Rates & Barrels - Opening Day is Here!

Episode Date: July 23, 2020

Rundown1:23 Opening Day Traditions7:33 Show News!14:38 More Unusual Information Patterns18:22 Why, Rockies?25:51 Mookie Betts’ 12-Year Extension with the Dodgers29:42 How Speed Ages38:07 Cy Young Predictions51:12 MVP Predictions56:52 Playoff Predictions76:54 Beer of the Week Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiperE-mail: [e-mail] Get 40% off a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 115. Happy opening day. It's Thursday, July 23rd. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. I have been whistling the Caddyshack intro track from Kenny Loggins pretty much all day. I'm very excited that baseball is back. I'm very excited to have games that count happening later tonight. And happy to see the Brewers getting back on the field on Friday.

We're going to discuss several items, of course, with opening day here. We'll talk about a few more roster changes and some of the really odd things we're going to see with roster management as we kind of roll into the weekend. A lot of retroactive IL stints that look bad at first glance but are going to cause some problems for us as we make decisions about our rosters over the weekend. And most importantly, we're going to have some more season preview type predictions, some big ones, Cy Young winners, MVPs, playoff teams, and World Series winners for this 2020 season as well. How's it going for you on this opening day Thursday? It is good. I'm excited. And it's funny. I'm home, and I will be home tomorrow.

I'm not going to the park. And this is actually my mode for opening day. This is what I've done my whole life. I have been to very few opening days in my life. In fact, the only opening days I've been to in my life have been ones that I covered, I think. I think about my childhood. I was poor, so we weren't buying our own tickets for opening day. And when I had some awesome, I did have awesome tickets for those Braves years.

I might have told the story about how that ended up. But I was not usually given opening day tickets. I went to a lot of sort of August and July games, if you catch my drift. So, you know, I didn't ever see an opening day. And then I think maybe my first opening day was going to be the first year I had my Base writers association card.

And I was allowed to, uh, that, that card allows you into any press box in any stadium. And as I understood it as the, uh, green rookie that I was, I basically just had to tell PR, Oh, by the way, I'm showing up. And so, uh, it was the, it was the A's I think think A's Angels, and I sent an email two days before opening day to PR saying, hey, I'm going to show up this year. I got my BBWA card. We're all good, right? And I got excoriated. I got this email back that was like, what are you thinking? Don't you know there are processes in place? You don't have a seat. I'm not going to get you a seat. This is opening day. Are you kidding me? And my response was, and this is totally just like green rookie. I was not saying, And this is totally just like green rookie.

I was not saying, do you know who I am? I was saying, I thought my card allowed me into the press box. And she thought that I was saying, don't you know who I am, basically. Like, I'm a big shot. And so it devolved from there. And Susan Slessor, who's a leader around here, baseball, a perennial sort of president of the chapter and so on, had to intervene and be like, no, no, no. He's just an idiot. The funny thing was, the upshot of this was, she found me a seat in the auxiliary, the radio box, the secondary

box, where radio people sit and sometimes they do radio updates and like the the photographers when they take a break they sit down there so it's not like uh press and so i knew what was happening i was like being sort of shunned and like you know put in my place the funny thing was it was perfect for me that group was rowdy they were loud they talked they interacted instead of being in the group with the press in the other side where everyone's just tickety-tackety on their computers not looking at each other, I was in just with a group of sort of baseball lovers

that didn't have the same sort of ideas of decorum. So after that, there was some discussion like, should I get a fan graph seat? You know, will I be there enough? Blah, blah, blah. And I said, you know what? Screw it. If I can just tell you I'm going to show up and you and I can just sit over there in that box, we're all good. And there ended up being basically and, you know, Sarah's like a default seat because we all kind of sat in places we knew each other after a while. So it was like, you know, it's kind of, you know, seat, you know? So, uh, that was like five years and I did probably, uh, like four straight opening days there. And that might be the only opening days I've ever attended. You have a slightly

different arrangement with opening day. You've been to a few for the brewers, I think. Yeah. I go as a fan, which is kind of fun. I've been going since I was a junior in college. I think it was the first year. A friend of mine who I met playing tennis at the University of Wisconsin. She was a law student at the time. She wanted to get a package of tickets. So she, being further along in life and being a great friend, fronted the money, bought a 10-game pack to get opening day tickets, and then split the 10-game pack with me. So my friend Angela has been kind of my opening day friend for 15 years now. We've got a long street going.

Oh my gosh, that's great. In the time since then, I got married to my wife, she got married to her husband, and we've gone to games together. And it's kind of just our tradition that in some form or fashion, we now go to the game together. And this is the first year that I won't be at opening day because fans aren't allowed in. Yeah, it's a bummer. I mean, it's just life in 2020. There's a big grill culture, tailgating culture in Milwaukee, right?

Yeah. And the other cool thing about Angela is that she's very detail-oriented and organized. So she has a full tailgate kit that she has ready at her house. It's just like a snap-lid big box. Like one of those smokers that you drag behind the car or something? No, but I've seen a Miller Park-shaped

grill going into the parking lot in the back of someone's truck before. She has all the stuff you don't think about when you tailgate, like plates and napkins and forks and knives and things that civilized people use. She's great at having all that stuff. I bring meat and forget lighter fluid and stuff like

that. She has that. Tailgating is usually a big part of it. Every once in a while, you catch terrible weather in Milwaukee on opening day. I've had days where there have been snow flurries in the air, but a lot of good memories of finding out friends were expecting a baby on one opening day.

Actual awesome memories. Inside the game, Lorenzo Cain pulling back a game-tying home run to end the game last season against the Cardinals. So yeah, opening day has always been kind of a blast for me, mostly because people in my life have gone out of their way to make that day a special day for me. So I'm definitely going to miss not being at the park, but looking forward to watching that game on TV tomorrow. Lots of cool stuff to talk about. So we dangled this last week. There will be a third

episode of Rates and Barrels. And the cool thing about it, it's going to be every Friday. It's going to be right on this feed. Originally, it was going to be part of a bigger show. Those shows are all happening in their current form. So we still have Starkville. We still have Beyond the Scrum. And now we have a third episode of Rates and Barrels each and every Friday. That episode will come out probably mid-afternoon on Fridays. It'll be a bit less fantasy-focused,

maybe not even fantasy-focused at all some days. And we're going to bring some guests on too. So that's something that we're all really looking forward to this season. So we hope you enjoy the third episode every single week. And of course, coverage right now is off the charts with it being opening day. If you don't have a subscription to The Athletic, get 40% off at theathlet athletic.com slash rates and barrels get fantasy coverage get league-wide coverage get team coverage every single thing you want is included with the subscription so we hope to see you uh in the comment section on the site in the weeks and

months ahead and it i mean just it i'm kind of speechless like i think you gotta like breathe and i think i've sort of i don't want to i don't want to remove accountability because it's important for analysts to have accountability i understand that i don't want to say if this to go sideways don't blame me that's not what i'm saying but what i am saying is i think you need to remove yourself me that's not what i'm saying but what i am saying is i think you need to remove yourself from the results this a little bit this year just try to find a place where you're like i'm doing this for a little bit of fun i want to be involved i want to think about baseball because i like baseball but you know it's going to be if you if you're if you're high stress about this you're going to blow a gasket because there's the news is coming so fast and this guy has corona and this guy then and this

guy's back in five days from coronavirus and this guy's you know like austin meadows is like you know taking two plus weeks and jesus lizardo took like five days you know and it's like there's no way to prognosticate this and the the rosters being the way they are like we don't know how pitchers are going to be used until we start seeing them in games basically and it might not even matter one team might have like a sort of idea about how they're going to do things with pitchers but one of their guys is ready for 90 pitches and one of their guys is ready for 40, and you don't even really know that until they get in the game. Yeah, until it actually happens.

Until you see the manager come out and take a guy who ordinarily goes six, take him out in the third inning. Oh, I guess the pitch count was 40 today. I had a draft last night. It was really cool with Alan Harrison and Blake Jameson. Blake Jameson does Tops card art and it's really cool stuff. He was showing us actually, previewing some of it. Cause we

did it like a little zoom, uh, before the game, uh, during the draft and, um, you know, saw some of the stuff that he's going to come out with this year and he was talking about it. Um, so we had a draft last night and while we were in it, um, you know, there's a, at lunch made was in it. His Todd, who writes for I believe he writes for Fancy Pros and Todd Clark and I and other people, we were trying to talk about stuff. There was a fair amount of table talk because it's a friendly league and we haven't even established what anybody wins in the end. But we were talking about like some of these guys feel like, you know, they come back and it seems okay. And then some of these guys feel like they throw 20 pitches and they're gassed when they come back from the virus.

So, you know, it's going to be a poop show. And I'm here for it. I'm here for it. But like trying to make weekly lineup decisions, that's when I felt the I'm going to blow a gasket. Yeah, I've kind of felt that too, and some of the leagues that we're in have longer first lineup periods

because of the partial week to begin the season. That makes it even worse. You're going to make decisions for 10 days? You don't even know what tomorrow looks like. Yeah, I don like that at all i did push one of my keeper leagues to have daily moves even though we've got weekly lineup or not daily lineup changes but weekly pickups i think that's one little adjustment that you could make it at the very last minute i would consult your league about it but explain the thought process behind it it's just to play some defense on the uncertainty you can cap the number of moves. You can cap the

number of games played by position. There's things you can do to keep someone from just grinding out more playing time than everybody else and winning. But your broader point is an important one. This really is a year more about community in terms of watching baseball and playing fantasy baseball. I scaled back on my NFBC entries a lot this year. Not that I'm in the highest of the high stake leagues anyway. I threw my hands up. I threw my hands up. I just couldn't make the schedule work.

It got like this last couple of weeks just got so short, so quick. I don't know how I let it go through my fingers. I had thought maybe I would do, Roto-Wire sprint for less, and I asked my wife, do these times work? She didn't get back to me in time, and they're all sold out. So I'm not going to – I was thinking about jumping in for a 12-team league, a satellite. I think there's still a couple left,

but the way that our family schedule is going right now, it would just be more stress on them, and it's a 12-team league. I don't think it's really great practice for NFBC. So I'm just going to chill out on NFBC this year. I think TGFBI is a decent practice for it. And I'll just attack TGFBI the way I would. And I don't need more leagues in my life. Yeah, I bowed out a one that was going to draft this afternoon,

mostly because I didn't think I was going to be able to pull everything off work-wise and have that league go well. Wait, does that mean something's available? It's an auction. It starts in about two and a half hours if you want to jump in on that. What is it? Which auction? This is great radio.

Let's do this. Yeah, no, it's great. It's the Roto-Wire Steak League auction. Oh, I see, I see. Yeah, it'll take three or four hours. It's a pretty big auction. No, I don't have time in my life for an auction. It's opening day, dude.

I got to go get beer. Well, I think we're going to add a beer of the week at the end of the episode, too, because it would be wrong for us not to have one. Look, it's 945 in the morning for you. There's no pressure for you to crack one open. So part of what makes this season a train wreck, as we've said time and time again, is the news, is the uncertainty, is the way things are being reported. I mean, think about this.

Roberto Uzuna, who we talked about on our last episode, actually started throwing, had a bullpen session on Monday. We didn't even find out about it prior to recording our episode on Tuesday. We found out about that, I think, yesterday. So because people aren't at the park the same way, because media access to various people in the organization is not the same as it ordinarily is,

and then with pandemic stuff on top of all that. We're finding, as media, we're only finding out about stuff from Zooms, basically, which is a really stilted way. Like there's no, you know, it's not easy. So that, I think, disrupts the flow of information or at least alters it from how it would normally be. Whereas if you're at the park every day and you have access to pitching coaches and players and everybody other than GMs and managers in limited spots, you can get those details pretty easily. Or you can literally sit in the press box and watch a guy

throw a bullpen session and just say, hey, Roberto Ozuna threw a bullpen session. I saw it with my own eyes. And there it is. It's reported. So I think that's part of why you got to be careful. The IL stints, I kind of hinted at that before. John Means might pitch early next week against the Marlins, even though he's opening the year on the IL with an arm injury. Jake Odorizzi is in the same situation with a back injury. He was scratched from an intra-squad start a couple days ago. The Twins don't need a fist starter until next weekend. He could easily start next weekend, even though he's on the IL right now.

You mentioned some of the covid concerns there are longer timetables for some players like luis urias has been unable to have two negative tests even though he's asymptomatic so he's probably two to three weeks away from doing anything yes sterns was saying that even when he comes back he thinks it might be two weeks just because of how long it's been. So there's a compounding factor. The longer you're out with COVID, the more fitness you lose. And just timing as a hitter, I think,

is the big one too. That too, yeah. So you look at that, William Zestadillo is kind of in the same boat. I know he's more of like a backup catcher, utility infielder type, but I think we're seeing that the recovery from the virus

and the timetable, it's sometimes a couple of weeks and sometimes it's longer. And when it's longer, we kind of have question marks and shrug emojis and a lot of uncertainty about when we're going to see those players back. Some little bit of good news. Michael Fulmer has looked pretty decent, I think, in his scrimmages from what I've seen.

He says he feels good. And because of some bad news for the Tigers in front of it, it's not really that bad news in terms of Jordan Zimmerman's going on the DL. It's like, might be good news. Sorry, sorry, sorry. That's mean. But Michael Fulmer, not Odor uh zimmerman's going on the dls and norris might not be ready so fulmer who was like gonna maybe be a piggyback or kind of a reliever guy at the beginning a stretched out reliever guy might actually slide into the

rotation um and if he does so after the first three then we're looking at four against the royals next beginning next week might be a good waiver wire pickup this weekend does so after the first three, then we're looking at four against the Royals beginning next week. Might be a good waiver wire pickup this weekend. Yeah, the schedule is going to be really fun to try and track and project two start pitchers for upcoming weeks. Fun. It's going to be a nice

challenge. I think there's going to be a lot of rotation plans that have to change on the fly. Someone's going to get sick or someone's going to get hurt and someone's going to move up a day. And if you're locked in on a weekly league and that happens more than usual, the streamable matchup that you had on Friday, maybe that's actually a tough start on Thursday instead. I think those things happen over a normal season. They're going to happen a little bit more than usual this season. And then you get the usual stuff, like the Rockies optioning Brendan Rodgers, which is just like, why?

What is the point of that? Isn't he better off at least just playing two or three times a week when you face a left-handed starter than going to the other camp? That just seems so short-sighted and stupid, and yet so Rockies at the same time. Yeah, I mean, couldn't you still have live BP on days he's not playing

with the major leaguers? I don't know. Yeah. There's not like that. We need him to play every day. No. What do you mean? Play the same people every day?

How much is he going to learn from that? They kept Chris Owings on the roster at this point. He's still there. Maybe he's a late cut. He's still there. And they've got three catchers because you have to have three. I think you can put one on the taxi squad

and not carry them as part of your active roster. But Drew Butera's on the roster. But maybe you really want to pinch hit Elias Diaz, career 34% worse than league average. Got to get him in there. Yeah. It's just so stupid. This team infuriates me just from a

they can't do the basic right thing standpoint. I'm not asking for a lot. I'm just saying play your best guys. That's all I want. I don't asking for a lot. I'm just saying, play your best guys. That's all I want. I don't care how you manage your bullpen. I don't care how you construct your lineup even at this point. I just want you to play your best players. That's my one and only request of the Rockies.

And every single year, they let me down. Yeah, well, you're not allowed to question those moves because you've never run a team. No, couldn't do it. Obviously couldn't do it. Didn't play ball. The general manager said these riders don't know what they're talking about. They've never run a team.

All right. You know what? I will guarantee this. Look at the big brains brains on brad oh look at the big brains on british oh oh it's opening day baby i'm so fired up because i know that if i had as much time as the gm of the rockies as british has had we would win more games with me as the GM. I'm sure of it. All the confidence in the world. But it'd be fun. It'd be fun, and they'd win. Both. Both

at the same time. I'm not saying it's easy, because it's not, but we could do it. Alright, let's talk about the Dodgers, because they are news hogs. They pulled another Gavin Lux with Dustin May. They optioned him down, so kind of another punch in the face on the roster like i had may and gonsolin is like the best uh six starters

who is their sick like who's their who's their long guy bruisder is probably more of like a two inning guy i don't think he's going much more than that yeah bruisder grad are all still there he could be their fifth inning guy that might be be the guy who's going to steal some wins this weekend. Ferguson gets a little stretched out sometimes. He's still there. Dennis Santana was a starter in the minors. So I guess those guys, he's still on the depth chart for now. He's kind of sneaky interesting, by the way, for really deep leagues.

I don't think redraft mixed leagues or anything like that. Well, I mean's gonna fill the tony gonsolin role then yeah definitely but he also had a 694 era in triple a last year so yeah that was and then not like a tiny sample it's like 93 innings that is that a is that a launching pad he did have a lot of homers but the the command just whoo look at that. It was a problem. Some bad walk totals there. Yeah, that was a pretty good-sized sample. Pitched pretty well, though, at some lower levels. That kind of jumps off the page to me as well with him.

But I think the frustration with Dustin May is a little bit similar to Lux. I think because you drafted him later, it's easier to drop him in redraft leagues. He's the first guy up if someone gets hurt, right? I mean, that's pretty obvious. But again, how do you not gain more from having him going two or three innings at a time out of your bullpen? Why is he going to the camp? That doesn't make sense to me. I need someone to explain it. And not in GM politician language, in plain language. Just be honest and explain to us how this makes sense. Dude, I watched the Zoom of David Stearns. Just was looking for some nuggets of information, and that was when I heard about the Urias and some other stuff.

At the very end, someone asked about his daughter, who sounds like she's maybe toddler age. She's just now starting to figure out what baseball is and understand it um and one of the writers cracked a joke about because he said that she's switch hitting right now and he and then one of the writers said young controllable talent versatile young versatile controll talent, just how you like it, and it turns cracked up. I was like, a little bit inappropriate. I mean, I guess that's good to see a sense of humor from anybody in the front office, because sometimes it's just, it really is like listening to a politician give a speech or answer questions. It's unbelievable. I think the best example I have of this is a winter meetings a few years ago, Andrew Friedman

had a press conference and it was like San Diego 11 o'clock at night. I don't know why I wasn't at a bar. I think I had been at a bar and then went back to the media room to get my laptop or something. And then there was going to be a press conference. So I said, well, I might as well sit here and see what this is about. And I just watched Andrew Friedman deflect questions for 20 minutes. It was incredible. He said nothing. The transcript probably had him with 5,000 words, but it was pure word salad. And it was just like, why did you even do this? Why did you call this press conference? I think it was something to do with a trade and it wasn't even confirmed yet. So that made it even

worse because it was a transaction that he couldn't even discuss yet. And I just thought, wow, like trying to translate this and discern meaning from this is a very tedious and boring job more often than not. Yeah.

And, you know, it is a little bit up and down from from gm to gm you know farhan is amazing at saying a lot of words and not saying much but at the end of it i do actually feel like there's something i can quote and so he's very he's very he's sure that like he's he's like giving you a little bit of something right but not what you really want but like enough that you can come away and be like okay i can use this you know uh and then there are others that are just just like you said word salad where you're just like this is unusable i don't want to do anything with this but it also kind of tracks with pr strategies around the league some some pr is more willing to help and try to guide the story a little bit and um keep things upbeat and uh and put you in touch with people and other pr basically

the idea is to just almost no story is the best story you know um so i think that that tracks with the gms as well like some of them this they just want to word salad you to death until until you give up and you don't you don't quote them, this, they just want to word salad you to death until, until you give up and you don't, you don't quote them or you don't, you don't have anything. You know? So the Dodgers are in the news because of Mookie Betts getting an extension,

12 years, $365 million. I thought he was going to at least reach free agency, even if he stayed with the Dodgers. So this hit me as a pretty big surprise. How did you feel when you saw this news scroll by? I immediately had a phone call with some people, with some executives that I talk to regularly, and they were upbeat about it because they were like,

this is good. I i mean it's a it's a data point of one um it's an n01 but it's uh it's a healthy decision the the the flip side is um that it's a decision that reflects some health in baseball but the flip side is that it could be that just the yankees and Dodgers are healthy. Brewers extended Yelich, though, back in January now, I think it was. I mean, so I think... Pre-COVID. He was a few years away from free agency, though, too,

so I guess that was a different situation. It's just also hard to square with all the other decisions, right? I mean, like cutting the minor leagues and, you know, cutting the draft and all this stuff, but I guess it just reflects their values. Like, you know,

teams will pay out the nose for stars. They don't care about, uh, the middle class in baseball and they don't care about minor leaguers. They care about minor leagues and even less. That's been kind of proven over and over again. Right. You want good minor league years so you can underpay,

and then you want to selectively pay for the ones that are the standout players at age 26, 27, 28. Turn those guys into franchise players. Everybody else, bye-bye. I don't think you can really make it work like that. I think there's something to having a lot of players that you're working with. And even if the minor leagues, even if you pull back from it and say, if we were starting baseball from scratch today,

the number of minor league affiliates for every team would actually be less. It just would logically make sense to do it differently. And it actually becomes a moment of economic disparity for teams because a team like the Yankees and the Phillies, what they do is they have more minor league affiliates than everybody, and they spend more money, but not in like a we're going to give every minor leaguer of ours more money. We're just going to have more minor leaguers.

And the reason we have more minor leaguers is it's a lottery machine, and we're just going to stick these guys in there. And it's not really that's awesome for the players you're just basically you know let's pay everybody you know 10 bucks a year and one of these guys will turn into a star you know what i mean that's it's kind of it's kind of gross and you almost want to limit the yankees and phillies from being like no no you can't have like eight affiliates when everybody else is running on five or six. You know what I mean? I think there's probably some way to with, well, it's impossible to do it on the fly, but I think if we were building it from scratch, there would be probably a stronger pull with independent teams and having other options to

play baseball that are not affiliated, but still provide some compensation and training. And there's probably a way to pull it off. But I don't know if there's a way to get there from the current state without having destruction, economic destruction along the way. Which we're going down that path. We're going to see how that plays out. But that's not necessarily a topic that we want to go to on opening day. It's just one of those things. It's like Mookie gets this extension.

Awesome for him. Great to see that. Let's hope that the other parts of the game are going to be brought along in a healthy way, even though we have our doubts. Here's a slightly different tack on it that I also ended up talking about with somebody last night.

So speed is really interesting. Mookie Betts has speed. And so speed is really interesting because as a minor leaguer, if you take apart all the tools and you kind of try to correlate those tools to future success, speed is the worst, right? And we know that guys where speed is their best tool are not usually the best prospects right however speed impacts the other tools there's a sort of a correlation there between speed and this person was pointing out that like hey like as Pujols gets slower and slower, the infield plays further and further back, you know, and that, that robs him of base hits and doubles and stuff. And he said, there's a relationship between your speed and how defenders play you. And that relationship is important for

your outcomes at the plate. So this person said that basically if you take Billy Hamilton's speed away, at the plate, he becomes a Sally League hitter. You know what I'm saying? Like we're not talking about his overall value. We're talking about at the plate. So he becomes a minor leaguer. He's like not a great major league hitter.

I'm not saying that. But he's like borderline and can make it work. Um, whereas if you take speed away from him, everybody plays really far back and, uh, and he can't, he can't do anything. So, uh, I think about that. And then I think about the fact that we were doing, we were aging speed with Derek Cardy. Uh, and I did it in a piece recently and speed just drops off the table. And somebody asked in my bold predictions well what about elite speed and we aged elite speed and that drops even worse

so I think this is part and parcel of why there's been such a movement to young players but it is also really important to think about when you think about hey what about how Mookie Betts will age, right? Well, he looks like a decent corner outfielder now because he used to play center field.

And he's got some wheels. But with those wheels are going to go, go, go away really fast. Maybe corner outfielders aren't the best long-term extension ideas. aren't the best long-term extension ideas. I mean, I think with Mookie, though, the thing about him is just the hit tool has always been incredible. He pairs it with a great eye, and there's good power there, too.

And the speed is just the bonus that you get in the first half or first two-thirds or first three-quarters of his career, whatever it is. And even when the speed's gone, he has so much to fall back on. He's still going to be a great player, even when he is an average runner,

or if he becomes an average runner over time. He could do that like kind of Joey Votto-esque aging where like everyone is yelling about how he's not what he used to be. And yet you'd look up and he's like, well, he's still hitting 280 with like a 380 OBP and 400 slugging. And he's still like kind of a league average corner outfielder. Like he's just not what he used to be, but it still actually is OK. You know what I mean?

But this person was also pointed like, look at Kutch. Like Kutch was, has everything center fielder. And like not that many years later, he we're hoping he's a the average corner outfielder right yeah i mean you don't see you don't really see a lot of players age so well into their 30s that they still are good defensive center fielders i think that's what makes thorenzo canes that's where the conversation started impressive yes that's where the conversation started like how many old like we're comfortable with the idea there's no old shortstops, right?

Derek Jeter was like the last shortstop that kind of played into his 30s. If you think about it, Didi Gregorius, I think the market was so soft on him because nobody else wants to play an old shortstop. Yeah, I think it leaves you from finding the occasional outlier.

I mean, if you have that sort of sweeping approach, you're going to miss out on Kane. The Johnny Peralta. Like the guy that will just get the atom balls and you move him around, right? Maybe Dede can be like that. And the Kanes, where their athleticism just helps them be a passable center fielder as they get older.

But, you know, it's fallen off for Kane too, and there was the weird history of how he came to baseball late. But he's got to be one of the oldest center fielder, and I think we'll see Trout move off of center in the next two years. Yeah, I think with Joe Adele coming up, how long are they going to play Trout in center field? That's a fair question. Even if he's the greatest player of this generation and maybe the greatest player of all time,

you can still move him to left or to right, and he's still going to be amazing for a long time into the future. It's interesting, too, just a footnote. I had this on the rundown for today. I was keeping an eye on some players who made rosters, and one that really caught my eye was Leote Tavares, who is on the roster almost entirely for speed for the Rangers. He is a true defensive center fielder for a team that doesn't really have one. He's probably going to pinch run and be a late-inning defensive replacement,

but he's one of those guys that if he's in the league 15 years from now, it's because his speed aged better than most and or maybe because the hit tool actually came around a bit more than expected. Such an interesting player because he can steal a lot of bases if he finds playing time. But again, just kind of a funny guy

to bring up for this conversation. I think that decision about having a speedster on the roster, perhaps for extra innings, has cost some of these people. Because Terrence Gore made the roster in LA. And so maybe that has something to do with May, Gonsolin, whoever. It's a little bit weird.

gonsolin whoever um it's not being there yeah a little bit weird uh but even the i got the uh the a's uh roster in my inbox today and um i don't even know that like they they put a machine on the roster i'm totally i think i'm saying his name wrong no i mean maybe i'm not i mean m-a-c-h-i-n I'm saying his name wrong. No, maybe I'm not. I mean, M-A-C-H-I-N. Vimal Machine. Oh, here it is. I think they've got it. Machine!

Yes! V-M-A-L Machine. That's a great name. So they put Machine on the roster. Yeah. But since I haven't heard of him, I'm guessing that he's kind of a middle infielder. I'm guessing he's kind of he's a middle infielder. I'm guessing

he's like the kind of their defensive backup middle infielders, uh, who, who can run fast. So, um, those guys have one of the Ross, one of the roster spots going in. You'll see them fall off. Um, you'll see them fall off the roster in two weeks. Probably. I think the first to go will be those speedsters. Yeah, Rule 5 pick traded to Oakland, taken out of the Cubs system, left-handed hitting infielder, more of like an OBP forward sort of player. So you never know. Could be kind of interesting if he finds some playing time here this season.

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now and use the promo code RUN to get a free shot at a share of the millions of dollars up for grabs this week with your first deposit. That's promo code RUN to get a free shot at a share of millions of dollars with your first deposit only at DraftKings. Minimum $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See DraftKings.com for details. All right, you know, it is prediction time. We've got the Cy Young Awards, the MVP Awards, playoff teams, and a World Series winner to reveal. Let's start with the Cy Young, and let's start in the NL. Who are you going with to win that award this year? I bold predicted you, Darvish, and then he went out and gave up a grand slam to Eloy Jimenez?

Yeah, he didn't even finish his inning. They just stopped it. They just, it's like, this is enough. It was like, you know, this is enough. You know, there are a lot of good answers. The one thing that has not really been proven, but I feel a little bit is, I don't know how the nl that the nationals basically have uh two of the top you know five contenders basically for uh for cy young but max already the back thing i could see you know just missing two or three starts could be a really outsized effect. Strasburg seems to literally have that problem year to year. So I am looking for new blood in the Cy Young this year,

in the NL in particular, I think. It's just not obvious to me who it will be. I mean, you could go down to sort of Flaherty, Castillo, and even Paddock levels to pick your Cy Young this year, and I wouldn't disagree with you. Yeah, I'm looking at these as the most wide-open awards ever on the NL side for me. I'm going to go Walker Buehler.

I think people are sleeping a little on Kershaw, relatively speaking, but I do think with Buehler, he ticks all the boxes. The Dodgers, I think, are going a little on Kershaw, relatively speaking. But I do think with Buehler, he ticks all the boxes. The Dodgers, I think, are going to win a ton of games in the West. That's a very chalky sort of prediction in that regard. I think that's kind of a key ingredient in winning a Cy Young, unfortunately. It's just part of the way voters still work, even though things are maybe gradually getting better in that regard. But Buehler, I mean, look, top shelf stuff.

Maybe a little concerned about how deep he's getting into his starts initially. I don't think he's going that short though, because if they were really worried about it, Dustin May would still be in camp. They'd still have one of those long relievers to go right behind him for that first start. So yeah, maybe he goes four or five the first time out, but I don't think that's going to hurt him all that much. So I'm going to go Walker Buehler. We were talking about this, like who is their Tony Gonsolin Dustin May guy with Tony Gonsolin Dustin May gone like and I really don't get Tony Gonsolin not being on there honestly because he's not I don't think he's much I think he's like kind of an average starter like I don't think he's going to be any better than your third best starter on most teams right so a team like the dodgers could totally sacrifice somebody like that

and just use them to their benefit i can't believe tony gonsolin's not on this roster with alex wood julio urias and um and walker bueller like i think you want to have a guy who can give you two innings in the fifth and sixth. I just don't know who that is. They do have some converted guys that used to be starters like Derek Floro. Not Derek Floro. That's my friend. Dylan Floro. Dylan Floro, who used to be also Caleb Ferguson, used to be a starter fairly recently.

And you were mentioning Danny Santana. who used to be also Caleb Ferguson used to be a starter fairly recently. Um, and you were mentioning Danny Santana, but Danny Santana has like a terrible walk rate. I'd rather have Tony Gonsolin in there than Danny Santana. So I don't, I think this might be being like a touch too clever. I hope, I hope it kind of is.

I mean, I think the Dodgers are well built and I just, I hope when teams get too cute, it backfires on them just so they learn a lesson. And maybe baseball learns a lesson. Totally frugal. Yeah, right. It's like, hey, actually, again, don't be like the Rockies. Play your best players.

Right, exactly. Even if you're projected to win. The Phillies, I think, are a very interesting team on the other end of this. Where, like, I have more confidence in them just playing guys. win the phillies i think are a very interesting team on the other end of this where like i have more confidence in them uh just playing guys like just look at uh you know you know like alec bomb potentially he'd made the roster we don't we don't have the roster yet but i think he's going to make the roster um and maybe spencer howard doesn't make it for the first week maybe he's suddenly ready six days in but it sounds like he's going to be like a big part of this team and uh they could play games with those guys but

they're like for the most part i think they're willing to like just put guys on the ground and let them play yeah i think if we do have to wait a week for bomb that's you know not the end of the world just because that's what a lot of teams are doing with guys like that so maybe they do the same thing with howard and bomb but i do think they're pushing players up this year. I don't think it's necessarily as cute, though. You know, I just, like, Tony Gonsolin, that's the one that I just don't get. I just don't get it.

Yeah, it's going overboard. Maybe trying to protect that service time and have that flexibility later on. One last thought on Walker Buehler. I think he was third in the nl behind only scherzer and degrom in terms of k minus bb percentage last year i think part of the way he gets to that sign this year that k rate's going to come up one more notch i think he's going to get up into the 32 33 percent range with the strikeout rate so that's what i'm hoping for at least i have i have

no complaints about the pick you know if you want it in terms of the command stuff, stuff that I, that I always, that I always talk about Bueller is let's see here. I think second in the league and stuff. Yeah. It's pretty great. Pine Garrett Cole,

right? Yeah. So, you know, I, yeah, I agree with you. It's good to have some agreement.

Yeah, it's a good pick. It's a good pick. I'd like the Udarvish still because, you know, I do think that if he's throwing like this extra 11th pitch and, you know, maybe he's – like we talk about people working on stuff in summer camp. Like if you have 11 pitches, maybe sometimes you are actually just working on stuff. You might have been. It's still unsettling when you have an ace just get smashed like that

in their last tune-up before the games begin to count. Let's go to the AL side. I think you went bold here, and then I kind of went one step further. I love your pick, though. I think this is a guy that I actually would probably put some money on to win the award this year. Yeah, your pick, well, let's talk about my pick first. My pick, the one thing that is cool about Berrios is that he has both command and stuff.

If you look at guys who both have basically 8% better stuff in command than league average and are starters, I think there's like three names on the list. Let's see if I can find them real quick. Noah Syndergaard, who's, you know, and Jake DeGrom and Justin Verlander and Jose Barrios. So that's a good group to run in. I think it speaks well to his floor.

I jumped in on Zoom the other day to ask him about, and I'll write this up for people, but I asked him about that curveball. He was working on a second curveball, and he basically said that he's going to throw a more 12-6 curveball to lefties. He says he doesn't love it, so it's not going to be something where he's going to throw a more 12 to 6 curveball to lefties he says he doesn't he doesn't love it so it's not going to be something where he's like rich hill where he has like three

curveballs and you can do all sorts of stuff with it i do think maybe burrios might age like that and like you know end stage burrios is like a righty rich hill where he's got like three curveballs and just does all sorts of funky things but right now uh i hope to see some sort of more vertical curveballs dropped in against lefties because sometimes that curveball can go right into their wheelhouse uh because he's got that kind of three to uh three to seven uh instead of 12 to six so i think it'll be good for him 12 to six might also spin mirror with his his foreseam so i i think this is basically really high floor with more ceiling than people recognize.

Because people look maybe at his strikeout rate too often. And I'm like, you know, I think that there's something here. He also uses his changeup to lefties for soft contact. And that reduces his strikeout rate, but also has kept his homer rate manageable. So I just see it super high floor, really good team, really easy division in terms of matchups. He'll have some really cake matchups, and there's this little asterisk of maybe he can even get some more strikeouts out of his arsenal. Yeah, definitely something I mentioned with Buehler.

I think there's even more room for growth for Barrios in that regard. He's starting from a lower place. He's often kind of tethered to Aaron Nola in terms of statistical profile. We've seen a pretty wide range from Nola. I don't think we've seen the best season of Jose Barrios' career yet, though. We've probably seen Aaron Nola's. I think that should give you kind of a glimmer of

what could happen if it all clicks at once. Right, and Barrios, for some reason, is still adding velocity. He was sitting 95 in his last uh tune up whereas nola's velocity seems like a little bit more touch and go absolutely i'm gonna go frankie montes mostly because you took burritos i didn't want us to agree on any individual awards i think with montes we saw it with the splitter last year getting up to those three pitches his added

extension like you mentioned before ace hitters just seem extremely uncomfortable against them in summer camp. He was well on his way to building that sort of resume before the PED suspension last year as well. And look, I'm high on Oakland, as people are going to hear a little bit later on in this episode as well. How could it go wrong for Montas? Is there a concern maybe with the command being a little bit inconsistent? No, I am full bore on Montas. There's actually even a little asterisk that I'll write up, but apparently he's been working on his extension. So where he releases the ball, I guess this actually could affect his slider and his change up in a bad way if because where you release the

ball in space towards the plate can affect movement on pitches and uh and maybe maybe there's uh some detrimental effect to his slider and change up but he's been working on releasing the ball closer to the plate and he used to be bottom 10 percent in that he used to uh sort of short arm the ball and his trainer was talking to me on Twitter and talked to Alex Coffey for a piece that she did. And he says he's releasing the, Montez is now releasing the ball seven feet off the rubber. If that's true, he's now in a group of about seven pitchers that includes Tyler Glasnow. And even if he has a fastball like Tyler Glasnow's and there's maybe

a little bit of sluffage off of his changeup and it's not as good when he releases out there, Tyler Glassnow's pretty damn good. You know? In fact, I just wanted to... I'll do this. This is the Stuff Leaderboard. Minimum three starts in the

league this year. Tyler Glassnow, number one. Garrett Cole, number two. Tyler Glass now number one. Garrett Cole number two. Garrett Richards number three. No, two Garretts. Spelled differently. Dustin May, although some of that was accrued as a reliever, so that changes things a little bit because your velocity is always better as a reliever.

Walker Bueller. Sonny Gray. Frankie Montas. Noah Syndergaard. Luis Castillo. Jake De degrom mike clevenger justin burlander you darvish dylan sees okay i'm not going to keep reading names but that's that's the route that's the uh that's the that's the uh that's the top 11 or something i don't know how to get season there um so montas already had great stuff and now there's this possible aspect of him releasing it closer which just means that batters have less time to react um and that'll turn his he's like sitting 99 right now so that'll turn his sitting 99 into like a virtual 103

he's um plus 5 000 to lead the AL in strikeouts, which is kind of interesting. That's a fun one. That's a fun one. It's a good long shot bet, right? I like that one, yeah. The elephant in the room, of course, is another positive test or something. But I've learned from certain twins hitters

that sometimes the production doesn't drop off at all and they just figure it out. I'll leave that as vague as possible, I guess. Yeah. It's fair. I like both of these picks, by the way. If you're into props or anything, they're both reasonably long odds, I think, to actually win the award. But that strikeout one really jumped off the page to me as I was browsing through those just now.

Let's go to the NL MVP award. And I'll go first on this one. I think the key in Washington this year is actually finding a way to replace Anthony Rendon in that lineup. I don't think that's Carter Keboom's job necessarily to do all that heavy lifting. I think it's going to be a combination of players, some of the veterans they brought in, a few young players getting better. I think Victor Robles could take a step. He's our second most discussed player on this podcast behind Trevor Richards. A guy we don't talk that much about, even though he's amazing, is Juan Soto. I think Juan Soto is going to win the NL MVP this year. And the NL MVP, there are way more

high-end, elite, awesome players in the running on the NL side. It's harder to win the NL MVP right now than it is to win the AL MVP when you look at where the absolute best players in the league play right now. Yeah, by Woba, it's Christian Jelic, Juan Soto, Cody Bellinger, separated by 18 points of Woba. And Soto and Jelic are only separated by 10. So that's your, I mean, it's almost chalk, right? I think people might not recognize how much chalk it is. Like you're talking about one of the three best players in the NL winning the MVP. It's a good pick. I don't think people necessarily recognize that.

He's going to be probably a corner outfielder many days this year, and his projected Woba is 13 points lower than Soto's. So, you know, Harper shows up between Acuna and Soto. So, yeah, I like that pick a lot. I don't know that I have a better one for you necessarily. Like, what can't he do as a hitter at this point? And even chips in some steals to go along with it. I just love that he celebrates takes, dude.

That's amazing. Dude, we need someone who celebrates takes in our world. He's fun. That's a pretty fun team, actually. I had bets. Well, again, there's a lot of chalk, so then there's not necessarily one.

Bets is actually three points off of Yellich. I forgot to put him in because I mentally had him on the Red Sox still. Whoops. But the reason I think that one of the things that you kind of want to do when you're doing an MVP pick is you kind of need to pick one off a playoff team. And so I know I'm going chalkish, but the Brewers, there's more variance. They have a tougher division. They may not make the postseason.

And if there's any sort of three-way tie type situation where you've got three players that could win the MVP, people will just always give it to the one that made the postseason. Yeah, that's a good point. I think your Cy Young picks and your MVP picks should be congruent with your playoff team selections. I think that's a good point. I think your Cy Young picks and your MVP picks should be congruent with your playoff team selections. I think that's really

important because that's just how those things tend to go. If you're trying to play the odds and be smart about it, absolutely think that's the right way to do it. On the AL side, I just wanted to mention too, the projection system I was using was the Bat-X and Betts was one of

the second biggest the biggest second biggest disparity between the bat x and the regular bat meaning that stack ass really loves mookie bets so pursuant to our earlier conversation mike he also hits the ball hard stack cast loving a player is a good thing and stack cast loves your pick for the al mvp award as well but this one i told you before we started recording, it feels a little bit surprising just because of the roller coaster we've been on for health reasons, Aaron Judge. But he's healthy right now, and a guy that can mash like that

can do a lot of damage in a short season. Yeah, and it's funny too because I just finished Swing Kings. Jared Diamond's excellent book about all the different advances that have been made and these different hitting coaches that have been up there. And Aaron Judge's hitting coach is a very unlikable fellow named Teacher Man that just is ascorbic on Twitter and just a terrible Twitter presence. ascorbic on Twitter and just a terrible Twitter presence. But he really unlocked something with Aaron Judge, who I saw hit some of the most mammoth home runs ever in college off of Marco Pell here at Stanford Stadium. And I thought, here's this guy with huge power. But if you looked

at some of his minor league stops and some of his college numbers, you'd be really surprised by how few homers he hit. But once he unlocked that, you know, he's been an amazing power threat. And I could see him really easily leading the league in homers in this short season. And I think that could be, along with, you know, the Yankees making the postseason, could be just one of those sort of iconic, he hit 20 homers this year, and the Yankees making the postseason could be just one of those sort of iconic. He hit 20 homers this year, and the Yankees made the postseason, you know, giving the MVP. Yeah, I think there's every reason to believe that's possible. And I think if you look at the Bat-X projections based on Woba, he's second only to Mike Trout in the American League. I'm going to take Trout because I think it falls in line with the belief I have that he's not going to miss as much time as people expect. He's going to miss some time

when his child arrives. That's normal. That happens all the time. But if Mike Trout misses five games, maybe even seven or eight games out of this season, if he plays 52 games and his Woba's 30 to 40 points higher than anybody else's in the entire league, how is he not going to win the MVP? I guess the only thing that could work against him again is the Angels not making the playoffs, right? I guess that's... And here we go on our segues.

Zoom, zoom. I've got the Angels as a surprise wild card this year. Two breaths after I say that you got to have guys on your playoff teams, I reveal that I don't have the Angels in the playoffs. Yeah, there you go. And I do. But I do think Mike Trout

is just that much better than everybody else in the AL. And a shortened season, of course, can alter that and kind of squeeze everything together. But I just couldn't come up with a good enough case for anybody else. I have a piece that just dropped while we were talking and kind of squeeze everything together. But I, I just couldn't come up with a good enough case for anybody else. The piece, I have a piece that just dropped while we were talking about,

you know, who's helped and who's hurt the most by the short season. And the angels got, uh, picked up, uh, in the piece a little bit for getting hurt most by having no minor leagues because they are not,

uh, set up to do remote training that well. They furloughed half of their, most of their player development department. They're not even, I think they didn't pay their minor leaguers past a certain point. And so, you know, as an organization, the Angels are going to be hurt very much by the fact that there's no minor league season. However, at the major league level, I could see them being helped because uh and this is weird because i have thought that like a team like the rays is well suited to deal with depth problems

but someone said this about the blue jays too like they don't have the starting pitching for 162 but maybe they do for 60 right like if you think about how angels teams in the past have fallen apart, a lot of times it's like, oh, Haney went down, and this other guy went down, and all of a sudden Jaime Barilla was starting games. Whereas now, like, you've got Tehran, Bundy, Haney, Otani, Canning. Canning is like healthy. Andrees and Patrick Sandoval, and that's a little bit better depth than they've had in the past, and it might be just enough to get through 60. And the lineup has kind of come together too, where especially if Joe Adele comes up and does something big,

if Pujols is the worst hitter in your lineup, then you can make it happen. Yeah, there will, Bill. I think as long as Anthony Rendon's oblique injury doesn't linger too far into the season they've got a top six it's probably as but as good as anybody's in the american league uh plenty of plenty of bats that scare you so i like the supporting cast more than ever for mike trout as well it's the extra little nudge i guess in his favor as i think about the

mvp race uh let's do the nl playoff teams, though, before we get to the AL. Why? Why are you talking about the AL? Let's just do the AL. Alright, we'll flip the order. Yeah, don't be a slave to the rundown. Yeah, never. Never. I'm going to go... Here's the deal. I'm going to go with Oakland over... You're not. I'm just busting your balls.

No, it's all good. I'm going Oakland over Houston and over the Angels to win the AL West this year. I like the way this team is built. I do think there could be some questions about the depth of their bullpen. The A.J. Puck injury is brutal, but they were good without A.J. Puck for most of last year. They still had Jesus Lizardo. Lizardo, I think, is a little further along than we realized even just a few days ago,

going back to our imperfect information conversation. So I think he's a big part of their step forward. Talked about how much I like Montas as that sleeper Cy Young pick from a little bit earlier. So I think part of it too is that Houston's bullpen, to me, not special. Good at maybe the eighth and ninth inning with Presley and Ozuna, but I think they can be had. They're relying a lot more on Josh James. Some questions in the back of the rotation with Urquidy may be unavailable to begin the season. I do think, despite the fact that the

stadiums are going to be empty, the Astros still have a target on their back. And I don't mean literally they're going to get hit by a million pitches. I just think they'll get hit a little bit, but the added pressure on them this year is still there and maybe it's less than it would have been at this season started on time but i just see a few little

problems with the way that roster is built and i see good enough teams i mean i do think the angels are good i think the angels can push them i think the a's are almost on the same level so i'm going oakland is kind of my surprising division winner. And again, it falls in line with Montez having an amazing season, but it is partially some red flags with Houston. It is amazing how little we know about the value of depth. And I've tried to study it a little bit with like,

how good our teams based on how good their 25th man is and different studies like that and i and i i don't know that i truly understand the value of depth i do know that the average a's season starts out rickety um and often ends with a with a bang and usually it has something to do i think with the fact that they do a lot of platooning they have a decent amount of major league depth um They have interchangeable pieces a lot of years. And I think that's probably true this year. But they have a bit of a weakness at second with, I'm not sure that either Beretta or Kemp are major league average players. And ifhanha takes a step back then your best fourth outfielder type is chad pinder or robbie grossman whose best skill is not swinging um and um i do agree that i like this uh bullpen

petite is like one of the most underrated relievers of our time, I think. And Trevino has really great stuff and is lining up as their fifth guy. So there's something to like there. But with Puck down, the back of this rotation is Minaya throwing Adipu and Bassett basically a two-pitch pitcher that probably should go three. And then Mangdon, who relies a lot on deception, but the league has mostly seen by now um so i i didn't have the a's in i know i'll make at least one listener very mad at me but it's a crowded situation and i cannot uh not put the rays in so i have to have the yankees and

rays and i believe that they are good enough teams that they will win out. I think the Astros still make it. And so basically you're talking about another sort of Indian Angels-A's scrum, which is kind of what happened last year. And I just want to take the Angels because New Blood, I could see that stuff holding together I think Otani could win the MVP this year as a shadow AL MVP

guy and they have more youth and upside than they have recently in Adele and Otani being healthy so that was just my argument in a nutshell to remake it I guess yeah I think for me part of the interesting thing with the A's too,

I think they get a bounce back from Crush. That's big. I think Piscotti gives them a quiet little lift in their offense too. So if they lose a little bit at the Kanha spot, if they have second base issues, I think they can also address those via trade. Even if there's not a lot of trading, the A's are pretty active regardless of

direction yeah i love that so i like that they'll tweak i mean i think lizardo should be counted as a starter even he's not starting the first week so really it's montas lizardo and then fires bassett mangdon mania and then you know maybe they get to some of their depth this year maybe james caprillion or someone like that emerges to actually take on a larger role than expected as well. I think they're pretty good at finding scrap heap relievers. I think St. Louis does it well on the NL side. The A's do it pretty well on the AL side.

Pretty good balance, but an ability to tweak. I think that's the key that always makes me feel good about an Oakland prediction, too, is they will fix a weakness. That's true. If Dee Gordon doesn't play much in Seattle, his 2021 vesting option won't go through. And then he becomes kind of a cheap pickup,

I think, for a squad. And being able to kind of hide your pinch runner at an actual position on your roster, like where he can actually play, but also be your pinch runner might be a valuable thing going into the postseason where you see sometimes the postseason somebody there's like this Terran score pick up drop drop pick up drop you know session where like these different teams that are going to the postseason look for their Terran scores so I

could see a trade deadline acquisition of Dee Gordon. I guess I'm calling that right now. All right. So we don't have a lot of other controversial takes for our AL playoff teams. You mentioned the Yankees. You have them winning the vision.

I have them going to the wild cards. I have the Rays winning the vision. You have the Rays and the wild cards. So not a big difference there. Both of us have the twins winning the central. I think the White Sox are better and maybe they could be a wild card team, but they just fall short. I've got Cleveland getting that second

wildcard. You mentioned you have the Angels getting it. I think this is kind of the beginning of the end of Cleveland's window. It makes me sad that they haven't worked out a deal with Frankie Lindor, similar to the one that the Dodgers just worked out with Mookie Betts. I think Lindor is the kind of player that you would sign to an extension like that. But here we are. Maybe he ends up walking in the near future. Well, maybe it'll be Tyler Freeman time. We all love Tyler Freeman here. My bold prediction was that the Indians would outscore the Twins this year. I wanted to be bold and i also uh i think minnesota i love them but you know they had five of their hitters had peak seasons last year their best seasons ever some of them one of them was like 40 uh nelson cruz so um i could see some regression coming

out of offense of course josh donaldson will cover some of that regression, but I also wanted to point out that I do like Domingo Santana and Fran Milreis a fair amount. I like them as hitters, and I think they can hide them as outfielders. So between those two hitters and then a true bounce back from Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor, which I anticipate, and then some paper over players like Cesar Hernandez, I think that, and then some paper over players like Cesar Hernandez. I think that, and then some youthful upside in Oscar Mercado. Like, maybe not quite in Cleveland. I just, it's hard for me to pick them over the Rays. So, you know, with the Angels pick, you know, the second wild card, dude.

The second wild card in the AL is going to be a battle. In fact, I think the number one thing in the AL is going to be a battle. In fact, I think the number one thing we said when we looked at this was, oh yeah, we're having games 61, 62 and 63. Yeah. That's why we have the 11th hour reports of maybe going to a 16 team

playoff field this season, which would render these predictions pretty unusual. And while we add teams, but yeah, let's hope that doesn't, we're more likely to be right. Just more likely to get it right. If it happens that way on the NL side, a lot of agreement with the division winners. We have the Nats winning the East.

We both had the Reds winning the central. We both had the Dodgers winning the West. I don't know anybody who has any Nats winning the East. We both have the Reds winning the Central. We both have the Dodgers winning the West. I don't know anybody who has any other team winning the West. That's a bold prediction. Pick any other team to win the West even in a 60-game season. It's bold. Now, what's interesting is that you've got San Diego as a

wildcard team. We both have Atlanta. I've got Milwaukee getting there. Third time, third year in a row for the Brewers in the playoffs. First time in franchise history if that actually happens. I've got Milwaukee getting there. Third time, third year in a row for the Brewers in the playoffs. First time in franchise history if that actually happens. I still feel pretty good about them. They're Oakland-ish though. We've talked about that before. They just find ways to mask their flaws and manage the roster in game really effectively. So that squeezes both the Cardinals and Cubs out of the playoffs. Probably just wishful thinking on my part.

But obviously the most interesting prediction you made is San Diego going to the playoffs. So what goes right? How do they do it? Who gets the promotions and who comes through to make it happen? I think Patino and Gore are just massive, massive chips to have this season. chips to have this season.

The Padres can field a roster that is projected for 32 wins, which basically would tie them for the second wildcard. That they can do this with 31 innings projected from Gore and zero from Patino um i think uh says that there's more upside beyond what fangraphs is capturing with their depth charts um i think this is a team that'll very likely either put gore on the opening day roster before i say that check on the name and look uh i don't think they've submitted their roster yet but either put him on the opening array roster or get him up there as soon as possible to

basically get in there in the third inning on Lucchese and Davies starts is what I'm saying now you take Gore and Patino and you put them in in the third inning and you make Lucchese and Davies sort of bulk openers types, I think then this rotation gets really sexy.

Paddock, I believe in. Garrett Richards, you know, I just told you he's top ten and stuff. Denilson Lemaitre, yes, he can't go long, but in a season like this, you could get eight strikeouts in five innings from him and maybe three walks. strikeouts and five innings from him uh and maybe three walks but um you know like a young chris archer type to to field behind uh chris paddock who like this is uh hyperbole but mad ducsian a little bit just in the fact that he has really bendy pitches and a very good command of all those all those pitches at least i would describe describe his upside as Maddox. So you have your kind of Maddox,

Lumet a little bit in your kind of young smolts, like kind of Archer, Chris Archer mold. And then Gore as your Tom Glavin. I think it actually fits out like kind of cool. I'm not saying that they are all these things now. I'm saying that they have that upside. Gore is a change-up artist, you know? And the Patino, I think is just,

he's more of my sort of Smoltzian pick, but you just, they have the, they have, and then Cal Quantrill is like a totally competent dude. And Adrian Morahan is like a fire, fire breathing dude. They coming out of the,

out of the, out of the pen. So like, yes, they've lost some guys. I think Jose Castillo is hurt. Andres Munoz, who throws 100, is hurt. But they seem to be really good at turning out relievers behind them.

I even like a guy like Perdomo in the bullpen. And Javier Guerra, the guy who used to be a shortstop, is throwing really hard. And they went and got Tim Hill, who's all funk. And Drew Pomerantz will end up being a big deal. So they really made a really great bullpen that has a lot of depth, and they have depth in the starting pitching. And all they need, really, I think, on the offensive side is Manny to return to Mannydom

and Grisham and Oliveras to kind of combine to be uh sort of a credible maybe above average major league starter yeah they might just be a team that's really good at preventing runs and doesn't have to score a ton so they might be able to out pitch their own ability to score runs a lot of times we talk about teams out hitting their pitching the padres are certainly kind of built the opposite way I do like that bullpen a lot the game's basically over in the seventh inning in San Diego if those relievers do what they're supposed to do. Pagan, Pomerantz, Yates I mean Stammen is just really credible too so like Stammen and Hill are credible and Strom was way better out of the pen so I mean that's really that goes six deep and I haven't even gone into some of their

younger guys that could come up. The second wildcard battle, both wildcards in both leagues. Some of the division battles could be just absolutely intense this year. Let's go to the World Series winner, Eno, who's coming away with the title this year. I'm going chalk. The Yankees are just stacked. They're just so stacked.

You're like, oh, that guy goes down. What if that guy goes down? Well, it doesn't matter. They got this guy. What if that guy? They got this guy. They're built for bad news. Even in the bullpen, Chapman goes down,

and you've got Zach Britton, who has had one of the three best relief seasons in the history of baseball. It's nice. Definitely nice to have that. They're well-built everywhere, so it totally makes sense. I'm going to go with the Twins. I think this is a well-run organization. We've talked about some of the players we really like. Good offense, a team that can play good defense in a few crucial spots as well. A healthy Byron Buxton, I think, is part of how they get there. Barrios being dominant is how they get there.

Maximizing the value of some of those depth pitchers, especially. As long as Odorizzi's back injury is not serious, I actually like him quite a bit, especially at the price he was going for in fantasy leagues this season. We talked a lot about Rich Hill. If he's healthy, he's still going to be really good. So there's just a lot of things that kind of fall into place there. And they have a sneaky good bullpen, too. I think Minnesota is one of those teams that that if you don't watch them a lot, you don't necessarily think of them as one of the league's best bullpens.

Taylor Rodgers, Romo, Trevor May, Tyler Duffy, they're another one of those teams. Once you get to that seventh inning, look out, especially in a shortened season. If that core group of four stays healthy, they can do damage to get those last nine outs. You know what it reminds me of too is the uh the good baltimore orioles bullpens um it's not all gas you know the the the yankees

bullpens are a little bit more traditional in terms of like oh they all throw 98 right but for the twins they've got sergio romo who throws like 86 they they. And if you remember the Orioles bullpens when they were good, they had like O'Day, you know, and they had all these just like funky arm slots. And I just can't imagine like you're sitting there trying to get at bats against Rich Hill, and then Tyler Klippert is the first guy you see after Rich Hill. It's like you can almost not think of a more opposite situation.

Tyler Klippard. Burrios goes six and you decide to bring in one of your lefties, like Smelter for an inning or something. That's a different look. Yeah. And I think there is actually a little bit of evidence that there is kind of look that this kind of thing actually does. The way that I would go and talk about this

is that Tim Wakefield and the knuckleball, there is a knuckleball fatigue effect where the guy who comes in after the knuckleballer does better than you expect because the knuckleball is so different. But I would argue that that effect actually you could spread around to other kinds of arm slot and movement differences.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely makes sense to me. So there you have it. Those are our predictions. Part one of our predictions was on our episode on Tuesday. Tell us why we're right and why we're wrong. Of course, we're always happy to entertain those comments on Twitter and, of course, via email, ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com.

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That's 20% off with free shipping at manscaped.com and use code theathletic. And for a limited time, subscribers get not one, but two free gifts, a travel bag, which is a $39 value, and the patented high-performance Manscaped boxer briefs. So go to manscaped.com today and use the code THEATHLETIC. All right, you know, as promised in passing earlier on this episode, with opening day being today, many of our listeners are going to enjoy a nice beverage. So we're going to do a bonus beer of the week. What are you going to go with today? What are you going to, as you enjoy the first couple of matchups of this 2020 season?

I've been feeling a little bit nostalgic for the goats of, uh, craft beer. And so I've had in my fridge, uh, recently a lot of Pliny the elder and also society the pupil and those two beers are beers that when i first started drinking craft beer were very unattainable and hard to find and i had to go through great lengths to get them. I had to drive up to Sonoma County.

I had to drive up to see my family in Santa Rosa and get Pliny. I had to drive down to see my family in San Diego to get Societies the Pupil. And both of those, as a sort of side business update situation thing, where both of those breweries actually just started canning and bottling and distributing more widely right before COVID. And so they both got a little lucky in terms of expanding their model past just kind of almost a brew house only approach. And so I, you know, I raise a cap to them for timeliness, good forethought, and two great beers that are not hazy, are not gimmicky in any way, do not have an 80s-themed bottle. There is nobody with sunglasses on it.

There is no pun in the name. is no pun in the name. They are named after classic entities that we all know about in sort of a classic way. The bottle design is classic. And somehow, a little bit of nostalgia feels right when everything has been going so wrong. Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at, too. I'm going to go with an old standby. I'm going to get some new Golaris beers. Probably going to have some Spotted Cow later today. Very prototypical Wisconsin. Only available here, as we've talked about many times before. But the comfortable beer is definitely something I'm thinking a lot about.

Going to fire up some hot dogs too. Probably maybe some brats. I think I got to get both at some point this weekend. Maybe hot dogs today, brats tomorrow to pair with it. Spotted Cow, though, it's a farmhouse ale. It's sweet. It's very sessionable. I think it's the kind of beer that just about anybody who tries one will enjoy it.

I think as long as it hasn't been hyped up too much in their mind before they have it. And as I've said before, New Golaris makes amazing beers that they are not known for at all. Spotted Cow is just the flagship beer. You walk into a beer, you walk into a bar, a restaurant, supper club, any place in the state, you see the tap, the white tap with the green Wisconsin logo and the cow on it. They have it. They have it at the airport. They have it on the side of the road, it feels like some places. And it's a great beer for opening day. It's a great beer for any day, but definitely one that I'll probably revisit here with the season getting underway.

If you're enjoying this show on a platform that allows you to rate and review it, please take a moment to do that. We greatly appreciate it. As I mentioned earlier, get 40% off a subscription at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. And we've got a show coming up tomorrow,

so be sure to check that out and let us know what you think. Do you like three rates and barrels every week do you like us deviating from some of the fantasy topics that are interwoven into our regular shows we're definitely looking for some feedback as we get that show off the ground as i mentioned before you can email us rates and barrels at the athletic.com be sure to spell the word and if you do that on twitter he's enoceris i'm at derrick van riper That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. Enjoy opening day. We are back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.