Rates & Barrels - The need for institutional change, Colorado's lack of direction, and teams most likely to surprise and disappoint in 2021

Episode Date: February 5, 2021

Eno, Britt and DVR discuss the troubling accusations of lewd behavior by former Mets manager and current Angels pitching coach Mickey Callaway before exploring the Rockies' lack of direction under Jeff Bridich, and sharing their picks for surprising teams (good and bad) in the upcoming season. Rundown 1:05 The Mickey Callaway Story & Another Ugly Side of Baseball Culture 8:06 A Clear Need for Institutional Changes 17:23 Colorado's Lack of Direction In the Jeff Bridich Era 22:56 Nolan Arenado's Potentially Long Stay in St. Louis 26:32 Our Final Trevor Bauer Free Agency Check 35:01 Examining the Flaws of the 2021 Mets 39:54 Teams Most Likely to Surprise & Disappoint 52:30 An Early Look at World Series Odds Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic for just $3.99/month: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton Bike or Bike Plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate. Terms apply. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Friday, February 5th. Derek Van Ryper, Britt Giroli, Eno Saris here with you on this Friday.

It has been a busy week in baseball. It's been a very busy week for Britt in particular. Britt and Katie Strang broke a huge story at the beginning of the week about current Angels pitching coach Mickey Calloway over a span of five years. Multiple cities, including his time as a manager for the Mets. Five women who work in sports media were pursued by Calloway with inappropriate photos, emails, texts, social media messages. So that story was brought to light. And other stuff happened, too.

The Nolan Arenado debacle trade was finalized. We've got some other more fun, lighthearted topics to get to eventually as well. Britt, welcome back. We thought you were getting some much-deserved rest last weekend, but very clearly that was not the case. Yeah, it's very clearly not the case. That was not the case. Yeah, it's very clearly not the case. This was kind of going on in the background, guys. And then it became very clear, like around last weekend, that we were going to have enough to go with.

Because what I think people don't realize is only the absolute best stuff makes it into a story like this. Only the stuff where you have evidence, you have people corroborating the stories at the time. You have legal, in our case, many legal people vetting it to make sure that it's okay. So people read that and they said, oh my God, like this is so much. I had no idea what was going on. Let me assure you that there is like tenfold in terms of women who came forward versus what actually made it in that story. This is a disturbing predatory pattern.

And yeah, I didn't get much rest or sleep at all Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and really haven't all week because we've opened up a, I think a, I don't know, Pandora's box here a little bit with this in baseball and it's a little bit of a reckoning, I think. Yeah. I mean, the prevalence of situations like this, as we discussed a couple weeks ago when the Jared Porter story came to light, it's so much more prevalent than any of us want to believe that it is. clubhouses and me me as a man who's covered this game kind of in a secondary way through the lens of fantasy baseball and gathering reports from people like you brit who've been in the clubhouse and you know you've been there a bit as well even though not on a team beat um i i think the more you know the worse it gets and the publicly reported information is still a small sliver of what has actually been happening behind the scenes forever in baseball. And this goes beyond baseball, too.

But, you know, I know you've had an experience kind of working toward a position with a team at one point that reared a very ugly side of this culture as well. Yeah, it's funny because when you're in the clubhouse, you see players acting badly all the time towards women. It's just pervasive. It's terrible. You can try with body language and maybe sometimes even words to rebuke the players. But the players are in a position of power in the clubhouse. And it's also more upsetting, I think, when you see leadership do it, because players are often young, single, feeling themselves, you know, in the middle of the prime of their lives.

single, feeling themselves, you know, in the middle of the prime of their lives. And, you know, a lot of their interactions come from, you know, talking to women, you know, that's what they're interested in, a lot of them. So it's like, you know, we've come into their private space, they're half naked, and they act badly, not as surprising. It's worse when it's executives, it's worse, because they're the leadership. They're setting the tone. They're letting everybody know this kind of behavior is okay. And, you know, I sat down one time with a team and, you know, it wasn't necessarily a formal job interview. I didn't have a thing on, but that's what baseball is like. A lot of times you just talk with people until all of a sudden you have a job.

And so I sat down with a group at a bar and as I sat down they asked me to rate on the scouting scale the waitress and you know I just wasn't comfortable with that so I laughed and made a joke about the beer menu right like you know I'm a beer guy you know I'll just deflect I'll just you know talk about something else I sit down I look up from the beer menu and all of these men, these five white men, are looking at me expectantly. Like, I haven't answered the question. Like, I must participate. I must participate in this misogyny for this to continue.

So it's not just like, oh, yeah, Mickey's a bad guy. It's like, it's closer to they're all bad guys, you know? guy, it's like, it's closer to they're all bad guys, you know? And, you know, we see certain prominent people come back from, from jobs in baseball and say, you know, I tried to push back and stuff. And yes, there are people in baseball that will push back there. I hope that the people in my Rolodex are better than the people who are not in my Rolodex, you know, like, I hope that the people I interact with are not like this. But I'm forced when these stories come out to be like, maybe they are. And it's probably likely they are. And that there's something about this culture that propagates itself. If there's forced misogyny in

this sort of situation, then there's probably people that are just playing along that are okay, not as bad as the guys who are setting the tone, but yet that means the whole culture is toxic. So sorry, I don't mean to take the mic away from Britt. It's a great story. I think it's great. But I just wanted to say, I agree with you. No, I think it's great that you're, like, listen, it shouldn't be on me and every female

to be the ones talking about this nonstop. So I think it's great that you have stories that kind of relate to this pattern. People keep asking me, well, are you going to go after every creep in baseball? And I think it's important to remember that these guys aren't, or we're not going after creeps per se. You, there's a lot of infidelity in sports. There's a lot of infidelity in life. We're not, you know, if Mickey Calloway was just having affairs on the side, this story would have never came out. It's the predatory nature. It is telling women who have had a year or two in their job, hey, if you sleep with me, come get drunk with me, I'll tell you about the Mets.

It's emailing women off of your New York Mets email address. It's women who you know have to be nice to you. So it's that power balance here. And as that story detailed, this was happening in Cleveland. And while nobody now says that they knew about the extent, I wonder, you know, that's always the easiest defense is I didn't know, right? But at what point are you still culpable for not knowing, for not knowing your organization well enough, right? To not creating and fostering a better environment where this stuff possibly couldn't go on. So that's what I want to see. People stand up and say, we should have known. Not like, oh, we'll do better next time. How did we fail the first time?

That's kind of what I want to see and unfortunately have not really seen it from any of the three teams that have been involved in employing Mickey Calloway. Yeah, there's definitely a lack of institutional control, I think is the term that I've seen used in these situations before, similar situations before. That would apply here, right? If everyone denies knowing anything about it, what are you looking at?

What are you listening to? Are you just walking around with headphones on and loud music blaring all the time with a blindfold on? Because if it's this prevalent in the clubhouse, if it's this prevalent in all these places in and around the game, you couldn't have not seen it if you were there. It's almost impossible at this point. I think the other challenging thing here for me,

just kind of as the details of these stories come out, it is that lack of response, right? There's not some... Has there ever been a place or a line or a way that reporters or anyone around the ballpark or around a team could report this behavior within the league, right, within a team? Like, is anyone making any changes at all to their policies

that are even trying to make things immediately safer for women in the workplace around major league teams league-wide? I have seen no indication of that in these last few weeks since the Porter story first broke. Right.

It's very similar to the Porter story where nobody knew, right? Apparently everyone goes up. I had no idea. It was just Jared, right? It was just Mickey. So I would like to see some kind of, people have talked about some tip line in place,

an MLB. To me, what you'd have to do to make that work is it'd have to one, be truly anonymous. Two, it would have to be a system where a guy gets tipped off and it's the same guy two, three times. He's docked. He's fined. He's out of baseball, right? You treat it the same way you treat steroids or some of these other things. If I'm calling about Mickey Calloway, someone's writing that down somewhere so that if someone else is calling about Mickey Calloway, we know this is a pattern, right? We know this is something

that really doesn't even need to be investigated. You had five women comeay. We know this is a pattern, right? We know this is something that really doesn't even need to be investigated. You had five women come forward. I know the angels are tied up in labor laws, so they couldn't fire him right away. But these are the examples where this never should have gotten past Cleveland, right? This never should have, judging by how many women in Cleveland he, you know, preyed on, this never should have gotten past Cleveland. And if there was some kind of tip line or some kind of system set up where women could do that with no fear of losing their jobs or retribution or,

you know, not being one of the guys, which is another legitimate fear, then maybe it would make things better because you're ready. I've had people say to me, boy, I wonder how people are going to react to you in the clubhouse this year. You're ready. I've had people say to me, boy, I wonder how people are going to react to you in the clubhouse this year. But react to me for for calling it out, for reporting it. You know, it's so I think we have to really change the way we view this as like these women don't want attention. They don't come forward because they don't want the attention.

They finally come forward and it's still not either believed or people think they want attention. So I think we have to not only change what we do, but also how we perceive this. Because listen, as you guys know, I'd love to be writing about OBP and the story that poor Eno's been waiting patiently for us to collaborate on and other things. This isn't what I wanted. We got a couple of good ones coming.

This is not what I wanted to spend my time talking about. And nobody involved, nobody that we contacted was like, oh yeah, use my name. Like, let's do this. Everybody required a certain amount of coaxing to make them feel like, hey, this is not okay what happened to you. And we need you to be brave so it doesn't happen to other people. So I think people have to understand that too. There is no reward here for these women speaking out, right? There's nothing to gain for them personally speaking out in this kind of a story. So I would really like to see that part of all this go away as well. Stop trying to figure out who these women are and start trying to figure out how

the Indians let this happen, how the angels still hired him, how the Mets investigated an incident and let it go, right? Let's not worry about who these women are. Let's worry internally and say, who's the next Mickey Calloway in my organization? And how do I get him out of here now? Yeah, I think, you know, institutional, yeah, institutional changes. And, and it can't just be like, you know, you know, after a certain national writer was disgraced and had, you know, sort of domestic situation, uh, that came to light. Um, you know, I was surprised and I asked around and there were other people who were less surprised and they was like, if you'd asked me, you would have known. Um, and some of those people were women. And so, you know, and there is this sort of idea, ask women, you know, people asked Sandy

Alvison, did you ask any women about Jared Porter? Um, and that's fine, I guess, but I also don't think I want to put this on women so that like every time someone gets hired, they, you, you ask any women about Jared Porter? And that's fine, I guess. But I also don't think I want to put this on women so that like every time someone gets hired, you ask all the women around them. It has to be on the men to ask around too. And to be honest with each other as men. And so like you don't have to make a big deal out of it and be very specific about it. But if you ask another dude, is this dude a creep? They'll know what you mean.

You know, like if they're a decent guy creep they'll know what you mean you know like if they're if they're a decent guy they'll know what you mean and like didn't you even have some interactions with scouts about porter that they were like you know this guy's no good yeah so yeah there are decent dudes out there you just need to ask more than one dude or two dudes because you might ask the two dudes that were you know having tinder battles with that dude you know and so you might ask the wrong people yeah oh yeah he's he's a good guy yeah we we we throw beers down and talk shit on women all the time it's great you know it's not like you know you got to do better than that you got to just do a wider canvas it can't just be women and just be like oh i asked one woman and she said he was and she said it was fine you know like can't just be like put more of a burden on women but like yes do wider canvassing it's on

the men to to to speak to their creepiness i think that number that tip line should be posted in every press box prominently i think there should be a like you, I've seen this in other workplaces. Are you being harassed? Phone number. Yep. You know, in a very easy spot. And it's not that just makes it feel like that should make the harassers feel like, woo, like, you know, like this is a this is a big deal to MLB. It also could be there in a moment where someone said I was just harassed. You know, you might say, oh, I'm just going to put my head down, not do anything about it. Or, oh, there's this anonymous tip line. The number's right there. Let me at least just send off a text or at least report this because, you know, hopefully that'll, hopefully I'll line up with some other people reporting this and eventually something will happen. So, you know, there's gotta be some

institutional stuff that goes down and, and it can't be just all on like ask the women. Yeah, I mean, yeah, like, okay, ask some women, but don't like ask one and then give them the stamp of approval. Right. I think one thing we might have mentioned a couple weeks ago when talking about the Jared Porter story too is like, okay, so for many of us who aren't in those exact work situations, think about the conversations we have. Think about the situations we've been in. Think about times when people crossed the line and I didn't say something. I didn't speak up. I didn't say, hey, that's too much. That's wrong. That's bad. Whatever it would have been. There are instances where we've all been in that situation that Eno described, that almost interview sort of sense where

you're around people that do or say something that makes you uncomfortable and you fail to speak up because you feel pressure not to. Doing better in those situations actually does make a huge impact in how women are treated around baseball, but also outside of baseball too. This is not unique to sport. This happens in workplaces this happens anywhere where there is a power dynamic that is just how things go and it is this is just the beginning there's there's gonna be more dynamic that's what also makes us bad i've seen some people be like oh he just sent a shirtless picture of himself no man you have to think about the power dynamic in this place you know's a person in power that has sourcing.

He's talking about, like, I'm going to tell you secrets. And also, just rebuffing him, he's like a person of power in your workplace. It's almost like a boss. It's not exactly the same corollary, but it's almost like a boss. You rebuke them. You worry about your job. You think about the situation at the port. She's out of baseball now.

She's not reporting about baseball. She was worried that would happen, you know? And even in Brits reporting, one of the things that was interesting was, like, text after text of no response. You know, they could have been rude and been like, you know, go away, dude. But, you know, they weren't going to because he's in a position of power. And the best thing they could do is put their head down and ignore it and dude if you are sending text after text and not getting a response please stop exactly stop who's hitting on someone on linkedin also like i was

fascinating i read that one that was ridiculous you know it's like and then like who's facebook requesting young reporters and then like hey why didn't you accept my friend request like at what point is it like dude she just is not into you you know like it just seems like these i don't know if it's like it's got to be just a power play because mickey calloway could if he wanted to cheat on his wife could have gone to a bar and none of us would have cared none of us would have written it wouldn't have mattered right um it to me is just the predatory nature of this. Like you said, it's not just shirtless selfies. It's someone you have to see every day and someone who's trying to give you massages in the dugout, which might have been one of the creepiest details,

I think, in that story. Awful. Just disgusting that that was among the things that Mickey Calloway has done. So great job on the story, Britt, as Eno said. You and Katie did an awesome job with that reporting. And obviously, as we said, there will be more Mickey Calloways, inevitably. It's not what anybody goes into baseball writing to report about. So we'll try and have some fun and talk about some actual baseball stuff. Our favorite pastime on this show is usually dunking on the Rockies. Since we all last spoke, the Nolan Arenado trade happened and became official.

I think our colleague, Mark Kerrig, dunked on Jeff British pretty hard this week. That was tasty. Oh, my Lord. It was. That was pretty fun. If you want to have something that's a little more light hearted

but still enjoyable you know that piece works that scratched the itch it was all the things we've been talking about on this pod but served up in perfect word form the finish on it was just the last paragraph

oh man the stuff on her shirt oh god that was so good I guess my serious question It was just the last paragraph. Oh, man. The stuff in his shirt. Oh, God. That was so good. I guess my serious question is, like, how is Jeff British still have a job? Right? Like, I know there's how. Like, how has he not been on the hot seat, especially now? You look at, I think Tom Verducci had that list of free agents they had paid since Nolan Arenado or, you know, came on board or whatever. And they haven't they haven't made a single good decision.

So tell me how the three of us couldn't do just as good, if not probably predictably fall into some kind of better success than Jeff British. Is he the worst GM in baseball? He said we couldn't do it. We're below him. I mean, I think that it's possible that Monfort is not very smart and that Burdich sounds smart when he talks to him. That's one of the few explanations that does sort of check out, I guess. It's not a performance. I mean, yikes.

Burdich is out there talking about the human condition during the press release about Arenado. I mean, yikes. This seems not good. Britt's out there talking about the human condition during the press release about Arenado. I mean, during the press conference on Arenado. It's like, dude, are you trying to tell us that you guys don't like each other anymore and that's why you traded him away? Right. I mean, is there a worse GM in baseball? How is that a smart thing?

You couldn't get over a personal problem with a player? No. And to your question, Britt, I think he is the worst GM in baseball right now. I think the organization is floundering. It is not loaded with long-term talent. They're

going to lose Trevor Story. I don't know if it's going to be because they trade him away or because they give him a qualifying offer and he just leaves as a free agent. Couldn't tell you. Logically, if my brain says, well, you might as well trade him, that means they'll probably choose the qualifying offer draft pick compensation route. I think the Pirates, who were previously contenders for this, are considerably better with the Ben Charrington-led front office there.

Their farm system is starting to look better. Sure, they're going to be a bad team in 2021, as we've talked about a few times, but they're headed in the right direction. The Orioles, two or three years ago, were probably holding onto that mantle. I think with Mike Elias, they've kind of shed that. They're at least on the rise and kind of trending in the right direction but the rockies have never won a division championship will they ever win a division championship we've talked about how difficult it is to win there and play there that's the one thing i'll say man it is hard it's a hard job stadium is makes it hard i think that that situation but do do some things that will give

you a chance like there it's not as though you can't do something different. I think that's well understood. The amount of job security that he's had, Jeff British has had there, affords him the ability to do something thoughtful and different with his roster construction if he wants to. Instead, he's just doing absolutely nothing that is going to give them a chance to do it.

There's got to be a way to turn that into an advantage. It's such an interesting place, and you're going to have 81 games there. So imagine if you could go 60 and 20 at home. If you could find some way to go 60 and 20 at home and just be 500 on the road, you'd still be a good team. You'd be a really good team. Even if you could make that 50-30, you'd be a really good team. You'd be a really good team. Even if you could make that, you know, 50, 30, you'd be a really good team, you know? So like, you know, I think there's gotta be a way to like figure it out. I actually had, and this is interesting. I was just thinking about this.

I had a group approach me and their idea was to, um, to pitch a team on radically changing their home park situation, their home park dimensions, so that they could find soft spots in the market and sign a whole bunch of certain types of players that were undervalued. And the idea was, what if we had like a polo grounds type situation right now, where nobody could hit the ball out? What if we then just got a bunch of Magna Sierra, Magna Sierra, Ender Enciarte, you know, run and get them contact center fielder types and had this like go-go contact team in a stadium where nobody can hit the ball out.

And we do that thing where we go 50 and 30 at home, go 500 on the road, you know, that sort of deal. I think that would be bad probably in the postseason. Things would get a little bit weird. It might be hard to win it all, but you could do something where you find a way to the postseason things would get a little bit weird uh it might be hard to win it all but you could do something where you find a way to the postseason every year and one year you get lucky and make it work but they haven't done anything innovative they've tried innovative things very rarely and once it didn't work i feel like they just were like ah you know drew pomerantz didn't want to you know piggyback with anybody so let's just throw the whole idea out the window.

And on the flip side, guys, the Cardinals have to be a serious threat now, right? When you look at that roster and you look at adding a talent like Nolan Arenado to it. I mean, he waived his, what, no trade? And they fixed the opt-outs? He still has opt-outs, correct? He has two opt-outs, but

in this market, do you think he's opting out at his age? I don't think so. I don't think he is. They packed on $15 million for one more year at the end of the deal, too. It really feels like he's going to stay there for probably all of those years of that contract

if I had to make a prediction on it today. Yeah, the only thing that stops me from anointing them the favorites, though, is, I mean, there's mediocre projections. They have the same projection, basically, as the Brewers. And I think if you look around, they're like the Brewers where, like, oh, yeah, they have some top 10-level stars at a couple positions, and then they have a bunch of sort of middle-of-the-pack positions.

I mean, if you think of, like, you know, shorts in, in, in St. Louis shortstop, you know, the right field situation where they just traded Fowler out of was the, you know, among the five worst in the league. So, you know, they, they're kind of looking for outfielders that'll pop, you know, they're, you know, they, they have, they have a sort of makeshift situation at second base. They haven't signed Yachty yet.

Their rotation has one really good pitcher and a bunch of maybes. So like they fit right in in the central. I would say that they're probably the favorites, but not by very much. And I'm interested to see. I could see, you know, you could make a bet against the Cardinals, I think, you know, with everybody being so excited about the Arnauto thing, you could be like, well, you know, the Brewers are apparently interested in Justin Turner. If the Brewers are apparently interested in Justin Turner. If the Brewers sign Justin Turner, I feel like they might be favorites in the division. And I think that's how close it is. The video that we have going is helpful because

when Eno or Britt say something nice about the Brewers, my face changes just slightly, just very, very slightly. I would say 80% of the video is me kind of making the same face where I'm just listening and it's kind of a neutral face, but you'll just see like the slow Grinch smile, like the Brewer's sign, Justin Turner, and the mouth starts to shift just a little bit. I mean, I think the Cardinals are well-constructed. I think they're also going to add in their outfielder. I don't think they're going to go with Carlson, Bader, and Tyler O'Neal. I think O'Ne're also going to add in their outfielder. I don't think they're going to go with Carlson, Bader, and Tyler O'Neal. I think O'Neal's going to be the fourth outfielder,

and they're going to add a corner bat that's probably a little more impactful than Dexter Fowler was, and they will have a good defensive outfield with that alignment. I mean, for all of Harrison Bader's current weaknesses as a hitter, he is a good defender up the middle in center field, which is good for that that team defense of course but that's the next thing i'm expecting to do i think he's underrated he's one of those guys that like you know barrels the ball pops you know has some pop you know strikes out too much but has really good defense i think he's kind of

it's kind of an underrated package especially you know he won't hit for average so kind of people like oh he hits 220. Yeah, with pop and really great defense. Yeah. Yeah, Justin Turner is into the Brewers. Especially if they get Turner. Again, everyone make sure you look at Derek. They've had a nice little offseason, I feel like.

They're going to be a good – I like some of these moves. It seems like, to me, I don't know about you guys, but the last couple weeks it feels like we finally have had a baseball offseason. Teams have woken up and signed players and there's some teams that are trying. It's been really nice to see a lot of transactions. Yeah, I mean, aren't pitchers and catchers reporting next week? They're trying to fit the entire hot stove season into the last week. Pretty much, except for Bauer, who you know needs the attention, so he's going to stretch it out as long as humanly possible here uh it does seem like we're on the

clock a little bit for trevor bauer though no yeah it kind of feels like that i didn't even mention it up top because who cares they'll drag it out another week if they want to and that's their mo that's what they want to do but interesting if the mets seem to be one of the finalists right like that was when theets started making their changes to that rotation, the thought was maybe this is it. Maybe they're done. I figured they're going to push all the chips in and bump. I guess it'd be David Peterson would be their last starter right now,

or Joey Lucchese. I think they're both in because of Noah Syndergaard coming back from Tommy John. But pushing one more chip in there, I think our friend Derek Carty put this out there, they would have five of the top 55 projected starting pitchers in the league all in one rotation if they ended up adding Bauer to that mix. And lost in all this, I tweeted this yesterday, Marcus Stroman's good.

Marcus Stroman's got a sub-4 ERA and basically the same whip as Trevor Bauer for his career. And everyone's geeking out about whether or not the Mets are going to get Bauer. It's like, hey, you already have a guy that's been pretty much just as effective to this point in his career. He doesn't strike so many guys out. But results-wise, same sort of level. Diversity of approach, right?

Like, you could have five guys who all throw the ball in 98 and have wicked breakout break you know breaking balls and whatever it's kind of cool to have like one guy who does it totally differently you know one guy who's got the super sinker um you gotta you gotta break it up a little bit you can't you can't run into a buzzsaw of a team that they can all hit the four seam you know and you're like oh well you can all hit the four seam but we got stroman so i i think they if they sign Bauer, they immediately become the best rotation in the big leagues.

I think that it's beyond what the Padres have put together, and it would be really impressive. And it gets out in front of their depth problems, because as it is now, I had the Mets as the biggest injury risk in baseball in their rotation. Because DeGrom has a fair amount of injury risk. He has a history. He has a history. He has a TJ.

In terms of age and stuff, he was like 80th percentile in our injury risk things. And then Stroman has had his issues in the past. And then Syndergaard's not even back yet officially. So building the depth with lukasi and yamamoto who i have as 199th and 200th on my list of top 200 pitchers that came out today um i i'm not a big fan of those of the talent there the one thing was they're optionable pitchers that could pitch you a spot start or a second part of the double header and not be um you know not be a

random minor leaguer that's, you know, replacement level. They're probably a little bit better than that. So it was good that they built that depth, but Bauer would be kind of the masterpiece for that. Are you guys a little buyer beware on, on Bauer? I've, I've seen some articles and I forget who wrote it, but one of the columns I really liked was at a New York that said, why not offer him one year, 40 million, blow away Garrett Cole's record for the average annual value. And then if he causes a scene or he's not a fit or he has a down year, he's not a problem, right? You're done with him. There are no- Crasses some people on Twitter.

Yeah. So what, I don't know. I thought it was an interesting concept especially if you're in the mets you go all in this year um you spend the money half of that money that you paying him i know it sounds like a lot but you're saving by not paying robbie cano so to me it actually makes more sense than you would think rather than like a three or four year deal um where it could go sour very quickly because forget the, you know, what you, if you like Bauer or not, he is coming off of a good year, a really good year, you know,

Cy Young type of year. But then you look at the previous years and you're not really sure what you're getting, right? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. I actually liked the idea of a short-term deal for the Mets here, a one-year deal from the guy who famously said he didn't want to do anything but one-year deals. Right? Isn't there something to that? I think from a team construction standpoint, you would always prefer that option just because if it doesn't work out or if he does break, even though it does seem like Bauer has one of the best durability outlooks of any pitcher you could possibly sign to a multi-year deal, the performance too. I mean, we're talking about a guy that while he tinkers and studies his craft and does all these things with tech,

talked about this for years, he's had five seasons with an ERA over four while doing all that stuff. Like I realized that using the pine tar and adding spin rate, and that was a big part of why he was good in 2020, but it was a shortened season with a funky schedule. Where were these seasons before? We saw it in 2018 too. A 221 ERA, 109 whip in 2018 was outstanding, but 2018 and 2020 are still outliers compared to the bulk of his career. So yeah, if you're in a position where he would still consider that one-year deal for the max AAV, I think that makes all the sense in the world for the Mets. It just seems like he's kind of moved off of that position. And I think the reports that we were seeing yesterday were, what, three-year deals with

some opt-outs. So it's still definitely very different compared to other pitchers who've been in this position in the past. I bet he gets out of being shot in the balls by taking a deal that has $40 million in the first year and opt out after it. And then two years after, and then he can say, no, it's a one-year deal. I can opt out after one year. And then he gets the AAV record, which I think he wants. He bets on himself what he wants to do.

So I think he'll get a deal that fits slightly what he said he would do to begin. I think stuff is more important than command most of the time, but it is worth pointing out that Trevor Bauer, him and Tyler Glass now are the two lowest command totals that I've got in the top 20 pitchers in my rankings. And I just feel like that describes the risk. You know, Bauer has more pitches than Glass now and has developed these pitches and has done a good job of that.

So that mitigates his risk somewhat. But, you know, him, Hugh Darvish, Lucas Giolito um they all have great stuff numbers and poor command numbers and i think what you see with those players is a little bit of streakiness it's almost like a power hitter with uh great power but a slightly high strikeout rate you know who goes in and out of streaks where you know he's clobbering the ball and he's amazing and then uh he's just striking out all the time he's no he's no good so know, I do think that that is the risk with someone like Bauer. I think it's the risk with someone like Darvish and Giolito and Glasnow. And we're finding out now, you know, there's a piece from Alex Chamberlain and Fangraph saying that, like, you know, pitchers can reliably to some extent affect the exit velocity and soften the exit velocity off of pitchers.

And we're seeing something from baseball perspectives saying in their new projections, they will actually project some pitchers to beat their FIP, like Kyle Hendricks types. And I think the skill we're all dancing around in all of this is command. You know, the pitchers with command can dot the corners, can get the soft contact, can beat their FIP, can be better than just the strikeouts and walks. And so, you know, that's, that forced me to put, push Hendricks into my top 20. Cause I was like, this seems like a repeatable thing, man. He's got great command. It doesn't matter anymore to me that he throws 90. And Bauer's like the opposite of that, where

it's like, this is what baseball has been optimizing for, is the guy who throws really hard and doesn't always know where it's going. Yeah. You know, you're so smart. Every time I listen to you, I'm like, man, Eno knows. I should create a fantasy team, let Eno pick all the players. You want him to ghost run the team? I don't know what it is, but I'm don't I I always I'm always like a top

three finish but you know there's something something missing I need someone to like watch the room with me I need like a like someone who knows people really well maybe we could team up on a team and you just tell me oh that guy's a paper tiger he's not gonna you don't worry about that bitter in this room or don't worry about this. I like it. But no, I think that, you know, this is interesting. I think this is a good segue. Like, you know, the Mets will be like Bauer in that I think they have a very big boom or bust. Like they have a very high variability. I think you texted me something like the Mets are going to be 10 games out of first in July or something.

Yeah. I sent a message just randomly. I think it was yesterday. It's just, I don't think the old Mets, LOL Mets performance problems are completely gone. We assume they're gone because of the ownership change. I don't think we have any real reason to believe that. They are better on paper,

but they always disappoint when they're good on paper, right? That's just what that franchise is, unfortunately, to the fans of that team. So they could easily be an unpleasant surprise. They easily could be. Yeah, here's the way it happens. They have no good defenders in the right position other than than than lindor right so uh they have nimmo out in center field and a bunch of balls

are dropping in there and uh they have jd davis at third and a bunch of balls are going through the wickets there and so they have like the highest babbip allowed in baseball uh their pitchers are annoyed they They start to throw harder. Someone throws their arm out. DeGrom throws their arm out. Thor has a complication setback. None of these things are crazy. They don't have a good defense.

The pieces don't entirely fit together 100%, and they have the biggest injury risk in the playoff. If Jordan Yamamoto makes 10 starts next year. Okay. So I, I think the Braves win the NL East anyway. I know we were probably not going to do this today, but I'm going Braves,

Mets, Nationals, Marlins, Phillies. I still think the Phillies are last place. Phillies last. Sorry, their bullpen's terrible and they haven't addressed some of their main

issues. I mean, cool. They got real Muto back, but, Philly's last. Sorry, their bullpen's terrible and they haven't addressed some of their main issues. Cool, they got Real Muto back. But they're mostly bringing back the same team with Archie Bradley. That was bad. Yeah. Yeah, they need some young players to step up. They need Alec Boehm to be a star. They need Spencer Howard to be really good in that rotation to give them an upgrade.

They need Archie Bradley to be a brilliant signing. They've tried to do a couple things in that bullpen, but you don't look at it and say, oh yeah, this bullpen is so much better than it was. The problem is fixed. You look at the bullpen and say, that's still more likely than not a trouble spot for that team. Right.

And I think we kind of forgot because they made moves so early, but the Atlanta Braves made some really nice moves when no one was making moves. So now it's easy to focus on the Mets, but I still think the Braves are a deeper team, a deeper organization. And I still think, I mean,

baby Bauer tips the scales, but as we sit here right now without Bauer, I think the Braves are a better team. And they could still make another move. I feel like they'd still need a bat, you know, and it was still hanging out there and I could see them. I could see them doing something where they hide Ozuna is still hanging out there. And I could see them, I could see them doing

something where they hide Ozuna around the field for one year, and then we have the Universal DH next year. So, you know, I could see them making a bet on Ozuna at on the level of like, 400, you know, something like that, you know, something that wouldn't totally tank the franchise. They've been a very one year deal type franchise, but they didn't get Simeon. They didn't get a bunch of the other guys that did the kind of high average annual value one-year deal. And I don't really see that. I don't think Ozuna wants to do that again.

So I could see the Braves adding a bat, a significant bat, and the only really one left is Ozuna. So if the Braves do that, I think even if the Mets do Bauer, it's going to be a really good division. I mean, they're getting Soroka back. The Braves are adding some of the players that they were missing last year, and then a lot of their players are young. If you just look at who could get better,

the Braves have players that could get better, whereas the Mets have players that are mostly 26, 27, in the middle of their peaks. There's not a lot of, like, who could get better on this team? That's something I do when I look at my dynasty teams. It's like, who on this team could get better? If the answer is only one or two players like it is, then we need to win this year or next year or blow it up.

And I think that's kind of, maybe that's aggressive because it's a dynasty and not, you know, real life baseball. I think that's kind of – maybe that's aggressive because it's a dynasty and not real-life baseball. But the Mets are closer to the blow it up because we're past our window than they are to the Braves being like, all these guys are pre-peak and let's go. But the question was that we have on the rundown. Yeah, that's what I was going to get to. I was going to say, you know, look at the rundown.

I'm amazed. I don't go crazy with the rundown some days because I have a vibe. I'm like, this is going to be pretty unscripted, but that's going to be fine. As long as people don't know, then it doesn't matter. But we broke the fourth wall, so oops. Third wall is the podcast? We're just talking. We're just talking.

We're just talking. We're just talking. But, okay, so you're choosing the Mets as your team that's most likely to be an unpleasant surprise, I guess we'll call it. Or do you think they're a contender for that award? That was my way into the conversation. I actually think maybe, I think it might be the Nationals. Yeah, that's a good one.

Talk about bad defense. Yeah. All those things I said about the Nationals. Yeah, that's a good one. Talk about bad defense. Yeah. All those things I said about the Mets are true about the Nationals, and they're worse. I mean, the Nationals have the 29th injury risk in the league in that rotation. Strasburg is coming off of a very rare surgery. Price wasn't necessarily the same when he had carpal tunnel surgery when he came back.

It's been a couple years now. Maybe he's better. Maybe Strasburg gets better. I wouldn't say that he just comes right off of that surgery and returns to vintage Strasburg. Corbin is at 90 miles an hour and wasn't that good last year. Their sixth starter actually showed up on my rankings as having good stuff, but he throws 89. So I was very suspicious of it. Ben Bramer.

I don't even know who that guy is, but that might be their sixth starter. Yes. You know, they don't have much depth in terms of starters. They don't seem to be turning out. Their pitching program is not turning out young pitchers for the bullpen or anything, you know, or for the starting rotation. Or anywhere, no. Yeah.

bullpen or anything you know or for the starting rotation or anywhere um yeah and and the stuff that they added was uh you know on a certain level they're at they're they're about they're asking uh veterans to bounce back they're waiting for Castro to bounce back from you know age and and surgery and and they're asking Bell to bounce back and you know so a lot of these people could not bounce back or one or two of them do and not enough. So I saw somebody say they were favorites in their division on TV, I think. And I was just like, I'd like to take that bet. I'd like to bet against that. So the Nationals were my sort of top-tier team that I think most likely to fall back. Well, they're also the oldest team in baseball.

To me, it's a fine tightrope of a line. When they won in 19, everything went right after the first two months of the season. So to me, they're bringing back a lot of the nostalgia with Ryan Zimmerman and Gerardo Parra. And these guys are clearly past their prime, right? They've got Jan Goms, Avila as their catchers. They're just a team who

like you said are they going to get are these guys getting better no you just hope they kind of hang on and don't fall off a cliff um so it could get ugly very soon you talk about the mets not having like that young like the nationals farm system there was no one on keith law's top 100 not a single soul um so they really have that window of you're either going to be good or you're gonna be real bad this is the last year of max scherzer um in his you know long deal which was a great deal but he's starting to show signs of wear and tear right he's starting to show old and i only say this on the podcast then not to him because he's very scary and if you bring up age he'll stare at you with both those eyes, and the blue one is very scary.

So I try to not bring it up out loud. But he's getting older, so it's a legitimate concern. He's done really well. That contract was amazing. He's done really well. He's one of the best pitchers of his time. But the back is hurting him. You could maybe get him to admit that.

I don't know. Yeah, no, I mean, he'd rather, like I said, there's probably no player in baseball who's like stare at you after a question is as scary or one that I've uncovered in 13 years as Max Scherzer. Verlander, Verlander has done that to me. He's not, I don't think he's as scary. I think Scherzer is just a scarier human being.

I don't know if it's the colored eyes or just his general demeanor. Verlander can be kind of jerky out and out, but Scherzer will just stare at you like he wants to hurt you. And it's jarring. I've seen him do it to others, to myself. So I just don't bring up age with Max and just let him age on his own, you know, because there's a few things that I do think Kevin Perleter. Who's your pick then for it?

My pick is the, you stole my pick. I think it's the Nationals. I think they are. I do think they're, and here's my sleeper trendy, maybe pick is the Yankees. Like how often, how much longer are we going to deal with the Stanton judge? Are they healthy? They're doing yoga now, apparently, this week, right? Their number two starter is Corey Kluber. There's a lot of eggs in that basket, no? There's a lot of, what if he's not good? So my under-the-radar, could-fall-apart-quickly is the Yankees, because we've seen it fall apart. We've seen the injuries. We've seen what they've done. And, like, they have had a good offseason.

They did re-sign DJ LeMayhew. I mean, I thought that was huge for them. They were able to do some of these things. But also, can't you see very quickly how they end up with a big injury list again? And we're like, another year where the Yankees don't win. Yeah, and they're almost like the Phillies in that they're running it back. I mean, they brought Didier Mayhew back, and like Kluber, Tanaka, I don't know.

Like, Tanaka might have pitched more. Maybe Kluber, when he's in, he's better. But you don't know that. Not off of one session. Not one bullpen session, you know. Who are the young guys getting better? According to the Eno-Sarris chart of this team is going to be good. Who's got room?

A little bit of a bounce back from Gary. Jordan Montgomery, I think, could get a lot better. I think Jordan Montgomery is a sneaky player. Yeah, and David Garcia-Clark-Schmidt. There's a little bit of that young pitcher, maybe one of those steps forward. And then Gleiber, I think, can be better. But other than that, it's not a long list. Well, then it's just keeping guys healthy.

It's keeping Judge healthy, keeping Stanton healthy, keeping Aaron Hicks healthy. Clint Frazier, you know, I was surprised to see this. I was looking this up just the other day. He actually was a better defender than I realized last year. And his defense was atrocious upon arrival in the big leagues. I mean, it was like low light bad, right? Getting attention because he didn't look

like he belonged in the outfield at all. They look like they're going to let him play quite a bit and left. I'm sure they'll play Talkman out there a little bit too. And if or when the injuries happen, we'll see both of those guys in the outfield together.

But Britt, I think the Judge Stanton thing, I put that on the rundown because I'm actually intrigued by that. Normally when we see... Yeah, I did put that on the rundown. It caught my eye because I've always wondered if you can actually make yourself too bulky to have the functional athleticism

and durability necessary to get through a season of your sport. It doesn't just apply to baseball players. I think the first time I ever saw it was David Boston, the wide receiver who played in the NFL for a few years. He was a steroids guy. He got so big that he just couldn't

run routes anymore. Ron Gant. I was like, how do you even swing? His biceps were like... Oh my god. Your own biceps were like... Oh, my God. Your own biceps are knocking your microphone out of them. Getting those push-ups in the basement. It's like the NBA, right?

It's the giantism. It's the constant stress on your joints from just being a giant human being. I think the NBA has reacted to this maybe better than baseball. We'll see how this changes in baseball. But if you watch the NBA now, I think everyone's sort of like 6'9". And their load management's big. They don't play as many games. Yeah, they're doing the load management.

That's important to keep people healthy. I think they're going to do that more in baseball too. You're seeing that in baseball, right? Healthy scratches. You're seeing there's nothing wrong with Soto, but he's sitting there. They'll do that. But the, the, the thing that happened in basketball was, I think there's not, you don't see seven, six guys anymore. It has to do with positionless basketball. It has to do with how basketball is played, but I think it also has to do with a certain amount of health. I don't think it's that healthy to be that huge.

So I wonder if baseball, you know, if they'll start to see some injury rates for pitchers that are super tall and, and, and see like, oh, we don't need to chase these like six foot 10, six foot six type pitchers as much as, you know, they used to love, you know, oh, look, he's tall, lanky, he's got all these levers, but it's interesting. It's an interesting idea. I would say that I was having some Achilles problems from running so much and from basketball and from the old, the problem of being old. And yoga, you know, I did some muscle activation technique. I did some exercises, but I also some like, you know, kind of plyometric, I think they call it, or whatever. Plyometric.

Some exercises I do to like huh i think so it's i do these little exercises to try to activate tiny little muscles um you know just like little weird movements and then also yoga and i don't know exactly which one worked but the achilles is doing really good and uh i think the one thing that people might not uh appreciate about yoga is that it's almost weight lift. It's not, it's, it's more weightlifting than stretch. It's not about static stretching. It's not about like touch your toes. That's not great. But in yoga, there's a lot of movement with the stretching and it's actually more dynamic stretching. And I think that is good because it's this, it makes little muscles stronger. It makes the little muscles around the big muscles stronger.

And I think that's a key to being athletic and not tearing out an ACL or whatever it is. That's why I thought it was important. Go ahead, Britt. That's my little rant on yoga. Yeah, no, the thing with yoga is, as you mentioned, the static stretching does nothing. Did you guys know, I think Crissy told me this maybe once that uh 80 over 80 of injuries occur when someone is off

balance whether they're like running trying to get a ball don't want to be off balance right and so the more time you can spend with things like yoga that involve like the balance tech things like this um that's why i think yoga Pilates was a big part of Jake Arrieta's Cy Young. Remember like that kind of stuff. Um, so, which is fascinating. If you think about it, these guys are so conditioned, right? It's the, it's the force collisions. It's the impact when they're off balance that causes most of these injuries, which I thought was fascinating. Yeah. And I think it is those smaller muscles around the big muscles in particular where you start to run into some trouble.

Just the fact that they're trying something different, that makes me a little more encouraged about the possibility that both Judge and Stanton can stay healthy over the longer season. We haven't seen Aaron Judge get over 112 games since 2017. He played 155 that year. Since then, 112, 102,

and then 28 in the shortened season. The oblique has been a problem for him. I think the calf at one point was a problem for him. Obviously, he had a hit by a pitch in the wrist. That doesn't count. That doesn't matter. That happens to everybody. Just like Stanton got hit in the face once. Obviously, not his fault. With Stanton, it's always the hamstrings and the quads. If they have increased flexibility and range of motion, and they've done a better job kind of balancing out their training i think we could see them play in stanton's case i don't think i would expect more than like 130 games i think part of that is like a load management sort of

philosophy the fact they don't really put him in the outfield if you get 130 games out of john carlos stanton he still hits missiles he's still good when he's out there. Razor show. That's a huge win for the Yankees offense to have that. And if they get 140 or 145 games out of Judge, I know these are reasonably big ifs. That's a big boost to their offense, which is already good in the first place. But to your point, Britt, I think the key thing that makes the Yankees a little different for me than the Nats and some of the teams that don't have young talent is that you have some guys who are actually ready to contribute. Davey Garcia, Clark Schmidt, especially on the pitching side.

They can turn to those guys and maybe get some really high-quality innings. Jonathan Loaiziga is in that mix, too. I don't think he brings the ceiling those other guys bring, but he's at least good enough to be a back-end starter. Yeah, right. They're number five, number six, number seven, number eight starter doesn't throw 88. I think that's the key for the Yankees. They can lean into that depth a little bit,

and then they've also just done such a great job of getting into the minor league signings and developing players. Gio Urshela is a good example of that, the trade for Luke Voigt. They just seem to be a better organization than most at finding ways to mask some of those flaws, even with the older core and the injury risk that core brings. should be. But I'm also looking at the odds. BetMGM's got World Series odds up right now. I think you guys are both right to be skeptical of the Nationals. The Nationals are plus 3,500 to win the World Series. Same odds as the Phillies. So 35 to 1 on both of those teams.

Part of that, the Braves are at 10 to 1. The Braves are, I think, better. They have a younger core. They've got that pitching depth. Bryce Wilson, Kyle Wright, some guys that are at least interesting, even if they're not more than number four starter types, they at least have a few guys they can throw out there that'll keep things close for them. And they have an offense that can out hit the bad pitching. We talked about them, I think in the middle of the shortened season, the Braves could drop five runs in any given inning with any part of their lineup. They've got a couple of position players that could get better. Ozzie Albies should be healthy this year, right?

He had the wrist injury last year. Austin Riley is a guy we've talked about. He could get better. And I think that's what kind of sets the Braves apart in that division. So you guys have it locked in. You are right to see the concerns with the Phillies and the Nats. Who's your paper tiger then? My paper tiger is the Cubs.

I think they have a plan the low velocity plan that we talked about but their core is getting older and yeah they might get a bounce back from javi baez i wouldn't be that surprised by that they're gonna miss kyle schwarber jock peterson's not kyle schwarber as similar as their career numbers are to this point, Schwarber's a better hitter. I could hear you say Kyle Schwarber all day. I love that accent. What accent do I have? Wait, but here's my question. Can they be a paper tiger if they're not really trying to win?

Well, I think based on projections, you had that piece about the Cardinals being slight favorites, right? So there's the Cardinals, Brewers, Cubs, and then there's probably a little gap for the Reds and then a mile-long gap to the Pirates because they're deep in their rebuild. I don't know. Interestingly, the Reds are 30-1 to win the World Series. The Cubs are 35-1.

I do think the Reds are a little better than people give them credit for because they were rumored to be unloading pieces, and really it's just been Rysel Iglesias not coming back, right? I mean, I don't look at that team and think it's... I think that was a bet on their pitching development. They were like, we have Lucas Sims. We have Amir Garrett. You know, we're going to go get Doolittle.

We're going to develop... We have driveline here. We're going to develop a bunch of guys who throw a 96. We're going to sort through, figure out which ones are the good ones and we'll have a good bullpen. So let's trade away Rysel to save some money and maybe get a prospect out of it.

I didn't think that was a huge move. I'm a little disappointed they didn't sign Didi or a credible starting shortstop. So I don't know. I was kind of thinking that once they did that, they'd be a better sleeper pick because, you know, StatCast likes a lot of their batters to bounce back like Moustakas, Suarez,

should have better seasons next year based on their StatCast numbers. You know, Votto found something late last year where he was kind of trading some contact for power. Maybe he could have a little late career swan song type deal. They have some interesting arms in the rotation with Tyler Molle to Jay Antone. There's some stuff going on there, but at the same time, they don't have a shortstop right now. That guy Garcia is just not ready. And I'm waiting on them to either trade for Ahmed Rosario or Willie Adamames or something

like that but they got to hold on to castillo somehow and get a short stop so that's they got to thread some needle there my uh my pick for a sleeper is the astros which is not uh uh not gonna make people feel good who is it you had you had a phrase in the rundown where I was like, well, oh, yes, team pleasant surprises. I don't think that the Astros being better than projected is a pleasant surprise for a lot of fans. But I have them as like top three stuff in the rotation in the big leagues. I had Urquidy and Javier higher than most people. Grinke is like the perfect pitcher for aging. He's going to throw a knuckleball this year

because he threw a slow curve all of a sudden last year. He's going to throw eight pitches at you with command. And he throws a pitch that upset Tom Tango. He throws a pitch called a batting practice fastball. He literally, and Tom Tango, he throws a pitch called a batting practice fastball. He literally, and Tom Tango is like, I don't know if I should call this an off-speed pitch or a fastball because it's like an 87 mile an hour four seam. And I just don't know what to do with it. And he highlighted it on the pitch mix. And he's like, it's obviously a different pitch, but I don't know what to call this this so that's a total grinkyism right there um and uh i think they could do something like sign jackie

bradley uh in center uh you know and fake it in center um i like uh some of their uh young batters and jordan alvarez coming back is a huge who could be better on this team it's jordan alvarez coming back being healthy and being a huge bat um along with correa and altuve if you add in the postseason was better than he looked uh you know there's still something there uh in that in in houston i think they could win that division because you know the angels fall apart every year uh the a's have like three million dollars to spend this offseason apparently. Um, and, uh,

uh, that might not be enough to, to get them where they need to go. So that's, that's my, that's my sleeper pick. Um, wow.

So I'm going to be quick. Cause I know, you know, has a, an another, a Q and a to get to later, but my sleeper picks going to be the blue Jays. I don't know if they qualify as a sleeper,

but they're trying to win. I obviously got Springer. Um, they have money to spend. We know that. I don't know if they qualify as a sleeper, but they're trying to win. They obviously got Springer. They have money to spend. We know that. I think they are poised to, if they're in it, maybe make a splash at the trade deadline. They've got the young talent as we know with Bo Bichette, with Vlad Guerrero Jr. They're just the

team that seems to be... We saw kind of like the White Sox. We saw the makings of them last year, and I think they're going to be even better. So I think I have them pegged as my pleasant surprise, overperforming perhaps what we think the expectations are going into this season. Yeah, and I think at the very least, that's going to be a fun team. They're going to score plenty of runs.

I think they can actually out-hit their pitching. They've got a few guys that we've talked about, like Thomas Hatch, who could emerge as a backend starter or a nice piece of the bullpen. So they got a few players kind of cruising under the radar that are going to have important roles for them. And Merriweather. Merriweather too.

Yeah. It's like how good those guys are, how they're utilized, I think will actually be pretty important to just how far the Jays go, but they should be much improved from where they were a year ago. And yeah, that Astros call, odds on

them, 22-1. Really? I kind of like that one. I like that a lot. The Jays are 25-1. So they're in the same cluster. I think my last thought on the Reds, too, is they have a few younger guys that still haven't maybe had their best season. I think

Nick Senzel is the one that really comes to mind for me. Look at what he did in the minors. He's had some injuries as a big league player. Somebody was asking on Twitter if Nick Senzel could play shortstop. I don't think it's the most ridiculous thing possible. I tried it in OTP. OTP didn't like it. But OTP doesn't really like Senzel.

I don't know. Out of the park baseball. They need a shortstop. They do need a shortstop. Anderson Simmons would have been a fantastic fit on that team. Because they don't need offense. I believe in those veteran bats generally bouncing back. I think they're

going to hit a ton of home runs. That's what the Reds do. They're built for it. Their park obviously boosts that about them as well. So those are some of our under the Raiders. Team pleasant surprises, with the exception of the Astros, which are fortunately no longer Derek's Astros. Makes me very happy that I have shed that after telling everybody,

like, oh, I think the Astros are still good. I think the Astros are still good. Are they now Eno's Astros? Now they're Eno's Astros. Good job. Dang it, I stepped in that one. So, as we mentioned, lots of great stuff to read. Check out Britt Giroli's story with Katie Strang, of course,

from Mickey Calloway earlier this week. Check out the Mark Carrigg piece about the Rockies. Fun takedown if you want to read that. And you can check out Eno's pitching rankings that he alluded to as well. I've got a full set of fantasy baseball rankings. There's a lot to read, a lot to take in on The Athletic right now. Theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. $3.99 a month, a lot to take in on the athletic right now. The athletic.com slash rates and barrels. Three 99 month is the price to get you started with a subscription.

It's the best deal around on Twitter. She's at Brit underscore droly. He's at, you know, Sarah's I am at Derek and Riper. This is going to wrap things up for this episode of rates and barrels. We are back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening.