Rates & Barrels - The White Sox Are the Worst Team In Baseball, But Which Team is Baseball's Best?

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Eno, DVR and Britt consider several options for the 'Best Team in Baseball' title, with just under two months before the playoffs. Plus, they discuss the White Sox as the current titleholder for 'Worst Team in Baseball' honors amidst the team's 21-game losing streak and wonder how things turned for the worse so quickly on the south side of Chicago where the future looked bright just four years ago. Rundown 4:07 Who Is The Best Team in Baseball Right Now? 12:48 The Injury-Based Case for the Dodgers 21:13 Questions About the Yankees' Bullpen 25:24 What About the Royals?! 33:05 Eno Takes a Trip Down Narrative Street 37:16 The White Sox Are the Worst Team in Baseball 48:40 Eno's Case for the Rockies 55:58 Have the A's Escaped This Conversation? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us Thursday at 1p ET/10a PT for our weekly live episode with Trevor May! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper, Eno Sarris & Britt Ghiroli Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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the postseason? Nah, not necessarily, but it's fun to argue about it. Nonetheless, we're gonna dig into that. We're gonna take a look at the division races, which are all really still up for grabs and discuss which ones we think are the most compelling for these final two months of the season. And we're gonna flip the first question upside down and ask who is the worst team in baseball right now with more of a future forward look. Because, look, a team on a 21 game losing streak sort of is the runaway winner as the worst team in baseball at this moment.

But if we look at some of the teams that are contenders for worst team going for these next three years or so, that opens up a few more interesting possibilities from around the league. So we're not just going to tear the White Sox apart for 20 minutes. I promise we'll probably tear them apart for about five minutes if I had to guess how much time they're going to get on today's show. But before we get started, a reminder, you can join our discord. The link is in the show description. Britt, how's it going for you on this Tuesday?

Oh, it's it's going good, guys. I can't complain. What's kind of nice about this question, I think, with the who's the best team in baseball is that some years all three of us would pick the same team, right? Like lots of years, there would be a consensus number one pick, if you will. But I think you can kind of make the case for at least three, maybe as many as four to five teams. You know depending on on what you're really looking at what you're quantifying as the best so I think that's pretty cool and you know what I was looking at the wildcard braces today and I feel like we're always like oh parody these teams don't deserve to get in have you guys looked at the records of these wildcard teams that are fighting for it there

it seemed like for years and this could still be the case we have a lot of baseball they're like right around 500 and we were rewarding them with a playoff spot these teams are seven eight games above 500 the teams that are are leading the wild card slots teams that are in second often as well so i was at least hopeful that these teams are not only trying but they are you know not a we're not going to have a 500 team make the playoffs this year, maybe. That shouldn't happen, yeah. Quality seems like it's there. It didn't look that clear maybe two months ago, but I think it's starting to crystallize a little bit.

And the activity at the deadline probably helps fortify that too, right? A lot of teams trying to get better in that window over the last couple of weeks. How's your Tuesday going so far, Eno? Good. I go to see the White Sox play. How's your Tuesday going so far, Enel? Good. I go to see the White Sox play the A's today though, so. Ooh, you're gonna be there?

Are you rooting for them to win or lose? Everyone loses. Should I post the episode after the clubhouse time ends? That'd be good for you? The funny thing about it though, is that Tuesdays are projected. Always. I learned once from a front office individual that Tuesdays are the worst attendance day in baseball.

And so I wonder if we're going to hit new lows today. White Sox in town. But will people want to see history, even though it's like kind of sorted? Yeah, maybe. Maybe. You're right. It would be today is the chance for them to break the record. I think because A's fans are understandably grieving right now, I don't think they're going to take delight in the debacle that is the White Sox the way that other fan bases might.

Twitter is not the real world, but there were some A's fans talking about how wow, is taking the White Sox to come into town to feel good about the A's. I guess that's one way to go about it. So let's kick it off with our main question for today. Who is the best team in baseball right now? Like what criteria do you care about in this moment, Britt?

What is part of your overall assessment process when you're grading baseball teams against each other? So I don't go with recency bias because I think it's unfortunate if you do it that way because teams that slid in April but are playing well now all of a sudden look better than teams who played well for three, four months of the season and just had a rough two week patch. Over 162 teams are going to look awful even when they're really good.

That is just the way it happens. And so I look at it as overall who could win the World Series and it wouldn't surprise me at all. And there's a couple teams that wouldn't surprise me at all. But are we saying who we have yet or are we waiting? Go for it. Yeah, you could have the first one. All right. Well, I get a lot of hate on this show for being a Philly hater, but I am going to go with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Coincidentally, I'll be in Philly tonight for the Zach Bryan concert, but that is not either here nor there. When you look at a team like them, I know they're on a little bit of a free fall. They did win Sunday's game in Seattle against Seattle after dropping the first two, and then they go and they lose against the Dodgers. And what really is a big matchup for both of these teams right now, big series-wise?

But to me, there's just too many stars and too many good players for them to not be considered in that upper echelon, for them to not be a World Series team. We've seen Bryce Harper step up in the big moments. You look at that at rotation, you know, Nola, Wheeler, these are experienced guys who have been there, who have done that.

Trey Turner, obviously a big part of that team as well. And then they were one of those teams who got better in the margins. You know, they made some trades with the Orioles, made two trades with the Orioles. They were able to upgrade what they felt like, you know, in terms of adding Austin Hayes, in terms of upgrading that bullpen, which has been a little bit of a problem. They felt like they didn't have enough high leverage guys. I think Dave Dabrowski is always aggressive, and I think he always looks at a team like that as how are we going to get them to the World Series? And to me, the Phillies playing bad baseball in early August isn't going to convince me that

they're not a good team. We've seen all year them win games. They have no business winning. Eventually the luck comes for you on the other side for a little while but they're going to be okay they're going to win the NL East and they're going to make a deep playoff run. I would be surprised if none of that happens. I think they are the best team in baseball maybe not as we sit they're not playing the best baseball here on August 6th but if you look at MLB and you look at the collective, what they've done, you look at their record, I think you can make the case that they are the best, most potent, most complete team in baseball.

Yes, taking the four month snapshot as opposed to the two month snapshot. I mean, they're two below 500 since June 1st. Some people would say, oh, they can't be. No, they can be. They are well built, right? They have the rotation. They've added bullpen depth year over year over year

to the point where that unit that we used to laugh at is actually more of a strength now for them. And top to bottom, they do have one of the stronger lineups in the National League. Maybe it's one that's underperformed a bit because Harper at times, maybe was dealing with that back injury earlier in the year. Turner spent some time on the ILC. I could see the Phillies nudging their way up in terms of overall production.

Their ninth in WRC plus on the season so far. The true talent there is probably a couple of notches better than that. So, yeah, I think they've got a very strong case to be the best team in baseball. Who's your pick right now? You know, I took the Orioles and I took a took a little surfing around. And when you're just to preface this, when you are comparing these great teams, any sort of thing that I bring up that is not the same for other teams is

not a denigration. I think they're all very good teams. I think there's like three or four really top notch excellent teams in baseball this year. But there's only one team that showed up as top 10 in every facet of the game. And so what I did was I looked at versus lefties offense versus righties offense, fielding by UZR. I looked at starting pitching and relief pitching. So I feel like that's all facets of the game. All five facets of the game.

The Orioles are the only team that was top 10 in all five facets of the game. Now, of course, some of these guys are missing by a little bit. Like the Phillies versus Wrighties when they're hitting are like 11th, you know. And would otherwise have, I think they're very are like 11th, you know, and would otherwise have, I think they're very close to making it

on all those levels. Also a surprise team that I maybe wouldn't guess made it on four or five of those things. Can you guess? Not, it's not the Yankees, not the Dodgers. I think it's the Royals. It's the twins. It's the twins. Okay.

The twins have a really good offense under the hood. And I forget what metric they didn't make it on. I think it might've been fielding. Fielding. UZR hates their fielding. And the fudging that I did, if anybody was listening closely, they might have figured out the fudging. Most of the defensive stats do not have Baltimore top 10. I picked the one that did. Oh, that's why you used UZR. As I say, when was the last time someone brought up UZR on this show? Why?

I mean, the Orioles are a good pick, though, because they got better at the trade deadline. I think Zach Efflin really makes that playoff rotation is probably Burns, Grayson Rodriguez, Zach Efflin. They also added Jackson Holliday, who looks now to be the guy that we all thought he was going to be much more confident. I think a couple of multi-hit games in a row, that Grand Slam over the weekend, Kobe Mayo coming up. Some mechanical changes.

I think he was talking about being able to see the ball longer, yeah. Yeah, I mean, Craig Kimbrel is still, I think, a little scary. That's the one part of the Orioles roster that if I'm an Orioles fan, I'm nervous about the late innings, and it's because we've seen Kimbrel,

especially in his older years, start to fade late season and in the postseason. And, you know, and I were joking about this the other day, like they are recreating the Phillies bullpen from a couple of years ago. Like they're slowly getting pieces out of that pen, which I don't know. It's, it's been. That wasn't our favorite Phillies bullpen. No, that was, those were not the favorite pieces of the Phillies bullpen at least.

So every team has some you can pick, but that'd be the part that I'd be most worried about as an Orioles fan. Everything else looks phenomenal. We talked about, they have 12 hitters projected with WRC pluses of a hundred or better. That's an amazing amount of depth to have. So they can weather a couple of injuries in these final two months and still put Eight or nine guys out there in the lineup on any given day. They're at least average if not above average bats Yeah, Gunnar Henderson is one of the stars of the game today

One thing and another thing that is a little annoying is The Dodgers were close on a lot of the metrics I looked at but not the pitching ones The Dodgers were close on a lot of the metrics I looked at but not the pitching ones but you could see the Dodgers kind of sorting through some and like maybe putting like a river Ryan in their bullpen and making their bullpen better you know. I don't see that for the Orioles there's not like a young I don't think Kate povich will be that much better if they put in the bullpen. He's not. That's not what he's lacking. It's not that's not going to be his strength. And I don't know that Trevor Rogers is going to be a great asset out of the bullpen either. So they don't really have the type of pitchers that they can put in the bullpen to solve any bullpen problem.

It is going to be Kimball, Cano, Dominguez, Soto and Perez. I think that's going to be what it all comes down to. And I don't really see anybody coming, you know, and joining that top group. So it's all about whether or not those guys have command in October. You know, that's that's a big one. But when you put those to get all those guys together, it's enough of like kind of B plus relievers, I would say that it has been a top 10 pen so far.

Yeah, it's not a glaring weakness. It's a relative weakness, I think, for a contending team to be maybe not elite, but just OK or very good in that area for relief. Now, I'm going to make a case for the Dodgers. It's an injury-based case. This is usually the consensus pick. Usually this time of year, if we do this exercise,

we're like, well, it's the Dodgers. They're just loaded. And they still are, but they've had major injuries this year. So baseball prospectus has an injury ledger. And there's a setting where you can look at wins above replacement player lost to injury. So I always use that setting, because I want to know how impactful were the injuries.

It's not surprising to anybody that the Dodgers and the Braves are the two teams that have lost nearly eight wins this season due to injury. In Atlanta it's Acuna and Strider that's the bulk of it right? Those guys aren't coming back so Atlanta's lost wins above replacement are something they still have to like make up for with other players in the roster. For the Dodgers a lot of that comes back because Mookie Betts is nearing a return from the IL. That's a huge lift for them. Yoshinobu Yamamoto should be back in September. That will help answer a lot of their pitching questions. You could also factor in the one or two wins they may have lost with Muncie and some

other guys that are out, but it's really just the high-end impact guys that I think are critical for this type of analysis. So I think they can sort out a lot of the questions we're having about the pitching right now. Yamamoto being healthy is a huge lift for them. Glassnow is phenomenal. Tyler Glassnow is everything we thought he could be with health and he's been able to hold up for this season had that brief IL stint with tall man back around the IL around the all-star breakers on the IL nothing really to worry about there. So you have the question is glass now Yamamoto or your one to come playoff time assuming they're both healthy who's the three you've at least got good candidates to pick from

you know mentioned River Ryan maybe going to the bullpen maybe he's their three they traded for Jack Flaherty. If he's still pitching well, maybe he's their three. If they get something out of Bueller, maybe he's their three. Maybe it's Gavin Stone. The other side of it is that I like their bullpen quite a bit, even though they don't necessarily have a capital C closer on this year's Dodger squad between Hudson, Phillips, Kopec, Vesya.

Honeywell's been a great pickup for them. Gratterall's finally healthy. Trying to just win on the IL, Honeywell's been a great pickup for them. Grattorall's finally healthy. Trying to just win on the IL, but he's pitched really well. They run seven or eight deep in the bullpen. They have more good relievers than they're going to have roster spots for them in a playoff series. So that's a really good situation for them to be in

that I think gives them a bit of an edge. And then still, this lineup, even with the injuries, is a top three lineup. So you have an elite lineup, get a couple questions maybe with that three or four starter because of some injuries, should be ironed up by playoff time. And they've weathered it just fine because they've got very good depth, right? They're six over 500 since June 1st. I don't think they're going to run away with the NL West.

That's the part that's different. I think the Padres can put some pressure on them. I think the Diamondbacks are still showing us that they're legit after what they did last season. So we'll get into some of the division race stuff here in just a few minutes, but the other team that has a pretty obvious case when you start to look at some of the numbers are the Yankees. They're the only team in the league

that outscore their opponents by a full run on a game by game basis. Like a full run and run differential on a per game basis is hard to find. Yeah. I think it's funny that you bring up, you know, the fact that it might not matter in the postseason and that Britt brought up sort of recency bias. You know, the Dodgers are

11 and 12 in the last month. Yeah, with a bullpen with an ERA over like six. So clearly we're not going by recency bias with that. Yeah. And like the even the starters, I think, had a had a poor ERA in that stretch. So, you know, it is funny when you when you're close to the team. And I was just talking to Fabian Ardaya about this, who's who covers the Dodgers for us. You know, when you're close to the team, I think you you see all the flaws, you know, you when you're close to the team, I think you, you see all the flaws, you know, you see, you know, Pahez, you know, playing poor defense in the outfield and in center field.

And, um, you see that the lineup, uh, has a lot of holes in it when it's playing Pahez, Hayward, Enrique Hernandez, you know, and Taylor, or you know, any lineup that contains three of those four. Yeah. Bezio. Yeah, Bezio. When it had those three or four people at the bottom of the lineup, the bottom of the lineup looked bad.

It just looked bad. And then when you see Bueller's rehab stints and you have to report on those, um, you know, and then you see Phillips, M. Phillips may not have been the same pitcher since he came back from injury. So, um, you can kind of see all those and be like, I don't think, I don't know about this team. Um, but I wonder if sometimes you just have to get it, get this stuff out of your system. The Astros got it out of their system early. The Yankees, you know,

that's why I wanted to bring up when you said the Yankees, didn't the Yankees look like one of the worst teams in baseball at some point? What's it like six weeks? It was not like a blip, which is why again, you can't go like if they had a bad, the Mets had a terrible start to the season, right? And everyone's almost kind of forgotten about that. So you, it's really tough to look at the macro view of things and say, the Yankees are still really good. The Phillies are still really good. The Dodgers are still really good. The Orioles really had a pretty decent dip too, because when

the Yankees had their dip, the Orioles really squandered a chance. This is right around the All-Star break to pull away. So every team, no one is immune to this. Right. Unless you go and win 120 games, then you have one of those seasons for the ages. Right. But you're just trying to keep those valleys small. You're gonna have peaks and valleys.

You're just trying to minimize the damage that you can do with some of those bad weeks, which is why teams talk about getting out and padding the lead, because then you can afford to do what the Yankees did and have a bunch of, you know, you can afford to do what the Dodgers did. How many teams can withstand that, you know? So that is why you have depth,

and that is why you try to build these wins and stack as many of them as you can, right? That's why your teams all the time that are like, we're going for the sweep, like two out of three isn't good enough. You need those extra wins for when the team is struggling and can't win a game right now. And all of the teams we mentioned have looked like that at certain periods of time.

They've lost series to inferior opponents. And so it makes it really tough to say, well, this team is the best in baseball. Because every team at some point in time has looked pretty terrible. You just have to kind of block out that noise and look at the overall picture here. is the best in baseball because every team at some point in time has looked pretty terrible. You just have to kind of block out that noise and look at the overall picture here. Yeah, I mean there are some good stories in LA. Gavin Lux has been swinging the bat harder.

You know, you can see this in the bat speed metrics. He looks like he might be at least a league average second baseman, which gives them the opportunity maybe to move bets to center or Edmund to center and bets it short. You know, then you can start to put together a lineup where you're like, oh, I have one hole in this lineup. You know, Muncie comes back, maybe I have zero holes in this lineup. And you know, that's a pretty exciting way to look at it. So we're stuck a little bit kind of faith casting, like kind of looking at the, at the, at the rosters and being like, you know,

let me put the right people in the right place and be healthy. You know what I mean? Like even with me looking at the Orioles, uh, and calling them the best, uh, team, I'm not doing as much as you might have to do mental gymnastics wise with the Dodgers. That's sort of why I picked the Orioles. But I am making some mental gymnastics that are not really obvious. And that is I'm assuming that the that Burns and Rodriguez are healthy.

Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the hard thing about making a projection any point in the year is like, you're assuming the most important players are largely going to be healthy and doing what they're projected to do. But I think that's also another sort of Achilles heel for the Orioles. If one of those guys goes down,

they don't look as good at all. That's why they needed Eflin. And I think people didn't realize how big that was because it slots everybody else back in that rotation. But if it is Eflin and one of the big two, you know, then they're they're probably seeding games even in a short series to people. Agreed. And this was the problem last year.

They didn't have enough starting pitching. Yeah. If you're shopping while working, eating, or even listening to this podcast, then you know and love the thrill of the hunt. But are you getting the thrill of the best deals? Rakuten shoppers do. They get the brands they love with the most savings and cash back.

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and Rakuten shares the money with US cash back. Download the free Rakuten app and never miss a deal or go to rakuten.ca to start getting the most bang for your buck. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. There's a couple things I've noticed with the Yankees that I think we should point out. The addition of Jazz Chisholm, of course,

is going really well so far. I like what they did there. I think getting one more really nice supporting player behind the likes of Judge and Soto, takes away some of the, they're too dependent on two guys. They weren't as dependent on those two guys people made them out to be. This definitely helps.

The other thing I've noticed, Austin Wells is having a great season behind the plate. Defensive metrics are good. He's actually contributing pretty well for a bottom half of the order hitter with limited experience. They've got Stanton healthy again. We've kind of talked about the importance of him.

Right after I dropped him. God've got Stanton healthy again. We've kind of talked about the importance of him. Right after I dropped him. God, I'm sorry. Yeah. I also think I would take Clay Holmes over Craig Kimbrough in the ninth inning right now. Oh, they wouldn't in New York maybe, but. I think you might, you know, again.

Yeah. Holmes is a little bit wobbly. I could see that. I think the Mark Leiter Jr. edition was a pretty sharp move to add him. Luke Weaver has been great. It's partially because his stuff is the kind of stuff that kind of suppresses balls and play, and you can see that in a really beautiful home run right for his career. He suppresses home runs really, really well.

And, and that's a part of the story. You want to have a closer in New York that suppresses home runs with that ballpark, but he doesn't add with it a premium strikeout rate. And so I've seen a lot of the games where homes is falling apart and you know, it's not that I can say this was an error and this was an error and so these things should all be like I watched it. I watched him blow a game. I think they won it, but it went to extras with my son and my son was like, there's no

way that those runs were earned. And then we looked, I looked at the boss cars like, no, they were earned. It just was like a bad play, you know know with another bad play and balls and play so he allows these balls and play and defense is not. At all of their positions not necessarily the best foot forward so you could hit a ball out to for do go and you might get on base like even jazz has been okay at third I'm saying he's been bad, but I don't think he's top half necessarily. And so, you know, there are places you can hit that ball. Glaber's normally a good defensive second baseman. This year he's kind of lost on the field. So there are places that if he allows a ball and play,

you know, there can be a sort of comedy of errors that it comes after that. So maybe they'd be better off with like a Ryan Helsley that just like doesn't allow balls and play and strikes out 38% of the people that he sees. But I think Holmes is an acceptable closer and in some ways fits what they've got. Yeah, I think he's less scary.

He's not gonna walk everybody. He's not gonna give a big homework. But you know, it's not, it's not infallible. Yes, by any means, but we are missing another team with 67 wins, so we're just going to never mention Cleveland, which is going to probably win the Central. I'm waiting for Eno to rescind his, you still think the twins overtake them? Because I just looked through all the stuff and the twins were the closest non-contender,

twins were the closest to being top 10 in every facet of the game other than the Orioles. I don't know. Every time I look at stats, I fall in love with the twins. Yeah, I don't know. There's some weird stuff. The numbers trick us sometimes. I was just looking at the bullpens. The Yankees have the 19th ranked bullpen by K minus BB percentage, but they're fourth in ERA. So there's something going on there, right? The quality of the contact they yield probably makes a pretty big difference. The defense behind those relievers makes a big difference. Like there's something going on there.

They're not as bad as 19th. They're probably not as good as fourth either. The answer is probably somewhere in the middle. The central, the AL central continues to baffle us. We did a whole episode about it in May. Both of you were on the Royals train then. And I feel like Edo is kind of drifting to where I was with the twins, Brits kind of saying,

hey, we were all wrong about the guardians again. Let's just right our wrongs and take the guardians. I prepared a little case for the Royals. I think the Royals are, they're more interesting than people are giving them credit for. They've been pretty much the healthiest team in the league by the wins above replacement loss metric I mentioned earlier. So that helps when you get through a regular season with very few impactful injuries,

because you can kind of play up to your ability and not have to rely as much on depth. I think depth is something we'd be worried about in Kansas City because for a few years, they didn't have that system in place to backfill for injuries. They have three of their starting pitchers in the top 30 in F4. We get excited about teams that do that all the time, Seattle being among them. Comfortably the third best starting rotation by war and within, you know, decimal points of Seattle and Philly. Right.

I don't think it's all smoke and mirrors. They have a legitimate ace in Cole Regans that you could put out there against anybody in elimination game and still feel good about your chances. They added a couple of high leverage relievers, the Deadline, which was the place on their staff that was hurting the most. It's 24th ranked by war for the season with a 429 ERA. It wasn't a good bullpen before, but now it's got two much better pieces. Yeah. At Hunter Harvey and Lucas Ersegg. So maybe that holds up against other playoff bullpens.

It might not be the best among playoff teams if they get there, but it's probably good enough. And then they obviously have a legitimate MVP candidate in the core of their position player group with Bobby Witt Jr. So you have that. You got a little bit of the old guard with Sal Perez still there. So it's not a team of guys that haven't been there before. You got a little bit of the veteran leadership. You got starting pitching, got an improving bullpen. You got some quality important places

in the position player group. They don't strike out a lot either. They're a pain. Actually, the Royals and Guardians in terms of the construction of their lineups is very similar. Limited power, but enough to be dangerous. They got some speed and they've got one superstar that can just go completely bonkers and just like carry the lineup at times. Yeah, I think I. I like it.

I like it. I'm in on the Royals. I like, listen, I would be, I think it'd be great for baseball if a team that tried this winter, a small market team who spent a sizable amount of money was rewarded for that by getting one of the wild card spots. You don't have to convince me.

I'm into that. Yeah, exactly. Made some interesting moves at the deadline. I think they sit right now. They're in that wild card hunt right now. Yep, they're right there. Yeah, they're right there with Minnesota. Oh, this is the beautiful thing though. So this lined up exactly the way I wanted it to.

The AL Central Division race, I think, is the most intriguing one to me. And the thing that makes a division race interesting that isn't just like how close it is when you're looking for the final two months is how often the teams involved have to play each other down the stretch, right? So between the Royals, Twins and Guardians,

those teams still have multiple series against each other. There are six games left between the Royals and Twins. There are eight games left between the Twins and Guardians. Twins are 0-5 against the Guardians so far this year. Seven games left between the Royals and Guardians. So compared to all the other division races I looked at, that was as much as the contending teams will see each other as any other division race you're going to find.

That is what I want. I love this AL Central race right now. Oh, that's great. That's a good, good thing to know DVR. Because right now that they've changed the schedules, we're like, we used to be like, oh, these teams are going to play 15 more times and they'll sort it out that last week of the season.

It's not necessarily the case anymore. So it's kind of cool that the central still has all of that. I think the Yankees and Orioles meet in September, but I don't think they do again outside of that. So you do kind of lose that factor of like this week is our season. The way they have balanced out the schedule for better or worse. We should spend some time on Cleveland. I you're right. Like what has been excellent for them and is still excellent for them is making

contact and having one of the, if not the best bullpens in baseball. I mean, it's like one of the top three, at least any time, any way you slice it. So that's a really good metric and a really good plan for them. But I would say that, um, the sort of offensive regression that we wondered if it was coming or if the park was different or what was going on, you know, I got yelled at pretty hardcore for saying that, you know, there might be a couple of guardians that were a little lucky when it come to power because they still hit the ball softly and don't barrel the ball. Well, in the last month,

Cleveland has the 28th offense in baseball. They have hit 230 with a 288 on base percentage and a 365 slugging percentage. They are still third best in strikeout rate, but they have the worst isolated power, the second worst isolated power, oh the third worst, sorry I saw the White Sox are down there. And I know.

Can we even count them at this point in time? We actually sort by ISO so I can see where they are. They are tied with Houston for third. And that is an interesting little tidbit about Houston. But I think Houston has suffered a little bit with injury. Kyle Tucker is a dimension that that lineup needs pretty sorely. And I had some colors out for the year. Houston has somehow hung on in what I think may be the worst division race.

I know it's really close, but like it seems like nobody wants it to take it. No one is playing well enough to take it. I have some hope for Seattle that they went and like actually got some bats and you know, looked like they can hit the ball a little bit. I like the Rosarina trade. But that is just a weird division where like Texas should. I said this to you guys yesterday on the call. Like I think we stick a fork in them.

They're done, but they're hanging around because there's nobody in this division has run away with the division, which is just crazy. I don't think it's that intriguing. I think it's more a case of like, can somebody get on a run here? You know, Texas has so many guys that are injured on the pitching side. They you know, obviously Scherzer is done. Evan Carter now unable to follow up on what was such a cool campaign last year, watching him really break out on the huge stage in the playoffs.

Um, that's a team that I think a lot of people expected to maybe not repeat in the world series, but they were built to be a, you know, a team that was going to go to the playoffs multiple years in a row. Yeah. Between them and the Diamondbacks, I thought the Rangers are a little bit better positioned to, to repeat. Yes. It just shows how the, the variable of injuries, right?

The luck and injuries that just, no matter what people can't model and account for, you don't know who's going to be hurt for how long and what it's going to do to your team. These are still the things we have yet to figure out, and it's what makes baseball, it's such an unpredictable nature of baseball. And the Rangers have been hit pretty hard.

Many teams have been hit hard, we talked about the Dodgers, but you look at the Rangers and they're also an old team in certain aspects and they just, I think they're going to look back and wish that they had sold a little bit on this deadline because it was such a seller friendly deadline. They could have tweaked a little bit, not saying they're going to burn it to the ground when they have guys like Seager and Simeon on the payroll, but I wonder had they, you know, traded Evaldi

and maybe just done a few little tweaks, if it would have set them up better long-term, I don't know. That was a team that multiple executives complained about to me, that they weren't sure if they were gonna buy or sell until like the day before. So they changed the whole landscape of, you know, the deadline because they were like, no, we're

going to actually not sell and kind of go for it because we're in it. And again, it's the function of the AOS, I think. One of the things that I think makes an intriguing division race, and this might be funny for me, stats guy, Mr. Stats Guy, is narrative. It's kind of Kermit the frog. Narrative.

So the most compelling narratives to me is Padres Daughters. It's that whole. I'm with you on that one. I try to keep my vibes reporting to a minimum, but every once in a while I turn into a vibes reporter. And one of the things that. You know that I believe that I cannot prove to be true that I might be wrong about and I have a list of those somewhere. Is that it is hard as an organization to get the monkey off your back that there is this sort of you know, the LOL Mets thing.

You know, it's like this, you know, you know, when certain teams have a little slump, you know, I don't think it's like when the daughters have a slump, we just picked them. One of us just picked them as the best team in baseball in the middle of a slump. Right. And it wasn't just like, Oh, here we go again. It's kind of like, no, they'll get out of this or whatever. You know, like that you, you flip that script, but when you're the Mariners and you go through a month of scoring fewer runs than anybody else in baseball, then you were definitely like, here we go again. So that's why, even though the Astros versus the Mariners lacks in, uh, maybe in some sort of metrical way,rical way and they may not, neither one of them

may be one of the best teams in baseball. The Astros and Mariners and Padres and Dodgers represent to me in the Padres and Mariners two teams and it's funny that they share spring training facilities. The Padres and Mariners both need to get a monkey off their back. You know, they both need to win the division. I think that winning the division would be like. They do, but didn't the Padres do that? Didn't the Padres get the monkey off their back

when they beat the Dodgers in the playoffs a few years ago? I would throw that out there as definitely possible because I thought the same thing. But they didn't win the division that year. No, they haven't won the division since 2006. The Padres have gone that long without winning the division title. Yeah. Which is a long gone that long about winning the division title. Yeah. Which is a long time. Something about winning the division, I know it doesn't mean that much, but it does put you in a better situation in the postseason and you know,

it is like something like, no, we played all year and we were better. Yeah. I'm with you on the vibes thing though as someone who was a beat writer for 12 years, I think it is hard to quantify that stuff. But listen, if you were to go in the White Sox clubhouse today, and you knew nothing about what they were doing, like you were to take somebody from Mars and put them in there. Yeah, you would be like, this team's terrible. The vibes are are honestly like clubhouse vibes are a real thing. And fans who have never been in there or people who haven't been on the beat might think you're insane. But there is something to adding a bit player and all of a sudden this team is, you know, huge like Harada Parra, the 2019 Nationals 1-1 the World Series without that guy. How? Why? Right? The vibes. Sometimes you need those guys. I mean, Jazz Chisholm gave the Yankees some great vibes.

Yeah. He played well. Energy. But he upped the vibe. The vibe factor matters. So I agree. I like the vibes coming out of San Diego. They also have, arguably, we talked about the Dodgers. Let's talk about the guys they could get back.

Musgrove, you, Darvish, Fernando Tatis. That's a hell of an addition, even if they only ever get two of the three back. And if we're talking about bullpens, I mean, it's hard because we don't have that many metrics. We have five days, you know, since the trade deadline or whatever. But that does look like a contender for best bullpen in baseball. Absolutely up there.

And you mentioned the Guardians earlier for that that title, their number one in K minus BB as a group of relievers, the number one in the ERA, their number one in the whip. And it's by like a pretty good margin in the ratios too. That is the runaway best bullpen in the league up to this point at least. But the Padres, I think, stack up pretty well given all the additions. Let's flip it on the side for a minute. You mentioned the White Sox and I saw the picture of Miguel Vargas after the game on Monday. Just looking so sad. Speaking of having existential thoughts because he was with the Dodgers and not playing a

lot and now he leads off and plays every day for one of the worst teams we've seen in modern baseball history. So a 21 game losing streak, I mean that's rarefied air in and of itself and I think the bigger question I have for each of you is how did they get this bad this quickly? Do you remember 2020, 2021 like there was there was a Jeff Passant tweet and I'm not saying this to burn Jeff but he listed off the core they had at the time. Luis Robert, Eloy, they just got Andrew Vaughn,

Tim Anderson was playing really well at that time. They had a lot of talent. It was all listed off, and he had the years of control on there, and it looked like they had a bright five-year future in front of them. And we're not even through that five-year window yet, and they've hit this new sort

of organizational low that I didn't see it happening this fast. I was worried about their rebuild because I think they were starting from behind already. They had not shown previously that they were a great team at drafting, finding, and developing talent. A lot of their success over the years came with bigger international free agency plays. That's where they hit on Jose Abreu several years ago. That's where they hit on Luis Robert. But I had a lot of questions about, okay, where does this go from here? They promoted Chris Getz.

We roasted them at the time. My only silver lining was it's a different job than farm director, so maybe he'll be better at that. And I don't know. It looks really bad. silver lining was it's a different job than farm director so maybe he'll be better at that and I don't know it looks really bad like one year into this Chris Getz era it looks like they have sped to the bottom and they might stay there for a while like how long is it going to take to fix this so two-parter how did they get this bad this quickly and how long is it going to take for the White Sox to be at least competitive again in the AL Central? Well, to me there really is no hope until there's an ownership change there.

They're one of the few teams that I truly believe that. I think you talk to people there and the culture is bad, the drafting and developing is bad, the analytics group is very small and doesn't carry a lot of weight. You know they got fleeced, you know, universally people thought at the trade deadline, didn't get enough for Eric Fetty. Garrett Crochet, that was a nightmare of a situation, didn't end up trading him. And you know outside of Dylan Cease and Luis Robert, I mean, who was a big league player to start the season there? They didn't really have a good team. I mean, people in spring training were saying they're going to be 100 plus lost team. So that comes as

no surprise. The hiring of Getz, as you said, we roasted them. Getz goes and brings in some people from Kansas City, which is where he played. But was there any, did we see any innovation? Did they bring in anything that they said, this is going to be different this time? It felt like they just reshuffled the deck and expected different results

when the organization has been antiquated and behind in every facet of building a big league team for the last 10-15 years. So I don't think there's a lot of hope. I think, I don't think this is an overnight thing where they got bad. They've been bad. This has been building. Even if that core looked good under the hood, it has been bad there for a very long time.

And again, I just don't see it getting better because we know Pedro Grafol is going to get fired any day now But we also know that Chris gets is going nowhere because Jerry Reinsdorf is nothing if not loyal to his people So what is going to change there until the guy who owns the team changes? I think the answer is nothing unfortunately It's really tough I mean because I want to I want to have a little bit of grace for teams that are trying to turn around and be like, it's not going to happen in one year. So they were only going to get worse as they sold off the last remaining pieces

they had, you know, so this on some level was inevitable, but I'm trying to square, you know, issues I had I've heard about from two or three years ago with issues I've heard about this year. And they sound the same. You know, like there's no, there's no change. There's like, oh, you know, like, um, I've heard from multiple people over multiple years that were hired to, to work there from an analytics standpoint to be like sort of progressive data people, um people who have,

you know, basically been laughed at. You know, when you say they carry no weight, like it's been that sort of thing where they've been trying to be like, hey, let's do this. And then they have a large contingent of sort of old school coaches and old school, you know, people that are like, you know, what are you doing with this fancy stuff? Like, get out of here. Like, you're not useful you know basically just you know almost hazing. You know you have the sort of anti data anti tech kinda hazing that's in place and then i've even heard from people this year that their game prep numbers are not on par. And that's after they've spent a couple of years trying to get them on par. Um, like I heard a couple of years ago that their minor leaguers don't even

do game prep because they're minor league games. They don't matter. Well, you have to practice what you do so that when you get to the, you know, what other organizations doing, they're trying to make their minor leagues look like their major leagues in every other way. It seems like a good idea. No, they're like most of the trend in AAA right now is that you have a staff that looks almost like a major league staff in terms of number of

coaches, in terms of you get a trajectory machine, you try to do all the things so that like everything looks like the major leagues so that when they get to the major leagues, they're like, oh yeah, this. You're ready. You're not surprised. You're not using new tech. You're not hearing new voices or new concepts for the first time while trying to hit better pitching or try to get better hitters out.

How this is an elusive concept to any major league organization just baffles me. But then we hear from Tommy Pham this year that their numbers aren't any good, and he's been a lot of places. Yeah, I've heard from numerous people like that have played there recently that like the way they prepare at the big league level is is shameful. And that Pedro Grafol was supposed to be like, you know, kind of tech friendly and data friendly and like. And I think he is and I wonder how much of it is tied to that antiquated belief. Like you said, if these guys have no say, how much then can a Pedro Grafall, who is low on the pecking chart, you know, he's not the GM. He's not the owner. He's not a VP.

Yeah, OK. But you think on game day he should be high on the chart. I don't know. How much of it does he how much of a say does he get? Right. That's what we'll never know, because I had also heard that Grafall was very into analytics and data and things like that. But I don't think one person alone, especially in the in the dugout, can change an organization. Do you? You know, we see that reminds me a little bit of the angels, you know, under who is the general manager and the Mike Sosha.

And they like they were like kind of publicly anti-stats. And I forget who the general manager was, but, um, no, he was a G I don't know. But, uh, uh, what's his face? Um, maybe it was Epler. Maybe it was before Epler, but they, the now GM of the Mariners, DePoto Hollander, Justin Hollander is a GM, but DePoto of the Mariners. Depoto. Depoto. Depoto left. Hollander, Justin Hollander's a GM, but Depoto was Anaheim at one point.

Depoto left. Like he was just like in the middle of the season or something. Like it was like, it was early in the season. Like he just was like, nah. So, you know, like that's the kind of situation I think is probably at play. We're like, some people have been brought in

and they're like, or when the Rockies, they keep hiring a director of research and development and that director has now left in like April three years in a row. Right. You can say we're going all in on analytics. We hired five analytics people. But as somebody was explaining to me the other day from an analytically minded organization, you have to be willing to make uncomfortable decisions, decisions that don't make baseball sense. And you have to, you have to, you also have to fire somebody you've known for 15 years. Yes, you have to make a lot of really tough personnel decisions, but you also have to sit in a room and say, this we know from a baseball perspective may not make sense, but

we have to follow the numbers. We have to see where this goes. We have to commit to it this way before we say, hey, let's not do it, right? So I think that's what you're getting with the White Sox is it's so ingrained. It almost doesn't matter who's GM. And let's say they fired Chris Getz today,

which we all agree isn't happening. What GM wants that job, right? This would be the problem. Like I'd bet on Brian Bannister leaving before I bet on Brian Bannister like changing the entire culture. Right, like it has to come with the, okay, I can come in and slash, I can come in and change this organization. And I don't think that you're going to see that level of autonomy as long as Jerry Reinstar follows the team. That's the ownership thing. I can see that. I think the Orioles hired and turned over 60 some odd employees in the front office

baseball lot. And a lot of people left and a lot of people were angry and it was really uncomfortable. Yeah, we're going to write about the Orioles. And just a little bit of a sneak peek is one of the things I heard was their coaches are all young. And that was, that was just an interesting thing to hear. Cause that means, Oh, you, you've turned it over. Like you're, you're trying to build a new sort of, you know,

process from the ground up and you're willing for a lot of people who lost jobs. So I've been lifers or, uh, the few people that were still there that were left. It was just an uncomfortable thing. But that is the only way you make change. I don't see that happening with Chicago, which is why I'm just not super optimistic that Chris Getz, or anybody for that matter, is going to get the job done because it is just

run in such a backwards way. And they are just so slow to adapt and innovate and think differently. I don't know how Jerry Reinstorf doesn't look at Tampa Bay and Baltimore and these smaller parts of Cleveland and say, wait a second. He has said, didn't he say something like we want to be Tampa?

You have to know nothing. You can know nothing and still say, wait a second. What's going on in Cleveland, Tampa Bay, Baltimore? Let's just pluck these guys, put them in our front office and see what happens. This is higher than people, yeah. I don't understand, you don't have to really know much about anything. Why not try and get Michael Isen to say.

Why not James Click? Exactly, you don't have to be a super savvy baseball person to say, why are these teams doing well on small payrolls in small markets? Instead of trying to copy them, let's just poach them. Yeah. The banner says who's the worst team in baseball right now. So I do have to, and I, and I know they're like a favorite whipping boy, but I do have to make the case for the Rockies

here for a second, because we have already, we've already here, brought up the Rockies as an example of what's happening in Chicago. But at least Chicago has a normal ballpark. Now, it is funny. The one thing that would help the Rockies is that people go to that ballpark because it's nice. Yeah, it seems like a great place to watch a game. I want to go to a game there. It's a cool ballpark.

But that ballpark also makes it hard to win because you just, it's an obstacle to winning. It's a thing youpark. But that ballpark also makes it hard to win because it's an obstacle to winning. It's a thing you have to figure out. If they, you know, and I've talked to people who said, that's my jewel of a job because it's the hardest job in baseball. I've talked to AGMs who are like, that is the job I want. I want the Rockies job. But they don't want the Rockies job where ownership and whoever's been there long that's

going to still be there, some sort of leadership tells them, oh yeah, you'll come in, you'll have autonomy. Just like they've told the directors of R&D, yes, we'll listen to you. We're trying to change things here. We want you here. You're going to have power. We're going to give you, We're trying to change things here. We want you here. You're going to be, you're going to have power. You're going to, we're going to give you, you're going to have hiring power. You're going to be able to do this and this and this.

And then people leave like three months later. That is such a red flag. It is the biggest red flag. At least Brian Bannister stayed through the season. You know what I mean? Even if he leaves now, I feel like, you know, he made it through the season. Um, and at least there is new leadership there. At least it's a normal park. Um, and at least they did something at the deadline.

I mean, somebody poke a stick in the Rockies. What did they do with the deadline? What, why didn't they, there's the White Sox though, not to pile on are in a winnable division and have the capability to have a bigger payroll. There's no reason they shouldn't be winning in the central. Right, the White Sox, their ambition should be as lofty as the Mets.

Maybe you don't have a Steve Cohen owner that eventually has the team with pockets quite that deep, but you should be a big payroll team. You're in a big market. You should be trying to bully the Cubs take over market from the Cubs Padres do build to 120 140 150 like keep just keep building a little bit get to 150 and 160 when you have a really good Team get back down to a hundred when you're not you know whatever the bar is so low right now for the White Sox But they should be a like a flagship franchise.

The Rockies are a problem for all sorts of reasons we've talked about for a very long time. I agree with Eno, if you're a baseball person who likes a challenge, if you believe that you had the authority to build the organization the way you wanted to utilize data and tech the way that's essential to win at altitude. I'd be like, can I fire? Can I fire most of your coaches immediately? Yeah, you could, if you had success there, that'd be one of my questions. But if you had success in Colorado and you didn't want to stay long-term, you'd probably have your pick of the best jobs that become available later because of the lack of success people have had there historically.

I mean, the franchise has been there since 93. They've never won a division title. Yeah. They have zero division titles in their existence. They were within one game in 2018, but they've been 17 games back or further every year in the last six seasons. They are nowhere close. Do you have a lifetime record for them? What do you think their franchise winning percentage is? Is it in the fours?

Give me the winning percentage. Is it like 400? Britt says 400, you know? Well, I think they had some winning years. I'm going to go like 440. 463. OK. Five playoff appearances. But what happens is when you look at when you look at organizational records, they tend towards 500.

Like it's pretty. The thing with the. That's probably one of the worst, right? Yeah. The thing with the Rockies, though one of the worst, right? Yeah. The thing with the Rockies though, is that they have to beat the Dodgers and the Padres in the central. To me, it's just so much more of a winnable division.

If you just got a little, the white just got a little bit better. They just got like a little bit of a clue. You could turn that thing around quick because you don't have to compete with the likes of the Dodgers, the Padres, the Diamondbacks, right? Divisionally, the central should be, you should look at it as my God, we could win 10 championships in a row in this division. But I guess we're talking about team and organizations. We're kind of interspersing them.

So team wise, just like players on the field. White Sox are worse. Oh, they're way worse. Way worse. way worse. It's hard to see how much better it's going to get in the near future. I like Hagen Smith, their first rounder out of Arkansas. I think he's going to be an impact guy. I think Noah Schultz might be the best pitching prospect in the minor who hasn't debuted yet.

He gets Randy Johnson comps and they look legit. He actually has command as a much younger player than Randy Johnson did. So you have a couple of pictures to be excited about. Colson Montgomery could be fun. And Montgomery has had to step back this year at AAA and that's something that's troubling is like, that's your key position player. That's your guy that should be like breaking down the door in the final month of the season, kind of helping re-energize your fan base for

next year and instead, I don't know if they're actually going to do that because he's been down so much AAA. The Garrett Crochet thing, I don't want to bury them for not trading Garrett Crochet because I think that turned into an unusual situation because of workload, because of wanting an extension. The possibility exists that Crochet stays healthy for what's left of the season, even with a somewhat limited workload, and then gets traded in the winter because the extra 40 innings he picked up after the trade deadline,

give him a full season workload that gives teams more confidence in him. And then you can work out whatever extension role stuff you want then, right? So yeah, if Garrett Crochet breaks in the next two months and is on the IL for a year, then you're kind of left holding the bag. But that may have been a situation

where what they were hoping for just wasn't coming in because of how unique that situation is. Yeah, though, based on the trades that Chris Getz has made, I'm not so certain that they get enough for a guy like that. So I guess that remains to be seen. I also don't know why you wouldn't have traded Robert in spring training. If you had Dylan cease to like, why trade your like, he's probably the only big, big leaguer left in that lineup.

Why you're going to burn it, burn it down to the ground, right? Burn it down to the studs. I don't know. I talked to multiple people that were confounded by that. Um, and I don't really have an answer, right? Why not trade him? Yeah, the timing is bad because Robert nearly went 40-20 last year. So it was the healthiest season as a big leaguer.

So this spring was the time when you traded Cees that trade him. Yeah, or even before that winter meetings, like it could have happened and it didn't. I don't know if they had some designs on hanging around or if they thought Luis Robert helps them sell tickets or if they thought they could rebuild it fast enough because of the team options they have on him where they'd still have him 2026-2027, they'd be good again. Maybe that was part of their plan. I really hope they didn't think that they were going to be good again that quickly. Is it really these two teams though that have the strongest cases? I mean the A's, they're kind of a mess still.

They're slowly getting better. Like how much better are the A's than the Rockies and White Sox if we're kind of looking at the next three years with on-field talent they have in the organization right now? Well the A's have a history of developing players at least. They can't keep them, but they have a history of developing players. Yeah, even though they I don't they're player development is not really well regarded. I think that what they do is just they know what it means to just get a lot of lottery, just get a lot of lottery tickets.

I don't mean lottery tickets like 17 year old A-ball guys. They're mostly like, hey, we're just going to get a bunch of 23 year old you know guys in triple A and some of them gonna work out. And what I think we're starting to see some of that happen like Lawrence Butler. Looks like a legit player now J.J. Bladay at least is an average regular type guy Brent Rooker looks pretty good so I know that they're not all young and they don't play player development exactly the same way as everybody else but maybe it's an ethos maybe it's an idea maybe the way that they do things is just hey we're gonna get guys who are going to develop the major level that's what Brent force the day for said the other day and he said you know we develop in the major league level so we want to get guys were you ready to play in the major leagues and then get better there. major leagues and then get better there. And so maybe there's a case to be made for that, that just being the way they do things. And I see it coming together in some similar fashions the way it's come before where you're like, you know, here's one of the things that bad teams need to do.

And I was just looking through the Red Sox a little bit because remember the Red Sox were had a little down period. And one of the conversations was, what are they doing with this time? Are they, they, should they be selling? should they be signing Deversary? Should they have traded Mookie bets? You know, these are the kinds of questions that you kind of go through when you're looking at it. But what the Red Sox did do under the hood while they were bad was a few little things

that, you know, that make sense now so you know conor wong not not not jt room you know i'm not one of the top two or three countries in big leagues but he's there starting capture. If you look at will your bray you he came so conor wong was in the movie that's trade if you look at will your bray you they got him in a trade at a deadline trade, I think, with Houston with for Christian Vasquez, you know. If you look at Nick Povetta, they got him in a trade where they gave just relievers to Phillies that the Phillies were trying to revamp their bullpen, you know, so they got they got their number one or number two that year. So they gathered some pieces for what is now a better Red Sox team when they were bad. And I think that the A's at least do that. You know what I mean? They trade away pieces, they gather pieces,

they get guys in, and they acquire. The White Sox have had all year to waver claim to their hearts content. And when the Fer the, you know, when the, you know, when the, the, the, the Ferris wheel stopped spinning, they got Nick Senzell at, at, at third, Nikki Lopez at short. Did they pick anybody? Oh, they got Dominic Fletcher in a trade.

And even he's a little old. He's, he's more like an A's type player. Yeah. He's mid 20s instead of younger. Miguel Vargas, um, already listed by fan graphs at DH. So, you know, do we think that, you know, in these trades this and during the season with the waiver claims, with the opportunity that they were providing people, they gave too many games to Paul DeYoung. Why have a Paul DeYoung? Why have a Nick Senzell? These guys aren't going to be here when you're good again.

Give younger players a shot. Miguel Vargas makes more sense. That's a trade deadline acquisition. They're going to let him go. He's not looking great right now, but he has some time and they get to give him opportunity. That's my biggest hope for somebody that might be on the next White Sox, good White Sox team that's on the team right now. I'm not even sure Crochet will be. So, it's an interesting situation. It's hard sometimes to see it though, right? Do you think at the time that you're like, oh, Williou Abreu, that's going to be a huge pickup for them? No, they traded Christian Vasquez, I think, on a rental deal and got Williou Abreu. So, some of these guys that they just picked up, maybe one or two of them will be good.

Maybe the gargoyles will be good. And we'll be talking about how they did spend this year trying to find pieces. They'll be good for the future. I think you got to just give the quick nod to Hayim Bloom because that's such a raise trade that he made when he was still running the Red Sox, getting will your brave for Christian Vasquez and that that group of young players, that the system got better when he was there. The Piveta one too was like a total stuff plus play.

That guy had great stuff plus, but wasn't putting it together. It's like, hey, yeah, let's give him another chance. Yeah, I think that was year one of the Bloom era in Boston too. So, Craig Breslow and that front office, they're doing a great job taking over, but they also inherited a lot more than what many many new front office regimes

Have at their disposal There's a situation where I want to give the last guy a little bit of credit if they win a World Series or they get They get really good. I want to be like hey, don't forget about Heim Blum He did some of this stuff a little bit like some of the John Daniels carryover in Texas He was there for a lot longer, so you had- Drafted a lot of those guys. Yeah. You could, you could say, oh, well, we were bad for a while too.

Hyam Bloom was there for four years. Yeah. And what he left, when he left was actually pretty good. We are going to go. You may have noticed the Marlins were not part of that conversation. We'll talk about that on a future episode. If you'd like to get a subscription to the Athletic, $2 a month gets you in the door at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels.

Find Britt on Twitter at Britt underscore Jiroli. Find Eno at EnoSaris. Find me at Derek Van 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 on YouTube. Thanks for watching!