Rates & Barrels - The lost 2020 minor league season and A's talk w/Melissa Lockard, and Dave Dombrowski takes the reins for the Phillies

Episode Date: December 12, 2020

Melissa Lockard joins Eno, Britt and DVR to discuss the lost 2020 minor league season, changes to the minors, the A's Rule 5 picks, and expectations for A.J. Puk. Then, Eno, Britt & DVR examine the Nate Lowe trade, before discussing the team position-by-position WAR projections, and Dave Dombrowski's move to Philly. Rundown 1:07 What Are Teams' Greatest Concerns Coming Out of Lost 2020? 9:05 Will Teams Promote Prospects More Aggressively Going Forward? 15:32 How To Determine Assignments for Minor Leaguers to Begin 2021 19:44 Did Some Young Prospects Benefit From Time Spent at Alternate Sites? 23:18 Blaze Tom, Dany Jiménez and the A's Decision to Select Two MLB Rule 5 Players 26:11 Expectations for A.J. Puk & Jake Diekman 32:01 The Rays Give Action and Trade Nate Lowe to Texas 40:41 Team-by-Team WAR Projections: How Many Teams Are Trying? 45:53 The Nats Need to Spend Money 50:39 Dave Dombrowski & The Phillies' Short-Term Direction 58:52 In or Out on Cheesesteaks? Check out the story from Melissa, Britt & Eno about the lost minor league season on The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/2246205/2020/12/08/minor-league-baseball-lost-season/ Follow Melissa on Twitter: @MelissaLockard Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Buy a one-year subscription, get one free to gift to a friend: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton Bike or Bike Plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate. Terms apply. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Friday, December 11th. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris, Britt Giroli, and a special guest today, Melissa Lockard.

Eno, Britt, and Melissa teamed up for a great piece about the lost season for minor leaguers, so we're going to talk about that. The long-term impacts that are feared around the game from not having a minor league season, that missing development time, critically important. We'll dive into some A's specific topics with Melissa as well. Some interesting things happening in Oakland. They're always fun, even when teams aren't doing anything. The A's are making little moves and doing something. So first, Melissa, thank you for joining us today. Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to be here. So I want to start digging into your guys' combined effort earlier this week. Everyone lost. The minor leagues canceled season will reverberate for years. We'll put the link in

the show description for people who have not read it yet. As you got a chance to speak to people around the A's about this lost season, What do you think their greatest concern was, organizationally speaking, by not having the full scope of minor league development in 2020? Yeah, I mean, I think the sense was pretty similar across most organizations that, you know, what they don't know is what concerns them. You know, I think they could have some control over how much they were talking to their players, what feedback they were getting from their players, what little they saw of them in alternate site and instructional league. But ultimately, they're not going to know until they actually get to a spring training, whenever that happens in a regular season,

whenever that happens, you know, exactly what was lost and where the players that sort of fell through the cracks end up winding up. So I think, you know, those are really big concerns. And when you, you know, couple that with the idea that you're also taking away a whole level of minor league baseball at the same time, it's really going to be interesting because you're going to have to take a total focus or shift away from how you kind of looked at player development in general and how you move guys up at the same time that you have a whole bunch of guys that you don't have any feedback from 2020 with. So, you know, I think it's going to be a very interesting spring training for every player

development department in trying to figure out where to slot all these guys. I was kind of wondering if that was going to impact teams being more aggressive in the Rule 5 draft. We don't even know if rosters are going to be expanded again in 2020 the same way they were in 2020. That would make it easier to stash players, of course, selected in that. Britt, as you were going through and talking to people for this piece, I know Eric Cressy was someone you spoke to. The physical development of players and just arm care and general health, that's obviously a concern as well. Did you get the sense that there is a greater concern physically for the well-being of pitchers in the short and long term than there is for hitters?

Because as I read through, I know hitters express some concerns about not getting reps and the long-term impacts that's going to have. But just physically speaking, are pitchers the greater area of concern? That's what Cressy thinks, and Eno can certainly tell you because he collected info that kind of showed that it could be the flip side. But I think what was most interesting that Cressy said was the fact that we are not done seeing the injuries caused by COVID-19.

And I think that's important to remember. Even if we start this season on time, even if everything goes like a normal year, they didn't have a normal 2020. This is not a normal off season. You're seeing shutdowns all around the country. And as Cressy noted, guys who, this is different than getting Tommy John surgery. Guys are not having access to rehab facilities, to medical facilities, to their gym to work out, to trainers, things like that. And so I think what you're going to see is you're going to see the talent level,

even at the big league level, guys kind of take a step back. You saw velocity down with a lot of guys. You saw different pitch characteristics this season. You saw guys, including Max Scherzer, who said he didn't feel like himself until the last week of the season. So to say this is just a minor league thing I think is almost selling it short. This is a huge sport-wide impact at all different levels. Certainly a minor league bears the brunt of it. They don't have the money, the resources, the cachet that the big leaguers do. But when you

look at this, it really hits baseball at all angles, I think. And when you're a pitcher, certainly throwing to live hitters, having that experience, staying on a schedule, they're creatures of habit. Those are really important things. But you know, you kind of had some really good data that backed up that maybe the hitters have a little bit of a tougher time or will have a little bit of a tougher time recovering from this even more so than the pitching. Yeah, I think I think it'll be really interesting. I think the way to sort of square what Cressy said with what the data said is that I do believe that pitchers will be more injured next year.

We saw this year, we saw three times the injuries of an average year with pitchers. And I think we'll at least see double an average year next year because of the things you're talking about, just the inconsistent training methods, the inconsistent length of offseason. If you think about instructs, you're really pushing a larger population of your minor leaguers further into the offseason, and you're taking away rest time and then also training time

that would normally be in a full offseason. So there's going to be effects from that, effects from not being able to get into training to throwing, all sorts of stuff like that. So I think the injuries will be up on the pitching side, and I think Cressy's right to say that. But the data that we have about hitters versus pitchers is that early in the season last year,

the first three weeks of the season or so, the pitchers were way ahead of the hitters. The pitchers had been training. The pitchers had been throwing to the more extent they'd been ready. But hitters had to kind of feel their way through kind of, they were still in March mode, uh, in August. And so if you looked at swing rates, like for example, they were not swinging or hitters don't swing early in the season because they're kind of like trying to see what everyone's got and try to

get their timing down and all that stuff. Um, but pitchers usually their velo isn't as high up in March. So that's how the regular season goes is the pitchers velo gets better over the course of the season and the hitters get better over the course of the season. So things stay pretty much even. But what we saw last year was the hitters came in sort of feeling it out and the pitchers came in at max velo. So I would,

I would just sort of a kind of assume that next year the hitters will be behind a little bit early on and the pitchers came in at max velo so um i i would i would just sort of a kind of assume that next year the hitters will be behind a little bit early on and the pitchers will be injured and on top of that one of the more fascinating things when we we were asking a lot of people was like how many innings can your guys pitch this year you know like how are you going to figure that out um in some of the cutting room floor quotes that we've got, it was like one guy said, normally our process isn't that rigorous. You actually just sort of lay everything down, look at it, and add 10%. And that's how you do innings. And he's like, nobody knows why it's like that, but that's how we do it.

And so I think if it's already kind of, there's a lack of rigor on a normal season, this season they can try to add the rigor, but they won't know. And I don't think that you can just add 10% because then your ace throws 55 innings next year. Like, I don't think that's happening. So there's going to be different rules for established older pitchers and younger pitchers, but there's going to be –

teams are going to have a hard time filling all the innings. We're going to see a record number of Major League debuts by arms probably. We're just going to have a hard time filling all the innings. We're going to see a record number of major league debuts by arms. Probably. We're just going to see a cycle, you know, a team like the Padres is actually probably in good shot because they have Casey Weathers, um,

uh, uh, Luis Patino, Andrea Moran and, and, and, um, Mackenzie Gore at the back of the rotation.

I bet that they're just going to be up and down all year. And they're going to try and massage those guys to like 110 innings or 120 innings and just up and down them all year. And the better teams that have better upper minors pitching depth will be able to kind of play that game all season. So that's sort of what I predict for coming next season. And I don't think that actually suggests that play is going to be that awesome. You know what I mean? It's like you're going to be like, who's this pitcher? Like, what happened to the other guy?

Oh, he's hurt or he's down or like, oh, he's ended up too many innings. Okay. And so you're going to have this weird thing with inconsistent pitching and then hitting, trying to feel their way through back to baseball. And then one of the cutting room, I think we cut this one too, was somebody saying the intensity of the I think we cut this one too was somebody saying the intensity of the games last year was the intensity of a

spring training B and they were talking about major league games was the intensity of a spring training B game so I think we're going to have some sort of ramp up back to intensity where people are like oh my god there's fans here and this is like exciting and this is a, oh my god, there's fans here and this is exciting and this

is a big deal. There's so much that we're going to figure out next year. I think that it's almost a given. Baseball is going to be a little bit worse and we're going to have to try to feel our way through this. I'm thinking about it from a player development standpoint too. If you have to use more players at the big league

level, you're draining the minor leagues. Now, this is happening at a time where there are going to be fewer minor leagues. Of course, short season A and advanced rookie going away, as you guys pointed out in the piece. But, Melissa, one thing I've wondered about as this contraction process has taken place, and it's terrible. I've said this every time. It's doing bad things to people. It's costing people jobs. It's doing bad things to people.

It's costing people jobs. Is the way teams previously developed players, is it outdated to the point where maybe they could have been more aggressive anyway? Because now they're going to have to be more aggressive, right? We're going to see players moving through minor league levels faster than we have in a long time. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, there's no exact science to how a player should move through the minor leagues. And I think maybe we've gotten used to a certain progression that didn't necessarily have to be there.

And I know there was a quote that, you know, got from a farm director that essentially said the same thing, which was like, if a guy's ready, why are we, you know, kind of moving them incrementally through the system? You might as well go ahead and put them forward. And, you know, I remember it wasn't that long ago that teams could have two high A teams in like the California league. They didn't necessarily have to have a low A and a high A team. And you were looking at, you know, fielding two rosters of players.

And some of them were, I remember, I think at the time the A's had Visalia and Modesto and they had like Miguel Tejada coming right out of the Dominican with very little experience at short season level up in high A in the same league that they were throwing, you know, their advanced college guys that they were drafting. So, you know, I think if a guy's talented, there's no reason to necessarily keep them back. I think what it really hurts is the guys that come in in the later rounds of the draft and can make a name for themselves. of the draft and can make a name for themselves. There's always that guy that pops up in his professional debut in a short season, New York Penn League or Northwest League that puts up these big numbers. And all of a sudden, this 20th round pick that was just sort of an organizational filler guy suddenly becomes a legitimate prospect. And their career takes a whole direction that I just don't know that that's going to exist

anymore. You're going to have a rookie league team. It was interesting. Baseball America talked about there's going to be 180 players, essentially, that can be rostered, it sounds like, in the U.S., which is more than what they were kind of anticipating. So extended spring training groups are going to be larger, which I think will help kind of allow them to ease some of these younger guys

through the first couple of months of the season, maybe on the complex doing extended spring, and then pushing them out to these levels and having some of the older guys get a shot at the beginning of the season. But you're not I thought I sort of assumed that they would have maybe two Arizona Rookie League teams or two Gulf Coast Rookie League teams at their complexes with that many players. And it sounds like most organizations are anticipating only having one. So you're still actually winnowing down the opportunities for a lot of these guys. And we don't know how long the draft is going to be. So if the draft ends up being cut down to say maybe 20 rounds, you know, these independent leagues that they're building up now with some of the affiliates that lost their affiliations, they're going to take, you know,

more outsized importance for those guys that used to get drafted at the end of it. But you're looking at sort of, I think, almost the end of the four-year senior player who kind of jumps out at you and becomes the big surprise. And there's a lot of those guys in the big leagues, I think, especially in bullpens around baseball that are, you know, have really solid careers that were like 28th round picks that played four years at some small school in the Northeast and end up having legitimate big league careers. So I think we are going to lose a lot from that. There's some good things. I think geographical realignment is a good idea. And I think having standards across the league for how the players are treated at their different affiliate levels

is good. But all the, you know, kind of winnowing down of opportunities is really bad. So I get the geographic thing. And for those who are not familiar with the minor leagues, they announced 120 now officially, right? Golden tickets. It was 119, but then Fresno, they solidified. How did Oakland end up with the Lansing lug nuts in Michigan? How does that make any geographic sense at all? Yeah, well, you know, so it was funny, because I think early on, it looked like it was going to be Vancouver, and they were going to be in the Northwest League, and Toronto was going to probably stay in Lansing, as they had been. And there was a kind of a cryptic tweet from Rob Fay, who's been the voice of the Canadians for a very long time, that there's an interesting

story to tell. I think that story had gotten out before anybody was ready to solidify it. And I think there was probably a pretty big outcry because Vancouver had actually been an A's affiliate for quite some time and then moved over to the J's as a short season affiliate. And the idea of the two Canadian professional teams being in one organization was a big selling point. And so for them to take that away, I think there was, even though they'd had a good relationship with Oakland in the past, I think that was not necessarily well received. Then there was the complication too of, we don't know if teams are going to be able to go into Canada to play

this season. So, you know, depending on how long these relationships are even going to be for, one of the interesting things that wasn't included in these announcements was how long these PDCs were going to be, these contracts that affiliates sign with their organizations to remain affiliated. So, you know, we don't know if these are forever or if these are just for this next season. So it could be a remains-to-be-seen sort of situation. But I think for now what ended up happening was basically Toronto needed to stay aligned with Vancouver because it doesn't make a lot of geographical sense

for Vancouver to be with Toronto either. And Lansing ended up being the kind of flip tradeoff that they did. So in the fact that they have an affiliate in Midland, Texas, which is their AA affiliate, to go from Lansing to Midland is not terribly, you know, inconvenient, I guess. So they kind of were able to play it off that way. But that's the best explanation I can kind of think of. I'm interested in this concept of sorting one of another quote that didn't make the piece, because we we talked to so many people about this and everybody was really interested

in talking about it, but one of the things that didn't make it was that same person who said that his mind is blown about how he's going to sort his players this year and he's just trying to reevaluate his whole process, said that when everyone decides,

when my leagues get going again, everyone's going to have to decide, do I put a guy who was going to be in high A or in double A next year, do I put him in triple A this year and pretend that they just keep advancing, do I just advance them even though we didn't have the minor leagues, or am I more conservative and keep them back at the place where they would have been to start 2020? And he said, this is a really important thing because we don't, he said, as a team, we don't know what everybody else is going to do, right? So if we could all

like, and this sounds like collusion, but if we could all like sort of circulate a memo and be like, hey, we're all going to just be conservative and start them where they were last year, then the quality of play or the sort of the age, the age at each level and the quality of play, the advancement, you know, how advanced each of the players were at each of these levels would then be consistent across baseball. But what we're going to have is some teams being like, ah, this guy's ready for double A or we're going to be more aggressive and just move guys along. And some other teams being like, we're not going to. and just move guys along and some other teams being like, we're not going to. So what I think, and I've sort of continued this conversation with this farm director, I think the best move is to be conservative at first and put guys in where they might have started last year just so that they hit the ground running in a good way.

I mean, they've had a year off. They haven't maybe been playing minor league games like this. But then maybe be aggressive once you start to see the lay of the land and once you kind of see some performance from them. But I don't know what you got in your reporting, Melissa, about what people are going to do about that sorting process. Yeah, you know, and I think it's also going to be organization by organization. I was looking at the two Bay Area teams that I cover. The California League going from high A to low A will actually probably have some impact on what they do because those organizations both like to be able to take a look in their

own backyard at players that they assigned to Stockton and San Jose. And them being high A, it was easy to go ahead and jump over low A and put their college draft picks there. And so you would have expected them to kind of do that sort of thing here. But now that that high A is going to be in Eugene and Lansing, the question becomes, do you want to take a look at some of those guys close on in the beginning of the year? And that means they're starting out technically in low A, or do you go ahead and push them forward? I think the Giants have a really interesting decision to make with Marco Luciano

because I think probably the fact that he had a chance to be at the alternate site and at Instructional League and he got a lot of reps, they maybe would have gone ahead and put him at high A San Jose, but now that San Jose is low A, do they start him there so they can kind of keep an eye on him, maybe bring him up to San Francisco from time to time just to sort of keep him in that sort of loop of it and then move him up maybe midseason. I think that midseason promotion, which is, you know, that that's a pretty typical thing that you see organizations, you know, move a lot of guys right after the All-Star break, I think will probably even be busier this year than normal. And I think that's where you see these extra guys maybe that,

you know, are going to be rostered at extended spring training being used in the early part of the season. And then you might see a lot more mid-season releases than you would have, even though the draft isn't going to be in June. Usually, you know, you see a lot of guys released after the draft takes place, but you may see those guys released anyway, even though there isn't an influx of new players because of this promotions kind of thing. So there's, I think, a lot of unknown. And I think this is going to be very unscientific. You know, it's going to be a lot of experimentation. And the question becomes how many careers get altered in a negative way

because people were trying to figure it out on the fly. And everyone's going to be doing their best, but there's just only so much you can kind of do to prepare, you know, in a situation that's unknown. So I think it's going to be, you know, really fascinating to see what's going to happen. I bet you there are some guys that were released early in this offseason that had they known they were going to have 180 players, maybe they wouldn't have released.

You know, guys that were in their final year of team control that they figured they were going to have to cut, that maybe now they would have saved to do this sort of double A buffering. But you can sign a lot of those guys too. So you might see a lot more minor league free agent signings in the next few weeks as well. I had this crazy idea back when alternate site groups were being announced that the really young top prospects who were included in that might actually benefit more from a year of development with older players than they would have if they'd been in low A or short season or

playing complex ball against much younger players for most of the season. We talked about this a little earlier. It's all individual. Development is so individualized. So a guy like Luciano, who's likely a future star, is going to move faster than a lot of other players. But did you get the sense that any teams were going to be more aggressive because of guys that were included in that group versus guys who were not included in that group? Because to me, that could be one thing that separates who gets the more aggressive promotion and who gets the, this is where you would have been last year. Let's start you there and then figure it out. Yeah, I do think so. And I think it's an interesting balance because, you know, there's a lot to be gained from playing. And I don't think you can say that anyone at the alternate site was really playing in the sense that you, you know, think about a traditional season. These were kind of exhibitions that

maybe went four or five innings. You had, you know, basically like Bobby Crosby was playing third base for a lot of the games at the alternate site because they ran out of people. But at the same time, they're facing AAA pitching or guys with big league experience every single day. They're getting to see how those guys prepare and, you know, get ready for each practice, get ready for each technical, you know, game. They get to hear stories from guys that were coming back from the big leagues. And there is a lot to be gained from that. I think, you know, you see a lot of guys gain a lot from their first big league spring training. And this was essentially a much longer version of big league spring training in a lot of ways. So a guy like Luciano, yeah, I think you could see move just as quickly as he

would have moved anyway, despite the missed year. Some of the other guys that were in that camp that maybe aren't quite as advanced to him, it might not have quite as much of an impact. But I think for the elite guys, it certainly was probably enough to keep them at least on track, if not ahead of the game. I did think, and I don't know what you guys all thought of this, but the Rule 5 draft was watching it unfold. I kind of like yesterday, I kind of thought, how do teams have any video? How are teams making any decisions off of selecting a player that's not been placed on a 40-man roster?

That's the picking pool for Rule 5 guys, guys who have been in the system for a certain amount of time, who are left unprotected. You know, as you and I reported earlier in the season, there was 10 teams that didn't even share their video from alternate sites. Were you guys surprised at all at some of the names that were going off the board?

And like how, I don't know if you guys spoke to anyone, any sense of like how teams decided this year, hey, we're going to take these guys that we really maybe haven't seen in well over a year yeah i wanted to ask melissa about the the the picks in particular uh i thought it was how do you say his name kai kai kai um but he also goes by blaze so maybe just easier to blaze blaze he uh he's an interesting character because if you watch him I think he looks undersized you're surprised by the power numbers with the swing that he's got you know he kind of

I think I would label him kind of a performance prospect is another way of saying it's a little bit different than organizational filler it's a guy who's kind of surprises you with the numbers and in the scouting community doesn't really like him as much as the numbers do. I think the A's love those players. They get those players all the time. And we were talking about how performance prospects might be hurt the most by this sorting process because they're not going to be one of the top prospects that's at the alternate side, and they're not young enough to be at the instructs. So Mike Brousseau types, you know, the pop-up guys that we're talking about.

Did you hear anything, did you hear anything about Blaise Tom and how that fit in and like exactly like sort of hanging in hand with what Britt's asking about how to evaluate? Yeah, you know, Dan Feinstein talked, right, the assistant general manager talked right after the draft. And, you know, basically both with Blaise and with Danny Jimenez, who was their second, they actually took two Rule 5 picks. So they dove off the deep end in a year where you didn't have as much information. But for both of them, actually, Instructional League was a big part of their scouting process. Tom was invited to the Instructional League there.

You know, he said he was very disappointed to be left off their alternate site group in Cleveland, but was invited to do instructional league, jumped at the opportunity, and I guess played well enough there that they felt good about what they were seeing from him there. And Jimenez, even though they had obviously had a chance to see... So there were scouts at instructional? I guess, yeah, they had scouts there, and they were in Arizona, so they probably faced them a couple of times as well, too. But they also scouted Jimenez at the Blue Jays instructional league so they must have had scouts at that one as well um and they felt good about

where his stuff was even more than when they saw him um at you know the Giants spring training and then those two appearances he made in the major leagues and they actually to the point that they said we think there's a couple of things mechanically we think we can fix with him so they've already identified enough from video that they think they can fix now you know best laid plans and all that sort of thing but um one thing that really struck me though about the rule five draft was i think there were only three position players if i i can't i might have that number a little bit wrong but there were 18 players taken in the major league portion and the vast vast majority were pitchers um so in talking when

you're saying about pitchers going up and down and um you're going to see a lot of guys making their debuts i think you can see that reflected in this rule five pool um you're talking about a lot of raw arms that throw really hard maybe have one other pitch that has a wrinkle right yeah and you might as well see and you throw those up against the wall. Phantom DL stance. Yeah, exactly. It's $50,000 if you lose out and have to return them, right? So I think you're going to see a lot of that. And if it ends up in a 28-man roster instead of 26,

a lot of these guys are going to stick, I think. Right, yeah. Yeah, good point. That Blaze Tom pick is pretty interesting because the A's are trying to replace Robbie Grossman. And if you're going off number scouting, there's at least a chance Tom wins a job and exceeds expectations. He has that sort of profile to him. I wanted to ask you about AJ Puck, Melissa. He is one of the most difficult players to analyze because we don't see him because he's hurt. he's hurt. What have you been able to gather just in watching him in the limited stints? He has been on the mound, and where would you set expectations for him? Because he clearly seems like the kind of guy that's going to have his workload monitored probably in 2021 and maybe even a bit in 2022 as well. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because every time the A's talk about him, they still

talk about him in their starter mix, which surprises me because you're right. I mean, I would think he's thrown something like 38 or 40 innings over the last three years because he had the Tommy John surgery and missed the 2018 season. 2019, he came back and they decided to move him to the bullpen so he could help the big league team. So I think that was like about 40 innings and then obviously didn't get off the ground in 2020. So I think that was like about 40 innings and then, you know, obviously didn't get off the ground in 2020. So to think that you can jump from that to back to somewhat of a starter's workload seems, you know, kind of overly optimistic to me. But they still do refer to him in that mix. I think they felt good about, as good as you can feel about a shoulder surgery, what they found when they went in there. I think it was a less complicated repair than they were anticipating, and they think that he's going to have a full recovery.

You know, still, I think you have to be pretty concerned when an elbow becomes a shoulder and what that cascading effect is. That being said, when he was pitching in spring training and then when he was pitching in the summer 2.0 camp or whatever they were calling that he looked really really good up until the point that he got hurt each of those two times his command was looking much better than it had in the year that he was coming back from Tommy John the fastball had a lot of life to it you know he's got three other pitches besides the fastball that he can

work on so he's definitely got a starter's mix it's just a matter of whether his body is going to let him be able to stay healthy enough, I think, to stay on the mound. So I'm not sure exactly what they're going to do. Maybe they start him out as a starter and very, you know, kind of metered four or five inning outings and then move them into a relief role as the year goes on. I think if they get 70 innings out of him to build towards a more normal 2022, I think that would be a huge success. But we'll, we'll have to kind of see.

So, but he's in that mix. I think he and Dalton Jeffries and maybe even James Caprillion are sort of in that mix to fill that fifth starter, maybe patchwork throughout the season. I want to know how I can change my name formally to blaze. I think it would. That's the name actually on his birth certificate. I mean, think about guys, it would that's the name actually on his birth certificate I mean think about guys it would really

up the show you got Eno you got DVR and Blaze I mean I'm just thinking about us we could just call you Blaze

and add a certain cachet he's going to be competing with Sky Bolt too for bats in spring training which I think is the absolute best all time games kind of competition. Position battle right there.

Sky versus Blaze. I love it. I love it. Melissa, I also wanted to ask you, there were a little bit of A's, I guess, news-ish with Jake Diekman kind of being the, I guess, ordained right now as we sit in mid-December as the primary closer. Obviously, Liam Hendricks remains one of the better relief arms on the market. If you're the A's, do they look to upgrade? Is Diekmann the guy?

How do you feel, I guess, about them potentially having him move into that de facto closer role? Yeah, you know, he was really good in 2020. But his command is not what you look for when you look for a closer. I mean, I think he's definitely in that late inning mix. I think, you know, sort of if you look at that wildcard series against the White Sox and the way that they used him in a lot of different roles in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings, you know, he was effective that way. And I would sort of imagine that they would do that. But I think in a, you know, ideal world, they go out and try to find somebody with some experience closing games that they could pair with Diekmann. And so I think he'll probably save opportunities, but I don't think he's necessarily going to be Liam Hendricks and be the anointed everyday guy. I could be wrong, but even David Forrest spoke earlier this week, and even his answer about it was like, you know, Diekmann is a guy that we, that we liked there, but it wasn't like he was like, he's going to be our closer. So, you know, I think they're still looking, they tend to sign, um, experienced relievers towards the like January portion of most off seasons. Um, so I would expect them to be active then once the maybe bigger names like Hendricks get, get signed and the market sort

of shakes itself out. Yeah, you know, did you predict Hendrix? I know you did like a 10 predictions of the top free agents. Yeah, I said Hendrix to the White Sox. I just thought, you know, they're gonna I think that they're gonna buy a big closer. I think they're gonna buy at the top of the market for a closer. Yeah, I see the A's. I don't know. I'm just scanning it and I'm not have it really deep dived in any of it, but like a Keone Kayla or maybe even like an Anthony Bass, like they're just going to get a guy that doesn't cost that much that has good velo. That's, that's kind of, that's what they do. They, they, they like velo. They've talked about velo. And, and so it'll be somebody that has good velo that doesn't cost as much as the other guys. I wouldn't be surprised if they get involved in the Sean Doolittle market if he looks like he's going to be healthy too. Just

the relationships they have with him, the guys, you know, they've worked with him before. His command, I think, is something that even if the velo is not playing up, if they feel like it's good enough to compete somewhere in that mix, they'd be able to throw him into a lot of different situations as well. But I don't know if he's going to have to do a showcase or something to kind of make sure that teams see that he's healthy or not before that comes. But that's another name I'd sort of keep in mind as well. Melissa, thanks for making some time to talk to us today. The piece was outstanding. Enjoyed the Rule 5 write-up as well because Blaze Tom is now one of my favorite players as a result of his name. But knowing more about him also helps before making that decision.

But again, thanks for making the time for us today. All right. Thanks so much, guys. So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? The answer is FedEx. Okay. But what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments?

How do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx. Oh, but let's say that... FedEx. What?

FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next. All right. Well, the winter meetings are over. We did get one more trade, though, on Thursday.

The free Nate Lowe movement gets a pretty big win. The Rays flip Nate Lowe to the Rangers, where he can be, I think, the everyday first baseman in Texas. That was a gaping hole on the Rangers depth chart. And I think this is exactly what we were talking about with Melissa, where a hall of prospects right now that you get from our perspective outside the game with minimal information, not being able to see those guys and relying on what people tell us about these players. We really can't grade a trade in which multiple prospects were shipped to the Rays. I think without doing the knee-jerk, well, the Rays traded away Nate Lowe, so there's something wrong with them, and the Rays traded for these prospects. These prospects must be good, which we're not going to do. I was digging in a little bit, and there was

a prospect. He's listed as a catcher first baseman. I think he can also play the outfield, too. He's the prize. He's the guy. Heriberto Hernandez. There you go. Heriberto Hernandez. But, you go heriberto hernandez but uh you know i think yeah i think they were trying to get him i think there's a lot of things going on but i mean um i did try to look at nate lowe and be like what's wrong with him you know he's projected

to be the second best corner infielder the rays have next year um the only person who's projected to be better is yoshi tsutsugo who was worse than Nate Lowe last year. So it's kind of like, you know, that's kind of a faith play to say that, you know, Nate Lowe, you know, by Steber projections, at least would have been the probably the best corner infielder they had next year. So it's a little bit weird that even though they have a stacked situation there, they let him go. Then, you know, a bunch of people from the Raysverse said, well, he's been really bad. You know, I thinkason collette pointed this out some other people uh that he's really bad against high uh against high fastballs and against high velocity fastballs and i looked at his barrels and he goes oppo with his barrels more often than pulling them which is you pull

barrels do better than oppo barrels any case there might be some sort of velo question with him um and with heroberto hernandez you say oh well this guy hits lasers he's listed as a catcher Barrels. In any case, there might be some sort of velo question with him. And with Herobroto Hernandez, you say, oh, well, this guy hits lasers. He's listed as a catcher OF. Maybe they can get him a catcher. I was talking to people. They say he's definitely not a catcher. He might not even be an outfielder. And he's

kind of small, like short, so he might not be a first baseman. So they may have just traded for a DH that hits lasers, which sounds like the Rays. They'll find a place to put him um in his prime right uh but uh i think it i think it's almost more an indictment of nate lowe than anything well they got two of the top 30 rangers prospects right and these kids are young they're what 20 years old um so i think what's funny though guys is if like the rockies made this trade or some other team we'd be like this is horrible this makes no sense but the rays just

seem so much smarter than everyone else right we're like what were they what were they thinking what did we miss what's going on here you know it's like digging deep into the numbers here's the craziest part i mean do you play poker oh. Do you know about giving action? No. Okay, giving action, I hadn't heard of it. My guess is taking a turn. I hadn't heard of it really either. But giving action is this idea that you will make a bet that doesn't necessarily have a good expected return. Like you'll make a bet on an iffy hand just to keep people thinking that they're as smart as you or smarter than you.

And just to keep the room moving so that you'll get more action later. So if you only bet only on the hands that you'll win, and you only win when you bet, then every time you bet, somebody says, oh, this guy never bluffs. He never does anything. I'm not going to give him any action. He's got a great hand. I fold, right? But if you do some bets that are like sort of treading water, maybe I win, maybe I don't. You just sort of throw some money out there. Then somebody says, oh, which one is this next time that you have a really good hand and you can get more money on the hands where you have a good hand so that's so they're so smart they're pretending to not be smart certain times so then we're not sure how

smart they really are i would say it's treading water so like they don't think nate low is that important and they're gonna move nate they're gonna turn nate low into someone younger and further away right and they're just gonna keep the the They're going to turn Nate low into someone younger and further away. Right. And they're just going to keep the things. And that maybe that means next time they really want somebody from the Rangers, they'll get them. I don't know. That's it was a,

it's an interesting idea. I don't know if it's true, but it's, it's an interesting idea. I think it's fascinating. And I also think that if the title of this podcast episode is not raise or getting more action later, I got to check with the SEO judges on that one and see if we get the thumbs up or the thumbs down.

It's time to blaze and give action. Have you heard about giving action? Boy, this podcast took a turn. But I think that concept also applies in fantasy baseball too. If you are a good trader and you gain a reputation in your league for always winning trades, the league will stop trading with you. And you do have to go out and make trades

that are more even or even trades that you lose eventually in order to kind of keep the game rolling. In order to win trades later, you do have to be more fair or possibly lose

a smaller trade or two along the way. Because if you get burned enough times by somebody, you're not going back there anymore. So keeping options open is important. I think that's a great example. And you think about your interactions with people,

like the people that need to win every league, if they also add sort of bluster and are annoying about it and are just always pushing the trade and always trying to put more players in, three for one, four for one, and are just overwhelming with offers and with the sort put more players in, three for one, four for one, and are just overwhelming with offers and with the sort of blustery, I will always win side of mentality,

then you're just like, ah, dude, I'm not taking your phone call. Right. I'm just not going to deal with you because you're not pleasant to deal with. Who is this in real life, do you guys think? Houston Astros. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, under Luna, i can't speak for click but do you remember when they when they dropped that thing that actually had um offers that they had made yes remember there was like a and they were terrible they were like the worst my flotsam for your star like the worst kind of stuff that you hear on like WFAN where it's like, well, can we trade like Steven Matz for, you know, like Stanley Alcantara and Javier Lopez and Pablo Lopez? Yeah. Or like, I can do better. I don't know.

Can we trade Steven Matz for Garrett Cole? Mike Trout? Yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But like, that's what they were. They were just like these terrible. And I guess the idea is you make that

sort of crazy request and then later on you get you when you do get to the deal you have a better return but i think at some point you stopped answering the phone calls from the astros yeah yeah i would love to have like gms honestly tell us like okay who's like the three guys that you hate dealing with like who are the the three guys and i bet the rays are up there because you always get this feeling that maybe they're swindling you right you always are like why do you like that guy never mind but they they give a lot of action man i would say one thing is the rays are always trading like so i i would say that i would say maybe it's not true that it's the rays because there's they're always making trades I think you can go to the Rays and talk to them about any player. Like Snell, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I don't know who it is. Maybe AJ Preller. I was going to say Preller. But I mean, he makes trades and sometimes he makes,

like I think that the industry kind of raised their eyebrow at the Clevenger trade. Yeah, I would agree. Well, the jury's still out on that because now he's going to be out. I don't know how much they gave up and I don't know how much they gave up, and I don't know how much they gave up either. True. That seemed like a pretty fair trade, even one that I liked for the Padres when it happened. I feel like it's easy to look at it now and go, oh, what are they doing? Clevenger's hurt. Right, right.

That's hindsight 2020. But with Preller, I think you don't even know if he's telling you the truth. Yes. Yeah, that is true. Did Drew Pomerantz take these drugs or not oh you're gonna lie to me oh thanks exactly i mean i've heard that there's a lot of line that goes on what guys can put on waivers um in terms of like oh you don't want that guy's a bad character guy no they just want to flip them through they just want him to squeeze through waivers yeah

so there's a liar liar day we'll see if we can get some GMs to come on. Probably never and tell us what they really think. Maybe that could be like when we actually have a winter meetings, we could do a piece where we grant them anonymity just to get them to talk crap on each other. Oh, that's so good. That would be pretty fun. Be a nice battle royale.

I'm sure you guys saw this tweet at some point in the last couple of days, but Mike Petriello tweeted out a grid of the 2021 war projections from fan graphs, and this was just for hitters. So you could see the disparity between the top teams, the Dodgers, the Angels actually, 25 war for their hitters. Thanks, Mike Trout. Second on that list, tied for second with the Twins. You can see teams at the bottom like the Marlins, the Rockies, shocker, and the Rangers, who did get a little better in that Nate Lowe trade. And it made one of our listeners, Alex, was wondering,

how many teams are actually trying right now? Because when you see it laid out that way, you do have a pretty good read on the haves and the the have-nots and some of those have-nots are not linked to anybody in free agency and a lot of those teams also don't have young talent to start making up that gap this to me looked like a pretty good indictment of some of these teams being bad for a long long time yeah the Yeah. The bottom five, definitely. But when you look beyond that, like the bottom 10, there's some interesting names in here. The Nats are trying to win now.

The Phillies, we know, are going to try to win now because they just brought in Dave Dombrowski. So there's, I mean, can they win now? That's probably a long podcast discussion. But the Brewers are in that little weird gray area. The Mariners have a bunch of really exciting prospects about to hit the major leagues. Right.

Of the teams near the bottom, the Mariners, because of some really high ceiling position players, could get a lot better really fast. They're one of the more exciting teams in the bottom part of that list. I think the D-backs are a high variance. I think they're trying to play the A's style baseball where they create good, okay teams every year. The Brewers are living there too. That's the type of team the Brewers are. I think the D-backs and Brewers are just like any year they can be better than you expect,

and they're going to always be near 500 in projections. That's that's how that's how i kind of see the d-backs plan so it's never going to be like oh my god they've got five prospects coming it's kind of like well maybe kristen robinson and dalton varsha work out and you know they find an extra pitcher luke weaver has a good season then they'll be good yeah but what the marlins are behind only the rockies and the rangers here at the of this list, which I found a little interesting. Really? The Marlins are worse off in 2021 than the Orioles? That's because it's bat only

and their position players are terrible. Their offense is a bit of a hit, but really? The Orioles? The Pirates? That's bad to be looking up on the Pirates right now. It is real bad to be looking up on the pirates right now it is real bad to be looking up at the pirates i love reading any kind of pirates content off the athletic because it's like why should i root for this team like they're so funny about it like here i know what you're wondering why should i

read this article why should i care about this team um our our pittsburgh people do a great job of like keeping it readable like here's fake trades that will never happen because the pirates are terrible. Like they do a great job of being like, totally trying to have some fun with it. No, but there's a line between truly not trying and part of a rebuild. So let's do the opposite and see like,

who's really not trying. And I is what the oils are doing. Is that not trying? Yeah. Is it not? It's not trying for now or is it rebuilding? It really not trying. And what the Orioles are doing, is that not trying? Yeah. Is it not trying? It's not trying for now? Yes. Or is it rebuilding?

It's not trying. So we're going to call rebuilding not trying. I'd say they're actually rebuilding. They have direction. I think you can see some teams in this chart. What's more like not trying? Like the Reds and Cardinals, is that more not trying?

The Reds are closer to not trying. They're okay and they're not trying to get better. We haven't seen it yet. They're kind of caught in the middle. They're not quite good enough. Well, they might be good enough because the NL Central is a group of five teams all tanking simultaneously. They're all pretending they have no money.

And the Cubs and Cardinals are a little better than the Brewers and Reds, but not by so much that you couldn't see the Reds or Brewers kind of closing that gap not by so much that you couldn't see the Reds or Brewers kind of closing that gap and winning the division with 85 wins. I mean, it's going to be so gross. If we go back to a normal schedule, the winner of the NL Central is going to have a very modest win total

unless something very unexpected happens with one or two of those teams. You're not kidding. Check this out. There's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 teams that rank ahead of the first National League Central in total war. Wow. Yeah. In total projected war.

And then it goes Cubs, Brewers, Cardinals. 16, 17, 18. And Reds, 19. So right behind the Royals. So they are sort of all diving for the middle and just being like, hey, the next person who signs a major free agent might actually jump to the top of this. The Reds sign Marcus Simeon, they will be virtually indistinguishable from the Brewers and Cardinals. And they are going to get a shortstop, so it could make a lot of sense for them to go that route.

Britt questioned about the Nationals. Are they trying? I mean, they're so weird. Well, on the hitter chart especially, they're lopsided. It's Juan Soto, Trey Turner, and just a bunch of old guys. The worst non-Shortstop infield in baseball. I was hoping Eno texted me that the other day and I'm like, holy

hell. You've suggested they might need to tear it down at some point. They got their title. They're getting old, but I feel like when you look at a chart like this and you see two 4 plus war players, and especially one at Shortstop, you've got enough of a core there

where you can add the things you need and continue on your current window i don't think their windows closed yet i think juan soto affords the nationals the kind of long window that the angels have had and squandered during mike trout's time there like for the Nationals to tear it down with Juan Soto at this stage of his career, unless they have some kind of speedy rebuild option, and I don't really think that exists anymore, I think they're better off continuing to push chips in. Yeah, I do too. But the issue is if they're not good by July,

you got Max Scherzer, you've got an aging roster and guys who won't be back who you may want to like flip, right? And do like that mini, whatever we can get back. Let's just eat it for the rest of the season. But I agree with you. They need to, in my opinion, you go out and you add like DJ LeMayhew, George Springer. Like you add one or two of these guys and all of a sudden you're like feeling pretty good about that lineup, right?

You're like, okay, now we have three guys because this season it was Trey Turner, Juan Soto, and if they weren't batting that inning, forget it. They got really old with a lot of the guys. The Eric Thames signing was a disaster. Starlin Castro got hurt. A lot of their additions just didn't do anything.

But they could follow that same playbook and it might work out next year. They are in a place where the places places they need to fill um are not expensive like they they are the worst team in baseball by first baseman except for the rockies yep so like it can't be that hard to go by like just a one-year first baseman um even like maybe put kyle schwarber there or you know like just you know there's lots of different options low on the table where you just do a one-year deal with them um and you know if you did a one-year deal with a first baseman signed dj lemay hugh um and then picked a left

fielder up to to help out with left field you could bring a lot of that that stuff up and and get back right to within the mets pretty quickly i think but it does require spending money and they just fired everybody yeah it's an interesting like no one really knows what the budget is what they're going to be able to spend um i mean i know it's like that for a lot of clubs and we've talked about it previously on the show that players are just like free agents have no idea what's going on because gms don't really know what's going on and if the guys guys offering the deals, aren't really sure. I do think hopefully before Christmas, we kind of see a little more movement. Um, I know the, the Nats are anxious to make a few moves, so hopefully you

could start seeing these dominoes falling a little bit, but you're right. I mean, you add one cheap player on a one-year deal and then you sign one of these bigger free agents and they're a good team. Steven Strasburg was hurt all of last year. You know Max Scherzer entering. The final year of his contract is going to be motivated. He wants to continue to pitch. He hates people. You can't even bring up the fact that he's getting older.

He'll just death stare at you, which is even scarier because he's got the two colored eyes, and you're never sure which eye to look at. Learned that my first week on the job i was like oh my god this guy's terrifying i will never try to piss him off um so they do have like some factors that you look at it and you're like okay they should get better they had a lot of regression in their bullpen with daniel hudson and will harris but how much of that was like we we said, the weird season. Those guys didn't look ready. They didn't look right.

They do. I mean, the Braves are really good, but the Phillies are a train wreck, and I'm not so sure what the Mets are going to do here. Are they going to need a little time to build up what they have? I don't know. But the Nationals right now have that window to still be good.

And if you win again after just winning a 19, who cares if you're bad for five years after that, right? I feel like if you can continue to have this success for at least one or two more years, maybe you look at it and you're like, all right, that's it. We're done now. We're going to have Juan Soto and a bunch of scrubs

as he plays out his career, but he won two rings. And I don't think people will forget that. So I do think that they're a team who is very far down this war list. But they're a team that's trying to win now. And, I mean, the Phillies have got to be a win-now team, right? Or at least a win-soon team with the crazy hiring. I had Real Muto going to a surprise team, the Astros. But that was only because I thought the Mets are going to sign McCann

and that I don't see a market. But if Dombrowski is going to a surprise team, the Astros, but that was only because I thought the Mets are going to sign McCann and that I don't see a market. But if Dombrowski is going to the Phillies, I feel like they might re-sign McCann. I mean, re-sign Real Muto and then maybe make a couple other targeted signings. I don't know, maybe in the bullpen. Still pretty bad in the bullpen. Maybe somewhere on the infield.

But they don't really have the prospects to make anything other than one big splash if they send Howard somewhere with some other pieces, maybe for like a Snell trade. So they could try to pull Snell, sign Real Muto, and sign Hendricks, and that would be very Dombrowski-esque. Yeah, what a bomb yesterday. I don't know how you guys felt. I saw it and had to read it twice

to make sure I read the tweet correctly. I was just about to call him for my other story. I thought he was committed to that project. I thought he was committed to Nashville. This is strange. Was this Phillies job one that people who were in a position to be offered the job just didn't want? If you were a highly coveted candidate to take over as a GM or president of baseball ops, whatever the title officially ends up being, is this one of those situations you look at and say, yeah, you know what?

I don't want this to be my first opportunity. And I realize there's only a very limited number of people who can choose to pass on a job like that because you might not get offered another one. But the first job you take, the first GM job you take is really important. It might be your last. Right. Because if you fail,

you're probably not getting a second chance as a GM. Look at Matt Klintak. You'll be an AGM somewhere. Yeah. You ruin that first chance. And that, like you said, it might be it.

So do you really want that Philly situation? Look at like, what is appealing about that job? It's a job, I guess. I don't know. You know, maybe the owner tells you that he's willing to spend. It's such a weird time in the game right now because the Reds, who were one of the most aggressive teams of the offseason a year ago, are paring down payroll right now. And we don't know if they're going to spend on Simeon and offset the difference in price. But I still look at this team and go, yeah, they're not spending as much as they were projected to spend in a full 2020. They're just not going to do that. And I think just like the Phillies, they opened up the pocketbook

and went out and added Bryce Harper. I don't know how aggressive they're going to be. The Real Mudo reunion does seem more likely with Dombrowski. But if the moves you have to make by adding Dave Dombrowski to run your team cause you to spend more money, that doesn't seem like a thing that an owner would do right now. That just seems so counterintuitive to the way baseball ownership groups are going about their business right now. Yep. Unless you're the Royals, because the Royals have actually been like, no, we're not cutting. We're going to keep spending, which is relative because they're the Royals.

But there have been some teams, the White Sox out there, that are going to be aggressive. But you're right. The Phillies' job to me is just a bad job. The owner seems like he's very involved. It was, Hey, we're going to trade Zach Wheeler. Oh no,

we're not. Now we're going to hire Dave Dombrowski. Yeah. Right. Does that sort of messaging does not speak well to, it's almost like Wilpon ask. Yeah. And it's,

it's, it's Ned Rice is still the interim GM there. Right. But Andy McPhail is leaving. Is that correct? Is that what's happening in that front office? And that sort of stuff. I think that's why the Mets couldn't find a GM because they're like, but you have Sandy Alderson. So what am I going to do?

You want me is just to like, you know, do write the contracts out. Is that what you want me for? Because Sandy is going to make all the calls. Right. Yeah. Like if you have someone who's making the decisions above you and you have the title, but you're just kind of there. That's not that's not getting to do the job. That's why they pivoted and said,

we want somebody without any experience and we're going to groom into the role or whatever. And they couldn't even get Chris Young, who was like two years ago, was playing. Yeah. Okay. Do you guys think it's weird though that the Rangers didn't even say there was a job opening and then all of a sudden Chris Young is their GM?

I mean, if I'm somebody who wants a GM job, that and the Marlinslins who I think didn't interview anyone but Kim Eng, how is that allowed, right? In this day and age? Yeah, there are like supposedly fair practice, fair hiring practices, you know? Not saying those guys are bad hires, just saying it's a little shady. Like do the rules not apply when you come from the commissioner's office? Who would get you in trouble is the commissioner's office, probably. Yeah. So is the lesson here work at the commissioner's office first because then you'll just get offered a job and you'll spring ahead of everyone, right? Isn't it a little weird? Shady. Here's the follow-up question for you guys. They're thinking about the NL East picture,

right? So the Mets, that's a good job once they figure it out. Once Sandy Alderson retires and the next GM, president of baseball operations can be in charge because Steve Cohen's going to spend a lot of money. Definitely a good job. The Braves have an outstanding young core. You got Acuna, Albies, that alone. All signed

to below market deals. For a long time, you've got them locked in. They're in great shape. You look at the marlins they at least have a lot of young talent there's a lot of work to be done building the org that to me also looks more appealing than philly and then the gnats like we just talked about you got soto you still have trey turner for a few years you have some great older pitching and you just won so there's a good chance that you will be able to spend a little more than you will be able to spend somewhere else. To me, the Phillies look like the worst job in the NL East and the toughest path to even win the division in the long run.

They're not set up for good long-run success. They have to spend to win now. I do have a retort. The Phillies make money. In terms of park and TV, when they're rolling, they make money like they like it's a good like in terms of park and TV and like when they're rolling they make money

you know so you know they're what they're what like don't forget the heyday don't forget like they won the World Series and they

they went to another you know like they they can they can spend when things are going well they can spend I don't know I will be honest

I don't know much about Middleton and how it works. But that's the thing. That's why the Angels keep cycling through GMs is because that's not a coveted job. And it has to do with the owner. I think

that the Orioles is interesting because I had the impression that they had a meddling owner. But maybe either Elias has convinced him to just let him run the show and run the rebuild or i don't know maybe maybe there will be a point where mike elias signs some slugger to a terrible deal and you'll just know that that was that was the owner like chris davis um the thing with the orioles is that peter angeles has gotten so old now

that meddling is just not possible. Maybe he's just not meddling as much. Yeah, it's just not possible. I agree with Derek. I think it's the worst job in the NL East, but it brings up a good point. When they are good, their fan base cares, right? Some fan bases, when they're bad, just ignore them.

The Phillies are probably getting just as many clicks now because it's a train wreck as when they're good. So there's definitely always something going on in philly and it's like the cubs job right if you win in philly you'll just be immortalized right it'll be like rocky and you there'll be statues and it's a it's almost a destination park i mean it's a it's a pretty nice park you know people go to it yeah it's great so yes but also i look at that team and i think they're not one player away they They're not two players away. Like they, they need a lot of work. That bullpen is atrocious.

They made a lot of bad. Just look at the depth chart and they're below at or below replacement in like, uh, they're below average in four spots. Yeah. It's just, which is bad.

Five spots. Yeah. And then they're at replacement in three spots. That's not good. Right. So they have to spend, right? Yes. They have to spend, right?

Yes. They have to spend. The only way this works with Dave Dombrowski is they have to spend because they don't have enough prospects for him to trade to get this. I mean, maybe teams will take on lesser prospects just to shed payroll. Maybe that's the way Dombrowski can work out of this.

And I'm not trying to crap on him as a GM or anything. I just think it's a tricky spot that he's in. And that Nashville thing sounded a lot more interesting to me. Last question for you guys for today. In or out on cheesesteaks? Some people actually don't like cheesesteaks. What do you think, Britt? In.

The whole reason I took a recruiting trip to LaSalle. Was it LaSalle in Philly? Yeah. Or maybe it was Drexel. I don't know. Anyway, the whole reason I took a recruiting trip to go to a school in Philly was so that I could eat multiple cheesesteaks

at multiple locations and I can report that they are delightful. Yes, in. The great tragedy of my life is that I have not had a cheesesteak in Philadelphia. I haven't either. I've never actually been to Philly. What?

So I've had all the fake cheesesteaks around the country trying to imitate places in Philly. Yeah, exactly. I can say that I like it as a concept in a sandwich, but I don't want to comment too heavily on it having not had one at the Mecca. Somebody needs to send Eno and Derek and I cheesesteaks. In the mail. And we will ship them. They ship everything, Matt. Is there a worse food that you could mail someone?

It's a soggy, soggy-ass box. There's just no possible way to get that done right. You know what, guys? I was trying to secure us a cheesesteak sponsorship, and you've ruined it. Find a way to send us one that's not disgusting, and I'll eat it. The Rates and Barrels World Tour.

We'll have to make a stop in Philadelphia someday when we can get our cheesesteaks there. But tell us where to get our cheesesteaks. Ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com. That's definitely a point of contention, as is the Wit Without. whether you're going cheese whiz or provolone or why not both? You know, just throw all of it on there.

Messy sandwiches, just let it go. All the stuff. I want hot peppers though. Do they do hot peppers on that? That's probably frowned upon. If you've got questions for us, you can send them our way via Twitter as well. She's at Britt underscore G as well. She's at

Britt underscore Giroli. He's at Eno Saris. I am at Derek Van Ryper. Blaze underscore Giroli. Blaze! Yes! Thank you again to Melissa Lockard for joining us on this episode. That is going to wrap things up for this episode

of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening.