Rates & Barrels - Third Base Breakdown

Episode Date: February 18, 2020

Rundown1:10 Looking for Red Flags Up Top5:52 Buying at Slight Discounts on Kris Bryant & Vlad Jr.?16:11 Is Justin Turner the Best Value Play at Third Base?22:26 Can Yoan Moncada Reach Another Level?29:30 Building Around a Batting Average Liability36:32 Playing Time Concerns for Kingery & Edman?43:46 Best Options Cheap & LateFollow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRipere-mail: [e-mail] Get 40% off a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 70. It is February 18th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we are continuing our positional breakdown series with a move across the diamond over to third base. Before we get started with that, just a quick heads up, we are available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much anywhere that you want to listen to podcasts. So if you're enjoying this show on a platform that allows you to rate and review it, we'd really appreciate that. It goes a long way towards supporting the show. Some of you might be listening to the show for the very first time. If you are, welcome. If you're not already a subscriber to The Athletic, you can get 40% off a subscription at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels.

Let's just get right at this. Third base is a deep position this year, very top heavy as well. Plenty of quality options early, plenty of good options in the mid-tier, even a few interesting sleepers that we can get to a little bit later on. But my first question for you as you start to look at the board this year, if you look at the NFBC ADPs since February 1st, there's a cluster of five in the first two rounds. It includes Alex Bregman, Nolan Arenado, Jose Ramirez, Anthony Rendon, and Rafael Devers, a group of players that I think at various points we've discussed throughout the offseason.

But is there anyone in that group who really stands out to you as a possible bust candidate or someone that might fail to live up to that high price tag? It's interesting to me that Devers has pushed so far up in these rankings, and I wonder how much depends on it. I know he's not projected to have a lot of steals, but I do, you know, he is projected to steal, and so therefore he has a positive points value in this, in the stolen base section, whereas, you know, all the guys other than Jose

Ramirez around him have negatives there, and I just wonder, you know, I kind of feel like a guy who steals eight bases against 16 attempts is not really a good bet to steal seven to nine as a projection to say. I think he could steal three to five, making him much more of a zero in that category but uh high batting average uh lots of home runs so you know it's i think he can hit 30 again um i doubt he'll have the other world he runs in rbi totals that he had last year but the team is still pretty good i don't think it's i'm not talking about any sort of real collapse but um it's just a thought that occurred to me when i was looking at that group otherwise i don't you know uh and then bregman i think deserves to be talked about a little bit i perhaps but um it's just a thought that occurred to me when i was looking at that group otherwise i don't you know uh and then bregman i think deserves to be talked about a little bit i don't

necessarily think that he'll lose to get plunked. A lot. Yeah, and I feel like he's the focal point almost. Like, people seem to have... I mean, I know there's some Carlos Correa back and forth with people, but in general, the media has seemed to label him as contrite and honest and have sort of talked about his sincerity whereas bregman is the one who stood up there at the press conference and gave the most canned you know high school

speech i've ever seen and i mean i think i was on pr they should never done the press conference part players not good at that it got a lot better once they got inside the clubhouse but since he kind of was the you fingers together to remember each point, high school speech guy, I feel like Bregman, and also because he's been so cocky in the past, I feel like Bregman will be at the center of this. He'll get plunked a few times. And the more often you get plunked, the higher your risk is of injury.

and the more often you get plunked, the higher your risk is of injury. And I think you probably want to adjust your plate appearances for Bregman south of 658, as they are now. I think where I'm at with this is it's the kind of thing that breaks ties, or if you looked at players who were very similar in value and you add this factor, it might bring Bregman to the bottom of a cluster. If you thought Bregman versus Arenado was a toss-up months ago, and now this has all happened, come to light, applying what you're discussing, now you take Arenado over Bregman.

At least I would, whereas going into draft season, that wasn't really on the table. So you look at him versus Jose Ramirez, they do slightly different things because Jose Ramirez runs a lot more, maybe he falls below Ramirez. I don't know if he falls much further than that. I don't know if he's going to go any later than Rendon or Devers in most leagues, and I'm not sure that he should. But I think we are right to at least consider the possibility

that being the league's biggest villain, both from the physical damage that might occur from getting hit by extra pitches and just from a mental standpoint, could take its toll over a long season. And how you quantify that is tricky, but it needs to be accounted for in some way. in some way. Yeah. And there's a bit of a cliff after Rendon where you have your $20 to $30 third baseman. Arenado is at $30 right now. Devers is at $29. This is ATC auction calculator. Jose Ramirez is $27. Bregman $26. Rendon $24. And then there's a big gap down to Chris Bryant at 17-7. That's a big gap, and there's no way that I can push Rendon $9 down because of this. No, no. I'm looking at the ADPs, and there's a 30-pick gap from those top five,

from the Bregman, Arenado, Ramirez, Rendon, Devers cluster, to where the next group of players is. Chris Bryant, Vlad Jr., Manny Machado. I think Yohan Mankata is within 10 picks now. Chris Bryant, so we could count him as part of this cluster. And then a few multi-position guys are up in there as well. DJ LeMayhew and Max Muncy. I look at the projections.

I just saw the bat came out on fan graphs over the weekend. I think today was the day that Derek kind of announced it. So I ran the bat through the auction calculator. And when you see where Manny Machado shows up, when you see where Chris Bryant shows up relative to the other top third baseman, it makes it really easy to start gravitating towards that next tier because of the discount you're getting. You can do something else in the first couple of rounds,

pass on the big five, as we'll call them, and really kind of focus on the next wave of third baseman because in the bat system, there's really not that much that separates them. Rendon is projected at $20. Chris Bryant's at $19. Mankata's at $17.5. I mean, there's not a lot there. Machado is actually projected above Devers and Rendon.

So I just think you have pretty strong cases for second-tier options. I just put Machado. I just put the bat on auction calculator. I just ran it through 15 teams bench players down to 7 I think that's the only two changes I made oh yeah maybe the 15 team does something interesting Manny's also shortstop

so maybe there's a little bit more positional value in the 15 team I don't know in any case you're right there's not as much of a cliff for sure even if I did 12 team just the normal one when you go in. It's a much more continuous drop from Alex Bredman at 23 to Chris Bryan at 18 with five players in between. I have been talking with Derek Carty about the bat, the ball, and how the bat should project the run environment coming into the season.

And what it seems is that most projection systems are projecting the ball to be the same this upcoming season. But we have now seen from 2014 through 2019, I think we've seen at least three different balls. I mean, at least three different run environments because 2014 was pretty low. 2015, about halfway through the new ball came in. And then we know that 2019 was another ball. I think there's probably maybe four large variations in the ball because I don't think 2016, 2017, and 2018 were all exactly the same. So if we've got four balls since 2014, that would suggest that there's a high likelihood the run environment is again different this coming season. And how you deal with that you know my suggestion was that you deal with it as if the league-wide run environment is a player because players have wide swings in in performance from year to year or fairly wide and you basically

look backwards and kind of regress the home runs per plate appearance going forward, the power going forward. And so that is going to change projections. It's going to change. You know, we talked about opposite field home runs and how that, you know, the new ball didn't help everyone equally. and it means that there are fewer homers projected in the bat because he's going to go back beyond 2019 and use some information from 2018 and 2017. And so that might explain some of the difference when you look at the bat versus ATC,

which aggregates the different projection systems that are using the same ball environment. I thought that would be an instructive thing to think about. You may just want to pick a different projection system if you think it's going to be exactly the same ball that's here. I tend to think the ball will be more normal, which normal is kind of a moving target now too. I'm not expecting a 2019 repeat.

I don't have any real evidence for this hypothesis. Well, we do have some evidence. Well, the postseason is the main driving factor, but I don't think the extreme environment we saw last year was necessarily what the league wants. And while the league denies

having control over the manufacturing specs i am very dubious that they that they would not have control over such a thing so i i'm looking at the bats projections they do come out generally just more conservative than the other projection systems on fangraphs so far for the players i've looked at i've looked at a lot of young players luis robert it was one that popped up in derrick's initial tweet so i kind of looked and said wow like if if that was the first projection that had come out on luis robert his adp might actually look quite a bit different but it also applies to vlad jr i mean three fewer home runs when you see 25 projected by other systems you see 22 22 from the bat. That's actually a decent amount of difference.

The batting average is a little bit lighter. The runs and the RBIs are a little bit lighter. I just think that's probably the system that I'm more comfortable with for how I expect the league to sort of be in 2020. for how I expect the league to sort of be in 2020, aside from the fact that I've generally really trusted that set of projections the last couple of years and had a lot of success doing that. Yeah, you're saying that you expect more homers than you're seeing in the bat.

No, I think the bat's kind of leaning in the same direction I am, where it's going to be a lighter offensive environment than 2019. I think looking further back than 2019 is the right way to set up the environment for a projection system. Robert opens up a different bag of worms, which is that Derek is slightly more conservative than some when it comes to rookie players. And he makes a good point that you should remain tethered to what has happened before.

In terms of, oh, what has happened with other 22 year olds that have struck out 25 of the time in triple a what has what has generally what have their major league equivalent uh strikeout rates been what have their strikeout rates been in their first year i think that's useful and it is instructive to see that louis robert is headed is projected for a 28% strikeout rate from him and everybody else has a lower one, especially since the swinging strike rates are high and we've talked about how there is a wide range in possible outcomes for Robert's strikeout rate in the major leagues.

At the same time, I totally have an ear open for evaluators that say, you know, one person's 24% strikeout rate is not equal to another person's 24% strikeout rate. And that there are different reasons for high strikeout rates. You know, there's pitch recognition, plate recognition, even bat speed, that sort of stuff. even bat speed that sort of stuff and breaking it down into those components as a scout would do can prepare you to better

project a player than just using straight projections so little spiel. These are the most difficult players to project anyway I mean for all these reasons but looking back at this cluster the second group of third basemen, Bryant's had the shoulder issue, so

that raises some questions about him. Vlad Jr. didn't meet the ridiculously high expectations in year one. He didn't fall on his face by any stretch of the imagination, but 15 homers in 123 games is a lot less than people were hoping for, and he only hit 272

while doing it. Ordinarily, a 20-year-old doing that would really get us pretty fired up, but because the projections were very favorable for him going into last season, everybody had expectations that were just pretty much unmet. What's your expectation for Vlad Jr.? When you have to compare him to— Last year it was Rendon versus Vlad Jr. in ADP. Now it's Vlad Jr. versus Bryant and Machado.

Two guys with really long track records who just have a ton of floor. I have a hard time passing on both of those guys to take Vlad Jr. even though I like Vlad Jr. a lot as a player. Chris Bryant's tough for me because I just feel like all the indicators

took a real hit when he had the shoulder injury and they haven't really returned to where they've been before. Chris Bryant's tough for me because I just feel like all the indicators took a real hit when he had the shoulder injury and he hadn't really returned to where they'd been before. Chris Bryant had functionally the same barrel rate as Kyle Seager last year. Chris Bryant hit his fly balls and line drives softer than Kyle Seager last year and softer than Vlad Guerrero. And softer than Vlad Guerrero. And the two numbers supposedly, what also makes it difficult, is the two numbers that supposedly are the stickiest year to year, in this case, kind of point different directions on Vlad. So, you know, fly ball and line drive, exit velocity is supposed to be really good.

It's very similar to the same inputs as kind of barrel rate. And barrel rate is supposed to be the other one. Vlad Guerrero had the 16th best barrel rate among third basemen. He doesn't put the ball in the air enough. His barrel rate wasn't great but he had a 93 mile an hour fly ball exit velocity which sits him equal to Eugenio Suarez who had almost twice the barrel rate. So I think there's a lot to like about Vlad Guerrero. I think there's a lot to worry about with Chris Bryant.

You know, depending on how the draft is going, I may peace out on both of them and just wait for, like, Justin Turner, who has no helium behind him and just kind of is a metronome of production year to year. You know, Miguel Sano, if you look at Owen Poindexter's great piece about the shape of every position, he did Z-scores, but you can see it in the projections. There's very little difference in Z-score between, you know, even Bryant, but more between Moncada and Sano.

There are like eight to ten third basemen within a half a Z-score of each other. So, I don't know. I tend to kind of fade Chris Bryant a little bit, which means that that would put him in that same group. And if Bryant and Guerrero are going to be way out in the front and I could wait a little bit and Chapman's going to be inside of that run or Turner's going to be inside of that run or my team would like a high batting average and Jeff McNeil, I just place him at third, there's a lot of different options. And another thing about third base, if you wait, you have these options that you can plug into certain needs.

So, you know, as your draft goes on, for the most part, you start having needs. Like at the beginning, you're just like, I'm going to get the best players I can. Either I can afford or, you know, the snake draft gives me. And then at some point, you look at your team and you go, wow, I have no stolen bases. Or wow, you know, the snake draft gives me. And then at some point you look at your team, you go, wow, I have no stolen bases or wow, you know, I really don't have a second baseman. And I feel like third base follows that completely. If you, if you can get in on the first five or six, do it. But Bryant and Vlad Guerrero sit in that weird place is like, am I really going to invest a high thing here when I could wait a little bit

and then just plug in somebody that fits my needs later? So I have a feeling I won't have a lot of Bryant or Vlad Guerrero. It's a funny little spot in terms of ADP. If you look at the alternatives, you could pay the premium for JT Real Muto

around that same time and go with the first catcher off the board. You could try to get a slight discount on Giancarlo Stanton. You could go after some pitching, you know, Lucas Giolito, Clayton Kershaw, Aaron Nola in that range. You could break the seal on relievers and pop Josh Hader in that spot. I mean, those are the alternative paths as you say, I'm not going to take a third baseman, so what am I going to do? alternative paths as you say okay i'm not going to take a third baseman so what am i going to do yeah if i'm waiting on pitching like i i think i will this year then i will want a high number two so i'm likely to take a high number two there all right so you're going to get the second

pitcher in that spot although i will say stanton also the price is dropping on stanton and um the more drops the the more attractive he gets. Yeah, it's pretty interesting, too. I mean, when you start looking at just the hitter projections as a whole and kind of say, okay, how high is Stanton in projections, which generally have been kind to him throughout his career, he's still a $20 player in those same settings. So he's a tick above Bryant right now. If you look at Stanton and say, well, what's still the best case scenario for him? It's probably still a better best case scenario than what you'd expect from Chris Bryant at this point.

Yeah. What about Machado, though, real quick? I know you're kind of steering away from Bryant and Vlad Jr. at that price. Does Machado deserve to be clustered in there, or is he getting discounted too much coming off of a relative down year in his first year at the Padres? Yeah, it's really interesting. I didn't want to say that name.

That's why I said five or six, too. Um, the, it is the, he seems like I have these players that I call projections play where it was a little bit like Colin McHugh last year where all the projection systems liked him, you know, and the ADP didn't. And so I think I had a couple... I think I had a couple common shoe shares, but I didn't in the end because when I analyzed the situation, I just felt like the depth chart didn't favor him to get that many innings. In this case, though, he's a position player.

He's a projections play. there's some evidence that he underperformed his barrels alex chamberlain uh did some stuff about deserved barrel weight and he you know he he should have had more barrels and the projections love him and there's no reason to worry in terms of uh depth chart stuff and honestly don't even think health is really a worry. So, and his floor is super, super high. I think it's way, I think it's higher than Bryant's, you know? So, I kind of like Manny. If we're going to lump Manny in with the Manny, Chris Bryant, Vlad,

I may jump for Manny there. Plus, there's a little bit of position eligibility help. I mean, if you get a shortstop, if Trey Turner is your first shortstop and Manny Machado is your third baseman later, it almost seems inevitable that Trey Turner goes down for a little bit. Boom, Machado's your shortstop. I like having corner-middle options in terms of overlap more than I like even having corner and outfield. Because I always think outfield help is easier to find on the wire. There's a better variety of the categories you're going to get from players on the wire in the outfield as well.

There are fourth outfielders that play enough to use in short stints. Exactly. to use in short stints exactly so i think machado might creep up a little bit with this new system with the bat being added to the other projection systems the the wisdom of the crowd changes a little bit i think people are going to realize he's under projected his adp is going to creep up a little it's not going to shoot up into like the second round or anything crazy like that but i think he's going to hover right around that pick 50 range once we get further into March. The other guy in that group, Yohan Mankata, I think there are believers and there are skeptics that are pretty divided on him coming off of last season. Mr. Red Ink,

as I've called him before, based on his stat cast page, just covered in hard hit balls, everything you're looking for from a hitter to hold up a really nice slash line, he does, and cut the K rate down a bit last year too. Got it down from 33.4 to 27.5%. Didn't walk as much as he did in the past, but still walked enough. 7% walk rate's not terrible. Where do we go from here with Yohan Mankata, a guy who was supposed to be really good and is actually still younger than you might think for a guy who's been around for a few years. Yeah, I think he actually has a better year in him. And, you know, one of these next two years, I think is going to be better.

At 24, you know, by definition, he's maybe two years younger than peak. Although it's 24 and eight months. So, you know know he's one of these next two seasons could be his peak season um you know according to you know aging curve research but also just look at his plate discipline and just what you said he became more aggressive and kind of battled his way through the the strikeout rate um by cutting the walk rate. But I think selective aggression is what you get when you're at your peak. So maybe he puts together a season where he has the 10% walk rate and like a 25% strikeout rate. If he can do that, you know, I think he can repeat

or at least have a really good batting average and maybe improve the power numbers, take more advantage of his power, take more advantage of what was last year the sixth best barrel rate among third basemen, something that was on par with somebody like Matt Chapman. Why in that part can't he have a 35 homer season? Amazingly, he only played 132 games last year. I kind of just forgot that he missed some time. So if you get him up closer to 150 games, that alone last year may have brought

him right up to that 30 homer mark. So I'm with you. I think there is still one more level that Yolan Mankata can reach. Happy to draft him at that price. The guys I mentioned that are multi-position eligible, clustered in this range, DJ LeMayhew, Max Muncy, Jeff McNeil. For LeMayhew and Muncy, their eligibility comes also at first base and second base. For McNeil, it's second base and outfield in addition to being eligible at third. Muncy, I'm a little bit more concerned about Muncy right now with Jock Peterson still being on the roster in Los Angeles. That could change any day. They could come up with some other trade, who knows. But it's crowded in Los Angeles. And even though he's hit lefties really well in each of the

last two seasons, you just wonder, it's like, is it Gavin Lux? Is it Muncy? Is it both of them who are going to sit or occasionally with Jock Peterson being the guy that always sits for one of their righties coming off the bench. How do you see his playing time shaking out? Because I look at LeMahieu and McNeil, and I don't have those same playing time concerns that I'm beginning to have for Muncy. LeMahieu? Yeah, I think LeMahieu is going to play a lot, even though Andujar's back. I don't know if I like the price on him, but I just think they're going to run him out there every day.

I guess so. LeMahieu's a better defender than Andujar, so I just see a possibility of an Ursula collapse, but that's only good for LeMahieu. Okay, yeah, okay. Yeah, but we talked about the Dodger thing. I think that they're going to figure out a way to do that trade.

They wanted to get rid of that money. And the Angels wanted him. That was just the kind of thing where they just got... Artie Moreno apparently just got frustrated. Yeah, Friedman is mad as hell at Artie Moreno. And what makes it worse is now that that trade has been out there,

it's been established that the Dodgers kind of want to cut some money. And as soon as you establish the Dodgers want to cut some money, the next person who calls says, hey, I can help you get rid of Doc Peterson. Just give me a prospect. Right. And leverage is gone because the deal was reported. It was out there.

And we have a pronunciation. Andy, screw it. Do you remember now? Paul Hayes? That's it. Paul Hayes. Andy Paul Hayes. So that's the prospect.

So maybe now someone's saying, well, you know, I'm in a little bit tougher of a situation. I can't really take on this money. But if you added another prospect, that was my executive voice. That was your goonish executive voice. I don't know which executive that was supposed to be.

Oh, man. Probably like Farhan coming in and just being like, I can take him off your hands. But you got to be a little more sly for the Farhan voice, I think. Yeah. I think he'd make that offer with like a devilish smile. It'd be a very friendly, tempting sort of voice. I really respect Farhan. He's made some missteps this year, but in terms of the way he's trying to get out of the bottom and the things he's doing internally, as well as in terms of transactions and stuff i really respect

him and then what's great too is that uh you know i've i've tried to talk i've i've interviewed billy bean about a bunch and he's you know he's he gives his quotes and stuff but he also like rolls his eyes at me a lot and you know tells me straight up he can't answer a question whereas farhan gets we'll get a question he can't really answer and find a way to answer it um with like some like you said with some smiles and like he's better a better media presence i think part of that job i think now is handling the media the way a politician might handle the media right like just smoothing things over redirecting you know putting you know being like oh this wasn't a money dump this was a you know finding finding different ways to classify things you know pushing pushing with the media even you know off the record uh pushing them

towards certain reads of certain situations right i mean flexibility is probably the the blanket word in in milwaukee like david stearns can do anything and he can use flexibility as his reasoning and that satisfies a lot of people it just oh we got rid of this guy that you all liked but we did it for flexibility we added this guy we had a brock holt unexpectedly but now we have flexibility on the infield it's funny that hasn't been working so well for Chaim Blum in Boston. No, the word flexibility does not work quite as well. It does not travel from market to market. It helps when you're in the Midwest and your team has never won a World Series.

Expectations are a little lower. Yeah. So who do you, let's say, let's put all these guys, let's take Moncada out because he's young and has that U word. And let's put these sort of veterans and let's take Chapman out. He's kind of got an established level. So let's like put the boring veterans together. Gurriel, Suarez, Moustakas, Turner, Sano. Sano's first for me because the raw power is ridiculous. Yeah. I think the trick to rostering a player like Sano, it's the same as with Joey Gallo, by the way. This is just a broad tip for using a really low average big power player.

It takes one smart maneuver to kind of just offset it. You could do a real fun thing with like suno and mcneil exactly right zola a few years ago he was like i'm gonna draft dj lemay hugh and joey gallo together and watch what happens and you look at it you divide the two players combine production in half and you go oh hey look hey, look, in the seventh round, this was a couple of years ago, in the seventh round or the eighth round, you just got two players who combined or 250 average. Yeah, they're 250 average, but there's power and speed.

Like you just got two fourth round bats in round seven and eight because you put two players together with complementary skill sets. And you're not backed into too much of a corner if he takes a no, because maybe Gurriel doesn't fit, but still Gurriel kind of fits. Gurriel, McNeil, and LeMahieu give you three options, multi-position options to pair with him. Right. That kind of do the other thing.

There's a few ways it works, and it's early enough in your draft, or obviously in an auction, you can just go out and get the other guys that you want to pair with them too. So I just think there are ways to make that work pretty easily. So I probably value Snow as much as anybody does, mostly because I'm comfortable

building my roster that way. I have a plan for that. So he's first for me turner low-key might be second of that bunch because he said throw chapman out right suarez if he were healthy would probably be ahead of suno i my argument against suarez is pretty simple why take the injured guy when we're talking about a position with so much depth you know the shoulders didn't seem that bad could make opening day Things look pretty good right now. But why expose yourself to that risk

when Mike Moustakis is also there? He could have comparable numbers and he doesn't have a shoulder injury going into the season. Yeah, I think your exposure on currently injured players should be minimal. There are situations

where it becomes a value. But I don't think that it should be a strategy. It's like, yeah, Mike Clevenger, he's dropping a lot, could be ready by early May. He's dropping behind guys like Luis Severino. How much do you expect them to have a full six months, or do you expect them to be a five-month pitcher as well? And you could take advantage of that. But however, like I was thinking last night as I was falling asleep, you know, about labor. This is what I do.

Wow. This is 40. Yeah. This is 40. Yeah. This is 40. Yeah. So I was like, wow, would it be ballsy or dumb to take Luis Severino and Mike Clevenger as my aces in labor? If I had to pick a lane and choose one label or the other. You're going dumb.

No, I'd say that that's probably ballsy. I mean, risky either way. Those are both incentives of risk. There's risk all over the place with pitching. Yeah. And in this case, I think Suarez is fine. If Suarez falls to where Eduardo Escobar is, then he's fallen too far.

Yeah, what's up with Escobar? He doesn't come up in many conversations. I don't see people writing about him that much. He kind of just had this really useful season a year ago. It didn't cost much, and his price is obviously up compared to where it was a year ago. But I don't really get the sense that anybody believes he's hitting 30 homers again with that kind of

run production i mean you look at the projections they're kind of an agreement 257 to 266 is the spread for for batting average 25 to 27 homers 80 to 84 runs and 87 to 93 rbis it's a really nice player after pick 100. Yeah. It's Justin Turner with more volume. Suarez hit like, what, like 48 last year or something? Yeah, he hit a ton, and a lot of them were later in the season too. 49. I mean, that's 22 homers. That's why I think, you know 22 homer difference in terms of...

We should talk projections for Suarez. He's projected to hit 40. That's still a 13 homer difference. Even if you get rid of 3 to 5 for a missed time or something,

you're still talking about a 10 homer difference. I'd still take Suarez. Do you ding him a couple more, though, for the possibility that the injury impacts him? Yeah. Yeah, but you're still talking about five more. I think you'd have to give me odds for me to take Escobar's homerun take Escobar's home run total over Suarez.

You'd have to give me like a fair amount of odds. Sure, like two and a half or three to one. Yeah. So that says to me, if Suarez falls to where Escobar is being drafted, I'm taking Suarez. Just on a stat cast front, Escobar had the same barrel rate as Colin Moran.

That's not good. It goes Michael Franco, Gio Urshela, Colin Moran, Eduardo Escobar, Evan Longoria. I mean, that's not where you want to live. No, it is not. Basically, functionally below average for a starting player. All right, so Suarez over Escobar. I'm fine with that.

I'm not dropping him lower than that. But Sano over Suarez, Moustakis over Suarez right now. Obviously, Donaldson and Chapman over him. All pretty clear ways to account for his absence at this point. Justin Turner is that guy. If you're waiting, if you're missing out because you're chasing other things, or you just think, even if I miss out on Turner, I like some of the guys I can mix and match with. I'll be fine at third base. I like Turner a lot. I think there is still at least one more good year in his bat. I have no issue having him as my main third baseman because it assumes I have strength somewhere else because I was paying up for other things earlier.

Before you get down to Turner, though, you've got these other guys, Scott Kingery, Tommy Edmund, multi-position guys who I think bring a lot of their value from stolen bases. Playing time could become an issue for both of those guys because if Alec Boehm comes up for Philadelphia, I think Kingery moves back into that super utility role. And I think the super utility role is kind of the cap on what Edmund's going to do playing time-wise this season, even with the fact that the Cardinals haven't replaced Marcelo Zuna because I expect Dylan Carlson to ultimately take that spot. Yeah.

I just keep thinking Yasiel Puig isn't going to go there. No. I can't picture it. Even if Cut Forward drew a Cardinals hat on Yasiel Puig. This doesn't look like anything to me. No. I wouldn't even be able to see it. It wouldn't work.

Alright. Does not compute. They have the need for sure but it's just it's a total long shot to me. But you have J.D. Davis kind of jammed into that group where Justin Turner is too. If you could guarantee equal playing time

I like J.D. Davis quite a bit. I think the Mets have a little more of a crowd than most people are willing to acknowledge at this point. Yeah. Cesped is taking healthy hacks and telling the media off in the first couple of days of spring training makes you think maybe he'll actually be around and be relevant.

So if that does happen, it gets crowded really quick because then, you know, J Davis is platooning with Cespedes and Dom Smith is in the minors. I mean, I think something like that would be the only way to do it. I mean, it's good that Davis is a, let me get this right

the lefty no he's a righty so there's not really a platoon situation but you know and that risk does make it interesting i was thinking like is there a firewall for you where you're like oh okay if it gets down to like the last two or three third basemen on the board are justin turner eduardo escobar and max muncie i'm gonna take turner like the firewall idea like i i don't want what's what comes behind him um i could see that except i'd look down to brian anderson.D. Davis and say oh well those guys are good. If Muncy's still hanging around and I'm

looking at Turner and Escobar I'd probably go Muncy first maybe Turner second Escobar third. That's probably the way I'd break those three guys down. Yeah but I could see lumping them together as being the last acceptable third baseman starting third baseman for me.

Yeah, because Ryan McMahon's kind of in the same situation as J.D. Davis. McMahon's a lefty, so he'd be on the big side of the platoon, has the multi-position eligibility, gets to play half his games in Colorado. I look at McMahon at that price and think, okay, if he... But we all want Hampson to take his job. I mean, I don't. I want McMahon to be that guy. I don't know. I just think that's a really weird dead spot on the third base list after Turner. Based on ADP anyway, that's where the line is. Even though I like Davis mcmahon playing time can

become a concern there hunter dozier brian anderson is a weird player too he doesn't come up in a lot of columns the marlins they got a bunch of guys they're trying to move around there was a report yesterday that they're going to try and play jonathan vr in center field anderson can play third base i think they want to just keep him there. That's what's leading VR to the outfield is they're not going to play VR at third. Is Brian Anderson good and is he underpriced right now? The counting stats last year for as much as he played were okay. He played 126 games, 66 RBIs, 57 runs scored, kind of a weak lineup that got a little better. He gets on base. He's not a batting average liability and he showed a little more power last year i think even just beyond the rabbit ball so is he

kind of the the cheap option that if you were to wait for someone and then get sniped on everybody like he'd be your next option your plan c at third base yeah that's the way i was identifying there at the bottom i mean like yandy diaz is my my holy crap i didn't pick anybody um brian anderson and jd davis are like you know i don't want to get to holy crap i didn't pick anyone and uh king reed mcmahon i think king reed mcmahon to me, are more guys I would rather take at UTIL or CI or MI with the idea that they'll be moved around a lot for my squad. That would feel better about rostering McMahon and Kingery if I didn't feel like I had to dedicate a spot to them. How do you think Hunter Dozier stacks up to J.D. Davis? Oh, but wait, I had a Brian Anderson thing real quick. Sure.

He's really interesting because he's really boring looking. I'm not talking about his looks, but statistically he's pretty boring looking. It's like, you know, average walk rate, average strikeout rate, slightly above average ISO, kind of averages type average. Just, you know, five stolen bases, you know, just like okay at everything. But look at what a park can do. Brian Anderson and Nolan Aranato have, so Brian Anderson has a better max EV than Nolan Aranato.

Brian Anderson has a better average exit velocity than Nolan Aranato. Brian Anderson has a better fly ball line drive exit velocity than Nolan Aranato. Brian Anderson has a better barrel rate than Nolan Aranato. Detecting a pattern here. He has a better hard hit rate, 95 mile an hour plus. So Brian Anderson has a terrible home part. Did they work on the fences again this offseason?

I know they've got a new hitting coach. I mean, there's some things changing there. I think you're right. I think they were moving the fences in this year. Synthetic grass, outfield adjustments being adjusted in center and right center. I mean, he's a right-handed hitter, so that won't help him as much as

it would help him if he were a lefty, but it doesn't hurt. But it looks like they brought it in like 5-6 feet. Well, that's an interesting little thing there. So maybe Brian Anderson's maybe he's the true firewall. But it is funny

how I don't actually, like there's a lot of late third basemen that exist on the how I don't actually, like there's a lot of late third basemen that exist on the rankings, but don't exist in my heart. You just pretend like they're not even there. Like why take Evan Longoria? In most mixed leagues, I don't think you do. I mean, I think you could use him as a corner infield filler

if you've got some injuries, something along those lines. Who do you like, if anyone, really late? We're talking after pick 300 in terms of ADP. So we're even past Starlin Castro and kind of in the Travis Shaw, Kyle Seeger, Matt Carpenter, Michael Franco getting a fresh start, Azrubu Cabrera, the old standby. Where's Nick Solak? If he's ut only i would assume he'll qualify at some positions a couple weeks into the season so he he's probably like a

fringy like 250 to 300 range pick in most leagues so even later than that jamer candelario yeah i do actually i've been looking at him we just picked him him in Devils Rejects. There's 20 teams, 28 keepers, 45 roster slots, and we just picked him in the 7th round or 6th round of the redraft. So that's really deep. But he's a 26-year-old that could strike out close to league average next year, walk more than league average. It's just that his batted ball stats are very vanilla. I don't even know if he shows up on the first page. Oh, he's 30th in barrel rate among third basemen. And he just doesn't hit the ball very hard. I'm just hoping that the

plate discipline can lead to making the most out of the balls he does hit. There's still a little chance of that happening, but I think he's more of a monoleague, low-dollar volume play, hopefully, and hope that Isaac Paredes isn't ready this year or doesn't come up right away. John Birdie is an interesting sort of plug-and-play all-around the infield player, but I guess what's a little bit annoying is that he's actually going to do that.

He's not slated as a starter at any position. So as fun as it would be to get those steals, I think he's kind of like a really deep head-to-head bench player where you can hope that at the end of the at the end of the week if you need some extra stolen bases you can kind of plug him in when he plays um i don't know man it's it's a really top heavy position it's not like alec bomb is the prospect that's going to come up this year probably and he's either going to come up when segura is hurt or kingery doesn't take any advancements in terms of getting on base i think yeah or if they're

still having trouble in center field they want to play kingery in center field more maybe they bring up boom then if he's raking in the minors and one thing that's really fun about boom is that he adds uh power with a really uh really small strikeout rate for a power hitter. So he hasn't really done the high batting average thing every year, but that combination leads to high batting averages. So he could come up to the major leagues and be like a.280 hitter with 25, 30 home run power or more. I mean, he's a pretty good player.

run power or more. I mean, he's a pretty good player. You know, Tommy LaStella, you know, I think that in this, if the ball is the same, Tommy LaStella, you know, he can use his contact skills to hit 20-25 homers. The one thing is that

right now they have Tommy LaStella and David Fletcher penciled in at the same position. have Tommy LaStella and David Fletcher penciled in at the same position. I think LaStella wrestles away that playing time. Maybe I'm underestimating David Fletcher, but I think what LaStella was doing last season before that injury was really interesting and provides more overall value. He's listed as the backup shortstop. So Fletcher could really be a guy who just plays all over, you know, especially since right now, Brian Goodwin is their starting right fielder. So, you know,

without the jock trade, I think Fletcher will play in right field some before Joe Adele is ready. So yeah, La Stella. There you go. I think La Stella is a good one. I did have that question. I threw it to you earlier. I forgot to follow up on it, so I'll hit it now real quick. J.D. Davis versus Hunter Dozier.

I mean, Dozier was a late breakout last year. I would say he has fewer playing time concerns. As you look at the way the Royals depth chart is built right now. What do you think about Hunter Dozier as a guy that's kind of in the back end of the top 200? Hunter Dozier has some playing time concerns considering that Michael Franco is there now. So I guess Dozier could play in right field.

We've talked about this a little bit. Okay, so he's probably okay. One thing I did notice with Hunter Dozier is one of his big breakouts last year came from plate discipline but if you look at the graphs the sort of daily you can go to fan graphs and do by game uh 15 game 15 game rolling graphs of anything um and if you put O-swing on there by the end of the season he was reaching at everything again like he had in 2018 so some of those early gains in reach

rate, a lot of them were gone by mid-season and then they were totally gone at the end of the season so I think that he's highly likely to kind of revert to that 5% strikeout rate, that 5% walk rate, 30% strikeout rate time guy that he's been in the past.

And that could, I think, make him vulnerable later in the year to falling into a platoon if they find a left-handed hitting option to play with him at first base. I'm not convinced Ryan O'Hearn is that guy. They seem to be really high on Ryan O'Hearn. I don't see it. So I think as the season begins, Dozier is probably the primary first baseman, unless things track the way you described and he gives them a reason to play somebody else against right-handed starters. The other question I want to throw out there is

in Pittsburgh, you mentioned Colin Moran and how bad his stat cast metrics were. They have a prospect, Cabrian Hayes, former first rounder. Didn't tear up AAA at all, but he's been going one level per year through the Pirates system. He has power, a little bit of power. Has some speed. He was 12 for 13 as a base dealer last year. He's never struck out 20% at any level, and he's walked a lot. So he's got a really good approach at the plate.

And the belief has been that he will develop power over time. He's still been young for the level everywhere he's played, too. He's probably not a guy you're drafting in Knicks leagues. I think in Nl only you could think about him and you know wait for him to get the call do you think brian hayes comes up and stays up he's a great defender so that alone could just drive his playing time once the pirates give him the opportunity i think the pirate with the pirates i think you kind of want to assume that. I think you want to kind of play some games in terms of put yourself in the general manager's feet.

Put him in his feet? Another one. Wait. But put him in his pants, it sounds worse. Yeah, it's worse. Shoes. Shoes, you know. That's it, shoes.

You wear another man's shoes. You don't wear another man's pants. That would be weird. Ben Charrington, I want your pants. So I'm wearing Ben Charrington's pants. I know that I don't really have a fire under my ass in year one. You know, year one, I can always use the excuse, well, I was just figuring out who to hire and fire,

figuring out what we were doing doing trying to improve internal processes uh read uh read between the lines trying to lose a lot and so colin moran is like your perfect lose a lot starting third baseman and i don't i don't mean to disparage him as a player like obviously he he does some things right, and he's been a league average bat, and that's great for him. But he's a really bad base runner, pretty bad defender, gives a lot of it back with the secondary stuff.

And so I just don't think, I think they're just going to plug him in all year. I don't think, I think they're just going to plug him in all year. I don't think, I think Hayes, I think even bringing Hayes up with the new roster rules, the 26-man roster rules where you can only, what is it, 28 in September? Yeah, I think it's 28 in September. Even bringing him up there and starting his clock at all. Only if the clamoring in Pittsburgh starts right away and they're just like,

you're just as bad as Neil Huntington. You didn't do anything. Then maybe he can start bringing up the young guys and be like, look, we have a lot of great young guys. Let's check them out. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think he's the kind of player, he's not going to cost them a fortune if they bring him up.

Yeah, true. He might not come up and hit a bunch of homers and hit 300 or whatever. Yeah, and he can pick it at third. So why not? Let him learn a bit on the job. And then by the time you've got more pieces around him, you know if he's your third baseman or not, or you at least know where he fits into your plan. Is he going to develop that extra power and become a key part of your offense? Or is he more of a bottom half of the lineup guy who you know is a plus on the other side he helps your pitching staff by playing elite defense it tells other young players weird things if cabrian hayes is like gets a full year at triple a again yeah that i mean that would be

a really bad look when a very replacement level sort of player is collecting so much time at the big league level so i think we'll see him pretty early in the first half. As always, you can reach us via email ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com Be sure to spell out the word and if you go that route, you can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me

at Derek Van Ryper. We do have two other fantasy baseball podcasts that we're running this season here at The Athletic. Fantasy Baseball in 15 with Al Melkier, Michael Beller and myself runs every weekday morning at 6am Eastern and the athletic fantasy baseball podcast. That show drops new episodes every Monday, Wednesday,

and Friday afternoon opposite this show. That's going to wrap things up for this episode of rates and barrels. We are back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.