Rates & Barrels - Catcher & Utility-Only Breakdown

Episode Date: March 5, 2020

Rundown1:11 Re-Thinking Two-Catcher Leagues7:07 Marveling at Nelson Cruz12:43 Setting Expectations for Yordan Alvarez18:48 A Bounce Back for Khris Davis22:04 Miguel Andujar's Path to Playing Time Opens Up31:07 Sorting Out Nick Solak's Role37:27 OK, We'll Talk About Catchers42:26 Concerns About Will Smith?45:45 Buying on Jorge Alfaro?52:06 Oakland's Enviable Catcher Depth62:10 Catching Prospect OutlooksFollow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRipere-mail: [e-mail] Get 40% off a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Raids and Barrels episode number 75. It's March 5th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we return to our positional breakdown series, which we are nearing the end of. Catchers and utility-only players are the focus on this show. Before you turn off the podcast in the first 30 seconds, I promise we're going to

make this interesting. We're going to talk about utility-only players first because they're a lot better than catchers. We'll wrap things up with the outfield on our show on Tuesday,

possibly Tuesday and Thursday of next week depending on how long that gets stretched out it's a big pool of players so it might take a lot of time to make our way through it if you're enjoying this show on a platform that allows you to rate and review it please take the time to give us a rating and review we greatly appreciate it thanks to the many of you who've already done

that if you're not already a subscriber to The Athletic what are you waiting for get 40% off subscription at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Everything we write is included with a subscription. All right, you know, there's an age-old question that plagues every walk of life. And I'm beginning to worry that the question that will rage on for years in fantasy baseball pertains to the original rules which requires two catchers in the starting lineup it only has one utility player and i have to ask if the founding fathers were inventing fantasy baseball today do you really think they

would start the lineup with two catchers like that just seems like a really dumb way to build something fun. You know, maybe I can't speak, you know, on Dan Okrent or, you know, you know, the different people that put together the first,

the first leagues, but maybe they were thinking that it's like kind of like the real life where you have two catchers. But the thing that would be weird about that is that, you know, you don't have like a backup shortstop. Or is that MI? It's kind of what MI is.

I mean, I understand what they were trying to do and I'm not trying to disparage Dan O'Kranton, Glenn Wagner, and the people that made this game that has turned into a livelihood for us. I'm not trying to cut them down. I think they made the game with the best of intentions, and a lot of things have held

up really well. This is one of the things that simply has not. But yeah, I think they were just trying to mimic the way a roster was built, of course. It was built for Bono Leagues. I just think we're at this point. We're more than 30 years into playing this game now. Preserving that part of the original rules is not something I'm interested in doing. I am very progressive in that regard, where I want to take away the second catcher and add a second utility,

because it just opens up flexibility, and I think it challenges all of us as we're building rosters, in a draft or in an auction, to find the best available remaining hitter in the pool as opposed to wading through a pile of part-time players with below average skills and hoping that we're able to unearth a passable second catcher occasionally that second catcher ends up being a good player we'll talk about some of those guys a bit later on. And I think maybe one of the reservations that people have about adding a utility spot is this other sort of lingering concern that by

drafting a utility-only player, especially in the early rounds, but really at any point during your draft, that you're clogging an active roster spot in the process. Do you really believe that? If you draft Nelson Cruz or Jordan Alvarez or Shohei Otani, who can obviously pitch too, but at least as hitters go, he's UT only,

are you really hurting yourself over the course of the season by limiting the options you can play off of your bench since those players generally don't play enough games at other positions to add eligibility in season? This is exactly the rabbit hole I went down mentally as soon as I saw the rundown on this. And the thing that I came to is this. I think in a mixed league, I have no concerns whatsoever about drafting utility guy. Because if someone in your lineup gets hurt, you have free agency auction money, you have a waiver wire that looks decent on some level, you can get a guy to come in and play for your hurt player.

But in Mono Leagues, the waiver wire is just atrocious. You know what I sort for when I'm looking on the... This is a secret. Do you know what I sort for when I'm looking on the, this is a secret. Do you know what I sort for when I'm looking on a monoleague waiver wire? I'm going to guess you're sorting for playing time. So I bat for a hitter and he's pitched for a pitcher and you're doing it over a small window. You just want to know who's been playing lately. Last seven days played appearances, which is like the weirdest thing I think to search for.

But it's, you know, it's who's playing. I'm going to plug them in. So you're just basically looking for anybody who's playing. And that's just a, I don't think in the spirit of the game in a way, because you're just like, I'm not looking at any skills here. I'm just looking for people who are standing on the field somewhere. And so I do think that there are some strategies where you can have a Chad Pinder type, a multi-eligibility guy that you're going to put in util that is your replacement for someone getting hurt

and allows you to open up a pool so you're not just doing short stops who's played in the last seven days. You can say all players who've played in the last seven days and allows you to pick up a replacement. But you can bake that in a model league where you have guys that can play multiple positions that you've drafted above. And you can say, oh, if my shortstops get hurt, I'll move this guy in a shortstop. And I'll move this guy into corner utility and that sort of deal. So there are ways that you can get around it.

But I think that if you do, and I'm two years in the running, I had show a Otani. So I had some experience dealing with having in a labor, I had some experience dealing with this problem of, you know, trying to find at bats and not being able to do much at utility because Otani was there. And another thing that was weird is that utility only guys are traditionally undervalued in leagues is something I found. And here's the weird thing. If you draft one, you may find that a couple rounds later, someone else gets a utility only for an even bigger discount. That's the only problem. Yeah, I'm with you there.

I think for years it was David Ortiz, in part because I think people didn't want to chew up that roster spot and lock themselves in, and because rumors of his demise were greatly exaggerated in multiple years. In the back half of his career, there was a little bit of that going on, too. We have a new David Ortiz. We do. I think we should start with Nelson Cruz. He's not the highest UT-only player on the board based on ADP, but if Nelson Cruz were even five years younger, I think he might be.

I think there's some ageism working against Nelson Cruz because if you just objectively took a look at his numbers and said I'm buying purely on skills he's incredible I mean the stack cast numbers on Nelson Cruz are off the charts good which makes even less sense once you put it in the context of his age yeah 39 years old led the league in barrel percentage last year hitting hitting the ball 93.7 last year. There's always, there's a couple reasons, I think. I mean, there's just the unnatural seemingness of it, right? The 39-year-old that's doing this.

But I think, you know, to some extent, Nelson Cruz has a little bit of the skill that David Ortiz had. I remember I heard that David Ortiz would just stand at the top of the thing and just yell out what he thought was coming. Which is pretty fun, actually. If you could do that accurately, that'd be very fun. I forget who it was. I think Xander Bogarts was like, he's right all the time. And I think, I forget who it was, I think Xander Bogarts was like, he's right all the time. So I think there is something where, like, if all you do is hit and nothing else, and the skill of DHing, I think, one of the things that we found is that if you're DHing,

you're 10% worse than you would be in the field with a bat. And something, I think, that DH penalty has been reduced a little bit over time by research because Jeff Zimmerman showed that if you account for injury, there is not as much of a DH penalty. So a lot of times you stick your injured guy at DH because that's why he's not playing the field, right? And so if they play worse, it looks like it's because they're DH, but no, it's because they're injured.

So he found that there's not as much of a, of a difference if you take the injury component out. Um, and then I think that, um, there, I think DHing is a skill to some extent. So I think the skill is how do you remain engaged? How do you stay in the game? How do you, how do you, uh, yeah. How do you stay as engaged as other players while you're on the bench? And the way to do that is to do what David Ortiz is doing. Anticipate every pitch, kind of play the chess match,

watch every pitch so you know what they're throwing, you see what they're throwing, you know how they're attacking other players, and you can anticipate how they're going to attack you. And I think Nelson Cruz has that ability as well as just pretty natural ability to hit the ball really hard in the air. It's really amazing, though, to see what he's done. I think earlier in his career, we were worried about the soft tissue injuries in his legs. He wasn't a good defender. And to see Red Ink in every year of the StatCast era all over his page. I mean, he's been no worse than the top 6% of barrel rate

in any of the last five seasons. That's incredible. I mean, he's almost like a right-handed Barry Bonds in some ways, like the way he's aging right now. And he wants to keep playing beyond this season, too. I just saw a story pop up about that in the last day or so. I think the price continues to be much lower than it should be. I mean, Nelson Cruz, the discount you're getting on him is the UT discount and an

age discount. And I have no hesitation. I mean, if Nelson Cruz is sitting on the board and we're in the seventh or eighth round of a draft, it's a 10 or 12 team league absolutely every single time in a 15 team league he's kind of an end of round five sort of consideration based on his his recent adp his adp since march 1st is 76 but that is to me a really nice value and a way to maybe make up some ground if you went a little heavy with pitching early on or maybe you went a little heavy with speed and had to sacrifice some power nelson Nelson Cruz is a great way to balance out that roster. I don't have that split to March 1st, but he's going 82nd since

this offseason. And by ATC's auction calculator with the NFPC settings, he should be right next to Pete Alonzo as a $20 player. And Pete Alonzo is going 31st. That's an amazing gap. Yeah. I mean, if you said Nelson Cruz versus Pete Alonzo, who has more rotisserie value in 2020, would you take Cruz over Alonzo straight up? Or would you want some odds? Would you take Cruz over Alonzo straight up? Or would you want some odds?

I want some odds, but just because I'm a little more ageist than necessarily a utilitist. All right, but the odds wouldn't be ridiculous. No, no. Yeah, I've been looking at the price. Nelson Cruz, a little cheaper than Jose Abreu. If Nelson Cruz qualified at first base, I would imagine that 9 out of 10 owners would take Cruz over Abreu. If Nelson Cruz qualified at first base, I would imagine that 9 out of 10 owners would take Cruz over Abreu, if not 10 out of 10.

Wow, so you think it's mostly utility. For me, it's mostly an age gap. I mean, it's not that many years old to compare it to. If I play so many dynasty leagues, I'm just like, you know, dude has left all of us like, left all the research behind.

We're like, people peak at 26, they're mostly done by 33, and Nelson Cruz is 39. It's interesting, though, because you have this long track record, even a recent track record of elite skills, and then Jordan Alvarez comes up and plays at an exceptionally high level for half a season. And he goes a lot earlier in drafts.

Jordan Alvarez has an ADP of 40 in that same timeframe since March 1st. And we're talking about a limited track record. And that limited track record was amazing. I think the list of hitters, record was amazing. I think the list of hitters with a higher WRC plus last season than Jordan Alvarez includes Mike Trout and Christian Jelic. That's the whole list. I may have more shares of Jordan Alvarez than any other player right now.

The reason that's happening is because if I take a pitcher second i just i need a slugger third and if i even if i don't take a pitcher second i haven't liked the pitchers that have been available in the third you know so it's like this weird thing where both of my decision trees lead me to Jordan Alvarez. Because there's that sort of top five for me in terms of pitchers. And if around the horn I can get Walker Bueller, then I'm into it. But I'm not that into taking Steven Strasburg at the beginning of the third just because of the injury risk, and I put him more in the kind of 150-inning bucket than the 200-inning bucket. So, yeah, I've got more than a few shares of Yordan Alvarez.

I'm totally in the tank for him. And to me, he looks just like a baby Nelson Cruz, and so I'm not necessarily a utilitist. I'm ageist in this case. I'd rather have Yordan Alvarez because of the age. And in terms of barrels, you know, Nelson Cruz was first last year, but Yordan Alvarez was seventh. You know, in terms of hitting the ball in the air, yeah, Nelson Cruz hit it 99 in the air, which like two guys did, you know, three guys did, Sano, Cruz, and Judge. By the way, Sano is probably headed towards this utility only at some point and then Yordan Alvarez

hit it 97, so in the air which was just as good as better than Mike Trout and Gary Sanchez and just as good as Christian Yelich and I guess Mitch Garver, I don't know if that's impressive or not. Elvarez actually

edged out Yelic too in WRC+. When I last looked at it late last season, it was Trout, Jelic, then Elvarez. Elvarez had a 178 WRC+. So only Trout had a better WRC+, than Jordan Elvarez last season. I realize stolen bases are a big factor when you're looking at players in your drafts. We talk about that all the time. And I think that's part of what drives down the value of the UT only players you're not going to get stolen bases from the mashers the old dhs even the young dhs they're there for their bat they're not there because they run the base as

well if you're looking for blue ink on nelson cruz's page look at his sprint speed but he's a 38 year old or 39 year old dh so a 19th percentile sprint speed doesn't matter. He hits the ball so hard and so far, he doesn't have to sprint very often anyway. It's a good point. Can I ask you something? Sure. Do you care about how good the pitches were that Jordan Alvarez hit? I'm curious to know because if it's an extreme outlier

where he just destroyed bad pitching or bad pitches, like if he just crushed mistakes and that's all he did, then okay, that might be a sign that things were at a level that are unlikely to repeat because maybe he just faced a surprising number of bad pitchers. Maybe he caught more mistakes than anybody else, and that's something that could work against him. So yeah, I do care about that I don't know if it would completely change my opinion of him but it would maybe make me think twice about

paying the premium for him Yeah, I've never done this before but you can click on Jordan Alvarez's name in the Barrels leaderboard and then you can sort by exit velocity and you can easily see who did he hit hardest and it's like Reggie mclean paul blackburn uh taylor scott taylor cole taylor taylor i don't

know i made that one up taylor taylor mike mike minor is the best name i've come up so far he got one off of him um i'm not really seeing another name that i should report to you as oh he hit a good player hit off a good player here i'm now uh like you know like 40 or 50 better balls in charlie morton you got a 104 off of charlie morton okay so a little ways down the list but we should compare him to someone like cruise right like if you do the same thing, click on Cruz. I'll pull him up real quick. Yeah, like Cruz, highest exit velocity batted ball game against Lucas Gilito.

117. He's a Garrett Cole in his top five. He did some damage against some of the game's best pitchers last year. Shane Bieber. These are better pitchers. Zach Britton. Carlos Carrasco. This is a totally different list.

That's disconcerting for me. I'm going to pretend I didn't read that. Well, yeah, you already have a lot of exposure to the situation, too. That might be making you feel a little worse. I don't have Alvarez. I don't know, man. To me, there's a combination of watching

him. He just seems... To me, he's a slow heartbeat guy. Yaron Alvarez, where he just doesn't seem flustered. And you know what? Hey, there's a lot of bad pitchers in the league. If he only just murders every bad pitcher, then he can probably still hit 50 homers this year. Yeah, that can work. That could be your path to success. So there is a little bit of a knee soreness issue he's dealing with right now. He's day-to-day. I don't think it's anything serious.

I mean, if we're talking about him a week from now because he still has been playing in games, maybe then I'll start to worry, but it just kind of seems like a preventative, let's pull it back for a few days sort of thing right now. So those are the only two UT-only players going in the top 100. But we had a guy who was going to the top 100 this time last year, Chris Davis in Oakland. You know, Mr. 247, a metronome player, as you've described before, where you could say you kind of just know what you're going to get from him in a typical year. And I think the reason 2019 didn't really follow suit is that he played through an injury. But three consecutive seasons with at least 42 homers, with at least 102 RBIs,

and with at least 85 runs scored, all with that.247 average, those are really stable skills. And to be able to get him outside the top 150 overall in drafts right now, that's really interesting to me. Yeah. There's that research from Jeff Zimmerman that said that, you know, projected bounce backs through projection systems happen less often once you hit 32 and 33. So basically the projection systems get weaker, especially when...

Weaker in the mid-30s, and especially when they're projecting a bounce back for a veteran player. But, you know, in 2015, Chris Davis had an exit velocity of 89.7 and a good barrel rate. And then he went on a stretch of basically averaging 92 to 93 on his exit velocity,

barreling everything about 17%, being league leaders, top 1% of the league three years in a row with barrels. And then last year, just obviously had a hip injury, I think was trying to fool with his mechanics and do as much as he could. And I honestly don't think he has very good mechanics at the plate. It's a little bit weird looking. But I think when he's in good health, he puts it together. And then it's fine, obviously. So I would say yes, I like him.

And it depends a little bit on the cost. Let's shift on over to cost and see what he's costing. 170 is the March ADP. So yeah, outside the top 150, almost all the time, the earliest is 138. I mean, that ADP is more than 100 picks off of where he landed last draft season. Yeah, yeah. And with that, it seems like all the risk is baked in there at 175

because, you know, utility only, yeah. But at that point in your draft you know hopefully you have a lot of your positions set up you know what i mean you have at least an idea of the player pool and how it relates to your needs and so there's a lot of times where that would make a lot of sense to take a shot because you're like look all i need are outfielders and i was really planning on getting three or four outfielders for my last two outfielder spots in Utah, right? So why don't I just get Chris Davis, who's a much more proven commodity

at this point than the other outfielders that are here, which are like Hunter Dozier and J.D. Davis around him. J.D. Davis is hurt, is in a crowded situation in New York, and Hunter Dozier has a plate discipline crash projection coming for him. So why don't I just take Chris Davis and take two or three outfielders around him? And my team will be better off for it. So there are definitely situations where it makes a lot of sense to pick Chris Davis. And at that price, I think I'm in.

I think that's baked in that he may not bounce back all the way. I'm with you. I'm in on Davis. I'm in on Miguel and Duhar also, about 100 picks later. He's starting to push up a little bit. His earliest taken spot was 176 in the last week or so now. So 261 is the ADP. Obviously, it's an up arrow next to that.

Judge is already banged up. Stanton's already banged up. That may actually delay Dujar's chances or timing for picking up eligibility at some defensive positions. I think that's the kind of thing where, oh, those two guys are out, we don't have to put this guy in the field. And it could be May or June before he qualifies somewhere. Oh, that's interesting.

I thought it meant that he would play outfield, but, you know, Tauchman and Gardner are better outfielders. Right. So I just think I looked at Andujar previously as someone that in the first two weeks might pick up eligibility somewhere just because the Yankees want to get his bat in the lineup. Now they might have the luxury as a result of the misfortune of injuries to good players of just hiding him as their DH for a little while,

but that's not going to keep me from drafting at all. I think the, the discount on a do hard coming off the last season due to injury is a huge discount. So this is a group of players in general that I really like. I mean, by the way, what's who,

what outfielder are missing in New York? Which outfield Hicks is out for a while. Hicks is out, and now Stanton and Judge are out. So who's the third outfielder? I think we might actually see a little bit of Clint Frazier. Ah, Clint Frazier. He's one of the other options. But you know, Clint Frazier's defense is a lot worse than people thought.

So right now we're seeing Andujar play in left field, and this is why. So we're going to see Andujar and Frazier play. And, you know, it seems like, you know, when you look at them play, you'd be like, oh, I'd want Clint Frazier playing in the outfield. But dude, like, I don't know. I think he, like, doesn't see the ball very well or something. And he, I don't know, he does bad routes, and he just makes the least out of his athleticism in the field

than I've seen in a while, actually. But in Duhar, yeah, I'm with you on Frazier. Something's just not right with that fit. I'm actually kind of surprised he's still with the Yankees. It seemed like he was the kind of guy that would have got traded this winter. I think they're probably glad they have him now. Maybe. It's something that

our friend Ian Kahn has talked a lot about. He watches every Yankees game and he's like, it's weird when Cliff Frazier gets a home run and he goes in the dugout, no one cares. When anybody else gets a home run they go in the dugout, it's high fives. It's fascinating getting to know Ian's viewpoint on baseball

because this is the kind of stuff coming up that I would have rolled my eyes at, honestly. But being in the clubhouse more, I see it. And having interviewed Clint Frazier, I get it. It was hilarious to me, the things he said to me, and I wish I could just recall. I think I said something about like seeing the main like I saw him at the futures game I said seeing the major leagues and he's like at the all-star game I mean confidence is good but that's uh it's a funny response to a compliment yeah and we were also talking about um the first time I ever talked to him we were talking about

uh plate discipline I was like you let a few sliders go by in the Arizona Fall League All-Star game, and it seems like sliders have been eating you up a little bit. He's like, no, no, no. I'm just letting it eat. I was like, okay. He picks his yeast. Okay. He picks his yeast.

That's the line right there between arrogance and uncoachability, right? It's like, is he saying that to me because that's what he projects and that's fine? Or is he also saying that to his coach, his batting coach? Right. He just believes he's that good and doesn't want to listen to anyone because there are there are plenty like bryce harper believes he's that good but bryce harper also you know cares about his mechanics and cares about his approach and is a diligent worker you know what i mean whereas um you know i don't know i. I'm not in Fraser's camp. I'm not, you know, watching him every day.

It's possible that he is. This is also another reason why I tend to shy away from making judgments like that because we're seeing what the camera lets us see. That's true. A lot of times. Yeah. But I could see how arrogance like that

would come off as maybe entitlement and especially for someone who hasn't yet proven themselves would lead to that sort of dugout situation i would i would guess that when voight gets in there after a home run they're they're all over him right and i just think that sort of difference says a lot about how you are judged within your own clubhouse on your own team. And if you, and maybe in a window into their work ethic. Yeah. Yeah. And we've all worked different jobs, different places. Like if you work with, for lack of a better word, a cocky asshole who is just not fun to be around, like even when they do something good or helpful, you don't feel the same way about it

as when someone who you like does the exact same thing or a similar thing. So that absolutely is going to apply in clubhouse dynamics. And where I think it becomes a problem is that I imagine not being liked by your teammates is very stressful. and whether you show it or not I think it can impact your performance and I think it can certainly impact playing time and influence playing time like that's that's where I think it really hurts us as fantasy players

it's like if the internal vibe on Clint Frazier is he's okay but we don't really want to play him because we don't like him but he's got options left and no one really wants to make a trade for him. That's not the guy that you're going to find in an excess of playing time, which a year ago I thought he was going to play a lot because I liked him as a player. I think there are some things he does really well. So maybe the light bulb goes on. Maybe he has that aha moment. Maybe the right person gets in his ear and says hey listen like

you're good but you're not that good and you could be a lot better like maybe there's something like that going on behind the scenes that he comes back this year and he's a different guy that could absolutely happen but I've definitely soured on Frazier in large part because of some of the things that that Ian has observed and I respect his opinion and analysis in that part because of some of the things that Ian has observed. And I respect his opinion and analysis in that situation because it's a team in particular that he knows very well. Yeah. So it's an interesting, I mean,

it's, it's telling that I couldn't come up with his name right away, but he was, he was a big prospect. Like he was a part of a big trade. Like I've interviewed him three times. It's, it's just,

it's bizarre actually that I couldn't, but think i know why um and you know i think this plate discipline questions like just as a player the plate discipline questions are real uh you know how far can you get with like a six percent walk rate and a 30 strikeout rate i mean he's he hits the ball well when he hits it uh But that sort of play discipline kind of undercuts your production. Being a defensive liability is going to cost you playing time as well. So it's a major issue.

He was 8% better than the league average even though he had a.222 ISO with the bat because of the play discipline and he was a replacement level player overall because of the defense. So yeah was a replacement level player overall because of the defense so yeah i mean this is the definition of of being worse than the sum of your parts yeah leaving something out on the table in terms of having a lot of talent but not tapping into

all of it uh let's talk about nick solak for a minute i'm putting off otani because we've talked a lot about on the pod and i think our opinions of i wrote a whole piece you know if you are interested in otani i i don't know how many of you even read that piece because it came out in the draft in the draft kit but kind of what went through like the different settings and how Otani could be as valuable as the fifth uh overall player in baseball in fantasy baseball depending on your settings or basically like basically barely top 150 or 200. Yeah, and I've been at this point with Otani. We'll close the book on him real quick.

I would recommend that you read Dino's piece. I wish at this point, in a weird way, I almost just wish he would hit all year and not pitch this year. I kind of think that would be his best path to being broadly valuable in a lot of leagues like as a dh every day with no pitching rehab no days off before after starts yeah he'd be amazing he could push jordan alvarez potentially for highest ut on the board but that's just that's not how it's going to work he's going to be a headache player in big weekly leagues in particular. But Nick Solak,

it sounds like they're going to play Danny Santana in center field. It was T.R. Sullivan, who covers the team for MLB.com, had a tweet that came out. And basically, it's like the Rangers feel good or okay about Solak in center field, but they don't want to play him there.

And he's a right-handed hitter, so he could platoon with Odor at second base and maybe move around and play some other spots. But when you start to break down that Rangers depth chart, where do you see Solak finding the most playing time, and what do you think that volume actually looks like? I mean, I like the skills, but I am a little bit nervous about how viable he might be in leagues with fewer than 15 teams. Obviously, in mono leagues, no problem.

But 15-team mixed league is kind of the cutoff for me until he has a position to call his own. Yeah, when I started looking into it and I talked to our beat writer here, is it Levi or Levi? I think it's Levi. Okay, Levi. I could ask's Levi. Okay, Levi. I could ask him, but that seems rude. Yeah, that ship has sailed. Yeah, because we're decent friends, even. So now he's going to hear this and be like, you know.

We've got to listen to his pod. He's got a Rangers podcast. Oh, and he'll introduce himself. That's right. Welcome to the hit show. He'll say his own name correctly on his show. i think he will fairly anyway uh mr weaver uh and i had a conversation um about uh about where he fits and i had been thinking i would kind of go hard after him in al labor i think he would start at utah but then later be my Chad Pinder type where I could move him all over

and the problem is is this as as far as I understand it scouting wise his arm is a noodle and his hands are bricks and that disqualifies him from center for the most but not not center because hands or bricks is mostly an infield thing, but it puts him behind Danny Santana for center, I think. And you don't necessarily need to have a great arm and center, like Johnny Damon managed to play all those years out there. But, you know, all things being equal, if Santana looks better with the feet, and they look about equal with the glove and Santana's got the better arm, then it's going to be Santana. Uh, it means that I thought, well,

he's going to steal it from Frazier. Well, Frazier is actually a decent glove man and, uh, he's also a right-hander. So there's no opportunity to kind of start sneaking him in as a platoon, as a platoon mate. Right. Um, So that's a little bit complicated. So really, I think it's Solak versus Odor, which means to me, just I don't want to have any part of it, either side. Because Solak went for like 11 bucks in air labor, and Odor went for 12. And there's a possibility that there's like a $20 player that comes out of this. But I kind of doubt it. Because what I see happening is Odor has like a 196 average.

And maybe he bumps up to 210. If he has it at 210 after a month or two and is just slightly above replacement, maybe they make the switch to Solak. But that's kind of really, that's an upheaval, you know. I want to bet on the skills here, but the skills are kind of DH only type skills. I mean, he's a hitter. So what I'm saying is I don't know where he fits in the field. And it's going to be really nervewracking for people waiting for his opportunity.

I think this qualifies as irony, but Solak's the player that I'm looking at right now and I'm saying, why is a guy who played 83 games in the minors last year at second base, why is he a UT-only player based on our rules? That seems like another little outdated thing. UT only player based on our rules. That seems like another little outdated thing. We've advocated for this in the past too, where he has 16 games in the field

last year, and I know that's complicated by the fact that he DH'd a lot, but let's say he has 16 games in the field in the major leagues, and he had in the minor leagues had 50 games in the field. Why not use the minor league eligibility?

Yeah, I 100% agree. It's just one of those things. It's the letter of the law. You apply the rule the way it's written. But this would be a good time to, if you're the commissioner of your league or if you can get in the ear of the commissioner of your league to politely say, hey, we should rethink this

and use minor league eligibility for players who play, you know, fewer than 20 games at a position in the big leagues, but play more than 20 at a position of the minors. Yeah, there's, there is some sort of framework in place because I got Joey Wendell. No,

Matt Duffy is a shortstop one year because he hadn't played the majors at all that year that he was rehabbing. And for some reason they had him rehab at shortstop. And so the, if you don't play at all in the major leagues, then you have eligibility where you were in the minor leagues the most. Yeah, some leagues do it that way, and some say it's whatever you had the last time you played in the big leagues, if you've played in the big leagues before.

So pre-injury, they would have used that designation. It's all there in the fine print. I know a lot of people don't want to read it. It's not the most fun thing to do. If they throw defense out completely, which this team kind of seems like it has, you could go Calhoun, Gallo, Solak in the outfield. They have so many guys in that team that used to play somewhere else.

Yeah. Even their DH used to be a center fielder. Yeah, how weird is that? But it's a nice crop of UT-only players. We're just talking because we don't want to talk about catchers, right? We really don't want to talk about catchers, right? We really, we really don't. If you were to guess on average, how many days people in the U S have to wait to see a doctor,

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but if you take out the catcher adjustment in the auction calculator and you just look at points there's a points field Real Muto is the only one that's above replacement yeah says a lot about the position the settings I'm using right now are 12 team um Ryomuto is the only one that's above replacement yeah

the settings I'm using right now are 12 team I like to go to 15 let me do 15 and generate it again because 15 is a little bit I think I play more 15s in 15 um the only catchers that are above

of replacement are JT Ryoma yeah see unchanged uh all right we can only stall for so much longer well anyway i i think that uh sometimes i think that a reasonably sharp play in in two catcher leagues had recently been to kind of punt catcher or at least uh you know push it push it push it push it and i have found myself like in the 12 team two catcher raz slam uh best ball league gary sanchez is my first catcher and one of the reasons is uh in best ball like you just need like a crazy week and gary sanchez is gonna have some nut nutso weeks you know hitting in yankee stadium you know he's gonna

have some weeks where he just hits five home runs and drives in 20. You know what I mean? Yeah, I ended up in the same league. You got Gary Sanchez too? Yeah, I was going really pitcher heavy and I wanted some power. That's really funny because I'm going pitcher not heavy. I've got Morton and

Paddock as my aces. I'm loaded with pitching in the Razzland. I'm juggling multiple slow drafts at once i'm doing the athletic cut line i'm doing the great fantasy baseball invitational three slow drafts at once during draft season when we have a lot of work to do is maybe too much i think two is possible if the second one is kind of further along but when they're all kind of close they're all in the middle rounds especially, it's kind of chaos. I pretty much flubbed my auto-new draft last night

because I had a bit of an overload. I was taking care of the kids, cleaning up dinner, had three slow drafts on at the same time, and the auto-new draft. And I was like, I can do this, I can do this. And all of a sudden I owned Jose Abreu, even though I already had Freddie Freeman and Carlos Santana. I was like, what was that? Time is at a premium in March.

But anyway, so I do think that there can be a sort of reverse sharp play where you do actually take a top catcher. But even in that, if you do that, you still kind of want to, I think, leap ahead to the bottom. I don't think I would spend a lot on catch. I don't think I'd be like, I'm going to win the league with Real Muto and Sanchez. I'd be like, wow, wow, dude. Those are like if you, you know, if they weren't catchers. So I like the idea of maybe getting, I think the, the, I think of catchers a little bit as like pitching, and I'm going to say this again,

an outfielder thing. So I guess roll your eyes at me twice, but I like the top four or five. I don't know if I like, do you couldn't include which Mitch Garver in the top four or five? Like to me, Real Muto, Sanchez, Grundahl, Contreras are like a cut above, you know? And then maybe Mitch Garver. I think Garver should be in the top five, but I think he is definitely fifth of those options. And I think my argument for him is that as the number one catcher this year, he shared a lot of time with Jason Castro a season ago. I think the increase in playing time is going to offset what should be a reasonable amount of skills regression. He's a very good barrel. All the twins are really good barrelers.

skills regression. He's a very good barreler. All the twins are really good barrelers. Right. And I think there's probably some diminishing returns

for him just with that extra playing time, but it's offset by the fact that playing more gives you more chances to score runs, drive in

runs, and hit home runs. 29 years old, man. The old bloomers kind of always make me just a little...

They mess with me. He hit 31 homers and 359 plate appearances if you give them 450 or 500 that he's hitting 45 or 50 homers like if if that were the case we'd have a catcher worth getting really excited about i think he'll hit 35 homers in like 450 plate appearances yeah i think if we if we assume a normal ball and normal regression for him. Did you see that Masahiro Tanaka said it's not? It's the 2017 ball?

We got to get some to Dr. Meredith Willis and ever start cutting him open. Jesus. What a time. Like, we have to. It's so annoying. The baseball's different. Get them in the lab immediately. Let's figure it out. And not again i'm not mocking that the people who do that are fantastic i think

it's me making fun of major league baseball of us like the collective baseball journalists and scientists have to sleuth out like the changes to the ball MLBs is like, I don't know. It's like, you do know. Stop it. Stop pretending like you don't know. So then there's the mid-flavor guys. We got Sal Perez, Wilson Ramos, Will Smith, Christian Vasquez. To me, Christian Vasquez is easily the worst of the group. And to me, I think Will Smith is the most exciting member of the group.

I think Will Smith's exciting. I think he's a tad overpriced. He's buried in the batting order. And there's another top prospect coming up behind him. I mean, Keter Ruiz is probably ready for the big leagues at some point this year. So I think for a guy who's got the sixth highest ADP among catchers, even though I think he's got solid skills that's surprising I think there's a chance that Will Smith is going to underperform expectations this

year even though his long-term future is pretty bright and Ruiz couldn't be any more different than Smith in terms of offensive profile dude makes contact on everything and has okay power whereas will smith has that and i actually got i actually got um i actually got a a team person to uh agree with me that a 50 fly ball rate was uh was approaching too far like a all right like a hitting coach basically so they agreed with me that that 50 is kind of that's when you're going too far and will smith is a member of the 50 club so i haven't that's why i haven't really jumped in on this tier because now you're talking about a bat that's like 11 to 12 worse than replacement level as a bat and you know you have to pay an actual draft pick,

and it just hasn't worked out for me. So here's where I've been shopping. Carson Kelly, Travis Darnot, Danny Jansen, Robinson Chirinos, Sean Murphy. Those are my favorite catchers. You can call them targets, but since there's so many of them, it's just a group, and I'll just take whoever falls, basically. I've been trying to get one out of the top 10 in ADP, but near the back. I think Wilson Ramos, even though he has so many flaws defensively,

is a good hitter. He's old and boring. He's fairly priced. He's going to drive in runs, get hit home runs. Batting average is going to be pretty good. So I'm on Ramos at the price. Omar Narvaez going into Milwaukee has a chance, even with a little less playing time, to match what he did last year because of the big park boost. I think there's some unique things about the way

he hits that actually work. There might be some red flags when you start looking at stat cast numbers on him, but when you start looking at spray charts and some of the things he does, the types of batted balls he actually hits he has this ability to flip little flares the opposite way and it looks like a repeatable skill that he's shown over a few years so i'm actually in on narvaez like you don't want to hit the ball hard to the opposite field but not hard enough you know i mean like you don't want to hit the ball 250 275 feet to the opposite field but not hard enough you know i mean like you don't want to hit the ball 250 275 feet to the opposite field right he's just good at kind of like you're like kicking an outside pitch and just dumping it over the infielders like you can't really stop that like it's just being a good hitter being selective saying i get this pitch outside i can't really

do much with it but i can get on base got fisted over there. I think that's part of what he's doing. I like Harrison Kelly, so we're in lockstep on him. Jorge Alfaro is really interesting to me. I've compared him in terms of the underlying approach to Javier Baez in the past. Not because I think Alfaro has

Baez's ceiling, but because I think we see that play discipline and we get so scared. And we get so scared that we forget that he's tooled up. Like, he can do more damage than most when he connects. And the fences are moving in there. And the lineup's getting

a little better, too, likely, with some of the young talent coming up. So, he's got an oblique injury right now. I think I've got him as a second catcher in one of the leagues where I grabbed two earlier than usual. I think it was Vasquez and Alfaro. I was like, gross, I took Christian Vasquez,

so I better take someone I actually like for my second catcher. I didn't like anything else, so I took Alfaro. He's got monster Babibs because he hits the ball really hard, and he's even projected to have a.350 Babib. He can run a little bit, too. He doesn't run like a typical catcher. So that helps. But I think if I don't get a couple of guys in that range,

I sort of stay away from Tom Murphy, even though big power, high K rate, it could work out. Yadier Molina, if I'm going to be an ageist, I'm going to do that with catchers because that's such a brutal position to play. I've seen a little bit of value from Posey and Molina. I got Molina as my second catcher in TGFBI, and I got him in the 27th round.

That's not bad. 27th round is totally fine for Molina so if you're in a room full of people thinking like me yeah take the discount yeah and and Posey you know for his worth he had an injury surgery before last year really didn't look good all year I know I don't want to be like oh you know he's look great this spring everybody does but he's look great this spring and he seems to have a pretty high floor he's probably gonna hit 280 the question but he's looked great this spring. He seems to have a pretty high floor. He's probably going to hit.280. The question is, is he going to hit eight homers or is he going to hit 14? Even if he hits eight, he probably doesn't kill you.

No, and he's going to hit higher in the order than most catchers. He's going to play more than most catchers. Better batting average, so he's just going to hurt you less in the one category that these guys normally hurt you in? Yeah. I got Posey in NL Labor. I was really happy about it. I've got him, I think, way back

in the Fall League draft I did back in October. So I've got him in a couple leagues already. Probably get him a couple more times. I don't expect peak Buster Posey or anything close to that coming back, but I think compared to these other names, you're getting more playing time. You're getting a better floor set of

skills. What about Danny Jansen? You mentioned that you like Sean Murphy, and I think there's a lot to like with Murphy, and there was a lot to like with Jansen this time last year, who kind of had a spot similar to where Murphy is in ADP right now. Being a catcher, it's such a tough job that you can lose a little bit of the plate while you're getting used to all the defensive rigors of the position at the big league level.

And Danny Jansen, I think, turned things around a little bit. If you look back from like the late June on, I think his offensive splits were a lot better. Do you think there's any concern with Sean Murphy to be going through that same thing, even though things looked pretty good when he came up last year? Well, I think that Danny Jansen's skill set, like when he's going well, is very different than Sean Murphy. Sean Murphy has a little bit more of the traditional catcher skill set where he just hits the ball hard, swings and misses too often,

and has a low batting average. You know what I mean? So I actually don't know. I don't know that he has like a huge amount of potential to like have a great batting average and hit home runs. I just think that Murphy could hit 240 with 25 homers this year, right? And that's worth it as sort of a mid-roundish, don't hurt me too bad, give me some power, I'm done with the position kind of deal. Jansen's skill set I think is a little bit more finicky because the reason why he's interesting is because he's had really minuscule swing and strike rates in the past. And if he can return to the sort of 4% to 5% swing and strike rate

that he's had, then I think that he could be a guy who could hit like 275 with 12 home runs or 15 home runs and be interesting in a different way. But the problem is you're kind of praying to the Babib gods when you're that kind of player. And if you're Luis Arias, then you can put so many lottery tickets in play and run fast and make the most of those lottery tickets that you can probably have a really good batting average. But if you're not as fast, and so now you're slow and you don't get the same volume that other people get in terms of playing time, you take a,

you take a day off or two days off every, you know, three or fourth day. And then you have this other guy, Reese McGuire, who's having a really great season and bats left-handed. All of a sudden you start losing playing time. You could see how that could be a finicky interaction.

And so I think that anybody who's fading Jansen, I understand what they're doing 100% However, if you just look at projections, the projections for Jansen are better than they are for McGuire. And I was in camp last week and just listening to, you know, his manager, and they were trying to get the manager to say who was the starting catcher, and he wouldn't. But at the very end, he said something that was basically like, Danny Jansen's our catcher. I think that, you know,

Lou Jay's front office is aware of the fact that Jansen projects better as a hitter. I think they're aware of, you know, his splits and the fact that Jansen projects better as a hitter. I think they're aware of, you know, his, his splits and the fact that in the second half last year, he was, he was, he was, he was better, you know, he, he, you know, the batting average didn't really show it. But there were, there were things that he was doing in terms of contact, you know, in terms of, you know, like, I think that, you know, a September in August, where, you know, a September and a July where he hit 250 and had a 250, 240 ISO. That's, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about that's his, you know, 90th percentile but what i'm hoping for is a 250 average uh a 14

strikeout rate uh and 15 home runs i look at the situation in oakland and i think they have pretty enviable catcher depth in part because they made that small trade they flipped jerks and pro far to san diego and got back austin allen and allen kind of fills the same sort of role that Reese McGuire might fill in that he's a lefty, Sean Murphy's a righty. He's shown power at every single stop. High A, double A, triple A, 20 home runs every single stop. And that was 21 homers in just 67 games last year at triple A El Paso. And that's with a 20-ish percent carry or lower.

That is a launching pad, though, I will have to say. It's a launching pad, but he puts the ball in the air he doesn't strike out that much he walks a little and he's not a bad defender like I know Sean Murphy's probably the much better defender he's got a great arm and I think most reports are going to say he's a better receiver too but Austin Allen's not Chris Herman. He's a pretty good bat to me. Yeah he looks like a good hitter this looks like a sneaky good trade for Oakland. And I can just see that being the case where they say, we're going to give Sean Murphy the first opportunity to be the starter.

He's going to get four out of six starts the first few weeks. If it goes well, it stays that way. If he struggles, it can become more of like 50-50 or maybe even swing 65-35 the other way at some point. So I see a little bit of risk with Murphy because of their depth. They have another guy, Jonah Heim, who I think is pretty much ready to catch into big leagues too. He's the third guy. Murphy is a righty.

Last year, I was told by a team official that Dustin Hermanson... Is that right? No. The pitcher? No no the catcher Chris Herman Chris Herman yeah

that was the guy I was thinking of with Alan I'm like I think Herman's sort of like a catcher on a part time basis

Dustin Hermanson's like a pitcher isn't he? yeah he pitched for the Expos I think that was a those are two neurons that don't need

to get together again so I was told that Chris Herman was going to be the starting catcher, and that was because he's left-handed. So there's some credence. I give some credence to your theory, but at the same time, Murphy was kind of becoming a poster boy in the organization

where this is the catcher of the future for us. Is there anybody in the just flotsam and jetsam category that you like? I mean, there's this one. See, the reason I like Jansen, Chirionis, Murphy, and Kelly is that I can group them and then try to stay out of the real gross section behind. Guys like from Roberto Perez, Tucker Barnhart, James McCann, those guys down, they're literally $20 below replacement level with the bat. I think Jason Castro is one of my parachute catchers

where if it's not coming together for me, I like where he's going. I think Chiv Cisco has a chance to be that sort of player. I just think there's a pedigree there. It's a good park. There's opportunity. So I think he's kind of a good second catcher option. Let's talk about Jason Kass real quick. People ask me all the time, like, oh, pitching coach, you know,

pitching coach, you know, new pitching coach, Derek Johnson, love him. Does that mean I bump all the reds up or whatever? And I think to some extent, the answer is yes. I mean, the hardest part is identifying the pitching coaches that will have long term success, because there's always a guy who pops for a while. We all thought Don Cooper was brilliant at some point. And I don't know, maybe some people still do. I don't know. So what's his name? Rowenson? Who's the hitting coordinator?

The guy that went to Miami? James Rowson? Rowson. So Rowson has presided over, I think, one of the more remarkable hitting transformations of any organization. The Twins are, like like all in on barrels. They lead the league in launch angle for the last four years. It's for the StatCast era. The Twins lead the league in launch angle.

They lead the league in barrels. And look at Jason Castro. You know, he leaves a pretty good organization in the Astros, and he goes to Minnesota. His barrel rate last year was 17%. I mean, that's amazing. It's really good. And his exit velocity went up from 86, 88 to 91.5.

Dude is 32. But I do know from having many conversations with Castro, he's very coachable. Like, he's not going to not listen to anything. He wants to listen to everything. We had a whole conversation about which way his butt points when he's at the plate and how that has to do with framing. And so he said that came from a conversation from a catching coach and from another catcher. So I think I'm willing to bet that Caster's going to keep some of that with him.

So he's almost going to keep that glow. But it's also something to think about when you think about how many reclamation projects and how many good athletes and how many hitters are in Miami that we're all waiting on. Louis Brinson, you were talking about Monty Harrison the other day, Jazz Chisholm. You know, there's a group there that there's a potential here for them being coached right and getting much more out of their skill set i mean i'm looking at lewis brinson from last year 16 homers 16 steals 270 361 510 at triple a yeah he was 25 and he's been at that level in parts of five different seasons now i mean very limited run there in 2015 you should probably barely count that, to be completely honest. It was only a couple games in 2018 he was hurt.

If you have a completely new hitting coach and philosophy as an organization with a good track record like Minnesota, and you can look back, this is why I still believe in Byron Buxton. Look at the changes he was making at the plate last season. He was getting better. The injury wiped it away again i understand that's part of of the deal now with byron buxton that's why he's discounted right now he's coming off shoulder surgery but he jumped up to 89.3 miles per hour his average exit velocity he was in the 85s the previous three seasons the launch angle jumped up to 19.5 in the barrel rate

8.3 easily the highest we've ever seen from Byron Buxton. Brinson's going the opposite direction. He used to have 91 mile an hour. Last year, he had 86. He had a 3% barrel rate. The league average is near 5. This is an athlete.

There's never been a doubt about Brinson having tools, ever. no question and i think last year was injuries you don't lose three miles per hour off your average velocity unless you're hurt we're still finding a way to not talk about catchers that's good it's better content i told everybody this was going to be fun and it was going to be good and i feel like it's been fun and good it's just a little light on catchers. There was a funny thing that happened in labor draft.

It was a little bit of a table talk, but Jason Collette kept talking about Mike Zanino and how he didn't want to draft him. And then finally, I think he did draft him and he said, you're welcome, everybody. I don't hate Zanino this year, though. They've only got Michael Perez as the backup. They lost Darnot, who they relied on a lot last year. Zanino had some injuries. And it's funny to me that Zanino is so much cheaper than Tom

Murphy when I think they're probably similar 200 with 20 homers yeah I mean if you've gotten up and I've said this before and I'm not sure people like really like soaked it up but if I'm gonna take on a lot of batting average risk I want to take it on with a player who catches because he doesn't play as much. Play as much. Like Ruben Odor the last couple of years was the worst kind of batting average because he just injected that into your roster

for 600 plate appearances. I think in labor the last couple of years, I've been like the bottom third of batting average, and I think Odor was at fault for it like twice. Yeah. Hard to believe, isn't it? The other thing about the position, Tyler Flowers is kind of interesting, super late.

I mean, Darnot gets hurt a lot. I like Travis Darnot as a player. I think what he did last year skills-wise is real, but Tyler Flowers isn't a bad second catcher if you're just scrambling late and don't want to invest a lot. I'm curious to see if William Zastadillo plays more behind the plate now that Castro's gone.

They're going to give Garver a lot of playing time, but does Zastadillo get some time there? I think he's a little bit of a... Who's the nominal backup, though? The actual backup? The backup who is really a catcher and not a guy that plays everywhere? Yeah, the one that's listed on depth charts. The listed

backup is Alex Avila, but he has lots of injury issues too. I mean, he's had multiple concussions. Can we build the four-man bench here? Jake Cave is definitely in. Marwin Gonzalez is definitely in. I think Ahira Adrianza, maybe

because Gonzalez... Or do you think Gonzalez can play short? Because if you think Gonzalez can play short, we might get him on the team. Let's see here. Jake Cave, Marwin Gonzalez, Alex Avila. So the fourth man is either Ahira Adrianza or Willem Estudillo. Yeah, I agree. It's between those two guys for the last spot.

If you think Marwin can play short, you could have some fun with Estudio on the team. You could. You could have a lot of fun. I think for now, though, Estudio is more of an AL-only sort of guy. I don't think I'm using him in mixed leagues, even with two catchers. He's more of an in-season pickup if the playing time opens up. But some of the other guys going around him, like Zanino,

you can draft Zanino in a two-catcher mixed league and live to tell the story. Yeah, I don't think he went for cheap enough. I paid $19 combined for Castro and Jason Castro, $8 and Sean Murphy, $11. Paid maybe a dollar more on both than i necessarily wanted to but i also just don't like i explained i don't like the dollar catchers so yeah they're pretty bad uh prospects real quick joey bart edley rutschman in competitive rutschman looks pretty

good catching like a you know i think if if the team was at all competitive, he'd be up this year. Yeah, you answered the question I was going to ask. I don't think we're going to see Rutschman this year. I don't think we're going to see Bart for more than a couple of months if we see him at all. Dalton Varshow is a really interesting player. He's a problem player in some ways because I'm still wondering if he's actually going to be a catcher in the long long run or if he's going to end up moving to a different position and if he moves off the position what position is that going to be but double a last year 301 378 520

18 homers and 21 for 26 as a base dealer with a 13.9% strikeout rate. Yeah, and I think it's also an important thing to think about in terms of dynasty, prospect drafts and stuff. There's a lot of people who ascribe, and I do for the most part, to tints to cap or tints to cup, which is there is no such thing as a catching prospect. And it's true. They debut later. They peak later.

They have so much more work to do that you know it's also the offensive bar there is really low which sounds good except that means that there's a lot of bad offensive catchers that we've just been talking about um so for the most part i've been fading catching prospects and you can look at someone like jason castro had one of his best years at 29 or was it no 32 32 so um you know it's you just find the pop-up guy Mitch Garver 29 but Varshow is actually so compelling statistically in terms of his batted ball mix in terms of his swing strike rate in terms of his walk and strikeout rates in terms of his you know athletic line in terms of the the stolen bases that I think he should be considered a top

prospect with the asterisks that may not be a catcher, at least, you know, not in years two and three and four. Usually when you come up, you'll have that catcher eligibility, but, you know, it may not be a long-term catcher, but I think the bat is good enough that I consider him a top prospect, and we'll have to, I'm trying to figure out my dynasty ranks. They should be coming out Friday, and I think I made a breakthrough last night in how I'm going to do them. And I hope they don't disappoint anybody.

Varsha will not actually show up. I'm not actually going to list the prospects. I've got to work around. Hopefully they're still useful to people. And I would say the Diamondbacks look like they could be semi-competitive. So if Kelly or Vogt goes down, Varshow could come up. Yeah, and I don't think it takes a lot for a catcher to get hurt. So he's kind of interesting.

More draft and hold and an only reserve type, I think, for now. Obviously, mixed league relevant, though, if he gets an opportunity. So more of an in-season pickup, I think, than anything else. Tyler Stevenson came up as a question at first pitch Florida. I think it's possible, but if he comes up, I kind of see him as a part-time guy and one who's definitely buried in a good Reds lineup. So playable if the opportunity arises, but not quite as tooled up as Dalton Varshow and maybe even a little bit less likely

to get the opportunity. Yeah, maybe. They've got Kyle Farmer listed as third, but he's playing at short stops, so it's a bizarre situation over there. We mentioned Keidert Ruiz earlier. I think he could work his way into some kind of share with Will Smith. I think that's kind of an interesting possible pickup later on. What about Garrett Stubbs in Houston? The Astros, they're kind of weird with possible pickup later on. What about Garrett Stubbs in Houston? I mean, the Astros, they're kind of weird with the catcher position. They just don't seem to care as much about it as a lot of teams do. Martin Maldonado is the starter.

Stubbs, as a lefty, kind of compliments him as someone that could play more. Is Stubbs a good enough catcher to actually take over the job outright and become the starter? Because Maldonado, to me, at this stage of his career, does seem a lot more like a backup. That's interesting because Dustin Garneau is there on a major league contract, not a minor league one. I don't know that this is the kind of team that will care too much about the extra 500k or whatever that it might cost to just that sunk cost, basically. Maybe they'll just cut Garneau if they feel like Stubbs is the guy. But I do think that Stubbs has the option, so he's more likely to go down. And there's some idea that he's going to be a utility guy.

Right, that gives him a better chance of sticking as a third catcher. Double-jit walk rates everywhere he's been, never struck out 20% at any level. But last year, 79 WRC plus at AAA. That's brutal, especially when you consider the context of... And I couldn't get stubs on my four-man, so let's make a bench. We've got Miles Straw,

Kyle Tucker, Oledmus Diaz, and a catcher. So he has to beat out Garneau. Bummet that leaves out Abraham Toro too. I like Toro. I think he's going to hit. If he could play the

outfield, but I think you need Straw to play center. Yeah, I think you're right. But I think we kind of covered it. I think we got through catchers without a lot of pain. Is there anybody else that we glazed over? Elias Diaz could be the guy in Colorado, which could make him interesting, even though he's had one of the weirdest careers I've ever seen already. Have you ever looked at his player page um he had he had like a good stint in in pittsburgh

he had a good what a good year that 286 with 10 homers that year he's gone minus 1.2 war plus 1.8 and minus 1.5 the last three seasons and he was minus 1.2 war in 2017 in 64 games like holy crap that is hard to do it is hard to be that bad in he had a 52 wrc plus that year and then the very next year he had 114 wrc plus i love it yeah so he's been and it wasn't bad it wasn't i mean the babbit difference doesn't explain all that the rockies are punting catcher again this year. Tony Walters and Elias Diaz. If you said, pick one who's more interesting, I'd actually say Elias Diaz. Yuck.

Yeah. Not a place that you want to live. Yet again, I'm sorry I'm always making fun of the Rockies, but I feel like they kind of deserve it at this point. I'm always waiting for Austin Barnes to show up on a different team. Yeah, he'd play more just about anywhere else, especially with Ru deserve it at this point. I'm always waiting for Austin Barnes to show up on a different team. Yeah, he'd play more just about anywhere else, especially with Ruiz coming at this point. If anybody has the need and can spare 200 plate appearances

or 300 plate appearances, they should make a small trade for him or clam him off waivers when the time comes. All right, when you're talking about Austin Barnes, time to cut you off. Time to wrap it up. As always, you can reach out. Oh, no, time to cut, cut you off. Time to wrap it up. As always, you can reach out. No,

no, no, no, no. You know what? I listened to this podcast called song exploder. And what it is, it's an interview with the people who write songs that you probably heard.

Uh, that was one of the more recent episodes. They went deep into the nineties, the late nineties to get the semi sound. It's closing time. I didn't listen to that particular episode, but Song Exploder is becoming one of my favorite random pods. They should have Eno Sarazon to sing them badly. You know what?

This is a really good professional podcast, and I think they got a pretty good thing going. Wait, are you calling us non-professional? No. Wait, are you calling us non-professional? No. I'm saying that Song Exploder might start taking on some one-star reviews if we have you singing songs on our show. And yet, we're all five-star, baby. Yeah.

Please give us five stars. Please write and review. If you haven't done it already. You can reach us via email, ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com. Be sure to spell out the word and in our email address. He's at Eno Saris on Twitter. I'm at Derek Van Riper. I've mentioned it before, but we do have two other Fantasy Baseball podcasts running

this season. Fantasy Baseball in 15 every weekday morning. It's up by 6 a.m. Eastern and the Athletic Fantasy Baseball podcast. New episodes of that drop every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon. So on the afternoons when you don't have a Rates and Barrels, you do get an Athletic Fantasy Baseball podcast. We've got basically two baseball pods going up every single weekday,

Monday through Friday, and we're going to have our waiver pods coming back on Sundays as part of the Athletic Fantasy Baseball podcast as well. Those will pick up at the end of this month. So lots of good stuff for you to listen to throughout your day. That's going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening.