Rates & Barrels - Making Sense of Atlanta's Step Back at the Plate, Career-Shaping Opportunities & One-Hit Wonders

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

Eno, DVR, and Trevor analyze the surprising step back for the Atlanta lineup through the first two months of 2024, and discuss players at pivotal points in their careers with a limited window to secure their future role. Plus, they'll take live questions from viewers throughout the show! Rundown 1:33 More Changes From the Mets; Christian Scott & Brett Baty Optioned to Triple-A 12:55 What's Happening in Atlanta's Lineup? 20:27 Teams Are Pitching the Braves Differently 25:17 Can Hitters Adjust Quickly to a Change Like This? 28:25 A Closer Look at Matt Olson 34:15 Practice Swings Revealing A Hitter's Plan? 37:40 Confidence Levels in Albies, Riley, Harris, Kelenic Getting to Power Again? 42:49 When Careers Reach Pivot Points 57:20 Who Is Your Favorite MLB One-Hit Wonder? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Trevor on Twitter: @IamTrevorMay Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it is Friday, May 31st, Derek Van Riper, Eno Saris, Trevor May all here with you. Thanks for joining us. If you're watching us live on YouTube, shout out to the Live Hive. Get some questions in there. We'll have a lot of time for questions at the end of the show today.

Be sure to smash the like button on this video, whether you're watching us live or not. A lot of ground to cover today. We're gonna spend some time digging into what's going on with the Atlanta lineup. They lost Ronald Lacuna Jr. over the long weekend. They've been in that position before. We talked about that earlier in the week, but this hasn't been the same Braves lineup top to bottom that we saw in 2023 when they had kind of

an all-time great season, a 125 WRC+, a 20.6% K-way. So we'll try to dig into why and come up with some answers as to what's been different with a lot of those key bats in the Atlanta lineup. We're also going to talk about the narrow opportunities some players have when they're basically fighting for their career, fighting for an opportunity to be an everyday player, maybe fighting for a chance to be a starter instead of a reliever. You dig into some of the guys that are in that situation right now and the added stress of that situation, which it's amazing that your whole career could be defined by something that happens in four weeks or six weeks

because that was the only chance you got depending on a various set of circumstances. We're gonna begin today though with some changes from the Mets, they've been in the news a lot this week. Christian Scott gets optioned to triple A along with Brett Beatty. I think one of those options is a bit different than the other.

One, I think, is a schedule related situation with Christian Scott where with some off days and a trip to London and a guy that they're trying to monitor workload wise, they're just sending him down to have an extra reliever around, which, okay, is a hassle for fantasy managers, but somewhat makes sense in terms of just getting the long-term Christian Scott outcome where you want it getting his development rights more important than

Trying to max out every inning he gets in the big leagues at this moment Trevor did you ever do a like one of those weird spots like one of like Mexico City or like Was like even in spring where it's like you guys had to travel city or like was like even in spring where it's like you guys had to travel internationally for a game. Uh, no, the one year that I could have done that was would have been 2017, but that's the year I got Tommy John. Uh, I think it was actually spring training in 2018. It was Puerto Rico.

That seems like one of the easier ones too. That's a pretty quick flight. You know, I was next to her, so I didn't get invited to that one. I think I'd be annoyed as heck if I was a man right now. I wouldn't want to do it. The midseason trip definitely seems worse, even though as a pitcher, getting ready a little earlier is also a hassle. It seems better to have travel like we saw for the Padres and Dodgers

at the beginning of the season before opening day. They just tried to get out of the middle of the summer. But the distance. The Padres camp was messed up. Like Musgrove probably hated the fact that they were they had to go there Yeah I mean think about it like Trevor is the rhythm of the season is it harder to break out of it for something like that Compared to doing it getting it out of the way and then getting back into the typical rhythm Yeah in the middle of season. It's brutal frankly

honestly flying like from the east coast of the west coast was disruptive enough, like feeling like you're pitching at one in the morning, you're going out, you go out at 930 out into the mound, it's actually 1230 to your body, like that, that's hard enough. Flipping it around and being like I feel like I should be to the middle of the night or it's early in the morning to me and I'm supposed to pitch and pitch well. And then you add in the fact that London specifically, I don't know if you guys remember last time with the London series, but a lot of fly balls went over the fence.

Uh, it was like very fun to pitch. And, um, yeah, I think these things might adversely affect, uh, pitchers because I think pitchers are a little more, um, one little thing gets out of whack and it can completely just throw you off the rails. Like you go from being really effective to not effective at all. So I think these abrupt things maybe have a greater impact on it. Maybe a starting pitcher, maybe it's tough to get around, but I mean, it hurts everybody.

I just think that hitters can like get this, get the swings going a little bit. And, and it's just, it's less stuff you have to kick rust off For so I don't I wouldn't love it. I would love to get it out of the way I I'm not big on traveling anyways, but like yeah Just adding a flight that's ten hours longer than all the other flights You got to really have a positive mindset just be excited to like be in another country playing baseball You gotta just treat it like kind of like it's an exhibition game even though it's in during the season I think that's like the best way to feel about it.

Anywhere. The stress out of it. Yeah, I think some of the stress out of it because you're already going to. There's enough stress in the body from the flight and everything. And the espresso machine will be in much use. I got to get a new espresso machine, but that is for another day. The Brett Beatty option seems like a bigger long term question, and he sort of fits into the

broader conversation we're going to have a little bit later where it's like this is a pivot point in his career. It's a cross fork in the road. It doesn't mean his career is over because he's young enough where he's going to get more chances somewhere. But each chance he gets after this might be different than the chances he's had up to this point because if it's with a new organization, they didn't invest the same draft capital in him in the first place. They don't have the same expectations necessarily going in. And I think there's added pressure each time. And New York's already a place where it seems like there's added pressure. At least that's been the narrative for a long time. Trevor, maybe you could speak to that. Did it feel different pitching in New York for half your games than other places you pitched throughout your career?

Yeah, absolutely. It's funny looking back, just looking at stats and stuff. It seems like I really enjoyed pitching in city fields. It's like my best stadium, which probably surprises a lot of people. But I liked it, but it is a different beast. It's, we're talking in reference to the, to the Jorge Lopez, which I know we'll maybe probably touch on at some point, it's kind of hard to avoid that. But I was talking with someone about the peaks and valleys of, and kind of if you built a, like a visual of a roller coaster for each team,

in terms of like how their, how their fans feel and then how their players feel. I'd say the Mets and probably the Phillies are the top two teams in how high those peaks can be and how low those valleys can be. So the sky's falling if things go poorly for three days in a row, but if they go well for three days in a row,

you're the best team on planet, right? So that's like, that's just the way it is and if it lines up where your valley is lined up perfectly with the teams Valley, that can be overwhelming in a lot of ways. So yes, there is something to that. Do you know what I'm hearing when you say that is that like the perfect manager for New York would be like a Bruce Bochy type.

That's like just chill all the time. Bruce Bochy would be as a New York, would be a really, really interesting situation. I would love to see Bruce. They tended to have more like, like kind of like stressed out, a little bit more angry, you know, managers I feel like, and like, I don't know. That bleeds in.

Honestly, I think Buck Showalter was good enough because he just like, he was kind of like, had like rain and he just stopped beating off of him. But that's the way he like learned to manage it. Right, I think actually Buck fits the Bochy. He's kind of like had like rain, I just stopped beat it off of him. But that's the way he like learned to manage it. Right. I think actually buck fits the Bochy. He's kind of chill. He's not, he's chill in his own way.

But he doesn't take a lot of like the, the stuff that if you took it seriously, could eat at you, he doesn't take that stuff seriously. And it's probably because he had managed in the, in New York before. And he learned that. So, but yeah, Bochy like in New York is a very interesting thought. Like I just love, but then again, look at Rob Thompson, right? He's chill and he handles Philly great.

And no one's ever talking about that, right? He's doing it, but then again, they're what? 40 and 17, so. It's pretty easy to be a big manager when he's doing that well. I think there was a great Hannah Kaiser tweet maybe a year or two ago, just about the differences. Rob Thompson, this very calm, I think he's a great Hannah Kaiser tweet maybe a year or two ago just about the differences. Rob Thompson, this very calm,

I think he's Canadian managing the Phillies and then she referred to the Phillies manager as like a beat faced. Like the temperament of the market was so different compared to the manager, it just didn't align. John Schneider was this kind of tough. I think y'all just want that. Yeah, like it just, you kinda need the opposite. That seems to be the- Charlie Manuel was perfect. Charlie... I think you all just want that. Yeah. Yeah, like it just... Charlie Manuel. You kind of need the opposite. Yeah. That seems to be the...

Charlie Manuel was perfect. Charlie Manuel. Seems to be the way to go. World champion. Chillin'. But yeah, Beatty's time at AAA could be a lot longer than Christian Scott's and then Christian Scott's back probably two, three weeks from now and starting kind of regularly until he hits his innings limit at some point at the later part of the season. Tough for fantasy purposes though, you know? You're gonna hold him for a couple of weeks given the lack of pitching available? Beatty or Scott?

Scott. I'm gonna hold Scott because I think this could be a situation where he would cost a lot to get back. He profiles to me as an above average pitcher who has a great home park and so I'm gonna hold on to Scott. Beatty, I don't think I can hold on to him except in keeper leagues. But in keeper leagues, there's a, you know, he has top third raw, raw power in terms of his max EV.

So like in terms of bat speed, it's there. It's the swing shape that's the problem. He's beaten the ball into the ground. You know, this is a weird name to bring up because we're just struggling right now, but Randy Rosarina profiles very similarly in terms of hits the ball super hard, hits the ball on the ground

a little bit more than you'd expect. But Randy Rosarina has had really great, you know, production in the past. And I think he'll figure it out again this year. And so I wonder if Beatty was never, Beatty has never been given a full season. Like what if the A's get him eventually and are just like, you know, we're just going to put you in the line-up every day or, you know, some rebuilding squad. It's like we get you,

put you in the line-up every day and we're not going to stress you out about all this stuff and just hit the ball hard. Why couldn't he hit like 15 to 18 to 20 homers and then do well on balls and play because he's hitting the ball hard. And maybe he hits too many ground balls and maybe he never hits 35 homers, but otherwise he's a decent third baseman who hits 18 homers and hits 280 and gets on base.

I don't know, that's all like a possible, the fork in the road for me is, does he chase the 30 homerun power and try to lift the ball and change his swing and you know, do all that, or does he embrace who he is? And sometimes I feel like we focus and teams focus on what you're doing wrong

and not on what you could do right. And so on some level I would just, you know, give him the bat, give him a job and say, hey, yes, you hit the ball on the ground. Just hit it hard. I do think if you look at his results in the minors compared to what's happened through basically a season split over parts of three years in the big leagues, mostly 23 and 24, you see two completely different players.

But I think that says more about the difference in the quality of the pitching between the big leagues and the minors right now. I don't think he could have a hole that they're just exploiting at the big leagues and the minors right now. I don't think this- He could have a hole that they're just exploiting at the major leagues that he can't cover. Yeah, I mean, we're still seeing, we saw some growth in terms of the K-rate coming down, the walk rate going up this year.

There were a few positives. Mets fans really don't wanna hear it, but the quality of the contact was there at the brief time. He spent a triple A last year. He hit a 57.9% hard hit rate. That is a ton of hard contact. I think he should continue to try to hit for power. I think it's absolutely the better version of Brett Beatty.

If that doesn't work over another 600 plate appearances, then maybe you start making some sort of adjustment. But I really liked him coming into the season. He's been a player I've been wrong about so far and very curious to see where things go from here for him. Maybe a guy that could be on the move at the trade deadline. It kind of feels like everything's on the table

for the Mets two months from now. Clearly a team trending towards being sellers, but is it selling some of the players that we thought would be there for a long time or is it just moving some of the guys that are there on shorter term deals or some of the veterans that are nearing the end of their contract?

Does Dady go with McNeil and somebody else to help him clean up some cash? Yeah, right, to move money. That could be part of the plan for David Stearns and company. It's going to be a fun couple of months from the outside looking in at the Mets. Probably not a fun time to be a Met. That would be a...

Or a Mets fan. ...easy pass for me. Let's talk about a team also in the NL East. A little more fun to be on board with right now that would be Atlanta. We started wondering this week what's happening in Atlanta's lineup. They just haven't hit the same stride that they did last year. Now one of our listeners John sent some some ideas a theory in our discord watches every Braves game said one theory is that MLB will release new balls starting tomorrow for June 1st. The June 1st balls will hit

and the Braves will take off. But looking back at 2022, that's exactly what happened then through May 31st. They were 23 and 27, averaging 4.1 runs per game from June 1st. Often they went 78 and 34 and averaged 5.1 runs per game, which is an amazing flip of the switch. And then he pointed to some some X stats and other things that still are really favorable, some of the numbers under the hood looking really good. And the other thing that John pointed out, a lot of cold weather games, which is true for many teams, has been kind of a cold spring around the country.

That's been one of the explanations people have floated for power just being down around the league. And I'm willing to buy into some of that. So how much do you think it's something else and how much of it do you think is, you know, stuff that John's kind of pointing out here? And what do you think about this lineup, Trevor? They're still good. They still have a 108 WRC plus. They look a lot like they did in 2022.

And that's even with guys that haven't played anywhere near their projection and expectation. First of all, thank you for the PTSD on the 78 and 34 to end the year in 2022. I think they got lost in translation that I don't know, they're the greatest team in history over, you know, 112 games and they chased us the Mets and everyone's like, why can't you hold them off because of the best team ever? Maybe that's why. Thank you for that.

I love also the conversation around how hitting is down in May every single year. And we do this every single time. And then in June, it picks up because it's 75 degrees everywhere and everyone starts hitting the fact that maybe new balls are being put in play. Those are just an old batch. That's what Rob said. So that's what I'm going with. They're always the coincidence. Okay. I mean, who knows? I'll always So that's what I'm going with. They're always Coincidence, okay. I mean who knows I'll always make that joke. I'll just assume they're just Manipulating balls, but it doesn't matter. I think they're fine. I think that this is the the biggest lack of production has just become been because Austin Riley hasn't quite gotten going yet and he's

Figuring out he's had some injuries maybe some nagging stuff the whole time, and maybe he's finally going to start getting healthy and looking like old Austin rally. Uh, and, and Olson, like those were the boppers. Those were the guys who were like producing like crazy and they're not quite doing it this year. And that's almost just that on its face is almost enough to point out that change in those statistics with the runs graded plus and just the overall production, but it's still peripherally close. It's still within like the margin of error almost like it's in that range.

There's still that type of team, but I went and looked. I mean, Ozzy Albies isn't handling heaters up late. He doesn't really usually do it, but he's hasn't gotten any. He hasn't hidden anything really hard, at least against guys who throw fastballs late, like right guys like me, which is, you know, 80% of the league, right? And then you add in, uh, uh, the Harris hasn't either. So those two guys have been needed to, to produce a little bit more, especially with the struggles of Acuna Jr. Now he's out and he wasn't handling here's up as well as he has in the past either. Who knows if he's been out the whole time. Yeah. Maybe the knee was bothering him the whole time.

So like, they just have had like three major guys who are the basically the engine that powered that crazy offense last year. All either deal with injuries, go out for the year or just scuffle a little bit. So there are one or two of those guys picking it back up. I was also a historical offensive year. Like it's hard to compare to that. Just natural regression is going to occur when you when you're that good. It's hard to maintain it.

That's true too. Yeah, just as normal regression. But Stephen is right too, when he points out some worst May slugging over the last 10 Mays. So, you know, there's a little piece in Ken Rosenthal's article today that I did some research for and helped him look at, you know, what the league is looking at, what we are looking

at to see if there's something fundamentally different. And yes, it was a cold April. It was colder than last year. So that was part of the picture for sure. But this May has been warmer than last year's May and the numbers are still down. So one thing I tried to do was look at pulled barrels. So if you're talking about pulled barrels, you're correcting for batted ball spray. So you're looking just at the best kind of barrels pulled. You're not looking at maybe by accident a bunch of

oppo barrels. You're looking at pulled barrels. And I looked at April's and May's, so it should to some degree be correcting for temperature. It's not on every single ball, but you know, it's kind of looking at the same time frame. And I looked at pulled barrels over the stack cast era and it's down, they're down three feet in distance this year and it's the lowest it's been in the stack cast era. There is some degree of like maybe the ball's

a little different. Here comes the baseball. They're going to do it. You're going to be right. Exactly. I couldn't avoid it. I mean, that's a thing that pulled barrels are not going as far. And by now, May has sort of evened out some of the temperature concerns that we had. So I do think that that is part of what's going on.

And if you think about it, the Dodgers are going heavy sinker, the Giants under Bailey were going heavy sinker. I looked at the number, I looked at the changes in pitch types. And yes, splitters are up the most one percentage point, but that's still kind of a big deal if you think about the entire Tia baseball. Sinkers are up about one percentage point, about as much as splitters. We thought this was the year of the splitter, but it turns out it's the year of the splinker, splitters, you know, sinker thing. So if you think about,

you know, why would you do more with the sinkers? First of all, because 80% of the league is ride guys. Baseball, these hitters are getting used to ride. They're getting used to training for ride. Now you say, hey, all right, now we got turbo sinkers. We got training, we got graterall, we got this, we got that. You got Walker Bueller throwing a sinker. We got Tyler Glass now throwing a sinker. So that's part, and then the other part of it is

if you aren't gonna get hit as hard when they lift the ball, like if the ball isn't going to go as far when you lift the ball, then the reason that sinkers are kind of bad is that people can lift them and when they do lift them, it's a homer, right? So if it's not as much a guaranteed homer, then ground balls are superior to line drives. And so sinkers become a little bit more viable if the ball isn't, if it's not 2019 rabbit ball. I think this all kind of ties in,

but one thing that's really interesting for me is that the Braves are seeing a change in approach. And I pointed this out with Acuna, but it's actually Braves wide. So the Braves right now are seeing the most fast balls in the big leagues and the fewest sliders in the big leagues and this is a total change from last year where they used to see a lot more sliders and this right now is

Look that was it's a look at who swings on sliders in the zone in zero strike counts, so these are supposed to be like stolen strike sliders, you know, like this didn't used to happen in baseball. And now it's a thing that you, the pitchers will throw sliders in these counts to get a strike. And you can see that there's a big difference in how teams approach this.

So you've got the Rockies swinging at 56% of the sliders they see in zero strike counts. So in 1-0, 0-0, 2-0, 3-0, they are ready for sliders, they swing at them, and they slug well. Then you have a team like the Cardinals that is swinging at 37% of those sliders when they see them. They do well too when they do swing, but they are much more picky. So there's obviously a stratification here in terms of how people approach these sliders. And the Braves didn't pop in this year, but I would assume that there's something going on. If the team is refusing, if the league is refusing to give the Braves sliders

this year and they're giving a lot more fastballs, I would assume that there used to be some sort of Braves approach. And Trevor, you had some really interesting things to say about the Rangers who here are very aggressive on sliders. That lines up with what you remember of the Rangers when you were pitching to the Rangers, right? Yeah, almost top to bottom.

And I went and looked and their lineup's a lot different this year. So this was last year, like Mitch Garver was in this group of taking sliders away, down and away. Like he was big on trying to do that, especially late. Simeon's the number one guy. So there was a distinct difference on what they were hitting the hardest,

like in even counts, one-one specifically, like specifically like mid counts to one, like an hitter, those are kinda, I call them like transition counts. They're not necessarily huge advantage to one kind of is, but like, you think about it that way. Like this, we're, we're either going to where I'm in control here with two strikes or I'm now it's not three or like where it's a very wing count kind of. And in those counts they would cover fastballs and change-ups really well or and then late

they wouldn't cover fastballs and changes well at all and they've covered sliders so they were like this is what everyone in the league is doing these are the patterns the most common and we're gonna be really good at hitting we have also the guys with the swings to to take care of this well Simeon's been good on sliders for a long time. So they would kind of sit slider and two strike. Yeah. They would take away the slider because everyone's relievers was just slider, slider, slider, slider, slider. They go through a breaking ball.

Now I think what's happening now, the biggest change, and you mentioned the splitter increase and the sinker entry increase. I gotta be clear here. A lot of these sinkers are seam shifted. It's guys who are natural supernators, they're always on the outside of the ball and they have never been able to figure out how to like manipulate the ball to sink it by pronating. Now we have a way to do it.

We can design the pitch. Kyle Bradish throws one now and it's disgusting. I saw it the other day on accident. I was like, there's no way he's seam shifting. And then it shows slow mo one. I was like, oh my God, that thing is perfect. Seam shifted sinkers look like if you're too ahead or immediately, I was like, there's no way he seems shipping and then it shows slow mo one. I was like, oh my God, that thing is perfect. Seam shifted sinkers look like if you're to a hitter immediately, it looks like a cutter

a little bit. It looks like you're going to yank it and it goes the other way. splitters are starting to look the same guys are throwing splitters. So they're getting the same thing. It's starting to spin. They're naturally using thinking of spins going to go away from a righty on righty. And then it goes down and in the opposite. And so that's the adjustment that's happening.

I think it can come out of the same tunnel with the same sort of arm action, especially hand position. Yeah. If you look at a sinker and a sweeper grip, they look very similar. It's slightly changed. Yeah. So like, you know, that's going to spin somewhat similarly coming out. But the point is you kind of get the the the the laces to gather in one place and you see if

that seems creating a little bowl of air to keep it going the way you want it to go. So these guys are adding that stuff. And so that approach that slider takeaway approach, it's not a slider. Like they're, it's just they're not getting that slider the same way, but it kind of looks like it could be. And now that's the adjustment happening to hitters right now. And I think that has a lot to do with why those pitches are performing well, because it's become the meta and the pitch hitters are now adjusting to it like they did to sliders before.

So now the best hitting sinkers and splitters this year is probably going to be the one there at the end of the end of the year, because that is what they noticed. There was a trend that was being adjusted to by hitters. Pitchers have adjusted and now hitters are now in their adjustment period to it. Do you think that counter adjustment, does that play out quickly over the course of the summer months in many instances or does it actually take until maybe the off season for guys to get back in and kind of figure out how they're going to go back at it? Off season for most. There's going to be guys who pick it up well or this was something they hit before. They were struggling with sliders and now of figure out how they're going to go back at it. Off season for most, there's going to be guys who pick it up well, or this was

something they hit before they were struggling with sliders and now they're back and they're there. Their natural inclination is a little bit better. They hit the along their body line a little bit more, you know, uh, Julio Rodriguez is a great example of this. Like he loves that ball along his body line and he's getting a lot of pitches in there now, um, but it's going in, in, in off the plate and he's not necessarily the best at not chasing. And so they got him. They kept in, in off the plate and he's not necessarily the best at not chasing.

And so they got him. They kept getting him like off the barrel and he's just getting himself out. He's getting a little bit better hitting the ones over the plate and letting the other ones go. That is an adjustment he had to make, but like it's weird. They're playing to his strength,

but they're taking advantage. He's like excited that he's not getting so many breaking balls. He's still getting a lot of breaking balls, but like they're going in on him more. And he's had to adjust in a weird way. He's like, because he was so used to trying to take that other thing away and he's young, he's 23.

So it is very interesting that that happens. It does take a whole year. I think that hitters adjust slower than pitchers do because pitchers are engaging the change. They're choosing the action. They're choosing the action. They're deciding the action. They could wake up one start and be like,

today is all curveball. Yeah, I'm throwing this pitch. I literally I did that with once with that change up. Like I said, I changed my seamstress, my changeable accident, did it in the middle of an outing. I can do that. Here's like I'm just going to like flatten my swing out in my third at bat. Like, yeah, some some I think have that ability. But yeah, very moody or something. But yeah, there's only a handful, right? So. Here's some results-based analysis

that kind of fits what you were saying about Texas. Last year, Texas was the best in the big leagues at hitting sliders. So you were right, they kind of took that away. And they weren't the best in the big leagues at hitting fastballs. Now, Atlanta was second best in hitting sliders and the best at hitting fastballs. Now, Atlanta was second best in hitting sliders and the best at hitting fastballs.

But I think to some extent, they did what Olson would admit to me that he does, which is that you look for fastball high, everyone's throwing high riding four seamers, they love it. They throw it high in the zone. You look for the high fastball and you have a swing for the high fastball where you kind of target the top half of the ball, you know, so that you actually hit it flush and you

block off a little bit. There's kind of like a different, a little bit of a different swing there. If you can crush that, then some of the value you have on sliders just taking them because they're going out of the zone. So you get some value on taking the sliders. And if it's a slider in the zone, either it's hanging or you're ready for it, you anticipate it. And so you anticipate maybe sliders in two strike counts. The way that the league has reacted to this this year is to say, oh, okay, you guys kill sliders, we get it. We're just going to throw you a

lot of fastballs and we're going to throw you fastballs high in the zone. We're going to throw you fastballs low in the zone. We're going to throw you in and out. And so you can't sit in any one location. And the way this shows up for Olsen is on the left, you're looking at cutters. And he used to get cutters kind of in on the hands-ish, middle-ish. That's like, you know, that's the normal thing. You throw cutters to a lefty, you throw it, you kind of try to throw it there. Now he's getting cutters even away, but all at the very top of the zone. He's getting very high cutters. Now look at the sliders. He used to get sliders

back foot down, you know, where people throw sliders. Now he's getting sliders in the middle of the zone and even higher. He's getting high sliders. In fact, he's getting sliders where he used to get cutters. So wait, wait, you're telling me he's getting sliders where he used to get cutters. So wait, wait, you're telling me he's getting sliders where he used to get cutters and he's getting cutters where he used to get four seams and now he's getting four seams low? They're just saying whatever you were sitting before, we're going to give you the other thing. We're going to throw everything sort of middle, middle high, and you're going to get middle high sliders, you're going to get middle high cutters.

So anytime you think, oh, it's high, I know what kind of swing to put on it, you're wrong. And that's what they're doing to Olsen right now. And so if he's looking, if he's looking location, now he has to, he has to do something different. He has to either, you know, look speed a little bit more. He has to maybe anticipate count by count differently. He can't just be like high, let it fly, low, let it go. He can't kind of use that rubric anymore. It's good to take away situations

where you become predictable though. Like if you can basically get out of the pattern that hitters have found in your approach, either as a team or even just as an individual pitcher, if you snap out of that, they're back to square one. Like they have to relearn how they're being pitched. And like Trevor said, that doesn't happen quickly in a lot of cases.

Yeah, the thing about Olson though, and for Braves fans out there, I would be a little bit optimistic because that adjustment, like to wear stuffs down a little bit more, his natural swing goes there well. So him picking that back up will be faster than the adjustment he made to go up and away. The up and away is just a whole generally. Like when I remember pitching to him like an 18 and 19, up and away forcing fastballs, he just, he had such, he's a long swing. He's a big, he's a very long levered guy.

Up and away is not a great place for most. Usually it's not. And it's a really long big bat and a long swing. So like you look at it, you're like, I don't feel comfortable going up there, but like it would just be above. He would just be under it right at the end for whatever reason, it would, the bat, the barrel, the bat would drip and he couldn't go completely flat and he struggled with it.

And so we peppered him, peppered him, peppered him. And he didn't necessarily close that hole, but the, a bigger hole open peppered him, peppered him, peppered him, and he didn't necessarily close that hole, but the, a bigger hole open when he's trying to adjust to that. And that was with the cutters up and in. So I remembered distinctly in 2022 and with the Mets, we were like cutters up and in, Dolson, just that's all everyone's throwing for me. I was like, so he's kind of, they kind of opened up the old book. Yeah.

So like we're going to go cutters, cutters, cutters up and then we struggled with it. We didn't throw him a lot of strikes. Like he was just taking and that's just the way it worked. And he got a lot more walks because of that. But then he adjusted last year to hit it. So he's hitting those mistakes. But now that hole has opened up a little bit up and away. And now that they're not fastballs, like you said, they're moving back over the plate, which is weird. He's like, this has never happened. But as those mistakes get made down and

then again, he's going to drop the head and become a lefty and hit it again. And theoretically, like what you're saying is this is, if it's the old book, you know, he had to, he's worked on the old book before. He's worked on the old book. He's gonna go back. The older you get in the game, the more you're like,

they're 20, 22-ing me, you know? They're 20, 21-ing me or whatever, you know? So you can be like, all right, all right, I gotta get back to that. Yeah, so he's probably gonna do that. That's to some extent. That's what I would guess. I have a theory about up and away. Nicholas, I feel like there's not a single person who is good at it. Best chances are guys with short and sweet swings they can control. This is good at having like two or three different swings and like adjusting a lot. Yeah, and I think the player, I should look into

it real quick and think of it before the show, but Beau Bichette seems like the kind of hitter that would be able to hit up and away. But he's got that funky, I remember reading about it years ago, I talked about it on the show. Because he would take it the opposite way. It's the tennis swing.

He had this, he was a good tennis player before he became a pro ball player, that was part of what he did too, he played a lot of tennis, and he's got this different, unique approach. And I think you'd have a handful of guys that have certain approaches where they could do it. But yeah, I don't think it's the natural way you would learn to hit

because you you're trying to pull barrels and that's like that's not a pitch you're going to pull as a dog to get it up and away, too. But he's he's very similar to a shot. He had a very he had a swing that was built that way. Not a lot of guys do. But the Blue Jays taught that for a couple of years. When they had Gurriel and him and Teos Hernandez and Vladimir, Vlad hit up a little bit better with those guys and they just took the hi-eaters away. That's what they tried to do, especially when I came in. They were just like, we're going to try to block his heater because he's going

to throw it up there all the time. And they did one outing and I was like, oh, they're very clearly taking that pitch away and I had to make, make an adjustment, but that was, that was their lineup all the way through. Now, if you go look at all those guys individually, they don't do that as much because they're not together. They still are pretty okay at it, but like, it's not like their big thing anymore. But also the league is like, okay, if you're going to take away the high

heater, I'm going to throw you some low heaters because you're going to think those are sliders. Like I stand you're going to be late behind or you're going to freeze on them. You know, yeah, the chess. So I do. I do think this I think there is something maybe innate about swing shape. You know, there are certain like, you know, Pedro talks about this. When you see a guy step to the plate. He takes a practice swing. That's his swing. That's what he wants.

When you see Alonso doing that, like little right there, put it right there, put it right there. Yeah. Yeah. He's telling you I want it right there. You know, Wilmer Flores, high ball hitter, his practice swing is high in the zone, you know. And so, you know, I do think that hitters have a natural shape. Now the

elite hitters figure out a coping mechanism for the stuff that other people are throwing at them. And one thing I was thinking about, Joey Votto and I talked for years about inside pitches because he had this swing that could take the low and away pitch and take you out to center oppo, right? So he had this perfect swing for away and he was always trying to figure out what to do in because everyone's trying to pitch him in and he had to do something about it. And so he would tell me once, you gotta, you just gotta burn them a couple of times. You gotta turn and burn and you gotta maybe just anticipate and, you know, hit a couple of homers to the pull side and then

they won't go in there. But that didn't work. That worked for a little bit and then it didn't stop working. Then he said, okay, well right now what I'm trying to do is just go so inside it that I take the inside pitch over the shortstop's head. You know, there's just like a little, like just a crazy little slice swing that I'm just going to just be just be me But even more me inside, you know, just really and like get it like this crazy spin on it, you know

So he was always trying stuff and he won an MVP like he was a great hitter. So At his best you could say here's a guy who has different swings and different approaches and different ways to to combat the pitcher but who has different swings and different approaches and different ways to combat the pitcher. But in the end, you kind of go back to who you are. Like, you know, that's something that works at your best. So when Matt Olson was at his best, he was a guy who could cover high, cover low. He had the low swing for the low stuff. He had figured out the high swing. You know, you never know if what part of aging has to do with this.

I do think he's still in his peak, so he'll figure it out. But like, you know, I do think that people have kind of an innate swing and then they have coping mechanisms for stuff outside of that. And over time, you come into the league, you have your innate swing, then you build these coping mechanisms and the coping mechanisms are not your strengths. And so as you start to go back out of the league, all you can do is that last that thing that you used to be able to do, you know? So at the very end for Olson,

yeah, at the very end for Olson, he won't be able to maybe handle high heat and he'll just be jacking anything low and you'll just be like, oh, that's the old Olson, you know? And he'll hit 220 and you'll hit 35 homers and he'll kind of go back to where he was when he came into the league. But I still think he's in his peak and he has these coping mechanisms.

And you'll see this with modeling. I think hopefully at Pitching Plus we're working on some cool stuff about modeling the batter-pitcher interaction. And I think that to some level just the knowledge of the hitter's swing shape you can get as a pitcher. You can get some strategies in your head. And some of that is what Petra said, just watch when they walk up to the plate.

Where they like it, don't give it to them there. Or give it to them there when they're not expecting it. Start there, yeah, that's how you learn, for sure. A quick bow on the other Atlanta hitters. Sounds like there's a lot of confidence here in Olson getting right. Albie has been fine from a general getting on base, hitting for average perspective, not striking up,

only three homers in 46 games. And Jared Kellnick, year one with Atlanta, hasn't been a completely different player than he was in Seattle. Michael Harris really hasn't gotten going yet. We talked about Riley and the injuries. Is there anybody in that group that you've looked at and said, I'm not sure they're going to get right this season.

They may need more time to figure something out. I mean, Marcel Ozone has been carrying their offense in a lot of ways. He's been fantastic and Travis Darno ran really hot while Sean Murphy was down. But of those other guys that need to step up, who are you worried about, if anyone? I don't know if Kellanick's ever going to be a complete cover the whole zone type of

guy. He just struggles up and he's very aggressive and he's never up great and he struggles on breaking balls generally. But even though this year he struggled with fastballs up as well, all of his damage is on right on left, like the classic change up. It was glaring last year. He started hot and everyone throwing them change up for some reason. And then they stopped and he kind of cooled down.

So I haven't seen that ability to do that. But then again, like he could just be, you know, a guy who covers the bottom of his own really well runs well as it's the ball hard and plays good defense. And that's enough. Um, but I don't know, but in terms of like Ozzy Ozzy is going to hit more homers. I don't know if he's going to end with 30, but he's going to probably end up with 20 plus and he's your second baseman. Like he walks, he gets on base and he's not, and he's still not swinging a miss in at the fast. He's not getting punched out a lot at the top of the zone. He is early. He sees still him. He's just, it's one of

those things like, could he easily have seven homers? And now probably I bet you a few balls have those three feet that aren't, they aren't going probably has affected him a little bit. I wouldn't be surprised if he goes on a little bit of a tear and like the same thing, Murphy's been hurt. We'll see what he does. He can, that guy can hit. We all know he can hit. So we, he just needs some of the bats. Same thing with Riley. Like some of these guys are just like, let's check back in and 30 games. And, and I wouldn't be surprised if most of them have, or at least trending

towards, you normal them. There's no reason to think that they won't. Riley's a really interesting hitter for me because the first time I ever talked to him was at the Arizona fall league All-Star game. And he admitted that when he struggled, he found himself in between fastballs and sliders in terms of timing. And I think that you can see that in the history of his career, which is one way that you can see it is he's demolished sliders for his career. He's had a positive pitch type value for them. And in 2022, he just really destroyed sliders while being negative against fastballs. And so what you can see is in some years he's destroyed fastballs and some years he destroys sliders.

And so he's kind of in between sometimes still as a major leaguer. And the other thing that I think of is when I was talking to Alex Bregman and I noticed that his pull rate was down, he said that pull rate is like a good approximation of contact point. If you think about it, the ball, if you get the ball out in front more, you pull it more. And so if you look at a player's history and you see a certain pull rate and you see a change in that pull rate, I think what you're seeing is they're struggling to find that right contact point. They're looking for that right contact point. Now you put those two things for Austin Riley together, you say, oh, here's a guy that struggles to to to sometimes when he does get that contact

point right, he's boom. He's the other way on heaters and he's pulling sliders for homers. And he's got that all figured out. So to another way of saying that is timing. Timing is the same thing as contact point. And so if you asked Riley what was wrong right now, he might say timing because his pull rate is timing. Timing is the same thing as contact point. And so if you asked Riley what was wrong right now, he might say timing because his pull rate is down. You know, 179 plate appearances like by the statistical, you know, numbers and everything, like supposedly his pull

rate is stabilized and this is what his pull rate is going to be the rest of the way. But that's not actually how it works in reality. He could change his pull rate going forward. He can change his timing. He can change his contact point. It's just gonna take some time. He's gotta get back from this injury, get back in the box and figure it out. But the good news is he's figured it out before

and he goes on blinding hot streaks. I mean, this is a guy that in that 2022 season, I think was, you know, he was part of that. And so I just expect that he's a guy who's like tinkering with that contact point. Once he gets it right, bam. Yeah, seems like as long as he's healthy, Austin Riley is going to be just fine. I agree with the county thing. I'm not sure he's he's a regular. I think it's more he's just going to be he they're happy they have him right now because Kunia goes down and they need outfielders, but they may acquire outfielders

that push him back to being a fourth outfielder. I think the part of Kelnick's career that fits into the next part of our conversation is that he's getting a brief look against lefties because of Kunia's injury. Since Kunia got hurt, they faced two left-handed starters, kind of like actually started against both of them. This could be his last chance to establish himself

as an everyday outfielder instead of a big side platoon guy. And eventually, if he doesn't start closing up holes, big side platoon guy becomes fourth outfielder. Like that's the next rung down. How long that lasts? Yeah, it's between now and the time they have another outfielder they can play. We know Alex Anthopoulos makes moves. He's aggressive. He's going to find someone out there. A veteran on my

league deal. I figured who was. Yeah, blanket. No, it's not. He's still with that. Always get thrown up there. Maybe they could bring David Fletcher up as like a fifth outfielder also throwing knuckleballs out of the pen. Nobody. Yeah, he's playing like the way I say he's playing for his life right now in baseball. Jared Connick is and it's got to be exhilarating and exciting feeling to have the opportunity. I think any player would say I want the opportunity. Give me the ball.

Give me the chance. Producer Brian says Ram Ramon Larian. That's it. Ramon Larian is signed there. But you can see those transactions. You can, you know that Alex Antopoulos makes moves. You know, you can see your own numbers. You know what your numbers are look like.

You look at the board and you see your numbers when you're at the plate. You know how it feels. You know what's going on. You can like every, I'm sure every player, I don't need to speak for Trevor on this, but I'm sure every player I don't need to speak for Trevor on this but I'm sure every player like knows the roster looks like know what their kind of place on the roster is like knows how close they have they are to being out of the starting

lineup or in triple A or whatever. And so as you play that long that in your head like it just increases it ratchets up the pressure that you put on yourself to succeed anyway, in any given day. And it just can't feel good. Like we had a list of players that we were looking at. I think I texted you some of them, but let me see what they are. There's, I think the one, the reason that we thought of this originally was Chaz McCormick, I think the one, the reason that we thought of this originally was Chas, Chas McCormick, who can see that the Astros have Jose Breyu and John Singleton and Jake Myers and, you know, can do the math in his head and can see that he's not in the lineup every day and knows that he's hitting OO whatever, you know, and he must, he must feel like I've got a week here and it's either gonna be me losing my job or

Singleton going down or you know, like there's there's you know, there's there's a fulcrum hit happening here There's something's a pivotal point that's happening in my career and I can either prove that I'm an everyday starter in two weeks Or I'm out some other names that occur to me Seth Brown is sort of up and down with the A's right now in between roles Ty France is seeing that Luke Railey is plays a lot of the same positions and so he's got a He's got a he's got a fight off Luke Railey Jake Bowers, you know was hot for a little bit now He's he's kind of the tank a little bit, you know, Tyler Black is waiting in triple-a Jared Triola was the starter at second. I mean, some of these guys are older.

Kevin Keirmeyer is fighting to prove that he can still be a regular and not sort of a guy who's gonna be on different teams, you know, every couple of months, or, you know, a guy that they pick up when they need like, oh, the Braves. The Braves are gonna trade for Kevin Keirmeyer to be the backup center fielder,

or can he prove that he's actually an everyday starter? That's a little different than maybe Beatty and Triolo, who are proving that they belong on the younger side. But they still all have that same feeling, and I'm sure you've had this, Trevor May, where you had it first when you were a starter, and you were trying to prove you were a starter, and that was kind of up and down,

and then you had to prove, even as a reliever, that you had to prove, you know, even as a reliever that you had that you had to stick and then near the end of the career that you're still a guy that's worth a contract, major league contract. So like, you know, what was that feeling like when you were when you were in it? I couldn't have felt. Oh, you're right. It sucks a lot. Uncertainty is no one likes that and opportunity is really the name of the game in all jobs, but it is so,

so important in the major leagues. Like a big conversation, right, around like a great example is Michael Bush with the Cubs. He wasn't going to get an opportunity with the Dodgers. He wasn't going to. He's very clearly a big leaguer, but he just wasn't given an opportunity. The A's got Ryan Oda, same thing. So it's like these guys got their opportunities. My favorite example is actually Mark Kanna being a rule five guy. And then finally, you know, being on a team where they give rule five guys a full year

and he proved that he's a big leaguer. And now he's, you know, being paid accordingly. And everyone was like, will he hit enough to be a first baseman? And then the A's were like, well, he's our center fielder. Yeah, he can play center, guys. He gets to the balls he can get to is one thing. That's what we always said about Mark.

He gets to the ones that he physically could get to. It's all about timing at the end of the day. I got called up. I had an eight through 10 starts in my rookie year, but we were terrible. And they were just like, you're going to go suck and we're going to let you. And that is massive for guys development. But then we got like Chas McCormick. He's on a team that is trying to go to its eighth straight ALCS and they are nine games under 500 and

scuffling. He's not going to be given the grace period that he had before because they have to win now. And that's how things change and it changes quickly. Just thinking about, oh no, like I might be on the chopping block. My example actually is in 2015, Erwin Santana was coming off his 80 game suspension. And at that time I was starting pitcher and I was throwing pretty well.

I just had like a four at that time, which was great in 2015 for me anyway, especially after the year before, like I just mentioned. So I feel like I'm getting my feet under me and throwing pretty well recently. But Tommy Malone was up. He was absolutely dominant. Like he was shoving, like hadn't given him a run

in three starts or something. And we had Mike Pelfrey who was bouncing back from his Tommy John and having his backsteer in a long time. And one guy was, could not put Don Malone in the pen. And Mike Pelfrey was on a contract and I was a sophomore, technically still a rookie. So I'm like, I mean, if it comes down to it, so we go on a road trip, I know what's

happening at the end of this road trip, it's the one we go play the NL team. So I have to hit to add that in. And my first outing, I go out against the Brewers and I give up six and a third of an inning and get pulled in the first. So I'm like, well, it's me. And I but I knew going in and that that literally happened to me that day, where I didn't know I was like, well, I'm, I'm, I'm, that might have changed your life.

Like you have a starter's arsenal in some extent. Like I probably could have. I mean, we, I got like two more chances after this and then they didn't work out those times at the universe told me eventually, I think I made the right decision, but I think in another world, I could have, I think that I think like, well, I don't know. I mean, at the majorly level, you've got one more star. Yeah.

So I throw, I throw one more start. I throw one more start after that, throw well. And what happens? They move me to the pen. So they came in, they're like, will you throw out of the pen? I said, yeah, don't send me down. Please don't. Tommy is throwing really well, so we can't put him in the pen. He throws 86, right? And they're like, and Mike Pelfrey takes an hour to get ready. We can't put Pelf out in the pen.

I was like, you're right, you can't. I agree. What if you were like, but I could take longer. But I was just like, I was just a young guy that was malleable and like willing. And I was like, yes, sir. Yes. Yes, captain. Whatever you need. Well, I mean, there is that there is that like, would you rather stay in the big leagues

and lose your shot? I mean, that's a big question for some of these. It's a big question for some of these. It's a big question. Like what if the Mets were good and winning and Beatty was better than the backup third baseman? And they went to the baiting. They said, would you rather be in the minor leagues getting regular at bats and getting better maybe, or would you rather stay up?

Like, what would you do in that situation? I guess you answered that. I always say the big league because those like we're talking about the opportunities you go down to AAA two days something happens. That guy who's got your spot is absolutely tearing the cover off the ball is ten hits in three days. Now he's got that shine for a couple weeks and you're not going to so that that Wally pimp whatever you don't get the opportunity over guy who took over and it's gone.

It just kind of they change their mind and it's just the way the nature of the game you want to make sure that you are in front of them and like they have to make a decision you're in the consciousness That's one thing that's scary like having Tommy John you want to be you want to be rehabbing at the stadium Because you don't want to for the front office forget you're on the team That sounds that sounds bad, but you know It's actually relevant to me in my life that is that one thing that is tough about Writing and being remote like this is like we see each other and so we have good rapport and we know each other

But like the people I work with I see them once a year like my editors and like the those we I see them once a year At the winter meetings and that's bizarre and there is like when we I felt more tight with And that's bizarre. And there is like, when we, I felt more tight with the organization when we were a San Francisco based company that I could go into the office and see them sometimes. And we had happy hours and you know, it's like, there is, I think there's a word for it.

I guess it's proximity bias. Exactly. It's like, you see, you're more biased towards the people you see more often. 100%. You see everything. And that's real too. That's very, very real.

Yeah, so I guess, you know, for all these guys, it's like, you know, just play well enough to stay on the roster. Jake Bowers is like, I'm gonna make sure I don't muff any grounders so they still think I'm the best defensive option at first base and try to hit a homer here. But if your sphincter is that tight,

like you just can't, like how do you, how do you come if your sphincter is that tight, like you just can't like how do you how do you come to the ballpark and like and perform? Like it's got to be it's like just another level and I feel like on some level the A's are like we're just gonna we're the team of opportunity we're gonna take all these guys who may have just been too tight in these situations. We'd love to take your baby, We'd love to take your triolo. We'll take these guys off the waiver wire. Anytime you think they're done with a guy, we'll give them a month or two where, you know, it's Oakland and nobody's ever-

Give us Toro, give us Nanduhar. Like, yeah, that's a great, they do do that. They also have Mason Miller and Tetuah people. That's neither here nor there. Did you see his splinker though? That is a bad tactic. He scaled one and they're like, I need seven, that's not his fastball Did you see his flanker, though? That is a bad one. And they're like, I mean, that's not as fast. Well, like, no, he's throwing a splitter.

Yeah. He doesn't know. You can tell. All right. That's a lot of that was that's fun to try. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Enough of that. Got a few questions here coming in from the live. I will get to those in just a minute

I think the the last group of player that has sort of fits into this conversation are the out of options guys Because that's where it feels like your future is probably even more dire like going down sucks being DFA. It has to be worse By far because then you have no idea what's next you're in you're in that purgatory You know I was talking to Spencer Turnbull about, you know, the whole way that things went down in Detroit. And he, at some point, it came to like a sort of a battle between them where, you know, he felt like they'd misdiagnosed his neck injury and all this stuff. And at the end, he was kind of like, I'll never pitch for you, is what he told them. Like he wanted the DFA because then he could go somewhere. Like going back down in an organization

that you know doesn't value you. Yeah, you would rather be put back in the pool. That's gotta be the worst. Put back on me, Mike. You'd rather just be like, okay, maybe Oakland. Here we come, you know? The early free agency, I was thinking about it less from the perspective of someone like Joe Adele,

who's out of options and has's done the up and down enough Times with the angels where when they finally to a point they're like, okay, it's not gonna work You're right. He gets early free agency essentially if he gets a DFA and goes unclaimed he might go claimed I was thinking about like the Mitch White example. There's Every year's a handle the players they end up being the ultimate fringe players usually it's a reliever and they bounce around to three or four different teams because they're the guy that every GM,

they think you can be snuck in waivers and you can't. Some of them have wives and children. A lot of them do, actually. It's always a guy who's been around for a little bit too. Right, it's just that sweet spot of like late 20s, usually for age, kind of good stuff, not enough track record, brutal. And sometimes guys come out of it and they're fine.

They end up having a spot and it clicks. But I wondered if there should be, similar to the limit on the number of times in a season, you can go up and down now, if we need a limit on the number of times you can be DFA'd. Or if after the third team in a season DFA's you, you get straight up free agency. And you get to choose the next place you go

instead of getting scooped off waivers by a team that's inevitably going to do the same thing to you that the last couple of teams did. I like it. I mean, we have a limit on options. And part of that is life and consideration for family and and and just what it means to option a guy like eight times in a year. What the Braves were doing. Oh, my God, they were just optioning guys left and right.

So yeah, why not a limit on DFA? Does that make sense to me? It's bad enough because it takes so long to get the free agency anyway. So if you're gonna have players that get stuck in that spot, let's try and eliminate that. Although it might limit some of the interest in you because then the next person who's getting you doesn't,

they don't have the opportunity of maybe getting you for three years or whatever. Kind of a lose-lose for the old player that keeps teams interested. Yeah, right. Yeah, we're aware. Doesn't seem great. We'd love to just, I don't know, be drafted and then play for that team forever.

That'd be great. Unfortunately, that might never happen again, actually. There's a chance that may never happen again. I don't know. And from money reasons, like that kills all your leverage. If that's like if that's the that's the that's the whole way they did it. And they didn't make any money. Few questions here. This one's from M.J. Logan, 42.

Who is your favorite MLB one hit wonder? We're not talking Jason Stark, weird and wild. Someone who got to the big leagues, had a cup of coffee, got one hit and then never got a hit again. But someone that came up was really productive. I think Dominic, Dominic Brown was the example. He had a 30-30 projection one year. That was amazing.

I saw Dominic Brown in the fall league back when everybody thought Dominic Brown was going to be a long term star in the big leagues. And he did have one, one really nice big league season, 2013. He popped 27 homers, stole eight bases, 18% K rate. He was 23% better than league average. But nothing after that clicked quite the same way. I said, do you have a favorite? Going back, either someone that maybe won you a league,

a teammate, someone you've watched, someone you covered, that actually kind of fits that description. Hmm. That's interesting. It's funny, I was there for the Dom Brown years, too. I remember the Dom Brown mania there in Philly. Good dude, Dom. I liked him a lot. I don't know, you know, do you have anybody? You think about this for a second.

I was thinking a little bit about like JD Drew. It doesn't fit because he had a career, but he had that one year where he had 305 with 31 homers and 12 stolen bases and like it was that was another level for him. I got one it's a total homer call but Bill Hall is my favorite. Oh that's such a good one. Bill Hall 35 homers in 2006 that was the year I graduated college. And the day, like the day I actually walked across the stage happening Mother's Day that year, we went home, just hanging out with family. Bill Hall hits a walk off with the pink bat

with his mom in the stands on that day. That's right. And that's like, that's in baseball lore. I mean, that's, people talk about it every time there's a pink bat. And I'm sure they talk about it in Milwaukee every time There's a Mother's Day every Mother's Day game They play they show that highlight and they even gave away Bill Hall bottle heads the following season and snuck in some with pink bats

Which I haven't been getting which is pretty cool. So that's like my favorite random Ballpark collectible. So I think Bill Hall is my favorite one-hit wonder. That was just a Ridic ridiculous 2006 season It takes a homer it takes thinking of your team because it's it's the type of it's the type of Situation where it has to be that a team you followed and usually when you were younger. I've got one Marcus Giles Marcus Giles haven't heard that name in a while I mean Ben Giles was like they both had huge quads and like Ben Giles had like a career and Marcus Giles in 2003 had 21 homers 14 stolen bases and a 316 average and he wasn't bad. I don't

even I there's got to be some more story to to why he didn't get more chances or what was going on there but I think there must be an injury component. It fell off and he didn't play that much. And maybe hurt his shoulder or something. But that was a bright shining year for us with Marcus Giles at second base. And I just remember the call. I got a crazy one then.

Oh man, live hive lighting up. All right. And you're right. I was like the Mariners, this is like perfect for them. They have these guys all the time. And this is a guy you may never even have heard of. Uh, and he, he, he only had 160 ABs, but they were 160 good ABs. And then I think he got hurt. And then we just never saw him again.

Bucky Jacobson. Do you know that name? Well, 2004. Yeah. Deep, deep cut here. Uh, 160 ABs. He had nine homers, 44, uh, hits. He had two 75 with an eight 35 OPS for one 17 OPS plus.

Like he was the, he was the next big thing. He was the big first baseman. He was going to be the big power guy. And then he literally disappeared off the face of the planet. I think he still lives here. Um, but Bucky Jacobson, he was a big, big, big deal. I think I was 14. So like I was very dialed in on the next the next group of Mariners.

And then after the Bucky after the Bucky year, it was it was not nice until about 2023. Oh, man. Yeah, he looked like like I'm just looking at stats like he he had some power and like a big dude. I guess we go lumberjack. So it was like really fun to watch like Evan Gaddis. Uh huh. Yeah.

What the heck happened? Why didn't he get a shot in 2005? I mean, like nothing. I think he tore. He tore like a hip labrum or something ended his ear and then just. See ya. Yeah. He ended up back AAA for a little bit.

No five. How about death to flying things? Death to flying things death to flying things. Oh, yeah I hit him in the middle of that one. He had two full seasons kind of like a 2020 talent with great defense IBS and then I guess IBS took him down for two years. Remember that he had like Really really bad stomach. Oh, yeah for literally two years and could Remember that? He had like a really, really bad stomach problems for literally two years and could not play. And he ended up retiring.

And then when he came back, he probably wasn't the same defender. And so there was more pressure on his back, which was always a little bit of a hindrance. He was a big deal too. One of the submissions that came in was Aristides Aquino. Just from a couple of years ago. Remember how come he was?

No, Aqu keynote in Cincinnati. Like any game. Oh, yeah, dude. Her. Oh, my God. He hit so many homers. He hit 19 and 56 games, but I think it was like 10 and 13 games at one point. It was an insane run. Yeah, I remember that. He just ended on one and a half war and 56 games, parts of three seasons since then. And he could not hit a fast follow up at all.

It was bad there at the end. We got Daniel from the live high saying Brian LeHare. I think he was an all star. Oh, rebuilding comes to one. But LeHare, there is something to think about with LeHare, which is that he was old by the time he got his chance. Yeah. And I think it's players like that when we get to like a Joey Meneses for a more recent example of who gets that late opportunity. I'm always so skeptical. Frank Schwindel, like those guys that 28, 29, even 30 sometimes when they get their first big league run.

It's such a fun story. And as someone who tries to like project performance, you're kind of sitting there like, this can't last. This is almost impossible to last more than a partial season. And when it goes on for even a year, it's a surprise. Ryan Ludwig is the patron saint of these guys. And in fact, Ryan Ludwig is probably a pretty good outcome for having that late of a debut. I mean, he was 29 when

he first played even over 300 played appearances at 30, at 37 homers for St. Louis in 2008. And then he never really got to 600 played appearances again, but he did play another four years and hit another hundred or so homers, you know, pretty regularly. So Ludwig is like a pretty good outcome for that. But that is that is a sort of a class of player for sure. Kauffman Benjamin. Chris Kauffman was just on this Chris Coughlin was on the on the bottom there. Benjamin Webber, Carol next.

Oh, he just went to the bad place. Don't put that on Corbin, Carol. That's that's brutal. Come on. That's not that's not what's happening right now. That can't be, no. I mean, if it does happen for Carroll, he's just in a different kind of place. Like he would be like a top prospect that fizzled out.

Like that's not what we're talking about. We're kind of talking about it kind of out of nowhere was good for a second. Yeah, that guy got drafted and then played 185 games. And then just this, oh, three months off season, I'm good. My legs are fine. Like just give him a second He'll be all right. How about this one James Outman? THP knob that might be a one that we just saw last year where I thought this year was going to be better for out many He's a triple a right now. Maybe he gets another shot. He's actually doing well at triple a still striking out a lot

But a 23 homer 16 steel season a year ago for the Dodgers He's in that position where it's just tough to get back because the roster is so good and they'll go out and get what they Need at the trade deadline So if he gets another shot James outman probably gets a month six weeks at most To really secure his longer term future as a Dodger before he ends up in that Michael Bush bin that you described earlier where he's just stuck. I have one big, big one I think is great to throw in before we get out.

And I can't remember the name, you might be able to remember the name off the top of my head. White Sox, DH, Latin guy, he started the season with like nine straight hits. Mercedes. You mean Mercedes? Great example hits Mercedes Mercedes yeah see ya you went home oh my god that one's a complicated one because there's you know lots of different opinions about his work ethic and whether or not he could catch and all this stuff something yeah something really

interesting about his career to have 346 plate appearances in her career and be league average in those 346 plate appearances and not really get a chance that was more than that year, where he got 262 plate appearances. Like, it's kind of strange. But I saw him here locally. He got picked up by the Giants. And I guess it was the sort of thing where, like, he didn't't have a defensive position and so you need to be better than the average like you kind of need to be like 10% better than the average to be a DH and they weren't sure he was going to be that so. Great question in the live hive.

Who was that giant Brewers first baseman? Who was that huge Brewers slugger that played first base? I don't know all of them. He was more of a brewer though. He's good with Mariners too. So that's not cool. When people talk about huge, I think of Jaffet Amador. That's yeah, he was very large. He never actually, I'm just looking, he never got the big league plate

appearance. That's all in training. Chris Carter. Yeah. Chris Carter. Yeah. Are we talking about just Rowdy Tulles? Are we talking Vogelbach? John Jaha? There's so... We have gone to the deep end of remember some guys.

You know what's funny about that too is that it really leans into the Brewers ethos. It's like Brewers. It's like Beer League Softball, the name Brewers, you know? And this is our Beer League Softball first baseman. He's hitting the keg at first base. Adam Dunn could have been the poker boy for the Brews.

You did a great nickname. Yeah, I agree. It's sad that he wasn't. Goes all the way back to Rob Deer, I think, as far as that player type. Yeah, Rob Deer is the here in Saint there It is time for us to go on our way out the door just a quick reminder You can find us on Twitter you can find Trevor at I am Trevor may find you know at you know Sarah's find me at Derek van Riper the pod is that rates and barrels jump in the discord a lot of good stuff happening in There link is in the show description good conversation throughout the week

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Try again. Tomorrow. Yep. That's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Monday. I'll be at the Firestone Walker Beer Festival tomorrow. If you are down in Paso Robles, find me. I will probably wear my Wookie Jack shirt like I have to last for Firestone Walker Beer Festival. Why not? Just stay the same. And thanks for listening.