Rates & Barrels - The Dodgers Are One Win Away & More Second-Half Takeaways

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss the Dodgers' commanding lead over the Yankees after a 4-2 win in Game 3. Plus, they wonder if the TV strike-zone box is ready for an overhaul, and discuss why Brusdar Graterol doesn't strike more hitters out. Away from the World Series, they discuss several notable second-half performances including Blake Snell, Yusei Kikuchi and Hunter Brown with an eye toward early 2025 drafts. Rundown 3:55 Another Strong Start From Walker Buehler 10:29 A Closer Look at Strike Three Against Gleyber Torres in the Seventh Inning 18:02 The Multi-Year Success of Dodger Bullpen Games 26:25 Why Doesn't Brusdar Graterol Get More Strikeouts? 30:48 Giving Blake Snell & Gerrit Cole the SP1 Treatment in 2025? 43:41 Eno's Lingering Concerns About Kevin Gausman 47:55 Is Hunter Brown an SP2 Now? (Top 30 Pitcher) 53:36 Buying 2023-2024 Improvements From Yusei Kikuchi? 56:42 Second-Half Hitter Questions: Josh Lowe's K%, Lars Nootbaar's Health & Sean Murphy's Productivity Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit NYTCooking.com to get inspired. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Tuesday, October 29th. Derek VanRyper, Eno Saris here with you on this episode. We wonder, will the Dodgers sweep the Yankees on Tuesday night and take the Dream World Series and turn it into a nightmare for fans in the Bronx? The Dodgers are going to try to use a bullpen game to close it out. We'll talk about the historical success they have had.

Inno did a deep dive for the athletic that went up on Tuesday. So we'll talk a bit about that. Walker Bueller pitched well again in game three. We'll figure out if the stuff kind of lines up with what we've seen overall in the last couple of weeks, or if it was just an outlier where he still pitched well. There was a really interesting call that went against Gleyber Torres that has pushed me all the way to the side of being opposed to the TV strike zone box. I think it does a lot more harm than good. So we'll talk about that. We're also gonna look at Bruzdar Gratorol. Why

doesn't this guy strike more guys out? I think that's a fair question to ask when you have electric stuff. And we've got a few players from our second half draft that we didn't break down on yesterday's show so we'll make sure we get to those before the end of today's show you know this is not the party hangout we were hoping for so far in this World Series the Dodgers have a commanding 3-0 series lead over the Yankees I was surprised on the broadcast last night they popped up teams that had opened up a 2-0 lead in the World Series 21 times in World Series history those series have gone on to be sweeps the other three times they ended in five so that's really kind of a brutal outlook

anything's possible hey you got Aaron Boone right there and you're dug out as your manager so if there's anyone that can believe the the power of coming really a brutal outlook. has the inside track to be the World Series MVP, who saw that coming even one week ago as he was hobbling his way through the NLCS? Yeah, we should have. I mean, it's pretty impressive given that the injury he had is kind of like a three week injury. He took a couple days off. He had the tape job that we talked about before and he's just managed to get through it. I don't get why they are pitching him the way they're pitching him. The hits that he's hitting, I'm like, yeah, Freddie Freeman can hit homers on those pitches. Those aren't the pitches. It must just be a failure of execution on some level. But he's ready to pounce on any mistake.

And he just has this, this cool swing where it's, it's just like a drops the hammer on it. But he also, he also has this thing where he kind of like finishes high and he's, and you can see him taking the pitch and trying to lift it, you know, like he's trying to lift it and hit it out. But he has the record now for, he's tied to the record for homers and consecutive World Series games with five. Really? Yeah, yeah, they showed that a couple of times, but he's tied

with George Springer. So he homers tonight, he's going to have the record for homers in consecutive World Series games. Mind blowing. I think the other part have the record for homers in consecutive World Series games. Mind blowing. I think the other part of the series that has gone in a way that I didn't expect is Walker Bueller, right? We talked about the conditions at Citi Field maybe being optimal when he delivered a performance

in the NLCS that we weren't expecting and I think many of us thought, okay, slightly tougher lineup facing the Yankees, going into Yankee Stadium. This probably won't happen again. I don't know if it was as crisp from a pure stuff perspective but five scoreless innings, two hits, five Ks by results, it was more than most of us would have projected for Buhler throughout the final six weeks of the season when he just for the most part,

didn't look like himself coming back from injury. Yeah, he had a 119 stuff plus in that Mets outing. That was the best he'd had since the end of 2001. 2021. Yeah, 2021. I knew something sounded wrong with that. He'd been pitching for a while. The movement that we saw that we thought,

hey, maybe this is headwinds, maybe it's because it's cold. It showed up again in New York. So there might've been some headwind action that helped him in the city field. I think the cold might be helping him some. I think on the other hand, what we're seeing from Walker Bueller is just, he's gotten better. He's gotten more comfortable. You know, he's, it just took him some time to come back from surgery. I don't know.

I think that's just as viable an explanation as it's the cold or it's the conditions. And my reasoning for this is twofold. First of all, you have the stuff increase, which is across the board. And if you just want to break it down real quick, he had an inch extra ride on his fore seam, an inch extra drop, actually maybe as much as three extra inches of drop

on the knuckle curve. His cutter had three inches more horizontal break than usual. His sweeper had three inches more horizontal break than usual. Uh, his sweeper had six inches more horizontal break. I mean, when you see something like that, it's hard to say, Oh, he changed his grip on the one pitch. You know, when you see something that's across the board, that's like, something's dialing in.

A lot of times pitchers will tell me something earlier is going well. You know, like I changed my pelvic action on the mound or, you know, I would like to get the Yamamoto thing. Oh, I moved, I moved my position on the rubber. Something earlier than like, oh, I changed the grip because the grip will be very specifically one pitch. So something about his mechanics is locking in and it could be as simple as confidence and aggression locking in to that situation. But also, the command on his curveball has completely changed.

And so, what you see here on the left is early curveball usage, September curveball usage. And what you see are a lot of curveballs in the middle zone. So I think some of this is count leverage, because I remember watching those games, I watched a lot of Buehler for some reason some reason and in those games I feel like he was trying to get back into counts and didn't trust his fastball so that's why you see a lot

of curveballs sort of middle middle but you also when you see those bottom curveballs they're either kind of bounced or they're above the bottom of the strike zone what you see on the right here from Walker Buehler is his playoff curveball usage. And he's really putting that curveball right at the bottom of the zone, like really on the black. Another way of saying it, 80% of his curveballs in the regular season were in heart, shadow or chase. So basically competitive, you know?

Another way of saying it is 20% of his curve balls were waste pitches during the regular season. That's down to 10%. So he's cut his waste pitches on the curve ball in half. So it's not only that his stuff is good, I see much better curve ball command from him. I just remember a lot of bounce pitches on that pitch during the regular season.

You know, I looked at the difference, the difference between 80 and 90% is five curveballs that were basically competitive curveballs in October that weren't in September. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it is. You know, five curveballs, that's a strike's, that's, you know, a strikeout, right? That's an extra strikeout.

That's an extra strike at a point where you need it. That, that can be the difference. So I see improved command. I don't know enough about his mechanics to tell you exactly what it is, but I would assume to improve mechanics and improve stuff. So I do wonder what this means for him going forward. I mean, you can't give him a long-term contract, you know, I don't think,

because he didn't pitch that well, and it's two Tommy Johns. You maybe could give him kind of the Nate Ivaldi special. I think you'd be looking in the range for a multi-year deal without multiple opt-outs. You'd probably be thinking four for 80 at the high end, and that seems pretty risky because it is two Tommy Johns. He could probably get more if he does the shorter deal,

or something with multiple opt-outs pitches well for one more season. Could he sign like a Blake Snellish deal? The Snell or the Rodin in San Francisco, I keep thinking that's maybe his best path to the biggest possible payout. But if four for 80 is out there in a place he wants to be, maybe there's also a sense of that's a lot of guaranteed money. And I'm happy enough with that. That could also be the case depending on who's offering it.

Right. I mean, like that's, but if you're thinking the Kevin Gossman deal or like a nine figure deal for Walker Bueller, I don't think he was able to do enough prior to this late postseason surge to earn that sort of deal, which was the trajectory he was on before he had the second Tommy John, right? He was top 10, top 15 starting pitcher with relative ease prior to that injury. So if he thinks he can be that guy again

That's probably the direction that that he'll choose to go is to hit free agency again After 2025 with some kind of high av opt-out situation that gives him some floor but more flexibility There was something that happened in this game when the Yankees were trying to rally in the seventh inning. Gleiber Torres was up against Anthony Banda and I think everybody remembers this sequence right here. It's 2-2, Banda throws a high fastball, Gleiber tries to hold back on a swing but it's a called strike anyway and the TV box, strike zone we see on the broadcast, made that pitch look like it was just awful.

It looked like it was a solid four inches above the top of the zone in real time. And we were in the discord getting frustrated about it. I checked a couple different things as I was going along. I popped open my phone, looked at game day. And you do see a pitch that was above the top of the game day strike zone for the called strike three. Looks like three inches above the zone or something.

Yeah, it kind of confirms what we saw on television, but then this morning I opened up the UMP scorecard and expected to see this called strike against Torres as one of the top three most impactful calls of the game, and it wasn't. I don't even think it was charted as a missed call because if you look at the stat cast, the matchup shot from today,

Banda versus Torres for that last pitch, it's a strike right at the top of the zone. And then I decided to go back and take a still shot of where Torres is trying to hold back on his swing. And you can see, even with the TV box being, I think, arguably too low, like Will Smith's glove as he's catching the pitch is almost entirely above the TV strike zone box. The pitch really isn't that high above the middle of Gleyber's torso.

Right. Because the strike zone is between the midpoint between your shoulders and the top of your belt and what you really notice too when you watch the video version when Torres kind of stands up at the end of the plate appearance the pitch is like just above his belt when he's completely standing up that gives you some perspective of just like how high that pitch actually was right he doesn't he doesn't have his batting stance like that he crouches like it and like most guys do but I think it just gave me a better sense that this TV zone, which people have complained about

for a long time, I'm not the first to complain about it, it probably does a little more harm than good. And Joe Davis has been great on the call throughout the entire playoffs. You can hear him on the broadcast saying, oh, that ball's high. And it's like, well, he's sort of the authority in the moment, aside from the umpire.

So it convinces you as the viewer, like, yeah, I just saw that ball go above the TV strike zone. The announcer says it's high. This is terrible. And the more I look at it, the more I think that may have been an absolutely correct called strike call. But it, at the very least, was in the too close to take

spot for Gleiber and it's a much better pitch from Banda than I thought when I watched it in real time. Yeah I mean a couple things are going on what happens with Statcast is there's you know the immediate feed which is dialed down so that you know you can intake all that information right like you could you couldn't take the full feed of stack ass information and break it down into you know the with the skeletons that you see and all that stuff you can't do that right away because it's too much information so what they have is like basically a skeleton you know skin and bones kind of

quick one you know that just gives you certain things like fastball, V lo pitch type place in the zone. And that's so that it can go up on the score bug. It can go up on the screen. And so the announcers have an access to, you know, their own tools that are in game and they can see stuff. So the end game stuff is supposed is supposed to is not washed quote unquote and the next day stuff goes through different pipelines, it's cleaned up

quote unquote. I don't know exactly what that means but it has to do with hey sometimes it'll say hey this ball like went through this player's head and you're like I don't remember that happening in the game. So it's you know basically like remove that or you check video and you kind of triangulate or maybe you even have like, you know, an algorithm that goes through and like, and takes out outliers, whatever it is. So you wash it and then you produce the correct thing there.

It's kind of important for them to dial this in though. Cause now take a leap forward to next year. It's reported that we're gonna be using the challenge system system at least in spring training and that we're going to be testing the challenge system. So the challenge system is going to go like, Oh, there's a pitch. And then the hitter taps his helmet. There's no like waiting for the, the, the manager to say anything.

The hitter will tap his helmet or the catcher will, or somebody, and they'll challenge it. So the challenge system, if we're watching at home and we see that call and then Gleyber Torres challenges it, which one will they be looking at? Right. The unwashed? You're gonna need a more precise.

Or the washed. Yeah, a more precise box that we see in real time. I think they would have the more accurate strike zone available. The washed version is what would pop up on the board. But even if you see something that's high when you watch it in real time, you're like, well, they should challenge.

And they challenge, and then they show you, and they're like, no, it actually wasn't high. You're like, wait, what? Then what was I watching? Why did you have that box out there? So whatever they challenge with, I feel like it has to be what we're watching. If not, people are gonna get angry. It just needs to be what we're watching if not people are

gonna get angry it just needs to be consistent right that's the main thing whatever they're challenging on has to be what we're watching because if they challenge it then we're just gonna have just as much yelling as ever and people start to question the process of the the computers basically you know and say oh well how can you show me that it's not a strike and then they challenge it and it is a strike. Are these, isn't this information coming from the same place? You know, I get some utility from it, but I hear what you're saying. I come with a healthy dose of like, that may not be the exact strike zone, but it helps

me understand where the strike zone is. That's my attitude, but I feel like it's authoritarian. Like when they put it on the screen, you're like, oh, that is the strike zone, you know? And that's how a lot of announcers act to it. And they are sort of the voice of God in these moments. So you're like, oh, you know, that was a, that was a ball, but it turned out it was a strike. So yeah, there's something that needs to be dialed in. And that's what I'll be watching in spring when they do the challenge system will will be will we see one thing and the thing that's annoying is in spring games I they're never going to show us the box. Right so in that instance it'll just be what you think. But they won't have this kind of important thing that I'm saying which is if they show us a box and then it's wrong in the challenge, then I think that will piss people off.

They'll just get rid of the box. There will be no box if they can't put a box on the screen that matches what's happening in the challenges. That will probably be the outcome because yeah, you're right. People will be very upset. I think we all owe Mark Carlson an apology. He was behind the plate calling Paulson strikes on Monday night in game three. Hi, it's Samantha Shea from Wirecutter. he was behind the plate calling Paulson strikes on Monday night in game three.

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for the Athletic on Tuesday. Are we deceived by recent success of Dodger bullpen games or is this something they have executed very well or maybe as well as anyone since bullpen games really became a thing? Well, you know, the thing that's hard to study about bullpen games is that there are sort of planned bullpen games and then there are bullpen games that happen by accident.

And so, you know, I did a query for the last 10 playoffs and said, you know, which games did the starter throw fewer than 30 pitches? And I thought, well, that's that's a bullpen game. That's a good way to define a bullpen game. And when I did that, all teams were 16 and 24 in those games, you know, like a high fours, a year, a like close to five, you know. And so you're saying, okay, so the bullpen game is a thing you do when your back is against the wall and you have no other options. That's what 16 and 24 tells me. It means that you could win, and maybe that's better than your fifth starter

would have been those days, but it's a losing record. But the problem is, some of those are, you know, Luis Severino in the 2017 AL wild card one. He throws 29 pitches, gives up three runs, gets two outs, and gets taken out of the game. But that wasn't a planned bullpen game. They wanted Luis Severino to pitch. It just didn't have it that night. So I went through all 40 of these bullpen games and marked them for whether or not I thought they were planned. You know just use my intuition and sometimes it was in the report like i wasn't sure on one of the dust in may games is he an opener or was he a starter that was supposed to start and didn't make it. But then i read the report afterwards and there was one that very clearly in the right up said.

It was always the plan to have just in may do the first inning and Gonsolin do the second or whatever it was you know so I was like okay that's a bullpen game and so I went through it in planned bullpen games teams are 14 and 18 now you're getting closer to like okay I can turn a game that I should lose into a 50-50 proposition well guess who's done the most bullpen games in the playoffs since we started doing these things. Team. It's the Dodgers there all the time.

The Dodgers. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not only that. I mean, they've done it nine times. You can combine the next three teams that have been in the playoffs the most behind them.

And it's, I think it's the guardians and Yankees and Braves. If you combine all of them, they together have played 50 more games in the playoffs than the Dodgers themselves and have five bullpen games, whereas the Dodgers have nine. The Astros have been in more playoff games than the Dodgers in the last 10 years. The Astros have two playoff bullpen games. So it's a thing that Dodgers do and there are six and three in them. Of course. So I think it has something to do with, you know, the quality of the bullpen. I think it has something to do with the quality of the defense.

We've talked about this, you know, I think it has to do with probably the quality of plans, but that's something I couldn't analyze for the story. But I would say that, you know, you know, this thing that we've been talking about number of times that the people have seen the reliever, I think they're good at that. The Copac Verdugo home run last night, that was Copac's third time through the heart of the Yankee order. Right, which makes me think that perhaps we won't see Kopeck in those exact matchups again in game four or even game five. The series gets extended. So Kopeck has faced Torres, Wells, and Verdugo three times. So he's actually

available for Judge Stanton Chisholm if they want. Right, they've done training against those guys twice. So instead, if you see Kopek against Judge today, instead of training against Judge, it's because that would be training his third time against Judge and they're gonna switch it up. That makes sense though.

We talked about even Jazz getting more looks at that sweeper in that matchup in game two and looking like he made some adjustments against it. So yeah, you toggle it. Yeah, you don't want training against Jazz again after that, right? You know, that was a pretty good at bat. Yeah.

So, you know, I would say that tonight, you know, Anthony Banda has not faced Juan Soto yet, or did that happen last night? Banda has not faced Juan Soto yet, or did that happen last night? Banda did not end up facing Soto because of the Gleyber Torres strikeout. Yeah, so Banda has not faced Soto yet. They've used Kopek, Treynon, and Grattarol, and Brazier against Soto. So maybe tonight is Banda's turn, or I thought Hudson might be a guy that they'd throw against

Soto. So, um, anyway, they've got some options. They've done a really good job again of keeping everybody out of three, you know, only Copac against Torres Wells and Verdugo. And I think there they say, you know, how scared are we of that group and how, how much, how much confidence do we have in Copac? So anyway, I would say that the hardest thing for me as an analyst, you know, in predicting these things and predict, projecting out the pitching and talking about the pitching matchups and,

and, you know, the things I have to do in the postseason is that I have a internal bias that probably all of us have, which is that if you gave me a choice between a pitcher I thought could go three or four innings in a bullpen game, I normally would take the pitcher that I thought could go three or four innings. So tonight, I would normally say that Luis Hill has the pitching advantage over the bullpen game. I'm not sure that's true.

Well, there's a couple reasons for that. One, Luisal's command issues will be tested in every way by the Dodgers. We've talked about that as part of our series preview. This is a particularly challenging matchup for him. Naturally, the expectation I have is that Heal will somehow go six and be amazing, right? He'll do something spectacular.

Dominant in the zone. If it works for him, he's just throwing nasty stuff in the zone. Yeah, but the question I had for you, thinking about the success of the bullpen games the Dodgers have had too, is the Dodgers just score a lot. What if they just out hit their pitching in those games because they score as much as anybody

in most post-seasons they play in? Oh, that's a, I didn't put that in the story. That's a good idea. Because we're dealing with such a small sample still that you know hey Well there and I know they've had the shutout the bullpen game shutout against San Diego that just happened not that long ago Like we we have those things fresh Ramon's win games last year You know if I focus just on the pitching for the Rangers, I'd be like oh this these strategies work great You know they want a World Series, but it wasn't because of the pitching that they won the World Series

It's a good point. I mean, I did throw a defense for that reason, but I should have thought of offense too. So yeah, I do like that they've got a couple twists in this bullpen though, where they can throw Kopek against the heart of the order, and they have not seen him as much. That lines up really, really well for them.

There was a question that came in through our Discord about a member of the Dodgers. Yeah, I guess he might be the opener. Have they announced that? I haven't seen an announcement on that yet. Maybe they were saving him. But you know, it lines up pretty well. The only problem is that he's seen Torres three times,

so that's not great. So maybe he's actually the second time, he's the second reliever. Could be. Why doesn't Bruzdar Gratoral strike more guys out? This question came from Enrico Palazzo in our Discord. I think it has to do with the type of movement he has. If you look at the, you know, stat-cast boxes where you can see, you know,

oh, red is good and blue is below average. He has below average ride and he has above average horizontal movement on his, on a synchronous slider. So he's an east-west guy. And I just think that east-west means that, you know, the ball is moving along the barrel. I remember this, some research, and I've read this before and lost it, but it's somewhere out there. I'm pretty sure there was some really early pitch effects

research on Fangrass that kind of highlighted that horizontal movement was better for ground balls and vertical movement was better for whiffs. Makes sense. I mean, it's intuitive based on how you think about, how swings work, and what happens when you're a little bit off on each of those pitches. I think your margin for error is greater on stuff

that moves horizontally than it is on stuff that moves vertically as a hitter. You'll make some sort of contact with Gratorol. Now, it is plus plus movement and plus plus sync and I think that's why you'll see Gratorol and Trinen, who have actually somewhat similar kind of stuff, you know, they don't have great strikeout rates, but they have great groundball rates. So for his career, Graderol 61% groundball and 20% striker out. Blake Trinen for his career is 56% groundball and 25% strikeout. So, you know, Trenton has, you know, had some 30% strikeout years in his best years, but he's kind of similar to Graterall in that way that a lot of his movement is

horizontal. He just has a little bit more vertical movement, I think, than, uh, than Graterall. I think what they're hoping, you know, with Graterall is to get their training replacement basically. That's what it seems like. It's been a nice lift having him available for this series for sure.

And the other thing that was thrown out there in the discord last night when this question popped up was that Grinderol has very low, very short extension. So hitters would have more time to pick up those pitches too. In addition to East West, they might see it for a little bit longer and that might reduce a little bit of the effectiveness and make it less of a swing and miss

relative to its stuff qualities. That to me also made some sense intuitively. Yeah, they could see it longer. I do think there's actually kind of a relationship between his extension and the type of movement he gets. That's a little bit complicated, but I think it has something to do with where you want to release a sinker and slider,

and where you might want to release a fore seam, that with great ride, I don't know. I think there's a little bit more, you just sort of cut yourself off. They're also like, I think they both are kind of cross body. They put their leg in front of them and kind of throw over the leg. It's kind of hard to get great extension

if you're putting your leg down, you know? Just think about that at home, like kind of put your front leg, you know, in front of your body and then try to reach out really far in front of you. Yeah, it doesn't work. It's mechanically almost impossible. You're blocking yourself.

There's a relationship between Ryan Walker, Ruzdar Gradoval, and Blake Trinen, where they all throw these great sinkers and great sliders and don't have great extension, and throw across their body. There's a mechanical link there. Thanks a lot for that question, Enrico. We always appreciate those.

You can send questions through Discord. You can send them to our email, ratesandbarrels.gmail.com, we'll take a lot of questions as we move into off-season mode here in the near future. Got a few leftovers, good leftovers. Second half surgers from our second half rebound draft that we didn't talk about on our Monday episode. Are you giving Blake Snell the ace treatment in 2025 drafts?

Because I've had this theory kicking around for a couple of seasons now with guys like Snell and like Dylan Cease, the high walk rate, high strikeout rate starters that when the price inches towards the max, when everything clicks, the ratios are good and the price goes up, I tend to stay away. When they have that kind of high variance downside sort of year, the ratios get a little ugly, the price falls, that's when I tend to buy. But we've seen Snell do this enough times. When did we just see from Snell? I think we saw both in the same season, but more recently, he was a $32 pitcher in the

second half, which is elite, right? That's about as good as a pitcher can be in a half season. It's up over 30. Which weird, he won't be that for the full year because he was probably, was the whole idea they had to be negative when we were buying them? Right, they had to be negative in the first half and they had to have played, and he was a $32 player

in the second half of the season. It was fantastic. What do you think his full season player number was? So you're looking it up, aren't you? I'm looking at it 38th He was 38 among pitchers. That's what I've got. I've got an eight dollar pitcher. So he was that bad I got an eight dollar pitcher out of him and he was a 32 dollar pitcher in the second half Just by the auction calculator, he's just south of Tanner Hauck, Spencer Schwalmbach,

Nate Iovaldi, and just north of Michael Wacha, Carlos Rodone, Tobias Myers, and Ranger Suarez. So useful pitcher and great in the second half. Just a two or three dollars short of Joe Ryan, who had a very opposite kind of shape to his season. I did want to point out that I've got context neutral, stuff driven projections. So, good old PPERA is back in your ear. This is without park factors.

Tyler Glassnow, 298, number one. Paul Skeens, 299, number two. Jacob deGrom, 3.1, number three. Garrett Crochet, fourth, 3.15. Tarek Scoobel, fifth, with a 3.22. Spencer Strider, sixth, with a 3.24. Blake Snell, with a 3.26. And Logan Webb, even Park Neutral, 3.31.

Logan Gilbert, 3.26 and Logan Webb, even Park Neutral 3.31, Logan Gilbert 3.31 and Framber Valdes in 10th with a 3.35. That's the top 10 by PPRA, Blake Snell is in it and that's before he has a park. Impressive. I don't know though, is he likely to go to a good park? Like who has money and a good park? I don't know. I think he's more likely to go to the Yankees or even the Dodgers. It just seemed like they're always willing to spend money. I bet you the Giants actually resign him.

It makes a lot of sense for him to stay. Everything seemed to work kind of for all parties. We talked about the importance of them getting another difference maker behind Logan Webb when they signed Blake Snell in the first place. So to re-up with him makes a lot of sense. They have decent but not great pitching depth, I would say, you know?

So if you've got that, you say, we want Blake's now, we hope he's healthy at the right moments. And that would make sense. I think that, yeah, he might come back. Even though there was some stuff during the year where he was critical of the Giants, you know, process of bringing him back from injury.

I don't know, maybe it's hard to know how big a deal that is until you're in the inner circle with Blake and he's talking about how much he hates the Giants. And you're like, whoa, okay. He's looking for a better deal. He's looking for the same deal from somebody else. It's so hard to know to you how much was caused by signing as late as he did.

I don't think you have to sign early in free agency to be comfortable, but he signed so late in the process that that probably didn't do him any favors. We know guys that have been through it multiple times, can ramp up on their own to most of the- What are they blaming on Farhan? Yeah. They're just like,

Farhan wanted you out there cause his job was online, but he's gone now so you can sign with us. Yeah. I think my assumption in having those PPERA numbers gives me a little more confidence that maybe, maybe we should be treating Blake Snell like an ace. The related question is, and it seems like the projection is trust this is a skill,

do you trust Blake Snell's hit suppression enough to say even if he were to land in a more hitter-friendly environment, he's still going to be okay? Would a team with a bad defense sign Blake Snell? To me, that's one of the only ways where you'd start to lose a lot in terms of the consistently low bad bits that he runs.

I think part of it's your defense, part of it's your stuff, and it had to be a pretty bad defense to negate what Blake Snell does to opposing hitters. The problem is that the bad defensive teams are the bad teams, and I don't see any of them signing him. The one sort of red flaggy area might be Cincinnati.

So the bad defensive teams last year by fielding runs by stat cast were the White Sox not signing him, the A's not signing him, the Angels, could, they could sign him. I mean, if he wants just one massive contract, like they could be the highest bidder, it's possible. That would not be, I would not be rushing to get Blake Snell the Angel.

That would actually affect my ranking of him, I think. Nationals were fourth worst. They could actually sign Blake Snell, but you know, saying that they were fourth worst last year, I think. Nationals were fourth worst. They could actually sound like Snell, but saying that they were fourth worst last year, I guess you could be a little bit worried about C.J. Abrams at short, but I think that they're also a team that's going to cycle through their players and get them in the right place and probably improve upon that. If there was a bad defensive team in the bottom four that I thought would get better next year would be the Nationals.

Right, and they'll be relying a little bit less on some of those stopgap players and more like having full seasons from some young guys that should make them better. Right, you add Brady House to the infield eventually, there's one more guy that should be at least a good glove. Man, you're giving me nightmares though about Blake Snell hunting with the Angels

because I think I'd have the same reaction. Like nothing just work Nothing works out for this franchise. Why? Yeah And I don't know that they're gonna get better defensively. I don't know. I can't circle the guy at least Cincinnati's the fifth worst I guess he could go to Cincinnati, but they don't seem to spend money like that Pittsburgh or six worse They know they're not gonna spend the money Miami's seventh I you know Boston is a little bit of a problem

Boston was the eighth worst defensive team. They have a Terrible park I think for pitchers if Blake Snell signed in Boston or Anaheim I would downgrade him almost everywhere else It's neutral or or great and you're saying among places that are realistic to sign him It's not like you've crossed off Colorado, Blake Snell's not gonna opt into that. I guess Baltimore was the ninth worst defensive team, but I actually think in Baltimore he'd be fine because Mount Baltimore is in his favor.

He's a lefty, so he's gonna suppress lefties, and then the wall suppresses righties, so I wouldn't be afraid in Baltimore at all. So the toss-up would actually be something to the effect of Blake Snell versus Garrett Cole. I mean there's a few other options that go in the same range but they're going within a few picks of each other right now. There's a few closers sort of jammed in to that group too. We'll make it a triangle match. Would you rather draft at cost right now for 2025 Blake Snell in an early draft, not knowing where he's going to pitch Garrett Cole or Yoshinobu Yamamoto?

95 innings from Cole, 104 from Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamato got 90 plus 18 in the postseason. So those Cole post season innings too though. Cole ones too. Yeah. So that's 108 for Yamato and, Ooh, 117 for Cole. Cole's looks so weird in the playoffs. He has a 17% strikeout rate. Like what?

That is not Garrett Cole. For his career, he has a 29% strikeout rate. And in 2023, he had 27% strikeout rate with reduced VELO. And we thought, oh, he's mixing the cutter in. He's trying not to give up homers. But then in 2024, he had reduced VELO again and injury and reduced strikeout rate. And now he has even more reduced strikeout rate in the playoffs as Garrett Cole.

Yeah, that worries me. There are all of them are 100 inning guys that you're hoping for 150 next year. I think I go with Yamamoto. The strikeout rate is there. The stuff is improving in the postseason, the slider, he finally has a slider that he didn't have for much of the year. I think he'll be better next year.

There's a health question with all of them. So I think I'd take Yamamoto in this group. I hope it's not recency bias. No, I don't think it is. I think I'm actually content to have Cole as an ace. I just think I'd be drafting second and third pitchers a little more aggressively if I waited to this range and took him I think if I had my choice of all three I think I'm on

Yamamoto as well we know he's not going to be heavily worked in the sense of working on four days rest they'll probably stay on five days rest next year so that probably tops him out in 170, 175 innings for Cap. Oh, probably not gonna give you a lot of two start weeks. Yeah, but I mean, you'll get two start weeks from Snell and Cole, but if there's more injury risk on both of Snell and Cole, and I think there probably is at this stage,

given that Snell's missed time with a variety of different injuries. Regular season high water marks in the 180s has happened twice innings-wise for him in the last six seasons where it's been possible. I'm throwing out 20-20 because he couldn't throw 180 innings that year. Cole's a little bit like Simeon

where he was like posting, posting, posting, and whoa. Yeah. What happened? He could go right back to posting. Maybe Cole's the answer. But the postseason strikeout rate being down, I mean, it's facing the Dodgersgers the Royals don't strike out that much even Cleveland doesn't strike out that much so you think about those matchups maybe playing into that a little bit tiny sample 25.4 percent k-rate

in the regular season plus at 27 percent last season I think that gives you an idea that Cole's not that elite, the elite of the elite anymore. He's still very good, but you need the volume for that strikeout rate to give you ace strikeout totals over the course of the season. We saw it a year ago, right? He had 222 Ks last year. The rate doesn't matter if you stay that healthy. It's hard to bank on health at that level given the career workload that Garrett Cole

has amassed. Yeah, usually good for wins. I mean, in the three seasons before last, this current season, Garrett Cole had 16, 13, and 15 wins. He's a 20-win season on his roster. So like, I think in terms of overall quality, the wins will be there, but I think Snell will be signed by a contender,

so in terms of wins, maybe all three are kind of equal. Yeah, I think that's why. They all make sense, and I think they do fit into a strategy of waiting a little bit, waiting for the first three rounds of the pass before jumping in and getting your SP one in round four of a 15-team leg. I think I'm comfortable doing that with that group

currently sitting in that range. We'll see if they stay there though as draft season rolls along. I know you were very cautious around Kevin Gossman this year and my assumption is you didn't end up drafting him anywhere. Right? Did you have any Kevin Gossman in 2024? As you said yesterday and as we say all the time, every player at a certain point could make a lot of sense from a cost perspective.

So Kevin Gossman is going around pick 135, very wide range in the seven drafts that have taken place so far, as early as pick 88, as late as pick 191. Let's say he stays in this 110 to 130 range though. Are you comfortable there? That's 110 to 130 overall or among pitchers? Overall. So yeah, among pitchers would be a smash, like huge value. But 110, 130 overall means late SP2, early SP3 probably is how you're using him in a 15 team league. And it kind of fits into the injured guys we talked about yesterday, the Senga, Rodin, Wu, Steele, Gray, McClanahan,

they all go right in that same pocket. And then you see, oh, Jared Jones is sitting down there too. It's kind of Jared Jones and Kevin Gossman and Robbie Ray sitting there, just behind that group we talked about yesterday. Pass on all, I take almost every name you said over him. I will be heavily influenced by PPERA and the projections and stuff. And I'm interested to see what the new stuff, the revamp says about Gossman, but this projection

for a 4-1 ERA and a 22% strikeout rate leaves him behind Sean Manaya, leaves them behind Tanner Bybee, Joe Ryan, Casey Meis, leaves them behind Edward Carrera, Hayden Burnsong, leaves them behind David Festa, Reese Olsen, leaves them behind Will Warren. I mean, who knows if that's believable because he has less of a track record, but I don't know these are behind Nathan Ivaldi by point three point like three points of ERA like point three. I'm not firmly out I'm not taking there. I'm curious why Jerry Jones is two pitches. Yeah It's two pitches and he's lost the stuff. He's a little bit I think you're going to be more Velo dependent when you have two pitches. Imagine even Spencer Strider, but he's throwing 94.

Yeah, it's not as great as what you get from Helpy Strider. He wouldn't have done what Spencer Strider did. Yeah. So I think Gossman with the Velo drop, the stuff drop, he just doesn't have that wide arsenal. He hasn't been able to spin a ball. And I think it's a little bit of the danger of change up first pitcher, aging, dropping stuff,

two pitch pitcher, it's like all sort of coming together. I find it interesting that Jared Jones goes in the same range and his earliest pick is 110. There's not anyone who's reached as much for Jared Jones as there is for someone who reached for Kevin Gosman. I would be launching myself across the table to hit the buzzer and ask for Jared Jones over Kevin Gosman. Like I would feel so good about my pick. Who knows if that means I'd be right, but like that just tickles me in all the ways that, you know, I would like to be tickled. What?

You know, like Jared Jones, like stuff Meister, dude, young guy with, and he's not even a two-pitch guy. And I'm almost cracking. I'm almost in tears cracking. No, leave it in producer Brian. Leave it in producer Brian. I am fighting back tears of laughter at this moment right now. Producer Brian, leave it in, Producer Brian. You gotta leave it in. Fighting back tears of laughter at this moment right now.

We'll keep making references to that. You gotta leave it in. Yeah, I don't think we can fix it. I think that's more a candidate for a drop than anything. Yeah, I think it is too. Oh, cut that for future use, yeah. Is Hunter Brown an easy SP2 for you based on the way his season finished

and his turnaround started after pretty much a bad first month. We talked a lot about him over the course of the year. It was a $17 second half. Range, a little bit similar to Gossman at the high end a little earlier. Not falling as far as Gossman falls sometimes. I almost wonder if you can get

caught up in the overall numbers for Brown still not popping as much as they should because he did so much damage to his ratios in the first few weeks of the season. I kept using him throughout the second half and thinking he's better than what the overall results were. At least as good as a 349 ERA, and probably better than that 127 whip because the walk rate's not terrible, and I don't think his stuff is particularly hittable. So unless we're really worried about the Astros defense or something along those lines, I don't really see what would hold me back

from jumping in with Hunter Brown as someone that might go ahead of all that cluster we just talked about. I mean, Brown is up in the 90 range overall, so it's Brown versus Jack Flaherty, Brown versus Jill Ryan, Brown versus Tyler Glass now, who's got a lot of uncertainty with his health right now. Think I like Hunter Brown at least as much as Flaherty,

if not more. I think we did get some good news about Tyler Glass now, by the way. Yeah, the last update. They showed his face and they showed his face. Inflammation was going down earlier in the month. It has gone down. That was what they said. They have not provided an update. I have not seen an update on roto wire yet indicating that he's resumed throwing.

And that inflammation has gone down note came out about a month ago. So we need to start seeing some progression. I thought they were saying something in a series. Maybe. Hunter Brown is what we're talking about. And I've got a projection for him that puts him in the, basically around 25, and in a virtual tie with Justin Steele, Aaron Nola, Michael

King and a better ERA than Garrett Cole but Cole with the better strikeout rate. So yes I think he's an easy SB2 and I think he's a win for Stuff Plus. Stuff Plus said he always had this in him. He did have to put the pieces together right around it. But, you know, this is why I may still have a Graham Ashcraft somewhere on a roster next year. They're like, if Graham Ashcraft could just throw forth the third pitch or something.

They give just if Graham Ashcraft could just throw forth the third pitch or something He was taken one time at pick 729 just so you know you get a pretty little Undrafted six times by you know, Sarah's is in the 50th round of his draft in the hole I mean, hey, you got to have stuff you believe in otherwise. What's the point of anything? Yeah, you could become the closer for the Reds next year pretty easily there was an update on glass now He was on foul territory a few days ago and said he was a reimagined recently had not thrown in a month But everything looked like it was fully healed and that's it. That's the one that they said yeah, so that's very very good So that's yeah But it's not the same as you know having him seeing him in a thing and then then I think he's

Tyler glass was almost like a personal Rorschach test, you know Did he have a good season or not 134 innings they were good innings. What did the auction calculator say? Let's say like 19 bucks 14 bucks 21st best pitcher. Where you drafted him, yeah. You could quibble with the actual number. It's more instructive that he was in the top 20 for pitchers than it is what the actual dollar number is.

I think when we talked about him last time, I said you were right from like a skills, like is he that good perspective? And then the injury people were right in the, didn't make it through the season healthy Like that was that was also kind of a so kind of a split Maybe a slight frustration where you had to get him because you want more than what glass now did if you're drafting as the fifth Or six pitcher off the board

There is a little element though of replacement level especially with this kind of season He had because I think you could have dropped him. He has a long enough absence. If you have that sort of ability, or if you had a league with IL spots, then of course it's easier to stash them away, add someone else to the roster and manage it. But the more shallow the league, the easier it is to replace him. Finding pitching in your main event was very hard this year, right? We did really well in pitching, but let me see his game log.

So he ended the season in August. So you could have had another pitcher for all of September. I don't really remember what the big waiver wire pickups were in September, but if you could get two or three more dollars on the waiver wire after that, then it makes him a better pitcher. Or if you stream particularly well, if that's a strength and you were

able to take advantage of some lineups that were really beat up at the end of the season, then you had that as well. How about you say Kikuchi? What's next for him? And we've seen a two-year improvement in the walk rate, looked great in Houston, finally put up excellent ratios. His second half, much like Hunter Brown's,

right in that $17, $18 range, depending on how you want to use the play-or-ator. but do you see continued success from Kikuchi's a little older than you realize because he was a pro in Japan for a long time before he came over to Major League Baseball but I'm expecting a pretty nice payday for him he would keep throwing out like the idea of a four-year deal I think he's gonna get something along those lines and probably something close to 20 million a year because he's looked good each of the last two seasons and Even if he's more of like a fantasy

Sp3 I think he's somebody you do want taking the ball in Playoff series. I think he's above that line in terms of the quality of his arsenal, you know and right now The injury concerns are pretty reduced. You know, I mean, he's looked good for two years in a row. 167 and two thirds in 23, 175 and two thirds last year for Kukuchi, if you get 150, 160 innings, that's bulk these days. I've got him by projections, you know, virtual tie with Jared Jones, Nick Pavetta,

kind of another high stuff, volatile ERA guy, right there with Taj Bradley. So this is the potential minefield, but also upside pick right there with Nick Lodolo. This is a really exciting territory. I love this. This is where I love shopping, but it's also a difficult place to get it right. I mean, Brian Wu is a little bit below in terms of projections, but I like him better. So I wouldn't just say that he's exactly where his projection has him, which is around top 40. But I think I think he'll be in my top 40 top 45.

Yeah, I like him. And I think that, you know, pairing Kikuchi with one of those younger guys that could break out, get your risk in different baskets. All right. So you see kind of a fairly priced guy going inside the first 10 rounds, third starting pitcher, maybe your fourth, depending on how aggressive you are with pitching, but makes sense. I would say high floor, but it's not really.

It's weird. It's just for, there's just always been something a little bit out of alignment with how good his skills are and where his ratios come in and for the second half in Houston was kind of the first time he exceeded like wildly exceeded expectations at a level you wouldn't expect to be sustainable but has shown us enough big picture skills changes where I think it ends up being fine over the course of a full season.

Tough guy to kind of play the matchups with too. I think that's the other challenging thing about rostering Yusei Kikuchi. You try to sit him for a tough matchup, he's good enough to shove in those spots, occasionally just blows up because the command's not there. It's just the story it's been for him over the course of his career.

How about a couple hitters before we go? Do you have concerns about Josh Lowe's strikeout rate jumping back up above 30% this season? That was a blip because of the injuries and the lost time, or do you think that sort of high level swing and miss is just part of the profile that we have to deal with if we're going to benefit from that power speed combination? Yeah, it looks increasingly like 30% is his true talent.

That's unfortunate, but the barrel rate was still decent for Josh Lowe. The stolen bases were still there. I think that's fairly important. I think this is a guy that you buy for, you know, 20, 30 stolen bases. And you don't bank on more than a 240 or ish, you know, 20, 30 stolen bases, and you don't bank on more than a 240-ish average, and you're hoping that he hits more homers. I think that's the kind of place you should put him in your head,

because Josh Lowe will steal bases, he probably will strike out. The question is, can he access that 113 max EV, 11% barrel rate that he showed in 23 again? And I would say that's where injury hurt him. I think injury hurt him in the reduced power. I am still excited about him. I still think he can, I think he could go for 30, 30, you know, because he's 26

years old next year could be his peak year. It might be 30, 30 with a two 40 average, a little bit more sort of a Dolce Garcia territory than I want, but a lot of the tools are there. And I think a healthy season where he puts some of those tools together with some of his learned skills could still be a really good season for Josh Lowe. But my projection wouldn't be for 30-30 to be clear. My projection would be something like, you know, maybe 18 homers and 30 steals and a

250 average. It's pretty similar to what you might project Cedric Mullins for and kind of similar to the Cedric Mullins price from the 2024 draft season as well with the possibility of getting that extra power if it all clicks. Always questions about the playing time and how much exposure Josh Lowe will get against lefties too.

That's not a good example. That makes me feel bad now about Josh Lowe. Although, what did Cedric Mullins do in the end? 2.30 average 18 homers and 32 stolen bases. It made you sweat though. Made me sweat I want to know what the value was at the end of the year. Where is that? Let's say 12 bucks was my guess because I don't have it in front of me yet. I I've got it. Here we go. This is a 15 team league with five outfielders.

Mullins, 14 bucks, 32nd best outfielder. Man, did not feel like that during the season. I almost dropped him a couple of times. I mean, it felt like he could have lost the large share of playing time for a prolonged stretch and you know Just had a few smaller lapses, but managed to ride it out and get back up into The necessary range to pay off where he went I think Josh Lowe is not so dependent dependent on his glove because his team is desperate for offense and he can provide offense

So I think he'll play and there's still a chance that he'll play every day because they can't platoon everywhere. Cedric Mullins was losing some games against righties I think. Thought he was losing them against lefties but. No yeah he's a lefty yeah yeah. So he was losing some games with lefties. Yeah it's a little bit like the same risk passage you know going into this year. I would say that given the Cedric Mullins experience this year, I'm downgrading Cedric

Mullins for next year. I'm not going to have, I'm not going to sign up for as many roller coasters experiences like that again. And you even making that comp has made me a little nervous about Josh Lowe now. Remember, the mantra for the year was step on new rakes this season, so you could. Yeah, right. So do I really want to, is Josh Lowe stepping on a new rake

or is it stepping on an old rake? I mean, it's another rake, but it's a new rake. Okay, but it has some similarities. It's still a rake. Still gonna hit you in the face, still gonna hurt, but not the same rake he stepped on the first time. Do we still like Lars Knutbar? I think the Josh Lowe,

I think Josh Lowe, just to be serious for a second, I think Josh Lowe has a higher ceiling than Cedric Mullins offensively. Because of the power. Yeah, yeah, I believe his power more than Cedric Mullins. Lowe has been phenomenal as a base stealer so far. 61 for 65 in the big leagues. Like that is, that's someone that can take advantage

of these new rules at a very high level if we get the OBP to nudge back in the direction of what we saw in 2023. A lot of injuries again this year for Lars Knutbar, topped out with 405 played appearances, second highest big league total he's had so far. Still showed some power, still showed some speed. What do you make of Knutbar? Do we still like him? Do you still see enough there to say, you know what,

maybe 2025 will be the year where better health will be there. You're getting a discount, probably getting him after pick 200, just about any draft that you're going to do. And maybe because there's some questions about how much he'll be trusted to have in everyday role given these injuries. It's not only the injuries,

but they were definitely platooning him against lefties, which is a little bit weird because for his career, he's a 118 WRC plus against lefties, Newt Bardoz, and then 111 against lefties, 118 against righties for his career. So it's not that bad of a platoon split, but the team was platooning him. And I guess maybe it had to do with how the season was going and they were just reaching for any way to crawl their way back into that race every any advantage they could get because he does not seem like the ideal guy to platoon given those splits and that is instructive for me because I put him in my head at one point as a guy who's being platoon and may not come out

of that and so in all your weekly leagues the guy who's being platoon and may not come out of that. And so in all your weekly leagues, the guys playing platoon is just not as, is not really what you want to pick up. And so I was getting really pessimistic about him. And I think that pessimism still sort of hangs about his name for me. But there's a couple of things that are important to change. They may be going into more of a rebuild phase, you know, in St. Louis. And in that case, you know, given that they've got him for four more years, I think next year's Cardinals just put him in the outfield and he's the starting outfielder. And I think maybe even the starting center, no, probably the starting left fielder.

And he plays most of the time and they want to see if he's a future star for them. And if that's the case, he's going to most of the time and they want to see if he's a future star for them. And if that's the case, he's going to play all the time. He still does have the skills to kind of put it all together. I mean, the only thing that he's really not been able to do is lift the ball with authority because he hits the ball hard and 114, uh, one 13.5 max. Evie 9.5% barrel rate for his career. 9.9 last year.

Good strikeout rate, good walk rate, good speed. Everything's there for him to bust out a 275 25 15 season next year. And that's great to get that ceiling from your fit outfielder. That's how he's being treated right now in very early drafts, last name. I think I'm more, more likely to, likely to, I'm likely to have shares again and step on that same rake again, just because the price is lower now and it's. Yes, that's kind of.

The risk is a little bit less. I am with you on Newt Bar and it's actually kind of how I feel about Sean Murphy right now. I know Drake Baldwin is tearing up the fall league, knocking on the door, ready to join the Braves and probably make a contribution of some kind in 2025. Sean Murphy's struggles sort of began in the second half of 2023, he had an oblique injury this year, but right now he's going around pick 250.

The earliest he's gone is pick 190, latest is outside of the top 300. I still look at Sean Murphy as someone who's going to get a high volume of playing time, has the ability to make a lot of hard contact, offer power, and then I think as you look at the Atlanta lineup, Acuna eventually comes back from the second ACL tear. They were really banged up aside from Acuna this year. So even if they don't get all the way back skills-wise to what they did as a team in 2023, it's hard for me to look at that group of hitters and not see some kind of regression back toward a higher level coming off of a relative down season in 2024.

So a lot of it's supporting cast and a big part of it's also just belief that he still does enough things well that we're probably going to get a much better version of Sean Murphy. I think we get back to double digit barrel rates this year with the oblique injury further behind. And I think the 240, 250, 15, 18 homers

is still very much in play for him with great counting stats, even if he's sharing a little bit more of his workload with someone like Baldwin at some point this year. I mean, in terms of his first three seasons in the big leagues that where he was a regular regular 100 WRC plus as a rookie in Oakland and as a well, I don't know that's a rookie rookie eligibility zone, but the first year he was irregular 100 second year 121 for Sean Murphy. And then his first year Atlanta 130 WRC plus and then it dropped all the way to 78 last year. It's like a very clear, like, let me just use old school stat analysis. Marcel the monkey, he's a projection system

that is just a very basic projection system where you wait last year five times, wait the year before that three times, and then wait the year before that two times, and you divide everything by 10. And if you do something like that, you get, you know, like a 115, 120 WRC plus next year. And I know it doesn't work like that there's aging there's other things like that but catchers do not

fall off a cliff. There is no aging curve that suggests that catchers just stop being useful. And at 30 he's not to the point yet where you would say this is something he can't come back from. So yeah, I think he's very likely to put up something like his 2022 season when he had 250, 18 homers, and on a better team. Yeah, I think he can do it in less than a full season's worth of plate appearances too.

We saw him share a lot with Travis Darnoe in 2023, hit that career high 21 homers with just 438 plate appearances. So that's part of what gives me some confidence despite the expected arrival of Drake Baldwin. So I'm absolutely in on that price on Sean Murphy and probably still in even if he goes up four or five rounds between now and the time we get to a larger number of drafts

during the winter. We are going to number of drafts during the winter. We are going to go on our way out the door. A reminder, you can join our Discord, the link in the show description. You can find Eno on Twitter at EnoSaris, find me at Derek Van Riper, find the pod at Raids and Barrels. Thanks to Brian Smith for producing this episode. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.

Yeah, it just tickles me in all the ways that you know I would like to be tickled. Wednesday.