Rates & Barrels - The Final Free-Agent Signings and Trades Before the Music Stopped

Episode Date: December 3, 2021

Eno, Britt & DVR discuss the last wave of signings and trades prior to the start of the lockout including Rich Hill to Boston, Marcus Stroman to the Cubs, Mark Melancon to Arizona, Corey Knebel to Philadelphia, and a Red Sox-Brewers swap that sent Jackie Bradley Jr. and two prospects to Boston for Hunter Renfroe. Plus, how much does playing 'close to home' factor into a free agent's decision-making process? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic at 33% off for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Friday, December 3rd. Derek Van Ryper, Inoceros, and look who it is. It's Britt Giroli back with us after some much-deserved time off. Britt, thank you for taking time off because temporarily baseball pretended like it wasn't going to have a lockout, and then a bunch of really cool things happened, so we had a lot to talk about all week long. So I'm going to give you full credit for that flurry of activity that no one expected to see prior to the expiration of the CBA. Yeah, naturally. I spent four days in Carlsbad at the GM meetings and really had my finger on the pulse because I kept telling people, God, it's going to be a really slow month until they figure out the CBA. And now it's a long December.

Mm-hmm. And now it's a long December. The conspiracy theorist in me is like, did they just do that so they could say that, you know, we just spent 1.7 billion on players. You know, what are they complaining about? No, I heard from a lot of agents that like teams were nervous too about what was going to be coming.

And I think they just felt better having... Having something locked in. Yeah. Addressing needs with rules they knew as opposed to having to address them later with rules that might be different well that's the thing if the rules change uh i like the i think i think the luck i think that's what you did see is the teams that weren't that close to the lux tax they were the ones that spent the most right the the teams that were really close to the lux tax were in the lux tax the only one that spent was the mets right and they were just kind of

like whatever whatever the rules are we're going for it but like the the big ones like the dodgers yankees and red socks like i think they were like well i'd rather know what the penalties are before i go over or you know whatever you know what i'd like to know what the lux tax looks like yeah the penalty is the same are they worse is the threshold going up is the threshold going away what's going to happen i think the threshold going away that's a pipe dream that's not happening so i'll just i'll i'm not going to delete that out but i'm going to say that's probably not going to happen there were more moves though we recorded on wednesday and i think on the episode we said well it'd be pretty hard to get a physical done between now and and uh 11 59 eastern or 1201 i forget what

the final cutoff was but uh it's not gonna work nothing else is gonna happen and we actually had one more big signing well two if you're you know we had a trade we had some relievers on the move we had a player come back from overseas and sign a multi. Two of your e-notes. Just going to let that slide. While you were gone, Britt, I must have mentioned Rich Hill's name about 18 times. Oh, so this was a blockbuster move. This was a huge move for me. Huge. Huge.

I put Rich Hill on every team that needed a starter. To be fair, he's a great veteran guy to plug in. What is it, like 5 million again? Yeah, it's no big deal for a team that can afford it, and he'd probably give them 100 good innings or maybe 140. Yeah, none of that was really the problem with the conversation. It was the Jays should add Kyle Seager, and then he's like the hitting version of Rich Hill.

That was the moment we jumped the shark with the Rich Hill mentions. Wow. Yeah, Kyle Seager's not old enough to be Rich Hill anyway. I was listening to Max Scherzer talk about how the Dodgers ruined him because they tried to keep his pitch count in check down the stretch, and he thinks that lowered his work capacity, and that in turn is why he didn't have the work capacity in the playoffs to do what he did in 19. But the numbers didn't really line up on that. No.

The numbers didn't really line up on that. No. He had like one less pitch per start with the Dodgers than with the Nationals. Yeah, the work capacity argument is also interesting because, I mean, he's older. What people don't remember is 2019 was two years ago. So he's older than he was then. Yeah, I know.

And you never want to say that to a player. Not him either. He's absolutely terrifying to say that to. I've said it to some that are legitimately old, you know, like where they're like near the end of their career old and they've dropped the F-bomb back at me. Yeah. I think my first or second day on the Nats beat in 19,

Jamal Collier, who now works at ESPN, does basketball, asked Scherzer about getting older. And we were in a big scrum, 20 people or so. And everyone's like. Scherzer just stopped, stared at him for like 10 seconds. And you know, he's got the two different color eyes. He's terrifying. Oh my God.

Just stared at him and was like, next question. I was like, I'm never asking that guy about his age again. Lovely. Never. Yeah, that's not something they want to talk about. So Rich Hill goes back to a familiar place. This is a Boston rotation that I think deserves an incomplete grade. They had two pitchers.

It was Hill and Michael Wacca, who we talked about earlier this week. They have the health grade D-, health grade F probably on this rotation. I like Nathan Evaldi. I think he's probably underrated in terms of what he does on a perinning basis. He's had issues. But you've got Sale, who wasn't quite himself coming back. You've got Hill. You've got Waka.

You've got James Paxton, who they added also for depth for the future. If there's anything below an F, Paxton gets it. They're leaning into risk but with that if you find a way to keep pitchers healthy or if you have enough of these guys and you can lean on depth when you're missing a couple of them okay okay that can that can work it's not it's not stable but it can work i think there's some brilliance to it it's kind of what like the dodgers have done to an extent and even the giantsants, the IL is the option for an older player. You know what I mean?

The IL is like the secret option where you can be like, you know, oh, he's not pitching that well. Oh, his arm hurts. Yeah. Well, yes. His old hurts. And let's see if we can get him right. And if we can't, he'll just be on the IL or we'll release him eventually, you know,

or someone else will get hurt and then we'll bring him back. You know, I think the IL is like basically a way to manipulate the roster. Absolutely. It was such a big deal like two years ago when they changed it from 15 days, remember? Because 15 days is three starts.

So you really kind of had to be hurt. It was a lot harder to phantom dl guys rather than just kind of giving them a little time off so yeah now it's now it's 10 you could even miss just one start if you kind of time it right right so it's i don't think it's ever going to go back to the longer one but it certainly has really as soon as they did it people were like teams are going to mess with this and sure enough i think there was a record and there's been a record every year since for IL since. And you know,

it makes injury analysis hard too. Cause you're like, Oh, people are being injured at a higher rate. And you're just like, are they though? You know, it's kind of,

kind of hard to tell, but it, you know, I did talk to a veteran pitcher who, who said that like literally the team came to him and said, we want to put you on the IL. We're going to release you. And he actually pitched like two more seasons after that.

So, you know, like it wasn't like he was super done. But like, you know, that's that's a thing that happens in baseball. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So the big thing that happened on Wednesday. Go ahead, Britt. No, but I mean, it was going to get back to the signings and the fact that I also thought, again, stay hot, that once we got to Wednesday, there wasn't going to be any more movement.

And there was. There was a ton. Yeah. This one surprised me. Like Marcus Stroman to the Cubs at last minute. There were later deals than this on Wednesday. And it was a three-year deal for $71 million was what I saw. I couldn't believe that because I thought with Ray and

Gossman, we compared those three guys a lot on this show. With those guys each getting five years, I assumed Stroman would also get five years. I also didn't expect the Cubs to spend right now, even though the Cubs can spend anytime they want. They're one of the cornerstone franchises. They've got bottomless pockets. There's no issue with spending. It's a question of, well, how good do you think you're going to be and when do you going to be? And when do you want to add players? And when do you want to just, you know, take extra profit? Like that's the question they're asking themselves all the time. But Stroman is another, it's another play in stuff without velocity. And I don't care if he blocks me on Twitter. I don't follow a lot of players anyway. I don't spend a lot of time on

Twitter. This is actually a pretty good signing, but it's interesting to me that it fits in so much with the things they've tried to do in past years, albeit while spending less money, right? Stroman, Hendricks, Edward Elzele, probably their big three. They added Wade Miley previously for some depth. Alec Mills is still there. They're probably not done too. It's starting to shape up to be a rotation that can at least give you the innings you need. I would say they're probably adding one more, likely from the bargain corner, even though that pool is starting to dry up pretty fast. There's no Rich Hill anymore. Yeah.

Well, you can't go everywhere. You can't have 30 Rich Hills. I know. Like a body count counter, except it's like the rich Hill comment counter. If I had more graphic tools at my disposal, I'd have that running. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think when you look at Stroman, um, and you look at a deal like that, I think the cubs were more comfortable doing the like higher AAV and less years because you look at the five-year deals and you look at a team like the cubs who say they're competing now but could very easily and we've seen this kind of pivot um you know maybe stroman pitches all three years here maybe he doesn't um but i think that even right i think

when you look at what jed hoyer is trying to accomplish um they don't want to go through this like long arduous rebuild um they want to compete now but they also don't want to go through this long, arduous rebuild. They want to compete now, but they also don't want to saddle themselves with the contracts and some of the mistakes that they made in the past. So I think this makes a lot of sense. I don't follow Marcus Stroman either, but he gets retweeted into my timeline all the time. Did he really drive to Chicago to hop in his car as soon as it was done to get a physical? Did you guys read that? I think that's what we, that's,

I think that was what's behind the flurry. Cause I did reach out to some people on teams and be like, what's going on? Like, how are these still happening? And they were saying, I think that we didn't know about some physicals. So some people had the physicals done before we even heard about the deal.

And that's probably some of the smaller deals, like some of the reliever deals, like Mark Melanson side on Wednesday, right? Corey Knable. Yeah, Corey Knable. You get the medicals done first. They probably were doing the physical when we heard about it. They got further along.

But yeah, Stroman had to goose this and make sure that it got done before it went down. But I like that deal better than Robbie Ray and Kevin Gossman, honestly. I know that he doesn't have the strikeout rate, but he has a great ground ball rate. I think he can have more strikeouts. You know, I think he could add more sliders and cutters and take a few sinkers out.

And I like his wide arsenal. I like his ground ball rate. I like his athleticism, his defense. Like, I like the shorter deal. Like, I like his wide arsenal. I like his ground ball rate. I like his athleticism, his defense. Like I like the shorter deal. Like I, I like that deal better. Yeah.

There's just a lot more flexibility for the team on a three-year deal than a five-year deal. Even if you're paying the extra AAV, because like Britt suggested, I think you can more easily flip him. If things aren't going the way you want at any point, it's an easier sell trading to other teams when you're only talking about taking on the remaining season plus one

or plus two, for sure. But that's still, man, that depth chart. They'd still need to make a lot of moves if they're going to put a team together that's actually competitive in that division. It is funny. What do you think this signals? I got a lot of

questions from people being like, oh, this means they're going to spend, right? They're going to do more. They need this and this. Someone said they need more lefty power and another starter. And I was like, how about a Chris Archer, Kyle Schwarber reunion? And to me, that would be kind of the top end of what they would do going forward. I just don't see them

paying. Maybe story, but I just don't see them paying for Carlos Correa. Does that make sense? Maybe. I don't think they're a Correa team, but they certainly could be. There's no reason why they can't be. If you're a Cubs fan, you're like,

more, more, more. You should shoot for the moon you should but he's you know he's also writing and they have like two guys that could play shortstop and they seem to you know two young guys and i don't know yeah i don't know if i see them as a corea team but i i think none of us saw them signing strom into this kind of a deal so they could they could make a few other mystery team that surprises nl central isn't particularly intimidating um i saw schwarber and archer would fit i think the stroman thing where it's like schwarber wouldn't is not going to take five years you know yeah schwarber could be a three-year deal archer could be a one-year deal they could keep that flexibility and they could say hey we're trying to we're trying to make a competitive team you get the lefty power you get

you have five starters. It's weird. They had a couple of lefties. Anthony Rizzo. You could bring him back if you wanted to. I don't know. I didn't see this coming because I just didn't think they were spending now. I thought they were going to spend a year or two from now and kind of do the big market,

turn the roster over a bunch of times, and then add later. But as we've said, Stroman's not available next winter. So if you want him for 2023 and 2024, you also have to have him for 2022. So maybe that's part of the thinking here as well. I think the interesting thing about these deals, as we look at starting pitchers, I mean, Rich Hill shouldn't have been first in the rundown, but he had to be because this is the show that we put together. You have this choice with your one-year pitchers between guys like Hill who have more injury concerns or they're older and you're worried about the volume of innings versus guys like Dylan Bundy who ended up with the twins on a one-year deal who have a massive skills problem that needs to be fixed and maybe needs to tinker

with mechanics or go through some sort of major overhaul to get back to previous levels. And Bundy showed a ceiling that I didn't think he had anymore prior to his 2021 collapse. He ends up in Minnesota on a one-year deal. In terms of team and fit, that one kind of checks out. That's the sort of deal you're like, okay, yeah, that seems like the kind of player that they would go after to address their needs. You're getting innings, more likely than not, but how good are those innings going to be? Britt, you've seen a lot of Dylan Bundy over the years, and now we've seen this Jekyll and Hyde routine over the last two seasons.

Do you think the Twins can ultimately get him back to at least being kind of a mid-rotation, above-average Major League starter again. Yeah, it's fascinating to me to watch the different trajectory of Kevin Gossman and Dylan Bundy because those were the two guys that were supposed to be the hope for Baltimore to turn it around before this current rebuild. And I think with Bundy, it's still in there.

This was a guy who was run up the flagpole very early. You do wonder how much like his work conditions, like he was throwing at crazy distances. He was doing crazy workout regimens. The Orioles were always concerned about that. You do wonder how much that and all the early injuries he had kind of just put his career on hold because it seemed like you're just always waiting. Similar to Hunter Harvey, who the Giants just picked up because the Orioles put him on waivers. kind of just put his career on hold because it seemed like you're just always waiting similar

to Hunter Harvey, who the Giants just picked up because they were also put him on waivers. You're always waiting for him to get healthy and to kind of be that guy. I do think that the twins are well known for being a good organization, an organization that could develop and find some of these weaknesses and make them better. I think the Kevin Gossman deal, I know we talked about earlier, it's you're giving nine figures to a guy in Toronto now who had struggled mightily in the American League East based off of one, pretty much one good year. I think that deal is much more of a gamble than people realize it is. We talked about Stroman, at least Stroman has, you know, the durability. He always took the ball for the Mets.

I think when you look at, you know, risk-reward here, I think that Kevin Gossman might have a higher ceiling at this point in his career, but Marcus Stroman, to me, would be a more dependable guy, and I'm surprised that Toronto decided that they were going to go all in on five years of Kevin Gossman. But back to Bundy, I do think he could be an interesting, like, comeback story somewhat um i do also think that this could be the end of the road if he doesn't turn it around here you wonder what

does he just become a has-been um you know another well-named bust transition to the bullpen or something yeah yeah i mean it's just it's sad because you know everything is there the talent is there the work ethic is there this is a guy who like eats sleeps breathes baseball um and he just hasn't been able to put it together though to be fair he just came from a place in anaheim where the pitching was atrocious they lost mickey calloway was their pitching coach there was a lot of transitions that were happening there um and i think that that certainly didn't help so So I hope that he can find it in Minnesota. I really do. Yeah, I think the quick question,

I'll throw the follow-up in Eno's direction, is that we saw the home run rate drastically improve in the shortened season for Dylan Bundy, and that was just never good during his time in Baltimore. And obviously a significant part of that is the park, Camden Yards, Boos Homers, but it snapped all the way back to those Camden sort of numbers in 2021. So is that just part of the profile? Because we did see some walk rate improvement in the shortened season from Bundy as well.

We've always said you can get away with one of those skills flaws. You can't be a little worse than average with walks and a lot worse than average with homers. It will come back to bite you, and it certainly did in a big way, which Bundy was also dealing with a shoulder injury in 2021 as well. So maybe that was part of why the skills went the wrong way too. Yeah. I mean, it was some of the worst VLOG of his career last year, especially near the end of the season. He was struggling to crack 90 on the fastball. So I think some injury was part of it. I think that in a short sample, the most noisy thing out there is your home run rate. It's the thing that needs the highest sample to tell us what we need to know.

But then you're also seeing just some drop-off in the ride on his fastball, and everything was sinking more, which I wouldn't be surprised here checking his vertical release point. Yeah, there was some movement in his vertical release point as it's come down off a peak in 2019. So I think he's probably, he was a little bit hurt. I think he was dealing with something. He's had that long injury history.

The velo is dropping. I would say that they hope he can get healthy. But I think in general, there's this little bit of a struggle in front offices between innings and floor and upside and you know Britt was was speaking to this a little bit when she was talking about how much of a gamble Gossman is how much a gamble Ray is how Stroman has the higher floor but that goes on all the way down your rotation you know and I I was talking to one team official that was like, I don't really care about floor because I feel like my young guys can bring me floor.

And so all I want to do is chase upside on the market. I want to buy free agents that I think represent upside. So they were much more interested in somebody like carlos rodon than they would be in like tyler anderson um when you're talking about sort of a three or four in terms of i'd rather give rodon like you know two and twenty uh you know two and forty two two twenty two i would rather give rodon two and40 than give Tyler Anderson 3-40. Interesting. Yeah, I mean, I could imagine that that's where you can get that surplus value.

Not only do you get the performance if it works out and your team is good, but then you also have a better trade ship if it doesn't work out. Whereas if you go for floor and you're just trading innings, you're going to get something back for that player. Everyone needs innings for the most part. As you move through a season, you're not getting impact prospects. Yeah. The pirates didn't get much.

And then on top of that, what we were talking about just earlier about the IL being like the option for an older player, right? Like with Rodon, he's either good or he's hurt. Right. So that's kind of easy to deal with because the IL is unlimited.

Right. But with Tyler Anderson, he might just be okay. And then your young guys, you're like, wow, Colby Allard really took a step forward this year. What do I do with Tyler Anderson now? Do I just release him one year into this three-year deal? In the bullpen, he's not going to be that much value to me. And it would be kind of weird to just put him on the IL when he's kind of been you know healthy yeah that's true those are good points did you guys see so we talked about fast all these deals came together justin verlander is still not done so now

he's in limbo even though that was agreed upon pretty early i want to say what weeks ago two weeks ago this is the team that like didn't draft Brady Aiken, right? So I bet you they're disputing something in his physical. Yeah. So that just gets put on pause. Yeah. There's a couple moves on hold, right? Didn't the Orioles sign a reliever and he didn't get Lyles

and he didn't get his physical? And then I think there's one more that was placed on hold. Of course, the most obvious one where you know the player, you know the physical condition, Freddie Freeman, didn't seem to really get any traction, which kind of surprised me. It was kind of an easy hanging thing out there for the Braves to just go get him. He lives in Atlanta.

They know what his physical is going to be. He's like, he's, I think, I mean, I, I don't, I wouldn't say that he's in the hall of fame now,

but I think he's on a hall of fame track and, you know, he would go in as a brave, but he, you know, there's a chance that if he goes to the hall of fame, he signed somewhere else for the next six years, he might go on with someone else's hat,

which I don't know. That's not everything, but that's, you know, that's something, you know, it's nice to have more Braves in the hall of Fame. And then on top of that, you know, the ass sounds like 6'180". That's not, I mean, yeah, you'd probably rather have like

five and 150 or something and try to keep it, you know, not pay that last year. But when you have Acuna and Albies on these like really small deals like what it might be okay to have one guy who's a little bit overpaid near the end of his career you know yeah also when you have a guy who won a world series for you fans are fans are never going to be like oh why did we sign freddie for you know what i mean he's built up that goodwill even yeah even if he's like albert pool holes at the end right they'll be like he still gave us that that ring yeah yeah because yeah if you sign him from some other organization and then he was that player Even if he's like Albert Pujols at the end, right? They'll be like, he still gave us that ring. Yeah.

Yeah, because if you sign him from some other organization and then he was that player at the end of his career, there'd be a lot more resentment there. Yeah, like Freddie Freeman in year six on the Cardinals or on the Dodgers, and he hasn't done anything for the Dodgers. Everyone's yelling at him. Yeah. And Freeman, and we say this a lot, he should age about as gracefully as any hitter, right?

He doesn't strike out a lot. He doesn't reach. He walks a ton. Still has good power. But he is 32. That's six years on a 32-year-old's a long time. But you're not giving – it's not Pujols. No.

Yeah. I mean, in terms of if it's a six-year deal now, it's not giving Pujols all that money in all those years. Also, when he came in, Chipper Jones and all those guys were there. There is value to having a Freddie Freeman even if he's not producing in the final years of his contract. Yeah. Yeah, there definitely can be.

How much do you think proximity to home matters to a player at this stage of his career, right? Because this is last big contract time for Freddie Freeman, right? And I think it's come up- But how do you define home? I mean, he lives in Atlanta, but he also grew up in LA.

I mean, grew up in Orange County. That's why people keep throwing the Dodgers out there as the other team that would go out and get Freddie Freeman. And it doesn't seem like the way Andrew Freeman in that front office would go. Like giving six years to a 32-year-old anything, I just don't think that's...

That seems like that goes against them. Home matters for sure, but I don't know. With Trevor Story, there was this idea, oh, it's the Rangers or the Astros because he's a Dallas kid. He grew up, I think, in Irving, Texas.

The funniest was Chris Bryant to... Colorado because it's close to Vegas. He's from Las Vegas. Someone, I think, tweeted that New York and Chicago are closer than Vegas and Denver. I think covering guys

in clubhouses, I think, is a tiebreaker if everything else is equal. Scherzer, for example, mentioned how it's nice that the West Coast would have been tough on his family because they live in Jupiter. The Mets have a spring training home in Florida, so now he'll be able to see his kids more. Now that's important, I think. I think that's legit. But I think if the Dodgers or West Coast team had blown away the Mets in an offer- Yeah, have they gone to 45 or 50. That wouldn't have been a hindrance, right?

I think it is a tiebreaker when everything else is equal and you start to get into these little things. But at the end of the day, it's about who offers you the most money. Mostly a big part of it is because when you're done, a lot of times you're done at 40. That's a very early retirement. And you can be involved with your kids in a big part after that. So Buster Posey comes to mind where he's retired now. And yes, someone asked him in his retirement thing,

are you going to move back to Georgia? Your whole family's in Georgia? And he's like, yeah, probably. Probably soon. Not right away. We've been in San Francisco for so long. We'll probably still have a base out here, but at some point we're probably going to move back.

And he's now, what, 38 and has twins, and they're like newborn. So it's like he's fine. He's going to do the parenting after the career. Yeah, I think there are a lot of other factors that play into it. Does the player have a spouse? Does the player and spouse, do they have a family? Like that's huge.

Where is the other side of the family located? Like where the player grew up is only half of the equation. If there's a family structure in place, the other person in the relationship maybe didn't grow up in the same place. And how rich did they get? Did they get so rich they just moved the whole family in with it maybe didn't grow up in the same how rich did they get do they get so rich they just move the whole family in with that you know into houses around them then like then they're like hey we all live in california now it's fine i bought them all houses yeah people love to speculate though based on where these guys are from where they're gonna

go i just think it has such a it's such a minute again it's a tiebreaker it's such a minute thing these guys are making enough money to have nannies and have help. Their wives usually don't work. It's just a different scenario than the rest of us would think about weighing for jobs. And even then, if we were making this kind of money. I want to be close to, you know, family because I don't make that kind of money and they want them around to like take care of my kids so I can go out to eat. But like, these people have big people on staff. Yeah.

I think that the two things I've talked a little bit to players about this, but I'm also just trying to be like, you know, I've tried to put myself in their heads. I think the two things that would matter with this, the deal. And I think the second place thing would be how good is the team? Yeah. I think people care. I have talked to one that is approaching free agency who's like, yeah, I care.

I would rather be on a good team. It's probably a little more fun, probably gives your work a little more meaning to play for a good team than to play for a team that's a consistent bottom feeder. Yeah, then the other thing is how much is the money? There's some balance. I think number one is money. But I think there's like 1a would

be how good is the team well the reason for 1a though is if you join the dodgers you're almost guaranteed a playoff share every year no that's more money that's a significant bump too so it always kind of factors back to money right you're on a good team it's a lot easier to have multiple all-stars on a good team a lot of guys most guys to have multiple All-Stars on a good team. Most guys have All-Star bonuses. That all factors in. Winning pays. I believe that too.

Let's talk about some relievers that have been on the move recently. Mark Melanson to Arizona. As I tweeted, you could have given me 24 guesses as to which team would sign Mark Melanson. They would not have been in my top 24. It's a two-year deal for Melanson. Yeah, it could be a trade him this summer sort of thing.

The good news from a fantasy perspective, they don't have anyone pushing him for saves, and it's hard to find people with individual holds on closer roles. I would say Mark Melanson has that in Arizona, so we're excited from that perspective. Arizona's one of those teams, we didn't talk a lot about them this season because it was a disaster year for them on so many levels. It wasn't supposed to be, right? It looked like they could have been a mid-pack NL West team that maybe they would have finished 500 if things went well for them this year. That was sort of the rosy outlook for them.

Instead, they had that dreadful stretch that I can't remember how bad it was, but it was truly awful that just sank their entire season. They dealt with injuries, they had underperformers, and they're not interesting on paper when you look at this roster right now. They have more work to

do. Signing a reliever first is just straight up weird. They do have some young talent getting closer, but they need a bridge to that young talent. They're still a couple years away from most of that prospect core being truly ready to take over. And plus, they're in a division with the Dodgers, the Giants, and the Padres all trying to win right now. So they're kind of facing that uphill battle as well. Is there any logical other move that you see with Arizona? Because Melanson wasn't logical at all. And I feel like if you're doing that, you're probably doing something else somewhere on this roster. Yeah, I'm with you. I would have get, I meanrizona just kind of gets the shaft because they're not so so bad like the orioles where we talk about oh my god they're so bad they're going nowhere right but they also haven't been interesting or really relevant in a while and i was shocked i'm still shocked i still would love to know like what the melanson thing was about um were they like

you know what we need to make sure we have this reliever on lockdown for the late innings like what is that a priority for the team i'm still like totally flummoxed by this move and by the the logic and the reasoning is arizona gonna turn the tables are they gonna all of a sudden try to go for it um because otherwise why do you do that do you do that because you don't want to lose games lately late in the game because that's a bad way for to lose because you're now bringing up maybe some young players and you you don't want that gut punch i i'm actually just throwing ideas out there because i still can't fathom the reasoning behind it i mean projections have them as a bottom

five team, right? And it's kind of hard. I don't really see. If you argue against that, you have to argue that Varshow breaks out. The list is already. Cattell Marte stays and bounces back to 2019 levels. Rojas takes a step forward. Gallon recovers.

Bumgarner. Yeah, full season as an ace. Bumgarner and Kelly are good two threes, or maybe Luke Weaver turns into a two. It's a lot of wish casting. And then looking on the free agent market, I'm just assuming they're not like a Korea team. I would look for younger guys on the free agent market that maybe had some upside.

And so that would be like a Clint Frazier type, right? But gone. And then if you're looking for anybody under 30 that could turn into something like Albert Amora. Like, what are we even talking about here like who that should be the title of this segment what are we talking about yeah but like or they go the old old but cheap and try to do like kyle seager at third and make rojas a uh you know a floating guy and then their infield is seager, Ahmed, Marte, Walker.

I don't know. I just don't know. Maybe they just think that something that Lanson is very – I think he's proven that he's very solid and capable. And so maybe they think that he becomes a trade asset. Is this like an agent favor? Those happen sometimes. I'm not sure. I can't explain it.

Trying to set up a future deal with someone else by doing this now, I guess that's a possibility. But yeah, one playoff appearance in the last 10 seasons for Arizona. It doesn't look like that's going to change in 2022. Just didn't make any sense at all. Corey Kniebel to Philly made a lot of sense because the Phillies have had some ongoing bullpen issues, and Knable, when he's healthy, is very good. Corey Knable, I think, can be a top-ten reliever with health. I think he's shown that sort of ceiling before. So actually, I like this fit in terms of skills and team, and it's a one-year $10 million deal,

so it's not three for 40. It's not the longer-term deal that other relievers that have this sort of ceiling can get probably because of recent injury issues but i mean can able bounced back in a big way with the dodgers in 2021 30ks against nine walks and 25 and two-thirds innings era in the mid twos whip under one is there anything i'm missing or is this actually a possible top 10 closer landing in Philadelphia? You know, I got him as a top 10 stuff guy in terms of free agent relievers.

One thing that you'd like to see sometimes, you know, is for him to have people that can actually hand games to him. You know, you couldn't be a top 10 closer on some of those past Phillies teams, even if he was a good closer, because they would blow the save before they even got to him, you know? But now I'd say with Alvarado, Brogdon, and Coonrod, they've got a lot of Velo, at least, in that pen, even Sir Anthony Dominguez. So like, you know, they don't have great command in that bullpen, but they've got a lot of velocity. So

I think that they might actually have done the work of turning this bullpen around, which was a Sisyphean task. Yeah, well, I still think they need probably two more late-inning relievers, though. Really? Two more? Yeah. Two more? Yeah. They've been trying.

They got Ryan Cher. I think it's at least one to go into the season, and then maybe one more at the deadline, depending on how that group that Eno described, how well they stay healthy and how much command possibly improves with that group. To be a legit deep playoff team, yeah, I think two. But I think, are they going to spend up on two that

doesn't seem likely i don't know i mean to me in a perfect world knievel is the setup guy right you get someone better than him and now your bullpen is pretty good right now you can kind of find a way to navigate through the first two-thirds of the game you feel pretty good about how it's going after but i mean keep in mind as you guys know there's always somebody hurt it feels like in the bullpens you never have too many relievers i i would i know they need some other help elsewhere right they need some outfield help um probably a pitcher but a starting pitcher but i think when you look at how to make this philly team good and you look at okay how are they going to compete against the braves and the metsets and the NL East? And I think you have to think about getting two more good arms. Otherwise, what are you doing?

Are you just going to keep wasting NL MVP seasons from Bryce Harper? My only problem is that at this point, I think the bullpen looks better shaped in their outfield other than Harper. They've got right now at the top of their depth charts Matt Moniak and Adam Haseley, and I don't even know if Haseley is... Wasn't he like... Oh, he came back from that? Didn't he leave the team?

Yeah, he was away for a little while. Matt Vierling also in the mix. They have to add an outfielder. Probably two. A starter and a fourth outfielder that they can trust to play a lot more. I could see Schwarber and then just pushing all the young guys to center and being like between moniak hazley maybe kingery maybe veerling like we will just put the young guys in center

and we'll go schwarber harbor on the corners i mean that would be they could buy one more reliever i don't know what do they have in their system? Do you guys? Do they have someone outfield? Do they have someone who can graduate to any of these? I think Vierling is the guy that they can maybe hope. He's 25. I don't think he really wants to play. They want him in center. But that would be the awkwardness about getting Schwarber is that Vierling

wouldn't be that great in center, and so you'd be making him a fourth outfielder. But Vierling was really good when he debuted, although he didn't have great barrel rates. So I don't know. It might have all been bad at ball luck. So I've got a couple thoughts here with the Phillies. If you're going to add another impact reliever,

it's probably the Atreid. I think I've seen the Phillies linked to the Josh Hader rumors over the years. I've seen them linked more recently to Craig Kimbrell. I think in either of those circumstances, the Brit scenario plays out where Knievel's the second best option, and you've got Alvarado as a great three. That's a really nice trio at the back. If it ends up being Alvarado, Knieabel, and I think Kimbrell's a lot more likely based on the White Sox desire to move him and what it's going to take prospect-wise, what the

Phillies have. That's $16 million. It's another big lift that way, which means they're probably going cheaper than to fill the outfield problem. I think the other question, though, that I have the first thing I said was just speculation, so just cast that aside. It just seems like a thing that could happen that way.

How much do you trust the rotation? Wheeler, Nola, great one too. Ranger Suarez, I think, is a pretty polarizing player from a fantasy perspective for me because we didn't see it for very long. He was fantastic in every role he was asked to hold. When you start drilling into the underlying numbers, every role he was asked to hold, when you start drilling into the underlying numbers,

I don't come away with an expectation that he's somehow like this breakout guy that's going to keep a low three ZRA and a great whip and a strikeout per inning over a full season as a starter. I don't see that coming from him. Maybe other people do. I think they need even more than they need extra relievers. Yeah, great.

If you go get Kimbrel, that makes you better. If they could find one more starter and just leave the bullpen as is, I think that's a more impactful move if they can't do both. Yeah. I've always said that they feel a little bit stuck because if they did add Kimbrel, they'd be at $200 million or really close. And so then it would just be, hey, the rest of you figure it out. And it would be a little bit weird in that outfield.

But I guess I could – I see enough in the bullpen where I'd say, hey, go spend that money somewhere else. But, yeah, and then coming up, there's some guys like Bryson Stott is a shortstop that's kind of fun, 24, left-handed, kind of killed it in the Arizona Fall League. He could be close. He did some time in AAA last year. But I think that's just what do we do after D.D. Gregorius because D.D. Gregorius is pretty old to be a shortstop.

Could you make D. Didi like a utility guy around the infield and just play play Stott more? Oh sure. I think you'd be happy if Stott was ready. It depended on

on bone too. I mean you could try Stott in center but I think that would be not taking the most advantage of of his capabilities

and then you'd still have to need a shortstop after Didi right? So you know maybe Moniak can handle it. You know, he has kind of a wild story where he's a 1-1 guy. You know, he's the first pick overall in the draft

and then seemed like he was a total bust in the minor leagues, to be frank, and now has had a couple years in the minor leagues where he's looked a little better, but still projects to be below average, kind of near replacement. But then if you look at the... That's where center field trade might... If I was going to use trade assets,

I think I might use it in center field. Unless I'd heard something from Adam Haseley that's like, he's coming back and he can be our guy. The free agency is a really bad place to look for a center fielder. I mean, you don't want to sign 38-year-old Brett Gardner. Kevin Pillar is not really a center fielder anymore. Then the next best center fielder is Odibel Herrera. They could go out and maybe make a deal for Kevin Kiermaier

and find a way to send some money back or balance it out that way and just play the defensive route, that could certainly happen. Ooh, the blockbuster. That's what everybody wants. I think that's... We keep circling that name, but I can't imagine the Orioles trading away.

Boom, plus other stuff. No, because he's just... Do I think he's going to be part of the next great orioles team no but um it's just not good optics because he's still cheap he's still youngish um you know they're gonna have rushman probably come up next year um they've got to pretend they're building towards something i mean it's like year three of the rebuild or something okay yeah it's your i think it's year four that's bad dude this is supposed to

be when it's coming together you know like hey we got rutschman we got wallens we got something it is your four i got i left in 18 and that was like when they were forced to rebuild and so 19 this is your four so like somebody and i didn't get to talk to Michael Ives at the GM meetings. Um, but I'd be curious to know, like, is this the year? This has to be the year you show some win loss improvement.

They did sign up that Odor, um, not going to light up anything, but, um, start, you start rolling up those good starters, like DL hall and Grayson Rodriguez.

I think they, I think they need to see the major leagues this year. That's such a tough task. It's a big leap already, but then to pitch in such a hitter-friendly park like Camden Yards, I mean, you want to be optimistic, but I think Orioles fans have seen this movie before. This was supposed to be D.L. Hall, Grayson Rodriguez. This was Kevin Gossman and Dylan Bundy.

Before that, this was Chris Tillman, Brian Mattis, Jake Arrieta. That's going way back. That's like the 09 prospect handbook. When I took the beat over in 10, that's all you kept hearing about was how these guys were up and coming and these young birds were going to get it done with Matt Wieners

behind the plate. It never really panned out. I hope it's different, but it's just such a tall task um i could play optimist for a moment not for any reason other than to be like a devil's advocate but you could you could probably talk yourself into where the orioles are at in their rebuild right now and look at the 2021 tigers and say, hey, you might be a more watchable young team this year because of Rutschman, because of those young pitchers. You're going to struggle. You're not going to win a lot of games. The division is tough.

All the things that make playing in Baltimore difficult are still there. But then fast forward to this time next year, maybe you are finally in that window where you're going to start adding the pieces that you need to be more competitive to possibly make a run i think the key difference is the al east is not aging like the al central it's not going to be as quick of a path to possibly contend for the division title but at least at least there could be some light at the end of the tunnel if you bring those guys up and they end up just staying healthy. I mean, health is a big part of why a lot of those pitching prospect groups of the past, not even just in Baltimore, I think around that same time, the Royals had one and it was like, it was Danny Duffy, I think originally,

and it was like John Lamb and a bunch of guys like that, and it wasn't even close to working out. Injuries were a huge part of that, and I think that's something that you just need to keep those arms as healthy as they possibly can be. There was a surprising trade, though. This is why I was thinking about trading Kevin Kiermaier to the Phillies, and the Brewers ended up making a deal with the Red Sox just minutes before the faucet was turned off. Jackie Bradley Jr. goes back to Boston. I didn't think he was going anywhere. I just thought there was not really a clear and obvious path to move him somewhere else.

But he goes back to a place where he, of course, had a lot more success in the past, where the Red Sox needed a good defensive, a great defensive center fielder, and maybe they can just get him back to his pre-2021 levels at the plate. Hunter Renfro goes to Milwaukee as part of the deal. That kind of balances out some of the money, but the other key that balanced out the rest of the money, two prospects went to Boston as part of this deal. So basically to unload...

It was a salary dump. It was a salary dump by the Brewers where they gave up prospects to get kind of an Avi Sale Garcia replacement. Hunter Renfro, Avi Garcia, very similar players. The difference, of course, Hunter Renfro in arbitration, you're going year to year with him. Avi Garcia just got four years from the Marlins. If you look at it that way, you could say, okay, the Brewers got back to where they were offensively. They moved JBJ, but it cost them two prospects. One actually grew up pretty close to Miller Park, just one of the suburbs nearby.

Alex Benellis, kind of an interesting power-hitting first base corner prospect. Oh. So I don't know. I'm kind of curious to see how that plays out. I figured it out. Yeah. Well, for the Red Sox, though,

you're selling really high on Renfro. Yep. So from their point of view pretty good deal yeah and you get that money who's really well liked in Jackie Bradley Jr really popular guy in the clubhouse and also just in the city of Boston he's playing he's gonna give you Elite defense um and David Stearns talked about this a little bit um last month how they felt like they never really got to see what Jackie Bradley Jr. can do in Milwaukee. They never really tapped into that. And he talked a little bit about like, was it the change of teams?

Was it the adjustments? Like they just like weren't able to, at least publicly, he didn't pinpoint like a specific reason. He was just not the guy that I think they felt like they were going to get in Milwaukee. So, I mean, these are the moves that I think they felt that they were going to get in Milwaukee. So, I mean, these are the moves that brewers have to make. They have to constantly think about how can we save $10 million and keep this financial flexibility. And we're going to get into that when we talk about the CBA for months and months, whether that's a real thing or a

self-imposed budget from up above. But, you know, I think from the Red Sox point of view, this is a good move. And for the brewers, like you weren Red Sox point of view, this is a good move. And for the Brewers, like, you weren't getting the JVJ that you thought you were getting. So it was a surprising trade, mostly because I thought all the moves were done. So who am I kidding? I've been surprised for the last week, guys.

I mean, I literally thought we were all going to be taking early November vacations while we waited for the CBA stuff to go on. And I did take a vacation and missed some of this stuff. So I have the pulp. There is like insiders and then there's like people way inside. And clearly I'm neither. But I think I figured it out. I was like, why are the brewers salary dumping? I can't. They didn't sign someone. What is it? And check this out. Two names for you.

Kristen Jelich and Josh Hader. In 2021, Jelich was paid $14 million. In this coming season, he's due $26 million. First year of the extension, right? I think that's the difference. It was signed a while ago. Hader is an ARB 3, and he just went from $6 million to $10 million in the projections.

And Woodruff goes from $3 million to? Probably double that, right? Projection for him is Woodruff, $7 million. So those three players, the estimated payroll right now for the Brewers is $121 million on roster resource, and they've been around $100 million for like three straight years. So are they going to cut further? I think they could in the right deal. That's where the hater trade, it's more realistic now than it was a year ago because he's more expensive now he's a year older right he's a year closer to possibly beginning his decline like all all of those

things are developed cousins and williams and you're like well we have these two elite relievers one of them can be the closer yeah so you trade hater for what do you trade hater for you trade hater for one reliever that you plug right into the bullpen. Or some kind of bat, right? They still need some offense. No, I think the centerpiece would be a bat. Because they're always looking for a bat. A really good impact bat.

Yeah. You would trade him for a center fielder. Hmm. Cedric Mullins. You would trade him for a center fielder and a reliever you can plug in right away. I'm trying to think of a three-way trade that gets Cedric Mullins. You're trading for a center fielder and a reliever you can plug in right away. I'm trying to think of a three-way trade that gets Cedric Mullins to Milwaukee and gets Josh Hader to some other

evil empire. We'll see. The Angels bought their bullpen. The Astros don't have extra center I mean, it doesn't have to be a center fielder. They could just take a bat. That makes it a lot easier to figure out. But who would trade

for Hayter? A lot of teams. What about the Phillies? We just talked about how the Phillies need it. Yeah, the Phillies could do it. The Mets? I mean, Alec Boehm plus other stuff of some kind is probably where that conversation goes. The Phillies.

Is that enough for Hader? That's not bad. Would you make Urias a utility guy? Probably. Or you play Boehm a lot at first base. Try him in center. Try someone in center. Yeah, try Boehm at first.

By the way, guys, I think we did enough to not have to do the CBA this one. But I do want to throw out there that I'm working on a piece that's looking at this, and I talked to a player that was impassioned about this, that the NLDH is a raw deal for players. It's not actually a good deal. It's not something they should give up anything for. And so if he gets his way, and I'm looking at the numbers, and I think I agree with him that it's not a good deal.

You're not adding a new roster spot. You're probably adding three or four jobs out there on the market at tops because most teams just cycle guys through their DH. So I'm actually beginning to think there won't be an NLDH. Because I don't think the players should get anything up for that. Maybe they won't, but would they, if it's not,

if it doesn't come down to a bartering chip, if it's just decided, well, this is just more of like a rules thing and a rule stuff is going to be handled separately. Do the players oppose it? Like it. No,

no. If they throw it in the rule stuff, the players will take it. That's good. In reading some stuff about the CBA, but just in terms of like the CBA, but they put the rule stuff away. Right.

Yeah. That's what the Jason Stark piece that was on The Athletic today. Yeah. It pointed out all these experiments that have been done on all these different levels. They're a moot point as it pertains to the CBA negotiation because this is all about service time and money. Because neither side wants to give up money for that. No, no. This is.

Right now they're talking about money. This fight is about money and it's going to be ugly because fights about money are always ugly right this is gonna this is why it's gonna go on for two plus months we're we're probably looking at a full december and january just like we had at the end of this week that's but we'll have a pod next week about the cba and about the money in it because I'm trying to do the research in terms of what each of these things they're talking about is worth. And I think once that research is out there, we can talk about it in terms of, okay, these are the millions of dollars that need to go here and they need to go here and this is what they need to give up and this is the impasse right here. This is worth this and maybe the owners think it's worth more or less. Right.

Because that's what they're arguing about. Of course. It's always what they're arguing about. Of course. It's always what they're arguing about. It just, I mean, it never changes. The core issue is always money. It just disguises itself in different rules and different things that they agree on. So you guys are right, though. We did, I would say, a 90% CBA-free episode, which is probably going to be impossible.

The last one for a while. So enjoy it, everybody. I feel like we have a lot of coaching changes. CBA free episode, which is probably going to be impossible now moving forward. So enjoy it, everybody. I feel like we have a lot of coaching changes. If I had graphic skills. We're allowed to do coaching changes, right? Coaching changes are allowed, right? We could talk about that next time. Let's cover the crap out of coaching changes. You will learn so much about the Oakland

A's candidates for the next manager. You will wish. That's a whole episode of that. I love we have three years of Eno lamenting manager of the year as an award and talking about how stupid it is. And now we have to talk about the impact of managers and those hires to get us through these next two months. I mean, yeah.

Oh, it's been awful watching MLB Network today. They were just like, we don't know what we're going to do. We can't show any current players. They actually said that on air. Why are you even watching that? Because it's just like the default channel when I turn on the TV. And they were literally showing like games,

like just random at-bats from the 80s. Yeah. And they were like, and then they were like, hey, like who do you, what do you think is going to happen here? a homer or a double or wow i mean that's kind of fun and harold reynolds is like harold reynolds sitting there going like ah i don't think i was in the big leagues for this game i don't i don't i don't remember this game that's our life what's unfortunate is like a

network that already is not super watched. Like MLB Network, when I was at MLB.com, they used to tell us that MLB.com got better traffic. So a network that's already struggling to get any kind of viewership, this is only going to make it worse. And I think we'll delve into that in weeks to come. But a sport that suffered so badly the last time there was a really long lockout was strike obviously 94 95 um this isn't going to help anything uh not being able to talk about the sport not having anything else to talk about um it's just really unfortunate it is bad i

was looking at world series ratings uh because of an argument i was having with a friend um and uh the world series like used to do really well in 70 in like the 70s and i think that doesn't even count because that's just a different world because you had three freaking channels before cable it would yeah they had like one one channel had the world series on the other one had like the night news on you're like okay i'd rather watch the world you had to make sparks to dial a phone back then yeah so i but in the modern era the biggest downturn in viewership was 1995 and we have actually never recovered our world series ratings to where it was in the in the early 90s and that's a little bit complicated because there was also kind of the steroid era explosion right and like we had like some really compelling sort of single storylines that were happening in

the early 90s but like you look at it and it's like after 94 we never got back to the same world series ratings yeah it's uh i don't think I'll make I'll make this prediction. This is my one CBA contribution for the episode. I don't think this lingers into March. And I think the main reason for that, I think the players, as much as I want them to get every single thing they deserve and they deserve a lot and the minimum pay for every player major league players and minor league players should be the biggest issue of all from just a pure economic standpoint i think because of the players losing large portions of salary in 2020 they can't afford to not get paid this year they just can't't. It would have been difficult for a lot of players

to hold the line anyway, but I just think the added pressure of that is part of what's going to, once again, push things ultimately more in the favor of owners. Even if the players move the ball a little bit, if they get more than they had, if they do better than they have done in the last CBA, which I think they will,

I don't think they're going to get everything they want because that seems almost impossible for them yeah i have a couple thoughts on that one is i've heard uh from a couple places that union's been saving up their licensing money so uh yes there's some some possibility that the union could help anybody who is the minimum salary guys that are struggling to kind of make it over. Like the idea of that? Wonder how long that actually could last. And then the other thing I'd like to say is I don't think the owners are actually as unified

as people would like to make it seem because if you think about a Cohen right now, do you think he wants there to be a season very badly? So, you know, I think that the fractures occur on both sides. And this is what we can talk about when we do a big show. But I think the fractures occur on both sides between the rich and the poor. And it might actually be easier to keep the rich and poor players together if you do have some sort of savings as a union, than it will be to keep the rich and poor players together if you do have some sort of savings as a union than it will be to keep the rich and poor owners apart because the things that separate the rich and poor owners are the fractures in the sport.

You know, the rich and poor owners always feel like they've got to rein the rich owners in and have more revenue sharing and do this and do that and make the game more favorable for them because they can't win without all that money and so i think that could be the big fracture that the players union could could actually kind of swim between i have one comment before we go uh and that is there is a war chest maxers are talked about it um in great detail a few days ago that they've been saving for he said that they could go for a while with what they've saved up for players so i don't think it's going to come down to like guys not we're making the minimum not able to to cover their finance finances um he said hopefully they don't tap into it but they've been saving this up for years they've known since the last cba ended in 16 or since last cba was negotiating 16 that this was going to be a bad fight. So they've been saving. Glad to hear it because... Well, not super glad to hear it because...

Because I don't really want them to just hold out until August because they can. I understand that impact directly on the three of us is very bad, but in the grand scheme of things, labor needs to be compensated. It makes it a fair but in the grand scheme of things, look, labor needs to be compensated. It makes it a fairer fight too, because of course the owners could hold out longer because they have,

they have more money. We, we all work. People listening to this podcast, mostly work like you want to be compensated fairly for the work that you do. Like, okay.

So if it takes, if it takes longer than I think it's going to take because the players planned really well and have a way of of keeping their finances afloat into the season then good for them for planning get everything you deserve that's what i hope happens if it costs me something as a person who latches onto this game to make a living well hey that's and they're and despite the fact that there was a ton of big signings, there is a problem. The player's share of the overall pie is lower than it's ever been. And in baseball versus the other sports,

there's more dependence on minimum salary players than in any other sport. And the minimum salary players in the NBA are at 3%. We're at like 55%. I kid you not. And 55% of the league is making the minimum and it hasn't changed much as league revenue has kind of grown through the roof. So that is a problem. When you're using half the league is on minimum salary and the minimum salary hasn't changed really in 10 years, that's a big problem. Yeah.

Let's wrap it because we're becoming a CBA pod. That's right. That's right. Save it. Save it. We should have a five-minute limit on CBA talk on every episode during whatever length of time this runs. We'll do some five-minute episodes. We'll do some other random stuff.

But get a subscription to The Athletic, 33% off the first year at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. All of the stories, all of the coverage of the back and forth and the slinging of the mud. It is covered in great detail. So be sure to check that out on Twitter. You can find Britt at Britt underscore Girola. You can find Eno at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper.

If you're watching us on YouTube and you're still listening at this very end point of the show, thanks for making it this far. Be sure to barrel up on the like button for this video. We'd greatly appreciate that. That is going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening..