Rates & Barrels - The Andrew Benintendi deal, PECOTA win projections, and Juan Soto's ridiculous ceiling

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

Eno, Britt & DVR discuss the surprising three-team deal that sent Andrew Benintendi to Kansas City, a frugal winter in Boston, the release of the PECOTA projections, home run derby leagues, and Juan Soto’s ridiculous ceiling.  Rundown 3:06 Andrew Benintendi in Kansas City 10:20 A Frugal Winter in Boston 17:19 Cubs Over White Sox in 2021? 28:31 Other Interesting PECOTA Projections 37:10 Home Run Derby League  42:55 Pitchers Most Likely to Benefit w/New 2021 Baseball 48:14 Juan Soto’s Ridiculous Ceiling 59:47 Thank You — For the Hardware! Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper E-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic for just $3.99/month to start: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Yes, that means Valentine's Day is Sunday if you're like me. You didn't know that until you walked into a grocery store yesterday. You still have time to save yourself, so do that accordingly. Derek Van Ryper here with Britt Giroli and Ido Saris on this Friday. Lots of fun stuff to talk about today. We have some curious questions around the Red Sox following their trade this week. Andrew Benintendi, gone. He is now a Royal. We'll talk about their offseason as a whole.

We're going to take a look at the Pakoda projected standings because Eno's Astros came up with a very favorable win total there. So we'll dig into that as well as some other teams. Yeah, you're definitely on board. Really cool format, home run derby, fantasy leagues. We're going to talk about that for a little bit and some follow-up questions about some changes to the baseball, plus the other fun tangents that we usually go on. How's it going for you guys on this Friday? What's going on, Britt? Nothing. So have you not been to the grocery store since Halloween? Because the Valentine's Day stuff has been out basically since, I guess it's like

the day after Christmas would be probably more accurate. So I did not forget. Seasonal creep. But also I'm a woman, so I've been dropping hints all week, like what are we doing this year? Because we can't do anything. So I hope you have something planned. Well, we're approaching year 12 of our marriage in my house, so we've agreed that Valentine's Day doesn't have to be that big of a deal. Our wedding anniversary is in the spring, so we do more for that, typically, than we do for Valentine's Day.

That's kind of nice to not have to double down on gifts. Yeah, that's exactly what we're like. In fact, for us, our wedding anniversary is two days after Valentine's Day. Oh, yeah, there you go anniversary is two days after Valentine's Day. Oh, yeah. There you go. We pretty much ignore Valentine's Day and focus on our

anniversary. I'm your love. That's nice. I still have to use Valentine's Day as a, oh, dude. Right. It's a built-in reminder for you. Just in case. My grocery store, they have a big bunker of the on-sale meat right when you walk in. Very convenient, right? They put the chocolate and

stuff right in front of that for this week. You couldn't miss it. It's been there for months, like you said, kind of on the side. Is that marketing it, men? You're here for the meat. Oh, don't forget the chocolate. I very much felt targeted by the bunker of chocolate in front of the bunker of meat. That's awesome. Here you go, morons. Don't forget this, idiots. While you're buying steak,

just accidentally reach over and grab a thing of chocolate. Oh, yeah. And they put the flowers by the checkout. So, yeah, they do a few things to help people out who aren't good at that stuff but uh well yeah you'll have about less than 48 hours by the time this podcast airs so hurry uh let's talk about this trade andrew benintendi now a member of the kansas city royals i'm a little surprised they traded him away especially after a very truncated 2020 season. He was hurt last year. It wasn't good, the little

bit that he played. The trade sent Franchi Cordero to Boston. He is literally one of Fantasy Twitter's favorite players who's never been able to produce over a prolonged period of time because the stat cast numbers are really good. Josh Wienkowski went to Boston.

Three players to be named later, one from the Mets, two from the Royals, because yeah, the Mets got in on the fun. Khalil Lee, Royals prospect, an outfielder who's more of a right fielder than a center fielder and needs to develop some power. He goes to the Mets. So why did Boston trade Andrew Benintendi? Do either of you have a good explanation for why they didn't want this guy anymore? I hope you guys are watching on YouTube now, because this is just a shrug from me. Just shrugging. I have no idea.

Guys, people were saying the Mets won this trade. The Mets were barely involved in this trade. So I've got nothing. I said on Twitter, like, this is the rare trade that I hate for everyone. Yeah. trade that I hate for everyone. I think the Mets turned

a smaller variance pitcher into a higher variance hitting prospect. I think that might be a good thing. If Khalil Lee supposedly found some power at the alternate this year with a swing change. If he

actually has power to go along with that bad strikeout rate. But the Royals got rid of two guys that strike out a lot. As much as Franchi's... Am I going to say it wrong? You said Franchi's. Isn't that a name of a restaurant? I would say Franchi's. Franchi's is this really

well-known place in Clearwater. I think where the Phillies play. But he's like raunchy. He's like fraunchy. I thought you said Frenchy. Frenchy? You think it's Frenchy? I have no idea why I think it's Frenchy.

Like Frenchy. Yeah. Why do I think it's Frenchy? Like a Spanish pronunciation would be Frenchy. Right? Okay. See, that's why I think. But if we're going to anglify it, it'd be Frenchy.

Well, anyway, Mr. Cordero. He does have good barrel rates, and he does have good exit velocities, and good sprint speeds, and he's an athlete. But his career strikeout rate is 35%, and that's barely doable, even in today's game. Yeah, that's Franchi. Yeah, good, Franchi. doable even in today's game um and so raunchy so i yeah good raunchy so i think that boston is just sort of betting on some of the small swing changes he made last year and hoping that he can

make more contact and i guess also this is my thing this is why i don't like it for the uh the royals and the and the red sox at the same time, which is the Royals are projected by Pakoda to be a 71-win team. Steamer has them closer to 80. And Benintendi is projected to be about a 2-win player. That's like a league average player. So you're adding a league average player to a league average team or worse for the Royals.

So I'm like, what's necessarily the point? For the Red Sox, they're like, what's the point of keeping around a league average team or worse for the Royals. So I'm like, what's necessarily the point? For the Red Sox, they're like, what's the point of keeping around a league average player if our whole ethos now is Razian and we're going to build our league average players by smushing Hunter Renfro and Franchi Cordero together? What would their name be? Franchi Renfro?

That works. Hunter Cordero doesn't seem quite right. That one doesn't flow. Haunter. Haunter. Haunter. If you just let them go up against lefties and righties, as a platoon group,

I think they might actually get to two wins. Um, and it would cost a lot less. And because of how arbitration works and stuff, I mean, it's gaming the system. And I don't know. I,

I find this, there's like some underpinnings to this trade that are like gross. I like not good for fans. This is a red Sox. Ben attendee was the number one prospect baseball. He's a red Sox. You know, he, like, gross. Like, not good for fans. This is a Red Sox. Ben Attendee was the number one prospect in baseball. He's a Red Sox. You know, he's, like, he's had great seasons for them. Like, of course he should come and bounce back for the Red Sox this year,

even if he's going to leave in free agency. Yeah. It's just not good for baseball when the Red Sox are, like, a non-factor, right? Or, like, a laughingstock. And that's kind of what they are. I mean, they're just, what are they going to be? Where are they going here soon? To me, it's kind of unfortunate because you always have those teams you'd love to hate, and the Red Sox is one of them, and they're usually good. And it's just kind of sad. I think

ever since they lost Mookie Betts, just kind of in this downward slope here. And I agree with you, it's like whatever for the royals i do i will say this though i feel like the royals have quietly had a sneaky pretty good off season right they made a lot of earlier moves uh i think you know they're they're an organization that didn't have layoffs right that paid scouts that has like kind of done things the right way in terms of emphasizing people and player development and i for, for one, hope that they end up being good and hope that works out because, as you know, as you guys know, it's a copycat industry.

So it would be nice if teams are like, whoa, we should do what the Royals are doing, like small market Royals. I think they've made some, nothing splashy, but like the ad minor, they get Michael Taylor. We talked about Ben Attendee. They got Santana early. I do think that they've made some moves that quietly here because they made it kind of in the beginning of the offseason.

And we kind of forgot about those moves, similar to Atlanta. You, like, forgot Atlanta did stuff because they were the only team doing stuff early in the beginning. I think the Royals are going to be okay. I do. I mean, that's a tough division because we know the Twins, you got the Tw white socks who are are you know shaping up and in that win now mode uh but i kind of like what the royals have done yeah and you know i i had an internal struggle on this because there's like the sort of numbers guy in me of course that's like dude you have like a you have like a what you have like a 72-win projection.

Why are you adding two wins to that? What's the point? You should hang on to Franchi and Khalil Lee and hope that one of them pops. That's the sort of numbers side. But, you know, there's another numbers side, which is team projections aren't set in stone. They have wide error bars. So if they're projected to be an 81-win team, they could win 88.

And if they end up getting expanded playoffs or if the White Sox fall back or whatever it is, 88 could get you in the discussion for the wildcard race. It could get more people in the seats as they're like, oh, something's building here. We're getting somewhere. And then some of those pitching prospects make the majors and and start making the adjustments and start being and really popping then you're sort of building year over year and you're doing the right thing and also you're doing the right thing in terms of trying to be better so i like i guess i like that there's a part of me that's like why but you know i like that what i don't like so much is... There's this tweet, man.

I'm not trying to shame the guy. I'm not going to name him. But here's this tweet. Heimblum found a way to sign and acquire Hunter Renfro, Matt Andres, Kike Hernandez, Martin Perez, Garrett Richards, Adam Adobito, Frenchie Cordero, Marwin Gonzalez,

and Hirokazu Sawamura. And the Red Sox will stay under the luxury tax threshold. Woo! Yeah, it's like, what are you, a shareholder? Are you an owner? Are you benefiting from your team not spending that money exactly? Do you think if they go over the luxury tax threshold, they're going to charge you more for food? Like, it's not how it works yeah they got a bunch it's the raise thing too where they got a

bunch of five one win guys right that they're like well if we play him you know here and we do this here and we push this guy into you know we do this then we'll we'll get a bunch of league average positions and you know and it won't cost anything i mean but like is anybody going to go to the park to see hunter Renfro? I mean, I like the guy. Maybe he'll hit a bunch of dingers and they will go to the park to see him. But for the most part, these are role players. And the reason that it makes sense from, let me put my numbers hat back on,

is that nothing costs less, even per win, than a non-league average player. even per win than a non-league average player. Players under two wins cost less even per win than players above that. So if you want to get a superstar and you go out and get Bryce Harper, you have to pay more dollars per win because he's a four or five win guy because you're fitting more wins into your roster spot. But the Rays have figured out that you can pay $2 million for Hunter Renfro or $3 million for Hunter Renfro and still get a win. It's just not very exciting. It's not very exciting to players.

I will have to admit, as much as I found the Rays' run exciting and tried to defend them a little bit in public, there is a part of me that's like, there's so many interchangeable parts and they are coming and going so fast that it must be a little disconcerting to be a Rays fan. And is that what's coming to Boston? I think the Royals do deserve some credit.

I think they got the best player in the deal in Benintendi. He's been a four-win player before. They have him for two years. They have young pitching coming up. We had Alec Lewis on fantasy baseball in 15 this morning previewing the Royals and Daniel Lynch is going to be in the big leagues probably by the end of the season Jackson Coar is probably going to be in the big leagues by the end of the season so if you add those two guys to Brad Keller who's been better than expected I mean the results are

excellent we still aren't completely sure how he does it but he's pitched really well as a big league starter Brady Singer who came up last year and held his own. Mike Miner, who Britt mentioned, isn't bad. Danny Duffy is passable in the back of a rotation. They actually have five or six quality big league starters if both Lynch and Coar come up and pitch well. That doesn't even mention Asa Lacy, who they took early in the 2020 draft. He might be a pretty quick to the big league sort of guy. Their best prospect, Bobby Witt, might be a relative fast mover, even though he's not going to help them in 2021. So you put Benintendi out there with Carlos Santana, who they added earlier in the offseason. Maybe you get a bounce back from Dozier. A healthy Jorge Soler is going to give them power. They get

plenty of power from Sal Perez. They're at least going to be watchable. Give them credit for that for sure. But there's a chance that Benintendi bounces back and is a 3 or 4 win player again. And if that's the case, then he becomes a guy they can trade for more young talent if they're not as successful as they want to be with him. So I think this works on multiple levels. Maybe I'm just high

on the Royals because I talked to Alec yesterday about them, but I kind of like what they're doing here. I'll give you that there's a lot of variance in the good direction. If they call up one of those pitchers and they just pop right away, there's one thing that's like Daniel Lynch is a sinker guy and the league is going away from sinkers. And so if you look at different lists like Keith Laws or Kylie McDaniels

or whoever, the placement of Daniel Lynch is wildly different based on how much people are sort of biased towards the four seamer now um and so that's that'll be something interesting but let's say he comes up and pops um or Kowar comes up and pops then you know that'll change the projections quickly um that'll change their outlook quickly and I'm I'm with you on that the one thing about the flipping thing I just don't think he'll have that much flipping value because he by the time you'd flip him next trade deadline he would only have a year left and you know we've seen guys who only had a year left

like Chris Bryant can't even get traded because you know he only has a year left and nobody's offering enough for the Cubs to think it's worth it. So, you know, if Chris Bryant can't get traded, Andrew Benatendi coming off of two league average seasons, one good season, one good season, I guess he's in the middle of, and then two, like a bad season. I don't think that that's like, Bryant would be more of an asset, right? I mean, Benatendi's a corner outfielder. Yeah, that makes sense. Also, guys, on the flip side of all this, like, well, how good are the Royals going to be? I think that there's a lot of variance with this White Sox team because of the Tony La Russa factor. That could be a horrible experiment, right?

That could go south really fast. So who's to say that the Royals couldn't all of a sudden be you know, be a wildcard team, finish behind the Twins per se, right? I think that the White Sox are loaded with talent, but that isn't always the team that ends up winning, right? They have a couple injuries and Tony La Russa turns off the clubhouse and you're dealing with a team that largely underperforms. I mean, if there's one team, yeah, if there's one team to me that's like, oh, God, I don't know how this is going to go. It's the White Sox because of Tony La Russa. He's really, he's really, I mean, he can really drive a bullpen. And there's some arms in that bullpen that have had injuries in the past, a lot of injuries, you know.

And so, you know, if he drives the bullpen hard and loses Bummer and loses Crochet. Crochet? Crochet? Crochet and Franchi. It really wouldn't be Crochet. Get the beep that out. Jeez. I'm going to have to put an explicit thing on today's episode. I had coffee this morning.

So, Tony La Russa, let's say he pushes the bullpen real hard. The bullpen falls apart. And then he gets into some sort of tiff with one of his major players. He's really hard on players sometimes. If he thinks that a player is not up to the effort level, if he just sees that, oh, he thinks that Robert is coasting or something and Robert's hitting 210 and he starts talking about how Robert's hitting 210

and ignores all the other value that he brings to the table. And now Robert is mad and he takes a couple of players with him on his side and all of a sudden it's a crap show. Like this is not even crazy what I'm saying. This is like totally possible. I'm saying. This is totally possible. And even without all that, the Pakoda projections came out today or yesterday, and the Cubs are projected for more wins than the White Sox.

That's sort of tasty to me. It's just so crazy. The Cubs have 85. Milwaukee has 88 in these. The Cardinals are not even a 500 team by Pakoda after the Arenado trade. And we all anointed them the leaders in the Central. And the White Sox are projected to end up third in the Central with 83 wins. So, I mean, even within the different projection systems, we don't have that much agreement.

No. How are the Cubs going to be that good? That was one of the most surprising things to me. I don't know how you guys feel, but how are the Cubs supposed to be? They're an NL wildcard team right now. The way that those projections are, they'd be the last team in. and say, okay, yeah, that pitching staff is a playoff caliber pitching staff, right? Hendricks, Davies, Mills, Alzalea, Trevor Williams, Cole Stewart right now is listed as their sixth starter. It gets ugly fast, and it's really a lot of back-end guys behind Hendricks. I mean, Zach Davies might be a little underrated, but he's more of an innings eater than a guy that's going to come out and take over a game for you, too.

I mean, you think about if they even get into the playoffs, how are they going to hold up against the elite of the elite offenses with that staff? And you'd say, okay, well, maybe the bullpen's really good. That's not necessarily the case there either. I mean, Craig Kimbrell's been all over the place and it's becoming a cub. Rowan Wick's kind of interesting. They added Andrew Chafin to the bullpen. Dan Winkler's there. It's just, you know, it's an okay bullpen, but it doesn't look like a lockdown top five sort of bullpen. The lineup is still good. I think that's one area where people might be sleeping

on the Cubs a little bit. Probably projecting a bunch of bouncebacks, right, in that lineup. Right, like a healthy Chris Bryant, a bounceback from Javi Baez, a typical Anthony Rizzo season. That's a great core three to have, and they still have Wilson Contreras. There are a lot of rumors he's going to get traded, but they didn't trade him. They have Ian Happ, who took a pretty big step forward last year. And Peterson as a replacement for Schwarber. I think there is a downgrade, but he's at least a passable sort of replacement. So

they're a good offensive team. They're probably a tick below average in the starting rotation as a whole. And they're probably close to average with that bullpen. And I think part of this projection is just this division is by far the weakest division. The Brewers are favored to win, but they have the lowest win probability at 55%. Probably some strength of schedule stuff a little bit. Yeah, I think it's all just pretty flat across this division. Other than the Pirates, you could still probably argue any one of the other four teams as a legitimate division

winner in the NL Central this year. One little thing I gotta say, because it's crazy, and I don't know what to do with it, but the Cubs rotation ranks second in stuff and first in command. And

I know Jeremy Greenhouse, the leader of r&d there and he is the first guy i've ever seen in 2008 he wrote a piece called on stuff and he created a stuff metric in 2008 ever since i've been trying to replicate his work basically and and advance it in the public sphere that means he's been doing it in the private sphere that means he's been doing it better because he's smarter than me. So they have something along these same lines as our stuff number, and maybe they just found a way

to acquire undervalued starters. If you think about it, let you Darvish go and get Zach Davies. Zach Davies has a great stuff number and a great command number. They're basically finding ways to acquire everything but velocity. so that whole rotation other than alzalea is going to average you know 89 miles an hour on the fastball but hopefully be able to put the ball

where they want it and and do funky stuff with the shapes the whole it's kyle hendricks as as a leader you know basically um there's probably no pitcher other than kyle hendr, you know, basically. There's probably no pitcher other than Kyle Hendricks. You know, Dak Davies is probably the most Kyle Hendricks-like pitcher other than Kyle Hendricks. And Alec Mills, you know, has the spin mirroring. I've talked about this, has the spin mirroring and also has seam shifted wake. Maybe they're just sort of engineering an undervalued rotation.

So I don't know if that's necessarily in Pocota. I think Pocota is mostly bouncing back those veteran bats because the Pakoda projections have them giving up the most runs in the top three there, giving up 80 more runs in Milwaukee, giving up 40 more runs than St. Louis, but also scoring a bunch more runs than those guys. So I think they're betting on the bats. But I personally am going to be really interested to see how that rotation does

because they seem to be making a bet on everything but velocity while the rest of the league is deep in the tank for velocity. So are we, perhaps as a group, conflating the absence of strikeouts with the absence of stuff? I mean, that to me,

just because the Cubs pitchers don't strike people out, I think we all have this perception, especially in fantasy. We're so strikeout driven in fantasy analysis. Oh, the stuff can't be that good. Clearly it can be. I'm thinking about the Alec Mills no hitter that I watched against the Brewers last year. I'm like, how is this guy throwing a no hitter? I mean, I know it's one game.

Anyone can do anything in one game, but why can't they hit this guy? Well, maybe these stuff metrics in this case are finding something that is really effective against hitters. Maybe the extreme ability to induce weak contact is a skill almost across the board for the Cubs rotation that does play up a lot better than we realize. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, is that the new wave? Like, have we reached the point where guys aren't going to throw 120 miles an hour, right? So have we reached the, hey, instead of collecting velocity, velocity, velocity,

and we talked about this a little bit during the playoffs with the bullpen, with the different arm angles, are we now shifting towards stuff? Because it's cheaper, right? Teams can acquire it, and it seems like it's easier to get. It doesn't cost as much. It's not valued as much. The guys who throw 100 are going to be the top prospects. Is that a way for teams like the Cubs,

who basically have gotten crushed all winter, right? They've traded away a lot of guys. They've obviously, a lot of their salary, they've done a lot of cost-cutting moves, you Darvish being the big one. If they win, are you guys concerned, one, about the message this sends to other teams, kind of the opposite of the Royals, and two, is this a copycat thing? It could be okay. It could be okay because it could allow for more balls in play. It could allow for honestly sometimes better

just better games. I think it's a little bit more fun to watch somebody with good command you know like when they can put the ball where they need. I don't really want every count to go 3-2 you know I don't really want to just see someone

who throws really hard and can't find the zone it's not always that impressive. So it could be good for the game to kind of go in this direction. And one thing I was thinking about just too, two of the most beautiful pitches to watch, the curve and the change, they get half the whiffs of a slider on average. The average curve and the average change get about half the whiffs of a slider. But they also get way more grounders and they also give up way fewer homers

than sliders. So, you know, you're kind of, you're, you're, you're saying like, that's, that's a little bit of the basis of stuff. You can have this great stuff that suppresses homers, that does good things to balls and play that keeps the the ball on the ground, and that doesn't have to go 99, especially if you can put it in the right place. So I think it could be good for baseball. I mean, the whole thing about strikeouts is we're getting to the upper edge of, I think, the possible repeatable velocity. You've seen that we used to be, average fastball velocity was 89 when we

started tracking it. It's 94 now. But over the last three years, it's gone like 93.3, 93.4, 93.5. So it's like really starting to slow down in terms of how much more we can add. And if we're getting to the upper bounds, like you're saying, if we're getting the upper bounds of like everyone throwing 100, then some teams are going to be smart and say you know what about ryan yarborough you know what about marco gonzalez what about zach davies they're pretty good i had that thought with the royals too though with you know saying daniel lynch throws the sinker and that drives a lot of how he's evaluated in different places right like he's high on some lists low low on others. But if teams find a way with seam shifted wake and spin mirroring to utilize sinkers in a way that they previously weren't being utilized, well, you have a group of pitchers who are now undervalued,

who actually exceed expectations because they mix their pitches in a way that pitchers who previously had a sinker didn't. And now this pitch that used to be bad is actually good because it's done correctly. I mean, I think that's the way baseball is fascinating. When teams are finding their own way to have success, that makes it fun. When 30 teams all try to be cheap and act like the Rays, that's not fun.

And, you know, this is cool. You're killing Boston today. Well, I think the Red Sox and the Cubs are kind of the equivalent, right? The historical big spending franchise in a big market that is spending a lot less. And Cubs, according to Kotz, their opening day payroll in 2019 was

$203 million. That was third in Major League Baseball. As it stands right now, according to Kotz, they're at $141 million. Wow. That's a big cut. That's a big drop. And again, teams like, sure, we've talked about things being different last year with no fans in the seats. And it's probably going to be at least that way for part of this season in a lot of markets. That's a massive drop for an organization that has plenty of money. So they don't have to

only go cheap in the rotation and only do that. They could have gone out and spent on a free agent. They could have been the team that gave Bauer the contract the Dodgers did. The Dodgers are sort of proof, hey, you could have done this too. That's like a message to the Cubs and the Red Sox and the other big market teams that haven't spent. You could have spent this money and the Cubs are nowhere near that luxury tax threshold anyway. So they don't even have that excuse. Yeah. When it comes to COVID, the Dodgers should be more scared than anybody that there won't be any fans in seats for a lot of the year. I mean, California has most, the most restrictive policies, I think in America. So,

um, you know, I could see, I could see them being nervous and saying, no, no, no, we're not going to spend. And then here they go. They go right through the luxury tax. So, yeah, I wonder what's going on in Chicago. I wonder how much of it has to do with just the poor timing of trying to launch that TV channel right when this happened. I think other teams had TV deals. The idea with owning your own TV channel is eventually you kind of pay yourself and you can get almost all the money out of that TV station. Whereas other teams had like a steady TV deal that was in place. So they got that money even in the COVID year. So that's being as kind as I can be to the Cubs, I think. Yeah. I mean, the rest of this Dakota stuff, I mean,

it's kind of interesting. The Mets, I don't think, deserve to be quite as out in front of the NL East, even with Lindor. I still think that having the Braves in fourth place is kind of insane. You know, the Yankees

well out in front of the rest of the division. Also a little questionable to me. You know, the Rays are always good. I think we know that by now. We've talked on the show.

I think the Blue Jays are going to be a surpriser. I think I picked them as like my surprise pick. So could the Yankees win the division? Yes. But to me, it's just like a little, it's a little too much of a strong favorite to me in those projections. Those things jumped out to me. And then, of course, you know, Astros on top and the AL West. And what ends up happening there, I don't know.

A lot of those teams are kind of not impressive, I guess, to be nice. But the A's coming in under.500 kind of raised an eyebrow for me. They don't strike me as an under.500 team, but they also haven't done anything this offseason. I mean, that's another thing about the Yankees. The Yankees seem to be just re-rolling the dice, right? They're just doing the same team. You can look at Kluber and Tyon, but are they that much better than Tanaka and Happ?

And otherwise, the rest of the team is coming back. And in fact, Tanaka and Happ would have been more healthy. So you're just hoping that Kluber and Tyon, even though they give you fewer innings, they're better innings. That's the bet. And that's about the only thing that I can see that's that much different from the Yankees this year as last year. And last year, the Yankees wouldn't have made the playoffs without the expanded playoffs. So, you know, it seems kind of crazy to give them 97 wins, you know, when you got the Padres at 96 and the Mets at 96.

So I don't know. I do believe the Los Angeles projection also is kind of crazy. To project a team to win 103, that doesn't happen very often. No, and that's not just the Bauer factor either because I think pre-Bauer they would have been 98 or 99, I would guess, right? You're not taking more than five wins off that total. So that's incredible to see those two teams just several miles ahead of Arizona

and San Francisco and Colorado. Shout out to the Rockies for having the lowest simulated win total, even lower than the Pirates. Good job, guys. And the Orioles. Really smart. Six fewer wins than the Orioles.

That's tough to do. Real tough. Jeff Berdischer's right. His job is tough. His job is hard. He makes his job hard, but his job is hard. To be that bad. You guys couldn't do this.

You couldn't make it teams bad. We couldn't be this bad. You're right. I couldn't. I couldn't be that incompetent. I was surprised by the A's too, though, looking at the AL West. I'm just used to them being like an 83 win projection that finds a way to get 87 or 88 and hang around.

I never want to bet against them because of their, let's call it resourcefulness. But I trust the Angels, I think, more than at least Britt does. I think they have a lot of talent. More talent around Mike Trout than they've probably ever had during Trout's time there. So I think there's a pretty decent chance that they can actually put some legitimate pressure on the Astros.

I think Astros-Angels could be a pretty fun battle all season long. The Rendon signing, because it was a shortened season last year, I don't think we got to really take that in as how much of an upgrade it truly was. Shohei Otani being healthier is really interesting. Adding the bulk back-end starters, we've talked about Quintana and Cobb at the time. They're not difference makers, but they give that team much needed depth. They're one better in the bullpen with the Iglesias acquisition.

So I think you can talk yourself into the Angels pushing the Astros in 2021. I'm trying to think. Of those bottom three AL West teams, though, do you guys have one that you like more than the others? If it's not the A's, do you trust the Mariners to bring up some young talent and maybe start to close that gap? Not really. I'm kind of in on the Mariners long-term.

Yeah. I'm kind of interested what they on the Mariners long term. Yeah, I'm kind of interested with it. Next year, though. Yes, but I don't I don't know how I feel about like them next year. I feel like it's way it's too soon. Maybe we didn't again. How much does this true negated 2020 set these rebuilding clubs back? Right.

The Orioles, the Mariners, these kinds of teams who like needed these guys to get reps and get their like brains beat in a little bit just to continue to move forward. I think the Mariners, like Eno said, in three years, like, yeah, I think they're going to be an exciting team. 2021 probably can skip watching those games. Like, you know, I don't know how you do it, Eno, but I mean, I'll probably not watch very many Seattle games because one, it's on the West Coast, and two, who's the must-see there? Who are the must-see players on that team?

Well, yeah, Jared DeCalvis, if he gets... But I doubt they make... They'll say that he's in the running for opening day and keep a little excitement going, and then he won't be in the roster opening day, and they'll say, well, there hasn't been any minor league games in a year, so we're at least going to see what he can be in the roster opening day and they'll say well there hasn't been any minor league games in a year so um we're at least gonna see what he can do in the minor leagues you know julio rodriguez i think actually was hurt by the year off you know he was hurt first of all he got i think he broke something and then on top of that um i think that his approach could have uh

matured by seeing a lot of different pitchers and traveling to different ballparks and having to deal with that pro-type schedule for another year. Whereas Jared Kalanich, I think, is a little bit closer to being ready, but I just think they'll find an excuse to put him in the minor leagues. If you do that, then Kyle Seager is one of those players that's supposed to lose the most power due to the dead ball. If they don't bring up logan gilbert and george kirby yet then uh some of that rotation is pretty suspect behind marco gonzalez so we'll have to see how much they can squeeze out of that roster until the the young guys come up

so there is no for so there is no bus watch for you right now on that team. Not as it is now. I guess like, so just sort of analytically, Dylan Moore is fascinating, but I don't think that I would say you must watch Dylan Moore. It's more like, can Dylan Moore do it again? Yes. And plus, I'm forced to watch them because I have the A's and Giants as the local teams that are always on my TV. And they'll, you know, so I'll see a fair amount of Mariners games.

I mean, if you're staying up late, you're watching the I'll, I'll see a fair amount of Mariners games. I mean, if you're staying up late, you're watching the angels, hopefully in the Padres and the Dodgers, but of the AL West teams, the angels are the one that are worth staying up late for. If you live on the East coast, I got five screens now.

Five. Can you, you can't even watch five at once. That's overwhelming. I've tried, I've tried to watch. Remember when those playoff games were on? There was a little bit of time sometimes when there was three on. I was like, I'm not watching any games.

I'm just not taking any of this in. It's just like ambient noise. Your eyes were doing what we're doing on our YouTube show. Your eyes are just darting between screens. You're not really looking at anything. You're not looking at your notes. You're not looking at your co-hosts. You're just shooting all over the place.

One projection that bothered me. This is the last Pakoda thing we'll talk about on this episode. Cleveland, 85 wins. You jerks don't deserve an 85 win projection after trading with them. It is so undeserved. So undeserved. I can't believe that.

But when you look at that team, it is still good. I don't know if it's nearly as fun. I would argue it's definitely not as fun as it was before. I'm surprised they brought back Cesar Hernandez. They added Eddie Rosario. I think they got a couple of interesting young outfielders. We've talked about it before. I think the bullpen's sneaky good.

I think Kernchak, Klasse, and Whitgrin are probably as good as any three relievers, at least in terms of just overall stuff, as any trio of relievers you can throw out there. So I get it. When I stop and push the rage aside, I can walk myself up to those 85 wins and understand where they're coming from. But I don't want to see that. Unless it's like Tristan McKenzie dealing like an ace. If the fun parts of Cleveland come through, I'll be okay with it. But I'm still going to be salty about the Lindor thing, even if they end up making this work. Yeah.

Also, I'll be on the edge of my seat to see if they can produce a league average outfielder. It would be the first time in a very long time they pulled that off. They deserve it. They're going to run out Eddie Rosario, Oscar Mercado, and Daniel Johnson Jr. They deserve a little bit of sauce. Yes, they do. Let's talk about this home run league.

We had a really interesting question that came in from one of our listeners, Kevin. He writes, I played in a fun league last year. The only stat that mattered was home runs. Pretty simple rules. You have a nine-player team, seven active players, two bench players. Once you subbed in a bench player and moved an active one to the bench, that formerly active player could not reenter your active lineup. So you had those backup options in case of injuries or someone was slumping, but you couldn't just go in and out of the lineup the way you can in a normal league. You could only have a max active roster of 140 home runs, which is determined from the previous year's total.

So yeah, I've played in a pool like this before. It's pretty fun. There was no draft, and you could choose whomever you wanted. This made roster construction very interesting. My thought was to try and find value, and I solely based it on the previous year's total and projections. So entering 2020, Pete Alonzo was projected to hit 46, but he hit 53 in 2019. So Pete Alonzo would have cost you a lot of your allotted home run budget if you wanted him a year ago in this format. I'm curious how you would all approach it, especially based on last year's reduced totals. Would you look at stat cast numbers, this year's projections, or some other

stat? It was fun, and I look forward to trying my hand at it again. I finished 6th out of 49 players, but sadly out of the money. My first thought is we can't do 140 for your home run total since we had the shortened season. So do we just divide by 2.7 and get down to 52 or something close to that number as your home run budget from last season? What's the best way to set this up? I guess you got to do it that way. And it makes it hard to kind of compare what they did last year to what they're projected to do.

So you can't do next year's homers minus last year's homers. You just get ridiculous weird numbers. Go ahead. I have no input here because I don't play fantasy. But wouldn't you look more at what they did in arbitration this year where you don't look really at 2020 because it was such an anomaly and a mess, and you look more at the career stats? Yeah. When you're betting on guys, like he mentioned Justin Upton, not a great pick. Even before, I mean, not somebody I would want in a home run league, but wouldn't you look more at the back of their baseball card in this scenario, guys?

Yeah, I think the projections as the back of the baseball card. Yeah, projection as a way to look at their entire history and not just 2020. And then age, that's the other thing. That's why Justin Upton, he might be projected to hit a few homers, but those projections mean a lot less once you get to 32 and 33 because as we all know, life ends at 33. That's about the age I stopped celebrating Valentine's Day. Now that I think about it.

Good to know. But like Yelly, Belly, you know, those guys I want. They're young. They're projected to bounce back. I want them. I think with the Yellich, stack cast numbers were still great last year. You're paying a reasonable price. He had 12 homers. If you end up

setting your total for the whole pool, I'd make it more like 60. Maybe make it 61. Significance of the home run record from a few years ago. So you get a 61 home run budget for your nine players. 12 on Jelic is still pretty good because you might have a guy that's close to the league lead in home runs over a full season. I think the underlying numbers, what he was doing when he was making contact last year,

supports that he's still going to bring big power, even if he doesn't bring an elite batting average to go with it anymore, right? We talked about the multi-year trends with his K rates, maybe pushing him up into the mid to high 20s. So if he bounces back this year, it might not be back to MVP Yelich, but part of what he will almost certainly do is hit a ton of home runs. So I think he makes a lot of sense

as kind of an anchor option in something like this. I think these simple leagues are fun, by the way, just because they take so much of the things that I love about fantasy baseball that are very complicated and time-consuming, and they push those things aside. But you still have strategy. You still have a reason for wanting to pick your players, and you can still put as much time into it as you actually want to put into it. Yeah. And I, I, I was thinking like,

um, because of that one rule where like you can, um, you can bench a guy. Um, I think that like, uh, Stanton,

uh, would be actually a good pick cause he wouldn't cost much. He's costing you, uh, was it four homers? He's costing you four homers. He could hit you, was it four homers? He's costing you four homers. He could hit you 45. And I feel like you'll know pretty early on if it's one of those lost seasons.

You know what I mean? Like, if he's on the DL in April and they're talking about, well, we have to get an MRI and, you know, we're going to wait six weeks and then get the MRI or whatever it is, then you can just bench him and just be like, well, it only cost me four homers. Let's move on. But the upside is so great that I would actually kind of – I don't know if I'd take like three or four risks like that, but one health risk I think I might take.

This looks fun, honestly. It looks like a fun league. I've never seen it set up like that. Just homers. It's so simple. I kind of like it. Yeah. I think we could probably make one for our

listeners and viewers and all partake in this. So we'll put up some official rules and all that, which I'll work on that. But if people are interested, I think we could make it. Yeah, there's no limit on to how many people can be involved, right? So it's ideal that way.

Just fire a tweet my way. Don't wreck the inbox. It'll be very easy to sign up for this if it happens. But I would agree with Kevin. It is a lot of fun. Maybe we'll have a Google Docs sign-up sheet that you'll notice in the show notes or something. We'll point you to it at some point. Yes, it will be clearly announced if this happens.

We had some follow-up questions about the baseball. You talked about some of the hitters who would be most impacted by the 2021 ball, and we had a few listeners reach out and ask sort of the opposite question. Which pitchers would benefit the most from it? Is it reasonable to start that conversation with a list of pitchers whose average home run distance allowed is short? If you were only allowing just the wall scraping home runs or mostly allowing wall scraping home runs, it would seem reasonable that you have the best chance of maybe benefiting from a ball that doesn't carry quite as well.

I think so, but there was some good work by uh at at choice underscore fielder um and one thing that he pointed out was something that we've talked about a little bit on the show which is the uh relationship between ground ball rate and home run rate is not as tight as you'd expect so even on the like who allowed what kind of homers thing, there's a lot of noise there. Sometimes sinker ballers will give up a few really long ones and some really short ones, and more homers than you'd expect given how many ground balls they have. It's not a linear thing where like,

oh, that guy has a 60% ground ball rate. He's going to give up a lot fewer homers than this other guy. That's part of why I think sinkers have gone out of favor in baseball. But Troy's fielder kind of tried to look at it in terms of some of those launch angles and exit velocities and all that stuff allowed. And the group of pitches that was on there was not super obvious, but I remember Anthony Discofani was number one. And I don't know how much the park is part of that or how much it

was just what kind of contact he was allowing. I think that's the main part of the model. But if you want to bet on Anthony Discofani because of it, then go on ahead, I guess. That was a fascinating article, you know. I know I missed you guys probably talked about it in an earlier show. I know you did. But the way that this is going to affect and the fact that pitchers all were like, hey, yeah, we knew the ball was different. Like, you're not fooling us at all, right? The whole thing was fascinating.

And we talked a little off air about what's up with Rawlings? Why is it a separate entity, it seems, even though MLB owns it? It's like, hey, we told them to not use the balls that we made different last year, right? You told yourself? You told yourself not to use the balls you made?

Yeah, like memo to yourself? Did you do it in front of the mirror? I wondered if it's just a way to hide accountability, like memo to yourself? Did you do it in front of the mirror? I wondered if it's just like a way to hide accountability, like to diffuse the accountability or deflect accountability. That's how it reads. That's what it seems like. Yeah, because otherwise, if you were well run, you would have a group that worked with Rawlings

and they would say, okay, we want to make this change. Let's test it. Let's blah, blah, blah. No one has to tell anyone not to use it because we're all working together. And so we've created this ball and now it's ready to go. Whoa, whoa, don't use those balls.

And then, yeah. Not those. And like, that means that they made enough, right? That means they made enough that baseball had to be like, whoa, you can't use those. It wasn't like Rawlings came to be like, we made these 10 balls for you to check out, or we made this 50 balls so you could check out.

They made enough that baseball had to be like, no, no, they can't use those. What? And then, you know, Meredith Wills comes out and has a report that's like, well, there were basically two different balls in 2020. You know, if you don't have sourcing, you can't necessarily, it's hard. Like Meredith had the science. And so she has a perspective on this and that's valuable.

Without the sourcing, it's hard to kind of be like definitive. Like I don't want to get sued by MLB for libel or whatever it is. You know, we're not, we don't want to get this one wrong. I can't say that I'm for certain sure that some of those 2020 balls that baseball says they did not use in games did get into games. However, there's a lot of lines here where you're like, A, Rawlings made so many that baseball had to say, no, you can't put them into games. B,

Meredith Wills is saying there were two different balls in 2020. And C, Rob Arthur is saying that there was like a big discrepancy between sort of post-season balls and regular season balls and that something weird was going on with the drag in the balls. So it's like there's a lot of smoke, I would have to say. A lot of balls in the air, you would say. A lot of different balls in the air, yeah. Literally, I've been trying to learn how to juggle the last couple of weeks

because my dog loves it. Hazel thinks it's the coolest thing in the world if I take three of her tennis balls or her favorite. I take a chuck it ball and two tennis balls. And she's so happy when I drop one. It doesn't take that long because i don't really know what i'm doing so get a few tosses in the balls collide midair and she just goes and chases after one and comes back wagging her tail so uh yeah juggling is a good

way to pass the time in a pandemic but uh i was trying to put a bow on that somehow and i failed we all need we all need new hobbies yeah we. We had one more question that came in a while ago. It's a pretty fun question and I don't know why we keep forgetting to get to it at the end of a show, but this was a question that came from Will a long time ago and he had a different part about Ben Zobris that we're not going

to deal with right now. It's a perfectly fine question, but I don't want to talk about Ben Zobris today. What do you have against Ben Zobris? Is that guy still playing? Serious shade. Don't want to talk about Ben Zobris. Fine. Fine. I don't want to talk about Ben Zobris today. Oh, what do you have against Ben Zobris? Is that guy still playing? It's a serious shade. Don't want to talk about Ben Zobris. Fine, fine. I don't want to talk about Don'ts Networks either.

Context for why this email begins with, another thing that I find myself often thinking about is Juan Soto's ceiling. I honestly think he has the potential to post an OBP above 500 in a 162-game season. I also think he's probably got a shot at posting an OPS above 1200. A 330

500 700 slash line does not seem like a huge long shot to me. Is it unlikely? Sure, but within the realm of possibility, and that alone says a lot. Anyway, thinking about Soto's crazy ceiling is always fun, and I think it would make for an interesting discussion for you guys to have on the

show, especially in a fantasy context. Do you guys think that these kinds of numbers, not seen since Bonds, are within reach for him? Love the show. Will. Juan Soto, I feel like, is the least discussed awesome player of the current era.

He really is. Like, he's so amazing, and we're just like, yeah, he's awesome. And then we just don't talk about him. I don't think 330, 500, 700 is impossible for him. I really don't. I mean, I think he could put together one of those seasons that 30 years from now, when people who didn't get to watch him are looking back at stats, they're going to have the, holy crap, that season must have been incredible sort of reaction. because what he's accomplished to this point in his career at such a young age is very, very difficult to match

anywhere in baseball history. Yeah, I mean, I feel like he's talked about a lot because I have the benefit of being in D.C., but certainly on a local level is different than a national level. I do think, guys, that nobody realized, check out his numbers from last year and where they rank among the league. And then remember that this guy got delayed when he came over. Got like a false positive COVID test and had to quarantine in his hotel room and do nothing

for two weeks. Then basically comes back, practices one time, and puts together that kind of a season. It's like the context of it. The other guys that had similar situations they they struggled for the most part you know yeah it's just it doesn't seem like anything phases this guy and like that is to me what's so incredible like he gets hurt in the minor leagues decides he's going to learn english now he doesn't ever use her an interpreter right like he sits in a hotel room for two weeks while he's got his bat and he's timing pitchers off of the TV.

He just always kind of finds a way. In the playoff game two years ago in 19, he felt like he missed a lot of pitches. So he gets Kevin Long, their hitting coach, and he's there till midnight fixing something. And the next day, he hits like two bombs. To me, it's just impressive even beyond the stats so yeah i think he's capable of that just knowing what else he's done like he's learned new languages he's he's in the batting cages till midnight he's like cool you want to quarantine me i'll still take my hacks here in my hotel room um it's unbelievable you remember those at bats umats against Cole where, you know,

it seems like he's learning every at-bat, right? And he had those at-bats against Cole in the World Series where in the first one, Cole was just trying to blow it by him up above, right? And Soto took a couple big hacks to try and get at those fastballs and missed. And as he's walking off, he's looking at Cole, and he's so expressive too, you know? Like you can kind of get a sense And as he's walking off, he's looking at Cole, and he's so expressive too. You can kind of get a sense of what he's thinking, and he's thinking about those pitches. He's thinking about those high pitches.

He comes back the second time he sees Cole. Cole tries to sneak that same cheese by him. Bam! Home run. I mean, he's so smart. I think of him as Joey Votto's plate discipline with Miguel Cabrera's power to all fields. And I'm talking about young Miguel Cabrera. Don't start thinking about the Tigers version.

So, you know, if he retains a better body shape than Miguel Cabrera too, you know, you could be talking about a career that surpasses Miguel Cabrera. Miguel Cabrera, for me, is a Hall of Famer. So, um, you know, we're already talking about a guy who's on the hall of fame trajectory. If you improve your swing rate every year, you improve your strikeout rate every year, you improve your walk rate every year, you improve your power every year. Yeah. Uh, those things are on the table. Uh, this is a, this is a Bonzi and level player. And I don't, you know, the next level for me, Soto, Acuna, Tatis. And in that grouping, I see, you know, yes, Acuna plays center now.

Tatis plays short. In terms of war, those guys might be out ahead. But if you're just looking right at the plate, Acuna and Tatis have flaws that Soto doesn't. and Tatis have flaws that Soto doesn't. So if you're just talking about at the plate, I'm going to take Soto as the best bat in the major leagues for the next sort of three to five years. I know Trout is projected for a little bit more, and Trout's still there, and he's still amazing,

and he's a Hall of Famer. But one of these years, Soto's going to overtake him as the best bat in the big leagues. I was just thinking about it from a Dynasty League context, too. I'm doing a dynasty league mock early next week and Soto should be the first pick in a dynasty league if you were starting from scratch. I just think you're getting everything except for a high steals total, but you're getting everything at such an incredibly high level for what should be a very, very long time. Probably the safest player in the pool. I think his per 150 game war is like five and a half to this point in his

career. That's insane. And it's not going to be like Trouty and maybe even Tatisian because he just doesn't play center or short. You know what I mean? Trout was like, you know, eight to 10 for a while. And that's, you know, that's just not in Soto's wheelhouse. But in terms of at the plate, he's currently 52% better than league average, projected for his career, projected to be 60 to 70% better than league average. I mean, it's just definitely the best bat in the big leagues, I think, like starting this year.

Yeah, what's so crazy, guys, is that so Soto said if he didn't sign with the Nationals, the other team was the Padres. Can you imagine a team with Tatis and Juan Soto? And on the flip side of that, Ronald Acuna almost signed with the Nationals. It came down to, I think, maybe money. There was some issue there at the end. But can you imagine a Nationals team with Juan Soto and Acuna? I know, it's a fun, I might write this eventually

because it's such a fun parallel universe to think about. We don't make as big of a deal as we should probably of the international draft because what we just mentioned, think about how different these organizations would be just with those moves I mentioned. Those three players you

mentioned, those are all three foreign players. So the international draft, I would like to see maybe made a bigger deal, I guess, in future years. Tatis is a slightly different situation where he didn't sign for, like, max money, right? Like, we weren't like, Acuna was like a sort of almost a max money. It's weird because there's certain, there's so many levels, like there's so many salary suppressions's so many levels like there's so many

salary suppression so like there's only a certain amount you can get so at some point you become a max signee right like i think akunya was and then you just pick where you go right then it almost doesn't matter it's almost like when otani came over he was only going to get what he's going to get so he could choose where he's going to go and then it comes down to personal relationships and um you know what how you think of the what you think of the of the of the teams right what do you think are the podgers going to be good anytime soon then i don't know if i want to sign with them you know i think tatis was a little bit more of a surprise i don't think he was a max a max uh he was well akuna sort of made the most of all of them the reason the braves could lock

up akuna and ozzy alves was because both of those guys didn't get quite as big signing bonuses. So they needed money now. Whereas Soto's like sitting pretty, hanging out with his signing bonus. And he's also got Scott Forrest as an agent. But he doesn't need, he didn't need this like immediate lockup the way that those two Braves guys did. So you're right. Tatis, I think, is in that same category where he's not really making anything. And so the Padres are trying to lock him up.

But in his situation, it's even the cats are already out of the bag, right? Even more so than with Albies and Akuna at that juncture in time. So, yeah, it's fascinating. The international, it's only going to get bigger, but I would like to see fans, like, kind of know and watch and follow these guys as they get

signed, maybe a little bit more or just as much as the the pro draft well we're we're gonna see some of that uh i mean it's it like it's a little bit like the draft itself in baseball is like the least popular draft right it's just like there's so many names and it's hard to kind of be on top of it as a fan as a regular fan and um a lot of those names don't go anywhere for a few years. You don't see them in the big leagues and stuff. But I think a lot of these international signings go faster and the hype train gets attached to them quicker. We're going to see that.

Jason Dominguez right now is, you know, about to take off. Jeff Passon reported that he hit a ball 117 miles an hour. Only four guys in baseball did that last year. You're starting to get these hype videos that look like Cespedes at the barbecue. He looks like Mike Trout, kind of. He's got this huge kind of linebacker body, and he's just smoking the ball in these grainy videos. Sometimes it doesn't happen when they sign with a team at the beginning.

Sometimes it happens after they get them into the system. And that's what happened with Tatis. That's how the Padres kind of heisted him off of the White Sox. Wasn't really thought of the same way and was just a guy in a ball and then then they got him into their system and he just took off like a rocket so i wonder you know for me jason dominguez is right at the middle of like is the hype too far has the hype gone too far like you we're gonna get so many puff pieces about jason dominguez in the next couple weeks and um we don't even know what his contact rates look like, you know?

Yeah. We have no idea. I think the funny thing, it's funny because in, in like the baseball card market, Dominguez rookie cards, like the rare limited run stuff goes for a fortune. Like you can buy old graded hall of famer cards for less than it costs you to get a rare

Jason Dominguez card. It's like, come on. I love prospects. I'm excited to watch this guy someday too. But if your choice is a nice old graded Willie Mays card or a one of one Jason Dominguez, how do you not go get the Willie Mays card? That kind of stuff makes me scratch my head a little bit. I'd love to see a comparison, too, of somebody like Juan Soto, where you're like, this guy's going to go into the Hall of Fame. He's still young. We should still be excited about him. What about his rookie card?

Is Jason Dominguez's rookie card going for more than Juan Soto's? That would be ridiculous to me. You're still buying in on a guy who's going to be a Hall of Famer. Isn't the point to get someone? I don't know. Yeah, to get it all the time, great. It's crazy. Yeah, it's just one of the many places where the interest levels in prospects go through the roof sometimes.

Before we go, I want to put a congratulations slash thank you note out there for anybody who didn't see the announcement on Twitter. We won the award from the Fantasy Sports Writers Association for Best Fantasy Baseball Podcast in 2020, which is awesome. So thank you to all of you guys listening and thank you to both of you for being on the show. It's awesome to work with you guys. It's really cool to have work acknowledged in a field where there's so many people making great content. I'm not just saying that to say that. I think compared to 10 years ago when a lot of people didn't know what a podcast was, compared to even five years ago when there were probably a third as many shows as there are now, there's a ton of great competition out

there. So to win an award like that is is really awesome yeah congrats guys i feel like the neighborhood just shows up on fridays so i want to say that you guys oh no you guys do a great job and i learn a ton every time i listen i think the show has gotten a lot better with you so thank you so much for for joining us and i think that um you know i think the cool thing is that the you know it's a little bit awkward because we're in between fantasy and real, and we talk about all sorts of different things. So I could see how you'd be like, well, the fantasy show, that's you guys on Monday and Wednesday.

But I think it's all intertwined. It's a really cool kind of different approach, I think. And we all bring... I bring my terrible singing to the table, so we're going to have to, we're gonna have to turn everything up a notch, right? I'm really sad. There was no singing. I wanted to have our, okay.

So I was going to have the king cake today from new Orleans, but it snowed here. And so it didn't come. So it's come yesterday. I was going to have it for the show. It's like a celebratory for you guys. So blame FedEx, blame the snow. I don't know. it for the show. It's like a celebratory for you guys. So blame FedEx. Blame the snow.

I don't know. Blame someone. But I don't have a cake. I should have got a Valentine's Day cake next to Derek's meat at the grocery store. All I want is next year, I need some Italian cookies in my belly. Yes. I think we can make that happen. We're doing it but seriously anybody who's listened to

this show either for a week or for the time it's been running for the last two years now i think we started two years ago in april uh we really appreciate everybody who's listened who's rated who's reviewed has given us feedback written an email uh and like you know said brit we love having you as a part of our team. You are on rates and barrels. There's not like a this time, not that time. It doesn't work like that. You are a part of our family here. So if you'd like to leave us a rating and review,

we'd appreciate it. You can do that, I think, on Apple Podcasts and a few other places as well. It helps new people find the show. Tell a friend if you like the show and you have a friend that would like baseball. That's always a good way to share things as well. On Twitter, she is at Britt underscore droly he's at enoceros i am at derrick van riper you can sign up for the athletic at 3.99 a month to start at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels that is going to wrap things up for this episode of rates and barrels

we continue on with our starting pitcher preview series when we return on Monday. Thanks for listening.