Rates & Barrels - Blake Snell to the Dodgers & Early Pitching Movers in Free Agency

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

Eno and DVR are back from the holiday to discuss Blake Snell's five-year pact with the Dodgers (and an extension for Tommy Edman), plus Frankie Montas' move to the Mets and Matthew Boyd's signing with the Cubs.  Related Reading 'The book on Blake Snell doesn’t have it completely right' ($): https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5951700 Rundown 2:10 Blake Snell to the Dodgers Related Search on Baseball Savant looking at Starting Pitchers with the lowest percentage of pitches in the heart of the strike zone since 2022: https://bit.ly/4ivcfRR 14:39 An Extension for Tommy Edman 27:05 Frankie Montas to the Mets 33:03 Matthew Boyd to the Cubs 40:14 Potential Position Changes & Rangers Rehab Updates Mailbag! 55:46 Reds Rotation After Brady Singer Addition 1:00:51 Early 2025 Catcher Thoughts 1:14:22 The Blue Jays' Offseason Plans 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

Tis the season for packages appearing on your doorstep like holiday magic. You know what else is magic? Rakuten. With Rakuten, you can save money by getting cash back at over 750 stores like Sephora, Old Navy, and Best Buy. You can even stack cash back on top of holiday sales. That's like savings on savings. So make sure to shop with Rakuten to get the best deals on gifts for everyone on your list,

including yourself. Join for free at rakuten.ca or download the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N, rakuten.ca. This episode is brought to you by Majuri. From November 25th to December 2nd, get 25% off everything on orders over $150 in Missouri's biggest sale ever. From bold hoops to minimalist stacks, Missouri has something for everyone. Missouri makes handcrafted fine jewelry for every day made with responsibly sourced materials so you can look and feel good about gifting and wearing them. Shop your wishlist 25% off at majori.com today.

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Monday, December 2nd. Derek VanRyper, Inosaris here with you. On this episode, December 2nd. Derek VanRyper, you know, Seris here with you on this episode. We have some free agent signings. We have an extension and the Dodgers are a very active club early on this off season. Not a surprise given the resources at their disposal. We have mailbag questions. We've got some players willing to play in new positions.

We have some players probably being told they're going to play a new position in 2025, so we'll dig into some of those changes as well. You know, how was your Thanksgiving week? That was great. We spatch the hell out of some turkeys. And I think I think I did well. It tasted great.

And it was great to see all the family and then, uh, wife drug us all out to see Moana too. Yesterday. So, uh, we had the family out and the, and, and the tree is up. Okay. Big week. Can you, that was a very productive week. Two turkeys, a movie.

The tree is up. You made the flip from November, December as seamlessly as one can. Full points. It's we have a fake tree. Well, yeah, it's so much easier. Yeah, we just go downstairs, bring it up, put it together.

Bam. And it looks pretty good. I mean, the one that we've got looks pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. We got one of those a few years ago, Costco buy pre-lit. It's helpful. It saves a lot of time.

A lot of frustration. Highly recommended if you need an easy option. I don't know. We'll have to look at some studies on that one. I'm not really sure. Slight edge probably is my guess, but not certain of that. If you'd like to join our discord, you can do that with the link in the show description.

We'll have a lot of lively chatter in there in the weeks and months ahead. Let's get started with the big sign that happened since we last spoke. And this is a blow to our last episode, our free agent predictions. Blake Snell goes to the Dodgers. He gets a five year, hundred and eighty two million dollar deal.

As we mentioned in the predictions episode, you get one big nominal wrong and you're likely to get a few other big dominoes wrong as a result because it just doesn't work out the way you'd hoped. But for Blake Snell, after the one year stop in San Francisco, he ends up getting the big payday that he was looking for this time last year. And maybe it's not that surprising that he was a little quicker to move in this year's market to see him as the first big arm off the board. It's not really a surprise given the way things went down.

I wonder though, how much people will change their perception of Blake Snell because of the Dodgers being the team to sign him, right? I mean, we've talked about Blake Snell a lot on this show over the years. I think the main concern people have had is durability and the high walk rate. But the closer you look, and this is something you wrote about, the more you see that Blake Snell's walk rate is actually a lot less problematic than you'd think because there seems to be some clear intent behind it. There's a plan there. It's not just wild with no idea where the ball's going. It's more conceding walks in order to avoid damage. Yeah, he just doesn't want to give in.

Yeah, he just doesn't want to give in and I think he's just willing to avoid the hard contact and avoid the homers. And he'll give you some walks and I think it works because he strikes out 30% of the guys he sees so it's a little bit like the closer that Trevor may would talk about on the show just being like next guy, you know, as opposed to giving up the big home run that scores everybody, he'd rather walk, put two guys on and then eventually get to that 30% strikeout, right? You know, uh, just keep rolling the dice until it's a strikeout instead of a walk. And so I think it works when you strike out that many guys, um, it's part of why he's been an excellent at hit suppression. You know, we normally think of. Guys with hit suppression is having great command. I don't want to say he has great command.

I think he has average command and then has made this decision. He avoids the center of the plate, the sort of the heart. And then we can, we have a list here of pitchers that sort of the heart and we can we have a list here of pictures that have. Avoid the heart of plate and have as big a sample he said over the last three years minimum a thousand pitches down the heart of the plate and then sorted by who doesn't least Trevor Williams number one now he is a white arsenal super command you know. Arsenal, super command, um, you know, trying to live in the shadow zone. Jose Quintana, Martin Perez, the, you know, very similar. But if you look next on the list right before Blake Snell, uh, is Michael Koepke. So it's not always, you know, super command guys with wide arsenals who are nibbling.

You know, there are those guys. Dane Dunning is on this list. Javier Asad is on this list, but those guys. Dane Dunning is on this list. Javier Asada is on this list. But, you know, Edward Cabrera is on this list and Michael Kopeck is on this list and Blake Snell is on this list. And I don't think that Blake Snell has as bad command as the other two, but he's more like them than he is like Trevor Williams. So to some extent, he's just, just widened the area that he, that he dials in and he

just doesn't want to throw it down the heart of the plate. And of course there's ramifications to that. I don't know what it'll look like aging wise when the VLO goes down on the fastball and the strikeout rate drops. What if the strikeout rate is 22% and the walk rate is 10%? What we know is that K minus BB is a really strong predictor of future success. So, you know, he needs to keep the strikeout rate high, but, uh, what we've seen from him over the last few years is a consistently high level of stuff.

The level of high level of strikeout rate seems like he should be fine for the future. I also looked at like, you know, bulk and people, we've talked on the show about how deep he goes into his starts. He, you know, he went six plus in 10 of his last 13 starts last year. And it seems relevant to kind of take away the first starts because he signed so late, you know?

And then on top of that, he's top 50 in innings over the last four years with like 540. Now that doesn't seem like a lot of innings, but top 50, like people just don't throw innings anymore. You know, there's not many bad guys out there throw a lot of innings. And in that top 50 of innings, he had the third best ERA. So, you know what I mean? It's like they put, they got another glass now.

It's a great call in the sense that I think people are going to react the same way from a fantasy perspective. I was having an exchange the night that this signing was announced with someone and they were basically saying there's no way they could go after Snell at what will likely be one of the highest prices ever for him in a draft season. Now the team context has improved. Now that we've seen two Cy Youngs from him over the course of his career, if he is treated like Glass now, where by March he's maybe a late second rounder

in 15 team leagues, or at least like a mid third round pick, right? Top 40 sort of guy. And you have this innings risk, which is the result of a lot of different things and not actually recent arm injuries. Like I think it's a really hard player to put a health grade on. You can't give an a cause injuries or injuries, but you wouldn't give them

worse than a C I don't think, because if it's not shoulder, it's not elbow. It's not forearm. It's not those main big time problems for the last five years. It's been core and It's not forearm. It's not those main big time problems. For the last five years, it's been core and hamstrings. It's been big muscles, not, not legaments and stuff like that. Maybe those things can just keep piling up on them because he's 31 now and that'll always be part of the package. The other part you have to factor in is the Dodgers are going to use six starters. Like that's just what they do.

And remember this whole thing with the giants where he was like, they're rushing me back. And, you know, to some extent we don't know what the truth of that is, you know, because there was a little back and forth and he kind of walked it back a little bit afterwards, but to another extent, we know that Farhan was near the end of his career in San Francisco and may have wanted to rush Blake Snell back. Whereas I feel like the Dodgers will have a very different approach where they'd rather lose days, you know, during the season in case he can be there in October. So I think there'd be a lot of, you know, slow walking him and, and, and trying

to make sure that they have them at the right times of the year. Of course, that didn't work with class now this year. It didn't work with a lot of their guys, but I think they also are doing a little bit of the Tampa Bay Rays thing where they're just like, if we have a ton of guys, then we're going to have just barely enough for the postseason. And I think that might actually be smart because the other teams that are like, you know, oh, we were going to buy like horses and stuff and we're going to buy guys with a lot of innings, they might be just as scrambling in October.

I mean, this October in particular felt like every team was like, I don't know who's going to pitch tomorrow. Right. You were just going day by day, hoping that whatever you had choose to do tactically today, it didn't hurt you so badly tomorrow. That your options were completely reduced to like, Oh, we have four guys available that we can actually use who haven't thrown a million pitches. I mean, like even the Dodgers winning at all, like if Walker Bueller doesn't pitch well or

doesn't make it through that inning or, you know, like they didn't really have another guy after. Yeah, there were some, some pretty interesting calculated risks that happened to break in their favor, leaving Trinen in as long as they did in that clinching game, there's a couple of things you wonder like if that didn't go as well as it did, who would the cascading effect been in that series? But I wondered, you know, who else is like this beyond that leaderboard? Like Dylan Cease is the guy that I always compare Blake Snell to where I'm like the walk rate's high, but usually the home run rates, not a massive problem. like this beyond that leaderboard. Like Dylan Cease is the guy that I always compare Blake Snell to where I'm like, the walk rate is high, but usually the home run rates, not a massive problem.

And if you look at the list, you can do a stat cast search looking at these exact factors. If we'll try to link that in the show description, just in case people want to actually click through, I think Dylan Cease is 23rd on that leaderboard. It cut off at 10 for the purposes of what we put on the screen. So he's in that mix. Cole Regans is 19th. So I think it's just a reminder that Walkrate, while you can get really caught up by a double digit Walkrate for a starter and say, I don't want that, it's going to be terrible for the whip. It's going to cause all sorts of problems for the ERA. There's going to be higher variance. Like some of that might be true, but I think you have to be willing

to look more closely at what else comes with it. It's not just I walk too many guys and I'm not I'm not as effective as I should be because of it. There might also be like a like a real tipping point there somewhere, because you were like Edward Cabrera's on the list, right? And Michael Copac is on this list. And they got moved to the bullpen or And they got moved to the bullpen or Kopek got moved to the bullpen and Cabrera is the door.

Like the, we don't know. We don't know. The bullpen gate is open and there's a, there's a bright light reaching out towards the mound, trying to pull Edward Cabrera. And he's like, no, no. And they're chanting in the bullpen, they're all out there, one of us, one of us.

He'd be a fantastic, he'd be a lot like Copac. I think he could be a great closer. Really good closer. In any case, there are types. So like Jordan Hicks was showing on this list and it kind of reminded me a little bit of Snow where that's pretty good stuff. Mediocre command and just like, not

going to throw down the middle, you know, um, Nick Martinez was at the top of the list, uh, until we moved it to a thousand. He seems more of the sort of Trevor Williams ilk, but, um, he also has a decent amount of stuff. I just think he has like more command than snow. So it is this weird sort of medium command, but with the, I'm not going to throw down the middle. And that makes sense. In fact, it might be the best approach for somebody with medium command,

because if you have meaning command and you are trying not to walk people, then you're going to throw it down the middle and give up homers. And we know, we've known that, right? We've known that like bad command can lead to homers as much as it can lead to walks. So this, this might be the ideal approach for him. And I think what's also interesting is like the team that the Dodgers are building, um, obviously they made, you know, money off, off that run. And I think the Otani decision, you know, has, has really worked out for them in

terms of some of the, um, deals they've signed, the patch deal they signed was, I think the best in baseball, uh, for their Jersey. So I think that the team is, is, is doing well. Um, but you have to think like, is there ever going to be a reckoning for this team? Um, because they, they deferred out, you know, a bunch of the Snell money, they deferred out a ton of the Otani money.

Um, and even Freeman, I think there's some deferred money and, um, in Freeman and, uh, uh, and, and bets to some extent, um, and Otani there's money into their late thirties, you know, a lot of money into their late thirties where you just wonder, is this daughter's team being built to sell? You know, like do they want to win a couple of, uh, world series and then sell for the most that a team has ever sold for? Like it could, it could do, they could be going that direction. Uh, do they think they'll just run $400 million, uh, payrolls and just

like maybe 50 of it is just dead money. You know, I mean, with the Chris Taylor signing, what you see is that, um, that wasn't a good signing. I don't think his plate metrics were, were good. You know, he was a chaser that, you know, didn't have great contact ability and he sort of fell apart. They're just going to eat the last year. I bet you they either they he's the last guy on the roster this year or the DFA him even if, if something goes down and they were just going to be fine with

that. And I think that's the same with Edmund. Tommy Edmund is the other big Dodgers signing. What did he sign? It's five and 74, but he was already under contract basically for one and 10. So it's really like a four and 65 of new money. And it's short enough that they won't be left holding the Chris Taylor end of the bag. And I also think that there's some real differences between Taylor and Edmund in terms of what they do at the plate. Edmund's a high contact guy.

And I think no matter what, and he doesn't chase that much. So I think no matter what, he may not have a great OBP for you, but I do think like he will be a useful part of the lineup that just makes a bunch of contact put balls in play and could like be an MVP of a series, obviously, because he did that. Right. So I think he could age better than Chris Taylor.

And he's one of four players last year that played more than 15 games at center and short. The other guys are sedan Raffaello, who's in transit, I think, out to center field away from shortstop. Willie Castro, who, would you give Willie Castro, I mean, Willie Castro seems like a fairly good comp to Edmund, I think there's a lot of teams out there who would not give Willie Castro four years and 65 million. I think Willie Castro is a similar player with a little more swing and miss

that would probably get two fewer years and like 30 million less dollars. Right. So you're talking about like a three for 40 extension for a player like that and people would still be surprised by it. Willie Castro three for 40. But that defensive versatility matters a lot to clubs. I think there's something, there's so many things about Tommy Edmund that even if he has a few flaws already, he has a lot of strengths

that will probably age well. That's why they gave him this money. I saw Michael Bauman over at fan graphs with the headline sub headline was we can rebuild Ben Zobris. We have the technology. I mean, I think Tommy Edmond as a, and a newer version of Benzobris makes a lot of sense to me.

He can play almost anywhere they'll need him to play for most of that contract. And that alone just gives them a bunch of options with players they can pursue via free agency and trade. And then he can just backfill wherever they need it. And he can be a guy in the bottom half of that lineup for the life of the contract, doesn't have a ton of pressure on him if he's a league average stick or right around there, great against lefties, OK against righties.

That's fine for them. They can overpay. I think the thing about the the biggest market teams that people still need to be willing to accept is that they can overpay for players and it's okay. Yeah, we don't usually look to free agency for multi-year bargains anyway. That's not the point of free agency, but the Dodgers, the Mets, the teams that are going to spend 300 plus million on their payrolls, they can overpay by 10, 15, 20% for players and it won't bite them later. Will there be a reckoning someday? Maybe. I think you raise a great question.

Are they trying to just dominate for five or 10 years and pump up the valuation of the franchise and cash out? Maybe like make it the most viable franchise in baseball by a healthy margin. And everybody, everybody coasts off with new yachts and third, fourth and fifth Island homes. Maybe, maybe that's the plan. Or they're baking in like a national style rebuild at some point because the nationals deferred a lot of money and they basically what happened was in the deferred period of

time, the money where the money was coming in, that was rebuilding. So they were okay. What happened is you're the read read the deferred money you're spending the deferred money while you're rebuilding your team is actually cheap. You know so they could they could just be building in some of that or or they just be like well you know. With inflation maybe they've modeled inflation their own way and they're just like you know that, that 68 million that that will that we owe Otani will actually be, you know, chump change by then. So well, yeah, there's there is a lot of that with deferring as much of the Otani money as they did. Right. The future dollar will be a lot less valuable than the present dollar.

So that's that's the goal. But I don't know, will there be a great reckoning? Probably probably not. I don't think so. I think they have so much money in that organization. I don't think they're going to go through a massive rebuild for a long time. And they could just spend recklessly and get away with it. They are so well run. I mean, the only this is the only part where I guess this an injury,

but it's too hard to put the injury on Dodgers and just be like, oh yeah, that's a Dodgers problem. Is it, is it an industry problem? I mean, you know, they've made a bet on stuff like a lot of people and they, they, they are running a little bit like the Rays with a lot more money, uh, in terms of their starting pitching staff and who they, who they target. So you know, and then next year, you know, all of our talk about how injured they are next year and right now the rotation for next year is Otani, Yamamoto, Snell, um, and Glassnow.

And then, you know, even their back end guys, they may even sign another guy, but Gonsolin, May, Bobby Miller, Landon Nack, Ben Casperius, like that's decent for two spots. Um, and in fact, if Dustin May comes back and is good, then this could be one of the best rotations of all time. Like if all these guys are like reasonably healthy, like it could be one of the best rotations of all time. So, you know, it's really interesting how people see this. And also one last thing about the Dodgers. I don't know what their depth chart looks like.

Another way that they're raising, you know, they are run by a former raised GM. So they've announced that Mookie Betts is moving back to the infield, right? But they did not announce where. Probably not shortstop again. That's what I think. But Fankerex has Mookie Betts with 44% of the shortstop

played appearances. Right. But they're, I mean, they're doing the same exercise you and I are in the sense of taking their best estimate based on the options in front of them today, which could completely change with the next move. And Gavin Lux is projected to be 5% better than the average of the stick. So that seems like a weird player to. Say, well, you're you're on the bench most days.

Will they move Lux to the corner outfield? Betts at second, Edmund at short, and Pahez is the center fielder with Outmund as the backup? Doesn't seem like that's quite where they're going to land. I think there's some other variables here too. I mean, Dalton rushing is close to being ready, so maybe he's going to play some left field and be the backup catcher. How long are they going to keep using Austin Barnes as the backup catcher? Like that's the other part of the roster you look at sometimes.

You're like, that doesn't have to be that way, even though it is. I think the bargain players in the lineup from a draft perspective are kind of interesting because if you get past like pick 300, you're going to find Andy Paheus goes back there. Rushing goes back there. You can throw a dart on Bobby Miller really late in the 240 to three something range. There's a lot of guys that I'd like on this team that if you're drafting right now and you're willing to lean into the uncertainty about their roles,

if they end up sticking as regulars or near everyday players in this lineup, they could be huge values where they're going. Yeah, I mean, I used to, when I played AL Labor, I used to have a source that I would check with about the Rays depth chart, because I was always like, knowing the Rays offensive depth chart will provide me some player that is worth it in a depth league, right? So like, you know know I think I had.

Taylor walls for his best season it's like he's gonna play and I you know I always had like a one dollar raise bet and I feel like the Dodgers are actually set up right now where the one problem is it won't be one dollar you have to spend a little bit more because the stakes are higher. Cause to get a starter on the Dodgers, you, you feel like, you know, it's probably going to be a pretty good player, but, uh, Andy Pahas is shaping up to be one of those guys you can get maybe after round 25 in the draft and holds, um, and when you look at the other outfielders that you're getting around there, none of them really have the out the upside of him Right now he's projected for 553 plate appearances 22 homers five stone bases 247 average and

111 wrc plus with iffy defense now That's a weird combo because if he has iffy defense he's not playing center and then he's in weird combo because if he has iffy defense he's not playing center and then he's in the corner and then he is a right-handed corner at bat which just feels like the stakes are all or nothing. He's either gonna play all the time or he's gonna play very little and I'm willing to bet on that bat so I think he'll play all the time in which case I think the 550 plate appearances is a little bit low. And I don't think you need to push Andy Pahez off of left field for Dalton Rushing or Chris Taylor.

Which is what Fangrass has given the rest of the plate appearances in the left field to. So I can kind of almost say Pahez has, I think, a position somewhere in that, in that outfield. I'm guessing Edmund was signed to play center, which means there's going to be some bets at short, I guess. I don't, unless there's one more, you know, unless. I'm not going to play Rojas at short those days, I think. If Edmund's not playing short, it's got to be Rojas, right? I have no idea. Because Rojas is old and he was showing his warts when it comes to defense too.

So, you know, I think Edmund is the backup shortstop. I wouldn't put Betts at back at short. So I, there's some mystery here that I haven't figured out. What if they just signed, if they signed Willi Adames, then like a lot of things happen where, you know, I think Betts either goes back to the outfield or Lux goes to the outfield. Yeah. Betts plays second.

Still get the feeling that Gavin Lux is getting traded. I don't know. And I just don't know if I were going to see him back with the Dodgers. Yeah. And Altman's in a weird spot too, where, you know, he had that great first attempt at the league and then he was so bad, the second attempt at the league. And I mean, his barrel rate went down,

but all the flaws that were there the first time were just the reason he couldn't make contact. I think a 35% strikeout rate is just, it's too much and he's projected to be league average in a corner outfield spot. You know, um, they see bats lefty, I guess, but I don't know that Altman is going to make it to the opening day on this roster either. So, I'm not expecting that at the moment, but we know a lot's likely to change here in the next three months and change before they open up their season against the Cubs.

If I was going to bet on somebody, I would want them to be either a clear of like one 10 WRC plus projection so that they're being played for their bat or having clearly have great defensive ability. So that's why I think Andy Pahez and Tommy Edmund are worth betting on despite the crowdedness because I think Edmund will get playing time no matter what and Pahez will too, but mostly because of his bat.

Do you think Pahez plays more in right this season than in center? I think it was 87 in center last year, 40 in right and six in left. I don't know, Fangrass hasn't been left. I don't know. Right versus left has something to do with arm strength a lot. He has a really good arm, doesn't he?

Yeah. I think Pais does have a great arm. So wouldn't you put that normally in out in right field? Yeah. Yeah. So I would guess right field. That's sort of my expectation. It flips plays some center, but plays more in a corner this year.

Beyond the Dodgers, and that's hopefully the case for many of the episodes that we have coming up in the next few weeks, we've got some other signings. Frankie Montaz gets a two-year deal with the Mets, and I think we're at the point now with this Mets team. They fit into the Dodgers bucket in the sense that they can spend the extra couple of million on any sort of free agent, any tier that they need to just get the players they want. I think this looks a bit like one of those priority sort of moves. They saw something they really liked.

I think it's not a surprise that the Brewers traded for Montas in season and that former GM David Stearns over in New York ends up signing him to a two year deal, right? It seems like the same collection of GMs that came from the same few trees that they're now spread out over like six to eight different front offices. They all like the same players still. They all go after the same guys. But Montaz is interesting to me, you know, because at one point earlier in his career, the depth of his arsenal was a question. And now he's a wide arsenal guy, a five pitch guy who seemed like he seemed like he did pretty well upon making some adjustments.

Signing in Cincinnati last year was a tough start because it's just a place where homers are going to get boosted. And if you have any problems with home runs, your home park is going to amplify them. Now he signs a very pitcher friendly spot where our basic tagline is home starts are usually safe if your skills are even average. I think Frankie Montos at least has average skills with the possibility of putting a few more things together as this arsenal continues to kind of expand. Yeah you know one of the

things that the Brewers I think did was optimize a little bit more for command than for stuff They had him de-emphasize His slider to some extent although that was early on he did he did have some games where he did throw the slider again It wasn't just like Milwaukee turned the shit the switch and just had him Get rid of that pitch, But one thing you will see also with Milwaukee is that basically he started throwing all of his pitches around 20% of the time. So he de-emphasized the four seamer as an establishing pitch.

You know, it was really like, I'm going to throw all my pitches at all times. Um, and, uh, good luck with that. So I think he became a little bit more of a refined pitcher, um, with Milwaukee, a little bit less of a, you know, I think when he first came up, remember he was, you know, maybe headed to the pen himself. And one of the big discoveries that he had was the seam shifted wake sinker that gave him a sinker for seam and slider and, and, and then a seam shifted wake splitter too. Um, which I don't, I think he just sort of found it by cycling through grips. Um, that made him, that made him a starter.

Uh, but he still had some of that, like, you know, when I've talked to Frankie, he's been like, I just want to throw it past him. That's like all I want to do. I just want to throw it past. I want to throw as hard as like, I just want to throw it past him. That's like all I want to do. I just want to throw it past. I want to throw as hard as I can. I want to throw it past him. And I think this has been a little bit newer version of him, which might have some staying power, some lasting power, but won't probably be like, he won't be on a list of, of pictures that I think you are like, when people ask me, Hey, name somebody outside the top 20

that could be in the top 20, you know, I don't think he has, uh, what it takes to become a top 20 starter. I think it'll be a little bit more like maybe like a full season of Manaya or whatever, where it's like, you know, there'll be some times where it's not as great, then he'll make an adjustment and he'll be good for a while, the park is going to help him. But at the end of the year, you look up and you'll have like a three eight ERA and the 11 wins. Right.

A three eight, maybe a one 25 whip in that park for half of starts and probably a good number of strikeouts. I think there's still at least a decent strikeout rate coming from him. I know 22.6% for the year doesn't jump off the page, but it was 28.7% once he made those adjustments with the Brewers. And I would think the Mets pitching program, if we had to guess what it's going to be like over time, it's probably going to look a lot like the one in Milwaukee with the adjustments and game planning and some of the things they're doing. So I think I'm confident looking at least above the steamer projections at 22.5% for Montas's

K-rate. I think I'd look more 24, 25%. I think that plays well. If you told me I had to take him at pick 250, somewhere in that 250 to 300 overall range to get him, I'm happy with that. I think that works really well as like sixth or seventh starter guy that you usually use, but you don't always use if you don't like the matchups, especially on the road.

I want a lot of guys like that. I want to have four or five guys like that. I feel like at the end of my bench, you know, I want my sort of even maybe fifth through ninth starters to all be kind of like Frankie Montaz. You know what I mean? Because, you know, at least in the 15 team league, we have a weekly lineups and you have to like, look at these things. You would love to have four guys to be like, Ooh, not this week, uh, New

York and Boston, you know, whatever, you know, like, you know, you, you want to avoid certain places. And I'm talking about Yankee Stadium, not Mets. So, you know, if you if you've got a guy like Montas, especially in that division, he's not going to hit really bad parks, you know, that often. But if you have a choice between somebody else who has two starts and Frankie Montas in Philadelphia or something, then you can be like, eh, you know,

going to sit Frankie for this one. So yeah, I would probably start him 75% of the time. He's got some things in common with like a Seth Lugo going to Kansas city where it's like, yeah, he's got the pitches. He's, he's all right. And you know, half the time it would be a great matchup. Yeah. And this type of free agent, the two year, 35 million

or less sort of range is in play for anybody. Any team can sign a player like this. So I do think this is an interesting bucket to shop in and you get a lot of would you rather sort of toss ups cause they tend to sign a little clusters. Montas gets 34 million over two years with the Mets and Matthew Boyd gets two years from the Cubs at 29 million given the injuries he's gone through. Like just anytime you see a player get through that, come back, pitch well enough to get

another deal, you just feel good for them that they got some some guaranteed money back on the end of it. This fits a little surprising in the sense that I thought maybe the Cubs would prefer to add right handed starters, just given the way their rotation is built already with Shota and Justin Steele and then a guy like Jordan Wicks, is another lefty that's kind of a candidate for the back end of the rotation. But, you know, it's also kind of a cubsy sort of approach and that it's not great stuff by the models, even though Matthew Boyd has a lot of pitches

and he can command all of them. Yeah, he's in an interesting spot on the free agent stuff leaderboard in that he's not in the very bottom. You know, there's a there's a very obvious bottom of the free agency board when it comes to starters that has Kyle Hendricks, Jose Quintana, Kyle Gibson, Martin Perez, Dakota Hudson, Chris Flex and Carlos Carrasco, and Marco

Gonzalez. Those are all guys that have sub-90, sub-80 Stuff Plus, actually. And they describe what you're saying in terms of they have wide arsenals, they can command them, and they have proven results. Boyd in new Stuff Plus is actually up off of that floor, has an 87 on the revamp of Stuff Plus, and he's more in line with Michael Lorenzen and Trevor Williams and Lance Lin, you know, sort of up off of that bottom part of that floor. He still fits in for the Cubs as a little bit part of their anti-stuff play though. Um, you know, like they could have had Frankie Montas who had a 102 stuff plus on the revamp.

Um, and instead the team that last year was 26th in stuff plus, um, uh, you know, the Cubs added, uh, somebody who had an 80 stuff plus or 85 stuff plus in Matt Boyd. So they could be making a play on command. They do have sort of top third location plus the Cubs do. Maybe they have a, they have, they, they're one of the, you know, they used to have one of the originators of stuff plus in their R and D department is Jeremy Greenhouse. Maybe they have their own Stuff Plus that looks different.

They obviously have bought really into the cut ride fastball. So maybe they have some of their own flavor that favors Boyd. And then on top of that, Boyd is also in this place where he his stuff plus matters a lot less because we've got 908 innings of him And we have a k-bb and we have an e ra and we have these things and they matter Unfortunately, those don't really speak well for him. I mean he has 908 innings of a 485 e ra So then you say okay. Well, you know 272 last year with a great strikeout rate 28% surely his stuff plus was good. No, it wasn't. So, you know, I don't really there's a little bit. There's something to this that I don't understand. It's not like, oh, he changed something recently. And so therefore he's good now, you know, or he's been doing this forever. And he's been good. Like none of those things are true.

he's been doing this forever and he's been good. Like none of those things are true. I think if you asked me for pitchers who had 230 or more strikeouts in a season in the last 10 years, I could name a bunch of guys, I would never ever have thrown Matthew Boyd's name at you. What a weird season, like pitching in Detroit, we talk about that park a lot and how much it can be a boost for pitchers,

how cold it is in the early part of the season. In 2019, Matthew Boyd had 238 strikeouts in 185 and a third innings. And I realized for a pitcher who's been hurt a lot, five years is a lifetime. It is so long, so much can change with what you can do in that amount of time. That is like one of the more bizarre seasons you'll find out there. It was a 30.2% CSW.

That was easily the best of his career for seasons, which he stayed remotely healthy. 30.2% K rate. He's done pretty well with walks over his career, either league average or better most years, right? So he doesn't have any really control issues. If you put him in a park that is at least average for homers, and I think Wrigley generally plays a little better than average, you're not going to have a massive home run problem most likely. So I think this actually works for them. But I felt like they already had this profile within their options in the rotation.

If you told me these two teams had actually switched these players, like if the Cubs had signed Montas and the Mets had signed Boyd, that would actually make even a little more sense to me, even though this isn't completely out of left field. I think the fits would have been better across the board. Yeah, I wonder if there's something about out of left field. I think the fits would have been better across the board. Yeah, I wonder if there's something about building a team

to fit your park. The Wrigley park factor against righties over the last three years, it's the third hardest place for a righty to play, to hit. Yeah, so you're as a lefty, especially, you got a bunch of lefty pitchers, then in the situations in which you're as a lefty, especially you got a bunch of lefty pitchers then in the situations in which you're giving up the platoon advantage, you're at least making it harder on the hitter in that regard.

Also, you suck for righties, yikes. Yeah, but yeah, 94 park factor for home runs for righties. The only thing that's augmented at all is triples and nobody cares about those so for home runs for righties. The only thing that's augmented at all is triples and nobody cares about those. So, um, and, and walks and strikeouts are both up against righties. So yeah, it looks like a tough place for, for righties. So maybe that's what they're, that's what they're trying to do. And maybe, um, you know, if you compare Matthew Boyd to Frankie Montas, like the

lefty should be paid a little bit more. And in Montas is maybe a little bit better stuff wise and Boyd is a little bit worse, but he's a lefty. And so that's why they kind of end up near each other. Is your interest in Boyd similar to Montas as far as your starting pitching depth, even though they do it different ways, do you still see value given where he landed? I'll have Montas ahead of him,

but they might be in a similar spot, yeah. Same sort of tier, like maybe you missed on Montas a couple rounds later Boyd still sitting there. Depth starter that you feel okay about most the time at least for those home starts. Yeah and like he showed enough coming off of injury last year that you think he could maybe make 120 140 innings Matthew Boyd. Yeah it's possible man I just forgot how many K's he racked up in 2019. That 238 just jumps off the page for me. We get some position changes, one, an offer to play a new position.

This is from Nolan Aronato, who I think is trying to just say, Hey, if I get traded, I'll play both corners, either corner that you want me to play. But I don't know, isn't part of the appeal of Nolan Aronato still at this stage of his career that you feel pretty good about his defense at third, even if it's not elite elite anymore, it's still probably better than what a lot of teams have at the position. Like trading for him to make him a first baseman when the questions are more with his bat at this stage seems like an odd thing to do. Yeah, yeah, I mean, he's projected to be 6% better than league average with the bat, Nolan Aronato is, and that's about average for a first baseman. Last year, first baseman as a group had a 104 WRC+.

So you're really, you're giving yourself an average first baseman, whereas third baseman as a group had a 95 WRC+. So yeah, I mean, vis-a-vis his peers, Nolan Aronato has more value at third base, especially given his defense there. So I just think this is a little, it's not like trade demand, but it's like a little bit like get me out of here and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get out of here and but I do think the acquiring team, I think basically there's gonna be a few teams that lose out on Alex

Bregman and our our teams that could move up the third base rankings with, and I think it'll be like the Cardinals will have to eat some of that money. You know? Yeah. But depending on how much they eat, you know, I think you could have as surprised the team

as the Mariners get in there. Right now the Mariners have with Dylan Moore, Austin Shenton and Nick Dunne the 20th situation at third base and they've never really wanted to play Dylan Moore every day. The Dodgers at 21st with Max Muncie possibility and the Astros if they lose out on Bregman, have the 27th, we've talked about this before, Arnado could fit in there. Could it fit with the Brewers?

Sure, why not? They're 29th right now with Oliver Dunne leading the charge. That's not gonna be Oliver Dunne, let's not, come on. We're not talking about Oliver Dunne today, let's not going to be Oliver Dunn. Let's not, come on. We're not talking about Oliver Dunn today. Let's not. What are we doing? All right. Well, I brought him up, not you.

Yeah, I know. You did it. Not me. I think those are the teams. I think the team, there's one of those teams, uh, we'll lose out on Bregman and, uh, we'll engage the Cardinals. There is another suitor for Bregman that I thought was really interesting. Alex Hampel on our creative development team messaged me after our last episode and said, hey, the Nats, you know, they might even spend above the numbers that we put out there because

they used to spend a lot more, right? So even if you're, we were looking more at what was spent recently, but yeah, you can think about it like that too. I think we said about the Nationals that they might do the sort of early deal, you know, the one that like signals that they're coming back and they're going to spend even more next year. Yeah, for sure. Kind of like the Rangers a couple of years ago, Padres before they were good, getting Machado, like those, some of those moves, I think that was before they were good. It as they were on the rise but yeah sometimes you'd have to be a little bit ahead of your core as far as getting the free agents because hey these are the guys available right now next

year's crop might not have players that fit your roster as well I just thought that was an interesting call too because they could certainly use a player like that. One last thing about the about Bregman that was also interesting Mike Petriello had a piece where he pointed out that His career home away splits Alex Bregman's are not That different which is surprising given how he targets the Crawford boxes But he has an 845 home OPS and an 851 away slugging away 489 slugging at home 476 but he has an 845 home OPS and an 851 away, slugging away 489, slugging at home 476. So for somebody that we are nervous

that his sort of meh bad ball stats may not play on the road or away from Houston, these are kind of intriguing home away splits. And there is a sort of, the hole is bigger than some of the parts where you're like, hey, he makes contact, he walks well, he plays decent defense. Maybe we were too focused on his barrel rate.

So I think some team will talk themselves into a pretty big deal for Alex Bregman. I wonder in going back to Aronato, like they did that mega deal he signed with the Rockies. The Rockies ate some of that when they traded him to the Cardinals. They front loaded it a little bit. So he's going to get 32 million this season, 27 million next year and drops down to 15 million in 2027. So it's not as much as the AAV over the next three years, it's a little bit lower than that, even though the Cardinals probably will eat money

if they want to get a quality prospect or quality prospects back as part of the return. I think there is a market for Aronado, but you're probably right in that it could be post-Bregman or it could be a team that doesn't like the price on Bregman and then just moves on and says, okay, we'll go to the trade market instead, because there aren't a lot of other free agent

third base options. The depth at the position this winter is very limited. Yeah. I think that if they ate 20 million and you turn him into the, basically a three and 60 guy. For his age, 34 to 36 seasons, the defense still playing above average, I think. And he doesn't strike out a lot. So as long as his back is okay, I could still see another good season,

possibly two with the stick from Aronato. Yeah, they might, might work. So as long as his back is okay, I could still see another good season, possibly two with the stick from Aronato. Yeah, they might, might work. How about this one? Raphael Devers, maybe moving off of third base. I think this is something that's been in his profile ever since he was a prospect. There were questions about with his frame, how long would he stay on, on third base? Like first base DH seemed like a long term plan.

Tristan Casas is there too. They could just share those two spots. Like, do you see any real issue with that? Is this logical and maybe something that opens up a spot for the Red Sox to make a splash? I think this is a signal to the future. It may be even a wake up call to Devers to, you know, work hard on his defense this offseason

Unfortunately, I think the way this roster is constructed. There's no place to put him other than third base I mean if you still have will your a brea you Mase Taka Yoshida and Tristan Casas on your team You have no place to put Rafael Devers defensively other than third base. That's my opinion now Could those guys be traded? Yeah, and Yeah, any of those guys could be traded, but I don't think you're trading Tristan Casas where you are right now. And I'm not sure how much trade value will your Brea, you and my Masataka Yoshida have.

Yeah, Yoshida had a laboral tear in his right shoulder that got repaired in October too. So you've got questions about that and when he's going to be ready, but you're right about the fit. Like you have a guy that really doesn't play in the outfield. Like Yoshida, how many games in the outfield last year? One good one game in left field in 2024 was a DH 101 times.

That gives you an idea of how they feel about his defense, even though that split was actually 87 games in the outfield and 49 at DH in 2023. It's a pretty big shift pretty quickly for Yoshida. Yeah. And will your brain you like the defense, you know, was rated OK last year, but as a prospect, you know, field 5560, I guess he's fine in the outfield. He's 25. It's not a problem yet, but I just, you know, he a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point.

I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point.

I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point.

I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a get dealt. I mean, they, that's an internal, the, the, the sort of debate on Red Sox Twitter for a long time has been, do we trade Jaren Duran or Tristan Cassis for a big arm? Um, it doesn't seem to be the way that the Red Sox want to go about do things. They want to cobble together pitching and have great hitting every year. I think if you were to trade Cassis right now, I mean, you're doing it after he missed a significant amount of time.

The K rate went up this year. You'd be taking a little bit of a hit in terms of what comes back in the trade compared to if you had made this trade this time a year ago, right? You would have got a lot back last winter if you'd moved Tristan Casas. So yeah, maybe it's just posturing. You know, I think it could be just posturing, but Jared Durin, uh, is 28. Um, which is might surprise people, uh, considering he just basically had his first full season.

Um, and, uh, but he's an art, you know, 28 is one thing. Yeah. So he could be post-peak early than you think. However, team control until 2028 is another thing. And a reasonable, reasonable center fielder, if not, you know, not if not a great one, I think their their best team has to done at center field. So if you're talking about a corner outfielder who's already 28, like that sounds a little different than talking about a guy who had the season that Jaren Durin just had. So it's possible that you trade Jaren Durin, but even if you trade Jaren Durin, then you're

playing Yoshida in the outfield to get Devers over to first and DH. Yeah. So it's going to cost you something as far as your team, team defense goes and how that stacks up. Some Rangers rehab updates to pass along. Corey Seeger nearing baseball activities. Good to hear that. Adolis Garcia has started running.

So it looks like a pretty normal off season for him. And perhaps the biggest of all, Evan Carter has been cleared to swing a bat. I think that was the one that I wanted to watch most closely this winter. I've got Carter in a few keeper leagues. A lot of folks out there are hoping for some big things from him in 2025 after an injury-plagued season. He played 45 games this year for the Rangers, but he's supposed to be 100% for the start of spring training. That is the hope at this point. The procedure, I believe, was an ablation procedure to remove some tissue from his back.

So that's not as bad as other back surgeries I guess in terms of like what was being done. But just a lot of missed time for Carter and a guy that you know I think still has some some skills questions to be answered, but I see kind of a like a Christian Jelich starter kit, like early career. Yellich is sort of the player that I think Evan Carter can be if he's in fact healthy in 2025. Hmm. I don't know if I see like, you know, the one thing about yellows was he hit the ball hard, even if he hit it on the ground, you know, I see almost a little bit more, maybe

like an Alex Bregman starter kit. You know, he makes a lot of contact, has a really good approach to the plate. If he's a slightly more aggressive, I think he could have like a 10% walk rate and a 21% strikeout rate, not quite as good at Bregman and making contact. But I also don't think he's going to hit the ball super hard. Um, and I think he'll run more than Bregman, but you know, something similar in terms of good approach at the plate, really good defense and enough power to have like league average power.

So league average power, good OBP, good power, good like home run stolen base numbers for fantasy. So I'm, I'm excited about him and he's going in that sort of PAHES territory too, where and really still going that late. I think so. So I think he's actually he's going he's going before Pahas. So he's going to the first 20 rounds or so, I think. But still an interesting guy because he should have a job. Like playing time should be there for him.

Yeah, the range on Evan Carter looking at drafts in the last two weeks, pick one ninety eight all the way down to pick three fifty nine. I don't think that's going to happen much longer as the the positive updates come up. I'm snatching them down there, but even at one ninety eight, I'm still in to some extent, and I think that we may get better. We're like we should be getting better health updates as the rest of the season goes. So he might be having up arrow on them.

Like every time we hear, oh, he's running, oh, he's full baseball activities. You know, you're like, everyone's going to, you know, not show them a, you know, a couple, a couple of spots in their rankings. Yeah. I mean, Evan Carter versus Elliott Ramos for 20, 25, if the price is equal on those two guys, who are you taking? I think Carter, I think Carter. It's a snap Carter for me.

Ramos doesn't really offer much for steals. That's right. I think that's home park. Yeah. Tough home park where the power, maybe it's 25 to 30 home run power. If he gets a full seasons worth of plate appearances, the big league level, but I have a lot more than never never Carter. I think from a floor and a ceiling perspective, actually, I just think

he's a safer profiled hitter. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of swing and miss in LA Ramos. Like if he strikes out 33% of the time, like he did, you know, before last year, like then he could have like a two 10 average and maybe even start losing playing time. The good news though, if you look at the rolling charts for Ramos, the K rate was generally still heading

in the right direction over the course of the year, right? There wasn't a late surge or anything like that. So not trying to throw water on what Ramos just did, just on the would you rather scale. I'm more interested in Carter, except there's a few more ways he can help us, even though Ramos could be a fixture for the Giants for a long time.

If Carter feels froggy, like he could be the center fielder. I mean, we've been watching Leodes Taveras, like sort of lose his playing time slowly over time, you know. It looked for a moment, like it was all happening for Leody Taveras in 2023. And then last year happened and it's kind of back to the, looks like a bench outfielder sort of result. I think so. It's weird when you're like a switch hitter that can play center to say like maybe a bench outfielder,

but if you're just not that good of a switch hitter. Well, yeah, but it's still not a bad player to have on a big league roster. That's fine. It's just the expectation that there was one more level there, that he was going to be league average or better going forward with double-digit homers, 20-plus steals year after year after year, I think that is starting to fade because the playing time might drop out. Not because he isn't showing those skills,

he's showing those skills while being a below-average contributor. An 82 WRC plus puts him in that danger zone of just losing a large share of the playing time that propped up those counting stats. Could end up being Evan Carter against righties and center and Tavares against lefties. Yeah, maybe they move them move Carter around a little bit, play him every day but split them between a couple spots. Well Carter you know there is there's still some rest that he's not good against lefties. It splits them pretty bad. Hope they just let him try to figure it out, put him in the bottom third of the order, Well, Carter, you know, there is, there's still some rest that he's not good against lefties. Yeah.

His splits are pretty bad. I hope they just let him try to figure it out, put him in the bottom third of the order, see how it goes. But yeah, you have what you have to work with depth wise there. Got some mailbag questions that have been piling up in our Discord. Again, you can join the Discord with the link in the show description. We talked about the Brady singer, Jonathan India swap on our last episode, had a question from MJ Logan about how the rest of the Reds rotation shapes up.

Roster resource has Hunter Green, Brady Singer, Andrew Abbott, Nick Martinez, Nick Lodolo as the core five with Rhett Lauder and Graham Ashcraft on the outside looking in. So do you agree with that or do you see some kind of arrangement where louder is in given the injuries that green and Lidola have dealt with at various points over the years? Maybe there's just, there's enough to go around as it's currently constructed. But what do you make about how the Reds would prioritize their best five starters now that they've added one more to the equation?

I mean, I think it's likely that this is, we shouldn't spend too many brain cells on this one because somebody might just get hurt in spring and then writ lauders in. Um, especially when you have licking to the dolo, uh, as one of your guys there, um, who's been off to hurt. Um, I do want to point out though that Nick Martinez has been a kind of glue guy. Um, maybe the, the contract, uh, means that they value him as a starter and they're just going to use them as a starter to begin the season, but, um, they've used

them as a glue guy there, so he could be the sixth starter with louder in, um, in any case, I don't want to downgrade louder too hard because he's a six starter on a team behind Nick Lodolo, behind Nick Martinez. And I think he's going to get like 120 innings in the big leagues next year, at least. Yeah, I'm not too worried about it. I think louder could be their third best starter in the not so distant future. So I'm pretty intrigued to see how he gets in there, even if it's a wait a couple of starts, even if he doesn't start until the end of April

because everybody does stay healthy. I think there's a world in which he is part of their best five sooner rather than later, despite the addition of Singer. It's also time to put Ashcraft in the bullpen. That could work. It could be fun. I think he'd be really good. Do you see him more as like a multi-inning fireman or do you see Graham Ashcraft as a threat to maybe close out some games eventually? I think Alexis Diaz is continually one of the more wobbly closers that I don't take a lot of shots on so I'm

I'm always keeping one eye on those other options. And they never seem to have anybody that I get excited about on the depth chart behind Diaz as a possible source to take over some saves. Yeah, I think Fernando Cruz is, you know, he's a 34-year-old who has a really good forkball, but he doesn't have the fastball of a closer. And so you have these like outside strikeout rates, but you have a 94 mile an hour fastball.

It's not exactly what teams I think want in their closer role. And then Pagan, Santillon, even Sam Mole, like those guys aren't closers. They're good pitchers, but they aren't closers. So it could be one of those things where, hey Ashcraft, let's say, I don't know those things where, Hey, Ashcraft, um, you know, let's say. I don't know if he has, he does have options left, so they can just option him and say, Oh,

you need to work on your, on diversifying your arsenal and having four or five pitches before you can come back up. But there could be another one where like, you know, you're a good enough pitcher that we need you on the roster, even when you're not starting. And we're going to keep you in this like sort of extended role in the bullpen at first, but you, I bet you he pitches his way towards the ninth rather than the first, you know what I mean? Like I think. Right. Instead of being the first guy up behind a starter, you think he's

more likely high leverage late. I think so. Even if they start saying, Oh, you're going to do like two or three innings at a time, I think like he'll do so well in those, he does so well in his first three innings as a starter and think about what it's like to be a manager. Right. You've got this guy and you keep putting him in into big games and he keeps putting pitching two innings and getting you like five strikeouts and, and, and

not giving up any runs at some point. He's your closer, right? Yeah. He just start. You'd start being like, well, and not giving up any runs at some point, he's your closer, right? Yeah. He's just start, you start being like, well, shoot, you know, Diaz just gave it up again and Ashcraft pitched the seventh and eighth and was amazing. I let's just give him the ninth, you know, so I could see him pitching his way towards it. It's one of those things where I would just want to have some shares in deeper leagues.

Um, it'd be a tough one. It's a tough one It's a tough case for me to make in redraft leagues Unless you're super deep and you can hide them on your bench for a while as far as the the draft cost on Rhett lauder By the way, he hasn't top hasn't cracked the top 350 in a draft in the last two weeks He's still going late enough where he's fine as an extra one of your first bench starters in a draft and hold because there will be opportunities. I'm with you I think it's a triple digits for innings for Rhett Lauder at the big league level in 2025 and they could be pretty high quality innings too. So I'm excited about that. Thanks for the question MJ Logan

We got a question from T Burkhart about the catcher position How does it look from a long-term and short-term perspective with guys like JT, Aging, Wilson Contreras moving out from behind the plate, have eligibility this year, but he will likely lose eligibility going into 2026. Sal Perez being another year older, the struggles of Jonah Hyman and Sean Murphy,

two guys that we both really liked going into the season. You feel like this position is in trouble right now? Do you think it's weak? Do you think it's actually strong? What's your overall assessment coming out of 2024, looking at some of the things that happened behind the plate? I think it's in transition. And I think this is just a position that you shouldn't value too highly. Because first of all, they're not great hitters. And they can get injured, they debut later.

So I don't like catcher prospects. I don't like old catchers. I don't like catchers. So, at least in terms of fantasy, they're super important for the actual game. They're fun to talk to, right? I mean,, like some of the more interesting people to talk to. Steven vote was like so obviously going to be a manager when he was, when he was done playing. So, you know, in terms of, you know,

what's happening in the position as those guys move out, I do see some guys down at the bottom that I like that I think will move up. I think Logan Oh, Hoppy has a big season in him at some point, and I think he could change how we think about him. I think Gabriel Moreno would bring back some of that power. And between Gabriel Moreno, Alejandro Kirk, and Kavit Ruiz, there's somebody that kind of joins, at least the middle top, as a good source of decent batting average and still like 15 to

18 homers a year. I think one of those three is going to step forward and get more out of their contact than they have so far. So that's the good news. Francisco Alvarez, I think has the ability to join the top. If Francisco Alvarez or Cal Raleigh make any sort of inroads with their contact rates, they could be top catchers, a la sort of Sal Perez-ish, you know? So I think it's just one of those things where the trends are longer term

and it takes a while for these things to happen. I wouldn't be surprised if Wilson Contreras retains catching eligibility next year. He just pitched, he plays just enough behind the plate to get one more year. Um, I wouldn't be surprised if Yanir Diaz starts moving off of catcher as soon as this year. Wow. That soon, huh? I don't know.

Like, I don't think he's that great of a defensive catcher. Wow, that soon, huh? I don't know. Like, I don't think he's that great of a defensive catcher. So, you know, one one name that I find really intriguing is Tyler Stevenson, where, you know, he's 28, he's in the middle of his career. You know, he he hits the ball reasonably hard. He doesn't make, you know, he makes enough contact, walks enough. Like, is there another level for him?

Even if he just repeats what he did last year, didn't 260 with 19 homers, that's surprisingly good, you know? So maybe this is the year where you don't, uh, buy the very top, either by the very top and William Contreras, or you, uh, you kind of focus on one of these other guys that you does something you like. I mean, put Shay Langley is in the Cal rally. Francisco Alvarez group is like somebody who could make a real step forward if their contact rate

increased, you know, so there's different people that you can like and Logan Hoppy is one that in particular that if I could get him in a trade in a dynasty league right now, and I was worried about my catching position long term, I didn't have to pay a lot for him. I would be into that. But if I wanted to get somebody cheap, I would focus on the Cabot Ruiz,

Gabriel Moreno group, Alejandro Kirk group. Because if you make that much contact and you play well defensively, they keep putting you out there. Yeah. I think the high volume playing time targets are the guys that I tend to go for as catcher twos. If I don't get two from the top seven or eight, or I think I'm getting above average skills,

I've done builds like that more often in recent years where I do spend a premium. I'm a little more likely to go to early-ish catchers than I am to go to early-ish closers based on how things have been going the last two seasons or so. Doesn't mean it's a must-have sort of strategy. I'd put Patrick Bailey in the group of guys that should play a lot that could still do more with the stick. I don't think that concussion this year too. Barrel rate got chopped in half, but the hard hit rate was still good. He doesn't chase.

His glove is going to keep him playing a lot. The Jonah Hyam underperformance was a bit of a surprise. I think it's within the reasonable range of his variance though. I think it was a low end bottom half outcome, but not the extreme worst case scenario. Still had double digit homers. In a two catcher league it was fine. In a one catcher league you probably fell short of what you needed. So I think that's just sort of the cost of doing business in that tier. But I wouldn't necessarily be afraid of Haim as a catcher two in a 15 team league this year coming off of a down year. You mentioned the Cardinals guys taking over for Contreras, Pedro Pahe and Ivan Herrera. Maybe there's a little value with both of

those guys. Yeah. I think the only problem is there's a little risk that one gets it and the other doesn't. You have to kind of pick your poison there, but. But yeah, Shay Lang Aliris fits into the, hey, playing in a different ballpark. So that alone could just give him a boost. I'm with you on Francisco Alvarez. I think the defense has been better than advertised since day one. I mean, that was the concern as a prospect.

And I think he's more than exceeded expectations on that side, a healthy season from him. There's easy 30 homer power there the same way we've seen it from Cal Raleigh at times. I love Wilson Contreras getting first baseman playing time instead of catcher playing time though in the short perspective. Yeah. But you know, some of the question was, you know, dynasty and keeper. And so, you know, I do think, you know, Sean Murphy being circled there is very interesting because, you know, as a 30 year old catcher who just

came off a really bad season, he should be attainable. And he would cost less, I think, in a dynasty league than Logan Ohapi. Right. Yeah, I think so. I think in the dynasty leagues I've played in, there's a pretty quick toggle when a guy gets up late 20s, thirties, especially a catcher, people tend to panic and the value starts to drop really fast. And they have a guy, they have Drake Baldwin too. They have another young catcher that'll play.

That's the one reason I wouldn't be like, go get Sean Murphy. It's like, they could go to another guy, you know, pretty soon. Um, they played to Drake Baldwin in the fall league too, right? So they, they're trying to push his playing time, try to get them ready for the big leagues. So I think that was part of why they let Trav, Trav Starnow go is that they think at least Baldwin can be the backup. I do think, you know, with the contract that, um, that Sean Murphy has, they're

going to keep him behind the plate for as long as they can, uh, that Sean Murphy has, they're going to keep him, you know, behind the plate for as long as they can. Uh, they don't want to be paying Matt Olson and Sean Murphy a bunch of money to be playing the same position. Um, so I think Murphy is actually a decent buy low in, in dynasty leagues. Cause you're talking about, couldn't he give you two or three more seasons of kind of like two 50, 20, uh, with a good OVP. I do think so.

There are some young catchers either breaking in soon or recently debuted that I think can take a step forward still to like Dylan Dingler is kind of interesting. He's a little old, but if I remember correctly, he was drafted in the lost COVID season. He was a second rounder in 2020 and a college guy. So he's a little old for someone who hasn't played a lot in the big leagues. But Jake Rogers isn't isn't a player you can just pencil and say he's definitely five hundred played appearance catcher.

They could share that role. Dingler might hit enough to even get some reps at the eight on occasion. He's basically free and drafting holds right now. I think you mentioned Edgar Caro for the White Sox probably taking over that spot soon He could be a high-volume guy. Kyle Teal is close with the Red Sox Rookie catchers are tough because everything about your game has to sort of come together quickly to keep your playing time You can be an elite defender and maybe get away with a sluggish bat

But if you're just kind of okay or average behind the plate and you're waiting for the bat to click Playing time can be hard to come by. But I actually think the position's in okay shape short term and long term right now. There's at least options at various price points that I'm interested in. If I'm trying to get a veteran guy in a keeper league, I think there's a few like Murphy that are interesting. If I'm trying to go cheap, try to go to the future, there's a few prospects that are worth taking a chance on there as well.

Not a bad spot. I mean, Miguel Amaya right now is projected for only 320 plate appearances by Steamer. Yeah. Moises Belesteros maybe coming through. Yeah. But also Miguel Amaya is projected for a 102 WRC plus, which would be really good at catcher. I thought Amaya had a pretty good second half.

If memory serves me correct. I'm going to look at the splits real quick right now, but I thought Amaya had a pretty good second half if memory serves me correct. I'm going to look at the splits real quick right now, but I thought he was kind of a different player as he got more comfortable against big league pitching. Yeah, he hit 271, 316, 444 slug, 113 WRC plus with an 11% K rate. Like that's good. Yeah, he'd be part of a plan if I was just trying, if I was trying to be really cheap, you know, at, in a one cash or dynasty league, you know, maybe I could get Sean Murphy cheap and then hedge my bets by finding a bench spot for somebody like a Maya.

Yeah. It's got to be some goodness coming out of that, that pirate situation. Joey Bart looked pretty good last year. Andy Rodriguez coming back. Oh, that is such a mess. I was just looking at that. Yeah. It's that one's just tough to figure out

because, you know, Joey Bard is fine. And Andy Rodriguez was hurt. And Andy Rodriguez was kind of a multi-catcher guy. And Henry Davis, I think they, they were already playing him in the outfield. So, you know, it may all end up that just Joey Bard is their primary catcher. Andy Rodriguez is like some sort of super-ut util and Henry Davis is an outfielder.

They may all play a lot because they've displayed three different positions. Yeah, I don't know. I can't, I can't advocate for any one of them though, because I, I think it is truly, you know, a lot of it also has to do with what, you know, what direction they're taking as team. I think they want to take that direction from rebuilding into contention Which means that maybe Henry Davis is in the minor leagues, you know And it puts a little bit more pressure on everyone to be both a defender and a bat You know

they this isn't a team that can afford to have a lot of zeros in the lineup because They need more offense So maybe Andrea Rodriguez and Henry Davis are both in the minor leagues and Joey Bart is just starting catcher and that is maybe the most likely outcome. But Steamer has 514 played appearances of Andrew Rodriguez and 475 for Joey Bart somehow. And that's an interesting universe to live in. And I just keep looking at Henry Davis once again, did great in the minors, right?

307, 401, 555, 13 homers in 57 games, eight for nine as a base stealer, 22% K rate, 38% hard hit rate. I mean, we've talked about his flaws, struggling with elevated fastballs. There's enough there to think that they're gonna keep giving him chances, given the fact that he was the first overall pick in the draft,

but I think he shows enough skills in the upper levels, the minor leagues where you have to at least leave your mind open to the possibility that things can click for him. Still. I like Andy Haynes who was the, the hitting, uh, the coordinator and coach, uh, for the pirates. But I will also have to admit that, you know, pirates hitting has been a problem. You know, they, they've been trying to, they went and got Nick York, you know, they're trying to add from other organizations.

Um, they've tried different approaches with their different, uh, with their different minor leaguers. You know, I think O'Neill Cruz is a, is a win for them development wise. Um, but you're kind of waiting for Cabrinha to step through and he's had a highly publicized problem with this. He wanted this other hitting coach and that hitting coach got fired. So there's a whole, there's a whole backstory there. Um, maybe Nick Gonzalez and Nick York and Jarrett Trier aren't actually that

good bat wise and this should be their outcome, or maybe they should have been better than they've been. So there's still some question about that hitting development. Maybe change is good for Pirates hitters. Maybe a new hitting coach can speak to them and bring something out of them that they haven't gotten so far. So, you know. haven't gotten so far. So, you know, it is an interesting team to circle this year because they are going to, you know, try and you remember Rodolfo Castro was the kind of guy when they were rebuilding, they were going to keep trying to run Rodolfo Castro out there. And I think the cutting of Rodolfo Castro at some point was like, OK, we can't just do that anymore. We're trying to win games.

Yeah. Well, you get to the point that the front office has been there long enough where they know expectations are going to be elevated and you have to start making some progress just in terms of the win count. So yeah, you got to move on from some of the players that haven't clicked the way you'd hoped. They have a different cast there now. So maybe, maybe this will be the year with better health on that front from, uh, from

Andy Rodriguez, among a few others trying to break through various spots in that roster. One last question for today. This one came in via email, ratesandbarrels.gmail.com. If you prefer email to other platforms. It's about the Blue Jays offseason plan. This question came in from Matt. Matt listened to our guesses as to where the top free agents were going to end up. And as a Jays fan, Matt noticed we didn't mention the Blue Jays at all,

which they are linked to Juan Soto. Ken Rosenthal reports you read that you, which they are linked to one Soto. Yeah. Ken Rosenthal reports, you read that you see that they are among the real suitors to go out and add Soto. I see them as like a secondary option, just like a guessing personal perspective only because if the alternatives are teams that spend more and have better resources and you can choose wherever you want to go and you're going to be there for the next 10 or 12 or 14 years or however long that deal ends up being.

Why wouldn't you choose a place that you have even more confidence in the Jays? I've always wondered, could they become another team like that? Could they become a 300 million other payroll team eventually? But right now they're just in this spot where they're sort of in between. And I think a lot of the guys they're going to end up going after are players that weren't in that top 15. We were talking about guys that were in the round table rankings on the athletic within the top 15 of this year's class.

They need a closer right. They non tender Jordan Romano. I saw Caitlin McGrath write up a few different free agent needs pieces on the athletic. They're really good. Tanner Scott could be a great fit for the blue Jays. Like if they go through and take a couple of different things, I thought maybe the secondary team for Santander or, or Tasker Hernandez as possible. They could get some more thump in that lineup.

That was probably like the highest end free agent. I could see them going after, but a lot of these other guys that are in the next wave make a lot of sense because I think they're going to try one more time with the Vlad and Bo Khor to be a playoff team. So I think they're going to be active. I just think they're going to miss at the very top end of the market. Yeah. What's weird is we have this one data point, the Shohei Otani thing, where they were one of the last three teams in on him, you know, which would have been so

much money. And so, you know, if you talk to people from Toronto, they say, you know, well, Rogers has a ton of money they should be able to spend on this team. You look at recent trends though, they've stayed under the luxury tax. And so if you want to spend money on the blue Jays this year and stay under the ledger tax, you have $30 million in AB. And that's with Chad green at closer, you know, and your fourth and fifth starters are Bowden Francis and Yara Rodriguez and your DH is Spencer Horowitz. And your left fielder is, is, uh, Loper Fito.

And your second basement is Wagner Schneider. You know what I mean? It's like, your third basement might be Ernie Clement. It's just a lot of question marks to solve in 30 million, but they keep getting, you know, oh, well there's this tiny thing. So maybe they could just blow past that. Maybe they can go past that, which would make sense. But I think they would want to do that either for Juan Soto for just a big name that it can be part of the

next big team, even if there is a rebuild. Um, or, um, uh, well, I, you know, I don't see them. I see them either being small or big. You know what I mean? Like, I don't see them kind of hitting the middle of the market, which is, um, unfortunate. So I think they either are going to be penny pinchers and just get Tanner Scott and, um, you know, Anthony Santander and call it a day.

That might be a little more middle than, than penny pinching though. Santander, I don't know. I w we see a lot of different projections on what his final numbers will be in terms of years and dollars. But I think, I mean, I agree with you. Like Soto is such a big fish in free agency that if you're even in the conversation there, people would say, well, surely you're after everybody else

behind him if you don't get him. It's like, well, no, because they've got a lot of money tied up in the few starting pitchers, right? They've got Kevin Gossman and Jose Barrios at high AVs, right? And they've got Bassett as a three, you mentioned the four and five options. And you need so many other things to be good that if you don't get SOTA, which I think would help you get more free agents, like, oh, hey, they're serious in Toronto. They're spending and they want to win right now.

One in 10 starting pitchers who are like, hey, this is a in Toronto. They're, they're spending and they want to win right now. Some of those one in 10 starting pitchers who are like, Hey, this is a good place to be for one year. Then you can, or you can get a couple of veterans that maybe want to prop up their value for a year and say, okay, you know what? I'll, I can do this for a year and free agency again next winter. Maybe you have priority on some of those players if you land Soto, but if you don't, I just, I don't know if it's an appealing situation. It's a little bit like the situation the Cubs have built.

It's kind of expensive, the roster there. It's not bad, but is it great the way it's... How do you make it a lot better with seemingly limited resources based on recent spending trends? We're making the assumption they're not going to break through the ceiling. If they break through the ceiling, all bets are off. Then once the floodgates are open, then you can add three or four impact players if you get that first big one in.

And it probably changes your long term calculus as far as Vlad Jr. and whether or not you're going to retain him. Maybe you want to have a Soto Vlad Jr. combo for the long haul. And that's the the core two position players you want. Yeah, I think I think it was maybe Ken Rosenthal that put it just, you know, other Soto or other free agents, anybody who's sort of assessing this team and deciding if they want to join it is saying, well, do you believe in Vlad Guerreiro or do you not?

You know, have you extended him and he's going to be there forever and I can, I can be, you know, a team partner with him or do you not believe in him and you're going to let him go next year and then everything will be on me, you know, I think there's too much of a downside or uncertainty. And obviously in those meetings, teams can say a little more about their long term plans and ambitions and make their pitch. And that's what those meetings are about. It's harder to see it on the outside, looking in with the Blue Jays right now.

You know, they're not, no stretch of the imagination, are they a bad team? I just think they're a little bit different than the other suitors for Juan Soto. Yeah, I think it'd be tough. And so I think that they'll work around the margins. If it's not Teos, or a Santander, like they could get, they could still make, um, maybe even like a platoon outfielder, you know, go over long

distance, uh, with like the, I think was in the, in the running for Caitlin's piece. Like, I mean, that's a good kind of somewhat value bin. It's not going to be cheap, but also not going to probably cost as much as like a Santander or a Teosca. And I think that would help them. Would like, you know, maybe 30 million, you could maybe do 30 million Conforto, Scott,

and Andrew Haney. I've heard of worse off seasons than that. So it's probably not, you know, what Jay's fans are hoping for. But. But as a as a Jay's team, then you're like, OK, all these guys we we we we've tried out last year in terms of Horowitz, Loper Fido, Schneider and Wagner, like and Clement. Like if we buy these three players, we're not depending on those guys as much.

You know, we can, we can, they're, they can be our seven and eight hitters and, um, we can, we can put together a team that, and we haven't affected our long-term bottom line that much. Um, so if, you know, Vlad and Bo don't really, uh, put it together this year, we can still blow this team up pretty easily. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, this feels like one more push of some kind, but not necessarily the over the top Wonsodo level push. That's my summary on the Jays.

That's why they missed out, but the Red Sox weren't part of that conversation on our last episode either, again, dictated more by what they've done recently. And I would say the Jays have actually been more aggressive in free agency than the Red Sox in recent years, at least in terms of spending and extending money. My big mistake was not putting the Dodgers on more and more players.

And I recognized that when we were doing it, but I was just like, I can't... What are the obvious needs for this team that just won the world series and seems to be pretty well set and also has a super high payroll already and how much are they willing to spend and how much do they want to take a step back? You know, then they go out and get like snow. I think they just want to win the next five. I think that's sort of their internal goals. Like, let's just keep going.

I can't count them out for Adamas now either. I wouldn't, I wouldn't count them out for anybody at this point, just based on the approach. We are going to go on our way out the door. Just a reminder, you can get a subscription to the athletic for $2 a month at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. You can join our discord with the link in the show description.

You can find us on blue sky. I am dvr.besky.social. Eno is enoserus.besky.social. At some point, maybe we'll change those endings. If we do, we'll announce it on the show. So I don't know what their long-term plan on that platform is. It's just weird to not just be your tag and to have all extra stuff on there, but nice conversations happening over there as they are on Discord as well.

So that's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.