Rates & Barrels - Project Prospect - Unusual Minor League Results

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

DVR, Eno and Welsh talk about Bryce Miller's pitch mix, Eno's conversation with him and why he struggled at Double-A. Are the Rays messing with Taj Bradley? Plus we've got some listener questions and ...tons more. Rundown 0:34 - Bryce Miller 2:23 - What is a Gyro slider 3:53 - What Savant says about Millers pitch mix vs what it really is 6:55 - Why Bryce Miller struggled at AA according to Bryce 13:14 - What's going on with Taj Bradley 20:23 - If minot league stats aren't sticky, can we trust stat driven prospect lists? 26:21 - Ben Brown 30:06 - Is Liberatore the next big FAAB pitcher 30:42 - DVR only likes bad pitchers 35:51 - Eury Perez 37:01 - Can a high K and high BB pitcher like Edward Cabrera work? 44:09 - Can Chase Silseth be DVR's bad pitcher? 46:47 - Casey Schmitt 50:53 - Can Dominic Fletcher take real time away from Alek Thomas? Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp (paid ad), Visit betterhelp.com/rates today to get 10% off your first month. Head to factor75.com/rates40 and use code RATES40 to get 40% off your first box. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Best Western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze. And it felt a little like... Come on kids, back to the hotel room. Good night kids. Good night mama. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at best western Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Tuesday, May 9th. It's a Project Prospect edition. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris, Chris Welsh here with you, digging into some promotions, some demotions, recent arrivals, and all sorts of other things focused on the long-term, mostly, and young players, of course. Long term, mostly, and young players, of course, and we're going to begin today talking about Bryce Miller because last week, just prior to his debut, we didn't talk about Bryce Miller. Two starts in the book so far, wildly different results between what he was doing in AA and what he's done early on here with Seattle, and it leads to a simple question. How good is Bryce Miller? Now, you know, I'm going to throw it to you first he's come through in terms of the minors and what they've done with his pitch mix. But what was pretty interesting is when you're looking at, you know, say Savant or Fangraphs, it says that he's
Starting point is 00:01:57 throwing a four seamer, a slider, a sweeper and a change up. And that's sort of what he told me, but it doesn't what he told me doesn't really line up with what I'm looking at. So what he told me was he throws a gyro slider. So that's the 87 to 89 mile an hour pitch that's called a slider on fangraphs and baseball savant and brooks the slider there is a gyro slider so it's hard it has less movement than usual and it's all about command and putting in the right place uh and it's more effective against the lefties than the sweeper can you explain the difference between like because they also it as a cutter in the first start what differentiates a cutter so people can know from a gyro like what makes it a gyro and us not just calling it a hard slider or cutter uh well generally it doesn't have a good it doesn't have a good active spin
Starting point is 00:02:59 it doesn't um so for example his slider has 25 active spin. And so it's basically not turning the spin into movement. And that's a way you can spot a gyro slider. Another way that you can spot it is that it has more drop than a cutter and actually less horizontal movement. So if you look at his slider on Savant, you'll see it has two inches less horizontal movement than the average slider. And if you're looking for a cutter, if there was, if that was mislabeled as a cutter, it would, should have, I don't know, six inches more horizontal movement, or at least as much average movement as a slider, right? Because the cutter is supposed to be zip, you know, it's supposed to be like a one plane you know uh sideways movement
Starting point is 00:03:46 um so to the fact that it has less sideways movement than cutters and sliders uh suggests to me that's a gyro slider and the closest you get to kind of zero zero uh on brooks uh that's a gyro slider it's a bullet it's supposed to be bullet spin it's supposed to just it's supposed to be just basically as straight as possible and the idea is that's super easy to command useful against both sides and hard so it comes off he's got the 96 mile an hour fastball he's got the 86 87 mile an hour slider and it's a different velo but when it comes out of his hand looks like the fastball and moves differently from the fastball so So that's the gyro slider. Now, what they have on Savant as the sweeper, I don't believe is his sweeper
Starting point is 00:04:30 because he told me that he has a basically like a power curve, like a curve ball that is 81 miles an hour and has two plane movement. And if you look at Savant, the sweeper, they said it has eight inches more drop than the average sweeper. So that to me already says that's not a sweeper. Sweeper is supposed to be much more one plane. It's supposed to be, it has a little bit of depth, but it's more about its horizontal movement. Now look at his sweeper. It has less horizontal break than the average sweeper. So what he told me was his curveball is basically a depthy sweeper. So I guess that's why Savant is capturing it this way. But as you can see, it's a two-plane pitch. Now, if you go over to Brooks baseball and do a scatter chart, you can see that one of his
Starting point is 00:05:23 curveballs, as they've got listed there, or sweepers as they have on Savant, is closer to the zero line and has five inches less drop than his other sweepers. So if I had to guess, I would say he's thrown one sweeper and the rest are curve balls. And why does that matter? I think it's more pitches than people think. He's not just a four-seam gyro slider guy. He's obviously more than that. And the two change-ups he has thrown have been beautiful in terms of movement and a lot of horizontal movement for a guy that has an extreme over-the-top head tilt kind of release. that has a extreme over the top head tilt kind of release to get good horizontal movement on the changeup is difficult. And I see a full arsenal. I'm so excited that you got this too, because I've been talking about Bryce Miller since,
Starting point is 00:06:16 you know, spring training. I've been very high on him and it hasn't matched up what he told me. Cause he told me the exact same thing he's telling you. He's like, I throw two sliders now, a gyro and a sweeper. And in that first start,
Starting point is 00:06:27 when you go and look, and I saw that the sweeper usage was so up, I hadn't been able to wrap my head around what was going on. And you said, yeah, he said his sweeper was like, uh, like a couple of weeks old.
Starting point is 00:06:39 Yeah. He said he wasn't comfortable with it. When I spoke to him in spring training that he was still like working on it. So you and I were talking before this and even trying to speculate because I thought that sweeper might be the curveball which does dispel exactly what you just said the kind of like hey could he be the next Spencer Strider because he's a two-pitch pitcher he is dominant fastball but he's got these two other offerings and what it also tells you is you haven't seen the fourth pitch yet or fifth pitch if you talk about if you were to start throwing the change up,
Starting point is 00:07:05 the sweeper hasn't been there. One of the most fascinating things about this though, and I'm excited to hear it. Cause I haven't even heard it is we've been trying to dissect what the hell happened in the minor leagues. Cause we didn't get any AAA numbers. You said you talked to him and there was some information about, and he said what his struggles were in double a correct.
Starting point is 00:07:25 Yeah. There's a little bit of a developmental thing. We talk about this sometimes in the minor leagues that, um, you know, some people will just want to throw away minor league stats and say, Oh, they're always working on stuff and it's inconsistent, uh, uh, you know, um, matchups and, you know, you can't really use minor league stats. I am not in that camp. Uh, however, this does, uh, this, this story will tell you that there are some problems with minor league stats i am not in that camp uh however this does uh this this story will tell you that there are some problems with minor lake stats and one is he said the the invective was throw strikes throw sliders throw strikes and so he has a beautiful fastball of course because he's got
Starting point is 00:07:57 that over the top extreme over the top a lot of ride in fact i think when i last looked most ride among fastballs amongst fastballs thrown by starters so like already like already number one on a leaderboard um and uh and so he has that fastball and they're trying to figure out the correct slider mix which we are already like being like does he throw three does he throw two like what is going on here so yeah and they're trying to get him to learn the sweeper and And he said, you know, developmentally, the first thing that he encountered in the minor leagues was everyone has to throw a gyro slider.
Starting point is 00:08:31 That's the thing. And that's from research that likes Stuff Plus that says that the 87 mile an hour slider, there's not a bad 87 mile an hour slider out there. And so everybody was trying to throw the gyro slider. And he said, the newest thing is I got to throw a sweeper because everyone's throwing a sweeper. So I'm trying to throw a sweeper, but, he said, the newest thing is I got to throw a sweeper because everyone's throwing a sweeper. So I'm trying to throw a sweeper,
Starting point is 00:08:46 but I can't always command it. And so he said that, A, it was all about throwing strikes and throwing sliders. B, he was throwing sweepers in 0-2 and 1-2 counts. And that instead of turning into whiffs, it was turning into soft contact. And then C, he said that really strangely, you expect to have a game where the wind's blowing out
Starting point is 00:09:13 and every infield hit, every squibber is a hit. You expect to have that once in a while. He said, my first three games were all that. He said the wind was blowing out 40 miles an hour in two of his games uh and every sweeper he threw turned into a little squibber that turned into a hit and uh he said he's not you know he's it's just one of those things you kind of laugh it off and so there's like developmental issues along with just like weird park factor stuff and like just noise and something to add to it with those as well
Starting point is 00:09:45 is how awesome that rotation is um that they've got in the minors right now at double a that arkansas rotation emerson hancock prelander baroa and taylor dollard guess what all these guys have over five eras right now prelander um 34 strikeouts in 22 innings but but he's got a 5-1-6 ERA. Emerson Hancock, 5-1-6 ERA, 31 strikeouts in 22 innings. Just maybe putting that out there, if there is a narrative of you just throw middle strikes and they are actually making big adjustments, might be part of the reason why you see guys like Dollard and Prelander and Emerson have a little bit more inflated stats.
Starting point is 00:10:23 It seems across the board. How their walk rates compared to the past, because maybe there's a developmental thing there to just be like, hey, let's reduce walk rates right now. Because if you look at Bryce Miller, it was the best walk rate of his minor league career. Yeah, I think prelanders is up. I was looking on MLB Pipeline so I can see it all together.
Starting point is 00:10:44 You can see, well, actually you can see well actually you know what it looks like a couple of them are up right now because prelander and emerson emerson hancock has the worst of his career which isn't uh helping but it's also or the thing could be hey we all need to throw the sweeper and so they're all trying to throw the sweeper and maybe they can't command and check this out emerson hancock last year at double a um he's actually been in double a for three straight years because of injuries and stuff 98 innings last year had an 842k per nine this year in double a a 12.31k per nine so massive massive sweeper massive k numbers have gone up sweeper over and over again you know because that's an organizational thing that we we heard somewhere else that the
Starting point is 00:11:23 mariners and yankees are basically just throwing they're teaching everybody the sweeper not even they're not even going with the kind of sinker sweeper cutter thing they're just like teaching everybody the sweeper i mean if you look at it you would i i said to bryce miller he's like i thought from your angle you know from your arm angle the sweeper wasn't a thing and he's like maybe maybe not but i'm going to try to learn it you know um so maybe he settles in and it's just curveball, gyro slider, and fastball. But the changeup has a great shape. And I don't think the command is actually an issue. And I'm all systems go on him.
Starting point is 00:11:56 So I dropped $38 on him or $37 on him in AL labor because I really needed a starter. And the starters had been going for like $33, $34. I'm going to get some money back from Jeffrey Springs. And, you know, the time has passed. It's one of those things that came up real quickly near the end of a weekend. And, you know, we talked about him some on the cast, but I'm all in. It's tricky to me because i think minor league numbers for a variety of different reasons are not helpful i'm gonna say they're nearly useless on the screen
Starting point is 00:12:33 if you're watching us on youtube the the double a affiliate of the mariners is not a part of the league that's using the pre-tact balls that's part of the southern league is using the pre-tact balls and it was kyle glazer yeah kyle glazer at baseball america had a good story about a week ago That's part of the league that's using the pre-tacked balls. That's part of the Southern League is using the pre-tacked balls. And I think it was Kyle Glazer. Yeah, Kyle Glazer at Baseball America had a good story about a week ago about the impact of the pre-tacked balls jumping walk rates and causing all sorts of problems, also increasing strikeouts, I believe. Yeah, Andrew Abbott went from having a 20% K per nine that dropped to 12 when he went to AAA after that.
Starting point is 00:13:07 Yeah, and he points out that with the pre-tact ball andrew abbott was getting three extra inches of carry on his four seam fastball while he was at double a and then that of course went away when he went to triple a and the ball changed and it's like we take a look at these results and we're like okay double a tearing up double a that should be a good thing. Yeah, I had so many Andrew Abbott questions. When we got to triple A, I was looking at the numbers and was like, I don't see anything here. It's so strange because of the way that there are different rules, different balls, all these different variables. And then, of course, we've talked about Martin League Park factors and different elevations, all that kind of stuff. But then also on top of that, I think it bridges the gap between some of the things
Starting point is 00:13:46 we're seeing with the Mariners prospects, maybe some of the things that are going on with Todd Bradley right now. The strategies in the minors are very specific to player development and not necessarily to throwing what you're comfortable with, throwing what you're good at and winning. Winning doesn't matter in the minor leagues.
Starting point is 00:14:03 It matters that you can execute what you need to execute to help the big league club down the road. That's the goal. I think it's led a lot of people to say, what's going on with Taj Bradley? We got a few mailbag questions about him. It's been a couple of pretty rough outings for him at AAA Durham.
Starting point is 00:14:20 Just like three Ks in five and two thirds innings. One of those starts lasted one inning, 12 earned runs allowed. And on top of all of that, I thought part of the reason he was going down was to shift to a five day rotation schedule. That hasn't happened yet. Still going six days.
Starting point is 00:14:37 It's crazy. I've been really like sitting on this one and trying to figure out what's going on with Taj Bradley. So I'm going to throw this out and Eno can speak to all of it. I I've been thinking there has to be something different, kind of like what we're talking about here. There's a, there's an initiative with Bryce Miller, right?
Starting point is 00:14:53 I felt like there had to be an initiative more than the five days that have led to some lack of results in Taj Bradley from where he was. And there's some big usage differences. So I'm going to just take his last start in the major leagues, which was up against the Astros. That was obviously a tough matchup. He was, this was his usage, 45% cutter. Number one pitch was cutter.
Starting point is 00:15:16 It had a 30% whiff rate, bam. He was 40% forcing fastball, pretty low CSW strikeout percentage. And he was 13% curveball, absolutely no changeups. His curveball was pretty weak. It had no whiffs. It had a CSW of 18. So we now then go to the minors, and this is where things get interesting.
Starting point is 00:15:37 In his crap start, where he got blown up and went one inning, he threw 41 pitches in there. and went one inning. He threw 41 pitches in there. He was fastball, forcing fastball, 56% with a cutter usage down to 39%. Maybe that's not like too insane in the instance of, you know, in the 40s on both those other pitches, but you can see the gap.
Starting point is 00:15:56 Yeah, you can see the gap widening. Change up and curveball, he threw one a piece in that start. So now we go to the next one. The next one he threw 75 pitches, 56% forcing fastball. Again, that was the big pitch cutter came down to under 30%. It was 28% usage. This time curve ball still barely used only 4%, but the change up came up to 12% usage. So what we see here are two things, three things, curveball going away, change up, used
Starting point is 00:16:29 more, and four seam being the dominant pitch. All these things have happened in his last two starts versus the major leagues, which leads me to think that was the initiative of what they wanted him to do. Eno can actually speak to this via Stuff Plus and what's seen. But I think if you're looking, hey, what's the problem here? His usage is completely changing from the success he saw in the majors. But the Rays may have found something that they wanted to tweak now. And that might be leading to some of these problems we're seeing in the minors where he's getting beat up.
Starting point is 00:16:57 He's given up 12 earned runs in his last two starts, you know. Yeah, and if you look at the results or the Stuff Plus, you can see why they want to de-emphasize the curve it has a 273 batting average against a 546 slugging a 273 iso against that curveball and uh it by stuff plus it's his worst pitch um so you know in fact everything that they're doing right now is would you could say was optimizing uh for stuff plus the you know, in fact, everything that they're doing right now is what you could say was optimizing for stuff. Plus, you know, in terms of his fastball being the best pitch that he's got, the cutter being the second best pitch and the changeup being pretty decent and the curveball being below average. So they're de-emphasizing the curveball, they're re-emphasizing the fastball. And all of those things make sense.
Starting point is 00:17:44 the curveball, the re-emphasizing the fastball, and all of those things make sense. I guess the sort of asterisk that's forming for me is there's some pretty poor fastball command numbers in here. And I guess I was kind of surprised by that. And I think the reason that he is using the cutter so much is he can command it better than his fastball. that he is using the cutter so much is he can command it better than his fastball. So he came up, and he's in the major leagues, and he had to put the pitch in a certain place,
Starting point is 00:18:12 so he used the cutter a ton. But the fastball is superior. So in essence, they're doing the oldest thing in the book. They're asking him to work on his fastball command. And that's why his walk rate is through the roof. And they're doing that at the same time as maybe trying to, to reestablish his, his, his spot in the rotation every five days.
Starting point is 00:18:39 So none of this sounds very hopeful maybe, but I'm still hopeful uh i looked at his stuff uh plus per start and in his last start it was a 119 um and even with the location plus question marks that i put around it it had a 98 location plus so i actually think he's going to dominate his next start. I don't know what that means for when he gets back up, but I remain hopeful. I see a great foundation and this is more, you know, get your fastball,
Starting point is 00:19:15 right. You know, and you're going to be a fastball cutter change guy. When you come back. Whoa. What are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking?
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Starting point is 00:19:53 Access nutritional tips, mental health coaching, and advice on overall wellness. As the official health and wellness partner of the Toronto Raptors, we want you to be a fan of your health with SunLifeHealthyYou.com. And I think as long as the Rays just keep winning and keep preserving their lead in the AL East, that just keeps buying them more time to wait it out. If that gets closer in the next few weeks, then there's more pressure to bring a guy like Bradley up and use him as an upgrade over the weakest link in that rotation. It just makes it harder to justify holding him when we start to lose hope that it's going to be a quick turnaround.
Starting point is 00:20:27 And it becomes even more complicated with Tyler Glass now getting close to returning, right? Because instead of being one injury away, Taj Bradley could become two injuries away, depending on how things are going. It's encouraging to see that the model is still good, even though the results have been poor. I think while I wanted to hold him when he first got sent down, we all know that's a luxury.
Starting point is 00:20:47 You can do it for a little while. Eventually, week three, week four of holding someone who's not coming back up, more guys get hurt, more guys are underperforming. You have to make a move in your redraft leagues. So I don't know. I'm torn now. I'm starting to look at him as someone who might have to be dropped in redraft leagues, even though I was among the many people who threw a ton of fab in his direction.
Starting point is 00:21:08 I'm starting to develop a really sour taste about fab this year. I feel like it's just gotten out of control. It's worse than past years. People are more aggressive. We talked about it a little bit on the Friday show. If the minor league results are so skewed, and this would apply to hitters too, by the way, if pitching's all screwed up for all the reasons we talked about a few minutes ago, hitting performances in the minor leagues might not be as meaningful as we want them to be either.
Starting point is 00:21:33 Tearing up a bunch of minor league pitchers who are working on stuff might not be as good as we think. You're bringing up something that's interesting, and I don't want to poke at it or anything, but when you're having this conversation, I definitely am not an elitist to be like, well, you have to have your eyes on the players and stuff like that, even though I do. But it also it throws out it throws out an interesting question on a lot of the prospect modeling that's going on and, you know, the stuff that kind of auto generates statistics,
Starting point is 00:22:03 especially something like from you, DVR. What value do you have in that kind of auto-generates statistics, especially something like from UDVR, what value do you have in that type of stuff? Because I actually think it's incredibly valuable to have these generated prospect lists that are just statistically based so you can find names to look deeper into. I don't particularly like the rank generations off of them, but I think they're very useful in identifying players.
Starting point is 00:22:26 But as you poke even harder at minor league stats and we learn about players testing out things, you know, it's a lot less sticky, as we would say here. It's a lot less sticky to look at that type of stuff and, you know, build your entire thesis off of players that minor league stats might mean even less to you now with altered balls at different levels and different agendas and narratives that are going on because I don't disagree I think it is tougher to buy into stats more and more and that's why you want
Starting point is 00:22:56 to have a familiarity of really what the game is yeah I think that's the I mean you I know you need all the ingredients I've never doubted that I know you need all the ingredients. I've never doubted that. I know you need scouting. You need the ability to use numbers. You need the ability to do modeling. All of these things matter, but I think there are so many wrenches being thrown in at each spot. If you're using prospect lists and scouting evaluations, there could be bias in there based on where the player was drafted or different things. Or just think about what's happened at the major league level, too.
Starting point is 00:23:23 Yeah, and by the way, when I say modeling, I'm not talking about stuff plus modeling. Stuff enforcement. Like, there's all sorts of strange things happening in baseball right now. The run environment has gone. 2019 was like the biggest home run year in the history
Starting point is 00:23:40 of baseball. And then three years or four years later, we had like a dead ball that was like, oh, okay, well, now we're back 15 years in terms of how the ball's flying. And now the ball's flying again, not quite like 2019, but more like 2021. Like it's, it's, it's hard. And clarification is, I'm not talking about like stuff plus modeling or some of the backend stuff. I actually think that might be the key. When I say the auto-generated stuff, it's off of generating like hits and slugging percentage
Starting point is 00:24:12 and kind of surface level stats, stats that we're talking about here. The key to breaking through that is getting hard hit numbers and getting stuff plus numbers. That's the key to kind of break out. And that's, I think what of break out and that's i think what makes a lot of whoever is able to use that makes that modeling better but there are a lot of like we just look at the statistics and we don't care about levels or age versus levels and that's how we build it and that is less sticky maybe than it's ever been before which is uh you know it's crazy minor leagues are crazy right now it took it took, you know, for us to talk about Bryce Miller before I feel a little vindicated to be
Starting point is 00:24:48 able to talk about Bryce Miller. Bryce Miller is not someone statistically surface level that popped out to anybody in that first month because he was having poor results, but it's a matter of seeing the guy talking to the guy, talking to other players about it and being able to identify those players, regardless of stats, which sometimes give us that little advantage. I'm going off the rundown here for a second. That's fine. No, we can keep going off the rundown. I mean, part of this for me is that
Starting point is 00:25:14 Bryce Miller, for all the young pitchers that we were drafting throughout draft season for redraft leagues, Bryce Miller was in that next level below. He was on prospect list. He was on the radar for keeper leagues and dynasty leagues, course but he injury and another you know another pitcher to get to him well they did say he almost had the opportunity to make the roster sorry they had said in spring training like he was ready to be in that rotation if they had a spot listen to that i don't know yeah i know i know but it was a lot of it was a lot of andrew painter and kyle harrison grace rodriguez going much much earlier than those guys hunter brown fought like a lot of Andrew Painter and Kyle Harrison and Grayson Rodriguez going much, much earlier than those guys. Hunter Brown fought.
Starting point is 00:25:48 All those guys could still be good. I'm not saying we were total idiots. Everyone's wrong, and we all suck at this. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying it's amazing to me that with all the information we have, with all the tools at our disposal, the guys that come up and get 20%, 25%, 30% of people's fab budgets are guys we could have drafted and stashed just like the guys that we stashed that didn't get the opportunity and something about that is driving me crazy right now because it's an inefficient use of in-season resources and it's a miss throwing those late darts in certain drafts rice miller around
Starting point is 00:26:18 for four weeks before he came up i guess would you yeah it's just people keep fought around it's that's the other it's like if you're in a league where fought was held a redraft league where fought was held then yeah but draft champions man we should have all had bryce miller jesus right and even mason miller even though he's hurt right now but based on the stuff and the opportunity and nobody had mason miller like there was a big difference like bryce mill Miller sort of on that radar was on that radar for some people. Mason Miller wasn't on that radar at all as far as being actually drafted. Welsh, you had him in one of your pieces for the athletic as like a super deep sleeper. Yeah. I was going to say not our, our dear friend Nando was kind enough to tweet that out of the
Starting point is 00:26:57 clouds by the way. But yeah. And my, uh, my dynasty article I put together a preseason. I was also talking, this was actually like in a semi redrafty type of conversation as well. I did have Mason Miller in my AL prospects for people to watch because I did a hitter, a pitcher, and then a deep dynasty guy. So my 2023 AL sleeper was Mason Miller. And one of the guys to Justin Durden was my hitter. And he just won player of the week. So he didn't break camp. So that one didn't really work out, but he's starting to pick it back up and hopefully he's
Starting point is 00:27:28 going to make the, uh, the major soon. There's a, this is the one I was going to, uh, to go off the rundown here real quick, but, uh, have you, uh, do you ever heard of Ben Brown? Ben Brown with the Cubs? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I'm looking at his his minor league stats and especially ever since he came over to the Cubs, but also last year with the Phillies and high a just wicked strikeout rates, like really nice strikeout rates, basically like a thirty three, thirty four percent strikeout rate in one hundred and thirty innings since he hit a ball with the Phillies. And it's supported by a really good swinging strike rate. And if you go over to the Google doc, subscribers will find that he is the newest entry into the top 10 in stuff plus in triple a. So you've got,
Starting point is 00:28:23 you know, you've got excellent stats, excellent result numbers. Model likes him. You look over to Location Plus, but it's only one start. So you're like, okay, 78 Location Plus. But then you start to look at, oh, well, he did have some bad walk rates
Starting point is 00:28:41 and, oh, a 40, 45 command grade. And then you go into, uh, the pitch level stuff for Ben Brown. And it's really strange, uh, really good for seam and good sinker, but mostly,
Starting point is 00:28:56 uh, really good for seam, really good slider. And, uh, then cutter and sinker. So is that enough? It might be. And I think it could that enough? It might be enough.
Starting point is 00:29:06 I think it could be. It's also interesting you didn't mention the curveball because the Fangraph scouting grades have a 60 grade curveball for Ben Brown. The knock on him has always been the command. It's interesting, especially with a breaking pitch when a scouting eye and the model are divergent on a pitch.
Starting point is 00:29:22 Yeah, well, I mean, unless the cutter is the slider and the slider is the curve. And we're seeing a lot of that. I'm not, I'm being very dicey about this stuff now, especially after what we saw with baseball savant, where it's like, it's if anyone saw a guardians of the galaxy,
Starting point is 00:29:35 it's like that moment where it was like, no, you don't hit blue to talk. You have red is yellow and green is blue. People know what I'm talking about. It's like, it's like that moment of baseball savant right now with pitching.
Starting point is 00:29:45 It's very difficult. Yeah, and then the minor leagues stuff, they don't clean up as much. Another complication. On top of all this, Joe Sheehan had this tweet on Monday and he's exactly right. He wrote,
Starting point is 00:30:00 we've gotten so, so much worse at communicating the rhythms of the long season. Baseball is never meant to be covered like football. It would be nice if we stopped doing that. And I think that was directed more at the journalism aspect of coverage of baseball.
Starting point is 00:30:14 But Twitter brings out the worst in all of this. People want to just be first and right. They want to be the one that had the gifs and the videos and scouting reports on players before they were good. And I'm poking fun at our whole hobby in some sense with Ben Brown, the next $200-plus Fab Pitcher. But it can happen.
Starting point is 00:30:35 Not what I'm saying. The hype machine could get rolling. All it's going to take for Ben Brown to do that is two or three more good starts at AAA, and then a promotion, And then before fab runs, he comes up and strikes out like eight guys. All it's going to take him DVR is coming up on a Tuesday and striking out eight.
Starting point is 00:30:53 It doesn't even matter what his minor league numbers are. And people will be like, we have the whole week to salivate. They'll have the whole, they'll be like, I missed out on Bryce Miller. So now here's where my $200 go. I 100% agree with what you're saying.
Starting point is 00:31:04 Not recognizing that it is okay to like take a step back and know that there is another wave that will be coming into the near future. And that wave is, you know, the elite guys, Gavin Williams, the next guy, if we're being honest here,
Starting point is 00:31:18 I think Ben Brown is a great name. Jump to the top 10 too. But Matthew Libertor is probably that next guy. And he's going to mess with everybody. Well, and see, it's interesting you say that because he has been putting up such good minor league numbers. People want him up. When he comes up, if he is dominant in one start,
Starting point is 00:31:32 I'm going to tell you right now, that's the next $200 fab guy. Whether we like it or not, he will be if he is good in his first start whenever he gets called up. I almost guarantee it. Yeah, I'm out. Why why are you out by the way i don't think it's a good fastball shape yeah he's trying what he can to like build around it but it's fundamentally not a good fastball shape lives up here's where i'm at now this is this is what i'm looking for this is this is my new scouting method i want players who have bad stats like bad results in the minors,
Starting point is 00:32:05 bad scouting reports, and bad numbers in the models because those are the only players you can have for next to nothing. I want discounts. I want bargains. I want players that people think are garbage. Has there anybody been like that? Across the board. That's doing well? Is there anybody that everyone thinks is garbage?
Starting point is 00:32:23 I don't know. Even if I said Ian Hamilton as a reliever, you'd say, Ian Hamilton has a good slider. There's something about Ian Hamilton that probably would have... I think he just described Matt Libertor, though, by the way.
Starting point is 00:32:33 I think he did just describe Matt Libertor with bad stats, bad scouting reports, and bad model numbers. So I'm just pointing it out. That's your guy. That's your guy, DVR. But it comes down to... Ian Hamilton's a good answer, too, actually.
Starting point is 00:32:43 But it's the stupid thing about this is it kind of works on some level. It's too extreme. You can't only play with players like this. But this is a game about opportunity. It's guys that play. You win by getting guys who play a lot because to play a lot,
Starting point is 00:32:57 you have to play well for the most part. Right, but Gavin Williams has 113 stuff plus, fifth best in AAA, but there's two young guys in front of him. And Peyton Battenfield. We tried our best to get them into the rotation. What happens, you have to have more injury to get Gavin Williams up, I think. That's true.
Starting point is 00:33:13 Yeah. This has been a fun episode so far. Now I'm just staring at the injured pitchers in the rundown, and I'm just angry. I mean, Mason Miller, elbow tightness, went back to the Bay Area. We'll see what further tests reveal there. That one, the people who are... We knew that was coming, though.
Starting point is 00:33:29 You knew the risk. It was clear risk. I took the risk. I'm not saying you're wrong if you did. Sometimes guys are hurt for a little while, and then they're not. That happens. You can't pretend guys miss time and then only continue to miss time after that. That's not always the outcome.
Starting point is 00:33:47 Although past injury predicts future injury. It does. It 100% does. But everybody seems injured at some point. Well, this year just feels like we're going to see just a gross number of injuries. Ricky Tiedemann hit the seven-day IL with some biceps discomfort. That's a potential big one for the Jays. Is he on the il officially yet
Starting point is 00:34:05 the seven day il they didn't say anything about like a long long-term absence for him yet but slightly better news than when he seemed like pointing at his arm and was walked off the mound immediately i was like oh god that's tj this episode is brought to you by peloton forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton Bike or Bike Plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate.
Starting point is 00:34:45 Terms apply. So we'll see if anything else comes from that. And then since we last spoke, Daniel Espino had shoulder surgery, and that one's a little more like the Mason Miller where it's like it's one thing after another. You know if you've been rostering him, if you traded for him.
Starting point is 00:34:59 I think he can really spin it. He's going to be really good if he's ever healthy, but he's out 12 to 14 months because he had the anterior capsule repair is not good. Anterior capsule. Isn't anterior capsule. What happened to that guy?
Starting point is 00:35:11 Um, who came to San Diego in the, uh, what trade was it? They came up Anderson Espinoza. Oh, no, he had like two Tommy Johns with the Padres.
Starting point is 00:35:23 It was like almost back to back Tommy Johns. It's funny. I, I, I like saw him for like two and a half years in the back Tommy Johns with the Padres it was like almost back-to-back Tommy Johns it's funny I I like saw him for like two and a half years in the backfields of the Padres he was always walking around with just his arm in a sling because he was just never pitching do you think the Mason Miller one is gonna be uh season impactful that it's like we just caught him like it's gonna be the type of injury where you're gonna be out for the rest of the year based on his amount of innings and stuff like that because it's different than what's going on with the speed. I don't think he'll be out the rest of the year, but I think that no matter what they say,
Starting point is 00:35:51 there's going to be a rest period. Well, and they're just going to be ultra careful with him if he feels anything. That's what I'm saying. So that could be what's happening right now. This could be short IL stint back in a couple of weeks. I think if we get a timetable and it's more than two weeks, I think you probably have to think about dropping him, which is absolutely
Starting point is 00:36:08 terrible, but there is a problem people have with sunk cost fallacy and being unwilling to drop players that they spent a lot of money on. Just that. I hear you, but I'm in the middle of nursing Taj Bradley along in my main event.
Starting point is 00:36:24 I've got both of them. i'm defending myself a little bit you fell in love with them for a reason yeah and so that reason still exists it's not i mean i can appraise those two things and be like okay it's a sunk cost i should move on but also there's a reason i love this guy. So if he was on the wire, I would want to pick him up. So I shouldn't drop him just yet. So I don't know. The positive is sitting right next to Tyler glass now. And I feel like what I really want to do is put Tyler glass now in the, in the,
Starting point is 00:36:57 or that might be a different league. I, in one league, I have charged Bradley and right next to Tyler glass. And I just want to put Tosh in the starting lineup and Tosh Bradley becomes my new Tosh now that I just if you have an IL you don't have to worry about it
Starting point is 00:37:10 if this isn't NFBC you're okay you don't have to make the big tough decisions and hopefully people won't have to make that on Mason Bradley is not on the IL so that is hard in redrafts no matter what that's a burnt bench spot it's a burnt bench spot. Yeah, it's a shame because Mason Miller has looked really good so far.
Starting point is 00:37:31 21 and a third innings,.38 ERA,.98 whip, just over a strikeout per inning so far. Just a matter of keeping him on the field. Uri Perez, by the way, cruising at double A. He's one of the pitching prospects that I was pretty excited about throughout draft season. Really interesting arsenal. 42-9 strikeout to walk ratio in 31 innings so far. And he's gone at least five in each of his last five starts.
Starting point is 00:37:51 So it really seems like the way they're using him at least gives him a chance at seeing Miami by season's end because he's been pitching on regular rest every fifth day for his last couple of turns. Imagine that! They did it. They put him on the schedule to see like, what happens? Does he, does he feel okay?
Starting point is 00:38:09 Does everything still move the way it's supposed to? He throws that power change like, uh, Edward Cabrera too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a high nineties. And he spent the entire off season with Sandy Alcantara,
Starting point is 00:38:18 you know, probably learning and defining what that change looks like. Yuri Perez is that other guy. When you talk about the big names, it's like Yuri and Gavin Williams. When he comes up the big names, it's like Uri and Gavin Williams. That's going to be a $200 bid when he comes up. Yeah. But I think like we talked about with Evan Carter last week,
Starting point is 00:38:29 Uri's got to get to AAA. I think they need to see the AAA number. So it's a little bit, but that's what that next wave, that second half of the season, the next wave guys, Uri will get some time this year, but it'll probably be after many others.
Starting point is 00:38:40 It's a long way to the trade deadline-ish to like trading away a starter. Yeah. You know, like you, you sometimes you look at the stands you're like what are the models gonna do 17 and 19 with a new general manager who wants to win are they gonna pack it in are they gonna keep going how does that how does that figure into their appraisal of braxton garrett you know because if they're like it doesn't look like it's our year, then they just keep putting Braxton Garrett out there to see if he's going to be part of the next good team. And then they trade away, you know, somebody, Lizardo or Rogers or whatever.
Starting point is 00:39:18 Cabrera. I think Cabrera, I think he's been super inconsistent to the point that there's a time where they can make a tough decision. You would trade away Edward Cabrera? I think he's been super inconsistent to the point that there's a time where they can make a tough decision. You would trade away Edward Cabrera? I think they can. Yeah, I think – I mean, I think – Just because that would be the one that gets you the most back. You get most back, and then you'd have, you know, you'd have Uri,
Starting point is 00:39:33 you'd have Lizardo, you would build off of Alcantara, Uri, and Lizardo, and then you play with those other two spots, and they've got guys. They've got Trevor Rodgers. Max Meyer's going to come back at some point. Rodgers doesn't get you anything in a trade right now nothing although he's been out there i know this because i've talked to other teams that are poking around on you know is trevor rogers good and have asked me about what i think that's not a good thing so yeah so so rogers is on the block but i don't i don't know, but I don't know that anybody's biting, despite some okay model numbers.
Starting point is 00:40:10 We had a relevant question from one of our listeners. This is from Jesse. Jesse has to cut one of Ruanzi Contreras, Edward Cabrera, or Josiah Gray. I think Eno for sure is going to cut Josiah Gray. Eno will never like josiah gray oh why have that right maybe josiah gray is the guy you're talking about i mean his fastball is down a little bit but he's been so much more efficient is it immediately josiah gray over edward cabrera
Starting point is 00:40:36 me yes okay uh i'm not getting rid of the numbers look okay i just i just don't trust i think the home runs are going to come back although the cutter has helped him suppress some of that hard contact but there josiah gray is what we're talking about my model doesn't like him sierra doesn't like him i don't think anybody likes him what i don't like he'll have a cal quantrill year where he just for some reason have a three era for the season i'm not the biggest fan of a seven walk per nine which edward cabrera has so far in the year just throwing out oh yeah so i'm gonna dump cabrera the k's are great but he is walking at levels that starters can't uh there's nothing
Starting point is 00:41:17 supportive in his like era his expected era is four and a half right now his home run to fly ball it's almost 1.5. Homers per nine. I would just be like, I can at least start him at home, right? His home run rate's got to be lower at home. Yeah, but his career walk rate in the big leagues is 14%. We're at 130 big league innings now. How many guys have thrown that many innings with a walk
Starting point is 00:41:45 rate like that and gone on to figure it out and maybe in the bullpen thing i can look up really quickly that'd be a great closer i hope you can find it edward i think it's 24 25 just turn 25 in april okay i'm doing uh filtering to 25. How far back should I go? 2,000 if you can go back that far. 2,000. The baseball that I can remember is about 2,000. All right, so from 2,000 to 2023, 14 to 25 years old. You want me to do starters only?
Starting point is 00:42:20 Let's do starters only. Let's say minimum. Even just say minimum of 50 innings. Minimum of 100. Okay, do 100. Do 100. It'll make just say minimum of 50 innings. Minimum of 100. Okay, do 100. Do 100. It'll make the list smaller. 100 innings, 14 to 25,
Starting point is 00:42:29 and I'm going to sort by walk rate in the wrong way. 14% is just, that's really high. Dude, it's not good. No, no, it can't be. Did you find Dylan Batances in there? Justin Dunn. Jesse Foppert. This is in order of bad walk rate.
Starting point is 00:42:49 Justin Dunn, Jesse Foppert, Kyle Drabak, Adam Lowen, Edward Cabrera, Robert Stevenson, Daniel Cabrera, Matt Clement, Rick and Keel, who is just a unicorn and came back as a hitter anyway joaquin benoit colby lewis at 13 percent aaron mayette john snyder damian moss case and gabbard carrie wood 12.3 percent oh 12.3 okay carrie wood's the. A lot of relievers in there, by the way. If you can push it down two percentage points over the rest of the year, he has a chance. I mean, it's not totally unlike Kerry Wood, right? Like just nasty, nasty stuff. You know, great strikeout rate, poor walk rate. So Kerry Wood is your guy.
Starting point is 00:43:41 That's your hope. It's Kerry Wood. It's one of 16. It's walking the walk. And you actually have to keep going, right? Jamie Wright, Brandon Finnegan, Oliver Perez, Seth McClung. A lot of relievers. Sean Newcomb, Alan Webster.
Starting point is 00:43:55 You hurt my heart. Robinson Tejeda, Brandon Morrow, Carlos Hernandez. Oh, these are all the guys I fall for. Guys that got pushed to the back of the bullpen there, too. That is his future, man. And I think you said Daniel Cabrera kind of early in that. I remember Daniel Cabrera having electric stuff and no idea where it was going. He was one of those first pitchers like that where I was watching him.
Starting point is 00:44:19 What if he could just locate even a little? How good could he be? Even when I get to, so Mackenzie Gore is 28th on this. Edison Volquez is 30th. Edison Volquez is another good one. So once I get past the top 15, you got Kerry Wood, Mackenzie Gore, Edison Volquez. So you've got three guys who look like starters. Those guys average about 11.7%. So he has to improve greatly over the rest of this season
Starting point is 00:44:48 to basically be considered a starter going forward, I think. That's a good point. That's worse than I thought. If I had any doubts about it, I feel okay cutting Edward Cabrera. If you think someone in your league will trade you something for Edward Cabrera, by all means, pair him with someone else. It's time to stop him in Dynasty while he's still being out there as a starter.
Starting point is 00:45:06 While he's a starter in a good pitcher's park where there's still plenty there to dream on. I think that would make a lot of sense. We found three starters and we're not even sure that two of them are good. Mackenzie Gore is still pretty young and Edinson Volquez was not that good. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:24 Well, and the frustrating thing about some players with that profile is you think they're going to break through. was not that good. Yeah. The frustrating thing about some players with that profile is you think they're going to break through. You keep taking on all the water, all the bad ratios. You just keep letting it in the boat and it just takes down.
Starting point is 00:45:39 Shintaro Fujinami had good stuff numbers. I'm like, well, Location Plus doesn't stabilize quickly, but I had one start where I watched him and I was just like, uh, no. I can't do this. So a question for both of you.
Starting point is 00:45:56 Can Chase Siltseth be a DVR guy? Can he have bad enough numbers in the model? Can he be low enough on prospect lists? Can I just have this guy and just live with the consequences of a potential bat across the board? 82 plus in AAA.
Starting point is 00:46:13 Nice. The projections like him a little bit, but not a lot. I mean, like a 4-3 projection, league average projection, 5-0-9 Sierra, 4-60 Sierra for his career in the major leagues. He had way too good of numbers for you in AAA, though. 4.03 projection, league average projection. 509 Sierra. 460 Sierra for his career in the major leagues.
Starting point is 00:46:29 He had way too good of numbers for you in AAA, though, so that's what's going to dice it up. He was way too good in AAA this year for you. He was good at AA last year. 0.9 ERA, but a 4.33 XFIP, so we knew it was going to not be as good. Oh, we'll see. I'm willing to give you him.
Starting point is 00:46:47 What were the other names we had? I think Libertor is literally... Josiah Gray is the guy. These are our nobody likes them trio. Perfect. I like Libertor and I like Silseth. I'll get them both. Leave them alone and you're fabulous this weekend, everybody. Keep them in the 3-5% range and I can go on with my life and continue being
Starting point is 00:47:03 miserable. I thought I went too hard on Jason Adam adam with 11 and he's looking like one of my better pickups same that's brilliant 11 you already got four saves out of him i know it's probably worth 11 that's worth a hundred it's worth 10 times what you paid that's what you're supposed to do in fab yeah but it makes up for the dumb stuff oh you know the other one is bryce elder okay yeah bryce elder his his numbers his projected numbers are too good i guess well but go but when he first showed up he wasn't hyped because it seemed like a temporary opportunity he wasn't you could have bryce elder on this list i think you almost have a whole rotation in triple a i'm getting yeah you need one more guy to fill out your your garbage
Starting point is 00:47:45 pitcher rotation oh i know i know the model didn't like either one of dylan dodd or jared just about to say dylan dodd for you i was just about to give him to you yeah that's that's i almost think that you should rather get dodd or schuster because projections are okay for elder dodd i think would be the play here because schuster was like the number one prospect in their system for some bit so i think dylan dod play here because schuster was like the number one prospect in their system for some bit so i think dylan dodd fits your model fits the dvr garbage we got your poop we got the anti-model the anti-model just give me all the players nobody wants and let me see if i can just do okay we should just inverse it we'll call it like the lodum we'll
Starting point is 00:48:21 just inverse the words of model and that'll be the dvr as a load them up yeah that's funny fantastic a couple of other news items that might be of interest casey schmidt called up by the giants not an elite guy could play a lot though because they mix and match around the infield he can play play all over the place. Corresponding move was Darren Ruff being DFA'd. What do you think about Casey Schmidt? He's an elite defender. When Marco Luciano got hurt, they put Casey Schmidt short, and he did fine. So, you know, I see that plus the fact that he really cut his K rate
Starting point is 00:49:00 this year in the minors and see, like, he might end up being the kind of glue that this team needs because they they're doing okay getting a lot of good defense out of people that don't play good defense normally um but uh at some point they just need some youth uh and i i wonder does he play anywhere in the outfield because their outfield needs help? I think he's been strictly an infield guy. He has been. Yeah, he's kind of,
Starting point is 00:49:28 but I wonder if, I wonder if he's going to start taking some games at second because Brandon Crawford is oft injured and de-emphasized and a free agent to be. And so I wonder, is maybe Schmidt going to play short or Tyra Strada play short and Schmidt plays second. I wonder, is maybe Schmidt going to play short? Or Tyra Strada plays short and Schmidt plays second? I mean, the best defensive arrangement for this team includes Casey Schmidt. So that's good for his playing time. I think the line for picking him up is still probably going to be mostly NL-only leagues.
Starting point is 00:49:57 Because look at the numbers as he's moved through the system. Above high A, Casey Schmidt has hit five home runs in 65 games. I think you're going to get average. It's probably like a David Fletcher sort of profile as far as the roto comps go. He might not steal a ton of bases, could give you a non-zero in that category. So it's basically average and some counting stats if the glove gets in the lineup. His ground ball and fly ball rates are all over the place. He looks like he's trying to hit for power and then maybe stop trying to hit for power i've been trying to think of like who he is like you know who reminds me of
Starting point is 00:50:29 like james remember james looney james looney would hit for contact but just didn't have the big power especially early on like that's a kind of a similar approach and i think the giants of the lower levels will work a lot on like guys like high on base percentages and stuff like that and i'm not sure he's made the big transition to being a power hitter he did hit 21 i think in 2022 but 17 of those came at high a like you mentioned so it was a big big large amount at low a ball so i don't know if he's even made that transition and i'm not sure he does make that transition because it's a plus defender who makes contact and i don't think they're going to worry about like traditional first base stats you know he might just be roster glue yeah he
Starting point is 00:51:10 might yeah it might be just a utility guy like you said because he is he's versatile around i think like it's nl or like really deep leagues if you're struggling um he might get some more roster versatility up against brett wisely for playing time. Wisely has been playing some, some outfield though. And that's important because they don't really have a true center fielder. But Wisely's projections are also kind of boring offensively. So they may, there may be a little bit of a competition there to see who gets,
Starting point is 00:51:41 who stays up, who gets in. Von Brown has had plus plus walk rates well i'm watching von brown at some point he's got to move up the system a little bit he was hurt but he's like i don't know how much longer you can keep down he's like 24 at like high a or whatever i don't want to play mike gestremski in center yeah i think von brown can play center right yeah i think he can play all across so he might move up the system and he might be a guy later in the year people can look at i mean their biggest needs are defensively up the middle so i mean maybe they're checking out casey schmidt to be their shortstop of the future that'd be a guy later in the year people can look at. Their biggest needs are defensively up the middle. Maybe
Starting point is 00:52:05 they're checking out Casey Schmidt to be their shortstop of the future. That'd be a little bit pushing his defense, I think, further than it might be able to go. If you see the Giants auditioning somebody at short or in center, I would take well notice.
Starting point is 00:52:22 Sable might end up sticking with his team and getting more playing time than people think because he can catch. If they decide that his combination of catching and offense is superior to Bart's, that might flip. They are really looking for something up the middle. What do you think about Dominic Fletcher possibly wrestling playing time away from Alec Thomas, Welsh Welsh is this a reality because I was looking at Thomas as a potential longer term by
Starting point is 00:52:48 low whose X stats were actually a lot better than his actual stats because of his defense I thought he'd continue to play this it looks like a possible problem brewing playing time wise for Thomas yeah unfortunately because like you said the you go and look at baseball savant and it's just red you can just see
Starting point is 00:53:04 all this underlying stuff that's just waiting to brew and pop up. But Fletcher is a guy I've been talking about for a while. And here's why I think he hurts because that offense has picked up in other spots. Perdomo has picked up and been a real offensive force. And what I think that ends up doing is it leaves them this spot where they can say,
Starting point is 00:53:23 we can value a guy that isn't going to hurt us enough on the field. And what I mean by that is he doesn't strike out at the plate. He's not a big strikeout guy. He's 18% in the majors so far, 14%. He walks, he plays great defense, he can run, and he makes contact. He's a points league player. So in that respect, that totality of it, it could be better than Alec Thomas because he's just not hurting you as far as striking out,
Starting point is 00:53:47 and he's just a good physical outfielder. But I just don't think it's going to come at the expense of Alec Thomas pulling a Jake McCarthy and being sent down. I think Alec is here to stay. They want to see him work through it, but I can see Fletcher hanging around for quite some time. So I still lean Alec Thomas full season, but I think Dom Fletcher is just a good,
Starting point is 00:54:07 he's not a good fantasy player, but he's a good baseball player that fits the team need and kind of the construction of what they've got. Yeah. And unfortunately, you know, as much as we like X stats and all the underlying numbers, teams need results.
Starting point is 00:54:19 If they're getting results from someone else, they're not going to be as patient as we would want them to be. And every game matters right now for the D-backs Is it happening for Geraldo Perdomo? I was just saying, Perdomo, Fletcher has crazy BAB-ups in the minors, like near 400 BAB-ups in the minors
Starting point is 00:54:37 and you're just like, is that just bad defenses that just put in the ball play over and over again? It could be part of that Perdomo is one of your guys I just just can't believe it i don't believe it there was nothing to say this was coming you tried to convince me and i didn't believe you and it's here and i still don't believe it what's always stood out to me with perdomo guns i interviewed uh christian robinson years and years ago when he actually played baseball you know now he's back and he's playing baseball again it feels like the last time i talked to him was when he was actually playing
Starting point is 00:55:06 and i had asked him at that time i was like who's a player that's that everyone needs to be on the lookout for and he instantly was like geraldo perdomo perdomo is the guy and i had just at that moment seen uh or like a couple days prior i saw him hit his first professional homer and like the way he could turn on the ball was there, but he turned into such a kind of ground ball slappy hitter in the AFL. He was always young at his age, and he just re-transformed his approach. And I think it's real because he's not striking out. He's walking more. He's much better concerted decisions if you actually watch him.
Starting point is 00:55:41 And again, I think he's a huge piece of what's giving this team flexibility and why they can make mccarthy go away why nick ahmed is becoming less value it's a gold glove uh short stop that they don't need to play every single day and i i don't think he's like a 2020 guy but i think perdomo can be like a 15 10 or 10 15 one of those other ways of a player on this team and i'm going to just throw out one other guy to pay attention to is dominic canzone that's a player if there's any injuries we should pay attention to with the diamond backs because he's a real power bat killing it in triple a that could come up if fletcher doesn't work out and they let go of thomas but you were going to speak on perdomo
Starting point is 00:56:16 you know oh just no barrels zero barrel hard at all that's weird he does not hit the ball hard i don't even know how he's hit seven home runs so far because he has a 2% barrel rate because every barrel he hits is a home run. I'm not going to do it. But see, this is where he's living in the Lodum range right now because statistically it doesn't look good. He's right there.
Starting point is 00:56:43 He's a switch hitting shortstop. He's 6'2", 203 pounds. He should hit the ball hard. So when you watch him, Welsh... Projected for a 79 WRC plus by the batting. It might have one of the most alarming batting average or expected batting average differences in baseball that I have seen, if you look.
Starting point is 00:56:58 He's got, according to fan graphs, a 380 batting average with a two 39 expected batting. And that two 39 is exactly where he's projected. So I'm, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm hanging out with the models. You can hang out with the load.
Starting point is 00:57:14 Yeah. And hanging out with the load. It was my entire life. Put that on a shirt on that note. I think we'll go, we're going to get some mailbag questions on the show next week. So if you have some long-term league questions and even stuff about current rookies and young players, we'll certainly try to get as many of those as we can.
Starting point is 00:57:31 Because we're getting far enough into the season where if you're worried about MJ Melendez or Miguel Vargas or Tristan Casas or anyone like that, it's an appropriate time to dig in and see if there's an actual underlying flaw because we're starting to get enough information where we can make a little bit more of a judgment call yeah i've also i can let you guys know if you guys want to be on the lookout on the athletic in the next 24 48 hours i will have a prospect article of some high-rising fantasy prospects that have changed value that you guys need to be paying attention not just for redraft but just for overall so be on the lookout for that uh like i said next day or two over on The Athletic. There you go.
Starting point is 00:58:08 And to see that, you're going to be a subscriber. You can get a subscription for a dollar a month for the first year at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. You can find us on Twitter. Eno's at Eno Saris. Welsh is at IsItTheWelsh. And I am at Derek Van Ryper. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels.
Starting point is 00:58:22 We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.

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