Rates & Barrels - Tough Decisions, Staying Ahead of Second-Half Fades & Starting Pitchers We're Worried About

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss tough in-season decisions for the Tigers (Spencer Torkelson's demotion) and Twins (Edouard Julien's demotion), and the promotion of Connor Norby, before considering the factors to account for when trying to move on from pitchers that have performed very well during the first two months of the season.  Rundown 1:48 Spencer Torkelson: Optioned to Triple-A 8:31 Justyn-Henry Malloy Gets the Call 12:38 Royce Lewis' Return Bumps Edouard Julien to Triple-A 23:19 Connor Norby: Promoted by Orioles 29:08 Adam Mazur: Gets the Call to San Diego 31:42 Question of Our Times: Timing Value Drops for First-Half Stars 42:31 Which Pitchers Are You Most Worried About? 53:38 Where the Money Went: Yimi Garcia, Matt Vierling, Mark Vientos & David Hamilton 1:02:00 Reid Detmers' Long-Term Outlook Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Monday June 3rd, Derek and Ryper Eno-Saris here with you on this episode. We've got some fantasy baseball news you should know, has some real life implications too. We've got a segment called The Question of Our Times, really just the mailbag question of the day, but it sounds so much more epic if it's the question of our times, which focuses on first half performers that you might want to try trading away or maybe just using less in the second half despite their success up to this point. We've got a reverse mailbag question that I use in our Discord to ask people who are in the Discord questions that I want answers to and that's a related question. Which currently

affected pitchers are most likely to suffer a skills drop in the second half of the season? So a connection there between the question of our times and the reverse mailbag. We'll also have where the money went and some drops from the weekend. You know, how are you doing on this Monday? I'm doing great. And it was a fun Firestone Walker beer festival. Saw the Furioso movie. Uh, it was OK.

It wasn't the best, but it's still Mad Max. Still had some good moments. Your weekend was more exciting than mine. I got a new string trimmer. It was a gift, which is cool, because gifts that you can use at this age, that's exactly what you want. I overdid it though.

My arm's a little sore, so a lot of lawn trimming on the Sunday. You know you did too much with the lawn tools when you are sore on Monday, so got to build up to it. I guess lessons for the future. Let's start with some baseball news that you should know. Let's start with the Tigers demoting Spencer Torkelson.

It makes sense in the sense that it's been two months now. We're at the point in the year where if a team is unhappy with a player's performance and they are younger and they have options, AAA is definitely on the table for Torkelson. Thirty one homers a year ago, after a little bit of a slow start, looked like he was putting things together in the second half. But so far this year, the lowest barrel rate we've seen from him in his three seasons as a big leader, down to four point five percent. It's not a problem where he's hitting a ton of ground balls.

He's just not hitting the ball as hard. He's just not getting the mileage out of the bad balls that he has. And even the strikeout rate, it's kind of normal for Spencer Torkelson. Twenty four point three percent. Not a big problem there. But this looks an awful lot like what he was doing as a rookie. And I think that has to be a concern. If you're the Tigers, it has to be a concern. If if you got torkelson in a keeper league or a dynasty league and i believe.

With this demotion spencer torkelson now has the honor of the player with the earliest ADP who has been sent to triple A by merit season. Hmm dubious honor indeed i mean the one thing that steps out for me is the 55% fly ball rate. Um, he'd been inching, you've been sort of making his way towards that. And it all seems to be in the, you know, in the effort of adding power. So, you know, best pull rate, highest fly ball rate. Um, but somehow along the line, he lost some raw power and I think he just must be, he must've gotten too steep. You know, he must've, he must've sold out for power in ways that, uh, maybe

his natural eye at the plate, his natural approach is in, is going up against it. Or if it's, or if it's a 55% fly ball right this is too many too many balls that are you know noncompetitive too many. Pop flies basically. And yeah that's no good and like to be fair to him too it like, I think it's a pretty tough home park. So. You know, there is a there is a place where you get where you're like selling out for power just to get it out of that damn stadium. So. I don't know. I might still buy at this very low moment and keep really. But I'm probably not going to hold around and wait too long and read your athletes.

I think it's, this is more of a, he might need to go down and change his swing plane on some sort. Well, you, I think what you'd want to see out of him in the minor leagues is a little bit what we've seen out of Henry Davis, who's on the other end of something like this, you know, he went down for a little bit and the biggest change, the whole reason that I'm a little bit more excited about Henry Davis this time around is that he changed his ground ball fly ball mix and Henry Davis was able to hit for more power in the minor leagues. So I think I want Torkelson to do like the reverse of that a little bit.

I would like to see a 40, 45% flyball rate from Torkelson down the minors and a bit of a leveling out of that swing, I think. Yeah, I think it's more of the realization that when you got enough raw power, you don't have to sell out quite so much to get it. So undoing that is probably the process that Torkelson is working through right now. One sort of injury. I mean, honestly, going from 112.7 max to 109, 14% Braille rate to 4.5, like the quality of contact kind of suffered in a way that I would normally be like, are you okay? Yeah.

And this is kind of a fun would you rather and comparing players that are going through similar things, similar phases of their career. I think I think I like Davis more long term, even though Torkelson has already reached a level of big league success that he's not he's done it once. Davis hasn't. But part of the reason I have more faith in Davis is that if you just compare what they did at various stops in the minors. I think Davis's track record against light competition prior to their big league arrivals is more convincing. And Davis has a lot less experience in the big leagues right now.

We're talking about 338 played appearances for Henry Davis. We talked a lot about the flaw he had at the top of the zone. I don't know how guys fix that problem in the minors, given the state of pitching a triple A right now. So that's going to be the big question for him coming back. But even though Henry Davis might not be a full time catcher in the long run, even if you have to look at him as an outfielder and Torque is a first baseman where the pressure on those guys to hit is just very high, those respective positions,

I think I've got a little bit more confidence long term in Davis. Like if I could only stash one or if I was trading for one in a keeper or redraft league, I also think the, the cost of getting Henry Davis still might be a tick lower than Torkelson via trade just because of that previous level of success that we've seen from Torc. Yeah. And the benefit also is that you get more of a look at the major leagues right now in terms of, you know, one foot in front of the other and what your immediate needs are.

So if you'd need a player right now, I did acquire Henry Davis's services in at least one league over the weekend. Hey, all right. And we get to where did the money go? Some of my money went to getting Henry Davis. And like I said, he went down and had the biggest fly ball rate of his career. Uh, I know it was only 101 plate appearances, but that speaks to me

of some sort of different approach. Maybe it's, um, you know, what we saw when we looked at his approach for high in the zone. Um, a lot of it was fouling it off and battling it off. And, um, maybe his new approach is, because it seems unlikely to me that he would just go down and change his swing. So to me, what this speaks of is maybe he just decided,

they decided, hey, just spit on that. Like just don't swing up there until you have to. The fouling approach or the whatever you've got at the top of the zone, it's not scaring pitchers away from throwing up there. And all it does is turn, you know, turn it into strikes for them. So why don't you just see if they can actually hit that part of the zone three times in a row, or have a two strike approach where you foul it off, but don't don't go into the at bat trying to do that. Yeah, that's that's sound. Corresponding move for the Tigers is Justin Henry Malloy finally getting his opportunity in the big league. So you might be bummed if you are Spencer Torkelson team this season. Malloy is a challenging player because we really don't see a good defensive home.

He's not even a good outfielder. It's more of just kind of hiding him in a corner if you're going to play him out there. But he's really got nothing left to prove against triple A pitching. I think what you see is what you get down there. K rate right around 25 percent. A lot of walks. Big questions as to maybe if he can lower the K-rate by also taking fewer walks. Maybe part of the reason he strikes out

is working the count a lot. But there is some question as to how much in-zone swing and miss there will be against top level pitching. Decent power, very good OVPs. It's weird that a guy that has basically a 400 OVP everywhere he's played, except for his very first minor league stop when he had 388, is coming up with pretty limited fanfare in most circles. Yeah, yeah, I think to some extent, the raw power is actually a question. You know, over at Fangrass, they have a 60-60 present-future raw power,

but in terms of Max EV in 800 plate appearances at AAA, he hasn't gotten past 1099. So that would be slightly below average for a quote-unquote power hitter. In fact, it's pretty close to league average, which I think is 109. So he's got some questions to answer. One thing that I think of also when I look at his page is my pet theory that swinging strike rate is slightly more predictive of major league strikeout rate than minor league strikeout rate. So he has pretty good swing strike rates and that's where I hear you when you say, you know, could he be more aggressive and strike out less? It is certainly possible because these swing strike rates are sub 10% until this year and that's that's pretty good. rates are sub 10% until this year. And that's, that's pretty good.

Um, so it is possible that his strikeout rate stays at 25% of the big leagues, in which case he'd probably be more of a two 40, three 50, 400 guy. I'm being light on the power for a reason. Um, cause I want to see it demonstrated. I believe all the way, I guess. Sure. And with questions about how much playing time he's going to get to, I mean, Malloy may only see. Semi-regular starts, it's possible they're not just going to make him a fixture. I think that's going to be important for this week, too.

The good news is we'll see him for silly. I mean, they should give him some kind of look enough of a look to evaluate whether his bat plays because they need to figure out if they want to make a defensive home for him or use D.H. on him. I think that's going to be the key. So by the time we get to the weekend and weekly leagues, we'll at least have more information as to how they're using them. They only see one left handed starter this week. So they've got to play them against some righties that they want to get a look at Justin Henry Malloy. He's got a sink or swim pretty quickly against righties.

There's not a lot of room for a young versus lefties only guy on rosters, you know, especially with the defensive limits. Yeah. Yeah. With defensive limits, like that is a role that you can have on a team, but I think people prefer you have defensive versatility like an Eric Hernandez, right? Or that like for a young person, it'd be a weird use of them. So I kind of think he's just going to play first base.

I don't think there's a lot of reason to put Mark Kana at first base every day. Yeah. I, I'd love to see it. We've wanted Justin, Henry Malloy and the big leagues for, uh, the better part of a year now. So now we're going to get a chance to see it. I'll take a slight over on that line you put out there. I think he's been pretty consistently good with the bat everywhere he's played.

I think he's going to find a way to make it work. Let's talk about the twins for a bit. Royce Lewis expected to return on Tuesday and that's just good news because I want to see more Royce Lewis in the big leagues, but this led to a corresponding demotion that is pretty interesting. Edward Julian is headed down to AAA St. Paul to make room. And I was reading Dan Hayes' story about this on the athletic and trying to look through the lens of the twins evaluators and and the options they had. And basically the way Dan broke it down was that both Kyle Farmer and Manuel Margot, who were candidates to get bumped off the roster, no options, no options, veterans and a decent salaries too.

So it's a big sunk cost to let those players go. That's why the guys that were by performance, easily the worst two hitters they could have gotten rid of are still there. I think Farmer also, out as a clubhouse leader, so there's extra element of possibly letting him go if that ends up being something they do down the road. So the decision was basically between Julian, Alex Kiriloff, Jose Miranda, who's been very good since returning, and Trevor Larnick,

who's also been very good. Trevor Larnick has basically been the player everybody hoped Matt Wallner was going to be throughout draft season. And it really was the holding hands meme because L everybody hoped Matt Wallner was going to be throughout draft season. And it really was the, the holding hands meme because Larnick was Wallner before Wallner was anybody we talked about. And it's just been injuries and some up and downs that have held him back. And we're holding Wallner with, you know, with, uh, yeah, I think he has like second best bat speed in the big leagues.

We're holding Wallner through this, through this period, but it does seem like they kind of alternate with each other. Yeah. So I guess with Julian, you're just like, go down and try to strike out less. And that's the flaw in his game. He's basically league average, despite having a K rate up above 30% again. And there's also the questions about his defense and not necessarily being a good defender that works against him a little bit too. But this would fall more under the good problem to have for the twins, even though it's a more frustrating outcome for those in deeper leagues

where Julian's been at least a solid middle infielder for power and speed. Yeah, you have to think that there this they were forced into this decision by other decisions that may be suboptimal. And the thing that I'm pointing at is, you know, I think, you know, in terms of options, Willie Castro has an option, but he is really the only person who can play center field other than Byron Buxton. So you push yourself into a corner when you got Manny Margot, who is a capable corner outfielder, but no longer really a center fielder, even though he's penciled in there at

Fang Graff's. If you thought that Margot was a capable center fielder, then I think you could option Willie Castro instead. But you know, I'm not saying that Willie Castro has been bad. It's it's what I'm saying is there's really been sort of a lack of there's a lack of optional talent here. There's a lack of flexibility. And there's a little bit of a lack of young people up the middle. You know, it's, it's kind of old of the middle. Jeffers, Correa and now.

Kyle Farmer at second. And Buxton at center, it's it works, but it's, you know, it feels like it's a year or two from being the Giants. I think they're going to play Castro a lot in center so long as Buxton's healthy. I think that's probably their plan because Castro gets to a similar league average-ish bat in a different way than Julian. And then the other sort of wild card for them eventually is once Brooks Lee is healthy, he's currently on a rehab assignment coming back from a back injury.

Maybe Brooks Lee gets a little bit under. Yeah, so Julian has kind of fallen into this, this massive playing time that I don't know, a trade or an injury or something could help unlock it. But we talked about it on Friday with our live stream of Trevor May. Like sometimes you just end up in stretches of your career where you're just playing for, you're playing for tomorrow. And I think the twins have kind of done that with this cluster of mid twenties guys that are all, all on that roster right now and some of the limited

roster flexibility that they have. So somebody take over at first for Santana. If you just decided that, you know, this is the best that's going to get. And Santana is a decent glove though. And Kirilov is not right. Yeah, Kirilov, I think, would be the guy that would play a lot there. If you want to just simplify that way. I think the tricky thing when you have a decision like this is when you have two players

who are league average or near league average and one puts the ball in play twice as often as the other. But they, they both have a generally same, like similar amount of value. You have to decide, like, do you want, do you want the guy that swings and misses that can do more damage and maybe steal more bases, or do you want the guy that strikes out less because that might be a better fit for your lineup, which has a lot of swing and miss in it at various points. I mean, I hate to harp on it, but there's also the defensive question.

It's like your paper, send to center field. If you send Castro down, you said, curl off down. Um, that's fine, but Carol off has been producing better than, than Julian. So, yeah. And they've done that before too. They've sent Carol off down before he's an injury. So maybe it's just, Julian hasn't gone through it quite as many times as Kiriloff. That was also your turn now.

That was also a part of it, but nice to see Royce Lewis coming back this week. Hopefully we get to see a nice run of health for him over these next four months. Got some good news coming Tuesday with Garry Cole making his first rehab start. That's going to be a double a summer set I did end up picking up Cody petite in a couple of deep leagues because he is the one currently filling in for the injured Clark Schmidt and I think once Garrett Cole is back Everybody else is healthy then poteets time in the rotation comes to a close But just kind of looking at what he was doing at triple a this year as a depth starter in Scranton

It's kind of impressive 38 to 11 strikeout to walk and 33 in the third innings Kind of reminds me of Zach Littell in some ways guys bounced around has one good pitch but also has some other stuff kind of gives you the the kitchen sink approach and Being on a good team with a good bullpen protecting his leads Just thought he was a nice nice fill-in option that wasn't on my radar prior to the Clark Schmidt injury. But Garret Cole, I think this is going to be a relatively long rehab assignment. He was basically building up from nothing. So if we see him in the second half of June, that to me seems like things are have gone very, very well. Yeah, I'd be fascinated to see what the VELO is like.

I don't want to be too obsessed with VELO, but it does give you a real sense of, you know, where he is compared to himself and where he is healthwise. So I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, the fastballs are pretty bad for me. And the strikeout rates have been pretty mediocre. As far as his command being really great right now. He also had a 12% walk rate in 30 games for the Marlins in 2021. And the prospects report said his command was 50 50. So I think for this current version to work, he has to have the plus plus command. And I'm just not sure it's going to stick around. Yeah. And it might be a short term opportunity anyway, but for deep, deep leagues,

you chase and wins. Maybe that's one way to get there with Cody Petit. Shout out to Brian Cashman and the Yankees. I mean, for as, as much doomsdaying as there was about this team last year, uh, for them to be leading the league and wins and to look this strong And do it without Garrett Cole is pretty impressive I mean what we're is he got Soto and he you know, there's a lot of There was even belly aching that wasn't enough

And I think that what you know what I saw and I made a bold prediction that'd be the best offense is that they were better than their results last year. So you take some natural regression of some taking some you know some results that were good they barreled the ball out last year and had like the 12th best offense or something. It's just, you know, second in barrels, 12th in offense. It's just not normal, you know? And, um, you know, then you take, you say some positive regression on results. You take, uh, you know, Alex Verdugo is, is, is a different kind of hitter than

a lot of the other guys, the guy who just makes contact and keeps the thing moving. kind of hitter than a lot of the other guys, a guy who just makes contact and keeps the thing moving. And then you make a kind of a big change with Anthony Volpe, where he a little bit more contact, a little more line drive, a little bit flatter of a swing. And now suddenly, it looks like it works in every facet. I mean, there are guys on this team who haven't gotten going yet who might still Rizzo and LeMahieu have done Lemehu have done nothing. Torres has done nothing. Like if somebody steps back or somebody gets injured, those one of those three could start to have a better, you know, month or two.

And they'll keep this train rolling. They look like an absolute contender for the World Series. Yeah, they look legit right now. And Jason Dominguez comes back eventually this year if they need another option to rotate through the outfield mix. That's kind of strange. I mean, with Judge Soto, Verdugo, and Stanton, there's not really a way to make the pieces fit. So that's the problem for Dominguez, but one more really nice option to have at your disposal. And they've been able to get a lot of mileage out of this rotation. Other than the Cole injury and now the most recent Schmill one, they've been a little healthier than we probably would have expected given what Rodin and Nestor Cortez have dealt with in recent years.

Even in the past. Yeah. Stroman's been up and down health-wise in recent years too. So, yeah, they've done very well despite having a few things not go their way. And if Rizzo and Lemehi are still struggling, come late July, it's a pretty easy spot to go get upgrades, at least first base. I don't know if third will be as easy. It was tough last year. I think in a walk here, Stotto is never going to pick up a first base club, but there is a world in which that is the best configuration for this team.

Yeah, it might be 2025, but yeah, that's definitely a possibility down the road. Connor Norby coming up for the Orioles, just another Orioles prospect debuting. What was the corresponding move on that one? Jorge Mateo is probably going on the concussion IL. The Orioles outfielder is in the on deck circle, didn't realize Mateo is behind him. And Mateo is leaning forward to grab a bat weight. Mullins swung his bat down and struck Mateo on the back of the helmet. That's no good.

I have seen that a few times like been at games where you know I forget who was there was a Giants one where someone took a practice swing and like just missed like a teammate, like full practice swing and just missed their teammates head by this much, you know. Yeah. So it's temporary. Looks temporary. I mean, it's exciting because Connor Norby is one of many good young players in the organization. But. How much playing time can you project on this? He could get sent down even if he plays well. It's possible at least, but really nice numbers again at AAA.

Yeah, I mean. Another, another guy that has power, speed, pretty good average, great average, good OBP, like everything you're looking for in a good well rounded bat, Connor Norby seems to have it. Yeah, I mean, Jackson Holliday is raking again in the minor leagues. I think they're what is the roster spot they're playing around with? How did Kirstad when these guys come out, when Kirstad came up and. They're playing around with an injury spot, Stowers came up.

What is the 26 man roster? I mean, when cursed that went down, Stowers came up. Yeah. See, is there one roster? Are they playing around Jackson Holliday's roster spot? Is that what's going on here? Kind of. We talked about it at the beginning of the year

because the bench was guys like, you know, Ramon Rias, Matteo, backup catcher, and then whatever they do for like a fourth outfielder. That's that's been the bench the whole time. And we've just said, well, how long are they going to try and hold on to a guy like Mateo and a guy like Urias?

If they want to like squeeze everybody, all the young guys on the roster, it's getting rid of veterans like those two to make it happen. Yeah, and Urias isn't hitting that well, but makes contact and he's the type of person that I was talking about earlier, like a righty veteran that you're okay with just showing up against lefties, right? And Matteo to some extent was that too. He's there. They're two righty bats. But Matteo is playing better. And has infield outfield versatility that Ramon Urias doesn't have.

So I guess if I was forced to choose one, I would choose Matteo at this point. But I think looking at this roster, they're playing around with the Kyle Stowers spot. Um, and the reason why it hasn't been holiday yet or Norby yet or Mayo yet is because Kyle Stowers is an outfielder. You can count Mateo as an outfielder. And so I guess what Norby or any of these young guys that comes up needs to

do is outplay Kyle Stowers. I guess that's one way to do it. Yeah. If everyone's healthy, there is a spot open. It's Jackson holidays though. Right. If there's, you know, if you're looking at the starting lineup, as opposed to the active roster, second base or third, wherever Jordan is, you know, if you're looking at the starting lineup, as opposed to the active

roster, second base or third, wherever Jordan Westberg, you know, they don't play him is the one spot in the roster where there's a starting job still available kind of that they're kind of playing around with. And the roster spot that they're battling for is Kyle Stowers roster spot that they're battling for is cost hours roster spot. Or if Cedric Mullins, I mean, what, what's the move though? Like you wouldn't necessarily take them off the roster. Yeah. He will play less.

That's a possibility. Is it phantom I L or something? It's brutal. 55 WRC plus now through 54 games for Mullins. It's a, it's a big surprise. The worst kind of surprise. Still in there, because he's left handed and he plays good center field defense.

But it's like, it's not good. It's like he's batting ninth and he's taking the games off against lefties. And I can't point at anyone's side. Yes, he has a 207 Babu. I mean, yeah. That's that's my lifeline. I mean, nothing else looks good, really.

We've been turned to Babu way more than I expected us to this year on the show. Adam Mazer set for a major league debut on Tuesday. The Padres have both Hugh Darvish and Joe Musgrove on the IL again. So the debut will come against the Angels for Mazer. If he sticks around, it becomes a two-star week. He'd get the Diamondbacks again on Sunday. He struggled with AAA since getting promoted there. He's got an ERA over seven, which could be the byproduct of the PCL. El Paso is the home park. A lot of the other parks in that league, as we know, very, very hitter friendly.

It was a 32 to five strikeout to walk ratio with a sub two ERA at AA prior to the promotion. And it looks like Randy Vasquez, at least initially, is getting the other spot. He was the one that stepped in for Musgrove on Saturday when that turn came up in the rotation. But should we be interested in Adam Mazer, at least as a home streamer, given the way Petco Park historically has played, given the success at AA or do the actual pitches tell us a slightly different story? I think what the pitches tell me is I can understand how a player like this would do well in the lower levels and then struggle in the higher levels and maybe struggle ultimately in the big leagues is that, uh,

he has a 61 stuff plus on his four scene, but he has a one on three location plus on it. So he makes a, a fast ball with poor shape viable by locating it well. Um, and I think in the, in the lower levels, uh, that's harder to compete with for some people. He's obviously going to try and dominate you with the breaking balls, but even if you add up all his secondary or all of his breaking balls he throws, you don't get to even with the fore seam. So he's throwing the fore seam like 75% of the time,

70% of the time still. And I think in order to have success in the big leagues, he's gonna have to turn to the breaking balls a majority of the time. And I don't know if he has that adjustment in him. If that's what they have planned for him, why wouldn't he have done that in the minors as a, you know, to try it out

before he got to the majors? So I, I'm not as hopeful as I once was. I got, once I got the pitch shapes information, I'm less hopeful. I had circled his name earlier from the double A's just from stat scouting, but with this week of a fastball, I'm worried about him. We'll get a good look at it on Tuesday. It's a soft landing spot against the angels though. So maybe he'll find a way to make it work and hang around just a little bit longer. Let's get to the question of our times.

This one came through our discord. Submitted by Barry Manolode on our discord. I'd like your perspective on dealing first half stars before their value drops. First half high performing vets like Kikuchi and innings limit candidates like Garrett Crochet may seem like they are high value trade pieces over the next three to six weeks. I'm worried I'll regret not taking the opportunity to trade them at their highest value. But in comparison, the risers like Tyler McGill, Christian Scott, Spencer Schwellenbach, call ups like Povich and Jackson Jobe could provide more value in the second half.

I feel I have a good feel for when pitching indicators report stability of positive change, but I'd like to understand more about when fatigue and potential outcomes of innings management are indicators to seek alternatives. Please review when innings limited pitchers provide the best trade value and or when fading pitcher stats should be compared to the upside of second half stats from risers. So a lot there from Barry. Yeah.

Unfortunately, I think some of the way teams are going about it now with injury and signs of fading are too immediate for us to be on top of in the same way. You know what I mean? Like kind of game to game on some of the stuff. Like if someone's arm slot drops in one game and they are on an innings limit. You may just see. Then put on the I.L.

that week, so you think so using Garrett crochet as an example, rather than having a hard out and saying at 140, he's done, or maybe they do have a high number hired outlets like above what we were used to. It's not the old Verducci, add 40, add 50. And then on top of that, they're monitoring start to start measurements of fatigue. Right, yeah, it's watching on a more granular level

to say, that didn't look good. But the arm slot change of, I don't know, so a certain magnitude is enough. A spin drop of a certain magnitude, a Velo drop maybe of a certain magnitude, a Velo drop, maybe of a certain magnitude. Those might be as indicators for them to say, we got to back off either. Even if it's not for the rest of the season, maybe it's, oh, it's time for a break or inflammation. Yeah, we're going to see what's going on. We're going to find inflammation. We're going

to sit him down for a month. We're going to ramp him back up and then he's going to finish the season. And the shape of the innings might be less predictable. Like they would prefer to. But as soon as any of that starts to happen, the value of the player in your leagues is completely shuttered. Yeah, I mean, this is the tricky thing. So with crochet, he's clearly a good starting pitcher based on what he's done through 13 starts anyway.

This is working very, very well. Most people in your league are going to be excited about getting a pitcher with skills like that. 33% K rate, 5% walk rate. That's ace stuff. But they also know why you're shopping him. They know why you're shopping him. So if you factor in how everybody views him, you're going to get less for Garrett Crochet than you would for any previously healthy pitcher who's done it for a couple of seasons with skills like that.

You might get less for Crochet than you would get for Jack Flaherty right now. Yeah, because Flaherty has shown levels like this in the past. And there's no reason to think that he'll just get shut down at some point for some arbitrary innings number. Right. 100%. Right. I mean, if you look at Flaherty's 2018 and his 2019, those are 151, 196 in the third inning seasons with good ratios, tons of strikeouts. He said partial seasons where it's looked that good too. You don't have that. Yeah, you don't have that level of concern. I think some people would take Flaherty over Crochet for the rest of the season because of the uncertainty about Crochet's workload by comparison. But given Flaherty's injury history, it might be closer than you'd think.

So in some weird ways, while I could agree that the idea that Barry has out here is like, yeah, you probably do want to move away from Crochet now if you can find good value in return. If you've got a lot of pitching or your, your strength as a manager is to go get more off the wire, then yeah, you can lean into those guys who are going to have more second half value than first half value because you can navigate that pool really well, but are you getting the equivalent of a top 40 hitter back in the return or top 30 hitter back?

Because skills wise, that's probably the bin you should be shopping in. If you're going to trade Garrett crochet away right now. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes I end up just like swallowing and using these types of players because I find that the actual market value is lower than I expected. I find that the actual market value is lower than I expected. Um, if you show up on a bunch of people's sell high articles, that's a hold that sends up being a whole, it's just like, you're not, everyone's like, I, I read that piece too. I saw that.

I saw that tweet too. You know, it's like, there is a convergence of, uh, information that we're, that we're getting now, if you're, it's like there is a convergence of information that we're getting. Now, if you if you're just in a league where you think everyone's getting different information sources, then you know, you can leverage that, of course. I think the other attack angle on something like this is thinking about Shane Buz of all people, like someone who we haven't seen the big leagues yet. Who has some flaws right now. He has numbers don't look great right now, but he's been hurt.

Like he had Tommy John and an oblique injury. So it just takes time to give back. And we haven't had pitch modeling numbers publicly available for that long to where we've been looking for years at the trends of guys coming off of injuries. They're there for a few years, but to me, it creates a buying opportunity because I think the consensus opinion of the folks that are looking at things through pitch models is that, ah, Baz isn't quite right yet. through pitch models is that, ah, Baz isn't quite right yet. And I agree with that. I'm not disputing what the model is saying, but you have to anticipate the possibility that as he continues in the minors,

Shane Baz in the next few weeks may begin to feel better, build up more arm strength, build up more feel, and those numbers will at least gradually improve, right? You have to at least consider that possibility. I guess the reason I bring it up is I feel like the consensus buying opportunities are on players like this. Like these are the these are like the these are the guys that actually are created by the consensus opinion.

Everyone's not on their writing. Go get Shane Baws right now. Right. But everyone's consent, the consensus opinion. Everyone's out there writing, go get Shane Baas right now. Right. But everyone's consent, the consensus opinion of Shane Baas is creating the opportunity to go get him. Whereas if he was cruising in the rehab or the post rehab time at AAA, he'd probably be on the big league roster right now. But let's just say there's a world where they had five healthy starters they liked better, and they were waiting and waiting and waiting. He's killing it. And I'm tweeting out his minor league stuff plus numbers.

And I'm like, it's a boss, best stuff plus the minors. Right. Like if they had some plan where he was going three innings at a time and he looked like skeins and everything was working and it was just like, we're just waiting, we're just waiting. We couldn't get him. I mean, he wouldn't untouchable trade for him. He would be on rosters everywhere. Yeah. Right. So you have to kind of go back and say, OK, what was he before he got her?

And then what is the likelihood that he'll get most of the way back this year? And if the keeper dynasty, you're in my head right now. Like I have a couple Shane Bosworth that I'm trying to hold on to as long as possible, because I feel like we're getting closer and closer. If you look at his stuff, plus numbers, boss, like you look at his fastball start to start. You'll have one start where it's like one or five. And that's absolutely that's good for starting picture for fastball start to start, you'll have one start where it's like 105 and that's absolutely, that's good for starting pitcher for fastball for especially given his secondary stuff

actually still looks good. And then he'll go down to 94 on the fastball. And then he'll go up to 103 and then he'll go down to 96. So I'm thinking that this is gonna converge and he's gonna figure out it's like, why isn't the vertical movement there on your fastball? Something like, I think that's something he can figure out. So that's why I've been holding onto him.

But another thing that I think I would think about is the shape of the injured list. So the chance that you're starting pitcher goes on the injured list, uh, in a given season, about 50%. I wonder if I don't know if I've seen this research, but if you, if you get to this point, the, healthy, maybe your number is lower the rest of the way. But let's say it's not. Let's say even if you've gotten to this point in the season healthy, you still have a 50% chance of coming going on the IL, right? So that should color your way of looking at every picture you own. So any you're like, Oh, we're riding high, we're doing great.

Man, half these guys are gonna get hurt. Think about it that way. And if you think about it that way, you're like, okay. And then think about all the people who are on the aisle. And some of those guys are coming back. Now, you don't want to bet on them in the specific. Like I do have keeper level shares of de Grom and you know, Tyler Malley and stuff like that. But I'm not saying that in a redraft, you should be like,

Oh, Tyler Malley is coming back. That's why I'm going to trade gray crochet. But that is kind of what I'm saying. You know what I mean? Like you may be thinking about Jackson Job, but it really is just a collection of opportunity and that collection of opportunity has Jobe and Povich in it, but it also has Tyler Malley, Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom. I don't know. I'm trying to look at this. Maybe I should do I should do starting pictures to make it a little bit more interesting. I mean, even Schwellenbach kind of fits in there too, or even Miss Schaver is going to come back and Waldrop is going to probably come up at some point if Schwellenbach kind of fits in there, too, or even Smith Schaver is going to come back and Waldrop's going to probably come up

at some point if if Schwellenbach isn't good or Fernando Lopez has a. Tyler Wells is pretty good. Oh, I like I picked up Keaton Wynn this weekend for one dollar in the main event. I just thought he's on his way back. So, yes, I think given the fragility of any current pitching staff and fancy baseball and the opportunity, um, that. Is various and varied the different kinds of opportunities you may find even maybe a by low pitcher, somebody drops somebody that's struggling that

actually still has some, some, um, something good under the hood. That's that's an opportunity. Um, I yeah, in generally in trade leagues, I'm trying to I'm always trying to trade pitchers for hitters. Then again, that reduces the price. That reduces what I get back. I still try to do it anyway. It's not easy.

I wanted some specifics, though, so I did put this in the discord as a reverse mailbag question I asked, which currently effective pitchers are you most likely to see? Or which ones are most likely to see a skills drop in the second half of the season? I was kind of thinking about Bryce Elder while walking the dog this weekend. Totally normal thing to do while you're out walking your dog. Just say, well, why did Bryce Elder pitch so well in the first half last year and so bad in the second half?

But we generally I think most people saw that coming. And I think I was thinking about Ben Lively. It's like, you know, I really don't have been lively anywhere. I didn't believe in it. I didn't draft him. I didn't pick him up. And here he is just cruising along with a sub three era and a one 16 whip. He's winning games because his team is good and I missed out.

Right. But I think in so many ways, my brain is like, now Ben Lively is this year's Bryce Elder. So that was my contribution to the reverse mailbag without even, before the question was even like thrown out there to the group. But here's the group of players. And I'm gonna order them by quality

based on K minus BB percentage so far. These are the pitchers that people in our Discord responded with as they're worried the second half performance won't be as good as the first. Jarrah Jones, Ranger Suarez, Shota Imanaga, Kyle Bradish, Louise Heal, Brady Singer, Ronaldo Lopez, Seth Lugo, Cotter Crawford, Carlos Rodan, Ronell Blanco, Javier Asad, Jordan Hicks, Cole Irvin, Tyler Anderson, Tanner Scott, got one reliever in there, and James Paxton.

I think as I read that list, the way most of our brains are wired, it's like, yeah, I like the guys you mentioned up top. The further down the list you went, I generally didn't believe in those guys anyway, and I'd be hesitant to continue relying on them for anything close to what they've done so far. I mean, James Paxton is doing what he's done so far.

He's got a three twenty nine year a with a fourteen point two percent. Strikeout rate and a double digit walk rate. That's not going to work like those skills do not support those results clearly. I think the bottom of this is in fact, I'm tempted to take everybody with the below average K-minus BBs. That's Renault Blanco, Assad, Hicks, Urban, Anderson, Scott and Paxton. And I'm going to say I give you veto power over one of those. I got my guy.

I think the only one I have reasonable faith in is Jordan Hicks, because the stuff is absurd. Like it's just not it's not like the others absurd. The ground ball rate is super high. The park is nice. It's going to be enough not to keep him at a 270 ERA. But I can't I can't imagine he ends the season with much worse than like a three four, which means, you know, like a three seven, three eight going forward, something like that.

Some of the concern might be fatigue, though, as he gets deeper into the season. Right. Beyond the skills shut down or something. Maybe depending on what's going on with the below is going down. So there's there's that. But I'd say of that bottom half group. Yeah, that that's that's the name that kind of stands out to me as the, I don't think I'd necessarily like trade them away. I'd probably just see what happens because I don't think I would get a trade offer that's so good that I'm feeling great about trading them anyway.

Yeah, yeah. What's actual, you know, what's actual about most of those guys is like they could be droppers when you don't expect them to be like even a 15 team. The I've had Rene Blanco. And I'm not playing him and sometimes I'm like, why am I holding on to him? You know, he's like right there like on some level, some of these people might be droppers when you think they're not. I've been trying to trade Javier Assad in my 12 team keeper league since day one of the season. And I think everyone's really tired of me. Yeah. I mean, they they're they if they read your stuff

or like your pitching model, they see an 87 stuff plus. And they're like, why would we trade for that guy? You don't want him. And your model doesn't like him. So why would we want him? Quit trying to put them together with Reese Olsen and get my good hitter. I know. I know. Sorry.

Now, the more actionable part of the list is, of course, the top of the list, right? Is there is there a reason to try and like trade away Jared Jones right now? Even if you like him, even if you believe long term, is his present value so much higher than his rest of season value that you come out on top by flipping him right now. I don't know the one point six homers per nine in fact could go in a different direction that could go in either direction. It could stay there because he's mostly a two pitch pitcher you know with inconsistent

command. Or it could improve because he starts throwing his third pitch more often and becomes more of a pitcher. His third pitch is fine. His fourth pitch is fine. He is actually has four pitches. He doesn't use them as much. So I don't know I I would have a hard time trading Jones Suarez. I would have a hard time trading Jones Suarez, Shota and Bradish

and Heal with a 20 with a 20 plus K minus PB, you know, and good stuff numbers for most of them. I haven't have a hard time trading. You're living more in the middle of this list. So really this comes back more to skills than than circumstances. If we go back to the kind of the core of Barry's question, like, how do you know when to time it? Is it the guys that live closer to that league average K minus BB threshold?

Like you're pitching well and you're above that threshold right now. But if the stuff deteriorates, if the stretch of schedule gets more difficult, if something starts to go wrong, you're quickly falling into the Assad, Kohlerve and Tyler Anderson bucket. Right. So the most problematic for me is 14% ish K minus BB and below average stuff plus, that's where I find you much more fungible than other people might. So that includes Brady Singer,

Renal Blanco, Javier Asad. Now, average stuff plus is Lopez and Lugo. That actually might be trading. That's the sweet spot. That's the sweet spot because what you'll see is the other person will say, yes, Lugo won't have a 172 ERA going forward, but he might still have a three, seven, five and some wins. They're improving. And I'm getting him at a reduced price because you're selling high quote unquote.

Yeah, I think I still it's hard for me to put myself in the position of some of the listener leagues where players are sharp, but they might not be as across the board sharp or see things exactly the same way as we kind of do on the show. I almost look at Carlos Rodin as the the best of all worlds because he's healthy right now. He's pitching well right now. He's pitched very well in the not so distant in the not so distant past.

K-Mine speed is a little bit worse than you'd expect given the stuff plus the K-K percentage is worse than you'd expect, given the stuff plus the K K percentage is worse than you'd expect. There's a glimmer of he might be better in the second half. So I think the person trading for him is going to have a lot of reasons to say he might be an ace. I need an ace. And the trace person trading him is saying, dude, this guy's

I'll likelihood in the second half is over 50 percent. Yeah, it's just unfortunately, it's part of the truth. And I just think that's where you're going to get a lot more back. Whereas if when you dangle Lopez, even Lugo has been fantastic. It's amazing call the heaver making that call winter. You know, you expect Lugo to go to a three, five, three, seven ERA the rest of the way, and a more normal whip and the low K rate's going to be a little bit of a limiting factor.

If the innings volume tapers off on a per start basis, if it doesn't, he'll make up for the low K rate by just throwing more innings than a lot of guys do. Like Seth Lugo could be among the league leaders in innings this year with the foundation that he's put in place so far. Right. And that's something that Ronaldo Lopez, Carlos Rodon and Luis Heal can't say. Yeah, it's harder to say that about the others. Trade partner will know that. So that's one reason why I do

think that Lugo has trade value. Yeah. So I think it's I think it's you're not chopping Luis Heal and they're like, yeah. And what happens when Cole comes back and Schmidt comes back? Yeah, I think it's just finding the players that are living right on that

that line, even with a step forward. Uh, geez. I mean, you say Kikuchi, who is an example in Barry's question, he seems like he's really kind of locked in the improved control that we saw last year. His walk rates even better than it was a year ago. Swing strike rates still pretty good. I think they just found the pitch mix that fits his spray charts, if it makes sense, you know what I mean? They're like, you know, if you I think he has a really hard time commanding.

He's actually OK, East West. And so you you give him a vertical arsenal. Right. And you just basically say, like, kind of throw middle and some of your stuff will go up, some of your stuff go down and you stay in the middle. Right. And you just basically say, like, kind of throw middle and some of your stuff will go up. Some of your stuff go down and you stay in the middle. Right. So I think they found a mix that works for him. Yeah. Kikuchi, you know, then there's just, I think the one that's the hardest and that it goes back to the original part of this question is just sometimes people's skills fade in a way that you can't see ahead of time.

Right. Yeah. You try to time it perfectly and it's a little here, a little there. And after a three, three, four small deterioration spread over like six to eight starts, then you've, oh, now we've got to get it's going to drop 30 spots in the picture rankings. Which is why, which is why I was nervous about Musgrove. That's how I was trying to get across in the pod that we were talking about, you know, there were droppers in my rankings. I was like, with Musgrove, it's just like, I know this stuff is there on the breaking balls, but we've seen this just sort of like this injury thing

that's been happening. And sometimes it seems like they're disconnected and oh, he dropped a thing on his toe and whatever. But like, basically, since the beginning of last year, he's been on and off the I.L. Yeah, it just doesn't seem right for Joe Musgrove at this point. Thanks a lot for that question, Barry. Thanks to many of our Discord users. GR Pyshek, SLGS Reds, Matt, Good is Low Guppy, Andrew M, lots of submissions,

John also for weighing in there, giving us a great group of names to work with for that segment. Let's get to the end of the show that we have on Mondays. We get to where the money went and a few names that we haven't talked a lot about on this show were among the more popular players picked up. We talked about some of like Matt Waldron and Miguel Andujar and Ben Brown last week, Nick Gonzalez. They were within the top 10.

Corey Jokes had a resurgence. I bought some Corey Jokes and I saw some out there. We talked about him last week, even as an option. Yeah. Jokes was a pretty popular pickup. I mean, he's with heart of the order. I think what we're seeing is he's playing every day. There's a lot of ways for Corey Jokes to be good. He's going to get to some more order. I think what we're seeing is he's playing every day. There's a lot of ways for Corey Jolix to be good.

He's gonna get this at more power, I think. It's gonna take a little time, but Yumi Garcia, I mean, this one's kind of simple. Unfortunately, Jordan Romano back on the IL. He had an MRI, no structural damage in his elbow at this point, but it looks like Garcia's just the closer for the Jays, and I just wonder if Romano is gonna be down a little bit longer

than we typically expect for, for a non-structural problem with his elbow, given that it's been up and down for him health wise this season. Yeah, I guess we could have gone to more money. We put $40 down on unique Garcia and, uh, we were second to a $71 good out of a thousand it's just that you don't know what if you, if you pay second to a seventy one dollar good out of a thousand. It's just that you don't know what if you if you pay seventy five and you get a week's worth of saves, is that worth seventy five dollars

out of a thousand? It depends. It depends how tight saves are in your league and a lot of other factors. I mean, people, people have spent seven percent of their budget a lot less than a week's worth of saves. So what's really hurting us is that we've got Jeff Hoffman as a second closer and we're just just not sure if he is a closer. Yeah, it's very weird in Philadelphia right now.

But we also talked about Jake Myers last week and in my TGFI I was able to get Jake Myers for thirty one dollars to a twenty dollar second bid. And I was happy about that. I think he's only sort of solidified his job since that was that was the difference between core jokes last year and Jake Myers last week. And then this week is just more and more evidence that they're playing every day. Yeah, exactly. We'd love to see that. Mark Viento's had had that little bit that evidence.

And then with Brett Beatty going down, it's like written in stone that he's getting the chance now that Beatty didn't. And I love his bad ball stats. He's he's a guy who well, I mean, he hits the ball on the ground too much. But that like there's a version of Brett Beatty, where he's like Mark Vientos, right? Oh, yeah. Just lean into hitting the ball hard.

Don't worry about your ground ball, right? When you lift it, it goes out, you know. That's sort of the idea sometimes with this is like a very Tampa Bay raising line here with like a 50 percent ground ball rate, but 112 max TV and a 14% barrel rate. Like the Tampa Bay Rays are calling you for Mark Vientos guys. Yeah. I don't think, uh, I don't think David Stearns is going to answer that call.

Or at least the strikeout rate is going up though. 16.6% swing strike rate, long track record of strikeout rate problems. So the batting average is going down and strikeout rates going up, but, uh, giving himself a 321 average through the first 61 plate appearances will keep his batting average from ever looking that putrid. It's like a good start.

Here the good start just gives him more rope, I guess. And just so you know though, if you're picking him up, it's probably like a 230, 240 batting average with that power. But cheap power can be hard to find. And if he's playing every day, it should be enough power to actually make a dent in 12 team league. So I think that's what made Vientos a bit popular over the weekend.

Matt Veerling was getting picked up in 12s over the weekend. And even at the time when the Tigers made that trade with the Phillies last winter, there were rumblings that, hey, they may have found a pretty interesting position player that can. Because the raw power has always been there combined with good strikeout rate. And that's just kind of getting to it more now. 8.7% barrel rate so far this year would be a career highs in the air a little more often. That's been the big difference so far. We've seen little flashes of speed in the past and even with free stolen bases available, he's not taking any right now.

So I think it's more of a thing that just could start to trickle in, even though it hasn't been there so far. Vierling is the kind of player that if you think he's going to play every day or nearly every day in a deeper league, it'll cost very little via trade. And he might end up being a nice get. So cool to see him kind of dipping into 12. He played a lot of different plays about places for you. Yeah, very versatile.

Game log suggests that. Yeah, third base center field, both corner out spots leading off. I mean, it's weird that it's in these different places that makes you nervous that he's a utility guy, but Since he's so high near the top of the order and in in game after game So it's not like he bats first against lefties and fifth against righties or whatever there's some aspect of that, but it seems like they want him at the top of their lineup and Yeah, I I missed the boat on that one.

I like I like the trade, but I just put him into utility category after a while in my head. Yeah, well, I've got enough underperformers right in that lineup, too, that keeps the door open for a bit longer. Another popular ad because he's been playing a lot more thanks to all the injuries in the infield in Boston is David Hamilton. I think he started all but one game going back to May 20th. So basically a regular he is stuck in the bottom part of the lineup. But the previous indications we've had about David Hamilton is that he might be a better fantasy player than a real player.

I mean, we've seen him steal 57 bases a year ago and triple A with a three three sixty three OBP pop 17.B.P. Popped 17 homers. I don't know how much that power will show up in the long run against big league pitching, but it's non zero pop. And he's nine for ten is a base dealer in thirty five games. Plus, he's got a job. So I do think the the shallow league appeal is legitimate for David Hamilton

because of the playing time being so much more stable now. And that only changed to another degree with von Grissom going back on the IL. Yeah. I, the, he was one of the, uh, baby red socks that went on the weighted bot bat program. Um, and that was, I think before 2023. So he went from one 50 ISO to 190 that year. And he popped a 110.9 in AAA in 2023 in terms of EV. He has not gone over 105 since and one thing I have heard

about weighted bats, it was more of a question than a statement, but it was how sticky are those gains and is it something you have to keep doing to keep getting the benefit from it? And is it currently part of David Hamilton's repertoire in terms of daily routine or is it not? And is that the difference between that year's you know, that year's ISO and that year's max TV and what he's done since, um, either way, uh, I think defense is what keeps them there. And also, uh, you know, every day that Rafaela doesn't play shortstop is

another day that David Hamilton cement his job, uh, sense the cements the job from a defensive standpoint as well. So I kind of think he is going to be there. We in the main decided to put a, I think a 40, or it was a $30 bid on him, 33 or something like that. We were pretty excited about him. He went for 72 to somebody who was finally dropping Javier Baez. And that seems to make a lot of sense to me that somebody that was playing

Javier Baez would. Spend that much money to get a chance at a starting player that would hit for a slightly better average than Baez. Fewer homers, more stone bases. Yeah, I mean, just, hey, you want to feel feelings again out of the middle infield. That's what you're doing in that situation. If you're going to Hamilton instead of Javi Baez,

I'm all on board with that. On the drop side, tons of injuries again. I mean, Acuna and Alec Manoa, we talked about their injuries last week, Clark Schmidt down four to six week with the lat injury. That's why Cody Petit's in the rotation right now. Junior Caminero was a popular drop because it's a grade two quad strand.

It's gonna keep him out four to six weeks. One of my personal favorites, Johnny DeLuca has been kind of slumping, not playing enough for a 12-teamer, so he was a frequent drop. Yeah, you had to watch the Siri, and Siri was still playing. Yeah. And even with Lo going out, it's been to look as you see him pinch

hitting. So I read the box scores every day. I mean, I I wish that I was a little bit more regimented about it and like maybe wrote notes somewhere or something like that. But it filters through after a while. I know you read those and I've been noticing that the look of wasn't in the lineup every night. Yeah, Jose Siri, that 82 WRC plus, got to keep on trucking 35% K rate. He is walking a little more than last year, so there's some improvement on that facet, but come on. I want

to see what Johnny DeLuca can do. But of all the injuries, there was one drop that stood out to me because it was a demotion, and it's Reid Detmers. And I just wanted to ask you, what do you think the long-term outlook is for Reid Detmers? I think when we did our live show at other half back in March, Chris Towers said Detmers was someone he really liked. Detmers got off to a great start this season. We talked about him, I think, four or five starts in when it looked like he was going to have maybe the best season of his career. But the problem was we didn't really see anything that was different.

We had no explanation for why Reid Detmers was so good at the beginning of the season. Do you have an explanation for why he's been so bad since that dominant stretch? Because it looks from a skills perspective like he's still the same guy. You're talking like we're talking about guys we were worried about from our Discord, like where the numbers just don't look like they're sustainable. Demers is on the opposite side of that. I'm wondering why a team like the Angels

is taking a guy who's 24 years old and saying, you're going to AAA to fix this. Like, is this the right course of action? And what do you think his long term appeal really is. He's someone with a really good slider and enough velo on his fastball that it's not terrible but not great shape on his fastball and he doesn't he has inconsistent fastball command right now this year his location plus on the fastballs 95 that's bad that's Dylan Cecian so he's you know and he doesn't he's not quite Dylan Cease in terms of fastball V lo is not

quite Dylan Cease until in terms of you know how good his slider is and so I think that tells you a little bit about the up-and-down nature of his career last year just last year he had above average fastball command. And that was a little bit of a story of, you know, and then also, I think it was wasn't it last year, he was really developing the slider and found it. So I do think that slider gives him upside. And he's demonstrated enough as a starter, he's going to get more chances. And so if that matters to you, and someone has dropped him in a league where they think he's out of chances, then I would pick him up.

But yeah, in terms of 12 and 15 teams and I don't know what I'd be looking for in the minor leagues. I guess I'd be looking for a good home run rate and ironically a good walk rate. for a good home run rate and ironically a good walk rate. I say ironically because he's going up against ABS. So maybe that's the idea is, hey, get your command right in front of the machines. You know, I guess it doesn't seem to be setting itself up for success. You know, this reminds me of former angel, current ranger, a guy that we we'd see flashes from. And we kept thinking, can you be better consistently? And your hand, Andrew Heaney. Yeah.

Doesn't it look a lot like Andrew Heaney? It doesn't fit to me in terms of what they throw at our lefty righty. And reveal from that nurse to better foundation. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm saying it doesn't move. It doesn't fit for me in terms of, um, like pitch shapes and lefty righty and that sort of stuff. But it does fit

for me a little bit in like I think he's going to have those glimpses of, um. Of excellence and then other times when he's nigh unusable, and that's been what Andrew Haney's been like. I think if there is a commonalityality it's that Andrew Haney has like one good pitch and when he has command of two pitches that's enough. And I think the command

goes in and out so when if Detmers is gonna come back with good fastball command if you could magically tell me that that when he came back, his fastball command would be good. I might be interested. I wish I could tell you that, but I can't. But I do think the long term value is high enough where Dehmers is going to get picked up a lot again. We're going to talk about him later this season as a where the money went guy if he comes back and is pitching well, because we're all desperate for pitching and he misses enough

bats where he'll immediately become viable again once he's back in that angels rotation. That's the most basic number that anybody can look at that is that would make someone interesting to me 25% strikeout rate, 26% strikeout rate and you're interesting to me. Really quickly on the main event we ended up buying Trevor Larnock for five bucks, Stash Keaton Wynn for a buck, Blake Perkins for a buck, and stashed Jackson Holliday over Xander Bogarts because we do need something in that category in that space in terms of power and speed in the middle infield. We do need that. But Xander Bogarts may be a longer wait for that than Jackson Holliday.

And Xander Bogarts' upside coming off a shoulder injury may be lower in terms of he may be a true talent 260, 12, 10 guy coming off a shoulder injury. And so we thought if we're going to wait, let's wait less time for more upside. Um, and that's something you have to think about when you're, you're stashing guys. Um, in the TGFI, I got Jake Myers, David Peterson is coming back this week or is back already and has a start at Washington. I wasn't necessarily going to start him for that start but

I've circled that he's an interesting guy. He's Okay, he's okay and the Mets have a great home park and you know, they can win some games for him I stashed Yoshida Because he's starting baseball Yoshida because he's starting baseball work. And I got Corey Jolks, 27 to 15, and Henry Davis, 11 to four in barf. So those are two of the ones that feel pretty good. Yeah.

You know, I didn't win by $1, but other people were interested and I didn't spend too much to get them. If you're the White Sox, just play Corey Jolks, just see what happens. That's it. Andra Benentendi got hurt, too. So there's one fewer outfielder that is getting paid that they could

play over him to. Tommy Pham's out here trying to start fights with the Brewers. Some things will never change. We are going to go on our way out the door. Just a reminder, you can get a subscription to the athletic at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Find Eno on Twitter at EnoSaris. Find me at Derek Van Riper. Find the pod at rates and barrels.

You can join the discord through the link in the show description. So be sure to do that if you haven't done that already. That's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We're back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening.