Rates & Barrels - Baseball is Back! (And Spencer Strider is Too)

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

Eno and DVR discuss the Dodgers' season-opening win over the Cubs in Tokyo, which featured five strong frames from Yoshinobu Yamamoto and an excellent showing from the bullpen. They also discuss a great piece from David Adler highlighting Shohei Ohtani's unique contact point as a possible explanation for his excellent all-fields power. Plus, they look at the return of Spencer Strider, who pitched in a game Monday for the first time this spring, Cam Smith's chances of making the Opening Day roster, and big movers from the NFBC Main Event drafts, which Eno recently took part in. Rundown 3:22 Dodgers Win Series Opener in Tokyo 9:57 Freddie Freeman's Reduced Playing Time Ceiling 13:48 Shohei Ohtani's Unique Contact Point (Story from David Adler, MLB.com: https://www.mlb.com/news/shohei-ohtani-contact-point-statcast-analysis) 21:42 Concerns About Mookie Betts' Health Beyond Tokyo? 26:44 Spencer Strider is Back! (Is the ADP Going to the Moon?) 34:34 Cam Smith's Path to the Opening Day Roster in Houston 43:45 David Bednar: Still Hasn't Been Named Pirates' Closer 48:46 Adjusting to Unique Rooms: The NFBC Main Event 55:33 Reframing a 'Necessary' Overpay 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 Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You can find us on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. podcast. Welcome to Rates and Barrels Tuesday, March 18th. Derrick and Ryper here with Eno Saris on this episode. Baseball is back. We will talk about the season opening matchup in Dodgers and Cubs got it underway early Tuesday morning here if you are in the states if you live in other parts of the world Perhaps it was even easier for you to watch that game as it happened live

We've got an interesting piece that was written about Shohei Otani and the unique contact point He has compared to other top hitters, so we're just gonna bring that into our conversation as well Spencer Strider looked like pre-injury Spencer Strider in his first game action of the spring on Monday so we're expecting a late frenzy in leagues where people are still still building their rosters here in the next 10 days or so so we'll talk about the implications of that and we've got a bunch of other news items plus some late ADP movement overall with the main event starting.

Eno did the NFPC main event draft with our buddy, JH. So we'll talk about Eno's board and some of the things he saw happening there. Tons of ground to cover and Eno's back from Arizona. So what's going on, man? How was your trip? I had its ups and its downs. It's a kind of grueling for me.

I don't know how the veterans do it. I met people that had been out there for 30 days and 40 days and I had 10 days on the ledger and by the end of it, I felt like bruised and battered. So I'm happy to be home, ledger and by the end of it I felt like bruised and battered. So I'm happy to be home but I kind of wish I had showed up on a weekend day so I could get some relaxation in. But no, ever onward, onward and upward.

He'll learn at some point to leave that buffer in the travel schedule but if you'd like to join our Discord you can do that with the link in the show description in there. We still have leagues forming, we got team chats, got mailbag questions, all sorts of good stuff in there. So be sure to jump in. One quick programming note, we do have two live episodes just one week away, Bear Bottle Brewing Company, the Bernal Heights location in San Francisco, March 27th and March 28th, 30 start time on both days free admission no tickets required will be there watching games prior to the start of the show so we're looking forward to spending the day with many of our listeners and we got kayakers Cove

the beer that you know helped brew that's going to be available as well and some giveaways got our merch we're excited about the merch. It's supposed to be on its way, so fingers crossed it will be there on time for the live shows. Yeah, the road caster is here. It has arrived, everybody calm down. The big piece of equipment that we need to make sure this live show goes off without a hitch

is here, so we are ready to go. Just a question of all the other parts that fall into place. Still some of those moving. The recording device is even more important than the actual merch but we're excited about the merch so we want that to be there too. Let's talk about this game that went down

on Tuesday morning, the Dodgers win the series opener with the Cubs, four to one. Shota Imanaga, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a great matchup of two Japanese born pitchers at the Tokyo Dome and of course this is a game in which you also have Shohei Otani and Seiya Suzuki so a great celebration for the game on an international stage and kind of as you'd expect shorter outings from both starters, kind of an uncharacteristically shaky day control-wise for Nemanaga, but four scoreless innings and no hits against the Dodgers.

You'll take that when you have to make that start in the middle of March. I came away from these starts looking at it and going, man, everything I thought about Yoshinobu Yamamoto, I think he's an ace. I think it's just innings this year. I think he could easily be a top 10 pitcher and he delivered his first time out. Yeah. I wonder just the role of adrenaline and sort of uniqueness of this opening day. Maybe opening day in general has velocity bumps.

I haven't actually studied that day in particular, but I do know that like postseason has a velocity bump and that really had like what I thought was a postseason feel to it, just with, you know, kind of being in a strange environment, not being at home or in a place you've played a lot, just the amount of media coverage. And I thought some of the guys looked a little tired

when they're being interviewed. It can be tough to jet lag. So I know that Yamamoto's pitched there before, but both he and Imanaga had fairly big velocity bumps and Yamamoto's was pretty huge. He was in the first inning or so, 98. He settled down a little bit, but for the game, he was 96.8, that's up 1.3 over last year. And what was it for Imanagai?

He was, for the game, 92.6, that's up almost a full tick. So you know, how much do you take away from one game? They're healthy, they pitched pretty well, both of them. They were up in V-Low. If Yamamoto is really going to sit 96. to say this year than I agree with you. I mean he looked pretty unhittable With the curve splitter combo and after kind of all this hope I'd had for his slider in both cases Both Yamato in and Imanaga did not really demonstrate great sliders You know Imanaga put his in the dirt a bunch of times and Yamamoto didn't really throw any.

He threw two cutters and sliders, so maybe he's just going to revert to what gave him all that success in Japan and not necessarily need to add a slider like most pitchers in America. Or just bring that wrinkle later and maybe it's a small wrinkle. Maybe when he's pitching even deeper into starts, we'll see it a little bit more. So yeah, it's kind of a work in progress potentially for Yamamoto or something he may not have to use at all. But I'm curious to see where the Velo goes too.

It does make sense. There'd be an extra bump there. I mean, also being in a dome. More controlled conditions, that could also be a factor as well. I don't know, calibration of equipment, right? Some other stadium that we're not always using in the rotation, getting our data. So lots of little factors that could have been an impact.

Ben Kasparius touched 98.5. He actually threw the fastest pitch in the game one of the season. I did see the Ben Brown outing was a little bit frustrating. 14 swinging strikes jumps off the page, first and foremost, but the command was a little shaky. He got squeezed a couple of times, but he didn't do himself any favors with where he was locating overall. You look at what he was able to do,

five Ks and two and two thirds, but three runs, two of them were earned, three walks. I think he's going to be one of those guys you have to wait on from a fantasy perspective this year. I keep drafting him and trying to stash him on my bench, but I could see it being one of those scenarios where the opportunity for him to be used like a starter once the team returns to the States takes longer than I want it to and he ends up being the type of early season cut that I don't want to make but that I have to make in some leagues.

Yeah, I mean the usage suggests that he has more in common with Ben Consparrius than he does with anybody else in that game. You know, just coming out as the first person after the first, after the starter's out, I mean, feels like he's in the pen. I don't know. I mean, unless you think that's a, you know, a kind of a piggyback situation. There are limited uses in certain leagues for, you know, pitchers that can be like this.

That's SPRPs that can vulture wins and get holds, you know. That's maybe where he's headed. I mean, the one thing about Brown also is he's one of the two pitchers in the league, in the game that were down in Velo, and he's still only a two pitch pitcher, so that Velo really matters. I'd had some hope for you know the discussions that he'd had in the spring about adding pitches but he didn't

show that either. He threw one change up. Yeah I think the usage in this case if you remember last year the series that we had between the Dodgers and Padres it's kind of an all-hands like short playoff series situation where being that bridge guy doesn't matter as much in this instance as it would if it happened on opening day, state side, with no days off in the schedule. Even now, even those days off for rainouts can change the way you use some of the guys in your roster.

Like, you're not gonna use your fourth and fifth starters in this series, and they can rest all the way till whenever they want to, so, yeah. I guess you're not going to use your fourth and fifth starters in the series and they can rest all the way till whenever they want to. So yeah, I guess you're right. That doesn't necessarily mean what I, but I also I'm putting together what his mix is, you know, with that, you know, right now we're emphasizing across baseball, you know, the wideness of your mix as a starter and he's, he's doing the other way. Yeah.

I just have that slight concern that maybe Colin Ray gets the first opportunity as the number five starter and Brown has to wait. Despite the fact there were a few positives in the outing for him in game one. Freddie Freeman was a late scratch with left rib discomfort reports suggesting he's a 75% chance of playing in game two.

At least it's not a foot thing, right? I mean, that was sort of my main takeaway. Did somebody say that they're, I heard that he's not playing in night games, day games after night games or something? I think that was one of the reports that was going around this spring is that they're going to try and ease the workload

on him that way, to not use him in day games after night games as part of the, of the load management sort of thing. I'd move Fredy Fearman down your boards. Yeah, okay, but how much? He's coming off of surgery and he's gonna miss 20 games this year? You think it's 20? I thought that I saw that there was no sort of end date

on that, that was just like the plan for the year. Yeah, but if he's fine in June, maybe they'd back off that? Like if healthy, health-wise he feels good? I don't know. I mean, how rigid is that plan? The RIP thing is like, he's older than you might think. You know? And so the RIP thing is like one of those just like, oh, yeah, these little things can pop up too.

So like, I think the over-under on games played for Freddie Freeman this year is like 138. Still pretty good, okay. But for a guy you'd be taking in round two, maybe you're not as excited about the possibility of getting less than a full playing time ceiling. I did see in the main event drafts that have happened so far,

it's about a five pick drop compared to where Freeman normally goes. Pick 31 in the mains. He's been going at pick 26 across all first half of March NFBC drafts so far. Is that enough of a discount? There are so many nice first basemen and so many nice hitters at the top of that draft that I'm just out. Freeman went in ours at 32 and at that point he was being picked over Katel Marte which I guess I can see. Marte's had some soft issue issues of his own and Manny Machado who we got in the third round. We got Manny Machado though after five straight

pitchers. So obviously people were looking to go pitcher there. The person who got Freeman went with junior Riley Freeman, Abrams and didn't take a pitcher until the fifth. So Freeman is right now in the uncomfortable spot that he's up against the pitchers. And you're gonna be either Freeman, I mean Machado is what we got endeavors, but you know, do you want

to take Machado Endeavors at 30 or do you want to take a pitcher or do you want to take a Talmartet? That's the choice in front of you. I would, I think third base is really rough and Machado looks healthy. I might take Machado there over Freeman. If I didn't have a pitcher yet, I'd be very tempted by Corbin Burns. It went Burns, Sale, Snell, deGrom, Regans. Those are all pretty exciting pitchers too. The run you just described is exactly what makes the main event drafts different or what makes the very end of March drafts that are higher stakes different. You just see that that helium on pitching and usually it's older even if they're healthy It's older bats. You'll see guys like Harper fall

You'll see Freeman fall even Manny Machado goes a little later in a draft like that I could tell Marte like all those core guys that would that look really safe that you Feel good about the projections for that when you're building draft and holds you just think are like complete foundational players people seem much more willing to miss on those guys and Bump up the pitcher they want to avoid missing out on an ace That's the overall observation of like how those drafts have been playing differently over the year We're pretty happy to get me Machado the ninth pick of the third round. Yeah, that's a great spot for Manny Machado So huge, huge value.

I did mention a piece that went up recently from David Adler of MLB.com writes a lot about the stat cast data over there and taking a look at Shohei Otani and contact points, which is kind of the the next wave of data that we're going to have available and, you know, where are hitters in the box and where are they making contact? And these things are really important in the box, and where are they making contact, and these things are really important in terms of approach and being able to get to your power.

And I think the piece is highly recommended, but kind of the hack to making something like this work, to have a deep contact point, is having excellent bat speed, which Otani does. And it's unusual that he's as deep in the box as he is, or as deep at the contact point as he is, but he's able to do that because of how good his bat speed is. A lot of guys that have bat speed like that still try to catch it out front. We hear that all the time.

We hear that as a common approach to hitting league-wide. You want to try to make contact, catch it out in front of the plate. And I think what Otani does is very unique. You see ridiculous home runs to parts of the field that you just wouldn't expect and you see it against pitches that are extremely high velocity pitches. There's an example in the story of Paul Skeens. He took them deep to center field on a top-shelf fastball. It's just like, how do you do it? Well, you have a different kind of approach, but you also have elite bat speed.

I think one thing I heard a hitting coach say was just that bat speed, elite bat speed, or high bat speed just gives you more ways to be good. It's another way of saying it. If you have a really short swing that's not fast, you have to be Stephen Kwan or Lisa Reyes or Freddie Freeman. You have to have elite bat to ball, have to have all these other things. If you have elite bat speed, you can be any one of a bunch of players that do it differently.

So Juliard Rodriguez does it differently than Juan Soto that does it differently than Aaron Judge. You know and so elite bat speed opens up more pathways to the future. One thing that's interesting I thought I'd go down and they had comps at the bottom which were you know similar style hitters to Otani with deeper contact points. Now they don't all have the same power outcomes. The ones that I thought I would see were Juan Soto, Aaron Judge, and Marcel Ozuna. Those are elite bat speed guys who let the ball travel a little bit because they can push it out. They can hit the ball out to the opposite field even with that reduction that comes in ball flight when you go to the opposite field. Opposite field flyballs don't go as far. If you have elite bat speed like Judge Ozuna and Soto, then you can still get it

out, you know, even to the opposite field. The names that were a little bit surprising, I guess JD Martin is not that surprising to me because he is a guy who goes to the right field a lot. He has powers down, his bat speed's down a little bit, so I guess that's not too surprising. But like Freddie Freeman being on this list is a little surprising because he's always had good power, but he has poor bat speed. And so there's something about what he does that I think is interesting. I think one of the things that I noticed with Freddie Freeman and his feet is that of these guys that I just mentioned, he stands the closest to the plate.

So even though he's letting it travel, if you stand closer to the plate, it's more of a pull. It's like this 3D space. Another thing that gets covered in this story is they have the space from your center of mass to the plate. You have this space from his center of mass to the plate. You have his, how far behind the plate you set up. Look at Otani.

He looks like he's not even in the box. Yeah, he's going as far back as you can really go. Yeah, and so with Freeman, he's standing closer to the box even than that. And so I think even though deeper contact point, he can still, with a super short swing, I think he can still kind of pull some of those. So yeah, our whole ideas of like

pull out in front, we're going to be able to really dial these in with Contact Point because you know, from what I understand Contact Point is here obviously, like he's looking at it right now, it's coming for us soon. We'll have bat speed, we'll have swing length, and I think we'll also, from what I understand, have attack angle at some point. And if you think about all of those aspects, if you have the bat speed, if you have the attack angle, if you have the contact point, if you have the swing length, you can actually now start to, and I hope I have the horses to do this, unfortunately we don't have Max Bay anymore, but it's time for public bad path grades because we couldn't do that before

with just swing length and swing speed. As you can see from this, it matters where you make contact, where are you even standing to some point? You have to kind of map out this entire three-dimensional situation. And I do think when you look at the overall leaderboards that they have at Savant, and you see that, okay,

we have Freddie Freeman is lower in bat speed. He's also short to the ball, right? It's a very short swing. Yeah, super short swing, yeah. Like, out of the, like, Luis Saraya's the shortest to the ball of anybody, right? Like, and even 6.0 for swing leg, for feet. Freddie Freeman's at 6.8.

There's only 14 other guys that are same or shorter to the ball. And Freddie Freeman has the most power out of all those guys. Right, right. And then you also notice that they have the fast swing rate metric that we talked about when this was new.

Those are swings greater than or equal to 75 miles per hour. Freeman does seem to have like an A swing that he gets off where he does kind of go to that level. Maybe he's just a real advanced field guy that's like picking and choosing and. That's what I think we're seeing overall. I think, you know, again, we're gonna keep putting all these pieces together,

but I think that's a really good hitter type to be, even though it's not elite Batspeed. There's always going to be, you know, I do talk to front offices about Batspeed, and I think we'll have a thing about hitting development soon. I've been working for a while with Jay McCaffrey on a piece, but the reason why Bat Path grades may never get to the level of stuff grades is just that A, it's reactionary, and B, we don't even have names. Do we have names for what I just described with Freeman? Like with pitching, you'd be like, oh, well stuff is great, but there's arsenal interactions,

depth of arsenal, command, these things. I don't even know what to call what I just said Freeman is doing. He's like hitterish. There's a barrel control component, right? Like how well do you control barrel? But also there's something, I think there's something in his head.

This is offensive to some. I'm saying he's guessing right, but it's not, it's not guessing right. It's- It's anticipating. It's having a plan. Anticipating, understanding what they're trying to do to you and putting the right swing on the right ball.

I bet you that's sort of the command of hitting. It's really hard to replicate. The elite guys who demonstrate year over year have it. Some guys have it for like a couple of weeks and everyone's like, oh my God, and then they fall off of it. So whatever that word is, I think it's most analogous to command. We had one other question coming out of this Dodgers-Cubs game came from Nicky in our Discord.

Do we have concerns about Mookie Betts' health beyond Tokyo? And we've talked about it very briefly with James Anderson yesterday. My initial thought was he's gonna miss these two games. There's still some time before the next part of the schedule starts up. So a little time to regain strength to feel better. But do you have any longer term concerns about that?

It sounds like Mookie's lost 15 pounds in the last couple of weeks. Yes, I'm concerned. We basically had, me and JH had basically had like a 15 minute conversation on Mookie bets before the draft started. Because we were drafting nine. We got Gunnar Henderson and we're very happy about that because he's starting baseball activities and he's also younger than Mookie

and he didn't lose 15 pounds. You know what I mean? That's like such a hard reset. And the other thing that we were talking about was it's really hard to put weight on during the season. You don't have the same weightlifting opportunities and eating and, you know, in the off season, you can pair your eating and your weightlifting

to like all be like put bulk on. During the season, from what I understand, it's mostly just about like, can I not lose muscle mass? You know, it's like just holding onto it as long as possible. Now there are a bit of different body types and maybe Trevor didn't have this problem and maybe I'm thinking too much of Brandon McCarthy telling me that I can't keep the weight on during the season at all. But Mookie looks a little bit more like Brandon McCarthy than he does like Trevor May. So, you know, like I feel like

May talking about his gams of steel, dude, That's what Strider was looking like out there. But Mookie's always been a thinner guy. So there's also this risk that last year we saw the kind of the denouement of his power. What if he doesn't get it back? So now you're saying, okay, even he's always going to hit the ball. He has an elite hit tool. And I think he's going to steal 10 to 15 bases. There is an outcome this year where Mookie just hits 280, 15, 15.

With a lot of runs and RBIs barring an IL stint. That's true. That was the one thing that kept him on our board. But we had him behind Gunner because we just feel like Gunner's in a pretty good offense himself. And, you know, so I think Mookie in our draft he fell to 14 which is not a huge fall, but I think that might have been no we heard about the 15 pounds So 14 I think around the turn it makes sense They paired Bettson Lindor is a pretty good pairing at the top

You know, that's a lot of power and speed and probably runs in RBI But they're probably a little bit behind on power. So he went Pete Alonso third. So I guess that's a good pairing to figure it out. I think personally for me, Betz versus Churio, I think I might take Churio. Maybe I'm being crazy, but like Betz versus Julio Rodriguez, I might take Julio Rodriguez. So for me on my board,

it's maybe Betz versus Jordan Alvarez. I've had Mookie behind all those guys since the hitter rankings published, so I haven't even had to move him based on names you're throwing out there right now. It's more of a question, it's sort of like the inverse of the Strider. It's like, okay, there's a slight discount right now.

Is that gonna be like a panicked, here's another half round, here's another six to eight picks where he falls. Does he slide far enough where you're looking at Mookie late round two, you're looking at Mookie versus Freddie Freeman, or you're looking at Mookie versus William Contreras.

Like is that a discount you'd take? Mookie versus Wyatt Langford, I'm taking Mookie. I mean, he's done it. Sure, okay. We got one month out of Wyatt Langford. So I don't think I'd let him fall between past. We got Jackson Merrill second round. If Betts had been there, I guess we would have taken him,

but we were, but like, you know, we're very happy with the Gunner-Henderson Jackson Merrill start. Yeah, I got Merrill right next to Mookie Betts, right ahead of him right now. That was some error punching right now. Oh, you have Merrill ahead. Right, just right there, one spot.

Yeah, because if I'm talking about 280, 15, 15, like Merrill's gonna beat maybe all three of those numbers. Yeah, and he hit more homers last year and hit for a higher average last year. Well, look at you out in front of this. I did. Maybe out in front of the market on this one. I mean, I'm out in front of what the market's doing right now. I might still be wrong. But you personally don't even feel that negative about him.

I don't feel that bad about bets. I just, I'm more like, I think I already had it sort of priced in. If you want to say I'm taking Lindor ahead of him now sure go ahead. They're close enough all along I'm not gonna argue against that or Harper or Turner. They're so close in projection I don't think you're making a mistake if you do flip bets down a couple of spots if he falls More than three or four spots among hitters You're probably getting a nice discount, barring some further information about this being a longer term problem than it appears to be. But it's a good question from Nicky,

with a lot of folks still having drafts here in the next 10 days or so. Speaking of folks who have drafts in the next 10 days or so, what is going to happen to the price of Spencer Strider? Six Ks, two and two third scoreless. He didn't walk anybody, he didn't hit anybody. He looked fantastic Look like the stuff was there the velocity look like it was there the command looked really crisp I know we're not gonna get them right away to begin the seasons

there's gonna be a little bit of a lag before he's in your lineups, but What kind of adjustment if any are you making after seeing what Strider did in his return to game action on Monday? One thing that I really liked was the command looked like it was there. Like he was putting the pitches where he wanted. He also threw a change up that looked nastier than his change up. I remember and he threw curve balls.

So he threw everything. I liked that. He was also super efficient. I mean, he had like nine straight strikes to start the whole thing. It only took him like 10 pitches to get through the first inning, or maybe it was nine. And he wasn't supposed to go as deep in the game. Like he wasn't supposed, he was like, if I get two ups, I'm happy, at least according to CJ Nekowski in the booth there.

And he got into the third inning. So I wonder if the team at some point is like, why are we rehabbing him in the minors? Why don't we just, if he's got a three inning start in him, let's just take those three innings in the majors, you know? So he could be in the majors faster, but not like on a full, I think of like how they stretched Drew Rasmussen out in the majors in Tampa, where he was like three or four to begin with. Because they also think they might make the postseason that they want stride in the majors in Tampa where he was like three or four to begin with because they also think they might make the postseason that they want stride in the postseason so that would be

a little bit disastrous for some people because then he wouldn't give you any quality starts or any wins for a while and I could see them doing that all the way into May you know just kind of being three and four and maybe he's like hyper efficient and gets to five. That's what Drew Rasmussen did a few times, but I think they would do it that way. That's what makes a lot of sense from the team perspective. You're also stretching them out slowly. You're, you're giving them regular work. You're using those in the major leagues as opposed to minor leagues.

You're keeping some innings for the postseason. They did mention that. I think he's, he's like a few strike strikeouts sort of some benchmark where it's like the fastest pitcher, the fastest starting pitcher to ever get to that benchmark in strikeouts. So even if he does that three to four inning thing, which would be on the bad end of outcomes, he's going to give you a ton of strikeouts. He's going to just give you a ton of strikeouts. And like the worst case scenario is you're racking up strikeouts. You're not getting give you a ton of strikeouts. And like the worst case scenario is

you're racking up strikeouts, you're not getting many wins until they let them go deeper. Yeah, if they do use them in the big leagues. We're planning on waiting until late April to bring him back and at that point say, okay, four or five in a run away. But even then they could maybe, maybe they could do three, four, you know.

But if you already went two and two thirds that very first time out, I think it's gonna be a reasonably short window before he's stretched out enough to at least go going to be a reasonably short window before he stretched out enough to at least go five and be eligible for wins in his starts. He looked right. He looked good. And most of the main drafts that are folded into this data have already happened. Twenty three picks earlier in main event drafts than in the rest of drafts

for the first half of March for Spencer Strider. That's probably going to jump yet again. When does it become too much? I mean, the price, like the March for Spencer Strider. That's probably going to jump yet again. When does it become too much? I mean the price, the way you describe Strider is he could be phenomenal in Ks even without a massive volume compared to his peers. That's a lot like a Tyler Glasnow description. I'm Mr. Tyler Glasnow.

I want Tyler Glasnow on as many teams as possible and I have him on a lot of teams. Glasnow was going at pick 77. Strider was going at 91. We're looking at 15 plus more picks for Strider or is it going to be even higher than that? Guess what happened in our main? Glasnow went in the middle of the fifth. So, Glasnow went 68, Strider went 69.

Alright. If that's the price, are you in on either or both of them? Yeah, there's a little bit of thing to address here, which is like, you know, when we talk about main events and we're going to talk about main event today, you know, there's a emphasis on the sort of it's a free agency league, it's deep. There's an emphasis on are you there for me at the beginning of the season? Because if not, I don't know if I can wait around for you, you know, the sort of very week to week like, you know, people churn their rosters, people go through it and like stream hitters, streaming hitting happens at NFC all the time and it doesn't really happen in most people's leagues, you know what I mean?

So we didn't take him. We didn't take either of those. We had a little bit more of a conservative streak to us. We got Cease from Fromber, right after Strider actually the next pick. Cease-Fromber, and then we took a long time off of pitching and got back to the end of the board. Because we thought pitching for us is just going to be a churn and burn. If you think you're going to be a churn and burn and you're in a churn and burn league, then Strider's not a great fit for you because you're just going to be itching to have that roster spot back. But most other leagues, like I think a lot of people play in 12 teams leagues, you want to have the upside, especially have an IELTS slot.

You can stash them and you can go and have some fun on the IELTS, you know, with that extra slot. One of the nicest things in these shallow leagues is to have a guy put on the IELTS because the wafer wire is just bursting with opportunity. You know, people who got jobs, people who pitched all well through the spring while you were drafting or whatever. And so in my rankings, it's really hard to split the difference of that. So I have Spencer Strider ranked 20th right now, right behind Yamamoto and a couple behind

glass now. I guess that would make him draftable. I guess that would make him draftable. Yeah, that would make him draftable. Yamamoto went 60 in this league. So he's draftable, he's on my list. I think just certain leagues make it a little bit harder to own than others. Yeah, and I think the Dodger pitcher discount

continues to be based on the likelihood of six-man rotation, basically erasing two starts in a week. Like that's the main argument against that group. Yeah, cuz I have Yamamoto with 130 innings. And when I did the math on a six inning thing, I think the max out of 130, six starter rotation max out 135. So I'm having Yamamoto like pretty close to what could be his max. Of course, they might do five men for a little bit.

So maybe get to 140, 145, but that was other than Julio Urias, we'd looked at it and it was like 140 was really the, the kind of the modern Dodgers top of innings. So that's what you're hoping there. But like, you know, I have to Grom 12 and we took Fromber who we had, or I have 10th. That shows that bias towards leagues

where I'm valuing bulk, right? You could take Strider and Glass now over Fromber in a 12 and a 10 team, where you're just like, I want the good guy. I want the guy with all the strikeouts. If you've got IL spots in your league, and that's most people listening, you should be leveraging that.

You should be taking on that extra risk and playing for ceiling for sure, because you can live to tell the tale. You can use that waiver wire to your benefit, use those extra roster spots that you get from having the IL to your benefit, and get those guys in your lineup at a fraction of the cost of a typical ace.

Like it's still a discount, even in leagues that have IL spots, it's a discount worth taking. Some other news related stuff, how about this? Camp Smith closing in on an opening day roster spot. What is the news item attached to this? I think it's just an excuse to talk about Camp Smith really. No, I mean like where does that like who said this? I think it started and I see there's another update. Chandler Rome has one as of Monday Chandler Rome saying it still seems far-fetched That Smith will break camp as Houston's everyday right fielder and the previous report

Suggesting that it was close was from Will Kunkel of Fox 26 in Houston. Okay Yeah, I could let just there's a great piece if you want to read about this and Chandler Rome wrote a piece today Or I don't know if it's day or yesterday about this and Chandler Rome wrote a piece today, or I don't know if it's today or yesterday about this, I mean, it's Zach Desenzo and Cam Smith. And it was just really eye-opening because you can hear Chandler Rome walking the line, you know, like, and even the way he crafted the story was amazing.

I thought it was really good writing and thinking, which is they say unequivocally and they've shown in their past that they only want their young players to get everyday at bats. They don't want to have a prospect that doesn't have everyday at bats like in the big leagues, you know what I mean? And they've said that and they've acted that way. And so there's only one spot on the roster where they could maybe get everyday bats

and that's right field. And Chas McCormick is the incumbent. Now Chas McCormick had a terrible season last year and he's not even hitting that well in spring but he does have a 420 OBP. And it seems like a little bit of folly to be like, okay, we've had 20-and bats fromas McCormick, so we're moving on. But on the other hand, that is maybe that not the hardest bar to clear.

Maybe Chas McCormick can just be a backup outfielder. There were parts of last year where he certainly looked the part. So only one of Kamsmith and Zach Descenzo can get that job. And the job is right field. And the loser is Chas McCormick if it happens. So at least Chandler sort of loses it. And the whole reason is you're kind of losing Chas McCormick as an asset if you do that. And that's why we've talked about that the line of the DFA versus the has no options

and stuff like that. That sort of team building philosophy. We actually had a question in the Discord that I don't think we necessarily answered, which is like how many teams ascribe to this? And I would say all of them care about not losing an asset. They really don't want to DFA a player. They wanna do everything they can until that point.

And when they get to DFAing, it's like, okay, he doesn't have a value in our roster anymore. Some teams are more aggressive in it. We've talked about the Guardians holding on to guys until the very minute. And then sometimes DFAing guys they did want just because they got a roster crunch. Whereas the Rays and Brewers and some other teams are a little bit more about, we're going to trade this guy two years before we have to put him on the put him on the, on the 50, on the 40 man just so we don't get into a roster crunch, you know, they both make mistakes, you know, like the Xavier Edwards situation, you know, that's a little bit, I think of a slight mistake on the

race part, you know, they traded him just to not have to put him on the roster, but he could help them at shortstop like right now. Yeah, I mean. And then Junior Caminero might have been, you know, I don't know if that's the other one, but like, you know, the the the Guardians have had a rule five drafts where like everyone's taking Guardians. I mean, I think the thing about the Xavier Edwards trade, that was November of 2022. So a lot changed for the raise, right? That was a before they knew things that were happening with Wander, like they made that trade. Yeah.

So, okay. Yeah. Okay. That's good content. Timeline. But I'm just saying that both methods can make mistakes, either like trying to be too aggressive and then you trade somebody two years before and then they break out after you trade them away, or holding on to a bunch

of people until you're like, oh, we just have to announce like five DFAs or just get robbed in the rule five this year. So thinking about it in the context that Chandler wrote about it, are you looking at this more as a Smith may have to wait a few weeks and see Chas McCormick continue to struggle like he did last year in order to get that spot. Do you think that's the the tipping

point for when we'll see Cam Smith in 2025? I do because you can put Chas McCormick and Ben Gamble out there in a platoon and that's a fine idea. It's not an exciting idea, but it is a it's one that keeps Chas McCormick on the roster and Ben Gamble and keeps your options open. And you can put as Chandler Rome lines up, you can put Cam in double A where he hasn't played. He hasn't played in double A very much. It's it's surprising. Played appearance. It's surprising. Plainly played appearances. It'd be very quick, but I think the only kind of Dana Brown related example of someone that moved that fast, Michael Harris.

Oh, yeah. The Braves have moved very fast. Just because of need, right? I mean, and even that, I think, was more time for Harris, but Harris was a high school draftee, not a college kid. So slight difference in Experience and age and those factors too, but I don't know. I don't think the quick path Because of the way the incentives work for getting guys into the mix for rookie of the year

I feel like teams are more willing to be aggressive as they should be so it seems like it's still up in the air One thing that I want to mention real quick though is that I guess Brendan Rodgers has been alright this spring or whoever is going to be their second baseman. Yeah, Dubon or whatever. You can undo all of this just by putting Althubi back at second. Chas McCormick and Ben Gamble in one corner and Kamsmith in the other. So that realization in my head makes it kind of like, I mean, especially if we start seeing a Tuve back at second in spring games.

I just wish there was a question mark at the bottom of the screen. That's where I feel like it is more of a question at this point. You could take it, like you could take it in redraft leagues, you can take them with your bench picks because those bench picks aren't designed to hang around. In our draft, we took in the bench, Mike Clevenger and Bo Briski, and you know, and there's no, we have no attachment to them.

If they're not closers, bye bye, you know? So like closer ideas and then like Jack Caglione is swinging super, super hard in Kansas City right now and he has had an amazing spring and they have a terrible outfield and there's actually kind of like there's not as much being made of it but there's kind of a similar situation where in Kansas City, do you like go into the season with Hunter Renfro as a starter out there with MJ Melendez

and maybe even Mikel Garcia in center, that's where he's been playing a lot. Or do you kind of ride the wave and take Jack Caglione? I'm guessing that they won't push Cagliari. He played, he didn't even make it to double A last year, but his numbers this spring are eye popping and he's a college guy, top pick, could just be ready for a team that's supposed to be

pretty good, that could find a place to put him, you know? So I think these things tend towards, you know, come back in a couple of weeks, kid. Right, so they just sent him to minor league, you know. So I think these things tend towards, you know, come back in a couple weeks, kid. Right, so they just sent him to minor league camp on Monday. So Jack Kegley- Kegley-on did? Yeah, he's not gonna make the opening day roster, but then you start looking at,

you never wanna use the Angels as like a blueprint for what other teams are going to do, but think about how quickly, you know, Zach Neto moved, right? Like that was pretty fast, man. Like that was, if teams think someone can help them win now and the Royals are one of those teams that I think have a window right now and as long as they're not doing what they feel is wrong. Let's throw a percentage on it. Cansmith opening a roster. I'm going with 35.

Yeah, I was gonna say 33. There's like a one in three chance. So if that's what you're looking at at you take that chance late and you just cut the player and move on if it doesn't happen like it it's a complete late dart because of what you said at the beginning if they have him on the roster they're going to play him and if he plays well he keeps the spot it's it's really straightforward here's one for you David Bednar still hasn't been named the Pirate's Closer what's going on there? I don't know what's worse. So David Bednar hasn't been named the Closer.

Alexis Diaz, I don't know if he's been named the Closer or whatever, but his manager just said some like interesting things about him and then sent him to pitch on a minor league game on the backfields. That might not be a good sign. Alexis Diaz and David Bednar are officially on the hot seat. I thought I would go look through spring K-BBs and give you, these are just notable K-BBs.

But of, I think there were like 1086 pitchers or maybe it was only like 10, 12. Hey, Alexis Diaz is in the bottom 10. So of the 1,012 pitchers that have pitched this spring, Alexis Diaz has the 1,000th and fifth K-BB at minus 22%, which I've never seen. Of course, I put Innis pitching there for a reason. I also wanted to, on this list,

put some guys that maybe we're not that worried about. Are we worried about Josh Hader? You know, are we worried about Luis Castillo? You know, then list put some guys that maybe we're not that worried about. Are we worried about Josh Hader? You know, are we worried about Luis Castillo? You know, then there are some guys maybe are worried about Robert Suarez only has a zero K minus BB and I've gotten, you know, how, when are we worried about him? Kind of stuff. Um, I did want to throw Taylor Rogers and Colin Holderman on there because those two guys are near the top in usage on their teams and seem to be the next guys in line.

So if you have a Bednar or Diaz, I think getting Rogers or Holderman makes sense if you have Bednar or Diaz. And maybe even if you don't have Bednar or Diaz, getting a Rodgers or Holderman late could net you a closer. I like Holderman a little bit better, just to be on the record. I think I'm with you on that. Rodgers has done it before, he's had a lot of trouble

with home runs in the last couple of years since he was a closer. It's definitely a possibility. He's not pitching in Cincinnati right now. You know? Although, Arizona's probably pretty homer-friendly. It's a pretty homer-friendly environment to be in the Cactus League. I was kind of impressed by a couple of the arms the Reds had in their

spring breakout game. Luis May is one that I was reading up about a little bit, throws really hard, pretty bad walk rates in the minors, but the kind of guy that in an unsettled situation could show up, get some opportunities and low leverage and quickly climb the ladder. I think that's a bullpen that can be conquered by just about anybody this year. I would say the same is true in Pittsburgh. Even if you like Holderman as the first option up, if they don't go with Bednar, someone

else like not even on the roster right now, could end up being the longer term solution for that ninth inning role as the season plays out. Yeah, I did notice that of the top 50 in, or top 60 in leverage last year, so we're talking about the back two for a team, so you know, top 60 in leverage, only one pitcher had never pitched in the big leagues before. I already tell you this one. Only one had never in the big leagues before. Did I already tell you this one?

Only one had never pitched in the big leagues before. Before last season. Hmm, I feel like we saw Justin Martinez before last season. So I don't think it's Justin Martinez. It's Justin Slayton. Justin Slayton, okay. He was a rule five pick last year, right? Which meant he had to be in the big leagues, so I guess that was in his favor.

But it also is like, wow, that's the only one because you'd also wouldn't be like, oh, yes, the Red Sox are going to be the one that needs to go to somebody like that in the back of the bullpen. So there might be a surprise from the minor leagues, but if you are looking for holds and saves, look in the major leagues. I think those guys could get the minor leagues. But if you are looking for holds and saves, look in the major leagues. I think those guys could get the first look. All right. Well, it's still weird to me that David Bednar is struggling this spring. That's part of the problem.

I thought he'd put the pieces back together. We've talked about the pitch tipping from last year. The velocity was there. The stuff was there. If you could make that adjustment back to the pre 2024 Bednar, there was no reason to believe why he couldn't reclaim that job. But he's struggling to do that here so far this spring. It's the same stuff this spring. I mean, you know, his stuff plus is fine.

It's maybe not as exemplar as you would like, but you can see it in the strikeout rate. It's more that he's just lost command again. And when I talked to him before, he said he'd lost his curveball, but he felt like there was something in his mechanics and they were going to figure it out. But it hasn't quite gotten there yet. Let's talk about a few recent movers, though, as we kind of get closer to talking about Eno's main event

team. I was looking at the patterns, just trying to. Which we've already been talking about this whole time. It's been kind of folded into the conversation. So I mentioned earlier, like the moves up top, mostly pitching, right? If you look at main event versus non-main event drafts in March, you're gonna see skeins and scooble up

a few spots into the first round where they usually go. Logan Gilbert and Crochet and Burns and Sale, Jacob deGrom up 14 spots. So the overall component of the NFVC, folks trying to win the grand prize, that's gonna also kind of increase some of the risk tolerance that you see. Closers get bumped up to Mason Miller, probably the biggest riser, up 18 picks

in main event drafts compared to the non-mains in March. Like, that's all typical stuff. Interesting that Jackson Churio is one of the few position players, along with Wyatt Langford. The young stud early round position players get a bump in these formats too, four and eight picks respectively. So you see the older veteran guys I mentioned before falling, Acuna fell, I think part of that's news too.

Like the news on him is fine but it's just confirmation of missed time as expected coming off the second ACL tear Then you see like the Corey Seeger's the Pete Alonso's the Jose Altuve's Ozzy Albies Those guys all fall a little bit too I think the mid-round movement is really interesting because you start to see some clear Preferences on some of the guys that might be considered underpriced pitchers, like Tanner Bybee getting jumped up more than 25 picks in main event drafts,

Joe Ryan with good health this spring getting pushed up 20, and even that next wave of closers, Ryan Walker up more than 30 picks in the mains, Jeff Hoffman up almost 60, Tanner Scott who got the save in the Dodgers opener, more than 40 picks up. So I'm just kinda of curious like that you played this for a few years. You're not new to it What do you do to account for that? Quick shift in the approach in that room because it just doesn't play like the other draft rooms

We've been in for most of the winter. It is tough because as I described the sort of game of chicken where you have your values and you have the ADP and you have to play some game between them which is can I get this guy around later? Because you have your values, if you just stick to your values you would make reaches that the whole room would be like wow. And you don't almost want that. You want to sneak them in.

You wanna be like, somebody, you want that like, ooh, nice pick, not that like, wow. Like, you just jumped that guy three rounds off of ADP. And so as these things are moving across, I still use as an anchor point as always, my value sheet. What's my value sheet? Again, another point for me though is that if I had a slightly different weighting on the different projections that I've aggregated into my value

sheet, then I'd have different numbers, you know, so you have to have a little bit of error bands around what you're doing. In my main event, I made a plan. When I saw our pick, I looked through what was going through and we immediately started talking about the players we would take and we had a plan for those first three and we went exactly according to plan. That was the meshing of our values and the ADP and saying, Henderson, Merrill, Machado, that's going to work for us and it did. So then when it came back to us in the fourth round, we thought, we'll just look at what available pitchers are there.

That's a moment where you look around the room and you say, what's been happening? And because we took Machado after that long pitcher run, it was basically Cease was sitting there for us and it was Cease or Yamamoto. And we just took Cease because we felt the bulk would be there and the strikeouts are there. This is where things, the next round is where things start to that chicken and what's happening in the room started to come together. So you can see, you know, glass down strider go. We had Fromber, you know, in our sort of top 12 pitchers. So for Fromber to still be there after almost everybody has a pitcher was like, okay, Fromber types are the types that can fall down.

They're the kind of what you were saying earlier, like the boring veterans, right? And so Fromber's sitting there and we're like, oh crap, we also wanted to get one of the top closers and we'd been hoping that Durand would make it back. But the closers all got helium. You saw Durand goes the very beginning of the fourth round. That's actually sort of 15 up on his ADP.

And so closers got all this helium, and we were like, oh man, we're looking at Jeff Hoffman here. So we were like debating in the room, Valdez or Hoffman, do we participate in the closer inflation? And that's always your question, do you participate? Or do you go the other direction?

And we said, you know what, if we lose Hoffman, so what? Maybe we can take Scott in the next round, we'll figure something out at closer. Fromber's too good of a pitcher to be here. And so we took Fromber and then we got real lucky, Hoffman just slid right back to us. Yeah. Because all the guys, everybody else had taken a closer already and had participated in the inflation. And so there's Edwin Diaz, you can see it.

Edwin Diaz, Josh Hader, Mason Miller, Devin Williams, and Ryan Hesley to the right of us. So when the draft went that way, they were all like, well I'm not taking Hoffman as my second closer this early in the draft. And so really, I think just generally, you wanna zig when other people zag. That's hard to do.

So what I would say is zig when other people zag, but always use as your North Star, your own values, right? So always be checking your values and who's the best value on the board according to your values, then check ADP, then maybe take a sneak peek at the board and see what people have been doing. And I think for us that ended up with Hoffman was not our target. We wanted Durand, but we felt like the way we put it was Fromber for us was an extra pick.

You could shift our whole board up, Hoffman that pick, and it would look like we'd sort of planned to do, but instead we got Fromber plus Hoffman, and that was something that I think was born of not participating in the inflation. There's another way, I just, I've thought about this a few times, and maybe I've articulated it on the show this way before, but in an auction setting,

if you pay a few extra dollars at the top of the pool then that money typically comes off from the bottom and a couple of the two and three and four dollar guys on your sheet end up going for a buck. That's just usually how the money gets balanced out. And I do think the same effect happens with inflation in drafts, it's just not dollars, it's rounds and the way you're thinking about it is a good way to think about it. If you flip Will Smith into the spot where Jeff Hoffman went, you took Will Smith the catcher in the seventh, right?

So if you put him in the sixth and you got Hoffman in the seventh, you'd have felt good about that. If you'd taken Brian Reynolds in the seventh instead of Hoffman, you would have felt good about that. If you'd taken Matt Chapman in the eighth instead of the ninth, you'd have felt good about that. Like the discounts come back. So I think you have to understand that unless there's a great path for you, unless you really believe

in some of the late closers, the guys that are available at like pick 125, 150, 175, and those are guys that were previously at 175, 200, and 225, unless you like that group, it's okay to pay that tax at least one time. This is where I've kind of landed as like a happy medium. The double tapping early closers seems like it costs you too much, but getting one in a league

where there's no trading, where there's 14 other teams battling in fab, trying to get saves when closers become available on the waiver wire at top dollar, that's where I feel like you just have to sort of take your medicine. And I think you had things break in a way that worked really well. If you had seen the teams next to you,

you mentioned that they all had closers already when you decided to take Valdez and roll the dice on Hoffman falling. If one of those teams hadn't drafted a closer already, would you have gone ahead and just taken Hoffman and not taken that chance? Was that the difference for you between gambling or? No, because of Tanner Scott.

Because of Scott, because there were two. There were two left. We had Hoffman and Scott. They're not really in the quote unquote circle of trust of like elite closers, but they're in the circle of trust as like, okay, that's good enough. You know, like we got one, you know? So because of Scott, we felt good about it.

You know, it's also interesting to me, I think when you will create a draft where you're making choice. My joke is in the listener draft was that there are always three guys you want with their next two picks, you know? And that means going in different directions. And what happens is you will have weaknesses.

So obviously Hoffman is our closer one that's a weakness compared to other teams. You know we got near the bottom of the top 15 closers. When you do do that I think it does make sense with the sort of yo-yo idea which is to take a more top end sleeper at that position. You know you can do that way later. So in the 13th round, we took AJ puck. That's nearer to the beginning of if he closers, right. But we felt the projection was so good, we could use them just as a as a pitcher sometimes even if he's not always getting saves. But also he papers over one of our

issues with Hoffman. And ended with, like I mentioned before, Clevenger and Briskey. So you will always make mistakes, you'll always have weaknesses on your roster and you just have to kind of spend a little bit more downdraft to paper over those. But also another thing when I was looking at these, this nice list of risers and followers you put together, when I'm looking at that list of followers, like there's, it's not obvious to me what they did wrong. You know, like Mookie, I get it, but Tatis, Harper, Marte, Manny Machado.

What did Manny Machado do wrong? You know, to, to go down five picks, Corey Seeger, Pete Alonso, Jose Altuve, like these guys are not exciting. There's like an oatmeal thing that happens to some extent. Right, I think they get, for the most part, that group gets passed up for pitching because everyone feels there's a similar player to them later.

They're more agnostic about either what position they get with their early round building blocks or they think the categorical balances are pretty similar for most of those players and it just doesn't matter as much whereas I think the preferences for who people like in their circle of trust for aces is stronger. I think, I don't know if that's a false sense of control but the results of those guys falling, I don't think it's, generally I don't think it's anything going on with them. That's news related. It's just pitching went up So these are the hitters that came down that's smart you in your biggest risers

You have Paul skeins Terrence scubal Logan Gilbert Gail crochet Corbin Burns Chris sale Jacob de Grombe like yeah So pitching gets inflated in these drafts I don't think pitching needs to get inflated in your 12 team. Like I don't think you need to do that. There's a lot of that. So a lot of those. So we also had to ask this question last week. How much do you care about ME information? How much do you care about the NFC information if you're not in NFC? And in this case, you might look at this and be like, they've got it wrong for my league. You know, I want Bryce Harper and, you know, Manny Machado and Corey Seeger and Jose Altuve rather than the opposite, not having them and having a great

pitcher at the top. So, right. Well, cause if you're playing in a 10 or a 12 team league and maybe it's not fab, it's first come first serve on the waiver wire. This is a completely different construct with the IL spots. Like we talked about earlier, you are going to find that streaming and just targeting the pitchers you want in that league is going to be a lot different than in the once a week fab pickup system where everybody's hyper focused on what they need.

And it's a different collection of players and mindsets. And you have to sort of account for that. I would say if you're not playing NFB, see and you want to find some information that's useful on a sheet like this or an information like this. It's the the magnitude of the risers. It's not just like, oh, skeins is up three spots. I should go get Paul skeins. That doesn't really mean anything. It's when you see massive jumps, when you see that pool, the folks paying $1,800

for their entry, pushing guys up 50, 60 picks, like the later movers I think are more interesting because that might guide you to some actual sleepers for 10 and 12 team weeks. Tanner, Bybee being up 26, Joe Ryan, that means they feel he's healthy. You know, Ryan Walker, he's entering the circle of trust. I would be, or I'd be Ray, healthy.

I would be a little bit wary about closers in general. That fits into just the room situation thing where I think most players, get a closer you like and maybe get two, but in a 10 or 12 team league, they're gonna be enough closers for everybody. Right, right, right. So yeah, I would not take what's happening with the closers here in a vacuum

and apply that anywhere else. One thing I would do though is like look especially at who, even maybe even later than these mid-rounders, what type of starting pitchers are main event people taking mid to late? That's the group you want. Those to me are like the market sleepers. Like the high stakes market undervalued sleeper pitchers

are probably the guys that port over most effectively as players you do on a roster in more shallow leagues. They're being pushed up because the expectation is that they're going to pop, right? And it's not surprising. It's guys we've talked about going all the way back through position previews. The three that I saw that are moving up the most,

Gavin Williams, Jesus Lizardo, Clay Holmes. Like if you were- Jesus Lizardo who's starting the second game of the season. Clay Holmes is opening day starter. I mean, there is signal there. There's some signal there. Their teams really like them and I think they're gonna win an early game with them. You know, they're not they're not sticking on the back where they can skip them, you know. And our league, if there's

somebody to be pulled across from our draft, like we definitely went, so after we had ceased foulies in Hoffman, we were like, it is time for hitters. And so we went Will Smith, Brian Reynolds, Matt Chapman, Ian Happ, Andres Jimenez, Paul Goldschmidt. That is oatmeal, isn't it? It's pretty oatmeal-y. But it's high-end, good oatmeal. I mean, all those guys, one way that J.H. put it is,

all those guys are going to hit in the top four of their lineup and play every day. That's exactly what they all should do that. And then we had to take Puck because we took Hoffman and that cost us a little bit but it was at a time when taking Puck cost us Reynaldo Lopez or Zac Eflin. You know we were like does that is do we need Zac Eflin as our third starter? No. At this point we've decided we have two good starters, two good relievers, and then the rest of our nine,

the next five, we're just gonna get 10 pitchers to fill those five spots. And we're just gonna be choosing every week, you know? And so once we made that decision, it made it even easier for us to get Nico Horner, Lars Knutbar, Jake Cronenworth, Patrick Bailey, you know, between our pitchers. But these are the pitchers we took

once we decided to start taking pitchers. Reese Olsen, Grant Holmes, Hugh Darvish, Tyler Meggiel, Jack Leiter, Landon Rupp, Osvaldo Bideau, Chris Panek, and Briski and Cleminger at the end. So some of those are obvious ones. You're like, oh yeah, you got Bideau. Of course you did, you know. Le as a, as a stuff is Meggy. It was in my breakout list.

Duh. Some of those are the YOLO YOLO you Darvish because if he's in and healthy, he's fine. You know, he's good. Reese Olson is just a kind of a park play, you know, Grant Holmes is, he's not a stuff is, but, and then there's a load him on here. Chris Paddock gets the White Sox in his first start. That's the only reason we drafted him. I had a feeling that Paddock was a streamer and that's something that playing with J.H. for the last couple of seasons now too. J.H. is looking at the schedule before anybody else I know. He's already thinking about it in January.

He's like, hey, here's who's pitching against the White Sox in the first series of the season. I think if you wanted to see anything off of my draft and be like, oh, that's something I could take away from an event is that in the 22nd and 23rd round of my draft, we went Jack Leiter and Landon Roop. Those are two that we've certain, you know, that's, we put our finger on those guys. And you've heard me talk about Jack Leiter, Landon Roop. Those are two that we've served. Like, you know, they that's like, we put our finger on those guys. And you've heard me talk about Jack Leiter.

The blocks have come back a little bit this spring, but I think that'll just be a thing that's comes and goes for him. I don't know if we've talked about Landon Roop enough. Probably not. He, he, he added a hard slider, like a gyro slider that functions as a cutter for him and he's been intensely good this spring really he's had one maybe one bad outing But he has gone deep into he's looked really professional out there and from what I gather He is the favorite for the fifth role makes me a little sad about my Hayden Birdsong shares

But you know it's a soft enough group. Pretty bad news for Kyle Harrison. Yeah, what? That will be unpacked on a future episode. But yeah, Landon Roop getting that spot would be huge and make him an early season pickup in leagues that have already drafted because he was undrafted, I think, for a good portion of this draft season. At least the non-draft and hold situations.

I'm sure he's rostered in all of the 50 rounders because everybody, almost everybody gets rostered in the 50 rounders except for Mason Miller the year Mason Miller broke through I think that was like the one of the the best players that didn't get drafted in the 50 rounders because of the injury history and all the uncertainty there but it looks like a really strong squad and not surprising knowing you and JH that's you know kind of the way I expect you guys to play. Like I didn't look at that board and go,

I can't believe they did that. I looked at that board and said, yeah, they had a plan and they executed it. So hope it works out for you guys. The bench is funny because we have Jake Myers and Orlando Orsilla and it's like, you're like, why would you even bother? Well, because we have Nico Horner

and you just generally wanna have coverage in week one in case somebody else goes down. Basically Nico Horner and Lars Knutbar and Jake Fraley, it's like, let's have an outfielder on our bench and let's have a middle infielder on our bench. And we have Gunnar Henderson, who I think is gonna be fine for the beginning of the season. That's what we've heard.

But Orlando Orsillo was kind of a high end paper over it, or he's a guy that's gonna be gone. And yes, knowing J.H., the last eight picks of our roster have like a 0% chance of making it to the end of the season. Replacements have already been lined up. Yeah, the closest I'd say is if Clevenger or Breski turned into the, like was announced the full-time closer on day one, then we'd be like,

okay, well, one of our darts landed, but otherwise... The darts are there to be dropped. That's probably the way it's going to go, more likely than not. We need to go. We're running a tad long. You can find Eno on BlueSky, enoceras.besky.social, IMDbvr.besky.social. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. That's going to do it for this episode of Raids and Barrels.

We're back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening. They got guys.