Rates & Barrels - Justin Verlander's Next Chapter & Gavin Lux to the Reds

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

Eno and DVR discuss Justin Verlander's fit with the Giants -- including the potential adjustments he could make to try and rebound from a down year in 2024. Plus, they look at Gavin Lux's outlook and ceiling following a trade to Cincinnati, a five-year extension for Brent Rooker, and mailbag questions about year-to-year inning projections and Blake Snell's case for 'Best Pitcher of the Decade' so far (2020-2024). Rundown 1:16 Justin Verlander's Next (And Final?) Chapter in San Francisco 9:29 How Good Is The Giants' Pitching Staff? 16:37 Gavin Lux's Ceiling & Fit in Cincinnati 21:12 Making Sense of the Reds' Depth Chart 28:06 Brent Rooker Gets Extension with A's 33:50 Other News & Notes 48:36 Projecting Year-to-Year Innings Workloads 1:00:37 Blake Snell: The Best Starting Pitcher of This Decade? 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

Hey everyone, it's Robert Mays. The NFL playoffs are here, and we've got you covered on the Athletic Football Show. For wild card weekend all the way through Super Bowl 59, my co-host Derek Klassen and I will guide you through every game, matchup, and big time performance on the way to one team lifting the Lombardi Trophy in New Orleans. Catch the Athletic Football Show wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Friday, January 10th, Derek Van Riper, you know, Saris here with you on this episode. We catch you up on some baseball news from the week. We have Justin Verlander starting another chapter, perhaps the final chapter of his

big league career after signing in San Francisco. We had movement on the Gavin Lux front. We'll talk about his fit after a trade to Cincinnati. Brett Rooker, friend of the program program got a contract extension with the A's. So congrats to Brett. We'll talk about the implications of that and his long term outlook on the heels of a five year deal with the athletics. Got a few other moves we'll get to and a couple more mailbag questions, including one that

suggests that Blake Snell might be the best picture of this decade so far. So tons of ground to cover on this Friday and be sure to join our Discord with the link in the show description if you haven't done that already. It's a great place to hash out some of the arguments that arise over the course of our episodes. Let's begin with the Giants. You know, this came up a little bit on our episode on Thursday with Trevor Justin Verlander maybe having to make some more adjustments. The late late stage adjustments has signed a one-year deal with the Giants from a fantasy perspective. It's one of the safer places he could have signed because you can pretty easily look at those home starts

and say hey deeper leagues I want that that part of the appeal here, too, is that Verlander stuff still looked good in the model. And as you started to outline on our Thursday episode, a few adjustments could actually go a long way. He might be able to rebound not all the way back to the 20 23 levels in terms of ratios, but at least like 70 to 80 percent of that might be possible. I actually have a little bit of optimism based on where he went and maybe a floor that isn't absurdly low just because of the home park. Yeah, I could see him, you know, putting up a

sort of like a three five, three six ERA at home and maybe striking out twenty one twenty two percent of the guys he sees because you know with the revision of the model one thing that stuck out was the fastballs no longer rated as a plus fastball and it used to be if you look at Fangrass you're saying whoa 115 on the fastball that seems wrong and it is I think it's in the revision it it's down to like a 90. And that seems right, because the VLOs down the movements down, but he's still using it the way that he used to. So the problem is that he's throwing exclusively high in the zone. If you look at the slider, which was right rated positively in the old model and in the new model that pitching bot hates,

I'm gonna defend Verlander slider because it's an 87 mile an hour gyro slider and we have a general rule that 85 plus mile an hour sliders are good. You don't even have to look at the movement too hard to think that this should be a good slider. So what's happened on the slider is they're not chasing outside the zone anymore.

And I think that's because everyone's like, Oh, I've got this tasty high fastball. It's 93 miles an hour. It's not what it used to be. He keeps throwing it up there. I'm going to just look high and spit on everything low. And my solution to that is to, to throw some low forcing or maybe develop a sinker, even if it's not a great sinker, throw a sinker low against righties

to make them on or low in the zone, to get some called strikes, to do something different. And I was talking to a baseball executive about this idea recently, and they brought up a saying that they'd heard before, which is as a coach, you wanna be the solution, not the problem. And so what

that means is the most difficult thing for a coach especially with a sort of a veteran like this is you suggest something, they try it, they get their beans knocked in, and you're the problem not the solution. But I would also would venture to say is Verlander is coming off of one of the worst seasons of his life. He was just left off the playoff roster, you know, by the Astros. He is probably more ready to listen to ideas than he has been in a while. And maybe is hatching a few of his own over the course of the offseason too. I mean, a guy that's going to be in the Hall of Fame, whenever he decides to hang it up, waits a few years, he's gonna get in.

There's no doubt about that. Has nothing left to prove. He's won World Series before. It's not, there's no box left to tick. So for him to come back out. It's competitiveness. Yeah, if he's gonna come back, I assume there will be adjustments.

Be that things he wants to do on his own, things that the Giants suggest to him, wherever those ideas come from. It'd be surprising to me if he tried to do the exact same stuff that just didn't work well in 2024. And then also, he just watched Hunter Brown add a sinker and just become one of the best pitchers in the big leagues, you know?

And Hunter Brown developed his whole game off of Justin Verlander. So like, you know, there is some similarities. I'm sure that Verlander has heard before about the similarities between him and Hunter Brown. Probably, yeah. Someone's probably mentioned that to him. Yeah.

So, so, you know, I think that the stars are aligned for this to be a good signing. You know, what were the other $15 million signs? I like it a little bit better than the Matt Boyd signing, I think. You know, they had to go to two years to get Matt Boyd. I think I like it. I think I like it. But I love Alex Cobb as a person. But I think I like it better than the Alex Cobb signing. You know, there's at least theoretically more strikeouts in there, supposedly for Verlander. And also like like, health wise, I don't know.

You know, Verlander has been healthier over his career. Cobb has had, like, every single surgery known to man. All of them. Like, it's absurd. We're not actually exaggerating. He's had all the surgeries. Yeah. So I feel like at some point, it's just going to go for him.

Who are some other $15 million signings that, you know, Gio Leto almost counts because he was like the signings that you know Geolito almost counts because he was like the year before you know one of those like we'll give you 15 million dollars in your healthy year just generally for like you know who I would draft this year I'm taking Verlander over Boyd I'm taking Verlander over Cobb I'm taking Verlander am I taking Verlander over Geolitoito? I think so. Might need a little more interrogation. But I'm looking at my ranks right now and I've got G-Lito projected for a 429 ERA and Verlander's regular projections are for about that and his stuff based projections

are for 417. I do have G-L higher in my working ranks, but I wouldn't be surprised if they coalesced there a little bit. And as a signing, you know, also G Alito is in that tough park. Yeah. I think there's more questions because of the timetable around the injury for Lucas G Alito, but they are in the same bucket by ADP and by, by salary, even though G Alito signed last year. You'd be looking at Verlander from an ADP perspective against.

Oh, I guess I like Bueller better. Bueller from a contract perspective is similar to got more from the Red Sox. But he's going about, geez, 100 picks earlier right now. That'll change now that we know where Verlander's pitching. I think now that we know Verlander is coming back and where he's pitching. How about Verlander versus Morton? I'd rather have Verlander than Morton.

I just think there are a few more ways for him to get closer to his previous late career levels than Morton. Morton, I just don't see as many paths for it. There's so much relying on the curve ball and the other stuff is just deteriorated too much. Verlander has the slider still, and I think he also still has the change up and the curve, so he could even just do the thing where he kind of

maybe he throws a cutter instead of a sinker and he just, you know, really throttles the floor seam and barely throws it, you know. How about Verlander versus Edward Cabrera? Oh, why? Why? Like, I didn't even bring him up. Edward Cabrera is also one of our, oh my God, a 384 projected ERA.

96 innings last year for Cabrera and 90 for Verlander. They're actually very close in my rankings. I have Edward Cabrera ahead. OK, I thought you might, but I wanted to be sure. I didn't want to make any assumptions because that doesn't seem fair. I do have a question for you about the quality of the Giants pitching staff.

So you add Verlander. In some order, it's Webb, Verlander, and Ray. Maybe you put Ray in the number two spot. I probably would at this stage of their respective careers. But sometimes it's just about schedule and respect and not about who the actual second best starter is. Those three guys at the top with Kyle Harrison and then Hayden Birdsong and Jordan Hicks kind of in the bottom half of the rotation, Keaton wins hurt right now.

I don't think they're going to go six man, so someone will lose if everyone's healthy. So out of Harrison, Birdsong, and Hicks, who do you think is most likely to begin the year without a rotation spot? Well, the easiest way to do this is look at who has options and Birdsong still has options. So if they're all healthy, I could see that happening. But I do wanna throw out the idea

that Hicks may push Walker for closer. There's going to be some discussion in the spring of, you know, will Hicks be able to go further into the season with good stuff? I mean, I think that the Hicks as a starter experiment worked for the first couple of months. It was pretty good. Yeah, it looked good April and May, at least. I mean, the first half of the year was a 379, but yeah, it was probably around June when it started to fall apart. And it was Velo tide. And it was I think it was just like, oh, I can't keep this up. So the question this spring will be, well, now that you've done that, can you keep it up for longer this year? Or is that just going to happen again this year?

And if that's going to happen again this year, do we rather just have you as a reliever? Because they do have some interesting depth and Lana Roupe is kind of interesting too. And Mason Black has some aspects that are, that are interesting. So, you know, that's not the worst collection of guys to have as depth, but I think the most likely outcome is Hicks is the fifth starter and Birdsong is the sixth starter and is in the minors Hmm, and if it doesn't go well for Hicks as a starter

Yeah that possibility of shifting into a high leverage relief role It's out there because we know things maybe have changed a bit with how this organization feels about Camilo Duval Maybe he's not as much of a lock to get back into the closer roles We would have thought this time a year ago If we'd forecasted job loss in 2024 Ryan Walker was really good We'll get to know interesting more detailed in the closer episode. Yeah, like what's the? She's a sub 2era sub 1 whip 99 K's last year in 80 innings was a big workload But he was phenomenal. Yeah, he's

like a baby Jake Arietta in the bullpen, you know, and I think he's every bit as good as you might have thought if Arietta had been in the bullpen how he'd be. Ryan Walker's projection is for a 311 ERA using Jordan Rosenblum's stuff-driven projections, which I think will be on fan graphs sometime soon. It's like the 30 first best ERA projection and there are starters ahead of him. So it's not the very best, but around him are Logan Gilbert, Jeff Hoffman, Ben Joyce. He's ahead of Brian Abreu, Jason Adam, Yimi Garcia, so he's a good reliever. I think he's fairly safe.

I don't mind him as a second closer. I don't think he's like a top tier closer. And even among second tier closers, I kind of like Ben Joyce as being like really legitimately safe because I don't think that team has other options. You know? Maybe not, yeah. I do think the Giants have some other options.

So, and then Jason Adam is not even a closer. So, you know, who would he go up against in ADP? Walker is inside the top 100 in ADP over the last 10 days at the NFBC. The closers that are closest to him are a couple guys that go earlier, John Duran and Robert Suarez go just inside the top 80. And I prefer Duran so much to both of the other two.

I think Suarez has a competitor in that bullpen and has shown some warts. I think he's like Walker and who's behind them. Coming from the other direction, Lucas Ersegg goes a bit later than Walker. I'm surprised there's that much of a gap between them. It's about 15 picks right now. I could see that gap shrinking.

I prefer Ersegg and Duran. So I prefer hitting earlier with Duran or later with Ersegg. So as much as I like Walker in Suarez, I do think that they have some competition in their bullpens and what they do is not unassailable. Like Ryan Walker throws a sinker. There aren't that many sinker first closers because of the platoon advantage.

Does he throw it hard enough to count it as a power sinker though? Yes. Yeah, so I could live with it I think it's a profile that can work, but it's not like an Undoubtedly, yes, I said yes pretty quickly, but it's not an undoubted. Yes. I mean, it's 95-6 is you know, the average reliever now is over 94 Suarez at least throws a sinker at like 97. Yeah. Yeah. I think I like Ryan Walker. I don't like how aggressively

he's being drafted. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's kind of where I'm doing something else. Going after or say around or say or, you know, a couple of rounds later, like, you know, I would take it. You also have to remember that the closer ADP right now is inflated by the fact that we're doing draft and holds right now. And in drafting holds, you have no ability to go to the wire. And so people are drafting their closes earlier. Now, whether or not that's a good strategy or not, I tend to think it's not. I'm going to get a good closer and then I'm going to get some options later and I'm going to hope to be middle of the pack and saves in Dravenhold because I do not want to spend

a bunch of early round picks on players that have higher bust rates than position players. Yeah, I think we'll try to get lucky with some later dart throws that we'll talk about a bit on the reliever preview position previews starting next week. We talked about this in the group chat,. There's so many situations that are unsettled. And there's so many good relievers still out there. Tanner Scott hasn't even signed. Kenley Jansen hasn't signed. Jeff Hoffman. All very good options that could close for any of the teams that need help in the bullpen right now.

So a lot to be determined there as well. Maybe that's driving up some of those second tier options that have jobs right now too, because there's fewer established options to choose from at this point in time. I use the New York Times Games app every single day. I love playing connections. With connections, I need to twist my brain

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You can download it at nytimes.com. The Dodgers did it. They traded Gavin Lux. We've speculated on this for years. It finally happened. They could have traded him for Lindor, I feel like, then they said they wouldn't. Is that was that? Well, there was like a we will not trade Gavin Lux for a long time. And then they were like, oh, for a couple of draft picture. I wonder if we could find enough actual legit rumors for Gavin Lux to make a full on feature about it. Like how many players were almost traded for Gavin Lux,

but the Dodgers didn't want to give up Lux, right? It's really hard to confirm that kind of stuff. But Nevertheless, it did happen. I like this because at least he landed in another great park for power And I think if you have questions about Gavin Lux and what he's going to be as a player It's kind of like well, how much power is there? He made some changes in the second half last season with swinging the bat harder. I see like this kind of odd baseline of league average bat that doesn't do anything exceptionally well that we care about for fantasy.

And coming off the torn ACL in particular, you know, maybe there's just some reluctance to run. I think he's even talked about not fully trusting his leg at the beginning of last year. So there's always the possibility that he runs a little bit more than he did in year two off of the surgery as opposed to year one. Maybe you get something there.

With free agency approaching a little bit. Also the Reds tend to run a fair amount. Right, yeah Tito's Reds are probably going to run a little bit. So I like leave my mind open to the possibility that the five bags in 2024 could turn into 10 or 12. If it turns into more than that, great. But I wouldn't I wouldn't go over the top expecting a lot. But we look at things like his barrel rate, six percent last year, five point

six percent for his career. Average is like four and a half, five. You know, then that's average. That's average across all players. If you're talking about players with power, your average is more like seven, eight, you know, like. Yeah. Career is 99 WRC plus.

Like right around league average, right? A 22% K rate for his career. 22% last year. That's league average. It's OK to be an average player is a good outcome, like long term for your life. But when you were a top three overall prospect for people, that's when the disappointment comes in. So I will present this to you as a simple question going into Cincinnati and into

that ballpark, what is Gavin Lux's ceiling now that we've seen a few seasons of him in the big leagues. I mean, basically three years worth of semi-regular or near regular duty and then a couple seasons prior to that. So we're looking at almost 1500 career plate appearances. I feel that we have an OK handle on what this guy can reasonably do. Does the park change a lot for you as far as what you expect from him in 2025? A little bit because I ran batted ball comps for Gavin Lux and I went through and I just said,

who's within sort of a mile and a half of Max CV above and below, who's within, you know, sort of 4% of hard hit above and below, who's within the same K percentages. And I've got a pretty good comp in Cincinnati, Spencer Steer. Okay, it's not who you think of first, I don't think. But in terms of, and I didn't do it based on walk rate or speed or whatever. But you know, Spencer Steer has a little more speed

than you might expect for a first baseman outfielder. They have similar walk rates, similar strikeout rates, similar OBPs, similar slugging percentages, similar WRC pluses, similar hard hit. I mean, they are similar down, like Gavin Lux has even hit a ball a little bit harder than Steer, but Steer has barreled a little bit more.

So they're really close. And so I think the ceiling for Gavin Lux this next year is sort of like a 2010 season, like a 250-2010 season. Which is not bad. It's not bad. Now, the real question is, will he get the chance to get the volume. But if he is hitting like that, I do see a way I see two or three pathways forward for Lux to be the everyday starter at second one. Matt McClain is the center fielder. There's already talk of this. Yes. If so, before you go to the next one, if Matt McClain is the center fielder, is TJ Friedle playing in a corner against righties and then they're doing something else against lefties? I think Friedle joins the Fraley-Benson

backup platoon situation. But he's probably atop that for one spot right now. Okay, so you're on the Matt McClain plays center. That's part of it. Okay, how else do we get there? And there's already been discussion of this. The other one is Nuelvi Marte is not good. It's a possibility. I mean We don't know for sure. I mean it's a 15% whiff rate in triple-a and the major leagues last year

I think a 24% projected strikeout rate for novell me Marte is actually maybe too nice Right if he comes out with swinging missing 15% of the time again, like he did last year, he's gonna strike out closer to 28, 30%. If he's striking out 28, 30%, his OVP is gonna be 280. If he has OVP of 280 and a batting average of 220, and his defense isn't great, he might go back to the minors. It's in the range of outcomes again.

He's still so young. I have not moved off my previous Noel V Marte stance of the PED suspension, the cost of most the last season, which is yes, his fault. And even I think he was a little maybe a little dinged up too. But regardless, like it was such a miserable small sample projections are going to ding him pretty good. And I'm trying to look more at the player he was pre 2024 when forecasting him than like getting too caught up in a disaster season. I'm still surprised he was running last year's nine for 12 as a base dealer over 66 games.

Like I continue to see more in that category than I expected based on scouting grades and maybe as he ages a little quickly fade But it still looks like a 20 steel sort of player to me with everyday playing time You're right about the swing and miss if the swing is a thing. No, I'm are tight is bad but it's it's a possibility that when everyone says I'm ready to an 82 wrc-plus and Everyone says, oh, the Reds have too many. He projected for an 82 WRC plus and.4 war in a third of a season. So he's not projected very well.

Well, and the way it's set up right now, I mean, Jake Fraley would be part of the right field DH mix, like that roto wire asthma top to depth charted DH. He's gonna play against righties. Fraley's injury history also factors in just as far as being a guy that they rely on who may not be available all season long.

So that can open up some playing time to like, you know, there's other players. Will Benson may not be good. He's 26. He's going to get another shot. He's projected to be a round league average of the bat for a corner outfielder. That might not be enough. You know, Heimer, Candelario is 31. They do have to pay him in 20, 26.

So I doubt this happens. But, you know, if he starts out the season with like a 70 WRC plus and can't play third, is a DFA impossible? Not impossible. It doesn't seem like something they would do most likely this year, something they would do early next year in the final. And Karnazian Strand is 25. He hasn't established himself as a regular and wasn't that great last year.

If he doesn't start off really well, he has options and come back down. So there are soft spots on this. And I'm tempted to think Lux is, like I'm tempted to circle Lux as bit of a sleeper a little bit of a sleeper, okay round that's kind of like the campusano to talk from a couple days ago The fourth or fifth time we've thought of him as an undervalued player a sleeper But the projection you threw out there is not unreasonable the 250 20 homers

10 maybe 18 18 8 eight, but like, he's not gonna hurt you. But in that park, in that lineup, if some of those young guys come through, which I'd be surprised if they were all bad. I'd be surprised if CES was bad and Noel V. Marte was bad and Matt McClain took a big step down from what he did in his debut season. If all three of those things happened,

that'd be pretty weird. And none of the outfielders like to step forward because that's part of the outfielders like to step forward because that's part of the process to like if Friedel is just great, like, you know, he's center fielder. I would also put CES in the lost season bucket for 2024, where it's just like injury based. What did we learn about him?

Like pretty much nothing. He tried to play through an injury and missed most the season after realizing he couldn't, right? So if you were excited about him going into last season, you should still be at least somewhat excited about how things are lining up for him as we look at this season. For Lux though, there's the kind of the opposite thing

which is that he started swinging the bat faster and that has something to do with the added power in the second half last year. So if he can maintain swinging the bat faster for a full season There may be a level of power We haven't really seen yet, which is which you kind of would have to to get to 20 But you know the underlying numbers are not great But there are also there are other players like Spencer Steer who have hit 20 homers with the same underlying numbers

Yeah, I think that's a good point. It's an interesting comp for sure. I think of all the guys he had comp, they were all righties, Lux was a lefty, so yeah, that playing time leak against same-handed pitching is probably the biggest threat. It'd be playing because he's not good enough to play against lefties,

not getting squeezed by everyone else, right? It's kind of his own, maybe they give him a month and see what it looks like, and if they don't like what they see, then it's big side platoon. So I do think that's the the nagging thing that works against them, but probably a little undervalued right now with the move in the Cincinnati. We'll see if that holds. That is a generally a thing to think about in weekly leagues is

you kind of prefer if you've got two iffy players in a depth chart like this. You almost sometimes prefer the righty because they might play all the time. The righty that struggles against righty is the Alec Bohm problem, I think it has been over the years where it's like he destroys lefties and just tries to hold his own against righties. Yeah, but it's also just not, I mean, yeah.

It can be, I mean, it's more precarious with the writing. Because if they do fall into a picture, they're done, done. They're cooked. Yeah. But it's more likely to have them with a lefty. You know what I mean? To like leak plate appearances like that.

No, it's good times. I thought the Dodgers did pretty well in the deal getting a comp A pick I think back along with a prospect So and the prospect was just taken Mike soroka sorota. I think it was sorota He doesn't even have a fan grass page He didn't play but he was just taken in his last draft in like the third round I think so it's basically getting a third round or a second rounder, which is not bad not bad at all Moving on to some other news, you should know

Brent Rooker gets a five year, 60 million dollar extension. Again, congrats to Brent. It's nice to see that. And the A's are still trying to work their way up in salary to avoid a grievance with the players association. This helps. I don't think it completely gets into the threshold they need to reach, but hey, every little bit will help

for a team trying to increase payroll. Rooker mentioned in the interview we have with him in December, he is coming off of forearm surgery not too far behind his usual offseason pace. So it doesn't seem like something that's going to really impact him come spring training and eventually on opening day. What kind of follow up to last year's step forward are you expecting? You've got some comps for Rooker too? Yeah, I went through the comps

and I didn't want to list them all because his comps are actually, there's a fair amount of them, because he is a guy who hits the ball hard and strikes out and there's more and more of those in the game. But if you want to know who makes up the comps for him, it's Teosca Hernandez, JD Martinez, Cal Raleigh, Austin Riley, Marcel Azuna, Rafael Devers, Christian Walker.

It makes sense, right? These are guys who hit the snot out of the ball and sometimes miss it, you know? But it is a group that's good. And so I wanted to kind of summarize the comps for you all. And the one thing I wanted to point out was, you know, the Walker percentage, the K percentage, they're all similar, hard hit, you know, near 50% bail rate near 15, 16%, max CB over 113. All that's good and gravy, and he's going to slug. But look at the Babbitt.

Babbitt for Rhett Rooker last year was a 362 batting average on ball play and projected he has a 304 because that's the league average plus a little bit of juice for hitting the ball hard, right? But his comps had a bad whip last year over 317 and that's potentially, you know, 10 points of batting average that you would just add to his projection if you believe that he can do a 317 and what did he do in 2023? A 317. And what did he do in 2023? A 317. So you give him a 317 BABIP and his projection turns to a 253, which I think is kind of important because I looked at, you know, good batting averages in 15 teamers last year and your good batting average on a team level is like a 258 in a 15 team. To get a guy that hits 30 plus

homers and to get him from 243 to 253 is going to be important for your lineup. That would make him closer to an average average guy, you know what I mean? And not a guy who's gonna pull your batting average down. His comps, their batting average was 258. I'm willing to give him that, which means he's not going to hurt your batting average as much as other people in your draft might think he will. Yeah, I get the sense that as people roll out their their busts or their avoid columns, Rooker is going to pop up in some of them because there's see it almost seems like there's nowhere to go but down. Like what more could he do?

He's 30, he had a 362 bab, he had 293. Like these are things that will but down. What more could he do? He's 30, he had a 362 Babapi, he had 293. These are things that will go down. But sometimes I think people overreact to that stuff. Yeah, and the underlying numbers have always been good. He's got a career 15.3% barrel rate. That's just who he is. I think you're right, the 317 Babapi ran in 2023 is a pretty good proof that it'll come down, but it's probably not

crashing. In fact, that he runs a little bit. A lot of these masters, these lower average masters that are power first offer very little in that category. 11 for 14 is a base stealer. Maybe that continues. And then there's also the home park, the situation in Sacramento, playing their versus in the Coliseum, we're assuming at least a slight uptick overall with what

happens on balls and play across the board. So that kind of helps keep things at a high level for Rooker too. And, you know, the left field situation with Seth Brown and Miguel Andujar is such that they've already talked about Brenton Rooker playing in the outfield. And I think that might be at at some point, to open up some time for Nick Kurtz, who is one of their best prospects, plays first base, DH, Soderstrom's there.

But Kurtz last year, you know, in double A as a 21-year-old, walked 13% of the time, struck out 20% of the time, and he's sort of more power in A ball. If he goes into double A, which he will, and just rips it up, he may make a case for coming to big leagues. And if that happens, that pushes more Rooker in the outfield. I do think that by the end of the season, I don't know exactly when Rooker's gonna have

outfield eligibility. Yeah, it could take just a couple of months for him to get the five games that most leagues require in season. The prospects TLDR from fan crafts on Nick Kurtz. This probably is an Eric Long and Hagen special. Kurtz is a shot to be the best hitter from the 2024 draft class and one of the best 10 to 15 first baseman in baseball. You don't see a lot of first base prospects that come in with that

as their their takeaway. They're kind of initial scouting a poor. Yeah, usually you don't do that well in rankings because, you know, a lot of these prospect rankings are for real life value. And they focus a lot on the fact that first baseman don't have defensive value and they have this bigger sort of, you know, leap to make to make it to the big leagues because they have to be such a great hitter to make it work. Got a few other fly by news items to get to here. I'll throw them out there. You know, can offer a quick reaction.

Drew Rasmussen gets an extension with the Rays. Yeah, I mean, it's a little surprising given the fact that he's coming off like, I don't know how to classify each of the elbow surgeries because he had two in college, but one might have been a revision. But you could also not be completely wrong in saying that he's had his third Tommy John. Right. I mean, it's it's been a just a miserable road of arm injuries for Drew Asmussen and just to see him come out of it on the other side and still be a big leaguer in and of itself is a good story. Yeah and I love talking to him and he's so competitive and so good about his craft but you know there could be especially if they trade Pete

Fairbanks you know one of the outcomes could be Rasmus in his closer. What they're paying him won't, he won't be a problem for them either way. Right, right. It's only a two year extension. It's two years, yeah. Two for eight and a half. But again, with all the injuries he's been through just to get that is,

it's a testament to how hard he's worked to get back. Yeah, and I like picking him without knowing what his average draft position is, because I think that he will be valuable and really good, and he'll pitch some innings this year. Now, it does matter where you pick him, because are we sure he's in the starting five? I like him as a pitcher better than Zach Littell,

but Littell has got more innings. He's a bit more of a quote unquote starting pitcher in terms of Arsenal and stuff, maybe, I don't know, in terms of how deeping go into games and stuff like that. So Rasmussen may be a three inning guy to start until somebody gets hurt and then he slides in. Or maybe Shane McClanahan doesn't start the season in a rotation. McClanahan, the last comments, I forget if we brought this up on the show, Eric Neander back in December said he expects McClanahan to throw a 150-ish innings in 2025. So that's not much of a delay.

If they even delay them, they could just use off days and all-star break and basic schedule tweaks to keep them there and then occasionally get them out of the game a little early, skip start, right? I don't think that's a let's just hold them back for a month sort of situation for McClanahan. I think that's a relatively normal. But it could be a six-man rotation.

That's a possibility. I mean, they're kind of built for it with some of the injuries they've dealt with and they have enough depth to pull off. If Joe Boyle makes the opening day roster, they've got a guy who's in between starting and relieving that can help them kind of make it through the iffy days if they get there.

So I don't know. I like Rasmussen. I'm just not exactly sure about the number of innings, obviously. The health risk is through the roof and I want to know a little bit more about their role. You will learn something in spring training just by how they use them in spring training because the starters in their first start, they get like one inning.

Their second start, they get like two or three and there's a very obvious progression. So if he's not following the starter's progression, you can already start to follow along and make some assumptions. Yeah, and I think something you said in passing before is there's a good chance Rasmussen has a useful role. And if Pete Fairbanks gets traded the next month, that also leaves that door open for Rasmussen to switch roles and possibly get saves.

It's also an option. Speaking of saves, is Chris Martin an option for saves in Texas? I mean, we're looking at Robert Garcia. I was just warming up to Garcia. I was excited about Garcia. Well, I'm excited about Garcia, but I also just don't think they have a closer. And I think and I wrote about this and I still believe it. I don't think Chris Martin is a closer.

I don't think Garcia is a closer, at least not in the way that we normally think of it. I mean, you know, it's likely that Chris Martin is going to have slightly above average fastball Velo next year. That's weird for a closer. And Garcia, you know, as good as he is, is only going to have slightly above average Velo for a closer. So they've got two guys that are kind of like funky closers, you know, that are closers because they have command or because they have good secondary pitches. That's just weird. Most of the league has one guy that has a fastball you can't hit, you know, and that's the guy who kind of trends towards the closing role. I'm a little surprised that Chris Martin was the, I thought Carlos Estevez would have made more sense for them because he's more of a closer type.

I think he'd give us the clarity we're looking for. I think Jeff Hoffman fits there. I think you could say Tanner Scott fits there. They said they're not, may not add more, which it may just be posturing for any of their interactions with free agents. Yeah. It seems like a handful of teams are waiting out those higher priced relievers on the market right now.

Maybe once one goes, we'll finally see some movement right after that. They'll all kind of go within a matter of a few days. Let me look at the projection real quick for Garcia versus Martin just to get an idea here. And Martin's gonna be 39 in June. 351 ERA with a 26% strikeout rate. I mean, that's decent. It's not. It's 124th best in terms of veterans and their projections. Chris Martin,

347 with the 248, 24.8% strikeout rate. So they're basically the same guy. If you want other relievers around them, Mark Leiter Jr., Tyler Holton, Caleb Ferguson. It's a good relievers, but they're not guys that we're usually looking at for sales. That's what I'm saying. That's exactly what I'm saying. That is exactly what I'm saying. Alex Lange is here.

So it's like, I don't know, they're good relievers. Maybe they just like, well, we'll just have we'll just we just want good relievers and we don't want to spend a bunch of money there. That's what they're doing. I'm glad Tyler Holton came up, though, because I noticed he was inside the top 20 in five by five value in the fan crafts player raider for last year because he had eight saves and seven wins, a two 19 era, a 0.78 whip.

And that was over 94 and a third innings. It was one of the more bizarre seasons. So few people in fantasy were able to pull anything close to the full value of that season onto their teams. Nobody used any of it. Second year in a row, he's had this heavy workload with great ratios. It's just in 2023, it was three wins and one save,

and it's like, well, reliever wins, obviously very hard to rely on. It's just so weird, it's not Velo-based, it's not Strikeout rate-based, it's hard to project, even the Stuff Plus projections say 351, the steamer says 355 for ERA for Tyler Olden, and you just don't, like, can a guy keep doing this? He's done it so far.

I mean workload wise. Two heavy workloads. Yeah right that's the, that's the, it's more a question of will he break or I don't think the league's gonna figure it out. Or choose a pathway too you know. Yeah just so much, it seems like so much weak contact and it's amazing to see what he's been able to do. Ahmed Rosario signs with the Nationals.

I think this is just deep, deep league at this point. It's not really a guy that you're gonna see take an everyday role, right? It's just like a super utility sort of play. No, but I do think it does have implications for regular leagues, and it's one that annoys me. Does it chip away at Luis Garcia enough, where you think Garcia falls into like a Gavin Lux playing time?

Problem and potentially just worried that Luis Garcia loses time against lefties so far for his career versus righties Luis Garcia has a 277-313 428 slugging he's above league average offensively against lefties, that's 252-69 OVP league average offensively against lefties that's 250 269 OBP 356 slugging and a 68 WRC plus so he's 32 percent worse than league average against lefties so far. Of course that comes in 445 plate appearances but that's not zero that's not a tiny sample that's that's more than a full

season of work against lefties and he's been been bad as they, you know, make a march towards contention or being a good team. And, you know, to begin the season, they may say, you know, they may be sniffing their own glue and say, you know, we're good. We're good. So we're gonna Rosario is gonna, you know, combine with Garcia at second. And that's you're gonna see a platoon there This is not I don't think this is a team that's gonna start the season be like we're not gonna be competitive this year And we just want to see what we can get out of Luis Garcia jr. I mean even though he's 24 he is

1,773 played appearances into his career like you know, I think, a reason to dock Luis Garcia, you know, down to maybe 550 plate appearances for the season. The only counter argument I have right now is that atop the depth chart at first, second, third and shortstop, the Nats have a lefty at every single spot. And Rosario can probably play all four infield spots as needed. So while I don't think they'd want to make CJ Abrams a big side platoon guys, their shortstop, I don't think they would do that this year. So he's probably safe between Taina and Garcia

and even Nathaniel Lowe, those are all paths. Like they could still- It might be most needed against Taina. If you think about it, like a overall projection for Taina for a 91 WRC plus means that your implied projection against lefties is like a 70 or something 75 you know so you know Rosario might be more needed over there but Garcia's actual work against lefties was below 75 so anyway I do think there's some playing time risk for Luis Garcia j. that some people may not be acknowledging.

Other fly-by notes, Michael Lorenzen has re-upped with the Royals. We have Martin Perez signing with the White Sox to just give them someone every fifth day, a veteran, the credible veteran, TM. Griffin Jacks staying in the bullpen, according to the twins, so we're not getting the Griffin Jacks gets a chance to start, at least not right now. So that's a little bit disappointing, but adjust

your plans accordingly. And Sam Huff claimed by the Giants, I think you appropriately pointed out like, didn't they lose a guy like this on waivers not that long ago? Yeah, a guy who frames decently well, hits the ball hard but can't make contact, could be Joey Bart. Maybe they'll just get their Joey Bart back. I think it also pointed to me, somebody said, well, doesn't this mean to you that this type of player is readily available on waivers?

And I think that's a good point. Bart has improved his strikeout rate, but who knows if that's something that's gonna be super sticky. If he returns back to his projected strikeout right now or his career strikeout rate Joey Bart he may lose his playing time and Pittsburgh has multiple options a catcher in Andy Rodriguez and

Henry Davis So I think that Joey Bart is a little bit of a risky second catcher in in leagues of where he's been taking That's what I think about Sam Huff. I think Huff is, Sam Huff's a more intriguing backup catcher than Tom Murphy at this stage of their respective careers and I think the only way we're gonna see a lot of Sam Huff is if Patrick Bailey has more injury trouble and I think for a guy that's had multiple stints

on the concussion IL, that's a valid thing to be worried about but I think Patrick Bailey is a phenomenal catcher so I think he's one of those highball guys never came back from his injury last year right so I think this is just a replacement in the backup spot not necessarily something that's gonna play a ton but people were excited about Sam Huff once upon a time when he was trying to work his way up the depth chart in Texas. Just a follow up note, Braxton Garrett is actually gonna miss the 2025 season. He had a UCL revision

with an internal brace procedure in December. So one potential starting candidate for the Marlins not gonna be in the fall season. Are preparing to be very bad. I've seen some people float the idea that the Marlins may lose more games than the White Sox. One person even floated that the Marlins may lose more games than the White Sox. One person even floated that the Marlins may lose more games than the White Sox did last

year. Ooh, wow. Which would say a lot. Although I will say that I actually like what the Marlins are doing in terms of collecting easy to acquire players that are close to the major leagues and project well and are basically like quad A sluggers, Griffin, Coneye, Kyle Stowers, Connor Normie, but even, you know, picking up Matt Mervis, Jonah Bride, you know, David de Santos, like they're picking up guys. They're picking up guys that I find much more interesting than the guys the White Sox picked

up. I think that's where, yeah. You know, we just saw Braden Shoemake get released by the White Sox picked up. You know, we just saw Braden Shoemake get released by the White Sox, which we saw coming from a mile away, and they traded for him. So the Marlins guys, the Marlins are picking up more interesting guys, and you may see, I'm not sure that I would draft a lot of these.

Jesus Sanchez and Xavier Edwards are draftable, Conor Norby to some extent. I think over the course of the season though, we're gonna be talking about these guys as waiver pickups. There's going to be somebody who emerges out of the Stowers, Konai and Mervis group that we like. Right. I could see this being a fair sort of toss up, which roster wins fewer games in twenty twenty five Marlins or White Sox. People will have to do that on the team preview section once we get down to that part of

Contras coming back. How many innings do you think you'll give all Contra? 140 150 that's not that's probably where they'd cap them. They're giving them 178 on Fang graphs Are you giving them that many? No, I don't think so I mean it's tempting because he used to be such a workhorse. Okay, this is perfect. There's actually a mailbag question about this. We have an email from Aaron who wants to know, are the rules of thumb to differentiate year over year innings growth for pitchers based on the type of setback they had in the year

prior? Couple examples in the email, Shane Baas and Brian Wu. Baas projected for 157 innings for Fangraft, seemed super aggressive considering he managed 118 and two thirds last year and didn't pitch in 2023. And then with Wu, he's being projected for 144 on Fangraft after finishing with 135 across three levels, including 131 and two thirds innings back in 2023. So you've got back to back seasons with a workload very similar to what he's being projected for. And you got a pretty big gap for bars like we have to make a little

bit of a leap to get there. So these are all different situations. And I think Wu and bars being a little bit younger than Sandy Alcantara makes that tricky because Alcantara, the rule I use and this is not necessarily what teams are doing, but this is how my brain works, is I look back at what you've done previously and set that as like the ultimate ceiling north star. This is possible. This has happened before, therefore it is possible.

And if that's not a max workload, then I can add something to that and say, okay, you've reached 150 before 175 180 you know the old stupid verducci effect bump even though it's been debunked and we've said for years that it's not a thing it's still the way teams tend to be is adding a little more adding add 10% add 15% that's sort of a general thing that's out there right. Sandy's tough because he's got four seasons where he's gone over 180 innings and then of course 2020 sandwiched in there where nobody could have thrown that many innings so do they just say you're a veteran pitcher who's thrown the equivalent of like almost a thousand innings over the last five years you were healthy so why would would we hold you back? Or do they say, we want you to not break again and you're now in that 140, 150 bucket? Because this is a case where I'm actually not as optimistic

just because I think they wanna make sure they don't break him again. And part of that I think is that they probably wanna show the league if he's back the guy that they saw pre-injury that they'd rather on a per start per inning basis Get him back to where he was then max out his workload because of how bad they are right now So I think their intentions as a club might be to trade him and in order to trade him They have to not break him a second time. Yeah, and then I think that the How good the team is factors in. Tarek Skubul last year,

192 innings off a previous max of 149.1. He was winning the Cy Young and the team was going to the playoffs, you know, and I didn't even include postseason. So, you know, he's actually at, he did another 20 innings. So he's over 200. Another person that I thought was interesting, I looked up to Tanner Hauck, 178 innings last year off of a previous high of 119 in 2018. And he had role shifts multiple times, I think, that have kept his season workloads

from exploding in the big leagues in the years prior, right? Yeah, but injury concerns, but the Boston was decent, workloads from exploding in the big leagues in the years prior. Right. Yeah. But injury concerns. But the Boston was decent, you know, going into it. What I'm saying is I think that teams are leaving these old rules behind. Bryce Miller, 180 innings off of one hundred and thirty three peak in 2022, one hundred and thirty one in 2023. They don't care about that sort of a big increase I'm just like going through the list here of the top innings guys Bailey Ober

178 off of 144 that's not as aggressive but it used to be you know at 15% was an idea you know they're past that, you know. So, you know, who's another guy that Michael King, obviously, you know, he's relevant. His career high was 104, but he had a 149 in the minors. Yes, that matters. I would argue that matters. I think even if it was three or four years ago, five years ago,

if you've done it for a full season before, I think teams are willing to push you back to that level. And what does that say about Boz then? Boz must have had a minor league season where he had a little bit more. He did not 78.2 is the most. And then last year, if you combine the triple A with the big leagues, you're at like 118 and two thirds, I think, if I'm doing the math correctly. So I think that's where like the 140, 150 and the games.

Yeah, they look like a team that could be vying for a playoff spot at the end of the season. They could push him more because he'll probably be pretty important to them in October if they're going to be a team that does damage so I think that's where the team context definitely could take your initial expectation and then four months four and a half months go by and you know okay this this workload is gonna go up we could push a little more on there because of where they're going to be at the end of the year and so far he's been healthy and effective so

they're not going to taper that off. What I'm saying is just that like they seem to figure this out on the fly a little bit. And it has there's like like how good do we think this player is has something to do with it like Zach Littell just blew past anything he'd ever done before. He had a one twenty nine. I said a one fifty seven in twenty seventeen seven years ago. In the meantime, his max was a 129 in 2018

and then he's been a reliever. I guess they said 156, but I think to some extent they're also like, well, he's a free agent in 2026. How good is he actually? He's kind of a 29 year old journeyman, you know, like I guess cynically, how much do we care if he breaks? Well, that might be part of it. Vaz is like,, oh, this is our this is supposed to be our next ace. Yeah, that might be part of it.

Where you are in your career, how willing is your team to be a push? I think Littell had two very high volume seasons as a starter early in his career. That that opened the door for it. Think about even Ronaldo Lopez. When we were trying to forecast the innings for Ronaldo Lopez, he hadn't been a regular starter I think since 2019, at least in terms of getting a full workload.

He had back to back years over 180 innings. He had arm trouble last year, still got to 135 and 2 thirds. I probably would have said 140, 150 at the high end, even though he'd done 180 before, just because it had been so long. But that's still not that far away from the maximum workloads you're projecting for anyone. It's less, but it's not that much less.

Yeah, and that's the other thing. Just generally, I went on MLB now with Brian Kenny, and I don't think I did a great job, if anybody sees that. Confession. I feel like I could have done better. What happened? Well, we were arguing about Jacob deGrom

and I was like, you know, 130 innings from Jacob deGrom, that's like 130 innings of a closer. And he said, well, first of all, that's not that many innings. And second of all, you know, will he get to 130 innings? I was like, well, fresh ligament.

But also I should have said like, 130 innings is a lot now Yeah, grizzly Adams did have a beard Brian like that 130 innings last year how many how many pitchers got to a hundred and thirty or more innings last year how many did it? 65 96 Okay, 96, but that's not actually that many if you think about it. That's three per team. Yeah three per team and Of that group. I mean geez almost 20 of them were under 150

So it's not like they were there weren't a whole bunch of guys going way over early in my drafts, I want to have a Health grade and a guy that I think can make 180 innings I want to have like two of those guys in latest draft, I took Corbin Burns and Logan Webb as my first two guys. I just feel like, hey, good. That's like 350 innings at least, I think, of good stuff. And then after that, my expectation drops to 150.

There. And I want a guy to make 150 from there on. And then at the end of the draft, can this guy get 120, 110? Like is this guy gonna be in the fifth spot and get skipped a bunch? That might be okay with me. So it's just the new, it's like the post Mike Shanahan

running back situation and it's just SP zero. But I think you do need to have a couple of studs. You can't go full SP zero. I think if your whole team is 120 and then guys and you're trying to piece it together, I think you'll have a hard time with that. Which strategy would I rather employ? Like all bats early or all pitchers early?

I'd actually rather go all bats early. I don't want to do either one of these, they're too extreme because I'm finding that the pitchers that are available after round 20, I can still get myself excited about them. I can find things I like about them. I can't say that as easily about the hitters. I think it's more knowing that the playing time can vary even more for the prospect

and young bats that come through. You know, if you're talking about the Christian Campbell's and Roman Anthony, those kinds of guys are like, oh, I'm going to go for these guys. We just spent so much time talking about Gavin Lux. Those types, you know, in weekly leagues in particular, you're just like, oh, God, there's so many ways this could be just that terrible.

You know, like he could be in a half platoon or he could be in a play around the diamond situation or whatever. And it's just like he could be in a half platoon or he could be in a, you know, play around the diamond situation or whatever. And it's just like he could be giving good value to the teams. The reason the teams are doing this is because they can mix and match the giants, the Tigers, you know, we're putting the guys together. We got a we got beerling. He's going to play somewhere today, you know, and maybe not tomorrow. You know, and that's great for those teams.

It's not great for us. And that's the type of hitter that's available late. Exactly. To close out Aaron's question, the Wu versus Ba's thing, I think the Ba's projection is fine, it makes sense to me. The Wu projection, I would say, is light on purpose because he had the hamstring injury

and he had at least once, if not twice, where that forearm was a problem and they had to quick shut him down and they brought him back. So it's like he didn't have the surgery. He didn't have the long stop, get it fixed thing. So I think it's still like this lingering concern and it's not just the arm. So I do think that's why they're cautious.

They both both also kind of strike me as like, like. Slight, you know what I mean? Like, slight. You know what I mean? Like breakable. I don't know why. That's a visceral feeling. When I watch them, I'm like, ooh. Like, I remember Trevor was trying to be more scientific

about it and talk about like hypermovers and stuff. Oh yeah, like everything seems tight in their movements, you mean? Like it just, everything's fully, yeah, like they just everything seems tight in their movements. You mean like it just every it's everything's fully. Yeah. OK, I got you. And I was just something something about them seems like they could be hurt and they happen, you know, and they know. So they're they're a little bit injury prone for me.

So I don't think either of them is a guy that I would really expect. You know, 160 innings. Thanks a lot for that question, Aaron. We got one more question to get to today. This came in from Discord. Kuwell sent us a message this morning writing, can we discuss more how Blake's now is totally underrated and the best starting pitcher so far in the 2020s overall in parentheses and a little before?

Okay, let's work backwards here. No, actually let's just go forward. Let's start at the beginning. I'll give you that. Underrated, I think, has been established. I think it's been validated by the contract that Blake Snell just got this time on the open market compared to a year ago. And I think he has shown on a per inning basis

that he is one of the best starters in the game. That's where we kind of get to the problem of it's a per inning basis, right? So if you look at something like war, we know FanGraph's war volume's really important. Blake Snell is 16th in FanGraph's war for this decade. So 2020 up through 2024. So one partial season.

I've got a ranked 18th, you know, like right now. It's working ranks, maybe Mazzon, but it seems about right. Snell's 44th in innings pitched, and I have defended him over the years, multiple seasons now saying, look, he's not five and fly. He's not a 90 pitch mess who can't even get through four. He's not that guy. His workloads on a first start basis.

Top 15 hitting is not terrible. Yeah, that's not a terrible thing. And on a first start basis, his workloads are fine. The injury problems have been multiple. Different body parts, different stuff, but none of them are like the crazy, devastating labrum UCL problems. By the way, he does throw pretty close to his max. He was, he's one of the closest. So he's got that right. So, okay.

So the volume probably keeps him away from being like the best so far of the decade. Cause I feel like the best picture of the decade has to be not necessarily at the top in terms of workload, but somewhere close. You have to be out there most of the time to win that sort of title. Underrated for sure but we're talking about a guy that in this same span he's third in K percentage. He's elite in strikeout right and we know he's great at what happens when there are balls in play against them and it's an awfully weakly hit. Like he hits suppression as a skill that he has. Absolutely. But during the span in this decade, Blake Snell is 19th in ERA, he's tied for 60th in WIPP, and he's 35th in Sierra. So it's not like it's not like he's been unlucky from an ERA perspective either, right? He's very good. He is, I think a true ace, which is a subjective thing people fight about all the time. But I don't think he's the best pitcher of this decade so far.

I don't think he's quite there. You can make a better case over the last three years. Over the last three years, uh, he jumps to 12th in war and 12th in RA nine war and specifically ERA is fun. He's fourth in ERA or third tied with Tarek Scoobel but first is Michael King with 329 innings. Second is Max Fried in ERA with 437 innings. Third is Tarek Scoobel with 390. Fourth is Blake Snell with 412. And then fifth is Zach Wheeler with 545 innings. So I kind of think that, you know, if you gave Snell 130 more innings,

would he maintain that 282 ERA? Like you have to value the what you're saying, you know, about valuing some form of quantity here. Because if you gave Blake Snell 130 more innings, maybe he would have a higher ERA than Zach Wheeler does with a 301. And you can kind of see this little shelf where it goes from these 280 guys who have like 300 or 400 innings to all the guys who have 500 innings because the next ones are Wheeler, 301 ERA, 545 innings pitch. Fromber, 575 innings pitch, 306 ERA. Corbin Burns, 590 innings pitch, 306 ERA. Corbin Burns 590 innings pitch 308 ERA. So, you know once you get to 500 innings that most those guys are in the low threes

and I think that the question is what would happen if you gave Snell the extra 130 innings? Would he maintain this 282 ERA or would he have some clunkers in there that would bring him even with those other guys? So I think it's hard even in the last three years because of quantity to kind of make this argument. But even on a per inning basis, if you just focus on per inning, then it's Michael King or Terrick Scoobel or Max Fried. Like, there's still some options ahead of Blake Snell. You really have to focus, even if you focus on strikeout rate, Spencer Strider's ahead of Snell. If you focus on K-Bb, you've got Strider, Schubel, Scherzer, Cole,

Wheeler ahead of him. So it's hard to actually sort a list even in the last three years where he's been more dominant to where he's number one on it. I think the answer to the who's the best of the decade so far is one of Wheeler, Corbin Burns or Garrett Cole. And I'm going to give it to Wheeler. I don't know if it's like recency bias, but Cole with the last year with the injury Burns with a step down. I think for me, my ranking would be Wheeler, Burns, Cole. I think Wheeler's done the most to adjust his arsenal to continue aging the best out of the bunch, even though I don't think Burns and Cole are aging poorly. That's the other part of it. Wheeler's the war champ so far the decade. 24.7 by Fangraphs.

Three more wins above replacement than Burns. And then I think Burns is like four wins above Cole right now with Gossman, Nola and Webb kind of sandwiched in there as top five by war. So I mean, hey, there's a case we made that Webb is underrated. I mean, nobody ever brings him up in these and he just keeps going along. But then that turns into an argument about how important

is it to strike a ton of guys out because that's where he lags. Really falls down, yeah. But that's not the approach. Doesn't have to be, but we appreciate the question. Cool, well, it's fun to think about it. We're almost halfway through the decade, and I think you could make a case for a lot of guys.

And I think Snell has a better case than most people would make for him. I do think that's true. So glad you're able to send that question in. Join the Discord if you wanna have some arguments like that. Join the Discord because we've got some extra stuff rolling out soon our position Previews start up on Monday already. You know, it's that time of the year. How did it get here so fast? It's time to go

I'm in a draft Let's go. I'm on the clock right now. Everyone's mad at me I'm not on the clock. I'm in a very slow-moving draft and hold league Which is fine because I'm a slow-moving human at this time in my life So I need things to slow down just a little bit. You can find us on Blue Sky, Enos at Enosaris.bsky.social, I'm DVR.bsky.social. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels.

We are back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening. They get their beans knocked in?