Rates & Barrels - Tatis' Suspension, CJ Abrams' Power Outlook, Slugging Risers & Fallers

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss Fernando Tatis Jr.'s positive PED test and subsequent 80-game suspension, CJ Abrams' long-term power outlook, the biggest risers and fallers in slugging percentage from 2021 to 2022, and much more.  Rundown 4:07 Fernando Tatis Jr.'s Suspension, Future Outlook 12:27 CJ Abrams' Long-Term Power Trajectory; Early-Career Comps 21:05 Stat Traps? 25:59 Slugging Percentage Year-over-Year Risers 28:35 Andrés Giménez's Step Forward 33:41 Nick Gordon's Surprising Power 42:04 Yasmani Grandal's Plummeting Pop 45:26 Better Rebound Candidate: Castellanos v. Winker 51:25 Marcus Semien's Mid-Season Turnaround 58:45 Moves Allowed for Non-Playoff Teams in Keeper League? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe for $1/mo for the first six months: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself. You live for experience and lead by example. You want the most out of life and realize what you're looking for is already in you. This is for you. The Canadian Armed Forces. A message from the Government of Canada. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Monday, August 15th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we will discuss the suspension issued to Fernando Tatis Jr., how that might impact him beyond this season. We're going to discuss C.J. Abrams as he is going to be called up by the Nationals. C.J. Abrams as he is going to be called up by the Nationals.

Kind of makes sense of what he has done to this point in his young big league career and what that might mean for his long-term future. We're also going to take a look at some power shifts. Some players who are among the biggest risers and fallers in slugging percentage for this season. Some interesting names on both of those lists. We've got a couple of mailbag questions we're going to try to get to later on in the episode as well. Eno, how was your weekend? I need a weekend from my weekend. It was insane.

It was absolutely insane. My wife was down in San Diego helping her sister move down there. And so I had the boys for a great portion of it. And there were three parties we went to in two days. We did two baseball practices and a tryout. My 10-year-old had his first. He's trying out for a little league fall ball team

so he had to actually perform in this moment so I was very nervous for him but he did a good job hit a single up the middle hoping for double A assignment and one of the parties was in Santa Cruz and then

yesterday in the evening we took them to their first concert. Nice. So we went to Frost Amphitheater here on campus and saw My Morning Jacket with them. Yeah, I saw a flyer for that concert. I thought about going and then forgot that I saw the flyer. And then I saw your picture from the concert. Oh, yeah, that's right. That was a concert.

Concerts are fun. I should have gone to that concert that's very close by. That would have been a good thing to do. So how was the concert? It was good. It was fun. And Frost is just an amazing arena because it's like a 3,000 to maybe 5,000 fits full. So it's small, and it's nestled in the trees and you can't

actually see it from anywhere like around it because it's like just this little hill that they like you know put uh put seats on basically so it's a it's an amphitheater style with like uh grass seats for half of it and so we and apparently you can bring your own food we looked over and these guys had a whole cheese plate out, you know, it's like, oh, that would have been the move. But we, you know, kids had a good time and it's in preparation. This was more my wife and I's choice of music. Their choice in music is Imagine Dragons, which is coming in like two weeks, three weeks.

So we wanted to get them to sort of practice before we went to that one because that one's much more expensive and with seats and so on. This is what it's like to sit around between sets. I don't know if you were there the whole time or if you just got there. This is how loud it is, too. They wanted the earplugs and they didn't you know and there was some back and forth there nice alright well hey sounds like

it was a good show and yeah I've jogged around that campus and I've never seen the amphitheater so it must be pretty well hidden yeah it is it's pretty amazing for a while they were not doing shows there but the shows have come back and they're fun. I'm going to keep an eye out for some more flyers

because I miss live music. I haven't seen live music in a few years. It's weird. It's very weird. Let's get to some news. Fernando Tatis Jr. suspended 80 games for a positive PED test. That was a shocking bit of news when that dropped on Friday. Yeah, because we're expecting him to come back this year.

We're expecting him to join that Padres lineup. And hey, the Padres can maybe actually go toe-to-toe with the Dodgers. I think they still can. I think the Padres are still much improved with Soto and Bell and Hader and the moves they made at the trade deadline. But this is a bummer for all the different reasons. Clostibal, I believe is the pronunciation of the steroid that Tatis tested positive for. It is a synthetic steroid that mimics male testosterone.

He said he took the medication to treat a case of ringworm. I did a little searching around. Didn't really want to Google ringworm, but I did. Now that's in your search history yeah it's not looking good not an ingredient that's in medications uh prescribed in the u.s and canada but of course you know tatisa believe it was in the dominican republic in the off season and was probably there for part of his suspension so who knows so he there was yeah there were some people on twitter saying that it is in certain medications in Latin America.

Sure. So, I mean, whatever. Even then, you know, not a good move, dude. You can't just, like, you know, take stuff without wondering what's in it. Right. So, a costly lesson for him, of course, with the missed time, the 80 games, unpaid. It ends his 2022 season, makes him ineligible for the postseason this year. And, of course, also actually knocks him out for the 2023 world baseball classic too i didn't realize that was part of a positive ped test so it's kind of a bummer we're not going to see him

in that event in the spring either i guess the we haven't had a ped suspension for a prominent player in a while at least i can't recall one since the time you and i started hosting this podcast at least for a player this young does it change anything about your outlook for Tatis in the long run? Because I think there were greater complicating factors for him between the wrist, the shoulder that one day might need surgery, the style of play. All of those things give me more concerns about him physically than the PED test does and just in terms of performance and what I think he can do on the field once he's eventually back yeah um this has been studied to to some extent and every study that kind of looks at players that have been

suspended and looks at what they do when they come back seems to suggest that the steroids didn't do that much. However, I think there's an obvious, obvious flaw with all those studies, which is we have no idea when they started or when they stopped. And assuming that they stopped because they were suspended for it, I think, is erroneous. So I would say this does not have that much of an impact on how I think he'll play going forward. The one that does is that I think after he popped the shoulder he stopped stealing bases. Which is kind of a weird truth. But let me find his splits here um he had let's see first

half second half he had 20 stolen bases in the first half and he had five in a second i feel like that's meaningful um and uh if you so i think he's probably more of a 10 to 12 type base stealer. Maybe want to take a little bit off the power, just in case he was doing and he does stop. Now that he has his contract, maybe he just settles it in and is whoever he is. I don't know.

But maybe Lindoresk? I mean, if you set that as the new floor and he still has the same power that he had before, then you're just pleasantly surprised. I guess this probably, because there's going to be some missed time in the carryover to next season, probably does knock him out of the first round or at least puts him on the fringe of the first round

if he was previously going to bounce back and join that group. I mean, he's going to miss like 40 games next year, right? Yeah, I think he's got about 40, 45 he can serve this year. So that leaves 35 to 40 on the other side of it. So all of April and part of May next year are gone as a result of this. I mean, think about how we treat first rounders who have month-long injuries, just in terms of the absence and how that impacts the price.

Acuna still made it in the first round. He did, late first round. But there was like positive health information. He was like playing baseball and you could see him. Yeah, Instagram lighting up with Acuna stuff early in the season, in the spring training part of the draft season. The other thing here that I keep thinking about, it's sort of what you alluded to first,

is that we just don't know timing. We don't know long-term impacts. I tend to just err on the side that performance is still going to be about the same. So the Lindor floor to me almost seems like a different shape of production than what you were looking at. I would be reasonably skeptical of the speed. I think the, the 10 to 12 steals is a better expectation than, than 20 plus,

but I think he's an easy 30 to 35 home run guy with great run production. And then those bags. And then I think the question comes back to for, you know, for his career, Tatis has struck out 27.6% of the time. Is he capable of lowering that? Batting average.

Yeah. Does that stay up, or does the batting average go down? Some question there. Yeah, a career.292 hitter with that 27.6% carry. That comes from hitting the ball really hard. He does that consistently. So I still think he's mostly the exact same guy. My lingering concerns probably are more with the shoulder, less

with the wrist, and even less so with the positive PED test if I'm just thinking about past situations like this. He's still so young too. We're not talking about a guy who's 32 years old. We're talking about a guy who's 23 right now. The ability to put up numbers like he did to this point. Is he ineligible for next year's postseason too? Because he'll be suspended through next year? I don't think that's how it works.

I think it's only the year that the suspension was given. I was in the clubhouse when the news came down. It made me feel like nauseous almost like it felt like it was like devastating and I'm not it's not like I'm not a Padres fan I I found it devastating for baseball I mean this is a guy that you you were gonna say is the face of baseball you know like he. He was like the future. He was going to be the guy. Yeah. It's on commercials, right?

MLB The Show had a commercial for that. It was on the Dairy Queen commercial with Cody Bellinger. He was the guy that was going to bring the flair to the game. Yeah. Oh, it's just so awful. I feel so bad for Padres fans. It's a tough blow for sure. And just one of those things.

I did not see this coming at all. No. We shall see how it all plays out. More time off to heal with his wrist, I guess. If you're looking for silver linings, maybe that's less of a concern in the long run. He's like, he should go get that shoulder surgery. That might be a smart thing to do,

but he also has displayed questionable decision-making, is how I would put it. Sure. It's sad to put it in simple, simple terms, but we'll move on to some other things, hopefully some more optimistic things here. C.J. Abrams going to get called up by the Nationals. Oh yeah, this is going to be so great.

Let's bring up a player that Eno's down on. I can make a case against you. I can poop on another young player. It's fine. You can make your negative Nelly Cruz case. I don't know. Negative Nancy. I don't want to call you a negative Nancy. Negative Norman. I don't know. Negative Nancy. I don't want to call you a negative Nancy. Yeah, it should, you know, negative Norman. I don't know. Negative Norman.

It could work both ways. So it's pretty obvious if you look at numbers. Luis Garcia is not really a shortstop. He's banged up right now. He's going to move to second base. Abrams is coming up for the Nationals. Good to just iron that out right now. We have talked about this at a few points earlier in the season, and I think I brought this up when I traded Abrams away in one of my long-term leagues earlier this season, is that I didn't like the quality of contact. I thought that was a little bit problematic, even for his age. And I think that's the key here. It's when should we really start to take action? When should we really start to change our opinions of who we think a player can eventually become when we have some information like we have?

Now, with Abrams, we're talking about someone who's a 21-year-old rookie. He's got 102 batted balls in the big leagues, five barrels so far. It's a 4.9% barrel rate if you're looking at barrels per batted ball event, 3.6% if you like those over plate appearances. All event 3.6%. If you like those over plate appearances, it's an 85.9 mile per hour. Average exit velocity, a 108.2 max and a hard hit rate under 30% at 28.4%. K rate under 20%.

It's very good for any player, especially someone this young debuting in the big leagues walk rate, just below 3% right now. We'd like to see that go up. Yeah. So high chase rate. So you can, you can make the negative case first and then i will do my best to try and pull people back in i'll try to provide a ray of

sunshine after you bring all the clouds and all the rain here well i mean it's just uh it's not good it's not good bad of all content contact um you know quality it's uh the max the maximum exit velocity there is raw power i guess it actually links up pretty well with the fangraphs 45 55 uh raw power so i guess there's probably there's a there's a chance he can get above average that would be a 55 on the 40 to on the 20 to 80 scale um there's a chance he can put on some muscle and get bigger and and grow into some power uh but i lean a little bit more towards the 45 raw power so you know i just wanted to look at other guys with the same max ev um to get an idea of who he could be like. You've got Yadiel Hernandez there. You've got Abraham Toro there

with similar barrel and max EV. It's Jackie Bradley Jr. And then the guy I think C.J. Abrams is, but actually a lesser version of, Gavin Lux. How dare you, sir? Now I'm going to dismerge two young players with this one smarmy comment. No, I just think that Gavin Lux

has way better play discipline. And so that just makes him a better player. But in terms of like future and current isos i think they're going to be pretty similar abrams is going to grow into like maybe a 130 150 iso but he's going to do so with a worse on base percentage so i think Peak Abrams is maybe like a 275, 330, 400 guy. It's harsh, but okay. That's your case? That's what you got?

That's my case. That's actually showing growth from where he is now. Sure. That's beyond his projections. I'm trying to project some growth upon him. growth from where he is now. That's beyond his projections. I'm trying to project some growth upon him. The context for me is really important in

this instance because we're talking about a player. C.J. Abrams has played 34, 74, 76, 106. He's played a total of 114 games in the minor leagues in parts of three seasons, between 2019, 2021, and now this season in 2022,

split 46 games in big leagues. We're talking about less than a full season's worth of minor league played appearances. And those numbers have been good. The results have been fine. He didn't have any of those performances at a minor league stop where he was 40% or 50 percent better than everybody else at the level that's i mean that's what i'm saying but he also had injuries sprinkled in there and the other

key of course is the speed right so we're talking about a player with top of the scale speed who puts a lot of balls in play can play up the middle defensively and get a lot of opportunities to figure it out. So I think what it's going to come down to is where the swing decisions and where the strikeout rates go in the long run. If he ends up being a low strikeout rate guy without a lot of power that can hit the ball to all fields and then just run, okay, eight to 10 homers and 30 plus steals ends up being kind of the outcome sort of thing for him. Tommy Edmund? Yes, Tommy Edmund.

So I looked at it's a couple different things. I looked at the barrel rate leaderboards from 2019 and 2021 because 2020 was a garbage year that I don't really care about all that much. And I found that similar players in terms of their barrel rates included 2019 Trent Grisham, 2019 Tommy Edmund, and 2019 Tim Anderson. So then I started looking at the max exit velo, right? 108.2 this year for Abrams, Tim Anderson 107.8 that year, Grisham 107, Edmund got up to a 110. Pretty reasonable range of players just in terms of how they hit. Grisham, I think, has that really patient eye, maybe even

too patient at times, too passive would be an argument you could make against Grisham, I think, has that really patient eye, maybe even too patient at times, too passive would be an argument you could make against Grisham. I don't think that's who C.J. Abrams is a hitter. Tim Anderson has the approach that I think we would have been very skeptical of for a long time. Like when Tim Anderson was a prospect, I was the most skeptical player, most skeptical person about the type of player he'd be just because I didn't see a lot of guys in the upper levels of the minor leagues who would walk less than 5% of the time and strike out about 20% of the time who'd come up and have a lot of real life value. And maybe Tim Anderson is some kind of tricky outlier, but you look at his swing decisions,

he chases a lot of pitches outside the strike zone. For the first four years he was in the big leagues, he had barrel rates right around 5%, didn't have a lot of hard hit balls. And then we've seen that as he's aged, he's picked up a little bit of hard contact. We've seen a little more from him. This season's a bit of an exception, but the shortened season, we saw a barrel rate that popped up to 10.1%. Last year, probably a better indicator of where he's really at, 7.8%. And you think about Tim Anderson, that 2019 season with the 5.1% barrel rate, he was on a 20-20 pace without injuries. He hit 335 that year. So I just wonder if we're talking about average and speed

and then the power is just the one tool in particular that we're not sure of with Abrams. And I think landing in D.C. actually is a good thing for him. We know the ball carries there in the summer, so he might end up running into some home runs that are now the result of a ballpark. I think in San Diego, there were more reasons for concern, especially knowing how that park plays for lefties

compared to how it plays for righties. So, you know, I look at those names, and then look at the 2021 barrel rates. Some other guys, Trent Grisham, still there at 5.2%. So other interesting names, though. Col other guys, Trent Grisham, still there at 5.2%. Other interesting names, though. Colton Wong, 5.5%. You can see C.J. Abrams being a Colton Wong-type player. That's a decent floor.

If you're a good defender and some power, a little more speed, that kind of works. Brian Hayes, who you and I have discussed as much as anybody we've talked about over the life of this show. Much more raw power there for Hayes. And then Wander. over the life of the show power there for his and then wander also very young upon debut 4.9 barrel rate 109.6 max exit velo last year so a little better than abrams upon arrival but i'm still excited about wander so if i'm still excited about wander should i really be losing a lot of excitement about cj abramsams? Damn you, sexy Flanders. All right, all right.

And actually, while you were talking, I was also thinking about, you know, sort of stat fetishism, you know, that I can fall into. Barrel rate is such a powerful stat, but it's just one. barrel rate is such a powerful stat but it's just one and if cj abrams is more attainable in your dynasty league because of his poor barrel rate then perhaps he's even a bite low could be you know because of all these other things you're saying. And the fact that he's... Opportunity is almost the most important thing. And he's going to get plenty of it. They're going to give him three years to fail, you know? He will have a very long time to figure it out. Ground ball rate's a little high right now,

but it's higher than it was in the minors. That could be something that changes for him too. Maybe he starts to hit the ball in the air a little more often. I like the distribution of his batted ball so far. He goes up the middle more than he goes to the pole side or the opposite way. I mean, that does allow for two different ways forward. There is the sort of Tim Anderson spray the ball and run real fast and have a real high batting average. But there is also then maybe pull the ball and find more power

i guess it would be worse if he was pulling the ball a lot and had this max existing low and barrel that would be see that that would be the case it's like oh he's already doing the thing that you do to get to power yeah and this is all he's got and this is all he's showing us right now there are some strange players on these leaderboards by the way alex bregman had a 4.8 barrel rate in 2019 that was a 41 home run season for alex bregman yeah so yeah 2019 had some weird stuff going on with the ball and i danced around a name on my list of the max ev and similar barrel wrist that was that was actually similar was jose altuvian and it's not that there it's not, I think it is a little bit the park. They just, they figured out they can turn and burn on high and tight

and make the most out of their barrels, at least at home. So I think there is a little bit of similarity there. But Michael Brantley is also right there as a name i didn't mention and um i think that would be a very good outcome for abrams michael brantley with speed and shortstop yeah that kind of works you know really good hitter plenty of good counting stats and then you're gonna put bags on top of that that plays isn. Isn't, like, from a Roto profile perspective, isn't that sort of what Tim Anderson is? Tim Anderson has a little more power than Brantley, I think,

at this point in game power. So I guess that's the slight difference. You know, it is the kind of player that I like, too, where you're going to get some speed, you're going to get some power. You probably know the no zeros, basically, across the board. One thing I have noticed is that this year is the first year in a really long time that I'm not just winning every league's home run category. It's very weird for me.

I'm almost always at the top in home runs because my whole approach is to take home runs with bags on the side, you know? So I don't know what that means in this context, but home runs are harder to find than they have been in the last five years. So that's relevant too. If he's not going to get to it and he's only going to hit you 8-10 or 8-12 homers in a full season, that's going to hurt you. Yeah, I guess the league context is also important. Keeper Dynasty, even though I traded him away earlier this season, I'd be comfortable trading for him. I think if we're looking ahead to next season,

NL only leagues, love him there. 15 team mixed leagues, like him as a middle infielder. Maybe a guy that's going to be going late enough where you can get him after round 20 in a 15 team league potentially depending on what happens these next few weeks I'd be interested if that's what it ends up being with Abrams. If he's my MI and my backup shortstop

and a source of speed later in drafts and I've built a nicely powerful team around him I'll have some shares. You've convinced me. Stupid sexy Flanders for the win. Once again, I just saw the episode

where Flanders punches Homer a couple times yesterday. Classic. Was it over? Why did he punch him? I think Homer was just making fun of him and he finally snapped. But it was the one where you get to meet Flanders' parents. Oh.

Do you remember what they're like? No. They're kind of just like stoners. Like they're just super laid back. No, no, I do remember that. Yeah. Total opposite of them. Totally different than them.

Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. Whoa, what are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking? You know you're driving a 2024 Ford Escape with available Alexa built in, so you can change the music. Oh, yeah. Alexa, change station to 99.2. See? Purchase a 2024 Escape ST-Line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment.

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It's time for Tim's. At participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Let's move on to some power shifts here from 2022. I took a look at the year over year changes leaderboard over at Fangraphs looking for biggest risers and fallers in slugging percentage. I think the fallers are more interesting than the Risers as a group, but I just wanted to mention the names that are on the good side of this. Aaron Judge, shockingly, the biggest Riser

from last year to this year in slugging percentage. Andres Jimenez, I think, is a really good name to talk about here. Jess Chisholm took a big step forward before the injury slowed him down. You got Cody Bellinger in the mix, Jose Trevino, Goldschmidt, Jordan Alvarez, Profar, Jeff McNeil,

Josh Naylor's in there. Dude, Bellinger has looked completely different since the All-Star break. Yeah. Have you noticed this? I've noticed it in the performance. I've just noticed when I see the box score the next day, I see a few more good things coming from Bellinger than

I've seen most of the year. No, it's amazing, actually. Let me see here. The first second half splits is not actually first second half, right? It's pre and post all-star, right? Yeah, and I'm looking here. Get the game

log up since the start of the second half, air quotes, since the post all-star break part of the schedule started. Oh, he's still only hitting 203 somehow. With a 238 OBP. Yeah. Five homers, though, and 20% K rate. Yes, 20% K rate and a 311 ISO. Yeah.

I mean, if he's going to strike out 20% of the time, that batting average is going to come up. Has to. And it's possible. It's possible he's going to strike out 20 of the time that batting average is going to come up has to and it's possible it's possible he's coming back i i was talking to alex wood about people he would love to see in the home run derby and he said cody bellinger and i was like you mean like 2019 cody bellinger i couldn't help it. I was like, really? And he's like, no, even now. He just said that he thought Cody Bellinger had a really sweet swing.

Yeah, people love Cody Bellinger's swing. But, I mean, it's been missing. To put it frankly. So, 311 ISO, that's what he was doing in 2019. I'm intrigued again. I've got him in keeper leagues, and I took him off the block. I was trying to

shop him to sell low, and I decided I'm going to hold on to him. Jimenez, though, is probably the biggest surprise among these names. It helps to make a big move in slugging percentage. Here's one of the hacks. Have a really bad season in slugging percentage the year before.

That's lay the groundwork. If you want to lead the league in improvement in something, be terrible for a while and then, you know, get better. And then it looks like you got a lot better, even if you just got a little better. But I don't want to talk down about his season because it's been good. lot better, even if you just got a little better, but I don't want to talk down about his season because it's been good. Andres Jimenez went from a 351 slugging percentage last year in 210 plate appearances with the Guardians to a 482 this year in a sample that's almost double that size. He's

at 375 right now, and of course, that's not all he does. He's 15 for 17 as a base dealer. He's turned that increased pop into actual home runs. The counting stats are solid. He's still for 17 as a base dealer. He's turned that increased pop into actual home runs. The counting stats are solid. He's still, I think, a little bit risky just in terms of batting average not being quite this good because he swings a lot of pitches outside the zone. But the weird thing is, this profile, I don't know if this is a podcast about Tim Anderson today or whatever, but 20% K rate, 5.6% walk rate, does damage, swings at some pitches outside the zone, good efficient base dealer. This is kind of another Tim Anderson

sort of profile that we're seeing from a middle infielder that is probably going to have a long run of playing time in Cleveland. And this is a big step forward for him. Yeah. The barrel rate is okay not great one thing that you would actually do in a projection system is regress the barrel rate even to his previous standard so he had like a 3.3 and a 3.6 and now 6.8 um i think average ish is five or five or so for for a starting position player. So he went from below average to above average. I would probably regress him back to around average going forward. So average barrel rate, I think the ceiling is probably like a one.

I think his current ISO 175 and current slugging 482 are probably his high watermarks going forward, I would guess. This also looks a lot like C.J. Abrams. If you go back and look at 2020 and 2021, a really young player, 21, 22 years old. Really poor batted ball quality. Poor batted ball quality, but did some other stuff along the way. It gives you an idea of how long it could take, right? That Abrams...

That's the other thing about Abrams. The only thing that'll be different is the plate appearances. It should be immediately. There's just no... Unless he's... Here's the downside risk when we're talking about guys who are in their early 20s. They can get sent down. They can.

They can get sent down. They can get stuck in the bottom third of the order i do think those things are less likely on rebuilding teams and that is firmly where the nationals are right now so i think andres temenez is another good guide here in terms of just a to b to c this is this is a path that cj Abrams could follow, and it would not be that surprising. Yeah, yeah, I could see that. I like the other notables. Did you mention them? Yeah, the other notables a little further down the list,

Glaber Torres is on here, Gavin Lux is on here, Nick Gordon is on here. We've talked about Glaber and Lux quite a bit, and even with Lux's improvement, there's questions. Yeah, yeah. glaber and lux quite a bit and even with lux's improvement there's questions yeah yeah uh glaber follows uh your other idea of just have a bad year tank and then come back yeah the underlying power is more of a bounce back than an emergence, I think. But Gavin Lux is just continually fascinating to me. Really good real-life player. I'm not sure how good he is for fantasy. And I'm not sure how much better he'll get. He's fine as a deep mixed-league bench player.

That's about his cap right now, at least. Yeah, I guess in LBP leagues, he's a little bit more valuable. I think if we're going to roster players like Luis Urias and even Jeff McNeil, right? Jeff McNeil's also on this list. Is that another fair expectation comp for Lux? This guy that plays multiple positions.

I mean, Lux walks more, strikes out a little more, I think. But that's probably about right. Maybe it's batting average first, then counting stats, and then a little bit of speed, a little bit of power. And that's all we can expect in the short term. Yeah, Abrams' speed is superior to Lux's. For sure. Yes. Yeah. I luck and lux isn't slow right like lux actually runs well but top of the scale runners are pretty special um uh but uh and who's the

last name there uh nick gordon also fascinating because i you know this is like an extreme case I think even more extreme than Abrams where the minor league slugging numbers were just awful right and I I wonder if just his like his brother's situation like biased me against him. Right, if we looked at Nick Gordon and said, yeah, his brother's this really skinny guy, slaps the ball, doesn't really drive the ball, therefore Nick Gordon must be like that.

Yeah, and they profiled somewhat similarly in the low minors in particular. But if you look, he's kind of been, he put up a 191 ISOo and 181 plate appearances in double a he put up 161 and 319 play appearances in 2019 so like the power has been slowly growing he has physically been growing like he's he is a larger person and recently um i was very surprised to see he has an 11% barrel rate. In fact, and he's debuted with a 6.8% barrel rate. I think going forward, you could actually see more power

from Nick Gordon going forward than he's shown. Normally, if you have an 11% barrel rate, you have it better than a 146 ISO. Yeah, I like what we're seeing, and I wonder, I'm trying to kind of retrace our steps, look back at his minor league profile. He went back to AA in 2018 to begin the season after finishing 2017 there. Showed more power. It was only 42 games, so it was easy to sort of write that off.

Got the promotion to AAA. Numbers came down. Went back to that level in 2019. Power went up again. At least he's getting better. I mean i mean yeah it's bad to repeat levels that's something that people will uh count against you if they're discussing you and evaluating you you know um oh he's just repeating the level but at least he got better yeah he got better there are people who repeat and just do the same then you really lose uh your shine as a as a prospect

it's also i mean this is where this is why i like wrc plus so much you look at that 2017 season it wasn't a lot of power but there was some speed 23.2 percent carry he was a 21 year old double a was 17 better than league at first that's not failure that's actual that's success like that's that's a very good age to level so yeah i think nick gordon has really emerged to be this player that I had very low expectations for going into the season. He's also hitting the ball in the air more often. Yes, he's hitting the ball in the air more often. And he's showing enough power to take advantage of it.

I mean, I missed this completely. To the point where I missed it like two months ago. I think I was talking about what would happen when somebody was coming off the injured list, and I thought Nick Gordon could be a DFA candidate. Like, I literally thought that. This year. What was I looking at? He's out of options.

I don't think I even pulled up his page. I was just completely speaking out of my butt. I was just completely speaking out of my butt. It's worth, when something like this happens, it's worth unpacking. You know what I mean? What is it? Where is the bias coming from?

In my defense, I have looked at his page before, and there is his brother, and he does seem, when you look at him, even now that he's bulked up a little bit, he does seem like a little guy, like a very skinny guy. But there are other skinny guys who've hit for power. Now I'm wondering how good we think he can be. Well, his career number so far, just under 500 plate appearances between this season and last season. Nine homers, 16 steals, about a 25% K rate, about a 5% walk rate.

95 WRC+. It's a 258, 307, 390 line. I would take the over on each of those three things. I think so. But it's a slight over in the first two and maybe a significant over in the last one. I think it's more like a 265, 320, maybe like a 440 sort of player. And that's way beyond. His projections are basically lined up with what he's done.

Right. It's actually kind of amazing. If you look at the projections, they look like, and you look at his actual total line, they look exactly the same. Yeah, so I don't think he's out over his skis right now. I think the only category I'm looking at that's a little off is,

the average could be a little off, but if he's getting into more power, hitting more home runs, then that sort of carries the average up to where it is right now. Yeah, and as a guy with some speed that doesn't pull the ball overly much, he could be a guy that runs okay baboops. Yeah. Yeah, I think we could see something. What were you saying, like sort of 270?

Yeah, I thought like maybe mid-260s more likely, 320-ish OBP. That's kind of where he is right now, maybe up to a 330 if he can walk a little more, and then a 440, 450 slug. And a 450 slug on a 260 average is around a 200 ISO. I think that's like 22 to 24, 25 homers. Yeah. And even if he doesn't get all the way there, he runs a little bit. And then compared to players who we're always looking for for cheap speed,

he does have more power than those guys. He beats that minimum ISO threshold that you talk about a lot, where you're not worried about him getting the bat knocked out of his hands. And there's some versatility. They play him at multiple spots. So I could see this actually being a pretty legit breakout. The Jeff Zimmerman rule of 650, he's past that. You want your speed guys to have a better than 650 OPS projection

because right around a 650 OPS in real life is when you lose your job. And he at least has a 700 projection, basically. But it's 700 minus in the projection. So I think I would still be careful with him in terms of how much to invest in him in Dynasty Leagues and next year and stuff. I'm still retaining some bias bias against him i guess uh but you can hear from what we you know put a 440 slugging on him that's that's he hasn't done that

yet and that would be uh you would be paying for the 400 slugging and you'd be happy to get to 440 i think in leagues where you know you're talking about keeping 10 plus players and maybe salaries are involved if you picked up nick gordon for a couple of bucks in the last few weeks, you might find that he's going to stick on your roster in deeper mixed leagues at least, and especially in mono leagues, because I think there are enough paths for him to play even as they get a little bit healthier next year. We'll see what happens with Carlos Correa, among a few other things for the Twins. Correa, among a few other things, for the Twins. They're always also going to want a good center fielder that's playing on the Major League roster because of the way they use Buxton. Yeah, the Buxton insurance. And yes, they have Gilbert Celestino who profiles more as a defensive guy.

I think it would be better, actually, to have someone who has some offense that can slide over to center so that you're not just always starting a defense-only guy the day that Buxton doesn't play. Right, because you're already taking a big hit in the lineup with Buxton not being there from a bat perspective. That's a double hit.

Celestino's a double hit. Oh, no, no, no, wait a second. Hold on. I just made this mistake. I'm going over Celestino's a double hit oh no no no wait a second now i know hold on i just made this mistake i'm going over celestino's page real quick no okay he's as bad as i thought he was okay sorry it's really really harsh i gotta check all my priors now nick orton has really has really shook me yeah sometimes it's a good thing, right? Get that wake-up call and get back on track. The Faller side of this list has some pretty interesting names on it.

As Money Grandal, one of the things that's going to be a common theme is injury on the Faller's list. You lose a lot of power, you're probably hurt. As Money Grandal has lost 260 points of slugging percentage, he's actually slugging 260 right now for the season. It's not who he is as a player. If he's healthy, he's obviously going to hit for power.

Already someone I'm thinking about as a bounce-back candidate for next year. Already someone that, if you're in a single-catcher league and he's been dropped, I think he's worth picking up because I think his final four, five, six weeks of this season could be much more in line with expectations. Frank Schwindel, I'm less surprised there just because he was a late pop-up guy i didn't have him anywhere it was to me that's the easy kind of profile to avoid unfortunately it seems like it's not going to work out for him brandon belt injuries right tyler o'neill lost 200 points a slug so far injuries i guess i guess leg stuff more but one question i have about tyler

o'neill is that with the reduction in the ball like in the deadening of the ball what we've seen uh from some of these high strikeout guys that used to slug their way to good on-base percentages and batting averages and so it's and value is some struggle i mean what do you like what in the in the pre-season uh i'm gonna now look at uh i think i have to do steamer because i want k percentage do they do k percentage they don't do k percentage all right i'll just do i just do raw strikeouts projected raw strikeouts going into the season on steamer joey gallo miguel sono tyler o'neill matt chapman javier baez fran mil reyes adolos garcia shohei otani so to be fair still some guys there but that's like seven out of the first ten are terrible this year. Yeah.

I'm chalking this up to health. He's still running around the leg injury. He's 8 for 12 as a base stealer in 66 games. Oh, you are roasting me this episode, dude. He's been hurt. Tyler O'Neal, strong guy. I think the legs matter for all hitters, but he hit one, I think it was Sunday, hit one against the Brewers. It was just a monster shot.

It was kind of a typical Tyler O'Neill home run. He had the best, I think it was the best batted ball quality last year overall by that stat, expected X-race hits that Max Bay made before he jumped to the astros so i still i still believe in him long term i think he's an interesting buy though and he's still stealing bases and good late season trade player too like if you want to trade for someone if your trade deadline hasn't passed in your league you want to get an offensive player that could help in every category maybe

takes a slight hit and batting average just based on the swing and miss in his game. But power, speed, counting stats. Also, your batting average five months into the season is pretty much set. He's not going to move your batting average much. Shouldn't. So if you have a high one, he's a perfect one to go get. In on O'Neal now. Likely in on O'Neal going into next season as well. It seems like it's bad to leave Great American Ballpark because Jesse Winker is on this list,

losing almost 200 points in slug. Nick Castellanos, losing almost 200 points in slug. Even Tucker Barnhart made the list. Which one of those two are you more beat about going forward? I think that's an interesting one, Winker and Castellanos. I think it's Castellanos. Because Park and... Park supporting cast is comparable because I think the Mariners offense is quietly really good.

Yep. Slightly longer track record of in-game power. I think batting average floor for Castellanos is kind of underrated. The gross season he had was the shortened 2020. He played all 60 games, hit.225. But look at his averages going back to 2016. He had a.285, a.272, a.298, a.289. He's got a.309 last year.

And even this year with it going wrong,.259 is not a bad batting average. So I think he gets it back in his age 31 season. gets it back in his age 31 season yeah it's also not in that sort of 33 34 um range where you start to doubt the projections of bounce backs you know what i mean i think 30 is definitively a year too early to be to think he's like toast or whatever so ah so this leads me to another name on the list what about avi garcia who's been just brutal this year in his first season with the Marlins, right? It's a long-term deal, big contract. You've got that Winker-esque thing where it's just like,

what if it's just a bad mix of player and park? Could be. 31. Really surprising development for Garcia, too. Highest K rate of his entire career, 27.8%. He's never swung at more pitches outside the zone except for when he debuted all the way back in 2012. Barrel rates down after three out of the last four seasons

doubled to barrel rates. I mean, this is a bizarre player. How is he running? I think his strikeout rate right now actually matches his swinging strike rate. He's always been sort of Hamilton. You know who there's a comp here? Josh Hamilton.

I was thinking more like Adam Duvall. Okay, a little bit. But, you know, Duvall. I guess Duvall was playing center, man. Sometimes baseball does things where you're like, what? I was going to say that Garcia has more athleticism and speed than duval but maybe duval is more athletic than i'm giving credit for um but the my point of bringing up the hamilton comp is um it would not serve him well to be more patient this is a guy with 18

percent who runs regularly 18 swinging swinging strike rates and 40 percent reach rates chase rates that type of player is not served well by being more patient you know i mean like that the strikeout rate will just balloon so i i am actually worried about age-related decline here because yes his chase rate is up bad but he's not a player that's going to benefit from chasing less like a lot less i don't think or being a lot more patient and uh he's had bad swing strike rates and bad chase rates in the past and still performed and this year he just isn't the quality of contact is down pretty big except for the max ev i'm a little worried about this one i don't know how many shares i'm going to have next year i could see myself especially during draft

and hold season when the price is the absolute lowest taking a few flyers because i think the playing time's still going to be there you can't you can't bench a guy in year two of a four-year, $53 million contract if you're the Marlins. You have to see if he can figure it out. He gets another chance, yeah. And he has had some pretty significant variants over the course of his career, too, when you look at the year-to-year performances.

He's had a year that looks a lot like this in 2016. He had a 55% ground ball rate, chased a bunch struck out a bunch oh man he he is adam duvall they're they're so similar really i think duvall's power peaks hit like 40 homers in a year he hit 38 last year yeah and it was after 16 and 57 games in the shortened season but in 2018 Duvall hit 195 with a 274 OBP and a 365 slugging percentage. That was a miserable year. And that was on the heels of back-to-back 30 home run seasons in Cincinnati. The thing that I think is really important here, Duvall having a few seasons in that hitter-friendly ballpark in Cincinnati reached a power peak that Garcia hasn't been able to hold over multiple seasons. But in part because Garcia has not really

spent as much time in hitter-friendly environments as... He did hit 29 in Milwaukee. Alright, that's an interesting comp, I guess. But, to be fair, I have very rarely acquired shares of Adam Duvall. Oh, I'm an

Adam Duvall skeptic. Generally not a player that I'm into. You want to beat me in a league? Have Adam Duvall on your team when he goes off for 30-plus homers. Because he won't be on my team. Because I missed. I didn't see it coming. Are you likely? Okay, so you're saying at the very bottom prices maybe.

Yeah, I think so. I think the price is going to be just next to free. In a draft and hold, you've got to go 50 rounds, so we're probably talking about around 25 to 30 range pick. That's basically a bench guy in a 15-team mixed league. I think that's about right for the discount for me to be in. Because even in the heart of the Marlins order, there's reason to believe they might actually spend a little or use pitching

to get more hitting. So they're supporting. I think they should move the fences again. Could do that. I mean, I'm not going to draft him banking on that, but I just think you're tuned in a new place. That could be better.

That in and of itself could make things better. What about Marcus Simeon? He's had a pretty wild season for year one in Texas he's now at 17 homers and 19 steals so he's 19 for 22 as a base stealer really efficient high volume they're going to return the value the value of that was invested in him right like he's probably going to actually he was like a fourth or fifth rounder he's probably going to return like fourth or fifth round value i bet what do you think the slash line was at the end of may what do you think the slash line was for marcus oh my gosh i've been following along to some extent i mean was it uh like 195 uh 250 300 pretty much yeah possible pretty much nailed it 199 266 274 he had $250, $300? Pretty much, yeah. Is that possible?

Pretty much nailed it. $199, $266, $274. He had one homer in his first 207 plate appearances this season. He had six steals, so he's giving you those cheap bags, which might have been enough to keep him in your lineup, even when things weren't going well. And now, if you look back to June 1st, so since the end of that run, from June 1st forward,

to June 1st, so since the end of that run, from June 1st forward, Marcus Simeon is at 260, 315, 484 for the slash line, 25% better than league average, 16 homers in his last 302 plate appearances, 13 for 15 as a base dealer. He's doing it with a 15.9% K rate. So I'm wondering if he ends up being a little undervalued because the overall numbers might not fully recover and i think that more recent slash line is probably a fair place like if you look at projections for rest of season think about next season's projections what those are going to look like that's probably about right for marcus simeon big contract plays every day has a prominent spot in the lineup lineup should keep getting better if you if you prorate

his rest of season projections for a full season you're talking about a guy who's going to hit 255 260 with 27 homers 20 25 to 27 homers and 15 to 20 steals. It's a good fantasy player. Jeez, man. It's a really good fantasy player. We're going to have some Simeon shares again next year. And I think you're getting him at a lower draft day cost than you did in 2022. He'll drop to like sixth, seventh round. He was going, where was he going?

Third, like fourth, right? I think I drafted him in the third, early in the draft season. And then once he went to Texas, I think he slipped a little bit. But yeah, third, fourth round, like top 50, I think was pretty consistent for Marcus Simeon. Yeah.

Yeah. I like it. I'm going to have some Simeon shares next year. Yeah. So a lot of interesting names in that list. Darren Ruff, way down. Brandon Belt, who I mentioned earlier, way down.

Brandon Crawford, way down. I mean, those two, two of those three giants have been hurt. I wonder, two of those three Giants have been hurt. I wonder, are they missing Donnie Ecker? Maybe, but Belt is like bone on bone in one of his knees, I think. I think he's going to get like a couple one-year deals. I don't think the Giants will resign him. It seems like they're ready to move on.

I think if they keep Evan Longoria around, maybe Longoria starts playing some first base. Yeah, $16 million for Longoria, though. I think he's gone, too. Play J.D. Davis at first base if you want to. Most teams don't have that luxury, air quotes. They're going to cycle through some veterans in San Francisco. They're going to take advantage of the down season

to kind of try to clean it up a little bit. So I think they'll be a big player for any big free agent this offseason. I think Carlos Correa would be interesting, push Crawford over to second. But, yeah, so I'm down on those guys the ones like nelson cruz brandon bell rand crawford i think you're just it's just the end of his end of her career i think joey vato may be looking at it i mean i've i've i've i've written stories about this is the end for joey vato before that was was wrong, but when you see just like

a little resurgence and then it goes away again quickly, that's when I'm like, uh-oh. The bounce back wasn't as good, you know? Yeah, it's sad. It's not what we were hoping for. No. I mean, I think he's to the

point where he's my draft and hold third first baseman next year you know he has to be that cheap that's probably where he'll go i might pick him up there i feel like his obp and his contract will keep him playing you know yeah there's no reason not to play him if you're cincinnati going into next season, I think a cruise, I think it's mostly the end of a career. Uh, Max Muncy has totally turned it around. Yeah. Maybe he's feeling better.

His, his plate decisions were still elite and his, his max power was still there. I think he was just having trouble sort of tapping into his, uh, making that powerful contact more often due to the short, the, the elbow probably.

So, um, I, uh making that powerful contact more often due to the short the the elbow probably so um i here's another guy that i was shopping and then nobody wanted him or nobody took him and so now i'm like oh well i guess i'm happy i have him catching a little bit of that late season rebound from muncie it just all along it's just been a question of how healthy is the elbow i think that explains most of why the power hasn't been there for the better part of this season for him. But Fraud Mills belongs in the Tyler O'Neal conversation, which is do we in this new run environment have to put a real big asterisk on anyone

that has over a 28% projected strikeout rate? Hmm. that has over a 28% projected strikeout rate. Hmm. You know, do we need to start valuing contact as fantasy players a little bit more? Yeah, probably. I think the Cubs are going to give them a lot of playing time, though.

So it's... I actually just picked him up in a 12-team on the NFPC because I need power and he's going to play. Yeah, Universal DH buys Reyes a lot of extra opportunities next year. I just think the Cubs aren't going to get better fast enough to push him out of playing time. And that raw power should play pretty much anywhere. to push him out of playing time, and that raw power should play pretty much anywhere. So I think what I would do is just go into it knowing that there's probably even more

batting average downside than we previously expected. We've seen a new floor. Just keep that in mind. That doesn't go away with an offseason necessarily when you strike out well over 30% of the time. And that goes back to last season too. 32% K rate last year, even while he popped 30 homers.

So it's a little bit, I don't know, Miguel Sinoian in some ways without the massive injuries that have been wrinkled in. Yeah. He's also had an awful year. Yeah. Kind of a forgotten player that we'll see what the future holds for him. Seems like he's done as far as his time with the twins goes.

But I want to talk about a few other questions we got via mailbag here. We'll see what the future holds for him. Seems like he's done as far as his time with the Twins goes. I want to talk about a few other questions we got via mailbag here before we go. There's a question from Wes about non-playoff teams making pickups in a keeper league. Wes's league is a 16-team keeper league where they can keep six players. They're having a major debate on whether it's fair or not to allow non-playoff teams to continue adding players during the playoffs. We've always allowed non-contenders to pick up players at that time some league members think it's not right for non-playoff teams to interfere with the playoffs and or snipe a good keeper for free while others don't think it's fair for the playoff teams people to drop talented players with no risk and have an extra bench spot i i have an immediate strong reaction to this one okay yeah you gotta let them pick up players what are

you talking about it's a game they're still playing you want them to stop playing you want them to leave the league it's a keeper league it's a keeper league what do you do when you're not in it you try to improve your league for your team for next year like i would be mad at the people saying the other side if it was my league is all I'm saying. So the only thing you could do, if you need a resolution, I think the rule— Sorry if the writer was on that side. It's an easy solution, though, if you need to put a rule in place. I think the rule would be that anybody who's picked up after the playoffs begin would not be eligible to be kept.

So if you were going to shut down those teams making moves I still give you a big thumbs down on that one dude no I'm just just offering a solution just telling me I should go away then yeah it's not not a good way to play no I don't like it it also like just keeps the heat on the playoff teams hey you get more teams trying so you have to actually yeah if you have to drop an injured guy to win it all, and I get to pick up your injured guy and keep him? That's interesting. That's the cost of you winning.

Yeah, that's an interesting decision you have to make. Or you try to win with that guy on your bench soaking up a roster spot. I think that's what i love about keeper and dynasty playing is those decisions you know like i sold low on trout like we talked about that in this in this league i sold low on trout because a i didn't think he was one of my top three keepers anymore uh and b uh i needed people to play now in order to even win it. I'm basically tied for second. So I made that decision. I thought it was an interesting one.

Maybe I made the wrong one, but it was interesting. And it means something for the league. That means a team that was out of it now has a better shot next year. Yeah, I generally would leave it open. But if you need a rule to keep the peace, at least just make a rule about not being able to keep players that the contending teams pick up if you're going to lock other people out of moves. That's about the only way to come up with some kind of middle ground solution there.

Thanks for that question, Wes. One last question here. This one's from Trevor. Trevor's in a 10-team Roto League. It's a 6x6 where innings pitched is a category, but they have a max of 200 games started for starting pitchers. Do we have any recommended followers who can do well with innings and categories but don't count against games started? So you're looking for either like bulk relievers or true on followers, which seem like there aren't as many of those players around the league this year. The guy that I've been turning to a few times this year

to give me innings, though, is Ronaldo Lopez. He's back from the IL. It's not like three-plus innings at a time, but he's just been really effective in a relief role. And if he's got that SP eligibility, you can use him. He's not getting starts, but he is giving you innings. So I think he'd be probably on my list of players I'd consider for

a role like that yeah that's a good one i only had one name myself which was keegan aiken yep um although if you look at keegan lincoln's game log you might notice that uh it's been diminishing over time in terms of how many pitches and how many batters he's been facing. In the last five outings, he's faced three, five, three, three, and seven. So he's only gone multiple innings once. That was not the case early in the season. In fact, early in the season, his first 20 appearances, he didn't go one inning once so uh i think that teams have found that it's just hard to keep a guy like that healthy and um it's it's a little bit difficult to do the bullpen game or the opener thing in terms of just the overall health of the bullpen,

not even necessarily the health of just that one player, you know, because what you have is a guy who's not available for two to four days out of five, right? Yeah, it does make it a little harder to manage. The other name that I thought of was Jalen Beeks, it does make it a little harder to manage. The other name that I thought of was Jalen Beeks, but he's actually going to be used as an opener. So that is the opposite of what you want. So you can keep an eye on the Rays, what they do with him. Oh, right.

So then Yarbrough. Yeah. Yarbrough has been used within opener. But I think that sort of tells you uh a little something about the strategy too right it's like you can get some innings from yarborough if you want is that gonna help you into the categories it depends on how deep your league threshold's pretty high so i'd probably 10 team league 10 team leagues it's a that's a tough line to walk that's where i think lopez is like on the very short list of pitchers that

yeah strikes enough guys out all i can come up with vulture some wins because the team's good enough you know so i think those are those are our best recommendations but thanks a lot for that question trevor if you got a question for a future episode you can send those our way via email rates and barrels at theathletic.com as always you can've got a question for a future episode, you can send those our way via email, ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com. As always, you can drop us a question under this video on YouTube. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and like this video if you're watching us over

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Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.