Rates & Barrels - An Instant Classic in Cleveland & Early Starting Pitcher Thoughts

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss an instant classic in Cleveland as the Guardians took Game 3 of the ALCS in dramatic fashion. Plus, they see another night of increased stuff across the board for Dodgers and Mets pitchers in Game 4 of the NLCS, where the Dodgers are now just one win away from the World Series. They also consider the 2025 outlook for Yoshinobu Yamamoto and take their first look at very early draft-day costs for starting pitchers around the top of the board. Rundown 2:21 An Instant Classic in Cleveland 10:58 Should Jhonkensy Noel Be in the Starting Lineup for Bottom-Half Pop? 14:26 The Dodgers Are One Win Away From the World Series 20:20 Did We See a Similar Stuff Increase at Citi Field in Game 4? 29:10 Is Yoshinobu Yamamoto a Fantasy Ace In Year 2 with the Dodgers? 41:25 What If You Wait Until After Round 5 (15 teams) to Start Drafting Pitchers? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Plus keep up with the game's future stars on the Friday Prospects series. Whether we're diving deep on one topic, discussing the latest news, or breaking down last night's OT winner, you can't miss a single episode. Listen to the Athletic Hockey Show wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Friday, October 18th, Derek VanRyper, Enos Saris here with you on this episode. We had an all-timer in game three of the ALCS on Thursday night. We'll talk about a few takeaways from that, including the possibility that among all things kind of drifting toward average-ish level performance, if hitters wane in the post-season because everything's more difficult, perhaps elite relievers wane a little bit in the post-season because they're facing a better group of hitters than they're used to facing.

So we'll pull on that thread a little bit. Got some questions about early NFBC drafts. It's already happening. We'll take a look at some of the top end pitchers, where they're going, where we might disagree as we've got some drafts coming up in the near future. First pitch, Arizona, two weeks away. If you have not made plans to get there,

you still got time to do it, go to baseballhq.com for all of the details. Eno, how's it going for you on this Friday? It's good. I've got a day planned. Friend of mine was in a car accident, so I've got to drop off some flowers for his daughter. Not her too bad, just the seatbelt.

But it was a hit and run, so. Then I think I'm gonna try and watch as much of these games as I can while also going to a show tonight and I have choices for the shows and I haven't decided between punk and a track. It's like kind of trip hop. So going out. I'm going out in a little bit and it's gonna be fun. Gonna be a fun night. The beauty of the West Coast Game Times is that you could actually have life after sports.

I do miss that. If you'd like to have life online with sports, our Discord is available using the link in the show description. We've got some threads set up for both games. It'll be happening on Friday. Not much for us to preview on those games because, again, timing leaves it such

that we really can't tell you anything about that game that you won't already have seen by the time you listen to the show. But as I mentioned up top, game three of the ALCS was an all-timer because Emmanuel Classe doesn't really give up homers. And I thought the big homer he gave up already happened when Kerry Carpenter got him in the last round. Two-in-one inning seems impossible because there have been full seasons where Closet has given up two all year and it was Aaron Judge and John Carlos Stanton getting Closet

at the eighth inning which left the door open for all sorts of things to happen in the time that followed. There is a ton to unpack with this game and one that will be lost completely in history, one performance, is Matthew Boyd, right? If the Guardians find a way to come back in this series and move on to the World Series of the things people remember about game three, it's gonna be the epic homers at the end.

It's gonna be the game-tying home run in the ninth from John Kenzie Noelle. It's gonna be the walk-off homer from David Fry in the tenth. But the performance of Matthew Boyd, five innings of one run ball, was so desperately needed for a Guardians bullpen that's been worked very heavily already in this series and with this cluster of three games all together before the next off day.

We know Gavin Williams is going in game four on Friday. We talked about the possibility of him giving them four plus innings and that being really important. I think Boyd's performance has a carry over benefit of taking a little bit of pressure off of Gavin Williams. If the Guardians don't like what they see from Williams in game four, they can at least feel better about going to the bullpen earlier

than they were planning. If Boyd had been knocked around, only gone through the lineup once, that would have put them in a much more precarious position. So I think that's just one of those performances that deserves a little bit of acknowledgement because all the excitement that happened later sort of washed that out of our memories.

Yeah, there is the law of exposure, though, which is that, you know, the Yankees have now seen all these Guardians relievers multiple times. You know, even with Boyd going five, Kate Smith still threw a whole inning. Tim Herron threw a whole inning. Hunter Gaddis, two thirds. You know, Morgan got in the game. Drew Walters got, two thirds. Morgan got in the game. Drew Walters got in the game. Everybody got in the game.

Nobody's fully rested. I don't know who didn't pitch yesterday that they wanna pitch in a close game tomorrow. Pretty much nobody. I mean, that's part of using eight pitchers, right? At least they didn't go four or five outs, I guess, is what you're saying. None of the relievers topped 18 pitches. That was paid robbery. Kade's went through 10. Right. At least they didn't go four or five outs, I guess is what you're saying. So none of the relievers topped 18 pitches that was paid through 10.

Right. Yeah. Hunter Gaddis through 10. So they're relatively fresh for this time of year, I guess. So at the same time, these guys have seen them, you know, judge. There was some talk online about the idea that could, you know, Eli Ben-Parat was talking about, like, could weird pitches have less effect in the Traject era where you can say, hey, I'm gonna go downstairs and just practice on Emmanuel Classe's cutter, you know,

and just have 30 of them. And I get some of that, but I'm also not fully clear myself on what kind of access you get to the trajectory in an away stadium because I believe the trajectory is in the home hitters area and I do believe that usually those are separate. Yeah. I don't think you would share that. I think you'd make sure the opposing team can't go in there and dial up

your pitchers and focus on hitting pitches that looked like the ones your pitchers throw in your park. So maybe he was doing that in New York, but I don't doubt he was doing that in that game before he saw him. One thing that I think is, you know, I tend to be kind of an Occam's razor guy. I think the Occam's razor, the most simplest explanation here is that the cutter that Closet throws is actually more effective against lefties. We know cutters have platoon splits and we know that even over the course of Emmanuel Classe's brilliant

career, the slugging percentage against righties is like 120 points higher against righties than lefties. Now, it's tiny against lefties and so it's not great against righties, it's still like 340. But then you throw in the fact that it's Aaron Judge and Aaron Judge and the Yankees saw some of the best stuff plus over the course of the season. You know, I only have this update from halfway through the season but I think it serves as a sort of a viewpoint into divisional strength. And what you have is Cleveland saw 98 stuff plus over the course of the season, Kansas City saw 96.9,

New York saw a 101.4, you know, Tampa Bay, you know, where they might have some, some park effects for stuff plus. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in the context of the Mets series. But they saw the most, Angels saw, the Astros a lot, they saw the 104, the AL East is way high in this.

So, any case, I would say your Aaron Judge, you see the other team's best relievers all year. Yeah, I mean the matchups, your opponent will use the best possible relievers against Judge as often as they can. Like the bar is just set higher because you're the hitter every other team's worried about. You and Soto are the guys

that are the priority matchups for the bullpen. So yeah, you're naturally going to see better stuff if you're better players on those teams. Yeah, on the flip side, John Kansky-Nuel and David Fry, you know, I think these are two hitters that maybe in the past may not have been on the Guardians I think there's a little bit of an aspect of changing their idea about lineup building to some extent John Kansky-Noel is not from Real Reyes

But he's not not from Real Reyes And so, you know in the past I think the Guardians tried that for a while and they were like, you know, it doesn't fit our philosophy Even this year they had Ramon Larianno Who's kind of a grip it rip it hit it hard and miss it kind of guy and they said no Thanks, and he went on and played for another team and played pretty well down the stretch With Noel to some extent they've said not that's our guy that's our guy. That's our gripping and rip it and miss it guy.

And we're cool with it with one guy. And he was exactly what they needed at that moment. Exactly what they needed. Yes. When you got two outs and a guy on or down by two, it's not a good time to get a single. It's really not a good time to get a single, you know, that's what the guardians have been good at, but a single just means God, the next guy might get it out. You

know what I mean? Well, and that's why I was a little surprised to see Daniel Schneeman getting the start in this game, right? Like you put Schneeman out in right field, he's 0-4. Schneeman's the guy that Noel Pinch hit for at the end of the game. The matchup was against Clark Schmidt, a righty. So I mean, I guess that's like Schneemans, a lefty. You're playing matchups there, but Schneemans, it's kind of like the Will Brennan thing where there might be a useful big league skill set there. But who's going to help you more against top level pitching, even if Noel's approach is more likely to hit a homer like in this game, homer changes so much.

And you take an 0 for 4 with a chance at a homer, you know, in this case, especially when you have all these other guys getting on base. Like I think Noel is the best fit. I would actually be playing him in Fry as a pinch hitter. Like I get it. And it really worked out. But I might start Fry too. So well, and the other part of it, it too is they decided to flip the catchers

They started Austin hedges bone angular came up on a spot later Both catchers actually got hits which was a huge turn for the Guardians and I mean they were due As my grandpa Pat used to say he's do actually work the first time I ever heard it I think it was Chris single He popped a home run. I looked at my grandpa. I was like, that was magic. How often can you do that? He never did it again, so good usage of the trick. This dude doesn't act as if the gambler's fallacy

doesn't work. It works really well. When an eight-year-old sees someone pull it off, it sure looks like it works, especially when he doesn't do it all the time. But you look at the way the lineup's built, it's like, OK, you're going to go with hedges. You're going glove, even more extreme glove,

less bat with hedges. Do you really wanna play the higher OEP game with the hitters in front of him, or would you rather just have Noel out there in case some combination of Manzardo, Ramirez, Naylor, or Thomas is on base? I'd rather have the big swing. Double or a homer, yeah.

In that spot, if you're gonna play the less inspiring of your two hitters behind the plate and then have the toggle of the bench. I think Stephen Voate played that part right. Even though I expressed some of my interest in Bo Naylor long term and believe in there's still more for him as a hitter, I think using Naylor after hedges makes sense given how the Guardians did be kind of selective

about when they go to their bench because having hedges up late is a problem. It also allowed them to use Brennan as a pinch hitter for a catcher and then go to the other catcher. So that makes some sense to me. And I guess keeping Noel as a break glass when needed, like he could have come in for Josh Naylor. I mean, I don't know. He could have come in for Kyle Manzardo. Like you actually allow yourself more flexibility with Noel and Fry on the bench for when they come in. You can wait till someone's on base. You can wait till the right moment.

You know that defensively Fry, I guess if the elbow is hurting, you don't even really want him out in the field at all Right and you know with Noel Defensively, he's limited what he has the big arm These are actually probably ideal pinch hit guys because they can come in and maybe pop a homer for you And that's exactly what they did on the at-bat Noel versus Weaver I think one thing that we saw is Weaver's only thrown two cutters this entire postseason, one against the Royals and one against the Guardians. I think he needs to dust that off because Noel 50-50ed him

and said, I think there's going to be a change up in the zone when he was in the 1-0 count. He says, if I'm wrong, I'm way late on the fastball and it's a 1-1 count and I'm still in this. If I'm right, I'm going to hit this dinger. And he hit that dinger. So I think Weaver needs to throw the cutter, even though it's not his best pitch. I think even guys who throw two dominant pitches can use a third non-dominant pitch. Sometimes this is something we've talked about with Landon Ack. And I think this is going to be part of the sort of quote unquote trends that we

see in the postseason that become more important next year for everybody. I think everybody is going to debut a new pitch next year. I remember seeing it. I think it was maybe two off seasons ago, was it Ryan Presley started throwing a change up in the playoffs. He hadn't thrown them all year, but it was actually a really good pitch. And it's like, whoa, now you got a third thing you reliably are throwing. Hitters have to completely, completely have to rewrite their book on the fly. It's hard to do, so maybe you can't do it

as much as Presley did, but I think if we are in the era of you're gonna go out there and get three, four, five, six outs instead of just getting two or three, that's gonna push relievers, especially guys like Weaver who've been used a lot. He's clearly the guy they want on the mound. When all the all the chips are out there right now, you need to have that extra wrinkles. I think you're right. I think he absolutely starts to show that cutter a little bit more,

especially in this series, but probably in the World Series as well. If the Yankees end up advancing, it's interesting how much a series can flip in 24 hours. Both series, like the vibes around both. I mean, I think Thursday morning, we were looking at this one wondering, okay, can the Guardians claw back in? Are the Mets gonna counterpunch and level the NLCS at two? And the Mets had some chances.

They had a couple of situations against Phillips in Trinidad where they had traffic. They were down big, but one swing could have brought them back into it. There was that Nemo fly ball with, was it Nemo with fly ball with the gases loaded? And it was like seven to two, and it would have brought them to seven to six.

It was 10 feet short. There were a couple of little windows where maybe they could have got back into it. I think the main critique I've seen of the Mets was that, you know, Jose Quintana probably stayed in this game too long, especially with his form. I saw that critique in our discord. I saw some people tweeting about it. And I think Michael Baumann of Fangraphs had a pretty good nugget in his

recap that Quintana in his previous three starts had allowed 13 baserunners over 16 in the third innings with 14 strikeouts. Those are numbers that you never would have expected from Quintana especially with so much on the line at this point in the season and he was doing that while throwing just 57.5% of his pitches for strikes. 37.5% of those in the zone. So living outside the zone was working for a while, but we know the Dodgers, with the quality of the lineup they have, they're a very patient team,

that approach wasn't working. So I think even though they've been able to get away with leaving Cantana, especially in games longer than we've expected, this was a spot where going to the bullpen earlier than expected was probably the right call again, hindsight's 20 20. But I think that's probably the most valid criticism I see of how the Mets played it in game four.

And I don't think this game was as lopsided as the as the box score suggests. I mean, the Mets had more hard hit balls. They had 10 hits to the Dodgers 12 It's really it's one of those things with sequencing We're like, you know give that Vientos Homer with the bases loaded or you know what I mean? Like instead of the bases empty like, you know Put this double here instead of there and things could have been a little bit different I do think that the thing that does

Upset me is actually really a little bit to that King Tana nugget that you're saying is that if I'm a Mets fan the thing that upsets me is that these Dodgers are not chasing. In terms of chase rate in the playoffs it's the Yankees with a 22% chase rate swinging at pitches outside the zone and then the Dodgers at 26 those are the best. The Mets at 32%, that's pretty much average, average for the playoffs, it's not a problem, but the Dodgers and Yankees are in an extreme patient stance right now, and that's to their benefit. I think last night Max Muncie saw like 16 pitches

outside of the zone, swung it two. Two. That's the Dodger way right now. And if you, I think you have to see that in real time a little bit and be like, oh, Quintana lives kind of outside of the zone-ish and they're really locked in right now, I gotta bring somebody else in. And I don't know who it is because Peterson is kind of similar and

McGill hasn't been pitching that well and you used McGill in the game prior, right? So you didn't really have that because he was chewing up innings You kind of wanted to rest Peterson trying to push Budo for like three innings Yeah, former starter. I mean I think as a as a staff and it especially in the bullpen We talked about it going into the playoffs one of the Mets Relative weaknesses was a high walk rate as a team even though their pitching has performed well they've done it despite free passes if that's your weakness the Dodgers are built to exploit that so that's where I think the edge has really kind of flipped a lot is just being able

to work the Mets pitchers get them into situations where they're using guys they didn't necessarily want to use. The Mets had the third highest walk rate as a staff this year behind the White Sox and Angels. That's not necessarily a place you want to be. And I think it actually is a little bit indicative of stuff because if you go over to Stuff Plus as well, you know, as a staff, the Mets had mediocre sort of averages stuff. Plus, and especially if I switch it over to starting pitching, I believe they had poor,

their 18th in starting pitching stuff. Plus, so what do you do if you're 18th and starting pitching stuff? Plus, and you, and you're kind of cobbling together pitching staff, you throw 80 million different types of fastballs and you throw a lot of pitches outside the zone, you kind of dance around in the shadow. And a team that's gonna really lock in and sit there is gonna put pressure on that.

Yeah, that's exactly what Dodge has been able to do so far. We saw Otani get on the board, the leadoff homer, with nobody on base, his struggles with the bases empty had been documented. I think that's kind of like the Mookie Betts wasn't hitting in the playoffs thing. You're like, well, that's not gonna last. It's just a small sample thing that our brains

are making narratives out of, yeah. Right, usually like, well, that's weird, and you write about it or talk about it, and then you expect the change to change. And then immediately it's gone. That's Homer again, a four-hit game for Mookie Betts. And this looked like a kind of classic Dodger sort of performance, though, where everybody who came through

was supposed to come through. They're loaded with high-end players, right? You got something from Otani. You got something from Betts. You got 16 swinging strikes from Yoshinobu Yamamoto. And even though he still threw 73 pitches, 8Ks, one walk, two earned runs, four and a third, he wasn't lights out, but he was good. He did enough to let them turn it over to probably their two favorite relievers or two

of their three favorite relievers with Phillips and Trinen before it got out of hand and they could just coast with Enriquez for two innings. So I think the follow-up question I have for you from what we saw with Walker Bueller on Wednesday was did stuff across the board play up for Yamamoto and the other pitchers that we saw in game four of the NLCS? Yeah, it did, absolutely. Yamamoto had three inches more ride on his four seamer, three

inches more horizontal movement on the slider, which is pretty important given that he also had more drop on the slider. This is pretty important given that, you know, to some extent, the Mets were happy with putting righties in against Yamamoto because he has some reverse splits and it's possible that he has legit reverse splits because Yamamoto, the weirdest thing about him is he doesn't have a great slider. He's got a great splitter and curve ball.

So it is possible that a pitcher like that would have reverse platoon splits, given his pitch mix. He comes out there, he throws a slider more and he's throwing it all year and it has better movement than it had all year. So, you know, that's another thing where you're like, oh wow, why are all these pitches have better movement? But it's not like one team or the other,

Phillips training, their stuff was up, training doesn't need its stuff to be up, but it was. Three inches more drop on the sinker for training, three inches more sideways movement on a sweeper and a sinker, I mean, even more turbo, you know? But on the other side, you know,

Keaton's movement was all up horizontally. Jose Budo's movement was up. He had more ride on the fore seam and more sweep on the sweeper. So when I look and see all these movements up, you know, there's a lot of things going on because, you know, Yamamoto, his spin was up, but a little bit less than Walker Bueller's,

you know, 64 RPM on the four seam, 94 on the slider, 115 on the cutter. These as I said, are within one standard deviation. And just for the less mathematically inclined, one standard deviation can be both significant and not important. And the reason I say that is one standard deviation means you're out. So within one standard deviation is 68% of the normal variance. So two thirds of the normal stuff you see all year is in within one standard deviation.

So once you get past one standard deviation, you're still within the normal range, quote unquote, but you're in the 32%. You're in the one third. You're in the like head scratching, like what's going on over here kind of stuff, right? So it's not quite where it's like two or three standard deviations, where that's where we saw Spider Tack and Pine Tart. That's where you're like, circle this, this is super weird, you know?

So it's more in the, aha. And it's also in the kind of approved gray area, which is sweat and rosin and bullfrog, that's around a hundred RPM. I wouldn't mention this again, because again, the numbers are a little bit smaller for Yamamoto and the spin numbers are not up for everybody. The spin numbers are up for a lot of people, but we did a little bit of sleuthing, and none of the umpires that have ever busted somebody for sticky stuff, none of those umpires,

as far as we can tell, are on the CS umpiring cruise. Right, yeah, you'll notice no Phil Cussie, for example, right, Phil Cussie was like the guy who at one point had busted everybody. Yeah, but yeah, there's Bill Walsh. There's a there's a couple other guys now that have busted people, and none of those guys are on these ones. So I'm not saying that baseball is did this on purpose. I bet you baseball is just wants the best strikes callers

because they don't want people belly aching about strike calls all the way through the playoffs. I think that's their number one thing. I think what might just be is coincidence that those guys aren't on there, but I wanted to mention because of course if one guy goes out there and he's got Sweat or Bullfrog and he gets away with it and they're touching him, that'll spread like wildfire. He can just go back to the dugout or to the bullpen when he's done and say, yeah, man,

like this guy doesn't care about that stuff. So that's one thing. We can't know if that's true or not, we'll never know. And I think it's not actually worth worrying too much about, although people love it, it's kind of salacious. The other part is atmospheric conditions. And so we've talked about salt in the air. Salt in the air can change the way the balls move.

But there are other things that can do it. John Smoltz brought up the way the wind was, it was favoring hitters. The people at Wind Applied Metrics gave us this great graphic at the beginning of the game where the wind was blowing out and it was aiding balls seven to 10 feet in every direction. And Don Smoltz said, well, that also actually aids

the pitchers to some extent because it's better to throw into the wind. Now I don't know if that's true. I haven't had the chance to check that with Alan Nathan, baseball's resident physicist. But I do believe that wind can be a factor and salt content can be a factor and temperature can be a factor in terms of the be a factor and temperature can be a factor

in terms of the way that balls are moving. And we're seeing, since we're seeing like a sort of across the board increase in movement, I would assume it's more atmospheric because I don't think every pitcher, even if they were told that the umpire isn't busting people that every pitcher would immediately go to it. Hockey is back on ice in the Athletic Hockey Show

as the game covered four days a week, all season long. Hear from the Athletics, NHL writers, and insiders Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Plus, keep up with the game's future stars on the Friday Prospect series. Whether we're diving deep on one topic, discussing the latest news, or breaking down last night's

OT winner, you can't miss a single episode. Listen to the Athletic Hockey Show wherever you get your podcasts. It doesn't seem nefarious, at least as like a primary cause. Citi Field is augmenting pitcher stuff right now, and I think that probably helps the team. Curiously, I think this is true. I think it helps the team with more stuff and more command better because they're throwing higher stuff pitches

more in the zone, right? And the Mets have been throwing pitches outside the zone a lot. So somebody has to trust their quote unquote better stuff in the zone more tonight. If it's David Peterson or whoever follows him. You know, we were talking about the Mets success against relievers after reading that Robert Orr piece

over at Baseball Prospectus earlier in the week too and it's another possible explanation for why the Mets are good against relievers, right? If you see better stuff because of the atmospheric conditions at your park, it's like you're turning up the difficulty all the time and you're less surprised by it when you see it in general.

Maybe that's a little part of the, how they do it. Mets were facing the fourth best stuff plus at the halfway mark. Yeah, and if your park is elevating everyone's stuff, that's part of how you got there, part of how you got to that fourth toughest stuff plus that you saw in the aggregate.

So, I don't know. Lots to unpack there, but yeah, weather and atmospheric conditions, probably a pretty big factor in why we're seeing some of the things we're seeing at Citi Field right now. Adam Ottavino talked about that on our pod back when he joined us. Geez, I was probably back in May or June now, but he mentioned the differences. I think it was he was talking about day and night games being very different at Citi Field too,

because of the wind patterns changing Yeah, and I think it also is kind of goes feeds into my larger narrative for people thinking about this sort of about the fantasy lens it's like You know, I think that a lot of what we're watching right now is Gonna make you a worse fantasy analyst or like, you know, you're tempted right now to say, oh, Walker Bueller is back. Let me put him on my sleeper list. I just wanna put Walker Bueller on the Mets and get half of his starts in that ballpark

with those conditions. That's all I wanted. Totally a possibility, but the other possibility is he had a one game augmentation of stuff due to the atmospheric conditions, and that's not something that you wanna bet on for a full season, you know? So I think that the NCAA tournament effect is something you just want to keep in mind.

Like don't draft somebody based on what they did in the postseason entirely. Well, that's extremely relevant to something I wanted to bring up on today's show anyway, because I started to wonder if Yamamoto is actually a little underrated. We have a few October drafts in the books. It's draft and hold, so that means 50 rounds, slow clocks. So only two have been completed so far,

but I'm getting those emails from the NFBC that drafts are close to filling, trying to entice me, trying to pull me into that first one for 2025. Seems like such folly, our information about injury is so low. I mean, you can be drafting somebody who might get injured in these playoffs. Yeah, I guess that that's still a concern. But I am adamant that the edge you have is now more so than later. You have an edge later, but the edge is greater right now

if you've got your homework already done But Yamamoto I believe is the 14th Starting pitcher off the board no the 12 starting pitcher off the board because there's only one closer ahead of him That's a manual class a going around pick 50 in these first two drafts pick 37 pick 63 It's not a lot of agreement in those two drafts. As things progress, we get more information. Maybe he'll bump up a couple of spots, maybe another good outing or two in the World Series that the Dodgers go through,

also boosts up his stock a little bit, because in his case, you're getting proof that he's healthy. I think that's as much why you're getting a little discount in these early drafts on Yamamoto as anything else. Now that we've seen him in the States for 102 and a third innings combining the post season with the regular season, what do you make of him and his arsenal?

You mentioned it's a little strange he doesn't have a slider. Do you think there's any reason to believe he might be able to develop one at this stage or do you look at him and say, he's 26, he's got a lot of stuff that works, he's gone this far without a slider, maybe there's a reason why he doesn't have a feel for that pitch, he's going to add something else instead.

Regardless the results were good, 28.5% K-rate this year, 6% walk rate, 12% swinging strike rate, over 30% for CSW. This does look like an ace on a per inning basis. The only other thing I would bring to the table again is something that was brought up by our listeners. Yamamoto never started on four days rest. That's a Dodger thing too. Even Tyler Glasnell made one start all year on four days rest.

The other thing is, if there's evidence that only A health grades matter and everybody else is kind of in a bucket, then I only want A health grades for my first pick. Especially if I'm going in the first two rounds. Do you already have health grades for 2025? I don't, but there's no way you're giving Yamato an A. Yeah, he wouldn't get an A. Well, let's look at the guys that are going ahead of him and see who would get an A. But go ahead.

Sale wouldn't get an A. DeGrom wouldn't get an A. No chance. I don't think Cease would get an A. I don't think Scoobble would get an A either. I don't think Regans would get an A. I don't think Snail gets an A. So, if you're talking first two rounds for me, I think the only options are Skeens. I don't think Wheeler got an A,

but maybe he should get an A. I mean, it's A-ish. Skeens, Wheeler, Gilbert, and Kirby. Yeah, that's a pretty short list of pitchers to choose from. So then. It really is. Simple philosophical question. If you have the chance to take them. So then, simple philosophical question, if you have the chance to take them.

Do you go get skeins? Yeah, do you wanna go get them where they're going or do you say, you know. I piece out on all of you guys. I'm just building pitching staffs differently this year. Injury is such a big mountain for us all to deal with that I'm tempted to say, hey, I'm just gonna go hitters for four and then go pitchers

for six. You know, maybe throw a hitter in there somewhere in the six. But if I do that, what I'm doing is I'm getting four really good hitters. I'm getting the meat of my lineup. Right? Might be able to kind of get most of the infield and an outfielder, I could get four or five good hitters. And then I'm attacking kind of the Yamamoto area, hopefully. I'm getting Yamamoto and snow. Okay, so you might double tap. So that'd be at the end of round three,

beginning around four potentially. You're saying more like Planning on hitters if these pitchers are here at this point then I'm in on pitching if they're not there I Move down to the next group which You see a few more closers wedged in if the list is so small It's obviously two paths in the forest. The list is so small yet to get one of the small list I think Kirby in the forest. The list is so small, you have to get one of the small list. I think Kirby in the third makes a lot of sense for me.

And I know there's people out there that weren't excited about what Kirby did this year, but he pitched a lot of innings and they were good. What if I told you that because the early pick of the two was 26, that we would probably forecast more of a late second round ADP on Kirby. It depends a little bit on positioning. You would just probably take him with the second rounder knowing that there'll be hitters.

Or just circle Kirby and Gilbert. And if I can, if both are on the board and I'm near the turn, then maybe I can leave them on the board. If I'm not near the turn, then I just take Kirby. You know what I mean? Yeah. The other pitcher in that group that would have an A health grade most likely, we don't know where he's pitching in 2025, is Corbin Burns. He goes right there between Kirby and Gilbert.

We saw the K-rate drop, then we saw him bring the sweeper back at the end of the year. And there was a drop in Vilo that just had me a little bit concerned. But the thing is, when you start talking about health, it's like everything can concern you. A rise in VLO, a drop in VLO.

Don't do anything. Stay exactly the same. Don't change anything. Just stand still. You start throwing a sweeper? Oh no, that's not good. Keith Meister said that's bad. Yeah, you can find anyone that will tell you

that everything a pitcher does is bad. There's a source that will tell you anything a pitcher does is bad. I wonder if skeens in the first is kind of brilliant in this environment. Okay, so you're leaving your mind open to mid first round pick skeens and then piecing out on pitching for a while. I don't like taking scubal in the first. I don't like taking sail or degram in the second. There's a little bit easier for me to be like I don't like taking sail or de Grom in the second. There's a little bit easier for me to be like, I don't like taking these guys in these places. So Scoobble, I assume, is the injury concern from pre-24.

Pretty big workload. They just jumped his workload, you know, after having an injury concern. Yeah, that's gonna be a final count of 211 innings for Scoobble between the regular season and the playoffs. A previous high of like 140 or something. You got to 149 a third in 2021. It's a big jump for me.

Okay, yeah, it's gonna cost you a late first round pick, maybe even a mid first round pick if you end up wanting Scoobble in 2025. You know, Skeens and Wheeler, those are interesting to me. If I could get Wheeler in the second around the turn, you know, I got a bat. I got Wheeler. I feel pretty good.

Yeah. I feel like Wheeler's kind of crept up into the place where Garrett Cole lived for a long time. Kind of the older guy that has really good skills, pretty good long-term health. I know Cole just hurt this year. So that's why Cole's coming at a discount. But I think there's that really high floor that I think people are starting to feel with Wheeler that's driving him into that range. I loved Sale this year, where he was going.

Seeing him as the fifth pitcher off the board, that definitely makes me nervous. I mean, the good news has been that I think he's been able to start throwing already after Missing time at the end of the season you're throwing in October things are generally. Okay I wonder how many people are going to go into the draft next year thinking he was never hurt last year It's possible to think that like if you Kind of tapped out because your teams were sort of done the last couple of weeks and you weren't really following for any sort of postseason reason also the way that the Braves reported things did not make it seem like he was hurt, but he never pitched again after his last start like September 14th or something. Yeah, ended up getting to 177 and two-thirds innings.

That was the most that Sale had thrown in a season since 2017. But they were really good. Got the K-rate over 30% again. I think your eat a hat situation changed by the way on sale. I think it expired enough time has passed We don't eat the hat eat the half for what for sale being an ace again. Oh Yeah, did I say he would never be I think you did but it was a long time ago. So maybe maybe you're okay I don't mind taking a guy like Snell, who maybe Snellish is kinda sailish,

like last year's sail. I think the difference for me with Blake Snell continues to be that most of the problems are not shoulder and elbow, right? He's had a bunch of injuries with the shower pedestal thing. Hamstring, toes, weird things. There's some strange ones in there. He's a a bunch of injuries, I mean the shower pedestal thing. Hamstring, toes, weird things. There's some strange ones in there.

He's a little younger. He's gonna turn 32 in December. We don't know where he's pitching. Plus the cost is lower, is my whole point. Yeah, right, you're getting him at the end of round three instead of ponying up something. That still seems pretty aggressive for Snail. End of round three, huh?

End of round three. And a 15 teamer, yeah. I think the general goal I have is to not have pitching early this year. That's my initial read. It could change, because it's October 18th, but my snap reaction is maybe I can build a really good pitching staff without a pitcher

in the first five rounds and live to tell the tale. I feel the same way. And I think it's, it's just amazing. The number of pitchers in baseball right now that have had Tommy John is at all time, at all time high. 39% of the pitchers that pitch this year had had had Tommy John. Now that doesn't mean that Tommy John is peaking. I've looked at the instances of Tommy John surgery and they're down. We're coming off a peak.

That's one of those things where the number of people who've had it in the big leagues is actually a lagging indicator. Cause you're talking about people who have careers, you know, and so they've, they could have had it four years ago. So the number of Tommy Johns is down a little bit, but we're also, I think, see, I think seeing a lot more preventative IL usage where maybe these guys wouldn't have gone on the IL in the past, you know, and it's just inflammation. And then they're, they're gone for four or five weeks on inflammation. I mean, what was the diagnosis for coal in

the end? I Think it was inflammation. That was a nerve. It was a nerve problem for Cole. And nerve stuff's just weird. Like, it takes time. Like a nerve impingement. He's not all the way back. In terms of command, he's not where he used to be.

In terms of Velo, he's not where he used to be. And you wonder how much of that is rust, how much of that is tweaking mechanics to not make his elbow feel bad. Compensating, yeah. The slider's not as crisp as it used to be. I wonder how far down the list I can go. You know, I had that team a few years ago,

Tyler Malley, SP1. Tell me who I'm looking at if I don't take a starter until the fifth round or the sixth round. So nobody inside the top 75, again these are two drafts, that would knock out everybody down through Bryce Miller. So that would mean you could take... I don't even get Bryce Miller? No, Bryce Miller's going right there at the end of round five.

So we'll cut it off there. Okay. Grayson Rodriguez... It would be nice to have Bryce Miller as my ace. I would take it. Yeah, so maybe man around if you're in the right position, end of round five, you could do it it but let's say you're not there Grayson Rodriguez Tanner Bybee Jack Flaherty Bailey Ober Spencer Strider Oooh. Haha, yeah. Now you know my plan. Hunter Brown.

Oh. Aaron Nola. Wow. Logan Webb. Why is Nola and Webb down there? Hey, look, I see a plan here. A double tap. Quantity and quality.

Freddie Peralta and Aaron Nola. Freddie Peralta and Logan Webb. I would do it, but you know, that's not a surprise to anybody. Spencer Schwellenbach's down there. The nice thing about doing this is, I mean, in all likelihood, you just bought yourself 320, 350 innings of 3-3 ball with something like that, right?

That's a good foundation. Now, once you have those innings in hand, then you start taking some higher variance guys after that who may not ever make it to the end of your league, but you hit on two or three of those, now you have a four man staff, a five man staff. You're just, in these 15 team leagues, you're literally just looking for four pitchers that will stay with you all year. That's what you're just in these 15 team leagues. You're literally just looking for four pitchers

that will stay with you all year. That's what you're trying to do because the rest of the guys are gonna be off your roster. Some other names that are in this group. This is why I was trying to tell you before, Mike, I think you have a bigger edge right now than you do later because these are gonna change. This early stuff, it will look nothing like March ADP

because there are some unanswered questions about a bunch of players in this group. I mean, Spencer Strider at 88, if Spencer Strider is healthy in the spring or reports are good in the spring, you're not getting him there. That's the benefit of drafting early and taking on the risk is getting discounts on players

you won't get discounts on later. Yeah, the risk is right now is kind of rough't get discounts on later. Yeah, the risk is, right now, it's kind of rough on Strider there because if there's any setbacks or any, he could give you two, three months of work next year. It might not be great. We're not seeing Tyler Glass now, right now, and I think the last update I saw on Roto Wire

was from two weeks ago, and he still wasn't throwing. But it wasn't Tommy John. He's not expected to undergo surgery. Well he didn't even have a surgery. No, but. But he might. If he still could and a more definitive plan is gonna happen once they get more scans after the season.

So that's pretty ominous still. And the price on glass now, the two drafts that have been completed, pick 69 and pick one 59. I feel like maybe that pick 69 was before, before even the not throwing news came out. Like maybe that was the draft. And one 59 is more like where we're at today. I'd love Tyler glass now as a pitcher. That's, that's a possible zero based on where things are at right now because there's so much to be determined Ramps up and once they get more looks at them. There are other pictures being taken that are zeros at 150 I mean, yeah other pictures that could just be nothing for you in that range for sure

So maybe if he falls like I could actually throw that dart, but I'm not doing that up in the pick 100 range where you've got Nola Webb, Schwellenbach, Galen, Rodin. Carlos Rodin right there seems pretty good, right? Stuff is crisp here in the playoffs. You mentioned before not wanting to get tricked, not falling into a trap because of what you're seeing in the playoffs, but would you say that Carlos Rodan is not actually a trap

based on how he's looked throughout the end of this season? The risk on him is twofold. It's not only injury, it's that he has poor command. But where that's going? He's always a guy that with the stuff plus projections gets projected for like a 3-4 ERA. That's the first thing that with the stuff plus projections gets projected for like a three, four year. That's the first thing that's going to move the market is when more public facing projections start to drop. That's going to guide some decisions. So it's almost like if you have your own projections or you're good at predicting what a projection is going to do, you could say, hey, wait a minute. That's a two round discount on Carlos Rodan. So here we go.

We have some end of season projections in the Google doc for people that want to look at them. Just, if you're a subscriber, you can follow the link off of any of my rankings. It's sitting there right there. Those are context neutral. They're not park adjusted, so I think Rodan will look even nicer in those. How far down this list can we really go? The extreme wait for your first pitcher.

How far can we go? Can we go down to? I get pretty nervous right around where you were talking. All right. If I can't get somebody like a Logan Webb, then I'm talking about taking on not only performance risk, but innings risk. And if like taking both of those just seems sadism.

Yeah, I mean we've got Shane McClanahan's throwing live BP's, he's coming off his second Tommy John surgery, so 116.5, the average for McClanahan. Can't draft him like an ace. Carlos Rodones, for some reason the search function is not working for me on this. You might have to just copy and paste it out and check it out. But here Carlos Rodones, gotta be on here.

Brett Phillips has a projection 422 ERA with the 20 IVB. Love it. It's pretty good. Brett Phillips to the pen next year. Here we go. Carlos Rodones, stuff based, park neutral injury projection ERA is 386. Clark Schmidt is 37, Garrett Cole is 36. Just a knowledge for your ear holes. Solid like SP three at a minimum, but probably a two if you stretch it a little bit and then back

it up with a few more wins and wins lots of wins. How about Shane Boz? I know I'm fascinated with Ray's pitching forever and always pick one 30 and pick one 50 in the two drafts so far. I was looking at his game log. We talked about the addition of stuff plus by game on fan graphs. And I think when we saw Boz come back initially, he wasn't quite as crisp as he was pre-injury. Things didn't look as good.

The numbers by the end of the year look solid. I don't know if they're still lagging behind. He's going after Pepio, so is Pepio going before this place? Pepio is going after right now. Pepio's going at 153 and 180 for the two drafts in so far. I've taken Pepio over Boz for a few reasons. Just a little bit of maturity, you know,

in terms of having made some adjustments, a better projection. Context neutral 378 for Pepio, 407 for Boz, 25% strikeout rate for Pepio. Plus, the other part of the context here is that I feel like the Rays are gonna need someone to throw innings. They're gonna need to have somebody out there on day one

that they can kind of pitch all year. And I think that's a little bit more Pepeo. I think they can push a lot of these guys though now. I mean, the one that I think they're gonna be most careful with is McClanahan because multiple Tommy Johns and he didn't get back. And Rasmussen. Rasmussen to be very careful with him.

I could see maybe stacking a couple of pitchers though from the staff at these prices, like why not? I think we did mention earlier in the week, the roof damage from Hurricane Milton on the trop, I saw a story from Mark Topkin following up. They are not expected to have that fixed for opening day. So where are they playing is a huge question. Montreal is not an option because, you know, everyone said that.

And it's kind of a fun idea, but they're putting a roof on the stadium in Montreal. So they're in the middle of renovations there. I don't think that's an option. Durham came out and said, we love Tampa. They're our parents, but we don't expect to be the home of the Tampa Bay Rays this coming season. So I've seen people say, what about Steinbrenner Field? I think Tampa owns that, not the Yankees.

But that would be super weird. That would be weird. I've been to that park. It's a nice spring training park, but it'd be very strange to play regular season games. It's one of the best spring training parks. It's the closest. I mean, we're already having them play

in spring training in Sacramento. Rays to Oakland from producer Brian Smith is something that's been floated. The only problem is they're in the AL East. That'd be a really rough one. You'd be signing on for some bad travel. Yeah, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was, you know, one of their minor league parks in Tampa,

there, one of theirs, I mean, in Florida. Where's their spring location? I think Port Charlotte. But Port Charlotte just had a bunch of stuff happen to it. Yeah, it's not a great situation. They can't play in Tampa with the roof off because it doesn't have the draining for it. Could you play, I mean, I know a lot of times

when there's a series or a game we made up they use Milwaukee because of the roof there, you're not gonna get cancellations. I don't know if you can do anything with the schedule to just stagger it where Brewers are gone, Razor in. Can you use some other major league facility anywhere? Can you even play in Atlanta? So any way to make that schedule work?

I mean, the way that the the A's are doing it right now in Sacramento is they're actually sharing it with the minor league team. So I'm a little surprised that Durham came out and said that it's not possible because they're doing it in Sacramento. The Sacramento team is staying there and they're both playing there. Yeah. They've also done this in the past with Major League teams. I think your best actual bet would be.

The Yankees and the Mets shared the same facility for a little bit. That'd be strange. A AAA park that is somewhat close geographically, that quarter of the country, that third of the country, because then you're not making your travel worse. You have a facility that's large enough and close to Major League Ready

that maybe with a few temporary upgrades could be fine. This might make some of the raise pitchers less of a good bet than we think. That was the one thing that was kind of kicking around in my head. I'm like, maybe stacking the Rays right now until we know where that's going to be. Maybe that's a little bit risky because-

I think Pepio's good enough to be good anywhere. And I think Boz is, Bradley though, you know, he's so high variance anyway. If he could figure it out and be an ace next year, he's that type of special arm, but he also, you know, could be in a minor league park that gives up one bunch of homers and just has another badge here. So it's, you know, Pepeo is the one that I would be comfortable pitching no matter where

he pitches, I feel like. One other name to throw at you before we go. Sandy Alcontra, coming back from Tommy John surgery, was a workhorse before the injury, did have a down year in 2023 relative to what we saw the previous two seasons, but it's a great track record, gets the pitcher friendly home park in Miami. Not going to give you the strikeout rate of an ace. No, I think the tricky thing is always going to be like, how hard are they going to push

him? I mean, it's a little bit like a Logan Webb where you don't know if you have the innings. Yeah, it's a little bit like that. But if the price is pick 174, that's the earlier of two picks so far. He's definitely going to move up, right? Reports should be positive, all that. He missed all of 2024. So he's going to be pitching in spring as if it's the beginning of a new season. He's got no pitching in spring as if it's the beginning of a new season. He's got no, it's not like, oh, he's gonna start. And I mean, Walker Bueller missed all of one season and did have setbacks. So I do think that the information in spring

will be valuable. And that's to me the big difference between TJ number one and TJ number two. I think you can sometimes see more struggles struggles for the second one but I like where he's going I think that's a fair early target to consider if you're looking for some bulk you want ratios especially in that range like even if you're using him for most most of his starts like all of his home starts and half of his road starts that's fine for that late you're not paying you know pre-injury prices or anything close to it for Sandy Alcantara

So yeah, I think it's gonna be a year of waiting on pitching I think that's the the early outlook. We'll see if that changes and there's a few early names We've mentioned that we do actually like I mean building around Paul skein sounds kind of fun But you have to draw the right spot in the actual draft order to make that happen I think we have seen some evidence from early drafts that there is sort of a general weight on pitching feeling. And I think that's also, for the reason you mentioned earlier,

people wait because there's a lot that can go wrong for a pitcher between now and the middle of March. That's the other part of the bump. You get more information, but you also shorten the timeline for guys to get hurt. So that's the other part of it too. You get through most of spring training healthy. Okay, great.

You're, you're okay. Let's, let's go ahead and throw you on the roster. We'll see guys jump up two or three rounds, four rounds in some cases from where they're going right now. So think about that. If you sign up for those early drafts, you know, as Sandy gets news about his health, that's, that's one that's going to move all the former aces that have big injuries year over year over year they're always discounted right now. This is the time to get them if you think they're going to be mostly okay. We're

gonna go one little bit of news as we go you will see Jeff McNeil playing for the Mets in the starting lineup. I think they had to make that switch. Iglesias just has not been giving them much. It also feels like Iglesias is the kind of player that if they get into a key spot this weekend, if the series does go beyond Friday, or even in Friday's game, Iglesias comes in off the bench as a pinch hitter and slaps a double down the line and ends up making a huge difference.

And nice thing about using him as a pinch hitter, as opposed to like a David Frye, is you can use him as a pinch hitter for anybody and he can step in and play the position. Right, he can stay in the game defensively. I think that's the right call. If you believe Jeff McNeil is mostly himself, he's the better hitter of those two,

even though Iglesias has put up some ridiculous numbers at Citi Field so far this season. Thanks to Brian Smith for producing this episode. We are gonna go on our way out the door. A reminder, you can get a subscription to the athletic. $2 a month gets you in the door at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Find Eno at EnoSaris on Twitter.

Find me at Derek VanRiper. Find the pod at rates and barrels. Enjoy the baseball this weekend. We're back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening.