Rates & Barrels - The Mets make more moves, J.T. Realmuto and George Springer suitors, and a mystery team for DJ LeMahieu

Episode Date: December 15, 2020

Eno and DVR discuss James McCann to the Mets, the new GM in the Big Apple, suitors for J.T. Realmuto and George Springer, a possible mystery team fit for DJ LeMahieu, and Chris Flexen's return to the big leagues after a successful one-year stint in the KBO.  Rundown 1:55 Buying James McCann’s 2019-20 Offensive Production? 5:05 Would You Rather? Fringe Top-10 Catchers 13:35 Jared Porter is the Mets’ New GM 17:15 Where Does J.T. Realmuto Fit Now? 26:43 David Dahl Heads to Texas 34:26 Hunter Renfroe Goes to Boston 43:03 Chris Flexen Signs with Seattle After One Year in KBO 47:25 Best Fits for George Springer 51:55 A #MysteryTeam for DJ LeMahieu? 56:31 Can You Draft Too Many Players From One Team? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. 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 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. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Monday, December 14th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris on this episode. We will discuss the latest round of moves made by the New York Mets. James McCann is now on board and the Mets have a new GM, so we'll talk about that.

We also have a former Met returning to the States after a year in the KBO and some new homes for David Dahl and Hunter Renfro. Once we talk through the news, we're going to look at some of the free agent predictions that Eno made at his piece last week and consider some new potential fits. With the McCann domino falling, JT Real Muda may have another suitor or two emerging from the woodwork. We'll also get to a mailbag question or two as well. Eno, happy Monday. How was your weekend?

It was good. It was good. We have pulled the kids out of school to quarantine them so that the grandparents can come. And so this week will be hectic. Bear with us. Bear with us this week. Zoom is happening as we speak. Everybody in this house is on Zoom right now.

Well, you've got good internet because the podcast is working so far. So that's good. Let's get to it. The Mets added James McCann on a four-year deal over the weekend. I think he's fascinating because he was non-tendered two years ago. And as we were getting ready to record, I said, if you told me then that he was going to sign a multi-year deal with anybody at any point, I would have probably pushed back on that. And to get four years at a pretty decent average annual value as well is a pretty nice turnaround. I think the question I have, as McCann goes, is a little more of an offensive question at this point. How much are you buying his improvements as a hitter that we've seen since the start of 2019?

I think I buy it because one of the things that we've already seen from mckinnon is regression in terms of um the barrel rate so like he had a bit of a barrel rate explosion in 2019 uh where he had the best exit velocity of his career and the best barrel rate um the second best barrel rate of his career, or at least the best in the biggest sample. So he looked like he'd found something out there and he'd sort of traded some strikeout rate for some power. And then you saw in 2020, his barrel rate regressed, but it stayed pretty close. So like he had a 9.2% barrel rate in 2019, which not quite elite but it's it's comfortably above average it's sort of like top third of the league type thing and then in 2020 it was 8.7 so I think he can hit the ball hard you know I think he can he can hit for slugging the question otherwise is you know can he hit for batting average?

Can he get on base? And that is a little bit more of an up-and-down proposition for him. I mean, some years he walks a little bit more. Some years he has a little bit more batted ball luck. And his projections say he will be about 20% worse than league average, which is only slightly below average per catch. But it is kind of weird to see a team drop four years and $40 million and still be below average at the position by projections. Yeah, I think it's sort of like going up to a car lot and just paying the price that the

sheet of paper on the window has on it as opposed to negotiating down a little bit it's a luxury the mets have right you're not looking at the signing and going oh well this is going to hurt them later it's not going to really impact them later in any way at all if mccann is a decent player for most of the contract the mets are going to be fine yeah yeah i think i agree with you and also one thing that we know is that steamer doesn't have as much stack cast as other things so you can see that his best two years by the stack cast numbers are his best two power years and uh projections have him going back below league average in terms of power but if he doesn't do that then maybe he's

a league average bat he also improved in framing last year, which was a small sample. But if that sticks, now you've got a guy who can frame, who can hit for power, murders lefties, and may be comfortably above league average. If he's comfortably above league average in year one, he'll be worth the money mostly over the four-year deal. And he won't cost you whatever JT Real Muto is asking for. Yeah, Real Muto probably get a fifth year and probably get almost double the AAV. I mean, closer to $20 million a year is kind of where I expect Real Muto's deal to end up. Looking at McCann compared to other players at the position for a moment, just from a pure would-you-rather perspective,

you've got McCann just outside the top 200 overall in early NFBC drafts, and that's based on not knowing where exactly he was going to play. I think the Mets having an above-average lineup, if not a great lineup, give him a slight boost potentially. He's not coming from a terrible spot with the White Sox. Of course, he's going to play a lot more now that he's in New York. But you've got McCann next to Mitch Garver, who's coming off one of the weirdest seasons possible, right? He was hurt. The K rate went through the roof and that followed a 2019 breakout. I think it's interesting because in some ways, I think Garver sort of shows a small sample downside for a player like McCann.

I think they have similar flaws. Garver has shown that he hits the ball really hard, does strike out a bit more than you'd like, but walks enough. It's actually a pretty good comp. It's just harder to go after the guy who's coming off of a 167-247-264 line, even though it was under 100 plate appearances in the shortened season. Yeah, and what we saw from Garber was a bit of a regression when it came to his stat cast numbers,

just like we saw with James McCann. But again, the regression in the stat cast numbers and what he actually put up, they don't seem to sort of agree with each other. But those expected slugging was 287 last year for Garver. So it was pretty bad regression. We still hit the ball really hard, still hit the ball in the air. I'm taking Garver here because the upside is better and the barrel rate was indistinguishable between Garver and McCann last year. And Garver hits the ball harder. So I'm going to say that it was some weird fluke of the book. Somehow some book got out on him and he couldn't adjust his way out of it in that short of a season. I'm going to pick McGarver here. The other catcher kind of lumped in this area is Jorge Alfaro.

He, of course, also missed time on the COVID list. I think we have a really good sense of Alfaro's strengths and weaknesses. He's always been tooled up, but I've seen the write-ups. I think it was Eric Langenhagen of Fangraphs at one point who said that Jorge Alfaro might have the worst plate discipline in all of professional baseball. And that was only a couple of years ago. And it really, I don't think it was pure hyperbole. I think that was an actual tagline that could be fair. I mean, you could dig into it more and probably find somebody at a low level of the minors, who strikes out more and walks less. But for someone who plays a lot in the big leagues, I think you have a clear-cut contender for the honors that Eric put on him. Yeah.

Well, I do have one contender on his team. Louis Brinson? No, actually. No, he walks. He walks. He walks. What's interesting about this is that this guy's strikeout rate's not that bad, but he's the best bad ball hitter in baseball. Best bad ball hitter in baseball.

Alright, who is it? Corey Dickerson. Really? I just don't think of him as a bad ball hitter. Yeah, he just pitches outside the zone. He's going to have a terrible... That's why nobody's giving him any money, even though he's been good. You know what outside his own he's gonna have a terrible like that's why nobody's giving him any money even though he's been good you know what i mean is nobody's giving

him a long-term deal because he's kind of our our generation's josh hamilton uh but they do have these cool leaderboards on baseball savant called um swing and take and i want to see what that has to do so it has uh the zone sort of set up in heart, shadow, chase, and waist. And it does have overall runs. J.D. Martinez is first. Anthony Rendon, Alex Bredman, Joey Votto, Christian Yellich, Mookie Betts, Mike Trout. So, you know, who you'd expect to kind of see at the top here. J.D. Martinez in 2018 had the best season. And that's

actually pretty interesting because you're talking about plate discipline, right? And you know, J.D. Martinez has talked a lot about how he didn't, how he was missing the in-game video. So maybe we just didn't understand how much of JD Martinez's value came from like just pitch selection. Yeah. And maybe he had a harder time doing it when he couldn't just be like, was that a strike? Like maybe that's what he's doing a lot of times.

It's like, was that actually a strike? Where's this umpire strike zone? Maybe that's what's missing almost more than like, I'm going than like, I'm going to make a tweak to my batting stance because of something I see on the video right now.

I don't think so. Yeah, that's an interesting way to think about it because with in-game video, I think my brain was always going back to what can't you figure out about the pitchers you're likely to see that day,

especially the starter. What can't you figure out ahead of time? But if it is something pertaining to the umpire and how balls and strikes are being called on that particular day that would be one of those things that you just wouldn't know until you get into that game situation yeah yeah right uh i guess you could maybe learn a little bit like you could re-see a pitch right be like oh man like even like what was that right sometimes you might swing and miss at a pitch and be like wait what was that you know and then you could look back oh that was a slider anyway if you take all runs you look at the bottom of the list um a name does uh another name on te comes up. Let's see. I'm trying to think of a player

like Corey Dickerson. I'm going to say Willie Calhoun. Think of... No. That's why Dickerson's K-rate has got you all messed up. Think of somebody more like Alfaro. Oh, Danny Santana? No, Odor.

Odor in 2017 had the worst season by plate discipline by the swing take runs that they've got here. Trying to find out where Alfaro will... I'm going to venture a guess as you look into that that you're probably taking James McCann over Jorge Alfaro. I feel like that's where you're going with this. I might. Plate discipline is something that I'm a little bit biased towards. I like pitchers. Oh, Jorge Alfaro's

2019th ranked 1,461 out of 1,578. That's pretty bad. Yeah. But James McCann's 2018 was 1, 1560th. Oh, no. They are more similar than we thought. Yeah, they are. McCann's strikeout rate is actually a little bit better than Alfaro's.

I might take McCann over Alfaro. But it's a reasonable group to have together. But I think I'm with you. I'm Garver and then McCann and then Alfaro. And so far, that's how the market's been going is close to that. It's McCann, then Garver, then Alfaro. And then you get to the old guys like Posey and Molina. Posey at this point is tough because, yeah,

he's a veteran who had a year off. And you could almost argue that a year to rest for a catcher especially might enable him to come into 2021 with a body that's more refreshed and recovered than it has been in a long time. I could see that with Yachty.

Another year to get that hip right. He's just the classic, I'd rather be a year too soon than a year too late as far as the cliff dive for his offensive performance. Yeah, because you can talk yourself into it and be like, nobody's buying Yachty. I'll get him super cheap. There's a reason they're getting him super cheap. He could hit 240 with eight home runs the next year. That is possible.

The upside is not that much where you're like oh i got 260 and 14 home runs for a buck okay that's maybe probably all right you're risking zero you're risking a zero dollar uh performance for like a possible two dollar performance basically yeah it's not really going to get you anywhere. The other Mets thing, by the way, they hired a GM, Jared Porter. I think that was a move that drew a lot of praise around the game from various outlets. And I think we talked about this briefly on our Friday episode. The Mets are in a situation with Sandy Alderson there where they're still going to be a pretty strong Sandy Alderson influence on the org but it seems like they kind of found the type

of person they were looking for in that you know Jared Porter can sort of defer to Sandy for now but then gradually make that role his own kind of of growing into it as a first-time GM. Yeah, it's surprising. A couple of things come to mind about this. It's surprising to me that he didn't get a more legitimate chance sooner, like just a full here you go run with it, because he was a part of world championships. How do you describe that?

World championships, World Series. World Series champion team? Yeah. I guess that's the right way to do it. It's so weird. It's not like we invite the NPV over and take part. Anyway, championship teams like the – he was involved in the Red Sox and the Cubs when they won.

So you'd think somebody would have said, oh, proven winner, let's go. And then in this case, it's almost like a little bit of a babysitting situation where they're like, we think he'll be good. He'll grow into it. He'll grow into it, man. He's been in baseball for a while. Anyway, that's one thing that surprised me too. The other thing that surprises me, is just seeing this through the lens of kind of meta media critique. Front office people do curry favor by leaking things. And when you see like a bunch of people like lauding a guy for a hire, sometimes you just wonder like, oh, is he like one of your sources? And I've just been thinking about that, you know, because this is the time of the season to be thinking about that sort of thing.

Think about the way that even Cashman was talking about Glibert Torres' defense. So now he talks publicly about Glibert Torres' defense so that he can back that up and is talking to basically the agents of DJB Mayhew saying, hey, your position is being taken by Glibert Torres because his defense is bad. So we're not going to give you $100 million. There's a reason people say the things they say.

Yeah. Think of like eight teams in on Jackie Bradley Jr. Really? Really? Like where'd that come from? Why? Probably Jackie Bradley Jr.'s agent. Exactly. The mystery team is always the funniest.

It's like, I mean, that team could exist. And every team that overpays was worried about the mystery team um but i think you know and then people get mad at me for some of my my uh free agent fits things because my strategy was hey i'm gonna look at needs i'm gonna look at depth charts and i'm looking money and i'm gonna try to you know figure it out that way a lot of this is augury which is like sort of just trying to look into your crystal ball. So I was just like, I'm going to use more of the numbers stuff, and I'm going to treat the rumors as at least 50% noise.

I don't think you're wrong to treat them that way because you have a pretty good idea of how that particular sausage is made. And I think we should get to Real Mudo next just because he kind of fits into this early part of our conversation, right? Real Mudo to the Mets made a lot of sense based on need, based on how they're spending. Since they signed McCann,

they're obviously not going to also sign JT Real Mudo. In your piece, I think the Astros and Mets were the two finalists. We talked about the Phillies probably being back in the running because you don't really put Dave Dombrowski in charge of your baseball operations if you're going to tear it down and rebuild and not spend money, right? That's just not really his core skills. So you could probably swap the Phillies back into that list, but it made me wonder, are there any dark horses? Are there any teams that could swoop in somewhat unexpectedly now and become legitimate players to land JT Real Muto? Yeah, because I think the thing is that it's just, there's not an obvious suitor. The obvious suitor, I guess, would be the Phillies, but then the Phillies also

don't want to just overpay just because they're the only one. But right now, if I said there's an obvious landing place for JTL-Rumto, you would say the Phillies, because let's just look at the bottom 10 by depth charts. You've got the Mariners not spending on JTL-Rumto. Nationals could be kind of a dark horse, but they just laid off a bunch of people. They don't seem to be acting like they're going to spend um so and if they did spend DJ LeMayhew might be the best way because they have the worst infield non-shortstop infield in baseball in Washington so I think DJ LeMayhew would be more bang for your buck they've already got sort of a representative catcher if not a great one the Mets are on there still, but they just signed again. So, um, Orioles not spending,

uh, Tigers. I mean, like I think the Orioles or Tigers could jump in. Like if, if it's like four for 60 and nobody betters that, or maybe even four for 80, just be like,

okay, he'll be here for four years. And we spent some money and, you know, like, uh, it was less than people thought, I guess but

I don't think I wouldn't consider them serious contenders so we have the Phillies and maybe the Nationals and the Marlins aren't going to spend on the catcher I don't think the Phillies there the Rangers aren't going to spend on a catcher the Rockies aren't going to spend on a catcher and the Rays are at the very bottom of this and they would be a crazy dark horse but they just they don't have the money I think they're going to try and trade for a catcher if the snell thing happens i bet there's a catcher in that trade so anyway uh not an obvious in the bottom 10 so then you go to the middle 10 and there he'd be replacing somebody that was all right uh but i think in the middle 10 the astros were the most compelling place for me.

I could see them. They have a bit of money, actually. And if they replace, basically replace, they can, if they were, in my piece, I pointed out that the difference between what JT Romuto is projected to do and what Martin Maldonado is projected to do for the Astros at the plate is the same difference as what Brantley was projected to do and what his replacement in the field. I forget his name. It's like Chickasaw or something.

I've never seen a name like that. You know what I'm talking about? Who is this guy? I have no idea who you're talking about right now. Look at the left fielder for the Astros. Who is that dude? Miles Straw? No.

The guy's name looks like Chickasaw. Chaz McCormick. Sorry, it comes to Chickasaw. You kind of like mashed in part of Miles Straw's name in there. Anyway, the difference between Brantley and Chaz McCormick is the same as, so what you could do is get the offense at a premium position with Real Muto and then go get somebody like Jock Peterson for not much money in the outfield, right? I think the Astros might do something like that.

Because then you think about, whoa, their infield is JT Urumuto, Bregman, Correa, Altuve, and Gurriel. That's a pretty good infield. Offensively, even defensively, it's a pretty good infield. I think the Astros are a pretty good dark horse. I would say right now it's Astros, Phillies, Nationals. I don't really have... I know the Blue Jays are rumored, but I just don't buy it, dude. The Blue Jays have the projected fourth best catching situation right now.

Yeah, I wonder. it dude the blue jays are rumored i have the projected fourth best catching situation right now yeah i wonder i mean i i think the rays to me they seem like they're very unlikely to spend this way it's not impossible though and they literally don't have a catcher on the depth chart on some sites so if you take some of the charlie morton aav that that's gone right? And you think about just having that, and maybe you spend a little more. They didn't get the bump from the postseason the way they would have in a normal year. But it's not impossible, and it absolutely makes their team a lot better and fills a clear area of need. So low, low probability, but that's one spot I keep coming back to. I'm like, you know what? That actually makes a lot of sense. And the Angels, because they get linked to Bauer and the amount of money you have to spend even on a one-year deal to get Bauer would seemingly put you in the running for someone like Ray Elmuto if you don't get Bauer.

I don't think they would get both, but if Bauer goes somewhere else, I could see the Angels decide to improve that way. Angels have a bit of a top-ten projection right now. That's why the Dodgers have been rumored. They could move Will Smith III. It was in Ken Rosenthal's comment. I just... It does happen sometimes, I think,

but I think most of the time when a team signs a player, they have a need. I don't know the Rays right now have the only outfield in baseball that's projected to be above average all three spots it would surprise me if

the Rays went out and signed an outfielder for a lot of money that would be very surprising very surprising so the Angels really need pitching I think they can make more of an impact for a lot of money. Right. That would be very surprising. That would be very surprising. So the Angels really need pitching. I think they can make more of an impact. I know a run saved or a run produced is still a run saved or a run produced,

but you can still make more of an impact if you have a real need on a team. So I just think the Angels will pay on pitching. I think they'll get Tanaka, Sugano, or Bauer. That's my prediction of the Angels. Yeah on pitching. I think they'll get Tanaka, Cigano, or Bauer. That's my prediction of the Angels. That definitely seems like an area they're going to improve via free agency.

They are also among the teams that don't have a lot of prospects to move. They could trade Joe Adele for potential windfall, but I don't see them doing that. Maybe Brandon Marsh is actually more tradable because of the way that roster's built right now.

If you keep Adele, you've got the older outfielders already locked in. I mean, if they go crazy, they could trade Max Stassi and Brandon Marsh and Griffin Canning for Blake Snell. It's not that crazy. Not that crazy. It'd be a good fit for the Angels.

I mean, that's... But I just don't like... When you're thinking of stuff like that, it's fine to think of that. But just think of all the things that have to happen to make it true. Like, I wouldn't... Like, if I was a team,

I wouldn't sign a guy that played... team, I wouldn't sign a guy that played, like I wouldn't sign a shortstop. I wouldn't trade for Lindor if I were the Dodgers unless I had a plan already in place for what I'm doing with Corey Seager. Yeah. You either decided internally you're going to re-up him and play him at third base or you're just letting him go and tendering a qualifying offer. Like I wouldn't, like this is more true in fantasy.

I wouldn't trade for a player that plays at a position where they're redundant on my team with the idea that I would then get a lot of value in the next trade. Because you lose leverage. Teams know that you have to make a deal. If the pieces don't fit, if there's not a reasonable way. You're not going to play this catcher at first in a fancy sense, right? I know you have two catchers that are too good,

and I know you're not going to want to play them at first, so I'm going to hold out for a better deal now that you have two catchers. The order of events absolutely matters. You can't make a trade that is contingent upon another trade eventually happening to fully make sense, at least in the short term. Maybe in the long term, you can do something different. contingent upon another trade eventually happening to fully make sense.

At least in the short term, maybe in the long term, you can do something different. Unless you're sending out contracts and the phone calls, you've got the handshake agreement on both sides and it's almost like a three-way or something. Yeah, that's kind of a different situation. But you can't not have that already in the works if you're going to put something together that requires something else to happen like why would the astros trade for lindor like you'd have to you'd have to come up with some really convoluted way to make it work yeah they the answer is they to play probably won't and they're cutting altuve like what no no that's not gonna happen so i think that's why that's why i'd, what? No. No, that's not going to happen.

So I think that's why I use the way that I use, and that's why I would say that I think the most, I think Phillies is most likely. Astros is the best dark horse because I think they might spend some money. And the Nationals is the third sort of duh situation, but, you know, what they spent. I think that's fair with a few crazy

long shots also just being fits that won't do it for one reason or another 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 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. Fit is important. And that's why I'm excited about David Dahl going to Texas, because this is a team that prior to calling up Leody Tavares didn't have a true center fielder on the active roster. And with Dahl, they get a boost in the corner and depth in center in case Tavares needs more time in the minors.

I don't think it's out of the question that, you know, Leody gets off to a slow start in 2021. He goes down. Well, now they've got a guy that can actually play some center field right there on the roster. It was cheap. It was like one year, $3 million. I can't believe it. I'm surprised more teams weren't interested in Dahl because you also get arbitration years still left on him too. So it's not like it's one and done. You can actually keep him around at a pretty affordable price the next few years. And there's a few things we've talked about in recent episodes that should be brought up again with Dahl. The first being the dimensions at New Arlington are not hitter friendly. So it's not a great place for David Dahl as far as an offensive environment goes, even though it's a good place for him to go in terms of not really looking inspiring from Dahl's time in Colorado. That's not necessarily the player he's going to be outside of Coors all the time either,

because we've talked a lot about the difficulties of going on the road, just the changes with VMI and air density and just different factors that impact players and how they perform making those transitions. DJ LeMayhew, an extreme example of how it can go right when you land in a perfect park for you. This is not a perfect park for David Dahl. A perfect park for David Dahl might have been a park that boosts left-handed power, right? If he landed in Milwaukee, like Milwaukee boosts left-handed homers as much as I think any park in the game, that would have played up and enabled him to make a pretty smooth transition out of

Colorado. Now, I think you look at Dahl and say, okay, he's probably a 260, 270 type hitter. And maybe he's a 20 to 25 home run guy. He's probably not getting 30 plus. I don't think he's shown quite enough raw power to expect that. And a lot of how his value shakes out will hinge on staying healthy, which has been a problem in his career, and whether or not he's at least a useful contributor as a base stealer, right? If he's an eight to 10 steals guy, that actually makes a pretty big difference. That sort of separates him from a lot of other guys that fall into this same sort of bucket, like 260, 270, 330, 340 OBP, fairly common skills. But if you tack eight to 10 steals on top

of 20 homers over a full season, that really works in our current environment. Yeah, I tried to take the Jeff Zimmerman rule of two times away plus one times home away plus one times home to get an idea of what he might do. And for his career, that would produce a slash line of 270, 320, 465. That's pretty exciting. Got some speed. That's above average power, above average on base ability. We've talked that the stat cast numbers on Dahl completely tanked last year, but that's related to the shoulder injury. You'd have to think that a full season could get him back to his old max EV and old barrel rates, which were fairly consistent going into 2020. which were fairly consistent going into 2020. So I like it.

It's interesting to me that on the depth charts for the Rangers on Fangraphs, they still have Leote Tavares playing in center, and Gallo, Willie Calhoun, and Dahl sort of splitting the corners. I will point out, though, that even with their projections and giving Leote Tavares full time, they say he's going to be such a bad bat that he would basically be a replacement player. And if that's true, I've done some research on, you know, how likely players are that are projected to be replacement player are to hit their plate appearance thresholds. And the answer is not very. So I think that it's more likely that Dahl plays center.

I mean, that's how you're talking, right? Well, yeah. I think, at the very least, you're not worried about his playing time because of their need at a position that he can play that the other outfielders, other than Tavares, really can't. Right? You're pushing Gallo too much. You can't put Calhoun out there. So, he at least gets a backup play there in center. Right. I don't think he'soun out there. So he at least gets a backup play there in center. Right.

I don't think he's a fourth outfielder plus. I think he has a spot to call his own because of his versatility, and they can kind of decide whether it's a corner or center based on other factors. And I think the interesting thing about the Rangers, we talked about this with Elvis Andrews being a bench player now. It seems like they're ready to just admit that Ruggie Odor is a sunk cost. You can look at this team now.

Chu's gone, so there's one other veteran out of the picture right now. So I think you can make it work where you have Dahl and Gallo in the corners, Taveras in center, and Willie Calhoun is your regular DH, and you can kind of rotate those guys that way, and that works too. But then if Taveras flops and he's a good defender, Malhoon is your regular DH, and you can kind of rotate those guys that way, and that works too. But then if Tavares flops and he's a good defender, but he's just not hitting enough to keep him around for a stretch, you can option Tavares down, play Dahl in center,

and easily backfill in a corner. It's easy enough to find a bench, corner, outfield, platoon, or some sort of arrangement that makes sense. Or do more of a kind of a rotating door at the age. Right. So I think this is a situation where he will not be jerked around for playing time, which happened all too often early in doll's career. The big risk is this,

because I even looked at his defense. His defense was well above average in 2019 and well below average in 2020. So basically every stack has metric on him said he was hurt. So, I mean, the bet is when he's healthy, he goes back to the guy he was before. And he's not so old to think that's crazy. It's all about health with him. I mean, I'd hate to be obvious, but sometimes when you look at the stack has, you go, oh, man, he really didn't hit.

Well, yeah, he was hurt. I wonder how they're going to build their lineup in Texas. I mean, I'm looking at the roster resource projection. They've got Tavares leading off. I don't think that's going to hold up. I think he's a bottom third of the order hitter for now. Probably their nine guy, maybe the eight hitter, whatever. I don't think he's leading off to begin the year they're probably got to lead off a lefty because doll calhoun gallo and nate lowe are all lefties and that's probably

four of their five best hitters so you got to find a way to break those guys up nick solak probably is high up yeah i think he's up there and you don't want isaiah kinder falafel is a nice defender but like taveras you don't really want Isaiah Kiner-Falefa is a nice defender, but like Tavares, you don't really want him in the top third of your order. You want him more bottom third, so I think he comes down. They don't have a strong offensive catcher, so for now, Sam Huff, I think,

eventually will do that. They're going to do something a little bit different, but yeah, it's a funny lineup, but at least I like the fact that they are taking some interesting flyers. They're taking some flyers on guys at the fantasy community, and even me specifically.

I've been going after... I want to have them have a full shot. I want to see what they can do. Yeah, so they're at least opening up those opportunities. So I do like what the Rangers are doing so far, and I'm sure they're not done. Guzman, Jesus. I never saw it with him.

I just didn't. I couldn't see it. Hunter Renfro has a new team as well. He gets a small deal to go to Boston. And we were looking before the show at how he fits into that situation. He's coming off a miserable year, of course. His only season in Tampa Bay. As a righty going into Fenway, I think this could work out pretty well.

As a righty going into Fenway, I think this could work out pretty well. How likely are we to see an outfield that features Benintendi in left, Renfro in right, and Alex Verdugo in center on a regular basis? And then just JD locked in as the DH at this point. Is that the default build for the Red Sox this season? I think so. There's a little question of what happens with Michael Chavis, considering he's a right-hander that almost profiles very similarly

to Renfro? As a hitter? Yeah, I think that's kind of a similar profile, yeah. So maybe he ends up more an infielder, kind of helping between second and first. Maybe this isn't a good sign for how much they value Chavis, which is, I think, kind of reading the tea leaves,

they haven't treated him like a big part of the future. Remember they signed a second baseman last year that was terrible. Jose Peraza, yeah. So we've got almost a full season of Chavis in the big leagues between 19 and 20 put together. 137 games, 540 played appearances. He's hit 23 homers and stolen 5 bases. With a.241,.304,.424 line, a 32.8% strikeout rate.

It's an 87 WRC+, so 13% below a league average hitter. that steers him toward this sort of super utility or at least not everyday sort of role, even though his power and speed is a little bit intriguing for us. Yeah, and he has that sound like sort of in terms of max exit velo, it's good. I mean, it was 114 in 2019 and went down to 108 last year. But I think in terms of like hitting the ball hard, I get a 9% barrel rate in 2019. I still see something in there in terms of hitting the ball hard, I get a 9% barrel rate in 2019. I still see something in there in terms of hitting the ball hard, and I could still see him kind of taking a job with a good year and going with it and being better than his projections,

but his projections have him for being below league average in almost every facet of the game. The only place that projections say he's above average is barely in power, in isolated power. But walk rate, strikeout rate, average OBP slugging, WRC plus, fielding, base running, they're all negatives. Wow.

I still have some hope for him, but I don't think that this signing is very good for him because at the very least, you could have thought, okay, at least Chavis will be a corner outfield mashing righty Renfro type. But now they have a Renfro type named Hunter Renfro. The original, famous original Hunter Renfro. And Renfro's projection, yeah, comes out at 230, 300, 468, and 97 WRC+. I mean, that's in line with, yeah,+. That's in line with Nomar Mazzara. It's in line with Brad Miller, who's still out there and can play a few spots,

even though he's not really a good defender. It's one of those profiles that if you're not spending money, you take a chance on it because when it goes right, you get a guy who's about 20% better than league average because the power sort of just carries everything. And when it goes wrong, you get a guy who's about 20 to 30% worse than league average because he's striking out too much. So high variance, but low risk, you know,

when you're talking about $3 million for one year. Yeah, yeah. You know, I don't know how much that has to do with long-term. I think that Verdugo is a short-term center fielder. So on a one-year plan, it's fine. But I think they're probably still looking long-term for their next center fielder of the future kind of deal. The odds above average for Verdugo are okay,

but not what you'd expect from a true center fielder. This is a team that will look a lot better pretty quickly. If they get a bounce back from JD, if Renfro is at least a league average sort of hitter, Benintendi was a disaster for the little bit that we saw him. I don't think that's necessarily indicative of what he's going to be. I've talked about Xander Bogarts kind of quietly reaching this new level and people kind of overlooking that. There should be a Devers bounce back of some kind. Why do the Sox do this?

The Sox are the most volatile franchise that I can think of almost. It's almost like the Marlins, but with more money, where they're amazing one year, they win the championship, and then the next year they're terrible, and you just can't even recognize the same team.

I could see this team putting together pretty fast and being like, wow, this team is really good. They kind of look to me similar to Philly on paper right now. Their problems are in pitching and the Phillies have a much better core for their rotation,

especially with Chris Sale still working back. But like what if Sale comes back, you know, and is Sale? Then all of a sudden Eovaldi is your two you and rodriguez is your three that's not that terrible it's like two signings away from having an okay staff and like a killer lineup yeah the lineup should score runs like i have little doubt about that offense putting it together i mean even bobby dahlbeck if he's your six or seven hitter he's got big power even with some swing and miss. Jeter Downs is going to be a part of this plan sooner rather than later, too.

So you look at second base, it's probably one of the worst positions by projection. You're going to get a boost there from the jump when Downs shows up. So yeah, I think this is going to be one of the more interesting lineups in the American League. And they're going to be as good as they can out-hit their pitching or as good as they can manage their pitching. And what they do in that facet is going to be really interesting. As you were putting together your free agent predictions, were there any high-end pitchers? I know there's not a lot out there, but were there any of them that you linked to the Red Sox?

I didn't, but I think they'd be better fits for Sugano and Bauer than Tanaka. I don't think I see Tanaka signing with the Red Sox. Every time we talk about Bauer, we think about places where he could go on short rest on a short-term deal where they could spend the high AAV. I think the Red Sox ticked those boxes and given their lack of depth, it would make sense. The problem was how close they were to the luxury tax. Oh, that's why they're not

going to do it because of that. I mean, they're not at 163, but like if Bauer might be 35 million. So that puts them right at the luxury tax. That puts them like 8 to 9 million. But if that was their only buy this offseason, it might make sense. Spend $35 million on Trevor Bauer

and if he's healthy and Sale's healthy, then you have one of those high variance seasons and you're back in the playoffs. Right, and you shorten up that rotation once you get there and you're talking about Sale Bauer, Evaldi, hopefully a healthy E-Rod.

And then figure it out on off days. Do you like anybody in that bullpen? No. Evaldi, hopefully a healthy E-Rod. That's not bad. Do you like anybody in that bullpen? No. Sorry, that's the one place I was trying to be as positive as I could about the Red Sox. I'm not going to say anything about the bullpen. That's the problem

too, though. If you have all these issues in the rotation and you have guys that have to go short or they get knocked around, you're're gonna blow out the bullpen if you don't have good relievers in the first place you're gonna have a hard time protecting leads in games that you're winning and your bullpen is going to be exhausted by the time you get to the second half of the season because they're throwing more innings than anybody else out there yeah i mean i i like barnes and i And I think it'd be nice if he was your setup guy. A little bit better

than if he was where you can kind of be more judicious about when you use him, where you use him, against who you use him. But as the only guy in a bullpen, just he makes me nervous. It's like Darwin Zern Hernandez. It's like, okay, he's fine. He throws the ball

hard. He has no idea where it's going. He has legendary walk rates right now. I mean, 20%? He walked 20% of the batters he saw last year. I know it's only eight innings, but for his career he's walked 18%. That's almost double the league average. In any case, you know good would be good to have around but if he's your second best reliever you need to do some work there yeah definitely an area of need in boston and if they're worried about the luxury tax it is going

to be hard to do more than add one big piece like bauer if they're even willing to do that at this point uh that to me, it makes it kind of interesting to look at someone like Chris Flexen, who comes back from the KBO after one year, gets a two-year deal with the Mariners. Chris Flexen seems like the exact kind of guy that a team that doesn't want to get near the luxury tax, but has major issues in the rotation should have been on. And I realize there's only a handful of guys like him in free agency to go around, but if you were really trying to just get some innings and catch lightning in a bottle, Flexin would do that.

I mean, he's fairly similar to Dan Straley, so you at least had two guys that could have done it. Dan Straley and Flexin both had similar K-BB numbers in Korea. I think the difference that made Flexin more appealing to the Mariners was about a five-year age difference. And one of the things that Flexin showed in the KBO was improved health and improved command, because he's always been putting up good high minors numbers. So by improving those two things, he got on the Mariners radar,

but it's also kind of the fact that his high minors numbers in America have been really good. It's almost like a, let's, let's give him the chance he never really got in America. Yeah. And I think, you know,

it's always going to be interesting looking at players coming back over the steamer projections for flexin are not great era is close to five i think they've got them at a 490 era i mean there's obvious risk in this but the thing i like about a signing like this if you're trying to save money if it doesn't work out in your rotation, it might work out really well in your bullpen. You know, that's a nice fallback option when you're talking about players taking a deal as small as the one that Flexin got or as small as the one that Josh Lindblom got last winter,

even as small as the one that Dan Straley eventually took to stay in the KBO for another year. Yeah, and teams have done that before where they see something like with Drew Pomerantz. stay in the KBO for another year. Yeah. And teams have done that before where, you know, they see something like with Drew Pomerantz. I think that the, the giant signed Drew Pomerantz because they said, this isn't very much. It was like two or $3 million. And we'd love him as a reliever at that number. And to get him, we have to promise him that we'll give him a chance to start. It didn't work out. We put him in relief was insane you know and he got the deal he got the deal he wanted by being insane as a

reliever right yeah i think you can do all that in good faith when you're in a position like the red socks are in you can give someone a chance to start like give them a legitimate fair shake for 10 12 starts see how it goes they'll know how well well they did too. You don't have to lie to them. No. Eventually, a player who's not figuring it out as a starter in the big leagues wants to go down the super reliever route because that's the other way to

get paid. It's not the worst thing in the world. I have the Davenport translations over for Flexin and I can just say that they have a comparable strikeout rate translation um both strikeout rates start with seven however um the steamer has a 3.8 walks per nine projected for him and that's why i mentioned the command the translated command the translated walk rate for him last year was 2.6 so that's where all the upside comes in if he um has the same strikeout rate that he's projected to

and has a walk rate that's almost half of of what he's projected to do um you know then i could see him having uh the translated eras around a 4-2, 4-4. So that's the kind of pitcher I think he'll be. Like decent. Decent backhand pitching. For fantasy, you know, I don't know. A 26-year-old who throws 94 out of the pen and 92.5 out of the rotation who needs his command to be good to be a kind of backhand pitcher

does not scream a ton of upside. I think he's kind of like an American League-only type play. Maybe a streamer for two-start weeks or favorable home starts with the Mariners. But I just thought it was a gamble worth taking, and he would have made sense for a few other teams as well, just based on those terms and the need for innings in so many places. Let's talk about a few more players you wrote up in your free agent piece last week. I want to talk about George Springer for a moment because I just want him to sign somewhere.

I want one more big player to sign in the next couple of days because I feel like they start to go in groups. They start to go in groups. And Springer, I actually underestimated him for several years because of the strikeout rates we saw early in his career and the strikeout rates we saw from him as a prospect. And I think he's aged a to me as I look at what he did in the shortened season is we saw the lowest ground ball rate of George Springer's career. Just launching the ball in the air more than ever. The power looks really stable. The 34 home run season back in 2017, when that happened, I thought, come on, no way. That's just not quite who he is as a player either.

And he basically followed up with 39 homers in 122 games in 2019. that happened, I thought, come on, no way. That's just not quite who he is as a player either. And he basically followed up with 39 homers in 122 games in 2019, popped 14 more in 51 games during the shortened season. So I've been wrong about Springer enough times that I shouldn't even be allowed to analyze him anymore. But I'm curious, where does he fit best? And our friends, Glenn Colton and Rick Wolfe, as part of their smart system, they always stay away from players who go to a new place on a big contract. And almost certainly George Springer's going somewhere else. It's going to be a big contract. Do you worry that he's going to be a radically different player as he leaves the Astros this winter?

Uh, I mean, I would definitely say he's post peak, uh, you know, he's 31 years old and, um, I could see just the,

uh, for him being comfort being a thing. I mean, he spent seven years on the Astros and they had a lot of success. And there's probably to some extent portions of a swing that he either consciously or unconsciously altered to fit that park, which is a little bit weird and has those Crawford boxes where you can kind of get a cheapy home run if you pull it down, down closer to the line there. if you pull it down closer to the line there.

So there's certain sort of things that happen with comfort that he'll have to unlearn. But last year was not a comfortable year, and he performed so well in such dire straits, basically. And one thing that's kind of interesting to me is that he actually ran faster last year than he has in every year except his rookie season. So even though he kind of went one for three on stolen bases, his sprint speed was the second best of his career. And his times to first were the best since they started recording those. So he can absolutely play center field for, I think,

two or three years out of his next contract, and I think that means just knowing where he's going to land is almost impossible because, like I said, the Rays are the only team that are above average every outfield spot, which means that everybody could use George Springer. Yeah, and the Ast everybody could use George Springer. Yeah. And, I mean, the Astros could bring him back. I just feel like if they were going to keep him, they would have re-signed him before he reached free agency.

Like, why even let it go that far? But, as you mentioned before, Chaz McCormick, never even heard that name before today. Yeah, they have some obvious needs in the outfield. It's gross. Ronnie Dawson, Miles Strauss is a bench player. He just is. There's no way around that.

With Brantley presumably leaving and then Springer out there with plenty of other interested suitors, it's Kyle Tucker and probably two free agents at a lower price than Springer likely patrolling the Houston outfield. They have they have two needs,

so that's the only thing that you might say as an argument is the Astros not ending up with them because they have to buy two outfielders. It's not a bad thing to need in free agency, though. As we've seen with guys, like we talked about in this episode, like Dahl, like Renfro, it's not going to cost a lot to at least get average-ish

and possibly guys that are average with high ceilings for very reasonable prices. So if you have needs on your team, the outfield is not a bad place to have those. Yeah, that's correct. Lots to choose from there. The other guy you mentioned sort of in passing a little earlier in this episode, DJ LeMayhew, with the comments that Brian Cashman was making. He needs Yankee Stadium to be the absolute best DJ LeMayhew we've seen. That's where he has to go. Where do you think LeMayhew is most likely to get an offer

that keeps him from returning to the Yankees? If it's not the Yankees, the Nationals is just the obvious one. I've already used that little factlet about their non-shortstop infield being the worst in baseball. But I had another name that just occurred to me. Milwaukee Brewers may have $20 million between where they ended up last year and what they've got now on their roster. And I think that roster could go better with Deji LeMahieu in it.

And I think he could be an okay fit. It's another place that plays similar to Yankee Stadium, albeit not the same, right? You think about typically left-handed power gets boosted there but lemay hew or righty goes the other way that fits in quite a bit the thing that i like about him the same as what we've talked about with wander as a call-up for the rays fixing one of their greatest offensive flaws the brewers strike out too much and dj lemay hew even as the power wanes in the years ahead, puts a ton of balls in play.

They don't have an obvious solution at first base, so I think that definitely makes sense. Well, I think actually DJ LeMayhew's versatility means that you're increasing your depth and your star power at the same time, which is very compelling. You know what I mean? Yeah, we can play the game.

Will he play first? I think I might stick him at third so that Luis Urias and Orlando Garcia are battling it out for starting shortstop slash backup utility infielder. Right. And you can figure out first base

cheap. You just find somebody. Then the only real hole in your lineup is your catcher. Now you've got a pretty good lineup, man, I would say. The pitching's not bad either. Yeah, they kind of like Burns is a big deal, which way

he goes, but they've added in Lindblom, Hauser, and Lauer they've got some back-end guys, and you know they'll make one more signing on the level of not Gio Gonzalez, but Gio Gonzalez-esque. Right, the Miley Anderson type signing they've made year over year. They can change the pitch mix a little bit or something like that.

You kind of replace, you push Eric Lauer to kind of a swing man. That rotation looks representative, at least. And then you've got the makings of a league-leading bullpen again. Right. And you get the shot that Freddy Peralta maybe stretches out and ends up having some success in the rotation as well. So you do have some versatility there. But LeMahieu makes a lot of this, like makes everything kind of look better. You know what I mean?

It makes the lineup look better makes your bench look better because now all of a sudden you know bogey can dh or uh be on the bench some days uh you know you're not depending on both orlando arcia and louis urias in your lineup yeah yeah so anyway that's that's my dark horse my dark horse is the milwaukee brewers i think if it does happen it'll be kind of one of those late signings where, you know, DeJula, he doesn't get the money he wants. And so he just decides to wait and wait and wait. And then the Yankees move on and do whatever they they're, they're threatening to do with Gliber Torres and signing a shortstop because there are like four decent shortstops, you know, sign Simmons, push Gliber over, sign, you know, Turner or some other Turner or some other power bat to surprise people. Then all of a sudden, DJ LeMay, he's like, well, crap, the Yankees are out. The Nationals keep telling me they don't have a budget yet or they don't have any money. And I'm not seeing an obvious fit. And then the Brewers call and say, hey, what about $460,000? $470,000?

It's not bad if that's what they end up doing. I mean, it's effectively the money that they would have had to give to Grandal last winter to keep him. Yeah, and it's kind of the Ryan Braun money falling off. That one makes a lot of sense to me. And I could believe in something like that. No arguments here. Definitely

addresses a major flaw with the makeup of that roster in its current form. Got one mailbag question I want to get to before we go today. This one comes from Elliot. Elliot wants to know, is there a limit of how many hitters from a single team

you have on your fantasy team? Does this matter? And and if so what is the max i think it matters more in head-to-head right yeah because the schedule and different things can you don't want them like wreak havoc on you on a short window or a tough matchup of course could be yeah you don't want them to like land in in the national you know in washington like they got strasburg you know scherzer whatever in a row you know and just like uh that's terrible timing for me so i think uh in head-to-head i wouldn't want in my starting lineup my regular starting lineup i don't think i want more than two

because if you got three in there and they and they get go oh for a weekend because they're just you know running into a buzzsaw and maybe they're landing in LA for Buehler, Kershaw, whatever, Urias. Then I think more than two, if it's three, then you're getting close to a third of your lineup is maybe giving you zeros.

In Roto, I don't care as much. Roto, you're sort of mixing and matching and getting innings from people. So you could sit a guy for, you know, a borderline guy in a bad situation. And you could get some value out of somebody on your bench or something. So I know, you know, three stars, you still have the same sort of problem. But also Roto is accruing stats over the full year, right?

So even if they do have the bad weekend in LA all at the same time, it doesn't make you lose a matchup. It's just you're down a little bit, and then you go back up again when they go to Colorado or whatever. Right, and I think I've made this comparison before, whereas in fantasy football, there's definitely a limit on how many players you want in the same offense because if a team's going to score 28 points or 33 points in a given week,

whatever your implied total is for a high-scoring team, there's only so many touchdowns to go around in those circumstances. And I think with run production in baseball, I think you can have greater extremes, and I think the limits on any one player are considerably lower. related to each other. You need guys on base to drive in runs. You need guys who are good at driving in runs to score runs. Those things matter, but they matter less in baseball than they do in football. That's how I've always

looked at that. For me, if it's not a head-to-head league, I'm not sure there is a max, but I do think what starts to happen is if you have too many players from one lineup, you're taking players who are 6th, 7th, 8th in the batting order, and you're losing playing time relative to players in other lineups who might be leading off or hitting in the heart of the order.

So I do think it's just more about diminishing returns with how good that lineup is and where those players are hitting in that lineup and how they might lose playing time based on different platoons and things that team uses. That's the kind of thing where I'm careful about not going overboard just because of how playing time is distributed. Yeah, that's a good point. Good point. You don't really want six, seven, eight hitters that much. So it probably caps around like four or five in a

non head-to-head setting. And I can't think of many times or any times off the top of my head, at least, where I had that many. Yeah, exactly. But I also, at the same time, I can't think of a time where I was at a draft table or an auction table and I said, you know, I've got too many Yankees.

I'm not thinking about too many Yankees or whatever, yeah. Right. I've got too many Dodgers, so I can't have any more Dodgers. Like, I don't think, I don't think there's really a limit in most leagues

that I'm concerned about. So hopefully that is helpful, Elliot. But I think Eno's right. The head-to-head considerations, just based on the way weekly scoring works in those formats, that's the one area where going too far could be pretty costly. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. If you'd like to drop us a line, you can do that at ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com. On Twitter,

he's at Eno Saris. I am at Derek Van Ryper. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.