Rates & Barrels - Uncertainty with Carlos Correa, Jays-D-backs Trade, Mid-Range Free Agent Moves

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Eno and DVR start the new year by discussing Carlos Correa's unexpected lingering free-agent status, a blockbuster trade between the Blue Jays and Diamondbacks, Brandon Drury's chances of a 2022 repeat, Jameson Taillon's move into a more pitcher-friendly environment, Nathan Eovaldi in Texas, and potential changes to the closer picture in Philadelphia and San Francisco.  Rundown 5:09 Carlos Correa in Limbo 8:19 Blue Jays-Diamondbacks Trade 19:18 Jean Segura Lands in Miami 25:45 J.D. Martinez & Justin Turner Switch Coasts 31:03 Brandon Drury to the Angels; Chances of 2022 Repeat? 38:43 Wil Myers Wins Park Factors Lottery 44:11 Jameson Taillon to the Cubs 46:38 Nathan Eovaldi Joins Rebuilt Rangers Rotation 54:04 Craig Kimbrel to the Phillies 58:44 Taylor Rogers: Save Chances in San Francisco w/Camilo Doval? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the 2023 episodes of the show. Happy New Year to everybody out there. Hopefully everyone had an enjoyable holiday season. I know with the airline trouble that I saw on Twitter throughout the last few weeks, it was probably a pretty miserable experience if you had to fly anywhere. I saw you attempted to fly and that never worked out. You just gave up. We were caught up

in the Southwest Airlines imbroglio. We actually drugged our dogs so that we could take our dogs on a flight even though they're not very good dogs. We had the dogs they were the drugs were uh like you know wearing like waiting off as you know our flight keeps getting pushed

out and pushed out 20 minutes pushed out 20 minutes pushed out 20 minutes dogs starting to wake up and look around and and growl at people and like oh no this is going badly and then i don't know why they should have just canceled it early but they kept thinking for some reason that they could do it while san jose around us which is a southwest hub was descending into utter chaos people were screaming and crying and yelling berating people i've never seen uh san jose like that. So we finally just gave up and drove down. We drove down through the rains. It was like a 10-hour drive. Yeah, thanks, Southwest.

Yeah, I get that the stress, especially when you're trying to be somewhere to see family or you're going on vacation and things don't go well, I understand being as frustrated as a person can be about that. I felt terrible for all the people who actually were there, who were working, the people that were trying to fix a problem that they really couldn't fix because they didn't create the problem.

They didn't sell tickets for flights that couldn't be served. Well, it's pretty interesting. It's like a multi-layered thing. One of the parts is that Southwest doesn't have a major hub in like a Southern city where, you know, a major Southern city. So they're, you know, like Delta is in Atlanta. If there's a problem somewhere,

they can get hubs out of it. They can get people out of Atlanta. Also, when you have a major hub, as opposed to like a San Jose, you have a lot of people living by the hub, right? So there's a lot of Delta people who live in Atlanta. Also, when you have a major hub, as opposed to like a San Jose, you have a lot of people living by the hub, right? So there's a lot of Delta people who live in Atlanta. So if there's any and every problem with one set of Delta people, they usually have redundancy where there's other people that live in their hub. But Southwest is sort of spread out. And that seems brilliant at first because they're spread out to all these little mini hubs, San Jose, Burbank, you know,

like all the like smaller places. And it's really fun to fly those places because it's easier to get in and out of those airports, like doing like literally San Jose to Burbank is like the easiest way to get down to LA. It's like the, it's, you like can step into a car like when you get out of Burbank. And, and so you know, they've, they've set up these like sort of mini there, they take the, took all the second leg stuff, but they also didn't invest in technology. And this is actually a lesson I think that's important for major league teams, which is that like, you know, there are teams out there that have

state of the art communication software that houses all of their data and all of the things that they need to do to talk to each other. And those teams are going to be far out in front of teams that don't have that technology connecting all of their people in their organization. And it just means more opportunity for ideas, more opportunity for, you know, creating new pathways, more opportunity for better coaching. All of it is wrapped up, better scouting, you know, it's all wrapped up into that and that's what happened to southwest airline they had a crappy old system that got overwhelmed really quickly like we got we didn't get a text notice that we were canceled we got the the the guy got on the horn and told

me we're canceled and then we didn't get rescheduled. We finally got auto booked onto a flight out of San Diego, which how do they know they got, we got down to San Diego, uh, back up to, uh, San Francisco like yesterday. And my wife was like,

uh, you are not going to auto book me on something. And then say, I missed my flight. I did not miss any flights. So the booking system got overwhelmed. And I think it's sadly like there's a little bit of a story there where it's like, you know, teams should invest in technology and not just the types of technology. They're thinking, you know, oh, edutronic and this and that.

Sometimes it's more simply how you communicate. And in a wonderful transition, don't let yourself be like Southwest this draft season, right? Prepare. Do all the things you have to do. Do all the research. Put all the work in and have contingency plans for every possible strategy. Think about some of those softwares that are out there to help you track your draft and track your team as you're going along.

So when we last spoke, I believe Carlos Correa was in agreement on a contract with the Mets and there was still the issue of the physical and he's still in limbo as of now, as of Wednesday morning on the West Coast.

It sounds like he's resuming talks with the Mets at this point, but other options could be in play. I saw some item, I can't, I wish I would love to source it, but I saw some item that like the Mets are in communication with the commissioner's office trying to come up with some interesting ways to structure the contract. this more from a fantasy perspective because i jumped into a draft champions league a 50 round no in-season pickups draft last week so it's still going on right now it's one of the nfbc drafts i don't think the issue with carlos correa is anything in the near term i think it it's more

what happens to his surgically repaired leg long term right like what kinds of issues is he going to run into is he going to miss significant time if he needs a follow-up surgery or if he has a follow-up surgery how will that impact his mobility i think those are the types of questions that are are really more in play and what i'm really curious to see is if this drags out this this new agreement drags out long enough are people going to overreact in the 2023 draft season for a little while and actually discount him more than they should in light of this sort of uncertainty which again seems to be more focused on years down the road as opposed to the upcoming season yeah i mean it'll it'll be a good lineup around him there might be a fair amount of load management especially if they're worried about the long-term ankle so he may only sort of slot in at 550 600

plate appearances and maybe like slightly dangerous and weekly lineups where you know oh they have a day off and uh and you and you think they've got like you know especially if they're like on those two uh two game slates where you're like oh it's it's Carlos Correa for two games or like Luis Ranjifo for four. And so you think, oh, well, it's still Carlos Correa for two, right? And then he misses one of those games. You're like, oh, man, maybe it was Ranjifo for four, you know. So he's going to create some issues. But as the price drops, those issues become less important.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure because he doesn't steal bases that Carlos Correa is a little underpriced anyway relative to his contributions, and now you might get that extra level of discount. But load management also probably depends on the organization that he lands in, too. Some teams care more about that than others. If he ended up in San Francisco, that would have been there.

Giants would have managed him, yeah. Other teams might say, no, we're going to push you. Maybe in the early part of the day, we'll push you more, and then later we'll do some load management stuff. So that could vary based on the final landing spot for him as well, but still in limbo, at least at this time.

A trade happened since we last spoke. A really fun trade. The Blue Jays acquired Dalton Varshow from the Diamondbacks with Gabriel Moreno and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. going back to Arizona, which really kind of did a few things. It unclogged a logjam in the Arizona outfield, and it actually fixed the catching depth situation in Toronto. Because when you looked at the Jays, you'd see Alejandro Kirk and Danny Jansen and Moreno, and you couldn't really find a way to get all three of those guys in the lineup consistently together.

So probably a really good trade for both sides. I'll start with the Varshow side of this. Expectations for him landing on a better team at the very least I mean supporting cast difference for him 2023 Jays compared to the 2022 Diamondbacks I think the counting stats should get a pretty nice boost right off the top yeah it is interesting that I think of Toronto as a park that's that increases homers um and uh that is sort of the case um yeah actually where was i looking that that he should be uh yeah i mean i i hate park factors man um the stat cast park fact i don't know where i was looking i was like what this the they're like similar in home

run park factors must be on the fan graphs ones but on stat cast uh the blue jays are the ninth friendliest for home runs uh and the d backs um over the last three years have been 25th most friendly so it should help his home runs uh it should help the runs and rbi factor um you know he's as fast as randy or rosarena to first base um and rymel tapia and like he's a fast guy uh so even if he slows down a little bit um i think with the new rules uh i know the the blue jays didn't take off as a team last year um they were they were 21st in stolen bases uh but it's not so far down the list that i feel like they won't take off you know what i mean i feel like they'll engineer it up and and and varsha

will get you know 15 to 20 stolen bases so i think uh i know this the projections have him for almost exactly what he did last year which would be like a 235 average this is steamer 26 homers and 13 stolen bases but i think there's some upside for 30 homers and 15 to 20 stolen bases depending on the rules so that part's all good and gravy one thing that i did notice was that over the course of the year the approach to him changed and he saw a lot more sinkers his pitch type value on the sinker is negative changed, and he saw a lot more sinkers. His pitch type value on the sinker is negative, so he did not do that well against sinkers. And what I saw in the numbers was he expands off the bottom of the zone against sinkers,

and righties can throw him sinkers down off the bottom of the zone. Now that's like a strategy that's gone out of favor as people have developed swings to kind of lift the low ball. But he's not that kind of hitter. And so teams are going to be able to pitch to him with a sinker off the bottom of the zone. I don't know how much to worry about that. Because as all this was happening over the course of the season, like his K rate, um, was, was fine. I mean, it wasn't,

uh, it didn't get much worse. Um, and, uh, it was held steady around 25% until the last like two weeks where it kind of went up last three weeks. So,

um, I still think he can probably strike out around 25% of the time. And I think he's shown some adjustments. 25 of the time and i think he's shown some adjustments he pulled the ball a lot more last year um and barreled the ball a lot better and he's you know he's only got a thousand plate appearances and he's been league average through that um but he offers defensive versatility and i think the upside of being something like 20 better than the average of the bat so i think it's a good i think it's a good trade uh the d backs i think moreno is probably a better offensive catcher than kelly um and they were they're pretty good

up the middle with carol and thomas and guriel gets them past any issues they might have with thomas's development right if mccarthy takes a step forward, a step backward, then it can be Gurriel, Carroll, Thomas. If anybody of them takes a step backwards, then Gurriel will sort of paper over that. If they're all good, what do you think, what happens next year if they're all good? Carroll, Thomas, McCarthy, and Gurriel?

Because I think Kyle Lewis is mostly a DH at this point. I think they can rely on having flexibility in the DH spot because of Lewis' injury history. I don't think they necessarily have to pencil in Kyle Lewis for more than a small side platoon role

to start. If he's healthy or other people are hurt, then he can play more. That's fine but i think now they've got good balance on this depth chart i like the way this this kind of like smooths everything out they're pretty left-handed in that group of outfielders i mean lewis is obviously a righty but carol's a lefty mccarthy's a lefty paven smith who's still there's a lefty so now they've got a few more pieces that fit together on the roster. Alec Thomas, also a lefty. I think the ideal outfield for them is actually Thomas, Carroll, and McCarthy, at least against righties with Gurriel as the DH.

And then I think whoever struggles the most against same-handed pitching of that first three probably sits against the lefties. They move Gurriel into the outfield, and that when lewis comes in as the dh yeah i think i think there's enough uh this is obviously a team that also values versatility they bring in evan longoria uh even though josh rojas could be the starter for them at third um and now that makes josh rojas an interesting position he's back to kind of utility because katel martez probably is the second baseman and i don't know if Raul Haas really profiles as a shortstop so that's a pretty good hitter to have as an extra guy and Emmanuel Rivera is still there so they've got backups and

some useful bits all over the place the big and I could convince myself that this team is on the rise right because uh we liked ryan nelson a little bit uh the the pitcher that came and debuted for them last year drew jameson did pretty well brandon fought uh is pretty exciting as a minor leaguer uh we love zach gallen this is a uh he's a friend of the of the broadcast here. Doesn't know it, but he is. Yeah, right. And the bullpen is like one of the last things you fix, and they've got, you know, their all-star was in there, and they've got some interesting names down there.

The big problem here is shortstop, and I don't believe in Nick Ahmed really as anything other than a stopgap. I don't believe in Perdomo, although you did bring up some interesting bits about Perdomo's profile in a past broadcast. And I think Jordan Lawler, it's a lot to put on the shoulders of any one player. But for a player that hit AA and had his first real stumble last year

there's a lot on him I think if he can go back to he had near 150 WRC pluses coming into last year at AA if he can get back to 130, 140 WRC plus and AA in his second attempt I don't think he'll be there that long, especially if the D backs are winning.

I mean, that, that is the easiest plug and play where I see, you know, Lawler being an extreme update upgrade there. And then all of a sudden you can talk yourself into this lineup everywhere. And, and then you're just looking for the bullpen either to get lucky or,

or trade or, or get better. So over the next couple of years, I think shortstop is where this team needs the most help. Yeah, I think the plan would be for Lawler to be that guy sooner rather than later. They could stopgap it with the combination of veterans they have. At the very least, Perdomo can be a good defender there and be the nine hitter. If they have more offense up and down the lineup, they can live with that for a little while.

I guess the question is, would you rather, if you're taking a shot in a deep league, whether that's an NL only league, or it could be a draft and hold the situation I'm in right now. And you get to like round 40 of a league like that. And you're just looking for guys who are going to play. Are you more comfortable taking the shot on Perdomo because of his Glover

this season, or are you more interested in taking the chance on Lawler if you feel like you have enough playing time already locked in? Because they're sitting there right next to each other, and I've got a turn coming up, and I could actually use one more shortstop, so help me make the pick. What do you think makes more sense if you're

trying to invest in Arizona's shortstop situation? Perdomo's defense was only above average not elite but good like good enough to play yeah ahmed was pretty good but i think i have to go back to 2021 to get any sort of sample he was hurt pretty badly last year too yeah nick ahmed was 14th in the league in outs above average so i think that actually does set up a bit of a problem you're if you're buying perdomo for the plate appearances because you think the glove will get them in there what if nick ahmed's glove is better and neither of their bats is that great now you just bought nothing right because perdomo could get optioned again yeah especially if nick aubin is healthy you know

nick aubin had like a real rough time uh with i think it was like some covid plus uh whatever he was going on so i think his his legs so uh if he just had a really good off season he comes back in he looks fine and he's the plus defender then he's the guy that plays so i think that's a rough situation where there's basically three guys and i would take uh none of the above maybe in a dc unless i was like really sure that i had you know two if i had it was my fourth shortstop yeah i mean i only i only allow myself in dc's like two or two or three prospects top. Because I just want playing time. Yeah, and I've already got a little bit of a situation. I took Joey Ortiz for the Orioles as a younger shortstop

that I'm hoping finds a lot of playing time. So I can't really miss on this pick. I need to be more in tune with how the depth chart's actually going to play out. I mean, it's ugly at this point in a 50-round draft, as people who haven't done it can probably imagine. If you've been in it, you've seen it. It's a mess. Yeah.

Even someone like Brian Crawford's gone. Yeah, Crawford, I think, just went in the last couple rounds. So, I don't know. Maybe Lennon Sosa ends up on this team, could play a lot of second base for the White Sox because we saw Gene Segura find a team. Gene Segura is actually going to the Marlins to play third base. Not the White Sox, man. I didn't expect him to play third base anywhere and I really thought the White Sox would be the team that made that move.

Yeah, and he hasn't always shown the arm he got moved to second not third in the past but they've got an opening there I guess they've been moving Bryan Anderson off Bryan Anderson's actually not on the team anymore

that's that was a weird that's been a weird career I bet you somebody picks him up and he has another asterisk on this career. A little. But Segura and Wendell? I don't know about this team, man. I still just see too many zeros, basically, on offense.

Who do you really believe in next year, offensively? I mean, Chisholm and Segura is going to get some hits and be okay, but you've got maybe a two-hitter and a three-hitter? We've talked a lot. Or a lead-off and a second-hitter? Who are your three through five on this? I think they're giving Jesus Sanchez another chance. I would assume Jorge Soler has a prominent role in the middle of the order for Thump.

Jazz and... They're hoping for a Garcia rebound, JJ Blede step forward, something out of Brian De La Cruz, Jesus Sanchez figuring it out. I mean, I don't like it. I think they desperately

need another bat, probably two. I think they desperately need another bat, probably two. I think they're more likely to end up with one, but you think, what's left? Who are they going to add that's going to make them a lot better? Unless they hook up with someone for a trade because they've still got all that pitching depth. Going back to the deadline last year, we thought they

were a team that could trade controllable pitching for an impact hitter. Maybe that's still to come because it is early enough in january and some blockbuster trade could happen tristan casas that'd be interesting boston for for something and some sort of package which have to be would have to be pitching i guess i guess i i know if of all the things you could trade if you're gonna trade a young hitter trading a young corner guy is a lot easier to part with than a middle guy.

But if you're Boston, Cassis is supposed to be part of your future. It's another strange move that doesn't quite fit with all the other moves based on where they're sitting right now. Yeah, well, it would be another in a string of weird moves for Boston. I think at least I can make sense of the Segura training for the Marlins

in that they're trying to improve their offense, they're not going to spend a lot, and they're just going to try. Let's say Brian De La Cruz actually does have another gear. I mean, the one thing holding him back is he's got poor patience. The batted ball quality was pretty good. The athleticism is pretty good. What if he just, you know, either gets lucky on batted balls or just takes a step forward with the patience, then you might have a legit sort of, right now I'd say he's sort of a 5'6 hitter, but maybe you could get him up to like a 4 hitter

with a little bit of a step forward, then you're kind of just looking, you're looking for a three hitter still, I think like sort of, so layer Garcia or like bottom of the order, like, you know, hit it out kind of guys for me, but maybe one of them pops and has a better season.

You're, and you're just trying to get an above average offense, right? You're not looking to get a league leading offense. You're just trying to get an above average offense. You're not spending a lot. You have a lot of starting pitchers. Your bullpen is pretty good.

So girl makes sense. Boston's offseason has been so weird for me. I mean, maybe, you know, Kenley Jansen's stuff plus is pretty decent. He's not as reliant on velocity as some guys and adding him to Barnes and Schreiber. I like that. The bullpen is better now. But in the meantime, you lost an all everything shortstop that was super important to your team and also probably dinged your chances of extending Raphael Devers if you ever wanted to, which means you might have one year left of Raphael Devers. You spent a hundred million dollars on like basically a steven kwan in yoshida that that could go either way you know what is steven kwan connect kwan next going to be

next year if he has a little bit less batted ball luck you know and enrique hernandez is your is your center fielder with christian arroyo at second like i don't know just a lot of weird decisions for this team they they they did spend some you know they spent 150 million dollars with Rashida, Jansen and Kluber and Turner 160 million dollars but

it's a little bit like it really does remind me we talked about this on the 3-0 show it does remind me a little bit of the Giants offseason right they bought a lot of little players and does remind me a little bit of the Giants offseason, right? They bought a lot of little players and they've gotten a little better around the thing and they were just like, you know, just trying to be better than average at every position and

not trying to get into a $300 million contract. I get it. It sounds smart. But I still look at the team and say, are you that good? Trevor Story has a noodle for an arm, you know? Now he's just starting shortstop. Yeah, weirdly, weirdly weak up the middle because the catcher situation is unsettled right now, too.

They've got Emmanuel Valdez is sort of interesting as a stopgap at second before you get to Nick York eventually and Marcelo Mayer. It's not hopeless, but I do think those Giants comparisons are kind of appropriate because this is a team that should contend every year and should have been in on some legitimate top end replacements if they lost Bogarts. And it seemed like they were silver or bronze in all the reports of teams that fell short trying to add impact players. And the weird thing, you kind of look at what they did.

They basically just got back to last year's level. I would imagine if you looked at the war projections going into last season compared to where they're at right now, they're probably pretty similar because they lost J.D. Martinez. Yeah, they added Justin Turner,

but they lost J.D. Martinez. J.D. Martinez ends up with the Dodgers, which now turns the two signings into a trade effectively. Who do you think has a better season at the plate in 2023 between Justin Turner and J.D. Martinez now that they're switching coasts? I mean, I like Justin Turner's approach a little bit better.

I think Martinez will play more games. I'll pick Turner because the opposite field homer is dead. Okay. The thing I was surprised by, speaking of park factors, was just looking at Dodger Stadium. It probably has a little bit more defensive value than Martinez, right? Well, yeah, yeah, for sure. But it's just, I mean, with Devers there,

it's like you signed a guy who plays third. That's just weird. Why did you do that? Yeah, right. For right-handed hitters, looking at the the stack has three-year rolling park factors. Fenway is usually in most metrics a better place to hit. The only difference is that Dodger Stadium boosts homers for righties. So it's a downgrade for everything, a slight downgrade for everything except homers, which to me is kind of an upgrade because that's part of what makes JD Martinez a good player.

So I think it's a slight boost to him, better lineup around him that helps as well. So I think I'm more interested in, in JD Martinez, even with limitations and perhaps a slightly higher bit of injury risk, but JD is a couple of years younger than Justin Turner too. I think, I think in my mind,

I'm quick to think that JD Martinez, because he's mostly been a DH for so long, is like 38. He's not. He's quite a bit younger than that. That's a good point. Yeah, age. The Red Sox as a team are projected for 0.7 wins more than the Pirates.

Yeah, okay. I'm sure people are really excited about that in Boston. I mean, how long till we're writing stories about how smart the Giants and Red Sox were this offseason and how these other teams

have $25 million millstones or whatever? I mean, it's possible. The toughest thing about all those shortstop that got all those money is that people don't usually play shortstop after 32, 33.

So most of those guys are going to be at shortstop. Correa might not even be at shortstop next year, but most of those guys are going to be at shortstop for two to three years on average. Right. So then you bought another seven years of them. But if you compare it to the deals

that people are thinking a lot about right now, the end of the Miguel Cabrera contract and the end of the Albert Pujols contract, where those guys were first basemen who fell off into the DH void, at least if you fall off of shortstop, you land somewhere else that still adds some value.

Turner edging the best because he can play center second. Right. Even if you were a shortstop that one day had to move to left field, you'd probably be a good left fielder if you used to be a shortstop, as opposed to an absolute flat

tire, big negative defensive player that a mashing first baseman becomes over the life of a long-term deal and that was a little bit of the reason there was a millstone around the end of the contracts for Cabrera and Pujols if you look at it they were still above average in a lot of those bad seasons with the bat. They just had no defensive values. Well, I mean, we'll see. We'll see. It's just funny to me that there's this idea of the Rays trading guys and always staying fast and loose and never really locking into anybody

for too long and all this. And now we've got the sort of second generation of racism which is like that raise uh going to the big markets uh and their version of it is i'm not going to get locked down to the long-term contracts i'm going to spend 32 million for two years of michael porto or you know i'm going to spend 32 million for two years of mitch hannigan i'm going to win all the mid-level free agents because i have money now and I can buy these guys and get better, better, better, better, better. But we're also going to stay out of the pool for the very top. It's also then you throw in the weirdness that the Giants did actually

get so close that they were actually about to sign Correa. Plating the ankle, I guess. Right. And compared to when we first started talking about the giants not getting that deal done it seems like everyone's in this new position of oh they were actually they're being honest it was it was something in the medicals it wasn't ownership cold feet or yeah or something else that that led to this it's awfully a big deal especially the cohen who seems to be throwing away be throwing money around like he doesn't care, for him to be like, eh, we need to talk about it.

Right. Something actually is there. So a few of us, maybe even me and a few other folks, we owe apologies to the giants because there is something going on there. Treat yourself to Tim's new fudge brownie lattes. Made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice chilled milk. And topped with marble chocolate curls.

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Let's talk about Brandon Drury for a second. I don't think we discussed him landing with the Angels. And I've noticed in some of the early drafts that people don't really want to buy into Brandon Drury's 2022 season. Brandon Drury's 2022 season. And I think part of that is that the projections, the early projections, at least Steamer, doesn't seem to want to buy into what Brandon Drury did in 2022. So I'll present this to you as more of an open question.

Do you think that's right? Do you think the projection could be rightfully pulling down Drury to a reasonable level? Or do you think it's an overcorrection based on some partial seasons in the big leagues between 2020 and 2021? There's two things going on. One is a sort of regression of his power because he did have the best

power of his career, but also the best barrel rates and the best second best max EV. Definitely in some ways you could say he earned it, but at the same time you would regress a barrel rate. If he had a career 7.5% barrel rate and last year he had a 10.5%, you would regress that back to his career barrel rates to some extent. That's what's going on there. But there's a second thing that's sort of underlying, which is

there's a depth chart thing, which is they're putting him underneath 500 plate appearances. Last year he got 570. And you could think that they would sign him to be a starter and he would get 650. So, you know, if he got 650, even at the regressed power level, he would get close to 25 homers

again. You know? So it wouldn't actually play as that much of a regression. You know what I mean? But, then you have to look at the Angels and sort of ask yourself, you know, what is the plan here?

Is it super sub and Ranjifo and Fletcher and Urshela are going to play also as much as he is? Is someone going to win the shortstop job outright and the other two battle it out for backing up Rendon and playing second base or is there going to be a clear third guy who is definitely just you know we plug him in when we have nobody else is that Fletcher so you know is Fletcher going to be the starting shortstop and Renhifo is the you know what I mean there's basically three guys for two spots here and

one of them is going to be the loser. And that's why the depth charts puts Drury at 500 plate appearances. But if you think one of the other guys is going to be the loser, there's still some value in Drury. Yeah, so just based on where he was played between both the Reds and the Padres last year, Brandon Drury played the most at third base. 67 games he appeared at third. 67 games he appeared at third. 27 games he appeared at second.

30 games he appeared over at first. And this is the type of player that I would worry less about on a different depth chart because he's really a DH that has a lot of gloves. They use him at those other places. I mean, as above average,. As above average was

one above average. My eyes disagree. I have a hard time buying that over longer stretches of time. I think he's not awful, but I would like him so much better on a team that didn't have all of

its DH playing time allocated to a star. Without Otani in the DH spot. And Drury hasn't played a lot of outfield, right? on a team that didn't have all of its DH playing time allocated to a star. Yeah. Without Otani in the DH spot. And Drury hasn't played a lot of outfield, right? He played one game in the outfield with the Reds

last year. One inning. I remember Daniel Murphy was pretty awful in the outfield. He was an okay defender during his peak in the infield, but he just couldn't hack in the outfield. He was an okay defender during his peak in the infield, but he just couldn't hack in the outfield. Some guys just can't really play it, just don't see the ball that way.

Seems like he's a defender if he's played that few games, an infielder. The question of defense is, I think Fletcher and Renhifo have better defense. Maybe it depends on who's pitching. Maybe it depends on who else is healthy. I could see the playing time. He's a right-hander, too, so it depends on who's pitching.

I could see where they get the playing time number from. The playing time projection makes sense on this depth chart, but then you start to think about who those other players are and Anthony Rendon's injury history, as much as I like him, that is a problem. That could open up a ton of time for him. and Anthony Rendon's injury history as much as I like him, that is a problem. That could open up a ton of time for him. It's the kind of thing that it does make sense, but it's like you give him basically every at-bat at second

against the lefty. That's where you start. Then he backs up Rendon at third, and then he might get some at DH. That's where he's listed on the depth chart. Yeah, I would think even there's a chance that if Rendon's hurt, Drury just plays first because Urshela slides over to the other.

I think Urshela's the better defender at third. Yeah, Urshela is the second guy on the shortstop depth chart. So then it also depends on the health of Jared Walsh at first base. Walsh is a lefty. Urshela and Drew are righties. Jurassic Outlet surgery. Right. And Walsh took a step back last year,

and we wondered how much of that was the injury before he was out with it and how much of that was just skills loss. That was hard to parse out. But at least they built what looks like a representative team that has a lot of there is some opportunity for advancement based on young players.

Maybe Ren Hifo just takes shortstop and runs with it. There are some things we like about his profile. Logan Ohapi behind the plate could be a plus offensive player. Walsh could get back to his old level. Then you've got the veterans in Rendon

and Trout and Otani that you kind of, you're betting on if you got a good full year of health from them, you'd do well. Then you're hoping that Reid Detmers and some of their young players take a step forward there with the starting pitching.

You've improved the reliever squad. It's a representative team. I don't know. The Angels right now are three games up on the Giants and basically right in the mix for around 15th in the league. If all those things I said go right, then they can be better. I don't know how that is. I think I'm not going to be heavy in on drury though it just seems like a little bit of a mess the thing that i like about him though especially in a league where you can't make moves like a

draft and hold first second and third base eligibility is really nice i feel like that that offsets the playing time risk once we get to the leagues throughout most of draft season where you have in-season pickups, I'm a little less interested because that versatility becomes less important to me in those instances than it is to me in this part of draft season. I do think the Angels did a good job of patching up those holes to the point where if they have a couple of injuries, they're not necessarily going to completely deflate while guys are on the IL, the way they're built right now. That is a change from recent

years, so they've done really well in that regard. In past years, we looked at them and said, if it's a top-heavy roster, if these guys break, they're done. I don't think that's necessarily the case for them right now, around the infield especially. They can paper over some issues, yeah.

Yeah, so a couple other small hitter things just to get to in passing. I'm starting to wonder if Will Myers might be the next Brandon Drury because he ended up in Cincinnati. And when you take a look at year-over-year park factors changes, Will Myers going from Petco to Great American Ballpark

is going to be one of the biggest winners of this offseason as far as going to an easier environment to hit home runs yeah and as bad as it might have felt through the process of watching him age and come off of a career season in 2017. Myers has been above average for all but two seasons of his career, and one of those was a 97 WRC+, so it wasn't even that bad. And even though his defense has never been a plus-plus, it's also only once been double-digit negative. So he's kind of someone that, if you gave gave him a full season would be a league average player.

Um, and so I do think he'll, he'll find a place to play. Um, where is that place? Where have you got him playing? I think he's going to play entirely in the outfield. Yeah.

They're, they're a train wreck on their depth chart right now. So until the young guys are ready, there's no one, there's no one pushing him off. I think they have three waiver claims in left field. Is that three? Wasn't TJ Friedel a waiver claim? I'd have to look that one up.

Nick Solak's out there. He's the other big Park Factors winner, by the way. No, Friedel came up through their organization. They do have three waiver claims behind Friedel. They have Friedel, Stuart Fairchild, Jake Fraley, and... Oh, that might have been a trade. Matt Reynolds? Is he a waiver claim? Or a minor league free agent?

Jake Fraley might have been a trade. Fraley, I think, came back in the Castillo deal, didn't he? Yeah, and then Nick Solonok. Anyway, it's a mess. It's a mess. Yeah, myers should get full playing time in fact uh it might be a little bit low uh to project him for 540 plate appearances because i think a lot of the plate appearance lows that he's hit in the last years one was 2020 um and then last year was just a team got better around him, right? So there just wasn't playing time for him

because he wasn't necessarily better than Juan Soto, which is not going to be a problem in Cincinnati. So I could see him getting to 600 plate appearances, 25 homers, 250 batting average, maybe with the stolen base things, getting to 510 stolen bases like he's it sounds like a a draft day value where is he going good question i'm going to get an adp report going here in just a second the the other thing about meyer she had a

knee injury last year aside from the team getting better so that cost him time as well and i think that also could have been part of an explanation for why he didn't run quite as much. Those long-tail steals. Also, does that mean he's necessarily going to come back and steal? I'll revise that stolen base projection down a little bit. Take the over on 5.5 if that's where you want to put the line. I think he could do that.

Where does he go? That's another question. I usually have ADP constantly open, too. I'm a little disappointed in myself right now. I forgot to put the tab on, but I usually rely on you. Well, the draft room has him at 375. So, I mean, now he's got a team probably closer to pick 300. But that's basically free.

Yeah, I think I might have some shares of him. Good filler and everything about his park factors got better with the move to Cincinnati, even though that supporting cast is understandably a bit worse. Michael Brantley stays with the Astros, so not much to get into there. But Bly Madras ends up in Houston. I think Houston's just one of those teams, you know, when they end up with a player kind of through waivers or small trades,

I'm always keeping an extra eye on that player to see if there's something in the profile that I might have previously missed. Yeah, I've always been a little bit interested in Bly Madras because he doesn't really chase balls, address because he doesn't really chase balls and he's shown in the past the the potential for you know like close to double digit walk rates and a below than below 20 percent strikeout rate so the plate skills are pretty interesting there in terms of being able to make contact and showing a good eye. The batted ball power, you know, 4.9% barrel rate, 109 max EV, leaves me a little bit shy of giving him the thumbs up in terms of, you know, maybe he doesn't hit the ball that hard. But they could use some help in

center field. So, you know, I know he's played mostly right field for Pittsburgh hard but uh they could use some help in centerfield so you know i know he's played mostly right field uh for pittsburgh but if they saw something defensively uh that they'd like uh there is some opportunity there for them uh in centerfield yeah i was kind of curious if he could play it and just hadn't played it a lot in the Pirates organization because of other players being better suited to handle that spot, that would be his best path to playing time in Houston if the opportunity arises. Let's go to the pitcher side of some recent moves. How about Jamison Tyon to the Cubs? I think he's another Park Factors winner.

If you just want to look at home runs at Yankee Stadium, if you're a right-handed pitcher and lefties have that short porch that's a boost that's working against you going into wrigley pitching a lot of those games with the wind blowing in that should help curb any home run concerns people might have had about tyon yeah and uh you know he's kind of uh he's an interesting guy where he's basically by stuff plus got four seam change curve cutter and slider that are all average or a little bit better with stuff and uh he can really command the four seam uh curve, and the slider. So, you know, he's got a lot of pitches he can command. He's got a lot of pitches that have pretty good stuff and a lot of pitches he can command. I do think that there's the opportunity to maybe tweak the mix, maybe throw the sinker less or throw the foreseam less, but, you know, become a truly hard-to-predict pitcher

where he's a little bit like an upscale Ross Stripling, where he throws everything 20% of the time kind of a deal. But that might be damning him with faint praise, but the park factor's got better, and he's in a good position there to take advantage. I think he'll be a good pitcher. One question is, he's fairly extensive injury history, so I don't know how many innings you want to project for him.

Yeah, I do like this fit. I think where he's going in drafts, he's being treated sort of like an SP4, SP5 in a 15-team league. He's fine in that range. I think he might even be a little better than that when the dust clears. ADP kind of in that post-pick 200 range, even close to 250 in a lot of instances. Should have at least a good whip. Could have a better ERA with the Cubs than he had with the Yankees, too, because of those park changes.

I like that he does have that deep arsenal, too. We've talked about this a lot over the years as a trait that helps a pitcher age a little more gracefully if they don't have premium velocity as having that deep arsenal of pitches they can use to really keep hitters off balance. Nathan Evaldi ends up with the Rangers. Ends up with the Rangers. It seems like the Rangers are embracing risk at all price points now with that pitching staff, with Ivaldi joining Jacob deGrom and Andrew Heaney at the top three of a completely rebuilt rotation. Yeah, Ivaldi is really interesting because he had one of the better stuff pluses overall among free agents.

Free agent starters, of course, with jake degrom and then uh ivaldi uh slotted in right behind carlos rodon uh among starting pitchers in terms of stuff plus hiding in there was a little bit of an issue where over the course of the year he lost about two ticks on the fastball and in fact even his stuff plus showed that he had basically around a 90 stuff plus on the fastball you know for the last few starts and it was a 96 on the year so his foreseeing fastball is getting soft and it's getting it was got worse over the course of the season. I would be interested.

They also, though, got him on a pretty short-term, not expensive deal. Like, if you think about it, you can have Corey Kluber for like, what, was it 10 or 11 million? Or Nadia Valdi for two times 16? Yeah.

I'd take Nadia Valdi. You know, even even with all the risk it's a two-year deal a deal it's short and i think he can be better if he is healthy um yeah two to 34 it's a 2 and 17 um so i i think it was a good i think it was a good risk i think it was a good one to do um you know he's been he's been throwing the four-seamer less over the course of his career, but he did not throw it his career least last year. He could throw it even less.

I think that might be a good idea. It's also interesting just comparing his contract to Jameson Tyon, who we just talked about. Four for 68 for Tyon was the commitment the Cubs had to make. Tyon's 31. Maybe the injury history, because it's not all arm injuries for Tyon, who we just talked about. Four for 68 for Tyon was the commitment the Cubs had to make. Tyon's 31. Maybe the injury history, because it's not all arm injuries for Tyon, maybe it's a little less problematic than it is for Evaldi.

But in terms of where they're going in drafts right now, they're in the exact same range. So I'm curious, who do you like better for 2023 only between Tyon and Evaldi? I'm biased towards Stuff Plus. Evaldi had a better Stuff Plus, even their Fastball Stuff Plus. Right now, we're just starting the process

of creating Stuff Plus pitcher projections, overall pitcher projections that are powered by Stuff Plus and Location Plus, Pitching Plus. And I have an inkling that maybe Fastball stuff plus is a little bit stickier year to year than anything else and uh maybe a little bit more important year to year these guys have equal fastball stuff plus evaldi has better other pitches uh by stuff plus has

shown better locations in the past they're both good on locations and And I think Eovaldi has the better use case in that I know, without looking at the weather format, that his home situation is going to be a good one in terms of his home park. I think that is a better situation than having to figure out if Wrigley's going to play pitching friendly or hitting friendly today. You know what I mean? Yeah, in weekly leagues, you don't know necessarily what's going to happen. If you're setting your lineup on Monday and the start's coming Wednesday,

Thursday, Friday, you get a forecast, but it's wind. It tends to change a little bit day of. So I can see that being the case. I would rather not pitch both of these. Both of these guys are in that sort of territory where I'd rather not have to pitch them every game they pitch. I think if there was one that I had to use all the time,

I think I'd rather use Evaldi all the time. I think. By a small margin. But do you agree that you might... Yeah, the projections are better. The stuff is better. I agree. More Ks. If I had to pitch one. that you might yeah yeah the projections are better the the stuff is better i agree yeah more keys which one and uh it's interesting um in that he'll probably be good or injured

right um which sometimes is easier to deal with like especially in certain leagues like maybe an al only uh where you you do want the innings, but someone who is bad and going to pitch all year is less valuable than someone who's going to be good or injured. You know what I mean? Right, you get a replacement for the injured player, but you keep using the guy who's struggling because the replacement doesn't stand out in a mono league. Jeff Zimmerman produced a table today on Twitter

that was sort of called, his book, The Process, is out again. And it's a really excellent book. And in the process of that, he showed players that are winning teams. But today he tweeted out players that were on losing teams last year, the players that were on the most losing teams last year uh and jose barrios and lucas

giolito were up there and that's that's who i think of when i'm like oh man if a guy is like bad but in all season oh and it's worse the earlier you drafted that player, the more likely you are to keep believing. He's going to turn around. He's just bad luck. I have told myself that story before. I'm not saying this is a mistake that only other people make. I find it really difficult to accept

being wrong with early picks especially. Someone you took in the first six, seven rounds is just not the same person you expect them to be. You don't recognize that in April. You might by July go, okay, it's been half a season.

His actual team seems legitimately worried about him now. Now I can maybe bench him, but you just absorb 15 to 20 starts of someone being terrible. That's actually a little bit of why i like uh you've all did a little bit better because both these guys may not they may not be the kind of guys that stay on your roster all season like they're getting drafted in that part there's a

part of your draft where those guys have like what like a 30 chance of making it to the end of the season on your roster you know what i mean that's like we're not drafting these guys up at the top we're drafting to the place where you're lucky if they make it to the end of the season on your roster. We're not drafting these guys up at the top. We're drafting them to the place where you're lucky if they make it to the end of the season on your roster. Which one of these two is going to do something early that you can say, I like, I don't like?

Evaldi. He's either going to come out throwing 93s and go, 93s and 92s. See you later. He'd be on that list of guys. You're always looking for velo changes in either direction in spring training,

but he's one you should have flagged. How is he throwing the ball when spring training begins? If he's showing plenty of life on that fastball, then no hesitation. Don't buy the like, oh, he's throwing 96 today. Oh, he threw one inning and topped out at 96? No, you're looking for

Outings where it's multiple innings You need more than one inning Yeah Whoa What are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking? You know you're driving a 2024 Ford Escape with available Alexa built-in So you can change the music

Oh yeah, Alexa, change station to 99.2 See? Purchase a 2024 Escape built-in so you can change the music oh yeah alexa change station to 99.2 see purchase a 2024 escape st line all-wheel drive with tech pack at 3.49 apr for 72 months with down payment that's just 267 bi-weekly cash value of 40 294 plus eligible ford owners get a thousand dollar bonus for details visit your local ford store or ford.ca the other things that started to happen were on the relief side. Craig Kimbrell goes to Philadelphia. And I chickened out. I looked at the model. I was going to pick him in that DC as my second closer.

Probably sometime in the round 14, 15 range. I'll see where he actually went. And I couldn't do it, you know. So tell me why it can work for Craig Kimbrell in Philadelphia. Tell me how he might actually ease late inning concerns of Phillies fans. This is absolutely what the Phillies have built their bullpen on. He fits right into it. It's amazing. They believe, they believe, and this is, I don't know this from inside knowledge. I know this from their moves.

And I know this from the research from into Stuff Plus and Pitching Plus, which is Stuff Plus is tighter year to year, is more tightly correlated year to year. Players hold on to their Stuff Plus, especially relievers. And Pitching Plus is amazing with relievers. And that's because it values Stuff Plus.

And then, you know, their year-to-year locations aren't as important for relievers, first of all. And then if it's out, you just sort of hew closer to Stuff Plus. Think about the guys that come in. Jose Alvarado. There are years on his ledger where he has no idea where the ball is going. You know a he had eight walks per nine with tampa bay in 2019 eight he had 7.6 with 20 in his first year with phillies and they held on to him they didn't cut him they didn't try to get rid of him he ended up being a

really important part of their team last year almost worth two wins as a reliever, and cut his walks to four and a quarter. So, you know, this comes over and over again. Connor Brogdon is a guy who had some issues with control. Who's the guy? Coonrod, the guy they got from San Francisco, had five walks per nine in his rookie season. Even last year, he had basically five walks per nine. They bet on bad command, good stuff. They've done it over and over again. They did it again with Kimbrell because Kimbrell's stuff was still pretty good last year. And they're going to slot him in. I can't tell you where because I don't know what his command is yet.

And I think it's going to be a sort of tight spring for people who have drafted Keg Kimbrell because I really like Sir Anthony Dominguez. And all things being equal, I think I would give Sir Anthony Dominguez the closer ball, just on talent. But they gave Kimbrell $10 million. They'll keep Santhony Mingus cheaper if he's not the closer. And if Kimbrell comes in and can locate the ball, then he's their closer.

So Santhony Mingus gets the 4, 5, 6 guys in the 7th inning. Yeah. I think as draft season rolls along, there's a possibility that Kimbrell could creep up, though, to pick 150. Right now, he's outside the top 200 in January ADP. We're talking about three drafts, so it's not very firm. I think we could see Kimbrell end up in more of a toss-up where you're looking at Kimbrell.

I mean, Camilo Duval, because of the Taylor Rodgers addition, is now a little bit uncertain. Because we know the Giants want to mix and match. We could see two or three guys splitting up 40 saves for the Giants. It could be 20-10-10, or it could be 30-5-5. There's lots of ways this could play out. There's lots of ways this could play out. I think Kimbrel's more in that group right now of probably has the job, probably has at least a bigger share of a share initially if that's how it plays out,

and ratios are kind of comparable to your Scott Barlow's, your Duvall's, the guys that are in that 150 to 200 range overall, which is not a fun place to live as you're looking for closers. Yeah. Either way, it's, uh, he's not a closer one. And then if you're buying him as a closer to you're buying a high end

closer to, I think in terms of price, that's what you're talking about, right? That's sort of a high end closer to, and a high end closer to, I think it's a bad deal. Right.

So maybe fine right now, but if that price keeps ticking up, yikes. Yeah. I want the back end of each closer tier. I want to get a top closer, and I don't think – like, Kimbrel's not it. He's my closer one. I'm really in trouble. But if I got him on my closer two, I feel like I might have overspent on my closer two.

What's your interest level in Taylor Rogers right now? I think people like Duvall enough where Rogers could fit the description of being back of that tier. I think Duvall gets priced up. Rogers still lags a little bit behind. I like both of them. I think of Rogers as a tier below. Because Duvall was kind of the closer all year. Yeah, and he looks good. Nobody in Philadelphia was the closer all year.

There's no incumbent. So if we were going to say at least two guys getting the bulk of the saves, you'd put Duvall kind of in the top bucket, 20 plus saves. Maybe Taylor Rodgers is the number two option with like eight to 10. That's more along the lines of how you'd project them right now. I would love to get Taylor Rodgers

as my third closer. As a third, all right. That might be reasonable for now. Because I think if you look at the January drafts, pick 280. That's more like a closer three. Doable in that price range. It makes their bullpen better.

I do like Taylor Rodgers. I think he's coming off of a disappointing season. Kind of a fun story that he's now teammates with his twin brother, Tyler. The twins that have nothing similar. Opposite hands. Totally different deliveries. Very strange. Yeah, cool that they're going to be in the same clubhouse now all season. Two other pitchers, just throwing at you real quick.

Drew Rusinski, who's now with the A's, and then Michael Givens, who's been reunited with the Orioles. Givens is kind of an easy one because as long as Felix Bautista's healthy, that dude's the closer. That one's already decided, but how do you see Rusinski kind of fitting in with Oakland? The best pitches of the year,

and Felix Bautista had the number one four-seam fastball and the number one split finger. I lumped split fingers into the changeup, so basically the number one changeup and the number one four-seam fastball. So, yes, I believe in Felix Bautista. So, yes, I believe in Felix Bautista. Rosinski, you know, the story in the past that I've heard from guys like Ryan Vogelsang was that there's sometimes a tougher strike zone for foreigners in these leagues in Japan and Korea.

And so it really hones your walk rate. And I think Rusinski in the past had some pretty good walk rates, but he was struggling a little bit in the major leagues with average to worse than average walk rates. If he comes back with you know the ability to strike out eight guys per nine and keep the walk rate under two per nine I could see him being a value member that starting rotation and no matter what Oakland is a great place to pitch. And so I really like him as an endgame guy where I've looked at the schedule

and he's probably going to start at home in the first couple weeks and I can decide if he's going to stay on the roster as a guy who plays for me at home, like Cole Irvin or Paul Blackburn, who were not great pitchers themselves who gave a lot of people great value last year so Rusinski could totally be someone who you know slides into that kind of bucket and they could slide out so like

I'm not I'm not spending a lot on Irvin or Blackburn either yeah I'm looking at their rotation right now where I see Irvin and Blackburn starting the year in the rotation. They've got their spots. Waldachuk probably has the inside track to be in that starting five. Kyle Muller has nothing left to prove at AAA, so I would think he's at least a legitimate

contender if not already penciled into a spot. And then you've got Rusinski and J.P. Sears, James Caprillion of Healthy of healthy tarnock all those guys initially fighting for that fifth spot but all it takes is an injury to open another spot or just someone underperforming and we're talking about relievers you also have to think about um about options and team sort of dynamics so i actually actually think Kyle Moeller could easily end up in the minor leagues. Because you just say, we want to work with you.

We have some things we want to work with you on. You have an option left, right? Rusinski, I don't think, is going to come in with an option. You know what I mean? I would assume he's out of options. Yeah, I think he has to play in the major leagues. I think that means Rusinski's got the inside track

for I don't know the fourth spot. It goes Irvin, Blackburn, Caprelli, and Rusinski and then Waldeschuk, Muller, and Sears all have options. Those guys are all pitching for the fifth spot

in spring. That's the group that I want to see. All the young starters. I want to see all the guys they've been trading for. Bring all those guys in. Yeah, but I think if they're bad, they're set it up so that

if they're bad again and looking at this lineup, I would assume they're going to be bad again. They will have plenty of starting pitching available, and starting pitching in season is usually in demand.

Yeah. Although it's not the kind of starting pitching where you get their best prospects. I don't think any other team is like, ooh, we're going to give you a top 10 prospect for Irvin Blackburn or Kaprelian. It reminds me a little bit of the situation the Tigers were in years ago with Matthew Boyd where they were kind of rumored to be shopping him

and they never did. He got hurt. Didn't really work out. Same kind of thing with John Means. Means got hurt for the Orioles where it was like, oh, there's years of control left, so he might bring back something. It's like, eh. They're not going to get the windfall that they want. I guess the thing that makes the A's different, they seem to value quantity over quality, so maybe they'd be more willing to work something out.

So they could get four interesting guys. Right. And just keep loading up the organization. But four interesting guys is how you end up with, like, Jordan Diaz and... up with Jordan Diaz. I like Jordan Diaz. He needs to hit the ball harder, but I like Jordan Diaz. Yeah.

Name an A that you like. Capel. I like Ramon Laureano. I still like him. I like Capel. Capel's pretty interesting. Connor Capable, 17% strikeout rate last year.

Maybe he strikes out 18-90% this year. 8.5% walk rate last year. He could walk more. He's been walking more in the minor leagues. 7% barrel rate, 109 max EV. Not amazing, but he

has put up near 200 ISOs. And he can run a little bit, and he can play defense in the outfield. I think he's going to play most of the time. Yeah, he's probably a good really, really late target for some of these deeper leagues that people are in right now. I should see if he's available. He has a lot of ways to become a useful contributor for us for fantasy

purposes. Maybe that'll be a segment like once a month. Name an A that you like. Just name one. The roster's changing all the time. That's true too. It'll be a new segment every 30 days. These guys weren't here before. It's be a new segment every 30 days. Well, these guys weren't here before.

It's just a little vaguely condescending. I mean, it's not meant to be mean. Rooted in truth. Yeah, it's just true. Oh, rooted in Oakland, rooted in truth. I think on that note, we are going to sign off for the day. You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper.

Rates and barrels at TheAthletic.com if you've got emails for a future episode. I think on our next episode, I want to focus on some of the broader draft season trouble spots. So if you've noticed anything in early drafts, an example is the outfield pool seems to be thin. That is something we've seen a lot of people tweet about and write about and mention so far. Observations like that, we'll address some of those. Then we've got our position preview series starting up in the near future as well. Got a little space from the position review series from 2022. We're closing in on position preview season for 2023.

So that's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you next week. Thanks for listening.