Rates & Barrels - A Very Busy Red Sox Spring w/Jen McCaffrey & Hunter Greene's Ace Case

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

Jen McCaffrey joins Eno and DVR to discuss a two-month stretch for the Red Sox that has been packed with a year's worth of storylines including the offseason odyssey of Rafael Devers following should injuries in 2024, the arrival of Alex Bregman, the debut and extension of Kristian Campbell, and much more. Plus, they look back at the showdown between two aces in San Francisco as Hunter Greene is laying the groundwork for another excellent season atop the Reds' rotation. Rundown 1:02 Making Sense of Rafael Devers' Slow Start & Week 2 Turnaround 7:40 Clubhouse Dynamics w/Alex Bregman's Arrival 16:32 Kristian Campbell's Path to Opening Day & an Eight-Year Extension 20:48 Questions Around the Boston Rotation 27:35 Jarren Duran Opens Up About Mental Health Struggles 31:39 Another Orioles Pitching Injury? 36:56 Did We Underrate Hunter Greene's 2024 Breakout? 52:14 Concerns About Christian Yelich's Sprint & Bat Speed? If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social Follow Jen on Bluesky: @jcmccaffrey.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris With: Jen McCaffrey Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Mob Lad, new series now streaming on Paramount+. Hey, I'm Robert Vinloen, I'm from New York Times Games, and I'm here talking to people about Wordle and the Wordle Archive. Do you all play Wordle? I play it every day. All right, I have something exciting to show you. It's the Wordle Archive.

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Yeah. New York Times Games subscribers can now access the entire Wordle Archive. Oh, cool! Now you can do yesterday's Wirtle, if you missed it. Yeah. New York Times game subscribers can now access the entire Wirtle Archive. Find out more at nytimes.com slash games. Welcome to Raids and Barrels. It's Tuesday, April 8th. Derek Van Riper, Eno Saris and a special guest joining us. It's Jen McCaffrey. Jen covers the Red Sox for the Athletic, does a great job on that beat and I think so far this year has already crammed in basically

a year's worth of drama into about two months. Jen, how are you doing today? I'm doing okay, thanks for having me, guys. It's got to be the busiest beat in baseball. I mean, you go back to the Alex Bregman signing in February, maybe go back as far as the winter meetings when they made the blockbuster deal for Garrett Crochet. But I feel like a lot of the conversation through the first week plus of the season was around Rafael Devers and Devers just not looking like himself really slowed down throughout the spring and as you've seen him adjust over the past week what's been the big difference? Is it just the simple fact that he's finally got more reps? Is it getting a little more comfortable with the new

role? What do you attribute the turnaround to after that slow start? Yeah it's a couple of things so I guess one thing is the timing. He missed pretty much all of spring training. So end of last year, he ends on the injury list with these two shoulder injuries that were at separate times last year. So he spent all winter kind of rehabbing these shoulders, never picked up a bat. So the first time he picks up a bat is in day one of spring training basically, but spent pretty much a majority of the time on the backfields, kind of building up reps and kind of finding his rhythm again.

And continually said throughout camp, he felt better facing guys on the backfields, guys doing their live VPs and all that kind of stuff instead of getting into games. So he really only got into five spring training, big league spring training games at the end. And as you guys know, facing minor leaguers on the backfields in a quiet spring training, big league spring training games at the end. And as you guys know, facing minor leaguers on the backfields in a quiet spring training setting is much different than a major league setting. And it obviously affected him timing wise and just the adrenaline and kind of everything that goes into a game setting. So that's part of it.

The other part of it is they had noticed with his stance, he has this very unique stance in the batter's box. His feet had kind of shifted too narrow and they were trying to get him at a better base, his back leg, he kind of hangs out almost outside the box. And they were trying to like get him at a better grounding point. And obviously that's, you know, you can tell a guy so many times how to do it, but if he hasn't had that many in game reps and then also is trying to get all this up to speed I think it kind of compounded a little bit and had this historically awful stretch.

He's obviously, you know, he's a tremendous hitter and it was, you know, it wasn't like we were thinking this is how his season's going to be. It was sort of like when is he going to figure this out and how long is this going to go? And sure enough about a week into the season, you know, after this awful, awful stretch, he's kind of started to turn things around. He's still kind of figuring some things out, but the stance is much better. They've worked with him on that. And then also just, I think, the timing of seeing, you know, games, game after game there.

And again, as you kind of mentioned, getting this DH routine down, he's never been a full-time DH. He's always prided himself on being able to play in the field and wanting to play in the field and liking that rhythm of, you know, not thinking about his at bats in the dugout. And now he has to. And so he also has to have a little bit of a different routine because he's in the dugout, obviously, when the defense is on the field. So I think it's all of that combined that sort of led to this wild start for him. And it's definitely been an interesting, yeah, couple months for him. And it's definitely been an interesting, yeah, a couple months for him. And it seems like he's starting to find his rhythm. So we'll see how that continues. How much has he let you into these difficult parts of what's going on in terms of how good

his shoulder feels? Does he talk about that? Does he talk about his routine? Like what the routine is, what he's found? Does he, does he talk about this sort of stuff or is he just sort of soldiering through it? The latter? Yeah. He, he, he doesn't offer too many details. He has said the shoulders feel fine. The red socks say the shoulders are fine. Everybody is on that train. So he, yeah, hasn't really talked too much about his routine. We asked him, you know, have you reached out to, you know, Red Sox, DHHS, obviously, and David Ortiz, but also, and JD Martinez, too, guys that transition from the

field to full time DH, you know, a part way through their career, obviously, a little bit of a different situation. But he said he hadn't yet, but he thought that he probably should. We're still trying to figure out exactly what this routine looks like for him and kind of what he's changed But he hasn't really opened up too much about it Have you personally peeked into the dugout at all like when the players are on the field and seen what he's doing? Yeah, you can kind of see that he's around somewhat but then also, you know that he's probably you know hitting down, you know the cages Near you know the clubhouse in the tunnel where we're at the home games anyway Yeah I mean we've talked a lot with you know just near the clubhouse in the tunnel where we're at the home games anyway. Yeah.

I mean, we've talked a lot with, you know, Pete Fatsy, the hitting coach, and obviously Alex Cora, who's, you know, known him since, you know, 2018, when he came in here, one thing Alex, I thought was interesting that he said, like, he always goes back to the fact, he said, I'm a two 30 hitter. I'm not going to tell guys how to hit this guy is like a tremendous hitter. But he said at the same time, you know, I'm the baseball guy. I watch him day in and day out for the past seven years or whatever it is. And have, you know, you notice things that are different that maybe a guy in the moment isn't picking

up on themselves no matter how much video they watch. So he said that stance thing was one of the things that they were trying to get him to get a feel for. And it sounds like he's starting to get a feel for that. But again, kind of knowing it and implementing it in the moment, I think are two different things. So he said, he at Cora said, you know, the other thing about Devers is he's such a, he's one of those guys and you guys have seen him, he can hit pitches that are like way outside the zone. So that was another thing Cora was saying they don't necessarily want to mess too much with this guy because he is a very unique hitter and he knows himself. But at the same time,

everybody needs help with these kinds of things at some point. It's been a kind of a balancing act, him finding his timing, him working through these stance moves, him getting used to the DH things. So I think it's been all of that. His chase rate is way down, but his strikeout rate is up. So it's like now he's like letting some hittable pitches go by I guess or something. But it looks like he's finding himself. Yeah, I think that was one thing Cora was saying, obviously the strikeouts are up, but he's swinging at pitches in the zone. And that's was something that they didn't love that he was swinging and missing, but at least he's not swinging at pitches outside the zone or like chasing, you know, like pitches that are down in the dirt or whatever. So I think

they were encouraged that he was going to get out of it. And it seems like he is starting to. So obviously, this will be something we're going to keep watching. Yeah, maybe just the function of getting that timing back after the really long layoff throughout the off season. With the addition of Alex Bregman, how has the dynamic around the clubhouse changed going back to spring training? Is it a different vibe than it was just a season ago? Yeah, it's so funny that he's a Pedroia guy

and that Pedroia is his favorite player, someone he admires. Because you can see so much of Pedroia in him and the way that he just goes about things. He was comfortable from day one. It was actually kind of amazing. You know, obviously you know who Bregman is and he's, you know, a big name in the game, but not spending that much time around him and just to see his personality and the way that he was able to mesh so easily with the young guy. So he had a locker that was right next to the top three prospects, Christian Campbell, Marcel Amir, and Roman Anthony, and spent a significant amount of time in spring with them, just wanting to get

to know them and picking their brains and all that kind of stuff. But then also just mingling with the rest of the clubhouse and the fact that he's a Spanish speaker, I think is a very big asset for the team given that, you know, he can communicate with anybody. And I thought that was, I don't think I knew that about him or maybe I knew that it wasn't something that I like actively thought about. He said he like wanted to learn. Obviously, Houston had a ton of Hispanic players and he thought it would be Hispanic players are always asked to learn English and he wanted to learn Spanish to be able to better connect with them. So I thought that was a really interesting thing and not something that you hear from a ton of guys.

So I thought that that's another thing that he's able to connect with a lot of his new teammates and yeah, I mean it feels, you know, Cora said it and Cora's known him obviously for a long time and was kind of really, you know, hoping he would sign with the Red Sox. But it does feel like he has been here much longer than just the start of the year. He's kind of for a new guy already and obviously has the leadership experience in other places. But when you come to a new team, you know how different it is. And he kind of took that vocal leadership role on pretty much right away. So I think, yeah, that's been a big asset for the team. And I think, you know, I think I was talking to someone with the team, I'm just with the Devers thing of just how I think Devers initially, you know, wanted to stay at third base and

was pretty adamant about it. And, you know, those headlines were pretty glaring and spring training. But I think the more he got to know Bregman and realized you know this guy's you know a team player and just liking his personality he kind of started to come around a little bit more on the idea of it of moving to DH and obviously still wanting to be you know a third baseman because he's a prideful guy but coming around on the idea just because of how Bregman kind of carried himself and went about it and didn't sort of like bulldoze his way into the team and you know this is

my position type thing he kind of was like I'll do whatever you guys need me to do and you know they ended up deciding he was the third baseman so yeah I think it's been pretty interesting to watch how he's been able to handle all that yeah just getting to know him on a you know as a player on this team has been another big storyline that we're following. And he give in the depth chart, I know that sedan had a really nice play defensively. And he's been doing some things a little differently at the plate. But Christian Campbell playing centerfield was interesting to me. And, you know, I guess it was sort of played out as like he's going to be our backup center fielder and just getting reps out there. But if he

acquits himself, well, is there any chance that he's the center fielder and Devers is back on the diamond? I guess you can say never say never about anything, but I think you also have to keep in mind Roman Anthony is not that far away from the majors. So they have a lot of outfielders, right? And so Anthony's probably going to be up sometime, you know, either before the All-Star break, right after the All-Star break. He looked really good in spring training. So I mean, they have to find a spot for him and he's been playing all three spots in AAA. But I mean, they have to find a spot for him and he's been playing. He's been playing all three spots in AAA, but I think, you know, they probably want him on a corner, but then, you know, they've had, they've had Duran and left.

They like how Duran is used to the wall. And Cora said that, so kind of going back to your question, Campbell in spring training, he had been playing a lot of left last year. He sort of split time in the previous year between second and center. But then spring training, they were having him play left and it was kind of odd, but it was like there's a lot of moving pieces. They're trying to keep guys flexible. And then yeah, just this weekend, Cora said, you know, we're actually going to keep

Campbell in center once a week when we, you know, rest Saddam, Raffaella and also want to get David Hamilton reps at second base because they don't want him to be sitting. They have all these moving pieces. So I think it's kind of a juggle juggling act of trying to get everybody playing time and making sure these guys are versatile. He said he likes having Duran instead of playing in center

moving him to left. I asked him, is that partially because he knows the wall better? And he admitted, yes, you know, the wall is definitely a different animal playing balls off the wall. So they think Durand can handle the wall better. And Campbell also, they asked him if he liked center or left better. And he said center.

So he said, okay, well, I guess you're more comfortable in center. We'll do that. Again, it's only supposed to be once a week for now. But yes, when Roman Anthony comes into the mix, what are they going to do? Yeah, I was just about to ask. He's got to come back at some point. Even if they are considering trading him, you would think they would. Okay, so he DH'd pretty much all of last year. Now he doesn't have the DH spot because Devers has that spot. He signed with the team as an outfielder

and had played a little bit of outfield in that, a good amount of outfield in that first year with, with after he signed. Not great defensively, but they have done work with him and think that he can be serviceable out there, but now they don't really have that much space out there to play him. And obviously the other guys they have on the team are superior defenders. So that's going to be a juggling act. You could trade like William O'Brey who might have more trade value, you know, because he can play defense. He's not being paid that well. And you could get more back. Or you could trade Yoshida in like a basically a dump or something, right? Like you wouldn't be you wouldn't be getting much back.

I think that's the biggest challenge is that all the guys that they have, they really love. Like they love Abreu. You know, he won the gold love last year in right field. He's obviously been on this offensive tier to start the season. I think behind judge, the top hitter in the AL right now, he's been fantastic.

So they could trade him, but I think they're gonna have some hard decisions to make. Yeah, and you know, Duran, they don't seemingly wanna trade him. Rafaela maybe. So then it comes down to do you trade Rafaela? And when he makes plays like he did last night, you know, you're like, that's gonna be painful,

but maybe that's on the table. You know, that's what happens when you have a lot of good players, which the Red Sox haven't had this problem in recent years. So I think that's something, you know, it's kind of a not a bad luxury to have, but it's going to come down to some tough decisions. I know the chase that Saddam Rafaela has right now is about as extreme as any player you'll find in the big leagues.

But in some ways reminds me of young Carlos Gomez's profile all the way back in like the mid 2000s. Everyone knew Carlos Gomez could play phenomenal center field defense. I think he was twice traded before he really hit the ground running in Milwaukee. Some team out there would be interested in Raffaella if the Red Sox don't want him because the glove alone makes him valuable. And if you can just slowly whittle away at that approach and make it just a little bit better then you have a guy that could actually

play in all-star games and be that kind of player at his peak so I do think they've got some really really interesting choices they're going to have to make maybe injuries will also dictate some of the decisions in the short term as well. Jen, reading your stuff throughout the spring, I didn't feel like I had a great sense of Christian Campbell's role to begin the season, much like Roman Anthony. I think we all knew he was going to play in the big leagues a lot. And given the spring he had, I kind of thought there was a chance he'd get sent down and maybe he would take a few weeks at AAA and then break through. But he makes the opening day roster, he gets the eight year extension and he's hit the ground running

despite having a pretty quiet spring in Florida. What did you see this spring? What do you think the Red Sox saw that gave them confidence to push through anyway and just say, now this is our guy, we're gonna give him this job and eventually give him that extension? Yeah, I think it was a combination of a lot of things.

One, I talked with him a week or so ago and he said, I started out last spring really, really slow too, so I kind of expected this coming, but I was on the backfields in minor league games, so nobody saw me. No one was watching me struggle and it was kind of magnified. This was his first big league camp. He knew he had his debut, could have been online, big league starting job on the line. I think it was a lot. And he admitted to it.

I talked to him at the end of the first series about a lot of that and just sort of this slow spring and kind of hitting the ground running, once he made his debut and kind of what the transition was. He said it was just kind of a matter of getting comfortable and also just stopping putting too much pressure on himself. He kind of felt like he was trying to do too much and there was all this attention of him potentially getting this job and what the Red Sox were going to do at second base. But

he also talked about a conversation he had with Trevor's story in the lunchroom one day, like halfway through spring. He was still only hitting like 150 in spring. And again, we know spring numbers don't tell the whole story, obviously, because he's doing really well right now, but he just kind of, you know, I think needed that veteran kind of voice to be like, stop, just do you, like, you know, I think he was saying he felt like he kind of was trying to be this quiet rookie to fit into the, you know, the role of, you role of not doing too much or being too flashy. And story was like, if you need to wag your bat or hit your chest or do something to show

your emotion, let that out. Stop trying to hide it or trying to be someone you're not. Just play the way you are because you're putting way too much pressure on yourself already. And if you're not playing the game that you have played your whole life, the way that you know how to, then you know, that's going to make it even worse. So he said, he kind of really took up the heart and kind of just relaxed a little bit after that. And he was like, it's, it's spring training.

This is, you know, the, the point of all of this is to kind of, you know, try things out and just make mistakes and, you know, get into the rhythm of the season and he said, he really started to kind of find his rhythm after that spring breakout game, he, he, he and Meyer and Anthony all homered in that game. And he said, he finally kind of felt like it was a looser atmosphere. Obviously it's not like a big league spring training game. I think he felt like he was with his guys again, cause they obviously were all in AA and AAA together last year.

And he said he hit this home run kind of felt like, okay, finally here's this swing. A couple days later, towards the very end of camp, might've been the second or third to last day, hit the home run when they were on the road playing Tampa. And it just kind of felt like he had released something and finally found his swing. That gave him the confidence, like, okay, I can finally do this and entered in at the same time. I don't think any of us expected him to have this, you know, outstanding start that he's had. But I think he just felt that much more relaxed and had had all these reps and also knew in the back of his mind, I struggled last year and had this fantastic year where I ended up

as, you know, baseball America's, you know's player of the year and Keith Laude named him our prospect of the year for the athletics. So I mean, I think he had this fantastic year last year having struggled in spring, so I think he tried to remind himself of that. But yeah, the start that he's had this contract extension, it's been a pretty fast start and he's taken to it so far.

I wonder as good as the lineup has looked and as good as Garre Crochet has looked, you know, I wonder as good as the lineup has looked and as good as Gare crochet has looked, you know, I wonder what the conversation is like about the rotation, the back end of the rotation. And, you know, I think they've been battling, but the numbers aren't so great for, for Tanner, for, for Walker. What do they say after starts? What are they talking about? Yeah. I mean, Bueller has talked a lot about just like, he feels he just has like disappointed everybody and you know, he's came in here

with this championship category and obviously, you know, the World Series last year and how he kind of rebounded and that he hasn't been able to carry that momentum into this year. And then he wants to kind of try to be that guy that everybody expected him to be. So yeah, I think he's definitely frustrated.

He just, the last start that he had, he said he just kind of feels like his stuff is flat. And yeah, Hauk, that's definitely been noticeable, especially compared to last year. Obviously he didn't finish the season as strong as Hauk did as he started, but still wonder if maybe all of those inning markers, start markers, all of those things potentially caught up to him, you know, in the off season. And this is, you know, him trying to find, uh, find the level here. You're talking about, you know, just coming off the longest season of his career. And right. Is that, did the, how much of an effect is that, you know, having on him and

kind of, because the VLOs there, you know, it it's yeah, that's all there. So, you know, and it's possible that it's just kind of him finding his rhythm. But they do have, you know, Brian Bayo and Lucas Gialito are rehabbing in AAA and pretty much maybe a start away from rejoining the rotation. So they've had Sean Newcomb in the back, back in the rotation and Richard Fitz, a rookie that came up the end of last year, filling in those final two spots. So if they can get Bayo and Gialito back, depending on, you know, they've looked pretty good in their rehab starts, but if they can get those guys back in, I think it'll maybe kind of help even things out. But yeah, right now the rotation

outside of crochet hasn't really shown too much. So we're definitely that's something, you know, we're going gonna be examining a little bit more of what's kind of going on behind the scenes there. I think the Red Sox are gonna be a big contender for the Sandy Alcontra suite to switch things. Yeah. They've still got the prospect depth that they're willing to trade.

I think they could be in the mix for him as well. Garrett Crochet though, were you surprised they extended him as quickly as they did? I mean, this has been an aggressive front office, but I think for a lot of people out there, it was, hey, wait, they extended Chris Sale and that didn't work out. Different regime, but were you surprised how quickly this got done? I honestly thought it was going to get done in spring training just because they traded Kyle Teal and Brayden Montgomery, their two most recent top

first round draft picks, and then two other guys for crochet this winter. So it kind of felt like you can't let him walk away in free agency. And to let him pitch a whole nother year and the kind of profile and the asking price go up even more, you know, obviously there's always a concern of, you know, if he's going to get hurt and whatnot, but it just very much felt from the time they traded him, they were planning to extend him and it was a matter of when I think the timing was surprising because he said he didn't want to deal with negotiations in season.

So the season starts and he says, okay, that's it tells us all, you know, we're tabling the discussions. And then five days later, not even a couple days later, news breaks that this extension happened. So the timing of it was a little like odd, but basically what Breslau was saying was, you know, they were so close by the time the season opener started. He said he couldn't, you know, put his head on the pillow at night over the next few days, you know, thinking that we were that close, we just got to make something work here. And they did. And yeah, this is outside of, you know, David Price, the biggest pitcher contract they've given. And so, you know, I think,

you know, crochet only has that one year, but what a year it was, right. So I think the fact that he's still only 25, that's the other thing you forget about how young he is. And just the way he's been pitching, I think they realized, and the fact that they haven't had this number one starter in such a long time. They've had guys that have been very good, but they haven't had a guy to kind of step into that role

in such a long time that I think they just, they realized they needed to get it done. And then yeah, a couple of days later, they signed Campbell. So the fact that they've been spending all this money so rapidly after not spending for so long has been a surprise, but I think they feel like this is their contention wonder when they finally have gotten to a place where they feel like they're in better spot to contend, you can a hundred percent argue. They should have just spent a couple of years ago to get those

teams and rosters better. But this was, I think, part of the plan. And so now they're spending the money and, you know, they're going to see where this roster takes them. But it's definitely been a different kind of way to operate than what we've seen from them in the past. There's some residual Heim Blum plan coming to fruit right here. Yeah, sure.

It's like, you know, this is sort of what Heim had started and then didn't get really allowed to kind of see where it went. I don't think Heim would have made the Gare crochet trade. So that was a pretty big aggressive move. You think maybe he would have, Derek? I don't think so. But I feel like maybe Jen, you could speak to this. It feels like the ownership constraints on Hyam Bloom were a little different than they are in Craig Breslau in terms of what he was allowed or encouraged to do. Yeah, no, I agree.

I think like I was just saying, I think that they have this, you know, window in their mind of a lot of their top prospects starting to emerge. And I think that pushed them to be like, we're going to be aggressive, even if it is including, you know, some of our other top prospects, we've built up this farm system to a point where let's just rip the bandaid off. I don't know that the balloon would have been allowed to do something this big. Maybe I'm wrong. But yeah, Bresla has definitely been aggressive. And to his credit, we'll see where it takes them. One more Red Sox news item, they're actually releasing the documentary on Netflix, The Clubhouse, A Year with the Red Sox. I forgot about that documentary until yesterday.

I'm sure being around the team every day, like you thought about it because you saw the camera crews and all that. And the documentary made some headlines because Jaron Duran revealed that he battled depression and struggles with his mental health, which included a suicide attempt. And you wrote about that for The Athletic this morning and just the fact that he was willing to open up about that could save lives. Oh, 100 percent. I mean, it was we've known, you know, Jaron has dealt with mental health struggles for a while. He's revealed that much, but to hear this, it was the fourth episode of this eight-part series, to hear him get into pretty intense detail about what he was planning, how he

was planning to do it, and how it actually just didn't happen was heartbreaking. And you know, you get to know these people. And it's it's hard, you know, you have this role as a reporter where you need to be, you know, a critical eye, but you also I think, need to also remind yourself, people are human, and people take things differently. And I think you just need to kind of put your put things in perspective. And for him to kind of speak out, and this, pretty much the whole episode is about his mental health journey. Yeah, we talked to Alex Core about it yesterday. He said he's 100% going to save people's lives. The story that I had wrote from the advance copy I saw over

the weekend at the end of last week, you know, there's over a hundred comments there of people talking about their own mental health journeys and thanking Jaren for speaking up. And yeah, I think this is going to be very, very important for people to see how impacted these players are, how hard these players are on themselves. Fans make these throwaway comments at a game of whatever they might say to a player to kind of heckle them or whatever, but I don't think they realize you know how again how certain people take some of that stuff to heart so yeah that episode is very eye-opening it's very hard to watch but I'd encourage people to watch it just because it is such a heartfelt but like educational thing I think and just also something that I think a lot

of people should be made more aware of and you know it's something we're gonna be you know continuing to talk and write about because I think and just also something that I think a lot of people should be made more aware of and you know It's something we're gonna be you know continuing to talk and write about Because I think you know the awareness and and the fact that if you see this guy this, you know Millionaire player who seemingly has it all a young guy, you know on the up-and-up and just coming off the best year of his career is Also struggling I think that can help anybody, you know, maybe that is not in those shoes, you know, see that this guy also is struggling too. So hopefully that helps people and, you know,

is really, you know, commend him for speaking out about that because that definitely takes a lot of courage to kind of open up about and be so honest about. A lot of people out there struggling. And if that's how you feel listening, watching this show, just know you're not alone. If you're having thoughts of suicide, you can call or text 988 for the suicide and crisis lifeline

or contact the crisis text line by texting talk to 741-741. Jen, we appreciate your time and your insight. Before we go, let our listeners know where they can follow you on socials. Yes, I am still on X at J.C. McCaffrey and the same J.C. McCaffrey on Blue Sky and obviously on the athletic. All the stuff I write is there. All right. Thanks so much, Jen. We appreciate you.

All right. Thanks, guys. All right. You know, let's get to some other baseball news. You should know we saw Zach Efflin pitch really well on Monday night, and then we found out he actually left early with shoulder fatigue, which is a little bit surprising. Went six innings for the third start in a row to begin this campaign and kind of important to this Orioles team. I mean, I know they acquired him at the trade deadline last year

and a lot of the critiques about the Orioles, but they weren't aggressive enough with pitching over the course of the offseason. But the main problem they're going to have, especially as they wait for Kyle Bradish to get healthy, is that they don't have depth. They're in that group of good teams whose depth is highly questionable. So for now, day to day, more of a precautionary thing, but definitely a story to watch closely. Yeah, the cupboard isn't totally bare, but it's, it is not rife with supplies, at least until Grayson Rodriguez comes back. You know, I think it makes Kade Povich's roster spot

right now a little bit more secure. And I do like some of the things that povich has been doing I mean, he's really become a five pitch guy with basically like five average pitches And I think we've seen guys succeed with that. I think povich can stay up Rodriguez will be up at some point. I think they can get to the finish line I've never really doubted that about this this roster. I do wonder what kind of playoff rotation they're going to put out there when it's time, when the bell rings. It's easy to look at this roster and still say incomplete for October. What you see right

now is not what they're going to be running out there in a playoff series. Grayson Rodriguez is at the bullpen session phase of his recovery from right elbow inflammation So he hasn't started a rehab assignment yet And I think given the timing of his injury how long he's been down It's probably going to be three maybe four rehab starts eventually So it's gonna take him a little bit of time to get stretched out against they're playing it very carefully with him Povich I think is really interesting because he's had a couple of rough outings to begin the season he went six last time out give it four earned scattered 13 hits so very unusual line gave them length but didn't do good things to

your ratios from a fantasy perspective i just think his window is open longer as a result these early season injuries he has a chance to get right. Whereas if he were in a completely healthy rotation right now, there might be a little more performance pressure on him than there actually is. Who are you talking about? Povich. Yeah. I was just sorry.

I was distracted. I was looking up what's going on with Kyle Gibson. Oh yeah. He's getting stretched out too. He has not pitched in a minor league game. And the last note is that he got optioned to minor league camp. I would imagine a veteran like Kyle Gibson though pitches in a minor league game at the last possible moment. Like you try to do as much backfield work, complex work, and then say,

okay, I need one, maybe two outings against live hitters in that environment and then go, right? You don't have to do all four or five equivalent starts. Yeah, I'm just wondering what happens if Evelyn misses the next start. Could be Albert Suarez on a bullpen gamey situation, two, three innings. Yeah, well, Suarez is hurt. Suarez is hurt too?

Yeah, he's on the 60 day IL. Oh jeez. What is the plan? Okay, they could do, I bet you they could do one bullpen day and then call up Kyle Gibson. They actually, I just saw this, they swooped in and acquired Grant Wolfer, who's DFA'd by the Brewers. Is he a starter? The teams that are just hurting for pitching, claiming each other's DFA guys, it's like, wow, this is just trying to glue it together for a couple of weeks and get our guys healthy.

Wolfram hasn't started a game since 2021. I guess he's technically started one in 2023, but he's a reliever. I don't think the plan is to use him there. It's maybe to use him in the bullpen and then shift somebody else into that role. Actually getting a little tight. It's getting a little tight in Baltimore. It's like Milwaukee is just like, who's starting tomorrow? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it's that early season surge, right? Because usually what happens, we have the spring and then we have the first month of the season, injuries seem like they're up and then everything starts to calm down a little bit. We're just in the middle of it right now we're in that mess we're in that mess where some people are gonna say our injuries up and You don't really know until you get further into the season because guys are always hurt this time of year There is no actionable item here. I think it's There's not a povich another team in a bad center, hold both of you in the deepest of deep leagues.

I guess you can consider Kyle Gibson, but don't spend much. I still wouldn't do that. You were on hand for this last night. The Giants Reds matchup was a great pitching matchup. Hunter Green against Logan Webb, Hunter Green one out away from a complete game shutout. Tony Santillan came on to get the save for the red So if you're wondering what's going on in the Reds bullpen right now, maybe Santillan's in that top chair for now

But you know Terry Francona's past comments about Santillan's importance to the bullpen and other roles gives you a little bit of doubt that he's just a capital C closer Hunter Green though looked phenomenal and he was holding velocity all the way through that start. It just made me wonder, did we potentially underrate the breakout that Hunter Green had a year ago? Relatively speaking, he may have been available a couple of rounds later than he should have been in most drafts. If Hunter Green is making the ascent to Elite Starter, the only question left is can he do it for a complete season? Right, especially with the V lo that he carries like can he hold up physically and he's up for the season You mentioned this I think on opening day. He's at

99-4 for his average fastball velocity through three starts And I think even most impressively of all the walk rates down Hunter greens got a 4% walk rate in these first three starts and I think even most impressively of all the walk rates down. Hunter Green's got a 4% walk rate in these first three starts. It seemed like he was locating really well in that outing. Maybe lost the location a little bit in the ninth inning when he finally got that hook but this just looked like a guy that is ready to be a top 5 or top 10 pitcher on a start-by-start basis. Yeah I think he's just really decided I'm just going to, you know, up my stuff to the point where I can throw it to the middle of the zone. I think that's, I think he's doing that. I mean, it's always a risk long term where you think, well, what does it look like when he's

throwing 94 down the pipe, you know? But right now he was 98 in the ninth inning. And I think we also underrate the splitter where, you know, we tend to sometimes think about what a guy can't do. And in Green's case, he does not have great command, natural command. And so you think, Oh, well, what does the splitter do for him? It's another pitch you can't command. But last night I saw what the splitter did for him, which was third time through the order, you know, people are like, I've seen the fore seam, I've seen the slider, and that's when he started breaking out the splitter. You know, and the splitter has an extra, you know, what is it, off the slider. Because you might say, oh, I think that's the

slider coming. The splitter has another three inches of drop off of the slider. So, you know, even if you think, oh, this is low in the zone, this is going to be the slider, you might swing over the top of the splitter. And that's what that's what I saw in that game. And yeah, the command faltered a little bit. But Santayan being there to close out the closest the close game, I think he's just headed towards the closer role. You say things like we want him to be a fireman for us and then you realize that the highest leverage moments are in the ninth inning more often than not.

And then you put Santillan in as the closer. So I think Santillan is the guy. I still have some hope for Ashcraft. He does have, I think, potential to have more closer like stuff even than Santian but that's more of a long-term play for me at this point. The Reds need a full bridge to the ninth inning regardless of who's actually at the end of games though too so I think Ashcraft in leverage in some fashion is part of the plan for sure. I know you get to see a lot of Logan Webb

since you know being in the Bay Area you're out there watching a lot of Giants games, covering a lot of Giants games. And to me, it looks like Logan Webb's stuff is just a little bit better overall, too. There were even some pitches last night, if you were watching the reactions of Patrick Bailey to some of the movement Webb was getting. Bailey was kind of smiling and laughing it off, but he even seemed a little bit surprised at some of the stuff that Webb was working with. He even seemed a little bit surprised at some of the stuff that Webb was working with. The sinker is getting even more horizontal brake and another inch and a half of horizontal brake. The four seam fastball is not something that he's emphasizing as much this year because he's replaced it in good part with the cutter, but his four seam fastball is getting two inches more ride and the cutter has become an actual pitch. I do want to talk to him about this though. Cutters are supposed

to move glove side and his does not. So I tend to think that the cutter stuff plus number if you're looking at something like this 87 I think that's about right. And that's with a 12% usage which is out of nowhere. And so I kind of think he might actually dial the cutter back a little bit. But you have to remember when you're looking at his sinker, fastball and cutter stuff plus, that those are relative to their usage.

And so I don't think his four seam is really that good, but when he uses it 7% of the time, it is a change of pace that works for him. The sweeper was not as good as it was last year, but it's never been his best pitch. And he has such feel on the change up that I think he can throw change ups on same handed guys. And that represents a pretty conundrum.

So I've always thought that Webb is one of these guys, well you might have actually seen the preview of the one and two finalists for the National League Cy Young. Because Webb is the kind of guy, he's always going to, it seems like he's always going to put up 180 innings and they're always going to be really low ERA. So if he pops in strikeout rate or if he gets that under three one year, which is always possible if he's always sitting around three, then he's going to have a good Cy Young case. And people like narrative and you know, for him, it's always been bulk. And if we see like a really another reduction in bulk around the league, his narrative will only get stronger. Yeah, it only makes him pop more on those leaderboards

if he's the only one at that 200 innings mark, which you keep keep pencil and Logan Web in for something close to that. After what he's done the last two seasons, 216 and 204 and two thirds in 2023 and 2024, one of two guys has done that. You know, yeah, it's not a not a long list anymore I also wonder too if with Logan Webb if we saw the the worst case scenario for whip Based on his bad at ball profiles and how many ground balls he can induce how much weak contact he can induce like last year I mean that's the only downside with the volume is if the ratios do go bad like they did last year

And that's the only downside with the volume is if the ratios do go bad like they did last year, carries a little extra weight. Now, a 123 whip's not bad, but compared to what we've been used to from Logan Webb, it was the worst we'd seen since the shortened season in 2020. By most numbers, last year wasn't an amazing year for the Giants defensively. I mean, you can look at, for the Giants defensively. I mean, you can look at, I don't know, let's look at DRS, San Francisco 21st last year. That doesn't even look at things from a sort of unit by unit basis. He's a ground ball guy, right?

So you have to think about what the defense in the infield looked like last year. And I think just going from Tyler Fitzgerald at short to Tyler Fitzgerald at second and Willie Domis at short is going to be a big upgrade for your infield defense. Yeah, that alone gives you some stabilization with that defense. You know, Patrick Bailey missed some time last year behind the plate, too. So maybe that had a small role in things not clicking at the same level for Logan Webb. But I just came away from that game really impressed by by both of those starters thinking they looked about as good as I've seen

them look in the last couple of years and the other thing with the Giants to it's a fast start for them so far Jung-ho Lee being healthy is just fun because you know We barely get to see him last year because of injury. It was only 37 games before his season was over. And I think he's the kind of guy that even if he's not getting to a lot of in game power, we talked about him when he signed 23 homers was the high watermark for him during his time in the KBO. I think it's an excellent contact profile guy that can hit elite pitching, a guy that can always give you a chance in a

plate appearance. And I think that can be a little bit underrated in today's game. Yeah. And he does, you know, hit the ball a little bit harder than Stephen Kwan and even Luis Arias on the top end. So I could see him having like 10 homers on the road and three, three at home and still kind of out-homering expectations a little bit. He also is a little bit faster than I thought, at least by the eye test. I'm not looking at his stack-cast page right now. Is he slow?

He can't be. He's the grandson of the wind. I don't think he's slow. It doesn't look like he'd be a slow runner. The wind is his nickname. Sprint speed, yeah, 74th percentile. So I think he can play center field for them for a while. That's really important for them too.

They've been struggling. He made really good plays in the game last night. And then lastly, he brings an element that I haven't actually seen too much of in San Francisco, which is sort of planned chants. We talked about this a little bit with Jed Lowry. There is a Jung-Hoo Lee chant now just for him. There was a section last night wearing flame hats

that called themselves the Jung-Hoo Lee Gins. It was on their shirts. Hoo Lee Gins. Hoo Lee Gins. Yeah. And they were going crazy every time he did something. And in that ninth inning, you know, Hunter Green is up. He's walked a guy and Jung-Hoo Lee turns on, you know, high nineties heat and puts it into the outfield

and keeps that thing going. So I think you're right. It's the type of thing where you may not want to make your whole lineup out of Jung-Hoo Lee, but you're really happy to have one of them. Yeah. Made a nice sliding catch last night. It was Jung-Hoo Lee, the guy that hit the ball have one of them. Yeah. Made a nice sliding catch last night. It was Jung-Hoo Lee, the guy that hit the ball that off the bat

looked like it was going to be a home run, but it was out towards Triples Alley and it wasn't even it was a homer close 30 parks on the 29 out of 30 parks. It was the the outfielder had his back was touching the 415. And not only is that 415, which is pretty far out, but it's 415 in the power rallies, which almost no one does. I don't think there's another 415 to the power rallies. And then on top of that, it was cold. It was a cold night. So that is definitely a homer in other stadiums. Yeah, it looked really well struck on TV. I think it tricked the camera crew. It tricked me. Sure. Atlanta. That was disappointing. It's like, oh, that was disappointing. That looked like he deserved a little bit more.

But yeah, I'm coming away pretty impressed by Zheng Hu Li getting more looks at him in year two in San Francisco. I think that the Giants in general, you know, just being around them and thinking about them, it's not exactly the same sort of vibes, but I get a little bit of the 107 win Giants vibes where they have a lot of pieces that fit together really well. And a little bit of like that Cardinals no holes, you know, philosophy when they when the Cardinals were good and they

just didn't really have any really offenses or defensive holes. If you look across this, who's their worst defender? It's maybe Wade Jr. at first or Jastremski in right field and Jastremski is actually pretty good. So now they have pretty good defenders everywhere, too elite, you know, in case of Chapman. Bailey, I think is an elite defender. And then in terms of offense, you're like, uh, yeah, you've got some holes there where like, you know, Tyler Fitzgerald and Bailey and Wade are the bottom of the lineup. But Wade gets on base like nobody's business. Fitzgerald actually has power and speed and yeah, he strikes out too much, but that's

not a terrible guy to have at the bottom of your lineup. And then Bailey actually, you know, I think has a little bit of offensive upside that he's scratching at. You know, he has to combine his better bat speeds and his better power numbers with his better contact numbers. But as a, you know, switch hitting catcher that always has the platoon advantage and has a decent eye and is an athlete, like there are some there's some upside there for him to offensively. Yeah, I think it's at least an average lineup.

And I think pitching is pretty good. And you've talked about this bullpen being a little underrated. So a lot to like and certainly Randy Rodriguez is nasty. Eric Miller is a SP eligible holds machine. You know, and Deval didn't look good last night, but he kind of comes and goes as his command does sometimes. But it does seem like a lot has changed with the Chapman extension, bringing in Adame, having Lee there just a completely different feel from the teams we saw just like two years ago on the field in San Francisco. One bit of Giants news that I wanted to throw in real quick because I'd happened to see this while scrolling

Rotowire this morning. Bryce Eldridge is on the minor league IL at Double A Richmond and apparently he's been dealing with left wrist problems going back to spring training. So maybe those haven't completely healed. You look at what he's done in the handful of games he's played this year. And the minor actually hasn't played yet in the minors this year. It's been one of those things where if you were expecting Bryce Eldridge to come up early in the year and supplement this lineup, this is the type of thing that could really delay it and maybe make him more of an August sort of addition than someone that's gonna make an impact throughout the entire season.

That and Wimmer Flores coming off the match. You should do that more often you should find somebody that's in the later stages of their career. 33 years old and call them done. I think it's over and then just see what kind of start you can get. I mean, it's been fun to put it mildly. Four homers through 10 games already for Wilmer. There's still a possible job waiting for Gerrard and Canacion because Flores and Wade could be your first-based platoon. Flores could play DH against lefties

and you still have some opportunity there for Gerard Encarnacion. So I saw him in the clubhouse yesterday and he's got the wrap on his on his hand and you know he's on the recovery. I don't I don't know how long you should wait. I have him in a twenty team league and our Devils rejects and I do like the bat speed so I'm gonna wait a little bit longer, but you know, nobody else should wait. Probably. Yeah. Pretty tough hold, I think, in a lot of situations with the timing of that absence. At least one mailbag question I wanted to throw in because I think we can stretch

it beyond the player that was the subject of the question. This came from I.F. in the mailbag. Christian Yellich seems to have lost two feet per second on the bases and some swing speed It was two miles per hour at the time of the question I looked at the swing speed differences from 25 to 24 and it was a lot less than that While withing more one hit off a fastball and it was an 86 mile an hour cutter all whiffs or walks over 93 yellow orange or red flag I mean a couple things here to unpack sprint speed in a small sample

especially I'd be Kind of cautious to read too much into because we know sprint speed has some limitations anyway You have to be in actual scenarios where a player's Completely opening it up to know if they've actually lost something and I feel like no matter How many times you've even like There's not even enough situations that could happen like that. I just wouldn't trust sprint speed for this year being meaningfully up or down yet Because the whatever number of competitive runs a player has it's still very small because even within the group of competitive runs

Like there are times when you can try to get an extra base and times when you just won't so you may have not even had a situation where you're going like max effort. I see zeros everywhere. I don't see an actual extra base advanced attempts three. The popsicles on the savant page if you look so Jelic for example 27 feet per second what it's showing for this season. Twenty eight point five last year. Right. So, yeah, one and a half feet per second is the is the drop to this point in the bat speed was seventy three to. Yeah, that's now seventy two seven.

So it doesn't seem I wouldn't be too worried about that one. I have a slightly different take that I think that like running is a directly observed event, you know, and the directly observed events usually become meaningful much faster. It's like when we're looking at exit velocities, like if you look at slugging, wow, that's useless, you know, that's as far from the directly observed event as you can be that that involves the defenders that involves the pitcher, the, that involves the pitcher,

the umpire, all sorts of things go into that. So you don't go to slugging percentage and you try to go to barrel rate. And the barrel rate's pretty good, but that's still a combination of exit velocities and this and that. So then we go to bat speed, right? So we're getting closer and closer

to like these true processes that are more directly observable and don't require all this interaction with other things around them. So I would actually be slightly worried about this sprint speed because he's 33 years old and he went from 70s and 80s in the percentile rank to 57th. On the other hand, there are guys who are 57th percentile

who still steal bases. So if this is a fantasy question, then I would say I think he can still get to 10, 15 stolen bases this year, even at this percentile. But if this is a question about like, how will he age and does this impact, you know, my understanding of his athleticism? Yes, it does actually. Because I think at 33, he could be due for, you know, a slight reduction in athleticism, yes, it does actually. Because I think at 33 he could be due for, you know, a slight reduction in athleticism.

Yeah, but to me this doesn't look like a carryover from the back surgery. It doesn't look like an alarming drop. I'm kind of shrugging this off as a small sample thing. He's already picked up a couple of steals. And as far as those other sprint speed numbers go too. Actually attempting steals is really important. That says a lot.

And with Jelic, like how he runs the bases and when you watch him, he is a phenomenal base runner. Like he can lose a little sprint speed, still be a good or very good base runner. Like there's there's a little bit of cushion there. It's bad balls in the season. He's got four hits. He's got one homer and three singles. Again, not the types of batted balls where we're going to see how fast Christian Yellic actually is, so.

Yeah, I'm not too worried about him. I think he's, my back of the envelope is like a 260 with 15 homers and 15 steals. Maybe, maybe he gets the 20 on the steals. Yeah, I think I'm still a little more optimistic than that, but maybe you're factoring in some rest along the way, which might be part of the plan. Have you seen anyone's bat speed, sprint speed, anything in that question that you have worried about yet? Because I'm still in the too early to worry phase. It's okay if the

answer is no or if you need to like dig in more but I just haven't seen any numbers like that where I've said, oh no, I have to completely rewrite my evaluation of this player. The big losers that I was worried about. Let me see, see, see, see. I am a little bit worried about a bad speed reduction for Trey Turner. You know, this is where we talk about the role of injury in these directly observable events. And so you have some you have an ailment for Trey Turner with the back and now you have a reduced bat speed, you know, two miles an hour or so.

You know, Josh Lowe's bat speed was down. It turned out he was injured, you know. So I'm a little bit I'm a little bit worried about Trey Turner at least when it comes to power this year and maybe even speed and maybe even playing time on the field. All right you're just stacking him up there I'm still gonna I mean it's all related to his body right like I'm just I'm slightly worried about Trey Turner's body. Right, and talking about the guy who's gonna turn 32 in June, that's a weird thing to say. I think if you just need the little glimmer of he's probably okay, I mean, consider that after that

little bit of time off that he had in the opening series, he came out, had a stolen base in three consecutive games last week, so he's running again and running effectively, so that looks good, and the power concerns, I think, are real in part because of how he's built and he doesn't look like a guy that's going to hit a ton of homers as he ages. That's never really been something I thought about Turner. I've always looked at him and said, hey, he's got more power than expected. As that power gradually declines, either because of health or simply aging, I just wonder if

his speed will hold up enough where he can maybe offset some of those losses by being more aggressive. If some of those homers turn into singles and doubles, are we going to see an extra five or 10 bags? It's hard to bank on that because usually the answer is no, but we're in a different sort of environment for stolen bases just being easier to get than they used to be. I mean, sometimes you can look at a player's stats and just see the bell curve and see like the peak, right?

And I think you're just he's on the he's on the back end of the peak. So I think it's really useful to look back at the beginning of his career and say, like, what could he what could he do at the end? And in the beginning of his career, he was a 12 to 19 Homer guy with 30 to 40 plus steals. Now you would say, okay, well, he's not gonna get those steals at that age. However, like you mentioned, the steel environment has changed since 2018.

So I do think he's probably good for, you know, if we're going to do this, this sort of back of the envelope, like what am I worried about? I would say I'm worried that this year he will do something like he did in 2018 or 2017 when he hit 275. If you average them out 275 with 13 homers and 40 stolen bases. Yeah, a lot of runs scored and decent RBI totals. Like that's still really good. It might not be everything you paid for, but it's not the reason you're not going to win your league if that's how it plays out for Trey Turner.

It is though, if you are not a competitive team in dynasty, this may be the year to consider trading him just because you don't know what that true talent stolen base rate will look like yet. And he's only going to get more injured, you know, and just because of time, because of what we know from other baseball players who've played, this might be the peak time to get a real big package back. Yeah, I'll agree with that. The long-term point seems like we're on that plateau right now and starting the decline phase for Trey Turner. And I say that as someone who really likes him.

Thanks a lot for that question. It got us thinking about Turner at least too. And we'll dig into some other players we're worried about here in the next couple of weeks. You can always send us questions in the mailbag channel. Join the discord with the link in the show description. Happy to answer those questions on future episodes. You can find Eno1BlueSky, EnoSaris.BSky.social.

You can find me DVR.BSky.social. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. We're back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening. Put me in, coach.