Rates & Barrels - Winter Meetings Fun: Jacob deGrom, Justin Verlander & Trea Turner On the Move!

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

The Winter Meetings are underway! The Rangers swooped in with a five-year pact to land Jacob deGrom, and the Mets quickly backfilled in their rotation by signing Justin Verlander. DVR and Eno discuss those moves, their process for building rankings, Zach Eflin to the Rays, and a swap between the Mariners and Brewers. Plus, the Phillies provided a late breaking news segment for the episode with an 11-year, $300 million deal for Trea Turner.  Rundown 1:04 Jacob deGrom to the Rangers 10:26 Justin Verlander to the Mets 15:24 Expecting a Longer Deal for Carlos Rodón 23:28 Building Rankings From Scratch 35:14 Zach Eflin's Three-Year Deal with the Rays 42:12 Accessing Pitching+ Leaderboard (https://theathletic.com/3356328 'In this Google Doc') 43:16 More to Come From Isaac Paredes? 51:06 Mariners-Brewers Trade: Kolten Wong, Jesse Winker & Abraham Toro 62:12 Breaking News: Trea Turner to Philly Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It is Monday, December 5th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris after a week off. Although we didn't take the week completely off. We did a podcast with our friend Rob DiPietro. It was the Pull Hitter podcast that Rob does, so be sure to check out that. We were both on as co-guests last week. So if you really missed Rates and Barrels and you feel like you were down an episode, you can add that episode to your feed. And then, of course, we'll have more episodes coming out later in this week.

We'll have a 3-0 show coming up in a couple of days because it's the winter meetings. You know, you're in San Diego, and it's day one, first full day in San Diego for the meetings. You're in decent shape now. We know the winter meetings take a lot out of you. I'm only going to get in worse shape from here on out. I'll have to hold you up by the end of the week. But a lot's happening already because before the meetings even started, Jacob deGrom went to the Rangers.

We just found out on Monday morning that Justin Verlander is headed to the Mets to be his replacement. But I think we should start with this DeGrom contract because it's a big deal. It's five years, $185 million. There are some options that can take it to a 60-year and push it up to $225 million. And it goes to this core argument that people have had a lot lately where they feel like a player is just not worth it in free agency right there are rangers fans who are upset they're afraid of the downside instead of thinking about all the ways it could go right that even in four years out of five if jacob degram is healthy for four seasons in the next five years he'll be worth much more than 185

million dollars if what he has done throughout his career is any indication of what he's capable of doing in these next years going forward. So I'm just curious, what do you think about this contract for the Rangers? And what do you think about the Rangers being the team that swooped in and actually got the deal done? Yeah. It seems like Stuff Plus had something to do with it because, you know, it was the best player by Stuff Plus. And I'm familiar with their thinking to some regard. Like, they felt about that. This is the best pitcher by Stuff Plus that was on the market, the best stuff they could buy, and so they bought it, you know.

And when it comes to volume, I can see what people are worried about. But, you know, in 2021, DeGrom threw 92 innings and was worth 4.9 wins, 5 wins. He could have seasons where he only throws 100 innings and is still a top 10 pitcher, as he was that year. He's so good when he's in that I think you're just sort of, in in a way rolling the dice and hoping he's healthy in October, you know, healthy enough to get you to October and healthy in October. And you're just, you're willing to give him a month off every season if you have to, you know, um, there's always the question if he misses a whole full season. Um, but if he does, uh, you know, with modern technology, the way it is, I feel like, uh, there's a great likelihood that he comes back

and has a nice little honeymoon, fully healthy window in there where he might actually give you a season with 180 innings in there. The way it is now, Jake DeGrom is projected by Steamer for 100 or depth charts over Cangrass for 160 innings. And that would, if he does pitch 160 innings, he will be the best pitcher in baseball. In fantasy baseball and regular baseball. Yeah, I'm with you.

I think the per inning stuff was still so good last year. 42.7% K rate. 3.3% walk rate. That's an elite of the elite reliever. Usually, the relievers that miss that many bats don't carry walk rates that low. It was just absolutely absurd what DeGrom was doing.

He had a rare home run issue at his highest home run rate since 2017 in a park that does tend to suppress home runs. His home park is closer to a neutral park now. The new ballpark in Arlington is definitely not as hitter-friendly as the old ballpark in Arlington, but it's not as pitcher-friendly as Citi Field. That being said, we're still talking about a guy who, skills-wise, is so good that it's not even as difficult as the move for Garrett Cole in free agency a few years ago when he went from Houston to New York, right? Dealing with Yankee Stadium is much more challenging for a pitcher than navigating half of your starts in the new ballpark in Arlington. So from a park factors perspective, I'm not really downgrading him all that much, even though it is a more difficult environment.

It's just more of like a game theory sort of problem with de grom from a fantasy perspective and how much risk do you want to take on and what circumstances need to be in place for you to roster him i think the early adp has him going somewhere in the range of pick 30 pick 35 so if you're in a 15 team league it's like the end around two beginning of round three and that's a deeper league a 15 team league is kind of an important consideration too because as we have discussed replacing injured pitchers in deeper leagues is very difficult so what are the circumstances for you that are most likely for de grom to end up on one of your fantasy rosters in 2023 well i just uh you know finished my pitching ranks, early pitching ranks, for an athletic project that we're doing. And I had to grow him like 10th because I sort of was penciling him in for 100 innings.

And then I saw the projected innings. I saw he'd be first with 160. I thought even if you sort of split the difference and he gets 130 innings next year, he'd still be top 10. So he kept moving up my top 10. I kind of, in the end, I never felt really good about where I put him. He's one of those things where it's like he's either one or he could be 20, you know, and it's going to be maybe difficult to own him or he'll just be happy all year, you know, that sort of deal.

So I put him fourth. year, that sort of deal. I put him fourth. Yeah, you put him fourth. I've got him sixth right now. I've got Burns, Cole, Woodruff, Scherzer, and Sandy Alcantara ahead of him. You couldn't have two more unique profiles at five and six between Sandy and Grom. I mean, the high volume of innings. I was looking at the two- volume of innings. With fewer strikeouts, yeah. I was looking at the two-year combined innings totals,

and Sandy Alcantara has thrown 434 and a third innings the last two seasons. And even the guys ahead of him, Burns and Cole and Woodruff and Scherzer, aren't even close. It's 100 more than Scherzer. It's 100 more than Woodruff. It's like 50 more than Cole. And it's about 70 or so more than Scherzer. It's 100 more than Woodruff. It's like 50 more than Cole, and it's about 70 or so more than Burns. I mean, that's just an absurd workload difference. Of course, it's

almost 300 innings more than what DeGrom has thrown during that same span, but I have DeGrom and Spencer Strider as the toss-up on the other side. I have Strider ranked right behind him, and then Shane McClanahan clustered in there. I think I tend to put guys who have higher risk profiles next to each other because it's at a point in the draft where you say,

I'm taking some risk here and of these risky options, I like them in this order or I'm going to the other part of the board. I'm going to get a bat. I'm going to get maybe a reliever if we're talking about a slightly later part of this list. But I think that's the way my mind tends to work. And with DeGrom, I think the smaller the league, the more likely it is I'm going to have him on my team, right?

The 3-0 show league last year was a 10-team league. The replacement level, incredibly high on the waiver wire. So if you get him and he breaks, it's not a problem. 12 team league, still pretty likely to have him there, right? Maybe it's a little different in a high stakes 12 team league versus a medium stakes or a low stakes 12 team league where in low and medium stakes, no problem. I'll have them. Higher stakes, maybe I'm thinking twice about it. But then if you're playing high stakes, you're thinking about leagues that have overall prize components and an overall situation where you're playing against several other leagues.

The value that a healthy DeGrom can provide is massive. He can break everything for you. You can push the ratios up to elite of the elite across an entire overall competition. So it's still very tempting. It's a slight discount. I don't know if I feel any better about drafting him because it's a five-year deal as opposed to maybe like a three-year deal. If some team had given him three for 150 or something where the AAV was even higher, that would probably give me more pause that a team wouldn't give him extra years. But I don't know if I'm like running out to go get a lot of Jacob DeGrom shares in draft champions leagues,

just because it's a five-year deal that he got from Texas. Yeah. I similarly had him to DeGrom shares or Rodon grouped. I feel like Scherzer has a little bit of unappreciated health risk himself with the back stuff. Rodon obviously has his issues with his shoulder. I generally don't think we're that great at parsing injury risk, and there's a little bit of just chaos involved in it.

But I have a feeling this number, this ranking for me, is going to drop as I means test it, as I actually go into drafts and be like, really? I'm going to take DeGrom now? I think it'll end up being where I'm like, yeah, I like him, but I'm going to take him. And then I'll end up in the third taking, depending on how much helium there is uh somebody like strider or otani uh no tony will go in the first so you know strider or yeah i didn't know how to rank otani either because as a pitcher i was like you know backhand top 10 i think i don't but uh he's that's not a useful ranking unless you have a split player so i didn't i don't really know what to do with that one either. But I think I'll end up more likely taking someone like

if there's a lot of strider helium, Brandon Woodruff in the third. That might be something that still is appealing to me. And then there's possibly the other guy in the room, Justin Verlander, available in the third. Yeah, Verlander so far, in very early drafts, goes the latest of the names that we're mentioning, of the Strider, DeGrom, Scherzer types. But Scherzer, I think, is valued similar to Verlander

just because of the age, right? We're talking about older guys, and you did mention the Scherzer back injury. Verlander, of course, lost 2021 to Tommy John surgery, came back and pitched very well. I mean, the results were incredible. A 175 ERA, a.83 whip. Steamer right now, which I don't think has updated for the Mets signings. It just happened like two hours ago.

Steamer was projecting a.351 ERA and a.109 whip for Verlander in 2023. Now that we know he's going to Citi Field for half of the starts, especially, I would take the under on those ratios anyway, but I would more confidently take the under on that and I would expect them to come down with that park being factored in. I guess the bigger question with Verlander, he's going to be 40 years old in February. Given his age, given that he's coming off of Tommy John last year, is the slightly reduced strikeout rate that we saw from him in 2022, is that who he is now? Do we accept that? Do we accept the stuff that he had last year as the reasonable skills baseline for him going forward and then of course with the age can he hold all of the skills that we saw last year or do you have to keep gently regressing that even though he seems to be aging as well as really any

pitcher of the last decade yeah i mean there was definitely a drop off and stuff and you can see it in the swinging strike rate which was his worst uh since 2017 um and you can see it in the strikeout rate, which is his worst since 2015. And you can see it, actually, it was worse since 2017 as well. If you ask for these percentages, like you should. But, and his stuff plus was down to 101, basically. The worst stuff plus of anybody I have ranked

in the top 12, as I have with him. The thing that gives me a little bit of pause is that this is an established arm that has established results. And so, to some extent, Stuff Plus matters a little bit less at that point and so that's why I was happy on Di Pietro's pod to announce that Jordan Rosenblum is going to do projections for us for P plus and so he's going to wrap in stuff plus and location plus into projections

incorporating the results you know on the field as well and trying to find that balance through regression analysis where you know how much stuff plus do we use and how much on the field results do we use and hopefully if he has enough time in the first offseason, maybe a second offseason thing, we'll be able to kind of investigate, you know, the role of fastball stuff plus. And is it more important to have fastball stuff plus year to year? And does that, you know, does a player's aging rely more on that or, you know, secondary stuff and so on and so forth.

So, you know, I'm really excited to let him dig into the data set and see what he can do when he comes out on the other end. But I assume that somebody like Verlander is just somebody where I want to trust the projections a little more than my stuff plus. And that's why, you know, he's projected to be a $25, uh, pitcher by steamer. In fact, it could be a little bit better with this move to New York. Um,

and so I could move him, uh, head of Aaron Nolan, Kevin Gossman, uh, and make him the 10th best, uh, starting pitcher.

Um, maybe with like a $26 projection. Um, and, uh, I'm not going to worry too much about the Stuff Plus because it's a great park. He's still going to strike out one per inning at least, and he has great command.

And the one thing that he has been doing as he's been getting older is giving up more homers except for this last season. So if there's a risk in the homer rate, that just got really addressed by Citi Field a little bit. It should soften what I would expect to be normal regression. It should soften that just a little bit given how difficult it is to hit homers at Citi Field.

If you were in the position of Billy Epler, if you were trying to make this decision for the Mets and DeGrom ends up going to the Rangers over the weekend, it's sort of Verlander at high AV for two years, possibly three if that third option, third year vest. Do you prefer Verlander to Carlos Rodon with the assumption that Rodon's deal is going to be longer because he's so much younger than everyone else?

I mean, the injury concerns that people have about Jacob deGrom to me are still there with Carlos Rodon as well. I'm really happy for Rodon that two offseasons ago, he was an afterthought. I mean, he was a non-guaranteed player to make the opening day rotation for the White Sox. Came back, had that great year, got paid last winter, got the opt-out, and is going to get the big, big deal this winter. I'm happy for him. But I think that's actually a very similar risk profile, albeit from a pitcher that's several years younger than both Verlander and DeGrom. Yeah. You know, Carlos Rodon's stuff is

way better, according to the Stuff Plus model. And I think, just from watching, it's a little bit crisper. It's heavier below. It's a little bit better, I think. with Shane McClanahan and Kevin Gossman and Brandon Woodruff and just below that elite tier that has Cease and Burns and DeGrom in it. So I think – and here's another reason why I might prefer Rodon, which is he's a lefty. And the new shift rules are going to place an emphasis on suppressing lefty offense and doing so with strikeouts. So you want a pitcher who, like, theoretically, if the shift rules do matter a lot, you want a pitcher who does not allow balls in play and who's lefty.

So those two things speak well to Radone. Now, a five-year deal is probably the difference there. The Mets seem to be acting a little bit like the Dodgers, where they'd rather give you high A, B, and short-term deals. And I can understand that in terms of wanting to stay out of just disastrous five-year stints. You know what I mean?

Like the Nationals are about to enter, where you've got these two big deals, you know, that you just can't get off your ride. Like Strasburg, you know, Corbin-type deals, where you're just at the back end of just two terrible deals at the same time. You just don't want to have two or three bad deals at the same time that have had multiple years left on them, I think. And so I can understand that. But on the other hand, the way the luxury tax works, there are teams that may go over the luxury tax sometimes, may try to stay right under, that would prefer to give longer deals.

try to stay right under that would prefer to give longer deals because then you stretch out the deal and you have a lower aav and it's a smaller luxury tax number so um you know i don't know exactly which one of those teams the giants are we're still kind of waiting for a little bit of a identity from the giants in the farhan unless it, unless this is the spending identity, which is not to spend as much. But, you know, we keep waiting for them to use the financial hammer they have. Maybe Rodon is ideal for a team like the Giants because, you know, maybe they are a team that wants to spend around $200 million a year,

$210, $220. Then that'll help them have a lower AAB. I think that's where they're headed. I think it's a matter of are they going to get Judge? Are they going to get one of the shortstops? Are they going to get a combination of one of the shortstops and Judge? Are they going to throw money at Carlos Rodon? I don't think Rodon's going back there.

I don't think it's impossible, but I just think there's other teams that are more desperate that will give him the exact terms he wants and the Giants are going to be a little more like the Dodgers and Mets. Which teams do you think are like that? I think the Angels are one of those desperate teams. I think they're

cut more from that Nationals cloth of saying, let's just throw money at the problem. Instead of getting all the other aspects of player development and things right that we talk about, let's just throw money at the problem. Instead of getting all the other aspects of player development and things right that we talk about, let's just patch it. Let's just do it. Let's be that team. Again, I'm not criticizing teams

that do this. It's a different way of building. I think it's good. It's a competitive market. It's good for the players because they get different options. They can go five, six, seven years. They can go two to three with the higher AAV if they want to. That's ultimately good. Every team built the same way, it'd be boring.

It'd be a bad market. But whether it's the Angels, maybe the Phillies are kind of like that too. I think the Phillies tend to be a team that's a little more willing to just throw the big pile of money out there. They don't need to get Carlos Rodon, so I don't think that's really the direction they would go. But I think it's going to be one of those other teams that ends up getting him. If it does, in fact, turn into a five or six year deal, because I just don't see the big market, air quotes, smart teams being the ones that go that many years on this risk profile. Even though it could work just like DeGrom. This could work out just fine because he'll probably get a deal that prices in the injury risk

and if he stays healthier than expected, he'll actually be a free agent value based on skills. That's entirely possible with Rodan and it's entirely possible with Jacob DeGrom too. I think people just lose sight of that. I think we get so quick to jump on board and go, oh, it didn't work with the Nats,

with Corbin and Strasburg and Jordan Zimmerman. Those guys all got hurt, but it worked with Scherzer. Sometimes it works. It also did work. They won. They won, right. That's the other part of it too. It's like if you win a World Series and you signed a guy to a long-term deal that didn't work out in the end, I guess with the

Jose Abreu contract with the Astros, talked about in the 3-0 show, if Jose Abreu is a bad player in 2025, do you care if you won a World Series in 2023 or 2024 and he was a part of it? No, you shouldn't. You won. That's the whole point. It doesn't have to be perfect

economic efficiency at every single turn when the goal is to win a World Series. I think we have to accept that as part of what happens sometimes too. If you make these commitments and you don't win, then sure sure you're going to be judged a little bit differently than if you did we have a little fun piece that's up on the athletic right now where andrew baggerly and melissa lockhart and tim kawakami and grant brisby and i all

spent 62 million dollars of the giants money the way I looked at it, I used a little bit of dollars per win analysis. And when I first did it, it looked like, oh, Nimmo. Nimmo always pops in terms of... I wonder if Nimmo is going to continually pop on every team's radar as the best value out there until they push the money on the contract to where he's as the best value out there until they push the money on the contract to where he's not the best value out there. But one answer was like Nemo, Drury, you know, and some other stuff. And I was like, man, this team already has like five Brandon Drury's that definitely does not need another Brandon Drury. And so what I did was I took what they currently had at the depth chart at that position of every player and subtracted it from the value,

from the projected value of the three agent players. And once I did that, there was one name that popped. It was Big Guy himself. So it was like spend all the money on aaron judge and then spend whatever's left on you know the bullpen and the rotation which actually seems to kind of fit what the giants have been doing you know they find those one-year pop-up arms they they you know they go and find reclamation projects they you know i could totally see them you know finding a 10 million dollar starting pitcher and a you know two million dollar reliever and that's their closer and their

you know number three starter next year yeah i could definitely see it playing out like that whoa what are you listening to this for wait who's talking you know you're driving a 2024 ford escape with available Alexa built-in, so you can change the music. Oh, yeah. Alexa, change station to 99.2. See? Purchase a 2024 Escape ST-Line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment.

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indulgent experience. Treat your senses with Nuolite Indulgent Moisture Body Wash. Buy it today at major retailers. We had a related question that came in in our mailbags. We're talking about rankings a little bit here at the beginning of this show. Mark wanted to know, how do we put together our rankings from a literal perspective? You talked about just getting them ready for a project. So where does it begin? Do you have a rolling rankings list that just never stops, that you just keep updating and updating and updating month over month, publishing new updates? Do you wipe the slate clean? Do you got a massive spreadsheet full of stuff? What's your process? Take us inside the mind of Eno and how you like to put those together.

Yeah. During the season, I do have basically an updating spreadsheet that I just sort of tweak all season. But I do wipe the slate clean every offseason to start over. Um, but I do wipe the slate clean every off season to start over. And I think it's important to do so to kind of refresh, to catch some of the players that missed the entire season to consider players coming over from Japan. And, you know, there's, there's just, it's a, I did write a piece once that, uh, seasons are arbitrary end points. That was in my deep in my navel uh fan graphs times but uh i i do think that it's a

natural endpoint for us that we all sort of you know refreshed start over and um and then uh it's pretty simple for me the the uh the way i start is with the projection system now right now uh steamer is the one that's out um and i think it's pretty good i even had a team analyst tell me that steamer was their benchmark basically that if they were going to do something and it was worth doing it had to beat steamer um and so you know steamer is an industry benchmark it's a it's a it's available and it updates quickly and it's there for us and it's good. So I start with Steamer, you know, with these pitching ranks. And then I upload to that spreadsheet other things that I think are important.

And so this year I was looking at Stuff Plus, Location Plus, Pitching Plus. And I also separately broke out Fastball Stuff Plus. plus pitching plus and i also separately broke out fastball stuff plus and it would be tempting for me to put k minus bb and some other really strong statistics on there however i know those are considered by the projection system i don't necessarily want to double triple count certain things so i wanted to put something that i don't necessarily think is in steamer which is the pitching plus model um and the reason i broke out Fastball Stuff Plus is I just have an inkling that that is possibly more important on a year-to-year basis than it is in a given season. And we know that Pitching Plus is strong for relievers year-to- year, but for starters, it is stronger in season than it is year to year. That's why I start with projections and then just allow

the pitching plus model to gently move guys around. So, for example, Shane Beaver is projected to be a $23 pitcher. Again, he does not have a good pitching plus, uh, but I'm not going to push him out of the top 20 because he still has that $23 projection. Um, but he has a 78 set fastball stuff. Plus it's, uh, still the worst in the top 20 for me. And so I may not be the high man, but I'm not going to push him really far down. I have Dylan Cease and Sandy Alcantara who have worse projections ahead of him. But otherwise, he's pretty much where he should be due to his projections. I just could not put him ahead of Dylan Cease.

I just could not put him and bad just so I can at a glance see, oh, this is a little bit low. This is a low strikeout rate for a guy that I've gotten the top 20 starting pitchers compared to others. I dig in a little more and try and decide like, am I going to stay low? Am I too high on this guy for some reason? Are there other factors that I should be considering? It's just a good way to kind of error check yourself. That's what I use it for anyway. People might have other applications for it. But I think you could start.

If you were saying, how would I start my own set of rankings? It is not unreasonable at all to go to something like the Fangraphs auction calculator, run it right now with the steamer projections, export the hitters and the pitchers, drop those into a spreadsheet, and start working off of that and adding the other factors that you want. I think having some pretty basic Google Sheets, Excel chops will help you because you can present more information clearly to yourself and salt the taste from there. I think this is how most people play. I think the thing I would like to know about you is, do you consider what the market does? Do you consider ADP in your rankings not to guide your decision-making as much as to give you a clear indicator of where you might be higher or lower on a player than the field because you can run the risk of getting caught in groupthink and like if you're if you're if you're ranking to adp that's bad you're just

doing what the market's doing but if you're aware what the market's doing i think you can leverage a position a lot more effectively on a player that you really like that is underpriced by most draft rooms i didn't in this run because I felt it was a little early and that I might be working on small sample ADPs. I wasn't just sure how robust that crowdsourcing information was, but I do in my March, my rankings that happen in the early year on the site. And one of the reasons I do is...

it's just not useful to put like... Let me see. I'll give you guys a quote-unquote sleeper from my list this year. I've got a group in the 70s and 80s. Anybody who's my rankings knows that's where I kind of grouped sleepers because you're taking somewhere that doesn't cost that much and could have tremendous upside. Let me just use Michael Kopech. Michael Kopech has a negative projection. I use 20 teams. Steamer thinks he won't even be worth

pitching a 20-team lead. Yet, he has a 108 stuff plus pitching a 20-team league. Yet, he has a 108 stuff plus and a poor location plus, but couldn't he get that knee right? Location plus isn't a sticky year-to-year. Isn't there a lot of narrative where he could just come back and have, what if he had the same location plus as Jesus Lizardo last year, 97th? I don't know. I think he could easily do that, and he would be a much better pitcher.

He has a similar profile to Hunter Brown, who I have ahead of him. He has a similar profile to Aaron Ashby, who I have like 20 points ahead of him. Anyway, long story short, I think Michael Kopech is interesting. But, you know, as I get better ADPs, I get a sense of, is it useful for me to rank 81st? You know what I mean? I have Luis Ortiz from the Pirates there.

What if he's not sure that he gets a rotation spot? We're not sure that he gets a rotation spot out of spring, right? Pitching Plus loved him, or at least Stuff Plus did. Once ADP starts becoming robust enough, then I can know, oh, okay, I should put him in the 90s or so because he's being taken as the 120th pitcher. It's not useful for me to put him at eight. Right.

If you rank him too early relative to the market, as blanket advice, the rankings are not helping others. They're not helping you if you're just overpaying against yourself. Yeah. Part of the art of ranking players correctly is getting the guys you should be getting at the right time. Yeah. Not easy to do, but it's an important consideration and i think it mostly matters in that sort of 60 to 70 plus because that's where you can have wild swings and adps um just because the numbers are higher it's actually fantastic math. You know what I mean? So if I have Shane Bieber at 18 and he's flying off the board at 12, it's a similar thing, but I don't feel as much need to put Shane Bieber where ADP is.

Now, this might be the result of spending a lot of time with you and potting with you, but I think I have Bieber ranked in a way right now relative to early ADP where I will not have any Shane Bieber. Yeah, so what's the ADP on him? 49 for November. Pick 49. Among pitchers though. That's probably

I'm going to say about 15th or so among pitchers. I have him 18th and the law of math is that 15 to 18 is a bigger drop than 60 to 63. Yeah, I doubt I'll have much. And in fact, as I means test this, right now I have Blake Snell, Zach Gallin, Luis Severino, Julio Urias,

and Alec Manoa right behind him. And me personally, how many of those names are you going to take over Shane Bieber? I mean... It could change. I'm not sure it's all of them. Luis Severino kind of comes to mind.

I love Julio Urias. The projection on Urias is not amazing. The projection on Manoa is not amazing. There was a piece on Fangraphs about how the low steamer projection on Manoa is a feature, not a bug. I definitely get Urias ahead of him. I don't think I'd move off that.

I'll fight the projections on Urias forever. Not forever, but at least for the next year or two. I want to understand how it comes up with that. It was a 404 ERA and a 123 whip. I need answers. I need understanding. I can't just accept that and move him down in the ranks as a result of that.

I know the K rate's low. That's part of the problem. I think he has shed some of the innings concerns that we had for him earlier in his career. Some of that was directly because of injury. Some of that was kind of an effort to manage him in a way where he wouldn't get hurt again. I think we're kind of at the point now where, yeah, he's not the workhorse workhorse like a Garrett Cole where you're just not really worried about it at all, but he's probably just one notch below that sort of expectation from anything's perspective. So I think that's gone. Maybe there's a case that the skills are lagging behind other top 10 pitchers though. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe it's just the K rate in particular. It's driving up

the ratios quite a bit. Here's another question for you related to a signing we saw. Zach Eflin gets a three-year deal with the Rays. Okay, so Zach Eflin getting three years somewhere. If you told me that, I would have said, sure, that makes sense. I tweeted this when it happened. You could have given me 20 guesses to the team that would have signed Zach Eflin to a three-year deal. I wouldn't have come up with the Rays. I just would not have thought, okay, good pitcher with some interesting stuff,

a guy we've liked as kind of a middle-round, later-round sleeper at times in the past, gets out of a hitter-friendly ballpark. Sure, we could see this work. This could actually be a good thing. But Eflin seems more like the kind of guy the Rays either trade for under club control or just develop themselves as opposed to someone they go out and ink to a three-year deal that's actually, for them, pretty

substantial. $13 million a year. $40 million in total. They've ever handed out. Yeah. Biggest free agent contract the Rays have ever signed a player to. Obviously, they see something and we know that they change things about pitchers all the time. When you look at Eflin, what changes do you think the Rays are going to make to get this contract

to look really good in hindsight, potentially? First of all, I think there is something that Eflin does at an elite level. If you sort my top 125 starting pitchers by location plus, you get Aaron Nola first, Ross Stripling second, Brandon Woodruff third, Zach Eflin fourth, Jacob deGrom fifth, Justin Verlander sixth, George Kirby seventh, Gossman eighth.

And I say that location plus is not sticky year to year, but however, when it comes to elite location, it is a little bit stickier year to year it's the elite non-location that adds noise there's just some pitchers that are hurt some year have poor location and get it back next year so uh you know once you have demonstrated lead location it's a little bit stickier year to year nolan for example has been top three in whatever location plus number i've had ever since I had command plus back, you know, so Nola is very obviously one of the command artists of our time,

and it's stuck with him year to year. So there's sort of betting on like a mini Nola, you know, sort of package or like this guy has a bunch of pitches, he can command them. When I look at it for pitch types, there's a possible overuse of the cutter, which is kind of an average-ish pitch. However, it's his best fastball. He's a bad fastball guy. I don't know if they will increase the use of the cutter. There's a chance that they could improve his curve and change

because Slider is his best pitch, pretty obviously. But I think the actual bet here is not so much that they can change him, will bet here is not so much that they can change him, but that he'll be good just because he can command these pitches. I think the idea is that he'll be the meat of their rotation and give them someone who can allow them to play the games they do with the rest of their roster.

Somebody has to put up innings. That is important, yeah. He's been hurt too, right? Multiple knee injuries, yeah. I said knee trouble. But yeah, I look at the change-up is a poor pitch. Maybe they have something there for his change-up. And then otherwise, though, it's a collection of five good pitches that he commands really well.

So I think maybe they'll just have something. Maybe it's a little bit more about maybe using the slider more because he didn't use it that much. Or just becoming a guy who throws everything 25% of the time. Just really upping that

you have no idea what's coming. I'm trying to come up with a roto comp for what I expect Eflin to do. Getting out of Citizens Bank ballpark, I think that's ultimately a good thing. I think a more balanced schedule, spending less time facing AL East teams will be good, but

he also landed in a pitcher friendly environment in that division anyway. I think this is probably a similar profile in terms of ratios and low K-Ray and high win probability, similar to Jose Urquidy. I think if you're into Jose Urquidy, you can be into Eflin. I think the difference is so far your pitching model has always pointed us back to Urquidy as having better stuff. But I think in difference is, so far, your pitching model has always pointed us back to your KD as having better stuff. But I think in terms of that high 3s ERA, good whip, low K rate combo, that's kind of what I think you're signing up for with Eflin, at least at the present time. I think a little bit of Jeffrey Springs. Not like Jeffrey Springs' results, but Jeffrey Springs, but not like Jeffrey Springs, the results, but Jeffrey Springs, the process.

I think he could maybe bump it up to, you know, around a strikeout per inning. If there is some undiscovered potential in that one. He has had seasons where he's had more strikeouts. So, I mean, I think he's more interesting than fantasy wise. Yeah, for sure. A guy that I would not have thought a lot about this offseason if he'd landed for a team I don't know, again, Angels. Sorry to pick on you again. If you just went to the Angels and been like,

oh, sure, they need innings. Makes sense. Move on. But the Rays went and got them, so I'm a little more intrigued now because clearly there's a reason they did it. But you're right about the innings. They have so many young starters with elevated injury risk. They play a lot of depth games with that roster. They have so many young starters with elevated injury risk. They play a lot of depth games with that roster. They need to find ways to

get someone in the rotation, a couple of someones in there every fifth day just to chew up those innings. It's theoretically the type that could go deep into games. Even if it's not multiple, like a ton of innings on the year, it is the kind of player

that might help them save their bullpen. Because they can't have every guy go full. Yeah, it doesn't quite work. Math falls a little short innings-wise. Actually, that's an interesting thing to bring up because we did find this year, this past year, that command starts to fall apart a little bit at pitch number 80.

And then we saw that the Rays were only leaving their pitchers in for 80 pitches. It's like, oh, okay. They saw this kind of research themselves. And so maybe the idea is now we've got a guy with elite command. So if after pitch 80, he kind of drops off of that a little bit, he's still going to be better than most. So maybe here's a guy that we can actually leave out there for 100. Yeah.

It depends on the circumstances too right if they're protecting a big lead then they'll probably let them go if it's a closer game maybe in that case they've got a rested bullpen they go to the bullpen depending on the matchups too so i'm really curious to see how that one actually plays out treat yourself to tim's new fudge brownie lattes made Made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice chilled milk, and topped with marble chocolate curls. Now that's music to our ears. Available hot or iced, only at Tim's.

So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. The answer is FedEx. Okay, but what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all the answer is FedEx. Okay, but what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx. Oh, but let's say that... FedEx. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping fedex where now meets next another mailbag question what's the easiest way to access the pitching plus leaderboard right now this is a

question from matt kind of fits into the i want stuff on my on my ranking sheet where do i go right now to get the full leaderboard yeah i think the easiest thing is just to find one of my rankings. Because I always, in my rankings, said something about a Google Doc and attached the Google Doc. So just find one of my rankings on the site and then look through the text for the Google Doc. It's an awful, awful... I'm sorry about it still. That's the easiest way. I will try to remember to put the link in the show notes. Yeah, bookmark the Google Doc once you find it.

Yeah. That's the key. Bookmark it. But I'll put a link to a rankings piece in the show notes. So if you click on the description, you should be able to follow through there. If you're a subscriber, you'll be able to get the thing that you're looking for. Hopefully, that will make it easier and then we'll have a better way in the future. Mailbag

question here. This is a Rays-related question from Corey. Corey wants to know, is Isak Parade staring us in the face as a potential breakout and we're just missing it? It seems like if he could simply get his BABIP up to 230, he could have a huge year with great multi-position eligibility.

The email also includes players 23 or younger that hit 20 home runs last year include vlad julio rodriguez juan soto bobby witt jr and of course paredes is the main concern that he gets raised into only 400 plate appearances i mean he does do a lot of the things that I like in a player that he makes contact and does not swing at balls. His barrel rate was pretty good. His max EV was pretty good. And everything was good except for the batting average of balls in play. And he's not like a guy who

hits 50% fly balls. There's also a very high pull rate. As a righty, it may not lead to the front of your brain that the shift rules may affect him, but shift rules may affect him. He's projected already for 244 batting average to be 30% better than league average in 483 plate appearances, and I just don't think those things can

both be true. If he is 30% better than league average, the Rays will play him. Now you're talking 244 average, like an actual projection of a 244, you know, 25 homers, 27 homers, because that's in 483 play differences, if you kind of pro-write that out.

And then you know that there's a lot of guesswork in terms of projecting based on the shift. So what if he hit 260 with 27 homers next year? Not impossible.

Definitely a player I would like to have a couple shares in. He's got a really strange line for the approach that he has. Last year's result, a 205-304-435 line does not make sense for a guy that walked 11.5 percent of the time and struck out 17.6 percent of the time those are plate skills

that he's shown throughout his time in the upper levels the minors so it's not at all surprising that he's i mean the power has come and gone and this was the best power he's ever shown however they really set him up to hammer balls up and in in the sort of Carlos Correa Alex Bregman type of approach and it seemed to fit in very well I was told by some Tigers fans that some of that adjustment had been made before but kudos to the Rays for spotting some early changes in his approach, maybe, and going and getting him. Because it really sort of flourished at Tampa as an approach. You know, there's always the chance that people stop throwing him pitches up and in.

But he does have enough hit tool where he's going to do something with the other pitches, and if he can do enough of something with other pitches, maybe those balls start floating back up and in again. He hammers those. You kind of want a hitter to demonstrate two or three or four different ways to be successful, and I think that Perez is giving us at least three, which is not chase, hit tool, put the ball in play, and hammer the ball up in it.

It's three different ways to damage a pitcher, right? I think if you get to one note with one thing, that's when you're sort of like, what can Daniel Vogelbach do? He can not swing at balls, sometimes hammer the pitch down low. He has a surprising amount of hit tool, but I would say he's kind of a two-note guy. So anyway, back to that conversation about making rankings, I think if you were going to put some numbers on your spreadsheet for hitters, I think if you're listening to this it's obvious that we would say

something like contact rate chase rate barrel rate yeah maybe you don't actually be in for a sense of that i think the other thing that i would encourage people to try and and put a real value on is the multi-position eligibility i think parade ace hases has first, second, and third. And you're talking about a guy that in early drafts has been going almost in the back of the top 400. That's a great price for someone that you can probably play,

let's just say for half of the lineup periods for the upcoming season with twice a week changes. Totally fine to have corner middle, three infield spots like that, and it could turn into more. Yep. And I know he's not going to really do much

in terms of stealing bases, but I think he could be good in average, very good in power, runs an RBI should be there too, could find his way into a larger role than expected. So I think that's a good call, Corey. I'm glad Paredes came up. One of the things that I have been talking to people about here role than expected. I think that's a good call, Corey. I'm glad Paredes came up.

One of the things that I have been talking to people about here and is relevant to fantasy managers and teams alike is just the idea of how aggressive to be based on a new scoring environment, a new game that we don't know how it's going to play out. I talked to a first base coach last night who thought it's not going to be a big deal. He thought the throws over weren't going to be a big deal. We're talking about

I've said this before, but there are about 12 players in baseball that average more than one throw over at first base. 12 regular players. Yes, it's that second throw over that gets you in trouble. The third one, you have to get them or it's a block. But if there's only 12 players, those are the elite base dealers anyway. Maybe it won't be that big a deal. And then who's thinking

that the two inches to home plate, the four and a half inches to second base in shortening of the base pass would also be a big deal. This is a guy who's telling people when to go or not. Yes, this is someone who has a vested

interest in players being successful stealing bases so interesting very interesting conclusion there or hypothesis i think you've also seen some teams be aggressive uh doing things a little bit differently one team uh that i think made two moves that uh kind of stick out to me as a team being maybe a little aggressive on this front is the Pirates signing Carlos Santana and G. Matt Choi. You know, they

seems to be a shift bet. You know? I don't have a salary here on the G. Matt Choi page, but the Santana salary was what? Under $7 million. Yeah, it was low. So they're like, hey, we just got these two players for a combined $10 million and they hit the ball hard. They're lefties that hit the ball hard.

It's a small bet, right? But it seems like the right kind of small bet for a small market team to do. I don't know if that means that they're going to be the go-go pirates with the two slow sluggers that get everything into where the shift used to be, but at least on one little way, they've done something a little bit.

One last topic before we go. There was another trade that went down. This might be part of it too. Yeah, this kind of it too. Yeah. Yeah. This kind of fits in Colton Wong ends up going to the Mariners for Jesse Winker and Abraham Toro. And I know Winker because at least in part because of injuries from the Brewers. Yeah.

Cash going to Seattle. So strange trade because it seems like a buy low on Winker. It seems like the Brewers are ready to see what Bryce Terang does at second base. So, moving Wong of the players that higher cost players for 2023 they had. Second base was a spot where they could afford to move someone and just go with the cheaper internal replacement. They get a good bench player in Toro. I like Winker as a buy low. I think as long as he's healthy coming off of two surgeries, which is a pretty big conditional if, he's an impact bat. I think he could bounce back in a

pretty big way for the Brewers. Colton Wong is just a nice all-around player too. He had a bit of a down year defensively, but the longer track record there is really encouraging. There's power, there's speed, he gets on base consistently. This could be a good trade, really, for both sides. Yeah, you know, Wong is such an interesting player because last year was 252nd and now it's above average among 268 qualified players. And that's just not what I think

of his game. No, he was 62nd percentile in outs above average in 2021 before that fall off. That's just weird. Yeah, and to do that in one year, it's also interesting because we think that the shift rules are going to put more emphasis on second base defense because you can no longer shift them and they have to be able to have a little bit of range. Is Colton Wong the guy who was in the

62nd percentile, the guy who used to have plus outs above average in St. Louis, or is he one of the worst defenders at second base in baseball last year? It seems to be a bit of a bet. However, you also know that teams have their own internal defensive metrics, so maybe theirs looks different. In any case, there's a little bit of a bet there because they did give up some players. I know that everyone's down on Jesse Winker. I'm not as down.

I do want to see what the next surgery brings because he's had a neck surgery and then there's a possible back surgery coming. Two surgeries is a little rough. It may lead to recovery times that bleed into the season. In which case, it'll be interesting that the brewers had to pay Wong's salary

down and also pay all of Winker's salary. Health is a big question mark there. Almost a $2 million difference. The amount of cash that was sent may have been relatively small. It may have just been a cash-neutral deal, which in that case, you kind of say,

okay, they're, again, shuffling stuff around on the roster without spending more money than it makes some sense. Because Wong was less expensive then. No, more expensive then. More expensive, yeah. Wong, I think, was $10 million. Yeah, so, okay. Maybe it was just the $2 million difference.

What was the other player? Oh, Toro. Abraham, so, okay. Maybe it was just the two million difference. What was the other player? Oh, Toro. Abraham Toro, yeah. Which I think, you know, there was a lot of consternation. And, you know, we've talked about Abraham Toro and liked him in the past. But I think the lesson to be learned from Toro, in a way, if there is one, is that, you know, that batted ball power matters. He does everything right in terms of not striking out too much,

not chasing too much, although he chases a little bit, walking a fair amount, seems like a good player. The defense is bad, and batted ball quality is bad. So I wonder what the Brewers are going to do. You know, Toro is going to be the Tourang backup plan? Or they're going to put both those guys out there? Is either one of them going to have league average power? I was worried about Bryce Tourang's power

because we didn't see it in games prior to last season and because he's also not a very large human. He's a pretty wiry guy. There was a lot of speed in the profile right away, but kept the speed and hit 13 home runs last year at AAA. And hit 13 home runs last year at AAA. Nashville was the affiliate. So it wasn't high altitude, extreme, hitter friendly, kickball conditions in Albuquerque or El Paso or something along those lines. So I'm a little more optimistic about his power now than I was. Especially because he's also been very young for the level everywhere he's played. Bryce Turenk just turned 23 a few weeks ago in November.

But I still think it's hit tool and speed over power. I think if you got more than a half dozen homers from Bryce Terang over 450 plate appearances at the big league level in 2023, you'd be pleasantly surprised. And I wonder if it's going to be... Sounds to me like you're kind of describing Colton Wong. Colton Wong with less established power, right? And if he's a better defender up the middle right now, that probably works. Because Colton Wong didn't come up with great power himself.

Yeah. So that'd be my concern with Terang. I'm looking at the hard hit numbers that the Roto-Wire player page has. 24.8% hard hit rate in the minor leagues. So still pretty low. Yeah. It's still not a certainty. The question someone asked me, wire player page has 24.8 hard hit rate in the minor leagues still pretty low yeah it's it's still not a certainty the question someone asked me i didn't really have a good answer for this was

what if they just put luis arias back at second base he's kind of a plus defender over there not necessarily a good defender at third and they go out and find a third baseman like what if part of their roster shuffling brings in someone there and then Terang's more of a utility guy as opposed to the everyday second baseman. I thought that was at least possible, but I feel like that's more dependent upon a trade happening that's unforeseen as opposed to an obvious, let's go get this guy in free agency and make him our third baseman and move Luis Arias over. Well, I don't know how many times we wish-casted a free agent into Milwaukee and nothing happened. Let's not go down this road again. I would point out that Roster Resource has them about $20 million down from last year.

I would say, as a team, other than just a bat somewhere. Is there an obvious need? I mean, obviously, center would be great, but I think this is the type of team that goes young up the middle, young and cheap up the middle, and would rather buy the new Hunter Renfro, right? So I think you kind of do Garrett Mitchell and Tyron Taylor,

kind of, you know, that's your up-the-middle player for the story of Ruiz. Those three, you know, you're going to find a center fielder there. And then, you know, Yelich and Winker, you know, and Corner and DH. I think the natural spot that I'm looking at is corner outfield as a place that they could spend. But corner infield is the other one. You could move Urias and then have, basically, release Brosseau or have Brosseau be the last bat on the depth chart. Or not even bring Turing up. So then it's Brosseau and Toro as your utility guys.

That's a possibility. So what are we looking at on the free agent market that would be an actual fit for them? Let me select corner infield and third base. Aaron Judge. Brandon Drury? Yeah, no, I know. I only make that sound just because

that's just exactly the kind of move that I feel like they will make. And I want a higher ceiling player. I know he had a great year, but I just... If I sort by projected war, Mitch Hanager. See, that I actually kind of like.

But he's not being rumored there at all. It's the rumors are the Sox and Rangers. I don't think they're going after any outfielders because I think with Winker that he's more of a DH than an outfielder. You can play him in the outfield, but he's really your regular DH. He's been bad for a while. And between Mitchell and Sal Freelick and Asturi Ruiz, you have all those young outfielders that you want to play somewhere. So I don't know if they're going to add another outfielder on top of what they have, unless they trade young outfielders to address a need,

maybe behind the plate, a new catcher. Get into the Sean Murphy sweepstakes. Yeah, that would be good. Do that. Cody Ballinger is an interesting name that pops, but I just don't have the feeling. I think you're right. It's not the deal. What's about Justin

Turner? That's a fun idea. That would actually work because it would be a shorter term deal. Turner plays third. Arias plays second. Makes them a lot better offensively. It scratches the itch of not throwing too much money at a Brandon Drury.

Too many years at someone like Brandon Drury. Maybe you convince them, get out of the LA thing. Maybe add a little bit of your own legacy and a different theme. Maybe we'll give you a second year where the Dodgers won't. Yeah, I do think Justin Turner, even though there's some

durability concerns at this stage of his career. They have the mix and match pieces behind him, right? Yep. That's the point of having the depth. I think that would make them better. I think that's on the short list of moves they should consider to actually upgrade. It's an incomplete puzzle, but I do think if you're in an early draft and you're looking for speed and you're looking for speed late, Bryce Terang might be worth a flyer because it might be a partial season where he's getting some run.

He's a lefty. So if it's a platoon, you could end up on the larger side of the playing time split at second base in Milwaukee. But they never do anything conventional anymore. They're always like a wildcard team for the offseason. So enjoy Evan Longoria and Will Myers. On that note, I'm going to end our conversation. If you are enjoying this

podcast, I don't know if I am anymore, ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com Drop us an email. We'll take those emails. Be sure to hit the like button if you're watching us on YouTube. Tell a friend if you've got any friends that are interested in baseball podcasts and haven't heard of us yet, no downside to sharing us with other folks that enjoy baseball. I don't normally shame the brewers. Yeah, they kind of deserve it right now.

On Twitter, Eno is at Eno Saris. I am at Derek Van Ryper. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you next week. Breaking news. Breaking news, breaking news. Breaking news, breaking news. We've got something coming over the hot, hot off the wire, hot off the wire. Trey Turner, size with the Phillies.

Size with the Phillies, 11 years, $300 million. That's a team with two $300 million players. Is that going to be a first? Has to be. My mind is a little empty right now. Wait, Machado and Tatis. Does it count if it's an extension, though? But, anyway.

It does count on some level. No, it definitely counts. It is real money money it is being paid yeah but pretty cool they got their short stop they needed a short stop I do wonder

how long he's going to be a short stop one thing that I did like about Turner versus the other guys was that he's the only one of the shortstops that I can think plays center field. Yeah.

So I do think there's some defensive versatility there. I did the aging curve that you normally do, which is subtract half a win per season after age 30. And when I did that in his 11th year, he would be below replacement. However, I kind of doubt that is going to be true. I would, first of all, just think if he is going to be below replacement, they might just cut him. And so that won't be, that'll be a zero rather than a minus 0.3. And also just his skill set seems really well suited for a guy who can just, you know, play you at the end of his career, play you some second, play you some left, you know, get on base, steal some bases. And we now, we were just talking about the new base stealing environment.

You know, he's got to, you know, even if I don't think he's going to double his stolen bases next year, he's got to benefit from the four inches and the throws over, and he is the number one regular in terms of throws over to first. I think it's a little bit of a bet on the new rules. Also, we need a shortstop right now, and here's an elite shortstop. We got really close to winning it all this year, and we're going to get better. Yeah, Trey Turner will be a shortstop until the Phillies develop a new shortstop,

and then at that time, they can decide where he fits best. I think with his athleticism, center field will still be a possibility. Second base could be fine. One of the corners could be fine. I mean, that's not anything to worry about right now. Stott did rate better by ounce above average last year. Well, we'll see. He could be their second baseman, I guess. Yeah, maybe.

Maybe. But 99th percentile in sprint speed still. 86th percentile in max exit velocity. I think that was the part of Trey Turner's game that really came in over the last three to four years, especially. The consistent power output has been at a level that few people might Trey Turner's game that really came in over the last three to four years, especially the consistent power output has been at a level that few people might've expected back when he first broke into

the league. It seemed like it was a lot of speed and hit tool initially, and the power is consistent. The approach is good. The only thing that's a little bit strange to me looking at what happened in 2022, a 36.4% O-swing percentage. It's a pretty big jump for a guy that's usually right around that 30 percent mark so maybe some concerns the k rate will start to rise here in the early parts of this deal if he continues chasing pitches outside the zone at that rate yeah i wonder i wonder what would happen there if there was maybe a bit of a book that started to develop on him um because the strikeout rate did go up uh after you know two of his best years of his career but it's still in line with his regular uh you know work 18 for his for his career 18.5 last year swing strike rate

was the highest and that is related to chasing. But with a guy with such an excellent hit tool like this and a background of not chasing, I think I would consider that maybe the one-year aberration when it comes to his line. So just an amazing bet. The thing is that's different about Bryce Harper is that when Bryce Harper got $300 million from them, he was, what, 27? Trey Turner is 29 and a half, basically. So this is a... And Manny Machado's $300 million deal came when he was 27. And Trout's big deal came as well when he was younger.

So this is one of the older big deals like this. And I think they're just betting on young legs. I mean, what did you say? 99th percentile still? Yeah, it's not showing any signs of losing speed yet.

And how that ages, of course, we'll see. I think back to the big contracts given to players at age 29, age 30, right around that time. And so many of them are corner mashers. This is a different sort of profile, in part because most guys who run like this don't hit the ball as well as Trey Turner does. It's a pretty unusual combo. You're probably going back to, I mean, who is his best historical comp as a player? Ricky Henderson?

The closest sort of skills comp we would have to present-day Trey Turner? I mean, what are we talking about? Like, plus stolen bases, plus contact, and plus power? I'm just, I'm uh career stolen base rates and none of these guys have uh joe morgan oh joe morgan is a little bit interesting but joe morgan walked a lot which is so funny because he was so against ovp um and uh cesar sedano well that's an interesting name.

It actually is almost a perfect comp for what Trey Turner does. A little bit less power. Still going down. When's my next big power guy going to be? Karl Crawford? More power than Karl Crawford, right? Yeah, I think... Jimmy Rollins!

Okay. Maybe. Faster than Jimmy Rollins! Okay. Maybe. Faster than Jimmy Rollins. And a little more patient too, right? Jimmy Rollins has 7.9% walk rate, but a 12% strikeout rate. So a little bit more aggressive, more contact.

Yeah, but kind of close to Jimmy Rollins. That's not bad. Interesting. Very interesting. Well, the first of the shortstop dominoes has fallen. I get the sense, you know, before you go home from San Diego, a few more deals are going to get done because the pacing has been fantastic so far.

Yeah. I went on the A's show that I do and predicted that the old starting pitchers would be first and none of the big shortstops would sign. So I was half right, I guess. Well, unless more news breaks in the time that I am giving us the second outro of the day, a big one for Phillies fans. And Trey Turner, right now, kind of the number one player off the board in fantasy drafts for 2023.

It's not like a consensus locked-in sort of thing, but that's the most common occurrence to this point. Enjoy your time in San Diego, Eno, and we'll catch up again next week. Yes. Thanks for listening. Thank you.