Rates & Barrels - The Astros Go Up 3-2, Atlanta Pushes L.A. to the Brink of Elimination

Episode Date: October 21, 2021

Eno & DVR discuss the Astros' 3-2 ALCS lead on the strength of Framber Valdez's Game 5 performance in Boston, and Atlanta's bid to close out the NLCS in just five games after taking a commanding 3-1 lead over the Dodgers on Wednesday.  Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at 50% off for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Watch the show *Live* on weekdays at 11:30a ET/8:30a PT on YouTube and subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, presented by Topps. Check out Topps Project 70, celebrating 70 years of Topps baseball cards. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. It is Thursday, October 21st. Big things happening in both the ALCS and in the NLCS. In the ALCS, the Astros took a 3-2 lead heading back to Houston. Pretty big turn, of course, in those last two games. We'll dig into that, how they pulled it off. We'll talk about Atlanta taking a commanding 3-1 lead and pushing the Dodgers to an elimination game in

Game 5, one in which the Dodgers will be leaning very heavily on their bullpen. How's it going for you on this Thursday? Good, good. I always have about five minutes before the show starts to do half an hour of work. Nice.

Trying to read Britt's awesome piece about the mets yesterday uh checking up some stats about julio urias that i'll share later uh just generally uh it's fun it's a fun time of the year uh i'm sad that there won't be too many more two game days because of how these races have turned out. Yeah. Series yesterday, maybe the last one, depending on what happens today,

but let's start with the ALCS, the series that is off on Thursday as the teams head back to Houston. I didn't think we'd see 2020 from Breville does. I didn't think it was impossible, but I just wasn't expecting it based on what we saw from him in game 1 of this series and what we saw from him against the White Sox. I thought maybe, maybe teams are starting to figure him out a little bit. Also being a lefty in Fenway, even though he's the type of lefty that can have a lot of success there, getting as many ground balls as he does. I just didn't think that was going to be the script.

But that was the script, and it wasn't just that. It's surprising to me also that Chris Sale was pitching really well, and the Velo was back for Sale. So there's a lot to unpack with the pitching here, because I think at the very least, no one really expected Sale to pitch as deep into the game as he did. But then Frambois on the other side turned in a gem. Yeah.

You know, this year, Framber had uh the best ground ball rate um for a season in which i started pitched 100 innings ever ever uh in terms of you know as long as we've tracked this i'm sure there are some guys in the 80s that beat him out. But, you know, he had a 70% ground ball rate, which is pretty amazing. And there was all this debate about analytics and pitching to contact. And I'd like to point out that the Astros are maybe, you know, the most analytics forward team or one of the three at the top or four at the top. or one of the three at the top or four at the top. And they employed both Dallas Keuchel and Frambois Valdez, who are possibly the modern kings of contact, if you want to put it that way.

But Valdez has a sinker that sinks better than 95% of the population, and he has a curveball that drops better than 95% of the population, and he has a curveball that drops better than 95% of the population, and he attacks the bottom of the zone with bin and vigor. And, you know, it's a good combination. It works. And he gets some swings and misses, too. He had 12 of them yesterday in Game 5. If you look at his swinging strike rates year over year,

he's at a 10% swinging strike rate or better each of these last three seasons now. So he's not just the guy that gets you to pound the ball into the ground. He does yield some hard contact, but he yields the kind of hard contact that Eric Hosmer provides where it's just smashed into the ground at 95+. So if your skills are

getting some swings and misses and turning opposing hitters into Eric Hosmer, you have pretty good skills. And the other thing that I think I've always wondered about with Fromber is where does the walk rate eventually settle in? We've seen 313 regular seasonings from him, 10.6% K rate or walk rate rather with a 22.6% K rate. So we're seeing a guy that's maybe leveled off a bit from where he was when he first broke into the league, but I don't know if he's ever going to come close to the 5.6%

walk rate we saw from him in the shortened season. That looks like a smaller sample short season sort of anomaly. Yeah. And one thing that I do that I don't, uh, get about him, I don't actually get a sense of true of his true command. I think I have a hard time doing it because I think that, I think he has really good command. And then I think that he sometimes just refuses to give in. You know, I think there's times when he's like, you know, my zone where I'm trying to pitch is the bottom of the zone. If the umpire is not giving it to me, then I'm not going to pitch higher in the zone. He's just like, this is my game plan. I'm sticking to it. I also think that with a two-pitch pitcher, there are some hitters that are just good at curveballs. I would think of Jose Abreu is very good against curveballs. If you were facing somebody

like that as a lefty and he was taking two of your pitches away, you would probably nibble a little bit more and try to get more reaches and end up being like, well, you know what? I walked Jose Abreu twice in this game, but I gave up no runs. You know what I mean? Cool thing last night was he was way above his league average, his year average in terms of velocity. So I guess that short start did bring some benefits to the Astros in a way. He was more rested for this. They managed to stay away from

him when they were considering using him in the last game. And he was up two ticks on the fastball. Two ticks plus and up movement. His pitches were dropping more than usual. So I think it was just one of those nights where you're like, this is peak Frambert. As Russell says, get Framberized. Yeah, get Framberized. Sounds like something that we'd see on a t-shirt sooner rather than later.

Chris Sale showed great velocity, topped out at 98.5. If I'm not mistaken, I thought I heard that was the fastest pitch that he'd thrown since coming back from Tommy John surgery. A lot of questions about whether or not Alex Cora stuck with him too long. Ended up being a 7K performance over five and a third innings, four runs allowed, two of them were earned. Jordan Alvarez got him a couple

of times, which, you know, no shame in that. Jordan Alvarez is a great hitter, but what do you make of what we saw from Sale? Because it was such a dramatic swing from the last time we saw him pitch in this series it's just uh a shame that the red socks don't have a deeper bullpen i think because uh i think it was fairly obvious that sale had emptied the tank in the fifth and if you just look at his velocity over time uh you know, you see a peak in the fifth.

I think that's when he hit 98.5. And then when he comes back out in the next inning, he's down like a tick plus. He's down a fair amount. And what's rough is that, you know, you know that the Red Sox are analytics. You know that even no matter what they're doing with Cora, like how much rope they give Cora or whatever, you know everyone's aware of that velocity drop, right? So I think it just was a calculus where they're like,

well, if we go to the bullpen here, then we have to use this guy and this guy that we really weren't hoping to use and probably sail with a take lower is still better than that guy um but you know i don't know i think maybe it was too cute because uh you know they didn't use tanner halk once um maybe it was a matchups thing who who came up in the uh in the six they went sail to brazier and then robles dar Darwins and Hernandez, Sawamura and Perez. No, but who touched Sale in the sixth, right? Oh, Jordan got him again.

See, you wouldn't go to Tanner Houck there, I guess. Right. You're giving up the platoon advantage going to Houck in that spot. I would assume that Sale, all things being equal, that Sale would be a better option against Alvarez. Yeah, but I really thought the recipe was going to be sale plus Houck. Even if it was sale going shorter than he went, I thought that was exactly what the Red Sox wanted.

They didn't put runs on the board, so they would have burned Houck, and then they'd be maybe in a worse spot if things go awry later in the series. It is sequencing luck in a way, right? This is how it's not. When you say luck, you think of like a squibble little hit that just barely the guy gets on, that sort of luck. it's not when you say luck you think of like a squibbling squibble little hit that like just barely you know the guy gets on that sort of luck that's that's luck too but there is the luck of like you know there was a walk earlier and this happened this happened and so then you're on

alvarez is up in the six and because you're on alvarez is up you don't put tenor halkin in the six like i'm sure they talked about it right and the score changes, and then you don't want to do it then. Right, yeah, exactly. Then the score changes, you're behind, and now you're going to your B bullpen, basically. Yeah. Yeah, and I think the thing we started talking about yesterday in the wake of Ivaldi's relief appearances,

what is his next start really going to look like? Is he going to be as effective as he's been for most of the postseason? It's just an open question. We just don't know. But I think we've seen enough starters throwing on their throw days and throwing on shorter rest in this postseason to probably come to some sort of agreement that there is a downside to this approach.

There is a way this catches up to you. Maybe when and how much is still to be sorted out, but it's obviously the kind of thing that carries some downside risk. Yeah, and I think we saw a little bit of it in the other game. Urias was down some velo, and I expected it to be worse, actually and I expected it to be worse actually I expected it to look worse but really Urias has been down kind of all October

you know he last maxed out at 97 in September and last night he maxed out at 95 so 97 in September. And last night he maxed out at 95. So the max velo has been hurting for a little while.

But when you use a guy in relief, this is going to happen. You know, like I would expect the Evaldi's max velo to be lower and him to be a little bit less effective. Yeah. As you think back to how things unfolded, I mean, Atlanta coming up with homers galore early on,

that wasn't necessarily something I expected. Even if Urias didn't have his best stuff to see him giving up home runs like that, that's actually a skill that I think Jason Stark was the one sharing this and put it in his uh his column today you don't see urias give up home runs like that that's just not at all who he is so it feels like a like a valley like we have peaks sometimes with velocity and stuff kind of hitting these higher levels this felt like the lower end of what urias can do when he's healthy, just extreme fatigue.

And it's unbelievable because we talked about just how much the Dodgers were favored in this game yesterday because of Atlanta going the bullpen route. They got three and change from Drew Smiley. That was very unexpected. I mean, there were a few twists in this game, and it seems like everything is coming up Atlanta right now. Yeah, I think Sam brings up a good point about that. It was particularly devastating that Tony Gonsolin was used because everyone's trying to draw parallels to last year where the Dodgers were down 3-1, won Game 5, and won the series eventually. I'm just looking at the box score for that game,

and there's a key difference for me, which is they had Dustin May last year. And you could say, oh, Tony Gonsolin can go 2 or 3. Well, now he can't. And then the other key difference is the Braves did a bullpen game that day too. So it was bullpen versus bullpen. This year, it's bullpen versus Max Fried. And I don't know if I'm allowing my fandom or just what I want to happen. Listen, I'm not rooting for one or the other. What I mean, what I want

to happen is I want the starter to win. I don't want the bullpen game to win. I think it'd be better for the sport, honestly, if the starter won. Because the bullpen games are a little rough. You start changing relievers in the first and second, and it just seems like a parade of relievers is tough. As exciting as Tyler Matzak has been, ooh, I like that.

Did you hear that? Tyler Matzak? I like it. I did hear it. You didn't come up with that by design. No, that was a mistake. I think we should. I think that's the nickname.

That's also going to end up on t-shirts. That's a pretty good one, actually. But anyway, I really love what he's doing. AJ Minter last year and this year has been great. And AJ Minter last year was the key to the Braves staying in that game. He was kind of the answer to Dustin May. There are good relievers. There are relievers I like watching. But it's just how much change there is.

You lose the drama of, oh, when Freed last faced this guy in this game, he did this and this. Is this hitter going to try and cover that? You know, is he going to go there again? You know what I mean? Like there's more of a chess match. You know, I feel like with relievers, it's checkers.

It's just like he's got two pitches. Which one is he going to throw? You know what I mean? But with the starters, it's like, oh, he got me on the slider last time. Is he going to go to the curveball? Is he going to go to the change? Like what's he going to throw. With the starters, it's like, he got me on the slider last time. He's going to go to the curveball. He's going to go to the change. What's he going to do? I think it would be better for baseball if Max Freed won tonight.

That's my pick. Also, if you just ask me who's going to win tonight, Max Freed or the bullpen, I'm going to be like, Max Freed. Yeah, but we did the same thing yesterday on the opposite side right so isn't that the frustrating thing and aside from that of course the the series that we just erased from our memories this matchup a year ago atlanta had a 3-1 lead over the dodgers that's what i'm talking about never mind that all of these things are here as uh f pointed out has not been used in relief recently.

True. Big difference. Regular rest. No unusual usage. I mean, you can look at the Dodgers and kind of piece together what they're likely to do with their core of relievers. It is strange they threw Gonsolin, especially when they did. Corey Kniebel probably opens again, or at least is going to throw an inning or two, maybe.

If he's able to get through two, that's a bonus. He's at least going to give you one. Trinan's going to pitch in this game. Vestia could maybe give you two. He was starting in the minor leagues. Yeah, Vestia's going to give you some innings. Obviously, Trinan's going to get in. Kenley Jansen's going to pitch. Gratterall's going to pitch. I mean, it's going to be as many of the A relievers as early as possible.

We just did six innings. Yeah, but what about the other three? Where do those come from? Joe Kelly's going to pitch in this game. I mean, that's innings. Yeah. But what about the other three? Where do those come from? Joe Kelly's going to pitch in this game. I mean, that's pretty clear. Yeah. But I was looking at last year's, and what was kind of key for them was Pedro Baez.

So last year, a lot of the same names, right? Kelly, it was May, Kelly, Trinan, Baez, Victor Gonzalez. And that's also interesting because that's where they identified i think a soft spot right they used bias and victor gonzalez against the bottom of the order probably because they went may kelly trinen bias victor gonzalez bruisdar kenley and uh the people who gave them two innings were trinen and may i don't think they want to go two innings with China this time, but that soft spot in the middle of the game, Baez and Victor

Gonzalez, who is that this year? I might be where they try and sneak Bessie in for two. I'm wondering here, with Justin Turner's injury, I assume that timetable would knock him out through the World Series, even if you advance. Do you just go ahead and take him off the roster and say, yeah, he's done for the year anyway.

Let's get another pitcher. Is there anybody you could throw on from your taxi squad to come in and shoe up some innings? It might be interesting to bring Andre Jackson into the game. They maybe not have seen him that much. And also power starter that uh could give you two innings maybe yeah that's an interesting idea also um i kind of think what they're doing tonight i know they're kind of doing because max freed is a lefty playing pool holes at first um i think that might be what they should do going forward because Because I'm not a guy who tries to be reactionary.

I think Gavin Lux probably has the skills to be a center fielder, but we just threw him out there. And sometimes it takes a little time to get it down. And so I think it would take a lot of pressure off him to move him back to the infield.

Trey Turner obviously has the arm for third. Yeah, they could play Taylor over at third too. Yeah, but I want – no, but mostly I want – who can play – yeah, Pujols play first. Mostly I want Bellinger in center. Bellinger or Taylor in center. That's, I think, what should be the plan. Yeah, really curious to see what that lineup looks like once it comes out here a little bit later.

We were talking already last night that Pujols play first. Yeah, really curious to see what that lineup looks like once it comes out here a little bit later. They were talking already last night that Pujols would play first. Do you think it's at all interesting that it looked early in the series like the Dodgers had a plan that was going to work against Freddie Freeman, and now they clearly don't have a plan that works against Freddie Freeman? It also is interesting to me that they kind of went away from it, right? Like, I remember Mike Petriella had this great article about how they went to inside to him 81 of the time and remember in game three all of freeman's hits were um on like elevated and out and above the plate right like they weren't inside he was taking pitches like sort of um out up and away to the opposite field yeah that's what i remember of those two big hits from Freeman.

So did they go away from it? Was it all a setup? It was like, oh, my God, 81% inside. They're going to bust me inside. Oh, my God. And then I'm not prepared for what's on the outside. I don't know. I also just have a lot of respect for Freeman as a hitter, so I just kind of laugh at it.

Of course, nobody is going to just go 81% inside to Freeman for a whole series because no one's tried it for a whole year. Because they've been trying to get Freeman out for years. It's not like, oh, oh, we should pitch him inside.

Dude. No one's ever thought of that before. So I don't know. Maybe it was was a setup maybe it had to do with having a series for the ages by the way um you know missed the cycle by hitting a second home run instead needed a double so i think that's better as most people would readily agree yeah a triple sort of cycle is like a is joke. Yeah, or the single short, too. That's actually pretty funny when you're a single short. That's funny on the other way.

Triple short of the cycle is funny because there have probably been a million people who have been a triple short of the cycle. There's a question from Jay in the live stream. Why isn't Lux playing a corner spot instead of center field? Am I missing anything from the analytical perspective i mean yeah when when you have your choice of someone who's played out there before versus someone who hasn't and that someone who has played out there is mookie bets it is a little bit strange like i i don't know what goes into that decision i think what i've been surprised by just generally this year you know is the number of teams willing to throw someone who's never played center field before into games at center field. I know Chris Bryant maybe dabbled out there for a few innings over the years with the Cubs, but the Giants playing him out there as much as they did, that surprised me.

Lux getting this opportunity in the postseason, that surprises me because they have so many moving parts. Is there anything you can think of that would guide that decision to go with the less experienced guy in the seemingly more important spot well i pulled up mookie betts is out above average uh thing and and it's kind of amazing he was a minus one fielder by odds above average he was roughly uh equivalent to hunter renfro and adam eaton this year uh neither guys that played center field. Also interesting is that they have a map of the directions and his cold zone is to his right, which would mean that if you put him in center, his cold zone would be facing a weak defender. Pollock is okay. a weak defender. I mean, Pollock is okay. You know,

Lux might be okay in the corner, but you create a weakness to his right as well. So I kind of feel like it's not as much about Lux as it is like, we don't really want to play bets and Pollock and center. So we just see Lux as being more physically fit, maybe more, more fast, more, you know, and we think that he's played the outfit before, so he can make these reads as sort of my guess. Yeah. It's just one of those things. I wouldn't have expected to see Lux playing that position,

given all the different ways they can line it up. And I guess one way to think about the versatility too, is even though guys can play two, three, even four positions, sometimes if everyone's playing their third or fourth best position to make everyone play a spot they played before, that might not be as good as everyone playing their second best position and one guy playing slightly out of position, right?

Or playing pool holes. Right. Yeah. Like maybe just punt at one position to be better everywhere else. You know, I think it's actually, there's a weird equivalency here to what's happening with starting pitching and starting pitcher uses right because

uh you know like everybody has uh you know their a game uh and they're and in terms of like starters they're like they're this valuable as starters with full rest. And then you make the calculus, okay, he's this valuable on short rest. Then you make these this valuable if I used him out of the bullpen before. And, you know, if you're, you're going to do that with every starting pitcher, you're going to force yourself to do it more and more, right? Like, cause you're like, oh crap, I got to take this pitcher out earlier because I used them in relief before. So now I've got to put another starter in. It's almost like that thing where you're playing with the defense. You're like, oh, crap, I got to take this pitcher out earlier because I used him in relief before. So now I got to put another starter in. It's almost like that thing when you're playing with the defense. You're like, okay, everyone is going to be on their B game.

That's the plan. We're going to make everyone be on their B game. We're going to try to avoid anybody being on their C game. We're going to have everyone's going to be on a B game. Well, what if you had one guy who was on a C game and everyone else is on their A game? Right. That's the calculus I think that teams are going through at this point. Like, let's not use Prambovalde's out of relief, you know, if we can,

because we don't really want his B game. We want his A game. And, you know, using Eovaldi to kind of try and shut the door that day ends up hurting the Sox a lot. Yeah. And, I mean, as Sam points out, Max Muncy being down also hurts socks a lot yeah and i mean as sam points out max muncie being down also hurts them a lot hurts them offensively it changes the way they play defense that creates all these extra problems that we've discussed throughout the postseason so they

definitely are missing him right now uh sam also wants to know if we could talk about drew smiley 10 million dollars paying off a bit later than expected do you do you have any any belief at all that the Braves put Drew Smiley into that game thinking oh yeah we're getting three and a third here like there's no way right they thought two if we're lucky it was just they told him empty the tank dude yeah two if we're lucky if we get that we're anything else is gravy I mean I Chris Martin came in got a couple of key outs, and I don't think he was the one that allowed some runners to score that Smiley had left on base.

But A.J. Minter coming in for a couple innings and going two scoreless, a lot of hard contact in those two innings, but dodging raindrops, I guess, as they say in that spot. Well, you know, a couple things stand out to me about Smiley that are interesting. One is he was not actually up in VLO. You'd expect him to do the reliever thing. He averaged 92-3 and he was 92-1 on the season. However, he threw no fastballs.

He threw seven fastballs out of 56 pitches. I kind of love that. I wonder if that has something to do with Eddie Rosario. There's a comment here from Sam. Rosario, great highball hitter, has been hitting sliders in the dirt this season. Hard to miss his back. You know, I wonder if there's some guys that are just like, I'm going to do something completely different now. It's the postseason. You know, Smiley came out there and was like, you know what? Curveball's my best pitch. I'm just going to keep throwing curveballs.

I'll just wait until they tell me that that's not working. Seven fastballs. I love it. Seven. I think the smiley thing, as far as the contract goes, because people were saying, oh, yeah, you got $11 million, wasn't in the rotation at the end of the year. There's really no such thing as a bad one-year deal.

If you see something you believe in with a pitcher if you think the secondaries are good the command's good you can eat innings think he could be a good reliever if he fails the starter all those things any of those things are good enough reason to go ahead and give a player a deal like that and yeah maybe they completely backed into a scenario in which he came through for them at the best possible time. But looking back at some of the underlying numbers we saw, what he did in the shortened season with the Giants, only 26 in the third innings, there was enough there to be excited about him on a one-year deal. So I don't think by process they were wrong, even though by outcome

they were maybe underwhelmed by what they ended up getting in the regular season. I do want to point out, though, that this is a process that many teams are copying, right? This is the thing that a lot of teams are doing. And it came up in my raise piece and I started going through the names and they didn't work out really that well this year. Rich Hill might've been the best hit. Rich Hill, Garrett Richards, Corey Kluber, Drew Smiley. Do you remember any more? Those are the ones I remember from the Rays article. Yeah, those are the ones that more immediately come to mind.

Anyway, there were a couple more. I guess they worked out to some extent. Kluber helped. I mean, he threw a no-hitter. He helped the Yankees this year. Rich Hill was pretty decent for two teams. But it is kind of funny that none of them, two of them made it to a playoff roster.

I think that's the funny part of that group. Kluber? Disco got one for six. Disco might have been the best of the bunch. It's not a bad place to shop in free agency. But it isn't something you want to count on one through four in your rotation. It's sort of like a good way to try and paper over your fifth spot. You could steal a spot more effectively doing that than by taking the Jake Odorizzi situation

and saying, oh, okay. Yeah. We'll, we'll give them multiple years. We'll be the team that goes three for this guy. Like that.

I think that's the, to me, that's the more preferable option. I'll, I'll give the guy 10 or 12 million for one year. If I have the choice versus going three years and being kind of locked in to that same picture. But yeah,

interesting thought here from Nickel Picklers, first on Danny Duffy. I'm going to actually bring up the other one first. The question on Gavin Lux, I read that they like the angle he gets on the ball in center field being closer to his natural position. Yeah, if you play more up the middle playing center field, watching the ball, reading the ball coming off the bat would probably be quite a bit easier than being down in the corner.

So I think that's a really good point. But the other thought here was about Danny Duffy. Would the Dodgers consider bringing him in? He hasn't pitched for them since being acquired. The trade deadline, is he working out somewhere or already at home? The last I saw, he had had a setback trying to come back from an injury in September. I haven't heard anything about Danny Duffy being anywhere near ready to pitch. Yeah, that's why I went to one of the young guys

Another young guy oh Mitch White That would be Mitch White would be a great call Yeah maybe White over Jackson but I mean what I'm What I think I'm learning from this is That maybe

Having a guy Like your like your seventh best starter who has 80 pitches in him might be more valuable to your postseason roster than your eighth or seventh best reliever who has 20 pitches in him. You know what I mean? So I think we'll see next year more fifth and sixth and seventh starters that we were a little bit surprised the guys on the roster. To some extent, I think the Braves did that with Smiley.

Smiley wasn't going to start a postseason game. Right? Smiley hasn't even been pitching that much. It's just getting lucky with an innings eater. You're not going to get lucky with a position player because you're not going to throw a position player for more than one inning anyway. And you're not going to really get lucky with that seven best reliever because even if you

do and you and you're like you sort of close your eyes and throw that guy out there uh then uh he gives you one inning and you have to throw some other guy out there again you know i mean like it's much better to i think what like that's what i'm learning from like nick pavetta i feel like they you know they probably debated you debated whether or not to put him on the roster. You put him on the roster, he gives you a lot. Yeah, it would be interesting if you had a better way to stretch out guys you were using in short relief over the final month, even six weeks of the season.

Oh, this guy's been throwing 15, maybe 20 pitches per outing for most of the season. Mid-August rolls around, he's up to 25, and then he gets up to like 30, 35 by September, and if he'd 40 in October, it's actually doable. Yeah, I think what Perpetua is saying is right. Like, the average team here, as Perpetua says, I firmly believe that MLB is moving towards,

MLB's going to have to move towards having more starting pitchers. If I had a team over one, I'd have 10 to 12 starting pitchers, and they wanted three relievers. That's pretty old school. That's how it used to be. I don't know about the 10 part with starting pitchers, but it used to have three relievers. What I like about it is that teams use 10 starters anyway. I really don't like the option train that so many relievers are on, like the Jay Jackson situation where you're just up and down and up and down and up and down. And I think there's some balance there that needs to be righted. But, you know, another thing that you can do in September to prepare for the postseason is

if you're going to homogenize your staff anyway in September to prepare for the postseason is if you're going to homogenize your staff anyway in September, which by me that is everyone is either a 40 or an 80 pitch guy, right? Like all your 20 pitch guys have to pitch 40 and all your 80 pitch, all your 100 pitch guys pitch 80. If you're going to homogenize your staff that way anyway, then start homogenizing in September, actually prepare them to do it. So maybe piggyback the last two spots of your, you know, start acting like you have 10 starting pitchers, right? Start taking Tony Gonsolin and Julio Urias and putting them in tandem starts. The best, the thing that's cool about that is you keep Julio Urias at 80 pitches

and also you pitch him less, you know, or go to a six or seven starter rotation. As Sam Chess says, save a lot of gas. Save the gas on the guys that have 100 pitches and start extending your sixth and seventh guys so they have 80 pitches. Then you go into the post and you say, yeah,

we have these three starters that are our playoff starters. However, we have four other guys that can go 80. Yeah, I like the idea of building it that way. I mean, from a development standpoint, we're probably talking about a lot of guys with two pitches being more heavily used than teams would previously have wanted to use them.

But we have plenty of two-pitch guys that do give you 80 pitches. That's a success in the starting rotation because you can turn the lineup over twice. Yeah. What's the math on that? 18 batters faced times four pitches per

plate appearance. That's kind of interesting. Add in a couple walks and hits, right? Add in a little stuff. You get really close to 80. Yep. Yeah, I would agree with Andrew. I think things are clearly changing,

and I'm wondering how much or how quickly the league will try to adjust rules to prevent this from actually playing out this way. This seems like the natural course of optimizing for efficiency based on current roster rules and factors that we have right now will the league take the feedback take all the people saying hey you know these these four plus hour games this isn't really ideal and will they try and find ways to say yeah it's actually it's going to be a four pitcher max or whatever that actual

rule or adjustment ends up being i wonder if they're going to let it happen. If this is actually going to be the way things can play out. The players association will always argue for more roster spots. More major league jobs, right? But every time they add a roster spot, mostly the teams are like sweet, another pitcher.

And, you know, it's something that's funny. They're going to argue about the dh right and then owners will be like we can give you the universal dh it's 12 more night jobs yeah mfr i get it it's 12 more jobs but how great are those jobs going to be about 10 of those teams are just going to stick some guy they already have on the roster there you know they'll be like oh thanks we have a place to put eric hosmer you know like is that really going to create like a ton of jobs it's the same way with like another roster spot oh yeah

well you're mostly going to stick five hundred thousand dollar relievers in there i think i'd rather you double the minimum salary than you give me another five hundred thousand dollar spot right well so the other benefit andrew points out the live stream, when you have 10 to 12 stars, it means you can have one go five, the other can go four in any given game. So your relievers who are short relievers can just get up and get hot and get in the game quickly. So you can sort of, I mean, thinking back, the Astros started doing this, the minor leagues five plus years ago, at least they were tandem starting throughout the minor leagues to stretch out as many pitchers as possible, probably to work on pitch development, all these different things we've been talking about. And to keep everybody moving towards being a starter until the last minute. Right. It maximizes value. You keep that dream alive for as long as possible.

I think it protects the value of your pitchers as you potentially trade them, too. Because, oh, this guy's given us tons of innings. He looks like a possible starter. Teams scout him more as a starter of innings. He looks like a possible starter team, scout him more as a starter. They, they value that pitcher more as a possible starter.

If you can give them that proof of concept. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Rob McCabe's point, most teams, 10 to 12 stars. Most teams can't even transfer three.

I guess I just disagree. I think we've seen some fifth and six starters in these playoffs uh shove um i i think it's a it's all it's all relative uh i think that hitters are are really well trained right now and it's it's a tough time to pitch and it's a tough time to hit and it's like you know you could take six and seven starters and put them back 15, 20 years, and they would shove, I think, a lot of them. So I see plenty of talent. And then it also is a question of, like you're saying, developing them to start

and not taking a lot of guys who could be six and seven starters and turning them into relievers. Yeah. Well, probably the wave of the future, though. I think Andrew is dead on in terms of where the game is likely headed barring some significant changes in the rules i had one more question for you i should have thrown it out there back we were talking about chris sale but i saw our friend jeff erickson from rotowire tweeting about this yesterday where is chris sale going

to go in 2022 fantasy baseball drafts and are you the person who's going to be jumping on board? I might be, I might be, you know, one of the things I like is the VLOs back, you know, and I know the, the,

you know, he had a 99 stuff. Plus I know the stuff isn't all the way back. I know there's some debate there. But Jeff Zimmerman had a cool piece about a TJ honeymoon, right? So there's about a 400 to 600-inning honeymoon. Even if you're going to have a second TJ, you usually last 400 to 600 innings in between. So it's not likely that he's going to go down for TJ next year.

He may go down for just a rest or something. Maybe he's not going to go down for TJ next year. He may be go down for just a rest or something. Maybe he's not going to go in for 200 innings next year, but I think 150, 160 innings and it could be really awesome. And worst case, they're pretty good. Yeah. I think I'm going to buy him.

I think he'll be like, maybe like the 10th pitcher off the board and he has the potential to turn in a top three outcome? Does that sound right for you? Third round-ish? Yeah, third round-ish makes sense. He went at the 2-3 turn of the 15-teamer that I did with Todd a few weeks ago. That was probably at the early end of the range.

The Velo coming back. If the outing on Wednesday was the last we saw of Sale until opening day of 2022, that's ending on a high note. Then he bumps into a second, maybe. Maybe, yeah. Especially in NFBC leagues, more strikeout-heavy formats like that with the overall component, too. People might take on that extra risk because they think, hey, I might be getting closer to peak Sale than people realize.

Are you talking about Sale versus Giolito then? Sale versus Giolito. I think there'd be a little bit of a gap between them. I think the Giolito correction is going to be more of like end of three, beginning of four. Who's a good back-end 10 then for you? Who's a back-end top 10? Who would be like your eighth or seventh starting pitcher? I'm looking to see who went around him.

Sandy Alcantara? Would you take Sale over him? No, I don't think so. Bieber was two picks before Sale. You like Bieber more than Sale? I think I like Sale. Okay. Bieber's coming off a shoulder.

We didn't really see the same resurgence. How about Julio Urias? He went a few picks before sale in this draft. Oh boy. That was tough. I think I might have sale right there.

The other name I'll throw at you, just seeing other guys that went kind of in the late second through early fourth range, Robbie Ray versus Chris Sale for next season. Sale for me. Okay. So ballpark is right. Even if within the range, maybe Sale went a tick on the earlier side in that draft I did a few weeks ago. Probably something we'll talk more about on future pods as we kind of get out of playoff mode here once the playoffs end and get back into draft prep mode.

Of course, we're back here tomorrow. 11-3. Do we have picks? Is there a pick? Oh, you want to make picks? Okay. We can do picks. There's a game today.

Yeah, well, we can make picks. I thought you made your pick kind of in passing. So who are you taking today? Are we going six? Oh, yeah, I did make my pick in passing. I clarified. I said Braves. Yeah. Freed. Yeah. You were on the freed side. But you didn't make a pick.

I'm sticking with the Dodgers. That's right. I said Dodgers were going to win the series down. They have to win tonight. I have picked the Dodgers for the rest of the series. I will be wrong probably again today, and then I can stop being wrong about it. It's so gloriously stupid, this pick-me.

I love that. Yeah, exactly. It's just so much chaos. Yeah, all the chaos. Oh, there's one more question related to those pitchers. What about Glass now? Not coming back next year. Yeah. So, there's one more question related to those pitchers. What about Glass now? Not coming back next year. So,

yeah, 2023. Similar expectations for him in 2023 coming off TJ, though, where he'll probably go with the 2-3 turn or mid-third round if he's completely healthy. I always feel better, though, if I get a start. Like to see, yeah, a little bit. I mean, with Sale, yeah, we get to see a couple months plus

postseason time, too, so that certainly helps. i think it was a broad deal i like i had a couple like i'll rostered sales that didn't really do too much for me this year and i held on to them forever trying to get get him uh that i that i i think i'm out on a little bit like you know like like trying to roster glass now next year and hoping you get three September start No, don't do that. It's keeper and dynasty stashing only. It's not a redraft thing at all. Even very last sorts of picks

maybe in an AL only deep, deep AL only league where that sixth reserve is someone you're never going to use may be there, but then you've got to have some IL spots too. Like Perpetua says Syndergaard, I like it when a guy comes back and throws hard. If a guy comes back and doesn't throw hard, then I'm like, well, he came back.

I'm still kind of interested, but, you know, it usually takes sort of like one to three starts to see Velo. So like one start of Velo coming back off a TJ tells you a lot. There's a lot of information there. So it's always better when somebody comes back and throws once. I'm glancing down trying to see where Syndergaard went in

this draft. Where would you be comfortable taking him? I might do a main next year and I might just be like running nude through the forest sort of deal where I just take sail in the second and I take Thor in the fourth. Let me know what day you're drafting your main. I'll be sure to shut my windows and stay home.

Jeez. Syndergaard went in the 10th round of that same early 15 teamer with a lot of very good players in it but it might but I might it might be fun to put Salem Cinderguard on the same staff because that's the main is like go for it dude well yeah go for it 10th round though I mean you can afford you can afford that that dart at that point I don't know if that's gonna hold I think that's yeah I'm gonna push him I'll push him to the eighth obviously I just put him the surprises. I'll push him to the eighth. Obviously, I just put him in the fourth. I'll push him to the eighth. I'll take some bats in between. Yeah, the eighth is where McClanahan

went in that draft. Well, okay. But if I get either of those, I'll be happy. Maybe that's a bit of a plan here that's starting to form. Thanks for all the great comments on the live stream throughout the the week by the way we really appreciate everybody who watches us live if you are watching us live and could hit the like

button on this video we'd really appreciate that be sure to subscribe to the channel if you haven't done that already on twitter the king of waffles is at you know saris i am confirming that i'm at derek van riper i'm at no other Twitter handle despite my... Not Britt Jarrell. I am not at Britt Jarrell. She has more followers than me and is better at Twitter than I am. So she has her handle. I have mine. But we're back here tomorrow at 11.30 a.m. Eastern. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels.

We're back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.