Rates & Barrels - The New Challenge of Being Patient with Prospects & When to Worry About A Contender's Slow Start

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

Eno, DVR and Britt discuss another excellent showing from Jared Jones and an impressive outing from Mason Milller in the Bronx on Monday afternoon. With teams having greater incentives to bring prospects up when they are ready, the new challenge is having a plan to change course if they struggle. Plus, is there legitimate reason to worry about the slow start of the Astros (7-16 entering play Tuesday) or the Cardinals (10-13)? And, is Blake Snell's bumpy start in San Francisco the byproduct of a late-spring signing? Rundown 4:10 Jared Jones & Mason Miller Continue to Impress 13:50 An Ump Show in the Bronx 17:52 Jackson Holliday's Early Struggles & When to Adjust a Plan 28:45 Having Defensive Value to Fall Back On 36:53 What's Different About the 2024 Astros? 49:35 The Cardinals' Offense is Going to Wake Up (Right?) 58:01 Is Blake Snell Struggling Because of Signing Delay? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghroli e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! https://www.youtube.com/c/ratesbarrels Subscribe to The Athletic for just $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels Tuesday, April 23rd. Derek Finareper, Bricharilla, Enosaris all here with you. If you're watching us on YouTube, be sure to smash the like button on this video, subscribe to our YouTube channel if you haven't done so already. On this episode, we'll talk about a few things that took over your timeline on Monday. That would be Jared Jones and Mason Miller in particular. We're going to move on to some contenders that are struggling early on, at least relative to lofty expectations. We'll talk about when it might be appropriate to worry or when to at least acknowledge that there might be some flaws that we previously didn't see with teams that we expect to be in contention this year.

Then we're gonna dig into some adjustments that teams are making now that they call it prospects sooner. Jackson Holliday going through some early struggles, we'll talk about that and what the Orioles might do if those struggles persist. How are each of you doing today? You know, I clearly, I'll admit it to the listeners, I have the ass today.

I'm stressed, I'm frustrated, I'm working through it. But how are you two doing? I'm doing great. Can't complain. You love to hear that when you have the ass. I'm doing great, can't complain. My husband just got back after a five day trip, You love to hear that when you have the ass. I'm doing great, can't complain. My husband just got back after a five day trip,

so I know that it will be his turn to watch our show. Tag, you're it. So it's like, party time, let's go. He knows Eno, he looks happy. I'm doing good, I'm a little annoyed at some stuff. Like, you know, my credit card, I challenged a thing because I, these people, like somebody, I went to a dive maybe I should have had to just be like, my card was stolen. But that's a lie. My card wasn't stolen.

It was just the information. And I've been watching it. So I tried to be like, that thing right there. I didn't do that. Like buying concert tickets at 1 a.m. while I'm obviously in New York city and drinking. Like, do you think that I like sat down at the bar and bought concert tickets on my phone? Like I didn't do that. And for the first time ever, the credit card

was like, Nope, you're responsible. That's pretty weird. Usually I find if you dispute a charge, they're really helpful. Yeah. Tip of the cap to the Costco visa. They've been good to me. So now I have to call them back and be like, what the hell? I didn't buy these tickets. Wow. That's insane because you know what? I didn't buy these tickets. Wow. That's insane because you know what? I disputed two charges from Uber Eats the other day and my credit card immediately took them off. And while we're on that topic, this wasn't, this was ridiculous.

I ordered, so I have a friend, cause I worked at MLB for 10 years, who lets me use his MLB no blackout version. Oh, the gold card version of MLB TV. I know which I had for the decade I was there and I really, besides the pension plan, probably the thing I miss the most is that. And so I send him a case of beer every year. So Drizzly is no more.

I did it over Uber Eats. Not only did they not deliver it both times that I ordered it, I got an email that said, the delivery driver said you were intoxicated and we couldn't serve you. I'm like, that's impossible. Wow. The guy was waiting with his dog for the beer on like his front porch. So you just didn't show up. And they tried to charge me.

Yeah. I know. It's tough out there. Yeah. So that's what's irking us. And we actually have a channel for this on our Discord, which we usually use in place of the first few minutes of the show. What is it called? The ass? It's called The Void. It should be called The Ass. The Void. It's called The Void. You get to scream into The Void. You can just, anything that's bothering you, just put it out there into The Void. I hadn't seen that one yet. It's off your chest and it's out there. So thank you for giving us a few minutes to unload that. But yeah, those are frustrating situations too. I'm glad you're in better moods than I am today

because I think it will serve us well as we move through the show. As I mentioned up top, it happened last night and yesterday afternoon, Jared Jones had another great start against the Brewers. And I think it's safe to say many folks on my Twitter timeline to suggest this. Jared Jones had the sword of the year against Bryce Terang.

There was a slider down and in and. Oh my God. Bryce Terang's on his back on home plate on strike three, which is absolute filth. And we're getting to the point with Jared Jones right now. How high is too high as far as rankings and expectations for the rest of the season, because he's among the league leaders

in many pitching categories that we care about. The only thing that really holds back expectations for him is the possibility that when we hit an off day or we get to the all-star break, they might manage his starts a little more carefully just to not push him too close to a maximum number of innings. But other than that, he looks like a true frontline starter, like an actual SP1 at this point. Yeah. And it's not just that strikeout either, right? Like he, if you put together a highlight clip of his short career so far, he gets ugly swings on the reg. He makes guys look foolish, which doesn't happen very often for big league hitters for a guy who. Doesn't have this long established track record right like it i agree with you to me is quickly becoming must watch tv.

When is he pitching i'm gonna put that game on even if i'm watching something else right which like how often does that. Like how often does that happen nowadays? On the pitching side of things, because I feel like this season has been so dominated by who's not pitching and how many injuries we've dealt with, right? That it is refreshing to be like, hey, when is this guy pitching again? Because I want to watch him and he's absolutely filthy. Rather than, oh, this team is missing this guy, this guy, this guy. It's been nice to see, especially last night with these two young guys really go out there and make you excited about baseball again.

And I think that's been a refreshing storyline, but he's a legit dominant in my mind ace. They're gonna manage innings, they're gonna manage starts, they're gonna be careful with him. That's what we do in 2024 with these young prized pitching talents. But gosh, I mean, who do you guys have on your fantasy teams?

We do. And partially because of Eno's model. Sherrod Jones was popping in the model at AAA as he came through the system too, right? So there was some prior knowledge that there was really good stuff there. I think even relative to our expectations, this is even a notch better, maybe two notches better. And you just did updated starting pitcher ranks. We didn't talk about Jones on the Monday episode,

but there had to be temptation to give him the super vault up into the top 15, top 20. That's the conversation people are having is like, how high is too high? I don't have a good answer for that. I think pitching can develop so quickly. Spencer Strider is a really good example of that from just a couple of seasons ago. It's easier for me to look at pitchers and make that fast adjustment than it is for hitters, where it can take a couple of months for things to really stabilize and settle in. And that's reflected in things we've talked about with your pitching model.

You know, sometimes it's, you know, 300 pitches or three starts where we have enough information to say something's really meaningful. I feel like most things we care about with hitters take longer. Yeah. I mean, you're getting more information at a time with a pitcher. I mean, he's, uh, you know, that pitchers, starting pitchers actually face more batters than hitters get played appearances in the season. And they also give you information in these bursts you know five innings at a time.

So there it's really a weird thing to try and analyze because you know the information is there but it comes in these bursts. Um, and, and, and there's like, there's matchup specific stuff. It's like, you know, a hitter gets four played appearances against one pitcher one night and then another pitch to the next night. So you're getting a lot of different matchups with the hit pitcher. You just get, if they're in cores, right. And he just get a bunch of information about what they're like in cores, which you can pretty much just throw away. So, you know, that's, that's one thing I would say about Jared Jones is, um,

we may run it like his natural command is not amazing. And so we, and he ran into a little bit of problem with the automated balls and strike system at triple a that may be a super patient team, like the Dodgers or, um, you know, somebody like that might, uh, might just sit on him a little bit more and, and rack up some walks and maybe get him in trouble that way. Um, uh, we also like he's, he's been to like 130 innings before. Will he get to, will they push them to 150?

Will they try to manage it? Uh, so they have them available in October if they get there. Uh, so we, yes, I think the innings is a concern. try to manage it so they have them available in October if they get there. So yes, I think the innings is a concern. And the last thing is he's now actually throwing pretty close to his max. He's throwing really hard right now. And you could see that in the game. He was sitting 100 for like two innings.

And that's pretty much his max. His max is like 101. So he's throwing really close to his max. That's stressful on the elbow. Those are my only caveats. I put him in the top 40. I probably should have put him at least in the top 30 with Garrett Crochet, you know, and Bryce Miller, two other young, really good young pitchers that, you know, you may have some interest in knowing how many innings they'll throw and you know, there's not that track record there. So yeah, I think he's definitely top 30. But if you're starting to put him ahead of established talents, you know, I don't know, like Joe Ryan is, you know, striking everybody out, not walking anybody, not giving up homers, Zach Efflin, Chris Sale, Dylan Cease. those are the backend of my, uh, the,

the top guys. So I don't know, like I couldn't put them over Dylan Cease. Um, so yeah, I think the highest I could put him is, is around 20. Yeah. Let's put them in the Dylan Cease neighborhood. I think about two starts ago, I threw a would you rather into our discord. And that was the toss up and it still favored Dylan Cease, but not by, not by as much of a margin as you'd think

because at that time I think we'd seen three starts from Jared Jones and for the issues he's had with command, only having four walks so far through five starts is a really encouraging sign. It's a 39 to five strikeout to walk ratio in just 29 innings. Matchups have been, I think, a pretty fair mix of easy and difficult.

And you got the Phillies and Orioles in there, the Mets, the Brewers, the Marlins, so one layup, two maybe middle of the pack offenses that we zoom back and reset our expectations for the whole year, and then two upper tier lineups with the Orioles and Phillies. The other thing that was taking over feeds yesterday was an afternoon. We had a matinee between the Yankees and A's that turned out a bit more exciting for a few different reasons. Mason Miller comes in for the ninth inning and punches out Volpe, Soto, and

Aaron Judge and was just electric. I mean, we're talking 101s, 102s, 103s. You don't usually take three guys like that and make them look overmatched. Mason Miller, this time last year, we were talking about him as a possible starter because that was certainly a better path long term if they could pull it off. But because of all the injuries he's dealt with, including the time he missed last year, the A's have decided to move forward with him as their closer. He looks like a capital C closer.

He looks like a top five guy at his position already with the only real question being how he holds up physically because his injury history is about as scary as any picture you're going to find. And we're just talking about like, you know, pitching close to your max. I mean, there's a guy who's definitely getting out. Yeah. There's not a max above what he's doing, right? He can't throw 105, can he? No. Oh. The one thing that's interesting is that as a reliever, I mean, you know, how many pitches, you know,

does he have to throw, you know? You can talk about 15, 16 pitches and then you get two days rest. You know, the one person that did have the max for the longest was, Eroldis Chapman, had five years of being the hardest-throwing baseball. Like 102s, 102s, 103s. He did that for five years.

He's been fairly healthy. He had. Arm, especially his arm, right? I feel like his injuries have been not arm. So I feel like maybe, you know, yes, it is stressful to throw your max, but if you're only throwing your max for like, and yeah, if he throws 15 pitches, he's not throwing, uh, 15 fastballs, you know?

So, uh, if you know, maybe you can, maybe you can get by if you're just throwing six or seven, you know, 103s and then you're done for the day. I think the other thing too, and the A's don't generate a lot of back to back save opportunities either. He has not worked on back to back days. You could control that. Of course, even if you did, you could just use somebody else. If you're trying to stay away from him on back to backs, you know, throughout

the season, or at least for the first part of the season, but Mason Miller is becoming the, the must see reliever right now, the guy that you get the notes on Twitter, you're like, Oh, Hey, Mason Miller's coming in. That's literally what got me to flip that game. I forgot there was a matinee happening. Saw the tweet that he was going to face the top of the Yankees order and said, yeah, I want to watch this, get the popcorn ready. This game also had an ejection, Aaron Boone.

Yeah. Ejected after five pitches. How did you forget the game was happening? It was all over Twitter when Aaron Boone got ejected. I had Twitter off. I was editing. I was editing the show and I just had screens condensed. I was at peace.

I was calm yesterday, pre-ass, getting the edits done. I saw the funniest tweet. There was a tweet. So, so what happened was that, uh, there was a bad call and Aaron Boone, uh, you know, the, the ump looks over at Aaron Boone and thinks that Aaron Boone has said something and throws him out of the game.

But really when there's, when you look at the video, there's just this fan wearing a blue shirt that's sitting right behind Aaron Boone. Like if you're the umpire and you're looking at Aaron Boone, it's like the guy right behind him in the stands, uh, who's yelling about it. And I think he said something like, uh, uh, let's go, let's go, let's, let's get this over with home plate or something. Like he just, it was like, not even like, it wasn't even like an F-bomb or anything.

It was like, it was just like some, some, something directed at the umpire for the bad call. And he throws Aaron Boone out. I saw this great tweet that was like, uh, they show strike zone over Aaron Boone. Uh, and then the guy's face above it. Yeah. It's a dot, the pitch is above it. And he's like, well, at least the umpire was consistent.

Yeah, that was a Hunter Wintelstad ump show. Yeah, then after the game, he's like, oh, they're going to say on the blogs and the social medias that it was somebody in the crowd, but it wasn't. It was somebody in the dugout, and he hits his dugout, so he gets to go. You're like, no, dude. If it were from the dugout, sure, but it wasn't.

Yeah. Why does it seem, does it seem like you guys, that umpires more than any other people in the game double down when they're wrong, right? When was the last time we heard an umpire say like, I was wrong? What, Galarraga's perfect game that got ruined? Jim Joyce, right?

Yeah, when was the last time we heard Umpire be like, I got it wrong? Yeah, but- Sometimes they made it. I heard it from the dugout. No, man, you heard it from that area. And then you ejected Aaron Boone. The whole thing is insane.

And then he doubles down on it. And it's like, well, the fans come to watch the players play. I've never heard Umpire say that. I mean, that is how Umpires should think, but that doesn't prevent them from ejecting guys. It was wild. It was wild to me. And I guess the one thing is that like they, they depend on their sense of authority. Like that's why they don't want to admit they're wrong. Yeah, that's true. Cause then it kind of undercuts them the next time there's a close call, right? Cause the manager can go out there's a close call, right?

Cause the manager can go out there and say, Hey, remember that call you blew last week? I saw the highlights of that. I heard you admit that. Right. It's just fodder. Yeah. And, and I mean, it's just that their job depends on like a sort of broadcasting a sense of authority.

In fact, I would say that this does port over to some parts of the media. Dot, dot, dot. Dot, dot, dot. Care to elaborate or wanna move on? Well, no, it's just that like, you know, part of your identity, especially if you're, you tend towards analysis of say, scouting type analysis or fantasy analysis or whatever,

part of what like, part of what makes people listen to you is that they think you're an authority on things. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you do need to admit you're wrong because people know you're wrong. Your receipts are out there. So if you lose your own receipts, you're just being a jerk.

Admit it, you're not public. Right, that's why I really like Keith Law does the people he was wrong about this year. I try to do a piece like that. Uh, you know, I've definitely, uh, admit I'm wrong, uh, often online. It's just an easy way to defuse the situation. Yeah. Ryan Weathers last Tuesday when I said I'd send him to AAA and then he pitched

really well on Thursday, I'd show the crow because that's, that's what you have to do sometimes you're wrong. And sometimes you're wrong, wrong, and then right. The original take ends up being right later. That happens too. Sometimes you're just flat out wrong. Victor Robles. I'm wrong.

I mean, this is also something that organizations have to think about too, because they want to broadcast authority to their own players. You know, Teams have to make a more difficult decision now. And I think this is the result of prospects getting called up more aggressively, which is good. I want the best players to play. I think we're seeing that now with the new rules, right? The incentives are more in line with what they need to be

for us to see the top prospects when they appear to be ready. And right now there are a lot of people who are worried about Jackson Holiday, and it has been nine games. That is it. A 50% strikeout rate, yeah, it looks bad, right? It's the worst WRC plus of the rookie hitters

that have collected 20 plate appearances so far. But listen to that again. 20 plate appearances so far is the cutoff. Like we're talking about a week and a half's worth of games for someone who's seeing big league pitching consistently for the first time. Spring training doesn't even count because you don't see all big league pitchers in spring training. You see guys are going to be at all different levels.

So I think the big question that every team has to ask, we could start with holiday, but this can certainly expand beyond holidays. When are you concerned enough by struggles for a young player to say, okay, we were wrong. We still believe in this player. We need to go fix something. And I think the hardest part of that question is the, if the problem is something that you won't see at triple A, sometimes

the demotion doesn't fix it. Sometimes you have to work through the struggles even longer because you can't even replicate the problem with a demotion. And I think we're seeing this right now. His problem is well commanded breaking balls in the zone. You're like, well, send him to AAA where nobody really does that.

Yeah. Cause he's not going to solve that facing the White Sox AAA guys. That's like the specific example here. So, you know, first off with holiday, Britt, what are you seeing so far? Is it just a typical young player going through adjustments or is there anything more there that you should actually be concerned about given how small the sample is?

Yeah. So I was actually talking to people about this yesterday and I think a few things. One, it legitimizes the Orioles when he didn't make the team to break camp because they were like, he needs a little time. And people were like, no, no, he needs to be in the big leagues now. And maybe he did need some time. Maybe he needed more time to get his feet under him, though he was crushing at triple A.

So I think a lot of what you're seeing now, and a lot of what happens to these young guys who comes up, if they don't do well immediately in the first week or two, then they start pressing. When Jackson Holliday's young life, has he ever been bad at baseball? Never, never. So what you're seeing now is him trying to do too much at every at every at bat and every plate appearance. And because he knows he hasn't been good. And you were trying to press and get away

from what makes Jackson Holliday so good at the hardest level. He's not at double A. He's not at triple A. He's at the big leagues. And he feels this need to hit a three-run homer with no one on base. I think that's what you're starting to see now when you watch his at-bats. He's getting out of what made him so good.

So long term, I don't think there's any panic. It's been such, like you said, I like the 50 at bat mark before you really can see like what is going on. That's a big sample size. You know, when people were complaining about Francisco Lindor with the Mets, listen, let's give them 50 at bats and see how they're doing. My main concern with holiday now is the Orioles are kind of stuck. They can't really send them down because they brought him up so that if he wins

rookie of the year, they get the extra draft pick. And also if you send him down now, what are you doing to his head even more so? I remember the Nats went through something similar to Carter Keeboom in 2019. Where like when you have these young, touted guys who have never failed and never struggled like Jackson Holliday, the first time they struggle, how you handle that as an organization is really important. So I think they have to ride it out. I think the other thing about Jackson Holiday, it just happens to every player. It's either a slump or sometimes it happens at A-ball, sometimes it happens at double A. You do experience failure for the first time, usually as a professional, because you've been the best player on the field

everywhere you've been forever. I do think having a dad that played in the big leagues as long as his dad did, who was as good as he was, probably helps a little bit, because you have someone who has gone through adjustment periods at some point, at least end of career struggles, but I don't remember the prospect arc of Matt Holliday

well enough to know where and when he hit various bumpy patches. I think that like 50, 50 at bat still seems like not enough. I'm more like a two month sort of guy. Like give me, give me two months. The only reason you can't give every player two months is that if you have someone good enough to help your team win Ramon Urias, Ramon Urias or Mayo or other guys, I mean, there's all sorts of options. They have a Norby, yeah, they have a bunch. Whole bunch of guys move up and down

on this roster right now. And Heston Kerstad is actually on his way up. I think as we speak, he's gonna probably debut on Tuesday. You look at that and say, okay, how long can we accept this, right? If you're getting something from a player, you're getting good defensive plague and he's hitting ninth and he's figuring it out, that's probably enough to keep things afloat.

So as long as some aspect of your game is working, I think you can iron out the other aspect in many, many cases. So even even if I like two months and we can't give them two months, you got to give them more than nine games. And I think there's there's got to be something built into our expectations, not just in the media, but just as fans, as analysts that we need more information than this. Like, it's fun to wonder.

It's fun to go to the opposite side of the leaderboard and say, oh, Colton Cousers way better than we thought. Colton Couser is going to hit 30 home runs and steal 15 bases this year because he's popped six homers in 21 games. No, Colton Kouser probably won't do that. It's easier to think he will because of how good he's been. He's the best rookie hitter by miles right now, but you can't completely rewrite everything based on nine games for holiday or even 21 for Kouser. And I just think teams have to sort of figure this out. How do you work with a player who is struggling perhaps for the very first time or has the extra pressure?

Jackson Churio has this in Milwaukee with the contract he signed. Like not only is he under pressure to perform, but he's got this big paycheck coming, he's one of the highest paid players in the team and he's a kid. So how do you work through with that? Like, I think every coaching staff, every organization is going to be different. And I think this is something that the Orioles have kind of cut off at the pass in some ways, because so many of their players have turned the corner in the upper levels of the minors and just kept producing all the way up.

Like it's been pretty remarkable as part of their turnaround. They've had guys hit the ground running pretty consistently in these last few seasons. You know, I think running a team, people tend to think of them as sort of monolithic, um, and like making decisions and implementing those. And yet organizations are a collection of people where they bring together

different ideas. They discuss them. Um, and so the way the reason I bring this up is that there's a Ben Clemens piece on fan graphs where he goes through the financial incentives for the decision on Jackson holiday. And he says, basically at 600 plate appearances, he has the best shot of winning the rookie of the year. And so therefore, you know, whatever shot that is, that's good for the team because they get a pick. What's the pick worth? You know, so he does the numbers on everything. He goes, well, if you keep them down for 50 play appearances, he has a reduced chance of winning

the rookie of the year and he has more of a chance of finishing like second or third, which he gets an extra year of service time. So you lose some money there. So all this, and then you lose the potential production that you would get in those 50 plate appearances. So he games it all out. And in fact, what the peak is, is 550 plate appearances is the is the best place. That's where the Orioles would get the most money in the way he modeled it. Right? So yes, there is probably somebody at the Orioles that did this analysis, okay? And they said, you know, if we keep him down 50, he could still win the rookie of the year,

you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know? And probably, you know, the GM there said, well, that's interesting. But also, what does the manager think? What does the manager think? What is he, what is his, what does his play been like in the spring training? What did we see with our eyes? I'm sure that it wasn't just a decision where they optimized the model and said, oh, we

get the most money if we send Jackson Holliday down. And the reason I say this is Jackson Holliday struck out 30% of the time in spring training. It's not like he just dominated. There was no red flags in the spring training. This is a guy who made great contact all the way up. And for some reason, the spring training striking out 30% of the time, first couple of weeks was full of lefties. I think that they actually did the right thing where they're like, Hey, he's going to hit a bunch of lefties in the first couple of weeks. I don't know why he know why striking out let's try to figure out if it's a big deal or not let's send them down. And then he didn't strike out in triple a and they were like okay it's time to try them out. So i think that you know.

before where I used yelling about Willie Calhoun and like, you know, the Rangers were, were messing with his service time when they sent him down. You know, and then later I was like, wait, I'm not even sure Willie Calhoun is a big leaguer. So like, you know, sometimes when we yell about like, Oh, this is obvious service time manipulation. I'm I don't know. I'm not, you know, there's, there's a lot going on in the decision-making process is all I'm saying and

We saw we're seeing right now that the maybe There was some stuff they had to iron out It's just a really young kid and I would tell him when I'm looking at his numbers right now he's pulling everything and he's a guy who's been a let it travel and See the ball like really really high walk rates I would just be like hey kid like find what you were like just let it ball let the ball like really, really high walk rates. I would just be like, hey, kid, like find what you were like. Just let it ball. Let the ball travel. Don't try to hit that homer.

Try to hit a double. Try to hit it the other way. Just like try to get some walks, you know, try to be who you've been rather than like show us all that you can hit the ball out. Yeah, we just did this with Jared Kellnick a couple of years ago, right? And I think the comments that Kevin Mather had made in the off season prior to that did not help that situation at all. I do think we are still in this window where the gap between AAA and the majors is really wide. So you can dominate AAA. It's made even more complicated. Pitching injuries and stuff. There's not that many good pitchers in AAA.

It's depleted. Yeah, the quality of the pitchers is depleted plus we still have the PCL, which is just full of a lot of high altitude environments where the ball flies and offensive numbers get juiced. So we went through this with Kel and a couple of years ago, I was very critical of the Mariners when they sent him down and said, they give him more time, let's see how it goes.

The Willie Calhoun one's funny, because I remember being mad about that too, but the thing that Willie Calhoun didn't have that I overlooked back then, he just didn't have a defensive position. There was no defensive value to fall back on. And they said, we're setting him down to work on defense, we're like, oh, that's the Chris Bryant manipulation package. You know, setting him down to work on his defense.

What's he gonna do in two weeks? Yeah, we thought it was the same situation and it just wasn't because he's not as complete of a player. He's a DH. I think the big difference here too is, Wyatt Langford is a good example also right now, getting this opportunity, 21 games so far, his plate skills look solid. It's only a 20.4% K rate. He hasn't homered yet. He's not doing a lot, but he's not falling on his face. So you have to look at first time big leaguers and not expect league average production right away.

Like the threshold for what is acceptable is probably 15 to 20% below league average initially. And then you raise the bar with some time because you're making massive adjustments. Yeah, Volpi last year, I thought my argument was that Volpi had a successful rookie season. He was far from a star, but he was a good defender at a premium position.

He didn't strike out an absurd amount of the time. 27.8% is acceptable. He walked a little bit. He got to power consistently. There was a lot to like about Volpi, even though the slash line wasn't good. There were still plenty of things he did well for a first time big leaguer in that environment

for a full season last year. Yeah, I mean, it just takes time. And then you like the one, the big numbers that you have to always put into your analysis is age. You just always have to think about age. Volpe is 22. You know, holiday is, you know, holiday is what is he? 2020, 20.

Yeah. And Langford is a little bit older, what is he? 20. 20. 20. Yeah, and Langford is a little bit older, but he's still 22. You know, he did some college. Yeah, it's just, I also think people don't realize that for these guys, they're finally at a level where they're not the best, and that's a huge, huge mental transition for guys.

Guys talk about it all the time. The gap between AAA and the big leagues keeps getting bigger. As guys, the big leagues keep getting bigger. So there's just no way to simulate. And this is why I wrote a story earlier this year about all these young impact players. This is why you're seeing big league clubs call these young guys up

because there's nothing left for Jackson Holiday to get better at AAA. There's nothing left for Wyatt Langford at AAA. And the teams feel like it's okay if they struggle up here because at least they're developing up here. They're getting better up here. There is nothing left for those guys to do at the AAA level. They are dominating down there.

So it may look like, oh no, they called them up too early or not ready. No, no, they have to ride it out. These guys are getting better. Their development's not finished. They're at like the 10 yard line at the big leagues trying to get to the end zone, trying to finish their development. Yeah, I'm looking through a top prospect list. Our friend James Anderson over at Roto Wire and Keith Law has one too. You'll see similar names at the top of lists like this.

But think about the guys that are in the big leagues on the top prospect list right now, Langford, Holliday, Churio, Junior Caminero is probably the best prospect on most lists who's not up. He had a quad injury or hamstring injury that slowed him down at AAA. If he gets his K-rate down a little bit, he's probably up in a few weeks. I mean, it could be days. I mean, they're looking for some offense for sure. Right.

So he's probably not going to spend much time at AAA. Jason Dominguez came up last year. He's hurt. Jordan Lawler's hurt would be on the borderline of coming up. Paul Skeens on the pitching side will be up soon. I think it's days. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, Mayo in the same kind of situation. Evan Carter, Walker Jenkins is far away, a few years away. He's also, he was in high school. He was a little baby. Yeah. He just got drafted last summer, but most of the top prospects are up and then we're going to go on to guys like James wood and Roman Anthony and chase the lottery.

And most of those guys probably come up by the end of the season. So I do think we've got to a better place now as far as when guys are getting opportunities. But the, the, the, the cry on says when to adjust a plan. That's interesting. I hadn't been thinking about that. I did talk to a GM that told me recently that they studied the value of a reset and that they actually studied if like it's valuable to send a guy down just to

sort of clear the air and clear their mindset and get them back going in. And he said they found some value in it. So there is something, I think it's probably confidence is the word, right? So you, you, you, you, you, you see Jackson holiday, just pressing and you, like you may at some point want to send it back down just to remind him that he's good, you know, just let him suck a bunch of dingers and, you know, hit 400 for a couple of weeks in, in AAA. And just to be like, you're good, you're good. Come back up and feel good again.

You know, so that's, that's the one Come back up and feel good again, you know? So that's the one reset where, and that's really, to pull this into what we were talking about earlier, that's where you have to be careful with the team. Like you're not saying we were wrong to bring you up, because that's broadcasting the wrong message to the player, you know?

You just have to be like, hey, we just think that the best thing for you right now would be to take a breather and go and dominate and come back up. So much of that comes back to coaching and how you handle people, right? If you have the trust of the players in your clubhouse, it's easier to deliver that message than if you don't, right? And I think that's going to vary a lot from team to team. And there's probably a few teams we're going to talk about in our contender segment that

don't have that. Well, that's why we have such a hard time evaluating managers. Cause that's one of the things they have to do and they have to do in the right way and we never see them do it. Yeah, it's usually the closed door situation, right? That's the manager's office. That's not a media session. And you get maybe an account of what was said,

but you weren't there. You didn't hear the tone. You didn't get every word. It's what I'm convinced that Bob Melvin is good at. I'm convinced that he is just really straight with people in a way that they appreciate. And that's people have sort of mentioned that. But like, if you're a veteran, that's like falling into a platoon. Like he'll, he'll tell you what's going on.

He won't be like, Oh no, we just needed to match ups. It was the matchups. And you know, it's probably going to be like, oh no, we just needed to, it's the matchups, it was the matchups and you know, it's probably gonna be like, no, like we need you to do this or this and otherwise I need to, you know, go with these other guys in these situations. Yeah, so I think the simple answer is longer than nine games. It's probably more like a month if you're contending.

It's probably like two if you're not. There's a lot of bad ball stats that become meaningful in a month. Yeah. And I think the way the Orioles handled Gunnar Henderson was easier last year because Henderson's underlying numbers looked a lot like Wyatt Langford's do right now. So I think the Rangers can look at that, the basic stuff that we're looking on the outside. Gunnar is doing the same thing that the holiday was doing was Gunnar was striking

out too much. I mean, if Jackson Holiday puts a couple like puts a couple doubles on the board and it's just otherwise striking out too much, maybe they just stick with him because that's what Gunner was doing. Gunner was like not being as good as we thought, but being okay. That's what you're talking about. It's like Langford is not who we thought he was right out of the bag, but he's doing okay. So let's leave him alone. That's all we need from Holliday. You don't need like four for four.

Like all you need is him to start to feel. Couple walks. Yeah. Couple hits. Right, that aspect of pressure is lighter because of how good that team is, but the pressure of being the best prospect in baseball and son of a, Those things are still there.

He's still dealing with that and the pressure of failing really for the first time, albeit in a very, very small sample. Gunnar Henderson, 31.5% strikeout rate last season through the end of April. It was walking a lot, 18.5% walk rate. So not at the 50% level, but yeah, it wasn't working early on for him. You looked at the hard hit rates and stuff. That was all good because he was drawing walks, playing good defense.

He was adding enough value. So there's a way to stick even when the bat isn't clicking right away. Let's talk about a few contenders off to slow start since we're talking about, you know, when to worry, when to be concerned. We'll start with the Astros. There's seven and 16. They have been to the ALCS or gone further in each of the last seven seasons and this will surprise nobody at no

point during that span have they been more than three games below 500 so the fact they're nine under 500 right now yes it's early but this is uncharted territory this is a unique situation to deal with. And beyond the broader question of like when to worry, what's different about this Astros team so far? I look at them and they're scoring 4.2 runs per game right now, it's right around league average. They've got plenty of quality bats on an individual level.

Jose Abreu looks completely cooked. He's got a minus 32 WRC plus, which is DFA waiting to happen. That's going to end in a DFA soon. He's got another another year still on that deal though. So I don't know. I don't know when they're going to swallow their pride on that one and admit defeat, but it's not all on him. That's the thing. You can look at Jose Abreu and say he's struggling, but the rest of the lineup is mostly good. Bregman's off to a bit of a slow start. It's the pitching, right? I mean, you get Verlander back, but Christian Javier goes on the IL.

Framber Valdez is hurt. Hunter Brown has struggled and had that really horrible start against the Royals. So what's going on in Houston right now? What do they need to do to start turning this back around? And how much more confidence do you have when you still have a large core of players that have won a lot together? This seems like a silly team to completely count out, but also like assuming everything's exactly the same is also some kind of mistake.

It's the pitching. It's not a secret. I mean, Verlander came back Friday. I was in DC for that. They had five starting pitchers on the IL until they activated him. Then it was four. They're missing Javier. They're missing Valdez. You know, you go down the line and a lot of these guys won't aren't coming back until at least the All-star break. They lead the league in walks and hits allowed. That's a terrible combo. Their strikeouts pitching staff way down.

So to me, as you mentioned, Derrick, the lineup is fine. I mean, they do have it. I do think of Rio that is gonna end up being a DFA sooner rather than later, but to me, it's the pitching. You can't have a rotation worth of guys's the pitching. You can't have a rotation worth of guys on the IL. You can't allow more hits and walks than anyone else and strike out less guys. It is just a recipe for disaster. And that's what you've seen here. So if you're going to say glass half full, Verlander looked kind of vintage on Friday in spots. He was very

efficient. He was very efficient. He was only going to go like 80, 85 pitches. Didn't even need that to get through six. Throw quality started against the Nationals. Stuff looked good. And their schedule now, this is the soft underbelly, the next like six or so series. They started off against pretty much all playoff teams. So this is the time to make up the ground. If they're going to make up the ground.

I do think have we got an update on when Valdez may return? I think he's kind of. He threw a bullpen 30 pitch bullpen session. So, you know, that seems like, you know, it seems like he's ready to go on rehab assignments. Yeah. So he's like kind of the closest one, I think. So like that is a little encouraging that like he,

maybe sooner rather than later, best class half full, but everything I mentioned before that is reason why there should be a little bit of panic here. Like they can't fall so far behind that they can't at least get into the wild card contention. Yeah, there's some weird stuff going on. I mean, you could you could

just say, well, you know, Ryan Presley and Josh Hader not going to have a 10 ERA going forward. And, you know, once they're healthy, it's it's Verlander, Fromber, Javier, that seems like just as good as as most contenders top three. And they've even added Ronel Blanco this year. So, you know, they've got some stuff going on in the back. Yeah, you know, maybe there will be a DFA. Their first baseman are the worst first baseman in the league by far with a combined 128, 202, 116 line in Houston. They've got somebody like maybe a Joey Lo Perfito. They've got some prospects

that could maybe come up. John Singleton doesn't seem to be the answer. That doesn't seem to have the answer on the Major League roster right now. So I think that's part of why Jose Bray is still there. But I wonder, you know, this is something like my biases towards teams that are, you know, analytics forward and, uh, sort of be calling progressive, you know, these, these teams that, um, you, you use data and use analysis and have a really good R and D department. Astros used to be that they've been sort of going away from that. And so my biases be like, Oh, you know, the chicken's coming home to Rose day. Um, but it just can't be that, you know, that it's too early for

that. There's a lot of, you know, institutional inertia where like the, these, the R and D analysts are still there. The processes are still there. They, they still have things they believe in that they use, um, that come from the numbers. So it can't be that quick. I think there is something weird going on in pitching in that they turned out from Bernjave and all these guys Luis Garcia You know off of $5,000 signing bonuses and they just look brilliant for it and they just they they took them and they use stuff plus they use other things

To like, you know develop into the best pictures that can be and it seems like the second wave is not arriving The next wave is not arriving Hunter Brown was supposed to be the next wave guy, and he's having a really hard time. JP France had the strikeout record one year in the minors. Like, he struck out more people than anybody in the minors one year. He's not doing that at the major league level. As good as the Ronald Blanco story has been, I don't know if it has the same kind of legs to be a Luis Garcia type pitcher all year. So there might be just the beginnings of some weaknesses in the player

development machine that has been the Astros. Why don't they have a ready-made first baseman answer? Why don't they have arms at the ready? It seems like that, that they've done for so long. You know, and so I wonder if there is some cracks showing in the ready. It seems like that that they've done for so long. You know, and so I wonder if there is some cracks showing in the foundation. I agree with the institutional inertia, I think you called it.

I think that's real. Like you're not, you're not just going to evaporate quickly unless you lose an entire core of players at once and we're not there yet. Like a lot of the holdovers are still there. They have lost a lot of R and D analysts. I think the lack of depth on this team is that's something that's going to be put to the test, right?

Because they've had a lot of injuries. Fortunately, the Christian Javier injuries in the neck category, it's not shoulder, it's not elbow. So even though there's no timetable on it right now, it's probably weeks as opposed to months. So getting him back, that'll be pretty big. I'm surprised JP France hasn't been better. They've used Spencer Arrighetti a few times

because they've had to, but that's kind of the keys. Like, okay, yeah, you get Luis Garcia back probably in the second half of this season, but if you have more injury problems that linger on to the first half, that's where I feel like the slow start really starts to catch up to you. I think they'll chip away at it.

If you told me the Astros are gonna be 500 by the end of June, that wouldn't really surprise me that much. It'd be a nice run to get back there. But even though they haven't been down like this, I could still see it happening. Division is still gettable. Like they could just get it going

and still get the division or get a wild card. Like it's, yeah, I'm not saying that they're over. I'm just saying in terms of long-term, we were just discussing five teams for the future. Yeah. We had this big argument about the Astros, if there were five or not. And now I'm wondering if we were wrong. Yeah.

So that, well, they, they have no prospect currently on the top 100 list for Keith Law. They have no top 100 prospect on James Anderson's list either. Like, so I'm looking at multiple lists. And we're learning that they don't necessarily have the same processes in place to produce players that weren't top hundred prospects and be like, Oh, you never heard of this guy? Bam. You know, that's what the Dodgers do. Right? Like the Dodgers were the other team that was like, these guys are progressive.

They dare player development machine. They do whatever they want. Emmet Sheehan. Oh, he's broken. Ah, Landon Nack. Oh, Kyle Hurt. Oh, he's broken. We got another guy. We got another guy. We got another guy. Oh oh, he's broken. Ah, landed a knack. Oh, Kyle Hurt, oh, he's broken. We got another guy. We got another guy. We got another guy. Oh, that guy's broken. We got another guy. They're being tested too.

They're being tested. I'll say, yes, the Dodgers are being tested. They're definitely being tested, but they're a little better suited to handle it, I think. Low Profito, the K-rate is above 30%. 33% at AAA right now. Unless that is an AVS system strikeout rate problem, what is that going to look like?

I know he's hitting for a ton of power. If he gets up and faces big league pitching, is he going to strike out 40% of the time or is this a blip from the uniqueness of AAA right now? I mean, I think that's part of why he's not up. It's got to be, right? So that's sort of what's's wrong with Loper Fito. Why isn't he the obvious choice to jump on the roster?

That's a big part of it. Last thought on the Astros is, you know, I know Britt mentioned Jim Crane saying they would never be rebuilding again, right? They're always going to be going for it, more or less. That's been something he said. Yeah, but that that leads you to signing Jose Breyu. Yeah, so the window is going to be open as long as I'm here was the quote. That was the quote. Yeah, the window is going to be open. OK, that means he's going to spend and spend and spend if he's not developing

players. I think the appetite for that eventually fades. If you aren't spending on the right players, you don't have assets to trade. And I think part of what makes their problem get worse is that they don't have a lot of interesting young players that other teams want right now. So they're going to have a more difficult time trading for high quality players midseason. They're going to be looking the year the Braves won. They made trades for Jorge Soler, Jock Peterson. They're going to be shopping in that bin to paper over their flaws. I think that's what the Astros are going to have to do to hold it together for one more year. But I've started to think about this today.

Could the Astros be in danger of something that happened in Texas in the 90s on the football side of having this Jerry Jones problem in Jim Crane, this owner that believes, maybe because he thinks he deserves credit or the wrong people deserve credit, that they've got something figured out when they don't. And the reasons they were good were a perfect storm of being bad,

having the right people, putting good systems in place. And then when you dismantled those systems, you got the same name on the front of the Jersey, but you have the same organization anymore. I could see this turning into in the next few years. Once the momentum is spent, once the organizational inertia from the past regime is gone, what if they're bad for like 10 years, but they've got this owner that spends then they're the angels in different uniforms.

They can become that. I think you can have that if you have an owner that doesn't understand the importance of what made you good. So they could turn into, again, the Cowboys comparisons real because you had that success. I convinced myself in our conversation that they had enough of a young core. Now that I've got their payroll for the next five, 10 years in front of me, thanks to Fangraphs,

I'm not as convinced anymore. Kyle Tucker is a free agent in 2025 or 2026. After next season. Yes. Good. Yeah. So they've only got Kyle Tucker for this season and next After next season. Yes. Good. Yeah. So they've only got Kyle Tucker for this season and next. Um, you're on Alvarez is signed. Um, but Alex Bregman is leaving. Jose Altuve is not part of a young core.

Um, so you kind of have to really believe in Chas McCormick and even Chas McCormick is gone after 2026. So, um, they don't have that like, we've got this guy for six years, really, other than Jordan Alvarez, who they're paying kind of market rate for. Yeah, the window is still open. It just seeing some early signs of how it's closing in Houston. I'm really curious to see what kinds of adjustments they make given all the changes they've had. Pena has to kind of take this step forward from Pena needs to be real. Cause if Pena and Yannir Diaz are for real,

and maybe like even like a step, like a little bit more, if there's even a little bit more to Pena and Diaz, and Hunter Brown figures it out again, we could feel silly in a couple of months too. Again, I'm not panicking about 2024, but I'm starting to think that the next five years, as we talked about a few weeks ago, might not be as bright as some folks think because

of all these changes. Let's talk about the Cardinals who are going through a bit of a rough start of their own. If you told me when the season started, oh yeah, the Cardinals are going to be three below 500 in late April, but it's because they're not going to score enough runs. Wait, what do you mean? They're not going to score enough runs with that lineup. Like, why wouldn't they score enough runs? They got established guys like Goldschmidt and Aronado that we like.

They got Wilson Contreras behind the plate. And he hits a ton. You got young guys like Walker and Newt Barr and Gorman. The lineup is going to score runs so far. Three and a half runs scored per game. Same as the Twins, Marlins and Rockies. Only better than the A's and White Sox. Is this just a blip or is this actually something real where the Cardinals have something that's

a little bit askew? I mean, their pitching is doing, I think, reasonably well for how it's built. 4.3 runs allowed per game. I think that's kind of a success for them overall. I don't think they're going to pitch a whole lot better than that with the current group of starters that they've put together. So this is going to come back to whether or not they hit. Mason Winn, he's been hitting early and Newt Bars healthy again. Are they going to turn the corner? Yeah, this one's trickier for me because with Houston, it's easy to pinpoint their problems because they're not pitching and they're all on the IL.

And here, it's not like the Cardinals have five regular lineup guys hurt. So I want to say it's a blip because so many times we've seen this happen, guys, where like, teams get off to a rough start, teams go through a bad stretch. If you have it at the beginning of the year, it is my own personal opinion that it is spotlighted way more than anything else. Guys who start off hot and then have terrible August and September, we never talk about those guys, right? Because it evens out. And also interest wanes over the source of the season in terms of readership,

listenership, you know, even our own. But right now we're talking about it because the Cardinals can't seem to score over three runs every time they score three runs and under they haven't won a game that they to score over three runs. Every time they score three runs and under, they haven't won a game that they've scored less than three runs. Now again, it's only 0 for 6. The sample size is so small. So am I concerned?

Yes, but it is just so, so early that I don't think that we're headed to the St. Louis Cardinals of last season at all. It is weird to see the start that they've had because you know, that fan base is like for the first time and I have very long time. It feels like you're very irritated. Right? I know Derek takes like particular pleasure in this, but like it is true. It does seem like coming off last year, like the magic of Cardinals baseball has faded a little bit.

Fans fans are like no, no, no. We need to be good now and there's been attendance problems there. So have you guys seen this relative to what's been relative to Saint Louis? You know, basically they get so spoiled with being sold out or 30 winning does drive attendance, so it's not

too surprising, but they've been a little bit like Wrigley where it almost doesn't matter how good the team is. Yes. This is why it's like, you know, they better pick it up soon because I think all the factors here of like having another down year would just be all of a sudden you'd be talking about mazilliac and like, what's really going on in this organization, right?

Then they made that very curious extension for Ali Marmal so that we wouldn't talk about him being a dead duck this year. Right. There is a lot of intrigue around the Cardinals, I think, especially if they circle the drain and it's June. There's a lot that we can dissect. Right now, to me, it just it does feel a little early. It feels like a slump for the hitters to me. Like, I think Goldschmidt is going to be fine. if the K-Rate is a little higher than we're

used to. He's still going to produce. Nolan Arnott is going to get to some power. He hasn't done that yet. I don't know what they're doing with Jordan Walker. I think he's been out of the lineup three of the last five games. Just let him play. Leave him alone.

Nolan Gorman's K-Rate is up a little bit right now. I believe in Nolan Gorman. He's hit pretty much everywhere he's played. It's going to happen. They're going to score enough runs. If we're talking about them later this year as a still underperforming team, I'd be shocked if it's because the lineup. It's to me, it'd be because the pitching had a couple injuries and their depth wasn't built to to backfill accordingly. Right. That to me seems like the bigger problem with the organization right now. Yeah, I'm happy that new bar got healthy and is in the lineup. Now I think that he brings something, uh, that almost nobody else on this team is, which is youthful exuberance in terms of like also makes contact and hits for power and can run like these are, he's a prototypical leadoff hitter for them,

I think. And I think that'll, that'll help for them. I do think Paul Goldschmidt Nolan Arnaut I will get it together. I do believe in Gorman I actually still believe in Walker one of the reasons I still believe in him is the top end exit velocities are still there So the raw power is still there. He's just right now letting the ball travel Maybe he needs to be more aggressive and try to pull the ball more. One thing that used to happen in St. Louis that's not happening right now, and it's across the team and is, does count as a little bit worrisome for me,

is they're not lifting fly balls. They're not pulling fly balls. That was a Jeff Albert thing. Jeff Albert now works for the Mets, and I thought there would again be this sort of organizational inertia with the Cardinals. They were leading the league and pulled fly balls for a long time.

They taught, uh, you know, Paul Goldschmidt pulled more fly balls when he got to St. Louis. Uh, Nolan Arnado had a big sort of coming to Jesus moment about that and started pulling fly balls in St. Louis. I don't know if it's because of St. Louis is coaching, but these things were happening. I just had a long conversation with Lars Neupar about pulling fly balls. St. Louis is 28th in pulled fly ball rate right now. Right there with Miami. So I don't know if they've changed their organizational philosophy or this is just what a slump looks like, like a team wide slump. Maybe they're still trying to pull lasers, but it's either cold or they're old or something's not right in their mechanics. That's the one thing that I'm like, that's weird looking because I do think this offense

will get it together, but that's not a prototypical St. Louis approach over the last few years. And I don't know why that is. Maybe it's a change in hitting coaching. I do think Sunday Gray looks great. Lance Lynn looks like an innies eater, looks like a mountain man out there, really. And the bullpen's fine. So there's still daylight for this to get figured out. But if they are having problems with the organization philosophy for

hitting and they have admitted they have organizational problems for pitching development. That's not good. It's not balloons. It's not a party for balloons. What hand gestures you make off camera? They got the balloons. I don't know.

I was doing like the peace sign. Yeah. The balloons are not coming back got the balloons. I don't know. I was doing like the peace sign. Yeah. The balloons are not coming back this time, but I'm with you. I mean, I wouldn't, I would certainly be reluctant to bury them in April of any season. It's just weird to see them struggling the way they are to this point. I always wonder too, could you consider trading one of Gorman or Walker to get another pitcher? You've got that position player depth, you've got a few prospects knocking on the door from AAA that can round out that group.

Maybe that's the way to get the better capital S stuff starter that you don't currently have. Maybe they can hook up on a trade with the Marlins and get an upgrade that way. I think that's an annual tradition in this show. Who can trade with the Marlins to get pitching? This year, I think that's an annual tradition in this show. Who can trade with the Marlins to get pitching this year? You love this. Maybe it's the Cardinals. That's all I do. I make the early trade.

I'm not going to say it again. Well, I mean, Brendan Donovan is a pest. You are going to say it again. Brendan Donovan is a, he's a easier prototypical Cardinal pest. Yeah. Like just gets, he just gets dirty and he walks and he makes enough contact. Doesn't have enough power, he could play everywhere. I mean, I think you could install Brandon Donovan

at second base and maybe make Nolan Gorman expendable if you are sure that Arnott-Ongolschman's power is coming. Yeah, Gorman, Miami, that would actually make a lot of sense. So I don't know, maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe we'll see something like that. I'd rather hold on to Walker because he makes more contact than Gorman, but he makes powerful contact like Gorman. So there's still a higher upside in Jordan Walker.

Agreed. Like them both though, still think they could both be good players. One last topic before we go, a lot of people wondering if the late signing of Blake Snell explains why he is not pitching well so far as a member of the Giants, you know, I know you pulled together some names of players that signed late within two weeks of opening day since like 2014, I think as far back as you went.

Yeah, I didn't do 2020 for obvious reasons. But yeah, I wanted to look at 10 seasons and just look at who's who signed this late and if it if because it's it's totally plausible Like right like you'd you miss spring training like we have a spring training. It's useful, right? and so when I looked at this I was only ten players that that would sign within two weeks of The season starting since 2014 and a lot of them were in 2022 Which makes sense because that was the lockout year But if you look at lot of them were in 2022, which makes sense because that was the lockout year. But if you look at all of them as a group, there's five pitchers and five hitters. The five pitchers had their fielding independent pitching, their FIP was more than a run higher

that April after they signed than it was for their career. And if you look at the hitters, theirPS was more than a hundred points lower that April than it was for their career And yes, sometimes April is cold and maybe they should be downgraded But we're talking about a four point eight four FIP against a three point six seven. Like that's a big deal And we're talking about a six seventy OPS against an 811 for their career. So I think there's something here. It's a small group of pitchers and Jordan Montgomery has a 150 ERA and a 435 FIP. I just, ERA is not a great way to judge talent in three starts. So I know FIP has its problems too, but it's a little bit better. And the only player that really produced,

there's two players that produced well out of the gate. Irvin Santana in 2014, had a 248 FIP for the Braves. That was a really interesting signing. I was looking at it. I think that Irvin Santana was almost kind of Blake Snellian, you know, I don't even know if, yeah, I guess Blake Snellian. It's that his variance, like it's variance in the performance, right? But it's still, it's not as extreme on the good side.

Yeah. It was a two pitch pitcher who didn't have a Cy Young, you know, it was a two pitch pitcher that, you know, had some good years and some bad years. And so, you know, I guess he was looking for three or four years, but he has had some flaws. That's another thing is that this group of players, um, all have flaws. Like the players that I'm talking about, JD Martinez, super old DH, you know, Jordan Montgomery starting pitcher with good results and bad strikeout rates.

Blake Snell, bad health year to year. Trevor story, his arm, people knew that his arm strength was gone and he wasn't a shortstop. You know, Nick Castellanos swings at everything outside of the zone. Doesn't have good defense. Jorge Saler kind of a DH Carlos Correa had that. That was the year that he had the whole thing with the ankle and the $300 million and the, you know, Greg Holland, um, was an era. It was a, it was a closer whose, whose,

whose peripherals were going the wrong way already. And Zvelo was going the wrong way already. Alex Cobb was coming off a lot of injury. And Irvin Santana was a two pitch pitcher who, you know, wanted more years than probably people want to give him. I mean, I think that's the natural explanation of those late signings, right? They are typically players that teams see flaws in, and that's what keeps them out there.

There's a disagreement in player and agent's market value relative to what teams are offering. I think for all those guys, you could imagine that they were looking for three or four-year deals and they're probably getting offered one or two-year deals in most of those instances. I think the other thing that came up when we were talking about this plan in the show is that maybe it takes some time for a catcher to get on the same page as Blake Snell because as good as the stuff can be, the command can be pretty wobbly. And Patrick Bailey is a fantastic defensive catcher, but I was looking back just at the time that Snell spent in San Diego.

His worst year with the Padres was his first year there. And I just wonder how much of that is getting comfortable with your battery mate and maybe Snell is one of the more challenging guys in the league to catch right now. Yeah, his first start, I was having a debate in the group chat about, you know, are we seeing, is he being squeezed? Because I thought he was being squeezed by the umpire. But we were kind of like, maybe Bailey's not framing these as normal. And that was the first time Patrick Bailey had ever caught like snow was in

the big leagues in the game. Yeah, that's probably not ideal. Yeah. He didn't even, uh, catch the first bullpen he threw as a, as a 49, as a, as a, uh, 49er as a giant, uh, because I got through that Jerry Jones comparison. I got signed like during the season. So like Patrick Bailey was starting the game that night. So he wasn't going to catch the bullpen

before he gets in the game. So yeah, I think there's something to that. I think, I think this, I think he'll be fine over time. The VELO is there, the strikeouts are there and the walks are there. It's a, it's a, it's pretty normal Blake Snell package actually. Yeah. I think the funny thing about Blake Snell, we've talked a lot about his

workload this off season last year. He had two starts where he went four or fewer innings. He's done that two times at his first three starts with giants. Not necessarily a shocker given that he had the delayed start. How stretched out are you? Yeah. Right. So even if you want to reset that clock now, I'm just curious to see if some of

the workload concerns actually come back because they really weren't that bad. He had 20 out of his 32 starts last year where he threw six or more innings. And that's very similar to the workhorse starters, the Justin Steels, the Aaron Nolas, Strider, Gossman, Burns. Those guys were all 21, 22 starts that were like that. Snell was only one less. So I think it's going to come down to health. If he's healthy, he's going to be good and they're going to figure it out.

It might be high threes, ERA good instead of Cy Young good, but that's still going to help that Giants rotation over time. You know, they'll get some guys back and, you know, there's been a lot of like, oh, this Giants team is terrible. And I get it. But I don't think that I think they'll actually be in it for the wild card. You know, I think we could actually, it's not impossible to see two wild cards coming out of the west. Definitely could happen. We'll dig more into the west a little bit next week. Nice start for the Padres.

A little bit of a quiet start relative to absurd expectations for the Dodgers. That could change in a week. So we'll give it a little time. Let that one marinate on our way out the door reminder. You can get a subscription to athletic, the athletic.com slash rates and barrels. Find Britt on Twitter at Britt underscore. Jiroli find Eno at, you know, Sarah's find me at Derek van Riper, find the pod at rates and barrels. It's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We're back with you on Thursday.

Thanks for listening.