Rates & Barrels - More Teams Enter the Free-Agent Fray

Episode Date: December 23, 2019

Rundown3:14 Hyun-Jin Ryu Goes to Toronto13:36 Travis Shaw: Rebound Candidate?18:03 Dallas Keuchel Chooses the White Sox24:03 Setting 2020 Expectations for Shohei Ohtani33:01 Is There Anything to Like About Julio Teheran?38:07 Tigers of Interest?45:22 Relationship Between WAR Projections & Fantasy Busts56:07 Beer of the Year!Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @derekvanriperShow E-Mail: [e-mail] Get 40% off a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey folks, if you've been tuning in over the last couple months, you've heard all about the GameTime app and how it can save you some serious cash on last-minute tickets to sports, concerts, all types of shows. I like the GameTime app because I like to get a view from the seats that I'm thinking about purchasing before I commit, and their two-tap purchase process makes it fast and easy to get the right tickets without wasting time. And we all need extra time this time of year, especially. Well, now Game time is hooking you up for the holidays with ten dollars in credit here's what to do download the game time app in the google play or app store click on the my ticket section of the app create an account then under the billing section redeem the code the athletic once again that's the athletic all one word for ten dollars off your first purchase that's free money

people credit is only available to the first 1 000 people who redeem the code the athletic and it expires the end of the year that's coming up quick december 31st 2019 so make your move quick and score last minute deals on tickets. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 59. It is the morning of December 23rd, 2019. Happy Festivus to those celebrating. We will air a few grievances over the course of this episode. Feats of Strength, maybe we'll talk about guys hitting the ball really hard or something like that. But Eno and I aren't going to fight each other and do anything like that. So Feats of Strength will be reserved for your own living room.

Not something we address on this podcast. But lots to talk about more free agent signings hingenry you has a new team dallas keitel has a new team even the tigers are getting in on the free agent frenzy adding some players to their roster as well so we'll talk about those moves we'll wrap things up with our beer of the year selections that's right beer of the year as 2019 comes to a close housekeeping real quick we are available on itunes spotify stitcher pretty much anywhere you want to listen to podcasts now so if you're enjoying this show on a platform that allows you to rate and review it we would

really appreciate that it helps other people find the shows some of you might be listening to the show for the first time if you are welcome If you're not already a subscriber to The Athletic, you can get 40% off a subscription at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. Everything we do is included with a subscription. Eno, how's it going for you on this Monday? It is good. We are live from fabulous Paso Robles, where we have rented a ranch and brought 15 members of our family together for a royal rumble of sorts.

Yes, pizza strength will be at your house then later this evening. There will be an actual brawl in the common area. If previous Christmases are any indication, there will be at least one fight. We'll see if it gets physical. For details on that fight, at Inoceres on Twitter. Holiday fights are always fun to watch on social media this time of year. People are happy, I think, in Toronto. Let's start with the Hyunjin Ryu signing.

He gets four years, $80 million to go north of the border. I saw a few people pointing out that there will be a lot of Blue Jays hats in Korea now. It's just how it works. Ryu is a very popular Korean-born player, but this is a team that does have a nice young core, and they're yet another franchise getting on board with spending money this winter to try and better themselves for 2020 and beyond.

It's just nice to see this trend continue, even as we've now moved into the second-tier free agents. Yeah, the list of teams that have signed free agents to try and improve includes the Blue Jays, the Tigers, and the Rangers, along with the Yankees, as you might have expected. So there's a real interesting thing going on, I think, in the White Sox, where I think maybe some of the next generation teams, the teams that feel like they're coming up after the Astros and Yankees,

are getting ready for their pushes. And in order to do that, you really do have to sign your guys maybe a year ahead of when it seems to make sense. You can't just piddle along and then just sign people when you're good because the offseason comes before you know how good you are, really. So what if the Blue Jays, what if Vladdy takes a real step forward and all of a sudden they have a great young lineup? It'd be a shame if they didn't sign a pitcher. So I'm glad that they signed a pitcher.

I had Hyunjin Ryu going for four years and $80 million to the Angels, who I thought really needed top-end talent. It looks like they're going to do it by trade if they do anything. I do really think they need another pitcher, but now they're going to be looking at people like John Gray, Matt Boyd, that ilk. Although the list of tradable starting pitchers that would be an asset for the Angels is actually not that high. So there's a chance they go in with this rotation. For the Blue Jays, I do think that they need another high-end pitcher, and I'm not sure that's coming up through the organization.

I'm not sure where that's going to come from, but at least get one and get Antana Rourke, who is a capable dude, and put together a capable rotation, and maybe you can do more like the Milwaukee Brewers and have a really good bullpen that succeeds with an okay starting staff. So this was a good signing for them. I don't know what it means for Trent Thornton. Ryan Borucki was hurt most of last year.

I have to think that Thornton is probably still the fifth starter going into the season. And between Thornton, Borucchi, and Shoemaker, it's not all that likely that all three of them will be healthy, I think, to start the season. Yeah, I keep looking at Yamaguchi, a player they signed just about a week ago now to a two-year deal. I think even though he was a starter and a reliever in Japan, he probably profiles more as a reliever coming over. I mean, is that a fair assessment at this point? I think so, and that's what we said about the Cardinals guy,

Kwang-Hun Kim. We saw that he kind of did some starting relieving in Korea, and I just assume when I see that, that it's more likely they're coming over to relieve. And you'll see that with American players too. Somebody like Drew Pomerantz. You know, when you see what he did last year, he started and relieved. But why did he get paid $30 million? Because of what he did when he was a reliever.

So I have to think that those two guys coming over are more likely to be relievers. And if you look at the Blue Jays' bullpen, they need help there too. I mean, Giles is good, but I think behind him, for example, if you ask me who's the closer or Giles isn't, I would have a big, giant shrug emoticon. Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing they don't really have that quality depth to bridge the gap from starters

that don't necessarily get really deep into starts so we'll see if they're able to find a way to get some bullpen help i mean some of these guys that are listed as potential starters will end up in the pen uh barucki anthony Kaye, Jacob Wagon's pack. I mean, if Thornton was actually a reliever, he'd be a pretty good one, I think. He could be their best reliever after Giles if they decided to do that. Yeah, so Thornton still has some value

if you've got him in a dynasty league. I'm hoping it's a deep dynasty league because it wasn't the greatest year, but he still spins the ball really well. Late in the season, he was actually changing his pitches around a little bit in their shape and movement. So there's some opportunity there to sort of take advantage of a lot of spin, a good feel for spin, and maybe not his ideal pitch mix. So I wouldn't necessarily be looking at pitch

projections for Trent Thornton. I don't know. A 5'10 ERA is either true and then he's in the bullpen or he has more like a, a four, four 10 ERA and he's a starter. So, um, either way, I think he could be useful and, uh,

it could be the next closer if they, if they send jobs back in this year. One more question as it pertains to this signing, you look at where reviews been going in early drafts, right around pick 100 overall, near Sonny Gray, a little bit later than Jose Barrios, a little bit later than James Paxton, slightly ahead of Carlos Carrasco and Madison Bumgarner, but just in that general portion of the list. I think people are viewing him as a fantasy sp2 in a 12 to 15 team league

the only concern i have with ryu comes down to health i mean he's had some major arm injuries that have cost him a lot of time and you know the 182 and two-thirds innings we saw from him last year with the dodgers is a pretty big outlier compared to the workloads he's put up in the previous five seasons uh you know leaving la is going to the al east especially it's going to be a relatively difficult transition so maybe he gets a slight ding on the ratios projection but are you confident in ryu health wise to the point where you'd be comfortable drafting him around that range? I think so. One of the things that stands out to me is that I think the pitch,

I think the home run rate projections are all wrong. Other than 2017, Ryu's had the ability to suppress home runs. The type of pitches he has, the wide arsenal that he has, the command that he has, all are things that could help him suppress home runs. For example, the cutter has the lowest exit velocity of fastball-like pitches.

It has the lowest BABIPs. And the cutter's been really important to him. So, you know, I would say that, and on top of that, if you look at, I did some stat cast park factors, and Dodger State, once you get a ball in the air driven hard, Dodger Stadium is the friendliest place in baseball for home runs and Toronto was 15th or 16th and even if you look at traditional ones just like the fangraphs part factors the difference between Dodger Stadium and Toronto is on the order of one or two spots on a ranking and they're both kind of middle of the order so I would say that for me a 1.3 home run projection is too high And if you take that back down to 0.9 or so,

I think then he's got a mid threes ERA, a good whip. You know, his BABIP, you know, for two seasons now has been around 280. You have to do that too too, to get to mid-threes. But I think he'll have more like a mid-threes whip, and I'd put him down for like 150 innings to reflect the injury risk. So that kind of pitcher, there are a few of them. So it's not a unique package in terms of fantasy. But you can lump some of them together and take the faller. i i think he's somewhat

similar to like a charlie morton with just fewer strikeouts that's exactly the guy i was gonna say this is just like the charlie morton situation a year ago they they're different because morton throws a lot harder but they're similar in that both have catastrophic injuries on the ledger, but they have well above average results when healthy. And if you gamble in that spot, the payoff could be that you end up with a pitcher that people are taking 40 or so picks earlier, 50 picks earlier maybe this time next year. And if it goes wrong, then you're chasing innings in that spot.

It's a wide range of outcomes, but it seems like it's appropriate pricing. What shows up more often on a waiver wire than a pop-up starting pitcher? I think the two easiest things to get on the waiver wire are starting pitching or relief pitching. If you got the 2018 Ryu, where he only pitched for 82 innings but he had a 197 era like how mad are you you know what i mean like you could probably add 110 you know 10 innings of a four era off the wire and still

come out ahead on that spot in a roster. Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't break you if he's that good over a half season's worth of innings, but it's a, it's a troubling injury history to, to put it mildly, but the Jays have been pretty active over the last week. I mean, they made some trades earlier in the off season as well. They got chase Anderson from the brewers to bolster that rotation just to get some innings in. And then they end up kind of swapping in a weird way. Justin Smoke for Travis Shaw. Those players, of course, were both free agents, but Smoke signed with the Brewers. Shaw signed with the Blue Jays. Everything went wrong for Travis Shaw last year in ways that I didn't think was really even possible because he had shown improved play discipline

in the previous two seasons. He got up to a 13.3% walk rate, lowered his strikeout rate to 18.4% in 2018 when he hit 32 home runs. He looked so much more sustainable coming out of 2018 than he did coming out of 2017. And his 2017 didn't even look that bad. And here we are looking at his 2019, and it's just chaos. 33% K rate. The power went away completely. He was hitting a ton of infield fly balls. Lost his job, of course. Is there a reason to believe in a Travis Shaw bounce back

with a fresh start in Toronto? Excuse me, I had a little chorizo burp. Let's see here. Travis Shaw, is he going to be better than a chorizo burp this year? You know, one thing that was actually interesting about his breakout year in 2018 for the Brewers, or 2017-2018, was how low his strikeouts rates were. Because in the minor leagues, he had strikeout rates that predicted more like the 25% strikeout rate he had with the Red Sox in 2016. And I would say that his power rates in the minor leagues predicted more of a kind of 20 home run hitter. Of course, with the ball, maybe he is a 20 home run hitter. And today, all the 20 home run hitters are 30 home run hitters.

20 home run hitters or 30 home run hitters. So I would say that I actually don't see too much reason to argue with his projections, which have a 25% strikeout rate, a 209 ISO, a 230 batting average and 20 home runs in two thirds of a season. So, you know, I, you know, that I think represents the risk well, that he isn't a full-time player, um, and a one-year $4 million contract with the Blue Jays, uh, with the, the roster they have, uh, there's a chance that, um, you know, Rowdy Tellez takes, uh, some of that bats. He's not, Rowdy Tellez is also a lefty,

but, you know, there's a chance that if he's not that good, some of the DH at-bats could go to, like, Teoscar Hernandez, or Teoscar Hernandez, who's a righty, could end up platooning, basically, weirdly, with Travis Shaw. So, you know, there's some risk in the way that roster is constructed that he doesn't

get a full blow. But if he does get a full blow, 230 with 30 homers seems totally within his grasp. Good OPP too. It's not sexy, but it's good enough to be profitable. I think for a guy that people are burying, he's outside the top 400 in the early NFBC ADP. A really good AL-only CI pick, I think. If the cost stays under $5, players like this that aren't young but do have a little bit of upside in terms of bouncing back are a pretty good investment

as long as they stay under $5 because you could spend a dollar on someone who may not even start you know um or you could spend three or four on someone who's probably going to give you at least you know three or four hundred abs yeah for four to five in an only league you might get 12 to 15 back value wise with exactly those skills. That's a weird proposition because everyone's like, oh, I want Joe Adele for $3 or $4 instead. And yeah, you have the chance of a $20 season from Joe Adele,

but you also have a really, really high chance of a $0 season from Joe Adele. Yeah, or just having to wait longer than you want. I mean, I think the Angels are clearly pushing chips in for this year, but I think the point holds up. The boring player coming off the down year gets buried. But even the Angels could just be like, you know, we don't think he's quite ready yet. I think they're not going to do day one with him

because they can keep him longer, and it's not like he blew the doors off of the AFL and the minor leagues last year. No, I don't think it's opening day where they say, service time, be damned, we're just going to go ahead and bring him up. But it's going to be two to three weeks into the season. It's an early call-up for Joe Adele with the way they've put things together so far.

The other big free agent pitcher signing, I think it was one that you also predicted in one of your columns, Dallas Keuchel goes to the White Sox three years, 55 and a half million. They had Gio Gonzalez as well, but starting with Dallas Keuchel, it's important for teams like the White Sox trying to get to that next level to have a high volume of quality innings.

And that's exactly what Dallas Keuchel should bring them especially when you have so many questionable arms with a lot of talent we've talked a lot about how much we like the direction of this franchise but you have a lot of what-ifs with Ronaldo Lopez and Michael Kopech and Dylan Cease and you have Carlos Rodon coming off of a major injury, so it's hard to rely on him. So a guy like Dallas Keuchel really kind of fit perfectly as that number two starter behind Lucas Giolito.

Yeah. Actually, I went two for two on the White Sox because I nailed the other one too, the all-important Gio Gonzalez to the White Sox. One-year $5 million deal, which actually I'm surprised I got that one right because I didn't really though because it's like a two-year deal, but with the $500,000 buyout, he's guaranteed one in five. Any case, Keichel, I have it at $480,000 instead of the basically $356,000,

$360,000 that he got. I have it 480 instead of the basically 356, 360 that he got. And the reason I did was because I was talking to a pitching coach, a major league pitching coach, about Keiko, and he was saying that he thought Keiko was going to get more than people were expecting because of the command. And he was saying that when he looked at where Keiko put his sinker and changeup and his ability to put them in exactly the same place,

he thought that was a really exciting skill that could last even as the velocity goes down because all you're talking about there is relative velocity. because all you're talking about there is relative velocity, you know. And so, you know, I think as long as he can stay above 88, 89 or so, then he doesn't get into the danger zone, where hitters seem to really tee off on, you know, 87 and below. So as long as he can kind of keep his velocity steady for a few years, I think he'll at least be average. And I think the hope for the White Sox is that, you know,

he's more important in year one than he is in year four or year three. And the youngsters pass him by every year. You know, like right now, he's probably their number two starter. Hopefully next year in 2021, you know, either Kopech or Ce starter. Hopefully next year, in 2021, either Kopech or Cease is ahead of him. And rinse and repeat, basically, to the point where in year three of this deal, hopefully Keichel is your fifth starter in a Tanner Roark style,

where he just puts out 150 innings and they're pretty good. you know, some blowups, but, you know, useful at the back end. So maybe even they're going to the playoffs and Keiko becomes, you know, their first lefty out of the pen in the playoffs. So I think, uh, I think it was a good deal. I think that's what they needed. They needed, um, some, they needed some innings with a little bit more upside than just like a Tehran or something. Yeah, we'll talk about Tehran in just a moment. He's a puzzle, to put it mildly.

But I do like the Geo addition to, again, more of an only league guy as opposed to a mixed league guy. I wonder if I'm going to be in on it because it fits the package of a $2 pitcher for me where I'm like, you know, this is better than a shot in the dark. But at the same time, like that park is not super. But on top of that, like he just came from a park that's not super nice to pitchers and he had a pretty good season. So I'll have to do some more deep digging on Gio Gonzalez. One of the reasons that Gio Gonzalez is any good

is the same reason that Ryu is good. Lots of pitches. And he's developed decent command over time. It's just his command is not as good as Ryu's. So that's what makes me nervous about Gio Gonzalez. Yeah, I think it's always been a case where what everyone wanted from Gio as a fantasy starter and what he actually did never quite lined up.

But if you look at the more recent body of work you can find quality innings at a below average price and geo is likely to provide those uh good good move there too for the white socks i did have a cool little thing on kaiko real quick uh i did three year uh three year average of command plus and uh it goes tanaka number one hendrix number two nola number three jordan zimmer number four people say well that invalidates your list i would not think so i think that basically that means that that's the only skill jordan zimmer and had because he did not have a fastball yeah so the the fact that he had superior slider command was the only thing keeping him in the major league so i think it still works

zach granky i mean all the other names are perfect for this zach davies uh alex wood ross stripling dallas keitel uh so that's uh that's a fun little list to kind of consider command-wise what the shape of your career can be like. So Keichel's career, because he's on this list with Granke, it could go better in the sunset years than people expect. Yeah, that's an interesting multi-year leaderboard just to hear. I mean, Tanaka being on there too is a nice pleasant surprise. I think it's only because he loses the splitter at times, and because he loses such a

valuable pitch i don't associate him with the top of a command leaderboard but his bulk pitch is that slider and sometimes that may be out of the zone or not in these perfect corners that people want uh for their for other command stats but at the same time he he obviously knows how to put his slider where he needs it let's talk about the Angels for a moment because I saw this note come by. It was from Fabian Ardaia, covers the Angels for the Athletic. And he's completed his rehab portion of Tommy John, but now they're going to be kind of careful with him. They're going to shut him down for the remainder of the offseason

and really be careful with how much of a pitching workload he has in the winter months as far as preparing for the season goes which makes me think they're going to be really really careful with him as a pitcher in 2020 and it's almost in some ways more difficult to figure out like how to project shohei otani now usage wise that it was going into his first season with the angels at least then we kind of had a a sense for where he was at physically even then i think he had an ankle injury he was coming off of but what are you doing with shohei otani this year the the thing that ended up going to tommy john like he did have a partial tear of his UCL coming over.

And there was an argument about how much we should look into that and how much we should worry about that because Masahiro Tanaka famously has a partial UCL tear and has done so well. The problem is that Masahiro Tanaka does not depend on velocity and does not throw as hard as Shohei Otani. And Otani went and, you know, sat like 97, 98 and blew out his UCL. So I'm kind of, I'm in on Otani. And I have been over and over again.

And I know that the results, some people can cast aspersions on the results, but given the prices I've paid for Otani, I have never once felt like I got screwed. It's a good feeling. Because last year I paid, I think, $8 for Otani as a DH in AL Labor. And for my efforts, I got a 286 average, 18 homers, 12 stolen bases, and two-thirds a year. I think that's got to be worth $8.

The year before I had Otani, I actually got, even though I had to choose between hitter and pitcher on a weekly basis, I got like half of his homers and half of his stolen bases because he was a starting pitcher to start the year for me. And then he switched over to being a hitter for me. You know, so I got 50 innings of a 331 ERA and four wins. And then I got like 18 homers on top of that. So the fact that he can do both things, as long as you're not drafting Otani the hitter or Otani the pitcher, means I don't care. Unless you're asking me to spend 25, 30 bucks, unless you're asking me to spend like a top four round, five round pick on him,

I'm into it because there's lots of different ways he can help my team. I'm into it because there's lots of different ways he can help my team. I think it's weird in a situation where he's split up into two players or if you're thinking about him as a pitcher only, he's going to pitch no more than once a week most likely. That was sort of how it worked in 2018 anyway, but they're saying it's probably going down the same way that route. If he's going five or six innings at a time and he's pitching once a week, that's about 150 or so innings for a cap,

and then you've got to adjust down from there, of course, because of the injuries. I think this is a lot like, you know, whereas like a Hingen Ryu might have a baseline projection of 150 innings because of his injury history, Otani with his injury that he's coming back from, and then the usage probably gets projected for

100, 110 maybe? Where do you fall on the workload projection for Otani, even as someone who trusts his skills? I'd start to say 110. I think just back of the envelope, I'd consider it 100. If I had to buy him as a pitcher only, I might be

out. Because $100 innings could easily become $60, $75, and then you probably spent real money. And I just generally don't love getting a pitcher the first year after Tommy John. I know that some people come back and they're fine, and the younger you are, the better the outcomes, but I do think there's a little bit to the research that command is not great in the first year. Otani was already down near the bottom of all starting pitchers in Command Plus, basically around where Hugh Darvish was, of all starting pitchers in Command Plus, basically around where Hugh Darvish was. And so here's a guy,

you have a guy with not natural great command now coming off an injury that sometimes saps your command. Plus, he's such a unique athlete. If I had to buy him just as a pitcher, I might not. Yeah, I understand that position for sure. The ADP's a little high right now. 85 overall for pitcher-only Otani in the NFBC.

At that price, no thanks. Yeah, that's too much. That's going to come down, though. And NFBC makes you choose between the two? Is it pitcher-only and hitter-only? He's listed only as a pitcher in the ADP reports. I've got to double-check the forums, but he was a pitcher-only the first year that he came over.

Whoa. So no NFBCers got his batting stats last year? Or they got them off the waiver wire? They didn't get them the first year for sure. I got to look back at last year. I didn't have them anywhere. I don't remember how they ended up handling him. But yeah, that's

tough, right? I have him in a dynasty league where he can be used in any given week. I can switch him between pitcher and ut and that's surprisingly useful i was worried drafting him at labor the first year that i would never use him as a hitter and i was just drafting him as a pitcher uh but it's surprisingly useful they get injured he was hitting you know what i mean like i And there are weeks where maybe he's not going to start this week or maybe the start that he does have you just don't like, then you get a full hitter stat lineup.

And your team can be changing too where all of a sudden it just needs a hitter way more than it needs a pitcher. Yeah, that can definitely happen. And as a hitter, i think what we saw last year was obviously a relative step back to what he did his first season but it wasn't far off i i believe in those skills that he's bringing yeah i wish he hit you know a little bit fewer ground balls but part of the reason why he hits the ball so hard is because of his attack playing. He's got some things in common with Christian Jelic.

If they just said, hey, we're not going to use you as a pitcher, which they're not really in a position to do right now. If they'd landed a free agent pitcher, that would change the complexion quite a bit. Since they didn't, I think that makes it even more important to keep him healthy and to get Otani out there

for a start each week. I mean, what would his 2020 ceiling be as a hitter if they said, you're just going to be the everyday DH, or you're going to even play a little bit of the outfield now because we're not worried about rehabbing you as a pitcher anymore? I think it would look, I think, like, I don't want to be blasphemous or anything, but, like, Christian Jelic. Like, I think if you gave him a full season, he would hit 290, 300 with like 35 plus bombs,

you know, 20 stolen bases. Yeah, so he's a first round talent in terms of what he could do as a hitter, but without the volume. And that's what I'm focusing on. You know, as long as he's got the H and the P next to his name, I'm buying a guy who could be a first-rounder either way. And maybe it's not likely that he is a first-rounder in either thing. Just to have that talent on my roster and figure out how to use it

is exciting and I think valuable, and there's a certain cost level where it makes sense. Now that cost is rising with every year, but I think with the Tommy John, it's still going to be low one year. And I think one of these years he's going to have one of these breakout seasons. He's going to be a first rounder for like five years. It's going to be fun. I hope I have him the year before that actually plays out that way.

But yeah, as I look at Otani, you know what? He's listed as a UT and a pitcher in the actual draft room, even though he's not listed as both on the ADP report. So I think there is maybe the... So that's probably why his ADP is high. That's got to be, right? At that price in the 80s, where you could use them as both, that makes sense.

Fifth round or something? Fourth round? Fifth round. Sixth round. Sixth round? Yeah. That's about where I would start to get interested because, like I said, you're buying a potential first-round batting arm in the sixth round.

That's a good time to take a shot, too. Yeah. I'm going to have to see. I just started a draft and hold. I'll keep you posted in the next week or so once I get to the sixth round if I end up scooping up Otani. The Angels did add a pitcher in free agency, Julio Teran. I wish we were at the point in Teran's career where he was getting a contract like Keichel or

like Ryu, because if you put us in a time machine and set it back to eight years ago, I would have been certain that Julio Teran was going to get a big payday in free agency. But he just doesn't have it anymore. The velocity's been falling, of course. The secondary stuff doesn't really wow me. Is there anything that you see that you like with Teran going to Anaheim? Ah, man.

You know, it's interesting that his BABIP for his career is 268. That's interesting to me because his projections have him returning to like a 300 Babbitt and almost two homers per nine based on his fastball velocity, his lack of strikeouts, his fly ball rate. But you know, he's only really had one year with a really bad home run rate in 2017. And last year with all the homers leaving the park, he had a 1.1 homer per nine and a 266 Babbitt.

And that's what kept his numbers there. So, of course, a projection system says, ah, screw all that noise. Here's a 5.3 ERA in your projection. Thank you very much. But what if he does have some soft contact skill there? Or what if that's just the result of having a ton of fly balls? You know, some of that. But I tried to do a little digging to be like,

okay, what does this soft skill look like? And so I looked at fly ball exit velocity. He's just middle of the pack. Nothing stood out for me. I did last year, I did five years, middle of the pack. So I would say that the larger part of research says he's going to be bad next year. There's a slight chance that they've,

they've figured out some soft contact skill that I can't quite put my, my hands on though. Yeah. Cause he's got, he's got a seven year stretch where he's been lower with his ERA than his FIP would make you think like that's, that's hard to do seven years in a row, especially when you throw as many innings as he does.

Teron's out there a ton. So there is something going on with him. But the thing that I think bothers me the most about him is that we've seen that walk rate really shoot up these last two years. 11.6 and 11% the last two seasons, over four walks per nine. That was never part of who he was early in his career. There was that flash in 2015 where he got up over three for a season uh that came back a little bit in 2017 2017 was the first year

of their new park right that was the first year of sun trust and it was playing where lefties were just crushing home runs in that park that year even though it hasn't played that way as extreme the last couple years since so that that was such a funny year for a whole bunch of reasons but i think this is just bulk innings that are going to be okay not great i don't think there's a another positive level on the level of like the 394 117 that he put up in 2018 like maybe he keeps the era down but that whip's not coming back with that walk rate it's impossible yeah and then like over time he's really uh you know gotten rid of the change up uh and become more of a two breaking ball guy um i did look at his command plus and he is uh 63rd in the big leagues among starting

among pitchers um with more than a thousand pitches last year and he's right behind shane bieber which surprises the heck out of me it's yeah like those guys being near each other on any list is puzzling because bieber's a top 10 pitcher right now right and and you could you could look at the pitchers that the Angels have put together and see a ton of sliders, right? I mean, this is a breaking ball team here. Tehran, Bundy, Haney, Canning. So, well, Tani's got the splitter, but this is a breaking ball team, so maybe they have identified some pitchers that have good breaking ball command.

And that's what they're going after. I mean, that's as plausible as anything else. So it is true. It does seem really clear that they are not into spending a lot on starting pitchers year to year and giving them a lot of years. So maybe I should have seen that before I had Cole going to them. I just think they were at the extremes. I think they were interested in Cole.

They're staying away from that middle. They're staying away from that second tier entirely because they think they can maybe get second tier results on shorter term deals from Teron types without making that longer sort of term commitment. Tigers added a couple hitters over the weekend, and they have outspent the Cleveland Indians in free agency to this point. We'll see if that holds up as we get further into the process.

But CJ Krohn and Jonathan Scope go to Detroit on one-year deals. I guess from a fantasy perspective, it's good because they're both going to play a lot. The Tigers are terrible, so there's not really anybody there to push those guys for playing time. I don't think there's a ton of value coming back their way at the trade deadline. If those guys end up becoming bench bats for a contender. But I guess we got to give the Tigers some credit for spending some money, even though they're,

they're not very good. Like they got the young pitching. Like if the pitching all comes up at once and is healthy and good, they could become a lot better pretty fast, but it doesn't usually happen like that. Yeah. I mean, I really like Terry Scooball, and they've got Casey Mize, and I think there's even another... Matt Manning, too. He's close. Matt Manning, yeah. And I would personally... There's things that I like more about Manning, yeah. And I would personally, there's things that I like more about Manning and Skubal than Mize, but those three coming up and Fulmer at some point coming back

could pair with Boyd to be useful, to be a good rotation, to be a strength even. And that would mean that some of these pitchers, you know, that are currently in the starting rotation could, or are starting rotation prospects could end up in their bullpen too. So it could be a decent bullpen, but I just, you know, this team and I like, I like them for buying veterans and trying, and then, because it'd be easy as heck if they don't like what they see from scope to either cut them, DFA them, you know, trade them to some other contender to be a backup. You know, same thing with Krone. Like they're not, they're not taking, they're just taking the chance that these guys, that either the team is better than they expect and it's good that they bought them or that the player is better than they expect and they can sell them.

So, you know, that part makes sense. But in terms of like developing their bats, like, I don't know, man. Hammer Candelario, I thought had real promise and he just laid a real turd on us last year. I mean, a 203 batting average with a 26% strikeout rate and eight homers in like a half season. Uh, and you know, like as much as Nico Gruderm is exciting for all of his tools, like now he's back into like a utility role. Uh, he's 27 years old and, you know, he's like basically a league average bat without a real positional home. And I'm listing their successes.

Yeah, and those are guys too. Candelario came from the Cubs organization. Goodrum was drafted by the Twins. They didn't get to develop those hitters from day one, but they haven't done anything to make them a lot better. I mean, Goodrum, they just gave them an opportunity to play. So I think there is a fair question to ask. Can they develop their own quality bats? Yeah, Kristen Stewart hasn't. There's some upside there. He can hit the ball really hard, but they have not really

unlocked that out of Kristen Stewart. And that's their guy from the beginning. And also, considering they've been tanking for a while and trading people away, shouldn't they have traded for somebody good? Shouldn't they have position prospects that we're excited about? Exactly. Rodley Green, they just drafted him. But other than Rodley Green, I go through that list of position players, and I don't want those guys in keeper and dynasty leagues.

I don't want those guys playing for my major league team. I'm very skeptical of Daz Cameron at this point. He had a horrible year at AAA. Yeah, I'm pretty skeptical. I have Willie Castro in one deep dynasty, and there's some chance that he puts together a good strikeout weight with league average power and actually steal some bases so there's like an even the projections are for 260 uh what would be 15 homers and 15 stolen bases in a full year um so that's a that's deeply

useful um with a chance that he kind of develops a little more patience and improves the OVP. And speed these days is so rare and has to come from young guys. So Willie Castro should be a name that you know, but it's not a name that a 12-teamer should really care about unless he starts the season as the everyday shortstop in the stealing bases. And even a 15-team leaguer probably, we're talking bench, so this is more of an AL only play. And that's the only name that I could come up with. I see him, yeah, AL only on draft day.

I do see him as like a watch list sort of guy for mixed leagues. I think I may have texted this to you. I can't remember where I brought this up. But if you said, find another Kevin Newman for 2020, I think that's what you might have. I think he might be a Kevin Newman type fantasy player. And there's definitely leagues where Newman made an impact, maybe a little more power,

a little less in terms of steals, but good average, decent plate skills on a bad enough team where he could probably lead off and pile up a lot of runs scored as well. And Goodrum can move to the outfield, and Victor Reyes is terrible. So, you know, there's an opportunity there.

Even if Goodrum is listed as a shortstop right now, you know, Victor Reyes is, I'm sorry, terrible is a little bit strong, but, like, he really overreached last year, and he was league average. Yeah. Terrible is a word some people would use. It's hard to buy in on a guy like that. Yeah, like no power, not even a great strikeout rate,

no OBP really, no walk rate. What are you banking on with Victoror reyes speed that's the one thing that nobody cares about these days in real baseball the hit tool has to continue to just be really good and that's about it and even that's like he's low low strikeout right he was lower in the minors though so maybe you know maybe with more exposure to big league pitching he can get that down under 20 keep keep the average in the projected range. He'd be like a 5% walk rate, 16% strikeout rate guy that hits 280 with a low OBP and barely gets to 15 homers.

He's still not a guy that starts for the Astros during their run. No, but I guess he is more of like an outfield nico goodrum equivalent though like good enough to play while they rebuild yeah whereas other guys they've been playing haven't been and that's why crone and scope makes sense for them that's a dangerous investment even in a one-year league like you you could say like oh look at these projections you know 15 stolen bases 273 average i'm going to take him in al only and he'll be, he'll be boring, but fine. That's fine. But you know, there is the risk that he hybrid Candelario's on you. Yes. And the team tries to figure something else out and Goodrum's all of a sudden the full-time left fielder. And then you, then you spent three, $4 on nothing.

So I would think that like, I, this is a piece I want to write in this upcoming, like, before this upcoming season, is the relationship between war projections and fantasy busts. And I was looking at the, who's the DH? Danny Santana. Danny Santana for the Texas Rangers. Oh, this is exactly what I'm talking about here with the Tigers. There's upside and there's downside, and Danny Santana is the reason. So Danny Santana right now has a really nice projection. 250 batting average, 21 homers, and 20 steals in 600 play appearances. Sounds great, right?

That's like free money. Here's his war projection. Minus.1. So something's not right. Either he's going to get 600 plate appearances and he's going to be worth more than minus.1 war or, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, there's... It's almost impossible to that this will happen get that much playing time as an average like a replacement level player or worse like you generally don't play that much especially if you're playing for a team like the rangers who

clearly are pushing towards doing something this year they're spending some money they get their new stadium. They're not going to be the Orioles. You can get away with that projection on a team as bad as the Orioles. Otherwise, there's risk because any team that's actively trying to get better to win games right now isn't going to take that. Now, I think the thing that you'd want to look at in a study like that is, okay, well, where does that negative value come from in in santana's case you know his versatility defensively i did the air

quotes thing there which doesn't help this podcast it's in a video his versatility might be working against him he takes a pretty big hit for his defense he can play all over but he doesn't play any place particularly well so that drags down his overall value, even though what he was doing as a hitter, he was 11% better than league average, which since he debuted in 2014, we never saw anything like that from him at the big league level. And that just sort of like erases

everything he was doing as a hitter. And the projections, well, the projections are weirdly like skeptical of him from a skill standpoint because of how much he struggled for four years up and down in the big leagues and the exit power cert exit velocity power surge last year might not be uh included right and it's gonna it's gonna miss some of his best skills so that it's the type of late breakout that projection systems are are gonna struggle with a bit but i i would agree with

your premise that the the average player or the i keep calling the average player a replacement level player with a good fantasy projection is extremely risky and you have to be very careful about having too many players like that and thinking i got my 20s 20 guy in in the in the eighth round or tenth round, or I forget what his ADP is right now. I can look it up in a moment. But there's this idea that, you know, oh, well, it doesn't matter because it's fantasy. It's like, well, no, it does matter because the thing that drives his playing time is his real life value. And if he's not able to get on base enough, or if his defense is bad, or both of those things are true, he starts to lose playing

time and you start to lose playing time and you start to lose counting stats and you have to account for that yeah and you you mentioned the the other way that he scratches both issues which is his defense is projects to be bad and his obp projects to be bad and sometimes you might say well in a batting average lead i don't care about obp but you do because that matter the obp is where it determines where he plays in the lineup and if he plays at all. So if he has that 295 projected OBP and poor defense, it doesn't matter how much power he has and how much speed he has. So anyway, that's a risk.

I think Victor Reyes' projection is for.7 wins in most of a season, but I think that also captures some of the risk in him. Maybe it's a little bit less risky because the Rangers are trying to be good, whereas the Tigers might just put Victor Reyes out there all year. But it's something worth thinking about when you're putting together, especially with sleepers. With sleepers, you'd be like, oh, who cares? You only paid a buck or two for him.

Well, there's the opportunity cost of not paying the buck or two for the other sleeper that was better it's true yeah i mean you miss out on the other breakout when you choose the wrong lottery ticket when you throw the wrong dart late in the draft or late in an auction castro castro plays a good short stop in terms of uh like his defensive value so even if there are some flaws to his offensive game, that's something that I think they may settle on in the end and just be like, okay, Castro, we'll give you three or four years to see if you develop some offense, but you're the best defensive shortstop on this team. Real quick, Zach Godley, they add him to the mix, trying to get some innings for that rotation. I mean, had the one really good season in 2017 and has been struggling since.

Had strikeouts despite the poor ratios in 2018. Lost the Ks. Had walk issues. Had a home run rate issue last season. Pitched a nearly a 6 ERA last season. Is there any reason to believe that we could ever see something in the neighborhood of the 314 or the 317- 114 ratios from 2017 from

Zach Godley again I don't know I don't think so he scores really poorly on command plus and if you actually look at the bottom of command plus it's all relievers he just I don't think he can command his pitches enough to throw the curveball 40% of the time. And maybe he can command the curveball, but then his command of his fastball is so poor that you really kind of need to be able to command two pitches. And I think he can only command one. It's rough.

And the velo on the fastball. You can give him a two or three mile an hour bump in the bullpen and he's still not throwing gas out there since he's averaging oh 90 right now he moves the bullpen there's a there's a chance that we could see those ratios yeah because then he might be 92 um 93 and um lessens the uh importance of command of a secondary pitch because he really just needs to get through three people. I could see him having a good year out of the bullpen, yeah. If they don't need the innings right away

because they have other guys that are healthy, they think have more upside, they should just make that conversion as soon as possible to build up that value and see if he takes to that role. Michael Franco goes to the Royals. So Hunter Dozier going to play more in the outfield. Whit Merrifield is going to play more in the outfield. I'd liked Franco for a long time.

I had him on a bunch of teams. It obviously has not worked out very well. The main thing that draws me in is that he's a low strikeout rate power bat. I know he's got plenty of flaws as a player, but when the non-tender deadline passed and he was one of those guys who emerged as an early December free agent, I thought he was a lottery ticket worth taking the chance on just because he's still, relatively speaking, young. And I think he can potentially get to a level that would make him an above average player, like a two, two and a half win sort of player on a typical basis. Yeah, you know, I think Franco actually, in retrospect, helps us see the relative importance of average exit velocity versus barrel rate.

If you look at his barrel rates, they're middle of the pack and they haven't really, they've improved a tiny bit, but they haven't really improved. He just sort of remained middle of the pack and hasn't gone anywhere with it. If you look at his exit velocity, it looks nice. He's kind of an 89 to 90 type guy in terms of exit velocity. But, and even as he's raised his launch angle, his barrel rate really hasn't responded. So there is a chance that these things click, that next year he has the same sort of 89-mile-per-hour exit velocity and maybe a 14-, 15-degree launch angle just like he did last year, but more of those pitches are hit as barrels.

There is that possibility. He has some of the parts. But given that his barrel rate has just stayed very steady in the sixes, 6%, I think that he just has a problem barreling the ball. I don't know what it is. He can make contact,

but the actual powerful contact is way fewer and further between than you expect. Yeah, it's frustrating, but you just don't normally see guys that hit the ball that hard who strike out that little. So at least he landed in a spot where I think he will get a chance to play every day again. There were situations where he could have landed in more of a reserve role where we'd be seeing more of like a 350, 400 plate appearance sort of cap. I mean, I think he could get over 600 in Kansas City. And, you know, they have some experience coaching this type of player.

I mean, in a lot of ways, you know, minus the actual power part, it's like Mike Moustakas. You know, Mike Moustakas is kind of like a, you know, 6% walk rate, 16% strikeout rate. What about his defense, uh, power guy? And, you know, maybe they can, they can unlock, uh, that little bit of power from, from Franco that, that would separate him from being a total bust. Um, uh, and, uh, and from being useful next year, I might, I could see him being an AL only play.

I mean, his projection is for a win and a half. He's not on this list like a Danny Santana. No, no. There's actually a little more real-life floor to fall back on if that's where you're going to go. And there is a big difference in price. Danny Santana has some people who are buying in entirely to what he was doing last year and driving up that ADP. That's why I brought him up.

Yeah. It's weird. You found his ADP, right? I've got my tab here. I'm going to track it down in just a second. Somebody picked him in the first round this year. Right. There's one really high draft that will stand, I would

assume, as his earliest pick. That was 15th overall. 15th? 15th, yeah. So his ADP is 120, even with that one outlier. The other guys in that range that have an ADP around 120 have early picks of like 80, 90. And Danny Santana pops in with a 15. Yeah. Amazing.

Let's go to our beer of the year segment. We talk about beer of the week once a week on this show. A little less, of course, during the winter, especially when shows fall early in the week. It's been a great year beer-wise. I was going through my untapped app

and thinking about some of the trips that I'd gone on this year you brought me some Pliny the Elder which I'd never had before back in the spring to Phoenix for labor I thought it delivered on the hype the thing I talked about a couple times this season is that the beer around me keeps getting better you know double and triple dry hopped hazies are things that I didn't really have a lot of access to just a couple of years ago. Those are prevalent. Eagle Park in Milwaukee, the Brewing Project way up in Eau Claire, which is kind of by the Twin Cities. You hook me up with another beer that I had on opening day, Sur Real from Alvarado Street.

Or maybe it's Sur Real. I think it's Sur Real, though, the way they put it out there. So lots of choices for me but my selection is a spin on my all-time favorite belgian beer and it's the saint bernardus app 12 that was oak aged i had that back in my uh my bomber fest back in the summer and it was it was the kind of of beer that I was waiting for that perfect occasion to open, and that perfect occasion never really came, and I realized you don't need a perfect occasion to drink a good beer. I thought there was a chance, though, that barrel aging at 12 was going to ruin it. It was going to make it just kind of fiery and kind of give it that same burn that you get from a lot of barrel-aged stouts. It didn't happen that way at all, though. The barrel

aging process on that really kind of complemented just that malty, sweet, dark fruit flavor that I love in that beer. And the oak came through perfectly. I like that clear, woody taste that you get from an oak barrel you can taste it really prominently if you get like an oak barreled cider especially uh i i love that and the warm from the barrel that burn was moderate and it was just perfect because it balanced everything out and actually added something good instead of just overpowering some of the flavors that you get when you drink just the regular app 12 yeah yeah that's amazing uh i wish i had an experience like

that to fall back on um i uh i'm looking at my highest rated beers of the year uh and uh rated beers of the year. Uh, and, uh, predictably most of them are Alvarado street. So if I had to give a brewery of the year, I'd give it to Alvarado street, which, uh, their DeLorean dust and their, uh, contains no juice were both, uh, uh, five star beers for me this year. And, uh, I think they were fun too because they're a slightly different take on the hazy beer the delorean dust had that cryo dust that we've talked about on the podcast before um where they've taken hops and reduced it just down to a dust that gives you an almost uh spicy bitter feeling even on a beer that is otherwise not very bitter um so it kind of gives you a way to clean up uh all the sweetness and makes you want to have another sip so i think

delorean dust was a standout for me that way but um i hate to kind of talk about it too much you know alvarado street and moonraker my two favorite favorite breweries, if you're in the Bay Area, you can find them in your beer thing. I don't know. That means how many people are listening? Maybe 5% to 8%. I had Double Nelson from Hill Farmstead was a five-star beer for me and that that i had out of the trunk of someone's car uh at an a's game um that was really fun yes but the best way to have beer you know i had a jester king a cherry Cherry, a Sour Modern Dansk that was also good.

All of these are so up my own butt. You really have to live really close to these places to get them. I wish I had more of a national beer of the week. I want to have a beer of the year. I want to have a beer of the year that anybody can get to. And I think it actually might be Lagunitas Daytime. To me, like, I've always loved that kind of beer that's along the Firestone Walker Easy Jack way of thinking. But Daytime was super cheap, I think even, super cheap, I think even, and super available to people. And it allows me to also highlight their Born Yesterday Fresh Hot Pale Ale, which is my favorite fresh hot pale ale.

It allows me to say one little thing on my soapbox. Not every beer company, every brewery that quote unquote sells out and makes a deal with a large distributor or a larger brewing company reacts the same way to that process. Not every company sells out totally. I think Firestone Walker and Lagunitas are still making really good beers. And now I can at least put one beer on my beer of the year list that everybody listening can get. And that means that if you're in an airport, you're drinking better beer than you ever had before. On an airplane, you're drinking better beer than you ever had before. So yes, it is really cool that Moonraker and Alvarado Street are making great

beer locally. And who knows what would happen if they sold out and what their beers would look like if you ramped up the distribution. But not every beers brewery that sells out is Golden Road. I never really liked Golden Road's beers before they sold out. So I'm not concerned about it. But Lagunitas, I've followed along from when they were a smaller company to how huge they are now. Firestone Walker, same thing. And I remain true to them. I remain not necessarily loyal customers

where everything they do is amazing and roses grow out of their ass. But they do really good beers and they're available to people. So just wanted to soapbox there a little bit because it's the end of the year, and that's what people do, I guess. It's the appropriate soapbox. I mean, you've got to air your grievances.

Some people just immediately trash a brewery when they do get that. For them, like big business break, really. I mean, it's success. That too. It's like when your favorite band becomes famous or your new favorite band that other people don't know about, and they go on tour with someone else that's really famous, and then all these new fans come along,

and they listen to the one popular track, and you get mad about it. It's like that's what your band is trying to do. They're trying to make money and become famous. If you care about these people, they just got a big break. This is what they were kind of working for. I mean, yes, they were trying to make some good beer, famous like if you care about these people they just got a big break you know and they this was what they were kind of working for i mean yes they were trying to make some good beer and there's some artistry especially with the musician angle but you know they're all working too they're all

trying to make money so yeah i i uh i think that um you know sometimes it's overblown and then some of those places like it's okay to not drink golden road but just you know it wasn't that good to begin with well hopefully uh you can find some of those uh beers we mentioned uh as part of that beer of the year segment wherever it is you're going in this holiday season that saint bernard is app 12 i mean it's from belgium but it gets distributed all over the states so that's true that one actually actually widely attainable that's true the oak one is actually widely available. It's more attainable. That's true. The Oak Age variant, though, that's a little harder to find

just because they don't make that much of it. But the original is outstanding. It's the blue-labeled one with the monk toasting you. They make a Christmas ale. It's really good, too. So if you happen to see

the App 12 and you see that little red label Christmas ale sitting next to it, the Christmas ale is worth trying as well. As always, you can reach us via email rates and barrels at the athletic.com. We can take those emails as mailbag questions.

Sometimes we'll just flip you a quick response back Twitter. Of course, he's at, you know, Sarah's and I am at Derek van Riper. Well, everyone has enjoyed this episode and we hope you guys have a very safe and happy holiday season we

are back with you in 2020 and apologies for my loud family i got into the quietest room as i could get but as always thanks for listening Thank you.