Rates & Barrels - The Padres & Astros Are Returning to Full Strength at the Right Time

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss the Padres getting healthy for the stretch run as Yu Darvish will rejoin the rotation this week on the heels of Fernando Tatis Jr.'s activation from the IL and Joe Musgrove's last-season success. Plus, they discuss what they would look for to get in front of a pitcher's hot streak, the recent struggles of Taj Bradley and George Kirby, Justin Verlander's post-IL Stuff+ numbers, and a FAAB hammer used to add Dylan Crews as Eno chases down a title.  Rundown 3:49 The Padres Are Returning to Full Strength 13:35 Kyle Tucker Approaching Activation (Similarities to Tatis' Injury) 20:15 David Bednar Removed From Closer Role 23:14 Looking Beyond Fastball Velocity for Pitchers Heating Up Related Reading 'Baseball's 'Hot Hand' Is Real: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baseballs-hot-hand-is-real/ (Rob Arthur & Greg Matthews) 29:08 What Happened to Taj Bradley? 36:51 What Is Going On With George Kirby? 40:16 Jackson Merrill is a Top ____ Player in 2025 50:36 Justin Verlander's Post-IL Stuff Numbers 53:05 Eno Throws the Hammer to Get Dylan Crews Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Thursday at 1p ET/10a PT for our next livestream episodes! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Tuesday, September 3rd. Derek from Rhyper Eno Saris here with you on this episode. We dig into some recent news you should know. The Padres are getting healthy.

We might get Kyle Tucker back soon. The Pirates finally made that change in the closer roll. We wondered about that a couple of weeks ago with David Bednar. Got a lot of great questions from our Discord. So a big mailbag segment today, taking a look at a wide range of questions. Plus, we'll take a look at where the money went over the long weekend and a few moves that we made for our own rosters as well. Welcome to September baseball, you know.

Woo. I don you know. Woo. I don't know, man. There's two races as I see it and a wild card, the third, third one and, uh, uh, Yanks O's for the division. Ah, come on. Now let's, let's think about this from the broader perspective. The tigers have moved ahead of the Mariners and Fangrass playoff odds, even though we're still talking about two teams below 10%.

That's still pretty fun. Tigers are playing well. I actually do think of all the divisions, the one that has the most juice other than the ones I mentioned is the American League Central. The Twins and Guardians have a fair amount of games left with each other and they're close enough where that series could change things a lot. Yeah. And the Royals are still close enough to win that division, depending on how things play out as well. And you've got celebrities showing up at Mets games. I saw John Mayer and Steph Curry.

Gary Cohen saw that Steph Curry was there. He points it out because that's what he does. Steph Curry is here. Keith and Ron are both like, whoa, nice. So Kerry just goes, the Mets must be playing well. And I think it was Keith who goes, exactly. It's like, so apparently Steph Curry doesn't show up when the Mets are playing poorly. Yeah, no, that would be true.

The, the fun thing there is that the numbers actually, um, want to poo poo me, the poo pooer. Yeah. The numbers say 76% Braves. It's surprising, right? I mean, especially given the injuries they're dealing with. I don't know how effectively playoff odds fold all of that information in.

I mean, they do try to look at the depth charts. So it's not like they're looking at, you know, the Acuna led Braves. Right. It's still a pretty good depth chart, even with the Riley Albies Acuna injuries. Strider been gone as well. Geez. I just, I'm from the human perspective, look at it going. It feels closer to a coin flip, even though I think I still believe a little more in the Braves

and the Mets. And it's a half game. I mean, it's just like 76%. It's a half game. What the what the fan graphs odd say is that the current Braves team is a true talent 580 win percentage team and that the Mets are basically a 500 team. Right. And the Mets are built in the mold

of the like Rays and Brewers. That's the way I would look at it. Like they got the David Stern's vibes, let's slap it together and it'll exceed projections. So I'm not surprised that the projections do not like the current build of the Mets. I think they will like future Mets teams a lot more than this one.

But that's the solve of the weekend. Big series in the Dodgers and Diamondbacks. Dodgers may be opening up a little more of a lead in the NL West, but the Padres are getting healthy at just the right time. So that could keep things pretty interesting in that mix as well. So I'm not as down on the playoff races as you are, but we'll get more into those next Tuesday in our next episode with Brit. But as the Padres get healthy, like you've got Tatisse back now, you got you Darvish coming back Wednesday against the Tigers.

And Joe Musgrove, who came back from the IL on August 12th, is pitching a lot better as well. So this is a Padres team that's getting three very important players back over the past month, even if it's not enough to chase down the Dodgers and win the West. Looking at how this roster would stack up in the playoffs, it looks a lot better with those two starting pitchers and Tatis all back on it. And I think the question was really, could they weather the storm over the absences of

those three players? And the answer has been a resounding yes so far. So a lot of ways we can unpack this. I mean, Tatis being back is just good news through and through. It's good that they're all back. But I think Muscrow pitching well again is the thing that we were probably the least sure about, because in the previous instances that he was healthy this year, he didn't look like himself.

Healthy is a relative term. He looked like he was 60% or 70%. The results have been so much better. A 130 ERA, 27 to six strikeout to walk ratio, no homers allowed in his last 27 and two thirds. That covers the span since he returned on the 12th of August. Do you think Joe Musgrove is most of the way back, or possibly all the way back to the form he showed us before the injuries popped up around this time last year.

One thing that the my projections and stuff was numbers was always saying was that even in this reduced form he is still an excellent spinner of the baseball. And since he came back, the 94 mile an hour velocity on the fastball is better than what he's doing early in the season. So I'm going to go with a, I was going to waffle, I am the king of waffles, but I'm going to go with an unqualified, yes, going to waffle. I am the king of waffles, but I'm going to go with an unqualified yes he's back. And the thing that is not even being caught by every system, including stuff plus right now is that he's got a new pitch and he's throwing an 87 mile an hour gyro slider that I think right now is being caught by the cutter classification, which would make a actual difference to stuff plus because, um, that means it's calling his 87 mile an hour slider a fastball. And so Musgrove said that he broke it out. I'd heard

about a little bit a couple weeks ago, like when he just came back, that was one of the things he was working on while he was gone. And he's become really comfortable with it. And that would give him according to savant, to baseball, Zvant, seven pitches right now that he's throwing. And, uh, with a 94 mile an hour fastball, he's, you know, on the better side of league average on the fastball and you know, the results are there too.

So I've got nothing to point at that says that, um, I don't believe. And the good news is you ran a stuff plus comparison looking at the last 30 days compared to what was happening at the beginning of the season. People might be surprised that even when it wasn't going well for Musgrove earlier in the year, at the start of the year, he had a 116 stuff plus number, which I think was leading a lot of us to say, let's ride this out. Let's keep starting him. Let's only avoid the toughest of all matchups. Let's keep starting him. Let's only avoid the toughest of all matchups. Let's trade for him. Let's try to make any move we can to get Musgrove on our rosters,

wherever possible. Now he's up at a 127. So he's among the biggest risers. I think he's ninth among the qualified risers he put on this leaderboard. So it does look real from a lot of facets, but it's such a huge lift for fantasy managers down the stretch who need quality innings and for the Padres who really need a difference maker. Michael King's been phenomenal in the time that both Musgrove and

Darvish had been down, but to get that sort of quality back at the top of the rotation goes a long way. Yeah. And this stuff plus the razors is an interesting list. We've got the Spencer Arrogati cutter conundrum. Uh, but he has just a single handedly also raised this stuff plus while he's giving interviews saying, uh, to fan graphs, he's given an interview saying that, you know, he's not here to optimize his stuff. Plus, uh a that's an interesting parallel to what's going on but DL Hall you've mentioned that the Velo has looked a lot better

since since the DL stint IELTS stint yeah tonight even though his name's DL it's still an IELTS stint I think you know what you look when you look up and down this list you see a lot of players most of them the K minus BB has gotten better while their stuff plus has gotten better I think that's what you'd expect given what the model is saying the few people where it's gone down Sonny Grey Has increased his stuff plus but decreased his came on as BB and I wonder if he doesn't fall in love with his sweeper Sometimes I watched his last start decreased his K-BB and I wonder if he doesn't fall in love with his sweeper sometimes. I watched his last start. I've seen him in the playoffs with this.

I think he falls in love with that sweeper because it has such good results and there's this concept of decay that's going to come up again in this podcast of even a good pitch used over and over again will suffer some decay when hitters start sitting on it basically. Something we've talked about with the Red Sox and so on. John Gray has upped his as well. I don't know right away why, but one thing I did notice about John Gray is his schedule is pretty good.

And I don't know why his K-Midas BB has gone down If I'm looking here just at this season and his usage he's always been kind of a 50-50 guy fastball slider And I don't really see a much change there, but His schedule is really great. So I think, you know, John Gray, you see the stuff plus going up. You see the schedule. You see his VELO going up.

I think all of these things get together and you and you like him on this list. Joe Musgrove is on here. Nestor Cortez is just perennially underrated. I think Luis Severino, I dropped him at the wrong time. I guess I thought I saw Boston coming up on schedule. I did not want to pitch him against it. It's funny because, you know, announcers will say things like, well, you're continued as dominance of the Boston Red Sox.

And you're like, which Boston Red Sox? What team are you talking about? You know, he's had like a fairly long career at this point. A lot of different Boston Red Sox he's faced, you know. But yeah, apparently he has some mojo against them because I did not want that start and he pitched well. I think the funny thing about Severino, maybe it's two things. One, he was my most rostered player in 2024.

And I have so many teams that are trying to creep into the money. They're like league average, tick above league average. I'm like, well, that kind of defines like, that's, that's Luis Severino. Like my season is Luis Severino right now. And I look at the K rate and I'm like, that should be better. I look at my teams and I'm like, I should be better. I should have done better. So we're, we're just like leaving, like leading parallel lives right now.

And, and maybe peaking at the right time, because I've got a few teams that are inching up here over the last 30 days or so, not just because of Severino, but because of some other factors as well. I just keep looking at him and saying, where is it? Where'd the K's go? Why are the K's gone? And the swinging strike rate has been down going back to last season. I don't think the K's are going to jump back up into that high 20s,

low 30% range ever again. I just don't think he's going to turn that sort of corner. I think if it were going to happen, it would have started to happen by now. He's furiously dialing all the buttons. You know what I mean? It's like, it's not like you're like, Oh, well, he, you know, he's a two-pitch guy. Well, he's no longer, I don't know if you've noticed, but he's no longer a two-pitch guy. I mean, he is legit throwing the sinker. He's throwing a cutter this year. Uh's even dialed down the change up,

which might lead to fewer whiffs. You're like, oh, he's throwing so many fastballs. He throws 35% four seam fastballs. Maybe if you add the two seamer, he's at 60ish%. So maybe he does throw too many fastballs right now. But he's so in the past, he can throw a ton of sliders. Why, if he's having results like this, maybe he's not tempted to throw the slider more. But yeah, his Sierra the last two years has been over 4.4 or 4.5.

And the the strikeout rate is just a 20 percent. It doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I wonder if there's like a version of him that throws the sinker like he does now, but also throws the slider 30 percent of the time and doesn't have an explosion in walk rate or homers. And maybe he was just maybe he's hanging sliders when he, you know, had the bad home run rate last year. I don't know. He's supposed to be tipping pitches and he supposedly fix that out

too. Yeah, right. I think if you get more case in the future from Severino, though, He's supposed to be tipping pitches and he supposedly fixed that out too, you know Right. I think if you get more K's in the future from Severino though, it's like a 24 to 25 percent ceiling based on where he's at right now Oh, I don't think he's ever running back to you all the way back No Which is weird because Stuff Plus says he's doing fine Right and being able to add those pitches gives you that little bit of confidence that something could change But it just seems like this is post-peak for sure It's just how far away from the peak is it going to be for Lovie Severino. I did see some news that Kyle Tucker might return this week, and this is probably one

of the more underrated injuries of the season just in terms of how much the Astros downplayed it and just how much time it has cost Kyle Tucker. Kyle Tucker hasn't played since June 3rd. It's a big deal for a guy that's an early first round pick. He was having a great season. 19 homers, 10 steals in 60 games, 395 OBP, career high for him. Everything is really clicking for Kyle Tucker this year. And we just have a big chunk of missing data. but think about the gap that the Astros have closed and now opened up on the AL West without one of their best position players. I think that makes what they've accomplished all the more impressive. Yeah, definitely.

It speaks to the quality of their team, you know, depth and what they've done there. And to be honest, I think there's some really strong parallels here between what happened to Kyle Tucker and what happened with Fernando Tatis Jr. I think that, uh, not only the injury itself, but the way they were playing, what the team did without them, how much the team would take another step forward. I think Kyle Tucker and Fernando Tatis Jr. are the difference between teams that will make the playoffs

and teams that will make more noise in the playoffs. They're going to extend, not extend the whole lineup, but extend the middle lineup, send the lineup part of the lineup that you're scared of. And they're both coming off of shin injuries that similar sort of stress reaction injuries. And I think that the, I think the line between a stress reaction and a stress fracture is just really, really tiny. It's really,

really hard. And I think that you can even be looking at the same, you know, like when my son broke his wrist, you know, there was a second fracture that, you know, they didn't see until the third doctor looked at it, you know, like when my son broke his wrist, you know, there was a second fracture that, you know, they didn't see until the third doctor looked at it, you know? And it didn't matter in the end, because it was, he's a kid, just put it, just put a thing on there and you know, he's going to grow it to grow through it. But you know, for them, I think, you know, you're, you're looking at these x-rays, you're looking at these MRIs and you're trying to, you're circling areas and you're saying this is an area of concern.

And they're also asking the player, do you have pain? And the player says, yes. And so you just have to wait it out. But it makes it really hard for us as, you know, fans and, and, and, and fancy players is to sort of, when do you drop a guy that good? And I've nursed Fernando Tatisa long now for, wow. Two plus months. It's been a while. Yeah.

And probably maybe the move was to have dropped in. I mean, probably not. He's, he played a little more recently than Tucker. June 21st was the last time he played before his return on Monday. So yeah, these types of injuries imaging is a limiting factor. Sometimes you can't always see healing can be different. I think blood supply to certain bone areas can be a problem. That can also just lead to slow recoveries.

And then it becomes like a question of, is it pain tolerance or is it a risk of making something worse by playing? And I think that could be another sort of moving target with some of these types of injuries. But it seems like they're starting to be diagnosed more often. Like maybe these were injuries that have always existed, but they're better at catching them or understanding them, even though they have these sort of vague timetables around them for the limitations that we just mentioned. Yeah, because, you know, this sort of in the put some dirt on it, you know, and get out there kind of era, you might've just said, well,

I don't know why, but my, my legs, a little sore and like my, my shins, a little sore or whatever. And then you just keep playing on until you break it. Right. It's not ideal. You lose the whole season. I guess so. Right.

You'd miss, you'd miss much more time. You broke a big bone. Yeah. Break that break tibia or something you're going to miss probably a whole year. So a half season might not be bad if Tucker's healthy down the stretch into the playoffs, I think there's a good chance he retains his position as a first rounder in 2025 and might return. This is funny because there was a lot of like, you know, uh, hubbub on Padres Twitter over the weekend.

And I was like, I don't even know where I'm seeing this. I'm just, I just, you know, uh, I go on the show, Bennett Woods in San Diego, and I, and, and I think Woods tweeted something like I've activated, uh, for an editor Tatees on my fantasy team. And I was like, why? And then I started looking around and there's a lot of people like, oh, is he coming back today? Is he coming? Is it coming tomorrow? And then I couldn't find like a piece of news or I'm like, Oh yeah. And like everywhere I looked at, you know, road, why I look at the different news things and nothing about Tatees and then he's there, he's activated.

So Kyle Tucker might return this week. Sounds to me like he will almost like if there are, if the, if the whole thing with Tatees holds, you know, how do whole thing with, uh, Tati's holds, you know, how do you skip a rehab assignment when you've been out that long? It hasn't been great for who was it that came straight? Oh, Julio Rodriguez. You know, the first week back was not great. So they're just saying, Hey, we'll take you at your worst and we might as well do it up here and see the good, the, see the good stuff. You know, see the good poop coming out of the pitchers hands and not rehab

against guys that can't hit spots and top out at 92. Well yeah and that's the thing is I wonder if the continuing diminishing pool of minor league pitching also makes it more difficult for hitters to go down there and do rehab that matters. And if that's the case, then yeah, you have to do it at the big league level. You do it with the trajectory machines and different things you have at your disposal and say, this is good enough, or this is as good or better than what I'd get if I went down to El Paso. And the good news is I don't have to go to El Paso and spend that time going back and forth. So. And both teams are in an interesting position where like, you know, I, you

know, Satie said his worst going to be better than Azucar, Jose Azucar. Yes. You know, is Julio Rodriguez that is worse going to be better than whoever, you know, they sent down when he came up. Yes. You know, and, uh, in the case of the Astros and Padres in particular, maybe even the Mariners, it's like, what have we got to lose really? It's like, you know, we need these guys, You know, what if he's better a day earlier up here,

it could mean everything. And if we just say, you know, you're better than Kanzone, so like, put him in there. It's true. If you're an F1 fan, you'll know that this season has evolved into one of the most exciting and unpredictable of recent times, with an incredible seven different winners from four different teams. It's impossible to predict what will happen in the second half of 2024, but one thing you can be sure of is that the Race F1 podcast will be with you every step of the way, with myself, Ed Straw, and some of the best F1 reporters in the world on the ground at every

race to bring you the inside track on the stories that matter. Just search for the Race F1 Podcast on your podcast app of choice and join us twice a week, every week, for your regular F1 Fits. One more news item to get to real quick. David Bednar has officially lost his hold on the Pirate's Closer role. This looked like something that was possible a couple of weeks ago when we spoke about him. I think I'm at the point, this just happened with Camilo Duval

when my keeper leagues, you know, if Bednar becomes available in my keeper leagues in the next week or so, I'm going to add him inexpensively with the hope of holding him and then being able to keep him in March as the Closer in 2025. I haven't soured enough on

Bednar to look at him and say he's not the best option going into next season because I think Chapman's there on a one-year deal anyway. So there's no guarantee that their preferred fallback option is still there. And when we discussed them a few weeks ago, there was still enough good in the profile to see the foundational skills being there in 2025 and possibly beyond. Yeah. I mean, his main competition long-term, I don't think is Dennis Santana, even though he got the save. Um, I think it's Kyle Nicholas who throws 98 and has some, some good stuff

numbers as well, but if you think that Bednar's current problems with command are bad, Kyle Nicholas is the guy for you. And so what I'm seeing is just a temporary blip. And what Bednar has told me in the past is that sometimes mechanics will get off and he's working on different cues to get them back in. He seems very engaged and coachable and stuff plus still there. So I'm going to bet on him. Kyle Nicholas has sported 12, 13, 14 percent walk rates up and down his career and Bednar has never had that problem. So I'm saying that now is going to be back in there.

I traded it for him in the middle of the stretch in a rebuilding squad to have him for next year. And I think. Right now, he's still atop the depth chart for me for next year. Now anything can happen over the last few weeks. I just don't. Dennis Santana does not seem like just think about a, you know, Dennis Santana's history and Bednar's history You know with this team you know in terms of Dennis Santana was claimed this year and

had one save in his career before this and then you know just think think about in terms of velocity and stuff plus and strikeout rates and you'll see that Bednar has been better for longer and even this year for Bednar is a small sample size. Yeah I mean averaging 97.3 on the fastball is David Bednar so we're not seeing deterioration from velocity perspective I think that bodes well for his chances of being that guy long term. Oh good news by the way Garrett Cole's early exit on Monday due to cramping in his calf. So it doesn't seem like anything

that's gonna cost him significant time. So if you saw that and were worried about it to this point, doesn't look like it's going to be a problem for Cole beyond that early exit. Let's get to some other questions we received on Discord. This one came from It's Jim. Hey, you can pronounce that one pretty easily. I can, I got that one.

I am cherry picking the easier to pronounce discord handles for questions. No, I'm there. I'm really not. Um, and it was Stu nods, I believe was the pronunciation that was clarified in the discord as well. Uh, old story from Rob Arthur and Greg Matthews from the old five 38 sports section back in the day was looking at the hot hand for pitchers and finding some evidence that yeah, there actually could be,

in their words, an ace in a bum lurking inside of every pitcher. Really interesting piece. I'll put a link to it in the show description if you want to go back and read it. So looking at that study and then looking at rolling X W, rolling XWOBA and wondering, it's Jim wants to know, is there something we can watch for, much like the sliding window in stock trading technical analysis to find the next picture that's about to be hot beyond just their fastball velocity?

Yeah, I mean, I think we covered this a little bit. I do find, I thought that was a fascinating piece. The only piece that I have that, um, the only thing that I have against it is that I'm not sure it's hot hand because you know, if you are throwing a better fastball, aren't you a better pitcher? That's semantics. But anyway, if you throw that stuff plus leaderboard back up, the razors, the risers, you know, I threw K-minus BB on there and I think you're, you're pretty unimpeachable if you're including an increase in K-minus BB with an increase in last 30 stuff plus. And I think you're capturing some of that

fastball velocity stuff, but you're also capturing pitch mix changes. Um, and your pat, you're capturing, uh, changes to the way the mix is, is mixed up, but also, um, you know, different things like Joe Musgrove's new slider, you know, and, uh, and Gavin stone's new vertical movement on his fastball and, and things that matter as well. So While I think Rob Arthur definitely found something what we found when we looked at last 400 pitches stuff plus was slightly more predictive than full season stuff plus

And so that's that's still the fastball velocity thing, but it also includes things like shape and pitch mix that I think are meaningful. Sean Manaya has mostly changed his arm slot. Uh, he has dropped his arm slot to become more like Chris sale over the last two or three starts. And it has, uh, done wonders for his results, his K minus BB and even stuff plus, which says, you know, you're basically a similar picture, but we'd like this arm slot better. Has captured something there. So this is definitely my secret sauce.

You could probably find a way to automate something like this. Secret sauce, you could probably find a way to automate something like this. I'm asking my modeler for you've seen some of the stuff interaction sheets that we put up, like last week we had, you know, for Bubba Chandler and people like that, that, that shiny that I use, I'm asking for time splits and enrolling stuff plus, because I think it would be useful sometimes where I could show you, you know, hey, here's a change in their mix, here's a change in their shape, you know, put against their rolling K-minus BB or something like that. I think that's the right mindset to have trying to find. And there's so many things here

that factor into performance that it's hard to know what falls under the bucket of pure skills and things that a pitcher can control. What kind of falls into environment, which they somewhat can control, but not always. And I think even in the Rob Arthur, Greg Matthews piece here, it was looking, it's thinking about stuff like, how will the pitcher sleep? You know, if your home for two or three starts in a row, maybe you sleep better at home. And it's not even just the dimensions of your home park, but you feel better because you are sleeping in the comfortable bed that you picked out yourself,

not in a hotel bed that's probably still pretty good, but not the one that's made for you. As a picture, how sweaty is your part? You know, how are your fingers sweaty? Are you trying to get them? The you're trying to get the liquid off of them? Or are you in a dry park where you just keep licking your fingers? Do you prefer one or the other? You know, and so we've gone into how do you feel on the mound?

And, you know, what does it look like around you and maybe even salt content in the air. Yeah, I don't want to have to lick my fingers. Like I would be uncomfortable in a licking my fingers park. But you've seen that pitchers are fine with it. Yeah, they're fine with it. I'm not. That's why I'm not a pitcher among among many other reasons. But I mean, the amount of fidgeting pitchers do is sort of amazing. Ryan Nelson has a very distinct fidget. It's it's off putting for me when I

watch him, it's so much. There was a funny one back in the day was Russell Ortiz could not go maybe three seconds without adjusting his cup. I mean, maybe four seconds. My wife used to have a counter. She would, we watched that game, she'd be like, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Yeah, the level of discomfort some people have out there, like, I don't know if I could even match that. Like I could be uncomfortable and shift around, but it's not an all time thing. They're manifesting the inner discomfort, you know, outwardly, I think. Yeah, there's a lot going on in some of those instances, but there's some stuff that goes into this

that answers other questions we were asked. Sierra6 in the Discord asked, what the hell happened to Taj Bradley? And it's a great question because Taj kind of looked like everything was falling into place until August. Five starts, 1041 ERA 201 whip 37 hits allowed including six homers and just 18 K's against 10 walks. Now I think the first question with Taj Bradley would always be is it the same stuff that was going wrong for him previously or is this

previously or is this a set of problems for Taj 2.0 that, you know, it's good. He's not, he has not fallen back to old Taj Bradley habits and problems, but he has maybe evolved into a new set of problems that he can now work through. I still fundamentally believe in him because of the fastball. There is something to the slowness at which the adjustments are made that makes me a little nervous. You know what I mean? That's like, it's like a hitter who's like super streaky to begin his career. And you're like, oh, and he figures something out and he's hot for a while and then he gets figured

out and he's cold for a long time. You know, it's, you're watching that with Bradley and what you can see when you look at the most recent stuff is like, Oh, he's, he's working his curve ball back in. Why is he working his curve ball in probably because of this. So we've got a sheet sheet here. So on the left is his splitter vertical movement. What you can see is, um, down is good, right? So like the more, more vertical drop he has, the better.

And then if you put it up against, uh, this slugging percentage against his splitter, which is the other one, you'll see that when his splitter has the least amount of drop, he has the most slugging and right now his splitter has the least amount of drop he's had during this season, uh, and the most slugging. So there's an aspect to his splitter that is getting worse. Uh, and I, and I just talked to him about a splitter, what his cues were and stuff. And he says, I don't know, I don't throw up my bull pens. I just throw up when I'm out there.

I it's just feel. So he's lost some feel on that pitch is also the concept decay where he's throwing that, that splitter more than ever and people are seeing it more and now they're sitting on it. And then lastly recently in the last three starts he started breaking out the curveball more because the splitter as you point out the splitter and the cutter the exact same below. Which means he's like ninety one on the splitter and cutter you know ninety seven 97 on the fast ball. It's all nineties. I think theoretically a well-placed curve ball. And what we learned from Sabre seminar is that a well-placed curve ball would not get swings because they, everyone's going to be sitting 91 to 97

on him, at least that velocity band. So what's what I would love to bequeath to him is some curveball command. Just get that thing in the zone. No one's going to swing at it when you throw something 79 after you've been throwing 91, 97. Everyone's going to see that it's 79 and most of the time they're not going to be ready for it. So just throw in the zone, get some called strikes. You get ahead with the call strikes. You can throw the better sweep sweeper.

I mean, the better splitter, the better cutter. You can do things that you couldn't do before. You can get them backwards where they think the splitters coming and throw the fastball. So I think he's going to come out of this, um, you know, good. And I think I'm going to, I'm going to buy him again next year. I'm, I'm happy that I think it'll be a little bit cheaper next year. What do you think? Oh, that's probably going to depend on what happens in his remaining starts,

because if the last chapter of his season is mostly what he did in August with a slight improvement, like a let's say he pitches like a five year the rest of the year, the excitement won't be there. Right. If he has another month like he was having before August, I could see maybe a slightly increased price, you know, pick 150 instead of the post pick 200 range, not a massive leap, but right in that gooey part of the picture rankings, the glob, as I think we've called it for years, Paul Sporers called it that. But it gets you, you know, you're making decisions there.

Like, you know, if he's at 200, you're like Taj Bradley or people I don't really like. Whereas if he's at a 150, you're like, Ooh, Taj Bradley or these other kind of, kind of sleepery kind of guys that I like, you know, you might move into the Nick Pavetta neighborhood. Right. And that's kind of funny because for a long time it's been like, we've got great stuff. Nick Pavetta is going to turn the corner. And it's been more disappointment than joy, even though there've been stretches where it looks really good.

So maybe that's where we're headed. The one nice thing versus Nick Pavetta and Nick Pavetta is a great pull. I think stuff's always been there. Fastball has always been great. Trying to put together the stuff around it. Not great command, not maybe the best sort of intangibles in terms of like putting the mix together. The big difference is Bradley's got to step up in that part.

Yeah. Pivetta landing in Philly in Boston just meant that any mistake he made was going to be augmented. Yeah, that's definitely fair. Now here's the other thing with Taj that I would wonder about. I'd wonder this about anybody

with a similar VELO distribution. If 90% of what you throw is between that 91 and 97 range, the curve ball, if it can only steal strikes, occasional called strikes, is still a limited use pitch. You can only throw it, what, 15, maybe 20% of the time at most, if that's the function. I know he's got the other three pitches, but I think he needs a fifth pitch like in order to really make everything click. I always wanted him to have an actual slider. Yeah, put something in there like 84, 85. Like then you got two different off speeds that really like do a lot to the hitter.

And you could play you could play the 84, 85 off the 78 and 79. So then, oh, they think the curve is coming, but it's actually the other thing. Yeah, that would be the offseason wish. Like if that's something that's working for Taj between now and end of 2025 draft season, then I'm excited. Even if the price ends up being in that pick 150 range. But tough calls down the stretch, those like, what do you do when you're looking at Taj on your rosters? Like, do I play him right now? Do I just sit him because the last five starts have been

awful? It has to at least change the thresholds for the matchups that you're comfortably using him in when someone's pitching this poorly. there's no way you could feel as good about him right now as you did six weeks ago, but this week, the matchup was a home against the twins. I don't think if I could help it, I would have thrown him this week. If I had no real like viable options. Okay. Then he's my last pitcher in, but even next week, it's going to be another tough one at Philly.

At Philly. I don't want to throw him there. And they're on a, maybe a six man rotation. Uh, I mean, Fangras has one on a six man rotation. So he would be first Boston after that and doing it like that. Uh, the, that means you got one start left this season. You like in it at Detroit. And that could be a shallow league cut situation.

If you can't use them, you may need to get a two-star pitcher or something in there in the meantime. So consider it. I mean, I hate to say that and I have that keeper the bias. I'm like, you're in a hot shot Bradley, but like, if you're not in the keeper, they don't. Yeah. I mean, you're, you're talking about at Detroit, September 25th. Are you going to be even been the playoffs? Maybe your season will be over then maybe you're one of those leagues that doesn't even play on the 25th. Yeah. Tough spot to be in right now down the stretch for people relying on Taj Bradley. Got a question here from Jay Lee.

What is going on with George Kirby? I tend to think nothing. I, I know that it hasn't been great recently. Um, but I don't, I don't have a smoking gun. You know, he's, I don't know. He's, he, he, he's fallen out of love with the splitter for some reason. But the, the VELO is not bad. I don't see anything changing in the vertical movement. He's just a little bit of ride on the fore seam, but he's never been a guy who's had great shape on the fore seam.

I guess the sliders, you know, kind of been a little bit inconsistent in terms of how much drop it has. It's had more drop recently. Maybe that's not good for him. Maybe he wants it to be tighter than that. But I don't know, I think it's, you know, just a. It's a little bit. He could be a little bit tired. You know, I mean, he did throw in 190 innings last year and he should be fine, but I don't, I don't, I don't see anything.

Do you see anything? I don't see anything that's a smoking gun on him. I couldn't find anything yet. This week he's at Oakland. So for, I think the debate in discord was like, is he an automatic start? still? I think in that matchup, even though the A's in the second half have been a lot better, I'd still throw him there. Even if you wanted to lower expectations, say, he's more of an SP3, SP4 at the moment, that's still in more than out as far as your matchup based plays go. I mean, I think I'm trying, I'm starting him against Padres because it's home.

Yeah, it's a two step in weekly leagues. It's, it's Padres, Rangers next week. At home, you know, I think at home, I'm not, I don't have a problem. And then at Texas, Texas hasn't been scary this year. So I'm starting him and then versus Oakland at the end. I'm, uh, I'm starting him in every start going forward. Yeah. It's weird to see George Kirby getting knocked around a bit though, especially in a stretch of schedule.

I looked at his last six starts to 623 ERA, 168 whip, 24 Ks and 30 to 30 innings. But it's this combination of matchups at Boston. Okay, sure. The Tigers. Two Tigers, one at the Pirates, home against the Giants and road against the Angels. Like that should have been the opposite. That should have been a, that should have been the opposite. That should have been maybe his best five or six start stretch of the season, just based on the quality of opponents.

Yeah, I guess, Oh, I guess one thing that's good, what's going on when the, when the slider has more depth, it has less V lo. So I do think he's better with an 88 mile an hour slider. And most recently it's been 86, 87, but it's one mile an hour on the velocity of the slider, like changing everything. It shouldn't. You know, stuff plus says it's still pretty good.

So I think he's fine. I think just sometimes this sort of stuff happens. I think, you know, you also get into a scouting report where you're like, Oh, you know, the advanced scouts are like, he's loves a splitter now, you know? And then the splitter gets hit, you know, whatever there's, there's just a cat and mouse that happens over the season. Some, for some reason, I'm just not worried about this one. Maybe it's because George Kirby is George Kirby.

Just trust that he'll solve the problem. Yeah. No matter what is actually causing it. Let's get to this one from SteelCity25. Jackson Merrill is a top blank player heading into 2025. Where do you think he'll go? And I know in the Rob D Pietro meatball draft that we talked about with Ryan Bloomfield

a couple Fridays ago, Merrill was an early fourth round pick, 49th overall, I think is where he actually went by the playerator for fan graphs. He's been a top 25 hitter so far this season. So even if you factor in eight to 10 pitchers, maybe a couple of extras. I think that 49th overall is going to end up being a relative bargain based on what Merrill's done so far this year, because it's easy to look at how he's done it and say, well, he's probably not a finished product.

I think the easiest thing to look at is to say, pitch recognition should get better. There could be a little less chase for Jackson Merrill in the future, and that alone could make him maybe a higher floor batting average play that he's been in year one, because I think most people figured Jackson Merrill would maybe hold his own, be kind of a league average, 100, 105 WRC plus type player this year, if everything was working, right? And that would have been a great outcome for his age, given how little time he had in the upper levels of the minors. He only played 46 games at AA last season.

And instead it's been even better than that. I mean, a 21 homer, 16 steal season so far, a little more in-game power than expected right away, get that 11% barrel rate. Like this all looks really good across the board. And I know some people are always skeptical when we have someone take a massive leap up into the top 50. This profile is actually safer than a lot of other guys that make that sort of leap. I'm probably more in on Merrill than out even at the new early round price.

I think if you told me he's going to go at the two, three turn where Gunnar Henderson was going closer to pick 30 throughout draft season, I don't think I'm necessarily shying away from him right there. At least off the cuff. 30 throughout draft season. I don't think I'm necessarily shying away from him right there. At least off the cuff. Yeah. I, I thought I would, you know, just ahead of him went Michael Harris, uh, two spots ahead of him. You're that right.

Harris went 47th, Merrill went 49th. Oh yeah. Four goes that way. Yeah. So yeah, yeah. Harris went two ahead of him. I, I, I should put wood on here. Um, I, so I, the, the, the most the the most the guys that went around

Merrill or just before Merrill or Michael Harris, James Wood and Jackson Churio. Right. So that's about, you know, in the 10, 15 picks ahead of Jackson Merrill, those are the four outfielders that went and they're all super exciting. And I thought I would just pull up, you know, their dashboard and compare them to each other. This is kind of crazy, but Jackson Merrill, Jackson Truro, and James Wood all have the exact same maxi V. They're all the same now. Yeah.

111.6. So weird. Um, James Wood launch angle. And I never used launch angle because. It's not predictive, but it does say something about. Groundball rate basically, you know, James would 1.7 degree launch angle. Jackson Shiro 7.7 Jackson Merrill 14.6. So Jackson Merrill has the best barrel rate. They all have pretty good hard hit rates.

James Woods is higher, but I do think this is a little bit anecdotal, but I do think that hard hit rates are a little bit higher for guys who don't hit it as high in the air. And I think there's actually a sort of a valid reasoning for that, which is just that, you know, some of those air hits are mishits. You know, I think, I think that the, the launch angle of your hardest hit ball is probably somewhere zero to 10 degrees, you know, I think, I think that the, the launch angle of your hardest hit ball is probably somewhere zero to 10

degrees, you know? So James Wood who lives in at two degrees at launch angle has a 51% hard hit rate. Um, whereas Jackson Merrill, who lives at 14.6, has a 44% hard hit rate. Uh, long story short, I'm taking Merrill out of all this group. You know, uh, if you go back over to the dashboard where, you know, you have strikeout rates, uh, James Wood has the biggest strikeout rate. Michael Harris has the second biggest strikeout rate. So by strikeout rate, you want to be comparing Merrill and Churio,

but by bad at ball stats, though, they're very similar. Merrill has done a better job lifting the ball, although Churio has changed that a little bit over time. Um, if I, if I was looking for a 30, 30 guy, I'd be looking at Merrill and Churio next year. And so I know Merrill went last. I'm reversing this order completely. I'm taking Merrill first out of this group, Churio second, Harris third,

and James Wood fourth. What are you doing with those four? You're taking Churio first? Probably. Yeah. I don't think it's a landslide. He could maybe have more power than Merrill long-term. I mean, cause he hasn't quite, he's not hitting the same barrel rates yet.

And what if he gets to those? Yeah. It's one of those things where I, I believe more in the raw power than you do with Churio. Like I think it's going to show up a little sooner. Well, it showed up right after I questioned it. Right after since then. Keep questioning it. It's going great.

I also think the other key difference though is that Churio is kind of pushing closer to that 30-30 range right away. Like that's something that I don't know if we necessarily thought that was going to be there. So it's something that I, I don't know if we necessarily thought that was going to be there. So it's, it's almost going to come down to like average and projecting batting averages miserably difficult looking at the projections. At least Cheerio and Merrill strike out less.

Right. And they're at 269. Definitely taking over Harrison Wood. Like the bat X has them at 269, Cheerio's at 269 and I think Merrill's at 272. Park's a little bit of a factor. I think it's a little harder to hit at Petco. So maybe that's a slight ding on Merrill. He's doing it already.

So it's like, well, what more do you want? He's already got it. They're going to go right next to each other in a lot of drafts. I'm probably taking Churio over Merrill, but as Todd Zola says, I would hate to live off the difference between those two players. I think Michael Harris is the guy that doesn't necessarily belong in the group at the moment.

I don't think it's a massive question, like long term. Like, maybe he could still get there. I know it's been a tough season for him because of injuries, but I mean, he has the best Max Evie of the group, but he's always had that. And, you know, he hasn't always lifted the ball. And he's a little bit. I just I put him always had that and you know, he hasn't always lifted the ball and he's a little bit, I just, I put him with Wood, you know, some questions about, you know,

how much contact he's gonna make, some questions about approach, you know, some questions about ground ball rate, a lot of really great things to build on, but do you take them, you know, when you're taking Harrison Wood where you are, you're taking them over Pete Alonzo. You're taking them over Matt Olson.

You're taking them over Franbo Valdez. You're taking them over Jazz Chisholm, Ozzy Albies. You know, you're taking them over proven competitors. And so you're saying, I think this is a lock basically. They're almost in locked hair. Top five rounds I want to feel like it's a lock. Yeah, I think so the reason I would be less enthusiastic about Michael Harris, just to kind of finish the thought

on him is he's still showing as much chase as when he entered the league. And that's a little bit of a concern because it's not quite the elite, elite K percentage, even though he's in strikeout too much. So that's that's the part with Michael Harris that I'm like, yeah, this, this holds him back from the group would I think is he's definitely for me, it's what I like more than Harris for next season. Longterm, I think he belongs in the conversation with Maryland Churio.

Long term, I think he belongs in the conversation with Merrill and Churio. I think the question will be, how much swing and miss will dissipate over time? How much of the strikeout rate we see from James Wood right now is the result of having a large strike zone being six, seven? And can we trust anything about the ABS 18.2% AAA number? Does that tell us anything really good?

He has this nice swing strike rate at 10%. He's not chasing! 23.7% O swing is phenomenal. I'd almost tell him to be more aggressive and get to balls before he takes a called strike three, you know what I mean? That's, if I look at this line I'd be like, I could have a few, like a little bit fewer walks if it came with more slug. Yeah. I think the other part of the James Wood rookie year and even AAA numbers that I'm wondering about is that ground ball rate being higher than ever.

But we had the same questions about Ellie. I think there's a ton to like. He has more natural bat to ball than Ellie. Yeah. So I think there's somewhat similar athleticism, right? Less average, I mean, like less batting average risk. I don't know if there's gonna be anything close to the stolen base numbers that Ellie provides,

even though I know that you got a 60 grade from fan graphs on the speed for James Wood right now, future 50, so slow down maybe as he gets a little bigger, but that's another part of his game, where it's like, okay, it's 11 for 18 as a rookie. He could still improve getting better reads. That could be another area where he gets better. He doesn't have the batting average risk necessarily that Ellie brought to the table.

You won't cost as much as Ellie did in drafts this year. Although he went third round in this one. Yeah, I don't think he'll creep. I don't think James Woods is going to creep up quite as much as the other two. I think both Jackson Merrill and Jackson Churio are going to go earlier in a lot of drafts than they went in the meatball draft. And Churio was like a mid third rounder. So it's not going to be as much of a jump for him.

They're all going to. I think they're all going to migrate into that third round and Churio might even, you know, Churian Merrill might push the second. Yep, I think that's entirely possible. So I'm not necessarily avoiding anybody from this group. I thought Harris went a little earlier than I expected. But Cheerio and Merrill are safer with that strikeout rate. It's just a beautiful strikeout rate to have

because worst case scenario, they don't hit for the same amount of power, but they still don't strike out and still give you a good batting average with, you know, 18 homers next year. And you're like, I'm fine with that. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Good question. Steel City. One more to get to here real quick. It was a question from Nils Nelson, 007.

Do we have stuffed readings from Justin Verlander since his return from the aisle? Do we have any sort of vintage Verlander down the stretch or is this just another another window where he has to try and figure it out with diminished stuff? Yes, we had actually a chart here for stuff plus losers. So this is the other side of it. And I think just if you take a little quick look at the difference in K-BB, what we see is a lot more negative signs.

It's not a lock that if your stuff goes down, your K-BB goes down, but it's the flip of the other chart, which was all positive, mostly positive. So on this chart, you've got Chris Sale, who has actually lost, his release point is drifting downward. He's lost some ride and some drop on his pitches as his release point has dropped even more sidearm. Possibility he's tired, but the on field results are still great.

So I'm not gonna, there's not really something actionable there for me other than if you're sort of a DFS daily guy. You know, just something to think about in some of the harder matchups. Jose Soriano's pushing innings limits that he's never been at. Who else we got on here? Justin Verlander down from 124 early to 109. So still has good stuff at 109, but his K-BB is down. And so I think he belongs on this list. I think that that does speak to what it's like to,

to be an old diet and gold guy trying to come back in terms of playing the schedule game though. He's got a good one versus Oakland, at at Anaheim versus Anaheim versus Seattle. Like, I don't know, man, just to start him. I think even though he's on the bad list, start him. The bad list, it's relative, like kind of like the Musgrove increase. Like the starting point for Musgrove wasn't bad. It's great that he's better right now.

Well, Verlander had really good stuff at the beginning of the year. He still has above average stuff. Now you still have to use a pitcher that grades out that way. that he's better right now. Well, Verlander had really good stuff at the beginning of the year. He still has above average stuff now. You still have to use a pitcher that grades out that way. And it's always possible that as he gets a few more starts under his belt too, he starts to tick back up in the right direction. It's good enough to trust it,

even though it's not as good as it was earlier in the year for Verlander. On our way out the door, a couple names for where the money went and some of the moves that we made. Did you get Dylan Cruz? Yeah, I got Dylan Cruz. I used the hammer.

I had 290 bucks left in Barf where I am. Barf is a funny league. It's the Bay Area Roto Fantasy League that was started by Laura Michaels, the inestimable Laura Michaels. I believe I took his spot when I joined the league, which is a little somber, but cool, because this year I am winning. I probably will win easily, famous last words,

but I'm also in the top 10 for Earth. And Earth is, I have no idea what the acronym means, but it is all of the barf. So barf is the Bay Area one. There's a Midwest area one. I don't even know what the names are. Glarf. There you go. And there's nerf. Yeah. So there's all these different regional ones and, um, you know, mostly writers, but, you know, sometimes just, you know, people from the area that, that, that want to play against, um, you know, riders from the area. And so I'm ninth or eighth or so overall out of, you know, 200 plus teams, I think.

And I thought power could really move this team forward. And I have 295 bucks and I don't really need to have the $20. I don't really need a closer. I don't really need anything where I need more than $20. I could probably get a long fine with $10 a week from here on out. And so I spent $230 on Dylan Cruz or 200, no, $216 on Dylan Cruz and $45 on Kamenzado.

Whoa, yeah, okay. 216 was, I won over a guy that spent 47. I don't know why, because there are other people near the top that had 200. That's why I put the 200 down. You know, there was, I was looking at people's, what they had left and I thought I saw a couple of people that I thought might go to 200. It's not that I think Dylan Cruz is amazing, is going to like hit the ground running and be most amazing anyway, right away. And he doesn't have a great schedule this week.

I think he's at Pittsburgh at Miami. Um, but one thing I did like was he got up and pulled a couple of home runs, hit the ball hard and he's an oppo guy at heart. So, you know, you know, he's going, he already seems to maybe have found the way to play where he's got two different approaches He can switch them around depending on what he thinks the pitchers trying to do to him that Boats well for me and I can try to catch lightning in a bottle Manzardo came up also hit the ball hard in a small sample

And he had the ball 112 miles an hour basically in AAA this year Um, and he had the ball of 112 miles an hour, basically in, in AAA this year, um, was 42% bed and league average, which he needed to be at 24 years old, but he did what he needed to do and this team could slot them in. So, um, I thought it was worth spending the money, even though, you know, if you're talking 10 team leagues or 12 team leagues, I still say, just, just go for it. These are high value, like they're valued highly as prospects. They've done what they need to do basically in the minor leagues. The projections aren't going to be great.

So if you're staring at the projections say, why did I pick this guy up? But don't worry about it. That's because they're rookies. So you're just, you're trying to get lucky, you know, and that's, I thought that was a good use of my remaining money anyway. Yeah, no, I mean, it's at the point now in the year where it's like if you just need something, make sure you get it. Because if you're sitting on 20% of the original fab budget, most of the leagues below that, like just get the guys you need. Spend a little extra season with $200. Yeah, most things I played in have no sort of like, oh, and you get your money back or you get a bonus.

Like, no, there's nothing like that. It'd be fun if there was, but no. Manzardo I think is a great example though of a guy that now has nothing left to prove at AAA because it's been 177 games going all the way back to last season at that level. So I think the Guardians, not only do they need him to be a secondary contributor right now,

I think they're giving him a long look to make sure that he's a part of their plan for 2025 as a regular, not just an extra up and down sort of player. And by all indications, the strike zone judgment is good enough where he can make that work. So sneaky pickup because rosters expanded and he's made a couple of starts since rejoining the Guardians over the weekend his weekly lineups

Where Benz Auto is a little bit of a weaker pickup because you know Cruz is just gonna play Yeah, yeah Cruz. I think has much safer playing time floor at this point. I did make a few changes in TGFBI I am trying to get back into at least a top three spot for a while I had the top spot in the league, but I think basically shuffling deck chairs around on that team right now. Jose Tana for the demoted Nolan Gorman. You're out. I'm in fourth, dude, all the way down fourth or oh, I'm kind of oscillating between second, third and fourth right now. I'm in fourth. It's not good. I got to get back on the podium, dude.

What'd you do? Jose Tena for Nolan Gorman since Gorman got sent down even though rosters expanded. Jordan Walker's back though, so good for that. Jordan Beck for Herrera and Carnacion. Ramon Larianno for Miguel Vargas whose spirit has just been shattered going to the White Sox. He just seems like a unhappy person. Larianno makes me nervous because you nervous because he's in a platoon supposedly with Jared Cowling, but he's playing over Jared Cowling. He's playing a ton, so I just figured,

let's get the extra playing time in a lineup that's going a little better than the White Sox right now, and then Jeff McNeil for Alex Verdugo, since I've pushed so hard now for the Yankees to give up on Alex Verdugo, I have to start backing it up myself, I can't try and somehow benefit from it. I dropped one Yepez for Kyle Manzardo in TGFBI.

Picked up Mitch Spence, who I thought was a decent two starter this week. Juan Yepez is falling back into a versus lefty Splatoon. Yeah, he was a cut for me in one of my leagues too, where it's like everything looked okay. It's just they're trying other stuff with the lineup in DC. So the Yipez run appears to be fading. We are going to go on our way out the door or a reminder, you can get a

subscription to the athletic for $2 a month at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Find Eno on Twitter at uniseris. Find me at Deriff and Riper. Find the pod at rates and barrels. That's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We're back with you on Thursday at one o'clock Eastern on YouTube. Thanks for listening.