Rates & Barrels - Freddie Freeman to the IL & Our April Breakout Pitchers Draft

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Eno and DVR discuss a mishap that landed Freddie Freeman on the IL, a closer change in Pittsburgh with the demotion of David Bednar, a few heavily added players in ottoneu ahead of the weekend with Niv Shah, and their picks for an on-air, five-round pitcher breakout draft featuring several players that may be available in shallow leagues. Please participate in our listener survey! theathletic.com/athletic/survey25 (Three lucky entries will receive £/$100 worth of Amazon vouchers!) Rundown 2:16 Freddie Freeman to the IL 5:40 David Bednar to Triple-A; Dennis Santana to Close in Pittsburgh? 9:37 Camilo Doval Still the Fallback in San Francisco 14:15 Odds & Ends: Zach Neto, Nestor Cortes Jr., Jordan Lawlar & Angel Genao 18:14 Niv Shah Joins the Show! (The Philly Dog, Ottoneu Adds & Six Picks Roster Rates) 35:39 Eno's Friday Draft: Late-Round Pitchers/Shallow League Waiver Draft 55:07 Tomoyuki Sugano: Underrated by Projections? Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey, I'm Robert Vinloen, I'm from New York Times Games, and I'm here talking to people about Wordle and the Wordle Archive. Do you all play Wordle? I play it every day. Alright, I have something exciting to show you. It's the Wordle Archive. What? Okay, that's awesome.

So now you can play every wordle that has ever existed. There's like a thousand puzzles. What? Wordle Archive. Oh, cool. Now you can do yesterday's wordle if you missed it. Yeah. New York Times game subscribers can now access the entire wordle archive.

Find out more at nytimes.com slash games. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it is Friday April 4th, Derek Van Riper, Enocerous here with you, happy Friday everybody. On this episode we'll have our usual Friday news and notes We got a closer to motion in Pittsburgh to talk about we have Rehab assignments for players some minor league injuries and updates to pass along as well. We've got a new segment we're introducing this season thanks to the culinary experts at Nationals Park we have something called Taste of the

Majors with our senior hot dog correspondent and our new founder, Niv Shah. That'll be a little bit later on in the show, so we're looking forward to that. Eno set up a picture draft for us. We're going to look at some pictures, under 50% rostered on Yahoo, fewer than 25 career Major League stars and draft a group of them each. See how we do in there. We'll fold in some waiver wire targets over the course of this episode as well. Before we get into the meat of today's rundown, well, that's like 15 minutes from now when

Niv gets here with the hot dog segments. The actual meat. The literal meat. I do want to remind everyone, we have a listener survey out there. Please click the link in the show description. You listen to us. We want to hear from you. We're asking you to fill out a quick survey about you and your podcast listening

habits. Help us serve you better. Yeah. Demand merch in there, demand more episodes, demand all sorts of things. Theathletic.com slash athletic slash survey 25, three lucky entries will win a hundred dollars worth of Amazon vouchers as well. Whether you're a longtime listener or you're new to our show, we do want your feedback. So go to theathletic.com slash athletic slash survey 25.

That's theathletic.com slash athletic slash survey 25. Again, the link will also be in the show description, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening wherever you enjoy your podcasts. We really appreciate all of your feedback. Again, the link will also be in the show description whether you're watching on YouTube or listening wherever you enjoy your podcast We really appreciate all of your feedback if you go to the show description You also find a link to join the discord be sure to jump in there if you haven't done so already You know some news and notes here as we get started on Friday Freddie Freeman the latest Major League player to suffer a shower mishap

Those are Dave Roberts words at least, and it's put him on the IL with an ankle injury. Fabian Ardaya covers the Dodgers for the Athletics at its retroactive to March 31st, so it's going to be at least another week or so before Freeman can come back from this injury. And it happened to be the same ankle, the right ankle that he actually had surgically repaired in the offseason too, so this accident could end up being something that is a bit more of a problem than an ordinary slip in the shower. Yeah. Does it speak at all to like the structural strength and integrity of his

ankle? Is it the same ankle that he got surgery on? It's the same one he had surgery on, but. That's not great. surgery on. It's the same when he had surgery on, but. That's not great. Although as you get older, these mishaps happen more often. Was it Sammy Sosa blew out his back by sneezing?

Sneezing. Yep. Yeah. These things happen more to the older players, I think. Although, Blake Snell was pretty young when he dropped a sink on his toe or something. I don't know what that was all about. A shower pedestal, I think was that one. I'm like, why do you have a decorative pedestal?

Something that could move in there? What are you doing? What are you spending your money on? There was just a story on the athletic about how frugal a lot of major league players are. Oh, that is so good by the way. Britt's story about how frugal the players are is so good. You got to check it out.

It's just, it's hilarious. I mean, just they're calling each other psychopaths and they, I mean, it is sort of like a, they're just like us moment in a lot of ways. It's like half of them are still on their parents, uh, Netflix and like, uh, cell phone, family cell phones. And the one I really, I really lined up with was, um, you'll be playing music in the clubhouse and then a Spotify ad will come on and people will be like, come on!

You can't even make it with a Spotify ad! That was me because I love banging music with the windows down when it's warm and I'll have the music on loud. And before my wife put me on her paid family plan, it would just bust out the Spotify ads and I'd be like turning it down all quickly. You deserve to be shamed for those ads if there is already a paid account in the house. Okay. Yeah.

What? That's one thing. That's a different situation. If you don't have money for it, there's no shame in that. Yeah, right. But you had a paid account you had access to. That's just laziness. If you don't have money for it, there's no shame in that. Yeah, right. But you had a paid account you had access to. That's just laziness. Well, they're also cheap. I mean, I think it's actually born of the fact

that they come up through the miners with such little money that they just get used to it. I mean, one player was like, I was living that Uno Mas experience at Taco Bell was like my, my live Mas experience and I, I'm older now. I can't do that. And I'm like, yeah, you shouldn't. Not, not quite the fuel you want to have to perform at the highest level.

I guess as Freeman goes, there were expectations. This was a day to day injury throughout their series this week against Atlanta. So it wasn't like an immediate IL situation. I think we could put this probably more on the relatively minor side. Could have been worse probably is the main takeaway, but at least you know going into this weekend and for next week he will not be available. More complicated situation though. The Pittsburgh closer situation.

David Bednar's bad start got him optioned to triple A. I feel terrible about it because I thought Bednar was a great bounce back candidate. I thought he fit very well as a second closer, someone you could trust after that pick 150 range because the stuff was still there last year. We still have the best stuff plus in that, in that bullpen. And yet, uh, it just hasn't been a good start to the year. Could he get the job back? I mean, anything's possible in a bullpen because that bullpen is particularly weak. I think it's really difficult when you have, I haven't heard like 12 bucks in auto new. That's a pretty decent price for a closer when you have saves. It's not like a points league situation. If it was points,

I'd probably just cut them. But right now I'm now i'm like like i'm gonna give him a little bit of time see what happens because. Dennis antenna i think is the guy for now and he is below average stuff he doesn't even strike out guys at a great rate rate doesn't have really close of a below. I think it should be calling holderman if it's anybody but holderman is a sinker guy or. I think it should be calling Holderman if it's anybody, but Holderman is a Sinkergeier. And I've been developing a theory that I don't think, uh, managers like having Sinkergeiers as their, uh, as their closers. Sinkergeiers. Sinkergeiers.

Yeah. I like that. I like that. That's a, that's an enoism right there. Yeah. Holderman's off to a bad start this year too. That's what's opened the door for Dennis Santana. I mean, the VLO yeah, it's a's it's below average in 2025, but it's not 95.

Three is not bad on the fastball. Dennis Santana as a prospect several years ago was someone I was somewhat intrigued by with the Dodgers, but it just this feels more like a revolving door bullpen to me now than one where we're going to have somebody take this situation and stabilize it even if Santana is the guy for now is he the guy still in June I would be a little bit surprised if he's that effective Month over month to sort of keep the job into that middle part of the season. I Agree, and I have a would you rather Anthony Bender or Dennis Santana?

Ooh, factoring in the slight difference in team quality there too. I think I'd rather have Bender than Santana. How about you? Yep. You're part of it. And I think maybe one of the, the, the sneaky plays is still maybe. Hold them in for a dollar while everyone spends a hundred dollars on Dennis Santana.

Yeah. The gap between Bender and Santana is almost nothing, though. I mean, it's it's like, how are you prioritizing players with low bids in your queue? I think is probably the way I'm framing it. It's not go smash the fab piggy bank and make sure you get Anthony Bender because you're talking about another sinker slider guy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. It goes against my what I just said.

But I just the slider is good. The stuff is better than Santana's. I'd rather have a guy with the higher stuff number. I think even bad teams, I think both, you know, like both guys might get 20 saves. And I think that Bender's just doesn't have much competition. I think Fauche's stuff has really fallen off and Tanoko's, you know, as well. So I think Bender's the guy and I'm not sure Santana's the guy. Like the next save chance I think could still go to Holderman.

So the play I think is to put like very similar numbers on them, but to put lower numbers because neither is necessarily, I don't see a situation here. I'm like, aha, this person is now closer of the future. Like somebody that's taking over that had the better stuff all along and should have been closer. You know what I mean? Like, I don't see that necessarily happening. I, you know, I can't think of who that is right now, but like when

Munoz like took over in Seattle, I was like, yeah, and now he's the guy. So would you avoid getting muddy with the situations in Miami and Pittsburgh and instead go to a place like San Francisco where Camilo Deval's got two saves now? Sinkergeier. Yeah. So,ilo Deval's got two saves. Now. Sinkergeier. Yeah. So, but Deval's been there closer before and I know the situation. Walker is the Sinkergeier. Yeah.

Right. Walker, yeah. Walker's the Sinkerball. But the only reason Deval got a save on Wednesday is that Walker pitched on Monday and Tuesday. And Tuesday was a save chance and Walker converted it. So it's not like Walker's wobbling. And last weekend, Walker had like a day-to-day back injury, really minor thing that kept him out for a couple of games. So I think all we have here is some clarity that when Walker's not available,

Deval is their next up option. So does that clarity and being in maybe a better situation in San Francisco as far as your team context, does that make you more interested or similarly interested in Doval if you're kind of clustering these available relievers together this weekend? I mean, the sort of back of the envelope for me is 15 saves for Santana. Three, six ERA, 17, 18 saves for Bender. You know, just the guy on the on the worst team. And like a three-oh ERA and 10 saves for Doval. And I bet you if you throw that into the auction calculator it tells you doval but I know I play fantasy 2 I know what it's like to be like okay I'm just buying 10 saves with us this season it really only works in deeper leagues really like I'm just buying a good picture and I'm gonna get 10 saves I'm gonna get some I'm to get some vulture wins probably where Deval comes in the seventh or eighth and vultures a win.

I don't know. And I'm getting the better pitcher. There's places where you just want to get the better pitcher saves and holes. Leagues deval. You've got to have them. I think you got to have the wall in a 10 team environment. If it saves us holds. Yeah.

Saves plus holds, I think definitely flattens out the, the player pool enough where someone that's next chair with good skills often is held and used throughout the entire season. I think I'm a little more optimistic about Deval. I know we don't talk a lot about trying to project reliever wins, but I do think that's one area where you might see the auction calculator reward Deval over the course of the season, right? There's a better chance that he finds relief wins than there is the bender finds them. And probably even a better chance than any of the pirates relievers find them. So that could be the other kind of random, hard to predict sort of thing that closes

the gap in saves if there is a gap at all between that group. Yeah. Yeah. And there could, you can make the case to just not break the bank on any of these because of the particular situations. Yeah, if Deval was in Miami or Pittsburgh, yeah, then I'd be like, whoo, here we go. I'll give you 120 bucks out of my 130 bucks out of my 1000 because I think this guy will just take it and go. But that's not how the current reality is. I'm actually a little surprised we didn't have more extensions to talk about today. Some interesting talk about extensions though, in discord about how the role of the current financial environment and possible, um, projections of inflation, uh, you know, roll, roll into the sort of team side of this. We talked about it from the player side, but on the team side, if they think, you know,

inflation, if they're, they're definitely modeling inflation. They have somebody in their R&D department modeling inflation because when you do sign Otani and Soto to these deals, you're modeling inflation 10 years out, right? Trying to figure out how much that dollar is worth at the end, especially if you're doing deferred money or anything like that.

So just interesting to think from the team perspective that they might see inflation coming and so therefore deciding to think these long-term deals, just thinking like $20 million is not going to be worth what you even think it is going to be worth now. Right. Instead of being the equivalent of 15 or 16 million, maybe it's- Maybe it'll be even less. It's less. Like that's possible, right?

Like, so that's part of the, why would teams be interested in this? And then for the player side, aside from that, the global factors, you have CBA coming up at the end of the 2016 season. So if you are concerned about financial security for one or both of those reasons, you might be pretty happy to take a long-term deal right now.

So I think that's why we've seen it. But maybe we'll see more between now and Monday. Zach Neto started a rehab assignment at AAA this week. Just wanted to pass that along because he may be available in some shadow leagues out there and could be an impact guy as a middle infielder once he gets all the way back. The only concern I've had about Neto isn't really price-related. It's more that when you have a significant shoulder injury, and I'm saying significant because of the amount of time that he was down from it, we don't know what specifically was repaired in his shoulder at this point in time, you just don't know how quickly everything comes back. I mean, what we saw from him last year, the 23 homers, 30 steals, he's a guy who'd be

universally rostered, maybe a top 10 shortstop with relative ease if it all comes back. The only question is how healthy is he? How strong is that shoulder coming off of surgery? Yeah. Um, I think if you've been waiting on him, you're happy that this is the timeframe. Probably says good things about his health. is the timeframe probably says good things about his health.

Um, and, uh, I did just come up with, uh, a weird little thing that Tim Anderson sprint speed is one of the biggest increases I did a piece today that's in the athletic about five important, uh, numbers, even in the first week, and, uh, I think sprint speed is just a proxy for health. So Tim Anderson's legs are healthy. His baseball skills are in the tank right now. I mean, with a 45% strikeout rate is pretty tough, but. He's competing maybe with Kevin Newman for a roster spot once the netto is back. I think the corresponding move there will be a little bit interesting because if if Anderson wins out. There's still a potential for deep league steals there. Yeah, there absolutely is.

Um, so other odds and ends, I'll just pass along real quick because we do have Niv Shaw joining us here in just a moment. Nestor Cortez bounces back from a disastrous first start with the Brewers at Yankee Stadium, of course, fires six scoreless with one hit in his home debut on Thursday night, because as Jason Stark says, baseball, right? That's just how it works. I noticed Jordan Lawler had a note on roto wire he's played three different positions through six games at Reno so it looks like the Diamondbacks trying to prep him for more of a super utility role and one other note on the prospect side Angel Janel really interesting infield prospect for the Guardians is down until June. He suffered a shoulder sprain this spring, according to Jim Callis of MLB.com.

Nestor did not recover any below though, just to play. Yeah, it still looked like lower end below, but locating it well against the Reds found a way to bounce back despite that. The Reds offense might be bad. It's a weak man. Yeah, it's a weak, but I just mean like one thing that happens often, and we, this happened last year too, is that they were, their home park makes their offense look better than it is. And what we discovered in the main event last year was it's streaming pitchers

against them on the road was, was profitable. Yeah. was it streaming pitchers against them on the road was profitable. Yeah, it might be a streaming target that the league as a whole is a little less on than some of the more like low hanging fruit. Everyone was streaming against the White Sox, everyone was streaming against the Marlins, right? The bottom, clear bottom three all the time offenses were the easy targets. And like in your head, if you just think about it, you're like, oh, Ellie De La Cruz, Matt McClain, CES, like that's a good offense. Right.

And yet it may not be, I don't know why exactly I would say that there's, maybe they're just not clicking all cylinders. Maybe, maybe they will be, that is definitely still a possibility, but there are some like, you know, you're like Hammer Candelaria and like, there's some flaws, even the guys we like in Matt McClain and CS and stuff. So they're not, you know, they're not all maybe as, as good as they seem, or as good as maybe their fantasy value is, you know, sometimes they're, they're gettable. So anyway, I'm not trying to take away from Nestor's accomplishments. Even though it really seems like I am. Yeah, kind of felt like you were just a little bit. Now it is our pleasure to be joined by our senior hot dog correspondent.

He's also the founder of Auto New, but senior hot dog correspondent has to be the best title on his resume. It's Niv Shaw. Absolutely. What a great title to get. Thanks for having me on, guys. It's Niv Shaw. Absolutely. What a great title to get. Thanks for having me on, guys. I love it. Let's talk about hot dogs. Let's talk about hot dogs.

And thank you for setting up our six picks group, by the way. We'll talk more about that here in just a little bit. I think there's an amazing thing happening at Nationals Park. You get to enjoy it on a regular basis. And look, sometimes the world gifts us something. We can travel without actually getting on an airplane, right? We can let our taste buds bring us to another place in this country or maybe the other side of the world.

Now, in this instance, saved you a train ride to Philly and gave us this monstrosity. There it is. The Philadelphia dog, which is described as a quarter pound of beef, topped with grilled onions, peppers and a warm cheese sauce. And it is a winning combo. It looks so bad. Man, you bring you back a lot of bad memories right now.

You ate this on Sunday. It's Friday, April 4th. You're still here. So thumbs up. Like you survived the Philly dog. How was this Philly dog? Yeah, so the Philly dog was an experience. Nats Park has this taste of the major stand and they've been doing it for a couple years

now where they try to make this dog for the away team. And they tend to do a lot of putting a secondary meat on a hot dog, really using whatever ingredients they can scrounge up, that's sort of an homage to whatever. Or whatever's left over from the last. It feels a little bit like that. And honestly, like, you know, I don't blame them. Like, it's a huge pain to be like, we're gonna, for this one series, we're going to source something new. But like we're gonna, for this one series, we're gonna source something new. But the real disappointment here is that the cheese dog, the cheese portion of this cheese dog was not cheese whiz.

It was very much the nacho cheese that you dip chips in. And look, that's a subtle but important distinction that I really do need to bring. And the result of it is, you know, this hot dog is on the griddle. It's a hot dog, good hot dog on the griddle. Probably a little greasy, should be a little greasy. You put some nacho cheese goop on top of that and it just isn't a good, it isn't a good feeling in the mouth.

It just isn't what you really want. And those peppers and onions, you know, I think there's an idea there where they could be a little bit. You could do them raw. You could like really crisp them up. But these were sitting for a while pretty wet. So the whole situation was pretty wet. Which is not like a hot dog word you want to use.

And you know, I got through about half of it and then the cheese started congealing and then I think the people are I was with sort of said, if you look really sad now, that was the end of hot dog time of that particular hot dog. I'm looking forward to some future hot dogs at Nats Park. I've had some really good success in the past with this taste of the major stand. So hopefully this is just a blip in the overall experience there, but this one was, this one was tough. This one was a tough one. This is my question to you guys is what's the worst food that is associated with either where you live or where you grew up?

Like what's the worst food? Because this is, I mean, this is not maybe fair because you're right. It's cheese whiz that's supposed to be the thing, but you know, at some level it's like Philadelphia equals cheese whiz. So what's, what's, what's like the worst food associated with somewhere you grew up. My, I'm in San Francisco right now and I would have to say it's rice. Now rice-a-roni is fine. I get like the kids love it. It's fine. I'm not saying that all rice is bad, but it's like rice. It's like rice in the burritos, right? San Francisco rice. And it's just like,

that's what we're known for. That that's going to be like, Oh, San Francisco rice. Is that what you feel like it is? It's it's rice. I think so. If I think about it, a lot of different cuisines that are San Francisco based, exactly. I mean, it's a very Asian city and like, I mean, it's, it's okay. I would, I would take rice over cheese was, I think we're talking, we're talking about a draft of bad foods associated or foods associated with

where you grew up. The toughest thing there is that the cheese was would have been a real clear improvement on that hot dog that I just ate. So I'm not loving the cheese was slander right now. Like a sort of like I'm pining for the cheese was instead of the nacho cheese. So I forget where you grew up, though, because I met you out here. Cleveland, mostly Cleveland. That's right. Boston.

And like, I don't know, Boston pizza is. People say it's good. It's like, there you go. It's like it's it's what is Boston pizza. Well, I would say it's just not quite right. Is what it is. Quite right. It's like that uncanny valley of pizza.

It's like close, but then you're like, man. So it's not skinny and it's not deep. Right. It's just sort of like we didn't really want to think about this too hard. Well, I mean, I think the DVR is the best answer. I mean, it's like it's probably like brats, right? Brats, cheese, fried fish. I mean, Wisconsin's cuisine is delicious. It's not good for you, but I have no complaints.

I got no complaints with that. Yeah. Beer, cheese, sausage, fried fish, all good things. Yeah, I can't really find the bad one that you're associated with. No, it's our accent that everybody thinks is ridiculous. It's a little bit, yeah. Yeah.

But lots of ground to cover with you, Niv. Not just hot dogs. We want to talk a bit about what's been happening over at Auto New. And I think the reason why this is a segment we want to put together is because we're always trying to look ahead on the waiver wire. And Auto New with the bigger rosters the keeper format especially is

usually a good way to get a sense of what redraft leagues are going to be doing next because you have opportunities to take chances a little bit in advance so who are the some of the most added players of the last seven days on autumn new I'm gonna change the question a little bit I'm looking at auctions that are live right now so when you add players in auto new you have on autumn new. I'm gonna change the question a little bit. I'm looking at auctions that are live right now. So when you add players in auto new, you have 48 hours, uh, they get nominated and everyone in your league is an opportunity to put in a bid. And so I think this is a really good way of seeing like,

where are people looking right now? These are the guys that will be the most added in the next two days. Um, Dennis Santana on the Pirates has an active auction in over one eighth of auto new leads right now. So that's a pretty popular ad right now. He's been added pretty increasingly recently. Obviously, there are bullpen issues over there, so they're sorting that out.

Probably a direct relation to David Bednar getting sent down, I guess. Jake Mangum on the, what's the raise? He's a big ad, obviously having a very great start to the season and the career. So that's pretty exciting. He's live in 39 leagues. So he's been added in a fair number already. And we're looking at like out of 400-ish. So that's a good way to look. And then I'm going down a little bit further. Andrew Benatendi, we just added him in the FanGraph staff league. He is active in about 25 leagues.

So what is that? Like a 16th of leagues right now, but he's been added in a bunch of leagues already. So that is that like a 16th of leagues right now, but he's been added in a bunch of weeks already. So that's sort of a situation where you're sort of trying to recover a mistake probably where he was available injury need or something. Yeah. But then it's an injury needs. So that's sort of a different kind of thing, but I'm really interested in Jake Mingham and how he progresses. And if he continues to hold down a slot in the

raised lineup because they know they have a lot of major league baseball players. So that's a little tricky to sort out. I mean, one nice thing about him is he's a switch hitter and that immediately makes you take notice on the raise because they can't. I mean, it's not a natural platoon, but it also means that maybe he could come out of there with, you know, an everyday job and makes contact. It's not super powerful, but he's really speedy. Um, you know, could he take DeLuca's job?

Uh, you know, could he, could you just lock down a job or could you just be the, the forever replacement for Josh Lowe while he's out and still be, you know, valuable for a month or so? Cause you know, Josh Lowe is nursing Oblique and it can take a while. With Mangum, he's just such a late bloomer. He's 29. He's one of those guys, he was a little old as a college player, lost his 2020 minor league season because everyone lost that year and then has just kind of fallen by the wayside.

You're just never going to see that guy as a prospect because of his age, but you never know. It's just the kind of thing that if the opportunity strikes does enough things well, you could stick and actually have more of a long-term role. So I think he makes sense as a pretty interesting ad. The other thing we're gonna talk to you about, I think, were the roster rates on six picks, right?

You set up a six picks group for us here at Rates and Barrels and it's been a lot of fun playing that so far. And it is, to me, it's a more fun way to play Daily Fantasy because it's a simpler salary cap game. You choose six players, shockingly, with the name, and fit under the salary cap. And you get the auto picker button that you set up for us too.

So if you're in a hurry and just need to get some names in there, you have that option as well. It really doesn't take that long. I was a little bit worried that it would take up too much of my time. But you put enough information in there. When you, when you click SP, you get, you know, handedness when you click your, the players, the offensive players, you get their handedness and they're,

they're opposing pitcher's handedness. I mean, that's how I make most of my decisions is basically handedness and park, you know, maybe some strength of schedule and you know, like honestly, I'm not thinking this one really hard. I'm not trying to model this out. I'm like, Oh, maybe, you know, he's hot, you know, Oh, Ellie's too cheap. You know, like to be a good way to root for guys that I don't have rostered anywhere that too. Yeah. So a real good opportunity, especially in the starting picture, like I feel like today I want to root for a certain starter,

and I'm going to go for it. Today I did Gavin Williams, which is my own Cleveland homer, so that's a little bit of not proving my point. But generally, it's a fun way. You were going to root for him anyway. Yeah, I was going to root for him anyway. But it's a fun way to like, oh, everyone's talking about this guy. Let me see what's the deal.

Like, let me see what's going on with them. Let me track them for a day and see what that's like. So, you know, we're going on and baseball has already started for the day. So I can look at just, we had 300 entries, 295 entries for today, which is great, a really good number. And Spencer Schwalenbach is the number one pick of 44% of people picked him. Obviously, it's like you know, starting pitching, you sort of coalesce around a good answer there.

If you see something that's both a value and, you know, fit some of the stuff that you knew was talking about ballpark and everything. That's a fun word, a fun place to go. And then, um, for position player, Tyler Sorter, Strum is, uh, 24%. He's in Colorado. You know, I did a piece today. I had to do a piece day on five numbers that matter. And he showed up, I think twice, uh, his max eggs of really, he's the only hit a ball harder than he's ever hit in the major leagues. And, uh, he's running faster.

So, I mean, I just, I just take that as like, he's healthy. He's got a job. He's in Colorado. I definitely took him. I took Gossman because he showed up on another one of my numbers. His VLO is up. He's one of the biggest VLO risers. He's up a tick and a half and he's in New York.

It's a nice park and he was only 15 bucks. So that's maybe a long process on gospel. I'm looking through and it's that's what you want to do you want to be sagging right yeah. That's a means it's a principle of of the larger dfs contest that have tens of thousands of entries even in autumn you I think you still if it's even a few hundred people you're playing against. You want leverage you want a different sort of bill that sometimes there are good chalky plays, especially on a day like Thursday, there were fewer games on Thursday, right? So you don't have as many options. You can't miss if there's a really chalky pitcher,

especially, but I was looking at the pick percentages for my lineup today. I have only one guy above 5% for pick percentage, Max Reed, my starter. Everybody else is below 5%. So if that lineup hits, there's a really good chance I'm coming up to the top of the leaderboard.

You can look at your entry now. If you track your story, you can see the percentage of picks for each of you guys. Yeah, post-lock, it's out there as a number for your lineup. Oh, nice. I was on mobile vertical. Yeah, Tyler Soder from 24%. Kevin Gossmanman 0.7%.

Am I alone? You're with one other person. Yeah, it's two people. That's what you want. Just to piggyback on that for a second, down at the bottom here, I'm looking at 0.34% picks. That's somebody who has to be alone all night. Roki Sasaki is alone, even though he is not going to pitch today. I think someone made a mistake and popped him as a relief pitcher. But then more correctly, Luis Robert, Randi Arroz Arena and Willie Adames, all, you know, 15 to $20. Probably like right on right guys, right?

So you're like, you know, they don't get the platoon advantage, but maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe that's, you know, Robin's pretty good pet. I mean, again, you can't just play handedness if you want to zag, right? Yeah, exactly. You're going to end up going. You're going to have to do some things that are a little bit. And then Dylan Cruz is down here still.

I'm sort of surprised to see Dylan Cruz with the start he's had, but hopefully he can get himself on the board. These are all like one off guys. And then, yeah, so it's a pretty fun way of looking at it and a pretty fun way of following the slate. You know, we have a lot of day games today and into the night. So the leaderboard should be active and bouncing around. So I'm excited to track along with it today.

I always like Tuesdays and Fridays as my favorite weekdays to play DFS. I just like the bigger slates. I like to have more options. I felt like that that lent itself to the the the best experience. But I do think this is a great way for us to all play together. If you have not signed up for our six picks group, you can still do that. Information is in the discord. We're going to do different prizes throughout the year.

You have sessions, right? So it's kind of like partial seasons. So if you join in late, it's okay. We're going to find ways to reward people who've been playing at various points. Putting some merch on the line here for the first session. Free hat, free hat. You know, you know what beer that's a, that's, that's sort of inspired by. Right.

Remind me hams. Oh yeah. I'm inspired by, right? Remind me, hams? Oh, yeah. I love it. I think it's just subtle enough for you. Like, I think it just feels familiar. Sending me to a couple of dive bars right now.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and it's the best. But yeah, oh, I just noticed on the schedule. So before we let you go, it looks like you get the D-backs coming to town at Nats Park this week. So I'm guessing. 100% bacon. No, chorizo, man'm guessing, no, Chorizo, man. They're going to put Chorizo on that.

So I'm not going to be able to go to the Diamondback series, but the week, the next series after that is the Dodgers. And I'm looking forward to going, seeing what the LA Dodgers inspired hot dog is. Last year, they, and this is actually an important distinction. I wonder if they're going to do the same thing. They did a hot dog that had nacho cheese on it, had jalapenos on it, but the hot dog was wrapped in bacon. And I got to tell you, crispy bacon really sorts out some of that nacho cheese goopiness, really worked out.

It was pretty tasty. You needed something crunchy. Yeah, just something to cut it, you know, because otherwise it's just- But there's nothing crunchy on a cheese steak. That's what a cheese steak- No, I something to cut it, you know, because otherwise it's just. There's nothing crunchy on a cheesesteak. That's what a cheese. They nailed it. The cheesesteak is kind of a sloppy mess.

So, you know, hopefully I'll be able to check back in with you guys after that Dodger series and we can go from there. We'll put that on the calendar because yeah, I'd love to know like how you how you cover Los Angeles in one hot dog. Yeah, I mean, especially because the Dodger dog itself is pretty boring. It's just right. And it's just a regular dog. Yeah. And that's the challenge of this thing is that you can't just be like, we're doing the hot dog of the of the weights. Boston comes to town. You're just giving us a hot dog. Yeah. Put some clam chowder on that. Yeah.

All right. Put some clam chowder on that. Yeah. Oh, no. Yeah. Oh, no. All right. Before Eno gives us any more culinary nightmares, thank you for joining us today, Niff. Thank you again for setting up our six picks group. Look forward to catching up with you again here in a couple of weeks. Thanks, guys.

It was really fun. I'll talk to you soon. Niff Shaw, senior hot dog correspondent here at Rates and Barrels and founder of Auto New. All right, now we have another brainchild of Eno's. Eno wanted to do a draft. It's kind of a late round pitchers draft based on where these guys went. So I said, we got to have some rules.

We kind of got to have some boundaries for how this draft is going to go. So Eno pulled together a list of pitchers under 50% rostered on Yahoo with fewer than 25 major league starts so it's a group of mostly prospects a few late bloomers and one player who has made the move from Japan late in his career Tomoyuki Sugano actually qualifies for our draft we got this board, 17 pitchers to choose from. I'll name them real quick. Jose Soriano, Osvaldo Bido, Ben Brown, Davis Martin, Jack Gocchanowicz, Landon Rupp, Cade Povich, Richard Fitz, Sean Burke, AJ Smith-Schauver, Hayden Wozneski, Shane Smith, Tomiuki Sugano, Will Warren, Kumar Rocker, Zevi Matthews and Max Meyer all on the board. That is actually an order of war accrued since the start of last season.

If you're wondering why I named them in that order, that was the leaderboard that I happened to put together just so we can get all the names in one place. I think the one thing you didn't tell me, Eno, is how are we being graded in this draft? Just five by five value for the rest of the season. Are we looking for major league innings? What's our goal? What are we aiming for? Ah, let's go by five by five value. I mean, the idea here is that you are looking at these pitchers on your waiver wires and just trying to decide if they are good enough to pick up and who are

the best of them. And, and it like, so often happens that they had one good start just last time out and that's enough and you pick them up and then you, then the other guy has a good start and you pick them up. So I thought prioritizing these young pitchers might be a smart idea because that's what you have to do when you're deciding who to pick up. Yeah. Especially 10, 12 team leagues. You're kind of living in that bubble where what you have looks pretty good, but what's out there looks really good too. It's the, the holding hands meme, looking back at the waiver wire and trying to make a good decision as you try and upgrade your roster. Do I have the first pick or do you?

You have the first pick. Oh, that's phenomenal. I'll put the board back up there in case you are following along on YouTube. Good names to choose from here. Hayden Wesneski sort of jumps off the page to me as the guy that I like the most I think it's Combination of the stuff. It's a slightly wider arsenal It's the success the Astros have had developing pitching in recent years the guy they sought out Via trade this offseason getting him included in that Kyle Tucker trade so he kind of looks to me like the guy that if I'm

Trying to find a difference maker who's on at least a good, if not very good team this year, was Nesky sort of ticks all the boxes for me. Whereas a lot of these guys have some skills and even some job risk. I don't know if was Nesky really has job risk. Lance McCullough juniors coming at some point, there might be a crowd in that rotation at some point, but if he continues to pitch well, uh, he'll keep his job. There's also the chance that somebody else gets hurt in that rotation at some point, but if he continues to pitch well, he'll keep his job. There's also the chance that somebody else gets hurt in that rotation and it all evens out in the end. Yeah, that's sort of what I'm looking at. It's just there's enough

injury risk baked in. Wesneski probably fine up to this point in his career. 23.2% carry, only a 7.7% walk rate. I know a lot of that has come working as a reliever, but some of those appearances were as a starter too. So it's sort of passed the baseline. Can he make it as a big league pitcher test with what we've seen so far? All right. Uh, for the second pick in the draft, I take everybody knows who I'm taking. It's Jose Soriano and I've taken him because he throws really hard.

Uh, he does not strike out a ton of batters, but he keeps the ball in the ballpark. It's a heavy sinker. And, uh, right now he sees you pitching really well. He has the best stuff plus of this group and he hasn't even thrown his splitter yet, which I'm hoping is a good sign that he's just sort of easing into the season and he'll break out the splitter. Otherwise if it's just sinker slider with the occasional four seam and curve, and curve, I think it's a wide enough arsenal.

I think Jose Sarriano is a great pitcher. Actually. I think he's a really good pitcher. I think the only risk is that this is a double Tommy John guy and he topped out at 113 innings last year so I don't know how many innings he's going to get but I'm going to bet on them being good. Yeah I think you can see a step forward in K-rate from Soriano and if you're playing one year at a time especially the injury risk while it's still there it's less of a concern than it would be like in a keeper or a dynasty setting. So I think that pick makes a lot of sense. Also passes the smell test as far as like surviving a prolonged opportunity in the

big leagues already from a skills perspective. Second pick for me. Oh, I know why you set this draft up by the way, you just wanted to have Osvaldo Bidot again. Like that's what this is all about. I don't know, there's only two of us. You go, all right, fine. Take, take another one.

Do you want B. Doe? No, I'm going to take Landon Rupp. You're taking Landon Rupp. Bup, bup, bup, bup. All right. I'm taking him because, uh, I think that he can actually feature the cutter more than he did.

He only threw them a couple of times. And I think that the pitch looked good enough to me that that means he can be a four pitch guy. Uh, the change up was spotted really well and the curve is an elite pitch. The sinker is a good pitch. I think this is kind of like the Wes Nenske. It's kind of like the Clark Schmidt. It's kind of like the Michael King.

It's a sinker sweeper type guy who is putting forward these other pitches that are going to be good enough to make it work. Also, he struck out 40% of the guys he saw. And at some point he'd struck out like six guys in a row or five guys in a row. So I know it didn't work out walk wise for him in that start. And he only went for and gave up some runs, but I think that's a tough use in line up land and rope has what it takes. He's not going to walk as many guys next time around.

Yeah, I think that that pick makes a lot of sense, kind of dovetails with a lot of things you were looking at throughout the spring. You were kind of ahead of how they were going to play out their rotation, voicing your concerns about Kyle Harrison and acknowledging how well Rupp was pitching in Arizona as well. So I'm not surprised that you wanted to grab him as one of your pitchers for this particular exercise. I'm going to take Will Warren kind of in a similar vein. I do think the job security is pretty solid because of the injury to Garrett Cole. Warren has become a little bit of a wider arsenal guy. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe the VELO is not quite what we want it to be. So I want to see where that goes the next couple times out Does get pretty good extension so maybe you can get away with slightly less velocity anyway and with that deeper pitch mix

Maybe he's not as dependent on that four seamer, so it doesn't quite matter I think Warren leads me to a broader question of you know how much are you Willing to just look right past results, especially in recent years at AAA? Right, a 590-1 ERA, 140 whip last year, but a 28% K-rate, an 8% walk rate, it was really just a home run problem that got a lot worse than we'd seen at previous stops. I mean, prior to AAA,

Will Warren did not have a home run problem. Being in Yankee Stadium, as a rookie especially, yeah, there's probably going to be some issues keeping the ball in the park, but I think the core skills here are solid and the wider mix gives me a little bit of confidence. You can get away with that V lo being less than we'd like to see. I think to some extent it's a lefty problem. That's the home run problem in the minor leagues for Will Warren.

And I think that's the walk problem so far this season He seems to be the plan seems to be right now kind of to walk lefties and get the righties out And I'm I'm still worried sort of long term about his viability, but he is in that Landon rope Clark Schmidt Michael King tree. I mean, that's, that's, uh, where he's coming from. He's, you know, got the sinker slider arm slot and he's trying to make the four seam and the change up, um, you know, round them out. The change of doesn't rate well by stuff. Plus I, you have taken two guys with below average stuff plus, and I've taken

the two guys at the top of this by stuff plus, but we all know there's more to pitching than just stuff plus. So I like the pick. I'll take AJ Smith-Schaver for my next pick. I think he's 22, throws pretty hard. Splitter looked great. I mean, this is a guy that I think has a lot of ways to continue getting better, but it's organizational trust. Atlanta does such a great job with pitching. We've seen it with guys they've acquired via trade that are, Ronaldo Lopez, we're coming back from the bullpen. But young pitching development has also

been a strength of this organization as well. Spencer Schwellenbach popped last season. I think a lot of us thought Smiths Schaver was going to get that opportunity and run with it a year ago. So there's just a lot of reasons to believe that because they didn't go out and replace Max Fried with another big free agent addition or a trade, that that Smith Schaver is someone they actually believe in as well.

Yeah, I like that pick. There was a splitter that he threw that, you know, came so far inside on Manni Machado that they exchanged glances, man. He was like, Ooh, what was that? You know? And so Schaver's like, you know, kind of got away from me. He's, he's learning to corral that splitter, but it has tons of movement. And the backbone is that four seam and that splitter, but he still has that curve.

They can split pretty well. And he's throwing a harder slider. I think there's maybe a chance that, you know, he can spin it. He has an okay feel for spin. Um, and that those breaking balls will rise to meet the rest of his pitches. I mean, he, he literally was a curve guy coming up. It was supposed to be a great pitch. So I like that one a lot.

I think he may have, uh, among the pitches pitchers that are picked today, I think he may have the best upside because you're talking about a guy who has maybe the best four seam fastball in this group. Um, and then you're pairing that splitter and maybe two good breaking balls. I there's really a lot of upside with the Asian software. I love that pick. Um, I don't know that my next pick, uh, for my third pick, I, I am just going down the list on stuff plus it looks like, but, uh, I'm going to pick Max Meyer.

And it's not just about stuff plus where he has improved. He's improved his sinker and his four seam. He's changed his slider. He's thrown it really hard. He has two sliders now and he is, uh, two fastballs. I like the big mix now, all of a sudden, even though he is 50% slider at his core, he's a slider guy. I also like the park and I know that he won't give you a lot of wins, but you

know, I think I'm going to bet on him being the best pitcher or the second best pitcher, Sandy Alcontras, you know, depending on how long he is in Florida, um, you know, the best at the end of the season, Max Meyer will be the best Miami Marlin starting pitcher. And I believe in that right now. Yeah. I mean, Max Meyer has been interesting for, for years. And I worried previously that he didn't have enough pitches to be more than a two times to the order, like five and fly sort of starter.

But I think the development of those extra offerings, that gives him the shot. And I think in Miami especially, this is a learning year for a lot of guys, right? It's a rebuilding year too. But I'll call it a learning year for starters where they can just push guys. They can say, let's problem solve it. Let's find ways to get to the lineup a third time. Let's find solutions to your problems against lefties. So I could see Max Meyer exceeding expectations.

Look what Ryan Weathers did down there last year too. I think the park is a nice safety net as far as like a home streaming environment goes as well, despite the wind concerns that you outlined. Yeah, and for my fourth pick, I'm actually having a very difficult internal debate. I have on one hand, a guy that I labeled a sleeper and have looked to, to break out the season, have tons of shares of him.

On the other hand, I am worried about Osvaldo Bidot Oakland, not Oakland in Sacramento, because, uh, that park, I was there on opening day and the ball was just flying out already and it was 48 degrees. It's going to be 98 degrees at game time at some point in Sacramento. And I am, we're a little bit worried about that. So, um, I'll leave them there. Maybe you'll leave them for me. I don't think this guy will make them back to me.

So a little bit of strategy here. I'm going to take Kade Povich and his nice wide arsenal with command. He's pushed the four seam to above average. He's got two fast balls. He's got two breaking balls. He's got two breaking balls. He's got to change up. It's the kick change. I love the kick change.

The kick changes all the riot and Cade Povich is throwing one and he doesn't have the same park concerns. He doesn't have the same wind concerns. I'm actually concerned about Oakland. I'm not sure that they have the pitching staff in general. Uh, I'm not sure they have the relief core to get to Mason Miller. And so Bido is going to lose some wins along the way in the seventh and eighth innings, I believe, whereas Kate Povich is on a pretty stellar team with a

pretty good bullpen. That's pretty deep. I'm going to take Kate Povich with my fourth pick. Yeah. Povich kind of a, a low to me guy in some ways last year just coming through with the Orioles. Didn't have a ton of prospect hype but was getting good results along the way. I liked him for deeper keeper leg formats. I don't know if he's ever going to be, you know, more than like a quality mid-rotation back end sort of guy but it's fine. It absolutely works.

I think the stuff will play up just fine and the team context is certainly a positive there as well. Am I taking two? Cause we're going to five. Am I only taking one because we're stopping at four. I get two and then you'll get your last one. Okay. I'll take Richard Fitz for one of the two, a wider arsenal and expected, right? We saw sweeper, slide or four seam curve, sink or change.

I'm here for it. They've got some injuries there already. Yeah. Kind of a low key guy. They sought out via trade, getting an opportunity. So a lot of ways he can make it work. We know Fenway is a tough place to pitch a little harder on lefties than on righties though. So I think that's going to be fine.

So I think Richard Fitz actually ends up being a more like a 14 plus team league guy for sticking on a roster. But I think we're gonna have opportunities to use him in more shallow formats as well. Boston looks really good. Looks like a team that's gonna provide plenty of run support. Yeah, that's a good pick. You know, he's 95 plus now.

I mean, he's sitting basically 96. It's not great shape on the fastball, which is why Stuff Plus doesn't love it. But a 91 Stuff Plus on the four-seam, 92 Stuff Plus on the sinker is not like terrible fastball territory. You know, that that's that can, he can make that work, especially with the Boston team that loves to pitch backwards. And he's the guy that can pitch backwards for you because he has

the secondary offerings to do so. Yeah. Um, I think this could definitely work. The last pick's actually maybe the hardest one of all, just because there's a bunch of names I like and they're all useful and interesting for different reasons. I'm worried about BDou and the A's pitching for the reasons you mentioned too. So I'm not I'm not going to go the BDou route.

He'll still be there for you if you decide you want to take him. I like Sean Burke, but I think we've seen it in the two starts already. It's going to be uneven. It's going to be steps forward with setbacks. I think it's gonna be like that for a lot of the pitchers with the white socks, even though the long-term, things are gradually headed in the right direction. I think I'm going Ben Brown here with this last pick.

We talked a lot about him during draft season. Probably the guy that has the most reliever-ish arsenal, maybe of anyone we've drafted so far, like more questions about how well he's gonna navigate the lineup a third time through because it's such a foreseen curve dominant combo, but we've seen guys come through with two really good pitches and make it work as a starter, I think the fact that he broke into the

regular season in that rotation, not having to wait for that opportunity gives you an idea of how much the Cubs value him, so despite the heavy dependence on those two pitches, I'm going to take Ben Brown with my fifth and final pick. Yeah, I don't know why, but with the Velo drop from 96 to 95, Stuff Plus says that, you know, he doesn't have a plus fastball anymore, but I would have to say, let's give it another start at least because, you know, 96 miles an hour on the fastball, basically 95, six with the strikeout rate that he showed is every bit. What we expected from him and he has a great breaking ball. And you know, for what it's worth, the breaking ball is a curve ball.

So there is a chance that it is okay. Platoon split wise, it's just going to be hard for him to get deeper into games, that smaller arsenal. Um, on the other hand was talking to Boo Shambi and he was like, this is the type of picture we haven't had a lot of here in, in Chicago. And so I do think that Chicago is excited to have kind of a nice six mile an hour guy with an 86 mile an hour power curve, like a high stuff, at least theoretically high stuff, uh, a pitcher in the rotation.

So I kind of, I kind of thought you'd take him. And so with my fifth pick, I'm going to take Osvaldo B. Doe and, uh, I'm going to take him despite the concerns about that bullpen and about that park, partially because he has three fastballs, two of which are above edge by stuff plus, but all three of which are decent V lo that he can command to an okay extent. I believe and, uh, and a good slider. Now it is a little bit of weird package because he doesn't have a, you know, multiple secondary things.

Um, but with three fastballs, I think that he can still keep batters on their, on their heels. I just need the command to take a tiny bit, step forward, pretty please. Osvaldo Bido, just a little bit. Is that a 74 location plus from it's not, not what you want, not what you want. Even in the range of like, you know, fluctuations from start to start, that feels like a pretty low, low value.

It is because now the way that stuff plus and location plus work, uh, 100 is average and 10 points is one standard deviation of D you know, off of average. And so 30 points would be three standard deviations off average. That is a real outlier. Just to give you perspective on this Hunter green, who sat 100 in his start has a one 34 stuff plus, which means he is three standard deviations above average on the stuff plus back. So, so Osvaldo B.

Doe's command is as bad as Hunter Green stuff is good. Just roster. Yeah, but, but it's one start. It's one start. It's okay. It's one start, man. I've seen, I've seen pictures like this break your heart enough times. So many times.

This is really, this is really like catnip, dude. I just keep going for it. I have it in a few places. Hunter Green himself, Hunter Green himself was the guy who was high stuff and not so great command. I trust your analysis. Love you like a brother. I have, as of all will be known, on some teams.

And I'm just like, boy, like this, this could be rough. So me not taking him with these five picks was not at all trolling you. It was just acknowledging that there is real risk there. I think of the names we didn't pick, one we should talk about on our way out the door is Sugano because he's, he's the most unique of the bunch. Since he's much older, he was a professional in Japan for a long time. When the Orioles signed him, a lot of our concern was that

it's a low strikeout rate in Japan. So when you run that into translated projections, it's going to be an even lower strikeout in major league baseball. Is there any chance? It was, but is there any chance that after, I mean, if you get a chance to watch him, like is there something that we may be missing with the model or something that could enable

him to be successful despite being more like a Michaelis or Jameson Tyon by strikeout rate? Is there enough in the arsenal for him to make it work, to induce weak contact? Is the command good enough for Sugano to be better than expected by model. The model actually doesn't hate him. I mean, 95 stuff plus is not that bad for, you know, a 35 year old who struck out that few in Japan. And what really sticks strikes out for me is listen to this sinker 85 stuff plus splitter 88 fastball 109 cutter cutter 91, slider 105, curve 102. And each of those pitches is thrown more than 11% of the time. So he literally is a six pitch pitcher with, you know, where he's, he's using them all.

It's not just like, Oh, he has a 5% pitch or whatever. These are, he's, he's throwing them all at any time. And it really will test the bond between. Do you have an elite pitch that you can go to to get strike three? Um, and did you have a wide arsenal? He has the wide arsenal very obviously does he have the pitch that he can go to for strike three? I don't know.

Um, and a 6.8% swing strike rate and a 5.6% strike rate in his first four innings, uh, does tell you that there is a considerable amount of risk there. A five 64 Sierra for Sugano 93 mile an hour fastballs, not as bad as I thought. And this stuff plus is not as bad as I thought. So I think there is a real case that, uh, Sugano is useful. And I am trying to hold on to my 15 teams where I have a share and I need pitching this one more

week see one more start from him see what happens. You're going to be careful in leagues that have innings cap because of the K rate but I think what you might see is a pitcher that beats his projection in part because the batting average on balls and play might come in a tad low you know having six pitches he actually uses means guys aren't going to square stuff up quite as often. Again, it's a little bit of a leap of faith, more of a deep league sort of play, but I could just see Sugano being better than some people anticipated by those ways. And on the same level, Kahanovic, he always struck out 18 or 19% in the minors.

Last year he struck out 9.4%. I had a discussion with a scout and a rider, you know, in front of his, uh, one of the spring starts where I said, if he strikes out 9% of the batters like he did last year, he's not a viable major league starting pitcher. Um, and they all said, you know, yo, no, he's a sinker baller, you know, like it's, you know, he's, it's going to work out. But I left the door open saying, if he does get back to sort of the 19%, there are other pitchers that are like that. Now all his projections are for 13%, but he has 19% right now. And I do think he has the ability with a 96 minute bowling ball sinker and a pretty good slider to strike out 17, 18%.

That's the guys he sees. And I think that could end up producing something similar to last year, uh, a near four ERA with like a one, two, one, two and a half, uh, whip and not great strikeouts that's where I kind of see Sugano as well. So Sugano and Kahanovic as streamers, as deep league, you know, pickups as they're still out there. I think they're a little bit underrated, a little bit low to me, you know, but, uh, but, but maybe they're going to be useful pitchers.

Kohenowicz is a 6'7", 24-year-old lefty. There's still some projection there, I would assume. Right. There's still reason to believe that he's not necessarily a finished product. And sure, we could have a debate about how likely it is the Angels are to get the maximum out of him. But nevertheless, he's not a finished product yet.

So wouldn't write off the possibility of the angels getting more than we're expecting from him as well. One more reminder, help us out with that survey if you can, the athletic.com slash athletic slash survey 25. We will drop that link in our show description again today. Thanks again to our senior hot dog correspondent, Niv Shah for joining us to bring us to the

Philly dog. I mean, I feel like I had the Philly dog myself because it brought us all the way to Nats Park. Need to go brush my teeth. Need to brush my teeth. I just, the sogginess, the wetness. I, I, I'm not an ideal texture for a hot dog. Find Eno on Blue Sky, enoceras.besky.social, imdbr.bsky.social.

That is going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Monday. Locals might find me watching Rintaro Sasaki on Saturday at, at the sunken diamond with the Stanford baseball or Sunday at the Mariners giants game. I'm going to watch little league, college, and major leagues in one weekend. There should be a name for that. Thanks for listening. Help us serve you better. Bye!