Rates & Barrels - Why We Need Separate Rookie of the Year Awards for Hitters and Pitchers

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Eno, Britt and DVR discuss the possibility of having separate Rookie of the Year awards for hitters and pitchers in future seasons, and the difficulty of making choices in this year ROY races. Plus, they discuss the unusual story of Matt Chapman's extension with the Giants going through Buster Posey, the second-half struggles of the Orioles, and whether there is any meaningful link between September rotation results and October performance.  Rundown 1:00 DVR's Case for Splitting Up Rookie of the Year Awards for Hitters and Pitchers 6:34 Varying WAR Across Different Sites (FanGraphs, Baseball Reference and Baseball Prospectus) 13:40 Looking for Value Beyond the Numbers 20:09 Ceddanne Rafaela's Rookie Campaign 26:04 Buster Posey's Role in Matt Chapman's Extension with the Giants 38:01 Making Sense of the Orioles' Second-Half Slide 51:48 Does Late-Season Rotation Form Matter? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us Thursday at 1p ET/10a PT for our weekly live episode with Trevor May! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper, Eno Sarris & Britt Ghiroli Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Jackson Merrill Cover Photo: Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports Mason Miller Cover Photo: Eakin Howard/Getty Images Paul Skenes Cover Photo: Chris Coduto/Getty Images Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going back to university for zero dollar delivery fee. Up to five percent off orders and five percent Uber cash back on rides. Not whatever you think university is for. Get Uber One for students. With deals this good, everyone wants to be a student. Join for just $4.99 a month. Savings May 3. Eligibility and member terms apply. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Tuesday, September 17th, Derek and Robert, Eno, Sarah, Sprich, and Rola here with you on this episode.

We discuss AL and NL Rookie of the Year awards and how they should be different in the future. I have a proposal that I'd like to run by Eno and Britt that I think would be a win-win for all parties involved. We'll see if that idea actually could get some legs. We had a story from Andrew Bagley of The Athletic earlier this week about the unusual path to Matt Chapman's extension with the Giants and what that might mean for Farhan Zahidi's future in San Francisco. And time permitting, we're going to take a look at the Orioles.

They haven't been the same Orioles throughout the second half of the season. We'll try to dig into why that has been the case, but with a heavy rundown, we're going to get right at it. I'm gonna make this very simple. I think the AL and the NL Rookie of the Year awards need to be split. I think we need to have a hitter award

and a pitcher award in each league for each rookie class. I think you could also make it argument to even split the pitcher one against starters and relievers. So you could have six rookie of the year awards. I think there are some people at home punching air right now because that's it. Everybody gets a trophy.

Yeah. Nobody needs a rookie reliever. Come on. That's my B proposal. My A proposal is just to split it, hitter and pitcher. But I think you could justify a reliever one. We'll push that aside for now. Simple first question, Britt, have I lost my mind?

Or is it actually a good idea, considering the differences between the way hitters and pitchers are developed? We ask them to do different things. The timeline for pitchers is often different, right? So we have guys that come up early in the season. We have guys like Paul Skeens where they're trying to massage the workload to make sure he gets everything that he needs all year with most of those innings back loaded in Pittsburgh. We have some guys that have no restrictions at all. So you're already making kind of a difficult comparison within the

group of pitchers, but then to compare them to position players seems like it's an extremely difficult task for a voter. Yeah. And this is why we have Psy Young and MVP, right? And spare me the whole pitchers end up on MVP ballots. They do at times. They never win. They somehow will be, you know, you get to pick 10 for MVP on like these other awards, which is usually top three on the BBWA ballots. So because pitchers have their own separate award, even if a pitcher has a case, they don't win MVP, because it is very hard to differentiate pitching and hitting. So I'm with you on this. You lost me on the rookie reliever of the year award. I agree. That know, that's like, I mean, that I think probably

gets thrown out the window because it's just, you know, we didn't even have a rookie, we didn't even have a reliever award for big league relievers. I mean, Emmanuel class A, how do you define that season? Remember when Zach Britton had those, the American league record for consecutive saves and he didn't win the MVP or the Cy Young. He didn't, you know, I think come close. I'd have to go back and look at it. But like Rolaids relief award. Yeah, like, I think you could make the case for having some kind of relief award. The problem is these other awards have been on for so long that they are like etched into history, right? They, you know, the league originally started these awards. The BBWA took them over and kind of made them into this thing that they are,

which is very prestigious and really seen as the league's biggest awards. So when you're now adding awards, it is hard for them, I think, to immediately gain legitimacy for guys. Like, are they going to immediately be written into contracts for rookies? Like, hey, if you win this, you get this this bonus which is kind of how it's set up now. Yeah do you remember who won the hank erin award last year right was the best hitter but it's a new one it doesn't have the same they just take a while to really kind of build that so. build that. So, you know, would Paul Skeens if we said, Hey, Paul, we know that like you maybe could win a rookie of the year, but instead we're going to split it and you're going to win this makeup made up award, the DVR award. And the real rookie here is going to go to Jackson Merrill.

You know, the repercussions wallet wise, the repercussions, um, just while we kind of catch up, I think would be the biggest obstacle it makes a lot of sense but there are hurdles i think in creating that kind of award and it's splitting that kind of word although i in fairness agree with you i don't i i do vote the wbwa i don't have rookie of the year so i'm comfortable saying that i would vote for jackson merrill because i think he is more important to his team than paul skeens but it is just so subjective. It is based on like a million different things. And it is really hard to say Jackson Merrill is better than Paul Skeens. They're totally different players.

Yeah, I mean, the whole idea of Winsor Web Replacement is to better compare totally different players, put everything on the same framework. So that's that's the idea of it. players put everything on the same framework. So that's that's the idea of it. But I do agree that especially with pitching, we just there's a lot less agreement when it comes from site to site on on wins over replacement with pitching. And so I think we're not we do not we're not really nailing that one down with as much precision maybe as hitting. And so I agree with you on that. Then there's like our own personal biases, which may be correct or not.

I just say that like we have as beat writers or as people who are in the clubhouse, I think we have a little bit of a, you know, bias towards the everyday player. I mean, it's because the clubhouse does. Like the clubhouse looks for leadership from the everyday players. There's something about going every day.

Now you can say a pitcher affects as many plate appearances as a batter over the course of a season, because the pitcher, every five days, a starting pitcher, they will affect 700 plate appearances and a batter will get to the plate 700 times, except the way it happens is different, right? Cause the pitcher does it every five days. So he can make outsides of outside importance every five days. Whereas the everyday player can be of outsides could be of outsides important any

day. You know, so there's a little bit of a difference to that and something about posting every day and being there every day. Jackson Merrill has been the center fielder, every day. Uh, Skeen's hasn't even been up all year. So I lean that way. I thought it would be instructive just to like show you how different all of the sites are on these players. So these are baseball reference, baseball prospectus and Fangrass war for each of them. Skeens and Merrill tied on a composite if you average them and

that's despite baseball reference saying, oh no, it's Skiens because it's almost two wins difference. Whereas Fangraph says no no no no it's it's Jackson and Merrill it's almost a full win difference there. But if you average them all up they're exactly the same value. It's a little bit easier for me to compare Jackson and Merrill and Jackson Churio, because they have almost exactly the same OPS, right? Merrill's is just a little bit better and Merrill plays center field.

Like that's an easy, that's like easy comparison for me. But Merrill versus Skeens is still a tough one. In the AL Rookie of the Year award, you have the Austin, Austin Wells, who's generally highly regarded by everybody. Baseball reference has a little bit less value in framing, I think. So that's why he's behind there. And then Colton Kouser is a little bit more valued by Fangraphs than the other sites, maybe because of his time in center field, his defense. And then William Rebregui is right there in the

middle. I would call that basically a three-way tie for the AL Rookie of the Year right now. And I think that basically a three way tie for the AL rookie of the year right now. And I think that's a really tough one to the side. Yeah. So a lot to unpack here. I mean, one of the key differences just off the cuff between the fan graphs and baseball reference wars, baseball references war formula gives more weight to pitchers. The Paul, the number on Paul Skeens is radically different, right? Paul Skeens is the third most valuable pitcher in the NL

by baseball reference war. He's behind, I think, only Chris Sale and Hunter Green this season. He's in the Cy Young race. He's in the Cy Young race if you use that reference. And then the other weird thing is, I spend so much more time looking at the war leader boards on fan graphs because it's just there when I'm on that site more.

I spend less time looking at the baseball reference ones because I see it more on the individual player pages. I thought the gap between Jackson Merrill and Jackson Churio by war was big because fan graphs, but they're equal on baseball reference. But then there's the skeins question if you're not splitting hitters from pitchers. So I just find this entire thing to be very stressful. I don't have to vote. I'm never gonna get to vote for the BBWAA.

I'm not even gonna apply to ever be a part of it again, I don't think, so it has nothing to do with me. But I look at this and I think, okay, if Merrill versus Churio is a straight up toss up on one site and then we're comparing apples to oranges with the Skeens-Merrill, Skeens-Churio comparisons doing that. What do you land on?

We had a question in our Discord that inspired a lot of this conversation from Big Prince and you Darvish fan, I would die for you, why you? Not why oh you? And one of the questions that we were asked was, how do we think the voters will handle this situation given that there's a very popular rising star

in Skeens who's like a star kind of outside of baseball a little bit more than considering that versus the Merrill Churio types? Is there going to be anyone that gravitates more towards Skeens for narrative? Is there going to be, are there some writers that are going to be more locked in on baseball reference instead of fan graphs? Like, what do you think currently like makes up the voting electorate for these awards? Like what really, what pops when things are generally equal or as muddy as they are by the metrics right now? Yeah, the, if people are just straight looking at war to make these decisions, I really hope that's not the case because I think war is good for some stuff, but it's not. We shouldn't just be voting based off

of this one statistic that, as we mentioned, is a subjective statistic. There's all different formulas. It's not like we're arguing over home runs or something that has a definitive answer. So I think based on the BBWA composite, there is a wide range of people voting, and some people are just going to look at the war or look at, you know, who they think is better without looking at stats, which is another kind of dangerous way to do it. I think you have to take into account everything. It does seem like in the past BBWA voters have skewed toward teams that are good, especially for the big awards, that like the MVP and the Cy Young, and sometimes you get an edge if let's say Francisco Lindor returns and leads the Mets to a playoff berth, right?

That in some voters' mind is a little bit of an edge. Does it count for more that Jackson Merrill has hit a lot of these quote unquote clutch home runs, right? And that the Padres are in a real serious push, you know, not just playoffs, but to potentially overtake the Dodgers in the NL West. Does that matter? I think that does. Versus Skeens, who essentially is on a Pirates team pitching for nothing, right? So I think you have to take into account all these factors and every person is going to take into account their own biases, right? Does the people who see skeins more,

are they going to vote skeins? Are people in the West who see Jackson Merrill all the time or are they going to feel like, well, it's gotta be Jackson Merrill for all of these reasons? There is so many different biases that come into these awards that are, like I said, are already subjective. I just hope, and Rustin Dodd did a great job yesterday for the athletic talking about war, um, you know, is in that story.

I encourage you to check it out and how, you know, it just varies. And we cannot now just be looking at one number to evaluate all these guys. It is a helpful tool in assessing, but in my mind, it is still one part of a bigger picture when I'm looking at an awards race. I mean, it's so difficult because it's supposed to be the all encompassing stat. It's supposed to be, and it is cool because it's a framework that puts all their different things they do

into one place. And so it is hard if you take that number, if you get away from that number, then you say, okay, you're gonna be double counting something, right? Because you're like, okay, I looked at war and now I'm gonna look at something else. Well, that's in war. Like, what are you gonna look at?

Oh, that's in war. Oh, you wanna look at? No, that's in war. You know, so it's like, you know, most of the stuff is in there. I just had a, while you were talking, I've watched a lot of Padres games. They're out here, you know, family, they're fans. And so I've watched a lot of Padres games. I had thought, I was like, Oh, you know,

Jackson Money Merrill, like, you know, this is the guy who's, who's clutch beyond belief. I, there is a stat for clutch on Pangraps, and I just sorted it for rookies. Uh, and Jackson Churio is more clutch this year than Jackson Merrill. Sorry. There's my bias. I find that extra funny. Yeah. Not for any other reason other than I think you do hear different narratives depending on the shows you watch or the games you happen to see.

And I think media markets have something to do with it. Yeah. In this case, at least they're both small, but I do think the Padres get a little more national attention than the Brewers. That's been my assessment, being kind of caught in the middle, but they still get less attention than a lot of other big market teams. Does that clutch thing factor into the war? I'm not actually sure that it does.

I don't think it does. I don't think it does. So some of those intangibles I mentioned, like is your team in the race? Those things are not tied to. Yeah, they're, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, and then if you want to, like the sort of value beyond the numbers of being there every day, like sort of, if you want it,

like if you think it's really a tie between Maryland skeins on numbers and all that and value, but you're just like one guy posted every day, like I think that's fair. I think that's just, that's how people, you know, act in club houses. I think that bias will push the vote to Merrill. I think when people are, that's why I kind of agree with you about the rookie pitcher idea,

because I think when presented, if I presented to you a theoretical world in which these two players are exactly valuable, same value, one's an everyday player and one's a pitcher, you're going to take the everyday player. I think that happens a lot. I think when you look back at the historical rookie of the year winners, you see mostly position players, a lot of relievers. Like that's the weird recent trend. If it's if it's a pitcher, it often ends up being a reliever

instead of a starter. Because they can give you some number that just looks so beautiful. Absurd ratios. Like a 0.9 ERA for the season. You're just like 20 saves, 25 saves, right? They emerge, they take over that role. That makes a big deal. We put a lot of weight behind that.

But even if you're trying to break ties with things like defense, you look at Choreo versus Merrill. Choreo doesn't play center field. Jackson Merrill does. Jackson Merrill is a minus two by defensive run saved. That would be enough for me. Right, just playing it.

See, just playing it's enough for you. I'm curious though, if Chorio is a plus 12, playing the two corner spots, plus 12 by DRS. On a great defensive team. On a great defensive team. That has other options. And a plus four on outs above average, and Meryl's a plus eight on outs above average,

but a minus two on defensive run save, like that doesn't give you a lot either. That's another one where it's like, okay, harder position. I'm just going, I'm going going to the numbers, you know, and a team that didn't have other options to play center field. Maybe Choreo would play. He didn't. So you can't you can't play that game. But all of that stuff gets wrapped into this and lost.

But I do think the initial double split down to relievers is one step too far. It's cutting the pie into too many little pieces. I do think hitter pitcher just should be separate. They just, they're asked to do very different things. There's another aspect here that war sort of wants to capture, but I'm not sure it does capture it completely. And that is playing time. So the idea of war is that this is like, you know,

wins above replacement. So the sort of built in replacements. the idea is that even if you were, even if you played a third of the two thirds of the season, you know, you could replace that player for the other third of the season and, and get the same number, right? That's sort of the idea. The problem is that we all know that players go through slumps and go and get better and get worse. And like, we'll actually be below replacement for a while.

Like we'll be so bad that they're actually taking numbers away from themselves. You know, it just goes through the ups and downs. And so I think about that a little bit when I look at Austin Wells versus Colton Couser, because we've seen Colton Couser this year, come out gangbusters and then disappear and then come back. You know what I mean? gangbusters and then disappear and then come back. You know what I mean? And we've seen Austin Wells come out sort of fizzly

and then get hot, but we haven't seen Austin Wells get cold again. And you know, if you gave Austin Wells the missing plate appearances between him and Colton Couser, it's possible that he would get, he would have that bad stretch and be below Couser. You know what I mean? There's the way that these things work is like, you know, we don't know.

And so if you don't know really what would have happened with those extra 150 plate appearances, you have to give some sort of edge to the guy who actually played more. And so that, that, that factors into this Merrill versus Skeen thing too. Skeen's only pitched, what if Skeen's pitched 200 innings this year and got tired for the last 80 and, and we've already actually seen his VLOs going down, his strikeout rates going down, his stuffs going down. If you add to this 80 mythical innings on there, it might be with a four ERA and then he wouldn't be in the discussion at all for a few of the year.

You know, so it's like that's been the discussion, hasn't it? In the recent years over Siyoung, guys are winning with fewer and fewer innings. Yep. Do you value the innings or do you value the stuff in the ERA? Right. And the war as a framework is supposed to give you still ability to talk about it. But we all know that if you do play more, you can actually, war is still a counting stat. So you can play more and actually remove war.

That is totally a possibility. And the people who played all year have had times, you know, where they looked bad. I mean, we just, we just had Aaron Judge, what'd he do? He was like, homeless for three weeks or something. It was the longest homeless drought of his career. The PAW Patrol jinx, isn't that what people were calling? Yeah.

The PAW Patrol jinx. Never again will a major league player lend likeness to PAW Patrol. That will never ever happen again. The other part of this rookie of the year conversation that kind of got tabled a little bit is just skeins being so much more valuable by war than Shota Yamanaga and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

And I've for years had the kind of firm stance that players who were professionals in other leagues that come to the big leagues probably shouldn't win rookie of the year here because they're not actually rookies. They are new to Major League Baseball, but they're not college graduates of a year or two ago or high school kids from three or four years ago. It's not quite the same.

I don't know what you would do with those players otherwise to try and lump them into the conversation. You might try to make another award. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're watering this down now. International player of the year, we're watering this down. No, no, no. I feel like the other part of,

the other benefit of this, and I hate doing marketing for a league that isn't paying me to do marketing for them, but I do think celebrating more of the young players is good. Like celebrating four instead of two is good, right? Just another way to get a little attention on some guys that may not have been as big a part of the national conversation all season as they should have been, right? That's a way to get a little attention on some guys that may not have been as big a part of the national conversation all season as they should have been.

That's a small bonus. You're helping create more stars by manufacturing a little more energy around the end of the year. But the Austin Wells-Couser thing, that's a great toss up. I know when we last mentioned the A-HEL Rookie of the Year race, there were some folks in Boston who were mad that we didn't talk about Sedan Rafaela. The main reason we didn't talk about him is because he was the inspiration for the conversation. It was a ridiculous Bill James tweet talking about how great Rafaela was

that made me want to look at the rest of the class and then I just missed the original guy. If you look at war, most of the war formulas are lower on Rafaela than the counting stats, but the simply like playing all season and having a role is born out in the counting stats. He's got 15 homers, second among AL rookies, got 68 runs scored, also second among AL rookies. He leads AL rookies in RBIs with 70, he's second in stolen bases with 19. And I think for me I'm like, well, he's definitely a good rotisserie player, like great in the five categories we care about, but he's got a 277 OBP. And even though he moves between shortstop and centerfield,

he's very good in centerfield and he's below average at shortstop. So, you know, playing the position and playing it well or two different things. I think he's a very good player, but I don't think sedan Raffaello would be even top three for me in the AL rookie of the year this year, even though I think he's had a nice year. Yeah. There's a little bit of what if they're like, what if he'd just been center field all year and you're, you're putting, um, you know, on top of this, this package, you're putting elite center field defense, then I think it'd be a

little bit closer, but it still wouldn't, he still wouldn't launch in the top for me because the fact of the matter is that he, you know, his batting average of two 50 mass, the fact that his OBP and slugging are bad and he's basically 20% worse than the average of the stick. So, you know, if there was a defensive winner of the year, like I think you could put him in the mix for center field, not for short, make sure that you make that distinction. But, you know, now we're making another another award defensive rookie of the year. I have a lot of slack in trophy companies. You know, I did have a question. I don't think this ended up in

the in the story with with rest and Dodd, but he asked me like what the actual spread is. And know baseball perspectives had some. You know some way of kind of referencing the the spread. But I kind of think that in one way of looking at the the spread you know the the plus minus on war and how precise it is is that you can look at the spread between the different sites because that gives you an idea of like these all are war frameworks and they've come to different conclusions. So, Raffaella, you know, a spread of, it's a spread of plus or minus three, I mean, plus or minus 1.5. When we did have Meg Rowley and Sean Foreman saying a half win wasn't almost enough to be definitive.

So I'm guessing that the difference is plus or minus, you know, three quarters of a win. That's a lot, dude. So you're saying that basically, you know, you have to see a guy be ahead by a full win before you can be like, okay, war says this guy's better. Right, so you have to have something or a series of somethings that break these ties. And when you have loaded classes, you have multiple ties, not just choosing between two, it's choosing between three or four or five in some cases,

depending on how far down you go. I mean, I think Mason Wynn and the NLs had a very good rookie year, and he's just a little bit overshadowed by the top end performances. In a typical year, Mason Wynn would be right there in that conversation. In a typical year, Tyler Fitzgerald might be a bigger part of the conversation than he's been.

A little older than most rookies, but having a great year nonetheless and he's going to probably be fifth or sixth on most lists. Yeah. I wonder if this is the new norm as the league gets younger, is the rookie of the year going to get harder and harder to decide versus years where, even last year, Gunnar Henderson was unanimous, was the NL side unanimous? It feels like in some years, there's a no doubter. And then in other years, we have things like this where it's like, man, we've got five guys who you can make the case who could win this in each league.

And I wonder if that's going to become more of the norm versus the years where it's just like, yeah, that. Corbin Carroll was unanimous. They're both unanimous. Okay. I thought they were both unanimous. So I mean, I don't think we're going to get that in either league this year. Do you guys?

I don't think we're going to have a unanimous pay. I think you're right also to point out long term trends here. That's interesting. I think the league is getting younger. And there's more, the rules are putting more pressure on athleticism and being younger. We had Joey Votto just talking about this in his retirement.

So yeah, this might be more normal. And it might put us on the track to having more awards. See? And it's good because you can have more of the performance incentives for players and for teams for continuing to bring players up when they're ready, right? I think everyone wants their team to have a shot at a few extra draft picks. Hitter and pitcher awards separately would be another path to possibly do that. So it is a really good point.

And I'm looking back at the recent winners, of course. Last year, Gunnar and Carroll for ALNL, Julio and Michael Harris two years ago, Randy Rose Arena, Jonathan India in 2021. 2020 was weird. That was Kyle Lewis and Devin Williams. But then 2019, Jordon Alvarez and Pete Alonso, 2018, Otani and Acuna, 2017, Judge and Bellinger. I mean, like, those are all great players that won those awards other than the shortened season and even that. Kyle Lewis has had a lot of injuries, Devin Williams is a reliever. So it's like, you know, what are you going to do?

But generally, I think this has become a more difficult award to win. That's a really good call, Britt. Thanks a lot for that question, by the way. I would die for you. Hope you're enjoying you Darvish looking pretty good on Monday night against the Astros. So one of the odd stories of the week came from Andrew Baggerly,

covers the Giants for the Athletic. And it's about Buster Posey's role in Matt Chapman's extension with the Giants. And the question I had for you, Britt, when we were getting ready for this show was, how often do the advisors or people who are on the board of directors, former players that have the ear of ownership, how often do they or ownership directly actually go around their own front office to get deals done? This was a big contract extension for Matt Chapman,

but Farhan had been working on it. And as bags reported, among the differences, a no trade clause was something that they were able to hammer out going around Scott Boris and Farhan Zaidi. So this doesn't look good for Farhan. We'll get to that in just a second. But our most organizations structured in a way where at the top end of a free a way where at the top end of

a free agent pool or at the top end of an extension, ownership is heavily involved, if not even driving negotiations completely around the front office, or is this highly unusual? So there are definitely for bigger deals, contracts that I know for a fact, GM said nothing to do with that was, let the scott boris and ownership. That's actually not unusual what is unusual is that farhan was working on this and that they circumvented him. You know i have you know i don't want to specifically name names but there have been i can i can name four five in my head instances where a signing happened and we'll go with one that's very obvious. That's been reported. Chris Davis, Dan Duquette had nothing to do with that.

That was a Peter Angeles wanted Chris Davis. That was a, a deal that was bad from the start. Um, but that was a case of rumors about Pujols and, and Moreno too. Yeah, it was one too. He's a good one too. So there are definitely cases where Scott Boris and other agents will say, I'm not dealing with the GM or the president. I'm going to the top of the top because this guy's going to have to sign off anyway. Now, these aren't on one million dollar deals.

These aren't on five million dollar deals. I think that's a key part. The bigger deal ownership has to has to approve. Like if it's over 100 or 200 million. Right. Yeah, yeah. There's got to be a certain threshold. And it probably varies from organization to organization where the GM or the president of baseball operations can operate however they want up to a certain point. And then beyond that, there's a permission check.

Hey, you gotta come get sign off. You wanna go more than three years of the free agent. In this organization, we have to sign off on that. You wanna go more than 50 million. Yeah, Tampa might be more than 50 million more than three years. I wonder if they had to call ownership on Zach Eflin. I mean, they were in on Aaron Judge though. So I'm sure that was something that like an example of like,

if Stu Cernberg wanted nothing to do with Aaron Judge, there's no way they would have been in on Aaron Judge. Even if Eric Neander loved the guy since he was 10 or something, like they just wouldn't have happened. Ownership has to be involved in some of these bigger deals. What was really interesting to me about this was Buster, Posey doesn't own the team. He, you know, he, so it's not, that was interesting. And like I said, Part, part owner, like part of the ownership group, but he's not the owner. There's usually one person that sort of thought of as the owner. Yeah, this is akin to Cal Ripken Jr. making a deal,

a mega deal for the Orioles. Because he's part of the ownership group. Yeah, this is akin to Cal Ripken Jr. making a deal, a mega deal for the Ori. Because he's part of the ownership. Yes, he's part of the ownership group. And he's certainly a name, but he's not involved in the day to day owning of the team. Mr. Posey isn't involved in the day to day owning of the team. Now this, to me, signals that Buster Posey has the power and the influence, which we had kind of heard rumored for a while that he had a lot of power and influence

over the last couple of years. This is like the mega warning sign now that Buster Posey is running things. And two, going around Farhan and Boris just shows again the kind of power that Buster Posey has in this organization. No one ever knows what Giants ownership is thinking, right? No one ever knows their plans.

They are like one of the more elusive ownership groups. And they finally have sort of tipped their hand in that. Buster Posey is the key to unlocking what the Giants want. If the Giants make a change from Farhan, we know Buster Posey is going to be involved. We know it's not going to be someone that Buster Posey doesn't like. This signals like immense power to me. And you're kind of seeing this. This was a power play.

But isn't it a little bit dangerous for the Giants and for everybody involved? Because what's the end game for Buster Posey? Like he's not going to become the GM. Like there's no precedent for a former player that's part of the ownership group to become the GM. He doesn't need to be the GM. He's higher than the GM. Well, okay.

Okay. So then- He has more to be the GM. He's higher than the GM. OK, OK. So that's more power. And he is he could hire and fire the GM of his choice. Who will do things the way he wants? What next? GM wants to take over. Well, that's the thing. It's going to be someone who sees the game the way Buster Posey does or someone who wants to be on the same page as him. Right. So but we'll also know that they don't have final.

If they will also know that the last GM just got and like the end around from him. Timing is everything. Farhan was there before Buster retired. Buster retired at the end of 2022 and then got that, you know, minority ownership stake that included the seat on the board. So it this is the kind of thing that happens while you're in that GM or president of baseball operation situation that just completely changes your outlook and your power. Oh, so that you're saying the timing of the new hire, if there is a new hire, the new person will know what they're getting into. Right.

And so they'll just be like, I'm a de facto number two, really. Right. Buster will be. Yes. Yep. Whereas Farhan was like, I was number one and now I'm not. Well, yeah, I mean, unless there was somebody else that previously had a buster-like influence over things, but I don't get that impression. We didn't hear about them, yeah.

Yeah, they did. We don't know about it. All these jobs come with warts, too, these GM jobs. I mean, we spoke this winter about how nobody wanted the Red Sox job, right? Because it's like, well, that seems like a lose-lose job. Well, how about working for Artie Moreno? That doesn't seem like a super fun time either. What about, you know, Chicago Jerry Reinsdorf? They said Bob Nightingale reported they're going to cut payroll. So I mean, that seems like a fun job. Not. I mean, there's just all these really every job has warts and so few jobs, maybe three or four, if they opened, would be like, wow, this is a good job. But jobs usually open because somebody has underperformed and put their organization in a bad spot. You don't just like slot james click was like an unusual thing right is like he slotted into a world series. You know contending team right away that almost never happens so all of these jobs now come with for so if the far on and there were some surprising words in that situation.

So if Farhan and there were some surprising warts in that situation that we just didn't know about yet that have come to light That's another situation where I think there are people that don't have a defined role in the organization who carry a lot of power Which him crane so I think this isn't as unusual as we think But it signals a lot of things that I think people were kind of wondering like is Farhan calling the shots Who does ownership trust like it answers a lot of those questions that Andrew Baggerley, this is a fantastic piece of reporting because as you guys know you don't go with this unless you have it dead to right. So you have to make sure that you're right and you have to go to Buster and you have to go to Farhan, you have to go to all these people to make sure that it's accurate and it's nuanced and it was just a terrific piece of reporting that kind of finally like I said gives us some insight into what the giants have going on because people thought

the Chapman deal met Farhan was going to stick around for a while. Well, turns out Farhan had nothing to do with that. So now is Farhan again on thin ice because he had nothing to do with that. And the team has not been successful and they have underperformed, right? It just opens up a whole new bag of questions in my mind. Yeah, and there was some interesting sort of follow-up reporting where, you know, there was a lot of discussion now about the contract status and, um, you know, Farhan is dancing around it saying that there's language in his contract that

keeps him with the team till 2026, but it's not fully guaranteed. So, uh, that means he's not really on a contract. It's an option, I think waiting to be picked up. It's not fully guaranteed. So that means he's not really under contract. It's an option, I think, waiting to be picked up. It's not been picked up yet. And if you know, those options get picked up right around now. It's November. We just finally heard Chris Young got extended.

Yeah, and promoted. Oh, really? He's not pre-POB on it now? Yeah. Yeah. This is what's gonna be happening during the playoffs. And so I don't know. It's not fair to put it in this in these terms.

But if if I were a betting man, I don't I don't think I'd I'd bet on Farhan right now to be with the team next year. It's just next year. It's just. Next year? Yeah, like. 2025? I thought you said 2026 was not guaranteed. He says he said through 2026, which that I don't even know what that means. Does that mean to 2026?

So when they hired Bob Melvin and if there are options, it doesn't matter if there's 2025 option and 2026 option and they're just options and it's just language that's not guaranteed. it doesn't matter. If there's a 2025 option and 2026 option, and they're just options, and it's just language that's not guaranteed, that doesn't mean anything. That means he's basically not under contract. Gotcha. Okay, so there is a chance in your book. That's why I understand reading between the lines.

Okay, and Bob Melvin has one more year? That's what he's still dancing around. He said there's language that keeps them both with the organization. Oh, OK. So it may not be. I don't know. I mean, it would seem it seemed kind of crazy to do what they did to get Melvin from San Diego and then just pull the plug after one year.

But this whole situation with the Chapman extension is a little crazy. It is. And keep in mind, San Diego wanted about Melvin out because him and AJ Preller didn't get along. So it wasn't like they pride him away so much as San Diego wasn't going to fire him. I kind of wanted it. It was a graceful way for the two parties. And I don't think, I think that Fahman and Melvin are,

you know, are in line with each other. Yeah. But I don't. But that may not be a good news for either of them. you know, are, you know, in line with each other. Yeah. But I don't. Yeah. But I, you know, that might not be a good news for either of them. So came up earlier, the White Sox are gonna cut payroll

in 2025. I feel like if they just didn't say it, no one would care. You'd expect it. They're horrible. They're rebuilding. Every rebuilding team tears it down. Like big team, small team. Like they spend less when they're bad

Like that's a normal thing but to come out and say it in the midst of a historically terrible season They're talking a lot right now. You're just you just bring Negativity upon yourself, right? Like I heard that story. I'm like, yes I don't expect them to spend money what free agent want to go play there right now and Negativity is like so rampant on the teams that are not winning right now at the end of season locally. Everybody's calling for Farron's job. One more sidebar on the White Sox. If they hadn't said a word, Derek, I agree. They've got money coming off the books. The payroll is going down anyway. This isn't like a let's slash and dash kind of situation. They have some money coming off the books.

The payroll could naturally go down. What was the purpose of saying that? Sort of like recently when Chris Getz was like, well, you know, I thought we were going to lose a hundred games, but one 10, one 20, what was the point of saying that? You can think it. You can have that conversation internally, but don't say it in front of the media.

Come on. I think even the most ardent, like every team should try fan would could look at the White Sox next year and be like, maybe it's not the time to sign, you know, the best create like Juan Soto to the White Sox for like 700 million. Maybe not the time. I don't know if it lines up with what's going on there right now. I don't think they can pay him enough. I don't think Wonsoto could take enough money for that.

Like, just now. He wants records, but I you know what I mean? I think there's a few teams. Records are good. But yeah, that's you're probably signing on for maybe like two or three winning seasons in the next 10 if you go there. So that's not great. Let's talk about the Orioles for a little bit.

It's been a minute. We're starting to get some questions in our Discord about them. They're 84 and 66 entering play on Tuesday, three games behind the Yankees at the AL East, and they just lost the series over the weekend to the Tigers who are doing everything in their power to get that last wild card in the AL. And the questions about the Orioles

kind of go back to the start of the second half. So if we just look at July 1st forward, right, there are three below 500, 31 and 34 during that span. They have a negative run differential. I think run prevention is the bigger issue than scoring runs, but there are some individuals who have not been themselves. It's a little bit of both, but I think the question we got that started this was from

Orioles 2014 in our Discord. It's Adley Rutchman, a guy that just looks completely lost right now. Adley Rutchman got hit by a pitch in late June and whether he has admitted it or not, it seems like he's been hurt since then. It's pretty easy to see. And, you know, you broke this out just by like bat speed, barrel rate. Yeah, thanks for doing that. You know, the results also point to this.

But is this kind of in line with someone who's physically not feeling right? Or is this in line with just the normal ebbs and flows of a season? Yeah, I think he's also a catcher. Right. So I think that's important to know, even if he wasn't wearing down, getting hit on the head. Yeah, it's going to obliterate over the flows of a season. Yeah, I think. He's also a catcher, right? So I think that's important to know, even if he wasn't. Wearing down. Getting hit on the head. Yeah, just get obliterated over the course of the season. Yeah, it could be wearing down.

But these are pretty stark splits because you have his bat speed down, three quarters of a mile per hour. And that's meaningful because he already had some of the worst bat speed on the team. Barrel rate down from eight point four percent to two point seven percent. That's bad because eight point four is pretty good and two point seven is really bad. And then hard hit forty three percent down to twenty six percent.

That's you know, that's that's huge. Every hit over every time you put the ball in play over ninety five miles an hour, your OPS on that pitch goes up like, you know, 200 points or something So that's really bad and then he just hasn't even hit the ball a single ball As hard as he did before the injury at 109.3 max TV before 107.2 after so just everything that you would say You know, is he injured? I would say, yes, look at that. He's injured. But, you know, what can you do at this point? I mean, he's your catcher.

He's really good at these sort of catchery stuff, you know, so you just, you know, like there are other teams out there like, you know, they have Martin Maldonado or Victor Karatini, you know, like they have these guys that are just good at catching. Just that's what he has to be for you. So everybody else has to step up, you know, everybody else have these guys that are just good at catching. Just that's what he has to be for you. So everybody else has to step up. You know, everybody else has that's the problem. Yeah. If the rest of a couple of days off isn't enough to get you back to your pre

injury form, I mean, Adley had a one 36 WRC plus the day he got hit by this pitch, he's got a 66 since then. That's a massive difference. He's been as bad as he was good around this. But this is why I think that it's the offense that I'm pointing a little bit more fingers at, because I have last 30 days. They're 22nd in baseball the last 30 days with a 207 average, 289 OVP and a 358 slugging. I mean, that's not that's not the same offense we saw early in the year. And what's weird is that there are players that are doing OK.

I mean, Cedric Mullins has has kind of turned his season around and been valuable. Gunnar Henderson has been a metronome all year. Anthony Santander has been great all year and Kouser has actually come back out of his slump and been at least league average. But you just have Adley Rutchman. Jackson Holliday has been one of the worst players in the big leagues. Yeah, so much so that people are wondering, is he going to make the playoff roster? I think if Westberg can Westberg is swinging right now, if Westberg can show anything, he might just take that slot.

Ryan O'Hern has really fallen off. The Eloy Jimenez acquisition has not worked for them. Um, and, and so, you know, they've run through some of their other rookies like Mayo and, um, I mean, they're, they're looking for a spark. You know, you could still see kind of Westberg, you know, maybe coming back and, and being, and extending that lineup and cows are continuing this sort of march towards, uh, where he used to be. coming back and being and extending that lineup and cows are continuing this sort of march towards where he used to be.

And then Richmond just being, you know, the six best hitter on this team, that team could still do well in the playoffs. It's just right now. It's a buck short. Yeah, you got to get everyone else going and training Connor Norby to Miami looks bad. I mean, he could have been another guy that they could have run through in the holiday mayo, you know, in that sort of, you know, merry-go-round that they've done. And Norby might have been the one that hit for them, you know?

Yeah. And I think if you're an Orioles fan, you've watched because, and you're worried because this isn't like we've seen other playoff teams certainly we've talked about this every team has had like a two-week stretch where you're like how this team is pitiful the Orioles though have been right under if not slightly below 500 since July so this is not like a bad couple weeks stretch that every team goes through this is like a the team has been underperforming for quite a while. And I think that bothers people. And keep in mind guys, last year, their bats disappeared and their pitching didn't hold up

and they were swept out of that first round by Texas. And they, right now, lately, look like that team again. I mean, the Tigers had a, was it a perfect game going against them, you know, in one of these games? Like, you know, every time, you know, I live in this area, so they're on a lot. Every time you turn the TV on, they're three nothing it feels like right the the offense just hasn't been able to click they couldn't even sweep the white socks.

You know most of these good teams now are taking those free wins they take two out of three not enough against a team that probably is going to go down as the worst team in major league history unless they go in seven of their last 11 games. So I think there is concern. The pitching feels thin as, you know, I do agree that it's more on the offense, you know, but Derek had a good point. Like the pitching has not been great either. And they were supposed to make big moves at the deadline or at least make upgrades. And I don't think for the second trade deadline in a row,

I don't think that they did enough. I don't think they were aggressive enough. And last year you could write it off as we're at the beginning of our window. These guys are all young. We don't want to part with them. Well, you're here now. You're in the thick of what we expect

to be a contending window. You're not going to keep all of these guys forever. You're not going to afford to keep all these guys forever. At what point, at what year do you push those chips in? This seems like one of the years where you should have been a little bit more aggressive. Even though I know it's a tough market and there weren't a lot of sellers,

it's not going away. That trend is not going away with a third wild card. It's going to be tough to upgrade. I think they should have been a little more aggressive in getting the higher end relievers, you know, the Tanner Scott's of the world. Yeah, I think that would have been a good spot to make the push.

Sir Anthony Dominguez is a five year array with them right now. Trevor Rogers warts were pretty clear. I think initially I had a tendency to give the Orioles the benefit of the doubt because they are a smart organization that may have seen something they could fix. If they did, it's gonna take more time to fix it or they were just wrong. Both of those things are entirely possible.

I think what's interesting about the way this team is right now is like, if Adley's been playing Hurt, we grade them differently than if Adley's on the IL the entire time. They've been missing Westberg in a big way. That's a pretty important absence. They've been missing Grayson Rodriguez on the IL. So they've had some important players either playing Hurt or not playing at all. And then I think on the pitching sideTS. They've had some important players either playing hurt or not playing at all. And then I think on the pitching side, I'm still surprised. Corbin Burns is not the guy that I've seen for a long time. He's just not that guy right now.

Second half, ERA is over four. Seven and a half Ks per nine. That's not the Corbin Burns you expected when you traded for him. So you're not getting that dominant performance from him. Grayson Rodriguez hasn't been there. If they hadn't traded for Eflin, they'd be in really bad shape. Eflin's actually been pretty good since the trade.

So that was actually a good move, I think, at the deadline. I think it's a little bit like the situation we've seen at times this year with the Dodgers, more concentrated with injuries on the pitching side for them right now, but can they, in these last couple of weeks, get the roster healthy enough to recoup some of their momentum, even if they don't win the division, if they last couple of weeks, get the roster healthy enough to recoup some of

their momentum? Even if they don't win the division, if they get into postseason, can they at least be healthy enough to do the damage we thought they could do earlier in the year? A lot of it, I think, comes down to some key injuries really kind of pulling threads on this roster a little bit and causing this stretch to go more than a month. It's looking like a slightly underwhelming half season, but they were so good in the first half, they built up that cushion.

They can weather this. It's just a question of health, I think, for me. I wonder how these trade deadlines come together. I would just love to be a fly in the room, because what if you are the Orioles and you say, okay, we've got Norbian Stowers and this is our package and you're shopping Norbian Stowers and that's what you're, that's what you're, you're going to the Blue Jays and you say, we'd love to have Kikuchi, Norbian Stowers.

You go to the, you go to the Tigers and we'd love to have Flaherty, Norbian Stowers. And you just don't like you set some sort of, maybe they set a hard line and they're like, we're just, we're not going to add to that. And they shopped it around and Trevor Rochester is the best they could get. But what if they just added somebody arm brister, one of their arm, one of their top arms, right? To, you know, in line with the Jake Bloss. Okay. So Jake Bloss, I think arm brister, maybe a little bit better, but around the same Connor Connor Norby, better than Loper Fido, I think, you know, and then Stowers. So then you start to like, so were they just not willing to add and they just had like certain packages and

that was it and then and they made the deals they could make? Or were they or did they look around and say, oh no, Trevor Rogers is a sneaky pick. We gotta get like, if we just have him throw his change up more, it'll be so much better. I hope not because that was what they did last year and it tanked. They tried Flaherty, pointed up, I think being her and they got Shintaro Fujinami. And that's a little bit too smart by half too. Like, okay, yeah, I'm sure I know his stuff plus was through the roof, you know, and they seem to kind of like the stuff plus was through the roof on to deny but he couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. So they have Sarah Anthony Dominguez. They're like, oh, his stuff plus is really good. His command isn't. Let's bring him over and have him do what he does here. Well, the walk rate has been great with the Orioles, but that's about the only thing because he has four homers per nine with the Orioles. So I don't know if there's something like sort of missing in that like, oh, we'll take them and make them better. So every almost every,

I think I can almost say like every starter that was traded deadline is pitching significantly differently with our new team. You know, even a lot of the better, most of them, a lot of the better. Yeah. But so I think that the teams have this sort of siren song like we can make them better. And, you know, Rogers is the one where he pitched significantly different with his new team and it was not any better. Well, and it's it's not what Orioles fans want to hear right now, but I think maybe part

of the reason they were willing to give up what they gave up to get Rogers is that he wasn't a rental, right? They have him for two more seasons. So if it doesn't pay off right away, but it pays off in a future season, it's still better than nothing. And that's the difference between pitching, training those guys. Maybe they wanted Rogers over Kakuchi and Flaherty because he'd be there next year. Maybe. Orbo was their third or fourth option. It's all they could get.

Timing and preferences of other teams. Maybe the Jays really loved Jake Blass more than what the Orioles were offering. Yeah, that's the part that that's why I would love to be in the room because it's like what part of it is with the evaluation of other players, evaluation of their own players, the evaluation of what they could do with the players coming in, you know. Yeah, that and the draft room, I've always wanted to just be like a fly on the wall. Like I won't write anything, I'll never speak of this, but I would love to know what happens in those draft rooms.

I will say this though, Derek mentioned the injuries, how Bradish, a guy people kind of forgot about, would have been huge had he not been hurt. John Means also, you know, hasn't been able to pitch as well. And even if you bring Rodriguez back and you bring Westford back and they are healthy, just putting them back on this team changes the landscape a little bit.

Because then I think you go in, you're saying, oh, you're going Rodriguez, you're going Burns, Rodriguez, Efflin, and you've got Kramer in long relief. Like that's a pretty good playoff rotation, you know. And Albert Suarez, who's been a big deal for them and kind of filling the hole, is another swing man-ish guy you can put in the bullpen.

Right, and then you're just hoping that Ser Anthony Dominguez holds it together for a couple of weeks. And Cano is his like great setup man. And you can kind of see, you could see a World Series winning You know staff we just said that like in the past years that you know last year was the eighth best rotation against the 15th Best rotation like you know you can win with that that sort of deal But it takes it takes more batting than they had so that's why that's why I keep coming back the batting

I do think that Gunnar is an all level talent, like MVP type talent. And I do believe in Kauser and I really like Westberg. And so I do think they'll come back together again, but it's been a long stretch. Yeah, I think that's gonna be the key though. Getting Grayson Rodriguez and Jordan Westberg healthy will go a long way towards helping

fix a few of the flaws that the Orioles have been kind of fighting against here throughout the last two and a half months. The question that applies to the Orioles that applies to a few other contending teams right now is does the form of your rotation late in the year, does it matter? Does it matter more than your numbers in May or June, or is it just another data point that we maybe put too much stock into because of recency bias? I mean, I know if your rotation's ripped up by injuries the end of the year, that matters,

because then you're relying on some completely different arms than you expected to. But if those guys are just not pitching as well as you thought in the final month, does that actually matter? Does that have any sort of carryover effect into the postseason, you know? I mean, I haven't found it when I tried to do correlations

between September wins of our replacement and September record and what they did in the playoffs. So I point more towards chaos, but I do, you know, when I look at the playoff field and I see that in the past month, what you've got is Milwaukee with the 16th best rotation, Minnesota with the 17th best rotation, Detroit with the 18th, Cleveland with the 19th, and the Dodgers with the 25th and the Diamondbacks with the 25th and the Diamondbacks with the 28th.

I mean, even with my World Series cribbing, you have to go all the way back to 2015 to have a rotation that was as bad as 20th, get into the World Series. So it makes me wonder, are any of those teams World Series teams? teams and I guess the flip side, the reason why these don't correlate so well is that A, we have unexpected things happen in the playoffs all the time and you'll find a Brandon Fott who during the regular season wasn't any good and then just goes through and adds a sinker late in the season and I've even seen, Corbin Burns is like, he's like working a sweeper back in which he hasn't been using all year. And I think it's a little bit just to get enough comfortable with it. So in the playoffs, you can be like, Oh, sweeper, that's not on your scouting report. Or like, you didn't think about that. So there are like these adjustments that are happening right

now that could, uh, and then also what we've been talking about is the sort of the, the winnowing, the sort of tightening of, of these rosters. If you look at Cleveland in the playoffs, it's going to be Tanner Bybee, Gavin Williams, and Alex Cobb probably starting games for them. And it doesn't matter so much that I think, I'm not sure Ben Lively is a good option for them in the playoffs. And Minnesota will benefit from tightening,

Milwaukee I think will benefit from tightening the walkie. I think will benefit from tightening. You know, so, you know, even in, in LA where you're like, what you're like, oh, it's impossible. LA has got nothing going for them. Well, Yamada is pitching a well again. Flaherty is pitching well again and Kershaw is going to start game three and if he goes two innings, then they do bullpen for the rest and their bullpen is pretty good. So it's like, it could actually be OK. Yeah, they could find a way to get around it with the Dodgers.

But I mean, what do you think, Britt? I think the other part of what Eno was saying that probably needs to be mentioned too is with the expanded field playoffs, I think we're going to start to see teams that are in that 15 to 20 range among rotations have more postseason success because more of them are gonna be in the postseason. Like we're gonna have occasional runs from those groups.

The shortening of the staff to me is what is key here, which is why you can't really go by over the 20th best. You need six good pitchers in the playoffs. You need two, maybe three starters, two, maybe three relievers. I saw the Nationals win the World Series off like five hours. You don't need- And it's not just the Nationals.

I mean, just last year, the Texas and Arizona were down to six or seven pitchers they trusted. So, and the thing about the playoffs is with the off days and the way these schedules work out, you can put starters in the bullpen. So if your bullpen is bad, remember the Rangers last year, how are they gonna cover for this bullpen that nobody can trust? There are ways around that,pen is bad, remember the Rangers last year, how are they going to cover for this bullpen that nobody can trust?

There are ways around that, which is why, as you have said many times before, you know, like you just can't sit and predict the playoffs because some of these stats are so different. Guys are being used in different roles. Guys who, you know, in September, you might be like, oh, let's just get this guy in there for mop up duty. Now, let's have this guy just wear it. And the third time through the lineup, we already, you know, we're five, you know, Atlanta, great example, we're a million games up in the division in previous years,

like pitching different guys, getting different guys extra rest. Think you just, September is such an outlier. There's a reason why that old adage in baseball is like, don't trust September or spring training, that I don't think you can look at it and say, unless like you said DVR your whole rotation is you know unless guys are dropping like flies and you have actual

injuries then you have a problem in October but I think so much of this like guys flip the switch from September to the playoffs is totally different game it's talked to managers it's managed totally different you know it's just it is not the same. So yeah, if your rotation isn't doing well, like let's take Seth Lugo, last night has the worst start he's had as a Royal. Does anybody think that's the Seth Lugo that's gonna show up in the playoffs? Like the guy's been really good all year.

It's just, it's a totally different vibe than pitching against Detroit when you know you're gonna go to the playoffs. Like to me, you can't look at it as, oh, this staff is 20th right now, this staff is 18th right now. Well, what are their top pitchers? What is the best of the best? You're skimming off the top here and you don't have to pitch anybody else that's down low unless you're in a blowout playoff game. So you can get by with just your stars, which is why it's so hard to project the

playoffs because it's a totally different brand of baseball than we've been exposed to For the last six months, so I don't think I don't think it matters at all I don't I also think teams get hot like the Rangers and the Diamondbacks out of that wild card round and all of a sudden These guys who you were kind of worried about You know as you know as you go through the cyclical parts of the season. They're having this incredible two weeks. That's all you need Yeah, that's all you need but what sucks is you know, as you go through the cyclical parts of the season, they're having this incredible two weeks. That's all you need. Yeah, that's all you need. But what sucks is, you know, we as media were and even on this pod and we're, you know, we're going to try to play our previews and

we're going to go on radio stations or, you know, they ask us, who do you have in World Series? And, you know, we're going to write pieces on the athletic that are, you know, what do we like going into the playoffs? So you do have to at some point just like, be like, I've got to be worried about something, you know, like I've got to, I've got to, I've got to say something first of all, you know, and then I've got to be worried about it. So there's got to be some rotation you're worried about, like even getting six guys

together. And I think when I look at it, it's kind of Arizona for me. Because I'm trying to be like, okay, six guys, we just need to have six guys. And I'm not sure that I trust more than three guys on that staff. I'm looking at this right now and I like Zach Galin. I like Justin Martinez. But you know, he's kind of, he has some blowup potential. I like AJ Park. That's it. Three, you like three pitchers in this roster?

I mean, Brandon Fatt's okay, but you know, he always struck us against lefties and he's in the middle of a 10 ERA in the last 30 days. Ryan Nelson has one pitch. He's a fastball and that's about it. And what are you guys never really liked? Merrill Kelly, he's coming off injury. I don't know if I trust him. If I knew he was normal Merrill Kelly, then I'd put him on my safety safe players list.

Kevin Ginkel is pretty wild. And Ryan Thompson, like I could maybe, I could maybe give them, you know, four relievers. But I could maybe give them, you know for relievers But I have I have trouble giving them three starters. I'm not sure who I pick as my three starters I guess I would pick Galen Kelly and Nelson or galley Kelly Galen Kelly and fought But I wouldn't I think that every game would be a bull can be a game for me if I was the Arizona manager Well, let me pretend that I work for an Arizona Sports Talk radio

channel and ask you if it means anything to you that the Arizona Diamondbacks continue to lead major league baseball and run scored by a healthy margin. Can they out hit their pitching? Right. You have concerns about the pitching. We've seen that here in

Arizona. We've seen this team underperform at times without rotation, have some bullpen issues. Can they simply out hit it? They're they're winning games 11-10. Yeah, they can. That is important in the playoffs to do though, because teams use their best pitchers, because you're not getting, so that, that is the reason why offense, offense slumps,

except in these lopsided games, because you are getting the best of the best and you're no longer getting like guys who pitch in eight run games, you know, type of thing. But I don't know. This is why we shouldn't even predict anything, because you can be smart and you can have all the knowledge in the world and you're still going to be wrong. It's like when you do the brackets for the college basketball and you're like, look through it. And you know, I don't know about you guys, but I try to like make educated guesses and look at what who could be the upsets. And then whoever ends up winning is some like chick who doesn't even know what basketball is,

who just filled it out based on mascots they like. There is always that one, I just like the mascots. There's always that one person that's like, oh, I forgot I was even in the pool. Yeah, taco from the league. It's always a person who's just not as into what's happening that wins those pools, it seems like. Yeah.

Yeah. And the playoffs are the same thing. It is just because it is a different game. It is a small sample size. And baseball is such a game that like, oh, the ball bounced and hit the foul line at the catwalk at Tropicana Field. And now like it's just crazy stuff. It changes the whole the whole series. Yeah. Over the last 30 days in terms of team stats and batting,

I think what you've got is still Arizona. Arizona's at the top all the time. But the Dodgers, as they've gotten healthy, have become, you know, the top three, top four offense that they that they should be, I think, when they're fully healthy. So I just feel like if I'm playing the... Let me set my rotation for the playoffs and I also have a really good offense. I actually think I prefer the Dodgers pitching staff because I can go

Flaherty, Yamamoto and Walker Bueller plus plus et al for the first three games And I really like Kopec You know training looks pretty good You know Evan Phillips is still decent so I can get to six where I feel a little bit better. I think I Still wonder with Walker Bueller if it's gonna be Even it's a full-penish game. That like a, get us through two innings, please. So you're basically saying one of Kershaw or Bueller will be good enough to be

that sixth guy as the third starter. Yeah. That's how you're looking at them. Yeah. No, every team could, the Dodgers go in the world series, like Ken Rosenthal wrote today on the athletic or they get swept in the first round, like every single team, we're going to make that case next week, aren't we? Every single team. A're going to make that case next week, aren't we? For every single team.

A little preview of our preview there. If you're curious. Yep. You want to get a little high and a little low on your team. Tune in next week. Yeah. I think we're deciding if we're just going to bury everyone or if we're going to give you

reasons to be hopeful. But as they say, it's the hope that kills you. We are going to go on our way out the door. A reminder, you can get a subscription at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. $2 a month gets you in the door. You can find Eno at Unicera's, find Britt at Britt underscore Geroli, find me at Derek Ryper. Thanks to our Discord users for dropping a few questions for us in this episode.

Always appreciate that. You can join the Discord using the link in the show description. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you at one o'clock Eastern on Thursday on YouTube. Thanks for listening. College football is back like never before. I'm David Ubbin and I host Until Saturday, the athletics leveled up college football podcast. Three times a week you'll hear me and my co-host, fellow athletics senior writer Chris Finini and two-time national champion Damien Harris embrace the sport's new madness with you.

We're also just going to have a ton of fun enjoying all the things that make college football great. Check out the brand new one till Saturday every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. This fall, you can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts.