Rates & Barrels - Trevor Story to the Red Sox, Carlos Correa to the Twins & Another Flurry of Activity

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss a busy weekend that included more big signings as Trevor Story (Boston), Carlos Correa (Minnesota), Nicholas Castellanos (Phillies), and Jorge Soler (Marlins) found new teams, Luke Voit gets traded to San Diego, Kenley Jansen relocates to Atlanta, and MacKenzie Gore impresses in his first outing of the spring.  Rundown Trevor Story Chooses the Red Sox Carlos Correa to Minnesota w/Multiple Opt-Outs Kyle Schwarber & Nicholas Castellanos to Philly Jorge Soler: An Undervalued Masher in Miami? Kenley Jansen to Atlanta?! Luke Voit Traded to San Diego Tyler Anderson Signs with Dodgers Drew Smyly to the Cubs Injury Update Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first six months: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Sunday, March 20th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. Oh, what do you got? You got the dude? You got the Lebowski? Yeah. Very nice. Nice shirt. I've got a plain gray hoodie on. Nothing on. I got the cool hat on, Lake Elsinore Storm hat.

Oh, that is cool. One day early for this episode. This is effectively the Monday episode this week, and it's because of travel. Eno gets to see live baseball and gets to talk to players again. So there's some travel coming up on Monday. I want to get this episode out. Plus, I think in terms of news, there's more than enough news here to run through an entire episode anyway. So we're going to get caught up on things that have happened since we last spoke, including the most recent big free agent signing.

We begin today with Trevor Story choosing the Red Sox. It is a six-year, $140 million deal with an option for a seventh year. It's a nice deal for him, for sure, and for now at least he's going to move over and play second base. If Xander Bogarts opts out and leaves, they have a future shortstop potentially if they want to move him back, but this is not a pillow deal. This is Story landing in a good offense and in a very good hitter environment, especially for a righty who could take advantage of the green monster the way Story should. Dude, it's the same deal that Javier Baez got. I think I would be a lot more comfortable with Story's offensive profile,

even though Baez's defense might help him age a little better that way. I'd rather take the chance on Story's profile as just being good enough to get him to that five-win level a few more times before he starts to taper off again. I agree. I agree.

Jeff Zimmerman had a rubric that was a quick and easy way to translate his stats. Because if you look at, you know, sort of the base level analysis of, hey, his home splits away from Colorado to 41 average. He's a bum. I'm not sure that's true. I mean, we've talked about it on this podcast about the Coors hangover effect. So what happens is when you're at home in Colorado, you see a lot of fastballs because the breaking balls don't break as much. So you get used to the fastballs at home.

And then when you go on the road, you're worse than expected on the road because you see all this junk. You see all these breaking balls that you don't see at home. And so if you do a two times the away plus one times the home split uh on colorado players simmerman has found that that's a decent way to translate and in fact it's it's kind of funny it lines up almost exactly what he's projected to do so i'm not really actually giving you much

information beyond what you could just get looking the the translations but if you want to know what it is two times home uh and one times uh two times away and one times home for trevor story is 262 330 496 that's almost a direct match for his his projections so we're talking about a 260 hitter that's going to hit 27 to 30 homers and steal you 15 to 20 bags. Yeah, I think the speed should hold up. It's still really good. The weekend ADP from the NFBC is pick 37, right next to Marcus Simeon, interestingly enough. I think they get there in a similar way in terms of their five-by-five value.

I think the situation in Boston in terms of supporting cast is better, I think, straight up. I actually have a slight preference for Story, even though there's more, to me, there's a wider range of outcomes with Story. I think I'd be inclined to take on that risk, in part because I think you're getting those 20 steals

to go with that power. And I think maybe the average projections still sell him a little bit short. I know Colorado boosts players in a significant way, but Fenway does that to Fridays because of the monster. So I think it could be more like a 270, 275 average for Story. It might be a higher batting average than lower homers because it actually does rob you

from homers um because it's so tall but it creates hits because it's so close um it is interesting i wonder i think i prefer simeon because of the strikeout rate also one asterisk for story that doesn't exist for simeon which is injury there is something going on with him a little bit. He's lost a lot of arm strength. And there's some question about his shoulder, I think, because of that arm strength that he's lost. Well, you got the six-year deal. So hopefully for the sake of Boston, hopefully they're happy with what they see when they take a look at his arm.

But the resulting question always when you add a player like this to a depth chart is who loses? Like what's the downside sort of adjustment? And I think it's less Quique Hernandez at second base, more Quique Hernandez in the outfield, and more Quique in the outfield probably means less Jaron Duran. Yeah, he's the big loser. That's a tough break for him because I think Duran...

We all wanted those steals. We wanted all those steals, yeah. Late speed is hard to find, but... I don't know. The outfield right now, I guess the way they're built, it's Verdugo, some combination of Kike and Duran. Duran plays well. He's a lefty.

Kike's a righty. So the platoon would eventually favor Duran. Duran plays well. He's a lefty. Kike's a righty. So the platoon would eventually favor Duran if he earns the opportunity. And they're currently lined up to play Jackie Bradley Jr. a lot. So maybe it's not as bad for now unless they add another outfielder. That seems like it'd be on the table.

Yeah, I'm looking at it because right now at Fangraphs, Alex Verdugo is at the top of the depth charts at left and right, which is, I'm sorry to say, physically impossible. It's not going to work. Nope, can't play both. It's not going to happen that way. But I would like to see here real quick how, let me see,

free agent tracker with the outfield highlight. Let me just look at who hasn't signed. Who hasn't signed? Michael Conforto still out there. Tommy Pham still out there. Tommy Pham. That would be a great place for Tommy Pham to land, I think. And I think it would help their team.

And a total possibility. He's going to cost less than Conforto. A slight hit for now for Duran, but a bigger hit would come if they add yet another outfielder to the mix. Basically a replacement for Hunter Renfro. I know JBJ going back, maybe they think they can get him on track again, and that's totally possible. And with his defense, they'd be inclined to play him a lot

if they can fix him as a hitter, but no guarantees at this point, just given how much of a collapse we saw in 2021 it wasn't just story this weekend you know carlos correa picked a new team as well and he heads to minnesota which i think if you gave me seven or eight guesses at the beginning of the offseason as to where carlos correa was going to go minnesota was not going to be in that group of seven or eight. I guess maybe the possibility of this happening became a long shot sort of reality once they made their moves earlier in the week.

And then there was that report that they were interested in Trevor Story. If you're interested in Story, then you're interested in Correa. Turns out they get Correa. Interesting deal. They get Correa. Interesting deal. They're on a three-year, $105.3 million deal, but there are opt-outs at the end of each season, right?

So he can choose to go back into free agency at any time if he comes through and has a monster year in 2022 or in 2023. I mean, I think kudos to the Twins front office for having the mental flexibility to not just you know they were obviously clearing and everyone said oh they're going for story and they were going for story but at some point the story price got so high that they said well if we've already you know dedicated this much space why don't we get the better player and there might be people who doubt that Correa is a better player, but I just think his combination of patience, contact, ability to barrel the ball, and defense without any of that

sort of arm strength questions, I do think Correa is the better real life baseball player, if maybe not the better fantasy player. Right. I think the lack of stolen bases gets most people to firmly prefer story to Correa in our game. But from a real-life perspective, I think you laid it out perfectly. It's interesting that the first two picks now from the 2012 draft are teammates with Correa and Byron Buxton playing together in Minnesota. The depth chart for the Twins, I don't think there's as much of a loser here just because we knew there was a large share of playing time available.

I would assume this puts Luis Arias back into his super utility role, whereas previously you could look at the infield and say, well, he's got to play every day if they don't add somebody, at least until they start bringing some young guys up. Now, I think it's a lot easier to see him either sharing third base with Gio Urshela or even just moving around and giving everybody a day off here and there at various infield spots. Yeah, I'm interested to see what happens with Jose Miranda. There were times when he seemed really close to the big leagues and times where he seemed further away in the same offseason.

His stock has gone up and down. I still believe that he is one of those interesting prospects that doesn't cost that much in drafts that is at the stepping stone. It'd be pretty easy to see an opportunity it's a little bit um like perhaps a prado in in uh kansas city where he's not he's not in the in the lineup yet but you can see just like one thing has to go wrong carlos carlos santana just has to not be good anymore you know which is totally belie, and Prado might get his chance. I think here the case is Urshela, I think, offensively is fungible.

So if he takes a step back offensively, I could see them wanting more from that position. But then it's just he's also Miranda's one injury away. Polanco gets injured, Urshela gets injured, Miranda's up. It's interesting that there are some depth charts where there's one clear-cut player who gets the bulk of the time if any one of five or six

guys at various positions gets hurt. With the Dodgers, it's Gavin Lux. With the Twins, I think it is Miranda. I think he'd be that guy at this point. I think there'd still be this opening where Ari rise goes to third and then they'd have to call up Miranda

to back up third and second. Right, and they'd want to play him if he's up. They're not going to just use him once a week. If he's on the roster, they're going to want to see what he can do with the opportunities. Have to think that the rumors of the twins being interested in getting a starter

are legit. The A's seem like a great potential fit, but Frankie Montas, you know, with years of control left still beyond this season, I think is a great fit. And maybe one of their major league ready position players would be a way to get that deal done.

This, this could be a situation that gets resolved by a trade at any moment. I've got the, got the window open just in case we get some Sunday afternoon breaking news. You just never know. But I think one more starter is still a priority addition for the Twins. If you've gone this far, you might as well go all the way in and try to make a run to win that AL Central this year. Yeah, I hate to say it because it seems kind of Asian,

but Brent Rookoker is 27 years old strikes out too much but barrels the ball really well you know that's the kind of thing that the a's i think would consider as part of the package yeah they could even go that route it might not take royce lewis or austin martin or even jose miranda to get a deal done it might take just a combination of players a bit further down. I've seen them take the quantity back several times. Yeah, and they haven't really gotten top-end talent according to public prospect lists.

So I could see them doing something like that again. Maybe it's a little bit more tilted towards the pitching side and they get Balazovic or something like that. But there definitely seems to be a deal to be made here. Sunny Gray and hope for rain is not a plan, I don't think. No, there's probably an injured pitching prospect that the Twins have that the A's like. Oh, God.

Probably start there with who would be going back in the return. So if you're waiting for Royce Lewis or Austin Martin or Miranda to get the chance in Minnesota, don't worry, it could still happen because it's probably an injured pitcher that's going the other way. The Phillies made two moves since you and I last spoke, spending a lot of money on guys that can hit

and maybe guys that aren't necessarily known for their defense. Hey, but it's fun. It's fun to get guys that can go out there and bash. This is close to a murderer's row, especially if Boehm comes forward this year. Yeah, and now at this point, Boehm is just an extra guy. So if he does hit, it's just gravy.

But Nick Castellanos and Kyle Schwarber both go to the Phillies. I could not have concocted a scenario in which this happened. If you said, give me your wildest offseason scenario for the Phillies, would not have even gone down this road as one of those outcomes. It changes a lot about the look of their offense. I think if there's flaws with the bullpen, flaws with the defense, they can out hit a lot of those flaws when everybody's healthy in this lineup. Yeah, it's crazy.

The Bad X said that the Phillies are the second best team in the big leagues. I don't know. lot of those flaws when everybody's healthy in this lineup yeah it's crazy the bad x uh said that the phillies are the second best team in the big leagues um i don't know that doesn't quite jive with my non-mathematical you know appraisal of the situation doesn't align with your gut yeah it doesn't align with my gut and it also doesn't align with my gut, and it also doesn't align with the Fangraph's projected standings, which have them seventh with 88 wins. But I have to say, you know, that's one of the better projections I've seen for the Phillies in the last few years. It's one of the better teams. They definitely improved that bullpen where, you know, I think Knable is the closer, but in Alvarado, Familia, Hand, and even Coonrod, I think they've got guys that could close if it's not Knievel.

And they've got a lot of stuff without any command in that bullpen. So it could really go either way, I think. But, you know, it's good to bet on stuff. They've got some undervalued guys in the rotation in Nola, I think, and Gibson. Wheeler is throwing again. I did draft an OC on Friday and took Wheeler as my first pitcher, I think, in the third or fourth round.

The thing that my read on the situation was, it was the him and the Zach Gallin thing. Like, I don't want to overreact to it because what they said was I had some shoulder soreness over the lockdown, you know, over the lockout. And they don't seem to be reporting it in the present. And they're both throwing in the present. So I'm choosing to be like a little bit optimistic without those situations versus like a Jack Flaherty who shut down, you know? Right. So we'll see if I got a discount on Wheeler or if, you know, I hurt myself with that pick. But I think that Wheeler could actually

represent a little bit of a value right now. Well, when you look at the first two players we talked about today with Story and Correa, I don't think a lot has changed about their value relative to draft market expectations. Maybe Story creeps up a little bit. I think with Correa, it's going from a great lineup in Houston to a pretty good one in Minnesota, going from a park that has the friendly Crawford boxes for a righty. If you pull the ball, of course, you're going to be rewarded for that. To one in Minnesota where we've seen right-handed pull power get rewarded in recent years, kind of going back even to Brian Dozier. I do think with both Castellanos and Schwarber, we're going to see some ADP helium kicking in because Citizens Bank ballpark is very hitter friendly. And the quality of this lineup is something people are absolutely taking note of and you mentioned the bad x projections it's just it's one of the best spots to be in the league as far as your your rbi and run potential probably second only to the dodgers at this point yeah it's a it's a pretty nice situation uh the projected uh standings have like a run score component and so you can see it goes Dodgers, Blue Jays

Braves, Yankees, Phillies by that metric projected run scored per game but I could see it being a little closer I could see the Phillies being third I really like the Blue Jays lineup I totally trust that projection but Phillies versus Braves and Yankees lineup, I think they pulled close. I think Castellanos had an early pick this weekend in the NFBC of 32. ADP clocked in around pick 55.

Is that a value that that? That seems too much. Maybe at 55, but I can't imagine pushing him up to that that max schwarber was going around pick 106 had an early pick of 63 that's steve oh you know what the the action calculator does love castellanos it says he's a 27 hitter the equal of aaron judge and kyle tucker it's just crazy because he doesn't steal bases. Yeah, and that player type generally gets discounted. See like George Springer as an example,

and I realize Springer missed a lot of time last year with an injury. Castellanos was healthy. I think there's also a little frustration on my part because I've been staying away from Castellanos this draft season, assuming that wherever he went wouldn't be as hitter-friendly as Cincinnati, frustration on my part because I've been staying away from Castellanos this draft season assuming that wherever he went wouldn't be as hitter friendly as Cincinnati but he landed in a place that's just about as good and with a better supporting cast so that's uh the tough L for me yeah and the nice thing about Castellanos I think that is hidden in this is the the really nice

batting average so he's got a really plus hit tool. So I think that doesn't have the steals, but he can maybe provide you the batting average to then pair him with a Grisham later or something, right? Somebody who's going to hit 240 and steal some bases for you. So ADP, would you rather Castellanos for you over George Springer? Yeah, I think that makes sense. Yes, because Springer is not going to steal many bags either, and he's not going to have the same batting average.

Let's try a little higher. Let's try a different position, but Pete Alonso versus Nick Castellanos. I mean, the calculator says yes, and I'm also not going to get any stolen bags from Alonso versus Nick Castellanos? I mean, the calculator says yes, and I'm also not going to get any stolen bags from Alonso, so I'd rather have that package of like a near 300 average and the power versus a low average and all that power from Alonso. I think it's

about as early as you could go, and it probably requires you to have already found at least some steals with one of your earlier picks if you're going to take Nick Castellanos up there. With Schwarber oof where's he gonna go let's see looking for the would you rather comp on him schwarber might make the leap into the the stanton yellich brian reynolds jd martinez cluster of outfielders that might be where he settles in kind of back of the top 100 between 85 and 90 overall maybe i mean that's it's a high bar to clear and that's one where the auction calculator

says no says take brian reynolds take christian yellow take jd martinez there's a three dollar gap between the two as good as schwarber could be in the power ceiling is, I mean, 40-plus home runs are fully in play for him right now. I just feel like we've seen his ceiling. Like, you know, like he's... Taking a batting average hit, a pretty big batting average hit for an early-round player if you're going to take Schwarber, rather, at that increased price. So kudos to the Phillies for spending the money and making it happen.

Speaking of power, Jorge Soler goes to Miami. He gets a three-year deal. There's some opt-outs in that one. Soler power. It's good for everyone. The question I have for you with Jorge Soler is really just about what a reasonable skills floor is for him. Is Jorge Soler that different than Kyle Schwarber? I mean, the park

situation and the lineup context are very different, even though the Marlins are getting legitimately better, right? They're not a bottom three, bottom five lineup as currently constructed. They're a lot level better than that. It's a pitcher friendly ballpark. There's batting average risk. But I wonder if we're underselling Jorge Soler just a little bit because the K rate last year quietly was a career best 23.6%. He's always drawn walks and the raw power, I mean that home run that he hit in the World Series still hasn't landed as everyone keeps saying.

So is he more like a Schwarber type player than people are giving him credit for just from like a Roto perspective? Yeah, seems like it uh the projections for his batting average just don't reach the same as Schwarber they're just they're all kind of sure that he's going to be like a 235 to 240 hitter whereas Schwarber gets a little bit of a boost beyond that but neither is going to be an asset so like what do you what's the difference between 240 and 250 now both of them are going to be an asset. So like, what do you, what's the difference between two 40 and two 50? Now, the both of them are going to pull you down a little bit. Yeah.

And I just think, look at the barrel rates that Solaire has run the last three seasons, 16% back in 2019, 18 and a half percent in the shortened season, 12.4% last year. So you're getting a barrel machine. No question about playing time kind of built to DH. Maybe we'll occasionally play the outfield.

I like him quite a bit. I'm just curious to see. He'll jump. He'll jump because we know the volume is there. But just for comparison, the earliest he went, any draft this weekend, I guess the news on him broke a little later. Pick 142. So even if you push him up into the 120 range,

other outfielders that go around there you're looking at there aren't that many outfielders it's really more like josh bell over at first base i'll take him over adam duvall max muncy oh yeah i think compared to compared to guys he was going near he's clearly better now but i just wonder where that line is where you could say okay this is too much uh people are expecting too much from Jorge Soler. What about like Fran-Mille Reyes versus Jorge Soler? They seem pretty similar in terms of their profile makeup. I'll take Reyes.

I think I might take Soler. I don't think it's a landslide, but I think my confidence in Soler comes from that walk rate. I know the walks don't directly help us in fantasy. I mean, you can get on base and go score a run. You'd rather put the ball in play. It's a little better played approach than Reyes, but Reyes has kind of quietly leveled out with a good walk rate too. There were a few questions about that when he broke in.

K rate's a little higher on Reyes, though. So I'm Soler over Reyes. Reyes is also younger, so he's 26. There's still a chance for a peak season. It's still possible. And both of these teams have to play these guys a lot. I think that's the sort of range, though, where we could see Jorge Soler going, kind of in the 125 overall range now that we know he's in Miami.

He's got a spot to call his own. Perhaps the absolute weirdest signing of the entire weekend. The award goes to Atlanta. Kenley Jansen to Atlanta, one year, $16 million deal. Was that just a retaliatory signing because of the Freddie Freeman to LA thing? Or they're like, you know what? You took one of our guys and it looks weird. We're taking one of your guys

and it's going to look weird the other way. I mean, there's some savings that Olsen represents and it's possible that the Olsen savings went into Jansen. And Colin McHugh and bringing back Eddie Rosario. I know, it's whatever. Yeah, right. When you boil it down for Jansen, there's a few things. I thought any team

that brought him in most likely saw him as a closer. I think you get the sense that Atlanta does see him as the closer. Will Smith probably moves into a pretty consistent setup role. They could do a committee thing, give Jansen 30 out of 40 chances and give Smith the other 10.

I guess that's possible, but how much do you worry about the walk rate being up last season when you start to drill in and see that a lot of the struggles Jansen had were concentrated to one month, right? I think it was July was the month where Kenley Jansen was just brutal last year, and otherwise he pitched pretty well.

Well, there is that thing that the uh what is it here oh this is the wrong spreadsheet but uh he was one of the people that lost the most spin rate over the course of last season and it's something that bugs me to report on but it's something that bugs me to report on, but it's something that actually happened. So let me see what I have here. These are biggest losers in stuff percentage pre and post enforcement. And the very bottom goes Corinne Schack, Richard Rodriguez, Kenley Jansen. He went from a 116 stuff plus to 104.

Yeah, those other two guys were demoted and pushed off of rosters, and Jansen at least righted the ship. He came back August, September, and pitched kind of like he had pitched prior to July. And there is stuff that I really like about what Kenley Jansen has done, which is that he didn't sort of rest on his laurels and go as far as his cutter would take him for the rest of his career. He, in fact, went and went hard to work to create a sinker that he throws now 27% of the time last year,

and a slider that he threw 15% of the time. So he's no longer a one-pitch pitcher, and I think that has been good to sort of give him a larger repertoire that makes it tough on hitters. So I do like that aspect. So assuming you agree that he's the guy over Will Smith, Will Smith is a clear loser,

I feel like the winners are the contenders for saves in other places. Like Corey Knievel is a winner. Corey Knievel is a winner. Jordan Romano is safer. I mean, he might have been pretty safe anyway. Joe Barlow in Texas seems like a winner of Kenley Jansen going to Atlanta. Now the last shoe to drop, really, is the Kimbrell situation, right? Right.

And I just wonder if they're going to have to accept the fact there's not going to get anything of significant long-term value back in the return. Everyone knows right now, and they've added so many bullpen arms this offseason, any shred of trade leverage they had has completely vanished. Yeah, they're hoping to get somebody that fits their team, I think, at this point.

I think that's about it, even if it's on a one-year deal, even after losing Nick Madrigal. So winners outside of Atlanta, one loser in Atlanta with Kenley Jansen's arrival. I don't think it pushes Jansen up the board really at all. I think people were appropriately valuing him with the high probability. Oh, Blake Trinan goes way up. I don't think the Dodgers are trading

for Craig Kimbrell, are they? That's a good follow-up because Trinan, they're insisting they're going to try a committee. Okay, sure. Who's in the committee then? Who's in the committee? Hudson? I don't think it's Gratterall he shows the ball man like i don't i don't i don't think it i think it could be bestia and hudson maybe bestia if it's a lefty hudson if you like trying him better for matchups

prior to the ninth inning i guess like trying to dissect what a committee might look like. Trying to could be a little bit easier to get you a ground ball double play. So trying and you might want to bring in with people on. You're like saving him for the ninth, but then in the eighth, they get a bunch of people on, so you bring him on early. And then Hudson gets the last out and gets like a weird save. Run around first in the eighth or something. Yeah, it's two hitter, three hitters up. You bring in a trine and just to try and clean it up there yeah and then you might have two outs

left and you just give it to somebody he's getting 30 saves come on like that's what i think i mean these this thing that we just described will probably happen but it won't happen like 30 times they're also going to win 110 games so exactly yeah so there's room for all these things to happen i'll take my chances on the largest share of the committee on a team it's that good that's going to win a lot so yeah trinan versus kenley jansen around pick 100 might actually be a decision we have to make in a few weeks wasn't like that over the weekend but i think we're we're getting there. I think the interest in Trinan is going to continue rising based on

that spin loss thing. Trinan has the best stuff plus in baseball. I don't know, man. I think I'm going Trinan. Trinan versus Jordan Romano. Who would you take? Well, it's closer now. I've been taking Romano because I thought the job was safer. It's

closer now. I still want that Kimbrel shoe to drop, though. I've been taking Romano because I thought the job was safer. It's closer now. I still want that Kimbrel shoe to drop, though. I'd love to see it. I think we may have to wait until the season starts for a team to actually trade for him. Jeez, I'm so sorry. Rick Hahn is pooping his pants right now. Eh, he'll be fine.

Super bullpens are fun. It's like kid-proofing the bullpen so Tony La Russa can't push the wrong button. They make them all good. Yeah, if the whole bullpen is good, you can't make a bad tactical decision with your bullpen. I think that's a good hack. Luke Voigt is now a San Diego Padre.

Works out great. They were not built for the universal DH, as we've discussed before. If they were to finally part ways with Eric Hosmer at some point during the season, there's not really any indication that they're going to do that anytime soon. But if they were, they could play void at first

and go back to floating the DH. But this is awesome. And I think in terms of the earliest he went over the weekend, pick 191 was actually the earliest he went. That's still pretty good value because I think he's an everyday guy. I think it's only health that would keep him from playing nearly every day this season. I think you could see,

you could see Luke Voigt probably justify going closer to pick 150 where you see Ty France going because you're getting more power, albeit probably with a bit less average. But I think Voigt's kind of a key to the San Diego offense, especially with Tatis down i wonder if they haven't updated in uh the auction calculator yet because he's projected for 348 plate appearances and that tanks his value i love it i love it i love finding things like that so you can get on it before everybody's projections are fixed don't don't you think it seems like you would rather have him than Dahlbeck?

Just thinking about their overall lines. Like, Voight has power. He's going to have a better batting average. Bobby Dahlbeck has been winning the first few days of spring training, but yes, I would rather have Luke Voight. So that means you're talking about a guy who's going to have maybe $8 to nine dollars value at the end of the season and be there with like belt and rizzo it's possible but i think behind them but but in that

group it sounds about right the good thing is voight might not creep up into that pick 150 range he may remain a good value yeah it could be a corner viable option or if you waited too long at first base and just need somebody that can exceed expectations, I think that could be exactly what he brings to the table. I like righties a lot more in San Diego than lefties too, just based on how the park plays for hitters on different sides of the plate. Yeah, we didn't talk too much about the Tatis injury. The word on the street is that Haseon Kim is going to get everyday reps,

and it's not going to be a Cronenworth situation. I have a little bit of love for Haseong Kim still. The barrel rate was unimpressive, but the max EV was good. And I don't, I'm not trying to say that like, here's this one number. So therefore Haseong Kim is good. What I'm saying is those two numbers don't match the way that they normally match. You know what I mean? He's got a lower than expected barrel rate given his max EV. So there's something there that says we don't know all of the story yet, you know, which I think makes sense. I think he came, he struggled at first. He had bonkers numbers in the KBO. So I really do think this is a guy that if you gave him a full season could right the ship you see a decent

enough contact rate i could see someone who can hit 250 with like 20 homers and 10 steals it was like if he was given the full season um so that could be really useful for some people just looking maybe for a stop gap or maybe for even a kim uh for a tatis uh replacement because at least he would give you a little bit in each of the places that Tatis would have given you a lot you know and since Tatis opted to have surgery for that fracture the expectation is that it's going to take about three months for him to get back so we're talking maybe mid-June before he's ready to play in games again that's a long window for that Padres offense to try and get by and And I think with Kim, same as any player,

trying to make adjustments to the big leagues. We saw this with Yoshitsugu, whose first season coming over from Japan was in 2020. I just think the last two seasons have been miserably difficult to adjust to life in a new place. And I would give players who came over from a different country a bit more of a pass just to kind of see what what does one more year hold what does another 300 plus plate appearances hold for kim i would

reserve judgment until we see that and he is young relatively speaking to still just 26 years old so a lot of ways it could still go right for him with this added playing time in the early part of the season. Tyler Anderson ended up in the Dodgers rotation mix over the weekend. I know you liked Anderson a bit last year, you know, and I think anytime we either have a depth guy that ends up with the Dodgers, or even someone like Andrew Heaney, who they go out and get right away, it kind of turns on the bat signal, so to speak, where you say, hmm, I wonder what they see in him. I wonder what they like about him as well.

They seem to understand what they're doing when it comes to finding pitching on the scrap heap. So one year, $8 million to Tyler Anderson. No guarantees about an early season rotation spot, but another guy that could certainly give them bulk if they need it. Yeah, I wonder how bad this is for Tony Gonsolin, because he is the exact opposite of Tony Gonsolin. Tony Gonsolin does not have, well, I guess he has four pitches, but he does not have command of them. And he has some decent stuff, but he has no command. And then Tyler Anderson comes in

with a bevy of pitches, a ton of pitches, and great command of them, but not the most tough, heavy stuff front. Look at his strikeout rates. He's barely even gotten eight per nine over his career. But he does come with good command and a lot of pitches, and he can maybe provide more innings. You might expect more innings from somebody like tyler anderson than you would from tony gonsolin so i have a sneaking suspicion that tyler anderson will be in the rotation to start the season if it's either at tony gonsolin's expense

or a spring injury or kershaw saying he's behind just means that he starts on the il for two for two weeks and and that you know so, so Tyler Anderson gets a few starts. Some of the starts could be useful. So Tyler Anderson becomes a guy that I was considering, even in the bench in my 12-teamer, because you either find out that he's in the rotation for the first two weeks and maybe he has a good matchup, or you find out that he's not in the rotation and he's easy to drop.

Yeah, I think you're probably right that with Gonsolin, the shoulder injury seemed to change a lot for him. We just haven't seen the same guy. I think it's encouraging if you've been tracking Clayton Kershaw. He started the Dodgers' spring debut against the Brewers. That was Friday. My days are starting to run together again a little bit. He just looked like himself.

It was only one inning, so he was in and out of there pretty quickly. And yeah, where he's at workload-wise when the season starts. That's as decent a place as you can be right now for most starters, right? Like how behind is he? There's other people who haven't even pitched yet. If you're pitching in games

the first time through the spring rotation, that's a pretty good sign that you're healthy. Yeah, I'm surprised, man. Well, I think with the Dodgers, too, the elephant in the room and I just hate talking about him in general because I rarely have anything to actually add to the conversation

mostly because Major League Baseball keeps kicking the can down the road. The Dodgers don't say anything. It's Trevor Bauer. His administrative leave was extended through April 16th. He's going to be the first player ever to basically appeal a suspension like this. He's going to fight it all the way.

Right. I think that's very clear when you see, first off, how he publicly reacted and celebrated Deshaun Watson getting a record-breaking deal from the Browns on Friday. If I sound like I'm struggling to find the words, I'm blown away that this is the path we're going down. Just from the, wow. wow like the league i don't think the league ever expected a player to do something like this and then take this time fight it this way yeah and i think that's part of why this is taking so long now there's a laundry list of reasons why we should be skeptical about the league's investigation into alleged sexual assaults right like there's there's just plenty of reason to believe that leagues and teams want stories like this to just go away.

Yeah, their best interest is for no story. And if you wait and you wait and you wait, you can come out at the end when you meet out a punishment that is lighter than what a lot of people feel would be fair. You can say, well, we took a lot of time to look into this. And you can be vague about what you did because you don't have to share the details of how you investigated the story. You don't have to share the details of what you actually found while you were investigating the story. So all of that is just taking a horrible situation and making it take even longer. I have no idea if we're going to see him pitch in a game again this year. I don't want to see Trevor Bauer pitch in a game ever again. Honestly, the rest of my life would be better if I never saw him pitch in a game again. But I think I'm finally old enough to know.

I've seen enough horrible situations like this across sports as an adult to understand that it's probably not going to play out that way. So when we get a resolution, I don't know. I mean, I think he's a lock to pitch the season. Right. And it's just awful. Like, I'm not okay with that. There's nothing I can do, I'm, I'm not okay with that. There's nothing I can do about it, but I'm not okay with it.

Yeah. So let's, uh, let's do a hard, hard transition segue. Let's get out of this one. Yeah. I didn't know what the sound,

I mean, it's just like that, that situation sucks. Period. There's nothing, nothing else to say right now and next do the right thing mlb even though i know you won't or the dodgers you're not powerless in this situation either but you you'll pretend like you are drew smiley uh has signed with the cubs uh they do they

do have a type the cubs they continue to add these softer tossing guys, but Smiley throws pretty hard for a cub. So I think he's interesting because Wade Miley's behind schedule. And I would say they had an unsettled spot in the back of their rotation anyway. Now we saw it over mostly a starter's workload from Smiley last year in Atlanta. 29 appearances, 23 restarts, 448 ERA, 137 whip. Maybe it's just bad ratios and cheap strikeouts,

but I do think a guy with a home run issue, pitching half his games at Wrigley Field, could actually be a pretty useful streamer, especially in the NL Central. And early in the season, colder. There is something with Wrigley where you have to stay on top of the way the wind is going, and I don't know exactly where that information is information is parsed out but it is it's

out there for you to be found so i do think that it really matters which way the wind is blowing and wriggly and smiley could be a really good play on days when it's growing in i also think he is in the rotation man i mean if miley's behind and Azulay's out for two months, they said, which has surprisingly hurt me, I think it might be Smiley and Brolt at the end there. Steven Brolt, kind of the competition, probably the loser hangs around as a long reliever. Justin Steele may be quietly emerging to be an option for the Cubs to begin the season as well.

It also means that Alec Mills is like a guarantee. Seems like. I think he's got to earn the spot. I think so. Wow, look at this. Manager David Ross said, Miles has secured a spot in the Cubs opening day rotation pending further additions to the roster.

Now he said that on the 15th. now when did they sign i said that before they signed smiley oh everything changes now we got drew smiley right but keep it on the miley situation too because if he's a little behind schedule that could temporarily open up a spot i still think the cubs for the number of people they've added to the roster they're better not that good though but they're still yeah they're still gonna like a very average team everything hits they are full-on playing the the roster, they're better. Still not that good, though. But they're still going to have a very average team if everything hits. They are full-on playing the middle right now.

Their bullpen has so much dark green ink in it, which on Roster Resource I'm referring to players that have signed as free agents or were acquired this offseason. Oh, it's all one-year deals, too. It's amazing. I almost want to write about this. They signed Chris Martin, David Robertson, Michael Givens, Daniel Norris, and Jesse Chavez all to one-year deals.

I love it. It's kind of beautiful. It's crazy. None of those guys were at the top of the market either. It gives me Giants vibes. Giants vibes, yeah. It's like their spin on what the Giants do. Oh, God, it totally is Giants vibes because they got VR to play third.

They already had Patrick Wisdom, so they're like, we got VR to play three different plays. It's totally Giants vibe-y. Oh, my God. Yep. Oh, yeah, Nico Horner's got options. I bet they're going to use those this year.

Clint Frazier's still got options left. He might use those at some point. Five, five, five, five, five. Yep. Oh, Ian Happ's even got options. Wow, let's see if we can use that. Don't go that far with it, Cubs. Don't be jerks about it.

Michael Pineda landed with the Tigers. It sounded like he's a little behind. I was trying to figure out if it was because of any sort of injury or if it was just because of the timing of arriving into camp a little bit later. Yeah, just a late start. I guess an issue with his work visa. May not be ready for his first turn in the rotation due to getting start. I guess an issue with his work visa. May not be ready for his first turn in the rotation due to getting a late start

and an issue with his work visa. Maybe misses a turn or two in the rotation. I don't know if we really can assume he would miss any more than that right now. We know the issues with Michael Pineda at this point. It's home runs. The control is fine. The strikeout rate's a little lower

than you'd like it to be but this is a good landing place for him then and if if they need him in the rotation if they're if they're gonna play him in the rotation i think i think he's a wait and see but it's like uh an early ale only uh fab run sneaky two dollar you know put him in my rotation kind of thing and maybe even for 15 team mixers the first time he is in the rotation, once he's ready to go, you're not necessarily drafting him and waiting a couple of weeks, but you might pick him up and you might be surprised with a good stretch of schedule, what he's able to do. I think he's in there starting five, basically what it comes down to,

if they're going to go Erod, Scooble Mize and Manning, which is Manning pitching well to keep that spot. If that's their first four, there's one spot left for Pineda, Willie Peralta, Chase Anderson, and Drew Hutchison. That's easily Pineda's spot. He's got the inside track, even though I think the Willie Peralta resurgence last year is good enough to get him on the roster. Anderson is close. Anderson could push him.

I mean, it could be Anderson versus Pineda. But I would give the edge to Pineda there. I'd give Pineda the edge over Peralta. I'd probably give Tyler Alexander the edge over Chase Anderson and Drew Hutchison too if you're trying to figure out who's going to stick around as the long reliever he does have the added benefit of being left-handed seems to be a good thing in baseball to be left-handed I think and especially if you're going to keep an extra guy around and that can be between the bullpen and the rotation having them be left-handed I think is pretty good a couple other smaller signings to get to the rangers adding a couple of players i

think they had added brad miller the last time we spoke i don't know if we talked much about it they also added we said he he's the the the guy who's going to play third yeah matt carpenter also there trying to get one last summer in the sun yeah and i know people who think that that there's matt carpenter is one tweak away from rediscovering some of his brilliance um here's a guy that does have good play to fizzman and has been barreling the ball for years and uh it's a little bit intriguing to me to hear this idea that he could be a tweak away it's a little bit rough to like try to squeeze carpenter and mill Miller on this roster. I suppose maybe then Miller would be the DH and Carpenter would be the starting third baseman.

And then the big loser would be Willie Calhoun, who would then be in a full battle with Nick Solak maybe for a position. It's weird that the Rangers have quickly become a team with the offseason they had, where you can start to say they might have too many useful bats, at least at the bottom part of the roster. It's not top to bottom, one through nine, some kind of great American League lineup, but at least they have good players who aren't guaranteed playing time. That is a big step forward from them compared to where they were this time last year. to where they were this time last year. Yeah, that's true. And we've liked Andy Banyas on this podcast, and he's sort of back into having to sort of play his way past the veterans to get playing time again.

How much can they punt on third base defense? That's the question that comes into this with Miller and Carpenter. Well, fewer balls in play every year, and with the shift. Didn't think we'd see Matt Carpenter playing third base again, but hey, sometimes things work out that way. Colin Moran landed in Cincinnati, part of their shuffle. Big side platoon DH now that they've opened up some playing time? Yeah, that seems plausible.

I mean, he's also leaving one of the worst parks, so there's going to be some park-related papering over. Projections say he's basically slightly below league average bat. I don't know. As a lefty batter, I could see them getting more use of him than that. Aquino is a righty, right? Yep. that uh akino is a righty right yep it seems weird to make aristides akino on this team this kind of rebuilding team this younger player to make him the small side platoon dh but akino is

a flawed player too so it's not like yeah it's not like they're wasting you know a real shot at superstardom. I mean, it did seem like that at first when Aquino came up. Remember, that was pretty nutty. Oh, the home run binge? Yeah, like 10 homers. 19 homers in 56 games. It was only 225 plate appearances.

He was also 7 for 7 as a base dealer. If you were saying, try to find another Adelise Garcia, well, I guess Aristides Aquino maybe doesn't play center field the same way, but given the playing time, I think you'd be surprised. He could, in his range of outcomes, with his flaws, with his swing and miss, do that kind of damage power-wise and run a little bit on top of that. And maybe now he's only one injury away from getting that chance there there is a position open i think in cincinnati there still is

right field is a collection of flotsam and jetson includes tyler naquin max schrock somebody named friedel you might be underselling Tyler Nake a little bit. Yeah. I think they like him. I'm not trying to say... They're not without reason for liking him. He's fully open, but he's a 30-year-old who has won above average season on his resume. He was 10% better than league average last year.

105 WRC plus in the partial season he was able to play in 19 a lot of injuries have slowed him down it's like i'm not in the business of defending anything the reds do i want to point and laugh as much as i possibly can player at least as a platoon i think he's at least think he's a pretty steady big side platoon player yeah and he's high in the lineup too when he plays so i think think those runs and RBIs might exceed expectations based on where he hits and where he gets to play half his games. Well, still some opportunity there, I think. Especially since Senzel gets injured often.

So it might be Fraley in center, Senzel to the IL, and then left field is open. So they've got a lot of lefties between Naquin, Votto, Moustakis, and Moran, and Fraley. So five lefties projected to be in the lineup. You can't mix and match everybody. I assume Votto obviously plays all the time, so that doesn't matter.

Who's the other one? They've got to play probably two of those guys against lefties consistently. Is Moustakis the second one? He probably should be. I think Solano as a possible platoon. I think, yeah, I guess if you've got Solano, you want to play him some.

Oh, let's build a bench. We used to play this. Let's build a bench. Or, well, here's what you're doing. Okay, so you can DH Moose those days, play Solano at third if you like his defense better. And so Moose is still getting kind of full playing time but not always in the field still playing I think it's Moran Moran and Fraley

and then probably Naquin are the three lefties that come out for any righties you have on the bench they only got two righties on the bench they can literally sit two yeah I wonder who I wonder who will play through those bad platoon splits but But the bench is probably Farmer, Solano. Is Farmer a righty? Farmer's a righty. Well, there's your righty. Oh, Barrero. I'm forgetting about Barrero.

What am I doing? Well, Barrero's an everyday starter for me. Yeah, and he's, for one reason or another, not listed as their starter right now. But I just, okay, fine. Maybe he's not the guy on opening day. Maybe he's not the guy on the second Monday of the season. He's the guy by May 15th.

He's the guy when the season ends. He has to be their starting shortstop, right? He's clearly their best option there. Benches Shogo Akiyama, Aristides Aquino, Don Salano, and Kyle Farmer. Right. And Andrew Knapp.

We've solved one small problem in Cincinnati. I don't even, it was just a prompt about Colin Moran. He's there now, but no, in deep, deep leagues, there could actually be a little something there.

The big park upgrade actually matters and he should play enough where he's not going to, not going to hurt you in deeper formats. How about this bit of spring news? Mackenzie Gore looked really good in his spring debut vila was back in the upper 90s again i had kind of pushed him aside just because it was such a meandering road for him to even get back it was just so disastrous last year like i i set my expectations to zero and now I'm starting to build them back up.

Mackenzie Gore throwing 95-96 from the left side with control has a role on this team, because how would you not use him? We're trying to get minor league and spring training stuff going. I would just love to know. I would just love to know the shapes of these pitches. Yeah, I would as well well but i think he's at least on my reserve list radar now whereas even just a week ago i was kind of saying i'm gonna throw the dart somewhere else at least now for deeper leagues i want to i want to know what happens in the next three weeks and if i have to roster him and then cut him to find out fine i can live with that yeah it just seems like he's he's not in because even if somebody in the top

five is not ready or is hurt, Paddock has been pitching alright too. And Paddock is among the players that are healthy right now. So I think that's certainly good news for the Padres. Good problem to have. They've got a bunch of guys that have elevated injury risk. They've got guys that have had Tommy John before. You need

well more than five starters to actually get through a season anyway. But just an encouraging spring note that I saw going into the weekend. How about these other updates though? Starling Marte has an oblique injury. He is still not hitting because he's a Met and that's how it has to work now, I guess.

That stinks because Marte is a good player. We need guys that steal bases. Leading off in that lineup especially could be a great source of runs scored. I hope they're just doing the right thing, giving him the extra time, and he's going to be okay in a week or so, and he'll be able to play on opening day. We're definitely hitting

that point. Maybe this time next week, where if someone's still behind schedule, still limited to either rehab work or they're not doing anything, we're going to have to start looking at those players as early season IL candidates. Yeah. I think if that happens, Dominic Smith steps to the fore.

I know J.D. Davis is taking his reps mostly at third. You could maybe do something with NLDH where J.D. Davis plays more than Dominic Smith, but you just need someone to still play in the outfield. You'd probably shift Nimmo over to center, and there'd be an outfield opening. McNeil is supposedly the starter at second, so that says to me Dominic Smith benefits if Stommer Marte sits. Luis Urias has a quad injury. He's going to be shut down for two weeks, not expected to be available

for opening day. I think the cover there for the Brewers, they've been pretty proactive with soft tissue injuries like this the last couple of seasons where once you get out in front of it, you're fine, but you can kind of round up on the timetables a little bit.

That's just the way they've been playing it, which probably is the smart way to do it in the long run. I don't think you're going to get a whole lot of value from the replacements. It's likely going to be a combination of Jace Peterson against righties and Mike Brasso

against lefties. Not enough there outside of NL only leagues to really get excited. You don't think Kesson Hira might get a shot? Nope. Because he was defensively like he was not great at second already. Yeah, I mean there's not really a way to make the pieces fit. You'd have to play somebody

out of position to make that happen. So, nope. Sorry. I defer to you on all matters, Brewers. the pieces fit like you'd have to play somebody out of position to make that happen so uh nope sorry i defer to you on all matters brewers his his uh his paths are limited at least for now to people missing time from the right side of the infield right colton wong goes down that i think they could say well let's let's play keston at second base let's let's take the hit there we'll we'll be fine uh but i don't think they can shuffle it around to make room for him by putting someone else at third. Carter Keboom has a flexor mass strain, I believe. He's out four to six weeks.

So not only does he begin the season on the IL, but that just makes it kind of an uphill battle for him to carve out his spot in that improving Nats lineup. I say improving because they added Nelson Cruz. And that team is quietly a little better at the top improving Nats lineup. I say improving because they added Nelson Cruz, and that team is quietly a little better at the top half of that lineup. You know, right now the depth charts say Michael Franco is the next one, but he's in on a minor league deal, I think. Yep.

And there were some rumors early on that Luis Garcia would take shortstop. So what if he has the arm for shortstop? Maybe Luis Garcia would take shortstop. So what if you, if he has the arm for shortstop, maybe Luis Garcia plays third and Alcides Escobar makes the team? Or just let Garcia play the position that you expect him to play for longest. Let him play short and move Escobar over.

And put Escobar over at third, yeah. Yikes. That's still, it's a team with a lot of holes for, I don't know, it's a team with a lot of holes, I guess. I know, it's a team with a lot of holes, I guess. I don't know, for what? For expectations?

I don't know. You have one of the three best players in baseball on your squad, and now that one person got hurt, you're wondering, how are we even going to cover that? And that person wasn't even that good to begin with. That's the silver lining. At least it wasn't one of your core five, core six players at the top of the lineup

that you don't have a lot of great replacements for either. At least it was someone that you had relatively low expectations for. Hopefully for Keboom's sake, though, he can hit the early part of that timetable and get back at some point, maybe in late April, but probably more likely early May. You mentioned Zach Wheeler earlier. He threw a 35-pitch bullpen session on Sunday. I think you're right to not be overly panicked by players talking to the media for the first time in the last 10 days and kind of catching people up on what they did for the previous three and a half months or what happened to them.

We heard that Zach Wheeler had sort of soreness in January. And then we heard in February that he was back on track, then we would have dealt with it. You know what I mean? The relative effect on where people take him would be smaller in that scenario than it is right now where we're just like, shoulder, right now, shoulder. It's like, no, look at what he's doing. 35 pitches on Sunday gives him enough time to be 80-ish pitches

by opening day, I think, on a normal schedule. That should be fine. The next time that I would panic is if he gets into a spring training game and someone reports bad VLOs. Yeah, I think you keep the eyes on him, for sure. You keep an eye out for every little detail about how he

looks and how crisp the stuff is throughout spring training but i don't think it's full-on panic avoid zach wheeler i think you compare them to flarity previously i think total different scenario like you said that's one where we had a prp injection we already know he's gonna miss opening day yeah he's shut down he's shut down indefinitely i i don't know at some point i would why not? But he's just basically off my board for the first 10 rounds of a draft right now until we have more information, just because it could be a pretty long road back for him as well. He had a PRP injection, so we'll see if

that actually helps speed up that timetable. It's not just him, by the way. Alex Reyes shut down from throwing for four weeks. He's also dealing with a shoulder injury. We did get some more updates on Lucas Sims. Lucas Sims is behind the Reds' other pitchers and is likely out for opening day. So yeah, Art Warren's season is upon us. And a little prediction for the last couple dominoes here. I would say Minaya to the Cardinals, Montas to the

Twins Kimbrel to what do you think? Kimbrel's staying right where he is for a little while. Yeah, you think he's gonna open? Oh god. He's gonna stay right there. Oh god

where would he go otherwise? He could go to like the Padres. They could surprise. They would he go otherwise? He could go to the Padres. They could surprise. They've traded for Kimber before. Once you've done that, you don't do it a second time. The Royals, because the Royals surprise, they've been doing some weird stuff. They, to me,

seem more likely to add another starter than to spend resources adding one reliever. But I've been wildly wrong about me seem more likely to add another starter than to spend resources adding one reliever. But I've been wildly wrong about transaction stuff like this before. I can still see the Giants doing some sort of vulture thing, you know, where like

they're like, yeah, we'll take Kimbrel off your hands. You know, you don't have to spend, you don't have to pay any of the money. We'll give you this guy an A ball. you know you don't have to spend you don't have to pay any of the money we'll give you this guy an a-ball yeah that could definitely happen do you want to bone that's about what they would get back and actually that might actually be an interesting fit could that be an interesting fit help them with their second base situation a little bit yeah Yeah, because they've got Larry Garcia already.

But maybe Dubon has options so it gives them depth there. They can move up and down. Isn't it fun to scramble to see if a player has options or not? Isn't that one of your favorite things to do in March? He does not have options. No, you know what?

Dubon's got to go play for the A's. Oh, like a late spring training cut? Yep. Yeah, it could totally be something like that. That's where he's going. Or to the White Sox for Kimbrell, just as a money-saving device. Yeah, maybe.

If they lose a versatile player, it would make a lot of sense too. Noah Syndergaard throwing without restrictions this spring, does that change anything for you as far as your estimation? I have shares, dude. You're in. Whatever the approved nomenclature is,

I have exposure. Although that sounds weird too. I have exposure to Noah Syndergaard. No, I did not expose myself to Noah Syndergaard. No, you've drafted Noah Syndergaard on multiple teams. There you go. It's a little more wordy, but I'm pretty sure it's just a very simple way

to explain what you're doing without turning players into things. I've drafted him a bunch because he ends up being my first bench starter, and I'm like, that's awesome. I love that. I love getting Noah Syndergaard as my first bench starter because then I'm not like, my season doesn't live or die with him.

Yeah, he has not cracked the top 150 looking at the weekend NFBC drafts that were in the books at the time of this recording. So we could see him creep up a little bit. A healthy spring from Thor would get people excited again because we know when he's healthy, he's generally very good. Chris Paddock mentioned that he started against the Brewers. I believe that was today and that start should be over. I wonder what that start looked like. These are the types of things that I wish I had

if I ever had help, like extra, extra help to just like, hey Siri, put Chris Paddock's spring tweets into the rundown for me. If Siri could do that, that would help me so much because I remembered that Paddock was pitching today

and I had it all lined up and I forgot to circle back around because he was so far down on the outline. And do we have anything from Paddock yet? No. I see he gave up.

Oh, Keston Hura homered off of Paddock. Oh, in that case, bump Hura up Sell, sell, sell. five rounds and stay away from Paddock. I don't know if that's actually fair to anyone involved in the situation.

I just thought it was a good thing that Paddock was actually even pitching today because he was a mystery box player as far as where he was going to be at when spring training started and that he's pitching the first time through. That at least gives him a chance. Yes, good health news. Yeah, good health news. Yeah, at least in the relative sense. But yeah, you're right.

Yep, nothing else other than that right now from the verified sources. We did it. We did it. Made it through the rundown. Oh, yeah, and Yanni Chirinos moved to the 60-day IL. That makes me a little sad, but he had a setback late in September, I think, where he's trying to come back from his second TJ or something, and then he fractured his elbow throwing the ball,

which I just don't want to know more about. It sounds like it hurts a lot. Yeah. Disappointing, for sure, if you are trying to find a pathway. I'd watch the name. If you hear Yanni Chirinos is healthy and he's coming up maybe into the rotation, he had good stuff when he was pitching.

You and I both know that we will be adding Yanni Chirinos to rosters sometime probably in July. We know how this goes. Step three, profit. I just saw that episode. I't know it was south park where that joke started with the underwear gnomes no it's so very randomly step three profit it's yeah so there were underwear gnomes taking all the underwear in south park because why wouldn't there be so of course the kids go to the cave where the gnomes are and the kids are trying

to find out like well what what are you going to do with all of our of our underpants and the gnomes explain it step one collect the underpants step two question mark step three profit that's like season season two of south park is late 90, so I think that could be the original place of that joke. But hopefully we've done our job entertaining you in some way on this episode and catching you up with all the things that have happened. Eno's been running the longest entry in the fantasy baseball space since The Athletic became a thing with the transaction tracker. There's a lot to read in there too. If you want to catch up on moves that way, a lot of words,

tons of words. If you want to catch up with us in the future and ask a question, you can do that at rates and barrels at the athletic.com or ask a question in the comment section under this video on YouTube. Be sure to hit the like button. If you're watching us over there on Twitter, he's at, you know,

Sarah's I am at Derek van Riper. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.