Rates & Barrels - Throwing smart darts, the new Ohtani Rules, Zac Gallen's injury, and high value replacements

Episode Date: March 23, 2021

Eno and DVR discuss the importance of bench construction in the late stages of drafts, messy closer situation as a result of injuries, potential changes to the Ohtani Rules, Zac Gallen's forearm injury, and some of the next players up as injuries thin out lineups between now and Opening Day.  Rundown 2:09 The Importance of Bench Construction 9:59 Messy Closer Situations: Toronto, Texas & Pittsburgh 21:04 Josh Jung’s Foot Injury 26:48 Changes to the Ohtani Rules; Yordan Alvarez’s Return 35:26 Zac Gallen’s Forearm Injury; Sixth Starters To Watch 43:58 Any Interest in Joe Ross? 53:20 Let’s Build a Bench (A Real MLB One)! 67:46 Buying in on Mike Brosseau as an Injury Replacement? 69:31 Optioned Prospects & Estimating Callups Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Please fill out our listener survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/athleticaudiosurvey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It is Monday, March 22nd. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris, at least a version of Eno. How's it going for you on this Monday, Eno? Oh my god, I have a cold. It's so weird. I haven't had a cold in a year. It feels very strange. But I think that's all it is.

The kids have been going to in-person school. So we went camping. And so we were right on top of each other. I was like, there's no chance I'm not getting this one. I always thought it was interesting in Spanish class that there wasn't a word for camping. If you're going to go camping, the verb is ear to go, ear de camping. I just thought, how could there not be a word for camping in Spanish? It's very, very weird. It's like los jeans, not a word for jeans. That's right.

That's all I have. That's my fun tidbit for today. More important things in this episode include a lot of injuries. It's been a relatively healthy spring to this point. We have a round of injury news to talk about because there's a lot of fallout there. A pretty fun Shohei Otani experiment that played out on Sunday. He was the leadoff hitter and the starting pitcher in a spring game. It just sounds like the Angels are going to mix things up a bit more with how Otani is deployed this season. So we'll talk about that. things up a bit more with how Otani is deployed this season.

So we'll talk about that. Some draft strategy nuggets that have surfaced as we've gone through another weekend of drafts, including the Tout Wars auctions that took place over the weekend. We got an update on Bobby Witt Jr. He is not going to begin the season on the opening day roster. He has been optioned to the minor league side. But, of course, we wonder how long will it be before we see him. minor league side. But of course, we wonder how long will it be before we see him and another mess of bullpen injuries, shaking things up, making things even more complicated with a lot of teams closer picture. So I want to talk about some of the draft strategy stuff that has surfaced

in the last couple of days. You know, we were talking before we recorded about how you like to utilize your bench spots, especially in earlier drafts. But even when you're drafting in the final week or final 10 days before opening day, thinking very carefully about those last roster spots and what you're trying to accomplish there is really important. So what was your realization in these last couple of days of something you're going to try and do more consistently with those bench spots? in these last couple of days of something you're going to try and do more consistently with those bench spots? You know, we were talking about just the kind of player that can just be murder on a roster where they're good enough and have enough upside that you'll keep them on your roster, even though you're not playing them and starting them and you don't drop them. And you're just basically wasting that roster slot as you say, oh, no, he'll get it together or he's too good to drop or, you know, he'll get back from this injury.

You know, like we've talked about in the context of like Chris Sale and like how long are you going to hold on to him if there's any setbacks? And I think it comes up a lot with one of my preferred uses of the uh bench slot is like a a high upside sort of dart right i have a fair amount of joe adele shares and uh i put those on my bench and i do i like that because i'm not spending that much however how many times do you think i'm going to stare at joe adele you know and wonder i i like the fact that he has the high max x of elo um and i think the power's in there and he could be and and he's behind a replacement level situation in dexter fowler so like everything lines up for him still to have the opportunity but how long do they you know run dexter fowler out there and how long do i stare at joe dell wanting that roster slot so

i was thinking about that in the context of uh's Reject. So I had a kind of an interesting pair of events that just happened recently. I traded John Means and Andrew Haney to Tom Trudeau for Mitch Hanegar and Logan Webb. And part of that was because I was a little bit worried that Haney and Means weren't actually that much better than Webb in terms of how I would use them, that I would actually not want to start Means against the Yankees in Baltimore, you know, and that I may not want to start Haney against certain teams, against the Astros or something. And if they become sort of streamer types, then I might as well take Logan Webb, who I will probably want to start in San Francisco, right? So Webb actually replaces some of that usefulness on my roster. And I think, you know, Hanager has gotten good with the injuries. And

there's a sort of a developing story that I can't wait to break this season about some of the training methods that he's doing to get back on track. So I wanted to have that share of Hanager. We also needed him after losing Cole Calhoun as a guy who had decent OVP, some power, some speed. So that trade was fine by itself. But as that happened, my needs for my bench changed. I thought. I was like, well now I need starting pitchers.

Right. Cause I just traded away two starting pitchers. Um, and I had this long discussion with James Anderson. Um, and we only have two pickups left until opening day. And I said, well,

Jose Kirk is hurt. And, uh, who was hurt before him? Jonathan Hernandez. Uh, Joe was Jolie. Jonathan Hernandez was hurt.

So, you know, my Matt Bush, I've been talking about Matt Bush on this podcast. I was like, maybe Matt, I think we need Matt Bush. And then we also, Corbin Martin was on the wire. And I was like, but I really want Corbin Martin because I feel like he's the sixth starter in Arizona. There's already been sort of a whiff of injury about some of those guys in front of him. In the end, we took Matt Bush and we took Corbin Martin. And Matt Bush now joins on this roster. Matt Bush, Kyle Crick, Gregory Soto, Lucas Sims.

I think I have one more. But anyway, it's like five or six relievers that aren't yet closers. And that seems like a lot of space to be wasting, basically, on just lottery tickets. You've got six relievers that aren't closers on your roster? What are you talking about? It's a total waste of space. However, when opening week comes back and I've got more moves again,

I will know who to drop. Right, but I think the important thing though is that in addition to knowing who to drop, that's a deep enough league where the quality of the players and the waiver wire is pretty low, and all of those guys would be high demand pickups if they had the job.

So I think you're taking a very low risk, getting a possible high reward, and you do have that extra easy player to drop as those replacements come up. You'll have clarity a few games into the season, if not sooner, because teams do like to name a closer. And even if they're coy about it, get through four or five games, you're going to feeling okay this team finally had a save chance here's what they did with it this is what they did in a close game this is who they used here that's gonna shed a lot of light on whether or not those guys are rosterable in your league and you could start throwing darts by letting those players go like comparing that to a 12 team redraft, you'd still want one or two non-closer relievers that you're taking a chance on as part of that bench construction.

But you'd also have available young players that have high ceilings, right? Because you don't have those players available in a deep dynasty league, I think allocating more roster spots toward those relievers is one of the best ways you can go about using that depth. Yeah, I think it's a viable strategy in almost any league. That's why I wanted to sort of tell the story. I know nobody cares about my fantasy league, but I wanted to tell the story because I think actually you should have, you know, in the past I've been mostly starting pitchers and like two or three bench bats.

That's my normal bench construction. I think I should have one or two slots in there that are relievers. I'm not even going to put in my lineup opening week. Matt Bush, Jordan Romano, Tanner Scott. Just take a couple of chances way late in the draft. If they don't work out, how often does that that roster slot that person picked in that roster slot make it to the end of the season on your on your team? Not often. Right. So you might as well actually pick someone that'll give you information really quickly.

And I think it goes even beyond how they're used. I mean, yes, the first week of usage will be really important. the first week of usage will be really important. But there's also like as you're finishing up the roster, that last week of spring, there'll be a lot of like sort of this is the roster. We do roster projections at The Athletic, right, where they like sort of they lay out who's doing what and what their roles are and stuff like that. So there will be a lot of like asking the manager,

so have you decided who the closer is yet? Yeah. Right? And so they'll have to answer that some way. And I know it's not necessarily the most robust signal there is out there because they're famously, I think Buck Showalter has done this a couple times, or X person is my closer, and then two days later he's not. It's fun.

And then you say, well, what did you say? Why did you say he's a closer? Well, because back then he was. was two days ago but i changed my mind but uh at least it'll be some signal and then the first week of usage will tell you a lot in terms of oh my god the guy that i picked up is pitching in the seventh gone yeah yeah that gives you a really good indication right away that that player is not going to get those saves in the immediate future. The closer situations that are in flux right now, a couple of those guys you mentioned are actually in more favorable spots as a result of unfortunate injuries around them. You've been talking about Jordan Romano, among other Blue Jays relievers and swing options for a while now. Kirby Yates we just

learned on Monday is expected to miss multiple weeks due to a flexor pronator strain in his right arm. So that's a significant injury that's going to cost him again maybe the first month of the season if not longer. I saw he had an outing on Saturday and was topping out around 93. So the velo still wasn't all the way back, which was something that you had suggested everyone keep an eye on over the course of spring. So there was already kind of a yellow caution light on with Yates just from a pure stuff standpoint. And Romano is the kind of guy that could pretty quickly jump into that third tier of closers. We don't necessarily know if he's going to hold the job long, long term, or if he's going to be

just a glue guy until Yates eventually comes back. I guess Rafael Delis did well in that opportunity last season, so you could see maybe some kind of split there. But skills wise, Romano is a lot more interesting by comparison.

So I think if you had to project it right now, you'd want to give him the bulk of the save opportunities in Toronto with Yates's injury. Yeah. I don't think that closing history really favors anybody on that roster to the extent where you'd look past,

you know, pretty nice strikeout rates, 37% last year. And 28% of the year before those are good strikeout rates, good velocity, maybe a little bit of propensity for the long ball, but that wasn't something that really haunted him in the minors, so that might go down.

96.5% is good velocity even for a closer. I think my man Victor... I'm mentoring him. I think my man Victor Actinola. I'm mentoring him. I'm going to get his name wrong, dude. Oh, my God. Victor, I'm so sorry if you're listening to this. Actinola, right? He was doing some research for Pitcher Streamer, his site.

And anyway, well prepared. Good job. A plus all around uh anyway victor victor uh found that the average velocity of the closer uh in the last like three to five years i think it was was 95 miles an hour so that's something that we've talked about a little bit um in terms of what you expect. So 96 and a half is good. Kirby eights is 93. Not so good. And I'm all in. I think that one one player deserves a little bit of a mention here. Julian Merriweather has the stuff of a closer, I believe, and may be headed there because he can't stay healthy. But one problem is he's not currently healthy so uh that sort of makes the makes the point pretty well uh but also that the team was talking about 100 innings for him and like i said i think if you put a young guy like that in the closer role then you're just like he's a closer yeah if you're

going that route that's that's more of a long-term sort of decision. Interesting thing here, too, happening in Texas is Jose Leclerc now has an elbow injury. They've already got Jonathan Hernandez on the shelf with an elbow injury. Yoli Rodriguez has an ankle injury. Brett Martin has a back injury. So you have Matt Bush, who you mentioned before, as a non-roster invite, and Ian Kennedy, who was getting some saves in Kansas City not that long ago. Kennedy is old and would definitely fit the description of getting the job because he's had the job before, but certainly brings a lot of skills risk. I know you've talked about Bush

before. The other name that I've seen thrown in here is Josh Spores, a former Dodger who's now in the Rangers organization. We haven't seen a lot of him at the big league level. If you look at the upper levels of the minors, he was actually getting a lot of innings as recently as 2017, working more as a starter. So it's really kind of an open question as to just how good he's going to be in a relief role, but the K rates jumped for him at AAA and he just never really found traction in what is a really loaded Dodgers bullpen. Clearly a wide

open opportunity for Spores with the move to Texas. Yeah, I wonder. This one's a pretty hard one to figure out. Joey Rodriguez is going to be opening the season on the DL2. Joey Rodriguez would have been, I think,

somebody that you would have talked about as possibly filling that role. There's nobody really that has much of a history closing. And so for me, I wonder if there's any sort of like, well, Matt's been with the team. He's done a really interesting job sort of changing his well, Matt's been with the team. He's done a really interesting job of sort of changing his life, it seems, from people around the team. That's the lesson I hear.

And maybe he deserves this chance. I don't know. That's a very loaded word. But also, you know, throwing 97 doesn't hurt. What would I say about his reduced strikeout rate last year? I don't know. It wasn't his best season. It was 23 innings.

I would assume that he would strike more people out in the future. Yeah, I actually think the guy that I'm warming up to as the longer-term play in Texas, because I'm not assuming that Jose Leclerc's going to come back and be healthy, is Joey Lee Rodriguez. I thought last year he was pretty interesting. Numbers were good, but injuries really shortened up his 2020. 17 strikeouts against five walks in just 12 and two-thirds innings, had a 213 ERA and a 103 whip. I don't think they're the kind of team that would say, hey, he's our lefty, so we're not going to let him close. I think if they see

him as the best option to finish out games, he's going to get a chance to do that. I think if you said, pick one right now, Rodriguez, even though he's hurt, would be the stash that I'm most confident in, which probably means I'm not stashing anyone

in Texas right now. Maybe in an AL-only league or something as a reserve, that would be the way to go. But in most mixed leagues, this might be a situation to avoid. The rare situation where you do throw some fab in in the first weekend if there's still not clarity after you see who's even healthy for opening day because things are that much of a mess for the Rangers right now. Yeah, yeah.

Sometimes there's a do not touch. Although I would say that once they get some of these pieces healthy, I don't think it's going to be one of the worst bullpens. There's definitely some nice arms in there. Yeah. So a lot of times you'll say there are ones where you're just like, no, I don't want to touch that because the whole bullpen is going to be a mess. So they're not even going to get save opportunities to them.

And then they're going to cycle through bad relievers and just make it terrible for me and my team. Do we have a team like that? I mean last year the Phillies were that. Yeah, that was miserable a year ago. Do we have a projection on that one going into the season? Let's see.

The Fangraphs depth charts say just as a unit, the worst are the Tigers. Oh, I like Gregory Soto. The Tigers could be a mess this year. You almost hit the Linda Belcher voice from Bob's Burgers right there

with Gregory Soto. I can't do that voice, so I'm not going to try. But it was like a very sort of redeeming, and yeah, that's what I heard in your voice there, was that sort of legitimate, heartfelt optimism yeah that's that's what i heard in your voice there was that sort of legitimate heartfelt optimism about gregory soto yeah uh that one does look like a mess and people want to say that cisnero you know is a good reliever maybe uh the strikeouts minus walks

aren't that compelling on him even my guy soto has a real problem with uh command buck farmer uh brian garcia doesn't strike anybody out. I mean, that's a pretty bad bullpen. I might avoid that one. Pirates are second worst. I'm not avoiding that one. I've got some Crick shares and some Richard Rodriguez shares. The deep sleeper there might be

David Bednar. He's having a great spring. Strike out stuff. He's picked up in one of the off-season trades they made. Could be the guy that comes out of relative nowhere. I think I might have mentioned him way back when that deal happened. They got him from the Padres. He struck out 13 in seven spring innings.

Yikes. He was just kind of buried in San Diego, but you look back, he's had pretty good strikeout rates throughout his career. I wouldn't be surprised if he came in and missed a lot of bats and became one of those, who's that guy that got 20 saves? Oh, yeah, David Bednar.

They got him in the Joe Musgrove deal. One thing that I would say about the Pirates, I get the sense from talking to people in and around the team that they do care about, they want to trade away relievers. And so they do care about, want to trade away relievers. And so they do care about to some extent about showcasing a possible reliever and maybe pumping up his value

with his role. So I think Richard Rodriguez is a closer, but if they trade him or if they want to trade Kyle Crick, which I think they probably do, he does not get rave reviews in the clubhouse. You guys remember any of that?

Yeah. Kyle Crick and Keone Kayla were battling out for who would annoy the most people in the clubhouse. Yeah, Crick will not be getting traded to the Padres. I think we've got that sorted out. And then Felice or Bednar could take over after they trade away a couple of those guys. So it could be one of those leader with 10 saves

at the end of the year. Pirates leader with 10 saves. Royals is the 28th. That one's bad. We talked about this one during the closer preview episode. I'm on Scott Barlow still. I think he's my favorite in that bullpen, but it's a very low confidence projection, to say the least.

I love Stomont just because he throws hard and seems to strike out a lot of people. So I will always fall for that kind of guy i also think the park will give them a soft landing where it's not like if you put this bullpen in like colorado or something you'd be like whoa don't touch it you know it's just like but you know kansas city is gonna stop some of those homers oh and look at the rockies are next you know what i think i'm actually avoiding the rockies bold i have one share of scott oberg buried in some massive 50 round dc somewhere and that's it

i have not taken part in this yeah i see daniel bard as a end game three to five dollar auction closer and buyer beware he was a great story last year, but there's so much disaster potential for any pitcher in Colorado, especially that core of relievers. I think that's backed up by those numbers. Since we were just talking about the Rangers real quick, Josh Young, the very young third baseman who was going to take over sooner rather than later, has a stress reaction in his foot. He's going to be out six to eight weeks. So once you factor in some rehab time, some minor league games this summer, that probably puts his debut sometime in July or August. I think he'll still see the big leagues this year. That wouldn't surprise me at all. But I think as far as being

one of those guys in a really deep mixed league that you might have stashed if he were healthy, you probably can't do that outside of keeper and dynasty leagues and maybe 12 team al only leagues i just don't think you can justify a roster spot on him right now so really unfortunate injury for him because it seemed like the rangers were going to fast track him to take over that third base spot yeah i mean with odor the options right now odor culberson and holt i I thought, you know, this is a Fowler-Joe Adele situation where, you know, the next guy up is pretty interesting and has a runway to succeed. So I still think that.

I still think that. I think the timing has changed. This might be a situation where maybe you get enough relievers together so you don't have to be chasing relievers on your bench, and then in June you get some good news from Jung and he's playing in the minor leagues. Then you can pick him up to try and get ahead of the crazy fabulpalooza that happens when a prospect gets called up.

I think that's another thing for in-season strategy is at some point trying to clear up a roster spot for a prospect before everyone goes nuts about him. So that when everyone runs to the waiver wire or runs to the FAB to be like, Jung's coming up, Jung's coming up. Oh, you know, already has him. Bam. It's fun to

give the league that feeling. They're excited. They think he's going to be out there buried with no stats. And they look. Oh, no. He's on Eno's roster. Been out there for two weeks. Do you have a clever team name that you like to use? I have a few that I like. One of my favorites is my

honor new one, It's a Perm. That's what my grandmother-in-law said as my wife was walking up the aisle. Yeah. That might be my best one. I do like the play on names.

Oh, another fun one is in Pitchfork, I have to have... I have to. No one told me I had to. But I do, since I'm named after Brian Eno, I do a Brian Eno song with a player's name in it every year. So my favorite one was maybe my first one, which was Here Come the Warm Vets, which is a reference to a Brian Eno album called Here Come the Warm Jets. And then this week, this year was JoJo Space Jazz because Brian Eno has a song called Space Jazz.

And I think it's called something like JoJo Space Jazz. But I was also referencing, everybody knows, JoJo Romero. They do vaguely remember JoJo Romero. And since we're on the topic of Brian Eno, I've got this MGMT album. Their second album, they actually have a track on there called Brian Eno. Oh, nice. Check that one out. Growing up, like going to college, being named after Brian Eno was really funny

because most of the time it was who, and then every once in a while, it was like, oh, my God, really? I love him. I wonder who in our world right now could we name someone after that will elicit that same reaction from our children when they get to college someday? Well, I think funnily enough, some people, it might be someone like Calvin Harris, given that my son's name is Calvin. We have told some people that we we named him after calvin harris as a joke um but uh you know that's what brian nino was was like a producer that made some of the biggest pop hits of his time you know he

was the producer behind talking heads and behind roxy music and uh it was huge but nobody knew who he was really i guess people some people a lot of people know who calvin harris is but i mean do you know who calvin harris is yeah yeah he was dating taylor swift at one point but he's uh so i guess you know he's a dj he's a dj musician in the moment people knew who brian nino was i mean he was in roxy music and stuff so it's like some people knew he was but years from now people might not know who calvin harris is because he a lot of times in the songs he's not the most popular he's not the most famous person in his own songs, right? Yeah, but if you went to a Las Vegas pool party in the last seven or eight years, Calvin Harris might have been the reason you were there.

He gets on the big marquees in Vegas, so he's something of a big deal. I don't know. It seems like a sign that you made it. I think it could be interesting. 20 years from now, no one really knows who he is, but he did change pop music a big deal. I don't know. It seems like a sign that you made it. I think it could be interesting 20 years from now. No one really knows who he is, but he did change prop music a little bit. And there are some people who are like, oh, my God, Calvin Harris. That's great.

I love it. The Rates and Barrels pool party, TBD. We're still waiting for the invite from one of the Vegas hotels on that one. Who is today's Brian Eno? That's the question. Ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com if you'd like to chime in because, you know, I don't have a child in the way, but I'm going to need some names locked and loaded in the event that that becomes a part of my life at some point.

I haven't thought enough about that yet. So I don't want to be surprised and get the name wrong when that time comes. All right. You know, I want to talk about Shohei Otani for a moment because what we saw from him on Sunday, and yes, it was a Cactus League game, was pretty remarkable. He started the game, of course, as a pitcher, but he also let off for the Angels. And at many turns this spring, when asked about how Otani is going to be utilized throughout this season, you get the sense that things are going to be a bit more loose. We had

pretty strict Otani rules initially. He wasn't going to hit the day before he pitched. He wasn't going to hit the day after he pitched originally. So it would be three or four games on, one off, pitch, one off, and then go back to hitting. And they're at least considering some different variations of those rules where he doesn't necessarily have days off, bookend it on both sides, and maybe they're even considering something where he hits and pitches on the same day if

sunday's cactus league decision is any indication would be awesome would be awesome then he'd start to become like a real asset even in weekly leagues and we would get to see a ton of of what he can do uh i still like you know i'm still on the record as being a little bit uh worried about his command but um i mean he's like one of the only guys i mean the only guy out there that can hit a ball 120 and throw a ball 100 um and i mean who else would even be on that short list tre Trevor Story, Javi Baez. Yep. You know, like, who's got a rifle in the outfield?

Laureano was kind of close at one point. Yeah, I don't know if he has the power, but he's certainly got the arm strength. Yeah, but it's really fun to watch him, and I hope that he sort of refines his game over time i mean we saw i think a little bit even on the batting end last year that yes he hits the ball really hard and he has a decent sense of the plate but he can go into the funk there too so uh one season he's gonna put it all together and have a peak season that is gonna be ruthian really yeah and it's just the kind of thing that I don't

ever want to assume we'll see it again maybe he's a trailblazer but maybe not maybe he's just so exceptionally good that we'll never see another player quite like him I know there's a few other two-way players been Brendan McKay kind of doing that for a while with the Rays doesn't seem like they're as committed to it as the Angels have been with Otani. We'll see if any other players bouncing around through the minors get that. Jared Walsh, too. I think they actually sort of came

out and publicly said that Jared's probably not going to pitch this year. The thing about Otani, the pitching results haven't really been that good this spring. 14 Ks in 8 innings is great, but 5 walks, seven runs on 11 hits. So it just hasn't been at that same level that we saw when he debuted a few years ago. Doesn't mean much.

He wasn't very good that spring, and he pitched fine during the regular season. But I do think we've hit the crossroads for the Angels saying, hey, this is it for you as a two-way player, at least as a starter. And maybe the next evolution of this, if it doesn't work out for him over the course of the regular season, if he's not as good as he was in 2018, and he's just not that good as a starter, the reliever plan maybe kicks in before they ditch the two-way plan entirely. I think the interesting thing about Otani is that whatever struggles he was having at the plate last season, those seem to be behind him. He's been on fire as a hitter.

He's got four homers this spring. He's walked three times against two Ks. I mean, he looks great as a hitter right now. He looks like he's in peak form as the season approaches. Yeah, opposite field power. Just looked really easy both times when i saw him to center into to the opposite field while i was watching and you know one thing that is so cool is that that that upside is there like i kept him in a league where i was also keeping jordan alvarez and we

only had one util slot like i was like i just can't and i was keeping otani in the fourth round so it's like i wasn't even it may have been a dumb decision honestly it was the one i stared at almost the longest out of any of my keeper decisions um i just couldn't give up jordan alvarez so then i was like okay so i'm gonna drop otani then and i was like no i can't do it it's too much fun it's too much fun. It's too much fun. You want to be the one who has him when he has that year. You do. You just don't want to wait five years and

have this roster spot jammed up before it happens. It needs to be now or next year before it becomes a problem waiting it out in keeper leagues, especially if you're giving up early round picks to hold on to him. But I do think Alvarez, there's a nice discount on him even still.

I think people are generally very worried about his legs. He is playing in spring games already. I think he's up to 17 spring at bats that was entering play on Monday. Hasn't done a ton of damage yet. Just the fact that he's out there on consecutive days, I think, bodes really well. With Alvarez in general for redraft leagues, are you comfortable taking him where he's going? I think his ADP has been around that 75 to 80 range. In auctions, he goes 15 to 20, depending on the room in a lot of mixed leagues. Is that a price that you think is fair, given what we've seen

from his ceiling, but what you also get in terms of health risk with his knees yeah but i it's it's one that i like it's one that i like i've been in on any on him in every auction i've gotten i've circled his name i wish i had more shares i only think i've ended up with three shares because uh he does go to part of the draft where sometimes i'm looking for other things, starting pitching. I don't think too hard about clogging up a util slot, but the place that I did get him for sure was in a DC, like a draft and hold where you um you you don't get any pickups and that's where position matters almost the most and he fell so far that i was like uh this is the worst time to take a util only guy in a league where you know you need positional value um and uh that's one of the places i did get him in the end but uh

i do think that like uh in a lot of leagues clogging up the util doesn't really exist you know it's another spot you have to get a bat at you know right and i think the best way to counteract that is to seek out more multi-position eligible players or soon-to-be multi-position eligible players in the rest of your build. If you're worried about that UT spot being clogged, you undo that by having a few guys that can move around to multiple spots because anytime someone in the lineup goes down, with the shuffling you can do, if you've got three or four guys that can play at least two spots, you're basically taking your best hitter from your bench anyway and finding a fit for them because of accommodations you can make.

And I think there's not that much of a premium on the multi-position guys, like we've said many times before. And I also think people don't necessarily do a good job of seeking out the guys who are committed to a new position. Keston here is going to be a corner middle guy at first and second after the first week of the season because the Brewers are moving him to first base. Thinking about all those guys who might have one spot now. Marcus Simeon is going to add second base. Right. He'll be short and second after the first week. You could see Cattell Marte, who I believe is second base only for now. He's going to play enough in the outfield. Maybe it

takes him two weeks, but he's probably going to be second base and outfield again. So early rounders, middle rounders, you're going to find some players that add that eligibility very quickly. So even if you don't get the past multi-eligible guys, you can target some of the guys who will quickly have new spots. Yeah. And I think in this one, I was coming off of, I think I won in 2019. And then I took a real, I think I took a big step back in 2020 and had a bad season in this league and so to some extent two utils

does clog up when you only have one util but yeah, that's a little much. It's an extreme situation but I'm also hoping that they play themselves into better trade value than I would have had in the offseason and I think that a couple weeks of Alvarez playing mostly every day and Otani doing his thing, I'll be able to get a lot more for one of them if I decide to part ways.

Absolutely. So other big news that broke just before we started recording, Zach Gallin was scratched from his spring start with right lateral forearm soreness. We're still kind of waiting for more details here, but I would assume that given the importance of Gallin to that rotation, the long-term implications of pushing him too hard, this gives him a very good chance of opening the year on the IL. And I do think Arizona's depth is good in the starting rotation,

better than most depth-wise, because you have Alex Young as someone that you could throw out there if you wanted to, but I think you skip Alex Young and you go to Corbin Martin, who was previously optioned, and probably install him in the rotation if Gown is in fact going to miss some time when the season begins. Yeah, and Martin is not a totally can't-miss prospect. First of all, just because of the situation he finds himself in,

he's coming off of Tommy John surgery, and he did not have amazing command to begin with. I have him as showing 96 command plus before. But he did have a 106 stuff number. He has multiple pitches. And so I'm willing to look past the not great walk rate in spring again. And especially in like keeper leagues,

I'm excited for this because I think he can establish himself as a member of that rotation. I think he has a good upside, and I want him to get that opportunity to show us what he can do. Like I said in the opener, I've got some shares I just picked up. I have a couple shares that I've had for a while just because I tagged him as the sixth guy in the rotation, which I think everyone should know who the sixth guy is in every rotation. Yeah, that's sort of the theme, I think,

as we move into the back half of this episode is looking for those players who are clearly the next in line for playing time because injuries are going to happen. If they don't happen before opening day, they're going to happen soon after opening day. Knowing who's likely to move into those prominent roles is really helpful. Martin, I think, would be among my favorite current number six starters. That applied before this Gallon injury in news broke. It would hold even if Gallon's injury turns out to be less severe than we currently fear. I would say the Yankees situation is one that I've been watching pretty closely. Domingo Hermann versus Davey Garcia

for that last rotation spot. Whoever loses is the next person up behind a mix of starters that have some legitimate health concerns. And Hermann is the cheaper of the two in drafts, I believe, if you have ADP up. Yeah, I think Herm Herman has been going. That's Herman Marquez.

Domingo Herman, 272 ADP. He might have been going a little earlier. Davey's going 373. Oh, really? Yeah, at least a 50-pick gap in most leagues. But they're both so cheap. I'm a big fan of taking a flyer on one of those and hoping you won. I don't think Herman's changeup is very good, and he's more

of a two-pitch guy. I think he's headed towards the pen long-term, but anybody who can put up, can scratch together five innings in New York is probably going to have a few wins. I think in that sort of role where you don't let him see the line of the third time through, his command shortcomings and third pitch shortcomings aren't as important. So he's definitely a good one. I mean, it's obviously you've got to talk about the Dodgers ones and the Padres ones. Mackenzie Gore, Dustin May, super exciting stuff-wise.

Dustin May has also been making some changes to his stuff this spring. He's been throwing way more four-seamers, trying to work north-south a little bit. Some of the movement has changed on his curveball spring he's been throwing way more four seamers um trying to work north south a little bit some of the movement has changed on his curveball it's not as horizontal anymore so i think he's trying to north southify his east west um arsenal and uh because i think that could be pretty exciting um uh who else oh the red situation is just a it's kind of a mess almost i mean everyone's hurt yeah a lot of injuries there sunny gray is going to miss probably a turn or two when

the season begins lorenzen's dinged up right now tj anton show favorite uh banged up right now as well so it puts nando dafino favorite jose de leon in the mix for a temporary spot i think he's probably the extra starter that we'd be looking at right now in Cincinnati. That's a fun one too. I think he's not getting picked much. I don't have a stuffed number on him, but I do have some sourcing in that organization, and they have told me to watch out for him.

So projected for 11 strikeouts per nine? I mean, that might be a bullpen projection, but that's somebody that I'm keeping my eye on for sure. I guess Michael Kopech counts. He's being drafted as if he's the fifth starter. I think it's just more like Rodon will start, Kopech will do a real long, slow update. I think the real interesting name behind all of them is Jonathan Stever,

but that'll require more of a seventh guy. Yeah. Yeah, I think with Kopech, it depends when their first significant injury happens. If it's May, they might just flip the switch and let it happen. If it's early, the first few weeks of switch and let it happen. If it's early, first few weeks of the season, Stever might be the guy that bridges the gap because they do want to monitor Kopech's innings. If they make that move too early, they put themselves in a position

where he hits his limit before they get to the postseason. And then they have a guy who's potentially maybe their third best starter who suddenly is out of gas at the most important time of the year. I mean, that's what they're probably trying to do. Whether or not it plays out that way, of course, is still a matter of projection and quite the guessing game, really, since he didn't pitch last season. Yeah, yeah.

Bryce Wilson, I guess, I think is going to lose that battle for the fifth slot in Atlanta. And that's complicated by the fact that Soroka is going to come and push Kyle Wright out too, eventually. If everything goes according to plan. But, Charlie Martin, Drew Smiley, fair amount of injury

risk there. So, Bryce Wilson might be relevant. However, I tried to comp his pitches to someone, and the name I came up with was Robert Gisellman. So I don't know that I'm super in on that. We're just going to skip over Milwaukee. Everyone knows who you love there.

I'm not going to talk about it, but you're welcome to talk about it as much as you'd like. All right. Ross Stripling is the guy who's gonna step in for nate pearson we've seen him do his uh his elbow hurts and julian marries whether his back hurts and chatwood is in the rotation i guess it could be thornton but uh internally i hear that uh stripling is the guy who's impressing he's the the one who's going to step in there. And he's got the Ryu package. So if he's got the command going, the thing is for me that there are a fair amount of times when I realize that there's a disconnect between the way I value stuff and the way the Blue Jays value stuff. So I noticed a change in Stripling's slider maybe um uh he that wasn't a good move for

him um but uh had heard that the blue jays thought it was an okay move for him so um i'm really kind of interested to see what stripling slider looks like right now um and if he can kind of get that five pitch mix back together again um i don't think I have any shares, but I definitely have that name circled. Looking at the reports, Aaron Sanchez peaked at 93 in his first spring start on Friday. That's not quite the high 90s gas that we were getting in the Twitterverse when he signed with the Giants.

He said he was building up stamina and could have had more ticks, so I don't know. We'll see if there's anything to be made of that. But if he's not healthy or not able to hold that job as a starter, I am kind of curious to see if a healthy Alex Wood can do anything. At this point, though, Wood's got a back injury. So I don't think you can roster him anywhere.

I think he's definitely more of a wait-and-see sort of guy. We've covered the Mets before, so we'll kind of look past that situation for now. But how about Joe Ross? It looks like he is probably going to be the fifth starter in D.C. Do you have any reason to be optimistic about Ross in deeper leagues? This was a quick endorsement for our YouTube channel. We're Rates and Barrels on YouTube. Visual cues are huge. this was a quick endorsement for our youtube channel we're rates and barrels on youtube where

visual cues are huge you know shaking his head no as i start mentioning joe ross kind of like how i made a face just about a minute or so ago when we were talking about someone too so you're missing out on some fun faces if you're not watching us on youtube i think the nationals internal pitching development might be the worst in the big leagues. Fair. Deserved. It's in the bottom five at the very least. And I'm disappointed in Austin Voss' development because that guy has command and he hasn't put it together. Joe Ross is just a two-pitch pitcher who doesn't have great command,

so I'm not really in on him. And, you know, they signed all these guys and they you know you figured they could at least develop one over this time and uh hasn't really happened so whereas like i'm excited about all the reds and they're all hurt um i'm not excited about the nationals and i guess they're also kind of hurt there was one other really weird thing that happened in one of my leagues over the weekend. So on Friday night, I did a Keeper League auction that I've been running for a while. And one of the guys in the league who's done really well actually is a huge Pirates fan. I think he does some game day stuff, working at the stadium, knows the team inside and out.

And it's a really deep league. It's 16 teams with eight reserves and 10 minor leaguers. So a lot of players are rostered in this league. We get to the reserve rounds. Mitch Keller's still out there. Chad Kuhl's still out there. And this guy who knows the Pirates inside and out took Chad Kuhl straight up over Mitch Keller

in a long-term league, which to me says probably even more about Mitch Keller than it says about Chad Kuhl, but it made me revisit the idea that Chad Kuhl, much like JT Brubaker, could be one of the few interesting starters in Pittsburgh this year. Yeah.

I like Kuhl. I have a fair amount of shares of him. I like Bro. Bro. Brolt. Brolt. I like it. Let's just call him Bro, dude. Let's call him Bro, man. He's a really talented human. He has a music background. Yeah.

So Bro. I like Bro because of the new changeup. I like Cool because the fastball slider combo, the fastball breaking ball combo is pretty legit. I mean, it's good velocity. And I know that third pitch is a question mark, but I think they'll do like the sort of five and dive from him. And I don't know if it'll lead to a lot of

wins, but I think it could lead to a fair amount of Ks. Keller to me has two things that I don't think I'll ever bet on again in my life. He has bad fastball shape and bad fastball command. He has bad fastball shape and bad fastball command. So when you have those two things together, you're just screwed. You basically become a reliever and try to velocity your way out of those problems. So I think if he was up there for one inning and could throw 98-99 and sometimes, sometimes misses location, I think he'd be fine. But it's not working the way it's working and I

haven't seen enough to change my opinion on him. I have him too high in my own rankings just because I'm like, I keep looking at that stuff number, but I think it's the peripheral stuff, the command that's not working. It's really interesting though because of their needs,

they're going to probably keep trying him as a starter for all of this season, maybe get to next year, and we say, hey, Mitch Keller could close for the Pirates, and it at least makes the closer situation interesting. I just don't think they're quite there yet. I think they'd be silly to give up on him now, but you're probably right to say bad fastball command and bad fastball shape. That's a complete rework. At least if you

command a crappy fastball, you could make your crappy fastball move differently by changing some things. At least if your crappy command fastball has some interesting movement, you could improve the command on it. But it's hard, very hard, it seems, to do both of those things for a pitch that so many guys are going to throw 40 or 50% of the time. Yeah, yeah. And so, like, I see with Cody Ponce, you know, I like him a little bit. I think he's the sixth starter there. If we're talking about, you know, sixth starters that are interesting, I think Cody Ponce is maybe next in line in Pittsburgh, and that's going to be relevant because he's probably going to trade somebody

or get hurt or kill or, you know, ends up in the bullpen this year. But Cody Pons has not great fastball shape but he doesn't have the same uh command issues so um i just think you know it i think it also speaks to adjustability athleticism in the sense that like um you know if you give me a guy with good command and uh a bad fastball shape then i think that either he can put it in the right places to avoid it being that big of an issue or maybe he can even change the shape easier because with that command he's showing me something about uh his ability to pitch his pitch ability you know um so i i'm not trying to get so far in the tank with command because I still think stuff matters.

But command is just sticking out for me as an undervalued skill out there in the marketplace. Yeah, and I think we're seeing the way some teams are approaching it and foregoing that big velocity. The Cubs, obviously, kind of at the front of that movement. They might have a lot of success with that. kind of at the front of that movement, they might have a lot of success with that. I'm really curious to see how their pitching staff actually performs, given what they've been able to do putting that group together on paper. There's another kind of who's up next, right?

There's another kind of next up, which is the position player, who is seemingly blocked, but maybe not as blocked as we think. And I just did a simple query where I just took... I think this might be... Oh, it's the Bad X, yeah. So I just took the Bad X projections and sorted by WOBA. Listeners probably know what WOBA is, but WOBA is just weighted on base average. It's a little bit like OPS.

And 330, 320 is generally good. Anything above that is good. It's a little bit better than OPS because OPS adds together things that have different denominators and it's not quite right, but it tracks a lot like OPS. And what I did was I just sorted by worldwide and just started going down and looking for low plate appearance projections. Like this is a good player who doesn't have a great player appearance projection. It doesn't always work out because sometimes you get Alex Dickerson who's hurt, and that's why his numbers are down. But Abisail Garcia, interesting guy. If there's anybody hurt in that outfield, he becomes more interesting.

But he's also a guy who is drafted often. So you kind of want to get that guy who is either not drafted often or just not on people's radars. And here's a couple names that show up on this page. The same page as Avisel Garcia, but even fewer plate appearances. Alejandro Kirk, who is newly svelte

and may actually even take the job opening day, but as soon as either Danny Jansen or Reese McGuire poop in the pot, then he comes. That's the right thing to do, just to clarify. Cleans it up.

Yeah, right. I got that one wrong. Anyway, if they mess it up, he's there to step in, even if he doesn't get a day one. Nolan Jones in Cleveland? Seems like he's knocking on the doorstep and um it's not like that infield couldn't use another good player um and uh here's our favorite meaty young son, Daniel Vogelbach, projected for 133, 121 plate appearances

with a.332 Woba. They're saying he could basically hit 30 homers with a.230 average if someone would just give him the chance. You know what's gonna happen he's not

gonna stick in milwaukee because they don't have the dh this year and eventually he's gonna get dfa'd and i think he's gonna go someplace like oakland where mitch morland's the big side platoon dh right now because he might be an upgrade over morland morland's kind of on that same fringe vogelbach's younger i i think you may have to wait for that payoff for Vogelbach, barring an injury in the short term. And I also wonder, too, if something happened to Keston Hira, would they just move Travis

Shaw from third to first, let Shaw be that guy, and still kind of keep Vogelbach in that mostly pinch-hitting role? He just doesn't seem like he's going to stick because of the rules. I think he would have stuck had the rules been the same as last year. Have we

not played Let's Build a Bench? America's favorite game show. It's really, really exciting even for fantasy players to really think about the last guy on the Milwaukee Brewers.

So you got Manny Pina is in because he catches. Yep. If we're not going to call, whoever we're not calling a starter out of Bradley, Kane, and Garcia is another roster spot. Yep. We'll say Garcia. Okay. So Garcia is a backup corner outfielder. You got to have a backup shortstop.

So Urias is making that roster. That's why I've been – he's got to make that roster. Right. Either Urias or Arcia is the backup. Whoever's not starting is the backup short. But at the very worst, Urias is making that roster as a backup shortstop. Right. And like utility guy.

But, yeah, I saw – I've picking up urius late in um drafting holds because he's eligible in a lot of places and he's gonna play some and he could take third base or short stop for himself uh pretty easily i think he either one of those could be his so that's three we got one spot left the nice thing thing is Urias plays all over, and you have two center fielders. Yep. So they could actually keep Vogelbach. They could.

It's Vogelbach versus Billy McKinney versus Tyrone Taylor versus Daniel Robertson. I think those are your candidates. Yeah. I think you try to sneak Daniel Robertson back to the minor leagues. I mean, he's like way waiver claim-ish anyway, right? Yeah, he's stuck in that range.

They gave him a major league deal, but a real cheap one. Yeah, there's enough reason to let him go if you believe in those other guys. That major league deal, though, is a little bit problematic. It may suggest that that's who they want. I think they're going to keep him because he's another bench guy that can play shortstop. And he can play all over, yeah. Right, because if something goes wrong with Shaw and Urias and Arcee are playing together. How's the handedness between him and Urias?

Robertson's a righty, right? Robertson is a righty. And Urias is a righty too, right? Urias is also a righty. Hmm. And Arcee is also a righty. I might want a big lefty bopper, dude. Well, so, okay.

But, okay, you're a big lefty bopper with no real defensive value. No value at all. How much are you going to play? And the answer is just not enough to make an impact barring an injury to the first base situation. Like, that's his only

path. You cannot roster Pogelbak in a mixed league. It's just impossible. No, no, no, no, no. The point of this is sort of stash the name, I think. Who could be next up? I think it's

the backup shortstop most likely that you would probably want as a MI backup because of the possible playing time surplus. But I actually think, imagine it this way. There are about 650 plate appearances in each outfield spot, right, to rough projection. So that means you've got 1,300 to split up in center and right between Kane, Bradley, and Avi Garcia. If you split them evenly, you're at about 450 a piece. Is it really a crime for any of those guys to end up in the 450 range? I think that's almost optimal usage for that trio at this stage of their respective careers. And considering Bradley against same-handed pitching, you're not

going to want to play him against a lot of lefties. Kane being pretty old and trying to prevent his legs from being a problem over the course of the year. And Garcia is one of those guys that's had a difficult time staying healthy, clearly has changed up his body quite a bit. But if you said, yeah, about 450 each, give or take, maybe it's, you know, 500, 400, 400, whatever the breakdown is, I think getting them all close to 450 is acceptable. And when they're getting everyday playing time, when one of the three guys is hurt, any one of those guys could become,

at least temporarily, mixed-league viable as fifth outfielders because in Bradley's case, you get power and speed. In Kane's case, you're getting average in speed. In Garcia's case, you're getting a little bit of everything, probably a little more power at this point, but I think they're all kind of viable when one is missing. Similar situation maybe in Toronto with Rowdy Tellez, Randall Gritchuk, Teoscar Hernandez. I'm downgrading all of them in mixed leagues because of

how crowded it is. But they sort of follow that next up narrative here by like I would run to the wire to pick up Rowdy Tellez and like a 12 or 15 teamer if he was out there and someone got

hurt. Like, I'd love that bat. I think he'll have an impact where in mono leagues and really deep leagues, you know, the 450 that you get is good. But 450 is a really interesting number to throw out there, I think, because 450 is right where it makes it difficult. Like, if you put a guy with 450 plate appearances, if you just put that guy in your lineup every week for the whole season,

that slot would be behind the average, I think. No matter what. He wouldn't have the runs in RBI. Even if that guy hit 25 homers and 450 plate appearances, you would lose in other places. You've described Jock Peterson because in

2018, Jock Peterson hit exactly 25 homers in 443 plate appearances. He hit 248 while doing it. Nailed it. But here's the problem. 56 RBI, 65 runs. And in mixed leagues, that's not enough. And you need daily moves for a guy that's going to sit against lefties unless someone's hurt and he's playing every day. We saw with a little more playing time and the juiced ball in 2019, 514 played appearances. That was Peterson's highest total since 2015. And he may get the highest of his career in Chicago.

Maybe. But we're talking about sort of other situations that will mirror the Dodgers, you know, where you're just like, oh, crap. Do you think Pollock is headed towards that this year? Pollock's going to play a ton. Pollock's going to play a ton. Pollock's going to play until he breaks. Who's taking playing time away from A.J. Pollock now that Peterson's gone?

Yeah, I don't... Maybe more Taylor time in left field. If Gavin Lux is the regular second baseman and he hits, they don't have to play Taylor as much at second. They could go ahead and play Taylor in the outfield more. They're a little bit thinner in the outfield than they are in the infield, I think. Unless someone like a DJ Peters or someone

emerges somewhat out of nowhere as a post-hype guy or someone that got stashed away, I don't see any threats to AJ Pollock's playing time beyond his own health. I think Pollock is still undervalued. The projection systems

love him yeah i keep being like no i'll wait another round okay still there okay i'll fine i'll take him i don't know why the market doesn't like him but projections love aj pollock the situation's good pollock and mccutchen are just they just drop forever and i have them as my fifth outfielder is either one of them so in one of them i have both of them as my fifth outfielder so i have a ton of shares with those guys but you know and then so that's one type of opportunity but then there's another type of opportunity where like what we've talked about houston where it's like it's not crowded we're not talking about it being too crowded there. There's actually a talent hole there in center field. Right.

I think the tricky thing in Houston, though, is that Kyle Tucker could be a center fielder. He could be a passable center fielder. Is there any reason, when you look at his tools, to think that he can't play that spot? Because that might be their best combo, is playing him there and putting a Ledmese Diaz

or Abraham Toro or someone else on the field instead of going with the straw McCormick combo. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, I think this thing happens, I think this happens a little bit more often

than we give it credit for, right? Where we see a talent hole and then we're just like that guy couldn't fill it could he and then and then you're like oh yeah he did uh like i was trying to sort of galaxy brain uh that situation a little bit and i was like what about abraham toro in centerfield you know he's always had good speed scores uh and like maybe he could you know be good in that role uh maybe they could try him. But if the team's like Newsflash Eno,

that was way too Galaxy Brain because if the team's not even trying him out there, then he's not going to play center field. You got to at least see him out there shagging fly balls at the position. But Tucker has been. And now, what does that open? It still opens up the door for my Toro.

So my galaxy branding was right in the end, just totally wrong. Yeah, yeah. You just didn't make the puzzle piece slide maneuver correctly. So, I don't know. How do you... My problem with that one, too, is that it's not as simple as just sort of looking through the projections and seeing someone with too few player appearances. Like Miguel Andujar, good projection, right?

Same Woba as Ramon Laureano. So buried. So buried. So buried. And then there are situations where the hole is so big that you might not even need a player to be projected as well as Miguel Andujar to be relevant, right? So how do we find the biggest holes?

We just have to, we look at the depth charts, and we look at the totals, and we kind of, we sort for like right field, like the Pirates right field situation. Ah, you've been having a name on that one. Oh yeah, I'm on Jared Oliva. I just think they need to go a little bit younger. Gregory Polanco, if he's playing well,

could be traded. I don't think he's going to fetch a lot in a deal, but they would want to free up that playing time. I do think they're going to give Brian Reynolds every opportunity to bounce back and left, so that's his spot. What I'm really curious to see is how they prioritize

playing time on the bottom of their roster and center, because Anthony Alford's a guy that's come up before, a former two-sport athlete that was a college football quarterback. So, I mean, there could be some late development for him as a baseball player now that he's further removed from playing both. Cole Tucker's experiment in the outfield kind of seems like that's over.

Brian Goodwin's not a bad player. And then you look at Dustin Fowler. You know, we liked him a few years ago. He put up some pretty sick numbers at AAA in 2019. Everyone put up pretty sick numbers at AAA in 2019. But, you know, it's not out of the question that Dustin Fowler could be something. He's also a lower-ceilinged older guy. You might want to give him the shot before Oliva.

Yeah, give him the first month or first six weeks. If he shows you something, he sticks. If he doesn't, he gets DFA'd. As good as Dustin Fowler is at a glance, 25 homers, 12 steals, a AAA in 2019, a 93 WRC+. So he was 277, 333, 477,

7% below league average, old for the level, had a devastating injury that cost him time earlier in his career, so I don't think we should... He might not be a center fielder anymore. Yeah, we shouldn't totally hold that against him, but he was at least league average everywhere from A ball up until that second run at AAA. So I do think they're right to have him around.

He's the kind of guy that could actually be a decent, deep sort of stash for them that pays off. It's just getting that right, kind of deciding, all right, we've seen enough of Fowler. Let's get to Oliva, or let's get a look at Brian Goodwin. I mean, I think Goodwin, I like Goodwin better as a backup on a good team than as a guy that they're trying to start on a bad team. He's 30 years old. Like what, what part of your future is he like? I just don't see a long-term opportunity for him there. Yeah. Yeah. another below replacement situation is Rangers and Mariners

left field Mariners left field is is obviously like either they try to make Jake Fraley a thing as an excuse for not bringing up Kelnick. Or they jumped Taylor Trammell ahead for whatever reason. But I kind of almost think that that projection can only be wrong. That a projection for minus 0.1 in left field for the Mariners can only be wrong. It can't be that bad in that spot with the young players they have coming up. And with guys like Taylor Trammell and Fraley, they're not going to just keep letting the same guy fail.

That's what I'm saying. They wouldn't run one guy out there that would put up negative 0.1 more. They'll cycle through the options until they have an actual player there. I think that number's going to be wrong. I also think that how to profit off of that situation is not immediately obvious. Agreed.

Kelnick is costing a fair amount in drafts. He's going to be that guy. Like your Adele, he's going to be an even more expensive Adele that you're going to want to hold on to even longer. He's in the minor leagues. What if he gets hurt in the minor leagues and it's like June and you've still got that one roster spot?

Don't tell me you won't be staring at Ed Kelnick. The Rangers, across the board, just have some holes. They're not a good baseball team. I just sorted them and they showed up again at third base as a whole. The Rockies third base is not great.

And I think that Josh Fuentes. I'll play a little bit there. They said, Crone's going to make the roster. So that's, that's official now. So there's no more waiting and wondering on that. Yeah.

But, but they also supposedly like Fuentes, and there's another injury. Who's injured? Rodgers is injured. So I think they'll keep Fuentes as a corner infielder. I am not happy about that. The other depth guy that's kind of interesting in the short term

is Mike Brasso. I noticed in leagues that have lower position requirements, he's first, second, and third eligible if you've got five games for your minimum. G-Man Choi is hurt to begin the season. We know Wander is probably coming up this year, but he's not going to be there on opening day, so there's a little window for Brasso to play

some first base with Choi out to maybe play ahead of some of the other options at third base, too. Yeah, and I had spoken with a talent evaluator that covered the raise um and um they said not to be surprised if bruceau just plays himself into a regular role um like by the way they've constructed the roster you'd think actually tsutsugo would take choice at bats right

because he's the lefty the lefty of dh first baseman right? Who gets on base and hits a jack every once in a while. But they've been playing Brousseau everywhere, including a lot of first base in Tampa in the spring. And this talent elevator thought that he wasn't necessarily just a platoon guy. I think that happens with righties more often. They can probably play against righties more often. They probably can play against righties if they can play against lefties, because

they've seen more righties their whole life. I could see Brousseau playing himself. I wish I had gotten him in labor. He ended up being one of my reserve picks in the 15-team Tout Wars mixed auction just for that versatility for the early part of the season.

Even if he doesn't stick, even if he gets to play a lot of third base, it doesn't happen. I think initially he's going to play a lot. I don't want to spend fab on a player like that. I'd like to spend a reserve pick on a player like that and save those precious fab dollars. Alright, let's get to the last few notes here. Some players sent down all kind of different situations. We've talked about Joe Adele throughout this episode. Not a surprise that he's been sent down. The Angels have been pretty clear they intended to give him some time at the alternate site, possibly in AAA games when the season begins. I know you've been

stashing him away the way some people are stashing Wander Franco, the way some people are stashing Kelnick, the way some people are stashing Bobby Witt Jr., who was also optioned. My question for you is, without AAA games, does it give you some extra pause when you have limited bench spots holding onto a guy like this? Because I don't know what a team can see at the alternate site that's going to make them more confident in a player. With Adele, I think the Angels just want to see him strike out less against AAA pitching. I think that's a legitimate thing that they can see. I'm not sure he can show them that that skill has significantly improved in this one-month window

where we don't have AAA games to kick off the season. It's a problem. And I guess there's a class of players like this where they've been sent down and you kind of want to compare their situations because you want to, you know, what will it take for Wanda Franco to come up? What will it take for Bobby Wood Jr. to come up? What will it take for Oscar Mercado to come up? Bobby Wood Jr. to come up? What would it take for Oscar Mercado to come up?

And so I've been trying to focus a little bit on the major league situation, because that's something that we can see with our own eyes. That's something that we can evaluate. And so the reason that I like the Adele situation maybe best out of the ones I just mentioned, in terms of likelihood of being called up this year and maybe providing some value is, uh, the, the players in front of them are projected to be below replacement. So,

um, like almost by definition, that's replaceable. Yes. Yes, it is. And I think like if the angels are doing all right and they just let's see what what the actual line is but the angels are doing okay and they're and they're

they're hanging in there but they're not scoring as many runs and fowler drops he's got had a couple of drop balls this spring uh let's say he drops a couple of balls and he's just hitting his projection. He's hitting 225 with a 315 OBP and a lower than 400 slugging. And he's dropping balls. I mean, that's what replacement level looks like, right? That's what he's projected to do. He could do worse.

Right. So I just feel like that is something where you can be like, well, he's not doing better than we expected, so you know the team is just staring at that hole in the lineup and being like, what can we do about this? And I don't see that sort of Galaxy Blaine-Toro thing figuring out here. I guess Fletcher could play the outfield, but if Fletcher plays the outfield,

I don't have a ton of, you know, belief in Franklin Barreto, Luis San Renjifo, maybe, but then you're torching your infield depth a little bit. Yeah. Right.

And you could solve it all just by bringing up Adele, right? So I think I'm trying to kind of like do the logic game and do it on the major league level. So, you know, the Royals, yes, they have a semi hole somewhere between second and I would call second base the hole. They've got a hole at second base. They could move Montessi over there.

Or bring Bobby Witt up at second. I guess I like that second best. The Indians... The reason I don't like the Indians situation is this. Their center field projection is actually the best out of any of the ones we've talked about. I'm calling the Royal second base a hole because it's projected for.9.

Center field for the Indians right now is still projected for a win. The other thing I don't like about it is Adele and Witt and Franco have not ever been sort of given the chance and then failed. I don't think that's, I would not describe that. Am I wrong?

Would you have described as them having given Adele and he failed? I don't think you could say that 132 plate appearances is enough to make that call. It was bad. A 41% K rate is very bad. But no, that's not enough to declare failure as ugly as that is it's not enough of a sample to say that if you did that for a half season okay but a quarter of a season not enough yeah i mean oscar marcato one has 575 plate appearances two never had the prospect pedigree three never hit a ball as hard as joe adele's hit

it yeah and four might have might have been replaced either by ahmed rosario or i mean what is what is the replacement what is the what's the projected replacement i think they've got a bradley zimmer ahmed rosario platoon in cleveland right now where because rosario is still getting used to the position, and I think playing center field is hard. Even if you're a shortstop, it's going to take a little while to get used to that, and you have to live with the mistakes if you're Cleveland. Platooning

them solves that because you can occasionally still play Rosario in the infield. You don't have to play Cesar Hernandez every single day. You can give Andres Jimenez days off against lefties. He's a left-handed hitter, so you could play Rosario in that spot and then, I don't know, maybe try him in the corners a little bit. I think the key to the Cleveland depth chart is getting Jake Bowers

out, though. If you get Bowers out and you play Naylor at first base, you can do something else in right field. You could have Zimmer and Rosario coexist more easily. You can bring Mercado back up. I look at that part of the depth chart and I say, that can't be what they're doing. They can't have a guy playing first base who didn't get a plate appearance in the big leagues last year. Jake Bowers was in the organization. They didn't think he was good enough to play on their team last year.

Yeah, I think he's headed for a DFA. Has to be, right? Yeah. So that's the way to move some things around. But Mercado, he went from a guy that I think you could draft as a reserve in a 15 teamer to someone that has to go on the watch list. He's now fringy in an AL only league as a reserve.

Something's just not right with him. I know Cleveland didn't have their hitting coach last season. That was something that came up in some stories with Mercado not being able to work his way out of his slump, maybe hitting reset for him. Maybe he can get right at the alternate site. My argument would be that Joe Adele can't really show anything at the alternate site that will change the Angels' mind. Oscar Mercado probably can because he's shown up in the big leagues before without falling on his face. Even though Adele's almost certainly the better long-term player, he's the player I'm much more likely to

stash, I think Mercado could get up faster than Adele and probably even faster than Witt because if you're the Royals, as great as Witt could be, don't you want to see him play some games like at AA or something in May before you give him that promotion? That's just a little something. We're talking about a guy that was at Rookie Ball. 38 games at Rookie Ball as a pro. That's a massive leap. I think you also want to,

I mean, I know this is frowned upon, but I think you also want to like see how good the Royals are. Yeah, that's true. What the timetable is, how important is it you bring him up right away? Or maybe he could get some development. Maybe it's okay if he has a little development. But the one thing I would say is that the Royals,

there's something about them that I'm starting to like. I don't like all the low OBPs, but if any of those guys pop and start to show better OBPs, they're starting to be representative in every position. You know what I mean? And they have pitching that's on its way. So it's almost like the Royals overtook the Tigers in the rebuild process.

Their position player group is much better. Much better. And that's a huge leg up for them because we know with pitching rebuilds an injury or two and some slow development can really derail that rebuild and that's that's the way it can go wrong for the tigers so the royals like start showing something maybe it's time to bring bobby whit because we're good i guess the way i would look at it, though, I'm a little surprised given the way they were using him this spring. They didn't just say, let's just see what happens because you can option him down if he falls on his face.

Does it really shatter a player's confidence long term? You can justifiably send him down for a month if you give him April and he looks completely overmatched because you're going to have to make some adjustments and get by with those scrap heap type guys that you have now. So why not see what he can do and have him help you possibly get off to that great start?

You know, like that to me is the most logical thing to do because if he's truly not ready, you're going to know that. You can hit him eighth or ninth in the lineup. You don't have to hit him in a prominent spot right away. If he plays well, you move him up. If he doesn't play well, you send him down once there are actually some minor league games for him to play in

instead of sending him to Groundhog's Day. Yeah. I was going to just give us an update on the spring stats and try to use the ones that matter. So I was looking at, I sorted by ABs. The problem with ABs is that it looks like Bobby Bradley has 28 ABs to Jake Bowers 22. But Jake Bowers has nine walks. A lot of walks.

So they've actually played the same amount of time. It's just that Bobby Bradley has two homers and Jake Bowers has no homers and two doubles, and that's it. So I still think that Bobby Bradley's ahead there. Also, there's a lot of players who've gotten a lot more playing time. And I think that the overall level of ABs and PAs is kind of important here. It doesn't seem like they are prioritizing. Like Cesar Hernandez has 42 plate appearances. It's more than I would have guessed.

I just would have figured a veteran like that, you're playing him every other day. Andres Jimenez has 35, so I guess that's about five more plate appearances still. He's a game ahead I guess if Andres sits today and Bowers plays today or whatever that could get a lot closer

the bellwether is Jose Ramirez who's right in the middle there with 34 so I think if you have over 30 Bowers is right there at 30 but I think if you have over 30 at this point they're more into you we'll see it is still kind of trying to read the tea leaves but I think if you have over 30 at this point, they're more into you.

We'll see. It is still kind of trying to read the tea leaves, but you have a guy slugging 714 in Bradley, and you have a guy slugging 227 in Bowers. Three something, two something. Okay, so it's even worse. I would agree with you. It's the battle for first base.

I think slugging actually matters a little bit. Yeah, I think they're going to have to let Bowers go and risk losing him on waivers. He'll probably pass through waivers. They can probably keep him. Probably just send him down to the alternate site and keep him as depth and see if he unlocks something in the next couple of months. But I think if you're waiting on Adele, it might be a slightly longer wait just because of the lack of AAA

games. Whereas if there were AAA games in April and he had two scorching weeks with a low K rate, suddenly it's obvious to the angels that he has in fact made some adjustments and that he deserves that shot over Dexter Fowler. So at least that's the way I'm thinking about those situations right now with some of those guys that were sent down stashable, but still not really changing my tune.

You're kind of limited. The nice thing for me is that yes, I may end up dropping Joe Adele this year, but I spent a bench pick on him this year. Right. Not $300 in fab. Yeah, exactly. So much less cost, I think, there, relatively speaking.

That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. Be sure to hit the like button if you're watching us on YouTube. Subscribe to the YouTube channel if you haven't done so already. You can find us on Twitter. He's at Eno Saris.

I am at Derek Van Ryper. A lot of great questions coming through in the mailbag. We'll get to some of those on our Wednesday episode as draft season heats up. The final weekend's a draft coming up here at the end of the week. Looking forward to that. For Eno Saris, I'm Derek Van Ryper. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.