Rates & Barrels - Trade Season Is Here

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

DVR, Eno and Welsh are back for a Project Prospect trade edition. We're looking at long-term trade for and away options. We're also discussing Royce Lewis' rest-of-season value, Bobby Miller and more. Rundown 3:27 Royce Lewis 12:59 Royce vs McLain and Elly talk 18:36 Bet on Royce or Elly ROS 19:32 Bobby Miller 21:25 Rank these prospect pitchers ROS 28:11 Hunter Brown 34:04 Pitchers to target in trades 37:22 Nick Lodolo 38:22 Trading Justin Verlander 41:31 Buying Pfaadt and Grayson 43:38 Oneil Cruz 44:45 wRC+ buys 50:00 Drew Gilbert 59:27 wRC+ vs age/level Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Head to factormeals.com/rates50 and use code rates50 to get 50% off your first box Nuts.com is offering new customers a free gift with purchase and free shipping on orders of $29 or more at Nuts.com/rates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Tuesday, May 30th. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris, Chris Welsh, all here with you on a Project Prospect edition on this episode. We're going to talk about some players we want to add in long-term leagues, and some that we're willing to part with in long-term leagues as well, because we hit that point, Memorial Day weekend, it's special. Something about it makes everyone's internal clock, the alarm clock goes off, and everyone has to start making moves. Everyone has to choose a direction now, because we're 50-plus games in.

A third of the season is enough. A quarter of the season, not enough. A third of the season, just right. So it's time to choose direction. Lots of news to get to on this episode as well. Maybe even a mailbag question or two. It looks like you survived your trip to the Wisconsin Dells. You're still in one piece.

It does look like you may have gone hunting. Is that a camouflage hat? I was about to say, you do look like you're about to go get some elk or something. No, it's some weird dragon hat that I've had forever. It's a dragon. Okay, I thought it was a camo hat. Yeah, it looks kind of like camo. Yeah, it was fun.

It was crazy. This place, I feel like I can't believe it exists because it's like three or four bars and restaurants inside a hotel with a water park. And so I'm like, I couldn't help but look around

and be like, the liabilities here must be through the roof. Is this similar? It's so weird that you're doing this. In two days, I'm great wolf lodge is this like that's where i was oh that that's where i'm going i'm going there's a whole bunch of here because i was about to say it's very interesting the whole drinking in the water park because i'm about to go to a place that's exactly like that okay yeah so i will be there the kids loved it the kids loved it they had a great time uh it was a bit of a money suck. They've designed everything to be like... The wristband?

Yeah, the wristband. And so you're just like, ah, just put it on the car. You know? Put another shrimp on the Barbie. And then, like, you know, they have all these, like, these activities for the kids. The kid's like, I want to do the mind maze. Dad, I want to do the mind maze. And, like, you know, more of it should be included, I think, because you're like, oh, $50 for the mind maze.

How long is this going to take? And then you're like, oh, 15 minutes later, you're outside again. You're like, $50. So don't do the mind maze. I do think that at some point they're going to implement that into baseball where they're like, all right, you can't bring your credit card in. We're just going to attach your credit card to this little wristband. And everyone's going to implement that into baseball where they're like, all right, you can't bring your credit card in. We're just going to attach your credit card to this little wristband. And everyone's going to be like, Oh, hot dogs for everybody and beer for everybody. And that it's a really good psychological trick,

but you got to like trick back a little bit. You don't have to actually take your wallet out. I know. Yeah. I'll have this. It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to take the cash and make that a piece of plastic. Now we've got to make the piece of plastic in your back pocket a piece of plastic on your wrist.

Now we can speed up the process even more and make you feel even further removed from the money that you don't have. So Rates and Barrels is going to be a lot more broke after this. Eno's broke. I'll be broke in a couple days. So DVR, it's all on you now. I'm moving across the country in six weeks, so I'm pretty much broke. Yeah, you have a baby. Send money to Rates and Barrels. I'm moving a family country in six weeks, so I'm pretty much broke. Yeah, you have a baby. Send money to at-rate seniors.

I'm moving with family for a little while. Yeah, if you want to just Venmo me money to help with my move, I probably wouldn't turn it down right now. For sure. That's where we're at right now. But let's dig in. Royce Lewis is back. Made an impact his first game back as well.

He had a home run. We talked about the Twins a few weeks ago on this show. Kyle Farmer was sort of keeping the seat warm for Royce Lewis, and it seems like as long as the health holds up, the Twins are going to push Royce Lewis's playing time, if not to an everyday role, to something very close to it. It's been a very long road for Royce Lewis. Before the multiple ACL injuries, he'd finally started to put all the pieces together in the upper levels of the minor leagues. So, Welsh, I'll start with you. What do we think Royce Lewis is going to become as a big league player?

Where is he right now in terms of his redraft value? And what do you still see for him in terms of keeper and dynasty ceiling? So from like a redraft perspective, I think he lives in this world of like Anthony Volpe, Matt McClain. I think like he exists with those guys. And so wherever you value them in redraft, that's the type of spot that he is. I'm really intrigued with how the team is approaching him. And I said this on the show yesterday. It's funny because I think he might be a really actually good buy opportunity right now because I think he gets clumped in because those twins have just been turning out prospects.

And also like Jose Miranda didn't work. So you got all these guys that are kind of seeing this turn style. But Kirloff didn't get that. Kirloff just came and boom right into it. And Royce Lewis is not Edward Julian. And he is not Trevor Larnik. And he's not Jose Miranda. They brought him in, threw him at third, and threw him hitting five.

The day he was eligible off of the 60 day. He had a great run in the minors. Four homers, two stolen bases, hit 333. And I think they are full go with him. The nice thing is he's also flexible across where he can play. This third base thing actually happened a couple years back when I talked to him in the Arizona Fall League. He had said, you know, they invited him to go, but they said he can't play shortstop.

They got their shortstops. It was Geraldo Perdomo and Vidal Brujan at the time. And it was his decision, at least he told me, it was his decision to go and play other spots. They didn't ask him. And then it just so happened that he then started playing every other position after that, because I think the twins saw the versatility. So he can play short, obviously.

Craig gets hurt. He looks good at third. He can play second. He's played center field. And if you can play center field, you can play the other outfield spots. That type of versatility, this team doesn't have.'t have. These other rookies, it's one spot. Edward Julian, bad defense at second. They haven't tried anything else. So Royce has got the bat. Royce has got the versatility. So I think that even maybe gives him an advantage to live with Volpe and McLean as far as fantasy value goes. And if we're being frank, I would prefer Royce's fantasy value over McLean, even though how good McLean as far as fantasy value goes. And if we're being frank, I would prefer Royce's fantasy

value over McLean, even though how good McLean's been. And then in a long-term perspective, I think Royce should be seen, if you want to rank it against prospects, he should be seen in the top 10 or 15 overall prospects. I think there's a little bit of worry you have to carry because of multiple injuries. The guy has barely played since 2019. So this injury thing could follow him and everything could fall apart. So that I think from a pure talent perspective, he can be top five, but you got to base it back down. So top 10 or 15 prospect probably hovering right around top 100 dynasty in that space. And as he gets playing more, doesn't get hurt. And the team does vibe with him and let him maybe be the future third baseman, his value is only going to increase because he is a total five-tool player.

I love Royce Lewis. Yeah, it's so interesting when you've got these multiple injuries by 23. Some of the research out of football suggests that once you have an ACL injury, you don't return necessarily all the way to your previous self. But we also know that, you know, things like labrum surgery on pitchers, if you have it way earlier, you're more likely to be able to have a career afterwards. Anibal Sanchez and Julio Urias both had labrum surgery and managed to have good careers afterwards. And part of it was because they had it when they were 21 or 22. So there's something here where it's bad that he had the ACL surgeries,

but it's good that he had them early, maybe. I do think that I'm going to cap his seasonal stolen base total. I'm going to put his peak at around 10 maybe 15 i just can't believe that somebody with two acl surgeries on his resume is going to be a 20 30 stolen base guy going forward so if i cap his stolen bases at around 10 i also think his power is still a bit of an open question mark uh where we have more sample it was more closer to league average in the minors uh so you may have this kind of uh 250 2010 guy um you know that uh is is not um as much of a needle mover as he was, I think, before the surgeries.

I think you have to throw that into your mix when you're analyzing him. And then does that affect his ability to play short? Like, if Correa has to move off short, would Royce Lewis be their first choice at short is kind of a big question mark. I think it would. I think he was playing there. I think that's kind of the advantage. You know, the strikeouts have always been a little bit of a worry with me. With Royce, he got the big high leg kick, which he doesn't really see sometimes. Yeah, and where did they come from all of a sudden?

Like now, post-injury, he's been striking out a lot. That's the only bad thing that he's done since he's come back. I think it's missed time. You know what I like in it, too? Remember, we did the same thing with like, I mean, it actually kind of has been a problem, but Josh Young, remember Josh Young, like it wasn't in his profile. He missed serious, serious time to injury. Timing due to injury rather than physical limitation due to injury.

Exactly right. I mean, the guy literally, Royce Lewis, since 2019 has like around 50 games played. So, you know, the amount of time, think of how the ball is kind of changed and just the game is kind of readjusting. I liken it to what Josh Young went through and maybe it's going to take a little bit longer, but the stats are there. I think this might be, I'm not sure what this is, but if you were to give me a full season of Royce, I think Royce Lewis is going to be a better fantasy asset than Carlos Correa like

Carlos Correa is just kind of like he's fine like average is okay he never lives up to the homers running RBI numbers are all right he misses a handfuls of games I think Royce's game in general can be more valuable I think he could score more runs I think he can steal more bases he could hit if he can stay on the field if he can stay on the field but that's also why i'm not here being like okay guys you know it's wanda franco then it's royce lewis it's like no it's like he belongs in the conversation of like does volpe have warts yeah is batting i think actually he could belong around jung and i think they're they're linked uh by more than by a lot by injury history um and i i think you're right I looked at the daily. If you look at the daily, you know, we actually got some feedback

that we did stuff that was not friendly to the audio only listeners because we were doing some heat maps. Oh, yeah, yeah. We have YouTube watchers. So I put it up in the chat if you want to share this. This is the daily strikeout, the rolling strikeout chart for Josh Jung. And you can see there was a little return to peak, and it was bad.

But he's back again. Like his true talent strikeout rate might be under 25% or around 25% because we don't really have his true talent yet. rate might be under 25 or around 25 because we're not we don't really have his true talent yet you know what i mean so i think we may see something similar with royce lewis where he comes on and uh uh you know he he's striking out a lot at first but he kind of gets back to where he was before yeah i don't know that graph didn't like generate for me maybe it would for dvr and and DVR can share it. But I will point out in that episode.

Oh, yeah, there it goes. In that episode, I did say, let's go watch the YouTube. I did tell people for that. I was like, go watch the YouTube, because we're going to be showing some of that stuff. But yeah, there you go. There's the rolling chart. I mean, we could also describe charts, I guess.

I just feel like that's a worse audio experience than saying there's a chart. So the line is up. The line starts to go go down it comes back up a little bit more and then it goes down again but in like the last 15 to 20 games uh you know in the last 15 games or so he's been he's been trending around 25 strikeout rate yeah it's yeah i think that's that's really encouraging to see. ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton bike or bike plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate.

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with sunlifehealthyyou.com. The other thing I would throw out there with Royce Lewis before we move on, look at how much he was running during his rehab assignment. He played 10 games between AA and AAA. He was four for five as a base dealer in 10 games. And that was with four home runs,

four swings that kept him from stealing bases because he hit home runs. So I kind of get the sense that maybe he's more in that my leg feels good and I'm going to play the way I want to play instead of holding back just based on stealing bases in pretty meaningless rehab games. I guess they're slightly more meaningful coming off that second injury, but I don't know. It doesn't seem like it's bothering him enough to hold him back opportunity wise if it's a low average 2020 profile that plays really well interesting that he is in that bucket with Volpe and McLean I think the big difference for me with Lewis versus McLean it's easier to see how Royce Lewis clearly fits with the twins with his versatility we talked

about it when we talked about McLean last week open position that's going to become too crowded eventually it's not a short-term concern but it's still more of a long-term concern there so i think that gives lewis a bit of a bump as well that's very interesting you brought that up because that oh god was it was it rosenthal that just did the article the really interesting article that just posted here on the athletic and i've been talking about a couple people with it because it stood out as almost odd to me in the article was based obviously around ellie by the way which you guys should go read it's a very interesting article because they're talking about ellie is coming ellie daily crews also made a post on his instagram it was a picture

of him in a reds uniform and it was post malone's congratulations so people were kind of extrapolating you know that he's coming but in the article outside of the Ellie portion, was like the Reds have a decision to make with Jonathan India. And I found that odd because do they? I mean, because you're bringing up a good point. Where does Matt McClain sit? But do the Reds really have a thing to deal with with Jonathan? Because Jonathan India is described as their team leader. He plays second base.

The idea here is Matt McClain plays a much better second base than he does shortstop and would be a better fit there. But I just, I couldn't get past this clump of where the Reds are at in that Jonathan India would be a guy that's truly on the outs. And I don't think that's the case

because you could just be status quo and it's India at second, McClain at short, Ellie can play third, which he did every time McLean played short in the minors and then you can figure it out next year but does anybody think like India would be on the outs if Ellie is to come up I don't think you would stop playing him I think the interesting thing with Jonathan India if you look at his career so far he's closing in

on 1300 plate appearances so about two full seasons worth of plate appearances at the big league level. And he's got a 111 WRC+. Clearly a better than average player. But he's already 26. Went to college. Had some injuries in the minors. Lost that 2020 minor league season like everybody else did. I don't think he blocks your current crop of prospects if you think those guys are actually better.

Elie De La Cruz fits on this roster with Jonathan India and with Matt McClain. They can make the pieces fit. I'm not worried about that. I think the bigger threats to McClain and to India, I guess if there are threats to India, are the guys that have not been promoted yet. And they're a little further away. So they have some

time to work this out. I think Jonathan India is more like the kind of player that maybe the Reds would trade this summer. Kind of getting out in front of it, saying, hey, there's a team that actually wants an upgrade. I think that's what the piece was suggesting, is that they might do that. He's about to head into his arbitration years and become more expensive.

But if I was running the Reds and I had at least two or three starting pitchers that I was excited about and this infield that seems to be pretty killer. I think I would just play Steer at first and in the corner outfield as an idea that Steer would eventually take over first base from Joey Votto. And then that pretty much solves everything, right? You got Matt McClain and Eli De La Cruz on the left.

You got India and Stier on the right. And that's your future. Yeah. And Christian Encarnacion-Strand is your DH, which is in a great spot. He can be a DH. Or maybe he can play just a good enough outfield to not be DH. And then if it does get down to Noel V. Marte pushing on the door, then maybe that's when you trade India.

Or you try Noel V. Marte in pushing on the door then maybe that's when you trade India if or you try up Noel Marte in the outfield like corner outfield is a place where any of these guys can go eventually yeah I guess my whole point was like it didn't I didn't feel like India played any role in what the Reds need to do with any of these players like I don't think the Reds have I don't see I don't see the path but I'm not talking to people where India is disposable at this point or blocks all these players. There's so many other players. We've talked at Nauseam, like Henry Ramos and Stuart Fairchild, even Nixon Zell.

Those guys aren't the true reason why you would push any of these guys back. But of all of them, Jonathan India, I think, is one you don't even think about uh in all of it and all of these players are going to be coming soon and I just thought that was the you know that was an interesting space of where they're at but you know they also could move Jonathan India in whatever trade purge they decide to do uh in the coming months yeah like Nick Senzel should not be blocking anybody he has been better this year, but he probably won't be a league average player. Yeah, I agree. That's a good way to look at it. The other thing on India

that stands out is just looking at the career splits. He's a 260, 352, 406 slash line player outside of Cincinnati. It's a 449 slug in Great American Ballpark, only 406 on the road. So some questions about the power. He controls the zone well. He's a good player. I just don't think it's a big deal. Like what happens to Jonathan India long term?

I'm not that worried about it. He's good enough to play. He's better than all those guys you mentioned, but he's not someone that's keeping you from doing something else with players that you like better when that time comes. He's too close to Colton Wong to get too excited about. And then Colton Wong had the really impressive defense on top of him. Would you rather Royce Lewis right now

or cut him to get Ellie knowing we don't know what we know? You know what I'm saying? You don't know when Ellie's coming up could happen tomorrow, but Ellie's there to pick up, but you have to eat it until he's there. Would you rather bet on Ellie for whenever or bet on Royce right now? I think I bet on Ellie de la Cruz as opposed to Royce Lewis. If I'm trying to just max out my ceiling for right now,

I would too. You know, any different hate to get, I hate to be a for right now. I would too. You know any different? I hate to be a basic biatch. I mean, you're just so excited about the fancy new Bumble, but Royce Lewis is playing in the big leagues, and whatever Ellie's posting on, it doesn't mean that he's actually up. And even though he's really improved his strikeout rate,

it's still 27%. There's a lot of different ways this could go when Ellie gets the big leagues. Royce Lewis seems a little bit more projectable and like, you know, even my concerns about his strikeout rate, it's like, he's going to probably play every day and maybe steal some bases.

And yeah, but Ellie's too exciting. Ellie's a very shiny toy. It's a very, very shiny, pretty toy. It's brutal. Let's move on to the Dodgers, where Bobby Miller has created separation from Gavin Stone to the point that Gavin Stone was actually just optioned to AAA as of Tuesday morning.

So that ongoing battle is over at this point. Bobby Miller does look really good, as expected, so all of this checks out. Are you guys at the point with Bobby Miller does look really good, as expected, so all of this checks out. Are you guys at the point with Bobby Miller, based on the injury that he had earlier in the season and what seems like a reduced concern about how his innings could be managed by the Dodgers, outside of maybe the All-Star break, do you think this could be the best of the rookie pitchers that have been called up? Is it safe to kind of put him at the top of that list right now, given some of the injuries we've had with Mason Miller,

given the issues we had with Taj Bradley getting sent down? Does this seem more sticky that Bobby Miller, because of the Dodgers' needs, is actually up for good, Eno? Yeah. I really like Bryce Miller, but he just got shellacked. But like, we knew that was going to happen. We knew the Bryce thing was going to happen. Is that real?

Like, was that as bad as you think it is? We saw the secondaries, by the way, not to turn it to Bryce, but Bryce was only like 57 or 58% fastball. We saw a ton of curve. We saw sliders. It was ineffective, but it was a disastrous outing. But does that one outing really change a ton off of Bryce Miller? I love his fastball.

I mean, it's relevant to the question at hand, right? Because I think Bryce Miller and Bobby Miller and Tanner Bybee and Todd Bradley. That's the super four, right? Those are the best four. Well, Yuri, if you didn't say Yuri,

I think is the best of all. Logan Allen. I'd see like two weeks ago or last week. You were, you're out. I know. I can't decide if I had to rank them for the rest of this year. I think I would go.

And, and this, thanks to one reader one reader was like you keep saying you like logan allen better than tanner bybee why and then i went and looked at the numbers like i don't know why i keep saying that so i have re-evaluated my priors he's also by the way it was incorrect our baseball savant episode um he was he would have been a great one for us to talk about because his numbers look great and he had just a while he has a wildly bad savant page if you go and look it's all blue yeah no uh logan allen logan allen has a horrific looking savant page yet his numbers i like logan

allen better than consensus i will put him in this group and some people might put him outside this group but for me the top three if i'm ranking them probably goes something like bybee bobby miller bryce miller bradley you're forgetting yuri though where does yuri sit in there or is he not there for you okay yuri ahead of bradley because yuri's number one that's my five yuri's number one for me. That's my five. Yuri's number one for you? The only thing that would maybe keep me from putting Yuri number one is just that I think of a lot of all these guys, maybe the biggest pair of kid gloves, as far as how careful the Marlins want to be with him,

probably are being used on Yuri Perez. They're also probably not a competitive team, although now they're in second place. I've made my case for the Marlins. I will not make it again. This is hard. Okay, Bybee, Uri, Bryce, Bobby. Bobby, Bryce.

There we go. That's my final answer. DVR, what's yours? Every time you do that list, it's going to be a little different because you're going to talk yourself into something different. The weird thing is Bobby's stuff plus numbers are great. He has given up hard contact, which I only mention because it exists. I don't think it's predictive.

We've talked about that very much on the Savant thing. But Miller hasn't been getting – Bobby Miller hasn't been getting whiffs like i'd expect from this high stuff profile and that continues not getting whiffs at the triple a and so now i i wouldn't say oh like he has high stuff plus numbers and low whiff rates and it's 11 innings in i would but now it's actually 25 innings in to low whiff rates. Because you can actually sort of lump the AAA in if you want to. And so now you're really kind of pushing. It has to be like your best argument for Bobby Miller right now

is stuff plus related. So I think I'm Bobby Miller. It's like him versus Bybee for the top, and then Uri ahead of Taj Bradley. Bradley versus Bryce Miller is another toss-up for me, and then Logan Allen's next. I think you could include him in the group, but I do think he's last for me in the group.

He's last in the group. Yeah, I think that's the toughest. The top for me, Bybee versus Bobby Miller, is actually the biggest battle right now. How do you have them, Welsh? This is just for this season. Yeah, I would go, I'm still going to go Uri, because I think Uri's the best of the group.

And what are you going to justify by bringing him down? Maybe kids' gloves, yeah, sure. Maybe they don't want to push it, but I think they're going to push him. I think they brought him up to push him. And the discussion had been, like, would he only be up for a couple weeks when the injuries come back or will he be there rest of season and i think he's ended that like i don't think there's any justification why you don't have him up so i'm gonna go yuri i'm gonna go with bryce i don't want to give up on bryce off of one start against the

yankees so i don't want that to be my decision maker and then i I'm going to go Bybee, Bobby. And I think that whole group, razor thin margins between all of them. I think that group is very, very close together. And I think, you know, if two weeks from now, we didn't look at Bobby Miller as number one, we did, I wouldn't be shocked. I think things can happen with all of these guys. Guardians could do something insanely stupid

with their rotation stuff and Bybee could be gone. You know, Bobby Miller could be sent down. The Dodgers are still kind of like, well, we're going to give one more start. And like you said, with Uri Perez, anything could happen. So I think they all have their own kind of inherent risk. And we could talk ourselves in and out of them staying in the rotation. So if I just want to like focus on the pure stuff and the production, I'm going to stick with that group.

Yeah, it's interesting to look at how many pitches these guys are throwing on a start-by-start basis right now. Bobby Miller, 95 pitches in his debut against Atlanta, 87 in his start against the Nationals on Monday. So it doesn't look like there's any sort of real tight workload restriction on him. Bybee has been up for a little longer now.

98 last time out, 99 the start before that, 98 pitches the start before that. Had one shorter outing because he got hit where he threw 67 against the Tigers back on May 8th, but he was over 90 pitches in his first two starts before that. They're using him like a regular big league

starter, so I think that's one of the things I think can be a little in his first two starts before that. They're using him like a regular big league starter. So I think that's one of the things that I think can be a little bit of a separator. We want guys who have a chance to win, and we want guys who aren't going to be managed too carefully. I think that's the sweet spot for me. And also, all those pitchers, except for Uri, great team context. That's the thing that I'm not giving credit for.

Wins are going to come at such a better degree. I was looking at Hunter Brown over the weekend, and Hunter Brown has been just so phenomenal. But uniquely enough, Hunter Brown, he's had six starts where he's gone five or more. He has wins in five of those six starts. So five of six starts going at least five innings. Hunter Brown picks up a win on the Astros.

It's not a one for one, of course, but then you go and take a look at guys like, you know, Bryce Miller might be a little bit even further down, but Bobby Miller and Tanner Bybee playing on really just two great team contexts. You're just going to pick up extra wins and we still play for wins.

So that is a little slight advantage to those really good teams with those high including hunter brown that's interesting i mean we're talking about pickups in season right yeah and like the rookie pick i mean he i think we're not talking about him because he separated himself he's just so far and beyond trustworthy and good he's now like a veteran yeah exactly. 100%, because he started the year. It's almost like we don't talk about Corbin Carroll and Gunnar Henderson as rookies because they started the year. We don't put them in the same respect of Jordan Walker or Anthony Volpe or anything like that

because they're a different breed, for sure. Yeah, that little extra time from last year does seem to change the conversation around them a little bit. I think Hunter Brown is interesting because we decided we want to talk about some longer term trade targets. And a couple of weeks ago, I suggest that if you're playing for the future, trading for pitching is pretty risky. Now, if you're playing for next year and not this year, you will need pitching to win next year. So you do have to identify pitchers you like and either have them already, pick them up, or go trade for them.

In Welsh, Hunter Brown was one of the players that popped for you as someone that if you were playing for the not-so-distant future, he'd be someone you'd be seeking out right now. The biggest surprise for me continues to be the improvements with his control. He's only walked three batters in his last four starts combined, and he's racked up 30 strikeouts during that span. Yeah, and I agree with his control. He's only walked three batters in his last four starts combined, and he's racked up 30 strikeouts during that span.

Yeah, and I agree with you overall. Like, you know, long-term stuff, it's difficult to invest in pitching. And I think, like, the overall dynasty perspective of so many has always been, like, trade off all your pitching, develop all your hitting, and then try to buy pitching back. I've kind of openly said, and I think, DVR, you've kind of agreed with me because we've seen the context in some leagues we've played in together. In theory, that's fun and nice.

It does not work that. Every league, and I play in so many different type of keeper leagues, 16 team, 12 team, oughtn't know, 24 team points. Guess what's the most difficult thing? Buying pitching at all times so this theory that like you can just buy pitching after you've done your rebuild and it'll be super easy it's not because as long as it took you to rebuild it might take that long to acquire the right pitching to make it work so i don't think it should be completely discounted i don't think everybody

in dynasty should just sell off all their pitchers and never try to acquire. The problem is people that want to take advantage of you in trades, they tend in Dynasty ones, they want to have things focused on pitching. And you don't want hardcore pitching focused prospect trades, but there are guys that you can make the push on. Hunter Brown, I really do think is one of those. He mean, he has been every bit the part. He's been better in May than he has on the entire season. He's been up in Aaron Sierra. His strikeout rate's been up there. K minus walk percentage. He's walking less.

He's cut his walk percentage into the sevens off of the eights last year. His K percentage has gone up. And like I told you, he's also, as he's going deeper into games, he's locking down wins left and right. He legit is going to win the AO Rookie of the Year. And I never really gave him consideration as far as a rookie pitcher. He is going to win that award. Yoshida? No.

Volpe? It's not going to happen unless he hits 280, 290 through the rest of the year. So, I mean, he's going to win this award. And this is a guy that, in the whole crux of it is i think you could have people like why would a winning now team want to sell a guy like him well he's a rookie they might feel he's playing over his head and innings caps innings caps for smart dynasty players are something everyone's always thinking about so if you are in more of a rebuild and you happen to have some veteran pitchers that maybe don't fit the scheme over the next two years that, you know,

you could look and try to condense and Hunter Brown is, I think as good as he's been, I think he's acquirable in that people can really worry about what's going to happen on the back half of the season with cap limits. And that that's why he's someone I would target because, and I also don't think he's moved into the tier of value where he belongs. You know, like we,

you talk about blocks of like, maybe like top 10 pitchers and then 20 and 30 and 40. I think he probably sits somewhere in those like forties for people, but he's got the upside to be a top 25 within the next 12 months, if not higher. So I, I would put him as like a trade target and I bet it wouldn't, it wouldn't hurt too much in trades if

you could get him if you were trading for the future yeah i think you might be right about that i was just looking at the the nfbc is running some second chance leagues they've got three that drafted already that have an adp report oh interesting may and hunter brown is the 53rd pitcher being taken that includes closers so probably somewhere in the 35 to 40 range among starters. I'm surprised, though, to see Sonny Gray, Tristan McKenzie slightly ahead. McKenzie? Yeah.

That's Kaplan. Right there. I mean, that's – am I wrong? You know, that screams Kaplan inning issues with Hunter Brown for McKenzie to be above him. I think that's built in because if you look at last season, it was 126 and a third innings for Hunter Brown. He's at 57 and two thirds right now.

It's an Astros team that intends to be in the playoffs. They want Hunter Brown in that. They need Hunter Brown in that rotation come playoff time. So there will probably be some some kind of handle with care in September at the very least, just to make sure that he's got enough left in the tank to help them when they need it the most. But the best case for Hunter Brown, in addition to the skills getting better, I think is that next year's projected workload is going to be basically the same as anybody else in the pool. You're not going to give up that many potential innings compared to everybody else. And you might be getting ace caliber ratios and a great strikeout

rate to go with it. When you're talking about like trades and you're kind of like processing it, you know, if you're, because I've seen this, this has kind of like happened with me and the trade offers have come in, is like maybe if you were kind of rebuilding and you had a guy like Sandy Alcantara, you don't want to sell at the lows, but you know, you could probably sell a guy like Sandy to a team that wants the bounce back. And maybe you could get, and I think sometimes it's silly trading guys like sandy to a team that wants the bounce back and maybe you could get and and and i think sometimes it's silly trading guys like that in a dynasty even when you're rebuilding

because he can help you in two years but it's like maybe you could get hunter brown plus in a sandy trade you know you could get young guys maybe you could get like a solid prospect that's going to come up in the next um you know year or so a ces you get CES and Hunter Brown in a rebuild and maybe like a pick when you trade off a Sandy Alcantara. And it's like, what really, maybe even next year will look like the massive difference. Maybe it's going to be laughable at that point, but those are the type of things you could explore with a guy like Hunter Brown. So let's be clear when it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. The answer is FedEx.

Okay. But what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx. Oh. But let's say that... FedEx. What a... FedEx.

Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx. Where? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next. Another thing that I like to do when looking for pitching is something pretty simple, which is sort by stuff plus with ERA on the field. Look at the different pitch types and be like, you know, what I want is someone with a good fastball, and I think that they could add something to it. So a really easy one. I don't think that it's necessarily a buy low in capital letters, but Hunter Green, you know, people could

be looking at him and saying, well, there are definite flaws here. He's a two pitch guy with not great command in a bad park. It's a 4-2 ERA era right now and that might just be who he is and i think there's another level to it so you you could buy somebody like hunter uh hunter green um you know using a veteran and then you could do something more simple even where you just sort by uh fastball stuff plus and now you're looking um at uh pitchers like Michael Kopech is on this list. Mackenzie Gore. Maybe people think he's topped out. Love the Gore call.

That would be another one of those guys. I'd love to acquire Gore in Hunter Brown. Grayson Rodriguez, not a bad time to buy. I mean, the word on the street is that Grayson Rodriguez is tipping and the teams have found it through Hawkeye and that they've found something that have found it through Hawkeye and that they've found his something that he's tipping through Hawkeye I'm sure that's what he's going to go to the minor leagues and work on other than also finding something other than the cutter that

works for him so you know Grayson Rodriguez is a guy I'd buy Clark Schmidt still shows on this list he's got a 560 RA but if you look at his start-by-start performance, he's had good starts, and he has a wide arsenal. There could be a Clark Schmidt where he just finds the right pitch mix and finds his way out of it. JP France has been up and down. He has no prospect sheen to him at all. No prospect rankers put JP FranceP. France anywhere in the top. I'm going to be wrong. Somebody has him in the top 100, but I don't remember seeing him in any top 100s.

He's got a 111 fastball stuff plus. He's had some up and down starts. Maybe somebody thinks they're selling high on him. That's a guy I'd buy. Yeah, I mean, J.P. France is pretty interesting in long-term leagues because the lack of pedigree, the fact that he's already 28 years old, you're not going to have to give up a lot to get him if you're trading for him. There's a chance the team that picked him up has enough pitching already or isn't playing for this year and doesn't view him as an essential long-term piece. They might be happy to get something they like better, someone who's younger, someone who hasn't debuted in the big leagues yet. There could be a lot of ways to make a deal for a player like that.

And it looks like a solid arsenal and there's a clear need. And we've seen this is a Houston team that doesn't really go out and spend money on starting pitching. They don't go out and get mediocre starting pitching to fill in spots. They trust their internal options. So France looks like he's at least the guy for the foreseeable future to hold a spot in the back of the rotation. But there's a decent chance that he's a starter for them to begin next year based on what he's doing right especially

after lance mccullers got shut down like again had another setback so did he yeah another setback over the weekend so you know i i agree with that one those are the fun ones i mean that there's so many different scopes of the type of players that you can buy into from the future from the high to the lows and you had some really good names in there you know are there some some guys who maybe belongs on there i don't know i like like lodolo is 100 one of those for me but like i have a hard time with the reds guys because the the team context has been bad the park factors are horrible i think lodolo clearly uh outside of even the injury that we saw, was struggling throughout the year.

The curveball never got right. It was such a dominant pitch. But he also, if you go and look through like expected stats, he's like wild. He's like in the top three of everything of like differentials, like batting average given up to actual expected batting average in his favor. Every one of those down the road just keep going in favor of him you write the curveball i think he's a phenomenal buy right now but i think him hunter green they both have a ton of inherent risk just the good thing is like

i think lodolo is at the absolute lowest ever so i would take the risk even if he blows up because i bet you the cost is so much different than like what hunter green is but we know what those other worries are i've been trying to trade justin verlander um because i'm you know in devil's rejects i'm like you know six or something and i don't know that we're gonna end up in the top two and we want to stay we want to stay we're not we're not like a we don't like to rebuild fully rebuild uh me and James Anderson. And so we've been trying to, like, get a shortstop, right? And we tried to get Zach Netto, you know, and that's on my name. I'm zooming ahead on the rundown here a little bit,

but that's a name for me because I did a leaderboard of, you know, guys under 25, with under 23% strikeout rate, with good barrel rates, and Netto is on that list. He has really good chase rates, too. So we were trying to get Netto, and we can't do it. Even Verlander for Netto and Minaya got shut down. I think in this league, I can't trade pitching for quality young bats and so i wonder if the if the the i think what you guys are sort of convincing me maybe is what if i could

trade verlander for a young arm and throw in a prospect bat i like you know that's not one that's in the major leagues but you like that CES idea. Give me a young pitcher that I like better than you like. Maybe I'm buying a rebound here, and I'm giving you Justin friggin' Verlander, and I want an actual good hitting prospect I like, because

selling pitching in this league has been difficult way back when I sold Carlos Carrasco for Ozzy Albies, and you ruined it. That's Ozzy Albies and you know you ruined it oh that's why it's so tough because you ruined it broke it for yourself yeah I think I may have gotten Cody Vellinger in that deal oh come on well yeah no no wonder they see you trying to trade they're like no we're not doing that with you know anymore how much do you think you know if you're trying to make a deal and there are long term guys, Neto is a good long term target.

It's exactly what you're looking for. He hasn't gone off at the big league level yet. He's playing a great shortstop, though. Clearly, it's his job for the next several years. Really nowhere to go but up. Underlying numbers look good. He makes all the sense in the world as a trade target. Getting a bundle of players, getting two or three players back for the one player you're giving away.

I always like getting those extras back. And I think those extras matter because I think you can really try and dig in the corners of everybody's roster, find players who are not currently helping a contending team and try to get them on your roster because you have the benefit of time. Starting that off, dude. I thought I was doing this. Yeah, no, that's but that's how you identify those players. It's the easiest way to do it.

If a player's just sitting on someone's bench and they're playing for now, they're much more likely to be willing to part with that player than if they've got Neto plugged in as their middle infielder and they've got that long view on top of that short-term view. They might have the same view of his skills that you do. Oh, yeah, he's going to be fine. His second half might be better than his first half, and that could happen. But those are the types of players you want.

I think the easiest pitching to trade for Hunter Brown might be still pretty hard to trade for in a longterm league, unless you're trading from the top of your roster to get him and getting him back as part of a two or three player package. It's Brandon fought. It's Gavin stone to some degree, Grayson Rodriguez, but Grayson Rodriguez looks very fixable.

That's stone for, you know, right. It's the guys that have bloated ratios, to some degree, Grayson Rodriguez. But Grayson Rodriguez looks very fixable. Not Stone for Eno. Right. It's the guys that have bloated ratios, the guys that just didn't look good in their first attempt at the big leagues because there's that little bit of doubt. If you have those players in your roster, you can be convinced with a good offer

that you don't need to wait it out with those guys and wait for their next opportunity and hope that they can correct their problems quickly. With Gavin Stone, maybe it's more complicated. Maybe it's more of a 2024 thing. With Fott, I still think there's a good chance we're going to see him delivering quality innings for the Diamondbacks in the second half of the season. Yeah, I think they're going to tinker. I think they're going to tinker with him. The command was obviously a big issue. And I don't know where it's going to go, if it's going to be an adjustment to maybe more change up.

They've got to tinker around with a little bit because he was getting hit too hard. You know, it's interesting. The names are interesting. Another one to maybe throw out there is Andrew Painter. You know, Andrew Painter was seen as the number one pitching prospect. He was, he was everything.

He was above Grayson. He was above all these guys with his stuff, but he's had this arm injury that's been lingering. He's just started kind of throwing. There's the worry of surgery coming, but that's another one of those players that it also depends on what level you're at of buying. Like if you're,

I kind of agree with, you know, I never liked to like do full rebuilds. So full rebuild buying is probably more about players that are a year away but if you're in full rebuild and you commit to two like let's say two years andrew painter is the perfect guy to go acquire especially if a winning team has him because even if he has who cares if he has surgery if he has surgery outside of maybe you're worrying he's not who he was before when he comes back but if you assume in how we've seen so many players come back that would be another one of those players

that you would want to go out and target and probably is seen more in the price of the Grayson Rodriguez Brandon fought right now then he would be trying to acquire obviously Hunter Brown or you know Yuri I think would be untradeable you wouldn't even be able to go acquire right now yeah I think it's a it's a good point I think the timing with theable. You wouldn't even be able to go acquire right now. Yeah, I think it's a good point. I think the timing with the injured players. So if you're playing for next season, O'Neal Cruz is a good target right now. That's my number one.

Yeah, that would be the number one player I put on the list. If I'm trying to go out right now, you just cross your fingers that the person that has O'Neal Cruz is winning. Because if it's an out team, you can't do anything about it. O'Neal Cruz is winning because if they're it's it's it's now team it's you can't do anything about it O'Neal Cruz would be 100 someone I would be attempting to go and get and just hope that that team is trying to win he's just starting to ramp up he's starting to get a little bit activity going if you come I don't even care like it's not about him even coming back in August it's

like he's gonna still cost a ton but it goes from no way was he acquirable, especially with how he started off the year to now, you know, you could get something done. You know, you might have to move a couple pieces, maybe something that hurts, but O'Neal Cruz, I think is such a great, he's an out of sight, out of mind type of guy that I would be looking to acquire right now. Yeah, I think that's, that's a great one. I, you know, I'm trying to get, you know, pricing that's, it's a little bit easier even than cruise. It might, we've been saying on this cast about all these, these deals that we wouldn't do for cruise. So that might be pretty expensive.

So I did do this list of under 25 year olds with a strikeout rate under 23 sorted by barrel rate. And then what I wanted to do was look at guys who were that had a worse than a 110 WRC plus. So a little bit of buy low

action too, right? Like so I'm not going to buy you know, Josh low low just low right now um at a 163 wrc plus even though he's fourth on this list by barrel rate and i do think he's very exciting if you do think you can fashion a buy high that isn't insane then then go for it but i'm looking for a little bit of buy low sprinkled in and if you do that the list the names of drum offices are zach netto miguel vargas uh cabert ruiz um and uh bobby witt jr uh as all guys and brett baity so i like all these guys and you know i wouldn't get too fixated on any one of them you know like

if there's if those five guys are available in your league like maybe just fire off five trade offers that are at a place that you like that don't give up too much and then find out you know tomorrow which one you got you know because i like all of them you know miguel vargas you know play second base power speed a really good eye uh already above average with the bat. I think they're going to keep trying him there. He's not going to run out of time there. Zach Netto, same thing.

He's got that deal. Cabert Ruiz is definitely going to be the catcher forever there. He's not striking out, and there's 7% barrel rate there. He could hit for power. And Brett Beatty looks like the future at third base in New York city, you know? And he just needs to lift it a little bit, tiny bit more.

But even if he just kept doing what he's doing right now, I think he'd be like a two 80 hitter with 20 homers and a tons of runs in RBI. Bobby with though, I think is the one you'd be aggressive on. I agree with the majority of that list. I like Beatty. I really like Miguel Vargas.

Maybe do the Bobby Witt trade offer first. Yeah yeah i would try to get him that one i think people are having a hard time like wrapping their heads around and i think there's a lot of underlying stuff that play in favor of bobby whit he's hitting it hard um julio's starting to turn it around i don't think bobby has quite done that to that level and that's why you know i i think i mentioned like last week i did that one uh i did a poll of like you know rest of season who did you want trey turner or bobby witt jr and you know it seemed fun but people like i'm so good with trey turner but it's like you know long term bobby witt's already gets closer and closer it's getting closer and closer and i still think he's in a really good

spot where this is kind of like what i said with onio cruz is i think bobby witt's more acquirable it doesn't mean it's easy and it doesn't mean you can rattle off you know glaber torre you'll be like i'll give you glaber torres and you know whatever you know miguel castro those guys are good right for you're not going to do that but like just people listen i think a little bit more people might be worried oh sophomore slump maybe he doesn't have the batting average maybe he doesn't belong people talk about the bad obp a lot yeah so i like that one that would be more aggressive. I don't think it's a fact that's written in stone for the rest of his career that he's going to have a sub 300 OBP. I also think it's interesting if you look at rest of season projections, you could get more grounded in something like that. Trey versus

Bobby Witt Jr. for the rest of the season, they're what, less than a little over $2 apart in auction calculator for a 15 team league using the bat X for the rest of this season, $2 is not a lot for the rest of the season. That is more of a toss up than people would think. It's not an obvious go with the track record situation. And in the dynasty context, it would be totally worth it.

Send him Trey Turner, get Bobby Wood Jr. Yep. Right. You want to get younger at that position, of course. And Turner, I've wondered for a long time, you know, how well will Trey Turner's speed age? Well, it's still 99%.

Right. He's going to turn 30 at the end of June. So how many more years of peak speed Trey Turner do we have? And then how much of what has happened in the first two months of his time with the Phillies is being attributed to being in a new environment, having that massive contract, being maybe a little more aggressive and doing some of the things we've seen guys do

when they get that big deal. How much of that is still correctable? We saw him chasing pitches outside the zone more than ever last year. This is part of a longer term trend for him so maybe there maybe there was more to it last season than we gave it credit for i'm a little surprised too that you know for the the aggressiveness that the power hasn't been on last year's level it's not way off in terms of homers but it's down quite a bit in terms of slug trey turner slugged 466 last year he's only slugging

383 so far here through 52 games in 2023 so he's really interesting in a long-term league if you're not winning right now and there are teams out there interested in trey turner and there should be teams interested in trey turner how much are you getting even if you are selling at a relative low point compared to his you know last five years so o'neill cruz a player that we're going after uh drew gilbert also on your list welsh a prospect moving up the ranks that you you want to go get if you're playing for the future yeah like i just wanted to put like a different collection of guys that meet different requirements you know i got like a pitcher in there i've got an injured hitter and these guys that are you know double a hitters and up would probably be a

focus drew gilbert just stands out to me as a player that hasn't again i don't think he's moved into the real tier of where his value belongs i think this guy's like a top 25 overall prospect might be seen as 50 out uh he just got up to double a he was hitting 360 in high a six homers four stolen bases in 21 games. Got a promotion. He's hitting 315 in AA right now, two more stolen bases. So he's up to seven homers, six stolen bases in just under 40 games this year. Strikeout rate has lowered at AA.

Walk rate has risen. A little bit smaller guy, 5'9", but there's muscle. He absolutely explodes on the baseball. The level of how big the offensive output is going to be is maybe a little bit in question. There actually might even be some Bregman in his game, but he's obviously an outfielder. But 2020 is on the table.

I like arbitrary numbers, kind of like you, DVR, so I'll just be like 15-15, 20-20. I like to throw out arbitrary numbers like that. But Drew Gilbert is the type of guy that I think can put up those type of numbers. And it's also going to come with a really good batting average. And once you hit AA, kind of on the clock, anything is possible. But Drew Gilbert's different because this was a college bat. There's a guy we're going to talk about, Junior Caminero,

who is arguably a top 10 prospect in baseball right now with a raise. And he just got up to double a, but his world to me is different than Drew Gilbert's world. You know, Caminero has been coming. I mean, what was it two years ago in the Dominican summer league, Drew Gilbert two years ago was playing college baseball.

Like the Astros could bring up Drew Gilbert anytime they could bring him. I think Drew Gilbert is an option for September, and then he can break camp next year as one of their big outfielders. All the issues they've had with Brantley, like Corey Jolkson, those aren't the options. Drew Gilbert is a guy I think that could break this roster at the beginning of spring training next year. Caminero, I don't, but I do think he'll be up next year. Not to say that that makes Gilbert worth more, don't but I do think he'll be up next year not to say that that makes Gilbert worth more but Gilbert I think just has not caught up to the the prospect excitement and I think he's gonna be a great player I don't know if he'd be a superstar but I love the way he hits the ball and this is very

Matt Mervis-y where you move up levels you improve your strikeout rate and you walk even more while still hitting over 300 I'm very much a drew gilbert fan and i would try to be getting him in trades it's just funny it's a strange time of year because this is when a lot of players get bumped up a level caminero got bumped up to double a marcelo mayor i think it's been bumped up to double a james wood was bumped up to double a and that level jump tends to make players more expensive via trade. If you're trying to move for the future, the guys that already got bumped to AA,

especially if they're having early success, they're harder to trade for right now. Because AA tells us next year is possible, and that this year, this happened before June, to point out, by the way. These are some serious prospects before June that moved to AA. That means anything could happen when AA hits. Guys get called up from AA. They don't get called up from a high A. So that, I think that's what goes with the cost. But the key is also

seeing guys continue to succeed at AA because the jump from high A to AA is such a huge step that what happens, and this is, this is an inverse of what you just said by the way i would look for guys that we love the tools we love the pedigree we love the production that go from high a to double a and then start to struggle and people go oh crap i can't do this it's all over it's not all over the jump is so intense that's a time where i would look to buy if guys have a you know as long as like the strikeout rate didn't go from 19% to 45% or something, you know,

if like the same basic tools are still in play, but they're just kind of struggling. I find that to be an incredible time to buy because of what this jump is. But it also tells us a story when guys continue or further dominate at those levels. It shows, it just shows their maturation and how maybe far along their skills are

and their tools. And that's kind of what I feel about Drew Gilbert. I think he could be at AAA coming off of the Futures game. Yeah, I think those are all very good points to consider. And I think it's easy for me to look at a prospect list and see who hasn't reached double a yet,

but who's still very highly ranked in the eyes of, of the prospect analysts out there. And that to me describes drew Jones right now. And we know part of the reason he's where he's at, he's been slowed by injuries, right? He's at regular a, not low.

Well, it's just single. He's actually here right now in Phoenix. Not that he is technically in Visalia, but he's injured and he's actually here right now in phoenix not that he is technically in vasalia but he's injured and he's been rehabbing and playing an extended spring training game just letting people know he has been playing which is good for the last week and um he told somebody that he looks to be going back to vasalia very shortly but rookie ball starts up next tuesday i believe it is so there's a possibility that they hold him back and they play in a couple of those.

But not only is he A-ball, he's here rehabbing and playing in games. And I think they're holding him back a tiny bit more because the struggles have been pretty apparent. He even tweeted about it a couple months back about his early struggles. And I think I love the long-term future. We're not saying that Drew Jones' long-term future is radically different because of the struggles so far, but I'm in a league where I'm playing for this season.

There are several teams pushing all their chips in. I am happy to trade Drew Jones right now to get help immediately because Drew Jones is so far away from helping me. And the other part of this, the other stops he can make on the prospect ladder, trade value-wise, are not that much higher than they are right now.

I can already get a lot back for him in a trade today. So waiting for him to play better, waiting for him to maybe move up a level and play well at high A or something later this summer, it's not going to change the way the league feels about him.

So why not move him now? Why not go ahead and push him in? But for what? I think he's so tough to trade. league feels about him so you know why not move him now why not go ahead and push him in but for what yeah you know like how do you i think he's i think he's so tough to trade because the potential is so sky high but no one's gonna want to pay premium i feel like those trades are like you gotta give away drew jones to get jordan romano and like know, a middle and mid pitcher. I can't even think of the guy like Garrett Whitlock, you know, or something like that.

I feel like that's what people want to do. Or here's James Paxton and Jordan Romano. Give me Drew Jones. And those are ones I just, I can't do. I couldn't, even if I'm winning, I can't do that.

Yeah. Those I wouldn't do, but I'd still be looking for, and this is this league I'm talking about. It also helps the league context matters. If you're in a keep three or a keep five or something with salaries, the high-salaried

star-level players that aren't necessarily great keepers because you might throw them back and they might be available in the draft or the auction again next year, those players don't carry a ton of trade value. If you have them and you're not winning this year, you want someone who's going to make an impact in the long run back in the return. So it's kind of a win-win scenario in

those leagues. I would agree with you though. If you're in a full straight up dynasty league and the Romano plus something else offers what you're getting, I don't think that's enough to get me to move Drew Jones right now. But I think the younger prospects especially, Jackson Merrill's on that same team for me. like Jackson Merrill long-term, I have no hesitation in packaging him as part of a deal right now to make my team better for this season. And on the inverse, and this goes to, you know, real quick is that there are, when we were doing this exercise of just kind of looking, I was going through my list and I could like, just kind of tell you, I probably move anybody. I'm actually, as a prospect person, I'm more willing to move prospects just in general because I feel

comfortable with how I can like replenish my system. And I obviously have like a very targeted need. So at the end of the day, I could target names for you, but I probably would move anybody except I said to you guys before, and there's two guys, I don't think there's any scenario where i trade and it's jackson holiday and ellie de la cruz those are the guys near the top i could not move them under any scenario and you know you are being bombarded left and right on ellie de la cruz and that's just one that you know you're you're just not moving ellie we're probably under most scenarios at least what you've seen yeah like i I'm in sixth, right? And that's for George Springer.

And I'm like, ah, in auto-new. And I'm like, I just don't think so. The other name on that list, though, was that people are interested in is Pete Crowe Armstrong, who I also like as a guy who makes good contact and looks like he has power and speed as a five tool guy, like he's in double a and he's, he's doing pretty well. Um, and, you know, I think something to remember also is you look at that and you say, well, one 11 WRC plus for

Pete Crow Armstrong is not that impressive. He's only 11% better than league in, in, in double a, is not that impressive. He's only 11% better than League in AA. Well, then you have to look at his age, 21. And the average age in AA is 24. And this guy that I like, Nathan Stoltz, he did some research that suggests that every age, every year of age that you're off of the average is worth 25

points of WRC+. So he's 21 in AA and the average is 24. That's almost like having a 180 WRC plus at 24 years old. So

this was an interesting piece that I can send the url to dvr to put in the show notes but um i don't think i've seen agent level quantified that much and i would say that before i read this piece i thought agent level was not worth as much as this piece suggested 25 points of wrc plus per per year is a big big deal and so i would take these ages and sort of learn them by heart here are the ages low a 21 and a half high a 23 double a 24.4 and then triple a doesn't matter as much, different league, but 27. So if you remember those ages, if you're looking at players, I was just looking through some high A guys being like,

if I want to shop in the high A bin, I just want to pick the guy up. I want to pick up the next Junior Caminero. I don't want to trade for Junior Caminero. I want to pick up the next one. So I was trying to look through WRC+, look at ages, and a guy named Blaze Jordan kind of jumps off the list. Another thing that I like about Blaze Jordan is he's in the Boston Red Sox organization, and they're going heavy into weighted bats this year. So David Hamilton is another name that's closer to the big leagues

that has gained a lot from using weighted bats this year. Nick York is another name in that organization that's gained power this year off of a weighted bat program. So, you know, I would want to buy in places where people have made their decisions on Nick York. I would love... For the most part, people have labeled him a bust. Yeah, I...

David Hamilton is a no-name. Blaze Jordan is a no-name. Pick these guys up, put-name pick these guys up put them on your roster stash them don't trade for them nick york had a pretty good afl he was a doubles machine he just wasn't able to tap into any of the power so i think that's interesting i would also love the inverse work done from that article of players that are um because i i'm very very focused on age to level but players that are, because I'm very, very focused on age to level, but players that are aged out to a level. And if we would, if we would take off WRC plus,

because people lose their mind about, you know, a 22 or 22 and a half year old or 23 year old dominating at low A. And it's like, well, that's two years above age level. So we shouldn't even, I guess what you could do is if their wrc plus was 180

just subtract the 50 from it if you want to get like but i feel like there maybe there's even more of math in there because it's like but i guess that it always works at the end if a guy is only 100 you know or 105 wrc plus at 23 at a ball that's really more like you know insanely below average at like a 50 or something like that so maybe you can take that same thing and apply it to players that are any means tested where he looked at actual players and it's it seemed to actually work out the different stuff that came up with so um you know like a young guy that looks like he's just keeping his head above water somewhere you got to keep your eye on that so and that doesn't always show up you got maybe you got to do search where you keep the age real low and you find the 17 year old to double a who has a 105 wrc

plus and you're like wait this is actually pretty sweet you know yeah he also had a little weird thing in there that um that a year of experience is worth something like one third a year of age so a player drafted after his junior year of college is functionally only around two years older than a high school draftee born three years earlier does that make sense so almost it almost it almost clicked and made sense and then i got lost right at the end so repeat that player drafted after a junior year of college is functionally only around two years older than a high school draftee born three years earlier.

It's not one for one. Every year in college is not actually equal to a year of development. You actually don't gain a full year of development each year in college. And there might only be a year of development difference between a high school bat and a junior college bat is also where I took out of that instead of three years of development. That's interesting, which I also, by the way, I kind

of literally just laid out with Drew Gilbert versus Caminero, which, you know, that might go against what I was saying a little bit, but you know, that they're about on the same path though. I think that actually also tells that actually might tell the story of Drew Gilbert and Caminero being at the same level. Developmentally, Drew Gilbert might be just a year ahead, and he would be a guy that would come up before a guy like Junior Caminero. That's interesting. It's all fun. If you were going to buy into the age-to-level adjustments to WRC+,

I was looking at the AA leaderboard, Aurelis Martinez, who's having a very strange season actually makes a lot of sense as someone to target in a keeper or dynasty league right now right around league average but doing it with a 175 281 489 line 23 k rate not a scary k rate draws walks still might have a brighter future than the numbers would suggest if you're buying into the age-level value that's possibly there. Yeah, and if you do keep the age under 21 for AA, so that you've got guys who are three years under league average in AA, one of my favorite names jumps to the top of this, Colt Keith.

Yeah. And he doesn't jump to the top of the list. Colt Keith. Yeah. And he doesn't jump to the top of the list necessarily. It's a little bit like Nick York and Noel Bimarte where you say, oh, they're doing okay. Well, they're 21 at AA instead of 24. And so those are all names that become more

interesting to me once I put the age. Like Jason Dominguez. A 115 WRC plus in AA. He's 20 years old. to me once I put the age. Like Jason Dominguez, a 115 stuff, a 115 WRC plus in AA. He's 20 years old. And he's still pretty excited. Made a move to get him

a few weeks ago before Ian Kahn and Steve Gardner broke one of the keeper leagues I'm in and shattered. They shattered the trade market. If you start running away

with the keeper league, the other buyers, they won't give you that much because they don't think they're going to catch the team in first. So then you get screwed as a team that's not playing for right now. So you have to be very mindful of that too. That's why waiting till Memorial day is not always a good idea. Sometimes you got to make that decision sooner before that market gets completely broken. On that note,

we are going to go. If you got questions for a future episode, rates and barrels at gmail.com is the best way to send those in. On Twitter, Welsh is at isitthewelsh. Eno is at enoceris. I am at Derek Van Ryper. Be sure to hit the Like button on this video if you're watching us on YouTube. Subscribe to the YouTube channel if you want to see the pictures we're talking about.

We used one on this episode, so you missed out on one rolling graph if you listen to the audio-only version of this podcast. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.