Rates & Barrels - How Quickly Will Chandler Simpson's Game-Changing Speed Make an Impact?

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Eno and DVR discuss the promotion of Chandler Simpson by the Rays and attempt to determine how his short-term outlook for playing time and long-term ceiling will come together. Plus, they dig into mailbag questions about the early struggles of Devin Williams and Emmanuel Clase, making the choice between slow-starting bats and surging waiver-wire options in shallow leagues, and where the money went (beyond Chandler Simpson) with fantasy aseball pickups from the weekend. Rundown 4:11 Chandler Simpson Gets the Call 11:24 Finding Roto Comps for a Unique Set of Skills 15:41: Other Injury News & Notes From the Weekend 24:56 A Wild Friday Afternoon at Wrigley 30:44 Struggling First Basemen v. Potential Waiver-Wire Upgrades 41:55 The Slow Starts of Devin Williams & Emmanuel Clase 51:29 Where the Money Went: Making Sense of Weekend Waiver Pickups 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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wherever you pod, we're there. ["Race and Barrel Theme"] ["Race and Barrel Theme"] Welcome to Race and Barrel, it's Monday, April 21st, Derek Van Riper, InnoCeris here with you. On this episode we have a new fastest player in the big leagues, Chandler Simpson got the call over the weekend, we'll talk about expectations for him as part of the always complicated Raze roster, get some injury updates from the weekend several mailbag questions as well

We'll dig into where the money went from a fantasy Perspective and try to decide if there's any goodness in some of the players that were dropped over the weekend to always a good exercise Further into the season we go the more interesting some of those healthy players that are dropped become You know, I gotta ask before we dig into this rundown Did you return to the Fight Club this past weekend? In a way. So our Easter celebration that we do in our household, especially with the kids getting a little bit older, there's no more Easter egg haunts.

There's no painting of the eggs. Instead, we have something along the lines of egg amalgadon. And what we do is we buy these sort of paper eggs that are filled with confetti. Have you ever seen these? No, go on. I'm intrigued. And we smash them on each other. We just absolutely go to town with throwing these things. My son, the pitcher is pegging my legs and they're just making a fabulous amount of mess in seconds. It's a crazy flurry. And then of course, it's like much more cleaning up than actual fun time. But there's some name for it like cascara on it or something.

It's like these I think it might be like a Mexican Easter thing, but it's from my wife's family side and we just, we go to town on each other. So it was a fight club of sorts. Oh yeah, I mean that sounds like a more family friendly version of the fight club, but a good fight club nonetheless. And I think most of the pagan celebrations around Easter are hilarious, because they're just, they're so random, with the random with the

obsession with eggs and bunnies. It's amazing every year each and every year and big eggs still getting theirs because my son's at that age where yeah that that's the kind of stuff we will be doing for the foreseeable future so. Oh that's right you couldn't you can't do egg eggs but you can you know the plastic eggs yeah yeah he looked for it the plastic eggs the find them all or you think there's some are still out there They need to find it a couple weeks. There may be some we were over at some family's house So maybe there could be some eggs that are just sitting out there Maybe they'll find them on Christmas when we go back. You never know Hey, what's in here looking for your beers? Yeah, yeah, we didn't do the beer one this year

That was a few years ago My parents did that for us grown up kids before any of us had kids of our own. That was how we celebrated there. And it's like this is just- You don't want the kids finding beers. No, no, we decided to cut that off once little, little kids started coming back into the fold.

We hope everybody had a good weekend though if you had some time to spend with family or friends. A quick promo note too, we are into NFL Draft Week, so be sure to check out all the great stuff we're doing this week. Diana Rusini is gonna share all the info she's hearing the day before the draft on Scoop City's YouTube channel. That's gonna be a four o'clock Eastern livestream

on Wednesday, April 23rd. Then on Thursday, the Athletic Football Show kicks off a two-night live event on night one. Robert Mays, Derek Kloss, and Dan Brueggler and Bruce Feldman break down all 32 first-round picks in real time on night two Robert, Derek and Dane return to cover all the picks from rounds two and three highly recommend that live stream check that out It's the athletic football shows 2025 live NFL draft special on their YouTube page beginning at 7.30 Eastern on Thursday and 6.30 Eastern on Friday. Alright, on to the baseball news you should know.

Chandler Simpson has been promoted by the Rays and not surprisingly he was among the most actively added players in fantasy leagues over the weekend. As Simpson goes though, didn't take long for him to use that blazing speed. Very interesting sequence actually from the official score switching was initially ruled an error on Paul Goldschmidt to a hit for Simpson which took away a Max Fried no hitter. another hit before his outing ended. So in the grand scheme of things, I don't think it mattered that much. And as upset as Michael Kay was on the Yankees broadcast, Aaron Boone after the game said, yeah, that was a hit. So I don't think there's much to see here other than blazing speed. It's also deflating in terms of like how no

hitters like they were just announcing a potential no, Max Fried, and then, oh, he lost the no-hitter a couple innings ago. It's just, I was watching it, it was weird. But I get why they might be mad, but I doubt Fried was all that mad. He ended up giving up another hit anyway later. Ended up being fine. Now, the big questions about Chandler Simpson are pretty fun.

First and foremost, how much is he going to play? Thinking about the way the raised depth chart is built, right? The corresponding move for the promotion for Chandler Simpson was that Richie Palacios went back on the IL with a knee sprain. He comes back from a finger injury, plays one game, ends up with a sprained knee. So Palacios goes back on the IL. The move that they used to get Palacios off the IL was Coco Montes going down so all they had to do is create a 60 or 40 man roster spot by putting Alex Fido on the

60 day IL to get Simpson on the roster. They let him off against the righty on Saturday dropped him to ninth on Sunday against Freed for the lefty lefty matchup but he started both games in center field and as we talked about the different options they've had, they've used Jake Mangum, they've used Cameron Meisner, Chandler Simpson has blazing top end speed and could be an everyday center fielder and the usage this weekend if he holds his own as a hitter is probably a pretty good indication of what they would like to do even after Josh Lowe gets back.

I think Josh Lowe fits much better in a corner. So if you have to kind of put the pieces together on the depth chart, you say for now, Meisner platoons in left field with Christopher Morrell. So this definitely hurts Morrell's path to an everyday role. And once Josh Lowe comes back, that might push both of those guys in the platoon into smaller roles. Someone probably goes back down to triple A once that happens.

So I think you can see the path to everyday plate appearances as long as Chandler Simpson hits. He's a fascinating player because by low strikeout rates in the minors, the scouting grade on his hit tool, it's basically if you took Jacob Wilson, the A shortstop that we talked about last week on our segment with Trevor, how I'd pitch this guy, and you give him 80 grade speed, made him a center fielder, that's Chandler Simpson. That's the player he's been so far in his professional career, which is pretty enticing

when you're talking about someone that could maybe in a full season steal 80, 90, or even 100 bases. Yeah, but do you always have the risk that they just do not have enough bat? You know? Like the hit tool's fine, the swing strike rate is fine, the K rates are fine. The hard hit rate in AAA was 16%.

We don't have hitters in the big leagues that have a 16% hard hit rate. The lowest that we have right now is Bryson Stott with 20%. And I think my comp for Chandler Simpson is actually Xavier Edwards. Xavier Edwards has a larger strikeout rate than you might expect from the comp. But in terms of hard hit rate, 23%, 23% last year, one homer and 330 play dependences last year, zero this year. That's probably good news if you're Chandler Simpson though,

because even with these poor hard hit rates, this little power that Xavier Edwards has, he's carved out a role that's based on being good defensively, putting the ball in play, and running like hell on the base pass. And if there's room for Xavier Edwards in this world, then there is room for Chandler Simpson. You'll see that the other low hard hit rates are all sort of batting average people. It's Luis Reyes, Stephen Kwan, Bryson Stott. Those are the players that at the bottom. There are also players that you worry about, you know, they're placing the league down there. Heimer Candelario is down there. Max Muncie from the Athletics is down there. You know, they may or may not make it as

hitters. So, this is not my type of player, but people have needs. People have stolen base needs. And I think that he, that Chandler Simpson is going to play because even if you are a projectionista as I am, Christopher Morrell, best projection outfield. And right now, even with some of the struggles making contact, he is an above average hitter. Josh Lowe, second best projection in that outfield. And then you have a trio, Richard Palacios, Johnny DeLuca, and Chandler Simpson, that are all actually projected for about the same production at the plate. And then you say, well, Chandler Simpson has the best glove of the group, so he's in. So now you have an outfield that most days looks like Simpson, Lowe and Morell.

And the backups are DeLuca and one more. So maybe Magnum and Miser are down back in the minor leagues when everyone's healthy and it's DeLuca and Palacios on the bench or, you know, it's any combination of those two. But you can really see that given his projections are so close to the same as Palacios and DeLuca, why not just give it to Simpson? Right, and consider that as he continues to improve in center field, he has the raw ability to become a well above average defender over time.

I don't think he's there yet. I think we'll probably see some instances where maybe his speed can bail him out as he gets more comfortable out there. But generally, I think that's the most valuable version of Chandler Simpson is one that the Rays play every day in center field, turn into an above average defender, and use them to just put a ton of pressure

on opposing defenses. Like that is well within the range of outcomes. Xavier Edwards was what a pick one fifty guy in most drafts this year. And I would say Edwards probably has a lower stolen base ceiling than Simpson. And Edwards has plenty of stolen base ceiling. So I do think as far as like your Roto comps, that's better. I know when we first talked about Chandler Simpson a few weeks ago, we said Billy Hamilton might be the Roto comps, that's better. I know when we first talked about Chandler Simpson a few weeks ago, we said Billy Hamilton

might be the Roto comp. I think Chandler Simpson makes more contact than Billy Hamilton and still, even with that low hard hit rate, probably hits the ball harder than Billy Hamilton too. Like Billy Hamilton had absolute borderline zero pop. I think Chandler Simpson has just a little bit and that might be enough too. I think Chandler Simpson has just a just a little bit and oh, that's interesting

Hamilton for most of his career had 100 to 103 max EVs and Chancellor Simpson already has a 104 6 and a 102 5 in the major league. So I think you're right on that count Yeah, so that's a pretty interesting space to live between like oh, oh, it's Xavier Edwards in terms of average, but maybe Billy Hamilton bags if everything comes together. And it's a first time big league player. Maybe they'll fill up the zone against them and say, come beat us. You know, the stuff you've seen so far is not as good. I did not spend to get him this weekend. And I think the antique case for Chandler Simpson is just if the glove is not the best of

the trio of Richie Palacios, Johnny De Luca and him that are similar in projections, if his glove is not the best of that those three then there is not a real great case to keeping up in the major leagues because then he won't be playing every day and then you'd rather he'd probably be playing every day in AAA. And so that is an outcome that I assign some likely 30% possibility, you know, there's gotta be like at least a 30% possibility, he's not the best club, Johnny DeLuca comes up, Johnny DeLuca's the center fielder, Chandler's the center fielder, and it goes down. That's definitely in the range of outcomes.

I think the window, if I had to guess like what I think it looks like in terms of how long will they try this? Probably until Josh Lowe comes off the IL. If things are not going well at that point, and that's gonna be probably the second or third week of May based on where he's at right now, Ryan Bass from the FanDuel Sports Network that covers the Rays has at least two weeks away from even starting a rehab assignment and it's been a lengthy absence So it's probably not gonna be less than a full week

Maybe even a little longer before low has his timing back So you put that timetable together that gives you an idea of like how long this experiment or this first look might actually be for Simpson Johnny DeLuca had a two to four week timeline at the beginning of this month We've not gotten an update Luca had a two to four week timeline at the beginning of this month. Uh, we've not gotten an update, so I'm going to assume it's more on the four week side and, you know, I'm reminded, I think it's Jason Collette says add two weeks. So if you give him six weeks from that original timeline, then Johnny DeLuca is due back maybe a week after Josh Lowe. So that's, that's Chandler Simpson's runway right now

is the next three weeks basically. My general argument, I'm clearly I'm a little more optimistic than you are that it will work. I have questions about how quickly he'll adjust to big league pitching. So I have questions about everybody trying to make that adjustment.

But I think the argument I would make for Simpson in the non-fab universe especially is you wanna see what happens here. Like the range of outcomes is wide enough and they span high enough, or even in a 12 team league, this is worth the pick up in most cases. If you're stacked on your bench

and you just don't have a need, I understand passing in those instances. But generally, like Chandler Simpson falls into the, this is what a bench spot is for. There's enough potential where you do wanna take that look in shallow first come first serve leagues. I just wasn't willing in the 15 team leagues to kind of, it was like 150, 200, I think the max across all leagues

was like 600. Oh, there were some big, big bids on Chandler Simpson because in the top percentile Hits right away, you know rookie the year candidate dream scenario he's a huge difference worker in two categories, maybe three and He ends up being in your lineup just about every week the rest of the year So I understand why some people did it. I didn't feel like the situation is perfect as far as him getting all that playing time that we need for it to pay off. So I didn't splash the big bids on Chandler Simpson either. And I say that

as a relative optimist about how this might go. Some other injury news from the weekend. Scary scene to start off Sunday night baseball. I was on the road when this actually happened. Luis Arias was carted off the field in Houston we'll watch the video if you're watching on YouTube tried to knock a bunt down the first base line and Mauricio Dubon in covering first kind of went through with bad footwork is the way I would describe it to receive a flip from Christian Walker right Valdez wasn't gonna get there in time so Dubon got there late and his momentum carried him over first base right into the path of Arias and Arias

got the worst of that collision I don't think it was a dirty play I think it was just an accident if you you choose to manage your feet differently, you're not going to go through at that angle. I mean, think about the way pitchers cover first base on those flips all the time. They practice that a ton in PFPs. You kind of round off your run so you don't veer into where the runner is.

For pitchers, their pitching arm would be exposed if they did that anyway, so you understand why they practice it and why they do it that way. But I just think this was one of those kind of weird things where because he got there late He was just trying to make the play He ended up thinking entirely about getting his foot on the bag and catching the ball and not about what was gonna happen After he did that. Yeah, I mean, let's watch it again real quick

I think the pitcher version of this is that he gets to the line and runs parallel to the line to the bag instead of Right across the bag. I mean, we had a play similar to this in Little League this year, and the person who got yelled at was the pitcher that was covering that went across the bag like that. You know, but you can also see that in the moment you just you just want to get that out. And it's not like we've been discussing this a lot on socials today. It's not that I put a ton of blame on. I don't think it was dirty in any case. I just don't see that there's any way you can put any blame on Luis Arias because you

run through the bag. That's what you do, especially on a close play, whatever. It doesn't even matter. You run through the bag. Everybody knows you run through the bag. There's no rule about the space after the bag belonging to the runner. There is no rule about that. I wanna be clear about that.

And you can see how he just wanted to get to the bag, so that makes sense. But the reason this doesn't happen more often is that because most people round out their run, understand that the runner's gonna be running, has this lane, is gonna be running through there. And so they either through practice or instinct round out the runs. I mean it might be a little bit easier for a pitcher, right?

Because they're running to some extent parallel to the runner at some point. So they're rounding it out. They have more time to round that out a little bit. And Dubon was coming from second base and it was kind of straight at the bag. What he should have done, quote unquote, is to kind of run to the line and then start running basically at the runner

You know like you know like she's also kind of unusual too like but you'd have to get to the line first So your momentum is not going across the line anymore And then you you sort of get the bag you start running at the runner and get the ball So that your momentum takes you past the runner That's the route that I that I think was possible that one. I don't know if that gets the out. That's the thing, that was a close play where if he didn't go straight to the bag, Arias was probably safe and everyone's saying,

why didn't he get to the bag faster, right? Different conversation and you know, like all that. Tough to be in Dubon's shoes right now and it really sucks because Arias was out out. I mean, he was out on the field. Like he had a concussion. So I'm sure he'll go into concussion protocol and I would say I would assume he's out for a week or so He gave the thumbs up on the way out. He walked into the clubhouse after the game. He will be fine

Physically, I don't think there was any mention of anything being broken and you can see it's not it's more just it's a head injury I think he will be out for a week or so at least while they put him on you can't come out of the concussion protocol Any faster than in there like a seven-day IL for the concussion so yeah, they can use that That's about the fastest. I would assume he'd be back Yeah So the good news was yeah as you said he was back in the clubhouse at the end of the game each update was very Positive but knowing that he got back even before they left the ballpark that night, I think that generally means things are going to be OK in the long run for Luis

Arias. So other injury news from the weekend, Tyler Glass now left his start early on Sunday. It was only due to lower leg cramps. He's expected to make his next start Sunday against the Pirates. He says he's dealing with that. He says it's like it's it's happening and he doesn't know why and he said he he really focused on hydrating and it still happens. So I mean Tyler Glassnow will always amaze us with new ways to find ways to be heard. And I'm here I'm here for

the ride every single time. The other thing that's interesting about glass now is just that this stuff is down I guess it was a little bit I guess it recovered a little bit in that last start because his His velocity was not quite there and even in his start yesterday was 94 for Stuff plus says it was a better. It was a better outing for him where he finally got no it doesn't what that is weird for him where he finally got, no it doesn't, what? That is weird. There is a disconnect between his stuff plus in the widget and his stuff plus on his page.

Gotta figure that one out, love that, love that. I would just say it's obvious that Tyler Glass now's stuff is a little bit reduced this year. See where it goes these next couple of outings and how effective he can be if that's where it stays going forward. We did get Wyatt Langford back from the IL this weekend so some good news there. Unfortunately Ezekiel Tovar and AJ Puck went on the IL so that's usually how it goes.

You get the Friday updates of some guys coming back then you get the Friday pregame updates of some guys going on the IL and then there was a wild, wild game between the Cubs and Diamondbacks on Friday. There was some weird stuff all weekend, actually. This was an insane weekend. I mean, the wind was blowing out, like, incredibly. And this is actually a part of the problem with trying to figure out what's going on in Steinbrenner Field

is that there is that piece by Michael Rosen that says Steinbrenner Field is the most wind effective parker, even more than Wrigley, and we saw what the wind can do in that game. I mean, it was Homer after Homer after Homer. It was everything up in the air was a Homer. Like they DFA'd half of their bullpen at the end of the game then demoted, you know, mantiply,

and like they did a full line change in the bullpen because it was just so devastating. That game was 2-1 after six and a half innings. The Cubs put up a five spot. The Cubs had a five spot in the bottom of the seventh. The Diamondbacks came back with 10 in the eighth, and the Cubs came back with six in the bottom of the inning. It's one of those games that I opened up Blue Sky

and I'm looking at these updates and like, wait, what? They had a picture of the scoreboard at Wrigley and I'm like, why are they taking a picture of it games that I opened up blue sky and I'm looking at these updates I'm like wait what they had a picture of the scoreboard at Wrigley and I'm like why are they taking a picture of it? Like that. It's just the hit this runs and hits and errors, right? There was some some damage done to the ratios in that game But yeah, you're right the diamond backs completely refreshed that bullpen And then the other thing I saw from Sunday Ellie Taylor Cruz made one of the best catches I've seen maybe ever diving Infield just absurd play homers in the third inning of that game and like that Oh, that's all he's having a day the Reds go on to drop

24 on the Orioles like what on earth happened in that game. Oh my god. Yeah, I was watching that one I mean it just got out of hands for for Charlie Morton and people are getting hits off of Charlie Morton's curveball Which is not good sign because it's his only pitch that's above average by stuff plus anymore That's something we can see from watching. It's his last pitch So if they're hitting that then I don't know where he can go. So I love Charlie Morton to death, but At 41 I'm not telling people to pick him up. It was just and then Cody Poteet came in It was like his debut for the Orioles and that didn't go well and then it was It was time for the position players. Yeah, we saw Jorge Mateo and Gary Sanchez in that game

They give a combined nine earned runs. So that's part of where the 24 came from. But I mean, jeez, it was 15 before they got to that point. I just that was one of the strangest games of the weekend. The thing I was watching around the holiday stuff on Sunday was the Brewers running all over Jeffrey Springs. They had six stolen bases in the first inning of that game. I thought that was going to be the most ridiculous thing

of the day. No, I think the Reds actually won that hat with the 24 run performance. What do you think you would do? So the Diamondbacks at least have AJ Puck and Justin Martinez when they're healthy. So they were kind of cycling through the guys to try and get to the back end of the rotation,

so that back end of their bullpen. So they have a different problem, I think, than the Cubs, which is that the Cubs maybe don't have a great closer right now. Ryan Presley's stuff fluts down to 91, and it's pretty obvious when you watch him that he's nibbling and he's afraid to use anything but his curve ball, and even his curve ball curveballs down Nate Pearson always has the great stuff numbers

But again poor results, you know tied to those stuff less numbers He it may be just be really bad command. That's that's holding him back Brad Keller's been resurgent and I like him But I don't know if he's my closer and then then Porter Hodge, who is my closer of the future there has just been struggling. Maybe just Porter Hodge needs a little time to figure it out and play to his 319 Sierra and his 372 projection and he's the closer,

but he wouldn't be a top end closer. And that's too bad, because this is Cubs team's pretty, like the offense is great right now. So if you, and I know you don't want to do this, but if you were running the Cubs team's pretty, like the offense is great right now. So if you, and I know you don't wanna do this, but if you were running the Cubs, what would you do about that bullpen? Hey look, I'm loyal to an extent when it comes to my rooting interests,

and just so it's out there, if I were asked to run the Cubs, I think I'd have to accept, so I'm'm just gonna say I don't think that's gonna happen but I don't have a park named after me that they can write on the sign for if I do it whatever else they wrote on there so I guess I got that going for me but what I would do I'd be trying to make moves now I we talked about them as Sandy Alcantara hopefuls with the Justin Steele injury. Get some relievers back in that trade too, right?

The Marlins at least have some nice bullpen arms you could add to it. I thought Brad Keller looked nasty when I saw him last week for the first time as a Cub. I thought maybe he is a high leverage guy for them. Even if we think Hodge turns it around, it's fine. Presley's problems are well documented. I mean, he's getting hit in the zone more than ever.

94.1% zone contact rate. It's only a matter of time before the wheels really fall off on him, at least in his current form. So I think you have to start making moves sooner than you wanted to if you're in Jed Hoyer's shoes right now because your team is definitely good enough to be a contender.

You should be the favorites in the division. Your lineup is dangerous. Don't go through this again where your bullpen is the reason or a main reason why your season turns into a disappointment. I think you're deep leaguers out there. I think you should pick up Brad Keller. I think he might be worth the stash. I think you're right. We're talking about a guy now who has two breaking balls that are over 85 miles

an hour, although we're hearing now from within the game that 86 is the new magic number. Still 85.9 on the sweeper, 87 for his gyro slider. So he has two sliders over the magic number and his fore seam is now up to 96.9 and all of them have decent shapes and just to have a five pitch closer like you I mean, rice over glaciers see a little bit you know like he doesn't have the 99s like the very top closers but maybe he could you know surprise some people and just end up being the best reliever and therefore the closer at some point so I don't know that he's like a 10 or 12 teamer yet unless it saves and holds but he might have some SP eligibility in some leagues and you

know might be might be time to pick him up in SP eligible holds leagues. I have one of those I'm going to go pick him up if he's there. A little bit of sparky goodness there for you yeah give. Give that a shot. Brian Bayo's back for the Red Sox on Tuesday. I think they're in action as we record here because it's Patriots Day, so that early, early start that sneaks up on you every single year, even though you know exactly when it's gonna be,

yet again, probably lock some lineups on some folks out there. I missed six picks this morning because of it, so there's always a cost, every time. Yeah, I've been trying to do six picks the night before, and then maybe checking the next day to make sure that everyone's actually playing because, like picking a catcher the night before is not always easy. You kind of have to like sometimes look at what they're playing schedules and stuff, you know what I mean?

Like, because catchers always just get a day off at some point. And if you figured out how to pick relievers in pick six, tell me, cause I'm like, I think they'll win this game. It's very hard. It is, I just keep mostly stacking them with my starting pitcher. I'm like, okay, didn't work yesterday. That's usually one of my criteria.

Did you throw yesterday? No, then you're probably up today. Oh, right, right, okay. I thought you were saying my strategy didn't work yesterday and I'm gonna keep up today. Oh, right, right, okay. I thought you were saying my strategy didn't work yesterday but I'm gonna keep doing it. No, no, no, no. No, I just think the latter, like having the continuity,

like say, okay, I expect this starting pitcher to pitch well and then get to the A bullpen and then because this guy's in the A bullpen, he'll get work and preserve the win and maybe I'll get the win plus a save. Yeah, I do usually make sure they didn't pitch yesterday. The teams are trying to avoid back-to-backs. And if they've done two in a row,

then their back-to-back-to-backs are fully out. Yeah, especially early in the year. Maybe you get a little bit of that later on. You get a couple of those more in preparation for the postseason or something, but I don't think you're gonna see a lot of those in April. Let's get to a few mailbag questions here. First one's from NMorris98.

With the emergence of so many first basemen early on in the season, what do you do if you drafted one of the struggling first basemen? Christian Walker, Vinnie Pasquentino, Tristan Casas, and Cody Bellinger are a few guys with higher draft capital who have gotten off to slow starts. Would you drop any of them for the likes of Tyler Soderstrom, Ben Rice, Spencer Torkelson, or the Jonathan Aranda's of the world? A lot of the names that we were talking about throughout last week.

Is it actionable if you have some of those more established veterans that are underperforming in the early weeks? This is why we have the auction calculator and projections, I think, because we have to rein ourselves in. Now, I do want to say that I am not such a projections lover that I will take a 10 cent advantage and say, oh, that guy is definitely better than this. And so the name that I'm circling here is Tyler Soderstrom because his rest of season projections are already for the 15th best first baseman.

And there are guys ahead of them that aren't going to be played at first base. You have Salvador Perez always going to be played at catcher. Jake Berger is probably going to be played at third. Cody Ballinger can be played in the outfield. So you've got Sire Sotastrom basically making his case as a top 12 first baseman. And the value that the calculator spits out if you use the bat X is within a dollar of Pascuantino and Codyllinger for being the best in this group. And so Walker still has the very best projection. And so I think you just got to stick with Walker.

But if you're looking at Pascontino and you're looking at his projections and what he's done so far and you're looking at Soderstrom, you can say, well, the projections are so close and Pascontino, you know, while he is making contact, it's a little bit less than he was before. He's hitting more fly balls, but his barrel rate hasn't increased. His max. EV isn't where it was last year. Maybe he just isn't going to add that next level of power and maybe he'll just end up being a 250 18 guy this year, which Tyler Sturlus will beat that.

And I think that you use projections to group them and then you can make decisions on your gut based on that. But if you just fall into love with Ben Rice and forget that John Carlos Stanton still could come back and that Ben Rice still could go into a funk and that Ben Rice still has options. Then you don't bake all that risk in the way that projections can do for you. And the projections say, oh no, no, Ben Rice is like a $3 player

the rest of the season with all this stuff baked in. Soto's team's an $11 player. And Pascantino's a $12 player. But if you're looking at 11 versus 12 You know like hey, do you think the projections are that precise? No? I don't think the projections are that precise They just do a better job of sort of summing up all the different risks and putting them together Yeah, I think it's interesting I just ran 12 teams on the auction calculator the bad ex rest of season filtered down to first base

and I made sure it was two catchers corner middle all the stuff that I have for most of my leagues. And there are nine first basemen, when I searched that way, that come up as double-digit values for the rest of the season. It's Vlad Jr., Harper, Alonzo, Sal, if you count him as the first baseman, Matt Olson, Freddie Freeman, Yandy Diaz, always pops in projections, Christian Walker, and Josh Naylor. Walker's still there. Yeah. Yeah. And there's that little cliff. And you get down to Berger, Goldschmidt,

Pasquentino, and Bellinger. They're all between mid-sevens and like $9. So they're very close together. They're corner infielders in this format. They're no longer first baseman, yeah. Yeah, so Soderstrom's close enough to that where I can easily see Soderstrom as being an upgrade over anybody in that group.

If you wanna tell yourself that story, we talked about the reasons we liked Soderstrom going into the year. I think the reminder I'd have is that for players that get drafted after the top 150 or so, like round 10 or later in a 15 teamer, those guys compared to guys that go even after pick 250, that's a smaller gap than we perceive it to be on draft day. The player pool flattens out. And then once you start getting new data, you start to see that last year's breakout for Soderstrom looks like it's going to be a little bit more difficult. So I think that's a smaller gap than we perceive it to be on draft day the player pool flattens out and Then once you start getting new data you start to see that last year's break up for Soderstrom looks very real in the early going

You could start to nudge up round him up a little bit So he's still to me the standout of that bunch I think the other player that I mentioned that wasn't part of the question is Jake Berger like I'm I'm not sure what I make of Jake Berger. We've talked about him a handful of times in the show over the years. I think he was a great story, popping a couple years ago for the White Sox,

putting up some good power numbers last year after a slow start in Miami. And I thought, you know, the Rangers are pretty well run team. Like they have a reason for going to get him. Maybe there's a year or two of good production there before he kind of enters that traditional corner infielder with power and limited defensive value,

getting non-tendered portion of his career. All of that stuff could still be true, but the gap between Berger and even Spencer Torkelson right now to me, like that's a would you rather. Like that's a fair toss up sort of question. If you've got Berger on your roster and Torkelson sort of question if you if you've got burger on your roster and Torkelson's on the wire or you've got both and you got to decide which one to cut to go get something else I think you can at least make a case that burgers the better cut of the two

Yeah, I mean, I think that some of the leap forward for Jake burger was about what he was swinging at and when he was being aggressive and when he wasn't. One thing that was constant, even as Jake Berger cut his strikeout rate, was that his swing strike rate was high. And now he's got a strikeout rate that's more commensurate with that swing strike rate. And I also think that if you're changing,

if you're having like a little mini breakout based on where you're swinging or strategy like that, I feel like the lead can adjust back to you. You know, oh, he's no longer swinging here. We have to pitch here, that sort of thing. Or we have to we have to fool him with this instead of that. The swing strike rate seems like an underlying indicator of strong signal that he does not make contact well.

And so with the 30% strikeout rate this year you might say okay that's his true talent. He's a 30% strikeout rate guy and that changes your batting average projection. Now the bat X and oopsie say well he still makes really hard contact so we're gonna give him better babibs but you know you could look at steamer and say this is the worst-case scenario for Berger 236, 22 more homers. And I liked one thing that you said, you know, you can kind of shop the projections a little bit and just look at the worst projections and

the best projections and treat that as a range of outcomes, you know, and if the worst projection for burger is 230, 22, and you think that's the trajectory he's on and the best projection for rice is better than that, then maybe you make that move. Again, this is more of a 10 and 12 team situation where he's the worst person on your roster, you got him in the eighth or ninth round, you're debating him against a free agent,

don't think a two more, don't, it's a sunk cost, don't think too much about draft cost. Just think, what are the best case scenarios and the worst case scenarios for these two players? Do I need to hop on to the best case scenario for somebody that you know ahead of the season we didn't have in the same in the same grouping? It's tough to do but I think that's that's where I'm at with that group especially and I think yeah shopping the different projections like as a range of outcomes is probably the the easiest way to help quantify

a decision. Know if it's close or not. If low projection for one guy and high projection for the other are similar, then you're not wrong for asking the question. If there's a gap there, then you're probably you're probably getting a pretty clear answer from the numbers even as they'll start to move a bit in season. Thanks a lot for that question. And Morris, let's get to this one.

Breaking news, breaking news. Did, did, did, did, did, did, did, did, did. Breaking news, breaking news. Guardians designate Tristan McKenzie for assignment. It's not the way I thought that'd play out in the long run. I think this time last year, I liked him as still a possible contributor in the rotation. I thought part of the reasoning was

most the time we'd seen him healthy in the big leagues he pitched really well. I mean look at that 2022 season a 296 ERA a 0.95 whip that's over 30 starts 191 and a third innings he just hasn't had good health in the years since didn't click with the move into the bullpen this year. Strikeout rate wasn't good, walk rate went up. I have to imagine there will be teams interested in a minor trade or a waiver claim in McKenzie, but a lot of the struggle does seem to be tied up with injuries.

Oh yeah, I mean, like the White Sox will claim him for sure. Right, yes, he'll start for the White Sox. Yeah, the thing that's been difficult for me, and I did circle his name a little bit this year because of the out of options game that we've been playing, but again, got burnt by the out of options game because the other thing that can happen

is they can just DFA you. So I thought maybe going to the bullpen would work for him. The salient sort of struggle, I think, that the problem for him has been not enough VLO when he commands it, not enough command when he VLOs it. I mean, right now, his location plus, impossibly small sample, but it's an impossible number. 58. I've never seen a location plus that low. And it's the best VLO of his career.

And we've seen a little bit of this yo-yoing around. The first time he came up, you know, he didn't quite have the VELO, and then he got a little bit of a VELO bump, and he had his best season in 2022, Tristan McKenzie did, when he had a 92.7, it was his best seasonal fastball velocity as a starter, and he had a 2.96 ERA, and that had his one shining moment,

but the next year he came back and the VELO was gone and the location was gone and he has not gotten it back. So I do think it has something to do with with injury and maybe just trying to live too close to his maximum. Pretty high arm angle guy to 52 degrees back when it was all working in 2022. He's a little higher than that the last two seasons down to like a 49 degree angle. I just wonder if there's going to be more of a full mechanical rebuild with Tristan McKenzie at his next major league stop.

We'll see where it is. I'm sure we'll get some kind of update in the next four without the options. That is the part that makes it difficult. It has to be one of these teams that can make these make these adjustments in the big leagues or maybe a Phantom IL where you give them some time to figure it out. Yeah, we'll see how it plays out. It certainly could be interesting with the right sorts of adjustments, but you're right.

The combination of top-end velocity and command are just not present at the same time. That's been a huge part of the struggle for Tristan McKenzie. Got a question here from jhamilt7, wanting to know what's behind, if anything, the slow starts for Devin Williams and Emmanuel Classe this year? It's been bumpy. Part of the wild series between the Yankees and Rays was Devin Williams not pitching well on Saturday. It's not the first time either.

He's looked gettable in multiple outings even in the opener against the Brewers. He had a lot of traffic, had kind of a wobbly blown save or wobbly save in that debut. What do you think is going on here? I mean, I saw the VELO was down for Devin Williams. That was the first thing I noticed just looking at him maybe a week or so ago is that he was not, was not sitting at the same velocity with the fastball that we're accustomed to and that seems problematic because for a reliever, he lives kinda closer

to that shelf anyway, right? Last year he was averaging 94.7 on the four seamer, he's down to 93.6. He's pushed the use of that change up to 57% again. He's done that before. We've seen him use as much as 63.8 percent and get great results But is it just losing that little tick of V lo that's hurting Devin Williams or is there more happening here?

you know sometimes you see this massive change in stuff plus and you try to find the underlying problem and You're like you realize that Stuff plus is just was amalgamation of a lot of different interactions and it's really hard to just point at one thing. Because if you actually look at it, Stuff Floss has his fastball is about the same as it's ever been. It's the changeup that's really hurt.

But the way the changeups work is that they interlock with the fastball. So what I would guess is this, his forcing, Devon Williams forcing fastballs down a tick His changeup is up up a little bit. So the interaction between the two is Down, you know I mean like the difference in V lo between the two is down because otherwise in terms of shape the changeup You know not breaking as much of, but just by like a half inch. I can't imagine that.

And, and a little bit more horizontal by an inch. That could be part of it. The shape's a little bit different, a little bit more sideways than before. But I think mostly it's the difference between the two means that A, the hitter can wait a little bit longer to make his decision because he's got a mile an hour, less of four, same stops of all the velocity to deal with and then B if he is fooled the Velo differential is closer so he might still make contact maybe it's just to foul that change up off you know as opposed to to swing through it so it is

a delicate balance he still does come out as above average by stuff plus because the change up is still good And he still does throw pretty hard and I don't think he's as bad as he's been right now some of this has to do with command too because It's got a 17% walk rate. So I think he'll right ship and be fine But you can see that there are definitely warning signs and the other problem is that Luke Weaver is pretty good And I feel like Luke Weaver has to be a must-own right now The least in deeper leagues Weaver got scooped up in a lot of leagues

We'll talk about that in just a few minutes and where the money went I mean Williams had reeled off a stretch of four scoreless outings prior to the bump in the road Saturday Against the race so it kind kinda looked like he was settling in after a bumpy start. Some of this could just be small sample theater. It doesn't take much for a reliever to look a little bit off, but yeah, it's not quite the top shelf stuff we're accustomed to from Devin Williams so far,

and at least the door, it's more open than I thought it would be in April for Weaver to get some saves or possibly take the job away at some point. All it takes is a three or four week stretch where Devin Williams starts to look more like himself, to get some saves or possibly take the job away at some point. All it takes is a three or four week stretch where Devin Williams starts to look more like himself and that conversation ends really quickly. I would say the same is probably true about Emmanuel Classe. You see just this-

Well, there's actually no difference in stuff though. There is something to point out with Williams. With Classe, there's nothing really. The VELO's down a little bit, but it's still at ridiculous levels. He went from 99.5 on the cutter to 98.9. Okay, that shouldn't really cause you to fall apart. 91 on the slider last year to 89.5. Again, it's still an 89.5 slider.

Mix is kinda similar. His swing strike rate is fine. Like his stuff plus is fine. What I see is a 487 bavarip. And I think that, yes, he allows more contact than your typical closer. And so this can happen, but it's not something that's gonna happen all year.

487 Babov's not gonna happen all year. So he'll be fine. Now, I think the biggest risk with Klasay actually is that Kate Smith is so good that they could trade him. So I could see Klasasse being traded at the deadline, but that's something to worry about later on. So I think Classe keeps his job and he's fine. The other thing I would say is if a team trades

for Emmanuel Classe, they're probably using him as their closer, so you're still getting saves. The other part of the question was, when you have struggling elite relievers like this, do you just keep running them out there leave them in the lineup week in And week out you don't you don't try to play the game like I'll give them a week off Make sure they give throw up a couple zeros and then put them back in like because you could do that You could miss out on two or three saves pretty easily

Yeah, the only people I do that with are these ones that we don't know that they're closer yet You know, I don't know what to do with willest and Tony Santillan and Anthony Bender right now. Those guys I might put on my bench just to be like, maybe next week I'll know whether they're closer or not. I don't wanna risk them giving me a blow up and no saves. Yeah. Like Williams could give you a blow up and then give you a save.

There's another question that came in with this one that I think is kind of interesting and I agree with the general lean of it. Basically asking for our thoughts on the strategy of going starter heavy with lineups early in the year and then adding save sources later on in the season. So if you've got nine pitching slots, you can use whatever you want. Maybe going seven or eight starters and only one or two relievers and initially going more aggressive with streaming and then eventually as the league changes,

you get a better read on committees, you start to push more relievers out later in the season or maybe around the trade deadline when some jobs change hands, that's when you scoop up some new closers and tilt the lineup to be more heavily relievers and make up some ground in the saves category later. I have no problem with that strategy because part of the appeal of it is that it's easier, generally speaking, to stream at the beginning of the season when hitters start off a little behind,

less of a concern now than at the very, very beginning of the season, but also when the weather's cooler and the ball doesn't fly quite as much, right? The environment becomes more hitter-friendly over the course of the season anyway, so you can get more innings in, ideally with lower ratios, now and then make that adjustment later. I am 1000% in on the strategy, except there is a flaw in it that makes me wonder if it's

a fatal flaw. And this is that flaw. You have less information about those streamers now than you do over the course of a year. And so you can put Chris Paddock in for a two-step, thinking that's a good idea, and just get blown out of the water. Anybody here put Easton Lucas in for that 14 run two-step? Yeah, it was a rough one. Anybody here put Easton Lucas in for that 14 run two step?

Yeah, it was a rough one. And we've tried to build tools that help us make decisions about pitchers faster, but starting pitching is, it's not just adding up the stuff plus numbers, you know? And Easton Lucas looked like he had a league average fastball and a league average slider slightly better than that and an okay change up. There are pitchers that have those exact, I can describe them the exact same way that are good.

Isn't that boobish to some extent? So I would say just be careful. I don't know. It is theoretically a good strategy. You just have to get it right. Yeah. Any strategy can work with the right players, right? That's the old Gene McCaffrey lines. That's true. Yes. If you have the right players, just about anything can work. I would say one thing you can do to kind of do this is in 15 team leagues or whatever,

or just any league just have most of your bench be starting pitching early on in the season. And what you can do then is you have more rosterable quality pitchers that you can choose from and then you can make then you can be like well these are not streamers these are rosterable quality pitchers but I'm gonna take this two starter over this one starter every time I can because I'm not streaming I'm using my own players and then as people get hurt replace them with relievers, you know That's that's sort of a safer version of this because streaming can can really knock your socks off some weeks

It could be expensive to depending on how aggressive the rest of the league is It could be expensive too depending on how aggressive the rest of the league is Let's get to where the money went here in this we'll call it Chandler Simpson week You mentioned some of the bids in the online championship the 12 team leagues the NFB see the top bid was a 699 out of a thousand for Chandler Simpson as we said earlier even if you like them that is Really really aggressive min bid was 36 You're feeling pretty good if you got Chandler Simpson at really, really aggressive. Min bid was 36. You're feeling pretty good if you got Chandler Simpson at 36, even in a league that size. I put in some make good bids just in case I rocked away with them. I had them around 50.

I'll take them for 50 bucks. Another position player that was a big time ad, Caleb Durbin, who's basically going to get a run to be the regular third baseman for the Brewers. Oliver Dunn got sent down. Durbin's to be the regular third baseman for the Brewers. Oliver Dunn got sent down. Durbin's not your prototypical third baseman. I think the comp I made was a younger John Bertie back when they made that trade. He's built a little different than Bertie

and probably could get to a little more power, but we're still not talking about a difference maker in that category. We're just talking about someone that maybe does what a typical second baseman does, but does it with third base eligibility. I think that's sort of my mid range expectation for Durbin as he gets this look in Milwaukee.

I actually put some decent numbers down, some 77s and stuff, because I thought given the personnel that they have, maybe it gets solved by the trade deadline, you know, an acquisition of some sort. But I don't really love the rest of the options at third base. have. Maybe it gets solved by the trade deadline, you know, an acquisition of some sort. But I don't really love the rest of the options at third base. You know, they kind of went through, done Vinny Capra's there. Like the corresponding move is always telling us something and it's that they chose Durbin over the other third baseman. So I think it gets a shot at it'll be the lowest powered infield in the big leagues. I feel like be good defenders all run well.

This is a Milwaukee Brewer type of you know what do you do with the the spots you can't spend money on and you you don't have great options to get a great defender who runs well. That's what they do. If you can't get power, that's the next thing you can do. I thought Durbin was worth the money. Augustin Ramirez got called up and got some decent bids in some places, mostly in two catcher leagues. Again, it's a little bit like Durbin where I think the player has some flaws, Augustin Ramirez, and I think he could be like a 230 hitter who hates 18 homers over the course of the season like half the other catchers in the big leagues. But the other options in

Miami have not been exciting for a long time. As much as Nick Fortes has interesting bat speed, he has not turned it into anything on the field. And so Ramirez could just take this job and run with it. And he has a little bit of speed so I think he's probably worth You know picking up in two catcher leagues Yeah I saw a couple other position players frequently added counter Norby in 12 theme leagues coming off the IL that made a lot of sense 127 was the max some people got him for a buck so not a bad pick up there He should play a lot for that Marlins team

I think we talked about him as a sleeper that we liked a little bit at third base Someone you get after picked 200 during draft season before that injury delayed his start to 2025. Luke Weaver, we mentioned earlier, got picked up even in some 12-team leagues for as much as $201. I get speculating in bullpens where the closer is wobbling, but that is more than you want to spend in that situation where you do not have the certainty of the role.

Like that is a big cash outlay to try and get some saves in a situation where even though the door's open right now, it could be shut quickly if Devin Williams rounds into form. So I thought that was a little bit of a risky high end sort of bid. How about Mickey Moniac getting added in some leagues? It's interesting because we talk about the Rockies a risky high end sort of bid. How about Mickey Moniac getting added in some leagues? It's interesting because we talk about the Rockies often doing things that we wouldn't

necessarily do ourselves if we were calling the shots. Moniac in the small sample this year is striking out less than ever. He is still chasing a lot but he's chasing less than a year ago down to a 40.7% K rate. Best hard hit rate of his career, 47.5%. That's with a barrel rate that's pretty much in line with what he did two years ago in 2023. So I'm curious if you looked at Mickey Moniac at least in 15 team leagues as somebody

that you were interested in based on the usage in Colorado. Yeah, I think he's a pretty awesome, like six outfielder that you have on your bench that you're going to use in half weeks. You know, in these weekly lineups, a lot of times you have the ability to play somebody for the weekend, you know, or for the beginning of the week. And so I feel like Moniak is somebody that we picked up just for, to be a streamer for one week in our main event. And I think we're going to hold him. We're going to hold him and use him half the time. And I think that'll be the best way to get something out of him because he

still has got a 19% swing strike rate. So he's not going to strike out 20% of the time going forward. He's going to, he's going to go back to whiffing, but his babbups should be good in Colorado. It may just suit him well to have a fastball approach. He may just be well suited to this sort of situation. And so, yeah, I tried to get Moniac. I debated Moniac against Alan Rodin

and ended up picking up Rodin in some spots. It's a little bit risky because I guess Dalton Varshow is going out on rehabilitation right now. And we don't know exactly what will happen when Dalton Varsho comes back. But at the same time, I think Alan Rodin has been taking really professional at-bats. And you look at the swing strike rate, you look at the strikeout rate, he's put some balls in play, 33, 32% hard hit.

I think there's a chance he sticks because you could still have a Varsho Santander Springer Rodin Grouping for the outfield and even if you keep straw around I think you could still do that with DH So I think Rodin might stick that was my little spiel for you know Acquiring Rodin and 15 teamers. Otherwise on my first place TGFEI team I did splurge. I just thought this would be worth pointing out. I did not like Jonathan India going into the season and part of it was I just, you've heard it from me a lot of times before, which is I just have a bias against people who don't hit the

ball that hard. He hits the ball okay hard, but it's worse now. And I don't see many indicators where I'm like, oh, I'm super excited about this other than he's still even as bad as he's had, he's been, has a 311 OBP and he's still going to be in the lineup as much as they can get him because they need that OBP. And he's still walking and not striking out. And if the bat speed comes around a little bit he'll be better. The other thing is in a 15-team league he's second brace and third base eligible he's like a really ideal bench piece. You know, UTIL, CIMI, wherever, put him in somewhere and he'll get you through some

rough spots. So I spent 106 bucks to get a player I didn't like. Do as I say, not as I do. Yeah. That's what that one felt like. It's more like reevaluate and be like, there's always a price for a player, even if you don't like him. Like you don't like him in the draft,

don't just forget about him. Right, well yeah, you didn't like him at pick 200 or pick 225 but maybe if he was there 100 picks later you would have drafted him as a bench player and you would have been holding him this whole time and I do think I have a hard time putting a fab price on players that should be rostered not to say this describes Jonathan India but sometimes we get questions in our discord about players that I just wouldn't expect to see on the wire and it's well how much should I bid on,

I don't know, let's just say, well, even Joey Ortiz, right? Like I would've been- Yeah, he was out there. You were asking me about that, and you're like, what do you think, man? Like, it's a tough call. How much does everyone like him right now?

The higher up you go in the rankings, when a player comes available that shouldn't be available, I think it's harder to decide what that number should be, because you're kind of playing a game of chicken with the rest of the league. that shouldn't be available, I think it's harder to decide what that number should be because you're kind of playing a game of chicken with the rest of the league. You all know the number should be bigger than what you're willing to spend, so how much can you shave off that number and still come away with the player that you want that makes your team better? I lost that game of chicken in my other league in bar four. I needed some upside and maybe I should have put more money on them. I put $56 on joy RT's and I lost him 76 to 56 which hurt because

then I put money on Caleb Durbin and lost him 68 to 55 or something so I lost out on both the upside infielders that I wanted and ended up with Gabriel Arias 26 to 21 which is like, you nailed the market price. You didn't go over by much, but you got the worst player. So it reminds me a little bit of what Friedman used to say, which is if you're sober on every free agent, you don't win any of them. So you have to decide. Yeah, you have to decide at some point in this league where I really needed upside and I did a line change on this team

That's in last place. I got Gabriel Arias for Brandon Rogers Luke Weaver for Justin Slayton Mickey Moniac for Brian Dilla Cruz Randy Vasquez for Landon Nack and Alan Roden for Brandon Marsh Given how many needs I had to get all that for less than a hundred bucks Maybe that was the right way to do it. But that's how I play is generally maybe a little bit too restrained. It's hard to say because a lot of times those best options in fab still aren't that much better than the fallback ones. It's a gamble every week. It's because the playing time is usually flimsy or the skills are flawed and we just don't know what circumstances are going to change quickly enough for a team to get on board

and just let a player stick and let a player have that chance. Caleb Durbin is a great example of this. If Caleb Durbin just plays to his projection that might be good enough for Durbin to just be a near everyday player for the rest of the season. And then he ends up being a pretty good fab pickup. If Durbin goes into enough of a slump where they play the game again and bring Dunn back and go back to platooning, then it's just wasted money because you have a zero that you have to cut, right? And it's so hard to know because I small sample size

evaluations are as tough as anything we do in baseball. Yeah I mean like for Durbin a 30% hard hit and a 105 max dvd there's probably a wide range of outcomes for that including those that are not major league viable. Right but if he occasionally runs into a homer gets on base at a 315 320 clip plays good defense and runs as effectively as he has in the upper levels of the minors great that's gonna work they're gonna be happy with that. That's like a regular yeah. Always fun trying to dig through the fab let us know if you got questions for a future episode you can join our discord with the link in the show description if I had to guess it's gonna be on Tuesday's rundown probably a little conversation about Andrew Abbott who continues to be funnel us

We've dug into him before and came away with no real answers Maybe we'll try again tomorrow since he was a popular pickup. I even asked him. How do you do it? And he said I don't know I don't know. That's right. Fuck, I don't know, man. I don't either, man. His Velo's down, it's down. He's going into Colorado this week, and people were still picking him up anyway.

And I'm like, you're picking him up for later, but are you gonna feel better about using him? Even if it doesn't go well in Colorado, you know it. And then he might just go out there and throw up zeros in Colorado, and just be like, I don't know anything. On your bench, you'll be like, oh, of course I couldn up zeros in Colorado and just be like I don't know anything about your bench Oh, I like course. I couldn't start We'll dig into some of the early park factors as well

I think we got some numbers now in Steinbrenner Field and Sutter Health Park So we'll get into those on Tuesday show as well, but send us questions in the discord You can find us on blue sky You know is you know Sarah's that beast got it social and DVR that beast got it social Thanks to our producer the legendary, for putting this episode together. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening.