Rates & Barrels - Takeaways From the First Quarter of the 2025 MLB Season w/Joe Sheehan

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Joe Sheehan joins Eno and DVR to discuss dropping the skepticism around the Tigers as AL Central frontrunners, where credit (and blame) belong with the 2025 Giants, over-performing teams they expect to see fade from the playoff picture over the course of the season, and under-performing teams they believe will find their way into the playoffs. Plus, the lack of top-end results from Jordan Walker despite top-end bat speed, and a few selections for summer breakouts.Rundown5:30 Should We Believe in the Tigers?12:41 The 'Bustarhan' Giants Are Pretty Good21:18 Best Teams Today That Won't Make the Playoffs This Season25:15 Is the Guardians' Pitching Development Fading?30:57 2025 Playoffs Teams with Worst Record on May 13th?39:41 Why Are Teams Reluctant to Make 'Early' Trades?46:12 Jordan Walker: Top-End Bat Speed, Without Top-End Results53:32 Who Is Your Favorite Breakout On Tap This Summer?Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.socialFollow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.socialFollow Joe on Bluesky: @sheehannewsletter.bsky.sociale-mail: [e-mail] our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFeSubscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrelsHosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno SarrisWith: Joe SheehanProducer: Brian SmithExecutive Producer: Derek VanRiper  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, it's Noah Chestnut from The Athletic. If you're into games and sports, pay attention. I'm going to give you four sports terms. You tell me the common thread. Ready? Game. Match. Point.

Set. This one's kind of a gimme. The answer is, how tennis is scored. Do you want more of a challenge? Check out Connections Sports Edition. It's a new daily game for sports fans. To play now, go to theathletic.com slash connections. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it is Tuesday, May 13th. Derek Van Rynper, Inosaris here with you, joined by a special guest, Joe Sheehan joins the show today, author of the Joe Sheehan newsletter.

JoeSheehan.com, if you want to be a subscriber to that, get in on that ASAP. Joe, thank you so much for joining us. Guys, I listen to every show, I'm really excited to come on and talk to you today. It feels like it's long overdue, man. This is like year seven of the show. I can't believe we haven't had you on before, but we're happy to have you today. As you know, Eno loves games, trivia of any kind, and I wanted to be a game show host as a kid, so I will lean into Eno's fears as much as I possibly can can. It will start today's show with a game, but I think I'll give you guys the option.

Would you like to play collaboratively? Or would you like to play against each other? I have massive issues with competition. I'm hyper competitive in a very bad way. So maybe if we did this together. Let's go collaborate. Let's go collaborate. Good call.

All right, so here's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for teams with a run differential of plus 100 or better and minus 100 or worse since last year's trade deadline. There are six on each side and we'll go until you miss three times. We'll see how many of these teams you can get. You could go to the top and go to the bottom order does not matter who do you think qualifies for top six or bottom six and run differential during that span the Rockies are the easy answer right yes they're a minus 203 since July 30th last year you know you get the rest you know Dodgers are easy on the inside Plus 120 their third best. Tigers? Tigers plus 130 number two. Nice. Marlins. Marlins safe guess second worst minus 134 you guys are rolling. In that

same vein the White Sox? Yes minus 120 they are also in the bottom six. Five for five so far you guys are killing it. Ah Yankees. Yankees plus 112 they are fourth. Teamwork makes the dream work. It's getting harder now. I thought we were far you guys are killing it. Yankees. Yankees plus 112 they are fourth. Teamwork makes the dream work. It's getting harder now. I thought we were done. It's six on each side. Six on each side yeah.

This gets a little more difficult. Padres. Yes Padres plus 101. That's tight. Just squeaked that one in there. I'm trying to remember who like collapsed at the end of last. And I don't think they were like minus 50 or minus 100 bad.

How many do we have? I think you've got six or seven I think now. Out of 12? Out of 12, yeah seven. Angels, yes minus 128, third worst. I think there's one more low hanging fruit on the bad end that you guys will get. Because every time we think about this team,

we're just blown away at how awful they are at scoring runs and how bad they are at finding. Oh, the Pirates. Yeah, the Pirates are at minus 123. So you've got all of the negatives except there's one remaining in the bottom six and there are two remaining in the top six. You know, come on, we're nine for nine. We gotta do this.

Including the number one on the board. Number one on the board? Best run differential since last, wow. Yep, best run differential since the last trade deadline. The Mets? They are a correct answer, but they're not the number one on the board. 10 for 10, two to go, one at the top,

one in the bottom six. This is impressive. We don't have the number one the top, one in the bottom six. This is impressive. We don't have the number one? You don't have the number one. The team on the bottom you're missing is fifth worst. But the team you're missing at the top is the number one team. Eno, what about the team in the Windy City?

I just can't imagine they're number one. Are they number one? The best run differential since the last Red Dead Red. I don't, I don't want to go there. And don't let my introduction of that added information dissuade you from what could be a good guess. If you feel that's a good guess, you should put it out there. I'm pretty sure it's not Atlanta.

You're right to throw Atlanta aside. It's not Atlanta. So I think it's the candidates are Phillies, Cubs. Joe basically said Cubs. I'm going to give it to you. The Cubs are number one. Oh, nice. I'm trying to be collaborative. Cubs, all right.ubs. I'm gonna give it to you the cubs are number one Leaving the door open all right so fifth worst 11 for 11 can they get it? I'm thinking the cat stations capital, you know oh

Yeah, that's that's that's clean sweet Impressive game show performance we've ever had on rates and and Barrels. So do I get Trevor May's job? Is that the way this works? I think we have to add a six day. I think we get to do six days a week now. Those are the rules. We'll talk to the bosses about that. But the reason why I put this up there as a game show to start us off is the Tigers being second surprised me probably as much as the Cubs being number one surprised everyone

else and we were guilty on this show throughout the second half of last year of ignoring what the Tigers were doing. Listeners rightfully called us out on that in mid September and we have eaten the crow since then. How much do you believe in what they're doing because I think the continuity on the roster Joe from the deadline forward has been there, right? They add Gleyber Torres. Otherwise, it's mostly the same group of bats that have been doing this.

And they bring back Jack Flaherty and a lot of the same pitchers that are doing it on the run prevention side. So what's it going to take for the skepticism around the Tigers to fade? I was skeptical coming into the season too. I had them slipping back under 500. Obviously I've been wrong about that through 40 games. Actually running them up this week. But I look at, there's a lot of ways to be lucky, right?

You can be really good in one run games. You can have an unusual average run as a scoring position. But one of the ways the Tigers got lucky is that they had some key injuries towards the end of March that opened up opportunities for players that otherwise weren't going to have them. I think about Spencer Torquison. Spencer Torquison was out of the job.

They signed Torres, moved Colt Keith to first base, Kerry Carpenter was going to be the DH. Spencer Torquison was, he had no job. A couple of injuries, Vierling got hurt, Parka Meadows got hurt, Gleyber Torres was hurt to start the season. And all of a sudden Torquison got to play. The injuries to injury to Vierling opened up opportunities for Zach McKinstry. Jake Rogers got hurt early in the season, opened up an opportunity for Dylan Dingler,

who's despite having a 31 to 1 strike out to walk ratio has hit very well. So the Tigers have had what we call good fortune. Guys have stepped up into injury spots that might not have had opportunities. Now there's two things. One they've gotten the value of the performance. But they're still going to get Meadows back. They're going to get Vierling back. So they should be an even better team for having this depth.

So I think that's been a big part of it, just these opportunities that were created. And of course, you know, Hinch, he was never going to be able to do pitching chaos. They're doing it tonight with Holton and Monteiro. But you look at, you know, Flaherty's been OK. Tariq Schubal's been incredible. Jackson Job's been eh, okay,

but at least he's in the rotation. He's got the opportunity. They've only used six starters so far. That's been helpful for them as well. So a lot of things have gone right for them, but they're not a fluke. If you look at the third order record, you look at run differential,

you look at all the things we look at to say, is this team for real? They're for real. I think Jackson Job just had one of those starts yesterday there were five walks with seven K's one earned five and two-thirds like finally put the swing and miss into an outing that we've been waiting for because when you look at his you just watch him or you look at his numbers and stuff models he passes the eye test he passes the numbers test and you look you're like where the hell are the strikeouts? We're finally

starting to see that from Jackson job Hopefully that's kind of the beginning of a long run of him making that ascent and being more like a mid rotation Starter on his way to being an ace, you know, you know What's your skepticism around this team if there is any still remaining at this point? I was taking a quick look at the Wobba minus X Woboba chart. There's a lot of problems with X Woba. It's not as predictive as people want it to be. Even for hitters, it's terrible for pitchers. And it also gets recalibrated halfway through the season

because I have to figure out what the run environment is and what should actually be expected. So if you look right now, you can tell that, you know, when we talk about there being more drag on the ball this year, another way you can see it is that every team is below their ex-Wolba other than the Yankees and the Reds. And that wouldn't be the case because ex-Wolba should be, the median should be zero. You know, everyone's a little bit below their expectations. The Tigers do not stand out at all in this regard. You know, if you want to call them lucky, they're the 11th luckiest team.

So it's not necessarily batted ball luck that's driving all this. But I would say that on some level, they're hitting the upper ends of their projection. Spencer Torkelson is having the best version of himself right now. Even somebody like Trey Sweeney, who's only 13% better than league average, this is the best, maybe one of the best outcomes you could have thought of for Trey Sweeney. And so the only one who's like really struggled all year is Colt Keith. He's kind of turned it around and he's still above average as a bat. So I don't think it's necessarily on the bat side because I also agree with Joe that like, you know, they've got some guys coming back that are going to help them. And in the rotation, love the rotation.

You know, I think it's, it's pretty deep. Casey Meyers and Jackson Job, even if they aren't the one ones that they, you know, they might be ever, or, you know, like even if they don't get to that one one level, Tarek Scoobel is a one one, you know, he is that ace, and they've got a bunch of functional guys behind it. I think where I am a little bit worried is the bullpen. I've liked Will Vest from the beginning and pointed him out as probably the closer.

I think he is the closer, the capital C as much as there can be for the Tigers. I will never trust a guy like Tommy Canley with 80% change-ups in my closer role, but would he work in setup? That's fine. Bo Briskie's been hurt and not as good as he was. Foley's in the minors.

Tyler Holtin is not as good as he was last year because last year was a bit of an outlier season. So I just don't know that they have team chaos in place in the bullpen. Maybe they find it by the end of the year. Maybe it's just a sorting through process that they're going through right now. So I guess if that's my problem with the team, then I believe in them. Not just because you know, the players that they have on hand, but the bullpen is always the easiest thing to fix at the deadline, there are always going to be 50 relievers around. So if they lock in Cely, if they lock in Vest, they lock in Holton, Sean Gunther maybe, you got to get the three guys to support that. Or maybe Carter Montero ends up in the bull pit. Eventually, I don't think any of us believe Jackson Jobe's going 175 innings. So Montero probably ends up in a regular spot in the rotation for the year is out. But they've got options internally and they can go out. And this is the year, last year they traded Flaherty,

they're going to be buyers this year. I don't see a situation where they're not going to be buyers at the deadline. So we're gonna see, does Scott Harris have that club in his bag? Can he go out and make the team better on the fly? Yeah, another question I've had about the Tigers since the passing of Mike Ilitch is the spending interest

of Chris Ilitch, right? Like how much will they spend now, given that at their peak, they were top five in payroll for a few years. That was something we saw them do. I don't think you can expect them to go all the way back to that level, but I don't think they're gonna sit 17th

where they are right now, at least where they were on opening day per cot. So I think there is a little bit of room to go out and get what they need. I think you're right to call out Scott Harris like being the first time in that position Can he add what he needs to put this team into a position to be more dangerous in October? Let's move on to the Giants for a bit. I think they're fun to talk about because They present a problem of credit like who do you give credit to for the quality of this Giants

team right now? How much goes to Buster Posey? How much if any still goes to Farhan Zahidi? I mean this is it's a Giants team that hit this peak a few years ago they probably shouldn't have hit when they did and then because of that I think it made Farhan look like a relative disappointment in the years that followed. They make the change, obviously going out and getting Matt Chapman and then extending him, signing William Dames in free agency, their appetite for spending is up and they're landing some more impactful players. But where does the credit go, Joe? Chapman's an interesting guy to pick because Zayadee signed him and technically he was still in the chair,

but I think we all give credit to Posey for that extension so who gets credit for 2025 Matt Chapman? We've been dealing with this now for a while you go back to like the Astros like the Astros were the moneyball team and they got but like Jose Altuve was an Ed Wade draftee you look at you know the Cubs had a lot of guys from the previous administration when they won the Red Sox basically Red Sox basically has been winning with the prior guys players for like a 20 year cycle now. You know, Dave Dabrowski won with Ben Chariot's players, you know, the 2013 team was a lot of Hoyer and Epstein. It was like they've just been on a delay. So we see this throughout baseball. Unless you're the Yankees who've had Cashman in the chair for

20 odd years now, every team is built on a multiple set of management groups. Even the Giants, if I'm not mistaken, Brian Sabian was still there when they drafted Logan Webb. Logan Webb's the best player on the team. So every roster is like this. But I think right now, this is still mostly a Zia Aidy team, taking nothing away from Posey. Converland has been okay.

Adamas has been okay. Give him credit for Chapman. This is still going to be Zayadi's team for a while, just because he was in the chair. Buster Posey hasn't had the opportunity to draft and develop. His staff hasn't had the opportunity to draft and develop players. It's gonna take four or five years for us to know

if Buster Posey has those skills. The Adamas signing has been panned by a fair amount of people. I think I like it because I see this team in the clubhouse and on the field and Matt Chapman is a leader by example. Willie Adamas is a little bit more of a leader, but with voice, you know, and he is that type of bilingual, very gregarious, upbeat guy that can bring different parts of the clubhouse together. So I see some clubhouse intangibles with Willi Adames.

I also see a position of need and pain for the Giants where they were trying everybody in that position and couldn't find a short stop. So just getting someone in there that is competent defensively and offensively is and while being Somewhat of a leader in the in the clubhouse. I think has been a big move for them However, I see an alternate universe where Jung-ho Lee Doesn't get hurt and I'm not saying that the Giants would have been good last year with just one more player not being hurt But they might have been more interesting. You know, what we're seeing this year when you go to the park are the Jung-Hoo Legans,

like a whole, like a group of fans that wear these hats and there's a chant for Jung-Hoo Lee and not to just put it again on one player, but there's an excitement where people used to say Farhan's teams are boring. There's no one to root for. We don't like any of these players. Well, now, do you like Elliott Ramos? Do you like Jong-Hoon Lee? Like, do you like guys that he brought up that he signed? So, yeah, and there's still a lot of that residue when it comes to even the rotation

and the bullpen, you know, Tyler Rogers is Ryan Walker, or the Camila Duval, or the DNA that Farhan put in place in terms of, I'm going to have a great bullpen. I'm going to have pieces that I move around on the offense. One thing I have noticed is I think that they move guys around a little bit less and they're a little bit more likely to keep guys in their position in the lineup and not muck around with platoons just as much. But I'm interested to see what happens with Lamont Wade Jr. because there's a guy that Farhan really believed in that he got off of waivers that he's probably the biggest struggler in that lineup right now. You got Gerard and Carnacion coming back.

How does Buster handle that? How does Buster handle, you know, here's a player who has some limitations, but some positives, Lamont Way Jr. Here's another player coming up who hits the ball really hard and has his own negatives. I don't have the same allegiance to these players. I didn't pick these guys up. I didn't get them off waivers, you know. So now I have a little bit of a clean ax.

If I want to release Lamont Way Jr., like, you know, it's not it's not as problematic for me, maybe emotionally as a person. You know, you're closer to the team than I am. We're talking about Wade here at First Base. I mean, how quickly do you think they might push Eldridge up? They keep getting mixed messages where they're like, no, no, you know, that might have been something that the old guys would have done, but we're we're all about developing guys. But I don't know. I see Buster as being an eyes guy to some extent. He's made some noise about not being so into the

numbers and bringing some of the old school scouting back. So I feel like if Eldritch is passing the eye test for them, then they'll go for it. And they'll just say, this is a scouting thing. We like the cut of his jib. We like the way that he's candling himself. And he does have a 130 WRC plus in AA. You maybe like a little bit fewer strikeouts from Eldridge, but maybe that's just going to be part of the package. And it will be kind of hard, I think, at some point to decide that he's ready. And there's all sorts of different ways to decide he's ready. One of the ones is need. Right now the biggest obvious need is slugger first base DH. I wonder if it'll depend on what they're able to do at the trade deadline too. I

see them as a team that might be closer to the middle, less likely to make the playoffs but still more likely to do what they can to try and get in. So finding corner helps usually not that hard but there could be a handful of teams that get the best options and then you're left with a situation where you get to late August and Bryce Eldridge gets that Corbin Carroll Gunnar Henderson cup of coffee that turns into more like that's you know that's more or less like the way I think they'll handle it is see what's available first that's more experienced gonna And he's so young, Eldridge is off to a nice start at double A

after that wrist injury though. So anything's possible at this point. It's just one of the unknowns that org. I looked it up when we were talking to by the way, Elliot Ramos, that's from the Bobby Evans Giants that goes back pretty far on too. It was a slow cooker to get him to where he is now. I think you got to give multiple regimes credit

for getting him to the point where he started contributing at the level He was at a year ago and to my point about these like emotional attachment to the guys that you signed and you drafted I don't think that the Giants valued Elliot Ramos Like during Farhan's tenure like it was it was touching like he was up and he was down He was never like they didn't care. He was never like like, hey, here's our opening day left fielder or whatever. No, it was like, I think it took some, I forget who the injury was, but it took some injury where they just didn't have anybody else to go to. I was expecting him to get DFA'd or to get put in a trade any day. And then someone got injured. Maybe it was Jung Hu Lee got injured. I think it was the Lee injury that opened up the playing time last year. And

then he just played well and oh, look what we found. Yeah. And they were playing him in center field too. I don't think a lot of people expected him to play center field, which, you know, he was, he was out, he doesn't play it well, but he was standing in center field efforting to play center. Not to bust up your, uh, your, your beautiful rundown, but yeah. Okay.

But I think this would be my, my, my team for my pick for best team that doesn't make it. It was about a second choice. So, okay. All right. So yeah. So the question that, you know, took off the rundown without asking the question, which team today has the best record that won't make the playoffs, the giants of your pick for that.

And I'll just run through my reasoning real quick is just that I think this offense is over its skis. It's literally over its skis in terms of projections. They're scoring 4.6 runs per game and they're projected to score 4.25. So like they're over their skis in terms of projections. And then I just look around at that offense and I think that like Tyler Fitzgerald is going to regress from where he is right now. I do think there'll be some positive regression from Adamas, but you know, I think that Elliott Ramos may have some regression built in. And then I, and like Mike Ostrowski right now is like 31% better than league average. And I know there's probably some mechanical changes and stuff, but at his age, given his track record, I just, I don't necessarily believe in him. And we've had this famous thing with Boomer Flores about how I said he was done

and then he, you know, hit seven homers in like three weeks. But I just see like age coming in. It's just not an oppressive offense for me. I think they can get it done on pitching and, and maybe they'll, they'll squeak in, but it's not an oppressive offense for me. I agree with you. I can see them continuing to run prevention. I love the way they've managed Birdsong. Harrison might be up in that multi-inning role again. I like the way Melvin has run that staff, but I just think the talent base and the offense, you look at that division, they're going to only be able to really play for the wild card. The NFL wild card is just so competitive. So yeah, I'm with you. They're not my pick, but I agree

that they're going to slip. They're going to the team that's most likely, one of the teams most likely to slip. Yeah, probably one of the first teams out when the dust clears in the NL playoff picture this fall. Hi, it's Alexa Weibel from New York Times Cooking. We've got tons of easy weeknight recipes and I'm going to make two of my favorites for you today. For my five ingredient creamy miso pasta,

you just take your starchy pasta water, whisk it together with a little bit of miso and butter until it's creamy. Add your noodles and a little bit of cheese. Mm, it's like a grown-up box of mac and cheese. An easy weeknight recipe that feels like a restaurant-quality dish. Next up, I'm making my vegetarian mushroom shawarma pitas.

This recipe is just built for efficiency. You toss your mushrooms and red onion in your spices, throw them in the oven. By the time they're done, your sauce is ready. You've chopped your cabbage and you're ready to assemble. It feels crazy that something that tastes this complex and looks this colorful and beautiful is actually really easy to make and takes just 20 minutes of active time.

It's just delicious. New York Times Cooking has you covered with easy dishes for busy weeknights. Find these recipes and more at NYTCooking.com. Smells so good. Who's your pick for this one then, Joe? The team that has the best record today that will fall short of the postseason.

Yeah, I'm of the postseason. contributing to runs. In other words, if you've hit really well with runnages and scoring position, that's likely not to be sustained. Well, if you look at third-order record, the team that has the largest gap between its actual performance and its underlying performance is the Guardians. Guardians 24 and 17 to start the year, but you look at Clay's numbers, and he's got the Moors 16 and 25 team. He just doesn't think they're good at all. It's a seven game difference. And guys, this is consistent with last year as well. Last year, they didn't show up well. And of course, they had one of the all time bullpen seasons and they were actually able to carry that. You know, the combination of things

that got three Ale Central teams into the playoffs last year, it was a unique year, we'll call it that. And you know, the Guardians still benefit from playing in that division, playing the White Sox a lot, but underlying performance just isn't there. The bullpen was always going to regress, we've seen that. The defense was considerably worse last year. And I think the numbers that Clay publishes

are picking up on this stuff. So yeah, I've got the Guardians, not just missing the playoffs, I think they might even be sellers by the Devlin. Yeah, it'd be a hard turn from where they are right now, but they have tricked us so many times in this show. We've been counting them out for years, waiting for them to have to do an actual rebuild. And some of it's the division, some of it's finding different ways to win.

I can't even explain how they do it, but it does seem more flimsy than usual looking at that roster right now. I feel like we've been talking for years about how good they are with pitching, but I'm looking at this rotation now. I'm like, I mean, I actually have not seen an update on BedLively, so if you guys have one, please let me know. But like Tiger Bybee and Gavin Williams, I think two years ago, we thought they'd be, if not a one, two, maybe a two, three at the top of a rotation. They've both been incredibly disappointing. What are you seeing as my personal pitching guru? What are you seeing with those two?

Even before the season, I was really excited about Gavin Williams going into the season. He had such a great spring training and he does have more stuff than they usually have. They're usually kind of more the Tanner Bybies. They have great slider command and they try to coach up the stuff a little bit. And so I thought here's a one-two and I have some bold prediction about how they were going to actually have a top five rotation in the AL. I would like to claw that back and take it off the Internet's if I could right now because I don't see it. I do see some hope for those two in particular. Like Gavin Williams has been throwing a cutter recently that really could bring it all together because he could be like a three breaking ball guy. Never, I don't really trust his change up. He has a good fastball. So it's coming together, I think, in a way that Gavin Williams still has a chance to be a good two, one two even. And Tanner Bybee, I actually, I'm not

that worried about either. It's, I think just a, it's what happens when you have a really, you have one really good pitch and you have to figure out the constellation of pitches around it, you know, and so, you know, he's got a couple fastballs, he's got a couple breaking balls, he has that slider, I think he's going to be fine, but I don't trust that they are a factory anymore. Like I don't trust that they, oh, the next guy up, like I'd like Slade Cacone a little bit, but like I don't be, I'm not going to just give, anoint him as a sleeper because, oh, here are the guardians, I got another guy, because we've seen too many Logan Allens in the meantime and too many of these guys that just come up and aren't good frankly, you know? And you know, to some extent I wonder if, you know, they've been figured out in terms of what they've

been doing. There's a lot of teams that will maybe draft for command and try to get the VELO up, you know? There's other teams. Seattle does some version of that, I think. There's definitely some of their ideas have kind of gone into baseball and been absorbed by it. And, you know, the thing that stands out for me that's so weird is given these things that we think about Cleveland, you might be surprised when you look at the numbers and find, oh, well, their strikeout rate on the offensive end

is boring. Like I'm always like, oh yeah, Cleveland Guardians hit the ball softly, make a ton of contact. And they're middle of the pack in strikeout rate. They are still last in hard hit rate. So that's a bad combo. You don't really want to make middling contact,

you know, make poor contact and make it at a middling rate. The roster turned over over the last couple of years has really hurt that. Like they had a functional offense doing it their way. Was it 21 or 22? And what was once having Naylor backwards, like make it better, you know, losing guys like that has really impacted their hard hit rate. And I just, I don't think the pitching is going to be able to carry them. And I know the offenses.

I was just looking at the pitching. You think of them as like, Oh, command and sliders and figure it out. Well, they're last in location plus, you know, as a team. Sometimes you're like, well, okay, so you acquire Joey Cantillo, because you're like, well, we're so good at command and stuff. What if we got a guy who had great stuff and doesn't have great command? What could you do with that guy? You know, and turns out, turn them into reliever, I guess. I'm really surprised by the success of Ben Lively. And I do want to give them credit. What I understand from Tobias Myers, that was pretty interesting was, here's a guy who went Rays, Guardians, Brewers, very

interesting trio of teams. What I understood from him was that the Rays and the Brewers were more like in terms of throw good stuff to the middle of the zone basically. Not middle, but you know like throw good stuff in the zone and have simplify it and have fewer targets and that the guardians were more complicated in terms of we want you to throw it here and we want you to throw it here and we want you to throw it here. And so that might come from a residue, an organizational residue of having guys who did have the command to do that. If you do have a lot of Corey Klubers and Beavers, Shane Beavers, then you may have guys

who can hit those corners. And then what happens when you have Gavin Williams who can't really hit the corners? Just do what Shane Beaver did. Yeah, right. Just do it Corey Klubers. Yeah, Gavin Williams with your like 45 command. Just do what Shane Beaver did. It's effective coaching. I think what it turns into as other teams get better Gavin Williams with your like 45 command, you know, just do what Shane Faber did.

It's effective coaching. I think what it turns into as other teams get better at scouting and finding the pitchers that you were previously getting into your organization making better is it leaves you with guys more like Parker Messick. And that's not to disrespect Parker Messick, but Parker Messick is a command over stuff guy who hasn't really had that uptick

that we've grown accustomed to seeing. Plus people are getting to driveline earlier, you know? Sure, yeah. They drafted Tanner Bybee, and Tanner Bybee actually did the driveline work before they got him, you know, in the 2020 season. So like a lot of the VELO boosts that they would love to give to them are now being gotten by 18 year olds that are going to these places first, you know. I say this as someone who likes Parker Messick, by the way. He's got a 34% K-Rate at AAA right now. I don't know why the prospect hounds don't like him more. I like him.

I'll take him on team Lodum. It's fine. You can call him a backend starter all day long. Maybe they're right about Parker Messick and everybody else is wrong. That's always possible. Unlikely, but possible. Just above league average stuff plus. Just above league average, that's what you're looking for.

All right, let's go to the other side of this one. Which team has the worst record today, but will still manage to make the playoffs in 2025? Let's get some optimism for a team that has not played well through the first 40 or so games. You can go first on this one, Joe. It's funny, I just did a radio hit before talking to you guys and I got asked pretty much the same question and I got laughed out of the room. So I'm going to try it here again. I'm going with the Orioles and some of this is just stubbornness because I picked them at the start of the year. I don't like you end up picking like 23 teams to make the playoffs over the course of the year. I don't think you're really adding a lot of value. So I

tend to stick with my preseason picks. I have to assume the offense is the course of the year. I don't think you're really adding a lot of value. So I tend to stick with my preseason picks. I have to assume the offense is going to be better. There are some guys who have been, there are issues. You know, I agree with you with using ex-Woba, ex-slugging, ex-Stats, but it does seem like they're getting less for their good contact than they have so far. So I think the offense will bounce back.

I'm as concerned about the pitching as anybody else is. I don't believe in Tomoyuki Sugano. Obviously we've seen what Charlie Morton has done. I don't know if they're gonna get Gracia Rodriguez back at this point. Gracia Rodriguez has started to reach that, you're just a ghost until I actually see you make five starts in a row.

And we don't know what they're gonna do at the deadline. So I think there are reasons to be skeptical, but this is also a team that I think could go out and score 160 runs in a month. I really think they have that kind of offensive upside. So I'm sticking with them, but yeah, it's a tougher case to make with each day. When they look bad, it's just a whole bunch of 310 foot fly balls.

They're making contact, but it's just not the kind of contact you wanna see. I watched them with the angels over the weekend. I think they won two out of three, but the game they lost, they just looked so incredibly limp against a bad angels team. So that's my pick and you guys can mock it now. I can't mock it too much.

I mean, I had them winning the division and I bailed on it about two weeks ago. Not because I think they're bad, but because I think they've had enough injuries and there are enough questions about the pitching now. We're rallying back in the AL East especially. They just seem like they're gonna come up a couple of games short and Orioles fans

are gonna be fuming about it because it's gonna feel like a year that just completely got away. It's the last really cheap year of Henderson, of Richmond and guys like that, and they might be squandering it. I wrote that, you know, the pitching staff has become a problem that looks like it might take years to fix. And I wrote it. It felt good at the time. And I wrote it, it felt good at the time. It got some pushback and then was like, God, am I right? Am I wrong?

Like could this, could they just fix it by having Grayson get healthy and Efflin get healthy and now all of a sudden they have competent guys and you know, Povich has shown some promise and Sagano's better than I expected. But I actually think the pitching staff is the problem. And I think that I'm not sure that, I think I'm closer to believing what I wrote

I think this pitching staff is a problem for the big capital P It may need some real rethinking of I don't know organizational values Maybe even if like how like they're not even bringing guys up that are good, you know It's like and what happened to all the guys were supposed to be good They were supposed to have like arm breast or and and povich and like everyone's like, oh do wait till that guy comes up And you're like, well, he can't Dott got hurt, right? Yeah, McDermott, you know, like they had this whole like list of guys. Oh, wait till that guy comes out. Wait till that guy. Well, I'm done waiting a little bit. I'm like, I don't, I don't know what's

missing, but there seems to be something missing on the pitching side. And I've leaned towards stuff because all the guys they signed were kind of command guys to some extent. So command is cheaper than stuff, right? More sort of cheaper than velocity. That's where they were shopping in the cheap bin. My inclination is that you cheaped yourself out of this one. And that's a problem, but it is a really great offense. And my pick is, has a similarity in that

it's an underperforming offense that's supposed to be one of the best offenses going forward. And I think that's a good place to shop. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, pitching can go up and down. I could be right that there's a problem in Baltimore, but they could still put together a couple of good months of pitching just with the guys they have, you know, like I said, Grayson could come up, Evelyn could run off, you know, a hundred pinnings of plus,

and they could look a lot better. So, you know, if you look of plus and it could look a lot better. So, you know, if you look at rest of season projected runs scored per game, this is the Dodgers and Yankees, the Braves third, Mets, Diamondbacks, Phillies, Cubs, Orioles, you know, bet on those teams because projecting hitting is easier, you know, and you know what these guys are going to do. So I'm picking the Braves. They are under 500 and They are going to be the third best offense supposedly going forward now I know you can kind of look through the Braves and be like, you know

Are these guys really going to be you know hit to their projections ever? It's been a long slump for Matt Olson, you know It's been a while for some of these guys. Ozzy Albies, he does show real flaws in approach and the sort of lefty righty splits are a little bit weird. Michael Harris, we talked about, has not taken a step forward. In fact, has taken multiple steps backwards over the last three years. I get it, but I'm going to bet on the back of the baseball card, essentially, and just say, I believe in Matt Olson. You know, I believe in Ozzy Albies. I believe in Michael Harris. And I think they're going to turn it around and be one of the best offenses. And when you talk about, you know,

ripping off a good month of offense, I think this Braves team can do that. They also have some internal improvements coming. I mean, Ronald Acuna, Jr. It's taken him a while. They've been very slow walked him, but I think they want to make sure that when he comes back, he's able to play six days a week. And they will get Juricson Profar back. They want him for the playoffs if they get there, but he'll come back right at the end of June. So you've got two players we would expect to be good to great hitters rejoining them. Guys, Drake Baldwin. I thought they were going to let Drake Baldwin go when Murphy was activated. They kept him on the roster and he's got like a thousand OPS since then. So that's another hole they filled. By July, you would figure they only really have shortstop

as a true hole. And then you would expect, you know, Harris, I love Michael Harris too. He reminds me of the center fielder I grew up with. And yeah, it's not working out this year, but I love him as a player. So I think he'll bounce back as well. I think the real key is gonna be the older guys.

You know, what does Olson have left? Marcella Zuna looks good in the numbers because it's got that great walk rate, but the power's gone away Yeah, so, you know, what does he have? What does he have left in the tanks? I think those two guys are really gonna be the keys, you know What because they're gonna hit three four until the Rapture four or five However, he's got him Snickers gonna go down with those guys and if they don't bounce back to some median between 23 and 25, I think that's going to be able to take some down. But you know, I think it's a great call. The other thing, you know, do you see them challenging for the division or just a wildcard?

Mostly wildcard. And wildcard is going to be really contentious. And so I'm guessing that basically what I'm calling is that they'll pass the Giants because, you know, I think that the central is not going to not gonna put forth a wild card team that's my prediction yeah I'm cool with that it's fine so I think it shouldn't it hurts we'll save that for another day I have a little bit of thoughts rather than I hits D backs Phillies and Bra. It's so much more interesting a race than in the American League. I mean, we talked about this all winter, guys, and it's really played out so far. All of the interesting baseball is really being played in the National League and the

AL. They're stars having good years, but all of the interesting team stuff's happening in the NL. I was going to say, like, could the, you know, Alex Anthopoulos is aggressive at the deadline. If the Blue Jays falter, could they go gate ball Bichette, you know, Alex Anthopoulos is aggressive at the deadline. If the Blue Jays falter, could they go gate bulbish yet, you know, just to play shortstop for them for the rest of the season? You know, I could say yes, but I could also say, man, the AL is wide open. You know, we saw this before the season.

Like you said, there, you know, there was, there's like five or four projected NL teams before you got an American League team. And it's playing out that way. There's a lot of parity. So if you're the Blue Jays, there's not a single person on the Blue Jays right now talking about, you know, should we sell and should we make contingency plans or selling because everybody's at 500. Well, especially after the weekend, you know, the sweep in Seattle. And those series don't seem important. But when you look ahead, and we see how the impact that tiebreakers have had over the last three years, that could end up being a critical series for them if they end up in a close race with the Mariners. I mean, you know,

I don't care for the tiebreaker system, but when you sweep a potential wildcard team, that has a big effect on your playoff chances. I've made this argument on the show for a few different years now, I think, probably two or three years at least. Why are teams so reluctant to make impactful trades this time of year? You see it occasionally. I think of the Willie Adames trade the Brewers made a few years ago with the Rays.

Address your needs now. Why wait all the way until the end of July? Is it just lining up is more difficult? Is it teams wanna ride it out with what they built because they spent the entire off season tweaking and building the rosters and just, what is the reason teams are so reluctant to deal this time of year?

I bet it's the lack of sellers. Just not enough teams willing to give up. But even like help me help you sort of trade though. I think that's more in the vein of what the Adamus trade was with the Rays. Yeah, the Adamus Rasmus and nobody on either end of that is saying we're selling, we're not playing this. Right, that was a like for like trade.

I think that's more, when you see the fluffy trade pieces, it's more like just scraping players off of the rosters of the bottom feeders. Be more creative, look at the mid-pack teams that have a need and line up with another mid-pack team that has a need. I know we can't fantasy baseball as Major League Baseball, but I want to sometimes and I just think that would be maybe another way to get excited about some things this time of year. Like we get excited because we're nerds that love baseball. But it just seems like there's this long lull and big transactions that other sports don't go through quite the same way. Even though this is something small, just because I'm thinking Braves, Blue Jays. It's interesting to think that like, could Ernie Clement be like the starting shortstop

for the Braves? You know, and like, once the Braves get healthy in the outfield would like jerks and profile be a better fourth outfielder for the Blue Jays? I don't think the guy coming off a suspect. I understand what you think, you know, try to like find a as DVR saying a major league player for major league player trade. We talked about the race brewers. I remember the Beltran trade happened I think on June 29th.

I'm going back a ways here. You know, tell me if you think I'm crazy here. Teams have come to focus so much on improving their own players, and they have the tools to improve their own players, that trading has become really almost a tertiary approach to building a team. You want to draft and develop and find free talent in group five and minor league free agency and just taking your shortstop and turning them into a UT

or teaching this guy a new pitch or teaching this guy how to pull the ball more. It feels like teams have just turned trading into this thing that they only do it when they absolutely have to. It's an era in baseball now where teams are just more focused on their 180 guys and then looking outside the organization just isn't the priority. Dave Korsunsky Yeah, I could see it. I mean, we know that they've changed some of their priorities and how much they invested in scouting. That's part of trading is you have to scout all those other players and pro scouting in particular. I think amateur scouting. That's part of trading is you have to scout all those other players and pro

scouting in particular. I think amateur scouting has been pretty resilient to change. So if you have less pro scouts, if you're a pro scouts and yeah. And then I think that like, I think there's a lot of like sort of every team has the same attitude towards like years of team control and you know, things like that. So that's like, it's really hard to convince people to go over an asset, especially an asset that they have years of control over. It actually reminds me of something like a Devil's Reject, this league that we're in, or some of these keeper leagues,

where it's almost impossible to pry young major league talent off of anybody else. Even a team that's not in it for this year or is in it for this year and has an extra kind of good player on the bench, you know, you can't even pry that. It's really hard to trade. It's really hard. I think that's one part of it. It's really hard to trade. You know DVR, like I say, with the expanded playoffs, you just don't have very many sellers as you noted. Even when we get to the trade deadline, it's hard to identify sellers that have anything. I mean, think about the worst teams in baseball.

Ooh, let's go see what the White Sox have for us. Okay, Luis Robert, who might not be that good. We don't get no. We are hearing some actual, some trade rumors that like maybe he'll be the first to go and go early because he's one of the most attractive pieces, especially for like a Mets team that doesn't really have a center fielder. There's just not a lot of players on these teams. Like the Angels best players are all guys that are, you know, pre-ARP. I mean, they're treating Nolan Shanwell and Zach Neito and guys like that.

You look at, okay, maybe Horace O'Leary, but he's not going to move the needle a whole lot. Taylor Ward, same thing. I just think the fact that we've got this 16 clump, maybe it's five, maybe it's four, at the bottom of the league that just doesn't have talent to trade is clogging up the market a bit. So yeah, I miss it. I'm a couple years older than you guys, and I can remember the 1981 winter meetings where Whitey Herzog made the suitor trade, or maybe it was the 80 winter meeting. So a couple years later he traded Ozzie Smith. It just used to be such a bigger part of the game,

these monster trades, and we just don't see them. It's sad, I miss it. I want it back. I want that to change. I think some of it too is- You remember Harvey's Wallbengers? Yeah, you're a little younger than that, right? They're just before I was born.

So I hear the stories, I see the highlights all the time, but I miss them, which is a shame. Actually, I don't know. I don't know if I want to be a couple of years older. I think I'm perfectly content. Think about like the NBA. So much of the NBA's energy is in transactions, free agency, but also some trades and forced trades.

It's not quite the same market. It's a cap league, but you do need some of that energy to kind of, okay, the games are great. Guys like us are always going to watch the games, but I think you reach casuals a little more with, ooh, who did our team just get? And we don't have enough of that. The NBA has five players on the court. So like they can go get one player and be like, this could be a difference for me here for us. I mean, just this year, the Warriors were completely different

team before and after Jimmy Butler. And so you're just like, you know, you have this feeling like, oh, we could really just change the team completely I feel like that's always working against baseball where it's you know, you you've got the 26-man roster like how much is getting this one player really gonna do I'm with you guys. I understand the why I don't have to like it That's where I'm gonna settle in I think Joe brings a level of stubbornness and clarity to the show that we really need like the stubbornness is of stubbornness and clarity to the show that we really need. I think the stubbornness is huge. We walk a lot. This is maybe, have you ever been complimented for your stubbornness before being an asset?

No, and in a related story, I'm single. Well, the word's out there now. We had a question in our discord about Jordan Walker and it boils down to this. For a guy that's showing incredible bat speed, top end bat speed, has shown some really good exit velocities during his time in the big leagues, split over three seasons now, why doesn't he get top end results? What is missing and why are we being fooled by the bat speed popsicle, as we like to call it on the baseball savant pages.

It's a tough one. I mean, I think that the key is actually in the strikeout rate. So when he was coming up, we thought, oh, this is a guy who's going to hit the ball hard and have like a 20 ish strikeout rate, 22, 24% strikeout rate. And if you think of him that way, then you're like, oh, he's just like a junior caminero. He just has to figure it out. You know, like he hits the ball hard and he makes a lot of contact. And then you look at his page and you're like, huh, 30% strikeout rate. Where did this come from? And you realize he pretty much earned it. This is the, this is the strikeout rate he earned. And if you look at the page that shows the bad speed and you start looking at the default is squared up, right?

Isn't it squared up versus bad speed? Squared up percentage, yeah. And you look at the bottom right, and you see the guys with the great bad speed. Look, there's Jordan Walker. You don't wanna know who's around him. Who's around him though? Because there have to be a few players

in that sort of far away space in that quadrant of the graph that maybe have had at least some runs of success as big league players. The ones I'm focused on are like Morel is right there. And once you start, when you say the word Morel, you're like, oh, he's one of those guys that like swings real hard when he hits it, he hits it real hard, but he doesn't hit it very often. And I think that one was a real a-ha moment for me

when I was looking around. Yeah, I feel like the best case in that group maybe was Luis Robert, if you mouse around in there. Joe Liddell is down there, Wilson Contreras is down there, but that might be a bit of a one-year blip a little bit. And Junior Kim Nero is there. But even Robert as a bit of a one year blip a little bit. And Junior came to arrows there. But even Robert as a hitter, high variance for sure.

It's some interesting peaks, but some brutal, brutal valleys too. I'm still getting comfortable with what bat speed is telling us. We've had this data for a little over a little under a year now. And I guess the data stretches back to about halfway through 2023. And what does it mean to have great bat speed? How does it fit into the other skills? Whether it's bats a ball, whether it's bat angle. There's all this information now about where guys are standing in the box.

I'm still trying to assess that. What does it mean to be a good hitter? Because one of the things we see is that if you look at the extremes of bat speed, you've got judge and guys like that at the top. And then at the bottom, you've got Arias and Kwan. So there are a lot of ways to get to really good hitting numbers. And I look at Walker and you can swing the bat as hard as you want,

but ball go down bad, ball go up good. I believe he has four pulled fly balls this year. It might be that many. And until you start doing that, he reminds me of Jason Hayward. And some of that is just the physical in the box where it's just tall, a lot of levers. Hayward pulled a fly ball for a home run in his first ad bat. I think it was the last pulled fly ball of his career. Just never figured out how to get the ball up. And mind you, this was a different era. We weren't focused as much on pulled fly balls as we have now.

Oh, but he's been, you know, he's talked to hitting coaches since, and like, it's just never really come out. It's just something about the shape of his swing. But he was never the same after getting hit in the face with that pitch either and you like look where he sets up. I don't does anybody in the league set up as far away from the plate as Jason Hayward right now? He's got to be conscious of that. I think that's something else where I think somebody would have mentioned it at some points like hey you really can't reach the middle of the plate much less the outside but you're just not going to create pull power that way.

I look at at Walker I think some of it is just the tall right fielder kind of, some of the physical characteristics. I don't mean to make black-black, white-white, you're supposed to do cross race comps and I can't do that in this case. I look at Walken, I say hey, what I'm like, if you can't get the ball up in the air, it's just not going to happen. I will say the one positive I want to point to here, he's gone from being a miserable outfielder to a pretty decent one. Strong arm, he's getting to the ball better, he's reading balls off the bat. And what I take from that is there's learning. Like Jordan Walker has shown that he can get better at an aspect of

his game. So you know the exit velocity is still there, he's become a better outfielder. Obviously he knows you know the strikeout rate keeps going up but I just when I see a player improve in one part of his game, I think, OK, if he can do it there, he can do it in these other ways. That's interesting. Also, when you put it hand in hand with DVR, you were you were looking at like his stance changes and like like he is he's really searching for it. If you look at the way his feet are in the box, his openness and, you know, just that's

all changing. It's changing month to month. He hasn't found he's not comfortable in the box. He used to be up. It wasn't he used to be further back. Now he's moving up in the box and he's he's changing how open he is. And it's he's just he's really searching. And with a player like that, where you're like the raw fundamentals are there, you've improved some aspects of your game and you know, you are searching, you are trying. I want to leave the door open for success, but that door just keeps getting closer and closer to being closed, I don't know.

I mentioned the Cardinals, nine game winning streak. It's one thing to go into this year thinking, you know what, we're probably not gonna be successful. We can just give Walker 600 plate appearances, 1200 innings in right field. The closer they get to being contenders, the fact that he's not hitting at all. He's already not playing. He's already losing starts against righties. Yeah.

That's a Dunovan, I guess, putting Dunovan in the outfield now. Yeah. It's a tough, it's an Ali Marmal. You know, he's, it's not going to do him any good to develop Jordan Walker on an 82 win team and have somebody else take over next year. Marmal is basically's not going to do him any good to develop Jordan Walker on an 82-win team and have somebody else take over next year. Marmal's basically managing for his job, and his focus has to be on winning. So it's a lot of interesting, you know, it was Elias last year too, you've got Hyman

kind of looking over everybody's shoulder. It's a fascinating team. A nine-game winning streak early in the season with the way the baseline for making the playoffs has changed just kind of totally changes your outlook. Yeah and I wonder if there are like three different visions for what the Cardinals should be doing this year right now. Like you sort of you sort of outlined them. There's Ollie it's like no every day we try to win. Chaim is like could you lose a couple I would like the drip pick. I think they they're playing it really well

as far as how they're distributing the playing time. They're trying to see who are core guys and who are not, and while doing that, they're making good, quick decisions, trying to stay in a position to maybe be buyers to the deadline. If they're not, they've got some interesting pieces to sell. It's not gonna be a long reboot

before they're actually competitive again so I hate to tip my cap to the Cardinals but I actually think what they're doing this season has made a lot of sense one more question for you guys before we go who is your favorite breakout that you're still waiting for this summer player that hasn't quite clicked yet but you think in these coming weeks and months it is going to happen Joe you can have the floor first. I'm going with Dillon Cruz. I mentioned with Walker,

the other parts of the game are working, so I think he can improve at the plate. Dillon Cruz played a really good right field, made a spectacular play the other day, and the hitting isn't coming. 42 to 8 strikeout to walk ratio, but the batted balls are actually really good. He's had 14 barrels so far. And most guys on barrels, the average barrel produces like a 6, this isn't expected, this is actual, like a 690 batting average, a 2200 slugging. And on barrels, he's just 5 for 14.

He's barreled into nine outs so far. And it doesn't sound like much, but when you're getting so little performance out of your barrels, it really has an impact on your line, because you're supposed to hit 650 with a 2200 slugging. So I think the batter balls are there. There's a really weird righty-lefty split. Batters always have normal platoon splits

to one degree or another. They can bounce around from year to year, but over time, they're going to have normal platoon splits. Cruz is backwards this year, and it's actually a skill-based backwards. 13 strikeouts, no walks against lefties, one extra base hit. He's going to hit lefties better than this. That's going to boost his numbers.

I don't see a reason for the Nationals to sit him down either. Think about where they are. Give him 550 at-bats. Give him 1,200 innings in right. Figure out what you have there. So I look at the batted ball data. I look at the split.

I look at the defense. It's going to keep him in the lineup. I really love him. Plus, from a fantasy standpoint, five homers, steel steals, and he's not even playing that well I mean that's a 40-20 pace for a guy who actually hasn't 2040 for guy who actually has not played that well so far so I like Cruz to break and they don't give him days off He's played every single game started every single game since the young April. Yeah, other than once a month Maybe give him a day off, but that's I think you're still looking at a max PT player too.

I still like the different things he brings to the table. And I still remember just how excited we were, you know, when he was drafted. So I'm a little surprised by how it's coming, how long it's taken to come together. But I do think there's it reminds me a little bit of like a change up first starting pitcher prospect where like, you know, it's a little bit easier if you're a breaking ball first guy, you're going to get righties out, you can come up there and you can dominate fastball, breaking ball, boom, you know what you're doing.

You're in the major leagues, you know, you'll see guys with change up like Gunnar Hoagland is like this change up guy. It's going to take him longer. You know, he finally is here. What I see with opposite field hitters is that sometimes it takes a while because, you know, Colt Keith is similar. You have this bat path that can serve you well because you can cover the outside part of the plate and you can go the opposite field.

But if you get too enamored with going the opposite field, then you may not have that pull power. And the pull power is what gets you paid. It's what gets you playing time. It's what gets you all the attention. Maybe you start to selectively pull and that gets you screwed up at the plate. The way Colt Keith put it last year, you got domed up.

So I could see that Dillon Cruz might be domed up at time to time because he might be a guy who has that natural opposite field power that's trying to figure out how to turn and burn, how to, what to do on inside pitches, how to pull for power. But if you look at a 14% barrel rate, you know, you look at, he's not hitting the ball

too much on the ground, you know, you look at, he's still giving you something with speed and defense, and he's gonna be in there all the time. I think there's a lot of things to like about, even now, as bad as it looks. My guy does not look as bad right now My guys junior caminero and the reason I bring him up is just you know

I've gotten a lot of questions of like is this it or you know And I think even if this was it he would get through the season hitting 250 with 27 homers and being above average Major League player and be a win for the Tampa Bay Rays. But I don't see any reason why he has to have a 260 babbip. You know, he hits the ball super, super hard. Uh, he makes a ton of contact. I don't know why that can't be like a 330 babbip or something. I mean, he does, it's not, you don't have zero legs either. So I see this more as a guy who can be a 280 hitter with you know 30 plus home run power And I think he'll even he doesn't chase like you know Morrell and these guys who chase in the 40s

He does chase a little bit more than you want He chases because he knows he can make that contact so I could see that walk rate creeping up And I don't know if it's necessarily gonna be this year in his first full season But last year he was a 105 WRC plus right now he's 101. I think he's a 120 guy the rest of the way, maybe 130. And I think he's just going to establish himself as one of the five to 10 best third baseman in the league. And he's a really good player.

And there's another level. I think there's an opposite here of Cruz where he's going to have to do everything in the batter's box because he's not giving you the... Jason Collette, our friend, he comped him to Miguel Sano in the offseason. I think there's a really good comp there because I don't... I think Junior Caminero's time at third base is probably going to be limited. And you wonder if getting him out of a position that he really can't play... Remember, they take him out of games for defense and you just don't see a whole lot of that

in today's game with the four man benches. So, you know, at some point, is he going to end up having to play DH or first base and kind of just get on with the rest of his career? And when will the Rays let him do that? Because the Rays also have a glut of DH and first base times. Absolutely. It's hard for them to do it. I mean, you can be a bad third baseman at a star. There's a guy, I'm not sure if you've heard of him, he's been in the news lately, Devers, something like that. You can play a bad third base and be a star. But you know, eventually, maybe you just so bad, you let the guy get on with his career. But you know, I'm with you as far as the batting skills. I think he's going to be, forget the rest of this year, I think you take like a three year timeline. I think he's a top 15 top 20 hitter in the game, just him. Just him. I see the ceiling I believe in the ceiling and I scared myself with the Aloy Jimenez comp Just try to look for a guy that hits the ball hard similar profile Obviously the defensive limitations aren't as extreme with Kaminari even though we're talking about moving him off of third base sooner Rather than later

I just had to put that in as a grounding force for myself to not just auto go get Junior Kaminari on as many leagues as possible had to remind myself that you don't have to godfather offer it every Opportunity you get when you think there's a little bit of a window to buy low on players like that Where'd the optimism go? Optimism? I thought you guys were the optimist? Oh, I know What's your pick, De'ar?

What's your pick De'ar? Can't pick a brewer Can I have Joey Ortiz? No, I actually don't believe in Joey Ortiz right now. He was on my list actually. You still believe in Joey Ortiz? I do. And it's a lot of the same things. The glove should keep him on the field.

I think the back of the ball was a little... I don't know if he's going to hit what he hit last year, but I think if I say Orlando, RC is peak as his floor. I think that's what he could be with a much better glove. That's a good player if that's what he is. I mean, that's kind of what we were hoping for going into the year and they don't have a third baseman either.

Like they punted third base and they're feeling that right now so I think that actually buys Joey Ortiz that time at shortstop too. Two holes to fill, tough to fill both simultaneously. Without early season trades, this is another team to make the early season trade. Who do I like that's really struggling? Younger player hasn't broken out yet.

Jordan Lawler has been my pick on this one for a while. We just haven't seen him get that long run. Even if it's three or four times a week, I think Jordan Lawler is going to be really good for that. That time of backs lineup is a bit of a problem when everyone's clicking. Right. I mean, there's a little bit of a soft spot in the outfield. I know he hasn't played there yet, but like if he's up and he's playing well in the major

leagues and like, you know, Alec Thomas is still kind of just okay. You know, there's might be like, oh, can we get him some at bats and center? That's a big defensive. Yeah, I don't think I don't. Thomas is plus plus out there and Lawler has never played it. It's kind of well played. It got a couple of things. Jackson Merrill did it pretty well.

Thank you for the one great example. Can I show you clips of deep strange Gordon? Let me ask you guys, this is a pet peeve of mine. I like to see young players play every single day at one position. I have a nit when guys get called up and they play three days and sit to I think you could break a prospect that way. The Reds did with Nick Senzal, changing his position constantly. I think Senzal got hurt a lot, but I think the development was also hurt with the way he was used. Do you have any concerns about bringing up, it's one thing to do with a second year prospect

to bring up Jordan Lawler and turn him into a UT effectively. Do you think that hurts the development? Am I right about that? Or do you think it doesn't matter if the players certain talent? I just don't like messing with my top prospects. Yeah, in a vacuum, I don't like it,

but I think it depends on the players. Right. Everybody's dead in the vacuum. Right. But I think it's something you wouldn't choose first. I think it depends on the kid. How how versatile what does he played on the way to the big leagues? You know, how comfortable are they making that adjustment day to day while trying to

figure out big league pitching? I think that's actually a conversation that we don't talk about how teams treat young players very often. We talk a lot about stuff like Rafael Devers and the Red Sox front office not being on the same page, but this is something that I think your organization should build into you as an expectation along the way if they're going to do it. It shouldn't be a thing that you get promoted and, oh, by the way, you're also going to play third base for the first time in your life. That should never be the case for any player trying to break into the big leagues.

The Diamondbacks themselves said, like, we're not bringing him up until, you know, he's ready and there's like, there's a role for him. And then they brought him up for this role. So that's a little bit weird for me. But I would say again, I think of often hitting in terms of pitching, you know, we've had this tradition of bringing guys up and being like, Hey, you relieve. And you've pitched some three innings and you, you know, and maybe you'll be the starter eventually, but is that better than you being in the minor

leagues and figuring out my league hitters? You've done all that, you know, like would Jackson Joe be better served in the minor leagues? No, you know, like, you know, there's and he's maybe not the best example because he's actually has a starting role. But you know, I mean, like the whole sort of Earl Weaver, like bring a guy up as a as a as a reliever. Weaver was great at that. I don't know if I love the comp, just because pitchers are doing,

especially in today's game, where we're not asking them to go seven or eight innings. Pitchers are basically doing the same thing when they go to the mound whereas there's a pretty big gap between playing even short and third in terms of what you're being asked to do and even at that you know a pitcher so he's starting or he's relieving. Not likely he's not we're taking Jack we're probably not taking Jackson Job in your example and if you would put him in the bullpen you wouldn't be turning him into your come in with first and third and one out in the eighth. No. You're bringing them into pitch cool innings.

You know, you start the seventh, you pitch seventh and the eighth. Whereas I think there's a lot greater difference in moving from second to short to third to center, maybe playing all four of those in a week. Tell me Chris Taylor can do that, I'm on board. You know, all of these veteran types, or again, like I say, make Tim Tuttle.

So hard anyway. It's like say you're make Tim so hard anyway It's like why you're throwing them multiple levels of Difficulty out them you're making that adjustment was it Keith law Are you you know who wrote about the gap between the majors and triple-a right now is as high as so Lindbergh wrote a piece on that Was it Ben? Okay. Well, it was somebody smarter than me. I just what do you guys well, no Ben Ben wrote it I just actually just finally caught up to that piece. Like that was that that's a large gap I thought Keith was right about it, too. Anyway, like you're making that big adjustment. And I just think it's

best if you're taking a 22 year old having to go through all that and say not saying you now have to play these positions that you've barely played, and you have to do in the major league level. It's one of the reasons I defended Devers. Like Devers has never literally never played first base. And first base isn't just catch the ground balls and catch the throws, it's where do you go on this relay? How do you play the bunt? Can you make the throw to second on a bunt? It's a whole bunch, sorry, moving around here. It's so much more than just catch the ball

or catch the grounder. And I don't think that really gets appreciated. Not to go all Ron Washington here. He's saying that he doesn't care about the team. You don't know that, like you're not in his head. He might be saying, I don't know that I will be so good at that, that this is't care about the team. I'm you don't know that like you're not in his head He might be saying I don't know that I will be so good at that that just actually right for the team Yeah, and that's the part of the reporting that gets really frustrating is like you don't quite know how he truly you get the quotes You get what he says in front of the camera, but especially with translation. You don't get the full scope

It's incomplete no matter how accurate everyone tries to be. And I think that's what makes those situations even more difficult to judge on the outside. Aside from the layers we talked about on the show, it's like, hey, look, yeah, we all like to think if we were in that position, we'd say, sure, anything for the team. But if you're worried about your health,

you're worried about being actually bad at it and making your team worse. But a young kid doesn't have any of that, like, you know, I can push back feeling. He's like, yep, yeah, bring me up. I'll play wherever you want me to and do whatever you want me to. I want to be in the major leagues.

You look at the page scale. I was like. Yeah. Arizona has played Lawler at three different spots at Reno this year. He's played 17 games at second. He's played eight at third. He's played 10 at short.

So they've been building this into his routine. So I don't think it's off the wall, bad idea. not blind it's not blind they're bringing in the majors and asking the player the positions but it is it is asking turning him to a turning your top prospect into a ut bugs me it just I don't think it's a great way to to develop your best players but of course the diamondbacks they're contending now so they've got to you know we talked about the cardinals your decision tree looks different when you're trying to make the playoffs With a division in the World Series We used to think the Yankees were terrible at developing players

Like that was the discourse just last year and now this year they're top five or top three In a lot of really interesting metrics when it comes to players under 25 Who are performing in the big leagues and you look around their infield you're like, oh Ben rise awesome. Well, oh Jason, wait a second. You develop all these guys. There are days where two-thirds of the lineup is homegrown players and nobody thinks about Aaron Judge as being a homegrown player because he's got the big contract now, but he's a homegrown Yank. But that's the pushback I would give you is if I'm a good team and I have good prospects,

I can't just let them all sit there. You know, at some point I got to bring them up. And that's been a pain point for the Yankees was like, how, how does Jason Dominguez break into this lineup? Does he wait for an injury? Do we have to make room for him? Eventually they made room for him. Like they actually made the decision.

We are not going to sign a left fielder. We are not going to bring anybody else in there. It's your turn, go for it. And that might be next year for Laura Lawler, honestly, because they're handing us wires as a free engine. So maybe this is just like almost like a September call up or it's like a here, try if you if you if it doesn't work out, like you've learned something, you go back down and then maybe next year, we hand you third base and you're ready to go.

That's where the Weaver Comp you made is actually really great because it was never, we're going to bring you up into this hybrid role or this party, a swingman role forever. It's we're going to do this as you're a rookie so you can get your feet wet. So maybe that's the best comp here for Lohr. Lohr gets his rookie season in this role and then steps into an everyday role in one position next year. That's a great, no wonder you guys are a great show. I keep thinking it's gonna be third base with Suarez's contract up, but a lot of ways for them to make it work.

And having an off season, you can try center field or try left field or right field, whatever you wanna do with a full winter to possibly work on it as well. Joe, before we let you go, let our listeners know where they can follow your work and how they can subscribe to the newsletter. Yeah, pretty much everything I do now

is at the Joshian Base newsletter, Joshian.com. You can get subscription information there, read excerpts of everything I write. Plus there's a page that has like 20, 25 pieces from the archive, completely free. You can check those out, see what I do. I'm not the bleeding edge nerd that I used to be like Eno is here, but it's fun. If you enjoy the game, if you enjoy reading about the game, I think you'll enjoy the newsletter. This week, the newsletter actually turns 15 on Saturday. Been doing this since 2010, back when I had hair.

I'm running a discount if you go to my Blue Sky. Still weird to say that. She and newsletter at Blue Sky. You can check that out, you get this, a couple of discount offers I've posted there. Join the newsletter, thousands of people get it and enjoy it. You guys have a Discord, we have a Slack,

we're subscribers, talk baseball all all day actually also do a gaming newsletter if that's how you enjoy the game That's free for subscribers. I don't sell that but it's only if you're a scriber you can get that So the newsletter provides all kinds of things on baseball I hope you will check it out Joe Sheehan calm she a newsletter on blue. So definitely check that out Joe We appreciate your time in your insight today. We look forward to doing this again sometime with you soon. Thanks, fellas. I'm a huge fan of what you guys do. Thanks for having me, Alan. We appreciate you. We need to go. I actually have a meeting coming up in a couple of minutes so you can find Ina on blue sky. You know, sarus.bscot.social.

IMDDR.bscot.social. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. We're back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.