It's nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of. Mostly, I think you want to know that you're not overpaying when you make a trade. That's a common thread. We all have that. You want to make a good offer, but you don't want to make the best, most friendliest offer of all time

if you are into dealing. So the longer you've done this, what have you found actually kind of speeds things up to the point of actually getting a deal from a few emails or texts back and forth to a deal that actually gets done? I don't know, man. It's hard. I almost put the F word in there. It's hard, dude. emails or texts back and forth to a deal that actually gets done i don't know man it's it's

hard i almost put the f word in there it's hard dude it's so hard um i find it is easier if you open up a line of communication that is not through the uh app itself yeah those are no good uh you know i do i do have a discord channel for my oldest league uh i should probably get back in there because just opening up a conversation i think is better than just starting off with the trade uh offer uh because in a conversation you can kind of characterize your approach um and of course you want to personalize that approach to the person you're talking about so you want to look at their team you want to look at their standings you want to look at where they are you want to look at their players who's hurt you know you want to look at where they are you know in terms of youth if it's a dynasty league you want to look at all

that and you want to be like okay and you don't have to say say in your head say it out loud to the other person but in your head you want to be like i think this person could use an mi and i have katel marte who's 29 years old and is playing really well but i'm just not sure that long term he's a great you know dynasty guy It's 12 team. I think I want to sell Cattell Marte and I think he wants an MI. So you say to him, you know, you open up a line of communication. You say, well, I'm not winning this year. I've got these, I've got a bunch of veterans.

You know, do you see any mix? Do you see any possible matches? And then you throw Cattell Marty in a list of some other guys you know and you hope that they sort of buy that they could tell marty but if they don't you can still continue the conversation and then all of a sudden you're trading somebody else for something but you you hadn't thought of it ahead of time but they thought of it and that makes it more likely for it to happen you know so open up a line of communication that's not in the platform because if i just send katel marte and they just don't like katel marte they're not necessarily going to go through

the rest of my roster and do all the work that i did in reverse and they're just going to be like nope done and then you're like oh and you have to like it's like a job application you have to like fall in love with another trade you have to come up with a whole nother thing fall in love with another trade. You have to come up with a whole nother thing, fall in love with it, send it, get rejected, ugh, start it all over again. Yeah, the job application thing is a pretty good analogy. The doing your homework part is really looking at the categorical needs of that other team, thinking about what just happened to their roster, if an injury took place. Doing the homework goes a long way.

That's sort of the main takeaway that I've had is no matter who you're trading with and no matter what method of communication you like, just knowing what the other person involved might actually need gives you a much better chance of reaching a conclusion. I think the thing I see people do in my leagues that makes me kind of chuckle every time I see it is the trade block button. They go to the trade block and they say, I see it is the trade block button. They go to the trade block and they say, looking for this, inquire within. It's like, well, okay, that can start the dialogue, but that's just not doing any of the work. That's just saying, come to me with your best offer. And then usually I have found people that operate that way are really hard to deal with because they want to win a trade

that they're not even willing to do homework for. So that tends to be a dead end sort of thing. But I've seen everything, man. I've seen people not look at rosters and just offer trades. You'll have a great first baseman, a great corner, and a UT that's also a corner. And the player you get offered just out of nowhere is another corner. And you're kind of like, I don't even have room to play that player. So no, we can't make that sort of trade. So the early prep work is really important. And I think looking at, instead of trying to sell someone else on what they need, which is another kind of no-no for me,

like don't tell me how the trade helps me. Assume that I can understand how the trade would help me if it's a good trade. Or ask me what my needs are. Yeah, you could ask. If it's a keeper league or a dynasty league, I think it's fine to ask, are you prioritizing picks right now?

Are you prioritizing minor leaguers? Are you prioritizing young major leaguers? I think those kinds of questions are totally fine because the value in a long-term league comes from a lot of different places. And each person has a different sense of how important each of those elements might be some people value draft picks a lot more than others you don't want to miss that just because you didn't take the time to ask and that's something that's a little harder to know if you haven't already made a trade with that person

in the past so that'd be a big one too is like finding out some preferences as far as what types of players someone would want back especially if we're talking about those long-term formats. Yeah, and I think, you know, part of what we're saying underneath this is, you know, put yourself in their shoes. I mean, that's the hardest part. And that's when you, you know, you do the work and, but the work also has to be on your end because, you know, I'm sort of coming to realize in this league that maybe nobody wants Cattell Marte. And, you know, after a while, people get annoyed. Oh, another Cattell Marte offer. Even if I'm like, I'm pretty sure you could use a second baseman and you're in the playoffs and I'm not. But they just don't want the older player. So that's great.

Then you have to turn up the pain meter on your side. And you have to go past Quetel Marte, who you could easily trade for whatever. And you have to go to the next player. And sometimes you have to, if you want to get what you want, you have to go two or three players past that first player. That's so easy to trade. You know, like this league that I'm talking about, first player. That's so easy to trade.

Like this league that I'm talking about, I would really like to rebuild. And no one is helping me. And I started with trying to shop Rowdy Tellez when he was playing better. And I forget who else. Max Muncy. This is the league that I was trying to shop Max Muncy. And I was getting no offers. And so I was like, OK, well, I'm going to move on from Max Muncy to Cattell Marte. Nothing's biting. So I'm just going to have to move up the pain meter. And I think next on the pain meter is maybe Cody Bellinger. And, you know, the other thing that's interesting is first place has a stacked

ass team, and they lost Mike Trout. I could go to that team with Cody Bellinger and probably get a trade done. Now I'm making the stacked team even more stacked. You're hurting yourself for future deals because you're taking away buyers.

Yes, and I prefer to start with second you're taking away buyers. Yes. And I prefer to start with second and third and fourth place. Yep. Just because there are also political, especially in long-term dynasty leagues, we know each other. There are political, political aspects to trades.

I could make that trade with first place and you know it could be good for me and it may be the best thing to do and and damn whatever but what if it makes people less likely to re-up in the league next year or what if the people look at first place and they're like ah this league is toast like look at that guy's team or whatever you know what i mean um so you know there are there are these sort of secondary aspects i'm not saying don't do the trade you know because people might be mad but there are sort of long-term league health aspects that i do think about sometimes just because this is one of my longest leagues this is you know i've been the co-commissioner you know i mean we're talking about

13 14 years now on this team. So why make first place more stacked just so I can get something for Cody Bellinger when Cody Bellinger is not that old himself? Yeah, I guess real quick, since you brought up Bellinger, how much are you buying into it now that we're more than a half season through this sort of renaissance to his career. The K rate has stayed down 17.7%. That's the strikeout rate we saw from him back when he was MVP Bellinger.

That was something he's done before. We've got the power. We've got the speed. The walks are still there. The one thing that's a little weird, and it was weird when we first talked about it maybe six weeks ago, the quality of the contact has not come back. How much of a problem

is that for a guy that, if he were healthy to this point, would be on a pace for about a 30-30 season or close to it? It's bizarre. I mean, this is the worst barrel rate of his career, and the max CV has never gone back to pre-shoulder injury days.

He's not hitting the balls hard i tend to think that strikeout rate is nice um and the fact that he's still stealing bases is nice but um i could i might i'm i might consider some offers i. I might go out there and offer him a 28. What would you project him for next year? 29 years old, that quality of contact, up and down K weight. I think you would project him for at least a 20, 21, 22, somewhere around league average strikeout rate. Somewhere around league average power. Hmm.

That would give them the rest of season projections are probably a good guide here. They're close to that. Bad X has 251, 318, 445. That's not a slash line for a player you'd get excited about unless you believe that the power speed

combo, it comes down to the speed if he continues to run and is efficient the way he has been league average power over a full season for a guy that plays center field are we talking 18 to 20 homers i mean i think that's that's part of the package is like if the if the center field defense is slipping, he's 5% better than the average is the projection. And 5% better than the average for a center fielder is fine. For a first baseman, it's not. Right now, he's the 56th best defender by ounce above average, right there with Trent Grisham.

So it looks like he has a couple more years still at center. Yeah, 79th percentile for outs above average. 79th percentile for arm strength. Sprint speed to the 75th percentile. It looks like the other thing, if you look at the spray chart, too. I think for a rebuilder, though, it makes sense to trade him because he actually has value. You don't want to get caught waiting too long. It's not just a rental.

I'm saying you can have this guy for three years four years 2020 what are you expecting for a return i mean i just need i'm gonna need some quantity and this is why major league teams do it too not only is it covering your ass you know quantity with young players because you you know in these trade deadline deals you want to have quantity because you want to be like, oh, I know we traded away this guy, but this one guy out of the three turned out. And that's everything. So there is a bit of a cover your ass aspect to it.

But there's also the opportunity to have two or three good players for one. It's a 12 team without CI and MI. for one. It's a 12 team without CI and MI. Really, what I want is one young player that could be better than Bellinger and some elite prospects. Elite prospects. Are you getting down to the 15 to 25 range? You're probably not getting Holiday or Churio. You're not getting guys like that back for Bellinger, I wouldn't think.

You're probably looking more at maybe Jason Dominguez. We talked about a bit yesterday. Maybe Curtis Meade. Colt Keith. Guys like that. Drew Gilbert. I would take Colt Keith

if the young major leaguer was good. I'm working off of James Anderson's list over at Rotowire. So yeah, guys that are kind of in the back of the top 25 are probably your realistic targets for the best prospect you get back. And then you have to make sure if you get two, maybe three other players back, probably two, I think you're getting three total players back. And you could throw some stuff in to balance it out along with Bellinger, of course. Yeah, I can throw anything. I mean, I can throw all my old starters throw max muncy in there yeah right yeah you get a free max muncy but that's that's part of the the other the

other trade tip thing that i would i would work in is like the bundling of players sometimes works really well it can work well on both sides if you have players that you've tried to shop individually and you're just not getting a lot of interest, sometimes those players are enough to put a deal over the top. You kind of realize, oh, the league doesn't value this player that much, but that player is enough to bridge the gap from, uh, no, I don't think I like this to yeah. Okay. That's fair. And I think that shouldn't be overlooked. And I think that's exactly what Muncie would be in a 12 team league right now. Yeah. And don't be afraid. I mean, it is, Don't send your Flotsam and Jetsam for one player. In this case, I'm building a trade around somebody

I didn't really want to trade, Cody Bellinger. So I think that's a good starting spot. Now you're throwing Max Muncy on somebody you didn't want to trade. Now that's got some good value. If I just take Max Muncy and add him to Cattell Marte and go back to everybody,

they'll see that coming a mile away. Oh, so I said no to Muncy and said no to Cattell Marte. Oh, I'm going to say no to Max Muncy and Cattell Marte. I'm going to bundle them together. Maybe that'll make it more enticing. Yeah.

So I think, I think just being willing to get to some sort of pain point for yourself is actually the one of the biggest things if you're making a deal where there's just absolutely no pain for you then i don't know then you're maybe just ripping them off well i think that going back to your point about the trade aspect of things being political if you rip people off they're not going to deal with you in the future. If you clearly win trades and offer garbage, you can't go back to that well, or you lose friendships over it in the worst-case scenario.

You don't want that to happen either, so you have to be mindful of those possible outcomes. Speaking of trades, we had a mailbag question about a possible trade. Corbin Carroll in long-term leagues is extra complicated right now because he looks like a superstar who would go easily in the first round, probably going to go early first round for redrafts in 2024, as long as his shoulder is healthy. So we had a question from Chris who is horrified at the shoulder situation. We saw two instances now in which Carroll took a swing.

Grabbed the shoulder.. We saw two instances now in which Carroll took a swing. Grabbed the shoulder. Had to leave. He talked about thinking his season was over and feeling some numbness in his hand after that. No way. I didn't know all that. That's what he said afterwards, but seems to be okay coming out of the all-star break.

So Chris has an opportunity in a dynasty league where he just took Carroll as the 12th overall pick to trade Carroll and get back Julio Rodriguez plus a first rounder in the first year player draft coming up in the winter or the spring. So Chris wants to know, do I have to do this? I really wanted to have Carroll on my roster for years to come, but this feels like a pretty safe way to avoid a catastrophe. We just talked about Cody Ballinger.

avoid a catastrophe. We just talked about Cody Ballinger. And the impact of that shoulder injury is pretty clear. You can see it clearly. You can see it clearly in Cody Ballinger's career. He's not the person he was in 2019. Oh man. But just look at that season from Cody Ballinger. Carroll couldn't even do better than that, man. He runs more, so yeah. I mean, he could have like a 40-40 season.

Right. Corbin Carroll has Ronald Acuna-type ceilings. And honestly, in that D-backs-Braves game, and honestly in that D-backs Braves game I got a real kind of like leadership vibe from Carroll like didn't he try to steal home

and get caught I didn't see that I was sort of half watching he got thrown out at home somehow maybe he went on a grounder or something but he was like stealing bases and you know he had a really good game in a game where he had to have a really good game and i know i just got this vibe

that like this is a young superstar that's like this is my team and you know i'm going up against acuna and i'm gonna do all the stuff he does and you know i mean like that what I mean? That's the vibe I was getting from that game. Even when he made a mistake, I was like, I kind of liked that mistake because he was just like, and they scored again after it, and they won the game. So I don't know exactly what happened in that play, so I don't want to mischaracterize it, but just generally the vibe I was getting was like,

this is a superstar coming in his own and just does not think he doesn't belong has no questions about that and is actually you know out here just trying to do every single thing he can do for his team to win I get that same vibe from Rodriguez but

Rodriguez has an actual flaw maybe that strikeout rate yeah I, that strikeout rate. Yeah, I think it's... The strikeout rate plus the chase rate a little bit. He's lived at 25% since debuting last year, so we're closing in on 1,000 career plate appearances. Does not have the elite speed either.

Not Carroll-level speed, but he's 47 for 59 so far as a base dealer in a season and a third ish yeah remember when like late last season you just stopped stealing for a while yeah i mean i think the the approach the way that julio rodriguez chases is one of those things that you just wonder ball quality is a bad at ball quality. It's a little bit better. Right. It's picking mitts in a great player. I think this is a very fair trade offer. This is one of those offers. This is one you look at and you say,

I think I like that trade. And you could make it and say, oh, I kind of want to trade back. That means it's fair. It's balanced on both sides. I think it's pretty nice to get a first rounder on top of Julio. Because if you think about the days, the immediate aftermath of that Carroll injury,

everybody would have wanted more information. Everybody would have wanted to wait and see. And I think I still look at that as a potential long-term problem. Especially if it's happened twice in the season. I think I would take it. I don't think you have to take it, but I think I'm the kind of person that would want to mitigate that risk.

More risk averse. And would take Julio because I think you're still getting a guy with a tremendous ceiling. I mean, if you were starting a dynasty league from scratch, they would both go in the first round. Right, so you're getting the guy that goes a few picks later plus a first round pick.

And if you were doing this exercise four months ago, I think you would have found that everybody would have taken Julio. It flipped just based on a few months. They're so young. They could be 1-2 on the board for a few years.

They both have that sort of ceiling. Yeah, maybe. I think you could be right uh the the i think to make this more helpful for anybody who's you know beyond this is just that um that idea of you know making something so close that you're not sure that's what i'm talking about with the pain point you know what i mean you know this wouldn't be worth discussing if it was

a lopsided trade then it wouldn't be worth discussing so this is an example of somebody there's pain here the pain is giving up Corbin Carroll's possible 40-40 season the benefit is avoiding the risk of a Bellinger type

injury catastrophic decline in power somehow. A guy who ends up being more of a like 15 to 20 homer hitting guy who still steals 30 bases while getting a guy who probably still has a 30-30 season in his future. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a fun trade. And I think what it comes back to is just a broader conversation of your risk tolerance in long-term leagues. And when I think an opportunity like this comes along,

I think it's okay to swap out of the risky situation. There's a short list of players that I'd be willing to trade. Yeah. Trade Coburn Carroll for. Julio's on that list, especially with the added benefit of that pick. So thanks a lot for that question, Chris.

Try Tim's new Sweet Chili Chicken loaded wraps and bowls today. Take your taste buds on an exciting new adventure for lunch or dinner with our delicious new Sweet Chili Sauce. It's time for Sweet Chili Chicken. It's time for Tim's at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Alex wanted to know, with the arrival of a lot of young catchers in the league, and there's a few more certainly coming through the system right now, what's the dynasty value of the veteran catchers like JT Realmuto and Salvador Perez?

This particular league's a 16-team league. It happens to be points, but we'll make it just a broader conversation. Of course, you've got guys like Cal Raleigh, Cabert Ruiz, you've got Bo Naylor, MJ Melendez, Shea Langoliers, and Tyler Soderstrom. So this is a position, Andy Rodriguez, Henry Davis, a lot of young talent has come in recently.

Does this start to impact the value of those older guys like Real Muto and Sal, and we can throw Wilson Contreras in there as well, given the number of viable alternatives and given how tough it is to continue producing at this position as you move past the wrong side of 30

yeah I think unfortunately the best time to trade most and I say unfortunately because I'm a JT Real Muto owner in our devil's rejects he's our catcher. I mean, he's not going to go in the tank. And with the speed, I actually think he's maybe a little bit better of a long-term bet than somebody like Sal Perez,

who's kind of your prototypical masher. But I think the right time to trade those guys is 30. But I think the right time to trade those guys is 30. I just, you know, it's a thing that, it's a position that puts a toll on your body. You know, catchers debut later, peak later, and end their careers earlier. And I don't know if that last bit I'm not as sure of, but I also know that I Hall of Fame vote,

and when we Hall of Fame vote, catchers are in a separate category as opposed to how many hits we want them to have. Like, you know, 3,000 is a number you want a normal player. Like, if you want someone who's, if you're going to vote somebody into the hall based on their hit total, 3,000 is still a number, right?

That's still, like, the number people realize. For catchersers you just want them to get to 2000 and they're not even getting there anymore because buster posey did not make it to 2000 i'm still going to vote for him to the hall of fame but they you got a guy there then buster posey who was great and then you know gone early maybe that's just a singular event but it's also just i think points the needle to like buster posey's 36 now uh and uh and he's been out of the league for for three four years three years so i don't know i i i would point uh to buster Posey as being actually somewhat instructive, even though he is a singular event. It tells me that some of these guys will make enough money

and their knees will hurt enough, and they'll just stop playing. Posey came back for 2021 because this is the second year that he hasn't played. But the point stands. I mean, this is a guy that I think if he had DH'd or played first base, he could still offer plenty as a hitter. He had something left in the tank and had other things in life that mattered more and decided to go do that, and that's fine. Do those things, yeah.

Totally understandable. I don't think the arrival of the young catchers hurts the value of the elite catchers for me because I I don't value them necessarily like entirely on the scarcity question is that you know the supply of young players and I think part of it is it's what you were saying that it doesn't always happen quickly for catchers at the plate you have guys that can become above average offensive players, and they're not there yet. We talked about MJ Melendez as someone that made sense as a midseason buy low. His past calendar year numbers are really solid.

16 homers, 71 runs, 70 RBIs, 7 steals with a 215 average. It's an 84 WRC plus. I would bet that the next calendar year from MJ Melendez is a lot better than that because of the quality of contact that he makes. So you can see guys like that starting to click in year two, year three, and that makes the position deeper. But the difference for me is JT Real Muto. He's still top five at the position in homers over the past calendar year. You mentioned the speed 19 steals during that span. You're getting something that no one else at the position can really do now that Dalton Varshow has lost catcher eligibility in most leagues.

And he does it while playing a lot more than most, so you get great counting stats. Oh, and he hits for average, which a lot of catchers don't do. So I think JT RealMuto is kind of a special player that people maybe don't necessarily appreciate outside of fantasy as much as they should. I think in the fantasy community, he gets plenty of love and it's deserved. I think he's going to age reasonably well for the position because he's athletically very different for that sort of position. But that cumulative wear and tear, it's coming for him.

He's at that point. This is probably the beginning of hopefully a slow and graceful decline. So I would be more focused on that. He's at a 102 WRC plus right now, and he's projected by the bad X for 118 the rest of the year. So let's say next year you project him for, you have to put some aging in there. You project him for 110 WRC plus next year.

And let's say he does that. That's still, you know, he kind of, he has alternated good years and bad years. If you look, 110 WRC plus next year. Let's say he does that. He has alternated good years and bad years, if you look. He's 127, 107, 124, 108, 128,

102. Next year, he's going to alternate back to the good year. That's how it works. He'll be more like a 118. Then the next year in 2025, he might be 100 or 98 WRC plus. So like,

I think that just the bad years are going to get a little bit worse. And maybe you want to wait till next year to trade him. If he's, if there's better or you wait till the end of this season where the ball's flying better. For some reason, Philadelphia is playing like a pitcher's park and the one year park factors. It's very strange.

I don't know why. And balls, even if you look at the stat cast park factors that are based on launch angle and exit velocity, balls are just not doing as well in Philadelphia as they were before. There is a new scoreboard that's 70% larger. Usually that would increase offense, from what I understand, from weather-applied metrics and Ken Arneson and how wind works. But maybe in this case, it's actually blocking some wind

that used to help the batters. In any case, I would assume that with the weather rising, Philadelphia is going to play more like a hitter's park. We're going to have, I think in the next week, a 11 to 10 game in Philadelphia. So, and I think Real Muto will hit two dingers in one of these games.

So, you know, some of this is, you know, he's going to get right. But I would consider trading him now just because of what I was saying about pain points. You don't trade JT Real Muto at 35 years old for, you know, the 150th best prospect because you can't get any better. You trade him at 32 when he's still stealing bases and looks like he's going to give the other team value for three years for a really good prospect or actually a young player. Yeah. So I guess the bigger question here is what does it take to actually get him or what do you get if you're trading him away? And I think the balance in many situations is that people will say,

this is a guy who's going to be 33 next March. I'm worried the decline is here. So I would actually look at JT Real Muto in Dynasty and Keeper Leagues as someone I'm more likely to trade for right now than to trade away, even though the consensus would be that this is the beginning of the decline. And they might be right, but I think that's priced in. I think you're not necessarily giving up an elite prospect anymore to get JT Real Mudo. And that's off the table. Could you get Cabert Ruiz and an extra piece? Yeah.

I don't think I would do it. I'd rather just see what happens with JT and then even if I get caught just having to replace him off the waiver wire eventually, that's probably better than what I'm getting back in the return. Yeah. Sal's a different case.

He's DHing a lot more now and sal's already like sal's already not gonna he's not gonna bounce back and get you much more in the future like sal's already like yeah if somebody has interest trade him if you're rebuilding you know he's not gonna be part of your future yeah he's a year older we're not seeing some of the peak barrel rates even though we're seeing better stuff now even age 32 and 33 than we than we saw for most of his late 20s. I think I would also, like if I was training with Sal Perez, I wouldn't prioritize getting a catcher back. The one thing that I do do in most leagues is just figure it out a catcher.

I don't want the very worst. So I'm not saying punt catcher. I'm just saying figure it out. Just grab somebody in that middle bit. You know, that's not the very worst catchers are, are the very worst offensive players in baseball. So you don't want to bet I'm on your fantasy team. I'm not a $1 catcher guy. I'm not into that. Those are, those are the worst players in fantasy sports. Um, I think fantasy sports, like maybe worse than kickers. And you know, I think,ers. I think the $1 catcher is just not a good deal.

But the Cabert Ruiz's, I like them. And Cabert Ruiz himself is turning it around, I think. Maybe. Maybe finally delivering on some of that potential. Finally. It hasn't been that long. Give me my C.J. Abrams. Cabert Ruiz.

You could make that your guy. That's fine. Thanks a lot for that question, Alex. Got a question from Josh. Josh wants to know, we've often mentioned that stuff is stickier than command year over year. His question is whether there's an in-season factor at play. When a command first guy is having a great year,

Eflin and Elder jumped to mind this year. Can we expect that command to continue for the rest of the season? In other words, is Location Plus more predictive in season than it is year over year? Yes, it is. And we have found that we found value in Location Plus in season. I would say season to season, it actually is fairly sticky for the elite guys so you see George Kirby leading the league in location plus he is likely to be in the top five again next year Aaron Nola second has had a great location plus number his whole career Zach Eflin has also had a great

location plus every year and he has a 97 stuff plus. So that's actually a decent combo to bet on year to year. The types that I don't like betting on as much are guys where the stuff plus is so low. Miles Michaelis has had good stuff location plus his whole career, but I think he bounces around results wise because the stuff plus is not as good, 89 stuff plus. And you see it a little bit with Merrill Kelly, but already he has a 96 stuff plus. But Braxton Garrett has an 87 stuff plus

and a 103 location plus. That's the kind of pitcher I will bet on in season, but I will not bet on season to season. Yeah, I think that's a good application, though, based on how the location plus tends to work. Thanks a lot for that question, Josh. We had one more question for today. This one came from Brian.

It was titled, Daria Moretta slider. I've heard and seen it's weird. Any thoughts about this from Eno and if it should actually be called a slider based on how he throws it or how it should be based on the action of the ball so the best way i could describe it my my non-ino assessment was i watched it and i was like oh that's a gyro slider then i watched it again i was like wait a minute that's got like this air bender moretas are righty it it tails away it's arm side it's arm side movement which is really weird for a pitch that gets classified as a slider.

Yeah, it's really strange. It's a really strange pitch. It's not a screwball because with a screwball, you'll get more vertical differential and even more horizontal movement, maybe. But it seems kind of like a screw slider. And at 85 miles an hour, it does have good velo just on its own. You know, if it was a slider, 85 miles an hour is a bit of a benchmark for quality. But with that arm side movement, it's really strange. And a couple of things come to mind.

One thing that we are trying to do in Stuff Plus is find a way to boost unique pitches. So Alexis Diaz, Yannir Cano, and Dory Moretta are on this list of people who throw a pitch that there is no comp. And in essence, Stuff plus is comping shapes and and and velos and things and trying to find other pitches like that and then bringing back the results and being like you know a pitch like this should get these types of results that's

it's dumbing it down but that's sort of what the machine is doing uh if there are no results uh it just sort of assumes league average or worse. And so that's what you get with Moretta. We are considering a little bit of a thing, a Bayesian boost. So what we would try to do is kind of spliter out a little bit past, you know, pitches that are actually that close to it. And be like, what are pitches that are kind of close to it? Or what are some change-ups and like what like in fact slider versus change-up doesn't matter in the model we'll just look for pitches

like that move like this but what are there some other move ones that move a little bit like it you know are there you know if there's a is there a way to like uh uh sort of boost you know somewhat similar pitches. Domingo Acevedo last year threw a backup slider and had good results on it, honestly. But how long did it last? And I did just speak to a major leaguer that was, he brought up Dory Moretta to me yesterday, and he was a pitcher, and we both were were like i don't know if it's gonna

last because at some point if you also look at his mix as a group of pitches all of his pitches have arm side movement he has nothing that goes the other way so if you're a hitter you don't have to worry about things going in one direction you can just start to keyhole its degrees of going in this digression right then you can start to be like okay so now i'm just looking for a velocity band because i know everything's moving towards me you know if you're a righty so i know everything's moving towards me i'm gonna look for things that are out over the plate a little bit why would would I ever swing anything in if they're all moving towards me? I wonder if he'll end up with some reverse splits in the long run.

Yes, I think somebody like this would. He throws that pitch 61.2% of the time. It's a ton of usage, but he's also got that four-seamer and the changeup. Oh, that's funny because brooks brooks has a different number oh what does brooks have it as brooks has well oh you know what i don't i have his all times let me see yeah okay 57 but but there are some similarities to the change up which is so weird yeah but everything everything moves in and and think about this like

the in brooks and brooks um notation uh it's minus four on the slider horizontal minus 7.7 on the change up horizontal and minus six on the four seam horizontal so that's those are those are that's tight those are all moving in on you and about the same it's not like one's minus 10 and one's minus two you know what i mean these are all like fairly in that same range so they're all moving in on you to some degree and the only difference is the 95 stays up the 85 uh stays middle and the slider, the 84, goes down. And so, you know, I think he would just keyhole that velo.

That's why he's throwing the slider 57% of the time. Yeah. Working for now. We'll see if it continues to work for Dari Moreira. Good question, Brian. Thanks for writing in. He gives credit to Foolish Bailey for inspiring the email. So, an assist on the email. I always like to see that. We are going to go on our way out the door.

A reminder, you can get a subscription. Oh, now I have to run. Sorry, man. You said you got to wrap it up. So I didn't want to run long. You got to get out there. I don't want to run. It's hot.

You got to go sweat it out, I guess. But $2 a month gets you a subscription to The Athletic at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. On Twitter, you can find Eno at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Riper. You can find the pod at Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Twitter. You can find Eno at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper. You can find the pod at rates and barrels. We are back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening. Bye.