Rates & Barrels - Teams primed for a surge, AL MVP & Cy races, and 'Strike Three!'

Episode Date: June 18, 2021

Eno, Britt & DVR discuss the latest chapter of the sticky-substance enforcement saga before taking a look at the teams most likely to make a run to the postseason despite low playoff odds. Plus, the trio discusses the AL MVP and Cy Young Award races, before DVR indulges his lifelong dream of being a gameshow host by introducing 'Strike Three!'.  Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic for just $3.99/month: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, brought to you by Topps and Topps Project 70. Check out Topps Project 70 today. Amazing new cards launching each and every day. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris and Britt Giroli. And yes, we are sick of sticky substances. We're absolutely fed up and tired of them, but they're not going away, as we said on the Wednesday pod. Britt, you had another great story up earlier in the day on Thursday, And I just want to get right at it because we're a little short on time today. I'm just curious, in the latest story that you wrote, did you feel like the Players Association actually wanted to talk to the league?

Because the league insists that there were multiple efforts made to have a dialogue about these changes and the implementation of these changes. And yet, for some reason, the players are acting as though that never happened, which is just very bizarre. Yeah, I feel like, and Eno can back me up on this as well, you call the union, they tell you one thing, you call MLB, they tell you another.

The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. But based on what we're hearing, it does seem clear that, listen, the union represents hitters and pitchers. And if there's anything we know over this huge stretch of sticky stuff, it's that hitters are upset. Some pitchers are upset, too. So I think it's tough for the union to sit there and say, we need to protect our pitchers when half of the union is made up of guys who are like, hey, wait a second, these guys need to get punished. So it's this weird spot to be in. And I almost feel like the union maybe defaulted and was like,

well, we're just going to sit here and wait and see how this unfolds. And MLB was like, well, I thought you were going to give us some suggestions. I thought you were going to fight us on this a little bit more. So it was kind of like round and round we go, right? And if your head doesn't hurt already from this stuff, then you're probably not consuming enough sticky stuff stories because my head, guys, absolutely pounding. I can see so many points, counterpoints. I think that's the problem. There's no actual really good solution to this. And therein lies the huge problem. There's no actual really good solution to this. And therein lies the huge problem. Yeah, you know, they can't even agree on the same set of facts. And, you know, I guess I have some

sympathy. Every time we try to write, you know, you know, Britt and I have written together on this. We've written separately. Every time we try to write on this, and I don't want to need to speak for her, but I feel like this is true. You feel like, how much can I mash into the story? Because it's so big that every little thread you pull on, you're like, but then this, and then this, and then this, and then this. You kind of want to try and focus on something, but it's not one of those things that's easy to focus on. I mean, one of the things that stuck out to me from your story was, you know, just the fact that they can't agree, A, if sunscreen and rosin has a performance benefit. You know, League says, yes, it's worth 200 RPM.

There's a Travis Sochik article that says it's worth exactly the same as rosin by itself. Exactly. And it seems like the hitters are okay with it. But as the League said, you give them a little bit. And how many days before clubs have their own special sunscreen that looks like sunscreen acts like sunscreen and is definitely not sunscreen so this is awesome or maybe if it has spf factors but it happens to basically be spider taxing you put on your arm exactly it's like so you can't i understand why

the league feels like they have to go cold turkey because you give any of these clubs an opening and what's going to happen, they're going to expose it. This is the replay video room all over again, right? I mean, this is how these things started. Somebody from the league said to me,

we got here by looking the other way on pine tar and on rosin and sunscreen. That's how we got to spider tech. That's how we got to spider tech. That's how we got to enhanced homemade substances by looking the other way at things that we thought weren't that big of a deal. So I kind of understand why the league's like, you know what? Nothing's allowed. This is why we can't have nice things. Blame the rest of the league, but you can't blame us. Yeah. And I think the other thing that makes it difficult is it is a rule on the rule books it's been on the rule books forever so you know and they're i don't know how

much of a leg the union has to stand on because it's like this has been a rule all that's changing is they're enforcing it you know it's like it's not like they sprung a rule on you it's been a rule so that to a lot of people you know in our mentions and our comments or just in general, that's it. It's a rule. These are cheaters. That's it. But I see a lot more gray area. And, you know, the other gray area is injury.

So, you know, Glass now comes out and says, you know, this is this is why I got injured. And I felt horrid listening to those just felt awful. I don't have anything to do with anybody getting injured. And so, you know, the league says, no, no, the reason why people are getting injured is because they're throwing so hard,

they're throwing close to their max, and they're allowed to do so because they have the spider attack. And they, but, so there's actually some truth to that. I just read a piece by Mike Sun. Mike Sun was in your piece, Britt, a little bit,

and he kind of expounded on that and posted today, a longer post. And what he found was in the lab, people threw harder with the spider tack on. Their velocity went up. So if that's true, then the league is a little bit right that throwing harder and throwing closer to your maximum is more injurious. That's something that somebody has already shown. It's more stressful to your arm.

Glenn Fleissig showed this at ASMI. That's like a given, right? So if you're throwing harder with the spider tag, that is okay. The league is right. However, Mike Son also found that if you have to increase your grip strength, because you do not have sticky substance anymore, you're going to increase your fatigue by 30%. That was in Brit's article. I hope I didn't give away too much. There's a lot more than that. You did a really good job of like, you know, kind of laying out why this is so difficult. These are only a

couple parts of it. But I think it's a it's a good window in to be like, God, they can't they can't agree if it if it's to lead to more injuries. They're not even looking at the same things, right? Baseball is just going to look at injury rates and be like, injury rates have always been up the last two years. It has nothing to do with spider attack, right? But what if injury rates were going to go down, but the added fatigue is keeping them up, you know, for the people that are leaving? So they should really have gotten in a lab and done this work that my son did but when they changed the ball and the ball is part of this too

that's why you keep pulling on these little strings you're just like ah but the ball is part of this too they didn't test drag when they did the ball and when they changed this grip substance they didn't have anybody go in a lab and throw with and without are they not that we have any results or not that they're giving us? Not that Manfred is having a press conference talking about a good summary of why you can't change these things on the fly. We talked about this last week in the sense that if I took Pelican grip or any of those things and did some rock climbing with it, I would hurt myself.

I would be able to climb higher, but I would hurt myself doing it. Therefore, being able to climb higher wouldn't be worth it in that case, right? Somebody pushed back and said the free solo guy could not have used spider tack because he was doing it in the wild, so that was dirty. So after a while, his hands would just be like clumps of dirt. That's a good point. I hadn't thought about the surface being natural like that as opposed to a polished, clean rock climbing wall on the inside. I mean, we need sponsors for this segment because it's just... Spider tag, dude. Yeah, well, there's got to be some enterprising young person

making some other sticky substance that needs to get their brand out there. So maybe we could be that vessel. I mean, I think you're right. It's a gray area and it's multivariable. There's so many things that go into pitchers getting hurt, pitchers being good, pitchers being bad. You can take substances away. But anytime you change any one of those variables, the other variables are also sometimes impacted. And that makes it just so complicated to figure out.

Like, we changed this. Why did this happen? Well, it's because of these other things, too, that you didn't think about. That happens every single time baseball makes a change. Yeah. And guys, what bothers me, I guess there's a couple things that really bother me about this, but one is I spoke to a lot of players and as Eno knows, I was on the phone with people from MLB yesterday and then I totally flipped and I was like, listen, I'm on team MLB, I get it. And then I spoke to a lot of players and I'm like, wait, no, I'm on team players. And I can see all these different sides here. And I think what bothers me is the insinuation that all of a sudden

pitchers can just quickly adjust and take a little off or command better. And what bothers me about that, what guys have said is there is so many reasons why that doesn't work. One is, say you're a pitcher, you've been in the league for five years, ten years, whatever. You get paid to strike out guys. So now all of a sudden you're supposed to not strike out guys when that's literally all you've done? Forget grip. We're talking about becoming a totally different pitcher seemingly overnight. And now you look and you say, well, 30, 40 years ago, we had tons of finesse guys and they didn't hit anybody.

Well, go back and look at some of the strike zones that some of these guys got. I mentioned Maddox, but like Randy Johnson, just some of these, just look at- Oh, Glavin had the widest strike zone known to man. So I had a guy say to me, listen, if I could get that strike zone, I'll become a command guy. You're going to give me six inches off the plate. Nowadays, it's outside of that little K box on our screen, and we're like, oh, my God.

Oh, I'm sorry. The umpire missed this. I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the robot umpire. Exactly. So there's so many different factors at play here that you just can't say, you know what, Max Scherzer, Garrett Cole, change it up. And it's just not, I mean, they are going to make adjustments. They are still going to be very good.

But you can't just tell these guys overnight, hey, all of a sudden you've got nothing to grip with, and we want you to become a command pitcher. Like, teams are built on power. Teams are built on heavy strikeout guys. Now you've got teams that are like, oh, shit, I've got to get ready, because the ball's going to be put in play all the time off a guy like Verlander or Scherzer or whatever. Now I got to be on my toes. Now the fact that the Yankee Stadium were built to hit these home runs.

That team is built to hit home runs. Do you think all of a sudden they're going to wake up and say, you know what? We're not hitting home runs. I think we should just start hitting singles, boys. No. Whit Merrifield has led the league in hits for how many years and nobody cares. Michael Brantley leads in batting average and does anybody care? No.

You know, what you care about is Vladdy Jr. hitting bombs. That's what- Acuna, Tatis, bombs, Otani. So everyone's to blame for this. Like fans who are buying jerseys that aren't Whit Merrifield, you are also to blame for this. Like it's such a big convoluted problem. It's just once you think you have it down and you have a stance you kind of have to tunnel vision one thing

because there's there's so many other counterpoints it'll drive you insane yeah which is where i'm at one thing that is weird to me is the in-season thing i just feel like you know if you're a pitcher especially starting pitchers you do all this work in the offseason right you do all the work in the offseason and then the regular season is just tweaks and little things and maybe I'll throw this pitch more and this pitch less. It's very rare that someone comes in a start in the middle of the year and is like, now I'm throwing this whole new pitch, right? That's a spring training thing.

So it is a little bit weird to kind of, to some extent, goose the timeline. I mean, they told him about it in 2020. Yes, I'm going to be fair to baseball. They told the manager in 2020. They had a memo in the spring this year. But that's a little different. Those things are a little bit different than on June 21.

We are going to start doing this. You know what I mean? And I think it... I have to be careful here because there's no way we'll ever be able to report this. There's no way we'd ever be able to write this down. And I'm not actually accusing them of this. But I just wonder if the run environment was different this year. If the ball was different this year.

If there was more scoring this year. Would there be an in-season push or would they have let it go to the end of the season? Well. And there's no way we'd ever connect those dots because they wouldn't, if they, if they did it that way, they would never write it down anymore. Yeah. And you're right.

Would the hitter, what really sparked this is, you know, is the players complaining in the media. So you're right. If they were all hitting, would we have gotten here this quickly? I don't know. I tend to think no, but it's hard to say. And as Eno said, it's not like they would have had emails circulating around about this or anything, would they?

A memo. I wouldn't rule it out. Because the strikeout rate is so high and there are all these no-hitters, let's enforce the sticky stuff. Signed, Rob. No. That'd be amazing. I don't think that that's the case,

but more to come, I'm sure, in the weeks ahead. Frankly, there are some pretty exciting things happening with playoff odds right now, so we're going to talk about some teams that we think are most likely to rally from low playoff odds right now. So if you look around the league right now, there are, at my count, 16 teams in the league

with playoff odds of 25% or less. There's a few that are like zeros that we're going to rule out real quickly. We don't have to talk about them. But that group includes from the Eastern Divisions, the Orioles, Phillies, Braves, Nats, and Marlins. From the Central Divisions, you got Cleveland, Minnesota, Kansas City, Detroit, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh. And then out West, you have the Angels, the Mariners, the Rangers, the D-backs, and the Rockies.

So you can take out, I think, the bottom two from the West, bottom three from that West group. A bunch of those teams fall off. My question for each of you was, as you look at that group, which team or which teams are you most likely to buy into as a playoff team? One that will make some adjustments, one that will get players healthy or hit more than they've hit so far or pitch better or put themselves in a position to maybe make a move or two at the deadline and actually turn things around as we sit here in the early part of the second half of June? Do you have a team that really sticks out to you, Britt? One that you say, actually, I still believe despite those low playoff odds? Yeah, I think the Twins. They have flummoxed me since, I don't know, I want to say April. And early on, there was an element of bad luck. There was certainly an element of they can't continue this. And then they did continue it. You know, Brian Buxton being hurt certainly isn't like a best case scenario. It just seems

like they tried to win and they found themselves in this territory where they were awful. And to me, it's similar to the Nationals who these, you have two teams who are like, you know what, we're going to try to win this year. We see this window, we see this division, we think we can win this. It's the same thing with the Nationals. And I was speaking to Davey Martinez the other day when we were actually allowed on the field. So I got to speak face to face to someone. It was crazy. And he said, you know, people kind of discount us, which is fine. But once they kind of leveled this ball off, that lineup might hit. You've got Schwarber. You've got Josh Bell.

Juan Soto is not going to be human for very long. People feel like Trey Turner. And the Nats bullpen has been pretty good. So to me, the biggest question is what's going to happen with Max Scherzer here? He's on the IL with a groin strain. Is he going to come back? Is he going to be able to adapt to these new rules? Because other than that, I feel like you look at the NL East,

and it's a very winnable division. The Nats won a few games, all of a sudden they're in third place. I know the Mets have been good, but let's all agree on this show that Jacob deGrom's injuries are troubling. It was his lat, it was his forearm, now it's his shoulder. I don't think as of this recording we have a definitive what's going on in terms of diagnosis with him. But that's troubling. That's alarming.

And I don't think they can get very far without him. I know they've had a lot of other pleasant surprises. Marcus Stroman has been very good. But I still think that the NL East is highly winnable. So to me, it's the Twins and the Nationals who I think over the next month, they're going to take a good hard look and say, you know what, I think we can still win this. And, you know, as long as they play okay, I don't see either of those teams as kind of folding. We've talked about this before. I don't think the Nationals trade Max Scherzer. I would be shocked if they did. I just don't really see

it at all. Yeah, I think those are good points. I just wonder if the twins have just gotten too deep into the hole at 27 and 41. But you could see them going 41 and 27 pretty easy, being 500, and then maybe either getting hot or getting not and getting into a wild card spot at the end there. That's plausible. It is the kind of team that if they got the pitching, I think, everything would fall into place for them. One team that sticks out for me, and this is just I'm cheating, but the Indians are already 37 and 28.

Right. So they've banked a bunch of wins and projections don't like them, which is why their playoff odds are bad. But one thing I noticed when I look at their projections is that they are expected to regress in the pitching category. And there's just one thing I believe with Cleveland, and I know Bieber's on the IL and Tristan McKenzie looks like he's having a lost year. I just believe that they can find guys. Sam Henkes is a guy that doesn't have a great fastball. Sounds familiar. He has great, you know, breaking ball command. That's an Indians guy. I just think that they'll find a way to muddle through this. They'll get their guys back,

and they won't actually give up that many runs. So I like the Indians there to kind of, I guess, hold on. That's why it's cheating. And then the other thing I noticed is that the Braves are projected to improve their pitching. And, you know, that's just projections. I think on top of that, there's some news that Mike Soroka might come back this year. And that could be a bit of a game changer at the end of the season. I don't have any hope that Marcelo Zuna comes back

because there's the two-prong thing where he could come back from injury and then go on suspension for his domestic violence situation. So between the two of those, I think they're going to be missing a bat. But on top of that, we've talked about they could be good trade options with people because they have two premier center fielders.

They could easily go after a Brian Reynolds, who's not necessarily the game changer that Marcelo Zuna is, but could be the glue. They're kind of missing an offensive center fielder. They keep putting defense first guys out there, Waters, Enciarte, and Pache. Unless they move Acuna to center, take a little bit of a dip in defense and go after the always available Adam Duvall types. So, you know, just some sort of bat first, maybe even Adam Duvall himself, because, you know, the Marlins look like sellers. I just think that the Braves have a lot of they have some flexibility where they can move around. They have enough minor league star power that they can trade,

and they already have a projected improvement baked in. So Braves and Indians for me. I think Cincinnati is the other team I would throw into this conversation, in part because I don't know if any team in the NL Central can run away with the division. I mean, I think the Brewers and Cubs might be a little better. They only got a two-game lead right now. The gap projection-wise between the Brewers and Cubs might be a little better. They only got a two-game lead right now. The gap projection-wise between the Brewers and Reds is less than five wins

based on what we see at Fangraph. So that's a gap that you can close. You have the exact same run differential, which is zero. Yeah. And I think, I mean, Luis Castillo, he's been brutal so far. I'd be surprised if he was... Way better last four starts, though. Right. I'd be surprised if the next 20 starts from him look like the last 12 or 13 altogether do, right? That'd be pretty surprising. Tyler Malley looks really good. Wade Miley is solid.

Sonny Gray is coming back from a non-arm injury, and I like Sonny Gray at least as an above-average starter. Maybe he's not a top-20 guy. Where is Mike Moustakis? What is wrong with him? I don't know what's happening to Mike Moustakis, but they've found a way to score a lot of runs even without him. Nick Castellanos looks incredible. Jesse Winker is phenomenal.

There was an internal debate about who's the better candidate for an LMVP between those two players. And at first, I was like, come on, those guys? And I looked more closely at it. I was like, that's actually... There's a case for both, which that says a lot about the offense. Votto's finally healthy, even though he's not typical Votto anymore.

Are they the kind of team though that will make fewer improvements at the deadline than a lot of the other teams that we're talking about? The Atlanta narrative for me is they're looking at their window as being wide open right now. And they might even be able to get guys that will have for beyond this season, some non-rental options, which puts them at a pretty nice advantage. Because if you're a team looking to get rid of some players right now,

you want the absolute best major league ready players you can get. And Atlanta is on the short list of contending teams that has an excess that they would be willing to likely deal so I think that puts them in a really really nice spot that I wouldn't say the Reds are in at this point at all like Drew Waters might be the best prospect that gets traded at this deadline right and I think in the case of the Reds like if you look at the back of the rotation you say okay Vladimir Gutierrez look good so far that's not going to last necessarily but Nick Lodolo could give them some innings, either as a starter or as a multiple inning reliever. Hunter Green might be in the big leagues by the end of the season. They may go that route. They may go bargain shelf for the

players they bring in and push a few more of their young guys into prominent roles, and that could be good enough in that division. So I think they belong in this conversation. To Britt's point with the Twins, I didn't think it would turn out like this for them at all. And that Buxton injury is huge because a healthy Byron Buxton could be an AL MVP candidate. He is showing that sort of level. Gleeman pulled the plug on the Twins, though.

He did? He said they're done? Yeah. Yeah, he had an article saying it's over. But you're right, though. We were talking about Buxton as an AL MVP guy, I feel like, what, in April, maybe? Like, as a legitimate candidate. And I think we talked on this podcast, like, are we finally seeing what Brian Buxton can do when he's healthy?

And, of course, like, probably our fault that all of a sudden he's not healthy anymore. And it sucks because I think the Twins are a fun team to watch. I do. And we talked about, like, shoestring budgets. I don't see the Indians making a big move if they're still out in first place. This is a team that traded away Francisco Lindor. So I think if Cleveland's going to stumble in, they're going to stumble in by accident on a wild card berth.

You know, I just, I don't, I don't. Do you guys see them going out and spending a lot of money? Well, they're not going to acquire anything. Yeah. But you're right. They're dangerous because they know how to develop pitching. And who knows what game we're going to see in the next month or two, right? Like could we see – I know a lot of people are overreacting right now because nothing's actually been enforced in terms of the sticky stuff.

But you are starting to see, as Eno and I wrote, spin rates come down. You might start to see batting averages and runs per game and hits and balls in play and all that go up. So does that place an emphasis on a team like Cleveland that can develop pitching? Do they have a leg up or will they all come down a little bit and get knocked around? I don't know. I don't think anyone knows. I mean, what do you, there were some hints. I mean, everyone talks about sort of breaking ball command and stuff, but there were some hints in our model that four seamers are actually maybe going to suffer the most when it comes to taking the juice out because, and this is the one thing that in our piece Brit, that the model missed, we just took

spin out, but when you take spin out, it takes movement out. And, you know, so there's compounding effects. So it's going to be worse. It's going to take more strikeouts out of the game than our model suggested. And one of the ways that happens, if you look at, say, a certain Yankees pitcher. I'm trying not to scapegoat. But, you know, Garrett Cole, everyone knows. He's trying to quit the stuff.

He's at the forefront of this stuff. He lost three inches of ride on his fastball. Three inches of ride on a four seam is huge. It's the difference between, you know, it's the difference of magnitude you'd see in whiff rates. You'd see five, 10% whiff rate changes, you know, like that's how big it is. So I think in some ways Cleveland might be okay. You know, they they just throw a bunch of break balls like they always have you know like I don't think of anybody on that team is having an amazing four-seam except for maybe Bieber has a pretty good one um you know could could affect him but um you know I I don't I don't know there are some teams that I think are at more risk but a couple of those teams are juggernauts,

and they're probably fine anyway. It makes me wonder, too, if the command over stuff build of a team like the Cubs. Exactly. He needs to love command. The Cubs, too. Oh, the Cubs. Maybe you don't think my bold prediction is right. Maybe.

Come on, Alec Mills. Maybe all of this. Be the post-spin hero that I've always wanted you to be. All of these awful changes work to Eno's benefit when his Cubs prediction comes through hero that I've always wanted you to be. All of these awful changes work to Eno's benefit when his Cubs prediction comes through as a result of the rules being enforced in the middle of June of the season. Heck of a twist if that's how it goes down. Zach Davies, second half MVP. All right. So I think we're on a few of the same teams. I think the only one that I'm,

yeah, I'm probably on the Aaron Gleeman side with the the twins probably being dead only because they have just fallen to such a huge deficit I think I like that roster as a a playoff caliber team for sure going into the season and if a one percent probability team could get in or less they're the most likely of that bunch but what is that even saying at this point are they at one percent I think they're at 1%. Yeah, 1% right now. I mean, the Royals, Tigers, Mariners, Rangers, Marlins, Pirates, Diamondbacks, Rockies. Yeah, they're better than those teams, of course. So you're saying there's a chance.

Less than 5% brigade. Yeah, right. Exactly, exactly. Wait, wait. I'm going to look now at the playoff odds because I had the projected standings up. Because it's going to tell me how much of a cheater I am. Cleveland, 24%. Yeah, you were at the top of the line.

Braves, 12%. So who are the best that we didn't mention? Phillies, 16%. You had Reds at 25%. Yeah, I cheated too. Oh, man. There's a lot of stratification, dude. The separation between who's in and who's not has begun.

It's almost over. Yeah, the Angels are at 10% right now. Yeah, the Angels are at 10%. And then all those other guys you were mentioning are almost at zero. Yeah. And it's just weird that the Tw twins are in that group and not in like the angels group where it's like, okay,

like it could happen, but they're, which ironically of course is the line from angels in the outfield. But the twins are not in that group. They're, they're Cardinals at 13%. Jack Flaherty comes back, you know,

Carlson and O'Neill look like legitimate, you know, parts of an outfield? I have said it before. I'm going to say it one more time. It's the last time I'm ever going to say this. Never, ever, ever, ever count out the Cardinals. Never, never. Devil magic. Devil magic. We'll be here long, long after the rest of us are gone. The Cardinals will still be winning games and putting gold trim on

their uniforms and rubbing it in everyone's face because that's what they do. You sound like an NL Central fan. Oh my gosh. Alright. Alright. Let's get to our next topic,

which I think is also pretty fun awards odds and we'll focus on the al on this episode we'll get to the nl for next week the al mvp odds from bed mgm have basically turned into a two-player race it is now vlad jr versus shohei otani based on the odds there is no one else who's going to win the AL MVP. Because of injuries to guys like Trout and Buxton and some of the candidates that we had earlier this year, do you agree? Do you think we're actually at a point where it is truly down to those two? Obviously, those are the right two players based on what we've seen so far. And if you look at Vlad Jr.'s rest of season projection, ridiculous. Like one of the best rest of season projections I think I've ever seen for someone not named Mike Trout.

But if I said you can have one of those two or you can have the entire field in the AL, would you want your choice of one of Vlad and Otani or would you want the field? Vlad and Otani. Listen, we've been talking about how offense might pick up here so can you just imagine what Vlad and Otani are going to do the only trouble with deciding right now between those two

is Otani can obviously pitch as well so how much does that factor in I just think it's not like the straight apples to apples comparison and I'm not one of those people who thinks like pitchers can't be MVPs. Like, no, they can and they should. If they are truly the most valuable player in that league. It's just tough because how do you compare what Vlad's doing to what Otani's doing when they're totally different players?

The only guy I've got that could make it interesting is Xander Bogarts. And the reason why is he kind of gives you a third option. Vlad is the hitters champion. Otani is the hitter plus pitcher champion, but doesn't have any sort of defensive value. And then Bogarts, if you just look at war, Bogarts is Otani's equal right now. You know, that's Fangraff's war. I'm not saying that that's, you know, that's the end of discussion. But, you know, that does say that Bogarts, to me, is at least in the discussion. And he brings plus shortstop defense along with the bat. So I think if you made it a trike, I'd say one of those three. Because the story is always important, too, right?

And if Boston makes the postseason when nobody thought they would, Bogarts could be the champion of that story. So he could be the people's champ. Well, it's weird because I'd say the all-around, because defense plus offense, but he doesn't pitch. So Otani could really bring the sort of all-around championship to it. Yeah, that's a good point. Bogarts, to me, is just so, so underrated,

even though it seems impossible in Boston to be underrated. He is. He doesn't really command the headlines. Like, did you guys know he's about to be, at some point next season, if he stays healthy, he'll be the guy who's played the most games ever in Red Sox history at shortstop, which, like, nobody ever talks about. Nobody ever talks about when he came up,

the whole debate was, when are we going to move this guy off of shortstop? Yeah. And he's still a plus shortstop defender. He's just such a steady guy, and I know he's been a big presence for some of the younger Latin players. You know, he speaks like a million languages

because he's from Curacao, similar to Jonathan Scope. All those guys just really get to be chameleons. They speak so many languages. They're so accessible. They're so down to earth. I'm glad you mentioned Xander Bogarts because even in Boston, I feel like even playing for the Red Sox, nobody talks about him enough on the national scale.

Yeah, he probably won't lead the league in homers or maybe probably not batting average, but he's right there. He's probably not the best defender, but he put all those things together. He's right there. Yeah, so with Bogarts, it's funny that you guys kind of honed in on him because I just talked about him for the Friday Athletic Baseball Show with Keith Law. And the notes I had put together said literally, Xander Bogarts might be the most overlooked big market player in baseball. And my supporting evidence was that he's tied for ninth in F war since 2017. So he's been better than Freddie Freeman, Cody Bellinger, Chris Bryant, Trey Turner, and Trevor story, among others. And he's just never mentioned in the same breath as those players in general baseball conversations. He's clearly an early round fantasy baseball player. We've been drafting him and been very happy with the stats that he's been giving us for years. The fantasy community knows all about Bogarts,

but you just don't hear him mentioned in the same breath as those other guys who have several MVPs between them. He's got a good personality too. It's just, I don't know, it's not as flashy as Tatis or something. It's not as, it doesn't lead to the highlights the same way. It doesn't have the same sort of, I don't know, style, I guess.

But it's cool. I mean, it's really lunch pail. I mean, people would say lunch pail, I think, if he were white. Truth. The other award that's really lunch pail. I mean, people would say lunch pail, I think, if you were white. Truth. The other award that's really interesting in the American League is the Cy Young Award. And it's interesting for the things you were saying before about Garrett Cole specifically. He is the favorite.

He is minus 165 to win the AL Cy Young. The other closest contenders are Lance Lynn at plus 500 and Carlos Rodon at plus 500. Then you get up to Shane Bieber at plus 1300. He's hurt right now. Tyler Glass now at plus 2200. Not going to happen because of his injury. Do not go bet on Tyler Glass now right now. Then it's a bunch of long shots. John Means plus 3500. Ryu plus 4000. Giolito plus 5000. plus 3,500 Ryu plus 4,000 Giolito plus 5,000. And I'm looking at this and I'm saying, okay, I don't think given what we know about Cole specifically and the adjustments he's trying to make, I don't think he should be this much of a favorite, but the problem is I cannot easily identify which of those long shots I think could make up enough ground to actually win

the award. I think it's possible, and I'm intrigued by it, but I'm just curious what your take is on this. Do you think there's a chance that Cole could slip just a little bit here, again, no pun intended, and actually open the door for someone else to win the AL Cy Young? No.

No. I was just talking to somebody about him on the phone before this podcast, and, you know, the person said, and it's true, if you watch Garrett Cole and you watch him last night, clearly he said he can't grip the ball. He all of a sudden becomes a different pitcher. He makes adjustments better than most other people, and that's why he's Garrett Cole.

So even if he comes down a peg, the rest of the league might be coming down a peg too. And I just don't see guys catching up to Garrett Cole or passing Garrett Cole. I just don't. And I think the sticky stuff has overshadowed and made us question every stat that we've seen, every good start that we've seen. Garrett Cole, is he going to come down a tick? Sure. They're all going to come down a tick, but he's still a really good pitcher. He's a really smart pitcher, and I think he's going to find ways to continue to flummox lineups. Yeah, I think it's interesting.

I think he prepared for this. I'm now looking back on a piece that Lindsay Adler and I did together about his change-up usage and how that mimics the Yankees have increased their change-up usage and the league is doing a little better on change-ups recently. And I wonder if some people have been throwing their change-up in preparation for this moment. But now looking back, I think maybe one of his last pitches of the game last night was a 95 mile change up it was a really funny uh exchange between lindsey adler and him on zoom where uh she said that you know that last pitch at 95 was that a change up and he said yeah

and her she couldn't help herself she said how and then she she tried to catch it and was like i mean and like he was laughing about that but uh yeah i mean he I mean, he has a really good changeup. So he might be able to get some more soft contact and throw kind of four or five pitches and be more of a true mix guy. That was actually one of the things he did when he left Pittsburgh. One of the things I think he did at Pittsburgh

was be too in love with his fastball, especially his sinker. So leaving Pittsburgh, he threw his slider and his curveball more. And I think we'll see a similar adjustment. And that's something that we've heard from people within the game while we've been reporting on this, I think, which is that like, you know, everyone's going to fall. The best are still going to be the best. And I still see that for Cole. I'm looking up and down. I often use RA9 war because Fangraph's war leaves out the whole Homer's bit.

And also, I think it's a little bit unfair because there's something about that that seems you're kind of regressing. You're saying, by leaving Homer's out, you're saying what should have happened in a way with Fangraph's war. And when you're, what should have happened in a way with Van Graaff's war. And when you're, I think, voting on a Cy Young, you should almost just look at what did happen. Only what did happen.

So I look at R9 war and Cole's at the top and Lynn is right there. So that's interesting to me. It's a good team. He's got some narrative behind him. And then G Alito, I go, Cole's one, Lynn is two. And then I skip over everybody until Giolito, which is all

the way down to 18 right now. But he's really righted ship, if you look at Giolito's numbers. In terms of the shape of his season, he started out poorly. And I'm trying to get the game log up here real quick.

But he started out poorly with a seven-run episode against Boston. And if you kind of start this in May, if he just started his season in May, he would have right now a 3-0-4 ERA and 11 strikeouts per nine. So that's a little bit of a different situation there for Giolito. If he continues the string he's on, he could close that gap. I think Giolito meets one of the requirements to be a contender for the Cy Young Award and that he's on a good team. So if the White Sox win the Central and they win it convincingly

and his next 16- 17 starts get him close to 200 innings he's got a shot at that and bring his era down maybe into the high twos possible right he could have a stretch where he's pitching to like a 180 or two era for the rest of the season suddenly his numbers look very similar to someone like cole's like if cole tracks up a little bit it gets close and it comes it could come down to something like wins. It always can. It's the silliest thing sometimes that can break the ties when it comes to

these awards because they're voted on. They're not determined by purely statistics. They are determined by voters. Does that mean they might steal from each other, Lynn and Giolito? I guess that's a little bit of a concern. With Rodan there too, that a little bit of a concern. And with Rodon there, too, that could be something of a concern.

But plus 5,000 on Giolito. If you had to take a long shot bet on AL Cy Young, I think that'd be a really good place to go. Let's get to a game show that I've made up. It's called Three Strikes. Wait, are we not going to do it next week? Yeah, no NL? Next week.

Oh. Yeah, I'm saving it for now. We're splitting it up. If we looked at the rundown, Britt. Yeah, good job. Good job, guys. Busted! Like I told you guys, I wanted to be a game show host.

I warned you about the game show. So you had a chance. Maybe ignore my Slack messages too, though. That's possible. Is there a bot you can get that just takes a Slack message and quickly archives it and throws it into the trash? Or reaches out of the phone and slaps a person with it?

It's not a cartoon situation here, but it'd be pretty amazing if it actually had that. So the game's called Three Strikes. It is a very simple game show, but it's fun. What we're going to do is I'm going to pull up a leaderboard. You guys are not going to pull up that leaderboard. You're going to just make eye contact with the camera in front of you and not have your hands on phones and whatnot.

Guess who's looking at the rundown? I didn't put the answers in the rundown because I thought if you got busted not looking at the rundown, you'd immediately go to the rundown to see what I was going to throw at you. So now I got you. I'm in your head. I'm two steps ahead of you right now. Absolutely just crushing it right now. So here's what I did. I have a leaderboard in front of me. It is rest of season hitter projections according to the bat, the regular bat, not the bat X. Shouldn't be that different overall anyway. They're close, but what we're looking for is any hitter projected to hit 20 or more home runs between now and the end of the season. It's called three strikes because you

get three incorrect answers before you're eliminated. It's going to go back and forth. So if Britt names a player that's a correct answer, Eno can't name the same player, right? So we're going to see who gets more points before you guys hit three strikes. So Britt, because you weren't attempting to cheat by looking at the rundown while finding out that there was a game show,

you have the honor of going first. I need a player projected to hit 20 or more home runs at some point between now and the end of the season, according to the bat. Vladdy Jr. Yes, he's 25. He's tied for fourth. Eno. Judge. Yep, 24.

1-1. Britt. Tatis. Yep, 26. He is third. 2-1 Britt. Eno. Suarez 26. He is third. 2-1 Brit. Eno? Suarez.

Suarez is correct. He's actually projected for the most. 28 for Eugenio Suarez. Back to Brit. Soto. Yes. Juan Soto is correct with 20 exactly. Just makes the cutoff.

3-2 Brit. Back to Eno. Acuna. Yep, Acuna second on the list at 27. How many are there total? Looks like there are about there's a little more than 30 because I had to expand

the leaderboard. Wow. Okay. We're in trouble because I was like, oh, there's only going to be like 10 and we got six, so we're doing good. 3-3. No strikes. Hey, that's a good start. All right.'s a good start. Alright, Britt. Manny Machado.

Manny Machado. Off to a little bit of a disappointing start. A narrow miss at 19, so one strike for Britt. Oh, damn. 19! Oh! That hurts. That's a terribly unfortunate miss. It's probably like 19.4 rounded down, too.

Stanton. Stanton is a yes at 23. So Eno now has a 4-3 lead. Brits got one strike. Damn you, Eno. I figured that they would be building in some kind of IL stint for Stanton. They never do enough. They never do enough. They never do enough.

That's literally why I didn't pick him, is I'm like, he's got to be... What about Beau Bichette? Beau Bichette. I don't think the projections like him enough for power yet. I'm going to strike out. I think it'd be a fun one, though,

just from who's most likely to do it, who's not projected to get to 20. He's got 17 projected, so a very narrow miss. Two strikes on Britt. Eno's got a 4-3 lead. Eno's crushing me. Matt Olson. Matt Olson is correct. He's got 25, so

he's tied with Vlad Jr. for fourth. All right, so 5-3 Eno. Britt's down 0-2 in the count. In trouble here. Here it comes, the walk-off. I need another guaranteed 20. I'm like blanking. I'm going through the best teams I know,

and somehow I'm just blanking on guys who probably are going to hit 20 home runs. Yeah, trying to go through divisions. Yes. Oh. I just thought of a pretty easy one. Steal his easy one. Get his easy one before he does, Britt.

Pete Alonzo. Yes, Pete Alonzo. Tied for fourth. Shohei Otani. Yep. We literally just spoke about him. We just talked about him, right? Yeah.

That was my easy one. Six-four now, Eno. Two strikes on Britt. Now I'm talking myself out of potential. Look at Eno. He's like, I got another one. I got MLB Network scrolling on my TV and they just scrolled the home run leaderboard and it's jogging my memory.

I don't think that's what's happening. He is looking up. Freddie Freeman. Freddie Freeman is correct. That was the one I just thought. 23 projected. Same as Otani. I'm going to go to the injury well here. This is risky. Bryce Harper.

Bryce Harper. They love him. Barely in at 21. That makes it 7-5. I think if my count is correct and Britt still sitting with the two strikes. All right. I've got another potential. Maybe.

Maybe not. Real Muto. Real Muto is a no. I want to confirm how many he's projected for because I'm curious. I wonder if he's around the same range as Beau Bichette. That might be one. He's at 13. You know what?

His playing time is lighter by comparison because they do ding catcher playing time probably more than they should in the case of Real Madrid. I cheated because I took the injury guys. I knew they don't ding them enough. Yeah. All right. So, you know, gets the win. How many others can you name, you know?

We'll just go until you get one strike. Oh, okay. Somebody, Trey Mancini. Mancini is a near miss at 18, actually. There you go. This guy's right. All right, so a couple surprising ones. I won't make you go to three because that's kind of ridiculous.

The most surprising names for me, Sal Perez is one of the catchers on there at 22. Justin Upton is at 22. I wouldn't have got him for sure Tyler O'Neal Oh my boy That's a good one My big beefy boy

Arenado and Devers and Chris Bryant You expect to see those guys there Chris Bryant? Where are we? We didn't even go to the Cubs There's two Cubs on there Javier Baez is on. Rizzo's probably on there too, right? Javier Baez is on there.

Is Rizzo on there? Rizzo is not. Not. Rizzo would have been a trap. How about Hosmer? Rizzo is a trap player. I'm still mad that Machado's 19. Like, really?

Hosmer is a no. No. He's not on there. Joey Gallo, always a good choice for power projections. Both the Reds I mentioned earlier, Jesse Winker and Nick Castellanos, both in there. Projections buying it. I'm so mad now. I am not a Reds fan, but I'm telling you, the Reds are scarier than people believe that they are.

Nelson Cruz, of course, still on there at 22. Highest on the board that you guys didn't get was Jose Ramirez, in part because volume. But, I mean, even with less volume, he would have made it 24 home runs projected for Jose Ramirez for the rest of the season. I'm kind of embarrassed for us. He's the only hitter on that team. I was going to go east to west in the AL first.

So I messed that one up. What was your process going through trying to recall? Were you going team by team? Yeah, I was just doing power hitter. I was doing the best power hitter for each team. What were you doing in your head? That was my process.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to do but then I was blanking. Why didn't I go to the Cubs who have played surprisingly well? Yeah, I didn't think about the Cubs at all. Honestly, Manny threw me and then once I got that wrong I started really second guessing

everything I was saying. Yeah, Manny, I didn't think about the Cubs at all. Honestly, Manny threw me, and then once I got that wrong, I started really second-guessing everything I was saying. Yeah, Manny, I didn't realize what his season actually looked like until I was making rundowns for today's pods, and he's one of the reasons the Padres' offense hasn't really been as good as we expected it to be. But his process stats look okay. Yeah, right. Yeah, his plate skills are fine.

He's walking more than ever. His K rate's still under 20%. It's a 242, 326, 423 line, though, for Machado. Where's the slugging? It's the lowest slugging percentage of his entire career and the lowest batting average of his career so far. I couldn't find a reason. I was going through it.

A player asked me, actually, and we were just kind of going through it, and I was like, I don't see a reason for it. Yeah, sticky stuff. Sticky stuff, you know. It could be. The point of the game though really was to get some of those outlier surprising names in there because they're good trade targets in fantasy.

They're just good players that people are overlooking. Upton is like so acquirable and like yeah, it'll come with like a 230 batting average but he also gets super streaky. So you could actually get lucky, pick up Upton, and get a 280 average for a couple of months before he goes in the tank again. Yeah.

I mean, the other guys around the bottom of the list, Teoscar Hernandez at 21, Jose Abreu at 20, Franmil Reyes at 20. I was actually worried about saying Abreu. I was too. I was going to say Abreu and decided not to say Abreu. He would have been a correct. Rhys Hoskins in there. And Ryan McMahon projected for 20 more.

I like that. Oh, I got the wrong Oriole, dude. I was thinking McMahon or Mancini for the Orioles. Not an Oriole. Yeah. Oh, that's right. Not an Oriole. I was thinking Mountcastle.

Is Mountcastle on there? No. They have no Orioles. There's no Oriole on there. Not Cedric Mullins? Big Ced? No. Mancini was only 18.

He was close. So last question of the day. How many home runs do you think the bat projects Cedric Mullins to hit the rest of the season? Eight. I was going to say 10. 10. Winner, winner. Britt, 10 is the number.

I think he goes over that. I do too. I don't think he goes way over, but if you said pick a side over under of 10, maybe he pushes and you get your money back. But I think he gets 12, 13 maybe because I think the projections fail to adjust for the fact that he stopped switch hitting, right? There's information being fed into the system

that tricks the system. Therefore, I would take the over on Mullins if that's where the line was at. As you can see scrolling by, if you're watching us on YouTube, be sure to hit the Like button, by the way. You can get a subscription to The Athletic for $3.99 a month at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels.

All the great reporting that Eno and Britt and the entire team have been doing about sticky substances, all available, plus non-sticky stuff, stories, too. Lots of those. Other sports? Oh, my God. Read Steven Nesbitt on uh bauer and cole at ucla it's just excellent just reread just read it this morning i saw that come out a couple days ago i gotta read that piece three nine a month though is the price theathletic.com slash rates and barrels on twitter she's at brit underscore droly he's at enoceros i'm at derrick van ryper

you can email us rates and barrels at theathletic.com that is going to wrap things up for this episode. We are back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening.