Rates & Barrels - May Pitching Risers & Fallers, and Pitchers Waiting in the Wings
Episode Date: June 6, 2024Eno and DVR discuss some of the biggest risers and fallers among starting pitchers from April to May, over and underperformers compared to initial 2024 projections, pitching prospects closing in on op...portunities to help their big-league clubs, and a few weekend waiver-wire targets to consider. Rundown 1:25 Stuff+ Risers From April to May 6:34 From Below Average to OK, From OK to Good, and From Good to Great 11:42 Cooper Criswell Remains Interesting, Brandon Pfaadt Changes The Mix 15:16 Gavin Stone's Quietly Strong Season for the Dodgers 17:54 Stuff+ Fallers From April to May 22:44 A Willingness to Trade Shōta Imanaga? 26:05 YTD Performance vs. Initial Projections (from The BAT) 34:44 Project Prospect: A.J. Blubaugh's Future Path to the Astros' Rotation 39:18 Cade Povich's Similarities to Robert Gasser 44:25 Will Joey Cantillo Earn a Second-Half Rotation Spot in Cleveland 47:23 The Early Days of Justyn-Henry Malloy & Connor Norby in the Big Leagues 52:37 José Miranda, Blaze Alexander & Enmanuel Valdez 1:00:47 Tylor Megill Underrostered in Shallow Leagues Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: ratesandbarrels@gmail.com 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
Transcript
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Welcome to the Murphy's Law edition of Rates and Barrels.
It is Thursday, June 6th.
Derek Van Riper, Eno Saris here with you on this episode. We dig into some pitcher performances that have shifted from the first month of the season
to the second month of the season, sort of the companion episode to what we did on Tuesday.
We did the same exercise for hitters.
We'll talk about some stuff risers, stuff fallers, the overall performance and compare
some of the original projections for this season to result
so far.
Try to figure out why some players are so far above or below expectations.
We're also going to have a round of Project Prospect later on in the show and our weekend
waiver preview.
So we're going right into the content because frankly, the details of my life are not worth
recounting on the podcast this morning.
I don't want to leave it twice.
Not amazing right now.
You know, I had a little heat stroke yesterday.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just bad lead up to the show as far as life things.
Everything's good.
That's all I'll say about it, but it was a rough morning.
Let's begin with the picture performances.
And we're looking specifically at stuff risers as we begin.
And this connects to this loose idea
that I floated on the show this week, you know,
where I feel like to trade for pitching,
you almost have to anticipate
who the stuff risers are going to be.
And you have to know what can a pitcher do
to get better in the model?
What can they do to make their stuff more effective? Lower S stuff, right? Just how can they get better in the model? What can they do to make their stuff more effective?
Lower S stuff, right?
Just how can they get better?
And even within that, you have to think,
how much does a player fluctuate from month to month anyway?
Just a guy with a typical three or four pitch arsenal
that he generally commands really well.
There's gonna be some up and down in that,
just as there is in the performance of a very good hitter. We used Freddie Freeman as our example of a hitter that will have some up and down in that just as there is in the performance of a very good hitter we used Freddy Freeman as our example of a hitter that.
Will have some up and down months and his low points are still like 110 WRC plus months but still even that I think gives us the sense that we don't get the kind of consistency even on a granular level that we really want from players.
even on a granular level that we really want from players. Yeah, I think pitchers are a little bit more subject to the schedule.
Not only the opponents, the team opponents, because hitters have that,
but hitters see a different pitcher or pitchers every night.
So if you think, yes, we did do a piece where we looked at, like, oh,
some of these hitters have randomly seen the best stuff in the big leagues and that that can happen.
But generally I think it evens out like strength of competition evens out a little bit more for a hitter because they see so many more pictures whereas a picture comes in every five days and like especially starting pitcher comes in every five days and sees one team.
You know and just over and over that one team and then they.
Nothing for four days, you know.
So if they're in Colorado or they're going to Cincinnati,
you know, I sometimes I get I've gotten like responses
for people like, oh, what about this picture?
He's in the tank.
And I'm like, yeah, he just did Cincinnati in Colorado.
And that may have followed a couple other difficult stretches
or could have been extra travel around that.
It's that combination of factors that is really hard to see on the micro level.
And it's even you can try to predict and project the schedule.
But with off days, guys like with Keaton Wynn, we kind of did.
We did a good job there because we were like, hey, these next few starts are no good.
Like if you need to move on, move on.
Like anybody listen to that advice, probably profited.
But I would say now, you know, I just bought Keaton Wind for a dollar
in main event.
Like you like now is the time to maybe buy it back in by the time he's back in healthy
and back in big leagues.
It should be soon.
It is strange.
There's a pretty decent size chunk of the player pool that is important to our game,
but isn't necessarily glued to rosters.
That is, yeah, and analyzing and managing that pool of players correctly is actually really important.
It's a way to kind of separate yourself a bit from the pack.
Yeah.
I mean, I think that my big revelation in that was last year when we were like 790th
out of 810 main event teams and we still managed to place in our league at the end of the season
just by like, you know, sheer gumption and elbow elbow grease,
you know, so like, you know, you can effort your way up the standard standings and most
of it has to do with schedule, but also like just little things where you're like, oh,
this guy's hurt for a while.
So this other player is going to actually play a lot, you know, the kind of thing where
it's like Cory jokes may not be the greatest player,
but two weeks ago we told y'all that he was playing a lot
and that Chicago is gonna play him.
And now all of a sudden he's the leadoff hitter in Chicago
and like his numbers look okay, you know?
So it's like identifying changes in lineups,
changes in team philosophies, you know,
that will come soon and we'll do a pod on it, of course,
but there will come soon a point at which players
are traded from teams.
And all of a sudden some guy on the team behind him
gets a chance.
All of a sudden, Addison Barger is the everyday
third baseman in Toronto because they've decided to trade away
flatty you know so it's like that kind of stuff staying on top of it can really make
a difference and it's a little bit less obvious with hitters but it's there with hitters it's
really obvious with pitchers where you're like there's just a grouping of 30 to 40 pitchers
that is just not good enough that's good enough to pitch in good matchups and it's It's good enough to pitch in good matchups
and it's just not good enough to pitch in bad matchups.
I've been spending time out in the yard a lot
and I've been working on the TradeMaker 3000.
We're gonna fire up the TradeMaker 3000 a few times
between now and the deadline.
It's a great machine.
I think you just said if the Blue Jays trade Vlad Jr.
and I heard the machine start whirring in the backyards.
Whoa, didn't know that was on the table.
So the happy, happy machine rumbling away in the backyard.
I love Addison Barger as a random name pole there too.
Just a great name, Addison Barger.
Sounds like he'd hit 30 home runs
if he gave him 600 plate appearances someday.
Yeah, it's definitely something that could happen.
As for the
risers April versus May in terms of stuff this is a pretty interesting list
that you pulled together because it includes some guys who were kind of
average who got better it includes some guys who are below average who got
better and are still below average and includes some guys who were good that
got better right so you kind of have three different buckets that you can
work with.
I find it interesting, Bailey Falter is in here
as someone that jumped from a 77 stuff plus to a 92 in May.
And I was thinking about the Pirates
when you were talking about how the schedule
can be kind of weird.
If you catch the Pirates for a three game series
where you miss Skeens and Jared Jones,
that's great for hitters.
If you catch them when you see both, that's great for hitters. If you catch them
when you see both, that is terrible for hitters. It's a big swing. You may only see one, you
may see both, you may not see any one of them, but it's because of guys like Falter in the
back of the rotation that you're not worried about, you still look at that team as one
that you're kind of hunting on the schedule to some degree. You're just trying to be very
selective and careful about it. But as far as the big risers over the last 30 days or so,
what really caught your eye the most
once you put this together?
I've just been fielding questions
about Spencer Arrghetti, he's number one on the list.
And given his strikeout rate, even an 89 stuff plus
that he's had over the last 30,
kind of sticks out as is that is that correct and
You know, I think one thing that
There's been he's kind of improving his stuff in the two ways you can improve it
One is that his pitches are getting better like he's his fastball is harder now than when he first came in
His debut is 92 the next games were 93.
He's been sort of round up to 94 for four straight starts now.
He had a couple where he's round up to 95 almost.
So, you know, the VELO has been better, you know, the ride's been better.
Month by month, he's gotten more ride on his four seam every month and you know
and then on the the cutter the cutter has gotten more horizontal movement as
the season has progressed. The other thing that's interesting about Spencer
Argeti though is that we put cutters into Stuff Plus as fastballs and I'm
pretty sure that Spencer Argeti's cutter is not a fastball.
First of all, he has a four seam.
And then second of all, his four seam is 94-ish and his cutter is 87-ish.
And that's a pretty big difference in Velo.
And so one thing we're considering with Stuff Plus is maybe making a conditional where it's
like cutters that are within four miles an hour of the fore seam are cut fastballs and
cutters that are bigger gap are breaking balls.
This may be something that gets shook out in the end eventually, but his cutter still
gives up a 375 slugging, 232 batting average.
It doesn't get a ton of whiffs, but it gets 15% whiffs.
There's almost like sliderish whiffs.
So it's possible that his cutter is more of a cutter, like a baby slider, in which case
we would be mischaracterizing him and missing some of the the goodness there.
And then the last thing is like the more that he strikes guys out the further he
gets into his major league career the less that stuff plus matters you know. The
more that actual results take over we've got now from him let's see how many
pitches has he thrown I'm getting used to the new pages on fan graphs.
Where is the pitches?
Anyway, I mean he's got 46 innings.
So at this point you can start to look at K minus BB 26%
strikeout rate 12% walk rate just around league average.
So he should have slightly better days coming that makes him
interesting.
Nick Pavetta is in your category of just good getting better days coming. That makes them interesting. Nick Povetta is in your category
of just good getting better. Sonny Gray, just I think just a few more breaking balls. You know
like a lot of his best pitches are not his fast balls. And so when you look at his pitch usage
over time this year what you'll see is that he's, as the season has gone on, thrown more sliders,
even thrown more change-ups and fewer sinkers.
So I think that's changed his number a little bit.
You know, Cooper Criswell always stands out to me
because I think he's just underrated
by the fact that everyone looks at his fastball below.
This is a team that's devaluing the fastball anyway.
He's found a way to just basically what has his pitching coach said,
just sort of jab with the fastball.
Twenty nine percent sinker, 14 percent cutter,
twenty seven percent slider, 29 percent change up.
Like he's pretty much just mixing it up by K-minus BB.
He's starting to look good.
Just doesn't, he's not gonna give you plus plus strikeouts,
but I think if you're careful with the schedule with him,
he's someone that you should keep on your roster
during the weeks when you don't wanna start him.
There's a gap here.
You wanna look for players that maybe are getting
Dropped because it's a 12 team league the schedule is tough the ratios got blown up
And that's what happened for Chris well in May even though the stuff got better
His eRA was actually bad so people rostering him might just look at the surface numbers and say okay
It's not working. It's a low velocity guy eRA is over six
But the skills and his last five starts or five starts in May anyway, it's a low velocity guy. ERA is over six, but the skills, his last five starts,
or his five starts in May anyway, it was 10 Ks per nine.
It was a two and a half walks per nine, right?
It looks pretty good by the analog metrics too.
So yeah, Cooper Criswell's a great example
of someone that would kind of be like another Keaton win
where people will drop him, other people will pick him up,
and the people that pick him up the second or third time
might be the ones that actually roster him the longest
and get the most mileage out of him going forward.
It's funny how that works.
Brandon Flaud is also interesting
that he has increased his stuff plus from 101 to 110.
I think that's mostly by throwing a lot more sliders
and not throwing the change up as much,
because his last 30 days, pitch by pitch versus April, by throwing a lot more sliders and not throwing the change up as much.
Because his last 30 days, pitch by pitch versus April, you know, there's not really a standout
number.
The, the one thing he is doing too is he's throwing the curve ball harder.
What I want Brandon Flott to do, and this is so against lefties in his last start, he
didn't throw the change up and I'm not sure how good the changeup is and so I don't know if that was a matchup thing
that he didn't do it or that he just found something that works he threw the
sinker against lefties a lot more than he ever had in his last start but I
wanted to throw the curveball the curveball is now like 81 and it registers
as an above-average pitch and I I think he should be forcing curve slider with the occasional high sinker to lefties.
So I think he's getting closer and closer to that, that Clark Schmidt moment where he
figures something out against the lefties and then sort of makes good on promise.
What we've seen from Fatt and Clark Schmidt in the past are like good stuff plus numbers and poor results
because of those splits. And I think FOTT might be closer than ever to figuring that out.
Yeah, it seems like this could be a little window where if you're trying to get pitching and you can't go to the top.
We talked about some targets earlier in the week. Maybe Brandon FOTT is more gettable than other pitchers that will perform like him going
forward.
So that could be a good place to shop.
I don't think you and I have talked about Gavin Stone much at all this season.
He also pops on this list.
Results all year have been good.
A sub 3 ERA, 119 whip.
Kays haven't been there so far, but another guy where you look at the swinging strike
rate compared to the strikeout rate and say, there could be more strikeouts coming.
At least you could tell yourself that story pretty easily
when you look at the underlying numbers.
Yeah, I just wrote him up
and there is a sort of burgeoning change with his fastball
where he's had like two or three of the best fastball ride
games of his career
in his last four or five starts,
it hasn't stuck with him every game.
So I don't know exactly what's happening.
Maybe he's trying to make some adjustment that's regressing.
I think that the floor that he's demonstrated so far
is good enough that you can buy him.
And you may have someone who's looking really hard at that
18% strikeout rate and saying 18, 19% strikeout rate for his career, 17% strikeout rate for
his career, 494 ERA and then projections like the one from the bat for a 460 ERA.
And you may be able to get him from a savvy owner that is focusing on the projections
because I think, I think there's enough
demonstrated here that he could beat it.
He works for a team that leads the league in Babap aloud every year and he's got a fastball
that's improving and it's improving in both shape and gas.
So it's not somebody you'll buy and he'll turn into an ace, I don't think.
But he is a guy that did have 30% strikeout rates
in the minor leagues.
He's showing a little bit under the hood.
So it might be a kind of a cool under the radar buy.
Yeah, I don't think there's that much job security risk
right now.
I mean, we just saw James Paxton give a lot of ERA back
against the Pirates.
It just, it looks like it's not working for Paxton.
There's no, to me there's no obligation for the Dodgers
to keep him in the rotation.
They could make him a long reliever,
or they could do a number of things with him,
or they could just go to a six man rotation
once Bobby Miller's back, because they do that at times.
They don't always telegraph it, they just do it.
So I think Gavin Stone is pretty safe right now,
especially given the other injuries
they've dealt with in that organization a lot of the guys we thought
would be coming back aren't necessarily coming back anytime soon so yeah Gavin
Stone definitely a name to circle. Going the other direction we got a few
Fallers. I'm not surprised to see Jordan Hicks on this list because I think you
mentioned it at least in the middle of May that things were already trending
the wrong direction but he's the biggest stuff plus faller from April to May.
Hunter Green, Shota Imanaga, Luis Heal,
Heal kind of being, and Green also being in the bucket of,
we're very good in April and we're just pretty good,
or very good, but less so in the last 30 days or so.
Jared Jones also fits in that bucket too.
Of the guys in here,
I mean, are we looking at a threshold
where we're saying, okay,
this went from average to bad or from bad to worse?
Like, who are you actually worried about
among the bigger fallers that we saw from April to May?
I'm gonna pick out the easy ones first.
You know, like, Carlos Carrasco going down to an 85
and being injured, being his age.
Chris Paddock, who you never trusted. Never. No. It was a, it was an 85 and being injured, being his age. Chris Paddock, who you never trusted to-
Never.
No.
It was easy to avoid for me, but hey,
I got other stuff wrong, so don't worry.
The results, well, I mean, to your credit,
you helped me push him down in my rankings
every time I talked to you about it.
But he's down to an 84, stuff plus from 96.
I think that some of the good stuff plus
numbers were a mirage of short outings. That one sticks out for me. Eric Fetty, you know, given how
bad his fastballs were before and still kind of are. I mean, right now, let me see for I'm gonna just do this for the for the season
59 stuff plus on the foreseam 82 on the sinker 78 on the cutter
He is going to succeed by having three fastballs and mixing it up
But dropping down to 89 on a team that's not gonna give him wins
You know, that's something that I've got circled. Trevor Rogers going from an 89 to a 76. I mean, I've just, he's done for me
as even somebody I wanna pick up as a streamer.
Those are the easy ones.
The easy ones I don't care about
are the ones you're talking about
where they had great stuff and now they still have good stuff
and it's just the course of the season, I think.
Jared Jones came in, you know,
throwing one-on-ones every time, 136 stuff plus now he's down to one 25, still the best in baseball
among starters, I think.
So, you know, that's, I'm not worried about that.
Hunter green down to one 15, not worried about that.
Luis Hiel, one away, not really worried about that other than the general
worry of, you know, where, what happens when the innings run out.
So the real ones and then Casey Mize you know going from 114 to 102 you could say oh he's still 102 but.
Given the rest of the stuff around it given the fact that so much of it's come from his fastball getting worse.
I'm going to put him in the bucket of maybe the deepest leagues I'm holding, but like 15 teamers are
already moving on from Casey Meyers if there's somebody on the wire that has a better matchup.
Mitchell Parker dropping out at 85.
Those guys become more streamers and they'd have like, Paddock would have to have the
best matchup for me to play him.
Parker and Fetty, there might be some matchups where I play them,
but they become very much matchup plays that don't even have to stay on my roster.
I think the real toughest ones are ones that I just like and I think they are pitching well
and the K-BB is still good. I don't know how much to worry about it and that there's a threesome there. Jose Soriano, Yoshinobo
Yamamoto and Shota Imanaga. Those three are down big and I don't know if I care.
That's completely fair. I think what's going to happen in most cases is Soriano would be
cut because he's a little bit more like Cooper Criswell in terms of newness to
the roster. Not at all in terms of stuff. Completely opposite picture as far as
what he does with velocity but I could see people getting impatient with Jose
Soriano because there's no track record there. There wasn't a significant
investment, inexpensive via fab. Whereas both Yamamoto and Imanaga,
you're talking about guys you expected big, big things from.
So even if you see a run of a few bad starts,
you're generally not panicking that much.
You might just be more willing to trade them
than you were a month ago.
That would probably be the difference
in what's actionable with them.
Yeah, and Shota, like, you know, this is not sourced reporting.
I'm not saying that I know this, but one of the reasons that you could get
a whole group of teams missing on a player like this and even get the contract
that he got from the Cubs, the specific contract that he got,
one of the reasons could be that there were some red flags
in the medicals, if you think about it.
Like think about what the type of contract he got,
how it's like structured and the innings and all that stuff.
So that still exists, he's still 30, you know,
with an inconsistent health track record.
And now when I look at the numbers,
he's getting less ride as the season goes on and a little bit less below as the season
goes on. And he's very much a two pitch pitcher right now. So I feel like he may be a little
bit more susceptible to these fluctuations in his fastball. I'm picking the knits to some extent.
But if you're like, if you're in a keeper league
and you're out of it and you've got him,
it's worth wondering, it might be worth,
I mean, especially if he has another good start,
you know, let the recency bias forget that last start,
you know, it might be worth floating him
and just seeing what you can get.
You might be able to get a really tasty bat
and it might be worth it.
I mean, you're still floating someone out there with a sub to ERA
and near one whip over a strikeout parading wins the ability to pitch
deep into starts like there's a lot still going right overall.
It's it's the tipping point of, whoa, was this a top 10 starting
pitcher that everybody missed on or did people
just miss, the market just missed slightly?
I think it's looking more like the market missed slightly rather than by tens of millions
of dollars, right?
I mean, that was an idea that was floated out there when he was just cruising in April.
Got to give things time.
And we knew from the stuff plus numbers in WBC that he had good shape on his
fastball. That's still pretty much true.
And that his splitter is good.
We also knew from his time in Japan that he's home run prone.
So the fact that he's got a home run rate under one, you know,
maybe the cold April like really helped him in that regard.
And maybe, you know, there's going to be more like a one three or one four homers for nine the rest of the season that's at least with the bat is saying and the bat is still saying it the best thing is a four to eight guy.
With a home or half printing so it's you know i don't know this seems like consistently the bats run environment is a little bit higher.
Yeah, it does.
It's still worth pointing out that the home run right there
is one point five for Shota on that projection.
So I started looking back at the original projections for this season
and just looking for the pictures that have outperformed
or underperformed by the
widest margins and I think this is one of the easiest ways to cast a net who should you move
who's pitching really well who should you go for who's underperformed if you dig in a little
further and try and assess why. And still like what you see or don't. Yeah still like what you see right this
this at least this tells you what lakes to fish in doesn't tell you what bait
To use I don't think that's the sale. I don't fish if that was that wasn't obvious
Made a point to clear that up right now
the biggest
over-performers by ERA right now, so guys that were
projected for
Four or five and are way below that for the most part. Not surprisingly, right.
You're looking at Nick Pavetta.
You're looking at Tanner Hauck.
Two and a half runs better than his projection so far through the end of May.
Rangers Suarez, not a surprise.
Talked about him a lot.
Seth Lugo, three full runs better than his projection at the end of May.
John Gray, more than two runs.
Shota, we just talked about over two and a half runs,
Luis Heal over a two and a half run difference,
and even Trevor Williams might be the biggest one of all,
3.27 runs better, right?
So the thing I start to do is put the skills indicators
next to it, and I start to say, okay,
like with Tanner Hauck we've talked about a handful of times,
like what's changed with Tanner Hauck through the first
two months by results that would make this
even remotely possible?
K rate, up slightly, like a half K per nine or less,
nothing wild, he has done a good job slashing his walk rate.
He was projected to be over three walks per nine,
he's been under two.
So you have to decide, do you buy that skill as something that's legit?
I kind of do with how the pitch makes change there. He turfed the turf the the bad four seam
Yeah, I think there's enough there to say okay
He might not beat it by that much the rest of the way
But I think that's an improved skill where you can say that there's there's legit growth there home run rate still
Microscopic point one two homers per nine this year.
He may be the type that can run small ones.
You wonder if maybe lefties at some point
will figure something out.
But before last year, you know,
I know it's sort of limited sample
and a lot of those he was relieving,
but he had like a 0.5 homers per nine
from 2020 to 2022.
Yeah, big ground ball rate too.
So you could see him being an over performer there
and that being his true talent level.
So the gap actually maybe shouldn't be as wide
as people expect.
Like his regression to the norm might be more of like
a 350, 375 ERA the rest of the way,
which would still be a great outcome.
If you drafted Huck, you'd be really happy if he pitched that level the rest of the way, which would still be a great outcome. If you drafted how you'd be really happy if you pitched that level
the rest of the season.
So I think that's sort of the the process by which you go through some of these
names and try to figure out like what's real and what's not.
And for Praveda and how there's a little bit of confirmation bias
for me, at least, where I'm like, yeah, I thought these guys would be good
going into the season and they are. So I'm like, yeah, I thought these guys would be good going into the season
and they are so I'm just gonna keep on humming along.
I don't quite have that with Seth Lugo just because he was never really a stuff play as
much as he was a guy that I thought I would start 75% of the time.
I guess I'm being less careful than that on the teams where I own
and pretty much starting him all the time. But I kind of want to remember that and remember that
I wanted to treat him as a 75% guy. And that means he's more 40 to 50 in the rankings rather than,
you know, 20 to 30, you know.
Right.
Yeah.
Where he's at in terms of earned value, you know, to this point is much above where you'd
put him rest of season.
And then you can take like just straight up like normal indicators and say the K minus
BB at 16 percent, like league average is 14 percent.
And I know his park is going to help him a little bit with the homers and maybe even
the Bbip.
And I guess that defense behind him,
that's a good defense.
So in terms of home runs for nine and babbip,
it's probably not egregious changes.
But just based on how many balls he allows him to play,
you'd think that there will be different days ahead.
He's already had a couple bad starts.
I also just don't know, sometimes you just have to just keep this guy cuz like
Don't you think a lot of people just see you coming a mile away, you know trying to sell Seth Lugo
I think he fits into that group
but we talked about some pictures people were worried about crashing back to earth and I do think a
Lot of times you get less for a player like Lugo than you do for the example we had was Carlos Rodan
Carlos Rodan if you're worried about him crashing back to earth, there's still someone
in your league that sees an ace.
That's kind of the difference.
I don't think anybody in your league sees an ace when they look at said Lugo.
The other end of this board, if you flip it upside down, the underperformers, that's where
I think people tend to shop a lot.
The extreme, the most extreme one, AJ P AJ puck three and a half runs worse than his projected. Yeah, don't buy don't buy don't buy there
There's a few like David Bednar as a closer. I think David Bednar is gonna be fine
If you go a little further down like Edwin Diaz, I think we maybe we've lowered expectations from best closer in the league
But to like still a tier
one closer, I think he'd be someone I'd go after.
As much as he's had some issues, he's still striking out 35% of the batters he sees.
It looks a little bit like the bad year that he had in 2019, but that sometimes can be
a trick of the sample.
He could be fairly vintage. He could be 2021 Edwin Diaz from here on out,
three, four, five ERA, 105 whip, 35% strikeout rate.
Like that really, that was right in line what he's doing.
And he'll still end the year with like a four,
one ERA or something.
And, you know, people will remember it badly,
but, you know, going forward,
I still see him as a guy with a sub three
ERA. He has a strikeout rate to support it. Hunter Brown would pop on a list like this
projected for a three 98. He's run a six 39 to the end of May, but he's doing it already.
He's starting to turn things back around. Throwing a sinker now and he's becoming more
of a three fastball guy and he's just not throwing the fourth scene
that was getting spanked.
It's like, here's the pitch that's getting spanked,
let's stop throwing it.
So there's a little bit of a chance for him
because he still has a plus curve
and he still has a really good hard slider,
which you could use as a cutter.
So you've already got the sort of three fastball package here
and it'd be kind of more power
than most three fastball people have.
So there's still a chance for Hunter Brown.
Like I'm picking him up and stashing him
in certain places where I can,
I don't know if I wanna like trade for him.
I think I might.
I think if we had a question we'll answer
in greater detail in the future is basically,
how do you build a pitching staff in dynasty?
I think it's a willingness to trade for guys like Hunter Brown when things don't look good.
Because the people contending need quality innings right now,
and they may not be willing to ride out the storm.
And there's always risk when you're trading for pitching
that they'll blow out an elbow or shoulder,
and then you're just waiting forever for them to come back.
But if you are going to trade for pitching and you're able to get a discount, it's a
guy that's already in the big leagues that's shown skills like that, that's showing the
ability to make some adjustments.
I think that's kind of what I'm looking for in a broader sense.
I still can't believe Brown's rostered in just 55% of CBS leagues when he's had this
stretch of six starts with a 36 to 11 strikeout to walk.
It's in 32 innings.
Other than a home run problem, it really walk. It's in 32 innings.
Other than a home run problem,
it really seems like it's working a lot better for him.
And I think his job security also ticked up
with the unfortunate news that Christian Javier
is having Tommy John surgery.
Because as it stands right now,
Renell Blanco, Hunter Brown, and Spencer Arrighetti
are all pretty safely in the back of that Houston rotation
until there's a reason to make a change or
a greater reason to make a change.
Let's get to some project prospect talk and it kind of connects nicely.
One of the names that you would think about is AJ Blubah.
He would probably be the next guy up if they're going to go to a prospect in Houston.
We mentioned Eric Lauer I think a week or so ago as someone who's in the organization
now but I'm not really interested in Eric Lauer, I think a week or so ago as someone who's in the organization now,
but I'm not really interested in Eric Lauer at all. Blue Bars has been going a little bit shorter than the Major League
starters that might be in an effort to keep some innings available for the end of the season.
So I'm kind of curious like when you start looking for that next wave of pitchers coming up
it's gonna be kind of like Adam Mazer,
who came up earlier this week to take a spot
in the Padres rotation.
Maybe Joey Cantillo, who just came off the IL,
triple A for the Guardians.
Other than the occasional like big name promotions, right?
We may see Cade Horton in the second half.
He's slowed by a scabular strain right now,
so he's out for at least a month.
And Jackson Job's still kind of working his way back.
It's a lot of guys that are not quite top 100 prospects,
but they're not bad.
They're just like fighting for their chance.
They're gonna all have flaws.
Like Adam Mazer's fastball's not good,
but it has okay Velo and he has pretty good command of it
and he throws it high in the zone,
he throws his breaking low in the zone. He throws his breaking loan zone.
So he's got an approach and I think that Mazer is going to have some use in
certain matchups,
but he he's a little bit more dependent on the health of the other Padres.
Right.
He's not in that rotation when everyone's healthy blue balls,
like maybe closer because you're talking about air getting and Brown being the
bottom of that rotation, one more injury, they need another guy.
And Arrogant Brown could still play themselves out of the rotation.
Blue ball has the same flaw as Mazer.
He does not necessarily have the same strength in the fastball command, but his four-seam
fastball had a 73 stuff plus in the minor leagues in AAA this year.
He has a good sweeper, a good slider, a 76 stuff plus cutter, but cutters can be tricky.
Maybe the model's missing something there.
A good curveball he doesn't throw very often, and change up that he commands really well.
So it's a really robust group of pitches.
It's only one fastball or two, depending on the cutter, the cutter's VELO, but he can
mix it up, you know?
And so I would be careful with necessarily throwing him the first time he gets to, you
know, start, start the big leagues, but getting a sense of like how he uses his pitches.
That's why I definitely wanted to watch Mazer.
You know, another another name that is coming up and that we have some minor
league numbers on is that Cade Povich is starting today for the Baltimore Orioles.
Again, if they had great fastballs, they'd be in the big leagues already.
So Cade Povich, as much as this might surprise you with the strikeout race he's got has an eighty two stuff plus on the fastball.
What the one or two location plus so he might have enough command that fastball to get past some of the shape issues.
He's got an above average cutter a strong sweep sweeper, a pretty good curveball, and the
model does not like the change up.
Overall it gives 90 stuff plus to Cade Povich, which I think if people are going nuts and
going to put a lot of money on him, I would go the other direction.
But it is a good enough, wide enough mix again, like Bl Ball, like Mazer, where they've caught my attention and players like this.
I hesitate. I don't want to use the word like beat the model, but like
players like this could be useful in matchups that you don't expect.
You know, if they can put up 93 or 92 stuff plus with good locations,
then that's that that puts them in the blob
of useful pitchers depending on who they're playing.
I'm not gonna throw any of these guys against the Yankees
in Yankee Stadium, if you know what I'm saying.
Yeah, right, I mean, but there's a lot of guys
that don't make the cut for that.
So I think that's okay.
What are you replacing?
It actually, in a lot of ways,
Kate Povich's resume has reminded me
of Robert Gasser's resume. Like from this time last year where you're getting good results at the highest level
in the minor leagues, a lot of it comes back to home park, organizational trust, game planning,
defense. The Orioles tick a lot of those boxes. The Orioles have become an organization that we
can trust a lot more with players like this. So I'm typically more in on someone like Povich than
with players like this. I'm typically more in on someone like Povich
than I might be if I was just chasing high, high ceilings
because I think he could end up being
at least average for ratios,
maybe above average for wins,
and average or better in Ks if you use them correctly.
I think that's all possible.
You know, a corollary to our ongoing conversation
of why some minor league strikeout rates
don't port over for hitters isout rates don't port over for hitters
is why they don't port over for pitchers because Robert Gasser was working on 30% strikeout
rates all the way through the minor leagues.
I think if just eyeballing it, it's over 30 for the minor leagues and he's got a 14%
strikeout rate in the major leagues.
I could see Povich doing the same thing because most recently he's been on the 30s
But the swing strike rates not amazing and the stuff plus isn't isn't amazing
They're still you know gasser's been very useful
I've liked him, but somebody asked me for example
Should I start you say Kikuchi or Kate povich today, and I was like this is very easily you say Kikuchi for me
Yeah, you want to
take I mean I guess Baltimore is a better lineup but Kikuchi is just a better
pitcher. Kikuchi's shown that improvement over more than one season now too I think
we've we found kind of a new baseline for him that it's much easier to trust
even in above-average matchups that would never have been the case for him
you know two or three years ago I think he would have been someone you'd have used a lot more carefully than you do now.
Other prospect news to pass along. River Ryan has started his rehab assignment. I think that's a
little bit interesting just because we've seen a wide range of evaluations on River Ryan across
the scouting community, but also because of the issues we were pointing at earlier in the show with the Dodgers rotation, right?
This is a group of pitchers that just isn't quite as tight depth wise as it has been in
recent years.
So he could be the next guy up for an opportunity in the second half of the season if everything
goes okay with his rehab assignment.
Yeah, I mean, I guess losing Emmett Sheehan for the year, they're taking a little bit of a hit on the, you know,
we can fix veterans thing in LA,
because, you know, Noah Sindegard, James Paxton,
I think there's, the rule of three is there's one more,
but I forget his name.
They hit on Andrew Heaney.
Andrew Heaney, yeah, like,
I guess that was the success story. And they hit on Tyler Anderson too.
That's right.
They hit on some. With Sindergard and Paxton, you can give them the injury excuse in some ways.
Those guys were not completely helpful.
And Paxton, you thought, with James Paxton, you thought that he had the fastball Velo and won't the you
know won't the slider Velo you know just come back and this year both the fastball
Velo has not stayed where it was last year and the slider the cutter Velo has
gotten worse so when Ka-Pax was at his best he had an 88 to 89 mile an hour cutter. Right now he's at 84.
And I guess, you know, you can take the bet as the Dodgers that, hey, he's
throwing 95, why can't he throw the cutter 87, you know, you can take that bet.
And sometimes you just lose it.
But you didn't put that much on the line.
And he's in that class of, like Corey Kluver near the end of his career,
where he kept taking one year,
$10 million deals or whatever.
That's what everyone's trying to do for their number five.
And they're hoping that,
oh, if James Paxon doesn't work out,
M.H. Kean will take his job.
Well, M.H. Kean got hurt, Bobby Miller got hurt.
So you're happy to have the kind of lower ceiling
Gavin Stone that you mix in there.
But I'm a little bit pessimistic
that Clayton Karshaw will pitch this year
given timelines for his injury.
I know that he's playing catch
and he even threw a live batting practice,
but we're not really gonna get VELO numbers
out of these live batting practices.
So until I know that he's throwing over 87, I'm not like fully in on Kershaw, which means
there's kind of an opening there for Landon Nack who's done it, but if River Ryan outperforms
Landon Nack, he could be the next guy up.
Yeah, he kind of lands in that bucket.
That's exactly where he would go is kind of alongside Landon Nack, he could be the next guy up. Yeah, he kind of lands in that bucket. That's exactly where he would go is kind of alongside Landon Nack as their next options
up for a promotion.
We talked about the Guardians a few weeks ago when we were looking at the AL Central
and how they didn't necessarily have the same sort of cupboard pitching wise if they
were to lose members of their big league rotation.
But Joey Cantillo now is healthy at AAA.
I know
he spent a lot of time there last year I think it was 20 appearances 95 innings
over a strikeout per inning. I had a bit of a home run problem and a walk problem.
I'm curious if you have any model numbers handy on Joey Cantillo to see if
he falls into the Povich-Gasser minor league prospect blob where we're
interested but we're not also like
shattering a fab piggy bank at the time of his eventual promotion once an
opportunity opens up or if an opportunity opens up for Joey Cantillo.
Yeah and the old Google Doc from last year I've got the final AAA numbers
from last season and he had a 1.0-2-5 stuff plus down there. I think a
viable mix. He did have poor location plus in the minor leagues and that fits
with your kind of back of the napkin work that you were just doing. You can
also just see it in the walk rates 18, 20%, 12%.
So what I want to see from Cantillo going forward is to get that walk rate down to, you know, 10, 11% at least.
Make him more of a viable pitcher from a command standpoint.
I think he is somebody that I care about because it is, I think, a good change up,
if I remember correctly, and a good enough fastball that
You know and yeah
Like what is the Guardians?
Rotation right now who's at the back end of it that you've got Carrasco sort of falling out and Gavin Williams just not
Not getting good news. He did. It's gonna have start going. Yeah, he's he's making a little progress
So maybe another two ish weeks and he'll be stretched out enough to come back
We feel a little bit like Ben Lively could pumpkin at any time
I'm not the biggest Zave young curry fan
And so you would really just say like healthy, you know
Everyone healthy by B McKenzie are the one and, probably Logan Allen has done enough to be the three.
And then the four and five can be anyone from lively Williams and Cantio.
So if the lively train goes off the rails at the time that Cantio is getting right,
there could be a swap there. It's not guaranteed.
But what you put you'd put
Cantio like sort of seventh on the depth chart right now.
Yeah. And those are the pictures we're watching closely because they
might be the pickups of the future. And it's in July. It might
not be that far away. Speaking of pickups, let's take a look at
some players we're gonna be looking at on the wire this
weekend. It's a lot of scrap heap bats will start on that side unless you're going after some of
the guys that got promoted earlier in the week.
That would be either Connor Norby or Justin Henry Malloy.
Shout out to Justin Henry Malloy for that first MLB homer.
I mean, the thing that's happening here, that homer broke up a perfect game bid from Jose
Urena, by the way.
But three consecutive starts as the D.H. hitting sixth or seventh for the Tigers to begin his career.
Three K's in his first 10 played appearances.
Those are the things we're just looking at.
Like how much is he playing?
Is he doing anything other than D.H.ing?
And how much is he striking out?
There's enough ways they can shift other players around
in their lineup that he can hit his way
into a permanent role.
That is possible for Justin Henry Malloy.
It's having guys like Wensil Perez or even Zach McKinstry,
some of the guys that either play multiple spots
or are almost regulars, having those guys underperform
would create a spot or a need for a hitter like Malloy
to just stick and then they would move guys around.
They'd play Riley Green in center field more if they had to or just make
adjustments like that because they do have some defensive versatility.
It's a lot like what we saw in San Francisco.
Not a surprise since that's the organization that Scott Harris was, was hired from.
But that's kind of a good thing for a positionless player.
If that player hits enough, it's just the threshold.
As we mentioned before, it's really high.
So is Malloy is even on your radar in leagues that have fewer than 15 teams right now, even
though he's getting regular run?
Interesting thing is when he did play in the position, it was the right field.
And I just checked really quickly and Mark Kana is the first baseman now.
And I guess that makes sense because Mark Kana is only under contract until the end
of this year.
What you'll do with Kana is like, while you're still playing for this year, you play him.
And if at some point the worm turns and you say, okay, we're playing for next year, then
you call up Torkelson and you kind of devalue Mark Kana's playing time because he won't
be with your team the next year.
Maybe even trade him away.
So Kana replaces Torkelson. be with your team the next year, maybe even trade him away. So can I replace his Torglson?
That means the outfield is Riley Green, Wensil Perez and Matt
Veerling who's playing third place third and center.
Like he's really Gio.
Verr, or Shella is playing some third.
Yeah.
Or Shella I think mostly plays against lefties.
They, they just move dudes around a lot.
He is battling. I guess it's kind of Urshela.
I think it's just hit enough either either hit and you play because we need we need a bat or if
you don't hit your we'll just send you back down that's I think it's that simple I think it just
rides mostly on Malloy. Kerry Carpenter has a lumbar spine stress fracture.
Right.
And there's your guy who's off the roster other than Torkelson that has left another
path to playing time open for someone else, right?
Do you have a more recent update or knowledge of his, of Kerry Carpenter's timeline?
Because that sounds pretty bad.
It sounds pretty bad.
And it was previously just inflammation,
so the follow-up diagnosis
that it was a stress fracture is worse.
I don't get the sense that that's a fast injury
to recover from, and even if you came back quickly,
would you be the same player right away?
Couple of months, they said.
So that's more like post-trade deadline, right?
Couple of months puts us in early August.
Yeah, so I guess if you're watching the box scores,
watch Gio Urshela, watch Matt Vierling,
watch Wenzil Perez.
That's the group that Malloy is trying
to snipe somebody off of.
I guess the other thing you could talk yourself into
is if the Tigers are a team that moves veterans
like Kanha at the deadline.
He could be a post-deadline, yeah, more of a look.
He could kind of glue the injury opportunity
to the post-traded line opportunity,
and this could be an extended look for him.
Like, is he a core piece for your lineup or not?
Like, that's the question the Tigers kind of have to answer
around trying to be a contending team for this year.
As far as Norby goes, he has started two or three games
for the Orioles, both at second base.
He was on the bench against the righty on Wednesday.
A couple of strikeouts and seven played appearances, but.
I don't know why I don't trust his playing time.
It's just, like I said, it's a fungible roster spot for them
and it could be anything.
It could be Jackson Holliday against him.
It could be him, it could be Mayo.
Matteo could come off the concussion I.L.
We've already seen him do it with Kirstad.
Like there's just. Things do change if there's like, if you see Ced the concussion IELT. We've already seen him do it with Kerstad. Like there's just.
Things do change if there's like,
if you see Cedric Mullins DFA news.
Sure.
That's the kind of thing you would need
to feel more confident in pretty much any
of those young guys that are trying to carve out a role
right now with the Orioles.
The other guys that are more scrap heap in nature.
The most interesting bat that is still pretty low rostered,
at least in CBS leagues is Jose Miranda. He's looking more like the guy he was in 2022 again, rostered about 15%
of those leagues. And he started every game for the twins dating back to May 17th. So he's got
that everyday run of playing time. It's kind of like you talked about earlier with Corey jokes
where, yeah, maybe there's some flaws, but he's playing right now. It might not last because of all the competition.
We talked about Edward Julian getting sent down earlier
in the week.
Well, the big one is he was playing third
and Royce Lewis is back.
And Royce Lewis is back to put some extra pressure
on everybody too.
Since Royce Lewis has been back, he's played first and DH.
I mean, I guess the good news is he's still played.
He wasn't the corresponding move
for Royce Lewis coming back.
And you've got Carlos Santana playing to this really weird OK level.
99 WRC plus for Carlos Santana with a projection from the bad X for 97.
That's not good enough for first base.
And I don't know. I guess that he's a good enough for first base.
And I don't know, I guess that he's a good defender though.
The thing is though, you've got Miranda Kirloff and Santana and Buxton and Larnac for first base in DH.
I think that's why he's low roster.
Yeah, still concerned about the playing time, but it's playing more than people expected.
We'll see if it holds through the weekend
now that Lewis is back.
Jack Sawinski's back up in the big leagues
if that does anything for anybody.
That was an injury swap out.
I was gonna say, it was a pretty quick demotion.
It's like, could he have fixed anything
in that brief time down in the minus?
Wasn't that an injury swap out?
Somebody got hurt.
Is Taylor hurt?
Taylor's on the paternity list
right is that it it's just a temporary run for that yeah and then there's another there's
G1 Bay went on the IL let's that's it that's what that was based on the IL and Taylor's on
so like that's a really intense kind of short-term need because nobody else can play center
term need because nobody else can play center. Now, how long does Bay go on the IL? Does make a difference for how much? It's a sprained right wrist. I mean, that could be a couple weeks.
So you could get one more week out of Sawinski. We've already talked about how I do think there's
a bat in there, but I would be very conservative with him considering that he may just lose his
job as soon as Taylor and Bay are back.
And so I don't know about that one.
There is a name here that I've been interested in since the beginning, since spring really,
is Blaze Alexander.
I don't know why I like him.
I mean, yes, a 398 Babbitt makes me think he can just hit, but you know, like a 110.6 max EV,
not really too many grounders,
like the swing strike rate is pretty good.
He has better walk rates than the Miners.
Like he actually just looks like kind of a hitterish guy.
And at 24 coming in kind of close to his peak,
like it seems kind of polished.
And one thing I don't like is they keep playing him at DH,
which means that they don't think much
of his defensive ability.
It's a really weird thing.
So he's the last four starts, second base, third base,
shortstop DH, and then second base and third base yesterday.
They caught a lot of lefties.
They caught a lot of lefties in a small amount of time
though in Arizona.
I think that might've been,
was driving up the Blaze Alexander playing time.
In San Francisco though, just Kyle Harrison, right?
Forget where they were before that.
I saw the, it was like four out of their last five games were against left-handed starters.
Wow.
Yeah, that does, that does change things a little bit.
Let me see if I can just check from the schedule really quickly.
Jordan Hicks is a righty. Kyle Harrison. Eric Miller
was the starter in the other Giants game, but he's he was a... That's an opener.
That's an opener. They did have Jose Quintana and
Shamanaya in the Mets, but he started against an opener and he started against a righty.
So what you you could read the tea leaves here a little bit. What
is the team context for him? You got Cattelmarte is the starter at second. Eugenio Suarez is
the starter at third and he's not doing well. Could Suarez lose his job?
Possible. We've talked about him a few times now
where he's just the kind of player
at the stage of his career, if it all collapses,
suddenly he's a part-time guy or a DFA candidate, right?
That could be something that would happen more
in the trade deadline window.
I think it's less likely to happen right now
because they still fancy themselves contenders
for this year and probably see some kind of bounce back.
But Blaze could eat away at his job. You know, you've got Cattell Marte plays a DH sometimes.
So, I mean, what you've got in Blaze is he's going to start against Riteys. And basically,
what he is, is in a platoon with Jock Peterson. However, he has enough defensive versatility that
what you can say is, I've got the starting against Riteys as the foundation and then I've got the giving Suarez or
Marte a rest as
the secondary foundation
Because that's where he plays second and third. I mean, I guess he's also played short, but I don't
The way that they use him is he's not a candidate to take for Domo's job
It doesn't seem like they want to play him at shortstop
No, it's complicated even further by Jordan Lawler eventually being healthy and maybe
to be an option to play in this infield as well.
That's sort of the longer term concern with Blaze Alexander.
I would take him as a bat streamer in leagues if I saw some lefties on the schedule and
was like, I'm going to sort of faith cast him into another game on top of the lefties
I see.
You know what I mean?
Sure.
I think that makes sense.
If he has three lefties next week,
you could be like, you know what?
Three lefties plus two other starts, he gets five starts,
I'm gonna put like two bucks on him, you know what I mean?
I mean, I have him in my 20 team weekly,
and we haven't been starting him,
even though I look at him every week and say,
should I start on this week?
It's always on your mind.
And Manuel Valdez getting a chance
with all the injuries in Boston right now
is kind of the second base, occasional DH option.
I think he also went on the IL with hamstring again.
Oh, okay.
Same stuff he was dealing with in the spring.
Four out of their six games.
It feels like it wasn't as bad as spring training,
but he's getting imaging today.
Yeah, I always feel like it's worse the second time.
You're probably not coming back in less time unless you're just being really, really careful.
I don't know.
We have one, Josh Lowe, kind of re-aggravated the oblique and then got back out there really
quickly.
Isn't he the guy who hits the ball hard but strikes out a lot? yeah he's he's he's one of those guys where this this might be his best chance
he's 25 he's put up interesting numbers in the minors but poor batting averages
in the minors like yeah not necessarily like a good defender anywhere either so
just has a has to hit a lot to sort of change the the outlook
He kind of reminds me of like the bad side of an Ezekiel Duran
package
Mmm, that's not that exciting shifting the focus over to some pictures here real quick
I'm a little surprised Tyler McGill only 45% rostered in CBS league seems like he should be
Pushing his way on onto more Shadow League rosters
in the immediate future.
His VELO is trending in the right direction.
And he's a lot better when he's throwing harder.
And it's a good home park.
They'll win for him if he pitches well,
I think most games.
I think he should be owned near universally,
not necessarily started universally.
Definitely in that sort of, be careful careful like what I start him in Citizens Bank
No, but I'd start in most places. I think that's where I'm out with Tyler McGill right now
Albert Suarez the other Orioles pitcher getting some run with all the injuries they're dealing with Dean Kramer's down with a tricep strain
Tyler Wells had another UCL surgery and John Means had a second Tommy John. So some of the Wells had surgery.
Yeah, it was a UCL surgery.
They didn't specify it was Tommy John braced or what it was.
But Wells is also now out.
That's right. I forgot about that.
Yeah, their death is being tested.
I mean, so now Povich and Suarez like Irvin is basically if Irvin's available,
Irvin's basically in the rotation now.
He's over his skis, Cole Irvin.
Sure.
I mean, it's a 15% strikeout rate and a 2.8 VRA, so I'd be careful, very careful,
while using Cole Irvin.
But I'd have Colvin, I have Irvin, I think ahead of Suarez and maybe even Povich, but
Povich is a little bit more of a could surprise
and there could be better numbers in there. Like you know one thing that
happens too is there is definitely a thing where people in the minors are not
throwing their best fastballs because they can get along without it and we
know there's something called the debut bump. We know that when they get to the
big leagues they throw harder.
So Povich's fastball could play better once he gets the big leagues and throws harder.
So that's the back end of that rotation.
But right now they need.
Pretty much all of them, because you kind of in today's league
kind of need six starters on your roster.
Yeah, I think that's being careful with Bradish this week is what opened
the door for Povich
in the first place.
I started to get excited about Suarez a little bit this spring, but he's got a tough two
step this week.
He's got Atlanta and Philly both at home.
I don't want that.
I really don't want that.
And I'd also be really careful with, I've noticed this, two steps with guys like Suarez
where, you know, two steps with a fourth starter, I believe much more than the fifth starter.
It's like-
They could do anything to change it.
Anything could happen, yeah.
Povich could stay up, as far as, you know, like,
you know, whatever.
So, I don't trust him that much.
It's a good, it's a pretty good fastball,
but the secondary's not that great,
and if you don't have both of those things,
it's kinda, he doesn't have the strikeouts.
Last name I wanna throw out there for this episode,
Hurston Waldrop once again on the radar.
An 11 strikeout game at AAA earlier this week.
It was his only second career start at the level.
He made one there last year,
but Spencer Schwellenbach got dinged up
by the Red Sox pretty good.
So that's sort of an ongoing job battle to keep an eye on.
And Waldrop's been a lot better since his first two starts beginning
of the year at double A hit a seven run in two and two thirds inning performance to start
the year at Pensacola.
He's been pitching very, very well since then at both of those stops.
Yeah, I'm interested in Waldrop.
I think that, you know, what the Braves are doing is kind of running through the options
and trying to see who's going to stick because
they're pretty well set with Fried, Salem, Morton, and Lopez at the top.
They may have to give Lopez a breather at some point for innings.
And basically they're running through all these guys in the fist starter role to see
who can be better than Bryce Elder, basically.
Who can be better, who can be good enough to kind of take that, take that and run with
it.
So I think that's pretty much an open role that's just waiting for the right person to
fill it.
There's some things I like about Schafer falling back, but it turns out that the two strengths
that he has, the fastball and slider, are offset by his other pitches not being quite
as good.
So Schafer has been like pretty remarkably up and down with the stuff.
I don't know what it is,
if the VELO's going yo-yoing or something,
but Smiths Schafer has looked good and bad at times
in the numbers.
So that leaves the door open for Waldrup.
Yeah, and Smiths Schafer down right now
with that grade two oblique strain too.
So that's gonna take probably six to eight weeks or so
for him to get back.
That's the other thing that leaves the door open.
They're hoping, I think, that one of these guys,
they almost want to time it where one of these guys
comes on in September and is healthy
and is pitching their best
and is their kind of little October surprise thing
where they're like,
oh, you haven't seen this guy 10 times this year, you know?
Sure feels like that
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