Rates & Barrels - Another Dodgers Signing, Mookie's First-Round Status & Jarren Duran's Encore

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

Eno and DVR discuss Hye-seong Kim's fit with the Dodgers after he signed a three-year deal with the club Friday, Mookie Betts' outlook as a first-rounder coming off of a relatively disappointing 2024 that included time on the IL with a wrist injury, Jarren Duran's surprisingly-low 2025 Steamer projection, and a few other mailbag questions including one about our previous wish for a 'player squishing machine'. #WeAreScience Rundown 3:36 Hye-seong Kim Signs with Dodgers; The Depth Chart Gets More Crowded 11:21 Will Mookie Betts Return First-Round Value Again in 2025? 22:11 Charlie Morton Signs with Baltimore; Concerns About O's Rotation? 30:03 A New Study Looking at UCL Surgery Recoveries 36:27 Jarren Duran's 2025 Steamer Projection 46:53 Contrarian Targets & Holds 54:33 Playoff League Player Draft Approach 59:43 The Player Squishing Machine Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Offer ends January 31, 2025. Visit td.com slash DI Offer to learn more. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Monday, January 6th, 2025. Derek Van Riper, Enocerous here with you on this episode. The Dodgers have made yet another addition to their roster. We'll introduce you to a new Dodger and try to make sense of what has become the most crowded depth chart, probably in the entire league right now.

Tons of great mailbag questions. We had a Charlie Morton signing, not with one of the two teams we would have expected. So we'll analyze that. He goes to Baltimore. We've got a study on UCL recoveries that was recently published that we're going to talk a little bit about. And then we've got a bunch of other topics we're going to hit over the course of this hour as well.

You know how the weekend treats you. I was just, uh, just, it's all right. It's all right. You know, when you see the end of a long break coming, you're kind of, uh, you don't know what to do. You know, do we do, do another day in pajamas or do we get out of the house because, you know, we're not going to be able to do stuff. So I took the kids to see Mufasa and had some Chipotle. Mufasa? There's a prequel to the Lion King?

There is a prequel to the Lion King. There are no new ideas. Now Hollywood really has mailed it in for a while now. It's disappointing. Well if you're sad about that, there is a screens channel in our discord. You can make recommendations for various things to see in a movie theater or to watch at home. We appreciate that.

Of course we can talk a little baseball in there. You can join with the link in the show description. And if you're watching us on YouTube, smash the like button, smash it. Yeah, please do. And please go on the, on the screens thing and tell me what to watch. Cause it's been pretty bad. Yeah, please do. And please go on the on the screens thing and tell me what to watch because it's been pretty bad. I do a lot of alone binge watching, which is like this. They stick people in the middle of nowhere and they have to, you know, find food and stuff. I don't know why I watch it. It's because I don't even really love camping because I hate sleeping on the ground.

I like hiking. So this is kind of like an outdoorsy show. And then I think there's like, you know, part of me that's like, I could do that. I could eat the rat. I could totally eat the rat. Well, I couldn't. So you would survive longer than me. I would just avoid the situation in the first place.

That's how I would survive. It's like, why do you watch these? We used to binge watch like home, like, like the shows that. The renovation shows, I don't know how to say it. Like, yeah, that whole. We used to watch a ton of those and Maggie's like, my wife is like, you've got like you have, you can't fix anything in the house. And I'm like, yeah, you're right

And she's like your dad's a contractor and he does this for a living You don't want to put this on when he's over, you know, just be like work And and I was like, I don't know why I like it. I think it's just the reveal You know, yeah well the transformation so really all you need is a 30 second or 90 second clip, maybe of the before and the after, if you could just get a montage of those, it would save you a lot of time. They should just be TikToks. There's, there's, there's our next great idea.

We'll get the home improvement vertical that we put into the rates and barrels network. That's, that's what we want. How about we talk about some baseball? into the rates and barrels network. That's what we want. How about we talk about some baseball? Hyasong Kim joins the Dodgers. And I didn't think this was going to happen.

We got another player coming over from the KBO and all the rumors were that Kim was going to land somewhere else. And then of course he lands with the Dodgers. And I think the thing about Kim that makes it a particularly challenging fit is that he's a second baseman. He's a very good second baseman. He's a very good second baseman.

It's a contact heavy sort of approach. Long time pro in the KBO, has speed, stole 30 bases last year. Popped 11 homers, but that's sort of like the upper end of the power we've seen from Hyoseong Kim during his time in Korea. And then you just think about the Dodgers and we already had the, how does everybody fit?

Should they trade Gavin Lux? And now I feel like all of those Gavin Lux is going to be traded to the Mariners pieces, got a refresh over the weekend after the signing happened on Friday. And then you start to think about the terms of the deal. It's only a three year, 12 and a half million dollar deal. So that's kind of like a bench player contract, but if he's good enough to be a regular at second base, he could be a regular at second. It's just a question of how do they balance the playing time

with the depth chart as it is? And like, what do you think the comps are too, looking at the production Kim showed in the KBO, his age, and trying to translate those skills against big league pitching. Yeah, I mean, Hey, Sam Kim is a plus runner, but if you compare him to his compatriot house on Kim, Hey, Sam, like topped out, as you said, at 11 homers last year, averaged more like. Four homers a year. I mean, he had a year in 2019 where he had 348 387 played appearances and didn't hit a homer.

So, you know, this is not a guy who is coming over for his power. And just for reference, Haseong Kim, when he was over there, had a 30 homerun season, averaged more like 22, 23 homers a season and has come over and has been one of the lower power regulars in baseball hasseom Kim averaging Something like you know 12 homers is a year So if hasseom Kim is not even hitting, you know four or five homers a year. He may come over and not hit any homers I reached out to somebody who knows the space pretty well. He said that I reached out to somebody who knows the space pretty well. He said that, um, Hey, Hey, Sam Kim's max TV last year was one Oh eight.

And that was a career high, uh, that puts him, uh, pretty close to some other guys. Uh, the other way I looked at it was clay Davenport has a site called clay Davenport.com where he has translations. He's still doing these. It's great. Um, and, uh And his translation for what Haesong Kim did last year in the KBO was a 280 average with a 380 slugging. And so that is a 100 ISO. If you want to look at 100 ISOs and lower, you get Bryce Turang, who's also on

the 108 list and I think might be the high end outcome for Haysang Kim. Sal Freelick is also on the list. Jacob Young, Luis Arias, Andres Jimenez. So that's the type of player that you're hoping can be plus defense, plus runner. I don't think he has the hit tool of an Arias. I don't even know if he has the hit tool of a Sal Freelick. So I think Rice Turing and Jacob Young are probably the best, um, cops for him, you know? So, uh, it's going to be defense first base running package. If he becomes a starter, those kinds usually work at center field and, uh,

and shortstop, but Turing and Jimenez show you that some teams will value that at second base. So there is some percentage chance that he becomes a regular. I don't know exactly what it is. I would say maybe 30, because right now the percentage chance it becomes a regular is really low, 5%. So you're baking in a possible trade. And I think you also have to think that, uh, Chris Taylor could be a DFA at this point, because if we build a bench, oh no, we're back. We're back to building a Dodgers bench. I know this is, this is one of the harder ones too. It's you got our Tanya DH.

Um, and if you're going to start, let's say we're just starting I know this is, this is one of the harder ones too. It's you got our Tony at DH. And if you're going to start, let's say we're just starting Conforto, Edmund and Hernandez in the outfield. We're starting Muncie bets at short Lux at second, Freeman at first, Will Smith, if you do all that, you have four, no, you have three more spots. I think this one's actually become pretty easy. I think so then Barnes is one of those spots, right? Your backup catchers won. Are you saying that Hey, Sam Kim can play backup shortstop better than Chris Taylor?

No, you haven't been a little house there, too. You're going to keep Rojas on the team. I think you're probably keeping Rojas for now. So it's Rojas Barnes and Hey, Sam Kim, because you just gave him $12 million. And pies. And that's the bench. There's $12 million. Yeah. And Pais. And that's bench. There's your four bench guys. That's it.

Easiest build the bench ever. Okay. Pais is making it. That means Taylor's gone. Yeah. I don't see how they can keep you don't trade Lux to keep Taylor. No, you don't. I think you just keep Lux and you say, well, that last year of Taylor's. Contract was a mistake, but you know, thank you for your time. That's going to be kind of a sad day because Taylor's been a part of a lot of his teams.

And I just don't think that they also would be like, let's sign Kim and then option him to keep Taylor on this roster. I don't know if that's the plan. No, that's a possibility, but it's looking increasingly like a complete position player group. And as we suggested the last time the Dodgers made a move, each thing they've done has really pushed them further down the Mookie Betts at shortstop pass to work rabbit hole. Like that's just where they're going. Because Kim has already moved off of short.

Hey, Sam Kim does not played short in Korea. Um, let's see. It's 2020, 2021. And then that's it. 2022. He's a full-time second baseman. So, I mean, that's three years of being a full-time second baseman in another league. Maybe they like him enough and they think that's the kind of smart play here is that they're actually could play Camet at short and Mookie at second and Lux all of a sudden becomes.

I think Lux is one of the riskier, quote unquote, everyday players in drafts and just generally. And he could get traded to Seattle, there's a lot of people wanting to get traded for Seattle, but I don't know that Lux is a headliner. People are like, oh, Lux for Castillo. I don't know that Lux is a headliner

for Castillo level return anymore. Unless you are getting rid of all that money on the Mariners case, right? If the Dodgers are going to eat all the salary, then maybe something like that's enough to get the deal done. But yeah, the, the trade value of Gavin Lux today versus two and three years ago, when the rumors really first started up completely different, right? So much has changed over time, fewer years of control, not showing the same ceiling that we'd hoped for before.

So, okay. So Mookie Betts is going to play shortstop. I'll just accept that now. That's fine. The question we got in Discord, a few different people asked this. I saw it most recently from Kyle Baseball Juice. Curious if anyone is the insight of Betts for 2025. He's projected to go in the first round again in my league, but I can't help but notice his 6% barrel rate last year down from 12.4% and its career mark of 8.2%. Are we thinking business as usual for Betts at the plate in 2025 or is this just the sign of a decline in a 32 year old player?

Before we really dig into it too, I think one factor for me with Mookie Betts is he had that wrist injury last year. So I have a hard time looking at the power drop-off of that magnitude and just attributing all of it to age. And I think there's also, because of his hit tool, because of the athleticism he's shown, because we had back-to to back 35 plus home run seasons in 22 and 20, 23.

I'm hesitant to just push Mookie into the rapid decline bucket. I don't I don't think that's what we're looking at here. I think he's a player that will continue to age very gracefully. So, yeah, even though we're seeing what the lowest hard hit rate since 2017 from him, I think there's a pretty good explanation for it. I think you could also like acknowledge all that and say, maybe he's not a first rounder anymore. Maybe he's a second rounder or a third rounder, and he's still going to be in either the best lineup in the league or one of the best lineups

in the league. So the counting stats are going to be good. You still had plenty of steals last year, right? 16 for 18 as a base stealer over 516 plate appearances. So maybe still a 20 steal sort of pace. What do you make a Mookie right now? The projections have them at 29 homers and 15 steals from steamer with a 278 average. So that's still with those counting stats comes in really darn close to a first rounder. If not in the first round. Yeah, I'm buying him, you know, especially if I can sneak him, you know, in the second,

I'm sure he's going to be one of these turn type players. Even last year he was at the turn, right? So we're looking at some ADP numbers earlier. And I'm trying to find the window now 11th he's been 11th overall in the last two weeks the range is pick 8 to pick 15 So he's still a back half around one guy for 15 team leagues by how the markets handling him That's a little weird for me. I thought that's that's almost higher than last year. I feel like How would that be?

anyway than last year I feel like. Why would that be? Anyway, pitchers could be dropping out of the first round. I do think that fewer people are doing that. I want to point out though that, I know it's a small sample, but 75 plate appearances from Mookie Betts in the postseason with four homers and 274 ISO. So it's, you know, you kind of want to tack that onto the end of whatever. And, you know, 75 plate appearances is enough for you to say, you know, that's enough of a sample to put in, you know? And he looked good. I thought he looked fine.

Hit some homers. I also wonder if having an injury doesn't allow you to do the weighted back work that you were doing. We're increasingly finding out if you do weighted back work, maybe you have to keep doing it to keep reaping its benefits. And, um, and so maybe he had to stop off of that. And that's where you sort of saw an increased decline, increased decline, because it was before the 2023 season

that he went to drive line to work on his bat speed for the first time, I think. Yeah, I just have a really, really hard time writing off his bats. Going from 39 to 19, and then he's done. Like, 39 homers for him in 2023 to 19 last year, and now he's not gonna ever get back to 30. I don't know. I would say a 29 homerun, that's the overender for me, he's 29 homers and that's

perfect place to be. He's such a good player in terms of making contact, stealing enough bases to be a non-zero there, you know, having a good batting average, like people underrate how hard it is to keep your batting average high in the league these days. And having him as your first pick means you're doing everything, right? Yeah. I'm still on board.

Yeah, I think he makes a lot of sense in that late first round range. If you're trying to say like the would you would you rather is like, how do you stack them up compared to the other guys that go around there? Are you taking Tatis over bets? If you have the choice, sitting, sitting in that pack and pick nine. Hmm. I love to TST.

Yeah. Okay. So you might take Tatis over. It doesn't mean bets is bad. Would you take Corbin Carroll over Mookie bets? No, I don't. I think Corbin, I think there's a legit question, more legit questions about Corbin Carroll's power.

Right. And the long-term concerns about his shoulder are still probably there, even though things looked a lot better in the second half, you mentioned the pitching. Skeens and Scoobble are both options when you're looking at Mookie in that back half around, why are you taking either one of those pictures over him? Skeins is very tempting to me because, um, I'm really interested in my first pitcher being sort of a, and an a health grade.

I'm not sure I can put a scubal, uh, in a health grade on scubal. And so, uh, skeins would be a tough one for me. So I would be putting skeins, Tatis and bets in a bucket there, hoping for one of them, I think. There's an outside chance, I feel like, in some drafts you said 15. I'm not sure which direction that arrow is on bets

as people discuss it, you know what I mean? Because I direction that arrow is on bets as, as people discuss it. You know what I mean? Because I think that last year, I remember him being sort of around the turn. No, no, no. Okay. So last year he was coming off of the 39th, November season. He was probably going to top five, top six. Yeah.

He was going a little earlier last year, but you know, show Hay and judge and a few guys were going back in the same sort of range. This happens a lot. Guys that have top five skills slide a little bit. And then what happens in the part of draft season, when you have moves that you could make, the pitching creeps up a little bit more, right? When you get to February and March, especially,

I think you'll see Skeens and maybe Scubal reliably going inside the first round instead of Scubal being kind of like the first guy out and Skeens being at pick 12 like he is right now. You think those guys will both creep up just a little bit And then you'll see a couple of these bats that our first round bats become early second round bats Maybe Mookie's in that group this year, but I don't think it's because of actual decline. That's that's my main thing I have no no reservations about taking Mookie there. I prefer Mookie to Lindor

Lindor goes a few picks later. I prefer Mookie to Lindor. Lindor goes a few picks later. I think that's an easy call for me in favor of Betts. I think I prefer him over Vladimir Garad Jr. Yeah, same. And Julio Rodriguez is a little bit tougher because Julio could really kind of put it together one of these years.

But it is just, I think it's partially Park. Part of it's his approach. Like he does strike out a fair amount. He's not as much of a, like Mookie Betts doesn't strike out. It's so important in terms of batting average and stuff. So I'll take Mookie over Julio and I probably, you know, revisiting that Tatis thing, I might take him over Tatis too, because you've got, with Tatis you've got injury and whiffs, you know, and both have been in pretty large supply recently.

Like even last year, it was a pretty good season for Tatis, he was hurt. So, you know, the turn is really interesting because, you know, if you're not gonna take a scubal and you choose a bat over skeins, then you're going to get a bat on the way back. I don't think there's unless you're unless you really push Wheeler, which we there's been going 20. But let's say you're picking like 14 or 15 and, you know, skeins is gone. You're not taking scubal, you know, for whatever reason.

And then you're going to go bat bat there. And there's a lot of like, you know, oh, you could go Jordan Alvarez and Julio Rodriguez. Oh, you just want two outfielders in a row, you know? Or you take Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Julio Rodriguez. That's like interesting pairing, but you also didn't take anybody with sort of a premium up the middle position either.

So, um, that's an interesting place to be at the turn. Do you, have you liked it? Where did you go in your, in your draft? I drafted sixth in both the leagues I've done so far. So I haven't had that opportunity, but I think I would probably be more inclined to go hitter hitter unless skeins is there with one of those end positions. And oftentimes at like 14, 15 he's gone. So if I'm going hitter hitter there, it's because I'm looking ahead to that pick 35 to 45 range where you can sometimes see Jacob de Grom still hanging

around, maybe a Kirby or Corbin burns are a possibility. See, I, I, I, I dig, I think Corbin burns has an a health grade for me. And I, and I dig where he's going to right now. I really liked that. So I would go hitter hitter and get, and try to get Corbin Burns later. Right. And that might work now. I don't know if that same combination is going to be possible in March, but

Hey, play, play the game as it is. If you're playing the draft and holds. What's your favorite, like coupling you, you could do if you were at 15? Like let's say Julio's on the board. Julio's there. I really like Jordaan down in that range. I'd probably put Jordaan with somebody that runs. Like I wouldn't put Jordaan with Vlad Jr.

Cause then you're just way too light on speed. But- Jordaan and Lindor is pretty high floor. Jordaan and Lindor would be good. Jordaan and Churor is pretty high floor. Your Don and Lindor would be good. Your honor, Cheerios. Yeah, exciting. But do something like that to outfielder's Cheerio do.

Sure, it was a second round pick already. Yeah, Cheerios range 13 to 24 so far in the last two weeks. So I think I think the ideal combo for me out of that back group is something like Julio and Jordán or Churio and Jordán. Yeah, that's kind of fun. But I understand why people would want Lindor or somebody a little safer as one of those two. Yeah. Two outfielders. I mean, you'd take a long break off an outfield after that, probably.

But that's fine. I mean, you eat five of them. Yeah, that's true. Doesn't make a big difference. But thanks a lot for that question, Kyle. I know a few people were wondering about bets in the last couple of weeks. Hi, it's Alexa Weibel from New York Times Cooking. We've got tons of easy weeknight recipes

and I'm gonna make two of my favorites for you today. For my five ingredient creamy miso pasta, you just take your starchy pasta water, whisk it together with a little bit of miso and butter until it's creamy. Add your noodles and a little bit of cheese. Hmm, it's like a grown-up box of mac and cheese. An easy weeknight recipe that feels

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

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Charlie Morton lands with the Orioles. I was just surprised. Charlie Morton. I just thought he was at the point in his career where it was Atlanta or Tampa Bay or retirement. That's where I thought we were, but the spring training home of the Orioles is Sarasota. That's close enough to home. So that's enough, I guess, to get it done in this case. And Charlie Morton at this stage of his career, it's more just like,

hey, this is fun. He's 41 years old and he's still getting guys out. I don't know if there's a whole lot to be excited about from a fantasy perspective. It's depth for the Orioles. They need a lot of innings, of course, to get to the regular season. I think a lot of people who root for this team are just frustrated because you lose Corbin Burns in the free agency. You do sign Tyler O'Neal. You get more thump as your backup catcher DH rotation with Gary Sanchez. And now you add Morton for some veteran volume and is it really

is this a good rotation, an average rotation, a bad rotation? How worried should Orioles fans actually be right now? It's only January 6th. This time last year, Corbin Burns was still a brewer. So you do have time for your front office to go out and make a move. But let's just say we go through the rest of this winter and. It's nothing else massive. It's it's a Grayson Rodriguez, Zach, Eflin, Morton, Dean Kramer, Tomoyuki Sugano, and then you got your depth guys like Suarez and Povich as your next options up, like is that going to work and keep this team in contention in the AL East again?

Man, if you look to see where he is on the Fangraph's death chart, where the Orioles are. For like the war for their rotation? Yeah, for the, just for, yeah. I haven't looked, are they like 16th? 25th. Well, it's even lower. I really thought they'd be closer to average because I really like Grayson Rodriguez.

So I wonder if the Grayson Rodriguez projection is lighter than what I'm trying to project for him. 366 ERA for Grayson Rodriguez, 2.5 war. He's, he could be better than that. Oh, yeah, you know, he's kind of got like breakout ish potential and he's got all the pieces It's like one of those things where at some point he's gonna figure out how to put all the pieces together, you know and The the projection is mostly, you know, Eflin and Rodriguez are above-average pitchers and nobody else is is mostly, you know, Eflin and Rodriguez are above average pitchers and nobody else is.

It has Charlie Morton at a 1.4 war guy, which I, he's, Charlie Morton is fine and I like him and I love him as a, as a person and as an interview and everything, but he's, he's sort of approaching, the kind of Adam Wainwright ending where the curve ball still is, is really his only, right ending where the curve ball still is, is really his only, his really is only stuff pitch. Right. And so everything he's doing is playing off that curve ball and it's just going to get harder and harder as the VELO drops and as the stuff gets worse on the other pitches. And, um, I think there's a fair amount of collapse potential and even the upside

is probably a league average pitcher. Dean Kramer may get hurt by the changes in the walls we've talked about and wasn't that great of a pitcher to begin with. And then you've got, according to Fangrass, you've got the Povich Rogers. They don't have Tomoyuki Sugano on there yet. Um, that, that would maybe push them up because let's say you think Sugano can be at least, uh, an average fifth starter. Um, you would give the Orioles about a half a win more. And if you gave them a half a win more, they'd rocket up to 22nd, just

ahead of the giants who have had a real or really hurt by the fact that Beyond Webb and Ray the projections don't really love their pictures that much Fair enough. So just to the broader question like if this is what they have are you worried about the Orioles falling? far enough in the AL playoff picture where they they might be vulnerable or do you look at them as a team that could out hit their pitching throughout the first half and then still if they don't get it done between now and opening day maybe go out and make a move to the deadline. Yeah I mean they're trying to keep as much of the powder dry as possible the guys they've traded if you've noticed have been guys that have even been blocked on the depth chart offensively or and are probably both of these things blocked on the depth chart and are getting older.

So they the only guys they've really traded that don't really follow that or maybe maybe Joey Ortiz. Who could have found a place on the depth chart and wasn't that old yet. But you know, even Joey Ortiz is 26, so that's actually pretty old. And so what they're trying to do is, you know, keep anyone who's young and has massive upside and also not get locked up into longterm contracts. It looks like, but that's smart. You know, uh, that gets you a lot of pats on the backs and votes for executive of the year. Uh, unfortunately, I just don't think this starting rotation

is, is doing it for me. You know, it, it's depending a lot on Grayson Rodriguez, breaking out and everyone else being fine. And even if those things happen, you get to a postseason situation and you've got Grayson Rodriguez. And on game two, you're talking about mixing and matching already. Yeah, you're probably an underdog in any game that Grayson Rodriguez doesn't start in a playoff series. Yeah. As you're currently built.

So Sugano is a low stuff guy, high command guy. Maybe maybe it works out better than I think, but it's just weird, man. I thought that they should have, especially with the contract that Corbin Burns ended up signing, they should have been there for that. They should have beaten that. I don't know what, I guess the idea is to out hit, but we, we also, debt, we also talked about how the hitting sort of fell apart late last year. Adley was banged up from late June on. So I think you have to put that into some of the conversation.

Gunnar was great all year. Gunnar was great all year. Westberg got hurt too late. Yeah. Holiday, I think was starting to show some signs late in the year. So you have that. Mullins the season was nuts. And the, yeah, my God, Heston cursed that like the up and down.

I know when you have that much depth, that's just something that you have to do. Manage the roster or play the guys that are playing well, make those tough decisions, but at a certain point you just have to let it happen. My spies in Baltimore say he's not even a first baseman. So. Right. So he's probably the a first baseman, so. Right. So he's probably the main DH. Yeah, I think he's the primary DH with the occasional corner outfield duty.

He's I don't think he gets full playing time. Kursad does until Mountcastle is gone. Or her and at least because they're the lefty situation. If we put Luis Castillo in this rotation, does that bump it up to that average? I thought they'd be so much better. Yeah, because he'd be there to that. Graysore Rodriguez, Luis Castillo and Zach Efflin is going to start your game three. And then game four is when you're like Morton for an inning and, you know,

Kramer's, you know, Kramer's, you know, emergency valve and you know what I mean? Like, mm hmm. This is a team that could use least Castillo. Yeah, it makes makes sense. There makes sense. A few other places to maybe we'll see something actually happen here on the Castillo front before the month is over.

We got a study that was recently published, I think is pretty interesting. It takes a look at UCL surgery recoveries. The study was performed by Dr. Michael Mastroianni, his team at Columbia University Medical Center. It was published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine. If you want to read the full paper, it's called Return to Performance After Ulnar Collateral Ligament Surgery in Major League Baseball pitchers. And there were some pretty interesting takeaways from this study.

You know, it's it's it's a good way to quantify that stuff and even command by the pitching models comes back at a pretty high rate. But the performance by war doesn't follow suit the way we would expect it to. To me, that was one of the things that really kind of jumped out. You and I were starting to have a conversation about why that might be,

but what other takeaways did you have from this paper? Yeah, it was pretty cool. They looked at 129 major league pitchers and the mean age was 27 and a half. So it wasn't like just a bunch of old guys. And, you know, by the third season, you know, they found that 80 percent had gotten their old fastball velocity back and only 67 had gotten their old vertical movement back.

Stuff plus 78% had gotten their Stuff Plus back. Location came all the way back, 89% in terms of Location Plus. But you know, it is interesting for them to say like, okay, let's just use 80% as a number for stuff. You know, Velo, yeah, maybe the ride didn't come all the way back but let's say say about eighty percent of guys got back to the road stuff and they're saying but only thirty percent got back to the old production. And i think that the way that i square it you know reading between the lines a little bit is that war using war as the gauge of production. War using war as the gauge of production, war is accounting stat. So they're basically finding that guys that had Tommy John didn't get back to their old volume.

And that can make sense for a lot of different reasons. It could be the player just can't throw 200 and whatever 180 plus settings anymore. Or could be subsequent injuries. Like you just be missed time. Like your, your forearm bothers you, your shoulder, your lat or hamstring or whatever, more injuries pop up. Well, I mean, also the median, the median age at three seasons prior to the median age beginning is over 30.

Right. That too. So you're starting to, now you're starting to get the like, Oh, my back hurts. My, my, you know, my everything hurts. Um, which I don't remember that happened to me at 30, but I was not like a high value athlete. So it doesn't even happen to me. You're pushing yourself quite that hard in your 20s.

Low value athlete in the forties. Um, so I think volume is the real thing, but there's also the team itself could just be being more comfortable, more careful with the player. Um, because we know, uh, and they didn't cover this in the study that the second Tommy John, um, is, is a bigger deal. And, um, you know, CR six over at the, um, the discord put together the list of the two Tommy John players and you've got show you a tawny we don't have post second Tommy John numbers for John Means

Shane McClanahan, we're still Dustin May we're still Jacob deGrom. We're don't have a lot of Post yet Kirby Yates just had it last year But I think he just had it recently so we have a little bit of post second. Kirby Yates just had it last year, but I think he just had it recently. So we have a little bit of post second Tommy John from him. I think Jameson Tyon is our is our success story. He had two Tommy Johns and we've seen him come back since Walker Bueller, Caleb Ferguson, Drew Smith, Colin Pache, Nathan Yvaldi is the other, um, uh, you know, success story and Chris Paddock. Um, so I think that most teams don't want their player to end up on that list.

Yeah. I think there's more care being given to players and maybe it's kind of more of a collaborative effort to, to say, I can't push to to say, I can't push to 180. I can't push to those higher end workloads. So let's let's do this workload management. And then I think there's also just the way that the broader population of pitchers is being treated is just different. Right. So over the course of a multi-year study, the philosophies on pitching are even changing a little bit. And pushing guys are using extra rest or trying to use six starters. A multi-year study, the philosophies on pitching are even changing a little bit and pushing

guys or using extra rest or trying to use six starters. There's all sorts of factors in play that are chipping away at those workloads too. So I think that's probably a factor that's also eroding some of the wars you see post surgery. Yeah. And specifically something that sort of ties together something you just said along with what I said earlier is that What we've seen is Tommy John surgery rate is actually slowed

there's no there's no rate of increase anymore Tommy John surgery has kind of plateaued and Instead What we're seeing is days of injury still going up and what I'm suggesting is some of that We're having a little bit more of a preventative approach. And so we're putting people on the IL with a lower benchmark for putting them on the IL because we want them in October because we want them later. And so that's the way that the days of the injury days could go up, but surgeries stay the same.

Um, and that could affect your results on something like this as well Yeah, definitely good but really interesting study a lot of interesting takeaways and glad we were able to Share that on the show with our listeners today and thanks to the doctor for reaching out and and talking about I I guess I got to mention in the in the in the in the the, in the thing. So that's a, I'm in the, I'm in the journal. You're part of science somewhere. I am science. I am science. Another potential t-shirt. Just walking around with a shirt that just says, it's like Dr. Nick.

People would give you some weird looks. I am science. Moving on to some other mailbag questions that came in. This one comes from our Discord. Pattyboy12 was curious about Jaren Durand's steamer projection. I think most specifically the war, right? I mean, Jaren Durand had a massive season, a 6.7 F war season for the Red Sox last year. Popped the 21 homers, stole 34 bases, hit 285, was doing everything possible to sort of push that number into that high end range and then Steamer comes out and spits out kind of similar offensive numbers for

the most part, 19 homers, 31 steals, only a slight increase in K-rate, mostly a BABIP-driven drop in average in OVP from the 285 down to 263, but negative value for defense. So it basically cut his war projection in half, even a little more than that. What do you make of that much of an adjustment on Jaren Durand's 2025 projection relative to the season he just put together in 2024? Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating. He is older than most people think. Think of how old you think Jared Duren is in your head right now. He is 28 years old. And so if you are doing a projection

system, you are going to have him as post-peak. He's post-peak. 28 years old is definitively post-peak by any of the measures then the studies that have been out there. So you're applying some sort of aging curve to him. So you're not projecting him to get better anywhere. You may not protect him to get a lot worse at 28. It's not like, oh, he's off the cliff. He now he sucks. It's just you're not pretending to get better anywhere.

It's just, you're not pretending to get better anywhere. Now you, you go back and you look at his defensive numbers and as a projection system, they were all negative up until last year. And so you regress his defense. And I think that's where you get to you. You sort of get to this point where the defense isn't good. He last year could have been his peak season and, uh, that's how you have to treat it, uh, when it comes to, when it comes to the numbers, we are not. He last year could have been his peak season and that's how you have to treat it. Uh, when it comes to, when it comes to the numbers, we are not machines.

We are not science, um, as much as we want to put that on a shirt. And so, you know, I think when we look at it, I would love to hear someone who watched him all the time, because I watched enough during during to say. You know, I I've had a two very strong opinions about him. So my first opinion was this guy's terrible defensively. He will never be a center fielder. And I was vindicated. I thought in that they kind of took them off of office center field. And, um, I think that's the, that's the, that's still somewhat true.

Cause what I just recently read is also that Sedona Rafaela is there basically the center fielder next year. So his, his defense isn't good. But it was a plus 17 for defensive run saved last year and he put seven outs above average in center field alone. Like that's a, that's amazing for Jaren Durant given that he was a negative in center every year of his career prior to that. Yeah.

So I watched him again this year and I thought, well, he certainly has the tools to be good and maybe that those, those, the routes that he was taking that weren't good. I struggled there for a second. You a routes guy or a roots guy? I'm a routes guy. Okay. Well, all right.

The routes that he took were no good. Route 66 you drive on, but the route you take to a fly ball is a route. Okay. So the, the routes he took, um, were bad. That doesn't that seem like the kind of thing you could learn over time? Like you'd just be like, yeah, okay. You get coached on it and just take reps and in the major leagues and you see the ball better. And yes. So, you know, that seems like you could get.

And so when I watched him this year, I was like, well, I also watched him just totally drop it easy to catch ball. And then I was like, oh, this is the same guy. But I watched, you know, in fairness to me, I watched him a couple more times and thought, all right, he's better defensively than he was in the past. So I think that's, you know, not that important to fancy players, though. I think at this point, they're resigned to the fact that he's an everyday player for them. He's playing, you know, no matter how good his defense is,

he's going to be out there. He's got he's a good enough hitter to to be a left fielder or right fielder. And so I don't think we should concern ourselves overly with that. It is something that will come up in silly trade discussions. Jaren Durin has been traded for Luis Castillo and other Mariners pitchers, many times over in the blogosphere and in the social medias with the kids in the social medias. But there's also plenty of reason to keep him because as much as you say he's post peak

and what about his defense and all this, he is not a free agent till 2029. And you, you know, it's not like aging comes all at once. He's going to be a good player until then. He just may not, you know, get the free agent money that he wants because at that point he'll be over 30. Yeah. I think his debut and being a college guy, all the factors that make him old for where he is in terms of service time,

leave him in a position where signing an extension somewhere is probably a better idea for him than it is for a lot of guys because of how far into his career he's going to be before he can hit the open market for the first time. But yeah, those projections seem light. And I think even if you want to regress the defense, I wouldn't regress them all the way back to being a below average defender. I think I'd regress him to being like a slightly above or just in a good defender instead of an elite one in center field. And that would still probably nudge that war up at least a half win, if not more

than that, but thanks a lot for that question, Patty boy, by the way, from a fantasy perspective, Jaren Duran, kind of an early second round pick right now by ADP. Yeah, I saw him, youuran, kind of an early second round pick right now by ADP. Yeah, I saw him, you know, creeping up in the second round, you know, separate from that discussion. I think I believe in him as a hitter. I mean, the big question is that Steamer also projected to sort of strike back out again more than 23% after 21.8 last year and higher numbers before that.

But with that swing strike rate around 10.5% like he had last year, I don't know that Darren Dern needs to strike out a lot and, um, you know, in terms of his power was the best power of his career, but it was supported by a 9% barrel rate, a really nice max CV. So he's a really toolsy guy. And in terms of, uh, his approach being raw, like it may have been raw when he started out. I mean, his first year in Boston, he had a 3% walk rate and a 36% strikeout rate. So that was pretty raw.

Um, but I think what we've seen from him is like, uh, you know, he's learned pretty quickly at the major level. I mean, to go from that in your debut in 2021 to last year, 7% walk rate and a 22% strikeout rate like kudos, man. And I'm willing to give him most of that back. And if he's going to give me 20 homers and 30 stolen bases and, and, and an average of, you know, two 60 to two 70, he's probably worth the pick where he's going.

All right. Here's a simple toss up for you early in round two, you're looking at Jaren Duran versus jazz Chisholm. Cause you want some power, you want some speed, you want a little bit of everything, who are you taking? They're right next to each other in ADP right now. I'm going to take Jaren Duran. I just believe in his health ability to stay healthy better.

Fair better health grades overall. I'm on the jazz side of this one though. Yeah. I think being a Yankee for a full season is huge for him because it's a move into that hitter friendly park all season. What about that partially torn elbow that he didn't get surgery on? He got back from that pretty quick. I don't know.

He was running a ton with the Yankees too. I think there were some concerns that, oh, the Yankees don't run a lot. It's because they don't have a lot of guys that should run a lot. Jazz should run a lot. I's because they don't have a lot of guys that should run a lot. Jazz should run a lot. I like Jazz Chisholm quite a bit. Now, for the two year snapshot, it's about 93 more plate appearances for Duran. If you combine 2023 with 2024, but Jazz has 14 more homers, four more steals, only a slight drop.

He's got 248 combined runs in RBIs, and I think you've got 272 for Jaren Duran. So like the real life value, Duran wins, but I think from a Roto perspective, I think there's a case to actually like jazz a little bit more. I think I trust his power more, especially with that move in the Yankee Stadium. By steamer projections, they are separated by 70 cents.

And so basically you could call that a pick-em. with that move in the Yankee stadium. By steamer projections, they are separated by 70 cents. And, um, so basically you could call that a Pick'em. Um, although I will say that the projection for Jaren Duran is for 688 plate appearances. And for jazz is 629. I might take the under on the 688 for Duran, um, which might make them. Like literally a toss up by projections. So at some point, it becomes a question of the shape of your, the, what sort of risks you're more willing to take there.

Um, I, I increasingly want less health risk from my earliest picks. Totally understandable. I think they both have some, but I would agree with you that Jazz has more. I think if I'm taking a little bit of skills risk, which I think both of them offer, I want the guy that has more power in that spot. So that's why I'm on Jazz, but it's a fun one.

We'll probably put that one up in the poll in the Discord. More fun to say I'm on Team Jazz. Yes, yes it is. Peter wants to know, are there players that other people are out on, examples like Brian Hayes, MJ Melendez, Dalton Varsho, cheap players who still have potential carrying tools that the market is out on that we are still into, kind of like the opposite of the Anthony Volpe types right people are still excited about Volpe still going to pay for maybe a level of production doesn't happen yet because of the the tools and things that he's shown.

So this is basically outside the top 300 overall who do you still believe in among position players that kind of fit that description. You know Varsho is fine for, but I think that he increasingly fits kind of a punt batting average strategy. Um, I don't, I'm not sure that it's ever going to be high, you know, just with his, his kind of pull the ball in the air everywhere approach. Um, I noticed, I think that is who he is. I don't know that unless he just gets lucky one year and it's like two 40 or

whatever, um, you know, I think he's kind of a punt batting average player, but I tried to look for his ones around a little bit ones that went a little bit before and once I looked after just to see who would catch my eye right where, uh, he was going, I believe Trevor Larnock is, is going around there. Um, and, um, you know, I liked a lot of what line I did last year because he always has hit the ball pretty hard. But last year he really improved not only a strikeout rate, but his swinging strike rate as well.

Um, at 27 he's in his peak season. He's projected for 500 plate appearances and on this twins team, I could actually see this being the year where they'd need him to be more of a full-time player. Matt Walner is in a similar boat with him. Um, but Willie Castro is going to be needed in center field a lot. You know, I don't know that Byron Buxton is going to, going to play center field all the much. And then Larnac is a top the DH, uh, heap as well. So you've got someone who is first on the left field depth chart, second on the right field depth chart and first on the DH heap as well. So you've got someone who is first on the left field depth

chart, second on the right field depth chart, and first on the DH depth chart. Like I think he could find a way to 600 plate appearances this year. And if Larnac did that, I'd give him, you know, 25 homers, you know, and a 250, 260 average. So that's a good space for him. Another one that I looked to when I looked a little bit ahead of where and i think this one fits the vibes little better jake cronin worth thirty year old.

The market's out on him. I think they're just forgetting what he does and thinking too much about what he could do and yes i don't think that he's necessarily going to be a great batting average boon even though strikeout rate she was just he could do. And yes, I don't think that he's necessarily going to be a great batting average boon, even though his strikeout rate seems to suggest he could be. He's not going to steal a bunch of bases. He still plays first base and second base and he's projected for 15 homers and five stolen bases and a 240 average. Like I think you just need to focus sometimes on, wow, that a guy who can play am I see I first second for me and He's not gonna embarrass me and he's gonna play, you know, he hasn't really had injury problems. So he's gonna play every day

And and he's gonna be decent. So I think sometimes people forget that someone can be decent and are chasing a bunch of upside I'm not to look at the ADP chart again. I forget my third guy. I've got Alec Thomas as a really late name that still kind of fits, a great defender. The way the depth charts built right now, I think we talked about it in our last episode. It looks like he could have a path

to a lot of playing time. He's kept the K rate down, was barely able to play at the big league level last year because of injuries, but has had the hard hit rate over 40% going back to start of 2023. So I think there could still be something there. There's power, there's speed, and there's enough defensive value to get them on the field to maybe make good on that for these really deep 50 round draft and hold leagues.

I don't know if I'm looking at Alec Thomas in a typical 30 round, 15 team league even at this point, but more of a watch list guy for that. But I think for these stash as many guys as you can situations, he makes sense. Going a little earlier, you just want a lot of playing time. Andrew Benentendi seems like a guy that everybody else has done. That's so his mother name. I think Benentendi makes a lot of sense. We were surprised looking at his second half last year, the power started to come back and not projecting a full season off of his second half, but,

15 homers, non-zero speed, probably a better average this year than what he just did at 229. I think the projections have him in the 250s. The white socks are going to play him every day. It's going to be empty calories, like the most bland oatmeal possible. Yeah, the runs in RBI are going to hurt you, but. But finding 550 or 600 plate appearances outside the top 300 overall is tough

and he actually could do a little bit of good with them. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I think, you know, internally, the reason that they would want to play him every day is he's a credible major leaguer. And also, you know, the idea that, oh, maybe we could trade him if we, you know, pump up his value. You're not trading them. It's too much.

It's too much money in too many years. He's not a free agent until 2028. But maybe Chicago feels like, I would say for the least, the first three quarters of the season, he was his playing time is pretty safe. I'm going to keep mentioning Jonathan Aranda until he's finally like not a big leaguer anymore. Like once Jonathan Aranda, like years down the road, if he has to go to NPB or the KBO or something,

then I can finally give up on him. But I think Jonathan Aranda is one of those guys I'm like, man, he just hits too much. He's going to hit enough to play. We saw some of that in September. So I think he's also in the players. I don't want to give up on bucket. Here's one for you. That's, uh, might not surprise people.

I think that the Padres are screwed and are going to have to play Luis Camposano catcher, and I know that people don't like him defensively. And even offensively, he left them cold last year, but this is a guy who can hit the ball 111 miles an hour and do so while striking out 14% of the time. So there is some upside in him offensively. He's projected to be 109 WRC plus. And the reason I think the Padres can't do any better is they don't have any money. They are skinned Flint and right now it's Camposano 58% of the played appearances, Brett Sullivan 36% of the played appearances,

and a person named Brandon Valenzuela who projects to have a 71 WRC plus as their third catcher. It's not time for Ethan Salas yet. It is time for Luis Camposano. And someday, someday, someday, someday. Some, this is good. This could be the one. This could be the time. I think I've written up Camposano as a sleeper at least twice for the athletics fantasy baseball draft. Maybe more times. Like I'm trying to convince myself it was only twice because yeah, all the underlying metrics of what he should be able to do as a hitter are enticing.

And yeah, the depth chart is a mess. The thing that's going to change that potentially is a trade, right? If they can find a way to make a deal, like move a rise, get a catcher they like better, shift money around, that a catcher they like better, shift money around. That's to me, like the path for Campusano finally not getting that chance in San Diego. But until the depth chart looks like that, sadly, I think I agree with you that that is a possibility again, just by default in this case.

Got a question here from Lou in our Discord. Wants to know if we have different approaches to player valuation and roster construction in playoff fantasy leagues versus standard Roto. So head-to-head leagues that have playoffs usually in September, weekly leagues, referring to guys like Spencer Strider, Ronald Lacuna, Yuri Perez, Shane Bieber, guys coming off of major injuries that aren't necessarily be ready for opening day, but they could make massive impacts on your roster, especially in the second half of the season, even though some of those guys will be back, maybe even by late April. So do you play it differently in the weekly leagues? I don't actually have any weekly leagues

right now. It's been a while since I played in this format, but do you try to find guys that you can stash if you have IL spots? Do you try to bottom load the roster with guys that will definitely be good later, even if you have to sort of manage the roster and stay afloat in the short term? I tend to not want to depend on somebody being healthy until they demonstrate they're healthy I think that is the safest way to do things because you know If you bet on a CUNY coming back from the first year, you didn't get what you wanted you know price-wise and that was him probably not being fully healthy and We've had plenty of other pictures that have said they're healthy they're healthy. You know, think of Walker Bueller last year, you know, coming off the surgery,

seemed like he was set and then they were like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, not till May. And then it was like, it's just a terrible season. So I want sort of proof of life before I really invest too hard. But what I do love in those leagues is using the back end of the draft that way. Because especially if let's say you're drafting in early March or you know late February even and you're getting to those bench picks and you think how could I use these bench picks? If you have IL slots, a really cool fun way to do it is to draft somebody that you can put on your IL and as soon as you put them on the I L free bench spot to play with.

Right. And then you've stashed someone for the second half. I don't know that I have a, a guy off the top of my head that I would do like this, but I, but the, the bar becomes a lot lower when the investment's that low, you know, then, you know, I do leagues where sometimes my last pick, I just do click on the Yahoo. You can do I L eligible and I just sort through the I L guys so I can take my last pick and just be a guy that I'm picking to have another pick later. I think of the players that were mentioned in Lou's message, I think Yuri Perez maybe would be

one of the better examples of that. Last year was Jacob deGrom. There was the possibility of deGrom coming back for the final month of the season and mixed labor, 15 team lead with unlimited IL spots has that same functionality. So at the last couple of rounds, I was like, yeah, I'll just take deGrom now, throw him on the IL for the whole season, and then just wait and see. I'll just pick somebody up the first week that I would have drafted and I couldn't pick up the Grom on the way first because he can't pick up injured guys, right? So. And it's like, even if it's only a free pitcher for two or three weeks,

like it could be huge. I mean, there's a lot of people who would love to have like $10 to pick up Yuri Perez for the September stretch run. And you'd be like, dope, he's on my team. Right. And he's going late enough right now. I think the earliest he's gone the last two weeks of an FPC draft is pick 397. So that's going to be an end game sort of pick in 10, 12 type team leagues. So I think I wouldn't try to have like five or six guys like that, even with the unlimited IELTS. I think the pay off I wouldn't want to use too early of a pick on it either,

because then you're that's you're're, you're risking too much investment. Right. And like even though Strider, Strider is going to come back sooner. So maybe, maybe that's another example of a way you could do it because exactly what he looked like yet. Just remember what we just, what we said to here, like this is a second TJ too. So like all those numbers are worse, you know, and it's only 80% that make it all the way back to even stuff wise or second, second UCL. Like it wasn't, uh, it wasn't Tommy John. It was a brace, but still and it's only 80% that make it all the way back to even stuff wise, you know.

Or second UCL, like it wasn't Tommy John, it was a brace, but still, like it's the second procedure on his elbow, which yeah, there are still more questions than answers, I think, even with the benefit of that. But I think I actually like this a little more on the position player side, but there aren't that many position players that we already know are down for a significant portion of the season that are coming back in May or June or July.

Is your league deep enough to want to stash David Frye? Zach Neto, maybe? I don't really like Neto in Roto right now. Maybe he fits. Like, I don't know if his ceiling's quite high enough to where I'm playing him over my shortstop or my middle infielder that got me into the playoffs, but that might be the type of player I'm looking at. If I'm trying to stash someone on the position player side right now.

Yeah. If it's two catcher league, maybe David Fry for the second half. I mean, he's got David Fry on the brain right now. Don't you try and make a decision on it. Cheap auto newkeeper. Understandable. Thanks a lot for that question. Lou, I got one follow-up email. This one came from Dave a little while back. We were talking about a player squishing machine where you take the best

attributes of multiple players and you just have a much better player. And Dave wanted to point out, can't help but imagine what happens when you put two players in the machine, if we assume it's the standard gene problem we all learned in high school, 50% of the time you end up with the same meh player. 25% of the time you get the star with the best of both. And 25% of the time you get a guy who shouldn't be paid to play baseball. So Punnett squares, who would have thought we're going to talk about Punnett squares today, but the, the question Dave sent in was if teams had to give whatever

player came out of the squishing machine, a five year deal at the league average, we'll say Lee average free agent AV, how many teams would still be willing to risk it at those odds? This is getting really dark, dude. Very dark. We're not, we're not advocating actually switching. dark, dude. Very dark. We're not, we're not advocating actually smushing

human beings together. This feels like a sci-fi baseball show that maybe could exist on a streaming platform. Well, you know what this is actually, you know, this is a little similar to is the extensions that they hand out to players who've never played in the major leagues yet. I mean, it's a little bit like that percentage of

risk that they don't work out. Right. Right. In terms of the, how you're bucketing the various outcomes, maybe that's a little bit like this, but this is also really dark and deranged. As we said earlier in the show, we are science. Well, who are my, I forget who my favorite squishing together guys were. Was it just two people that have completely different builds? So was it like, I'm going to squeeze Alejandro Kirk together. You know, with, I don't know, with anyone.

Like it's just, you know. With Edward Cabrera. No, the, uh, uh, the one, the bad 25% of squitching Edward Cabrera and Alejandro Kirk together would be very, very strange for some reason. Also, I've always wanted to do like, oh, what if you put Corbin Carroll and Jordan Alvarez together? Like, you know, you might get peak A-Rod sort of, right? Yeah, left-handed peak A-Rod. Yeah, but what's the worst that comes out of that?

Someone who's as slow as Jordan Alvarez can't hit the ball at all. Ben has Jordan's previous knee stuff and then Carroll shoulder concerns. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's the problem when you start messing with these things is you have the negative outcomes. So it was important to point that out,

but I think teams would actually, some teams would gamble on this. I think some teams would be pretty excited to throw a dart at the player squishing machine, especially the ones that aren't afraid of the luxury tax aprons. If we're talking about something evil that might turn out good,

yes, teams will get in on the action. Yeah, the teams that aren't afraid of the luxury tax aprons. That might turn out good. Yes. Teams will get in on the action. Yeah. The teams that are spending big and free agency would almost certainly gamble on the player squishing machine, yielding something to their liking. Oh yeah. We're going to take Gavin Lux and Paez and just throw them in the blender. And we're definitely paying for whatever comes out. Alejandro Kirk and Edward Cabrera as one player.

So it's a two way player that catches and pitches as an 18% walk rate as a pitcher. Even the best outcomes, not that great. Does hit the ball really hard sometimes. But the bad outcome is just one of the worst baseball players you've ever seen. Trying to think, do we make Brooks Kieschnick. I don't think we did that even. I think that's underselling Brooks Kieschnick as maybe one of the, uh,

one of the nineties two way players that has been forgotten by baseball history. I think on that note, we are going to call it a show. If you'd like to get weird and talk more about the player squishing machine, I highly suggest that in our discord, it's probably be its own channel. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, about the player squishing machine. I highly suggest that in our discord, it should probably be its own channel. Not on air anymore. We shouldn't talk about it on air anymore. It's gotten weird now. Nope.

We're not going to combine people anymore. It doesn't seem like it's a good idea, but we are science, you can find Eno on thelooseguy, enoceras.beastguy.social. You can find me, dvr.beastguy.social. We've got two more episodes coming out this week. We're back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.