Rates & Barrels - An Entire Season in Arizona?

Episode Date: April 7, 2020

Rundown7:20 Project GOAT Update16:10 A Contained MLB Season in Arizona?27:13 Cactus League Park Factors33:32 Potential Impact on Specific Pitch Types44:50 Keeper/Dynasty Pitching Targets52:29 SupportBeer.com is Live! Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRipere-mail: [e-mail] Get a free 90-day trial: https://theathletic.com/free90days Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's episode of Rates and Barrels is brought to you by Remarkably Remote, a new daily microcast from the experts at GoToMeeting, all about making working from home work for you. With indispensable intel on how to stay sane, motivated, and productive at home, we're here to help you in this brave new remote working world. Find us on smart speakers or subscribe on your favorite podcasting app. You can also listen at gotomeeting.com slash tips. That's gotomeeting.com slash tips. That's gotomeeting.com slash tips. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 84. It's Tuesday, April 7th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we're going to give you an update on the Project GOAT scoring process.

We are close to done, but as we feared late last week, we're not quite ready to reveal a winner today. We want to double-check a few things, but we'll talk about where things stand currently with that contest. There's a very unusual idea that's been the subject of some stories, including one from Ken Rosenthal earlier today, that the MLB season might be played in Arizona with this elaborate sort of containment scenario. So we'll talk about that. We've got a couple mailbag questions as well, including one that inspired some talk about post-hype prospects. Before we get to all that, how are things going for you on this Tuesday? You know, it sounds like you had a bit of an eventful evening.

Oh, man, you know that little chirp that your smoke alarm is dying? Like, I don't know, maybe some of you guys can sleep through that, but oh, man, I cannot. There's something about just how long it is it's just long enough in between beeps where you're just about to fall back asleep again and that beep is it is the soundtrack for hell and uh i couldn't find the right one for a while so i was up and about and then i couldn't get back to sleep. You know what the funny thing about it, though?

This is a really nice, almost nice in a way, normal problem. This could have happened at any time. This has happened to me before, and it'll happen again. There's something refreshing and comforting about that. Yep, i'm really tired because of this stupid smoke alarm yeah back to a normal sort of problem exactly i was listening to effectively wild the other day i was at the park playing with hazel just throwing the ball around and i like listening to ben and meg Sam. They do a great job on that pod. And they were talking about the Astros sign-stealing scandal, the suspensions handed down to Jeff Luno and Alex Cora in Boston,

all of that. And they just said, isn't it going to be great when people can be outraged about that again? It's the kind of thing that it was the biggest deal in the world two months ago and now we just don't care like because much bigger more important life problems have been brought to all of us in our unique forms and it's just it's weird to root for that to become normal again because in a weird way like that that normal also stunk in its own way well that could be the positive that comes out of this is a sense of perspective and um i'm sure all of our well actually can i go both ways on this i was gonna say i think our family unit is feeling uh the bonds strengthen

over time and um i think that my relationship, it's particularly with my youngest son, which sometimes has gone off again, on again, off again. At times he's, he's a little firecracker has, they've all strengthened that we were coming out of this.

I think as a tighter group, I was just thinking also that I wonder if there's any, there's going to be a rash of divorces. Oh, it's, it's, yeah, it's going to,

it is, it's going to bring some families really close together and there's going to be a rash of divorces after this. Oh, yeah. It is. It's going to bring some families really close together. And it's going to take relationships where people should not have been together. And they used going to work and playing softball and book clubs and everything socially that has kind of just had to go by the wayside and be put on hold. All of those things that were used as the escapes and the coping mechanisms have left people to face their actual problems. So what if you just like what if you just moved in with your girlfriend for the first time? Yeah, that's like everything's great. Everything's great.

I think this is going to work. I think I'm a little bit nervous. I'm a little bit nervous. You know, there's some of our grooming habits. I don't like the stakes just get so much higher when moving out is not just an easy thing to do and it's never easy to do that but it's not easy right now at all it's as difficult as it could be i'm not making light of anybody's situation i'm just saying like if you are in this in that in situation man i i feel for you i feel for you you're gonna have to use that sense of perspective pretty strong and and even if you're gonna move

out at the end of this just be like okay we're we're hunkering down we're not gonna argue our way through this no yeah there's gonna be some like judd apatow film about a couple that moved in together and then got stuck in quarantine and hated each other it's gonna be like this is 40 but it's gonna be with 27 year olds and oh my god i wish i was a better writer i would write that thing right it's gonna happen and the people who lived through this are gonna look back on it one day and go yeah it kind of was like that we did play banana grams a lot you know like it's gonna and the people who didn't live through it are gonna be like what's wrong with these people yeah right i was thinking also about the the roaring 20s you know like 100 years

ago we had an epidemic we had a stock market crash like we like a lot of these things happened like 100 to 102 years ago. And so, oh, oh, and nobody could go to the bar. The third thing. But, you know, the Roaring Twenties happened afterwards, which all I know is that they wore cool dresses. But I think that if I actually went and did the research, the Roaring Twenties was just about the rich getting richer. Yeah. I would imagine that would be what you'd find. I'm thinking of like the Great Gatsby and stuff, right?

That's the Roaring Twenties. Yeah. Oh, wow. Well, let's have some roaring after this huh let's all once we get to go back out again let's all go back out again and support our favorite places and see each other and shake a hand damn it fist bumps something something we'll get back to it eventually uh you know if you hold your breath and do a hug that might not be that bad actually but we should all have running lists of the things that we want to do You know, if you hold your breath and do a hug, that might not be that bad, actually.

But we should all have running lists of the things that we want to do when we can go back to doing most of the things we used to do. And we can add new things, of course. You could put that on your list and let me know how that goes. Hold breath, give hug. But let's get people updated on Project Goat. You've worked a lot harder than I have, I think, in getting all of the data combined for that. I thought I was going to lap the field, if you will, on Saturday night.

I fired up some adult contemporary rock from the 90s because, I don't know, I just needed to go to a different decade for some music for a little while. And I sat down at my computer and I thought, this is going to be the night. This is going to be the night where I get all these processed. Eno's going to wake up on Sunday. He's going to have egg on his face. And he's going to say, wow, DVR crushed it.

And it didn't happen like that, but you crushed it. You got it pretty much done. And just to kind of give people a peek behind the curtain, when we get an entry for this, it gives us both an email notification. So our inboxes are flooded. And if one of us replies to an email, the other person doesn't see that reply unless we intentionally CC or blind CC that person. So boring email stuff aside, what that means is we're really just going to dig through the couch cushions of our email box to make sure that great entries were not missed. And we're going to going to dig through the couch cushions of our email box to make sure that great entries were not missed. And we're going to make sure everybody's accounted for

before we release final results later this week. And here's a way that you can help us. Because the number one way that it could have fallen between the cracks is if you replied directly to one of us so when we sent out all of the sheets you know we sent them out by like from our own email accounts and most of you when you submitted you submitted to rates and barrels um and that's that's where we got you but then there's a few that i noticed that replied directly to me and the way that that would work is if if you know derek did from point a to point b then i would ignore point a to point b thinking they're done and you might have could reply to me directly in in between those two points so i feel like i got most of those but once I tell you a little bit about, but also just check to see if you sent me directly. And if you did, maybe just resend it and highlight it and I'll make sure I got you.

strategies. Um, and, uh, if that sounds like you, um, you know, you might, you might want to get in touch with us anyway, uh, because, um, we haven't yet decided how to sort of represent the winner's name and stuff, probably first name, last initial, just like you would be on the athletic, but, uh, just, you know, uh, if you want would be on the athletic but uh just you know if you want to know ahead of time uh you can ping me uh the one thing that we haven't done yet is resolve ties so i can tell you about the winning types of teams but i can't tell you exactly who the winner is yet because we have to resolve some some ties in the point standings um and so right now, it looks like seven of the top ten punted saves, which was the winning strategy in the ESPN thing. However, about 15 of you to 20 of you punted saves altogether, and we haven't resolved that tie yet. So that is actually, actually I think going to pull

number one out of his position we'll have to see he's 23 points up so he might still win but number two had one closer and I'm kind of rooting for number two to win because it's a terrifically balanced line and the only place where their top five or really stand out anywhere is that they were number two in runs, which is an undervalued thing. I'm looking up and down the runs category and people who spent a lot of attention on runs generally did well. And the reason I find that fascinating is I don't normally give a crap about runs. And the reason I find that fascinating is I don't normally give a crap about runs. But in these cases, runs in RBI were a way to really separate yourself in the hitting categories because there were some really standout performances, 160, 150 type runs in RBI situations

where you could really rack those up while still getting your homers and your batting average and stuff. So anyway, seven out of the top 11 punted saves. Two out of the top 11 did not have a starting pitcher. Really? So generally, weird strategies did work. The fourth best team punted stolen bases. Actually, you could probably say fourth through sixth punted stolen bases. So I'm sorry to give you an incomplete report.

It's not quite done yet. We have to resolve those ties. I was just tallying these up really quickly before the show. And we're close. If you punted saves, you're probably feeling pretty good after that conversation. Um, but we'll have to see how that shakes once we, uh, give you guys all a zero for saves or, or, or sort of figure out the ties for saves. Um, and, uh, that's, I think, uh, an interesting idea is that the punting, uh, closers, the,

the, the, the, the punting starters ones, the ones that just had closers, um, they have some points and wins and they were able to separate themselves a little bit by which closers they picked. Um, some picked closers that had a few wins and some didn't. Um, and the ones that pick closers that had a few wins and some didn't. And the ones that picked closers that had a few wins did better. Whereas if you punt saves, there's maybe one pitcher that had a season that was good enough to be useful in wins

and also had saves. And that's a fun one. A couple people put that player in their name. I wonder if you can guess it. Yeah, that is a very punnable name. But a season that I had never really thought about prior to having this contest that we put on for the listeners. So kind of cool to see what the league and what voters for awards thought of that particular player in that era as well. Shocker in that era as well. Shocker, in that era, that contribution was very much rewarded

in terms of getting some postseason attention. Not in the best possible way, but definitely more than you would have thought for the way that pitcher was used. 150-plus innings, double-digit wins, double-digit saves, and you may never have thought of this picture before in your life yeah i mean it was uh it was a great season for ratios sub two era sub one whip i'm not ripping the season at all but just the like imagine that type of i guess it's sort of like a lower strikeout rate josh Hader type season with more volume.

But how strange would that be? Imagine if Josh Hader threw three innings every time he was out there and he did that over 50 appearances. That would be pretty strange. Yeah, yeah. So I'll write this up for Friday. Maybe on the Thursday pod we will announce the top three or five or something and what the strategies were. But that picture was a little bit about what this is about.

Tim Raines did something one year that was very interesting in terms of eligibility. That was very interesting in terms of eligibility. And then the various strategies of punting and where you were going to give up to gain in the places I think are fascinating. So we'll break it down a little bit further on the Thursday pod and have it all in print on Friday. Yeah, so definitely something to look forward to as we wrap that up. And I think we're still getting requests for the sheet

from people who maybe are a few episodes behind. I still may send sheets out. They're not for this run because we're probably going to do some other variation at some point. And even if we don't, you can take the sheet and try to beat the totals that we talk about

at the end of the week, right? Maybe you can join in on the twist level if we do the twist. I was expecting more ties at the top, but maybe the original twist, maybe we'll just bring that back. The original twist was beat the winner. Now that you know what the targets are, beat the winner. Yeah, and I think at least with that the email flooding might change so stay tuned for the directions the twist and all of that but let's talk about this contained

mlb season this this is an idea that almost i hate to say this it reeks of elon musk a little bit you know it's just kind of it's just kind of out there in a very bizarre way the idea is that major league baseball would be able to take players coaches necessary staff camera crews and keep everyone in basically a bubble in arizona have living arrangements taken care of, use social distancing with players instead of putting them in the dugout. So imagine, in my mind at least,

I see players sitting in the empty seats behind the dugouts when their teammates are hitting, avoiding high fives. I mean, just all sorts of different things. The main premise is that the season could be played in this scenario in Arizona using the spring training ballparks and using Chase Field. I just don't think this is realistic at all.

And the start time, I think, is sometime around May. Like late May was thrown out there as a possible beginning point. So the first question I have for you is does this seem just totally unrealistic or am i being a debbie downer about something that actually has some potential i uh maybe in the minority here uh or at least will feel that way on twitter i think the most unrealistic thing about the plan is the timeline. I don't actually think that the rest of it is that terrible. And so the reason, my reasoning is this. At some point, we're going to try and get back to normal.

And the question is when. But let's say we take when out of it. The next question is how? What is it going to look like? And when I think about that, I look to Korea. And because Korea is slowly opening their doors again. And what do they do? They have massive testing. They also test for fevers. So there's a lot of, I mean, we have like 15 thermometers in the house because we have kids. there's a lot of, I mean, we have like 15 thermometers in the house because we have kids and there are some that you can just put on someone's forehead and it take three seconds.

You just put on the forehead, uh, push the button and you have a reading in three seconds. So the way, and the way that they're doing it in korea is that uh you basically if before you go into a building with like before you go into a mass gathering you have to have your temperature taken and when you have your temperature taken if it's if it's high you go and you take a test and if you test positive you're pulled out and then they try to, and actually, they kind of immediately contact everybody you've come in contact with through the cell phones. So if your friend, you know, gets, has a thing that says, hey, you'll get basically an automatic text message from your friend. He gets pulled out of the population. He's in quarantine for 14 days and you get a text message saying, hey, you saw John

on Monday. John is now in quarantine. Please go get tested. So you go get tested and if you get it, you're pulled out. So I think some of the things that people are laughing about are unrealistic. Things like the social distancing. Baseball doesn't work that way. They were talking about, oh, we'll do robo-alums so the umpire can stand further back.

Great. What about first base? So I think some of that stuff is silly. And I don't know if it's eyewash or if it's an attempt for them to do it earlier to push the timeline up. But if if this came at a reasonable time, at a time when we are starting to, you know, empower, you know, even people on the level of sort of security guards to take our temperature and and everyone's taking their temperature and everyone's sort of just cautiously going back out. If it comes in that time, the most realistic thing to do is to cut travel down. So therefore, Arizona becomes realistic. And so the way I think it'll happen is it'll happen in June or July, not May. And it will look a little bit like that. It will be in Arizona.

And they won't be sequestered in the way that people were reacting. Oh, like they're going to take them away from their families for four to five months. Like a lot of the baseball season is like that anyway. They're away from their families a lot. In this case, they could bring their families and they would lead a somewhat normal life, except that everywhere they went, they'd have their temperature taken. And the hardest part would be once a player gets it, then there's contact tracing and it could take a whole team out. So there have to be some sort of distancing measures to try and like

retain normalcy or else the tigers are out with covid and not the not the tigers in the zoo um so they're it'll be funky and it'll look weird and i and i actually think that it's interesting that they are thinking about it and that you know there's a lot of flaws in this and this will maybe beget a second version of plans that's better, that takes place later, and then there will be a third version of these plans, and there will be something in the final solution that will have come from this first ideation, is what I'm saying.

Something that we just read is going to come true. I think the thing that will most likely come true is containing the season in one market like that. That is the most logical thing because the travel aspect of a Major League Baseball season and the volume of exposures, even when you're taking chartered flights, going from city to city to different venues, different hotels, trying to get food from different places. The spread is so much more intense when you do that. The magnitude is so much greater.

So I do think the idea of saying, hey, basically a full season of spring training, this is how it's going to work. That core concept makes a lot of sense. And empty stadiums. Okay. I think at this point, if, if we're told we're going to get 81 games and we're not going to be able to attend to any of them, just about everybody listened to this show.

I know I certainly would say, sure, sign me up. I'll take that 81 games where I watch from home is better than zero. I will take that every day of the week. Yeah, and I think they should avoid this idea of the double headers. And I understand that they're probably, I think the whole thing is about TV money. Because we've already seen that baseball is optimizing for TV money in the way that

gate receipts are down and yet revenue is up. So they've optimized for TV money a long while back. And so this is all about the TV money. And they've kind of, I think they probably all said, okay, gate money is out, but they all want to come, they all want to get most of their TV contracts. And so I'm suppose those TV contracts are based per game and not per inning. So this idea of having double hit or seven inning games is a way of getting all the TV money back. But I'd much rather go as a negotiating body to TVs that are struggling right now too. TV is struggling too because they've just lost all this live content. out too, you know, TV is struggling too, because they've just lost all this live content,

and go to different markets and replace the money by now having, you know, two national games a week on ESPN, you know, you know, giving FS1 and Fox and CBS, maybe CBS wants a game a week, you know, and start, you know, marketing the games that you will play to replace the games that you won't play. Because doubleheaders, 7-8 doubleheaders are going to stretch staffs out until you unless you have 40 man rosters all the time, which is just ridiculous. So there's all this cascading stuff about being fixated on 162. So take the fixation of 162 out. Throw that out. We're not going to get 162. OK, this is going to get 162, okay?

This is where I get mad because I care about the players, you know? And the idea that they're going to try and play these guys in Arizona in the sun in July and August, you know, and then do doubleheader seven innings, like stop it. No, you're playing mostly night games in the summer. That's the reality of where you're trying to play. And maybe for the East Coast, if they need to do live games, maybe a 10 a.m. game. It's doable if they think about it. But not a 10 a.m. game and a 7 p.m. game.

I don't know. It's just like a lot to ask of these athletes on top of all the stress they are under because they're under the same stress as all of us so I think let the 162 go go back to the table with all the regional networks

go back to the table with the TV networks and at some point say okay we're going to give you 100 we want to get 75% of our TV money this year. That's our deal. Maybe negotiate, negotiate, figure something out, and then to replace the rest of the money, take some games

and say, this is going to be a game. We're going to do two or three games a week, and we're going to parcel them out to the national networks. There's nothing else that's live on TV, so people will watch it. And I think, you know, we have to restart the economy at some point. And I know it's about people's lives. And that's to be the thing we think about for the next three to four weeks, especially, we've got to make sure we continue to flatten the curve you know where i live in in northern california we've done a fairly good job of it um and uh you know i think that hopefully other people can either see that or other people are going to do

the same things um and uh we'll we'll get there eventually and when we get there eventually. And when we get there, some parts of that plan will be in it, but not all of them, hopefully. And I hope that the MLBPA advocates for their players and makes sure that they... Yes, everyone cares about the money, but they also care about the well-being

of the people, the players. Yeah, you have to think about health and well-being. You have to think about future seasons, too. You can't destroy players with double headers and ramping up too quickly and different things that have been suggested at various points. But there was a fantasy

related question that came in as well. It's a totally different set of park factors across the board. Adjusting to that is one thing that I'd certainly never really thought about until this proposal came along. Like, oh, we have to think about how old Scottsdale is a lot different in its makeup as a ballpark than Oracle Park, for example, for the Giants. Like, that's completely different. And you kind of go through all that.

Like, Colorado pitchers. the Giants. That's completely different. You kind of go through all that. Colorado pitchers, the fear of the Colorado pitcher pitching at Coors, that would be gone because Salt River Field, talking stick, is not Coors Field. You'd have an entirely different league. How much have you had a chance to really think about that as we imagine this sort of scenario playing out? Yeah, I mean, this Arizona, Florida thing has been floated since the very beginning. So I have thought about some. And the first time I went through, I realized that, you know, a lot of these places are minor league parks. And there are minor league park factors. I think I've seen them on Baseball America and

some other places. So, you know, when you look at things like WRC Plus and the minor leagues, a lot of those are built on at least league factors, if not also park factors. But Arizona is actually a little bit different. Florida, a lot of those are minor league parks. Arizona, some of those parks are like instructional-type facilities once the teams leave. some of those parks are like instructional type facilities. Once the, the teams leave,

they're not, there's not like, you know, dedicated minor league teams for each of those facilities. So we don't necessarily have existing park factors for each of those facilities. I will say that, you know,

temperature is the number one driver of park factors. And with temperature and dimension and altitude, you have a quick and easy way to create park factors and all those will be pointing towards power. It's going to be very power friendly. The one place notably

that will now become the pitcher friendliest park in the circuit will actually be where the Dimebacks play because they have a humidor. It's hard to believe that. Unless they bring a humidor to every single one. But I think if I understand it right, the humidor is a full room that you have to kind of build.

So I don't know if they put that in the plan. But I would say that, uh, try to pick winners and losers. Yeah. Okay. So Rocky's hitters, maybe losers, giants pitchers,

but there's been a general homogenization of ballparks across the league. You know, there's been a general thing. Every place that you thought was super extreme has brought the, has, as a pitcher's park has brought the fences in Seattle, San Diego, New York, even they brought all the fences in. Seattle, San Diego, New York even.

They brought all the fences in. Florida has brought in the fences twice in the last three or four years. So generally, parks have been trying to kind of find the middle. And then you go to a place in Arizona where they're all going to find a new middle. I don't think that picking winners and losers will be super easy, actually. No, I think it's going to be... Other than maybe the Giants pitchers and Rockies hitters thing.

It's going to be tough, especially in the middle. I mean, the ends, the extreme big league parks, knowing that the spring training counterpart that those teams are going to play in is not the same. Sure, we can figure that part out. But how much a middle sort of neutral park shifts one way or the other compared to its spring counterpart especially as you pointed out when we don't have minor league data for a lot of the

arizona parks there's very few teams that play out there after after the spring training is over right it's there for fall league It's there for extended spring training. But the Florida parks are more likely to be used for minor leagues and having those park factors out there. So we really are left with some pretty imperfect information as we try to figure out the environment. You're right about the temperature, though, and that's going to likely boost offense.

That alone should prop up offense quite a bit. Yeah, and then we have another variable meredith wills just her reporting just came out on the ball and it's not the strongest most airtight of evidence because you know maybe the sample size wasn't huge and she's sort of pulling on some threads, pun intended. But it's my understanding, basically, that's what I come away from that article, from talking to her, from talking to players,

from Masahiro Tanaka saying this, from other pitchers saying this, that the 2018 ball was being used in the postseason. It wasn't all 2018, but it was 2018 and 2019. So they've opened the door for a slightly less juiced ball. Um, and if the 2018 ball comes into play here, then maybe it won't be, you know, Bugs Bunny on the moon situation. Bugs Bunny on the moon situation. But if it's the 2019 ball and they're trying to play 4 o'clock games so that the East Coast can watch, someone might

hit 70 homers in 100 games. It's kind of interesting to think about that. But yeah, like a Giancarlo Stanton player or a Joey Gallo, like some of those guys who have that ridiculous level of power anyway. With pitchers not being ready, not being stretched out

because they had a two-week, starting pitchers having a two-week. So now you got these piggyback starters and you're basically your 6 sixth and seventh and eighth starters who were going to be in the minor leagues and now in the major leagues all of a sudden. You've got expanded rosters. You've got the temperature up.

Everyone, yeah. I don't know. The only thing I'd be missing is the roar of the crowd, I guess. That's going to take some getting used to. And again, it's a small thing to deal with as we get baseball back, hopefully at some point. But the empty stadium, the sounds just being different, that will be a bit unusual. But yeah, the email that kind of got me thinking about this came from Jerry.

And he wrote, are there certain pitch types that do not perform as well in Arizona due to the elevation, the dry air, and the temperature. And it kind of jogged my memory, too, with Zach Godley. And 2018 was the first year that Chase Field in Arizona used the humidor, and he fell apart that year. And maybe it happened for other reasons, too. But the command, I think, of his curveball, which was his best pitch, completely vanished. Now, that doesn't mean that curveballs don't work in that situation, but it made me kind of think, oh, yeah, maybe there is something here. There is something there. I did this piece. That's a great question there. My uncle's named

Jerry. What's great about that is I did a piece about cold weather, right? And I expected everyone to say, there were some people who said this, I expected everyone to say, you know, I can't feel the ball. I can't throw my breaking balls. I can't grip the ball. It's a cue ball. And a bunch of people said that. But Chris Bassett said, no, no, no, I don't care about the temperature. It's the humidity.

And he said, if it's dry dry it's hard to throw a breaking ball that the seams are dry the ball is dry the mud is dry the mud becomes actually instead of the mud becoming a grip substance the mud becomes flaky and actually makes the ball slipperier you know that the mud that they mud mud balls up with yeah the rubbing mud and chris bassett said his least favorite place to throw was pre-humidor arizona because and and and do little sean do little point out the same thing so you'll get a ball in arizona and the mud is just flaking off and you're just like this is this is worse than just a regular ball, a non-mudded ball. So now you're talking about, do these guys have humidors?

Are they going to mud up? If they're doing double headers, are they going to mud up all the balls for like five games over two days or three days or whatever? And if they do that, then the mud is going to be wet in game one and the balls are going to be cue balls, you know, flaky cue balls in game five. And are you going to have less staff mudding up these balls? This is the funniest thing because it's like the tiniest little thing. It's not going to be on anyone's plan. You know, they're not going to say anything about mudding the balls up in the plan when the plan comes out. And yet, it might be meaningful. And I was just looking at a monthly chart. Average humidity in Phoenix,

June is typically the least humid month. So if your season begins in May, which is probably the second least humid month, at least based on this chart I'm looking at, you have the extreme dry conditions right away. It's going to be the first thing. Just as you're trying to get back into it, you're going to have that cue ball to call it that. I mean, it's a good

description, right? Everyone knows a pool ball, cue ball, is extremely slick. Imagine trying to throw one of those with any sort of command. You've got to put spin. And spin them too one of those with any sort of command. You've got to put spin. And spin them too. It's not going to be easy. So yeah, it's a pretty extreme start to the season too just relative to the weather patterns

of an already unique environment. And we're such a breaking ball league. You know? Maybe it's all about Luis Castillo. Luis Castillo has been pitching in a band box already, you know, got a great change up. So breaking balls,

you're a little worried about breaking balls, at least at the beginning of this thought process? If we're worried about breaking balls, man, then the whole league is screwed anyway because the whole league's been going to breaking balls. There's like, you know, let me just do a search here real quick. This won't take long. I'm just going to look.

I'm just doing pitch-type values on fan graphs, 70 minimum innings, and I'm going to look at the pitch info, pitch type values for change-ups, best change-ups in the league. Luis Castillo is number one. Hanjin Ryu is number two. Mike Miner, three. Zach Davies, Grank. We should refer to Grank like Gronk. Can you imagine a TV show with Zach Granky and Gronkowski?

Like they have to move in together or something? Oh, man, we were talking about the Judd Apatow couple moving in together and being stuck in quarantine. quarantine like the gr i can't i don't know if i can think of two athletes who are just as different as those two guys they might be opposites uh let's see jr smith uh maybe you could make you do you could do this for for hours like put jr smith um and jo Joey Votto and J.R. Smith. And Joe. Yes. Oh, man. Like the interactions.

I mean, I think Grinky would just opt out of interacting with Gronk entirely, right? Gronk would be like pestering him to try. Come on, man. Let's play beer pong. Grinky would just walk to the corner of the room and face the corner. He'd put himself in the corner and just stare at the corner to not deal with Gronk. Oh, so we got Diolito, Means. I'm not going to advocate drafting Gio Gonzalez just based on his changeup, but it should be mentioned.

But look how quickly this list falls apart. Giolito means you're like, alright, I've heard enough about John Means. Shut up. And then it's already Gio Gonzalez and Cole Hamels are already the old people. Tommy Malone, barely in the league. Andrew Kashner, who my friend Paul Spohr calls

Trashner. We've been friendly through the league. Andrew Kashner, who my friend Paul Spohr calls Trashner. That's a good name. We've been friendly through the years. Ryan Yarbrough, Wade Miley. Then in the sort of middle, you get the guys who have other good pitches that also have good changeups. Steven Strasburg, Jake DeGrom, Eduardo Rodriguez, Noah Sindon. I'm sorry.

Chris Paddock is middle of the road. But Chris Paddock would be interesting. He's obviously had to pitch in the warm weather. He's pitching Arizona. He's got a great changeup. You know, I don't know that I would just wave my hand over across all these guys and be like, you know,

bump them all up, but maybe it's just one of those things. It wasn't really on our radar and how we were preparing for this season. Now it might have to be, but we do have time. We do have the benefit of at least, at least six weeks. And it's probably much longer than that.

I mean, that's like everything falling into some dream scenario, which I'm just shaking my head as I say it. It's not going to happen. I think it's June at the earliest and more likely even July. I still think we're looking at an 81-game season. I think we're getting half the season, and we're going to celebrate it around the 4th of July. And I'd be happy. I'd be happy. I'd be happy. I think I can make it.

The thing that I think that we all need, and especially I think fantasy people will know this, we need a date. You know? We need some clarity, and we need a date. Like, we can do anything if we have a date. You can start drafts up again. You can start, we can start, we can get back into our,

like we joked about, positional previews. Like we can, we're working towards something. It's important. I think the thing that makes us so listless in this is the feeling of when is this over, you know? And that's why we're all, you know, reading, watching the news and trying to read about peaks and flattening curves. And we're trying to like look at these curves from New York City and be like, are they flattening? Are they flattening curves. And we're trying to look at these curves from New York City and be like, are they flattening? Are they flattening?

We're all rooting for the curve to flatten because we might have a better idea of when this will be over and when we can start targeting a date. So what I want in May 1 is not, in two weeks, we're going to start spring training. What I want in May 1 is, this is the plan that we're talking about, and we're taking it to the TV networks, we're taking it to the players,

we're debating it, we're going to debate it in the public space, and we're going to spend two weeks doing that before we even have a plan. So the earliest then would be probably June. You know what I mean? So I'm just hoping that we have this conversation in May, that we start getting some clarity in May. I'm not expecting us to leave the house much in May. Yeah, I'm not expecting that to happen either. But thank you for the question, Jerry. It definitely dovetailed nicely with the stories that have been popping up. And again, if you want to check out The Athletic, we've got a 90-day tryout going on right now. So be sure to check that out, theathletic.com

slash free 90 days. A couple more questions here. Dustin is in a dynasty league. It's a 12-team league. He is the defending champion. The team was getting old, so he started trading away some older players like Blackman and Whit Merrifield. He's got some younger guys he brought back in like Matt Olson and Kyle Tucker and Ryan McMahon. And he's still looking to maybe add some young arms to target in the long run. And he thinks that maybe stepping away from Lizardo and Gore and Kopech because they're so highly valued in this league is probably the right way to go. So Dustin's looking for some post-hype guys who would be the best targets. He did use that Gallon as an example. Every league's different. I think maybe because of how Gallon is viewed within our industry, I don't know if he'd be cheap anywhere in any of the

leagues I play in. But the general question is a good one. What types of post-hype pitchers would you be thinking about dealing for right now if you were ready to go for it this season in a long-term league? Every season has pop-up pitching. That's a truth that I spit my strategy around. And I think it's true. Every, I think everything, every season has pop-up pitching.

I think, yes, every season that pop-up hitting, but it's true because we can look in the projections. We can see that pitcher projections is not as good as his projections. We know that pitchers can change. Like for example, the reason that pitcher X Boba stack cast X Boba doesn't work is because it looks like it works for a little bit.

And then it doesn't add any new information because pitchers can actually, as you like up the sample, it looks like it's working. And then it stops adding any new information, basically, at some point, because pitchers can rapidly change. They can feature a new pitch. They can add a new pitch. They can add velocity, drop velocity. And so when those things happen, they can change their true talent on a dime. So if there's pop-up pitching, he's right. Don't pay the going rate for Gore and those.

And I would focus on pop-up guys, but I would focus on young pop-up guys. So the guys that come to mind when I'm thinking is like Corbin Burns, Kyle Wright, you know, who else do I like? If Dustin May is cheap, Dustin May is more of an expensive guy in these leagues. But yeah, Corbin Burns, Kyle Wright. I think we'll stop on May just for a second, though. I mean, I think compared to how Lizardo and Julio Urias and some of the guys we've talked a lot about this draft season,

how those guys are treated, Dustin May is more fairly priced. And I think it makes a lot of sense. If you're playing for now in a long-term league, this might be the last time that you can trade for Dustin May at something that looks like a reasonable price. I mean, all he needs, he needs one. It depends a little bit. Yeah, it depends a little bit on what you were going to say.

All he needs is one of Kershaw, Buehler, Price, Urias, or Alex Wood to get hurt. There's a lot of DL days in that group in the last few seasons. in the last few seasons. And in the short term, he and Tony Gonsolin will be these six starter types that are going to be vulturing a lot of wins, unless he's in the minors.

But you're right. The question is, how quickly does he want to win? And so there is going to be a delicate balance between opportunity and talent in these cases. Kyle Wright is probably on the outside looking in because Felix Hernandez was pitching well. Kyle Quantrill looked like he was in the driver's seat for that fifth starter role.

But this season might actually lend him the opportunity to say, I'm going to dial back the need for opportunity as much because I think that every 6th and 7th starter is going to have more of an opportunity in this weird season. And so, therefore, you can then go get Dustin May. You can go get Corbin Burns. Even if Corbin Burns doesn't win the role, he'll be pitching in that sort of 4th and 5th inning and stealing wins.

And if he pitches well enough, he can take one of the top five spots pretty easily. So Kyle Wright, Kyle Quantrill is on my list. Luis Patino later on. Austin Voth. I still think Trent Thornton can put it together. Zach Pleszak was throwing harder, someone mentioned. So those are some names I think that are that are interesting justice sheffield has two good secondary pitches so i'm getting cheaper now that's on the cheaper end but

i i did start looking at 90 uh 85 90 on my list and that's where that's where i started so uh i tried to name some some young uh cheap guys that would be useful. Yeah, Spencer Howard still checks the box here. I think he's the kind of guy that if he's not in the rotation immediately, whenever the next season begins, it's not long after opening day. Nate Pearson fits into this conversation as well, because I think talent-wise, those two are on the same sort of level as some of the guys that Dustin included in his question, but they're just not being valued quite the same way. I like the Corbin Burns call. We've talked about him probably as much as any

pitcher who got just crushed last year. I don't know if anybody in that range of ratios, like horrible ratios, gets as much attention from us as Corbin Burns does, but it seems merited. I was going to ask you about Justin Dunn as a guy that he's still a prospect, but I don't think he comes up in conversations all that often as far as 2020 impact pitchers go. What do you think the Mariners do with him, and do you believe there's enough talent there for Justin Dunn to make a big impact oh by stuff he was uh close to average 97 uh by command 90 which is just barely good enough um to be a starter um he has somewhat similar numbers to a guy like Daniel Ponce de Leon

that people seem to like in terms of stuff. And Command is right there with Chris Bassett, Tyler Beatty. So, yeah, I mean, it's certainly possible. It's hard to look at someone who just doesn't seem to command the ball that well and wonder how are they going to do it, how are they going to improve it. Are they just going to try to aim at different places that they actually have better command to? Are they going to somehow be? Are they just going to try to aim at different places that they actually have better command to? Are they going to somehow be more repeatable in their delivery?

In terms of the movement on his pitches, I think the change can be good enough, and the slider looks like a legit pitch. He just doesn't command it very well. We've talked about Josh James before as a guy whose stuff is outstanding and whose command is not even close to outstanding. He's way beyond. I think

Dunn, who Dunn really reminds me of? Yamamoto. For me, Dunn was just kind of a blind spot where opportunities seemed like it was there. I just wasn't sure if there was enough skills-wise to really get excited. So based on that, I'm probably just kind of taking a wait and see with him.

Yeah. You know, it's funny. You can look at a highlight package for Yamamoto and Dunn, and you see the good bend on their breaking balls and good velocity on their breaking balls. And you see decent movement on their fastballs, and they can mix in good change-ups, and you can put a highlight package together, and you say, oh, yeah, this is something to get excited about.

So they're definitely the type of guys, depending on the depth of your league, like in a 20-team league, I wouldn't be against putting them on my bench. But in my 20-team dynasty, where I'm trying to win right now, would that be interesting to people? My bench is Yanni Chirinos, Rich Hill, Tyler Molle, John Means, Cal Quantrill, Trent Thornton, Ricky Vanasco, Blake Walston.

So a mix of old, undervalued guys. Like Rich Hill was the 675th pick in our draft or something. But he could be useful. So a mix of those old-ass veterans that are exactly cheap as you can get them for free. But in my starting line-up, when I started to become like, we're going to win now, we traded for Trevor Bauer and Zach Gallin. So those two names could also be useful to the questioner.

Yeah, I think Gallin was the example that he threw out there of someone he wanted to go after. I mean, the price could keep going up. Four pitches has command of them. That could be a recipe for... And a good changeup for this year. Yeah, a recipe for a guy that exceeds expectations. So lots of names there.

Hopefully some of those help. A lot of different price points too. Some guys that are going to cost a good amount in trade and a few that will be waiver pickups when the season begins or very, very low-cost trade targets. We did mention, I think, going into the weekend, you were closing the book on a new project, and I believe that launched over the weekend.

Supportbeer.com is up and running now, right? That's right, supportbeer.com. The cool thing about it is like they're definitely um some like patreons for you know bartenders and brewers and there's some gofundmes and stuff like that so there's definitely ways that you can just help you know the people that used to serve your beer um you know stay afloat but with liquor laws being relaxed everywhere, another way to support your favorite brewery is to get takeout or delivery. And what we did at Support Beer was create a way for you to filter by your state or your country and then click if you want takeout or delivery. And delivery in this case can mean

shipping or local delivery. So you will have to do some sort of manual sorting there depending on how far you are from our brewery. But you can do something where you say delivery in California. Let me see who does it. And you can kind of click around and find out that, oh, my God, this great place in L.A. that I never get to drink. I got some Highland Park from L.A. I got some Pure Project from San Diego. I got some Humble C from Santa Cruz. So like, you know, there's these places that I don't get to get to drink their beers very often that I'm now getting to drink their beers. I went a little overboard, but it's all in the name of supporting beer. And if it's the name of supporting something, going overboard is more than okay. So

definitely check it out, supportbeer.com. Another way you can support beer is there is a button, a link that says to submit your favorite brewery or beer shop. So you can actually add to the information we're gathering. And we're closing in on 1,000 breweries on this page. you know, some, some people that were, that there were a team of data entry, uh, at the beginning to, uh, you know, people adding now, uh, we're, we're, you know, we're the biggest, uh, place to kind of find this information. And, uh, so we just wanted to help, help, uh, help people that helped us be happy before, uh, get through this crisis. Awesome. awesome well i submitted a few in wisconsin last night so those will probably be up on the site i don't know in the next couple of days

right as people make submissions what uh what kind of turnaround time is there uh we try to run the import a couple times a day so um let's see who did you put on there i'd like to know i put in untitled art i think i think they're technically octopi so they should be there from wanna key and there have been uh let's see working draft is doing crowler lotteries central waters and not yet not yet delta beer next run so they'll be in there soon but uh yeah one thing that we're working on too is there's a notes field that explains um some of the delivery stuff um and we want to publish the notes field we explains, um, some of the delivery stuff. Um, and we want to publish the notes field. We're just trying to figure out how to do that, uh, without taking up

too much space and, uh, want to format the notes so that they don't take up, uh, aren't too long. And I've just, you know, call this number for delivery or, uh, only does local delivery, that sort of, uh, types of types of notes to help clarify for people. But yeah, it's as far as we want to take it. And I'm really excited about the response. And I hope it helps people discover that, oh, hey, collective arts is delivering. Nice.

Yeah, that's pretty sweet. So it's going to vary a lot. And one thing i would advise people definitely check out the notes because places are running shortened hours a lot of places you may have to pay over the phone so that way there's a contactless payment i know when i looked up octopi slash untitled art what they're doing if you want to pull up pop open your trunk and you've prepaid they'll actually bring it out they were showing their sterilization processes. And it's really interesting to see how companies are responding. So if you can support them, absolutely do it.

And supportbeer.com is a great way to do that. If you're enjoying this show on a platform that allows you to rate and review it, we'd greatly appreciate it if you took the time to do that. If you're not already subscribed to The Athletic, I mentioned before, 90-day free trial. Theathletic.com slash free 90 days should get that for you. I think if you click on just about anything on the site, it will prompt you for that. Thanks to many of you who are subscribers to the site. We appreciate your support during this time. And as always, you can reach us via email, ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com if you want to contact us that way.

Eno's on Twitter at Eno Saris. I'm at Derek Van Ryper. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Thursday. And I really mean it. Thanks for listening.