Rates & Barrels - Opening Day Thoughts & Predictions Live From Barebottle Brewing

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

Eno, Trevor, and DVR are live from Barebottle Brewing in San Francisco on Opening Day of baseball in the US. They break down some of the big games from Opening Day and give their predictions on each division and who is going to win the World Series. Rundown 0:57 Wilmer Flores' Go Ahead Homer & Early Opening Takeaways 15:23 NL West Predictions 27:18 NL Central Predictions 38:29 NL East Predictions 48:18 A Toast of Kayaker's Cove w/Barebottle Co-Founder Lester Koga 55:01 AL West Predictions 1:04:51 AL Central Predictions 1:16:48 AL East Predictions 1:26:53 Postseason Predictions 1:29:50 Listener Questions e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris With: Trevor May Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey I'm Robert Vinlow and I'm from New York Times Games and I'm here talking to people about Wordle and the Wordle Archive. Do you all play Wordle? I play it every day. Alright I have something exciting to show you. It's the Wordle Archive. What? Okay that's awesome. So now you can play every Wordle that has ever existed. There's like a thousand puzzles. Wordle Archive. Oh cool. Now you can do yesterday's Wordle if you missed it. Yeah. New York Times game subscribers can now access the entire Wordle archive. Find out more at nytimes.com slash games. Welcome to Rates and Barrels!

Happy opening day. It is Thursday, March 27th. Derek VanRyper, Enos Saris, Trevor May, all here with you. Thank you to all of you for being here live with us today. How are our levels? Can you hear us? Can we turn it up? Go louder?

Louder. Unanimous louder. All right. Still louder or good turn it up? Go louder? Louder. Unanimous louder. Alright, still louder or good now? Good? Comfortable? That's good. More loud? That's probably about right. I don't want to hurt anybody down here, but yeah. You know I will get excited at some point.

You know we'll get louder. Guaranteed. Absolutely guaranteed. Thanks to the good folks here at Bear Bottle. This has been a fantastic day so far. Great opening day for Giants fans. I want to talk about opening day highlights. Holy cow, Wilmer Flores, go ahead home run off of probably one day closer, Ian Jabeau for the Reds.

I love that we talked about the Reds bullpen. They named four different guys that could get saves. Ian Jabeau wasn't one of them. Gets the opportunity. Eno, rushing in a first come first serve leagueerve league tries to pick him up actually gets beat on the waiver wire but it all worked out for the best and Giants fans go home happy. I definitely pulled out my phone and was like, you're gonna get him, 2018 league and it's the league that I'm in with Derek and he was like my hands are in my pockets I don't care. No thank you. I'm like I

gotta get him I gotta get him and then somebody beat me to him and then he grew up safe so I was like okay good good you can get him. I gotta get him. And then somebody beat me to him. And then he grew up to say, so I was like, OK, good, good. You can have him before. Just before we started recording, I saw that the Pirates bullpen blew a wind for Paul Skeens. It was Colin Holderman and David Bednar combining to give up three runs to the Marlins in two innings somehow. Trevor, if that happens and you get to the same situation

next time out in Pittsburgh, just hold him and get the eighth and Bednar get the ninth again, do you just run it back? Yep, you do. I mean, you can't panic after one game. So, but... Do you roll a jabot back out there? Probably not. The other two guys have been in those roles for a while, even though Bednar's trying to

figure some stuff out. So I'm sure that's not how he wanted to start. But yeah, you run him back out. I know Shelty pretty well, too. He's gonna run him back out. Also, if your name is Colin Holderman, you get the Holt. Yeah, that should be your role very clearly. Some other opening day highlights so far. Austin Wells hit a leadoff homer for the Yankees off of Freddie Peralta.

And Austin Wells is not your prototypical leadoffoff hitter but how do you feel about that? Seeing him atop that order in that ballpark as a lefty with some power, what are we thinking with Austin Welles? Is he a late riser? If you have not drafted as of opening there, you moved him up your board. Yeah. I mean, we know, like there would be other things we're going to come up with this and you were saying this earlier, but like, the managers lie.

And so they could have said, yeah, we're looking at him as lead off, and then he batted, you know, anywhere from 5th to 9th on that opening day. But the proof of the pudding is, they actually batted him lead off. That's gonna get him more played appearances. I mean, I watch a lot of little league games, you put your best player first. So, Austin Wells, they think is their best batter better than Aaron Judge better go get him. That is Aaron Boone philosophy. I like the little league team. How about this one Trevor? Nikki Lopez pitched for the Angels on opening day. What an opening day to be. Are there any Angels fans here? It's okay we have a prize for you. If you're an Angels fan you can admit it. They don't exist. They are not. Okay what are you doing? That's the most angels thing I've ever heard of. Getting blown out by the White Sox on opening day has to be the most deflating possible way to begin the 2025 season.

It should be virtually impossible to have to throw a position player on opening day because no one has pitched. Yeah. You should throw your whole bullpen before that happens to avoid this embarrassment. But you know. Well, they're kind of interesting because they did throw Ryan Johnson, who skipped the final days completely. And I would assume that if you do something like that, it's to give him a major league

opportunity and soak up innings. And he was apparently one of the most prolific college pitchers of the last two years before he got drafted and he went five outs so I guess that's what you do. You don't really want a kid like that who never pitched in the minor leagues to wear it worse than five runs in five outs right like you don't want him to go put up a 10 spot, right? Yeah, you definitely don't. You might never recover. Yeah. It's already hard enough to be in your first opening day

to make your debut in a game where you're getting blown out and you're part of the reason that that's happening. It can be bad and there's not high expectations for the team already. So you want these guys to have confidence because you want the young guys to be your core moving forward. I just, I don't know.

It feels like a, feels a little bit like a Ron Washington be mentally tough move. A little bit, you gotta learn. Throw him in the deep end type of situation. Take your lumps, kid. We've already taken cell phones away in the clubhouse for the Angels. What's next?

What's Watch's next card? Well, funny fact about that. I had a comment on that recently too, and I was corrected that Logan Ahoppe recently said that it was the players that came up with the rule. No. Wow. But it sounds like Wash does because he's very into it.

He's like, yeah, they shouldn't be doing that. Like, he made it up. But no, they approached him and said, hey, we want to do this. And he was on board. No way. It was like Ahoppy and Neto and Trout. No way. We're like, we're good. Let's just do it.

Well, I mean, the positive of it is like, the thing that Telephones has done to us, the rot it has introduced into our brains is that we can barely be present sometimes. And like, you know, even while I'm hanging out with people, thank you all for coming out. It's been so great meeting so many of you. I'm hanging out with people, thank you all for coming out. It's been so great meeting so many of you. I'm hanging out with people, and I want to be present with them.

And Ian Jabbot is closing, and I run to myself all day. Sorry, sorry, I know. Really nice to meet you, but I got to pick up Ian Jabbot right now. It's for work. You know, it's for work. And yeah, exactly, with the wife and the kids, you're like, I'm sorry It's a work thing, you know, and you know, so I wonder you know to some extent

They're just like let's let's try to be present. I had a slightly different viewpoint on it where it was Gibson Kurt Gibson Was the manager for the diamondbacks and he implemented it? he was a very he was a very old school manager and he implemented it and I thought that I could see the eye rolls from a mile away just you know like just players being like I gotta call my wife and now I have to walk outside into the concourse or like walk you know find some place and like like I'm surreptitiously calling my wife from like the bowels of some stadium. Yeah. You know, and there's people can see me fans who can see me being like,

Oh, look there's. Yeah. I think it's just, there might've been, might've been getting out of hand where guys were, everyone was on their phones at the same time. Sometimes there's some music playing or where it was very obvious. That's usually when that stuff comes up. I, like nobody, I used to be like, oh it's so weird you're FaceTime in the clubhouse,

but now I have children and I know what that's, I wanna do it right now. Hey, I know it's a mobile pod, but what's up? So I get it and I just think it's just a vibe. They were just probably looked around like, what are we doing guys? Go to the weight room or something, right? And I like it then, but I like the players,

send a message if anything, they send it to the other guys, like we're just gonna focus, focus up, probably won't be an issue, and we'll go from there. It's only one day, but on the other side of that, Sean Burke pitched really well, one of your sleepers for this season,

you know, he goes six scoreless, three Ks, just three hits allowed. I know Tim Anderson was hitting fifth, he struck out three times for the Angels today, probably won't be in that five spot very long, but I think he got him pretty happy. Sean Burke getting an opening day win. Yeah, I was pretty happy with that. And the one thing that was funny was that somebody was like, aren't you worried about his Velo being down? And I did. I had that little like, oh God, because he's such a fastball-centric guy. He doesn't really have great secondaries. He's a pronator He's it reminds me a little bit of Tobias Myers where he's got a good fastball with good ride

And he's got a good change-up, but he struggles to put together good breaking balls And so like I think a loss of a of a tick or two I'd be like oh Thanks in a little bit, and he's not gonna get you wins in Chicago anyway. I checked he was down a half tick in spring. I don't know what to do with that. It's not too much to be worried about. And then the nice thing is he didn't cost you, anybody who did pick him up, he didn't cost you anything. And he started out with a nice, having the angels on the roster there for him for a start first start was good and today 94 and a half pretty much I pretty much identical the last year so I still like him the whiffs came mostly off of the four scene

but he'd managed to get 29% whiffs on the slider so I think it's a kind of a sweepy slider at 81 I think I think he's a kind of a sweepy slider at 81. I think I think he's gonna put it together get you like six to seven wins and and be a decent pitcher this year. The other really big pitching performance we saw Mackenzie Gore 13 K's six scoreless one hit wasn't good enough to get a win unfortunately but that's dominance against a really good Philly lineup and what do you think the key is going to be for Gore to put all the pieces together this year Trevor? It's just been command with him and health. When I played against him when he's in San Diego

and he's a rookie I was like this guy's got electric stuff and I think they saw that and that's why you know that's why he was in the big package for Soto I think he's there I know Josiah Gray was kind of the the front of the line guy last year until he got hurt Mackenzie Gore's got the highest ceiling so he could be a bona fide ace If you strike out 13 in six scoreless in a major league baseball game, you have the potential to be a number one we in six scoreless in a Major League Baseball game, you have the potential to be a number one. We have a lot of opening day memories we've gathered over the years.

I was just thinking about that Giants home run that Wilmer Flores did. That might be pretty high on the list for a lot of the Giants fans that are here. My favorite opening day memory for at least the game that I was at, Lorenzo Kane pulled back a game tying home run in Milwaukee against the Cardinals in 2019, began the not-today era of that entire season. He pulled a lot

of home runs back in 2019. If anybody here remembers who hit that ball for the Cardinals, you get the correct answer. We have a free one-year subscription to the Athletics. Just shout out if you hear it. That's for new subscribers. If you already are a subscriber, we have a bare-bottle pint glass if you'd like. No We'll see if anyone comes up with it. You can come up with it any time during the show. Don't look it up Like that's no fun. Yeah, don't look it up. Got any more guesses? Cardinals? Random Cardinals? Name that card. Matt Carpenter. It's not Matt Carpenter.

I really want that pint glass. Yeah, it's a guy we all thought was gonna be good from a fantasy perspective Yes Closer that's good. You're getting closer He was once acquired to possibly stave off the Eric Hosmer deal But instead they signed Eric Hosmer anyway and just released this guy. He was a He was a big guy close. He was a ray He was a ray No, no good but

But there's no low k-rate guy big power everyone thought hey if he just gets 500 plate appearances He's gonna be on all our fantasy teams gonna win you a title. It's not gonna cost you anything Never quite work gets 500 plate appearances, he's gonna be on all our fantasy teams, he's gonna win you a title, it's not gonna cost you anything. It never quite worked out. That's a good name that dude poll though, I kind of forgot about Ryan Klesko until just now. That guy was a big donkey. Yeah. No, it was Jose Martinez. There was a blast from the past. That is who you were thinking of, right? That the guy you were thinking of? I was thinking Matt Adams.

Oh, you were thinking of Mel again. Yeah, Matt Adams. To be honest, I've been like, yeah, that's who I was thinking of Matt Adams. Oh, you were thinking of MeloKaz. To be honest, I've been like, yeah. That was me. How about you guys? Favorite opening day memories? Trevor, you got to play. Do you have any opening days that stood out? Well, we were talking about this before, and I was like, is it bad that I can't remember anything standing out from any of my opening days? But it's because my rookie year I didn't make opening days. My second year I came up the second day, so I didn't get to do that either.

And the third one we started 0 and 9. So that didn't feel good. I think my two big ones were probably my first opening day with the Mets. We got COVID-ded out against the Nationals so we had to go play the Phillies. And then I got my first loss by blowing the game in the seventh. Well not not true I had the base of runners out there and then loop gave them up and then like didn't give up any runs for the rest of the year. Alright so you know it worked out bad. Teammated you on opening day. Big bad teammate thing. One of the worst days to be a bad teammate. I'm trying to think

of a positive one maybe 2023 A's win our first game, and then we just don't talk about the next 61. Did you say you went 11 and 55 or something? We went 11 and 50 in the next 64 years. Did you win a day game before July that year? That was the, we won that day game, and then we didn't win another day game until July. That's incredible.

Yeah, there was a lot of stuff going on that year. I have a negative opening day one too, until July. That's incredible. Yeah, there was a lot of stuff going on that year. I have a negative opening day one too, which is I remember opening day the first time I have credentials, I'm working at Oakland Stadium and I'm trying to get, I'm working at the call scene and I'm trying to get a seat in the press box and I call the day before opening day and I'm like I don't know what this credential does you know do I get a seat and she's like you're calling me the day before opening day no I don't have a seat for you and I was like oh

but I thought my credential gets me a seat and she's like oh are you big timing me now you're you're a mr. who are you saying you don't know who I am I'm like no I said I just I literally don't know what this card does for me. I just got it. I just thought it got me a seat. And she's like, yeah, you can have a seat over with the radio people. Oh, and so for the next eight years, I sat with the radio people and never asked for an actual seat to any game. I just took my lumps for eight years.

And then I also talked to the opening day pitcher in the clubhouse that day, which is a big no-no. I'm not supposed to do that. I'm not supposed to talk to the pitcher on his start. So I made just a series of bumbling errors and just felt like a total idiot. So that was a big opening day memory for me. As a kid, I don't really remember being like this is opening day I remember a lot I remember games I remember being you know overwhelmed with like emotion and being at games but I don't remember like being out on opening day and being like aware as a kid that I was at opening day I

yeah I went to a quite a few opening days for a while a lot of blowouts in Milwaukee a lot of disappointing opening days but that Lorenzo Kane one really pops for me. But this, very high on the list, amazing to see all of you out here. So thank you all so much for being here. We did some bold predictions earlier in the week. We're gonna have regular predictions. We're gonna talk about division winners,

some of the things that we expect to see, and things we're excited to see over the course of this season, since we're in Giants territory down here. We're gonna start start with the NL West and I think when you ask it's about anybody who's going to win the division the typical response is it's the Dodgers. Fine, okay I can accept that they're the clear favorites but of the other teams in the NL West who is most likely to put that 2021 Giants type season together and put pressure on the Dodgers and maybe make things interesting in this division longer than people are expecting and maybe

even win it in the end as a bit of a long shot. Is it the Giants? Nope. No? I don't think so. Of course you made me answer first. Another sad opening day of memory. You got booed at a live show.

It's like I threw it to you. I think the two teams you have to talk about would be Arizona and San Diego, but I think that just star power alone, like San Diego, if Manny and Tatis are just having ridiculous years at the same time, that team gets really good really fast it's just ceiling stuff but it's just well that all that usually never happens but I think Arizona is a more complete team that that is quality I just don't know if they're a hundred and five win team I just you know I wouldn't be surprised

if they won 90 right right yeah the ceiling the Padres ceiling seems higher I would say the Giants and Diamondback ceilings are similar. Yeah, it's gonna be a battle I think those are all for for for playoff caliber teams Rockies are still just not there. Yeah, it's sad I'm sorry if there any Rockies fans here at least your team didn't play today It's actually probably a good thing if you're a Rockies fan Not a loss the the The there was a piece today on baseball perspective yesterday where they

ran the projection machine, the Bacota projection machine and like they did a thousand times and they looked at the different outcomes. In one of the outcomes the Dodgers and the Yankees both won like a hundred and eighteen games and there were like six teams that either won a hundred or lost a hundred and that was the like no middle-class outcome, you know But they had another one where no team won more than 94 Across the entire league and it was like the everyone's middle-class one And I think that the Yankees and the Dodgers have a way higher collapse percentage

Than maybe we even can appreciate right now because we look at projections and we say oh you know the Yankees are projected for what is it here what's only 87 wins on this right now but the Dodgers predicted for 97 so like these are good teams but start thinking about the components be like Otani's on a bum shoulder you know like right now we don't know you know what he'll do on the whole season. He's not even supposed to pitch till July. The rotation is full of like Roki Sasaki who like turned down Tommy John surgery at some point

and throws 98 and glass now and like all these people, these kids all break apart. Just remember, like there was a part, there was a time last year where I was talking and I don't wanna blow up Fabian's spot a little bit, but like I was in the clubhouse with Fab time last year where I was talking to, and I don't want to blow up Fabian's spot a little bit, but I was in the clubhouse with Fabian last year, and I was like, this is still a good team, right? And he goes, I don't think they're making the playoffs.

Last year, because there was a time earlier in the season where everyone was hurt, and they were like, we don't know what we're gonna do, and they were starting more land and knack than they ever thought they were gonna have to. And I think that you could see that this year, were like this is a fairly old team there are I really it's really obvious when you look at The Yankees I think you're like oh you're starting third first baseman is 37 and like you know I see how this could go badly You know you know judge but gets bust the toe and you know Austin Wells is your leadoff guy and catchers get hurt all

The time you know like it I could see how the Yankees go bad but I can also see how the Dodgers go bad so I think to answer your question I think there is a team in this division that could win like 97 wins and win the division on a Dodgers team that like got hit by a lot of injuries and slits slides to 87 or 88 or 89 or even 91 or whatever. And I think it's the Padres. Today, Tatis hit a homer and stole a base. That's not why I'm betting my prediction on.

But he's 26 years old. And that's the peak age. And if you think about what he's gone through and the ups and downs, and even if you think about them statistically, what you'll see is a guy who is at times he's struck out too much and at other times he's had the power and he's had the power and struck out too much or he struck out less and had less power what if he does the two good things at the same time you know and he has a year where he strikes out 20% of the time is running around on the base pass, and brings that energy,

and Machado kind of grows into his leadership role. I mean, it's all there. They don't have depth. So that's, they don't really, if there's too much Terso or Anelis in their lives, it might not work out. But in terms of star power and everybody stays healthy, and a lot of times, these great years

are when everyone stays healthy, and they just sort of get lucky on the health front. Yeah, they don't and a lot of times these great years are when everyone stays healthy and they just they just sort of get lucky on the health front. Yeah they don't have a lot of reinforcements in terms of the system because they've traded so many guys away but adding Pavetta, keeping that rotation intact, always having a good bullpen, keeping most of that group together other than losing Tanner Scott and Free Agency, they're still gonna be good in run prevention. Jackson Merrill could be the third part of that superstar trio if he takes even another small step forward, that gives them maybe the best,

one of the best three player combos among position player groups in the entire league. So they can still hang. They can still hold their own, even against the Dodgers team that does have more depth. So I think I agree with that call, but I guess this kind of fits into the, what are you excited to see this year?

Corbin Burns with the Diamondbacks. Like there's something that happens in the conversation around Corbin Burns where Orioles fans are just devastated they lost them and all the analysis on the Orioles they lost Corbin Burns they can only take a step back no one seems to be talking up the Diamondbacks adding Corbin Burns to an already solid rotation right I mean this is a really good starting five and we saw last, they put more runs on the board than any team in baseball.

That stat will surprise me forever. So they can score runs. They've got great starting pitching. They added the bullpen last year. Maybe it's not the deepest bullpen, but at least their A bullpen is good with Puck, Martinez, and Ginkle. And some of the guys are gonna be leaning on often in those close games so I can see the Diamondbacks being a

little more dangerous than they're getting credit for too. Yeah I can tell Marte is a top-five MVP guy he's he's he's almost the the Jose Ramirez of the NL for me yeah they just don't talk about him he's quietly having an extremely productive season Corbin Carroll's there. And you mentioned the rotation. We got Corbin Burns. Gallon's already the opening day starter every year anyways. They already had their ace.

Merrill Kelly is, you know exactly where you're getting there. Eduardo Rodriguez, before he got hurt, was one of the most consistent pitchers in the league. And Brandon Fats, they're five and he threw 181 innings last year. If that's all you, if the guy throws a four and a half but throws 180 innings and he threw 181 innings last year. Like, that is, if that's all you, if the guy throws a four and a half but throws 180 innings and he's your five, you'll take it. So, you know, that boats for the bullpen

and then Justin Martinez in the back end is just, I'm just waiting for him to turn a switch and just not give up a hit for two months. He's got that kind of stuff. So, they're exciting. I mean, they, we'll see, we'll see how, it's gonna be interesting to see how Burns' stuff moves and chases and going to Colorado a little bit more, which he sees

a little bit of a different picture, but I don't think it's going to affect him much. He's got great command. But he's a true ace. So they have the true ace and they have the almost MVP caliber, you know, middle lineup guy, like that could be it. Yeah, I think that a little bit rests on like Corbin Carroll, maybe Jordan Lawler, like, you know, and Nailer, you know, and Nailer, like maybe one of these like kind of mid career younger guys, because Cattell Martell, like you're like, well, that's he's mostly going to step like he's not going to be as good as last year. You kind of assume that. And so, you know, and Lourdes Grille Jr. is older.

And so you're looking for somebody to step into the next level. And one thing that I think about Corbin Carroll is that in this spring, he was able to lift the ball, lift the ball with authority, and not strike out. And that's when he's at his best. And so I had him as a dark horse prediction for the MVP. Because if he is playing gold glove caliber left field defense and running and putting

up a season where he hits 280, goes 30-30, 30-40, something like that, maybe he can even push it and get into some show hay. I know it's show hay, it's show hay. I know it's show hay. But if show hay falls back or is hurt or something then Corbin is the type of guy who could step into that that attention I mean I think that's one thing about the Giants as much as I like them there's still this kind of residue of like these are a lot of good parts that fit together and

that is what happened in the big season was like all these little good parts that fit together they didn't have like an MVP type guy on that team either. You know, so maybe we overvalue that sometimes because when I look at this team I'm like, oh, these are a lot of good everyday players that play good defense, you know, make contact, hit for power, you know, this could fit together really well and I think their biggest strength for the Giants will be the starting rotation. I think it really goes seven or eight deep. If you put Hicks in that bullpen I think it's one of the best bullpens in the big league. So if it does happen for the Giants it's not gonna be with an MVP candidate. I think if it does happen for the Diamondbacks

it's a little bit more about Corbin Carroll taking that next step. Yeah with the Giants and you could see if Hicks is a reliever I like that bullpen a lot better at least the A bullpen but they've always had the funk for their B bullpen. I think that's what you want if you're your fourth fifth six relievers aren't dominant You want them to be different the Giants continue to tick that box? but their fourth and fifth relievers are Randy Rodriguez and like Lou Trevino and I don't know and Sean Ajeli who's like seven feet tall and releases the ball sidearm It's it's it's a good bullpen. It's sidearm. It's a good bullpen.

It's a weird look. It's a good bullpen. Yeah, and projection wise, looking at fan graphs, 81.2 wins for the Giants, 81.6 for the Padres. There's something in the perception of those two teams that might be a little bit off when you add Willie Adames and Free Agency, you do the extension with Matt Chapman. It's a different roster already than what the Giants

were trying to follow up that 2021 season with plus It's the Buster Posey era. There are people I saw at the dog park here yesterday that were excited about Buster being in charge He is loved out here. He is why? Can't imagine why? But it's like it's so funny. It's like he's the president of baseball operations and people are excited about that. Like that's cool He ain't crap. What has he ever done? We were just talking about the the grand slam off of Matt Latos the team is down 2-0 in Cincinnati they're dead in the water. Nope grand slam off Matt Latos we're back in this

thing let's win a ship together boys. Yeah easy to see why Buster Posey is loved out here. But you don't usually get that kind of response for someone being in a front office role. It's true. You don't usually get someone like Buster Posey taking on the front office role. Usually you just sail off into the sunset, come back, sign some autographs.

A lot of the other former players were not as good as players. I mean, like Jerry DiPoto was a former player. Yeah, you forget sometimes. I mean, he wasn't good. He was better than you think actually. He played for nine years. Really? Yeah. Whoa. He had a long career. Yeah I'm getting his fan refs phased up. So we actually we like the teams putting pressure on the Dodgers at least for a few different reasons. That division might be a little tighter than the projections would

lead us to believe but we all expect the Dodgers to win. If you had to actually make a prediction, it's the Dodgers, right? Fair enough. Let's move on to America's Division, the NL Central. Who brings home the NL Central title? Go ahead, try to appease me here. The Cubs! I hate you.

Why? Why this year? Well, Picota loves them. Picota loves them. Picota has them with 92 wins, loves their offense, and I'm starting to get it, dude, because Pico Alves-Arm is a different guy in the second half, and you already, you're adding him to the mix with Kyle Tucker, Dansby Swanson, Ian Happ, these are all like lungepale offensive guys. They all like walk and don't strike out too much or have enough power. And then you have Nico Horner just peppering with balls and play.

One thing that reminds me of a little bit is I always had this idea of like lineup diversity where you're like, some guys hit for power, some guys get on base, and some guys just make contact. And I had this idea that like, if you put together the perfect lineup where everyone's doing different things, that would be better almost than even having one of the best lineups with the same guy over and over again.

And I think it has to do with matchups. Let's say we have a bunch of guys who hit fly balls and hit them really hard. Well, they're probably scoopy. And then you probably, as a pitcher, you have probably a couple pitchers who can come in and be like, oh, we're just going to top of the zone these guys all day, right? But if you have a guy who's line driving everywhere and then you have a scoopy guy and you have a you know flat swing guy it's going to be harder to kind of get them out all the way and I and I was actually looking at Miguel Amaya and this spring he's one of the

best uh uh like standouts and you've been saying for a while that you like Miguel Amaya. If Miguel Amaya is the worst hitter on your team, and you're, you have the organizational cojones to just put Matt Shaw out there, you know, and just say what I was saying earlier, that the Giants should have done with Elliott Ramos, like, four or five years ago, which is just put the guy out there and believe in him.

Yeah. You know? And so Sean and Maya are your young guys that you're saying, hey, play good defense, be in the bottom of the lineup. You know, we're going to give you some rope out there, and we're going to win games without you for a while, and then you're going to start to get it together. So I don't know that I am completely in love with the starting rotation, but it's also full of kind of lunch

paley pitchers that all can get outs. They're all kind of veteran guys that know what they do. And the bullpen is better than it's been. I can't say it's one of my favorites in the league, but it's better than it's been. They had to go to work on it, and they did. So it's kind of one of those teams that may be just coming together. Well, you mentioned some spring training performances.

So I'm going to bring up the big one. Jackson Churio and the Brewers are going to win it again this year. Because they always seem to do it and I don't understand why. It's the Guardians effect, right? They just find a way. They could throw Scrabble tiles against the wall put a Bunch of random names had made and I bet yep I probably developed pretty well and gonna get a for that guy probably throws 98 Have you heard anything about their coaching or anything like I I just know that people say their coaching is good and my

I was saying their coaching was good I've heard a lot it always came to Sterns and he's not there anymore but the whole crew that was with him is and and file accounts Murphy's on the same page as well, so I he's not there anymore but the whole crew that was with him is and and by all accounts Murphy's on the same page as well so I I like cherry a lot I think they have a lot of good young talent and they just kind of end up getting the job done it's kind of like that's that's really yeah really all it is I think that Trevor McGill is gonna be a stud back into the bullpen I think he finally

found his place and how he's gonna pitch just gonna take over for for for Williams And they're just gonna have another closer. You ain't kidding about Churio spring, dude. Yeah, he would like 500 469 509 714 with a 13 percent strikeout rate and a lot of those balls in play I don't know if I believe it obviously I don't think't think he's going to hit 4.69. But a 13% strikeout rate, that's not where he lived last year. He hit like 50 at bats. Yeah. He got some reps. Yeah.

20-plus hits this spring. Pretty good. Pretty good. All right, so Trevor's on the Brewers. Eno's on the Cubs. I, of course, have to pick the Brewers. I watch them every day, and I can't tell you how they do it It seems like every year gets a little thinner the roster gets a little thinner. They lose the key player

They find a way to backfill. It's the player development the projection this division are airtight on fan graphs You had the Cubs projected for eighty two point nine wins Brewers eighty one point six Cardinal seventy eight point nine red seventy eight to Pirates seventy eight the Pirates definitely feels a little better than the Pocoto one where it's like 92 cubs and then they have the Brewers at 79. So they have the 92 and the Brewers are in second with 79 wins. 13 games. That seems a little...

That's a big, big gap. Are we riding off the Cardinals too early? I mean, they're in the slight reboot, rebuild mode, but it's still not a bad roster. At least it looks solid on paper and it looks competitive in this group. I mean, they could be the team that kind of plays the middle, ends up having a good first half, and quietly becomes buyers, the trade deadline, if they're still within a couple of games of first place in the Central come July. Yeah, I think it's a close division.

I think both Central's are very gonna be very close but I think you're right it's just it's just more the same and they haven't been great for the last few years so if the same rosters going out you can't really expect anything to change in any meaningful way. I think their their hits leader last year was Brendan Donovan they're hoping he does that again. A Mason win probably needs to be even better or keep getting better and become like the center of their next kind of crop and he's looking like he's going to even though he didn't have a great spring. So but other than that it's like you know Sunny Gray, Myles Michaelis, Matz is probably on the aisle. He's a sick starter right now, or long man at least.

Sunny Gray, 91.3 today. Not great. Not great. And he's definitely their best pitcher. And after that, I'm like, who's going to step forward? Not a lot of swing and miss, really anywhere in the pitching staff at all. And that's been the organizational shortcoming

in the last at least half decade, but maybe even longer than that They just haven't developed enough swing and miss in that pitching But now you think Heim Blum taking over really after this season John Mozealax last year Things are going to change in st. Louis I feel like for the rest of the division especially for the Brewers and Cubs The window for them to be a little bit better than the Cardinals on paper might not last very long This is a team that should be able to rebuild pretty quickly

with Heim Blum at the helm. Between the Reds and Pirates, do you have one team that you're more optimistic about getting there ahead of schedule this year? I mean, the Pirates did the exact thing today that I am constantly worried about, blowing it with high quality starting pitching, not getting it done, either not scoring enough runs,

or in today's case, just coughing up leads late. They're going to have a runs problem. That's kind of what they, you know, being projected. So they have to be airtight with the pitching because they have the studs. It's a coin flip for me because I want to be like, well, it's Ellie and then it's Paul Skeens. But Ellie can influence more games.

So, though he was, what was it? He had like a seven and a half war last year, so he was a very, very valuable player. And he led the league in strikeouts. So if that just goes down a little bit, and he still does everything else the same way, he's an MVP candidate. I think he's like fourth in the odds to win the MVP this year. So, like, you got a guy who can be an MVP.

There's a lot to work with there. And they're really athletic. You know, what's a full year of McLean look like? Healthy. Because that guy's just a pure hitter. And they have great stuff in their rotation. Hunter Green could be a top five Cy Young guy if he does what he did last year.

He looks like he's developing. So like they have a true ace and then an MVP type candidate, they might be farther ahead. The vibes in here changed so much once Hunter Green was out of that game. I know Elliot Ramos got him for a homer but Hunter Green looked really good today. Huge meltdown for me and Jabeau cost Hunter Green. Yeah I mean we're gonna be talking about the the Pirates bullpen but like the Reds bullpen is the same thing. Just just terrible. And let's not forget that the Pirates have a cruise of their own in an O'Neill Cruz. He may be a little bit older and may not be as good against lefties.

It's not quite Ellie, but he is a pretty exciting player. I think they'll cobble together enough at bats. I kind of think that for some reason Spencer Horwitz matters for this team. I know it's such a stupid little name to hang my hat on. But no, I think if he can be a league average or better for his baseman, they haven't had that in a while. And it kind of starts to lengthen the lineup so that you start looking at it, you go,

if Spencer Horowitz is league average, then the worst players on this team are their starting catcher and their shortstop. That's kind of old school. You know that kind of actually might work. You know where you're just like hey the shortstop's in there for defense, the catcher's in there for defense. Oh by the way it's Joey Bart and you know he's going to run into like 23.

Sorry I know. I should be doing it here but that didn't happen. Any case I think the Pirates, I'm into the Pirates. I actually think they could sneak in a wild card. Okay that's a pretty bold prediction to sneak that one in there, but I could see it if they find the bats. I just, I'm not as confident in Spencer Horowitz among others. Yeah.

Actually being good enough to pull that off. You'll see, someday. You'll see. Maybe three years from now. We have another trivia question. For a one-year subscription to the Atlantic, athletic new subscribers only or a pint glass or buying glass name one of four players to have a three homer game on opening day toughy Rhodes come on out come claim your prize subscription or glass there you go toughy Rhodes did it in 1994 the most recent player to do it. Matt Davidson.

Matt Davidson, who was a pitcher. He was a pitcher too. I forgot about that. 2018, completely erased from my memory. Demetri Young did it in 2005, and George Bell was the first to do it in 1988. This is slightly random, but Tuffy Rhodes went, I think, on to Japan to be a great hitter in Japan.

He mashed in Japan. And just set like a great hitter in Japan. He mashed in Japan. And just like set all these Homer records in Japan. The current guy who used to be here who is killing records in Japan right now, Fronmule Reyes and his number is 100. He's wearing number 100? Yes, I just love that. I saw a clip and I was like, I love you. I just want to reach through the screen and hug you.

Is he still like 25? Yeah, on paper. Someone told me that. I was like, who's this guy? And he came and stood in the box. I'm like, that guy. That's a grown up. That guy's a grown up.

That guy's definitely 30. Did you see the kid that the Padres got busted on? That they were like, oh, he's not 13, he's 19. Did you see that? And then they had clips of him. He's 13 year old. He's like a foot and a half taller than all of them. It's like, oh yeah, that guy's not 13.

I don't even know where to go from here. Let's go to the NLE. Let's close out the NL. Projections have a six to seven win gap from the Braves down to the Phillies and the Mets. Are you buying the gap between those teams actually being that large, Trevor? No. They're all good. I would say the Braves and the Phillies are probably going to be battling it out a little bit harder than the Mets, but I think that all three teams are going to be in that mix for a while. I think we're just waiting to see with the Mets and their consistency, but I have the Phillies winning the division. Because I think

they're still to this day one of the most complete teams. Again, it comes down to, especially day one, I'm worried about consistency and they have their rotation locked they have their their position players locked they've had them they have a good smattering of guys they brought up and guys they've signed and you know maybe the bullpen is a little leaky or looks like a little without Hoffman but you know they have electric arms I think Jordan Romano is gonna bounce back when he's in a competitive team again Because that's how he operates when your team's really good He operates on pure adrenaline, and I think he's gonna thrive there if he's healthy

So I mean they just they know exactly who one through nine is every night, and that is a huge luxury But I think the brave ceiling and talent overall top the bottom is higher We'll just see what's what what do Strider and Acuna? What effect do they have and how quickly like that's I think what it comes down to how soon are we getting them and how? Good are they when they get them I? Wonder I don't know if you've been in a clubhouse that had this so Nick Casiano's is projected to be like the third worst Right fields like his position right field supposed to be one of the third worst right field like his position right field supposed to be one of the third worst positions in baseball and so he's supposed he's like

really bad he's projected basically be replacement but he's like cool like I don't like like like he says funny things yeah and he he somehow takes, I think, attention away from Harper, you know, in a good way. Like, Harper can some days just like shower and leave. And Castellanos will maybe say something dumb, but like it's quotable and it's fun, and like people will talk about it, and they won't talk about how Bryce Harper left early. You know? Have you been in a clubhouse where there's been this sort of wingman? I can think of Curtis Granderson in the Mets Clubhouse

when things were bad. Curtis Granderson wasn't a star anymore, but he was always there to talk. It wasn't quite the same energy as Kassianos. But having a second guy that can stand up, take the heat off the first guy, that has some value, right? Yeah, tons of value. That's an interesting gaze you make too. As an opposing player, they have so many solid players that do different things well that sometimes when you're going through

the, you're like, oh yeah, Harper. Like, I gotta worry about Harper. Or a lot of times for Castellanos, be like, don't think about Castellanos because you made a game plan for the first five guys, and you're exhausted from making the game plan for those guys, you're like, whatever. Castellanos swings at everything, right? And then you drift something over the plate, and he bangs it, right?

Yeah, well that, and he's also hitting the home runs at those weird times all the time, so that also helps. He's always answering those weird questions. He's great at taking the tension out of a broadcast. Off the charts. Yeah, he's great at just keeping it light. He does it with his bat, too.

Yeah. That's the real, that's hard to do. That kind of timing, it's incredible. It's incredible. There's another thing that I think is interesting about the Phillies is this, and it's just a vibes check again, but I think it's interesting.

So I think that we as humans are like, always want to be like first on, and especially in this group, like, especially in fantasy or like scouting or something I'm first on that guy oh I yeah you know I was first on Sean Burke y'all y'all didn't know about him before I got her. Get that victory lap in man. Yeah exactly you know I did a couple times there. The March victory lap always a good idea. But anyway my point is we're trying to like gather like grab a team even on the that's the player level it's really obvious on the player level.

I think it's true on the team level too, where we want to be like, oh yeah, it was kind of in on the pirates for a while. But I think this is the year of almost second chances of teams that were good, that we've liked before, that are still good. And you could say we forgot about them, we didn't forget, that are still good. Yeah. And like, you could say like we forgot about them. We didn't forget. They're still good. But like, today we talked about a couple teams like that.

The Padres and the Phillies, you know, are teams that have been hanging out. They're good. And one of these years they're going to have their year. Yeah. And it's all going to come together. And then we're going to have to pretend like we were in on them from the beginning.

And I will. I'm definitely going to do that. Hey, you got it out here today. And I will. I'm definitely gonna do that. Hey, you got it out here today. And the Phillies just fit right into that, just like the Padres, where it's like, hey, this is, don't forget, this is a really good team. I think it's interesting too though, because when the window opens, we're always excited. Oh, hey, this Orioles team, they look great. And year two, year three, what's wrong with this Orioles team? They haven't won yet. Yeah, exactly. It's really hard. But you look at They haven't won yet Yeah, I think it's really hard But you look at the Phillies up and down this lineup

It's guys that have been together on this team that have been in the postseason together that have made runs before there They're really good They're one of the most complete teams in baseball with you that especially on paper the projections are gonna like them better than the Mets The Mets add Soto add depth to rotation, nice bullpen like we talked about on our reliever ranking show last week now. It is still a David Stern's kind of smaller market build with what they did at first, of course, then splash the money on Soto. The rest of that roster hasn't come together yet and I think the thing that's going to make the Mets extra dangerous is when a team can add limitless payroll midseason everybody and everything is

on the table so the team you see right now is probably not at all the team you're going to see in August right there's gonna be two or three big additions what's the big addition I mean I kind of I'm starting to feel this like maybe middle class a year where despite all the attention put on the big teams that spent a lot of money that there's actually kind of a race to the middle like is there an angels pitcher you want to put on the Mets you know what I mean like is there a Rockies pitcher they're gonna come out and get like a lot of these teams are picked clean I don't know that they like the only thing

I can think of is like Sandy Alcantara joins the Mets on August 1 and that's that could be that could be like the kind of the That could be a crowning piece right there. That doesn't even take Steve Cohen's money to pull off either. Yeah, it's a division I don't know if Bendix is down for that, but he's down to train anybody so It won't even matter. They have the prospect after I think I don't know It won't even matter for a while. Do they have the prospect? I think, I don't know. Do they have to give up Acuna to make that happen? I think they would give up Luis Angel Acuna

to get Zaniel Contra. I don't think they'd even think twice about it. Yeah. I think the other part of the Mets that'll be interesting is how their pitching development comes along. Guys like Brandon Sprua and Christian Scott's hurt right now too, but they may have more of a supporting cast coming through that system.

Because if they build the pitching lab build the pitching machine That's Thurns had in Milwaukee. That's gonna also make this team more dangerous. They'll have eight night starters They can turn to eventually they're a big Yeah, Jeremy after I've he's probably just a kid in candy store now He's just like can we get all the stuff and sirs like yes, and so Depth has been the issue actually for a very long time. Where they lose, it was DeGrom most of the time

but when you lost DeGrom it made the team look completely different. I think they're in a different situation now. So where they have guys coming back when Manaya comes back and Montas and they're getting Sanga, a full season of him if he's healthy. I think Senga has a potential to be a very very good pitcher to where nobody wants to

see him and I think he's been a little bit too. I think it's the number one guy yeah and they wanted to be that in the playoffs but that wasn't really fair to him frankly. It's really hard to do that at all especially in those games but they have more depth than they've had in the past, and the bullpen is nice. Did you see Canning strike out right this thing? No. 38%. I didn't know that. Didn't see that coming.

Did you just give him a sinker and you're like, now I'm good? Yeah, they got the sinkers over there, which is funny. That wasn't even on HES radar the last time I talked to him. So I got up. Yeah, he wasn't trying to teach you a sinker. No, I got to pick his brain now I mean that's that's actually just off the rack like that that's like a really important thing yeah is to like keep growing yeah you know he's have to have to stop teaching the same things now

that he was teaching you know that's kind of that's cool I'm gonna back the Phillies call I think it's gonna be close and the Braves are very good and they're also apply off team but I think the Phill cool. I'm going to back the Phillies call. I think it's going to be close. I think the Braves are very good. And they're also a playoff team. But I think the Phillies do actually win this division. Where are you on this one, Eno? I'm going to take the Mets. I like the Braves. I like the Braves.

But I don't know, ProFar is coming off a career year. I think Acuna will come back a little bit like he did last time, which is fine. But it's not like he was the straw within the drink kind of deal when he was at his best. I know they won without him which is just kind of crazy but I don't know. Orlando Arcia, I see holes in the lineup and I see a lot of guys coming off of career years. So between like Arcee, a pro-Farazuna, those are step backs. I do like Ajay Smejave and Grant Holmes.

So I think they have some depth. This bullpen leaves me cold. I don't like the bullpen at all. I like the bullpen a little better than you do, but it's taken a small step back. At least on paper, maybe we'll have some pleasant surprises. No Jesse Chavez, that's all you need to know. Yeah.

He'll be back. Always, always, always, always. Get some Kayakers Cove if you haven't already. Oh, we've got Lester Koga in the house, come on. Lester is our fantastic host here. Can we get him a microphone? Where'd that handheld go? Thank you.

Lester, here, come have a seat. I'm squeezing you can you can you can you squeeze? Sorry, this is the the first time I've worn my I'm not even calling it my A's Jersey, but it's my Oakland Jersey But out of respect out of respect for for Trevor because the last game I ever saw was the game you pitched on the reverse boycott. Yes. One of my favorites ever. That was a fun game, man.

That was sold out. I was like, see? See? Absolutely. Baseball at Oakland works? God, that was a good day. That was better than most of my opening day memories. I would say so too, yeah.

It's probably top of memory for me, yeah. But Lester and I collaborated. We got some input from Derek. And we made this Coyacus Cove. I hope you enjoy it. Who's had Coyacus Cove? Yeah. So tell us a little bit about the bear bottle side of this,

where it sort of started with we did a little bit about the the beer bottle side of this where it sort of started with you we did a little tasting session upstairs and you have... Thanks to B Smith. Yeah. You guys can we give it up for B Smith. Producer Brian. And you had a Rice Lager kind of hop up rice lager, sign of session beer. What was that beer?

And then how did we iterate off of that? Yeah, so we had a rice lager, so Kyoto Crush, to those who are familiar with beer bottle. And it was great, because we were just hanging out, drinking beers. And it's like, OK, we're going to do this podcast. Let's make a beer that you wanna do. And Eno was like, well I love rice lagers, I love IPAs, and I'm like, well we can do both.

And we'll put it in the same beer. And the next step down was like, hey, what hops do you like? He's like, oh I love Citra on the hot side. I'm like, we can do that too. So kind of the evolution of the beer started as a rice lager. What I've been doing a lot here at Bear Bottle is, you know, as I get older and as we get older, I just can't drink as many 7% IPAs like before. So I'm like, you know what, I want an IPA but I want 5% is my goal. So I try to, I call it like hop density, right? If you drink this beer, there's a lot of density of hop flavor

and it's a lot harder to get that density of hop flavor in 5% alcohol. And so that's actually where adding the rice was really helpful, because the rice kind of gives you a lot of this residual body. So that rice lager actually helped with giving you the body to then layer all the different hops on top of. So I mean, this is hopped as much as our 7% IPAs, and it's great. And I thought like the whole idea of using Stitcher on the hot side, that was really good. We've got some hop growers kind of in the next aisle over.

They grew some of the hops that we're using. Talus was really fun. And then we had a new hop called Peacherine that we hadn't used before. So anytime we try to do a collab, we try to do something unique and different that we haven't done before. We haven't used Talos in the hot side, we haven't used Peacherine. So like okay like let's layer these two together. Nelson, Citra, Peacherine, Talos. Like a

really really great kind of hop flavor, hop aroma. And at 5% like you can finish a four pack and and still be okay. Well, let's toast you. Let's toast you. You brought a four pack over? Here we go. I just really had so much fun because I got to actually, I've done some collaborations before and I don't normally actually get my hands dirty.

And it was really nice to get up there and throw some hops in the whirlpool and I just my favorite thing about how this came out and I kind of knew it was gonna happen the way you described how you're gonna hop this and stuff it's it smells so good I just want to put my face in it you know I don't even want to drink it I just want to like it's like a pillow I just want to put my face in it. So I just wanted to toast you real quick And thank you for letting us do this event here It's been a real pleasure getting to know you over the last couple weeks and learning your story And learning about beer bottle and I just think that you guys did such a great job of

mixing the like, you know the greats that we all know about the kind of tentpole beers that you have and and bringing in this like innovation and collaboration so a toast to Lester Cota and a toast to Bear Bottle for having this event. Yeah happy opening day cheers. Thank you everybody everybody at Bear Bottle too yes everybody who helped make this thing happen. Thank you Mmm, it's the stuff that is great. I didn't try it before the show. It's awesome. It smells so good. I'm with you. Oh but I'm so sorry about losing your team dude, and I suggest you don't go out to Sacramento because

Here before it's hot. Well, not only that, like they sold all their tickets so like you can only get it on the secondary market and they're driving press through the roof. It's just something kind of ugly about all that. It's just, it's horrible. And I think our loyalty to our team as fans is probably stronger than it really needs to be. This is the clearest choose any team you want to be a fan of, get out of jail free card possible.

Yeah, you can stay an Ace fan and try a new one. You can stay an Ace fan, you can do anything you want. What do you do now? This is such a weird situation. Yeah, I mean what's great too though, we're in the middle of Giants country, right? We're in the middle of San Francisco, but if you look around here, there's a lot of A's jerseys, you know? And it's always been that way. We used to, I was just joking with somebody, we would make like an A's colorway bear bottle shirt

and a Giants colorway bear bottle shirt. And every year we'd look at the sales and the A's colorway shirt outsold the Giants. And what does that tell you in San Francisco? It sounds to me like baseball is viable in Oakland. I don't know. I gotta be careful what I say. I you in San Francisco? It sounds to me like baseball is viable in Oakland. I don't know. I've got to be careful what I say. I'm in San Francisco.

Our merch is supposed to be on Eno's porch right now. It was supposed to arrive yesterday, but it should be here tomorrow. If you want a reason to come back tomorrow, merch! Yeah. We're going to get some beer bottle pineces to give away. Why don't you guys give away some pint glasses? Yeah, we're doing. We're doing.

Can we do another piece of trivia going into the next one? Oh yeah, we can get another trivia question. We're going to get into the AL West predictions here. For a pint glass or a one-year subscription to the Athletic, if you're a new subscriber, which AL team is projected to score the most runs according to Picota? I heard Astros, who had Astros? Come on up! Yes, it is the Astros.

So the Astros are projected by Picota to score 754 runs. Nice pull. The Braves, Mets, Phillies, Cubs, Dodgers, and Diamondbacks are all projected to score more by that same projection system. Which is weird, I mean, AL seems more open than usual this year. Wide open. Uh, this was the hardest. Usually it's just one division, but all of them. I...

One of my bold takes was that no American League team wins more than 92 games. They just beat up on each other all year. That's a good sign because usually those teams are pretty resilient going into the playoffs. Teams that aren't used to sweeping all season and are used to grinding out series, that's what you need to do. But did we, you say AL West is where we're starting? Yeah, starting the AL West.

The popular one is Texas and with the absolutely nothing the Mariners did, which is just, it hurts me, and the steps back Houston took with putting a one-year in the minor league guy, third baseman in right field and then putting Jose Altuve in left I don't know if that's the smartest idea I hope it doesn't have adverse effects on Jose Altuve because it's gonna need to do a lot for this team She may hit those runs total. He could have hurt himself out there I mean, I'm not saying he will but like, you know, have you heard his interviews about left? He's not doesn't seem confident at all He's just like yeah, we'll figure it out

Left? He doesn't seem confident at all. He's just like, yeah, we'll figure it out. It's a weird place to play left field. It is. And he's got declining speed so he can't just be like... He can't just athletic it. Yeah. Yeah, he's got to have good reads. And it's just a learning process.

So, and then he's leading off. He's got to run in, you know, run in the first inning every time. And he likes the swing of the first pitch. I know that for a fact. So yeah Texas I think the one question mark is like their whole the whole starting rotation is missed like 60% of the last two years like everybody which if that happens again then they are they're no longer a lock in my opinion like they their pitching goes down fast. They need DeGrom to throw 150 innings.

He hasn't done it since 2019. So that's a big ask. He's older, but if he does, I still think Jacob DeGrom, if he's pitching and feels good and not telling you something's bothering him, he's still the best pitcher on the planet. Like he just does not give up runs.

He just doesn't. He either hurt or doesn't give up runs. You know, we talk about depth sometimes, and I think usually depth is good. The depth in the rotation right now is John Gray, who has a broken wrist, Patrick Corbin, Cody Bradford, who is not throwing for the next four months.

As much as I like Adrian Howser and Dane Dunning, they're all right. They feel a little bit. They're the same guy. Yeah. Right. Like kind of sinkery, staying in the game, give up four runs over six or something. Yeah. It really needs to go right.

It needs to be Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter. They need to be the guys. They need to be guys. And they're young, and they might be guys. But that doesn't mean they're going to be guys right away. I mean, the story of pitching right now is that it takes guys a little while to be dudes. And Kumar hasn't thrown a ton of innings.

Yeah, he's got to manage him really carefully. He has his own injury issue. He doesn't really have a good plan against lefties. And Leiter hasn't had a lot of success. I thought you were picking the Rangers. I am It's precarious, but I just like I'd so disgusted with the Mariners that I cannot I can't in good conscious And I just refused to do the Houston again because that's boring this makes no sense at all But I'm gonna pick the Mariners, okay I can do the same thing though

at all but I'm gonna pick the Mariners. Okay. I can do the same thing though. So I'm gonna pick the Mariners and be like their second baseman is Ryan Bliss. Their third baseman is Jorge Blanco who they released and couldn't get a deal and came back. And has never also played third base. Has never played third base. You're asking him to do something. I was on the radio there at Seattle today and they were like you know they're talking a good game about Luke, Rayleigh and Roddy Tilles but we don't believe them. I'm like, man, this is your flagship radio station. Just being like, we don't think we have a first base. I was like, Luke, Rayleigh is good. I promise. Luke, Rayleigh is good.

I think and this is really scientific, but Mitch Garver is good in every other year. Yeah. So he, hey listen, you pipe down San Franciscans. Yeah. Everyone knows. I remember something about it. Even year, odd year. Hey, but Bruce Broach, he's pretty good every other year. What'd he do two years ago?

Yes. But, by my math, he should have a 140 WRC plus this year, Mitch Garver, it'sver. It's science. Science. It's science. It's science. So if he has a 140 WRC plus, that's a pretty good DH. Victor Robles is the man.

No, he's not. Victor Robles will break your heart, man. No. Like I'm telling you. Here's my thing. I have, and this is blowing up your rundown, but I have Julio Rodriguez as the AL MVP. And the reason I do this is because he

has these great streaks. He starts off a little slow, and then he has these great streaks. Well, he did not start off slow. He had five homers in the spring and just looked amazing in the spring. And then what really hurt him in some of these years has been getting hurt during a hot streak. And I think that if he just puts together the full season and if he maybe starts on a good

streak you could see something where he just has that good streak all year. If he has that good streak all year it's an MVP up the middle with Cal Raleigh who's probably the second best all-around catcher in baseball, if not first best. I mean, he's right there with William Contreras. And Randy Oroz-Lorena, like they've put this stuff together. I think somebody steps forward. Ryan Bliss, Cole Young.

I think Colt Emerson is their starting second baseman by August. And Colt Emerson just showed elite bat speed in spring training and is a legit prospect. So I think they just will turn up the dials on somebody. Like, Colt Young or Colt Emerson will get a chance before. Like, I don't mean, I'm not being mean to Ryan Bliss. He does some things well. But I just don't think he's a starting second baseman

in this league. So I'm like looking at the young guys behind him and they have young guys in the position of need, which is something I love. I love that about the Red Sox. They have some positions of need. Oh, they have Christian Campbell and Roman Anthony in those positions of need. So I think that Mariners have young guys in the places they need. Yeah, I do think being able to bring up supporting casts in key spots will make a difference for them. With the Astros, it's strange to do what they're doing defensively. Definitely strange.

It's still a good lineup top to bottom. I think Isock Parades fits a lot better in Houston than he did trying to play in Wrigley. So I think his approach helps him bounce back. Jordaan seems healthy for now. If Jordaan's hurt, this is a very top heavy sort of lineup. It's kind of a critique we've had about the Yankees in the non-soto year where if Judge went down you were just worried they weren't going to score enough runs. This rotation is still underrated. Hunter Brown, we've talked about it so many times in the show from May 1st on last year

was electric. Framber of Aldez is a machine, kind of a left-handed Logan Webb just goes out there gets ground balls Choose of innings and is really effective doing it I like Hayden Wes Neske as an acquisition for the back end depth is pretty bad depth They're relying on injured guys getting healthy to be the death later shut down like yeah, it almost sounds like a revision I don't know. It doesn't sound good. No and and Christian Javier is more of a second half sort of guy. So that's where things could break down on Houston. I think I like that Mariners call a little bit. I'm still chuckling at Britt Giroli's call

for the bold predictions that the A's would actually get to the postseason. But the more I look at these three teams, the more I can actually see that coming together. I have a real question for you on pitching mechanics. So Lance McCullers says that when he throws a sweeper, he wants to throw it like a pizza box. He wants to swing it sideways.

Yeah, you're on the side of the ball. That seems bad for your elbow. Like, I'm doing this at 85 miles an hour? Yeah. Is this the accepted way of throwing a sweep? Like, when you throw a sweeper, they're like, for your elbow. I'm doing this at 85 miles an hour? Yeah. Is this the accepted way of throwing a sweep? When you throw a sweeper, they're like, swing the beat the pie. You do it with your natural hand position.

So I would think just that way, but I would still not. I wouldn't like it. But the edger isn't like. That's how eight-year-olds are told. They throw a slider, and you just think, OK, slide. So that's how I thought throwing a slider was when I was a kid. That's not how it worked. But you do need to be on the side of the ball. I just think that maybe he's snapping it out, maybe.

That's what I'm thinking. Like swinging the p...that's almost like a forehand in frisbee. Yeah. Where you got the two fingers under and you kind of... Yeah, you just flick it. If you were doing that at doing that 85 miles an hour I'd be like don't do that it wouldn't feel good 85 miles an hour it wouldn't feel good for me but some guys do some weird stuff if I try to throw like Tyler Rogers I wouldn't feel very good either your hips would hurt pretty quick my back would be gone so we get another trivia question before we get to the AL Central. Same prize as before.

Name two of the rotations that are currently ranked between sixth and tenth in Fangraph's War as of today. So not top five, but inside the top ten. That's what we're looking for. If you can name two, you get a prize. I came up with this question and I just think it's fascinating because we're asking who the mid rotations are. They're not bad. They're mid. Can you come up with a mid like like mid plus give me

plus who's mid plus need two out of the five you got to get two Cubs are not one Astros and Blue Jays no Red. Red Sox, Braves, no. I heard Pirates, that's a no. Twins are one. Who said twins? Who's the second one? Put a second one with them. Giants? No.

Guardians, no. Someone say Rays, no. Braves, no. No one said both. See, this is so hard. This is a pretty good trick question. Now I'm really interested if my two are in there. But I want someone to get it.

Yeah, someone's got to get it. We got twins plus... Spikers. D-Backs. I heard D-Backs from the guy that said twins. Yes. Come get your prize. Who are the other three? I was thinking Padres. Nope. Oh, he's wearing a twins jersey. That's great. Detroit's one of them. That's right. Yeah. Do you want's wearing a twins jersey. That's great. Detroit's one of them.

That's right. Yep. Do you want a subscription? Two more, what we just talked about. OK. The Rangers. The Rangers? The Rangers are in there, and the Reds are also in there.

OK. That's the 6 through 10. Isn't that the weirdest group? This is the weirdest question. You know, I can't even. Reds? Doesn't make any sense. I was looking for trivia.

I was just sorting stuff. And a lot of it was like, oh yeah, duh, duh, duh. And then I was like, wait, five through ten in starting pitching is just the strangest group of teams. I don't know. The Twins are hard for production systems to figure out, you know. I think they don't get enough credit for, you know, Britt was talking the other day about like, they don't fire people in the Twins organization. No, organization They don't so a lot of that happened in Texas and it led to stagnation and that led to that Honestly is what why John Daniels I had to go was because he wasn't firing people. He wasn't modernizing Yeah, but at the same time the twins have given us some parts of modern pitching. Oh, no, they're they're just adding They just don't

That's how they're 400 million dollars For a fact I last time I played there was 2020 the every all the support staff the whole all the guys in the clubhouse and The PR people they're all still every single person still works there all of them the video guy the photographer They're all the same people. So they just keep adding. That's how you lose money. That can't be how they racked up all that debt. Business of baseball stuff aside, on paper the AL Central is tough every year. Projections like the Twins, the projections are always a little light on the Guardians.

We know the deal with that by now. Royals and Tigers get into the postseason last year. Maybe some pullback for the Royals. I think it's harder to see them getting all the way back to level they were at last year, maybe some pullback for the Royals. I think it's harder to see them getting all the way back to level there at last year. The Tigers, I think I have a slightly easier time talking myself into another playoff appearance, but it'd be hard for me to say that I think

they're going to win this division. That's Cleveland. Could nobody win a division? That's not possible. No, okay. Though I do think like seven games is gonna separate all. It's gonna be like two, four, six, though. I do think like seven games is gonna separate all it's gonna be like two four six and then 58 They did they are undefeated

But it's gonna those four key. Maybe they're gonna do the 11 and 50 Yeah, you're warning them. They are there. They could be on their way just because Cleveland's again. It again, it's such a, they're just solidly put together. The guys who they have are the guys that they want, if that makes sense. And then they have that bullpen, though the big red flag is every single guy threw 75 times last year and that just, you cannot maintain that for more than a year and a half or two. So at some point someone's a bit I got some elbow sort of another guy's been having shoulder

They're gonna lose two of their studs and it's gonna get weaker real quick. Klaus A blew it today. Yeah, or they'll get less sharp So they lean on that but I like Bybee. I think Gavin Williams could be a higher stuff guy They're gonna get Bieber back at some point and they just have really good development and I think Vote has a good idea of how to mix and match. But you know, every year they have a guy like Mizzardo or something that they need to. Yeah, so they, but they're gonna need like Mizzardo to hit three and then Ramirez do most

of the heavy lifting all year. You love that guy too, right? I do. I love that guy. They are. Everyone loves Steven lifting all year. You love that guy too, right? I do. I love that guy. Everyone loves Stephen Bowie. I just love that guy. It's funny, you play them and you lose and you just don't feel like they beat the crap out of you.

You're just like, dang, we'll get them tomorrow. And then they beat you four straight times. You're like, oh, well, good guys. Yeah, good guys. Man, they're quality players. These guys play the game right. So you tell yourself, do you get swept by Cleveland? I've got, so my theme this year, my narrative for this year

is second chances, teams that we've liked before, teams that work are still good. So I'm going with the twins. This is the year where Byron Buxton plays 100 and 20. I was going to say stop at 105. Two games. Carlos Correa plays 106. We have this fun thing where Carlos Correa over the last three years has averaged something like 500 played appearances per year. It's not as bad as the reputation, it's still

not ideal if he's one of your two or three best position players. It is not, and there was a story that just came out, I think Dan Hayes wrote it, about how Carlos Correa described the last two months of last year as a S-word show and said that they started back fighting and the clubhouse was no good. But I love Rocco Baldelli the same way as Voder, so I don't know why that happened.

I could see, Kray is kind of like, I think he's seen in the clubhouse as kind of like the media guy, and not necessarily a real leader. And that can be problematic, because he's the highest paid position player that's often your default leader. So they may be in search of a real leader,

but I've been on record saying I love Brooks Lee. Julian is like a good, or Julian, sorry, I always want to make him French. Julian is a good, like, strong side slugger guy that can play first or play second. Royce Lewis, let's just, I'm going all in, man. Royce Lewis, 120 games. I thought you were all in man. Royce Lewis, 120 games. I thought you were going to say 90. 120 for all of them. I'm just giving them 120 games.

Listen, if you got 360 games combined out of those three players, don't you think they win the division? As long as their starting pitching stays healthy, yeah. But no, no, I say no. I'm not giving you, I don't care. You think because of Festa and Zebi that they have enough depth they can even lose a starter. Yes, yes. And that bullpen is underrated good. I'm not giving you that. I don't care. You think because of Festa and Zebi that they have enough depth they can even lose a starter. Yes. Yes. And that bullpen is underrated good.

People don't know who Cole Sands is and they should. And he's their third guy. Jorge Ocala throws 98 mile an hour sinkers. And they're these things, like the plaps. Louis Varlin can throw 100. Brock Stewart can throw 100. Yeah. John Ron throws 100.

Yeah. Kala throws 100. And Griff Jackson throws the softest and he's probably the most effective and he's in his frisbee everything frisbee down frisbee side everything so and he's learned a change up over the over the few years so I it's all about those three for me Royce Carlos and Buxton I think if they stay healthy they can do this it's the team I'm most wrong about I think on, on the show. I always over-project twins. I'd love to be wrong about them again.

So I'm going to pick them, and they're going to do what? No, I'm going to get on board. I'm going to sink your projection. No, no, no, pick a different team. No, I'm taking you down with me this time. Come on, there's two other ones that can do it. Come on. No, and here's my thing.

I think the Tigers are getting better. Yeah. I was surprised when we were doing the team reliever rankings. You have the Tigers in your top 10. We didn't talk about it. We ran out of time. What do you like about that bullpen a few surprises there They sent Jason Foley down not that I think that Jason Foley is an elite reliever But you know led them in saves last year seems like an important piece at least as a fourth or fifth guy What do you like about that group of relievers in Detroit? I feel like that's actually a weakness

Well, it's just a crop of stuff and I'm'm going a lot off of what I saw in the playoffs and getting into the playoffs last year, and they carried them. And they were hanging right with the Cleveland bullpen, who had proven it for a longer period of time. But every guy who came in was throwing 97. And I was like, I know everyone does that in the league, but they all had something unique, and it seemed like they weren't...

The stage wasn't too big for me there. It was impressive. I think Briskey's good. I think... I thought Foley was going to make the team. He didn't, because he was closing games a little bit too last year. He 20-ish saves. So I just think there's a lot of depth, but it's not necessarily a lot of names and they're just kind of they're a year away from that I think in a year

will be like you know I think they have a there's a Kate Smith maybe not that type of pitcher but like that kind of success in there somewhere where they a fireman guy who they can go to all the time first year you didn't throw close to 97 you weren't popping 97s regularly. You were tired. Wait, yeah, yeah. As soon as I got rid of 97, I was like, I'm average. That's it. Time to go.

Time to move on to the next chapter of life. I'm going to sink Eno's twins projection, though. That's my goal for the season. Trevor's on the Guardian, so Trevor's probably right. Main thing for me with the Royals, everything went really well for them health-wise in the rotation last year. Tardy Bank on that twice.

And you don't have another level for Bobby Witt Jr. He can't get better. He can't be more than a 10-war player for them. If they lose him for any period of time, it is going to get rough quick. It's just a patchy lineup. They need a little bit more. Hopefully, Jonathan India can add some stability. He's going to get on base a patchy lineup. They need a little bit more. Hopefully Jonathan India can add some stability.

He's going to get on base a lot for Bobby, and that's what they're hoping. I think their bullpen is another guys who doesn't have a ton of really good stuff. I think I think Carlos Esvez was some veteran presence, but a big, huge Lucas Ercig fan. And he is a buddy of mine, but he is electric, and he threw really good at the end of the year last year. I think Hunter Harvey's really good. I like the Zerpa

guy thrown every day. They just they got workhorses. I think their bullpen is going to be one of their strengths. So and they're going to need that because they're just outside of Bobby. They're just not going to be able to consistently score a lot of runs. But I think they're going to be around just because you know I Lugo's score a lot of runs. But I think they're going to be around, just because, you know, Lugo's kind of made a rubber, frankly. I think he's going to stay out there. And Cole Regens is top three for me for the Siong, if not. It depends on, I think it's Google to lose, but Regens is that good too.

Could win it, yeah. And he ended very strong last year. And he's got that presence. I don't know. He just gives me full, he's just Cole Hamill's across the board for me. I think it's going to be interesting to see if they add more at the deadline if they are hanging around because they've been very aggressive. They've spent more money.

I just wonder what their internal limits going to be. I don't think they're going to come crashing back to Earth. I think they're going to fall just a little short. I got a dad joke. It's terrible. Hit it. It's one I told my kids when they were like four and five and they never even laughed then.

What do you get when you combine a kangaroo with an elephant? Big holes all over Australia. Anyway, I look at this Royals line up and I see big holes all over Australia. Alright, so we're down on the Royals as a group, even though they've been trying to push the chips in. Got another trivia question before we get to the AL East. Same prizes as before. So it wasn't even like a lusty boo.

It was just like a boo, boo. Just never again. We do have cara cara oranges we could add to the prizes, if anybody would like an orange. Oh, we got more trivia. Yes, move on. Which pitcher led Major League Baseball in walks last year? Highest walk total. That's a good one, but it's not him.

I think Rodin was top ten. Yeah, Rodin. Well, it's not Rodin. It's not Snell. Luis Heal. Luis Heal. Who had Luis Heal? Yeah, come on over.

Well done. Oh, we should have brought Dogbiz. now. Louise Heal. Who had Louise Heal? Yeah, come on over. Well done. Oh, we should have brought Dogmas. I should have had Dogmas. Raids and Barrels Dogmas is for next year. We've got to remember that. Put a note in here for that. You know, I just think that was a funny one because we think of things in Raids all the time. Yeah. And it's in the name of the podcast. But you know, we like bulk matters too. And it's just he had a great season. I'm not saying he didn't.

But you know, he walked on this guy. I would never have picked Louis Hill. Yeah. Do you think it's weird we don't think about hits per nine or just hits allowed very often? It comes up on the extremes like Blake Snell. Blake Snell comes up, hey, Blake Snell's great at hit suppression because he's great at hit suppression

and get away with a high walk rate but who is third in hits among starters the high volume of innings right like we don't think about it that way. Yeah. Heel I think was good in hit suppression last year but because he hasn't done it in the big leagues for several years there are more questions about how sustainable it is if it's a skill that he actually has. It also ties into just how pitchers are pitching less and less every year. And so, you know, you can't really, if you want like an extra category in your league, like you wouldn't really do walks allowed.

That'd be so weird because on some level you'd get good pitchers. Because they pitched a lot and like gave up the walks and accrued walks. You wouldn't want that. So that's why we sort of settled on innings pitched as if you want to have an extra counting stat for your pitchers, innings pitched can be that counting stat where they are accruing value, like their manager's trusting them and putting them out there.

Yeah. So it seems like the Garrett Cole injury, everybody's moving off the Yankees, the Red Sox have become a trendy pick to win the AL East. Eno, who do you like to win the division this year? Joe, we did bold predictions, and I had the Red Sox going to the World Series, and then SNY or somebody came out with their predictions.

They weren't even supposed to be bold, they were just their predictions for the World Series, and I think five out of the six people had the Red Sox either losing or winning the World Series, and I was like, I deserve the one pepper, I think. Yeah, it was completely deserved. Either losing or winning the world series. I was like I deserve the one pepper. I think yeah I mean I voted with my heart. I knew I mean they're a good team and they're not projected like to be a top five team I don't know. Why is everybody on them all the stuff? Because everyone's loves Roman Anthony Campbell

They think they did the last signing of Bregman. They got the last big guy. And then Crochet is like, cool, you have a guy who can hit it over the, just pop it up over the monster all the time, because he's got his Crawford boxes now. And then we added a bona fide ace, like a guy who can take over a game,

and no one can touch him, which they did not have. How weak is this bullpen? It's pretty weak. But it's guys who guys who I mean I know they're older but they've been there and they've done it and if they get they're healthy in a way like I don't know, we rolled us through a hundred and two again last year. How does he keep throwing a hundred? I don't know how many old have you have you gotten up real close to him? It makes sense. That guy is a monster. Oh my god, he's so big.

And I don't know what Leon has left. What we were writing about, like, you know, could a guy throw 110 ever? One of the things that came up was, like, if we had a Giannis, like, pitching. And he gave him a role to Chapman's mechanics. He's about the closest. Yeah.

So he doesn't need a bigger role to Chapman. Yeah, he just needs to be a little bit bigger lever. He's already really closest. Yeah. So you just need a bigger or oldest Chapman. Yeah, he just needs a little bit bigger levers. Really big. Terrifying. I mean, I wouldn't rule Joyce out from doing it yet, guys. He got a 106. Yeah, he got a 106. His arm might flop with the ball, but...

But he'd be happy. Yeah. He would be. The arm would flop, he'd turn around and check it. I love that guy. He looks every time. He looks every time. He looks my guy. He'd turn around and look before he could cross. Yes.

Justin Slayton got the save for the Red Sox today, right? So that's the little twist. Managers are liars. Yeah, they really are. So average bullpen? Hopefully. Above average rotation. I've made the Tanner Hauck kind of a watered down Logan Webb

comp. And on the subject of depth, I think OK depth. I'd say above average depth. Carter Crawford hasn't pitched yet, and he's going to be good. Richard Fitz was throwing 95s, 96s. Sean Newcomb, if he had a year where he put it in the right place, he could be good.

Cooper Criswell, Stuff Plus likes it, even though the radar gun doesn't. And then Patrick Sandoval is going to maybe be around in the end. I mean, that would say that's above average depth. Yeah. I think that they have great depth. Let's not forget, the Red Sox were playing better than everyone thought they would for about four months last year.

And then they kind of just came back down to earth. And they did that with just how Crawford and Bayo just being kind of three th3s out there. And the way that they did it was I thought so interesting. It said something about the organization, their values, and what they're willing to do. Like, they as an organization are willing to do stuff that will make them look stupid.

They are willing to push the needle and try things in a way that cover your other teams won't do. Like, when they came out and threw fewer fastball than any other team had ever thrown on a Rate basis and we're just like yeah, that's what we're doing Yeah, like they can we got hired for that if it's if it doesn't work Yeah, they literally looked at they're like this is what we have these guys can only throw breaking balls We're gonna tell them throwing breaking balls and Andrew Bailey was like, okay like and that it was just that simple now

And I also love the Walker Brewer ad. I think he's got a little bit of a chip. It can get the vibe that he's like, guys, I'm still Walker Bueller. And I understand it took me a while to get there. If he if you see him just like 96, 97 and just dealing, dealing, don't be surprised. And having him a crochet is that now it's completely different. Now the other three guys just behind those two. Like now you're you have a bunch of studs.

Yeah, having that happen with Bueller, or having a slightly better season from Howick, somebody else emerging as a good number two would go a long way towards propelling them to the top of this division and making that prediction feel really good. Is this who you're taking? You obviously did on the bold predictions,

but Trevor, are you taking the Red Sox to win this division? I have the Red Sox, yes. Followed by Baltimore. Again, it's like the Mariners, like, come on, you got Charlie Morton cool, what else? Yeah. And... It's like the flip side of the Mariners. If you could squish, like we had the player squishing machine, if you had the team squishing machine and you squished the Mariners and Orioles together, you'd have a great team.

Yeah, it's like yin and yang. They complement each other very, very well. But I have them take a set and then the Yankees just... But again, those three teams are just going to be close. I'm not counting the Yankees out either. I think Bellinger and Goldy were good pickups. I think they're a little bit more complete. They have a good back end of the bullpen. It's just not having your goal is a huge hit. It's a huge, and heel is a, that's one in, one in arguably one in two or one in three. But at least you have Freed who just was an ace

for pretty much his whole career. So he knows what it's like to take the reins for that. So at least you have that. Rodone doesn't have to do it. So that's a positive, but again, they have no depth. So it's gotta be. They're walking they have no depth. So it's got to be... I mean, they're walking a fine line. This is a huge collapse potential.

Cook and Carrasco's in the rotation now. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. It's scary. And Will Warren, who's behind them, Carrasco only made it so that they could still have Will Warren in case of glass,

in case of emergency break glass. There's not, I mean, Kam Schlitter had some good spring stuff numbers, but there's not really anything. I mean, I would say had some good spring stuff numbers, but there's not really anything. I mean, I would say bottom five depth on this rotation. They have one guy, and if more than one guy breaks, and that's usually what happens, they don't really have another plan.

I'm gonna stick with the Orioles. I think they made good. I think they're kind of the AL version of the Phillies. They don't have quite the same success in October with this core yet, but they've at least been there. I think adding Zach Efflin at the deadline last year as someone they'd still have this year, that matters. Grace Rodriguez's injury is not terrible. Looks like he's finally making some progress toward a return. I think he can be their ace.

I don't love the back end guys, but I think they feel pressure in that front office to deal from depth and actually get another pitcher again at this trade deadline So I think they're gonna stay active We know Adley was banged up for the second half of last year splits from the late part of June on Just was not the same guy or I think was a foul tip to the wrist or something that kind of set that off And Jordan Westberg to me is really solid Jackson holiday showed some interesting things in the second half last year you know talk to him on our episode on Wednesday and It would be surprising if Jackson holidays the top of the order by the end of the season even though interesting things in the second half last year. You know, talked to him on our episode on Wednesday and it would be surprising if Jackson Holiday is at the top of the order by the end of the season,

even though he started in the nine spot. Like that wouldn't be that surprising. Gunner's not that far away. Mullins popped two homers on opening day, which he's a good secondary piece. It's a good, deep lineup. But I think Colton Cowes is a little bit underrated. The shape of his season last year was uneven

because he was so good early and then went to a pretty Long after but I think he's gonna make the adjustments back This is still a really good team that people have soured on because Tyler O'Neil was the splashy Offseason acquisition and it it just didn't seem like the thing we all expected them to do see I I'm doing the team of the year of second chances and that should have been the Orioles not the Red Sox I'm getting I'm on the hype train with the Red Sox. That's the problem. Yeah, you're on the hype train You gotta get off the hype train, you know

The last the last news I even saw from the Orioles was their their new owner Talking about how we need a salary cap. I was like welcome to the league man, I Don't know if they gave you the pamphlet explain how this works But how do you think you get chosen from a pool of prospective owners? You say things like that in the meetings, right? Mark Cuban isn't getting plucked out of this situation. Yeah, right, exactly.

We're going to get to our team-based predictions as far as the postseason. If you have questions for us, we have a microphone up here. You can kind of make your way up towards this couch. We'll take a few questions at the end of the show here in just a couple of minutes. What happens in the postseason? Who do you have going in the ALCS this year you know? I'm gonna stick on the hype train all the way Boston all the way through. Boston all the way through? Who are they gonna play?

Fadres. All right wait oh in the World Series okay yeah so I was asking about the ALCS like who else else is going to be there? I don't know. Does it work that they play the Orioles? I think anything's pretty much possible if you fudge the numbers the right way. Yeah. All right. I'll take that. Take them against the Orioles. Bold, bold. OK. I was going to go Rays over Orioles to connect my bold prediction to the Rays,

actually, winning the AL pennant. Trevor, that is bold because that we don't know how that stadium's gonna go. I have Boston. Okay. Boston over Texas. All right, Boston over Texas. And LCS? Padres and Dodgers.

Padres and Dodgers. I'm gonna manifest that. I think it'd be fun. Yeah. It would be fun. Yeah, they hate each other. Unless you're a Giants fan, it's not that fun. Trevor?

Phillies Dodgers. Phillies Dodgers, okay. I kind of like that man. I like the Padres Dodgers call. I think Atlanta still gets in as a wild card as I said before. I think they're still a very dangerous playoff team. I'm gonna go a little chalky. I'll say Dodgers over Braves in the NL. I don't want it to play out that way but I have my surprise on the AL side. Rays over Braves in the NL. I don't want it to play out that way, but I have my surprise on the AL side Rays over Orioles in the ALCS is my call there. So I have a Dodgers Rays World Series a Rematch right had that a few years ago. Yeah, I think if the Red Sox played the Padres the Red Sox would win Nice

Go that I get the Dodgers beating the Raze by the way. I'm all chalk right now. Well, no, not the Raze. Not the Raze part, but just... Where are you going in the World Series? Philly's taking down the Sox. Nice. All right. This is all different.

Just full disclosure, the year I was drafted, they won the World Series, so I'm going back to my roots. Philly's? Yeah, I was drafted by the Philly's and they won the World Series that year. You were drafted by the Philly's? Yeah. Who are you traded for? Ben Revere. Me and Vannimal. Sorry, I shouldn't laugh.

That was rude. He should. He had four career home runs. I love Ben Revere, though. He's like, great guy. Dyrone Blanco, like Terrence Gore. Like he was like the original speedster everybody wanted in September, but nobody wanted But he if it were today, he wouldn't be in a trade. Yeah, that's true Ben Revere. How many career stolen bases? That's right. Nobody would have traded for that type. No, that's like a Waiver yeah, that's a player to be named later eight years in the big leagues how many steals? Yeah, I'm not I'm not to be clear not laughing at Ben Revere.

It's 8 years in the league. 211. How many home runs? 7. It was exactly 7. Less than years. Does not say he's retired yet. Come on.

Questions from anybody. 211, strong base is good. I promise you don't see this question coming. questions from anybody come on up here. 211 strong base is good. I promise you don't see this question coming. I may be the only fan of this player but why does Spencer Turnbull not have a job? That is a little odd. Any particular reason Spencer Turnbull doesn't have a job? Does it have anything to do with the assignment issue that happened in Detroit?

Maybe. Bad reputation? Yeah. He's also hurt though too. He was hurting through 50 innings last year and even when he was successful it wasn't. It wasn't like easy on the team. It was when it was, yeah, only his fastballs were performing well and it's not a great fastball. So he was getting real lucky.

But I think that there's still, at this point people who are left on the board who can get picked up by a team or signed with somebody in the minor league deal to get to big leagues, they want someone who will throw innings. That's why Kyle Gibson got picked up right at the end of the league. At least he'll eat innings. You know, we know what we're going to get and Turnbull doesn't really fit. He's been hurt a lot in his career. So he's going to have to go show something probably for a triple A team somewhere for a while while get another opportunity and make another run at it but I think he can he's not very old so it's just that's just the nature of bad bad time wrong place bad time and the model liked him not that long ago I mean he had a 101 stuff plus last year I do think there's probably some secondary concern from teams being like if we sign him like if we sign him to a minor league deal is he gonna like talk to

media about how why is he not in the major leagues? There's a little bit of, this guy's going to be a headache. Kyle Gibson's not going to be a headache. No, he's not. He might be in a different way though. I think there's some sense that like advocates through the media for his position Yeah

Which I think I would do if I was a player because that the media I think the media should be more of an asset to Players and they should do this but sometimes you can go too far You know you only play card once to you only play card once if you try to do it all the time you get a Repetite I think you're right though. They'll go 15 and it's really like that simple. Yeah, none of bulk Hey guys love the show I admire your optimism, but which which team do you think is maybe the most overrated this year? We're just gonna crash and burn The Yankees don't qualify for this anymore, do they? I don't know.

Is the Yankees missing the playoffs, a bold prediction? At this point, the vibes are like all in my direction. Everybody is kind of expecting that. I don't know who's, I mean, it's hard to make these predictions today, but this team's actually gonna, but I think that teams that could, you know, we could, the Mets could underperform but I think I think there it feels like things are a little more solid the foundation is way more solid it's been but obviously you sign a guy for seven hundred and sixty million dollars you need him to hit 70 homers so he there's like there is no

living up to that contract really could be the Astros with like you know everyone's in love with Cam Smith but like dude didn't play in the minor leagues. Texas maybe? Oh. I think Texas could very high, very, very just be just like they were last year too. Like it's, they're right in the middle of the teeter totter and they could roll and roll one way really hard.

Just too many injuries to key players basically and they fall short. I guess I could see that. I mean, we keep asking the how do they do it question about Cleveland and Milwaukee. So naturally they would come up. I mean, we keep asking the how do they do it question about Cleveland and Milwaukee, so naturally, they would come up. I don't like what the Guardians are doing. We had a bold prediction in the Discord

that the Guardians end up 14th in the American League. I don't hate that for a bold prediction, so I guess I'm quietly doubling down on sinking the twins prediction that Eno put out there by saying the Guardians will underperform, and that's part of how the twins get there so I'm gonna go Guardians. I mean if you look at the Royals lineup and you look at the Guardians lineup the big holes thing kind of applies to both I mean the the Guardians are gonna run out

Brian Rokeo, Bo Naylor who might be there but they're starting Arias, Gabriel Arias at second and you know even Lane Thomas wasn't that great and Daniel Schneeman is their fourth guy and Nolan Jones as much as we like him on this podcast like it could not work out this you could have five holes in that lineup. I'm not sure Nolan Jones is healthy yet he wasn't healthy last year but the bat speed was good yeah the best he was good. The Phillies have said that Andrew Painter isn't coming up till mid-June or something like that, but with Ranger Suarez already tweaked, are they one injury away from having him come up? Should they get those bullets at the Major League level?

They should. I don't get the sense that Suarez's injury is going to take that long. So I think once Suarez is back, they're fine sort of bridging the gap with Taiwan Walker for now. I think if they were to lose a Wheeler or a Nola or a Luzardo or a Sanchez for a prolonged period of time in the first half, maybe then they would change that. They're not building up Painter. The newest note says he will begin pitching in extended spring training in a couple of weeks on the 24th. So like building up, like even if you wanted his innings in the major leagues, you would want him for, you want to call him up to pitch one inning. Yeah, no, no.

He, they, they want to get him to three or four at least. And they want there to be a extended period of time because they want him, they kind of just want to hand him, hand him off the keys a little bit. And they want him to be right in that group with Nola and Wheeler and by all accounts he's gonna, he's gonna be and he's got the makeup of any better than any pitcher right now. That's it So but I just think it's just bad timing It's just the way where he's at and where that when the spot opened and what that spot means I think it's gonna be important though fantasy league second half of the season. It's gonna be a difference maker

question We're in a brewery so if you had to name a beer after a player, what player and what would the beer be called? I thought you just wanted a beer name. I always thought crooked swaths would be a great name for a beer. It'd be a really really hazy like double IPA that would be crooked mowing the lawn so it'd just be a great name. It could smell kind of grassy too. Drunk Drunk Moe on the lawn. Yeah, just basically Drunk Lawn.

I mean, I'm from the Midwest, but this is a regular occurrence for people. Midwest answer, I love it. It's not a baseball answer. Well, I guess the groundskeeper. That could happen. You never see Crooked Swatts in the big leagues. We had Brett Pills was a Major League player. So you could easily have a Brett Pills, the giant, he's kind of a giant's legend a little bit.

He had some legendary moments. So you get a Brett Pills Pills. Yeah. If you wanted to double up on that. To piggyback your idea of what alcohol does to people, rowdy tea. Ah, yeah. So some kind of a tea beer.

That sounds like a hard tea. Yeah. It sounds like a hard tea, rowdy Tea. Ah, yeah. So some kind of a tea beer. That sounds like a hard tea. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like a hard tea. Rowdy Tea. Maybe it's a hard tea. Rowdy Tea.

I like that. Another question? For those of us who don't have a horse in the race in the American League, is it worth rooting for an ALCS between the A's and the Rays? So the entire series has to be played in a minor league ball 100% I'm here for that. I love it. That's a great thing to root for this is like the cousin of rooting for the asteroid I think It'll just look like a spring training game And oh my god, man, they'd be so angry.

And they'd have to like, they would do like pregame stuff about it, and then A-Rod and A-Rod had to talk about it. That's why I used to hit VP. I'm on Team Asteroid, by the way. It would be so awkward. And they'd have those guys on the field because there's no other place to put them. Yeah, there's nowhere to put them. Another question. Eno, first and foremost, great new beer. Give it up, everybody. Yeah, Guy Angusco. Eno paid me for that. You have mentioned a couple times last couple weeks Wilmer Flores one of the best guys in baseball nice guy but just

don't think he's gonna cut it multi-part question number two was he thinking about you when he went up and number three have you changed your opinion since he hit that home run today? Actually, you know, he has two home runs this spring. Pulling up the numbers again. He hit it off of Ian Jabeau, dude. He did. Ian Jabeau. The closer. Team Canada closer.

Okay, yeah, I did have a moment when he hit that home run where I said I might be wrong. And the guy that I thought would take his place on the roster, Gerrard Canacion broke his hand and is not going to be available. So Wilmer Flores is going to get a month at least of runtime to prove that he can keep the job. And there's something, he's, it's going to sound again like damning with faint praise or even making fun of him, but he's a guest hitter and he's actually pretty good at it. So he's a guy that wants to, he has two swings. He has a flat swing at the top of the zone,

and he has a very scoopy swing at the bottom. And he's just singing, he's just like, fastball or breaking ball, fastball or breaking ball. He puts the fastball swing on, or he puts the breaking ball swing on. And today he put the breaking ball swing on the breaking ball. And there's something to that, like, he's smart, he's affable.

That's why people love him. Multilingual and just a, I mean you saw it when he cried as a met, like he is present in his emotions and says real things. Like when I asked him about that moment he said, that was the first time I learned that baseball was a business. But that was a good thing and a bad thing. It was a good thing because I grew up and I learned to treat baseball as a business after that. But the good thing about that is I treated it like a business and I still get to play.

You know, and by treating it like a business and taking these small deals and these short deals and going places, I've been able to play and I've carved out. So he's carved out this like right handed DH spot that's very tenuous and so maybe next year he won't have a job. But this year looks like maybe he can keep it going. You've softened. I've softened.

One swing. Like I said though, I like him so much personally that I'm still rooting for him. I think you did sound like you felt bad burying him in the first place. Yeah, I did. Any other questions from anybody? There's a few people who want questions. Cool.

Alright. Again, this is for Eno. One of the things that I do appreciate about you is how honest you are about your evaluations of players. And I know that you are in a lot of locker rooms or you have a lot of access to players. Do you have any anecdotes that we may want to hear that stick out to you in terms of things that you've said that you've had to I guess deal with later on or anything along those lines? Thank you. Well a couple are funny. Like one, I was trying to convince Darwin Barney that he had a trade value and I quoted his defensive stats and he was arguing he didn't have trade value.

He was arguing against having trade value. And I was like, no, somebody wants a middle infielder. He was right in the end, he did not get traded for it. But he walked off and from across the, across like from like 30 yards away he yelled, nerdERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR of our conversation. But you know when it comes to like providing you know evaluations I always feel super bad about it because I have to talk to the player afterwards and the big one was I wrote a big story with Sonny Gray about what went wrong in New York and he was like laying out what New York told him to do and he was like New York just wanted me to throw sliders in the zone

he's like I don't really throw a slider. I just throw a harder curveball. And if you want me to throw in the zone, it just spins. And he had this quote that became, it got aggregated, especially because it's New York. It got aggregated and it was like Sonny Gray quotes. They just wanted me to throw it S-H-I, you know, slider, end of quote. A ship slider. A shipy slider. And you're like, I'm still going to believe that. So I realized, after I got aggregated, I realized I have to go in the next day.

And so it was spring and I don't normally go to the same camp twice, but I went back into Cardinal's camp. Was it Cardinal's camp? No, it might have been Yankee's camp. No, after Yankee's he went... Twins. Twins. He went after Yankee's?

No. Cincy? Cincy. There's Cincy in there too. He went back to Cincy's camp and the PR guy was like, oh good, good you're coming back to Wearless. He's like, Sunny Gray is mad. And I was like, oh, this is great, Sunny Gray's mad.

And so I walk up and I'm like, oh man, I didn't write those headlines. You got aggregated, I didn't put that in my headline, it was just in my piece, I didn't mean for all that to get out there. And he goes, man, it's all cool, dude. But did you have to leave the curse words in? I was like, well, that's like it.

That wasn't an editorial choice for the athletic at the time. We've actually gone away from that a little bit. We take the curse words out more now. That's why we say shippy sliders. Yeah, or something. That could be a better name, Shippy Sliders. I mean, he's like a good Southern boy. He didn't want me. But that also opens the door a little bit.

I have two kids at home, young kids that I should not be cursing around a lot. And I go into the clubhouse and they curse sailors in the clubhouse. I mean, it is just... 40% of the words. like sailors in the clubhouse. I mean it is just, and I've even found that I can- 40% of the words. Yeah, I've even found that I can kind of ingratiate myself with players a little bit by just swearing just as much as them.

They're like, oh this guy gets it. And it's come full circle. I used to have a pretty good barrier up and it's come full circle to where that barrier is totally softened and I expect both my kids to grow up with just total potty mouse. I mean they're one step away. Any more questions? Yeah. This is also for Reno but is open to everyone. I've been told and it seems like the trend in pitching is towards wider arsenals, flatter mixes, more intelligent usage, better tunneling. How does,

in the previous live podcast we had for Pitcher List previously, we were ranking different attributes like velocity, feel for spin, different things. You could build a pitcher. What would you do? And there's a draft. Have you changed your mind on what's important? Because I'm thinking of a Sasaki versus a Joe, one who can absolutely spin the hell out of the baseball. His curve and his cutter are his two best pitches versus a Sasaki versus a Joe. One who can absolutely spin the hell out of the baseball. His curve and his cutter are his two best pitches. Versus a Sasaki who has an alien,

a good velocity, an alien splitter. But then can't seem to spin the baseball. What's his other pitch gonna be? I wanna throw this to you, dude. Like if you were building yourself as a starting pitcher and you had the choice between, what was it? It was feel for spin. Feel for spin.

Wide arsenal, command, and one amazing pitch. Like stuff, like a stuff pitch. Like just in a, like Kyle Bradish's slider and you build around it. Or like a more even mix. Who's an even mix guy? Like a... Zach Eflin.

Yeah, Zach Eflin. Yeah, like an even mix guy. Or... For starting pitchers, maybe more the mix and the demand. It's just because you're not... Stuff is just so closely correlated with swing and miss and starters just don't hunt that as much as relievers do. Because they can't. Like Skeens for example. Skeens has one, his

splinker is a very good pitch and a good slider. He's trying to flatten his arsenal out a little bit. He's trying not to throw that pitch. Yeah he's trying to get guys to hit the ball softly earlier in games. He still wants strikeouts, he wants them earlier because he wants to throw more innings. So he's consciously doing that on purpose. It's the multiple fastball thing. So it's not necessarily like giving up contact is what they're saying. Bitch contact thing was the phrase that I hated more than

every time I heard anyone saying it. And I'm like, stop. The goal is to give up no contact ever if you can afford it or soft. We're not trying to throw a hard ground ball somewhere. So yeah, I would say ball somewhere. So yeah I would say those things and then it would probably flip for relievers. You build around one really good pitch and go from there. I just wonder if it should be

flipped. It's like what if you start with the one really good pitch and you know that in today's environment that the pitching coach can help you put the stuff around it. You like like you know that's Evelyn's curse too is that Evelyn like Evelyn had Bradish's curveball and then got taught the like whole thing around it then he might be better even than Bradish you know what I mean like you know maybe Morton's a better version of that. Morton has the one pitch. He has the one pitch but he's all he's added and like what was the last year he was throwing cutters? Like, crazy.

One thing I have noticed, though, is that the aging curve is that you have one great pitch, and then you add pitches around it. And those pitches are good enough that you're really good. And as you get older, the pitches around it start sucking more and are not as effective. But your good pitch is still there.

Your good pitch is still there. Yeah. It's like the Adam Wainwright. Adam Wainwright came up with the curveball. He tried out all these pitches. The cutter was a huge addition. And he Wainwright Adam Wainwright came up with the curve ball He tried out all these pitches the cutter was a huge and he ended with the curve ball Sales got the side I guess my answer is still one great pitch because I think I would add around it and I could always End as a reliever maybe at the end But you know you have a floor of being in the big leagues as a reliever if you have one elite pitch

So but it is it is tough because you know Maybe, on some level, maybe feel for spin is the answer because how do you add pitches if you don't have good feel? It's really hard, you know, some guys are always trying to add pitches, like Touse Bradley is trying to add a pitch every year and it doesn't work a lot. So sometimes, what is it makes guys, some guys add pitches? I don't know. I think that's like makeup or Feel for spin something that's really hard to define, but I will go with one pitch. I think

Who's that? Yeah That's I think that's an edge or trying. He's saying that's he said supinators are throwing good paint change now I think that's an edge or tronic seems shifted wake You know part of that. And then the kick change too. So they found two pitch designs now where the splitter and that's the problem forever. There's so many supernators that could not throw it and have no change up. They just have no change up forever and ever and ever and ever. They didn't know why.

And then now suddenly we can pitch design and we can show you in one pitch if you're doing it right or not. And that is unlocking. I think that's why relievers are going back and becoming starters more effectively now. It's because they're able to do stuff like that. They can design and expand your arsenal faster. I know there's something like one-pitch guys. They're just being like, Clay Holmes came and was like, I have three new pitches. Yeah, more paths to add pitches now and pitch design than we had 10 years ago.

And then Seth Lugo, they're like, hey, instead of throwing your slider and your curveball, you're going to throw your slider sweeper curveball serve. We're just going to turn your two breaking balls into five because we can't because you're a starter now. That's a great thing too. Yeah, that's what I wanted to do the whole time. So they get the opportunity to do it. It's almost like one good pitch gets you the opportunity long enough to learn the other stuff.

Yeah, it's going to hang around long enough to get the chances to make the adjust You gotta have something that's good to hang around and we've talked about it and the position player side if you're a phenomenal Defender that carries your playing time long enough for you to learn how to make adjustments as a hitter and you get that Prolonged window to get better in that and it doesn't necessarily work the other way as well, right? Any more questions we're heading towards two hours. Yeah, I think this will be the last question, I think. Thank you. So one of my favorite things to do early in the season

is look at the X stats to try to identify, like, guys who are either underperforming or overperforming by a little bit. Is that a reasonable thing to do? I feel like you guys have never fully loved X-Woba over the years. Do you have a favorite way to quickly identify somebody who's like a good buy low sell high guy? So I use that leaderboard to dig into players. I won't just look at the X stats, see a gap and say okay I'm in XBA is high, X slug is high, actual is low, I'm just in. I look at the process stats after that and say, is the hitter chasing more, is he swinging more overall? What else

is going on? Because sometimes there's a wholesale change happening that helps to explain part of that gap and it makes you less optimistic that you're going to get the player that the X stats say you're going to get, right? So it's always a jumping off point for me. I don't know if you use it the same way. I mean, one of the, yeah, I do actually, but I will sort by that, but I don't usually build my argument on it. One of the reasons is they haven't actually been, like it hasn't been shown to be predictive.

Those gaps, or XBA, XWOBA has not been shown to be predictive, and I will use it to sort of sort players and be like, who might be unlucky, but the things that you hear us talk about on the show are more predictive. So you're talking about barrels or hard hit rate those are those do go into X-Woba but the problem I don't know why X-Woba is not super predictive I think it has to do with spray angles or like it's not always like contact rate is that part of it. I don't

know why it just hasn't been shown to be predictive. So I'd rather sort of make the underlying argument. I'd rather break beyond that into the sort of components underneath that and look at bat speed, look at barrel rates, look at things like that. So I know for example like XERA for pitching is not very useful and XWOWA for pitching is maybe the least valuable XWOWA but XWOWA for hitting is not very useful. An ex-Wolver for pitching is maybe the least valuable ex-Wolver, but an ex-Wolver for hitting is a little bit better because of the stuff underneath, like barrel and hard hit. So I don't know, I think I'd just rather go a little bit more closer to the source than the sort of thing that sums it up. But if I were you, I think that sorting by the difference is a good way to start looking.

And then you can gather five guys and look At the five guys and be like, you know, what do you like about these five guys? It's funny brought up actually ex woe, but because that is the stat That with Jeremy Hefner, we would use to prepare to face Team so we would when I had a heat map where I would find out where they did their most damage Maybe their ex woWobas. And it would be, we'd go by X-Wobas. So we used to think about it, instead of predictive, it's what's possible.

So these are like things that have happened and they were hit hard enough to be something, but they weren't what they were. Like that's less, it's almost like a result and a predictive stat and so the bigger red blobs mean that guy hits the ball hardest that so that therefore the it's more likely to be a hit. I'm surprised you didn't look at like sort of exit velocity. But then again it points you towards that. You don't want just exit velocity because some of them could be grounders that are hit hard. So you take them all together and see if there's anything that doesn't match up with everything else was what you were saying. So it would be, I call them like compass stats. It points you in a direction. That's where the path is. Let's follow this path. And that was the first thing we would look at is where is the ex Woba? And one thing that was like interesting, here's a prime example, like Shohei Otani, right? His whole and

Bryce Harper, the whole thing is red because when they hit the ball, it's hard. But like Joey Vato was a lot of yellow and there was like a lot of blue but the whole thing there was no blue it's just all kind of like yellow and a little orange because you just hit the ball everywhere but not necessarily hard so like the two they're both really good hitters but the way you approach them you're more willing to live in the zone or give up a hard-hitting to Vato than you are to Otani so that that's that's kind of how we would, you could tell that Otani had the talent that could be the higher ceiling based on that stat, which then

is generally predictive that he might be better than another guy. So I think X stats can show you baseline and then you follow it and see if there's like little nuggets that you can get off of. And that's how we do it. We did it when we were preparing for hitters. Yeah, X-Wolver for hitters too led me to realize that teams play different defensively against guys that don't run well. So you'd see John Carlos Stanton, you'd see Rowdy Talez, like the beefy boys, Albert Pujols late in his career. They'd have great X stats, but bad results. And it wasn't that they were unlucky, it was that you could play them differently defensively

and the others could just take hits away that would be hits for other guys that were better runners. Before they made it illegal, they would play Albert Pujols like on the grass. All the infielders would be on the grass because they had all the time in the world to throw it over to first. There are things like that that come into play. We haven't been able to prove that like a directional X-Wolves is better, but I think there might be

another, you know, teams might have better X-Wolves than are available to us. Right. Because it is a potentially good thing that sums up a lot of different things. Contact, launch angle, exitis. Well I think we have to go. This is our longest episode of Rates and Barrels ever. Two episodes. Flew right by, crammed two episodes in one. Thank you to all of you for joining us live today. We're gonna do this again tomorrow, Friday, 4.30,

right back here at Bear Bottle. We're in the Bernal Heights location. We'll have merch tomorrow, hopefully. We will hopefully have merch tomorrow, so maybe that's a carrot to get you to come back for a second show and a completely different rundown. I made a rundown that I guess would have taken four hours to get through because we like to talk so much.

Not even close to finishing it. Thanks to Lester Koga for hosting us here at Bare Bottle. Yeah, thank you. Thanks to Bare Bottle. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together, making us sound good. You can find Eno on Blue Sky, enoceras.besky.social,

Trevor's imtrevormay.besky.social, IamDVR.BSky.social. For those of you who were not here for our show, we're Rates and Barrels, we're a baseball podcast, tell your friends, but thank you again to all of you for being here. We're back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening. I almost forgot because we're live. Thanks for attending. Yeah, baby.