Rates & Barrels - The New Crew, Offseason Health Updates & Risky Early-Round Decisions

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

Eno and DVR discuss the potential impact of Brian Anderson and Jesse Winker during in the Brewers' lineup, a new fan on the way in February, Alex Kirilloff's health winter, Tommy Pham and Adam Duvall in new outfields, and Julian Merryweather's fresh start in Chicago before discussing early-round strategy including high-risk, high-reward players in the top-20, and working backward through the draft board while making decisions on draft day.  Rundown 2:05 Jesse Winker's Healthy Winter 7:38 (Another) Brian Anderson in Milwaukee 14:27 A Show & Life Update! 23:20 Alex Kirilloff Progressing From Wrist Injury; Twins Depth Chart 28:57 Tommy Pham Joins the Mets 32:56 Adam Duvall to the Red Sox 37:05 Jullian Merryweather Enters the Cubs' Closer Picture? 44:50 Early Risk Considerations 48:22 Problem Solving Roster Foundations 1:04:20 Waiting on Speed, Without Relying on Esteury Ruiz Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. The answer is FedEx. Okay. But what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx. Oh. But let's say that... FedEx.

What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Thursday, January 19th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we are digging into a few recent news and notes. Not a ton happening this week, but a few important items to pass along. Before we dive into draft strategy, flowcharts, decision trees, working backwards to solve the problem, lots of ways to describe it. We're going to dig into some of how we go through building teams and

what we think about this time of year from a broader perspective, especially because we're doing a couple of draft and hold leagues right now and testing a few things out and probably learning a few things along the way. I had a hypothetical I threw out there on Twitter earlier this week that I'm going to turn into a podcast segment so we can get excited about that. We got a couple of mailbag questions that we'll probably squeeze in at the end. Was it the one about podcasts?

The vending machine full of vending machines? Can you imagine if that thing got jammed? Watch your hands, buddy. Don't tip that one on top of yourself we in high school at boarding school we tipped the vending machine and it landed on our friend sorry Jason sorry Jason is he alive did he make it yeah he's okay he had a pretty bruised

thigh and then we had to like go we like weren't Did he make it? Yeah, he's okay. He had a pretty bruised thigh. And then we had to go. We weren't strong enough to get it off of him, so we had to actually go get a teacher just to have enough power to get it off. Yeah, vending machines, especially of 25 years ago, those were heavy, heavy duty. So I'm glad your friend made it through with mostly just a bruise. Surprisingly, we didn't get in trouble on it.

The number of things. We picked the right guy to go get. I can't even imagine. You could probably fill a book with the stories of your time at boarding school, but we'll save that for another episode. News and notes for today. Let's start with the Brewers. Come on.

How can we not start with the Brewers when Jesse Winker will begin spring training with no restrictions. In fact, a team official told one of the Brewers scribes that Winker is, quote, doing awesome right now at the team's facility in Arizona, to which I replied with a gif of the dude hitting the ceiling of his car because Jesse Winker could be really good in Milwaukee. He was hurt last year. We talked about that, I think, on our outfield preview, which hasn't come out yet. More on that in just a few minutes. And he's an important run producer that could be right in the heart of this Milwaukee lineup. And I think pre-trade to Seattle last year, I saw Winker as a guy, if he stayed in Cincinnati, who actually had a shot at getting some MVP votes.

I swear, that was the ceiling that he was starting to show with the hit tool being really good and the power getting to a more sustainable level where he might've been able, especially in Cincinnati, might've been able to pop 30 home runs in a full season there. I don't know if that's actually his true ceiling at this point. Maybe I overestimated it slightly, but the bounce back potential is very real and getting good health reports ahead of spring training make me even more excited about Winker as a good last year's disappointment guy that I want to have on my teams. Yeah. And, you know, the good news is I think there was some consideration for a second surgery. You know, he had the neck surgery and then uh he's had some back issues i guess um and i think

that there was uh you know some thought like we'll see what happens and so we've seen what's happened and you know we got the good outcome so love that um you know it also uh in a best case type scenario uh winker can get out of that dh uh spot that he's kind of sitting on and the fan graphs depth charts and uh become a player in that outfield and if he can play in the outfield i think that's would be huge for the brewers because it would allow them to maybe platoon keston hira at dh um it would take some pressure off of Garrett Mitchell and Tyron Taylor. Tyrod? Tyrone.

Tyrone, sorry. Tyrod plays on Sundays. Yes, that's right. I got the wrong one. And I think that would take some pressure off the two youngest guys in the outfield. And I don't think it's that crazy to think that Winker could play in the outfield. 17, 18 18 and 19 um you know uh you know in 17 and he was like a minus one outs above average uh in 18 it was minus 5 19 minus 8 2021 minus 7 2022 minus 10 so he has been going down but if he can get even back to the minus seven minus eight range

um you know we're talking about uh seth brown hunter dozier um brian reynolds was a minus seven last year uh chad pinder was a minus eight uh so there are some players that still play in the field that are in this group. Rymel Tapia was a minus five. So if he can get back to minus five to minus seven in the outfield, and for Zionist League, you're not even just talking about will he play there all year. Can he play there 10 or 20 times this year? And if he is really feeling good i think the answer is yes so now you're talking about retaining that outfield eligibility uh you're

talking about more playing time not being uh sort of stuck in uh the uh stuck in the dh uh situation so uh the projections now could be light on playing time because they all have around 500 plate appearances. If he is a guy who plays the outfield and plays DH and is healthy enough to be in there every day, you could get him back up to 550 like last year or even 600. Although it's kind of amazing. He's never done 600.

Yeah. Wrist injuries, a couple of the things have slowed him down over the course of his career. So I think the 5'5", 50 range is where I'm comfortable projecting him, but he's still outside the top 200 in January ADP. I think that's a pretty good value so long as he stays in that range. If he kind of cracks the 175 to 200 range, that's probably more of like a break-even sort of spot for him. But I do like Winker. Yeah, because I'm right now at 195 in an NFBC draft,

and the best outfielders in the queue are Alex Verdugo, Joey Manessis, Seth Brown, Ramon Laureano, Andrew Benatendi. I still take those guys above Winker, I think. I think a lot of it depends on if you have enough speed at the point when Winker goes, too. If you still need some speed, he's in that group of outfielders that really offers you nothing in that stolen base category. And he could get back to a good batting average now that he's out of Seattle. That's a really tough place for batting average now that he's out of Seattle. That's a really tough place for batting average. So if he gets up to 260, 275, he's an asset in batting average and home runs as opposed to just kind of a home run guy, which which won't give you like 30 home runs. So he is kind of a

weird player that is more kind of depth, oatmeal, late, late player, but I think he's a little undervalued. Brewers also added Brian Anderson. They have a play-by-play announcer named Brian Anderson. They've had him for 15 years, but Brian Anderson... Spider-Man meme. Yeah. Brian Anderson, the former Miami Marlin, is now a member of the Brewers,

and I think the initial takeaway, the most likely formation of the lineup, is going to include Anderson playing third, Luis Urias playing second. It is probably Winker as the DH most days, even if he does play the outfield, like you said. And then you've got this kind of unknown, maybe in right field, where for now it's Tyrone Taylor. Perhaps at some point, Sal sal freeland gets a chance to debut and play that spot all this is to say the brewers are getting closer to having a more balanced lineup right they've got a little more depth now with this move i think the the winker trade had been previously overlooked i mean they made the big william contraris trade it's been a

quiet year in free agency for them but they they've been active enough to make this team actively better. They really are a better group. Anderson, though, projections are kind of divided on him. He's versatile. He could play a little bit in the outfield if needed. Big enough arm to play right, so maybe they will also play Anderson,

summon right, and then move Arias back over to third and play Bryce Terang at second. There's a lot of moving parts in terms of how this could actually play out, but for now, I'm giving him most of his playing time at third base, at least to begin the year. Yeah, I think there's a real opportunity there. You can bump Luis Arias to second, and you don't have to depend on Bryce Terang, and so I think that's what they're doing. It's a little bit like the

Hosmer and Mancini situation in Chicago, where you still like, maybe you still like Bryce Turing, maybe you still like Matt Mervis, but you are going to put some representative veterans in front of him just to be more sure of things. Obviously, the young guy can come and push this guy out of the way if he wants to. There's nothing about the deal that says that he can't one year and $3.5 million. So it could just be depth, or it could be your starter all year. And I like it because Brian Anderson is one of these guys, he's just decent at everything. Really, he's just decent at everything. Like really, he's just decent at everything.

He's a 53rd percentile runner. He's just a little bit worse than average at making contact. He's just a little better than average at taking walks. He's just around average at chase rate. at taking walks. He's just around average at chase rate. His barrel rate and max EV are good, but his power results were bad. So I think in this case, they're looking at that and they're saying, hey, we can get him to pull the ball like he did in 2020 when he made the most use of the same barrel rate that he had last year and had almost twice as much the power, then we'll do that.

We'll try to get him to pull the ball in the air. He's going to come here and say, I'm in Milwaukee, not Miami. I'm not trying to spray the ball around anymore. I'm trying to get it over the fence. And I think that we could see even beyond the bat, who's a little bit more upbeat about Bryan Anderson. I would say that we could see him a little bit beyond the bat, who's a little bit more upbeat about Brian Anderson, I would say that we could see him a little bit beyond the bat. The bat has 240 and 15 homers

and 490 plate appearances. Honestly, if he does that and he's 10% bed and league average and he's the third baseman, I think Milwaukee might just play him. And then you're talking about back up to 550, 600 plate appearances and 240 and 17 17 18 homers

i think he's a great draft and hold uh third third baseman um i think he's a pretty good nl only uh investment um i think deep dynasties uh this is the type of player who will be in your restocking draft that won't cost you anything and might end up playing for you. Yeah, you mentioned this, hitting in Miami, it's of course very difficult. The difference for a right-handed hitter making the move out of Lone Depot Park into American Family Field still feels weird to say that. It just rolls off the tongue, man. Just rolls off the tongue. Both park names, atrocious.

It's a 26 point difference in park factor right so for a righty lone depot plays in miami plays as an 86 so below average for right-handed power milwaukee american family field plays at 112 so that alone changes a lot about anderson's output and some of it might just be you know sort of in his head. I mean, we've talked on this podcast about how Andrew Panatendi said, oh, I was in Kansas City, but now I'm going to be in Chicago in the cell. I'm going to try and hit for power again. I think that a lot of times people see certain outcomes and

adjust their strategy to fit it. He's played in Milwaukee before, and I don't even know what his stats are in Milwaukee, but it almost doesn't matter because he's not going to change his general approach to fit the place he's in once a year. But when he moves there, he can be like, well, I've always liked hitting here you know and i do have power so let me let me try to unlock that yeah i think there's a few ways this could actually go right if he moves up and probably becomes a guy that goes in a 15 team mixed league draft

where you actually have moves i think he's probably going somewhere in the around 25 to 30 range i think he's going to be very draftable in those formats because we've seen it before he can be a good accumulator and i think he does make this lineup a bit better could be an interesting uh bench piece uh in sort of your 15 team uh nfbc type leagues because he would be your backup ci third base and outfielder so it's three positions he's backing up and uh if you went heavy on steals and you were like, you know, I'd like to have a guy who can maybe hit some, might hit some dingers. And then you'll also, like I like to say on here,

you also get decision point pretty early on him. You'll get to see, are they playing him every day or is he, I mean, he's a right-hander, right? So, you know, if they, if he's in the short side platoon, then you'll be dropping them pretty quick. Right. If Terang has a fantastic spring and they decide they want to play Terang against righties at second base and Rios is projected better than Anderson,

then Anderson's playing time might dip if he doesn't take over the corner outfield spot. Because there's so many spots where he can collect a lot of playing time, I think it's a risk worth taking. I like being able to make that quick early season decision, though, if the playing time isn't right. I think cost-wise, that's exactly where Anderson is going to go.

Some news to pass along, personal news to pass along, because we've started recording our DraftKid episodes, and some of the things we've said in those episodes will probably make no sense at all if I don't tell people what's going on.

My wife and I are expecting a baby in late February this year, right in the middle part of fantasy baseball draft season. Thank you. So we're very excited. New Brewers fan coming in late February. He gets to choose.

New Brewers fan just about to drop. That's a great way to put it. No, he gets to choose. Anything but Cardinals or Cubs will be accepted. Oh, you should do that choosing ceremony they do in some cultures where you put out different hats. It's just a choosing of which fandom he's going to be. I will accept submissions from anyone who wants to send new hats.

I will let them choose. I will burn any and all Cardinals and Cubs hats that are sent to me, though. Oh. That's just not going to happen. We can't let that happen. I'm super happy for you, and I can't wait to meet them. And also, welcome to the crew of No Sleep. Last night, I was woken five times by my various animals and children.

I was woken five times by my various animals and children. And so that is actually the new reality for you 10 years from now. Yes, it's a long-term commitment. It's a Dynasty League situation. That's what it is. For a while, I did uh one of my children we have uh you could own anybody and i owned one of my children as a prospect but uh eventually i needed to to fill that space with a more legitimate prospect you worked on it for a couple of summers and you're like oh this is not gonna take a good good not a good use of roster space right now. Let's see if a few camps can turn things around.

So yeah, for the pod, we've got the usual volume of shows coming. We're going to scale up to four a week really soon. We still have all the position previews going. Well, you're bearing a little bit of a lead there too. Yeah, we got a lot of changes with the show that are happening this year. So the Athletic Fantasy Base baseball podcast is unfortunately no more but we're taking a few episodes from that feed and bring them over so we're gonna have a prospect keeper dynasty league centric show but we're gonna have our buddy chris welsh working with us on that so that's really exciting

chris is gonna fill in on another day while I'm out for the duration of my leave, whenever that actually begins. Late February, of course, written in pencil. So I'll be gone probably for about four weeks when the baby comes, and I'll take some time off again at some point, either later on this season or in the off season. I know so little about being a parent. I honestly can't tell you when I'm taking that second stretch of leave. I wish I could say it with some kind of certainty. We're also going to have our friend Al Melkier helping us out on extra episodes and the waiver show that we did on the other feed throughout the year on Fridays. We're going to bring that over to Rates and Barrels as well. So a lot of great content.

Joining the feed. Nice to have some familiar voices joining us on the show on a regular basis. Probably going to do more with guests from time to time too, since we're expanding the show to four days throughout the year. We'll have a lot of opportunities to catch up with some friends, people that write for The Athletic, people that don't, people we've never met before, right? All sorts of new people and voices coming along on Rates and Barrels this year.

So it's great. It's a great year of expansion, not only in my family, but also in this podcast feed. Yes, and the Rates and barrels this year. So it's great. It's a great year of expansion, not only in my family, but also in this podcast feed. Yes. And the rates and barrels family. And, you know, I'll be, I'll be there and you'll, you'll be there when you're, when you're back. So it'll, it'll be, there'll be a continuity. It'll still be rates and barrels. It'll still be a nerdy as, as we want to be. But I think this is, this is like, honestly, we've tried to have our prospects of the week and, you know,

we do our stat scouting, but it's, it's better to, you know, to bring someone in, I think to, to help us on the, you know,

live looks aspect of prospects. You know, Welsh is in Arizona and, and sees these guys and, and, you know, his prospect pod is, is something we followed along through the years.

So that's going to shore us up there. And then Al is just the consummate professional and just a, a great asset for us in terms of some of the nuts and bolts. And I think the, the Friday show will be often be about kind of a waivers thing, you know, you know, as people approach waiver

deadlines on fridays and sundays and whatever it is um we'll we'll be talking about pickups and and drops and things like that from a very sort of um focused i think sort of focused fantasy perspective and that will allow us sometimes to talk about whatever study we've just read or whatever uh you know nerdity we want to go into so in in effect it might allow us to to to untether and go into the stratosphere sometimes because uh because we will always be tethered by these you know the different things that we're going to do the four shows you know so we can get weird sometimes so i really like it i think that overall it, it's going to be a great year for rates and barrels. Nerd score rising on the podcast very quickly

with the latest additions. But yeah, I'm already wondering, what am I going to sound like with less sleep? How am I going to feel with less sleep? But I'll get to experience that really soon. I'm sure I'll pass along stories. I bet you'll have the ass much more. that really soon. I'm sure I'll pass along stories. I bet you will have the ass much more. You'll get a slightly grumpier Derek Van Ryfer. Somebody told me, I'm a coffee guy, so I for a long time have been just French pressing coffee and we're very lucky. My mother-in-law is here for when the baby arrives to just help with meals, all the stuff that we will be exhausted and not want to do.

Obviously, she'll get to spend time with the little guy right when he arrives too, which is great. I got a coffee machine again in California. I didn't have one here until recently. Someone said, you don't have time to make French presses anymore. Is it really? Is it that intense? Is every free minute going to be just completely gone? I think it's going to be different phases. Babies sleep a lot at first,

then they start coming a lot more active. So I will keep my parenthood observations to a reasonable level, both on the podcast and on Twitter, but I will likely share some of my experiences along the way because they will likely be funny as my kid owns me and changes my life in unimaginable and amazing ways. Well, I think one of the things that's good is that the times that are the toughest often come with great leaps and bounds in their development. So at the very beginning, it's tough because you're not sleeping through the night, but your life for the first month or so is just sleeping and eating.

I mean, there's not much time for much else because you're so tired from waking up so many times at night that and the baby is just like up, you know, up for a little bit and then you go back to sleep for two hours or whatever. So it's a very much like you're half awake watching Law and Order. That's what we did. We watched all the Law and Order. You're half awake watching Law and Order. That's what we did. We watched all the Law and Order. You're half awake watching Law and Order with a baby asleep on your chest. That's my iconic remembrance of the first few weeks.

The time that it gets the toughest is when they become mobile. And especially when they're like early walking and talking. Because they want to engage with you all the time. And they want to move around. And they become much more dangerous, you know, in terms of like what they can get into and what they can break and what they can hurt themselves with. And so you actually have to be have eyes on them and be kind of standing up and like, right. Nope, nope, nope. Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, yes.

Yes, that's great. No, no, no, don't do that. And they're and they're almost not even that into tablets and screens yet so you can't even be like oh just give daddy a break here sometimes like coco melon or whatever like there's there are things you can play them but um that's the that's the toughest time but at least hopefully by then you're sleeping through the night and you get a schedule going so there's there's different there's different ups and downs for each of them but uh yeah that's that's how i that's how i sort

of remember the first couple years a ton for me to learn to be sure oh and everyone just like me just now is going to tell you about their experience and what you should need to do send hats send tips send coffee. I got the machine now, so it doesn't have to be fancy coffee. It's just got to be decent. Is it the kind of machine that you can schedule for the morning? Yeah.

So when I'm actually awake enough to make it correctly, then I will pre-make it at the button. Or it's just waiting for you in here. Yep. Constant coffee in the Van Riper household coming very soon. Treat yourself to Tim's new fudge brownie lattes.

Made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice chilled milk. And topped with marbled chocolate curls. Now that's music to our ears. Available hot or iced only at Tim's. Whoa, what are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking? You know you're driving a 2020 Ford Escape with available Alexa built-in, so you can change the music.

Oh, yeah. Alexa, change station to 99.2. See? Purchase a 2024 Escape ST-Line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment. That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40,294. Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca. Rapid-fire news items.

Al Kirloff, healthy, taking full swings in off-season workouts. I really like him as another bounce-back candidate from a health perspective. Could make the Twins lineup even more dangerous in 2023 if he is, in fact, finally healthy. So, just some good news for him. How does he not play i am struggling to come up with the path arise plays first gallo buxton kepler in the outfield larnach at dh you're gonna i mean that's underpowered at first base l Larnak is, I think, a bigger long shot to be a good hitter than Kirilov, right?

Yeah, I think Larnak, at this stage of his career, man, is Larnak a better dart than Gallo, or do you think you'd throw a late dart on Gallo if you were just looking for some cheap playing time in a really deep league? They're kind of similar. Very high strikeout, low batting average. I think Gallo's a better athlete.

So I think Gallo will play over Larnach in terms of playing in the outfield. And if you want to try and keep Kirilov healthy, and Buxton sometimes too, I think the DH is going to be largely guys you're trying to keep healthy. So Correa, Kirilov, and Buxton seem like my ideal DH solution. You know what I mean? Yeah. So if that's the case,

then I think Larnak's in the minor leagues. Nick Gordon and Kyle Farmer and Celestino are the backups. And then Kirilov and Arias share first. Or share? I think Kirilov is the first baseman. I think he's the first baseman. I think Arias moves around a lot.

That helps. I mean, this team is so much better with Carlos Correa back in the fold. Remember we used to do this, build a bench? Yeah. What's building a bench? You got, how many do you bench? Do you have four spots on the bench? Yeah, I think four.

13 batters. And you had to have nine starters. you have to have a backup catcher oh so is it 13 batters and 13 pitchers 13 and 13 is what a lot of teams are doing oh but nine includes the pitchers that doesn't make sense that's eight no nine you're talking about because nine so you have nine and one of them's a backup catcher. So Ryan Jeffers gets one. Okay, so then you have three more. Gallup, Celestino, unless you think Nick Gordon can play center. Probably have Celestino on the roster, so that's two.

I think he's probably have Celestino. And you have to have a backup shortstop, so that's Farmer. Farmer, that's three. So then it's a question of Gordon or Arise. And no way Larnach makes this roster. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Because Kepler, yeah, you've got Kepler.

Kepler's going to get traded, isn't he? Okay, if Kepler gets traded, then Kirilov plays the outfield and Arise plays first? Yeah, because as it's built right now, one of Kepler, Gallo, or Gordon is a backup. They can't all three be in the lineup if you have Buxton in a spot. That's why I'm thinking it's

like Gordon or Celestino almost. Because you have to have a backup set catcher, so that's one. You have to have backup shortstop, that's Farmer, that's two. And you have to have, right now, you have to have Arias and Kirilov. So that's one of those guys is three. So you only have one more bench spot for Celestino or Gordon.

You know, they didn't, I don't think they expected to get Carlos Correa back when they ended up adding Kyle Farmer for shortstop depth. But now, you don't necessarily need Farmer if you believe Polanco could move over and play shortstop. Because the other guys you have on the bench like Arias and Gordon can play second. That seems like it's been, that's out. That's kind of where I'm at. But all of this is to say, even with that

shuffling, I think Alex Kirilov has a clear path to a large side platoon role. I think that's well within range for him and I think he can do some pretty good things with that opportunity. I think if they break camp the way it is, does Celestino have options? Because Nick Gordon does not have options.

Celestino has an option. Gordon's on the roster for sure. There's no way he's short. Try and fake it without Celestino. Let me see here. Gordon paid 244 innings in center field last year. It was the second most that he played in any position. Yeah, so they'd probably trust him enough to go ahead and do that.

Actually, here's the thing about Kyle Farmer that I didn't realize. He's got options left. Really? Yeah. Yeah, but I think that's only important once Royce Lewis is healthy. Man, Kyle Farmer's 32. Is that right? Yeah. Do you know he led the Reds in

Homer's RBI not war. That would be bad. He led the Reds in like three categories last year. Feel bad for our buddy Clay Link. He deserves better. Reds fans deserve better. Well, you know, we did the 80th

percentile projections, and they could win 85 games. In the 80th percentile? I'm sorry. 85 games. Yes. Wow. Okay.

But they're building towards something. They got a lot of high variance prospects in the minors that could go either way. True. Yeah, the long-term direction is fine it's the short-term disaster that is one you want to avert your eyes from tommy fam joins the mets what does that mean for the depth chart in new york it's hard to tell like how often he plays i like him um and i think he's got a great eye and he and he reminds me almost like a mark canna where it's like a great eye can hit the ball with power. He goes the opposite way a little bit too much.

And I think, you know, he's told me that he's thinking about really working on pulling the ball, pulling the ball for barrels this year to kind of tap back into his power. Cause he says this ball doesn't allow him to go the other way, the same way that he used to. So there's some risks there, but there's also some upside that he does tap into more power. Um, for a team like the Mets, it makes sense just to get as much talent as you can on the roster in

every position for us on the outside. I think it's a little tough. Nimmo is the center fielder. I don't, I think Kanaha, who do you rather have as the backup center fielder, Kanha or Marte? Probably Marte.

So then you have Marte as the backup center fielder. In right field, you've got Marte with the backup is Kanha or Pham, and then in left, you've got Kanha and Pham, and then in DH, you've got Vogelbach and Pham. So I think Pham is the right-handed DH. It's an unnatural platoon with Kana because he's also

a right-hander. Yeah, someone's getting pushed off this roster. There's a veteran player that's not going to fit on this opening day roster if they're healthy. Yeah, you think so? I think so. Well, build a bench. So they have to have nito uh as the

backup center is that backup catcher their backup shortstop is luis guillorme right so that's uh that's two backups right there nito guillorme fam technically counts as a backup even if he's gonna play because he's right so across he's not a top depth depth chart in any spot. That's three, so there's one more spot left. One for Ruff or Mark Vientos or Francisco Alvarez. Ruff is the one that's on the outs.

If Brett Beatty makes this roster, if Brett Beatty has a great spring and they decide they really want him, Ruff is the guy that drops out because Pham is a right-handed DH type that can play the outfield. And then if Beatty makes his team, Eduardo Escobar becomes part of the DH situation,

backup second baseman. It's going to be pretty rough. In terms of wanting to get maximum playing time out of each of the players on these Mets, I don't think there's almost anyone you can do that with. I'd say Lindor and Alonso are the only two players that could get 650 plate appearances a year. Who's a better late dart right now, Tommy Pham or Brian Anderson, who we talked about earlier? Well, what did we just say for Brian Anderson? 550 plate appearances?

That was with Winker. Anderson should be close to that, but probably a little under 550. I think the playing time outlooks are comparable. Fam plays. This would be the first time he's come into a depth chart this crowded. It's funny. Steamer and the depth charts have him at 350 plate appearances.

The bad X is 539. I think he's going to be more at the higher end of that range because of all the injuries. I mean, Marte, it's coming off core muscle repair surgery. He's in his mid-30s now. Nimmo's head troubles staying healthy.

Somebody could not even make opening day. Yeah. I just think that the Brian Anderson upside, not necessarily the playing time upside is more there for me. Okay. A little younger. That's a factor too. If I knew that they were both

going to get 600 plate appearances, I'd take Pham. Alright. Some other minor moves. Adam Duvall joins the Red Sox and is apparently going to play center field. It's worked before though as far as cheap power goes. Going to Adam Duvall joins the Red Sox and is apparently going to play center field. It's worked before, though, as far as cheap power goes. Going to Adam Duvall when no one seems to be interested. Can it work one more time? And he had five outs above average last year.

There were center fielders. Victor Robles had a six. There was a center fielder behind him. Leone Tavares had a plus four. But like I said, center fielders get more chances at tough to get two balls and they get they are judged by their tough to get two balls in outs above average. And so therefore, you can believe a center fielder's outs above average more than you can believe a corner outfielder's outs above average. And so therefore, he does have a center fielder out to have average. But I don't know if you can believe that

he is a center fielder therefore. You know what I mean? I think he's miscast there. But they need a shortstop. And so I think it's going to be Enrique Hernandez at short, Christian Arroyo at second, and Adam Duvall in center. Sweet team. We have to build a bench here. Do we? I mean, because it's important. Alfaro,

maybe over Wong. Yep. Who's the backup? Backup shortstop could be Arroyo, but then you need a backup second baseman. I mean, Valdez? Who is that? Who is E. Valdez?

Emmanuel Valdez? Emmanuel Valdez. Not sure if he's even... Can Duvall play second? No, he can't. That he's even played center field has been a surprise to me. Yeah, I know. I know.

I'm just kidding. That's going better than I expected. Let's see here. What are the free agents at second? Emmanuel Valdez has played 17 innings in his entire minor league career at shortstop. He's definitely not a shortstop.

Josh Harrison, Cesar Hernandez, Also not shortstops. Still not a shortstop. No, but I'm not giving them shortstop. I'm giving them second because our backup shortstop is our second baseman. So they could sign someone. I think they really kind of have a need for a backup middle infielder. So people are talking about Alvis Andrews.

Yeah, they could be an Alvis Andrews or it could be a Cesar Hernandez type deal. So one of those guys, I think no matter who it is, there is a spot that needs to be filled. So you're going to take Jorge Alfar, you're going to take a backup middle infielder who we don't know his name is yet, right? Ref Snyder, maybe, and then Dahlbeck? Is that your combo you're going with?

They just brought in Rymel Tapia, too. No, no, you need a backup center fielder. That's why Tapia's in town. Tapia's there, yep, that's the other No, no. You need a backup center fielder. That's why Tapia's in town. Tapia's there. Yep. That's the other guy. So, Tapia is the backup center fielder, or Duran beats him out in spring. So, if there's opportunity in this depth chart, it is Jaron.

It's Jaron? Jaron Duran. Jaron Duran or Christian Arroyo. And Christian Arroyo's upside is poor. Tristan Kassas. Okay, so Tristan Kassas and Jaron Duran. Those are still just re-racking last year. Same guys that have

the upside. Kassas has way more lane for playing time, though. Do you think Build-A-Bench is just like a much ballyhooed segment Do you think Build-A-Bench is like, just like, do you think this is like a much-ballyhooed segment? Looked forward to?

Should we have like a musical drop for Build-A-Bench? Sounds like a Twitter poll. I think you should throw that Twitter poll out there after we're done today and see how it's received. This is winning production. Look, I think the vending machine

full of vending machines is the best idea I've ever had, and Twitter doesn't seem to agree, so we'll see if that gets a little more helium over the course of the day. Yeah, agree to disagree with my brilliance. Last transactional thing, Julian Merriweather claimed by the Cubs.

That's actually a path for the Jorge Lopez of 2022 to be in the range of outcomes. Maybe it's an 80th percentile outcome. Maybe it's just highly unlikely, but this Cubs bullpen, I don't think it's proven by any stretch of the imagination, but the more I started digging into this group, the more I actually kind of like what they're doing so far. It's not overpowering. It's not elite, but it might be better than people realize. And I think that closer rule is pretty much up for grabs. Let's run through the candidates. Brandon Hughes, 100.5 stuff plus.

Boxberger, who has refined his breaking ball, 84 stuff plus. Could be a little low because he's kind of got a great change up change ups are not stuff plus best foot forward however he had a thousand pitches in the system last year so it's not a sample issue Wick Rowan Wick 105.6 he was

the leader in the clubhouse Albert Alzalea 102.9 in between starting and relieving so perhaps uh the most upside among the healthy guys if merriweather was healthy he had a 121 stuff plus so uh who's mr rucker here michael rucker 104 so um i kind of i've been looking at al's alzalea as before the merriweather signing i was looking at alzalea as a guy that i kind of liked i know that wick is probably the guy that's on top of most people's uh depth charts but uh you know a 9.7 or more better number, 23.5% K rate is decidedly below average for a closer. And then you add in poor command.

I don't think he is on sure footing at all. So Alzalea, you know, kind of seems to be falling behind Hayden Wesnenski. They've got Caleb Killian. They have Javier Assad. Alzalea seems to be falling behind Hayden Wesnenski. They've got Caleb Killian. They have Javier Asad. Azalea seems to be falling behind that group. This could be the spring where they just decide to make him a reliever, and he could become the closer. However, Merriweather, if he's healthy, does put a damper on that.

So I'm not going to go heavy in on this because that's a lot of ifs I just put out there, right? Wick is not that attractive to me as the most stable, probably number one on the depth chart guy. Al-Zalai has not even, we haven't even heard that Al-Zalai is a reliever yet. And Meriwether is always hurt. But that does, Meriwether does sort of, he's the kind of the gopher poking his head out the hole being like, what about me? I think with Al Zalay, he had six appearances at the end of last season once he was healthy. All

them came out of the bullpen. Five of them were two plus innings. Right. He's still just in between. He's probably going to get a chance to stretch out the spring, even if they don't end up letting him go deep into spring training with the starters. And then he's probably going to be a chance to stretch out this spring, even if they don't end up letting him go deep into spring training with the starters. Then he's probably going to be a multiple inning reliever if he's a reliever. I think if you have a guy like that, instead of going from attempts to get him to

go five down to one, use the numbers in between. He's exactly the kind of guy you'd want to use on the days when some of your mid and back end starters go short. That's going to happen. You got Drew Smiley in the rotation. I think that's the kind of guy that you could typically plan on throwing Alzalea behind. If Smiley gets to the lineup twice, and then Alzalea mows through the lineup once,

you're into the 6th or 7th inning with your A bullpen coming in to possibly win a game. You also kind of need someone who can be on your roster and relieve, but also give you maybe two or three innings and a spot start when someone's hurt where you don't have to always go to the minor leagues. Right.

He could be like a Michael King or a Ross Stripling as the range of outcomes. I think there's a longer workload, of course, for someone like Stripling. I don't know where to draft Azule. I don't know where to draft azalea like i don't know the use case i think it's like a draft and hold like you know last five rounds 10 rounds last five rounds yeah just an arm that'll probably play that has some upside that you know that you're just taking a dart on there and that's like the nl only reserve it's another way to say that. It's just an

interesting pitcher that you could throw in as your last guy some weeks, and you might be pleasantly surprised. A non-zero chance of saves. More likely, I think, multiple innings. More likely to make it as a starter than as a closer still, I think. The guy I like is Jeremiah Estrada.

Oh, I forgot about him. No, I love him. Oh my god. I almost wonder if it's estrada versus meriwether over the course of the year where they're gonna like move up the depth chart together strata had a 132 stuff plus man he blew the doors off and this first start it was even higher i think it was just quite the debut just to uh just to to put him into context, he's probably like a top 15 reliever. By stuff. Yeah. He's right there with Jordan Romano.

Everywhere he's pitched since 2019, Jeremiah Estrada has had a strikeout rate above 30%. Occasionally has some issues with walks, but misses a ton of bats. That's your guy that could be electric, along with Merriweather. Oh, the Fangraphs depth chart screwed me. Come on, you got to put Estrada on there, guys. I don't think it's egregious that he's not on there.

He probably is. There's a little thing where it says plus nine more. I guess I can press that. I'm very loyal to the Rotowire depth charts. He's fifth in their bullpen on the non-closer list for now. Yeah, no, I love him. I think the only question is, you know, there's some question of, like, you know,

do teams really do the thing where they try to keep people cheap? So, you know, maybe Estrada's their seventh inning secret closer while Wick stumbles through the ninth. They're in a division where they can win, so I kind of think they're just going to manage the team in the best way to win games. They can't get that cute with it right now. They don't have that luxury.

And as much as we talk about, oh, sometimes the best players come up in the seventh inning, the ninth inning has the highest leverage, almost always. That's why you see teams start with some guy in the seventh, and if the guy in the ninth is not getting it done, they move the guy who's really good in the seventh to the ninth. It's just, that's why that happens, because it turns out most of the highest leverage moments are in the ninth.

So, you know, I think he could, even if he doesn't start the ninth so uh you know i think he could even if he doesn't start the year as a closer i think he'll end the year as a closer unless merriweather is just puts finally puts together the season that we've all been waiting for telling you yeah i remember with jorge lopez you liked him for a long time and i was like can he start can he start can he start i kept saying he'll be a great reliever. And finally he got the chance and it happened with very little fanfare and he emerged to be a really

good waiver wire pickup closer. And the Orioles even traded him and got a little something back. So I think you could be right on Julian Merriweather. It's still possible. 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. Thinking from the 15 spot, I love being on the ends in draft and hold because I can check out for a while, check back in, and then come up with my picks. And I'm not just obsessively on the phone, on the computer. I put this out there on Twitter. I started looking at the projections again because more projections came out this week. The BATX and ATC are both out there. So you can look at those fan graphs.

You can look at them through the auction calculator if you want to. And if you run the BATX, you will see Mike Trout really pops there. Fernando Tatis Jr. really pops in that projection system. And Jacob deGrom also pops by projection. All three of those players have injury concerns. And if you're at the 1-2 turn, I was curious if anybody out there wanted to take a combination of two of those players because they're consistently available at pick 15. And then if you would do it, which two do you like? And then of course, if you're going to do that, what does the format have to be? Do you do it in a draft champion situation where there's an overall prize component where you have

to do exceptionally well to win the biggest prize? Or do you prefer doing it in a satellite league where you're not necessarily going up against everybody else and you're just trying to beat the 14 teams you're going up against? Or is this something you'd consider in a very shallow league, like a 10-team mix that you play with your friends because the waiver wire is loaded? So there's any number of ways that you can go about this, but I'm just kind of curious how you think about risk that early when the projections are that favorable for a trio of players. I'm risk averse in the first few rounds, and I tend to, even if there is an overall prize, to want to build a team that can win the local.

can win the local and the reason i think that is the the rake by nfbc is fairly substantial and if i want to keep playing at nfbc i need to keep winning a lot of my smaller leagues you know um just to keep having the the money to play next year. You know what I mean? So I kind of want to aim to win all my ones, and then maybe I'll just get lucky on one of the ones I'm winning, and there's an overall strategy there. I think that's probably pretty different from some of the real heavy hitters in the NFBC that aim to win draft champions and make more high-variance decisions. win draft champions and make more high variance decisions.

But I do not have a large bankroll dedicated to the NFPC. So I'm not rolling in with double-digit thousands of dollars that I'm willing to dedicate to this enterprise. So I think that probably for many of our listeners, they have the same feeling where they'd rather win their local. So I'm out on that much risk. I will say that in a draft champion situation, I'd be a little bit more likely to say YOLO and do it. And Jacob deGrom is so good that that's a 160-inning projection, so it's not like they put him into 200

innings. That's a 160-inning projection. However, 160 innings seems like a stretch for him. And if you get him and Tatis, and let's say DeGrom is just a little behind in the spring for some reason, and he'll debut two weeks into the season,

then the first two, three weeks of the season, your two top draft picks are not on your team. And they're on your bench, which is rough. So there were a lot of interesting responses to this when I put it out there. And I guess I want to share a little bit about how I would think about the problem. I think about Mike Trout more than just

the injury risk, right? I think part of being willing to draft Trout at the one-two turn or early in round two or wherever he's going to end up falling, usually between pick 15 and pick 25 at the latest, it's completely fine from a pure value perspective. It's a little weird because if you expect to get a lot of your stolen bases from the outfield, he doesn't run anymore. So then you have to start thinking about what the next couple of rounds look like and who you're going to take in those spots and who's going to be available for you to take in those spots. And the problem, it can kind of cascade pretty quickly. Let's just say we talked about third base. People are going to hear that preview

soon. Third base falls off really hard. And let's say your parachute option at third base is Alex Bregman, another very good player who doesn't run. You need to have a plan in place where if you feel like you take Bregman, you're still going to have enough stolen bases. He's an early rounder who doesn't run, right? Corey Seager is another early rounder who doesn't run. There's only so many player types like that that you can put with Trout. So I think you have to consider your strength as a player and what is likely to happen over the course of the early and middle rounds of your draft. And you have to be able to decide, am I good enough and comfortable enough with these players to round out my speed foundation if i'm going to take on that risk aside from the health concerns that you might have about trout whereas with tatis we know he does everything

when he's healthy you don't have that concern you just have the injury risk so i do think trout is a more difficult player to take in this range not playing in the and the risk of you know coming off a steroid surgery a steroid suspension what what the play is going to be like right yeah there's there's performance risk that way for sure but you know i think you're right this is also a kds question which is like where do you want to draft in the first because you can kind of map it out trout right now in draft champions oh this is not right now i had it in right now and then it got off. Trite right now in Draft Champions is going, yeah, he's going in the middle of the second. So I don't know

that I would push him so hard to take him around the turn, but Tatis is going around the turn and I'm sure DeGrom, even though he's going at the end of the second, I'm sure he's gone there, but a fairly high risk choice for you at the turn might be Burns-Tatis. Yeah, Iis yeah i went burns trout tatis was

there it was an option but no so with going with trout then you look ahead to who's going to be available most likely by adp in the third and fourth where you go again and uh i think in your case and you and i think i think you maybe this, or at least we talked about it while you were doing it, you identified maybe Mullins as... I had Mullins, Randy Rosarena, and Luis Robert. Luis Robert as your possible speed choices. And what did you end up with? I went another direction.

I went Will Smith, and I went Ryan Presley. Oh, God. So, yeah, this gets better. I passed on both of those guys. So now in the fifth and the sixth, who was available for you? Well, see, in the fifth and the sixth, for a moment, it looked like one of Ozzy Albee's, Jazz Chisholm, Corbin Carroll, or Cedric Mullins would be there.

And as it turned out, two of them did. Carroll and Mullins were there. Oh, but then you got to take Mullins, I think. I really wanted to, and I didn't. What? I took Alex Bregman. Because you were worried about third base. We just had our conversation about third base yesterday that made me think,

all right, if I don't take Bregman here and I'm light on steals, I have to roster Cabrian Hayes. And I don't necessarily want to do that. I took Bregman with Tyler Glass now at the 5-6 turn. So now I've got two starters, a closer. You have no steals.

So now let's look at the 7th and 8th. I've got zero. I've got probably zero steals through six rounds, but my team is awesome. And look how bad your seventh and eighth steal candidates are. Tyler O'Neill. Let me run through who's available right now. I'm 15 picks away from my two turns.

Tommy Edmund is falling. Probably won't make it back to me. So I'm going to guess Tommy Edmund goes, O'Neal Cruz probably goes before I get a turn. Andres Jimenez might be there. Tim Anderson has a very good chance of being there, I think. So I got a couple short stops that can run. You could take your middle infield there and add, you know,

40, 45 stolen bases there. I am also thinking that at some point, Gleyber Torres, probably not at this turn, maybe at the next one. I may have to jump him up. Gleyber Torres could actually make a lot of sense for this team at second base because second base falls off hard.

But it's not as top heavy as third. But another thing that's interesting to me is we're talking, so I'm looking at the ADP chart and trying to tell and trying to guess what your options were and they were pretty different um you know like i did guess uh corbin carroll and cedric mullins correctly right uh or cedric mullins in the first batch and then corbin carroll in the second batch um but in this next batch i'm talking about tyler O'Neill and Byron Buxton. You're saying Tim Anderson or Tommy Edmund and Andres Jimenez,

people that ADP says shouldn't be available. And the lesson I'm taking from this is that you can do KDS and you can plan out what you think might be available before the draft, where you say, oh, I'm going to go Machado Burns at the turn and I'm going to get Mullins and Romano because that's what the ADP says. And I like that. You know, I like that for that foursome gives me a starter, a reliever, steals, an infielder. Boom. I love that foursome. You might get that because drafts are you know can be fairly similar in the first two to four rounds by the time you get to the fifth and sixth there's enough there are 14 other

managers you know i mean doing vastly different things different strategies all sorts of other things different pockets of players are going to become available you're going to start to see that looking at adp is not any is not really in this format. I'm looking at ADP as a board. It's not going to be useful in that way anymore. You know, it's it kind of goes out the window. So if you do KDS map out who you think you'll get in the first four rounds, and and that's it don't bother mapping out after that I don't think because i think chaos uh just starts to infuse the draft and the

difference you know i was able to guess mullins pretty quickly i was not able to guess that any of the buddy you said in terms of the sixth and seventh or the seventh and eighth round turn um so you know i think uh i think that's a valuable thing for people to think about is you know if you're planning a draft, think about the first four rounds, think about who you might come out with the first four rounds. Think if you'd like that as your, as your basis. For example,

I went from the sixth slot and I liked that because I wanted Kyle Tucker in the first, but I got auto drafted into Edwin Diaz in the second. That would have been either real Muto or, uh, Paul Goldschmidt for me. Um, if I hadn't taken Diaz and I I would prefer to pick ahead of that decision I would prefer to pick early in the second round because you can get Raphael Devers Austin Riley Pete Alonso you can get those guys in the second round if you're early in the second round

you cannot get those guys if you're late in the second round so for me I want KDS I want 10-15 I want in there before I pick earlier than that and I'm not even looking at what I think would happen in round 5

KDS says I should get Corey Seager in round five. That's not useful to me. I don't think that's, you know, what's going to happen. I think you can try, you can try to figure it out more from the player types perspective than the

specific players perspective. So look at five, six, seven, even round eight. What's the quality of stolen base players in that range? What's the quality of save sources in that range? The specific

players, that's a little harder to map out that far down. If you think saves are almost certainly going to be completely dried up, at least for the closers you trust to get your first closer by the end of round 6, don't mess around and try and thread that needle perfectly like take advantage of one of those turns in the jump a guy's range yeah just make sure you don't fall off that cliff and i think that's what i was

doing a little bit with bregman was saying okay i don't want to i don't want to be forced into drafting to brian hayes in part because someone else might take him the guy that i thought was gonna get me 20 steals that i needed from third base, oh, someone else liked him too. He's gone, and now I'm 20 steals short, and I have a position open that doesn't even offer the category I need. I felt like leaving the outfield open longer, passing on Cedric Mullins, passing on players like that made some sense because there were still steals later from the position. Same with second base even. Look and get someone like Jazz. I could just wait a little longer, find someone who's second base eligible who runs some. They might not have the ceiling that Jazz Chisholm has,

but they're still giving me the categories I need. So my thought is that as I go through this, round seven, round eight, round nine, round 10, every hitter I take in these next four rounds, whether that's two or four, it could be all four picks, could be hitters, I 10, every hitter I take in these next four rounds, whether that's two or four, it could be all four picks, could be hitters, I guess, depending on how it breaks. Every hitter I take is going to get me at least 10 steals. They might all get me 15 and some might even get me 20. And that's okay. If I end up with, let's say I get 50 steals in the next three picks. If I have 50 steals through the first 10 rounds, I'm not that far behind. There's still speed that I can get late. That's why you sent me the, you're going to get a

message yesterday, which did seem very threatening. Like, no, that's not going to happen. I'm not going to let it come to that. I think sometimes, I think the market, the field, the other people in the room can be unnecessarily aggressive

with a category. Oftentimes it's speed or saves. And I think if you're playing to make sure you're balanced, you have to be willing to wait on one of the two. I am much more willing to wait on steals than I am on saves. So if I'm going to commit early draft picks to something, it's going to be to at least the one closer I trust. And if I can get surplus value in potentially average homers, runs, RBIs by taking guys who don't run, I'm going to go ahead and do that and take my chances because I think that's where there's some bigger picture value to be had. But again, that comes from working up from the back and not ending up with guys like Ruiz. If I thought I was going to end Ruiz I wouldn't be doing this one thing that occurs to me is like you know why why are all these teams changing their their outfield dimensions and becoming much more

neutral home parks it's so that they can jump at any opportunity any any potential bargain that may want to sign with them won't not sign with them because they're too much of a pitcher's park too much of a hitter's park right like what what potential bargain pitcher is going to sign in cores no they have to overpay for anything they can get you know they have to get daniel bard off the scrap heap they can't you know they they get last chance saloon type players they don't there's no like um you know ross stripling you know who's like maybe he's actually a decent signing for the giants the giants can scobble gobble them up uh and so maybe the giants uh you know inability to land carlos correa or and aaron judge is related at least partially to the

park and so maybe they haven't gotten all the way there yet but they have changed their things and the reason that i think this is relevant to what we're talking about is if you take well-rounded players that steal bases and do everything early on you're allowing you you're keeping yourself open for whatever you want to do later that was something that was a little bit different about the conversations about our two teams in my in my conversation i was talking about sort of positional needs and you at one point said oh well do you need steals or homers and i kind of added them up for you and you were like you don't you don't seem like you need steals or homers which means now i can now i can just go wherever i think the value is you

know i can take ryan mcmahon to be my third baseman uh late i took him way i thought real late compared to what his projected dollar value was right and he's he's my he's my corner infielder and the reason and i and just for context i guess i took ryan mcmahon in the 13th round uh to be to be my corner outfielder and that's because i wasn't at all concerned with uh you know do i need to get steals? You know, do I need to get, you know, batting average or do I need to, you know, there's a lot of, you know, you'll get reaches, I think, in this area. I don't particularly think Tyra Estrada is a great pick. He went in the 12th. That's because his team did not have a second baseman and was light on steals, you know, in the meantime.

So, you know, I think I'd rather have McMahon that I took later. I don't that's just one example, but I'm not I'm not boxing at any corners. Whereas you, you know, because you did get ahead. So you're going to have a bill that's more kind of, kind of shuttles from extreme to extreme, right? Like you build up a lot of homers and batting average and like, that's good. But now your needs are much more defined and,

and, and people around you also know that better. Right? So somebody who's picking 14 is like, that dude has no steals. If I want steals, I better take them before the turn. And so anybody you're looking at that has

steals if they need steals at all at 14 they're like well derrick has no steals so let me i'm gonna take this you know tommy edmund i'm gonna let him to get tommy edmund you know what i mean so like you you start to get sniped and stuff and i and i've i've noticed this where i like to leave uh pitching and you know i'm through 13 rounds and maybe I'm light on pitching because I have Diaz, Woodruff, Glasnow, May, and Rasmussen. There are other teams that have more pitchers. But I also see that as my pick starts coming up, like my favorites just go away. You know, my ranks are published. In the ninth round round i thought maybe i need a third pitcher and right before my turn it went severino snell lodolo green you could not have decimated my

rankings any better that those guys are all they're basically 18 through 22 in my rankings you know what i mean and i would have loved to have gotten a third pitcher in my top 20 you know and and i would have been like ha ha ha suckers you know i got hunter green nanny boo boo and they just absolutely wiped me out because they knew i needed a pitcher and they knew what my ranks were so being less predictable has a value being as well-rounded as possible as long as you can be, has some value. But also, I appreciate what you're saying about building up surplus in certain places, too. Because, you know, Trout by projections should be in the first round.

Right. So, taking advantage of that value, the cost of taking advantage of that value, is knowing that I'm going to have to hustle for my speed sooner rather than later to avoid the Asturias Ruiz problem. As long as you believe there are enough players in between the first six rounds and Ruiz territory that will get you to the target you want, you can be okay. But you're right about people in the room picking up on it. I think the only thing that might bail me out is that if they already have enough speed, they might not be looking at speed. They might be looking at the guys who don't run, who go in the pick 100 to 200 range.

They might have created needs by going heavy on speed earlier. They might have created some needs otherwise. So we're looking for different things at different times, which might give me a position that allows the things I need to actually make it back to me. I'm hoping, I could be wrong about this, I'm hoping that's part of how it plays out as well. And I wonder if I look back at this and I say, hmm, Tyler Glasnow, that was my shot. If I didn't take Glasnow there, I could have had Mullins. I could have had a 25-30 steal guy in the outfield right there.

And that maybe will prove to have been the better way to go. But my thought was that a lot of other pitchers that are going to go in the next 50 to 60 picks have nothing close to the projection and ceiling of glass. Now I felt like glass. Now, even though I pushed him up a little bit relative to where he's been going was still undervalued. And I think we're going to get to March and Tyler glass. Now is going to be going consistently in the first five rounds. I think that's, that's the direction we're headed. So this won't even look like a reach once we get more information in these next two and a half months. I took him as well.

I took him. I had the benefit since I wasn't at the turn. I was in the middle. I think I took him a little bit later than you in the middle of the sixth. And I did. It was a little bit rough in terms of what I thought my other needs were, uh, but it didn't cost me that much. And to pair him with Woodruff, I felt great. People in the draft, uh, are very conservative about injury risk a lot of times, except with

the Grom, which is weird for me, but like, um, you know, there's a, there were people like, oh, I just don't know how many innings he'll pitch, and I don't know about the playing time. There's usually a Tommy John honeymoon for the first 300 innings after Tommy John, as long as you've pitched in the big leagues. So I doubt he's going to go down for a Tommy John right away. And then he also has a fairly big carrot in the form of the free agent year, the year after next. I think the best way for him to enter that free agency period is to pitch as many innings as he can in the next

two years. So I think personally, he wants to do that. Maybe the team will manage some innings, but I think they would manage them a little bit later in the season, depending on whether or not they're making the postseason. If they're headed towards the postseason, maybe they give him a two week blow because they want to use some of his innings in the postseason. If they're headed towards the postseason, maybe they give him a two-week blow because they want to use some of his innings in the postseason as opposed to getting to the postseason. But by that time, you would have banked a lot, I think, from Glasnow. So I'm into the Glasnow thing there. Another thing you just said that I think is important to think about, you were talking about doing things, looking in different places at different times than the rest of the room. And one way that I use projections and try to mesh that with what's happening in the room is that I will basically set a sort of tier in my projections and say,

okay, I'm going to put in my queue everybody who's worth more than $10 just so I can see who projections say are worth more than $10. And invariably, if you do this, especially if you do it at like $15 early in the draft, you say everybody who's over $15, I'm putting them in my queue. You will find that you put a ton of catchers in. And you put a ton of catchers in there and you're like wow this says uh sean murphy's worth 24 and everybody's picking 15 players right now i should take sean murphy however if you did what i said you will see oh there's like six catchers in here and there's two short stops and maybe the short stop that i have in here is only worth 15 and my projection system says sean murphy is worth 24

but the supply and demand is such that i may not get a 15 short stop if i don't take one of these two and i'm still might get a 20 catcher if i wait another round and um so that's that's how i use the projections it's not i don't think it's i used to be like uh you have to take the guy especially in auctions it's a little bit more like you want to spend what the what your numbers say you should spend yep that's a little bit more you want to do what your numbers say but when in a snake draft i think you're more like you're just trying to collect as much value as you can and so you know it's no longer like I should, like you don't want to just,

you wouldn't take like, just as an extreme case, you wouldn't take four catchers in a row just because they were all worth $24. That wouldn't make any sense. You still have to build a team. So my method of sort of collecting all the players I like in a certain queue so that I can see the supply and demand within a tier

has been pretty useful for me. And that allowed me, for example, to take Sean Murphy in the eighth round after Alejandro Kirk, Will Smith, Salvador Perez, JT Ramuto, Wilson Contreras, Adley Rutschman, all of those guys, and Menjay Melendez went ahead of Sean Murphy um so i still got someone in the tier of acceptable catchers i believe my projection system had a 22 value for murphy so you know i was like you know i'm cool with that but i took a tim anderson i think they had like an 18 projection uh in my numbers i think bregman had an 18 or 1919 projection. I took those guys all ahead of Murphy because of the law of supply and demand. Right, because Murphy could still be there later. That is exactly why Bregman ended up on this team and Cedric Mullins didn't. It's the belief that I can

find another Cedric Mullins type player or a lighter version of that player that's very close, easier than I can find a Bregman-type player at third base right now. I suppose you could make the case that you'll see Jake McCarthy later. You could make the case... In the outfield, which we've already... We haven't heard yet, but we've already recorded. There are some risks with Jake McCarthy,

but in terms of projections and possibilities, Jake McCarthy's right there with Cedric Mullins. He fits this roster really well, which is sad after the things we said. 10 to 15 homers and 30 stolen bases, yeah. You'll understand why there's a little bit of pain, as I say, he fits this roster really well because we've talked about the warts.

We all have that to look forward to once that drops. But yes, we are rapidly approaching the position preview portion of the year, and we'll get those episodes dropping very soon. Got a nice little supply of them. It's weird. We rarely pre-record episodes of this show. So when I'm sitting on like five plus episodes of Rates and Barrels that people haven't listened to yet, it's really kind of a strange strange feeling i feel like i'm doing something wrong by hoarding the episodes

we recorded these and you can't listen to them we know we know my favorite is first base so hopefully you start with first base we uh that was a good episode not that none of the others but you know we we're we're so hard at work work that we're changing our hoodies and T-shirts and taking hats off and putting them on just to give you guys different looks on the same day. I realized that I made one mistake. There's a box over my shoulder with a blanket in it, and it hasn't moved in a few days. So there's a lot of episodes where that box is going to be foiled again. Slight mistake on my part.

I'm just not that good at deceiving people, which is probably a good point. It's weird if one of us got a haircut in the middle. Yeah. Lots of things we could change that would be very odd based on the order of the episodes. If you don't have a subscription to The Athletic,

this is a good time to get one leading into the season. Theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels gets you in the door for $2 a month for the first year. Really can't beat that price. You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper as always. Emails are welcome. Ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com

as I continue to push for inbox zero, hopefully before baby's arrival because it's not happening once the kid comes. It's not happening after. It is over. Inbox zero is a dream that will go away with the arrival of my son. But hey, you can tell that I'm a soccer person because I think we talked about babies for about 12 minutes and then we added

12 minutes at the end in stoppage time on the pod. Extra time. So I know the inevitable tweets of dude, no one cares. I get it. We're not going to take away content. We're going to give you the time back. So if you ever like, stop talking about kids, just hit the fast forward button a couple times

and we'll be out of it and you'll get the content back on the back end. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you next week. Thanks for listening.