Rates & Barrels - March Extensions & Job Battle Winners

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

Eno and DVR discuss a trio of March contract extensions including Tanner Bibee, Alejandro Kirk, and Justin Martinez -- all of whom received new five-year deals with their respective clubs. Plus, they catch up on other late spring news including a scare for Shane McClanahan, a trade that sent Nolan Jones back to Cleveland, a closer role up for grabs in Cincinnati, and a few takeaways from the first run of weekly pickups in 'Where the Money Went' as Opening Day approaches. Rundown 2:42 Tanner Bibee's Extension with Guardians 6:18 Alejandro Kirk: Signs Five-Year Deal with Blue Jays 13:04 Justin Martinez: Gets Long-Term Guarantee with D-backs 16:29 News Updates: Shane McClanahan, Zack Gelof, Freddie Freeman & Mookie Betts 24:48 Nolan Jones Traded *Back* to Cleveland for Tyler Freeman 34:08 News Updates: Vinnie Pasquantino, Alexis Díaz, Gunnar Henderson, Félix Bautista & Yu Darvish 38:47 A Sleeper in San Diego? Stephen Kolek's Opportunity 46:32 Kristian Campbell: Makes Opening Day Roster for Red Sox 52:13 Fifth Starter Battle Winner: AJSS, Matthew Liberatore & Logan Allen 1:00:37 An Attempt to Understand & Explain the Pirates' Initial Rotation Choices 1:05:38 Where the Money Went -- Week 1 Pickups Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's my subscription to the New York Times have me doing this week? Preparing a strawberry pretzel pie. Solving spelling bee with no hints. Planning a trip to one of the 52 best places to go. Getting to the bottom of the big pants trend. And I'm finally replacing my vacuum with a recommendation I can trust. What will your subscription to the Times have you do? Why not find out?

With our best offer, go to nytimes.com slash subscribe. Walk to Rakes and Barrels. It is Monday, March 24th. Derek Van Riper, Eno Saris, Eno making sure his mic is positioned correctly. If you're watching on YouTube and trying to figure out what was happening as the show started, it was just one last second microphone adjustment. On this episode, we will teach everyone how to make their own podcast with proper mic technique. We will also go over a lot of spring training news and notes. We have extensions. We have injuries We have conclusions to job battles or at least the first wave of winners because those players could quickly become losers doesn't take much for a

Job battle winner to find their way back to triple-a trades trades trades a Trades. Trades. Trades. A player going back to a team that traded him a couple years ago, who would have thought that Nolan Jones was going back to Cleveland? So we'll get into all of that here in just a minute. A few housekeeping items to get to as we get started.

Our two live episodes are coming up this week, Thursday and Friday. Bear Bottle Brewing Company, Bernal Heights location in San Francisco. Free admission, no tickets required, 4.30 start time on both of those shows on Thursday and Friday, looking forward to getting out there, meeting a bunch of you, enjoying some Kayakers Cove,

the collaboration beer that Eno helped brew over at Bear Bottle, and look, we've got a lot of fun topics and things lined up. The merch still on its way to Eno's house, I think. See if it makes it on time. Come on. Come on, let's go.

A little shipping bug, like let's go. Some good news, Trevor May is gonna be at both, Thursday and Friday, he says. We'll also have Ben Clemens on Saturday, and I mean on Friday, there's no Saturday. Saturday we will rest. No pod Saturday. It is gonna be a hectic week.

We have some fun guests coming up on shows before that, and we will post all of these shows in the feed for you. There may not be video of the live event, but you'll still get audio, and we hope that people can be there in person because it's always so much fun when people are in person, just the energy is different and the interaction is top notch. Yep, it is great. Hope to see some familiar faces and some new ones out there as well this week.

Let's get to our news of the weekend. Three extensions talk talk about. Let's start with Tanner Byabe I think by virtue of Byabe maybe being the best player that got the extension of the three. I put him first. He wasn't actually for the most guaranteed bunny but 48 million guaranteed is the number. It's a five year extension for Tanner Byabe. A little signing bonus in there. It does include an option for 20-30 worth 21 million and thinking about the Guardians and how they operate and Andres Jimenez and when he was traded I get the sense that that 20-30 option might get picked up by someone else but Tanner Bibe, last two seasons among pitchers with at

least 200 innings pitched, is tied for 16th in ERA with a 324, 30th in strikeout minus walk percentage 18.5%, also in the top 25 in WIP with a 114. So this seems like a pretty nice piece to lock up if you're the Guardians because he is their ace. Even if he's not an ace in the aces project sense, I think Tanner Bybee is the ace for the Guardians for the foreseeable future. Yeah, the new addition to the spring is the Sinker, which I think will help offset the fact that his foresteam is not great,

but somebody who has a breaking ball as good as that slider, and you know, by stuff plus it's around average, but I think it's a combination of the stuff and the fact that he has really excellent command of that slider so I think it's decently large mix he throws the change up 18% of time the curve 11 now he's gonna have the sinker it's good command it's great slider I don't know how much better it's gonna get and there's some regression risk but I'd like that he's adding a pitch that he has used before in the sinker he used to use it in college and you know continuing to try and get better

even while just sort of fight off those regression demons. Yeah I like that adjustment as well the command does go a long way for Bybee and if the two seamer does in fact stick then I think that four seam well. The command does go a long way for Bybee and if the two-seamer does in fact stick, then I think that four-seamer becomes much more stable as you suggested. The ceiling for Bybee, kind of interesting depending on who you talk to. I saw in Zach Meisel's write-up about the extension,

Austin Hedges and David Frye are among his teammates who believe he's capable of winning a Cy Young. It's good to have teammates that believe in you and think you have a lofty ceiling and it's in the range of possibility. I always think of Bybee as being one notch below the typical Cy Young contender because those guys tend to be a little more in the fireballer category right. I think it's a little bit of a Velo thing. It's just like Zach Gallin. Like could Zach Gallin win a Cy Young? Yeah, I guess he could. But I would assume there are usually 10 to 12 other pitchers

that are healthy at any given time that might be ahead of a guy like that. That's sort of how I feel about Bybee. Yeah, I mean, last year was Seale, Wheeler, Skeen, Cease in the top four in the National League, and Schubel, Lugo. Lugo gives everyone with a wide arsenal in command and a nice home park like the Hope I feel like, Klaasay, Regens, Burns, Gilbert and more what you're talking about.

But then again Lugo didn't win. Thumbs up on the extension. I think it's a good one for the Guardians and good for Tanner Bybee to get some guarantees that he is happy with. How about Alejandro Kirk signing a five year extension with the Blue Jays? Excellent defense has become what Alejandro Kirk brings all the time. I think the questions continue to revolve around

where he's going to go as a hitter. Given how he broke into the league, a lot of hard contact, and looked like a guy that was good enough to be a DH on a team that had a good lineup at the time. Now it's kind of like, what's going on? The last two years, slugging percentage has been down in that 350s range, which is surprising. He still makes a lot of hard contact.

At a glance, you're like, okay, Alejandro Kirk, it's kind of like a Kiebert Ruiz profile, doesn't strike out a lot, but he hits the ball a lot harder than Kibit Ruiz does. What do you think we're going to see from Kirk at the plate over the next season or two especially? Maybe by the end of this deal, the power kind of tapers back to where it's been the last two years, but do you see a recovery at least into the 400 slugging percentage range?

That's at least in the range of outcomes for Kirk? I do, I think that's a possibility. I think the last couple of years he's been really stuck in kind of a 50 50 situation with Danny Jansen. And I think it's kind of hard to kind of get your rhythm going when you have 386 plate appearances over the full course of the season this year, I'd expect him to get closer to four 50, 2023 at 422 and he was a little bit better and then 2022 he had 541 plate appearances and that's when he had his best season. So

I think to some degree financial security, job security and know like sort of looking over your shoulder at the second catcher can go somewhere. I mean, that's all sort of I know it's kind of like psychological stuff But in terms of what he does at the plate is good, you know Like he makes a lot of contact and as you mentioned the max EV suggests that there's power in there He doesn't he doesn't have a 60% ground ball rate So I expect I expect a 400 slugging this year for me. I think the other thing that this kind of Confir confirmed for me

is just that the Blue Jays are putting a pretty nice premium on defense, right? They made the trade for Andres Jimenez. We've talked about Ernie Clement being a bigger part of their plan now. He was a Gold Glove finalist at third base without even being an everyday player there last year. You got Kirk behind the plate.

You got Dalton Varsho in healthy in the outfield. Even Miles Straw is going to be the guy that's playing in Varsho's absence. Like, clearly, this is a team that is pushing run prevention in that way. It's something they are valuing in a big way right now. Yeah, you know, maybe Bo aside, I mean, Bo is maybe he'll just bounce back defensively as well. There's a lot of great defenders and there's another part. There's another type that they're showing. I mean, with Alan Roden making the opening day roster, that's a guy who's struck out 11% in the spring and 14% in the minors. You know, Alejandro Kirk's

best foot forward is the fact that he has 11% strikeout rate for his career. Clement looks like he's going to be the starter at third. He struck out 9% of the time last year. I was pointing out the discord and I think it's spot on is that a lot of this front office came from Cleveland. It looks like a similar idea. Push the defense, push the contact, push the walks and hope that the power will come or or just sort of keep the lineup moving. I mean, Andre Samanis himself, 15 percent strikeout rate. I wonder what that really means long term for some of the guys we've been wondering about and keeper in dynasty leagues like Addison Barger. We talked about him, I think, in our last episode.

Doesn't fit their mold or whatever. Right. Joey Loper Fido. Like how long of a window do those guys get? Is it similar to Cleveland where they end up trading those guys away and then maybe they trade back for them again, like that's always the possibility too if you get the improvement you want.

But I think you're right, I mean I think this is generally the type of player that they want to invest in and even though you mentioned Bo Bichette's defensive shortcomings, that's one area where he's always been very good, tempering strikeouts. Vlad for an elite hitter does that exceptionally well to Up and down the lineup that's most of what those bats bring to the table right now So those similarities are really kind of popping and I think when you look at Vlad jr.

Maybe the fact that he's not your traditional slugger with a 20 plus percent k-rate to go with all that power that probably increases the probability of them actually bringing over the 500 or 600 million that he's looking for. He fits what they want. And he's the guy like Jose Ramirez that actually hits the ball hard. He does all these things as well. So a little profito sent down, 25% strikeout rate.

Barger makes the roster, but pretty much just because Dalton Varsho didn't. Oh, Barger did get on the roster? The note that I'm looking at says he could return to the minor leagues after Varsho comes off the DL. There's so much news coming through that the RotoWire update might not be the newest news. Yeah, I think he started the year in the minors. That's what they were saying with Barjord. So does that mean Strah made it? Strah's gonna play center. Yeah, until Varsho comes back. And then maybe they'll want some more flexibility in the roster.

I do think with players like Rodin especially, as excited as I am, calling him a sleeper and having this happen, he's one roster move away from just getting sent down even if he's not playing poorly. That's in his range of outcomes too. I mean, that's the hardest thing about a lot of these moves. We get excited about them. There's some good stories, but some of them are just sort of non-permanent, kind of this is the state of the roster right now.

I think I even saw this in some piece where I forget who it was. I wish I could give credit. But there was this idea that like we fetishize opening day, the opening day rosters like this big deal. You made opening day roster was like many front office executives just see it as a work in progress. The roster is always something they're going to massage and guys have to go up and guys have to go down. So as awesome as it is at straw makes the opening roster

and Rodin, you know, what happens when they're fully healthy? We don't know. Still a TBD on the long term opportunity for Alan Rodin, even though I'm pumped that he made the opening day roster. One of their extension to get to Justin Martinez signs a five yearyear 18 million dollar extension with the Diamondbacks two club options on that one for seven million in 2030 and nine million in 2031.

Hard to speculate that far into the future for a reliever but if Justin Martinez is pitching as well as we hope and is healthy at that point they'll seem like options that would be likely to get picked up. Do you think the extension changes anything in the calculations for how the Diamondbacks will manage save opportunities? Or do you think it's just a way of having cost control over a reliever that they really like? Why did he sign this?

I wonder if there's a few factors in play. Justin Martinez, I would say first question is what was his signing bonus, right? A lot of small signing bonus guys end up in these situations where they're like, you know what? I want some guaranteed money. Second factor, he throws really hard and guys that throw really hard break often. So the security of 18 million guaranteed when you may break down once or even twice in the next five years, I think that's probably part of what got factored

into that decision. Because in the scenario, think of it this way too, in a scenario where he's in a committee, or he's like the small side of a committee, especially if it's on an even chair, what's arbitration gonna give Justin Martinez year over year if he's not a closer? It's those options, man, seven and nine million,

like if he's a closer. Those are the two years I'm like, ooh, like that's rough, like mutual option maybe on the first one to hit free agency if you want. Or give him one year, you know, and then hope that you're still a healthy closer on the end of that. I mean, it's just, it's so hard to make money as a reliever.

And you have to have the elite stuff, which he checks that box, and you have to make it to free agency elite stuff, which he checks that box, and you have to make it to free agency. So you know, all those things. Maybe he made the right decision. And from the team standpoint, yet now, you know, puck is going to go through arbitration, the next couple of years, and the more you give him saves, the more expensive he gets. However, you're talking about, I believe, two seasons of puck you've got.

Yeah, he's a free agent after 2026. You're already in Arb two and then Arb three for AJ puck. So basically 2025 salary is set. So if you make him more expensive in 2026, a it's means he was good. Right? And B, it's one year and you could trade him, you know? This could mean something. They could give Martinez more saves now because it's not gonna inflate his salary. But I think actually the way that they will run this is

who's the best pitcher for us in the night inning. I think it could still be Puck. That's the vibe I've been getting reading about it. I still think Puck ends up leading this team in saves this year, but certainly one factor to consider. Not worrying about the number of saves Martinez gets, inflating his cost in arbitration. Maybe that makes him a bigger part of the plan, even if it still remains a committee. Let's get to some other news.

Lots of injuries and follow-ups and different things here. I'm very nervous seeing Shane McClanahan leave Saturday's game, walking off with a trainer. And the good news here is that it's actually just an inflamed nerve in his triceps. He's already feeling better. No timetable for a return yet, but relatively speaking, just a kind of a small bump in the road is the way they're describing it as McClanahan tries to get back from a second Tommy John surgery. Yeah, you know, people asked how much I would change my ranking. I'm not sure how much I will.

I only had them for 135. Like I know that the GM said, oh, we think 150 plus, but A, everyone hopes spring's eternal in the spring and B, like he might mean 150 plus, including the playoffs. If you know, you might might want to keep some holstered at the end of the year so I had him down for like a hundred and thirty hundred and thirty five I don't know how much have to change that I mean this just pushes his debut a little bit later and makes it more likely he gets 135 maybe all in a row maybe I would bump him down to 125 maybe I should bump him down in the rankings a little bit I don't think that I was kind

of the high man on him, but I had him 30. I guess you would have him behind Sandy Alcantara with this news. And okay, you say Kikuchi or Shane McClanahan. Probably Kikuchi now. Ooh, all right. Shane McClanahan or Grayson Rodriguez?

That's a great toss up because I think they're on similar levels. I think the hard thing about McClanahan or Grayson Rodriguez? That's a great toss up, because I think they're on similar levels. I think the hard thing about McClanahan, and it's nerve, so you have to wait till it calms down, and that can vary quite a bit. Grayson's already throwing, he's just playing catch. It's been about a week since he started throwing, and he hasn't had a setback.

I think I would take Grayson Rodriguez over McClanahan right now, just based on my uninformed speculation that Grayson Rodriguez might be pitching in games a little sooner than McClanahan. Alright, well that would drop Shane down to like 46 or something. Yeah, and it's still a situation where if you're in leagues with IL spots, happy to IL them. If you're in a league with no I'll spots especially a shallow like a 12 team league no I'll spots You gotta wait till you get a timetable You can't actually make a move until you get some kind of indication of whether it's gonna be three or four weeks or six To eight because we just don't know at this point in time

But I imagine they're gonna be pretty careful with them Zach Littell I think it's a little bump in job security or opportunity in the time that McClanahan is down for the Rays job security or opportunity in the time that McClanahan is down for the raise. Zach Galoff needs surgery for a hamate fracture. This is a bummer because I looked at Galoff throughout the winter. I thought he was a good long term sort of by-low and keeper in dynasty leagues because the power and speed were still there even though things fell apart a bit for him at the plate last year. The swing and miss went through the roof and And now we're gonna have to wait.

And surgery for the handmaid usually knocks you out for at least a month. So I don't think we're gonna see Galov back until at least May. Given that he's even less expensive than someone like McClanahan, might be a little harder to nurse Galov on the IL in those same kinds of 12-team leagues.

And I wonder if he'll actually be a frequently cut player in leagues where he wasn't already cut over the weekend. Yeah, he's going to be a tough one. I have him in a 15-teamer where I'm going to try and hold him a little bit, because a 15-team MI that could still maybe 20-20 in five months of the season is somebody that's still valuable. He was making a swing change this spring

and it had gone well by results but the strikeout rate is worse. 16 Ks and 43 plate appearances this spring. The swinging strike rate was worse. So I didn't like that little tidbit about it but I'm still hopeful. There's a lot going on with him. He's a good athlete and he's a good egg, I think.

And he's, he's trying to get the most out of what he's got. And I don't know that he's being supported that well by the coaches out there. But in fact, the hitting coach or for the A's is a little bit more highly regarded than the pitching coach. So I think there's a chance there that he still breaks out. It's just going to wait a little bit longer. And on 12 teams and 10 teams, you can wait with him on the on the waiverware. Some Dodgers updates.

Freddie Freeman was back as expected on Sunday for a spring training or tune up game against the Angels that was actually at Dodger Stadium. So good news there. If you're following the Freeman coming off that rib injury. Mookie Betts was supposed to play, ended up being a late scratch, and there were several Dodgers reporters on this. He's still down almost 20 pounds, down to 157 pounds,

hasn't been able to keep solid foods down since before the team left for Tokyo, and may need to undergo further testing. He's on some medication right now. It just sounds like a really unpleasant situation all around for mookie bets that initially when something like this pops up, you're like, okay, food poisoning, flu, day to day garden variety thing.

Yeah, like after a week he's mostly fine, whatever. This just seems like there's this lingering possibility that there's something they haven't figured out yet with bets, so hopefully it's all just going to be okay. But as far as like just getting back to full strength, he's been working out. That's the weird part. He said he's felt good enough to do baseball activities despite this,

which is just kind of a strange scenario. I saw I think it was Molly Knight pulled up an old article from about 20 years ago of Jason Giambi and some Yankees players dealing with a parasite. She reminded her of that. Hope it's not like that, but just one of those stories that I think we're gonna have to track a little bit longer before we really have a sense of if Mookie Betts

is actually going to be okay for the Dodger state side opener later this week. Yeah, we had someone in the Discord point out that he, the weight that he's lost may not be muscle weight, which I get that, you know, he's shedding water is a nice way to say it. You know, in different out of different orifices. Didn't need the second part.

We knew what you meant, buddy. So anyway, could be water weight and it could not be that big a deal. And you're right, he's working out. But what he's not doing is hitting top speed. What he's not doing is getting his bat to top speed. You know, I doubt he's hitting these top ends of the athletic spectrum. And what happens is your body has adaptations that it makes to do those things. And so if he were a sprinter, in other words,

and tomorrow he tried to sprint the 40-yard dash, he would not make a personal record. Right. I mean, who would, right? Like, it's just, it's the function of dealing with a condition like that. So he's behind. I mean, no matter what he's behind, he's going to have to get back up to full speed.

So I can't imagine that he's going to have a great April. Will he get to get it going eventually? Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I mean, there was a pretty big power outage over the course of last year. Yeah, I'm definitely growing in my level of concern with Mookie whereas last week it was kind of like, okay, yeah, knock him down a couple of spots. Don't pass on a completely healthy player near him. Now I'm kind of like, I would need to see how far he's actually falling in a particular draft before I'm like, yeah, good deal. I just don't know if there's going to be a one-size-fits-all sort of approach, but above all, I just hope he's okay. I mean, Gunner aside, Gunner seems, you know, Gunner's not ready for opening day, but it's a little bit different than these other ones,

I feel like. It's like, it's an injury's an injury that he's be a week behind or something is how I see it. Other than Gunner, I kind of don't want to take a question mark in the first two rounds. Yeah, understandable. No need to subject yourself to it if you can avoid it. Here's a trade, a very surprising one. The Rockies trade Nolan Jones back to the Guardians for Tyler Freeman. The reason why the Rockies did it, well, on the surface, at least, Tyro Strada has a fractured wrist. It's going to miss four to eight weeks.

So they needed some help at second base. And Tyler Freeman, kind of an extra guy in Cleveland. They find and develop players like Tyler Freeman about as well as they find and develop anything in that organization. So, I mean, a low strikeout rate big leaguer right I would imagine if the Rockies hadn't traded for Tyler Freeman maybe the Blue Jays would have called about him at some point not so distant future but the problem for Tyler Freeman has been hitting the ball hard in the air that has been the thing

that's missing during his time in the big leagues, especially he has slowly whittled away at his ground ball raves at 45.2% last year. And this is the kind of player that in Colorado with a long window for playing time could actually be sneaky useful for at least deeper fantasy leagues. Yeah, I mean, we had a question about where he would end up in Colorado at second base. He doesn't have it yet. Right. He's not eligible there.

And I think you have to play him in the outfield. So you already, it's already annoying because even if you'd like him for second base for the long term, that means you have to have some sort of caddy. So you have to, you have to pick Willie Castro later to play week one or whatever. So that's annoying. But I do think he's probably above the Willie Castro line himself. Next up just, I just ran the auction calculator for 12 team are really quick with regular five by five.

Nico Horner is 21st already. So is he better than Nico Horner? I think the other part of the Tyler Freeman profile that's still an open question for me is how much will he run? He was 11 for 17 last year. He's now 17 for 23 as a big leaguer. That's with 637 plate appearances.

So basically full regular seasons were the plate appearances. That's how much he ran in Cleveland. Situationally, it's not quite the same as being an everyday player. The Rockies philosophy about running is a little odd. I mean, I maybe I'm just thinking too much about Brendan Rodgers. Not enough about like Brendan Doyle. They do let guys run. Nolan Jones ran a lot.

So I think it's fine. I just don't know if he will. And then the other question is just like, OK, So if he's a eight to ten homer guy even in Colorado is a lot of the value gonna come from batting average Like that's where the question we got I think was from she wasn't really done yet But but has the theoretical skills to do Yeah So Cory was the one that asked the question that where would Tyler Freeman rank as a second baseman even isn't qualified there He only qualifies there if your league requires five

games the previous season because he played six at second base last year. Over the last ten years, Babbitt-Bitt Coors for all players is 332 while it's 294 everywhere else. So for his home games maybe a 40-point jump in Babbitt but the problem for any player in Colorado is that yeah you get that boost at home but you have to deal with pitching looking different every time you leave so you don't just get that bump like you get a bump but maybe it's not as extreme as we once thought. I could see him hitting 275. 275 over the full course of a full season maybe 12 homers and 15 solo bases and that seems a little bit close to what we might have wanted out of Tyra or Estrada. And I'm comfortable putting that up ahead of guys that I think might be timeshary utility guys like

Willa Castor and Luis Henriíce. I think he ends up settling for me somewhere around Mikel Garcia and Brendan Donovan. Maybe a little bit worse than Brendan Donovan so barely a top 20 second baseman Right it might be top 20 because he plays more than some of those guys around him But some of those other guys around him that are trying to like solidify their job will probably be better on per game basis I think it's more of a home streamer in a lot of leagues for Tyler Freeman deeper format Sure, he gets a bump and sticks on the roster now I think the more interesting side of this is Nolan Jones going back to Cleveland. There's some possible losers in this too, we've talked about that outfield mix and

John Kenzie Noelle and how hard he hits the ball and how interesting he'd be if he had a full run of playing time but Jones is a lefty, Noelle is a righty, we've talked about first base and DH being kind of clogged once they brought in Carlos Santana as their Josh Naylor replacement. So this seems like Jaiquenzie Noel loses playing time and becomes basically un-rosterable for now in most mixed leagues. And then the interest level in Nolan Jones probably ticks down a little bit compared to where it was if he was staying in Colorado, right? It's still a park downgrade, even though it might not be

as bad of a downgrade as we would have thought 10 years ago. I mean, apparently his BABIP is higher, not in Colorado, but I don't know that I'd read much into that. What I think he can do is run a high BABIP because he hits the ball hard and he has plus bat speed. We just we did point out that this spring he's among the leaders in adding bat speed, and he also did it while cutting the swing length. You can see his swing strike rate is better than it was,

well, in his breakout season. Strikeout rate this spring is better than it was in his breakout season. And I have to think that at least knowing that his bat speed is up means that he is healthy like he was in his breakout season. And so I think he could probably, you know, still hit 250 ish, maybe even 260 with the with the nice babbip due to how hard he hits it. 260 with, you know, 15 to 18 homers and 10 stolen bases and the big side of a platoon.

It's going to be times in a weekly league you don't want to start him because he'll face a bunch of lefties. I'm not concerned about the results this spring, other than I think that the process stuff underneath the hood is good. And I think Will Brennan, he has options and I think he may go out into the minor leagues. Now he's at an okay spring, but Paul Hoynes reports that Brennan may not make the roster. So there's reporting on this, there's options for Will Brennan and it kind of seems to be pointing to Jones getting the big side of that right field platoon and Noel I think

just fitting into small side platoon, but getting a little bit more than a small side platoon and Noel, I think just fitting into small side platoon, but getting a little bit more than a small side platoon. Maybe, you know, maybe they find ways to DH him with, you know, David Fry is going to be out. So, you know, I think every lefty, Joel, Noel plays, but there's going to be some righties where they, I think work them into the mix. I don't know what the rubric will be because he's now kind of fighting Santana Jones and Manzardo for playing time, but I don't know what the rubric will be because he's now kind of fighting Santana Jones and

Menzardo for playing time. But I don't think Noel will only get 300 played or 200 played princesses this year. Yeah, this is still a depth chart with opportunity despite Nolan Jones being there as a big side guy in one of the outfield spots. You look at the way they project by the bad X. Jose Ramirez, 129 WRC plus. Yep, of course. He's Jose Ramirez, 129 WRC plus. Yep, of course, he's Jose Ramirez, no surprise. Big, big drop.

25 point drop to Kyle Manzardo. And 104. Yeah, 104. Lane Thomas at 103. David Frye, who's hurt right now at 103. Quan at a 99. The couple guys like Angel Martinez, Chase Lauder who's hurt.

Noel is a platoon guy. Burrito who I believe has been sent down. So Gilbert Arias won the second base job? That's what it's looking like. Gabriel Arias, sir. I mean, I like this move for the Guardians. I think it's a smart decision, but I still look at it and say,

there are opportunities here. You could hit your way into a larger role, even if the playing time doesn't look good right now because of the Quality of the supporting cast or the questions in the supporting cast behind Jose Ramirez There's still a chance that Jones enters the the trusted five You know the rule of five and and actually you know just plays despite being a left-handed. You know left-hander I mean if you think about guys that you trust to bat every week every day in that line up

for short list Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a possibility that he can play his way into that core five. I see a rule of two See Kwan and Ramirez in the lineup everybody else on notice I see Kwon and Ramirez in the lineup. Everybody else on notice. Opportunity, that's the way to look at it in the positive light. Some other news items to get to here. Vinny Pascantino day-to-day with a strained hamstring.

His status for the opener up in the air right now. I don't know if there's anything actionable on that one. I just thought that was interesting that we were still kind of waiting for their details. What I do think is interesting is the Reds with Alexis Diaz, he's got a hamstring injury that's going to put him in the IALTAS start of the year but he might not be there closer anyway when he comes back.

It's been a bad spring, he's got wobbly skills that I think everybody sees from a mile away and I think my ongoing question with the Reds is, okay, if it's not Diaz, who is it? Who should it be? And there's a little bit of a where the money went. We did have our first free agent pick up in weekly leagues last night. So you had a league where I think Graham Ashcraft was scooped up.

Yeah, what league was that? $66 for Graham Ashcraft in my main event, it was opposed by a $1 runner-up bid. So that suggests that the valuations are all over the place. I do think that most people think it will be Taylor Rogers, I guess, but I would say Taylor Rogers is not what I would consider closer stuff you know he's a lefty first of all like that you know you don't always want to

you know seed that sort of platoon advantage with a player that you know isn't that great to begin with I mean he's gonna be facing a bunch of righties and throwing like sweepers to them you know it's't that great to begin with? I mean, he's gonna be facing a bunch of varieties and throwing like sweepers to them, you know? It's like that's another platoon risk situation. And just wanted to look at his fastball velocity this spring because I know that Taylor Rogers is up a little bit, but 91.4. Yeah, it's not quite what you're looking for.

I know he's done it before. He's not my closer. It's Graham. Because he's done it before, I think that's where a lot of our minds go first. Oh yeah, he's been a closer. Well, it's been a few years since he's had that opportunity.

Home runs, I think, have also become more of a problem for Rogers being in Cincinnati. That's even more difficult now in his home park. I wonder Tony Santillon, Ashcraft. I think it's Ashcraft. Emilio Pagan, veteran guy that has a home run problem as well. Seems like if they go committee, then it's just a total mess. But basically, this is a long way of saying there's not an obvious this should be the guy Ashcraft at least would would be doing something different and he has premium velocity and could skinny down the pitch mix

enough to just say this is going to work. When he was bad, which he's been, he was really good for the first two innings. I don't know how many Graham Ashcraft starts out and they're like, okay, I'm going to figure out, I'm going to figure this out. What is going on here? And I watch it and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna figure out, I'm gonna figure this out. What is going on here? And I watch it and I'm like, oh, okay, he's a two-pitch guy that can't get past the fourth inning. You know?

Like, his splits per inning are pretty amazing. Yeah, for his career, Graham Ashcraft has a.338 ERA, first time to the order as a starter. He's got a.506 the second time through and a.646 if he goes through the third time. .506 second time. Like, he6 the second time through in a 646 if he goes to the third time 506 second time Like he has a second time problem. I think this is the time to pull the plug on him as a starter I think this is this is how it happens. There's still an outside chance. I'd say Alexis Diaz

10% Graham Ashcraft 30 40% me 40% Taylor Rogers, 15 to 20%, other, whatever's left. I didn't do the math quick enough. Yeah, I don't know if that pie chart got filled, but we'll just let you keep a slice of it. It's fine. You made a concerted effort.

Good enough for me. Other follow-ups here real quick. Gunnar Henderson will start the year on the IL. You kinda hit this before, not a shock. Probably gonna be a relatively short stint, so we've made the necessary tweaks. Probably falls to the back around one early round two if you haven't drafted yet,

but it's fine to go ahead and take him there. They did confirm Felix Bautista is gonna be ready for opening day, so don't worry about that. I told you so. Yeah, yeah, you did, you put it out there. You Darvish will open the year on the IL. I think fatigue was the reason he was slowed down

this spring, so it's not a shocker. So that leaves the door open for Stephen Kolick to get chances in San Diego. We had a mailbag question about Kolick from Taylor A. Bauer or Taylor Abauer, but probably Taylor A. Bauer or Taylor Abauer, but probably Taylor A. Bauer if I had to guess based on where the capital letters are. Can you touch on expectations for Kolick

now that he appears to be the Padres' fifth starter? Five above average pitches by Stuff last year out of the bullpen with a 110 location plus. Why isn't anyone excited about this guy? I think it's because he lacks strikeouts. It's a bit of a sinker, sweeper, like sinker, breaking ball guy. I think it's because he lacks strikeouts. It's a bit of a sinker sweeper, like sinker, breaking ball guy. And I think that the 106 stuff plus is a little soft when he is going to go four or five. I bet you the stuff numbers will drop maybe even below average. But I did take

a picture of what he's done this spring. And you know, 94 on the fastball is a little bit more than I expected with him being stretched out a little bit. So that's good news. Also, it's not just sink or sweeper and figure out the rest. He has a legitimate gyro slider there at 87 miles an hour. That's been getting a 40 plus percent whiff rate this spring. So he's not necessarily in that Clark Schmidt, Michael King category, but he does have that sort of lower arm angle, minus extension, but putting a whole bunch of pitches around, you know, the kind of the sinker sweeper core there. I think it could work as a starter.

Either the fact that he gets 13 inches of ride off his four seam and five inches off his sinker suggests to me that the despite the fact that 13 inches is a bad raw number, they're expecting something that drops and dives when they see that sinker. And so the difference might be enough. And he's got definite feel for what he's doing. I just don't think that this is, I go back to the, like the Miles Straw thing, which is, yeah, he's the guy who's getting the first start through the order,

but this might just be a keep the seat warm for you to Arvish. That's what it looks like, I guess, because Cease, King, Pivetta, I mean Randy Vasquez isn't exactly locked in either. He's in the rotation I think right now as it stands up too because of the Darvish injury. So it's still like it's an extension of the fifth starter battle because when everyone's healthy Cease, King, Darvish, Pivetta are the first four and then one of Vasquez, Kolek or Kyle Hart is the five.

Yeah and one thing is like what did Kolek go in the last? He's stretching out, but what do you go three innings or something? So if you were buying him for that first start and you're saying, Oh, I'll treat him like a streamer. You're talking about four innings, maybe it's probably a yeah, more of a what could go right sort of thing. I watched some some Stephen Kolek video this morning, though, and I noticed that every single clip I saw the score was

Padres up or down by at least five and I clicked the strikeout load video on baseball savant Probably seven or eight times like this is these are all different games Not the same game from same clip every time like this is this is wild and then that actually is Indicative of his usage He was just like the mop-up guy a year ago. Do we did look at his leverage index? He had like he had leverage index comps that were like oh it was it was out of like 300 plus Qualified relievers he was the bottom 25 and leverage index and the only other interesting names I saw nearby Carlos Hernandez who actually got claimed by the Phillies this weekend and

Landon Root But I mean somebody has to be that guy on every team and if you have the ability to add some length Then it could be you for that reason Colick wasn't chewing up two or three innings at a time though His number of appearances and his number of innings were almost equals almost one inning per appearance on average So yeah, it's a pretty unusual situation, but I think this just qualifies as like an extended job battle. Keep an eye on them. I mean, in deep, deep leagues, especially NL only leagues, there might be something here because who knows, like Darvish's fatigue might linger longer than expected or Kolek might outperform Vasquez. Like we've, we've looked at Vasquez in the big leagues longer

and he hasn't been able to make it all click. So maybe Colek has a chance to push that slider a little bit more and find a way to miss a few more bats. But it's an interesting name to file away. I think that's where I'd land on this one. If you're looking for a model darling there, to some extent, Randy Vasquez, you know, who has been starting and getting an above average whiff rate and an above average stuff plus on all on most of his pitches on a big wide selection has been okay. This spring has been pretty good this spring and I think he's out dueling Kyle Hart. So my bet for which of the three would stick longest and have the most starts

this year will be Randy Vasquez. There you go. You know, like Vasquez. There you go. You know, like Vasquez of that bunch. You're trying to find value in the back of the Padres rotation. Back to some other news and notes here. Jung Ho Lee returned to action for the Giants on Sunday. Some good news is he's slowed by a back injury, so it looks like he'll be fine for the opener

in Cincinnati. Jirard and Karnaz Yon had surgery for a fractured hand. Just a bummer if you were going to be at least a month or so before he's able to come back. Not worth holding onto in most situations, but maybe worth putting on a watch list for later because he'll eventually challenge Wilmer Flores for some playing time in that Giants in-field DH mix. You suspected this one all along, you know, Ranger Suarez will begin the season on the IL,

so Tywan Walker will temporarily fill in as a starter for the Phillies. Suarez has made some starts, so can they backdate it, or did they do, no, he did actual starts. One was his last actual start though. Yeah, it might have been that one I was watching as Will Warren. Probably far enough away or it's not going to make a big, big difference. Still hopes to return sometime in April.

So I don't think it's a long term absence, but one that you've got to account for with your early season lineups. Ryan Yarbrough is a Yankee now, so I lumped these three together. Ryan Yarbrough to the Yankees, Carlos Hernandez claimed by the Phillies, and Mike Vassil claimed by the White Sox. Vassil was a Mets prospect that the Rays ended up with, so now he's going to probably be like the White Sox number three starter or something this year because they're just trying to fill seats. But any interest in any of those three guys landing in new spots?

I like the Carlos Hernandez one the best. Of course I do. I've been rooting for Carlos Hernandez to make it forever, it seems like. The problem of course has been command, but the Phillies have had success with guys like this and seem to shop in that bin. Carlos Hernandez throws gas. I think there's a good season or two in him for sure. Yeah, curious to see what kinds of tweaks they make there. He's always had a pretty wide arsenal for a guy that's been stuck in the bullpen as well. So we'll see where it goes from here.

Job battle related news. How about this one? Christian Campbell makes the opening day roster for the Red Sox. Will he be on it? Will he not be on it? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Doesn't matter. He's on it now. Now the question is just is he going to stay on the roster? That's

the big question. I think this is going to cost you a lot more as far as speculating and remaining drafts because we have that confirmation. Things were sort of trending in the positive direction over recent days in spring training. 18 strikeouts in 59 played appearances so far this spring. We saw it last year with Jackson Churio. It takes time to make the adjustments to the big leagues, right? So even if you love Christian Campbell, you're probably gonna have to see it through

some inconsistencies, at least at the beginning of the year, and maybe even some actual below average performances. Because this depth chart is so crowded I wonder if we'll see as much patience with Campbell as we saw that the Brewers had with Churio a year ago. Yeah I don't know like David Hamilton is a credible starting second baseman in my opinion. 27 years old 1.7 war in 317 played appearances last year not bullied by some crazy babbip You know I've heard from the Red Sox that their internal metrics or even ahead of the defensive metrics that are public that say that Hamilton's a pretty good defender despite some slightly weird actions and not necessarily

Looking the part but doing the part and You know, he's been striking out less this spring and that fits his Marley profile Hamilton is going to make this team as a utility infielder The question just is how much does he play? How much does Campbell play? How much does if Hamilton is successful when he plays and Campbell is not like how long will they let that happen? It's just a longer-winded way of saying the same thing you said If Hamilton is successful when he plays and Campbell is not, like how long will they let that happen? That's just a longer-winded way of saying the same thing you said. I mean it's like I like David Hamilton. I picked up David Hamilton, you know, this weekend in a couple places where I really needed MI. I think he'll play. Eventually he could take short stop

from story. I just don't know where you put story after that and I wonder if there's any give to that centerfield situation the centerfield situation as it stands right now is Rafaela I think because Roman Anthony's on this team will your Braille you is going to make the team it looks like he was dealing with an illness for a good chunk of spring training too, but he seems to be fine. Yoshida's not ready for the start of the season. So Devers is the DH, Bregman's at third. That's why Campbell's at second.

The reason Yoshida's not ready is because he has to do a throwing program because I guess they want to play him in the outfield. But yeah, if Bregman's going to play third and Devers is going to DH, then they have to play Yoshida in the outfield they're going to play him in the outfield. But yeah, if Regman's going to play third and Devers is going to DH, then they have to play your sheet in the outfield. They're going to play him at all, which eventually just squeezes Jaren Durand back into center field, puts Raffaella in a backup role or a triple A at some point if they want to send him down there.

It's one fewer spot, one less spot to be able to utilize as you move pieces around if you have to go about it this way at some point though, you know story is 32 He wasn't such a plus at short that I think that he's going to Brandon Crawford this until he's 35 You know, so at some point in the next couple of years Stories gonna lose his job. It's that short defensively. I can't read the tea leaves that well here. My instincts are like David Hamilton will play a lot, but he may be not. I think he'll play enough for mono leagues consistently, but I think he's gonna be on

and off rosters a lot otherwise, because Campbell will be a priority and health could shake this whole thing up, but I think if Campbell stays as a fringy like top 200 guy for these last few days of draft season, that's still a gamble well worth taking. If it hits, you're going to be really happy. If it doesn't, you're only out a 15th round pick, 14th round pick. Not a big deal to lose that pick at that stage for the possibility of five category production. There's like a little bit of this with like Julio Rodriguez, you know, when like he, oh,

he's making the team, right? And that was a great pick to have at the end of that, of that there was a, there was a time period where you could get Julio Rodriguez sort of later in the draft than you expect. And I'd have to pay the huge like prospect tax because people didn't think he was going to make it. And then he had all this steam and then he made it. And so I wanna say this is similar to that except that Julio Rodriguez was raking.

Yeah, Campbell didn't have that spring. Yeah, it's a little bit weird to be talking about this. Like, oh, he made the team and he did what the spring? So this is about organizational faith and they must be talking about how he's taking these bets and there's something changing that they see that they really like. Did Jordan Walker mash the spring

that he made the Cardinals and then got sent down a month later because he really hadn't played that much in the outfield though, like it just, any combination is possible. This is the long view. They clearly believe in Christian Campbell. It's nice to see him getting the opportunity. I'm still in as long as that pick

isn't much above that pick 200 marks I think it's a definite what could go right situation that you want to be connected to Alright, here's some more roster battles for you quick thoughts on these ones AJ Smith Schaver wins the number five starter job for Atlanta Ian Anderson gets traded to the Angels who always seem to end up with The starters that don't make the Braves I think Tucker Davidson was one that they scooped up a couple years ago, but thoughts on Smiths Schaver? I'm in, you know, Smiths Schaver this spring

has shown us a 39 stuff plus. Yeah, I've been to some questions about the spring stuff plus. Part of the reason the numbers are stretched high and low is because everything's still normalized off of 100 and it's a tiny sample. Is that what happens? Actually, it's because it's a huge sample. It's a huge sample of pitchers, not a tiny sample of pitches per pitcher. But because there's, you know, 1100 pitchers in the spring and only 390 make rosters, that means there's a lot of bad pitching that's stretching the Stuff Plus universe in the

spring. The other thing is we don't have arm angle. Arm angle is important. We are trying to figure out a way right now to impute arm angle. So we have to create a model that creates an arm angle and fills it in. So that's what we're going to do. Matt Denow was hard at work on that. He got a good he got to a good R squared and so we have a good feeling that going forward we'll be able to do some low

miners stuff and some spring with arm angle in the future. So that's something that's out of this and it makes it really hard to kind of fully invest in these numbers but when I watched Smith's job for the spring and I liked what I saw, I think he's maturing. The command was a little bit better and crisper this spring. And I keep wanting him to throw a good slider. That's not something that he's quite done yet. But a guy that has that kind of a curveball, I feel like, should be

able to do it. This spring he has thrown, let's see what he's thrown this spring. Honestly, I don't even know why Smiths Schaver is in my stuff plus numbers because if you do a search on statcast, you don't get anything. That's what someone was asking the discord too is like how did that number even come into the sheet? Because he wasn't pitching in parks that had stack cast. I asked the team. I don't have an answer yet You know somebody who can spin it that that well on the curve ball I think we'll find a hard a heartbreaking ball and the stuff less model loves his change-up

So there's the beginnings. I think this might be one that could take some time, but then you look at his spring and it was pretty good. So anything can happen. He's better than Ian Anderson, I think. So to the praise. Yeah, that was their assessment too, getting a lefty reliever, Jose Suarez, back in the Ian Anderson trade with the Angels.

Matthew Libertaure, number five starter for the Cardinals to begin the season. So Stephen Matz to the bullpen, Michael McGreevey to triple A. According to Ali Marmal, this will be a prolonged opportunity for Libertaur to show what he can do as a starter. Is there any reason to believe things will be different this time around? The stuff numbers on his fore seam are good this spring. Again, that's without arm angle. I do like the fact that at this point he is throwing five, six pitches.

You know, it's a wide array of pitches that we're seeing from Libertor. I think that they're changing their processes under the hood in St. Louis and getting better, but 95 miles an hour sitting on the on the four-seam fastball as a left-hander with 17 inches of IVB, a sinker that has 13 inches of IVB and 13 inches of run, a slider at 87, that's kind of a gyro slider, a cutter at 91, and a 78 mile carb ball, it's really big. It's starting to look like a real arsenal and this is probably the best his arsenals looked. I like him as like a home play for now. Home streamer, but yeah,

there's some interesting stuff going on there, kind of quietly pushed his K rate to a career best, 21.2% working mostly out of the pen last year, 11.6% swing strike rate. Nice to see that too. And 14.5% swing strike rate this, I mean 14.5% strikeout rate this spring though. Temper your expectations a little bit.

Yeah, no, it looks like a developing back end starter sort of arsenal, not a former prospect, figuring it all out at once sort of arsenal. Logan Allen is going to be the number five starter for the Guardians. Tristan McKenzie to the bullpen. Any interest in Logan Allen? This one I got wrong again. This is the thing where you're like looking they don't have options. You're like, oh, they'll just put them in the rotation because they didn't have options. Well, there are other options for teams.

You can keep them on the roster. In the bullpen. What do you think about McKenzie as a reliever? That might even be more interesting long, long term than Logan Allen as a starter. Yeah, he could air it out and I'd love to see what the Velo looks like in short bursts My spidey sense tells me that like he could be someone that on average when you go to from the pen to the rotation You add like a tick and a half or two ticks, right? I could see it being different for him because he struggled to maintain below

he's shown us some better Velo's at different times and I could see him maybe jump into 94, 95, 96 even. Maybe not his first year. One thing I have noticed with people that go to the bullpen is the big Velo boost comes in the second year because he's trained all offseason to be a starter, right? You're right. It's a different approach throughout an entire winter. I think that gets you to unlock that sort of max comfortable sitting below working out of the pen. As far as Alan goes, he's 26 now.

I think we were excited about him a few years ago. His second round pick back in 2020. Is it kind of like the Matthew Liebertor, just the guy, use him for home streaming and that's sort of the extent to which you're interested. I mean, he does have a better strikeout rate this spring than Liebertor. The model doesn't like anything about him. No, it does not.

I'm trying to see what his spring looks like, if I've got any numbers here. Four seam fastball at 91 miles an hour with 16 inches of vertical brake against a sinker that has 9 inches of vertical brake. Yeah, these are uninspiring numbers. A sweeper with 14 and a half inches of glove slide sweep that is really good. So he's got a big old sweeper and everything else is mediocre. I think what you are seeing though is he threw 52 sweepers this spring against 77 force amers. So he is leaning hard into his big sweeper.

We could see okayness. Yeah, I feel like it's gonna be short starts though. I feel like it's gonna be a lot of two times to the order and then let's use the bullpen depth this day. I think that's gonna be how they go about it with no other a lot of likes them either and the V lo being so low on the fastball just brings your ceiling down so much yeah I think it's a nice story but not necessarily one that I'm chasing from a fantasy perspective not surprising Brandon Fott

keeps the number five starter role over Jordan Montgomery Montgomery headed to the pen for now could still be traded if the D backs eat a lot of the money that he's owed. We'll see how that one plays out. Here's the one that everyone's upset about. This will be the last one for today. Carmen Mladzinski is getting the first crack at the number five starter job for the Pirates. So it looks like Thomas Harrington is headed down to triple A. And Mladzinski's last full season as a starter was at double A in 2022. So it's been been a few years but he's been stretching out, stretched up to three innings in his last spring outing. He's been pretty decent as a reliever, 291 ERA for his career, 80Ks and 86 and two-thirds innings, nothing amazing but just, you know, a useful big league pitcher. And I think people are generally upset, Pirates fans understand understandably upset, because they want to see all the prospects.

And I just wondered, we were talking about pitching archetypes and how organizations find a blueprint for something that works in development or in planning, and they just kind of stick with it. I mean, look what they just did with Paul Skeen. This is what I tried to put out there in the Discord. Skeen's came into last season with a known workload restriction, right? And they handled him very carefully, they bumped his workload I think by about 30 innings compared to what he did the previous year, kept him in the minors, short started him,

built him up, built him up, back loaded it, and did everything they thought they should do to keep him healthy and it worked, right? It looked good, looks like a good idea. If you consider that Bubba Chandler threw 119 and two thirds innings last year and Harrington threw 117 and a third and Braxton Ashcraft only threw 73. You could look at all three of those guys and say, if you want them available in August, September and October for a possible push toward a wild card, then you need to slow play them early.

Right. So I think that's probably what's happening here. It's that they don't want Bailey Falter and Wladzinski and Andrzej Hini to be pitching the bulk of their innings later. They just want to make sure their most effective young guys have something left in the tank when it matters the most. Is this a fair explanation for what the Pirates are doing right now? Yeah, I think that makes sense. I mean, that's why you sign somebody

like Andrew Haney as well, right? Like you definitely aren't signing Andrew Haney to start a playoff game for you. He's someone that helps you get there, and then he might be one of your last pitchers on your playoff roster if someone does get hammered. Left hand, sort of idea. Yeah, yeah, you gotta chew up two or three innings

or something in a game, and just wanna keep everybody else fresh. Like maybe there's the use case for that But yeah, I think he's more of a gets you through the regular season type pitcher. What could be exciting about Carmen? looking at his numbers and a 95-5 fastball Velo this spring even as he has Started two games and done nine and two thirds innings in four appearances is somewhat interesting.

Also is the fact that the Pirate seemed to be pretty strongly on the kind of multiple fastball. We talked about this with Luis LRT's and Osvaldo Bido. So Carmen coming out here has a four seam and a sinker and a gyro slider. That package there, that's the sort of baby pirates package it seems like. And then he adds to it a sweeper that has gotten 25% whiffs, which is not really that good. That's whiffs over swings. So that's not that great a number. It only has nine and a half inches of glove side movement.

You're kind of looking for like 12 plus out of sweepers. So not a great sweeper. The changeup has gotten 67% whiffs this spring. It's 87 miles an hour. It looks very different than his four seam. So it's possible that he has four seam sinker, gyroslider changeup with good V-low and numbers in the Spring

that suggest that he might not strike out everybody that you want him to, but that he could be good. So I, again, homestreamer. Yeah, homestreamer and probably someone that I like better than Bayley Falt, or if you said who's going to make more starts or be more valuable as a starter to the Pirates this year, I think it's Młodzinski over Falter. And you think about Skeens again from last year. He debuted on May 11th.

So put that on your calendar as a rough estimate of when we might see the likes of Chandler or Harrington or Ashcraft. And Ashcraft might be the latest of all because I think his injury history is a little bit longer than the other two. So they may decide to use shorter outings for him at triple A longer.

Maybe Ashcraft comes up in June, or maybe it just comes down to spot starts and who's actually on schedule, too. That's the other factor for temporary opportunities. But as far as a long-term opportunity goes, I think we're waiting for at least the early part of May for the likes of Harrington and Chandler. Chandler didn't beat the door down and you know it's a little sad that they're not going

with Harrington but I think we'll still see innings from what you're saying. Hey we didn't I know I talked too much but we didn't do where the money went. I mean just I'm gonna run through it real quick. Brett Beatty $37 in main event that's an interesting name maybe not for your 12 teamers yet but he got that job and he's running with it. You know, Tyler Freeman for 13 bucks in the main event over in barf. The big one was AJ Smith Schaver for 115. Mike Clevenger is going a bunch of places. I think he's the closer you know, went for 85, which is too much for me for a closer on a bad team. Jack Leiter was a big buy and Ben Rice, I got had Ben Rice on our on the listener league. I added Chris Bryant in the listener league. Why not? It is a dollar.

And we've seen some Charlie Morton. I got Brett Beatty and David Hamilton. I wish that he was the starting second baseman so that's not amazing for me and Last but not least the great fantasy baseball invitational Jack lighter 101 Mike Clevenger 81 Dickie Fitz $68 too much for me. That's just a really tough park and dollars too much for me. That's just a really tough park and Brian Bay is coming at some point. That could be a short term gig. Curtis Meade $61. $1 was the runner-up. That's because Curtis Meade, we don't know he's gonna play. Frantically before I did my FAB last night,

I was asking J.H. about what we thought about, you know, Meade's playing time and we couldn't figure it out. It's a Rhonda who's a lefty, so then Meade's playing time and we couldn't figure it out. It's Aranda who's a lefty. So then Meade's small time DH unless he plays Aranda out of a role. But Aranda has some really nice bad ball stats. The last one, I got Nick Gonzalez for 13 bucks. They sent Nick York down. I think Nick Gonzalez is the every down starter

at second base. That means something in 15 team leagues. I tried my best to very rationally get on board with the Pirates of the North, they're pitching. And I think I generally agree with the approach with the young guys. Like I'm not gonna drag them for not putting all those guys in the rotation.

I'm surprised Nick York isn't finding a spot to play in this lineup. And they sent Henry Davis down. Like that is brutal. Like what does that say about Henry Davis' long-term future that he just got optioned? I don't know, Andrew Rodriguez is good, Joey Bart is good, like I think it means

that they think he's a catcher. And they're not sure he's one of the three best catchers. I don't know, man. We'll see what he's playing, where he's playing at triple A to begin the year, if they're still giving him run behind the plate or if they're moving to the outfield. But for now it's FAM and then of course, Cruis and Center with Brian Reynolds.

That's part of it, right? They added Tommy FAM, they're going to play Tommy FAM, they brought McCutcheon back so they made DH a little more crowded. And we'll see how it plays out for the Pirates in the early weeks of the season. There's always the chance that the veterans don't play that well. And I doubt they'd release Andrew McCutcheon and probably be more of like a Phantom I.L. or something, but they have no allegiance to Tommy Fam. Right, if Fam struggles they could move on accordingly.

Well, we covered a lot of ground because there's a ton of news and there's probably more news between now and tomorrow which is good because that means tomorrow's rundown is already being written by the powers that be, which is phenomenal. Join our discord if you haven't done that already, you can do that with the link in the show description. You can find Eno on Blue Sky, enocerous.besky.social, I'm DVR.besky.social. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. That's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels, we'll be back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening.

Yeah, baby!