Rates & Barrels - Remembering Rickey Henderson & More December Movement

Episode Date: December 27, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss the legacy of Rickey Henderson after he passed away at the age of 65 last week. Plus, they examine the latest round of trades and signings including Jesús Luzardo's move to the Phillies for a pair of prospects, Paul Goldschmidt's shift to the Yankees, Gleyber Torres to the Tigers, Walker Buehler to the Red Sox, Sean Manaea's return to the Mets, and first basemen on the move in a pair of deals.  Rundown 3:39 Remembering Rickey Henderson 8:19 Jesús Luzardo Traded to the Phillies 20:03 Paul Goldschmidt to the Yankees & Future HOF Case 27:54 Gleyber Torres to the Tigers 37:45 Walker Buehler Lands in Boston 43:57 Sean Manaea Returns to the Mets 49:20 Nathaniel Lowe Traded to Nats; Joc Pederson Signs with Rangers 57:59 Josh Naylor Traded to D-backs; Carlos Santana Returns to Cleveland 1:02:49 Can the Rays Get Eloy Jiménez Back on Track? Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Buckter 8's Barrels, it's Friday, December 27th. Derek and Ripper, you know, Saris here with you on this episode. We have yet another round of transactions. We have trades, we have signings. We have trades that created space for signings. A little bit of everything as this off season continues to be a very, very busy one from a transactional purposes point of view.

Eno, how have the holidays been treating you so far? Good. We had a frenzy of pack opening, bought them a box of collectors, collector boosters and magic, which is those are kind of expensive packs, but also some stadium club and some tops chrome and we just blew through them and. The magic cards actually produce some good stuff. The baseball cards. The best thing we got was like a Davis Schneider autographed card.

Oh, yeah. It's pretty good. Not quite what you were hoping for in those baseball boxes. But as long as you had fun opening them together, I guess that's the that's the point of the exercise, right? Is you really have to enjoy the process of opening the cards. It's fun, but it also is a little bit of an allegory to the whole process, which is you buy the thing, you have it in front of you. And then the opening takes.

Half an hour, 15 minutes. Yeah, I mean, we just blew through them. I mean, it's in dollars to minutes ratio, not, not so good. We have, you know, a whole tree set up and I took a before and after picture and the after picture was like an hour and 10 minutes afterwards. And it was just a war zone. I mean, we just blew through it. I know some families are like, you know, very intentional with every gift. This gift was from blah, blah, blah, to blah, blah, blah.

We are more of a sit and rip, you know, and I think people all got fun stuff and are and are happy with it. But, you know, the good news is we're still all playing with things that were given on Christmas. You know, we have gone already back to like other stuff. Been two days. Well, if you ever have to face the blabberty blah family on family feud, I'm going to guess the public's going to root for the blabberty blah family instead of your family.

That's going to see the kindness in the blabberty blah family. No, we're just a grip and rip it. I think that's the age of your kids too, right? I mean, we're more in the this is what a present is and this is how you open it. Don't eat it. Don't eat it. We're thankfully not not having that problem. It's the good news is we can take whatever presents we had for them

and just give them like one or two a day. And this could take a month. Like we can stretch this out as long as we want to. So totally different phase of life. But I remember that phase that you're in right now as a kid where you get up Christmas morning, everything was open in like an hour and you're like, oh, it's over. I gotta wait till next year again. This is awesome. But you really do have to pace yourself. A lot of ground to cover though today. And by the way, you can join our discord with the link in the show description. If you haven't done that, going to have some stuff rolling out here.

Once the new year gets here, try to enhance the experience for those who are already there and for those who have yet to join easy place to find some community. We begin today's show with some sad news from the baseball world. You know, Ricky Henderson passed away at the age of 65. And I went back and listened to his Hall of Fame speech because I actually never had never listened to it before. And it's kind of one of the magical things about the technology we have today is you can go back and relive various moments in history that maybe would have been very hard to access before YouTube and the Internet. And the thing that really struck me as I listened to Ricky's speech was for a guy who I think

was known in sound bites, you know, talking about himself in the third person and being extremely confident, he was very humble throughout his entire speech. His entire speech was thanking all the people that supported him throughout his life that got him to where he was. You could just tell, there was a lot more to Ricky than we saw on the field, of course. I think there are some things he did on the field that we're never going to see again. I don't think we're ever going to see 1,406 stolen bases from player in their career, even with the new stolen base rules. I don't think that's ever going to happen. I mean,

Ricky's got the all time record for run scored 2295 guys don't play enough games anymore and have long enough careers anymore to break a record like that. He let off 81 games with a homer. He had 21 hundred and twenty nine unintentional walks. And then one that popped for me a few years ago. We were doing the retro drafts during the beginning of Covid. One hundred and thirty steals in that 1982 season just jumps off the page, too. But just a dynamic player who was a must see player, too. Right. I think in a sport that was always

longing for getting people to tune in. Ricky was that player. He was the reason to watch. Yeah. And, you know, so many games, so many parts of his game, I think, are underrated. I mean, almost 300 homers, 297 homers. You know, he wasn't just a slapstick guy. He had seasons of 28 homers, two of them. You know, just a lot of great seasons, you know, from the power aspect, you know, like you mentioned the walks, a 16% walk rate.

You know, we think of Joey Votto as, you know, in some ways, the king of OPP of our time. Joey Votto's OPP for his career was 409. Ricky Henderson's was 401. You know, he's right there with him in terms of, you know, maybe he's not the king of O.B.P., but he was an excellent, I mean, the prototypical leadoff hitter. I mean, even if you want to say he had like a little bit too much power for that,

like it's great to lead to lead off a game of the home run. Like it works for the team, you know, like all of a sudden you're just ahead. Start the game with the lead, you know. And then, you know, the United States, the softer side, Sam Blum has a really great story about how he ended his lead his career in the independent league as a manager, basically. And all the great things he did as managers, the coach. And that's

sort of how I interacted with him was the coach around the A's you know that's the that's the sort of part of his life that I that got to see and the kids loved him I mean I don't know if it's like the game has gone in his direction a little bit in terms of celebrations and stuff or just that he was such an icon by himself. I mean, if you will respect you, if you've done great things in the game. But I think it's also just his demeanor. Like he was very present and very sort of kind. And you could tell that he cared about the people he coached.

You know, so every time he came in to the Oakland Clubhouse, it was just he was like a magnet. You know, just everybody. Everybody wanted to talk to Ricky, you know. Yeah, a lot of great stories and memories flooding in. And there's I think it's Mike Piazza's memoir has a bit about playoff shares and how after playoff series or World Series, you know, players are trying to decide who around the team also gets part or a full playoff series or World Series, players are trying to decide who around the team also gets part or a full playoff share. And it goes down as far as like people that work various roles around the stadium.

Right. And Ricky was always a guy that wanted to give everyone a full share because it could change people's lives. Right. And I think those are the kinds of superstars, the kinds of people you want in the world that are trying to help others and go out of their way to do extra for those who need it more than they do. So Ricky Henderson gone too soon at the age of 65. Move on to our other rundown items for this episode. You know, it's a lot of trades, as I mentioned up top, Philly's making a move to get Jesus Lizzardo from the

Marlins and Lizzardo is just one of those players that I think I've always had the belief that there is a very high ceiling. I've seen just enough flashes to keep on believing, even though this has kind of been almost a five plus year endeavor now and 2024, he had a stress reaction in his back, only pitched sixty six and two thirds innings. So, you know, the return the Marlins got here is very, very far down the road as far as the prospects. I believe it's Starlin Cabba and Marlon Boyd as the two players

that are going back to Miami multiple years away from being on the big Lee radar but Lizardo kind of showed us two different things in his first two full seasons in Miami in 2022 it was great ratios I had the 104 whip to go to 332 ERA in 2023 it was the full season of health with the excellent strikeout rate, getting over 200 Ks for the first time. The challenge, I think, is that he's moving into a hitter-friendly home park for the first time in his career.

And he's had home run problems even with Oakland and Miami as a home park throughout his career. So what kind of projection do you have on Lazardo? Have you lowered your ceiling expectations, unlike me, where I still think there's a special talent there? Yeah, it's kind of kind of hard to figure out for me because as a trade, because, you know, the I think the stuff numbers are pretty obviously in decline. You can see it just if you look at his average fastball velocity, see it just if you look at his average fastball velocity where he's gone from you know 97 plus what did he have he had a 96 8 in 2023 and that was commensurate with his best times

in Oakland 95 5 was suddenly in 2024 was suddenly his Lizard is worst fastball Vivo and that sort of you know under the hood there's even more going on where you know the the fastball has gone from a you know a hundred stuff plus in 2020 all the way down to 85 last year and this is the new stuff numbers that I'm quoting. But you can see that this decline was pretty gradual and kind of happened with every year. So the fastball is in decline even at 27 for Jesus Lazardo. The slider is a bit of a slurve but stuff likes it. It's had good results. It's a good pitch.

Change up's okay. So a lot depends on that Velo. So I guess they think either they see something biomechanically that they can fix that they think he can get back to his old Velo, because it's not great shape on the fastballs. Or they think we can teach this guy a cutter and he can have three fastballs, because that's definitely a Phillies thing where they have a lot of fastballs, they want to have large arsenals. Or one of the things they might like about him is that he's not too expensive.

He's $5.5 million and he gives the Phillies by the Fangraph's depth chart the best rotation in baseball. And this is a team now that in terms of money, Philadelphia Phillies are over the top top luxury tax threshold. So right now their luxury tax payroll is 307 million and the last threshold is 301. You know, it's a lot of crazy penalties. Could they now trade Ranger Suarez, who is a free agent after the year and has due 8.9 million this year?

Obviously Nick Castellanos is rumored to be on the block. He's got 20 million this year and next year. That'd be a lot of savings for them because they're paying double tax basically on that money. If they could trade Castellanos, I think they would. So they're they're listen, we can have the debate about how much teams can spend, you know, till the cows come home, but.

They are pretty heavily leveraged. They're one of the top three payrolls in baseball, and it's it's a little tight in this payroll situation. So I could see this as a precursor to something else where giving them Lazzardo gives them some, you know, ability to maybe trade pitching. I don't think it'll be Andrew Painter, who's one of the best prospects in baseball. But it could be Ranger Suarez. Maybe they think they're they're selling high. And you know,

we'll have to see if there's another shoe that's dropping or if this was just, Hey, how do we get a fifth starter for $5 million? It's his Lucy's Ardo. I think there's one other thing on painter that should throw in here real quick. Matt Gelb had a report from something. Dave Dombrowski said that painter likely won't pitch in the majors until July ish, which they have the depth to get by with that. And if they're going to back load his innings, then the goal is to get as many innings of as possible at the big league level and then stretch him out kind of carefully,

maybe in the upper levels, the miners until he's ready. So that's kind of an interesting wrinkle for Painter, but the addition of Lizardo sort of affords them the depth to do that. I think I also saw that, you know, with Ranger Suarez being a free agent after 2025, maybe this gives them a built-in cost controlled for one more year replacement for Suarez who they expect to get a big payday this time next year. So it's a little bit of getting better right now and also staying at a similarly high level with the quality of that rotation for 2026 as well. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it makes them a better

baseball team. So that's how we can understand. And for all of my sort of worries about how good his fastball is and how it's lost some ride and lost some zip over the last few years, as a fifth starter, there's a lot less pressure on him. There can be skipped starts. You've got Tywon Walker and Joe Ross that can provide that depth if you want to keep him healthy. If you think the back thing is something from overuse or whatever,

there are ways that they can get the most out of Jesus Lazzardo in this situation rather than a team that's like, we need to start him. He's our ace. We need to start him every day every time he can. He can. If there is a prospect to chase from the trade, it is Kaba, who I mentioned before, for dynasty leagues, deeper leagues. I don't think he's anybody's top 100 yet, but he has the ceiling to be an elite player down the road. It's just more of a how long is the timeline in your keeper league? If you're going to be interested in rostering him 19 and an a ball, and he wasn't particularly good in a ball, but it was a small sample. And the nice thing that he does provide is he has a good eye at the plate and, um, and

makes a lot of contact. So what you're hoping for is maybe trading a little bit of contact for power, um, to round out that skillset. And I think most people think he's a defensive sort of stalwart. He's got a 45 slash 80 field from fan graphs and 60 slash 60 speed. Game power is 20, 35 future game power. So maybe they think maybe he won't ever get there.

But, you know, if could this be like an Xavier Edwards I see some similarities there yeah I think it's a bit of a question if the power will eventually develop that's something we'll have to see in the years ahead for Kaba with Lizardo you know the team improvement probably offsets a lot of the loss in terms of park factors for me fantasy value doesn't change a lot. Maybe it goes up even a little bit given the difficulty of winning enough when wins are a category. But I do think there's a handful of home starts now that I'll be a little more

careful with than I would have been if you were still a member of that Marlins rotation, which, you know, with guys coming off of injury will look better at the end of the season than it probably will at the beginning. Get Sandy Alcantara working his way back, Yuri Perez. I imagine this is good news as far as both Ryan Weathers and Edward Cabrera getting a really long look as starters again this year. Max Meyer probably is the biggest winner of all, is that depth chart thins out as someone that they can try and give another full

look at as a starter. I think that's the guy that I'm looking at and saying, okay, I'm maybe a little more interested in Max Meyer's opportunity now as a result of the Lazardo departure. Yeah, I think Weathers is pretty interesting. We've got a, by the way, the projections, We've got a we've got a by the way the projections if anybody's a Google Doc user The projections were updated on the 22nd with the new stuff plus numbers And so Lizardo has a three nine eight there. I think it says he's on Philly. So I think that's adjusted for Philly That's a little bit better. I thought I thought it might have crossed over into four given the homerun natures of that park Ryan Weathers stays there and we've got him projected for 24 games started, which is about half of his appearances.

So basically half starter, half reliever for 21 ERA 21% K percentage. I don't know if he immediately goes on my sleeper list, but he does have opportunity there because you've got Braxton, Garrett, Sandy Alcantara and Yuri Perez all coming back from injury. So if you were, if any of them are behind schedule or, you know, I don't even know what their schedules are right now. You know, to begin the season, the healthy three are Weathers, Cabrera and Max Meyer. And you might put Bellozzo in there and Mazer if nobody else is healthy.

There's going to be opportunity in there. It's just that I think the talent has really gone down in terms of starters in Miami. It's not as exciting as it used to be. I still have some hope for Edward Cabrera. I always will. And someday he'll figure it out. But this is a group other than Sandy Alcantara that I want to get late. And I want to get them in a situation where I don't have to put them in my lineup every day. I don't want to put them in my line up on the road. I kind of want to use them at home mostly and maybe even only only at home against, you know, lesser teams. I mean, the only I think beyond Sandy, Yuri Perez is

a special talent, but I think they're going to be very careful. He had surgery in April. I've been using 14 months instead of 12 for just about everybody's return. So that kind of puts them back in the June range, given how young he is, maybe they play it a little safer and it's closer to the all star break. So I think Yuri Perez is also sort of complicated from a redrap perspective, even though I think long, long-term could still be really good. And when I was talking about guys, I wouldn't want to start, I was talking about the healthy ones, the, you know, the grouping I've made there. I don't, I don't, I don't really love any of them. At this point, I'm even realistic about Edward Gruber.

It's like, I know. It is finally set in. Thanks. Look who you're talking to. It takes me a long time to learn certain things too, man. It's okay. I'm Kevin Roos. And I'm Casey Newton.

We're technology reporters and the hosts of Hard Fork, a show from the New York Times. A hard fork is a programming term for when you're building something that gets really screwed up. So you take the entire thing, break it and start over. And that's a little bit what it feels like right now in the tech industry. Like these companies that you and I have been writing about for the past decade, they're all kind of struggling to stay relevant. Yeah. I mean, a lot of the energy and money in Silicon Valley is shifting to totally new ideas. Crypto, the metaverse, AI. It feels like a real turning point.

And all this is happening so fast. Some of it's so strange. I just feel like I'm texting you constantly. Like, what is this story? Explain this to me. And so we're going to talk about these stories. We're going to bring in other journalists, newsmakers, whoever else is involved in building this future to explain to us what's changing and why it all matters.

Hardfork from the New York Times. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. Paul Goldschmidt on the move. he signs with the Yankees. And there's a few interesting things about Paul Goldschmidt. It's only a one year deal because he's old, makes sense, 12 and a half million dollars. Entering his age 37 season. And you have to wonder, is there any rebound potential, even just moving into Yankee Stadium and being in a better lineup and just having a better supporting cast than he did in 2024 when things went so sideways in St. Louis. I look at the hard

hit rate that was still really good 48.1% but he chased more than ever. We saw the worst slash line of Goldie's career at 245 302 414 that walk rate plummeted you can tell with that 302 OBP. I think the rebound is maybe a slight one. I mean, that's what Steamer's pointing to. Steamer points to a 250, 325, 431 line, 24 homers, in 642 plate appearances with about 80 runs and 80 RBIs, give or take a couple in either column. And I think that's still a pretty good player

if that's exactly what the Yankees get out of Paul Goldschmidt. Do you buy that projection? Do you think he's still a pretty good player if that's exactly what the Yankees get out of Paul Goldschmidt. Do you buy that projection? Do you think he's still that guy? No, we have that Jeff Zimmerman thing that I always quote that the projected bounce backs for players over 32 are less believable. So, you know, you can't, I wouldn't load up on Paul Goldschmidt. You know, this is the kind of thing where you want to be opportunistic and if it fits, it fits. The one reason that I am optimistic though is you're right.

The hard hit was still there. 111.4 max EV was still there. The bell rate was still over 10%. And that chase rate, I kind of consider Paul Goldschmidt in some ways, yes, he's new school in that he learned to pull the ball in the air and I'm sure he's gotten some of the best coaching. He doesn't really let people into his process too much. But I think there's a little bit element of old school to him, not only from the quotes I've gotten from him,

but from the fact that he came into the league as a kind of an like an all fields hitter, an opposite field power guy. And, you know, I like that for two reasons. One is he could have been actually trying to drive runs in last year. You know, like the Cardinals were decent enough and there was a time when the Cardinals were in that race. You know, the Brewers kind of, you know, made that not a race near the end of the season. But I think we were looking in August and it seemed like they were still in the mix.

If you are Paul Goldschmidt and you feel like you're all alone on an island in terms of you're the stud, you're the three hitter, maybe you open up and you chase some pitches you haven't chased in the past. That would make sense. The other thing that's true is that chase percentage is really, really sticky. It's one of the stickiest stats year to year So for him to have like this one year, you know

terrible Chase rate the last time he did this he did this in 2019 his first year in st. Louis Maybe he's chasing because he's like hey, you know you traded for a stud. Here I am, you know The next year he went right back to the league norms for three straight years, four straight years. So I think he will actually in a longer lineup in a Yankees lineup where he's not like, he's not the man that came in on a big deal. You know, this is, uh, this is like, Hey, you just fit in, you know, fit in and get in kind of thing. And I think he'll, um, he'll return to normal on the chase rate. I in fact wouldn't

be surprised if he had better than his 26% strikeout rate, which means that he could have a 260, 270 average there. He could beat his projections in some places. And you know, 80 RBI, if he's in the lineup every day and he's hitting 25 homers and hitting 270 with like a 340 OVP, I think he'll beat the 80 RBIs he's projected for too. So, uh, or R's BI, if you're one of those people. Um, in any case, I see enough here where I think the cost will be so low that, you know, take some shots. I just don't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to look up and be like, you know, when you do that player share thing, I wouldn't want to look up and be like, you have eight shares of Paul Goldschmidt.

That's pretty heavily leveraged in a 37 year old. It's funny, though, and maybe because he landed with the Yankees in the park is such a good hitters park, it'll change. There's a big ADP gap right now at first base, just looking at how things have been going down over at the NFPC where you have this group from Christian Walker around pick 100 of first base eligible at the top of a group that has Michael Tolia, Yandy Diaz, Luis Arias, all those other guys are much more categorically imbalanced. Goldschmidt still runs a little bit, probably doesn't hurt you in batting average, even if he doesn't help you.

I could see him sort of bridging the gap ADP wise. If the cost ends up being pick 140, pick 150, I think he's a guy I'll have on some teams like you don't want them everywhere. But I think there's enough here. I think there's also the question of is he a Hall of Famer? Like, is he going to Cooperstown someday? Because the most similar player I think we've seen at his position in recent years is Joey Votto. I think if you're in on Votto, you're probably in on Goldschmidt. Maybe this year matters.

Maybe any year that comes after this year for Goldschmidt could still be what makes the difference in the eyes of a lot of people. But you look at his career, it stacks up pretty favorably to first baseman that are in the Hall of Fame. And especially when you go back to his peak, 2013 to 2018, six consecutive All-Star Games, I think he had three finishes where he was top three for the MVP. And then he actually won the MVP in 2022 during his time with the Cardinals at the age 34 season. So he's put together a really nice career. And I think a lot of it sort of happened in a place in Arizona where the national

spotlight just isn't very bright. Yeah. I mean, traditionally I, I, I sort of take notice when someone passes the 50 war threshold, a lot more Hall of Famers above 50 and below 50. And he has by Fangraff's Paul Goldschmidt is a 56.5 and that's 146 all time ahead of Ahead of Jeff Kent, Lance Berkman, Yadier Molina. Ahead of, I'm trying to find some Hall of Famers here, Vlad Guerrero. Ahead of Joe Mauer. You know, so he's, you know, ahead of Bryce Harper.

Of course Harper has more years left to play. And so it gets it gets complicated down there. Head of David Ortiz. Very similar WRC plus David Ortiz had a 140 WRC plus for his career and and I believe Paul Goldschmidt has 139. He's a little bit lacking on, you know, I guess what people want out of the hard numbers in terms of 362 career homers. That's a light for a first baseman, you know, especially when we've kind of put a gold standard around numbers like 400 and 500 home runs. Seems like it might be a little bit low, but what if he plays a couple more seasons,

if he plays a couple more seasons, he could get to 400. If he gets to 400 homers and close to 60 war, I think he makes a lot better case. As it is, he'll be someone that people argue over. Yeah, I think if that's the case for Goldie, it's gonna be the case for Joey Votto too. Four gold gloves for Paul Goldschmidt already on the resume too. So just curious to see where it goes, but I think he landed in a pretty good spot to

give himself a better chance at a slight rebound here in 2025. Former Yankee on the move, Gleber Torres signs with the Tigers and it wasn't a big deal at all. It was one in 15 was the signing for Torres going to the Tigers. This is an infield where you have a lot of moving parts, a lot of options. It's probably not a completely fortified depth chart just yet. There could be another player that comes in. They could be players for Alex Bregman.

There could be a trade lots of different ways. This could be shaken up, but do you see a clear loser with Gleiber's arrival under the assumption that Gleiber is going to be a 600 plus plate appearance guy on this depth chart? I think it might be Spencer Torkelson. The news is that Colt Keith is moving to first base and I don't know that Gleiber has the arm for third. I suppose there could be a risk that Gleyber becomes a part time player,

but Colt Keith is also a right hander, so there's no like, oh, they'll just fall into a platoon situation. You know, there's some talk of Spencer Torquison, I think, you know, at times he's played third base. He did in the minors at least. I just I don't think he's a third baseman defensively. So then you talk about okay we'll move Torque to DH because Torkelsen had a decent second half last year and kind of seemed to play himself back into the mix. Well Kerry Carpenter plays DH most of the time. So if you push Kerry Carpenter more into the outfield, I guess that makes sense.

Wensil Perez is a switch hitter though that was pretty decent. So the losers for me are Wensil Perez and Spencer Torkelson. Between them, one of them will be completely backup. And, you know, Matt Veerling is listed there with Wensil Perez in right field. So Veerling, you know, has a chance to lose some to. Yeah, Veerling is always one of those guys where you could shave a little off the playing time projection, but it would never be so much to completely tank his value in the leagues where he's deep enough to be interesting. He's a deeply guy anyway. He's perfect.

He's kind of like one of your ale only plays where you hope to get him for not that much and then people look up and he put up 450, 500 plate appearances and 18 homers and five steals and you're like, yeah, that was worth more than two bucks. Guys. Yep. Three bucks in the end game gives you $9 worth of value. Those are fun players to have to love those players. When I played ale labor, I don't use them as much anymore.

Yeah, I wonder if the rest of the offseason actually dictates just how much Kerry Carpenter plays in the outfield, depending on the best available hitter, and if that player's a lower caliber defender than Carpenter, than they did play Carpenter in right field. I think he's 45 games in right last year, 35 at DH, so it's not like they can't put him out there. He's too young. I mean, he's 27.

Like, are we really sure that he's a terrible outfielder? It's not he's projected to be a terrible outfielder, but he hasn't. He's projected to be worse defensive value than he has been. I think that's because he's projected to be a DH. So they would actually get more wins above replacement from him, according to projections, if they put in in the outfield. It even zero for outs above average for the 314 innings he was out there. Like that's that's not a problem. There are guys in free agency who are worst defenders in a corner

who are going to get a lot of money. So you can trust Kerry Carpenter out there. I think if you're in the tiger's shoes, there are still going to be there's still going to be some sort of loser here because let's say you put Kerry partner and you say in the outfield and you say oh that opens them up you know like maybe it's a Kerry carpenter Matt Veerling platoon and right you know okay that's a lefty righty platoon and Veerling can also play some center and some third and he'll still get his time but whenever carries out Veerling plays right and so we got DH oh that's great well Torkelson's a righty and Justin Henry Malloy, who was Carrie Carpenter's,

you know, platoon mate in the playoffs, is a righty. Veerling's a righty. Keith is a righty. Gleyver Torres is a righty. Oh, Keith's a lefty. Yeah. Oh, Torque's a righty, but Keith's a lefty. That's that's why it's such a bad thing for Torkelson. Yeah. Yeah. And even like, yeah, why it's such a bad thing for Torkelson. Yeah.

Yeah. And even like, yeah, okay. So you could, you could say Torkelson platoons with Keith at right in, at first. And they were doing that, um, to some extent, um, maybe there's a winner here, which is maybe Parker Meadows is a winner. Because at some point, if you're platooning, uh, at first and DH and right field, you've run out of places you can platooning at first and DH and right field, you run out of places you can platoon. Classic.

Build a bench incoming in the spring for the Tigers. We need a few clues before we figure this one out. But yeah, DH is the place that you're circling if you're trying to project the Tigers and figure out some playing time. I know it wouldn't play for a lot of people, but, you know, we could do a blues clues parody on the on the pill, the bench phase of life. I mean, everyone. Sorry. Very sorry. Gleyber Torres trying to rebound at Comerica seems like a challenge, right?

It's the opposite of the Goldsmith situation really. Oh, OK. Well, he got the deal that he wanted. He's going to a team that could be a playoff team again. He should still play a lot, but especially early in the year when it's cold, it's a very difficult place to hit. So where do we set expectations for Gleiber, who I assume is trying to get the multi-year deal next winter and now has to play half of his games in a more difficult home park?

I wonder if the stolen bases might come back a little bit. He was only four for seven in stolen base attempts in 2024. So maybe we see eight or 10 bags. It's not like he's been wildly efficient over the course of his career though. So I wouldn't go over the top in those projections. It's more a question of like, where's the power going to check in

having to play half his games in Detroit? Yeah, I'm looking at spray charts. Gleyber Torres is an opposite field hitter. Most of his fly balls are to the opposite field and that's underscored by a real drop in hard hit and barrel rate for him too. So there I think this must be one of those situations where he was probably, you know, talking to a lot of different teams in terms of cuz they must be looking at what's happened and said you know we're gonna do this with your swing or we need to get you here your contact point and he must have like what he heard because I feel like for this kind of money at a 27 year old who can play second base, then I feel like he had his choice of teams. I'm also curious how this impacts the playing time of Jace Young, not because they were using him at second base at the big league level. He played there a bit in the minors a couple of years ago, but because of the veerling situation at third, Jace Young, if he hits, he's a lefty. Maybe he ends up on the big side of platoon.

But I think if you were looking at him as someone you thought was going to exceed expectations playing time wise for 2025, now you're probably tempering those expectations just a little bit. It might take him a little while to really earn that role. But why do you say that? If they platoon there, can they actually platoon at third, first, DH and right field? I think you can platoon four spots. You can platoon four if you want to. You're 26. You have 13. It's really three because of the bench. Because the bench catcher.

One of them has to be a catcher. Yeah. Yeah. It's really three. I don't think Torque's in a platoon, man. I think Torque's just flat. I think he's just gone. I think he's either going to trade him or he's just a bench guy. I don't think they're actually in a platoon, man. I think Torque's just flat. I think he's just gone. Like he's, they're going to trade him or he's just a bench guy. I don't think they're actually mixing and matching that much over there. Yeah. Because, um, you know, if we are going to, you know, do a little mini bend to bet and build a bench here, you have to have catcher and a backup shortstop, and if you have that and you have nine starters and you have 13

pitchers, that means you have. What's when we're coming up with 11? Yes, you have two more spots, right? So OK, so Dylan Dingler is the backup or Jake Rogers the back of it. No, we have two spots beyond the backup catcher in the backup shortstop. The backup shortstop is if you have

trace we need to have your bias right? And bias can be the in field backup everywhere if you're going to keep him around so they're going to keep veering. So then you're going to keep veerling. So that means you have one more roster spot for Malloy or Torkelson. And Malloy's lack of defensive ability is going to crush him. Malloy's back in the minors. Sure looks like it, doesn't it?

And Torkelson is the DH. And if he until he loses his job, I guess. I it's good to have options, but yeah, not everyone's going to come away happy on this depth chart, I think is the main takeaway there. Something has got to give too, because if you are using veerling, uh, to platoon somewhere else, like in center, um, you know, then you can't or in or with, uh with Carrie Carpenter and right, then you

can't also use them to a tune in third. So is by is going to platoon in third. This is it's okay. This one is a little bit weird. This is going to be an interesting one. We're going to have to consult Cody Stephen Hagen covers the Tigers. Yeah, I don't want to explain this to us, Cody. It is an absolute mess. We're going to have to consult Cody Stapenhagen, covers the Tigers, the Athletics at some point. Explain this to us Cody, it is an absolute mess.

Moving on to a more straightforward signing, Walker Bueller has a new home. He heads to Boston getting a one year, $21.05 million deal. I point that out only because I think it's the exact amount of the qualifying offer. Now the Dodgers didn't tender him a qualifying offer in their words, I think, because they didn't want him to have any difficulties on the market with the draft pick compensation attached. But I saw the exact dollar amount of the signing and thought, hmm, makes me think that he kind of wanted to stay with the Dodgers and would have happily accepted the qualifying offer if that was an option. But that sort of conjecture aside, how much do you believe in what we saw from Walker Bueller at the very end of the season?

You talked about how the environmental conditions at Citi Field may have been just perfect for that start in the NLCS, where everything looked so crisp again. Obviously it was fantastic in the World Series too, but what version of Bueller are the Red Sox getting on this one year deal? Are they getting a guy who's gonna come cruising back

now that he's fully healthy and look like a vintage version of himself, setting himself up for a big payday next year, or are we just at the phase of his career where because of the injuries, the stuff's taken enough of a hit where there are still more questions than answers? Yeah, I'm looking at the updated stuff plus numbers for Walker Bueller. 94 on the fastball, 97 on the knuckle curve,

101.5 on the sinker, 126 on the sweeper. So it's a possibility that they see that sinker sweeper combination and think, hey, to right is the sinker sweeper combination and think hey to right easy sinker sweeper and to lefties He's just throwing everything at the wall and he's gonna be fastball cutter curve And with the occasional sinker and sweeper as well just to be kind of a five-pitch guy against lefties what we you know other than the Against lefties what we you know other than the the stuff advancement we saw in the playoffs which we don't know if we can believe in for various reasons in terms of environmental you know headwind.

Temperature whatever reasons beyond that we also seem to do is command the pitches better in the playoffs. playoffs and I just remember a bunch of bounce curve balls from Walker Buehler during the season if he's not bouncing and if the command you know which traditionally comes back you know in year two after Tommy John surgery if the command is back we might actually see a version Walker Buehler that we haven't yet seen because I'm looking at these numbers I see almost equal usage of five pitches and of course that's going to be what the what the Red Sox want because they want him to dial down the four seam usage which what he's the most and so we may see him in the end as somebody who throws five pitches 20 percent of the time and you know ebbs and flows as far as his command goes. There is enough stuff here to to bet on him as far as his command goes. There is enough stuff here to bet on him.

You know, a sinker that's above 100 stuff plus is rare enough. A fastball at 94 is not great, but it's better than Jesus Cazardo's 85 or whatever. So there's enough here to bet on. And in a one-year deal, I'm surprised. Maybe he liked what he heard from their pitching group. Maybe he just thought that if he put it together with Gert Crochet and Tanner Hauk and Brian Baio, like that could actually be a good rotation.

And he definitely, you know, this is a team that has been able to hit and has maybe the number one prospect in baseball and Christian Campbell. So to, you know, kind of put this all together, you know, he's like this is a good opportunity They'll probably be playing meaningful games. And if not, they'll trade me somewhere You know, they have a good, you know, they're whatever their pitching team is saying to me. I like so pretty good marriage for the Red Sox who Are always looking for pitching to add to their hitting, but maybe didn't want to get locked up into Corbin Burns's long term deal. I mean, that's the other thing I would have done if I was the Red Sox, I guess.

Yeah, it's still possible that they could pull that off. We'll see where that chip falls probably in the next couple of weeks. But it's interesting that the early draft market has Walker Bueller sort of in this would you rather cluster with Luis Severino, who's now an AA going to Sacramento, Ranger Suarez, who was phenomenal to start the season and then sort of kind of came back to typical Ranger Suarez levels, Michael Wacha, who just re-upped with the Royals this off season, Nestor Cortez, who's been on the move in that trade from the Yankees to the Brewers, and then Jesus Lizardo, who we talked about earlier, all sort of cluster within about 20 to 25 picks of each other of that group.

Who do you actually like the most for 2025? Nestor Cortez. You like Nestor the most. That's interesting. Yeah, I think I like Nestor the most. I mean, he's pretty funky and he's going to be facing a lot of people. I've never seen him. Yeah. He's got underrated stuff. I think he has the best stuff in the group that you mentioned.

Um, it's got a big mix of a big enough mix. He's got command. Walker Bueller was projected for a four or five, five ERA using stuff. Plus, um, before he signed with the Red Sox and that's a, that's a difficult park, he's going to a more difficult park. Uh, Ranger Suarez, um, it would be my second pick, just because I think the floor is pretty high there. I think the floor is really low on Walker Buehler.

The ceiling might be one of the better ceilings among the pitchers you said. So if you're just taking a shot in the dark on ceiling, then maybe you'd pick Walker there. Yeah, I think I'm stuck between Nester and maybe Luzzardo. If everything still sounds good health-wise, and I think the last report was from NLB.com a week or so before he was traded, he felt like nothing happened is what he had said with that stress reaction in his back, then maybe I'd take Luzardo first of the bunch.

But that's where I'm at right now. I do think I mentioned it when he was part of that trade. The home splits for Nestor Cortez are better than the road splits for his career, which is just mind boggling for Yankee Stadium. I think he's safer getting out of that ballpark, even though the numbers don't really back that up. More pitching on the move, though, and this one actually is more of a staying put situation, but he had the chance to leave.

Sean Benaiah re-upped with the Mets three years, $75 million. You've talked about how the arm slot changed over the course of the year and everything started to play up throughout the second half. Are we comfortable with that as like a full on adjustment by choice and not sort of this health related fatigue related sort of maneuver? Like I think that's the only, it's the only real issue I have with Manaya. Maybe it's an, I don't know sort of question,

but he was 21st in innings pitch league wide over the last four seasons, which is not something I thought we were going to say about Sean Manaya when he had a lot of injury problems earlier in his career. He's a good believer for some of that. Yeah, yeah, the Giants even held that down a little bit. So like there's more, that down a little bit.

So there's more, there's a little more workhorse there in the recent history than you would think. And it's again, it's all relative, but 21st in the last four seasons, innings pitched. Yeah, I think he's a fairly high floor guy that I think that they probably did a good job locking up because we talked about how the Mets need innings. And like you said, he's, he's probably okay for those innings. There's of course,

a little bit of risk with changing your arm slot. Um, and, and this is a team that still has David Peterson and Clay Holmes listed as their fourth and fifth starters. So, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if they get Corbin Burns, you know, I think this entire team looks so much better with Burns, where you push everybody down and David Peterson becomes the sixth starter and everything is just slightly, you know, looks slightly better with Corbin Burns at the top there.

So I would put the Mets as as probably someone, one of the teams that needs him the most, even after they sign Shamanaya. But Shamanaya, you know, you think you're going to put 150 to 175 innings down. They're not going to be bad. And they could be really good. The park situation helps you in terms of fantasy. And, you know, all of his splits were better with the arm slot change in terms

of his strikeout rate you know you had a an August with an 11 K9 and a two walks per nine he did return to earth a little bit in September he only struck out 24% of the batters he saw in September, but a second half where he struck out 26% of the batters he saw and walked 7%, that's a good second half. That's where he deserved an ERA under four. And if he can continue that, you know. What's his ADP like? What are you deciding on when you're getting shot in the eye?

Yeah, about 100 picks earlier than the guys we talked about in the last Would You Rather, but you're looking at guys probably. Yeah, about a hundred picks earlier than the guys we talked about in the last, would you rather? But you're looking at guys probably in a group from Christopher Sanchez, Taj Bradley, Zach Efflin, Brandon Fott, Luis Heal, Seth Lugo, Sean Manaya and Nick Pivetta, all within the span of about 20 picks of each other. I probably won't end up with that much Shamanaya.

I just feel like there's more upside in those guys and they all carry a fair amount of risk, whether it be injury or downside, just production downside. And so if I'm shopping in that bin, I'm probably looking for a guy that I want to play all year. I want to keep all year. That's the, that's the price, right? This is somebody you want to make it to the end of your roster?

Right. Or no, you. There's some guys that go after him that I think I like almost as much. I mean, you Darvish goes a little after him. Clark Schmidt goes about 40 picks after Sean Maniah. I don't think it, and here's, here's the thing too. I'm not buying in for a full repeat of the career best ratios. Yeah. I think you can get a high three ZRA.

I think you can get a 120s whip. I think you can probably get more innings than some people will project them for. So I'm probably a little more in a mania than you are. But I do think he because of where he's being drafted, it will be easy to have only one or two teams with mania on them. That's kind of the way it works just because of being more excited about other guys that go in that same, same region. Chamanai versus Taj Bradley is like, they, do they,

should they be near each other? Like that'll seem very similar at all. I think I'm reaching a point though, where I'm much more likely to take Manaya in that toss up than I used to be. I used to say, Taj Bradley, let's get the, let's get the future ace. Let's get the guy that has the best stuff.

It's like, no, let's get the guy that actually has figured it out a couple of different times in the big leagues and figure out the high upside shot a little bit later on. It could be, it could be built specific too. And I might, you know, I might end up still doing the, the making the Bradley mistake if that's what it is, because, um, I'm tending towards being a little bit more conservative and buying floor and innings with my earlier starters, just because I feel like innings are what you're looking for.

And, um, if you're buying an early starter, their floor is probably pretty high, do not buying somebody who's it's higher than Chamanayas if you're buying an early starter, right? And so if I have so if I've been conservative and I got a lot of A health grades on my team, and then I feel like at this point I'll be like, time to get froggy, you know? I think we got to get that on a hat or a shirt.

Time to get froggy. Let's move on to a couple of moves that are actually similar in nature. I have this tradition in my mom's family where when we're all out to eat or having a meal in someone's home, we start planning the next meal during the current one, which is absolutely just an insane thing to do. It's the opposite of living in the moment and enjoying what's in front of you, right? It's just like, oh, this is good, but the next one's going to be

better. This pizza's fine, but the tacos we're going to get are going to be amazing. Just enjoy the pizza first, and then maybe after dinner, like you can plan the next one. I think that's what happened with a couple of moves that went down this week. Nathaniel Lowe gets traded by the Rangers to the Nats, and then all of a sudden, Jock Peterson

signs with the Rangers. And yes, Jock Peterson's not a first baseman, but it's getting a left-handed hitter to replace Lowe, and one that adds more power to the Rangers lineup. So I want to know, like, what are your overall thoughts on Peterson? Has anything really changed in terms of expected usage and opportunity? And did the Rangers actually get better by making these two moves? Yeah, I suppose.

So, you know, the defensive value that Nate Lowe brought to the table is replaced, in fact, by the move they made before that was the Jake Berger trade. And we were trying to figure out exactly where Jake Berger was going to play, and now we know that he will play first base. Jock Peterson will play, you know, will be a DH. As a hitter, I prefer Jock Peterson will play, you know, will be a DH as a hitter. I prefer Jock Peterson against right. He's one thing that was nice about Nate Lowe is his approach made him virtually platoon like neutral.

Like, you know, he had a almost zero platoon split over the last four years. In fact, he's one of them, maybe 10 players that that has like a zero platoon split over the last four years. So Nate Lowe was someone that was good if you wanted to play him every day and instead the Rangers are going to more of a mix and match situation where Jock Peterson will play DH against right handers. Jake Berger is probably more of an everyday starter at first but you've got Ezekiel Duran, and the Adolis Garcia and Josh Smith. I don't, sorry, I don't mean to mention

Adolis Garcia is not a non-starter, but between Ezekiel Duran, Josh Smith, Evan Carter, you've got guys who can play corner outfield, DH and first base against left-handers. And so they thought, this is a team, the Texas Rangers last year, they were 23rd in slugging percentage. So I think this is something that they wanted to address

and they figured it's easier to address power in a piecemeal way than it is to go and get the best power hitter on the market. And instead of doing something like Soto or a Teoscar or Santander deal where they lock up a DH for a bunch of years and Santander is a switch hitter and Teosca is a right hander. With Jock, they're like, Hey, you know, we get a bunch of left-handed power.

We don't spend that much. He's not locked in for a bunch of years. And, um, you know, we, we move around the pieces a little bit, but I think they're better at the end of it. I think they're better at the end of it. Not that I like, uh, that I hate Nate Lowe. I think, you know, for the nationals, it's a nice little pickup because he's an everyday player for that team that, um, you know, wants to have him for a few years.

It wants to lock up, um, you know, talent for a few years as they get better and grow into their, their status, um, as maybe contenders in the next few years, they want somebody that they can depend on. Whereas the Rangers are a team that it wants to win right now and wants to put the right pieces together to make a run while they have Jake DeGrom, you know, to be frank, I think. And yes, they have a nice young core, possibly for the future in White Langford

and Evan Carter and Josh Young. They also have Seager and Simeon, you know, on the middle, you know, that fit more into DeGrom territory. So they've got established and Simeon, you know, on the middle, you know, that fit more into the Degrom territory. So they're, they've got established everyday stars at places and they just wanted to have pieces that fit better around them. And I think this actually fits better. Yeah. And as far as logos, I mean,

it fills an area of need for the Nats at a pretty minimal cost too. So the projection is almost unchanged for him should have a very clear runway to be a part of a, projection is almost unchanged for him should have a very clear runway to be a part of a, what should be an improving nationals lineup here in 2025. Well, what one last bit about it is that they have a bad, um, bullpen. They do. And so, uh, trading for Robert Garcia, who did not have amazing numbers, you know, in terms of results for 22 ERA 119 whip looked a lot better if you look under the covers a little bit,

a 30% strikeout rate, 6% walk rate. That is a plus K-minus BB even for a reliever, A 271 Sierra, 95 mile an hour fastballs. He's not necessarily the blow you away type, but in terms of our projections based on stuff plus a 3.5 ERA with at least a 26% strikeout rate. All this built on the fact that Garcia has excellent stuff. The fact that Garcia has excellent stuff. I've got him here with. A let's see here. Who do do do do do do.

I hate this. I can't. I have so many columns. I can't figure it out. The new creation. Huh? It's your own creation. I know. I know. But it's the new it's the new columns. I think he's got plus stuff, I think. I know, but it's the new columns. I think he's got plus stuff, I think.

And actually, the reason I wanted to find that is that I think he might be one of the contenders maybe for closing. Yeah. Like who's the closer right now for you in Texas? I don't think they have one. Do you think it's somebody they haven't signed yet? I or haven't traded for yet. Maybe there's another trade coming.

Yeah, but even if they do sign a closer, having Garcia makes this team better. Like right now the Deptard is Jacob Webb, Robert Garcia, Sean Armstrong, Hobie Milner. Yeah, it's not Hobie Milner. It's not Milner. I don't think it's Armstrong. He's got the chance. I like Hobie Milner. Hobie Milner's left handed funk, right?

Yeah, just easy, easy. Cross them off the list for saves. But I don't I don't I don't. Dane Dunning is on this in this bullpen like, you know, it's this this bullpen still needs help. And so even if they do sign a like, you know, it's this this bullpen still needs help. And so even if they do sign a closer, you know, Robert Garcia will help them set up at the very least. And so I you know, it does it does seem a little bit weird.

The one last thing about this is it does. Nate Lowe has been on like in two of these deals where maybe you could say that the market under values, decent first baseman, like he's not a, he's not like a future hall of famer, not a great first baseman, but he's been a decent one. He has for Texas had like a 29 WRC plus, and the Rays traded that away.

Well, they had like a 29 WRC plus in the first baseman they had since he's been gone. So, you know, the, the league is trending a little bit more towards the Rays and new Rangers, where they're like, we'll find a first baseman. We'll, we'll, we'll create one in the aggregate, you know, Jake Berger and Ezekiel Duran, you know? Um, and, uh, so I just wonder, it's just funny to see him now traded for a reliever with still like three years of team control left. Suggest that Nate Lowe has been, is like possibly a market, like he's, just represents like a market blip.

Like maybe he's more valued than the market. He's now been traded for, as a collective item, he's been traded twice. He's been traded for Robert Garcia and who did the Rays get back? Nobody else has made a big league impact yet in the other trade. That Headbert guy that didn't make it? Heriberto Hernandez, Alexander... The new Headbert Perez, the Headbert Perez of his time. Oslevis, Basabe, like...

Basabe, yeah. Nobody made a big impact in that trade. So far he's been the best player he's been traded for and that's why he's, you know. Might happen again, you just never know. But the similar deal that I was hinting at before, Josh Naylor gets traded to Arizona and then within seconds, like it was almost like

a connected news item, connected tweet, connected post on Blue Sky. Carlos Santana returns to Cleveland. Like, oh, wait, you traded Josh Naylor to save money, but then you gave the money to Carlos Santana, which is kind of cool. It comes back to the place where he broke in. And those stories are always fun. Okay.

So why did Cleveland do this? Slade Saccone is the player they got back. So they got a pitcher out of the deal as well. So they didn't just flip for a space, but they got a usable maybe a backhand start that they could possibly tweak. I know there were times when Saccone looked pretty good in the model, and I was taking chances on him in deeper leagues, and he was getting smashed. But the Guardians have a great reputation for developing pitching.

So perhaps a tweak or two could make him a good option for them as a fourth or fifth starter. We are. It's a collection of OK pitches. One one oh four stuff less curveball for slight economy, a 99 slider, a 95 change, a 91 fastball. It's not a great fastball. All of them he located well. So the way I describe him is the way you might describe every Cleveland pitcher for the last decade, give or take a few, which is big mix.

Good command. Bad fastball. But but but what's the key difference? I mean, the Velo is not as bad as some of their starters. Ninety four, five on the fastballs, not cover your eyes. Scary for velocity at this point. And I think in a in a world where the Alex Cobbs go for 15 million for one year, a guy that could still be optioned for another year on the minimum is a pretty nice player to get back.

If you believe you can get sort of back end results, I think it's possible. I think there are still some tweaks that could be made here that could make Slade Zaccone at least a useful back end arm from a real life perspective, even if we're not necessarily chasing him for our fantasy leagues. Yeah, I just this leaves me cold. I don't like this arrangement of moves in order. Yes, you went from a two to war first baseman, maybe slightly overvalued by the war framework in the war framework, maybe slightly overvalued

in terms of how much he costs and what he's giving you. And so you went from him to like a one point five win guy, except that the one point five win guy who plays more defense and isn't as good on offense is 38 years old. So there's a chance of like complete and total collapse, which you know, as an organization say, well, we have commons Ardo. So you know, if Carlos Santana doesn't work out, we DFA him and then we, we play commons Ardo.

Well then, you know, you just went from Josh nail at a commons Ardo. You didn't have to, you know, and I guess what they're saying is, well, we haven't been actually that good at developing pitching recently. That hasn't been working out that well. And we've been having more injuries than we used to have. And so we need to have some, we need to cover our butt with something other than one of the, I feel like there's four Logan Allens in baseball. Uh, there are at least three that I know of.

I don't know about the fourth yet. I don't know which one he is, but I don't think any of them are that good. So I'm just like, we have a Logan Allen. We have two Logan Allens. It's not enough. Um, no, I don't, I don't, I think Chacon is a, is a step above the Logan Allens in the world, but right now out of their, the back end of their starting five is Tristan McKenzie at five, Shane Beaver at six, who's not due back until halfway

through the season and Jorge Cantillo who's been good, but oft injured. So I think they said, we are paper thin at starting pitching. And we, that's how the last season ended up too, is we barely had enough starting pitching at the end of the season. So we need more starting pitching. I get that, I guess. But, you know, Naylor was one of the few studs on this team that you could be like, OK, we have a stud right now offensively.

Who are the studs for the Cleveland Guardians? You have Jose Ramirez and Stephen Kwan. Yeah, I mean, Lane Thomas against lefties is a stud. Um, Manzardo maybe could be that guy, but the same questions we've been asking about this team for the last couple of seasons are still there. Instead of, instead of adding another bat like Naylor somewhere. Right. That's what I would have thought.

I was like, just add it. You need to love, you need another name. You need at least another good hitter. Left-handed power would have been nice. Yeah. And the Nailer brothers don't get to play together anymore. That's a little bummer for them. I mean, I assume they like playing together.

I would find this, if I was a Cleveland fan, I'd find this a bummer. As much as you can be like, oh, it's Coney. Like if he puts it together, you know, I'd find this, you know, sequence of events to be a bummer. All right. Well, let's try to find one thing to be excited about from the very end of the show. I was excited about this because as I've mentioned before on this show, when I like a player

and the Rays like a player, it makes me feel smart. Even if there's no concrete proof that I'm right, I just feel good about it. Eloy Jimenez signs with the Rays. It's only a minor league deal. I think it's two million if he ends up making the opening day roster, or maybe some escalators and stuff in there. But basically for nothing, they're taking the shot.

And there's a fun fact about Eloy Jimenez. Did you know 2024 was the first time in Eloy Jimenez's big league career that he wasn't a league average or better hitter by WRC plus. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, like there have been many, many worse players teams have taken flyers on over the years.

I'm surprised that this is a really small, this guy, I mean, look, no, having no defensive value and being the kind of guy that has a low BP, a lower OBP than you'd expect. Doesn't strike out a lot, but he also doesn't walk a lot. It's an odd fit, but he just turned 28, man. Like I don't look, maybe the fit wasn't perfect because they wanted Carlos Santana so bad. Yeah. If you're the guardians, why don't you play Manzardo at first and sign

Eloy Jimenez and go do something else on the roster instead of spending that money on Carlos Santana, which maybe look, maybe I'm dismissing what he brings in the clubhouse and the defensive value. I get that he brings that stuff too, but. At 38, it could be over any moment. Right. Yeah. The, the collapse potential on a player at that age is just extremely high.

And I guess we were talking about Paul. Paul Goldsmith is 37 with a lot more optimism. So it's all relative. Paul Goldsmith is coming from a higher peak offensively, at least. And then Alois is 28. He's 28. I just I couldn't believe that those were the terms. I saw that he signed with the Razor like, oh, probably like one in five, one in seven, something like that.

Like a decent guaranteed deal is like, oh, probably like one in five, one in seven, something like that. When it looked a decent guarantee deal. It was like, really? That was the best offer or, or, and again, don't know this, just wondering, maybe this is a place where he thought he could get it right. He's going to be cheap all the way through draft season because without that roster spot, you don't know. And you won't even know that he's made the roster. I mean, maybe they'll start talking about it. Maybe the manager says, yeah, he made it, but they probably won't say that. They'll probably say, hey, we're evaluating everything. We're going

to make a decision. And he may not be put on the roster until opening day because you don't have to. You know what I mean? And so, you know, just keep in mind that he still hit the ball 112 last year. He hit the ball hard over 95 percent of 95 miles an hour 49 percent of the time he still hits the ball hard and he had a 20 percent strikeout rate so like this is a team that has gotten a lot out of Yandy Diaz you know and Yandy Diaz is a better eye at the plate but he hits the ball hard and on the ground this is the they don't mind this at all and I think they say well either you hit the ball hard on the ground and you have like a 330 bap if you're healthy and that's how you you get a little bit of value about hitting the ball hard or we help

you lift the ball a little better which he's he lawyer has done in the past too he's had better than 56 percent ground ball rates like he did last year so just starting with someone who hits the ball hard and makes contact is totally a raising play and we won't know until opening day that he's made the roster so you know he won't be he won't cost much anywhere. I'm not saying to get him with a high pick or anything, but I'm saying this is a, this is one of those things that makes sense for almost any bench. I don't know about 10 teams or whatever, but most benches, because what you say

is if he's on there, then he's probably playing some and he has the parts to do something good with playing time. And if he's not on the roster, then I'll know immediately because they have to put him on the roster, you know? I guess the middle ground is they put him on the roster and they don't play him that much. And as a righty, could he be in a platoon with Jonathan Aranda for DH?

Maybe, but do you keep Jonathan Aranda in the major leagues to platoon with Eloy Jimenez at DH? I mean, if you like what you have at other positions, you can. We've seen a couple of teams do this platoon in that spot. I think ideally Aranda plays enough first base where you're not doing that all the time. I do think it's funny if you imagine March 30th, but I think it's the first fab run this year. So move ahead three months on the calendar, get through the coldest days of winter

and get to our brightest eyed optimism in fab for the first fab run of the year, that first weekend in March. Can you imagine with a big weekend series to start the year, Eloy Jimenez in 12 team leagues actually getting picked up for like 75 bucks in fab because he starts all three games and homers twice. Like I can, I can see that.

I can tell myself that story. Those are the lies that I tell myself. Raise magic, raise magic. Yeah. I mean, you gotta, you gotta be careful then even if that happens, don't spend 75% of your fab on it. No, not 75%, just like 75 bucks out of it. That was like 7% of a very real, but even a 12 team league, that was the. Yeah, no people, I think, I mean, if he, No, not seventy five percent, just like seventy five bucks out of seven percent.

But even a 12 team league, that was the. Yeah, no, people. I mean, if you if you do get three games before you get to pick them up, you just you're counting how many games he's playing against right. Yeah, because you could actually have done that a little bit in Baltimore and kind of seen the slide was when he stopped playing against right. That's when I was dropping him last year. I think we'll find a point somewhere this season. Eloy Jimenez has value in 12 team leagues again It might not be through draft season, but I think it will happen

I think there's still enough there to likes a lot of bad injuries some fluky ones mixed in there The skills around all that are still intriguing enough for me. I will fail Trying to get it right one more time with it. Yeah. And I'm glad the razor. One nice thing about failing repeatedly is that the cost is lower every time. Right. And you become numb to the failure. That's the other secret to repeat failure.

But if anybody wants life hacks, I've got a lot of them. Keep slamming that head against the wall. At one point the head's numb. It's just doesn't hurt anymore. I think on that note, we are going to go. You can join our discord with the link in the show description instead of hitting your head on the wall. Shout out to the discord. It was valuable to me just to see you guys kind of talk about the Hall of Fame vote and

I did vote for a Brey you in the end. Russell Martin. I put some links in there in the discord for reading on Russell Martin and the kind of stuff that I was looking at to make my decision in the end. I couldn't quite get there between McCann, Molina and Martin. We're gonna have a lot of discussions about not enough catchers in the Hall of Fame. What is the value true value of framing? And so I went with McCann first just because he had the best offensive numbers of the three.

But if you're going to tell me, you know, in a couple of years, the Yachty Molina needs to be in the hall of fame, then, then maybe Russell Martin will start getting my vote again on the backend. Looking forward to a decade of people arguing about catchers. That's going to be a highlight of our time on social media. You can find us on blueskyinosatinosaris.bsky.social. imdvr.bsky.social. That's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you next week.

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