Rates & Barrels - Fastball Love Continues in Milwaukee

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

Eno and DVR discuss the Twins' contemplation of a six-man rotation to potentially incorporate David Festa and Zebby Matthews into their starting mix, the Brewers' heavy use of fastballs for third season in a row and why (beyond a rash of injuries) they might have been interested in Quinn Priester. Plus, they look at early playing time splits from job battles and expected platoons, and answer mailbag questions about Steinbrenner Field in the summer, Tony Gonsolin's pre-injury drop-off, Justin Verlander's first few starts as a Giant, and a few intriguing names to monitor on the waiver wire this weekend. Rundown 2:37 Twins Considering a Six-Man Rotation 6:07 Brewers Leading the League in Fastballs, Again Curt Hogg's Story at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ($): https://bit.ly/brewersfb 15:08 What Did the Brewers See in Quinn Priester? Mario Delgado Genzor's Piece at Baseball Prospectus ($): https://bit.ly/BPPriester 20:42 Early Playing Time Splits 32:38 Summer Expectations for Steinbrenner Field 40:10 Tony Gonsolin's Pre-Injury Slide, Expectations for 2025 43:15 What Are You Seeing with Justin Verlander? 46:21 Prospect of the Week, 2025 Debut! 51:50 Other Weekend Waiver Targets to Consider Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Yeah, it's a big deal. The Ford It's a Big Deal event. Visit your Toronto area Ford store or Ford.ca today. Woo. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Friday, April 11th. Derek Van Riper, Enosaris here with you on this episode. It gets you ready for a busy weekend pickups.

We've got some news from around the league including twins considering a six-man rotation to accommodate a couple of pitchers that we've liked for a little while on this show. There was a great story from Kurt Hoag of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the Brewers leading the league in fastball percentage again in 2025. It'll be the third year in a row that they lead the league in that category. If that holds up and by all indications, it's probably going to hold up. We'll talk about some early playing time surprises, basically looking back at job battles and some of the things that we were worried about a few weeks ago, see how the first couple weeks of the regular season have played out in terms of job shares, platoons, and straight up opportunities for guys that we didn't expect to see. Got some mailbag questions to squeeze in a little bit later on as well, and maybe even

prospect of the week. Making a triumphant return here now that the minor league season is in full swing as well. Happy Friday to you, you know? Yes. I'm excited to do my taxes. You're still not done? No, I always, it's right up to the end, man. Right up until the last second. I'm dropping the check in the mail today, but they've been done for a month.

Hmm. Yeah. Dropping the check in the mail because I'm old, as you can see from my face. Old. And you've done it wrong because you can see from my face. Old. And you've done it wrong, because you owe them money. Hehehehe. Did I do it wrong? Hehehehehehe. I think I did it exactly right.

Hehehehehehe. I don't know. I feel like a grown up today. I've had it all taken out, and I just need to put it in the right places. All right. It's hard, but you know, because we, I run Pitching Plus as a separate company,

and then, you know, I do other freelance work on top. So it's like, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on. A lot of paperwork, a lot of paperwork. Yeah, it only gets more complicated, I imagine, as the rest of this turns white and gray. Years ahead. Look at you, salt and pepper. Salt and pepper, man. I'm ready to go shoot a Just

for Men commercial. I was waiting for that call. I don't know. I'm comfortable with it, man, as long as it's all there. Silver Fox, Silver Fox. That's what I'm hoping for. That's what I'm shooting for. Join the discord though, if you can. The link's in the show description if you haven't done that already. We'll start with twins. They are considering a six man rotation in part because Pablo Lopez has gone on the IL with a hamstring injury, grade one hamstring strain so hopefully not a long long-term problem but at least a couple of weeks he's going to miss and they can't seem to decide between David Festa and Zebi Matthews and maybe part of the problem is that based on the schedules they were on David Festa will slot into the

rotation first because his last triple- AAA start was on April 4th. Matthews just went on Tuesday, that's April 8th, so just waiting a couple more days to get Matthews folded in as part of the equation. Matthews has pitched better in their first couple of starts at AAA, and I think if I had to pick one just for Keep or Dynasty or only had one spot on my redraft team to speculate here, I think Zebby Matthews is better than David Festa. I think he's the guy I'd rather try and ride it out with over the course of the entire season if that was the situation I was in. I'm looking at spring data, but it lines up with expectations, scouting reports, and just the eye test, I think, which is that Zebi has a larger arsenal. He has a really good curve.

Both of them have pretty good fastballs and sliders, but Zebi's curve is better than anything else that Festa throws. And then Zebi's cutter, by stuff plus, is only a round average, but he locates it really well and it creates a four-pitch mix for him. Even if the change is, I don't know, mediocre or whatever it is, I'm going to put a IDK on Zebi Mass's change up. But that's still four good pitches and an IDK versus, I think Festa is kind of a two-pitch guy.

You can call it three if you separate the fastballs, but that's two fastballs in a slider. He gets in trouble sometimes when it comes to homers and turning the lineup over because of the size of his mix. I think he really needs to develop some extra pitches to surpass Zebi in terms of upside in my opinion. Yeah, it's a four seam change up combo that we saw mostly from Festa last year.

I think he's working on the two seamer this spring right? We dug into that a little bit and the slider it's like a gyro slider so there's really nothing with a lot of glove side movement from Festa. I think that's probably the the main concern for him. It's like hey maybe even same-handed hitters are going to give him some trouble if he doesn't find something that breaks away a little bit more. But we'll see how this plays out. Something to keep an eye on for sure. And I think the the Matthews over Festa approach is something we both pretty much agree on at this point.

However, I mean, it's Festa is getting the shot. So like if you're just in a redraft league and it's all about what's happening this week and you need him to start then You know Sometimes it's really hard to like pick up a guy Put him in your lineup not knowing if he's gonna start right so the best thing I can tell you is if you need him To start pick up Festa if you can bench him somehow and just sit on him then then Sebbies your guy it's gonna be Festa against the Tigers at home

on Friday night as they make that adjustment. And the way they could also coexist is they could just move on from Chris Paddock. We talked about that before. I don't think Paddock makes it out of April as a member of this rotation unless another starter beyond Lopez goes on the IL. I think that's really the only path for Paddock

to keep that opportunity. Let's talk about this Brewer story from Kurt Hogue of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel fastballs fastballs and more fastballs We know this is something the brewers have done I didn't really seen it quantified from a team perspective yet kind of a ethos that makes a lot of sense when you consider that Multiple fastballs are perhaps a bit of a market inefficiency right you don't necessarily have premium velocity but you have two or three different shapes and that can induce a lot of weak contact and when you put together a really solid or very good or even great defensive team behind your pitching staff that can actually work right so it's interesting that

they're on pace to lead the league for the third consecutive season i think it's a 69% fastball usage as a staff so far in the early days of 2025 it's even a few percentage points higher than what they've done in each of the last two seasons and one thing in Kurt's story that kind of jumped off the page to me as well. They also throw fastballs 66% of the time in two strike counts. The next highest team uses fastballs 57.5% of the time in two strikes counts. So it's like fastballs in nearly all situations

for the Brewers. And I don't know, like how long does this work and how do you account for this because it doesn't grade out the same way that other teams grade out in the model? Yeah, I mean, we did add something to the model this year where previous fastball mix is a feature in the model. And the reason that works is it tells the machine that they've got a certain fastball

mix and the deviation from that is interesting. And it kind of tries to get at this idea of multiple shapes coming at the pitcher at the batter at this speed. We've tried to adjust for this, but there are the BP baseball prospectus, Arsenal stats that kind of show this a little bit. Drive lines mix and match are stats that show this, but none of them are publicly available on a leaderboard. One way that you can kind of see it is just, you gotta see it by eye. It's a little bit hard to see by eye though,

because if you sort this year's teams by four-seam percentage, Milwaukee's 12th. If you sort them by sinker, they're seventh. The only fastball that they actually lead the league in is cutters and that's the least thrown of the fastballs. So it's not something that's easy to see, but I would say that if you throw a pitch more than 10% of the time and you've got three fastballs you're throwing more than 10% of the time and you've got three fastballs you're throwing more than 10% of the time. That's something that I would notice and call out as a potential for being better than even our model will say.

So for them, you know, Brian Hudson does that a little bit, but it's, you know, Nestor Cortez, you know, throws at least the two, the fastball and the cutter a lot. Chad Patrick throws all three 10% of the time. And that's a ton of fastballs. You know, Quinn Priester throws all three a fair amount of the time. The one thing that's hard about analyzing cutters though is not all cutters are the same.

Kind of feel like Nestor Cortez's cutter is more like a slider, but that's just a feel thing. So does Chad Patrick, he doesn't throw a slider. So maybe that 45.7% cutter usage is actually kind of baby slider usage. Yeah, I think that's one way to look at it for sure. And I guess the way to categorize it is to look at the movement profile, right?

And just think about it in terms of how much does it move compared to, well, you could have more than one shape on your cutter theoretically. Like you could have more than one shape on any pitch. Yeah, he kind of looks like he does a little bit, Chad Patrick. He has some that are really close to his fastball, look like more like a cut fastball, and then he has some that have more like two, three inches more drop and look more like a cutter. But it's not a baby slider because he does not, none of his cutters get more dropped than average.

So maybe he has some feel for that cutter and he can give it two different shapes, but this is a very interesting picture. I don't love this profile myself. No, no, no. So something I said a little earlier in the week when they made the trade for Quinn Priesters, I actually think it's more likely

that they can turn Quinn Priesters into this year's version of Tobias Myers than they can turn Chad Patrick into this year's version of Tobias Myers. And part of it is just that mix for Patrick is so extreme. There's just not anything else that goes with the fastballs that that works particularly well. He's got the change up that he throws five percent of the time. I think if I was faced with Chad Patrick, I might tell my hitters, I mean, it's all going to be hard.

It's all going to be like it's going to be so many fastballs like maybe take a little bit of an opposite field approach with him. Because if you hit the cutter, but you're staying inside of it because you're trying to go to the opposite field you might do more with it than if you're trying to cut, you know, trying to pull the cutter then you're just going to pound it into the ground or break your bat. And so it could be an adjustment to where teams would like find a way to attack that. Whereas Priester, the early model numbers are great. I mean the Sinker 109 plus, stuff plus on the sinker 102 on the slider It's not amazing, but he's had better numbers in the past and then the change read

Well, he threw a fair amount of each so, you know of all the guys other than Freddie Peralta on this list You know, we I put together this little you know Brewers Pitchers stuff plus just this is a regular old leaderboards You can do it Fang grass you just say Brewers as a starting pitcher, you know, stuff plus, you know, and what you will find is, they's up pretty well to what I like. I like Freddy Peralta, I like Néstor Cortés when he's healthy. I don't think that I would keep him through this injury because it might be a longer one. Savali is somebody I like situationally. This is very typical of Savali where he has fastballs that rate is barely okay

and breaking balls that are elite. And then Quinn Priest are there. Looks pretty decent. I mean, I think Priest and Savali are guys I like situationally. Patrick and Elvin are guys that I'll probably leave on the on the heap. Yeah, I don't see a lot outside of like a really easy matchup for the bottom end guys they're relying on right now. I think they're gonna be the first guys out of the rotation as guys get healthy.

Brandon Woodruff had a simulated game Monday. He's on track for a May return still. That simulated game previously was like 50 pitches. So the one this week was probably in the low 60 range if he was able to move that forward. No velocity numbers coming out of that. Haven't seen that yet, but once he's in Nashville, we'll have some stat cast numbers, so that'll help a lot.

Tobias Meyers started his rehab assignment in Nashville on Tuesday, three and a third scoreless innings, so he's probably one rehab start away from getting activated. Savali's supposed to be slightly behind Meyers, so maybe a week or two still away from possible activation there. And then Nestor Cortez, who you mentioned, had a PRP injection in his elbow and there's no timetable for his return at this point. I don't like that because he had issues with the elbow late last year. It just seems like it's headed in one direction. We all know what that is. Yeah, does not seem great at this point. And then DL Hall and Robert Gasser or 60 day old guys.

So they're far away. And then Aaron Ashby is currently on the 15 day I also maybe Ashby with an undetermined role to. Right. It's a mess. It's a mess. But at least Myers is on the way back and, you know, Jose Quintana actually might come back this weekend, too. So you do have that. But they have tried to do a lot of it records. They're like above 500 aren't they?

They're hanging other than losing that first series to the Yankees. They've won each series since They're sitting at seven and six which given the injuries. They've had is actually pretty amazing I think people were writing their epitaphs already with you know, the kind of reactions I've seen about their pitching stuff That plus I mean the Yankees with the torpedo bats. It's on there was unstoppable. There's nothing nothing anyone could do It's amazing how much wheat can change things I also saw a piece about Quinn Priester from Mario Delgado Gonzor at BP and it was a really good breakdown I think the public reaction to that trade was the Brewers gave up a lot for Quinn Priester. Like a compensation round pick, so that's like basically

like a between first and second rounder that's worth maybe like maybe high six figures. Yeah, 33rd overall is that draft slot. Rodriguez their 6th ranked prospect at BP and I think he was a top 10 prospect by many outlets list as well within the organization, far away from the Bigleys and a player to be named later. So three things for Priester who's under club control until like 2031. So if Priester is a project that they can turn into a viable starter then that ends up being pretty viable in the long run. But the whole point of Mario's piece at BP was trying to figure out what did the brewers see? And one thing I had noticed previously that was covered and there's a whole bunch of great details there, I highly recommend you check out the full piece. Priestor was throwing his two-seamer harder this spring and you know I think velo changes in the spring are noisy for all the reasons we've mentioned. Shorter stints sometimes just you're able to air it out a little bit

more. But it's a deep mix, too. So we had a Velo gain, a deep mix, multiple fastballs. He started working in a cutter. There's a few different things we could see change with Priester and he actually got to start in Colorado on Thursday Brewers lost that game but it wasn't because of Quinn Priester's performance. He actually pitched really well in a difficult assignment So I'm just kind of curious if you see Priester as someone that like kind of the way I see him He's actually worth a speculative pickup because maybe they like him enough based on the price they paid and some of the stuff He's done to keep him in the rotation once they start to get healthier. There's probably going to be one open spot even after everyone gets back because the

odds of everyone staying healthy are low. And I don't think this rotation was rock solid one through five to begin with. Yeah, I mean, now that he's out of Fenway, that's that's a big park factor that speaks well to him. I think opportunity speaks well. And then I haven't had a chance to actually read that piece, although I like the author. What I am speculating is that Quinn Peaster

is throwing a one-seamer, because his sinker has more drop than the average sinker, but it has less arm side movement. And that's the categorization of a one seamer. It also has changed since last year. So instead of cutting the sinker, like it's not going as far arm side as it did last year, and that's taken them out of average

a little bit like Spencer Schwalbeck cuts his four seamer so that it doesn't have arm side movement so that it doesn't end up average for a slot, you know? And so he's changed some of his movements. His slider this year has more drop than it did last year. So I think they saw some changes that they saw to the pitch mix that they liked. They saw some changes to the V-Lo that they liked.

And then part of it was just pretty extreme need. So when you put all those things together, I'm pretty excited about picking them up, even though it's a 98 stuff plus, it's 98 stuff plus, but I'm not such a stuff is that I'd be like, Oh, it's not a hundred number, not a hundred, not like, you know, it's more like the guys who have 98, they, there's a whole range of outcomes, you know what I mean? Like they have basically league average stuff. Now it's a question of how wide is the arsenal?

How weird does it seem? How does he place it? What are his mixes? What do people expect from him? Is he different than what the scouting report says? So there's going to be a lot of opportunity in the end and I might just take the jump because of the opportunity. I think that's sort of the key, right? Playing the waiver wire in a deeper league, you don't

have time for proof. The proof that you get is, well, he did have one good start in Coors. Like you have to just dive in now in a 15-team league because there's so few quality starters available on the wire. And if you see my eyes darting around on the screen, if you're watching on YouTube, I actually am making a graphic because I didn't realize just how much this movement profile had changed for Quinn Priester. It's kind of a lot like it. Watch the watch the clusters. You can tell if you go to his savant page and just toggle 25 versus 24.

You'll see these two in the same space. But look how much tighter everything actually is in 2025 compared to 2024. It's a pretty big difference. I'm Dane Brugler. I cover the NFL draft for the Athletic. Spending the whole year working on a draft guide, I'm looking at thousands of players putting together hundreds of full scouting reports, all the nitty gritty details, the

testing data, the stats, but extensive background research as well. Every journey is a little bit different. I'm on the phone with a lot of these guys. Hey, when did you start playing football? What other sports did you play? Tell me about your family. You know, learning more about these guys as people. Our draft guide picked up the name The Beast because of the crazy amount of information that's included. I have no idea how to quantify the hours I've spent putting it together. I've been covering this year's draft since last year's draft. There is a lot in The Beast that you simply can't find anywhere else.

You can get The Beast and all the great coverage my colleagues do by subscribing to The Athletic. You can do that at theathletic.com slash subscribe. You can see there the orange dots is what I'm talking about. Instead of the orange being basically where an average sinker is, you know, he's got a weird sinker. Yes. Look how weird that sinker is.

Yeah. And he's basically turfed the four seamer and decided I'm just gonna throw a cut four seam, you know? And that's why he has to have the slider have more drop so that it's not like his cutter. So it's a completely new mix really. New mix, gotta start over, gotta hit reset, right? I think that's the only way you can go.

So if you're wondering why they did it, why they gave what they did, that's why, but highly recommend Mario Delgado-Gonzor's piece at Baseball Prospectus. I thought that was really well done as well. Let's talk about some early playing time shifts and basically it's a follow up on some of the job battles and players that we were kind of wondering about from playing time perspective. When the season began, this question came in from discord. What do we think of Ben Rice and my response in discord was hey, he's got a large playing time share. This is 10 out of 12 games now that Ben Rice has started for the Yankees.

They have faced four left handed starters. He started against two of them. One of his starts has been at first base. Everything else at DH so far. So, you know, eventually if Giancarlo Stanton's back in the mix, then you have a little bit of a question as to how the pieces fit. But for now, there's not really a clear timetable on Stanton's return. And given that Ben Rice has catcher eligibility in nearly every fantasy league,

this is a player that I think you can at least utilize in short term pretty effectively. Yeah, I can't speak to what happens later. I don't think that Ben Rice can play in the outfield. They don't want Stanton playing in the outfield. And they've got that Paul Goldschmidt at first. So I would have kind of assumed that Ben Rice can play in the outfield or they don't want Stanton playing in the outfield and they've got Paul Goldschmidt at first. So I would have kind of assumed that Ben Rice goes back down if Stanton comes up. But until then, yeah, love him. Hits the ball super hard, has great swing decisions.

This is the kind of guy that they try to develop. They care about Max CV, they care about hitting the ball hard, they care about good swing decisions. So Ben Rice is a product of the Yankee system and probably my favorite out of these surprising players that we kind of put on a leaderboard. I don't know if you want to surf over that so that people can see all the different names

you've put together on the rundown, just a really cool list. I'll just start naming some of them while you get the the leaderboard up But just in terms of who is a little surprising that we thought, you know We weren't sure about playing time going into the season Bryce Turang and Joey Ortiz are the second baseman and short stops For the Milwaukee Brewers respectively. There's been No doubt about that. They've basically just played every day at those positions. Matt Shaw is at 14 out of 14 for the Cubs

and Williour Abreu as well. Although the Williour Abreu story gets a little bit more complicated if Masataka Yoshida ever gets healthy. Ben Rice has played a lot. Alan Rodin, Colt Keith, Kyle Manzardo have probably platooned a little bit less than we thought they would. And then Garrett Mitchell's mostly missed left-handed, but

he's played against a couple, has he? Yeah, he's played a little bit against lefties, which is maybe a tick better than we thought. I think they've, they've faced six lefties already. He started against four of them. Yeah. So Garrett Mitchell's doing pretty good offensively. He, I think the power will start to start cooking. I mean, if you look at his max TV, one 10.6 and the hard hit 45.5% figure out Mitchell, those are trending. Those are decent numbers.

So the 0.065 eyes. So I think that's the number that's going to change. I wish he stole more. I wish joy of teas stole more, but those two players for me are bylaws. You know, there are pickups, they're bylaws. I think they're 12-team. I think they might even be 10-team relevant, but I understand. In a 10-teamer, you're looking at a lot of players, and maybe Joey Ortiz doesn't rise to that. But there wasn't a discord conversation about Joey Ortiz, which was that, you know, do we overvalue the fact

that he just did a lot of things at above average rate last year? And so I did a query where I just asked, you know, who among qualified hitters last year was slightly better than average at K, BB, max EV, barrel, and speed? Those are things that Joey Ortiz was slightly better than average at.

And I'm talking slightly. I did not take anybody that was way better than average at any of those things. I had very sort of tight bands. And when I came up with Corbin Carroll, Spencer Steer, Wyatt Langford, George Springer, Joey Ortiz, Brian Reynolds, and Josh Naylor. I'm still in on Joey Ortiz. I wish he'd stolen a bass by now, but you can still get to 15 20 stolen bases with late Or if it's only 10 for him this year, and he's a 260 15 10 guy I think it'll still end up having positive value for your team and Garrett Mitchell's Already stolen a base and I think the power is gonna come if you watch Garrett Mitchell His speed is so easy to see 94th percentile and sprint speed not surprised to see that backed up

He's also 96 percentile in bat speed though. So there is definitely that can do damage power in his bat I don't know if it's more than like 15 to 20 homers in a typical year But you'll take that with the speed that he brings and getting those chances Bad speed you'd expect there to be more than that. There could be more than that I think the for me it comes down to the swing and miss. Like there's always that element of swing and miss with Garrett Mitchell that early on down 25% in the K-rate but it's only 12 games. So yeah I think he makes a lot of sense. Bryce Terang's got three homers. I think I said on the show that I have no expectation

of Bryce Terang developing more power. Three homers in the first two weeks and apparently he's using Ryan Braun's old Swingman batting gloves. That's the secret. I love the Swingman stuff. I've got my Swingman sweatshirt that I've been wearing forever. I'll never let that thing go but that's it. That's the whole story. Yeah. I think this whole list is good because of playing time. Playing time is key, right? There's different reasonings There's different leagues where each of these is more fitting But I see buys here. I see buys and buy lows and I see a choir of players I see guys who are gonna be on your waiver wire that you should pick up like I'd like all of these guys

You know to different extents I do wonder what happens to Allen Rodin when Dalton Varshow comes back like some of these guys, you know, to different extents. I do wonder what happens to Alan Rodin when Dalton Varshow comes back. Like some of these guys are shorter term picks. Like I said about Ben Rice, you know, like I said about Masataka Shiden, William Abreu, but William Abreu has played so well that actually I think he's just their starter. I don't know that he's acquirable anywhere,

but if he is available, even in your 10 team, like I'd pick him up. I think he's a by high in fantasy because they, you know, you heard it in Jen McCaffrey's voice when we talked to her on Tuesday. is available, even in your 10 team, I'd pick him up. I think he's a buy high in fantasy because you heard it in Jen McCaffrey's voice when we talked to her on Tuesday. When I was like, they could get more by trading Williers, she's like, they're not gonna trade Williers.

I think that's something that I find really helpful when we talk to the beat writers is they know how much a player means in the clubhouse and to an organization on a like a soft skills sort of level they have a better sense of that we have outside looking in for so many of the clubhouses I mean you're in San Francisco you could get around the Giants a lot A's get up there now still too yeah but I'm not with I'm not with out there all the time yeah you're not like camped out

with them like every day so I feel like that's that's like an extra level of insight that you can get from a beat rider that you just can't really get anywhere else. So I agree with you. I mean, I think will your Braves more important to the Red Sox than many of us thought throughout the winter? We saw him as more of an expendable. They could just move this guy. They actually like him and Yoshida getting traded does seem a lot more likely.

But yeah, I would agree with you on this list and look at our guy, Kyle Manzardo, off to a nice start to even play a little bit of first base. And I think with a lot of guys too, it's just like, how are they being used defensively? Jonathan Aranda actually playing more first base than Yanni Diaz. I think that's kind of a good thing in the long run too, just as far as figuring out if he's defensively limited to DH only or if they actually trust his glove enough to keep him in the field. If one of the two of them gets traded, speaking of trades and long-term situations on depth

charts, if one of the two of them gets traded, it's Yandy Diaz because he's owed money. Yeah, that's how they... So Ronda looks like he's playing his way into being the future Yandy Diaz. So a lot of interesting situations that we're watching. I noticed Christopher Morrell, eight of 12 starts so far. It's gonna make my bold prediction of the 30 plus homers. They can't even say 35. It's gonna make that hard to pay off

if he keeps losing playing time at that rate. It also doesn't make any sense. It's like, you know, he's a righty, so it's not a strict platoon. They're trying to find times to get him in there, but I guess Ronda's a righty, so it's not a strict platoon. They're trying to find times to get him in there. But I guess Aranda is a righty, too, right? So there might not be enough room on the raise for two guys who might hit the ball well, but have bricks for hands.

Well, Aranda is a lefty, but they've been playing Morell and left exclusively. That's the thing, too. He's not the guy rotating into the D.H. spot. He's playing left field. So they're trying to trying to see if it works out. But I think what I said still stands to some degree, which is that they're both limited defensively. And if you have Yandy, Morrell, and Aranda on the same team, then there are nights where you're going to pick defense over one of them.

Yeah, that's definitely a good point. Curtis Mead not playing as much as we would have hoped coming off the big spring four out of 12 starts so far both times against lefties of course he was out there, but only two starts this kind of righties the first baseball Tune I guess huh yeah, just sort of the extra guy right now He's made starts at first second and third but just a bench player for the start of the seasons that has been a little bit Of a bummer if you were hoping for more. The other guy that kind of fits into this conversation, you mentioned in passing, you know, Colt Keith playing a little more than expected.

Spencer Torkelson started all 12 games for the Tigers so far. I know Gleiber's been hurt, but we did see a couple of lineups to begin the season with all three of those guys in, with Colt Keith playing his new position at first, Gleiber at second, and Torque as the DH. I think that's their default approach

because they've been using Kerry Carpenter in the outfield a lot. In the field. Yeah, only one game as a DH so far. So I think they're comfortable moving Carpenter between those outfield corners and just getting their best combination of bats out there, which is a great sign for Torque if he continues to hit.

They don't have such a great outfield that, you know, that there's not a, you know, they also have been hit by injuries and Matt Vierling out there. So you got Riley and Parker Meadows missing. So what happens when Parker Meadows is back and Matt Vierling is back? That's another story for another day. And that's why I say it's a little bit more complicated

if you're in keeper leagues and trying to figure this stuff out long-term, but for, that list is full of buys. And they moved Parker Meadows to the 60 day IAL in late March too. So he's still six plus weeks away at the earliest from getting back into the equation. Torkelson, I mean, look, it's nice to see Torkelson swinging the bat well again. I couldn't figure out why it was so bad. I wasn't all in on the bounce backs at the playing time was uncertain We wondered if everyone were healthy if he was even gonna make the roster

He has hit the ground running to start the season already popped three homers so far in the first 12 games Looks like one of the best versions of Spencer Torkelson. We've seen yet. Yeah, I should have his his contact point change I'm not surprised He didn't pop on the contact point change thing because his pull rate is through the roof. That seems like a very good choice for Torkelson given his overall skills. Yeah, that's right. Get to that hard hit rate. It's 55.2% even better than what he had in 2023 when he popped 31 homers.

This looks really good for Spencer Torkelson. Got a few mailbag questions. I want to get into today's show. This one came back from bring back Bison 70. What are the expectations for Steinbrenner Field, where the Rays are playing their home games during the summer when the weather gets even hotter and muggier in Florida? I think your base expectation should be a hot Yankee Stadium.

It is the same size as Yankee Stadium, but it's going to be hotter, you know, and more humid. So I would assume that it's going to be a real hitter's haven. However, there's a really great piece by Michael Rosen on Fangraphs where he points out that this Jonathan Aranda fly ball that he hit, these are all balls with Jonathan Aranda's EV and LA specs. I forget exactly how hard he hit it but I think I can find that in the piece. But let's see it's 99 miles per hour with a 37 degree launch angle. That's pretty good. Yeah there have been 1,173 balls hit with those two combinations and Only one of them failed to go 300 feet like Aranda's fly ball did

So you can see how he has it highlighted there so the wind blows in at night and it blows out during the day is basically what he was saying and so during the day is basically what he was saying and so you should expect and it's just shift patterns over the season and stuff so it's really you got to read the piece but he says if i had to guess gms field will play even more extreme blowing baseballs every which way around the high tampa sky so he says it's going to be like wrigley where there's 150 points difference in OPS between strong wins out and strong wins in. The time of the year shifts the

patterns too so it's really difficult if you're a high-level DFS player you know you'll just check the wins you know where to get it if you're not you know it's very likely to blow out in the afternoon. So day games are going to be, you know, take the overs and, and, and, and, and in your pick sixes, take, take day game hitters in Tampa. It's a mixed bag in the evenings, blowing out 42% of the time and blowing in 23% of the time. And it says by September and potentially in October, the park will start to play much more like a pitcher's park.

So this is something that's gonna change over time and has real parallels to Sacramento. Because in Sacramento, I was there on opening day, 48 degrees, but the wind was blowing out. That was a night game. Was it a night game or like a late afternoon game? What time was the local start? It was a night game.

I think it was a six or 40 or something. But it was 48 degrees, so it was cold, but the ball was going out. And then in the next series, the wind wasn't flowing out as much and it was warmer, and the ball didn't fly out as much. So Sacramento's gonna be really hard to figure out, but I will tell you this,

this was all at cold for Sacramento and at some point it's going to get hot. So I'm worried that Sacramento is going to be the number one offensive field this year in baseball. You think in the middle of the summer at least it's going to play even more aggressively than Coors? It's going to be 98 plus at game time in the evening in Sacramento in July and August So it's just gonna be really hot

I think the ball is gonna fly because you can have hot and the wind is the big chaotic factor and we're starting to know more about that and We've got it a little bit more sussed for with that piece for what's happening at the boss Steinbrenner Field. But Sutter Health, we're gonna have to do analysis like that too, because the wind seems to be of outside importance. And that's annoying because it's not like

in your pick six thing, it's not like they have a little flag and wind out, wind in. Although, Niv, if you're listening. Oh, come on, Niv's done enough. We don't need to ask for more features. This is this is fine. We can we can click open the weather tab. And I know there's some weather stuff on the the RotoWire lineups pages.

If you're just looking for a one one spot to help you with your your pick sixes and your daily decisions to sell. OK, wind's blowing out 20 miles an hour. Wind's blowing at 20 miles an hour. Adjust accordingly. But yeah, if you're in a weekly league, even if the the seasonal patterns are generally changing each day is a little different. You just never know.

You're going to think very differently about Pepeo. I would just say that, you know, when you're trying to think about them, like our preseason analysis to some point has it has kind of held, I think, which is there are some pitchers that are just going to be good enough to be good there. You know, it's not necessarily like Colorado where it's changing your pitches as much, you know, it's more like going to be like a Cincinnati where like if you're Hunter Green, yeah, you're probably

just going to be fine. Like, yes, it impacts you, but it doesn't, it doesn't take you from. Usable to like, Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's where, like, if the A's were still in Oakland, like, Jeffrey Springs might have been kind of an interesting back of the rotation fantasy option, but there's no chance, especially with the diminished of Hilo of pulling that off in Sacramento.

I mean, I think Severino is going to play under his stuff plus numbers, which might be inflated by the fact that he's throwing a sweeper. And, you know, maybe the models not catching up to the how the league is catching up to the sweeper and you know, maybe the model's not catching up to the, how the league is catching up to the sweeper, you know, cause he doesn't have good strikeout rates. And I think Severino is going to be very borderline. And my, even my Bidot pick, like, I didn't start him at home against San Diego, you know,

so I'm kind of using him pretty sparingly. And then the other guys I don't want to start at all. Well, the tough one about that Bido choice was that they got more banged up after weekly lineup lock to Right Merrill went on the IL Yeah, he didn't push to the full line pitch to the full line Yeah, that lineup changed pretty quickly in week and there was no way to react to that in a weekly league So, you know, what can you do? I think Bido and Severino are situational and there's nothing that none of the other starters I don't really want. I mean Spence could be situational. He's probably moving into the rotation now

I don't know if they've announced that but he took over for the Estes and Estes got sent down But I think they're all situational there in Tampa I still believe in Taj Bradley Shane Boz and Ryan Pepeo and I think that they write they can rise above this Will they give a few more homers like just look at the last pepio He gave up a couple homers that barely made it one that was like a kind of an oppo Just enough and yet he got the win, you know, it was like was it six innings three runs three homeruns You know, like it's not great But you know, I think that's positive

of fantasy value for the week. Net positive. If you get the W on top of the five K is over five innings. Yeah, that that works. But good question. Thanks for sending that in. Bring back Bison 70. Let's get to this one. Nikki wants to know more about Tony Gonsolin.

Expectations for Gonsolin is 2022 is vastly better than 2023. I remember some discussion he benefited the most from the Dodgers shifting strategies. Is that why he struggled in 2023 when the shift was banned? I think so. I mean, he has a really depressed batting average and balls and play for his career. Does not have a great fastball, but he does have a really good splitter.

And sometimes guys that just have really good splitters evade the bottle and so I would say that I'm interested in Tony Gonsolin. I will pick him up. I think he's a pickup in most leagues. I don't know that I have any caveats for you. I think Tony Gonsolin is going to move into maybe Landon Acker, Justin Robleski's role there and and and just start pitching. And I think the projections are a little light on him. I think he's going to be more like a 410

era guy with an 8K9, that sort of deal and be slightly better than than is expected of him. I see you think he's nudging back into that 2022 range. I mean, the K rate fell a lot. The walk rate ticked up. I think the stuff just wasn't as good.

Lost a little VLO, had a homer problem. Like every underlying metric got worse before he broke down in 2023. Sometimes people need to be fixed. Like some of that is like they're not, they're not healthy when they're pitching. On 2020, he had a 104 stuff plus in 2021, 95. Like I think he could get back to those levels where he's, you know, he's maybe a little bit situational, but the Dodgers are going to give him wins too. So he does a lot of things that can make a four ERA palatable.

In other words. Right. And I mean, career 319 ERA 105 whip. He's got some room with those ratios to just regress a little and still be very usable with those high wind probabilities that he gets on a start by start basis. From a news perspective, it sounds like he's probably two rehab starts away from getting activated so we may get a look at Bobby Miller at least one time next week as the Dodgers try and bridge the gap. Those weren't good starts for Robileski and NAC but NAC is better in the model

And I think NAC's going to get another try Yeah, it was a oh man. That was a rough outing for NAC five earned In just two and a third yikes. I don't have an explanation for it Sometimes you just have a bad start, but you know in terms of pitch movements and shapes and stuff He's always had a good breaking ball a surprisingly good fastball and now he's throwing the kick change so I still like some stuff about Landon Ack I think I'm gonna try and hold him in the places where I got him for a decent price and and maybe even start him because I think he has Miami next. Thanks a lot for that

question Nicky. Question here from MCon in 42 what are you seeing so far with Justin Verlander this season? I watched most of that last start. It's just weird because it is his worst fastball that he's had in his career and that's relevant because he still pitches very much off his fastball, throws high fastballs and low sliders off of it. This is the basic plan for Verlander. And I know he's started throwing a sweeper this year. So I'm, I like that he's innovating some. And I've even seen the occasional low fastball, though I can't tell if that was just a miss.

I thought like, oh God, here it goes again, right? And that last start against Cincinnati, because, you know because he gave up four or five runs in the second inning or something. But they left him out there this time. So the first time against Seattle, he got into trouble two and a thirds inning in, and they just took him out. But this time they left him in,

and he, by the end of it, five and two thirds with nine strikeouts and three walks is not terrible. It's the five earned runs that you're kind of you're circling. So this is all to say long winded. I actually think he has a little stuff left. I am not out. I am still holding where I have him.

And if he drops the waiver wire, I don't know. Twelve teamer. What would you do in a twelve teamer with Justin Verlander if he's out there on the waiver wire? Probably looking at my worst picture and seeing if he's still an upgrade over that. That may be a streaming spot anyway. And I think I would look at Verlander as pretty streamable at home overall. I think it's interesting that he's been in the zone more often and has a lower zone contact

rate so far this season. So I think there's some stuff that is trending in the right direction. 16% swing strike rate. Like there's something going on here. He's got the strikeout rate up to 25.8%. He hasn't been there since 2022. The VELOs up a tick since last year. Like there's, I don't know. I'm generally positive. I know the results have been terrible, but I'm generally positive on Justin Verlinder. Yeah. I think if he struggles for a month or two, then sure, he'll make more tweaks to the arsenal. I have no idea what they'll do though in San Francisco.

Like I mean Ghost IL or like what do you do with Justin Berliner if you decide you don't want him there anymore? Yeah, I don't think they're even close to that point yet, though. I think let's see how this goes. Tough matchup this week I think against Philly, so maybe you're in shallow leagues, sit them just to see how that goes. But deep leagues you may have to. Yeah, you may have to throw in 15 team league, he may be your last option that gets in. And I think he might actually do better than you expect in that tough spot.

That is not an endorsement to use him in shallow leagues. It is a don't worry as much as you're worried right now in deeper leagues if you have to throw him out there in that start. Yeah, in shallow leagues, I think to answer my out there in that start. Yeah, in shallow leagues. I think to answer my own question, it's 12 team, he's a streamer. Let's bring back a prospect of the week.

Do you have a prospect that has caught your eye here in the early days of the season? I'm just interested in Ryan Gusto all of a sudden because he is slated to start Saturday's game against the Angels. And I know that the Angels have been surprisingly good And Houston has been I don't know maybe surprisingly mediocre But I think that the Astros still give him a good chance to win. He's 26 years old throws 94

Has been showing good model numbers, but as a reliever so we don't know exactly how much these all going to fall and none of his secondaries are all that good so I just think he's an intriguing start he's somebody that I might pick up ahead of the start and not start him for that start you know to try and get some data on what does he look like as a starter when he's trying to leave some stuff in the tank? And how does he get outs? Because he looks surprisingly close to Chad Patrick.

Look, you see that? Yeah, that's not. Good fastball, a lot of fastball, sinker, cutter. He does throw the slider and cutter and change more than Patrick, but they're not very good. They're not very good, but maybe they're just there to keep hitters guessing or to steal the occasional strike. It's a different look, even if you don't do it a lot.

So I think I have a little more confidence in Gusto than I do in Patrick. The Arrogate injury might be more than a couple of weeks too, so this could be a decent look at him. And the good news is if you're in a weekly league, you get to see how it plays in a starting role. It might be a somewhat short start since he's been in the bullpen but you'll at least get one more prolonged look before committing this weekend. He's definitely interesting

I think there's some organizational trust that we built up with the Astros over the years too. When he pitched well enough a triple-A where it's like hey maybe it just works. It's very low to me. I think is is the easiest way to describe Ryan Gusto. Definitely a lowdom pickup Yeah, and you know, I would suggest that not everybody listening knows that over at Fang graphs stuff plus is in the game logs So you can let him start that game and then look at the game logs and see how much it suffered because in One ending appearances this year his stuff plus is above game and then look at the game logs and see how much it suffered because in one inning appearances this year his stuff plus is above 115 like it's 115 or so in the three inning appearance against Minnesota his stuff loss was 99 so you

know that's a fair big difference I thought that the the overall reliever to start a conversion is sort of five to seven points but that doesn't mean it's the same for every single person. And for somebody who throws a lot of fastballs, it might be a worst reliever to start a conversion, right? Because you're going to lose VELO off to fastballs and you don't have a great secondary that you can just throw a bunch or whatever. So I'm interested. I'm intrigued. I'll pick them up ahead of it.

I don't know that I'm going to start him without more data. Yeah. I tried to pick him up in an ale only league that I'm in with our buddy, Jeff Good last night and got outbid. So in Hale only leagues, the bid might have to be closer to the seven to nine dollar range because two bucks wasn't enough in my league. So just the heads up on that front, my prospect of the week selection, thanks to Sam Dykstra from the

MLB pipeline, milb.com crew, Alex Clemmie, a lefty at high A right now in the Nationals organization. If that name sounds vaguely familiar, it might be because you remember it from the Lane Thomas trade between the Guardians and Nats last summer. Clemmie's 19 year old lefty, he's 6'6, career high 10Ks Thursday night in five innings at high A Wilmington. I did message Keith Law, so Keith, did you see that start? He's actually at a different event this week, so he was not at that game. The main concerns with Clemmie, if you look at a stat page for him, of course, the walk

rate's been high, the command grades are low from Fangrass, present 20, future 40, but he's a 6'6 teenage lefty,, you know, there's room for growth there. But the main concern is a third pitch. And that's what I'm trying to figure out is if he actually has a change up or some kind of third pitch that's gonna make him more viable as a starter in the long run. Interesting guy though, I looked at James Anderson's

prospect rankings. Oh, they're really high. I mean, just absurd. Last year it was almost a hundred total inningsnings 92 to third innings last year in a ball 16.1 percent walk rate, but but 31.5 percent k-rate, right? I mean again, you're you're you're banking on some long-term development here that it just becomes a passable walk rate over time He's so young that I think you can take that flyer in really deep keeper in Dynasty Leagues Our buddy James Anderson has him I think somewhere in like the 250 range on his prospect list

So that's how far off the radar Clemmie is right now. He's ranked on a deep list like that But he's not somebody that's heavily heavily rostered and keeper in Dynasty Leagues. I like him, but I strikes me as sort of like a But I he strikes me as sort of like a dimick in summer league like 19 year old that you know Has been doing some good stuff, but you know don't get don't fall in love It's a lottery ticket if you need a lottery ticket on the bottom of your roster Alex Clemmie interesting after the the career high 10 K's on Thursday as far as other waiver wires names go you mentioned Ryan Gusto I think he'll be somewhat popular at at least in deeper leagues this weekend, especially

if he pitches well against the Angels. You've got Shane Smith looking pretty good for the White Sox. Situation there is not great as far as run support and bullpen and wins go, but a guy that actually got away from the Brewers. The White Sox took him in the Rule 5 draft this winter and I got the sense that Shane Smith was the guy that any team that had that pick would have been interested in just getting a look at him as a starter. But who are you looking at? Easton Lucas is out there in some leagues. He's getting some run right now for the Jays. Who else is catching your eye?

I think I like Lucas a little better because he might get you some wins. And Lucas is pretty close to average, but his fastball and slider combo is decent and he seems to have a sense of what he's doing with it. Smith's pitches all pretty much line up as average in terms of movement. And that means that they're below average. I know that is a weird concept, but you don't want to be average in baseball.

You wanna be weird. is a weird concept but you don't want to be average in baseball. You want to be weird. The Velo is interesting but even with the Velo his four-season fastball Shane Smith is 87 stuff plus so I have some shares of Shane Smith I am being very careful with them. I would be very careful with him. Lucas I would be pretty careful with too so you, I'm pulling up the Probables grid and looking for Lucas. What does he got? He has Seattle next week after at Baltimore on Sunday. So I like Lucas for that one I would play Lucas against Seattle over probably Shane

Smith at Boston. Yeah, no, I don't want that. No. And he's got a double tap. He's got Boston home and then at Boston. I predict his ERA is on the way north. Yeah, maybe a couple of bumpy starts incoming, given how good that Red Sox lineup is. But I do think this is the time of year when you have a guy like Verlander struggling in the Shadow League

and you see someone like Shane Smith popping up with nice ratios. There are people out there that say, I'm going to make a switch. I'm going to go with the younger guy, maybe catch lightning in a bottle. No, don't do that. Be on the Verlander side of something like that if you are considering making a move. Easton Lucas, as you mentioned, I think the matchup's for him. Not bad. It's got Seattle next week and then Scherzer could be back the week after.

It's hard to tell with Scherzer's thumb injury. The way he talked about it this spring, he was pitching with it and he's resumed playing catch already but he still has some lingering tightness due to a cortisone shot. It's a really bizarre injury just in terms of forecasting when exactly he's going to get back from it So that's the thing that could abruptly end Easton Lucas's time in the Jays rotation if Scherzer's thumb feels good Sure, there's back in Lucas goes back to the pen or back down to triple-a in shallower leagues I think that you just need to make sure Taylor Soderstrom is not on your waiver wire anymore

He is definitely ownable in every single league I think at this point, especially with what we're saying about his home park, it might only get better for him. I want to circle a, an offensive name for you that might be available in your deeper leagues. Geraldo Perdomo. Yeah. Moving up in the order with the injury to Ketel Marte. Yeah. The DVR special and you know,

it's lowest swinging strike rate of his career, lowest strikeout rate of his career. And no, he doesn't hit the ball much harder than he ever has, but he does spray the ball around and by the end of the year, I would say he's probably something like a 275-10-15 guy, 10-20 guy, kind of borderline for 15 team leagues. But it's great if you have a need. And you know, he's definitely one of those guys you pick up while maybe you could tell Marte is hurt for you. Yeah, there you go. And then we have a

call-up. Yeah, Chase Midroth is up. Yes, I think he's worth your attention in deeper leagues because I think they're just, they're gonna find time for him because Miguel Vargas is playing poorly. Len Sosa is playing poorly. I don't think Jacob Amaya is the future of this. Jacob Amaya has been released by like four different organizations in the last,

like year and a half. So I could see them just sticking Chase Midroth in at short and saying, hey, you get first cracks at it, especially since, you know, Coleson Montgomery, as much as I think there's still maybe something left, he is still hitting the ball hard. He's not doing anything else. Well, don't look at his line. He just got scratched on Thursday and knowing I haven't seen a reason yet.

It's been. Yeah, it's not good. It's not good for Montgomery right now. So I think they could say, Hey, maybe, maybe, maybe Mydroth is our shortstop of the future. Let's, let's see. So I think they could say, hey, maybe maybe my drop those are sort of the future. Let's let's see. So I think he's going to step in there and just play. I almost wondered if they were going to send Montgomery back

down to double A, like even though he's played 140 games now at triple A. That would be a pretty odd choice. But man, something something's wrong. 50% strikeout rate. Something's wrong. Yeah. Yeah. We'll have to figure out what it is,

but yeah, a lot. What do I expect from Maidreth? I would expect, I don't even know if I expect as much power as the projections want to give him. So I'll say something like a 250 average, five homers, and 15 to 20 steals. So he's on the level with Perdomo. If I had to choose between them, probably picking Perdomo actually. But in keeper leagues, deeper

keeper leagues, Maidroth's getting a shot I think. Yeah I want to see what the hard hit rate looks like against big league pitching. It's nice to see that it's been 34% last year, 40% is a handful. Better than Perdomo's. Maybe a little more hard contact there than expected. I think Maid my drought does have some sleeper potential the immediate ads are gonna be more in deeper leagues though than in shallow ones even though he could carve out a role very quickly plays multiple spots defensively easy to see top shelf playing time for chase my drought as long as the bat is in fact ready we are gonna go on our way out the door reminder you can join our discord

the link in the show description. Eno has a chat to get to. You can find Eno on blue sky, enosaris.bsky.social. You can find me, dvr.bsky.social. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening.

I don't know what a Cair-Cair Orange is.