Rates & Barrels - Turning Over Stones in the NL Central

Episode Date: May 21, 2020

Rundown7:04 Why is Jon Koncak Our Center?11:25 Anything Left for Jon Lester or Jose Quintana?17:03 Buying a Craig Kimbrel Rebound?20:54 Warming Up to Steven Souza Jr.27:17 Setting Expectations for Jesse Winker34:36 The Sim Does Not Like Nick Senzel38:49 Brewers Old, High-Floor Depth Players45:32 Luis Urías Should Be Healthy Again52:47 Will the Pirates Let Cole Tucker Play Regularly?57:44 Prospects on the Cusp in Pittsburgh60:45 Dylan Carlson Time, but Lane Thomas Too?Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRipere-mail: [e-mail] Get 40% off a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How has working from home been going for you? Remarkably Remote from GoToMeeting will help you succeed in today's new normal. In just three minutes or less, we'll share simple but helpful tips to keep you on track. From managing your motivation, workload, and relationships, to hosting and attending virtual events that keep you connected with your clients and colleagues. So check out Remarkably Remote on your favorite podcasting platform or head to gotomeeting.com slash tips. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 97. It's May 21st.

Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we're going to turn over some stones. And we're not allowed to spit or lick our fingers while doing it. We're going to adhere to the proposed safety guidelines that Major League Baseball put out last weekend. I think maybe licking fingers with Shadow Man on this pod anyway, Eno. So not too worried about that being a major issue. We are allowed to grab our cups like Russ Ortiz, though. Yeah, there's no rule against that.

It would fall under the discouraged category, but not outright banned. A lot of things were discouraged in that set of ideas and protocols, I guess we'll call them. But it's memorabilia week at The Athletic as well, so I just wanted to point out there are some really fun pieces that have been going up on the site. I think one of my favorite ideas of the year is the $50 eBay challenge that Levi Weaver wrote about,

which I'm pretty sure was the brain child of our friend and boss Nando DeFino. You can basically do this with any number of friends, and not counting shipping, you spend up to $50 on select random items on eBay and then you

find a group of judges to rate the haul that each person put together which seems like both a great potential distraction that you can put a lot of time into and a way to build up your collection a little bit along the way. Put some cool stuff on the walls or cool stuff on your desk in that process.

Yeah, yeah. I want to stay away from any more obsessions because my wife is going to bankrupt us in Etsy flowers, flowers she's bought off of Etsy. And I just don't want to go to... I started a little bit of an eBay thing. I was going to go buy basically the entire works of Miyazaki, who directed Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle,

I think it was called, uh my neighbor tortoro anyway great great anime really cool stuff it's hard to find but i found it on amazon prime and so i put the computer down and i backed away probably for the best given the etsy flowers that are taking over your household. Are those fake flowers? No, no, no. Just rare, weird flowers. I did also figure out what happened with the card that we're talking about that I pulled out of the pack. I think the funny thing is you and I each were recalling a completely different card. Like I was, instead of the Ryan Sandberg,

so on the last episode, we talked about Ryan Sandberg's rookie card and we thought there was one from one of the manufacturers that was Sandberg with someone else and there isn't. The card I was thinking of was the Alan Trammell Paul Molitor rookie card,

which was a few years earlier and also had two other players, UL Washington and I want to say Mickey Clutter, someone I'd never even heard of before. But that was the card that my friend had that I thought also had Sandberg on it, but that was obviously not Sandberg's rookie card. Yeah, so now I'm just questioning my own brain and my own recollections because I'm pretty sure I pulled Ryan Sandberg out of a pack which means that I might have picked my other card the multi-rookie that I was thinking of which was the Cal Ripken rookie card that does

not have as great a second or third person on it uh it is also the bob bonner rookie card and the jeff schneider rookie card so um ripken uh suffices to say was the best of the group um and i kind of feel like i pulled that one out of a pack too which seems improbable for a plucky 12 year old to pull both a ryan Sandberg and a Cal Ripken rookie card out of packs seven to ten years later than they came out. That does seem somewhat unlikely. So maybe just one of them I pulled out of the pack? Anyway, they're both pretty sweet cards.

And then looking through, I found cards I like even more because I found my Ozzie Smith rookie, my Dave Winfield rookie, and my Greg Maddox Donruss rookie. And the Greg Maddox Donruss rookie is so awesome because he has a porn stash in it. He does. That stash doesn't look good on most people, but it also doesn't look good on Greg Maddox he looks nothing like what I think of as Greg Maddox he does not look anything like Greg Maddox you could put a totally different name on this one but Ozzy and Dave Winfield just look cool as

crap dude, I mean they've just got these sideburns one. But Ozzy and Dave Winfield just look cool as crap, dude. I mean, they've just got these sideburns, these thousand yard stairs, and they're wearing... Ozzy's wearing the brown and yellow old school San Diego

outfit, and so is Dave Winfield. Those sideburns thatzzy's got on his rookie card are awesome do they play together were they teammates uh 78 was winfield still on the padres in 78 yeah that's a whole lot of cool for one team dude yeah absolutely and then i found my dominique wilkins rookie card and dude my friend is uh is getting into it and is trying to buy all of the fleer um 87 88 or 86 87 uh set the jordan and oh must be. I was like, oh, you know, I have a bunch of Fleer. I looked. Fleer basketball. I looked and they were all

like 90s, early 90s. Then I looked through my best cards and found this Dominique Wilkins rookie. I was like, dude, I can't give it to you. I hated Michael Jordan growing up. dominique wilkins was the man dominique wilkins and patrick ewing were my dudes and it was kind of painful uh to be a basketball fan and love dominique wilkins and patrick ewing but that's that was my lot in life patrick ewing was jamaican so i've. So I had no choice. And Dominique Wilkins was so exciting to watch. And I couldn't believe we'd lose all these games.

He'd do these games where it would just be him against Larry Bird or him against Michael Jordan. And it would seem like he was matching them. And I would be like, why is John Konkak our center? If only John Konkak was not our center, we would be winning these games. So I hated John Konkak. Always have a scapegoat, I think,

is the moral of that story. But I also grew up in a household that rooted against Jordan because my family, growing up in West Michigan, were all Detroit Pistons fans. And Jordan's peak, kind of before the Jordan Bulls took over the league they had to take the mantle away from the bad boy Pistons teams which Thomas Dumars and Rodman was on those teams as well and it you know Vinnie Johnson Mark Aguirre those were those were some series. That was actually one of my favorite 30 for 30s was the

Bad Boys Pistons one. Rick Mahorn was part of that as well. And so when we moved to Illinois for a year, I was in middle school. That was the year the Jordan Bulls went 72 and 10, which was just a totally obnoxious time to be surrounded by Bulls fans if you were a Pistons fan. In hindsight, of course, I now appreciate just how amazing that team was. But I've never really seen anything like that. I've only lived in the upper Midwest. But the people that lived on my block in the Chicago suburbs, they would have big parties, big gatherings for regular season Bulls games. Just like a dozen plus people coming over to watch a game.

That's amazing. I don't know if that happens frequently anywhere. Do Warriors fans get together and do that? Social media has a little bit of something to do with that, right? Now we don't have to go to each other's houses to tag someone and be like, oh, snap. Yeah, right. Is that all that was happening in situations when people were watching games together? Just a bunch of, oh, snap.

People were just tweeting with their mouths back then? Tweeting with their mouths. Wow. Oh, God. It's hilarious, too, because we can't hang out with each other. Yeah. tweeting with their mouths wow oh god it's hilarious too because we can't hang out with each other it makes it all the more weird well you can when are you going to go to the bar

and swap spit you wouldn't do that I'm going to play things safe that's kind of how I live my life which you know for better or for worse that's how i've always sort of gone how often were you going to the bar before yeah i don't spend a lot of time there anyway but uh although breweries you would go to breweries and have some beers yeah yeah absolutely and a lot of times you go outside for those and it's a reasonably safe environment comparatively speaking if you can get out to a

patio and there will be a time for that i'm not quite there yet some people are but i'm definitely not quite there just yet but it's nice it's nice that we've talked about just being able to get out more just to walk you know hang out with the dog you doing stuff with your kids like it's helped lift the spirits the last couple of weeks. But speaking of Chicago, mentioning the Jordan Bulls, and my family's disdain for the Bulls the time I lived there, let's start turning over every stone. We're going to focus on NL Central teams today

because no series of anything ever starts in the middle. It always starts with the AL East. It's just the way things work. So we'll start with the Cubs. And we're mostly going to talk about players or situations that in previous episodes leading up to when we thought opening day was going to be, we kind of just look past these situations for one reason or another. And of course, with expanded rosters, we'll start poking around a bit, trying to figure out if there's anybody else we should be aware of on these rosters and with the cubs one of the things that i have been using a sort of a baseline assumption throughout draft season is that both john lester and jose quintana are done being more

than just like two start guys and occasional home streamers. And I'm wondering, is there any reason why I should not be making that assumption about either one of Leicester or Quintana? I'm going to put Leicester in a different basket first because I totally agree on that one. He's 36. ask it first because I totally agree on that one. He's 36.

Two out of the last three seasons have been closer to not useful. His projections run from basically barely useful to the bat giving him a 505 ERA. His fastball velocity is down to 90. And he's kind of run out of tricks because he's tried using the changeup more. And he's tried using the curveball more. And he's tried using the cutter more. And basically, his fastball percentage was down to 38% last year, which is a full 14% off of his, 14 percentage points off of his, his full, his, his career total. So he's,

I mean, he's doing the old pitcher thing as much as he can. Um, and he's just holding on for dear life as I see it. Um, he can be some use to the Cubs, uh, where they win some games, um, you know, seven to five, uh, that he starts, but I, uh but I don't think that he's going to be of great use to anybody, and the numbers don't really kind of show anything that would tell me any different. Quintana, you know, he's a little bit younger, you know, he's, what he 31 uh to to lester's 36 uh you know his fastball velocity is held steady with the cubs uh last two years uh he hasn't uh he's still throwing the fastball 61 percent of the time so like he he has like another well to go to where maybe he throws the curveball 30 percent of the time and the curveball 30% of the time

and the changeup 15% of the time. And he started throwing a different breaking ball last year that could be meaningful. And his changeup has changed movement, in fact. So I don't know. I think that there's something to be like here and let me just run through his stuff plus and see if i can find anything to hold on to the curveball is at 80 change up is it 78 oh no yikes the fastball's at 87. Oh, no.

Man, it's just, to me, that's pretty hopeless. The sinker's at 80. Oh, no. Everything's at 80, 85 out of 100. You know, 100's average. That's not good, dude. I don't know. If I had to pick one of the two at the end of a draft, I would pick King Tom.

I think you could justify it, though, with what you're saying. He's making some changes. The movement on his changeup has been a little bit different. So there's at least some reason to believe that could be a turnaround despite the very low stuff scores. Yeah. I mean, because Lester has a lot of the same issues. Let me just find some Lester ones. Lester, 74 on the curveball, 97 on the change, so he's still got the change, 89 on the cutter, 76 on the fastball,

103 on the sinker. But the sinker stuff scores, I think, are inflated. So I would basically say they're both below average on stuff across the board. Lester has slightly better command, but Quintana has a great command, and Quintana has more tricks left in the box. So that's what I would say. And they're both almost outside the top 400. Quintana's barely in.

Lester's got an ADP of almost 500, so he's going undrafted in some situations. They're streamers. They're guys that if you— They'd always be more useful in the American League where it's just harder to find pitchers, and you would just kind of pick them for bulk, you know? Yeah, and I think with the likelihood of 10-team divisions, the NL Central gets a little softer at the bottom because you add in a couple of teams, the Tigers and the Royals, that you don't have to necessarily fear offensively,

whereas in the five-team division, in the NL Central, you don't have to necessarily fear offensively whereas in the five team division in the NL Central, you really only have the Pirates to pick on. You get a couple more spots that you can potentially use. Do you remember how they did in your labor draft? I don't offhand. I would

wager that they were $5 to $7 at the high end. I would love to have them in reserve. That would be so amazing if one of them slipped to reserve and you could just like, oop, not going to start them this week. But yeah, at $5 to $7, you've got to run them out there every time. The National League, the ERA is lower.

I don't know. But the bulk is there for both of them. That's the one nice thing uh you just at some point the book kind of works against you yeah especially in leagues where you can't take the guy out of the lineup without dropping him or unless he gets hurt which is the case in labor uh the other kind of assumption i've been making is that i don't know anything about craigbrell, and I'm trying to figure out, is there anything in spring training velocity,

in underlying numbers from 2019, that should actually give us hope that Craig Kimbrell can bounce back from just a disastrous season a year ago? You know, he was at 96 last year. He was at 96 when he was coming up. Maybe the league changed so much that 96 is not what it was anymore. But the fact that he had the strikeout rate that he had

and that his swing strike rate was still 15%, I actually feel okay about Kimbrough. You know, I think, you know, I think we're going to look at a lot of people. I think Kimbrough actually is this. We're going to look at a lot of people next year, a lot of relievers that have, you know, 30 innings of a similar line where they have a decent strikeout rate,

they have a, you know, maybe some problems with the walk rate or whatever, and then some outlandish home run per nine rate and a five ERA. And there's going to be a lot of relievers like this that we're all going to be like, wow, what happened to X last year?

And the answer is going to be 20 innings. Yeah. And that, I mean, that was the answer for Kimbrel in 2019 also. So if he were to, that's what I'm saying is like, I think that he's a kind of a harbinger of the doom that's coming for so many

relievers. And, uh, I actually think that, yes, his velocity was down uh a full tick but you tell me that guy with a 96 mile an hour fastball and an 86 mile an hour uh curveball like 86 mile an hour curveball there's like three people who can do that yeah so it's still one of

the best curveballs in the league and i think that he just basically with that five walk rate, I'd basically say he fell behind, went to the fastball too often, uh, and, and gave up homers. But in a, in a, you know, in a better season, uh, he finds a way to throw the curve ball for some more strikes. And he's obviously not got great command. He's had seasons in the past where he had five walk rates in the major leagues. So, um, he's, I think, a little bit riskier than we expected going backwards, and he still carries some of that risk. But I would draft him. And I would draft him sort of as like if I punted relievers as my number one,

as a cheap number one. I see him as like the back end of the sure things. And before the ones where you're like kind of shrug emoticon. So maybe, yeah, if you have a cutoff of maybe 10 or 12 relievers, who you really trust, Kimbrel's in that group. Wherever that line is, he's in that group instead of out of that group. At the very end. Yeah, at the very end of that group.

But not in – I don't think he's in the shrug group. No, because he's the closer. He still throws 96. His projections are decent. His strikeout rate last year was good. It wasn't that far off of his other strikeout rates. So I'm into him. Interesting, too, that he's kind of fallen into a cluster ADP-wise

with Brandon Workman, Jose LeClerc. That's a shrug. That's a shrug. LeClerc, LeClerc, Kimbrel, that's okay. I'm okay around there. But Workman to me is a shrug of Motocom. Yeah, they're real close together. Hansel Robles is in that group too.

Alex Colomay is going ahead of all of those guys in the handful of majors. And I would take Alex Colomay behind all of those. Same. I can't really be convinced that other than maybe having a little more job security than someone like Workman, that's the only thing that works in Calame's favor against any of those guys, really. Yeah, Pertu in strikeouts and low strikeout closers lose their jobs. Yeah, I'm definitely not really interested in him.

Last Cubs thought, this is sort of pertaining to the increased likelihood of the universal DH, of course. I don't think, is it a certainty at this point? It seems like we're just kind of working under the idea that it is, but there's a guy that I really didn't think a lot about at the time when they signed him who upon further review is

pretty interesting, and it's Steven Souza. I mean, I think he's got flaws, obviously obviously in his profile too but the things we saw from him in tampa bay i think in 2017 that's sticking with me a little bit like that that happened like there was a pretty nice power speed combo there he had 30 homers he was 16 for 20 as a base stealer with a.351 OPP. He had barrel rates in the first three years of the StatCast era of 10% or better. And I think one of those years was, well, a couple of those years were marred by some injuries.

But, I mean, I know he's coming off of a completely lost 2019, so there's always the risk with a major injury that you're just not the same player when you come back. But he's basically free, if universal dh is happening he to me looked like the guy on the cubs roster who had the best chance of having a larger role than expected whereas without that universal dh it was hard to see him getting an opportunity against same-handed pitching doubt he'd play center at this point in his career as 31 right but you but you bump Schwarber into DH, and suddenly you're playing Souza in left field a lot because he's a better hitter than Elmora. Yeah, before this, he was probably a platoon mate for Hayward.

Try to limit Hayward's at-bats against lefties. My last thought for the Cubs is that they actually may benefit from the externalities related to playing a season this year. That they are built to take advantage of the extra roster spots and that they can really benefit from this. and that they can really benefit from this because you have guys like Nico Horner, David Bode, Steven Souza, Jason Kipnis, Alec Mills,

even maybe... I was thinking you were going to throw Jarrell Cotton in that mix too, maybe just as a deep receiver. Yeah, well, the reliever list, projecting relievers in a 30-inning season is just good luck. But I would say that those ones I mentioned, Bodie, Kipnis, Horner, Souza, Happ, those guys would have they might have made the roster in a 40-man situation but now they definitely like the roster and they might

have played a little bit you know in a regular situation it might have been good uh sort of fringe candidates to to kind of throw a dart at now they're all gonna play um i think that everybody's floor you know everyone's ceiling goes down a little bit, but everybody's floor goes up. And on this team, Hap getting more playing time is exciting to me. Horner getting more playing time is exciting to me. Bodie getting more playing time is exciting to me. And they may take away from Sousa playing full time, you know, in a slot and Shorber just being the DH because they may want to, you know, DH Bodie for whatever reason, or play both Horner and Kipnis one day, or, you know what I mean? Or, you know, maybe Hap doesn't take over center field and Hap becomes a rover that plays whenever he can. But I always, I liked Hap a ton going in.

I tried to get some shares. I told you guys on this show how much I liked Hap. I still like Hap, and I like him a little bit more now because I think he's assured a little bit more of playing some. I think they're going to see a few guys sneak into the mix like Brock Stewart, Albert Alzalea, who would have been up and down. I was going to

mention Alzalea along with Mills. I think Mills is ahead of Alzalea just because Mills is more polished. It looked like he was going to make the roster mills has some uh you know things going for him including good command um and not necessarily a great fastball but a good mix of pitches so i actually like mills as a dfs guy in certain situations, uh, maybe, uh, real deep leagues, uh, as a plug and play, uh,

you know, he's, he's a guy stands out to me. I was a lay, uh, a little bit more boomer bust, uh, may end up in the bullpen,

a lot of velocity, uh, some question marks about, you know, how the, how the stuff plays together. Yeah, absolutely.

Uh, uh, Heron up Perez probably makes this roster that may not have happened before. Robel Garcia probably hangs around a little bit too. So not a lot of prospect on the side, but just nice fillers who can handle multiple spots. Well, some with Horner and some with Happ. It's not really prospect-y at this point,

but like, you know, some young player juice. And the line that connects all these finds for the Cubs on the hitting side is not that hard to follow. You mentioned it with Souza. I've mentioned it with Hap. You know it with Schwarber. They love barrel rate.

It didn't have to necessarily be exactly the same definition as StatCast, but it's very close because Robel Garcia hits the snot out of the ball. David Bode, I asked some guy in the Cubs organization once, I said, where'd you guys find David Bode? And he literally said to me, exit velocity. Yeah, that was the answer when I picked him up on some teams last year. Why'd you pick up David Bode? He hits the ball hard.

Good things can happen. Yeah, hits the ball hard. It's a good thing. It's like with pitching. It's like, well, it throws 99. I'm interested. Yeah, hits the ball hard is a good thing. It's like with pitching. It's like, well, it throws 99. I'm interested. Yeah, sign me up. I know there's other problems, but that's a good positive to have from the jump.

And it's funny because as analysts, we get so deep into our work sometimes that we're like, oh, well, average EV is not really a great measure and average launch angle is noisy and doesn't really tell the whole picture. Yeah, yeah, sure. But does he hit the ball hard? Yeah. Right.

It's funny how that works. That's why I like Max's EV. It's like, oh, man. It's like Max's pitching velocity. Like, oh, man, the guy can hit the ball 120. Put him on my team. Let's shift the focus to the Reds. And you're running the Reds for the athletic

alternative universe league out of the park, which I'll get to a question pertaining to that in just a minute. But there's kind of a forgotten player in Cincinnati who we were excited about from a fantasy perspective, especially a year ago, Jesse Winker. And he did some things that were pretty interesting last season. He's not a big barrel rate guy, but he does hit the ball pretty hard.

He's always had a good hit tool. Injuries have been a problem for him in the upper levels of the minors. They were a problem for him last year. But 16 homers and 384 plate appearances, starting to unlock a little bit more. Things got more crowded with Shogo Akiyama signing there, the development of Aristides Aquino crowds things, the addition of Mike Bustakis throwing Senzel further into the outfield mix.

All of those things are sort of combining to make Jesse Winker a forgotten player. With health, what do you see from him in 2020? I love him. I think the only thing that is concerning about him has been, and it's maybe even more concerning now in this kind of a season, is his work against the lefties. He had a minus 16 Wc plus in his first attempt uh but for his career he's 50 percent worse than league average against lefties hitting 176 295 248 and uh even more

concerning he's just losing playing time like they're not even they're not even trying um you know he had 30 uh he had 50 plate appearances last year, 71 plate appearances in 2018 against lefties. They're just hiding him against lefties. And so that means I think he'll probably be in this situation in a strict platoon with Senzel. Not with Senzel. Well, maybe Senzel or Irvin um making the dh uh akino uh yeah i think akino uh and senzel in a semi-platoon with akiyama in center and kind of a floating outfielder i think you could also justify taking nick castellanos's defense out of the equation and then just doing the platoon thing

in right field with some combination of those guys too. Either way, it's about plate appearances, and I think Winker is definitely a guy that I couldn't really see playing enough to make much of an impact in mixed leagues without the possibility of the DH or without a major injury clearing the path for him to do that.

On the pitching side, I keep coming back to Tyler Molle as a pitcher I like better than most. With everybody's top plate appearances down, though, I think he is a mixed league player. I think it's going to be really rough being in weekly leagues this year. Oh, for all the reasons we've been talking about where bigger rosters mean more platoons, more platoons.

Knock down that playing time ceiling a lot for the middle part of the pool. Winker, I think, could be a 12-teamer. I think he's going to hit 280 with 30 home run time power. Yeah, daily shallow mixed league I could see, but weekly

mixed league I think gets really tricky with him. With everybody. He's a part of the cluster. But I keep coming back to Tyler Molle on the pitching side as a Reds pitcher who I want to have on as many teams as possible. I think maybe it's the lack of faith in Wade Miley. possible. I think maybe it's the lack of faith in Wade Miley. It's just, you know, look, any one pitcher getting hurt opens the door for Molly to be a fixture in their starting five. I know you've seen things in him for a few years that have been interesting and have kind of made him pop in different filters and leaderboards. Is it time to lower the expectations, or should we still be optimistic that with the opportunity,

especially in this organization, Tyler Molle could still reach some of those levels that we're hoping for? Mostly his stuff numbers across the board are kind of in the 90 to 95, but his changeup, which he changed last year to think, a splitter, shows up as a 110 pitch, and I wonder if it's possible that I talked to an evaluator that thought that he didn't really have an out pitch. Maybe they hadn't seen enough of the change yet, or maybe there's a numbers versus scouting thing there, but if he does have an out pitch, he has great command of a large arsenal of average type pitches. And he has been changing that arsenal. So there is a chance he pops and that

maybe this change up is part of it. Also, he just fits really well this year with what's going to happen with pitching staffs. He's going to be the guy who comes in in the fourth and fifth innings to pitch two or three innings. He's going to vulture a lot of wins. Him and Lucas Sims are going to be the glue that keeps this staff together at the beginning. And if they're just in there semi-stretched out at the beginning, that makes them more likely to take over for somebody that either falls off due to performance issues or has an injury. So they'll remain stretched out, but they'll give you use when they're not officially starting pitchers and there's a chance that one of them becomes a starting pitcher. And I will tell you, there is performance risk in this pitching staff because in my sim the only one with an era under five is

trevor bauer well sunny gray sunny gray and trevor bauer have like four o's and everybody else is over five that's maddening because i just i don't think that's how it's going to play out even though anything of course is possible it's a bit of a test for the whole Derek Johnson is God, right? The Sim doesn't have a Derek Johnson input, right? This is true. So we'll have to see. You could look at this rotation, especially at the right year. If you looked at it after Sonny Gray's bad year,

you might look at this rotation and be like um no yeah a lot has changed for them over the past year in terms of how we view the individual parts of that rotation but also how they deal with pitching as a whole i mean it's one of the bigger transformations in the league really i do think that they the the reds will be uh especially with the extra roster spots they'll be brewers-esque in pushing um their starting pitchers to throw as hard as possible and gets many strikeouts in sort of three four innings stretches um because they've got the extra roster slots and they're gonna they're gonna they've got a decent depth in the bullpen i would say with sims and molly being the long man, DeLeon being there,

but also just the sort of back end of the regular relief squad is Lorenzen, Stevenson, Cody Reed. That's a decent group to have that's not basically your closer or setup man. Yeah, I like that depth quite a bit. Real quick, in running the Reds for the Sim this season, have any players in that organization sort of just caught your eye? Like maybe it was someone that you thought

you had a good feel for, but you've looked more closely at them since taking over that you found something kind of interesting about them? The Sim does not like Nick Senzel. And I've liked Nick Senzel. I don't know that it's changed my opinion, but it is maybe instructive to look and see that Senzel's projections are for a below-average bat.

The Sim doesn't care as much about stolen bases as we do in fantasy, but if he's got a below-average bat, how much do they push, especially with a loaded roster like this? I think I just basically said he'd be like a floating outfielder. If he is a floating outfielder, does he get to 480 plate appearances

in order to get to that 15-15 homer stolen base thing? And if he's a floating outfielder because he has a below average bat, maybe he's not as good a player as we have him out to be you know he's he's really interesting though because he he fits a little bit into the framework of what we were talking about a few episodes ago with strikeout rates and just looking at minor league performance and then what players are when they arrive and then what direction they can go from there right like if he improves that to like a 20% strikeout rate, like the kind of stuff he was doing in the minors,

and improves the walk rate, and all of a sudden there's more like a 10% walk rate, 20% strikeout rate guy. Now he's hitting 280 with like a 345 OBP. Now he's an above average bat. He's an above average bat that plays all over in a time when everybody needs that kind of player. And all of a sudden you're starting to see him play a second and center and but they've also publicly as a team

said he's not going to play the infield so i think he's an interesting player i think um i'm not sure that i can recommend that you need to pick him up but uh maybe if you're rebuilding, he could be some low-hanging fruit that you could acquire before this season now that he looks crowded out on the depth chart. Yeah, I think long-term leagues especially. He's one of those guys where he's not on the prospect list anymore, kind of in that sweet spot where he hasn't reached his, what I think is his big league floor,

and clearly there's still some ceiling there as well you look back at the wrc plus from the upper minors like he was dominant at those stops the fact that he runs it all is exciting i mean because running like the thing about stolen bases is in in dynasty leagues you want to like if you like, I made a living out of, like, sort of fading prospects and buying older guys. But at some point, you need to go get younger guys for the steals. Like, you know, I did trade for Lorenzo Cain, but that's a pretty risky move. And that's not going to get you enough steals. You need to actually have some young players to get steals.

Yeah, that's a pretty big part of Kane's core skills, though. And I think part of the reason some of the sprint speed numbers were down last year is because he played hobbled for most of the season, which makes winning a gold glove in center field all the more impressive. The Black Tux believes every groom deserves a better experience when it comes to finding formal wear, a suit, or a tuxedo for their big day. Did you know the Black Tux was actually started by two guys who had one of the worst tuxedo fittings you could imagine? It turns out they aren't alone in this frustration. Just listen to these one-star reviews from competitor tux shops that shall not be named.

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I think they're in a really odd position as a team with what could be the league's worst farm system because related to what we were talking about at the end of the episode on Tuesday, some teams have really high ceiling prospects who are closing in the big leagues. I mean, the Mariners have a couple with Julio Rodriguez and Jared Kelnick, and the Rays obviously have Wander Franco. The Brewers don't have any prospects like that.

They have some pitchers who are kind of under the radar, and even a guy they drafted last summer, Ethan Small, who I guess they could try to be really aggressive with if they thought there was something there they could use depth-wise. But mostly it's veteran like NRI types that could get a boost with the expanded rosters. Guys like Logan Morrison, who I think had no chance of making the roster at 26, and now he hangs around potentially as someone who kind of blends in occasionally as a first base or dh option uh you know a guy like ryan healy who was going to be a triple a to start the season he's probably

up on the bench as a depth guy on both infield corners uh did you have anybody that that you thought was kind of interesting though buried somewhere on this depth chart who might actually have a little more appeal than once thought. Yeah, I think it'll be kind of the slugger types. I think like Braun, you know, benefits from having the DH, you know, as a soft landing spot for him. That means more time for smoke and, you know, makes Morrison and Healy more likely to make this team. time for smoke and you know makes it morrison and healy more likely to make this team they're gonna find ways to you know hide healy uh in the outfield uh to get some games uh from him out there probably and there might be some lineups where you see smoke braun and healy in the same

lineup um which will just be weird but you know that'll that'll be how they make things work um they they went the cheap route at third with so guard so i wonder if uh between so guard jerko and holt they find um kind of like a regular third baseman not not in not in one in the form of one player but like that there becomes sort of like a 50 50 split split there or a 60-40 split there at some point but it's an interesting team that kind of finds ways to you know it reminds me of the A's you know they find ways to be competitive every year by picking up cheap you know uh Josh Lindblom types you know you know Brett Anderson Bretterson brett anderson's on this team isn't it yeah brett anderson on the team it's just like the a's you you you like buy whatever

cheap uh you know starters you can afford for like five million a year um and uh you hope that the health pops for your team um and uh you don't regularly like the the a's have had some recent success with some prospects and so have the brewers and graduating some guys but i don't regularly, like the A's have had some recent success with some prospects, and so have the Brewers in graduating some guys, but I don't think the Brewers, I mean, the Brewers' farm system is one of the worst, and the A's is often considered one of the worst. So, you know, I think there's some similarities in how these teams are run. I think that maybe Bobby Wall, Lucas Erceg, and Alec Bettinger

are three names that will make the 50-man squad. That could be interesting, but none of them is probably going to get into the type of roles that you would want for fantasy. You know what I mean? like wall is likely uh to pitch some and could ascend to maybe the third uh best reliever on the squad maybe he ends up set up um you know in terms of stuff uh there's black neat kniebel and and wall uh are my favorite in terms of stuff in that in that uh bullpen so uh they could all jump you know behind hater of stuff in that, in that, uh, bullpen. So, uh, they could all jump behind hater. Of course, I'm not saying that.

Duh. Uh, so while I think wall could kind of ascend to maybe seventh inning status, or say, I think is, um, only useful in that. I think they'll want to have a third baseman on the 50 man roster,

given how bad the third base situation is. And maybe they see something in you know his daily preparation or his work uh in whatever situation they've got going the complex the bp whatever it is maybe he starts making hit tracks light up um you know there's an there's a there's a world in which he actually ascends and becomes the starting third baseman i mean one of the many universes out there one of the multiverse you know lucas ursak is the starting third baseman it's not it's not like you know 90 of the of the 90 of the multiverses it's more like you know five yeah five but um but i could see it happening just because the third base situation is so weak that Erceg plays the position well and has been up and down in terms of his work.

And then Benninger, I could actually see him starting. You know, he was last year, he came up in our pod as a prospect of the week because he was one of the five pitchers that had the largest year-to-year increase in strikeout rate. He was in there in that group with Jose Urquidy, Zach Gallin, and Mitch Keller, Alex Fido, and Alec Benninger. That's the top strikeout rate risers at the midseason last year. So, you know, Benninginger doesn't have a great fastball but that sounds like every other milwaukee brewer starter other than woodruff so uh i could see him jumping in there if lauer falls apart and peralta or burns don't step forward and the very least

bedinger could be one of those glue guys uh that pitches some and steals some wins yeah i think you know you look at freddie peralta and corbin burns and eric lauer and you can see one of those glue guys uh that pitches some and steals some wins yeah i think you know you look at freddie peralta and corbin burns and eric lauer and you can see one of those guys especially i don't know which one exactly one could go and reach a new level this year that we've talked about that actual problem i think before um with peralta's first inning struggles, he seems ideal as a two, three inning, mid-game guy. And he may actually end up having great numbers in low ownership in a weird way where he's got a 3-5 ERA, 11 strikeouts per nine, and ends the season with eight wins. Because he's just been used judiciously and yet only like he's got like two percent ownership to be such a strange year for so many reasons uh the other player that i keep coming back to with the time off who i think is gonna have plenty of opportunities now

is luis urias i think it was cloudy back in. He was working his way back from a wrist injury. He was about to play the day that everything stopped. That was going to be his first spring game. And he's coming back from a bone injury in his wrist. And you look back at two extra months for that to heal. I would assume he's about as close to 100% as you possibly could be. And when things pick up again, he gets a chance to compete for playing time in the infield. Whether that's part of the

third base mix or pushing Orlando Arcea out of the regular role at shortstop, that of course remains to be seen. I think he'll be the regular shortstop. And one nice thing is that people think they see Hamate Bone and it was a Hamate Bone, right? Yeah, I think it was a Hamate.

People still think that that's saps power and really the only mechanism at which it could sap power is that it's painful uh but you know you just it doesn't actually like mechanically sap power uh yes i guess pain could keep you from giving yourself the full swing but the pain's gonna be gone by now. And he doesn't have any sort of, it's not like a labrum tear or something where he has a weakness in a part that he needs to, hands are the last thing. Your whole body produces the hand speed. Your hands don't do much. They sort of just guide i mean so uh i don't think the hammy bone will sap power from him long term and uh them playing in their home stadiums as it looks like uh is going to be a real boost to him and i could see him hitting you know like 260 270 uh with the type of power that would be 20 homer power in a full season so i could see him hitting 270 you know 10 to 12 homers

yeah i like that he also has a pretty good grasp of the strike zone too i think that gives him the chance to pop up higher in the order if he's playing well you know starting from a more starting from a lower position i think he can he can move up a bit uh if you know cane were to get hurt or if he were struggling or if they wanted to go something like drop Kane maybe to the 6th or 7th spot at some point. They've got ways they could shuffle things around. I think Urias could actually be one of the few guys with the chance to jump in the batting order. Yeah, in terms of a lock on a top four batting spot, I'd say there's two guys. Yeah, and most teams probably have three locked in, and that's a good team that only has two.

So opportunity could be there. Let's shift the that's a good team that only has two. So opportunity could be there. Let's shift the focus to a bad team, the Pirates. Ooh. Yeah, ooh. I love bad teams, man. There's so much opportunity on bad teams. You just got to watch out for wins and runs in RBI, but otherwise. So here's what I've been wondering about.

Is Gregory Polanco finally completely healthy? Because before his shoulder injury, he was having that breakout that I was waiting for for a long time. If we can trust him to be completely healthy, he's a great bargain where he's going outside the top 250 overall. Yeah, I mean, he's 28 years old. yeah, I mean, he's 28 years old. Uh, I think peak is, you know, peak is a range, but peak is a range between 28 and 26 and 28. Not, uh, not, um, you know, a longer one, I don't think so. I would say that, uh, he, he has a chance to put together his best season so far. Uh, I'd like the, uh, improving fly ball rate. Um ball rate. I'd like that he's done that while keeping his strikeout rate around league average. He may not steal so much anymore, but he has that

in his bag of tricks, and I think that just speaks to his athleticism. His barrel rate in 2018 was 9.4, which is not amazing, not top 10% or anything, but it's good. It's really good. It's almost twice the league average. So, you know, hard hit rate. There's not a lot of red ink on his stat cast page, but there's a lot of near red ink. If you get that hard hit rate over 40%, I think you start getting some red ink. If you get that barrel rate over 10%, you start getting some red ink.

He doesn't hit the ball hard on average, but he hits the ball in the right angles, and he has a good sense of the play. I like him. I think there's one other player that I've never really brought him up on purpose before, but he could be kind of fun if he gets more chances to play. And with the possibility of the DH, he would be an indirect winner. It's Jose Ozuna. Dude.

Did I take your guy? No, I've been talking about him. You talk about him. I don't ever bring him up. You don't talk about him. I think you've convinced me. There's something here. He does hit the ball hard.

He doesn't strike out a lot. And I think there were some questions about where he could fit in defensively, but those questions are answered if all he has to do is go out there and hit. Yeah, yeah. And a similar situation where there's not a ton of red ink on there, and he hits the ball a little bit lower than Polanco, so I think his power output, power upside is lower. But he does have the ingredients with that lower launch angle

for a good batting average. So I don't think it's much of a stretch to see him hitting 280 with 20 homer type power next year. And there's definitely much more opportunity for him, especially with, you know, if he hits 280, then he's got a 320 OBP or something, gets closer to a league average line, and just becomes a better option at DH than like Gil Heredia, who's more of a, you know, I think of a part of the solution in center field where, you know,

they've got Gerard Dyson. So I think it would be like sort of Dyson, Heredia in center, Reynolds and Polanco in left and right, Osuna at DH. This actually is, they don't have the depth of other teams. So I don't see this, I don't see them benefiting from a larger roster so much. But I do think that they have enough interesting prospects near the top that they may want to put those guys on the 30 man, not even just the 50 man.

But a guy like Cabrian Hayes is close enough that he's definitely going to be on the 50 man, even if this team is not competitive. They want to continue his development uh and keep him close to the big leaguers and so uh if he's on the 50 man he's that much closer to maybe making the big leagues but otherwise i see this as a much more there's not as much chaos as you want from a bad team you know what i mean like where's the where's the chaos that breeds opportunity the chaos is osuna dh uh maybe something at the back end of the starting pitching i like chad cool a little bit um and then obviously whenever keela gets dealt dealt

you've got either crick or rodriguez stepping yeah that eventually the question at closer for sure but until then i think of the lower tier closers we we'll call them. I think Kell is pretty safe in that cluster. The other guy that I think is somewhat forgotten about, we were excited when he got called up last year, is Cole Tucker. And I think the WRC Plus is definitely one of the first places I'd go. He's definitely on the, he's got to be on the expanded roster. Like you can't let that guy not play. Well, he'll be on the 50 man, but there's also, do you think he'll be on the 30 man? I think he's on the expanded roster. You can't let that guy not play. He'll be on the 50 man.

I think he's on the 30 man. I think they should... Adam Frazier is a nice bench player. You want to let Cole Tucker get the playing time. He's been a little bit below league average at AA and AAA the last two seasons. But controls the strike zone. Doesn't strike out a lot.

Has the walk rate. A lot of his value comes from speed and defense, so you're not going to get the catch-all offensive metric that pops for a player like this. He just needs the opportunity. How do you not just play him up the middle with Kevin Newman? How do you not just make that your middle infield on a regular basis? Yeah, and if you – Or play him a third sum

if you don't know where to put Frazier after that. You know what I mean? If you still want to showcase Frazier for a possible trade, I think you can lose as many games as... If losing games is the point, then I think you can lose as many games with Tucker, Newman, Frazier

across your infield as you can with Moran there just because you'd normally get more offense from your third base position. But you would get more development juice out of playing Newman next to Tucker and seeing which is the better defender, which one you like better on the bat-wise, and still showcasing Frazier as a possible tradeoff. Yeah, I think this team, if anything, should look at Arizona and try and copy them, be a team that's strong in run prevention.

I think that could be one of their sneaky paths. Yeah, because Moran is just not really helping. I mean, I like the guy. I like talking to the guy. He's got a smart head on his shoulders, but he's a below-average bat with below-average defense with the upside to maybe be an average bat with below average defense it's just it's not the type of player that um is being played a lot these days i like him more as a role play like a bench guy on a good team than as someone continuing to fill an everyday role on a rebuilding team which hopefully isn't like a total knock on him.

It's just more of like, I'm thinking about the future. Like a, a Tucker Newman, Frazier infield would pick it. Yeah. Yeah. Throw Hayes in there at third.

I mean, yeah. Wow. So, all right. There is something to be excited about. And then if you play Tucker Newman and Frazier at the same time, you're also saying,

you're also seeing if maybe you can play Tucker Newman together after Frazier's dealt. But you can't play Frazier in the outfield if everyone's healthy. I don't think he can play center. You really don't want to put him out there. So you're hoping that somebody likes Frazier this year.

And this is going to be interesting. How much trading do you think there'll be this year? Well, so if you're a team that is mid-pack and you don't quite have that glue guy who can play two or three spots, Frazier would be a decent trade target. It's not going to cost a lot. That could be one thing the Pirates do.

It's not going to change their future all that much. I'm just saying that there's so many... I've been talking to people for a piece I'm doing on player development, and there's so many unknowns about, like, what kind of a player you're trading away because you don't even have minor league seasons, you know what I mean? And, you know, how good the player is you're trading away. So there's a fair amount of unease within the industry about what the winter will look like in terms of the virus and if it comes back and what that means for next year and what that means for spring next year. And I think in the face of uncertainty, what we've seen out of baseball is for the most part, they don't want to take part. No, they shut more down cut spending so i can't imagine the trade deadline will be robust this year i think there might be a small flurry of activity once the freeze is over and then there might be a pretty big lull for a while

until a handful of teams try to get those reinforcements to really go all in for their playoff push. And the reinforcements will be like, instead of trading for Kiela, or maybe we'll just trade for Kiela because his deal's almost up, but we're not going to trade for Crick, who would cost more and has more years of control because we don't want to spend... We're just dipping our toe in the water. We'll we'll give you a you know a double a reliever for for keelan

expiring players the rentals if you will or the the hot ticket item perhaps on the trade market how about how about um some prospects that might make the 50 man and that makes them a slightly more likely to uh play in the big leagues um i think if I was the Pirates, when you look at the 50-man, you're going to have the way that you're thinking about it is I want to have enough players to play the season and not have to play my prospects, but I also want to keep some of my best prospects developing and in the complex and around my big leaguers.

So I think it's interesting to think about O'Neal Cruz, Travis Swaggerty and Jared Oliva, because neither none of those three would you know, they all sort of 2021 guys. But you kind of want to keep them, you know, working. So Hayes is someone who actually play in the big leagues this year and step in if someone gets hurt and may actually just take over a job this year. But if you keep... And some teams, I've heard from some teams that are closer to being competitive

that they may only have one of this type player where they only keep O'Neal Cruz because they, they need to devote so much of their 50 man roster to, uh, pitchers because it's going to be injuries. Right. And, uh, and just guys who can step in right now because they're going to be competitive, you know? Um, so, but the pirates are on the other end of the spectrum. So there's an outside chance that they, that'll leave a swaggerty and cruz even though they're not going to play in the big leagues this year on the 50 man which i think would help them development wise over other teams like the yankees who may not

be able to keep as many of their high upside prospects like is jason dominguez going to be on the 50 man roster i don't think he roster? I don't think he can be. I don't think he can be because the Yankees are going to try and win this year. Yeah, there's too many other things they need to address in that situation. And what the hell does Jason Dominguez do this year then? Yeah, that's a fair question, right? And what does it mean to not see competitive pitching for a full year? It's the great unknown.

Every team's going to have to deal with it, though, to varying degrees. He's one of those guys I'm really curious to see what they're able to do to try and prepare him for next season, since I don't expect him to be a part of their 50-man plan either. If you're dealing with a condition like erectile dysfunction, you want treatment ASAP. That's why our friends at Roman have spent years building a digital platform that can connect you with a doctor licensed in your state, all from the comfort of home. Roman makes it convenient to get the treatment you need on your schedule. Just grab your phone or computer, complete a free

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We've talked about several times. It's a mess. Like we probably look at Jordan Hicks as a guy that we talked about briefly on the last episode where he could be the solution. The ninth inning sooner rather than later. So I'd be a little more careful with Gioviovanni gallegos now than i was even back in march uh oh that bullpen's gonna yeah that bullpen's a disaster i think we probably agree on this dylan carlson was already lined up to take over a role like soon after opening day if opening day had happened already i think he's almost a lock to be a fixture in left field for them and to have a prominent spot in the batting order as well. Yes, yes.

I'm having a hard time right now finding spring training stats. That's weird. They are no longer on MLB.com. They vanished? There's probably some script that makes them go away at a certain date because people stop looking for them normally you know like why would normally in may 21st why would you even bother well it's a easy drop down usually when you go to stats on mlb.com you've got the option to do spring and even that option is who are you looking for carlson acosta and lane thomas yeah i think he was kind of mashing the spring too

wasn't he and he's listed as you know the uh oh 2020 major league Spring Training is on baseball reference. Yeah, Roto-Wire has it on their pages too. Oh, so Lane Thomas was... Okay, here we go. Let's see here. Thomas was hitting... There's a little note here that Bernard Gilkey, the hitting coach, loves Lane Thomas

and he's listed as the starter at DH. And I would just say I don't know anything about Lane Thomas. He's just one of those random Cardinals guys that's come up who, if he

were promoted, I would have to look up where he came from what he did everywhere and you kind of look level to level like he was a good player at double a in 2018 showed some speed although he was caught stealing a lot had power decent slash line a little young for the level too so that was kind of his his breakout year i think when you see the the power surge he had there. And he sort of maintained it too with a late season promotion to AAA that year. And then in the follow-up

with about a half season at Memphis a year ago, kind of an up and down guy, I think, for the Cardinals, just when they needed an extra outfielder last season. Tiny sample here with 44 plate appearances last year, but in the tiniest of samples, like one of the few things that you can look at or it's like swing rate and reach rate um you know really good swing rate actually uh with a 40 swing rate that's that's really good on a 22 reach rate and i only

mentioned that because he's had harder worse strikeout rates um in the minors recently but then if you look at his spring training stats he had eight strikeouts in 40 plate appearances so he's actually continued that and so between spring and last year he now has 80 plate appearances with a sub 20 strikeout rate that's meaningful to me because if he pairs that power with a better strikeout rate that changes all of his projections and if he's made some meaningful strides in terms of plate discipline, maybe that walk rate is going to be different. So what if he's a 9% walk rate, 23, 24% strikeout rate guy in the major leagues, then he could be kind of a league average bat

with some power and actually some legs. So we don't know that much about lane thomas but um the other the only other real situation they could have is where they play um you know uh tyler o'neill tommy edmund or no tyler o'neill harrison better bader daryl uh dylan carlson and uh Dexter Fowler mostly every day. And one of them is DH. I think that's sort of the base configuration. But if there's four guys for four spots and Lane Thomas is sort of the backup, he's one injury away from getting more of a role. And yeah, he'll have a part-time role just spelling guys in that group

since those guys are all going to get pretty heavy usage. We've talked about this team before with with carpenter having kind of a short rope and then edmund getting to play a lot you know what is a short rope now you know like short rope like i was told from somebody who knew the cardinal system pretty well that they thought that carpenter basically had a month uh to prove that he wasn't toast um and so therefore and then after that edmund would basically take that job well a month in this season is two weeks are they really going to be like two weeks into it carpenter's hitting 190 and he's he's he's a backup maybe i mean that might be the kind and this is the kind of team too that wants to win now and is gonna and gonna you know take the

opportunity if they see it you know yeah and I think they're going to fill in pretty effectively with org-depth Thomas types. A lot of their prospects, other than Carlson, are still several years away, so I don't really see those guys getting squeezed on to the 50-man roster in any sort of great number. Maybe there's one that they sneak in, but it's not going to be an impactful guy.

It's purely development. They're going to have ready guys. I mean, yeah, Lane Thomas shows up. Genesis Cabrera could make the 50 man because he's a lefty reliever. Rosarena's gone now. Yeah, and their prospects, they had a bunch of 2019 ready prospects, but they're all 40s. Andrew Kneiser.

He's going to make the 50 man, though, becauses andrew knizer he's gonna make the 50 man though because you have to have a third catch on the 50 man absolutely so he's he's he could play he's in one injury away because melina and weeders are ahead of him so uh but uh let me look at the 2020 ready guys um nolan gorman 2021 might if they if they have have the one guy that they want to keep around, he might be the one guy that they keep, the 20th man, basically, that they keep around to continue his development because they like his upside. I'm with you there. That is going to wrap things up for this episode.

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and if you go that route. We are back with you Tuesday. Have a safe and happy holiday weekend. Thanks for listening.