Rates & Barrels - The Mind Wanders

Episode Date: March 19, 2020

Rundown1:28 Why Is There Animosity Between R2-D2 and Yoda?3:49 Is Fleetwood Mac Yacht Rock?7:23 AlbumGraphs?12:48 Answering Questions About a Shortened Season24:22 More Aggressive Promotions for Rookies?31:31 Draft & Hold, Best Ball Thoughts46:59 How to Prevent Reliever-Heavy Builds50:30 Keeper/Dynasty Preparing for a Future Run64:10 Incentivizing Mid-Pack Teams? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRipere-mail: [e-mail] Get 40% off a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 79. It's March 19th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we're going to discuss a variety of topics, mostly driven by the questions that we've been receiving around the request for Project GOAT worksheets. So we're doing a pretty good job, I think, of staying on top of those requests. But there are questions about the shortened season, questions about keeper league strategy, draft and hold strategy, all sorts of different things. So hopefully some very broad, interesting topics that will apply to a lot of people, even if they don't play in some of those particular formats. Eno, how's it going for you on this Thursday?

Settling in, settling in. Got a couple marathons going where we're watching different movies with different kids, basically. We got different things going on. Got an order into Amazon for a bunch of workbooks and a big encyclopedia of all of the spaceships and vehicles in Star Wars that my elder one is going to really enjoy. That sounds like a pretty cool book. Yeah, it pairs up with what we're doing with the fact that we're watching all of the Star

Wars movies in the order of the story. So we have slogged our way through episodes one, two, and three. And today we're on five, actually. And the question on my mind is, why does R2-D2 poke Yoda? Shouldn't he know Yoda? These are the kinds of questions that we never thought we'd put as much thought into. They're here on Dagobah and R2-D2 is hostile towards Yoda or they're hostile towards each other. I don't know if it's just part of the act because that's the part where Luke doesn't know who Yoda is or if that's just a little blip in the backstory there. I actually think Yoda's

probably very skeptical of modern technology. So there's probably a lot of meaning in that interaction maybe yeah well anyway i'm so glad we're just done with the first three geez i thought the third one was okay because it bridged the gap into the you know original trilogy like i felt like when i watched episode three that i was pretty satisfied with that now it 2 was so, so bad, one of the worst movies of all time, that it made me so sad. We actually waited in line for 1, and then after 1, we were like,

well, I guess we'll wait in line again. And then after we waited in line for 2, we were like, no. And so then 3 was like, okay, you know, fine, we were like, no. And so then three was like, okay, you know, you know, fine, fine. It was okay. But, you know, like, two was so bad, I was like, I might just be done seeing these forever.

And so three, I did think, there were some good fight scenes in one and three, I think. I gave away my Lord of the Rings trilogy a while back on dvd and i still have a few ways to play dvds mostly i'm pretty sure if you put a dvd in a playstation 4 it will play it even if it's not a blu-ray um and i kind of regret it but at the same time that was like

probably a five plus years ago now so you know whatever i'll find something else to watch but i think yeah rediscovering some old things going back and re-watching re-listening i was listening to rumors this morning the fleetwood mac album whoa yeah yeah it was a good good re-listen it always is and it's fleetwood mac yacht rock That's exactly where my mind went. I don't think we've talked about it really on the show. And to be completely candid, I think the preamble to our show is going to be kind of a therapeutic rambling of what are we doing to stay sane in our confined quarters? It may be expanded as the longer this goes, yes. But the hope is that it helps everybody in different ways, or at least just helps us. So the backstory here is that we're doing right now what we usually do before we start press record. Yeah, more or less, yes. And so a couple, I don't know, like a month

ago, I introduced Derek to Yacht Rock, which if you haven't seen it, there's a series on Yacht Rock on YouTube. It's old by now. Someone, I think right after college told me I had to see this. Um, and he said, I had to see two things. I had to see this,

this show called a Ninja warrior from, from Japan. Um, that was before we ever had American Ninja warrior and all that. And I had to see this, this series on yacht rock. And it basically imagines if Kenny Loggins and Hall of Notes and Michael McDonald were all hanging out with each other all the time and

friends and these songs were born of their interactions, which to a certain extent may be true. I'm not a historian, but like that. But it's just hilarious and the music is great and there's a secondary debate that has sprung out of this about what exactly is Yacht Rock and you know, it can't just be all 80s easy listening.

Like there's a certain boat flavor to it. You know, there's a certain I don't know. Music makes you feel a certain way and to it. You know, there's a certain, I don't know. Music makes you feel a certain way. And I think one of the things. Wow, that sounds like you could have been in an episode right there. Yeah, well, I think music can make you feel like you're on a boat.

So, I mean, I think there's something here. I was starting to think about yacht rock probably, I don't know, a week or two ago. I forgot how this came up. It was probably after one of our shows. And I thought maybe there are sub-genres. Maybe there's daytime yacht rock and nighttime yacht rock, right? Because even the mood on a boat during the day

versus at night is very different as well. And if you're kind of like, what the hell are these guys talking about? I would not watch Eno's videos first. I would watch them because they're ridiculous and they are funny, but I'd probably go to Spotify and just type in Yacht Rock and look at their playlist and just look at the artists on that list. Maybe listen to it for a little bit.

Why not? Yeah, just turn it on, shuffle it up, pick some songs you like on it, or write us, tell us why Yacht Rock is amazing or why it's terrible. Any sort of interaction at this point i think is is good to answer your question is fleetwood mac yacht rock three tracks off that album are on the spotify yacht rock playlist dreams don't stop and go your own way are all on that oh see go your own way your own way. Like, it feels like Yacht Rock. It's daytime Yacht Rock.

Daytime Yacht Rock. Yeah, exactly. It's like right as the boat is leaving the dock. Getting kind of amped up to stand there and drink alcohol in the sun. Yeah, exactly. Oh, my gosh.

I hope we all get to do that. That would be nice to one day do that again. The thing i was thinking about with the rumors album in particular i think the first track on the album is my favorite track secondhand news and a lot of times when i listen to an album i would say more than at least a quarter of the time maybe as much as half the time the very first track on an album is actually my favorite track on the entire album and i don't know why that is i think

there's generally a lot of thought put into what order the tracks are on the album you know you don't hide like people hide bad songs on an album or songs that they're not as proud of and you don't hide it first yeah you hide noodle arms in left field you hide bad tracks in the eight or nine positions on your album you want to start good and you want to finish good yeah yeah so that that like on a 12 track album the six to nine range is probably where you're gonna put most of the garbage oh my god i wonder if there are people that do this sort of analysis like sabermetrics of you know album lineup analysis you know well i've been looking for a lot of new hobbies

that don't require me to go outside. So this is a strong contender for a new hobby for me. Where are all the hits? Where are the hits? I ran through the Rolling Stones' 500 best albums of all time. Exactly. I wrote an algorithm that scrapes all of the algorithms. The average rating of all the songs that are in this range

are higher than this range. If you can do this, please do this for us. Yeah, even better. If someone wants to just take that project on, do it in like a day and say, hey, I'm good at programming and stuff, so here's your answer. Speaking of which,

I have a little bit on this in my column tomorrow but um i there is some good news about fantasy baseball we may have some fantasy baseball coming your way soon i don't want to promise over promise but i am in contact with somebody that wants to build a game around korean baseball and korean baseball is slated to start in maybe late april or early may which you may think that will start up at that point and that because you don't care i think most people i talked in baseball are a little bit skeptical about at least uh april or may yeah i don't think we're going to see a major league game until at least june um maybe some form of whatever spring training looks like is possible around memorial

day but i wouldn't expect people to be at those games if that's even even if that's yeah i'll take some baseball on tv jesus anything yeah we're seeing a lot of old games. The Brewers are doing something pretty cool. They are going to, on Thursday next week, which would have been opening day, they are going to rebroadcast the opening day radio call, which that was a pretty

memorable game. Even if you aren't a Brewers fan necessarily, you might remember the highlights that the Brewers played the Cardinals. Lorenzo Cain pulled back a potential go-ahead home run in the ninth inning for the win. Oh, that was a great game. It was an awesome opening day game. Easily the best opening day I've ever been to.

I've been to every kind of opening day. I've been to blowout losses. I've been to easy wins. And I've been to cliffhangers like the one last year, and last year was easily the best opening day I've ever been to. Well, that's good news. Yeah. So, they're going to replay that game.

And the other fantasy thing we're doing, of course, is if you missed last episode, we are doing the Project Goat, the best fantasy seasons of all time. Make the best fantasy seasons of all time. Make the best fantasy lineup that you can. More details in my post tomorrow

and also in the last episode. But we've gotten, I don't know, something close to 200 people. So this is going to be an Uber League. This is going to be a crazy league. This is going to... I think the twist in the end, and I don't want to take any of the air

out of the sails of it, but it's pretty obvious. The twist might be hey the 50 of you tied for first so good luck try to beat each other now so we'll see how that works

and it'll be a bit of a bear for us to process maybe but as long as you all put your own stats in you know we can just we can correlate those stats and have a competition with a twist in the end. Yeah, it's good for me to learn how to do things more efficiently in Excel. So that's probably what's going to result from this project. But email us, ratesandbarrels, at theathletic.com if you don't have the worksheet yet.

As we said in the last episode, you don't necessarily have to play in our contest either you can just ask for the worksheet and take it with your friends family whoever and just run it on your own on your own schedule uh you don't have to send anything back that's it is one of those things you can obsess over dude like you can you can do it for a while so which is a great thing now also wanted to point out rates and and barrels, the email, the and is spelled out. We got a question on that. Yes. And has to be spelled. I don't even know if, can you actually put symbols in an email address?

I think it's got to be just letters and numbers and dots and underscores. I think that's all you can have. I am not an expert on emails. It's another thing I could add to my list of things to learn. Learn more about emails. Wave of the future. So among the questions that we've been receiving, there are multiple questions that came in about adjusting to what will almost certainly be a shorter season, regardless of when it starts. I know there have been some ideas thrown out there or leaked out there suggesting that Major league baseball owners are still hopeful of playing

a 162 game season that is one of the least realistic things i think i've heard as it pertains to baseball for 2020 and what like what information they were like where are they coming from on that it's ridiculous i don't know like don't know. Part of their vision, I think, was that they would run the regular season probably through the end of October and then play the playoffs entirely in neutral locations that are climate-controlled stadiums.

And there's enough climate-controlled stadiums where you could probably pull something like that off, but you're losing two months at the beginning and adding one at the end. That's just not going to be enough time to get to the 16 enough time and if you do double headers and tax your bullpens and your arms they're all going to be injured and if you take a month out of the offseason there's a likelihood of injury so off the next and in the next season so i just i think just let those games go, man. And I know Adam Silver, NBA commissioner, was on a show yesterday.

It was one of the ESPN shows. He was talking about pushing the end of the season back to get the end of the season in and then starting new seasons in the future right around Christmas. I mean, I don't know if you're listening and you're a big fan of the NBA or not, but Christmas Day has become like one of the NBA's sort of flagship days because they're really the only game in town that day. So they might kind of move their whole calendar back. Why does he want to move it back in general?

I think it was something they discussed before just to sync up the season differently. They moved it back once recently. I wonder if it has something to do with hockey or something. Although maybe they don't think hockey is much of a competition. No, they do a pretty good job. Those two leagues, I don't know if they're fully in sync where they sit down and say, hey, you take these three days every week, we'll

take these four. But those schedules could overlap worse than they do. I'm sure from a logistics standpoint they have to plan a reason. Basketball has days for sure. I play fantasyas. Basketball has days for sure. I play fantasy basketball. Basketball has days. And it's something that I think baseball should consider is having a day off.

Just like taking Thursdays off or Mondays or something. In fact, I think Thursday is a great day because you don't want to take Sunday off. And a lot of Mondays are holidays. And Thursday could become sort of a universal travel day rest day. And if you had, if you just baked that in and had like 144 game series season, I think you'd have fewer injuries. You'd have happier players. You could send players, you could send a starting pitcher home for three or four days of their family. Um, you know, on the way to another location or something, uh, use that day off to have a this weekend baseball type shows

where you just recap the week, you know. And Thursdays, you know, Valentine's Day is on Thursday. You know what happens in the NBA on Valentine's Day? Nothing. They always do their all-star break around Valentine's Day, and there's usually nothing happening that day. Yeah, that's pretty interesting. I don't know, is that a coincidence,

or is that designed for players to be able to go home? I don't think that one's designed for players. I think that one is like, no one's watching the NBA anyway, so let's put on the Rookies vs. All-Star Challenge or something. Right, Brian McKnight in the pros versus pop culture game. Yeah. He's always out there, and he's always getting 20. He's going to drop 20 points, going to get 10 assists.

Brian McKnight brings to the table in that game every year. I think Sandler should be there, man. Sandman? Yeah. Let's talk about the shorter season, though, because the broad question that came in was, how does this change valuations if and when the season starts? I think there's really two major ways.

There's the injured players who are just going to have more time to heal. There's tons of them, right? Aaron Judge with the stress reaction in his ribs, Justin Verlander with groin surgery and with that lat injury that he has uh it's a long list it's guys coming back from tommy john so cory knable a guy like rich hill who had an injury that was going to knock him out for a while all of those guys are going to sync up closer to when the regular season begins so they have chances of having equal seasons to everybody else in terms of workload. It's at least a possibility now, whereas if the season were

starting next Thursday, that wasn't going to happen. They were going to miss two-thirds of the season, or not two-thirds, a third, two-thirds, depending on the injury. They were going to miss a significant portion of it. That's not the case anymore. I think where a lot of people are kind of looking at players that are not dealing with injury is with young players who are going to have workload restrictions, right? So Jesus Lizardo, Julio Rios, Mackenzie Gore, mostly young pitchers in particular, those pitchers who were going to be limited simply because they haven't thrown a full season's worth of innings in the past, they now are on a more level playing field compared to the veteran ace types, at least in terms of workload. They're much closer now than they would have been.

So adjusting for that is probably one of the bigger challenges to sort out. Yeah, and there will be some vagaries of how the season has actually played out that may affect that. They may still go to six-man rotations in some of those places if there are going to be a lot of doubleheaders and stuff. So we'll have to see how that works out. But I think that young pitcher class is definitely one of the ones that has no asterisks attached.

They're a little bit better off now than they were. I will put an asterisk on the veteran pitcher coming back from an injury because I just had a piece today about the idea that these players now all left their complexes. They left the place where they put on the modus sleeve and they can test the stress on their arms. get stressed, everything is directly measured and they can kind of step you a day back or step you a day forward or whatever it is, depending on how you are literally testing at that moment. All that stuff is out the window. All the stuff that they would do in a gym, most of the gyms are closing. So all that stuff is out the window. So if you think that these guys are going to come back uniformly on the days that they were scheduled to come back, I think that's an erroneous decision. I will say I had an auto-new draft last night and I needed a bunch of dollar players.

And so I did go heavy on the injured guys. So I ended up with Knable and I already had Paxtonxton Verlander and I added Knable. I added, uh, Nicholas. Um, I think he deserves to be on the list. Um, so I, I definitely, you know, went hard on the, on the, on the injured thing just because they were so cheap. I don't know if that's going to continue to be happening. If drafts are going to go forward, like people may want to spend more on injuries. And I just wanted to say,

maybe the recoveries take longer because they're not in the ideal situation for recovery. Yeah, that is a really good point. Not being able to rehab under the eye with the equipment is a big deal as it pertains to players kind of getting through the final stages of the rehab. And we're still getting little bits of news. I mean, from, from teams. I mean,

they're still formally making roster moves for now. There's probably going to be a freeze at some point. There could be cutting people. Yeah. That's just, well, there's the players who have just dates in which they can opt out right and it's just such an uncharted situation like what do you do like i think it's it's whatever you

think of hunter strickland like the nationals cutting him right now it just seems seems rough yeah um because there's not really much he can do to go out and get something else. Yeah, there's just going to be a lull, I think. Hopefully for those guys, maybe it'd be kind of cool if they got on Flatground. Flatground is a Twitter handle, kind of a platform where you can post pictures of how you're throwing with stats. And if they could put some velocity and spin rates and some sort of Rapsodo numbers up on the screen for people, maybe they could throw, throw some, you know, put some velocity and spin rates and some sort of Rapsodo numbers up on the screen for people, maybe they can do some virtual scouting. That's been, that's worked. I know for, for kids getting signed to, to colleges and to

different programs on the amateur level. So maybe some pros will jump on there because they just need to, they need to get out in front of some teams where no scouting is happening. They're probably not going to get signed now, but if they can show that they're doing the work and they're looking good, then maybe when things start up again, they'll get signed. That's a really cool thing that Rob Friedman, Pitching Ninja, put together, the Flatground app. Definitely, if you listen to this show, you're probably following Rob already, at Pitching Ninja put together the Flatground app. Definitely, I mean, if you listen to this show,

you're probably following Rob already, at Pitching Ninja on Twitter. But that Flatground app is a great way for players to get discovered. And he's not making money off of it. It's not some business venture where it's like, hey, send me some money and I'll retweet your video. It's just for the greater good of creating opportunities

for pitchers from all different levels just to get eyes on them. The player pool is so vast that just having different ways to draw attention is really important. Shohei Otani, interestingly enough, is among the players who I saw some news on recently. some news on recently uh the beat writer from the athletic fabian ardaya actually had a piece a note suggesting that otani may be available to pitch from the start of the season just because opening day has been pushed back so far and you know otani you wrote about him again for for 2020 every single year he's just been a different player to figure out because of the injury a year ago and not pitching and pitching in year one and format is a big key of course in terms of just how much you want to say even with all those i

think you're going to be happy about your investment i know you got him in an nfbc team and that's probably one of the worst situations for him because it's a weekly lineup and you can't uh play games where you have them pitch for the first five days or hit for the first five days and then pitch on the weekend. Um, I'd still think, I still think he's going to be a good investment for people. He is, I think a top three athlete in the game. Yeah. I think it's easier to see it working out in these circumstances, which is not to make light of the circumstances at all. It's just that he was a guy who needed some more time

to be ready to be a two-way player again. Now that seems more like a possible reality. But yeah, weekly leagues especially where you got to make that call and he's one thing or the other for an entire week are still going to be tricky as it pertains to him. I did want to jump off of your discussion of the young pitchers without pitching limits and say young players, prospects, rookies in general, rookies, I think

are going to benefit from this. And here's my reasoning, which is, will be flushed out in more detail tomorrow. But my reasoning generally is, am I calling tomorrow, my reasoning generally is fewer games, fewer games, even if there's a service time component, right? So people, you know, save a guy for a month in the minor leagues so they can have them for another year of team control or whatever. I understand that. And that, that could be a reason why all the rookies basically start the season with their teams. However, the Union and Major League Baseball are in negotiations to try and figure that portion out. There may be some asterisk on the rule this year where they say, oh, Super 2 date is going to be three or four or five weeks after the season starts. You may still have some rule that will keep non-contending

teams from playing their rookies right away. However, any team that has any chance whatsoever is going to play their rookies. So I think somebody like Nate Pearson with the Blue Jays is literally going to start the season with the Blue Jays. And my reasoning is the Blue Jays' chances of making the playoffs in a 162-game season were about 1%. In a 100-game season, they're about 15%. Yeah, more variance with fewer games. Exactly. So I think there are players on the Padres, White Sox, Blue Jays.

There's a great post by Dan Zimborski on Fangraphs that shows you which teams benefit the most. Look at the young players on those teams. Those are the young players that will probably start the season with their major league teams. So there's a third class of players that will benefit from this situation. Yeah, Dylan Carlson. I mean, I think he was going to come up pretty quickly anyway, but... Top of that list. He was doing everything in his power during spring training to really kind of force the Cardinals' hand anyway. So yeah, I could definitely see that.

Anybody else you can think of that we should bring up? I wonder how it impacts, you know, free agents. We just were talking a little bit about Hunter Strickland, but there's obviously Yasiel Puig to think about. And I've seen him go on drafts and in labor, which was happening before we knew what was going on. I think he went to the same team in AL and NL for about seven, six, $6, $7,

which is kind of amazing to me to think that you would spend $14 across two teams and one of them is going to be wrong. But I guess the other team will probably get about $14 of value. Yeah, with a shot at $20. I mean, I think he's got a pretty nice baseline. And a mono league, yeah. But yeah, so what what does we do right now you know do our teams now less desperate to sign puig because they have more time to get their

outfield healthy or they get to bring up dylan carlson you know instead of trying to you know keep him down for for a month or something so um i think that's interesting i don't it makes me and it's sad it makes me sad it makes me pessimistic and it makes me sad it makes me pessimistic that he will sign with the major league team this year um for anything other than a stopgap measure and it makes me sad because i think he's a fun character and i know that he's probably hard to coach, but he's also a major league quality outfielder. Yes, he should have been on a team months ago. I know we've talked about it's not as simple as he's just the guy he is on the field, but the gap is not as wide as it's made out to be.

At least that's my opinion. I keep wondering, yeah, is Japan or Korea maybe going to be an option at some point for Puig? Is that what we're going to see him play next? That would be... If Korea starts up earlier, there'll be one name you recognize

on the roster rolls at least. Yeah, there's a few players in that league that are going to be blasts from the past. So if we end up getting a league like that off oh my homeboy dan straley is in korea oh my gosh i didn't check in with him oh light bulb moment of the pod has just i should have made sure he was all right well i'll check in with him afterwards but we were gonna do a beer trade actually dance oh, that's cool. He was going to send me some Korean craft beer, and I was going to send him something from home.

Yeah, and they were training in Australia, so maybe they just stayed in Australia. That's the last I heard from him. Yeah, worth checking in. Yeah, for sure. But I think that if we do do Korean baseball, I think it might be fun anyway just to have a fantasy game for Korean baseball. They have some kind of bonkers numbers every once in a while. It also, for Dynasty players, would give you the jump on Josh Lindblom's and players that might come over. Hyunjin Ryu a few years ago. And also, well, infamously,

the third baseman for the Pirates. Oh, Jung Ho Gung. Jung Ho Gung, yeah. Infamous at this point. I was all over him, and I got a good couple seasons out of him in some deep fantasy leagues, but yeah, not so much recently.

No, no. Turns out he's a very bad person yeah turns out he's a bad person all right um so is that so we're on to the next question yeah i think we we got through that one yeah as i said there'll be more on this tomorrow uh in my piece as much as i could as i could come to come up with yeah I think there's going to be some interest in KBO leagues. Top performers in business and sports often attribute their success to their morning routine, whether it's waking up early, setting goals for the day, exercise, or meditation. But not everyone has the time to do it all.

With Hydrant, you can jumpstart your mornings. Hydrant creates flavored electrolyte packets you mix directly into your water to make hydrating your body easy and delicious. Each rapid hydration mix has the four essential electrolytes your body needs, sodium, potassium, magnesium, and zinc to help you hydrate quickly and stay hydrated all day. And Hydrant is backed by research. The formula was developed by Oxford scientists to provide perfectly balanced, efficient hydration. There's no synthetic colors or artificial sweeteners. The formula is vegan, and you can choose between three different flavors

or a variety pack. Hydrant starts at just a buck a packet for a 30-day supply. You could save even more with a monthly subscription. For 25% off your first order, go to drinkhydrant.com and enter the promo code RATES at checkout. That's drinkhydrant.com, and then enter the promo code RATES at checkout. That's drinkhydrant.com. And then enter the promo code RATES for 25% off your first order. Drinkhydrant.com and enter the promo code RATES. All right, the next question here comes from Andrew. It is a draft and hold question. He writes, this year's athletic best ball contest introduced me to the NFBC for the first time. And he's become intrigued with the draft champions format.

So he's kind of broadly interested in those leagues. There are 50 round drafts, usually 12 to 15 team leagues. I prefer the 15s, you know, like the 12 is perfectly fine. I just, I like digging into the deepest parts of the player pool. So for me, like the deeper the league, the better, because I feel like I have more of an advantage in those formats. Yeah, yeah. That's self-serving of you.

No, no, I agree. I like deeper leagues too. Probably for the same reason. No, I also think it's kind of fun to reward more player types and to reward more players. Cause these guys are all good, you know? So, you know, just sort of focusing on the top 100 just seems like, okay, you know, yeah, the best of the best, but what about these other guys? You know, that's why I kind of like, even people make fun of saves and holds. I kind of like it because now you can like these good setup guys like use

Mero Petit, really good pitcher, like, been really valuable for his teams. Maybe fantasy should find a place for him. I do like the score sheet leagues as well, just as another sim option. That's where I kind of get the middle reliever fix. But yeah, saves and holds is a good way of doing that as well. But the draft and hold format, I mean, I think the main thing there is sort of having a good balance between hitters and pitchers.

And I've done pretty well the last couple of years. I don't play like 10 of them or anything like that, but I played in one with the first pitch Arizona crew each of the last three seasons now. And I've won it. I've tied for first, and I think I took second or third. So I've just had a pretty nice run in those leagues. I think the biggest thing is being willing to take on a little more risk than usual. But the way you manage the risk in those leagues is to really go ahead and find some of the boring, steady eddies that you would never draft in a boring steady eddies that you would never draft in a non-draft and hold situation so by that i mean like a brett anderson type pitcher or a zach davies not sure why they're all going to be

brewers in this example but those those are the boring steady eddie types that have been there the last couple of years guys that you get david stearns like well yeah yeah. Use David Stearns as hoarding of strange but not great pitchers to your benefit because those guys actually throw quite a few innings. Chase Anderson. I don't think I want Chase Anderson in most of my 12-team mixers, maybe as a streamer in 15-team mixers, but I'm much more willing to roster him all season in draft and hold because there will be plenty of times where you actually want him in your lineup when you don't have the benefit of making moves in season. That's where the key comes in.

So I think like a Chase Anderson in round 35 makes up for Mackenzie Gore in round 22. Like you're going to take those high ceiling shots a little earlier but then you're going to have to backfill really effectively with the boring four and five starter types and even with some seventh and eighth inning relievers i think draft and hold actually makes uh guys like you smear a pet who you brought up he makes that format makes those players useful yeah there's i think the thing that's fun about the format is the tension between upside and reliability. And a lot of people focus on, oh, I want to take players that, if they are up, are good. Like, I'm going to take Joe Adele earlier. I'm going to take these really high-ceiling guys and like, you know, hit on a bunch of these and win. However, you still

need to fill a lineup without, without waivers. So you need to kind of think about that. And then I also thought, you know, how many times do we have, you know, uh, now we got an emergency alert coming in during the thing, and I can't turn it off. Okay, you're going to hear that. So one thing that I was thinking about, dude, veteran pitchers have great weeks all the time. They do. Part of that's the function of keeping their job, too. Yeah, that's why they keep their job. But so I just want to, I know nobody cares about your fantasy team, but I'm going to just read through my pitching staff in the Ras Ball Best Ball.

And it's a 12-team staff, but what I tried to do was young players that had upside, but also roll early. And so I go Morton, Paddock, Soroka, Urias, Paxton. I think Paxton by that point, you know why I picked him. I was like, oh, there's no season.

Paxton. But then, Alcantara, and then this is where it might get weird for people, Gossman and Gonzalez. Kevin Gossman and Marco Gonzalez. Then Means, Turnbull, Voth, Rich Hill, Jake Arrieta. Why Jake Arrieta?

Trent Thornton, Cal Quantrill, Randy Dobnak, Knabel, Norris, and Gonsolin. And a lot of those guys are boring and old, but think of Kevin Gossman and Marco Gonzalez. I think they're great best ball pitchers. They're going to have games where they have a two-start week at home, and they give up two earned runs in 14 innings. Yeah, and they're going to have even just one-start weeks at home where you would pick them up in a normal league,

stream them, and throw them away the week after. You have to put your streamers on your team in these leagues. Exactly. So it's building a pitching portfolio a little bit differently. And I'll do the same thing with the AFL league that I did this year. So my staff is Paddock, Soroka, Hendricks, Weaver, Lamette, Whitley, Gore. I got two closers, Yates and Rogers in my first nine. But then my bench pitchers, Ronaldo Lopez,

Freddy Peralta, of course, Josh James, Bryce Wilson, Robert Stevenson, Colby Allard, Joely Rodriguez, John Duplantier.

That was way back in like December. This is a deeper league. This is a little deeper. This is 15 teams. Brett Anderson, Logan Allen, Shun Yamaguchi. I even took Mike Leak really late in this one. 50 rounds, 15 teams. Mike Leak's going to haveun Yamaguchi. I even took Mike Leak

really late in this one. 50 rounds, 15 teams. Mike Leak's going to have some two-star weeks. Look at Mike Leak's game logs. There are good weeks. Yeah. I mean, so,

and Cal Quantrill and I think Dean Kramer were the last two. It gets really thin, but I like taking those shots. I think it's fun to draft a few pitchers that you would otherwise

never even roster just to see if you can identify the right ones on the hitting side i i just i want to have like double the amount of um so if you have two catchers i want to have four catchers on the roster um and actually kind of more. But I think that multi-eligible guys are useful. So Michael Chavis is huge for this team I built because he can play CIMI first and second. And I wish I'd done more of that.

My multi-eligible guys are Manny Machado, Michael Chavis, and then I went kind of harder on the bench with multi-eligible guys are Manny Machado, Michael Chavis, and then I went kind of harder on the bench with multi-eligible with David Fletcher and Nico Horner is going to be multi-eligible. But I didn't have as much multi-eligible as I want. David Fletcher is a one-man, one-stop shopping eligibility guy. one-stop shopping eligibility guy. But having multi-eligible guys in one roster slot means that with Best Ball, the algorithm that finds your best lineup has more options.

Yeah, so Best Ball for sure, I think both of these formats, Best Ball and Draft and Hold, multi-position eligibility players get a little more of a bump, and they're pretty valuable anyway. I've never really quantified how much you should actually add to your auction value i think when i've talked to todd zola about this in the past it was kind of a

50 cents or a dollar sort of bump like a good tiebreaker between similar players there's gotta be a way to kind of do it more regimented like actually figure out the value yeah i mean i think i think i think todd's tried it and has done it and just found that it it doesn't come out to be that much but i don't know like i i especially if it's like middle and corner right like tommy edmunds second base and third base he's not just second and short you can go second third that's where i i think my weakest portion of my team is outfield not because of the roster because they listen i have trout harper conforto brian anderson nomar mazar my outfield that sounds great however none of those guys are multi-eligible and my bench in terms of outfielders is bader and hazley yeah right that's weak yeah

that's it's just not quite as my last pick is going to be an outfielder. I don't care. I can broadcast it here. There's probably someone listening. I don't care. There's a few outfielders I like. But even with one more outfielder, that seems a little bit thin, right? Yeah, it's a little bit thin.

But the other thing you've got to think about, too, is that you can draft players who might be eligible at one position when the season begins who are going to pick up new positions quickly. So Carter Keboom, shortstop only, if he's on on the team he's probably playing third base he could be nico horner third oh i have david fletcher is outfield eligible and if nico horner plays in the outfield that those that would make me have four afterwards that'd be better and nico horner is a pretty good best ball player that's another type of player that i think uh takes it gets advantages is david fletcher nico horner low strikeout guys because low strikeout guys have these insane runs where they're hitting 400 for two weeks

yeah they just put more balls in play and they get something right for a while and and they go off if you had fletcher or hanzer alberto on any teams last year, you definitely saw that firsthand. Yeah. And they're not necessarily great players, but they end up finding a little more playing time than expected because of their versatility, at least in Fletcher's case. And then they pile up weeks that are definitely good enough to be better. Hanser Alberto, you mean?

Yeah. Yeah. One question for you. I have one reliever on my squad one those are smaller benches than it's p only yeah so i have kenley jansen my thinking is if i just get a ton of starters in a 12 yes that's the difference 12 team 15 team right because in a 12 in a 15 team league you run out of starters that will have roles that you can sort of put on your bench

and be like, at least he'll be starting. Because in a 12 teamer, like I was just thinking, if it's going to pick best ball, I'd rather have a bunch of starters on there because there'd be some two starters or just a really good start. That'd be better than most,

like it'd be better than i think picking like a a reliever that's not a closer yet it's tricky too though because it depends on just how much the system value saves like i know the cut line scoring system tries to prop up relievers a bit so if you have a week where kenley jansen gets four saves or even three that might be better than what a lot of your one start pitchers do for that particular week. Even though his ceiling might be generally lower than what any starter can do, his good weeks are still better than kind of average weeks from starters.

I put Knievel on my, on my bench, but yeah. Um, uh, and Gonsolin might be a reliever, but, um,

uh, yeah, I just, I think it was six to eight for me. Six for a win, eight for a save. And I know you can get like three save weeks, so maybe I made the wrong choice, but I just felt like if I just load up on starters on my bench, there's going to be some two starters in there,

and I won't miss the relievers that much. Yeah, I mixed in a few just hoping that i'd maybe find saves but even if i don't with someone like a robert stevenson he's good enough to be my ninth pitcher if i don't have enough starters going that's a big difference i think between 12 and 15 is like i'd much rather have a starter than a reliever that's not closing in a 12 team league you know yeah yeah i think and i just didn't want to waste a roster slot on like i mean i don't i'm not saying you waste the rosters like for 15 and robert stevenson makes sense but in a 12 i'm gonna put robert stevenson on my roster and maybe never

play him yeah yeah at 12 and i think the the cut lines have smaller benches than the draft champions the draft and hold format so you also have fewer shots on the bench also anyway draft and hold is an interesting idea it it's a good thing to sprinkle in i think also when you have a ton of teams you just don't want to have all your teams be the same like if you had like I have 12 teams or so usually in a given year. And if I had 12 daily lineups to do every night, yeah, it's a lot. I'm happy to have like a couple drafting holes. I don't have to do much, uh, you know, three or four weekly leagues and, you know, three or four daily lineup leagues. That's a good mix where, you know, I'm doing something daily every night, but I, even for my FAB where it's only once a week, having daily lineups helps me because every day I will adjust,

or every day I have time, I will adjust the FABs up and down a little bit and sort of keep it as sort of a running document. But just the pressure of doing like 10 leagues of daily lineups every day would be too much. You can definitely make your Sunday fab runs easier by getting a little bit ahead of them. Thursday, Friday, start populating those lists. You don't have to get there on Sunday and be like,

I need three hours. Yeah. It's hard to have that discipline, but it's helpful if you do. The Black Tux believes every groom deserves a better experience when it comes to finding formal wear, a suit or tuxedo, for their big day. Did you know the Black Tux was actually started by two guys who had one of the worst tuxedo fittings you could imagine? It turns out they aren't alone in this frustration. Just listen to these one-star reviews from competitor tux shops that shall not be named.

Go elsewhere. This place is pretty terrible, unless you're dressing like your grandpa for Halloween. We felt weird buying a suit from somebody so unhappy. We were afraid his bad vibes might follow us to our wedding day, so we left. What I love about the Black Tux is that they have an easy online ordering process that brings your suit or tuxedo straight to you. Just pick a style at theblacktux.com and request a free home try-on so you can feel the fit and the quality before you commit. And if online isn't your style, the Black Tux has showrooms all over the country where you can find your fit and plan your look. From there, they'll ship your order two weeks before your wedding so you can check

it out one last time. Talk about commitment. Whether you're buying your outfit or looking to rent, you won't find a formal wear experience or designs like the ones you'll find at the Black Tux. If you want your wedding to be remembered for the right reasons, order your suit or tuxedo at TheBlackTux.com and enjoy 10% off with the code DRAFT. That's TheBlackTux.com with the code DRAFT for 10% off your purchase. The Black Tux, formal wear for the moment. All right, let's move on to our next question. This one comes from a different James A. The question is, what is a good way to prevent managers from loading up on relievers and only playing relievers is it minimums innings pitched is it minimum and maximum starts um he also has a sub question do openers complicate this minimum required starters in the lineup uh what do you do do you change the

pitching categories make a combination of things what's the best way to kind of balance out a pitching staff in terms of league rules? I mean, I think IP minimums has been pretty effective. I think about AL labor, we have to have 1,000 innings. It's pretty much too many innings to do a reliever strategy. And you can kind of figure that out fairly easily where you just add up your slots, add up the number of innings you might expect

from those types of pitchers in those slots, and then shave 10% off and say, okay, that's our new minimum. 1,000 is pretty good. For 1,000 innings, you can't get that from relievers. percent off and say okay that's our new minimum thousands pretty good you know for a thousand innings you can't get that from relievers you have to have four four or five pitchers at least to to get close to a thousand four or five starting pitchers so i think innings pitch is good uh game started maximums i think you could probably do that too, but there are ways to manipulate that with openers.

If you just put Diego Castillo and last year there were three or four guys, there were some guys on the Angels, some guys on the Yankees. Put Chad Green and Diego Castillo on your team, you could find your way to a game-starter maximum with only relievers. So I think innings pitch is really the most effective. It's low tech, but I think it works. No, I like it as a category too, as a way to replace wins also. It does give a little bump to the relievers who don't close

that tend to get more than three outs at a time as well. I prefer changing something like the innings pitch requirement as opposed to saying that you have to roster six starting pitchers and three relief pitchers. Because even that, those designations get muddied up by guys that move between the two roles. If you're messing with categories, I don't like that either because that leads to some unintended consequences. I think you want to make it pretty straightforward. Everyone's got to hit this minimum. I think maximum numbers of starts actually make a lot of sense

for leagues with daily moves. That way it's not just about turn. I mean, the innings cap does the same thing there. But that's the number that you probably want to play with the most. I think 1,000 over a full season is good. And I think for whatever percentage of the season is lost, you can just reduce it by that much just to make sure that your rules for this season end up being kind of in lockstep with the actual season length yeah and i think thousand

is a good one so and thousand has the benefit of being just a real nice round number where you can now say you know unless you have really long lineups starting lineups you can now say well we're going to get 60 percent of the season so it's 600 um but uh you know other things i've seen are like things like uh we're gonna have wins and quality starts in here as like two separate categories but that that double weights the category makes you makes it more painful for you to to punt pitcher starting pitchers i don't know i don't know something inartful about it yeah innings pitched is the the way to do it. Having that minimum, I think, is the best approach.

Thanks a lot for the question, James. Next question we received is a Keeper League strategy question. It comes from a listener who's in a 20-team Keeper League. It's a different James A. There are multiple James A questions. Typical 5x5 league for scoring, but from season to season. And neither of them is James Anderson, I'm guessing. No, neither of them are our friend James Anderson.

From season to season in this league, they can keep 12 players and 8 minor leaguers and prospects. So those are kind of like a separate part of the roster. All prospects are picked up via the waiver wire as CBS adds them to the player pool. After a series of trades, James now has a roster that's prospect heavy. It's Kelnick, Christian Pache, Spencer Howard, Varshow, just really heavily built for the future, which is the right thing to do if you're not contending right now. He writes, I'd like to start competing in 2022, but more importantly, I'd like to compete for the top prize in 2023 and beyond. With that time horizon in mind, what should I attempt to accomplish in the next year, 2021,

and then into 2022 when he wants to start pushing towards the money? What else can he do in the short term to set himself up for success? And how do you judge when it's time to start trading some prospects in order to make a run at the title? So this is the trickiest thing about playing in a keeper league. If you haven't had to do it before, when do you know your team is good enough to actually start acquiring veterans?

And this is the right foundation, by the way. Just going extreme prospect heavy, playing for a season a couple years down the road, hoping that the bulk of the players you're building around stay healthy and kind of hit at least their mean expectations, but that a few exceed expectations. What's your advice as far as other things

that can be done once you've got a good base of prospects in place, but you're still probably two years away from making a push to the money? Well, if you've been listening you know i have a a perspective on how to do this and a and a theory so i'm just going to couch this as with one big imo this is my opinion this is this is how i play and so what i would do is i don't really love the full rebuild but it is it is more effective i think and it's more effective for this reason and it's the same

goal that i have which is i think you need to identify a core and all you're doing with the with all these prospects is throwing darts and you're hoping that one of the darts hits the bullseye. And when you're sort of questioning when do you think you're ready, I think three darts is good enough. I'm in a 20-team league with Sharks, Ian Kahn, Tom Trudeau, you know, Salfino. Like, it's a really good league. Devils rejects. We talk about it here all the time. And James Anderson and I decided that we had a core to build around when we had cody bellinger ozzy albies and gary sanchez

that's it right i mean three top 40 players where two are at least top 20 and that's it top five obviously we had other players on the team and i going to go through a couple of them just really quickly to give an idea of other things you can do other than hoarding prospects. But that was the moment where we said, okay, this is good enough. Let's build the team around it. Because generally, you'll get more in present value by selling future value than you will the other way around. the other way around. Right. That's my underlying theory because people overvalue prospects

and don't think about bust rates and generally will give you... Like when I traded Robert Puasson for Michael Chavis and Yandy Diaz, the guys I got may be boring to some people, but they are now on this team that we fully expect to go for the title. So the other thing I'd say is don't worry.

A lick about relievers, except for another thing you're trying to do is pick up guys that you might turn into more prospects. So we didn't have any relievers uh that were any good and we traded off any ones that we got but trading off of relievers got us more prospects and you know you may think why should i pick up a guy like going into season like garrett richards that might be in the redraft portion of the draft. Why don't I pick up a prospect? Why would I pick up a guy like Tyler Molle, who looks boring, or Cal Contrell, who's not going to be necessarily on my team when we're good?

Why should I pick up a veteran that has fallen, like a Justin Smoak? These players can be useful. I picked up Eddie Rosario in the redraft portion of this draft and now he's a part of my team you know he's an important part of my team so not only will you be surprised by how quickly you can rebuild and how quickly a guy like hey maybe cal contra will actually will be on your team when you're good right um and then how quickly someone can establish value that you can trade away for more prospects,

more shots in the dark. So I would say even though you'll be tempted to only fill your roster with prospects, A, you have to probably have some minimums you have to catch, which I think he mentioned in his question. So pick some interesting veterans that will help you hit those minimums. Don't just wait until the very, very, very end

and pick up whatever veterans are out there and just be totally crappy. I mean, that is a way to do it. But maybe pick some veterans that have a little bit of variance in their potential outcomes so that if they are good, you actually have a trade piece.

And then just wait. i and i think strike earlier than you think if you if you have the next equivalent of albies bellinger and sanchez on your team go for it yeah if you get to the point you know a year and a half from now and kelnick's up var shows up and trevor larnik or, whatever from that group, some combination are all early round guys who are just locked in. That's probably the green light to go ahead. I would guess that he has one on his team. I would guess it's Kalanich, but maybe Varshow. So I don't think that he necessarily has it yet,

but he's doing the right work. It's definitely the right foundation that he's got going so far but i think the thing i would echo from from your points that i completely agree with is continuing to get pieces onto your roster that can be added to trades i mean a tommy edmund type player if you picked him up last year maybe he's not on the team that wins it for you a couple years down the road but he's 28 already he's already year, maybe he's not on the team that wins it for you a couple of years down the road. Because he's 28 already, right? He's already a little old.

He's 24, 25. Either way, you pick him up. Someone else needs speed. You add him to a package of something else, or you trade him straight up for a really young, interesting prospect who actually does exceed expectations. You basically bought a prospect for $5 in fab. That's the other thing like you know consider even now looking at other rebuilding squads and saying you know do you think is there a is there a prospect on my team like a larnac or something that you know is is number

20 on some list but i have him more like number 50 because I don't know if I believe that he has that kind of potential. Could I package him with another prospect and get a prospect I really want? Because really, you're hunting that upside. So there's no such thing as overpaying if you get the guy you want. That's a sort of side theory from mine. So I gave up Carlos Carrasco and I think two other veterans to get Ozzy Alves when he was in the minor leagues. And it was a prospect because I was like, this guy's going to make it. I don't care. I want to pin, I want to, I'm attaching my cart to this horse. And that might've been a funny moment for someone like me. Who's like trade your prospects all the time, you know, but I wasn't in

it. I, Carlos Carrasco, you know, I already thought he was going to be kind of injury prone. And I thought this is my moment to get one guy. And I think I traded three veterans for Ozzy Albies. I might've gotten some other pieces, but it was in my mind, it veterans for Ozzy Albies. I might have gotten some other pieces, but in my mind, it was just Ozzy Albies. That's all I wanted. So that's the other thing you can do is try to identify people that you just want at all costs, that you're going to hit your wagon to, that you can throw three veterans together or even three prospects together to try and get that one. Yeah. The other type of player that I really like, and I made a trade with Ian and James Anderson, actually, in the Roto-Wire Dynasty Invitational last May, get the guys who are either about to get called up or the guys who are stuck on the big league roster without the role that you want them to have. So a good example of that now would be

Tony Gonsolin, who you just brought up a little while ago. He's not in the rotation right now, but flash forward to 2021, it's not difficult to imagine a scenario in which Tony Gonsolin is a starter either for the Dodgers or somewhere else because he got traded. The trade I made last spring was I gave up Jake Odorizzi and threw in Dustin Fowler and got back Josh James, who was a reliever, and Oscar Mercado, who hadn't been called up yet. That's the kind of future look you have to have. You want to get about a year ahead of the role actually kind of falling into place. Or Ian Kahn, who's a crazy person. I really had a fun time getting to know him in Florida.

This, to me, at least two years ago, I would have been like, you are insane. But he traded Charlie Blackman. What was the other one? Oh, man. The Blackman. I remember talking about this trade.

Was it Charlie Blackman and Charlie Morton? Something like that. Yeah, he's made some trades over the years. You hear about him and you're like, wow, how did you get that? And then a month passes and you're like, wow, that's even more crazy than I thought at the time like it he traded charlie blackman and and charlie morton for a draft pick

and the draft pick was jason dominguez yeah there you go that that was the that was the gist of it and like i'm like what i would love to be on the gist of it. And I'm like, what? I would love to be on the other end of that. But he believes that Jason Dominguez is Troutian. And I think he also believes that Morton and Blackman are at that point. About to lose their value. Yeah, their production could go off the cliff. And as soon as that happens, the overcorrection in dynasty leagues on those players will completely sap their value.

So you couldn't get good existing players back in a trade for them, probably in the league he was in. So turning that into the first pick in the reserve draft or the first pick in the redraft was ultimately the best path to go. Yeah. So I traded Kevin Newman for Lenzer Cain with Ian Kahn this year. Kevin Newman for Cain. You got Cain on that one? Yeah. But Newman's 26, not going to steal any more than he did last year,

in my opinion. Probably was his peak season last year. And I'm fully aware that Lorenzo Cain might turn into a pumpkin. I wonder, this may be spurious thinking, but I also picked up Kevin Newman off the waiver wire. So your investment cost was low, so your attachment was low.

Right. And I think Cain's going to steal more bases than Newman next year, and I want to win it next year. So that was it. I think that does kind of play for and against us sometimes. The waiver pickup that was a $2 fab player doesn't necessarily stick with us as long as the $20 auction player who's underperforming.

He's like, oh my God, I've spent $20. In both cases, it matters a lot less than you think. You should mentally strip the acquisition price away almost immediately. It's funny because Tout Wars on Roto, it keeps the auction values next to the player name all season long. It's just a redraft league.

And I still think it messes with your head to see what those players cost on draft day. What you spent, what the other owner spent, I kind of wish it wasn't there, but figuring out how people hold onto those values is pretty helpful when it comes to making trades. Thanks a lot for the questions, James. If you're dealing with a condition like erectile dysfunction, you want treatment ASAP. That's why our friends at Roman have spent years building a digital platform that can connect you with a doctor licensed in your state, all from the comfort of home. Roman makes it convenient to get the treatment you need on your schedule.

Just grab your phone or computer, complete a free online visit, and you'll hear back from a U.S. licensed physician within 24 hours. And if the doctor decides that treatment is right for you, Roman's Pharmacy can ship your medication to you with free two-day shipping. You also get free unlimited follow-ups with your doctor anytime you have questions or want to adjust your treatment plan. With Roman, there are no commitments, and you can cancel anytime. So if you're struggling with ED, go to GetRoman.com slash rates for a free online visit and free two-day shipping.

Go to GetRoman.com slash rates for a free online visit and free two-day shipping. That's GetRoman.com slash rates for a free online visit and free two-day shipping. We've got one more email to get to. This one comes from Jason. It was kind of a follow-up to something we talked about on our last episode. We were talking about penalties for tanking or ways to curb teams from kind of just giving up. His response is that he plays in an 18-team auto-new style point system, and they try to incentivize rather than penalize.

So on top of the 260 auction cap, they actually offer bonus cap money, $5 to third place, $4 for fourth place, and so on. So first and second place get the money, so they wanted to add incentive to finish as high as possible. Otherwise, he writes, tanking still happens, but teams have been fighting a bit more for extra cap space the following year if they're in the middle ground. So interesting way to look at it too.

Instead of just punishing the teams at the bottom, find different ways to reward the teams that do better kind of in the upper part of the middle of the pack. I like that a lot too because it's a little different than the the payment payout structure we discussed where the top and bottom teams get penalized the most it reminds me a little bit of giving the top you know minor league or restocking draft pick to the person who wins the consolation tournament you know um what's not perfect about it is the same thing that's not perfect about giving the top pick to somebody who wins a consolation tournament is that it

incentivizes mediocrity yeah like a little bit it incentivizes the middle a little bit which is i think it's it still does what you want in the end because what happens too many times, especially in keeper leagues, is that sort of tank or compete, right? And so by incentivizing the middle, you kind of pull things together a little bit. So that's good. But I wonder if in his league there's someone who's been in the bottom for a really long time. Yeah, there could be. And the worst type of owner is the one who doesn't even try because it makes it easier for everybody else to get better especially in a keeper league i find that to be so frustrating when the bottom team just stops

trying to get better that owner shouldn't really be in the league anymore and if they come back year after year it's like you just missed three months of opportunities to find surplus talent available on the wire. You have the luxury of taking as many flyers as you want in some cases, and you're not even taking a single one for months. We're dealing with that in our long-term keeper league. And he just does just enough, shows up just barely enough to keep his team. enough, shows up just barely enough to keep his team. And we're just like, I almost just want to be like, hey, I know you haven't missed any of the deadlines. You always show up just a day later, just enough so that we can't kick you out of the

team. I think we're just going to kick you out of the team, out of the league. You're just not doing enough. You don't, your trade offers are terrible and you do like one a month and you're not going in any direction. It's actually probably easier for us because we don't even know the kid that well. He's just been in the league for a long time.

It's a little bit harder when you know the person. It is worse if it's someone that you like and they just don't really fit the league very well. You just have to get across to them, hey man, we care about this a lot. It doesn't seem like you care about it that much, so you're still our friend and we're

still good, but we want this league to be as good as we can make it. That's probably the nicest way to let someone down. Kind of easy in that situation. Thanks a lot for the question, Jason. Lots of great questions this week. If you want to send us a question for a future episode,

ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com. You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper. If you're enjoying the show on a platform that allows you to rate and review it, we'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks to the many of you who've taken the time to do that. But as always, you know,

if you want to get on a project goat, also flip us an email rates and barrels at the athletic.com. Just make sure if it's for project goat, that the subject line says project goat. That way we give it the correct attention and make sure we send you back the sheet as quickly as possible. That's going to wrap things up this episode of rates and barrels. We are back with you on Tuesday.

Stay safe out there. Thanks for listening.