Rates & Barrels - Lux, Roles in Flux & 2020 Predictions

Episode Date: July 21, 2020

Rundown1:43 Displaced Jays4:45 Gavin Lux Optioned; Costly Re-draft Drop?8:25 Closer Carousel: Houston, St. Louis, Pittsburgh & Seattle18:22 Moving Up: Sean Newcomb & Corbin Burnes26:45 Robbie Ray: A Changed Man?34:34 NL ROY Predictions & Favorites42:07 AL ROY Predictions & Favorites50:44 NL Comeback Player of the Year Predictions & Favorites53:31 AL Comeback Player of the Year Predictions & Favorites Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRipere-mail: [e-mail] Get a 30-day trial subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode 114. Derek Van Ryper here with Enoceros. It is Tuesday, July 21st. We are closing in on opening day. Just two days until we have meaningful baseball games in North America at the big league level with teams not just playing against themselves. We have some roster changes to discuss. We have new roles to talk about.

We have a few injuries to get to. And we're going to make some of our predictions for the upcoming season on this episode. We're going to split some of the predictions up the upcoming season on this episode. We're going to kind of split some of the predictions up between today's episode. We'll have a few more on Thursday. Eno, how's it going for you on this Tuesday? I watched a baseball game between two different teams yesterday. I watched like two or three of them.

It's nice. That was step one, like starting to play other teams even though it doesn't count. And step two is to actually have it count. So I feel like we've made a lot of progress in the last couple of days. Yeah, I'm a little bit nervous about data this year. I have now seen a 54-foot home run. I believe somebody hit a 680-foot home run the other day, and Bryce Harper hit a four-foot home run.

Good luck to all of us data chasers. Yeah, I'm sure they can fix that in the next 48 hours or so. I'm sure that won't be a problem. It'll be just about as easy as finding a stadium for the toronto blue chase yeah that's still a work in progress it's actually related you know the reason i mean they're talking about them needing to be in a major league stadium and a big part of it is lighting and i and i'm not going to poo-poo that that's definitely a big part of it because minor league parks are none of them are up to speed lighting wise and so you would see that

on the cast and they they want this to be look professional so for example basketball their court they just unveiled it today and it has like 50 cameras and is like the most digital thing ever and they're gonna just you know since they don't have fans they're just gonna really uh you know produce the crap out of what they do have, you know. And I think baseball wants to do something similar, wants to have a good production. And so they don't want to have bad lighting. So I think that's why probably Pittsburgh is the biggest solution that I believe in, them playing in Pittsburgh. I know it's a problem for Pittsburgh. It's a problem for the Pirates. You really want to build like four or five clubhouses, like build a couple extra clubhouses

because you don't want to make Pittsburgh pack up after every homestand and, you know, all this stuff and pick out their lockers and get rid of them, you know? So, but the thing is with no fans, there's a lot of concourse. So I think you could probably figure out a way to have four clubhouses there

and figure it out that way. I don't know about scheduling. You'd have to do something with day and night games probably. So the losers are Toronto Blue Jays fans that want to watch most of their games at night. The losers are Blue Jays hitters, down a couple percent across the board. And the main winners are Nate Pearson and Hyunjin Ryu.

Yeah, I mean, Ryu pitching in Pittsburgh instead of Toronto, that's a nice little bump, right? Huge difference. Yeah, I do think the difficulty of playing never at home you'd make pittsburgh your new home it'd be familiar you wouldn't be constantly traveling something about that especially last minute does make you wonder if there's going to be some sort of performance drop across the board that lack of of comfort of sleeping in your own bed things like that right like small stuff on the margins but

i do think i i trust all of the jays pitchers a little bit more in pnc than i do in rogers center it doesn't change the schedule i think part of my fear of a lot of their pitchers their back-end pitchers especially comes from having to face you know the yankees and the rays and even the red socks without bets are still at least the average lineup. I think you could throw at least the top end guys against Boston this year. I don't think they're so scary that you have to steer away from them from your SP3, SP4 range. Those guys are still fine matchup wise in that spot. But yeah, very weird to have a team still looking for a home just three days before their season opener.

There's been a ton of news, as I mentioned, up top. So let's talk about a few player-related news items. Just before we started recording, the Dodgers optioned Gavin Lux to their minor league camp. I have to think that there is something going on that we don't know about. He was late to camp for undisclosed reasons. But there's also the service time angle. He was a late season call up last year. You know, this is a team that has really good depth

and perhaps the Dodgers looking at those projections, seeing that they are expected to win the division by four or five games. Maybe they're content to let some of their depth guys play for the first few weeks and to try and recapture the extra service time that they would have lost by promoting gavin lux at the end of last season i don't i don't get it i don't get it they're talking about it like he's going to go down and

play some minor league games and get his swing right yeah he's not there's no minor league games. Service time. Okay, so they keep him down for six days and it's not a full year. So at the end of this year, he still has like 1.2 years. I don't know. He played last year, right? So it's like...

Boy, it's kind of like what the Astros did with Kyle Tucker. Kyle Tucker got a late call up in 2018. Just keep bouncing him down and up. Yeah. To erase that time. I think it was 28 days of service time for Gavin Lux last season. So you translate that to a shortened season. I think we're looking at maybe three or four weeks for Lux and the Miners

before they could call him up in order to save that. The only other thing that I would say is that this team does have the depth to field a team without Gavin Lux. Maybe that's just what they're saying. Maybe they're like, we can win without him, so let's send him down because we can play, you know, and here's, I think, a shadow winner. It's probably Beatty, but Edwin Rios, I think, is going to make this roster. And Edwin Rios had an insane barrel rate last year. He definitely has some issues when it comes to defense, making contact, all the other facets of the game. But when he does make contact, it's loud and powerful. And he bats bats lefty so he could be part of the

dh solution here uh and i think he's going to make the team if lux doesn't but uh between rios baity uh peterson pollock taylor lux kike muncie these are not all second baseman i understand what i'm saying is like between those players you can feel the left f are not all second baseman. I understand what I'm saying is like between those players, you can feel the left fielder, a second baseman, a first baseman at DH, right? You got eight players for four spots. So they were just like, Hey, it's pretty crowded. I guess your swing is jacked up. I don't even know if it is. Um, and, uh, we're going to just run with the veterans for a little bit. I mean, I don't know. I think, though, if you drafted Gavin Lux in a redraft league, even if you got him in the 10th, 11th, 12th round,

you're probably thinking about cutting him this weekend because you've said this a few times throughout draft prep, you can't wait for guys. If it's not going to be a week, especially, I think you have to let him go and find somebody who's playing a lot to take that roster spot man i am struggling i am struggling with this uh because i generally am uh sit tight you draft them for reasons 162 uh be patient you'll get your value out of them i'm usually

that guy and so i've been trying to toggle that and be like, okay, be more aggressive. And I frigging dropped Ryan Presley in one of my leagues. And now I feel like an idiot, like three days later. Well, yeah, so you dropped him what, last week? I went hard after Ender Enciarte. Now I feel like an idiot, three days later. That could still be the right move. I think that situation's really odd. Yes, you did it a week ago.

You did it before we learned that before roberto ozuna hasn't been throwing like that was a strange thing that popped up at the end of last week so presley getting a chance to save some games to begin the season he's definitely rosterable it's a tough move to have made in hindsight because you just would have cut somebody else to get in ciarte but i don't think you can be mad at yourself on that one no i actually cut presley for in ciarte because uh i activated knievel okay well and i think that could be a situation that's a little bit in flux too as you're looking for saves and look closer news has been fast and furious the last 24 hours or so aside from you know ryan presley now being the closer and waiting in Houston.

Corey Knable being healthy, having a curveball. It's working really well. Again, the velocity is still more like 93, 94, but it's at least trending in the right direction, given that he's still in kind of the end stages of getting back from Tommy John. I don't know if the missing tick or two on the fastball is a red flag right now. I think it's just something to watch as the season begins. Maybe as adrenaline picks up when he gets into a game that counts, maybe that's where those extra ticks come back from.

Doolittle kind of scares us every spring with a 91-mile-an-hour fastball, and then he tells me repeatedly, spring training is still practice. You know, I'll have my 94 when it's time. Yeah, and I think I just believe that, especially in the short relief scenarios, like that extra boost from having a game that counts being on the line. I think there are a lot of players who really rely on that. I'm a little bit more worried for velocity on the extremes like

for example um sean mania sat 87 last night that's a problem that is a problem and it's not like his secondaries are so amazing that you have to be like oh yeah it'll be fine he'll just throw a bunch of sliders and change-ups his slider and his change-up are like way too similar i've never seen anything like it it's the weirdest thing they're like the same pitch yeah the naya is one of those guys that despite where i have them ranked i rarely take them at that spot it's a very it's a very low confidence ranking overall i've got an auction tonight i've got a draft coming up on thursday i don't think i'm gonna seek him out maybe if he falls he goes cheap in the auction i just dropped him to 105 yeah i i get it there's just not a whole lot there to be excited about right now the other bullpen situation that has changed a lot is in St. Louis.

Kwanghyun Kim is now the frontrunner to close. Giovanni Gallegos was delayed in his arrival to camp. He was stuck in Mexico, undisclosed reasons. So I still think that one could turn over a couple times during the year. But the prevailing belief or estimation, I think, for a lot of us was that Ryan Helsley was probably the favorite to get that job. But Kim getting that chance to begin the season really shakes things up. Part of that also includes Carlos Martinez being confirmed as a starter. That wasn't necessarily locked in before either. So as you start thinking about these guys, Presley and Kim and Knable, Zach Britton, who I wrote up for ads and drops, he's going to close out some games to begin the year with Chapman on the IL.

There are saves available, but very few of those closers seem like they have the job for more than a week or two. Yes. So how much do you spend? Somebody in AL Labor spent $37. That's 37% of their FAAB on Trevor Rosenthal that's a lot I had a bid on Rosenthal

it was $5 so I think that yes aggression is good you gotta be aggressive it's such a short season you gotta be aggressive but like I am not crying about missing out on Trevor Rosenthal the one I am mad about is I bid $4 on Austin Adams and he went for five.

And in another league, like a TGFBI, I bid like $13 on Trevor Rosenthal and he went for 23. So on those numbers, I think I need to be more aggressive and up, up my numbers a little bit. Like the guys who used to be a dollar need to be five or six. The guys used to be six, you need to be 18, that sort of deal.

And maybe even a little bit more just because of how seasons work and how aggressive everyone else is going to be. So I'm a little bit mad about those bids, but not being beat 37 to four. I didn't want it that bad. Just back to the Cardinals situation, and I do agree with you generally. I haven't seen a guy be like, okay. Helsley was close to that where I was like, ooh, if he's available in my league, I'm going to go get him because there is a chance he could close all year.

I don't believe that Kim will close all year, and I don't even know if he'll start the season as a closer. I put Kim in this interesting group with Ponce de Leon and Gomber where they're more likely to vulture wins in the middle. All three of those guys, Gomber, Ponce de Leon, and Kim, have been stretched out more than their traditional relievers. Yeah, I just think this is one of those teams that could be a trouble spot for us all season.

Even with the possibility of a guy being named that guy right now i just the whole bullpen yeah yeah yeah because they they're generally good at turning out guys you know and it's kind of hard to keep up with their newest arm they're kind of a they're a bit of a relief arm factor i don't know if they get enough credit for that you know what i mean yeah they always have a bullpen at the end of the year that's better than you probably thought it was going to be at the beginning of the year yeah so anyway uh good luck to anybody drafting for saves i don't know i have the one league where i dropped presley i'm i'm struggling my closers are givens castillo and canable but i feel like

this will be such a crap show on that that i just have to just keep working you know the name that you mentioned though aust, Austin Adams, I think he's a little more appealing because there's a better chance of him just being the guy in the long run. They've talked about a committee, and Adams has the very high strikeout rate. He has all the things you're looking for in a potential elite closer from a fantasy standpoint. Throws real hard, good breaking ball.

I look at him and say, man, they're not going to win a lot of games, so you're definitely going to have this risk of not getting a lot of chances to even find out if he's the guy in the first couple of weeks. Like that's going to be the really stressful situation if they only generate two or three save chances in the first two weeks. And the way the game flows, maybe it's tied in the eighth and he comes in. It's really hard to get a read on those committee situations. Edwards could finish it out.

I think Edwards is a possibility. And then Hirano is not on the injured list. And Majel is healthy, I guess. So there are a bunch of people that

could factor into this and it's not the most appealing job in the first place. Did you have any thoughts on Pittsburgh's bullpen, whether it's Kyle Crick or Nick Birdie or Richard Rodriguez or Michael Feliz? Because Keone Kella is on the IL right now. I think Kella is their best reliever when he's available i just don't know if he's actually even locked into having the job once he comes back i think he's the guy but i'm not certain of it and from there i'm not even sure who i like most as the replacement it was birdie who i put in the column but i think it's anybody's guess at this point. Right. I think there was a comment from the manager saying that Birdie might be it. And I do put Kayla in a slightly different bin than someone like Jesus Lazardo.

There was a group of people that tested positive and never appeared in camp and were placed on the injured list earlier, like their Kingery's and Naris and those guys, that I feel like are more likely to be ready for the season. Whereas Kayla was just put on the DL on the 17th. So he's likely to miss a week plus of the season, I would say. Which gives enough time to somebody else and nobody likes keela personally i think or crick there's like a real uh like team dynamic

problem there they fought repeatedly they hurt each other they created uh tension in the whole locker room um and i think that pirates would be glad to get rid of either of them, possibly, so Birdie could end up closing at the end of the year after they trade both Kayla and Crick. I mean, that would make sense for this Pirates organization, right? Turn those guys into some actual asset that they could play in a lineup, maybe, or a starting pitcher, because Rich Rodriguez and Michael Feliz are good. They're pretty good relievers. Even Nebrauskas is all right.

So you could just move everyone up a little bit and take a shot at getting a starter. So I think this is going to be kind of foobar all year too. I have some shares of Crick because I just believe he was, in terms of the things that have been shown to be useful in the past, I don't even know if they're going to be useful this year. The things that have been shown to be useful in the past. I don't even know if they're going to be useful this year. The things that have been shown to be useful in the past when we're processing for closers are velocity, strikeout, and usage.

And usage is actually number one. And Crick was basically the setup guy last year. And he has great velocity and a really good strikeout rate. Let's talk about some rotation news and notes. Sean Newcomb is in for the braves i coming back to the winter i think was looking at him as more of a reliever a lot has changed though in terms of just who the braves have available so he's gonna start the third game of the season that'll be against the mets and he was pitching well in the rotation to begin last season. I think with Newcomb, he's draftable even in a 12-team mixed league.

I think he's an option to be your last pitcher in that format so long as he has a starting job. Yeah, I moved him up into the 90s near Fulte, near Trevor Richards, who looks like he might be getting a rotation spot actually in Tampa, near Lynn Blom, Kyle Wright. There's a group there that is interesting to me, but also not super exciting. And the thing that I worry about with all the Braves pitchers, like in effect, I almost want Bryce Wilson the most out of some of those back-end starters because they've already said they're going to tandem to some extent.

They have an abundance of these sort of middle ground pitchers that are not necessarily closers yet and have a little bit more upside in terms of being able to pitch maybe three innings. So I have a feeling that, you know, Freed goes four, Bryce Wilson goes two, Newcomb goes four, Kyle Wright goes three, or they go three and three. You know what I mean? Like pair these lefty-righty pairs, wreak havoc on the opposing lineup, and maybe Soroka and Fulte are the only ones that go five. I mean, Hamels is hurt, right? Yeah, Hamels is not close to returning either, according to David O'Brien. He covers the Braves

for the Athletics. So I think at least for that four spot and that five spot, we could see some tandem stuff. I don't think it impacts Soroka at all. Yeah, Soroka and Fulte, I think, are probably closer to fine. Freed on 50-50 on, maybe he's fine, but that means that Newcomb, like four and five are probably like Newcomb right, but that means that Bryce Wilson, Tukey, and Desaint are like, you know, coming in in the fourth, I feel like. It's a good way to kind of mitigate Newcomb's command issues. You know, if he starts walking guys in the fourth because he's trying to use the changeup more because he's trying to turn the lineup over a second time,

then, hey, why watch this when we can bring Tukey in and he can be all fire and flame for an inning and a half or two? Yeah, it could ultimately make Newcomb more effective. I think what's going to be interesting is if he's starting and leaving early, like we've talked about before, then he's not eligible to get wins. If he's a follower, if he ends up being leaving early like we've talked about before then he's not eligible to get wins if he's a follower if he ends up being more of a bulk reliever they put Tukey in front of Newcomb that could set him up for optimal fantasy value so I think that's where some of the appeal with Newcomb comes from for me one of the other big movers in a similar vein is Corbin Burns

he is now in the rotation for the Brewers. Brett Anderson starts the year on the IL. Burns is actually lined up to start the second game of the season against the Cubs on Saturday. He's looked great throughout summer camp. You know, Velo's good. The movement is there. We know that the slider is just an unhittable, gross pitch for Corbin Burns. Really, it comes down to fastball command and even fastball movement more specifically, because when that fastball is in the zone, hitters can do a lot of damage against it. But the little bits I've seen from Corbin Burns, that fastball looked like it had a lot more movement, more of a cutting action to it. And if it all clicks for Corbin

Burns, I mean, he could be a huge value. I jumped him up a little bit on my rankings with an update this week. I think he's definitely draftable in mixed leagues so long as he has a starting job. A little bit like Newcomb, but probably a guy that I like a little bit more than Newcomb because the Brewers don't have quite the same depth behind him. They could do some similar things, but I think they're going to give Burns a chance to actually be a five inning guy. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to rein in my enthusiasm. Uh, you know, uh, canning Griffin canning and Kirby Burns are probably among the biggest movers in this, uh,

summer camp situation. Um, I have them, ironically, right next to each other at about 64, 65. I think that's reasonable. It's excited, but it's not telling you to make them one of their top four or five pitchers. It's kind of like, hey, look at these guys. Look at these guys before you pick up Alex Wood, probably.

Alex Wood is probably going to be okay, but these guys could be really good. I keep getting tripped up by Alex Wood because the Dodgers sought him out. They brought him back. They understand his medical history. They knew the quality of their depth. They signed him long before they knew there was going to be a pandemic and

that David Price wouldn't be available. And it just seemed like he was ahead of Ross Stripling in their plans for the rotation, which also seems a bit weird because I think Stripling is actually better than Alex Wood. Is Alex Wood susceptible to losing his spot or to being paired up with a Tony Gonsolin? Obviously, Dustin May doesn't have a spot to call his own right now, and that's a really nice luxury to have, too, which the Dodgers roster is just a bunch of luxuries really at this point. But I keep looking at Wood, and in one breath, I think he makes sense where he goes around pick 250.

And in another, I could see him being pretty easily replaced because of the quality of the options behind him. You know, I wish that we had a better sense of velocity. Velocity is pretty big for anybody, but for him, when he's like 91, 92, he's way better than when he's 89, 90. That's not necessarily the case, mostly for how fastballs work.

I think it's maybe an indicator of his health in general. But, you know, this latest note that he threw 89 pitches in inter-squad with eight strikeouts in six in general. But this latest note that he threw 89 pitches in inter-squad with eight strikeouts in six innings is hopeful. So he could be one of those oatmeal guys that is more useful than people think. But it's been since 2017 where he really had a standout season. Otherwise, he's kind of a high three ZRA guy with a middling strikeout rate. So that upside, I kind of chase upside at that point in the draft unless it's a deep league.

So if things change a little bit, if it's NL only, then he becomes a little bit more my style of like, you know, just a guy who's going to go out there and give me some innings i think right and i think if it's not working for him as a starter they would move him to the pen use them two three innings at a time and kind of get the ratios right so i think that's part of where that floor trust comes from yeah and lefty righty pairing with wood or gons with mayor gonsolin is interesting i i think they they optioned gonsolin too so yeah Gonsolin is interesting. I think they optioned Gonsolin too. Yeah, Gonsolin though, as soon as there's a need on the roster, he's back up. May would start on just about every other team in the league. There's a handful of teams at most that have depth like the Dodgers that can afford to not have Dustin May in their starting five. But we'll see if it ends up being a mistake to actually use Wood in that role over May to begin this season. Aaron Nola is going to start an opening day just

to follow up from something we discussed a while back. There was some uncertainty about his availability since he was away after being exposed or near someone who had tested positive for the virus. The only question I think with Nola is where that pitch count might be on opening day. Maybe he's a little bit lighter than some of the guys who are really going five and six in the last intra squad games and scrimmages. So I don't know if it even is enough to not have wood in the lineup this weekend, because I feel like any league that is going to start up on Thursday or Friday, you know, you're going to have only a handful of games.

You're going to have a bunch of your back-end starters who aren't going yet. So anybody who's getting four-plus innings is absolutely in play. And obviously Aaron Nola's good. So despite a possible short outing, all signs point to Nola being good to go to start the season. We had one mailbag question about a guy who's been in the news a bit recently. So I want to ask you about Robbie Ray. He's got a new delivery, so it's less busy, I think is the way I would describe it. And he's down about 25 pounds. If you see him side by side, you notice the change in the delivery, but you also notice he is slimmed down quite a bit.

You know, I wonder if both of those things, being a little lighter, maybe having a stronger core, and then shortening up the delivery, if it makes it easier for him to repeat and to get over the command issues that have plagued him. We know Robbie Ray can get strikeouts. The team is actually better than most people realize, so I think the setup there is pretty good. Are you more interested in Robbie Ray seeing this new delivery and seeing him in that slimmed down form. Yeah, the thing is, though, that it's not a new pitch. You know, all these things are great for health. And I think, you know, long term, good for him. But, you know, he's kind of like a low-rent Patrick Corbin.

It's not bad. It's not bad, but it's not necessarily any better than where I've got him, which is, I think, a decent back-end pitcher that may be a little bit more likely to stay healthy. I have him at 62, right behind Luke We weaver around andrew haney and stroman just like veterans that are worth picking up but i don't none of these things uh suggest to me you know he has decent command of his of his of his fastballs if these if this improved the command of his slider um or just improved his command in general, sure.

Okay. I could see something more like Zips. Zips has a.398 ERA, a.130 whip, and the smallest home run rate and the smallest walk rate of most of the projections. So that would be his second best year of his career. Yeah. He had one kind of outlier season with those ratios..289 ERA, yeah. his second best year of his career. Yeah, he had one kind of outlier season with those ratios. 289 ERA, yeah. That was a fun year to have Robbie Ray.

If you experienced that, that was amazing. You know you're always going to get strikeouts. That's just been part of what he's brought to the table every year that he's been in Arizona. And it's a big year for him, too. It's his walk year. So he's one of those guys that. With that extra attention to detail. Maybe we nudge him up a little bit.

I've got him a little higher than you do. Because at that point in the draft. I think you are getting some dead weight. In the ratios with a few guys. But job security kind of separates him. From a lot of the guys I have ranked below him. And then that extra level of K's. If he gets lucky, even just on balls in play and doesn't change a lot with his command, that could get him back to those really good ratios again just for this shortened season.

I think he's a guy that, for other reasons, I was already starting to think about taking more chances on. If I'm light on strikeouts and I feel pretty good about the foundation foundation of ratios that i put together at the price robbie ray makes sense yeah he's a little bit um like the matt boyd um situation where everything else is good except for like home run rate um and uh i think we'll see some home run and right out relyers this year. That's what we saw in 1981 when we split the halves. So, you know, I think maybe a guy like Jake Odorizzi could be similar. And I only have Odorizzi about 10 higher. But there are going to be guys where, you know, I guess even Denilson Lemaitre, really, there are going to be guys where, I guess even Denilson Lemaitre, really,

there are going to be guys that have some home run problems, have had home run problems in the past, are projected into home run problems, and may just never find those home run problems. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. One sort of position player news item, it's more of a broader question, but Starlin Castro is the inspiration for it. We're getting some details about how teams are going to set up their lineups to start the season, and it looks like Starlin Castro is going to be the number three hitter in Washington.

You know, Anthony Rendon being gone, there's some major offensive shoes to fill, but you look at how this could line up. It could be Turner, Eaton, Starlin Castro, Soto, Howie Kendrick. That's a much better situation than anything we've seen for Starlin Castro the last couple of seasons in Miami. This is a guy that hit a career-high 22 home runs last year. It's important to point out he played in all 162 games, so he maxed out volume to get to that level. But he's in a much more hitter-friendly environment too.

Leaving Miami and going to D.C. where high drives have been handsomely rewarded in recent seasons he was kind of getting a quiet park boost anyway and now he's in a very prominent spot for a strong washington lineup yeah by hard hit angle and maximum exit below he his best comp is Alex Verdugo. And, you know, I don't think he's that far off of that in terms of other skills, too. Starling Castro makes good contact, uses the field, and has a surprising pop, I think, for people that forget about him. So I think the wheels days are over. You know, if he steals one bag, you're lucky. But these days, batting average and a few homers. You wouldn't think Howie Kendrick was going to steal many bases. We were talking his praises.

There's definitely something to like here. He's never quite hit the ball in the air as much as you'd like but um you know he's kind of inched that forward uh in some years and last year was his best fly ball rate of his career actually i think the thing that i'm looking at from a broader standpoint is being more willing to upgrade players based on where they're hitting in the order i think changes are going to happen more rapidly with roles, both in the lineup, in terms of playing time, batting order, starter versus reliever, closer versus setup guy. All that stuff is going to change a lot faster because clearly teams are responding to the fact

that one game now is equal to 2.7 in a typical season. It's just the nature of a shortened year. But I think getting those extra plate appearances, hitting third as opposed to hitting sixth, and obviously getting the runs and RBI boost that can come from being in that position as well, makes me a lot more interested in Starling Castro than I would have been even just a few days ago,

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Eligibility restrictions apply. See DraftKings.com for details. All right, you know, let's talk about some predictions for this 2020 season. We're going to shake things up a little bit. We're going to go to the NL Rookie of the Year Award. Kind of fun to start there on the same day that Gavin Lux gets optioned to minor league camp. I think with even a little bit of missed time, that puts him in a position where he's no longer the frontrunner for that spot. I think the chalk at this point is the guy who I think is going to win the award.

Dylan Carlson is my favorite to get that job, or to get that award, rather. I think he's going to start from day one, potentially. It's not confirmed just yet, so that's the one thing I'm a little bit nervous about. But I think just about everybody in consideration for this award has to wait a week before they're going to get called up anyway. So even if Carlson does get sent down,

we're bummed about that as fantasy players, but I think he's among the first players called up about a week into the season. So what do you make of Carlson? And do you believe that he is in fact going to be up once the second week of the season begins? Yeah, I do believe that. I also am really excited to see him play a switch hitter that can use all the field. Seems like he's increased his power in the minor leagues, retained some speed. He's going to be an all-around contributor. The question is a little bit the contact rate and the batting average, but not necessarily the on-around contributor. The question is a little bit the contact rate and the batting average, but not necessarily the on-base percentage. So I think he'll hit high in the order

and be an across-the-board contributor. And I think he's chalk at this point. For the award, I wanted to mention maybe some other possible frontrunners. Gore, Mackenzie Gore, probably Dustin May, and Spencer Howard are probably the pitchers that could battle it out for it. And on the hitter side, I think Alec Baum has a shot to even make the opening day roster because the Phillies are fairly aggressive with their prospects and their spending. They're just more willing to try and win now, which I think is admirable. And I think with the DH, Alec Baum has a real place.

He's been playing some first base, some third base, and DHing. He was the second DH in one of the games. I feel like he's had two DHs. That was weird. But I've got a little bit of a dark horse pick, and I'll give you the reasoning before I give you the pick. So you're talking about these guys are likely to not start the season with the team. We've been talking about how the counting stats are going to be weird. Who's going to hit eight homers and who's going to hit 12? I think the voters, and I'm one of them, may have a hard time looking at counting stats and being like,

oh, he had nine homers this year. What a good rookie of the year. So I think we're going to focus, a lot of us, and there's going to be bigger numbers here, I think we're going to focus on batting average a lot. So I think there's a real chance that Nico Horner is the National League Rookie of the Year just because I think he is going to have the best batting average

of any of the rookies. I mean, could Brian Hayes, a little bit of a shot to come in and hit for good average, Carter Keboom maybe, but Nico Horner is the best hit tool of the group that I've talked about, and I'm excited to see him play. I think he'll basically be one of those guys that plays five times a week and pushes his way into the starting lineup eventually yeah i think that's a really nice under the radar type i think the guy that kind of checks all the boxes for me who probably also won't get delayed to start the season is sam hilliard i know the rockies tend to mess up playing time when it comes to young players they gotta hit 42 home runs and still 24 bases

between the minors and the majors last year. That was AAA and the big leagues. It wasn't like he spent half the year tearing up AA. And yet a 90-year-old Matt Kemp is going to start ahead of him. Yeah, I mean, Rocky's going to Rocky. I'd look at that situation. I think Matt Kemp's probably a small side platoon guy. I think they see him like that.

Kind of like the Mark Reynolds role from years past, right? But they have the universal DH so they can use him there, maybe occasionally put him out in the outfield. I still think it's kind of weird if you look at their depth chart to see Rymel Tapia listed ahead of Hilliard. I mean, I think Tapia is just a nice fourth outfielder. I don't really think there's any reason to believe you'd play him more than you'd play Sam Hilliard. For what it's worth, Fangraphs has it Hilliard, Dahl, Blackman with Tapia as an obvious backup in all three positions. And then basically Kemp

Murphy at DH and Murphy McMahon at first and McMahon Hampson at second. I think that's how I would run a team. And I think that's a legitimate way to run depth charts. But there's also the question of, you know, what would the team do, and is the team necessarily on the same wavelength as you are? I think this is one of those years where I'm higher on the Rockies than usual because things can get so strange for them anyway. They're a high-variance team for things that are out of their control, and we're in a high-variance season, so it's pure rollercoaster mode. The Rockies could just be on fire as an offense.

In that bold thing that I did with – actually, the impossible predictions that I did with Jason Stark, he found that the Rockies had won 37 games in a 60-game stretch last year, even as they lost 91 on the season. See, it's possible. And you look at the offense, there's some nice bats there. You mentioned the depth they have of just being able to move Murphy even between first and DH gives them a little extra flexibility because McMahon can play first,

then someone like Brendan Rodgers or Garrett Hampson can play second. Their offense has good depth. It's going to come down to their pitching and whether or not they can find a way to just put it together and beat the park in a shorter season. The back end of the staff is just terrible. I mean, maybe if Hoffman had grown up in another organization, he'd be good. He did have that good curveball. Freeland has a chance if he refinds his command. Maybe Sensatella and Hoffman can be three-inning guys.

But if you have, let's say they are three-inning guys, then you want to have bullpen depth. And this bullpen, as much as they spent on it, I like Oberg, I like Diaz. There's not much glue there between those guys. Especially with, I mean, Chichi Gonzalez, Jeff Hoffmanman in the back that's trouble i i don't know maybe maybe peter lambert or somebody else emerges to be the five and they can get lucky that way i just they look a little better than people give them credit for that's that's my nice compliment yeah about the rockies at this point so i'm a

little higher on them as a team than a lot of people I think are at this point. Let's go over to the AL side for rookie of the year. I think Luis Robert would be the chalk and for good reason. I mean, there's no major concern about service time because he already signed that long-term deal. He's got power. He's got speed. The lineup around him is improving. He does have a teammate there, Nick Madrigal, where if he pulled the Nico Horner trick and just hit.350 for a short season, that would probably get him a lot of votes and put him on the map.

I think there's some interesting pitchers. Jesus Lizardo. Nate Pearson might be a nice, slightly longer odds sort of consideration here because I think the Jays need him. We talked about it a little earlier when we discussed the Jays not knowing where they're going to play this year. I think part of the Blue Jays hitting their higher end outcome is getting a lot out of Nate Pearson. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm doing a survey right now,

an anonymous survey. And one of the executives I talked to liked the Blue Jays this year in the short season. And their comment was they don't have the pitching for 162, but for 60 maybe they do. So that kind of goes both ways a little bit on Pearson. Maybe they find a way to not use him. But I think if the Blue Jays start out well, they're at the point where most of their guys are in the major leagues. Most of their best prospects are in the major leagues. It's almost time to win. You know what I mean? It's not necessarily time to massage someone's service time. It's especially if you're a pitcher, because how many pitchers do you want seven years from now? And with Bo Bichette and Kevin Biggio and Lourdes Gurriel and Vlad Guerrero and Danny

Jansen, they have this actually, and even Rowdy. I like Rowdy. I've talked about him before. Danny Jansen, they have this actually, and even Rowdy. I like Rowdy. I've talked about him before. And I like Derek Fisher. They have a great collection of bats right now, and they just need to do some pitching. If they start out well, but Trent Thornton is not doing so well,

or Shoemaker can't find it, they may even start Pearson from the get-go, because Bo Rookie right now is their number five. He's oft hurt and does not have an established track record. So yeah, Pearson is basically the number six right now and with a bullet. So I like Pearson. Lizardo, though, for me, is in the rotation right now. He's healthy. There's a question on how many innings he has, but I think that's a question for basically the first start,

maybe the second start. So I kind of like Lizardo here as the best competition for Robert. Yeah, I think they would be one and two on most people's predictions. And Pearson's probably a steady sort of three. Unfortunately, we didn't talk about this during the news segment. AJ puck is going to open the season on the IL.

He's having some trouble with his shoulder again. It's really a bummer because I thought he was going to be a big part of the A's having some success this year was going to come through and a shortened season was really going to eliminate a lot of the concerns over the course of the A's having some success this year was going to come through, and a shortened season was really going to eliminate a lot of the concerns over the course of the season. I think the bigger issue I had was in-game management still might not get as many innings as we wanted. But to shoulder strain, at least as they're calling it for now,

further details to come in the near future. Hopefully, A.J. Puck gets some good news. And I updated last night and I dropped him into the low 60s, maybe early 70s thinking he could still be kind of a bench piece. You know, a very exciting bench piece.

But as the news kept rolling in, I kept dropping him and dropping him. I've got him down in the hundreds now. You know, I don't know where to rank him versus sean mania now and if puck was healthy i would take i'd take him over five sean mania so i did want to mention another and in the al rookie of the year not to jump around too much but uh but we're still kind of al rookie aj puck would have been somebody we've mentioned for aj for al rookie of the year uh davy garcia is knocking on the door a little

bit in uh new york and could be the sixth starter there and on some level like there was some excitement about davy on the level of like a nate pearson where it's like he's right here in the time when we're going to need the sixth starter. He's going to be there. I don't know, man. He was sitting 92 in the game I saw yesterday. As much as there are problems with the StatCast data, everybody that I talked to said the velocity was pretty good. Velocity is not that hard to do, and they've got the velocity down.

It's really the high-end kind of tricky stuff that stack has going to have a problem with. So, you know, I think in terms of spin, spin rate and spin axis, it may be a while before I'd really trust that data. But,

you know, he's at 92. I think he's going to spend more time in the minor league camp than he is in the major league camp. I think it's Clark Schmidt over Davey Garcia at this point if an opportunity arises in the back of the Yankees rotation. Julio Rodriguez has a wrist injury. He wasn't going to get called up anyway. It's too bad because he'd obviously be a contender for this kind of award if he had the opportunity. The other name that kind of stands out to me is Joe Adele.

And you just wonder how quickly are the Angels going to give him the call? It kind of feels like they're going out of their way to make stuff up as far as things he needs to work on to do the service time thing. Joe Adele's ability to track the ball in right field, I think, was something I recently saw in some comments that were made by Joe Madden about him, which is to me just absurd. It's like, okay, you're clearly going to call this guy up in about a week. So I think he's right there. I mean, the extra handful of games that Luis Robert gets probably gives Robert the clear upper hand,

but Adele has the skills to obviously be the guy that wins this award. Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. I was going to say the team situation is not the same, but Brian Goodwin is 29, had the best season of his career last year, and was a little bit above league average. So most likely he profiles as a play-everywhere fourth outfielder type guy. Especially if Adele is hitting well in camp,

I think that switch will come pretty easily after a week. Evan White also could be up all season, so that gives him a shot. He's a little bit different because I would say his upside is probably lesser than most of the names we've mentioned, and that's kind of why he signed this long-term deal. But by signing this long-term deal, he basically put himself on the roster from day one. So he's going to be the meat and potatoes candidate. He's going to be the pot roast.

The pot roast, yeah. Potatoes, Ken. It's going to be the pot roast. The pot roast, yeah. No, I mean, playing time is key, and he did show a lot more power once he was healthy at AA last year. Right around the time I suggested dropping him in Dynasty, he got healthy and started mashing. I picked him back up, fortunately, in the league where I cut him.

Hopefully, everybody out there who followed the initial advice ended up scooping him back up once it became clear that health was a big part of why the power had disappeared for him manscaped is here to make sure you're well groomed above and below the belt manscaped promotes clean hygiene when it comes to shaving with their lawnmower 3.0 personal trimmer manscaped is the only men's brand dedicated to below the waist grooming their waterproof cordless body trimmer makes it safe and easy subscribe to the perfect package and get a new replacement blade refill for your trimmer delivered to your door every three months making sure your trimmer always stays fresh and clean get 20 off and free shipping with the code the athletic at manscaped.com that's 20 off with

free shipping at manscaped.com and use code theathletic and for a limited time subscribers get not one but two free gifts a travel bag a $39 value and the patented high performance manscaped boxer briefs so go to manscaped.com today and use code theathletic all right you know we got two more awards to predict before we sign off. Let's go to the NL Comeback Player of the Year Award. My pick is probably third, fourth, maybe even fifth on the list for most people, even just on the NL side alone. Maybe it's because I'm a little high on the Rockies, but I just think back to how much everybody liked Daniel Murphy last year.

We've talked about how he was playing, trying to hit with a splint on his thumb for most of last year. The park is obviously good and he puts a ton of balls in play. I think good things can happen for Daniel Murphy and at the playing times actually pretty stable. So I'm going to go with Daniel Murphy as the comeback player of the year in the national league this season. back player of the year in the National League this season? I was thinking Andrew McCutcheon on the hitting side is a better, maybe slightly better combination

of age and recent ability to play than Cespedes. Although now that I look at it, McCutcheon is 33, Cespedes is 34. now that I look at it, McCutcheon is 33, Cespedes is 34. If Cespedes plays a lot and hits home runs, I think that will maybe look a little better than McCutcheon's slightly more OBP forward approach. McCutcheon's not going to steal any bases, so I guess yo over him but there's there's an interesting thing going on uh with cory knable that like uh it's really obvious when someone gets a role like closer right it's like what if yo is like part-time first base part-time dh part-time left

field hits 250 with eight homers and is generally helpful for the team but not none of those things scream star what if mccutcheon comes back and hits 260 with a great obp and hits six homers, you know, is that going to be enough? What if Knable comes in and has a one ERA and ten saves and basically is the closer because they're moving Hayter around again? I think Knable's resume might resonate really well with people. So that's my trio. I think Chokish is Ioannis Cespedes. Yeah, he's the guy everybody is into right now.

And for good reason. He's a good player, as we've said time and time again. He's always been an above-average hitter in terms of WRC+. As long as he's been a big leaguer, should be locked in near the heart of that order every day when he does play. And probably going to get at least four starts per week so long as he's healthy with room to start almost every day. I think that's in his range of outcomes.

Let's go to the AL side for a comeback player of the year candidates. Lance McCullers kind of jumps off the page to me on the pitching side as a guy that, because he missed time last year and has the ability to come through and produce kind of elite-ish numbers on the mound, I think that's going to really kind of jump off the page. If he comes up with a 270 ERA, he's been at 322 twice in his big league career, 386 in 2018. He's flashed a good whip on two occasions under a 120 whip, always gets strikeouts. Is that a team that should be good?

Although I think Houston's bullpen could be a problem. I think McCullers coming off of the injury and the completely lost 2019 is going to tick a lot of boxes for the comeback player of the year award on the AL side. Yeah, yeah. And it's very visibly nasty stuff where people will be sharing images of his stuff they already are um you know the one question is uh how long they'll let him go uh sometimes with the walks you know he doesn't go deep into games he's not the most efficient uh pitcher. They do have the bullpen to maybe kind of play some games there and maybe rob him

of some wins and stuff. I've got two hitters and one, I think these two there's something about the spirit of the war that's interesting to me. It's like Sal Perez is coming back, missed the year with injury. If he plays well,

he'll be kind of an obvious pick because there'd be so many things we could say. He went from zero war to whatever war. He was one of the biggest war increasers. He was hurt. He didn't play. Is he coming back from not playing?

Is that the spirit of the award or is it more someone like Chris Davis who played and was bad? Playing hurt versus not playing you shouldn't necessarily be penalized for grinding out yeah chris davis wasn't healthy for a good chunk of last year but he was out there trying to play so i do think the spirit of the award missing the season entirely or missing a good chunk of it or dealing with a lot of injuries the year before. I think those are all within the framework of what counts.

The other guy that missed most of last season is Miguel Andujar. I just want to bring him up because he's good. Look what he did in 2018. He hit.297, slugged.527, hit 27 home runs. That was his rookie season. He debuted in 2017, only had eight plate appearances, but he came up with a huge season in 2018, missed almost all of last year, had surgery, is healthy.

There are some questions about where he's going to play. He's moved around a lot during summer camp. But if there's one thing Miguel and Duhar can do, it's hit. And I think he's going to be one of those guys we're talking about at the end of the season and saying, why wasn't he going earlier in drafts i mean there's a ton to like in that park in that lineup and just in that individual profile yeah and the profile of the guy ahead of him and maybe the easiest position for him to break through is not one that necessarily always

leads to starting i mean with rochella if he takes a step back, as projections suggest, and is less than an average Major League bat, which I could quibble with. The stat cast is actually pretty positive about Urshela. He's a good hard hit angle. You know, he does a lot of things right. But if there is regression, like they say, then he's kind of a glove-first-ish guy at third base.

He'll be an above average glove and a below average bat. And that profiles more as a backup. And Andrew O'Hara could get back in there and start playing at third base. Everywhere else, I think he's worse off. He's been playing some outfield, but their outfielders, they have Hicks now healthy, Gardner, Judge, Frazier, Stanton. I would probably play all those guys ahead of Andrew Hart given defense. Maybe not Gardner, but that's still four outfielders ahead of him. Yeah, Aaron Hicks could be a comeback player here in the AL too. That's right. That's true.

He was a big part of the fab column from last weekend. For good reason. Plenty of power, a little bit of speed, plays good defense in center field, should play a lot. I just think the way he's been on the field pretty much every day in summer camp really bodes well for his usage. I think he's going to be out there

probably at least five times a week. I think what makes things a little bit tricky is that this is a team that has Mike Tauchman. They've got Clint Frazier. They've got other guys that we didn't even mention yet. Yeah, I didn't even mention those guys yet.

Yeah, Tauchman would start for a lot of teams. I think that's why I was surprised they brought Brett Gardner back. I know there's probably some clubhouse legacy stuff going on there. Yeah, but they really didn't need

Brett Gardner, and that was even before Aaron Hicks was healthy. So they're just loaded in the outfield when everybody's healthy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're the favorite. I don't even really see how it falls apart because I know that in this survey I'm asking some executives who this short season might hurt, and in my impossible predictions we said a team like the Yankees could miss the playoffs.

But I don't actually see how it happens. I guess it would have to be kind of massive injury. I mean, it would have to be like it couldn't just be Judge going down again. It had to be like Judge, Stanton, Paxton, maybe even Luke Voigt also going down. You know what I mean? Like Chapman went down and they have Zach Britton coming in who has like the most negative launch angle of all time. You know,

you know, the guy who burns worms, like no one's ever burned worms. So, and they still have out of, you know, and green and Conley and like, I guess maybe the,

the, the bullpen doesn't strike me as aggressively dominant as maybe in the past, but we're still talking about once Chapman coming back, you're still talking about going four or five deep with really good pitchers. And my bold prediction was Loaizaga is the glue that keeps his team together and leads the team and wins just because he's going to vulture, vulture, vulture. So I don't really know how this team falls apart unless it's just a massive amount of injury.

Yeah, they look well-positioned in pretty much every facet. I think if the bullpen's not as good as expected, they can out-hit problems with their pitching, whether it's with the relievers or even with the back end of the rotation. They don't identify a fourth or fifth starter who really gets the job done consistently. And I like the candidates they have. I think Jay Happ could bounce back.

He's kind of old and boring. Jordan Montgomery is interesting to me. I like Jordan Montgomery. He's another guy that has the up arrow next to his name, kind of like Burns and Newcomb, who we talked about earlier. But I think Montgomery long-term has a better chance of being a starter than someone like Sean Newcomb does. I think there's a deeper repertoire there and that goes a long way toward better command. And he's the velocity was one thing that, um, sort of held him back, but he did really well, um, at 90, even, uh, in 2018. And, uh, apparently he's back up to 92, 93, uh, which is where he was in 2017,

when he kind of burst onto the scene. So I've always thought that he had the pitches he needed, the command he needed, and now he's back up at 92 post-surgery. Yeah, I've got the upper arm on him. I'm moving him probably into that early 70s, maybe just ahead of Dylan Cease, who has all the stuff in the world and half the command. Yeah, I think Montgomery is definitely viable in 12-team mixed leagues at this point, maybe even going to be a streamer in 10s and smaller.

I think that's the kind of ceiling he brings to the table. He was just starting to put all those pieces together. Did really well on that debut back in 2017. 388 ERA, 123 whip, 144 Ks, and 155 in a third inning. It's really good to hear that velocity is back to those pre-surgery levels. player to an extent because we only saw him for four innings last year as he was making the final steps back following tommy john surgery so i think he could technically get into that conversation as well if you're enjoying this show on a platform that allows you to rate and review it please take the time to do that we greatly appreciate it if you don't already have a subscription to the athletic you can get a free 30-day subscription at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. Really nice trial offer there. If you want to reach us via email,

ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com is the best way to do that. On Twitter, he's at Eno Saris. I'm at Derek Van Ryper. And as I mentioned earlier, more predictions for the big awards. We've got the Cy Young Awards, the MVP Awards, and our playoff teams, including World Series

winners coming up on our episode on Thursday. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. Thanks for listening.