Rates & Barrels - Working backwards, looking for late-season help, and searching for this year's K-Rod

Episode Date: August 25, 2021

Eno and DVR discuss O-Swing% movers (in both directions) in search of late-season help and future shifts in value, the league's most effective bullpens with just over a month to go before the postseason, and candidates to become 'this year's K-Rod'.  Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels presented by Topps. Check out Topps Project 70, celebrating 70 years of Topps baseball cards. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. It is Wednesday, August 25th. Could be the day that I break into my own U-Box to get my move completed today. As I was telling Eno before we started recording, I have to figure out how to unjam a master lock, the kind that you had like on a locker in high school with the numbers on it.

The dial won't turn. My movers get here in a few hours. I'm sure it's all going to work out, but some MacGyver- type maneuvers will follow this podcast. And if I had the wherewithal to record it, I'm sure it would be hilarious for viewing at a later date. Two words, liquid nitrogen. That's definitely on the list. It's like not quite the top five because of the difficulty to obtain it, but I know it's one way to get to that box. It's got to be nearby somewhere.

Yeah, it's got to be something. I mean, yeah, there's all sorts of brilliant minds nearby. I'm sure we can find a way to get into that box. It's just a matter of timing. You're really close to the Stanford Linear Accelerator, so all you got to do is have them set it up so they can ram one of those

ions as fast as possible. The Stanford linear accelerator is actually pretty interesting. That's where they are trying to accelerate particles as fast as they can to smash them into each other. One of the possible outcomes is a black hole. Beautiful. It's good to know that I'm close to the black hole, so there won't even be a fraction of a second where I know that there's something bad that's about to happen.

It will just happen before I know it's happened. Just think of an eye. On this episode, we will discuss some big movers with the O-swing percentage, looking at some hitters that have gone the right direction and some that have gone the wrong direction, trying to figure out what that means for the future we'll dig into what we think are some of the league's most dangerous bullpens and we'll try to find the next k-rod because that's kind of a related idea so let's dig in let's start with the bats because the o-swing

percentage leaderboards the year-over-year changes over at fangraphs there's something we've talked about a couple times in this show. I think it's good for a couple of things. One, it can help you find players that might be surprisingly useful if they find playing time down the stretch. And two, it might help you avoid some players in the future if you see a massive drop and it's part of a broader set of decline, right? Like you'd see big picture decline sometimes decline sometimes this is a way to kind of

get you a nudge to look at a player more closely let's start with the positives though i need happiness i need good things in my morning right now let's uh talk about tyro estrada just for a second because i think he fits into that very first group i described he's the kind of player where if he is playing he is probably a lot more useful than people realize. And of course, he's an infielder for the Giants. And I would say the success of someone like Lamont Wade is probably what I'm thinking about here. I mean, Lamont Wade quietly approaching 20 home runs. Estrada was the sort of up and down guy with the Yankees for the last few years and filling a similar role right now for the Giants,

but he's already collected more big league plate appearances this season than he has in any other big league season. I imagine we'll see him again at least at some point in September when rosters expand. There are some flaws in the profile, but I see him as the guy who has improved his O-swing percentage the absolute most of all hitters if we narrow it down to hitters with at least 50 plate appearances this season so i just thought that was noteworthy because i'm wondering if we're looking at the giants now similar to the way we've looked at maybe the dodgers in recent years where if they go get somebody they might have like a low risk sort of move they probably have a reason

for doing that player every team does but their, as we've talked about on this show, has been so good that we should be a little more inclined to buy into the players they take a flyer on. Yeah, it's pretty funny. Farhan Zaidi, there's a lot of general managers who are adept at saying nothing.

And to be fair, Farhan Zaidi does add words to his answers that fill space that don't mean much. But he sometimes really just tells you what he wants. And one of the things he said when he's acquired players like Lamont Wade and others is that he really values plate discipline. And you can see, I've said before, the Giants are now top three in reach rate. This is the stat we're looking at. You might call it chase rate or O-swing.

This is something they value. This is something they care about. So you take someone who had a good hit tool, not a ton of power, was a right-handed shortstop that could play in the big leagues fills a need for them because i think i think the jury's out mauricio dubon not a shortstop um i think you know don and solano uh do not want he's currently the backup shortstop uh in in san francisco i think i'm not i'm not quite sure but i think it's him i mean it's not tommy listella uh so i don't know who else it could be uh so i must admit maybe it's chris bryant uh in any case um he's the he is i think also interesting because um he's gonna he's a lock a lock for one of the two

spots when September expands and it's funny because we're going to talk about this all throughout the show one of the themes will be what happens when the rosters expand and who's left in the cupboard who's left to come up

and for a lot of the really good teams it's going to be somebody boring it's going to be Tyra Estrada because it just fills a need for them. They need to have a right-handed backup shortstop. Maybe not even right-handed, but they need to have a backup shortstop on the roster. So I think for the Giants, it'll be a reliever and Tyra Estrada that comes up. And I don't know what it means long-term. and Tyra Estrada that comes up.

And I don't know what it means long-term. It could mean that Tyra Estrada takes over for a Solano Flores type and becomes the right-handed backup middle infielder because as the roster is currently constructed, they could, like I said, use a backup shortstop. And they value versatility. We've seen that, of course, in their roster construction

recently as well. So just a guy that I had not thought about at all, who actually has shown at least one underlying skill growth that we find very interesting. And they play those guys, you know, so if you find next year that somebody's off the roster, Solano or La Stella or somebody, and Tyra looks like he's got the roster spot for the year, I think it's probably like a kind of a deep league thing where it's not something that you'll want to play every week. But Tyro will play some. I mean, you can just look at how Solano and LaStella are being used. Yeah, some other names here at the top of this leaderboard.

Daz Cameron, who's only been up for a total of 22 games so far this season, entering Wednesday, hasn't done much. I mean, the slash line is not good. 194, 256, 375. You're not getting excited about Daz Cameron based on that, but he's got power. He's got speed. He's a part of that younger group of position players. The Tigers need to sort of figure out sooner rather than later because they need to know if they actually have someone who's part of their next good team on their hands i don't know if that's any sort of advice to go after daz cameron but i would say it's advice to keep an eye on what happens the next couple of weeks now that he's healthy again because there might be a little more there than the surface numbers would indicate i don't know if there's anything more you want to add to him but we're kind of hitting on two very

very deep league, fringy sorts of guys because, again, these are the kinds of guys that can show this growth on a pretty small level but have it be somewhat meaningful if things start to fall into place otherwise. Yeah, I'm falling out of the race in Devil's Rejects, and so we're loading up on peripheral guys. And Cameron for speed is an interesting idea. We just picked up Jake Berger because of and uh you know cameron for speed is an interesting idea we just picked up jake berger because of his you know we talked about this on a previous show his quality

of contact is pretty good um so you know a lot of times you're just looking for a player like this and for what it's worth coaches in big leagues tell me this is the type of player I want I want a player who someone might someone else might be saying is quad a because uh that person has a high floor that person is really close to the big leagues and I think maybe I can as a coach give them that one little tweak that makes them a major leaguer um and uh so I think Daz Cameron Cameron fits that bill where he's right there. It might not work out for him, but he just had the best year in the minors he's ever had. And he's got opportunity and the team has a need at his position. So it may work out. Yeah. Speaking of maybe quad A types, Josh Van Meter, pretty high up on this list. 10.6% improvement in

his O-swing rate from last season to this season. I would say Van Meter kind of fits into the could we find the next Ty France sort of conversation. The guy that bounced around in the minors for a long time, was up and down a little bit at the beginning of his career. Didn't even have a spot when he first broke

in this year. Looked like kind of more of a bench player, but now after all the trades they've made in Arizonarizona getting that prolonged run of playing time there is power there is speed there's pretty good play discipline too it really comes down to how much lower he gets the k rate because at 28.2 percent so far this season didn't have major k issues though in the minors even when he debuted even his first time yeah his debut back in 2019 with the reds 21.5 percent that offers a i think a glimmer of hope as well. So I think he just does a lot of things well, versatile enough to hang around. And on a bad team, especially, I mean, the Mariners are not a bad team. That's one of the big surprises of this year. On a team with opportunity, which I

would say Arizona absolutely is going into 2022, A player like Josh Van Meter can find his way to 500 plus plate appearances pretty easily. Yeah, there's not really a lot of pressure on Arizona to bring Estrubel Cabrera back, I don't think. And there's not really a player that's beating down the door at one of those infield positions. So I think it's fair to assume that Rojas and Van Meter might be the penciled-in starters at second and third this year. The only question is from our conversation last week about, or last pod about Dalton Varshow, does Dalton Varshow push Cattell Marte to second or third, and Rojas, or that and Rojas or that,

that costs Rojas or Van Meter spot. However, I think being the fourth infielder these days, that kind of dovetails with our conversation about what teams are doing now to load manage and to, to keep their position players healthy. I do think that like being the fourth infielder is more useful in more leagues than people realize. So I would guess that the worst case scenario for Van Meter is he's the fourth infielder. And maybe it's just, maybe it's a bias

because I play in deep enough leagues where a lot of the fourth outfielders and fourth infielders are meaningful. But they're also just one injury away from starting. So it is something, you know, if you're in the shallower leagues, you just, you sort of remember the name. If you're in the deeper leagues, you actually stash the guy and either hope for the injury or just use them as they're useful. And I think Ty France is a good combo. I think if I was to guess what Van Meter's true talent is, you know, sometimes you can't tell until they get to play every day. And so you're, you're kind of getting that uh second run of sustained work for for van meter but i think i'd guess that he's kind of like a 250 hitter with 20 homer power uh and

five to eight steals which is very francie and it plays especially at the price that he'll go for in 2022 drafts some bigger names though that are on this list byron buxton who i think we talked about last time because he had just gone on the IL, I think the first time we looked at this leaderboard. And, of course, has missed a lot of time since then, so not much has changed. But, obviously, a big part of what he's been doing with year-over-year improvement is becoming more selective at the plate. And, of course, hitting the ball a lot harder each year as he makes more and more contact. So, nothing to really add, I think think for me on Buxton just yet I just I'm believing this version of him more and more because of underlying changes like this one and those were I mean those four guys

Estrada, Cameron, Buxton, Van Meter all 10 plus percent increases in improvements in the O-swing percentage other guys that I thought were interesting though Francisco Lindor has actually 10 plus percent increases in improvements in the O swing percentage. Other guys that I thought were interesting, though, Francisco Lindor has actually improved. He's swinging less outside the zone than he has in the past by about 7%. It's been a miserable first year for him with the Mets. You know, we've talked about this team underachieving offensively. There are a lot of players out there that have a down year sort of like this one where I feel like it's a pretty obvious sort of bounce back. And I think with Lindor, there's a whole lot going on in his

profile. He's swinging less in general. It's not just at pitches outside the zone, just being maybe too passive. I still see a ton of good in this profile. And I think he makes sense as one of the more obvious rebound candidates for next season of the struggling early round guys that we've seen this year yeah I mean I think one of the difficulties uh in researching is that um different players manifest the same uh issue in different ways so what I see here is maybe pressing and a lot of times in the past i've seen pressing as uh reaching you know so you see you'll see that like reach rates go up uh usually when a when a player's on a new team uh that's something i found when uh you know j bruce

was traded to the mets and stuff that that you know just generally a player's reach rate chris davis when he came to oakland uh generally a player's retrait chris davis when he came to oakland generally a player's uh retrait goes up when he's traded but i think this is for lindor i think it's the same thing i think he's pressing uh his version of pressing is just uh being overly passive uh but uh you know coming back with baez now they're they're in the middle of a race hopefully they're both healthy. There is a run left in these Mets. To speak about real baseball, I think there really is a run left in these Mets.

Ironically, I think they just need to get enough pitching now that maybe their hitting is healthier and maybe that lineup can get clicking. Maybe it'll just be one of those years when they hit when they don't pitch and they pitch when they don't hit. But in any case, I do think that there's a rebound coming from him. The last name on the list though, Austin Hayes, I find pretty interesting because from a real life standpoint, from a fantasy standpoint, I think most people are like, oh yeah, Austin Hayes,

totally playable, low batting average, but some power, some speed, Baltimore guy, people know who he is. But they may be surprised to know that his bat has been nearly 20% worse than league average once you take into account his low on base percentage.

And that's something that the Orioles will care about. I would suggest that they would find another player like McKenna or use Neil Diaz or somebody to take his place if he were to continue being an ADW RC Plus guy because they're not playing him in center so much. And if he doesn't have center field defense, then a corner outfield that's 20% worse than the average, even one that's 10% worse than the average is not one you want to play a lot.

So you'd be looking for alternatives. However, with this decrease in chase rate, there's a real chance that he covers over the biggest hole in this game. If he can manage a 330 OBP next year, he should be an above-the-league average bat because he does have the power and speed, and he may hold on to his job. And there may even be a little bit of breakout potential there, considering he's 25 or something, 26. He's right there where next year could be a career year. So not, um, a great keeper asset, probably not even a great asset for the Orioles unless he takes that leap. Um, because, you know, even, uh, even his projections say he's basically

a league average bat with poor defense. So, you know, this isn't, he could get surpassed unless this thing sticks and he has like an eight to 9% walk right next year. Then really things could click for him. So I think this is a really good sign for him that his chase rate went down. He's not supposed to be a below average defender or even just an average defender.

He's supposed to be an above average defender. So that's kind of a surprise to me that that hasn't come through, that part of his game. But we are seeing a little step forward with the power. So I think in deep, deep leagues, still some reasons to be optimistic about Austin Hayes if he's out there. We're talking like 20-team dynasty leagues or AL only keeper leagues,

the kind of guy you can get very affordably and kind of stash away to see what happens over the course of the offseason unfortunately we have some hitters going the other direction so let's take a look at them the bad part of this group michael chavis way up right now 16.1 increase in oh swing percentage jason hayward up 11.6 kyle seager 10.2 and josh reddick, 9.2%. Guys like Reddick especially, I always wonder if this is a sign of the end because he's kind of on fumes anyway as far as having opportunities. This list has a little bit of sense of desperation about it. I mean, Hayward, Reddick, and even Carlos Santana to an extent.

I think there's some real pressing there going on some late career pressing uh that does not bode well for their futures i mean carlos santana's game is based on not reaching i mean that's one of his main attributes if he loses that uh i don't think that he'll be very usable next year especially in kansas city he'll be a dfa candidate in may or june unfortunately so end of the line could be near for him definitely a guy that i went to time and time again as a cheap corner fill-in that i don't think i'll be going after next season but i think there's three names all clustered together here that led me to a question i don't know if we've ever really

discussed this aspect of retray before but george she Urshela, Xander Bogart, and Nick Senzel, three very different players, but all kind of clustered together as guys who've had their O-swing percentages jump this year. The common thread for me is that all three of those guys have been dealing with various injuries. Bogart has been playing with wrist stuff, I think, on and off for quite a while now. I was digging into his profile a little bit earlier this morning, and he's making more contact than ever outside the zone. So we're not really seeing any sort of negative impact on his overall production. But have you found anything in the past that links players with an injury being a little more aggressive or too aggressive

reaching at pitches outside the zone more often? No. I usually think of it as sort of a failure of preparation that the information can help you reach better. I have been, I am, this is a beat for me right now. I'm developing a story about this. The overall, like the headline,

the thesis of the story is not clear to me yet, but I've just been talking to a lot of people about reach rate and about plate discipline. A lot of them say that it's innate but they do certain drills to to improve upon it none of them have yet said anything about the role of injury but they have said something about the role of your body size your your body versus the umpire and we've seen that a little bit with like aaron judge um getting what was it strike calls below the knee because he's so tall it seems like it's very far off the ground but he's just a tall dude and it's still below his knees that sort of deal uh i think there is probably a little bit of a body size thing. But in terms of injury, I can't figure out the link unless perhaps this is plausible, I think.

You have to get started earlier because of your injury. Right. Your injury caused you to lose a little bit of bat speed. You got to cheat a little bit because you're cheating a little bit. You're going to make more bad decisions. I think so. I think that is totally plausible. It's an interesting thing I had never thought about before.

I wonder how much of a role that is. I think that injury is really the chaos in baseball and it's the underlying thing that affects a lot of the numbers we're seeing. And so I guess this wouldn't surprise me writ large but i just hadn't made this specific connection before also uh there is like this thing that sometimes a little bit of reach rate like you mentioned that um it hasn't been uh so bad for who was it or shellaela or bogart so that's been bad he's been great i mean this is the third year in a row where he's hit 300 with a good obps at 371 he slugged 500 each of the last

three seasons he's a star he's a great player it's not yeah it's one of those things that can be good in a given season but isn't necessarily good in the long term um i think you see with biggio like you can be too passive with cavin biggio you can i think you can be too passive so some players can uh find some value in being more aggressive i just don't think it's good for you long term uh to increase your reach rate because we know how contact outside zone ages so i i would say forarts, it's a good short-term thing, but maybe not a great long-term thing. Yeah, I kind of want to keep an eye on how that goes for him next year

to see if this is more of just an adjustment to how he's being pitched or the result of the injuries we talked about before. I think I'd be more worried about someone like Gio Urshela who doesn't have the lengthy track record of big league success, right? That 2019 season, now that we know so much more about that year, the year of the rabbit ball and how that would have impacted offensive production in such a profound way, I'm a little more quick to bail when it comes to a player like that, showing that much of a drop off. And I think in the case of Urshela, we're seeing a huge uptick

in strikeouts. He's striking out more than ever, a 24.8% K rate from him. The increase in walk rate we saw last year, that's gone. He's kind of back to his pre-2020 levels. So I'm looking at Urshela, and I think because of his defense, there's a good path for him to still be a regular for the Yankees again in 2022, but he's going to become a very cost- sort of target for me in drafts whereas this draft season i actually thought he was a little bit undervalued so i was wrong about him and i think i'm quicker to change my tune with that shorter track record of success yeah yeah i've had him on

my labor squad this year which is uh struggling around second or third in the league i don't think i'm gonna win ian khan um our our there, is looking like he's running away with it. I have noticed these trends since I've been rostering him, and I was super excited to have him on my team because I thought he would hit 300. I think his days of hitting 300 are over. And I don't want to get too you know uh chicken little but this dude's 29 and if he's not going to walk at a 10 rate he's going to walk at a five percent rate

which seems most likely and he's not going to necessarily make a better contact than the league average um and he's not really known for his power then then all you're you're getting uh when you put him on your team is um a guy who will play um and then you know he's had some injuries this year so i i don't know that i he'll be a kind of a target for me next year i think i'm not totally out on him though though, because if he sinks far enough, he's barreling the ball more than ever. That's an encouraging sign. I think I'm just changing my expectations for the type of player he was. Like you, I saw more of like a 300 guy with a good OBP.

Instead, I see more of like a 260 guy with maybe like a 310 OBP stuck in the bottom third of the Yankees lineup, but with 20 to 25 home run power if he stays healthy for a full season because of that park i actually think there's a better chance that he has a career high home run season left in him than he has a another 300 season yeah yeah but the you know in terms of skill sets uh the 300 with 20 homers is rarer uh and and that's that was a little bit more Now it's a little bit more like, okay, if nobody else wants him, I'll take him, especially since the Yankees are such a good team that he should have good runs in RBIs. Last guy I want to get to is Nick Senzel.

We found out soon after he was brought back from the IL, they actually were going to option him. They reversed the option and put him back on the IL. He still had some fluid on his knee, and It's just been another miserable loss season for him just on the health front. We're talking about a guy now who debuted in 2019. He's been in the big leagues for parts of three different seasons. He's got about one full season's worth of plate appearances. It's really not bad 15 homers 18 steals that gets you pretty excited the slash line a little less so 246 308 396 that's a little easier to find of course where are you at on senzel like i have a hard time even buying anything in the underlying numbers with him just because of the plate appearances he's had, I wonder how many of them have even come at full health. Yeah.

But I also wonder how much that deteriorating health will affect one of the best skills, his stolen base total. From a fantasy standpoint, he had his 14 steals in 2019, and since he's had four. And he's been caught six times so i think going forward i wouldn't necessarily project him for a lot of steals especially if he's you know draining fluid from his knee yeah um and uh and so there's always a chance that this guy stays healthy and has maybe a 275 year with 15 to 18 homers and five steals, maybe eight steals. But the dream was to chase him and maybe get a 2020 season out of him. And I'm not sure that's there anymore no i think it's it's fair to downgrade the speed expectation i still think he's going to hit if he ever has health behind him though i still believe in the bat even though i don't think he's going to be as fun of a fantasy player as we once

thought so we'll see where things go for him i imagine he'll get buried in adp he'll be the kind of guy that goes outside the top 400 probably in draft champions leagues for the early part of draft season. So maybe we're stashing away just to see kind of what happens to him defensively. Well, I like that too because there's sometimes, depending on the rules, he could also add eligibility over the year. I mean, there's still this whiff of where is he going to play. Right. I mean, even with these concerns about the speed possibly being kind of taken away

from the offensive part of his profile he is very athletic and can play all over this all of the place reasonably well so like they'll find a spot for him if he's healthy enough to play and able to hit but it was weird to me they were sending him down to triple a instead of fitting him in at least as a semi-regular for the stretch run before they had to reverse that option. Let's get to some bullpen analysis, though, because I think this is a good time of year to check in, set some expectations. And under the radar on Tuesday, Ian was kind of openly questioning how good the Rays' bullpen is. And my stock response was they're just always good even when the names don't look good on paper. That's just what they do.

They always find a way to kind of cobble it together, give you a bunch of different looks, find guys that throw harder than you realize, find guys who are failed starters, find guys who failed in all different ways. And they throw it all together. And by the time you get to October, it just sort of works. And by the time you get to October, it just sort of works. And I guess I wasn't too surprised to then go to the war leader board just by team and just see which teams relievers have created the most war. The Rays have actually done that. Now, it should be noted they have the second most relief innings in the league. Throw more innings, you're going to pick up more war. So just pointing that out.

But there's also players that accrued that war that are no longer there. Right, the guys that are hurt. So it's not the best way to look at it. And traded, or traded and hurt in the case of Diego Castillo. Right, yeah. I mean, there's tons of turnover in that pen all the time. But I guess it still, to me, kind of validated the idea that, yeah, they're finding a way to make it work even with all of the changes, but they're always in flux in that aspect of their roster.

They're always changing things. They're always dealing with injuries. I'm going to play the role of Ian here. Go for it. I think I agree that this is – I think it's almost problematic for a team this good to have this kind of bullpen. I think Kittredge is good, Chargeois is good and Thompson's alright. I like Rasmussen a lot, but he just

threw five innings. I think he might be a starter. So surprised to see that, by the way. I was a little surprised to see that. The reports from the minor leagues are not good on Nick Anderson. He's sitting 92. And that's not going to get it done. I think that Velo is even more important in the postseason. And I just don't see Velo here.

So I did want to and this was such a pain in the ass i have to tell you i don't want to do too much of how the sausage is made deal here but uh if you're ever trying to do something about relievers um around the trade deadline because I'm looking at the last month of reliever stuff it's not easy man because all these relievers really changed places so I had to go through and change team names on all these guys to try and just figure out who which bullpens had the best stuff plus and the best pitching plus over the last month it's such a moving target uh it was really it was kind of tough but uh i did a weighted uh approach so it was weighted by appearances so one uh relief appearance by some guy with great stuff wouldn't move the needle too much um here is drum roll please the top five in stuff plus it's always always you can guess the

number one it's always the same team brewers no that's good dod No, Dodgers? Dodgers, yeah. I'm just messing with you. I know the Brewers are going to be favorable on this though because I'm looking at the leaderboard right now, and there's a name in Stuff Plus for the season who's second on that list as a reliever. Jake Cousins? Jake Cousins. Love me some Jake Cousins.

No one outside of Milwaukee or Wisconsin or Brewers Twitter is really on Jake Cousins. Yeah, I love Jake Cousins. In fact, for some reason, I know the guy who trains him in the offseason and talk with him fairly regularly. So shout out to Randy if he's listening. Dodgers first. This is surprising to me, man.

Blue Jays second. Back to not surprising, White Sox, socks yankees here's another surprising one mariners fifth uh houston six then we got atlanta st louis boston milwaukee so that's the top 10 but uh stuff is not everything so let me now sort it by pitching while While you're doing that, by the way, the other teams in the top five in reliever war to this point in the season, the Yankees, Mariners, Dodgers, White Sox, I think you named all four of those teams. Yeah.

The Rays are the only one that weren't in there. Yeah, yeah. The Rays are looking very close to average. Yeah. I mean, their stuff plus over the last month has been 101 and their pitching plus out of the bullpen has been 101 uh so just a they're more bit more above average than anything a couple names uh jump to the top of the list if you just do pitching plus dodgers still first seattle uh bumps up a little bit the giants areants are third, despite more mediocre stuff. And I think that that tracks. If you look at that Giants bullpen, it seems like they've made a bet on command out of the bullpen, which is very strange. That is not something people do.

look at their K minus BB and their home runs. You know, they don't have a good strikeout rate, but they have one of the best walk rates in the big leagues. And they also keep the home runs rate down, which you would say, okay, well home park and all that stuff.

But I think it's actually somewhat due to their command. So it's possible the giants have a top five bullpen. Is this why they didn't, you know, go out and get anything more than justin wilson no uh is that right justin wilson justin watson tony watson tony watson they're they're both left handers right i'm sure they're both left handers uh anyway tony watson that is the only thing they got uh the padres show up as fourth and houston shows up as fifth uh fifth. Tampa is 11th or so. So I don't know. I think that there's a real issue here. There is a very interesting one person solution that may come

up in a second. Oh yeah. We're going to get to that because there's other ways to improve your bullpen this time of year. Healthy pitchers coming back though would be huge. Pete Fairbanks coming back would be big. JP FireEyesisen coming back would be big because those guys have not pitched so far in August for the Rays. So if you're looking at the last month or so, two pretty important guys for them not actually part of that mix. Yeah, I think FireEisen would not solve the velocity problem. Fairbanks could. I don't like hearing shoulder associated

with a pitcher i'm waiting on so i have been staring a hole into fairbanks's roster spot on a couple of my teams for a couple for like a week now just being like am i wasting my time here um i i do wonder about that but uh there is also the k rod loophole yeah the k rod loophole i think was inspired by an email that we're going to get to later the out this is kind of like a like a memento style storytelling in the podcast where we're kind of piecing it all together backward it's all related but it's not in the order that it should be it's sorted by like descending instead of ascending or something so it's fine but uh we're all we're all just talking about those last two roster slots that's what it is in the end we're only just talking about the last two roster slots we're just talking this this whole rock this whole podcast is dedicated

to tyro estrada and whatever reliever uh your team picks up your team brings up to the big leagues next to them yeah so uh on that note uh please leave us a rating and review if you're still here because we really appreciate you as our most hardcore listeners how we thought we could start with that topic and those players i i will never know but i think it may have worked i think somehow we're making some sort of coherent point and now we're trying to finish with relievers utility infielders to relievers that aren't closers to possible once in every 10 to 15 year type relievers that come up and make an impact and have really good careers that's that's our sweet spot today and also possibly on a future episode how to fix

your master lock when the dial gets stuck but finding the next k rod i mean i think the first and most obvious name here would be shane boz right just because it's not because we think long-term shane boz is k rod and he's gonna get 300 saves and be a reliever forever but it's because they can bring him up use him out of the bullpen and they've got maybe the guy that has the absolute best stuff in the pen not even in the bullpen yet at all and i think that nick anderson situation that you mentioned is kind of important too because he was a big part of why their bullpen was so good for a good portion of the playoffs last year and as nick anderson sort of flamed out during the post season,

that hurt them quite a bit because they were, they were stretched already. Like they had everybody they needed with him and they were kind of one great late inning reliever short without him. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's the,

that's the K rod thing for me is just, uh, excellence out of the pen, not necessarily the whole career thing um there i mean there's some there's some people who wonder about baz's command but he seems to find that out he's uh throwing exclusively from the stretch now and the command numbers have have improved um but just in terms of how many innings he has left and the fact that he can touch a hundred uh that's i think what's missing

here one thing that is obvious if you kind of uh look at leverage and how uh games are won and how teams have bullpens are constructed and basically what i'm trying to say is the weakest inning for any team is the sixth that's when teams That's when games are won or lost. It's the sixth. It's not even the seventh or eighth. It's the sixth. The sixth is when your starter goes out of the game and one of your weakest relievers comes in.

So that means you need better starters or you need more good relievers. Or you need this guy who came out of nowhere that barely anybody has seen who can throw a hundred who comes in in the sixth so i don't think baz is going to come in and be the closer in fact i think he will be what fairbanks was in the postseason last year where baz comes in and he comes in the sixth and maybe even pitches you know four or five outs or whatever if they if they think that's okay for his health. And that'll be what makes it work.

And then you have FireEyes and Fairbanks figuring it out in the eighth and ninth, something like that. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense, especially because with Baz being stretched out at AAA right now, he can give you more than three outs. He can be a bridge. If you have a starter, go four and a third, four and two thirds, which I think is very possible. They're going to miss Tyler Glass now. Especially if Rasmussen is one of your starters. Yeah, if you're relying on Rasmussen, Patino, Yarbrough, and McClanahan, I think generally a group of pitchers that they get as much out of as anyone could. We'd like a lot of those pitchers.

Maybe not a single one of them is going to pitch past the bigger beginning of the fifth. Yeah, over under on one and a half starts from the raise in the postseason that goes more than six innings. Oh, five? Yeah, I'm saying that. I mean, if they do it once, okay. okay if they do it twice i'd be a little surprised who would it even be who would be the one who did it yarbrough probably yarbrough you just get going and just be really uh efficient or something some game yeah no so yeah i i think that baz is is i mean they also have uh david have David Robertson as an interesting name, but that doesn't fit

the sort of lights-out stopper that comes out of the minus. I do think the Yankees have somebody like this in Luis Gil. I don't know exactly how to deal with the Luis Gil profile, which is a little bit like

Waskery Noah, where you have, I think he has probably better command, but it's the same idea where it's a fastball slider guy that you could coax along through five innings as a starter or, or could be a dominant reliever. And I don't really know. I think there's that risk is baked in. So I don't want to spend too much on the Noah and drafts next year or on

heel. If it, if he ends up in the bullpen. But I think for the stretch run, the Yankees, he could be one of those two spots that they get in September. I think he'd be really useful for them as a guy. So now you can have Loizaga pitch the six, or maybe you keep Loizaga around for the eighth andth because Chapman keeps falling apart. Maybe Healy becomes that 6th inning stopper that you need. Then there's another name in the same division that really

fits right with all these guys is Nate Pearson. Oh man, if you told me the Jays were going to be in the mix for the postseason late in the year, I would have said, well, Nate Pearson's probably pitching really well. He's been hurt. He's 2-3 innings in the big league so far, 27 and two thirds in the minors. It's been one inning at a time at AAA since coming back. Clearly, the focus, at least for the rest of this season,

has shifted, but he could be completely lights out in a short relief role. I think he really does show you how difficult it is to become a starting pitcher in this league and why it's really not a great bet to bet on young starters on your team. I think that almost every starter that comes up has a year or two or three that it takes them to figure out how to use their arsenal at the major league level. There's very few that come and dominate from the beginning.

I thought Pearson had a shot, but the command hasn't been good. And sometimes that command is either ironing out mechanics or simplifying a resume, simplifying what you're throwing. There was an interesting name. This whole idea I got kind of from Eric Langenhagen over at Fangraphs. He had some scouting notes where he was kind of going through interesting names that could come up and uh he brought up ronel blanco uh was the name i'd never heard of before the triple a closer for houston uh has the highest swing strike rate among their upper level minor leaguers uh you know there could

be uh there could be that spot for him too. Like I said, we're all talking about basically two spots on the roster. Maybe some teams will just bring up two relievers for those two spots. Right, right. And Blanco might be the kind of guy that throws the sixth inning a lot. I mean, he could be this year's Enoli Paredes, right? The guy that you're like, oh, look at this dude coming out. And Paredes himself is

struggling a little bit with the command in the minor leagues right now. I think those players could be useful in deeper leagues so that people find some use out of this. I think that what we're talking about here are very interesting names that you could stash for next year

that will come up in pitch this year. They're also very likely to have the dual designation sprp um and uh they will uh for deeper leaguer people if they're pitching the six they will pick up some wins so i know it's not super exciting to talk about uh jacob webb uh Webb or I don't know who this guy is. Luke Barker. Luke Barker? Yes. I think he's a brewer. Really?

Yeah. Yeah. 29-year-old at AAA. Really good results everywhere he's been. And no notes. Who is Luke Barker? Is this dude throwing like 85? Does notes. Who is Luke Barker? Is this dude throwing like 85? Does anybody know anything about Luke Barker?

I'm going to go find out something about him. How about this one? How about this one? Rodis Vizcaino, baby. He's back? He's back. No. And he's with the Mets.

And the Mets could use him, I think. The Mets and the Jays are tanking so hard right now in terms of their playoff odds though. Like they're under 10%. I think the Mets and Mariners are nearly equal in playoff probability right now, according to fan graphs. Like that is something I did not expect to say even two weeks ago.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and the Mets, as much as they, they spent and traded for a pitching depth depth, have really seen that fall apart. Jordan Yamamoto hurt. Joey Lucchese hurt.

Tyler Magiel has been good. A little bit spotty recently. I still think he's a long-term major league starter. But they still need more, and they don't have any more. There's nothing in the cupboard anymore when it comes to starting pitcher. I mean, Franklin Colom is maybe interesting, but I don't think he's ready this year. I think the Dodgers may have an interesting guy in Andre Jackson.

We saw him come up and flash a really nice change-up, a power change-up that he would actually throw front door. And I think they could bring him up and maybe Duffy. That would be an interesting righty-lefty usage of those extra two roster spots. I think if you have the versatility that the Dodgers have on the offensive side, then you can use those two roster slots on pitchers.

And if you did a righty lefty thing with Andre Jackson, Andre Jackson is a righty, isn't he? 99% sure. Yes. I wouldn't use, I would not use a lifeline if this were a, who wants to be a millionaire remember seeing a power changeup,

but was it lefty on lefty? No, it's either righty. Okay. I think that might be an interesting use of those roster slots to have guys with some length in Andre Jackson and Danny Duffy, but also righty lefty. So I think that's something that might happen.

I was looking at the Padres situation, and I came up with a guy, Stephen Wilson, who has good extension and can hit 97. And that's about all I got. The Giants have a guy who hit 1049 in the minor leagues this year. Camilo Duval. He also, no command. But he reminds me a little bit of Classe.

So it's with some movement. It's a 101-mile-an-hour cutter kind of deal. Yeah, it's triple digits with movement, not just triple digits and flat. I don't know why it doesn't work for him to just throw to the middle of the zone. Stuff Plus loves him. Even Location Plus doesn't say he's that bad.

So I think maybe they'll bring him up. Maybe it's a soft bring up at first where they bring him up and they just pitch him in losses to have an extra arm. But I could see him coming up and turning things around. I think this is a pretty fun group of pitchers because they could end up in very random, important situations. It could be a tie game with runners on in the fifth or sixth inning but they might be the best option because of bullpen usage in a given moment and some of these names like Barker I mean literally on the team I follow and I feel like I've never even seen his name listed

anywhere before and I was just. Our friend Will Salmon had a piece looking at the Brewers' bullpen depth about a week ago and had other options. There was a section looking at more guys that could be up. It wasn't even mentioned there. Maybe he must throw 85. Maybe he's

a side-arm or something. He's like another Eric Yardley or something. He's a baller, dude. We have to find out the story find us find us luke parker his numbers are great gotta get that scouting report i promise his projections are decent you know like it's not yeah i don't know they gotta be the results have been so good for a few years now so all of this i was actually inspired i think by an email from vince who writes, the one league I play in is a head-to-head AL only league with 10 teams. We have five keepers

and there are no limits on how long a player can be kept, which makes keeper decisions very important. I'm second waiver priority behind a manager who is often semi-engaged at best. That's a really nice way to put it. My question, who are the best AL prospects you expect to debut the rest of the season? We'll obviously get to a few NL ones too. I think the group we were just talking about, most likely, those are the best players that are going to come up. They are mostly relievers. Shane Boz is the answer once again. Boz is the guy you want if he's available.

If Boz isn't there, I think I'd go heel over Pearson at this point because of the injuries. Yeah, but heel's already debuted, right? Yeah, but there's a chance that because he's been up and down, maybe he's still floating out there. And Pearson's already debuted too, but I guess I'm just looking at names that are good and intriguing and could have long-term value from the AL

side, whereas just about everybody else, even like Ronel Blanco, in a keep five AL only situation, no, that's not going to happen. I doubt Rutschman comes up. I don't think they're going to do it. September?

Torkelson and Rutschman, do you think they come up? No, I don't. I don't think we see Witt. I don't think we see Julio Rodriguez. But they're a AAA. We used to do this, right, where they come up in September. However, we also used to have more than two roster slots, I guess. Could they squeeze Josh Lowe into the outfield?

The Rays, that is. Could they do that? Wouldn't they do Brujan first? You'd think. But I think we've also reached the point where Lowe would be a guy they would trust in center field. Brujan probably isn't a guy they want to play in center field, at least come playoff time. Yeah, I think with Schwarber, there's no Tristan Kassas coming up in Boston, and that would have been a stretch anyway.

I think this two-roster slot rule is really going to hurt that September call-up idea. If you have two roster slots and you're the Cardinals and you still think you're in it, you're not picking up Nolan Gorman, right? You're going to pick up two relievers. Probably. It's not a good time to be adding to the roster for the future, unfortunately, because teams just don't operate in a way that gives you a lot of opportunities to grab value this late in the year. Yeah, and I think there is going to be a fall league.

So if you're worried about innings or plate appearances for a player, like say Alec Thomas in Arizona, let's say you want him to get a full slate of plate appearances this year. Instead of bringing him up to the major leagues and starting his clock, you send him to the Arizona Fall League where he gets more plate appearances and fills out his year. And instead of starting his clock, you look at more boring names to see if they could be your fifth outfielder. You know what I mean? I don't think you audition Alec Thomas right now if you're the D-backs.

I mean, even with somebody like Cole Calhoun out, I think you just run out Varshow every day to see if he's going to be your everyday center fielder. Give Pavin Smith all the at-bats he can get to see if he's going to be your right fielder uh give pavin smith all the at bats he can get to see if he's going to be your right fielder with after calhoun um and uh and you do that instead of having alec thomas up to sometimes play yeah i'm gonna say you're dead on here i just don't see any of those teams that are looking to the future making the moves like that at this point. So I'll say Josh Lowe is the long shot, air quotes, position player most likely to find his way on the big league roster.

But I'm not actually expecting that to happen. I think it is going to be pitchers. I think Shane Boz is the guy that you're waiting for if you're in a position like the one Vince described. And if you're in an NL situation that is similar. Edward Cabrera coming up right now. That's probably about as good as it's going to get talent-wise. Cabrera coming up, the debut will be today.

So you get to look at him before waivers run if he hasn't been picked up already. I think he's probably the best player that comes up the rest of the way. Do you like any of the sort of Nolan Jones or Nolan Gorman types? I mean, I don't think so. No, and I think Gorman's also going to be the kind of player that probably has a good bit of swing and miss in his game initially that he needs to iron out.

Right, so you're not going to pull him up and then have him hit 100 for, like, where's he going to play now? Although I'm impressed. This is something I had not noticed yet, but his K rate's way down at AAA. He actually brought it down moving up a level, 19.3% after running 26% or higher everywhere through A ball. That's pretty encouraging for Gorman.

Are the Cardinals just dead, though, at this point? Their incentive to bring him up is low, 3.2% chance of making the playoffs. Yeah, but above 500 and could still be like, Hey, we're only, I guess it's like six games out. But aren't they the first team out? Well, they're the next team behind the reds and and and padres yeah so what would you do how would you fit him into the lineup obviously you're gonna play arnado every day

do you start benching i don't know paul de young and running tommy edmund out there at short or something like how do you how do you fit gorman and defensively well let me look at the payroll and see who is a free agent next year. Matt Carpenter's gone next year, but he's not really playing right now, right? Nope, not really playing. Andrew Miller's gone. $17 million club option on Carlos Martinez that you might have thought would be exercised when they signed it. Probably not.

Hap, Wainwright, and Lester are gone. Kim is already gone. DeJong's around for too long. I don't think you give up on him. He's cheap, and he's around. Yeah, I don't think so. So you gotta play Edmund somewhere

because you're not gonna bench him. And right now, you gotta play Bader and O'Neal. Why was O'Neal benched today? He's banged up. But you're playing Bader and O'Neal in the outfield and you're playing Bader, O'Neal, Edmund in the outfield. There's not really room for a regular

player, is there? Carlson is back too, I think. He's healthy now, so you're playing him every day. I think that's part of the problem for Gorman. Someone has to get hurt if he's going to get the opportunity. So I wouldn't be waiting on him. They're a little bit thinner in the infield, so I guess it's possible. Jose Barrero is already up.

We talked about him, I think, last week. I mean, I think he could be among the better position players to come up recently if you're in a situation where he's still out there. Who's playing second for them? Why am I blanking on this? Edmund okay yeah he makes sense yeah you can move you can move edmund around well that yeah you could play you move edmund around but i don't i don't think i don't know if there's a reason to do that he seems like he's a solid regular so i think uh i think them yeah i think you're right they're thinner on the infield. So the way that Gorman comes up is if Arnauto gets hurt or Edmund gets hurt.

Yeah. NL side, though, yeah, it's not great. Like I said, not the best possible time to be looking for value on the prospect front. But hopefully that was helpful in some way for Vince. And hopefully the digging into the bullpens and looking for the next K-Rod was entertaining. And at the very least, now you know who Tyro Estrada is.

If you're not a Yankees fan or a Giants fan, thought you'd heard that name at any point, any podcast over the course of the season. Ooh, I got one last name. Josh Jung?

I thought he was going to be up already, so I guess you could keep him in the conversation. But they've gone the way of Arizona, where they're so incredibly bad. And I think because of the injuries he's had, he's moved a bit slower than expected. Just let him have a nice finish to the season in the minor leagues and call it a good year. It's not me saying he's not ready. He looks like he is ready. So that's possible,

but probably more in the Alec Thomas camp of why do it. Yeah, the Rangers are so bad. Oh, man. But they do have guys on the way. They do have guys on the way. And you know what? I kind of like, you know, this is why Jung won't come up.

Because they're trying out, this is the type of player you're going to see. Instead of the top prospects, you're going to see Yanni Hernandez and Yoel Pozo. Oh my God, I just really, did I just really screw that up? How do you say it? What, Yoel Pozo? Yeah. That's how you say it sounded it sounded pretty wrong i think you said it right all right anyway uh that that's who you're that's who you're gonna see um that's who you're gonna see right you're gonna see these guys were like are you are you a regular or are you a backup you're breaking the quad A test right now. Yeah.

And I like Yanni Hernandez. I don't know if he's a regular, but I think he's definitely on the team next year. So they give him a burn to see if like, okay, is Yanni Hernandez going to take second from Solak? Let's play them both for a while now and see what happens. Yeah, I'm with you. I think that's exactly where the bottom feeders are especially,

just looking to the future with guys that could be on the roster but aren't necessarily on the roster and then clearing that space accordingly for the Josh Young and Alec Thomas types once we turn the page over to 2022. Like Jason Martin, right? You play Jason Martin, you give him full burn for a month and then you know if he still has a 40 wrc plus at the end of it uh you vfm pretty much yeah if you've got questions for a future episode hit us up rates and barrels at the

athletic.com on twitter he's at you know saris i am at derrick van riper if you don't already have a subscription to the athletic you can get one for 33 off at the athletic.com slash rates and barrels to get to you coverage from everybody who writes for the athletic and it goes beyond baseball too of course you get fantasy football if you're ramping up for that nba coming back around nhl coming back around premier league underway so a lot of good stuff to read about on the site. Be sure to get a subscription if you don't have one already. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels.

We are back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.