Rates & Barrels - Swapping Pitchers for Hitters, Re-Thinking Saves + Holds, and KC Optimism

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

Eno & DVR discuss the balance of trading pitching for hitting in real baseball -- and in long-term league formats -- before taking a closer look at a few pitchers of interest from the mailbag, a softening stance on Saves + Holds as a category thanks to Ron Shandler's article in the Baseball Forecaster, whether max Exit Velocity can help us see players in decline, and a few reasons for optimism about the Royals in 2022.  Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Get 33% off a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it is Monday, December 13th, Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Sarris. Eno, we've got four more episodes, counting counting this one before the end of the 2021 calendar year. So hard to believe we've made it through the big year. It was slightly better than 2020, I guess. Yeah, it was a step forward from 2020. 2020, one of the most awful years in existence. It was not the leap we were all hoping for.

I think if at the end of 2020, someone had said, here's what 2021 is going to be like. You're like, well, I guess I'll take that. I was hoping for more partying. Yeah.

Yeah. So here we are, but, uh, yeah, four episodes to go. Lots of mailbag questions to get to on this episode and, uh,

keep sending those rates and barrels at the athletic.com is the easiest way to send a long question. Twitter is fine too. At, you know, Saris, at Derek Van Ryper, at underscore Jeroly. Just let us know if those questions are actually, you know, for the podcast, not just general questions that you would like answered faster. Oh, and just so that people kind of have

an idea of the schedule, we'll have two this week, Monday and Wednesday. And then we're going to have the Mondays going forward. Case of the Mondays. So if you're looking for new content, it'll come on Mondays after this next Wednesday.

Yeah, just one per week, each of the next two weeks with the holiday season and travel. We got families too. We do. Yeah, we do. So yeah, looking forward to spending some time relaxing and then coming back full force in january because the one thing i always feel like that makes it officially

the new season if you're watching us on youtube the baseball forecaster the baseball hq puts together i didn't realize ron chandler started this book 36 years, the 36th edition. This book is almost as old as I am. Unbelievable. I'm only 37. The crew there, Brent and Ray, do a great job putting all that together. Great team. Always a good book to have

around as a reference, but a lot of great essays and research pieces in there that you can come back to again. Definitely check that out if you don't have a copy already. Awesome stuff to talk about in the rundown today. Good mix of questions. I've been kind of cherry picking these for about six weeks now because there were questions coming in during the playoffs that weren't necessarily playoff related questions. And I said, let's put a pin in that. Let's get to that later. So we're going to begin with a question from OJ, who starts with, Howdy, California, man, which I think OJ writes the emails to me only because I usually respond first. We both respond to some of the emails, but anyway.

Thanks for the daily shows. Postseason is finally over. We can get down to hot stove. A question for you from both a real baseball and a fantasy perspective. Suppose, like the Brewers, you think you have three good to great starters, which I personally believe are the hardest thing to find nowadays other than a five category offensive stud, but you're short at least one impact bat. Your most tradable asset is a fourth starting pitcher with at least the potential to match the

other three. In this case, it's Aaron Ashby. Or if you're all in on Ashby, you might trade Freddy Peralta. Would you trade that arm to get a bat? What level of bat? And is your answer different in fantasy than in reality? Some of the guys I'm thinking of, assuming we're staying relatively young and not super expensive, Austin Meadows, Brian Reynolds, Fran Milreis, Bobby Dahlbeck, etc. Thanks for your consideration, OJ. So we'll start with the real side of this first because, yes, if we're looking

at the Brewers, their biggest flaw is impact bats. They are short, one for sure. How do you decide? How do you determine which of these pitchers, if any, you would actually trade. I did try to look into aging facets of pitchers right when I was talking about Ray and Gossman and Stroman. I think, personally, command and number of pitches would become a little bit more important in the long run than they are in the short run. Does that sound about right? Yeah, I think we've always operated under the preference of if we have a pitcher for five years and

most skills are equal, we'd rather have the three pitch guy than the two pitch guy or the four pitch guy than the three pitch guy. That's fair. Yeah. Rather have Aaron Noah than Jack Flaherty. Okay. Yeah. That's a good way to put it.

Noah than Jack Flaherty. Okay, yeah. That's a good way to put it. So, I guess that Peralta now kind of is a three-pitch guy. He's finally made the work of adding pitches. I just think I would trade Ashby because my model

doesn't like him as much and he's just less established. Although there's projections. Good lord. Projections love him. It's 316 ERA. It's three pitches too.

Slider fastball change up all at least 19% of the time. 96 mile an hour fastball change-up all at least 19% of the time. 96-mile-an-hour fastball. Those walk rates are really high, though. I don't know. If Ashby got me Brian Reynolds, I'd do it. But here's the thing where I think this is true for both fantasy and real, is you don't get as much for a young pitcher

as you do for a young hitter. I think it's definitely true in fantasy. I think it might be less true in real baseball. But if you're the Pirates, do you really trade Brian Reynolds for Aaron Ashby? Well, they're not in a position where getting the pitching now makes sense right because i do think where these where these questions are the most similar is timing right we think about keeper

and dynasty leagues and where you're at in terms of being competitive versus working on a rebuild the pitching is usually the last thing you're going to add in a keeper dynasty league right you want the core hitters first because less risk and you're right. You're going to get more in trade later by having those young hitters. Anyway, I think in, in the case of the pirates, they would not trade for a young pitcher just yet. Actually, that might be a little bit of a stretch though. Like they're not as far away as we think. Maybe they're just entering that phase maybe this is the earliest possible time like the last offseason might have been a year too early so

maybe they're at the early part of that window but what are they going to do for impact position players they trade brian reynolds like they yeah i don't think that's necessarily the right fit for this deal and just generally the way people make teams in baseball and, I mean, the way I do it, I try to mimic the way people do real life stuff, is you build the hitting first. Look at how much trouble the Marlins are having putting together a hitting staff. I mean, they've been dangling one of their pitchers forever.

That's why they made the gallon for jazz trade. That's what you get. You give up a really good pitcher and you get a prospect bat that could or could not make it. I think what OJ is getting at, though, I mean, I think there are some fits here conceptually. Austin Meadows makes sense, right? The Rays probably have one too many bats because of the young talent they have coming through their system. So a guy like Austin Meadows could go. Also taking advantage of some money effects where like he's about to hit

arbitration and get more expensive. Right. I think that's a realistic sort of target and would you do it? If you have the ability to develop pitching the way that the Brewers seem to have it, then I think you have to bet on that a little bit. Now, I think the hardest thing about it is,

are you comfortable taking corner guys back in the return? That's another thing. It's like Meadows is a corner outfielder at best who is already DH-ing a little bit, and he strikes out a lot. So he doesn't really help you and you're too like right now Christian Yelich is not coming off one corner and the other corner is Hunter Renfro who looks like you're just going with the cheap option. Reynolds makes a little more

sense because you could plug him in at center and Kane's getting pretty old there. I don't know. But then it doesn't make sense on a team level. But there's so few teams. The question was about Ashby and Freddy Peralta. It's a Brewer's question at its core but this is a general question. You could look at other

teams, probably a handful of other teams you could say that have enough young pitching to make trades like this. Why don't we see it? Why don't we see controllable young pitchers moved more often? Well, it's because of what the question drives at. It is difficult to develop. But if you had too much, maybe Adrian Hauser is the real answer here.

You take Adrian Hauser, a guy that you don't necessarily see as an impact pitcher long term, who's getting good results and chews up a lot of innings. And if you're the Brewers, you say, we want Burns, Woodruff, Peralta, Ashby, Lauer, and then our other depth guys can be our six and seven. Ethan Small, whoever you're going to bring up, is going to kind of fill that role. But Hauser is the expendable one. And yeah, you're not going to get quite the same guys that we're talking about as possible Aaron Ashby trade targets, but you're just trading innings. You're trading a big bundle of innings to get back a... In that case, you probably are taking back a corner player.

Or you're taking back a prospect. Or you're getting a prospect. Which might make sense for the Brewers because their position player prospects, they have Hedbert Perez right is that his name and then what else they got Bryce Terang shortstop oh my god they keep talking about Bryce Terang he's not Garrett Mitchell is he no Terang Terang's kind of had the a little bit of fade I mean I would say Sal Freelick who they they just drafted, I think, last summer, would be another higher-end prospect for them. It's just so difficult, man.

Okay, so innings, you know, Red Sox, could you build? I mean, you're not going to get – who's their center fielder prospect? Yeah, you're not getting Jaron Duran. Jaron, could you build to Duran? Could you do Ashby for Duran? That maybe you could do. That's interesting to me. That strikes me as sort of gallon for Chisholm, actually.

Right, because then you're talking about guys with really similar amounts of service time. I think that's part of it, too. Right. Just kind of balancing out risk, long-term value, and how long those players can be with their new clubs. I think if you get down to the Hauser level, you're hoping for a Bobby Dahlbeck at best, like a flawed prospect.

Again, a guy that probably strikes out too much, fills a need, but isn't necessarily going to be productive for you much longer than Adrian Hauser is going to be productive for Boston in this scenario. One more name I've got for you. It's a little bit of an out-of-left field. Out-of-center field, literally. Ramon Laureano? Would anybody trade for someone on suspension like that?

I guess that's possible. Yeah, I mean, why wouldn't they? If you believe in the skills skills why wouldn't you trade for him yeah i wonder what it would take hauser does seem like an oakland a for what it's worth now that i think about all the all the trades we've tried to make for them already i mean we talked about the al west i think it might take show i think it might take one of those outfield prospects. I think it would be something like, if you're going to start with Hauser, it would be like Hauser

Mitchell for Laureano and maybe one of their expensive starters. Maybe get two of the guys back for that. Maybe. Get a rotation upgrade along the way. It's a short-term upgrade of course because we're looking at guys

in some cases that can be a free agent. It's a short-term upgrade, of course, because we're looking at guys in some cases that can be a free agent. It's a rare thing. I think in fantasy, it's less rare, right? I think in fantasy, we're built so that there are now contending teams that have extra young bats that they will

only trade for pitching when they think that they're about to win you know and i see it more i see it a lot in dynasty where people package together a couple arms or you know uh trade trade a a young arm for a young bat um you know i trade that bat to get the arm because they think they're going to win it all. But I think anybody who's rebuilding is trying to trade for bats. I would agree with that. I think the thing I've learned playing keeper leagues for, geez,

probably more than 10 years now, you really do have to be willing to take what looks like an L by trading a pitcher that's breaking out to get young hitters back. It's hard to do it when it's actually happening because I think you have that sort of inflation in your head about, oh, I found Lance McCullers and McCullers is having this great year. Coming up before the injury in the playoffs, if you were a rebuilding team in a keeper or dynasty league in 2021, or if you weren't going to win the title, which was the case for me in the playoffs. If you were a rebuilding team in a keeper or dynasty league in 2021, or if you weren't going to win the title, which was the case for me in the XFL, and you got to the late part of

the season and you had Lance McCullers and he was pretty affordable and very tradable and you didn't trade him, I think you made a mistake. And I'm saying that as someone who made that mistake because I didn't end up keeping him when he had the arm injury pop up in the postseason. I decided, you know what? We've seen this movie before. We don't normally like how it ends. So my window to trade him and probably get a lot back for him, it closed really fast. And who knows? I mean, maybe he ends up being fine. I hope he ends up being fine. But I think we forget how quickly those things can turn. The next one's Luis Garcia. I've got Luis Garcia really cheap in that league. If he gets off to another great start in 2022,

if I get a good offer for him between now and the start of the season, I think I have to take it. He's a pitcher. My team's not ready to win quite yet. So I need to get better for the long haul. And he's probably one of the best ways to get it because the team is willing to give me an impact bat

or multiple impact bats potentially. They're going to want to look at Garcia and say, at least I can keep this guy for three or four years potentially, well below what he's worth. And that gives me some added long-term value aside from the immediate help. So I think it's the right way to play and keep her in Dynasty for sure. I don't think there's many people that disagree with that. Trade young pitching when it breaks out if you're not winning right now because there's so much risk in holding.

I don't know if I take it to too far of an extreme, but even when I'm competitive, like, for example, in Devil's Rejects, I had Bellinger, and I forget, a couple people had bad seasons, but I still think we're still going to try and win next year, right? Just hoping for kind of a Bellinger bounce back. And in that case, I still traded, like here, I just looked up,

Cal Quantrill for Clint Frazier. Cal Quantrill for Clint Frazier. I think that fits what you're saying. It looks like an L. Cal Quantrill is more likely to be useful this year and maybe even next year, but it's an OBP league. I love Clint Frazier's plate discipline. I love his reach rate.

I love his power, his natural power, and I think if you gave him a full season of rope out there, he might actually turn into an above-average major leaguer, and that's a bat. It's a fair trade. I mean, I think it's the kind of trade that if Frazier falls into the small side of platoon again, then you can't really play him

that much, even in a league that deep. But I think there's enough paths for him to be more productive than Quantrill that it's worth doing for sure. So that's the type of trade you should think about, because Cal Quantrill is the kind of pitcher that even in a deep dynasty league surfaces on the waiver wire at some point.

I think back to the Roto-Wire Dynasty Invitational as a 20-team league that I was in a few years ago. I mean, John Means was a waiver wire pickup. Jordan Montgomery wasn't held when he had Tommy John surgery, so he was a pickup a couple months before he came back. And those guys end up being good pitchers in leagues that size. So if you think you've got a good ability to find them, Ranger Suarez, I imagine that league were still happening this year.

Someone would have picked up Ranger Suarez off the waiver wire. It wasn't because they thought he was a great prospect and he was stashed that he would have been rostered. It was because he was freely available and making starts. Someone would have jumped in then. So if you have that ability, if you're good at that, especially you can afford to trade young pitching that looks like it's breaking out.

The other side of this too, for keeper and dynasty leagues, we've all played in leagues where old pitchers get traded and old pitchers get traded for less than they should. I think the discount you get on a guy like Charlie Morton, even Max Scherzer, I think the discount you can get on guys like that is often worth taking. As a contender, I think you can afford to just go after the older pitchers, not think about the long-term future, and you'll end up doing better just in terms of overall trade value going after those guys and flipping the

younger pitchers that you found either on the wire or more likely in the case of good young pitchers you know guys that you actually had found a lot earlier in a draft and held on to for a few years yeah and the nice thing about the pitching plus model is it actually its best use is working in season you know off of a one or two pitch stretch right so we're early in the season some no name has a great game and then you check the the pitching plus model and it's like you know he has good stuff or you know and you're like well hey this might be the year for tyler anderson or you know cal quantrill or maybe not be the year, you know? And so it's, it works faster than projection.

So you can, that's, you know, that's, I think like, I think this is also relevant to the question in terms of like, you know, what is Ashby?

How much do you know about Ashby? If you're the brewers and how much do you know about compared to like Woodruff and, you know, on this and given the year to year variance and what the true talent of that, that pitcher is. So you always want to accrue. I think the question is right. And the very basic part is you always want to accrue that those people that will be really good year to year, you know, and then you don't want to commit too much in terms of acquisition

money, you know, organizational resources in terms of the ones you're just not sure about so i think that's true in fantasy and that's true and and uh and so in my case i was like cal quantrill is a is a nothing you know it's not something i can depend on for next year to be good so therefore i'd rather take the shot at a bat that can be useful like that. Yeah, I've got Quantrill kind of fringy for the top 100 among starting pitchers. I mean, ironically, now I need a top 100 pitcher for next year. But I'll try to use some of my further away prospects with some rebuilders. And you know I'll go into that draft pretty hardcore looking for pitching yeah i'm just looking through the pitching list here and what's what's out there

like what who where'd these guys come from i think is the question i ask i look at rankings ranger suarez john means george montgomery i mentioned earlier free agents and a lot of keeper and dynasty leagues wascary noah also like that right i mean he's at least a useful arm in those deep leagues drew rasmussen i just didn't think any team was going to push him back into a starting role clearly the rays were willing to do it guys like alex would pop up on the waiver wire in deep leagues like that because of injuries to be that interesting yeah so they're usually like their fringe options to be kept sometimes they end up being available in drafts and they get picked up in like the fifth round of the draft

by a team playing for right now. Look how the Giants are working. They just signed Wood, Discofani. They signed all those guys. Yeah, so I think it's a great question. I think it does vary quite a bit from real life to fantasy just in terms of how it can be played because there are so few teams that have an excess of young pitching

when we're talking about real baseball. So thanks a lot for that question, OJ. Pitching question that is at least somewhat related also came in. This one comes from Daniel. So he actually had a good tip for you, Eno. He said he saw your tweet about your dog with the college tweet. He said, my dog did the same thing. It turned out he had heart arrhythmia, so you might want to get that checked out. So thanks for the heads up on that, Daniel, because you never know with something like that.

Unfortunately, that dog is on to his next problem, which is his brother bit him really hard. They had a big fight, and so now he's kind of limping around because of his brother, big, mean, iggy biting buster so it's always something oh it's always something those two they're they're aspiring good boys as i like to say but the someday the question from daniel he was wondering what our take is on the following who have piqued his interest. Ruanzi Contreras, Reaver San Martin, Art Warren, and Phil Bickford. So it looks like maybe two starters and two clear relievers out of that group

based on what we've got so far. Contreras is interesting. Of these names, I think he's by far the most interesting. There's velocity due to a somewhat recent uptick in the minors. There are plenty of pitches, and there might be good command too. He could actually be one of those guys that ends up claiming a spot very quickly out of spring training for the Pirates and just sticks in the rotation all year. I think it almost comes down to health really being the main hurdle for him

to get over if he's going to hold down that spot all season. Yeah. to get over if he's going to hold down that spot all season. Yeah. I was really impressed by him, and I think there is a question of how much they're going to manipulate his service time, I guess. But I think he's so close and so ready that even if he isn't up in April, he will be by May.

that even if he isn't up in April, he will be by May. And then just in terms of stuff, the Pitching Plus model loves him. I'm trying to call it up right now. 96-4 on the fastball, had a slider that he threw over 20% of the time, had a curveball, has a changeup that he mixes in every once in a while as well. So possibly four pitches, three that he at least uses enough to say that he's got three. 105 stuff, which is a really nice one. But it's only 46 pitches, but I don't know.

105 stuff is something I'll bet on. What was the other name among the starters? Reaver San Martin. Yeah, I like Contris more than san martin i i like san martin and uh let me see what the model says here real quick uh yeah 101 stuff a little bit more sample uh i like san martin but i i like him as a bit of a deeper sleeper. I got him in my DC, you know, way down, like 40th round or something. I got him in auto-new for like two bucks. I'm not sure about San Martin

because he's kind of like this multiple arm slot, little bit of a low arm slot guy. Maybe that'll work in Cincinnati. Maybe he'll keep the ball down and have fewer homers. A one-on-one stuff is a little bit borderline, especially given a tough home park. But a lot of funk, some decent ground ball rates. I like them both, but I definitely like Contreras better.

Yeah, Contreras, it's easy to look at that profile and see a future top 40 starter with room to be like a top 20 sort of stuff that that's how high the ceiling can be with san martin it's more of a it's a little more of a smoke and mirror sort of thing i think of uh you know who i think of a little bit when i'm looking at his lines um sean mania i was thinking jason vargas oh well i mean that describes the up and down even sean mania i think maybe he's back in top 30 now yeah i mean i don't think i went quite that high i'm always i think i think it's because of you i've come out low on sean mania now for about two years

well don't don't go high on him the year he leaves Oakland. If he leaves Oakland, we have to see how much of the brilliance was Oakland's. But it is funny to think, what would you get from Sean Mania if you put him in Cincinnati? I'm suggesting it might be what Revers and Martin does next year. Wow. I mean, okay. So I've got Revers kind of as an NL only sort of guy. I don't think there's a lot of mixed league appeal. Draft and hold is kind of its own thing. He could probably throw him in there as a post round 40 guy because he'll get some innings, like how many

remains to be seen. But I guess, you know, thinking about this through the lens of the first question from today's show, this is one of the teams that could actually move some pitching because you've got Luis Castillo and Sonny Gray. They're talking about it, too. I mean, there's rumors. There were rumors that Castillo was already on the block. Right. And Tyler Malley not necessarily stuck there.

So, you know, with Nick Lodolo and Hunter Green and San Martin, they have three controllable guys. See, also cheap. They could open up even more payroll by moving one of castillo gray or malley and it wouldn't really surprise me at all if they did that once the lockout comes to a close so you know i think the situation there is a little different though because you've got guys who are a little further along both castillo and greg gray is a seasoned veteran at this point so trading him is not nearly the same as moving freddie peralta or something like that in milwaukee but it's one of the short list of teams where you could look at them and say based on what they want to do and who they have

they can actually afford to trade a pitcher and still have a competent rotation left over yeah and for san martin you know he's projected for like 50% ground ball rate, and that might be what happens. But he's also had 55, 58. So maybe he's a real standout ground baller in the making. So I do not think that he has the upside of Green or Lodolo even. But I do think he's better than Gutierrez, and I think he's probably better than Santillan, right? So even if Green and Lodolo are up,

if one of Castillo or Gray are traded, San Martin looks like the five. Yeah, Gutierrez, another guy that is just going to be there to probably get some innings. I know we've got a friend who's intrigued by that depth in Cincinnati. Again, it would not surprise me at all if one of those higher-end pitchers gets moved and guys like San Martin end up reaping the benefits. What about Art Warren, who's currently a member of that Reds bullpen?

This is one of the unsettled situations league-wide when you look at saves. Who's the closer in Cincinnati? If you made me guess right now, I'd probably say I'm taking shots on Lucas Sims, but he's not so clearly the guy that you shouldn't speculate somewhere else, and maybe Art Warren is one of those guys worthy of having a dart thrown in his direction. Yeah, it's a really, really nice slider for Art Warren, and so it is for Lucas Sims. So I think it's possible

that is a mess of a bullpen that you may not want to take too many shots at. You know what I'm saying? Well, I think the post-Rysell Iglesias showed a willingness to be pretty flexible about who finishes out games. Well, that just makes it tough on fantasy, right? Yeah, and I think sometimes we get pulled into believing that a team wants to operate that way when they sort of have to.

If someone doesn't take the job and run with it, there's turnover for that reason. If someone doesn't take the job and run with it, there's turnover for that reason. But I think this is a team that wants to be a little more like the Rays as far as using each reliever in the Cincinnati bullpen have over under 19 and a half? I'd probably take the under on that and assume that we're going to have a few guys chopping up the bulk of those opportunities. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I think Sims might lead it with like 15. Garrett has, you know, seven. Warren has, you know, 10 or something, eight,, 8, like Sims did last year.

Sims had 7 last year. So I think they're going to mix and match there. And it's a tough ballpark. And none of those names are can't-miss names. So somebody might have 10 saves in a like Sims last year had 7 saves in a 440 ERA. I mean, he probably returned value, but not much. And I, you know, I had a ton of shares of Sims last year. So I don't know if I'm just saying that, like,

I have a little bit of fatigue on this bullpen. A little bit bitter? Maybe, but try not to be bitter, right? That's a big thing in fantasy, actually, is to look past the time that that player may have burned you or whatever. Oh, yeah. I mean, hey, look,

do you think I'm going to have Victor Robles everywhere in 2022? Of course. It's been proven in multiple Twitter instances now when they say, think of a person in the industry and then tell me which player you think of first when you think of that person. And people from all corners of the internet are like, oh, DVR, Victor Robles. Shout out to the people that attached me to Rich Hill. Yeah, you've done a good job making sure Rich Hill is definitely your guy at this point.

Last player from that last question from Daniel is about Phil Bickford. What do we make of Phil Bickford? I mean, this is a Dodgers bullpen that may or may not get Kenley Jansen back. That is a fairly open question at this point. I would say maybe 60-40 favoring him going somewhere else is where I stand on it today. But the problem for everybody else in that bullpen is that Blake Trinan is there. And to me, Blake Trinan is easily a top 10 closer if Kenley Jansen doesn't go back to the Dodgers because Blake Trinan's pure filth. We've seen him return elite closer value before the stuff looks as good as

it's ever been. A guy like Bickford, I think becomes interesting mostly in saves plus hold leagues or leagues that just reward holds on their own. Because when you're looking for guys that accrue holds, you're looking for guys in good bullpens who don't blow up your ratios, who've missed plenty of bats. And I think Phil Bickford is exactly that.

Yeah, yeah. There is, you know, a little bit of concern of the pop-up nature of, you know, he was released last year, wasn't he, by the Brewers? I think, yeah, he was a DFA claimed by the Dodgers, which is always just an absolute dagger when your team, DFA as a player, and then the Dodgers or the Rays or the Giants or one of those teams swoops in and ends up with the player. You're like, uh-oh, we may have misfired on that one.

Yeah, I wonder if they were trying to sneak him down or some sort of roster crunch. they were trying to sneak him down or some sort of roster crunch. They were trying to sneak him down. But let me see here. He did appear for Milwaukee last year in one game. Yeah. And couldn't find the plate. I'm trying to remember, and I'm sure there are Brewers fans out there,

how do you not remember this? My 2021 was a little bit busy. But I'm trying to remember the circumstances around that appearance, like what was happening with the roster at that time, because you're right. Sometimes you have moves you have to make to get somebody activated. You need to keep a fresh, ready-to-go bullpen. And on your list of possibilities is trying to sneak a guy through waivers, and maybe they press that button thinking they could do it

and they pressed the button at the wrong time. Yeah, let me see here. Brewers designated. Here we go. His spot on the 40-man roster will go to Zach Godley. So that means maybe needed a starter. Or they needed someone to cover behind a starter. Yeah.

Godley has more innings. Bickford is a reliever. Anyway, I just want to say, in terms of year-to-year, Bickford has 109 stuff. I mean, he has a really good four-seam slider. He has better numbers in the model than Art Warren. If he was in Cincinnati, I would say he was the favorite to close, but he's in LA. So that's the only problem I got with him.

So I know this topic has come up on the show before, but it's fresh in my mind after I had to get an oil change on Saturday. That's the exciting part of my weekend. And while the car was getting that done, a couple other things, I was reading the baseball forecaster. I stood there at the car dealership for two hours like a weird person and just read a book for two straight hours while Christmas music was blaring in the

background. I started my weekend, but hey, you know what? It was fine. Time actually flew by. One of the parts of, so Ron Chandler always has like a few pages in the beginning of the forecast or just kind of looking at some trends from the previous year. And he was kind of banging on the table again for saves plus holds. I've been one of the people fighting back against it mostly because I think holds are a garbage stat too.

And I just think having a garbage stat like saves and adding more garbage like holds just means you've got extra garbage and that's a bad way to make rule changes and he acknowledged that and he with some data showed the differences between you know a save plus hold league versus a saves only league and how the standings are a lot more competitive in a saves plus holds leagues whereas in a in a saves league when a handful of managers end up with two clear-cut closers, there ends up being this massive shelf where the top three or top four end up with a 20-save gap over the rest of the field,

which is bad for gameplay. That's an interesting way of thinking about it because I tend to think about things in terms of player populations that are made relevant by certain things. And so I like saves plus holds because more relievers are relevant. Right. And I think that ends up being a good thing because, yeah, you're not locked into as many consistent strategies from team to team. You're not all chasing the exact same thing.

So I think that's a good thing. So I guess it's my way of saying I'm softening on saves plus holds. I think there's a few ways to judge it. What it does to the competitive balance of the team is a great way that I don't do enough of, and kudos to Ron for that. What player populations

are made relevant, and sort of a side note on what player populations are made more relevant is how many strategies does it favor? And with saves in there by himself, the only two strategies basically are punt or not. Yeah. And he's got a chart in here. I'm just looking at it right now while we're talking. Number of pitchers with 30 plus saves, 20 plus saves, and five plus saves year by year going back to 2012. Oh my God, it's just going down.

Right, going down. If you prorate 2020, there were nine. 2021 also had nine 30-plus saves, that is. 19 relievers had 20 or more saves. 62 had five or more saves. If you go all the way back to 2012 when the chart started, it was 15 relievers that had 30-plus, 27 that had 20 plus, and only 49 had 5 plus. So there's

clearly a league-wide shift. Part of that is other stuff that was mentioned in Ron's piece about injury trends. That's wreaked havoc on every aspect of the roster. But... This is also strategy and game strategy. I think that's the bigger part

of the trend, is just more teams recognizing that the best way to finish a game is to use your best reliever in the spot where you need them the most, not just for the last three outs. And statistically, it ends up being in the seventh more often than the ninth. Yeah.

But I think practically it's just meant that every team decided that, like every team thinks now they have to have three closer level relievers. Right. And I think it is to me a bit frustrating that we could look at the bullpens and say, this guy would be a closer here and he's not even rosterable here. Like that's pretty bad.

That's what I'm saying. Bickford is not relevant for 80% of y'all. And that's wrong. And he's really good. I don't ever want to tell anybody that the way I like to play is the best way to play, because I don't believe that. Play the way that makes you happy, but I've

fought against the saves versus holds thing for what feels like at least five years now, and I guess I'm at least done fighting back against it. If I'm in a league where that comes to a vote, I'll probably vote for it now, because I think I see enough benefits to accept the garbage plus more garbage

equals garbage, but the benefit of it is, you know, we had a big buffet. We had a big party. That's why there's more garbage. I don't know. Two of my favorite leagues, my longest term dynasty league, we have saves plus holds. Nope. It's a term dynasty league. We have saves plus holds.

Nope. It's a six by six. We have saves and holds. And then in the pitchfork one, we have saves and holds, but we have six reliever slots. Oh, that's interesting. A dedicated reliever slots is another way that works around this. I think a lot of league providers have the funky eligibility rules that can give you guys a starter that's reliever eligible and people leverage things

that way. So I think the optimal thing for me, I'm fine with six by six. I think five by five is still a little better. I think saves plus holds makes a lot of sense. If you can do a formula, some sites let you do a formula. You could do a little more weight on saves versus holds.

So that way you still are trying to find the closer, but I don't think that's necessary. I don't think you need to. And in fact, sometimes in these save plus holds, I still try to get a, even as I do a soft punt, I still try to get a big closer because one thing that people don't realize

may or maybe don't realize is that uh even in today's uh mlb um the you get the the pitchers that get saves get the more reliably the pitchers that get save chances get more reliably if you if you're if you play in holds leagues you'll know this when you're like searching for holds guys sometimes they pop up and the guy who's getting holds this week in, in Milwaukee is not the guy who's getting holds next week. Just remember like Jake cousins popping up and, and Williams getting hurt and, you know,

and just look at big Phil Bickford's rise. You know, like he went from DFA to, to getting holds for, for the Dodgers. So it's still good to to pay for one or two guys that'll have a role that you know of and are very good.

Because if you don't get any of those guys and you're like, oh, I'll just get a bunch of holds guys at the end, you may be chasing holds the whole year with your free agency option budget and with just all your effort. I'm looking at the list of relievers. The leaderboard at Fangraphs,

relievers 20 or more innings in 2021, sorting by K minus BB percentage. Guys at the top, Liam Hendricks, Josh Hader, Rice, Liglesias, Craig Kimbrough, all drafted, all rostered, all closers. Art Warren, number five, coincidentally didn't know he was there when we started this episode,

but he wasn't rostered in any of my leagues last year. I don't think they're even in a labor. I don't think he was there when we started this episode, but he wasn't rostered in any of my leagues last year. I don't think they're even in a labor. I don't think he was rostered maybe by someone briefly, but I don't remember even thinking about bidding on him. Taylor Rogers kind of in and out of the closer role, more closer than not rostered. Paul Seawald rostered Lucas Sims. Eighth probably should have been rostered in more leagues based on that.

Matt Barnes, Daniel Hudson, Jimmy Nelson. I don't think he was roster. Matt Barnes, Daniel Hudson, Jimmy Nelson. I don't think he was rostered many places. Stuff plus the Jimmy Nelson. Jeffrey Springs for the Rays. I don't know anybody that rostered Jeffrey Springs. Hobie Milner in the Brewers' bullpen.

Wasn't that the kid on Baywatch? Hobie Milner. Ryan Presley, obviously a closer. Aaron Ashby, prospect, whatever. Matt Whistler, 16 16th on this list he wasn't rostered in my leagues 95 sliders still work 26.2 k minus bb chad green kind of rostered in some a great is like the like i i love having chad green actually in any format but in safeless holds he actually gets a little bit more value i love my i don't know maybe the magic will run out some year but he's great do you think we should add an active roster spot if we're going to do saves plus hold should be 10 pitchers instead of

nine should be any of the tweaks that go with this if we're if we're considering trying to make these relievers a bigger part of the game. I think if you add holds as a separate category, then you should add another reliever slot or something. Yeah. Because now it's a whole other category you have to think about.

If it saves plus holds, I think that just revamps your reliever strategy. You don't have to necessarily add more slots. Alright. Well, I have softened. That is my official stance. I've softened unsaved plus holds. I'm not going to fight it anymore. But thank you

for the question. I am. And thank you for the inspiration with the information, Ron. The standings cluster is what really kind of swung it for me. I had that revelation as I listened to Christmas music in a car dealership in California. This is my life now. Pure trickery in the email from Cameron.

Subject line, pressing brewers questions for 2022. I'm not going to fall for that anymore, right? I know there are other email subject lines to just delete. I'm going to start filtering the pressing brewers questions into a side bin. So I'm going to let this one slide because it's a good question. Cameron writes, this is a question mostly for Eno. So here you go, Eno. It's not even about the brewers? No, that's what I'm saying. It's pure trickery. I thought he was going to at least try to pretend it was about the brewers. No, actually, it was pure trickery in the subject line. A nice compliment about the show, and I appreciate that.

But he wants to know, you know, you always talk about some of the magic numbers of StatCast where tools become significant. An example, 108 mile per hour exit velocity for young hitters. My question is, is there any research on the downslope of a player's career? Does a veteran failing to reach a 108 mile per hour exit velocity mean he might be done contributing significantly? Are there other examples of physical stats or metrics that might indicate that a veteran has lost something significant? Thanks again, Cameron. Yeah, I'm doing a quick search here for a piece by Alex Chamberlain. He has a piece called

The Near Immediate Usefulness of MaxEV. It's pretty cool because Chamberlain is very good at giving you links to previous research. So you can kind of see all the work that's been done on this um and uh you know it's maxi is not the best uh metric out there it's only um the best thing about it is that it becomes useful really quickly and so there is that like a guy can come up and or you can even see grainy you know complex video of some of marcio luciano like hitting hitting something 115 and be like whoa that's a big deal right um but uh the the problem is that it doesn't work on the other side where not having it is meaningful.

It's just one of those things where when it happens, it is meaningful. But here, let me see here. Let's see here. 70th, 20% didn't even let's see here 90% got to their max exit that they were going to get to in the season by the 150th

so that's game 53 so that's a I guess you kind of expect an older player just to get there halfway through the season at least but here's my point older player just to get there uh you know halfway through the season at least um but here's my point by the time you get 50 games you should be using barrel rate so would you argue that a dip in barrel rate of at some level is enough for an aging player to pronounce the Klein? Yeah. I mean, just barrel rate is

the superior statistic in terms of prognosticating power. It is probably the best one. But Max A.V. comes up because you only have, let's say you have a week, O'Neal Cruz comes up. He's been playing for a week. I don't need to know his barrel rate. Right, well, it's just not meaningful in a week. Right.

But if you told me he just hit a ball 112, I'd say, well, that is good news. So the absence of it isn't really great until you already have better tools by which to kind of look at the player. Yeah, so the player that I'm thinking about just with this question is Carlos Santana. I'm looking at his profile. Is he done or is there one more year of accumulation ready to kind of find its way to the surface? I mean, the shortened season for him was brutal from a batting average perspective. He had 349 LBP in the shortened season because he still walks a ton. He hit 214 in 2021, played almost every single day.

So that was a heavy anchor on that 214. And the walk rate came down quite a bit too. Still not striking out that much. Looking at the exit velocity numbers, max EVs have dipped slightly each of the last two seasons compared to where they were a few years ago. Barrels down from where they were in 2019, which that looked like a late career sort of outlier.

If you look at the five-year snapshot from 2017 to 2021, it's a lot of high sixes, mid sevens for the barrel percentage, and then a 9.6 sprinkled in there in 2019. How would you look at that profile and assess it? It feels like decline. 2019 is

like, well, it's rude, but the cat bounce. Sure. It's the outlier. That's less rude. Outlier is a good way to go yeah let's not kill the cats yeah right so uh that's the 9.4 percent barrel rate otherwise you got a four-year stretch of like you say i i i i'm gonna eyeball it and say 6.8 percent barrel rate so with that 6.8 percent barrel rate. So with that 6.8% barrel rate, I think the best you can expect out of Carlos Santana for next year

is the 2018 season ported over to the Royal Stadium. Right. So a less hitter-friendly environment for homers in particular. So you lose that. And the other problem that you have with Carlos Santana is the max playing time volume. I mean, he's been remarkably durable in his career. He has played 150 or more games in every season except for one going back to 2011. count that as full credit. He only played 143 games in 2012, the year where he fell short of 150. Just an absolute beast in terms of playing time volume. There is nowhere to go but down. This guy, thinking about cars because of the car dealership, Carlos Santana from a durability

standpoint is like a Honda Civic or a Honda Accord, like one of those cars that runs forever, like a 300,000 mile car. And there's one day, your amazing car that you bought in college that lasted you like 20 years, it finally stops working, right? Like that's, that's where I feel like we're at with Santana. The writing is on the wall, I think too, because you've got Nick Prado, who looks like a guy that's really turned around his fate after a slow start in the Royals organization. He looks like an impact guy again. He spent half the season at AAA last year,

so he's probably coming up. MJ Melendez is probably coming up. You can't fit Sal Perez, Melendez, and Prado all together unless you have first base open. The only way you're going to get first base open is if you find a way to move on from Carlos Santana. So it might be a DFA. It might be a trade where you get nothing.

But I'm worried the playing time, even if he's healthy, is going to take a massive hit because of the guys coming up behind him. Yeah. And in this case, the max EV is just not that useful because we have a large sample, a whole career of this player. And if you look, the max EVs have always been 111 or 112, right? That's been that's what he's done for the whole stack cast era and yet his power has oscillated up and down according to his barrel rate the years he has good barrel rate he has the good power years and the years he has the mediocre barrel rate he has the mediocre power rate so i think in this case it's pretty easy to see the max ev is not is not a metric that's going to tell you that much about carlos santana uh it is funny to think about though i mean if you gave me his projected value it's fun like

here's one of those things that's so tough about projections steamer has a projection for 432 plate appearances because of all the stuff you just said right yep there's other players they need to fit on the step chart however steamer has been projected for a 108 wrc plus if he hits for a 108 wrc plus he will probably be the starter somewhere there would be interest elsewhere in him if that's playing at that level you can just get traded to somewhere where he would play. And then he gets the 600 plate appearances. If he does what he's projected to do and gets the 600 plate appearances, he will hit 235, 240 with 20 homers next year

and be absolutely a good value in maybe like 24 homers. He'll be absolutely a great value as a bounce back sort of $2, $3 player in monoleagues. I also think there's, I'm trying to remember, Carlos Santana, if I remember correctly, is popular in the clubhouse. I believe I've heard that on multiple occasions now. So sorry for grasping at straws and not recalling when and where I heard it, but you could pool holes him. You could make him your bench bat. He's like an $8 million player. Even for a team like the Royals for a year, you can do that.

If you have a guy that everybody likes who can come off the bench and take a good plate appearance for you. I think it'd be weird to do that if he had like a 110 WRC+. Sure. So then you buy yourself a little bit of time. But, I mean, could Nick Prado play another position? I guess that's,

that's the other, other thing to think about. You know, what's kind of fun about the Royals next year? Uh, four out of the top seven steamer projections for players who have not played in the big leagues belong to Royals players. Yo,

that's pretty fun. Wit, Melendez, Prado. Was it four or was it just three? That's not a good tweet today. There's one more maybe? Who has not debuted? It's those three plus.

Let's see if we can identify that fourth player. I think it might have been three. I don't know, Melendez. I would think it's those three. Yeah. Anyway, it was pretty... And Melendez is number one, by the way. I think he's projected for like a 120 WRC plus.

It's pretty nuts. Yikes. I mean, it's awesome. Like that's going to be a pretty fun team to watch. A lot's going to ride on whether or not they can figure out the pitching problems. So we've got that. But all of this is to say using StatCast for decline, it's possible, but I feel like it's more complicated.

stat cast for decline. It's possible, but I feel like it's more complicated. I feel like you need a little more to figure out the decline is actually truly happening in a way that's going to cost the player his job. Because that's when decline matters. Sometimes you decline, you take a step back, but you still keep playing because you're on a team that doesn't have anybody better.

So I think that's the other slippery slope. You can use these flags. You can say, okay, we saw a drop here in Max EV or we saw this change, but we're not actually looking at a guy that is losing his job because there are no prospects coming up. There are no interesting upper-level

minor league journeyman types they're going to want to share that role with. They're just going to roll with it. Example on the other side, I'm trying to think of one where Kyle Seeger last year in Seattle, there was no reason for the Mariners to back

away from Kyle Seeger last year. They didn't have his replacement already in the organization. There was, I think, pretty clear decline, even though he ended up having a great season from a counting stats perspective. A a career worst strikeout rate career high in k and homers but a career worst strikeout rate came with it and it was a league average bat for only the second time in his entire career so that to me is decline that was happening but playing time didn't change so

it looks like a great season overall because it was a max volume situation yeah and uh i mean i just think you know barrel rate is just the the uh the best one now the tricky thing with kyle seager barrel rate up to a career best last year 12.3 oh there's a little bit of there's always ball. That's when the ball starts to get annoying. Right. If Seattle was a place that was getting extra live baseballs, well, okay. That's why the barrel rate crept up, but then you have to look at home road splits and it gets messy. Wow. Davenport projections like Melendez. It's crazy.

Yeah. I don't know. I feel like people are sleeping on the royals just a little bit obviously the projection systems see it people that love prospects know there's a lot of young talent there but how many people are going to go out there and say i think the royals are a playoff team in 2022 here's the other name vinnie paschiantino. Really? Him too? Well, here's the most bizarre part about it. Vinny Paschiantino is projected for a 115 WRC+. That's better than the projection for Marcus Simeon, Ozzy Alves, Nick Castellanos, Starling Marte,

Mitch Hanegarager Austin Meadows I don't even know who Vinny Paschiantino is So he's an 11th round pick in 2019 Of course One of those guys that He would have been 22 during the shortened Season that ended up being cancelled in the minor leagues So we didn't get to see him in 2020

Walk rate was better than the strikeout rate at AA. He had a 13.1% walk rate and an 11% K rate. Models love that. Oh, and he had power. 11 homers

in 55 games at AA. Eno loves these. This is like looking at Mookie Betts' profile. Yeah, I mean, a little old for the level, but he's been 50% better than league average everywhere he's played since being drafted.

And only a first baseman, it looks like. Where do you think... I'm going to break the paywall for one look up here. I'm going to look and see where our friend James Anderson has him ranked. Do you think Vinny Pascottino is in James Anderson's top 400? And if so, where do you think he ranks?

Give me a range. 275, 300. He's got him in there. He's got him at 134. All right. Which is, I think, pretty good for that. James likes to pop up, guys. James likes, you know'll he'll he'll

give a guy credit uh you know not just on tools um this is a great uh profile man i'm i'm glad i stumbled on this name geez i think this is the guy who's a problem for uh for for carlos santana i mean they all are but i just think the fact that the other two guys that can play that spot, that they're closer. Like, there's so much pressure coming. Santana seems like an almost certain bet to either be traded

or moved into a much smaller role. I'm trying to remember. Okay, so... Here it is. Prado played three games in right field last year. They're already seeing it, so maybe he can do that i'd love to see

that so you know whose profile this is for pascatino this is a guy's another guy you like right now think back to guys who were in the minors about three years ago and same position first base i think you mentioned this guy last week i mentioned him last week i know exactly who this player is based on minor league profile, age, level. Had this type of minor league numbers? Actually had better numbers at high A and double A in terms of WRC plus, but very similar in terms of walk rate, K rate, power, position. Lowe?

Nate Lowe. This is the Nate Lowe profile. This is exactly what that is. Nate Lowe profile. This is exactly what that is. Nate Lowe, 13th rounder. That's a loaded comparison. I definitely had Jason Collette blowing up my text messages after I mentioned him last week. Loaded?

Was that on purpose? Did you do that on purpose? He was saying about all the stuff that low has these problems against uh velo it's probably true well vinnie pasquantino so p-a-s-q-u-a-n-t-i-n-o we just don't know about i mean he is older there could be something there based on the back of the baseball card and the stats pages he's's a heavier version of Nate Lowe. That's interesting. I thought Lowe had higher strikeout rates,

and he did by a little bit. They were good in the minors, and then they jumped as he advanced, which, I mean, that would definitely make sense. So that's where I'm at. I kind of like Lowe as a bounce back this year. So. Oh, man. We got a couple more. I'm a couple more those kinds of bb and k rates though yeah we got a couple more questions to get to this one might be a quick one uh whatever happened to rick porcello this question from tristan you may not have rich hill's pitching plus profile cough

but he was a model of consistency for a decade before the shortened season in his year with the Mets. Seemed undone more by bad luck and bad defense than anything. I've never seen confirmation he's retired. Couldn't Porcello help someone if he's still in game shape? Which I actually thought this, geez, I think going into last year, I was like, yeah, why don't we ever hear his name as someone that a team that just needs innings would be looking at? I kept thinking he'd be like a late spring signing. He's only 32. He'll turn 33 two weeks from today. So happy birthday in advance to Rick Porcello.

Hope you're enjoying the pod. I don't think he'll enjoy what I'm about to say. It'll be nice. Come on. He's a listener. Say the negative thing in a nice way I will say this I think that the reason

we don't have him to kick around anymore is stuff like the stuff model does this mean we're also going to say goodbye to Zach Davies very soon? Because that's a similar profile. Davies is a few years younger still, so maybe there's a little more time for him, but what's really the difference? If Zach Davies is someone your team would be interested in, why isn't Rick Porcello also someone your team is interested in?

That I don't know so much uh because you know literally his 2020 stuff uh location profile says he could be near an average pitcher because he had a 90 stuff 104 location somebody asked me recently if i was still into brubaker uh and brubaker actually falls in this group of kind of 90-stuff 105 location, which also includes Alec Mills and Michael Pineda. I don't actually have a good answer for you because those guys get deals, and Rick has not. I mean, perhaps there's little uh unwillingness on his side just to um you know take the kind of deals that he's being offered you know maybe he's just being

offered minor league invites and he's like dude if i'm gonna show up guarantee me some money and you know what i mean yeah if i'm gonna go through all the trouble of being ready to pitch i'd like a guaranteed deal and if i don't get a guaranteed deal, fine. I made enough money playing the game. That's it. I can never work again. It's the Jeff Samarja thing too, right? You know, you would have thought that, wouldn't you have thought that Jeff Samarja would get like one more deal?

You know, just a shot. As a reliever or something. Sure. You're getting these like Rich Hill, you know, Rich Hill's getting a thing every year, you know. Sorry, Rich. Stop bringing him into this. I know.

Rick Porcello topped $120 million in career earnings, according to Baseball Reference. So whatever happened to Rick Porcello, he's probably out spending the money that you can't spend an entire lifetime. He's probably living his best life right now. Is Rick Porcello on Instagram? Yeah, Jeff Samarja had that $150 million deal with the Giants, right? I think Samarja had a pretty good deal at one point, yeah.

He had a $100-plus million deal. So, you know, it's just like if you say, hey, Jeff, come into camp. We'll give you on a split deal. We can't tell you they're in the rotation. You might be in the bullpen. I mean, do you know how long the sigh that Jeff Samarja makes when he hears that offer?

Is it like a Napoleon Dynamite sort of sigh? Like what are we? Tina Belcher? And then probably some expletives and a no. Yeah. No, I mean, I don't think it's a full Tina Belcher situation, but yeah, over $120 million for Samarja too. I mean, I think if you reach that level of career earnings, no matter how much you love

baseball, if baseball only loves you to the tune of a non-guaranteed minor league deal for a potentially bad team where you're not going to the playoffs and you're going to get traded mid-season if you pitch well, is that really worth like i think it's a fair question to ask what would alec mills get if he was a total free agent like a one year two million dollar contract at the high end and maybe just an invite maybe just an invite i think the only thing that would make a team maybe give mills because he money is he's younger. And he's actually 30. He's older than Zach Davies.

Alec Mills is older than Zach Davies. I realize Zach Davies looks like maybe the youngest guy to ever pitch in the big leagues at least in the last 20 years. Yeah, people are like, duh, look at Davies. Yeah, but Davies only turns 29 in February. It feels like he's been around a little longer than that.

Yeah. Anyway, that's a lesson for me also in fantasy, is just that I can't fall in love with Mills and Brubaker types anymore. You can have a couple somewhere on your roster, but a 90 stuff, I think, is just a recipe for a terrible year at some point. Fair enough. We've got one more question from Alan that I'm going to save

for a future episode because I think it belongs as part of a bigger conversation. It's about players missing time and the value of a guy that plays every day versus a guy that plays about 80% of the time. If you have any other questions about valuations that are similar to that, feel free to fire those our way.

We'll be sure to add those to the question that, that Alan sent in. So we'll January is going to be a tough month. Let me tell you, because I, and I've been talking to some people in the industry about this, you know, I think February one is the first date to that.

Everyone has marked on the calendar and And there is some sense that nothing is going to happen until there's fire under someone's butt. And I think February 1st is the first day there's really fire under someone's butt. So I wouldn't be surprised if we get very little news in January and February just starts cooking a little bit. The good news is rankings can be a thing and dissecting those rankings. And we've got some friends, we've got a few, we can, you know, call them up, get them out

of the pod, you know, have a little fun that way too. But questions are always welcome regardless of, you know, whether we're, we're locked out or not on Twitter. He's at, you know, Saris I'm at Derek van Riper, Brits at Brit underscore drool. If you're watching us on YouTube, be sure to hit the subscribe button for the channel and barrel up on the like button. If you are looking for a subscription to The Athletic, you can get one for 33% off the first year

at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. That is going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next time.