Rates & Barrels - Underperforming Pitchers & The Problem with Not Swinging

Episode Date: May 6, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss the value of not swinging the bat, and why that might be a big problem for baseball to solve. Plus, they examine several slow-starting pitchers in search of underlying problems that could persist, and potential trade targets.  Rundown - Swinging Is Bad, Mmmm K? - Is Something Wrong With Freddy Peralta? - José Berríos' Slow Start - Fading Interest in Targeting Charlie Morton? - What's Up with Trevor Rogers? - Tyler Mahle: Not an SP1 (Shocker) - "You Can't Go Rapid Fire On José Urquidy!" - Taking the 'L' with Kyle Hendricks - Germán Márquez's Awful Start - Scouting & Projections - xStats v. ROS Projections Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first six months: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Watch the show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels presented by Topps. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode we will discuss the story that Eno had published at The Athletic on Thursday, where it is revealed that swinging is bad. It is just bad for the hitters to swing at pitches. We'll talk about why that might be a problem. I know we tease this a little bit on the Monday show, but now that the story is

out, we can talk a little bit more about that. We continue our Is Something Wrong With blank series moving on to pitch pictures on this episode. And I changed the question. Instead of what's wrong with, which implies that something is wrong, it's now is something wrong with, which seems like a much more fair way to ask these sorts of questions about people in general, but especially, you know, pictures. Sometimes this industry is so hard.

We're just mean sometimes. Like, not even intentionally. We're just mean sometimes. Not even intentionally. We're just absolutely mean. That guy sucks. He's terrible. He spent 15 years in the big leagues, went to the All-Star game 10 times, won four batting titles.

Oh, he's awful at age 39. But his track and field is not high enough, so it's not sustainable, so he sucks. He's like 85% of a Hall of Famer, but 15% total clown. Get rid of him. Why do we even let him play in the league? I think you and I both sort of entered this space

at a relative peak in, you know, we are smarter than the teams, I think on behalf of baseball writing or at least advanced baseball writing. I literally thought I was on fan graphs being like, these guys are idiots. I, 10 years ago, was writing player updates at

Rotowire, and I thought I was smarter than the GMs in the league, which is probably me overestimating myself by a lot in hindsight. I think that's an interesting thing, though, because appeals to authority are not great either. Not every organization is run

amazingly, and not every GM is that smart. And you shouldn't just be like, well, he runs a major league team, so your opinion is invalid. So it's like, it's an interesting tug. I try

to sort of couch things and give people credit. And then sometimes I write that Orioles fastball piece and I'm just mean, I guess. Sometimes. The Royals fastball. The whole thing, it comes back to, if you remember, if you were back in high school, if you were just one of

the better students in your school, maybe the person listening to this was valedictorian or something. I was not. I was not at that level, but I was, I don't know, top 15% or something in my class and took the advanced classes. And I thought I was great. I was like, oh yeah, I'm but a 4.0 student and going to the school that I want to go to for college is going to be great. I'm really smart. And then I got to college and was around a bunch of other people who had similar credentials. And I realized, oh, wait a minute. No, there are a lot of other very smart people, smarter than me people in this world. And then there's all these other people that went to better schools than the one I went to.

They're probably smarter or at least as smart as I am as well. And that was a good humbling experience. And I think I've at least come around as I've discovered more and more people who've gone on to become analysts. People have worked in the game and then come back out, got to know more people. There are smart people all over baseball too.

Right, inside and out. Right. I mean, that's the key. It's both. It's just, yes, you're right to not appeal to authority, but if you think you're smarter than everyone else, you probably are not. I mean, I literally had that experience, 100%. And the only thing that prepared me for it a little bit, and I remember this, was Justice Stephen Breyer spoke at our commencement.

He wasn't a Supreme Court justice at the time, I don't think. For high school? Commencement? Yes, I don't think. For high school? Commencement? Yes, I went to one of those high schools. Anyway. Our geometry teacher who we really liked was our speaker. Awesome. Great geometry teacher,

but he did not go on to become a Supreme Court Justice. He said there's always somebody out there who knows something better than you do yeah and uh i think that's that's huge i mean i think that the best organizations do that they find people that are really smart they listen to them they put them in roles they give them autonomy you know so on and so forth um but it also means something for uh how you try to put your ideas out into the world uh with humility so with that let's play what's wrong with these people yeah i mean we will try and diagnose

what's happening and uh i i just dropped the swinging is bad okay on the screen which probably gives everybody a if you didn't know already how old I am or how young I pretend to be despite my age, that should clarify both of those questions that you might have. My kids are so tired of me doing TP for my bunghole. Oh, man. I mean, that is 30 years ago. Yeah, I'm an old man. It's interesting your kids do not respond to Cornholio.

They do kind of like it. They just like me saying bunghole. And then they just say bunghole a bunch. They don't worry about the rest of it. But anyway, no, I think this is actually the most interesting piece for me. So swinging is bad.

Hitters should swing less. This is probably objectively true. You can do things like look at the run value on takes versus the run value on swings for hitters. Almost everybody in the history of baseball has had a negative run value on their swings. I think it makes sense if you think about the things that can happen on a swing versus a take. A take is a ball or a strike. A swing is a strike or an out or a hit. And the hits are only 30%. So that's like the basic math there, right? Where you're like, oh.

So maybe that's looking at it wrong and maybe obviously as fans we want swings. I think that's looking at it wrong and maybe obviously as fans we want swings I think that's pretty obvious. I know that some people say they'd like to watch a batter control the zone and stuff but I think that generally there's more action on swings so we like that

but one of the things that was really interesting to me was talking to Theo Epstein and he was pointing out that the run environment, the home run environment actually determines the optimal swing rate because what happens uh in a high home run environment 2019 is you want to wait and you want to do what Alex Bregman said which is I only swing at pitches I can homer on yeah because. Because there's homers there.

The probability of hitting a homerun has gone up enough because of the conditions, largely the ball, to where you can hit more homeruns than usual. So therefore, you should go better than any sort of single. Yeah, you should optimize with a homer. But as the homerun environment comes down, the value of a single goes up. Because then you can't wait for

that blast you can't do two walks on a blast you the blast may not come right so so therefore the single and so when i looked i looked at the the so i had a correlation in there that was like you know teams that swing less win more that's the overall correlation since we started tracking swings and that's how the dodgers work that's how the the. And that's how the Dodgers work. That's how the Giants work. That's how the A's have worked. That's how Farhan teams have worked. That's how a lot of the teams, even the Padres this year, they're doing really well offensively.

I hadn't looked in a while. They are bottom of the league in swing rate, and they are third best in chase rate. So this is generally a good approach. It's generally not a good idea to swing on pitches outside the zone. I had a number in there. You know, the slugging percentage on pitches outside the zone is 207. I mean, that's brutal.

And inside the zone, it's like 488. Yeah. So, but then I looked at the correlations year by year. In 2019, the line was super super steep like the teams that swung less won and the line was very steep in 2014 the year before we started juicing the ball when we had one of the lowest home run environments of the last 10, 20 years, teams that swung more won more. That's when you wanted to be the Royals. And the Royals were kind of good in that era.

What year did they win? 13 or 15? 14 was the year they lost in seven when Bumgarner pitched for the third time in the series. So they either won before that or after that. They won right after that. I think it was 2015 was the year they beat the Mets. But 2014, they were there. I mean, they were an amazing performance from Madison Bumgarner in game seven

away from winning in 2014. Yeah. And I wouldn't even say those Giants are like these Giants. Those Giants were a little bit more swing and make a ton of contact, right? Joe Panik and a lot of these guys that made contact. Was that, was that the Scooter Road Giants or was that the year before? Anyway, you know, the, the, so that's a fascinating thing about to think about like, oh, so maybe I should have a lot of scrappy contact guys at the ready if the ball is going to be dead. Yeah. Yeah. It changes the type of player you're looking for.

And I think the long-term implications of deadening the ball, reducing the value of waiting for a pitch that you're going to try and hit out of the park, I think it's really hard to rely on that, to say that, yeah, we're going to change the game at the top level. And then college hitters and high school hitters, everyone's going to say, I'm not going to swing for the fences anymore.

I think the main reason for that is the ball's not going to be deadened in those places. They're not going to use humidors at those levels. You're still going to be rewarded for the current approach at all of the lower levels where the ball is not reacting the way it is in the big leagues. I don't think they're going to get the, at least the full desired long-term outcome with a, you know, a multi-year effort potentially to control and deaden the ball. It takes a long time. Like even in 2019, know like 2015 we started seeing the ball really fly

out in 2016 2017 2018 the ball was flying out we were already starting to start to set some records before 2019 do you know how much the average launch angle changed between like 2015 and 2020 it's like one degree that's kind of a lot though isn't it it's it's no it's rare to see movement like that my point is it takes a long time and it's small yeah it's like these small changes maybe maybe the idea of a dead ball makes you know nick magical and nick nick like acquiring nick magical and putting him next to Nico Horner, like a more viable strategy, you know, maybe Steven Kwan, you know,

rockets up because the team thinks, you know, maybe our, our run environment, our home run environment in Cleveland, maybe people don't hit that many home runs here. So Steven Kwan makes a lot of sense for us. We don't need to make him hit homers.

Maybe their whole strategy of having guys who make a lot of contact and control the zone and maybe uh add power later maybe that's related to some idea of what the home run environment is going to be but there are teams that can maybe ideate on us and think about this and try to be out in front of it but at the same time would you say no to like a joey gallo no i mean i know he's not playing very well, but would you just say no? I think it's, I don't know if that's the answer that you want. Do you want to remove Joey Gallo from the game, or do you just want to make sure you don't have too many players like Joey Gallo? I think the goal is, I forget who said this, so apologies if I'm stealing this,

but the goal is to have as many different ways to win as possible. When you're playing a board game, you don't want there to be just one way to win the board game. Then everyone's just trying to do that one thing, and then it sucks. I was thinking about, I don't know if you've ever played this game, but NES, the original Nintendo, had an ice hockey game. It was called Ice Hockey. It came out in the early, late 80s.

And there were three. Good marketing. When you built your team, this is amazing. Well, yeah, they probably didn't have a deal with the NHL. But anyway. Oh, right, yeah. There were three body types for the players you could choose. There was a skinny, fast player that was really good at face-offs and one other thing in the game.

And then there was a medium player that was average good at face-offs and like one other thing in the game and then there was a medium player that was average across the board and there was a big player that was a good checker that could do different things and you always had to decide like well do i want three little fast guys or do i want two big guys and a fast guy or one of each like that sort of concept three yeah it's a three on three game that's kind of what you want just from a very simple standpoint of just having some choices well we can mix and match like we've talked about this with profile diversity within the lineup you know for the yankees you don't want too many guys that are three true outcome players you want to sprinkle like maybe how all the astros were high high and

tight fastball hitters like yeah you need need a mix. You can be pitched to. You need players that present a unique set of challenges for the opposing pitcher to get out. I think that's part of the solution, too. And to do that, you need players that have different skills. You need batters that have different approaches. I liked Ken Rosenthal's piece about action players. I liked Ken Rosenthal's piece about action players. You know, players that swing,

don't necessarily have a ton of patience, but put the ball in play and are speedy. I think we can see more of those. And we're starting, I think we do in Juan DeFranco, Jose Ramirez, Francisco Lindor, Tim Anderson, J.P. Craw have a we have a batch of players like that and they're very exciting um there is one player that's like gone and i don't but i don't know if we need it back which is kind of like the defense only like in essence like ozzy smith ozzy smith is gone he was very exciting back Back in the day, Ozzie Smith was very exciting to watch, I thought. He's on the list of players where if you could just kind of bring Twitter back to the era in which a player played and just consume ridiculous highlights.

We would have seen a lot of Ozzie Smith. We saw a lot of Ozzie Smith even in an era where it was hard to see players out of market. This week in baseball. Right. He would make a ton of highlight reels and VHS tapes for the amazing stuff he could do on the field. Yeah, you don't have players like that anymore. I think bringing the run environment down

could help Isie Smith, right? Because then you have a guy who's like a scrappy singles hitter who plays amazing defense. It's just another way to get on base. I think the problem also is with all these players being so much more willing to work the count and draw walks, and walks have been a big thing for more than

20 years now, understandably so. And yet the walk rate has not changed much. The walk rate doesn't change that much. It's so weird. Because the pitcher decides, I guess. There's two ways to get on base. You'd rather see a guy put a ball in play and get on base than stand there and wait it out and get on base.

And that's... Yeah, that was part of the piece. It's like, is this bad for baseball? That swinging is bad. Because an Ozzie Smith-type player... I mean, just think of Billy Hamilton. The problem with Billy Hamilton as a player was that you could challenge him in the zone

and there just wasn't enough he could do about it. The quality of pitching was just good enough where Billy Hamilton just couldn't hit that much in the big leagues. 240, 293, 327 line. Sure, you're annoyed if he gets on base because he is in absolute pain. He's Ozzie Smith. More or less. I mean, the K rate way up because teams were just willing to challenge him. And stuff is just better.

Was Ozzie Smith going to be a guy that struck out less than 10% of the time in the modern game? With the stuff that pitchers have now and the approach of pitchers right now, I think his numbers would be pretty different. That's why Theo's really focused on reducing the K rate on the pitching side. He's really focused on pitch clocks and automated strike zone so you can play around on the pitching side. And so he's really focused on pitch clocks and automated strike zone so you can play around with the strike zone, that sort of deal.

So it doesn't sound like they're as focused on moving the mound, which I think might be good. Yeah, moving the mound or my radical idea, letting hitters walk on ball three, because if we make these changes over time and the walk rate is one of the things that hasn't changed that much in baseball history i think you find the pitchers go in the zone more often if pitchers are in the zone more often hey guess what hitters might swing a little more interesting if the walk rate's always been around eight percent and then we

shrink the zone they eight percent is the the the the most acceptable walks that a pitcher or team will allow from their pitcher. So pitchers will just find a way to walk 8% again, which means coming into the zone. You'll go in the zone more and hitters will have more pitches to swing at potentially.

And maybe that balances out. I know the fear would be the walks would go through the roof, but I don't think they would because you know what the count is when you're pitching. You can throw balls in the zone when you want to.

You just choose not to throw balls in the zone. Usually, usually You can throw balls in the zone when you want to. You just choose not to throw balls in the zone. Usually, usually you can throw balls in the zone. Not everyone can. And so I think that's the same thinking with shrinking the zone. The thing about cutting the top off the zone. So check out the piece. There's a lot in there. I did think the Soto stuff that you talked about on Monday's show,

I thought he was a perfect person to talk to for the story, but I thought some of the thoughts that Theo shared for this piece were very interesting as well because I thought bigger change would actually be on the table given what we're seeing right now, and it doesn't sound like it.

It really is at this point. We move on to our main focus for this episode. Is something wrong with blank? Don't you worry about blank. Let me worry about blank. Let's start with Freddy Peralta. And I don't think I have Freddy Peralta anywhere this season. He's fairly expensive. Fairly expensive. And in snake drafts in particular, where he was going often at the end of round three, beginning around four, early in draft season, I was targeting closers there. And then closers got more expensive. So then I stopped doing that too.

It just never worked out where I ended up with Freddy Peralta. Stuff was very good last year. Location numbers were a tick below average. Not at all surprising given what we'd seen from Freddy Peralta in the past. And I think the only concern workload-wise was that he missed some time with a shoulder injury late in the year. And, you know, maybe because of the six-man rotation the Brewers occasionally employ, you weren't going to get 200 regular season innings from Freddy Peralta because they look to the playoffs and are managing this pitching staff with an eye toward October all season long. The ratios have been bad so far. A 5.09 ERA, 135 whip.

Walk rate is right in line with previous career norms, but we are seeing Freddy Peralta get hit more in the zone early on this season. So is there an actual problem here, or is this a relative small sample size bit of noise through five starts? Well, you know, I think it's kind of instructive to put him up against brandon woodruff because both he and brandon woodruff um have about the same stuff numbers as last year and woodruff last year had good location numbers and still has decent location numbers this year i just I think he's a better bet. Someone who has both plus stuff and location just is a better bet.

I think what we're seeing from Freddy Peralta is a little bit of the Hugh Darvish situation. Where at any given time, you can get a different kind of streak. It's like a good hitter with a high strikeout rate. Sure. He's a good pitcher. And I was looking through the different numbers on his different pitches his slider is slightly less horizontal this year um you know i mean i guess like four or five inches but the model still likes him and the reason the model liked him always from the beginning was the fact he throws with great extension he throws the ball really close to the plate and it gets good ride so it's very deceptive um and really hard harder than the 93 mile an hour uh miles per hour on the radar gun i think generally he still has everything he's got

but he also has the poor command that he had last year and so i think he's going to be fine, but, you know, the walk rate will continue to be where it is, and maybe he'll change some of those walks into homers and then just generally probably give up fewer balls in play. Like right now he's got a 340 Babbitt. So you can pair some of the old school analysis with the new school and be like, okay, the stuff is still good. The location was bad last year. The location was bad last year. The location is bad this year.

Let me expect more. Like he's projected for a 280 BABIP. You know, let me expect a 300 BABIP going forward and a homer per nine. And so then if I do that, then I'm probably going to get, you know, like a 380 ERA going forward. Still rosterable. Still a ton of strikeouts. Very much to me like a Yu Darvish where you get all the strikeouts,

you get a highish ERA compared to what the stuff is you're looking at, but you get a very useful pitcher. So I think if you're hurting, especially in strikeouts, I think I would still consider him a buy low because he's got that volume of strikeouts. He's still going to give you like 12K9. Yeah, if you find someone willing to move him, I think you're probably getting him and thinking, okay, maybe there was a shot going into the season.

He was going to be an SP1 that was available kind of on the border of where the ones end and the twos begin. Looks like a firm SP2. Not a big loss if he ends up getting to those levels. The bat has him at 377 for the era the rest of the way and 121 for the whip i think you'd be okay with that it's not quite what you're hoping for coming up last year but with all the k's with it being a good team good bullpen protecting his leads i think you're getting plus win probability as well that still keeps his value pretty high

if you're looking at Freddy Peralta. I think Brandon Woodruff, by the way, just... Locked solid by though for me. He looks fine. The thing that looks really good watching his most recent start, I love his changeup right now. It seems like he's got a lot of confidence in it.

He threw three in a row at one point. Forget who was in the box at the time. That's his original pitch. I don't know if people know this, but he said he had to do weighted balls to find a slider. at one point. Forget who was in the box at the time. That's his original pitch. I don't know if people know this, but he said he had to do weighted balls to find a slider. He said the weighted balls gave him a release point where he could actually throw a slider,

but he said in college he was more of a change-up guy. Yeah, I just love the movement on it right now. It just seems like he's locating it really, really well down and away to left-handed hitters especially. How about Jose Barrios? Is there anything wrong with Jose Barrios right now? K rate down under 20%, walk rate up compared to where it was last year, but not far off his career mark. It is interesting.

His swinging strike rate is still down. It was down a bit last year, just under 10% a year ago, right around 9.5% right now. Among the many pitchers we're going to talk about today with an uptick in zone contact percentage, which I always just think leads to more questions. Why is he getting hit more in the zone? Is it command? Is it the stuff isn't as crisp? So do you see anything with Barrios that would give you some pause

if you were considering him as someone to go trade for? You know, one of the things I do is go over to Savant and look at the year-over-year changes in their movement. And his four-seamer this year is getting more ride than it did last year, or about the same. You know, you can do, I go through vertical movement first. So the curveball is getting more drop and is about the same velo uh it's getting more sweep too so the curveball is not worse uh the change up is uh getting more drop and um and more sweep so he's generally getting more movement uh the velo is the same or better and uh so there's nothing from the savant page

that says he's different fundamentally than he was last year so at the very least whatever you thought of him last year uh he should be have the same stuff as he had last year now i guess last year you know the 9.9 percent swing strike rate was a little bit underwhelming. It does cause some people in some corners of the internet to call him a Toby. Some people in some corners. Nick Pollock. No, Nick Pollock has been very clear to say that he's not, Jose Barrios is not a Toby to him.

But I would say that if you look at the end of year stats for Jose Barrios every year except for 2020, which did not allow him a full season, what you see is a mid-three ZRA guy with a strikeout per inning and a decent whip and gives his chance to win games. I think he's going to be that again this year. And I know that he's a streaky guy. That is definitely something you can say about him but if you give him he's a bulk streaky guy I say put him in your lineup forget it just do it I don't even think worry about matchups because sometimes he'll just he'll strike out every New York Yankee and then give up five against the Tigers I I don't know what it is, but it's not movement.

It's not velo. The location numbers are good. Perhaps the command comes and goes. Perhaps people game plan against him well, and he doesn't adjust quick enough. I don't know what it is. He has bad games. He has bad streaks.

But at the end of the season, every year save one, the short one, he's been good. So there's another sort of old school answer for you, although it is backed up by the fact that there's no change in his stuff and location numbers. Right. Yeah, we see the left on base percentage also at a career worst right now, 84.3%. So not surprising. Babbitt also up at 325. Sometimes the old indicators are still pretty helpful if they point to bad luck. It's just to kind of affirms, well, if the stuff looks the same and you have these kind of bad luck metrics that are pointing to ratios that are bloated, most likely he comes back and looks like the guy we were accustomed to that high three ZRA one twenties whip, similar ratios to Peralta, probably a lower strikeout rate, probably a slightly lower ceiling. Also though,

like I'm with you on leaving him in your lineup, even in 12 team leagues, just keep playing him. But I think there's a pretty big difference right now. Matchup wise, what he's going to see versus what Freddie Peralta sees catching so many teams in the NL central. Also like we are not very far into the season.

Can I just do one thing? I know this is dumb. You can cherry pick anybody. Can I just take his first game of the season out? Sure. Let's just say short spring. He didn't even make it through a whole inning, right?

If I take the first game of the season out, he's got a 266 ERA and 20 strikeouts in 23 innings. Is there a problem here? It doesn't look like it if you do that. I know he had that game. I'm not saying we can erase it, but I have him in AL labor.

I'm still in first, still in al labor i'm still in first still in first doing the still in first dance um and i'm gonna do it i don't care i there's nothing there's no jinxes oh you gotta play that audio when i lose yeah i'm gonna make a note here may 5th you know know, victory dance. Talking mad shite about winning labor. Oh, God, that was stupid. Anyway, there goes, I'm not worried about it.

Fair enough. We talked about Charlie Morton maybe a week or two ago, and at the time it was, makes sense, it's by low, I think, at the time. Since then, he had a short start against the Cubs,

should have been a good get-well opportunity for him, and then on Tuesday this week, he was on the road against the Mets. It was five runs, four earned, three Ks and five and two-thirds, three walks. The Mets are a good offense, like a top three offense in the league right now, so you're going to have good pitchers not perform well against them, but is it still a case where you're looking at Morton and trusting past Charlie Morton, most of past Charlie Morton, to come back to the door, or are you starting to see some more warning signs

that would make you more cautious about actually making a move to get him? You know, he's bread and butter. The foreseam and the curve look virtually the same. He's lost a little bit of sweep on the curveball. You can notice that he's starting to, like, you know, a cutter and the changeup and the sinker. Like, he's starting to, like, go to those more often. He used to be kind of almost a two- or three-pitch pitcher.

So there is some old pitcher nervousness for me. I am slightly nervous about morton um you know these uh the big deal i think is that uh the cliff i haven't studied this a while but there used to be a cliff at 94 miles an hour where um if you were above or below that like if you were a good pitcher that was 94.1 or or 94 five or something and had most of your fastballs are over 94 and then you dropped into 93 uh two as your average that was worse than dropping from 95 to 94 like that that's what the research suggested there was a bit of a cliff at 94 where like between 90 and 94 it's a mitch mitch it's a it's a mish-mish, pitch-podge.

It's just maybe one. It doesn't matter as much if you go up one or so. But if you can get clear of 94 and you're averaging more than 94 on all your fastballs, then that's a clear jump. You saw a clear degradation and homers off of the fastball, and you saw strikeouts go up i don't know where that shelf is but i think that shelf exists i would suggest that shelf is higher now right because that research was done when the average fastball was like 91 or 92 now the average fastball this so if the shelf is 95 and charlie morton just went from 95 3 to 94 8

he could be on the wrong side of the shelf that's something that should be picked up in stuff plus to some extent because we we you know fastball velocity is a relative metric uh charlie morton still has a 106 number but he had a 113 stuff plus coming into the season he's actually one of the largest droppers and stuff plus now you add in that he went from above average locations to below average locations and he dropped from 15 to 33 in my latest ranks. I don't know. Do I need to drop him more? And I don't want to be wishy-washy. I'm worried about him. But 106 stuff plus, it's comparable to Freddy Peralta.

And I said I wasn't worried about Freddy Peralta. So it's still salvageable. But he's older, coming off of injury. The fastball velo is down. I'm more worried about Charlie Morton than I am about Freddy Peralta. He's 38 years old. It's fair. I guess in terms of actionable stuff, if you have Morton on your roster,

he's not a drop. I mean, even in shallow leagues, he's still. Look at those projections. Those are nice projections. It's like Cabrillo's projections. 3-7 ERA, 1-2-3 whip, more than a strikeout per inning. But do you start to sit him in the toughest

of the tough matchups based on what we've seen so far? The next time he catches the Mets, is he in your lineup in a shallow league or is he on the bench? But at the Mets, you would have pitched him because at the Mets, it's a run suppressing environment. Well, look at that Dodgers game. You could have avoided four runs

in five innings by not pitching him against the Dodgers. Do you have a schedule of fire in front of you for him? I can get one. What do you use for that? I use the projected starters grid at Roto-Wire.

The next time we see Morton is home against the Brewers on Sunday, which is part of a two-start week. In a weekly league, you're already committed to it. So in a league where you can decide home, I think you've got to use him for that spot. And the following week, he'd be home against the Padres. That's our decision. Home against the Padres.

So the last time you saw the Padres, he gave up five runs and five innings. He's in for me in that one. Yeah, he's still doing it because he's home? Yep. It's a tough home environment. But his best game so far has been, well, he's only had one good game. Frustrating player so far because I thought he was going to keep on doing something very close to what we saw from him a year ago. Wasn't worried about the injury that ended his

season. I thought he'd come back and just be himself. And so far, he just hasn't been. You know what this makes me think of? I mean, he's lost some stuff, but he's lost more in location. And this makes me think of my pet theory that um the reason why location isn't as sticky year to year is because little things that bother you um like if you have a big thing that's bothering you then you're on the il and you're not pitching but if you have a little thing that's bothering you like maybe it just doesn't feel that good on his landing leg could be was that is that it was the landing leg that he got hit on? No, it's the drive leg, I think. I can't remember off the top of my head.

He hit on his right leg, and I think he's a right-hander, so it's the drive leg. So maybe he's just not landing at the right time because he's not pushing off the same way. Maybe there's still some weakness in that leg. I mean, the fact that he threw 95 with it broken made me think, okay, he's going to be fine. But then he had to have a surgery, then he had to have a surgery

and he had to have a rehab and maybe that put him behind, plus the short spring. Plus he's rehabbing during a lockout. So, I would, you know, I want to give people, I don't want to say don't worry about any of these guys. So, I would say with Bourne, I'm slightly more worried about him. Home against the Padres, I really hope he has a good game against the Brewers

that you're already locked in for. If he does, I think home against the Padres is all right. All right, so probably a lower-end SP2, possible SP3 sort of expectation for Morton with a little red down arrow right now i've had yeah i've had one start since i ranked him and i had him right next to peralta 32 33 uh with that start being another bad start um i could push him down uh to yeah 30 36 37 uh like I had Tyler McGill behind him, and I would have Tyler McGill ahead of him now.

And Tyler McGill was 36. Here's one for you. What about Trevor Rodgers? Trevor Rodgers has had, I would say, just two bad starts. One really bad start. One start against the Phillies. He went one and two-thirds, gave up seven runs. All of them were earned.

He walked four, only struck out three. It was one and two thirds, gave up seven runs. All of them were earned. He walked four, only struck out three. It was one and two thirds. So, you know, whatever. K rate's been a little bit down though, all season long. Had another bumpy outing last time out against Arizona. So the ratios don't look good. K's down, walks up. Stuff looks identical at a glance, at least, just in terms of the three pitch mix and the velocities so what do you make of rogers at this point well one thing that's interesting is that his slider has the same amount of drop as it did last year but now it's three two miles an hour slower and the the the key with uh sliders is to have that movement profile and not lose the velo so the velo still matters on sliders and even though his

overall velo looks like we all sort of gravitate towards towards fastball velo it is interesting that slider velo is down um you know there was a little bit of a sloughing off uh with his slider after the enforcement last year uh he was he is a change--up guy coming up, and the slider was kind of a revelation. So, you know, the fact that last year he had a 102 stuff plus, and so I didn't rank him that highly this year, and now he's 100 stuff plus is kind of related to the fact that his fastball doesn't have great ride and it has even less ride than it did last year. And his slider is not a good, not a great slider by Stuff Plus. So he's kind of, you know, one pitchy in a way.

I pushed him to 19 in the preseason rankings because he has a really great home park. The changeup is still good he had a 102 stuff 102 location he was projected fairly well uh i felt like i need to put him there his health outcome seemed okay uh but he fell he fell pretty rapidly in my last uh update to 42nd um i don't know do you have a sort of idea Would you want me to play some Would You Rather with you based off my ranks? Yeah, throw a couple Would You Rathers at me. All right, let me look around him. He's had one start since my rankings, and it was the bad one against Arizona.

So he might even be a little bit lower. So I'll look lower than where I had him. Trevor Rodgers or Alex Cobb? I'm going to go Rogers in this case. I know that the slider VLO being down is a concern. I think the bigger issue with Rogers has been his fastballs getting hit. I think it's fastball location. His heat map looks kind of like it's catching too much of the plate right now.

And it's not a very good pitch by Stuff Plus. Yeah, there's just not a lot of room for error with that. So I think the fact that he gets whiffs with his other two pitches and the fact that he throws three consistently, that gives me a little bit of optimism there. With Cobb, we've seen enough bad Alex Cobb where I still have that little bit of steady fear when it comes to relying on him start over start.

I still see mostly a home streamer, but a guy that at the Dodgers, a couple of his tougher matchups, I'm still going to pull out of that lineup every time. All right, here's a Stuff Plus comp that's around him. Framber Valdez. It's not the same, but they're kind of one-pitchy left-handers. Similar Stuff Plus. Probably going Framber in this case, but not by a lot. Yeah.

It's just such extreme ground ball profile. I know the walks are kind of part of what you get with Frambois, the walks. I think the K rate's probably not going to stay under 20%, even though I don't expect a ton from him. But he's different. He's just such a different sort of pitcher. So slight edge to Frambois. Someone who's ascendant but seems over his skis,

Nestor Cortez or Trevor Rogers. Rogers. Nestor's a great story. I still worry about him having to deal with that division and that home park. I think Trevor Rogers drops from 42 into the small 50s.

Still very usable though. And then the other question would be long term. If you're playing in a keeper or dynasty league and you have a chance to make a trade for him. I'm not acquiring. I trust my model too much also change up first guys are just not uh what i want all right let's get to tyler malley who yes he is the first starting pitcher on one of the teams i drafted and yes that team is actually the worst team it is the worst team i have on nfbc i have one two three four accounting teams i co-manage i've got eight teams it is easily the worst of

the eight teams i have over there and there's a few other names on here that are you knew it when it was happening you were like oh i i think i pushed this don't have started pitching thing too far yeah the funny thing is i'm to look at the standings for that league. Is it actually a full-on pitching problem, or is there something else going on with that team? Survey says, yep, 18.5 pitching points in a 15-team league. Whoa, that's pretty low. There's one team in the league with less on the pitching front than me there.

Hitting's great. Hitting is third best in the league. That's been the calling card in many of my teams this year. Hitting's amazing. Well, yeah, your hitting's amazing because you overspent on hitting and didn't spend enough on pitching, doofus. If you're going to cheap out on pitching, you've got to get the right ones.

The thing that's interesting about him is that he never really had great... In the model, he never really had great stuff. Plus, to begin the season was 101 but good command uh 104 right now my latest uh update uh he's i think in the same place i think uh 100 no 99 stuff plus a little bit down 104 location plus i think what i failed uh to account for although uh i still actually did not change him

very much from preseason ranks i had 53 in the preseason ranks 54 i think maybe he deserves to go a little bit down i think maybe 60 is where i start to consider guys streamers but i think actually and you know i think that number kind of gets smaller every year. There are definitely pitchers like Trevor Rodgers. Do you try them every time? Do you start? You don't start Nessar Cortez every time. Do you start Frambois Valdez every time? Frambois, I think, is closer to an every start guy because of Park

and because of his approach. His approach just seems like it can work against everyone. But if Frambois was a red. Right. Yeah. You don't have the whole Park buffer of use all the time. But if Frambo was a red. Right. Yeah. You don't have the whole park buffer of use all the time. You do have that with Alex Cobb. But I think Rodgers is a lot like Cobb in terms of the matchups I would sit him for.

Difficult road matchups. Trevor Rodgers against the Mets right now? You want to throw him out there? I'd be looking carefully at the alternatives in a case like that. Malley, I mean, the Reds are so amazingly bad, and they've had some bad luck too, but they're a bad team that will probably keep paring down as the season rolls along.

I won't give him wins. Some of these, he got a loss against the Padres at home where he went five and a third gave up three had five strikeouts and two walks that's an acceptable game that other pitchers win that he probably had no chance of ever winning I wonder wonder what the breakdown is on that five and change with three earned and a K per inning how often do you actually get a win from those pitchers I mean that's like a hundred percent loss for him. He's not going to give you much in wins. You kind of

don't want to pitch him at home as much, but his worst start of the year came in Dodger Stadium. If you only want to pitch him at home against the worst offense, you would maybe have pitched him at home against St. Louis and Cleveland.

Is that fair? That would have given you eight innings and six runs. And then you would pitch him, you want to pitch him away, but maybe not in Milwaukee. You could almost, and not against the Dodgers. So if you took, if you had been like very cautious with Tyler Mollies from the beginning, you would have right now the St. Louis game at home, the Cleveland game at home, and the Atlanta game on the road, I think.

In between all those, you would have 14 innings with 7 runs. Nope, not all those are earned. 6 earned runs. You could do worse. I don't think it's droppable. I think he's still a decent pitcher. You know, the location is, I think that he's nibbling. You know, he's had these high walk rates, but good location numbers. And I just feel like either he's nibbling or the high fastball is showing up as good locations,

but it's not in the zone good locations. Like, he's just not keeping it in the zone. Well, he hasn't given up a home run until his sixth start, which is pretty surprising given the difficulty of the matchups on the road and that he had three starts at home before finally giving up that Homer. Yeah. But, and then a near 400 Babbitt,

there's definitely some luck in there. It, his projections rain from a four 11 ERA to a four, four ERA. I feel like if you, even if you took that worse, or 4-5 ERA from Steamer, I feel like even if you took that Steamer 4-5 ERA

and you just didn't start him in those bad starts, I think he's what Paul Sporer calls a team streamer, which is a guy I would still want on my team and I would just be shuttling him from the bench to the rotation. I bet he'll pop up on wires. He probably already has in 10s and probably some 12s with the ERA sitting just north of 7 and the whip at 171 for Tyler Malley.

I've got him in a 12-team dynasty. I'm holding his dynasty. I'd rather he get traded to a nicer park. The package is still okay. He has a good cutter. But I'm not starting him every time. A couple more. We'll do rapid fire on these.

Jose Urquidy. You cannot do rapid fire on Jose Urquidy. I'm sorry. This is really, really important because there is nothing on Jose Urquidy's line that really says that you need to go get him like I mean yes the walk rate is tiny he has really good command he's shown that from the beginning but he's giving up a ton homers so maybe he's living in the zone too much his strikeout minus walk rate is not good it's around average and his strikeout rate is so low and he's a change up first guy so you could say maybe he's never gonna have a good straight and never gonna have a change upup first guy, so you could say maybe he's never going to have a change-up. He's going to have 50% fly balls right now. The projections run from a 4-2 to a 4-5, but not with the same strikeout rate as Malley.

It's kind of hard to look at traditional numbers and say he's worth it. The model still likes him as much as ever and in fact he's like improved some of his pitches uh you know in terms of his ride he's got more right now on his four seamer his change up has more sweet and then it's more sweet than it did last year his slider has three inches more sleep sweet than it did last year like what i feel like i'm taking crazy pills when i look at him i have no idea what to do i have no idea what to do with him i'm i'm holding just because my model says it tells me to you know has gone full mugatu in this last two minutes you do not have to be me so you can look

at all these other things and be like listen the model doesn't always hit you know i'm sorry i'm dropping jose akiti And that's fine. Don't judge me, though, for holding on a little bit longer because the model has always liked him. And he has been good. It's not like he's never been good. He has like a 3.79 ERA for his career. 106 whip.

He just never struck out a lot of people and right now it looks pretty bad. I am fairly certain he has matched up with the jays twice oh he's his schedule so far he's made four starts entering thursday at the angels it's an improved team it's not striking out a lot did well at seattle got rocked in a spot where he should have pitched well home against the jays actually pitched well and then rode against the jays for his very next start.

Had six Ks in five innings, but did give up four runs on seven hits. I think he's a hold. It's Toronto. What do you expect from him? Also, just take Seattle out and leave Toronto in, and he's got 16 innings with seven earned runs. 11 Ks, two walks if you do that. It's not terrible.

That's a four ERA. The Jays are a filthy offense to have to deal with. So if you've only made four starts and two of them were against Toronto, that's not exactly what you're looking for. And you weren't even that terrible in those two. I don't know. I don't know.

What I do, I still, if I'm not playing against you, I already have them. So I'm riding it out and I'm still starting them. I do? I still, if I'm not playing against you, I already have him. So I'm, I'm writing it out and I'm still starting him. I think if I were looking at Urquidy versus Mally

as possible by Lowe's, I actually like Urquidy more because I think the team context is bad enough for Mally where I'd rather bet on the guy on the good team in this case. And another thing

that's so tough about Mally is like, you know, when you're streaming guys, I think you want to start them at home. You were talking about that with Charlie Morton. Pitchers do perform better at home.

I think there's some comfort. There's some of that. If you have a guy that you'd want to start at home, but his home is Cincinnati or Colorado or something, then you're always starting him on the road, and they're at a disadvantage on the road. So that sucks. With Orchidiiti if you were like

okay i'm gonna start him at home against most offenses and on the road in in good in good parks against not so tough offenses you would be starting him a lot more games than molly right than mally mally mally um although you know mal bad um but so i have i have a kd4 head of mali uh i think i 105 stuff plus 106 location plus like that was enough for me to put him higher i don't think i'm dropping him much because of that last start against toronto i think yeah i think he's a better by low than tyler mali i think tyler mali is a drop in 10-teamers, and if you're a streamer type in 12-teamers, I think he can be a drop. I'm keeping him in 12-team dynasties and 15-team plus, but with Orchidi, I think you could almost see him as an acquisition target.

How about Kyle Hendricks? The model doesn't like him. The numbers don't like him. Nothing likes him. And I think he's just a reminder to not really... Taking the L. Yeah, I mean, there are pitchers who have great command and succeed through great command. They're just rarer. And they're harder to bet on. I think he's an example of that. Deep, deep league streamer.

Maybe one more guy we're going to get to in just a minute who kind of fits into a similar profile. Wait, has he had one good start? Hendricks, seven scoreless against the Pirates when the Cubs won by three touchdowns. That's when you pick him up. And if that was like one week where he had Pittsburgh and the Rays at home, I don't know.

I'm not looking at a calendar. If that was a one-week two-start, then you made out like a bandit. I think in a lot of mixed leagues, Kyle Hendricks has gone from the guy that you hold in starts you don't like and then play when you like him to the guy that you add for a start you like and then drop until the next opportunity and someone else might get him. And it's a little bit of a... Gone from team streamer to actual streamer.

Yeah, it's just a little bit of a, hey, if I don't get him back, well, the bad outing against a good matchup might actually happen to someone else, and you're just not going to sweat it too much. You'll try to take advantage of it when you can, but it's not always going to be there. Can I do a quick profile comp for Hendrix? Sure.

Going into the season, he had 94 stuff plus one Oh seven location. Plus he was like miles Michaelis worked out for miles Michaelis, but stuff's a little bit better. He was like Zach Granke, uh, has worked out for Granke. So you don't want to like piece out on the type completely. Uh,

but, uh, he was also like Luke Weaver, uh, Zach Thompson, a little bit JTT Brubaker. Yeah. See, previously Hendricks was above these guys in terms of trust level.

And now I think he's appropriately for me in my head. Cole Irvin, it worked out. Well, he's pitching in a damp basement with a soggy ball. Alec Mills. He was like Alec Mills in the model. Did not work out I mean I just think that the 50 50 50 it doesn't work out that way if you look at high stuff guys you know what I mean like you're do better than 50 50 if you if you if I do you want me to list out the high stuff guys or although I guess to be fair high stuff low command let me do some of those. Freddy Peralta, Shohei Otani, Dylan Cease,

Logan Gilbert, Blake Snell. We're doing better than 50-50. Pretty much like all those guys. Who else has high? Tanner Houck. If you want to call him a loss, we're still doing better than 50-50. I think you're 5 out of 6.

Yeah. I'm losing the high command guys because I'm at the bottom of ranks. Is there anybody down here? Edward Cabrera, Ronzi Contreras. You made the point, though. Those are incompletes. Yeah, that's the point. Nate Pearson, I guess, if you want to add a loss.

But the season's not over. One more pitcher I want to throw at you is Herman Marquez. I only have him in NL Labor, where he stays in all the time, because I feel like that's the only league in which I could ever trust myself to use him correctly, because I don't have a choice. The only choice I do have is to release him if I'm unhappy with what I see. That's a 12-team NL-only league. So anyone getting bolt should be rostered.

But he might still be a minus for you he's definitely hurt me so far and i mean i i don't think i can't remember the last time i cut a clear star i think is a good pitcher who starts even though it's been a disaster k rate down at 15 zone contact percentage 93.4 i was looking at that as a rolling average. And as that number has gone up for him in the past, things have completely unraveled a home runs per nine up above two right now. And yeah, the left on base percentage,

60.1%. That's the worst of his career. Babbit at three 60. Of course there's the, the bad luck indicators also working against them, but there's more than bad luck right now causing Marquez to get hit like this. I saw somebody with this profile that pitched anywhere else. I don't know.

Maybe I can convince myself the ground ball rate is good. The walk rate is low. The margin for error in colorado is just such that i'm not i can't i'm not interested so stupid he's he's somebody the bat has him at 492 for the era and a 145 whip for the rest of the year that that tells me he should actually be a cut if i'm following that he's probably a drop in this format if i can find anyone else that actually gives me innings. I'm digging out of Horatio's hole because of him, so

he seems like one of the best ways out, except the fact that you can just keep digging the hole deeper. I'm terrified of Colorado. I had him ranked 152nd coming into the season and unranked in my last update. Well, you called it. You did the right thing because I tried to play the...

What about Kool and Gomber and those guys? Maybe just give them time. They'll do the Freaky Friday thing. They'll switch. I wouldn't bet on Kool and Gomber again next year. You bet none of this month? Yeah, right, exactly. Colorado, man, I am so sorry.

Just not a fun place to have to try and figure it out for now he's a nl only league hold for me uh if i could reserve him i probably would but i can't so i will see this movie to its completion it's like the is this part i don't even i'm gonna try to watch a pitch. Do you know what movie this is from? Wait, which movie is that from? Clockwork Orange. Oh, no, yeah. Or is it Clockwork Orange or is it Brazil? I don't know.

The 1984 one where they forced the guy's eyes open to watch. Don't know, but I understand. I think that's Brazil, yeah. Well, okay. We went through a ton of pitchers. There is one more question here that I wanted to get to on this episode. It's kind of a scouting versus projections question. It was sent to us by Andy from Milwaukee.

Andy writes, I'm new to projections and learning what current advanced statistics, when current advanced statistics become stickier to a current season. The question popped into my head during the Taylor Ward versus Brian Reynolds discussion. Eno indicated that up to a certain marker or milestone, such as at bats, balls, and play or pitches, previous performance and league averages outweigh current performance in the projection. My question is on the previous performance part. Do any projection models take into consideration the difference in scouting and planning

that pitchers may have on hitters in the minors versus the majors. I'm thinking of a hitter who is productive in the minors, gets called up partway through the major league season, and performs well. He then makes the big league team out of spring training the following year, but starts slow and seems to have underlying indicators of poor future outcomes, such as a high O-swing percentage. Could this be due to increased data available to the club at the mlb level and is there a way to predict the influence of this go brewers thanks again in terms of like advanced data the difference between the minors and the majors is shrinking because most teams now have like not only track man in the minor leagues but something called like kinetrax which tracks limbs

and so the scouting in the minor leagues has taken a big step forward in terms of what they can know about you but i also heard in that am i wrong that a little bit of like a what happens to a player as other teams garner a scouting report on them and pay more attention to them. Because you don't game plan for everybody else in another team's minor league system the same way as you do for the team you're going to play tonight in the major leagues. Right.

There's a lot more effort going into solving the how do we get the big league hitters out. Yeah. And then I do think that there is something to, like Randy Orozarena, there's something there, right? You got a guy who comes up, they don't really necessarily, everybody has like a ready-made scouting report,

and he just blows through the playoffs, and then people kind of spend some time and identify some weaknesses and start picking at that weakness, and now it's on him to readjust. I think the best players adjust quickly. I mean, that's obvious, but there's something there to bet on, which is someone who does well or does poorly. Maybe he does poorly at first, then he he writes it quickly because there is definitely a pendulum as people adjust to you and you're

just back there's definitely a cat and mouse game and there is something to this idea that like someone can come up and be good like dylan carlson is probably struggling with that right now yeah good example vlad guerrero like was like raw good and then figure something out and was like amazing good yeah and I was trying to pin this down because I remember when Vlad Jr. came up there was

this idea that teams were already pitching him like a middle of the order big league hitter yes that's true the distance from the heart of the zone. Yeah. But it's like, why would they only apply that to him? It just seems kind of strange to me.

Wouldn't you have the same process just across the board for new players? Or was it just that they'd seen so many people had eyes on him that they tried to come up with a plan that would actually work against him because they they saw enough where they had to start that game planning early like i just think that's kind of a strange quirk i mean maybe there's other players that have experienced something similar that we were paying less attention to by comparison and it just kind of slipped by us yeah i wonder i mean like jeremy Pena is interesting because he's not, he's like, he's a Bloodlines guy too. But he's not necessarily like a consensus top five pick where everybody's like, oh, I've got my Jeremy Pena plan in place, right? Right. And he comes up and he's, I don't know, has he been streaky? He's been a little up and down, but he's been like pretty good across the board.

streaky he's been a little up and down uh but he's been like pretty good across the board uh making good contact has been barreling the ball good raw power uh i don't know there's something about this that makes me think like i i wonder what the what the adjustment process is going to be like for him i am uh i'm a liar that's why that's why we like chase rate though it's another reason why you like chase rate, right? Because they're just not going to chase. As the scouting report gets better or worse or anything around them, if they're good at chase rate, then they're not going to chase the pitcher's pitch.

It's going to make it harder no matter what your game plan is if you're facing someone that doesn't have a high chase rate. It just still blows my mind that a 229, 301, 470 line is 30% better than league average right now because that's what Jeremy Pena has done so far. Five homers, you know. I did not expect that WRC plus when I scanned across, but that is the current offensive environment.

I thought like 105 because of the power. Yeah, yeah. 130, whoa, that is, it's happened almost every time I've looked at a line and then looked over at the WRC plus it's been a number that I didn't expect usually to the high side. That's typically the way that that has played out so far. I'm a big liar. I got one more question I want to squeeze in because I think it's kind of

similar in nature. This one came in from Clinton and he was previously looking at Willie Calhoun before Calhoun got sent down because there were encouraging signs in the X stats for Willie Calhoun. So Clinton's question was, when would you start trusting X stats over projections if ever? Do the descriptive nature of these X stats show some meaningful change may be occurring or is the sample just too small to trust any of this? Well difficulty right now uh is particular because the run environment has changed so drastically that it's really exacerbating a problem with the x stats which is that x stats are recalibrated usually around the all-star break for the current run

environment so if you're in a season which is looks a lot like the season before we had seasons like sort of 2016 2017 2018 that were fairly similar to each other where you'd say okay you know this run environment is the same as last year i can maybe trust this uh this ex-woba but like you just pointed out with jeremy pena a line that we would have thought was slightly better than league average is like bongo like 30 30 better than league average like you know that that has something to do with why willie calhoun has a you know 247 expected batting average on a 136 average i would not trust that expected batting average um and in any case that 247 expected batting average 391 expected slugging

is not very exciting anyway and especially for a player who doesn't have defensive value or, uh, or, uh, uh, or run, uh, someone did send me a quote that was pretty interesting from Willie Calhoun saying that, um, you know, he didn't think, uh, he was going to hit the type of homers that the new coaching staff was expecting out of him. Um, and that their approach didn't work for everybody. And that's sort of what I was trying to get at. It doesn't mean that he's not coachable. Sometimes a certain type of coaching strategy doesn't work with a certain type of hitter. And that's why I mentioned over at, I have a tweet about this with Evan Longoria, that

he said it's great when we have three or four hitting coaches because, you know, one of them speaks your language. One of them can connect with you. And even if there's a good overarching plan for the hitters, you know, you can find someone that connects with you and talks to you the same way that you like to talk about hitting. And so maybe Willie Calhoun didn't find that. Maybe he didn't find, you know, a hitting coach brethren that sort of meshed

with the way that he thought about hitting. a hitting coach brethren that sort of meshed with the way that he thought about hitting. When I see him in terms of hitting the ball hard and in decent angles with a really good bat to ball, that's somebody that I would love to work with. And I'm sure that statistically Donnie Ecker probably had that circle as someone he could help. But if he doesn't think he can hit homers like these other people I would say why not you have 110 111 max exit VLO why can't we tap into that that raw power but if he thinks he needs to be more of a 20 homer hitting you know line drive guy which might be good for the next the new run environment

might be the right way to go then maybe he just needs to find a new hitting coach, a new organization that's going to talk to him the way that he understands baseball. So I still think there's some upside, but without the defensive value, and I wouldn't be using XBA and X-Logging or X-Wolver right now for my fantasy purposes. Yeah, those X-Stats. I think for the reason you mentioned,

not being recalibrated with this run environment. Everyone looks amazing. Well, maybe the run environment's lower. Yeah, it's a really good point. Thanks for sending us that question, Clinton. If you've got a question for a future episode, feel free to send that our way. Rates and Barrels at TheAthletic.com is the email address.

You can drop a question under this video on YouTube if you're watching us there as well. We'd greatly appreciate it if you took the time to leave us a rating and review as well. So if you don't already have a subscription to The Athletic, you can get that at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. Read the Swinging is Bad piece that Eno had go up on Thursday, among other things on the site.

I thought, yeah, Ken's piece about Wander and the action players was kind of just an interesting food for thought as well. So be sure to check that out. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening.