Rates & Barrels - Embracing the Unknown
Episode Date: June 25, 2020Rundown0:37 Getting Used to Saying 'I Don't Know'11:11 Proceeding with Caution & Adjusting Rules17:07 The NFBC's Ruling21:14 Taking More Chances in High Variance Environment23:55 Revisiting the TGFBI ...Drafts33:58 Starting Pitcher Strategy Guide for 202043:31 The Pirates' Starting Pitchers Are Stretched Out48:52 Community Spotlight: Mentorship Program & Resource Kit56:08 Beer of the Month Interested in the Mentorship Program? Click hereInterested in the Resource Kit? Click here Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRipere-mail: ratesandbarrels@theathletic.com Get a 30-day free trial: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 107. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris.
It is Thursday, June 25th. On this episode, we have a few more details about the 2020 season,
a lot of information about how you might handle your fantasy leagues,
how the NFBC has handled leagues that were already drafted over the last several months,
and just kind of an overall realization that even as we get more information on the rules and protocols
and procedures for this season, everything is subject to change.
There are going to be so many questions that we face in the next five to six months,
and the answer to many of them, at least right now, is I don't know.
And I think that's increasingly obvious as team officials are speaking to the media
on kind of a regular basis now for interviews and for pieces.
And obviously there's a lot of questions to be answered about roster construction and logistics and all those things.
And even as things begin to come together for July 1 report dates for teams and a possible July 23rd, July 24th opening day,
how exactly we get to that point is still kind of a mystery in a lot of ways.
How exactly we get to that point is still kind of a mystery in a lot of ways.
I just like, it's a weird feeling.
It's a better feeling, you know, than where we've been before.
Like before it was like, I don't know what's going to happen.
Murder hornets and COVID and like, you know know some big storm is coming i'm sure but yeah we had tornadoes uh this one is like a little bit better because
it's like i don't know what's gonna happen it could be really fun assuming that we make it to
the season yeah through the season safely it's going to be a lot of fun because we've never seen
anything like it we would have rather seen a regular season more similar to everything we've ever seen before.
That would have been obviously better for all of the reasons.
But I just think it's kind of set in for me that we need to embrace the odd this season.
And I think you asked me a few weeks ago how much of a typical entry fee would you be willing to spend to play in a shortened season. And I think you asked me a few weeks ago, how much of a typical entry fee would you be
willing to spend to play in a shortened season? I was sitting around like 25%, but that's coming
from someone who has played in the NFBC main event before. So, you know, that's still a decent
size entry fee. And I think as the reality of what this season is likely to be has set in,
that percentage has gone down a little further, but what I've realized is that the camaraderie from playing fantasy baseball
is the thing that I've missed probably the most of all.
And we could still have that.
We can play for smaller stakes.
We can play for fun.
I just think it's important to accept the fact that while this season,
as fun as it can be, is going to be dangerous,
if we're going to enjoy it, we just need to realize how unusual it truly is and
not hide from that. And we're going to have all sorts of setbacks along the way.
We've seen reports from several teams now of players testing positive for COVID. Sometimes
we don't know who those players are.
That's kind of the nature of this, right?
I mean, there are HIPAA laws to protect people.
And I think we all need to accept that right now about this season.
There will be frequent times in which we just don't know.
Yeah, I mean, that's going to be the title and theme of
this podcast, but we will do our best to sort of figure it out as we as we go along. I mean,
today, I wrote a piece about, you know, trying to figure out what the new rule changes meant for
starting pitcher strategy. And yet, you know, even after I'd gone through it all,
somebody in the comments brought up a good question
that opened up more that we can talk about.
So, you know, every time you sort of pull open a little part
and you say, oh, you know what, you know, oh, pitcher injuries.
It's going to be worse this year for pitcher injuries
because some are stretched out and some are not.
We're going to jump in after three weeks
and blah, blah, blah.
You have Mitch Handegger saying, hey, what about
hitters? We're trying to time
up machines and then we're going to get
we're going to jump in and go up against hitters.
You're going to see a bunch of
hitter oblique injuries.
It's an onion and we keep
peeling away at it.
Just don't eat it raw.
There is a Seinfeld.
I think it's the one where George gets the glasses and he has the wrong prescription in them.
And he eats the onion and pretends like he meant to do that.
It's a classic Seinfeld moment for me.
Yeah, don't eat the raw onion that way that's uh onions are not hand fruit so all right so lots of things we don't know a few more things that we
do know i mean you can read a lot about this at the athletic evandrelic ken rosenthal jason stark
he knows pieces there's details galore spilling out. And they're all just like, we think this is
going to work. And we hope this is going to work. And we don't really know how it's going to be. I
mean, just flipping through the big question, you know, what if someone shows symptoms of COVID
or test positive, right? Like that's a huge question. Because as I was kind of hinting at
before, there've been tests already, there will be more. There will be more positive tests.
As players report to camp, more tests will be done, and more of them are going to come back positive.
That is inevitable.
That is going to happen.
We already know that the answer is that a small number will not stop baseball.
Because they're still going forward with, is it five players in philadelphia
more than one player in toronto three players in in colorado and there's going to be more as we as
we come back to camp and everyone gets tested so we we know that some small amount is not going to
stop baseball um and we know that there's a like a covid dl that's sort of outside of the
regular process they don't have to have an end date there is no end to the covid dl um and uh
it doesn't uh change your sort of it's it's like outside of the sort of normal roster structure
right so um you can kind of get a replacement quickly and blah blah blah
so we know that they're thinking about it but the number one question i have is what's and i don't
think anybody's comfortable talking about this because it's kind of dirty and ugly what's the
number where baseball has to stop and is it is it related to the stardom? So if Mike Trout and two angels get hurt,
is that different than if six Marlins have COVID?
I'm sorry, I said get hurt.
I'm thinking IL.
But if Mike Trout and two angels get COVID,
can the angels say, hey, let's everybody stop?
And what if it's like seven Marlins?
And everyone's like, eh, whatever.
It's messed up, right? What if it's like seven Marlins and everyone's like, ah, whatever it's messed up.
Right.
What if it's 10?
If it's 10,
if you think,
imagine your team had 10 people go down at the same time. And I'm like,
yeah,
that's,
that's what's so different about this.
You know,
what if it was 10?
Wouldn't you think that everyone would say,
Oh,
come on,
this is not fair.
Come on.
This team just lost 10 players.
I mean, I think the other thing that's strange to me
is that we've seen reports now of some teams already talking about letting at least some fans
in if it's allowed in their municipalities like that's that's a variable that i didn't think was
even possible just a week ago one thing about about that is that when you think about it once they're in the stadium,
it makes some sense because you could – like, stadiums are really big.
If you put 5,000 people in a 50,000-stadium or whatever, right,
you could sit really far away from each other.
And it's outdoors for the most part.
For outdoor stadiums, I think it's slightly different than indoor uh at least my me personally i feel safer outside than inside and i think
there's some research to back that up so um you know once you think of them in their seats that's
fine however the number of entrance points to different stadiums is different right so like
like what if you have six good entrances
and you've allowed 10,000 people in?
Well, what happens if they all leave at the same time
or they're all arriving at the same time?
Now you're talking about pretty crowded situations.
Yeah, the bottlenecks getting into big league games.
I mean, most of the games I go to
are at Miller Park in Milwaukee.
Most of the people who go to those games,
it seems like, spend a lot of time in the parking lot
and then kind of roll in right before first pitch.
You get these very big crowds concentrated around the security area, and that can't happen.
I know Miller Park's not one of the places where we're expected to see fans anytime soon.
I mean, I don't see them at all in Milwaukee this season. But I know Texas was one of those, Houston.
I think I saw the White Sox, and there are probably a few others as well.
But some of those are going to be in play too,
like the Texas governor is out there telling everybody we've got to buckle down.
It's not looking good right now.
So I doubt that that's necessarily on the table right now.
But, okay, it's on the table for a lot of places,
but whether it'll actually
happen is another question right so things are still in flux even as we get more and more
information and just thinking about your question i mean it's it's dark it's a really dark thing to
think about like what does it take for the league to say actually we're wrong shut it down i have no
idea where that threshold would be.
I mean, the fact that they're trying this at all
tells us that they're taking on a good bit of risk already,
and I just don't know what that threshold truly is for them to say,
yeah, this went too far. We made a mistake.
They'll never say it in those words, of course.
They'll never admit that they made a mistake.
It would just be, hey, we got too many players that tested positive too many people around the teams too many team personnel employees
whatever it might be i just think it's the strangest baseball season we will ever see
i don't know if we can come up with conditions that would be more bizarre and more scary than
what we have in front of us this season yeah Yeah, and I think to segue a little bit
into how this will affect your discussions
with your fellow fantasy league mates
and how to think about things like entrance fees
and how much money should be on these leagues,
things that we've gotten some answers from NFBC that were really interesting.
I think the general call for caution makes sense.
And caution in this sense means maybe not the same entry fee that you have normally like maybe maybe if it's a 500 league
maybe this year maybe you should prorate it to how much actual season there is you know like
maybe it should be a 200 league or maybe it should be even less because of all the all the unknowns
that we have like we don't even know if they'll finish the season, so why would we all throw $200 down
right now and not at least have talked about or set in some sort of stone what happens if
they play for two weeks and it's done? I think most of my leagues are talking about contingency plans right now.
I think one of my head-to-head leagues is just going to switch over to Roto.
And one of my other leagues is considering taking advantage of something that Jake Seeley wrote about,
where you can actually have multiple matchups per week in head-to-head.
Yes.
So Fantrax is pretty cool.
They will do two matchups per week so that you're playing two people at once.
And then on top of that, they'll do one where you're playing the league average.
So you basically get three results per week.
And that's enough to sort of goose it along
and give you the regular amount of wins and losses
by the time the playoffs roll around.
Yeah, I think your first suggestion still is ideal,
just going from head-to-head to straight roto.
Just tell your league,
hey, it's only for this year. We can go back to head to straight roto just tell your league hey it's only
for this year we can go back to head to head next year but i do think the multiple matchups per week
or even an all play format those are good workarounds and fan tracks is one of the sites
that can actually accommodate that so part of it might just be this is where your league is already
set up maybe you don't want to move maybe do. I know that plays into some of the options that you have as well. One other thing in Jake's piece that
I think is important is to think about categories in your league. I think we maybe talked about
wins on our show and how funky those are going to be. But if you have quality starts, you got to
get that out for this year. I think we'll talk about pitching specifically in greater detail on this episode.
I just don't see how you'd want to use that in a year in which the beginning of the season is
going to be a train wreck. Injuries could be up a lot as well. So there's plenty of reasons to
steer away from that. I think even the suggestion we had for wins is to consider innings pitched
instead. I think that's probably a way to go.
This is also a reminder.
Make sure that your league, if it has a minimum for innings pitched,
make sure it gets lowered.
You have to adjust that a lot to make sure that everyone doesn't have their standings
get messed up at the end of the season because they failed to hit the 162 long season innings threshold.
Given the question marks about how stretched out people are and how many innings you'll get from
your starters, even within the context of a 60 game season, I would suggest that sort of take
the low side of the calculation. Like so in labor, Steve Gardner said, you know, it's normally a thousand, uh, innings
pitch minimum, you know, going by straight math, it should be like three 20 or three
19.6 or something.
Uh, let's just make it 300.
Yeah.
You know?
Um, and so I think that, um, sort of that's, that's what I'm talking about when I'm talking
about caution, right?
Just make everything a little easier this year.
That's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about caution, right?
Just make everything a little easier this year.
We're talking about adding DL slots, maybe adding a utility slot or maybe a straight DH slot to our regular lineup.
That sort of stuff, just make it easier on people.
I think the DL thing is definitely worth thinking about.
If you have unlimited DL, then I kind of like that.
I think I kind of like that in general. But I understand making choices and having a good waiver wire.
But I like the draft a lot.
And though my waiver wire strategy I think has gotten better over the years,
I don't mind looking at an ugly waiver wire and trying to figure out who's the best on there.
And I kind of don't like the idea that you should lose a guy because they get hurt.
And this year, I'd like it even less.
Should I lose a guy because he got COVID and I ran out of stuff, like ran out of place to put him?
So if you've ever thought about going to unlimited DL,
think about it this year for sure.
And if you don't like that idea,
at least add a DL slot or two if you still can.
I think this would also be a year
if you can convince your league,
hey, we should allow daily roster moves.
You should make that switch.
Normally, I love weekly leagues.
I think they're the better way to go.
Or at least having commissioner rules in place
where you could submit a lineup change midweek
for a player who ends up on COVID IL or any IL.
I mean, we have midweek IL replacements already in Tout Wars.
I like that quite a bit.
I don't think you should get randomly penalized
because lineup lock was Monday,
and on Tuesday someone pulled a hammy.
Pre-COVID, that was a good rules change anyway.
So I think that's something you should also strongly consider just to make things more flexible this year.
The other question I think that comes up is, you know, what do you do for leagues that have already drafted?
Do you redraft them? think that comes up is you know what do you do for leagues that have already drafted do you
redraft them you know like nfbc as we hinted at before they came out with their ruling
earlier this week they decided to refund already already drafted nfbc leagues that have weekly fab
so they they refunded rotowire auction championship teams, over 400 of those,
satellite leagues, main event and online championship qualifier leagues,
and guillotine leagues.
So they issued $3.5 million in refunds,
which is, you know, like I think that was the fairest thing they could do.
Like it's a terrible thing to have to do as a business,
but it's the right thing to do for your players.
This season is so different than the one we drafted for.
When the stakes are lower and it's like a friend league,
I can see saying, hey, there's nothing on the line here.
We're all going to understand that this is weird
and we didn't really prepare for this.
But when the stakes are really high and there's money at stake i think it's unfair to say well you know you should have
seen this coming or something you know like um so i don't think um i don't think uh that you know
just making people play i was hoping that maybe they would refund the money and allow us to um just play the the leagues so that i can get a little practice in but
now i'm stuck kind of being like i almost wish they had something cheaper than the 350
um you know on the line and maybe they maybe they will come up with that there's still time
and and there is actually still time like the thing is that we still have a month
time and there is actually still time like the thing is that we still have a month to draft again you know um it's kind of like being on march 1st so now everybody can make the decision again
am i gonna play am i gonna put this much money in and knowing all the unknowns that are
coming out the known unknowns no no coming in our direction at least you you kind of
go into it with your eyes wide open is what i'm saying so um i am right now uh because i just
checked on nfbc and the team is gone and there's 355 bucks in my end i'm right now debating whether
or not i draft again uh so i'm in i'm in here with all of y'all. I think the league that I'm eyeing up right now,
there's a $125 main event qualifier.
I think that's a price point I'm comfortable with.
It's the 15-team format.
Again, you know what you're signing up for.
You're signing up for the season where everything could fall apart
for reasons that are much bigger than baseball. And
you just have to deal with that. But at that level, I think I'm pretty comfortable with it.
And you know what I would do, honestly? And this is a really interesting conversation I had with
a friend recently. And he said that he's got some investments and he went to his investors
earlier this year and um i don't know that he's i can't remember if he said exactly coronavirus
but he said like i have a feeling that the market's about to tank um it's either going to
be some sort of uh some sort of global event or some sort of environment related thing i'm pretty sure
that something's going to tank this year um and i i want to sell like a third of my portfolio and
turn it into some sort of hard currency or something something uh really stable and his team
went into panic mode basically and they were like oh you know let's show you uh how uh we work
basically and they were like you know this is when this happens this has people get out too early on
this and we can we can we know what to do when this happens and so we know what to do we aim for
the middle you know if you think about this in fancy terms like you know we know the best bets
you know we know uh where things turn out good in the most of the
time like we you know trust us on this um and my friend's sort of idea of the outlier ended up
being true um and i was thinking about this in the context of how i play fantasy and how i've seen
um a lot of uh great fantasy players play and one of the the differences is that, um, and I won't,
I won't actually put myself in the category of, of the greatest fantasy players, like the ones
who win NFBC and stuff like that, um, is that they'll take more risks than I will. And, and,
and I think about like Jason Gray, um, and how he came in and just won labor. And I think about zero RB in football, right?
And I think about some of these strategies that seem radical at first
and end up working for people.
I think about how when we ran GOAT, the people who punted saves won.
You know what I mean?
And so if you do play in a league this year and you're about to draft, I say consider practicing outlierism.
You know, consider practicing crazy strategies that you've never done before.
Consider, you know, picking two aces and not picking another pitcher until the 20th round. Consider
not picking a single reliever. Consider picking all relievers. You know what I mean? Like,
consider some different strategies. Think about them. Think about what other people might do.
And do something different this year. Do something a little bit more different. Because baseball
didn't really take this up. They had the opportunity to do expanded playoffs,
which I'm not saying that they should have.
That was a very complicated thing that has to do with the CPA and all that stuff.
But what I'm saying is they had the opportunity to maybe experiment more this year,
and in the end we get the DH.
But what they could have done is say, hey, this is going to be weird anyway.
Let's have a tournament.
You know, let's do some interesting have a tournament you know let's uh you know let's you know let's
do some interesting things with baseball how it's played um i would say do that with your fantasy
season try some different stuff out i think i am whatever i draft from here on out i'm gonna try
something that i don't normally try i noticed a lot of people yesterday were screenshotting their
great fantasy baseball invitational rosters,
which were built well over three months ago, four months ago almost now,
and kind of looking and saying, hey, how does this look now with everything that's changed
and maybe young players getting more of an opportunity or guys who had full season innings caps
not really having to worry about that now just all those different
factors and it was kind of cool because fantasy baseball twitter was acting like itself again
so that that was kind of nice to have that but yeah one of the things that i guess i i try to
do that all the time anyway taking shots i mean i had one rotation where josh james and michael kopeck were some of
my depth guys and i just thought like okay this is probably a little better now than it was over
a full season just because there's more urgency to get it right for teams in a shortened 60 game
season they're going to play their best guys they're not going to drag their heels and try and
preserve as much service time.
If the Astros think Josh James is one of their five best starters, he's going to get that
opportunity. If they're not sure and they want to throw somebody else over a 162 game season,
they could wait it out a little bit, kind of see what happens, right? So I do think embracing risk
as it pertains to the player pool and being
different those are both good ideas in general but even better ideas in this mess of a season
i'm just looking at it now because i haven't um and boy did i you know enter a roller coaster
with luis turris yeah yeah i mean he comes that was a good pick that was a terrible pick oh that you know, enter a rollercoaster with Luis Darius. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
he comes,
that was a good pick.
That was a terrible pick.
Oh,
that was an idiot pick.
Oh,
it's a good pick again.
But my,
my end games,
I'm actually pretty happy about now.
This is kind of a fun end game.
Now,
um,
Harrison Bader,
Austin Voth,
uh,
Matt Barnes,
Trent Thornton,
Randy Dobnak,
Sean Anderson.
This is kind of a very similar endgame than I would do now
because Bader is much safer now with the DH.
Austin Vloth, even if he doesn't make the top five,
is literally going to be the sixth guy that comes in
if people aren't stretched out.
And like I said before, I think it'll be two turns
before he steals Joe Ross's job.
And Randy Dobnak is like
literally the glue guy in in um in minnesota you know and a glue guy that's going to come in after
rich hill and steal rich hills and wins you know um and and what a great combo that would be rich
hill throwing slop from the left and then uh randy dobnak coming from down under on the right
and then sean anderson is from down under on the right.
And then Shawn Anderson is either going to be a glue guy or the closer in San Francisco,
or he'll be gone off my roster.
He's the 30th pick.
So, you know, in some ways,
that's an argument for maybe just do what you normally do.
That's kind of been, I think,
what people had done during the coronavirus
is just hunker down to their base selves.
Yeah. Oh, the beers i've drank
but um but you know if you can now as like things are opening up and there's more hope in the world
like you know maybe maybe take a whirl at least with a league or two and see what it's like on
the other side in terms of strategy i was also thinking about this with the teams I've drafted so far.
Chris Sayles on a bunch of those teams,
which is a bummer because he's not going to pitch this year,
and he was hurt.
But I do think replacing an injured player you drafted early
is actually easier to do in a short season.
I'm not excited that I have to do it,
but I just think you can,
you can fake it a little easier in a 60 game season than in one 62.
Oh,
that's interesting because I was saying that like,
you know,
a 60 game season is,
is fairly representative.
You can get,
you can,
you kind of get a sense of a true talent of a team actually.
And it's not terrible in that sense,
but the same on of a team, actually. And it's not terrible in that sense.
But on the same level, everybody's jammed together because there's just not enough games to separate yourself.
So on the team level, you'll see the spread in a 162-game season
is much wider than the spread in the short seasons.
I looked at 94 and 81.
And so a win here or there.
And then that's directly applicable to fantasy.
So the reason first-round picks are so great is they consistently perform,
and every week they put a little more distance between themselves and the other people.
And so, therefore, even if 60 games is enough to tell you that Nolan Aranato is a good player,
the difference between Nolan Aranato and another third baseman will be smaller
just because Nolan Aranato hasn't had enough games to kind of keep inching that forward.
So we're all going to meet in the middle, and things are going to be decided in the last.
We're going to have some epic last day of seasons if we get to that point
where somebody will go from fourth to winning it all
based on a three inning save from Trent Thornton you probably saw Dan Simborski's zip standings
that were up on fan graphs this week yeah yeah the NL Central and we we knew this was going to
be a tight division anyway but the NL Central projections the cubs 32 and 28 uh then the brewers cardinals and reds all 31 and 29 uh and the pirates not
that far behind at 26 and 34 so yeah that'll that'll be fun that's also a function of how
projections work right they smash like smash things towards the middle in general because
they regress everything but uh i mean it's not far from what could happen yeah so
that's that's the fun part of what we're talking about for this season but yeah i did feel better
than i did when i previously looked at my sale teams i thought okay maybe i can i can get lucky
enough streaming i mean i it's not a completely luck-based effort but i think i can do that really well over 60 games it's harder to do
it for 162 that was the the main point for me at least as it pertains to chris sale any other
surprises as you look at your tgfbi team like hey i got this guy like i like my team a lot i feel
like i despite losing sale that's a rotation that has two good closers,
Chapman and Hansel Robles, and Zach Wheeler, David Price, Kenta Maeda,
Josh James, Kopech, Turnbull, and Matz as my other starters with Burns.
And we're on the opposite side of Voth versus Joe Ross.
We talked about that on the NLE show.
I've got Joe Ross.
So I definitely have work to do with pitching,
but it could be a lot worse
for having lost sale on that
group.
I did a little bit too much shopping
in the middle for pitching
maybe, but Bueller,
I go Bueller,
Soroka,
Bueller, Soroka, Lizardo, Odorizzi.
I'm happy about Odorizzi.
I think, actually, I mentioned that Odorizzi has a really good strength of schedule in my piece today.
You want central pitchers, and you don't want west and east.
Just as a sort of general takeaway from strength of schedule because we know that teams will be playing within their division for about
90% of the season and then they'll only play
there in the AL if they're in the central they'll only play in the NL
central they'll only play AL central opponents so central is great
and also happy that i've got
renardo nunez uh who at times i thought was a bad deal but now i feel like uh you know with the way
that the season's going and um with the tree mancini's unfortunate injury like um i'm happy
i have him for that late power so i don't know i i feel okay about this uh you know shopping the
middle equity lizardo should i feel worse about them now or better better in both i mean lizardo
especially and i think it's reflected it's reflected in how much more time and he's just
gonna pitch all he's just gonna pitch the season through yeah yeah and you're not gonna have to
go into some weeks wondering we We talked about his efficiency.
It's not necessarily true that he's not going to pitch into the six.
He's actually a very efficient pitcher in terms of pitches per inning.
Yeah, I would just say he's a player who's in a better spot
than he was when you drafted him.
Not that he wasn't a good pick when you took him,
but I just think the things you were worried about,
the things that enabled you to draft him where you were getting him back in February and March,
a lot of those concerns, I think they have been erased.
I know there are dissenting opinions on that.
They think he's still going to get, some people still think he's going to get kid gloves treatment.
But, you know, I'm glad you mentioned Odorizzi.
I was working on rankings, and I was looking at projections, and I had a filter turned on.
I was working on rankings, and I was looking at projections, and I had a filter turned on.
I was looking for strikeout per inning starters with ERAs projected to be above four.
And it's a pretty interesting group.
A few of them I just mentioned are on my team.
Darvish, Corbin, Price, Zach Gallin, Bauer, Kenta Maeda, Freed, Lemaitre, Boyd, Ray.
Odorisi's in that group too.
And when you start looking at it,
there's a slight difference in projected Ks, but Jake Odorizzi's projections compare very favorably
to Patrick Corbin and even Hugh Darvish,
which is kind of surprising.
And now those three pitchers are much closer together.
Once you factor in strength of schedule and the DH,
Odorizzi might actually be at the front of that group.
Yeah.
Is that a crazy thing to say?
I mean, it's...
Darvish probably still, because he's in the NL Central,
so he's got an okay strength of schedule.
But Odorizzi feels where he belongs way more.
And Odorizzi versus Corbin, the distance between them has gotten smaller.
Yeah, I guess if you look at even the 50-pick gap between Max Fried and Jake Odorizzi,
that probably shouldn't be there.
Fried, I have, definitely was hurt by these details because he's in a hard division.
They're going to only play in their division,
and if they play outside of their division,
it's the AL East, and he's facing DHs now.
Well, we're kind of segueing into this naturally.
So you had a piece that came out on Wednesday,
a starting pitcher
strategy guide for this strange fantasy baseball season i'll be sure to link that
if you're listening on the athletic app and i'll throw it in the show notes on the other places
people listen to this show um i think you put together my favorite table yet like usually there
are great tables in your pieces that's's one of the things you often bring.
I just love that the title is Teams Ranked
by Shenanigans.
The angels are at the top.
It's funny because we thought the Rays were doing
the weirdest things with their team
but the angels were just
trying to figure out how to
cobble together a pitching staff last year.
And I don't think people really fully appreciate how many times they did openers and bullpen games
and pulled guys in the third and fourth innings.
And they had all these six starter types that were coming in the middle of the games.
They were trying as hard as they could.
So as you put this together, what led you down this path?
Let's define shenanigans for people who have not read the piece yet.
Right.
So what was interesting was that when I tried to define how the season was coming
in the piece before, I tried to look at pitcher depth.
And so I looked at which teams have the most pitchers that would put up more than two innings per 200.
Would put up the best war, would put up more than two war per 200 innings.
And so when I looked at that, it was, of course, the Rays at the very top.
But the Giants were in the middle.
And I was like, well, you know, does the Giants' lack of depth mean they have to do these kind of things?
Or does the Rays' depth mean they can do this?
You know, does the Rays' depth mean they can mix and match and tandem start and opener and reduce the amount of innings that the starting pitcher pitches and do all sorts of things?
Or do the Giants have to do that because they don't have that depth?
So I felt that that chart was a little bit unclear.
So I thought, you know what, let me sort of come at this from a different angle
and say who in the past has shown the willingness to do weird things with their pitching staff?
And the best way to look at that, I think, is innings pitch per game start. Because when you do that, you see that the Angels, the Rays,
the Blue Jays, Yankees, and Brewers are all at the top. And we know that those were the teams
that were doing these things. We're doing bullpen days, openers, and all that sort of stuff. So
that immediately became a focus for me for fantasy
because these are the teams that are going to limit the innings that they get from their starters.
And I think that's, in sum, a negative for types like Ryan Yarbrough, Andrew Haney,
Yanni Chirinos, Jordan Montgomery, Matt Shoemaker, Trent Thornton, Tywon Walker.
So, you know, Adrian Hauser, these guys are all going to be taken out early and maybe have an opener.
And the reasoning for that is in the past, their teams have reduced the number of innings pitched per game start.
Yeah, I mean, just speaking to the Brewers as the team,
I've watched the most.
If you see what they do in September,
especially when the bullpen gets deeper,
they're even a little bit more aggressive
than they are during the regular season.
They're pretty consistent with that for guys that are,
you know, like Gio Gonzalez is one of the first names
that comes to mind.
When Gio Gonzalez would take the ball for the Brewers,
you knew it was like 18 batters to 22 batters. That was it. He was not going through the lineup a third time. He would maybe go through the third time effectively with a lot of starters?
Or is it just the way that they think is optimally configuring a pitching staff anyway?
Like maybe it can both be a little bit true.
I mean, like Brandon Woodruff doesn't get the same treatment as the other Brewer starters.
Just kind of stick with them as an example.
Brandon Woodruff doesn't get the same treatment as the other Brewer starters,
just kind of sticking with them as an example.
But, you know, when you – and so I thought that was actually a really good comment on the piece was,
you know, Mike B says that if you're using categories and wins is one of them,
it'll be essential to draft guys who can go six innings
and preferably have a deep open and support them.
And I agree with the sentiment 100%.
And I think it's a great comment.
One of the things I struggled with as I wrote the piece
was just knowing who is stretched out for one
and differentiating between just a good pitcher,
like differentiating between a good pitcher
and a pitcher that goes long is hard
because I did this for the show today.
So here are the pitchers ranked by innings pitched
for game start. We're moving relievers basically. Justin Verlander is number one with 6.6 innings
pitch per game start. Then it goes Miner, Beaver, Cole, DeGrom, Scherzer, Kershaw, Strasburg,
Greinke, Lynn, Wheeler, Ryu, Bauer, Berrios Good pitchers
Yeah, good pitchers go further
Good pitchers that were at the top of the rankings
I mean there's some surprises
but I'm not even sure that surprises
really teach you a lot
Mike Leak is in the top 20
but
do I care?
I don't want to take a
Mike Leak is going to lose a bunch of games.
I guess he could win a few games, but you're also going to lose when it comes to ratios and,
and, and strikeout rates and stuff. And then also one of the things he said was people coming off
of injury. I wanted to point out in young pitchers, I wanted to point out that in the,
I would say about top 30, I'm
kind of eyeballing it, but in the top 30, near the end, this is a group here that's
all around 5.8, 5.9 innings pitch per start.
Charlie Morton, Chris Sale, Masahiro Tanaka, Jose Urquidy, Sean Minaya, Zach Eflin, Matthew
Boyd.
So all those guys are in the same area when it comes to innings per start.
And you have drastically different situations.
Chris Sale was coming off of injury.
Charlie Morton is not known as the guy who goes deep into leagues.
Masahiro Tanaka is a total veteran that you would have assumed
if he goes deep into games, he'll go deep into games in the future.
Herzi Okwudie was a rookie.
Shamanaya was coming off of injury.
he'll go to see in the games in the future herzi okwudy was a rookie shaman i was coming off of injury so and i don't even feel comfortable saying because shaman i pitched 5.8 innings per pitch
per uh per start last year like i don't even know how sticky this sort of thing is year to year
so i think generally i'm going to focus on quality still. And maybe there will be some up and down votes when I do my rankings.
A little bit of like, okay, he's going to go down 2-3-4 and up 2-3-4
based on how crazy their team is on pushing things,
what their quality is as a pitcher.
Are they in the NL and, and facing DHS this year?
And are they coming off of injury?
And do I think they can pitch deep into games?
These are things I'm going to think about,
but like we said,
the theme of this is we don't know.
We don't know who's stretched out.
We don't know.
Like for example,
Lance McCullers,
like maybe,
maybe just run with it.
You know,
maybe,
maybe you've had a really long time since your surgery.
Maybe just if we can't do it now, when can we do it?
So if you can go six, go six.
Yeah.
McCullers, I think, would fall kind of into something similar
to the Lizardo group where you say,
well, we knew he wasn't going to get a full season's worth of innings
back in February and March.
Now he can.
They're probably going to be really good innings.
So I would be a lot more interested in him because I don't think you have to play midseason gymnastics with the innings
in order to have him available at the end of the season in a shortened season.
You can just kind of treat him like most of your other starters at this point.
I think so, but he's also a little different than Lizardo
in terms of efficiency per inning.
Yeah, that's a good point.
He's a little bit more of a throw-a-lot-of-pitches guy.
So maybe McCullers will go down a couple ticks,
but I can't imagine putting him on a do-not-draft list. If everyone's going the other direction from Lance McCullers will go down a couple ticks but I can't I can't imagine putting him
on like a do not draft list if everyone's going the other direction from Lance McCullers like
like sure maybe he gets especially when we're talking about everything meeting in the middle
right so what are you saying Lance McCullers is gonna get four wins instead of six which is still
like well he could he could get eight like He could start ten times and win eight games.
He could go eight and oh.
Yeah, that could happen.
And even if he gets four instead of six,
he's not going deep into games.
What if he, in his ten starts, gets 90 strikeouts?
Yeah, he could quietly be among the league leaders in strikeouts.
That's also in the range.
Easily.
So what if I get goodody R.A., 90 to 100?
He could have 100 strikeouts.
Somebody's going to have 100 strikeouts this year.
Well, it's got to be someone who shows up.
So you kind of hinted at it.
There are some teams, the Pirates.
Derek Shelton came out and said the Pirates pitchers have been going five and six innings already, like on the side.
We don't know.
Okay, so the Pirates are going to show up,
and their starters can go as long as they need to,
but other teams may only go a few innings.
Other teams may lead more into tandem starters.
They may do it for some pitchers, not others,
because individual circumstances were different,
and we're going to try and gather up all that information,
but we're not going to have all of it.
No matter how great the reporting is,
no matter how diligent we are about looking at every corner,
there are going to be some situations that completely surprise us
just in terms of simple pitcher usage.
Yeah.
And whatever sort of new gem that we jump upon,
I still think pitcher quality is the thing we're chasing.
Even if we come up
with innings pitch for a game start and look at it,
it becomes confusing very quickly.
If you look at
when we did
pitches per inning,
there were some confusing results
and confounding
to say that jesus lazardo is actually a super efficient pitcher so um pitcher quality is what
we're talking about yeah so that and that's and that's that'll actually work that's that's what
you're talking about brandon woodruff too right like if i have a quality pitcher even if i'm the
raise like i'm not going to limit charlie Morton just because I'm the Rays.
Right.
They treat Charlie Morton and Blake Snell differently than their other pitchers.
Pretty much like regular pitchers.
Yeah.
That's smart.
It's Ryan Yarbrough that they're, like, they're going to squeeze.
But if you could turn Ryan Yarbrough into an ace just by using him a little bit less,
that's brilliant.
That's the smartest thing you could possibly do.
If you could stick Ryan Yarbrough in your fifth reliever slot
and just get a few wins out of him over the course of the season,
that might be what wins you the league.
Yeah, I think always paying attention to the SPRP designations
and leagues that use them is important,
but more so than ever this year
because you're just trying to max out everything. Every strikeout, every win, every save, it's going
to be so close in so many leagues that you're going to have to be as aggressive as you possibly
can be. Top performers in business and sports often attribute their success to their morning
routine, whether it's waking up early, setting their goals for the day, exercise, or meditation.
But not everyone has the time to do it all.
With Hydrant, you can jumpstart your mornings.
Hydrant creates flavored electrolyte packets you mix directly into your water
to make hydrating your body easy and delicious.
Each rapid hydration mix has the four essential electrolytes your body needs.
Sodium, potassium, magnesium, and zinc help you hydrate quickly and stay hydrated all day.
And Hydrant is backed by research.
The formula was developed by Oxford scientists to provide perfectly balanced, efficient hydration.
There are no synthetic colors or artificial sweeteners.
The formula is vegan, and you can choose between three different flavors or a variety pack.
Hydrant starts just a bucket packet for a 30-day supply, and you can save even more with a monthly subscription.
And for 25% off your first order, go to drinkhydrant.com
and enter the promo code ATHLETIC at checkout.
That's drinkhydrant.com.
Enter promo code ATHLETIC for 25% off your first order.
Drinkhydrant.com.
Enter promo code ATHLETIC.
All right, you know, a couple weeks ago,
we discussed adding a new segment to our show,
and we have beer of the month, and we have prospect of the week when things are normal.
We've decided to add a community spotlight feature. This is going to be the first time
we do that on one of our shows, and it's probably going to be either every other week or monthly.
We'll see what things catch our eye and what's going on around us and adjust accordingly from there.
We've hinted at this a little bit, I think, in emails and some things behind the scenes,
but we are a part of an initiative that was started by our friend Alex Fast over at PitcherList
to actively cultivate a space that is more inclusive in the fantasy industry.
And that includes the start of a mentorship program for those who are new,
And that includes the start of a mentorship program for those who are new, annual charity drafts, changes in editorial practices, kind of a wide-ranging focus.
But as mentioned on this show previously, we are here to help.
And we're going to put the link for the mentorship program in the show notes for today's episode. There's also a starter kit, essentially, as you kind of approach fantasy baseball or even just baseball
for the first time trying to make the game uh just more inclusive and more friendly for everybody
yeah and i think that's important because i remember the people that reached down and helped
me out when i started um i had uh buddies at the fantasy Lounge that helped me.
And I had, you know, just reading Rob Nyer was important to me.
And, you know, Eric Simon over at SportsWalk Nation hired me to write An Amazing Avenue.
And that was a big deal for me at the time.
So, you know, that was really important for me.
David Appelman, these people hired me and listened to me and read me and helped me.
And, you know, that was important to me making it.
And so I definitely want to be a part of that for people going forward.
And so I definitely want to be a part of that for people going forward.
And, you know, for those that say that's not really a problem and the best writers will get to the top, I don't think they understand that, A, how much luck there is in this thing and how uh, this sort of thing leads to this. Like I, I lived rent free for a long time. Um, and that was basically why I'm able to, to do what I do for a living now,
because, uh, fancy paid so poorly. Um, and so, you know, that sort of, that sort of deal, um,
I can, I can think, I can hold two thoughts in my, in my head at the same time, which is that
I deserve what I have because I've worked hard and I've done, you know, the right things and
have my own spin on things. And that also I've had help and I've been lucky. And so for, and
the other thing is like across, there's a, there's a stat that's out there that across all editorial uh mastheads um you know it's it's about four percent
african-american um and that's that's terrible in its own right but then you have uh beyond that
in fantasy baseball the numbers have to be uh lower um and it's not necessarily like, it is something, it is, uh, it is a function of the fandom
of baseball, uh, which is, is primarily white.
Um, and it's a function of economics and it's, it's a large thing.
Uh, but this is a small thing we can do that, that if you think about it is not, um, is
not controversial. I don't think it's,
it's saying we're going to help. And for people who say that, like, oh, you're being exclusive
because you won't help, uh, white people. I don't think that's true. Uh, it's a mentorship program.
It's, it's designed, uh, to help, uh, to help people who, um, not normally represented in the,
in the community. Uh, but it's mentorship program, and there's a resource kit.
And if you want to get on there, you can get on there.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's not, there's no, like, questionnaire before you get in there.
But it is designed to be more inclusive.
It is designed to help people up.
And I think that this, you know, some of the stuff that we say,
you know, when we talk about like players, you know, being owned, um, and talk about players
as commodities, um, and some of the jokes we make and some of the, the, the, the sort of comedy and
some of the stuff that we do, um, is informed by white maleness. Um, you know, it's just,
do, um, is informed by white maleness. Um, you know, it's just, it's just comfortable for us.
And, um, you know, the more that we have an inclusive place, uh, the more that people will feel comfortable standing up and saying, Hey, I didn't like that joke, which is cool.
That's cool. Tell me, tell me if I make a joke you don't like, then I won't make it again. I don't
want, I don't want to make people feel like I'm a dick, you lot of times it's like, oh, I just didn't even think
of it that way. When you up the diversity of any space, you up the diversity of thought. You
create more angles to come at something and you eventually improve the product, whatever it is.
So there's a lot of different reasons this matters. And that's why we're happy
to be a part of it. Yeah, I think that's very well said. I mean, I owe a lot to me just being
in this position today to people that helped me at the beginning. Pretty much everybody at
Rotowire, Tim Shuler, more of a behind the scenes CFO over there was actually the person who
extended an internship
opportunity to me there. Mike Doria, who's still there, is the football editor. He trained me,
taught me how to write player notes, answer phone calls, and answer customer support emails. I mean,
Peter Schenke started the company. He helped me along the way. Jeff Erickson and Chris List,
just sharing radio time with me when I had no radio experience. That's luck.
That's having good people who are willing to give you an opportunity to grow.
And most people aren't that generous.
And someone said recently, a lot of times you mentor someone that you see a little bit
of yourself in them.
And I think that's a really complicated thing to say.
And so for that reason, the mentorship is actually at first I was like, Oh, I'd rather,
you know, I'd rather kind of have some choice in the matter, but the mentorship is actually random.
So we as mentors are in the program and then we are matched randomly with someone who requests mentorship.
Yeah, I do think there is a selection tendency.
I think about mentor relationships that I've seen just from the outside.
And I do see similarities in both people in that relationship that probably led that relationship, friendship, whatever it was, to become what it was.
Yeah, I think so too.
That's part of the cycle that leads to this.
You can label it whatever you like.
It doesn't have to have the big P word privilege on it.
That sets everybody off politically.
But that's part of the cycle that just sort of begets the sameness, you know? Um, and why not like break out of this and, um, and have different voices.
You know, you'll find, you'll find that, um, people have some really cool angles and really
different things to say. Absolutely. We don't need to be, we don't need to be saying the same
thing over and over again. 100% agree with you.
I'm really happy to be a part of it,
and really happy that Alex took the initiative to lead this
because it took a lot of work to pull it all together.
At AlexFast8 on Twitter, if you want to see the original thread,
breaking everything down, you can see the full statement there as well.
It's got the links, but again, I'll put the links in the show notes for this episode. It is the last Thursday of June, so it means it's time for our Beer of the Month
segment. Belated happy birthday to you, by the way. I know you had at least one birthday beer
that you put out there on Twitter last night, so I hope you had a great birthday. What are your
selections for Beer of the Month? I wanted to do something different this week.
When it came to beer of the week, my brother-in-law drinks non-alcoholic beers, and he's had some
complaints about what's out there.
Most of what we have in the non-alcoholic department are the big companies turning out
theirs. I think St. Pauli
Girl is decent. Some of the German ones are actually a little step forward when it comes to
non-alcoholic beers. And so what I haven't seen as much is non-alcoholic beers in the craft world,
that, you know, Hazy's and porters and stuff like that um the you
know there's actually athletic brewing not the athletic there's athletic brewing on the east
coast and out here on the west coast uh surreal brewing uh was kind enough to send me to some
samples and um i really liked it and one of the things that's cool about it is i have my dry days
every week i try to have two or three dry days a week. And, you know,
I've been trying to work on even adding another one. And this sort of thing, I think, would be
good on two levels for me, which is I can pretend to have a beer on the day that I'm having a dry
that I'm trying to add as a dry day. And also the calorie count is lower. So I was looking at even their most sort of thick, heavy beer, the Pastry Porter, that tastes almost like a low ABV porter.
Like it doesn't have that quite thickness of like a really a pastry imperial stout.
But it does have a lot of the same taste, a lot of the same notes,
and then kind of a clear refreshing aftertaste.
That was 75 calories.
And I know a lot of those pastry stouts, you know,
alcohol is the largest source of calories in these things.
And so some of those pastry stouts,'re talking about 200 and 300 calories uh per serving
so uh per per 16 ounces or so so these guys are low alcohol um i really enjoyed the pastry porter
they have one called the juicy maps hazy ipa that was pretty good and the kölsch was clear and
beautiful uh so surreal athletic uh those have been my favorite NA beers. And then St. Poly Girl when you go into the local grocery store.
I just wanted to big up people that are helping us be more responsible,
helping us keep the guts a little bit thinner,
and yet sort of have the feeling of having a beer.
Yeah, still relaxing to have that at the end of the day.
I actually stumbled upon a very good beer
from Half Acre in Chicago.
It's called Bodum.
It's getting a lot of hype on Twitter.
I follow a few people who are, I guess,
members of beer Twitter,
and I was lucky enough to find a 12-pack.
Just a very kind of classic American IPA.
A little bit fruity, but just really well balanced.
I would say you get just a little twist of citrus maybe at the end.
So not the typical hazy.
The interesting thing about it is it's very sessionable for a beer that's like a 6.7% ABV.
So be careful with it if you find it.
It's good.
I recommend it.
I think it's worth picking up.
But beers that smooth should not hit quite like that.
So just be aware as you pick those up.
One of the things that's cool about it dust that they've reduced things down to.
But it's also really well regarded as just being an easy drinker.
So I want one.
A little Idaho 7 and cashmere in there as well.
So I'll get you one at some point.
I don't know if I'm getting you one from the current stash,
but I'll make a note for the next gathering
or the next beer mail to include some Bodum for you.
Easier to get around here, I guess,
than in most parts of the country
since we're still pretty close to Chicago.
If you're enjoying this show on a platform
that allows you to rate and
review it,
please take a moment to do that.
We really appreciate it.
It helps other people find the show.
If you don't have a subscription to the athletic,
you can support our site,
get 40% off at the athletic.com slash rates and barrels.
And as always,
you can reach us via email rates and barrels at the athletic.com.
You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris.
I am at Derek Van Ryper.
We're gonna start taking a look at rankings as next week begins.
So get excited for that.
That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels.
Have a great weekend.
Thanks for listening..