Rates & Barrels - 2025 Shortstop Preview

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

Eno and DVR begin their 2025 Position Preview series at shortstop! Are traps looming in Tier 2 for those who take the plunge? Is there enough value beyond the Top 100 overall and still have enough production at the position? Which later targets offer the most value? Rundown 2:15 ADP Tier 1 -- Bobby Witt Jr., Elly De La Cruz, Gunnar Henderson, Mookie Betts, Francisco Lindor & Trea Turner 18:23 ADP Tier 2 -- Oneil Cruz, Corey Seager, CJ Abrams & Willy Adames 37:12 ADP Tier 3 -- Matt McLain, Ezequiel Tovar, Anthony Volpe & Bo Bichette 56:25 ADP Tier 4 -- Xander Bogaerts, Xavier Edwards, Ceddanne Rafaela, Masyn Winn, Jeremy Peña & Dansby Swanson 1:18:33 ADP Tier 5 -- Zach Neto, Willi Castro, Tyler Fitzgerald, Trevor Story & Carlos Correa 1:23:27 The Late, Late Shortstops of Interest Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Share your Positional Rankings in the HiveMind Ranks at Shortstop: https://forms.gle/sRmzNmvjh7UHG6eF9 Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, I'm Ian McIntosh and I'm the host of the Daily Football Briefing. What is the Daily Football Briefing? It's a special 10 minute daily show designed to bring you up to speed with the most important stories from across the football world. Except on Monday mornings when it's 15 minutes and we try to cram in the results, standings and stories from the top 10 leagues on the planet. Or at least the top 10 leagues I run on a Football Manager save. Follow this show today and you'll never miss another big story again, whether it's

news that the Athletic has just broken. David Arnstein, what happened? News from outside the Premier League that other podcasts might ignore. That is a difficult one to explain, so let's go bit by bit. Or it's Champions League week and you just need someone to put it all into context. It's made for a very useful away point in a difficult game in a difficult week. Listen to the daily football briefing in 2025. It's out every weekday wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Reads and Barrels, it is Monday, January 13th, the best time of the year. It is position preview season here on Rates and Barrels. Smash the like button if you're watching us on YouTube, tell a friend because this

is a great time to jump in as we get ready for the upcoming fantasy baseball season. Now the preview format for our show it's pretty much unchanged. We found something that we really like. What we do is we take a look at a position usually one per episode. We dig in in order of average draft positions. So we take a look at the NFBC's results from the last 14 days at the time of each episode. Get a snapshot of what's happening at the position 14 days at the time of each episode, get a snapshot of what's happening at the position, talk about the players that we think might be a little high, a little low, guys we really like, guys we're kind of trying to avoid. They're longer episodes, but they're a lot of fun.

We love doing it. We've got one new thing we're doing this year, thanks to John, I believe it's a Cunha Matata in the actual Discord logo. We have hive rankings we're gonna try to put together this year. So what it is, it's an opportunity for you as listeners to submit your positional rankings. We're gonna do about 20 per position.

We'll do more for outfield and starting pitcher and some of the deeper ones. But you can go in, there's a link to a form. It's in the show description. It's also gonna be in the Discord. You can rank players and then we're gonna compile all of those rankings together to get like a group rank for all of us as listeners. So that's another thing we're doing this year that's new thanks to John Ryan McLaughlin

for putting that together. Chef Ryan is the way we do it. We are science. We are science. Yes. I really think that's gonna happen. Together we can be science. We are science.

So that's how it works and it's a lot of ground to cover but we're gonna do the best we can to get as much information out as quickly as possible. Again join the discord the link is in the show description you'll see it right alongside the link to the form where you can submit your hive rankings for the shortstop position. We begin at the very top, pretty simple at shortstop. There is a nice group of guys that go inside the first two rounds by ADP. We got Bobby Witt Jr., who is an option really at pick one overall, if you have concerns about the shoulder of Shohei Otani. You have Elie De La Cruz and Gunnar Henderson

as clear first rounders. Mookie Betts, a late first rounder. Francisco Lindor, a guy that in a 15 team league you're gonna find maybe at the back of the round, early round two, and then Trey Turner gets kind of lumped into this tier for reasons we'll discuss here in just a couple of minutes. And I look at this group and I say, you know,

it's really more about picking knits. These aren't necessarily players that you're going to build an entire strategy around because, like, they're just such good foundational players. It's what you do later that's going to matter more than which one of these guys you end up getting. But do you have any knits to pick in this group?

Do you see anybody in the first two rounds at shortstop and think I don't know about that? We already answered a question about Mookie Betts last week and I think our takeaway was that he still probably belongs as a late first rounder. He does enough things well, missed that time with the wrist injury last year, even though the production was already dipping before the injury, there's still a lot to like in his long term profile and he hits in maybe the best lineup in baseball so that keeps the counting stats afloat.

Are there other knits that you want to pick though from tier one at shortstop? I guess the obvious question is, does Elie De La Cruz deserve the first round price tag? Last year he was an end of the second round beginning of the third round guy and it was a little bit easier to look past some of his flaws and point to the fact that his defense is excellent,

he hits the ball super hard, he runs a lot and all these things are good. If you're buying a first-rounder, you kind of A, want him to repeat everything he did last year when he was first-round value. So you have to question whether he can do this all again. If there's a question, is there's any growth potential beyond that? And then B, how he sort of affects your team. And what I did find last year is that the teams

that he was on were not very strong at batting average. And I was able to win a lot of those teams anyway. And so I think, you know, that's a viable strategy is to consider punting batting average and to consider punting batting average from the get-go by picking Elie De La Cruz, because I do not think he will hit for a better average. In fact, he might hit for a worse average considering he had a 359 batting average on balls and play, Ellie did, and he had a large strikeout rate. These are the things that can lead to low batting average. Where do I think the upside is? I would say probably in the home run department. He hit 25 last year with a great barrel rate and a great max CV. He hits the ball super, super hard. He can just lift it a little bit more

even and he could hit more homers. But I do think there's a built-in flaw here, which is most of these guys that you're talking about in the first round are going to be good at everything. And he's the only guy I think where I can circle something and say, he's actually not good at this. You know, your average batting average in your league is probably going to be like a good batting average to, you know, in the top sort of four or five spots in your in your league is probably going to be like a 258. And he's projected by oopsie Jordan Rosenblum's Productions to have a 258. He had a 259 last year and he had a 253

But you have to remember when you're buying him at this point You're buying him relative to other guys that have are gonna be higher than 258. You could say to yourself Well, I can just build bangers That means we have to spend the rest of the time thinking about batting average, you know and beating people on batting average Whereas if you just took somebody else you could stay stay about batting average, you know, and beating people on batting average. Whereas if you just took somebody else, you could stay with batting average. So I'm just saying, Ellie is a fine first-round pick, but he's going to change what you do the rest of your draft. And you're gonna probably want to just punt batting average if you pick him. Probably want to, but you can, with

your next couple of hitters, set yourself up to not have to. But it's good to have that kind of planted in your mind before you start. OK, this is the this is the weakness of the team that I'm planning to build, because then you can flag other players as you move through the rest of your draft that might be undervalued because of their limited contributions in that category. And that might be your way to get surplus power. And because you have Ellie, you have such an amazing stolen base foundation. Do you think Ellie's going to steal steal more bases he was 67 for 83 last

year I think the question we were asking May of last year was could Ellie steal a hundred bases and of course the the pace tapered off and I think even the overall offensive output was just shifting in a way where he wasn't getting quite enough opportunities to do that. But that's the other category in which it seems at least possible that there could be more. Projections are going to tell you there's probably less because it's hard to take a 67 steel season and forecast more. But I do think that's the other way he could add more value. And yeah, I think more power is more likely, especially in that ballpark. And I think the other part of the the Ellie equation, he did chase pitches

outside the zone a lot less, even though the K rate didn't come way down, shifting from a thirty five point three percent O'spink percentage down to a twenty nine point seven. That's a pretty nice step forward in that particular metric for a guy that just turned twenty three two days ago. So I do think you can talk yourself into at least one way that Ellie could get better and there may be more than one way.

If he swings and misses a little bit less, gets down to a 28% K rate, maybe the average goes up. So you get more power and more average with a lot of bags or maybe the power doesn't go up and the speed goes up, right, so all of those things are possible. But you know, he spent all last year being very intentional about stealing bases and talking about it and wanting to do it and giving interviews where he said

stealing bases is the most fun thing I do on the field, you know, telling people that his favorite tool was a speed, you know? So like, could he push that to another level? I mean, it seemed like it was, you know, the dial was turned to 11 already. So I wouldn't I would guess that he's not going to steal more bases. I think it was already maxed out.

It's more like if he gets on base more, he's created more opportunities for himself. I think he ran about as much as he reasonably could with a three thirty nine LBP, which again was a thirty nine point increase in OVP from what he did as a rookie to your point, though, about the average. Every other projected first round hitter, at least least by Steamer is going to hit for a higher average the closest player is Lindor at 257 he's the only other guy in the 250s everybody else is like 263 and above if you're looking at wit at that top spot based on where your position Steamer's got a 296 projection on wit

that's a really good batting average projection if people are gonna say what's quite a bit lower than what he just did That's still a great projection especially for a guy that's projected to hit 30 plus homers and steal another 30 plus bases So the stability is different and it's just perfect balance across the categories from wit yeah, and I think the two most interesting players in this tier are the old guys and You know, you know Lindor and Trey Turner, one thing you have to be a little bit afraid of in drafts is buying name value. You know, it can get to the point where their production doesn't deserve the price. And so I think the real question, you know, when you are paying for Trey Turner's, are

you paying for Trey Turner's past speed and not his current speed? And how much does speed have to do with it? How much does the injury have to do with it? You know, I can tell you that Trey Turner was that lost about a foot per second in sprint speed and that him and Tommy Edmond were among the short stops that lost the most and they're in the top 50 for drop-offs in sprint speed. So the short stops that lost the most sprint speed were Tommy Edmond, Corey Seeger, Willie Castro if you count him and Trev Tarner and Trevor Story. So if Trev Tarner was losing as sprints for his Trevor Story, that's something that sort of,

oh, like, wait a second. Like, I don't want to get the Trevor Story years of Trea Turner, you know what I mean? And so I think that's a question. With Lindor, I think a lot of the, if there's decline, it's not as obvious. He's been so good, he's 31, he's projected to just keep doing it,

and he's good at so many different things that you feel like if something falls off a little bit, he'll still be good, right? Like if he only steals 21 bags next year, which would be the lowest for him in the new rules environment, well, he'll probably still hit you 25 homers, because he's hit 26, 31, and 33 the last three

years. You know, does the batting average fall off or does he have one of those years where he hits 270 plus? You know, so he's so good across the board that I actually feel a little bit more secure about taking him than Turner. Turner, I just worry that at some point the speed falls off and he's never been a big homer guy. And that the speed could affect his batting average and all those things. So he is coming from an elite place so he can lose sprint speed and still be fast.

So maybe I'm over massaging this concern but I don't know that I will have a lot of shares of Trey Turner at that price. I think of the bats that are going in that range going cross positions I actually like Turner more than a lot of shares of trade Turner at that price. I think of the bats that are going in that range, going cross positions. I actually like Turner more than a few of the other hitters in there because there's a few hitters in that cluster that don't really offer much in the stolen base category. So that's that's like the one thing, depending on who you have coming out around one that might steer you.

It was a hamstring injury that cost Turner something like six weeks last season. So you wonder how much that also hurt the sprint speed around the injury. Or was he just of course, but we also that's how you but that's how you lose. That's how you lose it. You start getting hamstring injury. He's 32. I think a lot of projection systems are going to see a 32 year old that has this sort of trend and say, well, 30 steals probably isn't going to be a reasonable

number anymore. He really just did it in 2023. He was 30 for 30 in the other season. We saw him healthy with the new stolen base rules. So I think the power floor is a little higher that people give him credit for. I do think he fits in this group of lower barrelers. We kind of looked at guys for barrel rate and say, okay,

you know, who's a little lighter in terms of making the type of contact that we want? Turner's in that group, Mookie Betts is in that group. You're already starting to through his max EV and starting to see his bat speed is reducing a little bit. Yeah, it's- Turner. I think the question you have to ask is, is this just the beginning of a graceful decline

and then do you trust the contributions in power and average to be enough to keep his value afloat? I tend to trust that. Cause I think- Or is he a cliff guy, you know? It's possible. I think the only other thing that would maybe put me on the cliff side, and I'm not on the cliff side,

but it gives me a little concern, is that the chasing has increased. Ever since Turner spent that full year in Los Angeles in 2022 before he hit free agency, he's chased more pitches outside the zone. So maybe that's the kind of spent that full year in Los Angeles in 2022 before he hit free agency. He's chased more pitches outside the zone. So maybe that's the kind of thing that could whittle away at his average a little faster. If that continues and he's losing bat speed, then yeah, that batting average we've seen for his career, he's got 296 career batting average.

Maybe that becomes less of an asset sooner than we expect. And you know, we're looking at this list here of the low barrel-ers. This is the lowest barrel-ers with a, I think a 450 plate appearance minimum. And I think this is a bad place to be because in today's league, you want power at every position. And if you do not barrel the ball,

you have to do something else really well. And for some of these guys, you can be like, oh, Anthony Volpe's young, plays good defense, you know, maybe I'm not so worried about his barrel rate for now. Mason Wynn, am I really worried about Mason Wynn's barrel rate for this year? No, not really. Because A, I'm not gonna buy him for power and fantasy, and B, the Cardinals don't really care about it while he's young and can play really excellent defense in shortstop, right? Ha Seon Kim, excellent defender. Where it gets iffy is, you know, for somebody like Jeremy Payne to be on this list.

Does not rate that amazingly by defensive qualities. Maybe it's not the year yet, but at some point, if he's a third baseman and he has these numbers, then you're a little bit less excited about him organizationally baseball wise fantasy wise all these reasons You know we talked about Mookie Betts. You can see his ground ball rate He's already maxed out how many balls he's hitting in the air So you can't Mookie Betts can't hit the ball more in the air to get more barrels That's something that maybe Pena could do as he ages if Olpe could hit the ball more in the air Well, we have more on that later

Turner has sort of settled into this ground ball rate, so I don't think he's going to get barrels from that. But as an older guy, as a lower barrel, you start to get a little bit worried. Now he's so excellent across the board, I think that he could be a really good second baseman too. And the Phillies probably aren't really worried about this yet, but you as a fancy owner, you know, if he becomes a 275 15 15 second baseman, that is not what you really want it. That's not what you paid for. That's in dynasty.

It's not great if he starts to lose the shortstop eligibility. So we're at a crux of a moment here for Trey Turner where we're going to learn more about his aging curve this year, especially if he's healthy all year. We're gonna know more about what his output is. And that means that you're taking a little bit of a guess if you take Turner right now. I'd rather have someone who's not necessarily on the bottom of the barreling list. Totally fair because there are plenty of guys at this position that do that very well and offer a ton across the board. I know we didn't really talk about Gunnar Henderson I have absolutely no reservations about buying in for another season much like the one we just saw going a little bit late

Like what's his ADP? Last 14 days we're talking between pick three and pick seven. So I've well I've just when he is when he is soft pounce Like if you have the fifth pick and he somehow comes to you or six Pick like I think he's a top three talent in the league. Maybe top two Let's just for a second Gunnar Henderson or Aaron judge judge. I kind of want Gunnar Henderson I'm taking judge like judge is older and has an injury history Gunnar Henderson's in his prime judge basically hits the ball

Harder than anyone other than Giancarlo Stanton and continues. He's like a Stanton that can even run a little bit and in full healthy seasons is like the only guy you project for 50 homers. All I'm saying is, you know, I'm in a draft where, I'm in a draft right now where Gunner Henderson dropped to nine and I was 10.

And I was like, oh my God, am I gonna hit Gunnar Henderson dropped to nine and I was 10 and I was like, Oh, my God, am I going to get Gunnar Henderson to 10? Of course I wasn't, but like that would have made me super happy. So I think if Gunnar doesn't drops past the third pick in her draft, he's a value. Yeah, he's pretty easily a top five overall player, though, just figured it's worth a mention there. And last thought on Turner, he's in year three of an 11 year contract. So if you want to know how the other Phillies think he's going to age, I think they have some confidence that he still has a few really productive years in the tank before that to move him to second base. And part of that's keeping the AAV low. I get it. But I'm, I'm still

an optimist, relatively speaking, on Trey Turner. So I might have a few places when the dust clears on this 2025 draft season. To make our way down to tier two, it's a little smaller group, kind of runs from about pick 40 overall to pick 75, so it stretches a bit. We had to put Willie Adonim in somewhere. This feels like a trap to me. You think this is a trap? This is a trap for me.

All right, why are you turning into Admiral Ackbar right now? It's a trap. O'Neil Cruz, terrible platoon splits. He's now a center fielder. It's easier to platoon a center fielder. Now, if you're in a weekly league, that matters a lot. Oh, geez. He's holding nothing back.

Worked for 19 minutes in and he's just burying. Corey Seeger gets injured all the time. What are you gonna do when Corey Seeger's injured? If you have a backup plan, that's fine, but that means you have to have a backup plan. You just picked a guy in the 40 to 75 range where you have to have a backup plan, that's fine, but that means you have to have a backup plan You just picked a guy in the 40 to 75 range where you have to have a backup plan. Congratulations CJ Abrams, I think the worst defender in shortstop at in baseball

Who just got caught in a nightclub or was it a guy caught it? It's in the case. He was in a casino Yeah, like early morning hours Going from Milwaukee to San Francisco? Okay. On a big deal? Okay. After stealing 21 bags, stealing double digit bags for the first time in his career, he ran for the money. He ran for the money.

He's not gonna do it again. These guys are all traps. Everyone, everyone, almost everyone, steals more bases in the years before the big payday. And I think you naturally look at those players and say, okay, they're not gonna fully repeat it. But I wanna start at the top.

We'll get to Willie in a minute. O'Neil Cruz to me, like I actually saw growth. I mean, he wasn't horrendous against lefties. It was something like an 84 WRC plus passable He's young enough where the Pirates shouldn't platoon him yet if we go through two more seasons to more 26 young enough in terms of big league experience We're gonna have a thousand career plate appearances lost that whole season basically from a foot injury, right? The barrel rate was still elite last year same as the debut

He brought the K rate down to thirty point two percent We can still worry about the swing and miss from O'Neill Cruz But we should be equally worried about Ellie Dela Cruz's swing and miss right thirty one percent K rate from Ellie O'Neill Cruz was twenty two for twenty three as a base dealer He's a hundred percentile in bat speed so no matter what you think of bat speed as a metric I think that's probably a good thing. He swings it harder than Ali and he hits it harder than Ali.

Right, and he's 88 percentile in sprint speed in a year where he was only caught stealing one time, coming off of a major foot injury. So I think when you're playing the game of like, what could he do to get better? He's another player where you have a few paths to get there. And I think you're getting a better floor than you might have expected based on what he was able

to do kind of stabilizing everything last year. So I see a guy that, what else do you want from him? Like just a little more of everything and a better supporting cast. Because the counting stats actually lagged a little bit. 76 RBI's and 72 runs scored last year from O'Neil Cruz. Like that's not all his fault. Some of that speaks to the problems

getting the secondary cast around him in the Pirates lineup to produce. Not to be a waffler, but you've convinced me a little bit on Cruz. And I'd like to add a little bit more evidence. If you look at the depth chart, as you always should when you're preparing for the season, you might realize pretty quickly that I don't think they're going to platoon O'Neill-Cruz for reasons that have to do with

other positions on the field. Right now, their right field situation is Josh Palacios, Jack Sawinski, and B. Cook. Billy. Billy is his name. Billy Cook, who Billy Cook is supposed to be the center fielder platoon mate for O'Neal Cruz but why is he over at right field? Oh and look at first base Spencer Horwitz and B Cook. Okay wait a second he's he can't be in three places at once then you think well second base is Nick Gonzalez Nick York and Jared Triolo and third base is Brian Hayes Jared Triolo and you know wait a second they've got too many positions where they've got

a group of players that are looking to get some out of. O'Neil Cruz has to be the, hey, you're just in the line of every day. Brian Reynolds, O'Neil Cruz, you're in the line of every day. You know, I'm tempted to say Brian Hayes is like that if he's healthy because you can't have like six positions where you are just mixing people through. Like there have to be some positions where people play every day.

Right now shortstop is even Isaiah Conner-Flepper and maybe Nick Gonzalez, maybe Jovier Pagaro. Like there's other people involved even at shortstop. So you've really run out of places where you know you can just put a bunch of people. O'Neill Cruz has to play every day. You convinced me. I mean just based on how the roster's built, based on the lack of quality hitters at enough positions, you just can't justify platooning him right now.

That would be foolish. And I don't think they're foolish as a front office. I think they see the need to get him out there. The projection from Steamer, which is everything I had in my sheet to begin with, I'm glad Oopsie's out there, because Oopsie gets it. Even the projection from Steamer was good.

27 homers for cruise, 19 steals, 256 average, fine, solid. Oopsy, by the way, Jared Orson-Blum's productions that are now on Fangrass has bat speed in it, and so that might be why you're getting to the home run projection from them, right? Right, that's why 33 home runs from Oopsy, it's a big difference. I like that we have some new projection systems that are incorporating some new inputs, because what will happen is when you look at certain players, you'll actually see disagreement.

It's something Ariel Cohen has started to categorize in the past where you can look at the actual differences across sets. And I think those are the most fun players to think about drafting to talk, to debate about, because all the projected systems agreeing, even if they have slightly different inputs or wildly different inputs in some cases of things they're looking at, all roads lead to the same point. OK, we kind of agree on what this player is supposed to be. At least Cruz is still in that bucket where there are projection sets that see the same sort of upside that you might see with your eyes, that you might be forecasting for just your own selfish reasons. He could be a 30-30 season and you know,

it's not like there's a ton of people where he goes that are gonna have 30-30 seasons. In my draft, he went at the end of the third round. So I guess Acuna Jr. went right before him, but you know, he's coming off of injury in a way that he's not even ready for the season. Could Wyatt Langford who went right after him be a 30 30 30 guy. I mean I I would be huge growth You know like in the power especially

You know, and then I guess CJ Abrams like outside shot at 30 30 But I think of those, you know guys jazz Chisholm jr. Went before him of those guys I think Cruz has the best chance of a 30 30 season Hi, it's Alexa wayibel from New York Times Cooking. We've got tons of easy weeknight recipes and I'm going to make two of my favorites for you today. For my five ingredient creamy miso pasta, you just take your starchy pasta water, whisk it together with a little bit of miso and butter until it's creamy. Add your noodles and a little bit of cheese. Mm, it's like a grown-up box of mac and cheese. An easy weeknight recipe that feels

like a restaurant-quality dish. Next up, I'm making my vegetarian mushroom shawarma pitas. This recipe is just built for efficiency. You toss your mushrooms and red onion in your spices, throw them in the oven. By the time they're done, your sauce is ready, you've chopped your cabbage, and you're ready to assemble. It feels crazy that something that tastes this complex and looks this

colorful and beautiful is actually really easy to make and takes just 20 minutes of active time. It's just delicious. New York Times Cooking has you covered with easy dishes for busy weeknights. Find these recipes and more at NYTCooking.com. Smells so good. If O'Neill Cruz gets 600 plate appearances again and isn't at least as valuable as he was in 2024 from like a auction calculator perspective, I'll be very surprised.

I'll dress up as Captain Jack Sparrow for an episode. I will. I mean, I'm that confident in the floor being pretty stable. what he did last year I think is repeatable, but I think you're drafting him because at the price that's fine And there's a good chance you get something more from him as well your Cory Seeger doomsday speech It's inspiring in some ways, but like he hits like a top 25 even a top 20 hitter He just doesn't run like a shortstop. He never really has. That's always been the knock, right?

And when he also had two surgeries at the end of the season. Yeah, sports hernia, I think, was the one he had in September, right? What was the other surgery he had? Hip. Hip, too, again? Was it just like a cleanup? I don't know.

The hip a few years ago was a major surgery, and that was the big question earlier in his career, was whether or not he's gonna come back from that and be the same guy. So the first thing I would say about Corey Seeger is of all the short stops we've already discussed on the show he begins with the lowest plate appearance projection because it's a heavy injury history of stuff that could linger or require some maintenance. It's two surgeries on the same place in a year so he just had it. Corey Seeger had the same place in a year. So he just had it.

Corey Seeger had the same surgery in the last offseason, which I guess, you know, hey, he had the same surgery in the last offseason. He still hit 278 with 30 homers this year. Right. And you're gonna see a 283 with 29 homers. Pretty good counting stats. I maintain though that it's a little bit hard to like take someone there where you have to be like, and I have to get another shortstop later that can step in when he's hurt. Yeah. Well, yeah.

Okay. So you bake that in, but I don't think it's a bad price where he's going right now, even if he knows not going to have a lot of Corey Seeger on his team. You mentioned Abrams. I went back and read some of the stories. I think it was a Jeff Passett story that I was looking at this morning. So Abrams was photographed at a casino a few hours, several hours before a day game at Wrigley during a road trip. And the Nationals optioned him down and there

were comments from Davy Martinez and Mackenzie Gore has been a longtime friend and teammate of Abrams. And to me, the way it read was it was a disciplinary decision that I think everyone was going to move past. Like it's not going to be this kind of thing where they're looking at C.J. Abrams and saying, he's just not our guy anymore. Those kinds of questions are all going to be focused on skills. So I'm not worried about what happened at the end of the season. I feel like that's now just in the past. It was handled, it was addressed and everything kind of moves on.

You did mention the defense, right? C.J. Abrams was the worst shortstop in baseball by outs above average, by a pretty wide margin. What I look at though, and I see is, I see an infield that's kind of crowded already, and eventually has Brady House coming to play in it. And I don't think you're really moving C.J. Abrams off of shortstop yet.

I think you have to see if you can just get better. We've seen players do it. Think about Marcus Simeon earlier in his career, right? You can improve defense. It's not easy, but it can be done. So from a projection of playing time perspective, I'm still not as worried about Abrams as I would be in places where they could move them

somewhere else or maybe wanna just like do better defensively. I also think that the skills last year overall looked almost identical to 2023 and it was just weird because it was so front loaded. CJ Abrams had a 129 WRC plus in the first half of the year. Looked like he was having a full breakout. Looked like he was taking the next step. He did hit the ball harder overall.

Hard hit rate went up even though a lot of everything else looks the same. He steals a ton of bases. I kind of think he's fine where he's going right now because much like the O'Neill Cruz speech like I see a guy that at least showed us that the skills floor is steady. I don't think they would start taking away playing time against lefties yet. I think they still want to push him and see if they can continue down this path of him being a franchise cornerstone player, part of their core as his team keeps getting better. But if you see it differently, I'd just love to hear, maybe there's concern about that second half

being as bad as it was. Yeah, I mean, if you just look at the rolling charts for C.J. Abrams over the course of the season, a couple things pop out, which is that he hit the ball softer in the second half and he hit it in the air more often. Now I think that's generally part of a good strategy on his part in order to, you know, when he first came up he had some ground ball problems, he's been lifting the ball a bit more, lifting the ball is a big part of barreling the ball

and so on. But hitting them softer and in the air with a strikeout rate that surged in the second half suggests to me that whatever he was doing in the second half was not ideal. And we already know that from the fact that he hit 15 homers in the first half and five in the second half. But it's weird that he hit five in the second half while trying to lift the ball more. So there's another level with Abrams where he has to kind of figure out how to do both, how to do all these things at the right moment and not always try to lift the ball if it's going to lead to more strikeouts and to softer contact in the air. So he's got some decisions to make as a player as well as a sort of as human being right like we're talking about he's a bit of it at a crossroads when it comes to you know how much is he gonna apply himself how much was he what

does his life gonna look like you know when you do these things and you stay up and you and you have fun and you know if you just look at the efficacy of your sleep, for example, you start to see, oh my gosh, my sleep efficacy goes from like 90% to like 70% if I have one beer. That's one beer. What does it do if I have 10 beers and stay out until three in the morning? And what does having a 60% sleep efficacy night overnight do to somebody in terms of their longevity in the game, their ability to improve, their ability to dominate? There's a lot of decisions for him to make. I was being a little facetious.

I do have a share of him that I have drafted in this season. I think he has an intriguing skill set where there's this burgeoning power. He already steals a bunching power. He already steals a bunch of bases. He doesn't strike out too much. So there is a real chance for him at 24 to have an amazing MVP level season, but he has to apply himself to his defense, to his lifestyle, and to even what he's doing at the plate and so there's still a lot of questions where we're getting closer to buying him at what he could do rather than what he has done. But the floor is still a power speed combo that could be 30 bags easily. We saw 47 two years ago in 51 attempts

another season right around that 20 homer mark 18 and 20 homers now the last two seasons doesn't hit for average and get on base a ton. You're right. I mean there's there's a there's just going to be a question of how did this offseason go and how does the day to day preparation. Go for Abrams and maybe if if they have a first half from him that looks like his second half. And they feel internally like okay this isn't changing This isn't going the way we want it to. Maybe they reevaluate things then, but I think he's got a legitimate chance to just reclaim all of what he was putting together very easily. I don't, I don't think that suspension is like the end of CJ Abrams. That was the main takeaway I had kind of going back and I mean, it was also like a, like a bit of a lost, lost season.

Yeah. Producer Brian says Abrams is worth a gamble The it was a bit of a lossy like you also have to think he's a young person who's on a bad team You know at the end of the season How much does he think that game the next day matters really and the other way he's gonna probably think about it after this Whole incident to say hey, you know, I've got free agency after 2020 That's a long way to the future But if I want the massive payday,

if I wanna show that I'm a nine figure player, I gotta do it right here. I need to start bringing it up one more level, right? So you could be buying in at the beginning of that if you get into CJ Abrams now. I think he's fine where he's going. I don't think he's underpriced. I don't think he's overpriced.

I think there's a fair amount of risk, but it's appropriate. I could see myself ending up with Abrams on some teams this year. Yeah, if doesn't improve what does he do? He hits 250 and goes 20-20 again at least. Yeah maybe 20-40. The Willy Adames concerns, okay those are the concerns you outlined that are applicable to other players that hit free agency, get a big deal and then go through all the changes having to go to a new park, new team, from a adjusting perspective, as much as I can glean from watching Willie a lot

the last few years, I don't think the fitting in will ever be a problem. Seems like a guy that's just loved by his teammates will quickly be a leader in his clubhouse. He did land in Milwaukee and have one of his best half seasons right away. He talked about getting out of the trop and how much he struggled to hit in there,

just couldn't really see the ball that well and moving into Milwaukee, that changed a lot. The hesitation I would have with Willie Adames is the stolen base category. You're absolutely right about that because even when we had the first year of the rule changes in 2023, Willie Adames was five for

eight as a base dealer. The quality of contact has been there for years. He's had a double digit barrel rate for consecutive seasons. He has enough legitimate power to be a 25 plus home run guy in San Francisco. I'm not worried about the power falling off the cliff. I think we saw a pretty unusual thing from Adames in that just about every home run he hit last year, this is a slight exaggeration, was a three run homer. So you see the RBI count go through the roof. Huge RBI count for him.

Some of that's just cashing in at the exact right time. None of this is to say that he's a bad player, but when you start to start, when you start looking at the shortcomings, average is not gonna be a category that he's gonna help you in. The best best case scenario so that he doesn't hurt you More likely than not he'd actually hurts you a little bit in that category The stolen bases might be flimsy despite the success rate

I would have the same question about Matt Chapman the projections are gonna look at this and say well 21 and then we Regress we use that we regress and we go 14 Well 14 would be the second most he'd ever stolen, you know? Like he could easily just go back to six. Good, I think it's a really hard question to answer. So then I think all of these kind of things that lead to a perfect season in a walk year, doing everything all at once, just make you say,

why am I paying a career high ADP draft day price for any player who has pretty stable skills that he's shown over multiple years? Why would I buy into the best season at the highest price? That's the problem. It's not that I don't like Willie Adam. It's almost more like in a snake draft I'm passing in that pick 75 range in an auction when it's dollar for dollar I might end up getting him because everyone plays that differently. If it comes out to 18 or 19 dollars, great. No concerns about playing time.

Great power. Non zero speed. Oh, we did stumble on something. His expected home runs, if he had been a San Francisco giant last year, was 31. He hit 32. Yeah. So it's not a question of the power. It's really a major question on speed and then always concerning batting average. That kind of ticked up. So am I trashing him?

Absolutely not. I just think this is a career peak year that we probably just saw and now we have to pay a lot more to get it if we want to have them on our teams in 2025 and I'm not there. Moving on to tier three, there's a gap. See, that's kind of, that's part of the thing

that's happening with WheelieTube. You don't have a shortstop, you're looking at him and then you're looking at the tier three, there's a gap. See, that's kind of, that's part of the thing that's happening with WheelieTube. You don't have a shortstop, you're looking at him, and you're looking at the tier three guys, and I think you can very easily tell yourself a story. Willie Adames is safer than all of these guys. Matt McClain, Ezekiel Tovar, Anthony Volpe, and Boba Shet, right? You and I both trust Willie Adames

to just do what the projection says more than probably all four of the guys that are in this third tier at the position? I would like to elevate Tovar and Volpi and probably Bichette a little bit above McLean in terms of question marks just from this. We know what position they're going to play and they're going to play it all year. And we know that shortstop is the type of position where you'd mostly just wanna play a guy. Matt McClain is not gonna play shortstop for the Reds. And that means, well, he might play a little second base,

might play a little center field we just talked about, so there's these different places he might end up and that doesn't always add up to full playing time. So not only do you wonder what is going to happen with Matt McClain's shoulder, but you're wondering where is he going to play and how much is he going to play. I'd like to take him sort of away from the rest of the group as much. We can talk about them separately, but I just want to say if you're looking at Adamas versus Tovar, Volpi and Bichette, I actually would be like, I would be like, I'll take one of those

guys later. That's what I would say because I would say those guys are gonna play all year and by playing all year They will accumulate and the worst-case scenario for all of these guys is to accumulate You know a middling batting average with different amounts of homers and different amounts of stolen bases But just like an everyday player That's what you're getting with Tovar, Volpe, and B Bichette, and you're not spending the same as Adamis. So I just wanted to put those guys a little bit separate from McLean in that too. I think Matt McLean is one of the more challenging players in the entire pool to figure out. He missed last season with an injury. So you tack that on to moving around, playing multiple positions.

And it wasn't even the debut is as good as the debut was from Matt McLean in twenty twenty three. It wasn't even a full season because he spent part of the year in triple A. He broke through, played eighty nine games, the big league level, showed power, showed speed, hit for a nice average, struck out more than he had in the minors, which isn't a surprise. Maybe he got lucky on the batting average, though, with a three eighty five Bavip, you know, twenty eight point5% strikeout rate. Also, he had, you know, going into this last year in 2023, he, he had okay power.

And then in 2023, he showed like, Hmm, that's a little bit better than okay. Right? Like he showed what might've been league average power, you know, going into 2023. And then he kind of had a power outbreak. And then the power outbreak is not necessarily presaged by a real change in ground ball rate. His max dv is not a standout one. His heart hits pretty good. His barrel rates all right. But this is also pre-surgery. So you're saying, you know, somewhat iffy power production pre-shoulder surgery that he missed a whole season for. That is just a lot to add up, on top of the fact that we don't even know

what position he's gonna play. I think he's still gonna come in pretty close to a full role though. And I think we had questions about Spencer Steer this time last year, and we thought, well, which spot is Steer gonna play? And he just played enough where, you know, I don't know, he got 100 appearances in left field,

he got plenty at first base, occasionally showed at second, and it ended up being fine. He He got 100 appearances in left field. He got plenty at first base, occasionally showed at second, and it ended up being fine. He still got the 656 plate appearances. So I think you could still forecast a very close to everyday role, if not an everyday role for McLean, even if it comes between center field, other outfield spots and moving back into second base, depending on what they they need on a given day.

He's a right. So you could you could platoon if you're platooning Lux, you could say McLean plays second base against left handed starters when Lux is on the bench. And then when they're facing a righty, McLean moves out and plays center field. Yeah, I mean, their right field situation with Jake Fraley and Will Benson, I think is pretty weak. And so McLean jumping in there and making it more McLean steer Friedel in the outfield would be an improvement for them. And third base, we've talked about how Nuelvi Marte has some warts and I don't think Candelario should really play third anymore.

So if his arm is good enough, McLean can play third base as well. If you do believe that this will all add up to full playing time, then you would actually find McLean to be undervalued by projections because right now Fangrass is rolling out about 570 played appearances and 133 games which is not full time. You could even say I don't know if I believe in the power and I'm gonna downgrade the power but I'm upgrade the playing time. And so it'll end up still being a 20 homer, 15 to 20 steel package with a decent batting average. So just the sliders will look a little different. More playing time, less power. You can still get to a similar place. I don't hate him as a player and I think he's important for the Reds, but I do think there's

a fair amount of questions. You know, just let's put them up against Anthony Volpi, right? Because they're in a tier together. Or Tovar. So these three, who has more questions? McLean, you have questions of power and questions of positions. Tovar, you have questions about approach, really. You know, because it's a really rough approach. And if he's got this rough approach, will it affect his playing time? He also doesn't rate well defensively, right? So, is that right? No, Tovar's a great defender.

Tovar's a great defender, right. So I think that there's no playing time issue for Tovar because the great playing time will keep him out there and the park will clean up some of the stuff. So I actually would say that Tovar has fewer questions than McLean. Yeah, because he's a max volume player in a home park that's going to help mask some of his flaws. So you can look at those flaws and say the K-Rat might not get better. I mean, the only reason it's

the same reason we thought it was possible he could get better last year is Tovar is still very young. He's still just 23. So he could still get better in terms of play discipline. But we've now seen still just 23. So he could still get better in terms of plate discipline. But we've now seen a progression from a 45.4% O swing in 2023 for full season the big leagues up to 48.1 last year. He went the other direction. The quality of contact is probably a better than we expected. He's maintained a 9% barrel rate now, I think for his career. That's what he had last year, almost a 40% hard hit rate. Hit the ball in the air more.

So you can start to find a few things in the profile that even if it's not perfect from a strike zone judgment perspective, his playing time's safe, his role in the lineup is safe, he's got pretty big power, 26 homers last year for his age is impressive. I don't think he's ever gonna be great as a base dealer. He's now 17 for 27, but then I point to the sprint speed and I'm like,

he's fast. He's got a 71st percentile sprint speed. So maybe there's opportunity to get better in that category as well for Tovar. So I think he's fine where he's going. I worry about the real life offensive profile more than the fantasy profile. This is to me a five by five Roto profile that works really well. If you play in a league where OVP is a category This looks like a pretty hopeless situation where he's going to hurt you in that category a lot at a position where Plenty of other guys won't and he'll hurt you a lot by playing a lot, you know and really just dragging it down Yes, so then you do to be mindful of that the Volpi question. I also that these these questions, you know kind of preclude him from being a superstar, right? But he's give you a very good player

Yeah, so if you're holding on to him, he's a possible salad in dynasty if you think about it He may not get better I feel like he's a unique player and keeper in dynasty leagues in that I think so many people are gonna look at at the k-rate and walk rates the Same way we do we're like well, that's not great No swings I feel like his value relative to what he brings for the next few years is actually gonna be Lower than it should be I almost I think I would go the other way

I think he might be a more attainable shortstop Maybe you're giving up ceiling though because he's probably never gonna be a five category stud. That's probably the thing that's definitely worth sort of sending feelers out and getting a sense of what other managers think of like, sell him as an elite like young shortstop building piece or something, right? You know, see, see if you can. If he doesn't bring that back, then you might as well keep him as a fine young player. There's also going to be an exploration, an earlier expiration date than maybe people think of with that approach.

Yeah, I mean, think about the way Javier Baez's career has gone, right? Like it's that's a pretty good blueprint. Yeah, like how fast can a player like this age like that? That's that's probably the indication. Man, our Anthony Volpe word cloud just keeps swelling. He's right up there in Mitch Keller territory. Well, I just wanted to point this out. So like, just throw this up.

When I talked about earlier about Anthony Volpe having two very distinct approaches, this is what I'm talking about. So in 2023, he hit 21 homers, struck out 28% of the time, had a 40% ground ball rate, had a 9 percent barrel rate, right? So this is a guy who is walking, striking out three true out coming, you know, and hitting the ball in the air and hitting it hard enough to hit 21 homers, right? Well, you know, he looked at that and said, I don't know if I really want to hit 209 with a 283 OBP just

to get to 21 homers, which is fair. So in his next season, he decided he would cut down the strikeouts. Maybe he's letting the ball travel. You see the pull rate went from 46% to 32%. The hard hit went from 43 to 35. The barrel went from 9 to 4. And the strikeout rate, though, went from 28 to 23.

So he improved his strikeout rate. He hit the ball on the ground a little bit more, hit more line drives, let the ball travel a little bit. He hit 243, got 10 points of OBP to 293, but he only hit 12 homers. There's just a place where you can kind of, we talk about the player squishing machine. In this case, it's the year squishing machine. Could you take the two Vulpis and squish them together? That's a little bit less problematic since it's the

same guy. And what you're hoping for is, you know, not the guy who comes out walking 6% of the time and striking out 30% of the time and hitting 209. That's the Vulpis you discard. What you're hoping for is for the guy who hits strikes out 23% of the time, but barrels 9% of the time, you know, maybe adds that 8 to 9% walk rate. Then you have a guy who could OBP 310, 320. Maybe he comes up in the lineup a little bit. Maybe he hits 20 to 25 homers. The speed is always going to be there. So that's the upside I'm talking about. And you know, Michael Salfito was talking about how this could be Ahmed Rosario. Well, the nice thing is you're paying for Ahmed Rosario. You're paying

for a guy who's going to hit 10 to 15 homers and steal 30 bags and have an okay batting average. That's what he doesn't like about Volpi. He says that Ahmed Rosario didn't turn out to be that great. The nice thing is you're paying for this, but Ahmed Rosario never showed splits like this. He was the same guy over and over every year. Volpi has been two fully different guys. And so there's at least a little bit of a like, huh, like which one is it going to be this year? Either way, I think where he's going, he's going as like the last shortstop and a 15 teamer, last starting shortstop, that's where I took him. I'm fine with this. If I get a guy who hits 240 with 14 homers and 30 stolen bases,

I think that's a that's a fairly conservative projection for a young player that's going to play every day. I'm fine with that That's my worst, you know, that's the worst starting shortstop. That's fine He's playing every day and he's he's gonna give you good numbers in a lot of places I mean you're right about the reduced ethical concerns of taking two seasons from the same player and trying to player squish those together versus taking two players and forcing them together, but I and a player squished those together versus taking two players and forcing them together. But I do recall from our Punnett Square conversation, you know, you could get the worst versions of it. You try to do all the things that he did well and have it come out the worst possible outcomes

because the approach is incongruent. It doesn't work right. Like that's that's also in the range of outcomes. I think we're on the level of talking about like he's like, do I let it travel? Do I go get it? Just getting caught between approaches. Well, yeah I go get it just getting caught But works out well. Yeah, yeah If he gets well if it works out well he goes and gets it when he's supposed to go and get it and he lets it travel when he's supposed to let it travel and He kind of you know puts it the or he gets caught in between like you said and then you're like Oh, he's not doing any of the things that we've seen him do well because he's caught in between

That's the fear you have because the defense is good because of his importance on the roster, like all of that stuff, it's still kind of Tovarian and like he's the guy. He's safe. The park's nice. The lineup's nice. I think the other difference would be like Tovar's place in the Rockies lineup, high up in that lineup, is much safer than Volpi's. Volpi is sort of at the discretion of how good is the rest of the lineup? How well is he playing? Could he hit himself into a prominent spot? Sure, he could, but it's not it's not guaranteed. One thing I do like, maybe I should say this as a precursor to the next tier. But one thing I do like, if you do take somebody from this tier to be your shortstop,

then take someone from the next tier to be your middle infielder. That is a shortstop. I actually like this because they're everyday players. And what you're doing is you're baking in a little bit of like, oops, if Volpe doesn't work out, at least I have Danceby Swanson. That was in my draft where I just took Volpe, I took Swanson as my MI. And I just think that's a smart way to do it because the shortstops play more often than second basemen. Second basemen are platoon, second basemen are second basemen outfielders. There's a lot of ways you can go on your bench where you have a guy who has second base availability, eligibility, but you know,

doesn't necessarily always play there. So I would like your Ni to be a shortstop. That's sort of a preview for the next one. Bichette, dude, I don't know, man. I have no idea. Is he going to be hurt all the time or is he just gonna be healthy this year and put in a vintage Bichette season? It's not gonna have stolen bases in it. I don't think it's gonna have stolen bases in it. It's gonna be, you know, if a good season this year for him would be 280, you know, 19-5.

Okay, that's not that bad if the everyday playing time is there and the runs and RBIs are good. I think the, the main takeaway I've got on Bo Bichette I don't think he's a must draft in all your leagues players. Even though I do think he makes sense as a rebound player I do want Bo Bichette. I don't think I want him as my starting shortstop. I think I want him as my middle infielder I think I want to have a shortstop earlier because of the health concerns and because of the lack of bags But Bo's crashed last year, health was a factor, turned a third rounder into basically a ninth

or a tenth round pick in the early drafts we're seeing. Most players that you see that are 20% better than league average every year of their career until they have one down year, those guys are gonna usually bounce back. Caitlin McGrath wrote about this, it's hard to find players who fall off this quickly. We're talking about a 27-year-old right now

who hasn't even hit free agency for the first time. And most of the other guys that we found for Caitlin McGrath, we talked with her about it, that she found, most of those other guys, I think were not as established as Bo Bichette, that or started a run of injury, like the kind of the Tula Witzke type situation or whatever, you know,

like one name that was a little bit worrisome was Jason Hayward. Yeah, I think in that, the Hayward, like they had to hold their podcast some day, the mysterious decline players, I think in Hayward's case, getting hit in the face with a pitch was sort of a big turning point where he just wasn't the same player after that.

And it's so hard to know where he was going versus where he ended up. How far away from his ceiling did he end up falling just because of that incident? Because it was a soft tissue thing for Bo and a wrist injury, I think also Full off season to get healthy is really important and I think my concerns are mostly that the hamstring stuff is still an issue and then the stolen bases stay light. I think the 20 plus steals we saw years ago, that's not who he is, but he's good in average,

he's ample in power and because of his role, he can be fine in counting stats and he's going late enough where I think you're probably going to be happy with Bo at the price even if he doesn't bounce back all the way to third round status for 2026. Just the weirdest thing for me is because I talked to him as a prospect and I said you know you really go the other way all the time but pull power is you know power lives in the pulley regions a lot like what are you going to do about that and he's like well I'm you know I'm selectively pulling I'm figuring out when I can pull and And so he debuted in 2019 with his highest

pull rate of his career. And ever since then, he's hit fewer fly balls and pulled fewer fly balls and pulled less often. So he's basically gone away from that and become just a really kind of a one note player offensively, which is kind of opposite field doubles, which has been good for his batting average. And I don't know, I just think I'd like to add that as like a layer of risk, almost like Matt McLean, you know, where there's a layer of risk, which is that this approach is coming to an end of its efficacy as well. You know what I mean?

Like it's really, he's kind of of he's predictable and predictable is not great For hitters, you know, I always felt when I looked at peak Tim Anderson alongside peak Bob Shett There were some similarities and how they were doing it and I think Tim Anderson's speed was much more stable So from a roto perspective that that was maybe a little Tim Anderson. You're a little off a cliff fell off a cliff It's another it's another player type that doesn't age particularly well. And I think then the challenging thing with Bo is if you believe it's something he can still tweak at this point in his career,

even though it's been a long time, do you believe the hit tool is so good that his hands are fast enough for him to go to a more pull, not even pull happy, but selectively pull approach. If you believe that, then I think he could be even more comfortable with him. I think he can keep doing what he's done up to this point, just with health and have a nice bounce back from that kind of back of tier three draft position. Let's get to tier four. We, uh, we know we're going to run long. These are going to be like 90

minute episodes. Apologies to Brian Smith. We're we're gonna run long. These are gonna be like 90 minute episodes apologies to It's a draft guide I mean you got and you got a bow leave as Brian just said behind the scenes Yeah, I mean you do but do you have to bow leave in bow guards? Whole professional life has been just getting punned to death by you, by Al, by Jeff Erickson, by Chris List. It's fine. It's been good to me. I braced myself for the usual Xander slander, as I call it.

No, his price is so far low that I love him again. That this is good oatmeal again? This is a low price. And at 32, I don't think that the lights turned off. Even like, as bad as last year was, he was nearly average with the bat, and he stole 13 bases, and that's good. Like you're expecting him to steal double digit bags,

and you're expecting him to come back a little bit in power and batting average. And all of the indicators are that a career 331 Babbitt guy who had a 297 last year can regress positively in that way. So Bogarts, you get a little bit more lucky on balls and play. You get a little bit more lucky on health. Last year was the first year he really missed a lot of time. He's been a 600 plate appearance guy for years and years.

So I think this is a good place to buy Bogarts. And I like the dual eligibility too. Yeah, dual eligibility is nice. You can play him at second. I do think we've reached the point in his career where you would much rather have him as a middle infielder or like a late second baseman than as you're starting shortstop

because of the high quality of the players at this position. It says more about the group than it does about him, but the efficiency. And another thing that is nice about Bogarts is he's a type of player that is available to you players at this position. It says more about the group than it does about him, but the efficiency. And another thing that is nice about Bogart is he's a type of player that is available to you if you've been building a nice solid team that doesn't have issues. Now, if you have issues, there's going to be other players you need. If you have power issues, he's not the guy to get in this. I think you would go with Dancy Swanson if you needed to get

some power out of this tier right if you have steals issues he's not the guy to get I think you maybe go with Raffaella in this tier if you need steals you know we're gonna have a point on that soon with Mason Wynn but Bogarts is the kind of guy who's available to you if you're just building a really solid team that just you know what what another way of putting is this I looked at what the in a in a draft and hold what you what you need to to be 80th percentile in all of your um in all of your batting statistics and then I broke that down into kind of an average so this is the average player

in a draft and hold right now a 15 team draft hold, you want your average offensive player to have 72 runs, 20 homers, 71 RBI, and 13 steals and hit 256. Okay, you get a little more average and maybe a little less power from Bogarts, but that's exactly what he is. He's an average player. Does everything across the board at a fair price in a good lineup, could exceed, could actually exceed in just a category price in a good lineup could exceed but could actually exceed in a below average category the only thing I was thinking about

When you're pointing out the the babbip and just bouncing that up a little bit giving him more points an average I think it's totally fair to do that I think his approach is one that's gonna lend him to be at least good in the category if not very good I do think his baselines from Beginning his career in Boston are probably elevated by the type of player he is as a right-handed hitter with the Monster. The Monster.

And thinking about the differences in Fenway versus Petco, the new baseline is probably the difference between 23 and 24, right? 319 his first year in San Diego, 297 last year. So you probably do come in close to where the projections are like a 308, 310, whatever is where you are so you're looking More like 270s than 285 plus in the batting average category I see that as someone who likes standard Bogarts and wants them as many places as possible

And we I said the 256 is average so if he's a 270s he's he's pushing your your team average up Do you have interest in Sedan Rafaela in this range? Because I would say of the five players in the cluster, he has the most playing time risk of anybody by healthy margin, even though he can play multiple spots. Well, he can nominally play shortstop, but he's pretty terrible there. And I think they've even announced

that they don't really want to play him there anymore. So I think shortstop's kind of out. Center field is where they want to play him. And. So I think Shortsoft's kind of out. Center field is where they want to play him. And you know, one thing that speaks well for him is that they signed an eight year, 50 million dollar extension with him. That's not really a high value extension though. And so I think that might be a clue as to like,

this isn't like the Julio Rodriguez extension or something. You know what I mean? This is like, this is the guy we like, but we don't necessarily love. And if he ends up being good, he's very tradable. And or we have surplus value ourselves because he can play multiple spots. The worst case scenario, he's a utility guy for us at eight and 50. Right. Like that could be a utility guy.

Yeah. You just you just like a you like a player that you have. You have depth at center field and shortstop for the foreseeable future. And if he turns into something else, great. And if he's only depth, you're fine at eight and fifty. Right. And so, you know, I think that that even though he has extension, a lot of times you will bring up these extensions as like, oh, he's going to play. Right. Like it's really big when you have an extension you haven't played in the big leagues yet.

That means that you're probably going to play from day one because there's no no playing time shenanigans, there's no, oh, what's he, they have cost certainty. They're gonna play you. That happened with Jackson Churio last year. He had the extension and he played from day one, right? And so, you know, sometimes we look at these extensions, we say, oh, that's an affirmation of his playing time.

But with this extension and with his history, I'm not sure it's the same affirmation of playing time, at least not every day playing time that we want it to be and then when I look at this depth chart again I find that you know you've got Jaren Durin who had a real sort of defensive breakout last year that might be underrated and if he can actually play center field you may end up in a situation where you know does Roman Anthony want to you know want him in center do you want in the corner know, want him in the center?

Do you want him in the corner? If you want him in the corner, then you want, how do you get Roman Anthony, Jaren Duren, you know, William Abreu, Masataka Yoshida, Saddam Raphael, and same outfield, you know? And if you trade for Nolan Aronado and you've got Trevor Story out here saying, yeah, yeah, let's please, let's trade for Nolan Aronado. Don't worry about Rafi. We all love Rafi. Rafi's great, but let's trade for Nolan Arnardo and find out where we can play him, right?

Well, if you do that and Divers goes to first and Castles goes to DH and where does Yoshida go? you know, so, you know and then you have Christian Campbell who might be the number one prospect in baseball right now and I know that doesn't seem like he's an outfielder but you know You still have Vaughn Grissom and David Hamilton and Marcelo Meyer, the shortstop coming up and Trevor Story. Where do you put Trevor Story? You're not going to trade Trevor Story.

Nobody wants that contract. So Trevor Story is going to go to the outfield at some point or second base. So this is a very crowded depth chart with a team that wants to be good and is not rebuilding. So they're not going to suffer any fools basically. Right? And they're gonna make decisions quickly. So Raphael might be the starting center fielder for a month and then be out of a job.

Not out of a job completely, but be a glue guy. And that would be a poor use of this type of a pick, I would think. So I'm mostly out on him. And this is a year after, last year, I was touting him as a great pickup because he was a guy you could take in your bench and you didn't know where he might end up.

Now you have to pay a starting level cost for him and I'm out. Right, I think you can get excited about the potential if we knew he had a spot to call his own, but with so many other talented players that can play multiple spots close, you have our time feeling good about it with Sedan Rafaela right now. He's like Tovar's approach without Tovar's shortstop defense and without Tovar's park to clean up some of that approach. I mean, Fenway will clean up some of it.

Caught 10 times, 19 steals caught 10 times, 49.5% Oh swing percentages. It's a rough starting point. Yeah, you can work on that, but man, that's a, that's a the slugging percentage on pitches outside the zone is like 200 points lower than the slugging percentage on pitches inside the zone. So the player is, it's kind of interesting. That's trapped in between.

I forgot to get them on the bottom of the screen. Actually I'll fix that, but Xavier Edwards goes in between. I forgot to get them on the bottom of the screen, actually. I'll fix that. But Xavier Edwards goes in between Bogarts and Raffaella. And I think this is another kind of hybrid player and a build-specific player. Xavier Edwards is the answer to the question of, what if Asturio Ruiz could hit for a good average? Because Edwards could be a categorical star

in steals and average, which is nice nice a lot of the high high average guys Luis Araya Stephen Kwan at various points in their career We said oh There isn't enough power or speed and Kwan's at least kind of added some power and had enough speed from the beginning and Araya Is still kind of a goofy player just to fit for roto purposes Edwards I think kind of scratches the itch enough, it steals an average, where if you are a power heavy build and you didn't punt batting average,

I could see him fitting really well as your middle infielder in this group. And it seems like he's also kind of ticking up from tier four into tier three in some rooms for people that maybe are chasing power early and need to get that speed boost later because I don't think the Marlin's heavy, but it's gonna push him this year.

I think this is actually temporarily of safe one year window of playing time. I don't know if I have any sort of keeper or dynasty interest at all in this profile, but I do think short term, you could actually do a lot worse than Xavier Edwards if you need some speed in this range. I was making a team where I thought

I was paying attention to steals. I got Volpe, I got Westberg, I got Kyle Tucker, Jackson Merrill, Brandon Nimmo. I thought I was paying attention to steals. In 15 teamers, you want 170 to 180 steals. That's the reality of the situation right now. So I feel like almost everybody at around this point says, oh my God, like I'm like 80 steals short.

And everybody wants a 30 steal guy around this point. That the problem is there are some guys there, but they all have different risks. So I ended up with Cedric Mullins as my OF4 in a 15 team league for similar reasons where I sort of panicked and said I need some steals. And I think Edwards does that for you. But Mullins is gonna hit 13, 14 homers this year probably.

And he does have some playing time risk of course. I don't wanna say that I made the right choice and Edwards is the wrong choice. But I wanna point out that OOPSIE, which I love that he named it that. I think it has to do, it's one of those acronyms. It has something to do with process. He's using process stats.

So that's why that's the OOPSIE, is the PS is process stats. Anyway, he put in bat speed. He has one homer projected for Xavier Edwards. Now you go back to my average and you say, oh, the target average is 20 homers per player. That means you need to find 19 homers on another player. Like if you were just doing the player squishing machine,

you had one other player that covered for Edwards, you need to have a 40 homerun guy. Right, but you can track that way. You can definitely end up in a situation where you know your power, heavy and speed light. So I do think compared to the Ruiz draft seasons and similar players of the past, I see more fits with Edwards because of his position, because of the role, because of the skills that I think he actually has. And even if you believe

that the average was running high last year, regress the bat up accordingly, you're still looking at 280, 290 and a lot of projections. The projections for playing time are light. They're like 588 or so played appearances. I think that's a little bit light for Xavier Edwards because I honestly don't see another shortstop on this roster. I don't even know if he's a shortstop actually. His defense, we're gonna show you the defensive leaderboards

in a second. It's a little bit more relevant for the guys, other than Edwards, the guys who are fighting for shortstop jobs, right? Edwards has it, I think, just because they don't have another options. I don't think Otto Lopez is a shortstop. Jared Serna is a 22-year-old in AAA that last year had a 117 WRC+. That doesn't project that well. He may not be a league average bat, and his batted ball stats are just as bad almost as

Edwards. His max EV last year, Cernus was 104. That was a little bit limited playing time, but a limited sample there. But I don't know that Cernus is really the option. They've got another guy in Javier Sanoa, 22-year-old in AAA again with a 105 WRC plus like none of these guys really seem like they're any better than Edwards and so I think Edwards is one of those guys where you know they have this saying when you're evaluating players first division starter you know Xavier Edwards is not a first division

starter so if you are a team in the top 10 or top 15 in the league, Edwards would not start for you at shortstop. But that's not the Marlins, man. That's not the 2025 Marlins, no. So that's- The 2025 Marlins are gonna be one of the worst three teams in the league, if not the worst team in the league.

And Edwards is probably their best player. I feel like you already did the Marlins preview just in that two minute spiel of the ZFC playing time. So Edwards is fine for me here. Jeremy Pena, a lot of these other guys too, like Jeremy Pena, he can play better. He could play better. He's 27, he's right in the crux where he's got some power,

got some speed, not that great defensively, but again, the team just gonna play him. He's gonna some power, got some speed, not that great defensively. But again, the team just going to play him. He's going to max playing time and you know, he's boring in a way that I don't think he has like Volpi upside into it. I haven't seen different approaches from paying it. I think this, this is who he is and he's probably only going to get worse from here, but, uh, he's in the middle of his prime. So he's, he's a fine guy to say, I just need a guy.

Right. It works where he's going. I have no hesitation with paying. It's still clearly like a middle infielder than as opposed to someone I want to have as my starting shortstop in a deeper league because there's no more growth potential. Got a new thing that we're trying out. It's called Bug a Beat Writer.

Bad news for the beat writers because it's just me going on Slack asking a serious but somewhat tongue-in-cheek question depending on the nature of the question and the Beat Riders just get a chance to fire back what they think if they want to participate. They can also tell me to go pound sand because they have no obligation to answer these questions. We'll go with bugger Beat Rider. Yeah, there you go. Good drop. So Mason, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, going to take a small step back before they take any sort of step forward. I think that's good for Mason Wynn in terms of where he fits in the lineup. And I started to think that maybe this is a good thing for Mason Wynn categorically speaking.

So my question that I sent to Katie Wu was, is there any reason to think Mason Wynn will steal more bases, maybe even a lot more in 2025? And the rules are I read the response verbatim, no matter what it says. I have to read it. It's a Ron Burgundy situation. Anything you write in the teleprompter DVR will read. Katie's response. The Cardinals are pledging to go back to the Cardinal way and give their young players

a long runway this season. Wynn is fast and he's dynamic. There's no reason to believe he won't steal more bases. And I think Katie wrote that because she wanted me to say it a cardinal way on the podcast, because it makes me cringe to my core. It just, like, a small part of me just dies when I say it, when I see it.

Well done, Katie. But I appreciate the response nonetheless, because what happens is we look at players through the lens we see. Do I watch the Cardinals a lot? No, Katie watches the Cardinals a lot. She covers them. I watch the Cardinals and I kind of see what I want to see.

I see a bunch of clowns bumbling around out there having a down year. And I feel good about it. It warms my heart when they have a down year, and I get that. I'm a fan of other teams that people hate. One of them just got eliminated from the NFL playoffs on Sunday, right?

I'm a Packer fan. People love when the Packers lose outside of Wisconsin. It's great. Good. So we understand each other. The reason I thought Mason Wynn could probably steal more bases was that the Cardinals are gonna have to manufacture runs if they're worse,

if they're gonna try and just at least be competitive. I think they will. I don't think they're going to be a joke this year. Then they're going to be a frustrating team for the rest of the NL Central to deal with and maybe more than that. Mason Wynn was 87th percentile in sprint speed last year. When I look at him as a player. Stole three bags in the minors one year. Stole a lot in the minors. I think he was 11th for 16 last year. Didn't run as much as you'd think. Showed more power than expected, right? Pop 15 homers. But for his first full big league season, it was actually a solid year overall. 103 WRC+.

I think if we see more growth from him, it's probably not a lot in the power department. It's probably just taking something he was doing in the minors and doing it a lot more in the big leagues because he has the raw tools to do it and we have some proof of concept at lower levels that he could be that kind of player so that's where I think Mason Wynn sort of pops for me in this tier and I think the question I'm wrestling with now is yeah I like Xavier Edwards average projection but all the things you were saying about him are true in the sense that he's a second division starter. Mason Wynn has the rocket arm, is a good defender at short, has the job, could be on a much better team

than what the Marlins are gonna be, almost certainly be. You know who he reminds me of? Rafael Furcal. Yeah, maybe. And I think if I'm chasing speed, I'd rather actually take Widd than Edwards, even though Edwards goes earlier,

and even though Edwards has more speed there. I think there's more of a chance of a First Division starter coming out of this. Yeah, like there's star potential here. I might be 20 or 30 steals lighter than what Edwards does, but I'll gamble on being a little light in speed and have to get out on the waiver wire later, because I think there's enough good in Wynn's profile.

And I can talk myself into this thanks to Katie. I can talk myself into my belief in Mason Wynn perhaps being right. The preview will be fun even if you won't be having fun doing it because you can see, I don't know if actually Nolan Arnott will be at Traded, but even if he doesn't, they've got second, center, left and right basically, and shortstop all with young players that they've sort of pledged to just giving them the year. Probably gonna have Lars Knudpar, Victor Scott, Jordan Walker, Mason Wynn, Thomas Segeci,

Nolan Gorman, Alec Berlison, they're gonna play. They're gonna get to play through some and lumps and they all have some decent upside The only one that I'm not that excited about and this is for another preview is just that Alec Burleson Just looks like he's always gonna get platoon. And so I think he's you know, athletically. He's not that great He's not as young as the other guys. So I think he's sort of you know There's not as much ceiling there, but I still believe a little bit in Jordan Walker I think Lars Mutebar has something in him We haven't seen yet Victor Scott is a little bit like Mason Winn in center and then Segeci and Gorman I'm not sure who's gonna win

But one of those guys is gonna win out and probably be a decent second baseman back to short stops more on the Cardinals in the car Yeah, right. Why? You talk more about the Cardinals. Hey, you did it. Dan's V. Swanson also a good value. I ended up with Swanson in that league where I wanted to pair Volpi with another one. I think Volpi Swanson makes sense. Volpi Pena. Volpi Pena. Volpi Wynn. You know, if you or Tovar. If you get Tovar, pair one of Wynn, Pena, and Swanson with them. I find Wynn, Pena, and Swanson to be high floor Bogarts. You can go there too.

These are high floor guys that don't have the ceiling, except for Wynn probably has the best ceiling in this tier. A lot of these guys are high floor guys that would pair well with a late shortstop. You could get a shortstop between 12 and 15 in the rankings, then pair well with a late shortstop. So you could get, you know, a shortstop between 12 and 15 in the rankings, then pair him with a shortstop between 15 and 18 in the rankings. I think that would be pretty smart. So Swanson, you know, he had a really bad first half of the year, but I was pointing out that the bat speed was still there. You know, even the barrel rate was still there. He just wasn't pulling the ball. And then he started to pull the ball in the second half and he was

pretty much vintage Swanson. I think he's going to be at least a sort of 240, 2010 guy next year. That doesn't sound exciting. But if you remember back to my average player, it's pretty much right there on average as an average player. And he's going to play every day as a shortstop. So I don't think there's that much to say about Swanson. I think he's, you know, at 30 it's too old to be done.

Stealing 19 bags was nice last year. I think that shows that the legs are still there. He's never been an arm strength guy, but he still does well in defensive metrics. So I think he's fine at shortstop for a couple more years at least. It's not gonna cost him playing time. That's all that matters. Just an undervalued guy that fits in this bucket could do a lot of what Willie Adamis does, a few less hummers, but for a much lower price. I think the draft him, not that guy, that would be the Swanson being the draft him solution if you were thinking about Adamis and missed out. Moving a little quicker now, tier five, getting outside the PIC 200 range.

Zach Neto is only down here because he's hurt. It's shoulder surgery. He's just a tough player to roster without IL spots right now because we don't know if he's gonna be the same guy right away coming off of surgery. Probably not gonna be right away. Yeah, so I don't have much.

I liked him a lot before we knew he had surgery. I thought he was gonna be great. I don't think Willie Castro is an everyday player. So that's more of a utility pick. I don't even sure Tyler Fitzgerald is an everyday player. I don't know if this is the place we're almost there where we want to put up the bad defense. They already made that choice to go another direction by adding Willie Adames.

Look at this. So this is the worst defenders at shortstop last year. I intentionally lowered the bar for entry a little bit so we could see some some some part-time players and stuff but CJ Abrams, worst defender at shortstop. Xavier Edwards, second worst defender at shortstop. Sadhana Rafaela, third worst so that's something. Zach Neto, fourth worst but more now in a range of you know those guys Rafaela, Edwards and Abrams are an order of magnitude worse. When you get to Neto, he's minus five, and then you have a whole bunch of minus threes that are starting everyday shortstop. So, you know,

Neto, maybe not the best defensive shortstop, but pretty good. Tyler Fitzgerald right there at minus four. Mookie Betts minus four. Jacob Wilson minus three. Taylor Walls minus three. I think this is important because, you know, if you look at the playing time distribution in Tampa Bay, they're assuming that Taylor Walls is going to play a lot of shortstop, but the other shortstop there, Jose Caballero, is more interesting for fantasy because he can steal 30 to 50 bags. Jose Caballero can. And if his defensive numbers are better and he plays more shortstop, maybe he's the guy

that they just install shortstop and get over it. It's hard to tell from their usage pattern so I just wanted to point that out that Caballero is more interesting because Walls' defense did not rate well but Edmund here may not play shortstop if he's just as bad as Mookie Betts at shortstop and they need him more in center field. But Neto being on here was interesting and then Tyler Fitzgerald being thets at shortstop and they need him more in center field. But Neto being on here was interesting and then Tyler Fitzgerald being the fifth worst shortstop, I think that means he's a second baseman. But you could just draft him as a shortstop and he'd play at second base. I will say that second base is a place where the Giants and the league is much more comfortable like

putting two or three players together and if you look at the Giants roster that's the case. Right now they have as second base guys they could play they've got Brett Wisely, Marco Luciano could even play second base, Casey Schmidt could play second base, Wilmer Flores was a second baseman I think he might be done with those days they do have options to second base and Tyler Fitzgerald's strikeout rate, you know, paired with his poor defense, I think makes him a soft starter at second base. Right now projected to be 90 WRC plus with average, you know, defense. It's nice to get a guy

who could hit 230, 2020, you will he be an everyday player? I'm not sure the defense part makes me a little bit worried. Yeah, I think playing time concerns are very real for Tyler Fitzgerald story. Health permitting would play a lot. I just don't think you can bank on health for him, given all that he is going through during his time in Boston. It's just been a a miserable run there. I think you're just throwing a dart

and hoping for the best, hoping for maybe 500 play appearances. It's possible based on how they would use him. But I guess if you're saying I want low average with a power speed combo and I'm willing to take risk, I'd rather take the risk on story's health than on Fitzgerald's playing time, believe it or not. But I think not drafting either one of them is totally fine. You don't have to you don't have to subject yourself to that kind of risk It does say something to what your organization and your new boss thinks of you that the you like he the first big thing He did was by a guy to push you off your position, right? But at least Went through some options. It's not like there's anybody in that group of alternatives. The second base that you're like that guy's got a place. So I think that's where it's like, yeah, there's risk.

But this is a bad tier that you want to stay out of. Yeah, I think if you're going to have to shop here, Carlos Correa, like I. Yes, he has injury issues, but he's played a lot more than you'd think over the last four seasons, 640, 590, 580, and 367 played appearances this most recent year was the biggest drop off in playing time due to injury. I think he's probably fine as your MI in a 15 team league and it's because you missed out on other stuff, right?

He's not gonna run, but he's probably not gonna hurt you in any of the other categories, and he might actually help you across the board in the other categories. I'd hope that these guys are your third MI. Yeah that's probably the way to look at it. Closing it out, tier six, wide open, anybody else knows that. You like Caballero? I don't know, come on man. You know you were just talking about somebody that could you know hit five homers and steal 35 bags and that's Caballero. I mean, what are we talking about?

We're not we're not talking about the best players. Now we're talking about a team that always has more options in Tampa Bay. And with Caballero, he hit 227 with a 283 OVP and slugged 347. So, yeah, that speeds real, but he's given you just about nothing else across the board. He did find a way to pull the ball enough to get the nine homers. I don't see it for him in Tampa. I think they have way too many other ways they could go. Hassan Kim, because he's coming off of shoulder surgery, is down in price right now.

And won't be ready for the beginning of the season most likely. And we don't even know where he's playing yet, so I'm not in there. I'm still intrigued by Jordan Lawler from a prospect perspective, making the pieces fit is just tricky. I mean, they like Geraldo Perdomo more than Eno does. That's very clear. Yeah, I did put Jacob Wilson, you know, he was in that poor defense, you know, list and he doesn't barrel the ball

and there was a lot of question marks, but they are trying to be good, the A's are, I think on some level. And Jacob Wilson is their first round pick. And sometimes you wanna put the finger in the eye of the rest of the industry that says, that guy can't hit for power, that guy might not be a starting shortstop in the big leagues

and you guys made a mistake. Sometimes you just wanna be like, no, we were right. I think Jacob Wilson is the starting shortstop all year. I think I agree with just about all of that. I think the only problem with Jacob Wilson is that he fits much more in AL only leagues and draft and holds. He's probably undervalued in draft and holds.

Right, he's just the guy who will play. I think the questions about his in game power are real. I think it helps that they're not playing in the Coliseum from that perspective, like gives him a little more of a floor, but it could be single digit homers, even if it is a good average and OBP and lots of runs scored. I think this is this is sort of your extreme hit tool. But what else comes with that guy where you're not really looking at speed, you're looking at power as things that are easy to project for Jacob Wilson.

So that's my only real hesitation. But he is the type of player that could take a leap forward. Like if you just look at his walk and strikeout rates, you see like a little bit of Mookie Betts, you know? You know, it's really, really intriguing walk and strikeout rates. And he did have okay ISOs in the minors. Now I think those are probably

leg-driven on some level. Tiny samples. Tiny samples. Tiny samples. Tiny samples. And you know, I know what I'm saying is late will play every day has some upside. Jacob Wilson, you know, I mean, you know, Brooks Lee was on the bad defender list. He may play every day, but who has more upside

Brooks Lee or Jacob Wilson? Probably Wilson, just because of the playing time. Yeah, and the contact. I mean, what's Brooks Lee's like most outstanding skill at the plate? It's not striking out. I mean, it's just not as extreme as Jacob Wilson. Right. It's similar to Wilson's, but not as good.

More proof of power though in the minor leagues, I think, in terms of in-game power. And it's bags actually. No, not a bags. I'm that's not really much for bags They're kind of similar I think Lee's just shifts more in the direction of power and when I'm choosing something like this Especially in a one-year league like a redraft league then I want the guy who's gonna play every day and I'm more sure his playing Time Wilson's than Brooks Lee's but I don't mind Brooks Lee though as a late flyer. I think he actually makes some sense I just think Wilson's gonna play more based on how those teams are built right now.

Prospect E, keyword, key emphasis on E, guys that aren't necessarily all still prospects, but like Trace Sweeney, Colson Montgomery, Carson Williams, Chase Medroth, who was part of the trade, the White Sox made the Red Sox, the Gert Crochet deal. If Carson Williams was not a Ray, then I'd be maybe a little more excited about him.

I just, I think it will take some time before they just anoint him, the guy at the position. You know, Zips says that Carson Williams is a top 10 player in two years. I forget what I asked him for for that, but I saw a projection that put Carson Williams in 2026, I think in the top 10 in the league. So you can be excited about Carson Williams,

but not necessarily for this year. Colson Montgomery though, you know, in 2026, I think in the top 10 in the league. So you can be excited about Carson Williams, but not necessarily for this year. Colson Montgomery, though, you know, there is going to be some pressure on leadership in Chicago at some point to show something. And Colson Montgomery spent 573 play appearances at AAA last year. Wasn't necessarily good, but if he has a good spring, I think he could actually break camp as the starting shortstop for that team. And I think he's a little bit underrated You know he hit the ball 114 last year in AAA and I'll take that and you know The strikeout rates have been up and down but the walk rates have always been there

So even if he's like slightly high strikeout rate high walk rate hits the ball hard guy who plays shortstop now That's actually kind of intriguing Yeah, it's funny a couple of white socks though even me droughts kind of interesting is someone that probably doesn't have a lot left to prove at triple A and could play other spots on the infield so it's not it's not going to be a problem getting Montgomery and chase me drought to get significant run whenever it is they get called up it could be early call up could even make the opening day roster I don't think that's out of the question for either

one of those guys. call up could even make the opening day roster. I don't think that's out of the question for either one of those guys. One name I want to throw in front of you. Luis Angel Acuna is 22. Spent 587 played appearances as a AAA last year. Seems like there's not too much more for him to do down there. But he had a 69 WRC plus in AAA last year. And then he comes up and shows more power than he's ever shown, but in a tiny sample. Projection system is saying he's going to like you know maybe start edging Jeff McNeil out in terms of playing time. I don't know some part of me says he's a Luis Guilombe type. What do you think about what do you think about Acuna? I think it's more crowded because Ronnie Mauricio is still part

of the equation there trying to find time on the infield. You know, McNeil's not just going to completely disappear even though he can play multiple spots. So I haven't been as excited about Acuna from a playing time outlook perspective. I think Mauricio from a five by five, just like, what does he do is more convincing because he has power and speed. I think with Acuna, it's more like developing power, a lot of speed right now, but questions about whether he's going to get on base enough to immediately offer up the stolen bases. I think he's the guy who's in the minor that come up when Landoor McNeil is hurt. I think it's probably more 2026 for Luis Angel La Cunha or like late 2025, second half of 2025. But it's a situation I have not been as interested in so far in

the early, early parts of draft season. I wanted to give one little bit of love to JP Crawford and Orlando Arcia as being super boring but if you're in draft and holds, you need one of those guys as like your third shortstop. Crawford for me by a mile for this year, I think Nacho Alvarez could wrestle away some time from Arcia at this point, but they do make sense as glue guys in those circumstances. Hey, we did it.

We got through one episode. It ran over 90 minutes, so we're gonna have to try and tighten these up a little bit going forward, but we appreciate everybody who stuck with it through the end. You can find us on Blue Sky, enosat, enosaris.bsky.social,

on dvr.bsky.social. Thanks to Brian Smith for hanging in for the full 91 minutes of this episode and for producing it. And thanks to all of you again for watching and listening. We are back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening. It's a trap. Hey everyone, it's Robert Mays. The NFL Playoffs are here, and we've got you covered on the Athletic Football Show. For wildcard weekend all the way through Super Bowl 59, my co-host Derek Klassen and I will guide you through every game, matchup, and big-time performance on the way to one team lifting the Lombardi Trophy in New Orleans. Catch the Athletic Football Show wherever you listen to podcasts.