Rates & Barrels - This Trade Deadline is Glorious -- Jazz Chisholm Jr., Randy Arozarena & Isaac Paredes On the Move

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss the heavy activity in the week leading up to the MLB Trade Deadline (Tuesday, 6p ET) including Jazz Chisholm Jr. to the Yankees, Randy Arozarena to the Mariners, Isaac Paredes to the Cubs, and much more.  Rundown 2:16 Jazz Chisholm Jr. to the Yankees 9:17 Randy Arozarena to the mariners 14:45 Isaac Paredes to the Cubs 24:31 A Three-Team Blockbuster with the Cardinals, Dodgers & White Sox 42:20 Zach Eflin to the Orioles 45:09 Carlos Estévez to the Phillies 50:25 Quinn Priester to the Red Sox for Nick Yorke 58:18 A.J. Puk to the D-backs for Deyvison De Los Santos (and Andrew Pintar) Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on at 5:30p ET on Tuesday for our Trade Deadline Livestream! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bugna Rates and Barrels Monday July 29th, Derek VanRyper, EnoSaris back from vacation. Eno, how's it going for you on this Monday? I am not clean shaven. The house has got no food. We just walked in the door. So it was, we're, this is, you got me fresh. But it was amazing. Thanks to all the listeners and readers for their recommendations.

We ate a lot of the food that they recommended. We really enjoyed ourselves. I put on the pounds a little bit, but we ended up in Anacortes, which is on the water, sort of north of Seattle. And we went crabbing and shrimping in the boat and then ate our crab and shrimp at this three day long party at my friend's parents house. So it was pretty cool. There was a really cool way to end it because we'd been really, we did Mount Rainier and we did Olympic and we did all the museums in Seattle.

We did everything where we were like, we had an itinerary, We were like, tomorrow and we're doing this. We're going here. We're driving here. We're doing this. And so the last three days were kind of just like chill, hanging out on an island and and sitting in deck chairs and watching the sun go down. So that was great. Hey, well, good timing, because you came back and a lot of stuff happened. Yeah, I try to kind of keep track of that with the phone in my pocket looking every once in a while.

Just as you cultivated some mass on vacation, the rundown cultivated some mass because Friday, I was going to record with Vlad Sedler until my son flipped over a dining room chair while he was in it. He's one and a half. It was our first trip to urgent care for an injury. Fortunately, he was okay.

It could have been much, much worse. It was a very scary situation for us on Friday. Ran out of time to record, rolled the show over. Lot of stuff to talk about today. So here we go. Jazz Chism is now a Yankee. He goes there in a four player deal. Our approach for today is to focus more on any major league players that moved

and their shifts in value. We're going to do some project prospect later in the week to talk about some of these younger guys that are going to stay in the minors changing hands, right? So jazz gets traded for three prospects and he's going to play a couple of spots for the Yankees, probably going to play center field, maybe a little bit of third base. He's playing third base tonight. Playing third tonight, maybe a little second base, depending on what happens with Gleyber Torres.

Torres has started to hit a bit more recently. We've seen some improvement from Jazz this year. Better strikeout rate, better walk rate, best zone contact percentage over the past three years and he's still swinging as much as he ever has in the zone so it's nice to see that. I did happen to notice we don't talk about CSW a lot for hitters but Jazz actually has improved in that regard down to a 26.8% CSW usually he's above 30 so overall this looks like some better decisions. By projection, hat-tip to Joe to Joshian on this one. Jazz is

now the fourth best hitter on the Yankees behind Judge, Soto and Stanton by WRC+. So a nice get for sure. And the versatility plus the park factor change and the new position and the supporting cast point to pretty nice upticks in value, fantasy wise. And I think this also kind of ticks the box we talked about with Britt a few weeks ago when we were looking for possible Jazz Chisholm Jr. landing spots. He lands on a team where he's not the superstar anymore

or the lone superstar. And that seems like it's going to be a good thing for him. It's gonna take some of the pressure off, but also like just boost up the stats because everything around him is so much better right now. Yeah. You know, you get that risk of going to a more loaded team that may not play you as much because they have better options at certain times with the, it's better to hit with runners on base. It just says they can't defend you the same way your stats go up. I think it's also like you start getting sacrifice flies

and so your batting average stays up higher, right? Because you because they don't count it as an out if somebody was on third. Just just such a baseball rules are so weird. Like whenever anybody says your stat was made up, I'm like, OK, we should rewrite the official scoring rules of baseball some off season. Yeah. That might be a fun project. Yeah.

Now it's an out unless there was somebody on third base. Then it's not an out. Anyway, what I think is interesting is that the Yankees are second to last in stolen bases and sometimes that is a question of team philosophy, but it also can be a question of team H and who's on it and what your personnel is. I guess you don't want Aaron Judge to hurt himself stealing bases.

You don't want Juan Soto to hurt himself stealing bases. And you don't really have anybody other than Anthony Volpe. That's kind of a young player coming up. That's going to steal a lot of bases. I think with jazz you say, you know, we are not paying you as much. You're not as big of a power threat as these other guys. Um, I think what they're going to say is we'd like you to run, you know,

we want to add that element to our game as a team. So if that's the case that he's the fourth best projected player by WRC plus, and he adds an element of speed that they don't have anywhere else, I'm going to be comfortable in saying that he will play all of the time against righties. And I just don't know about lefties. The splits are kind of big. And in in Miami, they were playing other people sometimes over him against lefties. I also don't know that like, you know, Oswald Cabrera, even Oswaldo Cabrera, that even with the the split penalty would project much better, you know what I'm saying? And that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why would be to maybe be around the average against lefties. Right. Oswaldo Cabrera is not projected to be the average with the bat.

And even if you gave him a split, a good split, you know, how much better could he be? So there's a chance he plays every day, I guess, is my long winded way of saying that. And I think it'll be mostly actually at third base, because I think that's where they have the most trouble. So if he can go in there tonight and not have an error, I think, you know, I think LeMay who's worse than Gleyber Torres and LeMay who can play first and we may even see a Bo Rice Ben Rice demotion.

He's a round league average because he walks and hits for power. But if they, you know, there could be an extra sort of an odd man out situation here. It's risky times for Gleiber Torres, DJ LeMejio and Ben Rice, because that's where I think Jazz Chisholm is going to ultimately put the most pressure on the playing time. Right. And I'd probably, in terms of like magnitude of risk, flip the order that you listed them in. Gleiber probably would be the safest of the bunch. Ben Rice would be the most likely to start losing some time because of the mixing and matching. But you're right about Oswaldo Cabrera. He hasn't hit lefties during his time in the big league so

far. So if you say the solution is Jazz hits ninth against lefties and he moves up against righties, that's still probably a nice big win compared to losing the time outright because you'll see right-hander relievers later on in the game. Those will be fine, right? And I think the other thing with Jazz, we've seen at times, we've seen more pull-happy approaches from him.

I wonder how much he'll try to lean on that, especially at home. That short porch. With the short porch, right? So there's just a lot of things here that are a good fit for him. And I think, you know, I don't, I don't like saying it this way, but I think it sort of gets across what I think, which is I think LeMahie is kind of toast. I mean, it's rude. is I think LeMay he's kind of toast. I mean it's rude. I'm just saying like the bat speed is gone

right? Like the top end max EVs are gone. We're talking four or five mile an hour difference. The hard hit rate is the worst it's ever been. I just don't see like the ground ball rate is worse than it has been since his debut season. You know what I mean? Like it just it just there's nothing to hold on to other than the fact he's still making contact. But if you make contact that softly, it's not good news. So I would say that he is he's got the most risk going for him right now. So if that's the freshest of the big position players on the move, the move at that topped was Randy Arosa Raina getting traded to the Mariners.

We're going to talk a lot about the Rays and what they've done collectively in the last. It was kind of funny how that broke down because we went to a game in Seattle and. You know, the vibes around the Seattle lineup at that time were they were not good. You went to a game and Julia was out with that ankle injury, too. So you went to the game. The vibes around the Seattle lineup at that time were. They were not good. You went to a game and Julia was out with that ankle injury too.

So you. I went to the game. I think after they found out that JP Crawford, I think J.P. Crawford got hurt on Monday. I went to Tuesday's game. So they knew they were losing J.P. Crawford and Julia Rodriguez. They were both going on the I.L. and they were really just like, everyone's like, how are we going to score runs?

And then I watched a game where Logan Gilbert was pitching well for the first four or five innings. And I just felt like, dude, this guy thinks he has to throw a no hitter tonight. Like, that's how that's how and it was against the angels. So I thought, maybe he will throw a no hitter. That'd be fun. And then they just kind of fell apart. They did some poor like there was some poor defense involved and then they just lost five to one and that one seemed like you know they had really had to like the bases loaded twice to get one run and I was just like oh this is this is painful to watch. What's funny is I don't think that one player can

change like a team that much but the Mariners have scored like six runs in the last two through three games you know what I mean? Like they put them in. I don't know what happened. Now they're they're a run scoring machine. I think a Rosarina is a great addition to that lineup, and I think he's going to play every day. And the only thing that I worry about is a strikeout rate explosion with that batter's eye.

The good news is that in 48 plate appearances, um, before the trade he'd struck out 25% of the time, his league strikeout rate is 25% time in that park Randy Rosarito had. So there's just a faintest bit of evidence that he can handle whatever that batter's eye situation is. Um, and, uh, he's on a hot streak right now now. I think he's my, my ongoing analysis of him is that he's a low ball hitter that has to figure something out regularly on pitches high in order to get pitches to pitchers to

go back low. And that's when he gets white hot is when he's hitting those low pitches. Cause that's, that's what's happened this year. But in any case, yeah, good, great addition. I think back on the other side, what do you think is happening? I I had some tepid bids in for Johnny DeLuca because I do think he's now kind of an everyday player. Maybe Richie Palacios counts, too.

But my problem was in particular with those players was just that I kind of needed power. And in this league where steals have been much easier to get this year, they kind of offer this kind of meh power, okay stolen bases, maybe not great batting average combo that I don't think will fill a lot of our listeners needs. Yeah. So I guess my thought on DeLuca is that we have at times seen him show

good in game power. He's been a little old for the level and a couple of his minor league stops. He popped, I think it was 17 homers in 57 games. He's done the parades pull fly ball bit a little bit. Yeah. He he's got good strike zone judgment. I think the hardest thing for a player like Johnny DeLuca, because we talked about him during the offseason after the glass now trade for a righty on a team like the Rays that mixes and matches.

If you don't get an early shot to be a regular, you only have like two starts a week plus at bats off the bench to try to carve out a larger role. So I just felt like he's never been able to get momentum in this organization. Now I think he's the big winner. I think of the players taking the place of departed players, the deadline, DeLuca might end up being the most interesting pickup of all, it's possible, because he could be a five category player. It could work out that way.

Since he has the approach, similar to the Parades, similar enough to Parades, you can say, yeah, the raw power might not be great by barrel rate, by hard hit rate, but he's gonna do enough things right to give you more than you'd expect. That'll play. If the average doesn't hurt you and there's speed and everyday playing time, then I think you're talking about a guy that can make an impact, at least in 15 team leagues, probably down to 12 teamers where you start five outfielders though, if this is in fact

an everyday opportunity for him. So DeLuca gets the big up arrow. There's going to be other guys that end up getting to play more because I don't think the Rays are done as of five o'clock Eastern on Monday. They're going to clear out at least one or two more players. Seems pretty obvious that Brandon Lowe will go unless they're, you know, unless people just it's too much money, which would seems like a crazy thing to say because it's I think 10 million dollars a year for Brandon Lowe. Yeah, it's not not a bad, not a bad deal for a team that could be looking for

some power. They got two prospects plus a player to be named later back in the in the Rose Raina trade, by the way, Aiden Smith, Brody Hopkins and a player to be named later of significance was the report I saw. So that's kind of cool. I think, you know, the, the other trade that they did that was so interesting was Christian Morel for Isak Paredes. And we've talked a lot on this pod about about Isak Paredes and his and his pull approach. You know, what's funny is that I think the reason this trade was even possible for the Rays is because he's not praise plays a passable third.

And that's funny to say, because the Tigers were already playing Parade is at first a little bit. So they didn't think his defense was that great. But the Rays stuck, you know, Parade is out at third. And he was better than Morrell, who, you know, we all knew that defense was a problem. I was a little surprised to see that Morrell, I think, has been below replacement this year because his defense is so bad. Because i'm so much i like about morale's bat so i'm guessing that this is a little bit and if you think about it there's a model here for the race.

Yandy Diaz is a parade is christian morale. Guys who had certain things they could do on offense that they'd kind of established they could do those things, who had a weak fit defensively on the teams they were on. Right? Yanni Diaz was trying to play third base. Whereas he migrated towards first base, but they played him at third for a little bit. Isak Perez trying to play third base, already moving to first. They play him at third.

So if the model fits, are they just going to play Morrell at moving to first, they play him at third. So if the model fits, are they just gonna play Morel at third for the rest of the season, at least to see what they've got and not even call Kemmy Nero up? Or are they gonna call Kemmy Nero up and just install Morel as the DH and play him that way? I wonder what they'll do.

I think there's a few things they can try. I think the further away from playoff contention, they potentially slide, the more they can even push it. They're still a low probability playoff team. It's not completely over for them, even though they are hard sellers right now. If you're shopping while working, eating, or even listening to this podcast,

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That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. There's a lot going on here. So defensively just quantifying the difference. Morrell has been a minus five DRS player, defensive run state at third base so far. Parade Ace has been an even zero. By outs above average, Morrell minus 12, Parade Ace plus one. So that's a big difference right there for what the Cubs have on the field. You can play Paredes at third base, not feel bad about it. You can keep Michael Bush at first base, everything's fine in your corners. What you've also changed a lot is the amount of swing and miss in your lineup, even with the

improvements that Morrell has made at the plate this year. He's got his K-rate on 24.5%. If you told me back in the winter, Christopher Morel is gonna strike out less than 25% of the time, but he's gonna be below the Mendoza line despite a double digit barrel rate and a 44% hard hit rate, I would have been baffled by that.

I would have thought the underlying numbers were good enough for Morel to do all the good things he's able to do. And the Cubs were just gonna use use him mostly as a D.H. And that was going to be fine. So I think the defensive floor changes for the Cubs, the swing and miss goes down. I do think it's a it's not just the fans that like Christopher Morrell. He seems like a popular guy in that clubhouse.

He seems like he was really well liked by his teammates. So they get a little bit of a Armstrong said something about a little bit of a little bit of a chemistry hit. Right. But then, you know, if Parades comes in and produces and helps them beyond this season, which he's under club control for several years. So you you're not just giving up on the season by making this trade a few other Cubs, but you are making an interesting choice. Aside from the defense, you are choosing the guy

that has an approach that a lot of people question. People say, OK, you are choosing the guy that has an approach that a lot of people question. People say, okay, Esauk Paredes does this now, how long will it last? And if you asked a lot of people, what will age better, the Esauk Paredes, pull happy power approach or Christopher Morrell blistering the ball over the ballpark? Who's going to be the better long-term player. I think people gravitate more towards what Christopher Morel does at the plate than what Esauk Paredes does at the plate, even though Paredes has been doing this now

for two plus years. I mean, the other people that we've got on the Paredes list are kind of like Bregman, Alex Bregman and Marcus Simeon. Marcus Simeon did get a lot of money, so it's not like the market did not reward him. However, Simeon also was an everyday player with more of a defensive, like more defensive value than Paredes. I don't know what the market, how the market is going to value Bregman and I'm going to be watching it closely. And Bregman's power has taken a drop off. And we've just seen this year a little bit of a drop off in Paredes's power.

So I do think that there is some danger there. And Tampa, in general, likes to bet on hitting the ball hard. They like that. They don't even care so much about the launch angle. They just want you to hit the ball hard. Right. And then try to tweak it more from there. I think it's interesting, too.

I was looking at Robert Orr's Seager metric, its swing decision metric. Morell is fourth among qualified hitters in Seager, and not every single player on that leaderboard pops and has a great year. It's interesting, too. Nelson Velasquez is sixth in that list. The Cubs traded him away at the last deadline. It hasn't worked out yet for him, but it's part of the, why do you believe in this guy?

Why do you like this guy? Good swing decisions certainly help. Good swing decisions, great raw power, good game power, really bad defense. And somehow I think some poor babbit luck this year. I mean, a 24 and a 5% strikeout rate for Christian Morel with, you know, 111 max to be 12% barrel rate, like this is a guy who should be hitting 250, I feel like. Yeah, and if he just does that the rest of the way

and keeps the K rate and walk rate close to where they are, he's gonna have more like a 330, 340 OBP. And that's a heck of a lot more interesting than the guy that he's been up to this point. So I think they kind of got a buy low in here on Morrell on top of the two pitchers they get, one of whom Hunter Biggie could end up in their bullpen like soon tomorrow, it could be real quick for him.

But I thought that was a really fascinating trade because, you know, when Jed Hoyer came out and said they weren't really looking to upgrade for only this season, they're looking more towards 2025, people took that as a, we don't care about this season, they probably misconstrued that because they also added Nate Pearson to the bullpen in a separate deal. And I'm curious what you think about the Cubs adding Pearson. I went and bought him. I mean, there's a chance he could close. Yeah, that's an open bullpen. They've had all sorts of problems in late innings all year.

We've talked about it at a few different points. I don't know if Pearson closes right away, but he could be closing next year if he's not closing by the end of this season. He's had some issues turning this stuff into results. He's had some issues turning this stuff into results. Um, but, uh, you know, sometimes it's a large babbip. He's had that. Nate Pearson has, sometimes it's large home run rate. Um, but it's not that you look at his, uh,

his stuff and you see anything missing, I guess his location is not great. He's a little wild, uh, and especially specifically with that big, big fastball he's got. But, you know, he locates his sinker better that he's thrown, you know, very, very sparsely this year. You know, what if they saw something where they kind of split them over to or have more sinkers in there for strikes or throw throw more sliders for strikes, or whatever it is, they have some sort of thing there. But he's much needed addition in terms of stuff

to a bullpen that's really had no stuff. I mean, in terms of where he sits, there's Hunter Biggie, who's gone, Where he sits, there's Hunter Biggie, who's gone, Daniel Palencia, who is in AAA, and actually, Pearson would slot in ahead of those guys, both of them. So he immediately just becomes the guy with the best stuff in that tip-hole pen,

and I'm gonna bet on that because nobody has stepped forward in taking that job yet. Yeah, so that's an opportunity for Nate Pearson moving on. a bet on that because nobody has stepped forward and taken that job yet. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's an opportunity for Nate Pearson moving on. We do know that the Jays also moved Hemi Garcia to the Mariners. They're probably not done flipping players, but that's a bullpen. That's always really loaded.

Garcia was getting some saves. The blue Jays, maybe he gets the occasional save with the Mariners. We've seen they mix and match a little bit. They don't use. Andres Munoz as a straight up closer. Gregory Santos could get a save sometimes. Yeah, so I like the addition as far as just getting a guy that's an impact guy in Seattle, and I'm glad that they're not punting on it. We talked about it on the live stream last week.

They're so weird. They're such weirdos. Oh, my gosh. They would they they trade Ryan Stanek away my gosh. They trade Ryan Stanek away? Yeah, they traded Ryan Stanek away in a separate trade. And get Jimmy Garcia. They trade for Randy Rosarena. And then today, right before we went to Pod, they traded for Justin Turner. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's mostly a buying situation,

but it's just funny that they find the opportunity to also sell Somebody comes down to roster management Which is gonna be a part of our conversation at some point about the Rays like they're gonna have to figure out the 40 man eventually That's November probably where it's more of a problem than like you know now But yeah, some of the trades that the the, though, was they wanted players that were further away, you know, for just that reason. But I think with the Mariners, sometimes I get the vibe that the financial situation is pretty tight. And so everything has to be the same value.

And I think that actually explains a little bit of one of our other blockbuster trades. little bit of one of our other blockbuster trades. The St. Louis Cardinals trading for Eric Fetty and Tommy Pham trading away Tommy Edmond. The fact that they didn't go for a more frontline type postseason starter or somebody like a Blake Snell, somebody with top end stuff may have also had to do with some money. If you look at it, Tommy Edmonds salary next year is $8 million. Eric Fetty's salary next year is $7.5 million. They managed to tread water and have as much money going out as coming in.

And I think that might sometimes, you know, there used to be a blog called IA TMS. It's about the money, stupid. And I was an avid reader of that back in the day. And you know, I think in this case, some of these trades, the way that they're going, the way that like Stanik goes out before Yumi comes in, the way that Edmund goes out to pay for Fetty. There's a, you kind of tend not to think about it when there's only two months left and be like, oh, he's only got like a couple million left on a contract. Well, sometimes they budgeted for whatever they're budgeted

and they can't afford that two million or whatever. Yeah, it's, it's pretty interesting when teams have to operate that way. But I think it almost forces a little extra action because they find a trade that works for them from a what they need perspective. Then they have to either involve a third team or make a subsequent deal to fix it on the back end. There's a lot in this trade that I actually like.

I mean, I think everybody got something pretty good. I'm not sure we're gonna know about the White Sox quality of return in the immediate future. I think people are gonna. They also have to develop them. Yeah, they have to develop these players. They have to scouted them correctly, like open questions, I think, for the most part

on the two prospects. And there's also, this trade's weird because there's a player to be named later or cash going to the Cardinals on the two prospects. And there's also, this trade's weird because there's a player to be named later, or Cash, going to the Cardinals from the Dodgers. There's a player to be named later, or Cash, going from the Dodgers to the White Sox. There's a guy from the Cardinals, Oliver Gonzalez, who's pitching the Dominican Summer League,

that, who knows, he could end up being one of the best players, moved in the entire deal, even though it probably won't work out that way, just because he's so far away. Anything could happen with a 17 year old in the Dominican summer league that gets included in a trade. But Tommy Edmond, if he's healthy, fills a lot of potential holes for the Dodgers. So I do like that fit. It seems like he's finally starting to make progress. Maybe he'll start him at shortstop, huh? Like, will he play a lot of shortstop?

I think so. I think he'll play a lot of shortstop. I think part of what makes Tommy Edmond such a valuable real life player, especially, is like he's a good defender pretty much everywhere he plays. So he's not just the kind of guy that you put at shortstop who's two or three outs below average there or something and just gets by. Like, I think he's actually good at playing shortstop or at least good enough to be an

upgrade. So that's cool. And you get a guy that maybe for his career, he's been like a league average hitter, a 99 WRC plus. Maybe they can find something else there. They've done this before with guys in their late 20s, but I'm a little worried about Tommy Edmond as a hitter coming off of a wrist injury that's taken him this long. That's the part I'm worried about.

I think defensively, he fits in great for the Dodgers, but it's a little more of a wrist injury that's taken him this long. That's that's the part I'm worried about. I think defensively he fits in great for the Dodgers, but it's a little more of a wait and see for me with that. Also, I think that I'm trying to make confirm this real quick. He'd been starting to lose some playing time against one of the hands. Yes, against righties, he's lower in the lineup and losing some starts over the course of his time with St. Louis. But he's landing with a new team and the Dodgers have an incumbent Wrighty playing short. I just get this feeling that they don't want to put bets back at short.

I don't think they want to put bets back at short at all. I mean, he wasn't I mean, the outs above average wasn't that kind of thing. No, I'm looking back 2022 playing other positions also, but playing and he gave over 600 things at short. Tommy Edmond was a plus 10 for outs above average at short. Wow Six defensive runs saved last year in just under 400 innings. He was one defensive run save four outs above average So that's better by far than what Mookie's done We've talked about how impressive it is that Mookie was able to even play shortstop Having not really done it as a pro before, but this helps them. Tommy Edmonds helps them.

Yeah, they're buying him to play short. They're buying him to play short because he could. If the if the if the wrist is all right and there was a like a strained hamstring or like a straight ankle, like when he he's praying his ankle, like stepping on a base wrong. And then there was the lingering soreness. But then there have been competing reports saying not even that the wrist is fine. You know, they're going to look at the medicals, I guess. And if the,

if the trade goes through and they're happy with it and Edmund's wrist is fine, there's a non-zero chance he's the starting shortstop for the Dodgers the rest of the way. And Rojas and Ahmed are more, you know, I don't know, maybe even Ahmed's off the roster because they're going to have to make room. Right. And then Rojas is just are more, you know, I don't know, maybe even Ahmed's off the roster because they're going to have to make room. Right. And then Rojas is just your backup shortstop and backup, you know, defensive third baseman. So that would be a really good outcome for him. This trade also includes, you said you really like Johnny Lucas, one of the players that might benefit the most from this from trades. I'm going to set forth a possible one from this trade.

Miguel Vargas, I think, will now land into full time playing time on the Chicago White Sox, get his first sort of, hey, kid, you got two months to figure it out, you know, and show us what you got. Um, I don't know where they'll play him. You know, they did just bring up, uh, Baldwin. Yeah. Brooks Baldwin, you know, um, fam, fam left. So you've got Robert Benatendi and sheets in the outfield and you got Baldwin and Lopez at second.

Did I see something in Macada's? Oh, God, Macada's. My league rehab in the summer was was halted and it was referred to anticipated soreness, which is just hilarious. Well, we knew it was it was Macada, so we just anticipated the soreness. So anyway, Vargas lands, I think, into a full time job, I would guess. Second, I mean, second, third or corner outfield. I've liked some of what Sheets has done this year, but

he's just not turned it into power. It's somehow he's like cut the strikeouts and the swinging and he's added the patience and a lot of the plate skills look good but he's not turning his max EVs into barrel rates and the barrel rates are boring for Gavin Sheets to the point where it's not enough, especially for his defensive type. So if they want to give Miguel Vargas right field, I'm not going to complain. And if they want to give him third, that's fine with me too. So I think there's a lot of place for Vargas to end up and I love his, he's got elite plate discipline. You know,

and I think we just need to wait a little bit longer before we say anything definitive about his power. I think the question with Vargas for the White Sox is, can you turn him into a good defender somewhere on the dirt? I'm not convinced based on what we've seen so far that it's going to work out, but they're in a position that can try just about anything. It doesn't matter if he's well below average so far. Try, try work with him. There was a point where Marcus Simeon wasn't a good defender and he became a very good one. So if they have the right coaches in place, they have the right plans in place, they can make Miguel Vargas a better player in that facet. But this is a clear runway for everyday playing time.

So he's definitely among the deadline winners for sure. He had he had to change teams to do it. DeLuca just by by subtraction kind of got to stay in place and play more. But I think you're right. I mean, the downside is compared to what we always had hoped for. If Vargas was going to break in with the Dodgers, now he's doing it on a rebuilding team where, yeah, you get plus playing time, but you get below average supporting cast, especially if they're

not done clearing guys out. If it does come down to him versus Brooks Baldwin, I would point out that Vargas is running out of options. You have them both for a long time, but options are important because with Brooks, you could maybe, you know, you have a couple more seasons where you can see them for a little bit and send them down. They can even send them down now and just give Vargas second if they want because your number of options has a lot as almost as much to do with how you think of that player and

how quickly you have to make a decision on what he does right. They have one option year left on Miguel Vargas. That means there is a little bit of, we need to find your full time spot. They have three with Brooks. So they've got time to figure out where his spot is. Yeah. What do you think the Dodgers are doing with Michael Koepke? Is he set up? Is see the eventual closer? Do you think they unlock something that the White Sox haven't been able to up to this point? Well, one thing I like about him versus somebody

like an Evan Phillips is just that Kopeck brings, you know, a really high stuff fastball. And my working theory is that that's what people want from their closer. It's not a crazy theory. And he profiles, I think, really, really similarly to Tanner Scott in terms of really wild. And what's funny is in overall stuff Tanner Scott 147, Michael Koepke 142, Location Plus Tanner Scott 94, Koepke 95, you know so I think that they they profile really similarly in fact their fastballs both have a 151 stuff plus Tanner Scott and Michael Koepke. So you just got everyone's

sitting over here salivating over Tanner Scott and you just got Tanner Scott as a throw in. I mean, you know what I mean? Like you got your own Tanner Scott as a throw in. And you don't have to be part of the five teams scrum that they keep reporting. Oh, another team's interest in Tanner Scott. Good. Let them be. We just got our version. And in terms of like, you know, what how do what's the fix for me? I it's it's it's not in front of like, you know, what, how do, what's the fix for me? It's, it's, it's not in front of me.

Maybe it's a simplified arsenal. Maybe it's a simplified target system. Maybe it's just time, dude, because he has a 340 Sierra, you know, stuff plus says he should be better than this. You know, I don't think he should. He's a true talent. 1.7 home runs per nine for Kopec. So I think to some extent this is just like we're going to bring him somewhere

out of that whole mess where he has the burden the burden of what has been political reference. Sorry. He is burdened by what has been in Chicago and he needed to be unburdened from that. So, you know, Dodgers like, hey, we love your stuff. We're not going to give you the ninth, I don't think, until, you know, we start to see improved command. But if you do, the ninth is a possibility. Hudson is being any saves for them. I mean, Hudson could keep that job, could end up being an inexpensive addition from recent weeks that pays off down the stretch.

There's a lot of ways the Dodgers bullpen could unfold. They could still add one more. Another key difference here though too is that Tanner Scott, wherever he gets him, is a rental. He's a free agent at the end of the season. Michael Kopeck is under control for one more year. So Dodgers likely have Kopeck in a high leverage spot for next season as well. Now the other side of this,

the Cardinals getting Eric Fetty and Tommy Pham. Tommy Pham back to St. Louis? Who would have thought? Oh my God, so, so weird. I- It's so weird. I don't think he's super happy about that, but. I would love to get an official comment from Tommy about that, if possible.

Maybe off the record we'd get one, but Eric Fetty to St. Louis people say, oh, the Cardinals have a type. I think Eric Fetty is a little better than some of the other recent Cardinals starting pitcher additions. I don't think he's quite as good as Sonny Gray, but I think he's more interesting

and he's better than Kyle Gibson. He's probably better than this version of Lance Lynn. If you're ranking the starters in that rotation or ordering them for elimination games in terms of how how badly you'd want to put them out there, who you'd be most excited to have going for you. How would you rank them? How would you compare Fetty to the non-Sunny Gray options? I'm going to push back just a little bit.

And this is this is my this is my listicle version of pushing back. Here is the entire list of qualified starters who do not have a better fastball than Eric Fetty. Jose Quintana, Austin Gomber, Patrick Corbin, Zach Littell, Griffin Canning, Brady Singer, and Miles Michaelis. That's it. So it does fit the type a little bit. Yeah. There's something I think still kind of cool about this. Like he's kind of like, you know, against righties, he's a sinker sweeper guy.

Right. And then against lefties, he's a cutter change type. And, you know, he can mix and match the other things in enough to keep people off balance. But he's, you know, in some ways he's he's got his his bread and butter, two pitches. Eric Fetty does against lefties and against righties. And and there is something to be said for arsenals that work. You know what I mean? That like, oh, you have, okay,

you have a pitch you can throw for strikes against lefties and you have a pitch you can throw for strikes against righties. You have a pitcher you can throw for swinging strikes. You know what I mean? He does have those pieces, but 21% strikeout rate, 7% walk rate. It's pretty vanilla to me. So I don't know. Yes. He's probably the second best starter on the Cardinals. But, you know, if we started the playoffs right now,

he would be the worst second best starter in the playoffs. I see maybe the possibility of Feddy either bringing back old pitches or maybe just having the feel and ability to develop more. So I think what you see in 2024 isn't necessarily what you see in 2025. He signed that kind of team friendly deal coming back from the KBO. It is good news. He adds a sweeper. I mean, he made some some some actual movement changes to his his pitches.

So, yeah, I don't know. I kind of see a little more of like a Seth Lugo potential addition here. If he just keeps tweaking, there might be a little bit more there than the meets the eye. And I'm with you on the the stuff works together. That's important. I think that's something that Eric Fetty has has been able to figure out during his time in the KBO and clearly it's a different picture than when we last saw him stateside.

I think he's at least proven that even if it's not the most exciting profile from like a Roto perspective right now. So I think the Cardinals did pretty well to at least get a starting picture upgrade. That's not simply a rental. Yeah. And I think, you know, one thing they probably, you know, we were in the middle of this and I probably shouldn't even say this cause we're it's hype time and we shall be hyped about the trade deadline, but probably we overrate how much, um,

what you get at the trade deadline can help your team. Like there might be like a mental capacity, like I'm talking about the Mariners scoring more runs as soon as they got a new pad in the lineup. There could be a mental thing to it. But in terms of like, you know, could the Cardinals have made their starting rotation into a top half starting rotation in the playoffs? This trade deadline? Like, was it even possible?

I don't think so. Not without doing things to their system to go get Garrett Crochet. That would have probably had a massive, massive detrimental impact on them in the long run. It's not how they've worked in the past either. If you trade for Crochet, you give up three or four very important long-term pieces to do it and then crochet breaks, then you've really double whammied, you know?

In a little bit, yeah. So I think, you know, this is very Cardinals-like. And in the end, if they were gonna do anything in the playoffs, it probably has to come out of the bats. Yeah. Because they've got the bats there and the bats aren't performing like they used to. And so it comes down to like two or three veteran bats that need to be better.

And if that happens, then they can make it with Fetty as their number two probably. Simple would you rather? Would you rather have if you're a Cardinals fan or if you're in the position of just getting your team? Better in general fantasy perspective would you rather have Zack Eflin for the rest of the season? We got traded to the Orioles or Fetty who ended up going to the Cardinals, which was the better Addition for this year and next year I guess you can factor in cost if you want to because Eflin has the final year of that three-year deal He signed it was backloaded factor in cost if you want to because Eflin has the final year of that three year deal he signed.

It was backloaded 18 million next year. The Orioles get something they need for this year and next year. Just as the Cardinals do, they're paying a little bit more just in terms of salary to get it. But who do you like better from a skills perspective at this point? It's a good one. Our projections using Stuff Plus and like aren't maybe not super helpful here because they probably still consider Zac Eflin in Tampa

and Feddy in Chicago. Neither one of them has standout stuff. You're talking about one sort of outpitch in both cases, the sweeper for Feddy and the curve for Eflin. They're pretty similar on paper. They really are. Eflin still throws the four seam and actually has a bit of a wider mix right now. I'm gonna go with Eflin. He also has struck out more batters for longer, maybe not this year, but has struck out more batters for longer in a bigger sample than Eddie has. I do think in many years, this ends up being the ceiling in terms of the quality of the

starting pitcher that gets moved at the deadline. Maybe we'll see that someone else moves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If they've got multiple years of control, this is about the best you can expect. Yeah. Yeah. And you're like, well, okay, I locked in some certainty going into the off season. Going to get traded because it's just too complicated. I think you could trade Garrett crochet in December and that could be fun too.

Cause then you're calling 29 other teams instead of Nine other teams and there's none of this like will he even make it to October? You know, it's more like he's yours from the beginning season. You can manage your innings as you'd like, you know And he might tack on two more pretty healthy innings. They said at the end of last week They don't have a specific plan for crochet he's in that that group that's gonna let him keep working and see how it goes. But the Eflin trade was fine. The Orioles got something they really needed to help stabilize, give them

quality innings every fifth day within that group, given all the injuries they've dealt with. What'd you think of this one? Carlos Estevez to the Phillies, who don't seem to be done, but they've been mixing and matching in that bullpen. Jose Alvarado, 13 saves on the year. Jeff Hoffman has nine. Soto's got a couple as well.

The Angels get a couple of prospects back in the return. But do you think Carlos Estevez, from a fantasy perspective, just muddies up an already difficult, closer situation in Philly, even though he makes that bullpen one arm better? I mean, I even picked up a real cheap Jose Alvarado share the other day. I mean, he has 13 saves in the year. I don't know. I've been holding on to Jeff Hoffman in the main event

and been playing him a lot and he's rewarded us in terms of ERA and WIP, but nine saves, you know, projected to finish the season with 15 saves is just a weird, weird way to do things. Not not in terms of them winning, winning games. I understand it. They're trying to find who's the best at what and find the best matchups for these pitchers and give them rest when they need it because this is all about October for them. So they're all just trying to figure out how best to

use this bullpen and not worry about who's the closer with the capital C. I get it. But for us on the outside it's weird because it's really hard to project what's going on there and I'm just gonna hard to project what's going on there. And I'm just going to, I'm going to guess that Hoffman gets the most saves, but it's, I think it's just a total guess because they're really good pitchers. They're all really good pitchers with a lot of stuff. And sometimes their command comes and goes and that's it. I mean, I don't, I don't really have a bad word to say about the group of relievers that they have in St. Louis. I mean, in Philadelphia. I love it. I love that they went from having a bullpen weakness

a few years ago to a good bullpen where you can't even, can't even quite determine who exactly the preferred option for saves is, or they maybe just don't have one. They were doing so well that they took their, you know, they took one of their best in terms of Stuff Plus. Sir Anthony Dominguez was the second on the team in Stuff Plus and traded him to get a better

part-time corner outfielder in Austin Hayes. Contenders helping contenders, Hayes versus Sir Anthony Dominguez and Christian Pache going back the other way to the Orioles. I have a little bit of a feeling that Austin Hayes could hit his way into a full time gig. It's a nice little park factors win for Austin Hayes getting away from Mount Baltimore and into Philly.

Yeah, and he's I think he's a better hitter if you take the defensive component out than than Rojas. Yeah, I think the floor is quite a bit safer. He's a better hitter than Rojas. So if if against, you know, if most of the time, if your best offensive without not that big of a defensive hit is Hayes Marsh Castellanos, it is not great defense, but what you could do is start games with Hayes and replace them with a Rojas once you get a lead. I don't know. Yeah, that might be the script.

Go go glove late. Just get Hayes in there for the battle early some days, depending on the matchups. How about this one? Here's a Park Factors winner. Thai France goes to the matchups. How about this one? Here's a Park Factors winner. Ty France goes to the Reds. I mean, Seattle to Cincinnati, as far as a right-handed hitter boosting homers. That's one of the best possible routes you can go via trade.

It's the reverse Jesse Winker, who got traded from Cincinnati to Seattle a few years ago. Big time Park Factors winner. I think it's one of the few places Ty France could have landed where suddenly his fantasy appeal jumps back up to the point where he'll be targeted

in weekly pickups on Sunday. He'll be a player. People are excited to get if they're looking for some corner help. What's. The corresponding move and well, we might take it sent down. Haven't seen them make a transaction yet. What's his path?

Someone's going to lose playing time if they're going to play at Thai France, right? So that's the question. What's the weakness right now? I mean, after a steroid suspension and with the way that Marte has played, I kind of think the writing on the wall, especially the way that Marte has played, kind of think the writing on the wall, especially since the way Marte has played since even in the minors after his suspension. Yeah, they could move Spencer Steer back into the outfield. He's been playing a lot of first base lately. Yeah. You just put Jamer at third, you, you send Noelby Marte down and you played

Ty France at first. Yeah. And if you did that, you'd be Jamer at third, you send Noelle Marte down and you play Ty France at first. Yeah, and if you did that, you'd be playing less Will Benson. I think so. I think Will Benson probably loses time. Yeah, most likely if they don't want to send Marte down. That's probably the way it works out. So I think there's a shot. Ty France is useful in the final two months, which, hey, good for him. He put in the work this offseason. We'll see if it pays off a bit later than expected. Do they have him after this year?

Ty France? Great question. Free agent 2025 on Fangraps means free agent at the end of the year, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. So this was the Reds buying. We'll see if they do anything else or if this is just the, we tried.

Yeah, it's just a little thing to do at the end of the year. The annual Bob Castellini. Where else are you going to go? Waiting for that quote. Zero feel. None. No feel. Oh, my gosh.

Here's a fun trade. I'm going to check to see if we're missing anything as we're talking. Yeah, I've been trying to keep an eye on it. The fun trade of this deadline so far could be topped. It's fun because I didn't expect any of these players to be traded for each other or traded in a deal like this. Quinn Priestor goes to the Red Sox. Nick York goes to the Pirates. Both I think land in better spots to contribute. We've seen the Red Sox make some pretty massive adjustments to their pitching program.

So they probably have a tweak or two in mind for Priester. And York, both guys are former first rounders. York has a clearer path to playing time. He's a little more blocked in Boston, starting to put the pieces together at AAA this year, showing some power, showing some speed. I'd like this. This could end up being a long-term win-win. I put it in the discord a little earlier today.

They're not quite at the same level as far as Logan Ohapi and Brandon Marsh a couple deadlines ago, but it feels kind of like that where two teams could be pretty happy with the decision in the end because they they helped each other out. Yeah, I think Priesters really interesting because his sinker is actually an above average pitch for its type. It's hiding under a 98 stuff plus, but. That's above average for a sinker. And then his slider is decent and his curveball is decent.

So there is a foundation there, you know, in the middle of all that. The location numbers, I heard some people sort of talking about Queen Priesters command, but location numbers are above average. What really kind of tanks this whole profile is a really poor four seamer, which he doesn't throw a ton, but I could see the Red Sox just saying, stop it. You know, and a little bit like a Bayo or, you know, a lot of their other guys have just, you know, really reduced the amount of fastballs they've thrown. So, you know, Quinn Priestor could go in there and I don't know, though, I don't it's not obvious to me. This is not like a Luis LRT's, you know, thing where I'm like, oh, if only I could see it and then he finally did some stuff and I'm like oh actually I like him you know this is more like okay you're going to throw the four scene that you throw 15% of the time you're gonna stop throwing that and you're gonna maybe port it mostly over to sliders so you're gonna throw sinkers 30% of the time, sliders 35% of the time,

curve balls 20% of the time. I don't know, dude. Like how good can this be? The fastball V-Lo isn't standout. The strikeout rate in the big leagues has never been standout. The strikeout in the minor leagues was not even really standout. I think they can maybe turn him into a usable starter and maybe, you know, in the fours ERA. But I'm not sure this is a big deal for fantasy. I don't know that I like a marginal pitcher in Boston is not something I'm I'm I'm like really

reaching for. On the other hand, Nick York going over one problem that people have mentioned is that he's been, he's struggled against lefties. Nick York has. If I'm acquiring him, I say, I don't care about that yet. And how could he, he's a right-hander. So I don't care that he's struggling against lefties right now. You know what I mean? Like if he's a right-hander who can hit righties then he's probably an everyday starter and what I like about Nick York is he combines really good strikeout rates with really good walk rates and

It's just a question of how the power works out, but it's not You know does he have zero power? It's more like does he have average power or does he have slightly above average power? Both of those things are in play a little bit. Of course, the pirates need a hitter, you know, and of course, they've they've had a little bit more success with pitchers. So I think this deal makes more sense to me from the pirate side. I think we're going to look back at it.

We're going to say Quinn Priesters, another Cutter Crawford type in Boston. They found a usable starting pitcher and that has a lot of value and you can do that for someone that maybe wasn't going to do a whole lot for you as an everyday guy. But I think Nick York can be an everyday guy now that he's in the Pirates organization. I think that's a possibility at least that looked a little less likely before. They get called up as part of this deal. Definitely, definitely could be up. I would suggest that Winker get flipped to the Mets.

That's pretty fun. That's a park factor loss. Yeah, that's a slight downgrade. Maybe a stolen base loss too. Might be really bad for his fancy value actually. He's been good over the course of the season, but I almost wonder if he'll become more of like a semi-regular for the Mets being on a better team,

if that chips away at his playing time a little bit. I don't know what the most recent news is for Starley Marte and why it's taking so long. All the note I've got is he's hoping to begin a running progression, but if he does make it back, I'm not sure. Winker could even be someone who just plays until Marte's back and then is really like, as you say, more of a part time player. Yeah, nice to see him healthy again, though.

It's been a rough couple of years for Jesse Winker between his stops in Seattle and Milwaukee. James Paxton, by the way, got sent back to the Red Sox. Red Sox have been doing stuff in the sense of, you know, they've been active, but Paxton in a deal with the Dodgers after he gets a DFA'd, plus Danny Jansen goes there, so they get another catcher. I think they're just doing the soft buy right now. We'll see if something changes in these next 24 hours, but it looks like minor moves trying to get a little better on the on the edges of the roster. Yeah, I mean, depending on who you talk to, giving up Nick York is

a thing is so that, you know, some people really value him. He was a first round pick, but he was one of the weirdest first round picks. We even brought it up in the Melissa Lockhart, um, you know, episode that we did. Yeah. So we're surprised at the time. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, that one is a bigger deal for me. Paxton, um, would not start over Cooper Crisbell, but you know, Cooper Crisbell doesn't throw hard either. Maybe they'll just mix and match there.

They've now got Quinn Priester, so it's, you know, three guys who could maybe start and maybe relieve, maybe give you innings, you know, maybe they'll just figure their way out using those three guys. Maybe they're just taking the three worst pictures on their team and replacing them with Paxton, Quinn Priester. And I'm forgetting who the third is now real quick. Jansen is the catcher. Well, maybe they just replace them with theirxton, win Priester. And I'm forgetting who the third is now real quick. Jansen is catcher. Well, maybe they just replaced their worst two pitchers with Paxton and

and and Priester and not necessarily being like, you have you are a starting pitcher with a capital S, you know, that seems possible on a team that's listening to Kyle Bodie as well. So yeah, Dan Jansen is great. It's a great rental, but it's a rental. So it probably didn't cost them much. Paxton didn't cost them much. So it just all sort of hinges on whether or not you think spending New York was a good idea

and how much you like Quinn Priester just to call it anything more than what you call it a soft buy. So prior to the weekend, AJ Puck gets flipped to Arizona for Davis and De Los Santos. Andrew Pintar also going to the Marlins and that went outfield prospect.

And in the time since then, Josh Bell has been put on waivers by the Marlins. So they're just trying to shed payroll, hoping someone will just say, sure, we'll take Josh Bell for nothing. But Davis and De Los Santos for now reporting to AAA at one point, I think you heard a scout say that he's not, he's not a real baseball player. He doesn't know how to play baseball because he can't,

he's not a good defender. And he can't play the field. Yeah. Wait. So David De Los Santos got moved somewhere. He's Miami now. Uh, in the what trade? AJ puck trade and puck ended up in Cleveland. No pucks in Arizona. that move somewhere. He's Miami now. In the what trade? AJ Puck trade. And Puck ended up in Cleveland. No, Puck's in Arizona. Oh, that's right. David Los Santos was a dive back. Yeah, I thought he got a real five guy for Cleveland. And they sent him back.

Yeah. Ah, OK. That all makes sense. So he's been crushing it in Amarillo and I saw I saw some, you know, discussions about whether or not Paul Sewell should be out as closer. So I guess Puck is an interesting guy for people to pick up. We're looking for sayings. Puck's been great since moving back into the bullpen. Clearly, that role suits him. He has the stuff to do it. And that's all great. Even if Sewell doesn't lose the job now, I do think the next time the job becomes available, they have one more high quality option in the mix.

It's not ginkle necessarily. Now it could be could be AJ Puck if they make a change. De Los Santos should get a chance to play in Miami that he may have never received in Arizona. And I think the thing is, I know we've ragged on the triple A quality of pitching a lot, but De Los Santos is doing what he's doing as a 21 year old. He just turned 21 in June. So he's been young for the level, putting up some

video game numbers. It's not great from a WRC plus perspective at triple A. The Josh Bell thing may be the corresponding move for him. Huh? They may open it up for him. They had him go to Jacksonville, a Triple A affiliate to start. He's already homered once there in his first two games. Nice.

He's got 29 homers this year in, geez, 89 games between Double A and Triple A. It's pretty exciting. I mean, if you're going to do the deep rebuild and it looks like the Marlins are doing the deep rebuild. Oh, this is hilarious. Take a chance. The prospects TLDR on fan graphs. They have like a little, you know, one sentence thing. The prospects TLDR on Davis De Los Santos is DDLS is a Michael

Franco and Jake Berger clone with huge raw power. There's undercooked by a rational and expansive approach. It's going to hit a lot of homers and have an OPP around 300. That's hilarious to have them on the same team as Mr. Jake Berger. In fact, they could be throwing balls to each other across that infield. Good chance, yeah.

Good chance they will be for a little while. So I do think De Los Santos gets a nice up arrow for PT because the D-backs didn't seem that they had any interest in really squeezing him under their roster, at least down the stretch this year. And now he could just be an everyday guy for a rebuilding team. So that's kind of nice. That's like, I mean, we'll do more of a prospects thing at some point. But that seems to me like a really nice, like maybe one of the better prospects

changing hands cunning into a better situation with more with more chance to play and being close, you know, like kind of a relevant prospect move for fantasy players that you know also wouldn't cost anything in terms of going to pick them up or Yeah should be relatively easy to get in a lot of places. Dylan Dingler is probably going to play more for the Tigers because they flipped Carson Kelly to the Rangers. I think that's kind of interesting only because Jake Rogers isn't necessarily a lock to just be the everyday

or the primary catcher. That could be sort of an ongoing battle to watch down the stretch. Dingler's put up some nice numbers at Toledo this year, getting to his power a lot more often. 17 homers in 71 games, 20% K rate, 45% hard hit rate. So there's quite a bit to like there. If you look at some of Dingler's performances

in the minors before, you see a guy that would get to a new level, struggle, and then repeat the level and figure it out. So I wouldn't be surprised if it's a bumpy adjustment phase for him these final couple of months, but he might learn enough and do enough to take over that job going into 2025. Best new closer. I sent you, I was on vacation trying to make fab runs. Oh, fab on vacation is about as bad as fab from the golf course.

Oh my God. That's right. You hit me up yesterday like, hey, what do you think about this? And I was like, ah, remember the cart riding down the fairway right now? Don't know. Good luck. So so let me I'll just go to my my screenshots here that I sent you so I can I can see what I did. I. And now I made a mistake, but I had Pearson Hudson second.

Fochay third. Tyler Ferguson fourth. Ferguson is the closer maybe for the A's right now. That whole deal. I don't know if you guys talked about last week was just sort of ridiculous. Mason Miller punching the training table because he didn't want to work out after a game. You don't want to lift or something, right? Yeah. So that happened.

We learned about that after Thursday's stream when we talked about AL Rookie of the Year candidates and talked a lot about how Mason Miller as a reliever could win rookie of the year. He'd be, he'd be the third A's reliever since Houston street did it in 2005. It'd be street Bailey and Mason Miller. Probably not going to happen now. Well, my only problem with having Ferguson higher was A Miller is going to come back. It was his non-throwing hand. So, you know, how long is that going to take? B, Erceg is there.

Maybe Erceg gets moved. And then C, Oakland is not a great team making a lot of saves. So I just thought with those three things, I wanted them lower down. I put Rowanze Contreras and David Robertson on the tree for really small numbers. Rowanze Contreras and David Robertson on the tree for really small numbers.

Rowan Z. Contreras got a save. Ben Joyce pitched two innings in an outing recently, but I have to think, I have to think Ben Joyce gets the first stab at it, especially with the new sinker. I don't know. There's something. He has the the gas of a closer. He looks like a closer. So, you know, and I think he was one of the was he one of the all pitcher draft?

I don't know. Any case, you know, I think as a GM, you want to have something you can point to and be like, you know, oh, at least we figured out Zach Neto and, and, and, you know, have a closer now. So I kind of think Ben Joyce is getting the first shot there. There's got to be other situations I haven't thought of, I guess. Oh, yeah. What's going to happen in Chicago? I mean, the Copac replacement or you're talking about the Cubs situation? Well, Cubs, I picked Pearson as my winner.

I could be wrong, but it's better to be wrong at like the $10 out of a thousand level, uh, than to be wrong at the $150 level. So I made all these bids at sort of a 1% level where I was like, I'm, I'm paying a buck out of a hundred to see, to see if I'm right. Um, but, uh, Brebia is going to get traded. So it's probably not Brebia. Yeah. And we did kind of put a little bit of a Scarlet a on this, the avoid tag. Um, you know, maybe leisure comes up and gets a shot. Maybe Schuster gets a shot. There's, it's not obvious. It's not obvious, and it may not be good news.

Yeah, I don't think I want to shop in that bin if I could help. And I'm probably just looking elsewhere because they're going to generate so few safe chances. It will likely be an unreliable source anyway, even if they find someone with good enough skills to sort of hold that job temporarily for the final two months of the season. Fochay does is does not necessarily have the the fastball of a traditional closer,

you know, 96 on the sinker. But he's interesting in terms of swing strike, strikeout rate and the fact that the team has him under team control for a while. I could see them giving Fochay a chance. Yeah, I could see it. I think I think they have other relievers they could move to that would clear it out even more. Right. Like beyond like they trade Chandler Scott and keep Andrew Nardi, then maybe it's Nardi instead. But they could move anybody in that bullpen. So maybe you want to be looking two or three chairs down to actually find the next closer

in Miami, but they're also going to be in that putrid White Sox range, I think, for the final two months, given how hard their sell has been. I mean, they're getting down. Nick Gordon was already playing a lot, but Nick Gordon, I think his playing time is even more stable now as a result of the trades we talked about a little bit earlier, like just opening up more playing time for him because of jazz being gone. He'll play a lot of center field.

Brujhan gets a little uptick in playing time there, too. Man. A lot more to go, I think. Teams don't seem like they're done, you know, just led. I'm going to say that the Blue Jays only trade people that aren't under team contract for next year. And so not even Chad Green goes. So Chad Green is going to remain closer in Toronto, I believe. But that's a pretty big win if you've got Chad Green that ends up happening, because it looked like there was a pretty good chance he could move at some point. And there still is, obviously. But if you're the Blue Jays and you want to compete next year,

it would be great to have Chad Green as a little bit of Romano insurance. Yeah, it would be. We also in the time since you and I last spoke, and since our last episode, Dylan Cease threw a no hitter against the Nats. That happened on top of all these moves. And there was this absurd catch Xander Bogarts playing keepy upy for Jackson Merrill to make a catch in the fifth inning. The flair over the infield. I missed that.

That was the weird play, the bizarre play that every no hitter has to have. They do. Yeah. So that was the second no hitter in Padres history. Of course, now I saw through first 15 strikeout to walk like seven inning gem. He looks like he's back. Yeah, that might have sent him out of town. Yeah, well, then the Giants swept the Rockies all over the weekend. They were like, why do we have to play the Rockies and make everyone talk about

in that way? But I will say, like, you know, Farhan's contract situation, his he's he wants wins. He won't. He doesn't want to sell. So they may try to do the buying and selling that some some teams are trying to pull off, but he doesn't want to sell and he wants to he wants to get a playoff berth and keep his job alive. Yeah, that's that's why I think they could sneak in and make a move or two here.

They've been pretty quiet up to this point, but getting a lot healthier. And Robbie Ray looked really good his first turn back off the IL last week, too. Some bigger picture thoughts later in the week about the fantasy implications of starters coming off of the IL and being the big prizes in fab as opposed to prospects. That was something I kind of stumbled into over the course of last week. We didn't get a chance to talk about it because we didn't have an episode on Friday, but we're going to go.

Good news, we got a live stream on Tuesday, 5.30 Eastern on YouTube. So be sure to join us for that. Right around the deadline. Right around the deadline. 30 minutes before, we'll probably stay on for about 30 minutes after. Britt's going to join us from the ballpark

right around six o'clock. So we'll get an update from her from the scene always nice to get that you can find Eno on twitter at Eno Saris you can find me at the Derek and Riper find the pod at rates and barrels and join our discord the link is in the show description that's gonna do it for this episode rates and barrels we're Thanks for listening!